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Jesus Never Existed

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No "hidden code", no "secret bloodline", no "arcane wisdom", no "holy grail", in fact, no mystery at all – just the unembellished truth about the greatest fraud in history. Jesus Never Existed reveals a disturbing truth: that the triumph of Christianity was a disaster for humanity – made chillingly ironic by the bogus nature of its central character, superstar and "saviour". Jesus Never Existed is an uncompromising exposure of the counterfeit origins of Christianity and of the evil it has brought to the world. Not a book for those who wish to keep their faith in the cosy bliss of historical ignorance.

Over 50 articles from this website, many revised and updated, arranged into ten chapters, each of which shakes Christianity to its very foundations.

533 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

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Kenneth Humphreys

3 books7 followers

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5 stars
24 (40%)
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10 (16%)
3 stars
13 (22%)
2 stars
4 (6%)
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8 (13%)
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
Profile Image for Adam Highway.
63 reviews1 follower
April 9, 2012
Having attended a talk by the Author, purchased a copy from him at the time (and got it signed, hurrah)

THe structure and format of the book are ... unusual, to say the least. This is due primarily to the fact that it is less of a purpose written book and more a compendium of the website of the same name.

That said, once you get used to the quirky format, it's a fascinating and engaging read, blasting open the various myths which even many atheists don't notice! Not just disparaging the religious aspects of christianity, but challenging the basic assumption of an historical figure of JC, this book takes no prisoners and makes no apology for its directness.

Highly recommended!
37 reviews
Did Not Finish
May 23, 2015
Went to a talk by Humphreys - unfortunately most was given over to a q&a that was consistently off-topic but was still intrigued enough to buy the book. I do like the idea that our modern image of Jesus is based on a painting of a Borgia
Profile Image for Jenna.
413 reviews16 followers
February 7, 2023
With no tangible evidence for the existence of the man called Jesus, Humphreys a plausible explanation for this character to be a mere fabrication of history! If you're in doubt of this persons existence, this is the book for you, at least it will get you to think.
Profile Image for La Marr.
20 reviews
May 3, 2023
I think this small book is a good starting point for first time readers of this particular thesis. It is short and too the point; however, my problem with this book is the author Kenneth Humphreys does not provide a bibliography as his source material. I have read books in the past on the subject matter having a similar page length, and the bibliography was provided. As a scholar, there is no excuse not to provide source material for arguments against such as controversial subject matter.
Profile Image for Paawan Sriraag.
1 review
April 20, 2015
An Awesome Skeptical Book and very informative book to read.I have become a huge fan of Humphreys after reading this book
Profile Image for Dayanara Ryelle.
Author 5 books16 followers
April 26, 2021
I don't usually spend much time discussing the format of the book because I read most in digital these days, but there are some obvious signs that this is self-published:

It's tiny. I haven't measured the book, but I think 4x6 might be a stretch.
It's short. 75 pages are dedicated to the actual material--the rest is an interview with the author. Most publishers would encourage their writers to pad things out a little bit more, especially when the body of the book would probably be less than fifty pages when placed into a normal-sized layout.
The margins are huge. Those on the outside appear to be about an inch, which is roughly the size of Word's default(s).
The final page has the date and location of printing at the bottom. While a quick google indicates that Nine Banded Books actually exists, it should be noted that Lulu also prints their physical book in the same fashion. It's possible, therefore, that NBB is a publisher of some sort (however poor), but Lulu is their printer.

=====

All that being said, the chapters are very short and light on the details. Worse, there is no bibliography and no citations. Most books of this nature would quote the relevant bible verses and extra-biblical sources so that the reader could find the relevant passages themselves, but in the 30+ pages I've read so far, not a single verse has even been mentioned in passing.

The caveat there is that when something is well-known, you don't have to note a citation. However, when the material in question is over a thousand pages long in most versions, citations are still advisable so that the reader can navigate what's being said.

I'll finish it, but I would not recommend this book over something like Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed at All.
6 reviews
August 11, 2016
An interesting introduction to the 'big book' version. The interview section was especially good.
11k reviews36 followers
June 1, 2024
A USEFUL BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO THE “MYTHICIST” POSITION AND ARGUMENTS

Author Kenneth Humphreys wrote in the first chapter of this 2014 book, “you will often hear the argument: ‘Well, mainstream historians say there was a Jesus, so … There MUST have been a Jesus.’ It’s also the case that many atheists, though convinced that there’s no God, will also say, ‘Well, I think there was a Jesus.’ I hope to convince you that mainstream historians … are actually wrong… Yes, I am allowing for the fact that embellishment and exaggeration could have been applied to an original, simple, and genuine tale... Let me introduce you to one such figure… favored by mainstream historians, such as Bart Ehrman. For such historians, the real Jesus was a prophet… who had a following for his particular brand of end-time doom and gloom… So here we have a rationalized, acceptable Jesus… But he’s only one of hundreds of rationalized Jesuses… They are… all equally speculative, floating free of any factual foundation… not one of them is based on hard, verifiable evidence from non-biblical sources… is any one of them even probably true?” (Pg. 11-13)

