Civilization #24: Resurrecting the Gnostic Jesus

Jesus is the most famous man who has ever lived. There are about two billion people on this planet—about a quarter of the human race—who worship him. So who is he? What does he believe? And why is he so important?

Let's first look at what we know about the historical Jesus. There was a man who lived, and these are facts that most scholars agree about. He was born in the year 4 BC in a place called Galilee. This is important because Galilee, located in Judea (modern-day Israel), was a meeting place of many different cultures, religions, and beliefs. This was part of the Roman Empire and a center of much of the world at that time.

He was a student of someone called John the Baptist. John the Baptist was a major Jewish religious leader who believed in baptism as a way of cleansing you of your sins so that you may prepare for the Kingdom of Heaven. God is coming, but you must first cleanse your sins and restart yourself in order to be worthy of his arrival.

After some time with John the Baptist, Jesus started to create his own following. Jesus was preaching his own message that was very attractive, and he developed a very large following. He was pretty well known for his healing powers; if you were sick, he could heal you through the power of faith and belief.

What we also know is that around the year 30 to 33 CE, when he was about 34 or 37, he was crucified by the Romans. We don't know why they crucified him, but we believe he was crucified. Crucifixion was the worst way to die and was basically reserved only for two types of people: either bandits and pirates or rebels—people who defied the Roman state. It was really reserved for poor, illiterate individuals who had no status.

You may not know this, but when they crucify you, they nail you to a cross and put you up. You don't die because of bleeding or pain; you die because of suffocation. You suffocate to death. What happens is you're on the cross, and eventually, you start to lose power and can't even hold up your neck. You're suffocating to death because you can't breathe. It takes about three days to die, so it's really the worst way to die. That's what happened to Jesus.

Historically, this is all that we know about him. This is what's been confirmed by scholars, archaeologists, and researchers. Jesus is the most studied individual in human history—no one comes close—but we really don't know much about him.

Now that we've looked at the historical Jesus, let's look at the biblical Jesus, because these are two very different individuals. Jesus in the Bible is the Son of God. He's in heaven enjoying his life, but he sees the world underneath him, pities us, and wants to liberate us from our pain and suffering. He wants to redeem us and to atone for our sins and our crimes. He's born of a virgin mother named Mary, and from a very early age, he is a religious genius who attracts followers. He has 12 Apostles and is determined to preach the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. God is coming, and we must be ready for him.

He also preaches a religion of forgiveness, redemption, compassion, generosity, and mercy. He will say things like, "Do not judge others. Let those who are without fault, without sin, without mistakes be the first to cast the stone." We shouldn't judge others because we all have our own faults. We should be generous, open, and compassionate.

He was also, in many ways, a social revolutionary because he was upset with the religion of the times. At that time, the Jewish religion was controlled very much by the priesthood. You showed your faith by making animal sacrifices, by basically paying a tribute to God. Jesus thought that was wrong. You show your faith by being a good person, by being generous, by refusing materialism, greed, and corruption. You don't show your faith through animal sacrifice. As such, he angered the religious powers at that time, especially the priests of the temple in Jerusalem.

Eventually, he was betrayed by his apostle named Judas Iscariot. Judas reported the "crimes" of Jesus to the religious authorities, and in turn, the religious powers—the priests of the temple—turned him over to the Roman governor of that time, Pontius Pilate. Pontius Pilate really didn't want to be involved; he didn't know what crime Jesus committed. But the priests insisted, the Jewish people insisted, and so as a sacrifice, Pontius Pilate agreed to crucify Jesus.

Jesus was crucified, and after he died, he was resurrected. How do we know? Because he appeared before his Apostles and told them, "Look, I've come to this earth in order to redeem and atone for the sins of men. I have now done so. Therefore, God will come and cleanse the Earth of all sin. Spread my message, spread my gospel." Gospel is Greek for "good news." "And I will return to you." There's a promise that there will be a second coming, and when Jesus returns, he will come as prophesied on top of clouds and will smite all of God's enemies, and they will build a paradise.

That's what the Bible says. It's really important for us to understand that there are contradictions in the Bible because all that we know about Jesus comes from four biographies: the gospels. They're written by four different individuals who we name Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. Again, there are inconsistencies within their biographies, but if you put them together, this is the story of Jesus.

