They Stole His Body - The Hijacking of Jesus

Forget the body of Jesus, which He would not care about.

But please consider this:

The powers that be have hijacked the soul of Jesus, and they have said it belongs in the Christian church, named after Him.

It does NOT belong there.

This is what they have hijacked.

reply to post by pthena

I'd be willing to believe that the body of Jesus completely dissolved into its individual molecules and dispersed throughout the world. That would be fitting. We've all got a piece of him. He's with us still. That's my religion.

So it would be something like the original creation where God gave His life that all life has its own existence in. Where Jesus had another sort of life essence or something which he gave up and by that being dispersed about, we are able to incorporate it into our living in such a way as to have a freedom we did not have previously. I'm not trying to argue at all, just trying to fit it into my head a bit.
The angels you are talking about are the ego god's angels and created an ego Jesus to counteract the real, non-ego Jesus, so as to keep us in the ego slavery. Not sure if I am getting this right. I think there are these bits left out that are the handles that you were talking about in another thread, that people can grasp onto and easily turn the parts and change the order and make a religion never intended, but that suits that company that has set itself against us.

Everything that you know about Jesus - everything, including his name - has been provided to you by the Vatican. Everything that the Vatican possesses, concerning information about Jesus - everything, including the notion that he ever existed at all - was provided to them by the Roman Empire.

Try not to forget that one very important fact when dealing with this issue.

Thanks.

Originally posted by pthena
reply to post by jmdewey60
I don't know how far you're willing to go with this. After all, if the physical resurrection of Jesus is denied, all of Christianity comes crashing down in ruins.

Point 1) No one even claims to have seen Jesus get up and walk out of the tomb. Even though the women were close enough to the tomb to see the angel come down and the stone roll away, in Matthew.

Point 2) The resurrection then is based upon the "testimony" of angels, and appearances of some one not readily recognizable as the same Jesus.

Point 3) This "risen Jesus" quotes fictitious scripture and gets people to come up with bizarre concoctions in order to claim "the scripture was fulfilled"

I think that the resurrection is based on "visions" people had of a risen Jesus. Such as Stephen's while he was being stoned and Paul's on the road. As far as that counts, I could counter with my own vision and count it as equally valid, moreso, as far as I'm concerned because it isn't second, third, or fourth hand testimony.

What actually is gained by believing in the resurrection besides a false hope of personal ego continuation.

edit on 1-9-2011 by pthena because: (no reason given)

Lets not forget the Roman guards that were paid off by the Jewish religious leaders to keep quiet about what they saw.

As far as your vision idea, whatever we may believe, the accounts of after resurection sightings of Jesus are hardly visions. In fact in several cases things are added to insure that the reader understood these were not retelling of visions. Like the line "do not touch me" or jesus eating with others and offering His body for examination of wounds.

In addition, the presents of angels in itself does not in any way suggest some sort of angelic conspiracy to pull something off. In fact a lot of info on this thread while looking and sounding like its been thought out couldnt hold up to a 101 rhetorical critique.

Originally posted by NorEaster
Everything that you know about Jesus - everything, including his name - has been provided to you by the Vatican. Everything that the Vatican possesses, concerning information about Jesus - everything, including the notion that he ever existed at all - was provided to them by the Roman Empire.

Try not to forget that one very important fact when dealing with this issue.

Thanks.

WOW! Talk about a statement wrought out of total ignorance.

Originally posted by racasan


The point is, if there where some spiritual teacher wondering around Palestine 2000 years ago, his teaching must have become so obscured or corrupted since his day (such as the Romans bolting the sun god myth onto his story) that it would be an impossible task to figure out what his teachings where - I don't think you need angels to account for what happened with Christianity - since the whole thing is probably the work of men

We have a good deal of writing say from the greek teachers older than 2000 years that remain in original form. While volumes of comentary about these writings have been put out by the church of academa they none the less insist that the "veracity" of the early teachers remain in there original form. They all seek the originals as foundation to whatever spin or interpretation they want to put on them.

reply to post by racasan

Remember to these early people the sun was very important and was probably thought of as godlike, so its decline, apparent death in mid-winter and resurrection 3 days later would become part of the cultures stories

It would have been the Spring equinox rather than winter solstice.

