Heresy and Truth

In the early 1980s, the newly appointed Anglican Bishop of Durham, Dr David Jenkins, said he did not believe the gospel birth stories nor that that a physical resurrection had taken place, and that such beliefs were not necessary to be a good Christian.

You may remember the uproar in some Christian circles. Many – including the Prime Minister at the time, Margaret Thatcher – thought he had no right to call himself a Christian and senior members of the Church of England demanded he be tried for heresy (the last heresy trials had been over a hundred years previously).

Moreover, on the day of Dr Jenkins’ ordination at York Minster, lightning struck the Minster and part of the roof caught fire. Proof, said his critics, that God was angry with the church for appointing him.

All this made quite an impression on me, having rejected the strict Methodist upbringing to which I had been subjected. I began to take an interest in religion from a historical point of view. I quickly discovered that Bishop Jenkins was merely expressing a view that had long existed among scholars. For example, Dr Albert Schweitzer wrote in 1906: ‘The histories of Jesus’ birth are not literary versions of a tradition, but literary inventions.’[1]

But what was the Bishop really saying? Let’s take a look at the Christmas and resurrection stories:

The Christmas story which is enacted around the world every December is based on just two gospels – ‘Matthew’s’ and ‘Luke’s’. ‘Mark’ and ‘John’ have nothing to say on the issue. Indeed, the Fourth Gospel reports an incident in which a crowd doubted that Jesus was the Messiah precisely because he did not come from Bethlehem, but from Galilee[2]

nativity

The familiar Christmas tale combines ‘Matthew’ and ‘Luke’.

Joseph and Mary travelled from Nazareth to Bethlehem on a donkey. Their son was born in a stable because there was no room at the inn. They were visited by shepherds and three wise men from the East. According to ‘Matthew’, and ‘Matthew’ alone, the family then had to escape to Egypt to avoid persecution from King Herod. Eventually they returned to Nazareth and nothing more was heard of them for over a decade.

Now apart from the sheer implausibility of such a tale, it is compounded by a number of ‘inconvenient’ facts based on what we know about history and the culture of Palestinian society at that time.

To start with, the above narrative is a combination of two incompatible and very different sources. The only thing they have in common is the location, Bethlehem, and their wish to portray Jesus’ birth as important. ‘Matthew’ was also concerned to link it in as many ways as possible to the ancient Hebrew prophecies.

There is no mention of this miraculous birth anywhere else in the New Testament: no mention in the earliest gospel, ‘Mark’, and no mention in Paul’s letters, which pre-date ‘Mark’. Paul had met with the disciples Peter and James (Jesus’s biological brother) – surely they would have discussed such a remarkable turn of events? Or is it simply that these stories hadn’t yet been circulated when the earliest New Testament texts were written?

There’s no mention of the birth in ‘John’s’ Gospel; no mention in the Acts of the Apostles; and no mention in the later letters. Nowhere in the gospels does Jesus make any reference to his birth, and neither do his mother or his brothers! Curious!

Bethlehem

It was especially important for the author of ‘Matthew’s Gospel’ that Jesus was seen to come from Bethlehem, since the prophet Micah had foreseen a Messiah being born there [3]. ‘Matthew’ stated it as a fact [4] but made no attempt to explain how they came to be in Bethlehem; that story came only from ‘Luke’. He wrote that a census was to take place which required every citizen to return to their ancestral home. Because Joseph was said to be a descendent of King David, this meant David’s city, Bethlehem.

Good story. The problem is, it simply isn’t true. Historians have searched in vain for an empire-wide census at the time of Jesus’s birth, but there was none. In any case the Romans had no jurisdiction to hold a census in Galilee since this was Herod’s province. And not even the Romans would have insisted that a heavily pregnant woman travel the eighty miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem through hostile territory on a donkey.

The flight into Egypt

According to ‘Luke’[6], after the birth the family immediately returned to Nazareth. But ‘Matthew’s’ gospel says that Mary, Joseph and the baby fled to Egypt to avoid an order from King Herod that all new born Jewish boys be killed. But there’s no record of any such decree, and no record of a slaughter of Jewish babies at that time. It is simply a literary way of linking Jesus’s birth to the passage in the scriptures in which Yahweh says, ‘Out of Egypt I called my son.’[7]

So were ‘Matthew’ and ‘Luke’ fibbers? Yes and no. They saw no harm in using a little artistic licence or borrowing a few ideas from other cultures. They simply wanted to encourage people to join their new community.

