The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity
Begin with a Mythical Christ?
Challenging the Existence of an
Historical Jesus by Earl Doherty
The Jesus Puzzle
(Please see description attached to book on Amazon site under former
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Personal Review: The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with
a Mythical Christ? Challenging the Existence of an Historical
Jesus by Earl Doherty
This book is a short, well-reasoned, and readable challenge those who
believe the portrayal of Jesus found in the Bible. What Doherty does is
read the sacred texts in the order that nearly every scholar agrees they
were written, beginning with the letters of Paul and continuing with the
Gospels. It is a very interesting exercise: Paul says almost nothing about a
human named Jesus amid all his talk about the importance of the Christ.

Even when the very words of Jesus, cited later in Mark, would bolster his
argument, he doesn't quote his recently departed master. Paul is emphatic
that he had learned nothing from men, that his knowledge of Christ comes
from his personal revelation. It's hard to discern how Paul's message
would change if Jesus had never been a walking, talking human being.
While author's reasoning is sound, the level of evidence is less than
perfect: an extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence. What is
clear is that Christians need to respond to Doherty's claims in depth: after
all, their claim that God became man is an extraordinary claim in its own
right, just one we are more culturally familiar with. Non-believers will be left
wondering how many of Doherty's scholarly claims are true or at least
probable; in Doherty's defence complete evidence could never be
contained in a readable book. In sum, an enjoyable and challenging read
for all. This book packs quite a wallop for its size.
[...]
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