The Christ Myth, first published in 1909, was a book by Arthur Drews on the Christ myth theory. Drews (1865–1935), along with Bruno Bauer (1809–1882) and Albert Kalthoff (1850–1906), is one of the three German pioneers of the denial of the existence of a historical Jesus.
History
19th-century historical criticism
Drews emphatically argues that no independent evidence for the historical existence of Jesus has ever been found outside the New Testament writings. He denounces the Romanticism of the liberal cult of Jesus (Der liberale Jesuskultus) as a violation of historical method, and the naive sentimentalism of historical theologySee also the Christian definition of "Historical theology" which attributes the formation of Christianity to Jesus's "great personality".
He mentions the key names of historical criticism that emerged in the late 18th century and blossomed in the 19th century in Germany: Charles-François Dupuis (1742–1809) and Comte Constantin-François de Volney (1757–1820), the two French critical thinkers of the Enlightenment, who were the first to deny the historicity of Jesus on astromythical grounds, which they saw as key factors in the formation of religions including Christianity. David Strauss (1808–1874), who, at 27, pioneered the search for the historical Jesus with his Life of Jesus in 1835 (of 1,400 pages) by rejecting all the supernatural events as mythical elaborations. Bruno Bauer (1809–1882), the first academic theologian to affirm the non-historicity of Jesus. He claimed that Mark was the original Gospel, and the inventor of the historicity of Jesus. He traced the impact of major Greco-Roman ideas on the formation of the NT, especially the influence of Stoic philosophy (Seneca the Younger). Bruno Bauer's scholarship was buried by German academia, and he remained a pariah, until Albert Kalthoff rescued him from neglect and obscurity. Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918), an expert scholar of the Torah/Pentateuch, who was a leader in historical and source criticism; William Wrede (1859–1906), the promoter of the Messianic Secret in Mark, and who confirmed Bruno Bauer's claim that Mark was the real creator of Christianity; Johannes Weiss (1863–1914), the first exegete of the Gospels to attribute an apocalyptic vision to Jesus, accepted by Schweitzer and many others. He initiated form criticism later developed by Rudolf Bultmann. Weiss gave the name of Q to the "sayings of the Lord" common to Matthew and Luke. He was considered the highest authority in his time. G.J.P.J. Bolland (1854–1922), a Dutch autodidact radical, interested in Hegel and von Hartmann (letters from Drews to Bolland were published in German from 1890 to 1904Letters from Arthur Drews to G.J.P.J. Bolland 1904, regularly published in German from 1890 to 1904), who saw the origin of Christianity in syncretism by Hellenized Jews in Alexandria; Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965), a historian of theology, who presented an important critical review of the history of the search for Jesus's life in The Quest of the Historical Jesus – From Reimarus to Wrede (1906, first edition), denouncing the subjectivity of the various writers who injected their own preferences in Jesus's character. Schweitzer devotes three chapters to David Strauss (Ch. 7, 8, and 9), and a full chapter to Bruno Bauer (Ch. 11). Ch. 10 discusses the Priority of Mark hypothesis of Christian H. Weisse and Christian G. Wilke advanced in 1838.
Consequences of German historical criticism Consequences have been dramatic.See the current view on Biblical criticism A general skepticism about the validity of the New Testament: "There is nothing, absolutely nothing, either in the actions or words of Jesus, that has not a mythical character or cannot be traced to parallel passages in the Old Testament or the Talmud. Historical criticism resolves all details of the Gospel story in mythical mist and makes it impossible to say that there ever was such a person" (Ch. 12).See also a contemporary view of the Historical reliability of the Gospels A loss of substance and meaning in the figure of the "historical Jesus": "But what [a liberal theologian] leaves intact of the personality and story of Jesus is so meagre, and so devoid of solid foundation, that it cannot claim any historical significance." (Ch. 8) The human Jesus of liberal theologians, found by reduction and elimination of supernatural and other unwanted features, is so bloodless that it could have never induced the emotional fervor of a new spiritual movement, let alone a new religion.
Syncretism
Drews uses the new findings of anthropology collected by James Frazer (1854–1941) with his descriptions of ancient pagan religions and the concept of dying-and-rising god. Drews also pays extreme attention to the social environment of religious movements, as he sees religion as the expression of the social soul.
Drews argues that the figure of Christ arose as a product of syncretism, a composite of mystical and apocalyptic ideas:
1. A Savior/Redeemer derived from the major prophets of the Old Testament and their images of: - the suffering Servant of God (in Isaiah 53), - the Suffering Victim (in Psalm 22), - and the personification of Wisdom (in Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach and Proverbs)
2. The concept of Messiah liberator freeing the Jews in Palestine from Roman occupation and taxation.
3. Mixed with the patterns of Persian and Greco-Roman dying-and-rising godmen — godly heroes, kings, and emperors, whose stories inspired the new anthropological concept of dying and rising gods popularized by Frazer – such as Baal, Melqart, Adonis, Eshmun, Attis, Tammuz, Asclepius, Orpheus, Persephone, Inanna, also known as Ishtar, as well as Ra the Sun god, with its fusion with Osiris, Zalmoxis, Dionysus, and Odin, figuring in mystery cults of the Ancient Near East.
