![\"Jesus-a-Myth\"](\"https:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Jesus-a-Myth.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe question is harder to answer than might first be suspected. I\u2019ve been waiting a few years for the word \u201cmythicist\u201d to appear in dictionaries\u2014applied, that is, to the Christ myth theory. To my knowledge, it hasn\u2019t yet. \u201cMythicist\u201d in mainstream dictionaries still refers to 1. a student of myths, or 2. an interpreter of myths. Wikipedia makes a disparaging nod in the direction of mythicism<\/a> by calling it a \u201c19th century theology.\u201d Those who hold the view today are, presumably, pass\u00e9.<\/p>\n About a century ago, \u201cmythicist\u201d (Eng.) and \u201cmythiste\u201d (Fr.) did refer to those espousing the Christ myth theory. But thereafter the mythicist point of view was effectively forced out of discussion. Since the closing decades of the 20th century, mythicists have been slowly and laboriously clawing their way back into the discussion. Of course, we still aren\u2019t quite there<\/i> yet. Landmarks in the New Mythicism are largely anglo-American: the books of G. A. Wells in Britain (1970s -present), Doherty\u2019s \u201cThe Jesus Puzzle\u201d (1999\/2009), Price\u2019s books including \u201cDeconstructing Jesus\u201d (2000), Zindler\u2019s \u201cThe Jesus the Jews Never Knew\u201d (2003), and my \u201cThe Myth of Nazareth\u201d (2008).<\/p>\n The word \u201cmythicist\u201d is still neither used by, nor even known to, the majority of biblical scholars. It appears almost exclusively in discusssions by mythicists themselves, and they are relatively few in number. It is still very much a technical term on the fringe of biblical studies. At the beginning of the new millennium there was not even consensus on the form of the word: \u201cmythist\u201d or \u201cmythicist.\u201d The latter has prevailed, and \u201cmythist\u201d is sometimes used today more or less in caricature by those who seek to delegitimize Jesus mythicism.<\/p>\n With the appearance of Bart D. Ehrman\u2019s Did Jesus Exist?<\/i> (2012) mythicism took a significant step closer to the mainstream of discussion. Ehrman\u2019s book is (predicably) selling well and has functioned to bring Jesus mythicism before a general readership for the first time in history. DJE?<\/i> seeks to defend the historicity of Jesus, but it has not been altogether successful if one judges by the varied reactions. As of this writing, the 92 customer reviews on amazon.com average out to three stars out of five\u2014mediocre. The 80+ reviews by mythicists themselves<\/a>, of course, are uniformly critical.<\/p>\n With mythicism receiving more exposure, I recently took a closer look at the word and the ways in which it is being used. What I discovered was in some ways surprising.<\/p>\n Semi-mythicism and euhemerism<\/strong><\/p>\n A mythicist is one who concludes that Jesus of Nazareth never existed and also that no human prophet lay at the origin of Christianity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That is how I define a \u201cmythicist.\u201d The definition has two components. For those who, like myself, embrace only the first part but not the second, I use a different term: \u201csemi-mythicist.\u201d I personally have concluded that Jesus of Nazareth never existed, yet I also suspect that a human prophet (the Teacher of Righteousness? John the Baptist?) lay at the root of the Christian religion. Of course, I am quite convinced that the biography of Jesus of Nazareth was invented out of whole cloth. So in my view the following sequence obtains:<\/p>\n (1) a prophet \u2013> The above makes me a euhemerist, and so we see that there is no conflict between euhemerism and mythicism. Anyone who thinks that a human lies at the root of Christianity (even if that human was not Jesus of Nazareth) is a euhemerist\u2014for that human was eventually deified. The Christians get around this by saying that Jesus was God from the start. I happen to be an atheist and don\u2019t buy into that doctrine nor deification\u2014nor into the false biography of Jesus. But I am still both a euhemerist and a semi-mythicist. This is altogether too nuanced for most people and so, in casual parlance, I am simply a \u201cmythicist\u201d\u2014one who denies the existence of Jesus of Nazareth (the \u201ccommon\u201d definition of mythicism).<\/p>\n Mythicism and docetism<\/strong><\/p>\n Mainstream scholarship (as noted above) still hardly recognizes the term \u201cmythicism\u201d and its cognates. The reason is clear: scholarship is not ready to seriously engage with the issue (and will put off doing so as long as possible). Such engagement would not only acknowledge the existence of the mythicist view but would also accord it a measure of legitimacy. However, times are changing.<\/p>\n
\n(2) a false biography (Jesus of Nazareth) \u2013>
\n(3) the second member of the divine Christian trinity.<\/p>\n