Jesus from Outer Space: What the Earliest Christians Really Believed about Christ

“Jesus From Outer Space” (JFOS) is Richard Carrier summarizing his prior work called “On the Historicity of Jesus” (OTHJ). He believes that “The most accurate description of earliest Christian thought is that Jesus was an angelic extraterrestrial, who descended from outer space to become a man, teach the gospel, suffer an atoning death, and rise again to return to his throne among the stars, even more powerful than before.” (p. 8-9)

He states “The complete, sober, academic, case for this conclusion, with all the requisite evidence, cited scholarship, footnotes, and apparatus, you will find in the near seven-hundred pages of ‘On the Historicity of Jesus’. Here in your hands, is a much briefer, more colloquial, but still informative summary of that more serious academic monograph, a concordance to which you will find at the end of this book.”(p. 9).

In terms of reception of OTHJ he states, “Though that book was met with irrational hostility by many experts, who fear the consequences of its thesis, others are entertaining the possibility that that thesis, or something like it, might be right.” (p. 7-8). Indeed, most of the responses have been very critical of Carrier’s ideas for numerous reasons and in reality OTHJ has not made any impact after almost a decade among mainstream scholars – most of which are not literalists or fundamentalists and even the consensus among secular scholars disagrees with Carrier’s mythicism. [[ASIN:0061315451 Historians' Fallacies : Toward a Logic of Historical Thought]] helps identify some of the errors in logic that Carrier makes and why scholars do not buy into his arguments.

Though Carrier’s mythicist ideas have been around and criticized since before OTHJ by secular scholars like Bart Ehrman, Murice Casey, Joseph Hoffmann. Here are some recent academic responses to his recent works: “Jesus From Outer Space” (JFOS), “On the Historicity of Jesus” (OTHJ), “Proving History” (PH). You can be the judge if he really has received “irrational hostility by many experts” or if he is the one who cannot take criticism from peers:

* Hensen, Christopher. (2020–2021). “BOOK REVIEW. Richard C. Carrier. Jesus from Outer Space: What the Earliest Christians Really Believed about Christ.” McMaster Journal of Theology and Ministry. Wipf & Stock. Volume 22.

* Gullotta, Daniel. (2017). "On Richard Carrier's Doubts: A Response to Richard Carrier's On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt". Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus. 15 (2–3): 310–346.

* Petterson, Christina. (2015). "On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt". Relegere: Studies in Religion and Reception. 5 (2): 253–58.

* Hansen, Christopher. (2020). "Lord Raglan's Hero and Jesus: A Rebuttal to Methodologically Dubious Uses of the Raglan Archetype". Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism. 16: 129–149.

* Tucker, Aviezer. (2016). "The Reverend Bayes vs Jesus Christ". History and Theory. 55:1: 129–140.

Note: Aviezer states, “Carrier's book argues for a Bayesian, probabilistic interpretation of historiography in general and of the debate about the historicity of Jesus in particular. Since the Reverend Bayes developed the theorem named after him in the eighteenth century in an attempt to prove the existence of God that he later abandoned, Carrier's attempt to use the same theorem to disprove the historicity of Jesus is ironic.” Indeed, in OTHJ Carrier uses Bayes Theorem and calculates the probability of Jesus existing is 33% in the best case scenario and essentially 0% in the worst case. But the whole enterprise is unreliable because Bayes Theorem, when used to answer historicity questions, does result in proving anything you really want. For example, Richard Swinburne in [[ASIN:0199257450 The Resurrection of God Incarnate]] calculated 97% probability on the historicity of Jesus resurrecting with Bayes Theorem too. I don’t think anyone would be convinced by either one of their contradictory results. It is an interesting exercise, but no confidence can be achieved partly because there is no way to verify anything one way or the other. Most of the historical record from the ancient world is lost forever so our histories are full of gaps, holes, and obscurities by default ([[ASIN:0712666737 Ancient History: Evidence and Models]]).

* Gathercole, Simon. (2018). "The Historical and Human Existence of Jesus in Paul’s Letters." Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus. 16(2-3): 183-212.

* Hensen, Christopher. (2020–2021). "Romans 1:3 and the Celestial Jesus: A Rebuttal to Revisionist Interpretations of Jesus's Descendance from David in Paul". McMaster Journal of Theology and Ministry. Wipf & Stock. Volume 22.

Other academic responses are available online such as those by James McGrath, Larry Hurtado, and others.

