Ten Beautiful Lies about Jesus
David Fitzgerald
January 19, 2014
Why would anyone think Jesus never existed? Isn’t it perfectly reasonable to accept that he was a real first century figure?
As it turns out, no. David Fitzgerald’s award-winning book Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All sheds light on ten beloved Christian myths, and with evidence gathered from historians all across the theological spectrum, shows how they point to a Jesus Christ created solely through allegorical alchemy of hope and imagination; a messiah transformed from a purely literary, theological construct into the familiar figure of Jesus – in short, a purely mythic Christ.
Join us as we hear Dave lay out the ten biggest “facts” Christians get wrong about Jesus in his talk “Ten Beautiful Lies about Jesus.”
Praise for David Fitzgerald’s
Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All
Voted one of the top 5 Atheist/Agnostic books of 2010
About Atheism.com’s Reader’s Choice Awards
“Fitzgerald’s is possibly the best ‘capsule summary’ of the mythicist case I’ve ever encountered …with an interesting and accessible approach.”
—Earl Doherty, author of The Jesus Puzzle
“Fitzgerald summarizes a great number of key arguments concisely and with new power and original spin. I really learned something from him. Recalls classical skeptics and biblical critics. A surprising amount of new material.”
—Robert M. Price, author of Deconstructing Jesus and The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man
“David Fitzgerald reveals himself to be the brightest new star in the firmament of scholars who deny historical reality to “Jesus of Nazareth.” His brilliance would have been sufficiently established had he done nothing more than illustrate and explain traditional arguments with a clarity and transparency never achieved…But he has done more. He has developed new arguments and insights as well…”
—Frank R. Zindler, editor of American Atheist Press and author of The Jesus the Jews Never Knew
“Fitzgerald has hit the nail on the head…A nice, readable introduction to the top ten problems typically swept under the rug by anyone insisting it’s crazy even to suspect Jesus might not have existed.”
—Richard C. Carrier, Ph.D., author of Not the Impossible Faith: Why Christianity Didn’t Need a Miracle to Succeed and the forthcoming book On the Historicity of Jesus Christ
BIO:
David Fitzgerald is a writer and public speaker who has been called both “The Ferris Bueller of San Francisco” and “one of the busiest atheist activists in the Bay Area.” He is the Action Coordinator for San Francisco Atheists and serves on the board of the Center for Inquiry-San Francisco; Co-founder & Director of both the world’s first Atheist Film Festival and San Francisco’s oldest annual Darwin Day celebration, “Evolutionpalooza!”
He is on the Speaker’s Bureau of both the Secular Student Alliance and Center for Inquiry, and lectures around the country at universities and national secular events, including national conventions of American Atheists and the American Humanist Association, and an audience favorite at Skepticon.
Besides all that, he is a historical researcher who has been actively investigating the Historical Jesus question for over ten years. He has a degree in history and was an associate member of CSER (the former Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion). His most recent book is NAILED: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All, which critically examines the historical evidence of Christ.
Each of us has probably taken part in a number of persuasive arguments that have only resulted in hurt feelings and disturbed relationships but no further understanding or learning on anyone’s part. We have also probably found ourselves on both sides of those failed arguments. How can we do better?