An edited version of my interview<\/a> with Brian Flemming, director of the documentary The God Who Wasn\u2019t There<\/a><\/i> \u2014 which argues, among other things, that Jesus never existed \u2014 is up at CT Movies today. For now, they\u2019ve got the exclusive, but I\u2019ll post a longer version of the interview here a few days from now.<\/span><\/p>\n JUNE 10 UPDATE: Here it is, the full unexpurgated interview! Once again, my editor gave me a word count that turned out to be less than a third of what I had in the transcript, so lots of stuff got hacked and trimmed. This is what we started with.<\/p>\n \u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n By Peter T. Chattaway<\/p>\n What if Jesus never existed? How much do Christians know about the origins of their faith? And are we willing to talk about it? These are some of the questions explored in <\/i>The God Who Wasn\u2019t There, an irreverent Michael Moore-like documentary that premiered in Los Angeles last week and will tour the country at screenings sponsored by humanist groups. (It\u2019s also available on DVD here<\/a>.)<\/i><\/p>\n Director Brian Flemming, 38, attended two Christian schools and says he committed his life to Christ several times before he eventually became a self-described \u201catheist Christian.\u201d His works include the controversial stage play Bat Boy: The Musical<\/a> and <\/i>Nothing So Strange<\/a>, a mockumentary about conspiracy theories and the assassination of Bill Gates.<\/i><\/p>\n In the next few months, Flemming will shoot The Beast<\/a>, a feature film about a Christian high school student whose archaeologist father gives her evidence that proves Jesus never existed. Flemming, who plans to release the film on June 6 of next year \u2014 that\u2019s 6\/6\/06 \u2014 produced the documentary <\/i>The God Who Wasn\u2019t There to explain the basis for this belief, and along the way he outlines the reasons for his own loss of faith as well.<\/i><\/p>\n Flemming spoke to Christianity Today Movies about the film from his office in L.A.<\/p>\n In the press kit, you refer to yourself as an \u201catheist Christian.\u201d What do you mean by that?<\/b><\/p>\n Once you\u2019re a Christian, I don\u2019t think you ever shake being a Christian, and personally I don\u2019t want to. When I realized that the first-century science that Christianity proclaims is basically completely wrong, that didn\u2019t mean Jesus was evil. It didn\u2019t mean Jesus was bad. Jesus is in many ways still a great character. As you see in the movie, when he calls for everybody who doesn\u2019t want him to reign over them to be killed, that\u2019s not the Jesus I\u2019m talking about. But the Jesus that I hold in my mind as the Jesus who taught me my moral values in many ways, I don\u2019t want to lose that. I like Jesus. When I see a picture of Jesus that doesn\u2019t make me feel bad, it makes me feel good. So I consider myself still a Christian, but I basically don\u2019t want to let other people define the word \u201cChristian\u201d as, \u201cYou must believe in completely false dogma and believe in a worldview that can\u2019t be proved in any way and that means you\u2019re a Christian.\u201d No, no. \u201cA Christian\u201d means, \u201cYou like Jesus,\u201d and I do. I\u2019m an atheist because I only believe those things that can be demonstrated and proved. I don\u2019t believe that faith is a good thing at all. But I\u2019m a Christian in that I love Jesus.<\/p>\n Where did you first come across this idea that Jesus didn\u2019t exist historically? What first turned you on to that idea?<\/b><\/p>\n It was probably one of the older scholars, maybe G.A. Wells<\/a>, who\u2019s written a few scholarly books on the subject. It was probably his work which led me to the more recent authors who have more up-to-date scholarship on the issue, such as Earl Doherty<\/a>, who wrote the book The Jesus Puzzle<\/a><\/i>, which remains today unrefuted. He has a theory about what early Christianity looked like and why there\u2019s all these odd anomalies with regard to the Christian version of the story, and he explains them all, and I think his theory makes the most sense of any theory I\u2019ve ever heard about early Christianity.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve heard the name Doherty but I haven\u2019t read any of his books yet. Can you summarize briefly what some of those anomalies are?<\/b><\/p>\n Yeah, for example \u2014 and this is in the movie \u2014 why doesn\u2019t Paul \u2014 in the documents that can be confirmed or somewhat confirmed as being from Paul, not the ones that were clearly forged later under Paul\u2019s name \u2014 in the legitimate writings of Paul, why doesn\u2019t he ever talk about a Jesus who recently lived? Why are there all these points where he\u2019s trying to make an argument and the context he\u2019s in cries out for him to say, \u201cOh and by the way, Jesus said this,\u201d and that would have settled the argument instantly? Why doesn\u2019t he pull that arrow out of his quiver? There are all sorts of things that don\u2019t make sense that are in the record, that you go, \u201cWhy didn\u2019t this person mention Jesus, because he died just a decade or two before this, supposedly, and he would have been in recent memory?