Sublime

The blithe ‘reconstruction’ not only of Q, not only of its different stages of composition, but even of complete communities whose beliefs are accurately reflected in these different stages, betokens a naive willingness to believe in anything as long as it is nothing like Mark (let alone Paul).

This is not to say that early man was something of a philosopher; abstract questions of this kind were wholly alien to his consciousness. Mythology, however, is the product of the collective unconscious, and anyone acquainted with primitive psychology must stand amazed at the unconscious wisdom which rises up from the depths of the human psyche in

Thomas Mann

PBS series The Power of Myth, Campbell

Furthermore, Jesus, by making this claim in this way, perceived himself to be not merely a prophet like Jeremiah, announcing the Temple’s doom, but the true king, who had the authority which both the Hasmoneans and Herod had thought to claim.180 In acting the way he did, ‘he conjured up the nation’s most compelling traditions at a moment when recei