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Title: The Christ Myth (Westminster College-Oxford Classics in the Study of Religion) by Arthur Drews, C. Deslisle Burns, C. Delisle Burns ISBN: 1-57392-190-4 Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: February, 1998 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $40.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (3 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Surprisingly good
Comment: Drews wrote this book in German and it was translated to English with sometimes difficult sentence construction, but the ideas are good and essentially clear. The ideas are not at all outdated. I've read the recent Christ-myth books, such as The Jesus Puzzle, The Christ Conspiracy, The Jesus Mysteries, The Jesus Myth, and Deconstructing Jesus. This book and The Jesus Mysteries are my favorites because instead of only refuting the historical Jesus and discarding the whole of the Jesus story, they ask what is the meaning and value of the myth, in terms of religious experiencing and insight into the relation of self and world.
The conclusion of this book is that given the choice between Jesus as myth and the historical Jesus, the right path for religion as religion is to choose Jesus as myth. If all we have is the historical Jesus of liberal Protestantism, then we no longer have religion, just mundane morality divested of both myth and the supernatural. But if we retain Jesus as myth, then we retain the religious redemption that is possible. He asserts that the Catholic Church could become legitimate by abandoning the historical Jesus and emphasizing the mythic Jesus as redeemer. Despite his elevation of redemption as the true essence of religion, Drews does not define redemption. (I'd define redemption as reconciliation between the self as moral agent and that from which it emanates.) Drews does not explicitly define this reconciliation and explain specifically how the Jesus myth assists this reconciliation.
He explains a main motive for creating the assertion of the historical Jesus. The early Jewish Christian leaders used a strategy of trying to limit authority to themselves and shut out competitors such as Paul and his Gentile/mythic Christianity by creating historical requirements that would serve to exclude others and restrict authority to themselves. Drews shows that this is the same strategy the Church fathers used: assert that the only spiritual authority is that of the person who spent time with the historical Jesus. If Jesus is allowed to be purely mythic, religious authority is potentially spread evenly among all people, but if Jesus is historical as well as mythic, the profitable and advantageous possibility of excluding other authorities arises.
Drews emphasizes the sacred meal as central to early Christian worship and compares it to the central role of soma (= "body") in Vedic religion, thus this book is useful for the entheogenic theory of religion.
Rating: 5
Summary: A classical book on this subject.
Comment: You must take a carefull look on this book originally writted at the turn of the century (1910). How actual are the views of this eminent German philosopher.
Rating: 5
Summary: balanced and detailed
Comment: To my surprise, The Christ Myth is not at all a rant of Christianity and Christian theology, but rather simply a comparsion between Christian beliefs, similar pagan belies, and the essential meaning behind the motiff of the suffering god image that has persisted religious faith in a number of different ways from Mithras, Odin, and on to the sacraficial vegetation god worshipped by modern pagans. That is at least the first part of the book, the second part takes a look at the Jesus figure himself, apart from his pagan influences, and relates how the character of Jesus came about, meaning what went into him, what sources were used, and the eventual product character that is today the centerpiece of Christianity. But all throughout this, the book is still not work of religious forgery of deception, but rather a book about literature and poetry, and how these two elements forged the image of Jesus Christ.
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Title: The Fabrication of the Christ Myth by Harold Leidner ISBN: 0967790107 Publisher: Survey Books Pub. Date: 02 April, 2000 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: Jesus: God, Man or Myth? An Examination of the Evidence by Herbert Cutner, Paul Tice ISBN: 1585090727 Publisher: Book Tree Pub. Date: February, 2000 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth by John Marco Allegro ISBN: 0879757574 Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: June, 1992 List Price(USD): $27.00 |
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Title: The Christian Myth: Origins, Logic, and Legacy by Burton L. MacK ISBN: 0826413552 Publisher: Continuum Pub. Date: October, 2001 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: Gospel Fictions by Randel McCraw Helms ISBN: 0879755725 Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: January, 1990 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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