\u201d<\/p>\n And ultimately, why is the historical Jesus mentioned more and more as you get away from the historical period he was supposed to have lived? That is the reverse of what we would expect. We would expect all sorts of information right away. For example, in Scientology, there is a big effort under way to document the life of L. Ron Hubbard<\/a>, because he\u2019s their messiah, and that will probably drift more and more and more into legend as time goes on. But with Christianity, it\u2019s the reverse. The figure is mythical and legendary at the start, and becomes more historical as time passes. And that just doesn\u2019t make sense, if he was a real historical person.<\/p>\n It\u2019s interesting that you refer to the letters that are regarded as genuinely Pauline, because one specific text that you quote on the screen is the book of Hebrews, and I think Hebrews, of all the New Testament epistles, is regarded by most scholars as the least likely to have been written by Paul, if for no other reason than it never even claims to be written by Paul, and Paul was certainly good at announcing himself.<\/b><\/p>\n I agree with you, and my voiceover was misleading on that, and that\u2019s been corrected, and I\u2019m glad that you said that. What the voiceover now says is, \u201cThe Bible screams that Jesus never existed,\u201d and the notes in the special features do say that Hebrews is not considered genuinely Pauline. And I agree with you. When someone brought that up, I thought, \u201cOh, wow, I gave the totally wrong impression there with that one.\u201d<\/p>\n I think Paul\u2019s name actually appears on the screen too, and I think Hebrews is quoted specifically to support the idea that Paul did not believe that Jesus died and rose \u201con earth<\/a>.\u201d So if that\u2019s not regarded as Pauline any more, then where does that leave your theory?<\/b><\/p>\n It shows that the Christians who wrote that didn\u2019t believe that \u2014 shoot, I\u2019m trying to call up the movie here, because I don\u2019t believe that I put Paul\u2019s name there, and if I did that would not be right either \u2014 ah, shoot, I\u2019ll call that up, I\u2019ll see if the original graphic did say that \u2014 but no one who gets the DVD will really have any idea what we\u2019re talking about here, because we will not have given that impression in the version that they will see and the theatrical version that\u2019s going around. It\u2019s clear from looking at that statement that whoever wrote that statement could not have thought that jesus was real, and part of the theory that Doherty, for example, who did that translation and has basically asked \u201cCan somebody please please explain this\u201d and has never gotten an answer from anybody, it shows that early Christianity did not \u2014 or let me put it this way. Many of the sects that made up early Christianity \u2014 as I\u2019m sure you know, it was extremely diverse back then, and many independent groups before they all got consolidated \u2014 many of those sects absolutely didn\u2019t believe that there was a human Jesus. You can\u2019t write that statement if you think Jesus is real.<\/p>\n Many people would argue that Paul does refer to Jesus. For example, when he discusses teachings on divorce, Paul actually distinguishes between the teaching from \u201cthe Lord\u201d and the teaching of his own, and he also refers to his personal acquaintanceship with the brothers of Jesus. Does that not point to some sort of historical understanding?<\/b><\/p>\n Are you referring to when he says that Jesus appeared to people<\/a>? Because Paul does say that Jesus appeared to people.<\/p>\n The resurrection appearances, yeah.<\/b><\/p>\n Yeah, but of course, he puts it in the same context as Jesus appearing to Paul, so it\u2019s pretty clear that, y\u2019know \u2014<\/p>\n But I\u2019m referring more to other parts where, in Galatians 1 and I Corinthians 9 \u2014 sorry to get all textual like this \u2014<\/b><\/p>\n That\u2019s all right!<\/p>\n But in Galatians 1<\/a>, he talks about meeting James the brother of Christ, and in I Corinthians 9<\/a>, Paul says something to the effect of, \u201cI don\u2019t have a wife but I\u2019m entitled to one just like the brothers of the Lord are.\u201d And in I Corinthians 7<\/a>, when he\u2019s discussing divorce, he essentially passes on Jesus\u2019s command<\/a> that people should not seek divorces \u2014 he actually specifies that it is \u201cnot I, but the Lord\u201d saying this \u2014 and then he says, but to those who have been abandoned by their spouses, \u201cI, not the Lord\u201d say this<\/i>. So he\u2019s making a clear distinction between the teaching he\u2019s received through the historical oral tradition \u2014<\/b><\/p>\n Wait, wait, let me stop you there. Teaching he\u2019s received, I agree. I agree that Paul received all sorts of information, and he received it directly from the Lord according to Paul, which of course doesn\u2019t quite make sense because he wasn\u2019t supposed to have met Jesus even according to a historical view of Jesus. But he definitely received information directly from the Lord, but it was by revelation, and so I believe that all those things that you just mentioned could be Paul getting as we know he received the vast majority of his information about Christianity that came from a heavenly source, and that was through visions. It would actually be more inconsistent if Paul claimed those particular bits of information came directly from the historical Jesus, because what does that mean about all the other stuff that he got, via visions or inspiration or revelation from the Lord?