JC

Let’s turn to Jesus’ crucifixion, burial and resurrection.

While Jesus’s crucifixion is not in doubt (it is about the only fact about his life that is mentioned outside the official gospels), the circumstances of his burial are contested. It was unheard of for a crucified person to receive a decent burial. It was normal practice to leave them on the cross until the vultures had torn off the flesh, then take the bones to the sulphur pits outside Jerusalem which were used as a crematorium. The balance of probability is that this is where Jesus’s body ended up too.

The gospels say that that Pilate, the Roman governor, gave permission for Jesus’ body to be removed and placed in a tomb. Quite why this notoriously cruel and ruthless man would have given permission for the body of this particular insurgent to be given this special treatment is unclear, except it set the scene for what followed next.

Nobody saw Jesus walk out of the tomb!

Why make up a story? When Jesus died, his followers’ hopes that he was the one to liberate his people were shattered. Then, as the decades rolled by, successive generations of Christians began to see him as the personification of G_d. But how could G_d die? How could they execute G_d as a common criminal?

The New Testament writers and subsequent theologians had a lot of explaining to do! Resurrection was the startling explanation they came up with.

According to the gospels, Jesus repeatedly told his disciples that he would be killed and then resurrected on the third day[3]. Did he actually speak those words? We don’t know. According to these same sources, nobody – not even his closest disciples – expected him to rise again, and when the post-Easter Christ figure ‘appeared’ to them, all the witnesses were so surprised they didn’t recognise him.

Most of the gospel sightings began and ended mysteriously. Usually he ‘drew near’ then ‘disappeared from sight’. But the gospel writers went to great lengths to insist that the risen Jesus was not a ghost, nor a badly injured man hobbling around. Even though he could appear and disappear at will and walk through walls, they claimed he ate, drank and could be touched.

Paul of Tarsus would not have believed this. He believed that Jesus returned in changed form, not as a resuscitated corpse but transformed into a spiritual body

I don’t have space to go into all the inconsistencies in the resurrection stories, so I’ll summarise:

  • In ‘Mark’s’ Gospel the disciples fled in terror and returned to Galilee.[4] The original gospel ended there, but decades later twelve extra verses were added by a second author in which the Christ figure ‘appeared’ to them several times, spoke to them and was immediately whisked away to heaven. Nowhere does either author claim that Jesus had risen in bodily form.
  • In ‘Matthew’s’ Gospel, Mary Magdalene encountered Jesus as they fled from the empty tomb, but she didn’t recognize him. Clearly he wasn’t the man they remembered from just a few days earlier.
  • ‘Luke’s’ Gospel added several more appearances in which Jesus ‘came near’ and ‘stood among them’, showed them his wounds, ate fish, then vanished. There are no such claims in ‘Mark’ or ‘Matthew’. Moreover, far from fleeing to Galilee, the disciples stayed in Jerusalem and ‘were continually in the temple.’
  • In the Fourth Gospel – written around 70 years after the crucifixion – neither Mary Magdalene nor Peter recognised him at first. Later, he ‘stood among’ the disciples and invited ‘doubting’ Thomas to touch his wounds.[5] He also appeared to the disciples on various occasions, once while they ate bread and fish for breakfast and another in which he appeared on a beach and gave the disciples some advice on fishing.[6]
  • Acts of the Apostles, written by the same author as ‘Luke’s’ Gospel, merely says he ‘presented himself alive’ to the disciples over a forty day period before the momentous events of Pentecost.

Once again we find ourselves wondering which, if any, of these accounts is correct, since they can’t all be right! The only things the gospels agree on is that the tomb was empty on the third day and Mary Magdalene was one of those who discovered it. Bear in mind that with many of the gospel stories, the longer the period between Jesus’s life (c 5 BCE-30 CE) and the writing of the gospel (c 70 CE – 105 CE), the more embellished they become.

Psychologists tell us that we are just as likely to see what we believe as believe what we see. In my opinion there’s no verifiable evidence for a physical resurrection, just the words of a small group of devotees. But we must all decide for ourselves. Whatever you choose to believe is true – for you. That’s the nature of belief.

