JESUS STORY CONTINUED: THE MAN JESUS: SEPARATING THE MAN FROM THE MYTH!

 THE MAN JESUS: SEPARATING THE MAN FROM THE MYTH

THE JESUS STORY (CONTINUED)

Search for the Real Parents of My Soul

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© January 23, 2015

 Religious scholar Reza Aslan maintains in his book “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth” (2013) that it is unlikely that Jesus was able to read or write.

NOTE:

This is the last excerpt on the Jesus story.  What follows in the next section of Search for the Real Parents of My Soul is the view of the Jesus story from the perspective of a practicing social psychologist. 

*     *     *

Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry has published an article by Matt Slick who asserts “Jesus is a Man.”  Other writers, critics and scholars are making similar declarations.  Where Slick departs from the demystification is his assertion that Jesus is both divine and human in nature.  He writes:

It is biblically correct to say that Jesus is a man … But, it would be wrong to say He was only a man.  He is both divine and human in nature at the same time (Col. 2:9); He is both God and man right now.

Furthermore, Jesus' humanity now is important for two reasons.  First, this is what the Bible teaches.  Second, as a man, Jesus is a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.  As a priest He forever intercedes for us.

"Where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek." (Heb. 6:20).

"Hence, also, He is able to save those who draw near to God through Him, since He  lives to make intercession for them." (Heb. 7:25)

In order to be a priest, Jesus has to be a man.  A spirit cannot be a priest after the order of Melchizedek; if Jesus is not a man now, He could not hold His priesthood, and He could not be interceding for us.  Therefore, to deny Jesus' present humanity is to deny His priesthood and His intercession on our behalf. Without His intercession, we are lost.

Jesus died

There is no dispute that Jesus died on the cross--except for some non-Christian religions and various atheistic groups who deny the biblical record.  Nevertheless, the scriptures teach us that Jesus died.

"For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus." (1 Thess. 4:14).

Jesus rose from the dead physically

The bible teaches us that Jesus rose from the dead.  Unfortunately, some Christians are not aware that Jesus rose from the dead in the same body in which He died though it was a glorified body.  We see that Jesus prophesied the resurrection of His physical body in John 2:19-21 and fulfilled this in other verses:

"Jesus answered and said to them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." The Jews therefore said, "It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?"  But He was speaking of the temple of His body." (John 2:19-21).

"See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." (Luke 24:39).

"When therefore it was evening, on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst, and said to them, "Peace be with you."  And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side.  The disciples therefore rejoiced when they saw the Lord." (John 20:19-20).

"Then He *said to Thomas, "Reach here your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand, and put it into My side; and be not unbelieving, but believing." (John 20:27).

"And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain." (1 Cor. 15:14).

Merely asserting that Jesus rose is not enough.  It must be stated that Jesus rose physically lest the very words of Christ be denied.

After Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection

Jesus appeared to various people to demonstrate that He had risen physically.  In these verses we see that Jesus said He would raise the temple of His body.  This He did, and the body He rose in was the same one He died in since it retained the physical wounds of His crucifixion--He still had holes in His hands and side!

If anyone denies the resurrection of Christ, his faith is in vain; and he is not a true Christian.  It is not enough to say that Jesus rose.  You must acknowledge that He rose physically. A "spirit" resurrection is not a resurrection of the body; and without the resurrection of the body of Christ, death has not been conquered, and our faith would be in vain.

Jesus' resurrected body was a glorified body.

Jesus rose from the dead physically in the same body in which He died. But, what kind of a body was this physical body in which He rose?  Was it subject to death again?  Would it grow tired or grow old?  The Bible tells us about the resurrected body of which all Christians will receive in the future.

"But someone will say, How are the dead raised?  And with what kind of body do they come? . . . There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one, and the glory of the earthly is another.  There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.  So also is the resurrection of the dead.

"It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.  If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.  So also it is written, The first man, Adam, became a living soul."  

"The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual.  The first man is from the earth, earthly; the second man is from heaven.  As is the earthly, so also are those who are earthly; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly.  And just as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." (1 Cor. 15:35, 40-49).

These verses tell us that something happens to the body that is raised from the dead.  Notice that verse 44 says that "it is sown a natural body.  It is raised a spiritual body."  The same body that is sown (dies) is raised.  The natural body is the body with which we are born. The natural body dies and is raised from the dead.  But, when it is raised, it is changed into a spiritual body.

The resurrected body is different from the natural body in its abilities and qualities as Jesus demonstrated; however, and this is vitally important, it is the same body as before--only "improved," "glorified," "spiritualized," etc. 

We see this in the fact that Jesus retained the wounds of His crucifixion as evidenced by the holes in His hands and side (John 20:27), yet He was able to simply appear in a room with the disciples without entering through the door (John 20:19-20).  He was raised in the same body He died in though it had been glorified.

Jesus is a man in a glorified body.

We have already seen that Jesus was raised from the dead in the same body in which He died, but that body is a resurrected body. However, some people believe that at Jesus' ascension, He was somehow changed, and His physical body was no longer needed.  But, this is not what the Bible teaches.  There is no place where it states that Jesus stopped being a man.  If anything, the New Testament says He is still a man.

"For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form," (Col. 2:9).

"For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." (1 Tim. 2:5).

We see here that Jesus is called a man.  Like Col. 2:9 above, this verse uses the present tense ("is").  It clearly states that Jesus is a man.

"And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as a dead man.  And He laid His right hand upon me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades." (Rev. 1:17-18).

Notice that in Col. 2:9 it speaks in the present tense ("dwells").  Colossians was written well after Jesus' ascension into heaven, yet Paul tells us that Jesus is in bodily form.  What body would that be?  Why, it would be the same body in which He was raised.

To clarify that Jesus is a man, read the next verse.  In Rev. 1:17-18, Jesus is in heaven, and John the Apostle falls at Jesus' feet; and Jesus laid His right hand on him.  Clearly, from these verses we can see that Jesus is in bodily form as a man.

Objections Answered

Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.  Some argue that the Bible says that flesh and blood cannot go to heaven as is stated in 1 Cor. 15:50, "Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable."

The term "flesh and blood" is a phrase used to designate the natural state even the carnal state of man.

"And Jesus answered and said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven." (Matt. 16:17).

"To reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood" (Gal. 1:16).

"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places" (Eph. 6:12).

"Since then the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil" (Heb. 2:14).

After the resurrection, Jesus said, "See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have" (Luke 24:39). Jesus specifically stated that He had flesh and bones--not flesh and blood. 

This may seem like a word game, but it is not.  Every word is inspired in the Bible, and Jesus chose His words for a reason.  Remember, Jesus' blood was drained out of His body on the cross.  It is His shed blood that cleanses us of our sins: "but if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin." (1 John 1:7). Jesus was the sacrifice, and His blood cleanses us.  Therefore, flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, but flesh and bones can.

The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.  1 Cor. 15:45 says, "The first man, Adam, became a living soul.  The last Adam became a life-giving spirit."  This verse is not saying that Jesus is without a body, but that He is a life-giving spirit.  That is, as the last Adam, He is the one who gives life to people (John 10:27-28).  Furthermore, it is designating that Jesus' resurrected body is equipped to be in both the physical realm and the spiritual.

