Was "Jesus" a "bastard" & the Church tried to Cover it up with the VirginBirth Stories?

Originally posted by SomewhereinBetween


And you have responded exactly as I described above. Paul saw Jesus did he? What proof have you of that, and if the person you dislike the most came up to you and told you s/he met Jesus, I am sure you will believe it wholeheartedly.

Because the Bible tells us so. But if you don't believe the Bible this will mean nothing to you. Yah Paul wasn't trusted either. Sure I would look funny at an enemy who said they have come to Christ, that's why I would look at their actions to see if they matched their mouth.

The people who's life God took in Acts lost their life on this basis. They said they were going to give all the money they received to the cause of Christ. After they had sold it they kept some, and lied about it. First of all they didn't have to sell it at all and they could have sold it and said they were going to give part to God and keep some for themselves. It was their choice to sell. No one forced them. The lie is what God dealt with. The church was just beginning and God reenforced the point that sin is serious. Does that mean those 2 people are in hell, no. What another point in this story is is that you have each breath you take as a gift from God. He alone decides when someone's life ends.

[edit on 31-10-2004 by dbrandt]

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[edit on 31-10-2004 by dbrandt]

Originally posted by dbrandt

Originally posted by SomewhereinBetween

All nicely fit into a doctrine to show how Jesus had the ability to make unbelievers and evil men good. I have no doubt that those men existed, but they were not as being represented here.

.

Through christ the vilest sinner can be saved. Paul admits he was a murderer and thought of himself as the least of any. He actually did meet Jesus on the road to Damascus. Now my eyes have never seen Him literally, yet I believe. You don't understand how God can change a life.

Yes, I understand you rwant to believe I truly do, for all throughout the Biblical teachings, only the vilest of men managed to grab God's attention as the progenitors worthy enough to spread his word. This of course has absolutely nothing to do with the devil's inclination to fool you, for the word was written by these men of esteem, and only they would be so induced to write about the creator.

No one fools you. Will that be your excuse when called upon to explain why you were so willing to be fooled?

[edit on 10/31/04 by SomewhereinBetween]

Hi,

The historical figure of R. Yehoshua bar Yosef cared nothing for Gentile Goyim whom he called DOGS: Go out and read Matthew chapter 15 for example when a gentile woman comes to him begging for his help.

Actually Jesus did care for the Gentiles. In addition, he was quite impressed by some of them ; was 'astonished' at their 'great faith� (on more than one occasion).

He rebuked her with a sneer: (Matt 15:24 ) Iesous said to her "Woman, I was sent only to the Lost sheep ofthe House of Israel."

But you've left out the meat and potatoes! . Here�s the rest of the story��Matt 15:27-

27 But she said, "Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters' table."
28 Then Jesus said to her, "O woman, (22) YOUR FAITH IS GREAT; it shall be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was HEALED at once��

Certainly Jesus �cared� for this HUMBLE Gentile lady , of great faith. He even admired her. Infact a FULL and honest read of this section of scripture gists [only] the 'faith' issue, and nothing else in particular. Instead of indicting Gentiles as 'unworhty to enter the kingdom', this section actually honours them with 'great faith'[as against 'faithless Israel'] and implicitly promises them 'healing' and salvation. I suggest you scrutinize this scripture very carefully, again. Thoroughly comprehend it's context, it's vital to proper biblical exegesis.

These are not the words of any universal saviour god. Paul had to try to make this racist Daviddic messiah acceptable to the goyim in the Empire (by twisting the words and theology of a man he never even met!).

You cannot possibly label Jesus on the one hand, a �Memzer�, �a friend of tax collectors and sinners�(matt. 11:19), 'a glutton', and accuse him of being an ardent [albeit self-respecting] �racist Daviddic messiah� on the other. Illogical.

[note: the sinners associated with tax collectors were in a special class. These were people who deliberately and persistently transgressed the requirements of the law. Included in this group would be money-lenders who charged interest on loans advanced to fellow Jews. This was a clear violation of the law of God stated in Leviticus 25:36-38.
Also in this group of sinners might be prostitutes who made their living by their ill-gotten gains. These were individuals who sold themselves to a life of sin in deliberate disregard of the law of God.
Yet, Jesus apparently associated with such people at dinner parties. The Pharisees charged that Jesus was "a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners" (Luke 7:34). To eat with a Gentile or tax collector was considered by the strict Pharisees to render one spiritually or ceremonially unclean. Uncleanness was conveyed by touch and association. Even a house entered by a tax collector was considered unclean. Tax collectors were both hated and avoided by respectable society.
So these nouveaux riches were considered beneath contempt -- but they did have friends. Other "sinners" might include Gentiles who lived in the community.
Remember, as per Jesus, the prostitutes and tax collectors were 'entering the Kingdom' before the Scribes and Pharasees.]



And finally, here�s some food for thought:


Matthew 8:5-13 (KJV)

"8:5 And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him,
8:6 And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.
8:7 And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him.
8:8 The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.
8:9 For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.
8:10 When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.
8:11 And I say unto you, That MANY SHALL COME FROM THE EAST AND THE WEST, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.
8:12 BUT THE CHILDREN OF THE KINGDOM SHALL BE CAST OUT INTO OUTER DARKNESS: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
8:13 And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.




The centurion was a leader in the Roman army, which had a base in Capernaum. A centurion was in charge of one hundred soldiers. One of his servants was sick, and in great pain. Even though the Jews didn't like the Roman soldiers, the centurion went to see Jesus to ask for his servant to be healed.

Jesus said that he would go and heal the servant, but the soldier had such faith in Jesus that he said that Jesus wouldn't have to go to his house to heal the man, but to just say the word. Jesus was very pleased to hear the soldier's faith, and healed the servant.


And lastly, here�s the clincher� Jesus tells us in Matthew 8:10-12 that faith is required to get into the kingdom of heaven. Many Jews didn't have the necessary faith, so they would be "cast into outer darkness", while many Gentiles ("from the east and west") will get into heaven.


Best Wishes to All,

It is fair to assume that the religious teachers implicitly accused Jesus of being a bastard in John 8:41. It may also well be that some lay people from Jesus's own hometown inferred as much on the strength of Mark's tacit suggestion in 6:3 .


But people in general (and especially the religious leaders) were prone to slander Jesus often and quite indiscriminately, charging him with almost everything under the Sun. He was to be a 'Demon possessed' reprobate, an adulterer,a glutton, a sinner, an insurrectionist,a raving lunatic,an outcaste, and so on(See Matthew 12:22-28, l:32-34; John 8:48-50, 10:20-21; Mark 3:19b-35; and other texts) etc.They even designated him a non-Jew at one point (John 8:48). His own mother and brothers thought him insane .(Mark 3:14-21)





Our aim, in detailing a fair and balanced picture of Jesus, must not only concern itself with his enemies' opinion of him, but also with what Jesus himself ,his apostles and his friends thought about Jesus' own identity , purpose and doctrine. Did Jesus, for instance, consider himself a bastard? Did his apostles and followers see him as such? The answer is an emphatic no. There are two sides to the coin here.

