1 CE - 184 CE
Common Era (CE) commences
Outline
Development of Christianity
the first 700 years:
a rough schematic
40-62 CE Paul: Embryonic Christianity
62-100 CE The Greek Paulines: Early Christianity
101-749 CE The Church Fathers
0 CE: ONE HUNDRED YEARS INTO THE FLOURISHING TANNNAIC PERIOD
– of the Talmud
The Tannaic period was of approximately 320 year duration – from c. 100 BCE – 220 CE
(This is entirely a Pharisee continuum, as is, almost by definition, the entire Talmud.)
Jewish law morphs via the Talmud from the written law*
of the Torah (the Old Testament) to the redacted law of the Talmud, to be known as the “Oral Law” (even though, as noted prior, the debates and conclusions are ultimately written down in the Talmud itself).
The debates on the Oral Law, and the decisions of the Tannaim (high level rabbinic scholars who are the actual debaters in the Mishnah), are contained in the Mishnah. [Also, supplemental to the Mishnah are the Baraita and the Tosefta.] Perhaps, see quick–reference Wikipedia online on keyword Talmud for easily–accessible explanations of each: Baraita, Tosefta and, as well, Aggadah].
The Talmud is hierarchical in its redaction. At the apex is the Torah, the Five Books of Moses.
Next comes the Mishnah.
Basically, the Mishnah will interpret the Torah.
Then, the Gemara will interpret the Mishnah.
Mishnah (plus its supplements) + Gemara = the core of the Talmud = “the Shas”
Basically, the conclusions of the Gemara become
halacha, or Jewish Law.
There are several important commentaries included in virtually all Talmuds. These commentaries would include, among others, Rashi and Tosefoth.
The major corpus of debate and discussion is the Gemara. The ratio of Mishnah to Gemara discussion is about 1:10.
[Note: the Baraita and Toefta are supplements to the Mishnah, and hierarchically come between the Mishnah and the Gemara.]
This is all somewhat difficult to understand, because in reality it is, indeed, complex.
As a historical note on the day–to–day reality, note that many of the Tannaim worked as craftsmen during business hours, as cobblers, charcoal burners, etc. In their parallel Jewish leadership world, they were teachers, rabbinics, judges, leaders of the people, and interlocutors with the Roman Empire.
6 CE: JUDEA OFFICIALLY BECOMES A ROMAN PROVINCE
The rise of the (Jewish) Zealots is a consequence.
6 CE TENSION: Tensions will now rise as pagan Rome now takes over direct control of much of Judea, including Jerusalem, as well as the appointment of the High Priest. A tax revolt by the Jews is the first riposte. Judea will not see peace further that century.
As of this point, Rome, not the Jews, controls the Temple hierarchy. (Rome will appoint the historically notorious High Priest Caiaphas 21 years later in 27 CE.)
Jewish–Roman fighting will break out years later, in 66 CE. First, there will be a Roman police action as a consequence. This will ratchet–up into a full–scale Roman assault by 68 CE.
20 CE: JESUS OF NAZARETH PREACHES
Neo–Pharisee Jewish rabbi, teacher and healer, Jesus preaches mostly in the Galilee area of Israel until his crucifixion by Rome in 33 CE.
Since there is no contemporaneous or near contemporaneous more than fragmentary documentation of the life of Jesus, the various gospels, primarily those crafted in the c. 70–110 CE period, roughly 37–77 years after his death, project him onto the world stage.
Historically, the Jews are voluminous writers and obsessive record–keepers, but no (more than fragmentary) Jewish or other credible contemporaneous record (even within several decades of his execution in Rome) has ever surfaced documenting the life of Jesus. Compounding the problem, the Catholic Church had a de facto hammerlock for many centuries on any archival material potentially surfacing regarding his life, with a severe conflict of interest as the de facto archive controller. In any event, no contemporaneous documentation is known to us. Thus, either documents never existed or they were lost or destroyed.
There is no reason to believe that Jesus was not, at least originally, one of several dynamic, humanistic, neo–messianic Jewish rabbinics/teachers of high–level consciousness in this spiritually hyper–intense era. Preaching to his Jewish flock, involved with healing and other spirituality, intersecting with John the Baptist, he was then crucified by Rome as a potential political threat.
Almost definitely of the Pharisee–Orthodox neo–Hillel–school, with a concomitant heavily humanistic thrust, Jesus had a religious–political following. The size of movement is unclear, but may have been small prior to crucifixion. With a religious–political following as a backdrop to his ‘in your face’ remonstrations in Jerusalem to the Romans and their lackeys in 33 CE, Jesus was perceived as over the Roman ‘red–line’ by the hyper–vigilant Roman military dictatorship of Pontius Pilate. It is not unlikely that Jesus was out of grace with the Roman–appointed, and hence co–opted, Sadducee High Priest Caiaphas, as well. There is no reason, however, to believe that the Sadducees conspired, let alone convened any assembly or court, to motivate Rome to execute him.
Note that sundry Temple and religious rabbinical authorities have been the subject of criticism and protest, often severe, by pluralistic Jewish religious groups for the past 3000 years. Indeed, at the time of Jesus, the (dominant, Temple–controlling Roman–co–opted) Sadducee priesthood of Judaism was under sustained and growing intellectual, political, and religious assault by the ascendant Pharisee wing of Judaism.
The then–challenging Pharisee wing has emerged as the overwhelming and exclusive corpus of Judaism subsequent to the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE.
The Sadducee priesthood power base imploded with the First Roman War, c. 68–71 CE.
While the Canon Gospels consistently posture Jesus in opposition to the Pharisees, and while the Canon Gospels then demonize the Pharisees (Judaism) across the board, this is a major divergence from the thrust of the actual historical record. The Temple leadership was Sadducee, not Pharisee as portrayed in the Canon Gospels. The primary challenge of Jesus was versus Rome, and symbolically versus the Sadducees in Jerusalem. He did not challenge the Pharisees. The center of gravity of the power–nexus of the Sadducees was in Jerusalem. As was that of Rome in Judea. Jesus himself was Pharisee or neo–Pharisee.
There were two de facto alignments, however subtle, and notwithstanding disagreements, however severe, intra–alignment:
The “In–crowd” power:
the Romans
the Sadducees (Jewish)
The “Out–crowd” theological–philosophical alignment: the Pharisees (ultimately normative Judaism)
the (Jewish) Siccari (assassins)
the Jewish Essenes (ascetics)
the (Jewish) Zealots (armed rebels)
Trying to straddle both camps was Herod Antipater.
But, by and large Rome, which “had all the guns,” held all the cards, of course.
Jesus was clearly aligned with the “Out–crowd” camp. The (“Out–crowd”) Jews in due course launch full–scale rebellion against Rome, with, first insurgency in 66 CE, and then, by 68 CE, full–scale armed revolt against Rome, 33–35 years after the very same Roman leadership crucified Jesus. Thus, the (Pharisee–aligned) Jews are attacking the forces of the crucifier of Jesus. At this point, the allies of the gospel writers, political antagonists of the Jews, are well behind the lines. Back in the greater Turkey–area, the Gospel writers and associates commence composing and disseminating gospels.
While Jesus was thus Pharisee–aligned, the Gospels nevertheless cast Jesus as in opposition to the Pharisees (then, the insurgent Judaism, and today, normative Judaism).
Positioning Jesus as anti–Pharisee then breaches an opening for the gospels to paint normative Judaism in harsh brushstrokes. By flipping the very clear primary thrust of the historical role of the Pharisees vis à vis Jesus, the gospel writers are able to then position normative Judaism as adversarial to the teachings of Jesus. The historical truth, however, is that Jesus fought the (minority) Temple–controlling Sadducees, as did the Pharisees, a.k.a. the normative Jews.
Thus, the direct ancestors of the twentieth Century Jewish teenager and Nazi–victim Ann Frank, were these very Pharisees—who were, as well, politically and theologically opposed to the Roman–Sadducee High Priest. Components of the Pharisee alignment took on Rome step–by–step.
Jesus was aligned in parallel with this insurgent Pharisee (mainstream Judaism) current in Judaism. Both Jesus and the Pharisees—normative Judaism today—launched insurgencies—whether political or armed—of one intensity or another, and in one form or another against both the Sadducee High Priest and the Romans. All Jews today are, indeed of the Pharisee / Hillel / populist / Oral Tradition / humanistic school of Judaism.
The Sadducee sect was a short–lived 200–year interlude from c. 150 BCE to 70 CE intersecting with the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. The Sadducees aligned one wing of the priesthood with components of the Jewish social aristocracy, but never represented greater Jewish society at–large. The Sadducee power role steadily diminishes over the course of the First Century. The destruction of Temple II in 70 CE and the Roman onslaught/persecution/expulsions finalized the implosion of the Sadducees.
The Talmud (embracing the Oral Tradition of Judaism) was crafted ongoing during this period by Pharisee Judaism, i.e. normative rabbinic Judaism. The Sadducees rejected the Oral Tradition.
The Sadducees rejected concepts of the world–to–come. Jesus embraced concepts of this genre. The Pharisees as a whole embraced the concept, among other divergences from the Sadducees.
However, the important “salvation” thrust in Christian theology regarding the world–to–come, is not an outgrowth of Pharisee theology, nor was it part of Jesus’s theology.
Historian Josephus is dismissive of the Sadducees. Modern Orthodox Judaism probably considers them a short–lived, temporarily politically powerful, and overbearing (if not reactionary) group.
While evidence is not conclusive, the Essenes group of Dead Sea Scrolls fame was most likely a highly ascetic, purist, generally apocalyptic rabbinic breakaway (primarily) from the overbearing, possibly stifling, Sadducee priesthood group in Jerusalem.
Thus, the Jews are challenging the Sadducees on multiple fronts and in multiple formats –
• The Pharisees (current normative Judaism) challenged frontally theologically and philosophically, and ultimately prevailed.
• The ascetic Essenes challenged by self–imposed exile to the Qumran/Dead Sea area.
• The Jew Jesus challenged via a more highly–personalized, parochialistic approach. Jesus had common ground with normative Pharisee neo–Hillel Judaism, not with Sadducee, his antagonists, and the antagonists of what emerged as normative Judaism today.
• Meanwhile, the Jewish Zealots – de facto aligned and overlapping with Pharisee Judaism—are maneuvering to overthrow both Rome—and the “straddler” Sadducee High Priest, by violent means, ultimately by full–scale rebellion. To the (Jewish) Zealots, the Sadducee High Priest is a tool of the Roman Procurator and his Romans overlords. Both the High Priest and Rome are anathema. Two plagues joined–at–the–hip. But Rome held 99 percent of the levers of power; the Sadducees, one percent at most. The impotent Sadducees were a fig–leaf for Roman rule over the Temple. The Zealots will ultimately lead the (recalcitrant) Jews into war with Rome. They want Judea rid of Rome, and its lackey.
In the post–Temple II era the Sadducees then disappear from history. Their Temple II–base is gone, and they are anathema to the populace, at–large.
The Essenes disappear from history as well, but come back with a vengeance through their scrolls* 2,000 years later.
The Zealots ultimately provoke Rome—into onslaught.
The Pharisees prevail over the Sadducees. The Pharisees were persecuted/decimated/exiled by the Romans and then, post–Constantine, persecuted and dehumanized by the ascendant Christian powers that be. The Pharisees are the Jews. They are the subject and focus of this entire timeline.
Jesus’s original theology is apparently first morphed by Paul and then more radically morphed by the Greek Paulines. The emergent Greek Pauline sect, in turn, replete with a heavy influx of Mediterranean–area converts, morphs into what becomes normative Christianity.
In the four decades immediately commencing with the Roman assault on the Jews of 66–71 CE, the gospels emerge. The Jews are distracted at this point. The Jewish elite are being hunted and murdered by the Romans. At this point, the New Christian gospel–writers begin writing—about Jesus—and the Pharisees (normative Judaism). It would appear that the historical record is “textured” (i.e. distorted) in this 70 CE – 110 CE period by sundry gospel–tellers. While this is going on as a backdrop, Jesus is deified and the Jews are demonized in the Pauline Greek–aligned churches. The Virgin Mary starts to emerge as a central motif of the Christians. The Pharisee insurgent role in Judaism and Roman–controlled Judea is concomitantly turned inside out by the eventual gospel story tellers. The Pharisee role is inverted by the Canon Gospels as adversarial to Jesus, when, in reality, it is actually humanistically aligned with Jesus. All agree that the gospels were originally, as they are called, gospels, i.e. stories.
The de facto inversion of the historical alignments of Sadducee and Pharisee by the Canon Gospels opens the door for the gospels to demonize emergent normative Judaism. If emergent normative Judaism had been portrayed accurately as having been in basic humanistic alignment with Jesus, the gospel–demonization of those same Jews would have been awkward and unable to achieve traction.
That being said, with Christianity controlling the organs of the Roman Empire post–Constantine, and tailoring the history books of the Empire to suit their theological–historical–political objectives, and controlling the archives of 99.9 percent of the extant texts, and with the Jewish intellectual elite decimated, dispersed and under the heel of the Church, the actual reality of the life of Jesus will, respectfully, never be known to the world.
But the gospels not only invert the Pharisee and Sadducee roles, the voluminous gospels also neglect to mention five key points:
1) The High Priest Caiaphas was Sadducee
– and anathema to the Jews
2) A multi–faceted and almost wall–to–wall Jewish alignment was poised against Rome and
(the Sadducee High Priest) Caiaphas
3) The Sadducees were soon to be relegated to the dustbin of history by the Jewish alignment
4) Caiaphas never had any independent power to
begin with, and most importantly –
5) Jesus was in humanistic alignment with emergent mainstream normative Judaism (neo–Pharisee,
neo–Hillel)
***
Now, if a dozen New Christian activists had sat around a campfire on a hill overlooking the Bosporous waterway in modern day Turkey in August of 70 CE, as their political adversaries the Jews were being decimated by the Romans in Judea, and if the 12 told the story of a messianic Jesus, and elected to demonize their Jewish political adversaries via gospel–vignettes, and then each of the dozen dutifully missionizing activists went his own way, retelling the tale in his own words and spin, the result would not have been much different than the four later–edited Canon Gospels we have today.
***
Note: Combining any religious authority with any political power whatsoever is always a recipe for trouble, across all civilizations and religions. The greater the power, the greater the abuses. The eventual near–absolute political power of the Roman Catholic church over the Roman Empire, would have intense consequences.
*
The current wisdom regarding the Essenes is that
they were a Jewish group that flourished primarily in the 200 BCE – 100 CE era, roughly paralleling the tenure of the Sadducees in Jerusalem. Symbolically, and very generally speaking, the worldly Sadducees in the Jerusalem capitol were counterpoised against the ascetic Essenes in the Judea desert just outside of Jerusalem.
Many separate but related and interconnected groups of that period and of the Qumran/Dead Sea area intersected in their mystical and/or eschatological (world–to–come) and/or messianic and/or ascetic beliefs. Collectively, they are referred to as Essenes. Clearly there were divergences between them, as well as theological–philosophical morphings over the pivotal 300–year time span.
26 CE: PONTIUS PILATE BECOMES (ROMAN) GOVERNOR OF JUDEA
He will have near total power on a day–to–day basis. His tenure will last over a decade (c. 26–36 CE). In 33 CE Pilate will unilaterally sentence Jewish teacher and political challenger Jesus of Nazareth to death by crucifixion.
According to the contemporaneous Alexandrian Jewish philosopher/chronicler Philo (20 BCE – 50 CE), Pilate was “inflexible, he was stubborn, of cruel disposition, He executed troublemakers without a trial.” Philo refers to Pilate’s “venality, his violence, his thefts, assaults, abusive behavior, endless executions, endless savage ferocity.”
–Philo, On the Embassy of Gauis Book XXXVIII 299–305
c. 26–29 CE: JOHN THE BAPTIST’S PREACHING AND BAPTIZING
29 CE: JOHN THE BAPTIST IMPRISONED
John the Baptist arrested by Herod Antipas (see Herodian Dynasty chart in appendix First Century).
John was imprisoned in the Herodian fortress of Machaerus, about 9 miles east of the Dead Sea (in modern–day Jordan).
At this time, there was one preeminent center of power: Rome, as personified by Pontius Pilate. There were two significantly subordinate, nominal centers of power in greater Judea given a modicum of deference by Rome: Herod Antipas to the northeast in secular matters, and the Sadducees at the Temple in Temple matters. Both Herod Antipas and the Sadducees High Priest were implanted in Judea by Rome, served at Rome’s pleasure, and generally did nothing which might conceivably antagonize Rome.
There was another power center—the Jewish religious/nationalist /Zealot–alignment—most certainly not given any standing by Rome. Quite the contrary; it was poised and coiled against Rome and the Sadducee High Priest.
John was beheaded by Herod Antipas in the early 30s CE (precise year unknown) as a threat to the local order.
33 CE: SHOWDOWN AT CAESAREA
Nonviolent/Passive Resistance #101
Pilate instructs his centurions to carry their official Roman ensigns (regimental battle standards bearing the Emperor’s image) into Jerusalem under cover of darkness and deliver them to Antonia Fortress, contiguous to the Temple Complex.
The Jews are furious, as it smacks of paganism at the Temple complex.
Angry Jews from Jerusalem and the countryside assemble in Jerusalem and then march in protest 90+ miles to Pilate’s seaside palace in Caesarea Maritima on the Mediterranean coast in protest.
Pilate refuses to budge. The regimental ensigns are to remain on the Temple Mount.
The protesters then bring the city center of Caesarea to a halt by staging a 5–day nonviolent sit–down strike – first opposite Pilate’s palace.
Pilate still does not budge.
Then, after 5 full days, they assemble peacefully in the main public Square (the agora) to attempt to present a petition to Pilate.
Pilate refuses to accept the petition.
But, Pilate does mass columns of centurions, and threatens to “slice the Jews into pieces” if they do not return home immediately to Jerusalem.
The protesters do not budge.
Pilate orders his troops to draw their swords.
The Jews lie down, face up, their throats exposed.
Silence.
The Jewish protest leaders then announce to the Romans that all the protesters are fully prepared to die for their religious honor.
Pilate pauses.
–then backs down—and advises that the offending ensigns on the Temple Mount will, indeed, be removed from Jerusalem forthwith.
The 33 CE the Jewish protest leaders understood that, in principle, Rome wanted no bloodshed of non–threatening protesters, that Rome would tend to back down every time, as long as Roman honor was not challenged, no violence threatened or enacted, and no provocations offered.
In retrospect and hindsight, clearly this was the optimal route to “force Rome’s hand,” but the approach required thorough discipline and very carefully chosen encounters—with fully committed, disciplined and motivated protesters prepared to die.
So to recapitulate on the tactical chessboard:
If employed adroitly, moral authority + passive resistance + willingness to die + tight discipline, could trump Roman military might (peacefully).
Mohandas Gandhi and the legendary philosophy Satyagraha—resistance to tyranny through passive resistance civil disobedience—attributed to him in the mid–twentieth century had a clear predecessor 1,833 years earlier.