Bishop Jenkins described the resurrection stories as ‘a conjuring trick with bones’ – hardly likely to endear him to the diehards. But what I believe he was trying to say was important – seek the deeper, metaphysical truths in the scriptures rather than blindly accepting them as literal truth (which they are quite plainly not).

But what are these truths? The 19th Century mystic, Charles Fillmore, said that ‘there is only one metaphysical interpretation and that is your own.’ In other words, what matters is what the biblical texts mean to you. For me, Christmas is about celebrating the birth of divine consciousness or the Christ spirit within, and the resurrection about re-affirming the indestructible nature of consciousness.

Spirituality for me is knowing that the life force, universal energy, Christ spirit, zero point field,  whatever you want to call it, is present everywhere, including in me, and expressing it with joy. I believe that Bishop Jenkins – the man branded a heretic by members of his own church – thought the same.

I conclude my book ‘201 Things About Christianity You Probably Don’t Know (But Ought To)’ with the following comment:

If I have to believe in a virgin birth, walking on water, dead and decomposing bodies coming back to life and a man being carried up to heaven on a cloud before I can realise my spirituality, then there’s no hope for me. For me, in this sense conventional Christianity is a barrier. I can study it, learn from it and borrow the sayings and parables that make sense to me. The rest I can reject without fear of eternal damnation (a loving G_d wouldn’t do that to me anyway).

That’s what Bishop Jenkins was driving at. That’s not heresy – that is truth!

©David Lawrence Preston, 19.3.2018

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[1] The Quest of the Historical Jesus

[2] John 7:40-42

[3] E.g. Mark 9:31 and 10:34; Matthew 16:21 and 17:23; Luke 9:22 and 24:7; John 20:19

[4] Mark 16: 5-8

[5] John 20:19-20

[6] John 21:4-6

Why spirituality and religion are so different

Religion and spirituality are not the same. Spirituality is not concerned with myths and fairy stories, but with life. That’s why many people are leaving the traditional religions. They cannot relate to the dogma and ritual that characterises them. They say nothing to them about life as it is lived.

To be valid, a spiritual truth must be true for everyone, everywhere and for all time. It must apply equally to people living in the Arabian Desert, the Arctic wilderness and the Himalayas; in the fifth century BCE, tenth century CE and the twenty-first CE; men, women and children, the old and the young; those who have passed on and those yet to be born.

Religions seldom satisfy these criteria. Some are even restricted to a particular race or genealogy.

A religion is a formalised set of beliefs. It lays down what its followers should accept as true and how they should behave. It insist on compliance and reproaches those who transgress. Often fear and chastisement are used to ensure conformity.

Any religion which controls, divides and excludes cannot, in my opinion, be truly spiritual.

All bone fide religions began with a search for truth, but the living message of spirituality that they purport to offer has often been lost. No doubt the founders of our great religions had the best of intentions, but in a spiritually enlightened world there would be no need for separate religions, as John Lennon said that in his song, Imagine.

Even so, the major religions have much to teach us. Their common ground far outweighs their differences. 90% of their teachings are the same; wars have been fought over the other 10%, so let’s focus on the 90%! No one creed has exclusive rights to the truth. We should look for points of agreement and put differences aside.

We should seek truth wherever we can find it and welcome the many paths that are open to us.

©David Lawrence Preston, 26.12.17

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‘Truth’ does not have to be ‘true’

The Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) is largely a symbolic and highly fictionalised account of a people’s struggles and their attempt to understand their world.

The New Testament is largely a symbolic and fictionalised account of a small clique’s efforts to convince their neighbours to believe that their crucified ‘prophet’ was more than human and that the world was about to be transformed by their G_d.

Even so, stories can contain an element of ‘truth’ without being literally ‘true’ – that’s the appeal of Aesop, Homer, the Brothers Grimm and almost every great novelist and playwright.

Perhaps the biblical writers were not so much concerned with facts as meaning, and it would be more beneficial to ask ourselves, ‘What meaning were they seeking to convey?’ than, ‘Is this literally true?’

That’s where the value of these ancient writings lies.

