ALTERNATIVE HISTORIES OF JESUS: FOUR NOVELS


By C. Fred Alford

***

The Montréal Review, October 2024



Each of the 4 stories challenges the divinity of Jesus. Each imagines Jesus as merely mortal, though one isn’t sure while wishing he were. The Last Temptation of Christ, probably the most well-known, I read in college.  The novel has Jesus imagining that he was a man who chose life over sacrifice. This fantasy turns out to be the Devil’s work.  This misses the point of Christ’s dual nature.

The other three imagine that Jesus was fully and only human.  Judas betrays Christ because he forgets his earthly revolutionary mission and begins to imagine that he really is divine.  All miracles are explained away.  D. H. Lawrence’s Jesus is a version of the gardener Mellors in Lady Chatterley's Lover.  In it too miracles are either explained away or ignored.  The fourth book, The Testament of Mary, is in some ways the odd book out.  Originally written as a screen play, it is elegant in its simplicity.  Mary looks back on her life as Christ’s mother, and regrets that he chose the to save the world.  Better to have lived his own life, a man so talented he could have done anything.  She is skeptical about the miracles, especially his resurrection, but does not outright deny them.  They just get in the way.

All but The Last Temptation are short, novellas really.  I believe that even the most devout would benefit from reading them, for if Christ was fully man as well as fully God then one has to say that the man side generally gets short shrift.  If he were not the son of God, the conflict between his two sides (not parts, but aspects of a whole) would have torn him apart.  It should tear us apart when we think about it, but we generally don’t. 

I’ll conclude by elaborating on the great value of the Gospels, as well as thinking about Christ as simply man, even if you believe he is more.  Ernest Renan’s influential The Life of Jesus (original 1863), which purports to be a historical account of the life of Jesus, is not.  It’s as fictional as any of the novels we examine.  Why this is, and why it must be the case, is explained.

The Books

The plot of The Last Temptation of Christ, by Nikos Kazantzakis (1960) is a little confusing.  Just as gypsies are about to nail him to the cross, Christ’s guardian angel steals him away and transports him to marriage with Mary Magdalene, who lives just long enough to be stoned to death.  The widower Jesus ends up with two sisters, Mary and Hannah, with whom he enjoys a rich family life, including fathering children (pp 445-446).

Judas and other disciples confront him.  Jesus lied; he did not live up to his word to die to save the world.  Christ is torn with guilt, and at the very end awakens from his dream, accepts his mission from God, and dies with the famous words “It is accomplished” on his lips (p 496).

Christ’s dying dream of living a normal human life is inspired by Satan. His guardian angel who saves him from the cross (all illusion) is an agent of Satan.  Jesus’ experience of everyday life as deeply satisfying was a fantasy, sent by the devil.

This doesn’t seem right.  If Christ was truly all man, as well as all God, then the man part would have naturally wanted a family life, a sexual life, a normal human life.  That would be the temptation that the all-God part of him would have to overcome to fulfill his mission.   Not Satan, but Christ himself, is the tempter and the tempted.  That the last temptation is a dying delusion inspired by Satan fails as a full or honest vision of the duality of Christ’s nature.  Kazantzakis may think he is saving Christ’s authentic nature as God, but he sacrifices the mystery of the duality of Christ, the enigma that makes him so fascinating: that he is as fully human we are, while remaining God.*

D. H. Lawrence, The Man Who Died (original 1929).

Written in pieces, and published only shortly before his death, Jesus is never mentioned by name, but there is no doubt about whom the novella is about.

Jesus awakens in his tomb.  He had been mistaken for dead.  He goes out into the world, but desire was dead in him.  “He had risen without desire, without even the desire to live.”  He makes his way to Mary Madeleine, as Lawrence calls her, and says his salvific mission is over.

I am young still, Madeleine, not even come to middle age. I am glad all that is over... The teacher and the saviour are dead in me; now I can go about my business, into my own single life. (loc 224)

Mary is disappointed.  Jesus is now just middle-aged and disillusioned.

And she looked at him again, and she saw that it was not the Messiah. The Messiah had not risen. The enthusiasm and the burning purity were gone, and the rapt youth. His youth was dead. This man was middle-aged and disillusioned, with a certain terrible indifference, and a resoluteness which love would never conquer. This was not the Master she had so adored, the young, flamy, unphysical exalter of her soul. (loc 269)

But if Mary is disappointed, Jesus is not.  Nor is he filled with joy.  Rather, he has learned a lesson.  One can only love with the body.

If I had kissed Judas with live love, perhaps he would never have kissed me with death. Perhaps he loved me in the flesh, and I willed that he should love me bodilessly, with the corpse of love. (loc 822)

As a man he feels the shock of desire.  He touches Mary and is overwhelmed.  He has an erection and says “I am risen.”  His erection is better than his resurrection, which was to save humanity.  Nothing like a little blasphemy.

He crouched to her, and he felt the blaze of his manhood and his power rise up in his loins, magnificent. "I am risen!”  So, he knew her, and was one with her.  (loc 870)

Touch, intercourse, impregnation and the child who is to be born.  In this world that’s what’s sacred.  Quite a story.  Lawrence sums up its meaning in a letter written late in life.

I wrote a story of the Resurrection, where Jesus gets up and feels very sick about everything, and can’t stand the old crowd any more—so cuts out—and as he heals up, he begins to find what an astonishing place the phenomenal world is, far more marvelous than any salvation or heaven. (Letters VI 50)

What else is there to say?  Lawrence abandons the complexity of the God-man, transforming him into his image of liberation in an industrial age, in which men (in this case) are alienated from the life of the body.  Just as well he never mentions the name Jesus.  A fascinating story, it really has nothing to do with Christ, or even the historical Jesus as far as we know.**

Colm Toibin, The Testament of Mary, 2012

Originally a one-woman play, it opened in Dublin, and closed early on Broadway, while winning three Tony awards.  One of the critical comments on the play was that it would have worked better as an audio production.  Currently there is an audible.com version narrated by Meryl Streep. It runs just a little over three hours.

Mary is living in Ephesus, in a safe house where John has hidden her.  The authorities might still come after her he fears.  With her are two disciples, intent on getting Mary to talk about Christ in a way that will support the Gospels, yet to be written.  Mary sees it differently.

“He was indeed the Son of God,” replied one of the disciples who lived with and protected her. 

“He died to redeem the world,” the other man said. “His death has freed mankind from darkness and from sin. His father sent him into the world that he might suffer on the cross.” (p 79)

Mary replies sharply.  “I can tell you now when you say that he redeemed the world, I will say that it was not worth it. It was not worth it.” (p 80)

One might argue that this is simply a mother talking, one who saw her son die on the cross and could do nothing.  But it’s more complicated.  At the wedding in Cana, she is put off by her son.

My son was wearing rich clothes and he was moving as though the clothes belonged to him as of right. His tunic was made of a material I had never seen before and its colour, a blue that was close to purple, I had never once seen on a man. I heard him saying that he was the Son of God.

There was nothing delicate about him now, he was all displayed manliness, utterly confident and radiant, yes, radiant like light is radiant, so that there was nothing we could have spoken of then in those hours, it would have been like speaking to the stars or the full moon. (pp 36-37)

Moreover, she doubts he turned the water into wine, believing the casks contained wine all along.  Lazarus too was hardly brought back to life, she tells us, spending his days in a bed in a dark room, barely able to speak or move.  Certainly, this is a mother talking, angry that her son no longer recognizes her.  She doubts his divinity and his miracles, but considers it possible that he died to save the world.  She just doesn’t care.  She wants him back the way he once was, her son.

C. K. Stead, My Name Was Judas (2006)

Judas escapes from Jerusalem and lives out the next 40 years of his life on an island in the Mediterranean.  Judas first knew Jesus when he was six or seven.  He loved his friend, but Judas worried about him.  Judas followed Jesus when he was a social reformer and political revolutionary.  Was Jesus starting to believe that he was the Messiah?

Was he beginning to believe those voices that shouted from the crowd that he was the Son of Man, the miracle worker destined to bring the Jewish people to their final destiny? That he might be entertaining such an idea, and even, subtly, promoting it, was unsettling. Its possible consequences were frightening. (p 23)

Particularly troubling was the new tone of anger in Jesus’ teaching.  He had come to bring not peace, but a sword, to divide families and people in the name of the Lord.

The message was powerful and, in its uncompromising way, exciting; but I was astonished, and disconcerted. Where was the Jesus who had said the peacemakers were blessed and would see God? (p 122)

Much of the short book is devoted to the rationalization of Jesus’ miracles.  For example, raising Lazarus from the dead becomes a sister’s metaphor, not an actual accomplishment.

Jesus, they said, had raised Lazarus from the dead... At the time I took this (I was a slow learner!) as a symptom of his return to health, not as an idea anyone would entertain seriously.(p132)

Judas went to Jesus and said, “Haven’t you noticed that some of the twelve believe you’re the Messiah?” “I’ve noticed,” Jesus replied, “that some of you don’t.  “So, we sat in the sun, two friends, one, it seemed, beginning to believe he might be the Son of God.” (pp 149-150)

Judas thinks Jesus has likely gone insane (p 175), but the basis for Judas’ betrayal was his refusal to believe.

My ‘betrayal’ was in my refusal to affirm what I couldn’t believe. I think of it now as a parable of the Jesus message: Believe, or go to hell! I couldn’t believe and didn’t pretend, and, ever since, his followers in their narratives have been sending me to hell. (p 170)

I thank my scepticism, my unbelief, my observing eyes and open mind, for the life I have been allowed to live. (p 213)

Judas doesn’t kiss Jesus.  He grabs him and tells him to run.  Jesus’ belief that he was the Messiah would kill him and endanger his followers.

I broke in on what he was saying, grabbing him by the forearms – from which, I suppose, comes the story that I kissed him to signal which of our group was the prophet of Nazareth. ‘They’re coming,’ I told him. ‘If we scatter into the trees …’ (p 217)

Of course, his followers “saw” Jesus after his death.  What else would one expect.  We all see our loved ones after death, often somewhere in the crowd.

I saw him in the street, caught sight of him in crowds, heard his voice coming from an open window . . .. Our dead are always with us. But they are not alive. That’s the nature of being dead, and it’s best we accept it. (p 235)

Conclusion, with reference to Ernest Renan (1863)

The most obvious thing to say is that the Gospels are a far better story than any of these.  Certainly, it has to do with the magic and wonder, but there is more than this.  The Gospels’ characters are richer, the story and settings more complex, the narrative in every case more compelling.  However, we judge these fictional accounts of the life of Jesus, none is better story than the Gospels, and not just because they were first.   In every Gospel Jesus is a more fascinating and troubling character than in any of these fictional accounts.

But humanizing Jesus has an advantage.  Today the Johannine Jesus prevails: Jesus as one of the faces of God, Jesus as God (John 19:30).  This tends to downplay the inherent tension: if Jesus was as fully man as he was fully God, then he suffered all the temptations and desires of a human being, including sexual desire, jealousy, and even envy.  Of course, this is impossible if Jesus is without sin, but then he was never fully human to begin with.  It just doesn’t work, and to chalk it up as one of the mysteries of faith is not an acceptable answer, especially when a fairly straightforward answer exists: an impossible contradiction exists between the claim that Jesus is fully man and that Jesus is without sin.  Perhaps the willingness to live with this impossible contradiction is what is meant by faith, but the portrayal of what it would mean to live with this contradiction is highlighted by the fictional portrayal of the fully human Jesus.

One of the first moderns to struggle with this contradiction is Ernest Renan, a German theologian who inspired D. H. Lawrence (Bricout, p 205).  Renan at first appears to demythologize Jesus, giving us a more historically based account.  In fact, his history is as fictional as any of these novels.   Just one example.  Renan tells us that Jesus learned to read and write by the “Eastern method,” which consisted of memorizing scripture with his classmates.  He also tells us that Jesus went to Jerusalem every year with his parents, and that he never married.  We know none of this.  All we know, beyond what the Gospels tell us, is that Jesus lived in Judea, and was crucified.

We don’t know if Jesus was literate, we know from the Gospels of only one occasion when he went to Jerusalem, and it would have been unusual for a Jewish man reaching 30 not to have married.  Renan creates the Jesus he needs, one who only appears to be more “historical.” 

In the first two respects Jesus is actually more “historical.” That is, an average Jew of that time would have been educated and frequently gone to Jerusalem, but was Jesus an average Jew?  In the third he is less “historical,” for it would have been unusual for a Jew to have been unmarried by 30, no matter his economic prospects.  Renan lifts the Biblical Jesus out of (or is it into?) history.

One sees this throughout Renan’s book, in which he will not say whether it was the strong and loving imagination of Mary Magdalene that gave the belief in resurrection its start.   It may have, says Renan (p 410), but maybe it did means maybe it didn’t.    Renan just won’t quite stand still on matters of faith.

Overall, Renan’s book is remarkable, reminding us that Jesus’ great contribution was to envisage a religion without priests, synagogue, or ritual, based entirely “on the direct relation of the conscience with the heavenly Father.” (p 120)  But he no more avoids fiction than the novels we have considered.  To do so and tell a story is impossible. 

Notes & References

This is stated most clearly in the Athanasian Creed (5th or 6th century, CE), which is widely accepted among Protestants and Catholics.  It is most popular among Catholics and Lutherans. Jesus's humanity is disclosed by such Biblical facts as: he was born as a baby from a human mother; he became tired (John 4:6), thirsty (John 19:28), and hungry (Matthew 4:2).  Most importantly, he experienced the full range of human emotions such as wonder (Matthew 8:10) and sorrow (John 11:35). (https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/how-can-jesus-be-god-and-man).  That Jesus is fully God is stated most clearly in John (10:30).  I assume the belief that Jesus is fully man and fully God is so fundamental to Christian teaching that it need not be argued for, only briefly restated.

** Though there is a strong oral tradition, as well as the hypothetical Q-source, the only written evidence of the existence of Jesus independent of the Gospels is a brief mention by the historian Josephus (93-94 CE), and an even briefer mention by Tacitus in his Annals (116 CE).


References

Shirley Bricourt, Journal of the Short Story in English, 79 Autumn 2022, 205-220. https://journals.openedition.org/jsse/3964  [source of quotation from D. H Lawrence, Letters VI, 50].

Nikos Kazantzakis, The Last Temptation of Christ.  Simon and Schuster, 1960.

D. H. Lawrence, The Man Who Died.  UMash Marketing Ltd. 2013 (original 1929.)

Ernest Renan, The Life of Jesus.  Good Press, 2022 (original 1863).

C. K. Stead, My Name Was Judas.  Random House, 2006.

Colm Toibin,  The Testament of Mary. Scribner, 2012.


Three other works about Jesus 

Sue Monk Kid, Book of Longings, Viking 2020.  (Fictional) Jesus marries Ana during the lost years before his ministry, in which a Jewish man would have been expected to marry.  Told from Ana’s point of view, it is “respectful.”  Not banned by the Catholic Church, it is insufficiently heterodox to be interesting here.

Norman Mailer, The Gospel According to the Son,  Random House, 1997. (Fictional) Following all four gospels closely, it never deviates.  A “wan little book” it was called.  Or “sweet.”  It presents no challenge.

Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus (original 1906) (Historical).  Though their dates overlap, there is no evidence that Lawrence was influenced by Schweitzer.  Interpreting Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet, Schweitzer’s book lacks a fictional narrative. (questionable is not the same as fictional), and so is not included here. 


C. Fred Alford is Professor Emeritus at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he taught ancient and medieval political philosophy for thirty-eight years. He has written eighteen books on diverse subjects: psychoanalysis and politics, natural law, trauma theory, and the legacy of the Holocaust. While not a professional theologian, Alford wrote a book on Emmanuel Levinas, one on natural law, and still another addressing the book of Job.



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BY C. FRED ALFORD


 

 

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