Blogging for Jesus

Manufacturers, marketers and prescribers of Zoloft, Zyprexa and Aropax/Paxil/Seroxat:


Actually, I was wondering this Easter Sunday morning, what would happen to Jesus if he came back? Given that there are a lot of people who go around saying they're the Messiah and end up locked up and/or on major tranquillisers, what if Jesus is actually one of them, languishing in some psych hospital somewhere? I suppose he could perform a miracle to prove to the doctors he really was Jesus, but Jesus wasn't really a showman if you think about it - he stayed up there on the cross, after all. Perhaps he could turn someone's contraband booze back into water, and then into liquid Largactil, but wouldn't that be so, oh, 2000 years ago?

Come to think of it, Jesus began to exhibit manic symptoms from a young age - running away from his parents while at the temple to discuss the finer points of theology with the elders, for example. Some clear-cut evidence of grandiosity and lack of impulse control there, ahem - could Jesus have been the paradigmatic Bipolar Child? While there is enough historical evidence to enable us to be confident that Jesus did in fact exist, unfortunately his Baby Book and medical records appear to have been lost, so we don't know whether he liked biting other children while on 'play dates' or was unable to stop masturbating. Perhaps we could get Dan Brown onto this, so we can get a definitive answer on this one. (UPDATE: Dan just emailed me to say that Jesus's pediatric medical records are buried underneath the Massachusetts General Hospital.) Undiagnosed and unmedicated, the poor guy apparently grew up to indulge in some really violent and bizarre behaviour, like cursing fig trees and upending tables in public buildings, not to mention suffering hallucinations in deserts and gardens.

The mental health or otherwise of Jesus was of enduring interest during the early years of last century with psychiatrists labelling him either epileptic, paranoid or ecstatic based on the Gospel accounts of his behaviour. Subsequently, according to a review in the Journal of Abnormal & Social Psychology * in 1923, the issue was put to bed by the publication of a book called The Psychic Health of Jesus by one Walter E. Bundy, a Bible scholar rather than a shrink. Bundy firstly argued that most of the so-called 'evidence' for Jesus's insanity emanated from the Gospel according to John, which had been largely discredited in the late 19th century as a reliable source of information about the 'historical' Jesus. His second objection, as summarised by the Journal's reviewer, James H Leuba, is more interesting:

In order to understood correctly, the apparently incriminating words and actions of Jesus must be placed in their historical setting. In several instances they then cease to appear abnormal or at least they lose much of their virulence. The belief of Jesus in his Messiahship assumes, for instance, a different cast when it is realised that the expectation of a Messiah was prevalent at the time and that, therefore, a belief which to-day [sic, 1923] might be regarded as a sign of insane credulity could then be entertained by sound minds.

Which kind of begs the question - are predictions of the imminency of the Second Coming more common now than in 1923? If so, should the claims of latter-day Messianic aspirants "assume a different cast" and be "entertained by sound minds"? Jerry Falwell and Jack van Impe both seem to think that Jesus will be back within the next decade or so, and the prophesies of Nostradamus and Edgar Cayce have been interpreted to mean that Jesus was born in 1999, which would make him a Ritalin-addled little brat of about seven or eight now, due for his first psychotic break more or less in accordance with Falwell's and van Impe's predictions.

So, let us not ask "What would Jesus do?" but "What the fuck are we going to do to Jesus, this time round?"

Best wishes for a euthymic Easter break from a dysthymic atheist.

* Vol 18(3), Oct 1923, pp. 296-297