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On Jesus and the early Christians
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Ostria 
User ID: 551270
11/15/2008 10:21 AM
Report abusive post | On Jesus and the early Christians
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Ok I feel a bit confused with this issue. I want to express my thoughts but I find it quite difficult. And my english is not helping me much.
Anyway, I m not sure Jesus ever existed. There is not much evidence outside the NT and other Christian documents, and the story we all have been taught and the other documents we have studied later in our life contain so many contradictions, discontinuities and "mythical" elements that are very difficult to ignore.
But again, if he didnt exist, I find it very difficult to come to a well-founded hypothesis on what really happened back then (or even a bit later in time).
Lets accept that he existed. And we want to look at him as he is described in the formal gospels.
He was a Jew. He was teaching to Jews. He was the head of a movement. This movement was based in the jewish religion.
But he wasnt a usual prophet (the description of a usual prophet was that of John the Baptist)
And he wasnt a rebel of his time (they used armed forces)
So, he didnt match the description of the Messiah in the prophets of OT. (The Messiah-king of the Jews was both a religious and a political leader/soldier who would save Israel and punish its enemies.)
Then why did his early followers try to make him look like he was the Messiah? Why did they add all these details in his life that assured the Jews that this was the One they were expecting?
And if these are not fiction elements in the story but true details of his life, why did he accept this role, as long as he didnt want it?
It seems to me that we have Jesus (and maybe a few of his followers) in one hand, and the magority of his followers in the other and these are two very different cases.
I feel that the ones couldnt understand and accept the others, they were two different movements in one.
And then after his death (resurrection or whatever) his followers established his church but under their own concept. Am I wrong? |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 509229
11/15/2008 10:24 AM | | Re: On Jesus and the early Christians | Quote |
MESSIAH IS SPIRITUAL NOT ONLY POLITICAL. THE CHURCH IS THE TRUE ISRAEL AND SO THE POPE HAS ALL THE POLITICAL POWER THAT ANY LIVING MESSIAH COULD HAVE. THE TRUTH IS THAT JESUS IS BOTH HUMAN AND DIVINE AND THAT HE IS ALSO OUR CREATOR. |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 516228
11/15/2008 10:26 AM | | Re: On Jesus and the early Christians | Quote |
I think it started when Jesus told Peter what he MUST do...
Peter was the guy, then Paul... Why do you think they went
to Rome knowing they would be crucified.
They knew exactly who Jesus was...
The proof is in their hearts. |
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Ostria
User ID: 551270
11/15/2008 10:27 AM
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MESSIAH IS SPIRITUAL NOT ONLY POLITICAL. THE CHURCH IS THE TRUE ISRAEL AND SO THE POPE HAS ALL THE POLITICAL POWER THAT ANY LIVING MESSIAH COULD HAVE. THE TRUTH IS THAT JESUS IS BOTH HUMAN AND DIVINE AND THAT HE IS ALSO OUR CREATOR. Quoting: Anonymous Coward 509229
Spiritual and political. But he wasnt political. He didnt accept this role. So he didnt accept that he was the Messiah described in the scriptures. |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 509229
11/15/2008 10:28 AM | | Re: On Jesus and the early Christians | Quote |
RENDER TO CAESAR : JESUS IS NOT CAESAR, THE MESSIAH IS NOT CAESAR. THE JEWS HAVE NEVER UNDERSTOOD THIS. |
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Ostria
User ID: 551270
11/15/2008 10:32 AM
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I think it started when Jesus told Peter what he MUST do...
Peter was the guy, then Paul... Why do you think they went
to Rome knowing they would be crucified.
They knew exactly who Jesus was...
The proof is in their hearts. Quoting: Anonymous Coward 516228
Do you think that Peter and Paul started having the same cause?
And how did they know that they would be crucified? |
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Ostria
User ID: 551270
11/15/2008 10:34 AM
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RENDER TO CAESAR : JESUS IS NOT CAESAR, THE MESSIAH IS NOT CAESAR. THE JEWS HAVE NEVER UNDERSTOOD THIS. Quoting: Anonymous Coward 509229
Do you suggest that the Jews had misunderstood the prophecies? |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 549503
11/15/2008 10:37 AM | | Re: On Jesus and the early Christians | Quote |
My suggestion is to read "The Dead Sea Scroll Deception" by Michael Baigent.
You will find out that Jesus was very political in his day and that is why he was put to death.
