Christ Myth Research Articles

НАСЛЕДИЕ А.Б. РАНОВИЧА В КОНТЕКСТЕ ИЗУЧЕНИЯ ГОСУДАРСТВА ХАСМОНЕЕВ

This article examines the views of A.B. Ranovich, a prominent Soviet historian of antique civilizations, on the Hasmonean state by analyzing his works through the lens of the epoch and, simultaneously, as opposing Soviet and “bourgeois” history. This approach opens up new perspectives for the interpretation of how the scholar turned his attention from Christianity to Hellenism. A possible explanation may be that the first scholarly quest for the historical Jesus and the Christ myth theory, promoted by A.B. Ranovich in particular, led their adherents to a deadlock. They finally broke through it with the discovery of the Qumran Caves Scrolls (1948) and the development of new methods of studying the early Christian texts, i.e., after the death of A.B. Ranovich. It is of peculiar interest to get an insight into what thoughts A.B. Ranovich had about E. Bickerman and V. Cherikover’s works because they all had a similar pre-revolutionary experience (Jewish background, traditional Jewish lifestyle in families, secular education, and membership in the academic community). The analysis shows that A.B. Ranovich was critical of “bourgeois” historians and refused their approach to studying Jewish history. However, this made him focus on the socio-economic features of the Hasmonean state and thus he proved that the Hellenistic states encouraged slavery. A.B. Ranovich’s work “Hellenism and Its Historical Role” testifies to his unique concern about the history of the Jews, although it was outwardly shunned. The conclusion is made that A.B. Ranovich preferred not to publicly identify and portray himself as a Jewish historian, but his reasoning, regardless of the numerous ideological clichés and constructs, was built on the Jewish traditions that he knew.

The Christ Myth Debate in Marxist Literature

Due to the inauguration of the Next Quest of the Historical Jesus and renewed interest in historical materialist approaches to early Christianity (such as the forthcoming volume from Myles and Crossley), the present paper seeks to elucidate the history of one of the most contentious debates in early Christian studies among Marxists: that of the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. The article goes through the early debates and discussions on the subject and seeks to correct a number of misunderstandings about the history of this debate and also evaluate some of the present contributions on the matter, to see where Marxist historians generally stand. It starts with the earliest discussions of Jesus’ historicity among figures such as Albert Kalthoff and Karl Kautsky, then discuss­ing where Marxist mythicists gained majority positions in the Soviet Union and People’s Republic of China, until reaching the present day and briefly discussing the contemporary interlocutors in this debate.

From Russia with love. Nicolas Notovitch, Nicholas Roerich, and the myth of Jesus in India

This paper discusses the myth of Jesus’s stay in India and its alleged source, presenting the four main advocates of it and discussing arguments for and against them. It concludes with some remarks on the development of Western channeled literature connected with the myth. It is intended to be the first of two parts, the second one in preparation.

Efeitos do transcurso do tempo e a polêmica sobre a prescrição das multas nos tribunais de contas: a aplicação da lei n. 9.873/1999 por analogia

O objetivo deste artigo é definir se a cominação de multa pelos Tribunais de Contasestá sujeita à prescrição e, em caso positivo, indicar qual seria o regime jurídico aplicávelà hipótese de inexistência de norma jurídica (lacuna). O método de abordagem é baseadono raciocínio dedutivo, a partir de pesquisa de natureza qualitativa e teórico-prática, tendo porobjeto uma pesquisa bibliográfico-documental. A conclusão indica que, por analogialegis, a fiscalização dos Tribunais de Contas deve se submeter às normas de direito público maispróximas e que regulamentem em todos os aspectos a questão da prescrição, prevista na Lein. 9.873/1999.

Deux mythes et le sauvetage d’un philosophe-chaman [Two myths and the salvation of a philosopher-shaman

