Earl J. Doherty (born 1941),
currently living in Canada
, is the
author of The Jesus Puzzle.
Doherty argues for a version of the
Christ myth theory, the view that an
historical
Jesus never actually lived.
Doherty has a degree in Ancient History and Classical Languages,
and he was introduced to the idea of a mythical origin of Jesus by,
among other things, the work of
G. A.
Wells, who has
authored a number of books arguing a more moderate
form of the "Christ myth" theory. Doherty has used his language
skills to study the original-language versions of the
New Testament, and has come to his views
through a critical analysis of these texts.
The Jesus Puzzle
Doherty has used the title "The Jesus Puzzle" for four different
works. In 1997, the
Journal of Higher Criticism
published his article, "The Jesus Puzzle: Pieces in a Puzzle of
Christian Origins." In 1999, his book
The Jesus Puzzle: Did
Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? was published by
Canadian Humanist
Publications. He uses the title for a website where he
publishes additional commentary and responses to reviews and
criticisms of his work. He also used the title for a novel which he
provides for download on his website.
In all four of these works, Doherty presents views on the origins
of
Christianity, specifically promoting
the view that
Jesus is a
mythical figure rather than an historical
person. Doherty argues that
Paul and
other writers of the earliest existing proto-Christian
Gnostic documents did not believe in Jesus as a
person who incarnated on
Earth in an
historical setting. Rather, they believed in Jesus as a
mythical hero who suffered his
sacrificial death in the lower spheres of heaven in the hands of
the demon spirits, and was subsequently resurrected by
God. This Christ myth was not based on a tradition
reaching back to a historical Jesus, but on the
Old Testament exegesis
in the context of
Jewish-
Hellenistic religious
syncretism heavily influenced by
Platonism, and what the authors believed to be
mystical visions of a risen Jesus.
According to Doherty, the Jesus myth was given a historical setting
only by the second generation of Christians, somewhere between the
first and second century. Doherty claims that even the author of
the
Gospel of Mark probably did not
consider his gospel to be a literal work of history, but an
allegorical
midrashic composition based on
the
Old Testament prophecies. In the widely supported
two-source hypothesis, the story of
Mark was later fused with a separate tradition of anonymous sayings
embodied in the
Q document into the other
gospels; according to Doherty these became interpreted as the
literal history of the life of Jesus. Doherty denies any historical
value of the
Acts of the
Apostles, dismissing it as a late work based on legend.
In 2009 Doherty published a revised edition of his book, with a new
title of
Jesus: Neither God nor Man.
Reception
Although Doherty's treatment of the issue has made no impact on
mainstream scholarly debate, his views have received considerable
attention on the internet. Among authors sympathetic to the view
that Jesus never existed, Doherty's work has received mixed
reactions. He has received favorable reviews of the book by
skeptics
Robert M. Price and
Richard
Carrier.
Frank R. Zindler, editor of
American Atheist, described
The
Jesus Puzzle in a review as "the most compelling argument
against the historical Jesus published in my life-time". However,
George Albert Wells, who has
also argued against the existence of a historical Jesus, rejects
Doherty's view that the earliest Christians did not believe Jesus
was a historical man who had lived on Earth.
R. Joseph
Hoffmann considers that there are "reasons for scholars to
hold" the view that Jesus never existed, but considers Doherty's
book "qualitatively and academically far inferior to anything so
far written on the subject".
Bibliography
References
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