A cogent intellectual article on the origin of the Christ tale by Prof.
Leeman McHenry Phd.

The Christ myth

The Divinity of Jesus

Is Jesus of Nazareth the Christ, the one and only Son of God? The Church
is
a conspiracy to conceal the true origins of the Christ myth. The core of
this belief involves a virgin birth of the half God, half human savior who
dies, is resurrected, ascends into heaven and brings salvation to the
faithful followers. The problem for Christians is that all of the parts of
this narrative are told in a number of ways in ancient Mediterranean
culture
and date back almost two thousand years before the birth of Jesus.
Christianity borrowed from the Pagan religions of Mithras, Dionysus,
Attis,
Osiris, and Orpheus
.
The legend of the Greek god of intoxication, Dionysus is particularly
striking for comparative purposes. Like Jesus, Dionysus was also meant to
have been born on the Winter Solstice, the son of a divine father and a
virgin mother. Followers of Dionysus celebrated his "advent" with a
newborn
baby placed in a winnowing basket. Both Dionysus and Jesus were hailed the
King of Kings, both died-Dionysus at the hands of the Titans, Jesus at the
hands of his Jewish accusers in Imperial Rome. Both were reborn-Dionysus
ascended to Olympus, Jesus to heaven-both to sit at the right hand of
their
father.
The 25th of December is the day Christians celebrate the birth of their
Lord
and Savior, yet no one knows the true birth date of Jesus, if he existed
at
all. In ancient Rome, the winter solstice was a season of festivals for
many
pagan religions. Rome celebrated Saturnalia from 17 December to 24
December.
The 25th was Brumalia that commemorated the birth of the new sun and the
supposed birth of the Persian god, Mithra, the Sun King popular with the
Roman army. Early Christians celebrated the 6th of January as the birth of
Jesus, but when Christian themes merged with pagan practices, the Pope
appropriated the earlier date and moved the birth of Jesus in order to
unseat Mithra and make Christianity acceptable to the heathen. The 6th of
January then became known as The Feast of the Magi, or Three Kings Day.

To make matters worse, the sixth-century monk who invented the B.C.- A.D.
system, Dionysius Exiguus, made an error in calculating the year Jesus was
supposedly born. Dionysius, instructed to prepare a chronology by Pope St.
John I, followed the practice of counting from the foundation of Rome and
reckoned Jesus' birth at the 25th of December 753 A.U.C. (ab urbe condita,
or "from the foundation of the city"). Dionysisus restarted the clock on
1st
January 754 A.U.C, the feast of the circumcision also coinciding with New
Year's Day in the Roman calendar. 1 January now becomes A.D. (Anno Domini,
or "in the year of our lord"). The trouble with Dionysius' calculation,
however, is that Herod died in 750 A.U.C. So, if Jesus and Herod
overlapped
as the Gospels affirm, then Jesus must have been born sometime in the year
4
B.C, or earlier. [8J

There is no question about the beauty of the Christ myth-its humanity and
divinity, pathos, tragedy and eternal promise-but a myth it is. What
begins
with pagan and Hebrew elements becomes universal, metaphysical, and ideal
by
an infusion of Greek thought. Moreover, since salvation depended on having
the right beliefs, a simple,
humble message becomes increasingly convoluted as medieval scholars sought
clarification. For the pious devotees, however, it is as if the entire
religion sprang whole and complete from a manger in Bethlehem.
An examination of the early history of Christianity shows us the eclectic
nature of the movement and political motives of popes to advance the
cause,
all of which cast doubt on the claim of divinity.

Miracles and Superstition

The belief in miracles is an essential part of Catholic faith, for one
could
hardly profess to be a Catholic and deny the virgin birth of Jesus or his
resurrection from the dead. Jesus, we are told, also walked on water,
healed
the sick and lame, and brought dead men back to life as proof of his
divinity. But Catholics must also believe many more miracles than those
performed by Jesus. There are, for example, the miracles allegedly
performed
by saints. Then of course there is the miracle of the Eucharist. Hoc est
corpus, or "this is the body," allegedly mispronounced as "hocus pocus"
and
incorporated into magic acts, is recited in Mass as the priest raises the
Host and turns bread and wine into body and blood. While anthropologists
will tell us that this cannibalistic ritual of consuming deity is fairly
common in primitive societies, Catholics are meant to believe that this
miracle-the literal transformation of bread and wine into body and blood
of
Jesus Christ- occurs at each Mass.
This is the very crux of a great deal of irrationality and superstition
that
subverts natural reason and common sense. Yet it is very difficult to
recognize the distinction between sense and nonsense .fr~m. within because
Catholics are taught from the earliest years to believe in supernatural
violations in the order of nature. Childhood indoctrination in the absurd
teaches submission to dogmatic authority, wrongly believed to be a virtue.

Popular accounts of contemporary miracles, or extra-canonical miracle
phenomena, have led to the creation of the Church Commission of Inquiry-a
"Miracle Verification Unit." Criteria are set for distinguishing true
miracles from frauds, hoaxes, moneymaking schemes and the enhancement of
tourist business for impoverished villages in Ireland, Italy, Mexico, and
Bosnia. The problem, however, is a slippery slope. Admit one supernatural
violation of the natural order and Pandora's Box is open, including the
miracles upon which other religions are founded. How does the Catholic
Church, engaged in a profitable miracle business since its inception,
distinguish the true nonsense from the false nonsense? And while the
Church
officials are rightly concerned about cooperations, they are often
reluctant
to disappoint the popular movements of the faithful. There are accounts of
Hosts that have bled, turned into flesh, and levitated, thereby
reinforcing
the Church's doctrine of the Real Presence. Then we have the accounts of
stigmata and apparitions. Statues of Our Lady have spoken, brought cures,
wept blood or tears. The faithful have flocked to see stains on windows
and
fungi on trees interpreted as messages that Our Lady cares for her
children.
This feminine perspective in an all-male Church hierarchy has led to the
growing popularity of pilgrimages to the holy sites where the Blessed
Virgin
Mary appeared to children and to comatose patients who have healed those
in
their presence while unable to heal themselves.
The eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher, David Hume, provided a
penetrating analysis of miracles in the draft of his A Treatise of Human
Nature (1739). Fearing the displeasure of divines, he says, he castrated
the
book of its nobler parts by deleting the essay on miracles, but then
included it in his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748). Hume
makes
several points that should cause any reasonable person to doubt the
accounts
of miracles passed down through the centuries. The ignorant and uneducated
greedily partake of accounts of miracles because human nature is such that
we love the marvelous and wondrous narratives that entertain and delight.
Common sense ends when the spirit of religious belief is joined with the
love of wonder. Anyone who rejects this as a plausible explanation for the
popularity of belief in miracles should consider the amazing success of
tabloid media such as the National Inquirer or the ever-growing popularity
of accounts of alien abductions and crop markings by spaceships. Priests,
Hume contends, know that their narrative is false, "yet persevere in it,
with the best intentions in the world, for the sake of promoting so holy a
cause." [91 "But what greater temptation than to appear a missionary, a
prophet, an ambassador from heaven? Who would not encounter many dangers
and
difficulties, in order to attain so sublime a character?" [101 Hume notes
that the further back in history one goes, the more reports of miracles
one
finds. "When we peruse the first histories of all nations, we are apt to
imagine ourselves transported into some new world; where the whole frame
of
nature is disjointed." But as we advance to more modern and enlightened
times, the accounts of miracles "grow thinner every page." [11]

Since Hume was a celebrated historian as well as a philosopher, he knew
quite well how stories of miracles begin and proliferate in the first
histories of all nations. In his own History of England (1754-1762), he
recounts the tale of Joan of Arc as a prime example. Joan of Arc became
the
national heroine and patron saint of France when she united the nation in
1429 and turned the Hundred Year's War in the favor of France. According
to
the traditional story, when the English were about to capture Orleans,
Joan,
a simple shepherdess girl, believed she heard voices of saints instructing
her to help the Dauphin, later Charles VII, king of France, and repel the
English attack. She succeeded in convincing him she was on a divine
mission
to save France, a board of theologians approved her claims, and she was
given troops to command. With God's blessing, and dressed in a suit of
armor, Joan led France to victory.

Hume shows how the tale is embellished over time and given ever more
religious and supernatural interpretation, whereas in fact, it has a
fairly
simple and natural explanation. First, Joan tended the horses at the Local
inn, but becomes a shepherdess in the story because )f its biblical
implications. Her amazing ability in handling her horse was however taken
as
fresh proof of her divine mission. Second, Joan herself was so inflamed
with
the sentiment of saving Orleans that she was seized with the wild desire
of
bringing relief to her sovereign. As Hume writes: "Her inexperienced mind,
working day and night on this favourite object, mistook the impulses of
passion for heavenly inspirations; and she fancied that she saw visions.
and
heard voices exhorting her to re-establish the throne of France, and to
expel the foreign invaders."

Third, given the demoralized condition of the French army, the Dauphin and
the theologians realized the political opportunity in Joan's account to
motivate soldiers to fight again. And it worked for France even though
Joan
herself was captured by the English and burned at the stake.

Hume defines a miracle as a transgression of a law of nature by a
particular
volition of Deity, and lays down the principle: "that no testimony is
sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind,
that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it
endeavours to establish." [13] Since it is no great mystery that human
beings lie, are deceived or so overwhelmed with enthusiasm and passion for
their cause that they are untroubled about fact, it is always unreasonable
to believe accounts of miracles.

So, we are to infer from Hume's general principle and his view of human
nature that the Apostles who witnessed the miracles of Jesus and the
Gospels
that record these events are passionate and enthusiastic endorsements of
the
good word of the prophet but like all such accounts in the religions of
the
world are literally false. The role of eloquence in exciting the passions
and the imagination leaves little room for reason or reflection, and Hume
says, "captivates the willing hearers, and subdues their understanding."
[14]

Mythos to Logos

Catholicism, in its long history, has been mainly characterized by
unjustified and self- righteous claims of universality, intolerance of
other
religious traditions, greed for wealth, and the lust for power to inflict
fear and ultimate punishment for dissenters. What began as a humble sect
of
dissenters themselves, acquired the massive political bureaucracy of
Imperial Rome with the conversion of Constantine. The Roman Empire became
the medium in which Christianity flourished. It then took on the character
of its oppressor with the same directive to conquer the territory of the
barbarian in the name of Our Lord and Savior. Nothing short of world
domination would ~e satisfactory.

The case against Catholicism is not a wholesale attack on religion,
although
religion has more often thwarted moral, social, and scientific progress,
and
aggravated ethnic rivalries. Recent wars between Catholics and Protestants
in Northern Ireland, Christians and Muslims in Bosnia and Serbia, Hindus
and
Muslims in India and Pakistan, and Jews and Muslims in Israel are a case
in
point. All are fought with the fanaticism of ultimate religious
justification including the misguided promise of martyrdom. But the
impulse
to give expression to the eternal is a necessary element in human
existence.
s twentieth-century British philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, makes the
point: "Apart from religion, expressed in ways generally intelligible,
populations sink into the apathetic task of daily survival, with minor
alleviations." [15]

What then is the alternative to the dogmatism and fanaticism of religious
fundamentalism? That is, what alternative is there aside from pure
atheism,
admirable as might be to those disenchanted with the bellicose nature )f
traditional religion? The first task is the simple recognition that
religion
is not identical to goodness, and hat a rational tradition is needed to
remind us of this fact
problem is that religion appeals to emotion, not to reason. It demands
absolute loyalty to the creed, not critical reflection on it. Second, a
religion without hubris requires re-thinking the foundations and the
meaning
of the message.
Philosophia, the love of wisdom, began in sixth-century B.C. Greece when a
group of thinkers rejected the mythological narratives of their
predecessors
in order to speculate freely on the nature of the universe. Following
their
lead, instead of teaching dogmatic adherence to a mythological tradition,
we
should recognize the truths or values that the stories symbolize and show
how they are common elements in many religious traditions. Religion errs
most when it mistakes history for myth, or when it stands against
scientific
discovery and inevitably suffers its most humiliating defeat. Facts are
not
to be confused with values. The teachings of Moses, Jesus, Buddha, and
Muhammad are expressions of ultimate value and prescriptions for the good
life. However much we might diverge in our understanding of these notions
or
in the rituals associated with them, people should welcome the religious
diversity in society and pursue common ethical doctrines. Something of
this
sort is advocated by Benedictus Spinoza in his Tractatus Theologico
Politicus (1670), a work with the aim of recommending full freedom of
thought and religious practice. Few have heeded his advice, but as nations
become more diverse and our global village expands, Spinoza's message of
toleration for seventeenth-century Netherlands is all the more relevant.


Professor Leemon Mc Henry studied philosophy at the University of
Edinburgh,
Scotland, and now teaches at California State University, Northridge.


NOTES

1. Benedict Spinoza, The Philosophy of Spinoza, trans. R. H. M. Elwes (New
York: Tudor Publishing Company, 1955), p. 380.
2. Martin Luther, The Works of Martin Luther, Volume 1, ed. and trans.
Adolph Spaeth, L.D. Reed, Henry Eyster Jocobs, et al. (Philadelphia: A J.
Holman Company, 1915), p. 25Prof. Leemon McHenry studied philosophy at the
University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and now teaches at California State
University, Northridge.
3. Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1929), p. 485
4. Joseph A. Bracken, S. J., Review of A Brief Liberal,
Catholic Defense of Abortion, by Daniel A.
Dombrowski and Robert Deltete, Process Studies
30.1 (2001), p. 177
5. Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume H (New
York: The Heritage Press), p. 1476
6. Wallace Matson, A New History of Philosophy, Volume Two: From Descartes
to Searle (Fort Worth: Harcourt Publishers, 2000), p. 310.
7. The New Testament, The Letter of Paul to the Colossians 2:8
8. Stephen Jay Gould, Questioning the Millennium (New York, Harmony Books,
1999), p. 134.
9. David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (Oxford:
Clarendon
Press, 1927), p.
118.
10. ibid., p. 125
11. ibid., p. 119
12 David Hume, The History of England, Volume I! (London: Brita Press,
1824), p. 9
13 David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, pp. 115-116.
14. ibid. p.118
15. Alfred North Whitehead, "An Appeal to Sanity," Atlantic Monthly,
Volume
163, March, 1939, p. 318



--
Bill

History always deals in myth or vice versa.

A cogent intellectual article on the origin of the Christ tale by Prof.
Leeman McHenry Phd.

The Christ myth

The Divinity of Jesus

Is Jesus of Nazareth the Christ, the one and only Son of God? The Church is
a conspiracy to conceal the true origins of the Christ myth. The core of
this belief involves a virgin birth of the half God, half human savior who
dies, is resurrected, ascends into heaven and brings salvation to the
faithful followers. The problem for Christians is that all of the parts of
this narrative are told in a number of ways in ancient Mediterranean culture
and date back almost two thousand years before the birth of Jesus.
Christianity borrowed from the Pagan religions of Mithras, Dionysus, Attis,
Osiris, and Orpheus

A cogent intellectual article on the origin of the Christ tale by Prof.
Leeman McHenry Phd.

The Christ myth

The Divinity of Jesus

Is Jesus of Nazareth the Christ, the one and only Son of God?

The Church is
a conspiracy to conceal the true origins of the Christ myth.

A cogent intellectual article on the origin of the Christ tale by Prof.
Leeman McHenry Phd.
The Christ myth
The Divinity of Jesus
Is Jesus of Nazareth the Christ, the one and only Son of God? The Church is
a conspiracy to conceal the true origins of the Christ myth.