The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light

Very good book but watch the titles.....two different subtitles let me to believe I was buying two different books.

Recently the CBC in Canada aired a program which examined the views put forward by Theologian Tom Harpur in his bestselling book - The Pagan Christ. Harpur's book challenged the literalist view of Christianity and it is not the first time this position has been brought to light. The mythological figure of the dead and resurrected god-man have long been exposed as universal myth motif that has been enshrined by a long list of cultures predating Christianity as we know it today. The universality of this motif has been meticulously documented, not only by Harpur and one of his main references Gerald Massey, but also the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung and more recently Joseph Campbell. Jung wrote a detailed account of the origins of Christian myth motifs in "Symbols of Transformation" first compiled in 1920. He was later followed by Joseph Campbell whose most recognized work amongst many was "The Hero With A Thousand Faces". Massey's comparative examination of Christian religon and Egyptian myth produced a staggering number of points of comparison - roughly two hundred in number. His entire volume works are freely available online for examination. While the documentary focused mainly on the Egyptian figures of the Horus and Isis, they could have extended the list to many more mythological figures that share the same characteristics. A detailed comparative examination is included in Harpur's book and reveals a list that includes Tammuz, Adonis, Mithras, Dionysus, Krishna, amongst many others shared these key characteristics that are attributed exclusively to Christ - miraculous births, turning water into wine, death and resurrection, a spiritual leader accompanied by twelve deciples, to name only a few. Many of these motifs are not only confined to the Mediteranean cultures but can been seen in north american myths as well pointing to the fact that they products of human imagination that attempt in symbolic form to enshrine the immeasurable value of the human spirit. This spirit is myopically viewed as the life force found in the human emotion of love and is in many cultures extended to be the source of a broader range of qualtities that include creativity, memory and in some instances the very "the seat of intelligence". The journey of the archetypical hero in all of these myths was an attempt to enshrine the journey of self-discovery in stories so that they would inspire this inward journey and in turn draw the power of this force outward to the benefit of society. The path of literalism has left humanity and our collective psyche in a state of fragmentation by obsessing over the tribal peacock feathers of cultural forms and lead us to our present deplorable state that can nowhere be seen more clearly in the eternal Greek tradgedy of the middle east where the world's great religons face off in the endless insanity of war while they defend mythological belief structures that were originally intended to unite humanity by recognizing the common e

Tom Harpur has dared to ask the question most scholars avoid: What is the evidence for a historical Jesus? His answer is that there is none...nada...nothing and he backs it up with superb scholarship citing the writings of Dr. Alvin Boyd Kuhn (surely one of the great scholars of our day)and Gerald Massey (surely one of the most overlooked scholars of his day and ours). Harpur is one of a growing number of religious writers who are bringing to our attention that the Emperor has no clothes! There's an elephant in the room and it's about time someone admitted it. Harpur does just that. It's about time that New Testament scholarship gave us answers to the questions: What is the evidence for a historical Jesus? Could there have been a historical person upon whom Jesus is modeled? Is Jesus the Christian version of other pagan gods? Is Jesus based on the Joshua figure of the Old Testament? We wait for their response. To his great credit and courage Harpur has taken them on. It's my conviction that in time he will be proven correct. Rev. Larry Marshall

Tom Harpur's "The Pagan Christ" presents a convincing and lucid case that Christianity (and religion in general) can be revived by a return to its spiritual roots. He believes that the spirituality of Christianity has been eroded by the elevation of Jesus to equivalence with God. In fact, the myth of Jesus' virgin birth, martyr's death on the cross and Resurrection is common to ancient pagan myths, specifically of ancient Egypt. It was intended, like all myths, to be allegorical, and in this case the message is that the suffering of Jesus, like the suffering of man, leads to a spiritual oneness with God. As St. Paul said, "The spirit of God dwells in you," meaning that every person is "imbued with a latent divinity" (Carl Jung). Assigning divinity to Jesus alone detracts from this powerful spiritual concept. Jesus never claimed that he was the son of God, and believing it dilutes his message of love and forgiveness and humility. The idea that God is within every man is also the central tent of Gnosticism and Sufism. Hindus also believe that in their Heaven, Nirvana, the human soul is united with the World-Soul or supreme God. A return to the spiritual basis of religions will combat the fundamentalist trend of today, not only within Islam, but also within Christianity and other religions. Dogmatic adherence to ancient religious tenets and scriptures is not the way to spiritual revival. Max Swanson - author of "Religion Unplugged: Spirituality or Fanaticism?"

This is one of the most important books I've ever read. It gave me the tools I needed to renew my Christianity. I could not recomend it more highly. The Pagan Christ is a very important book. The conclusions are excellent the Christianity it points to, profound. It should be noted in light of some of the reviews that Harpur's comparison of Jesus to Horus and other resurrecting gods is nothing new and has been well substantiated by leading scholars. What Tom Harpur and his sources do that is so useful in today's world is explore what this means to modern Christianity. It is a hopeful message and a profound one. The statement made by an earlier reviewer that his sources could not be found in a who's who of egyptology is peculiar. I can find no such book, except the Who's Who of Ancient Egypt, which is about the characters of ancient egypt, not modern scholars; but more importantly because neither Harpur nor his three main sources ever purport to be major scholars of egyptology. They are inspired amateurs who see a larger picture that Christians desperately need to see. The importance of Harpur's three main sources, indeed of Harpur's book, is the discussion of one of the many dying/resurrecting man gods of ancient religion and the comparison to Jesus. It is an apt comparison. But would be no less so had these writers and Harpur chosen to focus their attention on Mitrhus, Hercules or Wodan. The stories of Horus which the book employs in this study are by no means obscure or difficult to find. It is not material which necessitates a major egyptologist. Nor would that be the point. The point is that the myth of Jesus is one of a great many such myths of the solar deity or dying and resurrecting god. The tragedy of Christianity is that this myth, so rich in inspiration has been cemented into "reality." The belief that the Jesus story really happened rather then it being a metaphor for the spiritual life has condemned Christianity to become but one more hot bed of fanatical fundamentalism. It is a tragedy. A tragedy that has sent man and women to the stake, has sent Medieval European soldiers stampeding into Jerusalem to recapture the Holy Land and has sent uncounted millions of Jews to their deaths, in every era for the "crime of killing God." This is the "rich" heritage of Christianity. Literalism has made Christianity a brutal religion. How tragic for us all. The Prince of Peace, in every era of history and prehistory, has taught us tolerance and bid us "peace be still." We would do well to read Tom Harpur's book with great care. It is an invitation to a Christianity that is deep and profound. It is the Christianity for which we all long.