Burton L. Mack

Human societies live and breathe through their myths. A myth is not a simple story; it is the complex social reasoning of a people, a way of making sense of the world. Burton Mack calls this reasoning "social logic," and as a master of ancient Rome and the rise of Christianity, he knows that the Western experience has been embedded in the Christian myth as its "big picture" narrative. But what happens when the big picture becomes fragmented and when an old myth loses its ability to function in a new world order? Mack is convinced that at the heart of contemporary political crises lies the need to create a new myth beyond the grand narratives and lingering fragments history has given us. Mack invites his reader to think historically about the present, and imaginatively about the future, in this important book about ourselves. --

Burton L. Mack scrupulously examines the Christian Testament and fleshes out both the social and the cultural context from which it emerged. In contrast to the widely held view of the gospels as complementary accounts of a single set of events, Mack offers a history of divergent Christian communities and their anonymous writers who wrote widely different chronicles for distinct purposes and audiences over a period of more than one hundred years. He delineates how Christians in later centuries assigned the names of apostles and disciples to the anonymous stories about Jesus and his teachings, adjusted the chronology, and erased cultural differences in an effort to present a coherent history of the faith and invest the new church with authenticity. Much as The Iliad and The Odyssey mythologize events and figures in the remote Greek past, the New Testament writings, Mack shows, transform the historical Jesus, a counter-cultural philosopher with no grand messianic pretensions, into the Christ, the dying and rising son of God. Ultimately, then, the New Testament consists of a powerful religious mythology comparable to those of other great religions.

A preeminent scholar explores the evolution of the Christian worldview and argues that it no longer offers a satisfactory vision for our democratic, multicultural society. This book is the culmination of a lifelong scholarly inquiry into Christian history, religion as a social institution, and the role of myth in the history of religions. Mack shows that religions are essentially mythological and that Christianity in particular has been an ever-changing mythological engine of social formation, from Roman times to its distinct American expression in our time. The author traces the cultural influence of the Christian myth that has persisted for sixteen hundred years but now should be much less consequential in our social and cultural life, since it runs counter to our democratic ideals. We stand at a critical impasse: badly splintered by conflicting groups pursuing their own social interests, a binding common myth needs to be established by renewing a truly cohesive national and international story rooted in our democratic and egalitarian origins, committed to freedom, equality, and vital human values--Provided by publisher.

A genuine possibility of reimagining how Christianity began has now come into view. Based within the fields of discourse that have come forth in the last forty years, this book proposes ways that the study of Christian origins can paint subtle and complex pictures of the first centuries of Christianity. Taking as inspiration the work of Burton L. Mack - upon whose sixty-fifth birthday, this volume is issued - Reimagining Christian Origins provides an introduction to and an analysis of the emerging methodologies of the field and presents nineteen new examples of scholars at work in this field. The book is divided into four parts: (1) Reimagining the Social Formation of Early Christian Communities, (2) Reimagining the Galilean Movements, (3) Reimagining the Emergence of Christian Myth, and (4) Reimagining Christianity in the Mediterranean World.

"This is the first full account of the lost gospel of Jesus' original followers, revealing him to be a Jewish Socrates who was mythologized into the New Testament Christ. Compiled by his followers during his lifetime, the Book of Q (from Quelle, German for source) became the prime foundation for the New Testament gospels. Once lost, it has been reconstructed through a century of scholarship. In presenting his own translation, Burton Mack explains how the text of Q was determined and explores the implications of the discovery that Jesus was transformed into the dying and rising messianic savior of Christianity by the New Testament gospels." "Instead of telling a dramatic story about Jesus' life as the Christian gospels do, the Book of Q contained only his sayings. The first followers of Jesus focused not upon his life and destiny, but on the social experiment called for by his teachings. Their book collected his proverbs, aphorisms, and parables to offer instruction in living authentically in the midst of a most confusing time." "In The Lost Gospel, Burton Mack puts forth the first popular translation of Q as scholarly consensus has reconstructed it; shows that Jesus' life story as presented in the New Testament gospels was fictionalized for theological purposes; reveals Jesus to be a countercultural teacher and leader - subsequently mythologized into the Christ of the New Testament; depicts Jesus' followers not as Christians, but as disciples of a wise, antiestablishment teacher; they did not believe him to be the son of God, believe that he rose from the dead, or gather to worship in his name and concludes that Christianity is a mythologized religion (like Buddhism and other religions) rooted in a historical figure and teachings that in reality are quite remote from conventional beliefs."--Jacket.