John Mariner has a Ph.D. in History from a major American university. He has been studying the origins of Christianity for a quarter century and his book represents his findings.
For the past two centuries and counting, many perceptive observers have offered the sensible suggestion that Jesus had never existed. Consequently, that provocative thesis is hardly original with me. However “Jesus deniers” (as they are called) have almost always supported a “mythicist” explanation, claiming that Jesus had been invented in the same fashion that ancient, mythological pagan gods had been created for purely religious reasons. Meanwhile, such skepticism has never been accepted by the vast majority of scholars, while those who do question Jesus’ very existence have been relegated to the academic margins–that is, until now. For the first time, my book provides a detailed explanation for the origins of Christianity as a product of politcs, not religion.