The Christ Myth
| Author | Arthur Drews |
|---|---|
| Original title | Die Christusmythe |
| Translator | C. Delisle Burns |
| Published | London |
|
Publication date
|
1909 |
|
Published in English
|
1910 |
|
Original text
|
Die Christusmythe at HathiTrust |
| Translation | The Christ Myth at Internet Archive |
| Author | Arthur Drews |
|---|---|
| Original title | Die Christusmythe II: Die Zeugnisse für die Geschichtlichkeit Jesu, eine Antwort an die Schriftgelehrten |
| Translator | Joseph McCabe |
| Published | London & Chicago |
|
Publication date
|
1911 |
|
Published in English
|
1912 |
|
Original text
|
Die Christusmythe II: Die Zeugnisse für die Geschichtlichkeit Jesu, eine Antwort an die Schriftgelehrten at HathiTrust |
| Translation | at |
| The Witnesses to the Historicity of Jesus at HathiTrust | |
| Editor | Alfred Dieterich |
|---|---|
| Authors | Arthur Drews, Hermann von Soden, Friedrich Steudel, Georg Hollmann, Max Fischer, Friedrich Lipsius, Hans Francke, Theodor Kappstein und Max Maurenbrecher |
| Original title | Hat Jesus gelebt? |
| Translator | Armand Lipman |
| Language | German |
| Series | Berliner Religionsgespräch, Vorträge nebst Diskussion |
| Published | Berlin [u.a.] |
| Publisher | Verlag des Deutschen Monistenbundes |
|
Publication date
|
1910 |
| Text | Jésus a-t-il vécu? Controverse religieuse sur "Le mythe du Christ" at HathiTrust |
| Reden gehalten auf dem Berliner Religionsgespräch des Deutschen Monistenbundes am 31. January und 1. February 1910 im Zoologischen Garten über Die Christusmythe von Arthur Drews. | |
The Christ Myth, first published in 1909, was a book by Arthur Drews on the Christ myth theory. Drews (1865–1935), along with Bruno Bauer (1809–1882) and Albert Kalthoff (1850–1906), is one of the three German pioneers of the denial of the existence of a historical Jesus.
Drews emphatically argues that no independent evidence for the historical existence of Jesus has ever been found outside the New Testament writings. He denounces the Romanticism of the liberal cult of Jesus (Der liberale Jesuskultus) as a violation of historical method, and the naive sentimentalism of historical theology which attributes the formation of Christianity to Jesus's "great personality".
He mentions the key names of historical criticism that emerged in the late 18th century and blossomed in the 19th century in Germany.
Consequences have been dramatic.
Drews uses the new findings of anthropology collected by James Frazer (1854–1941) with his descriptions of ancient pagan religions and the concept of dying-and-rising god. Drews also pays extreme attention to the social environment of religious movements, as he sees religion as the expression of the social soul.
Drews argues that the figure of Christ arose as a product of syncretism, a composite of mystical and apocalyptic ideas:
1. A Savior/Redeemer derived from the major prophets of the Old Testament and their images of:
2. The concept of Messiah liberator freeing the Jews in Palestine from Roman occupation and taxation.
...
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