The Denial of the Historicity of Jesus in Past and Present

portrait photograph of Arthur Drews in profile
Arthur Drews

Die Leugnung der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (English: The Denial of the Historicity of Jesus in Past and Present) was a 1926 book in German by Arthur Drews on Christ myth theory.

Albert Schweitzer, 1952 Nobel portrait, criticized the Lives of Jesus reconstructions

The book is a historical review of some 35 major deniers of Jesus historicity (radicals, mythicists) covering the period 1780 – 1926, and was meant to be Drews’s response to Albert Schweitzer's Quest of the Historical Jesus of 1906. Drews’s book was in fact presented in the guise of "Quest of the non-Historicity of Jesus", with its own historical review of the key Jesus deniers.


Like Schweitzer, Drews, again, ignores the priority of Baron d'Holbach in publishing the first critical "Life of Jesus", with Ecce Homo! – The History of Jesus of Nazareth, Being a Rational Analysis of the Gospels, (1770).[1]

As Schweitzer erected himself as the champion of "historicists", Drews stood up in opposition as the champion of "radicals" and "Jesus historicity deniers". They were later labeled "mythicists" by the media, a name never used by Drews, but popularized in the early 1940s by the British writers A.D. Howell Smith, in his book Jesus Not A Myth (1942) and Archibald Robertson in his book Jesus: Myth or History? (1946). This new label was convenient in opposing "mythicists" versus "historicists".[2] But "mythicism" is an ambiguous and confusing word that does not convey Drews's precise meaning of "denial of historicity", the negative Hegelian "antithesis" which comes only after the primary positive "thesis", "advocacy of historicity". Other derived wordings have been non-historicists, ahistoricists, existence deniers, etc....

Although Drews was intellectually on the other side of the controversy over the historicity of Jesus from Albert Schweitzer, Hoffers notes that Drews "was temporarily a friend of Albert Schweitzer, the famous theologian and physician".

David Strauss and Bruno Bauer

Drews gives the most prominent place to David Strauss, who reduced all the supernatural events of the New Testament stories to the role of myths; and to Bruno Bauer, the first professional scholar who denied the historicity of Jesus, argued the priority of Mark as inventor of the Gospel story and the fiction of Jesus's existence, rejected all of Paul's epistles as non genuine, and emphasized the input of Greco-Roman ideas (especially the Stoicism of Seneca) in the New Testament documents. Both Strauss and Bauer were forced to abandon University life at a young age.

Bruno Bauer, German founder of the Christ Myth thesis

The five major Jesus Deniers who influenced Drews's Christ Myth

Among those Jesus deniers, Arthur Drews was especially influenced by the following thinkers:

- Die Entstehung des Christentums – Neue Beiträge zum Christusproblem, (1904), transl. The Rise of Christianity (1907);
- Was wissen wir von Jesus? Eine Abrechnung mit Wilhelm Bousset (1904) [What do We Know of Jesus? A Settlement with Wilhelm Bousset];
- Modernes Christentum (1906) [Modern Christendom].
- The Pre-Christian Jesus, Studies of Origins of Primitive Christianity (1906/1911);
- Ecce Deus: Studies Of Primitive Christianity, Introd. Paul Wilhelm Schmiedel (1912).
- Christianity and Mythology (1900–10);
- A Short History of Christianity (1902);
- Pagan Christs – Studies in Comparative Hierology (1903–1911).

School of comparative history of religions

Space is dedicated to the major advocates of the School of (Comparative) History of Religions,[4] flourishing in Germany (Die Religionsgeschichtliche Schule) and the UK. Peter Jensen, the expert on Semitic Languages and Babylonian literature, in Das Gilgamesch-Epos in der Weltliteratur, (Part I, 1906 & Part II, 1928) [The Epic of Gilgamesh in World Literature],[5] had analyzed the Epic of Gilgamesh, and found parallels in all later ANE myths, including the Hebrew Tanakh, Moses and Isaiah,[6] thus impacting on the authenticity of the Christian Gospels and destroyed the unique character of the Jesus story. Alfred Jeremias (1864–1935), another expert in ANE languages and mythology, had published The Epic of Gilgamesh (1891) and advocated panbabylonism, the thesis that sees the Ancient Hebrew stories directly derived from Babylonian mythology. The English summary (by Klaus Schilling) of The Denial of the Historicity of Jesus describes Jeremias's views:

[Jeremias] only admitted Chaldean origin of early Judaism, but couldn't deny that there was some sort of impact from old Babylon in the New Testament. The Babylonian-Chaldean worldview is about the most astralmythical and astrological worldview found in history of cultures; the terms 'astrological' and 'Chaldean' were used synonymously by many authors since Hellenic times. In this sense Jeremias continued the works of Volney and Dupuis... The Christian calendar tells the story of the astral redeemer king, the 12 apostles are akin to the zodiac, and the 4 Gospels are akin to the cardinal points of the world.

The Dutch Radical School

Drews was closely connected to what was called the school of Dutch “Radical Criticism”,[7] which not only denied the existence of Jesus Christ, the authenticity of Paul's epistles,[8][9] and also the very historicity of Paul. Drews reviews the inputs from the key scholars:

Willem Christiaan van Manen, Collection Leiden Un.

