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Ideological uses
[edit]Atheist polemics
[edit]The Christ myth theory has often been advanced for self-consciously anti-religious reasons and is today largely the purview of committed atheists.[1] Both the founder of American Atheists, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, and the current president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, Dan Barker, have alluded to the possible non-existence of Jesus in their writing and media appearences.[2] A number of popular anti-religious books associated with the "New Atheism", such as Victor Stenger's God: The Failed Hypothesis, Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great, and Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, have also made passing reference to the hypothesis.[3] These and other critics have understand that
Ironic Christian apologetics
[edit]Despite the anti-religious motives of many mythicists,[4] their thesis has at times been used by Christian theologians to defend an orthodox Christology and inspire traditional Christian faith.[5] Over against the reductionist pictures of Jesus produced by liberal theologians which understood Jesus as a merely human moral and religious teacher, P. T. Forsyth appealed to the conclusions of the broader Religionsgeschichtliche Schule: "It is a great thing to have it settled that, as far as the face value of our record goes ... as far back as we can go, we find only the belief and worship of a risen, redeeming, and glorified Christ".[6]
B. B. Warfield was more explicit; in the midst of a review of Arthur Drews' work, Warfield wrote that "there is a certain measure of justification ... for Drews' berserker rage" against the liberal German academic theology of the time which believed that one could discern a merely human Jesus behind the early Christian literature.[7] For Warfield, Drews' work was a reminder that the historical Jesus was either the "Divine-human Jesus or nothing".[8] Given that Warfield believed that the Christ myth theory was itself untenable, he argued that Drews' work not only succeeded in exposing the liberal reconstructions of the historical Jesus as "impossible", but that it also thereby necessitated orthodox Christian belief.[9]
Popular culture
[edit]Independant movies such as Zeitgeist and The God Who Wasn't There, along with the feature film Religulous have discussed the Christ myth theory at some length.[10] As a result of these and other efforts, the Christ myth theory enjoys notable currency among the general public, scholarly treatments notwithstanding.[11] A 2005 study conducted by Baylor University found that one percent of Americans in general and 13.7 percent of religiously unaffiliated Americans believe that Jesus is a fictional character.[12] Comparable figures for Britain in 2008 indicate that 13 percent of the general population and 40 percent of atheists in particular do not believe that Jesus ever existed,[13] while a 2009 study found that 11 percent of Australians doubt that Jesus was a historical figure.[14]
The Atheist: Madalyn Murray O'Hair By Bryan F. Le Beau
The challenge of Jesus: rediscovering who Jesus was and is By Nicholas Thomas Wright
On Christian belief: a defence of a cognitive conception of religious belief ... By Andrew Collier
The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism By D. A. Carson
- ^ Van Voorst 2003, p. 660; Stark 2007, p. 284
- ^ Le Beau 2005, p. 142; Barker 2008, pp. 251 ff.
- ^ Stenger 2007, p. 181; Hitchens 2007, p. 127; Dawkins 2006, p. 97
- ^ Van Voorst 2003, p. 660
- ^ E.g. Richards 1934, pp. 216–218
- ^ Forsyth 1996, p. 44
- ^ Warfield 1913, p. 298
- ^ Warfield 1913, p. 299
- ^ Warfield 1913, p. 300
- ^ O'Dwyer 2007; Soukup 2005, p. 97; O'Neil 2008
- ^ Blomberg 1992, p. 292
- ^ Stark 2008, p. 63; Bader 2006, p. 14
- ^ ComRes 2008
- ^ Zwartz 2009; Centre for Public Christianity 2009