Carolina QuotesI realized, after studying much previous research on the question [of Jesus], that virtually every story in the gospels and Acts can be shown to be very likely a Christian rewrite of material from the Septuagint, Homer, Euripides' Bacchae, and Josephus. ...A literary origin is always to be preferred to an historical one in such a case. And that is the choice we have to make in virtually every case of New Testament narrative. [...] There may once have been an historical Jesus, but for us there is one no longer. If he existed, he is forever lost behind the stained glass curtain of holy myth. At least that's the current state of the evidence as I see it.
Robert M. Price Connected to the Carolinas
Source
[The Quest of the Mythical Jesus first appeared on the Robert M. Price Myspace page.]
Cite this record
“I realized, after studying much previous research on the que…” Robert M. Price. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-FB403D6370. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/fb403d6370
More from Robert M. Price
Alan Dundes has shown, the gospel life of Jesus corresponds in most particulars with the worldwide paradigm of the Mythic Hero Archetype as delineated by Lord Raglan, Otto Rank, and others.
If some New Testament miracle stories find no parallel in contemporary experience. they do have parallels, often striking ones, in other ancient writings that no one takes to be anything other than mythical or legendary. ...The Gospels come under serious suspicion because there is practically nothing in them that does not conform to this “Mythic Hero Archetype”.
I am not trying to say that there was a single origin of the Christian savior Jesus Christ, and that origin is pure myth; rather, I am saying that there may indeed have been such a myth, and that if so, it eventually flowed together with other Jesus images, some one of which may actually have been based on a historical Jesus the Nazorean.