Was There A Real Jesus Christ? | Pagan Christ | Timeline

hi everybody and welcome to this documentary on timeline my name is dan snow and i want to tell you about history hit tv it's like the netflix for history hundreds of exclusive documentaries and interviews with the world's best historians we've got an exclusive offer available to fans of timeline if you go to history hit tv you can either follow the information below this video or just google history hit tv and use the code timeline you get a special introductory offer go and check it out in the meantime enjoy this video roughly one-third of the planet shares the same common belief that jesus christ the son of god was born on christmas day died on a cross and was resurrected by the power of god [Music] but the angel said to them do not be afraid i bring you good news of great joy the story of jesus gives meaning to christian lives it is the very glue that binds their faith and guides their actions he is christ the lord this will be assigned to you you will find a baby wrapped in claws and lying in a manger but one man who has devoted his entire life to christianity has concluded there is absolutely no evidence an historical jesus ever lived christ christianity made a rather fateful error in the early centuries of its life in which it took the message which it had and literalized it [Music] where and how the whole thing actually crystallized and took shape into what we now know as christianity is still veiled in a mist a dark mystery locked away from millennia in the strange code of an ancient stone its secrets contained the discovery of a new story of jesus christ one written 3 000 years before his birth ordinary people suspect that there's a lot more there to to be told that they haven't been told and the truth is that there was cover-up a cover-up tom harper believes was designed to protect the christian church and to mask the true identity of jesus [Music] christ [Music] in the town of bethlehem a narrow passage burrows deep into a wall of stone it leads to one of the most sacred places on earth christians come here as they have for centuries to celebrate the birth of jesus christ the story started when jesus was born here in in in an in grotto stable inside in the first christians observed this place by building inside a place for prayer [Music] now we're going to visit the growth of the nativity where jesus was born it's a story now 2 000 years old a story that begins with a virgin birth in this cave on december 25th a divine birth heralded by a star in the sky [Music] according to christian belief this is the exact location where the son of god was born and for christians the world over it's also the place where their faith begins but it's also the center of an ongoing controversy a flashpoint for those who question the very earthly existence of jesus maybe have a history but is it historical i'd never asked that question before tom harper has been an ordained anglican priest for more than 40 years he's also a professor of new testament in greek studies a rhodes scholar and a best-selling author all his life he's believed explicitly in the christ of the gospels yes i didn't question the miracles very much i mean the thought that there never was a historical jesus never even rose to the surface of my of my mind you just simply assumed it dropped from the heavens as it were and there it was but now tom harper often finds himself at odds with other christians in his approach to the faith it's amazing but at the heart of every religion the same truth seems to be hitting me that the spark of the divine is in every one of us before we meet jesus or before we meet the buddha or anyone else it is implanted in the human consciousness and is the means whereby we ultimately know god and come to be like god but for most christians the connection to god is made directly through the historical figure of jesus christ what happened here in jerusalem that only happened once and happened nowhere else on the face of the earth yes exactly this man behind me has got the answer right here thank you jesus was crucified buried and resurrected here so that's the important thing however at the holy land experience a christian theme park preachers use theater to teach those seeking more insight into the life of jesus [Music] whoever lives and believes in me shall never die [Music] one of those bringing the story of jesus to life is christian actor les shovel deoffio so it's just me and you crucify him get up and i think a lot of people come here saying maybe just maybe i can catch a glimpse that god loves me because they've heard it we've all heard it but we've experienced it and so we can bring that here we can provide the environment where we can freely say the word of god every story brought to life at the holy land experience comes word for word from the pages of the four gospels that form the new testament the central character is jesus whose life on earth is cut short by a brutal crucifixion [Music] christ figure is the part the messiah who came to die on the cross rose from the dead and provide a way to heaven that you don't have to do anything other than accept and people don't get it father forgive them for they know what they do [Music] my god my god why have you forsaken me jesus christ has actually become an idol in in in in the christian religion he is the focus of everything we don't talk about god much it's all about jesus and uh surprisingly because if you read the gospels he didn't talk that much