"The whole of history is incomprehensible without him (Jesus)." — Ernest Renan, "La Vie De Jesus"
In varied forms and media, artistic depictions of Jesus Christ reflect the disparity of vision and understanding about where he came from, how he lived, who he was, what he taught, where he suffered and how he died.
The artist's focus is often a reflection of his or her feeling about, and faith in, the reality of the subject. That Christ was born, lived, ministered to the Jews, then was crucified are foundational premises. But the ultimate depiction lies in the details.
Similarly, Christianity as a whole rests on some basic foundational theology about Jesus. But the detail that shapes major denominational divisions between Latter-day Saints and other Christians is stark enough that some evangelicals in recent years have accused The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of not being Christian.
So is Christianity based solely in theology, or does one's adherence to Christ's teachings — including admonition to "love thy neighbor as thyself" — figure in?
During LDS General Conference last weekend, more than 100,000 Latter-day Saints in downtown Salt Lake City were the target of a group of street preachers.
Carrying signs, banners and a hefty dose of biblical vocalizing, they loudly decried LDS beliefs, urging all to "believe in Jesus." Though their tactics have been derided, their message points to one of the most fundamental differences between the LDS Church and virtually every other historical Christian denomination.
According to President Gordon B. Hinckley, "The traditional Christ of whom (historic Christians) speak is not the Christ of whom I speak."
And it is, perhaps, at Easter that the differences in belief about Jesus are most readily apparent for Latter-day Saints, who join the larger Christian world in celebrating his atonement and resurrection, but forgo any focus on Holy Week. Rather than his death, it is Christ's life — including a detailed premortal and postmortal theology — that is at the heart of LDS devotion during Easter.
If diagrammed along a historical continuum, the differences in the Christian "Trinity" (three beings in one God) versus the LDS "Godhead" (three distinct personages) date not just to Adam and Eve of the Old Testament but to a time before the book of Genesis begins.
President Hinckley said in 1998 that "the Christ of whom I speak . . . together with his Father, appeared to (LDS church founder) Joseph Smith in the year 1820." What Smith said he saw were two "distinct personages" — God the Father and his son, Jesus Christ, with "bodies of flesh and bone."
Latter-day Saints believe in a premortal world, where Christ was pre-eminent among all of God the Father's "spirit children" — numberless spiritual beings conceived by God and a "heavenly mother." He was selected by the Father to be born as the Savior who would atone for mortal sin. The third member of the "godhead" is a also a distinct personage of spirit known as the Holy Ghost.
Historic Christians affirm the members of the Trinity as God, Christ and Holy Spirit. Yet they fuse the trio, who are "all of one essence, but simultaneously three." As such, only God has always existed "from all eternity" in his triune character. God chose to create a universe, a world and humans with whom he would have a relationship, and come to Earth, embodied in Jesus Christ, to save mankind by atoning for sin.
In the person of Christ, God "came down and was made flesh, was made man, suffered, and rose again on the third day, went up into the heavens, and is to come again to judge both the quick and the dead," according to the Nicene Creed.
David Pascoe with Salt Lake Theological Seminary is a lay pastor at Centenary United Methodist Church. He said "the person of Jesus Christ" is a major point of confusion when Latter-day Saints and other Christians try to communicate via religious language. "Historic Christians say Jesus is creator, and we are the created." Latter-day Saints view Christ as "creator of the Earth" under God's direction, but believe God is the literal Father of premortal spirits clothed with mortal bodies.
"So where both Christians and Mormons will say Jesus is the Savior of our world, the meaning behind that is fundamentally different for historic Christians than for Mormons."
In historic Christianity, atonement for sin was God's plan for the salvation of man from the time Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, Pascoe said. At that moment, there came "a promise from God to send one who will crush the head of the serpent and be bruised in the heel. So never is the human race bereft of God's care and love."
All Christians agree an atonement had to take place after the fall of Adam.
"At the fall, the plan for atonement and reconciliation is right there, and it's God covenantal promise that's made at that point," Pascoe said. God, in the person of Christ, spent the last week of his life on Earth being beaten, tried for blasphemy, tortured and crucified in payment for human sin.
Thus the historic Christian focus on Holy Week.