Following is how Jesus replied /reacted when the teachers of the law called him a bastard in John 8.....




[(John 8: 41) , But they said, �We are not like children who never knew who their father was. God is our Father; he is the only Father we have.�]

Read carefully Jesu's response:


44 You belong to your father the devil, and you want to do what he wants. He was a murderer from the beginning and was against the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a LIE, he shows what he is really like, because he is a LIAR and the FATHER OF LIES. ....


And this;

49 Jesus answered, �I have no demon in me. I give honor to MY FATHER, but you dishonor me. 50 I am not trying to get honor for myself. There is One who wants this honor for me, and he is the JUDGE. 51 I tell you the truth, whoever obeys my teaching will never die.�

52 The Jews said to Jesus, �Now we know that you have a demon in you! Even Abraham and the prophets died. But you say, �Whoever obeys my teaching will never die.� 53 Do you think you are greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died, too. Who do you think you are?�

...
57 The Jews said to him, �You have never seen Abraham! You are not even fifty years old.�

58 Jesus answered, �I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I am!� 59 When Jesus said this, the people picked up stones to throw at him. But Jesus hid himself, and then he left the Temple.


So, there we have it. Jesus calls his accusers liars (V.44), i.e. He denies the bastard label. He clearly identifies God as his Father(V.49) . He reveals himself as God's Son.(V. 58) .

C.S. Lewis usedthe trilemma argument in a 1950 essay entitled 'What are we to make of Jesus Christ'? He puts it quite succinctly -- 'Lunatic, Liar or Lord(Messiah)'



"...I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him, ........ A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. "

(From C.S. Lewis' , "Mere Christianity" Macmillan Publishing Co, New York, NY. Copyright 1952.)































[edit on 18-11-2004 by Logician]

OK - lets put an end to this thread once and for all!

Judaism is a DUALISTIC RELIGION!!! Do you understand now?

That is why you can only know the "Good God" through Jesus Christ!

That is why "God Fearing" Judeo-Christians are so afraid of "Breaking the Law" & "Sinning" - they Fear the "Wrath of God" - in other words:

GOD = SATAN & Vice Versa!

Does this sound Familiar:

Exodus 34:14: For the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a *Jealous God*!

Leviticus 26:16: I also will do this unto you: I will appoint TERROR over you!

Isaiah 45:7: ***I form Light and Create Darkness. I make Peace and
Create Evil: I the Lord YahVeh do all these things.***

[edit on 18-11-2004 by Seraphim_Serpente]

Hello Logician:

Thanks for your post.

You're quite right that to gain a balanced view of "Iesous" one must study the literary remains of both his supporters AND his later detractors, and see what is "common ground" between them, if anything at all.

In the years following his execution for Sedition against Rome, "Iesous" was accused by the Jewish authorities and Rebbes of many crimes, including Sorcery or Witchcraft (probably from stories of his healing people) and of being possessed by Belial (probably as a result of alleged "excorcisms" but there was probably mor to it than that: even his own family seems to have believed he was ["exstasis"] i.e. "out of his mind" and they even tried to "put him away") of "flouting the Torah before the whole Congregation" (probably from healing the sick on Sabbaths or going through wheat-stubblefields also on sabbaths at times to feed his starving disciples ("who had nothing to eat") .

He was accused of "leading Israel astray" probably by what later was regarded as False Prophecy i.e. pronouncements that never came true ("there are some here who are standing now that will not taste Death until they see the Son of Man coming into his Kingdom of Glory, on the right hand of the Power and all of his holy ones with him...")

And then of course he was accused by them in one form or another of being a Mamzer (i.e. born of fornication) and therefore not fit to be regarded as the Messiah---or as they wrote:

"YESHU had as wicked an End as he had at his wicked Beginning..."

looking back on his execution as a failed seditionist dangling naked on a Roman gibbet.

You do realise, don't you, that John's Gospel is "midrashic theology" not sober historical court reporting. No one was there with a video camera catching the "ipsissima verba" of R. Yehoshua or his detractors in the portion of John dealing with being "a Mamzer" (i.e. born of Fornication)?

So we are NOT dealing with eyewitnesses reporting here, but rather "these things were written so that you might believe that Iesous is the Christos and by believing you might have Life in his name..."

This whole pericope in John, as the great Chas. Kingsley Barrett often told us in his lectures on the subject (upon which he had written more than one book), is "not exactly one of his best or cogent theological arguments" and the many interruptions in the flow of the logic and the grammar of the Greek shows that the text has been manipulated in some way over time---possibly more than once---possibly because of the subject matter was so inflamatory (i.e. Jesus born of fornication was a sore subject in the early church and was the cause of some scandalous deductions and inferences)

The Greek text now reads: "we have one father, even God" but that phrase ("even god", or Theos) makes no sense in its context in the Greek when they are previously talking about being sons of Abraham.

The word "even God" is what we should regard as a marginalium or even a change ("we have one Father, even Abraham" might have been the original reading according to its logical place in the text. To jump from Abraham to "Theos" here is illogical and shows something untoward has happened to the Greek)

"Iesous" never really denied his bastardy (or his accusers "accusations of Mamzerism" in this pericope): according to John's gospel as it now stands, his answers seem to say, "never mind about the flesh descent, let's talk now about the spiritual inheritance: you're spiritual father is Belial, my spiritual father is YHWH etc.

He even seems to pronounce HaShem (Yah-hu-weh) in the later passage when he supposedly uttered: Before Abraham ever existed, I AM ("and they immediately took up stones to stone him..." ) the punishment for blaspheming the Name of YHWH (haShem) by oral pronouncement--something only a high priest could pronounce once a year at Yom Kippur within the confines of the Debir-Cube in the 2nd Temple (holy of holies).

But "Iesous" sort of left the accusation of Mamzerism to stand unanswered (at least in John's gospel) preferring to emphasise the spiritual authority he had as "the Prophet which was to come...spoken of by Moses"

And a good case can be made that the entire accusation of "born of Fonication" in John's Greek here may not have been about Jesus' "personal bastardy" at all.

The pericope in question may well have been designed by John in the Greek to highlight the "mamzerisms" of all the northern Galilee as a hybrid (non Jewish or somewhat less than Jewish) race, which the southern Iudaeoi (Judaeans) thought were a bunch of mixed-muts (Assyrians, Syrians, Egyptians and Greeks all intermarried and speaking a god-awful accent to boot).

If the authorities are meant to be Tsaddukkim (sons of Zadok, i.e. Levetical Priestly Hashmoneans who had taken over both the High priesthood and the Kingship of Israel after the Macabbean revolt of 163 BC) then the charges of Mamzerism may have been directed to Jesus Daviddic blood lineage (since David's grandmother Ruth was a Moabitess gentile, whose people "may not enter into the Congregation of Israel, ever, not even after 10 generations, saith YHWH").