I've been where you are.....wondering about the truth of Jesus. |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 404866
11/15/2008 10:42 AM | | Re: On Jesus and the early Christians | Quote |
It was not just Peter and Paul who became martyrs .hey ostria- you from Austria? |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 404866
11/15/2008 10:47 AM | | Re: On Jesus and the early Christians | Quote |
Ostria look up the Actual letters of Pontious pilot goevernor of judea during the time of christ and the one responsible for sentencing him to be crucified. He speaks of all the healing and miracles jesus did and everything.He certainly existed in flesh at the very least. |
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Ostria
User ID: 551270
11/15/2008 10:51 AM
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My suggestion is to read "The Dead Sea Scroll Deception" by Michael Baigent.
You will find out that Jesus was very political in his day and that is why he was put to death.
I've been where you are.....wondering about the truth of Jesus. Quoting: Anonymous Coward 549503
I ve read about the scrolls. I dont think the Teacher of Righteousness of the Essenes has something to do with Jesus. |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 404866
11/15/2008 10:52 AM | | Re: On Jesus and the early Christians | Quote |
My suggestion is to read "The Dead Sea Scroll Deception" by Michael Baigent.
You will find out that Jesus was very political in his day and that is why he was put to death.
I've been where you are.....wondering about the truth of Jesus. Quoting: Anonymous Coward 549503
I have that book.As with most of those kind of books, near the back page will be a declaration that what the author wrote is fantasy.It was an Interesting book though . |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 549503
11/15/2008 10:57 AM | | Re: On Jesus and the early Christians | Quote |
My suggestion is to read "The Dead Sea Scroll Deception" by Michael Baigent.
You will find out that Jesus was very political in his day and that is why he was put to death.
I've been where you are.....wondering about the truth of Jesus.
I ve read about the scrolls. I dont think the Teacher of Righteousness of the Essenes has something to do with Jesus. Quoting: Ostria
Nor do I. To me, everything is abstract in some way. And not literal. Written words are interpretations of the greater mind. |
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Ostria
User ID: 551270
11/15/2008 11:00 AM
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It was not just Peter and Paul who became martyrs .hey ostria- you from Austria? Quoting: Anonymous Coward 404866
Every religion and philosophical or political movement has its own martyrs (check history). It means that you believe so much in an idea, that makes you not to be afraid to die for it. But it doesnt mean that this idea is right or wrong.
No Im not Austrian, Ostria means the warm air that comes from the south (its greek) |
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Ostria
User ID: 551270
11/15/2008 11:03 AM
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Ostria look up the Actual letters of Pontious pilot goevernor of judea during the time of christ and the one responsible for sentencing him to be crucified. He speaks of all the healing and miracles jesus did and everything.He certainly existed in flesh at the very least. Quoting: Anonymous Coward 404866
I know about them (at least about one of them). It is supposed to be forgery
[link to www.jstor.org] |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 497155
11/15/2008 11:05 AM | | Re: On Jesus and the early Christians | Quote |
The Bible Jesus is a composite of several holy men/sages.
One of them was a member of the Essenes named Yeshua or Joshua who was born around 150 B.C. He was stoned to death at age 33.
Another was Apollonius of Tyana whose lifetime extended from A.D. 2 to A.D. 99 or so, he was baptised by John the Baptist and rode through Jerusalem being hailed by the crowds during a trip to the area. He had been born of wealthy parents, studied philosophy and literature under the most advanced Greek philosophers, was an initiate into a secret mystical society and learned how knew how to heal and do other mystical arts. He traveled and taught extensively throughout the middle east and made two trips to India. He brought back some holy books from India that he used in his teachings, and which the Church later made into the 4 gospels. He wrote many of the letters to his followers that the Church later revised and attributed to Paul. (Apollonius/Pol/Paul) He was well known and was worshipped as a god several centuries after his death by the Romans. When Constantine ordered that a universal religion be formed, the lives and teachings of these and others were used in the forming of the character they named Iesu/Jesus and placed in the setting of Judea. After that was done, they attached onto it the Jewish Bible or Tanakh, which we now call the Old Testament.
After the new universal religion was formed, Constantine and his successors and popes spent the next centuries enforcing this religion by war and conquest throughout their empire. The main reason for the fall of the Roman Empire was because of the Church/Government which took over everything and destroyed what was left of higher learning, private property and free enterprise. |
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Ostria
User ID: 551270
11/15/2008 11:11 AM
| | Re: On Jesus and the early Christians | Quote |
The Bible Jesus is a composite of several holy men/sages. Quoting: Anonymous Coward 497155
If we agree in this, there is always a good chance that a real Jesus once lived among all the others. But what was his real life and teaching?
