"Zeitgeist" is a popular movie, written and directed by Peter Joseph, which encourages people to question common beliefs regarding a variety of institutions, including (but not limited to) Christianity. Now, let me say that I don't have a problem with people questioning Christianity or anything else. I just want them to please question things rationally. We shouldn't be so gullible as to accept any opposing claims that have no evidence to support them. We shouldn't believe in fringe theories only because they provide alternatives to the more popular beliefs. If the evidence favors the more popular beliefs over the fringe theories, then a logical person should favor the more popular beliefs.
In the end, we should go where the evidence points. And the evidence clearly does not point to the claims made by Zeitgeist.
My website will only be dealing with the first third of the movie, which is about Christianity and pre-Christian religions and mythology, but I want to say that I find its claims regarding the banking institution and 9/11 to be equally questionable and outlandish. If you're looking for a debunking of the other parts, I'd recommend going to the Conspiracy Science website, a non-religious website which thoroughly debunks the entire movie.
In responding to Zeitgeist, I will put quotes from the movie in both quotes
and italics.
Ironic, since most of what Peter Joseph says about Christianity is outright lies. My guess is that he's not aware that they're false, but honestly believes them to be true. But before he goes spreading them all over the internet, it would have been wise for him to fact-check his claims. He obviously didn't care to do so, but just went ahead and repeated what he heard, since those falsehoods suited his purposes.
"The religious institutions of this world are put there by the same people who gave you your government, your corrupt education, who set up your international banking cartels."
Actually, the founders of most of the world's religions (people like Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha, etc.) were not the founders of the world's governments, educational institutions, and banking cartels. Maybe he means something else by "put there", like that the creators of government, education and banking were the people who, while not founding the worlds religions, popularized them to the masses. But that's not accurate either. The first major government to adopt Christianity, the Roman government, did so after a long time of resistance and persecution. They eventually gave in when Christianity resisted its attempts to stop it and became too popular to ignore. So Rome did not "put Christianity in place" in any sense.
Something similar could be said of Christianity in America. The bulk of those who settled in North America were Christians, as were most of our country's founding fathers. But the founders of our country's government did not put Christianity in place. In fact, they were generally in favor of the separation of church and state, favoring a religiously neutral government. The United States is primarily a Christian nation because of its people, not because of its government or banking institutions.
"Because our masters don't give a damn about you or your family. All they care about is what they have always cared about, and that's controlling the whole damn world."
This kind of thinking is something that I believe is one of the biggest obstacles to solving most of the world's problems. It involves accusing those you disagree with of have evil intentions - to assume nefarious motives for them. Look at the way Rush Limbaugh talks about the Democrats, or Michael Moore about the Republicans, or white supremists about minorities (and, yes, some Christians about members of other religions), and you'll see what I mean.
No, I'm not saying that the world's leaders are always selfless, admirable individuals. That would be going to an extreme. But to say that all they care about nothing but "controlling the whole damn world" is going to the other, equally invalid, extreme. I think that, for the most part, the world's leaders are a bit corrupted by power and certainly act selfishly at times, but still are generally trying to do what they believe makes the world a better place. I'm not sure that you or I, in their shoes, would do much better.
Once we get past demonizing those we disagree with, and start looking at their real motivations, can we start building a rapport with them and working on finding solutions or compromises which we can all live with.
"I don't know what God is, but I know what He isn't, and unless and until you are prepared to look at the whole truth, and wherever it may go, whoever it may lead to, if you want to look the other way or if you want to play favorites, then somewhere along the line you're going to find out you're messing with divine justice."
That's something Peter Joseph himself should have kept in mind before he completely failed to fact-check the claims he makes in this movie.
"You have to know the truth and seek the truth and the truth will set you free."
I think that those who have investigated Zeitgeist's claims and found them to be baloney will agree with that.
He then quotes Gerald Massey, a 19th century English poet and untrained Egyptologist:
"They must find it difficult...Those how have taken authority as the truth, Rather than truth as the authority."
