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The Christiam Myth

posted October 29, 2006 - 9:47pm
The Christiam Myth

Religion and history has always been sort of fuzzy. There's never really any proof for the accounts they preach as truth. In my reading up on spirituality, i was struck by the idea that its possible for the identity of Jesus is not one man, but many. The council at Nicea was the birthplace of conventional christianity. Gospels and other inclusions to the Bible were voted on in terms of validity of accounts, but also what those in power wanted to convey to keep a patriarchal society.

I wondered if a comparison could be made between Jesus and Don Juan from the Carlos Castaneda series, where Don Juan was a man but many different holy seers, and in some accounts, total fiction. Castaneda lost credibility, but the real meat of what he was saying was how to live a good life, how to the right path, how to gain higher consciousness. In contrast, we as westerners look upon the greek myths with great admiration, they are romanticized, and they are told with the same intent as the Don Juan tales. Yet for some reason there isn't the same kind of damnation Castaneda brought upon himself.

Jesus is not a man in the lives of the people who worship him, he is a mythic figure. People will recount his actions in the same way the greeks would recount the tales of their gods, but the greeks understood something that many christians do not. They never took their myths to heart as fact, just sort of guidelines to live by. The stories in the old testament are just as impossible in nature as those of Zeus banishing Hades to the underworld, or as Aman-Ra over seeing the egyptian people.

This is merely a rhetorical question, doubtful to ever be answered. But is Jesus the myth the same as Jesus the man? And in that light should we view him as a path to truth, or just some guidelines to live by?

Author: Spinonawhim
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Comments

Christ

Guardian - Mon, 2006-13-11 7:34 am
I for one am a follower of Jesus, and what I have to say will probebly be considered zany by some, and completely crazy by others. Now, you look at Christ through the eyes of history, spirituality and myth. Which is perfectly understandable. But I experiance Christ at a vastly more personal level. I read the Bible like I do the old journal of a friend, to find out about where they have been, and what they have done. But when you are friends with someone, you don't spend all your time reading their diary, no, you go out into the world with them, you talk with them, they help you out, you help them out (even if they dont really need help). This is Jesus to me. He is a personal friend. So I dont know about mythic Jesus, or historical Jesus, I just know the Jesus who's presence I live my life in. -Peace-

Good Question

Joe Snare - Wed, 2006-1-11 9:21 am
I think you have put your finger on a good question or two. As one who worships Jesus, I agree that he is a mythic figure in my life. Unlike many Christians, I don't try to discern the accuracy of the "stories" or histories about Jesus, this would be claiming omniscience. I only know there are too many contradictions in the bible for me to take it all at "face value." What is fact is fact and what is not, is not, but I don't have to know it all. I worship him because he gave us permission to worship and not have to feel foolish about it, even though it is foolish by the standards of the physical world. I think he recognized the need for us fools to find someone we can trust entirely not to take advantage of us, to have someone we can love (and express that love to) with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, and feel good about it. This is perhaps only possible when he is a myth -- the minute you start "clouding the issue with facts," he becomes a little less likeable to one person than to another. (Sorry this is getting kind of long here, this is a subject I have dabbled in writing about.) I'm not sure about your opinion of the Ancients not really believing their myths. Do you have something to back this up? I've wondered about it myself. It seems that billions of people today take their myths, including political myths, to be true. Wouldn't that suggest that Ancient peoples did the same thing? I'd like to learn more about that if anyone has a reference. Lastly, Jesus is quoted as saying, "Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth..." I find this one of the most powerful and perplexing passages in the bible, for how can we know "the truth" when so much of it seems to have been clouded by the pens and imaginations of fickle men? I sure as heck am not going to take Rev. Falwells' word on it. www.joesnare.com

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