diff --git a/activeresource/lib/active_resource/base.rb b/activeresource/lib/active_resource/base.rb
index ec6cee19fa..40a50201a7 100644
--- a/activeresource/lib/active_resource/base.rb
+++ b/activeresource/lib/active_resource/base.rb
@@ -102,7 +102,7 @@ module ActiveResource
       @prefix_options = prefix_options
     end
 
-    def new_resource?
+    def new?
       id.nil?
     end
 
@@ -115,7 +115,7 @@ module ActiveResource
     end
     
     def save
-      new_resource? ? create : update
+      new? ? create : update
     end
 
     def destroy
@@ -134,6 +134,7 @@ module ActiveResource
     # Manually load attributes from a hash. Recursively loads collections of
     # resources.
     def load(attributes)
+      return self if attributes.nil?
       attributes.each do |key, value|
         @attributes[key.to_s] =
           case value
diff --git a/activeresource/test/base/load_test.rb b/activeresource/test/base/load_test.rb
index 674f8456f0..726e7100b7 100644
--- a/activeresource/test/base/load_test.rb
+++ b/activeresource/test/base/load_test.rb
@@ -14,6 +14,12 @@ class BaseLoadTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
     @person = Person.new
   end
 
+  def test_load_nil
+    assert_nothing_raised do
+      assert_equal @person, @person.load(nil)
+    end
+  end
+
   def test_load_simple_hash
     assert_equal Hash.new, @person.attributes
     assert_equal @matz.stringify_keys, @person.load(@matz).attributes