This quote is rather ironic, coming from Massey. He is the source of many of the Christ-myther claims regarding Horus and his supposed pre-Christian parallels to Jesus. He made the claims, but never gave evidence in support of them, essentially asking his readers to take his authority as our truth, rather than truth as our authority. His ideas were seen as fringe theories in his day, lacking critical support, and are still seen as such among the bulk of Egyptologists.
"This is Horus. He is the Sun God of Egypt of around 3000 B.C. He is the sun, anthropomorphized and his life is a series of allegorical myths involving the sun's movement in the sky."
Other than the fact that he's from Egypt around 3000 B.C., all of this is false. Horus is a sky god, not a sun god, and his life story has no significant parallels with the sun's movement. The Egyptian sun god is actually Ra.
Joseph then goes on to talk about Horus and his enemy, Set, metaphorically battling every morning, where Horus would win the battle, and every evening, where Set would win the battle, which he says corresponds to the sun rising (Horus winning) and setting (Set winning and sending Horus to the underworld). Except for Horus defeating Set, none of this is part of Egyptian mythology. Set never defeats Horus, Horus never goes to the underworld, and in no metaphorical way does this happen daily. Most of Joseph's claims seem to be completely imagined, the work of someone totally unfamilair with Egyptian mythology.
"Broadly speaking, the story of Horus is as follows:
Horus
Born on Dec 25th
Born of a virgin
Star in the East
Adored by 3 kings
Teacher at 12
Baptized/ministry at 30
12 disciples
Performed miracles
"Lamb of God"/"The Light"
Crucified
Dead for 3 days
Resurrected"
Hardly any of this applies to any pre-Christian version of the Horus story. There are several birthdates assigned to Horus, one of which is 12/25 (though it's unclear whether this date was applied to Horus in pre-Christian times). However, it hardly matters, since Jesus was almost certainly not born on 12/25. That date was assigned long after Jesus' time, with no evidence that it corresponds to Jesus' actual birthdate. There's about a 1 in 365 chance of it being correct (probably less, actually, since warmer weather is suggested). And, yes, Horus did perform miracles, though none that would correspond to Jesus' miracles. No walking on water, resurrecting dead people, water into wine, etc. Horus was not born of a virgin, had no star in the east, wasn't adored by 3 kings, wasn't a teacher at age 12, was never baptized, did not begin his ministry at age 30, didn't have 12 disciples, was never called "The Lamb of God" or "The Light", wasn't crucified, wasn't dead for three days, and was never resurrected.
I go into more detail on the Horus comparisons here: Jesus/Horus
Attis:
Born of a virgin
Born on Dec 25th
Crucified
Dead for 3 days
Resurrected
None of these are valid. Attis wasn't born of a virgin, wasn't born on 12/25, wasn't crucified, wasn't dead for three days, and was never resurrected. See here: Jesus/Attis
"Krishna:
Born of a virgin
Star in the East
Performed miracles
Resurrected"
Other than performing miracles (though, again, none correspond to Jesus'), none of these are true. Krishna wasn't born of a virgin (he was his mother, Devaki's, eighth child), had no star in the east, and was never resurrected. See here: Jesus/Krishna
"Dionysus:
Born of a virgin
Born on Dec 25th
Performed miracles
Turned water into wine (not visible on the list, but the voice-over says
it)
"King of Kings"
"Alpha and Omega"
"God's only begotten son" (not visible on the list, but the voice-over says
it)
Resurrected"
He did perform miracles, though, once again, none correspond to Jesus. And there is a version of the Dionysus story in which he is resurrected, but the details don't match Jesus' story at all. Per the story (which, by the way, is not part of the general mythology of Dionysus, but a very rare story), Titans attack and eat all of Dionysus except for his heart. Zeus destroys those titans and reforms Dionysus from the remaining heart. Zeitgeist also shows an image of Dionysus being crucified. Many Christ-mythers claim that this image is pre-Christian, but it actually dates to the 4th century A.D. at the earliest. Dionysus was not born of a virgin, was not born on 12/25, never turned water into wine, and was never called "King of Kings", "Alpha and Omega" or "God's only begotten son" (Zeus had several sons). See here: Jesus/Dionysus
"Mithra:
Born of a virgin
Born on Dec 25th
12 disciples
Performed miracles
Dead for 3 days
Resurrected
"The Truth"/"The Light" (not visible on the list, but the voice-over says
it)
Sunday worship"
Other than performing miracles (though, again, they don't correspond to Jesus'),
these are all false. Mithra was not born of a virgin, wasn't born on
12/25, didn't have 12 disciples, wasn't dead for 3 days, wasn't resurrected,
wasn't called "The Truth" or "The Light", and wasn't worshipped on Sunday
prior to Jesus' time. See here:
Jesus/Mithra
Of the names on this list:
-nine appear to be Christ-myther fabrications, not a deity in any culture.
