Michel Onfray: “In the footsteps of the “myth” Jesus”

In this spicy essay, the bestselling author uses a recipe that is dear to him. Already in 2010, in The Twilight of an Idol, Michel Onfray attacked a monument of modern thought, Sigmund Freud, the untouchable founder of psychoanalysis. After reading all his work and his correspondence, he ended up painting a portrait of the Austrian doctor stripped of all aura, to the great annoyance of his followers. As a good disciple of Nietzsche, Onfray likes this type of “psycho-biographies”, refusing to be impressed by knowledge that no one questions anymore.

Thirteen years later, the author attacks nothing less than the historical figure of Jesus. He thus keeps a promise made to one of the masters, the historian and philosopher Lucien Jerphagnon, who had pushed him to embark on this perilous exercise. So it’s done. It is not certain that the Jesus d’Onfray marks the spirits as much as those of his many predecessors. The philosopher may denigrate Jesus – The encyclopedia, directed by Mgr Joseph Doré, this will be, more or less, the only bibliographical reference. As always, we feel that Onfray makes a point of knowing his subject perfectly, like those gifted students who like to destabilize their teachers.

Convictions or mystery

But refusing the historical character of the Gospels in the name of certain inconsistencies is quick. Pointing out that evangelical authors “used” Old Testament prophecies to invent a fictional character who fulfills them is downright sporting. Reading the preface, we understand that the man continues to leave behind his childhood: that lived within an environment of Catholic tradition where faith was part of the landscape, without any other form of process. Onfray is in exile and forms convictions for the road, which become slogans: “Jesus is not the fruit of a sexual relationship but of a textual relationship. » The man is proud of his achievement. It may destabilize some. Her Jesus which is only the dry shadow of the Christ of faith, could yet, paradoxically, invite believers to lucidly question the reasons for their confident adherence to the great mystery of the Incarnation.