*     *     *

Matt Slick’s summary is more or less consistent with Christian indoctrination into the faith.  In the Jesus story that is this odyssey it is less focused on Jesus’ divinity and more on Jesus the man, a man who walked this earth, a man of flesh and blood, who thought and felt, taught and listened, and left but a mind print in the gospels.  Search for the Real Parents of My Soul is a walk through that mind print to establish some semblance of a connection with spiritual temporal reality.

*     *     *

Religious scholar Reza Aslan maintains that it is unlikely that Jesus was able to read or write.  Given his obvious deep research into the matter, it is still difficult to fathom much less take seriously this accusation.  

His book “Zealot” (2013) deals with this and other controversial matters regarding Jesus the man and Jesus the Messiah.  In all such references, he is consistently critical.  This excerpt from a candid interview with National Public Radio (NPR) provides a sense of his perspective on Jesus, the Man:

On the Gospels

"What I think is important for Christians to understand is that every Gospel story written about Jesus of Nazareth was written after that event, this apocalyptic event which for Jews signaled the end of the world as they knew it."

On Jesus as a political figure

"[In one story,] Jesus walks into the temple, and he begins to cleanse it. He turns over the tables of the money-changers, who are exchanging the foul foreign currency of the Roman Empire with the Hebrew shekel, which was the only currency that the temple would accept. And then, of course, in a loud, booming voice, he says, 'It is written that my house shall be a house of prayer for all nations, and you have made it a den of thieves.'

"Now, as all historians recognize, this was the action that precipitated his arrest, his torture and his execution by the state. And there's a very simple reason for that: The temple was not just the center of the Jewish cult; it was, in many ways, the representation of the power and the presence of the Roman Empire."

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NPR also interviewed historian Bart D. Erhman who weighs in on this discussion with reference to his book “Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who changed the Bible and Why” (2005):

On using The Bible as a source

"I see the scriptures of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament very much the same way that I see the scriptures of the Quran or the Gathas or the Vedas or what have you. I think that these scriptures are inspired by individuals who, in a moment of metaphysical contact with the divine spirit, have been able to communicate something about God to us.

"But I also recognize as a historian that this is sacred history. ... They are valuable in the sense that they reveal certain truths to us, but that the facts that they reveal are not as valuable as the truths are."

On his religious affiliation

"I wouldn't call myself a Christian because I do not believe that Jesus is God, nor do I believe that he ever thought that he was God, or that he ever said that he was God. But I am a follower of Jesus, and I think that sometimes, unfortunately — I think even Christians would recognize this and admit it — those two things aren't always the same, being a Christian and being a follower of Jesus."

Erhman offers the ultimate caveat in “Misquoting Jesus” for those who would ponder the Jesus story:

I came to see early on that the full meaning and nuance of the Greek text of the New Testament could be grasped only when it is read and studied in the original language.  The same thing applies to the Old Testament as I later learned when I acquired Hebrew (Erhman 2005). 

*     *     *

Wondering what manner of man was Jesus

There is little definitive knowledge available other than the gospels, and now, as in the past, many scholars are having issues with these gospels. 

For me, it is not Jesus' teachings that make him so remarkable, so real, although they are inspiring and distinctively informative, but the combination of his teachings with the struggle of the man in that ancient time to fulfill his purpose as it was revealed to him. 

The two cannot be separated as they resonate as one within me.  But if they could be separated, would the man or his message be more prominent, more important to me?

Perhaps the question is moot as Jesus the man made a distinct footprint in the sand and a mind print in my mind, as other men such as Abraham Lincoln and Sir Winston Churchill have.  Their character cannot be easily separated from what they thought, did, and were as mortal men.  With the parables as my guide, the same is true for me with Jesus.

We are mindful of the writings of Lincoln and Churchill, and have access to them through their words.  But we have no such access to Jesus who never wrote but in the dirt, dust and sand of Judea. Alas, our knowledge of him is confined to secondary sources.  

In Jesus’ time few could read or write, and so to suggest that he was so limited in these skills is not beyond the realm of possibility.     

Yet, quite remarkably, we feel (I think that is the operational word) Jesus, and think we know his divine character through the gospels.  

That some scholars define Jesus’ character in psychoanalytical or psychopathological terms man may gain credence today, but imagine how it would play 2,000 years ago.

*     *     *

Koenraad Elst in Psychology of Prophetism: A Secular Look at the Bible (1993) asks the question: 

Can an intelligent and critically disposed person, who has abandoned childish beliefs and childish prejudice, seriously doubt that Jesus is a case of psychosis? 

For the scholar Elst, psychosis is so clearly discernible in Jesus that he would expect even the layman to make a similar diagnosis, but a layman today or 2,000 years ago?  

Elst writes:

Jesus destiny cannot possibly be understood without the aid of psychopathology.  The dark misgiving which historical theology has had for the past 100 years was on the right track.  Anyone who surveys the extant literature can see it with shocking clarity.  

The notion that Jesus was a mentally ill person cannot be removed anymore from the scientific investigation.  First, science has brought Jesus down from his divine throne and declared him human; now it will also recognize him as a sick man.

A confirmation that the dispassionate study of Jesus as a human person leads irrevocably to a psychopathological diagnosis is given by a Protestant preacher, Hermann Werner.  Objecting to liberal theology with its humanization of the divine person Jesus, he shows what becomes of Jesus when he is measured with human standards:

The image of Jesus … is, no matter how much one would want to ward off this conclusion, mentally … sick.  Although man’s and certainly Jesus’ deepest life is a mystery which we cannot unveil down to its deepest roots, yet certain limits can be agreed upon within which one’s self-consciousness must remain if it is to be sane and human. 

There are, after all, unassailable standards which are valid for all times for the ancient oriental as well as for the modem western.  Except in completely uncivilized times and nations, no one has ever been declared entirely sane and normal who held himself to be a supernatural being, God or a deity, or who made claims to divine qualities and privileges. A later legend may ascribe such things to this or that revered person, but when someone claims it for himself, his audience has always consisted exclusively of inferior minds incapable of proper judgment.

Perhaps Rev. Hermann underestimates the belief of the ancient civilized Pagans in the possibility of divine incarnation, of having a divine person in their midst, in which the meaning of the word “divine” can be stretched a bit; but then he is right in assuming that this divine status is normally only ascribed to the revered person after his death. 

That the modem skepsis towards claims of being a divine person were shared by Jesus’ contemporaries, can be seen from the Gospel itself. The Jews (for whom this skepsis became indignation for reasons of exclusive monotheism) wanted to kill Jesus because he not only broke the Sabbath but also called God his Father, making himself equal with God (John 5:18), and because you, being a man, make yourself God (John 10:33).

Either Jesus was really God’s only-born son (and by accepting that, you become a believing Christian), or his claim to divine status was absurd and abnormal by the standards of both ancients and moderns.  A liberal theology which humanizes Jesus and yet remains Christian, is impossible: it is either the fundamentalist belief in Jesus’ divinity, or no belief in Jesus Christ at all.

Rev. Hermann concludes: Everyone knows that the sources on Jesus life are insufficient for writing his biography.  But they are sufficient to reach the conclusion that he was a pathological personality.  At any rate, these are the conclusions which liberal theology has reached by thinking and taking into account the findings of modern psychiatry.

*     *     *

Assault on Christian beliefs and believers

Surely, this analysis of Jesus as being essentially mad may rankle orthodox Christian believers, but it needed be so.  Author Elst is wrong, not necessarily in his analysis, but in his conclusions, failing to understand that Christians can accept Jesus as their spiritual leader of mystifying dimensions as a man and not feel the necessity to label mad or otherwise. 

After all, Jesus of humble origins inspired radical change through the gospels with a moral spiritual ethical platform that was revolutionary and has resonated throughout the world for the past 2,000 years.  Jesus was a leader with a mission that has even more validity today than ever before. 

So, if he be mad, we need more not less such madness.  We need to be blessed with the palliative powers of his madness as we are on the brink of Armageddon in this thermonuclear age, an age where madness, real madness, is palpable in every community across the world without exception.   

Psychiatrist Nassir Ghaemi writes of “First Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links between Leadership and Mental Illness” (2011), and claims the greatest presidents of the United States were touched with madness, indeed, half of all those who have risen to this office are likely to have suffered mental illness.  He suggest leadership and madness may be twin coordinates.     

Paradoxically, as it happens, Jesus has become more believable as a god-figure as critical scholars have authenticated his character as a man, which obviously is not their intent.  Could religious scholars be conflicting over that possibility? 

As a man, Jesus was a great lover of nature.  His sayings abound with reference to the sun, the clouds, the rain, the birds, the flowers, seed-time and harvest-time, to growth and decay, to the wonder of the sun rising and setting not simply in the heavens but in the moods of man.  

Jesus understood man as he walked among men as a man, as he behaved as a man, but always with a heavenly conscience that reached beyond the temporal transcending comfortably into the timeless.

Christmas and Easter, birth and death are touchstones in Christian history as well as in the history of man, and celebrated with reverence knowing Jesus once walked this earth as man.

With a few pregnant words, Jesus could make the complex simple and comprehensible.  In the technical sense, he was not a philosopher as his wondering was full of knowing and his knowing full of wondering. 

Jesus was earthbound for a brief time, and comfortable in that knowledge, seemingly conscious of everything and everyone while never reverting to abstract terms to discuss good and evil, sovereignty and righteousness.  

What could be clearer then when he was questioned as to his allegiance:

“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” 

He would contrast flowers to good and weeds metaphorically to evil and build a story around that distinction.

Jesus liked to be with people, some people like to be with others to suck the veritable oxygen out of them, whereas he would leave his audience heady with his. 

He enjoyed social gatherings and good fellowship and could give as well as he could take in humorous exchange.  But he was also quick to discern the phony from the sincere, the pompous from the humble, the prideful from the contrite.

His sympathies, we learn from the gospels, were as broad as the human race.  Yet, on occasion this did not come through.  Once he put off the plea of a woman of another nation by saying that he was sent only to find “the lost sheep of the House of Israel.”  In another instance, he dispatched his disciples with a rebuke, declaring they were not to minister to non-Jews, whether they be Gentiles or Samaritans.  Yet in the face of this, there is the story of the Good Samaritan and the healing of the Roman servant.

Jesus was in tune with the ancient prophets of Israel and was inclined to interpret his mission in terms of fulfilling these prophecies.  This mission, and his sense of it, was wrest from him and expressed otherwise after his death by St. Paul, and made into what would become Christianity, but that is another story.  

Could Jesus, who was a devout Jew with a reverence for Jewish Law, have been other than the leader of a movement that was but a sect of Judaism?  That, too, is part of St. Paul’s story.

Christian scholars debate such questions with some making a case that Jesus was xenophobic.  Perhaps more revealing is that Christianity as orchestrated by Paul became a proselytizing religion and Judaism is not.  Jesus was not a proselytizer, but Paul was.  

Jesus could become violently angry.  We know he was impatient with Jewish chief priests and the elders in the temple whom he saw as inept and given to unconscionable acts in defiance of Jewish Law.

He also had a keen sense of humor, and used it with skill when his ideas were challenged in contrast to the absence of such humor in the gospels of first century Christian writers.  Imagine if the New Testament had such spirited prose. 

Jesus could wax metaphorically to pluck the spec from a self-righteous person’s eye so that he might see.  We see this same engagement with the solemn and meticulous lawyer who is conscientious to a fault in his profession, but blind to his moral turpitude.  Such blindness, Jesus said, was like the man anxious lest his food and drink be contaminated, straining out the minutest gnat, but then, without forethought swallowing the equivalent of an entire camel, hair, hoofs, humps and offensive breath, and not register surprise. 

He could laugh observing children playing in the marketplace, especially those pouting and refusing to join in the games, even when their friends willingly changed the games to accommodate them. 

He could even scoff at his cousin John the Baptist for his asceticism:

“What went ye out into the wilderness to see, John?  A reed shaken with the wind …. A man clothed in soft raiment?”

Jesus had the soul of a poet for his mind crackled with visual electricity and effusive colors, a fulsome mind like a painter only in a rainbow of words.  For that reason, if for no other, the parables are difficult to forget.

There was also a quickness and directness to Jesus that no reader of the gospel narratives can miss.  He could blaze with anger, take measure of men with a glance often described as looking hard at a person: for example, at the rich young ruler and loving him; at Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane, saying, “Couldn’t you keep watch with me for one hour?” and at Mary, the sister of Lazarus, and weeping with her.

He condemned the aimlessly drifting unthoughtful life of a person; had no use for the indecisive; and declared that the man who put his hand to the plow and looked back was not fit for the Kingdom of Heaven. 

His disciples, who would walk with him, were ordered to renounce all that they had and were.  On the other hand, his draconian flair was tempered with admiration for the deceptive steward, who, when his dishonesty was discovered, adopted a bold strategy to again make himself secure. 

Jesus humanity multidimensional

Another quality, which often has been ignored or misunderstood, was the absence of any sense of personal corruption or sin.  While he taught his disciples to ask forgiveness of their sins, there was no hint of such a need for himself. 

Nor is there any asking of pardon either from those about him or from God.  Missing is the inner conflict reputed to be a necessary precursor to reaching a higher state of being.  Once again, Jesus is confounding, as he frees himself from such needs but sees others controlled by these selfsame needs. 

As the Jesus story is pondered, it is clear that Christianity has not followed the lead of Jesus, but that of the anxious Paul who better reflects the obsessive compulsive psychopathology that writers would attribute to Jesus.

Although there is humanness to Jesus, there is also psychosocial distance of him from his disciples and followers that defies explanation and adds to his baffling intrigue.  We are left to struggle with his humanness and godliness.  

Is he a man or the Messiah?  Can we believe in his mission and miracles, his passion and prophecies, his death and resurrection?  Is he the Redeemer and truly “the Son of God,” or not?  The debate is likely go on as long as man exists.

Incredibly, at this point in this odyssey, what has been described here does not seem apparent in the Christian church that carries his name.  More apparent is that he is “the Son of Man.”

*     *     *

JESUS STORY (CONTINUED) -- JESUS, CONSUMMATE CHARISMATIC LEADER AND ACTOR EXTRAORDINARY!

JESUS STORY (CONTINUED)

SEARCH FOR THE REAL PARENTS OF MY SOUL

JESUS, CONSUMMATE CHARISMATIC LEADER AND ACTOR EXTRAORDINARY!