The Central Problem of Christianity: The Crucifixion

When you hear this story, there are certain problems. The biggest problem is: if he is in fact the Son of God, if he is divine, how do we explain the crucifixion and the resurrection? Why does the Son of God have to die? And how does a Son of God die? This is one of the most perplexing and confusing questions in Christianity, and it's been with us for about 2,000 years. No one's really resolved this issue.

But the standard explanation is this: Why did Jesus have to come to Earth? The reason is that God and the children he created—us—are at war. There's a religious war going on. God created us and put us in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, and God told us, "Listen, this is Paradise. You can do whatever you want, but there's only one rule you must not break: do not eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil." That's all we had to do. But we disobeyed him, and God, in his anger, exiled us from Paradise. In our stupidity, in our ignorance, in our selfishness, we never came to recognize our own original sin, our own failings. So we continue to make more and more mistakes, which has led to a more corrupt and decadent world.

God up in heaven is waiting for us to ask for forgiveness, to admit our mistakes, and we refuse to do so because we're kids; we're stupid. But God, even though he's merciful and wise, must be asked for forgiveness before he can forgive us. Jesus, who is the Son of God, recognizes this conflict, this impasse, and he decides he will come to Earth and sacrifice himself in order to atone for the sins of man and release us from our own stupidity and ignorance, allowing God to forgive us. But if you think about it, this is all the work of God, because God is allowing us to forgive ourselves.

In many ways, this is solving the problem of Achilles from The Iliad. In The Iliad, there's a central conflict, and it's the problem of Achilles. Achilles is this great warrior who refuses to fight for the Greeks because Agamemnon, the king, has insulted him. But he really wants to fight. Eventually, in his arrogance, he causes the death of his friend Patroclus. When Patroclus dies, it makes Achilles even more angry at himself. That's why he takes out his anger on Hector. He doesn't recognize his own failings, his own sin. It took Priam to release him from his anger. Priam forgave Achilles, and when Priam forgave Achilles, it released Achilles from his own guilt. The problem, though, is if Priam never forgave Achilles, then Achilles would have been stuck in his depression and his anger.

This is Achilles' problem: if we can't forgive ourselves, who will forgive us? The answer, of course, is Jesus will forgive you. This is the fundamental idea of Christianity. Do not be angry at yourself. Do not hate yourself. Do not feel guilty, because Jesus has forgiven you, which allows you to be a new you. You can now be whoever you want because Jesus has atoned for or taken away your sins and your guilt. If you believe in him, then you will become a new person. You can become whoever you want to be. This is the idea of Christianity. Jesus made the sacrifice in order to release us from our own guilt and our own shame so we can be free to worship God in His glory.

Not only that, but because of the sacrifice of Jesus, everyone is now free to worship God. Before, God was a religion within Judaism; only Jews had access to God. And even within the religion itself, really only the high priest had access to God. So Jesus came to Earth to tell all humans, the entire human race, that God is within all of us. You don't have to be a Jewish person to believe in God; you can just be a person who wants to believe in God.

This is an idea that is beautifully encapsulated in the Gospel of Mark. This is when Jesus has been crucified and he has died:

Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. When the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!”

The Son of God has died; he's completed his mission. "And the curtain of the temple was torn into two from top to bottom." This is an extremely important sentence. The curtain is the door inside the temple, and the curtain is what protects the inner sanctum, the holiest room, called the Holy of Holies, from everyone else. Only the high priest can enter there because that room is where God is. So when the curtain is torn in two, this is telling us that God is now released into the world. God was trapped inside the temple, but now that the curtain has been torn in two because of the sacrifice of Jesus, God can now enter the world, and we can all have access to him. He's no longer trapped inside this curtain.

"And when the centurion"—the centurion is the Roman, not the Jewish person—"who stood facing him"—the centurion was watching guard to make sure no one came to save Jesus—"saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, 'Truly this man was God's son.'" The first person to recognize who Jesus really is is not his Apostles, but a Roman who saw him die. The centurion is history's first Christian because he sees for himself: this Jesus was truly the Son of God, a divine figure who came to Earth in order to liberate us from our sins and to build a connection between us and God.

This is the very basis of the Christian faith. You believe that Jesus came to Earth in order to atone for our sins and to liberate us from the corruption of religion and the world around us.

The Historical Inaccuracies of the Biblical Narrative

While this is a beautiful story that has touched millions of people for thousands of years, it really doesn't make much sense. There are problems within the story. The biggest problem is the idea of atonement and original sin. We studied the story of Adam and Eve, and we said very clearly that what the Bible says is both God (Yahweh) and Adam and Eve were at fault. Adam and Eve did disobey God and eat from the tree, but God lied to them. We also said God recognized his mistake.

Also, remember God already punished us for our disobedience. God said to Adam, "From now on, you have to work hard to grow food for your family," and he said to Eve, "From now on, you will suffer pain in your labor. When you give birth, you will suffer immense pain." So God has already punished us for our original sin. The last problem is that God kicked us out of Paradise because he feared that we would eat from the Tree of Life, which would give us eternal life. This idea of original sin and atonement doesn't make any sense.

Also, why is God angry at us? If he's God, he's perfection. Why does he have to be angry at us? What did we do to piss him off? Would a father be angry at his children always? Is it the responsibility of the children to ask for forgiveness or the responsibility of the father to forgive his children? This is an extremely problematic story. It sounds beautiful, but when you start to think about it, it becomes extremely problematic.

There are also things in the story that are not historically accurate. The biggest problem is this: the Bible says very explicitly at times that it was the Jews who killed Jesus. This is problematic because this has been used to justify anti-Semitic behavior and language throughout centuries. But historically, this is not what happened.

Let me give you a few reasons why I do not believe this is what happened. The first reason is that the Bible does not recognize that at this time in Jerusalem, there were many different religious authorities among the Jewish people, and they were in conflict with each other. The three major factions were:

• The Sadducees: They are the aristocrats, the priests who are in charge of the temple. They're basically the central authority of the religion.
• The Pharisees: They argue that what matters is not animal sacrifice but obedience to the law of God. These are reformers, and eventually from them emerge what we call the rabbis, basically the current leaders of the Jewish faith.
• The Essenes: They believe that there is an apocalypse coming; God is returning to Earth. What's important is to deny the material reality, to live frugally, to live in peace and harmony together.

These three groups hated each other. They were always at conflict with each other, but they never went to war with each other because they believed that they were all God's people. Therefore, they should argue, not kill each other. So the idea that these priests would send Jesus to his death doesn't really fit into the culture and the practice of people at that time.

The second problem is the Bible makes Pontius Pilate look to be very reluctant and even at times sympathetic towards Jesus. It's a very pro-Roman attitude. But we have a lot of information about Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea at this time. What we know about him is he was a violent thug, like most Romans. The Romans have a notorious attitude of being violent first. They're not very political or strategic; they like to kill people.

At the time, Pontius Pilate had a major conflict with the Jews of Jerusalem. The first law of the Ten Commandments is "you shall not worship false idols." But Pontius Pilate represented the Roman Empire, and their false idol was their emperor. The face of the emperor Tiberius was on coins, and there were flags and posters of him. Pontius Pilate wanted to bring the cult of Caesar to Jerusalem, which offended the Jews because they are not allowed to have false idols inside their holy city. This created a lot of conflicts between Pontius Pilate and the Jews. There were some circumstances where the Jews went to Pontius Pilate to complain, and he said, "If you don't get out of my house, I'm going to kill all of you." The Jews started to line up and say, "Come, here's my neck. Come kill me." Pontius Pilate had to relent; he had no face. The Jews were all willing to die to protect their religion. So Pontius Pilate was not a very political or savvy individual. He continued to offend the Jews. The idea that Pontius Pilate would be sympathetic towards Jesus makes no sense. If Pontius Pilate could kill a Jew, he would kill a Jew.

The Religious and Historical Context of Jesus's Time

I'm going to make an argument. I'm going to reconstruct the historical Jesus and tell you, based on my reading of history and the Bible, what he really believed.

First, I want to talk about the historical circumstance of Jerusalem and Judea at this time. King David was one of the main founders of the religion. At this time in history, in about 1000 BCE, this was really the height and peak of the state of Israel. They were very confident, open, and generous. But after David died, his son Solomon was not able to keep the kingdom together, and it split into two: the northern kingdom and Judah.

Over time, because Israel is in such a strategic location—the Levant is the center of the world—both of these places were conquered by foreigners. The northern kingdom was conquered by the Assyrians. Judah was conquered by the Babylonians, and the elite were sent off into exile in Babylon, where they basically developed the religion of Judaism in its modern form. The Persians returned the Jews back to Judea, and there they wrote the Bible around 444 BCE.

But then the Persians were conquered by the Greeks, by Alexander the Great, in 301 BCE. Now Ptolemy, the Greek general, was in charge of the area. Ptolemy was in charge of Egypt, and Egypt was very wealthy, so he preferred to use money to resolve disputes. What he did was basically say to the Jewish elite, the priests, "Hey, your religion is really interesting. Why don't you guys come to Alexandria, the capital of Egypt, and translate your Hebrew Bible into the Greek Bible so that we can all appreciate the beauty and power of your words?" We call this Bible the Septuagint. It becomes the basis of Christianity because most people by the time Christianity comes won't read Hebrew; they'll be able to read Greek.

But then in 167 BC, Judea was conquered by the Seleucid Empire and Antiochus. Antiochus was a thug, so he came and desecrated the temple by offering a pig sacrifice to Zeus in their temple. This offended the Jews so much they launched a decades-long guerrilla warfare against the Seleucid Empire.

In 63 BCE, the Romans conquered Jerusalem. Pompey the Great, the Roman general, came and conquered, laying siege to Jerusalem. He killed tens of thousands of Jews and enslaved others, sending them across the Empire.

At this point in history, when Jesus was born a few decades later in 4 BC, the Jews had become extremely fanatical about their religion. They needed to explain: if they are the chosen people, if their God Yahweh is the best God in the world, why is this crap happening? Why did their kingdom become dissolved and then conquered by foreigners? And not only that, but these foreign powers—the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans—came and insulted their God. They burned down the temple, they desecrated the temple, and they killed a lot of God's chosen people.

Why was this happening? There's a twofold explanation. The first is that they were not loyal enough to God. God sent these foreigners to conquer them because they disobeyed God, worshipped foreign idols, and refused to follow God's commandments. The second explanation is the idea of apocalyptic eschatology. This is a very big term. Eschatology comes from the Greek eschaton, which means "the end"—the end of the world, end times. Apocalypse is Greek for "revelation" or "unveiling." So, apocalyptic eschatology means telling you how the world ends with the return of God.

All this crap was happening because God was planning to make his return to smite all his enemies, to destroy all these empires who had defiled his name. This is what most Jews believed at the time of Jesus. When Jesus was born, it was assumed that God was about to return to the world and destroy all his enemies. There were a lot of prophets running around preaching this message. Jesus was one of them, but he was not unique in his message that the kingdom of heaven was returning.

At the same time, because the Levant was really the center of the world, it was a meeting place. Every single major religion was in the Levant, and Jesus was absorbing and trying to understand these different religions.

• You have the Greeks with Plato. Platonic philosophy believes God is called the Form of the Good. From the Form of the Good emanate other ideas like reason, truth, beauty, and justice. Then these emanate physical manifestations called the Forms. This is the Realm of Forms, basically Heaven. We live in a shadow reality which is just an imitation of the Form of the Good. Our objective in life is to study philosophy in order to return to the Form of the Good. Plato got this idea from the Egyptians, who called this idea sacred geometry or mathematics, because sacred geometry is the language and thought of the gods.
• Because of the influence of the Persians, you have Zoroastrianism. In Zoroastrianism, the creator is Ahura Mazda. He is the perfect God of Light, and he creates a perfect world where we humans are free to choose whatever we want. This world eventually became corrupted by an evil god who is equal to Ahura Mazda. Now we humans must fight for good. We can choose to fight for evil, but if we fight for good, that will allow good to win out in the end. Eventually, a savior, a messiah, a hero will emerge who will lead the army of light into a final battle against the army of darkness. In this battle, the army of light will triumph. Then a river will emerge, and everyone who's ever died will be resurrected from the dead and forced to cross this river. If you have been a good person, compassionate, and fought for the truth, you will cross this river and feel cleansed of all your sins and mistakes, emerging as a perfect soul who will live in Paradise forever. But if you've been a bad person, you will burn in this river and be condemned to suffering for eternity.
• You have Buddhism and Hinduism. This world was interconnected, so the Greeks knew Buddhism very well, and the Buddhists knew the Greeks very well. Jesus would have had access to Buddhist and Hindu teachings. In the Buddhist and Hindu tradition, there's a true reality called Brahman. Think of this as the Form of the Good. We live in a false reality where we have to suffer in pain, but through our good works, through dharma, we can achieve moksha. Moksha means liberation back into the Brahman. Hinduism is very similar to Platonism.

Besides religions, there were also major philosophies roaming around this area: Stoicism (what the Romans believed), Cynicism, and Epicureanism. Cynicism is what Jesus believed, which is a rejection of all material reality. Cynics believe that it's important to wear bad clothes and to beg for food because material reality is a lie or it's evil.

