The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors; Or, Christianity Before Christ, Containing New, Startling, and Extraordinary Revelations in Religious History, which Disclose the Oriental Origin of All the Doctrines, Principles, Precepts, and Miracles of the Christian New Testament, and Furnishing a Key for Unlocking Many of Its Sacred Mysteries, Besides Comprising the History of 16 Heathen Crucified Gods is an 1875 book written by American freethinker Kersey Graves, which asserts that Jesus was not an actual person, but was a creation largely based on earlier stories of deities or god-men saviours who had been crucified and descended to and ascended from the underworld. Parts were reprinted in The Book Your Church Doesn't Want You to Read edited by Tim C. Leedom in 1994, and it was republished in its entirety in 2001. The book is often used as a source by Christ myth theory proponents, such as Dorothy M. Murdock, Tom Harpur, and John G. Jackson. Many of the same theories espoused in the book are repeated in the documentaries The God Who Wasn't There, The Pagan Christ, Zeitgeist: The Movie and Religulous. American Atheists leader Madalyn Murray O'Hair was a fan of the book. While American philosopher and independent scholar Richard Carrier found the book to be incomplete, he appreciated some of its points. Summary Graves, often citing Anacalypsis and other works by Godfrey Higgins (1772–1833) as his source, asserts in the book that many messiah-like "saviors" were crucified on a cross or tree before ascending into heaven. "One thing is clear — the mythos of the Hindus, the mythos of the Jews and the mythos of the Greeks are all at bottom the same; and what are called their early histories are not histories of humankind, but are contrivances under the appearance of histories to perpetuate doctrines." (Higgins, Anacalypsis) Here is Graves' main list, arranged chronologically: Thulis of Egypt, 1700 B.C. Krishna of India, 1200 B.C. Crite of Chaldea, 1200 B.C. Atys of Phrygia, 1170 B.C. Thammuz or Tammuz of Syria, 1160 B.C. Hesus or Eros 834 B.C. Bali of Orissa, 725 B.C. Indra of Thibet (Tibet), 725 B.C. Iao of Nepaul (Nepal), 622 B.C. Buddha Sakia (Muni) of India, 600 B.C. Mitra (Mithra) of Persia, 600 B.C. Alcestos of Euripides, 600 B.C. Quezalcoatl of Mexico, 587 B.C. Wittoba of the Bilingonese, 552 B.C. Prometheus or Æschylus of Caucasus, 547 B.C. Quirinus of Rome, 506 B.C. He also lists a