Did Jesus Exist? - The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth Bart Ehrman (books to read in your 20s txt) 📖

of good has been done in his name, and continues to be done, by well-meaning and hardworking Christian men and women who do untold good in the world on both massive and individual scales.

But neither issue—the good done in the name of Christ or the evil—is of any relevance to me as a historian when I try to reconstruct what actually happened in the past. I refuse to sacrifice the past in order to promote the worthy cause of my own social and political agendas. No one else should either. Jesus did exist, whether we like it or not.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

IHAVE GIVEN HERE TWO separate bibliographies that may be useful for the nonprofessional: one of mythicist literature, the other of scholarship on the historical Jesus.

Mythicist Literature

This list is not meant to be exhaustive. Instead, it comprises some of the best-known and most influential mythicist literature produced, especially (but not exclusively) in recent years. I have included only books in English.

Acharya, S (a.k.a. D. M. Murdock). The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold. Kempton, IL: Adventures Unlimited, 1999.

Carrier, Richard. Not the Impossible Faith: Why Christianity Didn’t Need a Miracle to Succeed. N.p.: Lulu Press, 2009.

Doherty, Earl. Jesus: Neither God nor Man: The Case for a Mythical Jesus. Ottawa, ON: Age of Reason Publications, 2009.

———. The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? Ottawa, ON: Age of Reason Publications, 1999.

Drews, Arthur. The Witnesses to the Historicity of Jesus Christ. Trans. Joseph McCabe. London: Watts & Co., 1912.

Freke, Timothy, and Peter Gandy. The Jesus Mysteries: Was the “Original Jesus” a Pagan God? New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999.

Graves, Kersey. The World’s Sixteen Crucified Saviors: Christianity Before Christ. New York: Cosimo Classics, 2007. First published in 1875.

Harpur, Tom. The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light. New York: Walker & Co., 2004.

Hoffmann, R. Joseph, ed. Sources of the Jesus Tradition: Separating History from Myth. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2010.

Jackson, John G. Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth. Austin: American Atheist Press, 1988. First published in 1941.

Leidner, Harold. The Fabrication of the Christ Myth. Tampa, FL: Survey Books, 2000.

Price, Robert. The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems. Cranford, NJ: American Atheist Press, 2011.

———. The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition? Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2003.

———. Jesus Is Dead. Cranford, NJ: American Atheist Press, 2007.

Robertson, Archibald. Jesus: Myth or History? London: Watts & Co., 1946.

Robertson, John M. Christianity and Mythology. London: Watts & Co., 1910.

———. Jesus and Judas: A Textual and Historical Investigation. London: Watts & Co., 1927.

———. The Jesus Problem: A Restatement of the Myth Theory. London: Watts & Co., 1917.

Salm, René. The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus. Cranford, NJ: American Atheist Press, 2008.

Thompson, Thomas L. The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David. New York: Basic Books, 2005.

Wells, George A. Cutting Jesus Down to Size: What Higher Criticism Has Achieved and Where It Leaves Christianity. Chicago: Open Court Press, 2009.

———. Did Jesus Exist? 2nd ed. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1986. First published in 1975.

———. The Historical Evidence for Jesus. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1988.

———. “Is There Independent Confirmation of What the Gospels Say of Jesus?” Free Inquiry 31 (2011): 19–25.

———. The Jesus Legend. Peru, IL: Carus, 1996.

———. The Jesus Myth. Chicago: Open Court, 1999.

Zindler, Frank R. Through Atheist Eyes: Scenes from a World That Won’t Reason. Cranford, NJ: American Atheist Press, 2011.

Studies of the Historical Jesus (and Related Topics)

The following list is highly selective. I’ve included only a few of the books that in my opinion are among the most important and interesting studies of the past thirty or forty years that are accessible to nonspecialists. For a full annotated bibliography, which is now fifteen years old, see Craig A. Evans, Life of Jesus Research: An Annotated Bibliography, rev. ed., New Testament Tools and Studies 24 (Leiden: Brill, 1996). Evans’s bibliography includes 2045 entries of significant books and articles—and even this is nowhere near exhaustive.

Allison, Dale. Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998.

Borg, Marcus J. Conflict, Holiness, and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus. New York: E. Mellen Press, 1984.

———. Jesus, the New Vision: The Spirit, Culture, and the Life of Discipleship. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987.

Brandon, S. G. F. Jesus and the Zealots: A Study of the Political Factor in Primitive Christianity. New York: Scribner, 1967.

Charlesworth, James. Jesus Within Judaism: New Light from Exciting Archaeological Discoveries. New York: Doubleday, 1988.

Crossan, John Dominic. The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1991.

———. Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1994.

———. Who Killed Jesus? Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1995.

Downing, F. Gerald. Christ and the Cynics: Jesus and Other Radical Preachers in First-Century Tradition. Sheffield, Eng.: JSOT Press, 1988.

Ehrman, Bart D. Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1999.

———. The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. 5th edition. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2011.

Fredriksen, Paula. From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the New Testament Images of Jesus. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press, 1988.

———. Jesus of Nazareth: King of the Jews. New York: Vintage, 1999.

Funk, Robert W. Honest to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millennium. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1996.

Funk, Robert W., and the Jesus Seminar. The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1998.

Funk, Robert W., Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar. The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus. New York: Macmillan, 1993.

Goldstein, Morris. Jesus in the Jewish Tradition. New York: Macmillan, 1950.

Goodacre, Mark. The Case Against Q: Studies in Markan Priority and the Synoptic Problem. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2002.

Harvey, Anthony E. Jesus and the Constraints of History. London: Duckworth, 1982.

Herberg, R. Travers. Christianity in Talmud and Midrash. New York: Ktav, 1903.

Horsley, Richard A. Jesus and the Spiral of Violence: Popular Jewish Resistance in Roman Palestine. Minneapolis: Fortress