Bible. New Testament -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.; Jesus Christ -- Historicity
In Holland the Leyden Professor of Philosophy, Bolland, handled the
same matter in a series of works ("Het Lijden en Sterven van Jezus
Christus," 1907; "De Achtergrond der Evangeliën. Eene Bijdrage tot
de kennis van de Wording des Christendoms," 1907; "De evangelische
Jozua. Eene poging tot aanwijzing van den oorsprong des Christendoms,"
1907).
In Poland the mythical character of the story of Jesus has been shown
by Andrzej Niemojewski in his book "Bóg Jezus" (1909), which rests on
the astral-mythological theories of Dupuis and the school of Winckler.
In Germany the Bremen Pastor Kalthoff, in his work, "Das
Christusproblem, Grundlinien zu einer Sozialtheologie" (1903),
thought that the appearance of the Christian religion could be
accounted for without the help of an historical Jesus, simply from a
social movement of the lower classes under the Empire, subsequently
attempting to remove the one-sidedness of this view by his work
"Die Entstehung des Christentums. Neue Beiträge zum Christusproblem"
(1904). (Cf. also his work "Was wissen wir von Jesus? Eine Abrechnung
mit Professor D. Bousset," 1904.) A supplement to the works of Kalthoff
in question is furnished by Fr. Steudel in "Das Christusproblem und
die Zukunft des Protestantismus" (Deutsche Wiedergeburt, 1909).
Finally, the American, William Benjamin Smith, in his work, "The
Pre-Christian Jesus" (1906), has thrown so clear a light upon a number
of important points in the rise of Christianity, and elucidated so many
topics which give us a deeper insight into the actual correlation of
events, that we gradually commence to see clearly in this connection.
"The time is passed," says Jülicher, "when among the learned the
question could be put whether an 'historical' Jesus existed at
all." [2] The literature cited does not appear to justify this
assertion. On the contrary, that time seems only commencing. Indeed,
an unprejudiced judge might find that even Jülicher's own essay, in
which he treated of the so-called founder of the Christian religion in
the "Kultur der Gegenwart," and in which he declared it "tasteless"
to look upon the contents of the Gospels as a myth, speaks rather
against than for the historical reality of Jesus. For the rest,
official learning in Germany, and especially theology, has, up to
the present, remained, we may almost say, wholly unmoved by all the
above-mentioned publications. To my mind it has not yet taken up a
serious position regarding Robertson. Its sparing citations of his
"Pagan Christs" do not give the impression that there can be any talk
of its having a real knowledge of his expositions. [3]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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