The Forbidden Forest by Mircea Eliade is a “total novel,” whose complexity is evident on every page through the variety of suggestions, metaphors and symbols, of intertextual and mythological references. In this study, I will mostly discuss the penultimate chapter of this novel where the death of Biriș, the rational and sceptical philosopher, at the beginning a follower of the philosophy of Kierkegaard, is presented. In this troubling episode, I identified the presence of two myths whose unconscious actor this rational spirit currently anchored in history became. The myth—an exemplary story about foundation—seeks his Chosen One and finds him in the opposite of an intellectual, an “unbeliever,” just as Jesus chose his most bitter enemy, Paul of Tarsus, to become his faithful apostle. But the gnostic and religious philosopher also needs to believe in self-salvation from the clutches of the demon of fear and cowardice, and impending death, surrounded by friend-interrogators (Mihai Duma), by a compassionate executioner (Bîrsan), and demonic monks (Bursuc). The healing function of the story is lost in this world of suspicion, where Biriș is surrounded by masks, which disguise their true role. The myth of the sacrifice of Christ acquires a double saving power, because Biriș saves himself and redeems his torturers, too. By converting nocturnal stories into a sacred ritual of story, the destiny of Scheherazade, the heroine of One Thousand and One Nights, is saved from the banality of a simple literary character, because “the story in the story” provokes the human being to descend into the abyss and to live by the symbol. In the company of his interrogators—human aspects of demons—the frightened philosopher becomes the image of a Thracian Orpheus, trying in vain to “tame” the human beasts by his wise Logos. By the Logos, Biriș fails to rescue his torturers and himself from their own bestiality, but at the level of his “trance-conscious”—where Eliade speaks in his scientific work—he mystically lives a symbolic and mysterious superposition between the stages of the sacrifice of the shepherd in “Miorița” and those of the sacrifice of Christ. This intelligent, subtle and erudite intellectual lives deeply rooted in history with the consciousness of the presence of death in all intimate structures of life, a mentality specific to Western conception. In the last moments of his life, Biriș is converted to the sacred mystery of the Great Passing. Homo sapiens becomes Homo religiosus, the mysterious veil of Maya rises and the exit of the labyrinth is a certainty. The two myths which I take into account are the Orphic myth about the healing word and the mixture of the mioritic and the Christ myth of salvation through sacrifice.

The Death of Tragedy: The Form of God in Euripides'sBacchaeand Paul'sCarmen Christi

AbstractScholarship on Phil 2:6–11 has long wrestled with the question of “interpretive staging.” While acknowledging that Jewish sapiential and apocalyptic literature as well as Roman apotheosis narratives provide important matrices for the hymn, the following study pinpoints a third backdrop against which Paul's dramatic christology would have been heard in Philippi: Euripidean tragedy. Echoes of Dionysus's opening monologue from Euripides'sBacchaein thecarmen Christisuggest that Roman hearers of Paul's letter likely understood Christ's kenoticmetamorphosisas a species of Dionysian revelation. This interpretive recognition accomplishes a new integration of the hymn's Jewish and imperial-cultic transcripts. Jesus's Bacchic portraiture supports a theology of Christ's pre-existence, while simultaneously establishing him as a Dionysian antithesis to the imperial Apolloniankyrios Caesar. These Dionysian echoes also elevate the status of slaves and women, and suggest that “the tragic” remains modally present within the otherwise comicfabulaof the Christ myth.

TheChrist MythDebate: Radical Theology and German Public Life, 1909–1913

In 1909, the philosopher Arthur Drews unleashed a brief but furious debate when he publishedDie Christusmythe, in which he denied the historicity of Jesus Christ. This article seeks to understand the origin and significance of the “Christ Myth” controversy, focusing not simply on its scholarly content, but also on the historical contexts in which it unfolded, in particular the increasingly public and popular nature of theological debate in late Wilhelmine Germany. The article examines Drews's long-standing commitment to a monist religious philosophy inspired by his mentor Eduard von Hartmann, as well as his decision to intervene in the increasingly contentious debate around Protestant liberal theology's view of the “historical Jesus.” It also describes Drews's campaign to spread his views to a broader public through a series of lectures and debates, many of which were organized and promoted by the German Monist League. Although the actual theses ofDie Christusmythewere not particularly original or well argued, the ensuing controversy placed Protestant liberal theology in a difficult position, which opponents were quick to exploit. While a wide range of Protestant theologians attempted to refute Drews, others moved away from a reliance on the historical Jesus. This shift was in part a response to intellectual difficulties in liberal theology that Drews helped expose, but it can also be seen as a reaction to the unseemly spectacle of university professors defending themselves against autodidacts and dilettantes, a situation that led some theologians to ground their positions on intellectual terrain less susceptible to such attacks.

Il cinema di Pasolini e la morte: tra complesso della mummia e sindrome di Frankenstein

Cinema's ability to defeat death by stopping the run of time is written inside its own statute. Confiding on this capacity, Pasolini devotes his filmic work to the theme of death (interrogated through Christ's myth) and elaborates a linguistic theory (strictly linked to the performative aspects of his artistic work) to give an explanation of death through a filmic metaphor.

The Body and the Blood of Eternal UnDeath

Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, effects a double reversal of the Christ myth: the Christ is inverted and Dracula is constructed as a Christ antitype before being saved as a new Christ inclusive of the feminine principle. The film achieves this double reversal by stereotyping the female characters as representative of diseased and immoral flesh that can be cleansed only by absorption into the non-bodily male spirit. Thereby, the film leaves us with elided but nevertheless explosive mythical tensions.