about him himself he pointed people to god in his search for a better understanding of his faith and the life of jesus tom harper closely studied the four stories of the gospels but he found little evidence to support the existence of a man said to have walked the earth some two thousand years ago there was so little that is to say none in the sense of biographical information in these so-called biographies the gospels are they're contradictory uh the the nativity story in matthew contradicts the nativity story in luke but the contradictions are everywhere and you don't know what color of hair jesus had you don't know what he looked like they trace his lineage one of them traces it to abraham the other that's matthew luke traces his genealogy back to an atom to give him a universal fever the genealogy actually is a non-sequitur it just doesn't end where it should where it should end [Music] tom harper is not alone timothy frake and peter gandy authors of six books on christianity also challenge the idea of an historical jesus the gospels are faith documents they're not history documents i think in academic circles this has been established for a very very long time they're faith documents so put them on one side you can't use them to to to ground the history of jesus there are no divine interventions in history there is a common sense approach to things and the traditional history is just inadequate i'm afraid [Music] on the shores of the sea of galilee christian tourists gather at the place reputed to be the house where jesus preached to his first four disciples tour guide david ridron makes his living recounting the story of the historical jesus for a christian to come to the shores of the sea of guiley is to come to their cradle because after all it was here along the shores of this lake with 2000 years ago a galilean teacher called yeshua from a nearby town called nazareth began its ministry and changed the world yet no physical evidence has ever been found to support the existence of yahshua or jesus of nazareth nor is there any confirmed written evidence of the existence of jesus christ during that time we don't have unfortunately an historic of jesus because we have no mention of a man called yeshua written about and described while jesus was alive the historical details we gained from the bible just by reading between the lines but the bible provides plenty of detail on the miracles said to have been performed by jesus on these shores of all these miracles which involve thousands of people in terms of the feeding of 5 000 plus women and children we don't have one letter home from anybody saying hey i was down and you should have seen what happened today not one letter home from anybody who saw the lepers cleanse not there's nothing and this is an age in which there were lots of roman writers who were interested in the social scene throughout the empire i mean matthew's gospel says that at the crucifixion there was an eclipse of the sun and that the tomb burst open and the veil of the temple was rent tombs opened and the dead walked around the streets for a day i mean that's pretty heavy stuff not a word there are only 24 lines in the ancient texts that come before the year 150 that refer to jesus in any way most of them are ambiguous is this a basis on which to build a major world religion with such scant evidence a few lines of historical text harper began to question the very existence of jesus then he came across three 19th and 20th century scholars whose writing suggests that christ was not born in a manger in bethlehem but on the sands of ancient egypt [Music] this mysterious and complex culture only began to reveal its secrets in modern times 200 years ago a soldier in napoleon's army made a startling discovery when he unearthed the rosetta stone at an excavation site near the nile river this discovery would shake the very bedrock of christianity when they found this stone they realized it was going to be of importance very quickly because they saw that on the stone there were three strips egyptian hieroglyphs on the top another script that they weren't too sure about in the middle and then greek at the bottom this stone containing a decree written three times in greek ancient egyptian demotic and hieroglyph provided the key to the mysterious markings that cover the statues monuments and papari of ancient egypt and opened up three thousand years of that country's history and culture the stone was used to study the extensive egyptian records housed in the british museum and it uncovered a fascinating and familiar story the story of jesus the calming of the sea the walking on the water the making the lame to walk and the death to hear the raising the dead the judging of the dead the descent into hell it went on and on [Music] the basic archetype of the enunciation at the birth of jesus in the nativity stories by the angel gabriel you take a crucial verse like i am the way the truth and the life suddenly i see these sayings and i'm told that they come from the from the hieroglyphics of ancient egypt that's a pretty big shock yes harper considered was the story of jesus christ in fact based on that of a pagan [Music] god [Music] ancient egypt home to one of the world's oldest religions what early christians called paganism it was a faith that related to the cycles of nature the essence of life birth death and resurrection were often represented by the sun to worship the sun the most powerful force of nature meant to worship god the ancient