Before I continue, for those who wish to look at the evidences and sources relating to Jesus and his early followers themselves, you can check out:

* The New Testament (earliest and closest surviving sources [artifacts] which were within decades of his death)
* [[ASIN:0802843689 Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence (Studying the Historical Jesus)]] (best collection of early and later non-biblical sources)
* [[ASIN:080103468X The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations]] (sources around the time of the apostles and into the second century )

Here some observations on “Jesus From Outer Space” (JFOS). Carrier strangely argues that the Talmud, which was written a few centuries after Christ, makes a mention of a Jesus being in the time of the reign of Alexander Jannaeus in the 70s BC. Putting Jesus about a century before. The problem here is that he awkwardly believes and trusts a later anti-Christian polemical Jewish source that was written a few hundred years away from Jesus uncritically and just accepts it while at the same time dismissing all sources that were way closer (just decades after the death of Jesus), more diverse, and of course - consistent with the time frame Jesus lived in (Gospels, Paul, Josephus, etc). The context of Jesus is different in the Talmud too. “Jesus Outside the New Testament” (link above) provides a superior explanation of these passages and their context. The rabbis who wrote about Jesus were writing anti-Christian polemics, not history and they made historical mistakes in numerous places that would have been corrected easily had they consulted at least a fellow Jewish source – Josephus. Also see Mussies, Gerard. (1998). "The Date of Jesus' Birth in Jewish and Samaritan Sources". Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman Period. 29 (4): 416–437. It summarizes what these Jewish sources actually say and also how the confusion of Jesus Christ with the Jesus in the Talmud may have emerged. It was likely because both had one commonality - both Jesuses went to Egypt. The differences are pretty massive and it is unlikely the Talmud refers to Jesus Christ substantially, if at all, in the section mentioning Alexander Jannaeus. From Mussies 1998:

“The Talmudic tradition connects Jesus with the Hasmonaean and not with the Herodian dynasty and makes him a pupil of R. Joshua ben-Perachyah. This rabbi, who was reportedly president of the Sanhedrin (Aboth I, 6), had to flee to Egypt together with his pupil Jesus when his own life was endangered by king Alexander Jannaeus, the persecutor of the Pharisees. R. Shimeon ben-Shetach was hidden by his sister who happened to be the king's wife, and was the only Pharisee who could stay in Jerusalem. After some time, apparently when the king had died (76 BCE), R. Shimeon called R. Joshua back from Egypt and together with Jesus he set out on the home-journey. During their stay in an inn the rabbi praised the landlady because she paid him respect. His companion, however, criticized her because of her lacklustre eyes, and was excommunicated by R. Joshua for rather paying attention to her outward appearance than to her character and behaviour. After that Jesus is said to have gone for the worse, to have applied himself to magic, a detail also told by Celsus, and even to have venerated a brick in the end. This detail sounds rather weird in Egypt. One wonders if the word for "brick" used here might not have replaced 'leviathan", the original version being in that case that Jesus was supposed to have even worshipped an Egyptian idol, the crocodile-god Suchos.”

Yeah… does not sound much like the same guy. Only a small part perhaps does.

Another observation is that Carrier really seems to love the “Ascension of Isaiah”, which is a 2nd century work according to most scholars. Though he uses it to try to make Jesus into only a celestial savior, even that text clearly puts Jesus in history and walked the earth (Ch. 8, 9, 11 for instance). “Ascension of Isaiah” 11:2-22 states :

