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The Christian Myth: Origins, Logic, and Legacy

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Burton Mack, who also authored "Who Wrote The New Testament", has attempted neither to find the historical Jesus nor to reinterpret the new testament based on any newly found exegetical clues. Instead Mack has taken on, in this latest work, the daunting task of explaining the social structure of the world in which the new testament was written and how it affected and influenced its writers. Accordingly, Mack takes into account the general influence of the disruption to society by the rise of the Greek and Roman empires, and specifically the influence of the destruction of the Jewish Temple State. These factors, Mack asserts, led to a social need to invent an entirely new theology that could compete in the pagan Roman world of late antiquity, and at the same time accrue to itself the extensive history of the Jews and their religion. It was a daring enterprise that would in time embrace nearly all of europe and the americas, and would, starting with Constantine's endorsement, systematically bury any competing theologies or theosophies where it resided.

Using modern anthropological and social psychology insights as a backdrop, along with his own extensive professional knowledge of the new testament, Mack succeeds in devising a very credible explanation of a mythology that was capable of raising an obscure Jewish sect into a world-changing power and, as Mack points out, that power is still very much in evidence when one considers the popularity of such phenomena as creationism
in modern day america. To that I would add the remarkable staying power of fundamentalism in the face of modern biblical scholarship

If you enjoy reading painstakingly detailed and extemely well researched books about biblical origins, Burton Mack's "The Christian Myth" will be hard for you to put down.

In a serious examination of the dominant mythology in our society, Mack warns his readers at the outset that they face three serious challenges. First, the notion that one source accounts entirely for Christian origins must be dismissed. Second, a new theory of religion, one based on social situations must be launched. This theory must take into account the conditions in which Christian origins emerged. Third, and most difficult to address, is the need to contemplate the "two millennium sweep of Christianity and into the 21st century". This triplet means shedding the self-reflexive approach that has dominated biblical scholarship for 1700 years. We need, he says, to understand the process of social formation and myth making that underlay the foundation of building a church. Scholars must abandon the "notions of divine intervention miracle" which is such a significant source of how Christians view the world. Instead, the same academic rigour shown in investigations of other mythologies must be applied to the Christian one.

A major element long omitted from Christian origins scholarship is the upheavals Eastern Mediterranean society endured. The Jews, never victorious in wars and subjected to incessant invasions and exiles, were amenable to a healer's voice. Jesus, who probably lived, became the focus of scattered and disparate groups of "students" recording, discussing and distributing his teachings. Essential to understanding Christian origins are the documents known as the "Q" teachings. These may have survived for a time as a collection, but incorporated into the Synoptic Gospels in various ways. Fundamental in this process, Mack proposes, is the redefinition of society found in these writings. The redefinition uses four devices to accomplish its goal. He calls them the "Building Blocks of a Monocratic Mythology".

The one god. Since single ancestral gods are almost a human universal, the transformation of one of these into one, absolute and uncompromising, deity was a major innovation. While the Jews had adopted, and sometimes cast aside, a variety of deities in their history, the writers of the Synoptic gospels declared such indulgent practices unacceptable. Now, using the figure of Jesus as an instrument to lever a local concept into a global one - a new, absolute divinity acting as a canopy over all people. This approach set off the expansion of intolerance unfinished today. Mack declares this monocratic method "audacious" in scope.

In order to further the idea of restructuring society as a divine manifestation, the gospel narratives added the fictions of miracles and resurrection to the earlier "Q" teachings. By building on widely known stories of "kings' sons" performing prodigious feats, the gospel writers display their knowledge of their intended audiences. Nothing truly innovative was introduced beyond the idea that this god and his son were actually one. The one being the universal deity, however, placed it in a position of universal judge of all humanity. Mack finds the amalgamation and use of miracles as "proof" a "fantastic" stroke of creative writing.

As the various Jesus groups debated just what Jesus said, and what those sayings meant, they exchanged ideas among the neighbouring ones. These "schools of Jesus", which crossed the recognised cultural boundaries of the Near East, became "communities" of commonly-held views. Having moved "outside" their traditional allegiances, these communities generated a new "superstate". As the gospel narratives were circulated among its "citizens" a new social structure, which Mack labels "imperious" emerged within the Roman Imperium.

Finally, and to Mack clearly a major consideration, the bible narratives became the tool for completing the social restructuring. It became, he says, "an epic charter" by rewriting history while redefining society. The Jewish bible was transformed into a collection of forecasts of Jesus arrival. At the same time it condemned the Jews for not reading the signals. This allowed the Jesus movement to abandon its Jewish roots and embrace the Gentile community. The use of textual form granted credibility to this approach. Christian writers were then able to define history to suit their agenda. By declaring their history the only true one, they used this fiction as a bludgeon for conversion. Mack's assessment of this technique as "arrogant" is impossible to refute.

