Trypho denies the existence of Jesus

Jesus Christ reputedly died and rose again in the thirties of the first century. A Christian, called Justin Martyr wrote in defence of the Christian religion in the century after. Justin's writings are used in defence of the Christian claim that Jesus really existed as the four gospels say.

DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO

About 150 AD, Justin wrote his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew. Some think that Trypho never existed but he did for on one occasion when he and Justin were discussing the interpretation of prophecies about Jesus, Justin wandered from the subject to discuss the alleged removal by the Jews of material supportive of Jesus from the Old Testament. The dialogue then was created from an actual conversation.

Trypho said that nobody from Jesus’ time knew Jesus and that Jesus was invented. Trypho was an informed and worthy opponent when Justin had to write a book to challenge him. Justin, like Irenaeus much later, believed that Jesus lived to be an old man (page 40, St Peter and Rome) which conflicts with the gospels which we know Justin never knew completely for much of the historical part if not all of it was top secret. But there is reason to believe that Justin knew nothing but the bare skeleton of the Jesus story. Justin himself then inadvertently gives support to Trypho for Justin himself clearly knew nothing about Jesus and could not demonstrate that he must have lived. Thus we have a valuable witness to Jesus being a legend. In the Dialogue, Justin was extremely nasty to the Jew. He accused all Jews of being idolaters, spiritually ruined and depraved and incapable of honesty or fair play and said that they were the wickedest people on earth and that they fornicated like harlots (page 161, The Light Shining in Darkness). How could we trust anything – that was not bad – that Justin said about his hero Jesus when he was so keen to win the argument with the Jews even at the cost of heaping vile slander on them? His apologetic was not about real love for Jesus but winning an argument and since the Jews were blamed for Jesus’ death Jesus was a good weapon to use against them to incite hatred. Justin cannot be trusted. That the Church preserved his hate-filled writings and prays to Justin as a saint does not speak well for the Church either.

The Jew, Trypho, stated that there was no evidence for Jesus for nobody who would have known had heard of him as a real person in Palestine and so he never existed. This was about or soon after 150 AD. I quote, “if the Messiah has been born and exists somewhere, he is incognito and does not even recognise himself. He will have no power until Elijah will come and anoint him and tell all who he is. You [Christians] have listened to an unfounded rumour and have invented some kind of a Christ for yourselves” (Chapter VIII, Dialogue With Trypho). The whole point in his making this statement was to refute the rejection of circumcision and the feasts and the Sabbath among the Christians. They were using their doctrine that Jesus was the Messiah and had the authority from God to do away with these things to justify their disobedience.

Today, Christians say that Trypho was not rejecting the existence of Jesus. He was rejecting the view that Jesus was the Messiah (page 239, Conspiracies and the Cross). They say that Trypho complains that Christians were listening to an unfounded rumour which led them to invent a Messiah for themselves. If so, then this says that there is no evidence that Jesus was the Christ and that the Christians have invented that claim for Jesus. If the early Christians lied about something so big then that diminishes the evidence for the existence of Jesus. So if the text does not show that people were denying Jesus' existence back then it certainly shows that the evidence was not impressive.

But it is possible to read the text as denying that Jesus existed. Invented a Christ for yourselves sounds more like the man Jesus Christ was invented than it sounds like that his claims that he was Messiah were invented for him.

The Christians hope that Trypho was saying Christians invented the idea that Jesus was the Christ. Let's pretend we believe that he was. Why does Trypho not say that Jesus invented his own Messiahship claims? Why does he blame the Christians for making this claim for Jesus? If the Christians lied about something so important then we can safely assume they could have lied about Jesus' existence too. Trypho is implicitly denying that Jesus really rode into Jerusalem on a donkey to show he intended to fulfil an ancient prophecy that the Messiah would do that. He is denying an event that the gospels say was better attested and witnessed than the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus! Even if you take the Christian interpretation to be correct, even if Trypho is not saying Jesus never lived he denies that there is much evidence that he ever did!

