Jesus from Outer Space

What the Earliest Christians Really Believed About Christ

By: Richard Carrier

Narrated by: KC Gleason

The earliest Christians believed Jesus was an ancient celestial being who put on a bodysuit of flesh, died at the hands of dark forces, and then rose from the dead and ascended back into the heavens. But the writing we have today from that first generation of Christians never says where they thought he landed, where he lived, or where he died.

The idea that Jesus toured Galilee and visited Jerusalem arose only a lifetime later, in unsourced 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?

In Jesus from Outer Space, noted philosopher and 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 calls into question the entire field of Jesus studies--and present-day beliefs about how Christianity began.

©2020 Richard Carrier (P)2025 Pitchstone Publishing

Great Book, but the narrator isn’t as good as Dr. Carrier himself

I have every single one of Dr. Carrier’s audio books. Every single one is a gem I could listen to again and again—and do. I appreciate his frank, conversational style and his delivery is always dead on. You can tell he’s both very experienced and very passionate about the subjects he writes on.

Unfortunately, he didn’t narrate this book, and I really wish he had. It was odd that he switched to a third POV for this book when his other books are first, direct from the source, and I wonder if that’s intentional because he did not narrate this one.

The narrator ultimately was fine, but she lacked Dr. Carrier’s mannerism and speech, and ultimately just wasn’t as enjoyable to listen to. Can’t say this one is a re-listen to me, and I really hope he’s not too busy to read his future books, because that personal touch is something I really missed in this one.

Brilliant

Dr. Carrier knocks it out of the park again with the most obvious situation. Well done.

psychobabble

waste of time. don't bother. he sets up the argument with rehashed stuff from his old books and then spends the end of the book writing some of the stupidest nonsense possible. i was expecting some esoteric gnostic truth bombs and hes literally speaking nonsense - in third person mind you. Dude's a joke. This book should be career ending.