From the prefaction to the French translation of the
Arthur Drews's book,
The Christ Myth.
In the meantime, the problem of the historicity of Jesus has entered a new phase thanks to the work of the theologian Hermann Raschke entitled The Workshop of Mark the Evangelist. The author seems to have finally found the solution to the problem of the origins of the oldest of the Gospels: he shows that it is the work of a Gnostic of the school of Marcion in opposition to the official Church, unless it is the famous Gospel of Marcion himself that is being situated; a new light sheds on the episodes that constitute it and whose origin, as the author shows, must be reduced to puns in the Syriac language. The points which I had to leave open in the explanation that with the help of the Old Testament and the data of astronomy, I myself had attempted the Marcian narrative, are thus given a more precise solution. It is becoming more and more evident that this Gospel, far from being the work of naive content, is the complex result of multiple tendencies and perspectives, combined in the most artificial way. What could be more instructive than Raschke's demonstration of the fundamental difference between the ancient idea of reality and that which our age owes to its historical spirit, a difference which I myself have insisted on many times. When this difference is well understood, there is much less resistance to the affirmation of the mythical character of Christ than was previously thought necessary. In any case, no one can easily and pretentiously reproach the work quoted with dilettantism, and it is to be hoped that it will do much to shake up the generally accepted opinion that the problem of the historicity of Jesus can be solved simply by placing oneself from the point of view of so-called common sense, or even of a rudimentary spirit or an exalted zealot.
Carlsruhe, May 1924.
ARTHUR DREWS.
(my bold)
I am glad to realize that even the great
Arthur Drews, who had talked about Jewish origins of the Jesus myth, accepts that the Earliest Gospel was written in the Gnostic anti-YHWH field,
"in opposition to the official Church" formed by Jewish-Christians.
Not only Drews, but also J. M. Robertson talked positively about that book of Raschke.
An appeal to all my Readers: if you have come in possession of that book, please I pray you, make it public via Internet!