Christians say that if you take Christ to be a name of Jesus then the text denies Jesus' existence. They say the proper understanding is that Christ is a title not a name. When you take that understanding, that it is a title, the text becomes not a denial of the existence of Jesus but that he was the Messiah. But many Christians then used Christ like a name and not as a title or used it both as name and title for Jesus. Some used it as a title one day and as a name the next. The Jews would have called Jesus Jesus Christ as in name not as title for they didn't believe he really was the Christ. The Christians are totally unable to prove that Trypho thought that Jesus existed.

Trypho's words, "You [Christians] have listened to an unfounded rumour and have invented some kind of a Christ for yourselves" is really saying that Jesus was the unfounded rumour for on the basis that he existed they invented the idea that he was the Christ! This is so important that we have to shout it:

Trypho was denying that there was evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ.

Justin made no effort to reply to this charge. He just tried to show that Jesus was the Messiah. Justin couldn't come up with any evidence that Jesus existed so he just evaded the problem.

It is interesting that Trypho voices the unbiblical Jewish belief as fact that the Messiah will not know who he is until Elijah the precursor anoints him and reveals him. If the Jews had been as antichrist as Justin would like to think they would have vanquished the legend. Why? Because the Christians were saying John the Baptist was Elijah and John anointed Jesus with the spirit and revealed him in the River Jordan. It is a bit disturbing if Christian myths were following Jewish legends! It shows the Christians were reading back Jewish legends into the Jesus story as they helped it to incubate.

Trypho seems to surmise that the New Testament authors created the story of Jesus’ baptism and anointing by the Spirit with the Baptiser John, Elijah, in the Jordan from Jewish legends. And as well that there is no evidence for the gospel tales that Jesus had an origin surrounded by miracles and which convinced many that the baby was the Messiah for Jesus would have known if he was the Messiah before his Elijah came.

It is one thing for Jesus to fulfil God’s prophecies but there is something amiss if he manages to fulfil prophecies that God never made! The Old Testament never says that Elijah will come to prepare the way for Jesus though Jesus and his Church imagined it did!

Trypho was asserting that even if the Jesus of the Christians existed that nobody claiming to be Elijah declared him to be a Messiah to open his eyes that he was the Messiah so he rejects the gospels saying that John did tell Jesus in the waters of the Jordan that he was the Messiah. Justin did not try to defend the story on historical grounds because he couldn’t. John never claimed to be Elijah in any sense – Jesus and his entourage made that claim for him which smacks of dishonesty. To fulfil the alleged prophecy it would be necessary to have independent evidence that John claimed to be Elijah. Christians say John claimed to be Elijah when he claimed to be the precursor of the Messiah as prophesied by Isaiah but there is no evidence that the passage predicts an Elijah. Trypho was rejecting the Jesus story as authentic and Justin never tried to set him straight because the man was right. Any psychologist reading the Dialogue with Trypho would see that Justin was being canny and evasive and knew fine well that his idol, Jesus, was a fiction.

We are told that the Christ of the Christians did not fit the criterion for being a real Christ but was an invention. However, Trypho does not concentrate on the existence of Jesus. His purpose was to show that the Messiah of the Christians could not have been a real Messiah and that the Christian view of the Messiah was not supported by the Old Testament. The reason he did that was because the Christians believed in the existence of Jesus on the basis of the prophecies.

Justin replies in Chapter 9 that he forgives Trypho for saying those things for Trypho has been misled by false scripture teachers and he promises to prove to Trypho that the stories are not fables. He means by proving the Old Testament prophesied Jesus. Now Justin never ever tries to prove that Jesus did x, y and z according to the scriptures or historical data. He looks at Jesus through the scriptures. This tells us that Justin could not prove the existence of Jesus for what you have to do is to prove that Jesus did this and that and then that this was foreseen in the Old Testament criteria for a true Messiah. Justin did it the other way around.

