Robert M. Price

Christ myth theory

Price challenges biblical literalism and advocates a skeptical, humanistic approach to Christianity. He questioned the historicity of Jesus in books such as Deconstructing Jesus, The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man, Jesus Is Dead, and The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems, as well as in a contribution to The Historical Jesus: Five Views. Price employs critical-historical methods and the "Principle of Analogy" to show parallels between Gospel narratives and non-Christian Middle Eastern myths.

He criticizes criteria of critical Bible research, including the criterion of dissimilarity and the criterion of embarrassment, and notes that consensus is no criterion for historicity. In Jesus at the Vanishing Point, Price presents three key points for the traditional Christ myth theory: no mention of a miracle-working Jesus in secular sources (asserting Eusebius fabricated the Testimonium Flavianum); the epistles provide no evidence of a recent historical Jesus, only a heavenly Christ; and the Jesus narrative parallels Middle Eastern myths of dying and rising gods such as Baal, Osiris, Attis, Adonis, and Dumuzi/Tammuz.

In The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems, he maintains that the Christ myth theory is the most likely explanation for Christian origins, arguing that almost every Gospel story can be plausibly argued as borrowed from the Greek Old Testament, Homer, or Euripides, and that every detail of Jesus' life fits the Mythic Hero archetype.

Journal of Higher Criticism

The Journal of Higher Criticism is an academic journal covering historical, literary, and history-of-religion issues from the perspective of higher criticism. Price serves as its editor-in-chief.

The journal's introductory article criticized modern biblical scholarship as covert apologetics and advocated a return to the bold hypotheses associated with F. C. Baur and the Tübingen school. Initially sponsored by Drew University's Theological School, the journal published through volume 12 before ending, then was revived in March 2018. Subsequent volumes have been published and are available for sale at a major online book retailer as of January 2022.

Other works

In 2010, Price became one of three hosts on the Center for Inquiry's podcast Point of Inquiry, hosting until 2012. He hosted The Bible Geek podcast, answering listeners' questions, with the most recent show in June 2019, and was a regular guest on the MythVision Podcast. Price appeared in the documentary film The God Who Wasn't There, is the subject of the documentary The Gospel According to Price, and appears in the films Batman & Jesus and the comedy series Holy Shit. In 2020, his introduction to the sixth volume of the fantasy anthology Flashing Swords! was seen by readers and collaborating authors as transphobic, misogynistic, and racist, leading several authors to retract their names and works from the volume.

Publications

Price's books on religion include The Widow Traditions in Luke-Acts: A Feminist-Critical Scrutiny (1997); Mystic Rhythms: The Philosophical Vision of Rush (1998), co-written with Carol Selby Price; Deconstructing Jesus (2000); The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable is the Gospel Tradition? (2003); The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond The Grave (2005), edited with Jeffery Jay Lowder; The Da Vinci Fraud: Why the Truth Is Stranger than Fiction (2005); The Reason Driven Life: What Am I Here on Earth For? (2006); The Pre-Nicene New Testament: Fifty-four Formative Texts (2006); The Paperback Apocalypse: How the Christian Church was Left Behind (2007); Jesus is Dead (2007); Top Secret: The Truth Behind Today's Pop Mysticisms (2008); Beyond Born Again: Towards Evangelical Maturity (2008); Inerrant the Wind: The Evangelical Crisis of Biblical Authority (2008); The Case Against The Case For Christ: A New Testament Scholar Refutes the Reverend Lee Strobel (2010); Jesus Christ Superstar: The Making of a Modern Gospel (2011); Paul: The Lost Epistles (2011); The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems (2011); The Amazing Colossal Apostle: The Search for the Historical Paul (2012); Bart Ehrman and the Quest of Historical Jesus of Nazareth: An Evaluation of Ehrman's Did Jesus Exist?

(2013), edited with Frank R. Zindler; The Needletoe Letters (2012); Killing History: Jesus In The No-Spin Zone (2014); When Gospels Collide (2021); Varieties of Jesus Mythicism: Did He Even Exist? (2021), with John W. Loftus; Judaizing Jesus: How New Testament Scholars Created the Ecumenical Golem (2021); and Merely Christianity: A Systemic Critique of Theology (2022). He also authored the article "The Evolution of the Pauline Canon" in Hervormde Teologiese Studies (1997).

Did You Know?

• He earned two Ph.D.s from Drew University: one in Systematic Theology in 1981 and another in New Testament in 1991.
• Price co-wrote Mystic Rhythms: The Philosophical Vision of Rush (1999) with his wife, Carol Selby Price.
• In 2020, an inflammatory introduction he wrote to Lin Carter's Flashing Swords! 6 anthology caused multiple authors to withdraw their work in protest.
• Price argues that the town of Nazareth did not exist during the first half of the first century CE and is a pseudo-historical invention.