The complete title of the book is The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors; Or, Christianity Before Christ, Containing New, Startling, and Extraordinary Revelations in Religious History, which Disclose the Oriental Origin of All the Doctrines, Principles, Precepts, and Miracles of the Christian New Testament, and Furnishing a Key for Unlocking Many of Its Sacred Mysteries, Besides Comprising the History of 16 Heathen Crucified Gods. It is an 1875 book written by American freethinker Kersey Graves. Graves asserts that Jesus was not an actual person but was a creation largely based on earlier stories of deities or god-men saviors who had been crucified and descended to and ascended from the underworld.