(Crite, Jao, Zoar, Mikado, Beddru, Hil, Feta, Gentaut, and Tien)
-five were deities that were apparently post-Christian (Salivahana, Odin,
Thor, Quetzalcoatl, and Mohammad) and don't subscribe to the general
characteristics of Jesus, anyway.
-the rest don't subscribe to the general characteristics of Jesus.
I respond to this list here: GodList
He then goes on to draw parallels between the Jesus story and astrological/zodiac stuff.
"First of all, the birth sequence is completely astrological. The star in the east is Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, which, on December 24th, aligns with the 3 brightest stars in Orion's Belt.
Actually, it always aligns with Orion's Belt. There's nothing significant about it aligning this way on 12/24. It aligns the same way every day of every year.
These 3 bright stars are called today what they were called in ancient times: The Three Kings.
First, the three stars were NOT called "The Three Kings" in ancient times. The name appears to date to no earlier than the 17th century A.D. Secondly, the Bible says nothing about Jesus' visitors being "Three Kings". They're a group of magi, not kings, and (contrary to popular belief) the Bible doesn't say there are three of them. Also, they did not visit Jesus on the day He was born, but at His home when He was probably around one year old.
The Three Kings and the brightest star, Sirius, all point to the place of the sunrise on December 25th. This is why the Three Kings "follow" the star in the east, in order to locate the sunrise -- the birth of the sun."
Orion's belt and Sirius appear in the sky about 6 P.M. in December. Over the course of the night, the earth's movement makes it so that this line points to almost every point on the eastern horizon, as well as the southern horizon. Yes, this includes the area where the sun rises. But since it points to so many other areas, this is essentially meaningless.
"Virgo is also referred to as the House of Bread, and the representation of Virgo is a virgin holding a sheaf of wheat. This House of Bread and its symbol of wheat represents August and September, the time of harvest. In turn, Bethlehem, in fact, literally translates to "house of bread". Bethlehem is thus a reference to the constellation Virgo, a place in the sky, not on Earth."
While Bethlehem does translate to "House of Bread", Virgo is never referred to as "House of Bread", so Bethlehem is in no way a reference to Virgo. Bethlehem is also a place referred to several times in the Old Testament.
He also claims that the sun stops moving south (from the perspective of those in the Northern Hemisphere) on Dec 22nd, residing in the vicinity of the "Southern Cross" constellation for three days, before moving north again on December 25th. He says that this corresponds to Jesus' death on the "cross" and His resurrection three days later. There's a lot wrong with this idea.
One is that that sun never stops moving north and south in relation to the people on Earth. It does slow as it reaches its lowest and highest points, but whether it "stops" for 1 day, 2 days, 3 days, 4 days, 5 days or whatever depends on how slow you consider "stopping". In fact, if the sun appears to stop for the two days following the solstice, then it also appears to stop for the two days preceding the solstice, since the sun appears to be moving just as fast approaching the solstice as it is leaving it. There is no evidence that ancient peoples considered it to have stopped for 3 days.
The second is that the "Southern Cross" constellation isn't visible from the northern hemisphere, as he claims (and, besides, it was "discovered" by either Augustin Royer or Petrus Plancius in the 17th century A.D.). It would have been visible from Jerusalem several centuries before Jesus' time, but by Jesus' time, it was no longer visible from the middle east, though it might have been if you were closer to the equator. But, either way, the sun did not reside in the vicinity of the Southern Cross in Jesus' day. It would have resided in the Sagittarius constellation, while the Southern Cross is in the Centaurus constellation.
