Docetism and Christ Myth Theory
Since Arthur Drews published his The Christ Myth (Die Christusmythe) in 1909, occasional connections have been drawn between the modern idea that Christ was a myth and docetist theories. Shailer Mathews called Drews' theory a "modern docetism". Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare thought any connection to be based on a misunderstanding of docetism. The idea recurred in Classicist Michael Grant's 1977 review of the evidence for Jesus, who compared modern scepticism about an historical Jesus to the ancient docetic idea that Jesus only seemed to come into the world "in the flesh". Modern theories did away with "seeming".
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Famous quotes containing the words christ, myth and/or theory:
“Then to the third—a face nor child nor old, very calm,
as of beautiful yellow-white ivory,
Young man I think I know you—I think this face is the
face of the Christ himself,
Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies.”
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—Babette Deutsch (1895–1982)
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