Product Description

For forty years and in nine previous books, scholar and religious commentator Tom Harpur has challenged church orthodoxy and guided thousands of readers on subjects as controversial as the true nature of Christ and life after death. Now, in his most radical and groundbreaking work, Harpur digs deep into the origins of Christianity. What he has discovered will have a profound effect on the way we think about religion. Long before the advent of Jesus Christ, the Egyptians and other peoples believed in the coming of a messiah, a madonna and her child, a virgin birth, and the incarnation of the spirit in flesh. The early Christian church accepted these ancient truths as the very tenets of Christianity but disavowed their origins. What began as a universal belief system based on myth and allegory became instead, in the third and fourth centuries A.D., a ritualistic institution headed by ultraconservative literalists. "The transcendent meaning of glorious myths and symbols was reduced to miraculous, quite unbelievable events. The truth that Christ was to come in man, that the Christ principle was potentially in each of us, was changed to the exclusivist teaching that the Christ had come as a man." Harpur's message is clear: Our blind faith in literalism is killing Christianity. Only with a return to an inclusive religion will we gain a true understanding of who we are and who we are intended to become. Drawing on the work of scholars such as Gerald Massey and Alvin Boyd Kuhn, Tom Harpur has written a book of rare insight and power.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #190560 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 260 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Harpur, a former Anglican priest and professor of Greek and New Testament at the University of Toronto, delves into the foundations of the Christian faith, questioning the historicity of the Bible, reinterpreting the familiar stories and restoring what he considers the inner meaning of scriptural texts. "Taken literally, they present a world of abnormal events totally unrelated to people's authentic living today." He documents the many traditions that predate Christianity and parallel the familiar Bible story. He sees Christianity, and the Bible itself, as a rehash of these traditions, merely imitative rather than a record of actual, historical events. He goes so far as to question the existence of the historical Jesus. Harpur believes that the early church establishment, through deliberate acts of suppression and the destruction of books that might challenge the orthodox view (most famously in the Alexandrian Library), shaped a rigid institution unable to cope with an evolving world. He insists that a major change must take place in order for Christianity to survive. His solution is termed "Cosmic Christianity"—a radical reinterpretation not just of the Bible but of the nature of the Christian faith and its links to the world's great spiritual traditions. Harpur's arguments, themselves a rehash of earlier scholarship, are unlikely to convince readers who are not already inclined to his views. (Mar. 27)
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Review
"In this passionate hymn to Christ universal, rather than demythologizing Jesus as so many scholars do, Tom Harpur remythologizes Christ. He identifies the Christian mythos with universal themes drawn, in particular, from Egyptian wisdom, not to debunk Christian truth but to rekindle it with ancient fire."-- Forrest Church, author of Bringing God Home: A Spiritual Guidebook for the Journey of Your Life
 
"A thoroughly captivating book .... Harpur describes and shares his intellectual journey extremely powerfully."-- Globe and Mail
 
"A truly revolutionary work, devout but subversive in the best sense, with a carefully constructed narrative that challenges believers and non-believers to fundamentally re-examine 'the Greatest Story Ever Told.' ... Harpur has arrived at a dramatic conclusion, firmly held and well detailed."-- Edmonton Journal

From the Inside Flap
A provocative argument for a mystical, rather than historical, understanding of Jesus, leading to a radical rebirth of Christianity in our time.
 
For forty years, scholar and religious commentator Tom Harpur has challenged church orthodoxy and guided thousands of readers on subjects as controversial as the true nature of Christ and life after death. Now, in his most radical and groundbreaking work, Harpur digs deep into the origins of Christianity.
 
Long before the advent of Jesus Christ, the Egyptians and other peoples believed in the coming of a messiah, a virgin birth, a madonna and her child, and the incarnation of the spirit in flesh. While the early Christian church accepted these ancient truths as the very basis of Christianity, it disavowed their origins. What had begun as a universal belief system built on myth and allegory was transformed, by the third and fourth centuries A.D., into a ritualistic institution based on a literal interpretation of myths and symbols. But, as Tom Harpur argues in The Pagan Christ, "to take the Gospels literally as history or biography is to utterly miss their inner spiritual meaning."
 
At a time of religious extremism, Tom Harpur reveals the virtue of a cosmic faith based on ancient truths that the modern church has renounced. His message is clear: Our blind faith in literalism is killing Christianity. Only with a return to an inclusive religion where Christ lives within each of us will we gain a true understanding of who we are and who we are intended to become. The Pagan Christ is a book of rare insight and power that will reilluminate the Bible and change the way we think about religion.
 
Tom Harpur is a former Anglican priest and professor of Greek and New Testament at the University of Toronto. He is an internationally renowned writer on religious and ethical issues, and the author of nine books, including For Christ's Sake and Life After Death.

Customer Reviews

�Did Christianity Get All of Its Good Ideas From Pagans?�
Tom Harpur began his career as an (evangelical) Anglican priest and professor of New Testament at Wycliffe College, Toronto. Just over 30 years ago, he moved from academia into journalism. Today, he is perhaps the leading religion writer in Canada.

