Religions, as well as their variations, appear as new branches do upon an old tree. The new branch is quite as much the product of the soil and climate as the parent tree. Like Brahmanism, Judaism, Shinto and the Babylonian and Egyptian Cults, which had no single founders, Christianity is a deposit to which Hellenic, Judaic and Latin tendencies have each contributed its quota.
But the popular imagination craves a Maker for the Universe, a founder for Rome, a first man for the human race, and a great chief as the starter of the tribe. In the same way it fancies a divine, or semi- divine being as the author of its credo.
Because Mohammed is historical, it does not follow that Moses is also historical. That argument would prove too much.
REV. DR. CRAPSEY: "We would be in the same position that the astronomers were when they discovered the great planet Uranus—from their knowledge of the movements of these bodies they were convinced that these perturbations could be occasioned by nothing less than a great planet lying outside of the then view of mankind."(P. 6, Ibid.)
ANSWER: But the astronomers did not rest until they converted the probability of a near-by planet into demonstration. Jesus is still a probability.
REV. DR. CRAPSEY: "We have of Jesus a very distinctly outlined history. There is nothing vague about him." (P. 12, Ibid.)
ANSWER: But in the same sentence the doctor takes all this back by adding: "There are a great many things in his history that are not historical." If so, then we do not possess "a very distinctly outlined history," but at best a mixture of fact and fiction.
REV. DR. CRAPSEY: "We can follow Jesus' history from the time that he entered upon his public career until the time that career closed, just as easily as we can follow Caesar, etc." (P. 12, Ibid.)
ANSWER: How long was "the time from the opening of Jesus' public career until the time that it closed?"—One year!—according to the three gospels. It sounds quite a period to speak of "following his public career" from beginning to end, especially when compared with Caesar's, until it is remembered that the entire public career of Jesus covers the space of only one year. This is a most decisive argument against the historicity of Jesus. With the exception of one year, his whole life is hid in impenetrable darkness. We know nothing of his childhood, nothing of his old age, if he lived to be old, and of his youth, we know just enough to fill up a year. Under the circumstances, there is no comparison between the public career of a Caesar or a Socrates covering from fifty to seventy years of time, and that of a Jesus of whose life only one brief year is thrown upon the canvas.
An historical Jesus who lived only a year!