At the beginning of the J.K. Rowling’s internationally popular phenomenon, Harry Potter was first viewed with suspect, and then damned outright by religious conservatives claiming that Rowling’s stories encouraged children to embrace witchcraft. The fallout from this controversy has included law suits, worker strikes, book burnings, and several campaigns to educate Christian families against the evils of Harry Potter. The “boy who lived” became Jesus’ arch-nemesis: the icon or rallying point behind which infuriated Christians could gain support (and a much needed platform) against a society embracing vampires as boyfriends, witches as heroes, and monsters as merely misunderstood. None of this slowed the success of Harry Potter, whose books, and then the movie franchise produced by Warner Bros, have been not only an unchallengeable model for marketing strategy and economic success, but also an integral part of the lives of millions of fans who have watched Harry grow up – and grown up with him.
As we reached the end of this journey, the final coming of Harry Potter was being treated as Messianic; blogs were calling the release of the first installment of Harry Potter 7 (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I) “a historic event.” However, the tension between Jesus and Harry has not been forgotten. A few extremist groups continue to burn books or protest movie openings or mount the pulpit in frothy defense of Christianity against the madness of modern culture’s obsession with wizardry. At the same time, however, the general Christian stance towards Harry Potter has taken a profound shift after the publication of the final book, in which Harry dies a sacrificial death, is tortured using the Cruciatus curse, and has an afterlife experience of sorts at “King’s Cross.” Potter then comes back to life and triumphs over his evil adversary, Voldemort. These motifs have guided many Christians to ask whether JK Rowling used Bible symbolism and consciously crafted the Harry Potter story after the Passion of Jesus Christ. Is Harry Potter a Christ-Figure? In fact this question had been asked by sharp-minded readers since the early days of Potterdom. Many bloggers correctly guessed that the details of Harry Potter’s life would mirror the sacrificial death of Jesus. In 2002 Beliefnet.com hosted an online debate between several scholars who had published books on the subject (“Harry Potter, Christ Figure?”). Now that the 7th book has been released, these early musings have been justified; especially in light of several comments by Rowling herself to the effect that she knowingly crafted parts of her story around the biblical story of Jesus Christ. Suddenly preachers are making headlines, not for burning Harry Potter, but for championing him. Harry Potter is claimed to be a Christian story, which parallels the story of Jesus Christ and thus can help open a dialogue between Christians and the broader public.
And yet the most fascinating question has so far been ignored: Why do these similarities exist at all? Although it is easy to accept that Rowling crafted the literary character of Harry Potter after the figure of Jesus, shouldn’t it pique our interest that Jesus – a monumental figure in modern world religion generally believed to have been historical – has so much in common with the obviously fictional fantasy world and character of Harry Potter? This book will trace the genesis of the story of Jesus Christ and examine the controversy concerning the historical founder of Christianity, to see if Jesus can be distinguished from Harry based on the claim of history.
Interest and controversy over the historical nature of Jesus Christ and his relationship to pre-existing pagan mythologies have been developing steadily in the past several decades, and although the internet today is full of websites and viral videos such as Zeitgeist exploring the origins of Christianity, there have been very few publications giving this topic a full and comprehensive evaluation. Whether or not the Jesus Christ as presented in the gospels was a historical figure is a source of much interest, and books on the subject have been both well-received and heavily criticized. Titles exploring the mythical or literary Jesus include G.A. Wells’ Did Jesus Exist? (1975), as well as his later books The Jesus Legend (1996) and The Jesus Myth (1998). Three brilliant books on Christ Myth theory were published in 1999, bringing the debate to the general public: The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold by Acharya S; The Jesus Mysteries: Was Jesus a Pagan God? by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy; and The Jesus Puzzle by Earl Doherty (an expanded version was published in 2009 under the title Jesus: Neither God nor Man-The Case for a Mythical Jesus). There was also Robert M. Price’s Deconstructing Jesus (2000) and The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man (2003), and more recently Tom Harpur’s The Pagan Christ (2005) and sequel Water Into Wine (2007). Due to the interest and lack of modern material, some publishers have begun reprinting older books on the subject, for example, Alvin Boyd Kuhn’s 1944 Who is this King of Glory (republished with a modern cover in 2007). On the flip side, Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ (1998) has enjoyed huge success as a defense for the historical Jesus. Finally, the quickly growing atheist movement is becoming interested in the subject as well, and celebrity thinkers such as Richard Dawkins have posted articles concerning the mythical Jesus Christ on their websites, generating a great deal of online buzz. This unresolved controversy is a topic of great personal interest for many people, and yet fundamental questions regarding the controversy over the historical Jesus remain to be fully answered.
Tags: Christ Myth, Harry Potter, historical Jesus, Jesus Christ, JK Rowling