pagan world wasn't some sort of benighted savage place it wasn't primitive it was a very advanced culture which gave us philosophy architecture democracy mathematics science and it had a highly evolved spirituality and at the center of that spirituality were what was known as mystery cults at the heart of these cults were mysterious sun gods half-god half-man-like figures stories about them were written in hieroglyphs on the walls of the pharaoh's temples [Music] and at the center of the mystery cults was a myth and the myth is about a dying and resurrecting god man or son of god and if you look at the story you see that this god man is born of a virgin and god sometimes on the 25th of december he changes water into wine at a wedding he performs other miracles he has 12 disciples he teaches a doctrine of love he upsets the status quo the religious authorities he's put to death at easter sometimes through crucifixion if you look at the cover of our book there's a picture of a figure that looks like jesus but it's not it's this pagan dying and resurrecting god man and then of course he comes back from the dead and if you want to commune with the god man you take bread and wine symbolizing his body but that's not christianity this is paganism pre-christian so we are inside this temple we call it the birds house or the bear's room so here in front of us some scenes showing in the temple of luxor ancient hieroglyphs describe a mythical mystery tale about a divine conception or what tom harper claims to be a virgin birth where a mother delivers a child in a cave and three sages come to visit the infant deity it's remarkably similar to the story told of the church of nativity except this one predates it by almost 2 000 years standing in one of the panels is the pagan god horus very important god because also this god had the same pairs or the same in the text that accompanied the image of horus the falcon sun god of protection harper found references to the good shepherd the lamb of god and the son of man all well-known biblical references to jesus and also in the same time his uncle he claims 180 similarities between horus and jesus christ horus is referred to as the christos or ayusa his virgin mother is the goddess isis when she got this baby horus she carried him alike in the same attitude like the virgin mary and the christ [Music] the images of mary in the images of isis with horus on her knee were interchangeable and in some churches today in europe they have a grotto in the bottom basement of the church where you will find a black madonna and the black madonna is isis and horus horus is just one of many such gods harper found evidence of dozens of others some of them can be found in the christian shrine at the coptic museum in cairo and they all have similar careers they all have supernatural birth they all are persecuted that was an allegory or a symbol for the fact that each one of us when we're born we have the spark the gift and it's threatened it'll be covered over by materialism by animal passions by whatever door to the coptic museum is one of the oldest churches in egypt saint mark's this church commemorates the journey taken by the holy family jesus mary and joseph when they fled persecution in israel what you're relating to is god or the universe or the mystery of life via this particular figure it's about understanding the wisdom that the story embodies of death and spiritual resurrection and experiencing it for yourself so that you discover the christ within [Music] you saint mark's church was built during the earliest days of christianity it was a time when christians were divided in their beliefs one of the factions was a mystical sect known as the gnostics and unlike other christians who believed in a flesh and blood jesus christ the gnostics believed jesus or joshua as they knew him was a pagan sun god [Music] you know there was a major battle for the soul of christianity in this period and the gnostics lost and the literalists won all through history it has been the winners in any battle or any struggle that get to write the story and get to write how it happened joshua as it would have been jesus is just the greek name the joshua cult probably goes back 200 years at least before the time that we think of as jesus being born and so to really understand the nature of gnostic mythology you have to completely get away from the idea there's just the story we have in the new testament the gnostic gospels of which we now have a large number said if you you had to write your own gospel to show you were initiated so you could imagine how many there must have been and so there's this whole there's a whole cycle of myths we have christian commentators saying yeah all those stories of the pagan god and they're admitting you know you're you you have the stories of of of the god man riding a donkey you have stories of the god man dying and resurrecting but yours are just stories as really happened where and how the whole thing actually crystallized and took shape into what we now know as christianity is is still veiled in a mist is it's becoming clearer and i think ordinary people suspect that there's a lot more there to to be told that they haven't been told and and the truth is that that's right that there was cover-up there was persecution of those who disagreed according to tom harper the church would preside over the largest and bloodiest cover-up in history the sacred road is the main street of ancient rome and leads through some of its most