The Truth About Jesus
The Truth About JesusPART I.PART II.PART III.ANOTHER RHETORICAL JESUSAPPENDIXCopyright
The Truth About Jesus
M. M. Mangasarian
PART I.
A PARABLEI am today twenty-five hundred years old. I have been dead
for nearly as many years. My place of birth was Athens; my grave
was not far from those of Xenophon and Plato, within view of the
white glory of Athens and the shimmering waters of the Aegean
sea.After sleeping in my grave for many centuries I awoke
suddenly—I cannot tell how nor why—and was transported by a force
beyond my control to this new day and this new city. I arrived here
at daybreak, when the sky was still dull and drowsy. As I
approached the city I heard bells ringing, and a little later I
found the streets astir with throngs of well dressed people in
family groups wending their way hither and thither. Evidently they
were not going to work, for they were accompanied by their children
in their best clothes, and a pleasant expression was upon their
faces."This must be a day of festival and worship, devoted to one
of their gods," I murmured to myself.Looking about me I saw a gentleman in a neat black dress,
smiling, and his hand extended to me with great cordiality. He must
have realized I was a stranger and wished to tender his hospitality
to me. I accepted it gratefully. I clasped his hand. He pressed
mine. We gazed for a moment silently into each other's eyes. He
understood my bewilderment amid my novel surroundings, and offered
to enlighten me. He explained to me the ringing of the bells and
the meaning of the holiday crowds moving in the streets. It was
Sunday—Sunday before Christmas, and the people were going to "the
House of God.""Of course you are going there, too," I said to my friendly
guide."Yes," he answered, "I conduct the worship. I am a
priest.""A priest of Apollo?" I interrogated."No, no," he replied, raising his hand to command silence,
"Apollo is not a god; he was only an idol.""An idol?" I whispered, taken by surprise."I perceive you are a Greek," he said to me, "and the
Greeks," he continued, "notwithstanding their distinguished
accomplishments, were an idolatrous people. They worshipped gods
that did not exist. They built temples to divinities which were
merely empty names—empty names," he repeated. "Apollo and
Athene—and the entire Olympian lot were no more than inventions of
the fancy.""But the Greeks loved their gods," I protested, my heart
clamoring in my breast."They were not gods, they were idols, and the difference
between a god and an idol is this: an idol is a thing; God is a
living being. When you cannot prove the existence of your god, when
you have never seen him, nor heard his voice, nor touched him—when
you have nothing provable about him, he is an idol. Have you seen
Apollo? Have you heard him? Have you touched him?""No," I said, in a low voice."Do you know of any one who has?"I had to admit that I did not."He was an idol, then, and not a god.""But many of us Greeks," I said, "have felt Apollo in our
hearts and have been inspired by him.""You imagine you have," returned my guide. "If he were really
divine he would be living to this day.""Is he, then, dead?" I asked."He never lived; and for the last two thousand years or more
his temple has been a heap of ruins."I wept to hear that Apollo, the god of light and music, was
no more—that his fair temple had fallen into ruins and the fire
upon his altar had been extinguished; then, wiping a tear from my
eyes, I said, "Oh, but our gods were fair and beautiful; our
religion was rich and picturesque. It made the Greeks a nation of
poets, orators, artists, warriors, thinkers. It made Athens a city
of light; it created the beautiful, the true, the good—yes, our
religion was divine.""It had only one fault," interrupted my guide."What was that?" I inquired, without knowing what his answer
would be."It was not true.""But I still believe in Apollo," I exclaimed; "he is not
dead, I know he is alive.""Prove it," he said to me; then, pausing for a moment, "if
you produce him," he said, "we shall all fall down and worship him.
Produce Apollo and he shall be our god.""Produce him!" I whispered to myself. "What blasphemy!" Then,
taking heart, I told my guide how more than once I had felt
Apollo's radiant presence in my heart, and told him of the immortal
lines of Homer concerning the divine Apollo. "Do you doubt Homer?"
