Dan Brown may have fuelled our interest in early Christianity, but Barrie Wilson's first book for a lay audience is provocative too.
Despite the large body of writing and research on early Christianity, popular interest in the subject can be largely credited to the likes of Dan Brown, whose super-successful thriller, The Da Vinci Code, made everyone sit up and start talking of ancient cathedrals, Humanist paintings with hidden codes, secret societies and a “quest”. The book got made into a not-so-fine movie, which, nevertheless, fuelled even more of an interest in the subject, and now, this season, Brown is back in fashion with the release of the film version of Angels and Demons, a prequel to his The Da Vinci Code, that has not just its protagonist (Robert Langdon, the Harvard University professor of symbology) but much of its world view in common with its better-known sibling.
A week into its India release, Angels and Demons seems to have done astonishing business — Rs 19 million in the first weekend itself — showing how fascinating the subject continues to be even in a country far removed from its context. So, this weekend, if you find yourself dwelling on Christ’s bloodline, or the Illuminati, for that matter, you are unlikely to be the only one doing that. But while popular fiction may keep you hooked, those fascinated with the intrigues, twists and dramatis personae surrounding the rise of Christianity may like to turn to the real thing: History.
Released in paperback this year, How Jesus Became Christian is a provocative but scholarly look at the early Christian years. It seeks to answer a basic question that should stare everyone in the face — but doesn’t: How did Jesus (Yeshua), a simple Jewish teacher, became “the Son of God” or the Gentile Christ of faith? We don’t see Jesus in his Jewish context at all and that’s because of a deliberate cover-up, proposes Barrie Wilson, a professor of religious studies at York University, Toronto, and a Dead Sea Scrolls scholar. He writes: “This is part of one of the most effective cover-ups of all times. It is much more significant than the current popular hypothesis that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and that they had children together whose offspring survive to the present day. For that cover-up there is little evidence even of marriage, let alone children. The meager support for that hypothesis are just generalities — that rabbis of that era typically married, that Mary Magdalene went to the tomb to claim his body (and so acted as wife), and that she was highly regarded by a faction within early Christianity, the Gnostics. While Mary Magdalene was evidently an important person within early Christianity, the evidence for Jesus-as-family-man hypothesis is slim... not our story here.”
Wilson argues that the religion taught by the historical Jesus is now dead. Instead, it got switched with an alternate movement led by Paul — who had never met the real Jesus and differed significantly from the teachings of his earliest followers (Jesus’ brother James led the “Jesus movement” after the latter’s death). Wilson not only contends that Paul’s movement was different and rival to the one taught by the Ebionites (early Jewish-Christians who insisted on following Jewish law and rituals, and saw Jesus as a messiah but not divine), who were the real followers of Jesus, but also that, at the turn of the second century, the Book of Acts invented fictitious history and grafted the religion of Paul on to the earlier “Jesus movement”.
Examining the writings of the New Testament and others, Wilson seeks to explore the roots of anti-Semitism in Christianity and traces this to the “cover-up”. He moves in a historical fashion, first presenting a portrait of time just prior to Jesus’ birth: There were cultures in conflict — a powerful Hellenistic world in conflict with the Jewish one in the Mediterranean region. The challenge for Judaism was to survive in the face of this growing Hellenisation. And Wilson views the “Jesus movement” in this context — as a political challenge to the Roman empire. However, referring to writings from the New Testament (including the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew) and other sources (there is a six-page bibliography and eight pages of “notes” tagged on at the end), Wilson shows how Jesus and his teachings were very much a part of Judaism:
“Jesus — Jewish. Torah-observant. Fully human. No virgin birth. A revered teacher-rabbi. Herald of the long-awaited Kingdom of God. Resurrected…” is the portrait of Jesus among his early followers, Wilson tells all those who may ask, “you mean Jesus had a brother? In fact, several brothers and at least two sisters? How come we haven’t heard about them?”
According to him, Jesus’s subversive strategy against the Romans, in fact, constituted of a stricter Torah compliance and the announcement that the kingdom of god was at hand and those who complied with the Torah would be part of it. Paul’s religion, on the other hand, was a personality cult. It replaced the original teachings of Jesus (a social code) with the person of Christ (Son of God, virgin birth and the notion of faith being more important than law).
Wilson theorises that the new religion was grafted on to the older “Jesus movement” (that traced its Judaistic roots back to Abraham) to give it a larger mass appeal in a Roman world that favoured antiquity and a personal connect with its deities. When Christianity got adopted as its official religion in the fourth century, it was helped along by these facets. The anti-Semitism in the writings is attributed to the new religion competing with branches of Judaism (and other religions of the time) and that many of these — whose leaders were aware of the real Jesus — would have been highly critical of it.
Despite the complex arguments, Wilson’s writing is accessible. That he is looking for a mass audience is evident in the way that arguments are summarised every now and then. This, in fact, can become an irritant. Wilson’s sympathies are Jewish and this must also be kept in mind — you may, for instance, feel that he comes down unduly harshly on Paul. Nevertheless, a fascinating read.
HOW JESUS BECAME CHRISTIAN
Author: Barrie Wilson
Publisher: Hachette
Pages: 317
Price: Rs 595
