Did the Gospels Cover up the Real Jesus?

I would like to start a Discussion amongst any scholars on this thread who can read Greek and Hebrew+Aramaic regarding the evident Whitewash of R. Yehoshua bar Yosef the Galilean (Gk: "Iesous", English derived from the latinized Iesus or "Jeezuzz") as portrayed by church leaders over the centurites despite various "violent" clues embedded in the 4 Canonical Gospels which hint at another personality--a more violent and polically motivated one. After all, the man had Daviddic Blood (a royal line that had been in Exile since the time of Zerubabbel in 420 BC) and finished his "kingdom of God announcement" ministry on the 100th anniversary (AD 36) of the Invasion of Jerusalem by Roman Forces under General Pompey in BC 63.

We especially see on the pulpits in America a deliberate toning down of what must have been quite a violent personality (at times), and not the mamby pamby story telling rebbe who never raises his voice and forgives everyone that we see depicted on Church Walls and Stained Glass.

This kind of "coverup of the historial figure" (a Daviddic pretender who didn't particularly like gentiles see Matt chapter 15 where he calls non Jews "dogs" !) could well fall under the category of CONSPIRIACY in RELIGION...

Here are some cracks in the story: (Luke 12:53 = Midrash on Micah 7:6)

"Thnkst Thou the Son of Man (Bar Enasha) cometh to bring Peace upon the Land [of Israel? ] Nay, the Son of Man cometh NOT to bring PEACE but a SWORD: Not Harmony by Division: The Son of Man cometh to set Mother against Daughter and Father against Son and Mother in law against Daughter in law, Father in Law against Son in law, to set Three against Two and Two against Three in the same house, so that a man's Enemies may be found in his own house!"

When confronted by Herod's men who told him to cease and desist, his answer was one of alarming defiance.

"Go tell that cowering-Jackal (an "unclean" animal that keeps a shivvering tail betwen his legs, i.e. Herod's fear of the Roman authorities) that the Son of Man will continue to perform Signs today, and tomorrow and the Next Day, until he is Ingathered...!"

To say nothing of the Temple Tantrum where "he took whips and cords and struck out at the money changers in the Court of the Gentiles, barring the way of all those who would sell sheep and oxen and goats..." or the entry into Jerusalem on a she-ass which would point all messianic hopefuls in the crowd to Zechariah 9:9 ("behold thy KING cometh unto thee...and he shall DICTATE TERMS OF PEACE UNTO HE GOYIM...") something which would have been regarded by the Romans (sitting atop their perch next door on their Fortess of Antonia) as an "act of War".

or read: "To any Gentile who would strike you on your RIGHT cheek (i.e. with the BACK of his hand, which was a middle eastern act of humiliation), turn to him the other cheek (i.e. so that he would have to strike you with the FRONT of his hand). In other words, "be defiant" with your oppressors: "let them know you're not going to be humiliated !", etc.

To say nothing of his physically arming his disciples with SWORDS on the hill before his arrest and execution sometime during the reign of Tiberius for Armed Sedition against Rome (see Luke chapter 22:18-30) : "Let he who has an outer tunic go out now and sell it, to purchase a sword tonight!"

None of this sounds like a mamby pamby harmless little rebbe telling harmless little stories to make people feel good about themselves.

More about the CoverUp of the REAL "Iesous" in the Gospels

As I mentioned in previous posts, the writers/ compilers of the Gospel material were NOT eyewitnesses in Palestine to the "events they purport to relate" and had no AIM of presenting any kind of a historical "Jesus" : their aim was clearly expressed in John's Gospel:

(John 20:31)

THESE THINGS WERE WRITTEN SO THAT YOU MIGHT BELIEVE THAT IESOUS IS THE CHRISTOS AND BY BELIEVING YOU MIGHT HAVE LIFE IN HIS NAME


Don't forget also this important fact:

The 4 canonical gospels circulated ANONYMOUSLY (without titles---for the first 200 years) having first passed into the tradition orally for more than 40 years AFTER THE EVENTS THEY PURPORT TO RELATE and at a time when the disciples were dying off, AFTER THE JEWISH WAR AGAINST ROME WHICH RESULTED IN A JUDAEAN DEFEAT (i.e. after AD 70) :

Thus the "gospels" began to be written down WITHOUT ALL THE ZIONIST-PALESTINIAN POLITICAL MESSIANIC WARRIOR DAVIDDIC MESSIAH RHETORIC IN TACT, having first circulated orally in small aphorisms and sayings, and then tiny event-pericopes which gave some of these sayings a CONTEXT (many of them made up or new such as the SERMON ON THE MOUNT in Matt chapters 5 through 7 which was made up of sayings over a 5 year period, not one big SERMON on a MOUNTAINTOP) , first in Aramaic and then reorganzed in Greek i.e. circulating in a "foreign"tongue (Koine Greek), that is foreign to Jesus and his disciples, and spread in Greek among foreign people (Greek Speaking Messianic Jews and God "fearing" Gentiles scattered around the Roman Empire, who never set foot in Palestine and could not speak the original language of the "Jeezzuz" and his disciples: Galilean Aramaic).