I said to him; "Homer, the inspired bard? Homer, whose inkwell was
as big as the sea; whose imperishable page was Time? Homer, whose
every word was a drop of light?" Then I proceeded to quote from
Homer'sIliad, the Greek Bible,
worshipped by all the Hellenes as the rarest Manuscript between
heaven and earth. I quoted his description of Apollo, than whose
lyre nothing is more musical, than whose speech even honey is not
sweeter. I recited how his mother went from town to town to select
a worthy place to give birth to the young god, son of Zeus, the
Supreme Being, and how he was born and cradled amid the
ministrations of all the goddesses, who bathed him in the running
stream and fed him with nectar and ambrosia from Olympus. Then I
recited the lines which picture Apollo bursting his bands, leaping
forth from his cradle, and spreading his wings like a swan, soaring
sunward, declaring that he had come to announce to mortals the will
of God. "Is it possible," I asked, "that all this is pure
fabrication, a fantasy of the brain, as unsubstantial as the air?
No, no, Apollo is not an idol. He is a god, and the son of a god.
The whole Greek world will bear me witness that I am telling the
truth." Then I looked at my guide to see what impression this
outburst of sincere enthusiasm had produced upon him, and I saw a
cold smile upon his lips that cut me to the heart. It seemed as if
he wished to say to me, "You poor deluded pagan! You are not
intelligent enough to know that Homer was only a mortal after all,
and that he was writing a play in which he manufactured the gods of
whom he sang—that these gods existed only in his imagination, and
that today they are as dead as is their inventor—the
poet."By this time we stood at the entrance of a large edifice
which my guide said was "the House of God." As we walked in I saw
innumerable little lights blinking and winking all over the
spacious interior. There were, besides, pictures, altars and images
all around me. The air was heavy with incense; a number of men in
gorgeous vestments were passing to and fro, bowing and kneeling
before the various lights and images. The audience was upon its
knees enveloped in silence—a silence so solemn that it awed me.
Observing my anxiety to understand the meaning of all this, my
guide took me aside and in a whisper told me that the people were
celebrating the anniversary of the birthday of their beautiful
Savior—Jesus, the Son of God."So was Apollo the son of God," I replied, thinking perhaps
that after all we might find ourselves in agreement with one
another."Forget Apollo," he said, with a suggestion of severity in
his voice. "There is no such person. He was only an idol. If you
were to search for Apollo in all the universe you would never find
any one answering to his name or description. Jesus," he resumed,
"is the Son of God. He came to our earth and was born of a
virgin."Again I was tempted to tell my guide that that was how Apollo
became incarnate; but I restrained myself."Then Jesus grew up to be a man," continued my guide,
"performing unheard-of wonders, such as treading the seas, giving
sight, hearing and speech to the blind, the deaf and the dumb,
converting water into wine, feeding the multitudes miraculously,
predicting coming events and resurrecting the dead.""Of course, of your gods, too," he added, "it is claimed that
they performed miracles, and of your oracles that they foretold the
future, but there is this difference—the things related of your
gods are a fiction, the things told of Jesus are a fact, and the
difference between Paganism and Christianity is the difference
between fiction and fact."Just then I heard a wave of murmur, like the rustling of
leaves in a forest, sweep over the bowed audience. I turned about
and unconsciously, my Greek curiosity impelling me, I pushed
forward toward where the greater candle lights were blazing. I felt
that perhaps the commotion in the house was the announcement that
the God Jesus was about to make his appearance, and I wanted to see
him. I wanted to touch him, or, if the crowd were too large to
allow me that privilege, I wanted, at least, to hear his voice. I,
who had never seen a god, never touched one, never heard one speak,
I who had believed in Apollo without ever having known anything
provable about him, I wanted to see the real God,
Jesus.But my guide placed his hand quickly upon my shoulder, and
held me back."I want to see Jesus," I hastened, turning toward him. I said
this reverently and in good faith. "Will he not be here this
morning? Will he not speak to his worshippers?" I asked again.
"Will he not permit them to touch him, to caress his hand, to clasp
his divine feet, to inhale the ambrosial fragrance of his breath,
to bask in the golden light of his eyes, to hear the music of his
immaculate accents? Let me, too, see Jesus," I
pleaded."You cannot see him," answered my guide, with a trace of
embarrassment in his voice. "He does not show himself any
more."I was too much surprised at this to make any immediate
reply."For the last two thousand years," my guide continued, "it
has not pleased Jesus to show himself to any one; neither has he
been heard from for the same number of years.""For two thousand years no one has either seen or heard
Jesus?" I asked, my eyes filled with wonder and my voice quivering
with excitement."No," he answered."Would not that, then," I ventured to ask, impatiently, "make
Jesus as much of an idol as Apollo? And are not these people on
their knees before a god of whose existence they are as much in the
dark as were the Greeks of fair Apollo, and of whose past they have
only rumors such as Homer reports of our Olympian gods—as
idolatrous as the Athenians? What would you say," I asked my guide,
"if I were to demand that you should produce Jesus and prove him to
my eyes and ears as you have asked me to produce and prove Apollo?
