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
This will be disputed only by those who, like the first American and
German editors, cannot see that the first five or six sections are
purely Judaic. After Dr. Charles Taylor and other English editors
did so, coinciding with an early suggestion of M. Massebieau, [359]
the rest have mostly come into line; and even the American editors at
the outset saw that the Epistle of Barnabas, which has so much of the
matter of the Teaching, is the later and not the earlier document. Thus
the Lord's Prayer takes its place as originally a Jewish and not
a Christian document; and the passages in the early chapters which
coincide with the Sermon on the Mount are equally Jewish. [360]
We can now understand the tradition that Matthew, of which the present
opening chapters are so plainly late, was the first of the gospels,
and was primarily a collection of logia. But the logia were in the
terms of the case not logia Iesou at all, being but a compilation of
Jewish dicta on the lines of the Teaching, and, as regards the form
of beatitude, probably an imitation of other Jewish literature as
exampled in the "Slavonic Enoch." [361]
It must be repeated, however, that the ninth and tenth sections of
the Teaching are not to be taken as giving us "the" original Jesus
of the Jesuist movement. We have posited, with Professor Smith, a
"multifocal" movement; and concerning the Jesus here given we can only
say that the document tells of the primary connection of the Jesus-Name
with a non-sacrificial Eucharist. Whether the name stood historically
for Joshua or for the Jesus of Zechariah, or for yet another, it is
impossible to pronounce. What is clear is that it does not point to
the Jesus of the gospels. When the Jesus-sections of the Teaching were
penned, the gospels were yet to come; and the crucified Saviour-God of
Paul was not preached, though his myth was certainly current somewhere.
§ 2. The Apocalypse
The "Revelation of John the Theologian" is also, in respect of much of
its matter, pre-gospel, and even in its later elements independent of
the gospels. It is noteworthy that the latest professional criticism
has after infinite fumbling come (without acknowledging him) to the
view of Dupuis that the episode of the woman and the child and the
dragon belong to sun-myth; [362] and the exegetes would probably save
themselves a good deal of further guessing by contemplating Dupuis's
solution that the special details are simply derived from an ancient
planisphere or fuller zodiac, in which the woman and the dragon and
the hydra are prominent figures. [363] It is in any case particularly
important to realize that this palpably mythical conception of a Jesus
Christ, figured as "the Lamb," evidently with a zodiacal reference,
is found in one of the earliest documents of the cult, outside of
the gospels.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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