The third is that Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection happened in the spring, not in December.
These "parallels" are clearly a case of Christ-mythers desperately trying to draw comparisons between astrology and the Jesus story, whether they fit or not.
He then returns to the list of deities he scrolled down earlier, claiming that all of them "share the crucifixion, three-day death and resurrection concept". In fact, none of the deities on that list share those concepts.
He then says that Jesus' 12 disciples are based on the 12 zodiac symbols. No, they're based on the 12 tribes of Israel.
He then shows a zodiac chart, focuses in on the middle of it, where it resembles a cross, and says that the cross is "shorthand" of the symbol. First of all, he's specifically using a post-Christian example of the zodiac chart which happens to have a cross in the middle of it. If you go to google images and type in "zodiac chart", you'll get many examples of zodiac charts. You'll also notice that most of them don't have a 2-line intersecting cross in the center, but either have an empty circle, a 6-line intersecting cross (creating 12 sections), or some other image in the center. In other words, Joseph is specifically using a chart which corresponds to what he wants to claim. Had the symbol for Jesus been just about anything else, he probably could have found a zodiac chart which corresponded to that. Also, there's no evidence that followers of the zodiac used whatever image was in the center of the zodiac chart as "shorthand" for the chart itself. I don't know where Joseph got the idea that the cross was shorthand for the zodiac chart, but it's not from anything that dates to ancient times.
He goes on to draw parallels between Jesus and the sun, making a few very strange claims, like that Jesus is "born again every morning". You can draw parallels between any two things if you try hard enough, and he's clearly trying very hard here.
If you haven't already seen it, a 19th century French librarian, Monsieur J.-B.Péres, wrote a article showing how the story of Napoleon Bonaparte corresponds to solar astronomy, and claiming it proves Napoleon never existed. Obviously, this was done as a bit of humor parodying those who made similar claims about Jesus. There's an English translation of the Napoleon article here: Tektonics: nappy
I have a general page about the Jesus/Sun parallels here: Jesus/Sun
He then goes on to talk about "ages"
He says that the Exodus took place at the beginning of the age of Aries, the Ram, which he says began in 2150 B.C. The problem is that the Exodus probably took place around 1450 B.C., and the earliest I've ever seen anyone date it is around 1600 B.C. He's off by at least half a millenium.
He goes on to say that a new astrological age (the age of Pisces) began in 1 A.D. when Jesus was born. Actually, when one astrological age ends and where another begins depends on the interpretation, since the borders between constellations are, of course, vague. Some put the dawning of the age of Pisces as early as 100 B.C., others as late as 498 A.D. Given a roughly 600-year period in which the age of Pisces can be said to have begun, the fact that Jesus' birth fell somewhere into this isn't as significant as Joseph would make it sound. The only interpretation placing the beginning of the age of Pisces as 1 A.D. is the Neil Mann interpretation, which is completely modern. Besides, Jesus wasn't born in 1 A.D., but probably in 4 B.C. (and certainly no earlier than 2 B.C., since that is when Herod died, and Herod was alive when Jesus was born).
"At Luke 22:10 when Jesus is asked by his disciples where the next passover will be after he is gone, Jesus replied: "Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you bearing a pitcher of water..."
In that passage, Jesus is NOT being asked where the next passover will be after He is gone, as Joseph claims, but where they would be eating *that night*.
Once again, he is trying very hard to make his data fit. I give him an "A" for effort, but this is something anyone can do in an effort to disprove anything they want.
I see that Joseph claims that the annunciation precedes the conception in the movie, trying to draw a fake parallel, but you can see his trickery if you watch closely. He starts with panel 8, where the annunciation is made, and then moves to panel 9 (which follows, obviously), claiming that this panel shows the conception of Horus, trying to show that the annunciation preceded the conception. But look closely - the queen here is already pregnant in panel 9 (that's not a beer-belly she has!). In fact, the conception was back in the much-earlier panel 4, which he skipped. He claims she was impregnated by "Nef the Holy Spirit". In fact, panel 4 showed her being impregnanted by Amun, who went to bed with her disguised as her husband - in other words, the conception was sexual.