“2 And I saw a woman of the family of David the prophet whose name (was) Mary, and she (was) a virgin and was betrothed to a man whose name (was) Joseph, a carpenter, and he also (was) of the seed and family of the righteous David of Bethlehem in Judah. 3 And he came into his lot. And when she was betrothed, she was found to be pregnant, and Joseph the carpenter wished to divorce her. 4 But the angel of the Spirit appeared in this world, and after this Joseph did not divorce Mary; but he did not reveal this matter to anyone. 5 And he did not approach Mary, but kept her as a holy virgin, although she was pregnant. 6 And he did not live with her for two months. 7 And after two months of days, while Joseph was in his house, and Mary his wife, but both alone, 8 it came about, when they were alone, that Mary then looked with her eyes and saw a small infant, and she was astounded. 9 And after her astonishment had worn off, her womb was found as (it was) at first, before she had conceived. 10 And when her husband, Joseph, said to her, "What has made you astounded?" his eyes were opened, and he saw the infant and praised the Lord, because the Lord had come in his lot. 11 And a voice came to them, "Do not tell this vision to anyone." 12 But the story about the infant was spread abroad in Bethlehem. 13 Some said, "The virgin Mary has given birth before she has been married two months." 14 But many said, "She did not give birth; the midwife did not go up (to her), and we did not hear (any) cries of pain." And they were all blinded concerning him; they all knew about him, but they did not know from where he was. 15 And they took him and went to Nazareth in Galilee. 16 And I saw, O Hezekiah and Josab my son, and say to the other prophets also who are standing by, that it was hidden from all the heavens and all the princes and every god of this world. 17 And I saw (that) in Nazareth he sucked the breast like an infant, as was customary, that he might not be recognized. 18 And when he had grown up, he performed great signs and miracles in the land of Israel and (in) Jerusalem. 19 And after this the adversary envied him and roused the children of Israel, who did not know who he was, against him. And they handed him to the ruler, and crucified him, and he descended to the angel who (is) in Sheol. 20 In Jerusalem, indeed, I saw how they crucified him on a tree, 21 and likewise (how) after the third day he and remained (many) days. 22 And the angel who led me said to me, "Understand, Isaiah." And I saw when he sent out the twelve disciples and ascended."

The most recent critical edition of “Ascention of Isaiah” by Enrico Norelli (Ascensio Isaiae: Commentarius (Corpus Christianorum. Series Apocryphorum 8) shows it is part of the original text too, not some add on. Most scholars agree.

Carrier seems to still be convinced that the outdated and debunked Rank and Raglan hero archetype is somehow valid and useful for historicity (Ch. 6). However, scholars have shown that it is historically useless and that he manipulated the wording & number of points in the list himself (Carrier confirms he combined Rank, Raglan, and even Alan Dundes p. 146) to broaden the range to fit Jesus – see Hensen (above) or James McGrath’s article “Rankled by Wrangling over Rank-Raglan Rankings: Jesus and the Mythic Hero Archetype”. No historians use it because it is so vague that even fictional characters like Harry Potter have scored lower (thus more historical) than actual historical people like Czar Nicholas II who scored higher (thus more mythical) – (see Classicist Thomas J. Sienkewicz usage of just Raglan online). Indeed, the scoring is arbitrary each time anyone uses it and even Alan Dundes admits that Lord Raglan’s own list was arbitrarily chosen (In Quest of a Hero p.189). There have been other lists made too such as by Von Hahn and they are just as arbitrary and useless as well. According to Dundes and others, such hero archetype pattern lists do not help in determining historicity of Jesus or anyone else. (In Quest of a Hero p.190 and also p.xxvii-xxxi).

In Chapter 5, Carrier looks at the claims of some scholars who talk about the sources on Jesus and compare to sources on others like Socrates, Julius Caesar, Tiberius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Pontius Pilate, emperor Caligula, Hannibal, and Spartacus. I am usually not convinced when scholars compare Jesus to political leaders like Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar because it is expected that something public like a coin or public record or monument would be more abundant and better survive the ravages of time than any source for an unknown rabbi from Galilee.

Spartacus is slightly like Jesus in that he did not write anything himself as he was a slave, but even still he fought against Rome and so probably made a public imprint somewhere due to his notoriety. Interestingly, Carrier gives a few reasons for not comparing Jesus to ordinary people like Spartacus which are pretty dubious: “First, Spartacus belongs to a different category. He is not a worshipped deity whose only narratives are extensively mytho-fantastical. Spartacus did not belong to any myth-heavy reference classes at all. He is not in any significantly sized sets of persons claimed to be historical, most of whose members are probably mythical. But you know what? Jesus is…This is why we can’t compare Jesus with ordinary people. Ordinary people are usually not mythical. There is little reason to have made them up or to have given them a historical existence.” (p. 100) The problem with this type of mentality is that, how the sources portray an individual, does not impact their historicity at all. Carrier’s reference class categories are not used by any historians because it is such an odd way to distinguish, in a mutually exclusive fashion, ancient people who did not think in terms of a secular/religion binary nor did they hold mutually exclusive beliefs and behaviors. Its anachronistic. No one even had a concept of religion or secular in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds like we do today. See [[ASIN:0300216785 Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept]] and also [[ASIN:082327120X Imagine No Religion: How Modern Abstractions Hide Ancient Realities]] for example.

