Many have wondered over the years whether Jesus of Nazareth, whom many of us call Christ, had some secret identity or had some previous educational of philosophical background that the comon reader of the Bible knows nothing about. Some have suggested that Jesus visited India and became familiar with the Buddah because of his talk of some other world Kingdom of idealized atate of being and his teaching of denial of the Ego. Other Anglo Israelites have suggested that Jesus went to Glastonburry, England and that his father, Joseph, worked in the highly legondary "Tin mines of Solomon". Of course there are some who maintain that Jesus Christ never existed as a historical figure. For such people who are curious I suggest they read "The Jesus Mith" in the Wikkipedia on their computer. It is a fact that no historian in the first century after Jesus's death even mentions the existance of Jesus of Nazareth in a document that is historically credible. Both the works of Josephus, who was a Jewish historian in Rome around the end of the first century, or Tassitus, who was a Roman writing about the same time have brief snipets of information about Jesus which upon analisis are shown to be later additions. In the case of Josephus, you can actually trace the addition of his text to the start of the fourth century because an third century, Oregion, states that "Josephus made no statement about the works of Jesus Christ". You have to go to Eusebius to encounter the first occurance of this Christian entry to the text of Josephus's history of Jewish Palestine.
I reject the view that Jesus never existed since the strength of Jesus's teachings has come through so loud and clear over the centuries. There is one book called "The Five Gospels", which "evaluates" the words of Jesus in the light of "higher criticism" and some conference of pastors this book sponsored. In the book they color-code the words of Jesus varying from red, to pink, to terquoise, to black, depending on the certainty of whether Jesus said these particular words according to a "vote" of the pastors at the conferance. Anyone reading this book will quickly conclude that the words in black sound just as much like Jesus as the words in red do. It would seem that this book has no credibility or authority to cherry-pick the recorded words of Jesus in the manner that it has. This book includes the Goepel of Thomas, which may be that legondary "Q" document that Christian historians have been looking for and have theorized must exist. The Gospel of Thomas, as recorded in this book consists of "sayings" of Jesus, just as the "Q" document is theorized to be. What seems obvious to me is that no matter what Gospel you read, Jesus appears to be teaching the same thing. Those truths are bringing about some eutopian "Kingdom of Heaven" into being and peace among men. Miekness and lack of hypocricy and above all, Love for your fellow man is taught. Jesus, like Martin Luther King, taught that we are all brothers and all neighbors, because we are children of God.
My basis for doubting the historicity of everything in the Gospells stems from other things besides Jesus' words. There is a matter of consistency in other areas such as parentage of Jesus and his geniology. Also some have questioned the geographical knowledge of the land of Palestine, in which Jesus walked. There is a substantial disagreement in fact for both the Birth Narritive, aka. the Christmas Story, and also in the accounts of Jesus' resurrection. I hope to cover these in a later blog. There emerges a picture of Jesus as a man who appeared out of nowhere and lived and preached and healed throughout the last of Palestine for three years, and then was presumably cruxified. I plan in later blogs to examing whether Jesus really died in that crusifiction. The author of a new book, "The Jesus Papers" has a plausable explanation that Pilate wanted to preserve the life of Jesus and at the same time publicly showed that he had eliminated a political and religious threat because the people in Judas as a whole did not in the majority accept Jesus for what he claimed to be, the Messiah, even though they may have admired him for other reasons.
The only question, then, is just who "Jesus really was". I have what I think is a good answer and that is Philo of Alexandria, who was a Jewish teacher and philosopher and writer, who lived from some time "B C" untill 50 AD and died some twenty years after we suppose that Jesus did. This is the writer who first came up with the concept of the "Logos", which he referrs to as the "Word of God". Normally the word "Logos" in Greek means "logic" or "the study of- " a subject. To Philo the Word was the creative agent of God which enables man to interract with God and the force that created the Universe- - all four dimensions of it- as we know it. Not only this but Philo referred to the Logos as "The first born son of God". You have to wonder what was in his mind when he wrote this if he wasn't really Jesus. In Philippians there is a scripture that says that "Jesus was rich, but he became poor for our sake". Some may ask whether going off to another country from 27 to 30 AD or there abouts might cause a problem. Certainly events are covered in his life by biographies of his life. The thing is, there isn't. Very little is known of a "biographical nature" of the chronological events in the life of Philo. We know something about his family and where and when he was born but as to the specific events of his life, nobody seems certain, only that he wrote an impressive body of work.
