Category Archives: Christian origins

“New eyes” on the first century BCE

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The First Christians / pt. 3 The tradition dates Jesus of Nazareth’s birth to about 4 BCE. That was a full sixty years after the death of Yeshu haNotsri, whose given name was apparently Yochanan ben Abshalom in Hebrew, that is, John the son of Absalom. As we have seen, this prophet was a member of the Hasmonean royal family. Two of his uncles were kings (Aristobulus I and Janneus), his grandfather was John Hyrcanus I (r. 134–104), his own sister was married to Judas Aristobulus II—the king during whose reign John was executed—and his maternal uncle was none other than Joshua ben Perachiah, the head of the Sanhedrin (nasi) and the most powerful religious figure in the land. Despite all these … Continue reading →

The Alternative Chronology

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The First Christians / pt. 1 Most of the posts on this website depend on an alternative chronology in which the founding prophet of Christianity lived in the time of Alexander Janneus. The massive reorientation on the part of the reader that this alternative chronology requires involves a breathtaking time shift of one hundred years, something no New Testament scholar considers or even can consider—for the alternative chronology gives the lie to the New Testament itself. “Moving” the founding prophet back one hundred years in time requires one to deny the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth—which is Jesus mythicism. At the same time, the alternative chronology solves intractable problems that have bedeviled as well as astonished scholarship for generations. Among them are … Continue reading →

“Jesus the Nazarene”—Book Review and Excursus (conclusion)

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A. Jordan, Jesus the Nazarene: The Talmud and the Founder of Christianity         Wipf & Stock, Eugene Oregon. 2023: 173 pp. This is the final installment of a book report on A. Jordan’s Jesus the Nazarene, which is the first of its kind: a Jewish endorsement of the mythicist theory. The author argues that a single prophet living in the early first century BCE founded the Christian religion, that he is known in Jewish sources as Yeshu ha-Notsri, and so on. (A list of ten points was given here.) Some positives of the book: (1) Jordan takes seriously what the Talmud has to say about the Hasmonean-era Jesus/Yeshu. Very few New Testament scholars do so. (2) In the course of Jesus … Continue reading →

“Jesus the Nazarene”—Book Review and Excursus, Pt. 2

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A. Jordan, Jesus the Nazarene: The Talmud and the Founder of Christianity         Wipf & Stock, Eugene Oregon. 2023: 173 pp. The prior post presented the views of the linguist, A. Jordan, regarding The Talmudic “Jesus.” Like me, Jordan sees the Jesus of the Talmud—generally called Yeshu ha-Notsri in Jewish records (never “Jesus of Nazareth”)—as being the “real” Jesus. The Talmudic Jesus lived in the early decades of the first century before the common era and had a completely different biography than Jesus of Nazareth, though some elements seem to have survived in the Christian gospels: the radical nature of the prophet’s teachings, his opposition to the Pharisees, success in gaining converts, trial, and execution by crucifixion. In this post we … Continue reading →

“Jesus the Nazarene”—Book Review and Excursus

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A. Jordan, Jesus the Nazarene: The Talmud and the Founder of Christianity Resource Publications (Wipf & Stock), Eugene Oregon. Paperback. March 2023. 173 pp. Wipf & Stock publishers have kindly furnished a complimentary copy of the title above for review. I requested the recent book because it expands on the thesis that Yeshu ha-Notsri (“Jesus the Nazarene”) was the founder of Christianity who lived in the early part of the first century BCE, a thesis explored on this website and in the final chapter of my book NazarethGate: Quack Archeology, Holy Hoaxes, and the Invented Town of Jesus (American Atheist Press, 2015). This series of posts is something more than a book report. It touches on issues such as “Was … Continue reading →

Blog returning to sleep mode…

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In March 2022 I began the latest series of posts, “A New Account of Christian Origins.” Numbering sixteen entries, the series has covered a lot of territory—from my views regarding the emergence of the Catholic religion in the middle of the second century CE, to the non-existence of Paul, of Marcion, and of the earliest Church Fathers (Clement of Rome, Papias, Ignatius of Antioch, and Polycarp of Smyrna). While freely admitting that I may not be correct regarding all of these propositions, I am fairly confident that the most important will stand the test of time. At the very least, the onus is shifting onto the tradition to demonstrate to an increasing number of skeptics that the major figures in … Continue reading →

The infancy narratives–conclusion

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A New Account of Christian Origins / pt. 28 In this post I’d like to wrap up my survey of the Christian literature devoted to the birth of Jesus. As mentioned in a prior post, this literature is surprisingly extensive. In fact, it was once as popular as it is now obscure. The reasons are that the infancy literature gave scope for endearing domestic scenes, to portray the family of Jesus, and to bring a common touch to the otherwise exalted messiah, the awe-inspiring Son of God. In modern times, the only infancy gospel to have been accorded a modicum of scholarly attention is the so-called Protevangelium of James (PrJ).  It was once a very popular work, surviving in many different editions. … Continue reading →

Infancy narratives IV: The Armenian Gospel of the Infancy

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A New Account of Christian Origins / pt. 27 In the last several posts I have been building the case that the concept of the Incarnation was a seminal turning point—not only in the ‘birth’ of Jesus of Nazareth, but also in the birth of the Christian religion. In my view, the revolutionary conception of the Incarnation first occurred towards the middle of the second century CE. Before that, a diffuse range of non-incarnational Christianities existed. This pre-Catholic stage, before the invention of Jesus of Nazareth, was characterized by belief in a spiritual Jesus (‘Stage II’ christology). These early Christianities focussed on the aspirant, not on God or on a Son of God. These first century CE religious movements were gnostic, encratite, … Continue reading →

Infancy narratives III—The Magi

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A New Account of Christian Origins / pt. 26 In the preceding post we considered a work routinely ignored by scholarship and virtually unknown, The Revelation of the Magi (RevMagi). The bulk of this work dates to the early second century CE—about a half century before the writing of the canonical gospels—and reveals the evolving thinking in proto-Catholic circles regarding the Incarnation of Jesus. RevMagi depicts not a birth, but a metamorphosis of the universal Jesus spirit, that “appeared to you to concentrate its light in its rays, [and] that it appeared to you in the form of a small, humble, and unworthy human.”   The initial “we-source” itself is divisible into two parts: (a) an incarnation account in which the principal figures … Continue reading →

Infancy narratives II—The Revelation of the Magi

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A New Account of Christian Origins / pt. 25 In the preceding post we looked at two obscure infancy narratives embedded in Christian apocryphal works: the Ascension of Isaiah (chp. 11:1–10) dating ca. 100 CE, and the ‘New Source’ (73.1–3) dating to the early decades of II CE.  The passage in Asc.Isa is an early Christian interpolation into a Jewish work. Post-canonical Catholic interpolations were also inserted (probably dating to late II CE), as we read from references to the passion of Jesus, his Ascension, sitting at the right hand of God, etc. Yet we recognize the earliness of this nativity account through its utter simplicity and its radical variance from the canonical accounts: the birth takes place “in Joseph’s house” (not … Continue reading →