Yes, I think so. It is hidden not because there is some conspiracy like that depicted in The Da Vinci Code. It is hidden because a more serious historical approach to the formation of Christianity, to Jesus the historical person, and to why Jews have stubbornly rejected Jesus as the Messiah over two thousand years; has not made its way into the public consciousness.
So, on the one hand, Christians and non-Christians today still stick to the presumption that the Bible represents what happened in history; and on the other hand, there is a film which feeds the public with fancy, which is then used by Christians to label all revisionist attempts as incredible or worse. A fight between the Bible and the Code nicely covers up what a really serious challenge to the Christian Faith there actually is, namely, a painstaking reconstruction by historians and scholars in general of the formation of Christianity.
If the reader is interested in this truly hidden history - hidden because too many people are simply trapped between the Bible and the Code, so to speak - he can visit, e.g., the following site. It is not the most updated - the piece which surveys what the search for the historical Jesus has given us over the past century was written in 1995; but, I dare say, it at least does not aim to shock or to lure, but only to present and to suggest.
I reproduced here the part of the survey piece which summarizes what historians for the most part agree upon about the historical Jesus. The link contains the piece in its entirety. - Y.T.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/jesus/tikkun.html
As these scholars further hone their theories, certain issues dominate the emerging picture of the historical Jesus:
- Jesus preached the kingdom of God, not himself.
In some way God would act in history (or was now acting) to effect a change in society as they knew it. Whether this would be at some future time (Sanders) or already present in his ministry (Borg, Crossan, Mack) or as a dynamic drama in its first stage, so both present and future (Meier) Jesus preached God's power to effect a reversal of values and the emergence of a just society.
This kingdom is about God, not Jesus himself, and is on earth. It addresses two main concerns of peasants: bread and death. "They have too much of the second and too little of the first," quips Crossan.
- Jesus is a Jew, and the early kingdom movement'-the expectation of God's earthly rule and Israel's liberation from foreign oppression-is not the founding of a religion called Christianity but a thoroughly Jewish phenomenon. Unfortunately, we know relatively little of the Judaism of the first century, and much of what we do know derives from the New Testament.
- The historical Jesus and the Jesus of the early church bear little resemblance to one another. Even more tenuous is the connection between the historical Jesus and later Christianity. Contemporary Jesus scholars seem to agree one can be a good Christian without knowing a bit about this Jesus of history. The flesh-and-blood Jesus in the late '20s of the first century gave way to the reconstructed and interpreted Jesus of the gospels in the 70s and '80s and was superseded by the "Christ of faith" of the later church. When believers speak of their faith in Jesus, it is this last figure to which they refer.
- The emphasis on Jesus' divinity has often eclipsed his humanity. Many church controversies focused on creedal issues, such as Jesus' relation to the Father. From the nineteenth century on, much scholarly debate has swirled around such supernatural elements of the Jesus story as the virgin birth and the resurrection. Sanders notes the recent surge of interest in "Mary's hymen and Jesus' corpse. "Yet the human Jesus leaves hints of having been very human indeed: a colorful sort, more given to feasting than fasting and hanging around with disreputable types of which his family probably disapproved.
- John the Baptist exerted tremendous influence over Jesus and his message. While contemporary scholars would acknowledge that the relation with the Baptist is one of the most likely authentic pieces of the gospel traditions (since the evangelists seem a trifle embarrassed by it, they probably didn't invent it), Meier develops the idea that Jesus was probably part of the Baptist's early circle and his fiery apocalyptic theology was a constant in Jesus' own ministry. When Jesus left the circle of the Baptist to start his own ministry, he seems to have taken some of the Baptist's followers with him.
- Jesus' view of himself differed widely from the early church's. Whether he saw himself as the Messiah is debatable, but he almost certainly did not see himself as divine. As Bork puts it, "If one of Jesus' disciples had spoken of him with the words of the Nicene Creed, one can only imagine him saying, 'What?' Sanders poignantly remarks that Jesus may have died a disappointed man. The earliest gospel reports his final cry from the cross to be one of utter despair: "My God, my God why have you forsaken me?" Whether historical or not, we cannot be sure, but it points to the element of tragedy in his death.
- His followers, and even a non-believer like the Jewish historian Josephus, recall Jesus as a healer, exorcist, and miracle worker. Interestingly, his detractors neither call him a fraud, nor say the miracles were faked, but attribute his powers to Satan or demons.
- Except for a few of the women, the bulk of Jesus' followers abandoned him at the time of his death. Nor did his family seem to support him during his ministry. At one point (Mark 3:20-2 1), they think he is possessed.
- Remarkably, Jesus' death did not mark the end of his movement. His followers continued to believe in his message of God's Kingdom. "The juice was not turned off," remarks Crossan.