The Christ Myth (Westminster College-Oxford Classics in the Study of Religion) [Hardcover]

Arthur Drews (Author), C. Deslisle Burns (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1998 | Series: Westminster College-Oxford Classics in the Study of Religion

First published in 1910, "The Christ Myth" drew violent criticism from theologians, the press, and the public. Eminent German philosopher Arthur Drews (1865-1935) reacts to the 'romantic cult of Jesus', which, he says is undermining intellectual truthfulness. He exposes the Jesus of the gospels as a mythical character, arguing that no basis exists for seeking a historical figure behind the Christ myth. Through a comparative study of ancient religions, Drews shows that Christianity is a syncretism of various pagan and Jewish beliefs, and that a strong pre-Christian cult of Jesus as son of God and messiah existed. This is a valuable sourcebook for students of religion, and all those interested in examining the origins of Christianity.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books (February 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573921904
• ISBN-13: 978-1573921909
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,592,864 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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41 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Surprisingly good, February 19, 2001

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Michael Hoffman (Egodeath.com) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Christ Myth (Westminster College-Oxford Classics in the Study of Religion) (Hardcover)

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 The ideas are not at all outdated.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.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thorough and convincing, August 1, 2005

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Eric C (Montreal, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Christ Myth (Westminster College-Oxford Classics in the Study of Religion) (Hardcover)

I was very satisfied with the quality of this work. Probably not a coincidence that Oxford University calls it a "Classic".

The author systematically demolishes every aspect of the Jesus Christ story, convincingly arguing that Jesus Christ was a mythical figure who never actually existed, and the Jesus cult is an updating and re-telling of myths that existed in all of what we now call middle-eastern societies 3,000 years ago.

He relates that all of the cultures in the area had this mythology: son of God born to a virgin, suffering, dying and being resurrected. The Babylonians, Attics, Greeks, Egyptians, Essenes, Persians, Indians, and even Jews with their story of Joshua. In every one, the name of the mother of the son was a variation of "Mary". In the Vedic Indian cult, the son's name was Jesudu.

We learn that all of these myths were related to the cycle of the changing length of the days and intensity of the sun during the year; and that Paul rehashed existing sun-worship myths into story of a person he never met named Jesus who was the Messiah who had been born to a young woman named Mary, lived, died, came back to life then levitated up into the sky someplace... and as this had conveniently happened in the past, there was no need to wait for the Messiah any more, we could start worshipping right away.

Drews also shows how the stories in the canonical New Testament are a collection of traditional folk tales from Jesus cults that were mostly oral then written down mostly in the second century after Paul.

He also explains how the story of the cross is wrong - people were hung from poles at the time, not nailed to crosses.... the cross is a stylized representation of the two sticks used to create fire in the sun worship rituals. Normally, a lamb was shown at the center of the cross as this was the symbol of the simultaneous death of the winter and birth of the summer. It wasn't until 600 years after Paul that the Church required a figure of a man representing Jesus at the center of the cross instead of a lamb.

Though a bit turgid, being translated from German, and a bit of heavy slogging in places, the book finishes on a strong note.

If you believe the Jesus story, you will not be pleased with this book.

If you doubt the Jesus story and are looking for some well-researched analysis of the historicity and veracity of the story, this book will be of great interest.

10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars PONDEROUS !, June 23, 2006

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DAVID GROESBECK (WEST MONROE,NY.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Christ Myth (Westminster College-Oxford Classics in the Study of Religion) (Hardcover)

Well researched but poorly executed. A prime example of turgid,abstruse,poorly organized scholastic writing that all too often characterized late 19th & early 20th centuries. As was pointed out in a previous review,some of this prolix style is a result of translation from the original German. Another difficulty is that of organizing large amounts of ethno religious myth data. This problem was addressed quite satisfactorily by J.M. Robertson in PAGAN CHRISTS (1909)who was another pioneering scholar of the MYTHACIST school of thought regarding christian origins. More recently, Aschyra S.(THE GREATEST STORY EVER SOLD) & Timothy Frecke (THE JESUS MYSTERIES) do a similarly effective examination of the non historicity of the jesus figure. That said,Drews made a powerful contribution that can't be discounted by any serious scholar seeking the truth & not simply a reinforcement of his religious delusions.