The attention to Drews and the Dutch School was revived by Hermann Detering and his Website, Radikalkritik[20] in German and English.[21]

Reviews of other historicity deniers

Charles-François Dupuis.

Drews gives credit to the two French pioneers, Charles-François Dupuis and Comte de Volney, both imbued with an astral-mythical interpretation of Jesus and Christianity.

Drews does mention the broad impact of Ernest Renan (1823–1892), with his immensely popular Romanticist Vie de Jesus (1863, Life of Jesus), in implanting serious doubts among the bourgeoisie. But Drews is less impressed by Renan as a scholar than Schweitzer was, who had devoted a full chapter (13) to the French "theology historian",[22] a space equal to that devoted to Bauer.

The prevailing term then was radicalism, and Drews lends special attention to the adherents of Radicalism in Germany, the US, France, and England, and to a few other scholars, now less well remembered, but who made an insightful contribution in their time. Drews includes in his survey:

Georg Brandes, a sketch for a painting by P.S. Krøyer, 1900

With the Dane Georg Brendes, Drews ends his review in 1925, establishing the first historical list of the key radical/mythicists. This list has been brought up to date and expanded by later writers.[25]

Drew's conclusions on denial of Jesus' historicity

In his final conclusions ("English summary" of the book, by Klaus Schilling), Drews emphasized that deniers (radicals, mythicists) do not form a movement (a so-called "denial party") trying to “unite” them against an entity called “Christianity”:

Drews describes the social consequences of a denial of historicity, and explains why so many theologians and secular researchers stick to historicity, though the ahistoricity of Jesus is scientifically as sure as that of Romulus and Remus, or the seven legendary kings of Rome. The consequences are generally underestimated.
It is quite understandable that the denial party is unique only in that point [of the non-historicity, Ahistorizität], and otherwise offers a variety of diverging explanations [each denier has his own independent hypothesis]. The church has done everything for 2000 years to obscure and hide away the origins of Christianity, so that there’s no way to get any further without speculative hypotheses.
It is obvious that no serious researcher could claim the historicity of Jesus, unless it were the savior of the dominating religion of the prevailing culture. So there’s nothing but Christian prejudice which keeps even secular researchers from admitting non-historicity... [emphasis added]

References

  1. Baron D'Holbach, Ecce Homo! The Critical History of Jesus of Nazareth, Being a Rational Analysis of the Gospels. 1770
  2. Archibald Robertson, Jesus: Myth or History?, 1946
  3. "Bruno Bauer", by Douglas Moddach, 2009, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP)
  4. "History of religions"
  5. Andrew George, What’s new in the Gilgamesh Epic?, Un. of London
  6. Gary D. Thompson, "The Development, Heyday, and Demise of Panbabylonism"
  7. A. J. Allan, "A Forgotten Chapter: the Radicals"
  8. 1 2 Hermann Detering, "The Dutch Radical Approach to the Pauline Epistles", 1996
  9. 1 2 Hermann Detering: Paulusbriefe ohne Paulus. Die Paulusbriefe in der holländischen Radikalkritik – "The Pauline Epistles Without Paul", 1992 (English abstract). The full German text Die Paulusbriefe in der Holländischen Radikalkritik, 1992, 531 p. (The Pauline Epistles in the Dutch Radical School) not accessible online. The Table of Contents indicates a detailed examination of each member of the Dutch School. The extensive Introduction, p. 1-17 is accessible.
  10. 1 2 "Willem C. Van Manen & the Dutch Radicals", in Radikalkritik
  11. Willem C. van Manen, "Paul & Paulinism", ca. 1900
  12. Willem C. van Manen, Epistle to the Romans, ca. 1900
  13. See also An Outline of Van Manen's Analysis of Pauline Literature in Thomas Whittaker's The Origins of Christianity, (1904–1933). Includes reviews of Acts, Romans, and 1 & 2 Corinthians
  14. Hermann Detering, "G.J.P.J. Bolland", English Summary by Klaus Schilling
  15. G.A. van Den Bergh van Eysinga, Early Christianity's Letters (1951)
  16. Thomas Whittaker, "Prof. G.A. van Den Bergh van Eysinga", (1934)
  17. Klaus Schilling, "A survey: G.A. van den Bergh van Eysinga", (2003)
  18. G.A. van den Bergh van Eysinga, "Does Jesus Live, or Has He Only Lived? A Study of the Doctrine of Historicity" (1930) – English Summary by Klaus Schilling (2003), a commentary on Drews's "Denial of the Historicity of Jesus"
  19. G.A. van den Bergh van Eysinga, Das Christentum als MysterienReligion (1950, "Christianity as a Mystery Cult")
  20. Radikalkritik
  21. Radikalkritik – Articles, reviews and books in English
  22. Ernest Renan, Life of Jesus, 1863
  23. Edwin Johnson, Antiqua mater – A Study of Christian Origins, 1887, published anonymously
  24. Hermann Raschke, "Historical and Metaphysical Christ", excerpt from The Workshop of the Evangelist Mark (1924), p. 26-30 (text in German)
  25. "A History of 'Jesus Denial' "— "Demolishing the Historicity of Jesus", in Jesus Never Existed, by Kenneth Humphreys
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