"The Pagan Christ" is the story of his discovery of the writings of one Alvin Boyd Kuhn (1880-1963) and two earlier writers (Godfrey Higgins [1771-1834] and Gerald Massey [1828-1907]), who argued that all of the essential ideas of both Judaism and Christianity came primarily from Egyptian religion.

Toward the end of the third Christian century, the leaders of the church began to misinterpret the Bible. Prior to this, no one ever understood the Bible to be literally true. Earlier, in keeping with all other religions, the narrative material of the Hebrew and Greek Bible was interpreted as myth or symbol, read as allegory and metaphor rather than as history.

According to Harpur, there is no evidence that Jesus of Nazareth ever lived. He claims that virtually all of the details of the life and teachings of Jesus have their counterpart in Egyptian religious ideas. He does not quote any contemporary Egyptologist or recognized academic authority on world religions nor appeal to any of the standard reference books in Egyptology or to any primary sources. Rather, he is entirely dependent on the work of Kuhn (and Higgins & Massey).

Who is Alvin Boyd Kuhn? He is given the title `Egyptologist' and is regarded by Harpur as "one of the single greatest geniuses of the twentieth century" [who] "towers above all others of recent memory in intellect and his understanding of the world's religious."

As it turns out, Kuhn was a high school language teacher who was an enthusiastic proponent of Theosophy, a prodigious author and lecturer, who self-published most of his books.

Not being myself an expert in Egyptian religion, I consulted those who are about their views of contribution that Kuhn, Higgins and Massey have made to Egyptology and whether they thought some of the key ideas of "The Pagan Christ" well grounded. So I sent an email to twenty of the leading Egyptologists - in Canada, USA, UK, Australia, Germany, and Austria.

I noted as a sample the following claims put forth by Kuhn (and hence Harpur):

That the name of Jesus was derived from the Egyptian "Iusa," which means "the coming divine Son who heals or saves".

That the god Horus is "an Egyptian Christos, or Christ.... He and his mother, Isis, were the forerunners of the Christian Madonna and Child, and together they constituted a leading image in Egyptian religion for millennia prior to the Gospels."

That Horus also "had a virgin birth, and that in one of his roles, he was 'a fisher of men with twelve followers.'"

That "the letters KRST appear on Egyptian mummy coffins many centuries BCE, and ... this word, when the vowels are filled in., is really Karast or Krist, signifying Christ."

That the doctrine of the incarnation "is in fact the oldest, most universal mythos known to religion. It was current in the Osirian religion in Egypt at least four thousand years BCE"

Only one of the ten experts who responded to my questions had ever heard of Kuhn, Higgins or Massey!

Professor Kenneth A. Kitchen of the University of Liverpool pointed out that not one of these men is mentioned in M. L. Bierbrier's "Who Was Who in Egyptology" (3rd ed, 1995), nor is any of their works listed in Ida B. Pratt's very extensive bibliography on Ancient Egypt (1925/1942).

Another distinguished Egyptologist wrote: "Egyptology has the unenviable distinction of being one of those disciplines that almost anyone can lay claim to, and the unfortunate distinction of being probably the one most beleaguered by false prophets. He goes on to refer to Kuhn's "fringe nonsense."

The responding scholars were unanimous in dismissing the suggested etymologies for Jesus and Christ.

Ron Leprohan, Professor of Egyptology at the University of Toronto, pointed out that while "sa" means "son" in ancient Egyptian and "iu" means `to come," but Kuhn/Harpur have the syntax all wrong. In any event, the name `Iusa' simply does not exist in Egyptian.

The name `Jesus' is Greek from a universally recognized west Semitic name ("Jeshu'a"), born not merely by the central figure in the New Testament but also by many other people in the first century.

While all recognize that the image of the baby Horus and Isis has influenced the Christian iconography of Madonna and Child, this is where the similarity stops. There is no evidence for the idea that Horus was virgin born.

There is no evidence for the idea that Horus was `a fisher of men' or that his followers (the King's officials were called `Followers of Horus") were ever twelve in number.

KRST is the word for "burial" ("coffin" is written "KRSW"), but there is no evidence whatsoever to link this with the Greek title "Christos" or Hebrew "Mashiah".

There is no mention of Osiris in Egyptian texts until about 2350 BC, so Harpur's reference to the origins of Osirian religion is off by more than a millennium and a half. (Elsewhere Harpur refers to "Jesus in Egyptian lore as early as 18,000 BCE" and he quotes Kuhn as claiming that "the Jesus who stands as the founder of Christianity was at least 10,000 years of age." In fact, the earliest extant writing that we have dates from about 3200 BCE.)

Kuhn/Harper's redefinition of "incarnation" and rooting this in Egyptian religion is regarded as bogus by all of the Egyptologists with whom I have consulted. According to one: "Only the pharaoh was believed to have a divine aspect, the divine power of kingship, incarnated in the human being currently serving as the king. No other Egyptians ever believed they possessed even `a little bit of the divine'."

Virtually none of the alleged evidence for the views put forward in "The Pagan Christ" is documented by reference to original sources. The notes refer mainly to Kuhn, Higgins, Massey, or some other long-out-of-date work.