Taking Stories Seriously: Vernacular Religion, Contemporary Spirituality and the Myth of Jesus in Glastonbury

Taking Stories Seriously: Vernacular Religion, Contemporary Spirituality and the Myth of Jesus in Glastonbury

The figure of Jesus Christ in the context of religious studies

The study of the origins of the Christian religion has always been one of the most difficult problems. This is due, first of all, to the almost complete absence of specific historical evidence of early Christianity and of its founder, which in turn led to the emergence of the so-called "mythological theory" according to which Christianity emerged "spontaneously" in Palestine and is unknown in any way. F. Engels, who borrowed from Bruno Bauer the date of writing the Book of the Annunciation of John the Theologian, the last book of the New Testament canon, played a significant role in the formation of such views. In accepting this date, understanding of Christianity as a "spontaneous" phenomenon, initially representing the movement of the underprivileged masses of the Roman Empire, played a role. In this sense, any "spontaneity" automatically excluded the historicity of virtually all evangelical characters (according to Engels, all of them are nothing but mythological images). If neither Jesus nor his apostles existed, then the gospel narrative of Christ evolved from the myth of Christ as God to the myth of Jesus as God-man.

The Mythic Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita and Arthur Drews's The Christ Myth

The Mythic Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita and Arthur Drews's The Christ Myth

Application of maximum likelihood statistics for the population and family studies of inheritance of the chimpanzee R‐C‐E‐F and V‐A‐B‐D blood groups

Maximum likelihood statistics were applied to the analysis of serological data to confirm the originally proposed genetic models of the chimpanzee R-C-E-F and V-A-B-D systems. Five hundred ninety-nine chimpanzees, including 81 parents of 114 offspring, were tested for R-C-E-F, and 60 parents of 80 offspring were tested for V-A-B-D blood groups. An estimation-maximization procedure was used to obtain maximum likelihood estimates and support intervals of the haplotype frequencies. For each haplotype, the null hypothesis of nonexistence was evaluated. The frequencies obtained by this method do not differ significantly from those calculated by the square root formula, but put these estimates on a statistically more rigorous footing.

Jesus, Myth, and History: Troeltsch's Stand in the "Christ-Myth" Debate

Previous articleNext article No AccessJesus, Myth, and History: Troeltsch's Stand in the "Christ-Myth" DebateB. A. GerrishB. A. Gerrish Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Religion Volume 55, Number 1Jan., 1975 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/486407 Views: 7Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1975 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:George S. Williamson The Christ Myth Debate: Radical Theology and German Public Life, 1909–1913, Church History 86, no.33 (Oct 2017): 728–764.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009640717001299Gerald Parsons Reforming the tradition: A forgotten dimension of liberal protestantism, Religion 13, no.33 (Feb 2011): 257–271.https://doi.org/10.1016/0048-721X(83)90023-4

THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST MYTH OR REALITY

DialogVolume 1, Issue 1 p. 38-39 Death and Resurrection THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST MYTH OR REALITY Peter Brunner, Peter BrunnerPeter Brunner is professor of systematic theology at the University of Heidelberg. This article was translated from German by Robert W. Jenson.Search for more papers by this author Peter Brunner, Peter BrunnerPeter Brunner is professor of systematic theology at the University of Heidelberg. This article was translated from German by Robert W. Jenson.Search for more papers by this author First published: 01 March 1962 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6385.1962.tb00020.x AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume1, Issue1Spring 1962Pages 38-39 RelatedInformation

The Christ Myth Theory: Its Service to the Understanding of Christianity

The Christ Myth Theory: Its Service to the Understanding of Christianity

Christless Christianity

The Christ Myth by Arthur Drews was published early in 1909, and before the year was out its author was being requisitioned by dissidents from Christianity of the most incongruous types as a promising instrument for the general anti-christian propaganda. Few more remarkable spectacles have ever been witnessed than the exploitation throughout Germany in the opening months of 1910 of this hyper-idealistic metaphysician, disciple of von Hartmann and convinced adherent of the “Philosophy of the Unconscious,” by an Alliance the declared basis of whose organization is a determinate materialism. As, under the auspices of the Monistenbund, he made his progress from city to city, lecturing and debating, he drew a tidal-wave of sensation along with him. A violent literary war was inaugurated. It seemed as if all theological Germany were aroused.

The Christ Myth of Drews

The Christ Myth of Drews