The historical Jesus didn't create a new religion!

Arts & Sciences Religion & Spirituality
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This post will be about the historical Jesus. Who was he? Did he or his followers create a new religion?
According to historical scholarship [sources: see at the bottom of this post] he practised what corresponds to today’s Orthodox Judaism all his life. His followers were called Netzarim – that is Hebrew [it means offshoot (of a olive tree)] and is a name in the Jewish Bible that is used for Messiah.

During the first century those who practised Judaism were very devoted their religion. Just like King David and all other Jews throughout history they practised Torah (Instruction) – the Instructions of the Creator – with joy! The most prominent university professors in this field Prof. Elisha Qimron , author of the most authoritative treatise on 4Q MMT, demonstrates that all three of the major sects of first century Judaism followed both written and oral Torah.

Louis Feldman (”The Omnipresence of the G*od-Fearers,” Biblical Archaeology Review, 1986.09-10, p. 45, 58ff) observes: “the Jews were apparently extraordinarily successful in winning converts”

Year 7 B.C.E Ribi Yehoshua were born in Bethlehem. His father name was Yoseif and his mothers name was Miriam. His parents were practising Jews.

According to world-recognized authorities in this area Ribi Yehoshua was a Pharisee (a Torah-practising Jewish group - who according to 4Q MMT practised both written and oral Torah). As the earliest church historians, most eminent modern university historians, our web site (www.netzarim.co.il) and our Khavruta (Distance Learning) texts confirm, the original teachings of Ribi Yehoshua were not only accepted by most of the Pharisaic Jewish community, he had hoards of Jewish students.

He took care of sick and made it popular to pray in what corresponds to today’s Orthodox synagogues. The genealogically non-priest, Hellenist “Wicked Priest” Temple-Sadducees felt that their power was threaten by Ribi Yehoshua. They decided to get him crucified by the Romans. The Romans convicted and crucified Ribi Yehoshua year 30 C.E.

Ribi Yehoshua’s followers Netzarim were expelled from Jerusalem 135 C.E: together with all other Jews. The first Christian bishop Markos replaced the fifteenth leader of Netzarim. This Christian bishop didn’t have permission to do this. What the Paul the apostate and later the founder of Christianity did was to take some concepts that Ribi Yehoshua had taught; they distorted the concepts and included them in the religion which they practiced – Hellenism – the religion of the Greeks. (Sources: See Ecclesiastical History (EH IV.v.1-4; EH V.xii.1) )

Anyone educated in this field knows that the only sect of Judaism that had rabbis was the Pharisee and even the Christian NT described him as a rabbi. Parkes, Bagatti, Wilson, Charlesworth; all world-recognized authorities in this area leave no doubt that Ribi Yehoshua was a Pharisee, of the school of Hileil - who was also Pharisee. There is no serious dispute about that among scholars in the field. Ribi Yehoshua taught in “synagogues”; which were a strictly Pharisee institution.

Following the teachings of the Judaic Mâshiakh (Messiah) Ribi Yehoshua – that is doing one’s utmost to practice the 613 commandments of Torah - also brings the inner joy, purpose and happiness of working intimately with him to bring about, and participate in, the Messianic era, enjoying a higher level of communion with ha-Sheim - the Creator - as party to Yirmeyâhu’s (Jeremiah’s) New Covenant.

If you want to learn about the Historical Ribi Yehoshua, whom Orthodox Jews can live with (witness the Netzarim Jews in Raanana, Israel, members in good standing in an Orthodox synagogue), you must start with books like How Jesus Became Christian by Prof. Barrie Wilson (most bookstores) and Who Are The Netzarim? (publ. www.schuellerhouse.com) by Israeli Orthodox Jew, Paqid Yirmeyahu Ben-David.

From Anders Branderud
Geir Toshav, Netzarim in Ra’anana in Israel (www.netzarim.co.il) whom is followers of Ribi Yehoshua – the Messiah – in Orthodox Judaism

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And your point is?

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Historians, strangely, exhibit a range of opinions about the J-man. It does not seem to be the case that the best or brightest among them are associated with a particular view.