At this point, Mack narrows his audience to citizens of his own country. How does the myth building process of Christianity apply to people of the United States? He provides a brief swift summary of expressions of the bits of the Christian myth. This is followed by how it has been applied there. Tracing its roots is difficult, since the Enlightenment, not Christianity, is usually seen as the more significant influence. Mack contends the Enlightenment idea was "reconceptualised" by the North Americans, incorporating long-established traditions into the new communities from the outset. Thus, Christianity was considered an essential element in North American society as it expanded. Public policy is declared, whether or not the assertion is valid, as grounded in "Christian principles". Mack exposes the fallacies in that declaration, from the theft of the land from indigenous peoples through the hypocrisies of slavery to "manifest destiny". Mack concludes with the warning that the Christian call for conversion and obedience is invalid in today's "multiethnic, multicultural world". It's a caution that needs wide expression and acceptance. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

In Mack's view, religions are systems of myth and ritual that (1) create an world apart from reality, (2) exaggerate the figures and activities of those that occupy this imaginary world, (3) emphasize the power of these imaginary agents.

I was immediately reminded of Pascal Boyer's "Religion Explained:" Every religion has these common features: (1) A supernatural agent who takes a specific ontologic form (animal, tree, human, etc.) (2) There is something memorably different about this agent (the animal talks, the tree records conversations, the human is born of a virgin) which is an ontologic violation. (3) This agent knows strategic information and can use it for or against you.

I also like the definition from Scott Atran's "In Gods We Trust:" Religion is (1) a community's costly and hard-to-fake commitment (2) to a counterfactual and counterintuitive world of supernatural agent(s) (3) who master peoples' existential anxieties, such as death and deception (4) leading to ritualistic and rhythmic co-ordination of 1, 2, and 3; such as communion.

The usual Biblical scholar wants to approach Christian origins with the familiar understanding of the "Jesus Story," the tale of a Godly intervention on earth. Mack prefers a cultural anthropologist's approach: that the same critical analysis tools used in studying any other religion or socio-cultural phenomenon should be used on Christianity. The Christian apologist may pretend to begin this way, but somehow the Jesus story becomes "too exceptional" and is exempted from routine scrutiny.

Humans are essentially social. Creating semi-permanent networks and hierarchies of interaction is what people do. The developing culture is dynamic but fragile, requiring extensive and ongoing negotiations, becoming quite complex in the process. This is hard work, creates as many tensions as rewards, and is more than just a strategy for survival.

For centuries after Alexander the Great, throughout the Greco-Roman world, cultures were in disarray. The conquerors were tolerant to religions but brought in Greek culture, (frequently mercenary) Roman soldiers, collected taxes, and delivered swift justice. There was tumultuous social change at all levels of society. Many religious movements formed all over the region. Perhaps early Christians were so impressed with their investment in new social formation, they invented a mythology to justify their efforts. Why not? Almost all other societies have done so.

But the story grew to fantastic proportions - extravagant. Explanations and rationalizations eventually ended with a God so mysterious, mere humans were incapable of perceiving the wisdom behind the developing theology. The competitive factions were eventually forced to consolidate and even lifted the Old Testament from the Jews in the process. They explained, "It was really a story about Jesus in the first place, but the disobedient Jews refused to see it."

Can social theory really account for Christian origins? Apparently, yes. Mack has been working toward this socio-cultural theory with a group of seminar colleagues for several years. This book is a collection of earlier papers and lectures delivered within the scope of that seminar. Their goal: (1) a wide-angle lens view focused on the many ways people responded to the Greco-Roman Age (2) a theory of formation of early Christian religion derived from social theory.

I'll be looking for results from this seminar. Mack's is a unique perspective that I found fascinating.

Criticism: Long and unnecessarily complex sentences, but doable. Seems to be written with the fellow professional in mind. First five chapters better than the last three.

Burton Mack's previous books have been both controversial and radical. His "Myth of Innocence" accounts for the development of "Mark's" gospel, while "The Lost Gospel" is an account of the source of sayings in Matthew and Luke, and "Who Wrote the New Testament" is an overview of the latest scholarly knowledge on the social circumstances leading to each part of the new testament. His work is revolutionary the way most good works are revolutionary: it notices an obvious error, an absurdity, and exposes it.