In other words, "Jesus" may have been a threat to the Zadokkites in Jerusalem because of his blood line, and they wanted to rub in the fact that his family was not fit to rule because of "Racial Mamzerism" i.e. illicit blood intermarriage (allegedly thought to re-emerge during the Last Days, e.g. Amos chapter 9: I shall raise again the Tabernacle of David which has fallen etc.).

The question I had about this was to find out if this accusational slander of Mamzerism on the part of the Jewish authorities was "personal or racially motivated", or both-- and whether or not the so-called "Virgin Birth" stories in Matthew and Luke (which make heavy use of MIDRASHIC APOLOGY) are in fact some kind of a vain attempt to cover up something harmful to the early Christian Messianic movement as it spread into the Gentile world of the Greeks after Israel fell to Rome in AD 70.

Even Luke's "Magnificat" placed into the Mouth of Mary (rather than Elisabeth who would have been "humiliated" by barrenness) seems to emphasise Mary's rather curious status of "abject humilation" in the poem seems a little too much for a young betrothed Jewess in the 1st century AD, unless we can sense some suggestion of rape or seduction which might well lay in the background ("for he hath noticed the abject humiliation of his slave") etc.

Hi Amadeus,

I notice you tend to think �out of the box�. That's good.

In theological arguments there is no such thing as absolute proof. There is evidence, adequate to convince . That is as close as one can come to the imaginary concept "proof."
Someone once remarked, �To the believer no evidence is necessary, to the unbeliever no amount of evidence is sufficient.� That�s why it�s advisable to always keep an open mind . Indeed, �evidence� is worthless if we don't know for sure that it really exists, or can't demonstrate to someone else that it really exists. We can say "Here's what it said on the church record ..." etc. and give some words from notes or from copies of copies. What is the evidence that the record was not inherently flawed? For that matter, how do we know the whole story wasn�t made up?

Yet it is a fact that the four Gospel accounts (as we have them today) are, on the whole, remarkably consistent documents and generally agree on the basic essentials. Sure there are �inconsistencies� here and there in genealogies, in the precise rendering of certain words or events, but on the whole they present us a very unified and coherent paradigm. In short, there are no glaring discrepancies between them(geneologies and chronology aside). Further, a careful comparison of the four Gospels reveals that Matthew, Mark and Like are noticeably similar,while John is comparatively different. The first three Gospels agree extensively in language, in the material they include, and in the order in whjich events and sayings in the life of Jesus are recorded.(Again, chronological order does not appear to have been rigidly followed in any of the Gospels, however). For an example of agreement in content among the Synoptic Gospels see Mt. 9:2-8, Mk. 2:3-12, Lk. 5:18-26 etc. an instance in verbatim agreement is found in mt. 10:22a; Mk. 13:13a; Lk.21:17. A mathematical comparison shows that 91 percent of Mark�s Gospel is contained in Matthew, while 53 percent of Mark is found in Luke.

Because of this the question has arisen whether the authors relied on a common source. Some postulate oral tradition, others claim the Synoptic gospels had access to an earlier Gospel, now lost, yet others have assumed that written fragments had been composed concerning various events from the life of Christ which were later used by Synoptic authors. Yet others have postulated that the Synoptic writers drew from each other with the result that what they wrote was often very similar.

The most common view currently is that the Gospel of Mark and a hypothetical document, called Quelle or q,were used by Matthew and Luke as sources for most of the materials included in their Gospels. Another view suggests that the other two Synoptics drew from matthew as their main source. A final theory assumes that the authors of the synoptic Gospels made use of oral tradition,written fragments, mutual dependence on other Synoptic writers or on their Gospels, and the testimony of eyewitnesses. .

You do realise, don't you, that John's Gospel is "midrashic theology" not sober historical court reporting. No one was there with a video camera catching the "ipsissima verba" of R. Yehoshua��..

I disagree this Gospel not being �historical�. I�m inclined to think the �Gospel of John� was authored by the apostle John, �the disciple whome Jesus loved� (13;23, 19:26 etc.) He was prominent in the early church but is not mentioned by name in this Gospel� which would be natural if he wrote it, but hard to explain otherwise. The auther knew Jewish life well, as seen from refrences to popular messianic speculations(eg. 1:20-21, 7:40-42), to the hostility between Jews and Samartians (4:9), and to Jewish customs(7:22) etc. He knew the geography of Palestine, locating bethnay about 15 stadia(about 2 miles) from Jerusalem (11:18) and mentioning Cana, a village NOT referred to in any earlier writings known to us(2:1,21:2) The Gospel of John has many touches that were obviously based on the recollections of an eyewitness � such as the house at Bethnay being filled with fragrance of the broken perfume Jar(12:3).[This little tid-bit is as close to a video camera we are going to get in the first century. Come to think of it, video camers don�t capture scents . But John did. I think he even names the kind of perfume ]
Early writers such as Irenaeus and Tertullian say that John wrote this Gospel, and in my opinion, all other evidence agrees.

It may not be a stretch to argue that the four Gospel accounts are at least as reliable as are the first five books of the Old Testament.

He was accused of "leading Israel astray" probably by what later was regarded as False Prophecy i.e. pronouncements that never came true ("there are some here who are standing now that will not taste Death until they see the Son of Man coming into his Kingdom of Glory, on the right hand of the Power and all of his holy ones with him...")

Conversely, this verse (Matthew 16:27-28) may serve as strong �evidence� to� proof� the efficacy/integrity/reliability of the Matthine account. For if this Gospel was tempered with , then surely this glaringly �false� prophecy would have been expeditiously revised, or entirely omitted. Why leave your mythical Messiah open to the charge of �False Prophetship�? On the other hand, some interpreters see this prophecy � in the light of the next chapter�, since in Matthew Mark and Luke, this particular event is followed by the story of the Mt. Of Transfiguration. In this view, Jesus didn�t mean that some standing there would remain alive until they saw the coming of the son of man in his kingdom, but that he meant that some standing there would remain alive until they had seen a �preview� of the coming of the son of man into his kingdom. But then again, some assert the story of the Transfiguration to be a later insertion(in all three Synoptics!) to explain away Jesus�s false prophecy of Matt. 16:27. But why go through all this trouble, why not just simply doctor Matt. 16:27 and put the whole matter to rest? .

But "Iesous" sort of left the accusation of Mamzerism to stand unanswered (at least in John's gospel) preferring to emphasise the spiritual authority he had as "the Prophet which was to come...spoken of by Moses"

But Jesus apparently left a lot of accusations against him �unanswered�; like the charges of drunkedness, gluttony, insanity etc. Maybe he did not want to make it his full time occupation to counter [baseless?] charges. Perhaps he didn�t want to be distracted from his �mission� by spurious charges. That itself would be falling into a trap. But I do believe Jesus implicitly countered the charge of bastardy against him in John 8 quite forcefully. .. This for instance is quite strenuous:

John 8:54, �My Father,whom you claim as your God,is the one who glorifies me. Though you do not know him,I Know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you,� Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he say it and was glad.�

So, Jesus here unambiguously calls God his Father . He also talks about being alive at the time of Abraham(!). Either he's a total lunatic or he was speaking the truth. He leaves us with no other choice......... It's at this point in the argument that a qualitative leap of faith is required to separate those who believe and those who dont. It's impossible to prove Jesu's claim one way or other.


