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
On the first head, the answer is, as aforesaid, that throughout
all ancient religion we find derogatory views of deity constantly
entertained, at different stages of culture, without any clear
consciousness of incongruity. Yahweh in the Old Testament "repents"
that he made man; wrangles with Sarah; and is unable to overcome
worshippers of other Gods who have "chariots of iron." Always he is a
"jealous" God; and at a later stage he is alleged to be consciously
thwarted by the Israelites when they insist on having a king. These
are all priest-made stories. Among the early Greeks, the Gods are
still less godlike. In Homer, Athênê is almost the only deity who
is treated with habitual reverence: the others are so constantly
satirized, humanized, thwarted, or humiliated, that it is difficult
to associate reverence, in our sense, with the portrayal at all. The
statement of Arno Neumann that "it is impossible (here every historian
will agree) for one who worships a hero to think and speak in such
a way as to contradict or essentially modify his own worship" [386]
is an astonishingly uncritical pronouncement, which simply ignores
the main mass of ancient religious literature.
As regards the Demigods in particular it belongs to the very nature of
the case that they should be at times specially thwarted and reviled
by mortals, since it is their fate to die, albeit to rise again. If,
then, sayings were once invented which fastened human limitations upon
the Divine One for the Jesuists, there was nothing in the psychology of
worshippers on their intellectual plane that should make them pronounce
such sayings forgeries. As we have seen, even in the fourth gospel,
which puts the Divine One higher than ever, he is made, on Professor
Schmiedel's own view, to weep for sheer chagrin.
§ 3. Tendential Tests
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