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© January 20, 2015

NOTE:

This is yet another excerpt of the Jesus story.

EXPEDIENT LEADERSHIP

Researcher Randall Collins (Internet) claims that Jesus is one of the best described charismatic leaders in history with some ninety face-to-face encounters in the four gospels of the New Testament.  He is also a consummate actor.

We find Jesus sitting on the ground, teaching to a crowd in the outer courtyard of the temple at Jerusalem. The Pharisees, righteous upholders of traditional ritual and law, haul before him a woman taken in adultery. They make her stand in front of the crowd and say to Jesus: “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The Law commands us to stone her to death. What do you say?”

The text goes on that Jesus does not look up at them, but continues to write in the dirt with his finger. This would not be unusual; Archimedes wrote geometric figures in the dust, and in the absence of ready writing materials the ground would serve as a chalkboard. The point is that Jesus does not reply right away; he lets them stew in their uneasiness.

Finally he looks up and says: “Let whoever is without sin cast the first stone.” And he looks down and continues writing in the dust.  Minutes go by. One by one, the crowd starts to slip away, the older ones first-- the young hotheads being the ones who do the stoning, as in the most primitive parts of the Middle East today.

Finally Jesus is left with the woman standing before him. He straightens up from writing in the dirt and asks her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”  She answers: “No one.” “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus says. “Go now and sin no more” (John 8: 1-11).

Jesus is a master of timing. He does not allow people to force him into their rhythm, their definition of the situation. He perceives what they are attempting to do, the intention beyond the words. And he makes them shift their ground.

Hence the two periods of tension-filled silence; first when he will not directly answer; second when he looks down again at his writing after telling them who should cast the first stone.

Jesus does not allow the encounter to focus on himself against the Pharisees. He knows they are testing him, trying to make him say something in violation of the law; or else back down in front of his followers. Instead Jesus throws it back on their own consciences, their inner reflections about the woman they are going to kill. He individualizes the crowd, fragmenting the mass into singularity, making them drift off one by one, breaking up the mob mentality with a simple explanation.

Jesus is an actor who has perfected timing to the quintessential moment as actors are trained to do.  He is the charismatic leader, indeed the archetype of charisma.  Although sociologists tend to treat charisma as an abstraction, it is observable in everyday life. We are viewing the elements of it in the encounters of Jesus with the people around him (Read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals” (2005) and you see how Abraham Lincoln used Jesus’ template for dealing with his own presidential cabinet).

Micro-sociologist Collins focuses on encounters that are realistic and that do not rely on miracles. Since miracles made Jesus famous, and caused controversies from the outset, miracles are germane to the Jesus story.

Notice that Jesus always wins these divisive encounters in the gospels for he is quick and decisive; always does something unexpected; knows what the other is intending;  masters the crowd; demonstrates victory through suffering, and converts through altruism.

When Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, the chief priests and elders came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you this authority?”

Jesus replied: “I will also ask you a question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things.  John’s baptism of me, where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or of human origin?”

They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, Then why don’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ the people will stone us, because they are persuaded that John was a prophet.”

So they answered, “We don’t know where it was from.”  Jesus said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things” (Matthew 21: 23-27; Luke 20: 1-8).

On another occasion, Jesus proceeded to tell the crowd a parable comparing two sons who were true or false to their father. Jesus holds the floor, and his enemies did not dare to have him arrested for they knew the parable was about them.

This is further evidence that he never let anyone determine the conversational sequence, controlling the flow by answering questions with questions, putting the interlocutor on the defensive.

Early in his career of preaching around Galilee, he was invited to dinner at the home of a Pharisee. A prostitute comes in and falls at his feet, wets his feet with her tears, kisses them and pours perfume on them. The Pharisee says to himself, ‘If this man is a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him.  That she is a sinner.’

Jesus, reading the man’s thoughts, says, “I have something to tell you.”

“Tell me,” the Pharisee demands.

Jesus proceeds to tell a story about two men who owed money, neither of whom could repay the moneylender. He forgives them both, the one who owes 500 and the one who owes 50. Jesus asks, “Which of the two will love him more?”

“The one who has the bigger debt forgiven,” the Pharisee replies. “You are correct,” Jesus says. “Do you see this woman? You did not give me water for my feet, but this woman wet them with her tears and dried them with her hair.  Therefore her many sins have been forgiven, as her great love has shown.”

The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this man who even forgives sins?”

Jesus turned and said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” (Luke 7: 36-50)

Notice that Jesus always gets the last word. Not just that he is good at repartee, topping everyone else.  He doesn’t play verbal games, but converses on the most serious level. What it means to win the argument is evident to all, for audience and interlocutor are astounded.  They cannot say another word.

When confronted, Jesus always takes control of the conversational rhythm. This is no minor thing.  It is in the rhythms of conversation that manifests either solidarity, alienation or anger. Conversations with Jesus invariably end in full stop with wordless submission.

His debate with the Sadducees ends when no one dared ask him any more questions (Luke 20: 40).  When a teacher of the Law asks him which is the most important commandment, Jesus answers, to love God with all your heart, and to love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12: 28-34).

Most of the challenges to Jesus’ consummate charisma happen during his showdown period in Jerusalem.

The precedence is established early when Jesus visits his hometown of Nazareth and preaches in the synagogue. He amazes the crowd with his wisdom and audacity, but then the people start to ask questions among themselves, ‘Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Aren’t his mother and brothers and sisters common among us? Where did he get these powers he is displaying here and has been doing so in neighboring towns?  How can this be?’

When Jesus reads the scroll and says, “Today the scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”  They take umbrage at such sacrilegious impudence, and begin to argue.   Jesus responds, “No prophet is honored in his home town,” and quotes examples of the venerated prophets who were rejected.

The people in the synagogue are furious.  They take him to the edge of town and try to throw him off the peak of a cliff.

“But he walked right through the crowd and went his way” (Luke 4: 14-30; Matthew 13: 53-58).  Even here, Jesus uses the histrionics of the consummate charismatic actor to penetrate the ambivalence of the hostile crowd, traumatized to inaction when he shows no palpable fear of them thus giving confidence to his narrative.

Another personal challenge comes when he performs one of his most famous miracles, bringing back Lazarus from the dead. Jesus' relationship with Lazarus is an especially close one.  Lazarus is the brother of the two sisters, Mary and Martha, whose house Jesus liked to stay in, while Lazarus is referred to as "the one Jesus loves."

Jesus had been staying at their home a few miles outside Jerusalem, a safe haven at the time when his conflict with the high priests at the temple was escalating. When the message came that Lazarus was sick, Jesus was traveling away from his troubles in Jerusalem where the crowd had tried to stone him.  Even so, he decided to go back.

Yet he delayed two days before returning apparently waiting until Lazarus had died, and he could perform the miracle of resurrecting him. First he says to his disciples, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going to wake him up."

When this figure of speech is taken literally, he tells them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe."

When he arrives back in Bethany, Lazarus had been dead for four days.  A crowd had come to comfort the sisters. No doubt their house was strongly identified with the Jesus movement.  Thus there was a big crowd present when Jesus performed his healing miracle.  The dramatic was always very important to Jesus.

