A Theosophical View of Christianity
Richard Brooks – USA
[This article was previously published in The Theosophist, 127.3 (December 2005): 93-98]
The Theosophical view of the early history of Christianity and of its founder, Jesus the Christ, is very different from that found in more orthodox sources, the latter being generally accepted without question by most Christians. Furthermore, while most Christians interpret their scriptures in a historical sense, theosophists see them as allegories and interpret them metaphorically. There are some Christians who are aware that the historical interpretation of, say, the Gospels presents serious problems, since their accounts are mutually inconsistent. But they have worked out what they consider to be a reasonable solution to those problems, retaining a historical account of the life of Jesus and his disciples based on those Gospel stories. Since the orthodox view is probably familiar to most readers, I will not attempt to detail it here, but rather will concentrate on a theosophical interpretation of early Christianity.