©David Lawrence Preston, 25.8.2017

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Don’t be a ‘praying beggar’!

Many religious people believe that prayer is about pleading for miracles or flattering a supernatural being into taking pity on them. They assume that some higher power is able and willing to intervene directly in earthly affairs.

A more enlightened approach is to reject the notion that prayer is for acquiring things or having our problems solved for us by an outside force. Instead it is to help hasten our personal growth.

All change starts from within. We get inspiration not in the form of miraculous interventions, but ideas, ideas that bring motivation and solutions and guide us towards constructive actions that bring the right results.

Prayer changes the person who prays

When you pray, don’t ask for changes in your circumstances, but in yourself. Prayer brings about changes in the character of the person who prays:

  • Our perceptions The world becomes a more peaceful and loving place, reflecting back the changes taking place within us.
  • As we incorporate more of the higher qualities into ourselves, we are able to make a real difference to our own and other people’s lives.

Pray alone, in private

Spend regular quiet time in prayer and contemplation. Go to a quiet place, put a ‘do not disturb’ sign on the door and close it behind you. Focus on noble ideas, ideas of truth that come from the heart. Invite your Inner Power to guide you. You don’t have to pray to an outside ‘presence’ unless you want to – ask your inner self for ideas and for the means to actualize them.

 

©David Lawrence Preston, 21.6.2017

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How to Books, 2007

Surprise, surprise! Adam and Eve never existed!

Surprise, surprise, Adam and Eve never existed! Who says so? No less than the leader of the world’s 1.1 billion Roman Catholics, ‘G-d’s representative on Earth’ – the Pope.

Scholars have known for over 200 years that most of the Bible stories are myths, that even the accounts of historical events were written hundreds of years later and contain many inaccuracies. Even the official Gospels, on which the Christian faith depends, have no contemporary written or archaeological evidence (outside the New Testament) to verify them. Surely a man who attracted huge crowds, performed miracles and rose from the dead would have attracted some comment from the Greek, Roman and Jewish authors of the time?

Evenso, for centuries the mainstream churches have doggedly stuck to their guns in the face of the increasing evidence that the very basis of their religion is deeply flawed. In a nutshell, they believe Yeshua came to save humanity from the effects of sin, and G-d’s reaction to sin could be traced right back through the Hebrew Scriptures to the very first humans, Adam and Eve, who wickedly ate fruit from the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden. This seemingly innocent action led to them being expelled from the Garden.

If there were no Adam and Eve, there was also no ‘fall of man’, and no need for the ‘son of G-d’ to come to Earth!

 

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Now enter the debate Pope Francis l, Time Magazine’s Man of the Year 2013. In a speech in December 2013, ‘His Holiness’ claims that ‘Through humility, soul searching, and prayerful contemplation we have gained a new understanding of certain dogmas. The church no longer believes in a literal hell where people suffer. This doctrine is incompatible with the infinite love of God. God is not a judge but a friend and a lover of humanity. God seeks not to condemn but only to embrace.’

The Pope continued: ‘Like the fable (my italics) of Adam and Eve, we see hell as a literary device. Hell is merely a metaphor for the isolated soul, which like all souls ultimately will be united in love with God.’

As welcome as this is, there are many more fables in both the New and Old Testaments that could be similarly refined – the first creation story in Genesis (which the Adam and Eve story blatantly contradicts), Noah’s flood, Abraham’s almost-sacrifice of his son Isaac, the Hebrews’ enslavement in and eventual escape from Egypt (there is no historical or archaeological evidence for either) led by Moses (he probably didn’t exist either), the fall of Jericho (likewise), Jonah and the whale, Job, Daniel in the lions’ den, Yeshua’s fictitious birth in Bethlehem, his 40 day temptation in the wilderness, burial and resurrection, and Acts’ version of Paul of Tarsus’ vision on the road to Damascus – and these are just for starters.

For the truth is, most of the Bible has no more basis in fact than the stories of Robin Hood, King Arthur, Sherlock Holmes or James Bond!

Soon after his election, Pope Francis inaugurated a series of discussions of long-held Catholic doctrines and dogmas, aimed at redefining Catholicism as a ‘modern and reasonable religion, which has undergone evolutionary changes… We must recognize that religious truth evolves and changes. Truth is not absolute or set in stone.’