The astute First Century Jewish mastermind behind
the “Caesarea Satyagraha,” whoever he/she was, understood full well that the Romans wanted total
local “control” but that if one yielded this to them,
they would be vulnerable to disciplined, nonviolent moral protest.
What the Romans truly feared most of all, was an out–of–control nationwide conflagration. Rome did not want any local “matchstick” to light up any out of control “bonfire.”
33 CE: JESUS CRUCIFIED
–by Roman procurator Pontius Pilate.
33 CE: THE BURIAL OF JESUS
Jesus, Mary, John and all the Twelve Disciples are Jewish, and, to the best of our knowledge, are buried well within the norms of Jewish tradition. Only starting primarily in the fourth century, post–Constantine, at which time much of First Century history is retouched by the dominating and domineering Catholic Church, are these key personages somehow morphed out of their very explicit and clear–cut Orthodox Jewish identities into more universal identities.
Only the apostle Judas Iscariot, singled–out to be demonized by the Church, is first demonized, and then markedly left with his full Jewish identity intact.
To be more specific, in fact the entire group – Jesus, his disciples and his family – were all Orthodox Jewish (Pharisees).
33 CE: MARY MAGDALENE
–The sole asserted witness to the asserted resurrection
of Jesus.
Mary is Jewish, like the rest of the Disciples of Jesus,
but the sole female.
She is later to be severely vilified and trashed by Pope (Saint) Gregory the Great—one of the four Latin Fathers of the Church—in the latter half of the 500s CE.
The vilification is basically terminated presumably once–and–for–all, by liturgical changes made in 1969 (1400 years after Gregory) in the Catholic liturgy.
This matter is important because Mary Magdalene is the sole witness to the assorted Resurrection of Jesus – to one of the two key pillar miracles of Catholicism, the other being the asserted Immaculate Conception. It is far from clear what would motivate Gregory to undermine “the witness.”
c. 36 CE: KINGDOM OF ADIABENE
The conversion to Judaism of the kingdom of Adiabene (in the upper Tigris region, modern–day northern Iraq), initiated by Queen Helena and her son Izates, marks the apogee of Jewish proselytizing in the Second Temple period both in the Parthian East and in the Greco–Roman world.
(Eli Barnavi, A Histrorical Atlas of the Jewish People. New York: Schocken Books, 1992)
38 CE: BUCKING CALIGULA
Five years after the Roman execution of Jesus in Jerusalem, Emperor Caligula in Rome declares himself a god and orders his statue to be set up at every temple and synagogue across the empire. Jewish riots subsequently break out in Alexandria, Egypt.
40 CE: ALEXANDRIA
Riots by the Jews again break out over the same (pagan Caligula) issue in Alexandria.
40 CE: PHILO
Hellenistic–Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria (a.k.a. Philo Judaeus) heads a delegation of Alexandrian Jews to Rome importuning Caligula regarding an anti–Semitic Alexandrian conflagration.
*
In Judaism, Philo is regarded more as a prominent historical hybrid (Jewish/Aristotelian) philosopher per se. The Alexandrian Philo himself may have liked being in that hybrid zone.
Philo is known for synthesizing Greek and Jewish thought.
40 CE: YAVNEH STIRS
Jews in Jamnia (Yavneh, Central Israel) destroy an altar to Caligula (Emperor of Rome).
40 CE: CALIGULA PLAYS GOD
Angered by the destruction of the statue of himself in Jamnia, Caligula, back in Rome, ups the ante and orders that a statue of himself be erected in the Holy Temple of Jerusalem.
The Jews of Judea gear–up for revolt against Caligula and Rome. The Jews are “locked and loaded.”
Fearing a conflagration, Roman governor of Syria (with dominion over Judea), Publius Petronius, slows down and delays the construction of the statue for nearly a year, playing for time.
Caligula is made aware of the delaying action, but is strangely simpatico to Publius’s maneuver blocking his own (Caligula) request, inasmuch as while Caligula is somewhat mad, he is not suicidal. Quite the contrary. The salient point is that the Roman Governor is careful not to overplay his hand as regards Jewish religious honor. The local Roman rulers are attuned to the sensitivities of “Jewish honor,” and, as a matter of policy, wish to avoid going over Jewish “red lines.”
And the Jews of Judea in the first century have no shortage of red lines, of course. But the Romans, with dominion over the world’s greatest empire, are sometimes wont to over–reach, sometimes with deliberate orders from Rome, sometimes through overly impetuous subordinates.
On some level, with the hubris of empire, and with their
own hyper–aggressive Roman legions as a backdrop, they are hard–wired to press to the max. The Jewish right–wing (or far right–wing), however, is not particularly interested in the nuances of the Roman macho psyche. With no referee to intervene, the two forces, one politico–military and one politico–spiritual, continuously grate against each other, intermittently skirmish, and are perhaps fated to eventually collide
(not once, but three major times within a 70–year time–span, from 67 CE to 137 CE).
41 CE: CALIGULA ASSASSINATED
Caligula’s assassination (unrelated to the Jews) in Rome ends that particular (putative statue–in–the–Temple) incendiary issue.
46–48 CE: THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY OF (St.) PAUL and (St.) BARNABAS
49–62 CE: (St.) PAUL MISSIONS TO THE GENTILES
St. Paul’s Mission to the Gentiles: in Ephesus (53–56) (ancient Greece), and in Rome (60–62).
50 CE: NERO, 12, ADOPTED BY THE EMPEROR CLAUDIUS
c. 62 CE: COUNCIL OF JERUSALEM
a.k.a. The Apostolic Conference
The Council of Jerusalem (led by Paul) exempts Christians from the precepts of Jewish law.
Inasmuch as the Greek Paulines Christians radically undermine—and indeed, overthrow—the Orthodox Judaism of Jesus, and his successor James the Just, the true details and even the date of the Council of Jerusalem are shrouded in political positioning. The Church would
like to date the Council of Jerusalem as early as possible
(to 50 CE), and portray James as yielding somewhat on Jewish law as regards a class of converts.
This author believes that James the Just never yielded
on halachah—Jewish law—and that the Council of
Jerusalem may have taken place closer to his murder
c. 62 CE. Indeed, in my opinion, it was probably James’s stalwart defense of the Orthodox Judaism of his crucified brother, which resulted in his possibly politically–inspired lynch–murder.
60s CE: “Q”
A document, “Q” a.k.a. “the Logia” – hypothesized by some Christians to exist and to contain compiled writings concerning Jesus.
No document in part or in full is extant. Others believe that the hypothesis is but an attempt to date the roots of the Gospels closer to the time of Jesus. Additionally, a hypothesis is necessary to explain the too–close matching, often verbatim, of gospels “Matthew” and “Luke” (and “Mark”) if they are indeed, the result of witness to event accounts. Meaning, experts explain, asserted bona fide credible independent accounts should be similar, but not verbatim—unless there is a source–document. But, no source–document has ever been produced.
This author believes there was, indeed, a very carefully calibrated source document, “Q” – a document which shaped the future contours of Christianity, but which included an embedded determination to foster deep–rooted animus towards the Jews and laid the groundwork for the demonizations to come. Meaning, a highly politicized and manipulative document.
c. 60 CE: THE SICARII
–Extremist splinter–group of Jewish Zealots which attempts to expel the Romans from Judea (c. 6–70 CE, but primarily 50–70 CE).
The Sicarii concealed sicae—small daggers—under their cloaks, hence the name of the group. At assemblies and pilgrimages to Jerusalem, they assassinated their enemies, enemy sympathizers and purported enemy sympathizers. Apparently, they often “lamented” vociferously after the killings to conceal and distract from their own role in the killings. Sicarii means “dagger–men.”
They are associated historically (along with the Zealots) with the destruction of Jerusalem’s food supply when the city was under incipient Roman siege c. 66 CE—with their (difficult to understand) “logic” being that their actions would preclude negotiations with the Romans. This action has not been viewed kindly by Jewish history.
One of their leaders, Eleazar ben Ya’ir, escaped the Roman onslaught and fled with others to Masada, where he became a preeminent leader in that resistance saga and eventual mass–suicide.
62 CE: GESSIUS FLORUS
In Jerusalem, Roman procurator Gessius Florus steals Temple taxes, further bringing matters to a boil and strengthening the political position of the (Jewish) Zealots, who continue to ratchet–up for rebellion.
c. 62 CE: PAUL (beheaded)
Founder of Embryonic Christianity
–Executed by Rome – in Rome
c. 62 CE: JAMES THE JUST
–Murdered by parties unknown – in Jerusalem
c. 64 CE: PETER
–Crucified upside–down by Rome – in Rome
Early 66 CE: HELLENIST PROVOCATIONS
–of mainstream Jews in Galilee provoke a Jewish attack upon a small Roman garrison. It is hypothetically possible that Greek Paulines had a hand in the provocations.
This is the first shed blood. Roman blood.
It will prove a fateful turning point – both for the Jews at that time, and in the span of Jewish history. Shedding blood at any time is a very serious matter. Shedding the blood of the soldiers of the Roman Empire after Rome had given the Jews very considerable autonomy and (by Roman standards) prerogatives as regards the Temple State—was not, shall we say, optimal.
The Jews have just kicked “Superman” (i.e. the Roman Empire) in the shin. And “Superman” was not amused.
But, then again, neither was the Jewish politico–religious right–wing.
66 CE: FIRST JEWISH INSURGENT ACTIONS
–against the Roman Empire.
Caesarea, Upper Galilee, Judea.
(Nero has been Emperor of Rome since 54 CE).
“Summer: Beginning of the Revolt. Resurgence of trouble in Caesarea; clashes with the procurator Florus in Jerusalem; Herod Agrippa II makes a public address in Jerusalem in a last attempt to prevent the insurrection; suppression by the Zealots of sacrifices in honor of the emperor; the Sicarii attacks Masada, killing the Roman garrison there. Moderate leaders ask for help from Agrippa and Florus, and 2000 Roman horsemen arrive in the capital [Jerusalem] and occupy the Upper City; the rebels, holding the Lower City and the Temple Mount, besiege the Roman garrison. During the siege, the rebels kill [Sadducee] high priest Hanania and his brother Hezekiah. On the same day several Jews are killed in Caesarea leading to reprisals perpetrated by their brethren in other Greek cities. The Roman garrison in Jerusalem is destroyed.”
(A Histrorical Atlas of the Jewish People)
As noted, the price of internal civil war in Judea in the century before Jesus between (Maccabean dynasty) Hyrcanus II and (Maccabean dynasty) Aristobulus was a mortal weakness, which General Pompey of Rome exploited to gain control back in 63 BCE with relatively minimal effort. The proud Judeans bristled at the subsequent Roman rule, and the Zealots viewed the Occupation through their own lens. The end–result of the initial internecine Jewish fighting [in 63 BCE] was ultimately to be an unmitigated national disaster on a grand and historic catastrophic scale – commencing at this point.
Late 66 CE: BATTLE OF BET HORON PASS
Subsequent to the violence in the Galilee, Rome dispatches an expeditionary force, the Roman Twelfth Legion, as a show of force to quell the disturbances. A limited “police action.” The Jewish nationalist–religious rebel forces, trying to throw off the yoke of Rome, elect to
up–the–ante themselves…
The Roman Expeditionary force is ambushed by Jewish rebel forces at Bet Horon pass (the precise locale of an earlier Maccabean victory approximately 200 years prior) outside of Jerusalem. The Roman Twelfth Legion (Legio XII Fulminata) is routed—6,000 elite Roman legionnaires are killed in pitched battle with the Jewish Forces. To add to the Roman humiliation, the Twelfth Legion’s battle standard (an eagle), has been lost (inviolably), to the Jewish insurgent forces.
The Jewish forces additionally seize dozens, if not hundreds, of artillery pieces and other armaments, to be used later in the defense of Jerusalem.
This triumph by the Zealot alliance will resound to the far reaches of the Roman Empire, but will prove one of the great “pyrrhic victories” (false/illusory victories) in the annals of humankind.
From the rebel perspective, the Jews had previously thrown off the yoke of the Syrian–Greek Empire 200 years prior, against all odds, and Rome has left the Jews no choice but to fight again for their freedom, dignity and honor.
An observer from the moon, surveying the vast power and tenacity of Imperial Rome, however, would say that the Jewish rebels were playing the ultimate doomed long shot.
But the same observer might have said the same when the Maccabees first took up arms against the Syrian–Greeks… or when Jewish leader Gideon, a thousand plus years earlier challenged Amalek… or when Prophetess Devorah challenged Canaan and prevailed… or when Moses challenged Pharaoh… and on and on with many notches–in–the–gun–belt of the Jewish nation.
Tenacious, tactically adept, highly motivated, with a legacy of victory, fighting on and for their homeland, and apparently perfectly willing to die for their freedom and honor, the Jewish rebel forces of Judea, empowered and emboldened by their belief in the God of Israel, would just as soon bring their enemies down with them.
With the Jews having played at the zenith of both the spiritual and temporal world on and off for 1,000 years, the Zealots of Judea were truly not interested in subjugation by pagan, idolatrous, licentious Rome. In isolation, the Bet Horon victory was glorious. But, in context, it brought the full wrath of a powerful, aggressive, wealthy, proud, marauding and, last but not least, slave–hungry empire down upon Judea. The rebels might be valiant and strong. But Rome was vastly stronger.
A tremor had gone throughout the far reaches of the Roman Empire. Having shown vulnerability, Rome would now need to send a counter–salvo back across the far reaches of the Empire.
Basically, an immovable object (Judean religious honor and freedom) had collided with the excesses of an irresistible force (Roman Empire dominion). But Rome knew a little about will and tenacity itself. And Rome maintained not only the will, but the resources and power–in–reserve, as well.
For the rebels, at stake was greater autonomy and protected religious honor. For Rome, at stake was their control of a key geographic nexus–point, which completed, as well, their encirclement of the Mediterranean. But beyond the immediate geographic stakes, now at stake was the Roman aura of invincibility across the entire Empire.
Rome now poised to move in force against the Judean rebels.
Now, to protect their very thrones, Roman Emperors had become increasingly averse to major military campaigns, inasmuch as they would prove to be no–win situations for any emperor who engaged in one:
• If the campaign were stymied, the emperor would lose face and lose standing, and possibly lose power.
• If the campaign were successful, the victorious general, an alpha male to begin with, presumably now infused with surging popularity, could potentially march his victorious and pumped–up legions back right through Rome’s gates, and potentially seize total power.
Only if an insurgency had threatened or humiliated the empire, would an emperor in the First Century unleash his Legions. And humiliation is precisely what the Judean insurgents had visited upon Rome.
Now, Rome had an appetite for slave labor, and an aversion to dependencies mowing–down its soldiers. Rebellions here–and–there provided “opportunity” as well. Therefore, for multiple reasons and considerations, some strategic, some tactical, some practical, Rome now had Judea in its gun sights.
Subsequently, over 20 percent of the entire Roman expeditionary army was mobilized for battle, and marched into Judea—one army from the north; one from the south—to crush the electrifying Jewish revolt.
As for Jerusalem itself, Jerusalem was an internationally recognized trophy city, and Rome, master of symbolism, was not oblivious to the magnitude of Jerusalem’s global projection and importance.
67 CE: FIRST JEWISH–ROMAN WAR
Sometimes called The Great Revolt.
In 66 CE Roman Emperor Nero appoints General Vespasian to launch a Roman police action; however, by c. 67 CE the Roman “police action” has morphed post–Bet Horon into an all–out assault campaign by the Roman Empire.
Vespasian headquarters himself at Caesarea Maritima, on the Mediterranean coast, with 60,000 professional soldiers under his command.
68 CE: DESTRUCTION OF QUMRAN
(Site of the Dead Sea Scrolls, in the desert southeast of Jerusalem)
68 CE: ROME GAINS THE UPPER HAND IN JUDEA
By 68 CE, Jewish resistance in the north has been crushed by Vespasian, including the Jewish stronghold of Gamla in 67 CE. About a year after the death of Nero, in 69 CE, Vespasian heads back to Rome to take the title of Emperor (on the heels of The Year of the Four Emperors’ internecine power struggle in Rome).
Vespasian delegates his son Titus to complete the Judean campaign, and to break the stalemate surrounding the siege of Jerusalem.
Total death estimates in Judea over the course of the nearly 4 year war hostilities range from 600,000–1,300,000 Jews.
Josephus states that during the siege of Jerusalem, 500 people were crucified each day in front of its walls. (The figure sounds high, although it is widely disseminated and Josephus enjoys high credibility to this day. Note that Josephus’s account of Jerusalem is, in particular, somewhat compromised by his calls for Jewish surrender during the siege.)
The carnage was apparently gruesome:
“There was no room for crosses and no crosses for the bodies.” –Dumont
By the end of the siege, hundreds, and possibly thousands, of crucified Jewish bodies encircled Jerusalem on the surrounding encircling Roman moat–road.
Note: This encircling moat–road was built at the same height as the walls of Jerusalem to isolate and starve Jerusalem.
The historian Josephus, a contentious Jewish personality, scholar, rebel commander (and neo–traitor), is the primary source of information for this period. It is hard to categorize Josephus, but it is clear that he adapts facts: His works are not always 100 percent consistent. His depiction of events, in particular, is suspect, as he was beholden to his Roman patrons, particularly Titus (who maintained him after his first career as a Jewish commander in the northern revolt). However, his overall credibility among scholars is relatively high, interestingly enough. Perhaps this is because he has no real competition as a chronicler of the Jews of this era. If Josephus is stripped of credibility, there is not all that much for a focused scholar of that period to do here. However, in my eyes Josephus does have true credibility in one specific circumstance: when his historiography is to the detriment of Rome.
69 CE: THE CANON GOSPELS
The embryonic Canon Gospels of Mark and Matthew appear first.
The exact dating remains amorphous.
The four Canon Gospels are written and appear over the 69 CE – 110 CE period, later to become canonized as
“The New Testament.”
“Mark” (author unknown; the writing is not contemporaneous with the narrative; hundreds of years later ascribed by the Church to Mark the Evangelist)
“Matthew” (author unknown; the writing is not contemporaneous with the narrative; hundreds of years later ascribed by the Church to Matthew the Evangelist)
“Luke” (author unknown; the writing is not contemporaneous with the narrative; hundreds of years later ascribed by the Church to Luke, the companion of Paul) [oldest surviving manuscript dates to approximately 200 CE]
“John” (author unknown; the writing is not
contemporaneous with the narrative; hundreds of years later ascribed by the Church to John) [This is “John the Evangelist,” not the earlier iconic ‘John the Baptist’]
***
All four personages above are known as Evangelists.
The precise identities of the four writers are not accepted outside of Church dogma. The Church basically assigned the identities.
All four Gospels were originally written in Greek, different that the language(s) that Jesus and his disciples used—which were Hebrew Aramaic.
The four Gospels were 4 out of 20–50+ gospels known to have existed.
The dates (noted above) which most of the world ascribes to the writings of the Gospels, diverge from the dates (approximately 10–20 years earlier) which the Church ascribes to them.
Conceptually, the closer the gospels were written to the actual key events of the early 30s CE, the more credibility they would have.
