Book 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.
Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light FROM THE PUBLISHER
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.
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
Harpur (religion editor, Toronto Star; For Christ's Sake) has a simple yet challenging thesis: Jesus did not exist. He argues that what was originally meant to be taken spiritually and allegorically was, by the third century, taken literally. A former Anglican priest and former believer in the historical Jesus, Harpur now proposes that religion has an important spiritual meaning, one that was recognized by the Egyptians, and that Egyptian allegory was taken over by Christians and made historical in the character of Jesus. Harpur shows the many correspondences between Christian teaching and Egyptian teaching but tends to go a bit overboard in his interpretations, saying, for example, that "the evidence seems incontestable that the twelve disciples represent twelve deific powers, and not men." He also claims that the Egyptian pictograph representing unharmed wellness and unity was gradually transformed into the Rx symbol for prescriptions, although some argue that it comes from the Latin word recipe ("to take"). For all its faults, Harpur's book is intriguing, and it will be popular among those who question received dogma. For larger religion collections.-Augustine J. Curley, Newark Abbey, NJ Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Art & Photography
Book Info