Then he dropped a few more bombshells: ‘The Bible is a beautiful holy book, but like all great and ancient works, some passages are outdated. Some even call for intolerance or judgement. The time has come to see these verses as later interpolations, contrary to the message of love and truth, which otherwise radiates through scripture.’

Needless to say, Pope Francis’ latest declarations don’t carry the support of everyone in the Catholic Church. Some cardinals are said to be against them, and this is doubtless the case lower down the hierarchy too. One wonders what his predecessor makes of them.

But the most hysterical condemnations have come from that bastion of free speech, the internet. Some critics have suggested he’s off his rocker (he’s off his rocker?!!!) and others that he’s the antichrist forecast in the Book of Revelations, sent as a precursor to the end of time and judgement day.

The Catholic Church has always been behind the times, suspicious of new knowledge and anything which contradicts ancient or existing doctrine, so the Pope’s utterances should be universally welcomed. The fact that they haven’t been by evangelicals, apocalysts and other religious nutters should only strengthen our resolve to bring the truth out into the open.

©David Lawrence Preston, 13.1.18

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Heresy and Truth – Talk to Maidenhead Unity, June 2016

In the early 1980s, the newly appointed Anglican Bishop of Durham, Dr David Jenkins, said he did not believe the gospel birth stories nor that that a physical resurrection had taken place, and that such beliefs were not necessary to be a good Christian.

Now you may remember the uproar in Christian circles. Many – including the Prime Minister at the time, Margaret Thatcher – thought he had no right to call himself a Christian and senior members of the Church of England demanded he be tried for heresy (the last heresy trials had been over a hundred years previously).

Moreover, on the day of Dr Jenkins’ ordination at York Minster, lightning struck the Minster and part of the roof caught fire. Proof, said his critics, that God was angry with the church for appointing him.

All this made quite an impression on me, at that time an agnostic in my late twenties, who had rejected the strict Methodist upbringing to which I had been subjected. I began to take an interest in religion again. I quickly discovered that Bishop Jenkins was merely expressing a view that had long existed among scholars. For example, Dr Albert Schweitzer wrote in 1906: ‘The histories of Jesus’ birth are not literary versions of a tradition, but literary inventions.’[1]

But what was the Bishop really saying?

Let’s step back a moment. Not long ago, Ann Widdecombe presented a TV programme on the future of Christianity. During the programme, she debated with a Humanist. He argued, as a humanist would, that morality doesn’t depend on believing in a god, a bible, virgin birth, resurrection and so on.

‘Don’t you believe in love and forgiveness, and being kind to each other?’ she countered. He said of course he did, but that didn’t make him a Christian; all the great religions teach love, compassion, peaceful conduct, forgiveness and right living.  They’re largely common sense and do not need Christian theology to support them. And he’s right. Because it’s not these things that define Christianity.  Even following the gospel teachings of Yeshua is not enough. It’s not even the point. Far more important for Christians is to believe certain things about him – who he was, why he came to Earth, his place in the Holy Trinity and what became of him after his crucifixion.

Christianity’s greatest apostle, Paul of Tarsus made this very clear: if we have absolute faith in Yeshua’s death and resurrection, we redeem ourselves and take our place in the Kingdom of G_d.  To Paul, this is what distinguishes a Christian from a non-Christian. And note – there is no mention of a virgin birth anywhere in Paul’s surviving writings.

No wonder the Anglican hierarchy were shocked by the Bishop’s argument. In effect he was refuting the very basis of traditional Christianity.

Let’s take a look at the biblical Christmas and resurrection stories and consider how they relate to Unity teachings:

The Christmas story which is enacted around the world every December is based on just two gospels – Matthew’s and Luke’s. Mark and John have nothing to say on the issue. Indeed, John reports an incident in which a crowd doubted that Jesus was the Messiah precisely because he did not come from Bethlehem, but from Galilee.[2]

The familiar Christmas tale combines just Matthew and Luke.

Joseph and Mary travelled from Nazareth to Bethlehem on a donkey. Their son was born in a stable because there was no room at the inn. They were visited by shepherds and three wise men from the East. According to Matthew, and Matthew alone, the family then had to escape to Egypt to avoid persecution from King Herod.

