Note 42 — Chapter III · ROOTS OF THE MYTH

This thesis was substantially put by me in the first edition of Pagan Christs (1903). Dr. Conybeare, who appears incapable of accuracy in such matters, ascribes the Joshua theory (Hist. Christ, pp. 32, 35) and the special hypothesis that Joshua was mythically the son of Miriam, to Professor Smith, who never broached either. His pretext is a passage in the preface to the second edition of Christianity and Mythology, which he perverts in defiance of the context. On this basis he proceeds to charge “imitation.” Aspersion in Dr. Conybeare’s polemic is usually thus independent of fact. ↑