Chapter XVII brings us Justin accusing the Jews of sending missionaries all over the world just to make trouble for Christians and slander them. This is impossible to believe for the Jews did not care what non-Jews thought. Why did the Jews pick on Christians and not Christ? The passage gives no hint that they went about slandering Jesus and saying the resurrection was a hoax which indicates that the Jews knew Jesus never existed. Justin wants to forget the Jews believed that. He says the Jews still persecute Christ but Christians hold that to persecute Christians is to persecute Christ.

When Justin claimed that the Old Testament had been altered, he lost any right to say that the Bible had no contradictions (Chapter LXV) and that it proved Christ was born and was the saviour. Trypho would certainly have pointed that out to him but Justin left that point out. Trypho would also have objected that had Jesus been the Christ Jesus would have restored the Bible. Justin quoted some allegedly missing scriptures (Chapter LXXII). One from Esdras merely says that there is a saviour and if the people turn away from him they shall be laughed at. Another from Jeremiah says that somebody is like a lamb for the slaughter and the Jews will say they should kill him. Another says the Lord came down to raise his people from the dead. A line about God reigning from the wood has supposedly been cut out of a psalm. Not one of these lost scriptures necessarily proves that God became man or anything about Jesus.

Chapter XXIX says that anybody baptised in the Holy Spirit does not need the other “baptism” of circumcision. Jesus would always have had the Holy Spirit and was still circumcised. Justin is contradicting the gospels that Jesus was circumcised.

Chapter XXXIV denies that a Psalm is about Solomon and says it is about Christ for it is about somebody who is adored by all kings and who rules the world. Quoting this Psalm would have been useless for Trypho would say it proved nothing for Christ did not achieve these things yet. So Justin is saying that all kings adored the man Christ some time in the past and that Christ was emperor of the world meaning that Jesus lived long long before the time period the gospels give. This is a clear contradiction of the New Testament and proves it was censored or not regarded as infallible at the time. Trypho never replied to this for it was so silly and impossible to disprove.

In Chapter XXXIX we read, “Trypho said, ‘prove to us that the man who according to you was crucified and rose into Heaven is the Messiah of God. For you have proved by the scriptures you have recited before that the scriptures say the Christ must suffer and return to rule all nations. Show us that your Christ is the Christ”. Justin replies, “It has been proved sirs. It has been proven to those who hear and who have heard what you have heard and accepted by you. But I return to what I was discussing and will give the other proof later to you in case you say I cannot prove”.

Trypho says that the Christians are SAYING Jesus was nailed to the cross indicating that there was no evidence for it but their word. Justin, in reply, tells the Jews that the prophecies are proof enough. In other words, the prophecies must have been fulfilled so even if there is no evidence for Christ we know from the prophecies that the Christ story is true and can work out the details of the story. In other words, the prophecies are the only real record of Christ. In other words, if the interpretation is wrong then Jesus Christ never existed.

Later in Chapter XLVIII Trypho challenges Justin to prove Christ as he promises and he complained that it was “all very paradoxical and no proof is possible. It is when you say that this Messiah existed as God before the origin of time and then that he agreed to be born and become a man and yet that is not just a man this is more than paradoxical but foolish – that is how I see it”. If you analyse this you see that the traditional claim of the Church that Trypho was disputing the idea of a God waiting for a long time to become man is false for Trypho as a Jew would have known that the same complaint could be made about God being so slow in sending the Messiah be he God or not. There is no absurdity in God waiting for the right time. As a scholar, Trypho would have known that the similar thought that it is too silly to believe that God would have waited so long before making the world was flawed. He is rejecting the idea that the Messiah was born as a man and could be a divine being for a God made man would only be a God pretending to be a vulnerable man. He is implicitly denying that Jesus could do miracles and rise from the dead. Justin replies, “I am unable to prove that he existed before his birth as a son of the creator of all things and that he was God and born man of a virgin. But I have proved that he is the Christ”. Justin means only the Old Testament proves Christ to have been the Messiah and Justin is denying that there are any books or proofs that Jesus was a God and existed before he was born which is a challenge to the traditional interpretation of the gospel of John which appears at first glance to support the traditional theology that there are three persons in God and the second person the Word or Son became man. Justin even says that Christ is the Christ whoever he is. He does not know Jesus at all or anything about him. He has to learn about the mysterious Jesus from Old Testament prophecy.