He notes, “All the miracles of Jesus have precedents in Hebrew scripture… the script for the Messiah requires signs and wonders… to the gospel writers certainly provided them. Unfortunately for the Evangelists, they couldn’t change what had already been written about the Christ by an earlier generation of Christians. Not Paul, not James, not Clement---not any of the early letter writers say a word about the miracles of Jesus. When Paul argues about the resurrection of the dead, he says not a word about Lazarus or the daughter of Jairus…. And signs there were not! They are inventions. They are not history. They are just more astounding rubbish from the New Testament.” (Pg. 49-50)

He says of Nazareth, “two centuries of searching by biblical archaeologists gives no support to the town existing in the first century… At best the few artifacts point toward a small farming settlement… but nothing that would correspond to the so-called ‘city of Nazareth’ recorded in the gospels. Such a tiny, rustic community would not have had a synagogue where Jesus might have spoken… the city of Nazareth as the hometown of Jesus is the product, not the precursor, of religious faith… And if there was no Nazareth, there was no ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’ He is a lie invented by the Church.” (Pg. 53-55)

He argues, “On the one hand we have evidence, both from written sources and archaeology, of a great many villages, towns, and cities, which, oddly, have no place in the gospel story supposedly acted out all around them. On the other hand, we have a strong of gospel events in which the miraculous routinely happens only in utterly obscure places, none of them known to Josephus or any other historian of the time and which are unidentifiable today. The conclusion is inescapable. History and the gospel story exist in different universes. Jesusland is a fictional landscape, a literary creation of an imaginary world for a Jesus who never existed.” (Pg. 65-66)

He asserts, “The scholarly establishment has failed to win the skeptical public over with their weak arguments and arrogant dismissal of the case for a mythical Jesus. Is it really so difficult to grasp that Hellenized Jews, finally cast adrift from a devastated Temple Judaism, should concoct precisely that syncretism of man and god, which merged Jewish notions of historical determinism and its anticipated Messiah with the mores of polytheism?” (Pg. 68)

He points out, “Thus ‘extra-biblical’ material does nothing for the case for a historical Jesus. In the paragraph in Josephus’ ‘Antiquities’ the interpolation is crude and obvious; the Tacitus passage is more polished, but still a fraud. Even if it were genuine, it still only regurgitates the claims made by Christians in Tacitus’ own day… And the same holds true for that other ‘pagan witness’ and contemporary of Tacitus, Pliny the Younger. Confirmation of Christian belief in a god called Christ is no evidence for a man called Jesus.” (Pg. 102)

He observes, “I’ve noticed that in the last few years that Christians, invited to debate the ‘historical Jesus,’ are reluctant to engage with the topic at all, suggesting instead a safe question, such as ‘Does God exist?’ In fact… even Ben Witherington III, the noted American apologist, backed out of a debate with me on the ‘historical truth of the nativity story’ even after if had been advertised on Premier Christian Radio. I guess he was smart enough to know that wasn’t one he could win!” (Pg. 122)

This book is a fine brief “introduction” to the “Mythicist” position; but those wanting greater detail will want to move on to books by Richard Carrier, Robert Price, G.A. Wells, Earl Doherty, etc.



Profile Image for Susie Helme.
Author 4 books22 followers
August 24, 2025
This is an easy summary of stuff we know about the conundrum that so little is known about ‘the historical Jesus’.
The placenames, as well as some of the names of major apostles, sound completely made up. There was no town in Galilee named ‘Nazareth’ in the 1st or 2nd centuries. Prophecies in the ‘Old Testament’ were primped and squeezed into being apparent proofs of ‘fulfilment’ of Jesus as the promised Jewish messiah—'we might as well call it copying’.
The story of Jesus we receive in the New Testament is neither history embellished like Caesar’s Gallic Wars, nor fiction placed in a historical setting like Sherlock Holmes.
It reads not so much like a remembered history but like a mediaeval drama. What we ended up with is a ‘join the dots’ approach—a nativity fairy tale, some wise parables and miracles, and a dying and rising god—which has been ‘reformed a hundred times’.
His is a theory of ‘syncretism’ in which many authors played a part. He doesn’t believe that the Roman state would have ‘invented the whole nine yards of Christianity’; rather that they acquired a product already formed. The Church began ‘providing its own bread and circuses’, and found a ‘winning formula’: a simple story + mystery religion (like Mithraism) + ethical philosophy (like Stoicism) + public ceremonies (Like Magna Mater), backed up by manufactured ‘evidence’ (relics).
99% of the NT texts that are extant date from later than the 4th century. It is clear that the first Christians knew almost nothing about the historical Jesus.
Humphreys doesn’t go down the ‘Arrius Calpurnius Piso’ rabbit hole, and is more logical.
I do not subscribe to this theory, but it was interesting to read Humphreys’ ideas on the subject.
I hadn’t realised when I bought this that this is an ‘introduction’ version of Humphreys’ longer book, Jesus Never Existed: The Fabrication of a Saviour of the World.
1 review7 followers
October 4, 2021
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_...

