The Jesus Myth: A Psychologist's Viewpoint Paperback – March 8, 2022
by Chris Scott (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars 4 ratings
A look at the nature of myth as a carrier of deep truth and that we all have our own internal myths about ourselves and life. Exploring what was and is meant by the term Messiah, both in the 1st century and now.
"Here is a book bursting with common sense and inspiration, written by someone who has known life in all its rich complexity... It's a book that has to be read by all those who dare to ask for more" Revd Dr Terry Biddington FRSA, Dean of Spiritual Life, Winchester University.age
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Chris Scott is a retired priest and psychologist/psychotherapist living in Winchester and an honorary chaplain to Winchester University. He worked in parish and chaplaincy work, and also as an organisational consultant and trainer in the NHS. His main area of interest is in human growth and development, and those areas where religion and psychology interact and complement one another.
Product details
Publisher : Christian Alternative (March 8, 2022)
Language : English
Paperback : 80 pages
Snowdrop
5.0 out of 5 stars Rethinking the Bible message
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 3, 2022
Verified Purchase
If, like most of us, you shy away from organised religion these days, then try this explosive little tome for size. And the same applies if you’re terminally devout. Whatever your take, you’ll enjoy being challenged by “The Jesus Myth” because it takes no prisoners – especially if your ideas are settled and inflexible. Instead it loosens up your thinking in the healthiest possible way. With the lightest of touches Chris Scott dismantles all tub-thumping dogma that demands strict adherence to the Biblical orthodoxy that has held sway for two thousand years.
Trouble is that such thinking and writing was fresh out of the Bronze Age, a time, Scott reminds us, when the sky was a blue dome above which God dwelt with his Heavenly Host, while mortal sinners occupied the earth below, and Satan stoked the fires of Hell. It was a time when God laid waste to all humanity save Noah and his family, and when he rained down burning sulphur on Sodom and Gomorrah, and slew all the first-born of Egypt. And don’t forget, Scott also reminds us, the New Testament was written in the first century CE, and “the Gospel writers were men of their times, writing about a world that was mostly beyond their comprehension.”
And where does all this lead us? Into a world where we must tread carefully if we’re to comprehend the tell-tale words and messages that so easily create false trails. Take “myth”. In the language of today a myth is a falsehood, however well intentioned, but it was the deepest form of truth to the ancients. Scott quotes the theologian Marcus Borg: “A myth is a story about something that never was, but always is.”
Similarly, Scott takes us through the miracles, the Virgin Birth (not to be found in the earliest Church writings), the slippery concept of “the Messiah”, “the Resurrection”, and so on, inviting us to consider the realities behind long-dead language. Along the way, therefore, we discover that Truth is very different from Fact.
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Chris Scott is a retired priest and psychologist/psychotherapist living in Winchester and an honorary chaplain to Winchester University. He worked in parish and chaplaincy work, and also as an organisational consultant and trainer in the NHS. His main area of interest is in human growth and development, and those areas where religion and psychology interact and complement one another.
Product details
Publisher : Christian Alternative (March 8, 2022)
Language : English
Paperback : 80 pages
Snowdrop
5.0 out of 5 stars Rethinking the Bible message
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 3, 2022
Verified Purchase
If, like most of us, you shy away from organised religion these days, then try this explosive little tome for size. And the same applies if you’re terminally devout. Whatever your take, you’ll enjoy being challenged by “The Jesus Myth” because it takes no prisoners – especially if your ideas are settled and inflexible. Instead it loosens up your thinking in the healthiest possible way. With the lightest of touches Chris Scott dismantles all tub-thumping dogma that demands strict adherence to the Biblical orthodoxy that has held sway for two thousand years.
Trouble is that such thinking and writing was fresh out of the Bronze Age, a time, Scott reminds us, when the sky was a blue dome above which God dwelt with his Heavenly Host, while mortal sinners occupied the earth below, and Satan stoked the fires of Hell. It was a time when God laid waste to all humanity save Noah and his family, and when he rained down burning sulphur on Sodom and Gomorrah, and slew all the first-born of Egypt. And don’t forget, Scott also reminds us, the New Testament was written in the first century CE, and “the Gospel writers were men of their times, writing about a world that was mostly beyond their comprehension.”
And where does all this lead us? Into a world where we must tread carefully if we’re to comprehend the tell-tale words and messages that so easily create false trails. Take “myth”. In the language of today a myth is a falsehood, however well intentioned, but it was the deepest form of truth to the ancients. Scott quotes the theologian Marcus Borg: “A myth is a story about something that never was, but always is.”
Similarly, Scott takes us through the miracles, the Virgin Birth (not to be found in the earliest Church writings), the slippery concept of “the Messiah”, “the Resurrection”, and so on, inviting us to consider the realities behind long-dead language. Along the way, therefore, we discover that Truth is very different from Fact.
Was the Resurrection literally true? Scott explores the idea. Whether or not something literally did occur in the wake of Jesus’s death, it was undeniably true that “something happened to turn the disciples from frightened and discouraged people into emboldened preachers of the Word.”
Gradually we learn to suck common sense from Biblical obscurity, and how to lay claim to what is enriching in its texts. And, finally, and this is Scott’s over-riding message: how to embrace the love we all crave and, really, how to be a better person. So if “The Jesus Myth” teaches you only one lesson then, Scott pleads, let it be about the human decency behind the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke Ch10: 25-37).
