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
If the reader under Mr. Sinclair's tutelage will at this point vary his
study somewhat (at the cost of a few extra hours) by reading samples
of quite primitive folk-lore--say the Hottentot Fables and Tales
collected by Dr. Bleek, in which the characters are mostly, but not
always, animals; or some of the fairy tales in Gill's Myths and Songs
of the South Pacific--and then proceed to the tale of Tom Tit Tot,
as given by Mr. Edward Clodd in the dialect of East Anglia, he will
perhaps begin to realize that unsophisticated narrators not only can
but frequently do give certain touches of quasi-reality to "episodes"
which no civilized reader can suppose to have been real. In particular
he will find in the vivacious Tom Tit Tot an amount of "the freedom and
variety of life" in comparison with which the archaic stiffness and
bareness of the Gospel narrative is as dumb-show beside drama. And
if he will next pay some attention to the narrative of Homer, in
which Zeus and Hêrê are so much more life-like than a multitude of
the human personages of the epic, and then turn to see how Plutarch
writes professed biography, some of it absolutely mythical, but all
of it on a documentary basis of some kind, he will perhaps begin
to suspect that Mr. Sinclair has not even perceived the nature of
the problem on which he pronounces, and so is not in a position to
"consider" it at all. Plutarch is nearly as circumstantial about
Theseus and Herakles and Romulus as about Solon. But when he has real
biographical material to go upon as to real personages he gives us a
"freedom and variety of life" which is as far as the poles asunder
from the hieratic figures of the Christian Gospel. Take his Fabius
Maximus. After the pedigree, with its due touch of myth, we read:--
His own personal nickname was Verrucosus, because he had a little
wart growing on his upper lip. The name of Ovicula, signifying
sheep, was also given him while yet a child, because of his slow
and gentle disposition. He was quiet and silent, very cautious in
taking part in children's games, and learned his lessons slowly
and with difficulty, which, combined with his easy obliging ways
with his comrades, made those who did not know him think that he
was dull and stupid. Few there were who could discern, hidden in
the depths of his soul, his glorious and lion-like character.
This is biography, accurate or otherwise. Take again the Life of
Pericles, where after the brief account of parentage, with the item
of the mother's dream, we get this:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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