What is the difference between a ceremony performed in honor of
Apollo and one performed in honor of Jesus, since it is as
impossible to give oracular demonstration of the existence of the
one as of the other? If Jesus is alive and a god, and Apollo is an
idol and dead, what is the evidence, since the one is as invisible,
as inaccessible, and as unproducible as the other? And, if faith
that Jesus is a god proves him a god, why will not faith in Apollo
make him a god? But if worshipping Jesus, whom for the best part of
the last two thousand years no man has seen, heard or touched; if
building temples to him, burning incense upon his altars, bowing at
his shrine and calling him "God," is not idolatry, neither is it
idolatry to kindle fire upon the luminous altars of the Greek
Apollo,—God of the dawn, master of the enchanted lyre—he with the
bow and arrow tipped with fire! I am not denying," I said, "that
Jesus ever lived. He may have been alive two thousand years ago,
but if he has not been heard from since, if the same thing that
happened to the people living at the time he lived has happened to
him, namely—if he is dead, then you are worshipping the dead, which
fact stamps your religion as idolatrous."And, then, remembering what he had said to me about the Greek
mythology being beautiful but not true, I said to him: "Your
temples are indeed gorgeous and costly; your music is grand; your
altars are superb; your litany is exquisite; your chants are
melting; your incense, and bells and flowers, your gold and silver
vessels are all in rare taste, and I dare say your dogmas are
subtle and your preachers eloquent, but your religion has one
fault—it is not true."IN CONFIDENCEI shall speak in a straightforward way, and shall say today
what perhaps I should say tomorrow, or ten years from now,—but
shall say it today, because I cannot keep it back, because I have
nothing better to say than the truth, or what I hold to be the
truth. But why seek truths that are not pleasant? We cannot help
it. No man can suppress the truth. Truth finds a crack or crevice
to crop out of; it bobs up to the surface and all the volume and
weight of waters can not keep it down. Truth prevails! Life, death,
truth—behold, these three no power can keep back. And since we are
doomed to know the truth, let us cultivate a love for it. It is of
no avail to cry over lost illusions, to long for vanished dreams,
or to call to the departing gods to come back. It may be pleasant
to play with toys and dolls all our life, but evidently we are not
meant to remain children always. The time comes when we must put
away childish things and obey the summons of truth, stern and high.
A people who fear the truth can never he a free people. If what I
will say is the truth, do you know of any good reason why I should
not say it? And if for prudential reasons I should sometimes hold
back the truth, how would you knowwhenI am telling what I believe to be
the truth, and when I am holding it back for reasons of
policy?The truth, however unwelcome, is not injurious; it is error
which raises false hopes, which destroys, degrades and pollutes,
and which, sooner or later, must be abandoned. Was it not Spencer,
whom Darwin called "our great philosopher," who said, "Repulsive as
is its aspect, the hard fact which dissipates a cherished illusion
is presently found to contain the germ of a more salutary belief?"
Spain is decaying today because her teachers, for policy's sake,
are withholding the disagreeable truth from the people. Holy water
and sainted bones can give a nation illusions and dreams, but
never,—strength.A difficult subject is in the nature of a challenge to the
mind. One difficult task attempted is worth a thousand commonplace
efforts completed. The majority of people avoid the difficult and
fear danger. But he who would progress must even court danger.
