MARCH 2004
While I appreciate receiving news articles and suggestions for future columns, it is of course not possible to please everybody. Just in this last month I have been told, very nicely, thank you, that I MUST write about Georgia and evolution; I MUST write about the Carlyle Group; I MUST write about gay marriage; I MUST write about the "Independent" inquiry by the Bush Mob regarding 9/11; I MUST write about the Lord Hutton Report; I MUST write about the UK and the US rewriting the history of the run-up to war—regime-change was the main goal, not WMD; I MUST write about Human Rights abuses by the US; and I MUST write about Bush’s AWOL status during the Vietnam War. So I’m going to write about Mel Gibson’s Jesus-movie.
The Gibson movie, The Passion of Christ, has caused quite a stir among believers and non-believers. The New York Times devoted an ocean of ink to the thorny problem of what Jesus really looked like, and whether or not Gibson’s movie provides an accurate portrayal. Gibson’s Jesus of course has blue eyes, as have most of Tinsel Town’s depictions of Jesus of Nazareth. The NYT also agonized over The Making of the Passion of Christ, a documentary which painstakingly avoided mentioning the word "Jews." This is passing strange when you consider that the biblical Jesus was a Jew, lived his entire life as part of the Jewish community, and died as a Jew.
Also mentioned by the NYT is a "Dateline" TV show that I mercifully missed seeing. However, based on the newspaper account of it, "Dateline" apparently focused on the dire, weighty question: "Who killed Jesus?" In somber tones this question was asked, as if all Jews watching should dive for cover, lest they be branded yet again as the perpetrators of this ugly, evil deed, the killing of Jesus. The accusatory finger was finally pointed squarely at Pontius Pilate, thus allowing Jews everywhere to breathe a little easier.
The issue of "who killed Jesus" needs to be examined with calm logic. The anti-Semitic literature and, far worse, the deeds that have been perpetrated over the centuries are not just appallingly vicious but utterly stupid. If you believe that Jesus was sent to earth to be the Savior of Humankind, paying the price for the sins of all humans, isn’t it absolutely necessary for him to die? And if it’s a sacrificial death, somebody has to do it! Of course the Jews never crucified people—only the Romans did. Most Christians do not know that. But that hugely glaring error aside, you still have to grapple with a sacrificing Savior who has to die somehow. Let’s say no one killed Jesus. Let’s say he died from amoebic dysentery at the age of 53. What good would that have done? Why can’t people think this through? If you believe the Jesus-as-sacrifice story, and also believe that the Jews caused his death even if they didn’t actually do the killing, then you should be eternally grateful to the Jewish people for having done so. Otherwise you have no Christianity, do you? Christians, think this through, will you?
But what is so troublesome and mystifying about all this is that a newspaper with the prestigious reputation of The New York Times would present the swirling controversies surrounding The Passion of Christ as if the story of the life of Jesus were an undisputed fact and that only the details remain in question. Nothing could be further from the truth. Making it worse, the highly regarded purveyor of world news went on to quote Origen, a second-century Christian apologist, and Tertullian, a zealous second-century ecclesiastical Christian writer, as if they were somehow reliable sources. In this country, when it comes to Jesus, reason and logic are enthusiastically and almost universally suspended. Was there a historical Jesus? Most of us answer yes, with a vigorous nod of the head. We’re just not sure what he looked like. Well, my head is shaking with an equally vigorous NO!
There is an emotional, runaway, snowball effect whenever the Bible is mentioned. The general public does not doubt its veracity, just the exact meaning of its words. People wrangle over biblical minutiae, but rarely over the book’s veracity as a whole. Without tackling that subject right now, since I’ve done that many times before, I want to point out a salient fact that few people ever write about. Come to think of it, I don’t know if anyone has ever written about it. But I’m going to now.
Where are all the writings of Jesus? He supposedly lived in an era and a place where writing was common and abundant. To take just one prominent example, let’s consider another famous figure with the initials J. C. Dying a mere forty-four years before the supposed birth of Christ, Julius Caesar lived and ruled and wrote of his activities. To this day we have his Commentaries on the Gallic War, a collection of seven books, each covering one year of the campaign in Gaul between 58 and 52 BC. The better part of 400 pages altogether (in economical Latin!), the Commentaries are rich in detail about not only Caesar but the world he was conquering. Undoubtedly the greatest military commander since Alexander the Great, Caesar nevertheless was not later credited with miracles and being the Son of God and the Savior of Humankind and so on, yet we know so much about him, and a great deal from his own pen.