We perhaps have in the gospels a Translated Group of Savings that comprise LESS THAN 1% of WHAT R. YEHOSHUA BAR YOSEF the GALILEAN ACTUALLY SPOKE DURING HIS MULTI-YEAR MINISTRY.

The ORIGINAL SITZ IM LEBEN (setting in life) of this man and his little band of Messianic Hopefuls in Palestine has been completely distorted in the process to make "Jeeezzuzz" into a god---i.e. more palatable to the masses of Greek speaking pagans and Messianists who wanted a personal god-saviour, not some rabble rousing militant Davvidic pretender-politican who waited for miracles to happen on the mount of Olives while arming his disciples with swords on a hill attempting to re-capture Jerusalem "from the Kittim" and re-instate the Davids (i.e. his family) on the throne.

The earliest "Christians" (like the Dead Sea Scroll sect) believed they were living in the LAST DAYS: they were all anxiously waiting for the end of the world to happen any second (i.e. the Parousia or "second coming") and not sitting around calmly writing historical biographies (in the modern sense) of their hero who died a martyr's death during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius.

As time went on, the Christian Church who promulgated the "Jesus-as-Saviour" Cult was COMPETING with other pagan PERSONAL SAVIOUR CULTS (e.g. Mithras or Attis): since Judaea lost the war against Rome (not once but twice, first in AD 72 and the second time under Shimeon bar Kosiba (Bar Kokhba) in 136AD) Chrisitans had to TONE DOWN THE POLITICAL-SEDITIONIST MESSAGE of the gospels and of their hero "Iesous".

(Cf: The Road to Emaeus pericope in Luke chapter 24: "and we thought He was going to be THE ONE who would REDEEM Israel from the hands of its Enemies....")

It would have been a different story if the Jews won the war against Rome.

Notice how Paul, a successful evangelizer of his own brand of Christianity among the goyim (non Jews), never even met "Jeeezuz" and fought bitterly with the disciples and family members who did know "Jeezuz" in the flesh (e.g. Galatians chapter 2: where he calls Peter a hypocrite, and refers to James the blood brother of "Jeezuz" and Yakkob bar Zavdai (James son of Zebedee) as "those so called pillars" simply because they stuck to the Jewish Law of Moses and ate kosher foods, still sacrificed animals in the Temple, and and did not in any way associate with any of those dirty rotten non-Jewish idol woshipping Gentiles.

What is interesting is how much of the under-painting of the "racist-rabble rouser warrior-Daviddic-Jesus" still leakes up through the Nice-Rebbe-Overpainting in the Gospels (i.e. whitewash) of Jesus, which have only to be looked at with a little effort, to see "the real bones coming through the fake plastic body" that the church covered him up with to make him more "sellable" (cf: "the Greatest Story Ever Sold...").

For example, "Jeezuz" did not preach to Gentiles during his earthly mission and even called all non-Jews dogs (see Matt chapter 15: Since when is it right to take the CHILDREN's bread out of their mouth and THROW IT to the DOGS UNDER THE TABLE?"

The Greek words placed into his mouth after his death are grammatic howlers: ("preach ye among" which is non-sense): better linguistics would produce a rather different sense when worked back into the original Galilean Aramaic: Preach ye the Message of the Gospel of the Kingdom [of God] to the Elect [of Israel] Scattered Among the Gentiles" (in other words he did not advocate them to "preach the kingdom TO the Gentiles").

Paul changed all of that, but he broke off from the original "church" (the Nazorean followers of "Jeeezuz" ) after AD 45.

Earlier in the racist-story of the Syro Phoenician Gentile in Matthew chapter 15, "Jeeezuz" is purported to have said: "Lady, I have come to save ONLY the LOST SHEEP OF THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL"----a phrase which specifically refers to Jews who had been "scattered among the Gentiles" i.e. Diaspora Jews (beginning back in the forced reolcation exiles of 722BC (Assyria) and again in 587BC (Babylon) and later during the Persian period.)

