Category: Responding to The Problem of God

The True Myth

At The God Question, we critically examine religious truth claims using reason, evidence, and a deep awareness of psychological and cultural conditioning. This ongoing blog series is responding section by section to Mark Clark’s The Problem of God. Clark writes from an evangelical Christian perspective, seeking to answer modern skeptics. We read with both care and scrutiny. In this post, we explore the final portion of Chapter 4, “The Christ Myth,” specifically the concluding section titled The True Myth.

📘 Summary of Clark’s Argument

In this final section, Mark Clark shifts from defensive rebuttal to theological interpretation. He attempts to explain the myth-like structure of Christianity not as a problem—but as its beauty. Drawing on C.S. Lewis’s notion of Christianity as “the true myth,” Clark argues that the Christian story fulfills the deepest longings of humanity found in other myths and belief systems. He quotes Romans 2:14–16 to assert that God has written a moral law on every heart, and he appeals to the inner resonance of the gospel narrative to justify its truth.

In short: myths point to something real. Christianity is the myth that became fact.

🎯 The Core Claim: Myth Doesn’t Undermine Truth—It Reveals It

Clark asks us to consider that mythic parallels between Jesus and earlier pagan gods aren’t evidence that Christianity borrowed or evolved from these stories—but rather, that God “seeded” the world with these myths to prepare the human heart for the gospel. He frames Christianity as the fulfillment of every ancient human story about dying and rising gods, redemption, sacrifice, and divine intervention.

This argument hinges on the assumption that resonance equals reality—that because the story of Jesus feels meaningful and archetypal, it must be grounded in historical fact.

🧠 Critical Response: Resonance Is Not Evidence

From The God Question’s perspective, this is precisely where the shift from thoughtful investigation to theological rationalization occurs.

  • Emotional appeal ≠ objective truth. That a story resonates with our longings—our desire for justice, love, sacrifice, and eternal life—does not mean it is historically or metaphysically true. Fairy tales, legends, and Marvel movies also resonate.
  • The Lewisian move collapses the line between myth and fact. C.S. Lewis argued that Christianity was a myth that happened to be true. But this is not an argument for its truth; it’s a poetic restatement of belief. It’s beautiful theology, but not persuasive evidence.
  • The moral law argument is culturally shallow. Quoting Romans 2 about a “law written on the heart” ignores the enormous diversity of moral systems across cultures and history. Evolutionary psychology and social anthropology offer far better explanations for shared ethics than divine inscription.

🔍 What’s Missing in Clark’s Conclusion?

Clark ends this chapter with what feels good, what sounds grand, and what echoes C.S. Lewis’s literary mysticism. But he does not offer:

  1. Historical evidence for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus (that’s postponed to later chapters).
  2. A rigorous response to the most obvious and natural conclusion of the evidence: Christianity is part of the myth-making human project, not its fulfillment.
  3. Acknowledgment of non-Christian perspectives—the millions who feel deep emotional resonance in Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, or even atheism.

In essence, Clark offers a grand “what if?” to close the chapter:

“What if nothing could be more natural in the plan of God than the existence of such stories?”

To which we at The God Question respond:

What if the far more natural explanation is that humans make stories that reflect their fears and longings—and Christianity is simply the most dominant version in the Western world?

🪙 Concluding Thought

Clark’s closing argument reveals a critical shift—from evidence to affirmation. It is not a conclusion grounded in history, philosophy, or science. It is a conclusion rooted in faith seeking literary beauty. And while that beauty is powerful, it is not proof.

This is not the problem of God.

It is the problem of wanting something so badly to be true that we mistake the ache for the answer.

Why the JFK–Lincoln Comparison Doesn’t Rescue the Jesus Story

Featured Quote:

“The parallels are uncanny. But no scholar believes that because of these similarities there is any legitimate connection…” — Mark Clark, The Problem of God

The God Question Response:

In Chapter 4 of The Problem of God, Mark Clark attempts to discredit mythic parallels between Jesus and earlier gods by appealing to a popular list of coincidences between Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. It’s an entertaining section—but deeply misleading.

Yes, there are bizarre similarities between Lincoln and Kennedy: both concerned with civil rights, elected 100 years apart, assassinated on a Friday, and so on. But these parallels are purely trivial and incidental—no one claims JFK was a myth modeled after Lincoln. Both men are verifiably historical. The comparison serves no meaningful purpose other than to entertain or surprise.

