T he Resurrection of Jesus stands as the linchpin of Christian theology. Without it, the religion’s salvific framework falls apart. As Paul famously writes in 1 Corinthians 15:14 ,  “If Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith is in vain.”  For believers, this is a miraculous and literal event; for many scholars, however, it is better understood as a mythological narrative — one that follows well-worn patterns from the ancient world. Resurrection and the Pattern of Dying-Rising Gods The Resurrection story did not emerge in a vacuum. As Jonathan Z. Smith , a historian of religion at the University of Chicago, points out in Drudgery Divine (1990), the ancient Mediterranean world was replete with stories of dying and rising gods. While Smith was critical of oversimplified comparisons, he acknowledged that early Christians developed their theology in dialogue with prevailing mythic motifs. “Early Christians didn’t invent the category,...

T he assumption that Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical figure is nearly universal in Western thought. Yet a growing minority of scholars—most notably Dr. Richard Carrier, PhD—argue that this assumption deserves serious scrutiny. Carrier is a historian of antiquity trained at Columbia University and a prominent advocate of the “mythicist” position: the idea that Jesus Christ may have originated not as a real person, but as a mythical, celestial being later historicized by early Christians. In On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt (2014), Carrier applies Bayesian probability theory to historical evidence and concludes that “the probability Jesus existed is low—maybe as low as 1 in 3” (Carrier, 2014, p. 600). He asserts that the earliest Christian documents, particularly the epistles of Paul, describe a supernatural savior who performs salvific acts in a heavenly realm, not on Earth. Paul, writing decades before the Gospels, shows no knowledge of a recen...

By Whitney ~ L eaving the church, my faith and my belief in the Christianity that was once the essence of my every understanding, has brought many freedoms to my life. It has afforded me the space to see people for who they are; not the sins they commit. It has opened my mind to new ideas; allowed me to question the unquestionable. In these almost five years of non adherence to religion, I have been able to build an ever evolving worldview piece by piece. So much of that process has been filled with child like wonder as I begin to see life and all the things that inhabit it from a new, sometimes formerly forbidden, vantage point. The compassion and gentleness and awe that has been cultivated in my heart through hours of discussion with others and sometimes a glass (or two) of whiskey has surpassed the fears I once had when I first started on this uncharted path. I think I would be giving myself and my story a disservice if I said this new enlightenment hasn’t come at a cost......

By Marlene Winell ~ A t this time of year it’s hard to avoid dealing with the differences you have with your family. If you are a “reclaimer” (reclaiming your life after being religious) who has been raised in a religious household, holiday times can be very uncomfortable when other family members are still devout. Having worked through these issues with many clients, here are a few guidelines that might be helpful.  I’ll start by suggesting you write in a journal, starting now and continuing through the holidays. This can help you sort through jumbled thoughts and emotions, stay on track with how you are trying to handle things, take care of yourself, and learn. There are exercises here to prompt your thinking. In general, if you plan to be with family at this time, it helps a great deal to approach the holidays with a high level of consciousness. In other words, don’t just blindly go home for Christmas, hoping it will be fine. What do you really expect it might be l...

Easter is a Pagan Holiday This article was originally published on this site for Easter, 2003. ENJOY! Note: Illustrative images NSFW. R eading from Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia, 1948, Volume 4, page 140, we find that Easter is the Greatest Festival of the Christian Church, which commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ - which festival was named after the ancient Anglo Saxon Goddess of Spring! EASTER. The greatest festival of the Christian church commemorates the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is a movable feast, that is, it is not always held on the same date. The church council of Nicea (a.d. 325) decided that Easter should be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox (March 21). Easter can come as early as March 22 or as late as April 25. The name Easter comes from the ancient Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, Eostre or Ostara, in whose honor an annual spring festival was held. Some of our Easter customs have come...

By Robert Conner ~ T he first mention of Jesus’ resurrection comes from a letter written by Paul of Tarsus. Paul appears to have had no interest whatsoever in the “historical” Jesus: “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know him so no longer.” ( 2 Corinthians 5:16 ) Paul’s surviving letters never once mention any of Jesus’ many exorcisms and healings, the raising of Lazarus, or Jesus’ virgin birth, and barely allude to Jesus’ teaching. For Paul, Jesus only gets interesting after he’s dead, but even here Paul’s attention to detail is sketchy at best. For instance, Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” ( 1 Corinthians 15:4 ), but there are no scriptures that foretell the Jewish Messiah would at long last appear only to die at the hands of Gentiles, much less that the Messiah would then be raised from the dead after three days. After his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus—an event Paul never mentions in his lette...

By Robert Conner ~ B esides being the first to comment on the ghost story quality of the post- resurrection accounts, the philosopher Celsus appears to have been the first to advance a psychological explanation for Jesus’ apparitions. Celsus, a conservative member of his society’s upper class, was particularly critical of the irrational, emotionally driven nature of Christian belief. “While [Jesus] was alive he did not help himself, but after death he rose again and showed the marks of his punishment and how his hands had been pierced. But who say this? A hysterical female, as you say, and perhaps some other one of those who were deluded by the same sorcery, who either dreamt in a certain state of mind and through wishful thinking had a hallucination due to some mistaken notion (an experience which has happened to thousands), or, which is more likely, wanted to impress the others by telling this fantastic tale, and so by this cock-and-bull story to provide a chance for other beg...

By Robert Conner ~ B ack in 2005, while researching material for a book on magic in the career of Jesus, I read Daniel Ogden’s sourcebook, Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds , and recall being surprised at how closely the post mortem appearances of Jesus in the gospels of Luke and John match Greco- Roman ghost stories. My initial search of the available literature turned up nothing that specifically addressed the similarities, but convinced of the parallels, I included a chapter, “The Resurrection as Ghost Story,” in my book, Jesus the Sorcerer: Exorcist and Prophet of the Apocalypse , released in 2006.   Why would elements from ghost stories end up in the gospels? What could possibly motivate the author of a gospel to compose a resurrection narrative that reads like a ghost story? It turns out there are a number of reasons.   First of all, most people in the first century took the existence of ghosts for granted: “Shortly before dawn, Jesus we...