PART I

WHY ANOTHER BOOK

            In the July 1 Issue (Faith and Science) I mentioned that a book dealing with an attempt to understand Jesus, as he is depicted in the gospels, was finished and making its rounds to some friends and colleagues for comments and critique. The major suggestion was that the title, “Understanding Jesus. A Physician’s Search for the Truth” did not fully correspond to the contents and ought to be given further thought. This was correct because titles and cover picture are important. Unless they catch the eye a given book will not merit a second glance, let alone be picked from the shelf for closer inspection, regardless of its intrinsic value. This leads at times to such exaggerated titles as The Murder of Tutankhamen, for which there is no evidence; or Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers which turned Mischlinge (individuals where one parent or grandparent had been Jewish) into full blown Jews thereby misleading the public.

Since I have some personal experience in these matters and the mentioned books are supposed to be non-fiction I contacted the authors and they readily admitted that these titles had not been their first choice. They had been selected by the publishers for marketing purposes. It seems that a similar process was also at work in a most recent tome which features on the front of the dust jacket the word God in triplicate and large font with “The Evolution Of” in the center in smaller print. One may now ask: does God evolve? Or do our opinions about the Deity change over the span of recorded history? It is, of course, the latter aspect. Furthermore, of the nearly 500 pages about 400 are devoted to show how the god of Abraham, a tribal deity, had become “the One and Only God.” While the book clearly has merit the near exclusive preoccupation with Yahweh, or El Shaddai as he was originally referred to, is not apparent from the title. Karen Armstrong’s book title: A History of God. The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, which had covered essentially the same material about 15 years earlier, was considerably more explicit.

In view of these precedents and for the sake of accuracy Martha and I, jointly with our daughter, put our heads together and came up with a new title, The Jesus Conundrum. Searching for Truth beyond Dogma. This title reflects two realities. One is that a fair number of our educated citizens have become estranged from the official teachings of the Christian churches and thereby don’t really know where to place the figure of Jesus into their mental horizon. As such, he presents us with a conundrum. The second aspect is the emphasis on “truth” and “searching.” Please note that the definitive article was omitted because “the Truth” is a matter of faith and in the realm of religion. The mere fact that numerous religions exist, all of which lay claim to the exclusive truth, is sufficient evidence that it behooves us to be more careful. The truth as it is explored in this book deals with common consensus, which is independent of a given culture or time period. In addition it represents a personal perspective and does not aspire to universal agreement.

Since the book contains over 300 pages and I would like you to read it I shall give in these three essays only the reasons why I think you could profit from doing so. In this first installment I shall deal with why it was written. The second one will discuss the methodology used in trying to reach an answer to Pilate’s immortal question: What is Truth? The third essay will explain why the answer to this question is of fundamental importance for our society. In the current installment, as to why I wrote this book I shall also proceed in three steps. First of all Jesus presents us with a challenge; not only for our personal lives but also for the society we live in and which we are constantly changing. Second: What are the hallmarks of our current society and to what extent do they satisfy human needs. Third: What are the personal aspects that prompted me to write this book and my qualifications for so doing.

The challenge

As mentioned above, we know of Jesus but don’t know what to do with him and a fair number of us just want him to go away, as was so beautifully expressed by Dostoyevsky in The Brothers Karamazov, more than a hundred years ago. His name is on our lips but our secular society has difficulty finding a place for him in our hearts and minds. This conundrum is perhaps best exemplified by a Multiple Choice Test, as it might appear in a quiz, and which also will give you an insight into your own personal current attitude.

The word Jesus refers to:

a)  An expletive used when one is angered or distressed.

b)  A prophet of God.

c)  A deluded itinerant Galilean preacher and miracle worker.

d)  A dangerous false prophet.

e)  The savior of mankind.

