Tom Harpur's false choices

Catholic New Times, July 4, 2004 by Scott M. Lewis

But the question of historicity is the most contentious. Throughout the book, 'historical' is treated as almost a pejorative term, for according to Harpur's definition of mythology, historical events represent truth of a lesser order than the mythological. He flatly denies the historical nature of Jesus, and of course those who accept the historical existence of Jesus are literalists. Much is made of the fact that in the first century, there is little in the way of historical corroboration of Jesus outside of Christian sources. But Why should there have been? Jesus was insignificant in the eyes of most and the Christian movement miniscule. He makes the puzzling claim that the very first Christians knew that the gospels were mythological rather than historical; in fact. never would have dreamed of interpreting them in a literal fashion. But the ancients knew full well what myths were, and in several places in the New Testament the authors go out of their way to distinguish the Christian revelation from myths (1 Tim 1:4; 4:7; 2 Tim 4:4; Tit 1:14; 2 Pet 1:16).

Luke takes great pains to anchor both the lives of Jesus and those of his followers within an historical framework, a fact that Harpur dismisses as merely part of the script.

Finally, the mythological interpretation fails to explain the phenomenon of persecution and suffering. Why were people willing to suffer both social dislocation and physical suffering for a mythological truth? How does one explain the explicit apocalyptic expectations of the Pauline communities? Harpur's interpretation raises far more questions than it answers.

False choices

In a sense, Harpur presents us with a choice that is a caricature. On the one hand, there is a primordial spiritual tradition containing profound spiritual truths, which witnesses to the divine within all human beings and seeks their transformation. Christianity in its original form was a mythological representation of this tradition, and belief in the historical nature of Jesus the Christ is both unnecessary and undesirable. On the other hand, we can choose a Christianity that is historical, literalist, fundamentalist, exclusivist, and spiritually anemic; in fact, 'historical' is practically equated with the other adjectives.

But there are other ways of presenting the choices besides the caricatures above. Belief in the presence of the divine within all humanity and our capacity to actualize this can be acquired through reading the New Testament and the Church Fathers. It is simply not necessary to foreswear the historical Jesus. I would fully expect that Christianity would receive and pass along the spiritual heritage of humankind; indeed, I would expect nothing less. Christianity has drawn from many sources, which should not be at all disturbing. And to be sure, much spiritual wisdom has been inadvertently or deliberately lost over the centuries, which should surprise no one. But it is a quantum leap of logic to assume that Jesus never existed and that the entire Christian revelation is mythological. The historical nature of Christianity and its role in the struggle for a just world is a precious heritage, and not to be lightly tossed aside in favor of a mythology detached from human history.