[edit on 18-11-2004 by Logician]

I once again would like to add to Amadeus' words. It is vital to understand the conscriptions of these gospels as they made their way throughout the decades of manipulation before canonical placement. One only need look to Matthew and Luke to begin to understand the reconstructive distortions the patriachs went through to make this man divine.

Matt: 13:55 Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, james and Joses and simon, and Judias?

Note he is no longer represented here as "the carpenter' but the son of the carpenter. Note also the absence of Joseph's name.

To place it in perspective, was Matthew's text trying to correct a blemish which suggested that Jesus was a bastard, if so why? Being of divine birth requires no explanation. However, we do know that there was much argument between Christians and Jewsish scholars alike, much massaging of works, much addition, deletion prior to the NT hitting the streets.

but Matthew's text is intriguing really and actually makes one wonder even more about his divinity. Why? Because if he was of a virgin birth, he has no mortal father, and certainly not a carpenter.

The centurion story is interesting as well. One of many inconsistencies within the good book. Considering this was supposed to have been the word of God, how can they all have a different story to tell?

Extra notes:

In the years following his execution for Sedition against Rome, "Iesous" was accused by the Jewish authorities and Rebbes of many crimes, including Sorcery or Witchcraft

:

Actually,the Jewish authorities accused Jesus of witchcraft(and or Demon possession) even while he was alive( John 8:48 , etc)

TextBut "Iesous" sort of left the accusation of Mamzerism to stand unanswered (at least in John's gospel)

I think you are trying to ask me the following question: �Why didn�t Jesus EXPLICITLY deny the charge of �Mamzerism� against him? Why didn�t he outright say, �I ain�t no bastard?��. The answer is quite simple. Because it was never EXPLICITLY posed to him. There are only two instances in scripture (that I can think of) where this subject even comes up, and then only inferrentially; John 8:41 and Mark 6:3. We are not even 100% sure what was being implied here� Jesus counters this tacit accusation with his own implicit denial in John 8; the only right response under the circumstances. Otherwise he would have fallen into their trap. Jesus was keenly aware of the religious teachers� desire to snare him in his own words.(Check Matt. 22:15, �Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his own words,� etc.)

And a good case can be made that the entire accusation of "born of Fonication" in John's Greek here may not have been about Jesus' "personal bastardy" at all.

Precisely why Jesus did not have to, nor did he, directly counter this implicit(vague) [ and potentially spurious] charge against him. Otherwise a non-issue might have become an issue, and been legitimatized, forgive the pun.

according to John's gospel as it now stands, his answers seem to say, "never mind about the flesh descent, let's talk now about the spiritual inheritance: you're spiritual father is Belial, my spiritual father is YHWH etc.

Actually that�s not what John�s Gospel is saying. On the contrary. John makes it clear Jesus was implying something much, much more here, �Before Abraham was born I am�(John 8:58) he counters at the end of the relevant discourse. That�s why the Jews picked up stones to kill him, because he was claiming some sort of unique physical and spiritual kinship with God; perhaps even deity.

During the time that Jesus was born and way earlier during Alexander the Greats time of birth, his own father thought that his wife had been impregnanted by one of the Gods they believed in and questioned if he was the father.

It seems that was not so abnormal in those times to think a woman had been impregnated by a God.

I found this very telling about the Bible and this idea of Jesus's father being God, it certainly wasn't the first time this idea had come about.

call me a crackpot, a nut, or even a heretic and I'll agree whole-heartedly. In my eyes, there is a definite parallel between the 'immaculate conception' of christ ( the holy spirit descending apon Mary in the form of a dove) and the old greek stories of Zeus descending to earth and metamorphosizing himself into all types of things (a shower of coins, a bull, a swan...yadda yadda) in order to seduce women... now another interesting fact is that Emeror Constantine (King Constant), the dude who legalized Christianity and made it the 'official' religion of the roman empire had the scriptures transliterated from hebrew, or aramaic into Greek, which was still a very popular language at the time... hmmm

yes, I know I'm replying to my own post, silly me. But a side note is in order. VIRGINITY originally had nothing to do with a hymen, it was a word to describe an unwed woman who's 'mind and heart were not ruled by a man'... food for thought...

here I go again, in response to mentioning of the number 77, it is 7(the number of perfection in jewish numerology) multiplied by 11( the number of completion, from the same source)

No, Jesus is not a bastard. His conception was a wonderful
spiritual moment.

Many wonderful spiritual things happen all around us and yet
we are so determined not to be spiritual ... we miss them.

I believe many MORE spiritual things happened 'back then' as
opposed to now because people in general were more
spiritually in tune. Mary was an extraordinarilly spiritually
gifted person.

If people weren't so obsessed with sex, money, and 'the
world' in general, there would be many more spiritual
wonders coming to light.

Hi Logician:

Thanks for your somewhat curious comments about the "internal consistency" of the Gospel presentations:

However.........I can see that there is much room for a wider discussion here.

Let�s start with one of your statements about the �internal consistency� of the Gospel material, which problem (e.g. the Synoptic Problem and The Problem of John�s Gospel) is not quite as simple as you may be assuming here:

YOU CLAIM: � �Yet it is a fact that the four Gospel accounts (as we have them today) are, on the whole, remarkably consistent documents and generally agree on the basic essentials�.In short, there are no glaring discrepancies between the Gospels (geneologies and chronology aside)��

This is an oversimplifcation of the material with which we are here dealing:

The Fourth Gospel ("John", which circulated anonymously for 200 years beffore someone put John the Elder on it) states his purpose quite clearly

�These things were written so that ye might believe that Iesous is the Christos and by believing ye might have life in his name�.

This is not the aim of an �historian� but rather the aims of a �propagandist� trying to push a specific �agenda�. In this case, to get readers and listeners to believe that "Iesous" is the "Christos".

This is the general aim of all FOUR canonical (�council approved�) gospels which make heavy use of HAGADDIC MIDRASHIC EXPANSIONS of the Old Testament to make their �points of history�, which we today would not regard as �valid historical truth�.

There are some glaringly startling differences and other literary issues with close reading and comparison between the gospel �accounts� which show every evidence of having been MIDRASHIC EXPANSIONS of various �Messianic� Old Testament prophecies,

See e.g. the "dead giveaway" statement Mark�s gospel

(�Behold, he hath acted out all [of the prophecies] exactly to the Letter� (lit. �done everything exactly�, KJV "he hath done all things well"

In other words, "Iesous" must be the "Christos" because he is fulfilling prophecies of the Messiah (healing the sick, raising the dead, making the blind see and the deaf hear---notice Mark's healing pericopes and other miracles being used as "proof texts")

Since the aims of the gospel writers (who used the Testaments of the 12 and the Periciopes of Elisha in II Kings 3-10 as their literary models) was to proof that Iesous was the Christos to believers and newcomers to the faith, we have to remind ourselves that history can sometimes get lost in the shuffle.

