I finished the book by CK Stead “My name Was Judas” recently. I quite enjoyed it. For someone who was not bought up in a Christian church tradition it is amazing how much of the story of Jesus is in my bones. Ive absorbed it from the culture.
CK Stead presents Judas (who is alive 40 years after the crucifixion) as a modern humanist. He has good values, and thinks Jesus went a bit crazy to claim he was the son of god. It all makes good sense. Miracles are exaggerations developed by people with wishful thinking.
I’m not a humanist, and I’m not a Christian, so the book was not satisfying at a deeper level. I’d like to see a sequel where Judas begins to see that the literal story of Jesus was the foundation for a myth. An important myth where the divinity of humanity began to be grasped by humanity. That people co created the story of Jesus as devine and to see through the absurdity into the real meaning of the story.
It’s like that with 2012. To think next year will be somehow different because of the date is absurd. but there is power in the myth! We live in extraordinary times. The myths makes them even more extraordinary and might even have a self fulfilling aspect to them.
This last idea is pretty much what Jean Houston says in an interview by Tami Simon on www.mysteryof2012.com.