He then compares the story of Sargon of Akkad, who lived around 2250 B.C. to the story of Moses, who was born in 1391 B.C. Sargon, Joseph claims, "was born, placed in a reed basket to avoid infanticide, and set adrift in a river". The problem is that these accounts regarding Sargon date to around 700 B.C., many centuries after Moses' time.
He then goes on to list other similarities, which, frankly, don't interest
me that much. His purpose here was to cause us to believe that Jesus
was based on earlier deities, and he clearly failed at that. I'll just
say that before you believe any of this, please do some fact-checking for
yourself. Considering how much Joseph has gotten wrong so far, you'd
be quite justified in being skeptical of anything else he says.
If Justin Martyr was talking here about literal parallels, then why wouldn't the pagans he was writing to have already seen them for themselves? He's not admitting to any literal parallels, but is trying to convince them, for the first time, that there are parallels to be found. He is stretching the parallels in order to convince the pagans that parallels exist. If the pagans' deities really were produced asexually, crucified, died and rose again, then what would be the point of Justin saying all of this to them? What, they didn't already know? What Justin is saying is that the stories the pagans believe in are similar in miraculousness, not in exact details. He's saying that if the pagans reject Jesus because He was credited with miracles, then why do they continue to believe in the miracles credited to their deities?
Justin Martyr was clearly a Christian, yet Joseph is suggesting that Justin knew that the Jesus story was a work of fiction based on the pagan stories, yet continued to believe in it anyway. How does this make any sense?
"In the Old Testament there's the story of Joseph. Joseph was a prototype for Jesus. Joseph was born of a miracle birth, Jesus was born of a miracle birth. Joseph was of 12 brothers, Jesus had 12 disciples. Joseph was sold for 20 pieces of silver, Jesus was sold for 30 pieces of silver. Brother "Judah" suggests the sale of Joseph, disciple "Judas" suggests the sale of Jesus. Joseph began his work at the age of 30, Jesus began his work at the age of 30. The parallels go on and on."
Joseph was not born of a miracle birth. His father, Jacob, was probably in his seventies when he conceived Joseph, but there's nothing "miraculous" about that. Celebrities like Rupert Murdoch, Charlie Chaplin, Anthony Quinn and Saul Bellow bore children well into their seventies and eighties, yet no one would call any of those "miracles". In fact, Joseph even had a younger brother.
And notice that he says "Joseph was of 12 brothers, Jesus had 12 disciples". Did you catch it? He's counting Joseph among the brothers, but not counting Jesus among His disciples. In other words, Joseph had 11 brothers, making this "comparison" nonsense.
Also, Judas did not "suggest" the sale of Jesus. Even if this could be called a "sale" (which it really can't), the offer was made by the pharisees, not by Judas.
On top of that, Joseph did not "begin his work at the age of thirty". At the age of thirty, Joseph was promoted to second-in-command over Egypt, but he'd already worked for Potiphar as superintendant of his household, followed by at least two years in prison, where he was in charge of other prisoners. So his "work" had begun at least two years prior to when he turned thirty.
No, the parallels don't "go on and on". In fact, they don't even begin.
Actually, we have about forty references to Christ outside of the Bible from within 150 years of Jesus' time, including references by at least three (probably four) non-Christian historians, and evidence that a fifth historian also wrote about Jesus.
"There are numerous historians who lived in and around the Mediterranean either during or soon after the assumed life of Jesus. How many of these historians document this figure? Not one."
He shows a list of 23 names, but what's interesting is that the majority of the names on the list aren't historians. Only eight of the people on that list are actually historians (though two are the same person, listed under separate names), the rest being poets, orators, novelists, philosophers, etc.
Aulus Perseus (poet/satirist, 34-62 A.D.)
Columella (wrote about agriculture and trees, 4-70 A.D.)
Dio Chrysostom (orator, 40-120 A.D.)
Lucanus (poet, 39-65 A.D.)
Petronius (novelist, 27-66 A.D.)
Phaedrus (writer of fables, 15-50 A.D.)
Philo Judaeus (philosopher, 20-50 A.D.)