The Ingathering of the "12-Tribes scattered among the goyim" was supposed to be one of the Functions of Coming Messiah (see Trito-Isaiah 56-66) : Even "Jeezuz" was supposed to have said "Behold, I have sheep that are not of this fold..."

And in Luke's "sending of the 70" Iesous SPECIFICALLY tells his disciples NOT TO PREACH TO GENTILES but ONLY TO THE LOST SHEEP OF THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL.

What did "Jeezuz" mean when he was said to have called that poor SyroPhoencian gentile a "DOG?"!!!

In the Dead Sea Scrolls (many of which were being copied out WHILE "Iesous" was still alive) the word "dog" (a ritually Unclean Animal) is often used to describe Gentiles: in the Middle East, a dog is the lowest form of animal life, sort of what Americans would call "a cockroach" etc.

The historical "Jeezuz" would have therefore used the term as others did in his vicinity having been influenced by John the Baptist (Yohanon bar Zechariah) who baptised him as a disciple. The Baptist preached in the "Wilderness of Judaea" which refers to the area around Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were being copied: he seems to have used words that parallel the Scrolls verbatim, and must have been influenced by their theology and perhaps even racism. That racism would have percolated to his disciples, one of which was.....Jesus !

No wonder the Catholic Church did not want those Scrolls read by the average church goer. Too many parallels with the words put into the mouth of "Jeeezuz" : it also drew too clear a "historical" picture of the political scene during the time of Jesus, which culminated in a War which killed over 800,000 people in Palestine.

And the scrolls revealed TOO MUCH OF THE RACISM OF THE 1st Century Palestinian Jewish population, which had direct parallels with the EARLY CHURCH and THE DIRTY UNDERBELLY OF THE JEWISH WAR HISTORY OF THE PERIOD they wish to hide from their followers, who if they found out, would probably have "left the fold"...

Get a highlighter out and mark up your Gospels with these kinds of sayings (e.g. the racism in Matthew chapter 15, the arming of the disciples in Luke chapter 22, the cutting off of the slave of the high priests ear in Luke 23, and other verses we mentioned in our earlier posts).

If you look over this kind of "political" evidence in the text of the gospels (which was considered a "mortal sin" (!) requiring confession for Catholics to read the text of the bible for themselves without the intervention of a "priest", until fairly recent times, i.e. up until about the year 1800) you might begin to see that there is an under-current of history in the very text themselves that is not too pretty, and the embarrased "church" spent a great deal of time NOT talking about it.

Good work researching these facts.

It is a healthy and corrective perspective to see Jesus as He was among his own people, not as he was made into after the Romans deified him.

I am interested in the Mind of Christ, not the Man Jesus, because that is where the mystery is. The gentiles will worship after a man, and have false hope in silly stories, like humans beings have always had. They act just like their ancestors, worshipping idols, the sun, myths, stories, all of which were given to the "profane" or uninitiated masses.

It has always been that way. Unfortunately, the Profane is all that we have remaining, for the Roman church destroyed all the traces of the REAL Jesus, which you have sought after, and I adore.

While the political and military circumstances of Israel in the time of Jesus are interesting, and perhaps they all fall into the Messianic traditions of the Jews, which are illuminated in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The concept of heavenly beings coming to earth in the form of men is not a new idea. It is older than Jesus, it is ancient! The Hindus perhaps have the most developed cosmology to help us understand the concept of a special being coming to earth.

Whatcha think gang?

Ark

Originally posted by Arkaleus
the Profane is all that we have remaining, for the Roman church destroyed all the traces of the REAL Jesus, which you have sought after, and I adore.

Do you have anything to support this. I've read the three posts on this thread and the word cult seems to come to mind. I find a curious mix of pseudo-Greek, old English and modern English which generally raises the skeptic antenna. Particulary when one claims the Roman church has destroyed all traces of the REAL Jesus. If all traces of the REAL Jesus have been destroyed, how is it that a couple of people, some 2000 years later, seem to be the only ones who know the "truth".

Sorry, it seems a little short on common sense.

[edit on 6/19/2004 by CommonSense]

I don't believe that there has been a deliberate cover up regarding Jesus. As stated: the story was handed around by oral tradition years before being put to paper. It's quite possible that some of the historical Jesus may have been lost on the way.

I don't doubt that the historical Jesus was different to the spiritual figure. But the historical figure may have been somewhat closer to the Biblical version than you are implying. I don't believe that he was a warlike figure - more a teacher who fell foul of the Roman authorities through expressing a natural desire to rid his country of it's oppressors.

