read their work, he responded by commenting on the thesis, "This is an old argument, even though it shows up every 10 years or so. This current craze that Christianity was a mystery religion like these other mystery religions-the people who are saying this are almost always people who know nothing about the mystery religions; they've read a few popular books, but they're not scholars of mystery religions. The reality is, we know very little about mystery religions-the whole point of mystery religions is that they're secret! So I think it's crazy to build on ignorance in order to make a claim like this." In his 2012 book Did Jesus Exist?, Ehrman, now having actually read the book, addresses many of Freke and Gandy's assertions, demonstrating why they do not hold up to scholarly criticism. According to Ehrman's analysis, most of Freke and Gandy's alleged evidence is either fabricated, the result of gross misinterpretation, or mere bald assertion based on the claims of other writers rather than actual historical evidence. Ehrman concludes, "This is not serious scholarship. It is sensationalist writing driven by a desire to sell books." He also remarks that "In both its detail and its overarching thesis, the book often reads like an undergraduate thesis, filled with patently false information and inconsistencies." He then provides a long list of examples of serious historical errors in the book, as well as places where Freke and Gandy's own arguments contradict each other. James Hannam has noted that one of the artifacts that the authors rely on, a depiction of Orpheus on a cross, is a fake. Author and activist Richard Carrier has stated that The Jesus Mysteries "will disease" a reader's "mind with rampant unsourced falsehoods and completely miseducate". Although Carrier himself supports the view that Jesus was not a real person, he has condemned the viewpoints on "ancient world and ancient religion" presented in The Jesus Mysteries as ludicrous and without merit. See also Christ myth theory Historicity of Jesus Josephus on Jesus References Notes Books by Freke and Gandy on the Jesus Mysteries theme The Jesus Mysteries: Was the "Original Jesus" a Pagan God? (1999) Jesus and the Lost Goddess: The Secret Teachings of the Original Christians (2002) The Laughing Jesus: Religious Lies and Gnostic Wisdom (2005) The Gospel of the Second Coming (2007) Critique Reinventing Jesus, Komoszewski et al., Kregel, , (2006) 1999 non-fiction books Books