I don't think you need angels to account for what happened with Christianity - since the whole thing is probably the work of men

So rather than the the Christian preacher being killed for what they were teaching, the envious power seekers killed them to get control over the message. I can totally see that happening. Kill and take, that's what the powerful are good at.

reply to post by catwhoknowsplusone

The powers that be have hijacked the soul of Jesus, and they have said it belongs in the Christian church, named after Him.

It does NOT belong there.

This is what they have hijacked.

The body is important. That's the major way we share him. Eating and drinking, as he said.

The church has this doctrine of "body of Christ", whereby Jesus is the head, sitting on a throne in heaven, and the church is the body on Earth.

We humans will take back what he gave us, and continue to feed the poor, with a wink and a nod.

reply to post by jmdewey60

So it would be something like the original creation where God gave His life that all life has its own existence in. Where Jesus had another sort of life essence or something which he gave up and by that being dispersed about, we are able to incorporate it into our living in such a way as to have a freedom we did not have previously. I'm not trying to argue at all, just trying to fit it into my head a bit.

Life is one. Jesus shared in the same one life. That's what he taught us. Life doesn't end, it's passed on. There is no separate existence. Individual existence is a borrowing and sharing. I guess if there's a gnosis involved, it's just knowing that. As matter and energy are manifestations of one E=MC^2, so also body and spirit are one, (I don't know the equation). Body is not evil, as most gnostics believe, it is an expression of spirit, as ice is an expression of water.

The second paragraph about agents of ego god sounds right.

reply to post by NorEaster

Everything that you know about Jesus - everything, including his name - has been provided to you by the Vatican. Everything that the Vatican possesses, concerning information about Jesus - everything, including the notion that he ever existed at all - was provided to them by the Roman Empire.

Rome and the Vatican built a superstructure around it. We can still reach in, right through the facade, and pull out the gems. And they can't stop us. Hahaha!

reply to post by pthena

Jesus shared in the same one life.

I have a way of sending threads into the off-topic region by posting on them so hopefully someone else will post and delve into this question a bit.

reply to post by Logarock

In fact a lot of info on this thread while looking and sounding like its been thought out couldnt hold up to a 101 rhetorical critique

Yes, I know. I'm a bit cross-eyed when it comes to examining this. I switch back and forth between mythology (as if it's occurring in real time) and textual criticism (tampered with later). They don't really go together. They go together in my mind, but that's not exactly what could hold up in a decent peer review.

reply to post by jmdewey60
I quit worrying about where my threads end up.

30) Jesus said, "Where there are three gods, they are gods.
Where there are two or one, I am with him."
- - Gospel of Thomas

It is acceptable to Jesus to think of him as a separate god, but not necessary. What he did, gave himself, is the same that God before him did.

JN 5:19 Jesus gave them this answer: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these.

Life is the unique gift, whether in a blade of grass, a bacterium, a lamb, a human. It is the same life, passed on through eating. It is a single life shared by all living organisms.

11) Jesus said, "This heaven will pass away, and the one above
it will pass away. The dead are not alive, and the living will
not die. In the days when you consumed what is dead, you made it
what is alive.
- - Gospel of Thomas

Some people may say: God is dead, Jesus is dead. They are not completely wrong, because they did give themselves. But they live, because the gift is still here. They live in us.

reply to post by pthena

For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.

