David Lindsay



Far removed from the cultural and religious norms of the country where he received his degree in theology, a University of Malta graduate has penned a controversial book arguing that the foundations of Christianity have sprouted from mythology and that history has made a grave error in mistaking Jesus Christ for a real historical figure.

The book, Dead Little Fish: The Accidental History of Jesus Christ by University of Malta graduate American Derek Murphy, has been associated with The Da Vinci Code that had caused an uproar in Malta when the film version was released, in that both books cast doubt on Christian traditions.

But there is an important difference. While The Da Vinci Code recognises the figure of Jesus as a real person, Mr Murphy’s book claims the persona of Jesus is a spiritual metaphor, a sacred symbol developed from a long history of religious mythology that over successive centuries has been accidentally mistaken for a historical person.

The book’s promotional material explains how it, “exposes the accidental roots of Christianity by tracing its development from Greek mystery cults, pagan sun myths, and ancient philosophy... and proves that the first Christians believed in Jesus only as a spiritual entity, and he was later, mistakenly viewed as a real man”.

Dead Little Fish, published on 15 September, claims to show how central themes from Christianity were taken from ancient sun myths and stories about constellations and how, for the first several centuries AD, Christians had worshiped Jesus as a sun god. It also details the central theory of creation and salvation, which has been preserved in many religions and how this spirituality had found expression in pagan religions.

The book uses the biblical letters of St Paul to forward the argument that he saw Jesus as a mythological saviour and that a group of his own disciples renounced his teachings and began to develop the idea that Jesus was a historical man. It shows how they gained political power, created a new history to support itself, and grew into the Catholic Church.

While a number of books and television programmes, since the Da Vinci Code phenomenon began to take root, have offered contrasting views of the origins of Christianity, Mr Murphy argues that such missives are “ignoring crucial evidence that radically re-defines the origins of Christianity: Jesus, and his consort Mary Magdalene, stem from an ancient mythological tradition and were originally never considered as real people”.

The book claims to conclusively interpret the symbols and the story of Jesus by providing new insights and a comprehensive overview of Christian beginnings. It also claims to be the first book to clearly detail what it describes as “the constellation mythology that developed directly into biblical stories”.

Now that the book is in print, Mr Murphy reports he is working on a novel, which he describes as a sequel to The Bible.