دانلود کتاب Der Vorchristliche Jesus

Der vorchristliche Jesus: nebst weiteren Vorstudien zur Entstehungsgeschichte des UrchristentumsThis scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages.The first edition of this work was published in German in 1905, and since then the authors thesis has received widespread attention all over the Christian world. That an American mathematician writing from Tulane University, where Smith is a professor, should defend a thesis in opposition to a whole army of higher critics and receive such wide-spread, and, on the whole, serious attention from a score or more of them, speaks well for American scholarship in this field.The kernel of the five essays in the book can perhaps be presented as follows: The original doctrine concerning Jesus, a divinity who emanci­pates, protects, and heals, was the belief and teaching of a prechristian cult which, between the years 100 B.C. and a.d. 100, more or less enveloped in secrecy and “mysteries,” was widespread among the Jews and espe­cially among the Greeks. This doctrine was the original source of Chris­tianity, which arose, consequently, from many centers, and not, as a later tradition maintains, from the single center of Jerusalem. Jesus was called “ the Nazarene,” not from the city of Nazareth (which did not ex­ist at that time), but from the Hebrew meaning of the root of the word, "the keeper” or "guard.” His anastasis meant originally the installa­tion as "Messiah,” “ World-Ruler,” “Judge of the living and the dead,” and so forth; and this was later, by the addition of the supplementary phrase "from the dead,” changed into the resurrection. The "two great ideas,” the one, imposing, preached by John the Baptist and others, of " One who shall come," and the other, milder and more genial. “of Jesus,” were originally different, but were finally united in the world- conquering concept of Jesus Christ. The idea of the seed-sower had to do originally with God’s sowing the seeds of the Logos which producedthe world, a picture of the origin of the world possessed by prechristian Naasenes (erroneously considered by some to be merely a sect of the Christian gnostics). No one knew of Paul's letter to the Romans until the year 160 A.D.Smith writes, “ The Jesus-cult is an historical fact, and indeed the most important historical fact there is for us. In the gospels the Jesus* concept is dominant, and in the other writings of the New Testament the Christ-idea is subordinate to it. . . . Orthodoxy or conservatism says that Jesus was god-man, echter Gott und zugleich echier Mensch” For science, however, this notion remains an unthinkable Unding. To ex­plain Jesus there are for science but two possible hypotheses. Either Jesus is a deified man, or he is a humanized god. Like the undulatory theory of light, the first hypothesis is now a very highly developed con­cept. On it, especially in Germany, three generations of scholars, among them men of genius, have labored with unfaltering zeal. With what re­sult? One must confess, with a negative result. In short, the attempt to explain the appearance of the Jesus-cult, the new gospel, and the chris-tian propaganda by any conceivable idea of u purely human Jesus, has, in the light of historical criticism, in no respect and in no degree, suc­ceeded. The complete failure of this noble, century-long effort becomes daily more and more obvious. ... If it were possible to explain the facta in accordance with this hypothesis, German science would long since have done it. ... I challenge the higher critics to mention a single crucial fact of original Christianity which is satisfactorily ex­plained by their theory. . . . The problem can never be solved in this way. . . , Hence we must assume that Jesus is a humanised god, and carefully test whether on the basis of this assumption a view free from contradictions, in which all is in order, can be developed. This is the only scientific method. In it alone can we hope for a final solution of this most important and most interesting of all historical problems" And Smith goes on to maintain that Christianity will lose nothing and gain in every way by such a solution.In the preface of the first edition, Sohmoidel announces himself as an opponent of Smith’s vicxvs, but vouches for the author7* scholarly abil­ities and thorough methods, saying it will be difficult to refute Smith's conclusions. Soon after its publication, however, in a work entitled “ 1st das 4 liberal© ’ Jcsusbild Wicderlegt t ** Weinel spends much ink in say­ing, with very little grace, that Smith does not know what he is talking about. In Drcws'a “ Christui-mythe H Schmeidel is criticized for writing the preface to such a book; and Johannes Weiss, in 44 Jesus von Naaareth Mythu* oder Geschichte,” writes that Schmeidel 14 might have done better than, by writing o preface, supply this book with a foil.” Schmcidcl, in a article, nleads that he only wished to call the attention t •