THE SECOND TIPPING: This will be a side point to my last blog about tipping points (and the meaning of life). I wish I had time to develop this and write a book. It regards the story of Jesus of Nazareth and the history of Christianity. Hey, talk about a tiny pebble tipping the historical apple cart. When you look at the basic facts that most main-line historians would accept about Jesus and his preachings, they hardly set Jesus apart from the many other traveling apocalyptic prophets in Palestine in the First Century. Historical documents indicate that there were many of these preachers, both before and after Jesus. It was something that a lot of guys wanted to do back then – this probably had a lot to do with the Roman invasion and how the Jews were responding to it. You don’t hear much about most of them, e.g. “Honi the Circle Drawer”. And a whole lot more were probably never recorded on stone or paper and have been completely forgotten by history.

In my opinion, Christianity was born and the world was hugely changed because of this fact: an apocalyptic prophet stumbled by accident into a tipping point at a hot corner of the Roman Empire in the early First Century. That prophet turned out to be Jesus of Nazareth. Most of the other apocalyptic prophets of the time, including John the Baptist, flapped their butterfly wings but their effect was lost in breeze. As for Jesus, he got lucky — right time, right place, right things that followed including the whole Resurrection Myth thing. As I’ve said on my web site, I think it was reasonably possible that Jesus lived for a (very) short time after a truncated Passover-Eve crucifixion and was seen alive (if not well) by one of his prophets. That would have been enough to set the minds of oppressed Palestinian Jews on fire, giving early Christianity the impetus it needed to reach its second major tipping point – i.e., when Paul of Tarsus came along. Once Paul joined the mix, the fire was unstoppable (but different).

You could probably do a similar analysis with regard to Moses and Judaism, Mohammed and Islam, Gautama and Buddhism, and other religions. An interesting question would emerge: i.e., just what would the masters say if they could come back today and see what they founded. How much of their personalities, intent and “spirit” filtered through after many centuries of history? My guess is that after they got over the shock of all the institutional and superstitious crap built up in their names (most of them were protesting institutional and superstitious crap), they would agree that their original message could still be found by the true seeker, i.e. by people who could get beyond the simple institutional answers and definitions. The next question would be a very personal one: assuming you did get to the core essence of these prophets, how do you respond to them.

In a nutshell, here’s my response. As to Gautama, I think he’s one really smart cookie who can make you understand life very deeply and show you how to personally deal with it (sort of like the late Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead; or maybe the Big Lebowski). As to both Moses and Muhammed, they’re the great realists, the political scientists of spirituality. They’re not gonna sugar-coat the world; they want to see the most God-like outcome for real-world struggles, and they’ve got the stomach to keep thinking in those terms after ordering a few thousand (or million) people to die or be cast into hopeless poverty. But as to Jesus – in the end, he’s the person that I could feel great affection for. He’s the guy you could love.

Personally, I’m glad that the tipping points of history tipped in such a way that the essence of Jesus is still with us, however varnished with darkening layers of myth and ritual and superstition (and let’s not even start about those Tim LaHayne novels). Without that radical (and extremely brave) love for humankind which the historical Jesus was all about, the ways of all the other guys (including the Big Lebowski) ultimately come to naught.