I’m reading through Tom Harpur’s The Pagan Christ. I’m having a hard time reading more than a few pages at once. I don’t usually have this kind of trouble reading. I can usually start and finish within four or five days. Though this one is different. So far he is arguing that nothing in the Christian faith is original. Now while this may seem extremely shocking, the bible says this itself. In Ecclesiastes it says that nothing is new under the sun, so it doesn’t surprise me as maybe it should. I feel as though he’s just doing an information dump. I have never heard of so many myths and stories told in a few pages than i have in this book. He lists myth after myth after myth showing where the Christian story parallels. It’s tiring to read and it seems almost repetitive. Secondly, I think i find it more encouraging than discouraging to know that bits nad peices of the gospel can be found all throughout history and all throughout other faiths. Is that heretical? I’m not sure how i feel about this book. I’m a little uneasy about it because of how he seems to be coming to a conclusion and what he is concluding with. For right now though I’m just tired of the info dump and i hope he gets to some better subjects.
Nate, i’m really interested in this book. It is on my reading list so let me know more about it as your read. Also could you kindly remind your roommate that he has a blog. Love ME.
Do you know the story of Tom Harpur? He used to be an orthodox (small o) teacher at a seminary, but then he got a girlfriend/wife who was anything but that, so he conveniently converted to a raging liberal version of Christianity, which he promulgates to this day. The point of the Pagan Christ is to show that the church basically ripped off older myths and invented a completely false Christ, which is the one we worship today as Christians. Of course, the scholarship he relies upon is slightly less than credible (*spoken with a sarcastic voice*).
Here’s a good review (though not very friendly):
http://www.tektonics.org/harpur01.html
As to finding bits of the gospel in earlier religions, as sort of a pre-evangelum, I agree with you that I like to find those kinds of things. But Harpur is not arguing for providential “co-incidences”, he’s arguing for derivation. The Christ was actually concocted from a bunch of Pagan myths, hence the title.