The Gospels were intended for a far different audience (primarily the neo–pagan populace) than the Jewish common people to whom Jesus had preached, and to whom the original Embryonic Christians proselytized in the earlier part of the First Century.
All four of the Gospels are almost definitely written in the greater Turkey–Syria.
The four Gospels are divergent on the key and crucial timing of the death of Jesus:
• One gospel places the death on Erev Pesach,
the day leading–into Passover, Nissan 14.
(Meaning, no Last Supper)
[Some terminology explanations –
Jewish calendar days starts at nightfall.
Pesach means Passover.
Erev means the day leading into, so Erev Pesach means the day leading–into Pesach.
Nissan is a Hebrew month, a lunar month.
Nissan 14 is the day leading–into Passover.
Pesach (Passover) starts at sundown/sunset between Nissan 14 and Nissan 15.]
• Two of the Gospels place the death of Jesus during the daytime after the Passover Seder, meaning on the first day of Passover, Nissan 15. (Thus, the normative Passion saga comports to these two.)
• The fourth Gospel places the death of Jesus after the first day Passover, meaning a day or two (or three) after Nissan 15.
The actual personages, Mark, Matthew, Luke and John are all believed by mainstream academia to have died well prior to the dates ascribed to the writing of their respectively named gospels. This leaves the true authorship of the Catholic Canon to persons unknown.
The Gospels as we know them today, were edited during the period of Constantine 272–317 CE (+/–100 years). The Church position would be that they were not edited.
The primary purpose of the Gospels, originally narrations by Christian/Church advocates, was to expound the glory of Jesus. This objective is axiomatic among secular historians. Jesus is, as well, graphically portrayed/related as the victim of treachery and betrayal. The specific treachery and betrayal ascribed by these unknown gospel writers, is, respectfully, historically untenable (see exhibit in appendix, the First Century).
Thus, given all of the above, the fact that some Gospels may intersect on a given anecdotal point, especially on a particular vignette – or a portion of a vignette – defamatory to the Jews, does not necessarily mean that the particular incident ever occurred as related. The incident, recounted or constructed decades after the actual point in time of the storied vignette, either added to the glory of Jesus, or detracted from the “standing” of the Jews. Even though the Jews were not proactively competing for the non–Jewish (neo–pagan) audience, Judaism as a Group/Religion/Theology is consistently portrayed in toxic terms and imagery in the Gospels. Part of the Christian logic to the neo–pagan audience of the time would presumably be that—if the Jews are bad, and we (the Christians) are the breakaway, we must be right.
In any event, hypothetically, a band of a dozen politically–savvy Christian politico–religious advocates, perhaps integral to the embryonic core leadership, meeting together near Greater Jerusalem in 68 CE, observing the Jewish leadership being decimated by Vespasian, and the Jewish central authority imploding in–front–of–their eyes, grasps the “historic moment.” With the Jewish elite immobilized and distracted, if not demolished totally, there is a historic vacuum. He whose saga resonates across the Judean terrain will win the hearts of the neo–pagan inhabitants of the Middle East and perhaps beyond. The outlines of the core saga–to–be–told are crystallized by this Christian vanguard. (The gospels are then crafted and written “back home” either by these same persons or by compatriots in the greater Turkey–Syria area.
The politico–religious raconteurs/advocates then each go their own separate way, passing on their series of anecdotal vignettes either verbally or written, easily setting the stage for their own or “offspring Gospel manuscripts” appearing one to five decades later. Potentially to be heavily edited in turn by the Church central authority in the second to fifth centuries.
Adulatory to Jesus; consistently highly defamatory to the Jews. Christened into the newly Christianized Roman Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries, the Gospels will resonate across a continent de facto controlled lock–stock–and–palace by the Christian central authority, now with total control of the organs of state of Rome.
As noted, the four particular gospels were selected out of a greater pool of perhaps 20–50 gospels by the early Church Fathers (initially apparently by second Century Irenaeus in particular) to be the official Church canon (core theological text), hence the name The Canon Gospels.
The “Canon Gospels” were initially “canonized” by (later–to–be Saint) Irenaeus [of Lyons] c. 185 CE. This was later re–ratified (and possibly re–edited) by the Council of Rome 382 CE and by other synods to follow in the triumphant over Rome Christian fourth century.
As noted, the fourth century marked the de facto conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity, with the full power of the Empire now behind Christianity. At this point the Jews are decimated, scattered and marginalized. However to the newly–aligned Roman–Christian hierarchy, the politically irrelevant Jews had one, and final, more crucial role to play: historical scapegoat cum evil polarity.
Eager to distance newly–Christianized Rome (now the Church’s purview) from Rome’s crucifixion of Christ approximately 300 years earlier, the Canon Gospels—
in the form incorporated by the Church at the same time it gained supreme status in Constantine’s Roman Empire—will attempt to shift as much blame as possible, and direct as much anger as possible—at the Jews. The ramification is that a powerful and lethal dynamic is set in motion, which would ultimately cause suffering and death, to millions, through this very day…
The Jews of the First Century at the time of Jesus, politically neutered by Rome, and under the military heel of Rome, would be surprised to read in the Gospels of the fourth century (were they to travel forward in time to read them) that the Jews had any power at all in the First Century. These Jews would also be quite surprised to read that in the early morning hours after long late–night Seders, 55 to 95–year–old Sanhedrin members were apparently up at approximately 3 A.M., illegally convening outside the Temple, illegally adjudicating on the Passover Holiday and illegally getting anywhere near the Halachic taboo against handing over a Jew to occupying authorities. These Jews of the First Century would be quite surprised to hear that in the early morning Jewish mobs were gathering and howling. (When is the last time one saw a Jewish mob, let alone at 5 A.M., let alone on a Jewish Holiday, let alone howling?) And, all this after four goblets of wine per Jew at the Seder? And factoring in 3–5 hour (quasi endurance test) Seders for each Jewish family going into the midnight hour of the very night, just several hours prior?
This work is concerned with Jewish history. But the toxic resonance of several asserted key vignettes, defamatory to the Jews, scattered across the Canon Gospels and later woven inextricably into the core “Passion” saga (the centerpiece of Christian lore) will have a lethal effect on the Jews for over nineteen centuries.
The Canon Gospels become the basis for the Passion (saga), known also as “the Passion of the Christ.” The Passion saga relates the (Church’s version of) events of the days flanking the death of Jesus, with particular emphasis on the 24 hours flanking the Last Supper (Seder) on each side.
An individual “toxic to the Jews” vignette within the Passion saga may not always have appeared originally in more than one of the four Canon Gospels. But, may be incorporated, nevertheless, into the local Passion saga— often, significantly more intensely shaded and far more incendiary than in the original Canon Gospel itself.
Thus, the origins of the Gospels themselves are obscure, key internal contradictions exist within their texts, the historical veracity and precision of the stream of anti–Jewish vignettes in them is highly dubious, and it is universally accepted that the gospels were not written contemporaneous with events.
Finally, the Gospels themselves are not in accord internally on the crucial timing of very key events. Yet the Jews, politically powerless in the First Century, but the historical ideological nemesis and whipping boy – straw man of the Church Fathers, will conveniently be caricatured and painted diabolically by later local Passion sagas, whose building blocks are extracted selectively from the four gospels, and then dramatically spun, case by case. With ominous consequences for the Jews and their descendants stretching–forth over the centuries.
The Passion sagas are highly dramatic and more often than not, quite intense. In general, they position “the saintly” v. “the demonic” for their audiences. And the Jews will uniformly be conveniently cast in the “demonic role.”
Generally, the only question is – how demonic? Impressionable Christian youth—over the centuries—introduced in childhood, by a combination of priest(s), parent(s), and teachers—to the “diabolical and demonic Jew” amalgam, will inevitably carry the toxic imagery embedded in their psyches for the duration of their journey through life.
The Jews are cast as radically more demonic in European medieval Passion sagas, than in 21st century American Passion sagas. Thus, contemporary American Christian audiences may not grasp the dimension of the vituperation employed. But the contentious 2003 American film The Passion of the Christ (Mel Gibson’s handiwork), crafted under the rubric of holy writ, provides a partial insight as to how hatred of the masses towards the Jews can be promulgated and disseminated via dramatizations of the sufferings of Jesus and spinning the background context.
While the Church will trumpet “Love thy Neighbor” as its asserted core doctrine, it will by and large—on an ongoing basis—lace the soil of Europe with “toxicity to the Jews.” And any local demagogue will conveniently harvest the hatred along the timeline of the seventeen centuries following Constantine. Greater Europe will become an ongoing killing field for the Jews. Hatred will find a permanent and secure residence in Europe. But Jewish residence and life will be more tenuous, and somewhat “less secure.”
Note the authoritative work The Anguish of the Jews by Edward H. Flannery* (Macmillan, NY, 1965).
* I first read Flannery's work when I was researching a term paper on anti–Semitism in high school c. 1966. The Anguish of the Jews © 1965 remains to this day one of the iconic, breakthrough works of all–time. Note for the record that Flannery sub–titles his work 'Twenty–three centuries of Anti–Semitism.' Thus, Flannery is trying to posture that anti–Semitism pre–dated Christianity. On this particular score, however, the sainted Catholic priest Edward H. Flannery, was trying to defend the indefensible. Isolated local flare–ups between culturally competing groups cherry–picked from the span of four tumultuous centuries pre–Christianity, simply do not qualify for the term 'anti–Semitism,' the virulent cancer that was to terrorize and cut down millions over the nineteen centuries to–date, subsequent to the Christian Fathers.
[See also www.shofars.org/persecution/default.htm]
***
Preoccupied with defending their lives, freedom and religious honor from the assaulting legions of Rome in front of their city walls, the First Century Jewish intellectual elite was “somewhat distracted.”
The first wave demonizations was being spun hundreds of miles to the northwest in greater Turkey–Syria emanating “coincidentally” just then from the first wave gospels. The gospel–spin would trash the legacy of an industrious and highly-educated spiritual–based group into a diabolical, blood–thirsty mob. But the Glory of Christ had to be expounded and promulgated.
Nineteen hundred years later, a random 7–year–old Jewish Polish girl, one of hundreds of thousands of Polish Jewish youngsters, as just one example of 1+ million Jewish children murdered by the Nazis, would face an average of 2–5 days of starvation–torture and debasement in a sealed Nazi cattle–car, in debasement and grime, watching her family starve to death, before probably being “gassed to death” with her mother, if they somehow survived the cattle–car torture–ordeal, upon arrival at a Death Camp—as a very, very direct consequence of the cumulative continued and ongoing demonizations by the Catholic Church pervasively over the seventeen to nineteen centuries to come.
The Church would like to portray itself as a victim of Nazism, as opposed to its hatred for the Jews progenitor.
But, words tend to have wings.
***
69 CE: YAVNEH FOUNDED BY JOHANAN BEN ZAKKAI
The great Yeshiva of Yavneh (Jamnia) – founded by Rav Johanan ben Zakkai, the leading Pharisee, with the acquiescence of General Vespasian, who was laying siege to Jerusalem.
Johanan ben Zakkai was a key tanna (sage of the Mishnah).
Britannica –
“Even before 70 CE, he acted as a leading representative of the Pharisees in debate with priestly and Sadducean authorities. (The Pharisees stressed rigorous observance of the Law, inclusion of the oral tradition as normative, and an interpretative adaptation of traditional precepts to new situations; the Sadducees, an elitist conservative group, accepted only the Written Law as authoritative and were more literalist and static in their interpretation.) Johanan’s school was apparently famous, and one in search of learning would go to extremes, if need be, to be admitted there. Furthermore, Johanan was opposed to the policy of those who were determined on war with Rome at all costs. By quitting beleaguered Jerusalem according to most accounts in 70 CE (though it is possible that he left as early as 68 CE) and being brought to the Roman camp, he somehow succeeded in getting permission to set up an academy in Jamnia (Jabneh), near the Judaean coast, and there he was joined by a number of his favorite disciples. Two of them, Eliezer ben Hyrcanus and Joshua ben Hananiah, who are credited with having smuggled their master out of Jerusalem in a coffin, were to become, by the end of the century and the beginning of the following one, the leading teachers of their generation and had a profound influence on the greatest scholars of the next generation.
By establishing in Jamnia a major academy and authoritative rabbinic body, Johanan fixed the conditions for continuing Judaism’s basic traditions after the destruction of the Temple; and that, by his lively sense of the need for reinterpreting inherited concepts in new circumstances, he laid the foundations on which Talmudic and rabbinic Judaism built their structure.
Of all the Palestinian Jewish sages of the first century A.D. [CE], none apparently proved so fundamentally influential in his own time and for subsequent generations of scholars and spiritual leaders as Johanan ben Zakkai. In the history of Talmudic literature and thought, Johanan is rightly seen as continuing the Hillelite tradition, although this should not be interpreted to mean that he inherited only Hillel’s teachings.”
Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/304443/Johanan–ben–Zakkai (accessed July 1, 2009)
***
Yavneh, a west–central Judean town, 7 km (4.35 miles) east of the Mediterranean town, remained the center of Jewish rabbinical authority, centered in the Yeshiva of Yavneh [Yavneh Academy], for 62 years, until the Bar Kochba Revolt (c. 132 CE), when the city of Usha in western Galilee superseded it, evolving as the 130s CE center of rabbinic Judaism.
69 CE: YEAR OF THE FOUR EMPERORS (in Rome)
–ends with the election of Vespasian who inaugurates the Flavian dynasty. During the same year, there are internal conflicts in Jerusalem; the Zealots terrorize the population; Jerusalem’s moderates are purged.
70 CE: DESTRUCTION OF TEMPLE II
Simeon Bar Giora becomes military commander of the Jewish rebels in Jerusalem. The final conquest of Jerusalem by Titus’ troops transpires. The Roman troops sack the town and burn down the Temple. Vaspasian replaces the auxiliary troops with a permanent garrison (the “Tenth Legion”) and transforms Judea into a province administered by a governor of praetorian rank.
70 CE: ACHER
Elisha ben Abuyah, a.k.a. Acher, a storied rabbinic,
appears in a cryptic but legendary bereita
(hi–level Talmudic segment).
“Four entered the vineyard”
“arba nichnasu l’pardes”
Ben Azzai, Ben Zoma, Acher (Elisha be Abuyah)
and Akiva
Ben Azzai looked and died
Ben Zoma looked and went mad
Acher destroyed the plants
Akiva entered in peace and departed in peace
There are many interpretations. One of the
preeminent interpretations runs as follows:
Four high level rabbinics engaged in the philosophical challenge of “theodicy”
i.e. if there is a God who is all–powerful and all–
merciful, why is there gross evil?
Ben Azzai looked and died
Ben Zoma looked and went mad
Acher then rejected classic religion
Akiva entered in peace, and departed in peace
73 CE: MASADA!
Masada Fortress, Negev Desert (west of the Dead Sea) subsequent to the destruction of Temple II in nearby Jerusalem during Jewish–Roman War I (which peaked about 2 years prior).
“Last Stand of the Jews” and eventually, mass–suicide of the 960 Jewish “Zealot” rebels against Rome’s 20,000–man Tenth Legion.
Masada, under the leadership of Eleazar ben Ya’ir, held out for three years…
Masada, a former Herodian retreat/refuge, was located in the Judean desert south of Jerusalem, just west of the Dead Sea. The Zealots used Masada as a base to raid and harass the nearby Roman troops. The Roman governor of Judea, Lucius Flavius Silva marched against Masada with Roman Legion X (Tenth Legion) Fretensis, and laid siege to the fortress.
After the besieging Romans failed in repeated attempts to breach the defense, they elected to construct an earthen ramp, using thousands of tons of stones and earth. At the point that the Romans had 99 percent completed their massive siege ramp, and were poised for their final assault the next day, the "1,000" Jewish rebels of Masada made a decision to commit mass–suicide that night rather than fall into the Roman hands the following day.
Heads of families slew their families. Then, the men drew lots as to who would slay the others.
Two thousand years down the road, troops of the Israeli Armored Corps and the Givati Brigade and other IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) troops would take their oath of duty at high noon atop the sun baked plateau of Masada, overlooking the Judean desert far below.
“Masada shay–nit lo ti–pol”…
*
“Masada shall not fall again”
77 CE: TACITUS
Tacitus enters political life in Rome at age 22.
But his historical works to come will be his legacy.
Tacitus’s Germania (98 CE), “Histories” (105 CE), and “Annals” (117 CE) are his most prominent works.
A well–studied – and key – excerpt from Annals by Tacitus on the death of Jesus –
“Christus [Christ] from whom the name is derived…was executed at the hands of the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius.”
“…at the hands of Pontius Pilate.” Period. Very explicit.
Like the Arabic accounts, and, indeed, like the Arabic accounts of Josephus, there is no mention at all of any participation or collaboration of any Jews whatsoever, or by the (Roman–appointed) Jewish High Priest or of any trial or institutional action by the Sanhedrin.
79–81 CE: ROMAN EMPEROR TITUS
Reign of Titus, Vespasian’s son.
81–96 CE: ROMAN EMPEROR DOMITIAN
Reign of Domitian who persecutes Jews and those who converted to Judaism. “The tax on the Jews was exacted with particular rigor; it was also imposed on the proselytes who lived in the fashion of the Jews without declaring themselves Jewish and on those who, concealing their origin, tried to avoid the tributes imposed on this nation. “I remember seeing, when I was hardly an adolescent, a procurator examining a ninety–year–old man to see if he were circumcised” (Suetonius, Life of Twelve Caesars, “Domitian,” VIII, 12).
96–98 CE: ROMAN EMPEROR NERVA
Benign reign of Emperor Nerva. A coin, minted after he abolished the extortionist procedure of taxing the Jews, bears the inscription: Fisci iudaici calumnia sublata
(“to efface the shame of the Jewish tax”).
98–117 CE: REIGN OF ROMAN EMPEROR TRAJAN
100 CE: SHUOWEN JIEZI (DICTIONARY) COMPILED
China: by Han scholar Xu Shen
Supersedes the more basic first known Chinese dictionary, the Erya (200s BCE) [author unknown].
The Shuowen Jiezi is a sophisticated early second century Chinese dictionary (from the Han Dynasty). It is ultimately presented to Emperor An (of Han) by Xu Chong, the son of Xu Shen, two decades later, in 121 CE.
Timing is apparently everything.
c. 100 CE: RABBI AKIVA TRAVELS TO NEHARDEA
Rabbi Akiva travels to Nehardea (Babylonia) to announce the Hebrew leap year. This is the first time that the sources mention a noted Jewish sage from Palestine active in the Babylonian Diaspora.
100 CE: LEGITIMACY
The early Church Fathers, as any new religious movement, would need to secure and protect their legitimacy as a religion. “Borrowing” key iconography from Judaism, they would need to fully secure their legitimacy vis à vis Judaism in particular. As the legitimacy of Judaism, direct heirs of Sinai, is somewhat difficult to undermine, and as the Church Fathers did not want to undermine ‘Sinai’ and/or the (Jewish) Bible, per se, the Church would employ a different tack.
