Heretical musings on religion and culture from a literary scholar
My sister sent me the following chain letter, which goes into surprising detail about exactly how, physically, Jesus suffered on the cross. The point of the letter is to get you to feel his pain, which generates an emotional catharsis; it makes you first feel guilty, and then overwhelmingly grateful. Don't forget that this highly robust psycho-religious emotional experience was already being practiced by the Jewish women mourning for Tammuz in the Spring on the ...
I love this very convincing, clear and structured argument against the historical Jesus given by David Fitzgerald at Skepticon 3. David presents evidence and history that, while basic and easy to confirm, is widely unknown and goes against the common conception that most people have of Jesus Christ. Plus, David's delivery throws in gems of wit and humor, such as (commenting on unlikely it would have been for Jesus to throw out the moneychangers) "now either ...
Recently scholars identified what appears to be the world's earliest Christian inscription, dating to the second century. It is in the collection of the Capitoline Museums in Rome. Orthodox or mainstream Christians argue that Jesus, the historical man came first and that Gnosticism was a later, paganized offshoot of "real" Christianity - if this were true, we would expect the earliest records of Jesus Christ to be more down to earth; however this is the ...
When asked in a recent interview (The Infidel Guy Show) about the evidence for the historical Jesus, Bart Ehrman threw out the tired line "No Serious/No Reputable Scholar doubts that a historical Jesus existed." Ehrman's support of the historical Jesus is used by apologists to show how even extremely liberal theologians like Bart cannot bring themselves to doubt a historical Jesus (the title of one blog post is "Atheist Stumped by Overwhelming Evidence for Jesus' ...
If you're looking for a late-summer read, check out the book "Jesus Potter Harry Christ." It claims that both Harry and Jesus are spiritual metaphors told in the literary form of historical fiction. The paperback is selling well on amazon, but we'd like to print hardcover copies - so we've set up a page on kickstarter.com where you can get a better deal and some great freebies by supporting the project. Thanks! Click here for the ...
One of the literary threads I hope to investigate in the future is the tie between vampirism and the ancient tradition of linking death and marriage together; many religions deal with death as an intimate reunion or marriage with a god of the underworld such as Hades or Dionysus. Much of this symbolism was later preserved in Christianity. The following is a paper I wrote recently for a PhD course on Antigone (by Sophocles) Death, Marriage ...
Did Jesus Christ really resurrect from the grave after three days? Probably not, it turns out. In 2008 archaeologists found a stone tablet that tells of a Jewish rebel hero who died and came back to life after three days. Jesus? No! His name was Simon, and he lived decades before Jesus. What we learn from this is that the Jews already had a template of the messiah that they expected, and they began applying ...
Last Month Chuck Colson - Christian leader, cultural commentator, and former Special Counsel for President Richard Nixon - commented on my book, Jesus Potter Harry Christ. His central criticism of my book is weak, desperate and unfounded - in fact I write quite a bit about CS Lewis and Tolkien in the book so I doubt Colson has read more than the introduction or summary. But I'd like the opportunity to address the issue, which ...
A big part of the research I've been doing in the past decade has focused on historical Jesus research: how much of the gospel story is literature, and how much (if any) is based on firm historical fact. For my Master's thesis in comparative literature, I tied in this research with the fictional character of Harry Potter, to demonstrate that Jesus, like Harry, may have been a cumulative adaptation of many previous mythologies. Now that the ...
Recently in an online discussion of the historical Jesus and my book Jesus Potter Harry Christ, Hans Andréa from Harry Potter for Seekers responded to a question about Jesus' existence with an insightful commentary. Since I agree with Hans' conclusions regarding how and to what extent Jesus Christ existed or continues to exist, and since I couldn't find his post on Google (does Google index Yahoo group discussions?) I'm reposting it with some comments of ...
If you're interested in religious mythology, astrological symbolism, or supernatural folklore, grab my book Gods of Myth and Man. You can go buy it on Amazon.
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