Pomponius Mela (geographer, ?-45 A.D.)
Quintillian (writer on oratory and rhetoric, 35-100 A.D.)
Seneca (scientist, 3-65 A.D.)
Silius Italicus (poet, ?-101 A.D.)
Statius Caelicius (poet, ?-?, but 1st century)
Theon of Smyrna (mathematician/astronomer, 70?-135 A.D.)
Valerius Flaccus (poet, ?-90 A.D.)
Valerius Maximus (orator, 20 B.C?.-50 A.D.?)
The usual response when I point this out to Christ-mythers is along the lines of, "okay, so maybe they aren't historians, but that doesn't mean that they couldn't have written about Jesus, right?". Sure, and they could have written about Julius Caesar, but I'm guessing that most of these people did not.
These are the eight (err...seven) actual historians:
Justus of Tiberius (birth and death dates unknown, but
a contemporary of Josephus. We have only fragments of his writings,
so we have no idea if he wrote about Jesus or not)
Livy (59 B.C. to 17 A.D., since he died before Jesus' ministry, he
would not have had cause to write about Him)
Lucius Florus (70?-140? A.D., only wrote of times prior to Jesus')
Phlegon (80?-? A.D.) Most of he wrote is lost, but he did apparently
write about Jesus. According to Origen, in his conversation with Celsus,
"Phlegon, in the thirteenth or fourteenth book, I think, of his Chronicles,
not only ascribed to Jesus a knowledge of future events...but also testified
that the result corresponded to His predictions." See
here)
Pliny the Elder (23-79 A.D., the only text in which he would likely
have mentioned Jesus, "History of His Times", is mostly lost)
Plutarch (46-122 A.D., being Greco-Roman himself, wrote primarily
of Greeks and Romans. He may have had cause to mention Jesus, but we
have only about half of what he wrote, so we don't really know if he did
or not).
Rufus Curtius
Quintus Curtius
The last two, Rufus Cartius and Quintus Curtius, are actually the same person,
Quintus Curtius Rufus, whose only surviving work is a biography of Alexander
the Great. His birth and death dates are unknown, but he wrote between
41 and 54 A.D.
Of these seven historians, only three of them, Phlegon, Pliny the Elder and Plutarch, would have had cause to mention Jesus, and one of them, Phlegon, reportedly did. We don't know if the other two did or not, since we've lost much of their work over time.
But think of it this way - there are seven historians who would have had cause to mention Jesus (Phlegon, Pliny the Elder, Plutarch, Josephus, Suetonius, Tacitus and Pliny the Younger). Of these seven, we know that at least three of them did, a fourth mentioned a "Chrestus" (that most scholars, even non-Christian ones, believe was a reference to Christ), and we have reason to believe that a fifth one, Phlegon, also did (though we no longer have the actual text). So, per the evidence, at least five out of seven of the historians who would have had cause to mention Jesus likely mentioned Him. There are only two historians who would have had cause to mention Jesus, but (as far as we know) did not. But since much of their work has been lost over time, we can't say for certain that they didn't mention Jesus.
"Four historians are typically referenced to justify Jesus' existence. Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, Tacitus are the first three. Each one of their entries consists of only a few sentences at best and only refer to Christus or the Christ, which is in fact not a name but a title. It means the anointed one."
Correct, but modern historians don't doubt that they refer to Jesus, who, outside of the Gospels, was most commonly refer to simply as "Christ", even by Paul. Tactitus writes of Christ being executed by Pontius Pilate and says that His followers were blamed for the Roman fire. Suetonius writes of the followers of "Chrestus" being expelled from Rome by Claudius, an event which is also mentioned in the Bible (Acts 18:2). Pliny writes of Christ's followers worshipping Christ instead of the emperor, and the persecution that followed because of this. Three historians mentioning a person is considered, by rational people, good evidence that the person existed. Even Suetonius' reference, the one that is considered most in doubt of these three, is considered a reference to Jesus by the Jewish Encyclopedia.