When it comes to the Jesus story, however, skeptics aren’t pointing out fun coincidences. They’re noting that long before Christianity emerged, there were religious myths with divine sons, miraculous births, sacrificial deaths, and triumphant resurrections. These motifs weren’t trivia—they were sacred narratives embedded in the cultures that predated Christianity.

Clark’s comparison is what logicians call a false analogy. The Lincoln-JFK parallel doesn’t even belong in the same conversation as Horus or Dionysus. You can’t equate popular historical trivia with deeply rooted religious storytelling.

Here’s the real problem: if a new religion today began telling a story that mirrored the life of Jesus—but with only updated details (say, a carpenter from Idaho born of a virgin who dies and rises three days later)—we’d immediately suspect copycat mythology. That’s precisely what critics argue happened in the other direction with Jesus.

To dismiss this with a wink and a trivia list is to avoid the real question altogether.

So we ask again: Is Christianity an original revelation—or a brilliant remix?

Krishna and the Virgin Birth Parallel

🚩 Mark Clark’s Claim

In The Problem of God, Mark Clark dismisses the oft-cited parallel between Jesus and the Hindu deity Krishna, particularly the claim that Krishna was born of a virgin. He argues:

  • Krishna had seven siblings, which in his view, undermines any claim of virginity.
  • The miraculous conception story involves a white elephant impregnating his mother, which he says is “spectacular” but “not a virgin conception at all.”
  • He concludes that the parallels to Christianity are weak or fabricated, and suggests that some pagan stories actually borrowed from Christianity, not the other way around.

🔍 What Does the Evidence Really Say?

Clark’s rebuttal simplifies or misrepresents Hindu mythology and ignores the nature of myth-making, particularly in oral traditions that evolve over centuries and contain symbolic rather than literal meanings.

Let’s address each of his key points:

1. Krishna’s Birth Story

Krishna’s mother Devaki was the sister of Kamsa, a tyrannical king. Upon hearing a prophecy that her eighth son would kill him, Kamsa imprisoned Devaki and her husband Vasudeva, killing each child as they were born. When Krishna, the eighth child, was born, he was miraculously smuggled out and raised by foster parents.

Was it a virgin birth?
No, not in the literal biological sense. But neither was Jesus’ birth in any historically verifiable sense. The claim that Jesus was born of a virgin appears only in two Gospels (Matthew and Luke), and even those accounts are riddled with literary tropes, anachronisms, and theological motives. The concept of a divine or miraculous conception is common across mythologies and serves as a symbol of divine selection or intervention, not necessarily a gynecological claim.

Further, while Clark points to seven siblings as a refutation, this is biologically irrelevant to the idea of divine intervention in one particular birth. Miraculous conceptions in myth often occur after prior normal births—this does not disqualify the miraculous nature of the latter.

2. The White Elephant Myth

Clark claims that a white elephant impregnated Krishna’s mother. This is actually a confusion with the birth of Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha), not Krishna. In Buddhist tradition, Queen Maya dreams of a white elephant entering her side, a vision interpreted as foretelling the Buddha’s divine birth.

There is no known Hindu text that describes Krishna’s conception via a white elephant. By confusing these mythologies, Clark undermines his own credibility. Such a conflation would be like attributing Moses parting the Red Sea to Muhammad—a basic factual error.

3. Parallels and Plagiarism

Clark insists that “several of these stories come later than Christianity and borrow from it.” This is a common apologetic tactic, but it is chronologically and academically dubious.

  • The Mahabharata, where Krishna’s story appears, is dated centuries before the Common Era.
  • Krishna worship was well established in India long before Jesus of Nazareth is believed to have lived.
  • The oral traditions and folklore surrounding Krishna go back possibly as early as the 9th century BCE.

Apologists often invoke the idea of pagan stories borrowing from Christianity, but this is historically and geographically implausible when it comes to Indian texts, which predate and developed independently of any Christian influence.