The gambit that the Christians would take would be to steadily but surely undermine the character–reputation of the Jews. The Jews may have been distracted by the Roman invasion and expulsion from focusing much on the Christians. But the Christians were certainly focusing and polemicizing about the Jews. Step by step over the decades, and then over the centuries, this character assassination would proceed: first obliquely, then directly, and then directly and venomously.
The stage is first set in the gospels themselves. The Christian Fathers in the first several centuries then ratchet–up the intensity. Once hatred is sown, it tends to have a life of its own, or in the case of the Jews, probably more accurate to say – a death warrant all its own.
As the power of the Church increased by a quantum jump—with the de facto conversion of Constantine in the 300s CE—the Church did not back off from the concerted denigrations; but, rather, increased the intensity of the defamations and de–humanizations. Not only would the Jews be off–balance, and not in a position to politically or intellectually challenge the legitimacy of the Church, the Jews would be lucky to be left breathing.
*
Historically, Roman soldiers arranged the crucifixion start to finish of this brutal Roman execution mode.
There were no tribunals before the execution. No tribunals were needed, any which way, as Pontius Pilate had absolute power over these ‘local matters.’
The Jews under Rome were powerless to affect the outcome either which way.
The Romans feared sedition. The Romans executed many protagonists who threatened upheaval or worse. The Romans were messiah–averse. The Romans crucified lesser threats than Jesus.
Any hypothetical (Jewish) co–operation or collusion, even tangential, with Rome on this sordid matter would have been not only against Jewish law, but also contrary to the Jewish modus operandi spanning many centuries. Jesus may have been a threat to Rome, but Jesus does not appear in one single Jewish rabbinic text contemporaneous with that period.
So, how did the Jews become labeled by the Church as “Christ killers”?
With Rome ascendant, and the Church Fathers eager to recruit the inhabitants of the Roman Empire, increasingly the historical record is re–spun by the ascendant Church to diminish the role of Roman Procurator Pontius Pilate, and to increase, somehow,
the alleged participation and capability of the Jews.
It would seem to be a challenging task to turn WHITE into BLACK, but that is the basic scenario.
101 CE: JOSEPHUS DIES
Jewish–born, Roman–captured, historian Josephus Flavius dies in Rome (at age 64), (where his patrons maintained him), ending a quite unique tenure on this planet, controversial to this day.
[b. 37 CE (4 years after the crucifixion of Jesus); d. 101 CE
110 CE: ONKELOS
Authors Targum Onkelos (on the Torah)
–Aramaic exposition of the pshat (basic meaning) of the Five Books of Moses.
Onkelos (35–120 CE), a nephew of Titus, is one of Judaism’s most illustrious converts, having entered his works into the core of the Masorah (the Jewish core chain of theological tradition, “Written Law” and “Oral Law”).
115 –117 CE: OVERVIEW: “KITOS” JEWISH REVOLTS
a.k.a. Jewish Revolt II
Major revolts by Diaspora Jews in Cyrene (Cyrenaica), Egyptus (Egypt minus the Sinai Peninsula), Cyprus, and Mesopotamia.
The rebellions were ultimately crushed by the Roman legionary forces, chiefly by the Roman general Lustus Quietus, whose name ultimately gives the far–flung conflict its name, as “Kitos” is a later corruption of the name.
c. 115 CE: FOCUS: START OF “KITOS” JEWISH REVOLTS
Beginning of the Jewish revolt in Cyrenaica (eastern coastal region of modern–day Libya). According to Greek sources (Eusebius and Dio Cassius), the Jews of Cyrene, led by their “king” Lukuas, enter Egypt. The Greeks, finding refuge in Alexandria, retaliate by massacring the Jews in that city. Lukuas’ rebels overrun the country until a Roman army defeats them. The Jewish community in Alexandria is then almost annihilated.
The local troubles extend onto the island of Cyprus where a Jewish revolt, led by a certain Artemion, kills thousands. When the revolt is crushed, Jews are forbidden to set foot on the island ever again….
116–117 CE: AIDING THE PARTHIANS
Babylonian Jews take an active part in the Parthian resistance against the invasion of (Roman Emperor) Trajan’s troops.
116–117 CE: CONTINUATION: “KITOS” REVOLT / JEWISH REVOLT IN MESOPOTAMIA
Revolt in Mesopotamia: Trajan (reign: 98–117 CE) orders his general Lusius Quietus to expel or exterminate all Jews in the region; Quietus kills tens of thousands, a deed which earns him the rank of praetor, then of consul, and the position of governor of Judea which becomes a consular province in 117. A second legion, probably the Secunda Trajana, is positioned in the northern part of the country. Upon the death of Trajan; the new emperor Hadrian (reign 117–138 CE) evacuates the lands in the East conquered by his predecessor, dismisses Lusius Quietus, and severely punishes the Greeks who had persecuted the Jews in Alexandria.
120–129 CE: HADRIAN RECONSTRUCTS
Reconstruction of towns in the East raises false hopes that the new emperor (Hadrian) intends to rebuild Jerusalem. This may have given birth to the legend reported in a midrash (Bereshit Raba, 44): In the days of Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah, the emperor had decided to rebuild the Temple, but that Samaritan opposition had aborted the plan. The Jews then assembled in the valley of Rimmon, angrily demanding to revolt. Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah calmed their turbulence with a fable about a bird who with its long beak had removed a bone stuck in a lion’s throat; like that bird, he said, the Jews should be satisfied with the fact that they had entered the lion’s jaw and come away unharmed.
The lion (Rome) should not be expected to reward such a frail creature (the Jewish people). This legend vividly expresses the national and religious fermentation in Palestine, which persisted even after the destruction of the Temple and the wars waged against Trajan. (A Histrorical Atlas of the Jewish People)
130 CE: HADRIAN DROPS IN
Hadrian visits Judea; the Jews are forbidden to practice circumcision; the honeymoon between the emperor and the Jews is over.
131 CE: HADRIAN RE–NAMES
Emperor renames Jerusalem “Aelia Capitolina” and forbids the Jews to set foot there. When he departs the region in 131 CE, the Jews gear–up for revolt.
132 CE: FULL–SCALE REVOLT: BAR KOCHBA REVOLT (JEWISH–ROMAN WAR II)
a.k.a. Revolt III
[Note: Many histories do not count the Kitos/Mediterranean rebellions noted just above as Jewish–Roman War II, in which case the Bar Kochba Revolt is numbered by them as Jewish–Roman War II. Note that (tens of) thousands of Jews perished in the Kitos rebellions (115–117 CE) against Rome.]
The Jews rise up in revolt (132–135 CE) after the Romans build a temple to (the Roman god) Jupiter on the site of the Jewish Temple, and subsequent to Hadrian's abolishment of circumcision c. 130–131 CE.
While the Roman forces are originally forced out of Jerusalem by the forces of Bar Kochba, the Romans regroup. Detachments of Roman legions are brought from Egypt, Arabia, Syria, Asia Minor, and the Danubian countries. (Jewish–minted) coins bearing the inscription “Second Year of the Freedom of Israel” have been discovered in contemporary (20–21st Century) times.
c. 135 CE Roman armies under the command of Julius Severus retake Jerusalem and sack it.
According to Roman historian Cassius Dio, during the war 580,000 Jews are killed, 50 fortified Jewish towns destroyed, and 985 villages razed. On the other side of the ledger, an entire Roman Legion, the XXII Deiotariana apparently was destroyed by the Jewish rebels.
Bar Kochba’s “last stand” was at Beitar, a fortified city 10 km southwest of Jerusalem.
Bar Kochba's prime backer, Rebbe Akiva, and the other leading rabbinics (to be known for posterity as the Ten Martyrs) are tortured and executed by the Romans…to be memorialized in Yom Kippur liturgy to this day—“The Ten Martyrs” (Aseret Harugei Malchut).
135 CE: POST–REVOLT III
The crushing of the (Bar Kochba) revolt is followed by a series of religious persecutions. Many Jews choose to die for their faith. When Rabbi Hananiah ben Teradyon is asked by a Roman judge why he studied the Torah in defiance of the prohibition, his reply is: “I follow my God’s commandment.” The Romans immediately condemn him to be burned at the stake, his wife to be killed, and his daughter to be taken to the prostitutes (Babylonian Talmud, Avoda Zara, 17b). Hananiah was but one of many martyrs. (A Historical Atlas of the Jewish People)
The Romans sustains severe battle casualties from the forces of Bar Kochba. According to (Roman chronicler) Dio Cassius, Hadrian’s casualties are so severe, that when he formally informs the Senate of his ultimate victory,
he omits the usual formal advisement to the Senate:
“I and my army are well.” Bar Kochba had inflicted severe punishment on the Roman Army.
135 CE: (REBBE) AKIVA
Executed by Rome (as noted above).
Tannaic sage, rabbi, martyr at the hands of Romans, political/rabbinical backer of Jewish rebel Bar Kochba—
and his revolt—during the Jewish–Roman War III. Both protagonists – Akiva and Bar Kochba – are tortured and/or killed in Judea by forces of Roman Emperor Hadrian.
c. 150 CE: THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS
Surfaced in the 1970–1993 CE time frame; partially
reconstructed by 2006; incendiary historical document; now de facto controlled by National Geographic Society; document turns Judas's alleged nefarious role on–its–head 2,000 years into the saga.
Somewhat in parallel to the Gospel of John, the Gospel of Judas has Jesus de facto choreographing his own crucifixion by Rome.
170 CE: IRENAEUS
(Saint Irenaeus) asserts/defends the concept that there are precisely four Canon Gospels.
Born in Asia Minor, now Turkey. (b. 120 CE; d. 202 CE)
Irenaeus was pivotal in codifying the four gospels noted above as being the exclusive Canon Gospels. This is more than a hundred years before the Constantine evolvement.
On another front, as relates to philosophy, there is the
well–regarded “Irenaean theodicy” (philosophical response to Evil) very similar to the predecessor rabbinic “nehama de–kissufa” (“un–earned bread”) theodicy. See encyclopaedia entries for “Irenaean theodicy.”
***
The Core Problem
***
The core problem with anti-Semitism
vis à vis the Church,
is not that Pius XII was “silent,”
nor that Pope Benedict (XVI) is not “forthcoming”
For the core problem
is not that there are traces of a lethal virus
in the “software” of the Church
The core problem is that there
is a virulent and lethal virus
in the core “hardware” of the Church
The core problem,
with anti-Semitism
(vis à vis the Church),
is that it would seem to be
endemic and intrinsic
to the bedrock and intertwined Church
core cannon, core theology, and core narrative
***
Sources / First Century
The classic wisdom is that history is written by the victors.
In the case of The First Century, the victors were Christianity
(the ultimate victor) and Rome (the intermediate term victor).
As it happens, both were enemies of the Jews.
And these two formidable enemies of the Jews thus controlled the true information relating to the First Century. Consequently, bulletproof information on the First Century is an orphan. But the underlying realities are discernible, and, it turns out, unequivocal.
As regards the pursuit of accurate information, these are some of the issues:
The Catholic Church does not want it, because it inevitably does not dovetail with the script.
The Greek historians had to filter reality through a light anti–Jewish bias in the popular Greek culture, as Greek culture had competed with Jewish culture in the Mediterranean area.
Sources / First Century
[continued]
The Jews are reliant to a great extent on Josephus, who was in the ‘traitor’ zone, and had his own ‘ingratiation agenda’ vis à vis Rome. Even the later Talmud sometimes naively bought into fragments
of (erroneous) lore pervasively disseminated by the Church as
‘history’ hundreds of years after the ‘fact.’
But the major problem with accessing documented information
vis à vis the First Century is that it has essentially disappeared.
The Jews, key components of the First Century Jesus-saga, who are notoriously obsessive chroniclers and record keepers, seem to have left almost no trace. No records?
No contemporaneous Jewish records of Jesus?
How is that possible?
Sources / First Century
[continued]
Respectfully, the key suspect is the Church of the Roman Empire period. With the Church having hegemony over the Empire, and the Empire having hegemony over Judea, all documents were potentially vulnerable. The Church hegemony gave the Church vast power over any document troves within the Empire’s reach. For hundreds of years onward from the conversion of Constantine’s empire in the 300s CE, any ‘politically incorrect’ document was ‘vulnerable.’
Thus, the Church was ‘in position’ to vigilantly protect its legitimacy, and its spin on history. Any politically incorrect documentation could be destroyed. The document didn’t even have to make its way up the power chain to headquarters in Rome. The local cleric reviewing the ‘incendiary document’ could ‘remove the issue.’
Of course, from time to time, document destruction was an official ‘happening.’ ***
Sources / First Century
[continued]
However nexus point history always leaves a trail. Even those
who would pervert the historical record, as a group leave a trail. Sometimes an incontrovertible trail.
In the case of the First Century, the reality is clearly manifest once one examines matters just below the surface spin. The underlying reality, indeed, ends up being quite incontrovertible.
***see also encyclopedia entries:
Catholic Church – book burnings
talmud burnings
Inquisition
***
Some segments of this Appendix
are specifically anchored academically
in the works
of Hyam Maccoby
see www.MaccobyBio.org
Revolution in Judea
The beginning of the First Century Jewish revolt in Judea is
generally dated as c. 67 CE.
However, there were actually three Jewish revolutions in Judea
in the First Century.
The first was the blossoming of the Hillel–thrust of Pharisee
Orthodox Judaism. Hillel was the direct philosophical predecessor of Jesus. His humanistic thrust, and even his direct sayings, are almost verbatim adopted by the Jewish rabbinic Jesus of Nazareth. (see exhibit: Roots I later in this Appendix)
The second revolution was the blossoming of the synagogue as the primary religious venue in Judaism, supplanting the Temple, which had been polluted by the High Priest/Sadducee/Roman alignment.
The third revolution was the uprising against Rome. Although this flared into open rebellion c. 67 CE, the resistance against Rome commenced at the very point that the High Priesthood was initially co–opted by Rome in 6 CE. The resistance of Jesus to the High Priest/Roman alignment was thus part of this greater and ongoing Jewish resistance.
Of the three revolutions, the first two have prevailed to this day.
***
5 BCE
(Three years after King Herod has completed his
turbo–charged version updating of the Second Temple)
At this point, two–thirds of the nearly eight million Jews of the
ancient world lived outside of Judea, but primarily in the
Mediterranean area.
By any standard, Herod’s Temple was an extraordinary achievement. It was a construct of triumphant splendor. To the Jews,
who were wary of Herod on multiple levels, the completion of
the extraordinary Temple project could not but have impressed. Others talked; Herod had acted. As noted in the text, aside from
its beauty, Herod’s version of Temple II was 5–10 times larger than the original Temple II (constructed in the 500s BCE).
As noted as well, Herod’s Idumaen ancestors had been (forcibly) converted to Judaism only two generations earlier. Herod’s father was technically 100 percent Jewish, but his mother was Idumaen. She was Idumaen nobility, but nevertheless pure Idumaen, and not Jewish. Thus, to many, if not most, Herod was not Jewish.
And Herod had been busy full–time playing to Rome, as well. Recently, Herod had built an entire city on the Mediterranean from scratch, an engineering marvel. Conceptualized from the get–go
as an engineering triumph with an integral artificial harbor, the Mediterranean port of Caeserea Maritima, was constructed, built and named in honor of Herod’s Roman patron, Augustus Caesar.
5 BCE
[continued]
Thus, the construction of the extraordinary Temple (completed in its entirety by 8 BCE) shored–up Herod’s standing with his key local constituency, the Jews. Appointed initially by the Roman Senate as ‘King of the Jews,’ Herod now came closer to actually earning acceptance and legitimacy by those Judean Jews.
However, from the Jewish Orthodox perspective, by 5 BCE,
Herod had veered ‘off course’ – as somewhere in the 8 BCE–5 BCE period, Herod had authorized the placement of a contentious statue on the Temple grounds. Herod placed a huge gilded eagle with outstretched wings over the gate of the Court of the Gentiles at the new Temple complex.
As the outstretched eagle was widely legitimately perceived as the symbol of the armed might and glory of Imperial (and pagan) Rome, the Jews were not amused. On multiple levels, religious
and nationalistic, the placement of the gold–leafed Roman eagle
at the nexus of Judaism and Judea, was highly offensive. It struck at the core.
***
4 BCE
March
In early March 4 BCE, two of the most highly respected teachers of Jewish law in Jerusalem decided to inveigh against the ‘eagle statue’ (see just-previous exhibit 5 BCE) which Herod had placed
on the Temple grounds. The two prominent Jewish teachers,
Mattathias ben Margalit and Judah ben Zippori, were both Pharisees (i.e. Orthodox Jews from the ‘humanistic’ wing of Judaism).
Mattathias and Judah exhorted their students in their Jerusalem school to destroy the offending statue. The teachers and about forty of their students then charged through the streets of
Jerusalem, making their way to the Temple site of the offending statue, rappelled up the ceremonial gate, toppled the eagle to
the ground, and summarily hacked the offending symbol of
Imperial Rome to pieces.
4 BCE
March
[continued]
Herod’s troops arrested the entire group. Fearing a popular
uprising by Jerusalemites in support of the protestors if they
were incarcerated or punished in Jerusalem, Herod had the
group chained and force–marched twenty–three miles eastward
to Jericho.
On the thirteenth day of March, the two teachers and the several students who had actually physically toppled and hacked the statue were burned alive in Jericho in public. The balance of the forty students were executed in private.
***
source: William Klingaman, The First Century. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, © 1990, p. 6
4 BCE
April
LORE
Within a month of the burning alive of the Pharisee rabbinics, Herod himself would die of his various physical afflictions.
But not before he had his son Antipater executed for conspiring
to poison Herod himself.
For Herod’s funeral procession, his body lay on a golden bier, and was covered with a purple cloak embroidered with precious stones. A gold crown was on Herod’s head.
A procession of notables accompanied him on his last journey to his tomb at the fortress–palace Herodium, whose construction Herod himself had conceived and overseen. Located twelve miles southeast of Jerusalem, between Bethlehem and the Dead Sea,
Arab inhabitants call Herodium Jabal al–Foundis or ‘Mountain
of Paradise.’
According to lore, many denizens of Judea wept the week following the death of Herod, but primarily because Herod had prearranged for the execution of a group of Jewish notables to take place immediately upon his death. The megalomaniac Herod had wanted to be absolutely, positively sure that Judea was in mourning, one way or another, the week following his death. And so it was.
***
Exhibit 4 BCE – April material source: William Klingaman, The First Century.
New York: HarpersCollins Publishers, © 1990, p. 12
Not far from Herodium, and eighteen months later, a Jewish infant named Jesus was born in Judea, on the Bethlehem–Nazareth axis (now in the so–called ‘West Bank’).
2011 years later, in 2007, Hebrew University Professor Ehud Nezer announced that he had discovered Herod’s gravesite in Herodium. Subsequently, the elaborate sarcophagus (burial ark) of Herod
was located and positively identified. The sarcophagus had clearly been deliberately smashed into pieces. The smashing of the
sarcophagus, along with the destruction of the monument to
Herod at the site, was archeologically determined to have taken place in the 66–72 CE period. This was the time–frame when Jewish rebels against Rome, known as well for their contempt of the late Herod the Great, had briefly taken hold of the site before retreating southeastward to…Masada. – author
***
Jesus
Jesus was a teacher/rabbinic/preacher in Galilee
(northern Israel today).
Born: 4 BCE; executed by Rome: 33 CE
The Common Era calendar commences with his birth.
A calculation error by the calendar–formulators resulted in his birth year being 4 BCE instead of 0 CE.
Jesus of Nazareth was self–positioned as Orthodox Jewish. *A Apocalyptic and messianic, pressing the outer boundaries of
messianic doctrine, but Orthodox nevertheless.
His life and death are employed as the centerpiece of Christianity,
a religion whose creation as a composite was started by Paul
(of Tarsus) in the c. 50 CE period and advanced first by the Greek Paulines (in the 62–100 CE period) after him. However, Christianity
is simultaneously severely anti–Jewish. The intense anti–Jewish thrust of Christianity spans its core documents as well as its
institutional dogma and actions over the centuries.
* A (1 of 2) see Hyam Maccoby, Revolution in Judaea, entire chapter 10:
Jesus, Rabbi and Prophet, pp. 103–114.
* A (2 of 2) see David Flusser, Jesus, Jerusalem, The Hebrew University Magnes Press © 2001
All evidence – from multiple directions – vectors to the conclusion that Jesus was Orthodox Jewish – author.
Both Maccoby and Flusser, preeminent scholars of the era and subject under discussion, were themselves Orthodox Jewish.
Maccoby believed, as well, that for at least a part of his life, Jesus was a nazir (religious ascetic) as well.
Flusser believed, as well, that Jesus was a tsadik (righteous/saintly individual).
To view the entire Chapter 10 of the Maccoby book online,
go to www.MaccobyJesus.org
Jesus
[continued]
Christianity severely downplays the Orthodox Jewish component of Jesus and all of his Disciples. Many Christians are not aware that Jesus was even Jewish at all, let alone Orthodox Jewish.
The New Testament positions Jesus as antagonistic to Pharisee (mainstream) Judaism. This New Testament portrayal is an
inversion of the truth. Jesus was part and parcel of the greater Pharisee humanistic thrust of Judaism, as well as part of the greater Pharisee activist thrust against both the Caiaphas family (i.e. the High Priest’s family) and its puppet–master, Rome.
Jesus is portrayed in Christian gospels as a faith healer, messianic and apocalyptic simultaneously. None of these components –
individually or in–combination – would automatically relegate Jesus as over the red line of normative (Pharisee) Orthodox Judaism.
In that spiritually tumultuous time period under Rome’s oppressive occupation of Judea, others had traveled similar paths, had been executed by Rome and been mourned by the Jews. In the absence of contemporaneous rabbinic literature castigating Jesus, there is no particular reason to conclude that Jesus overstepped any halachic lines. On the contrary, Jesus was probably meticulously careful not to.
No discussion of Jesus at all is found in any contemporaneous
(First Century) Jewish rabbinic texts. The conclusion would have to be that he was neither considered a major threat to any Jewish constituency (priestly, rabbinic or other), nor necessarily a preeminent factor on the Jewish religious scene at that time. He may have been a potentially explosive figure in the political scene, however.
Jesus
[continued]
If he was a very major factor on the Jewish religion scene, and there was documentation, it was most probably destroyed by the Church for reasons of its own. The Jews were on the run from
c. 70 CE onwards. From c. 350 CE onwards, the Church had major leverage over all Jewish document troves in greater Europe and greater Judea.
Apparently beloved by his small group of Orthodox Jewish
followers, Jesus’ execution by Rome for sedition in 33 CE can
be presumed to have been mourned – via Orthodox Jewish
modalities – by the members of the Jerusalem and Galilee
Jewish/Pharisee communities.
[For some context and perspective into the Jewish world, it should be noted that a large piece of the contemporary and vibrant worldwide (Orthodox Jewish) Lubavitch community mourns the late Lubavitcher Rebbe (Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson zt’l)
as a messianic figure, more than a decade after his death. During his life, the rebbe intimated that he was messianic; he died in
1994; no miraculous unfolding has occurred since his death; but nothing stops his adherents from believing he was/is the messiah. An entire vibrant global sub–culture surrounds this situation to
this day.]
***
Historian Wellhausen
on Jesus
“Jesus was not a Christian: he was a Jew. He did not preach a new faith, but taught men to do the will of God; and, in his opinion, as also in that of the Jews, the will of God was to be found in the Law of Moses and in the other books of Scripture.”1
Julius Wellhausen (May 17, 1844 – January 7, 1918) was a German
biblical scholar and orientalist, noted particularly for his contribution
to scholarly understanding of the origin of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible).
See p. 368 of Klausner’s Jesus
1. Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangelian, Berlin, 1905, p. 113
source: Joseph Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth, New York: Bloch Publishing Company,
© 1989, p. 363
Historian Klausner
on Jesus
“Jesus was a Jew and a Jew he remained till his last breath.
His one idea was to implant within his nation the idea of the
coming of the Messiah and, by repentance and good works,
hasten the ‘end.’” *A
Joseph Klausner was known in the world of Jewish scholarship not only for his historical studies, but also for his efforts to broaden the Hebrew language to meet modern needs. He was born in Lithuania in 1874 and received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Heidelberg. From 1904 to 1919, he held various academic positions in Odessa; in 1920 he went to Palestine, where the taught modern Hebrew language and literature at the Hebrew University.
Dr. Klausner has written a number of books, notably Jesus of Nazareth, From Jesus to Paul and History of the Second Temple Era.
*A See B. Jacob, Jesu Stellung zum Mosaischen Gesetz, Göttingen,
1893.
source: Joseph Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth, New York: Bloch Publishing Company,
© 1989, p. 368
Historian Young
on Jesus
“The fact that Jesus was a Jew is seldom questioned today, but its far–reaching ramifications for the interpretation of his life are routinely passed over. Although Jesus was Jewish, his theology is sometimes treated as if he were Christian. But Jesus never attended a church. He never celebrated Christmas. He never wore new clothes on Easter Sunday. His cultural orientation was rooted deeply in the faith experience of his people. His teachings concerning God’s love and the dignity of each human being were based upon the foundations of Jewish religious thought during the Second Temple period. The more we learn about this fascinating period of history, the more we will know about Jesus. Jesus worshipped in the synagogue. He celebrated the Passover. He ate kosher food. He offered prayers in the Temple in Jerusalem. The Jewish religious heritage of Jesus impacted his life in every dimension of his daily experience.
Historian Young
on Jesus
[continued]
Jesus must be understood as a Jewish theologian. His theology is Jewish to the core. The tragic history of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity makes it extremely difficult to hear his forceful voice. The attacks of the church against the synagogue have stripped Jesus of his religious heritage. As Christians we have been taught wrong prejudices about Jews and Judaism. Hatred for the Jewish people has erected a barrier separating Jesus from his theology. Ethnically he may be considered a Jew, but [to Christians] religiously he remains [pictured as] a Christian who failed to reform the [allegedly] corrupt religious system of the Jews…Jesus is Jewish both in his ethnic background and in his religious thought and practice.
Why was Jesus killed? In the age of Roman supremacy, political intrigue, and the intense strife between popular religious movements and diverse local authorities maintaining a balance of power, the question might even be asked in another way. Was Jesus killed because he was a bad Jew? Or was he killed because he was a good Jew?
Historian Young
on Jesus
[continued]
From a raw historical perspective, who should be blamed for his death? The cause for Jesus’ execution in the Roman court of Pontius Pilate was infinitely more connected to politics and the determined policy of the imperial government, which sought to root out all Jewish messianic hopes, than it was related to a revolutionary theology or religious upheaval. Jesus’ theology did not prompt his death. Jesus was killed as a devout Jew loyal to the heritage of his faith. The political circumstances of a difficult era of history, where Jews were persecuted for being devout, and, above all, where the old messianic hope has to be suppressed, describe the background for Jesus’ trial and execution.”
***
Brad H. Young, Ph.D Hebrew University, studied under David Flusser and is the author of Jesus and His Jewish Parables and The Jewish Background to the Lord’s Prayer. He is the president and founder of the Gospel Research Foundation, which is committed to exploring the Jewish roots of the Christian faith, and is on the editorial board of the Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum.
source: Brad H. Young, Jesus The Jewish Theologian, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 1995
Rosemary Ruether
on Jesus:
Central v. Tangential
“Christians must reckon with the paradox that what is, for them, the great revelatory and salvic event, dominating the center of world history, is, for Judaism’s own historical consciousness, a buried footnote in a curious side–path of Jewish religious history, which ended, [theologically] as far as rabbinic Judaism was concerned, in a dead end. Although the Pharisees apparently did not take such note of Jesus in his own lifetime that one can say, literally, that they rejected him, they did reject him [i.e. that which the Church morphed him into] retroactively, in the sense that they rejected the [allegedly antagonistic] Christ presented to them by the Church. They did so in the same spirit in which they turned their back on all the messianic activism of this period. For them this development had revealed itself as a false direction, destructive alike to the nation and to the individual religious personality.”
Rosemary Radford Ruether (b. 1936) is an American feminist scholar
and theologian.
source: Rosemary Ruether, Faith and Fratricide, Oregon: WS Publishers, © 1995, Chapter 1, p. 59.
No Partners
in the
Sentencing or Crucifixion
“That Pilate would want to execute Jesus makes perfect sense.
In fact, Roman law prohibited capital punishment at the hands of local courts such as those of the Jews. Capital punishment in any case had been made virtually impossible according Jewish law, which requited that the two witnesses see each other, that the
witnesses warn the perpetrator, etc.—all making it almost impossible that Jews would have wanted to actually go through with an execution. Under Roman rule, Jews themselves, without Pilate, without the Romans, would never have been permitted to carry
on capital punishment of anybody…
No Partners
in the
Sentencing or Crucifixion
[continued]
…a tenth–century Arabic version [of Josephus] indicates what
the correct text of Josephus originally was, because it has no Christianizing elements:
At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was live; accordingly (they thought that) he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders.
Actually, this little paragraph can be taken as a simple statement of what actually happened.”
Lawrence H. Schiffman, Chair of New York University’s Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, is also a member of the University’s Center for Ancient Studies and Center for Near Eastern Studies. He is a past president of the Association for
Jewish Studies. (Additional biographical info later.)
Lawrence Schiffman, Crucifixion, http://lawrenceschiffman.com/?page_id=141, (accessed September 2, 2009)
Historian Jules Isaac
on The Crucifixion
“A Roman punishment, the Cross erected on Calvary pointed the finger of guilt not toward Caiphas but toward Pilate. Nothing could have been more inconvenient or troublesome for the Christian apostolate, anxious at all costs to placate the Roman government. How were they to cope with the difficulty? Each of the Evangelists [i.e. Gospel Writers] did the best he could, in his own fashion—which brings us to our second example, the vital confrontation between the data of history and those of the Evangelists.
For we have historical information concerning the matter. As we have seen, we have information concerning the Jewish people
who were then so passionately anti–Roman, so ripe for revolt. We have information on the procurators, and especially on Pontius Pilate, showing him for what he really was—a bloodthirsty tyrant.*A
As a witness against him we have, first of all, his contemporary (and therefore the contemporary of Jesus), the distinguished
Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, who mentions “the crimes [of Pilate], his rages, his greed, his injustices, his abuses, the
citizens he has put to death without trial, his intolerable cruelty.”
In the next generation the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus tells of three incidents in the governorship of Pilate, two of which
resulted in massacres.
Another witness is Luke the Evangelist himself, who mentions (13:1) a massacre of Galileans ordered by Pilate.
Historian Jules Isaac
on The Crucifixion
[continued]
Modern Catholic exegesis is obliged to admit that (as Father Leon–Dufour puts it) “the behavior of Pilate in the Gospel accounts seems to be out of keeping with the data of history.” In short, the bloodthirsty tyrant has been transformed in the Gospel accounts of the Passion into an honest man, anxious to find Jesus innocent and to save his life, who yields in spite of himself before the [allegedly] furious pressure of the Jews—not only of the Jewish leaders but of the people themselves, [allegedly] bent on bringing about the crucifixion of Jesus, one of the their own people, by the hated Romans.
Here we have the successful [read: nefarious] metamorphosis of a crucified into a crucifying people, which may be in the interest of catechism, but is clearly not in the interest of historical truth.”
Jules Isaac (b. November 18, 1877; d. 1963, Aix–en–Provence)
was a Jewish French historian.
*A See passages quoted in Jésus et Israël, pp. 453-456.
source: Jules Isaac, The Teaching of Contempt, Canada: Holt, Rinehart and
Winston, © 1962, pp. 134–136
Rosemary Ruether
on “The Coming of the Messiah”:
Christianity v. Judaism
“The most fundamental affirmation of Christian faith is the belief that Jesus is the Christ. He is that Messiah whom the prophets “foretold” and the Jews “awaited.” On this affirmation, everything else in Christian theology is built. To ask about this affirmation is to ask about the keystone of Christian faith. For Judaism, however, there is no possibility of talking about the Messiah having already come, much less of having come two thousand years ago, with all the evil history that has reigned from that time to this (much of it having been done in Christ’s name!), when the Reign of God has not come. For Israel, the coming of the Messiah and the coming of the Messianic Age are inseparable. They are, in fact, the same thing. Israel’s messianic hope was not for the coming of a redemptive person whose coming would not change the outward ambiguity of human and social existence, but for the coming of that Messianic Age which, as Engels was to put it, is “the solution to the riddle of history.”
source: Rosemary Ruether, Faith and Fratricide, Oregon: WS Publishers,
© 1995, Chapter 4, pp. 246–247.
Historian Schiffman
on
Caiaphas the High Priest
“The exclusivist nature of the Jewish religion and the organization of Judea as essentially a Temple state around Jerusalem meant that the Romans had to govern with the help of some kind of Jewish leadership. That is why they had tried the Herodian dynasty. This time, they decided to select high priests from families originating outside the land of Israel, to place them in charge of the Temple, and to use them as a bridge to the Jewish population. This scheme, however, meant that the high priests whom the Romans selected had little support among the populace, for their status was dependent only on their wealth and closeness to the Roman authorities.
In Jesus’ time, the high priest appointed by Pontius Pilate was Joseph Caiaphas, whose tomb was recently found in Jerusalem. He had married into a family that, together with related aristocratic Sadducean families, controlled the priesthood generation after generation. Caiaphas lasted in office for about eighteen years
(c. 18–36 CE). Most high priests lasted no more than a year, and one lasted one day! How did he manage to hold on to his position for so long? In fact, he was essentially a collaborator. His job was to keep the peace, especially at the festivals, so that the Roman Empire could pursue its policy in the East, untrammeled by trouble from the Jews…
Historian Schiffman
on
Caiaphas the High Priest
[continued]
What do we know about Caiaphas? Apparently, he was a
collaborator, but we have no evidence that he was involved in
this [Jesus killing] or any other execution. Pilate [the Roman Procurator], however, was known for his cruelty, and in the Gospels he is [conveniently] represented as washing his hands [allegedly], allowing the Jews to execute [read: condemn] Jesus. But in Luke (13:1) he is described as mingling the blood of the sacrifices with the blood of the Jews he killed. So who is the most likely choice for the guilty party? It is obviously Pilate.”
Lawrence H. Schiffman (b. 1948) is Chair of New York University’s Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies and serves as the Ethel and Irvin A. Edelman Professor in Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University (NYU). He is a specialist in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Judaism in Late Antiquity, the history of Jewish law, and Talmudic literature. He was featured in the PBS Nova series documentary, “Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” as well as in four BBC documentaries on the scrolls, the McNeil–Lehrer program, and a Discovery special.
source: Lawrence Schiffman, Crucifixion, http://lawrenceschiffman.com/?page_id=141, (accessed September 2, 2009)
The Transmutation
of Jesus
A transmutation of Jesus is effected by Church lore on several levels:
(Note that some of these bullet points overlap significantly.)
Jesus, the activist who protested against Rome, is transmuted into an alleged challenger of the rabbinic authorities.
Jesus, the challenger against Sadducee collaboration with Rome,
is transmuted into an alleged blasphemer against Judaism.
Jesus, the pious Jewish rabbinic committed to Torah Judaism
with a heavy emphasis on humanism, is transmuted into a
quasi–universalistic preacher of humanism, who had rejected
his core Judaism.
The Transmutation
of Jesus
[continued]
Jesus the Pharisee Jew, is transmuted into Jesus the anti–
Pharisee Jew.
Jesus, an advocate of humanistic Orthodox Judaism, is transmuted into an advocate of embryonic Christianity.
Jesus, a nazirite Orthodox Jewish rabinnic, crucified by Rome for sedition, is transmuted into a blasphemer de facto executed by the Jewish authorities.
Jesus, adherent of monotheistic Orthodox Judaism, is transmuted by the Church into the central icon of a religion maintaining Trinity–ism, with Jesus as the Christ the King centerpiece.
Jesus, who was born Jewish, who lived and died Orthodox Jewish, and who came from a multi–generation Jewish family, is transformed into the central icon of a religion, which will denigrate,
and persecute the Jews for over 19 centuries.
***
James the Just
Jesus’ surviving brother James (“James the Just”) assumed the leadership of the local Jerusalem nazirite Orthodox Jewish group upon the death of Jesus. The nazirites were a group within the fold of the Orthodox Jewish Pharisees. They were an ultra–pious,
ascetic Orthodox Jewish group. James's Nazirites internalized the
Jesus as Messiah doctrine.
A Jewish nazirite – as per the Torah – typically leads an ascetic life dedicated to spirituality and God. For a 30+ day period of time, they deny themselves wine, cutting their hair, and any contact with corpses or graves. It is possible, as well, that Jesus had been a nazirite Pharisee Orthodox Jew for part of his adulthood, possibly including at the point of his execution.
The Christian world tries to label this group as the embryonic or early Christian Church. Respectfully, it was not. Notwithstanding attempts to label this Jewish synagogue–centered group as –
the “Mother Church”
the “Jerusalem Church”
the “Old Church”
the “Nazarene Church”
it was simply not a church.
Usage of the term Jewish Christians is as well, a severe distortion of the historical record and of the Orthodox Jewish reality of these nazirites. Jewish and secular historians who take the bait and
employ misleading nomenclature do no justice to their craft.
James the Just
[continued]
The nazirite group was not Christian, was not from Nazareth,
and was not Jewish Christian. They were ascetic Orthodox Jewish nazirites who believed that Jesus was the messiah. The nazirites had no part of either the Virgin Birth theology or the Trinity theology to come. On the contrary, this nazirite group fully embraced halachah (Jewish law and practice).
The nazirite group observed the Sabbath, the dietary laws, the laws of purity, and the laws of tithing. The nazirite group was heir to the Orthodox Jewish legacy of Jesus in thought and in deed.
The nazirite group, as Jesus before them, was opposed by the quisling Caiaphas High Priest family and the Roman–Hellenistic alignment in Judea. The nazirite group, like Jesus before them, was supported by the Jewish establishment, the Pharisees.