For instance, many "Bible Believing Christians" either are totally unaware or have conveniently forgotten many of the "basic inconsistencies in the story" telling of the narrative content found in the gospels themselves--and here are only a FEW of them �e.g.

Did �Iesous� carry the crossbeam �seauton� (for himself) or did Shimeon of Cyrene do the carrying for him?

Matt, Mk and Luke (synoptics) say, Shimeon: the fourth Gospel says, �seauton� he carried his own cross and there is no mention of any "Shimeon of Cyrene".

Was the �Temple Tantrum� at the beginning of his ministry or at the end, or are we to understand TWO separate tantrums?

The Synoptics say �last week of his life� the 4th Gospel says �first week of his ministry��. Is John playing fast and loose with facts, or is he merely making a theological point here?

Was the Last Supper and the Arrest of the Teacher on the hill for armed sedition against Rome on the DAY OF PREPARATION for the Pesach (Haggigah Meal as in the 4th Gospel ) or was it ON THE PESACH (Synoptics?)

Did Iesous drink from the sponge-on-a-spear from his Roman gibbet or not? Mark 15:23 and Matt 27: �they offered him Myrrh and Wine on a sponge but he refused to drink from it� John 19:28: �after he drank from the sponge, he immediately died��

Did Iesous miraculously start glowing on a hill (as with the Synoptic accounts based on Mark 9) with a �thundering voice� (in Aramaic QOL can mean Voice OR Thunder) emanating from the �cloud� or was there just a violent Thunderstorm with lightning flashes to which someone below in the crowd said �behold, it thundered, whereas someone else said, no, An Angel hath spoken something to him�? (John�s version)

Did Iesous �raise� Eleazar from the dead, and if so, why did only the fourth gospel report it (the synoptics know nothing of this Eleazar/Lazarus person, neither do they know about Nicodemus)?

Was there really a �wedding at Cana in Galilee� where water somehow was treated the way the wine god Dionysius treated water? Why does ONLY the Fourth Gospel relate it and the synoptics know nothing of it? (hint: Cana was a cult center for the Mysteries of Dionysius-Bacchus since before 200 BC)

John�s Gospel omits a large amount of material found in the synoptics, including: the �Temptation� of Iesous , and the Institution of the �Eucharist�. The fourth Gospel also make no mention of Ieosus casting out demons.

Large blocks of teaching such as the Sermon on the Mount and the so-called Lord�s prayer are not found in the Fourth Gospel. We are not dealing with a unified approach to writing a history of this man if you look at all closely at these differences.

According to the 4th Gospel (�John�) Iesous so-called �Public Ministry� seems to have extended over a period of at least three and possibly four years with several visits to Jerusalem during feasts and even one at Channukkah.

Whereas�the Synoptic Gospels (�Matthew�, �Mark�, �Luke�) appear to describe only one single southerly journey of Iesous with his lowly band of disciples to Jerusalem (the final one), with most of Jesus� ministry taking place within one year.

In view of these no inconsiderable differences of fact between them, how can you say the four canonical (and �council approved�) Gospels are inherently consistent in any way shape or form?

Also there are glaring �historical problems� throughout the gospels which show that events widely separated in history were kaleidoscoped into shorter �liturgical� periods e.g. to fit into �holy week� modeled on the Feast of Attis in the Spring (a dying and resurrection pagan god) celebrated throughout the Roman empire for centuries before Iesous was even born.

All that �branch waving and lulabs� during the socalled �triumphal Entry� cannot occur at a Passover in March/April (as in the gospel narratives) but could only occur during Sukkhot, or the Feast of Tabernacles in September/October each year when there were lulabs and fully grown palm branches to lay before �king Messiah�

�moreover �Sukkhot� (Tabernacles) was the specific Feast when Daviddic Kings were normally crowned and people used the phrase �Hosanna in the Highest� and �Long Live the Kingdom of Our Father David��


The Gospel of �Luke� (whoever he was) places the �birth of Iesous� during a Roman �census� during the administration of �Quirinius� (in AD 6) whereas the gospel of �Matthew� (whoever he was) places the birth of Iesous during the reign of Herod the Great (who died in 4 BC) a historical discrepancy of at least 10 full years apart.

Only �Matthew�s gospel� has a disciple named Matthew (Aram. Matathiah), the others have a �Levi� in his place instead.

The Fourth Gospel even mentions a time when most of Iesous� disciples left him and he had to find different disciple replacements (John 6:67-68) at one point. Mattathiah (�Matthew�) was apparently also the name of the replacement for Yehudah bar Shimeon Ish-Keryiota (Judas Iscariot) whose position was chosen by lot after the execution of the Teacher to fill up the number 12.

He would therefore have NOT been one of the 12, but a later replacement. If the gospel which circulated later under his name came from the circle of this replacement disciple, then his information is at best SECOND hand: since he borrows (and cleans up the language) large blocks of Mark�s gospel, we can assume that he was not himself an eyewitness, since eyewitnesses do not have to borrow material from non-eyewitnesses.

And of course, �Luke� knows of no Magoi or Gifts of Myrrh and Frankincense or Star or Manger or Slaughter of the Innocents, and �Matthew� knows nothing of any Shepherds or Angels or Heavenly Chorus, etc. etc.

Also it is curious that both �Matthew� and �Luke� generally reproduce Mark�s curious literary order, which seems itself to follow the 52 blocks of weekly liturgical readings of the "gospels" as they were read in the churches on Sundays, paralleling the divisional reading of the Torah in the Synagogues (which is divided into 150 blocks, i.e. over a 3 year period), and following the same kinds of subject matter in parallel.

In other words the Gospels are HAGADDIC MIDRASH not �history� based on eyewitness testimony for the sake of writing pure history.

The Fourth gospel has an interesting marginalium with the �out poured water and blood� passage: �this is the Disciple who witnessed these things�� which suggests that the author of this passage was citing his source for actually seeing water and blood pour out of the body of Iesous on the cross.

It does not mean the whole book was based on an eyewitness testimony, just this passage about water and blood spilling out of a �crucified criminal�.

Written immediately under the marginalium are the curious words �and WE know that HIS testimony is VALID�, which begs the question, WHO IS WE and HOW DO THEY KNOW HIS testimony is valid? The fact that these two added sentences interrupt the flow of the Greek shows that these words are later �marginalia� which were forever later copied into the Greek text of �John� in subsequent copies of the MSS.

The socalled Book of Revelation (Apocalypse of John the Elder) has more than 50 of these �marginalia� which eventually got copied into the main body of the text, (and actually, every single book of the bible has some of these scattered in their material�)

So�.. when I say that the writer of the �gospel of John� (whoever he was) was not taking �historical dictation� in his relating of the �fornication argument� episode of Ieosus and the Judaean authorities, but rather making theological points in his exposition of the �event� there is some wider background behind my words here.

Does any of this make any sense to you?

Amadeus,

Hold your horses�Easy.