Looking at the Greek you see the word, panta, which could mean, everything.
The form of the word translated as, show, appears one other place in the NT, where the devil takes Jesus on a high mountain and shows him the kingdoms of the world.

reply to post by pthena

John 19:41-42 - ‘Now near the place where [= R. Yehoshua bar Yosef the Galilean] Iesous was executed, there was a Garden, and along one side of it, was a newly built Tomb…’

Curiously, perhaps, it has sometimes been (seriously !) claimed that the whole mess of the very curiously contradictory ‘Resurrection Accounts’ in the 4 canonical Greek Gospels might well boil down to the clandestine night-time corpse-moving activity of an angry Gardner not wanting any executed ‘Messianic-Daviddic’ Martyr buried near his precious Cabbage Patch - where throngs of still-devoted followers would easily trample all over his veggies …

But back to some of the basics at hand … and there are several layers of linguistic problems to these mangled accounts in the 4 canonical Greek gospels.

The first point here is the fact that there are actually TWO parts to this whole issue: the stories around the EMPTY TOMB and the stories about the ghostly apparitions or ‘manifestations…’ which dovetail into the discussion of the ‘physical nature’ of the post crucifixion ‘appearances’ (i.e. ‘physically solid’ flesh or ‘mental images’, not solid, in the minds of the believers…)

First, we should see (and take careful notes by ‘a close reading’ of the actual Gospel ‘resurrection’ tomb-appearance texts, which Christians rarely do) that NONE of the 4 Canoncial ‘council approved’ Greek gospels match each other very closely in their actual CONTENT when it comes to this whole tired issue of ‘what happened to the body, when, and who if any among the ‘followers’ knew any solid facts…?’

We also have the thorny issue of whether ‘Iesous’ even died on the cross at all:

Read the Gnostic Gospel account (written c. 150 AD, and translated from Greek c. 300 into Coptic) e.g. The 2nd Treatise of the Great Sethos, from Nag Hammadi with the following words placed into the mouth of a Coptic-speaking “Iesous’

‘And Iesous said to them, Amen, Amen, it was me whom they arrested on the hill and it was me whom they bound and flogged, being tied to the Post, and it was me whom they put on the Royal Purple and it was me whom they all struck with the Reed…

But it was another man altogether, Simon, the father of Al[exander & Rufus], who was the one who bore the Cross on his own shoulders, and it was Simon who took upon his head the crown of thorns, and it was Simon whom they crucified upon the Tree and it was Simon who drank the drugged Vinegar – it was not me, for during all of the commotion, I was praying a Song of Deliverance to my Father the Most High One who dwells in the highest Heaven, and later I began to laugh at all their childish errors and all their gullibility ...’

In the 2nd Canonical Greek gospel (‘according to Mark’ whoever he was) we have weird statements such as ‘and Pilate did not believe that Iesous was already dead at this time, ‘Mark’ 15:43-45

“And Yosef of Har-Rama [Arama-thaim ?] a member of the Sanhedrin who was waiting for the kingdom went boldly to Pilate to beg for the BODY of Iesous but Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead – and summoning a centurion, he asked him if Jesus had already died.

When he learned from the centurion what happened, Pilate then granted the BODY (Gk. ‘SOMA’, live body, not ‘corpse’) to Yosef …”

A corpse/dead body in Koine Greek is ‘PTWMA’ not ‘SWMA’… the latter of which is still alive and breathing…

That having been said, we still have all the issues of the contradictory accounts of what happened next….

Read the Fragmentary and highly midrashic story (Mk 16: 1-8) found in the 2nd canonical approved Greek gospel (‘according to Mark’ whoever he was) which (Shock and Awe !) ends in the middle of a Greek sentence….at 16:8

‘Now the women said nothing to any man : they were afraid because… (‘ephobounto gar…’) with NO resurrection-appearance of any kind whatsoever – either of any ‘resuscitated corpse’ or even of an ‘escaped crucifixion bound-convict’…. just some women followers standing there at dawn in front of ‘a young man clad in a white linen Lebush…’

Attempts in the 2nd and 3rd centuries to add extra verses beginning in ‘Mark’ chapter 16:9 are all ‘failed and spurious additions written by other Greek hands’ to this giant fragmentary puzzle.

