A recurring thought in books about Jesus is the thought that every time created its own Jesus. Jesus, like the virgin birth, the crucifix and resurrection, is a major symbol in the Jungian sense of the word, an abstract archetype one can fill with our own multiple meanings recognized in very culture, even non-christian. Now if we look for the many faces of Jesus, we may get access to him as a person,scholarly (theologically), from contemporary views, from other main religions, from sworn enemies of any religion and from the father of symbols – C.G. Jung.
The historical Jesus almost gets buried under his construction, even the catholic church rarely refers to him as real historic person in recent writings. Sometimes it seems that Jesus in the Gospel was also such a creation realizing the striking similarity of New Testament symbols with the Egyptian pantheon and myths. Those faces is what this article is all about. The best I have read in that regard about Jesus is from C.G. Jung, so lets start with him. Warning, this is just an essay but a rather lengthy one. Continue reading →