Furthermore, Harpur's notes abound with errors and omissions. If you look for supporting evidence for a particular point made by the author, it is not there. Many quotations are taken out of context and interpreted in a very different sense from what their author originally meant (especially the early church fathers).

In short, "The Pagan Christ" tells us more about Tom Harpur's spiritual pilgrimage than about the origins of Christianity.

A story is worth a million discussions.
Following the advice of Socrates: "an unexaminied life is not worth living," I read all I can get my hands on for years now. But so much of what passes for religious writing has an agenda, usually made obvious from the first page. It's either for or against Christianity. If it's for, it's almost always an apologia. If against, it often strays way too far from psychological truth. But I've been searching for the source of Christianity. I want to know what excited people all those years ago. And this book, like the work of Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, is somewhat of a revelation. Not that that I didn't suspect some such might be the case (or something very like)...after all, so much of it is obvious if one does NOT have an agenda, but still--to have it laid out with chapter verse is so satisfying. Of course, this is not to say I agree with Harpur completely. I certainly don't. But he's opening boxes that need to be opened. It's been so long since people (of the West) understood their own myths. It's been so long since they even knew they were myths, and not literal truths as both the Catholics and Protestants would have us believe. By not knowing either of these things, few understand the deep symbolic truth behind the myth that drives their world. If they did, life would be so much richer and "safer" and fulfilling. Sad really. Now, having said all this, the strongest way to get to grips with myth and its meaning is not in endless discussion--but in story. Storytelling is our truest truth-telling. Like silent movies used to, story speaks to everyone, not just scholarly types. I recommend a book I just read, one that absolutely stunned me...The Secret Magdalene: A Novel by Ki Longfellow. This book takes material from everywhere and weaves together a spell-binding story about Mary Magdalene, Jesus, Judas, John the Baptist, Philo of Alexandria, Gnosticism, even Apollonius of Tyana, into a fascinating unput-downable tale of an astonishing woman ("who knew the All"). I can't recommend it highly enough. Eat your heart out, Dan Brown.

And of course, I recommend Harpur's books, as well as Gandy and Freke. Dandy stuff.

A First Step, But Only Half The Picture
Tom Harpur's "Pagan Christ" takes the necessary first step (or at least popularizes it) in freeing us from mindlessly superstitious literal and fundamentalist interpretations of the Christian tradition. In tracing the entirety of the Gospel narratives to similar stories thousands of years older in Egypt, Persia, and Greece, it becomes obvious that the biblical accounts are indeed reinterpreted myths, allegories pointing to universal truths, and not literal historical accounts. Examined from this perspective, the Bible takes on a new deeper meaning, its parables and principles become newly invigorated, contradictions are sorted out, and universal spirituality becomes experienced.

But how much more so, had Harpur but continued his analysis to its logical conclusion? For after pointing out that "all scripture is by nature allegorical" and that a literal interpretation leads to "serious error," he then falls into the same trap himself and takes a literal interpretation of the concept of "soul," and misses the fact that it too is metaphor. And thereby perpetuates the fundamentalists' error.

To explain: literalists (and Harpur) speak of the soul as if it were a "thing," existing in time and space and history, with attributes such as size, position, shape, and colour, as do all other "things;" it's just that this one is invisible and non-material. As a "thing," a literal soul, divine or otherwise, can leave a literal heaven and incarnate literal flesh, and after the death of the body, can leave for greener pastures. But by taking this literal view of the soul, Harpur makes what Gilbert Ryle calls a category mistake, the serious error of confusing literal and metaphoric existence, as in "the child sat in the corner playing with his trucks, his teddy bears, and his mental blocks." We all make this error all the time; we see someone acting in a friendly fashion, we describe her behaviour as friendly, then make the nominal fallacy of confusing a description with an explanation, and conclude she has a "friendliness" spirit in her soul, causing her to act in a friendly way, thus ending with an erroneous circular argument. Which, as Harpur himself would say, is a lot of serious errors resulting from a literalist interpretation.

To truly understand "soul" or "spirit" or "mind," we must see them too as metaphors. A "mental block" is not a literal explanatory CAUSE of the child being unable to retrieve remembered information; it is simply a metaphoric DESCRIPTION of the fact that the child cannot remember it. The soul or divine spirit is not a literal existence that innervates or incarnates animal matter; it is a metaphoric device used to describe what that animal matter is doing. The soul is a concept, not a thing, just as justice, beauty, and marriages are concepts. They have no existence independent of matter. It is not justice that CAUSES the bad guy to be arrested, tried, and jailed; justice is a DESCRIPTION of the fact that he was. Beauty does not (in the Platonic sense) cause Aphrodite to appear beautiful; it is simply a description of the fact that she is. The soul and its attributes do not cause human behaviour; they are a description OF that behaviour. If you don't believe in a literal Santa Clause, Virginia, but you do believe in the "spirit" of Santa, just how exactly are you using that word?

So Harpur's book is a great first step, but he needs to complete his analysis; and to truly free ourselves, we must not only understand that the scriptures are metaphoric but so too are spirits and souls. And the proper level of analysis of the universal truths revealed in myth and allegory is not divine, but indeed, psychological.