The fact that one can phrase a quiz in this manner makes it obvious that Jesus may be the most controversial person who has ever walked on earth. For some he was, and still is, a stumbling block which has to be rejected. For others he is the cornerstone of their belief system. Still others use his name simply as an expletive. Let us look closer at the choices. Choice a) is the most common in popular culture but it may surprise some that choice b) is part of Muslim belief system where he and his mother figure prominently. Muslims diverge from Christians only to the extent that they cannot accept Jesus as “the only begotten Son of the Father” because as stated in the Koran, “Allah has no son.” Full divinity of Jesus, as expressed in the Christian Trinity, is regarded as violating strict monotheism. Choice c) is common among members of our intelligentsia who have become estranged from official religious creeds and have not taken the time to think more deeply about the problem. Choice d) reflects orthodox Jewish belief system and choice e) is, of course, Christian dogma. As such, the questions arise: where does truth reside; and is it possible to come to a modicum of agreement?

Aspects of our society

What are some of the reasons why the Son of Man still has not found a home even in so-called Christian countries? Yes; churches profess and extol him but even listening to his teachings, let alone following them, is by and large limited to Sunday church services which are increasingly sparsely visited. There is good reason for this state of affairs. The image of Jesus as presented to us has become so overlaid and encrusted with dogma that a rational understanding, of which we pride ourselves, has become nearly impossible. We regard ourselves as a society guided by reason, facts, and science in which the “supernatural” obviously has no place. Yet when we look at the history of the past century and even the beginning of this one it is obvious that these assumptions are a myth. Instead we are led by crude emotions of greed and fear which are camouflaged under noble names such as patriotism, national security, democracy, freedom and the workings of capitalism. A teacher who admonishes us to deny ourselves for the sake of others has an infinitely more difficult time to find genuine disciples than one who promises material benefits if certain commandments are being followed. This is in essence the difference between Moses and Jesus.

Moses had promised the Israelites a long life and lots of progeny in a land flowing with milk and honey provided that they fully adhered to Yahweh’s commandments. Jesus, on the other hand, promised his disciples a kingdom of God. Its nature was explained only in parables, which even the disciples had difficulty understanding. Furthermore, the kingdom was to be reached by serving others rather than lording over them, and in addition exposing oneself to persecution for the sake of it. This is hardly conducive to gaining worldly aplomb and the fact that the Christian churches succeeded to the extent they did was due initially to a few dedicated souls who were willing to give up their lives for the master and subsequently the compromises that were made for political purposes.

When the human being’s choice is between immediate gratification of appetites and postponing the fulfillment of desires to an indefinite future, the outcome tends to be obvious. Even the Israelites couldn’t adhere to the relatively simple Ten Commandments that were initially imposed on them, as the story of the Golden Calf demonstrated. It was used by Gounod as a ballet in his Faust, which is an operatic masterpiece. Since we are talking about truth the words of Mephisto’s song, as presented below, are one example.

Le veau d’or est toujours debout:

On encense sa puissance

D’un bout du monde à l’autre bout!

Pour fêter l’infâme idole,

Rois et peuples confondus.

Au bruit sombre des écus

Dansent une ronde folle

Autour de son piédestal!

Et Satan conduit le bal!

Le veau d’or est vainqueur des dieux;

Dans sa gloire dérisoire

Le monster abjecte insulte aux cieux!

Il contemple, ô rage étrange!

A ses pieds le genre humain

Se ruant, le fer en main,

Dans le sang et dans la fange

Où brille l’ardent métal!

Et Satan conduit le bal!

The golden calf always stands high (can also be translated as “is alive”). One worships its power from one end of the world to the other. To celebrate the shameful idol, kings and commoners together, to the murky clink of money dance a mad round about its pedestal, and Satan conducts the ball!

The golden calf is the conqueror of gods; in its grotesque glory the abject monster insults the heavens. It contemplates – oh strange lunacy – the human race stampeding at its feet, weapon in hand, amidst blood and filth (vice) wherever the fiery metal glitters! And Satan conducts the ball!

            This is our reality and even our current wars are fought for material gain. The Golden Rule is now interpreted as “he who has the gold rules” and in the form of laissez faire capitalism it has penetrated all walks of life in our country. Adam Smith’s idea of the “invisible hand,” where the pursuit of individual self-interest would unintentionally produce a collective good for society, was again exposed as a pipedream as recently as last year. Self-interest does not provide a check for greed. The crucial knowledge of when enough is enough is elusive and requires wisdom. While unfettered capitalism is one bane of our society, which President Obama tries to curb to some extent, the idea persists that more money will solve our problems.

To understand the folly of our time we need to realize the extent of the hole we have dug for ourselves; the immense amount of debt we have acquired, and the idea that we can borrow ourselves out of debt by incurring further debt. The figures we are dealing with are astronomical and the “science” of economy, which is supposed to be the remedy likewise defies human understanding.  The November 1 issue of The Christian Science Monitor reported that, “Federal debts currently stand at $11.9 trillion, a total that includes reserves of Social Security and Medicare trust funds as well as debt owed by the public in the US and abroad.” It was also noted that, “even at today’s low interest rates servicing the debt costs almost $500 million a day, much of it going to foreign banks and governments.”

The 2010 federal budget amounts to about $3.5 trillion of which about $680 billion are supposed to go to the Department of Defense. To this one needs to add approximately $55 billion for the Department of Homeland Security and $18 billion for the FBI. The additional costs for the CIA and the National Security Agency are undisclosed. The real costs for “defense spending” are, therefore, unknown although we live in a republic rather than an authoritarian state and are supposed to approve each expense item. Compare the available defense related figures with the $99 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services. In spite of the fact that the Cold War is over, defense spending has steadily risen. An article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs has pointed out that in 1960, at the end of the Eisenhower administration but in presence of a hostile nuclear armed Soviet Union, defense spending amounted to $265 billion in today’s dollars. So; where are our priorities? Gounod had it right: Satan conduit le bal!

In addition to the unsustainable debt we are incurring as individuals, as well as a nation, there is the problem of fragmentation and dehumanization of our society. On the military side hardly anyone gives any thought to the consequences of the fact, which I have mentioned last month, that we are now conducting our air-war in Afghanistan and Pakistan largely by drones which are remote-controlled from sites in the US. We are thereby telling the world: our lives are precious but yours are readily expendable. Civilian losses are merely “collateral damage” for which we are willing to pay some money. Human beings have become a commodity to which a price tag can be attached. This type of thinking cannot bode well for our attempts to convince especially the Muslim world that the example we set should be followed.

In civilian life corporate greed, which frequently cares nothing about the well being of the people in their company, has become the main fact of life. Profit is the overarching goal and companies have become commodities that are being traded as if they were lifeless objects. Their workers can be fired at any moment because in order for the top brass to make more money the work force needs to be “down-sized.” The 1987 film Wall Street was a typical example and the situation has only gotten worse since then.

While people have always aspired to the American dream of homeownership and a degree of freedom from material worries the changes that have taken place in our society since I first set foot on these shores in 1950 are truly astounding. At that time America still regarded itself officially as a Christian country. At Christmas time there were crèches on public property. Everybody knew what marriage meant and the idea that it needed a legal definition and possibly even a constitutional amendment would have been laughed at. Children recited the pledge of allegiance in school and no one took offense that it contained the words “one nation under God.” Likewise, the oath which was administered at court proceedings did not only contain the promise to tell “the truth, the full truth and nothing but the truth” but also the additional ending “so help me God.” If anybody had asked me what Hanukkah was he would have gotten a blank stare and even Jews didn’t celebrate it to any extent. The word holocaust existed only in the Bible in spite of the fact that this crime against humanity was in the recent past and Europe was still full of camps housing DPs (displaced persons). Israel was a state like any other. When late, in the Suez War, it transgressed its assigned borders the Eisenhower administration took its government to task and the spoils of war had to be returned.

