LENZMAN (J.) L'origine du christianisme Moscou Ed en Langues étrangères 1961.
It is not a novelty to know that the Soviet authors pointed out that:
1) the Revelation of John was the oldest Christian book
2) the Paulines were forgeries from first half of II CE
3) the emphasis has to be put on economic conditions as opposed to mysticisms etc (it's really boring this part!).
In addition, I learn:
4) what euhemerized the celestial Jesus was anti-Jewish propaganda like:
You suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets
(1 Thess 2:14-16)
5) sayings as "Give to Caesar..." and Romans 13:1-7 reveal respectively the late date (from II CE) of both epistles and gospels, since in Revelation the author hates sincerely Rome and this explicit hostility is missing in the apocalypticism of epistles and Gospels, where the coming end of the (generic spiritual) sinners is expected but not more the end of the Romans. Hence the fact that "Mark" is a failed apocalypticist doesn't prove that the his apocalypticism is derived from a historical Jesus, but only that Mark is correcting and mitigating the original anti-Roman apocalypticism of Revelation.
6) the place of origin of Christianity is obscure, given the point 1 and the absence of a historical Jesus. A possibility may be Asia Minor, given the presence there of the 7 churches of Revelation and the genuine witness by Pliny the Younger about the Christians of Bitiny. Obviously, the early Christians were Jews even if outside Israel.
7) the Philippians Hymn comes from early 2° CE since only by that time the Christians had interest to show their Christ as appearing in the form of a "slave", being the new Christian proselites won especially among women and slaves. The Gospels eclipse the image of Jesus as appeared in the image of a slave. It is found in the original separationism of Mark, where the man Jesus is a mere slave of the spiritual Christ possessing him (until to the cross).
8) in Revelation the Lamb is named "Jesus" only in a second redaction of the book, since the Son is distinct from the Lamb in this verse:
Now have come the salvation and the power
and the kingdom of our God,
and the authority of his Messiah.
.... They triumphed over him
by the blood of the Lamb
and the kingdom of our God,
and the authority of his Messiah.
.... They triumphed over him
by the blood of the Lamb
(Revelation 12:10-11)
The Soviet scholar R.Vipper points out that this is the only passage in all the book where the Christ and the Lamb are named in the same point: but their functions are surprisingly distinct. The Christ is proclaimed Son of God while the Lamb is killed before the creation of the world (13:8). But the Lamb is never called Jesus.
9) the Western mythicists (Drews and Smith in primis) are violently criticized (by Lenin himself) insofar their mythicism has as implicit goal the safeguard of a "more authentic and more spiritual" Christianity, necessary to his survival in a world otherwise condemned to materialism. Hence (as I think the implication is) Soviet scholar have to find allies among progressist Western scholars, even if historicists. Does the apologist McGrath know about this criticism?