Just because something has been repeated ad infinitum does not make it true. Unless of course scientific discovery is based on the number of people who make these assumptions. Coming from a deeply flawed democracy, I hear this argument all the time. The majority want this or beleive this or that, therefore it must be true. People conveniently forget that it was once commonly accepted as fact by the majority that the earth was flat. Since 2 in three people in the world are not Christians, then probably Christianity is not true and Christ never existed, correct.
21 reviews
January 2, 2021
While I like the idea of the book. Feels like a extended booklet advertising the bigger version of the book.
Liked what it said wish it gave more evidence and proof that seems to have been saved for the bigger version of the book.

With all that said $10 is a good price point for it.
Profile Image for Dameon Launert.
201 reviews1 follower
July 20, 2024
A short introduction to a mythicist position. I'm looking forward to reading the complete work by Kenneth Humphreys.
Profile Image for j_ay.
551 reviews20 followers
May 10, 2025
this book, unfortunately, does nothing to help show the (obvious) merit of it's title. Humphreys' is a bit too content being snarky and less consistent, on simply on point.
He rightly points of the difference in terminology between "apostle" and "disciple" and then idiotically continues to call Jesus's made up pals "disciples". Ummmmm, dude.
The continual uses of "BC/AD" is rather puzzling and he really, really should not uses modifiers like"; in fact" when discussing things that are not...whattyacallthem...facts.
His belief that the internet will be the death of religion is incredibly (fucking) stupid. It’s only widened the contagion.
Profile Image for Arianne X.
Author 5 books97 followers
December 31, 2024
The Global Cooperate Fraud Machine

This book should be thought of as a preface, introduction, or ‘Cliff Notes’ summary of the author’s more complete and robust work by the same title containing 10 chapters, 533 pages, over 450 illustrations, 27 maps, ISBN 0-906879-14-0. The thin volume under review here only contains two chapters, the first is a summary of the thesis and the second is an interview of Ken Humphreys by Chip Smith of Nine-Banded Books aka, 9BB. This book is suitable for reading in one sitting.

Mythology and Fiction

The New Testament is literary fiction based on the mythology of the Old Testament. Jesus is a patchwork character of mythological Old Testament characters based on Adam, Moses, Enoch, Melchizedek, Elijah, Elisha, etc. as well as pagan savior deities - dead, past, gone and buried. We can think of Jesus himself as just the Jewish version of a mythical dying and rising personal savior god like so many others in the ancient near east. This is what the author refers to as syncretism - the merging together or melding of various customs, traditions and beliefs. Old Testament authors were writing in and for their own time, not making forecasts centuries into the future. The New Testament authors simply constructed their narrative stories to appear as fulfillment of Old Testament mythology. This gave the New Testament stories an aura of authority and authenticity.

Jesus was a fictional character in keeping with the fictional Gospel literature. With so much fiction afoot, it is more than plausible that the person at the center of the fictional narratives was also fictional. To find at the bottom of an extensive fictional literature a larger-than-life fictional person is to be expected. The fact that so much evidence has to be forged to prove that Jesus was historical is highly suggestive that he was never historical. As Ken Humphreys points out, there is no more a need for a historical Jesus to sustain the Christian myths than there is for a historical Zeus to sustain ancient Greek mythology. The fact is that the oral tradition is unstable and leads to accretion and embellishment to historical figures as well the invention of mythical beings. The purpose of Gospels under this theory (Mysticism) is to retroactively place the mythical Jesus into recorded history, not amplify and embellish the existence of the historical Jesus. To place Jesus into history was crucial to creating an orthodox belief system. A non-historical, spirit only Jesus, is an invitation for any and all to have a revelation. Constant and continuing revelations undermine orthodox belief. Having a historical character makes it much easier to tie a specific belief system to the specific teachings of a specific historical character.

Which Jesus?

Ken Humphreys names the many Jesus Christ archetypes that emerge as needed such as that of the teacher, the warrior, the pacifist, the profit, the radical rabbi, the Jewish reformer. This Jesus is very malleable and can be shaped to fit any need, belief or ideology to make him seem real. In fact, this is the key to his longevity. Being mythical, he changes with the times and to a meet changing values, social standards or cultural norms as needed. The core stories about the Jesus we know today did not emerge until the second half of the second century, a time of known prolific forgery in Christian writing.

The impact of Christian Fundamentalism today

When Christianity became dominant, freedom of thought became heresy. Today, we can see this same formula at work for fundamentalists where willful ignorance is now a virtue and intellectual curiosity is a great vice. I think Ken Humphreys succinctly states the current state of Christianity as a global, multi-national religious corporation selling emotional and psychological dependence to its millions of customers.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews