Movie explores Jesus' mythical proportions

Film asks if Christian leader ever existed

By ROBIN OLIVER
BIRMINGHAM POST-HERALD

That is what film director Brian Flemming asks of those who watch his new movie, "The God Who Wasn't There," which will premier in Birmingham on Wednesday.

The movie brings to the screen religious history experts who question Jesus' historical existence.

These experts, along with cited texts and published articles, claim Jesus was likely mythical rather than historical. Mainstream religious historians, however, point out evidence to the contrary.

"Like everyone else, I just always assumed that Jesus really existed," Flemming said. "I had the prejudice of my previous teachings."

The filmmaker was raised as a fundamentalist Christian and attended a private school that taught biblical history. In college, he began to believe much of his early teachings were off the mark. While researching other religions, he said, he stumbled upon writings from scholars who believed Jesus never existed.

"It was kind of scary," Flemming said. "Even though I was an atheist and had been for some time, Jesus still meant a lot to me. He still does, although now I understand that he's entirely mythical. I actually kind of consider that a promotion."

Flemming, who is also a playwright and wrote the successful "Bat Boy: The Musical," said scholars of early Christian history "all know" there is a good possibility Jesus was mythical.

The film is independently produced; Flemming said liberal activists financially backed the film.

Paul Holloway, associate professor of religion at Samford University and a historian of Jewish and Christian origins, said Flemming is wrong about mainstream historical opinions of Jesus. He said he, as well as his colleagues at well-known universities such as Oxford in London, Harvard University and Yale University, all believe Jesus, without a doubt, is a real historical person.

"(The possibility that Jesus wasn't real) isn't seriously considered among religious historians," Holloway said. "To be sure, there are interpretations of Jesus that become rather fanciful over the first 200 to 300 years of Christianity. Does that mean Jesus never existed? No. ...

"There's better evidence for Jesus than there is for Socrates."

Holloway cited the first century Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus, who wrote about the leader of the Christians, who "suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our Procurators, Pontius Pilate."

He also referenced the first century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who mentions Jesus in his "The Antiquities of the Jews," and the Roman writer Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, whose second century book, "The Lives of the First Twelve Ceasars," makes mention of Jesus.

Robert M. Price, professor of scriptural studies for the Web-based Johnnie Coleman Theological Seminary, discounts these secular references in Flemming's documentary.

Speaking by phone from his home in Selma, N.C., he said some scholars argue that references to Jesus in Josephus' text were likely inserted after his death and that Tacitus was merely reporting what he was told by the faithful.

"I've studied this for many years now and wound up in a place I never thought I would, that there likely was no historical Jesus," said Price, who attends an Episcopal church every Sunday and sings in his church choir.

He has published two books on Jesus as mythical, "Deconstructing Jesus" and "Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable is the Gospel Tradition."

Price said beyond the lack of historical documentation written during Jesus' lifetime, the Gospel story echoes mythical characters that came before Jesus. Old testament gods Baal and Tammuz, along with the mythical Greek figure Adonis, all died and rose from the dead, he said.

Despite Price's arguments, Birmingham-Southern College Professor of Religion Larry Brasher agreed with Holloway that Jesus existed.

He cited another Roman historian, Pliny the Younger, who mentioned Jesus in his writings. And beyond secular text, he said most historians agree that parts of the Bible are also real historical accounts.

"There are many stories in the Gospels that biblical scholars think were added later by the faithful in the church, and there are other stories which are thought to be real accounts of a person who lived in a particular time and place," Brasher said.

Brasher agreed with Price, though, that none of the references to Jesus are from historians who lived in his time and would have known the Christian leader. Price argues that the lack of this sort of documentation leaves the question open ended.

"I don't imagine, pending some grand discovery, that we'll ever know for sure."

Flemming, who will answer questions by video conference after the Wednesday screening, said he does not intend his documentary to threaten any particular faith but simply to make people consider the possibility that we just don't know.

"I hope that people in Birmingham who may think that this film is just a potshot at their religion realize that it is not intended that way and that they come and participate in the discussion," Flemming said. "This is not meant to make people angry, it's just meant to make people think."

Universist Movement encourages exploration over faith

By ROBIN OLIVER
BIRMINGHAM POST-HERALD

The movement was launched in 2003 by University of Alabama at Birmingham medical student Ford Vox and has gathered more than 7,500 members worldwide, he said.

