Liberal Christianity

Lesson 3: Jesus: History, Mystery and Doubt

Suggested Reading: Borg, "Reading the Bible Again for the First Time", Chapter 8

Modernity

In speaking of what has been called "modernity," Marcus Borg describes two central features both closely connected with each other:

"First, modernity is characterized by scientific ways of knowing......unlike people of earlier eras, we know something to be true today through experimentation and verification.

"Second, modernity is marked by what is sometimes called 'the modern worldview' or 'Newtonian worldview.' ... The modern worldview is based on scientific ways of knowing what is real is that which can be known through the methods of science."

Further in his writings, Borg mentions what he considers two deeply destructive effects upon religion in general and Christianity and the Bible in particular: "Modernity has made us skeptical about spiritual reality.....It is the logical outcome of absolutizing the modern worldview.

Second, modernity has led us to be preoccupied with factuality - with scientifically verifiable and historically reliable facts. ...... Indeed, modern Western culture is the only culture in human history that has identified truth with factuality. We are 'fact fundamentalists'."

Our fact-fundamentalist society has discovered an almost insatiable appetite for identified truths based on factuality. As a result, using scientific methods, scholars and researchers have aggressively gone off in pursuit of the historical Jesus with surprising results.

These results have not, as one might expect, brought Jesus into a clearer and more specific focus. Rather, a plethora of verifiable biographic details has engendered an even wider focus and venue of speculation. In addition to the long-time scholarship around Jesus based on assumptions very much in harmony with traditional Christianity's theology and doctrine typified by the description found in the Nicene Creed, we can easily encounter research that has resulted in a myriad of other perceptions including:

Jesus as a 2000-year-old mythical creation originally intended to compete with and override existing pagan mystery religions of that era,

Jesus as a cynical creation of Roman political officials as a means of competing with and altering Judaism into something less radically opposed to Roman rule,

Jesus as a fictional elaboration of the Apostle Paul who constructed a new religion using Christ concepts as his basis (much is made of the almost total lack of biographical and life-incident references to Jesus in Paul's writings.)

Jesus as a mortal heir to the throne of David who married, fathered children and lived to an older age. This includes a sub-perception of Mary Magdalene as Jesus' wife and the disciple who most clearly understood Jesus' teachings. Magdalene is believed to have migrated to Southern France and a popular speculation links Magdalene to the Knights Templar, hidden riches and Roman Catholic conspiracy to suppress the truth.

Fiction about early Jesus has always been in abundance. Most recently, the Magdalene theme has been popularized by Dan Brown's, "The DaVinci Code". Other books and movies speculate on what might happen if, for example, a 2000-year-old body showing marks of crucifixion and other bodily injuries written of in the gospels is discovered with the implication that the body is that of Jesus who therefore did not resurrect.

There are fiction works about the implication of the discovery of ancient texts that refute traditional New Testament teachings or reveal that Jesus was not resurrected, or that the resurrection was faked.

Scorcese's movie "The Last Temptation of Christ", based on Nikos Kazantzakis' 1955 novel, enfolded several of the notions mentioned above, was highly controversial and bitterly opposed by the majority of Christians when it was released.

Mel Gibson's movie, focusing our "modernity-based fact-fundamentalism" on the reality of crucifixion blended with his strictly conservative Catholic fundamentalist interpretation of scripture has impacted millions, many of whom would describe themselves as having been finally moved by Jesus after decades of adulthood ignoring religion completely.

However historical research of Jesus turns out, it is as the Christ that Jesus' influence continues to matter.

Jesus and the Mystery Religions

One of the hallmarks of Christian fundamentalist thinking seems to have been the idea that the concepts of a dying God who resurrected and brought salvation to humanity was a new idea brought forth by God through Jesus only at the meridian of time.

Historically, early pagan resistance to as well as acceptance of Christian theology was based on the fact that the dying God, resurrection and salvation was already a given.

Some prominent early Christian theologians attempted to deal with this argument by bringing in the idea that Satan, having "foreseen" the life and achievement of Jesus, "pre-installed" the concepts in pagan religions as a means of deceiving future Christian believers in order to lead them astray.

Exercises:

1. Using an Internet search engine and the words "Jesus Mystery Religions", perform a comparative search that creates a list of Christian theology and doctrines such as baptism, virgin-birth, resurrection, etc. that existed previously in pagan mystery religions.

a. List those theological concepts and doctrines that existed prior to Jesus.

b. How many dying gods did you find?

c. How many were God-incarnated or the Son of God?

2. In the previous lesson the point was made that although the Bible is a lens through which God is perceived as well as a voice through which God speaks (rather than dictates), some people think that it's important to believe in (worship) the lens more than the object of the lens' focus.

Likewise, Christian sacraments, ritual and ceremonies are often taken to the literal extreme with disastrous results. For example, wars have been fought and heretics murdered over whether or not the sacramental bread and wine actually BECAME the body and blood of Christ.

Based on your earlier Internet search results regarding pagan mystery religions:

a. What is the comparative significance of holy meal of bread and wine in pagan rites?

b. How many contemporary Christian holidays are actually the results of early Catholic attempts to annex pagan holidays?

c. What are the comparative meanings of baptism in pagan and Christian theology?

d. What are the comparative theologies around death and an afterlife?

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