The Jesus Problem: A Restatement of the Myth TheoryRobertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
Religion
The Jesus Problem: A Restatement of the Myth Theory
Robertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
Jesus Christ
For the dispersed Jews, held by a racial tie, association was a matter
of course. Marked off by religion if not by aspect from Gentiles
everywhere, they were a community within the Gentile community. For
the first Jesuists, association was not thus a matter of course all
round. For the slaves, seeking friendship, and the poor, seeking help,
it may have been; but the more prosperous were for that very reason
less spontaneously attracted. The fundamental tie was the so-called
"Eucharist," which at first, in varying forms, was probably only an
annual rite: the agapae or love feasts were common to the multitude
of pagan associations. Accordingly many adherents tended to "forsake
the assembling of themselves together," [356] and it was plainly
the function of the bishop to act upon these. Not only the Epistle
to the Hebrews and that of Jude but those of Barnabas and Ignatius,
and The Shepherd of Hermas, anxiously or sternly urge the duty of
regular meeting. Addresses by bishops and "prophets" would be natural
means of promoting the end.
Who then produced the literature? Once more, there is no evidence. If
any of the Epistles might at first sight seem "genuine," they are
those ascribed to James and Jude, essentially Judaic or Judaistic
documents, especially the former, in which (ii, 1) the cumbrous formula
"the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ of glory" exhibits a Christian
interpolation. It is essentially in the spirit of the Teaching,
a counsel of right living, calling for works in opposition to the
new doctrine that faith is the one thing needful, and sounding the
Ebionitic note (v, 1): "Go to now, ye rich, weep and howl for your
miseries that are coming upon you." But save for the interpolation and
the naming of Jesus Christ in the sentence of preamble, there is no
specific Jesuist or Christist teaching whatever. If this document was
current among the Jesuists, it was borrowed from a Jewish author who
had at most one special item of belief in common with them, that of
"the coming [or presence] of the Lord" (v. 7, 8); and here there is
no certainty that "the Lord" meant for the writer the Christ.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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