The two sisters separately come to meet Jesus, and each says, "If you had been here, my brother would not have died." After Mary, the second sister, says this, Jesus sees her weeping and the crowd weeping with her.  He is deeply moved. (The King James translation says, "Groaning in himself.") "Where have you laid him?" Jesus says. "Come and see," Mary answers. Then Jesus wept.

They come to the tomb; Jesus has them roll away the stone from the entrance. Again deeply moved, Jesus calls out in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!"  For some time afterwards, people come to Bethany to see Lazarus, the man who had been raised from the dead. (John 11: 1-46)

Leaving aside the miracle itself and its symbolism, one thing we see in this episode is Jesus conflicted between his mission-- to demonstrate the power of resurrection-- and his personal feelings for Lazarus and his sisters.

Jesus let Lazarus die, by staying away during his sickness, in order to make this demonstration, but in doing so he caused grief to those he loved. The moment when he confronts their pain (amplified by the weeping of the crowd), Jesus himself weeps. It is the only time in the texts when he weeps. It is a glimpse of himself as a human being, as well as a man on a mission.

Jesus’ next moment of human weakness comes in the garden at Gethsemane.  “Being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.” Though he left his disciples nearby with instructions to “pray that you will not fall into temptation,” they all fell asleep, exhausted from sorrow. Jesus complains to Peter, “Couldn’t you keep watch with me for one hour?” But he adds, “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” But their eyes were heavy, and they did not know what to say to him. (Luke 22: 39-46; Mark 14: 32-42; Matthew 26: 36-46) This is a most human moment when everyone’s emotional energy was down.

Particularly personal is the passage when Jesus on the cross sees his mother standing below, “and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby. Jesus said to her: ‘Woman, here is your son,' and to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ From that time on, the disciple took her into his house.” (John 19: 25-27) 

What is so telling about this is the contrast to an event during Jesus’ early preaching in Galilee, when his mother and siblings try to make their way to him through a crowd of followers. Someone announces, “Your mother and your brothers are outside waiting to see you.” Jesus looks at those seated in a circle around him and says: “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother” (Luke 8: 19-21; Mark 3: 31-35).  But on the cross he is not only thinking of fulfilling scripture, but of his own lifetime relationships.

Pierced by pain, he cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?  And with a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last” (Mark 15: 21-41; Matthew 27: 30-55).  Ancient myths of dying and annually resurrecting nature-gods are not described like this, that is, not so humanly.  Nor are the heroic deaths of Plutarch’s noble Greeks and Romans given a human persona.

Other than in the anxious hours of waiting at Gethsemane, and the torture of the crucifixion, Jesus confronting his accusers is in form on message. 

When the high priests and temple guards approach to arrest him, Jesus calmly asks who they want. “Jesus of Nazareth,” they reply. When he says, “I am he,” they shrink back. Jesus takes the initiative: “If you are looking for me, let these men go.” When they seize Jesus, one of his followers draws a sword and cuts off the ear of a priest’s servant. “Put away your sword!” Jesus says to him, “for all who live by the sword will die by the sword.”

To the hostile crowd, he says, “Am I leading a rebellion that you have come with swords and clubs to capture me? Every day I sat in the temple courts teaching, and you did not dare to arrest me. But this is your hour.” (Matthew 26: 47-56; Luke 22: 47-55; John 18: 1-12)

Then all his disciples deserted him and fled. Peter, the boldest of them, followed at a distance to the outer courtyards when Jesus was being interrogated within.  But Peter too is intimidated when servants question whether he is one of Jesus’ followers. Peter denying Jesus shows how Jesus’ own crowd has been dispersed, broken up and unable to assemble, and in the face of a hostile crowd lose their faith. 

Strength is in the crowd, and now the opposing crowd holds the attention of the place and space.

But indoors, in a smaller setting of rival authorities, Jesus holds his own. Before the assembly of the high priests, Jesus once again wins the verbal sparring, if not the verdict. Many hostile witnesses testify, but their statements do not agree. The priests try to get Jesus to implicate himself, but he keeps a long silence, and then says: “I said nothing secret. Why question me? Ask those who heard me.” 

When Jesus said this, an official slapped him in the face. “Is this the way you answer the high priest?” Jesus replied, “If what I said is wrong, testify as to what is wrong. If I spoke the truth, why do you strike me?” The chief priest asks him bluntly: “Tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.” “You have said so,” Jesus replies (Mark 14: 53-65; Matthew 26: 57-63; John 18: 19-24).

*     *     *

Although Jesus had much to say about the Kingdom of God, he was not alone in promoting that idea.  What made his message special was that he walked among common men.  He lived.  It is clear his approach was to the individual and that he saw the Law, society, customs and institutions only in the service of the individual. 

To him, the Jewish custom of the Sabbath, although sacred, must not be permitted to stand in the way of helping the individual, whether that entailed healing him or relieving him of his hunger. 

He declared that he had “come to seek and to save that which was lost,” and by that he meant the individual.  Thus news of his peculiar message was quick to spread.  He was a breath of fresh air in a stale climate, indeed, very much the charismatic figure of his time with a carefully formulated operational definition of his Messianic mission.

Reinhard Bendix has written:

(Max) Weber saw legal and traditional domination as permanent structures that provide for the everyday needs of the community.  Such structures are not well adapted to the satisfaction of needs that are out of the ordinary.  Hence, in times of trouble the “natural” leader is neither the official nor the master whose authority is based on the sanctity of tradition, but the man who is believed to possess the extraordinary gifts of body and mind.

The troubles that make man call for such a leader and the leaders who respond to such a call can be of many kinds.  The leaders may be prophets and heroes, magicians and demagogues, doctors and quacks, leaders of mobs or orchestras or robber bands; if they dominate by virtue of their charisma, their relationship to their followers is of the same type from a sociological point of view.

According to Weber, the possibility of sociology, as of any social science, depends on our ability to use specifically defined concepts in the value neutral sense, though this does not imply a disregard of values.

Leaders of robber bands still are criminals, and leaders of religious movements like St. Francis still are saintly men.  But Weber put questions of good and evil on a different level from questions of fact, and the fact is that both very evil and very good men have exercised domination through extraordinary gifts of mind and body.  For better or worse, charismatic leadership is especially in demand in times of trouble, though it recurs also in the permanent systems of domination (Bendix 1962).

*     *     *

WHY ARE YOU NOT ON BOOK TV?

WHY ARE YOU NOT ON BOOK TV?

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© January 19, 2015

A READER WRITES:

Just read your current blog, read it all the time, read a couple of your books, too, and was telling the wife, “This guy has something to say.”  The wife says, “Have you seen him on BOOK TV?"

She knows I’m an addict of C-Span 2 BOOK TV, watch it every weekend and sometimes during the week.  Got me to thinking.  Never seen you on that channel.  Have you ever been on?  Don’t need one of your long essays, don’t get me wrong, I like, but was just wondering.

Curious

DR. FISHER RESPONDS:

Mr. Curious,

I thank you for your interest. 

No, I’ve never been on BOOK TV, although like you, I am a regular viewer. 

I know the channel is always asking watchers to submit names of authors they would like to see interviewed.  That is an option that you might consider.  However, I don’t think that gives any guarantee that I would be interviewed.  They must have some kind of vetting process. 

C-Span 2 BOOK TV deals with nonfiction books, and that is primarily what I write.