At the same time, you also have what we call pagan religions or pagan rituals, usually around the cult of Dionysus. These are pagan rituals where people come together and use psychedelics—drugs—to get really high in order to increase their religious ecstasy. This is to create a feeling of oneness and interconnectedness. What's really important about the pagan rituals is the focus on egalitarianism. You could be a slave or a rich person, but once you enter these rituals, you're all one and the same. They reject the social hierarchy of the real world.

As you can see, at this time, there was just tremendous religious fever in the world. Everyone was seeking truth, a more peaceful, more interconnected, more real world. Jesus was operating within this major climate. Jesus was a unique religious genius who was able to synthesize all these ideas into a new religion. But it's not called Christianity. Jesus is not the one who was the founder of Christianity; that person is named Paul. Jesus founded a new religion that attracted major followers.

The Gnostic Jesus: A Secret Teaching

What is this new religion called? At that time, obviously, there was not a name for this new religion, but today we call these new religions Gnosticism. Jesus was the founder of a religion called Gnosticism, not Christianity. There's a difference.

What is Gnosticism? If you look at most religions, there are three major layers:

1. A secret layer, which is only available to the founder and his closest followers.
2. An inner layer, which is what he teaches his disciples.
3. A public, outer layer, which is what he preaches to the public.

What's important to understand is that these three layers operate at different levels and speak different truths, but they're all interconnected and coherent.

Jesus was a Gnostic. What does this mean? Let's look at the outer layer. What Jesus was preaching was a religion of compassion, forgiveness, mercy, and egalitarianism. Let's look at the Gospel of Matthew, from the Sermon on the Mount. This is what he says: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." The people in this world who have value are not the rich but the poor, because God favors them. If you're a poor person, you will find solace and comfort in this idea. You may be poor, you may not be able to eat enough, but God loves you the most. This is what Jesus taught the public.

The question then is, why would this be true? For this to make sense, we need to understand the inner and the secret layer, which is not revealed to us in Matthew. But there's a secret gospel called the Gospel of Thomas, which we recently discovered in 1945 in a town called Nag Hammadi. This gospel is not in the Bible, but it reveals to us what Jesus thinks. Let's look at what he says:

There is light within a man of light, and he lights up the whole world. If he does not shine, he is darkness.

What does this mean? It can mean many things, and you can look at this quotation from three different layers.

• At the public layer, it means we have to be good people. God favors people who do good things, who are generous and compassionate.
• Then there's an inner layer. What he's saying to his disciples is, "If you want to follow me, you must give up the world. If you're wealthy, give up your wealth. If you're poor, give up your children and your wife and follow me. Be an example to everyone else."
• But there's also a secret layer. The secret layer is a secret knowledge about the world, a secret understanding of how the world works that only Jesus and his closest followers understand and recognize. This is what we call Gnosticism.

The idea is this, and it basically follows along the lines of Plato, Buddhism, and Hinduism. In the beginning, there's a perfect God called the Monad, or the One. He's perfect, eternal, immutable. The Monad creates dyads—pairs that are perfect. One of them is called Sophia. Then these pairs create, with the permission of the Monad, triads. This is all a perfect world because perfection creates perfection.

The problem is one of these gods, named Sophia (which means knowledge), decides she can be like the Monad. What makes the Monad special is he creates new things out of his own thoughts. The dyads are forced to couple with each other in order to create new things. Sophia wants to create her own thing herself, without permission of her partner and without permission of the Monad. But when she did that, she defied the rules of the universe and therefore created a monster. Sophia is ashamed by what she's done. She's like, "Oh my God, this was a mistake, this was a travesty." So what she does is she hides this monster in a different reality. She clouds up this reality, and this monster is ignorant of the true reality. The monster doesn't know that he's a monster; he thinks he's a god. And he's lonely, so he starts to create the world—us. In the Bible, the monster's name is Yahweh, and he creates Adam and Eve and the world. The world is completely screwed up because it's all being created by a monster.

This is the origin of sin, corruption, and evil in this world: our God is a monster who is in defiance of the true God. That's why "blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." Because if you're poor, you are defying the material reality. To win in this game created by a monster, you yourself have to become a monster. Therefore, the wealthy and the powerful are evil people. If you're poor, you don't participate in this evilness, and therefore you are blessed by God, and it is God who will redeem you and reward you at the end of the world.

