Toto

Here is a short review of the Jesus Mysteries which may help some people focus on the issues.

This book is not a dispassionate, academic investigation into the existence of the historic Jesus. It is a retelling of early Christian history through the eyes of two modern pagan mystics, who appear to want to reclaim Christianity as a mystic practice that worships the same god as all of their other favorite religions. Nevertheless, there is a lot of value and interest in the book for modern hard-nosed secularists. I would also hope that Christians could read the book and respond to it, rather than just <a href="http://www.geocities.com/missus_gumby/bits2.htm" target="_blank">burn the book</a> or <a href="http://www.tektonics.org/TF.JM_060960581X.html" target="_blank">nitpick a few minor points</a>, as our old friend Bede has done in his review on the Holding’s site.

The book is written as an unfolding investigation. F&G start off with the many, often-stated, similarities between Christian practice and pagan religions. They ask whether this was because the Christian church added these on top of its original practices, or whether it means that Christianity was actually just another version of the pagan mysteries. They then spend several chapters exploring the pagan mysteries, Plato, Pythagoras, and the mathematical mysteries of the day. They make extensive and very effective use of Celsus.

They then consider the evidence for a historic Jesus. Most Christians will object to their summary, as Bede did, especially where they say that "no serious scholar" thinks that Josephus wrote the passage in the Testamonium (their reasoning sounds good to me, and they cite Eisler, The Messiah Jesus and John the Baptist}. (Note: I do not read them as claiming that the entire Testamonium is a forgery, as Bede states, but their language is a bit imprecise on that point. The sentence could even be read as stating that no serious scholar thinks that Josephus wrote the passage in the Testamonium as it appears today, which would be true. They probably should have phrased things differently, perhaps as "the best linguistic evidence is that . . .", or "we accept Eisler’s conclusion that. . . " Their language in general does not have the carefully guarded and qualified style of academic writing.)

Other than that, their summary is well supported with all of the historical difficulties in the Gospels and the rest of the NT. However, at the end of this section, they admit that there is barely enough historical evidence so that someone could think that Jesus was an actual historic figure if he really wanted to – but they prefer the mythic interpretation, for reasons that become evident at the end.

They go on to claim Paul as a Gnostic, or proto-Gnostic, pointing out all of the language in the genuine Pauline epistles that reflects the language and ideas of the mystery religions, versus the anti-Gnostic language in the forged epistles. They point out that Paul was said to have traveled with a woman who did healing, making it unlikely that he would have called for all women to be silent in church and follow their husbands.

They then consider the claim that Jews would not have adopted pagan influences, and refute this by discussing the Jewish Diaspora in detail. They outline the many pagan or Hellenistic influences that became a part of Diaspora Judaism, including early influence of the Egyptian mysteries in the Old Testament, which allowed later Jews to construct a mystery type religion around Judaism. They state that the Jews in Alexandria had a long history of linking their scriptures to pagan ideas, which explains how a mystery religion based on a pagan concept contains so many OT references.

This leads to their theory of early Christianity. Jews living in Alexandria before 1 CE absorbed pagan influences, and set up their own mystery religion. The "outer mystery" involved a dying and resurrected savior. Once the initiate had advanced to a higher level, it was revealed that the story was not literally true, but stood for the death of the lower aspects of the self and the rebirth of the higher aspects. When the Romans devastated Palestine around 70 CE, Alexandria was flooded with Jewish refugees. Mark then wrote his story (or perhaps recast a story that had been written) and set it in Palestine, using the hated Pilate as a historical fictional villain, never meaning the story to be a literal history. Later, some converts lost contact with the higher initiates, and settled on the literal story as the only way. The rest is history, as they say.

This is not a dry academic tome. F&G use a lot of colorful language, referring several times to Christianity’s "bizarre" beliefs, "convoluted" reasoning, the "characteristic lunacy of Justin Martyr", "Eusebius, the mouthpiece of Christian propaganda" and use exclamation points to indicate how incredible they find certain Christian practices or ideas. They do not come across as Christian-haters, however. As pro-Gnostics, they clearly believe that all religions have something good in them at the core. They end the book with a call for Christianity to return to its real roots, admit that the crucifixion is only an allegory, and restore the inner mysteries.

Unfortunately, the very idea that Jesus never existed seems to be a deep insult to many Christians, one that they cannot get around, and I have not heard any "Literalist" Christian take them up on the idea.

For secularists, the book offers a well written comment on the early Christian church and the pagan mystery religions, and 60 pages of footnotes. Although F&G are New Age types, there only a little outright fluff in the book. It is well worth reading for what it is. It is a narrative that fits the known historical facts at least as well as any other theory, with some interesting speculation. I do not doubt that a fact checker could find some goofs, and I am sure that a professional historian would have written a more nuanced, but blander book. But I found it worth while and enjoyable.

Oolon Colluphid

Toto, I pretty much agree. As a former Classicist (well that’s my degree at least ), I was impressed with how so much of what they said about mystery cults was accurate, as far as I can remember.

My main quibble is with the references they used. If they were creationists, I would immediately smell a rat in the way they quoted from books from the 1930s as easily as from Burkert’s stuff from the 80s. I’m too out of touch to tell, but I assume classical scholarship hasn’t stood still since my degree finished in 89 either. The jumping about between scholars smacks of quote-mining. I’d have been less uneasy about it if there were more ancient sources (though they do use those, eg Celsus), rather than quotes from authorities.

Nevertheless, the idea that Christianity is merely another mystery cult, perhaps subject to more syncretism than most, is nothing new in Classical circles.* F&G just push it further in arguing that Jesus himself was entirely fiction. But given the prevalence of dying-and-rising gods at the time, that is entirely plausible. At the least, it seems that Jesus is a King Arthur / Robin Hood character -- perhaps historically real, but so overlain with myth that the real one, if there was one, is irrevocably obscured.

* It definitely gets played down though, due to the prevalence of Christianity even among those who’ve studied its origins.

TTFN, Oolon