In 1835, German theologian David Friedrich Strauss published his extremely controversial "The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined" ("Das Leben Jesu"). While not denying that Jesus existed, he did argue that the miracles in the New Testament were mythical additions with little basis in actual fact. According to Strauss, the early church developed these stories in order to present Jesus as the Messiah of the Jewish prophecies. This perspective was in opposition to the prevailing views of Strauss' time: rationalism, which explained the miracles as misinterpretations of non-supernatural events, and the supernaturalist view that the biblical accounts were entirely accurate. Strauss's third way, in which the miracles are explained as myths developed by early Christians to support their evolving conception of Jesus, heralded a new epoch in the textual and historical treatment of the rise of Christianity.