I just thought of yet another way to read the story of Jesus’ death, inspired by some comments Carlos made on one of my posts from earlier.
Here’s my what if scenario:
Jesus had some great things to say and got really popular as a teacher. Eventually though, the fame got to him. Jesus the guru was becoming this image in people’s minds totally separate from what Jesus the man actually felt. And no matter how many times he tried to clarify what he actually meant, people just inserted their own interpretation. I mean, maybe a few got it, but whatever it was, even Jesus started to lose sight of it. He tried going out by himself into the desert for a while to get it back. And that helped for a while. But when he came back from vacation, it all became too much for him again. The persona he had constructed - and which had been constructed for him - no longer fit. He had to find a way out…
As far as I remember, Muslims believe that Jesus didn’t actually die on the Cross. Some people claim that his spirit switched places with Simon of Cyrene, and escaped scot free. Others say that it was actually his twin brother Thomas who was crucified. Still others put forth the possibilty that through drugs and meditation, Jesus entered a coma-like state, was presumed dead and entombed. And at the appointed time, he woke up, his co-conspirators rolled the tomb back and helped him escape.
What if Jesus’ death was faked? And what if it didn’t serve any metaphysical purpose at all? What if he was just trying to get his life back, and be a private citizen again after all his years of service to the community? There are legends that say Jesus traveled eastward then and lived out his days in India. Some even say Japan. And then there’s the whole Merovingian connection.
I realize that for people who don’t think Jesus was a historical person, this type of speculation is pointless. But it’s really not. It’s like what I said above about his story being a sort of magnet for whatever people need to bring into it. With my own work lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how public personas work, and how easy it is for people to nudge it in so many different directions that it becomes it’s own thing, not always even connected to who you are. That, or you outgrow it in some way, or both. It’s happening to me on a small scale, but just imagine how crazy it would be if you were some kind of spiritual teacher wandering the countryside with bands of disciples hanging on your every word? It’d be enough to drive anybody nuts.
Anyway I like this interpretation because it’s not Christian; it’s not gnostic; it’s just human.
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18 Comments
I’ve recently read John Selby Spong on Resurrection : Myth or Reality? and I find his view thoroughly convincing. According to him, Jesus died and stayed dead. Peter, however, had a powerful religious experience following His death and was only able to express it through the idea of resurrection. Jesus suddenly seemed so present to him. Through this visionary experience - and similar ones for the apostles and later, for Saul/Paul - the early church was inspired to form itself around the figure of Jesus and of Christ as His divine and resurrected self. All this makes sense to me and is compatible with common sense, never a bad thing in my book.
The idea that Jesus faked His own death is fine as an exercise in exploring possibilities but it doesn’t result in a plausible explanation for the history of the Christian church nor does it provide a way forward for resurrecting the Christian church as a credible religious path for people with modern scientifically developed minds.
Well, I would be worried about that maybe, were it my goal. My goal is figuring my life out. And I gotta take that one step at a time. A website I visited the other day had a great description of what it was about. It went something like, “To the casual observer, this website is about pop culture, movies, etc. But I know what it’s really all about. Me”
My website’s really no different
My own personal interpretation of the death and resurrection is like this: in evolutoinary psychology, they talk about the the brain is basically a jerry rigging of one new system stacked on top of another, ie the emotional stacked on the lizard brain, the prefontal rational brain stacked on the emotional etc. So religion functions as a road map for the development of the brain, which goes on much longer than the growth of the body. The age of Jesus- 33, right?- shows the approx. time at which one might shift from being in the emo brain the being seated in the prefontal more rational brain. This can be a dangerous transition, and metaphysically you die to compassion (ie emotion)and become an adult (a rational calculating creature). The rebirth of Jesus represents the moment when your higher functions (god like) are up and running and you realize that even though youve transcended the emotional brain, it is still there, and compassion is still the correct focus of all your new smarts (think of alll the movies from bond to star wars where the calculating, evil force is conquered and displaced by one who is calculating and skilled not for its own sake but for the sake of compassion for others). Within that transition the higher caculating powers can get carried away just getting set up and need to be reigned in the serve the lower functions, to be part of the whole.
Bill, just curious… how old are you, if you don’t mind my asking? I’m guessing 33 or thereabouts, since for you that idea of age and rites of passage is a sticking issue in the story. Whereas for me, the idea of a persona is currently making a lot of sense to me. Is that actually the beauty of the Christ story, that everyone sees in it some piece of themselves they are looking for?
Do you remember that part in The Last Temptation of Christ where Jesus walks up to Paul on the street and says “But I’m not dead, I’m right here.” And in return Paul says “I don’t know who you are, but the Jesus that I know died on the cross…” yadda yadda.
I agree with you, and think it’s pretty funny to think he may have faked his death, in the vein of legends like Jim Morrison, Adolf Hitler, or Pauly Shore - but ultimately, how important is it to the story that he actually died and was resurrected?
I don’t know if I can answer that. But questions like this are good, and it’s why I personally like the Jesus story so much. If God were to become a man it would be in such a way that everyone saw him differently, and everyone would be trying to figure out exactly what he meant. His purpose is to be contemplated - not to give too many final answers.
