One of the primary sources of material used by atheists for “Jesus = <insert god here>” is J. Frazer’s The Golden Bough, 1911. In my experience, whenever I look at this kind of material, it is always worth checking what Frazer said. In my case I want to find the origin of some curious statements about the Adonia.
His book is well referenced, if you go directly to it. He’s the only author I have ever come across to know of 6th century Syriac author Thomas of Edessa, or to have read the Latin version — the only version ever made — of his De nativitate. Yet read it he must have done, for he refers (correctly) to the fact that Thomas says the pagans even in his day celebrated a solar festival at Christmas-time.
A single volume abridgement is accessible at Gutenberg. But it came as rather a shock to discover that the original was actually in twelve volumes! I tried to locate this on Google books in vain; a search on Archive.org was better.
To locate all 12 volumes, use this link.
Thanks for posting Roger. I made some use of The Golden Bough in college for studies in paganism, though I never became as familiar with the work as I would have liked. Feel free to post more thoughts on the topic! “The White Goddess” was a good book along the same lines. Have you read “The Goddess Unmasked”?
Glad it was useful. I’m afraid that all this literature largely passed me by. It’s always safe to assume that I have never read secondary literature, because I tend not to have access to it!