🧠 The God Question’s Core Philosophy

Let’s apply our framework:

🔍 LensInsight
Curiosity over certaintyRather than defending Christian uniqueness at all costs, we must ask: why do so many cultures tell stories of divine births, miracles, and resurrected saviors? What human need or cultural pattern do these myths reflect?
Evidence over beliefClark demands historical scrutiny for Krishna but suspends that scrutiny when it comes to Jesus. A consistent approach reveals that all divine birth narratives lack empirical evidence and share common mythological features.
Seeing faith as humanThe Krishna story—like that of Jesus—reflects human hopes, archetypes, and storytelling patterns. The real question is not whether one is “true” and the rest are “false,” but what these stories tell us about us.

🔚 Conclusion: Dismissing Parallels Doesn’t Prove Christianity

Mark Clark’s treatment of Krishna is riddled with factual errors, cultural misunderstandings, and apologetic bias. The virgin birth parallel may be symbolic, but so is the Christian version when viewed through a historical-critical lens.

Rather than undermining the case against Christianity’s uniqueness, Clark inadvertently reveals how common the themes of divine conception, miraculous life, and divine mission are across world religions—including those predating Christianity.

The more honest approach is not to defend one myth as uniquely historical while labeling all others as “fabricated,” but to recognize that myth-making is universal, and Christianity is one expression of this larger human pattern.

Attis and the Resurrection Parallel

Series: The Problem of God – Chapter 4 Response

Post #5

🔍 Clark’s Claim

Mark Clark argues that skeptics overreach when drawing parallels between Jesus and Attis. He claims that:

  • Attis was not born of a virgin.
  • Attis was not crucified to redeem the earth.
  • Attis’s death involved genital mutilation under a tree, not crucifixion.
  • There was no resurrection, only the magical growth of hair and a moving pinky.
  • The entire comparison is a stretch used to “fit a preconceived narrative.”

Clark ends with the line: “Call me crazy, but I think it’s safe to say that this is not a parallel with the resurrection of Jesus.”

🧠 A Critical Analysis Using The God Question’s Core Philosophy

1. The Strawman of Literal Equivalence

Clark once again leans heavily on hyper-literal readings of pagan myths to dismiss any parallels. But scholars drawing comparisons aren’t typically claiming identical narratives — they’re tracing thematic and mythological patterns:

  • Attis is a dying and “resurrecting” god, tied to seasonal cycles, particularly vegetation gods who “die” in winter and “rise” in spring.
  • These motifs are symbolic. No one claims Attis literally rose from a grave in 30 CE Judea. That’s not the point.
  • The real question: Why do so many ancient myths include death and return motifs? And why does Christianity mirror those?

Clark refuses to engage with these thematic layers. Instead, he debunks a cartoon version of the myth — a clear misrepresentation of the scholarly argument.

2. Ignoring the Evolution of Religious Stories

Religions borrow. Stories evolve. Attis, like many figures in ancient religions, existed long before Jesus, and his worship included:

  • A March festival with ritual mourning and celebration of return.
  • Sacred pine trees.
  • Bloodletting rites and themes of regeneration.

By the 1st century BCE, Roman cults to Attis included language of rebirth and immortality. That Christianity appeared in the same cultural soup, with similar motifs, is not mere coincidence. It’s cultural osmosis.

To ignore that is to ignore the entire field of comparative mythology.

3. A Question of Selective Skepticism

Clark is skeptical of Attis’s connections to Jesus, yet entirely uncritical of Christianity’s own borrowing. Consider:

  • Jesus dies on a “tree” (cross), just like Attis under the pine.
  • Jesus’s resurrection is not historically verifiable — like Attis’s.
  • Both myths feature blood, sacrifice, symbolic rebirth, and religious ritual.

If we’re to demand literal virginity, exact crucifixion, or precise bodily resurrection as standards for a “valid” parallel, then all mythological comparison collapses — including parallels Christians make with Old Testament “types” and prophecies.

Why accept typology in one direction and reject it in another?

💬 Final Thoughts

Attis is not identical to Jesus — no myth is. But that’s not the point.

The point is that Jesus doesn’t stand alone in history as a dying and rising god. Attis is one of many figures who predate Christianity and feature death-rebirth motifs deeply symbolic in human storytelling.

To argue that Christianity arose in a vacuum — completely uninfluenced by the surrounding mythological environment — is intellectually dishonest.