The Jesus Cult and the Mystery Cults Drews points out the marked similarities of the early Christ cult to the existing and popular mystery cults – a theme already developed by W.B. Smith and J.M. Robertson, and later echoed by Maurice Goguel and reprised by the older brother of G.A. van den Bergh van EysingaH.W.Ph. van den Bergh van Eysinga, The Christ Mystery, 1917 Klaus Schilling's "Summary and translation"] and van Eysinga himself.G.A. van den Bergh van Eysinga, Das Christentum als Mysterienreligion (1950) ["Christianity as a Mystery Cult"] The rapid diffusion of the Christ religion took place in a population already shaped by and conversant with the sacred features of the mystery cults.Jesus Christ in comparative mythology
Mithras
The Christ Myth is sprinkled with comparisons between the Mithraic mysteries and the cult of Jesus. Although the god Mithras was not exactly a dying-and-rising god, the cults share some meaningful similarities, especially the sacramental feast which allowed the initiated to experience a mystical union with the god.
Mithraism, imported from Persia to Rome, spread rapidly through the Roman Empire in the 1st century, and was considered a certain rival to early Christianity. The major images show the god being born from a rock. The central theme is the hunting and killing a bull with blood gushing out. The sun was portrayed as a friend of Mithras, and banquets with him on the hide of the bull. Females played no part in the images or the cult. The cult was popular among soldiers, and was likely spread by them. Few initiates came from the social elite, until the revival in the mid-4th century (Emperor Julian). Drews claims that the figure of Jesus seemed more concrete, his story more moving, and it appealed more to women and the underdogs of society. The premature death of Emperor Julian was one of the causes of the Jesus mystery eventually winning over the Mithraic mysteries.
Christianity and the historical personality of Jesus
Drews asserted that everything about the story of Jesus had a mythical character, and that it was therefore not necessary to presuppose that a historical Jesus had ever existed. In fact, Christianity could have developed without Jesus, but not without Paul, and certainly not without Isaiah.Walter P. Weaver, The Historical Jesus in the Twentieth Century, 1900–1950, Ch. 2, "The Nonhistorical Jesus", Section on "Arthur Drews", p. 49-54 (Trinity Press, 1999)
Drews concludes in the last chapter, "The Religious Problem of the Present": The Christ-faith arose quite independently of any historical personality known to us;... Jesus was in this sense a product of the religious social soul and was made by Paul, with the required amount of reinterpretation and reconstruction, the chief interest of those communities founded by him. The historical Jesus is not earlier but later than Paul; and as such he has always existed merely as an idea, as a pious fiction in the minds of members of the community...the Gospels are the derivatives...for the propaganda of the Church, and being without any claim to historical significance...[Religion] is a group-religion...the connection of the religious community...[Our personal religion], a religion of the individual, a principle of personal salvation, would have been an offense and an absurdity to the whole of ancient Christendom. [emphasis added]
Christ Myth II – the witnesses to the historicity of Jesus (1912)
Critique of circular historical theology
Arthur Drews published a second part to his book, Die Christusmythe II: "Die Zeugnisse für die Geschichtlichkeit Jesu" (1911), to answer objections of scholars and critically examine the historical method of theologians. Joseph McCabe (1867–1955),Translations and other Works by Joseph McCabe who started life as a Roman Catholic priest, produced a translation of Christ Myth II as The Witnesses to the Historicity of Jesus (1912), published both in London and Chicago.
Historicity of Jesus
The preface of this classic book states:"Preface" – Develops the key critique of circular Historical Theology and its sentimental "Lives of Jesus" "The question of the historicity of Jesus [die Frage nach der Historizität von Jesus Christus] is a purely historical question to be settled with the resources of historical research."
In Ch. 3, "The Methods of Historical Criticism" of Part IV, "The Witness of the Gospels", Drews denounces the unscientific methodology principles of theological history which have been used in Schweitzer's The Quest for the Historical Jesus, the new theological vogue since David Strauss (1808–1874), and resulted in a long string of Lives of Jesus.Peter Kirby, "The Variety of Historical Jesus Theories", in Early Christian Writings Drews criticizes historical theology as not respecting the rules of non-Christian historical method, and giving way to "sentimental intuitions" and "basic circularity" of argumentation, where the existence of Jesus is presupposed, but not evidenced by outside sources. He takes as example the case of Johannes Weiss: