THE LOST TOMB OF JESUS AND HISTORICAL REALITY
Well now! After last weeks essay on “The Lost Tomb Of Jesus” many of you are probably quite convinced of its genuineness. Or think that I am convinced of its genuineness despite my having repeatedly said I am not. So, I will now make an excellent case that it isn’t really the “lost tomb of Jesus” because Jesus isn’t real. In order to demonstrate the fraudulent nature of the “Lost Tomb of Jesus” I will not even need to address the myriad arguments in favor of the genuineness of the tomb which I put forth in my previous article. Why? Read on. J
As a boy I greatly enjoyed the myth of the demigod (godman) Hercules. My friend Mark Wheeler and I would take turns being Hercules while the other was The Mighty Thor or The Hulk, or The Minotaur. In our minds we rippled with awesome muscles like Steve Reeves. Many epic battles for the Fate of the World were fought behind the barn on Marks’ property, as Hercules battled the minions of evil and dispatched them all! By the time I was thirteen I was no longer even vaguely interested in the myth of Hercules or any other superhero. Females had blotted almost everything else out of my consciousness and it was a real effort to think about anything else. Sound familiar?
A decade or so ago I was channel surfing, and an ad for “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys Continue” popped onto the screen. What was my reaction? “OH WOW MAN! HERCULES IS REAL AFTER ALL!” No. I’m sorry to disappoint you if you were hoping I’m off my bean, completely daft and barmy. I’m not. (At least, not yet. Give me another decade on this whirling ball of rock and dirt and maybe I will be) No, my reaction was, “All right! A new action-adventure show!” By that time in my life, my early forties, my interest in mythology had been rekindled. I was beginning to understand the place and power of Myth ala Joseph Campbell. So I wound up becoming a big fan of the show, as well as a fan of Xena. My wife and I even went to Hercules conventions and Xena conventions, though we didn’t go in costume. (I did meet a very tall female fan dressed as Xena who was way more gorgeous than Lucy Lawless. She made me drool. My wife was not pleased)
The atmosphere at those gatherings was electric! They felt the way early Christain gatherings must have felt as the fans of the superhero Jesus Christ came together to swap stories of their superhero and undergo way kewl initiation rituals as well as ritual re-enactments of major events in the life of their Archetypal Superhero, Jesus Christ. Just like a Hercules or Star Trek convention!
Anyway, I think I have a fairly good grasp of the “feel” of an early Christian gathering. It was very much like a Hercules or Xena gathering. The Gnostics were well aware of the mythological nature of Jesus Christ, just as Hercules and Xena fans are aware of the mythological nature of their heroes. The Gnostics knew (wordplay intended) that Jesus Christ is in fact a Jewish version of Osiris, Mithras, Attis, Adonis, and many other virgin-born godman superheroes that “rose from the dead.”. They were big fans of these mythical superheroes because the myths had great POWER in their lives EXACTLY as the superheroes of Star Trek, Star Wars, and even Hercules and Xena have in the lives of their fans. If it’s difficult for you to comprehend or feel the Power of Myth, then I strongly urge you to attend one of these conventions. You will see and feel the life-altering Power these myths have in the lives of their fans! It’s palpable and real, and is exactly the same as the meetings of the early Christians! Your ideas about these people are probably bogus. You’ll meet doctors, lawyers--Indian chiefs--as well as teachers, secretaries, business owners, college professors, and every type of person. My wife and I even met Jay Leno at such a convention! So, drop the stereotype that these people are mostly crazy losers.It’s too bad that two millennia of slaughter and oppression has soured forever the Jesus Myth in the minds of so many millions. Hercules has no such PR problem because no Church of Hercules ever went forth and decapitated people, or confiscated their property, or mutilated and murdered their spouses and kids in the name of Hercules. Hercules hasn’t been pounded up our collective butts and shoved down our collective throats, and we don’t have to say “Merry Hercmas!” to each other every year and buy stuff for each other celebrating the birth of Hercules.
I love raspberries. I mean, I LOVE RASPBERRIES! But if they were forced on me every which way by the world, I would soon despise them. So too a world that has had Jesus forced on them every which way has grown to despise Jesus. Hence new heroes, new demigods, have been invented to take his place and that’s fine. I like it and I think it’s healthy for people to have many choices of superheroes to emulate, and to have many opportunities to play out scenes of Mythic proportions at various gatherings. They’refun and they bring a very real sense of mystery, adventure, possibilities, hope, and even Transcendence to the fans! I’m sure it was great fun to be an early Christian, to have been initiated into the Cosmic Drama, to have died and resurrected into Godhood through the various initiation rituals, to have achieved Immortality!
Modern psychology, sociology and anthropology have shown how important these Myths and rituals are to a people. They hold a nation together by giving them a shared identity, giving them a way to transcend their ordinary mundane lives, and to identify with a god, an immortal, a universal Archetype ala CG Jung, and project themselves into the Sky. It’s a way to transcend death in the here and now, to lose ones fear of death. Myth and ritual are essential to the psychosocial health of individuals and nations. Sadly, our national Myth is old and tired and has been slimed by literalists and thereby rendered toxic, radioactive, and repugnant to many millions. So, the New Gods have arrived and taken the place of the demigod Jesus.
Meanwhile, the Christian churches fulminate, and exacerbate an already brittle situation by continuing to force-feed Jesus to all of us, pounding him up our collective wazoo via political action and public school curricula. Madness! The Christian churches are reaping their just rewards in lost membership, lost credibility, and public disgust and distrust. Even the people who “believe in Jesus” are morose angry people, very touchy-touchy, because Jesus Christ Superstar hasn’t returned to Earth and raptured them away. They’re “Waiting For Godot” and will continue to do so until the religion finally dies out or the sun goes nova, whichever comes first.
Can you imagine how the early Gnostics felt when the first literalist nut jobs made their debut? If you can’t, then picture yourself at a Star Trek convention, and suddenly a group of what appear to be fellow fans walk in, dressed as Klingons. They proceed to gun down those who refuse to say that Kirk, Spock and McCoy are a literal Holy Trinity! Pretty funny, huh? Pretty whacked, huh? I couldn’t agree more. Except that it really isn’t funny because it actually happened. Unimaginative, cloddish, monochromatic minded fleshbots invaded the assemblies of Gnostics and forced them to confess that Jesus is a real flesh-and-blood demigod who died for their sins and then got up, brushed himself off, and flew away into the sky without an airplane. (Cue Twilight Zone music)
It’s hard to fathom, isn’t it? We’ve been so conditioned to believe that JESUS IS REAL (even if he wasn’t a demigod) that such comparisons collide with a huge wall in our minds. “No! Jesus was REAL! Jesus was REAL!” some odd recording from deep inside us keeps playing like a continuous loop of magnetic tape. Our adult critical thinking skills have kicked in--for many of us not all--and we know Jesus didn’t walk on water or die for our “sins” and rise from the dead and then fly away. But we can’t seem to get rid of that irritating little taped message deep in our subconscious, so we strike a deal with that part of our brain. “Brain,” we say, “I’ll believe Jesus existed if you lay off the crazy stuff, okay?” “Okay” the program responds, and we find inner peace about Jesus.
This strange halfway point is called “evemerism.” The folks who hold to this view are a vast multitude, many of them still going to church and not really understanding why. They receive no benefit from the Myth, in fact it bores the hell out of them and annoys the bejesus out of them. They hate forking over hard-earned cash to some glad-handed pompous nitwit in a clerical collar who repeats fables with the seriousness of a heart attack. These misguided confused evemerists believe Jesus (or Buddha or Krishna) is real, and that all sorts of wild stories accreted to him after his death. They think Jesus was deified after his death by his followers who made up outlandish stories about him. Not so.
The outsized stories and events of the Christ and Buddha are the very web and woof, the very fabric, of the Mythos. Not something added later.
I too have been culturally conditioned, and I have that weird little taped message going on in my head saying “Jesus is REAL! Jesus is REAL!” Fortunately, I have been meditating a long time and that has been instrumental in my freeing myself of the taped message, the cultural propaganda. It’s not completely gone though, not yet, because part of me would still like to see Jesus Christ turn out to be a historical person. So, a small part of me is an evemerist, though it’s fading. About 99.9% of my mind is free of it and sees Jesus Christ as a Myth just like Luke Skywalker or Captain Kirk.
The fact is that not only is there no historical evidence that Jesus Christ ever existed, there is a veritable Mount Everest of powerful and compelling evidence that he is simply one of the many Godmen myths, the dying and rising virgin-born demigods such as Osiris, Attis, Adonis, etc. That’s why “The Lost Tomb Of Jesus” isn’t really the tomb of Jesus Christ. What would you think if someone were to find the Lost Tomb Of Superman? Would you take it seriously? You would if you had been raised in a culture that propagandized you from birth that Superman aka Kal-El was a real man, an actual semi-divine visitor from the planet Krypton, the only-begotten son of Jor-El. (El is Hebrew for God by the way) Let’s compare two demigods:
Superman is faster than a speeding bullet!
Jesus can instantly teleport from one location to another!
Superman can change the course of mighty rivers!
Jesus can walk on those rivers!
Superman can bend steel with his bare hands!
Jesus can strike a fig tree dead with a word!
Superman has the strength of thousands!
Jesus can call upon twelve legions of angels!
Superman has x-ray vision!
Jesus can read thoughts!
Superman died and rose from the dead!
Jesus died and rose from the dead!
Superman can fly without any means of propulsion or the principles of aerodynamics!
Jesus can fly without any means of propulsion or the principles of aerodynamics!
Superman can change a lump of coal into a diamond!
Jesus can change water into wine!
And so forth. Hopefully I’m making my point. You’re a thoroughgoing mythicist when it comes to Superman aka Kal-El, the only begotten son of Jor-El. But you’re probably an evemerist when it comes to Jesus Christ, the only-begotten son of Yah-El.. That’s because you’ve been propagandized and programmed with meshuggenah literalism since Day One and it continues unabated. Almost everyone around you shares the delusion, so it’s very difficult to shake free of the weird childish consensual reality, especially if JC Superstar was once your raison de etre. (Travel to Japan or China or Vietnam and you will meet multitudes of people who see Jesus Christ very clearly as the Myth that he is. Sadly, they have their own Mythic Superhero, the Buddha. Most of them in this day and age are Buddhist evemerists, not yet thoroughgoing mythicists.)If you’re an evemerist, you use your adult critical thinking faculties fully when you are confronted with Superman but not when confronted with Superstar. I see a problem here. Do you see a problem? If not, I see a problem.
So, how do I KNOW that Jesus Christ is entirely mythological i.e. nonfactual and unreal? I’m not going to reinvent the wheel in this column and wear my keyboard and my fingers out. Splendid scholars have already done the research and writing and have marvelous books published that prove beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt for reasonable and reasoning people that JC is not historical but mythological. These books are a must-have must-read for anyoneclaiming to have an intelligent modern grasp of the origin of religion. In order of my own preference nothing more these books are:
Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled by Acharya S.
The Christ Conspiracy by Acharya S.
The Jesus Puzzle by Earl Doherty
The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man by Robert Price.
Deconstructing Jesus by Robert Price.
If you can only afford one book, get either Suns of God or The Christ Conspiracy. Then read it at least once and let the truth soak deep into your mind. A second or third or even fourth reading would not be a waste of your time given the breadth and depth of the material. Oh, and watch any of these short You Tube video to get a delightful and insightful taste of the treats in store for you in the above books! J
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ-kvw1fYXshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNhGQYo4yZs&mode=related&search = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGbJpGlwjyU&mode=related&search = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23dS1WSM51c&mode=related&search = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BOd8fKshD8&mode=related&search =
Now, just for a few minutes, pretend with me that we’ve found a culture on another planet that believes Star Trek is an actual historical account of real happenings ala “Galaxy Quest” starring Tim Allen. (GREAT flick!) As outsiders who lived during the time of the creation of Star Trek, we know darn well it’s mythological, yet to these people the episodes are revered as The Holy Literal Word. To these people, Captain Kirk, Mister Spock, and Doctor McCoy are demigods that once literally roamed the galaxy in their starship, making life safe for the good guys.
Some of the folks, however, have thoroughly investigated the matter and are convinced it’s inane drivel of no value at all. These are the “atheists.”
Others are convinced it’s 100% real, and have a long history of fiendishly torturing, dismembering, and horribly murdering those who do not believe it’s all real. These are the “fundamentalists” or True Believers. Some of the more progressive True Believers are aghast at the violent behavior of their sick twisted brethren in the faith, but they too believe.
There are also those who realize it’s completely made up, entirely mythical, existing for the purposes of entertainment as well as a source of social cohesion, inward transformation, and mystical transcendence. These are the “mythicists.”
Yet another group believes that most of the fabulous events and technology such as star-ship battles, photon torpedoes, phasers, transporters, warp-drives, communicators, tricorders, etc., are fictional. However, they believe that Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scottie, Uhura, really existed, and probably ventured into space in a primitive craft, and after their deaths their hero status became so great that the entire Star Trek story-universe was spun around them. The various characters were deified. These are the “evermerists.” They speculate about how much of the Trek universe is real and how much is story-telling, but they’re convinced there is “something concrete and historical behind it all.” They think the “mythicists” are outrageously off the wall.
Meanwhile, the “mythicists” quietly see that all the others, to one degree or another, have inserted their heads in a sunless place, including the “atheists” who utterly reject the stories just because they are Myths. The “Star Trek atheists” see no value in the Trek Myths, being soulless fleshbots. Yet the “mythicists” know jolly well that Myths are an essential psychosocial ingredient in a healthy psyche and healthy society.
Now you can see clearly where you fit in the Jesus Christ controversy.! J
Okay, now what about that “Lost Tomb O’ Jesus” ?
It’s not the tomb of Jesus Christ, any more than the tomb of Superman could actually be the tomb of Superman, or the tomb of Mister Spock could actually be the tomb of Mister Spock! Once you’ve read one of the previously mentioned books, you’ll see that clearly. So, what is “The Lost Tomb Of Jesus?” It’s suspect for the same reason that a tomb of Superman or Spock would be suspect. Once you see that Jesus is no more real than Superman or Spock, you’ll look at this tomb quite differently. You’ll start asking questions, such as “Who would have stood to benefit from making a tomb of Jesus?” Not that it’s necessarily a modern forgery, as it could also be an ancient forgery, much as the shroud of Turin is an ancient forgery. The story of the Turin shroud is very instructive in this matter, so I’ll encapsulate it here:
The Turin shroud dumbfounded and befuddled generations of people after Secondo Pia first photographed it in 1898 and saw for the first time that the image on the shroud is actually already a negative image. So a photographic “negative” of the image is actually a highly detailed positive! Scientists were mystified. The gullible were convinced it’s the burial shroud of Jesus bearing a miraculous image of the crucified savior. The image is directionless, meaning it was not made by using brushstrokes or by swabbing material on it using any object at all.. The image is incredibly detailed, and a 3-D image of the man on the shroud can be generated using a modern computerized image analyzer. The image consists of dehydrated fibers on the uppermost layers of the uppermost fibers, not paint or any sort of pigment, although someone did put some red paint on the “blood“ areas at some point to make them look more realistic.. The man on the shroud is basically anatomically correct, including the blood stains having flowed and coagulated the way a real corpse would have if placed between a folded shroud. At five feet eleven inches he’s a wee bit tall for the time. Jewish men in the first century averaged five feet (the height of Danny Devito) and Roman men about five feet four. Lastly, the image fluoresces under ultraviolet light, which is a very strange feature. The image has no neck, the head floats disembodied. A couple of the fingers on one of the hands are much longer than normal, freakishly long.