You raise many, many questions in one post. Most(if not all) of them can be accounted for, though probably not in one post. I will do the best I can; dissecting, critizing/analyzing, perhaps even agreeing with some of the most pertinent points you raise:

YOU CLAIM: � �Yet it is a fact that the four Gospel accounts (as we have them today) are, on the whole, remarkably consistent documents and generally agree on the basic essentials�.In short, there are no glaring discrepancies between the Gospels (geneologies and chronology aside)��

This is an oversimplifcation of the material with which we are here dealing

You're missing my point. For starters, I think even the most vehement detractors would agree that despite this apparent 'pluralism', what is remarkable with regard to the recorded parables and miracles of Jesus is their fundamental consistency . In all four Gospels, Jesus is presented as one who teaches in parables and performs miraculous deeds. Few scholars question the historical authenticity of Jesus' parables and radical sayings. In addition all four Gospels agree in general as to the resurrection, virgin birth,and approximate day of his death....In all four Gospels, the beginning of Jesus' public ministry is associated with John the Baptist.,etc.

Now, if for instance, Mark were to insist in his account that Jesus was hanged in October, that would be a serious problem . It has long been an accepted dictum of New Testament scholars that the gospels are not biographies,... agreed. In the sense that they do not set about their task in the way a modern biographer does this is undoubtedly true. Their records are highly selective, have only a loose chronological framework, focus one-sidedly on matters of theological significance, and tell us little or nothing about their subject's psychology or personal development. .In these ways, however, they are much closer to the type of 'biography' which was fashionable in the ancient world. There is also no physical description of the historical Jesus in any of the Gospel accounts, for a variety of reasons.

The Fourth Gospel ("John", which circulated anonymously for 200 years beffore someone put John the Elder on it) states his purpose quite clearly

What??.. Could you clarify yourself here please, with supporting evidences .

�These things were written so that ye might believe that Iesous is the Christos and by believing ye might have life in his name�.

Does this statement by itself negate the historical value of the entire Gospel of John? All writers have agendas, -- Flavius Josephus had one,I think, and so did Herodotus, etc. John was no different. In fact I would dare wager John the Elder more �historical� than , say, the �Father of History�. In short, all writers, great or small are biased, just as you and I are also , but that doesn�t mean we discount everything they(we) have to say; or worse still, question their integrity. Judge only by the merit.

This is not the aim of an �historian� but rather the aims of a �propagandist� trying to push a specific �agenda�. In this case, to get readers and listeners to believe that "Iesous" is the "Christos".

True. But I woudn't go so far as to call him an 'propagandist'. He was biased, no doubt.

This is the general aim of all FOUR canonical (�council approved�) gospels which make heavy use of HAGADDIC MIDRASHIC EXPANSIONS of the Old Testament to make their �points of history�,

Thats a bold contention. I don't know if I totally agree with it.

Did Iesous miraculously start glowing on a hill (as with the Synoptic accounts based on Mark 9) with a �thundering voice� (in Aramaic QOL can mean Voice OR Thunder) emanating from the �cloud� or was there just a violent Thunderstorm with lightning flashes to which someone below in the crowd said �behold, it thundered, whereas someone else said, no, An Angel hath spoken something to him�? (John�s version)

Different perceptrions of the same event....Suppose you�re the driver of a car redded at an intersection , who just happened to have picked up two hitchhikers; one sits next to you, the other behind you, in the back seat. Suddenly, out of nowhere , a car slams into the driver�s side of your vehicle. You�re hurt and are barely conscious, but alive.

A few weeks later all three of you meet again for the first time since the accident. All are asked to file separate accident reports, in the same conference room.. The driver who slammed into you is also present, he also furnishes his side of the story. .What are the odds tha all four of your stories will match?..Almost thes ame principle applies in the Transfiguration account.....

Actually to compound the problem, we are dealing with a supernatural event in the Transfiguration which is by it's very nature more difficult to fathom and expound upon. The mere fact that the Gospel accounts differ somewhat and yet are still intergrateable, fairly coherent , is, in my view, circumstantial proof of it's varicity .

Relatively �minor� [maybe not to you!] discrepancies which can either be explained , or which do not threaten the fundamental idea of the historical Jesus as we know him , do not therefore threaten much the inherent consistency of the Gospel accounts. Remember I�ve already conceded the biblical writers to not be strict historians in the vein of 20th century biographers , but they seem to be honestly compiling the life and times of Jesus as best they could with 1st century technology and means. The� big picture picture� , which the four gospels furnish , us is exceptionally unified, all said and done.

Was there really a �wedding at Cana in Galilee� where water somehow was treated the way the wine god Dionysius treated water? Why does ONLY the Fourth Gospel relate it and the synoptics know nothing of it? (hint: Cana was a cult center for the Mysteries of Dionysius-Bacchus since before 200 BC)

I hope youre not suggesting Jesus indulged Pan worship simply because he attended a wedding in Cana of Galilee, where wine apparently flowed quite naturally. What�s your point here? Are you suggesting if only one Gospel mentions an event, that in all probability it never happened?

John�s Gospel omits a large amount of material found in the synoptics, including: the �Temptation� of Iesous , and the Institution of the �Eucharist�. The fourth Gospel also make no mention of Ieosus casting out demons.

John�s purpose was apparently to supplement (or even correct!) the Synoptic Gospels, to combat some form of heresy (perhaps Gnosticism and it�s the Dionysius cult), to opposecontinuing followers of John the Baptist. But the overriding purpose of John, as you have already mentioned was �that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,��(20:31) He amy have had Greek readers mainly in mind, some of whom were being exposed to heretical influence, but his primary mission was evangelistic. It is even possible to understand �may believe� in thesense of �may continue to believe��in which case the purpose would be to build up believers as well as to win converts.

Large blocks of teaching such as the Sermon on the Mount and the so-called Lord�s prayer are not found in the Fourth Gospel. We are not dealing with a unified approach to writing a history of this man if you look at all closely at these differences.

One of John�s aim was not to rehash the Synoptics but to add to them.

In view of these no inconsiderable differences of fact between them, how can you say the four canonical (and �council approved�) Gospels are inherently consistent in any way shape or form?

The big picture.. the four Gospel accounts are certainly consistent where it counts.. Now if John had said in his Gospel, like the Koran does, �Jesus was not resurrected at all but was pulled alive from his cross at night by God�, now , that would raise eye brows : [Qur'an: 4:157 "That they said (in boast), "We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah"- but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, butonly conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not:"]

The Gospel of �Luke� (whoever he was) places the �birth of Iesous� during a Roman �census� during the administration of �Quirinius� (in AD 6) whereas the gospel of �Matthew� (whoever he was) places the birth of Iesous during the reign of Herod the Great (who died in 4 BC) a historical discrepancy of at least 10 full years apart.