(Some false prophets are nicely described in Josephus "Jews Antiquities".) |
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Peter
User ID: 429261
11/15/2008 11:14 AM | | Re: On Jesus and the early Christians | Quote |
I think that when Jesus started healing the sick, bringing people back to life and walking on water and stuff like that. then they decided that even though he didn't fit the mold of a militant messiah, he was the real deal.
. |
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Peter
User ID: 429261
11/15/2008 11:17 AM | | Re: On Jesus and the early Christians | Quote |
Not only is there abundant evidence that Jesus lived in the Middle East, there is also evidence that after he rose from the dead he went to India and lived until 85 there.
[link to www.geocities.com]
. |
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Ostria
User ID: 551270
11/15/2008 11:20 AM
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I think that when Jesus started healing the sick, bringing people back to life and walking on water and stuff like that. then they decided that even though he didn't fit the mold of a militant messiah, he was the real deal.
. Quoting: Peter 429261
Then why didnt they present his real life in the gospels?
(without the references in the OT prophecies which are probably fiction).
The gospels were written years after. |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 81918
11/15/2008 11:22 AM | | Re: On Jesus and the early Christians | Quote |
So, he didnt match the description of the Messiah in the prophets of OT. Quoting: Ostria
Yes he did match the description of the Messiah in the prophets of the Old Testament.
Jesus and the apostles used the older Septuaguint version of the OT.
It was this Septuaguint version that was used to prove to Jews and non-Jews that Jesus was the prophesied Messiah.
Judiasm began to lose many Jews to Jesus and in around 90AD
(roughly 30 years after Jesus' death) the rabbis switched their Old Testament away from older Septuaguint version which the followers of Jesus were using to prove that Jesus was the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament.
They also instituted a curse against Nazarenes (followers of Jesus) in every synagogue service. |
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Ostria
User ID: 551270
11/15/2008 11:32 AM
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Not only is there abundant evidence that Jesus lived in the Middle East, there is also evidence that after he rose from the dead he went to India and lived until 85 there.
[ link to www.geocities.com]
.
Issa and Yuz Asaf. I know these stories too. But I think it was Thomas who was the first Christian to go preach the gospels in India, that they probably mistaken him for Jesus. And Thomas says that Jesus was with him (in his own gospel) but this could be not literary. I dont know but I dont count much in these stories. Of course if there was to be an excavation of Jesus tomb in Cashmir we would know better. |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 486529
11/15/2008 11:37 AM | | Re: On Jesus and the early Christians | Quote |
The fact is that there are a multitude of prophecies about the coming of the Messiah. They fall into two categories. One Messiah was to be a sacrificial Lamb of God who would be put to death.
The other Messiah was to be a great leader who would destroy the enemies of the Jewish people. The second Messiah has not come yet, but most people believe that he is coming soon. |
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Ostria
User ID: 551270
11/15/2008 11:39 AM
| | Re: On Jesus and the early Christians | Quote |
Yes he did match the description of the Messiah in the prophets of the Old Testament.
Jesus and the apostles used the older Septuaguint version of the OT.
It was this Septuaguint version that was used to prove to Jews and non-Jews that Jesus was the prophesied Messiah.
Judiasm began to lose many Jews to Jesus and in around 90AD
(roughly 30 years after Jesus' death) the rabbis switched their Old Testament away from older Septuaguint version which the followers of Jesus were using to prove that Jesus was the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament.
They also instituted a curse against Nazarenes (followers of Jesus) in every synagogue service. Quoting: Anonymous Coward 81918
So you do agree that early Christianity was a Jewish heresy? The Septuaguit was in Greek but it still was a jewish religion book, I dont think that foreigners (gentiles) that lived in middle east (eg. Alexandria) were really interested in this. They had their own religions. They only had a common emeny. And this was the Romans. |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 81918
11/15/2008 11:40 AM | | Re: On Jesus and the early Christians | Quote |
Re: Jesus in the Old Testament/ Jamnia /
The Jewish priests met at Jamnia (Jabneh) in 90 AD to stem the tide of Jews converting to Jesus.
They edited the Old Testament (Septuaguint) in order to remove the passages in the Sepuaguint that the apostles were using to prove that Jesus was the Messiah.
This outraged the early church.
