The Jesus Mysteries: Was The Original Jesus A Pagan God? [Paperback]

This book is well researched and provides compelling detail on the origins of Christianity. I've been searching for a book like this for years and I'm glad I've found it. My only quibbles are that it does tend to overstate its case at times (there really is no need; the evidence is clear enough on its own) and the style is a bit sensationalist. The irritating and wholely excessive use of exclamation marks encapsulates both of these faults. However, those are essentially surface points. The meat is in the arguments and evidence. Here, the copious footnotes are invaluable. Ironically, a little less missionary zeal on the part of the authors (and a little less of the occasional speculation presented as fact) would have made their underlying analysis even stronger. Still, if you want a good analysis of this difficult subject, here it is.

The Jesus Mysteries is a radical reinterpretation of the Jesus story. Freke and Gandy argue that nearly all of the miracles (and the moral teaching given by Christ) were constructed from elements of the surrounding Pagan Greco-Roman culture. Historically, we regard Christianity as being 'set apart' from the Pagan cultures of the classical world and this is perhaps inevitable given the primacy of the Christian church in Western culture. However, when we study the Bible in the light of modern scholarship a very different version of the origins of Christianity emerges from that propagated for millennia by the institution of the church.

For most of the Christian era the 'Gnostics' were the shadowy enemy of the true Church; we only really knew about their beliefs and practices through the writings of their detractors and of course that isn't a very good way of obtaining accurate information. All this changed in 1945 with the discovery of a cache of 'Gnostic' Gospels at Nag Hammadi in Egypt. For the first time in over 1000 years the Gnostics-through these rediscovered writings- could speak for themselves.

The fact that the Gnostic Gospels were condemned by what we now think of as the 'mainstream' church doesn't make them any less spiritually interesting or any less spiritually potent. After all, who is to judge that the faith of a small group of early Christians gathered around 'The Thought of Norea' or 'The Gospel of Thomas' was somehow deficient compared to a similar group gathered around 'Mark' or 'Matthew,' though it must be said that the Gnostic Gospels are not all sweetness and light. I'm not sure that Gnosticism offers a better version of Christianity just a very different one (the idea that material world is intrinsically bad, for example) and many of them are of significantly later date than the four canonical works. However, Freke and Gandy's central point is a valid one: people tend to forget that centuries passed before there was such a thing as a fixed Christian Bible. We somehow assume (and we have been culturally conditioned to assume) that the Bible in the form that we have it now was part of Christianity from day one. It wasn't.

The Jesus Mysteries I found to be a fascinating read and Freke and Gandy do a good job in reconstructing and defending the beliefs of the Gnostic Christians which they themselves seem to share or at least have sympathy with. Central to the Jesus Mysteries thesis is the idea that Jesus was a mythical and archetypal 'God-Man' not an actual historical person. Indeed, they go so far as to suggest that the Jesus story is-almost-a kind of 1st Century Star Wars. In other words a story with an underlying mystical meaning but essentially a story. Many people would-naturally-dispute this.

As other reviewers have helpfully pointed out Freke and Gandy are not the first writers to make these or similar points. Professor Elaine Pagels (who is liberally quoted here) has advanced similar arguments years before Freke and Gandy and decades earlier still the esteemed professor of oriental religions Edward Conze posited the idea that the Gnostics may have been familiar with Hinduism and/or Buddhism. The book also leans heavily on the work of Joseph Campbell. In summary The Jesus Mysteries is an interesting and controversial book though I doubt that it is the final word on this millennia old subject.

I purchased this book after becoming aware of the similarities between the myths of Mithras, Osiris and Jesus and wanting to look further into it. This book provides a coherent and well researched review of the evidence that surrounds the creation and propagation of some of the most powerful influences on the human mind that have ever existed. It brings to light what has been lost through the adherence to a literalist Christian church, and indeed what had to be lost to enable this form of christianity to survive. It also explains many of the contradictions that exist in christianity that, it seems, very few believers ever seek to challenge or even understand.

What I will say is that after reading this book you will be left with a profound sense that we have lost so much rich culture and that many of the traditions and sayings (from Seventh Heaven to the number of the beast) are actually drawn from a completely different way of viewing the christian myths.