I assume you mean contemporaries in office--they were certainly contemporaries in life...Quirinius, at the time of King Herod's death was doing military expeditions in the easternprovinces of the Roman empire (Tacitus , Annals 3:48; Florus, ), with some evidence indicating that he either was a co-ruler with the governor of Syria or at least placed in charge of the 14- year census in Palestine. The census was due in 8-7 BC, and Augustus could easily have ordered his trusted Quirinius (fresh from subduing the Pisidian highlanders) to assist . Herod I had recently lost favor of the emperor and was probably dragging his feet on taking the census--a process with always enraged the difficult Jews! This would have pushed the timeframe into the 5 BC mark, which fits the general data.

Also consult William Ramsey ( "Quirinius") on this subject.--

And curiously enough, even if that were NOT the case somehow, the linguistic data of the last few decades indicates that Luke 2: 1 should be translated 'BEFORE the census of Quirinius' instead of the customary 'FIRST census of Quirinius'-- (see Nigel Turner, Grammatical Insights into the New Testament, T&T Clark: 1966, .)

It should be pointed out, moreover, that the same Luke whose work is criticized on account of the census problem also wrote the acts of the Apostles, where the overlap with recorded history is far greater, and in this area Luke's accuracy in referring to the details of political institutions and appointments in Asia Minor and Greece was sufficient to cause the archeologist Sir William Ramsay to change from an inherited scepticism to a warm regard for Luke as a careful and responsible historian. the bearing of external data on the historical reliability of the gospel writers is not all in one direction.

So�.. when I say that the writer of the �gospel of John� (whoever he was) was not taking �historical dictation� in his relating of the �fornication argument� episode of Ieosus and the Judaean authorities, but rather making theological points in his exposition of the �event� there is some wider background behind my words here.

I guess your point is John can�t be trusted because he was pro-Jesus. As you wish. But you readily quote far removed Rabbinic traditions from the second century AD as reliable, recalling Jesus a sorcerer who gained a following and 'led Israel astray', and so 'was hanged on the eve of the Passover'. But aren�t these so very obscure(not to mention biased), and bear little relation to the Jesus his own followers remembered. Their polemical nature and their lack of interest in factual data does not create confidence in their potential as historical evidence for Jesus.



Regards,












.




[edit on 19-11-2004 by Logician]

I believe the Pharisees did not realize the full implications of their own words when they [apparently] implicitly accused Jesus of being a bastard in John 8:41. �We are not illegitimate children� , they protested. Was this a low blow directed personally at Jesus, or simply a more generic slur against all Galileans in general ? Was this the Pharisees' way of defending themselves, because Jesus had just taunted the legatimacy of their paternity(8:39).Or was this terse but heteronomical vocable ultimately attributable to a subconscious, subliminal manipulation of their (Pharisees) collective unconscious by external stimuli [like the Demonic]? Remember these Pharasees often accused Jesus of being Demon possessed ; perhaps they themselves were, in this moment. ... Ironic that the nebulous words of 8:41 should bother us[attract our attention] so much more today than they probably ever did Jesus or even the Pharasisees. It's a testament to the paucity of evidence available to us for the claim that Jesus was socially seen as a bastard by his own countrymen.


In anycase, I propose it was nigh impossible for anyone to have figured out Jesus not to be the son of Joseph. Here are just some reasons:

1) Jesus was received in the synagogue. If we read Deuteronomy 23: 2 we will see that someone who was considered a bastard could not enter in the congregation. This commandment was so absolute that a descendant of a bastard could not enter even in the tenth generation.
"A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to
his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD."
(Deut 23: 2 )
As we can see, it is evident that if Jesus were considered a bastard by his neighbors, he could have never entered in the congregation of the Lord. Nevertheless, he was always admitted in the synagogues, even in his home town, and even by his enemies. The Pharisees accused him many times of "violating" the Sabbath because he cured on the Sabbath, but they never accused him of being a bastard. That accusation was more than enough to destroy him; therefore it is more than evident that he was not considered a bastard.

2) Mary was not stoned. In Deuteronomy 22: 23-24 is written that if a betrothed damsel lies with a man, she and he will be considered adulterers and must be stoned. It was not a matter of asking the husband to be, if he wanted them to be stoned or not. It was a matter that the whole town was going to take in their own hands. It was a mandatory death penalty. So, if Mary's neighbors did not stone her, was because when they saw her belly growing, they already attributed it to her husband. He took her as his wife before her belly could even be noticed, as we will see later. Stoning was a way of lynching, as it happened years later with Steve. Let's read in the Bible.
"If a damsel, that is a virgin, be betrothed unto an husband, and a man
find her in the city, and lie with her; then ye shall bring them both out unto
the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die. The
damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath
humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you."
( Deut 22: 23-24 )
As we can see "ye shall bring" and "ye shall stone them", both refer to the people of the town. It was not a right of only the husband to be, but a duty of the whole town. So, reasonably the people of her town, when her belly started to grow, did not think that she was pregnant by anyone other than her husband Joseph.


3) Joseph knew about her pregnancy right after it occurred, much before her belly was noticeable. It is obvious that if Joseph wanted to put her away secretly to avoid making her a public example (19), was because nobody knew anything yet. It is a nonsense to think that he was going to put her away secretly, if the people already knew that she was pregnant, because there was no secret in such a situation. Therefore, when Joseph was thinking about putting her away, it was yet a secret that she was pregnant.


Joseph was not going to say anything, much less Mary. She knew the tough laws against adulteress. She was not going to be heralding that she was pregnant. It was shameful for her and for her beloved Joseph. Even Joseph did not want "to make her a public example". So it is more than logical that the only one to whom she gave the news, was to Joseph, (who did not believe her). In that very moment, when no one knew about her pregnancy, Joseph got a message from the Holy Spirit (20) by means of a dream. Immediately after the dream he woke up and received her as his wife (24). So, there was not the slightest possibility that anyone else knew the truth of her divine pregnancy. Everyone would reasonably think that she was pregnant from Joseph, because as soon as she was pregnant, before anyone could notice it, he took her as his wife. Consult Matthew 1: 18-25.










[edit on 21-11-2004 by Logician]

Hi Logician:

Thanks for your comments on this very involved topic.

I'll have to break up my own comments into several smaller responses (sorry !!) since you�ve opened up a lot of different points which we would do well to dig into a little for the sake of others on this thread who may not be aware of all the nuances we are discussing on the Virgin Birth Controversy Thread here.

And since various allegations of �Mamzerism� (bastardy) viz. a viz. R. Yehoshua bar Yosef (�Jesus�) are reflected (or even �deflected� albeit somewhat obliquely) in both the Synoptic Birth Narratives of �Matthew� and �Luke� as well as in the Fouth Gospel, perhaps we can talk a little about the problems and issues regarding the �formation of the Gospel Tradition� which you touched upon earlier, but have ignored most of the salient conclusion of world scholarship on this complex subject since the time of C.H. Dodd in the 1930s.

I suppose we can just start anywhere and sort of "dig in" as they say:

As you must know, modern �positivistic� history-writing is a verey different animal than it was even 300 years ago, and is a fairly modern invention.

Before the time of the invention of the printing press and "Moveable Type" [and hence the availability of fast and cheap books] most �published� historians had to rely on their wealthy Patrons to get their material out---and thus they selected and treated their �facts� very carefully in many cases to glorify the ruling party at the time...