Whether you’re a Christian (or of any other belief) or simply a happy heathen, “The Jesus Myth” will speak to you. This extraordinary little book will wrench your mind free from the rigid thinking that has gradually ossified the religious message over the centuries. Agree or disagree, Chris Scott will loosen your little grey cells and allow them to breathe afresh, as you step forth where Angels fear to tread.
Snowdrop
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London reader
5.0 out of 5 stars A small book with a big message
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 30, 2022
Verified Purchase
This book is small in length but big in ideas. I learnt a lot- for example that the "Virgin Birth" was a mistranslation.
Gradually we learn to suck common sense from Biblical obscurity, and how to lay claim to what is enriching in its texts. And, finally, and this is Scott’s over-riding message: how to embrace the love we all crave and, really, how to be a better person. So if “The Jesus Myth” teaches you only one lesson then, Scott pleads, let it be about the human decency behind the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke Ch10: 25-37).
Whether you’re a Christian (or of any other belief) or simply a happy heathen, “The Jesus Myth” will speak to you. This extraordinary little book will wrench your mind free from the rigid thinking that has gradually ossified the religious message over the centuries. Agree or disagree, Chris Scott will loosen your little grey cells and allow them to breathe afresh, as you step forth where Angels fear to tread.
Snowdrop
Report abuse
London reader
5.0 out of 5 stars A small book with a big message
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 30, 2022
Verified Purchase
This book is small in length but big in ideas. I learnt a lot- for example that the "Virgin Birth" was a mistranslation.
It is ultimately a full-hearted support for living a life spreading kindness and love, focusing on what we do, not what we believe or avow to believe. It strips away many of the old ideas dating from the Bronze Age Old Testament or the first century New Testament and goes back to the heart of God, Jesus, and Christianity in a new, loving , and inspiring book. Highly recommended.
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Anon
5.0 out of 5 stars A book for absolutely everyone!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 30, 2022
Verified Purchase
So thoughtful and engaging. A book of thoughts and ideas for anyone, everyone and from any standpoint.
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Report abuse
Anon
5.0 out of 5 stars A book for absolutely everyone!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 30, 2022
Verified Purchase
So thoughtful and engaging. A book of thoughts and ideas for anyone, everyone and from any standpoint.
Report abuse
==
Reader Reviews
THE RELUCTANT RADICAL: A BOOK REVIEW
Chris Scott, The Jesus Myth. John Hunt Publishing. Alesford
Reviewed by Bert Horwood
Chris Scott brings his experiences as a psychotherapist and priest to consider the role of myth in the lives of people today. The ancient myths developed by what he calls “Bronze Age “ Jews about Jesus and Christ are the chief subjects of inquiry in this slender (65 pages) readable book. But he also treats myths in general, recognizing that readers will not necessarily have a relationship with Christian mythology.
Myth making is a critical part of all cultures, peoples and places. Their role is to provide an explanatory basis of how the people live their lives. Myths ought to be more about behaviour than about belief.
The author’s experience with gospel myths is that they have been rendered more and more irrelevant as we have moved during two thousand years from the flat earth world view of the first Century C.E. to the present understanding that we are a remote and tiny speck in a vast cosmos.
Scientific and spiritual experiences today demand new mythologies. That demand is the radical content of the book. It forms a basic analysis of the myths of Jesus, Christ as Messiah, and God.
As a psychotherapist influenced by Carl Jung, the author includes consideration of the archetypes involved. The book is a basic summary of the publications of the Jesus seminar, which it does not reference.
In its few pages it comes to roughly the same point as do over a thousand pages of highly technical scholarship in the two major volumes of the Jesus Seminar.
Both sources having found the myths wanting for modern life, still cling to residual values in the ancient stories and do not encourage seeking new ones. The author uses his clinical experience to reduce the centrality of sin in Biblical stories.
He explains that sin is a symptom of deeper problems such as fear and alienation. For conventional Christians this radical idea throws the point of much Biblical mythology into doubt. I was uneasy with references to other religions.
Scott’s grasp of Judaism and Buddhism is not strong. In general he asserts the legitimacy of other faiths but remains convinced that only Christianity has solutions for global humanity. As if to rub this point in, the book ends with a lovely prayer called St. Patrick’s Breast Plate. It dates to the fourth Century C.E., definitely a “flat-earth” period.This prayer is also notable for being identical in form with an element in Navajo ceremony. In short he moves from extreme critique of Jesus myths to reclaim their value.
Quaker readers will appreciate the emphasis on experience. The experience of new insights we call continuing revelation, while not specifically mentioned, is a potent way to reconcile traditional myths with current understanding.
Being free of a myth-driven creed and liturgy we can practice a faith with relatively few barnacles attached. The style of the book is approachable.
The author speaks directly to the reader in places. He is perhaps a little careless with numbers, preferring to speak of some people, many people, most or few people. I had to wonder how he could possibly know. Interesting quotations are set off in boxes that do not interfere with the flow of the text but are well worth reading.
(This same device is used in he Jesus Seminar books.) Each chapter ends with three provocative questions that invite individual readers or groups to grapple with the challenges raised. The questions would be excellent for use in worship sharing groups. Over all, the book is a worthy addition to the shelves of An excellent
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people who are ready to engage the largest and most important ideas. Bert Horwood is a member of Thousand Islands Monthly Meeting and worships with Prince Edward County Quakers Worship Group in Picton, Ontario. ~ Bert Horwood, Re