I am not familiar with him, and the suggestion that oral Torah is found at all at this time is…interesting. (I would have thought controversial.) What are the three major sects–Pharisees, Saducees, and Essenes? But surely there was probably a lot going on that didn’t make it into Philo or Josephus…

Sure, that’s obvious from Nabataea and the Herods.

The year is never clearly indicated. “Bethlehem” is probably a fiction intended to associate Jesus with David. I’ll grant you the part about his parents’ names and religion, though how religious they actually were is impossible to know.

So that’s where the oral Torah claim comes from… I happen to agree about Jesus’ association with Phariseeism (though this often meant that he condemned them first). However, it seems even clearer that Jesus was a follower of John the Baptizer, an apocalyptic preacher. Some scholars suggest that he was (for example) a folk magician, or a wandering Cynic sage, or that he never existed at all.

I will look at these sites, but suspect they are marginal within the field of biblical scholarship. The rupture between Xtians and non-X Jews is widely understood to have happened much later, perhaps after AD70.

In general, Qumran mss cannot tell us anything about Jesus in particular, unless scholars are way off on their dating.

A good case can be made for 29 or 33.

The connection with Hillel seems to be inspired by the Golden Rule / Greatest Commandment. One possibility is that this bit of oral folklore was ascribed to different speakers in the course of retelling (as often happens). As for rabbis and synagogues being strictly Pharasaical, well, we don’t know this. Anyway, the Pharisees were not a monolithic group, and there is a limit to what one could predict about Jesus from knowing that he hung out with them.

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UPDATE: I found a post identical to the above on a discussion board run by the Landover Baptist Church:

landoverbaptist.net/showthread.php?t=15643

I see that the greatest biblical scholars of the age have met…the greatest biblical scholars of the age.

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Why? Is he spamming for Jesus?

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I’ve always thought Jesus was an Essene, rather than a pharisee.

He was water-baptised. Grew up in Nazareth…yeah, I’m pretty sure he was an Essene and spent the ‘mystery years’ 12 to 30ish in the monastery at Qumran.

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Heh. I see the poor bugger got banned from there after being reviled by the stalwart pious baptists as a “kike” a “hebe” and a “dirty hook-nosed joo.” :laughing:
This must be that “religious tolerance” I’ve heard so much about. What a lovely bunch of chaps those Landover baptists sound like. :laughing:

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Landover is hardly a role-model for tolerance or Christianity. They are however poster boys of the “Shoot it! It’s Not a Fundamentalist Christian” school of deep thought.

it has been very funny to drop in there and have a look from time to time…

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But this is one of those guys that posts the same article on numerous forums. I doubt he even knows how many or which ones. Why? That’s what I’d like to know.

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Landover Baptist Church is a satirical joke exposing the reliogious right for what it is.

I am not joking, the site states that it’s a work of fiction.

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I always wonder if Jesus existed, and did all the miracles and all that, why isn’t he in history books? I mean if someone came along now who could do a bunch of nutty stuff he would be all over the news, and would undoubtedly be talked about in schools for eternity.

But with Jesus, you have like the Bible and maybe some other vague mentions of him.

Weird. I mean we have documenation of Aristotle or Plato, or other famous philosophers. Ghengis Khan. I mean we even know that a certain percentage of Chinese are directly decendant.

Usually you have Christians who say there is proof of Jesus beyond the Bible or whatever. Then you have skeptics who say there isn’t.

I just think it is crazy that if he DID exist that he didn’t cause a more historical stir of things beyond ‘The Bible’ which is only 1 book and can hardly be held as fact as there are over 30,000 sects of Christianity based on subjective interpretations.

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Are you seriously suggesting that the Bible is not a work of HisStory?
i.e. a piece of fiction drafted by the victors?

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What a load of codswallop - or should I say, godswallop.

  1. The alleged “jeezus” was not the only claimed “saviour”. Not even the first.

infidels.org/library/histori … graves/16/

The word “christ” is a perversion of the Greek word “christos”, meaning “saviour”. And “christos” is itself a perversion/interpretation of the name of the Hindu “god”, “Krishna”. You ought to also look up the stories of Mithras specifically, but also Krishna, Osiris, and Prometheus, among others. All the various parts of the buybull myth - “son of god”, “born to a virgin”, “rose to heaven after dying”, “saviour”, “crucifixion” - are part of their myths as well.