The story of Jesus, as told by the gospels, fits into a pattern of ancient religious archetypes, not because it’s false because of that, but because it reflects the same human longings, anxieties, and symbolic systems as the rest.

That’s not myth-busting. That’s myth-understanding.

Dionysus: Dismembered Gods and Recycled Myths

This post is part of The God Question, an ongoing response series to Mark Clark’s apologetic book The Problem of God. Each post critically examines a section of the book using reason, evidence, and The God Question’s Core Philosophy: Begin with curiosity, not belief. Today we’re responding to Clark’s section on Dionysus in Chapter 4, “The Problem of the Christ Myth.”

🍷 Who Was Dionysus?

Dionysus was the Greek god of wine, ecstasy, ritual madness, and rebirth. His cult was popular across the ancient world and deeply symbolic—touching on life, death, and transformation.

If you’re looking for echoes of Christian motifs in earlier mythology, Dionysus is an unmistakable candidate. But Clark wants to dismiss all parallels as superficial, weak, or downright false.

Let’s examine the three he targets.

1️⃣ Born of a Virgin? Depends on Your Definition

Clark mocks the claim that Dionysus was born of a virgin. He recounts the myth of Semele, a mortal woman impregnated by Zeus (via lightning), and says, “This is not a virgin birth.”

But that depends on whether you’re looking for biology or mythology.

In many traditions, Dionysus is twice-born—first through Semele, then through his father Zeus, who either swallows his heart or carries him to term. These are not natural births. They are mythic signals that Dionysus is divine, destined, and otherworldly.

Like Jesus, he is set apart from the beginning. That’s the common thread—not whether their mothers had intact hymens.

2️⃣ Born on December 25? So What?

Clark again debunks the claim that Dionysus—or Jesus—was born on December 25. But this is largely a red herring.

Nobody seriously argues Jesus was born in late December. The point is that Christianity adopted a pagan holiday, slapped a new name on it, and made it Christian.

It’s not about who was born when. It’s about how Christianity assimilated earlier religious ideas, imagery, and calendar slots to appeal to Roman audiences already steeped in myth.

3️⃣ Death, Dismemberment, and Resurrection

Here’s the most compelling thread.

Dionysus, in one version of the myth, is torn to pieces by Titans, who eat everything but his heart. Zeus saves the heart and resurrects him—a death-and-rebirth cycle.

Clark scoffs: “A man rising after crucifixion and a god restored from a heart aren’t the same thing.”

Of course they’re not.

But they’re not supposed to be.

These are variations on a universal theme—death and rebirth. It’s what Joseph Campbell called the monomyth, the Hero’s Journey, the dying-and-rising god archetype that spans cultures and centuries.

Christianity didn’t invent this theme.

It just anchored it in time, gave it a name, and called it exclusive.

🧭 Final Thought: Dismissal Isn’t Disproof

Clark’s method here is to dismiss anything that isn’t a carbon copy of the Gospels. But myth doesn’t work that way.

Myth evolves. It flows. It adapts.

Dionysus doesn’t need to be Jesus to make the point. He just needs to show that the idea of divine death and resurrection was already well in circulation long before Christianity made it “history.”

Mithras and the Messiah: Who’s Borrowing from Whom?”

This post is part of The God Question, an ongoing response series to Mark Clark’s apologetic book The Problem of God. Each post critically examines a section of the book using reason, evidence, and the lens of The God Question’s Core Philosophy: Begin with curiosity, not belief. Today’s focus: Clark’s handling of Mithras in Chapter 4, “The Problem of the Christ Myth.”

🧱 The Core Claim

Christianity, we’re told, is utterly unique. It didn’t borrow from other religions. And when someone points to parallels with pagan gods like Mithras, it’s all just “copycat conspiracy” nonsense—so says Mark Clark.

But let’s be honest.

If you were inventing a religion in the Roman Empire in the first few centuries AD, and needed it to feel familiar yet new, would you:

  • Invent every symbol from scratch?
  • Or lean on recognizable mythological themes like miraculous birth, divine meal-sharing, and resurrection?

Clark accuses critics of the Christ Myth theory of sloppiness—but then turns around and dismisses symbolic and ritual parallels as irrelevant or reversed. Let’s look closer.

🪨 Born of a Rock Isn’t Virgin Enough?