Justin cannot use the resurrection to prove that Jesus is God even on the basis that if Jesus said he was God and God would prove it by raising him then Jesus was proven to be God by the resurrection. Justin did not have the uncensored gospels. And even without them he should still have been able to formulate an argument for the resurrection by arguing on the basis of history and the integrity of the alleged witnesses to the resurrection.

And Justin was not thinking about proving that Christ was born of a virgin but that Christ was born for born is the whole point of what he said. It’s the main point. He meant, “I cannot prove that he was born – it just happened to be from a virgin”. Trypho's request for proof that Jesus really fulfilled the prophecies is not given and in chapter XLIX Justin goes back to proving from prophecy that Elijah in John anointed Jesus but never uses history to prove the event really happened as prophesied. Trypho answers that the prophecy used to prove this is ambiguous and Justin argues that there was nobody else but John and Jesus to fulfil the prophecy. He does not use facts to prove Jesus fulfilled prophecy but uses prophecy to work out the alleged facts. The fact that he indicates that John and Jesus were the only candidates implies that his view was that the baptism in the Jordan was more than just a dip in the water and John hearing a voice and seeing a dove light on Jesus. It seems to imply that there was a coronation and something that nobody else could imitate. It was some kind of grand public event and was unique for anybody could go for a dip and say the man who baptised them was Elijah and that the Holy Spirit came down. Justin rejected and did not know or accept the story of what happened at the Jordan that we have in the gospels.

Chapter LXIX says that the Devil created the legend of Hercules with his divine origin from Jove and his world travels and magic strength, ascension into Heaven to create a counterfeit of the life of Christ so that Hercules seems to imitate Christ. But Jesus did not travel the world or have great physical strength according to the Gospels so Justin is eliminating the gospels whether he knew them or not as reliable records of the life of Jesus. This would be strong evidence that Jesus may not have existed for the gospels are the only things that stand between belief in Jesus as a person and denial of his reality. The reason Justin brings all these parallels between Jesus and the gods up is because he wants to convince Trypho that the Devil and his legions know the prophecies of the Old Testament mean what Justin says they mean. So to ruin things for Jesus, Satan and his minions invent other Jesus’s such as Hercules.

The outrageously ridiculous thesis in Chapter LXX that the mystery religion of Mithras was based on the true interpretation of Daniel and Isaiah but distorted is a sure sign that Justin was extremely embarrassed by the similarity between Christ and Mithras. He wanted to deflect Trypho from going into the charge that Christians used pagan myths when inventing their Jesus. And it worked. Trypho did not use this line of argument. Trypho would have known to a certain extent that Christianity was a copy of paganism but would have found it difficult to answer Justin’s hint that it was independent. The pagans did not esteem Daniel and Isaiah that much and their legends all came from nature myths - for example, the sun setting and rising suggested dying and rising gods.

Justin devoted Chapters CVI and CVII to proving that the end of Psalm 22 and the story of Jonah showed that Jesus would rise again. Neither prove any such thing. Justin wrote in Chapter CVIII that though Jesus had told the Jews that he would perform the sign of Jonah meaning the resurrection they would not believe the resurrection report and maintained that the body had been stolen and the apostles were lying. Justin made no effort to prove that the resurrection happened. His logic was if the Old Testament said the Messiah would rise then Jesus must have risen and it is on this logic that he tries to persuade Trypho. That is why Trypho does not bother answering the objection. The objection could only be answered on the basis that the gospel stories were verifiable and convincing and this was not done so both Justin and Trypho did not regard the gospels as wholly important if they existed. It seems more probable that they did not know the historical parts of the gospels at all. Justin denied the gospel evidence when he said that prophecy proves the resurrection when what he should have been doing was proving the resurrection and then that it was prophesised.