Now apart from the sheer implausibility of such a tale, it is compounded by a number of ‘inconvenient’ facts based on what we know about history and the culture of Palestinian society at that time.

To start with, the above narrative is a combination of two incompatible sources. The only thing they have in common is the location, Bethlehem, and their wish to portray Jesus’ birth as important. ‘Matthew’ was also concerned to link it to the ancient Hebrew prophecies.

There is no mention of this miraculous birth anywhere else in the New Testament: no mention in the earliest gospel, ‘Mark’, and no mention in Paul’s letters, which pre-date Mark. Paul had met with the disciples Peter and James (Jesus’s biological brother) – surely they would have discussed such a remarkable turn of events? Or is it simply that these stories hadn’t yet been circulated when the earliest New Testament texts were written?

There’s no mention of the birth in the John’s Gospel; no mention in the Acts of the Apostles; and no mention in the later letters. Nowhere in the gospels does Jesus make any reference to his birth, and neither do his mother or his brothers! Curious!

Bethlehem

It was especially important for the author of Matthew’s Gospel that Jesus was seen to come from the town of Bethlehem, since the prophet Micah had foreseen a Messiah being born there. Matthew stated it as a fact but made no attempt to explain how they came to be in Bethlehem; that story came only from Luke. He wrote that a census was to take place which required every citizen to return to their ancestral home. Because Joseph was said to be a descendent of King David, this meant David’s city, Bethlehem.

Good story. The problem is, historians have searched in vain for an empire-wide census at the time of Jesus’s birth, but there was none. In any case the Romans had no jurisdiction to hold a census in Galilee since this was Herod’s province. And not even the Romans would have insisted that a heavily pregnant woman travel the eighty miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem through hostile territory.

The flight into Egypt

According to Luke, after the birth the family immediately returned to Nazareth. But Matthew’s gospel says that Mary, Joseph and the baby fled to Egypt to avoid an order from King Herod that all new born Jewish boys be killed. But there’s no record of any such decree, and no record of a slaughter of Jewish babies at that time. It is simply a literary way of linking Jesus’s birth to the passage in the scriptures in which Yahweh says, ‘Out of Egypt I called my son.’

So were ‘Matthew’ and ‘Luke’ fibbers? Yes and no. They saw no harm in using a little artistic licence or borrowing a few ideas from other cultures. They simply wanted to convince others that Yeshua was the Messiah and encourage them to join their new community.

Crucifixion, burial and resurrection

Let’s turn to Jesus’ crucifixion, burial and resurrection. Bishop Jenkins described the resurrection stories as ‘a conjuring trick with bones’ – hardly likely to endear him to the establishment.

While Jesus’s crucifixion is not in doubt (it is about the only fact about his life that is mentioned outside the official gospels), the circumstances of his burial are contested by historians. It was unheard of for a crucified person to receive a decent burial. It was normal practice to leave them on the cross until the vultures had torn off the flesh, then take the bones to the sulphur pits outside Jerusalem which were used as a crematorium.

The gospels say that that Pilate, the Roman governor, gave permission for Jesus’ body to be removed and placed in a tomb. Quite why this notoriously cruel and ruthless man would have given permission for the body of this particular insurgent to be given this special treatment is unclear, except it set the scene for what followed next.

As Unity’s Rev Tom Thorpe points out, nobody saw Jesus walk out of the tomb.

So where did this story come from? When Jesus died, his followers’ hopes that he was the one to liberate his people were shattered. Then, as the decades rolled by, successive generations of Christians began to see him as the personification of G_d. But how could G_d die? How could they execute G_d as a common criminal? The New Testament writers and subsequent theologians had a lot of explaining to do!

The explanation they came up with was startling – resurrection.

According to the gospels, Jesus repeatedly told his disciples that he would be killed and then resurrected on the third day[3]. But according to these same sources, nobody – not even his closest disciples – expected him to rise again, and when the post-Easter Christ figure ‘appeared’ to them, they were so surprised they didn’t recognise him.

Most of the gospel sightings began and ended mysteriously. Usually he ‘drew near’ then ‘disappeared from sight’. But the gospel writers went to great lengths to insist that the risen Jesus was not a ghost. Even though he could appear and disappear at will and walk through walls, they claimed he ate, drank and could be touched.