What has happened in the meantime came about so gradually that it went practically unnoticed. Under the banner of strict separation of church and state atheistic Jews have fought and won a series of court battles. This was to lead not to freedom of but freedom from religion. I have documented some of these in The Moses Legacy. The result was that the Christian majority gave way, step by step, to Jewish demands. It is true, of course, that these measures were not taken by Jews only for Jews but were supposed to benefit all. Nevertheless Jewish secularism has clearly been the winner with Christians steadily losing ground. Even the Catholic Church had to make concessions in its liturgy to avoid the constant accusation of anti-Semitism. It is not polite to speak of Jewish power in our country yet it pervades all walks of life from culture to politics. “Fear of the Jews,” of which the gospels speak, is not a fantasy but a reality. We cannot even pursue an independent foreign policy at this time which is not approved by our homegrown Zionists. While Eisenhower could order Ben Gurion to return the Sinai to Egypt, Obama cannot even make Netanyahu desist from building further settlements on Palestinian soil.

While crass materialism has come to dominate public life, individuals are increasingly looking for some answers to the question of meaning which elude us. This has given rise on the one hand to a spate of books on atheism and on the other to renewed interest in esoterics. Books and movies of the latter genre are more common and doomsday scenarios are abundant on TV shows. The Apocalypse, or more precisely the Book of Revelation by St. John, also has become immensely popular and I have discussed it previously under the title The Unholy Alliance (May 1, 2002). Now even Nostradamus’ quatrains are regularly milked on the History Channel to show that he has predicted the arrival of the third antichrist. Napoleon and Hitler shared the honor of this title for the 19^th and 20^th century respectively. The current doomsday date, with or without the subsequent arrival of the kingdom of God, is December 21, 2012. A once in thousands of years celestial alignment is supposed to take place and this is said to coincide with the end of the Mayan calendar. If you “google” that date you will be amazed at what you find.

While these are some of the reasons for writing the book, it also represented closure of unfinished business. In The Moses Legacy I have discussed the foundations of Judaism and its impact on our society but could deal with Christianity in only a limited manner. A more detailed exposure of the fundamental differences beween the two belief systems, which are glossed over by the term Judeo-Christian tradition, became necessary. In addition there was an even more personal aspect which can best be stated as an attempt to express my gratitude to Jesus for his help throughout a long, eventful and turbulent life. The idea was born under the most unlikely circumstances and started with a dream. Not the Martin Luther King type of dream, but the nocturnal event which is part of our physiology. It occurred during a sailing trip in the Caribbean where I was island hopping on a forty footer with a friend who owned the boat and his friend, a lady pediatrician. The weather was perfect, our little crew of three most compatible, and life could not be better. It was one of those rare days when you truly have no worries. God is in heaven and there is peace on earth.

During the night I dreamt that it was late afternoon on Christmas Eve and I discovered to my dismay that I had not bought a single present for the various family members. It was a disaster. “Where am I going to get gifts now at the very last minute?” was the worried thought. But immediately came the next one, “What are we really celebrating?” “Jesus’ birthday, of course.” “But what can I give Jesus? He has everything he could possibly want?” The answer came back, “Souls!” Yes indeed; and if this book can help even a single soul to understand Jesus and his message better it has fulfilled its purpose. Just as in my scientific publications, the purpose of this book is therefore: to set the record straight; to separate fact from fancy and attempt to arrive at a cohesive world view.

Qualifications

One may now ask why I, a physician, would want to tackle this topic when there are literally hundreds of thousands of books about Jesus by eminent authorities extant, including one from the current Pope Benedict XVI. “Legitimate” inquiry into the life and meaning of Jesus is relegated by our society mainly to theologians, historians and professional teachers of comparative religions. This is due to the fact of increasing specialization. We divide our world and what is happening in it into relatively small niches where certain “experts” have the answers and the rest of us, the laity, are expected to submit to superior wisdom. Our professions are supposed to define us and if we step outside this narrow circle we do so at our peril. As will be shown below these circles of professions within professions have become progressively smaller due to increased specialization and we now have reached the stage where a given professional knows more and more about less and less. This adds to the fragmentation of society where the forest is being lost for trees, leaves and their spines.