After looking at the sources on Spartacus in [[ASIN:1319094821 Spartacus and the Slave Wars: A Brief History with Documents]], the sources on Jesus look pretty good once you remove any religiophobic prejudice. The sources inside and outside the New Testament verify that people had heard of Jesus in a similar way that many of the sources on Spartacus spoke of hearing of Spartacus. People are not that stupid and their memory does not fade so easily with such basic information.

Anyways, out of his list of 8 cases, only Socrates is a more direct parallel to Jesus. For example, Socrates did not write anything himself - like Jesus, the surviving testimonies come from his followers and contemporaries - like Jesus, his students spread out the messages of their teacher – like Jesus. The main sources we have for Socrates were composed decades after his death by his followers (Xenophon and Plato) with only one fictional play being written by Aristophanes which mentioned a character named Socrates who was a composite of sophists, physiologoi, and possibly a public caricature of Socrates (from which nothing could be used to shed light on the historical Socrates). Aristophanes fictional play was written sometime during the lifetime of Socrates at which time, Xenophon and Plato were infants by the way. I find it interesting that Carrier says “And that is not all we have. We have many contemporaries attesting to the historical existence of Socrates. We have none for Jesus – other than a celestial being. And several historians of Socrates, starting at least a century later, gathered material from these contemporaries and witnesses to compose histories and biographies of the man.” (p. 83-84) That sounds like a similar situation with how the New Testament sources were composed – involved collection of materials from contemporaries and witnesses to compose histories and biographies involving Jesus – in less than a century (decades) of course.

Mainstream Socratic scholarship has faced its own kind of problems over who Socrates really was over the past few centuries. They have failed to reach any consensus on finding the historical Socrates. This issue is called the “Socratic Problem” among academics and it reflects the fact that Socrates is portrayed in the sources, two being from his own followers (Plato and Xenophon), in a contradictory, incoherent, and irreconcilable fashion as to who he was, what he believed, and what methodologies he employed. After he died, the Socratic traditions became more divergent with numerous philosophical schools claiming him as its founder. Of interest would be Louis-Andre Dorion’s “The Rise and Fall of the Socratic Problem”, for example.

Interestingly, the comparison of Socrates to Jesus is pretty old and there are numerous studies on that comparison. For example, [[ASIN:0824057406 Socrates: An Annotated Bibliography]] has a whole section called “Socrates, Jesus, and Christianity” which has more than 50 academic references on such comparisons. Certainly these scholars find lots of historical congruencies and correlations between them and their influence. So you have a great sample of experts on Socrates - none of which support mythicism on Jesus.

In general, if you check the references provided in JFOS or OTHJ, usually you can see that the sources he uses either do not usually support what he states about them - or they do not lead to the conclusions he reaches. His summarizing is quite suspect. Its best to check any references for yourself and decide for yourself. In terms of the style of the book, I know that other readers have complained about the weird repetitiveness throughout. As a result, it feels very much like a collection of blog posts than an actual book because of it. It could have been written in a more nuanced way while still being colloquial. It gives off the impression that scholars are generally secretly closet mythicists who are afraid to come out or that there is a conspiracy against him. But clearly this is not the case since the amount of criticisms his thesis has received from his peers are honest criticisms of his theories. In contrast, other mythicists like Robert Price present a mythicist case that is much more open to criticism and improvement. If anyone has never read Dr. Robert Price’s works on mythicism, check out some of his works. It is a pretty pleasant and quite academic. His agnosticism/mythicism on Jesus is impressive, humble, and humorous. Love that guy.

Great book! Well done!

Carrier knows this myth vs. history debate as well as anyone around and if you read this book you too will understand how that whole tall supernatural Jesus tale developed and became the colossal business of religion it is today. Shout amen! and pass the collection plate.

Really. It just ain't history, folks. The 'gospel' is developed myth, over time, by credulous and often simply devious people using it to further their own selfish purposes.

I am a long time [totally amateur] student of history, mythology, psychology, philosophy, comparative religion, Eastern thought, symbols, rituals, the collective unconscious [Jung] and the masks of god [Campbell] and all that jazz. I don't claim expertise or competence, just ongoing interest. This fine little Richard Carrier book fits right in. Truth is the bottom line thing. This book is loaded with commonsense and extremely well argued ideas and thus [for me] real truth.

Enjoy.