The Christ Myth

Arthur Drews has become mostly forgotten, but this particular book from 1910 continues to be reprinted steadily. And the importance of his work continues to be recognized in the school of Radikalkritik, which is primarily a German/Dutch phenomenon, though it has some offshoots in the USA also. See here: www.radikalkritik.de

While I don't find myself agreeing with Drews too much in detail, I find his overall thesis a helpful anti-dote to the never ending stream of literature about the so-called historical Jesus. His is one of several traditions in European letters which have looked at Jesus as symbol more than a historical person, which I find actually more helpful than thinking about the supposedly historical accounts, which only draw us into the play, rather than watching it, and watching what it's telling us. In eighteenth century France the idea of Jesus as a solar hero had already been seriously explored, something which would be expanded upon by the theologian of the Christian Community, by the nineteenth century theologian Dr. Hermann Beckh, and then developed further in Holland by Johan Willem Kaiser in the 20th. In entertaining this possibility the mind looks much more at the meaning of Jesus's life than at the factual circumstances, which can only  be helpful.

The book is also helpful in exploring the three phases of Jesus, the pre-Chrsitian, the Pauline and the Jesus of the Gospels, for it is really by pulling those traditions apart and becoming aware of them that we begin to see the way that interpretation shaped the traditions about Jesus, and here Drews' observations make us just all the more conscious of the evolutionary aspect of how the world has looked at Jesus, and how our perceptions of him have been molded by the tellers of the story. In the context of the Thomas gospel I find this particularly helpful because it really has that "Just the facts ma'am" quality, which leaves out any editorial, explanation, or interpretation. In other words, in the Thomas Gospel the mythmaking really has not yet begun.

For the rest you can reflect on this book on any number of levels, including the realization that in a profound sense it is true, entirely in the sense of the notions in the Course that all of duality of necessity is metaphor, metaphor for aspects of an experience which can only exist after we entertain the possibility of being seprate from God, the separation myth, which usually takes the form of a creation story, in which we are absolved from the blame for the mess we're in. For the rest then there are only two sorts of metaphors, those that have us wandering away further from home, and those that help us find the way home. The Jesus myth of course is of the latter variety. Interestingly enough the way this book is written allows for the possibility that the notion of the mythical character of the Jesus tradition is not automatically tantamount to debunking him, but rather understanding him on a different, more spiritual level.

What to me is most important about this book and others like it, is that they provide counterbalance to the overwhelming interest in the historical Jesus and his physical circumstances, which has dominated the literature since the middle of the 19th century. I guess it would not make for light reading in the eyes of most, but it's very instructive if you have this kind of mindset.