The concept behind Jesus Potter Harry Christ is pretty easy to get. Harry Potter is a hugely popular, obviously imaginary character, who hails from a fantasy world of magic where everything is possible. Jesus Christ is purportedly a historical character who some claim to have actually and physically performed miracles; most notably his own resurrection. The fact that the stories of these two characters – one fictional and one ‘historical’ – share many precise and even intimate details in common, draws attention to certain logical difficulties that have plagued Christianity since its inception.
It is thus tempting to journey into research and evidence for the historical Jesus, in an attempt to ‘prove’ that Jesus Christ, the man, existed and thus ultimately is fundamentally different from Harry Potter. (Although, it could be argued that a chair and the imaginary ‘idea’ of a non-existing chair are actually much more similar than two actual objects, like a chair and a table).
Such a journey, however, ends in failure: the historical Jesus is not to be found – he is and has always been an article of faith, to be believed in without supporting evidence. This truth is further problematized by the fact that Jesus had much in common with other, pre-exiting pagan deities. This claim is often swept away by arguing that Jesus was historical and thus ‘different’ – but we can see that this argument is doomed to failure. (Is existence really an attribute worthy of distinction?)
Pursuing the historical Jesus with eyes wide open is like running into a cathedral with a stick of dynamite: soon the sculpted walls and polished pews crumble around you. If you survive the initial chaos, standing in the heaps of rubble, the true light of the sun will warm your skin for the first time.
Then is the time to sift through pieces. Although you can no longer see the grand facade, the golden processions and the practiced rituals; at the same time you see deeper than ever before. You can see the mortar between the cracks, the file markings on the stones – in short the process of creation that went into the final product.
This metaphor holds true – it IS possible to find out what ‘really happened’, to explain the genesis of a religion – even one as complex as Christianity.
