JESUS HISTORICITY

Dr. Robert M. Price on the Christ Myth Theory
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NLXTGesqxA

Dr. Richard Carrier on the Mythical Jesus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79Lmmy2jfeo

Why I Think Jesus Didn't Exist: A Historian Explains the Evidence That Changed His Mind
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwUZOZN-9dc

Why the Gospels are Myth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQmMFQzrEsc

The Book of Acts as Historical Fiction
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5MUUP4l6l4

You're All Gonna Die!  How the Jews Kept Failing to Predict Doomsday and Caused Christianity Instead
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-Xg4zFQyqY

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So if Jesus Didn’t Exist, Where Did He Come from Then?
http://www.richardcarrier.info/Historicity_of_Jesus.pdf

Did Jesus Exist? Probably Not
http://www.richardcarrier.info/HistoricityDebate2014.pdf

You're All Gonna Die!  How the Jews Kept Failing to Predict Doomsday and Caused Christianity Instead
http://www.richardcarrier.info/doomsday.pdf

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On the Historicity of Jesus - Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt
http://www.sheffieldphoenix.com/showbook.asp?bkid=264
http://www.amazon.com/On-Historicity-Jesus-Might-Reason/dp/1909697494

Jesus: Neither God Nor Man - The Case for a Mythical Jesus
http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Neither-God-Case-Mythical/dp/0968925928

The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems
http://www.amazon.com/The-Christ-Myth-Theory-Its-Problems/dp/1578840171

Gospel Fictions
http://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Fictions-Randel-Helms/dp/0879755725

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The Jesus Puzzle
http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/home.htm

Weighing up the Evidence for the 'Historical Jesus'
http://theconversation.com/weighing-up-the-evidence-for-the-historical-jesus-35319

Earl Doherty's Response to Bart Ehrman's 'Did Jesus Exist?'
http://vridar.org/earl-dohertys-response-to-bart-ehrmans-did-jesus-exist/

Why we Might have Reason for Doubt: Should we Still be Looking for a Historical Jesus?
http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/2014/08/car388028.shtml

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Jesus Myth - The Case Against Historical Christ
http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/jesus_myth_history.htm

Jesus Myth Part II - Follow-up, Commentary, and Expansion
http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/jesus_myth_followup.htm

The Gospel of Mark as Reaction and Allegory
http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/gospel_mark.htm

How a Fictional Jesus Gave Rise to Christianity
http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/fictional_jesus.htm

Jesus Did not Exist
http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/christianity_nojesus.html#NoHistory

How Jesus Got a Life
http://www.atheists.org/How_Jesus_Got_a_Life

Did Jesus Even Exist?
http://www.atheists.org/Did_Jesus_Exist?

Did Jesus Really Exist?
http://www.godlessgeeks.com/JesusExist.htm

Where Jesus Never Walked
http://www.atheists.org/Where_Jesus_Never_Walked

Did Jesus Actually Exist?
http://www.i4m.com/think/bible/historical_jesus.htm

Did a Historical Jesus Exist?
http://www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm

The Twelve: Further Fictions from the New Testament
http://www.atheists.org/12_Further_Fictions_from_the_NT

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New Testament Narrative as Old Testament Midrash
http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/art_midrash1.htm

Jesus, Constructed from Moses and other OT Passages
http://vridar.wordpress.com/2010/12/18/jesus-moses-matthew/

The Elijah-Elisha Narrative as a Model for the Gospel of Mark
http://vridar.wordpress.com/2010/08/31/the-elijah-elisha-narrative-as-a-model-for-the-gospel-of-mark/

Evidence that Jesus is a Myth, Part 1: The Elijah/Elisha Connection
http://jesusisamyth.blogspot.com/2010/02/two-thousand-years-ago-people-worshiped.html

Evidence that Jesus is a Myth, Part 2: Likely Old Testament Sources
http://jesusisamyth.blogspot.com/2010/02/1.html