Justin claims to prove that the Old Testament predicted that the Gentiles would be more open to the gospel than the Jews who would mostly turn away. There is something very dodgy going on when the people who would have known Jesus best were so dead set against him. The Jews were a lot less addicted to material pleasures than the Gentiles and had a rigid moralistic religion so psychology tells us that they should have been easier to convert. But the case may be that they knew too much about Justin’s non-existing Jesus to be converted.

Justin showed he did not have the Book of Acts when he told Trypho that you could not be a Jew and a Christian at the one time. It wasn’t likely then that he had Luke’s gospel either for one goes with the other and the end of Luke says the apostles never left the Temple for they were so busy worshipping after Jesus departed from them into Heaven.

In Chapter CXLII, Trypho tells Justin that it was not the intention of his or Justin’s companions to discuss what they discussed. Trypho says he is pleased with the conversation and that more discussions like that would be of service in understanding the Old Testament scriptures. Before they left Justin told them he hoped they would come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah of God. So he had failed to convince them. Evidently, Trypho was impressed only by the ingenuity but not the conclusions of Justin’s Old Testament exegesis.

Justin says the apostles wrote memoirs of the life of Jesus but he never tells us what was in them or if he used them in his research into the life of Jesus. Justin was dishonest because he said that when God said that he gives nobody his glory but keeps it for himself for he is the only God and that when he gave Christ his glory the solution to the contradiction is a mystery (Chapter LXV). When he sees or thinks he sees a contradiction he pretends it is not there. Justin seriously contradicted the gospels when he said this for had Christ been God there would have been no contradiction. But Justin believed that Christ was not God but was another God. This is plain. His attitude shows that the early Church had no scriptures but the Old Testament and anything else was just a book, useful, but just a book that could be right or wrong and had no binding authority on the Church. This shows that early Christianity was not based on evidence but on Old Testament interpretation and opinion.

Justin backed up Trypho’s unbelief in the reality of Christ without meaning to. Justin was the Christian’s first real apologist. This individual is eulogised by Christians and his eccentricities and fanaticism are conveniently papered over.

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GOSPEL STORIES INSERTED INTO TRYPHO

Justin gives some details from the life of Christ that are similar to the Gospel of Matthew in the Dialogue with Trypho. His version of the visit of the magi says Jesus was born in a cave and that the magi came from Arabia and learned from the elders of the Jews that the messiah was to be born in Bethlehem and he says that Joseph was told to keep Mary as his wife for her unexpected pregnancy was down to God. And he speaks of the flight of the Joseph and Mary and baby Jesus to Egypt. He says like Matthew that the massacre of the Innocents by King Herod who wanted to find and kill the Christ child was prophesied by Jeremiah. The differences suggest that he was not using Matthew at all. It could well be that this book was a source for Matthew’s gospel.

It is important that Justin is only close to the gospel story in its most dubious claims, the nativity, the entry into Jerusalem and the baptism in the Jordan. Even if he really wrote about these things he showed credulity and anyway he was writing too long after the events to be used as backup for the Christian story.

Justin did not know of the extremely basic apostolic and New Testament doctrine originated by Jesus that there was no salvation without explicit faith in Christ for he thought that Socrates and Heraclitus, pagan Greek philosophers, were redeemed in the blood of Christ and were in Heaven. Anything he says then is to be taken with a pinch of blessed salt unless it was something he would not have liked to admit.