Clark begins by mocking the claim that Mithras was “born of a virgin.” Why? Because the myth says he emerged from a rock.

But the point of the comparison is not human biology. It’s mythic symbolism.

Just as Jesus is born of a virgin without sex, Mithras is born without sexual union—fully formed, weapon in hand. It’s miraculous. It’s non-sexual. It’s symbolic. That’s what matters.

If Clark thinks this isn’t “virgin” enough, then by that logic, Jesus’ birth isn’t “miraculous” enough unless someone saw Gabriel hand Mary a DNA kit.

🐑 Shepherds at the Birth of a God

Clark concedes that shepherds were present in the Mithras myth—then shrugs it off as coincidence. But ask yourself: in a world of countless gods, why do both Mithras and Jesus have shepherds at their miraculous births?

This kind of overlap in imagery—especially when tied to humility, countryside, and innocence—should raise questions. But Clark doesn’t explore them. He dismisses them. Because if Christianity is a “revealed” religion, such borrowing must be impossible.

🔟 The Myth of the Twelve

Clark claims Mithras had no twelve disciples—citing that in one version he had one, in another two. He fails to mention the dozens of Mithraic images showing Mithras surrounded by twelve figures, often understood to be the twelve signs of the zodiac.

Were they literal men? No. Were they twelve symbolic companions? Yes. And that’s all you need when tracing mythological influence—not historical one-to-one matches, but adapted storytelling archetypes.

⚰️ The Resurrection That Wasn’t?

According to Clark, Mithras was never buried, never resurrected, never rose after three days. But again, he’s reading myth like history. In Mithraic initiation rituals, the initiate underwent symbolic death and rebirth. That’s resurrection. That’s transformation.

The Christian ritual of baptism (death to sin, raised to new life) mirrors this. The Eucharist (eating the god) mirrors similar pagan feasts. But instead of exploring these parallels, Clark invokes church fathers who accused the pagans of copying them.

So which is it?

Did Christianity invent these motifs? Or did the pagans have them first and “mimic” the Christians afterward—even when Mithraic rituals predate the New Testament?

This is chronological cherry-picking at best—and apologetics in reverse at worst.

🔄 Copying or Converging?

Clark argues that Mithraic traditions came later than the Gospels. But the Mithraic cult’s roots go back to Persia centuries earlier, and its Roman expressions were flourishing when Christianity was still underground.

Even if textual evidence for Mithras post-dates the Gospels, the rituals, symbols, and iconography were well-known in the Roman world.

It’s not about who wrote it down first—it’s about shared mythological DNA. And the evidence suggests Christianity didn’t invent its key motifs. It absorbed them—then canonized them as history.

🧭 Final Thought: Start With Curiosity

You don’t need to believe Jesus is a repackaged pagan god. But you do need to admit this:

Christianity arose in a sea of myths. And the water it swam in was full of gods born without sex, gods who rose again, and gods who shared holy meals.

Dismissing this isn’t curiosity. It’s fear.

And The God Question starts by letting go of fear—and asking, what’s really behind the story we’ve been told?

Taking on the Christ Myth: Does Horus Really Parallel Jesus?

Why This Series Exists

This post is part of The God Question’s response series to The Problem of God by Mark Clark, a book that aims to defend Christianity from common objections. We believe these objections deserve more serious engagement than Clark provides. Using reason, evidence, and clear thinking, we’re exploring each chapter’s claims—pointing out what holds up, what doesn’t, and what’s missing. We begin not with belief, but with curiosity. That’s the difference.

Horus and Jesus: Does the Parallel Hold Up?

In this section of Chapter 4, Mark Clark attempts to debunk the “Christ Myth” theory by challenging the alleged parallels between Jesus and Horus, the Egyptian deity. According to Clark, the proponents of the myth theory—like Acharya S (D.M. Murdock), Peter Joseph (of Zeitgeist), and Tom Harpur—fail to engage primary sources and rely instead on one another’s claims without verification. His tone is confident, and he appeals to academic discipline to suggest the entire Horus-Jesus parallel falls apart under scrutiny.

But how accurate is Clark’s own critique?

A Fair Point… But Also a Straw Man?

Clark’s strongest point is methodological: many popularizers of the Christ Myth theory don’t cite original Egyptian texts or hieroglyphs when making claims like “Horus had twelve disciples.” Instead, they cite 19th- and 20th-century authors such as Gerald Massey, who often wrote without scholarly accountability.

