Jesus many avatars

Once a cartoonist drew three pictures of Jesus seated.

a) Christ of Protestant piety: A radiant gentle teacher.

b) Christ of Catholic piety: Long faced, sorrowful, crowned with thorns.

c) Christ, a militant Jew: haggard, disgusted, middle- aged person.

Robertson Davies in his novel 'The Fifth Business' presents Jesus as a businessman of substance. He was a carpenter, but that is in keeping with the custom of the times that everyone must have a trade and work with their hands. He was not making cowsheds, but as a designer and a manufacturer in the terms of those days he travelled around, made connection with all kinds of rich and influential people as an honoured guest. He stayed with people who knew him as a man of substance. He had a great philosophy.

He had refined tastes. He appreciated beauty, knew how to distinguish good outcasts from bad. Remember his reaction when a woman poured costly ointment on his feet and head. At Cana's marriage festival, he helped his hosts out of a tight corner perhaps because in his business days he knew what social embarrassment was. He knew how economy works. For example, the Parable of the cunning steward. Temple cleansing also could be explained this way. The temple authorities were extorting terrible rates from the pilgrims, thus endangering the tourist attraction of the place. It was a sort of market discipline. He was the only one with brains to see it. The priests did not like what he did. They were getting a squeeze out of the temple exchange and wanted to become rich too fast. So they got rid of him who had a wider economic vision.

The philosopher: Gerd Theissen in his The Shadow of the Galilean presents him as a philosopher comparable to the cynic itinerant sages. He travelled around the country without a fixed abode, lived without a family, profession or possession. He required his disciples to get by without money, without shoes, without a bag for their journeys and with one coat. Love of God and fellowmen was his main precept. This goes in line with the Greek tradition for whom piety towards God and justice towards fellowmen are the most important virtues.

On possessions, his teaching is reminiscent of Diogenes in the barrel who despised all possessions. On aggressive action, he reminds us of the teaching of Cleanthes who said, 'evil begins with intent.' On adultery, Jesus again reminds us of Cleanthes who said, anyone who nurtures a desire will put into action, if given the opportunity.

Hugh Scornfield in his book The Passover plot says that Jesus must be reinterpreted according to the Jewish categories, especially the category of the Messiah. He believed himself to be the Messiah and went about trying to prove it by fulfilling the various prophecies of the Old Testament. He was indeed a great schemer. Even the crucifixion was something he brought up on himself in order to fulfill the scriptures about the suffering Messiah. He took a drug to give the appearance of death. He had earlier arranged with Joseph of Arimathea that after his crucifixion, he would try to get the body down quickly and in the privacy of the tomb, revive him. Unfortunately, for him, the plan misfired because of the Roman soldier's lance. The trickster had been out-tricked.

The harlequin/jester Harvey Cox in his 'A feast of fools' compares him to a jester who entertains people by mocking at the ruling elites and with his verbal calisthenics. He called Herod a fox and compared him to a dancing reed in the windy forests. He called the Pharisees, the whited sepulchre. But what to do, finally, he was overpowered by his enemies in a mocking caricature of paraphernalia and crucified amidst sniggers and taunted with a lampoon sign over the cross. He was like a wise court jester.

Here Jesus is a revolutionary like Che Guevara or Camillo de Torres. He was conscious of the class struggle inherent in society. He leads a proletarian revolt, tries to gather and organize the lowliest people of the land, the outcasts, the politically and religiously unclean and unfortunately his plan failed because of the bureaucrats' clever scheming.

Adolf Hall in his book 'Jesus in bad company' interprets Jesus sociologically as a criminal whose deviant behaviour threatened the good order of society and who was accordingly put to death.

Earnest Renan presents him as a romantic superstar. He was an ordinary Jew whom the circumstances forced to take the centre of the stage or the star performer in this absurd world. He acted and achieved a measure of authenticity by risking even his life in response to the social challenges. It is best portrayed in the garden prayer, 'take me before I change my mind.'

This has its foundation in Gnosticism and Docetism of the first and second centuries. He is the God who came to dinner. His suffering and death were a good show, but at the crack of a whip he retreated within himself to beatific vision and did not really feel the suffering. In another version, he did not really die, he escaped the disposed body and flew home. The Bahais even claim that he came after resurrection to Kashmir and died there.

Jonathan Livingston in his poetic book Seagull sees Jesus under the image of this bird - high flying, short-lived with an invitation to fly with him. In the middle ages, it was the mythical phoenix bird which rose again and again from its ashes.

Nikos Kazantsakis' The Last Temptation of Christ, a fictional biography or novel which was later made into a controversial film, says Jesus was making crosses for the Romans. Often he was hearing voices and he suffered from terrors, consoled and strengthened by his homosexual friend Judas Iscariot. He loved Mary Magdalene, the prostitute with whom, of course, he could not have any sex and was the friend of Mary and Martha. Mary Magdalene, he saves from the crowd who accuses her of being caught in the act of adultery. Somehow his ordinary sayings and actions have extraordinary effects on the crowds. Judas takes the advantage of his popularity. He miscalculates in betraying Jesus, all out of good intention. Jesus, as he hangs on the cross, is tempted by a pseudo-child and in imagination weds Mary Magdalene, then Mary and even he has relation with Martha. He grows old and even his grandchildren are playing around. Judas appears in vision and reveals that what he has been taking to be an angel in the form of a child is only the evil one. Then he overcomes his last temptation and dies on the cross.

Three more epithets: Jesus Feoks considers him as a big brother super ego. He is the one who tells them how they can kick off the drug habit and gives them the strength to do it. Black theology likes to see Jesus as a black Messiah teaching the blacks to overthrow the white oppressor. Libertines like to project him as a magician who was engaged in libertine nocturnal rituals like praying in the night in lonely spots . From all these images and models, we could understand how each one projects his own image and interpretation of Jesus from his standpoint. How our own minds' turmoil and attitudes, taken towards them and the world at large, is foisted on Jesus. Let me conclude with the initial question of the cartoonist, "Will the real Jesus please stand up?" For, the quest for Jesus at times becomes too esoteric and elusive, if not illusory.

(The author is assistant professor of English at St. Michael's College, Cherthala).