  1. There is no “historical jeezus”. All claims of it were written centuries after the alleged event.

To show how inept the writers were, there is no archeological evidence of Nazareth even existing prior to the 4th century CE, that it was founded no more than 1700 years ago. It did not exist at the time of the purported “story”.

Deal with the evidence before you make pronouncements. As Patrick Moynahan wisely said:

“You’re entitled to your own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts.”

The buybull is an ancient Harry Potter, not an Encyclopedia Britannica.

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Ah, but the chap sure raised up one serious nest of hornet!
And he didn’t even have to turn the other cheek!

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My brother was a strict Hari Krishna for a while and they believe that he spent those years in India. They reckon that the 3 wise men were actually Indian holy men who had predicted his birth and arranged to come and collect him a few years later. Apparently there are temples dedicated to him in India.

I’ve never really been into any of it though…

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Thats pretty much what I think. I think it is created by man to control man…

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No way, it’s the exact opposite.

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Well I guess you believe it then. It is more or less an opinion, as if there were facts to support the Bible, and Jesus, then everyone would believe in it, maybe like how we believe in gravity. I really think that first part of the first Zeitgeist on religion probably has alot of truth to it. Not that I subscribe to much else in it besides the part on religion.

Beyond that I posted this in another thread:

Actually I am of the opinion that where you are born has a very strong influence on what language you speak, what foods you eat, what religion you adopt, other traditions, etc.

One also has to consider that everything around you is brought upon through scientific enlightenment. This computer, your clothing, your chair, your food, your car, your lights, were ALL because of the scientific method.

Without them you might be living outside, growing your own crops, hunting animals, making clothing, and networking with people close by to trade various goods etc. You may also want to EXPLAIN the world around you through myths, perhaps to make the world more explainable, and less mysterious. Maybe over time these myths become truth—or at least truth to the people who live around you because there is nothing to challenge them. No system of thought that comes up with other answers.

I don’t believe most people would want someone to use medical practices from the 17th century. They used to bleed people, and there was really no regard for cleanliness or germs.

I think that all religions are just that, religions. You can read the Old Testament and find countless contradictions, and stories where people are instructed to stone people to death. Likewise in the new testament there are issues regarding the apparent acceptance of slavery as a norm of society with Jesus himself condoning it and telling the slaves to “obey their masters”. To me this points the finger directly at political motivations. It is no wonder that in the Southern USA that Slaveowners were able to justify their positions as Christians with more than a few rationalizations directly from the New Testament.

Hopefully the new administration in the US is less ethnocentric in their viewpoints and dealings in foreign affairs. I like Dawkins, and Sam Harris. Am I aetheist? Well I have my own interpretation of ‘God’ as being Energy. It really explains it to me because it is based on what science already knows, and it is truly amazing. In fact I think it is for more amazing than any mythological interpretations. As for stating that Stalin, Hitler, Mao, were more evil because of aetheist belief systems (Hitler touting himself as a Roman Catholic), one must consider that in fact they used something very similar to manipulate the masses through fear, and mob psychology –Nationalism… It is hardly different than religion in separating people into a groups, and creating peer pressure for conformity. It is my belief that religion and Nationalism can both equally be used to manipulate society.

At the root of most religion is fear, and conformity.

I refuse to accept an old book as the word of God, especially with the blood soaked legacy, and political manipulation it has endured…

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James Frazier had an interesting theory about Jesus, in particular the Passion of Jesus.

Basically, his sacrifice along with "Barnabas’ " release were actually annual re-enactments of old Babylonian god-death-sacrifice-rebirth-revitalisation rituals. Interestingly, he argues this is a large part of why Jesus was so readily adopted by other cultures despite the fact that he was a Jew. This “universality” is due more to many cultures having the same god-as-nature (e.g. agriculture) revitalization rituals than his message of “christianity belonging to both Jews and Gentiles”, so he argues.

In the same way, the iconic Mary was arguably used to assimilate other religions by replacing her in place of the goddess figures so prevalent in old religions.

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Edit: Changed to TinyURL:

tinyurl.com/9xpmeq