Conspiracy Theory Book of the Month #9: The Christ Conspiracy

While religious and secular scholars debate many of the historical aspects of the life of Jesus Christ, it is generally accepted that a man who went by the name Jesus of Nazareth did exist in the 1^st century CE.

His name was mentioned as a reformer and leader by multiple Jewish and Roman texts in the first years after his crucifixion, and it is likely that St. Paul’s letters describing the final days of Jesus were written about 25 years later.

But generally accepted scholarship counts for little in the world of conspiracy theories. When dealing with people and events that took place two millennia ago, there is a great deal of room for cranks and pseudoscientists to develop lucrative and compelling versions of the life of Christ and find large audiences for them. The idea that Christ either never existed at all or had much of his life invented by future Christian authors is generally known as the “Christ myth theory.”

The New Age and ‘Acharya S.’

While not accepting the historical evidence of Jesus has been part of fringe Christian scholarship for generations, it had a resurgence during the New Age fad of the 1970’s, and found a mainstream audience in the late 90’s with the book The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold, written under the pen name “Acharya S.”

Released on a private press devoted to adventure and pseudo-archaeology books, The Christ Conspiracy posits that Jesus Christ was an amalgam of various creation myths and other historical deity figures, that Christianity is an irrational religion mostly created by frauds and secret societies, and that there has been a massive coverup in Biblical and historical scholarship against anyone who dares try to research the matter further.

Jesus Myths Fueled by The Da Vinci Code

While The Christ Conspiracy itself has somewhat fallen into obscurity, its ideas and the debate it sparked would become hugely influential in the industry of Jesus myths that emerged in the early 2000’s with the success of The Da Vinci Code and later the conspiracy film Zeitgeist.

So did “Acharya S.” blow the lid off nearly 2000 years of fraud and fakery? Was the historical Christ merely a fictional character created by Roman conspirators? And how did it become so popular to question the accepted wisdom about one of the most important historical figures in world history?

The Anonymous Scholar

“Acharya S.” was the pen name of Dorothy Milne Murdock, a legitimate religious scholar whose earliest writings in fringe material were “designed to bring to light fascinating lost, hidden and destroyed religious, mythological and spiritual traditions that reveal an exciting core of knowledge dating back thousands of years.” A few years after she launched her website, Murdock wrote The Christ Conspiracy, codifying years of scholarship claiming that Christ was simply another version of ancient creation myths, that early Christian symbology was a reinterpretation of astrology, and that the idea of Christ being born on Christmas was taken from the birth dates of “other crucified godmen.”

To Murdock, all of what we understand as Christianity is a repackaged version of ancient myths, particularly Egyptian, and that there is no verifiable evidence that the Christ of the New Testament ever existed.

Christianity, Murdock writes near the end of the book, “is merely the end product of a long line of the same traditions,” which she attributes to an ancient global civilization with a universal set of myths and symbols.

But if there is a “Christ Conspiracy,” who were the conspirators? And who “sold” its story? Murdock writes of them as a contemporary cabal of secret society members desperate to take control of the Roman Empire through a new religion based on very old concepts. As Murdock writes, the conspirators forged passages in the works of the Roman historian Tacitus and the letters of John, stole pieces of their mythology directly from the Old Testament and other ancient myths, suppressed dissent from those whose myths they were appropriating, destroyed countless books and works of scholarship and art that could disprove their plot in a “censorship rampage that went on for centuries,” and engaged in fiendish sex rituals. Her conspirators are the saints and popes of early Christianity, the emperors of Rome who abetted their plot, and today’s clergy who perpetuate the myth.

From Ancient Egypt to Modern Christianity?

Murdock’s work after writing The Christ Conspiracy continued to focus on the historical plot to create and perpetuate Jesus. In particular, she focused on the connection between ancient Egyptian mythology and modern Christianity, even claiming that the “ancient astronauts” of pseudoarchaeology and pop culture fame are an attempt to validate the myths of Christ’s existence.