important pagan holy sites [Music] and at the beginning of the fourth century under the newly crowned emperor constantine it was a place of great chaos the entire western roman empire was in a state of collapse constantine had to battle five other emperors from the various parts of the empire who were all trying to make a play for the throne so the idea of you know let's have let's all sing from the same hymn sheet became a really important and urgent matter for people the roman empire was disintegrating the barbarians were on the borders in trying to unify his empire constantine was plagued by the fact that there were virtually dozens of religious cults to choose from christianity was against the law and anyone practicing it was persecuted and killed the most celebrated reminder of this persecution is the roman colosseum but tom harper began to see a different side to this persecution the christians were persecuted somewhat at first not as much as they have claimed by the way but they were persecuted and some of them actually begged to be persecuted much as suicide bombers will give their lives today but after the persecuting phase was over they became the persecutors and they became very vicious in their persecution of rousting out anything that smacked of uh other than christian the shift in attitude towards christianity was a direct response to constantine's need to assert order in his empire following his victory at the milvian bridge he had a vision of the sign of the cross and converted from paganism to christianity to become the first christian emperor and supreme pontiff what he wanted was one god one emperor let's just have one jesus please and let's stick to the story in 325 a.d constantine called together his bishops of the roman empire to form the council of nicaea their goal was to reach consensus and they voted in that jesus was equal to god and that's where you got the beginning of what we call today the nice seeing creed [Music] we believe in one god the father almighty maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible and in one lord jesus christ what he wanted was unity and they got unity when the majority agreed that the father and the son were co-equal once that happened then they said anything else is heretical came down from heaven by the holy spirit you don't agree with it you'll be banished and in the roman world that meant death you were exiled beyond the borders of the empire and that was it so you know the the the trail of deceit deception destruction of of the evidence was actually quite a pious thing that they were trying to do they were trying to hold the whole thing together around one particular story and we believe one holy catholic apostolic church we acknowledge one baptism and we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to maintain absolute order any traces of pagan ties to christianity were destroyed the pagan world was regarded as such a threat because everybody knew that this was the same we have pagan commentators saying hang on this story that you're peddling as as your jesus christ son of god these are our dionysus mysteries all of those people were put to death they were exiled books were burnt temples were torn down crosses over everything they tore down in the ancient world there's one letter written by a roman to the emperor just saying you know look this this black clad monks tearing down the the the wonders of the ancient world i mean what happened in that period if you look back we went from the most advanced civilization which had been on the planet to the dark ages you know they're called the dark ages for a reason in this ancient pagan temple the serapium in alexandria egypt members of the sarapas cult were forced to secretly worship statues of their gods and goddesses in dark tunnels deep beneath the earth [Music] on the shelves of these caves laid religious texts scrolls and papyri of their cult hidden away for safekeeping one of those whose job it was to teach the ancient wisdom of these pagan stories was hypatia a greco-roman philosopher who lectured at the serapium in about 401 a christian mob with the knowledge of the archbishop his name was cyril pounded hepatia and killed her in a very cruel manner and then burned her bones to ashes so she would have been very much in sympathy with gnostic form because she was a philosopher she just was a brilliant exponent of a way of life that they were no longer going a way of thinking they were no longer going to tolerate and they didn't the christians allegedly burned the books which had been moved out of the library into the sarah palin the sanctuary they burned all the books there you know that was the greatest collection of of human wisdom on the planet at the time and the entire thing was put to the torch because it was considered heresy we have uh saint augustine saying you know now we have the the scriptures we don't need any other texts an encyclical went out from rome saying that all of these texts must be destroyed the gnostic gospels we're only going to have these four matthew mark luke and john all the rest are heretical so at that point somebody went out into the egyptian desert with a vars containing what their most sacred texts and they hid them and they didn't come back for them and you have to wonder what happened to them that they didn't come back next to the church of the nativity in a long and winding cave the first common translation of the latin new testament bible was commissioned by rome with the help of two