Mythologizing Jesus: From Jewish Teacher to Epic Hero by Dennis R. MacDonald, Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland; ISBN 978-0-7425-5891-5 ©2015, $34.00, p. 143, plus notes, appendix, bibliography, and indices
By Fred Reiss, Ed.D.
WINCHESTER, California — Scholars and researchers, mostly Christian, searching for the “true Jesus” since at least the eighteenth century, produced so many volumes with vastly different answers, that one begins to wonder if Jesus actually lived. In fact, let’s ask: outside the New Testament are there any historical documents confirming his life and deeds?
Jesus’ name appears twice in the Antiquities of the Jews, written by the Jewish-general-turned-Roman-historian Josephus in the late first century and once in Annals by the Roman historian Tacitus, written during the first quarter of the second century. In both cases the veracity of at least a portion of these passages is the subject of academic controversy. There is general agreement that statements about Jesus appear in four Talmudic tractates (Shabbat 104b, Sanhedrin 67b, Sanhedrin 107b, and Sotah 47a). Since these rabbis strongly opposed Christianity and did not deny Jesus’ existence in any part of the Talmud, then this is at least some credible evidence that he lived.
Mythologizing Jesus by Dennis MacDonald, professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at Claremont School of Theology, is a redacted version of a previous work The Gospels and Homer, now making its contents accessible to lay readers. His thesis is that Mark and Luke, two Gospel writers, altered perceptions of Jesus “by emulating the Iliad and the Odyssey to portray him with supernatural powers.”
The Gospel of Mark, among the oldest extant works of Christianity, tells the story of Jesus from baptism to his death, burial, and the subsequent finding of his empty tomb. Missing from the Mark is the birth story and Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances. The Gospel of Luke (Luke is also thought to be the author of Acts of the Apostles) is the longest of the Gospels and recounts Jesus’ life from birth to death, the resurrection, and his ascension to heaven. Of these works, MacDonald writes, “The author of the Gospel of Luke rightly reads Mark as historical fiction and expanded its imitations to include even more Homeric episodes.”
To convince the reader that his theory is not pie-in-the-sky, MacDonald, looking back on the writings of early Church fathers, cites for instance, the early second century CE Christian apologist Justin Martyr, who wrote to a Greco-Roman pagan audience in First Apology (21:1), “that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Zeus.” Pagan apologists of the Roman Empire also saw Greco-Roman myths about Dionysus, Aeneas, Telemachus, Odysseus, and others as not being significantly different from many New Testament stories, including the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Employing a form of literary criticism known as mimesis, MacDonald examines how Luke and Mark imitate Homer, particularly the Odyssey, forming the book’s backbone. In addition to finding many examples of mimicry from the Odyssey in Mark and Luke and between the Iliad and Mark, he finds imitations of storylines between a few other Homeric works and the Gospel of Luke.
An example will suffice. Although Jesus displays no supernatural powers here, MacDonald sees significant linkages between the Odyssey (books 6 and 7), Odysseus’ first encounter with Nausicaa, the daughter of King Alcinous and Queen Arete of Phaeacia, and the Gospel of Mark (11:1-14), Jesus entry into the Jerusalem temple. MacDonald writes:
- “Odysseus arrives on the island of the Phaeacians naked and starving.”
- “Jesus arrives in Judea without money or a host.”
- The Greek goddess Athena tells “Nausicaa to ask her father for mules and a wagon.”
- “Jesus tells two of his disciples to find a colt and bring it to him.’
- “Nausicaa tells her father she needs a wagon and to do her wash”
- “The disciples tell those with the colt, ‘The Lord has need of it.’”
- King Alcinous “allowed Nausicaa to take the mules.’
- “Those responsible for the colt allow the disciples to take it.’
- Nausicaa goes “to the shore to do her wash and finds Odysseus. ‘She folded the clothes and put them on the beautiful wagon, / yoked the strong-hoofed mules, and mounted herself.’”
- “They brought the colt to Jesus and put their clothes over it; and he sat on it.”
- “Odysseus traveled through the fields”
- “Some in the crowd bring ‘branches cut from the fields.’”
- “Odysseus, though a king, enters the city wearing someone else’s clothing, behind a mule wagon carrying laundry.”
- “Jesus, though the Son of God, enters the city in humility, riding on someone else’s beast of burden with clothing for a saddle.”
- “Odysseus enters the city late in the day.”
- Jesus enters the Jerusalem temple late in the day.
- “Odysseus just stood there gawking./And when he had gawked at everything with admiration…”
- “Jesus ‘looked around at everything.’”
- “Among the marvels was the garden of Alcinous with its fig trees that bore even out of season.”
- “The next day, Jesus cursed a fig tree for bearing no fruit, even though ‘it was not the season for figs.’”
MacDonald goes on to say that “Mark’s model for what Jesus did once he arrived at the Jerusalem temple also came from the Odyssey—but from book 22.”
Jesus’ apostles Mark and Luke, according to MacDonald, needing a method to draw into Christendom a gentile population, believers in “superhero” pagan gods and goddesses, chose to create a mythology around Jesus that would not only compete with his rivals, but be superior to them. Today, most of us have a generally weak knowledge of the Greco-Roman pantheon and long ago we abandoned belief in polytheism, but this mimicry succeeded in Roman times because “Homeric imitations of the Gospels would have been particularly meaningful in the first century of the Common Era.”
Mythologizing Jesus convincingly explains the numerous correspondences between the synoptic Gospels of Luke and Mark and the Greek poet Homer; too many, in fact, to be just coincidences and thereby shedding new light on old texts and unmistakably illuminating an important area of research.
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Dr. Fred Reiss is a retired public and Hebrew school teacher and administrator. He is the author of The Standard Guide to the Jewish and Civil Calendars; Ancient Secrets of Creation: Sepher Yetzira, the Book that Started Kabbalah, Revealed; and Reclaiming the Messiah. You may comment to the author at fred.reiss@sdjewishworld.com