"Yet his basic claims—that many of the gospel narratives are mythical in character, and that "myth" is not simply to be equated with "falsehood" — have become part of mainstream scholarship. What was wildly controversial in Strauss's time has now become one of the standard tools of biblical scholars."
--Marcus Borg commenting on D.F. Strauss
In 1835, D. F. Strauss published "The Life of Jesus." At the time one reviewer said that the book was "the most pestilential book ever vomited out of the jaws of hell."
Marcus Borg takes a different view. Borg published David Friedrich Strauss: Miracle and Myth in the Fourth R in 1991. If you have ever wondered how to read the story of the feeding of the 5000 in the gospels, we could take a lesson from D.F. Strauss.
Many people do not realize that higher criticism has been around for quite some time. It is not, for example, an invention of Robert Funk, Marcus Borg, or the Jesus Seminar.
Perhaps the time has come when the church can take seriously this scholarship and use it to energize worship and Christian practice rather than view it as a threat.
Namaste,
John
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