Deepak Chopra's False Jesus

Here's an article on Deepak Chopra and his new book The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore.

"Chopra challenges Christian doctrine while presenting an alternative: Jesus as a state of mind, rather than the historical rabbi of Nazareth or son of God."

"The third perspective - which Chopra calls "a cosmic Christ" - looks at Jesus as a spiritual guide whose teaching embraces all humanity, not just the church built in his name. Chopra argues that Christ speaks to the individual who wants to find God as a personal experience."

OK - surely the most authentic witnesses we have to the real Jesus are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. In them Jesus is a historical rabbi ("teacher") from Nazareth and "Son of God."

Amazon.com states that, for Chopra, there are three views of Jesus: "First, there is the historical Jesus, the man who lived more than two thousand years ago and whose teachings are the foundation of Christian theology and thought. Next there is Jesus the Son of God, who has come to embody an institutional religion with specific dogma, a priesthood, and devout believers. And finally, there is the third Jesus, the cosmic Christ, the spiritual guide whose teaching embraces all humanity, not just the church built in his name. He speaks to the individual who wants to find God as a personal experience, to attain what some might call grace, or God-consciousness, or enlightenment."

Jesus #2 is a "symbolic Jesus" created by theologians and the church. That's Jesus as "Son of God." Gee... that's disappointing to me, because that's my Jesus. That's the real Jesus of the 4 gospels, who is not a creation of the church.

Throughout his book Chopra quotes from - believe it or not - the Gospel of Thomas. He says: "Thomas is the most amazing gospel. There's nothing there that should scare anyone. When he talks about the kingdom of heaven, it's clear he's talking about a shift in consciousness."

Well, now there's a true "creation of the church"; viz., the "Gospel of Thomas." With this non-scary text that's 150 years post-Jesus we have a real "creation of [a sect of] the church." New Testament scholar Craig Evans, in Fabricating Jesus, writes: "Fact: The Gospel of Thomas is late, not early; secondary, not authentic. Contrary to what a few scholars maintain, the Gospel of Thomas originated in Syria and probably no earlier than the end of the second century."