nuns it was written by church father and bible scholar saint jerome the doctrines of the new faith were then set in stone once you've got something written down thou shalt always repeat this story like this and that's that's what happened at that time [Music] by 476 a.d the roman empire had fallen but orthodox christianity flourished constantine's insistence on a literal jesus was the law [Music] some suspect that it was done deliberately as a kind of trick others believe it just happened because it was easier [Music] that the ordinary people were able to accept a literal view of stories that were very familiar but even as late as the fifth century christians had to be told by the pope to stop the practice of worshiping the sun on the front step of saint peter's in rome christliness was not something that just dawned in the year one of the coming era beneath the epicenter of christianity the vatican under saint peter's basilica is a ceiling mosaic dating back to the third or fourth century that some believe clearly demonstrates the merging of pagan and christian beliefs [Music] there's a picture of christ sitting in a chariot sun god with wings and everything right underneath saint peter's basilica itself in fact in the catacombs of rome there are many uh wrapped figures of mummies which they can't tell are supposed to be baby jesus or baby horus and in many cases they have a sun disc right on them but the idea that christianity took its stories from ancient egyptian mythology is too far-fetched for most christian orthodox scholars the fact of the existence of jesus is one of the surest historical facts of anything in antiquity the notion of a biblical jesus stemming from paganism is absurd according to leading christian theologians they claim harper is misreading egyptian mythology and ignoring the evidence tom harper is convinced of a link between the egyptian pagan god horus and jesus christ his is not a literal view of jesus but a metaphorical one i think he's made a mistake of buying in to views that really no historians that i'm aware of would accept is really credible tom's book calls for a total re-examination of how christianity got started so i read it and said you know does he make some good points and i decided he didn't while tom harper is not alone in his beliefs some of the world's most respected religious scholars feel that his theory on the origins of christianity is deeply flawed they claim that no link can be made between ancient egyptian beliefs and christianity there are a few gods that die and come back to life in some of the ancient religions but there really isn't anything like that in egyptian religion at all a lot of this stuff is just absolutely made up or the historical images really have no connection beyond sort of general parallels they aren't specific kinds of parallels because they sound somewhat similar they they must be similar and therefore christianity derives from this well the argument just simply isn't there it's not necessarily a coherent view of what egyptian religion was it's very complex extends over thousands of years and there isn't a sort of you know way to find an actual summary of it [Music] within the walls of the old city of jerusalem the church of the holy sepulchre was built by emperor constantine over the site of a pagan temple in 326 a.d he decreed that this was the exact location where jesus christ died and was later resurrected millions of christian pilgrims accepted his words as absolute fact christianity has hinged on real jesus christ dying and being resurrected and i think the evidence is very very clear that's exactly what happened known as the holiest christian site in the world visitors mourn his death at the very spot they believe his body was washed by his disciples for the millions who visit each year the church of the holy sepulchre is absolute proof of the existence of jesus christ the evidence is incontrovertible that jesus existed historically jesus of nazareth was the person who lived and walked the dusty roads of palestine and was crucified on a pontius pilot the rock formation beneath the church closely matches the description of the resurrection site in the new testament it is this kind of evidence recorded in the gospels that some believe confirms the existence of jesus christ you've got four gospels that are independent witnesses all of them are written before the end of the first century that's not really debated by scholars no one really knows who wrote the gospels although they were attributed to disciples matthew mark luke and john but their existence remains the heart of christian theology [Music] you have different gospel accounts but they agree on the core of a human being jesus christ and then there is external evidence in for example roman historians and and other places that cite and accept that there was this this figure external evidence in the form of several passages of ancient historical texts that refer to a christ-like figure but others aren't so sure and believe that many of these texts are ambiguous or an outright forgery the greatest suspicion is cast on the work of flavius josephus a respected first century historian whose writings contain references to jesus the one passage in jesus which on the face of it really does sound like a very strong piece of evidence for the existence of this man because here's a jewish historian who gives us some real interesting insights into this figure jesus until you critically analyze it and very quickly realize that it