In the case of the myth of Christianity, the errors are numerous, and the Christian Myth analyzes them with precision. Mack focuses on Origins, Logic, and Legacy. An analysis of Christian origins is a necessary endeavor. It is obvious to all serious scholars that the gospels cannot account for the creation of the gospels. Such thinking is circular. Religion is primarily a social construct, which Mack demonstrates. The factors that give rise to myth and ritual are social in nature, and thus an understanding of the social milieu in which the earliest Christian texts and groups formed is essential. In the case of "Christianity" the earliest such texts are Q and the Gospel of Thomas, as well as the pre-Markan pronouncement stories. An analysis of such texts gives a much different picture of early Christianity than that presupposed by an anachronistic "after the fact" interpretation.

The logic of how such groups developed, why they did what they did and thought what they thought, is also necessary. How exactly did Christianity progress from a minority of small social groups audaciously calling themselves the new "Israel" and the "kingdom of God" to the rulers of nations? An analysis of the logic of this progression necessitates an analysis of Christianity's legacy: a legacy of exclusivity, brute force, narrow thinking, and xenophobia.

Mack ends the book with a strong condemnation of the Christian legacy, manifesting in our present time with the reactionary and authoritarian "Christian Right". Mack rightly shows that the Christian Myth is outdated. It does not and cannot contribute to our multiethnic world. In Mack's view, and this writer's, it is time for a new myth, one that strips Christianity of its absurdities and paralogic.

Until reading this book I had thought that the weakest link in orthodox Christianity was the fact that the real Jesus was unknown to Paul of Tarsus and the writers of the Gospels because they had abandoned the Jewish apocalyptic personage he was for a hellenistic god-man. Professor Burton Mack has a different take. For him, the existence of Jesus material in the source called Q and in the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas indicates that what was known about Jesus in the first century was his aphorisms not his life. His aphorisms, called Cynic in conformity with Greek literary and philosophical categories, lack any concept of a Messiah, a sacrificial death, an apocalyptic reordering of the world. They are instead very individualistic comments on the human condition. The Jesus of Paul's letters is a god-man, something not found among the Jews. And the Jesus of the Gospels, which are fiction, is recreated as a combination of the aphorisms with the construction of an organized church centered around the themes of Paul's salvation history.

The real Jesus had then little to do either with orthodox Christianity or even Jewish Christianity; his Jewish background is not even very visible in the remains of his aphoristic work.

Either way the Jesus of the Catholic Church or the Christian Evangelical Movement is shown to be unreal and a myth. But the real Jesus still eludes us.

This is one of many cheriched books that I proudly own, read and re-read. Religion, philosophy, theology and mythology all share a common ground. For a very well perspective on earlt "Jesus movement's", I HIGHLY recommend the book mentioned above by Dr. Robert M. Price.

I was looking for a book that could explain cogently why it took more than 40 years for the gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke to be written. As a previous review has covered in detail, this book does present an interesting and thoughtful (though highly theoretical) alternative to the usual Christian view, written by someone who is definitely not a Christian apologist. Bring your big dictionary as I had to look up 2-3 words per chapter (I think the author is writing to an audience who is steeped in theological research).

In the first six (of eight) chapters the author analyzes the historical record but credits many others for providing the theoretical structure and conceptual content of this book. I look forward to researching his references.

Unfortunately in Chapter Seven when the author is discussing Christianity today he starts to lean to the political left, and then takes a hard left turn in Chapter Eight. In Chapter Eight, the author castigates Christianity for many of the errors in the history of the United States, including slavery, the treatment of the American Indians, the travails of blacks in America up to today, white supremacy, the evils of capitalism, even the cutting off of the "undervotes" in the 2000 presidential election. The author states that Christianity is unable to fulfill the need for the "social engineering" needed to create a "social democracy" and accomodate multiculturalism.

I am a theological liberal, but a political conservative. I was with the author until he got away from research-based theory and started spilling one-sided Democratic Party talking points about how the United States needs to be re-engineered. This kind of personal opinion (much of which is quite arguable) took me by surprise. Now I'm wondering how much of that one-sidedness infused the first seven chapters.

I have read a number of early Christian writings analysis. Mack's is sound, reasonable, and reasonably unbiased. I got a lot out of it.

Well, I must say, I was quite disappointed with this book. I was hoping to read what actualy happened and how Christian Myths were created, but instead the book talks about theories and examines them so deeply that it would totally lose me; it felt like a really boring text book that quotes other books and people in every line of the book. I am an avid hostory reader and in particular love European hiistory, but this book was really bad. Half way through the book, I stopped reading and picked up Brunelleschi's Dome by Ross King, whatta book. I also read his other book, Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling (see my reviews).