Jesus myth theory

Christ myth theory
The Resurrection of Christ by Noel Coypel (1700)—some mythicists see this as a case of a dying-and-rising god.
Description	Jesus of Nazareth never existed; or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity and the accounts in the gospels.
Early proponents	Charles François Dupuis (1742–1809) Constantin-François Volney (1757–1820) Richard Carlile (1790–1843) Bruno Bauer (1809–1882) Edwin Johnson (1842–1901) Dutch Radical School (1880–1950) Albert Kalthoff (1850–1906) W. B. Smith (1850–1934) J. M. Robertson (1856–1933) Thomas Whittaker (1856–1935) Arthur Drews (1865–1935) Paul-Louis Couchoud (1879–1959) Alvin Boyd Kuhn (1880–1963)
Modern proponents	G. A. Wells, Tom Harpur, Michael Martin, Thomas L. Thompson, Thomas L. Brodie, Robert M. Price, Richard Carrier, Earl Doherty, Raphael Lataster
Subjects	Historical Jesus, Early Christianity, Ancient history

The Christ myth theory (also known as the Jesus myth theory, Jesus mythicism, mythicism, or Jesus ahistoricity theory) is the proposition that Christianity started with the belief in a new deity, named Jesus, "who was later historicized" in the Gospels, which are "essentially allegory and fiction." Alternatively in "simpler terms" — given by Bart Ehrman — "the historical Jesus did not exist. Or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity."

In modern scholarship, the Christ Myth Theory is a fringe theory, and is accepted by only a small number of academics. The Christ myth theory contradicts the mainstream historical view, which is that while the gospels include many mythical or legendary elements, these are religious elaborations added to the biography of a historical Jesus who did live in 1st-century Roman Palestine, was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate.

The main arguments from the mythicists are the lack of biographical information on Jesus from early Christian and other sources, the so-called argument from silence; and the mythical and allegorical nature of the Christ of Paul and the Jesus of the Gospels. Most Christ mythicists agree that the evidence for the existence of a historical Jesus Christ is weak at best, pointing at a series of perceived peculiarities in the sources which they regard as untrustworthy for a historical account, and noting the reliance on Jewish writings and the similarities of early Christianity and the Christ figure with the mystery religions of the Greco-Roman world: