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
Here then we have an originally Jewish document, bearing the title
Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, adopted and gradually added to
by early Jesuists who did not deify Jesus, though like the early
Christians in general they expected the speedy end of the world. Though
their Jesus is not deified, he has no cognomen. He is neither "of
Nazareth," nor "the Nazarite;" and he is an ostensibly mythical figure,
not a teacher but a rite-founder, for his adherents. They do not belong
to an organized Church; and the baptismal section, with its Trinitarian
formula, is quite certainly one of the latest of all. The eighth,
which connects quite naturally with the sixth, and which contains
the "Lord's Prayer," raises the question whether it belonged to the
pre-Christian document, and has been merely interpolated with the
phrase as to "the Lord ... his gospel." There are strong reasons for
regarding the Lord's Prayer as a pre-Christian Jewish composition,
[285] founded on very ancient Semitic prayers. Seeing that "the Lord"
has in all the previous sections of the treatise clearly meant "God"
and not "Christ," the passage about the gospel is probably Jesuist;
but it does not at all follow that the Prayer is.
Mr. Cassels, in the section on the Teaching added by him in the
one-volume reprint of his great work, points [286] to the fact that in
the recovered fragment of a Latin translation of an early version of
"The Two Ways," there do not occur the passages connecting with the
Sermon on the Mount which are found in the Teaching; and as the same
holds of the Two Ways section of the Epistle of Barnabas, it may fairly
be argued that it was a Christian hand that added them here. But when
we note that at the points at which the passages in the Teaching vary
from the gospel--as "Gentiles" for "tax-gatherers," [287]--the term in
the former is perfectly natural for Jewish teachers addressing Jews
in Gentile countries, and that in the latter rather strained in an
exhortation to Jews in their own country, it becomes very conceivable
that this is the original, or a prior form, of the gospel passage. The
Sermon on the Mount is certainly a compilation. This then may have
been one of the sources. And it is quite conceivable that the Jewish
Apostles should teach their people not to pray "as do the hypocrites,"
an expression which Mr. Cassels takes to be directed by Jesuists
against Jews in general.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account