The Virgin Birth of Christ

by James Orr

1907

The aim of the lectures is to establish faith in the miracle of the Lord's Incarnation by Birth from the Virgin, to meet objections, and to show the intimate connection of fact and doctrine in this transcendent mystery. - Preface.

The Golden Bough: Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild. Dionysus

by James George Frazer

1914

Frazer's series which attempted to define the shared elements of religious belief and scientific thought, discussing fertility rites, human sacrifice, the dying god, the scapegoat, and many other symbols and practices whose influences had extended into 20th-century culture. His thesis is that old religions were fertility cults that revolved around the worship and periodic sacrifice of a sacred king. Frazer proposed that mankind progresses from magic through religious belief to scientific thought.