Anyone who has received a Christian education of any orthodox standard will feel they have a good grip on who Jesus was. They may not be aware of many theories, gaps in our knowledge, later decisions and other enigmas.
Jesus is everywhere
Pontius Pilate must have been a rank amateur governor, doing business meetings while having a stroll; “When the Nazarene made His appearance I was having my morning walk”
Any theological pronouncement is a possible source of long, tedious, tangled, didactic, pedantic, scrutinising debate. Aside from the fact that a god ought to get his story straight at the very least before he appears before us, he could also make sure it is easy to follow for our weaker minds.
Jesus, it appears, did not rate these qualities as being important for a religious figurehead. One might almost assume he, or those who wrote his mythologies, longed for mystery and enigma.
Biblical study, in its purest forms such as studying original texts is a laborious and specialised feat of mental athleticism. So the Inquisition has arranged through the text below a series of links to easily readable documents that challenge the accepted views of Jesus and ought to educate the rest of us mere simpletons.
Verified primary or contemporaneous sources or mentions of Jesus are few and far between.
Tacitus’ mention of Jesus may be faked, but nevermind because he was not writing during Jesus’ life, but instead long after. Josephus’ mention almost certainly was as evidenced in many ways – the Testimonium Flavianum.
Lots of documents about Jesus which pretend to being primary sources have later been shown as forgeries. But they continue to be quoted nonetheless. The Inquisition’s favourite is a letter from Pontius Pilate to Tiberius Caesar – the very notion of a relatively minor colonial commander sending a report to Caesar about an individual is fantastic. This is without the fact that Jesus’ legacy was not realised until after his death. On reading the text, the true comedy shines through. Pontius Pilate must have been a rank amateur governor, doing business meetings while having a stroll; “When the Nazarene made His appearance I was having my morning walk and as I faced Him my feet seemed fastened with an iron hand”.
In any case the oldest verified christian texts date from at least 300 years after Jesus.
Of course we don’t. We don’t even know what race Jesus belonged to. That’s why there has been so much confusion on how to depict him. Most people’s image of Jesus was given to us by Warner Sallman. Jesus was probably a far more swarthy fellow – if he was as striking as later images suggest, then surely one gospel would mention this?
There is a vast area of religious study which attempts to discover the true nature of the earthly Jesus. For all that was written about him, very little, it seems, recorded him as a person. In fact many early texts are now considered apocryphal by the mainstream churches – they presumably didn’t like the messages conveyed and felt the statements (which are closest to being contemporaneous to Jesus’ own) needed sanitising.
Serious academic commentators now consider much of the gospels to be works of fiction, most notably perhaps Luke and Matthew’s nativities.
Jesus was probably not a carpenter.
Actually we know very little of what Jesus said. Jesus never clearly stated his divinity. No matter what later apologists claim, he simply did not, the matter of Jesus’ true nature was left unclear. That is the reason the Council of Nicea was convened.
According to the King James Bible’s version of Galations Jesus had a brother and he was called James. Many interpreters will choose to see this as an oblique reference to fellow man like it was written in communist lingo or jive. Again, clear language would have been preferable in a revered text purporting to tell all of us, stupid and smart, how to live.
Few aspects of the stories about Jesus are unique to him. Obviously these are contentious claims to Chrsitians. There is a lot to be lost in this regard. For theists, it would be very hard to accept a godhead who is not unique. But there are many similarities between the figureheads of most major religions. For example nearly all have felt the need to be made flesh to promote their messages.
Zoroaster had already done lots of the things attributed to Jesus, although as many people wish to obviate these similarites as to prove them. Although any web search for Zoroaster and Jesus will yield legions of froth-mouthed christians vehemently denying any links, it is widely supposed the Bible’s three wise men were Zoroastrian kings.
Jesus and Buddha preached many similar doctrines, which is not surprising in two religions based on peace, acceptance and love.
Horus is regularly trotted out as a proto-Jesus. Horus was often represented in a cross shape and may have been crucified. But there are other contenders for the original cross.
It is entirely possible that Jesus didn’t exist.
No-one who knew him has written anything: A majority of biblical scholars‚ conservative and liberal alike‚ concur that the authors of the gospels did not know Jesus personally, but merely relayed stories about him. A majority of biblical scholars‚ conservative and liberal alike‚ concur that the authors of the gospels did not know Jesus personally, but merely relayed stories about him.
One oft-touted proof of Jesus’ existence is the concept of embarrassment. Scholars would have us believe that honour was so important in Judaea that his followers would never have lied about such things as crucifiction.
He is used as a totem, a flag of animosity towards others.
The US military is rumoured to have inscribed biblical texts on some of its weapons.
Jesus was a zombie. Now he is just everywhere.
This article was posted on
Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 at
21:29.
It is archived in Culture, History, Myth, Religion and tagged Bible, jesus, Myth, theories, truth.
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