Evidence that Jesus is a Myth, Part 3: Indisputable Old Testament Sources
http://jesusisamyth.blogspot.com/2010/02/so-if-jesus-wasnt-real-person-where-did14.html

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PhD Academics who Think Jesus didn't Exist or are Undecided on the Issue

Kurt Noll (associate professor of religion at Brandon University)
Richard Carrier (Ph.D. in ancient history from Columbia University)
Arthur Droge (professor of early Christianity at University of California at San Diego)
Thomas Thompson (renowned professor of theology, emeritus, at the University of Copenhagen)
Robert Price (two Ph.D.’s from Drew University, in systematic theology and New Testament studies)
Thomas Brodie (director emeritus of the Dominican Biblical Centre at the University of Limerick, Ireland)
Philip Davies (professor of biblical studies, emeritus, at the University of Sheffield) - disagrees with Jesus myth hypothesis but admits it's respectable enough to be taken seriously

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(8) Paul’s authentic letters (and their authentic content) never clearly reference an earthly Jesus, but only ever clearly reference a cosmic Jesus known only through revelations and scripture. The rest are forgeries. Ditto the other epistles: some are known forgeries (and all of this, BTW, is the mainstream view), the rest make no clear reference to an earthly Jesus. The passages where Paul mentions brothers of the Lord is just as unclear as everything else, because Paul says all baptized Christians are brothers of the Lord, and he never says anyone referred to that way was a biological brother of Jesus, rather than just a baptized Christian. This is all old news.

(7) Both Nazareth and Bethlehem were predicted sources of the messiah in scripture (as Mathew, the first to combine them, explicitly says), so it is not surprising someone invented stories to try to satisfy both prophecies, especially a Gospel known to duplicate prophetic fulfillments (as Matthew is). Moreover, Jesus was not originally called a Nazarethan, the name for someone from Nazareth, but a Nazôraian, a word wholly unconnected with the name Nazareth and which even some early Christians admitted meant something else. This is also old news.

(5) All mentions of Jesus in Josephus were added over a century after Josephus wrote, by Christians. Josephus thus never mentioned him. This is very old news.

(4) The passage in Tacitus is probably also an insertion, but even if authentic, almost certainly derives from Christians citing the Gospels (through an interrogation of Christians performed by Tacitus’s best friend Pliny just a few years before Tacitus wrote). It therefore cannot be cited as corroborating them. If the Gospels are false, so is the reference in Tacitus.

(3) The James ossuary inscription has been tampered with (confirmed by court of law), has likely been partly forged (confirmed by several experts), and does not identify its occupant as our Jesus, yet Jesus was a common name. Contrary to what the listserv entry says, the courts did not rule the inscription authentic (or confirm any experts were lying), they ruled there was insufficient evidence to prove Oded Golan forged it. It remains deeply suspect, and is too generic to be known of Christian origin. It is therefore evidence of nothing.

(2) Christianity became a world religion centuries later, therefore Jesus existed? Please. Hopefully you would not fall for this argument. By that reasoning, the angels Gabriel (mythic founder of Islam) and Moroni (mythic founder of Mormonism) existed, as did the Jewish Patriarchs (even though most mainstream scholars agree they are mythical). In point of fact, Christianity remained an extremely small, fringe, nearly failed sect for over a century before it gained any popularity, long after anyone could check any claims about Jesus.

(1) The crucifixion is no more likely to be true because it was embarrassing than the castration of the god Attis is likely to be true because it was even more embarrassing. The whole logic of this argument is fundamentally fallacious, and refuted by too many counter-examples.

The other link just stacks up more falsehoods: Thallus never mentioned Jesus; Pliny never says Jesus was an earthly man (and even if he did, he was told all he knows by a Christian who would simply be repeating the Gospels by then; likewise all other references, which come decades or centuries after him, e.g. Lucian); the Talmud was written centuries too late, and places Jesus a hundred years before Pilate and well before Roman rule in Judea (a fact even harder for a thesis of historicity to explain); and the apocryphal Gospels are so obviously fictions, anyone citing them for history is being silly.