religion
Out of context: Reply #865
- Started
- Last post
- 3,481 Responses
- ********0
Jesus ben Sirach. This Jesus was reputedly the author of the Book of Sirach (aka ‘Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach’), part of Old Testament Apocrypha. Ben Sirach, writing in Greek about 180 BC, brought together Jewish ‘wisdom’ and Homeric-style heroes.
Jesus ben Pandira. A wonder-worker during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (106-79 BC), one of the most ruthless of the Maccabean kings. Imprudently, this Jesus launched into a career of end-time prophecy and agitation which upset the king. He met his own premature end-time by being hung on a tree – and on the eve of a Passover. Scholars have speculated this Jesus founded the Essene sect (read “DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?” by G. R. S. Mead).
Jesus ben Ananias. Beginning in 62AD, this Jesus had caused disquiet in Jerusalem with a non-stop doom-laden mantra of ‘Woe to the city’. He prophesied rather vaguely: “A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against the whole people.” – Josephus, “WARS” 6.3. “Arrested and flogged by the Romans, Jesus ben Ananias was released as nothing more dangerous than a mad man. He died during the siege of Jerusalem from a rock hurled by a Roman catapult.”
Jesus ben Saphat. In the insurrection of 68AD that wrought havoc in Galilee, this Jesus had led the rebels in Tiberias (“the leader of a seditious tumult of mariners and poor people”– Josephus, “LIFE” 12.66). When the city was about to fall to Vespasian’s legionaries he fled north to Tarichea on the Sea of Galilee.
Jesus ben Gamala. During 68/69 AD this Jesus was a leader of the ‘peace party’ in the civil war wrecking Judaea. From the walls of Jerusalem he had remonstrated with the besieging Idumeans (led by‘James and John, sons of Susa’). It did him no good. When the Idumeans breached the walls he was put to death and his body thrown to the dogs and carrion birds.
Jesus ben Thebuth. A priest who, in the final capitulation of the upper city in 69 AD, saved his own skin by surrendering the treasures of the Temple, which included two holy candlesticks, goblets of pure gold, sacred curtains and robes of the high priests. The booty figured prominently in the Triumph held for Vespasian and his son Titus.
The archetypal (allegorical) Hebrew hero was Joshua (the successor of Moses) otherwise known as Yehoshua (Yeshua) bin Nun (‘Jesus of the fish’). Since the name Jesus (Yeshua or Yeshu in Hebrew, Iesous in Greek, source of the English spelling) originally was a title (meaning ‘savior’, derived from ‘Yahweh Saves’).
But was there a crucified Jesus? Certainly.
Jesus ben Stada was a Judean agitator who gave the Romans a headache in the early years of the second century. He met his end in the town of Lydda (twenty five miles from Jerusalem) at the hands of a Roman crucifixion crew. And given the scale that Roman retribution could reach – at the height of the siege of Jerusalem the Romans were crucifying upwards of five hundred captives a day before the city walls – dead heroes called Jesus would (quite literally) have been thick on the ground. Not one merits a full-stop in the great universal history.
Sorry, but the “Jesus of Nazareth” NEVER existed! The reason being is the town Nazareth did not exist before the second century. Origen’s words, is the assertion that Josephus, who discusses more than a dozen Jesuses, did not consider any of them to be “the Christ.” Arthur Drews relates in “WITNESSES TO THE HISTORICITY OF JESUS”: "In the edition of Origen published by the Benedictines it is said that there was no mention of Jesus at all in Josephus before the time of Eusebius [c. 300 ce]. Moreover, in the sixteenth century Vossius had a manuscript of the text of Josephus in which there was not a word about Jesus. It seems, therefore, that the passage must have been an interpolation, whether it was subsequently modified or not." (Drews, 9; emph. added) (Note: It is interesting that the number of Jesuses comes to 14, the same as the 14 pieces of Asar [Osiris]).
- yawnmoldero
- i'm not gonna bother reading this but i'll venture a guess it says jesus was blackscarabin
- "I always say a lot of cryptic stuff about black people. Therefore I am interesting and smart/enlightened."cannonball1978