Irenaeus in about 175AD argued that since the Jews themselves made the Septuaguint - which proves the deity of the Savior - long before the advent of Christ, it is free from bias; while their new translations (those of rabbi Aquila and Theodotion) were tainted by their hatred for Christianity.
The rabbis in Jamnia changed the word "virgin" to "young woman" in the prophetic passage relating to Christ's birth in Isaiah, as well as redactions in other messianic passages.
In his book Against Heresies, 180 AD Irenaes also criticized the Jewish rabbis in Jamnia for altering the Scriptures by changing the Septuagint.
"Since, therefore, the Scriptures (Septuagint) have been interpreted with such fidelity, and by the grace of God, and since from these God has prepared and formed again our faith towards His Son, and has preserved to us the unadulterated Scriptures (Septuagint)in Egypt, where the house of Jacob flourished, fleeing from the famine in Canaan;
where also our Lord was preserved when He fled from the persecution set on foot by Herod; and [since] this interpretation of these Scriptures (Septuagint)was made prior to our Lord’s descent [to earth], and came into being before the Christians appeared -
for our Lord was born about the forty-first year of the reign of Augustus; but Ptolemy was much earlier, under whom the Scriptures (Septuagint)were interpreted; - [since these things are so,
I say, ] truly these men (rabbis) are proved to be impudent and presumptuous, who would now show a desire to make different translations, when we refute them out of these Scriptures (Septuagint),
and shut them up to a belief in the advent of the Son of God. But our faith is steadfast, unfeigned, and the only true one, having clear proof from these Scriptures(Septuagint), which were interpreted in the way I have related; and the preaching of the Church is without interpolation.
For the apostles, since they are of more ancient date than all these [heretics], agree with this aforesaid translation (Septuagint);
and the translation harmonizes with the tradition of the apostles.
For Peter, and John, and Matthew, and Paul, and the rest successively, as well as their followers, did set forth all prophetical [announcements], just as the interpretation of the elders contains them." |
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Ostria
User ID: 551270
11/15/2008 11:42 AM
| | Re: On Jesus and the early Christians | Quote |
The fact is that there are a multitude of prophecies about the coming of the Messiah. They fall into two categories. One Messiah was to be a sacrificial Lamb of God who would be put to death.
The other Messiah was to be a great leader who would destroy the enemies of the Jewish people. The second Messiah has not come yet, but most people believe that he is coming soon. Quoting: Anonymous Coward 486529
This is an interesting point. Can you give me some references to the first Messiah prophecies? I think its only one or two in the whole, if I remember well. |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 81918
11/15/2008 11:54 AM | | Re: On Jesus and the early Christians | Quote |
So you do agree that early Christianity was a Jewish heresy?
The Septuaguit was in Greek but it still was a jewish religion book, I dont think that foreigners (gentiles) that lived in middle east (eg. Alexandria) were really interested in this. They had their own religions. They only had a common emeny. And this was the Romans. Quoting: Ostria
What do you mean by early christianity? What timeframe?
The first Christian was ostensibly his Jewish mother, Mary -- followed by his apostles and first disciples who were Jewish converts.
The Jewish Sannhedrin saw Jesus as just another Jewish pretender -- promoting himself as the Messiah. He was not the first and would not be the last to do so.
The difference was that Jesus was convincing Jews in large numbers to follow him.
He was executed on the charge of blasphemy of Judaism.
The Sannhedrin first viewed Jesus and the 'Nazarenes' as an herectical Jewish sect.
When the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70AD, the rabbis convened in Jamnia and edited out messianic passsages int he Septuaguint which the apostles were using to show that Jesus was the Messiah.
After 90 AD, mostly because of the curse against them in the synagogues, the Jewish converts to Christianity, who used to attend both services stopped attending synagogue.
You forget that Jesus also attracted Gentile (non-Jewish) followers who had no tie whatsoever to Judaism.
By 64 AD when Nero began his major persecution of Christians, the followers of Jesus who identified themselves as Christian were no longer seen as a Jewish sect because so many of them were never Jewish. They were Gentiles, pagans and non-Jews. |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 497155
11/15/2008 11:55 AM | | Re: On Jesus and the early Christians | Quote |
The Bible Jesus is a composite of several holy men/sages.
If we agree in this, there is always a good chance that a real Jesus once lived among all the others. But what was his real life and teaching?