I've given you enough to think about for today assuming this posts. Thank you for listening and I hope this blog has been a source of enlightenment for any who read it.
Respectfully -Marcus Arelius
I reject the view that Jesus never existed since the strength of Jesus's teachings has come through so loud and clear over the centuries. There is one book called "The Five Gospels", which "evaluates" the words of Jesus in the light of "higher criticism" and some conference of pastors this book sponsored. In the book they color-code the words of Jesus varying from red, to pink, to terquoise, to black, depending on the certainty of whether Jesus said these particular words according to a "vote" of the pastors at the conferance. Anyone reading this book will quickly conclude that the words in black sound just as much like Jesus as the words in red do. It would seem that this book has no credibility or authority to cherry-pick the recorded words of Jesus in the manner that it has. This book includes the Goepel of Thomas, which may be that legondary "Q" document that Christian historians have been looking for and have theorized must exist. The Gospel of Thomas, as recorded in this book consists of "sayings" of Jesus, just as the "Q" document is theorized to be. What seems obvious to me is that no matter what Gospel you read, Jesus appears to be teaching the same thing. Those truths are bringing about some eutopian "Kingdom of Heaven" into being and peace among men. Miekness and lack of hypocricy and above all, Love for your fellow man is taught. Jesus, like Martin Luther King, taught that we are all brothers and all neighbors, because we are children of God.
My basis for doubting the historicity of everything in the Gospells stems from other things besides Jesus' words. There is a matter of consistency in other areas such as parentage of Jesus and his geniology. Also some have questioned the geographical knowledge of the land of Palestine, in which Jesus walked. There is a substantial disagreement in fact for both the Birth Narritive, aka. the Christmas Story, and also in the accounts of Jesus' resurrection. I hope to cover these in a later blog. There emerges a picture of Jesus as a man who appeared out of nowhere and lived and preached and healed throughout the last of Palestine for three years, and then was presumably cruxified. I plan in later blogs to examing whether Jesus really died in that crusifiction. The author of a new book, "The Jesus Papers" has a plausable explanation that Pilate wanted to preserve the life of Jesus and at the same time publicly showed that he had eliminated a political and religious threat because the people in Judas as a whole did not in the majority accept Jesus for what he claimed to be, the Messiah, even though they may have admired him for other reasons.
The only question, then, is just who "Jesus really was". I have what I think is a good answer and that is Philo of Alexandria, who was a Jewish teacher and philosopher and writer, who lived from some time "B C" untill 50 AD and died some twenty years after we suppose that Jesus did. This is the writer who first came up with the concept of the "Logos", which he referrs to as the "Word of God". Normally the word "Logos" in Greek means "logic" or "the study of- " a subject. To Philo the Word was the creative agent of God which enables man to interract with God and the force that created the Universe- - all four dimensions of it- as we know it. Not only this but Philo referred to the Logos as "The first born son of God". You have to wonder what was in his mind when he wrote this if he wasn't really Jesus. In Philippians there is a scripture that says that "Jesus was rich, but he became poor for our sake". Some may ask whether going off to another country from 27 to 30 AD or there abouts might cause a problem. Certainly events are covered in his life by biographies of his life. The thing is, there isn't. Very little is known of a "biographical nature" of the chronological events in the life of Philo. We know something about his family and where and when he was born but as to the specific events of his life, nobody seems certain, only that he wrote an impressive body of work.
I've given you enough to think about for today assuming this posts. Thank you for listening and I hope this blog has been a source of enlightenment for any who read it.
Respectfully -Marcus Arelius
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