Christology and Myth in the New Testament

(1956) enquires into the extent and origin of the ‘mythological’ language and ideas underlying the Christology of the New Testament. It examines the ‘demythologizing’ principles, and refers to the ‘existential’ method of reinterpreting those New Testament concepts which are bound up with Hellenistic thought-forms and the cosmology of the ancient world while also exploring other philosophical and theological interpretations. It considers that the ‘mythical’ Christology of the New Testament writers should be understood poetically and metaphorically rather than as consisting of objective statements about Jesus and his place in creation. The final section of the book is a defence of the retention of ‘mythical’ concepts and language as psychologically and theologically necessary expressions of a religious faith which cannot be adequately expressed in merely propositional form.