Added to which the process of copying books out by hand was very slow and tireseomely expensive and only reached 10% of the general population----�and �historians� did not have access to primary source material in many instances, neither did they feel the need to adhere to the kind of stringent cross checking that modern historian worth his salt would have to put himself through.

Today in the 21st century even the great Greek "historian" Thucydides would not pass muster without a great deal of issues by modern historians �to judge from his overall approach to writing about his own times--- but of course, for his own time, it was in the �right direction�.

For the Jews, however, the writing of �history� was not their �strong point� especially in the Persian and Greek periods compared to other contemporary cultures in the larger Greek world, and they had a marked tendency to embellish certain facts by their own pre-suppositions in the form of �hagaddic midrash�, i.e the interpretation of �events� in the light of a purported prophecy from �scripture�.

Matthew's infancy narratives are a 1st century case in point of how facts are treated more than merely cavalierly by Messianic Jews and Jewish Christians---notice the way the writer of "Matthew" midrahsically handles the genealogical portion of the Birth Stories (whcih do not match "Luke" very closely) and which treats the Judaean Kings listed in I Chronicles chapter 3 with something less than honesty or integgrity (especially between the years BC 690 and BC 635 where a least 4 Judaen Kings are missing altogether so he can have nice neat groups of 14 generations etc.)

The canonical �approved� Gospel material reads more like II Kings chapter 3 to 11 (the Elisha�q Narratives) especially the Fourth Gospel whose �seven signs� are clearly midrashically modeled on many of the specific �miracles� of Elisha�q also from the Galilee (the raising of the axe head becomes Iesous walking on water, the feeding of 100 men with a bowl of porridge becomes the feeding of the 5,000, the raising of the Shunamite woman�s son becomes the raising of Eleazar etc.)

They are primarily THEOLOGICAL MIDRASHIC MESSIANIC PROOF TEXTS or TRACTS and in no way to be regarded as �pure historical narratives�, so we must be careful to understand their intent as �being material read in the churches to increase the Faith� i.e. with a definite �agenda�.

And the Fourth Gospel admits as much: �These things were written so that you might believe that Iesous is the Christos�and by believing you might have eternal life� = John 20:31 etc. which already makes their purposes far from �historical� in a 20th century �positivistic sense�)

Let�s not also forget for a moment the clear �apologetic tone� in ALL FOUR GOSPELS especially towards Roman Authority and their depiction of the person of Pontius Pilatus, which stories (�apoligies�) circulated after a particularly crushing defeat of the Jews in AD 70 when they broke out in open Rebellion against Rome, with various �Christ� figures running around quoting the texts like the War Scroll at Qumran (1QM) each proclaiming the Kingdom of David (or the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God) had come and the Times of the Goyim (i.e. the occupation by Romans) had been �fulfilled��

The "Mr Nice Guy Pontius Pilate" we read so fondly about in the "council Approved" Gospels is NOT the same picture we receive from eyewitnesses or contempory sources who had access to eyewitnesses :

Since, the "4 gospels" (along with many others) circulated at a time AFTER the Roman defeat of the Jews, and at which time Jewish Christians had to be very careful how they worded things if they wanted to make New Convert$ to the Movement (or even avoid arrest for sedition, as Saul-Paul was)

Here is what �Philo of Alexandria� (who lived c. BC 20 to c. AD 50) has to say about the personal style of Pontius Pilatus (and he came into contact with people who knew Pilatus personally)

�Pontius Pilatus was by nature a man of inflexibly stubborn and cruel disposition...and at all times deathly afraid that an Embassy of his Iudaean subjects might some day legally complain to Rome of his many years of criminal abuses, and feared what retribution would result if they were ever to broadcast his many treasonous crimes, a list of atrocities both against him personally and against his whole Corrupt Administration--- detailing for example his regular habit of taking huge amounts in bribes, his pre-emptive and iron-fisted squelching of Insurrection, his outright stealing of Capital Funds from the sacred Temple Treasury, his vicious assaults on his subjects, his inhuman abuses of power, his frequent �summary executions� of political prisoners without the benefit of Trial, and scores of examples of endless and willful savagery��.

--Philo's Legatio ad Gaium, (Legatio 299-305).

All this from an exact Contemporay of Ponitus Pilatus who got this from eyewitnesses�unlike th later Gospels which circulated some 50 years �after the events they relate�.

Reading Philo�s admittedly �Zionist Perspective� it sure doesn�t sound to me like this Pilatus is the type of person who would give �Iesous� anything more than �a summary execution without the benfit of Trial� especially when he learned that he was Daviddic Pretender to boot

(�so you ARE a King, are you?) and that moreover, he actually hailed from the Galilee where many such armed seditionists emerged (cf: the armed Insurrection of BC 4, or the other Passover Insurrection in AD 6 under the auspices of Judah the Galilean etc.).

So, the point is that the four �council approved� gospels feel no compunction at all in �doing a complete makeover� both of the seditonistic tendencies of the �Jesus Movement or of whitewashing Pilate�s role in the execution

Notice for example how many of Iesous� disciuples had �Warrior-Zealot nicknames� like �The Rock� (ho Petros) or �The Two Sons of Thunder� (benei Regesh or �Boanerges� as �Mark� puts it in his baby-Greek) or �Shimeon, the Zealot� or �Cannannite� or (even �Ish Keryiota� which�who knows---may be linked with the knife wielding Sicarrii) .

So we are here not getting a very accurate description of what was really going on in AD 36 (i.e. at the 100th anniversary of Pompey�s Invasion of Iudaea in BC 63) except that �Mark�s gospel� makes an obscure mention of THE REBELLION in which Jesus-Bar-Abbas had taken part and arrested (allegedly based on some of �Peter�s preaching� acting as his Greek Translator according to Papias� generic statements of AD 125 as later recorded by Eusebeius in AD 325) .

And of course lest we forget, �Iesous� was thought to be crucified �between two Lestae� (insurrectionists) with a sign over his head which read �IESOUS NAZIR KING OF THE JUDAEANS� which smacks of a political coup significantly timed during Passover on the 100th anniversary of the Occupation by Rome.

All of this is to remind you to take the material in the �council approved canonical Gospels� with a large pinch of salt.

We have less than 1% of the words spoken by R. Yehoshua bar Yosef as translated in the Greek gospels and the earliest quotations of �the logia of the Lord� such as we find in Clement of Rome etc. DO NOT match the sayings in the Synoptics or the curious types of Discourse Utterances of the 4th gospel�and most of the �original contexts� of his original Aramic speech was long gone by the time the gospels were written down in Greek (the socalled Sitz im Leben or �setting in life�).

We'll talk a little more about the curious STYLE OF UTTERANCE in the 4th gospel placed into the mouth of "Iesous" as compared with Mark and the other synoiptics in another post: suffice it to say, the words placed into his mouth in John are more the product of the evangelist (where are the parables, for example?) than historical "note taking from "eyewitness dictation"....!