<\/p>\n Well, Paul also talks in Galatians about spending two weeks with Peter and James and it\u2019s been said that he would have spent that time obsessively downloading as much information from them as he could about the Jesus that they knew, precisely because Paul did not know Jesus personally. You\u2019re not buying that theory, I guess.<\/b><\/p>\n No, I\u2019m not buying the theory that James is necessarily the brother of Jesus or that the Peter that Paul refers to is the Peter who was later declared, not by Paul of course, the Rock of the Church. I would say that that\u2019s doing some real acrobatics to get around a far simpler explanation. Basically, if the theory that Jesus didn\u2019t exist has these four points where, \u201cWait a second, there\u2019s this other passage that could be interpreted \u2014 if we wanted<\/i> to \u2014 as meaning that Jesus existed, and we can create complicated explanations for it,\u201d well, why isn\u2019t Jesus everywhere else where we would expect him to be? I will admit that it is not a matter of absolute certainty that Jesus didn\u2019t exist. I just think it\u2019s overwhelmingly probable, when examining the evidence, that Jesus didn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n You mentioned that some figures become more legendary as time goes on, but somewhat the opposite trajectory seems to have taken place here, if your theory is correct. Why would the Gospels attach specific historical names to the Jesus story, like Pontius Pilate or Caiaphas \u2014 people that we know really existed \u2014 if there was not some kernel of historical truth to the story?<\/b><\/p>\n Well there is<\/i> a kernel of historical truth to the story. Pontius Pilate did exist, we have confirmation of that. He didn\u2019t have the title that Tacitus says he had, but we do know many of the general details that are the same as a historical novelist might use if they were writing a Western today. Somebody writing a historical novel today might mention Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War and all sorts of real people who really existed back then, but that doesn\u2019t mean the novel itself is true. Putting a fictional story in a historical setting is not at all unusual. I don\u2019t really think the burden is on anyone to explain why would somebody put a fictional story in a historical setting. That\u2019s been done for a long, long time. It\u2019s not an unusual thing to do.<\/p>\n Why would they want to write an historical novel?<\/b><\/p>\n You\u2019re familiar with the concept of midrash?<\/p>\n I\u2019ve heard of it, yeah.<\/b><\/p>\n This is not my independent claim here. It is known that the technique, the genre of midrash did exist, and that was recasting scripture in a new way \u2014 sort of re-mixing scripture. That people did that is not at all arguable; they did do that, so to say, \u201cWhy would they want to create this specific gospel in this specific way?\u201d It doesn\u2019t really demand an explanation. We know that people did stuff like this, and Mark, or whoever wrote Mark, decided to do it this particular way in his particular sect. Not that Mark was necessarily one person.<\/p>\n My impression is that midrash would follow that L. Ron Hubbard trajectory of making things more legendary, whereas here, you say the Jesus story was essentially originally mythical, and then these people were adding historical details later \u2014 doesn\u2019t that go in the opposite direction you would expect something like midrash to go?<\/b><\/p>\n Paul wasn\u2019t doing midrash, but really Mark is the first example, maybe Q, probably Mark is the first example of that being done that we have. So I mean not really, because that\u2019s the first time that somebody decided to play with the story that way. Taking Paul\u2019s mythical Christ and then starting to put him in an historical setting does fit the trajectory I\u2019m talking about. And then, later, you get other details. Obviously, there\u2019s details of Christ\u2019s biography that somehow Mark forgot about, and they get put in later. It doesn\u2019t make sense that we keep getting more details. Why didn\u2019t Mark know about the nativity, for example? And that sort of thing. And why are these details that get added also present in so many other fictional stories?<\/p>\n Are you familiar with a guy named Tom Harpur<\/a>?<\/b><\/p>\n Yeah.<\/p>\n Did you know about him while you were making the film?<\/b><\/p>\n Uh, yeah. I\u2019m not going to vouch for his research, though, I\u2019m afraid.