As you know, the interviews can be for a few minutes, to a half hour or hour, and then on the first Sunday of every month they have a three-hour interview when the author discusses all his works, and gives the viewer some sense of what, why and where he writes. 

I would be amenable to such an interview be it for a few minutes or more.

Since you follow my blog, and know that I often provide excerpts of what I am working on, it might be fun.  Stay tuned.  Again, thank you for your note.

Be always well,

Jim   

*     *     *

THE JESUS STORY (continued) -- SEARCH FOR THE REAL PARENTS OF MY SOUL

THE JESUS STORY (continued)

SEARCH FOR THE REAL PARENTS OF MY SOUL

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© January 13, 2015

RELIGIOUS RIVALS FOR THE ALLEGIANCE OF THE GRECO-ROMAN WORLD

The conditions were favorable for a new religion, but the competition was fierce.  Christianity, by comparison, did not appear to have an outside chance of surviving.  Indeed, at its outset, Christianity seemed to be one of the least of many rivals with little promise of success against the others.

We cannot undertake this social psychological odyssey without naming contenders in Jesus’ day, when the complexity of religious allegiance became so intense in the Mediterranean basin. 

Over time, scholars, pseudo-scholars, skeptics, agnostics, atheists and Christian apologists have written weighty tomes from every conceivable aspect and vantage point to support or deny the validity of Christianity. 

This personal odyssey represents but the tiniest blip on the iceberg of that compelling inquiry.  So, it is not to be construed as seeking company with this community of scholars, but rather to represent the author’s journey for closure, that is, for a better understanding of his roots, his culture, indeed, himself in these times.  Hopefully, in that sense, it will help the reader better appreciate his own spiritual roots which have a long history even if these roots are not acknowledged.     

Ideas first taken to be exclusively Christian may be shown to have had an earlier antecedence.  As we go forward, the many facets in the family of man and his hunger for spiritual connection are on display.

*     *     *

Some cults, more than two thousand years ago, were maintained by the state.  These included the gods of Rome.  The Roman Empire was an aggregation of city states, many in existence before the formation of the Empire and were autonomous.  Each felt dependent upon the favors of its gods and saw to it that the worship of the state’s official divinities was strictly maintained. 

As previously covered, the state religions were no longer believed, yet the continuance of their rites was understood to be prudent for the welfare of society.  Draconian measures were imposed to see that the pomp and circumstance of the rites was not compromised. 

Outstanding among the officially supported cults was that of the Emperor, who was treated as a god.  The East had long been familiar with a ruler who was also a divinity as Alexander the Great experienced in his eastern conquests.  It was natural that Caesar Augustus, who had brought about peace to the Mediterranean, would be hailed as an incarnation of divinity.  Statues of Augustus were erected across the empire and religious ceremonies instituted to treat him as a god.

Caesar Augustus went along with this as he regarded it as a safeguard of law and order, and important for the realm’s preservation and prosperity.  Dissent from this divine adoration might well be interpreted as tantamount to treason.

Prominent, too, at the time were the so-called “mystery religions.”  They were secret in many of their ceremonies, and their members swore an oath not to reveal the esoteric nature of their beliefs. 

After a few centuries, many of these religions disappeared only to find many of their tenets reappear in some new religions.  Cults were known to copy one another and to provide an easy going syncretism, which ultimately produced fuzzy distinctions.  Not the least of these faiths to owe a serious debt to mystery religions was Christianity.  

Several of these mystery religions were built around Dionysus.  According to the story told about him, Zagreus, the son of Zeus by Persephone, was born in the form of a bull.  He was destined to rule the world, but was torn apart and eaten by the jealous Titans.

But Athens saved his heart, Zeus swallowed it, and when Semele born Dionysus to Zeus, Dionysus was Zagreus reborn.  He was also often given the name Bacchus.  The bull is associated with fertility cults. 

One of the coarser mysteries of Dionysus has devotees drinking the fruit of the vine with Dionysus as Bacchus.  Bacchus was the god of wine as well as of animals and vegetable life. 

Devotees of this cult also ate of the flesh of a newly slain bull still dripping blood, and thus saw it as partaking in the life of the god.  They engaged in sacred dances as well, which induced ecstasy and in which they were supposedly possessed by the spirit of the god (Watts 1961. 1964, 1972).      

These mystery religious are having a rejuvenation today.  Young people are looking for the same answers as these searchers did nearly 2,000 years ago (Frazer 1907).  Among these mysteries were those associated with Magna Mater, or the Great Mother, who loved the virgin-born of the shepherd, Attis.  Attis died, slain either by his enemies or by his own hand.  If the latter be the case, it has been deemed by emasculation (Cumont 1903). 

The Magna Mother mourned the passing of her son, Attis, and then effected his resurrection, as he became immortal.  Postulants of the Magna Mother in full-fledged initiation mourned Attis, and then, at the climax of a wild dance, emasculated themselves.  This was followed by a day in which the resurrection of Attis was celebrated, as the devotees now felt themselves united with Attis, willing participants in his immortality. 

Somewhat similar cults had as their center a young god whom the Greeks called Adonis, and who died and rose again.  In like manner, another set of mysteries clustered around the myth of Osiris, a king who had been killed by his brother. His widow, Isis, in mourning sought him, found his body, revived it, and became ruler of the dead.  In the religion that developed around this myth, Serapis replaced Osiris and Isis was deified.  The chief shrine was the Serapeum in Alexandria, Egypt.

The Eleusinian mysteries developed near Athens which had the focus of their rites on the death of vegetation in the autumn and winter, and the resurrection of life again in the spring.  This was done through the nature myth of Persephone who was carried off by Hades to the underworld, was sought by her mourning mother, Demeter, was restored to the world of light, but was compelled to return to the underworld for part of each year (Guthrie 1935).

Widespread was the mystery religion which had Mithra for its main figure (Cumont 1903).  Mithra, a god of Persian origin, was usually represented as bestriding a bull and slaying it.  From the dying bull issued the seed of life for the world, and hence the act became the symbol of regeneration.  The cult practiced baptism and had a sacramental meal.  Its membership was restricted to men and its places of worship, crypts or underground caverns, were too small to accommodate more than a few members at a time.

Most mystery cults eventually made their way to Rome.  They also penetrated much of the Empire along the Mediterranean coastlines.  Their appeal seems to have been the simple assurance of immortality, which the religion gave its members combined with a fellowship that many in the world craved as large numbers of people were uprooted and disenfranchised from their birth homes. 

There were many competitors for spiritual dominion and dominance.  Judaism was among the most formidable of the religious groups vying for the favor of the peoples of the Roman Empire.  As a faith, Judaism identified with one ethnic group, stressing its belief that Israel was a peculiar people that had been especially chosen by God.  With this manifest, Judaism could scarcely hope to win all of the human race even if it so desired, which it didn’t. 

Some of the Jewish prophets had regarded Judaism as having a universal mission and destined to embrace all men in its fellowship.  Yet, the majority of Jews did not follow such prophecy.  As we have shown, Jewish communities were numerous and widely scattered as the Jewish scriptures had been translated into Greek, and thousands of non-Jews were attracted to the faith.  They sought either full incorporation into Judaism or became a fringe group practicing many of the tenets in the Jewish belief system without formal acceptance.  

