Was Jesus Real? Like REALLY Real? – The Pagan Christ (2007)

➡ The documentary “The Pagan Christ” explores the theory that Jesus Christ might be a pagan god, drawing parallels between Christianity and older religions like those of the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. The film is based on a book by Tom Harper, a Canadian biblical scholar who spent his life studying the Bible and developed this controversial theory. The documentary suggests that Christianity was formed to control people, with Constantine the Great using it to consolidate his power. It also discusses how Harper’s studies led him to believe that Jesus Christ was not a historical person, but a symbolic figure, a belief that was reinforced when he found similarities between biblical verses and ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.
➡ The text discusses a documentary about the origins of Christianity, focusing on the symbolic interpretation of Christ and the influence of pagan rituals. The documentary features Tom Harper, an ordained priest who spent his life studying theology, and presents his belief that Christ was seen symbolically before being turned into a literal historical figure by Constantine. The film is appreciated for its balanced presentation, allowing viewers to form their own opinions. It’s seen as a good starting point for those interested in the topic, and is recommended for its genuine and non-argumentative approach to discussing religion.
➡ The text discusses a documentary titled “Xmas without China” where an American family of Chinese descent challenges their neighbors to celebrate Christmas without using any products made in China. The documentary explores the impact and prevalence of Chinese goods in American life. The text also promotes a comic book about Stanley Kubrick directing the Apollo space missions, available at NASAcomic.com. Lastly, it includes lyrics from a song, expressing various emotions and thoughts.

He’s dabbing a little bit on the weekends and the Gnosticism. Here’s the season to documentary. Welcome back to Under the Docs with Paranoid American and Sean Criss. Today we got The Pagan Christ. 2007 film kind of speaks for itself. It’s almost like we’re prying back into earlier episodes of the Zeitgeist, but actually getting a fine entombed. The Pagan Christ explores, you know, the thought and theories of a lot of, is Christ just a pagan God? Is he this new idol from the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans, the same religions and how they all tie together.

So there is this like line that we’ve walked before right with Zeitgeist where we’ve seen a little bit of this. I thought this was a little bit more insightful and specifically only about this pagan part, not like extending into the Federal Reserve, et cetera, et cetera. And it’s worth pointing out that this entire documentary is based on a book by this guy, Tom Harper. It’s also called The Pagan Christ. And he was a Canadian biblical scholar, columnist, broadcaster. So he actually had spent I think a lot of his life just studying the Bible and came up on this theory that he was unable to shake going forward.

So a lot of criticism on it. It’s definitely not accepted as canon across the board, but it felt a lot like that one claim of the Zeitgeist where they’re talking about, you know, the 20 gods or the 50 gods. And it goes beyond the Joseph Campbell references. So this one, if you were interested in that part of Zeitgeist, you might find this documentary interesting too. Plotting the Course. He claims the premise of this, the whole plot is Jesus Christ, this idol that’s a pagan worshipper, right? Like that has he been created and they even explore into the Egyptian the same as like I said, we’re talking about where they talk about the sun, God and Horace and how they pray to him and how would the same the Virgin Mary walking on water, hell that they’re all transcribed.

But what I thought that was really interesting that they brought into, I loosely remember maybe hearing something about this, but like I’m not a biblical scholar, but they talk about the Napoleon campaign where they find the Rosetta Stone and how this pretty much is what got Tom into this whole, Hey, is this just a doctrine that’s made to control people? And they kind of suggest that Christianity was formed to control people. Constantine the Great, he was at a bad point in life and the barbarians were ready to take over and Christianity at first was something that was persecuted, but then it started catching fire and more people started getting wind of it.

And they actually started persecuting people, Constantine seeing this as something that can elevate his power and control. And he used it and he actually, he gathered his Roman bishops for the cancel of Nicaea. And that’s pretty much the doctrine of what Christianity Bible is based on now. If I had to summarize this documentary, and maybe just the documentary, not the book, because I haven’t read the book, but it’s essentially how the author Tom Harper, at one point in his biblical studies, he realized that he couldn’t believe that Jesus Christ was a historical, literal person.