<\/p>\n I live in Canada, and Tom Harpur is Canadian, and I don\u2019t know how widespread his book is in the States, but in Canada it\u2019s made big news<\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\n Ah. You know, I\u2019m not going to vouch for or criticize his research, really, because I\u2019ve read the book, The Pagan Christ<\/a><\/i>, and it was part of my research, but it didn\u2019t come to the forefront in any way, I\u2019m afraid. Earl Doherty is also Canadian, he lives in Ottawa, and I could put you in touch with him or Robert Price<\/a> if you want to talk to someone who actually has answers to your questions at their fingertips, because they study it all the time. They\u2019d be much better than I. I\u2019m sort of a conduit for some of this research, more than someone who can get down to the specifics of what the original Greek says and that kind of thing. These guys can do that, though.<\/p>\n Yeah, I shouldn\u2019t obsess too much over the history. You are a filmmaker after all, so I should ask some more film-related questions.<\/b><\/p>\n Oh no, it\u2019s fine, I\u2019m not trying to cop out at all, I should be held accountable for the facts that I state in the film, and I definitely feel that I can be held accountable and can account.<\/p>\n You talk about contemporary Christians being ignorant of their faith\u2019s origins, and I believe all those people were interviewed outside a Billy Graham crusade, right?<\/b><\/p>\n Yeah, they were.<\/p>\n What about, for example, Catholics and Orthodox Christians \u2014 because of course, Billy Graham is evangelical and most people who would go to his crusades are Protestants, and Protestantism is only a few hundred years old, and Protestantism has sort of a Bible-only approach where all the history that took place between the Bible and yesterday is kind of irrelevant, almost. What about Catholics and Orthodox Christians who have a much more continuous sense of tradition and traditional history and who all the various characters and movers and shakers were over the centuries. Did you try approaching any of them, or have you found anything similar or different there?<\/b><\/p>\n Not substantially. I would agree with you that there would probably be marginally more \u2014 if I had done this outside a Catholic church, there would have been marginally more people who would have been familiar, but I don\u2019t think it would have been too terribly significant. I don\u2019t think it can be said that if you take Christianity as a whole, perople are generally aware of Attis and Mithras and the pagan origins of Christianity. I wouldn\u2019t agree with that statement. I would agree that Catholics are probably slightly more aware than evangelicals, though. And I think what\u2019s generally represented in the film is a Christian ignorance of the origins of their faith, which I do believe is, in general, the case.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not only the pagan gods, either. You say \u201cEusebius<\/a>\u201d to somebody, and they don\u2019t know. These people are, y\u2019know, just like I was. Their life is ruled by this dogma, this Christian faith, and yet they don\u2019t know who invented it, they don\u2019t know who the people are who designed it, they don\u2019t know what it looked like at the beginning, what it looked like later, and what it looks like now, and how that evolution happened and why it happened and what were the motivations of the people who caused it to happen. And I think overall, there is an astounding ignorance on the part of Christians, and one thing I hope this film does is encourage them to investigate the origins of the Christian religion.<\/p>\n You spend a fair bit of time, yoo, on the Rapture Letters<\/a> guy. I also grew up going to Christian schools and being surrounded by end-times movies<\/a> and stuff like that. Just out of curiosity, how old are you?<\/b><\/p>\n I\u2019m 38.<\/p>\n Okay, I\u2019m 34, so we\u2019re roughly the same generation, I guess.<\/b><\/p>\n Yeah.<\/p>\n And I know that it came as a bit of a shock to me to discover 10, 15 years ago that Rapture theology was only about 150 years old, the whole John Nelson Darby kind of thing.<\/b><\/p>\n Yeah, exactly, yeah.<\/p>\n Because certainly in evangelical pop culture, and perhaps backwashing into evangelicalism as a whole, the Rapture has been such a huge, huge thing, that to question that feels like you\u2019re questioning the entire faith, and yet apparently this particular doctrine has only been around for 150 years or so. So I know it can be a shock to the system to actually investigate the origins of things like that.<\/b><\/p>\n Yeah, but you find the same thing if you investigate the origins of the Trinity. If you would have mentioned the Trinity to an early Christian, they\u2019d be, \u201cWhat are you talking about?\u201d And then of course it becomes part of the dogma and gets stamped into the Christian religion. Or even just the four gospels \u2014 why four? You might know why it\u2019s four. It\u2019s because there are four pillars under the earth and four winds, and that\u2019s why there are four gospels. But why four and why these<\/i> four? A lot of what you look back on in Christian history is completely arbitrary in the same way as elevating this word \u201cthe Rapture,\u201d which I don\u2019t even think that word is in the bible, and it\u2019s in the Old Testament, not the New Testament, anyway, if I\u2019m right \u2014 actually, I won\u2019t claim confidence on that particular one \u2014 but I believe Revelations doesn\u2019t mention the Rapture in the extremely detailed way that 12 novels have been written about it. So a lot of arbitrary terms happened in Christianity that are articles of faith now, and you look back and you go, \u201cWow, that was just somebody\u2019s whim.