The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the Bird Man

I just finished watching Bill Maher’s Religulous, which was, to put it lightly, annoying and tedious. But despite the films flaws it introduced me to something I had never heard before. The connection between the story of Jesus Christ as told in the Gospels and the story of Horus, the falcon headed Egyptian god. I am in no way invested in the idea the scripture is inerrant nor was this the first time I had heard about mythology or pagan religions influencing the bible. My faith wasn’t shattered when in college I read the Epic of Gilgamesh and learned that the story of the flood in Exodus was most likely borrowed from that text. In fact I already assumed that a great many Old Testament stories were mythical and meant to be instructive not historical. But I had never taken that approach or heard similar stories to New Testament until Mr. Maher introduced Jesus’ bird headed distant cousin.

He really has a lot in common with Jesus. Check it out Virgin birth, son of (a) god, performed miracles (including both raising a guy named Lazarus from the dead), said to be the savior, had 12 disciples, crucified on a cross around age 30, rose again 3 days later after defeating death, etc. In case you might have been confused about the timing this legend came about at least 2000 years before Christ was to have lived. That would mean that biblical authors borrowed their ideas from the Egyptians. And unless the savior comes back around every so often (which would stoke fans of the Matrix) this knocks me a little off of my foundation.

Since reading a little bit about this I’ve been trying to determine if it takes away much of my faiths’ validity. However that is a good thing. It has caused me to reevaluate the most important tenants of my faith. For example, it’s really not that important that Jesus was born of a virgin or that he turned water into wine (though I was excited about that one). The crucifixion + resurrection, on the other hand, are kind of key. What does my faith look like without them? If that part of Christianity is negated then things might get a little tricky. Without this tenant of Christianity, essentially the part that says Jesus died to forgive our sins, the backbone is seemingly cut out of out of my understanding of God, my faith becoming a jellyfish beached and waiting to die, or is it?

So some questions remain:

• Am I reading too much into this?
• Am I ok with the normal guy Yeshua? Is the fact that he was a peaceweaving           nonconformist and revolutionary enough to follow him? deify him?
•  What remains of my faith without Jesus?
• Is there still the possibility that the Holy spirit speaks to us?
• Is there still the understanding that there is a God of love and his ideal is what we strive for?

Send answers or thoughts if you have them!!

Starting Lent off with a Bang!
This morning I was greeted by a student who was more awake than usual. She walked into my English class at 7:20 this morning shouting "Mr. Gonzales Mardi Gras is today, Whoo! Yeah! Are you gonna party tonight ?!"  I looked up up, half asleep, and saw her shaking a fist full of  purple and yellow metalic beads awaiting my response.  

"Huh?" was all I could think to say. "To be hoest I had no idea it was Fat Tuesday."

"Well I am!!" she  said and turned to talk to another student quietly, but not quietly enough. "Yeah, I'm totally gonna go out tonight. Check out the beads I got last year. I have another  one at home that says show me your tits!! I was gonna wear it today, but I thought it'd get  taken away."

The other student chimed in "That's awesome!! How'd you get 'em?"

At that point I walked to the other side of the room for fear of what else I might hear, and thanked God that my students keep me informed of the deeper meaning of religious holidays.