I do believe that Jesus preached his message as we see it in the Bible. I don't dispute that some of the evidence points to him being set against the Romans. But the former certainly outweighs the latter - his message of Peace and Love was certainly powerful enough for him to become the figurehead of the new religion.

If you are only interested in the mind of Christ and not the man, you only need the New Testament. In my opinion it is a story that is older than 2000 years and once this is recognised, the physical story becomes secondary. The man may only be 2000 years old, but the mind is eternal.

No.

The Gospels are the true story of Jesus Christ the Messiah who IS Gods son in the flesh. They did not cover up anything.

[edit on 20-6-2004 by TruthStrgnrThanFiction]

Most of the "Cover Up" as I see it is in the non biblical traditions that the modern church holds as gospel. Just one case in point... The Trinity, does not exist in the bible at all as far as I can tell. Now Im in now way saying Christ wasnt the son of god, but this third entity of the Holy Spirit is not biblical. The other problem comes in the form of the Canon Texts, there were a lot of books wrote in those times. It seems to be some things that may have been writte that the fledgling church didnt like might have been omitted.

As for Christ saying he would come with a sword. Current doctinal thinking is that he will come with a sword this next time when he comes back at the end of days. Then he will be the lion of Juda as prophesied. Actually its a interesting topic from the stand point that the old testiment prophecies of Christ almost sound like they refer to two sepereate people. One the conquerer and one the healer. Modern thinking is that his mission will have changed when he returns. All those who can be saved will have been and all those who cant will have hardened their hearts so much that they will not be savable, even with seeing Christ with their own eyes.

- Was

"The story of the gospels are the true story of Jesus"
Truth, at one time there were well over 100 gospels. Who is to say one of these lost gospels didn't represent the true jesus. Who decided upon the four we have today. A MAN did. A self ordained so called representative of god. They didn't even consider that we might one day want to read the other gospels for ourselves. We were not extended the common courtesy of being able to decide individually what was from god and what wasn't.
Thats the reason I detest these wretched "holy men" of history. Some aspect of jesus remains but a great deal has been lost.
Amadeus, why would a violent jesus tell his discliple to put his sword up. Then extend his hand to heal the very man's ear who was chopped off. I know you'll probably say this story was made up to tone down jesus' message. However, what proof do you offer that this is any more a lie than the rest of the verses you quoted.

Oh this is a most delicious thread, this is what make ATS so worth surfing. thank you to all of you who have comented defended and speculated the mystery of God, i would like to simplifie this topic. lets start wth the address of "the real Jesus" and "The covering up speculation" as you all may ver well know scripture has been writen and translated from many languages down through out the ages and for many different resons som political and some just by the disbelife of man and others as to the actual validatie of the work done in christ. lets start with covering up (in a nut shell) no one no man no spirit no paper or planet or cosmose could ever erase cover up or hide the work done in christ! just look around you, you have difernt kinds of peoplse colors races and faces right. now look again, you have the peopl rushing off to war to kill sombody, for money, pride, religon etc. then you have those who cant even stand to watch a wrestling match on tv, they know in their heart we werent craeted to destroy each other" now notice i said in their heart" it canot be coverd up. the holy spirit or comfortor some describe as your concious, is that voice in ones head that convicts you of things that you do wrong. it up to you to listen, you know wehen you lie and you here that voice that says your lieing or when yor doing somthing "your concious" is a gift its what these little ailens been trying to recover for who knows how long thats why the cross breed us but the still cant get it. some peopl call it "your soul" your soul cant be coverd up. they can try to hijack it from you but its not even yours. you are "etaernal concious" you can think for your self right? who can cover that up? thats why your even reading this and not being droned like the masses who settle for the evening hypnosis thats on tv. you here! looking for answers! seeking! Mathew 7:7 Ask, and it shall be givin you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened. if you have kids and you love them then you know him. it canot be cover up if you have compassion. then it is not hidden from you. if you care for people that you dont even know, then it is not cover from you. the work that christ done on the cross were to set things straight. for us from the fall in the garden. i would only share this with you dear ones. with love for you. Colossians 1:27 To whom God would make known what is th eriches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Just think about that "Christ in you, the hope of glory" look deep inside your self... are you coverd up? who could cover you up? do you think God whould have truley hiden his riches somewhere were they could just be rewriten? its not in your flesh or your DNA its in your spirit, your soul. Jesus said pray to the father. it belive its was given as a gift"your soul" to chose as you will "good or bad" and that this gift is irevocable. its up to you what you do with it. i love you and i always have.