Clark pounces on this, arguing that no Egyptologist affirms such parallels and that the twelve-disciples claim isn’t found in the Book of the Dead or any known Egyptian text. He notes Massey couldn’t even remember where he had read it.

Fair enough. Credibility matters. But here’s the problem: Clark then suggests that because one exaggerated claim is weak, the entire discussion is nonsense. That’s the real fallacy here.

The Danger of Dismissing Everything

Even if it turns out that Horus didn’t have twelve disciples, or wasn’t born of a virgin on December 25, that doesn’t mean all parallels between mythological figures and Jesus dissolve. It means we need to separate exaggeration from evidence.

Clark frames the issue as if any failed parallel—no matter how minor—proves that Jesus is unique and historical. But that’s not how comparative mythology works. Many ancient religious stories share thematic structures: divine births, suffering saviors, resurrections, cosmic battles, miraculous healings, and chosen disciples. These motifs span cultures because they speak to universal human longings. We shouldn’t dismiss them outright—we should ask what they reveal.

Let’s Talk About the Virgin Birth

Clark challenges the claim that Horus was “born of a virgin” by offering a gruesome counter-narrative: that Horus was conceived after Isis hovered over the severed phallus of her dismembered husband Osiris. He concludes that this is not a virgin birth.

He’s right: the Horus myth is not a one-to-one match for the nativity in Matthew and Luke. But his rebuttal misses the forest for the trees. Virgin or magical conception stories are not unique to Christianity. They appear in various forms across mythological systems—including Greek (Perseus), Roman (Romulus), and even Buddhist traditions. The existence of these birth legends raises a real question: Why do so many religious founders need miraculous births to validate them?

What About December 25?

Clark argues that Horus did not share a birthday with Jesus—and that, in fact, Jesus wasn’t born on December 25 anyway. The Christian date, he says, was chosen later by Pope Julius I to challenge Saturnalia, not based on history.

This argument defeats itself. If Jesus wasn’t born on December 25, then there’s no reason to deny the Horus-December 25 claim as a meaningful parallel. It’s irrelevant. More importantly, the broader point still stands: both Horus and Jesus had festivals celebrating their births during the winter solstice period—a key symbolic time in ancient religions. That’s what matters here: the motif, not the calendar accuracy.

Miracles, Disciples, and Crucifixion

Clark attacks the idea that Horus had disciples—pointing to depictions of Horus with animal companions (a turtle, a lion, a bear, a tiger) and claiming they were not disciples in any religious sense. He suggests this stretches all credibility.

And perhaps it does. But here again, the rebuttal feels too smug and too convenient. Christianity does not get to claim historical superiority merely by mocking the mythologies that came before. If anything, the similarities—however stylized or exaggerated—should prompt deeper reflection: Why does the Jesus story echo so many earlier themes?

Even if the parallels aren’t exact, the recurrence of crucifixion, death, and resurrection in pre-Christian stories should make us wonder: Is Christianity building on a mythological foundation it never acknowledged?

What Clark Gets Right—And What He Avoids

To be fair, Clark is right to call out sloppy sourcing. Some Christ Myth proponents have overstated their case. But Clark’s selective rebuttals also avoid stronger scholarly arguments—such as those presented by Richard Carrier, Robert Price, and others—who offer more rigorous critiques of the historical Jesus.

Instead of wrestling with their evidence, Clark chooses easy targets and brushes the rest aside.

The Real Issue

Ultimately, this section is less about Horus and more about how people engage inconvenient questions. Clark defends Christianity by insisting the Jesus story is utterly unique. But the evidence suggests otherwise: Christianity borrowed, absorbed, and reshaped common religious themes that came long before the first century.

That doesn’t automatically prove Jesus never existed. But it does undercut claims of originality—and invites us to take the Christ Myth idea seriously, not sweep it away with a chuckle.

Did Jesus Exist? What the Sources Really Say

Did Jesus of Nazareth really exist? In Chapter 4 of The Problem of God, Mark Clark says yes — and claims we have reliable, non-Christian sources that confirm it. But a closer look at those sources — and the logic behind Clark’s argument — tells a different story.

