About the Book

Searching for the Historical Jesus

The purpose of this book is to address the argument that the historical character of Jesus Christ cannot be established beyond a reasonable doubt by the limited information currently available.

Many sceptics argue Jesus is a myth, an amalgam of various rising/dying gods incorporating their birth stories, festivals, and imitating their practices, or alternatively, he is one of a number of characters found in the historical Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus or at least a composite of some of these characters and that the gospel writers fabricated a character from these sources.

Amongst the candidates mentioned in Josephus as possible contenders are Jesus ben Saphira, a leader during the revolt who led a group of Galilean sailors, proponents equate sailors with fisherman; Jesus ben Ananias, who, in the period before and during the revolt, foretold the destruction of the temple as did Jesus in the gospels.

Others include a theory that his followers used a magic mushroom to become stoned and commune with this Jesus/Joshua on another plane, and recently, the Roman emperor Titus himself was the basis of the Jesus/Joshua character within the theory that Christianity was a Roman ploy to subjugate the poor.

For some of these characters, the claim for connection with Jesus/ Joshua seems to lie predominantly in the fact they share the same first name, which is hardly conclusive evidence of proof.

With regard to the claim of an amalgam of rising/dying gods with his virgin birth, resurrection story, etc., if the reader takes the time to study the legends of Mithras and Adonis and Dionysus in depth, you will find, whilst there are superficial and generalized similarities, the many claims for these other religions being the origin of Christianity are not completely true, but over the centuries, the church of Rome has cleverly, and with a common-sense approach, incorporated pagan ideas, holidays, etc., into the religion.

However farfetched some of the comparisons are, the truth is there is insufficient independent evidence of the existence of Jesus Christ when you eliminate the mass of church writings that claim a scholarly heritage but, at the end of the day, really fail to meet any academic standard.

Because of this, it really is not unreasonable to question the existence of a historical Jesus/Joshua.

Therefore, one must ask the question,Why is it that a new religion based on the common concept of a dying/rising Son of God managed to attract such a large following, and what differentiated Christianity from the other religions that convinced its followers that their “Son of God” actually rose from the dead, when it was understood that the dying/rising Son of God of other religions was not meant to be taken literally?