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
3. The "historical Jesus" of the siege, who is "meek" and venerated
as a prophet and martyr, being combined with the "Mosaic Jesus"
of Galilee, a disciple of Judas of Galilee, who resisted the Roman
rule and helped to precipitate the war, the memory of the "sect" of
Judas the Gaulanite or Galilean, who began the anti-Roman trouble,
is also transmuted into a myth of a sect of Jesus of Galilee, who has
fishermen for disciples, is followed by poor Galileans, is betrayed
by one companion and deserted by the rest, and is represented finally
as dying under Pontius Pilate, though at that time there had been no
Jesuine movement.
4. The Christian movement, thus mythically grounded, grows up after
the fall of the Temple. Paul's "the wrath is come upon them to the
uttermost" (1 Thess. ii, 16) tells of the destruction of the Temple,
as does Hebrews xii, 24-28; xiii, 12-14.
This theory of the construction of the myth out of historical elements
in Josephus is obviously speculative in a high degree; and as the
construction fails to account for either the central rite or the
central myth of the crucifixion it must be pronounced inadequate
to the data. On the other hand, the author developes the negative
case from the silence of Josephus as to the gospel Jesus with an
irresistible force; and though none of his solutions is founded-on in
the constructive theory now elaborated, it may be that some of them
are partly valid. The fact that he confuses Jesus the robber captain
who was betrayed, and whose companions deserted him, with Jesus the
"Mosaic" magistrate of Tiberias, who was followed by sailors and poor
people, and was "an innovator beyond everybody else," does not exclude
the argument that traits of one or the other, or of the Jesus of the
siege, may have entered into the gospel mosaic.
§ 3. The Myth of the Twelve Apostles
All careful investigators have been perplexed by the manner of the
introduction of "the Twelve" in the gospels; and they would have
been still more so if they had realized the total absence of any
reason in the texts for the creation of disciples or apostles at
all. Disciples to learn--what? Apostles to teach--what? The choosing
is as plainly mythical as the function. In Mark (i, 16) and Matthew
(iv, 18), Jesus calls upon the brothers Simon and Andrew to leave
their fishing and "become fishers of men." They come at the word; and
immediately afterwards the brothers James and John do the same. There
is no pretence of previous teaching: it is the act of the God. [279]
In Matthew, at the calling of the apostle Matthew (ix, 9), who in Mark
(ii, 14) becomes Levi the son of Alphæus, the procedure is the same:
"Follow me."
Then, with no connective development whatever, we proceed at one
stroke to the full number. [280] Matthew actually makes the mission
of the twelve the point of choosing, saying simply (x, 1): "And he
called unto him his twelve disciples," adding their names. In Mark
(iii, 13) we have constructive myth:--
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