Author: Edwina G. Lawler

Publisher: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers

Published: 1986

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13:

Can the Bible be called myth? In his work Das Leben Jesu (1835) David Friedrich Strauss answered this question affirmatively. The present study reviews the work on myth by German scholars before Strauss and places his work within the context of the debate. It approaches Strauss through the criticism leveled against his work in early 19th-century German journals. It identifies and examines the presuppositions of the idealistic critics and their effect on the arguments used against Strauss. While neither Strauss nor his critics freed themselves completely from idealism, Strauss's approach offered a possibility for interpreting the Bible in its historical and religious milieu.