The question arises, therefore: What qualifications can a physician and neuroscientist claim that his views might merit a hearing? In my case perhaps the most fundamental one is an urge to understand the ununderstandable in human behavior. This led to the choice of my medical specialty in the first place. It has remained a life-long vocation rather than a profession for which one receives financial remuneration and from which one eventually retires in advanced age. Here again is, however, an example of how our society has fragmented. In 1950 when I first started working at Vienna’s University Hospital for Neurologic and Psychiatric Diseases, the Nervenklinik as it was popularly dubbed, the two fields were one. It was axiomatic at the time that the mind could not be separated from the brain and that their reciprocal influence is responsible for health as well as disease. But when I applied in 1951 at the Mayo Clinic for continuation of my training, I had a rude awakening. When asked by the director of the Mayo Foundation what I wanted to specialize in and said “Neurology and Psychiatry” I was told that this was not possible. I had to choose one or the other.

Unbeknownst to me a shift had occurred in America which can be laid directly at Hitler’s feet and is another example of how interconnected events really are. His persecution of Jews had led to large-scale emigration and psychoanalysts, who were mainly Jewish, relocated largely to America where that field had already penetrated popular culture. Prior to WWII, neurology and psychiatry had been one specialty here, like in the rest of the world, but the influx of psychoanalysts changed the situation. The neurologically oriented members of the profession could not swallow Freudian doctrine, left the fold and went their separate way. By 1951 the split had become practically complete, although there was still one Specialty Board and neurologists had to have a minimum training of three months in psychiatry and vice versa. Compare this with the situation I had left in Austria where the neurologist had to have a minimum of two years of training in psychiatry and three in neurology. For budding psychiatrists there were two years of neurology and three of psychiatry required. This arrangement had ensured adequate training in both fields and thereby minimized wrong diagnoses. Since three months, as was required in the US, are clearly inadequate, patients were commonly misdiagnosed. The psychiatrist became known as “the shrink,” brain tumors were missed and nobody in the general public knew what a neurologist was or did. I made up for this deficiency with additional training. The use of psychoactive drugs and the recent advent of computer-based imaging methods have shown again the interdependence of mind and brain, but the artificial separation of psychiatry and neurology persists in the training of physicians to the detriment of patients.

This excursion into my curriculum vitae is not irrelevant for the topic under discussion because Jesus has been labeled by some psychiatrists as a “paranoid schizophrenic” and St. Paul by some neurologists as an “epileptic.” Thus the two founders of Christianity carry diagnostic labels which clearly fall into the purview of my expertise. The book was, therefore, also an attempt to examine the validity of these medical-psychiatric opinions. While anyone can write a book, to get it published is an entirely different matter. The author wants to get his/her opinions across but the publisher is only interested in cash flow. Although books dealing with spiritual topics are, as mentioned, currently somewhat en vogue, publishers look at the proverbial bottom line. A person who has “name recognition” can immediately get a lucrative contract while those of us who feel that they have something to say but whose “name recognition” is limited to their profession have hardly any chance to get published by mainstream firms on topics that are regarded as lying outside their field of expertise. I mentioned the fruitless quest of the first version of the Jesus book in the April 1, 2004 issue (Mel Gibson’s Passion) and fared no better with the current one. When I submitted the query form to an appropriate publishing house I had to answer the question: What is your marketing plan? Well, Jesus doesn’t have one and as all of us know he told us that you cannot serve God and mammon, which happens to be true. When I answered that question with: I am going to talk about the book and discuss it on my website, but am too old to go on book tours around the country; the negative answer to the query came within 24 hours. No marketing plan – no contract is the reality for our era. Since I no longer have years to waste in fruitless search for a publisher I put, as the saying goes, my money to where my mouth is and contracted with Trafford where the book is currently in the process of being printed.

As mentioned in the introduction to this essay I shall discuss the methods employed upon which my opinions about Jesus and his teachings are based in the next issue.