^[2] Luke 9:60, NRSV.

^[3] On this book’s website, BadThingsJesusTaught.com, you will find a chart listing all 292 of these Jesus quotes, grouped into four categories: scary extremism, preaching about the end time, bad advice and bad theology, and the unreal Jesus in John’s gospel.

^[4] See Matthew 22:37-39.

^[5] Hector Avalos, The Bad Jesus: The Ethics of New Testament Ethics, (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press Ltd, 2015), pp. 50-89.

^[6] Luke 14:13-14, NRSV.

^[7] Hector Avalos, The Bad Jesus, p. 89.

^[8] The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language, Luke 14:26, no date.

^[9] Matthew 10:37, NRSV.

^[10] Lynn H. Nicholas, The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe’s Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War, (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), p. 196

^[11] See especially Dan Barker, God the Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction and Steve Wells, Drunk with Blood: God’s Killings in the Bible.

^[12] Acts 4:32 NRSV.

^[13] Acts 5:11, NRSV.

^[14] Surely Christians must lament the chaos in the New Testament about how to win eternal life. This statement in Mark is nonsense, of course; in John’s gospel we’ll see that believing in Jesus is the key—and eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Paul states in Romans 10:9, “…if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (NRSV)

^[15] In Mark, chapter 5, Jesus transfers demons into pigs.

^[16] Mark 14:22-25, NRSV.

^[17] Hector Avalos, in The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails, edited by John W. Loftus (Amherst: Prometheus Books, 2010), p. 227.

^[18] New York Times, “Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer,” March 31, 2006.

^[19] Isaiah 6:11 NRSV.

^[20] Galatians 2:11, NRSV.

^[21] Hector Avalos, in his essay “Yahweh Is a Moral Monster,” in The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails, edited by John w. Loftus, p. 227.

^[22] Tim Sledge, Goodbye Jesus: An Evangelical Preacher’s Journey Beyond Faith (Houston: Insighting Growth Publications, 2018, Second Edition), p. 340.

^[23] Mark 14 62.

^[24] Some theologians have based their belief in predestination on this text, seeing “the elect” as referring to those designated for heaven right from birth, but it could also mean that, for Jesus, “the elect” are those who obey him as taught in John 3:36.

^[25] Luke 14:26.

^[26] YNet News, “Many Americans Expect Jesus’ Return by 2050,” June 23, 2010.

^[27] For more on this, see Tom Dykstra, Mark, Canonizer of Paul.

^[28] Richard Carrier, On the Historicity of Jesus (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2014), p. 67

^[29] David Fitzgerald, Jesus: Mything in Action, Volume 1 (Self-Published, 2016), pp. 113-120.

^[30] Scott McKellar on Facebook.

^[31] Tim Sledge, Four Disturbing Questions with One Simple Answer: Breaking the Spell of Christian Belief (Houston: Insighting Growth Publications, 2019), p. 17.

^[32] Tom Dykstra, Mark, Canonizer of Paul, (St. Paul: OCABS Press, 2012), p. 13.

^[33] Mark 14:25, NRSV.

^[34] Matthew 10:23, NRSV.

^[35] Luke 9:27, NRSV.

^[36] Luke 12:40, NRSV.

^[37] Mark 13:10, NRSV.

^[38] Mark 13:30, NRSV.

^[39] A classic study of this is Bart Ehrman’s Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium. I also recommend John W. Loftus’ essay, “At Best Jesus Was a Failed Apocalyptic Prophet” in his anthology, The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails.

^[40] Lifeway Research, “Americans Are Fond of the Bible, Don’t Actually Read It,” April 25, 2017.

^[41] Ben Witherington III with Darlene Hyatt, Paul’s Letter to the Romans: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2004).

^[42] Richard Carrier, On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt, pp. 490-491.

^[43] Richard Carrier, On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt, p. 500.

^[44] Mark 1:12-13, NRSV.

^[45] Richard Carrier, On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt, pp. 465-466.

^[46] See especially, Robert M. Price, The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems, for a thorough list of Old Testament texts and their gospel parallels.

^[47] David Chumney, Eclipsing Jesus: How Searching the Scriptures Got in the Way of Recounting the Facts (North Charleston: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017), Kindle Loc 11696.

^[48] Randel Helms, Gospel Fictions (Amherst: Prometheus Books, Reprint Edition, 1989), p. 11.

^[49] Randel Helms, Gospel Fictions, p. 16.

^[50] Randel Helms, Gospel Fictions, p. 19, citing Northrop Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature, 1982, p. 78.

^[51] R. G. Price, Deciphering the Gospels Proves Jesus Never Existed, (Self-Published, 2018), pp. xx-xxi.

^[52] Wikipedia, “Christ Myth Theory,” Referenced August, 2021.

^[53] Randel Helms, Gospel Fictions, p. 12.

^[54] Tom Dykstra, Mark, Canonizer of Paul, pp. 41-65.

^[55] Tom Dykstra, Mark, Canonizer of Paul, p. 56.

^[56] Tom Dykstra, Mark, Canonizer of Paul, p. 57.

^[57] John 8:7, NRSV.

^[58] Mark 1:4, NRSV.

^[59] Mark 1:10-11, NRSV.

^[60] John 1:32, NRSV.

^[61] Louis A. Ruprecht, Jr., This Tragic Gospel: How John Corrupted the Heart of Christianity (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008), pp. 123-124.

^[62] Mark 10:45, NRSV.

^[63] John 1:29, NRSV.

^[64] Mark 14:12, NRSV.

^[65] Richard Carrier, On the Historicity of Jesus, pp. 431-432.

^[66] Ruprecht, This Tragic Gospel, p. 112.

^[67] Hector Avalos’ essay, “Atheism Was Not the Cause of the Holocaust,” in The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails, edited by John W. Loftus, p. 378.

^[68] Tim Sledge, Four Disturbing Questions with One Simple Answer: Breaking the Spell of Christian Belief, p. 46.

^[69] Hemant Mehta, “Preacher: I Prophesied Trump Would Win Again, But I Must Have Misinterpreted God,” Friendly Atheist on Patheos.com, January 8, 2021.

^[70] See especially, his 600-page book, On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt.

^[71] Richard Carrier, “What’s the Harm? Why Religious Belief Is Always Bad,” www.richardcarrier.info, September 10, 2018.

^[72] Richard Carrier, “What’s the Harm? Why Religious Belief Is Always Bad.”

^[73] The End of Christianity, edited by John W. Loftus (Amherst: Prometheus Books, 2011), p. 137.

^[74] Neptune Society of Central California, “Dr. John Beversluis of Fresno, California, 1934-2021, Obituary,” May 22, 2021.

^[75] John Beversluis, Introduction to The Gospel According to Whom? A Nonbeliever Looks at the New Testament and Its Contemporary Defenders, Published posthumously on the Debunking Christianity Blog, June 29, 2021.

^[76] In his essay, “How to Think Like a Scientist: Why Every Christian Can and Should Embrace Good Thinking,” in the John W. Loftus anthology, Christianity in the Light of Science: Critically Examining the World’s Largest Religion, p. 30 (Amherst, Prometheus Books, 2016).