Her work, unsurprisingly, was completely rejected by mainstream Biblical scholars – and the bibliography of The Christ Conspiracy shows a disturbing dependence on crank scholars like Madame Blavatsky, “Lost Continent of Mu” creator James Churchward, and ancient astronauts “scholar” Zecharia Sitchin.

But those figures continue to have influence and authority in the conspiracy theorist community, and while Murdock’s work has mostly slid into obscurity, her ideas could be found in some of the most influential conspiracy works of the 21^st century.

Dan Brown and the ‘Conspiracy to Silence the Truth’

Published in 2003, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code is almost the polar opposite of Murdock’s book. While that work is a lumbering and rambling work of pseudohistory, The Da Vinci Code is a thriller taking what its author claims is “99 percent truth” and infusing it with a race against the clock puzzle story. Brown writes of Christ explicitly as a historical figure, one with a deep and hidden history that most religious scholars wouldn’t write about – as opposed to a mythical figure devised by power-hungry Roman theologians.

But both Brown and Murdock write of a conspiracy to silence the truth, of revelations hidden in ancient texts, and facts that if they were widely known would shatter our understanding of Christianity and Jesus himself. Like Murdock’s “findings,” those of Dan Brown – such as Jesus and Mary Magdalene being secret lovers, lost gospels in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the concept of the “Holy Grail” not being a cup, but a euphemism for the secret bloodline of Christ – were completely rejected by scholars as fiction. But both works drove intense debate and discussion, setting the stage for more works on those same themes – and more works using those ideas as springboards.

Peter Joseph’s ‘Zeitgeist’

One of the most important of those was the 2007 self-produced film Zeitgeist. Though primarily remembered as a 9/11 conspiracy theory expose, part one of Zeitgeist is based around the Christ myth, and uses Murdock’s work, particularly The Christ Conspiracy, as primary source material. Director Peter Joseph attempts to debunk the entire accepted history of Christianity as part of his “everything you know is wrong” framework, and relies on The Christ Conspiracy as its primary source. Murdock later wrote that she served as a consultant on that part of the film – though not, she’s careful to point out, on anything related to the September 11^th attacks. And the film’s depiction of Christ as a gumbo of ancient myths propagated by a conspiracy of Jewish, Roman, and Christian frauds is an almost directly lift from Murdock’s work.

Jesus and 9/11

Zeitgeist got wrapped up in the 9/11 truth movement of the mid 2000’s, along with books like The Big Lie and other self-produced films like Loose Change. Joseph directed multiple sequels to the film focused on the political conspiracy theory aspects of the first film and mostly left behind references to Christ’s historicity. But all of it fit together – if “they” were lying to you about the existence of Jesus and about 9/11, what else could they be lying about? And what could we do about it?

For scholars and critics, the answer was to ignore anything involving either The Christ Conspiracy or Zeitgeist. The film drew passionate debunkings from both Christian scholars and secular skeptics alike, who pointed out its bogus conclusions and antisemitic influences. But Zeitgeist achieved a popularity that even Murdock’s book couldn’t touch, spawning a populist movement that would only formally disband in 2023.

Like the vast majority of conspiracy theories that cross over into popular culture, the “Jesus myth” theory mostly faded away after its burst of notoriety. Murdock’s books after The Christ Conspiracy had little cultural appeal, and religious based conspiracism has veered far to the right, replacing the idea of Roman conspirators stealing ideas from Buddhism with militant Christian nationalism. Even Peter Joseph couldn’t replicate the frenzy behind Zeitgeist, as a fourth film in the series was released in 2024 to virtually no notice. Murdock herself died in 2015 of cancer, and little other work has been produced about the Christ Myth in the last decade.

But her work lives on in a generation of self-taught truth-seekers, looking for validation that everything their parents and priests told them was a lie, and that the real story of Jesus isn’t found in Nativity scenes and staid sermons, but in a vast plot by generations of conspirators to suppress the truth. For some, that’s the real Greatest Story Ever Told.