Thus, contrary to the interesting inversion of history in the New Testament, Jesus – as well as brother and “successor,” James – are allied–with and embraced–by the Pharisee normative wing of Judaism.
The nazirite group viewed Jesus as messianic, but not as divine, as the Church would. This is the crucial distinction. Viewing Jesus as messianic would be within halachic (Orthodox Jewish legal) parameters. Viewing Jesus as divine would not be.
James the Just
[continued]
Thus, notwithstanding the smoke and mirrors employed by the Vatican et al. as regards this nazirite group, this synagogue group of James the Just was not part of any embryonic Christian Church.
James the Just and Paul of Tarsus are both killed approximately 60–62 CE. At this point, the Greek Paulines make their move. Early Christianity is founded / invented / created / launched by these Greek Paulines.
Early Christianity was launched by the Greek Paulines initially in a lo–key manner subsequent to the killing of the two personages Paul and James the Just in 60–62 CE. It is turbo–charged further 70–100 CE, when the Jews of Judea are under full scale Roman assault.
By c. 73 CE, the nazirite group, patriotic Jewish nationalists as well as religious adherents, are sidelined, if not decimated, by the Roman War and assault on Jerusalem. The result is to leave the Greek Paulines a “clear field.”
Thus, it is not the crucifixion of Jesus which is history’s pivot point. It is actually the dual killing 60–62 CE of James the Just, brother of Jesus, and of Paul of Tarsus, which is the pivot point of Jewish, Western, and Christian history. 60–62 CE becomes the birth point of Early Christianity. Paul’s former Greek Pauline allies, now his successors, at this point, and not coincidently, significantly morph Paul’s vision to their own theological and political ends.
James the Just
[continued]
Via the Greek Paulines, “Savior and Redeemer” themes, “Resurrection” theology, literal “son of God” and “Virgin birth” themes now find more tangible expression in Christian doctrine and writings. Approximately 69–70 CE, with the Roman assault on the Jews of Judea now in full crescendo, the Greek Paulines also in–tandem introduce a wide panoply of literary and image–laden anti–Semitic motifs into the mix.
As noted, James the Just, an Orthodox Jewish nazirite, had been both a disciple–of and the brother–of Orthodox Jewish Jesus. James symbolically holds the baton of Jesus. A man of rectitude, piety, devotion, commitment and sincerity, James maintained a stellar stature both in the Jewish community and within surrounding religious wannabe groups.
Committed to maintaining the Orthodox Jewish heritage of Jesus, James embodied the true legacy of Jesus. With his stellar stature as well as his commitment to – and championing of – Orthodox Jewish law, theology and philosophy, James was the guardian of the Jesus legacy of commitment to Torah Judaism.
While James was alive, the genuine Jesus–legacy would never be altered, breached or compromised by James the Just – notwithstanding importuning by even the charismatic Paul and/or his insistent Greek Pauline allies.
But in c. 62 CE, twenty–nine years after the death of Jesus, James the Just is killed. As Paul is beheaded nearly the same year in Rome, Early Christianity is then launched/created by the Greek Paulines.
James the Just
[continued]
Christianity, under Greek Pauline auspices post–62 CE, will be a religion morphing Jesus from martyr to – God or neo–god or Son of God – or some combination thereof. Whatever its category or label, it is not truly monotheistic.
Christianity will profess to be monotheistic and to be carrying on the heritage of Jesus. Respectfully, both assertions are flawed.
The Orthodox Judaism of Jesus and his Disciples, as well as the ascetic Orthodox Judaism of James the Just and his followers, the nazirites of Jerusalem, the legitimate successor line to Jesus, will be thoroughly uprooted.
The Greek Paulines will hold the banner of Jesus aloft as their iconic standard. But the reality of Christianity will not be consonant with the banner. Indeed, under the banner of Jesus, Christianity as crafted/morphed by the Greek Paulines post– 62 CE, will doom the “mother nation” of Jesus to persecution and mass murder. Under the banner of Jesus, Christianity will undermine and submerge Jesus’ original legacy of devotion to Orthodox Jewish law and practice.
Under the banner as well of the original Bible, (the so–called ‘Old Testament’), Christianity will simultaneously eviscerate the original Bible, and undermine its theology, law and practice. Christianity will then trash its protectors and original recipient nation.
With the killings of James the Just and Paul of Tarsus, there is, of course a power vacuum. Paul had founded Embryonic Christianity. The Greek Paulines at this point launch a turbo–charged version,
Early Christianity.
James the Just
[continued]
By 75 CE, within 12 years of its launching by the Greek Paulines in 62 CE, Judea will have witnessed the total destruction of Jewish resistance by the Romans. The remnants of the Jewish elite will be distracted, to say the least. The Greek Pauline Early Christians will, consequently, post–74 CE, have considerably even more room to
maneuver than after the killings of Paul and James.
Early Christianity will be launched by non–Judeans. It will be launched by pro–Roman, pro–Greek, anti–Jewish non–Jews. Its center of gravity and gospel writers will now be outside of Judea. Its gospel writers will write in Greek, not Hebrew or Aramaic. It will be heavily anti–Jewish. It will be quite a few steps removed from the Orthodox Jewish Jesus of Judea, to put it mildly.
Notwithstanding the surround sound “assertion” by the Church chorus spanning 19+ millennia that James the Just et al. held Jesus to be the Son of God and/or of virgin birth and/or part of a Trinity and/or a vicarious Divine, the “assertion” simply does not wash. And repeating it a trillion times in tens of thousands of venues still does not make it wash. Because the assertion is patently false.
Nazarenes or Nazirines?
The nazirite group of James the Just, is generally referred–to as the Nazarenes
spelling with ‘a’:
Nazarene (with the fourth letter being an ‘a’) implies that the major thrust of the group was focus on the crucified Jesus of Nazareth aspect.
spelling with ‘i’:
Nazirine (with the fourth letter being an ‘i’) implies that the major focus of the group was its nazir–ite – or ascetic Jewish Orthodox aspect.
James the Just
[continued]
*
So, the Church would have a huge multi–century stake in spelling ‘a.’
Indeed the Church position is that this early “sect” (but, actually, in reality, a messianic Pharisee Jewish group) accepted the “Virgin birth” of Jesus of Nazareth, hence the focus on the town of Nazareth.
*
But there are four fairly insurmountable problems with the Church historical–spin:
1) Linguistically, the transformation from the Greek roots of the term Nazarene/Nazirine to the preferred Christian translation (Nazarene with an ‘a’), is apparently untenable. The Greek roots lead to the Nazirites (with an ‘i’) term.
2) The “Virgin birth” theology in Christianity only emerged much later historically.
3) To postulate that these nazirite Jewish Orthodox adherents of – Jesus as Messiah – made the leap to “Virgin birth” theology a year after the death of Jesus, is a contradiction in terms – as Orthodox Jews are not into “Virgin birth” theologies.
While messianism has rich roots in Jewish lore, “Virgin birth” is neo–pagan mythology, and well outside the realm and tolerance of Jewish tradition. Judaism, indeed, sanctifies classic in–wedlock sexual procreation; it does not ever in any shape, manner or form ascribe it to inferior realms.
James the Just
[continued]
4) Bethlehem is the asserted birthplace of Jesus, not Nazareth. If the group sought to focus on “Virgin Birth theology,” somehow out of time sequence of Christian theological development, and somehow in total contradiction to the religious orientation (nazirite Orthodox Jewish) of James the Just, “Bethlehemites” would be the play, not “Nazarites.” Bethlehem is an iconic historic Jewish religious site from the time of Jacob and Rachel. Nazareth c. 40 CE was nowhere in the league of Bethlehem – on any parameter, secular or religious – Jewish or non–Jewish.
*
[My educated conjecture is that focused research will further
“clarify” the matter to the position that the correct appellation should be Nazirites (with an ‘i’). The spelling of Nazarites with
an ‘a’ is only a (yet another) manipulation to obscure the nazirite Orthodox Jewish commitment of the key historical group of James the Just.]
***
For amplification on James the Just/Nazirites,
see link www.MaccobyJames.org
***
(Note: Maccoby, for all his astuteness, took the bait, as well)
Stoning
Blood Libel
Christian lore incorporates at least two sagas of alleged Sanhedrin stoning of key First Century personages – Stephen and James the Just (who was nazirite Orthodox Jewish).
Over the centuries, the church conferred sainthood and other titles and honorifics on both individuals.
The entire issue of James the Just is discussed in the prior exhibit of this appendix. However, in Church lore he is stoned (c. 60–64 CE) by the Sanhedrin, as was, according to Church lore, Stephen before him (c. 33–35 CE)
These alterings of the historical record, in turn parallel the Church concoction of the key blood libel of all–time, the alleged Sanhedrin trial and death–sentencing of Jesus (c. 33 CE).
The evidence is compelling that these two sagas, relating to
Stephen and James the Just, are fabrications and anti–Jewish
canard insofar as they pin the stonings if there were, indeed,
stonings at all, on the Sanhedrin, in particular.
Stoning
Blood Libel
[continued]
What leads me to this conclusion?
• There was no bona fide genuine Sanhedrin this entire period.
• The Sanhedrin, in any event, in its various incarnations over its entire multi–century span, never sentenced anyone to death.
• There was no authorized capital punishment in Jerusalem the entire bracketing time-span (30–70 CE First Century period) by any entity other than Rome.
• Even if a genuine Sanhedrin existed in this period (which it did not), and even if a Sanhedrin could independently sentence a Judean to death in this period (which it could not), and even if all the rigorous requirements concerning witnesses were met (which they were not), the Sanhedrin was still bound to convene on a second day (which these alleged lynch–mobs did not) to execute judgment in this, capital punishment genre case.
*
Regrettably, these poisonous ‘stoning canards’ have been
assiduously disseminated over the centuries – to this day–
by the Church hierarchy.
Stoning
Blood Libel
[continued]
What is described in Acts re: Stephen is not a trial, but an ad hoc lynching (i.e. mob murder).
So, the high–brow Sanhedrin which was in any event non–existent at the time is now suddenly supposed to in reality be a low–life lynch mob – which stones an individual on whim – and on the spot – for allegedly uttering something which is in no way blasphemous to begin with. This on the spot murder allegedly takes place at a point in history when no entity save for the Roman prefect could either sentence or execute capital punishment. The Sanhedrin, in its day one of the most august bodies of all time, which legislated in the Chamber of Hewn Stone on the Temple grounds, is portrayed in the Church lynch–vignette in Acts just–noted as gathering mob–like somewhere to outside Jerusalem (“they gnashed on him with their teeth”) and then themselves murdering Stephen (“with one accord ran violently upon him….”). Church lore relating to the later 60–65 CE lynching of James the Just is almost verbatim the same.
Finally, and respectfully quite damning, is that the concept of “Holy Ghost” [cited above in Acts 7:55 (c. 34 CE)] is only introduced into Christian doctrinal–flow at all 75–275+ years later, and formally incorporated into Church–doctrine only in 325 CE at the First Council of Nicaea. This was the same time frame during which the Church was entering its maximum power–position in Rome within which to tamper with all historical records of Judea and the Roman
Empire to date.
Stoning
Blood Libel
[continued]
The concept of “Holy Ghost” is a quite–nuanced theme, and generally comes packaged with the Trinity concept – the Father, the Son and the “Holy Ghost.” But here, in Acts, it is disembodied and allegedly proclaimed by a believer in Jesus within 0–36 months of the crucifixion – before even embryonic Pauline Christianity surfaces. Thus, Acts has Stephen mouthing Church–doctrine of 290 years in the future. [Note that in the stoning saga, Paul himself is positioned with the (wicked) stoners, before his storied epiphany on the road to Damascus.]
Thus, while the saga is allegedly written – by the anonymous author – c. 34 CE, its content dates it to c. 325 CE, well within the 100–400 CE time frame in which the Church Fathers were most virulently anti–Semitic in public, and quite busy demonizing the Jews on all fronts. More importantly, it is transparent that many
allegedly First Century episodes were doctored by the Doctors of the Church in the 100–400 CE period.
This anonymous stoning concoction, whenever it was written in the 60–400 CE period, is then given 16–20 centuries of traction by the Church. These ‘stoning’ fabrications help construct a parallel theme to the fabricated deicide (murder of a god) charge relating to the crucifixion of Jesus. The parallel theme is what I would call apostlecide (murder of an Apostle).
Stoning
Blood Libel
[continued]
Note that The Book of Acts is a book of the Christian Bible, and that Acts now stands fifth in line in importance/sanctity in the New Testament, right after the four Canon Gospels.
Christian lore and the murder of James the Just
According to Church lore, yet again the Sanhedrin tried and then stoned an iconic figure. This time James the Just is the asserted victim of Jewish nefariousness. But there are several major twists and problems in this fabricated saga.
First, the Church must hijack the legacy of the nazirite, pious
Orthodox Jewish James the Just, and rewrite history to make
him into an Apostle of Christianity. The historical reality is, however, that he was a 20+ year antagonist – until the day of his murder –
of the Apostles of Christianity. The Apostles promoted Jesus sans halachah, i.e. a religion linked to the humanistic teachings of Jesus, accruing the legacy of Sinai, and which usurps the gravitas and Holiness of the Jewish Bible, but which removes the key observance of Jewish Law component of the actual legacy of Jesus. James the Just, brother of the executed Jesus, was steadfast and stalwart in refusing to give his imprimatur to the Greek Paulines.
Stoning
Blood Libel
[continued]
After Church lore hijacks the true Orthodox Jewish legacy of James the Just, and transforms this historical opponent of the Apostles of Christianity into an iconic Apostle of Christianity, Church lore then sets him up for martyrdom. As per its standard modus operandi the Church lays his death at the hands of its favorite institutional villain, the (Jewish) Sanhedrin.
If the Sanhedrin had formally convened at that point, the quickest route towards crucifixion for its own noble members, would have been to usurp Roman authority and start executing denizens of Judea – of any stripe.
But, the plot thickens further.
Why would a (Jewish) Sanhedrin stone one of the most pious Jews of the land?
The answer, of course, is that it did not stone James the Just;
nor, if it formally convened at the time, would the Sanhedrin even blink the wrong way at a surviving brother of the hallowed Jewish martyr against Rome. James the Just was a pious nazirite
Orthodox Jewish leader, among the most pious and respected Jews in the land.
*
Stoning
Blood Libel
[continued]
A) To the Pharisee Jews, James was a bulwark against the Greek Paulines trying to create a new religion but employing an iconic Orthodox Jewish martyr (Jesus) as their iconic neo–deity.
B) To the Sadducee priests, James was honored–by and closely affiliated–with, the Pharisees, and hence, under Pharisee
political protection.
C) To the Roman prefect, the nazirite James the Just was the scholarly head of a theological sect; he was not inciting against Rome; consequently, the Romans would not want to incite the Jews of Judea further by killing the brother of a Jewish martyr. Indeed, some historians believe that his eventual murder in the early 60s CE, indeed radically ratcheted–up the ongoing turmoil in Judea.
D) Which begs the now increasingly–obvious question:
Did elements within the Greek Paulines themselves first
arrange the murder of James the Just (one way or another)
c. 60–64 CE; then, eventually in the c. 100–250 CE era morph his historical legacy into that of an Apostle of Christianity; and then for the final flourish, in the c. 250–400 CE era brand/frame a non–existent Sanhedrin with his murder?
Attuned to the hyper-receptivity of the Mediterranean masses to their amalgam-construct, the Greek Paulines would have well-grasped that James the Just alone – stood between them and a religious empire.
*
Stoning
Blood Libel
[continued]
The three sequential blood libels, as regards First Century icons Jesus, Stephen and James, set the stage in and of themselves for the demonization of the Jews over the centuries.
One by one, of course, when these three Church–inspired canards are put under careful scrutiny, their corruption of the historical record is manifest, however.
All three fabricated Sanhedrin–murders are of central and iconic “Christian” luminaries. The toxicity sown by these demonizations is incalculable.
But actions have consequences. And the three blood libels,
in concert with the entire Church–orchestrated multi–century
demonization of the Jews campaign, will, indeed, set the stage
for mass murder.
***
The Book of Acts
Focus
Acts Chapter 7
King James Bible
51. Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.
52. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:
53. Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.
54. When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth.
55. But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,
56. And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.
57. Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord,
58. And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul.
The Book of Acts
Focus
[continued]
Acts Chapter 7
American King James Version
51. You stiff necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do you.
52. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom you have been now the betrayers and murderers:
53. Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.
54. When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth.
55. But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,
56. And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.
57. Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran on him with one accord,
58. And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul.
The Book of Acts
Focus
[continued]
Acts Chapter 7
Douay-Rheims Bible
51. You stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do you also.
52. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? And they have slain them who foretold of the coming of the Just One; of whom you have been now the betrayers and murderers:
53. Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.
54. Now hearing these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed with their teeth at him.
55. But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looking up steadfastly to heaven, saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God. And he said: Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.
56. And they crying out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and with one accord ran violently upon him.
57. And casting him forth without the city, they stoned him; and the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man, whose name was Saul.
58. And they stoned Stephen, invoking, and saying: Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
The Book of Acts
Focus
[continued]
Acts Chapter 7
English Revised Version
51. Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.
52. Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? and they killed them which shewed before of the coming of the Righteous One; of whom ye have now become betrayers and murderers;
53. ye who received the law as it was ordained by angels, and kept it not.
54. Now when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth.
55. But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,
56. and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.
57. But they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and rushed upon him with one accord;
58. and they cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the
witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.
The Book of Acts
Focus
[continued]
En toto, the Book of Acts/Stephen saga (c. 34 CE) is highly incendiary.
However, there are at least ten salient highly anomalous issues with regards the Acts/Stephen saga. Any one of these ten issues alone would, respectfully, cast doubt on the authenticity of the entire saga:
1) The historically disjointed appearance of the "Holy Ghost" theme (appearing here almost 300 years before the 325 CE Council of Nicae which adopted the “Trinity” – including the “Holy Ghost” – as a Christian orthodoxy).
2) The portrayal of the venerated and scholarly Sanhedrin judges, as a rabid mob allegedly “gnashing their teeth” on Stephen. The portrayal is bizarre, at a minimum.
3a) The (literary) fact that Stephen – and the Stephen saga – appears seemingly from out of nowhere…seemingly out of thin air.
3b) We have no clue of any such Stephen prior to the appearance of this highly-charged work.
4a) The absence of Romans (one of the fatal problems with the accuracy of the Canon Gospels) – even at a capital (death penalty) trial.
4b) A capital trial outside of Roman hands would have been illegal in the first place. This (alleged and illegal) trial-lynching takes place on the very outskirts of Jerusalem, the key nexus-center of Roman power in Judea.
The Book of Acts
Focus
[continued]
5a) Even in the era pre-Roman authority over Judea, when the Sanhedrin did have the power to conduct a capital (death penalty) trial, which is no longer had post-6 CE, Jewish law required that any hypothetical execution implementation required a second convening of the Sanhedrin on a second day.
