The Christ Myth
The Christ Myth
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The Christ Myth

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The Christ Myth

The Christ Myth, first published in 1909, was a book by Arthur Drews on the Christ myth theory. Drews (1865–1935), along with Bruno Bauer (1809–1882) and Albert Kalthoff (1850–1906), is one of the three German pioneers of the denial of the existence of a historical Jesus.

Drews emphatically argues that no independent evidence for the historical existence of Jesus has ever been found outside the New Testament writings. He denounces the Romanticism of the liberal cult of Jesus (Der liberale Jesuskultus) as a violation of historical method, and the naive sentimentalism of historical theology which attributes the formation of Christianity to Jesus's "great personality".

He mentions the key names of historical criticism that emerged in the late 18th century and blossomed in the 19th century in Germany:

Consequences have been dramatic.

Drews uses the new findings of anthropology collected by James Frazer (1854–1941) with his descriptions of ancient pagan religions and the concept of dying-and-rising god. Drews also pays extreme attention to the social environment of religious movements, as he sees religion as the expression of the social soul.

Drews argues that the figure of Christ arose as a product of syncretism, a composite of mystical and apocalyptic ideas:

1. A Savior/Redeemer derived from the major prophets of the Old Testament and their images of:

2. The concept of Messiah liberator freeing the Jews in Palestine from Roman occupation and taxation.

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