The next development of biblical criticism was the mythical mode of interpretation in which are prominent the names of Gabler, Schelling, Bauer, Vater, De Wette, and others. These critics among them set themselves the difficult task of classifying the Bible narratives under the heads of three kinds of myths: historical myths, philosophical myths, and poetical myths. The first were "narratives of real events colored by the light of antiquity, which confounded the divine and the human, the natural and the supernatural"; the second, "such as clothe in the garb of historical narrative a simple thought, a precept, or an idea of the time"; the third, "historical and philosophical myths partly blended together and partly embellished by the creations of the imagination, in which the original fact or idea is almost obscured by the veil which the fancy of the poet has woven around it." This sort of interpretation, first applied to the Old Testament, was later used in sifting history from myth to the New Testament. It will be seen that it has something in common with both the previously opposed views. The mythical interpretation agrees with the old allegorical view in so far that they both relinquish historical reality in favor of some inherent truth or religious conception of which the historical semblance is merely the shell. On the other hand it agrees with the rationalistic view in the fact that it really gives a natural explanation of the process of the growth of myths and legends in human society. Immediate divine agency controls in the allegorical view, the spirit of individuals or of society controls in the mythical view. Neither the out-and-out rationalists nor the orthodox students of the Bible approved of this new mode of interpretation, which was more or less the outcome of the study of the sacred books of other religions. In 1835, however, appeared an epoch-making book which subjected the New Testament to the most elaborate criticism based upon mythical and legendary interpretation. This was the "Life of Jesus, Critically Examined," by Dr. David Friedrich Strauss. This book caused a great stir in the theological world of Germany. Strauss was dismissed from his professorship in the University of Tübingen in consequence of it. Not only this, but in 1839, when he was appointed professor of Church History and Divinity at the University of Zurich, he was compelled at once to resign, and the administration which appointed him was overthrown. This veritable bomb thrown into the world of theology was translated by George Eliot, and published in England in 1846.