In chapter 49, of his Dialogue, Justin gets Trypho to agree that the Old Testament says that Elijah will precede the Messiah. But the Old Testament says no such thing which is why the report of Trypho’s agreement is dubious. This means that Justin’s discourse that heavily borrows from the gospel about John being Elijah and Jesus saying so is an insertion. Now why try to get Trypho to believe things about John being Elijah when Trypho would not have believed Elijah had to proclaim a Jesus style Messiah? Was somebody trying to make it look like the gospels were known before they actually were? Evidence for this is Trypho’s rejection of the doctrine that Isaiah saying one would come crying in the wilderness referred to the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus. Trypho would have believed Elijah if he was coming would literally come. It is no use pointing to an obscure prophet like John who wasn’t regarded as being on the level of the other prophets and who produced no scriptures and saying he was Elijah. Anybody could be Elijah at that rate.

The discourse is followed by a report that Trypho learned from it that John is being said to have come with the same Holy Spirit as Elijah and he finds that silly. That is a lie and Justin knows it because the Jews had no problem with God invisibly indwelling more than one prophet at the one time never mind when there was centuries between them. Justin then quoted texts from the Old Testament to show that it was possible. Why did Trypho not ask Justin where he got his information that Jesus fulfilled the prophecies from? Why is he presented as taking for granted what Justin reports to him is right? Why does he listen to Justin saying about what happened to John the Baptist and that it fulfilled a prophecy and then change the subject to object that John and Elijah having the same Holy Spirit is silly? Trypho would have questioned the story he was being told not the theology. The bits that seem to have come from the gospels look so much like insertions made long after Justin died. A forger seems to have been at work.

If Justin had the Matthew or Luke gospel then why did he depend on Isaiah to prove that Jesus was virgin-born in chapter 66 when both he and Trypho knew that it was not good enough as Trypho stated?

The chapter that gives the details about Jesus’ birth and the massacre of the innocents as Matthew has it is dubious for it is offered as proof that Jesus fulfilled prophecy and we are given the impression that Trypho accepted it for that is the end of the dispute. Trypho would not have been that easily convinced. Then it jumps to the declaration by Trypho that Justin’s scripture interpretations are contrivances. His silence about the books that allegedly verify that they are not contrivances shows that somebody has been inserting the Matthew material into the passage.

The early Christians would have thought that kings from the east came to worship Jesus and that Jesus had been baptised by John who was Elijah without the gospels because they created the life story of Jesus out of the Bible prophecies and John was a popular prophet. A lot of the material in Justin can be explained that way.

A scribe probably inserted the material that is close to the gospels. It was material that could have been left out and it is impossible to see what Justin wanted it for. And why didn’t he use the story of the entry into Jerusalem when Trypho said nobody knew of this Jesus? Justin would have proven the gospels to be authentic historical documents before proving that Jesus was predicted in the Old Testament. That is the logical order and the order Trypho would have demanded for Trypho complained that the Christians were copying from pagan and Jewish religious ideas. He thought a lot of the Jesus stuff was stolen from the story of Perseus. That Justin omitted the logical order tells us a lot. It makes one think that Justin lost that debate if it happened. Perhaps Trypho was such an erudite and persuasive denier of the existence of Jesus that the Christians had to “improve” the Christian cause by altering Justin’s writings to obliterate Trypho’s success.

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OTHER SNIPPETS ABOUT JUSTIN

We have some fragments from Justin’s Work on the Resurrection. This book was written to answer those who rejected the idea that anybody could come back from the dead.

In the first chapter of that work he said that truth is free and is its own authority and should be believed both for its own status as truth and for the sake of trusting the God of truth who sends it. He said that the truth of Christianity is sent with authority and it is not right to ask for proof for it for the proof is greater than the proven and since God is truth nothing not even proof can be better than God.

In other words, you believe in Christianity because God says it is true and not because there is any evidence. So there cannot be any evidence when he has that attitude. When Justin answers objections to the resurrection he never does it by trying to verify that the apostles and the gospels were truthful so he never had any gospels - at least in full - and did not regard the apostles testimony as evidence. Rather than depend on evidence the Christian sees if the gospel might be true and then gets a revelation from God that it is true. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that faith is caused when God supernaturally helps you see that what he teaches is true.

It is certain that Justin did not have the gospels.

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CONCLUSION

The evidence concerning Jesus in the Dialogue does not encourage belief in his being a historical reality. It does the opposite! It discourages it!

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The WWW

Who is GA Wells? Rev Dr Gregory S. Neal

www.errantskeptics.org/G_A_Wells.htm

The Silent Jesus

www.askwhy.co.uk/awcnotes/cn4/0325SilentJesus.html#Justin

Apollonius the Nazarene, The Historical Apollonius versus the Historical Jesus

www.apollonius.net/bernard1e.html

Why Did the Apostles Die? Dave Matson,

www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/1997/4Why97.html

The “Historical” Jesus by Acharya S

www.truthbeknown.com/historicaljc.htm

How Did the Apostles Die?

www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/1997/4/4front97.html

History’s Troubling Silence About Jesus, Lee Salisbury

www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=102

Steven Carr discusses the Christian and apostolic martyrs

www.bowness.demon.co.uk/martyrs.htm

www.bowness.demon.co.uk/martyrs2.htm

Challenging the Verdict

A Cross-Examination of Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ

http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/CTVExcerptsOne.htm

http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/CTVExcerptsTwo.htm

http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/CTVExcerptsThree.htm#Twelve

The Martyrdoms of Peter and Paul, Peter Kirby

http://home.earthlink.net/~kirby/

The Martyrdoms: A Response, Peter Kirby

www.bowness.demon.co.uk/martyrs3.htm

A Sacrifice in Heaven,

http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/supp09.htm

The Evolution of Jesus of Nazareth

http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/partthre.htm

The Jesus of History, a Reply to Josh McDowell by Gordon Stein

www.infidels.org/library/modern/gordon_stein/Jesus.html

Josh McDowell’s Evidence for Jesus – Is It Reliable?, by Jeffrey J Lowder www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jury/chap5.html

A Reply to JP Holding’s “Shattering” of My Views on Jesus

www.infidels.org/secular_web/new/2000/march.html

Robert M Price, Christ a Fiction

www.infidels.org/library/modern/robert_price/fiction.html

Earliest Christianity G A Wells

www.infidels.org/library/modern/g_a_wells/earliest.html

The Second Century Apologists

http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/century.htm

Existence of Jesus Controversy, Rae West

www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/littleton/gm1_jesu.htm

Why I Don’t Buy the Resurrection Story by Richard Carrier

www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/resurrection/index.shtml

Jesus Conference,

www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_sd/jconf_hall.html

Jesus Conference,

www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_sd/jconf_stuckenbruck.html

The Testament of Levi Concerning the Priesthood and Arrogance

www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-08/anf08-07.htm#P378_53868.

Sherlock Holmes Style Search for the Historical Jesus

www.fortunecity.com/greenfield/bp/890/history.html

The Ascension of Isaiah

www.earth-history.com/sacred-ascension-Isaiah.htm

Apollonius of Tyana: The Monkey of Christ? The Church Patriarchs, Robertino Solarion www.apollonius.net/patriarchs.html

What About the Discovery of Q? Brad Bromling

www.ApologeticsPress.org

Wells without Water, Psychological Buffoonry from the Master of the Christ-Myth, James Patrick Holding

www.tektonics.org/JPH_WW.html

Critique: Scott Bidstrp [sic] on The Case for Christ by James Patrick Holding

www.tektonics.org/bidstrup02.html

GA Wells Replies to Criticism of his Books on Jesus

www.infidels.org/library/modern/g_a_wells/errant.html

The Ossuary Scam: A Critical Analysis of the “James” Ossuary

http://www.atrueword.com/index.php/article/articleprint/15/-1/1/

The Origins of Christianity and the Quest for the Historical Jesus, Acharya S

www.truthbeknown.com/origins.htm

The Historical Jesus

http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/index.html

BIBLE VERSION USED

The Amplified Bible

The King James Version

03 October 2007

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