Political and religious liberty were discovered through peril and
struggle. The world owes its emancipation to human daring. Had
Columbus feared danger, America might have slept for another
thousand years.I have a difficult subject in hand. It is also a delicate
one. But I am determined not only to know, if it is possible, the
whole truth about Jesus, but also to communicate that truth to
others. Some people can keep their minds shut. I cannot; I must
share my intellectual life with the world. If I lived a thousand
years ago, I might have collapsed at the sight of the burning
stake, but I feel sure I would have deserved the
stake.People say to me, sometimes, "Why do you not confine yourself
to moral and religious exhortation, such as, 'Be kind, do good,
love one another, etc.'?" But there is more of a moral tonic in the
open and candid discussion of a subject like the one in hand, than
in a multitude of platitudes. We feel our moral fiber stiffen into
force and purpose under the inspiration of a peril dared for the
advancement of truth."Tell us what you believe," is one of the requests frequently
addressed to me. I never deliver a lecture in which I do not,
either directly or indirectly, give full and free expression to my
faith in everything that is worthy of faith. If I do not believe in
dogma, it is because I believe in freedom. If I do not believe in
one inspired book, it is because I believe that all truth and only
truth is inspired. If I do not ask the gods to help us, it is
because I believe in human help, so much more real than
supernatural help. If I do not believe in standing still, it is
because I believe in progress. If I am not attracted by the vision
of a distant heaven, it is because I believe in human happiness,
now and here. If I do not say "Lord, Lord!" to Jesus, it is because
I bow my head to a greater Power than Jesus, to a more efficient
Savior than he has ever been—Science!"Oh, he tears down, but does not build up," is another
criticism about my work. It is not true. No preacher or priest is
more constructive. To build up their churches and maintain their
creeds the priests pulled down and destroyed the magnificent
civilization of Greece and Rome, plunging Europe into the dark and
sterile ages which lasted over a thousand years. When Galileo waved
his hands for joy because he believed he had enriched humanity with
a new truth and extended the sphere of knowledge, what did the
church do to him? It conspired to destroy him. It shut him up in a
dungeon! Clapping truth into jail; gagging the mouth of the
student—is that building up or tearing down? When Bruno lighted a
new torch to increase the light of the world, what was his reward?
The stake! During all the ages that the church had the power to
police the world, every time a thinker raised his head he was
clubbed to death. Do you think it is kind of us—does it square with
our sense of justice to call the priest constructive, and the
scientists and philosophers who have helped people to their
feet—helped them to self-government in politics, and to self-help
in life,—destructive? Count your rights—political, religious,
social, intellectual—and tell me which of them was conquered for
you by the priest."He is irreverent," is still another hasty criticism I have
heard advanced against the rationalist. I wish to tell you
something. But first let us be impersonal. The epithets
"irreverent," "blasphemer," "atheist," and "infidel," are flung at
a man, not from pity, but from envy. Not having the courage or the
industry of our neighbor who works like a busy bee in the world of
men and books, searching with the sweat of his brow for the real
bread of life, wetting the open page before him with his tears,
pushing into the "wee" hours of the night his quest, animated by
the fairest of all loves, "the love of truth",—we ease our own
indolent conscience by calling him names. We pretend that it is not
because we are too lazy or too selfish to work as hard or think as
freely as he does, but because we do not want to be as irreverent
as he is that we keep the windows of our minds shut. To excuse our
own mediocrity we call the man who tries to get out of the rut a
"blasphemer." And so we ask the world to praise our indifference as
a great virtue, and to denounce the conscientious toil and thought
of another, as "blasphemy."
IS JESUS A MYTH?What is a myth? A myth is a fanciful explanation of a given
phenomenon. Observing the sun, the moon, and the stars overhead,
the primitive man wished to account for them. This was natural. The
mind craves for knowledge. The child asks questions because of an
inborn desire to know. Man feels ill at ease with a sense of a
mental vacuum, until his questions are answered. Before the days of
science, a fanciful answer was all that could be given to man's
questions about the physical world. The primitive man guessed where
knowledge failed him—what else could he do? A myth, then, is a
guess, a story, a speculation, or a fanciful explanation of a
phenomenon, in the absence of accurate information.Many are the myths about the heavenly bodies, which, while we
call them myths, because we know better, were to the ancients
truths. The Sun and Moon were once brother and sister, thought the
child-man; but there arose a dispute between them; the woman ran
away, and the man ran after her, until they came to the end of the
earth where land and sky met. The woman jumped into the sky, and
the man after her, where they kept chasing each other forever, as
Sun and Moon. Now and then they came close enough to snap at each
other. That was their explanation of an eclipse. (Childhood of the
World.—Edward Clodd.) With this mythus, the primitive man was
satisfied, until his developing intelligence realized its
inadequacy. Science was born of that realization.During the middle ages it was believed by Europeans that in
certain parts of the world, in India, for instance, there were
