Larson's lifelong body of work constructs a complete historical theory of the origins of Christianity and the genesis of its theological controversies, detailing its evolution from the pagan cults of Osiris and Dionysus to modern times.
The thrust of his work is to show that Christianity evolved from pagan religions and Judaism rather than arose full-blown from the mind of a single religious prophet.
Larson studied the Dead Sea Scrolls literature and commented that the Essenes "engrafted a Christology which combined a Persian with a Messianic Judaic concept, which, in a period of crisis, they personalized in a martyred Teacher of Righteousness whom they expected to return upon clouds about 35-50 B.C.
"[3] Larson concluded that Jesus was an Essene who convinced himself he was the incarnate of Christ destined to redeem mankind so left the Order to create a mass movement.
He argues, with a conspicuous lack of scholarship and a depressing mishmash of phoney exegesis, that Jesus was a frustrated Essene who (probably) survived his attempted crucifixion, and whose simple Essene-type gospel was rapidly distorted by the machinations of the crypto-Catholics.