Christ-mythers sometimes try to argue that these passages are Christian interpolations or that they weren't talking about Jesus, but there's no good argument for either one. We don't declare something an interpolation unless there is some kind of evidence for it (such as the reference being in some copies but not others, or containing information the author couldn't have known, or the style of writing being out-of-character for that author), and there is none here. The Tacitus and Pliny passages are strongly anti-Christian and clearly not the work of a Christian. I even had one Christ-myther try to convince me that these passages were both "Christian interpolations" and "not about Jesus", in other words that Christians wrote these passages in order to provide fake evidence for Jesus, but weren't writing about Jesus when they did so.
"The fourth source is Josephus and this source has been proven to be a forgery for hundreds of years."
What Christ-mythers tend to ignore is the fact that there are two references to Jesus by Josephus, only one of which was interpolated, the other of which is genuine.
The reference in book 18 of "Antiquites of the Jews" is the one Joseph is referring to here, and most historians agree that the interpolation was only partial, that Josephus did write about Jesus, and a later scribe (probably Eusebius, or a contemporary of his) took offense to what Josephus had written and altered the passage to portray Jesus in a more positive light. There is strong evidence for this in the fact that the reference in book 18 seems to be arguing with itself, at one point calling Jesus a "man" and then saying "if it be lawful to call him a man".
The other Josephus reference is in book 20 of "Antiquities of the Jews", where Josephus writes that Jesus was the brother of James (whose trial Josephus is writing about) and that Jesus was called the Christ. This reference is not in doubt, showing no signs of interpolation. Some Christ-mythers say that the interpolation in book 18 automatically puts this one under suspicion, that if Eusebius altered one passage, he could well have altered the other. But this is impossible, since the passage in book 20 was referenced by Origen almost a century before Eusebius' time.
So, yes, we do have at least three, probably four or five, non-Christian historians who apparently wrote about Christ and cannot easily be dismissed as strong evidence for His existence. One thing I frequently ask Christ-mythers is if they can name a fictional character who was written about by a historian as if the historian believe that the person had existed within a century of their time. So far, none have been able to even come up with a single example. Yet they'd have us believe that at least three historians wrote about the "fictional" Jesus as if they believed He existed.
A common objection to these four historians is that, since none of them actually witnessed the events they wrote about (all were born after Jesus' crucifixion), we should dismiss them as "hearsay". But about 99% of ancient history is written by historians who didn't personally witness the events they describe. Most of what we know about Alexander the Great comes from historians writing centuries after he lived. We'd be tossing out practically everything we know about ancient times if we discarded everything written by historians who didn't personally witness the events. I've never heard of the preposterious idea that we should do this, except from Christ-mythers, and only when it comes to Jesus.
What's amusing is that of the "numerous historians" (not!) who Joseph says should have mentioned Jesus but didn't, most (if not all) of them would never have seen Jesus, either having been born too late or having lived in different locations. So even if they had mentioned Jesus, Joseph would be dismissing them as "hearsay", also.
"You would think that a guy who rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven for all eyes to see and performed the wealth of miracles acclaimed to him would have made it into the historical record."
He did. He was mentioned by at least three non-Christian historians. But I assume Joseph means that his miracles and resurrection themselves would have made it into the historical record. Again, it did. We have four Gospels, all written within the same century as the events themselves, which mention the miracles and resurrection. But, of course, Christ-mythers automatically reject this evidence as "biased". So, basically, you can't win with them. If the author mentions the miracles, then they're dismissed as being biased. If they didn't mention the miracles, then they're dismissed for not mentioning them.
They find ways to dismiss everything written about Jesus, just so they can declare that no evidence exists.
Of course, I recently had one skeptic argue to me that if we only had references to Jesus' miracles in non-Christian sources, he would be convinced. The problem is, we have that. We know that Josephus was a non-Christian, yet we have references to Jesus' miracles in Antiquities 18. But, of course, that passage is an interpolation. How do we know this? Because he's a non-Christian, yet mentions Jesus' miracles. So, basically, even though we have exactly what this skeptic says he wants, we have to dismiss it. If we had other examples of non-Christian writing about Jesus' miracles, we'd be dismissing them, as well.
"Once the evidence is weighed, there are very high odds that the figure known as Jesus did not even exist."
