The author of The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors, Kersey Graves (1813-1883) was a former Quaker. His book is widely acknowledged as stealing much from Sir Godfrey Higgins (1782-1833) and his book, Anacalypsis. Graves denied his plagiarism, but cited very few sources in his work. So much for scholarship, Mr. Graves!
Graves often detours from his presentation of "facts" to state his aim of destroying Christianity. Graves claimed to be a champion of Freethought. But like most self-proclaimed free thinkers, he couldn't tolerate religion in general and Christianity in particular. So much for free thinking, Mr. Graves!
I examined the sixteen characters from Chapter 16 of Graves' book, The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors. I rated each character on ten criteria that Graves acknowledged as being characteristics attributed to Jesus Christ. The list of criteria I choose are not mentioned by Graves as comprehensive standard, though he did spend the previous 15 chapters of his book trying to convince the reader that many mythological characters met at least one of them. In building up a case upon which to present his list of 16 gods, Graves subscribes to the notion that a savior like Christ much meet many criteria. I chose a subset of the criteria that Graves implicitly claims that a savior like Christ should meet.
My findings are that Graves and his work are fraudulent. None of the characters from Chapter 16 met half of the criteria. Fifteen of them were not crucified, and the one that I gave credit for crucifixion was persecuted and crucified by another pagan god. In short, none of Graves savior met half of the ten criteria that Graves attributes to Christ. So Graves fails to present one character as a forerunner of Christ, and hence fails to make the case that Christ was a myth built upon sixteen crucified saviors that preceded him by centuries.
In building his case to refute the claims of Christ, Grave constructs a noose on which he is hung. For the reader who likes what Graves has to say, he makes a seemingly compelling case for rejecting Jesus Christ. For the reader who will try to verify Graves work though independent historical and religious sources, Graves is a fraud.