First I will respond to Mr Leveller:

I did originally ask for people/scholars who can read Greek of the NT Gospels in the original (and or the Aramaic underlay) to respond to this thread, but of course ALL comments from anyone who can think deeply about the material we are discussing is more than welcome: but PLEASE, if you have an opinion on the matter, kindly back up your statements with some support from the TEXTs, por favor.

Mr Leveller: you in particular seem rather ignorant of some of the points I made in my original thread.

Please re-read my initial TWO postings which outline the premise that THERE IS SOMETHING NOT QUITE RIGHT IN THE PRESENTATION OF "IESOUS" in the FOUR GOSPELS: much of the original history of 1st century Occupied Palestine (Roman occupied that is) is BEING GLOSSED OVER.

l. The Gospel sayings (i.e. words placed into the mouth of "Jeeezuzzz") circulated in Palestine ORALLY (in Galilean Aramaic first in a Jewish Messianic Millieu): only later was the message "toned down" and "universalized" (i.e. de-Zionized) enough for pagan Gentiles to be able to accept---the way Saul of Tarsus handled the "gospel" message.

2. The "original Aramaic sayings and stories about R. Yehoshua bar Yosef the Galilean" then passed into a Greek (and Coptic) translated oral stream, as the disciples and original Messianic followers of "Jezzzuzz" in Judaea spread out to "preach the Good News of the Kingdom to the Elect of Israel Scattered among the Gentiles" were killed off in the 1st Jewish Revolt :

In the process the racist-Zionist tone of most of "Jeezuzz" original sayings (at least they seem racist to our 21st century ears, read Matthew chapter 15 a couple of hundred times) were carefully white-washed by a conscious desire on the part of the Pauline Churches to promote a more "universal greek-saviour god- like figure" to the mostly Mystery Religion imbued "gentile" audience of the larger Roman Empire.

3. Even though the text of the GREEK do NOT represent the Ipsissima Verba (very words themselves) of R. Yehoshua bar Yosef the Galilean (Greek: Iesous) as "Jeeezzuzz" DID NOT speak any Greek nor did his disciples (Peter had to use "Mark" as a translator according to Papias), the Greek Gospels STILL contain some VESTIGES of the original Nazorean racist Zionist Ideology that Paul inveighs so forcefully against in Galatians chapter 2 when he was trying to bring "gentile dogs" (Matthew chapter 15) into the fold.


4. Here are some passages from the Greek Gospels which show that the original "Jeezuz" was not shall we say the nice little kind forgiving Rebbe everybody wants to believe in (although he might well have been so, and seemed so, to his own loyal band of followers, ie. within his own movement and to his own members)

a. THESE BE THE DAYS OF VENGEANCE (a quote from the Dead Sea Scrolls THE WAR SCROLL = 1QM): THE TIMES OF THE GENTILES IS FULLFILLED (AD 36 means 100 years exactly of ROMAN OCCUPTATION).: THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS FAST APPROACHING.

("Jeeezuz" must have believed that YHWH the clan god of post Exilic Israel was going to miraculously send Deliverance to his people on the Mount of Olives when he armed his disciples on hill with swords)

b. THINKST THOU THAT THE SON OF MAN COMETH TO BRING PEACE? NAY THE SON OF MAN COMETH NOT TO BRING PEACE BUT A SWORD: NOT HARMONY BUT DIVISION...TO SET TWO AGAINST THREE AND THREE AGAINST TWO IN THE SAME HOUSE...

c. LET HE WHO HATH AN OUTER TUNIC THIS NIGHT GO OUT NOW AND SELL IT AND BUY SWORDS....and they said, RABBI, HERE ARE TWO SWORDS and he said to them : DO YOU REALLY THINK 2 WILL BE ENOUGH?

d. THE TEMPLE TANTRUM PERICOPE: and "Jeezuzz" made whips and cords and blocked the way of those who would sell oxen and sheep and doves....and DRAVE THE MONEY CHANGERS FROM THE COURT OF THE GENTILES

(=not exactly a nice shy guy)

e. RIDING INTO JERUSALEM ON THE WHITE SHE DONKEY OF SOLOMON: ROme would have considered this AN ACT OF WAR (referencing Zechariah 9:9 Behold O Jerusalem, THY KING cometh unto thee...AND HE SHALL DICTATE TERMS OF PEACE UNTO THE GOYIM...

and there are many other politically charged statements ("To him who would strike ye on the right cheek, turn to him the other = Be defiant: do not let the Oppressor strike you as a slave)

and other "traces of the original ministry" which were still somehow left in the text of the Greek Gospels and that somehow managed to escapte the editorial knife of the church.

