Alternative Christs

Cambridge University Press, 8/6/2009
EAN 9780521889025, ISBN10: 0521889022

Hardcover, 316 pages, 22.8 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm
Language: English

Few, if any, individuals have had such a profound influence on Western culture as Jesus, even though not a single detail of his life or teaching can be confirmed with certainty. This lack of reliable biographical data has left his life open to broad interpretation. Jesus, gnostic and apocryphal sources insist, never truly died on the cross since he was a divine being, whose human frame was an illusion. Muslim sources affirm that Jesus was a prophet of God and will return at the end of time. Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels formulated racial theories in which Jesus was a redeemer for Aryans only, while the Renaissance polymath Guillaume Postel was convinced that Christ had returned as a Venetian woman. This book explores these and other views without taking sides in any theological arguments and presents research on a variety of alternative Christologies.

1. Alternative Christs
an introduction Olav Hammer
2. The gnostic Christ Roelof van den Broek
3. Jesus in the New Testament apocrypha Einar Thomassen
4. The Manichaean Jesus Jason BeDuhn
5. Jesus in Islam Jan Hjärpe
6. Christ and the alchemical mass Urszula Szulakowska
7. Son of the Son of God
the feminine Messiah and her progeny, according to Guillaume Postel (1510–81) Jean-Pierre Brach
8. The seminal essence of divinity
Swedenborg's understanding of Jesus Christ Wouter J. Hanegraaff
9. Christ in Hinduism
traditional views and recent developments Bradley Malkovsky
10. Christ in Mormonism Douglas J. Davies
11. The conception of Christ in the Theosophical tradition James A. Santucci
12. The Aryan Christ
the electrochristology of Ariosophy Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
13. Did Jesus die for our karma? Christology and atonement in a contemporary metaphysical church James R. Lewis
14. World savior in undergarment
the palpable Jesus of The Aetherius Society Mikael Rothstein
15. Modern Jesus legends Olav Hammer.