Why Christianity couldn’t be original

 

Thankfully the Lord led me to do some research on these books (as well as reading one or two of them) and I found that their contentions were mostly a tissue of lies, fabrication, exaggeration and historical inaccuracies. But even so, was there any truth in their claims? That is to say, could what Jesus accomplished on earth be completely original; wouldn’t there be inevitable repetitions throughout history and stories and myths passed on that somehow reflected what Jesus Christ was all about? I found that however hard I tried to separate Jesus from the beliefs and superstitions and myths that preceded Him, I still could not separate Him entirely. This concerned me for a little while, but as I began to think about it some more, I realised that like all of the Bible parts that are difficult to understand, perhaps there is some deeper meaning that I had not yet considered; one which if I were to get a good cognitive purchase on it, might well bless me more with some edification and wisdom that I had not previously imagined.  

 

Of course it is not just the Pagans - the Greeks had given us myths that closely resemble some of the parts of the Bible. Also Plato had a view of God as a supreme force, and in his Republic he argues that such consideration of supremacy, including most notably those of ‘morality’ and the ‘ultimate good’ should be undressed if they are to be seen in their proper context, unembellished by their earthly corollaries of reward, prestige, honour, and popularity.  And of course when one takes the themes of the Bible as ultimate truths bestowed upon creation by God, one must naturally see them as the truths of God, the real Divine imputations and impartations that are stripped naked – the truths that have not been shabbily clothed by the Greeks or the Pagans. So of course some of the things I saw in Jesus would be unoriginal, of course things like omnipotence, omniscience, good, evil, a saviour, sacrifice, salvation, death, and resurrection would be themes repeated through the history of humanity, whether stripped, exhibited and demonstrated in their full truth or whether shabbily embellished by the rags of Paganism and Greek mythology – they are what the story of creation has been about all along. 

 

It has to be admitted that back in those early days I was too naïve to have noticed. But if things like good and evil and grace and rejection were themes doubled up in the tumult of earthly living, then to an extent they will remain what they are throughout many cultures. That Christ is the embodiment of good and grace, and that the Bad One is the epitome of evil and the orchestrator or many people’s rejection of Christ, is clearly an important theme through cultures and societies, and will continue to be so. When we see Jesus Christ on earth, we are not seeing a plagiarism of the Pagan or Greek myths - in fact it is the other way round - when we look back at the myths that predated Christ we are seeing a poor and myopic description, adaptation or account of what the truth of existence has been about all along – love, life, death and rebirth are the elixirs of life, and their fullest truth can only be found in Christ Jesus.  

 

If the Pagans and Greeks happened to stumble upon ideas that were a pale reflection of God’s overall plans for creation, we can hardly be surprised if the themes they are reflecting are the very things that are instantiated in created human minds from the start. Imagine a man who had lived on a primitive and largely uninhabited island, and who had never been introduced to the outside world. He might well have developed a crude grasp of ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ by an innate a priori understanding of the dialectical distinction between being good and being bad. He could have acquired this from his crude experiences of island people alone. He might not know that there is a God who instilled that injunction and that there are millions of Christians in the outside world who put this instruction into practice as well as they can every day of their lives, just as the Pagans and Greeks did not know that their attempts at ontology were prefigured by their Creator. But if this man from the island ever saw the outside world and saw that millions of others were adopting the principle ‘love your neighbour as yourself’, he would not think to himself ‘what an odd coincidence’, rather he would think that his instincts for moral goodness had been correct and that his reality emulates the bigger truths of the outside world fairly accurately. The same of course would be true for the Pagans and the Greeks – if they captured just a bit of what Christ would go on to do for them they would see at once why they thought as they did about life, salvation, death and rebirth.

 

And this is the truth that puts to bed all those myths and accusations that Christianity is unoriginal. How can it be wholly original? Christ is only confirming what the story has been about all along; love, grace, life, goodness, death, rebirth and salvation are everywhere we look because they have a common source in the minds of everybody who has ever lived – the eternity that encompasses these things has been placed in the hearts of everybody who has ever lived (Ecclesiastes 3:11). 

 

Moreover we should not be surprised to find that so much falsity closely resembles the truth, for that is how the Devil works best – some of his best laid plans for leading people away from Christ are not opposites, they retain enough of the truth for a man to think he is on the right path, but really he is in the Devil’s grasp. If the truth be north and north only, the devil will not try to lead us south, north-north-west is good enough for him, for that is often the biggest ensnarement into futility (as Christ’s letter to the church of Laodicea in the book of Revelation seems to testify).

 

And of course we see in those other folk who are strewn with self-righteousness and sententiousness - they think themselves great but they possess an almost subversive disregard for the real truth of Christ. And as soon as their real plighted character is exposed they descend into the most fake and disingenuous pretence - in the bringing to light of their real character they play the emotional trump card when in fact an honest repudiation of all those tawdry faults is needed.  And what often occurs is a form of self-debasement where resigning oneself to their faults at the expense of progression occurs – it is here that something awful is happening; a powerful engine of domination is taking over, telling them that they will never be good enough so trying is a waste of time. 

 

But God became what we are so that we might become what He us, and there is nothing, I repeat ‘nothing’ the Devil can do to take that away from those who remain strong in Christ. If the myths and superstitions reflect at least a little bit of the truth (after all, nothing is 100% false – that is impossible) then we must remain shrewd in seeing the whole truth in our Lord Jesus, and when the Bad One comes to tempt us, we should direct him away from us, to the cross of Christ and tell him, that is where our God once hanged, but He has defeated death and all the Bad One’s pitiable attempts at subversion.