I personally like the resurrection aspect because it’s just totally bonkers, but I can understand feeling drawn to a more human viewpoint. Another reason i prefer keeping it is this term I remember learning in religious studies called lectio difficilior, which means you should try to read something with a difficult reading in mind. I maybe getting that wrong, but I picture something like the opposite of Occam’s Razor?
Garrett
The idea that he faked his death is a very old one and in many traditions it is in fact Judas who ‘gave his life to save humanity’.
In this reading he was chosen by Christ to betray him and thus be the everlasting figure of hate - both for the disciples and for posterity. Of course Judas was the one who died and Christ lived on. Clearly if Christ was seen after his supposed death then this would give rise to the belief of the resurrection.
An alternative scenario: Jesus went away on vacation, but forgot to tell anybody. Then, through a comedy of errors and a case of mistaken identification, somebody else gets arrested and crucified, and it gets reported as Jesus.
So, the disciples think Jesus is dead; three days later, he returns from vacation, and he says, “Hey, everybody, why the long faces?” Now all the disciples are freaking out ( “He rose from the dead!” “He’s the Messiah!” ). Jesus goes, “No, I was just on vacation - didn’t I tell you?” He turns to Thomas and says, “Thomas, you believe me, don’t you?”, and Thomas is like, “I don’t know what to believe anymore…”
Could Christianity be the result of the telephone game?
The story I read (I forget where) stated that Jesus had been given poison, but not enough to kill him. It very much gave the appearance of death (sort of like the infamous zombie powder of Vodun fame). After a few days, he revived and was let out by his co-conspirators.
Over the years I have heard other ideas that he lived out his life in hiding, married, and raised a family. But where, I do not know.
I bet he was thinking, “I’m just going to lay low until this whole Jesus worship fad blows over.”
Yeah and then it exploded in his face. Maybe he even thought after a couple years, he could go back home, chill out and spend his days relaxing. No such luck!
When Jesus Walked in Japan, which I mentioned on my blog last December, is yet another take on the Jesus-didn’t-die-on-the-cross idea. Sure, it uses the brother-as-body-double plot point, but that is where similarities end. According to this legend, Jesus fled to Japan where he became known as a garlic farmer and died of old age.
Yeah, I’ve heard of that and alluded to it above. I guess there are a lot of examples of the faked death view of this. I guess the part that really struck me here though was why - namely that his public life had eclipsed his private life. And the only way he could go on living was to publicly kill his public image.
reminds me of ‘the passover plot’:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Passover_Plot
basically it says that jesus & his crew set the whole thing up in order to make him the messiah. it’s interesting, because the NT gospels are full of references to jesus going out of his way to be sure he fulfills certain prophecies.
Whooops. You did mention the Japanese angle. I missed it when I first read your entry. Sorry for the repeat.
Oh well, I like the story if only for the “Na-Nee-Ya-Do-Ya-Ra” mantra, and the fact that (so far) locals refuse to let so-called experts noodle around with the graves.
But since you are dealing with the “why” of it, what if Jesus’ death was faked by a collusion between Roman and Jewish authorities? Sort of a scared straight kind of tactic: “Look … we like you, but you’re causing all sorts of trouble. Now, we have a way you can continue to do your good works but only if you agree to go underground.”
Stranger things have happened. Such as Dostoyevsky’s mock execution.
Have a look at ‘Magic Mushrooms in Religion and Alchemy’ (formerly ‘Strange Fruit’) by Clark Heinrich - he deals with the subject of the ‘faked’ crucifixion.
Guys only fake there own deaths to get away from their wifes.
Therefore, Jesus did not fake his own death.
How do I know this?
Simple. There is no way he was married.
You disappear with 12 of you buddies on a Friday.
You come back on a Sunday looking like death warmed over.
What woman do you know that would believe that story?
Not exactly a faked death, but an arranged “substitution.”
There is a story I’ve heard about this. Jesus was very well known as a healer and miracle worker throughout the Mid East. He was sought after and, well, very famous. People offered their goods, wealth, and lives to him, the miracle worker of God. Now then, as today, some people were jealous of such fame. And a few of these took it upon themselves to imitate Jesus, posing as him at various points around the area. They derived the benefits and made themselves rich. When the time came for the big event, it was arranged for one of these impostors to be arrested and crucified. The authentic Jesus was seen on his way out of town by a few people, and he went on his way eastward to continue his teaching, healing, etc.
Theres an element of that substitution story that makes a lot of sense. The whole thing about how Judas is supposed to kiss the man who is Jesus, thus identifying him to the authorities. If they didn’t already know who Jesus was, he could have easily indicated anyone…
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[...] As far as I remember, Muslims believe that Jesus didn’t actually die on the Cross. Some people claim that his spirit switched places with Simon of Cyrene, and escaped scot free. Others say that it was actually his twin brother Thomas who was crucified. Still others put forth the possibilty that through drugs and meditation, Jesus entered a coma-like state, was presumed dead and entombed. And at the appointed time, he woke up, his co-conspirators rolled the tomb back and helped him escape. [...]