For Forty Years, Scholar And Religious Commentator Tom Harpur Has Challenged Church Orthodoxy And Guided Thousands Of Readers On Subjects As Controversial As The True Nature Of Christ And Life After Death. Now, In His Most Radical And Groundbreaking Work, Harpur Digs Deep Into The Origins Of Christianity. Long Before The Advent Of Jesus Christ, The Egyptians And Other Peoples Believed In The Coming Of A Messiah, A Virgin Birth, A Madonna And Her Child, And The Incarnation Of The Spirit In Flesh. While The Early Christian Church Accepted These Ancient Truths As The Very Basis Of Christianity, It Disavowed Their Origins. What Had Begun As A Universal Belief System Built On Myth And Allegory Was Transformed, By The Third And Fourth Centuries A.d., Into A Ritualistic Institution Based On A Literal Interpretation Of Myths And Symbols. But, As Tom Harpur Argues In The Pagan Christ, To Take The Gospels Literally As History Or Biography Is To Utterly Miss Their Inner Spiritual Meaning. At A Time Of Religious Extremism, Tom Harpur Reveals The Virtue Of A Cosmic Faith Based On Ancient Truths That The Modern Church Has Renounced. His Message Is Clear: Our Blind Faith In Literalism Is Killing Christianity. Only With A Return To An Inclusive Religion Where Christ Lives Within Each Of Us Will We Gain A True Understanding Of Who We Are And Who We Are Intended To Become. The Pagan Christ Is A Book Of Rare Insight And Power That Will Reilluminate The Bible And Change The Way We Think About Religion. Book Jacket.--jacket. 1. Discovery: A Bible Story I'd Never Heard Before -- 2. Setting The Stage: Myths Aren't Fairy Tales -- 3. Christianity Before Christianity: Where It All Began -- 4. The Greatest Cover-up Of All Time: How A Spiritual Christianity Became A Literalist Christianism -- 5. It Was All Written Before-in Egypt -- Part I. Ancient Egyptian Religion -- Part Ii. Horus And Jesus Are The Same -- 6. Convincing The Sceptics -- 7. The Bible-history Or Myth? The End Of Fundamentalism -- 8. Seeing The Gospels With New Eyes: Sublime Myth Is Not Biography -- 9. Was There A Jesus Of History? -- 10. The Only Way Ahead: Cosmic Christianity -- Appendix A. Background On Three Experts On Mythology, Religion, And Ancient Egypt -- Appendix B. More Similarities Between The Egyptian Christ, Horus, And Jesus -- Appendix C. Two Strange Passages. Tom Harpur. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [229]-236) And Index.

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• Religion & Spirituality
  
  
  • Occult & Paranormal
    • Ancient & Controversial Knowledge