people who had only one eye in the middle of their foreheads, and
were more like monsters than humans. This was imaginary knowledge,
which travel and research have corrected. The myth of a one-eyed
people living in India has been replaced by accurate information
concerning the Hindoos. Likewise, before the science of ancient
languages was perfected—before archaeology had dug up buried cities
and deciphered the hieroglyphics on the monuments of antiquity,
most of our knowledge concerning the earlier ages was mythical,
that is to say, it was knowledge not based on investigation, but
made to order. Just as the theologians still speculate about the
other world, primitive man speculated about this world. Even we
moderns, not very long ago, believed, for instance, that the land
of Egypt was visited by ten fantastic plagues; that in one bloody
night every first born in the land was slain; that the angel of a
tribal-god dipped his hand in blood and printed a red mark upon the
doors of the houses of the Jews to protect them from harm; that
Pharaoh and his armies were drowned in the Red Sea; that the
children of Israel wandered for forty years around Mount Sinai; and
so forth, and so forth. But now that we can read the inscriptions
on the stone pages dug out of ancient ruins; now that we can compel
a buried world to reveal its secret and to tell us its story, we do
not have to go on making myths about the ancients. Myths die when
history is born.It will be seen from these examples that there is no harm in
myth- making if the myth is called a myth. It is when we use our
fanciful knowledge to deny or to shut out real and scientific
knowledge that the myth becomes a stumbling block. And this is
precisely the use to which myths have been put. The king with his
sword and the priest with his curses, have supported the myth
against science. When a manpretendsto believe that theSanta Clausof his childhood is real, and tries to compel also others to
play a part, he becomes positively immoral. There is no harm in
believing inSanta Clausas a
myth, but there is in pretending that he is real, because such an
attitude of mind makes a mere trifle of truth.Is Jesus a myth? There is in man a faculty for fiction.
Before history was born, there was myth; before men could think,
they dreamed. It was with the human race in its infancy as it is
with the child. The child's imagination is more active than its
reason. It is easier for it to fancy even than to see. It thinks
less than it guesses. This wild flight of fancy is checked only by
experience. It is reflection which introduces a bit into the mouth
of imagination, curbing its pace and subduing its restless spirit.
It is, then, as we grow older, and, if I may use the word, riper,
that we learn to distinguish between fact and fiction, between
history and myth.In childhood we need playthings, and the more fantastic
andbizarrethey are, the better
we are pleased with them. We dream, for instance, of castles in the
air—gorgeous and clothed with the azure hue of the skies. We fill
the space about and over us with spirits, fairies, gods, and other
invisible and airy beings. We covet the rainbow. We reach out for
the moon. Our feet do not really begin to touch the firm ground
until we have reached the years of discretion.I know there are those who wish they could always remain
children,—living in dreamland. But even if this were desirable, it
is not possible. Evolution is our destiny; of what use is it, then,
to take up arms against destiny?Let it be borne in mind that all the religions of the world
were born in the childhood of the race.Science was not born until man had matured. There is in this
thought a world of meaning.Children make religions.Grown up people create science.The cradle is the womb of all the fairies and faiths of
mankind.The school is the birthplace of science.Religion is the science of the child.Science is the religion of the matured man.In the discussion of this subject, I appeal to the mature,
not to the child mind. I appeal to those who have cultivated a
taste for truth—who are not easily scared, but who can "screw their
courage to the sticking point" and follow to the end truth's
leading. The multitude is ever joined to its idols; let them alone.
I speak to the discerning few.There is an important difference between a lecturer and an
ordained preacher. The latter can command a hearing in the name of
God, or in the name of the Bible. He does not have to satisfy his
hearers about the reasonableness of what he preaches. He is God's
mouthpiece, and no one may disagree with him. He can also invoke
the authority of the church and of the Christian world to enforce
acceptance of his teaching. The only way I may command your respect
is to be reasonable. You will not listen to me for God's sake, nor
for the Bible's sake, nor yet for the love of heaven, or the fear
of hell. My only protection is to be rational—to be truthful. In
other words, the preacher can afford to ignore common sense in the
name of Revelation. But if I depart from it in the least, or am
caught once playing fast and loose with the facts, I will
irretrievably lose my standing.
Our answer to the question, Is Jesus a Myth? must depend more or
less upon original research, as there is very little written on the
subject. The majority of writers assume that a person answering to
the description of Jesus lived some two thousand years ago. Even
the few who entertain doubts on the subject, seem to hold that
while there is a large mythical element in the Jesus story,
nevertheless there is a historical nucleus round which has
clustered the elaborate legend of the Christ. In all probability,
they argue, there was a man called Jesus, who said many helpful
things, and led an exemplary life, and all the miracles and wonders
represent the accretions of fond and pious ages.Let us place ourselves entirely in the hands of the evidence.