And who is Jesus? Jesus is the son of the Monad who has come to the world to reveal to us this truth about our world. This is what he says: "There is a light within a man of light, and he lights up the whole world. If he does not shine, he is darkness." Our bodies are evil. Why? Because we feel pain, we die. A perfect God would not make us alive, because it makes no sense. Why would a perfect God condemn his children to the suffering we suffer every day? That makes no sense. Only a monster would do this. But even though the monster creates us, there is still a divine spark in us that comes from the Monad. If we recognize this and we choose a life of goodness by seeking true knowledge, then this light will light the world. But if we do not do this, then we'll continue to suffer in darkness.

This is the secret teaching. In each of us, there's a divine spark of the Monad, and so we can defy or escape this reality created by a monster. But you have to recognize this. This is the secret teaching of Jesus.

Let's look at one more quotation from the Gospel of Thomas to truly understand this idea:

When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female; and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye... then will you enter the kingdom.

How can you escape this world? You can escape this world by seeing that everything is interconnected. These categories—rich, poor, male, female—are created by the authorities in this world who worship a monster. We must recognize the connectedness of the humanity in each and every one of us. That's why it's important to show mercy, to be compassionate, because we're all stuck together. It's only by recognizing our common humanity that we will be allowed to escape this world.

"When you fashion your eyes in the place of an eye"—when you truly see, then you escape. You have eyes and you think that what you see is true, but it's not true. It's all fake, it's all a lie. You have to see with your soul, with the divine spark that is in you, and then you will see the truth.

In this religion, why did Jesus die? He died because it's a good thing. If you die, you are able to escape back into the true reality. But also, he died in order to awaken us, to inspire us, to grab our attention. His death was so tragic that it forced us to focus our attention on Jesus. When we focus on Jesus, we focus on his teachings. Slowly, over time, through our own self-discovery process, we're able to recognize the true teaching, the secret teaching of Jesus. Once we recognize the true teaching of Jesus, we're able to practice a compassionate, generous, and merciful life. We're able to bring light onto the world, and in our death, we're able to escape back into the true reality. That's the true teaching of Jesus.

Reconstructing the Life and Death of the Historical Jesus

Now that we've reconstructed his true belief, let's look at his life. What happened?

At some point, Jesus was able to develop his theory of the world, his religion. If you believe in your theory, you want to spread it. You want people to know your theory. So he went to Jerusalem, which was the religious capital of the Jews. If you want people to pay attention to you and recognize you're speaking the truth, you have to go to Jerusalem.

The problem is, first of all, the Romans were in Jerusalem, and they wanted to kill prophets because they saw Jewish prophets as problematic. The second problem is when you go to Jerusalem, you're competing against other religious authorities. You're now threatening the authority of the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the Essenes. But Jesus didn't have protectors; he didn't have a powerful political faction protecting him. So the Romans saw an opportunity to teach the Jews a lesson. They arrested him and then they crucified him.

But what they didn't recognize is that this would turn him into a hero. At this time, everyone was thinking about apocalyptic eschatology. They were thinking the world was ending, the Messiah was coming. They were so shocked by the death of their prophet Jesus that they started to talk about him.

Let's do a thought experiment. Let's just say I'm a king and everyone hates me. There are three prophets who speak up against me. Prophet A says I am the son of a prostitute. Prophet B says I killed my brother to usurp the throne. Prophet C says I steal from the army. The people are confused as to who to believe. Who do I follow? Prophet A, Prophet B, or Prophet C? How do you know someone's speaking the truth? You know when the king kills someone. If I kill Prophet B, it means Prophet B must be speaking the truth, and therefore you will start to follow the teachings of Prophet B.

In this time, because the Romans killed Jesus, they turned Jesus into a hero, and people became interested in the teachings of Jesus. That's why he became so famous. Also, if you think about it, Gnosticism is really appealing to people. It makes a lot of sense.

The Unanswered Question: From Gnosticism to Christianity

But then comes the most important question in Christianity, which is this: If Jesus himself was a Gnostic, if this is what he taught—that there is a light in us and we must constantly work hard to let the world shine with our lightness—how do we go from Gnosticism to the Bible, to modern-day Christianity, which teaches us that Jesus came to the world to redeem us from our sins and that he will return to save the world? How did we get from here to here? These are two radically different conceptions of the world.

In fact, if Jesus were alive today and he saw that we worshipped him as a redeemer, he would be appalled by what he saw. He would be appalled by Christianity. The true founder of Christianity, the person who developed this religion, is not Jesus, but Paul. Christianity, the religion about Jesus, is very different from Jesus and what he really taught.