5b) As noted prior, the Sanhedrin is known to have never in its
history actually handed down a death sentence.
5c) The locale of the asserted Sanhedrin capital trial/execution is outside the gates of Jerusalem. Unfortunately for the spin artist Church saga-crafters, however, the First Century Sanhedrin did not meet outside of Jerusalem, nor even outside the Temple Court (Hall of the Hewn Stones) at the core of Jerusalem. The august 71-member body typically met there every day except Festivals, and was not known to take Day Trips outside for a little tooth gnashing & stoning foray.
5d) Contrary to the toxic-fairy-tale lynch-mob dynamic laid out as the Sanhedrin modus operandi by the Book of Acts, the actual Sanhedrin is well-documented to have consistently employed meticulous due process with regards even minor matters, let alone with regards a hypothetical capital (potential death penalty) case.
5e) As noted related to the crucifixion of Jesus in 33 CE, Jesus of Nazareth was an Orthodox Jewish Pharisee patriot. The concocted notion that sympathizers with Jesus were enemies of the Jews, to be cavalierly stoned to death, is ludicrous in the extreme.
The Book of Acts
Focus
[continued]
6) The subsequent seemingly seamless evaporation from the historical landscape of any follow-through to this alleged intense and lethal Stephen saga.
7) Similar to the problem of the disjointed appearance of the “Holy Ghost” theme (noted above), the historically disjointed appearance of a variation on the “Son of God” theme (appearing here almost 300 years before the 325 CE Council of Nicae which adopted the “trinity” as a Christian orthodoxy) –
“Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man
(Jesus) standing on the right hand of God”
– Acts 7:56
8) The curious coincidence that both Stephen and James the Just – both asserted by Christian lore to have been lynch-executed by the Sanhedrin – seem to have almost the same precise death-scene vision, down to the precise placement/positioning of the parties in the vision –
re: Stephen Acts saga (c. 34 CE)
“…But Stephen…looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God”
– Acts 7:55
The Book of Acts
Focus
[continued]
re: James the Just killing (c. 62 CE)
“Why ask ye me concerning Jesus the Son of Man? He
Himself [himself] sitteth in heaven, at the right hand of the Great Power.…”
– Eusebius of Caeseria, quoting Hegessipus and
Clement of Alexandria (Historia Ecclesiaie, 2, 23)
9) The curious coincidence that both Stephen and James the Just - both asserted by Christian lore to have been lynch-executed by the Sanhedrin – albeit 22 years apart - seem to coincidentally utter the same precious and precise death-scene words – asking God to forgive their executioners.
10) The Book of Acts is allegedly a contemporaneous account of events by Paul c. 40 CE. The Province of Cilica is noted in Acts 6:9. Unfortunately for the spin-artist Church saga-editors, however, the Roman Province of Cilica had been on hiatus from 27 BCE, and was only reestablished by Emperor Vespasian in 72 CE… Thus, the Province of Cilica did not even formally exist c. 40 CE, the time of the asserted Acts/Stephen saga.
Aside from the ten significant veracity-flaws noted above, there is no reason not to take the Acts/Stephen/Sanhedrin lynch-mob
killing fabrication at face value.
*
The Book of Acts
Focus
[continued]
Acts has brought the demonizations to yet a more toxic level.
But, to achieve this end, the Church crafters are forced to expose the egregiousness of their manipulations yet further, ultimately fatally. Connecting the dots leaves one no reasonable room to
believe in the historical authenticity of the highly-toxic and
extremely defamatory Church gambit.
*
As noted in the introductory section to this work, the Book of Acts is fifth in line in “standing” (read: Christian-holiness) in the entire New Testament, coming right after the Book of John of the Canon Gospels.
As per the Book of John, the Book of Acts is, as well, overtly
rabidly anti-Semitic.
“you [the Jews] have become betrayers and murderers”
– Acts 7:52
Inasmuch as Paul, the asserted inspiration of Acts was (proudly) Jewish, it is somewhat unlikely that he actually advanced this virulent hate-mongering. So, the Book of Acts, whoever fabricated its key and virulent sections, consistently suits the ongoing – and unceasing – demonization gambit and anti-Semitic vitriol of the Church Fathers.
***
Procurators and Tetrarchs
In the First Century, Rome controlled Greater Judea.
It maintained political control over the expanse via two modalities, employing one or the other to cover the entire land.
Direct control: via prefects or procurators
(both are often lumped together as procurators)
[The preeminent one was Pontius Pilate,
who was Prefect of Judea from 26–36 CE]
Indirect control: via tetrarchs, specifically the Herodian line of
‘tetrarchs/kings’
(such as Herod Antipas 4 BCE – 39 CE)
The domain of the tetrarch was generally to the geographical northeast of the domain of the procurator. Jerusalem was generally under the domain of the procurator.
Procurators and Tetrarchs
[continued]
Procurators (who were Roman/Gentile) almost always had more power than tetrarchs (who were Idumaean and almost–Jewish).
A wise tetrarch did not mess with the neighboring procurator.
Both of the above, procurators and tetrarchs, were often under the putative domain of the Legate of Syria (headquartered to the northwest).
Thus, whether one was a Roman–appointed procurator, or a Roman–appointed tetrarch (sort of, king) one often had at least
two masters
• the Emperor of Rome
• the Legate of Syria
This was not all bad, however, as the Legate of Syria often
tempered assorted incendiary directives and gambits emanating from Rome.
***
Mediterranean Missionary
45 CE
A hotbed of missionary activity from sundry religious systems, the Mediterranean area in 45 CE (twelve years after the death of Jesus) was a swirl of various masses in search of a fulfilling and convincing religious system.
Missionary competition was active. Converts meant flocks of
adherents, with all which that implied for the proselytizers,
including potentially very considerable power, for starters.
Missionaries might discern receptivity to sundry themes with
particular “energy” resonating through the region
– sundry variations on dualism (often laced through Gnosticism)
– sundry Trinity paradigms
– sundry Virgin birth themes
– sundry Savior/Redeemer themes
(particularly popular with Mystery Cult and sundry neo-pagan movements)
– 'love thy neighbor' themes
(recently given emphasis by the Pharisees in their Jewish
‘outreach’ endeavors)
– a wide-spread appreciation for the ‘authenticity’ of ‘Sinai'
(and of Moses / the Torah) c. 1250 BCE
*
Within three hundred years, by the conclusion of the (Christian) first Council of Nicae 325 CE in Bithynia (present-day Iznik in
Turkey), Christianity would embrace and/or integrate ALL of the above themes – one way or another – into its corpus.
*
Mediterranean Missionary
45 CE
[continued]
By 45 CE, the rabbinic Jesus of Nazareth had been martyred seven years prior....His successor brother, James the Just, refused to allow his Jewish Jesus-as-Messiah followers to transform the martyr and Jewish patriot Jesus into a neo-deity and/or a Savior/Redeemer deity.
James the Just only permitted classic Orthodox Jewish messianic themes. Jesus, as per James's directive, was to be memorialized as a messianic albeit mortal figure. This same James furthermore balked at allowing any dilution of commitment to Jewish law - enroute to full conversion to Judaism, no matter which movement – Jewish or Pauline - was doing the converting.
***
Paul
Embryonic Christianity
40–62 CE
Paul arrives on the scene in Jerusalem intermittently after the death of Jesus.
Paul ultimately unilaterally de–links his followers from the Torah–observance of Jesus. The overwhelming bulk of the 613 Torah Precepts of Judaism are basically brushed–aside.
The key ritual of Christianity for males to enter Paul’s new faith
becomes baptism, in contradistinction to ritual circumcision in Judaism. A debate within Christendom will then follow revolving around the extent of baptism, meaning, whether full–body or lesser mode.
The self–styled Apostle to the Gentiles is actually crafting a new religion – for the Gentiles. Thus, while he uses the Jewish Jesus for his Jewish Martyr iconography front–and–center, Paul then
totally marginalizes the Observant Jew aspect of Jesus. That which was central to the actual Jesus, namely Orthodox Judaism and Jewish theology and practice, is essentially dispensed with totally by Paul.
Paul
Embryonic Christianity
40–62 CE
[continued]
After Paul is executed by Rome in Rome in c. 60-62 CE after
several years of incarceration, he bequeaths a pro–Gentile legacy for his missionary followers. At the heart of his legacy are two simultaneous pillars: The first is, of course, Jesus as Messiah; the second is some variation of a non–requirement of Jewish law for Gentile converts.
In Paul’s schema, the martyrdom of Jesus obviated the need for halachic practice. To Paul, baptism and faith in conjunction with the martyrdom of Jesus, supplant the need for observance of Jewish law. But, without Jewish law, of course, the Gentiles are effectively converting to something other than Judaism.
To the Jewish followers of James the Just, Paul was ‘undermining the brand. ’ Little did they know the extent of the “horrors” which were in store for Judaism as a consequence.
*
Paul emerges as a preeminent saint and preeminent Founding Father of the Christian Church.
***
Continuum?
the stakes
Christian lore and tradition sideline the Orthodox Jewishness of Jesus and his Disciples. Concurrently, Christian lore and tradition (invalidly but conveniently) position the nazirite group of James the Just as Jewish Christians and (invalidly but conveniently) position the nazirites as in basic harmony with Paul.
Church lore and tradition thus attempt to establish a ‘Paul continuum.’
This asserted ‘Paul continuum’ is (invalidly but conveniently) crafted as allegedly tracking back straight to Jesus, as follows:
Jesus
Disciples of Jesus
James the Just
Paul
The Greek Paulines
The Church Fathers
This attempts to establish a key ‘holy continuum.’
However, the theology of the first group of three,
namely –
Jesus
Disciples of Jesus
James the Just / Nazirites
Continuum?
the stakes
[continued]
– was in direct opposition to the theology of the second group of three, namely –
Paul
The Greek Paulines
The Church Fathers
The ‘building blocks’ simply do not connect. There is no continuum. The blocks are in opposition, not in continuum.
Paul was not in harmony with the James the Just / nazirite group. Paul had no particular interest in the 613 precepts of Jewish law (Taryag mitzvot). Paul did not even read Hebrew. Paul was a theological adversary of the James the Just / nazirite synagogue group.
Jesus was an Orthodox Pharisee Jew. His Disciples were Orthodox Pharisee Jews. The James the Just / nazirite synagogue group was not neo–Christian or Jewish Christian by any stretch of the imagination. They were (ascetic) nazirite Orthodox Pharisee Jews.
Nazirite does not mean – deifying Jesus of Nazareth; Nazirite is an ascetic form of Orthodox Judaism. Nazir is a Hebrew term – direct from the Torah.
Christianity is a new religion, inspired by Paul and then crafted/
created initially by the Greek Paulines – in opposition to the theological practice of the (Orthodox Jewish) James the Just / nazirites.
***
Disciples and Apostles
The Disciples of Jesus are often (invalidly or conveniently or deliberately) ‘confused’ with the later Apostles of the Church.
The 12 Disciples of Jesus were with Jesus during at least the latter part of his rabbinical ministry, and were by his side at the Last Supper and at his crucifixion.
The Disciples were all Orthodox Jewish. They venerated and observed Jewish Law. The Disciples were centered in Judea (the Galilee and Jerusalem areas in particular). They spoke Hebrew (not Greek). They were obviously not anti–Semitic.
The Apostles were the sundry leading Christian missionaries.
99 percent of the Apostles were not Jewish. The Apostles negated 90 percent of Jewish Law. The Apostles were centered in Asia Minor (the current day Greece, Turkey and Syria areas). They spoke Greek (and not Hebrew). Many of the Apostles after the death of (the Jewish) Paul including all the writers of the Canon Gospels, were anti–Semitic, some virulently.
Ongoing attempts by the Church to fudge the two groups – and synthesize a ‘continuum’ – are a distortion and involve a substantive fabrication of the historical record.
Disciples and Apostles
[continued]
Not only were the two groups not synchronous, the two groups were antagonistic to each other. Ultimately the Church Fathers would literally hijack, expropriate and then distort the legacy of the 12 Disciples.
Church lore over the centuries sublimates the Orthodox Jewish legacy of the 12 Disciples and their undiluted classic Jewish monotheism. Christianity mutates the monotheistic Orthodox Jewish legacy of the Disciples into their becoming de facto ‘poster boys’ (and girl) for Christianity cum Trinity–ism.
Note:
Mark, Luke, Matthew and John the Evangelist, are names of Apostles. Their names and identities are assigned by the Church as authors of the four Canon Gospels. However, as noted, the true identities of the authors of the Canon Gospels are unknown to this day. What is 100 percent clear is that the authors of the Canon Gospels were not Disciples, and were certainly not Mark, Luke, Matthew or John the Evangelist.
The Gospel of Judas, unearthed and pieced–together in the late twentieth century, is a gospel about Judas, not by Judas.
*
Disciples and Apostles
[continued]
James the Just was a Disciple. Church lore maintains erroneously that he was as well an Apostle of Christianity. Actually, James
aggressively fought the Apostles.
Peter (crucified by Rome in Rome) was neither a Disciple of Jesus, nor an Apostle of Christianity. Peter is noted in Jewish rabbinical literature as a (quite revered and) learned and holy Orthodox Jew. He was well–regarded in Orthodox Jewish lore for his work in advocating and disseminating the Noachide Laws among the Gentiles.
Peter was crucified upside–down in Rome by Rome in the early 60s CE period. Perhaps the reason he was crucified upside–down, was that he was not a Christian proselytizer. And the
Christian proselytizers were being crucified right–side–up by Nero’s enforcers.
Church lore asserts erroneously that Peter was both a Disciple of Jesus and an Apostle of Christianity. As noted just prior, he was neither. Peter was a solo operator.
*
Disciples and Apostles
[continued]
The Church goes to extreme lengths to rework history to attempt to directly connect:
the Disciples of Jesus > Apostles of Christianity
the Disciples of Jesus > Authors of the Canon Gospels.
Both multi–century and ongoing gambits fail multiple rudimentary tests of historicity.
***
Development of Christianity *
the first 700 years:***
a rough schematic
40–62 CE Paul: Embryonic Christianity
The de–linking of halachah.
60-62 CE Paul and James the Just killed
62–100 CE The Greek Paulines: Early Christianity
The period includes the parallel creation
of anti–Semitism and the writing of the
the four Canon Gospels in Asia Minor.
101–749 CE The Church Fathers: Layering–on and
Consolidating Church Doctrine
The period includes the incorporation
of the Trinity paradigm into Christian
doctrine.
* The breakdown is mine: the terminology is mine;
the groupings are mine.
*** Dating is based on simplifying the rough scholarly consensus.
***
Sedition or Blasphemy
Jewish tradition and virtually all contemporary critical scholarship maintain that Jesus was crucified by Rome for sedition against Rome.
Catholic lore and the Canon Gospels project that Jesus was
crucified for blasphemy against the God of Israel.
But, if Christian lore is correct, why should the Romans do the ‘dirty work’? Why should blasphemy against the God of Israel
concern the Romans at all? If anything, blasphemy against the God of Israel, should be music to Roman ears? If Jesus had been marked for death by the Sanhedrin, which Church lore spins as
all–powerful, why did this allegedly sinister and all–powerful
Sanhedrin not just execute/stone Jesus itself? Stoning, according to the Gospels themselves, was the “handy” Jewish remedy for transgressions against God?
But, in any event, what were the alleged blasphemies?
According to Christian lore the alleged blasphemies by Jesus against the God of Israel, revolved around the following:
1) Jesus as ‘Messiah’
2) Jesus as ‘Son of Man’
3) Jesus as ‘King of the Jews’
Sedition or Blasphemy
[continued]
There is no contemporaneous documentation for any of the three assertions. In addition, the gospels and Christian lore are highly–suspect in relation to all matters relating to the Jews. But let us examine these Christian assertions for their alleged ‘blasphemy quotient.’
MESSIAH:
Alluding that others believe oneself to be the Messiah, had Jesus done so, may have been seditious in Roman eyes, but, is simply not blasphemous vis à vis Judaism.
Proclaiming oneself divine is taboo in Judaism, but there is no canonical assertion that Jesus ever did so.
Sedition or Blasphemy
[continued]
Son of Man:
The title Son of Man, is, as well, not a divine title in Judaism. It is applied in Jewish tradition and lore as well to regular people, to prophets, and to angels – but never to God or a god. Thus, if Jesus used the term, it would not cross any Jewish theological red lines. [Note – The contemporary Hebrew word for ‘human’ is ben adam – Son of Man.]
*
The line of attack employed by the Christian Canon to set up Jesus in opposition to rabbinic Judaism is false. This is wishful thinking, and does not withstand even elementary scrutiny. Jesus committed no potential heresy.
Sedition or Blasphemy
[continued]
King of the Jews:
Respectfully, there is nothing anti–halachic to this. The messiah in time–honored tradition is referred to as Melech Ha–Mashiach – the Messiah–the King. There is nothing anti-halachic to this; in fact it is used in contemporary Jewish religious parlance as well.
Of course, its potential usage might not have endeared Jesus with Pontius Pilate.
*
James the Just, brother of Jesus and authentic heir to the Jesus legacy, picked up where Jesus left off – aligned pitch-perfect with Orthodox Pharisee Judaism.
James embraced Orthodox Pharisee Judaism, and Orthodox Pharisee Judaism embraced James. The Orthodox Pharisee
Jewish movement indeed protected the James group from political and religious persecution, and exerted political retribution against those who would attack it.
Thus, all attempts to revise genuine history and assert that the Jesus legacy was one of potential blasphemy towards the rabbinic Jewish Pharisee establishment, fatally err and mislead – and do a disservice to the honor of the Pharisee Orthodox Jewish rabbinic Jesus of Nazareth.
Sedition or Blasphemy
[continued]
If James the Just, who lived through the Last Supper and the Crucifixion of Jesus, remained committed–to, and part–of, and allied–with – Orthodox Pharisee Mainstream Judaism, does it truly jive that his late brother had blasphemed God? Does it truly jive that these same Orthodox Jewish Pharisees had betrayed his late brother, howled for his brother’s death, and then aided and abetted his crucifixion?
Jesus was executed by Rome for sedition against Rome.
Asserting that Jesus was crucified for Pharisee–alleged
blasphemy against God, is a perversion of the historical record,
and a misguided political attempt to blacken the Jews, and to
exculpate Rome.
Ambiguous language concerning First Century Jewry as regards this matter in contemporary Nostre Aetate may soften matters to
the Jews. However, respectfully, the carefully calibrated and
nuanced document does not neuter the inflammatory power of
the Canon Gospels, the toxic power of the passion sagas, the toxic power of still–uncorrected Christian texts, and the toxic power of 1900 year–old Christian lore.
Sedition or Blasphemy
[continued]
But what about the Trinity paradigm?
The Trinity paradigm – which Judaism would indeed hold as a violation of the First Commandment – is only formally incorporated into Christian doctrine about 300 years after the crucifixion of Jesus. The Trinity paradigm post-dates Jesus, post-dates the Canon Gospels, and is not mentioned in them.
But what about the assertion that Jesus overturned tables at the Temple?
