Editing Docetism (section)

==Docetism and Christ myth theory==
{{See also|Christ myth theory}}
Since [[Arthur Drews]] published his ''[[The Christ Myth]]'' (''Die Christusmythe'') in 1909, occasional connections have been drawn between docetist theories and the modern idea that Christ was a myth. [[Shailer Mathews]] called Drews' theory a "modern docetism".{{Sfn |Mathews|2006 |p= 37}} [[Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare]] thought any connection to be based on a misunderstanding of docetism.{{Sfn |Conybeare|1914|p= 104}} The idea recurred in [[classicist]] [[Michael Grant (author)|Michael Grant]]'s 1977 review of the evidence for Jesus, who compared modern scepticism about a historical Jesus to the ancient docetic idea that Jesus only ''seemed'' to come into the world "in the flesh". Modern supporters of the theory did away with "seeming".{{Sfn |Grant |2004 |pp= 199–200 | ps =: "This skeptical way of thinking reached its culmination in the argument that Jesus as a human being never existed at all and is a myth. In ancient times, this extreme view was named the heresy of docetism (seeming) because it maintained that Jesus never came into the world "in the flesh", but only seemed to; (I John 4:2) and it was given some encouragement by Paul's lack of interest in his fleshly existence. Subsequently, from the eighteenth century onwards, there have been attempts to insist that Jesus did not even "seem" to exist, and that all tales of his appearance upon the earth were pure fiction. In particular, his story was compared to the pagan mythologies inventing fictitious dying and rising gods."}}