Well the basic idea behind the book is that the Stories attributed to Jesus predate Jesus and have existed in Mythological form in Egypt and other ancient "Mystery Cults" of the Greeks. He looks mostly at the Myths of Horus and shows how the "Miracles" said to have been performed by Jesus were also performed, almost exactly, by Horus. He compares the birth and death narratives of Jesus, Horus, Buddha and Zoroaster and shows how they are parallel each other.

Through out the book he talks a lot about the Symbolism in the Bible and how it has been taken as being literal fact- something never intended. His major sources are the researchers/writers Alvin Boyd Kuhn and Gerald Massey and Godfrey Higgins who were experts on Mythology, Religion and Ancient Egypt. (I haven't read any of their works)

His final conclusion it what has made the book controversial. He concludes that there was no Jesus at all. That he is just a retelling of other Mythological Gods and there is more evidence to prove Jesus was just made up to bring a modern feel to ancient Myth, then to prove that there was a man who in someway embodied the archetype created by Horus [and Moses].

I personally found that conclusion a little hard to swallow. Though I do not believe in the literal Jesus as the Bible says, I do believe there had to be a person whose life and ideas embodied the archetype and after his death, be it crucifixion or other, was mythified by attributing these myths already in the collective consciousness of the Culture to his life. I just don't see how a NEW myth could be created out of thin air, there needed to be a catalyst to set in motion, a person who the ideals could be attached too, whether they were actually his or not.

I found the book, Born of a Woman, by John Spong to be the most helpful in the forming of that opinion. In that book he talks in great deal about a style of Writing done by Jewish clerics called Midrash, where they did essentially what I mention. They took a story, the story of Jesus as the prime example, and as they wrote out his story they added to it pieces of information and ideas that already exist. The reason, Spong, suggests there's so much allusion back to the prophets of the Old Testament, isn't because Jesus actually fulfilled they prophecies but because the scribes would have known the prophecies and refitted Jesus' story to match.

My favourite example of this is in the Gospels. In Matthew, after Jesus is born the family flees to Egypt to escape Herod, and then return from Egypt when the threat is gone. This parallels Moses flight from Egypt and fulfills a prophecy; from Isaiah (I think) saying the Messiah will come from Egypt, or something like that. The writer of Matthew would have known that and as he was appealing the story to Jewish converts making Jesus the modern Moses would have helped his cause.

The family doesn't go to Egypt in Luke, they go to the Temple and then home. There's some more prophecies fulfilled there too, but I don't remember them. I really enjoyed that book. If you’re interested in ripping a part the literalism of the bible and looking at the symbolism, Born of a Woman is a good one. It’s only the Birth narratives though, but that’s enough to set you’re mind reeling. Another good one is the Last Week, by Marcus Borg. Again it rips to shreds the literalism of the Last Week of Jesus’ life. Both look at the symbolism behind these stories and what they mean, whether literal or not.

Neither are trying to destroy or rip apart Christianity, just these literal ideas some have. In fact, for me they’re made Christianity easier to swallow, since so many of the symbols I now see parallel symbolism in other religions.

After reading the Last Week I can see the Horned God and Pagan stories of the Wheel of the year as being parallel to Jesus’ story. Dying for the people, dying for the land and being reborn for the people, for the land. Without the qualifiers am I speaking of Jesus? Or the Sun God?

Comment as you like, but speak not to me of "I am the way, the truth, the light" or any of this Jesus in the ONLY Truth stuff- cuz ya'll know darn well I don't believe that.

I love thee well, nay, but I love thee not, How can I tell if I do love or not, Unstable and untrue! The raging lion now, and now the lamb, The winter’s blast, laden with springtide balm, O wild March, which is you?

- Mrs. Jane (Goodwin) Austin, in the "Old Farmer's Almanac" for 1917.

With rushing winds and gloomy skies The dark and stubborn Winter dies; Far off, unseen, Spring faintly cries, Bidding her earliest child arise.

- Bayard Taylor.

I Martius am! Once first, and now the third ! To lead the Year was my appointed place; A mortal dispossessed me by a word, And set there Janus with the double face.

- Longfellow's "Poet's Calendar" for March.

The brown buds thicken on the trees, Unbound, the free streams sing, As March leads forth across the leas The wild and windy spring.

- Elizabeth Akers Allen, in the "Old Farmer's Almanac" for 1912.

Do you believe in the literal Resurrection?

To which i dashed off this answer:

Good Question. I just finished reading this book by Marcus Borg, called The Last Week. It's all about the week before Easter from the bible. It's a very interesting read and he talks a little about literal vs. symbolic. He defiantly leans towards symbolic, but says that whether it literally happened, or 'symbolically' happened it’s the point. The point is 'What does it mean?' which I think is also the point.

I admit I'm still working out how I feel about this part of it all.

What really struck me and is sticking in my brain from that book is the word used to describe what the disciples 'saw' when they 'saw' Jesus before them. The word in Greek, which I can't find in the book, can mean either actually 'saw' or 'had a vision'. Could it be perhaps that in their grief the disciples had comforting visions of Jesus after his death? I do believe in visions as ways the divine can communicate with humans. So if they had a vision, I can buy that.

Another theory that I find myself thinking about is a theory that Jesus didn't actually die. There are claims that the Essenes had rituals that centred on symbolically dying and then being reborn after three days. Lazarus may have also been a symbolic death within that community and Jesus broke protocol by 'bring him back to life' with out having the authority to do so at the time. So some claim that Jesus' death might have been ritual based, much like the pagan rituals of the Sun God being reborn at Yule/ Ostara.

Of course, both of those theories are based on believing that Jesus lived AT ALL. Which on occasion I have my doubts about.

Most of the time I believe that Jesus was a man mythified. I don't believe he had a 'divine birth', but I believe that he embodied certain qualities that made him seem 'more than human' which after his death got, for lack of a better term, blown out of proportion. It's taken me 30 years to get that far, I’m still working on the Resurrection part. But I do know that I don't believe it literally happened like it's been described in the bible, because I don't believe anything in the bible as literal.

I believe in Parable and that the stories in the bible contain a higher truth if you will, beyond the "this literally happened". The Stories show a truth that exists in the word and these same stories appear in other religions and cultures as well. Western culture is so caught up in factually truth, or factually evidence, that we miss the 'truth' that is staring us straight in the face. We all read aesops fables as children, are the morals taught in those stories any less true because they probably didn't actually happen to a turtle, hare, fox or raven? No, we continue to teach our kids these stories because of the meaning behind the stories, the means held within them. I believe that's the point of the Jesus stories.

So, no I don't believe in the literal resurrection, as the Dogma would suggest. But I believe SOMETHING had to have happened that made this one particular guy stand out above all the rest. Make him different from even John the Baptiser who was also saying essentially the same thing, but he was never made in to a Demi-God.

I'm leaning towards visions of the Resurrection. For me Visions aren't 'less' real than reality. Shamans in South America, North America, Africa, North Europe, all over, have used visions as their primary tool and way of communicating with the Divine. It is only in Western Culture, and really only after the 'Enlightment' that 'visions' were brushed off as hallucinations or mental disturbance. Which is also the time period where Truth, fiction and parable when their separate ways.

Confusing, yes? But that’s how is seems to be in my world. What about yourself?

I'm interested in others thoughts, reasons you believe what you believe, not bashing, and I'm not going to get in to a big theological debate other this. And if one person says "the bible tells me so" i'm disabling the comments.

FM