I thought it might be of interest to some readers, now and in future, to give a snapshot of this website’s parameters as far as traffic, extent, and growth are concerned. The site has been in existence for twelve years (two of them inactive in “sleep mode”). It began in Sept. 2012 for several reasons. One was to publicly chronicle my investigations into early Christianity, which I knew would be novel, if not ground-breaking. Another was that a public blog forced me to order my thinking and to put it in cogent, understandable terms. Finally, the blog would endure as a readily accessible future reference, both for myself and for others.

Given its intellectual content and the esoteric nature of its subject, this is a fairly modest site that can’t compare to commercial sites. I don’t take money or do advertising. The readership has been growing about 20% per year and now averages over a thousand hits a month and about half as many visitors (stats below). The stats don’t reveal individual identities, and I have no idea what percentage of readers are friendly or hostile, academic or lay. But several clues suggest that it’s followed by a mixture of lay readers and academics. I find the latter category a bit surprising, given the scholarly vilification directed at me over the years. (Typical is Bart Ehrman’s rant that “EVERYONE who is an expert opposes [my] views” which are “very odd”, “weird”, that I am “not a scholar,” have “no credentials”… Ehrman is “outraged” I spoke at the SBL, etc.

But the private actions of professors can be at odds with their public profiles. The tipoff came in 2013, when I casually uploaded “A Critique of Ken Dark’s Work at the Sisters of Nazareth Convent” to the academia.edu site. It was an afterthought, and I simply wanted to make academics aware of Dark’s bizarre claims (e.g., that Jesus’ neighbors lived at the site of a tomb complete with a rolling stone). Within a couple of weeks the article was downloaded a whopping thousand times (my average on that site is 50 or less) and to date it has received 3,530 views, placing me in the top 5% on the platform. So, yes, there is academic interest in my work—but it is manifestly covert.

Here are the overall stats at this time:

Visits
Last 30 days: 581 visitors / 1,233 views
Last 12 months: 6,045 visitors / 16,975 views
Total 12 years (2 years hiatus): 27,470 visitors / 102,086 views

No. of posts: 344 (Don’t try reading them all at once!)
No. of pages: 31
No. of approved comments: 324

Mythicist Papers will continue to chronicle my evolving thinking. One could say that the no-Nazareth issue started the ball rolling, but—in the long run—that issue may pale in comparison with the alternate chronology, with my views regarding Yeshu haNotsri, and with the radical reorientation I am requiring of the entire field of Early Christian Studies. I won’t hold my breath, of course. All this is “fringe,” and such theories don’t become mainstream (if ever) except with time and much discussion.

My thanks go to you readers (overt and covert) who have an interest in this blog. Your feedback has been heartwarming and also educational for me. Every aspect of this venture is worthwhile—your reading, my content, your comments, the spinoffs… We should all have a celebration!

The percentage of young Americans who are non-religious is growing (now 25%), church attendance is declining, and the future promises ever increasing interest in the views expressed on this and similar websites. Stay tuned. Continue reading. More exciting discoveries lie ahead!—René

P.S.—For preservation, the content of this website (80–90%) is periodically uploaded to the Internet Archive.