Paul set the pattern for later generations: he made no concrete references to the earthly political life of "Iesous" in any of the letters which purport to have been written by him in the socalled New Testament.

The historical "Jeeezuzz" was not one of his interests. Neither was it an interest in the early Church, and only in RECENT TIMES do people ever read around the subject, such as Josephus etc. to understand the "Jeeezuzz" of history in the context of the Roman Occupation of Judaea in the 1st Century, which is the ONLY way you can understand the man who lived and was later worshipped as a "personal saviour" (pagan modelled) god-man.










[edit on 25-10-2004 by Amadeus]

Simple answer is yes. When the Roman "converted" you basically saw hipcoracy at work!!!!!!

RyanP5555:

Re-read all the various and sundry comments of mine on this thread:

it might focus you a little on where you need to be thinking when it pertains to the Greek concept of "a Universal Iesous" which is more the product of Pauline Greek Churches than the Torah Abiding Nazorean Jewish-Christian Churches that "Iesous" and his brother James founded....

One thing is that the tone and balance of the synoptic Gospels is greater than the tone and balance of the Gospel of Thomas in respect to violence statements. I know it has a different style and is not that long. If the message was highly rebellious would this not have appeared more in Thomas? I hope Thomas isn't off limits for this discussion - if so apologies. As I understand it (please correct if wrong) dates to 170CE and 340CE with a fair degree of correlation between the versions although 170CE was very fragmentary but it is the least edited document. Thomas didn't make it into the synoptics, it was just Mark, the proposed "Q", John then Mathew, Luke (from Mark and Q).

Although I find some of the verses in this a little confusing (especially the hate mother father ones - must get round to sourcing the originals ).

You do see a small amount of the rebelliousness in

16 Jesus said, "Perhaps people think that I have come to cast peace upon the world. They do not know that I have come to cast conflicts upon the earth: fire, sword, war.

For there will be five in a house: there'll be three against two and two against three, father against son and son against father, and they will stand alone

(Similar to Luke 12:53)

but that's about it.

Obviously not a big fan of the pharisees - 102 is pretty inflamatory.

39. Jesus said, "The Pharisees and the scholars have taken the keys of knowledge and have hidden them. They have not entered nor have they allowed those who want to enter to do so.

As for you, be as sly as snakes and as simple as doves."

102 Jesus said, "Damn the Pharisees! They are like a dog sleeping in the cattle manger: the dog neither eats nor [lets] the cattle eat."

A bit of cultural bias perhaps?

43. His disciples said to him, "Who are you to say these things to us?"

"You don't understand who I am from what I say to you.

Rather, you have become like the Judeans, for they love the tree but hate its fruit, or they love the fruit but hate the tree."

This one strikes me as being a bit odd - who would the rebels and the imperium be? Is this sardonic?

103 Jesus said, "Congratulations to those who know where the rebels are going to attack. [They] can get going, collect their imperial resources, and be prepared before the rebels arrive."

Mathew says Mary was a virgin, Mark does not...
Luke mentions the manger, the other gospels do not..

and not one gospel mentions a stable...

Undoubtably there was a profound "cover up" in regards to the Synoptic Gospels. Within the works of St Ignatius of Antioch was a transcription of a letter by Bishop Clement of Alexandria (c.AD150-215) stating that some of the original content of the Gospell of Mark was unsuitable for the new Christian church, to Quote

"For even if they should say something true, one who loves the Truth should not, even so, agree with them. For not all true things are the Truth"

and then later the official instruction from the Bishop to keep the original texts of Mark secret.

"one must never give way;nor...should one concede that the secret gospel is by Mark - but should deny it on oath."

Hence the concluding 12 verses of Mark 16 (dealing with the resurrection), were attached at a later date, and the story of the raising of Lazarus was abridged.

The gospel of John is a far more reliable source, and was likely to have been written some time around 40AD, making it by far and away the earliest Gospel in the modern bible. Notably, John does not claim that Jesus was raised from the dead, and confirms jesus marriage at the wedding of Cana.

On a personal note, I find it alarming that some of the correspondents to these forums have so little faith in the reality of Christianity, that they will deny any, and all historical facts in favour of a concocted tale that extracts the most entertaining parts from each gospel and merges them into a single embellished story that was never written by anybody.