(Some false prophets are nicely described in Josephus "Jews Antiquities".) Quoting: Ostria
What do you mean by real Jesus. The best among them? Probably the Essene Joshua. But he wasn't crucified, he wasn't God, and he didn't live in the first century A.D. time frame. He lived during the earlier Greek rule of Judea. All of the men whose teachings and lives formed the composite were good men and had good teachings. |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 81918
11/15/2008 12:05 PM | | Re: On Jesus and the early Christians | Quote |
Spiritual and political. But he wasnt political. He didnt accept this role. So he didnt accept that he was the Messiah described in the scriptures. Quoting: Ostria
Jesus was political, but not in the way that Jewish extremists wanted him to be.
You have to remember that the Sannhedrin was in the tank for the Romans. Before the Romans destroyed the Temple the Sannhedrin were collaborators with Rome.
As for the politics of Jesus, his teaching was to "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God, the things that are God's." |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 81918
11/15/2008 12:11 PM | | Re: On Jesus and the early Christians | Quote |
So, he didnt match the description of the Messiah in the prophets of OT. (The Messiah-king of the Jews was both a religious and a political leader/soldier who would save Israel and punish its enemies.) Quoting: Ostria
Please provide the scriptural citations from the Old Testament that prophesy this. |
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Seneca
User ID: 551602
11/15/2008 12:37 PM
 | | Re: On Jesus and the early Christians | Quote |
The fact is that there are a multitude of prophecies about the coming of the Messiah. They fall into two categories. One Messiah was to be a sacrificial Lamb of God who would be put to death.
The other Messiah was to be a great leader who would destroy the enemies of the Jewish people. The second Messiah has not come yet, but most people believe that he is coming soon.
This is an interesting point. Can you give me some references to the first Messiah prophecies? I think its only one or two in the whole, if I remember well. Quoting: Ostria
It is interesting.
Here's a start:
[link to www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org]
Tractate Sukkah
Chapter V
It would be right according to one who holds that it was for the Messiah the son of Joseph, because he explains as supporting him the passage [Zech. xii. 10]: "And they will look up toward me (for every one) whom they have thrust through, and they will lament for him, as one lamenteth for an only son, and weep bitterly for him, as one weepeth bitterly for the firstborn"
....
The rabbis taught: The Messiah b. David, who (as we hope) will appear in the near future, the Holy One, blessed be He, will say to him: Ask something of me and I will give it to thee, as it is written [Ps. ii. 7-8]: "I will announce the decree . . . Ask it of me, and I will give," etc. But as the Messiah b. David will have seen that the Messiah b. Joseph who preceded him was killed, he will say before the Lord: Lord of the Universe, I will ask nothing of Thee but life. And the Lord will answer: This was prophesied already for thee by thy father David [Ps. xxi. 5]: "Life hath he asked of thee, thou gavest it to him."
79:1 There was a tradition among the ancient Hebrews that two Messiahs would appear before the redemption of Israel one of the tribe of Joseph and one of the tribe of Jehudah, a descendant of David and the expression "who was killed" means who will have been killed. The Jewish Christians at that time, who did not believe in the divinity of Christ, but in his Messiahship (i.e., that the traditional Messiah ben Joseph meant the son of a man by the name of Joseph, but not of the tribe of Joseph, as Christ was, and that his fate was to be killed before the appearance of Messiah b. David), explain this passage to have reference to Christ.
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From The Messiah Texts - Jewish Legends of Three Thousand Years, by Raphael Patai (pp. 165-6):
Messiah ben Joseph, also called Messiah ben Ephraim, referring to his ancestor Ephraim, the son of Joseph, is imagined as the first commander of the army of Israel in the Messianic wars. He will achieve many signal victories, but his fate is to die at the hands of Armilus in a great battle in which Israel is defeated by Gog and Magog. His corpse is left unburied in the streets of Jerusalem for forty days, but neither beast nor bird of prey dares to touch it. Then, Messiah ben David comes, and his first act is to bring about the resurrection of his tragic forerunner.
...
When the death of the Messiah became an established tenet in Talmudic times, this was felt to be irreconcilable with the belief in the Messiah as the Redeemer who would usher in the blissful millennium of the Messianic age. The dilemma was solved by splitting the person of the Messiah in two: one of them, called Messiah ben Joseph, was to raise the armies of Israel against their enemies, and, after many victories and miracles, would fall victim to Gog and Magog. The other, Messiah ben David, will come after him (in some legends will bring him back to life, which psychologically hints at the identity of the two), and will lead Israel to the ultimate victory, the triumph, and the Messianic era of bliss. |
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