The Historical Jesus: A Survey of PositionsRobertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
Religion
The Historical Jesus: A Survey of Positions
Robertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
Jesus Christ -- Historicity; Jesus Christ -- Rationalistic interpretations
For anyone who will soberly and faithfully face the facts there must
sooner or later arise the problem, Is there any unifying personality
behind this medley of many sets of doctrines, many voices, many
schools? Even if it were possible to piece together from it a coherent
body of either ethical or religious thought, and jettison the rest,
is there any reason to believe that the selected matter belongs to the
Gospel Teacher with the Twelve Disciples, crucified on the morning
after the Passover under Pontius Pilate? When the crowning doctrine
of sacrament and sacrifice is seen to be but the consummation of a
religious lore beginning in prehistoric and systematic human sacrifice,
and traceable in a score of ancient cults, is it possible to claim that
the palpably dramatic record of Last Supper, Agony, Betrayal, Trial,
and Crucifixion is a historic record of a strange coincidence between
cult practice and biography? And if that goes, what is left? If,
says Loisy, the condemnation of Jesus as pretended Messiah by Pilate
"could be put in doubt, one would have no motive for affirming the
existence of Christ." [14] And it can!
Some, assuming to settle the problem by rhetoric, in effect stand
for a "personality" without any pretence of establishing what the
"personality" taught. And this inexpensive device will doubtless
long continue to be practised by the large class who insist upon
solving all such problems by instinct. An example of that procedure
is afforded by an article headed "A Barren Controversy," by the
Rev. Frederick Sinclair, in a magazine entitled Fellowship, the
organ of the Free Religious Fellowship, Melbourne, issue of March,
1915. The controversy is certainly barren enough as Mr. Sinclair
conducts it. His religious temper is of a familiar type. "It is a
hard task to prove the obvious," he begins; "and no obligation is
laid on us to examine and refute the evidences alleged in support of
this or that cock-and-bull theory." We can imagine how the reverend
critic would have shone in the sixteenth or the seventeenth century,
disposing of the Copernican theory, which so presumptuously assailed
"the obvious." True to his principles, he does not hamper himself
by meeting arguments or evidence. "Mythical theories about Christ
have about as much scientific value and importance as the theories
of the Baconians about Shakespeare. They ... are products ... of
that perverted credulity which will swallow anything, so long as
it is not orthodox; and they are best met by the method of satire
adopted by Whately in his 'Historic Doubts' on Napoleon." And yet
our expert renounces that admirable instrument in favour of the
simpler procedure vulgarly known as "bluff." He is in reality a good
example of the psychosis of the very Baconism which he contemns,
and which he would probably be quite unable to confute. An æsthetic
impression of "reality" derived from a hypnotized perusal of Mark,
and a feeling that only one man could deliver such oracles, are the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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