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Jesus Did Not Exist: A Debate Among Atheists. By Raphael Lataster with
Richard Carrier

Article  in  Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review · January 2017

DOI: 10.5840/asrr2017816

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 BOOK REVIEWS 7

Jesus Did Not Exist: A Debate Among Atheists. By Raphael Lataster with Rich-
ard Carrier. Charleston SC: Raphael Lataster, 2015. xiv + 442 pp. US $19.99
(paperback). ISBN 978-1-51481-442-0.

This book is an in-depth coverage of a range of approaches to the problem of

the historical Jesus by scholars who all arrive at different conclusions regarding
the existence or non-existence of Jesus, the purportedly ‘historical’ man who
became the second person of the Trinity in mainstream Christian scholarship.
Richard Carrier provides a “Foreword” in which he introduces certain problems
with the field of New Testament studies: most obviously that it tends to be un-
dertaken by Christians who are un-critical and sidestep historical problems in
order to assert theological verities; but also that even authors who have given
up on the Jesus of evangelical or other forms of hardline doctrinal Christianity
are still generous with the evidence, such as it is, and build elaborate structures
to enable them to retain the historical Jesus when rational, and less elaborate
scholarly approaches seem to favour the abandonment of this figure. Raphael
Lataster uses the term ‘ahistoricists’ (perhaps a nod to the philosopher Michael
Dummett, who grouped previously separate and incompatible positions under
the term ‘anti-realism’) to group mythicists (those who think Jesus was initially
a mythical being who became historicised) and sceptics or agnostics, who think
that the evidence is insufficient to propound mythicism and that it is rational
to doubt historicists. He further identifies the debate as being one particular
to atheists; the subject is not the Biblical Jesus or the Christ of Faith, but the
historical Jesus (if one existed).
The bulk of the book reviews four recent studies. The first is Bart Ehrman’s
Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (2012). Ehrman,
James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of
North Carolina, Chapel Hill, is criticised for his attempts to bolster the Christian
sources for the historical Jesus by positing the existence of hypothetical sources
that exist behind the late, Greek-language documents that historians possess
today (he did not invent this approach, as a common source document for
Matthew and Luke, ‘Q’ from Quelle, source, has been hypothesised since 1890).
Ehrman is aware that extra-canonical texts that refer to Jesus (Tacitus, Josephus,
the Talmud, and so on) are weak, and is highly critical of using them. Lataster’s
main criticism is that he pushes “the basic Gospel portrayal of Jesus (minus the
bits he doesn’t like) through sources that don’t exist” and dismisses the mythi-
cists, though he admits “that mythicists attempt to explain Paul’s portrayal of
Jesus through sources that actually exist” (87). The second case study is another
historicist, Maurice Casey (1942–2014). The book in question is Jesus: Evidence
and Argument or Mythicist Myths? (2014), which Lataster argues is filled with

© 2017. Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review 8:1 ISSN 1946-0538 pp. 7–200
doi:
8 ALTERNATIVE SPIRITUALITY AND RELIGION REVIEW 8:1 (2017)

the same issues as Ehrman’s (insistence on the Gospel picture of Jesus, despite
its late date, reduction of the importance of Paul as the first Christian writer,
misrepresentation of mythicists, and reliance on imaginary texts), and is in fact
worse than Ehrman in that Casey makes ad hominem attacks on the scholars
whose views he opposes.
Chapter 3 focuses on Lataster’s own work, and the position he terms ‘Jesus
agnosticism.’ This section revisits the so-called “Criteria of Authenticity” that are
used to determine the likelihood that sayings or actions of Jesus preserved in the
New Testament are traceable to him (130–139). Lataster follows Hector Avalos’s
claim that “Biblical scholarship is primarily a religionist enterprise” (140) and
seeks to apply the standards of secular historical academic work to the more
emotional and partisan New Testament text. He argues against narratives that
contradict science (miracles, for example), and applies Bayesian reasoning to
the Criteria. Lataster also spends time examining all the extra-Biblical sources
in detail, drawing on his earlier volume, There Was No Jesus, There Is No God: A
Scholarly Examination of the Scientific, Historical, and Philosophical Arguments
for Monotheism (2013). He also analyses the ‘minimal’ Jesus presented by Paul,
who appears to know very little of the Saviour’s life, family, ministry, or teachings.
He concludes “that ‘clues’ regarding a Celestial Jesus found in texts that generally
posit an earthly Gospel Jesus heavily suggests that the Celestial Jesus came first
. . . it is obviously more probable that such Celestial Jesus ‘clues’ were original
remnants that slipped through, rather than later additions” (285).
The final book analysed is Richard Carrier’s case for mythicism, On the His-
toricity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt (2014). Carrier regards
Jesus as a purely spiritual figure whose descent to earth is mythologised (for
example, in a little-known text, the Ascension of Isaiah) in the same fashion as the
Sumerian goddess Inanna in the much older Descent of Inanna. Carrier, a trained
historian, holds basically the same position as the amateur Jesus mythicist, Earl
Doherty, author of various books including The Jesus Puzzle (1999) and Jesus:
Neither God Nor Man (2009). Lataster’s explanation of Carrier’s book is highly
detailed, and he draws upon other published work by Carrier. The “Conclu-
sion” reiterates that all scholarship has an agenda, but argues that the informed
reader should be able to see that the historicists appeal to sources that do not
exist whereas mythicists (that is, those who are not clearly crazy or without
scholarly credibility, Carrier in particular demonstrates that many arguing for
a mythical Jesus are fantasists, a point that might equally be made about those
putting forward a historical Jesus while being ignorant of historical methods,
the status of sources, and so on) use sources that exist. It is hard to convey in a
review how much fun this book is to read, and how much useful information
it contains about New Testament studies, whether the reader is persuaded by
 BOOK REVIEWS 9

Lataster’s demolition of the historicists and support for the mythicists. No matter
what the conclusion, it is worth reading.

Carole M. Cusack
University of Sydney

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