‘Jesus Christ’ – historical figure or symbolic figure?

I promised to some of what I’ve been learning about the Jesus story. There’s a lot – and it’s fascinating!

Image courtesy Márta Valleytíny and Pixabay

Firstly, having had a Jewish upbringing, I was taught that Jesus was a spiritual teacher but certainly not the literal Son of God. My mother was not locked into the traditional Jewish model as my father was. She also delved into metaphysics, so from her, I learnt that ‘Christ’ was not a surname but a state of consciousness; he was Jesus ‘the Christ’, or ‘was Christed’, as other great spiritual teachers were. I didn’t know what that meant, but being the son of God sounded far-fetched to me and meant that no one else was a child of God, and that didn’t feel right. I also heard bits and pieces about Jesus’s ‘lost years’ and studies with Eastern spiritual teachers, so I concluded that he was a spiritual, historical figure who had performed some ‘real miracles’ and perhaps some ‘symbolic miracles’ (e.g. walking on water).

Most of us have heard of Jesus’ anger with the money-lenders. During my recent forays into Common and Natural Law, it seems that Jesus was also teaching metaphorically about the difference between the realm of the Private / the Law of the Land (Common Law, which is based on the ageless principles of: Do No Harm and Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You); and the realm of the Public / the Law of the Sea, which is effectively the rule of the powerful (pirates). That walking-on-water miracle may have been a message about not falling into the perilous realm of the seas where all sorts of legalistic rules wrap you in red tape, like an octopus…

And then I came across Jason Breshears of ARCHAIX.com and learnt that Jesus cannot be found anywhere in the historical record. All the historians and commentators of the era refer to other well-known characters, but not to Jesus. There is no mention of the star above Bethlehem in the historical record, no mention of a miracle-maker called Jesus or the Nazarene, no mention of a crucifixion and earthquakes, etc….

Jason Breshears spent in excess of 20 years reading and studying ancient works full-time in an attempt to validate the Bible stories he had grown up with… and could not. What he did discover was that the New Testament reads like a play, scenes in a play, which it actually is. The Gospel was originally a three-act Greek stage play about the redemption of the world. 

There are books to read on this subject: The Pale Horseman, The Unseen Hand, The 16 Crucified Saviours, The Greatest Story Ever Sold, The First 200 Years of the Christian Religion. Also a lecture by Historian Gerald Massey, ‘The Historical Jesus and the Mythical Christ’. Alvin Boyd Kuhn, author of The Lost Light, an Interpretation of Ancient Scriptures, states that Jesus was not a historical figure; he is a literary and religious character conveying spiritual teachings symbolically.

I haven’t yet read all of those books – my reading pile is already leaning like the Tower of Pisa, it’s so high! But I’m particularly intrigued by The 16 Crucified Saviours. Years ago, I watched the Zeitgeist Movie and was woken up to the fact of the mythological Jesus. Did you know that… [clearer text below]

Horus 5000 years ago

Born a virgin, star in the east, walked on water, healed the sick, restored sight, crucified, dead for three days, resurrected.

Mithra 3200 years ago 

Born of a virgin, born on December 25, star in the east, had 12 disciples, performed miracles, dead for three days, resurrected.

Krishna 2900 years ago.

Born of a virgin, starring the east, performed miracles, called son of God, son of a carpenter, resurrected.

Dionysus 2500 years ago

Born a virgin, born on December 25, travelling teacher, turned water into wine, called holy child.

Jesus Christ 2000 years ago

All of the above.

Specialist-historians, such as the authors of the books listed above, uncover facts that mainstream media doesn’t share with us, such as the detail that the Shroud of Turin was carbon-dated at about 1300 years after the alleged death of Christ, and so the narrow-faced, bearded man imprinted on its fabric is not the Jesus many believe in and visualise. It appears that it was most likely the shroud of a Norman Crusader. In fact, if Jesus did exist, he would probably have been red-haired, as the Pharaohs of Egypt apparently were. (Elizabeth Taylor’s black-haired Cleopatra is a powerful image from the movies, but not historically accurate, it seems.)

An ancient Egyptian papyrus, Lords of the Left Hand Path, states, “I am the son of the living God.” This quote goes back way before Jesus’s time. Church Father, Augustine of Hippo, also says that the Christian religion existed anciently and was not new.

And then we get to the ‘juicy, juicy’, as Martin Liedtke calls it… Only this time I’m speaking about some insights I first learnt from Santos Bonacci, who discovered them in a book called The Perfect Matrimony by Samael Aun Weor.  

It’s so juicy that it deserves a blog post of its own. This one will be about the very deeply symbolic meaning of the Jesus story, the meaning that goes right inside our bodies, our temples… It takes us back to that comment my mother made that the correct appellation was ‘Jesus the Christed’.

I’ll send Part B tomorrow. Meanwhile, I hope your year started beautifully, and I offer my love to anyone who has been upset or uprooted, such as those in the LA fires.