Paul of Tarsus – whose writings, remember, pre-date the gospels – would not have believed this. He believed that Jesus returned in changed form, not as a resuscitated corpse but transformed into a spiritual body.

I don’t have time to go into all the inconsistencies in the resurrection stories (I wrote several pages on this in the book), so I’ll summarise:

  • In Mark’s Gospel the disciples fled in terror and returned to Galilee.[4] The original gospel ended there, but decades later twelve extra verses were added in which the Christ figure ‘appeared’ to them several times, spoke to them and was immediately whisked away to heaven. Nowhere does this gospel claim that Jesus had risen in bodily form.
  • In Matthew’s Gospel, Mary Magdalene encountered Jesus as they fled from the empty tomb, but she didn’t recognize him. Clearly he wasn’t the man she had known just a few days earlier.
  • Luke’s Gospel added several more appearances in which Jesus ‘came near’ and ‘stood among them’, showed them his wounds, ate fish, then vanished. There are no such claims in ‘Mark’ or ‘Matthew’. Moreover, far from fleeing to Galilee, the disciples stayed in Jerusalem and ‘were continually in the temple.’
  • In the Fourth Gospel – written around 70 years after the crucifixion – neither Mary Magdalene nor Peter recognised him at first. Later, he ‘stood among’ the disciples and invited ‘doubting’ Thomas to touch his wounds.[5] He also appeared to the disciples on various occasions, once while they ate bread and fish for breakfast and another in which he appeared on a beach and gave the disciples some advice on fishing.[6]
  • Acts of the Apostles, written by the same author as ‘Luke’, merely says he ‘presented himself alive’ to the disciples over a forty day period before the momentous events of Pentecost.

Once again we find ourselves wondering which, if any, of these accounts is correct, since they can’t all be right! The only things the gospels agree on is that the tomb was empty on the third day and Mary Magdalene was one of those who discovered it.

Psychologists tell us that we are just as likely to see what we believe as believe what we see. There’s no verifiable evidence for a physical resurrection, just the words of a small group of devotees. But we must all decide for ourselves. Whatever you choose to believe is true – for you. That’s the nature of belief.

Conclusions

I believe that what Bishop Jenkins was trying to say was no different to Unity’s teachings on the scriptures – seek the deeper, metaphysical truths rather than blindly accepting them as literal, historical truth (which they are quite plainly not).

But what are these truths? Charles Fillmore, co-founder of Unity, said that ‘there is only one metaphysical interpretation and that is your own.’ In other words, what matters is what the biblical texts mean to you.

Being a Christian for me is above all knowing that the Christ spirit, energy, principle, whatever you want to call it, is present everywhere, including in me, and expressing it with joy. I believe that quantum science is revealing this as a scientific and not just a metaphysical truth. Bishop Jenkins – the man branded a heretic by members of his own church – thought the same.

For me, Christmas is about celebrating the presence of the Christ spirit in me, and the resurrection about re-affirming the power of a spiritual rebirth in me and the indestructible nature of consciousness.

I conclude my recent book with this comment:

If I have to believe in a virgin birth, walking on water, dead and decomposing bodies coming back to life and a man being carried up to heaven on a cloud before I can realise my spirituality, then there’s no hope for me. For me, in this sense conventional Christianity is a barrier. I can study it, learn from it and borrow the sayings and parables that make sense to me. The rest I can reject without fear of eternal damnation (a loving G_d wouldn’t do that to me anyway).

Spiritual seekers like myself do not dismiss the Christian tradition outright, but know that the scriptures must be read allegorically and metaphysically to access their real meaning. They acknowledge tradition but do not follow it blindly. That’s what more and more people are doing in this enlightened age; long may it continue.

That’s what Unity teaches. It’s what Bishop Jenkins was driving at. That’s not heresy – that is truth!

©David Lawrence Preston, 2016

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[1]The Quest of the Historical Jesus

[2] John 7:40-42

[3] E.g. Mark 9:31 and 10:34; Matthew 16:21 and 17:23; Luke 9:22 and 24:7; John 20:19

[4] Mark 16: 5-8

[5] John 20:19-20

[6] John 21:4-6

 

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How to Books 2007                   Hay House/Balboa Press 2015