And that as far back as he could see, it had always been a symbolic person that represented something. Like you mentioned, when Napoleon’s army found the Rosetta Stone, it basically matched up three different languages. And one of those languages was representing some of these Egyptian hieroglyphics. So for the first time, people were able to decipher these hieroglyphics that have previously been mostly a mystery. And one of the things that Tom Harper sees was a passage over and over again that said, I am the way. And he immediately identified this as being from biblical verse, but it was actually coming from stories that predated any writings in the Bible by about 2000 years.

So I think that that was the key moment when he decided like, okay, this deserves a book and then a movie and maybe hold like a little PR run. And I assumed that it lost him a lot of credibility in his circle. Because again, you find more reaction videos about how this is all BS and how this guy was completely misguided and he’s going to hell essentially more than that, than you do for the documentary itself or for the book that he wrote. And he had some good claims too. One of the claims that I also found interesting was they’re talking about Fabius Joseph, ancient historian, and they’re talking about that he mentions like, you know, Christ actually existing.

Well, then it turns out Bishop Eubibius, let’s see if I get these biblical names correct. They’re there, they’re the Eubibius, like even trying to type them in is kind of funny. But Eubibius braggadociously, at least that’s from what Tom lays it on is saying that he altered Fabius’s work and said that, yes, Jesus Christ was alive. So that he’s claiming that that is what everybody’s pointing to as like the smoking gun. Like, hey, look, the literal person of Christ existed, but it was altered. So he’s like, no, it, your reference point is gone.

And then they have other people trying to defend it. Well, they’re like, well, it doesn’t matter, bro. There’s other ones. Like, you know what I mean? They kind of just lay it out that way. But I thought that was a pretty big claim that if true, that that would change a lot in history. There’s another documentary. We’re going to have to get into it at some point. That’s because I mentioned this when zeitgeist came up to called the God who wasn’t there, where they go like real deep into this same exact premise in probably more detail than even this documentary, this pagan Christ one.

Because again, this pagan Christ is based on this one guy’s book. And I think one of the good things or the interesting things about it is that it it’s presented from this one guy’s own perspective through his studies in the Bible. And he mentions like all of the things that he just wasn’t able to get over when he was actually studying this. And one of the other ones was how the Matthew story contradicts the nativity story, where one of them happens in a manger. One doesn’t happen. One says that three people show up with gifts.

Another one doesn’t. So you kind of latch onto the ones that have the most visuals and have the most like storytelling, I guess, like advantages to them and not the ones that, you know, Oh, it happened in like an industrial side of town and there wasn’t anything special. No one showed up. That one doesn’t have the same ring as it’s in a manger. He was mentioning the Egyptian equivalence of Osiris, which we hear again in the in the zeitgeist movie where they’re talking about all these different similarities between them riding on a donkey born a virgin birth.

And then towards the end, Tom Harper, he starts to get a little bit Gnostic. He turns into a Gnostic goober, as I’ve heard some people call it. And he’s talking about how he believes that the virgin birth is something that happens inside a person when the first time they they realize that Christ consciousness is what Christianity is about. And it’s not about some guy that’s setting some example. The second and the way that he phrases it is like, once you realize who you really are, that’s the virgin birth. That’s like the second life.

So he definitely has like a very Gnostic point of view that maybe he just developed over time. I’m not, I didn’t do a whole Tom Harper biography on this, but I do get a sense that you, you kind of see the things that he was complaining about or things that were confusing him. He finally was able to rectify them by considering all the Christianity in this like abstract form. Cause they’re really exploring the Gnosticism versus the realism like of how it was created. And from Tom’s perspective, it did resonate with me a little bit because one of the claims he also makes is that like, this was a tool used by Constantine because he, everything was in chaos.

It was out of control to reel people in and kind of give them some kind of unity and something they can back under. And he was saying one God, one emperor. And it kind of like made sense that they would try to simplify it for people, right? If you have all these different religions and people bickering, it’s probably not good for your society. So they’re trying to reel people in. And he even says that’s not necessary for nefarious or evil reasons, but what they believe to be good, right? The greater good of let’s, let’s reel everybody in.