Judaism, alas, then as now was not a proselytizing faith, whereas Christianity has proven to be very much such a religion. Since the time of Apostle Paul, Christianity has been in the vigorous and demanding business of selling its rationale to the world of ideas.  The distillate of this marketing strategy centered on the power of the crucifixion of Jesus and His resurrection, as it captured the imagination of the known world.  

JESUS AND PARALLEL CRUCIFIED SAVIORS

Paul instinctively knew the most dramatic incident in the life of Jesus was his crucifixion.  This would suggest that he was familiar parallel pagan "crucified saviors,” such as Adonis, Attis, Baal, Bacchus, Balder, Beddru, Devatat, Dionysus, Hermes, Horus, Krishna, Mithras, Orpheus, Osiris, Tammuz, Thor and Zoroaster

The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, then, shares this phenomenon with many other crucified saviors who are reported to have died and again risen as gods.  As a consequence, Christianity is rivaled by many pagan “mystery” religions. 

Those who would refute the Jesus story claim: (1) Jesus of Nazareth didn't exist as a person in history (also called "mythicism"); and (2) the events of Christ's life in the Gospels were copied from "previous saviors" of non-Christian pagan religions.

The prominent three "parallel pagan" gods appear to be Dionysus, Mithras, and Osiris. Most Christians, indeed, most well-read skeptics and atheists are unfamiliar with Greek, Roman, Persian or Egyptian religions and deities. So the argument goes that all these gods and religions are based on myths, fables, or legends with the Jesus story on a par with Dionysus, Mithras, and Osiris.

If one has taken a mythology, comparative religion or humanities course in college, these gods would be talked about. However, the information on them is readily available in any scholarly encyclopedia. A better source is the multi-volume The Encyclopedia of Religion (1987) edited by Mircea Eliade or the 2005 second edition edited by Lindsay Jones.  If interested, it is well to check your local public or university library for the relevant scholarship.  This is necessary to separate the "wheat" from the "chaff" (Matt 3:12; Luke 3:17). 

As skeptic Richard Carrier puts it:

"You'll have someone make up a fake quote, or misrepresent a document, misrepresent the evidence. Then they'll put it on a web site, or put it in a book that's published by what people think is a respectable publisher. And then hundreds, thousands of Christians will read this and believe it because they assume, well this guy wouldn't lie. He wouldn't have made this stuff up. And so they go and repeat it. And so you get the lie repeated many times, mostly by people who aren't lying, who really do think it's true but just didn't check" (Richard 2005).

So, it is a critical point in this odyssey as to the validity of the Jesus story compared to these pagan crucified saviors.  This "parallel pagan" argument critical of Christianity by hyper-skeptics, atheists, agnostics, or Christian apologists is widely available on the Internet, or in the 19th century pseudo-historical work of Kersey Graves, The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors (1875).  Graves (DVD) sees overlapping claims:

“(All these gods) received divine honors, nearly all worshiped as Gods, or sons of God, and were incarnated as Christs, Saviors, Messiahs, or Mediators.  A few reputedly born of virgins; some of a character nearly identical to that ascribed to Jesus in the Christian bible; many reported to have been crucified; and all taken together, furnish a prototype and parallel for nearly every important incident and wonder-inciting miracle, doctrine and precept recorded in the New Testament, of the Christian's Savior” (Graves 1875). 

Graves himself accepted the historicity of Jesus Christ as he was not in the strictest sense, a "mythicist."  His hypothesis is that these various godmen were all 'historical personages' who patterned themselves after this archetype; that these various crucified saviors and godmen were 'real people' who were deified with fairy tales and myths added to their biographies (Graves 1875). 

Richard Carrier disavows Kersey Graves as a reliable source and doesn't think much of the concept of "parallel pagan" gods.  He claims the  supposed "parallels" that either pre- or post-date Christianity's founding lack reliable historical evidence in support of the idea, and thus concludes the "parallel" concept is simply mistaken (Carrier 2005). 

Should we accept that "The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors: Or Christianity Before Christ” is unreliable, the fact remains that no comprehensive critique exists. Most scholars recognize many of his findings are unsupported.  In general, even when the evidence is real, it often appears many years after Christianity began, and thus might be evidence of diffusion in the other direction (Carrier, 2005).

That said there are other similar savior figures in the same neighborhood and at the same time in history: Mithras, Attis, Adonis, Osiris, Tammuz, and so forth, and nobody thinks that these characters are anything but mythical with most stories having some kind of resurrection or another.

It is that aspect of the Jesus story in the New Testament patterned after "dying and rising gods" of antiquity that aggravates skeptics as that story existed long before Christianity. This view became popular among scholars during the so-called "history of religions" school at the turn of the 20th century.

The category of "dying and rising gods," along with the pattern of its mythic and ritual associations, received its earliest full formulation in the influential work of Sir James G. Frazer (1856-1941) in The Golden Bough (1st edition 1890 in two volumes, 2nd edition 1900 in three volumes, 3rd edition in 12 volumes, 1906-1915, with an abridged one-volume edition published in 1922).  This level of dedication to this idea has proven the legacy of anthropologist Frazer who is considered the founder of this discipline.

This theme was repeated by other scholars of mythology such as Joseph Campbell who edited Pagan and Christian Mysteries (1955), and his more famous The Hero with a Thousand Faces (originally 1949), whose views were made popular through a 1988 PBS series "The Power of Myth" interviews with Bill Moyers. However, on the "dying and rising gods" motif the Encyclopedia of Religion (1987) concludes:

"The category of dying and rising gods, once a major topic of scholarly investigation, must now be understood to have been largely a misnomer based on imaginative reconstructions and exceedingly late or highly ambiguous texts....In most cases, the decipherment and interpretation of texts in the language native to the deity's cult has led to questions as to the applicability of the category. The majority of evidence for Near Eastern dying and rising deities occurs in Greek and Latin texts of late antiquity, usually post-Christian in date" (Smith 1985).

Smith is emphatic: "Some of these divine figures simply disappear, some disappear only to return again in the near or distant future; some disappear and reappear with monotonous frequency. All the deities that have been identified as belonging to the class of dying and rising deities can be subsumed under the two larger classes of disappearing deities or dying deities. In the first case, the deities return but have not died; in the second case, the gods die but do not return. There is no unambiguous instance in the history of religions of a dying and rising deity."

Paul Rhodes Eddy and Gregory A. Boyd state in The Jesus Legend (2007):

"While the claim that aspects of the Christian view of Jesus parallel, even are indebted to, ancient pagan legends and myths has a long history, it gained prominence with the birth of the history of religions school in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries....The history of religions school was extremely popular in academic circles for several decades, but owing to trenchant critiques by such scholars as Samuel Cheetham, H.A.A. Kennedy, J. Gresham Machen, A.D. Nock, Bruce Metzger, and Gunter Wagner, it eventually fell out of fashion."

Although the category was largely abandoned by most reputable scholars and historians by the mid-20th century, there are exceptions. Tryggve N. D. Mettinger of Lund University in Sweden, wrote a recent (2001) scholarly critique challenging the modern consensus and attempts to "resurrect" the dying and rising theme. He nonetheless admits:

"There is now what amounts to a scholarly consensus against the appropriateness of the concept of dying and rising gods. Those who still think differently are looked upon as residual members of an almost extinct species....The situation during the last half of the century was thus one when it seemed fairly clear that there were no ideas of resurrection connected with Dumuzi / Tammuz, and that the ideas of a resurrection in connection with Adonis are very late.

