This
week I bought two books about King Arthur; one of them was
recommended as the best of those arguing Arthur really existed and
the other the best of those arguing the opposite. By the time I've
read both I hope to be in a position to make an informed judgement
on the question. Like many people I'm tempted by the romantic notion
that the hero's origins are based on real history, but I'm also bound
to acknowledge the world's mythologies are full of tales about the
exploits of heroes who turn out to be historicised demigods of
antique religions rather than real people. I want to know which
argument is the more persuasive in Arthur's case.
It is just such a
question about historicity – in this case of Jesus - that J M
Robertson examined one hundred years ago. Naturally this question
aroused much stronger passions than King Arthur. Nevertheless, though
Robertson cannot restrain his annoyance with commentators who employ
poor scientific method, he gives due credit to scholars whose careful
analysis reaches different conclusions from his own. He himself
disclaims prejudice. “
The
present writer,” he says, “reached the myth-theory not by way of
propaganda but as a result of sheer protracted failure to establish a
presupposed historical foundation.” He
arrives at the conclusion that the subject of his enquiry is the
product of reverse Evemerism.
Evemerism
or Euhemerism is the process of turning a real person into a demigod
by the accretion of myth. Reverse Evemerism or historicisation
creates a factitious human history for a mythological deity, and this
is what Robertson claims to have found here.
Either
mutation poses problems for scholars seeking knowledge of the distant
past. Oral re-tellers and subsequent writers of history are unlikely
to advertise their embellishment of the record or even to judge such
behaviour immoral. Particularly before the invention of printing,
documentary copyists' mistakes, interpolations and downright
forgeries coincided with accidental and deliberate destruction of
alternate written versions. Today we need a whole science of textual
analysis aimed simply at discovering what an ancient document
originally said.
Fragments
of New Testament documents dating to the Second Century AD have been
found, but the earliest whole books date from around 200 AD and the
earliest complete testament from the fourth century. These are, in
short, copies of copies. We don't have originals.
There
are similar difficulties attached to the copying of old secular
writers such as Josephus or Suetonius. In addition it's difficult to
judge whether these are describing history based on impartial records
or deriving their material directly or indirectly from a Christian
tradition already widespread at their time of writing. Hearsay could
be taken as history at the time, and where even that was lacking a
historian would simply make it up. Tacitus, for example, could have
had no idea what Calgacus said to his army before the Battle of Mons
Graupius but quoted more than a page of the Scottish leader's
harangue anyway.
In
addition it was normal for a famous person to be credited with things
done subsequently by other, anonymous, people. Nearly every great
work of civil engineering beside the Euphrates came to be ascribed to
Semiramis, who may herself be legendary.
It
was generally assumed in Asian and Hellenic cultures that
intervention of the gods in the world of men was a common thing.
Naturally such interventions would often be attended by miraculous
events, but if none appeared in early records they could easily be
interpolated later. Sexual relations between gods and humans gave
rise to demigod offspring such as Achilles or Heracles who possessed
great powers. In addition the gods themselves would take human form.
Some, for example, fought and were even wounded in the Trojan War.
Among
the figures brought to us by Reverse Evemerism seems to be the early
Israelite leader Joshua. There is little evidence of any reality
behind his military campaigns. However there is evidence of his cult
in Samaria and elsewhere. Yehoshua, or Yeshua, is the same name ('God
Saves') that comes down to us by a different linguistic route as
Jesus. Even if his Old Testament book dates only to the Babylonian
captivity it predates the putative historical dates of Christ by half
a millennium. Robertson emphasises this evidence of a pre-existing
Jesus cult.
Another
possible cult involved the annual sacrifice, later symbolic, of a
figure called Jesus Barabbas (Jesus, son of the father). The custom
may well have involved investing a private man with the insignia of
royalty for five days and then putting him to death, a tradition
which could explain the apparent rapid change of mood of the
Jerusalem mob in the biblical account of Holy Week.