We know better than they do. And that’s where this whole clash of Gnostic Gnosticism and realism really clash. And then there was a lot of blood pass over it where people were like, you need to believe what I believe and burning books. They didn’t necessarily say the library of Alexandria, but they showed the library of Alexandria and they talk about like book burning and how people were hiding their, their other face. And I thought it was interesting how they were calling them Colts as well. And he was referring to the Christianity as a coal, which I thought was pretty interesting because what they’re saying did make concrete sense to me where people do use Jesus Christ as like a symbol more than just, Oh, Hey, uh, like I believe in God.

And then they’re saying God and Jesus are one and one. And that’s the big argument. And Constantine was a pagan and he flipped because miraculously had a vision of a sign of the cross. And then he goes, Hey, but it also coincides with what we’re perfect with him, having people idolize this new religion and kind of giving them some unity and control. All right. Hidden treasures overboard moments. I want to hear what you got the hidden treasures on this. There was one that I just hadn’t heard before. And I’ve, I’ve been down this rabbit hole a few different times.

So in the pagan Christ, Tom Harper has this example of wine and bread symbolism that were pagan and specifically about eating the flesh and drinking the blood, which is the transubstantiation of the Catholic church and the Vatican. And one of the core tenants of that entire belief system that that also predated all of this. And I guess it went to like Diane, um, nicest and some of the Colts that were based on him, because he was also about agriculture and drinking wine. And, um, the way that Tom Harper came across all this and presented it in a way, I guess the part that I enjoy the most is that it’s the same info that I think we’ve probably heard before, but presented in a non-conspiratorial fashion.

So that it almost feels more earnest. It doesn’t feel like someone’s like, and this is why mommy and daddy lied to you your whole lives. You know, it was, it was a guy that he was an ordained priest too, by the way. So, so his biblical studies were at earnest. He had dedicated his entire life to studying religion and theology. And this is just things that he was like, man, I can’t get over these very specific parts of this. So I think that it was laser focused, at least in that kind of regard, although they show way less examples of these different contradictions.

They kind of mentioned a whole bunch of different ones and they mentioned, Oh, here’s like three or four different traits. And there’s a whole bunch more, uh, which there are, if you go and do that extra research, but this documentary comes in at like a whopping 47 minutes. So they don’t spend a lot of time going on little tangents here and there. So, um, I feel that the overboard moments are maybe just some of the claims that we’ve sent, uh, we’ve, we’ve seen detailed or, you know, as a lot like we’ve seen tangents longer than this documentary before, I’m just one of the claims that comes up.

So that might also be it’s side of the saving grace to them. And like, this feels like a quick movie that you can send someone that’s not ready to go all the way down the rabbit hole. They just wants to dip their toe in this hole. You know, was Christ, a, a literal historical human being, or was he just representative of something that was continuing from older cultures? And you can kind of get your own litmus test on this. If you don’t want a three out three and a half hour documentary about it.

That’s kind of gets to me to my hidden gem, which is they gave both sides of the story, right? Like they didn’t just let Tom go in and say what he believes. They actually had other priests and other scholars and professors that were not debunking him per se, but they were having the other side of the argument. And I felt like this was a fair film. Like, where I’m like, okay, well that lets me, what I like in a film of where I’m like, Oh, I get to decide, right? So I get to choose, Hey, I hear all these guys saying this, what do I think? And for me, obviously I leaned a little bit more to Tom’s because I thought it was a great way to explore like, what is God? And like, he seemed genuine, right? Like I didn’t, I didn’t take any of like, Oh, he’s just saying this to get clicks and views.

Like he genuinely believes this. He has questions and I think people like to shun people with questions. So I like that aspect of having this genuine kind of conversation about this topic that gets people kind of like bent out of shape, right? Like I’m sure there’s going to be somebody in the comments, bro, my God. You know what I mean? They’re going to be upset because we’re challenging their beliefs, even though we’re just discussing it and talking about it. So that’s, that’s some of the hidden moments, hidden gents for me. I didn’t really have any overboard moments because it was right to the, it was what I expected, right? Like I, I was like, this is a wealth put together documentary quick hitter that I can, like you said, share it with a friend that they’re going to actually probably watch it as a little bit of the school feel, but it’s not as slow.