Then there are the OTHER accounts, no two alike, found in the OTHER Greek canonical gospels e.g. the one ‘according to Matthew’ whoever he was, chapter 28:1-20, and another messy one ‘according to Luke’ (whoever he was) chapter 23:46-53 and Acts 1:1-12) and finally yet another one found in the 4th canonical Greek gospel ‘according to Yohannes’ whoever he was…chapter 19:38 – 20:30 (and chapter 21:1-24 whicc was clearly tacked on later as ‘an Addendum-after-thought’).

More later ...

reply to post by pthena

Then there are the FISHERMAN LIKE TALL-TALES...

In the ‘resurrection’ account in the 2nd Gospel [‘Mark’] we have 'ONE Young Man' appearing to the women but no corpse or body, and in ‘Matthew’ we have 1 Angel appearing to the women followed by an ‘appearance’ on a hill in the Galilee...

And in the 3rd & 4th Greek canonical gospels we have TWO Angels appearing – (!!!!!) -- the story just keeps getting bigger and bigger like a fisherman’s fable – certainly a long way from a simple ‘young man dressed in a white tunic’.

We also have other Resurrection Weirdos in the NT, e.g. ‘The Book of Revelation’ chapter 11, where there are TWO witnesses who were martyred and ‘raised back to life to stand upon their feet…’, then… ‘lifted up to heaven’…

We also have the very weird story of Eleazar (‘Lazarus’) who was said to have been dead 3 days and raised back to life by R. Yehoshua screaming ‘Lazarus come out !’ in ‘John’ chapter 11:1-48

(which is pre-shadowed by an earlier more primitive fragment version of the same story found in Secret Mark’s gospel found in 1958 in Greek shorthand tacked on to the back of an 18th century book, Secret Mark, 10:34a-35, where ‘the disciple whom Iesous loved’ was shouting to from inside for someone to GET HIM OUT of the tomb…’

We have the ravings of ‘Saul of Tarsus’ who never met R. Yehoshua bar Yosef the Galilean in the flesh (only in dreams and visions), but who boldly claimed that he ‘manifested himself’ to him in some way…see the Greek Mystery Religion language found in I Corinthians 15:3-55 etc.

Curious ‘Saulos-Paulos’ never states outright ‘I saw Iesous in the flesh’ --

Instead, this Saul-Paul personage runs around saying that ‘Iesous Christos manifested himself unto’ him and also to various OTHER people (all of whom. curiously, are ‘believers’)

e.g. ‘was made manifest unto Kephah’ [=Peter], or ‘was manifested unto the 12’ and later ‘was manifested also to’ e.g. the c. 490 persons (70 x 7 i.e. ‘nearly 500 persons at the same time..’).

He uses the phrase ‘he was manifested unto’ and not ‘they saw him’ which specific language tells you something about what is meant to be conveyed here – not a resuscitated corpse, but an epiphany (‘revelation’) of what was normally a pagan ‘divine god’ such as Isis, Osiris or Mithras.

If I myself bumped into someone that I knew say for example, at my local supermarket, I might tell my roomate in plainer words e.g., ‘Hey, you’ll never guess, I saw Josh at the Market this morning – he was in the frozen foods section…looked kind of tired…’

I would NOT say to him ‘Hey, Fausto, listen, I was in the Supermarket this morning standing near the frozen foods section and Joshua Was Manifested Unto Me….’ – people just do NOT talk like that in regular conversation.

So clearly by the use of the very weird ‘grammatical passive’ voice in the 4 canonical Greek Gospels we are not dealing with normal every day language, but the language of the Mystery Religions

(‘and the candidate, blindfolded, shall be led to the place of baptism..and when he has recited all the prayers and the rutual incantations, the god (e.g. Hapi-Osiris aka ‘Serapis’) will suddenly manifest himself to him bathed in in light…’ etc.