As far as possible, let us be passive, showing no predisposition
one way or another. We can afford to be independent. If the
evidence proves the historicity of Jesus, well and good; if the
evidence is not sufficient to prove it, there is no reason why we
should fear to say so; besides, it is our duty to inform ourselves
on this question. As intelligent beings we desire to know whether
this Jesus, whose worship is not only costing the world millions of
the people's money, but which is also drawing to his service the
time, the energies, the affection, the devotion, and the labor of
humanity,—is a myth, or a reality. We believe that all religious
persecutions, all sectarian wars, hatreds and intolerance, which
still cramp and embitter our humanity, would be replaced by love
and brotherhood, if the sects could be made to see that the
God-Jesus they are quarreling over is a myth, a shadow to which
credulity alone gives substance. Like people who have been fighting
in the dark, fearing some danger, the sects, once relieved of the
thraldom of a tradition which has been handed down to them by a
childish age and country, will turn around and embrace one another.
In every sense, the subject is an all-absorbing one. It goes to the
root of things; it touches the vital parts, and it means life or
death to the Christian religion.THE PROBLEM STATEDLet me now give an idea of the method I propose to follow in
the study of this subject. Let us suppose that a student living in
the year 3000 desired to make sure that such a man as Abraham
Lincoln really lived and did the things attributed to him. How
would he go about it?A man must have a birthplace and a birthday. All the records
agree as to where and when Lincoln was born. This is not enough to
prove his historicity, but it is an important link in the
chain.Neither the place nor the time of Jesus' birth is known.
There has never been any unanimity about this matter. There has
been considerable confusion and contradiction about it. It cannot
be proved that the twenty-fifth of December is his birthday. A
number of other dates were observed by the Christian church at
various times as the birthday of Jesus. The Gospels give no date,
and appear to be quite uncertain—really ignorant about it. When it
is remembered that the Gospels purport to have been written by
Jesus' intimate companions, and during the lifetime of his brothers
and mother, their silence on this matter becomes significant. The
selection of the twenty-fifth of December as his birthday is not
only an arbitrary one, but that date, having been from time
immemorial dedicated to the Sun, the inference is that the Son of
God and the Sun of heaven enjoying the same birthday, were at one
time identical beings. The fact that Jesus' death was accompanied
with the darkening of the Sun, and that the date of his
resurrection is also associated with the position of the Sun at the
time of the vernal equinox, is a further intimation that we have in
the story of the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus, an
ancient and nearly universal Sun-myth, instead of verifiable
historical events. The story of Jesus for three days in the heart
of the earth; of Jonah, three days in the belly of a fish; of
Hercules, three days in the belly of a whale, and of Little Red
Riding Hood, sleeping in the belly of a great black wolf, represent
the attempt of primitive man to explain the phenomenon of Day and
Night. The Sun is swallowed by a dragon, a wolf, or a whale, which
plunges the world into darkness; but the dragon is killed, and the
Sun rises triumphant to make another Day. This ancient Sun myth is
the starting point of nearly all miraculous religions, from the
days of Egypt to the twentieth century.The story which Mathew relates about a remarkable star, which
sailing in the air pointed out to some unnamed magicians the cradle
or cave in which the wonder-child was born, helps further to
identify Jesus with the Sun. What became of this "performing" star,
or of the magicians, and their costly gifts, the records do not
say. It is more likely that it was the astrological predilections
of the gospel writer which led him to assign to his God-child a
star in the heavens. The belief that the stars determine human
destinies is a very ancient one. Such expressions in our language
as "ill-starred," "a lucky star," "disaster," "lunacy," and so on,
indicate the hold which astrology once enjoyed upon the human mind.
We still call a melancholy man,Saturnine; a cheerful man,Jovial; a quick-tempered man,Mercurial; showing how closely our
ancestors associated the movements of celestial bodies with human
affairs. [Footnote: Childhood of the World.—Edward Clodd.] The
prominence, therefore, of the sun and stars in the Gospel story
tends to show that Jesus is an astrological rather than a
historical character.That the time of his birth, his death, and supposed
resurrection isnotverifiable
is generally admitted.This uncertainty robs the story of Jesus, to an extent at
least, of the atmosphere of reality.