No, all of the evidence favors Jesus' existence, and none favors His non-existence. We have around a thousand pages of text, from within 150 years of Jesus' time, written about Him by about fifty different authors, both Christians and non-Christians, which, while they may or may not confirm His miracles, at least confirm His existence. And there is no evidence to favor the claims of Jesus' non-existence. The claims that the Jesus story was based on pre-Christian mythological figures like Horus, Mithra, etc. have no evidence to support them. The fact that Christ-mythers have resorted to fabricating evidence like this to prove their points, and made false claims such as "20+ historians who failed to mention Jesus", only shows that they know the evidence for Jesus is so overwhelming that they're forced to lie to people to try to convince them otherwise.
"We don't want to be unkind, but we want to be factual."
Seriously?
"We don't want to cause hurt feelings, but we want to be academically correct in what we understand and know to be true."
How does Joseph know that his claims are "academically correct" if he doesn't fact-check, read the stories of Horus, Krishna, Mithra, etc. and see if the parallels are actually in the stories themselves?
Joseph's sources, which he lists, are people like Gerald Massey, Earl Doherty, Freke & Gandy, Acharya S, and Barbara Walker. These people are not taken seriously outside of Christ-myther circles. For example, Gerald Massey, who seems to be the ultimate source for most of Joseph's claims regarding Horus, has never had his works recognized in the field of Egyptology, since he never provided backing for his ideas. He claimed the stories existed, but never presented them for anyone to see, leading anyone but the most gullible to believe that he made the claims up himself.
The usual Christ-myther response when I point out that those details aren't in the stories is that I'm reading the wrong versions of the stories, that they exist in "alternate versions" that I haven't run across.
However, I believe I can prove to you that those "alternate versions" don't exist, either.
If you can find me those versions of the stories, where the deities did all of the things Christ-mythers claim they did, I'll pay you $1000. If you can find me versions in which at least half of those details occur, I'll give you an equal percentage of the $1000 (so if you can prove 70% of the claims, I'll give you $700). And you need to do this for only one of the deities. Just Horus. Or Mithra. Or Krishna. Or Dionysus. Or anyone.
My reason for doing this is that if I simply tell you that these stories do not exist, you might not believe me. If I tell you I've never seen them, you might conclude that I didn't look very hard. But if I challenge Christ-mythers to find these stories, and they're completely unable to do so, then that should convince anyone that these stories do not exist anywhere. And if they can't find these stories, then why do they believe that they exist? Because someone told them that they do? Have they taken authority as the truth, rather than the truth as authority? Evidently, they have.
I e-mailed this challenge to every Christ-myther website I could find (including Acharya S's and Peter Joseph's websites), offering them the money to provide evidence for the claims they're spreading all over the internet. Not one of them was able to provide any such evidence. I also posted this offer on message boards where the Christ-myther issues was discussed. Not one person responded with evidence. These details clearly do not occur in any versions of the stories, since not even the very people spreading these claims could find evidence in support of them. I've already had about a dozen Christ-mythers tell me that they would find the evidence for me and win the $1000. Not one of them ever got back to me. The money has stood unclaimed, without anyone even making a serious attempt to present the evidence, since August of 2008.
If you think you can find the evidence, please do. The website where I present my challenge is here: Copycat challenge
I don't feel the need to go into detail on the rest of the movie, but if you're interested in seeing them debunked, I'll point you to the Conspiracy Science website, which debunks part 2 and part 3 (as well as part 1). Conspiracy science is a non-religious website, which debunks conspiracy theories. And Skeptic.com, which is an anti-religious website, also debunks part 1.
Sources:
Encyclopedia Mythica
Tekton Apologetics Ministries
Christian Thinktank
Always Be Ready
Ben
Witherington: Zeitgeist of Zeitgeist
All About Horus
The following three sources are all from non-Christian websites:
Conspiracy Science:
Zeitgeist the Movie Debunked
Skeptic.com: The Greatest
Story Ever Garbled
Zeitgeist Part 1 Astronomy
Astrology Astrotheology Refuted - What Planet Are You From?
And there is a good collection of anti-Zeitgeist websites here:
Debunkers
of the Zeitgeist Lie