We see foreshadowings of these ‘appearances’ in the earlier pieces of the gospel material e.g. ‘go to the Galilee, and there I shall manifest myself to you…’ cf: the 4th gospel John 14:21-22

‘Whoever hears and obeys the commandments [of Moses] that I have been teaching you is the one who truly loves the Bar-Enasha (‘Son of Man’) – and he who honours the Bar Enasha will himself be honoured in the Last Days by my Father in Heaven, and the Bar Enasha will also honour and MANIFEST MYSELF to THEM…”
Then Judah ha Levi (‘Theudas’) said to him,

‘But Master, why will you ONLY MANIFEST YOURSELF TO US, and not MANIFEST YOURSELF to the rest of the World also? …’

So ‘the manifestations’ only seem to occur to ‘believers’ and not to other persons outside of the circle.
One could go on forever about what ‘really happened’ but ‘believers’ rely on ‘faith’ not on ‘hard facts’ so I suppose it would not make any difference one way or the other to them - they just have to 'have Faith' that their fearless tax free leaders are not lying to them every Sunday as they clink all those tax free coins and bills into the offering plates !!

reply to post by Sigismundus
I'm glad you went into some of the mechanical difficulties in trying to "harmonize" the various canonical accounts, I was content to just say, "read the last two chapters of each gospel".
Logarock mentioned the Roman guards:

Lets not forget the Roman guards that were paid off by the Jewish religious leaders to keep quiet about what they saw.

which are only mentioned in Matthew. 27:62-66, 28:4, 11-15. I don't think any amount of money would be able to hush up what they had seen. So 1) They deserted and became the first Roman preachers. 2) were assassinated.

He uses the phrase ‘he was manifested unto’ and not ‘they saw him’ which specific language tells you something about what is meant to be conveyed here – not a resuscitated corpse, but an epiphany (‘revelation’) of what was normally a pagan ‘divine god’ such as Isis, Osiris or Mithras.

Actually, I think in Matthew it says, "saw him"

MT 28:16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.

Of those who "saw him" "Some doubted". That's interesting. Faith then is a major element. I would dare to say that if only the people who Jesus appeared to became Christians, Christianity never would have become a major world religion.

PThena VS Dominionism

My very own personal religion teaches me that the world is good, life is good, physical existence is good. Rest assured that there are no riches to be accumulated, no personal glory to be had, no high position to be gained through my religion.

Dominionism teaches that the world is defective, life is tainted, and physical existence is to be suspected. The "chosen" or "elect" of "god", the "good guys" are to rule over the world. The rest are "evil" and must be killed, or enslaved, or otherwise subjugated. There are riches to be accumulated, glory to be had, and high position (by definition) to be gained through this religion.

Lets look at Zionism specifically as an example. The people called Jews are "the chosen", whether they be atheists or ultra-orthodox or everything in between, by virtue of being Jews. Chosen to completely occupy a physical chunk of real estate called "Israel", ethnically cleanse Jerusalem, and rule the entire world from there.

Christian Zionists believe that they are "the elect" who will rule the world from thrones in heaven. Yet they also believe that the "chosen", the Jews, will rule also from Jerusalem. Together, Christian and Jewish Zionists believe that all people, specifically Palestinians, who stand in the way of an ethnically cleansed "Greater Israel" are evil, and must be killed.

Who invented this Zionism? An angel of genocide who goes by the name Yahweh. He claims to be god. He claims to be the creator, he claims exclusive worship for himself alone, and all non worshipers must die. This angel who grew accustomed to receiving worship, with lots of flowing blood, did not want to give that up. Therefore he insured that no form of Christianity would exist on this Earth unless it was tied to the Old Testament and acknowledged him as "top god" at least.

Therefore, although plenty of Christians died, why would he care, since he delights in bloodshed, once Christianity gained ascendancy, every form of Christianity not intimately involved with Yahweh was totally stamped out of existence. That's why Marcionism doesn't exist today. The only options, even a radical non-violent group like Jehovah's Witness, must acknowledge this angel Yahweh as god.

