The “Real” Origins of Christianity

I took an online course entitled “The Real Origins of Christianity.” I put the real in quotes in the title because it was strikingly obvious to me that we’re dabbling more in opinion and speculation than historical fact.

I did learn a lot of things and did have a number of misconceptions corrected. However, I had some difficulty with the main hypothesis of the instructor.

The instructor was Dr. Richard Carrier who, it is safe to say, sits near the left outer extreme of the continuum associated with the reliability of the gospels. To the extreme right are the fundamentalists that insist that every word is literally true and the text, at least in the original autographs, is inerrant and wholly without contradiction or error. At the opposite end are the ultra-skeptics who don’t even concede that the gospels are based upon a real man. Carrier acknowledges there was a real Jesus, but seems to take the position that the gospels are fiction written to make a point rather than relate a true story.

I had always been of the impression that the gospel story, or at least the Synoptic gospel story, consisted of an accurate core to which had been added mythical elements and which had been massaged to make the message better fit the particular audience. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever consider the idea that the entire story was pure fiction.

Nor do I buy that conclusion now. Carrier is writing a book defending that idea and apparently Robert Price has addressed a similar hypothesis in the “Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable is the Gospel Tradition?” So I decided to buy Price’s book while I’m waiting for Carrier to finish his.

Now all I need to do is find time to read it.