Raphael Lataster

Raphael Lataster (born 1984) is an Australian author, doctoral student and proponent of the Christ myth theory. He has written and self-published two books on the subject: There Was No Jesus, There Is No God (2013), and Jesus Did Not Exist: A Debate Among Atheists (2015), with Richard Carrier.

Lataster identifies his main research interests as including philosophy of religion, Christian origins, logic, Bayesian reasoning, sustainability, and alternative god-concepts such as pantheism and pandeism. Lataster's PhD thesis will analyse arguments for the existence of God by theologians including William Lane Craig and Richard Swinburne.

Lataster passed his Master of Arts (Research), undertaken in the Department of Studies in Religion at the University of Sydney, with Distinction, where he is a Teaching Fellow and assistant researcher.He has written two academic articles as well as popular journalism pieces (see below) on the subject.

There Was No Jesus, There Is No God was published on 2 September 2013 using an independent publishing platform and was ranked 10th bestselling book in the Atheism category on Amazon Australia on 5 September. It continued to be ranked in the top twelve as late as 21 July of the following year. The book questions the existence of Jesus, and was positively reviewed by Religious Studies scholars Carole Cusack (one of Lataster's mentors) and professor Chris Hartney. Cusack wrote that, "Lataster re-presents and amplifies the arguments that the fictional dimensions of Jesus are foundational." Hartney wrote that Lataster "does more than most to argue that Jesus did not exist," and that Lataster "goes through the numerous arguments that demonstrate that the story of Jesus must have taken place" and "does a good job of dismissing all these." A second vanity published book, Jesus Did Not Exist: A Debate Among Atheists, was published 12 November 2015, with Richard Carrier.

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