Vox, 28 and in his fourth year of medical school, calls the movement "the world's first faithless religious organization" and said its members agree faith-based religion can lead to discrimination, hatred and violence.

"We want to advance the ideas of moral relativism and the idea that faith is dangerous," Vox said. "Faith can get out of control. We're hostile to the results of it. We feel it can have real and serious consequences."

Instead of having faith in any absolute moral truth, the Universist Movement leaves each of its members to explore the metaphysical, challenging them to continually question rather than to determine any definite conclusion.

"The Universist conception of religion is that there absolutely is no absolute truth," Vox said in a speech earlier this month. "Its central value is the primacy of the individual search for meaning. There is no higher authority on existential questions than the individual."

Bob Waldrep, director of the Alabama office of Watchman Fellowship, a research organization tracking new religious movements, said the Universist concept contradicts itself.

"In essence, it's relativism," Waldrep said. "In other words, believe what you want to believe, I'll believe what I want to believe and we'll both be right. Unless, (Vox) says, you're from a faith-based religion, because those can't be correct."

Waldrep said, just like many faith-based religions, the Universist concept is exclusive. He argues that believing there is no absolute truth is an absolute truth in itself.

Furthermore, Waldrep said, faith is often based in rational thought.

"Every time you sit in a chair, you're exercising faith," he said. "You believe based on your experience that the chair is going to hold you up. As Christians, we believe the faith we have is rooted in facts and that those facts support our faith."

"The God Who Wasn't There" challenges those facts, making the claim that Jesus was likely a mythical rather than historical figure.

Vox wants the movie to promote his "faithless" religion.

"The universe's religions don't hold truth any more than an episode of 'The Simpsons' or the book you read last night," he said.

For more information, visit www.universist.org.

Organization aims to change world 'ONE' person at a time

Faith Matters by JAMES L. EVANS
BIRMINGHAM POST-HERALD

In fact, ONE is what it is calling its recent initiative to raise awareness in America about the tragedy of global poverty, hunger and AIDS. And there have been some interesting "ones" drawn into this effort.

The campaign features luminaries as disparate as Pat Robertson, founder of the evangelical 700 Club, and Bono, lead singer for the rock group U2.

Bread for the World is an international agency committed to battling world hunger. The ONE campaign is an effort to advance that work, not just by raising money, but by getting people involved in finding real solutions to our world's real problems.

From its Web site we read, "The ONE Campaign is for people like you who care and want to know simple things you can do to help. ONE is a new effort by Americans to rally Americans — ONE by ONE — to fight the emergency of global AIDS, extreme poverty and chronic hunger. The ONE Campaign is engaging Americans across the nation — in churches and businesses, online and on college campuses, at community meetings and concerts. ONE is showing people the steps they can take to fight global AIDS, hunger and poverty."

The significance of using ONE as the central symbol of this effort begins with the simple notion that as human beings we are all connected to one another. In America, our tradition of rugged individualism often obscures this obvious truth.

We like to think of ourselves as a nation of self-made individuals who are perfectly capable of standing on our own two feet. But that kind of thinking won't get us very far, and it's not true. If you can tie your own shoes, go to the bathroom by yourself, read a newspaper and drive a car, you are the recipient of the gifts of community.

Readers of the Bible should know this better than most. Jesus taught that we are all part of God's family — even if we don't know it or believe it. In another part of the New Testament, Paul describes the hope of a community so tightly bound together that if even a single member suffers, the whole community suffers.

And in our world, there is great suffering.

For instance, every day more than 20,000 people die of hunger; most of these are children. Why are we not up in arms about this? One reason is the problem seems insurmountable. We don't think about it because we don't know what to do about it.

Bread for the World wants to convince us that the activity of one person can make a difference. This is the positive side of our individualism. We can stand and raise a voice of concern if we so choose.

We can write to government leaders and we can write a check. We can speak to neighbors and speak in our churches. We can as one person contribute to helping America understand that our place of privileged wealth and power creates both responsibility and opportunity to act on behalf of the least of the children in God's family.

There is a heart of compassion that beats at the center of the universe. May our hearts beat as one with that heart so justice and mercy will have hands and feet and a voice.

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