turns out to be a very very crude forgery many scholars claim that in the fourth century on orders from constantine the work of josephus was reinterpreted to include those references to jesus the man claimed to have altered the text was bishop eusebius a powerful figure in constantine's court it was just a time of great fraud all the history of that first important renaissance of the church is told by the pet theologian of constantine eusebius and eusebius makes no bones about the fact that he has made everything right for the church in other words he tended to suppress that which was negative about the development of christianity and to smooth over any of the rough patches this is the official history that was coming out i think that that really carries things a little bit far to say that that's a whole complete fabrication because there's no real need for it but even in the the testimony about jesus scholars have taken away what they think may have been later christian interpolation and the part they come up with is still a part that is substantial and substantial enough to include a reference a historical reference to jesus constantine's conversion and what that did for christianity has been hugely important in the history and development of christianity but it certainly didn't do the kinds of things that some people have thought in terms of inventing things out of out of whole cloth [Music] christianity has been sort of the institutional religion in much of the western world for a long time uh for good or for bad and there have been good things about that and there have been bad things about that but it does set itself up then for being seen to be a player in a conspiracy theory right they're the people who control everything they have been suppressing everything if we only knew you know we would be freed or liberated in some way i'm not saying they necessarily schemed um in an evil way but they they succumbed to the temptation uh that was inevitable once people to have blind faith and and come in in their masses and uh depend on you for giving them salvation i am the way the truth and the life can two billion christians in the world be wrong certainly that is true i think of this and i have to ask myself the question christianity does not encourage you to be credulous to just believe what you've been taught people should think critically about the faith whoever lives and believes in me shall never die do you believe this you know you've seen them come in the parking like this you know because we see them during the day and then they're like this and then they're like this they're watching through the different [Music] shows at the holy land experience the highlight of a day's visit is the staging of the resurrection of jesus christ for orthodox christians this miracle establishes their faith in everlasting life [Music] and i love it when people get those moments you can see in their eyes they're like i got it and that to me is a miracle you can't explain it uh but there's faith in receiving there's faith in believing [Music] but for tom harper that faith has been challenged is it possible then to remain a christian [Music] [Music] on the banks of the jordan river a tour group from romania has come to be baptized as christians [Music] but the priest who will lead them in the ritual doesn't place much faith in these sacred waters alone [Music] you won't find jesus here at these holy places it if you didn't find him before in your heart it's hard to express this it's hard to express it you must feel it it's the essence of of the faith for tom harper this too is true that jesus christ is within that this christian wisdom is no different than that of the pagans centuries earlier they had a saying the ancients as above so below whatever was in the heavens was within us [Music] tom harper's conclusions shook the very foundations of his faith [Music] but his acceptance of a pagan christ has renewed his belief in the principles of christianity the gospels are really allegories of the struggle of the soul of every man every woman the jesus figure stands for the higher self and the glory of the lord shone around them and they were terrified in fact the gospels seen in a new light have brought him closer to his faith and given him a deeper understanding of their meaning there's a mystery at the heart of christianity and that echoes the mystery religions which were all around and shows it a kinship between christianity and them what was the mystery the mystery is this not that you have to fall down on your knees and can beat your breasts and say what a terrible rabid sinner you have been and plead for mercy at the mercy gate which is the literalist point of view but that within every one of us is the spark of the divine within every one of us are the seeds of our own salvation we all share in this gift you have to awaken you have to have a virgin birth you have the virgin birth is what happens inside you when you realize who you really are [Music] you

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

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Keywords: History, Full Documentary, Documentaries, Full length Documentaries, Documentary, TV Shows - Topic, Documentary Movies - Topic, 2017 documentary, BBC documentary, Channel 4 documentary, history documentary, documentary history, jesus christ, pagan christ, real jesus, christianity documentary

Id: IMado9ukLt0

Length: 47min 45sec (2865 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 25 2020