The Tacitus Reference: Echoes, Not Eyewitnesses

Clark quotes Tacitus to show that a Roman historian confirmed Jesus was executed by Pontius Pilate. But Tacitus was writing almost a century after Jesus’ supposed death, and there’s no evidence he had access to Roman archives. More likely, he was reporting what Christians already believed, not what Rome officially recorded. That’s not historical confirmation — it’s hearsay written down late.

The Josephus Passage: A Tampered Text

Clark also cites Josephus, a first-century Jewish historian. The problem? The passage he quotes contains clear Christian interpolations — later edits inserted by Christian scribes. Phrases like “He was the Christ” and “on the third day he appeared” would have been blasphemous to Josephus, a loyal Jew. Even many conservative scholars admit the original text was doctored. It’s shaky ground for historical claims.

“They Died for What They Saw!” — Or Did They?

One of Clark’s boldest claims is that the disciples died because they had personally seen Jesus rise from the dead — and no one dies for a lie. But this assumes far too much:

  • We have no firsthand records from any disciple describing what they saw.
  • Most martyrdom stories come decades or centuries later, often with legendary embellishments.
  • And people across history have died for all kinds of religious ideas — Islam, Hinduism, Heaven’s Gate, even Jonestown.

Dying for a belief doesn’t make it true. It only proves how strongly that belief was held.

The Spread of Christianity: A Miracle?

Clark says Christianity’s explosive growth proves it must be true. But other religions — including Islam and Mormonism — also spread rapidly. Movements grow when they offer compelling stories, eternal rewards, and a sense of belonging. Christianity had all three, plus Roman roads, missionary zeal, and, eventually, imperial support.

Rapid growth explains popularity, not truth.

Conclusion: Yes, There May Have Been a Jesus — But We Know Almost Nothing About Him

Most secular scholars today agree that some man named Jesus probably existed — a wandering apocalyptic preacher in Galilee who got himself executed. But the “Christ” we meet in the Gospels — the miracle worker, the resurrected Son of God — is the result of decades of oral tradition, theological reflection, and myth-making.

The question isn’t just “Did Jesus exist?”

It’s: Who created the Christ we now know?

And the answer to that isn’t in Tacitus, Josephus, or the tales of martyrdom — it’s in the minds and hopes of the early church.

Is Jesus a Copycat of Ancient Myths? Debunking the Christ Myth

Welcome back to The God Question, where we explore today’s biggest spiritual doubts with thoughtful reflection and intellectual honesty.

In today’s post, we enter Chapter 4 of The Problem of God by Mark Clark, tackling one of the more provocative claims in modern skepticism: the Christ Myth — the idea that Jesus never existed and was merely invented by the early church, copied from older mythological gods.

You’ve probably encountered this claim in viral videos or documentaries like Zeitgeist, Religulous, or The God Who Wasn’t There. They say Jesus is just a rebranding of gods like Horus or Mithras — born of a virgin, performed miracles, died, and rose again after three days. Sounds suspiciously familiar, right?

But here’s the thing: this argument, while loud in pop culture, doesn’t hold up in serious historical circles. Clark reminds us that even scholars who don’t believe in Jesus’ divinity — like Bart Ehrman — affirm his historical existence. The question scholars debate isn’t if Jesus lived, but who he really was and what he really did. Even H.G. Wells, no Christian apologist, called Jesus “the very center of history.”

So why does the Christ Myth remain so popular?

Because it’s simple. It’s edgy. And it lets people reject Christianity without having to dig into inconvenient questions. But as with any conspiracy theory, we need to slow down and examine the facts.

The truth is, most of the supposed parallels between Jesus and pagan gods don’t hold up under scrutiny. Many are exaggerated, misrepresented, or cherry-picked. Others rely on post-Christian sources or questionable interpretations. What they share is often superficial — more coincidence than copycat.

So here’s today’s challenge: If you’ve dismissed Jesus because of the Christ Myth, take a second look. Not at the memes or TikToks or fringe films — but at the actual historical evidence. Because when you do, you’ll find something surprising: not a myth, but a man who changed the world.

And that’s where the real question begins — not “Did he exist?” but “What if everything he said was true?”

—

📚 Next up on the blog: Did Jesus actually exist? We’ll explore the historical sources outside the Bible that say yes.

