Read Chapter 1 – What Is Truth?

Read more from Chapter 2 – What Is A Cult?

There are multiple theories about the rise of Christianity from a small cult to a worldwide religious phenomenon. Obviously, anyone apart of the religion will take the New Testament as an accurate historical account. There are others, such as Reza Aslan who believe Jesus was real man whose supernatural abilities and resurrection was attributed to him long after he died and became apart of the canon by his cult following. Other historians, such as Richard Carrier, view the most likely scenario is that Paul had visions, hallucinations, possibly psychotic episodes, of a figure who represented the Jewish God. It is part of the human genome to be able to hallucinate. For some, a hallucinatory drug can bring this about, for others it can manifest through some kind of mental stress or disability. There have been studies that reveal many prophets, holy men, and shamans throughout history were placed in high authority within a religion because of their ability to hallucinate. Early Christians could have induced these hallucinatory states by fasting, sleep deprivation, or rhythmic prayer.

In all of what Paul said, nothing expressly says that Jesus was a true physical being. When speaking of the resurrection, he could have possibly been referring to a spiritual resurrection in a believed physical realm called the ether. In Chapter 1, we discussed Copernicus and how he was one of the first to heretically claim that the earth was not the center of the universe. Commonly, we talk about how it was once believed that the world was flat and all of space moved around us, but what is less discussed is what most people believed about the “heavens” at that time. In short, the common belief was that the the sky was divided into seven layers. Some of these layers contained certain celestial bodies, while others were so far away they were not visible where all the angels and gods resided. Most religions we’re formed around the idea that the beings within these physical places would make decisions that affected every human and even battle each other for control. The ideas of the multiple levels of heaven physically existing in the literal sky goes back as far as Plato.

While various aspects of this information was taught to me, I never considered that the Jewish religion and early Christians were based on the same ideas of the universe. That may seem odd, but as a child I was taught that heaven was not a physical place, but a spiritual realm where all Christian’s spirits would join together after death. When I would listen to the teachings of Jesus, Paul, David, or Moses referencing heaven I would picture it from that understanding and assumed that they understood it the same way. The other religions (or what we call pagans now) had the wrong idea about heaven, but the Jews and Christians had it right from the start. That was the way I saw it because that’s what I was told everyday of my young life. It wasn’t until my adult life when I decided to re-examine my faith and learn about the history of my religion of birth that I realized Paul was speaking about the same heavens that all the other non-Jewish cults (and non cult members) believed in. From this context, early Christianity didn’t really stand out from other religious cults. So then how did early Christians break through the noise? It wasn’t easy.

Paul spoke about his visions to anyone who would listen (and even those who wouldn’t). He spread his message all over the middle east and in Rome as the Bible describes. Decades after his death, Romans used his message to create a narrative. It was common place in the Roman culture at that time to take a historical figure and embellish their life around a popular “heroes tale” narrative. It was also commonplace for Roman authors to take a popular ideal and create a figure-head character to be a champion for that cause. There are many examples of this which we will explore more in the next chapter. It’s entirely possible (if not likely) that many different authors took Paul’s teachings and added characters and supernatural elements that gave it a sense of authority. They used some of the most popular narrative features and happened to include all the right ones and presto! They had a hit!

The book of Mark was the first we know of, followed by Matthew, John, then Luke. There is much debate on when exactly these books were written since there are no surviving original transcripts, but it is generally accepted by historians that they were each written at different points between 66 and 110 CE. The canon that we know of today (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) came together at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE. It took almost 3 full centuries for the Christian cult to fully organize its writings. Although, this is not much of a surprise. As was mentioned before, there were many sub-sect cults of the Jewish faith, and many religious cults in the area of the Roman Empire. What really caused the organization of Christian and Jewish writings was the apparent conversion of Roman Emperor Constantine 1. It was Constantine who ordered the Council be convened for the purpose of deciding what should and should not be apart of the Bible. They established the general order of the 66 books that make up the Bible as we know it today. There are other books have been discovered over time. We have fragments of them now which gives us the ability to see what other pieces of the puzzle exists. That puzzle being the birth of a new religion, Christianity.

It is a lot like Star Wars if you know the history of that movie. When George Lucas first began writing Star Wars, there was already a large market of science fiction movies. These were popular among a small group of people, but they were far from pop culture phenomenons. Lucas used pieces of other popular narratives from other genres of movies like westerns and fantasies and formed them into his sci-fi movie. The result was a massive cultural phenomenon that no other sci-fi movie had ever experienced. (Have you ever seen Logan’s Run? If not, your not missing much.) Lucas didn’t know what he had though. He made a bet with Stephen Spielberg that Close Encounters of the Third Kind would out-perform Star Wars. Spielberg earned himself 2.5% of the Star Wars box office money.

For me, it was important to look at the historical context of my beliefs from an outsider’s perspective. It’s hard to see from within because, in the view of the believer, the true history is the actual myth which created the belief. Once I understood that multiple cultures believed in multiple gods (including the gods they did not worship) and even believed them to be friendly with or enemies of each other, then a new picture emerged. I saw that it was in human’s evolutionary nature to the believe in deities. Humans are a curious species and are able to find reasons and patterns to explain any circumstance. In the ancient past, before the scientific revolution, a spiritual entity was the most common explanation for any kind of pattern, whether imagined or not. We’ll explore more about the human ability to find patterns out of chaos in a later chapter.

As I was taking the time to read about all of these lessons from religious history, I was reminded of another cult-like experience from my early twenties. One that, in retrospect, was a seamless transition after leaving the surroundings of the church. I became enthralled in a system of beliefs that required no god to worship, it required no mantra, no ritual, the only thing required was a desire to question everything about my reality. For several years I was obsessed with learning all I could from the World Wide Web of conspiracy theories.

Chapter 2: What Is A Cult? Will conclude in the next edition!