To go back further, two of the greatest works in Western literature are the Iliad and the Odyssey, both by the Greek poet Homer around eight centuries before the alleged birth of Jesus. Going back even further, the Egyptian "Book of the Dead" is a collection of Egyptian funerary literature. The texts consist of charms, spells, and formulas for use by the deceased in the afterworld. At first inscriptions, the texts were later papyrus rolls placed inside the mummy case. Essential ideas of Egyptian religion are known through them. The earliest collection is from the XVIII dynasty, 1580–1350 B. C. We’re talking old here. But we have access to them and can still read them today.
In stark contrast, that shadowy, silent character called Jesus Christ left not a word of his own. Why? Why did he write nothing? Was he illiterate? All we have are four very contradictory stories of his life, the so-called Gospels. They were all written after the destruction of the great temple in Jerusalem (for which there is much verification) which means that nothing was written about this Jesus until a minimum of 70 years after the birth of the purported miracle-worker. Why? The earliest Gospel, the Book of Mark (there was no one by that name; it’s just an identification mark) makes no reference at all to Jesus’ birth. The other three books mention scattered bits of a life, but they do not agree with each other. Paul, the real founder of Christianity, does not mention Jesus’ human family or human activities, but rather refers to him as an ephemeral, ethereal spirit of some kind.
How do we explain this mystery? Where are the words of Jesus himself? Surely this divine being had something to say in his own words. Why must we rely on third-hand accounts of highly questionable events? Didn’t Jesus ever send a letter to anyone? Did he find his thoughts not worthy of writing down? If Jesus did everything the Bible says he did, we should have mounds of scrolls written in his own hand, and further mounds of scrolls written about him at the time of his existence—not most of a century later. The Savior of the World, sent to earth to accomplish the most important assignment in the history of the world, doesn’t even leave us a note, let alone extended commentaries. Nothing. Not even a post card. This silence demands an explanation. Of course if such a Savior never existed, the silence makes obvious sense.
The burden of proof does not lie with me. I am not obligated to prove the nonexistence of Jesus, though I think I’m doing a pretty good job of it. No, Christians bear the sole responsibility for making this Jesus character believable, a part of human history. And yet, as was shown in my fruitless "debate" with a Christian not long ago, the impossibility of such proof rests in the Bible itself. It is the only reference to anyone named Jesus, and it can hardly be called a history book! There are a couple of awkwardly brief mentions of a "Christ" in a couple of other documents, though scholars long ago discredited them as later Christian interpolations. (And even if they weren’t, shouldn't the Savior of the World deserve more than a couple of footnotes in history?) Here is all the proof there is: The Bible says there was a Jesus. If you ask how Christians know the Bible to be true, they will say, "Because it’s the Word of God." If you ask how they know it’s the Word of God, they say, "Because it’s in the Bible!" Circular. Perfectly, geometrically circular.
Enter Mithra
A deity quite as believable as "Jesus" is known as Mithra. First a Persian God, Mithra was ultimately adopted by the Romans as they expanded their empire. Mithra held sway for seven hundred years, from the 5th century B. C. until the 2nd century A. D. This was no small God. Mithraism was similar to Christianity in many respects. For example, it emphasized baptism, the rite of communion, the use of holy water, the adoration of the shepherds at Mithra's birth, and the adoption of Sundays as holy days. And, most surprisingly of all, Mithra’s birthday was on December 25. What are the odds, huh? Mithraism taught the belief in the immortality of the human soul and the last judgment. But since Mithra pre-dated Jesus by a whopping half a millennium, I’d say it’s no contest. Mithra has dibs on December 25 and all the other religious rigmarole.
Most accounts of this religion refer to it as a "cult" which diminishes the importance of such a popular, long-lived, well-known theology. (What defines a cult? Answer: the IRS.) However, there is no denying that Mithra "existed" to the extent that he was worshipped. To that same extent Jesus "existed" because he is worshipped. But as to whether or not there was ever a real, live Jesus is highly questionable and, if judged by his own writings, he was a purely fictional character. Unless the Savior of the World was illiterate, he should at least have left us a note.
© 2004 Judith Hayes
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