Jesus from Outer Space: What the Earliest Christians Really Believed about Christ

The earliest Christians believed Jesus was a celestial being who put on a bodysuit of flesh, died at the hands of dark forces, then raised from the dead and ascended back into the heavens. The idea that Jesus toured Galilee and visited Jerusalem arose a lifetime later, in legends written in a foreign land and language. Many sources repeat those legends, but none corroborate them. Why? What exactly was the original belief about Jesus, and how did this belief change over time? Noted historian Richard Carrier summarizes for a popular audience the scholarly research on these and related questions, revealing in turn how modern attempts to conceal, misrepresent, or avoid the actual evidence call into question the entire field of Jesus studies.