Personal Trust: The Bible Is Not About You

This post is part of our ongoing series examining The Problem of God by Mark Clark. Each installment applies The God Question’s core philosophy: we begin not with belief, but with curiosity. We pursue clarity over certainty. And we never grant authority to claims that are unproven, incoherent, or morally compromised—no matter how loudly they are repeated. If a religion is true, it should welcome questions. If it is not, questions are the way out.

“The Bible Isn’t About You” — And That’s the Problem

Mark Clark closes Chapter 3 of The Problem of God with an emotionally charged appeal: the Bible may seem like a burden, he argues, only because people mistakenly believe it’s about them. The liberating truth, he insists, is that the Bible is not about you—“it’s about what Jesus has done.” His version of Christianity is one in which humans are completely incapable of doing good on their own, utterly unworthy of saving, and only redeemed when God chooses to act in spite of them.

This is not a message of liberation. It’s a message of psychological abuse wrapped in theological language.

Let’s examine what Clark claims—and why it falls apart under the light of reason.

1. A Gospel of Inherited Guilt

At the heart of Clark’s argument is this:

“Everybody fails at these things. That’s why you needed someone to succeed for you, and I am that someone.” (Jesus, paraphrased)

This idea—rooted in what theologians call penal substitution—is that Jesus died not to inspire us, or to awaken love or compassion, but to be punished in our place because we are incapable of moral success. Clark echoes this when he writes:

“You and I are not brave like Moses or David or Samson—so God had to be brave for us.”

Notice the subtle cruelty here: the assumption that you are fundamentally defective, that you deserve punishment, and that the only path to being “loved and saved” is by accepting that someone else had to be tortured and killed because of your failures.

This is not justice. It’s not love. It’s a doctrine of inherited guilt—one that strips you of agency, dignity, and worth apart from obedience to an ancient blood narrative.

2. The Disempowering Psychology of ‘Not About You’

Clark writes:

“The point is that the Bible isn’t about you. It’s not about what we can do so God will love and save us. It’s about what Jesus has done.”

To a weary believer, this may sound comforting. But let’s be honest: the same Bible that supposedly isn’t about you also commands you to obey, believe, submit, suffer, evangelize, tithe, forgive your abuser, and deny your own reasoning whenever it conflicts with divine decree. You are told the Bible isn’t about you—yet if you fail to accept its story, you are the one who will burn.

This isn’t humility. It’s gaslighting.

It says: You don’t matter. Your conscience doesn’t matter. Your questions don’t matter.

Only God’s script does.

3. A Story That Demands You Be the Villain

Clark tells a dramatic conversion story: as a young man smoking outside his school, he read the Bible, encountered Jesus, and was transformed. He credits “the Word behind the word” for saving him—not church or people, but the Bible itself. It’s powerful testimony—but notice how it depends on the same narrative spine:

  • You are broken.
  • You deserve punishment.
  • You are incapable of saving yourself.
  • So trust Jesus to do it for you.

This framing turns all moral and spiritual questions into one binary: submission or rebellion. You’re not invited to evaluate truth claims. You’re told that you are the problem, and that the solution is surrender to a cosmic scapegoat.

Even if it feels emotionally moving, this is still theology by threat.

4. But What If the Bible Is Actually Wrong?

Clark never considers this question. His entire defense assumes that the Bible is not only correct, but divinely inspired. He doesn’t examine the violent commands in the Old Testament, the contradictions in the Gospels, or the ethical incoherence of eternal punishment. Instead, he insists:

“They speak, and if we will listen and heed them and let them take us over, they will transform us, forever.”

This is not curiosity. This is indoctrination.

What if the reason people walk away from Christianity isn’t because they misunderstood the Bible—but because they understood it perfectly well, and found it morally bankrupt?

What if the real act of courage is not submission—but walking away?

The God Question’s Closing Thought

We are not villains in need of a cosmic rescue.

We are thinking, feeling beings capable of goodness, growth, and moral clarity without fear-based religion.

The Bible is about you.

Because it demands your belief.

It threatens your soul.

It claims authority over your life.

You are allowed to ask: What if the story is false?

And when you do…

You may find that the truest liberation isn’t being saved in spite of yourself—

but being free because you finally trusted yourself.