\u201d<\/p>\n Also curious about some of the footage you found and how old it might have been. Obviously the archival films like The Rapture<\/a><\/i> [1941] and The Living Bible<\/a><\/i> [1952] are pretty old, but I was also wondering about the footage of that guy from the Moral Majority who called for the execution of homosexuals. How recent is that?<\/b><\/p>\n 1982.<\/p>\n It looked about 20 years old.<\/b><\/p>\n And there should be a title that says at the end of that montage sequence that says \u201cUS Christian soldiers 1982,\u201d so maybe that doesn\u2019t explicitly date all of it, but I do date at least the rally footage. But all of that stuff is from around 1982. Obviously the Moral Majority isn\u2019t around any more.<\/p>\n What do you make of statistics like the idea that 44% of the American population apparently believes that Christ will come back in their lifetime? How seriously do you take that? Are people just glibly answering pollsters, or do you think that half the country is really expecting that?<\/b><\/p>\n I think it indicates how much of a culture of fear Christianity really is. I think people are afraid to say anything but<\/i> that. I think people, when they answer polls, they do a sort of Pascal\u2019s wager. \u201cWhat do I have to lose by ansering, \u2018Oh yeah, I agree with Christian theology.'\u201d If you say \u201cno,\u201d you know, maybe you\u2019ll go to hell, so why don\u2019t you say \u201cyes,\u201d even if you haven\u2019t really thought about it very much. So I would guess, of that 44%, not a tremendous amount have actually researched the issue and decided, \u201cYou know what? This evidence is really pointing in this direction.\u201d Because obviously there isn\u2019t any good evidence that points in that direction. So what I make of it, partly, is that 44% of people are just so willing to identify as believers that the end of the world is coming and it\u2019s going to look like Revelations says it\u2019s going to look. As far as how many of those are hardcore believers in it, I would say the number is significantly less than 44%.<\/p>\n You mentioned the culture of fear, and I have to say that, watching your film, I was continually reminded of Jack Chick comics<\/a> \u2014 the very sort of graphic, sordid, lurid images of Hell and all that. Do you think it\u2019s fair to characterize Christianity as a whole like that? How representative of Christianity, or even just Protestantism, or even just evangelicalism, is that sort of mentality?<\/b><\/p>\n Well I think it\u2019s the purest expression. Obviously there exists this thing called moderate Christianity, but it\u2019s really just a watered-down version of the same thing. If you press a moderate Christian and ask, if they have faith that the Bible is at least the inspired Word of God, how can they not believe in salvation? And if you believe in salvation, then obviously you\u2019re being saved from something and the other thing is bad. So it\u2019s all right there. That\u2019s basically what I disagree with. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s any such thing as salvation. I don\u2019t think that we\u2019re doomed and we need to be saved. If you do think we\u2019re doomed and we need to be saved, then everything I present in the film just follows naturally from that. It may be expressed more vividly than you would like, but it is what you believe.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t want to put you in the position of critiquing your own interviewees, so what would you do with someone like Robert Price, then, who actually says he attends an Episcopal church?<\/b><\/p>\n He\u2019s an atheist Christian.<\/p>\n Like yourself.<\/b><\/p>\n Yeah. He enjoys church in the same way that anyone might go to a play and appreciate the pageantry and drama of a good play or a spectacular play, which is really what I think is the only future for Christianity. I think ultimately this idea that basically the scientific underpinnings \u2014 the worldview of Christianity is not going to last \u2014 people ultimately will discover that it\u2019s false, and the only thing left will be communities who gather to participate in rituals and drama that mean something to them, and I think if Christianity heads in that direction, it would be a good thing, basically for the world and for Christianity.<\/p>\n Your film has a very sort of Michael Moore feel to it, and you invoke that in your press kit, which refers to Bowling for Columbine<\/i> right in the top line. And certainly the film has that sense of humour and that very creative use of music, images and so forth. And you even have a sort of Charlton Heston moment at the end there, when your interviewee [Village Christian Schools<\/a> superintendent Dr. Ronald Sipus] cuts it off. If there\u2019s one thing that\u2019s missing, to draw the Michael Moore parallel, it\u2019s the sort of celebrity gotcha moment, such as the Charlton Heston moment. Did you try pursuing any members of the religious right or anything like that?<\/b><\/p>\n