https://archive.org/details/mythicalinterpre00thorrich
At first I thought it might be by a proponent of the theory that many ancient myths have an Astrological/Astronomical origin, because he goes into great detail about the theories proposed by a wide variety of such advocates, but on examination, it quickly became clear that the writer was a "liberal" Christian of his time, which meant he was not afraid to apply historical criticism while still retaining an admiration for the social-psychological benefits of the Christian religion (it's all pretty much symbolism, which makes us feel better and allows us to work together as a cohesive society).
The book was written to serve as an entry into a competitive essay competition sponsored by The Bross Foundation, a trust established to "call out the best efforts of the highest talent and the ripest scholarship of the world to illustrate from science, or from any department of knowledge, and to demonstrate the divine origin and the authority of the Christian scriptures," every 10 years, and this one won in 1915 and was published in finished form the next year as #3 in the series.
The Introduction was very helpful to me, because it included a rather full overview of the various mythical hypotheses put forward over the previous 120 years. As this work was published in the USA in 1916 by the copyright holder, The Trustees of Lake Forest University, Lake Forest, Illinois, it should no longer be under copyright, I am going to post them here in five segments.
DCH
[continued on page 2 of 5]Introduction
[xi] The subject of this treatise, "The Mythical Interpretation of the Gospels," as it may be termed, is, it should be widely known, nothing more nor less than the theory that our present four canonical Gospels are in no sense whatever what we nowadays mean by the term "historical documents." This is, in truth, a most serious proposition to fling down before the world after close upon nineteen centuries of Christian teaching which has been throughout based upon the contrary affirmation. For, if any such theory be a true one, and can be so established to the satisfaction not only of scholars but to that of the world at large, then the documents referred to must be in effect probably nothing more than a mere congeries of ancient nature-myths, and their Central Figure also can only be an embodiment of one or more [xii] of the various cult-gods or nature-spirits (demons) with which the imagination of the ancient races who formerly dwelt in the southern parts of western Asia and eastern Europe, with Egypt and Arabia, peopled those lands for many centuries before and subsequent to the Christian era.
The subject, the present writer repeats, is one of the utmost importance when viewed from the religious standpoint; and it has hitherto, in his opinion, been somewhat too hastily set aside without examination, and even quietly snubbed by critical as well as by dogmatic theologians. It is not thus that any theory, however wrongheaded it may be, is checked, nor by these means are genuine seekers after truth ever convinced of its errors. On the contrary, such theories and assertions should be challenged freely and criticised, and their mistakes and assumptions frankly and systematically pointed out.
After making the above prefatory statement, it may not be inopportune or superfluous here to give, for the benefit of such readers to whom it will be welcome, a brief sketch of the chief mythical and non-historical explanations of the origin and nature of Christianity which have been put forth from time to time during the period covered by the past one hundred and twenty years.
Previously to the end of the eighteenth century the mythical hypothesis of Christianity was, for all practical purposes, wholly unknown. Going still further back, in the earlier centuries of the Christian era, we find the various fathers of the church and other contemporary writers, secular as well as ecclesiastical, distinguishing most carefully and emphatically the historical Gospel narratives, as they had received or examined them, and above all the personality of Jesus Christ, from the nature myths and the deities of various classes and grades, whether Olympic gods or cultual nature-spirits (demons), which were held in awe or honour by the peoples in whose [xiii] very midst Christianity had but recently been introduced and established. This is, indeed, an indisputable and accepted fact.
Much the same, too, may be said of the Jewish rabbins and others who contributed to that body of authoritative Jewish teaching, mingled with fact and fancy, which at an early period took shape and became known as the two Talmuds. To the Christian fathers and the Jewish rabbins alike both Jesus Christ and the records of his life and teaching had an undoubted historical basis. Even his miracles were in general admitted by the Jews, but were attributed by them either to the agency of demons or to the magical arts which he was supposed to have learned in, and brought from, Egypt. Neither early Christian nor Jew of any period felt the smallest doubt as to the historic character of either Christianity or its Founder, whilst even the pagan Romans and Greeks always refer to both in professedly historic terms. Indeed, the educated Gentiles of all races included within the Roman Empire of that period regarded the Christian system as wholly unlike, and in every respect totally opposed to, the stories told of the cult-gods and divine heroes of their myths. These three primary facts are beyond dispute, and all three taken together form, in the opinion of the present writer, a great and a priori obstacle to any modern scheme that can be devised for the mythicising of the story of the Christian religion or the person of its Founder.