And if you’re into the topic, you’ll be interested. All right. It’s about that time is a sink or swim moment. What you got? I feel like just because it’s Christmas, I’m in a really generous mood, more so than usual. So this one’s going to get a swim, even though I could see a sink, but here, but here’s my reasoning for this one. It was really short. It was like, you know, under 50 minutes long and it was still able to deliver a powerful enough punch that it felt like I watched the first half of zeitgeist.

So I think it delivers. I want to talk about, and again, I really love seeing this from a different perspective than just a scorned atheist or a conspiracy theorist where the whole world’s been inverted and everything’s a lie to say on this lie. It’s about a guy that spent his entire life becoming an ordained priest and studying theology. And he doesn’t come away from it and saying, and here’s why you should be an atheist. And here’s why I don’t believe in God anymore. I got the exact opposite. What he seems to be summarized in this movie is that he discovered that Christ was before Constantine turns it into a thing.

And before the rest of religion turns Christ into a historical literal person, that even before, like the original Christians, that they were thinking of Christ in a symbolic and allegorical sense. They were using it to guide their lives in like an abstract spiritualism and that he doesn’t find that incompatible with still being an ordained priest. As far as I’m aware, he still continues to call himself Christian. Although he does acknowledge that he now like lean, he dabbles in Gnosticism, right? He’s dabbing a little bit on the weekends and the Gnosticism.

A little Gnost, a little Gnost here and there. I give it a swim all the way, man. I really enjoyed the film. It was like my style of where I get to decide. No one was like pushing and pressuring me to like, I felt like Tom was like a pretty genuine dude. That was kind of like, Hey, this is what I had some questions and I’m pushing back on it. They didn’t, wasn’t speaking in absolutes. They kind of present their case. And even the other side, like they, they, they kind of press a little bit more because I know they have more writing on it, right? They’re like, we have to be right.

So some of the things that they were like, well, yeah, that doesn’t make sense. It wasn’t exactly like the other story. So it has to be like that it couldn’t be the same thing. And you’re like, all right, man, it’s like so many similarities, but all 10 weren’t similar, but there was nine, but I guess since it all didn’t match up, it wasn’t there, but I really liked this film. I thought it was easy to get through. I could share with somebody they can enjoy it if they’re in this field, right? Like if you don’t like this topic, then you may not want to watch this, but if you like this topic, even if you’re new beyond this topic, I think it’s a good starting point to get people kind of having a real discussion.

And I, I really liked the aspect of like not really argumentative, like even Tom throughout it, even claims like, you know, he’s kind of has this feeling that he’s not necessarily right, right? He’s like, Hey, this is the questions I’ve had and which pushed him further was I think people not allowing him to question, like being mad that he’s questioning things. And I think that made him go down the rabbit hole more and more. So yeah, swim all the way for me. The under the docs Christmas saga continues. What we got next.

Well, you tell me, cause this was a documentary that you fished out. You actually went and got the physical DVD. Do those even exist anymore? They do. Like I didn’t even realize that we got it right here. Xmas without China. This is going to be our first actually going retro, not super retro. We didn’t get the VHS out for you guys, but we did get a DVD. And, and this film’s pretty interesting. And it’s kind of on par with the times. This guy explores, there’s two families that are involved. The one family, their Chinese descent, and they live in America and he’s kind of like going to his neighbor or somebody in the town and they’re kind of trying to see if you can live without Chinese products for Christmas.

So he’s going around and saying, you have to take everything out of your house. That’s made in China. And it’s a, it’s a interesting thought experiment. What about the microplastics in your blood? That’s forever. Don’t forget paranoid American.com kill the mockingbirds.com. Go get you a comic book right now. This is under the docs. Have a Merry Christmas. Oh, yeah. Ready for a cosmic conspiracy about Stanley Kubrick moon landings and the CIA? Go visit NASA comic.com Yeah, go visit NASA comic.com Oh, that’s a comic.com CIA’s biggest car. Stanley Kubrick put us on this while we’re singing this song.

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