This image flummoxed scientists, many scientists from many disciplines, who used every conceivable test--except carbon 14 dating--to try to figure out how and when it was made. Dr. Walter McCrone and Joe Nickell made quite a name for themselves traveling around the world and showing how they could reproduce the image using paint, a shroud, and a statue. The problem with their respective methods is that they didn’t really reproduce the characteristics of the shroud image, which is directionless, 3-D, and not composed of paint or any other coloring agent but of dehydrated fibers. Plus it fluoresces under ultraviolet light. Regardless, there were McCrone groupies and Nickell groupies, both quite sure they had it all figured out when in fact McCrone and Nickell hadn’t figured out anything except how to make some extra cash.
It was finally demonstrated to be a fraud by carbon-14 dating in 1988. Since that time the actual process of how it was made has been unraveled, using materials and technology available to medieval forgers. It’s actually the first known photograph, made using a quartz lens, silver nitrate, urine, and some other readily available materials known in medieval times. A “camera obscura” was used (Google “camera obscura” for a diagram and explanation), which was known in the Arab world in medieval times. Either an actual corpse or a realistic statue was used, with the sunlit body exposed, via a camera obscura, for a long period to a shroud made photosensitive by immersion in silver nitrate. Urine--which contains ammonia--was used to “fix” (chemically stabilize) the image after exposure.
Dr. Nicholas Allen was the first to reproduce the Turin shroud image in every aspect using these materials and methods, except that the image didn’t fluoresce under ultraviolet light. So, an optical-quality quartz lens such as would have been used in medieval times was substituted for the glass lens, and voila! The resulting image fluoresced under ultraviolet light. (Glass blocks UV rays to a large degree, quartz does not) Mission accomplished! It took many decades, hundreds of scientific specialists and millions of dollars, but the mystery was finally solved. Of course, shroud mavens continue to argue for the authenticity of the shroud, becoming Olympic level mental gymnasts in the process.
Who stood to profit from the forgery? The fellow who brought it back from the “holy land” (Geoffrey de Charny, a French knight) in 1355 and began to charge admission fees for the “faithful” to come and stare at it and worship it.
Remember, at this time in history there was Big Money to be made in selling “holy relics” to the “faithful” (read “gullible”) and dear Geoffrey the knight was in debt up to his visor. The breast milk of the Virgin Mary, pieces of the True Cross, pieces of bones from the saints, and all manner of nuttery and balderdash were hawked openly, and eagerly snapped up by the bovine populace. What can I say? Religion is, first and foremost, a racket.
Who actually forged the shroud of Turin? The chances are very good that it was forged by Muslim Arabs, since they alone possessed the scientific knowledge of optics and chemistry at the time to pull off a hoax of this magnitude. A hoax that stood for many centuries and took some of the greatest minds of the twentieth century many decades of sleuthing to finally figure out. The “Lost Tomb Of Jesus” will likely have a similar run in the public and scientific consciousness. It’s going to be fun, just as the shroud of Turin was fun. Ultimately it will be exposed as fraudulent, just as the Turin shroud was exposed as fraudulent, because Jesus Christ is a marvelous Myth just like Superman and Star Trek. It’s possible that “The Lost Tomb” is a modern fraud rather than an ancient fraud, and Cameron and company are the unwitting pawns of somebody with a devilishly delightful sense of humor. I don’t know just yet. No one does. So stay tuned. J