Solo

Bruno Bauer does not fit the profile of an anti-semite. His essay "The Jewish Question" was not at all concerned with Jewish racial identity (the racial "anti-semite" theories really started after his time). He simply called for Judaism to be abolished as a religion, just as he called for the state to abolish Christianity. Marx, who was Bauer's student replied ("On the Jewish Question", 1843) that it was foolish to demand a decree abolishing of religion, that separation of the state and religion sufficed for both Jews and Christians, and that the negative aspects of Jewishness - i.e. unscrupulous greed (which earned Marx himself the reputation of an anti-semite) would be removed once the material base of society changed in the practice of socialism. Bruno's Jesus mythicist theory was the cornerstone of the so-called scientific socialism's teachings on the rise of Christianity - a state enforced dogma in the Soviet Union and its satellites.

Arthur Drews was a card-carrying member of NSDAP, and after Hitler came to power, he became a "Fuehrerrat" (the Feuhrer's Counsel) of an organization called the German Faith Movement which was neo-pagan, and opposed to both Christianity and Judaism. Drews was not particularly known for anti-semitism but hanged around - prior to his political involvement with the Nazis - with Carl C. Jung's psychoanalytical movement, which had notorious links with the theosophical movement. Its founder, A.P. Blavatsky more than anyone was personally responsible for the invention of the racial Aryan theory. Jung himself was infected by the doctrine of German racial superiority. (see p.10 here).

Best,
Jiri

No Robots

Bauer was certainly no advocate of traditional Christianity; but he still preferred a mythical Jesus based on the philosopher Seneca to one who had been a Jew.--From ancient Israel to modern Judaism: intellect in quest of understanding : essays in honor of Marvin Fox / Jacob Neusner, Ernest S. Frerichs, Nahum M. Sarna, p. 183.

The religious materialism of Christianity is a legacy inherited from Judaism, it is a Semitic graft, and Drews in his capacity as a religious anti-Semite, struggles against this materialistic Semitic graft for the religious life of Aryanism, expressing itself in its purest guise in India.--"The Scientific Discipline of Religion and Christian Apologetics" / N. A. Berdyaev.

That's right. See "Higher Criticism—Higher Anti-Semitism." Mythicism is a product of this anti-semitic tendency in Christian theology.

This emphasis is conspicuously absent among mythicists.

Toto

I don't think so. Anti-Semitism has deep historical roots in Christianity, so everything coming out of Christianity might look anti-Semitic - but mythicism today is not motivated by racialism.

Mythicists don't believe in Jesus, so they are not going to be describing how Jewish he was. Mythicists do trace the gospel stories to the Hebrew Scriptures.

You've tried to run this before, and it doesn't work. This is just a smear.

mountainman

Christianity is anti-semitic because Constantine the publisher and Eusebius the editor of the first widespread Christian Bibles were both anti-semitic. Were Constantine or Eusebius mythicists? By the above logic they must have been mythicists. But I dont think so. Just in case you want some evidence for the anti-semitic Constantine, try one of his very early laws c.315 CE directed at the Jewish communities of the Roman Empire.


And No Robots, also relevant are Some Quotes of Hitler from the twentieth century that may fairly be placed directly into the mouth of Constantine in the fourth century

habber

Actually, they have a right to believe what they want just as much as Atheists do, it would just be great if both sides if the equation would shut the pie holes and stop trying to convert everyone else, who can up their own minds.

mountainman

Bilbo Baggins is a very kind, generous, insightful and adventurous soul, and I dont hold it against Tolkien that he was not human. Perhaps the essence is just in the books we read, or perhaps it is in us too? But isn't this straying out of the field of history and into the field of theology?

The OP might be "Jesus is dead", but IMHO the really interesting question in the field of ancient history is whether he ever lived. And if Jesus never lived how are we to explain the Origens of the Christian Universal Church?

No Robots

True. Mythicists do not really care a whit about Jews: their target is Christian religion, as Berdyaev points out:

The mythological theory became very popular with those, who wanted to inflict a blow upon the Christian faith. This seemed the most radical and most irrefutable objection against Christianity, in comparison with which all the other remaining objections seemed weak and ineffectual.

Everything coming out of Christian doctrine not only looks anti-semitic, but actually is fundamentally anti-Semitic. This includes mythicism. Mythicists feel that they have escaped the anti-semitic legacy of Christian theology, but they really stand within the tradition as its self-negating endpoint:

So the sources were already being subjected to severely critical evaluation, so much so that the question could arise as to just how much of a historical figure actually lay behind them. This was the door opened by the liberal criticism, and through it marched the likes of Arthur Drews, William Benjamin Smith, and John M. Robertson.--The historical Jesus in the twentieth century, 1900-1950 / Walter P. Weaver, p. 49.

Exactly. To erase Jesus from history means there is no reason to see him as a Jew; and not to see him as a Jew effectively erases him from history. See how easy that is? Now, let’s see mythicists actually engage the claims of Jewish scholars. So far, all I’ve seen is patronizing hand-waving to the effect that Jewish scholars are in the thrall of Christian religious doctrine. This is an insult to the sheer bravery and self-sacrifice of Jewish scholars who have challenged the Christian religious establishment by claiming Christ and the New Testament as their own.

And where is the mythicist who declares that the gospel stories belong to Jewish literature in exactly the same sense as the Talmud?

Jewish scholars have done great work in exposing the unexamined anti-Jewish foundations of Christian religious doctrine. I think it is important to ask mythicists to examine their own enmeshment with these same anti-Jewish foundations. If mythicism is allowed to proceed without criticism, to take no account of the Jewishness of Christ, it is certain that the New Testament will continue to be seen by most people as something fundamentally alien to Judaism, rather than as its highest expression. This kind of cultural misappropriation is something that should be contested. That mythicists have what they consider to be noble goals—honest scholarship, anti-religious activism—is immaterial. The harm caused by mythicism is not inflicted specifically upon Jews, but upon anyone who seeks an understanding of Christ and the New Testament, but who is told that there is nothing in it but myth. This is to rob the seeker of a crucial cultural resource, and so it cannot go uncontested. Exposing the anti-Jewish roots of mythicism is part of contesting its claim to legitimacy. The ultimate goal here is to end the dejudaization of Christ and the New Testament, and thus to open the way to a clear understanding of these important cultural phenomena.

Yellum Notnef

Wow. Jesus makes some people crazier than eating lead paint. This is an absolute madhouse.

Toto

Unless he was a Jewish myth, constructed from Jewish themes...
The Aryanists did not see him as a Jew, and did not erase him from history.

See how fallacious that is?

Jewish scholars are trying to appropriate a major cultural symbol. I have no problem with that effort.

Why should mythicists try to appropriate the Talmud, which is a bit later than the gospels?

What do you mean "nothing"? Myths are significant pieces of our culture, possibly more significant than unembellished history.

No Robots

So, on the one hand we have Jewish scholarship, and on the other we have paganist/Christianist/mythicist scholarship. Let's let people choose for themselves.