ONE SUNDAY in the early 1970s, I was guest preaching to an Anglican congregation at a historic downtown Toronto church. The sermon was somewhat controversial in its thrust, and as I came down from the pulpit the rector was already on his way to the chancel steps. Turning to me, he said, “You can’t leave it there, Tom.” He then proceeded to disagree with every major point I had tried to make. The people gasped. Naturally, I responded with some gusto and we began an impromptu debate that lasted nearly an hour. Nobody left. Nobody even stirred. At one point I invited any who wanted to do so to join in, and several vigorously did. I still meet people today who were there and who say they have never attended a church service quite that exciting since.
In a way, this story parallels what has happened in the wake of my 2004 book The Pagan Christ. The response has been tremendous; most letter writers have expressed gratitude, but nearly all have said in one way or another, “You can’t leave it there.” Most of them wanted to continue the journey.
Those who read that book know that it sets out considerable, detailed evidence that the entire story upon which Christianity has rested for nearly two thousand years is based upon much earlier narratives, including one of humanity’s earliest myths, that of Incarnation. In its simplest form, the doctrine of Incarnation is the understanding that deep in the centre of every person’s being is a spark of the eternal fire of the Divine. It was that belief, I maintained, that formed the foundation upon which Christianity later was constructed. Specifically, to quote the words of the great psychoanalyst Carl Jung, it was demonstrated that “the Christian era owes its name and significance to the antique mystery of the god-man, which has its roots in the archetypal Osiris–Horus myth of ancient Egypt.”1 Since some conservative critics have attempted on various grounds to deny this Egyptian connection, I have included an appendix at the conclusion of this book with further striking, contemporary scholarship on the subject.
In the course of showing Christianity’s deep dependence upon the ancient Egyptian wisdom, I concluded that there is no reliable, unambiguous historical evidence for an actual Jesus of Nazareth. This is not an easy conclusion to grasp for a Western culture deeply influenced by a literal, historicized version of the ancient myth—and for many it comes as a genuine shock. Many, on the other hand, have written to me to say that the question of historicity or non-historicity doesn’t really affect their deeper spiritual understanding. Perhaps, at one level, it doesn’t really matter that much. But it does matter—profoundly—when you look at the Church’s past and realize the horrific consequences of literalism and the focusing of Incarnation in one putatively historical person. Millions have died because of it. Wars and torture have followed in its wake. The lives of countless millions have been controlled from cradle to grave by ecclesiastical powers as a result of such a dogma. Essentially, what the historical approach has done has been to cut the individual off from realizing fully his or her own divinity within. This is of profound importance, because ultimately what matters is the subjective or inner meaning of the Jesus Story for each of us and for humanity at large.
The stance taken in what follows is that Jesus is a mythical figure. The Jesus Story certainly has of itself a long, tempestuous and incredibly complex history. But that is quite different from proving that the narratives themselves have anything historical about them. Arduous study shows that the “evidence” offered by professional apologists and many others for a Jesus of history simply doesn’t stand up under critical examination. This particular emperor has no clothes, despite the fact that many scholars who should know better continue to argue that he does. The problem is that they become simply and hopelessly vague when asked to produce their evidence. The best they can do is to offer hearsay material, and that only of the flimsiest kind.
On the question of the current so-called “Third Quest for the Historical Jesus,” Harold Bloom, the well-known American literary critic and bestselling author, comments: “Quests for the historical Jesus invariably fail, even those by the most responsible searchers. Questers, however careful, find themselves and not the elusive and evasive Yeshua, enigma of enigmas.”2 To my mind, they are like those looking for treasure down a deep well and finding only their own reflections in the water.
In his 2005 book Jesus and Yahweh—The Names Divine, Bloom says he is completely baffled, as a scholar, by the “human comedy” of this never-ending search. He describes reading the work of such prominent New Testament experts as Raymond Brown and Father J.P. Meier and wondering “why they will not admit how hopelessly little we actually know about Jesus. The New Testament has been ransacked by centuries of minute scholarship but all that labour does not result in telling us the minimal information we demand on any parallel matter.” As for Flavius Josephus, upon whose shoulders the entire shaky case for Jesus’ historicity is made to rest, Bloom bluntly, and rightly, states that he was “a wonderful writer and non-stop liar.”3
While Bloom, without giving any reasons, somewhat paradoxically is prepared to admit that Jesus was “a more or less historical person,” he believes nothing can be known for certain about him. He explains that what he means by this is that “everything truly important about him reaches me from texts I cannot trust.” Part of the reason for this is that “there is not a sentence in the entire New Testament composed by anyone who had ever met the unwilling King of the Jews.”4 Before leaving this subject, I will say that in any criticisms received in the wake of The Pagan Christ, nobody has yet produced what any truly objective scholar would call convincing or verifiable evidence for a flesh-and-blood Jesus of Nazareth.5
Accordingly, there will be some commentary from time to time throughout this study on the historicity question as it becomes relevant to our main theme. However, that is certainly not the central issue here. Rather, it is this: what, when all is said and done, does the 2,000-year-old story of Jesus called Christ mean to you and me and to the wider world? This is the burning issue that the endless scholarly wrangling utterly obscures and for the most part fails even adequately to address. To get at that kernel of wisdom, we will treat the story here as it was originally, I believe, intended to be interpreted—as a myth of the highest order. Not just any myth, indeed, but the story of the evolution on this earth plane of each individual living soul. The fundamental thesis of this book is that the Jesus Story is your story and mine told in the light of eternity and of eternal values.
In the groundbreaking, still highly relevant television series by PBS called The Power of Myth, in which, during six fascinating one-hour shows, the famous mythologist Joseph Campbell was interviewed by journalist Bill Moyers, Campbell spoke about one of his favourite themes—the Hero with a Thousand Faces. He explained how all the greatest truths about who we are and what we are meant to be begin with a story. The story, or (to use the Greek word) mythos, is almost always, he said, a fictional account of the adventure(s) of a hero, someone who does daring and dangerous things for a cause, someone who goes out to speak and act courageously and then returns bearing his reward, whether material or spiritual. In the nearly universal god-man myth, the hero meets death or is swallowed by a monster only to experience rebirth and triumph at the end.
Each of us, Campbell argued, can learn from the hero’s adventure because we are all likewise called to the going out and the coming back of the unique adventure that is our own life, from the moment of birth through maturity to death itself. The myriad myths of humanity can differ enormously from one another, and yet there are certain universal themes running through them all. The various trials and revelations experienced by the hero invariably call for a denial or “losing” of his or her own lower self, or ego, as the hero’s consciousness is expanded and transformed. In Campbell’s words, the important dimension of the story is the “interface between what is known” and the true source of all life and being. The myths, he declared, are meant to bring us eventually to a level of consciousness that is spiritual. Like dreams, they use the language of symbols and other imagery because they flow up from the depths of the unconscious and draw us ever upwards towards an ever-greater light. Greater light means fuller awareness of who we really are, and with that comes deeper appreciation of the presence of the divine light in other people around us. We become more sensitive to their hopes and longings, more compassionate to their struggles and their grief.
Given an approach