THE MAN, THE MYTH, YOUR CHOICE: Jesus, Mickey Mouse, and the Great Western Imagination

Americans and Europeans have one disturbing thing in common. Imagination. And not the responsible kind. Not the kind that builds bridges, writes great literature, or makes scientific breakthroughs. No, theirs is a childish, sloppy imagination. The kind that celebrates Mickey Mouse’s birthday. The kind that treats comic book characters like sacred icons. The kind that loses the ability to tell fiction from fact.

Mickey Mouse was drawn on paper. He never walked this Earth. Yet, people celebrate his birthday as if he were Caesar Augustus. They hold parties. They wear hats. They pretend he’s real. The same goes for comic book superheroes. Adults walking around in capes and quoting fictional figures as if they were philosophers. They chant catchphrases from Marvel movies with the same reverence ancient Greeks had for Socrates.

Some even go as far as turning science fiction into religion. People have attended Star Wars premieres and referred to George Lucas as a prophet. They imagine the Force as a cosmic truth. They imagine Jedi as real historical monks. There are people who truly believe that somewhere, in some alternate universe, the story of Luke Skywalker happened.

This isn’t harmless fandom. This is the decaying line between story and history.

Now let us bring up a far more serious case. Let us talk about Jesus. The man, the myth, your choice. Not mine. You decide. I will lay out the evidence for both positions. Then I will offer the scholarly consensus. But it is not my job to tell you what to believe.

Jesus: A Fictional Creation or Historical Teacher?

There are many who believe that Jesus of Nazareth was a fictional figure. Some mythicists argue he was manufactured by early Christian communities as a dying and rising savior god. People like Robert M. Price, Richard Carrier, and F.C. Erbauer have all written extensively on the subject. According to their view, Jesus may be no more real than Mickey Mouse. He may be a character born out of theological necessity. A cosmic savior written into history by people with agendas.

Some of this argument stems from the fact that no one who ever met Jesus wrote anything down. Not a single letter from his hand exists. No contemporary Jewish or Roman historian ever mentioned his life in real time. The sources we have all come decades later.

Take Paul, for example. Paul never met Jesus. He had a vision. A hallucination. And he made a religion out of it. Paul writes more about a mystical Christ than a historical rabbi. His letters, which are the earliest Christian documents we have, mention very little about Jesus’s actual life. They do not talk about the virgin birth, the parables, the miracles, or the Sermon on the Mount. They present a cosmic figure revealed through revelation, not biography.

Paul could have been someone else entirely. Some believe Paul was just Simon Magus rebranded. Others say Paul never existed at all. Maybe he was a composite figure. Maybe he was several people. We do not know. But the idea that Paul knew a real Jesus on Earth is simply false. There is no evidence for it. And if you base your beliefs on evidence, you must be honest about that.

Then there are the Gospels. Mark was written around 70 CE. Matthew and Luke followed. John came later. These are not eyewitness accounts. They are not journalism. They are theological literature. They contradict each other. They borrow from one another. And they show signs of late-stage mythmaking. They are not diaries. They are not first-hand testimonies. They are sermons in story form.

Furthermore, there are no Roman records of Jesus. The Romans kept detailed execution logs. Yet no one matches the Jesus of the Gospels. No arrest record. No crucifixion notice. No legal record. Pilate existed, yes. Crucifixions happened, yes. But Jesus’s execution? Not a trace.

The early churches also point to a confusing picture. If you went to a first-century church in Judea, you would have walked into a Marcionite community. Marcion of Sinope, not Peter or James, built the first known Christian canon. He had Paul’s letters and something called the Evangelicon. He rejected the Hebrew God. He rejected the Old Testament. He thought Jesus came to save us from the demiurge. This was the earliest version of Christianity. It bore no resemblance to the Orthodox faith we know today.

Marcion’s Gospel was clean. No virgin birth. No genealogy. No prophecies fulfilled. Just Jesus, descending from heaven, preaching grace, and then leaving. Everything else came later. Added by scribes and editors trying to harmonize contradictions and fill in gaps.

So, was Jesus real? Or was he a theological construct? The mythicists say he was made up to serve a purpose. And if you look closely at the origins of Christianity, you start to see why they say that.

The Case for Historicity: Why Scholars Say Jesus Existed

Now, let’s be fair. The mainstream academic position is that Jesus of Nazareth was a real person. Almost all scholars agree that a man named Jesus lived in the first century, preached in Galilee, and was crucified by Rome.

Paul mentions Jesus as a man, says he had a brother named James, and refers to Peter and other followers who supposedly knew him. That gives us indirect attestation from the 50s CE.

Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian writing in the 90s, mentions Jesus twice in his Antiquities. One passage may be tampered with by Christian scribes, but another mentions “James, the brother of Jesus called Christ.” That part is considered authentic by most scholars.

Tacitus, a Roman historian writing around 116 CE, refers to “Christus” who suffered under Pontius Pilate during Tiberius’s reign. This is not a Christian document. It is a hostile reference to Christianity, yet it confirms a crucified founder.

There are also minor mentions from Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, and Lucian. These are not detailed, but they suggest that early Christians were known and persecuted for following someone called Christ.

Archaeologically, the James Ossuary is still debated. It bears the inscription “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” If genuine, it ties together the names found in early Christian texts. But its authenticity remains uncertain.

All of this evidence does not prove Jesus was divine. It does not prove he walked on water or rose from the dead. But it does meet the standard historians use for figures like Socrates, Hannibal, and Pythagoras.

No one doubts that Socrates existed, yet he never wrote anything down. We know about him from Plato and Xenophon. No one doubts that Hannibal crossed the Alps, yet most of our knowledge comes from Roman enemies who hated him.

If those figures are accepted based on similar or weaker evidence, then the same courtesy must be extended to Jesus.

Where Do I Stand?

Do I believe in Jesus? Yes. Do I believe he existed? Yes. But I do not believe the Gospels. I do not believe the Bible. I believe Jesus existed. But I also believe that belief is mine. It is not yours unless you make it yours.

I reject the idea that any of us can know for certain. No one alive today was there. No one alive today has seen the originals. We have stories. We have copies of copies. We have interpretations. We have scribes. We have councils. But we do not have certainty.

Faith is the most disingenuous word in the world. Faith is pretending. I do not pretend. I do not believe in fiction. I do not believe in Mickey Mouse theology. I believe in honest inquiry.

You make up your own mind. Not me. I do not live in a fantasy world. I do not worship fiction. I do not conflate cartoons with theology. And I do not want to belong to a religion built on someone else’s imagination.

But if you do, that is your right.

Scholarly Consensus

The majority of scholars in historical Jesus studies conclude the following:

• Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical figure.

• He lived and taught in first-century Roman Palestine.

• He was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate.

• His followers believed he had been raised from the dead, though historians do not weigh in on supernatural claims.

• The Gospels are theological documents, not biographies, but contain historical kernels within layers of religious development.

Key scholars in this consensus include Bart Ehrman, E.P. Sanders, Paula Fredriksen, James D.G. Dunn, and John P. Meier. Even agnostic or atheist scholars like Maurice Casey and Ehrman affirm Jesus’s historical existence.

Mythicism remains a fringe position. Scholars like Richard Carrier, Robert M. Price, and Thomas L. Brodie argue against the historicity of Jesus, but their views are not accepted in mainstream historical methodology.

You decide what you believe. But do not pretend it is all settled fact. And do not pretend your imagination is a substitute for evidence.

Veritas lux mea