The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light

Review by Ward Gasque for The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light
Rating:
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.

Review by Bruce D. Galenza, Ph.D. for The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light
Rating:
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.

Review by Ben P. Robertson for The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light
Rating:
I have read almost all of Tom Harpur’s books, and this one would be a fitting climax to his writing career (although I certainly hope it’s not his last!). I have been uncomfortable with a literal reading of Scripture for quite a long time, and this book came along at just the right time in my life. I was raised in a very traditional Methodist home in Georgia but came to question the doctrines of the church and eventually abandoned the church AND religion entirely, because I could not believe in something based on fantastical stories of miracles, virgin births, corpses walking the earth, and some future return and Last Judgment (which somehow always seemed to be just out of reach).After many years in self-imposed exile, I have come back to spirituality and faith, but not within the teachings of any church that I know of (although I am now an active member of the United Church of Canada). Tom Harpur’s books (and those of John Shelby Spong and others) have helped to to see that you can have a very deep faith without “checking your brain at the door,” as Harpur says. I have read similar books, notably “The Jesus Mysteries” by Freke and Gandy. This is the best in terms of helping one to actually find a faith that can do without a historical figure as its basis. This is not to denigrate other authors, as additional reading will help one to understand more fully why and how a metaphoric Christ became a flesh-and-blood (much blood, accoring to Mel Gibson) Jesus.The death and resurrection of this Christ were a metaphor for the spiritual death and resurrection we all have to undergo to attain the “Christ consciousness” within each of us. The literalists completely failed to understand this, and they suppressed (often violently) other strains of the faith early on, becoming the dominant branch of Christianity. Mel Gibson and his ilk are their spiritual descendants.Reading the Bible as metaphor is indeed far more powerful than trying to read it as history. There is great truth in myth and symbology. If more people of all faiths understood this, we would live in a far better world. We would all see the Christ (the spark of divinity) in each and every person and thing in Creation. The name might change, depending on one’s background, but the principle would remain the same.Thanks, Tom, for a wonderful and insightful book.