Where is the Christianity which sees Jesus as greater than Yahweh, the angel of destruction? Where? There used to be Christians like that, of course they were killed, never gained recognition from the power centers of the world. But so what? Isn't following Jesus about being a servant rather than a king? Come on Christians, pick up those crosses and follow Jesus. People carrying crosses aren't headed for thrones you know.

Originally posted by Praetorius
reply to post by pthena

 

Good morning pthena,

While I don't agree with the assertion, I won't argue it altogether (and is an interesting thought, so you get a star regardless).

As to your idea itself though, I've got an issue with the thinking in point 1:

1) To use the life and teachings of an obviously extraordinary person in order to bolster the "authority" of the Old Testament. It should be obvious to any student of ancient mythology that without this "validation", the Old Testament would be just another book on the shelf next to Homer, Hesiod, Ovid, and etc.

Is it really possible that the conspirators would have considered this angle, when 'Jesus' and christianity itself were initially rejected and considered heretical to the bulk of jews & judaism (as they are to this day) and were pretty close to being stomped out both by the first century jews as well as the might of the Roman empire?

Christianity was driven underground and actively percecuted to the point of having secret meetings, coded identifiers, and the state-sanctioned murder of its adherents, while judaism itself was accepted and the jews a welcome part of the empire (somewhat, until rebellions arose).

I have to believe it's actually the counter, as Matthew presented, wheras the tanakh/old testament was used to bolster the claims & authority of 'Jesus'...but his life and actions were a far cry from the politial dominance the jews primarily expected of messiah given their situation with Rome at the time, so even that for the most part did not carry too far.

Just my thoughts on this, thanks for an interesting post even if I have to disagree with it in general.

EDIT:
On a side note, I wanted to add that I don't think anything in christianity has to do with killing the world. Although we shouldn't participate too much in its distractions or foibles (christians are generally to be in the world, but not of it), we should have no desire or perceived intent to kill it, either. I think the world is a wide and wonderous place full of beauty and the majesty of a creator...I just wish humanity didn't seem to spend so much time and effort in general seeming to try to do exactly what you seem to state christians seek, or otherwise getting so distracted with our own issues that we can't see it. Believers should be stewards of the creation, and seek to preserve it.

edit on 9/1/2011 by Praetorius because: (no reason given)

they were thinking further into the future, this plan has been in existance for thousands of years. it is bearing fruit and will fully blossom in time....meanwhile the characters that are carrying out this role even today, towards a global governance, are sacrificing themselves for a future for their generations to come....they have sacrificed many and many more will be sacrificed....jesus wasn't trying to reach the jews with his message, he was trying to reach the filthy, beastly, unclean gentiles by convincing them that they were born into sin and all of it would be washed away through the blood of the lamb.......he sought after the sick, the decrepped, and the poor, he didn't seek the rich men or the ones that were needed for other purposes in the future....the teachings of jesus is bearing fruit today inasmuch as christians are taught to lay down their weapons and embrace their enemies....not many people these days even know what a gun or a weapon feels like and their enemies have walked through the gate shielded by jesus' teachings and under the guise of being a chosen people to the creator.....jesus' teachings have paved the way for them to take up the reigns of power merely by inculcating their enemies (us) with the idea that every man has the same rights as any other man and that the chosen people have even more rights and should be protected because the torah tells them that anyone who goes against israel will perish... we have lost our identity and have picked up a religion that has been a trojan horse into the lives of the rest of the world. these religions were enacted by Hermes Trismegistus and taught to what were considered the greatest scholars of the world in those times by Hermes himself........the perpetrators of this scheme to rule the world weren't short sighted people, they were looking far into the future, it still isn't finished yet, but the way it's going and the people they have bribed, extorted, brainwashed, you name it, will fall in line like good little ants and all will be well for the nation of israhell........

An interesting retelling of a cherished myth. I don't put much stock in the original, so I can hardly ascribe any semblance of historical accuracy to your story.