The
ancient tradition of propitiation of the gods by way of human
sacrifice initially often involved the sacrifice of kings, but this
practice soon evolved into sacrifice of king-substitutes such as
Barabbas. Associated with the sacrifices was frequently an initially
cannibalistic, later symbolic, meal. The custom may have evolved all
the way from its bloody origins to a harmless masque or mystery play.
Interestingly,
Robertson hypothesises that the lost Q source of the gospels may in
fact have been just such a play. For the illiterate masses a play
might have communicated better than readings from a book. Moreover a
play performed in secret would enable early Christians to avoid
having incriminating documents in the possession of their churches.
Not
only was the invention of monologues, as we've already seen, a part
of writing history at this time but several scenes from the gospels
make a lot more sense when viewed as transcriptions of scenes from a
play rather than records drawn directly from life. This is especially
true where there is no obvious way for the gospel writer to have had
access to witnesses. The temptation in the wilderness, the prayer in
Gethsemane and the trial before Pilate are all examples.
“What
inferribly happened,” says Robertson, “was a dramatic
development, by Gentile hands, of a primarily simple mystery drama,
consisting of the Supper, the death, and the resurrection, into the
play as it now stands transcribed in the synoptics, with the
Betrayal, the Agony, the Denial, the Trials, and the dramatic touches
in the crucifixion scene. At some point, probably by reason of the
Christian reaction against all pagan procedure, the play, which in
its present form must always have been special to a town or towns,
was dropped.”
The
reasons for the Gentile interference with a movement which originated
as a Jewish sect and continued to use Jewish synagogues for much of
the first century was firstly the Pauline schism, which eliminated
aspects of strict Judaism in order to preach to non-Jews, and
secondly the collapse of the Jewish branch of the movement following
the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in 70 AD and the failure of the
second coming to materialise. The Ebionite survivors of the Jewish
branch were in due course attacked as heretics by the gentile branch
because of their refusal to accept the divinity of Jesus.
Meanwhile
the gentile myth makers drew heavily on existing myths to give flesh
to the bones of their reverse Evemerism. The equivalent of the
Temptation, for example, where a goat-legged figure stands beside a
young god on a mountain-top is found in Babylonian culture (the
goat-god and the sun god) and in Greek (Pan and Zeus, Marsyas and
Apollo); the turning of water into wine is an annual Dionysiac rite
and so on.
Because
the mythical accretions arose in many different cult centres there
were many different versions of the gospels which could never be
fully harmonised. Not only does the alleged teaching of Jesus
accordingly contain internal contradictions but it all has precedent
in earlier Jewish thought, with the exception of the imminence of the
Kingdom of God. The alleged facts and events of Jesus's life are also
incompatible with each other.
The
central point of the story, however is the ancient ritual. “The
main ethical content of the Christian system,” says Robertson, “the
moral doctrine by which the Church has lived down till the other day,
is the ethic-defying doctrine of the redemption of mankind by a blood
sacrifice — a survival of immemorial savagery.”
In
the subsequent century mainstream academic thought has moved away
from the myth theory espoused by Robertson, insisting that at least
some episodes of the life of Christ are historical. Traditionalists
who insist that all are historical are however fairly easily
confounded. It is not unreasonable to say that when once we begin to
pick and choose the parts we will sustain, Robertson's principle is
necessarily conceded. If we readily accept Apollo or Ishtar as
mythical figures, despite the fact that they were worshipped as gods
and that many stories were told of their doings, it is not enough
simply to assert the same cannot be true of Jesus.
However,
my research is not finished. Having read what I consider to be a
first class negative argument I am now looking for a first class
positive one. I stress that by first class what I mean is a
scholarly, well-researched work that proceeds from the evidence to a
conclusion and not vice-versa. The world is full of people who can
work backwards from their preferred answer, selectively choosing
evidence that suits it. I am looking for a demonstration of
historicity worthy of the challenge that Robertson presents. If you
know of one, please tell me about it.