While Latter-day Saint theology says Christ atoned for human sin, his singular role as Savior was "foreordained" in premortal life. In that sense, the process "didn't start the moment he's tried, but the moment he's born," said Thomas Wayment, assistant professor of ancient scripture at Brigham young University. "His life itself becomes the atonement" because Christ "learned to be like us, and had compassion on us because of what he experienced."
"That's probably no less a part of it than what took place on the cross," Wayment said.
Again, a major theological split is in the details: the LDS Christ paves the way for his mortal "brothers and sisters" to be resurrected and, through both grace and works, eventually become "as God is"; the historical Christ himself is God, who overcomes sin through his grace alone, providing salvation and resurrection but no possibility of becoming like the trinitarian God.
The recent media blitz over Mel Gibson's movie, "The Passion of the Christ," has focused on what historic Christians view as the atonement, Wayment said, but depicts only a "limited part at that," in the Latter-day Saint view.
Though Gibson's movie focuses on Jesus' death, current questions in popular culture don't tread deeply into theology on atonement and salvation. Time Magazine's cover story this week is an artist's depiction of Christ, with the headline, "Why Did Jesus Die?"
Richard Holzapfel, professor of ancient scripture at BYU, believes the question is less related to the reason Christians celebrate Easter — victory over death — and more driven by a search for the "historical Jesus."
That movement was fueled several years ago by a group of scholars who dubbed themselves the Jesus Seminar, and analyzed the New Testament gospels in light of growing historical evidence, then voted on the veracity of various scriptural passages. The discussion has now moved into popular culture.
"Everybody, including Mel Gibson and ('The Da Vinci Code' author) Dan Brown is trying to say, 'Let's get past the Christ of faith to the Jesus of history. I'm going to tell you who the real Jesus is' . . . It's their version and their interpretation," and people are fascinated with the subject in a way Holzapfel believes is unprecedented.
As further proof, he cited two network television news specials within the past week about the life of Jesus through the eyes of modern scholars.
Some believe the current public discussion is a form of "Christian lite" that allows examination of his Jesus' life at arms' length, without expecting either faith in — or outright rejection of — his teachings.
As a passenger on several flights across the Atlantic the past few weeks, Holzapfel said when people learned about his profession, they immediately wanted to talk about the questions raised by Gibson's movie and Brown's book. It's a distinct about-face from fellow passengers' past desire to simply change the subject, fearing that as a Latter-day Saint he may try to convert them.
As a variety of Christian scholars have done for years, a group of LDS scholars led by Holzapfel and Wayment at BYU have recently compiled a book, "From the Last Supper Through the Resurrection," that discusses "what do we know historically about Christ."
With all these competing visions of what he was, we looked at what we could contribute to the discussion."
The one statement virtually all Christian scholars agree on is that "Jesus died in Jerusalem at the hands of the Romans by crucifixion at Passover." Believers undertake a personal spiritual quest to understand what that means to them, but scholars and the larger culture are now asking what it means in historical terms, he said.
While many are dissecting the New Testament gospels and debating the veracity of recently surfaced nonbiblical texts, BYU scholars are seeking to show "we can take the New Testament document seriously" rather than debating whether its authors could have really known "what Jesus thought of himself."
"That's what we're saying is real . . . (that) the Jesus of history is the Christ of faith in the sense that he went to Jerusalem, knew he was going to die and his death would change the universe."
LDS scholars contend that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were not simply forming their own opinions about who Jesus was — as some scholars believe — but recorded what he said and did through the testimony of those who followed him and believed him to be divine. That premise was brought into question for millions of "Da Vinci Code" readers, to the chagrin of conservative Christian scholars, some of whom have penned rebuttals to the book's claims.
Holzapfel said has no idea how long the larger culture will be interested in such questions, but there's never been a better time to be a Bible scholar.
"A year ago people were saying Gibson's film was going to flop. Now discussion of it is big-time in Europe. There are 'Passion' posters everywhere, and the movie is selling out.
"Jesus is even on the cover of French magazines. That's in secular Europe, and it's caught everybody's attention. It's an amazing cultural phenomenon."
E-mail: carrie@desnews.com