Is the Easter Story Legend or Myth? Part IV

In previous blogs I addressed the utter lack of available time that would have been required in order for legend and myth to develop around Jesus.  The facts found there establish that the New Testament documents would have been completed and circulated within 35 years of Jesus’ public ministry.  This means that Jerusalem and the surrounding land was filled with eye-witnesses, both sympathetic and hostile, to the Christian claims concerning Jesus of Nazareth.

Two additional themes remain concerning the question, “Are the New Testament accounts of Jesus the product of legendary development and mythological reshaping?  My next blog to address this theme will address the question of relationship (or non-relationship) of the death and resurrection of Jesus with the mystery religions of the surrounding cultures.

First, however, I want today to consider the characteristics of the Gospels themselves.  Renowned literary critic Erich Auerbach makes the following observation about legendary development by contrasting the two terms legend and history in his book, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. (Princeton, 1953), p.19.

“Legend runs far too smoothly.  All cross-currents, all frictions, all that is casual, secondary to the main events and themes, everything unresolved, truncated, and uncertain, which confuses the clear progress of action and simple orientation of the actors, has disappeared.  The historical event [by contrast]…runs much more variously, contradictorily, and confusedly.” (boldface mine)

Of the four Gospels in our New Testament canon, the Gospel of John is often singled out as being the most “spiritual” and the least earthy in its treatment of the life of Jesus.  This makes the argument from John even more significant.  Consider his treatment of the events of Easter morning.

There are at least six factors, as I count them, in John chapter 20 that are at odds with the tendency of legendary material just described by Auerbach: 1) With great restraint, the author makes no attempt to describe the actual drama itself of Jesus rising from the dead.  Readers are treated only to the events that followed after the encounter with the empty tomb.  2) Mary neither recognized Jesus initially (v.14), 3) nor even considered there was anything special about Him (v.15).  4) Indeed, even by the end of the day the men (in contrast to the women) were still in hiding "for fear of the Jews" (v.19), 5) while the women were portrayed as the first courageous witnesses of the risen Jesus.  Were the Gospels the free creation of paternalistic (male dominant) bias, as feminists charge, it is incredible their alleged creators would have invented women for this role.  The testimony of women didn't even count legally in ancient Middle Eastern cultures.  6) Yet it was their courage going to the tomb on Sunday morning that effectively put the men's cowardice to shame.

I want to remind you to visit my website at www.christianityontheoffense.com.  There you may download my full treatment of Jesus’ resurrection in my essay, “Hoax? Myth? Or Literally True?”

Stay tuned for my next posting covering the theme of Jesus in contrast to the neighboring mystery religions.