The references to a resurrection of Adonis have been dated mainly to the Christian Era....Frazer's category was broad and all encompassing. To Frazer, Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, and Attis were all deities of the same basic type, manifesting the yearly decay and revival of life. He explicitly identified Tammuz and Adonis. The category of dying and rising deities as propagated by Frazer can no longer be upheld" (Mettinger 2001).

The category is still revived among the "free thought" community in the non-scholarly form of Kersey Graves, sometimes in the revised James G. Frazer The Golden Bough form as a valid argument against historical Christianity.

Evangelical author Ronald Nash in The Gospel and The Greeks: Did the New Testament Borrow from Pagan Thought? (2003 2nd edition) examines in Hellenistic philosophy, the mystery religions, and Gnosticism and their relationship to early Christianity. He concludes:

"Was first-century Christianity a syncretistic religion? Was early Christianity a synthesis of ideas and practices borrowed from different sources, some of them pagan? To the extent that key words like dependence, influence, accommodation, and borrowed are understood in a strong sense, my answer to this question will be an unequivocal no"(Nash 2003).

In chapters seven through eleven, he examines the various Greco-Roman mystery religions and such pagan deities as Demeter, Dionysus / Bacchus, Orpheus, Isis / Osiris, Cybele / Attis, Mithra, Mithraism, and Zoroastrianism, along with their supposed influence on the Christian sacraments and essential Christian beliefs (e.g., the Incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ), which is a thorough Christian reply to the "parallel pagan" argument or "copycat" thesis.

*     *     *

NOTE:

We now move on from this “Birth of Christianity,” realizing this is all being considered in this secular Age of Information with the miracle of instant global communication.  Life over the last century has been a test of the credulity of both Christian believers and nonbelievers.  For this author of the Search for the Real Parents of My Soul, there is no recourse then to move on to JESUS AND THE GOSPELS: THE FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIANITY.  References not included here.

EFFECTS ALWAYS FOLLOW CAUSES!

EFFECTS ALWAYS FOLLOW CAUSES

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© January 11, 2015

With every effect, there is a cause.  

People don’t behave as they do out of osmosis.  If Stephen Jay Gould and E. O. Wilson are correct, and I think they are, their theory of “sociobiology” has precedence.  

The idea of this thesis or theory is that generations carry more than their genetic DNA forward into future generations.

Someone said the other day that they couldn’t understand why Florida’s Governor Scott proposed a special award for African Americans during February, Florida’s history month for African Americans.

This person, highly intelligent, and clearly competent, said in exasperation, “Why not a special award or month for Caucasians?”

There is no point in arguing with her because she clearly sees the matter in one-directional and one-dimensional terms.  

Ralph Waldo Emerson, and his friend, Henry David Thoreau both said on several occasions something to the effect, don’t attempt to walk in another man’s shoes because you clearly cannot.

Given my natural angry disposition, I cannot imagine what I would be like if I had been born an African American.  

However, I was born into a poor white family, never forgetting that fact, working all my life with never a dime from anyone, never a soft landing anywhere should I fail, and I have failed several times, never an allegiance of people of influence to pick me up and carry me out of my difficulty or misery, indeed, never anyone but myself to march to my own drummer and take the consequences of that marching.

So, I hope that were I to have been born black, Hispanic, or some other race, given my inclinations, that I would have behaved as I have. 

Like me, I suspect that many born at some disadvantage, seeing how their parents were treated by those in authority, power, wealth, status or influence, people who gave them little or no mind and treated them as if of an inferior class, culture, breeding and circumstance, would carry that memory and disposition into adulthood and be more than a little sensitive if not angry to the point of a vengeance.  If this seems extreme, may I suggest it is a matter of temperament and attention?

One time a young executive, who had purchased a new red $60,000 automobile of some superior class, I confess to not knowing one automobile from another, said, “I thought I’d have the only red beauty of this make on the road, and in the last week I’ve seen six, count them, six bloody red new machines just like mine!”

I mention this because we are attentive to what interests or provokes us.  The attention is the same, as it is all inclusive, only how we deal with the emotions that it generates differ.

African Americans have been disadvantaged for hundreds of years, and when they are suddenly treated as human beings by the majority but not everyone, are they expected to genuflect with obedience and appreciation and know their place?

The gentrified class in Georgetown, Virginia and now New York City, the class with money, is driving blacks and Hispanics that have been in those neighborhoods for generations, out of their homes, out of the known as if they were so much riffraff.  

It has happened in Ferguson, Missouri and other places, creating a human combustible situation, waiting only for some one to pull the trigger.

Police, society’s punching bag, is expected to step into this caldron, and make everything work while the rest of society in their nice homes sitting on their large bank accounts criticize from the safety of the bleachers.  

The irony is that police and minorities are brothers given to a similar fate.

   

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This is all meant as preamble to a bigger drama, a more compelling problem on an international scene.  I am speaking of the twenty people including three terrorists killed in Paris earlier this week. 

Sociobiology is at work here as well.  

The effect has a cause, and the cause has been orchestrated by Western powers over at least the last two hundred years in the Tigris and Euphrates Valley, the Cradle of Western Civilizations.

Before WWI, as well as after, the West was manipulating the Middle East to its advantage.  That manipulation continued after WWII, putting puppet regimes on the thrones of Egypt and Syria and Iran to be manipulated at the pleasure of Western puppet masters.

While the West prospered, and became rich and enlightened from political and technological advantage, the peoples of these regions did not.  I saw this first hand in Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt and North Africa in the late 1950s. 

We always celebrate Greece for giving us democracy, drama, philosophy and architecture, but the Middle East gave us the alphabet, algebra, engineering, science, literature, religion, ethics, and governance.  Without the Middle East, the earth would be a barren intellectual planet.

After two world wars, the West became richer and the Middle East poorer.  With the Age of Information awareness of this disadvantage became punishingly and painfully visible to the people.    

Beware of the man who has nothing and therefore nothing to lose!

Again referring to that competent, intelligent lady, she could not see why African Americans deserved a special month or special recognition.  She like the WEST has failed to understand jihad or the terrorist movement’s rationale.  They are not all crazies.  

We conveniently forget there were terrorists against the British Crown before the American Revolutionary War, or that terrorist cells existed against the British pre-Israel's birth as a nation.  

When I was that boy, that very insecure, terrified freshman student at the University of Iowa, I was also a very devout Irish Roman Catholic, sensitive to any slight or offense against my faith.  

Early in that college first semester, I walked into a professor's lecture in Western Civilization, a required course whatever your major, and heard a sarcastic diatribe against Roman Catholicism.  I immediately dropped the course, and had to take it later before I graduated.

Looking back, no longer a practicing Catholic, reading David Brooks’ column about the sarcastic text and cartoons of the Paris Charlie Hebdo, I can understand better that young man that I was those many years ago.  Moreover, I can comprehend if not understand why these young terrorists would do what they did by killing innocent people who worked at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper.  

Brooks’ salient comment rings with me now remembering that much younger: 

Most grownups don’t engage in deliberately offensive humor.

The problem is we don’t live in a grownup age.

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