As noted, the Sadducee High Priest was an enemy of the Jews. The ‘Mainstream Jews’ – the Pharisees – the Synagogue Jews – were in alignment with Jesus against the High Priest.
Overturning tables at the Temple periphery would seem to be an appropriate protest against the Sadducee’s usurping of the Jewish Temple and of their collaboration with Rome against the Mainstream Jews. Overturning the tables at the Temple periphery was sedition against Rome and its quisling ally.
Respectfully, there is no blasphemy in overturning tables.
***
Some Appendix–Related
Reference Points***
(all dates approximate)
6 CE Herod deposed by Augustus;
Judea, Samaria and Idumea annexed
as Roman provinces under direct Roman
administration
9 CE Hillel dies
(a.k.a. Hillel the Elder, Hillel the Sage)
28 CE John the Baptist begins his ministry
33 CE Jesus crucified in Jerusalem by Rome
(i.e. via Roman Procurator Pontius Pilate)
36 CE Pontius Pilate recalled to Rome for excessive cruelty
after crucifying many Samaritans
c. 60-62 CE James the Just killed in Jerusalem –
underlying instigators unknown
c. 60-62 CE Paul beheaded in Rome by Rome
c. 60-64 CE Peter crucified (upside down) in Rome by Rome
Some Appendix–Related
Reference Points***
[continued]
66 CE “Q Document,” hypothesized Greek text thought by many critical scholars to have been used as a key source in the writing of Matthew and Luke in particular, and in the
writing of Mark, as well
66 CE Creation of anti–Semitism
66 CE Jewish Revolt, and the Roman counter–assault on
Judea commences
68 CE Commencement of the writing of ‘Mark,’ first of the four Canon Gospels
*
Resurrection of Jesus theology appears in gospel of ‘Mark’
(c. 68–73 CE), skipped in ‘Luke’ and ‘Matthew,’ and then appears
in ‘John’ (c. 90–110 CE)
*
73 CE Last Stand of the Jews at Masada
*
The Canon Gospels of ‘Matthew’ and ‘Luke’ (written in the
70-100 CE period but edited c. 350 CE) reference a virgin birth.
Some Appendix–Related
Reference Points***
[continued]
*
301 CE Armenia becomes the first country to recognize
Christianity as its official religion. Armenian Orthodox Church established.
321 CE Constantine decrees Sunday as state “day of rest.”
*
Trinity theology – The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost – or Trinitarianism, is developed in the 100–400 CE period, with the doctrine established as a Christian orthodoxy at the First Council of Nicaea (in present day Turkey) in 325 CE.
The same Council also de–linked Easter from the Jewish lunar calendar Nissan 15 (Passover) computation.
*
*** some of these reference points were noted in the main TimeLine text
***
The Nazirites
after the death of James the Just
As the authentic heir to Jesus, integrity–laden and stature–filled James the Just and his Orthodox Judaism in Jerusalem – were a barrier that neither Paul nor his Pauline Greek associates could penetrate while James was alive.
Upholding Jewish law and theology, James the Just and the
33–62 CE version of his Nazirites were an implacable roadblock.
With the deaths in 62 CE of both James (in Jerusalem) and Paul (in Rome), the (non–Jewish) Greek Paulines had ‘running room’ to politically launch a new religion. They would co–opt the legacy of the Orthodox Jewish martyr, the rabbinic Jesus of Nazareth. The rudimentary parameters of the new religion had been percolating since roughly 50 CE.
The nazirite group of James, hitherto the center of gravity of the heirs to the Jesus legacy, would need to be brushed off the political scene. And the sooner the Greek Paulines could ‘edit’ the nazirite legacy, the better.
The Nazirites
after the death of James the Just
[continued]
Image–wise, contemporary Catholic lore literally cloaks the authentic Orthodox Jewish ascetic James in inauthentic Catholic clerical garb. Betrayed theologically, his legacy inverted, the true story of his Orthodox Jewish commitment would be submerged, diluted and mangled by the Church. To this day.
The Church will employ Jesus, the martyred brother of James as centerpiece, but will jettison the Orthodox Jewish practice, heritage and theology of both Jesus and his brother James the Just. Christianity will keep James in very blurry focus – as clear focus, does not advance the party line.
With the legacy of Jesus co-opted by the Church, and with the Greek–dominated Catholic Church increasingly anti–Jewish after the Roman destruction of Judea in the 70s CE, the nazirites,
albeit sincere and devout, are increasingly radioactive as far as their Orthodox Jewish brethren are concerned.
The Nazirites
after the death of James the Just
[continued]
With Judea in ruins, its leadership decimated, portions of its
populace enslaved and exiled, and Christendom having turned against the people who birthed its progenitor, the messianic
Orthodox Jewish nazirites now faced hostility on all fronts.
Revering Jesus as the Messiah, the nazirites found themselves
in political no mans land. They would be officially banned from the synagogue in 90 CE. Sincere or not, Orthodox Jewish or not, operating within halachic parameters or not, they had been co–opted. And the consequences to the Jews at–large had been horrific.
The legacy of James the Just is crushed in the unfolding historical saga. 62 CE was the firing of the starting gun for Christianity.
In conjunction, the two killings roughly the same year were
epoch changing. Theorists can conjecture whether the timing of two killings – both in the same 2-year period – were coincidental.
***
Hijackings
Subsequent to the killings c. 62 CE of both Paul and James the Just, the Greek Paulines would effect three historical/theological hijackings:
In each case the hijacking would be accompanied by a
transmutation.
In each case, the “shell” would be maintained, but the “core”
neutered or transmuted.
Paul:
The iconography of Paul would be hijacked from his benign legacy.
The “non–observance for the Gentiles” mantra would be preserved.
The pro–Jewish component of Paul’s world view, would be
jettisoned.
Hijackings
[continued]
The “Old Testament”:
The (shell of the) Torah, accepted by many as God-given to the Jews at Sinai, would be incorporated into the Greek Pauline “mix.”
However, over 90 percent of the “observance” contents of the Torah would be jettisoned.
The Martyr Jesus:
The martyr iconography of Jesus, would be incorporated by the Greek Paulines into the new religion.
However, the “observance” aspect of Jesus would be jettisoned – as would the Orthodox Jewish component of Jesus. The “new Jesus” would somehow be stripped of his Orthodox Jewish core and orientation. He would be morphed into a quasi-universalist figure.
The Greek Paulines would then turn on the Jews.
Hijackings
[continued]
Summation of exhibit
So, with regards key iconography of Christianity noted above, while the “originals” were all Jewish, the Greek Pauline transmutation mutates the iconography out of its original core in each case.
Having successfully effected the transplant, the Greek Paulines then move to undermine the donor, meaning, the Jews.
Epilogue to exhibit
The Church Fathers, from 100 CE onwards for the next several centuries, would note the successful traction of the ‘hijack gambits’ of the Greek Paulines.
In due course, extraordinary temporal power would flow to the Church Fathers in the 300–400 CE period...during which the “hijack gambit” would be applied, as well, to both (the Orthodox Jewish) Peter and to (the Orthodox Jewish) James the Just, respectively. Both would find themselves newly reincarnated by Christian editors as picture–perfect Apostles of the Church, their Orthodox Jewish dedication and cores stripped–clean out of them.
*
Nero Scapegoats the (Embryonic) Christians
64 CE
In the year 64 CE Emperor Nero ratcheted–up his public
debauchery. Banquet–orgies were given in his honor. He went through a wedding ceremony with another male, and engaged
in public sexual relations with him in front of witnesses.
That summer a catastrophic fire broke out in Rome. When it was over, ten of Rome’s fourteen districts had been gutted. As part of his multi–faceted response, Nero opened his own gardens to the homeless and presided over an orderly relief effort.
However, several weeks after the fire, Nero made an official and public decision to build his dream palace upon the ashes of the ravished hillsides. Included was the planned Golden House, a mansion which was to have an arcade spanning more than a mile.
These plans for an imperial palace upon the ruins of the homes
of ordinary citizens, gave rise to rumors that Nero’s agents had
set the Great Fire in the first place. With public anger rising, Nero attempted to deflect the outrage by blaming the Great Fire on the tiny ‘nascent–Christian’* community. These ‘nascent–Christians’ were hounded, arrested and tortured. He impaled scores of them on stakes and then burned them alive as human torches to illuminate the city at night.
*
Nero Scapegoats the (Embryonic) Christians
64 CE
[continued]
Nero would rule until June 9, 68 CE when he committed suicide. On the run from the Roman Senate, at the villa of a friend outside of Rome, Nero drove a dagger into his throat. “What an artist the world is losing” whined Nero, the would–be dramatist, as he
prepared for suicide. ***
*
In 66 CE, two years before his death, in response to a newer and higher level of militant violence, Nero had dispatched his top
general Vespasian – to Judea....
***
* The ‘nascent–Christians’ believed in Jesus as Messiah. 64 CE
is before the development of key Christian themes of Trinity and Virgin birth–related. The level of development of Savior and Redeemer themes by this point is unknown, but this is probably early in their development vis à vis Jesus. Classic Christian anti–Semitism does not commence until the first Canon Gospel later in the decade.
*** Suetonius, The Lives of Twelve Caesars, Life of Nero, xlix
[Da Vita Caesarum–Nero, c. 110 CE]
The ‘Jewish Problem’
65 CE
To the Greek Paulines, there were pluses and minuses to having (the Jewish) Jesus as the centerpiece of the essentially new
religion that was being crafted, fine-tuned and morphed for the Gentiles.
The plus side of the ledger included –
The Jesus core story itself – a story of sincere courage and martyrdom.
Jesus was heir to Sinai and to the entire epic Jewish saga, including the reigns of Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon and
the Maccabee.
The Torah – the Jewish Bible – was a uniquely extraordinary document. Accepted as divine by major segments of the First Century world, the Torah had resonance, authenticity and gravitas.
The ‘Jewish Problem’
65 CE
[continued]
The negative side of this Jewish ledger included, among other components –
Halachah – the voluminous body of Jewish law, which the
Gentile population was simply not buying into.
The disinterest of the Jewish leadership in converts uninterested in undertaking Jewish law en toto.
The Jewish leadership’s potential capacity to delegitimize the new religion as inauthentic
The Jewish population’s potential capacity to look down upon the new religion.
(Latent) perceptions of the Jews as elitist
The potential of the Jewish intellectual elite to unleash their
potent ‘firepower’ upon any usurping religious movement,
exposing any weaknesses or fault lines or inauthenticity.
The ‘Jewish Problem’
65 CE
[continued]
The challenge for the Greek Pauline operatives, determined to follow–thru on Paul’s determination to synthesize a new religion for the Gentiles, but determined to embrace a far greater audience, would be to incorporate the pluses, while neutralizing the negatives – one way or another.
The rest, as we say, is history. But the result would be nineteen centuries of obloquy and persecution for the Jews. The Greek Paulines had, indeed, developed a stratagem for neutralizing the negatives.
***
The Greek Paulines
Early Christianity
62–100 CE
Greek Pauline missionaries (centered in what is now the Greece–Turkey–Syria region) are the heart of Paul’s group.
Ultimately, they will effect a complete overhaul and mutation of the historical saga and theological superstructure surrounding Jesus.
Subsequent to the murder of James the Just (c. 62 CE) and the beheading of Paul (c. 62 CE) the Greek Paulines effectively de facto seize the reigns of power of the Pauline movement. They no longer need to seek any imprimatur from the Orthodox Jewish nazirites of James the Just. For, with James recently conveniently murdered, the ascetic and reclusive Nazirines will not have enough firepower to delegitimize the nimble Paulines if they morph the legacy of Jesus.
Thus, in c. January 60 CE there were two ‘obstacles’ to the Greek Pauline’s vision of Kingdom on Heaven and Earth: James the Just and Paul of Tarsus, himself. By c. December 62 CE, there were none – except the Pharisee Jewish elite.
The Greek Paulines
Early Christianity
62–100 CE
[continued]
By 67 CE the Jews, intellectual elite included, are at the barricades fighting the Romans. At this point, the Greek Paulines make their move. The group's ideology morphs to a strident anti–Semitism. The Paulines will move to delegitimize the character and integrity of the Jews, elite included, before the Jewish elite can delegitimize the adventurous theological gambit of the Paulines.
The gospels will incorporate a myriad of ploys to delegitimize the Jews. The gambits will achieve their objectives.
*
One will note, of course, that the contemporary Greek Orthodox Church, part of the Eastern Orthodox Church, direct heir to the legacy of the Greek–Turkey–Syrian Greek Paulines, is not, shall we say, overly pro–Jewish.
The Greek Paulines
Early Christianity
62–100 CE
[continued]
The hypothesized Greek Q Document, which may very well
have been the source for the first three of the four Canon Gospels, would have come from this group. This Greek group ‘appropriates’ Paul’s legacy, and morphs it further to embrace additional
resonant themes.
Paul and his successors layer–on several key historical and theological overlays onto the actual saga of Jesus. The original saga of the Orthodox Jewish teacher executed by Rome is overlaid with mystical iconography, Gnostic themes, pagan symbology, mystery religion motifs, and components of Greek mythological lore.
Part of the ‘mix’ will be to edit history to suit the political needs
of the Church. This revisionist ‘history of the Jesus–era,’ inserted into the Canon Gospels/New Testament by Paul’s Greek–oriented successors – to undermine the Jews, and exculpate Rome –
often directly contradicts all known evidence and historical
documentation.
The Greek Paulines
Early Christianity
62–100 CE
[continued]
The Greek Paulines are astutely attuned to the energy buttons
of different religious cultures spanning Europe and the Levant. They were well–suited for the paradigm–shift undertaking.
Christianity will ultimately incorporate, amongst other themes, the Immaculate Conception and Virgin Birth, the Trinity including the Holy Ghost, and the Resurrection of the Savior/Redeemer Jesus. This is a multi–faceted theological/mystical overlay/synthesis. It is a multi–cultural makeover, drawing intense themes from several formidable disparate cultural belief–systems.
The Greek Paulines craft a new religion – for the Gentiles. Thus, while they employ the Jewish Jesus for his Jewish Martyr iconography front–and–center, the Greek Paulines then totally marginalizes the Observant Jew aspect of Jesus. That which was central to the actual Jesus, namely Orthodox Judaism and Jewish theology, is dispensed with totally.
The Greek Paulines
Early Christianity
62–100 CE
[continued]
The Greek Paulines initiate what is today Christianity. Paul’s Christianity had been a sort of Christianity Light. It was missing the “loaded” highly–charged ‘mix’ of often mystical and pagan themes, iconography and emotional intensity superimposed post–mortem over his theology by his former allies the Greek Paulines. In any event, one way or another, the new religion initiated by Paul, and then morphed by the Greek Paulines, will ultimately sweep the
Roman Empire.
But the Greek Pauline overlay / creation / construct has a (deliberate) quite–dark side...a heavily manipulated dualism. This dualism first classically juxtaposes the Forces of Light v. the Forces of Darkness – but in the case of the New Testament it does so with intense polarization, and at the severe expense of the Jews.
In the Greek Pauline setup, Christianity is positioned as the all–pure Force of Light (complete with virgins and angels) juxtaposed against unadulterated Evil. The Early Church Fathers (meaning the successors of the Greek Paulines) cast and transfigure the Jews as the demonic representatives of the Forces of Darkness.
The Greek Paulines
Early Christianity
62–100 CE
[continued]
A minimum of nine major episodes relating to the Jews alone, receive the Jew–blackening and history–altering ‘New Testament–treatment.’ [see exhibit later – Foundation Work].
Both the Greek Paulines (62 –100CE) and their successors, the Church Fathers,100–740 CE re–work history to play to the dualism/Gnostic/neo–pagan hot–buttons in the psyches of their target audience. Paul and his successors read the market accurately. But, even when their constructs terrorize millions (of Jews), and even after Christianity is well–established, the Roman Catholic Church will not halt the demonizations.
To the Greek Paulines, the stakes are high – first, political viability; eventually, the glory of Christ and the glory of the Church.
The Jews, however, were expendable. The historical record would be doctored to fit the demonizations. Church power and control prerogatives trumped the facade of Church morality.
The Greek Paulines
Early Christianity
62–100 CE
[continued]
To make the construct ‘fit,’ the Greek Paulines via the edited Canon Gospels often totally ‘rework’ the actual history of the First Century. Key historical episodes are either inverted or invented to demonize the Jews.
Roman interests are factored–in for political and proselytizing reasons. The Jews are juxtaposed with the Forces of Darkness for mass psychology reasons.
Rome must be kept at bay, and the masses must be kept in line. First undermining, and then demonizing the Jews, will advance both important Early Christian objectives.
Since rewriting some segments of history requires the rewriting of all linked and historically–certified segments of history, the gambit ultimately fails under careful scholarly scrutiny. The pieces simply do not fit. But scholarly scrutiny does not truly come into play until the Enlightenment about 17–18 centuries later. In the meanwhile, Christianity gets rolling and emerges as a juggernaut world religion. In the meanwhile it ‘transcends’ key historical First Century ‘factual’ issues.
The Greek Paulines
Early Christianity
62–100 CE
[continued]
For example, the Pharisees, (the humanistic Jews of Galilee
and Judea) allies–of Jesus, and of kindred political and religious philosophy as Jesus, are inverted by the New Testament as the arch–enemies of Jesus (who was himself a loyal and valued
Pharisee Jew).
Pontius Pilate, the vicious and all–powerful Roman Procurator, who crucified many thousands both before and after Jesus, and who cavalierly sentences and executes Jesus, is reworked by the Gospels, as a weak and timid functionary. To demonize the Jews, the Gospels must rework the Pilate–reality, and cast Pilate as an almost impotent reluctant accessory to the death sentencing of Jesus – whereas, Pilate was, in reality, essentially the all–powerful sole judge, jury and de facto executioner of Jesus.
Several key New Testament vignettes are entirely fabricated.
Examples would include the bizarrely-alleged Passover night
2–3 A.M. Sanhedrin Trial of Jesus, and an alleged 5–6 A.M. post–Seder Jewish mob scene early Passover morning. Neither ever happened on this planet.
The Greek Paulines
Early Christianity
62–100 CE
[continued]
These inventions – fabricated by the New Testament – do not pass rudimentary tests of veracity. They would, however, be incorporated into the Christian Canon, and, as we know, be venerated and disseminated as part of asserted gospel–truth. This holy gospel packaging would protect the demonizations from too much scrutiny or challenge. Cumulatively, the demonizations would prove
genocidal.
To the engineers of Christianity, the parallel meticulous fabrication
of a virulent anti–Semitic virus was not a casual undertaking.
The diabolicalization of the Jews was, in the calculation of the Early Church, a necessary theological and psychological polarity. This fabricated polarity was to be juxtaposed against the asserted Forces of Light in the newly–constructed theology. Anti–Semitism would be a necessary psychological symmetric piece of the Christian theological construct – fabricated and later turbo–charged –
to gain additional important psychological leverage over the hearts and minds of the masses to be converted.
The Greek Paulines
Early Christianity
62–100 CE
[continued]
Undermining the Jews will simultaneously ease the hearts and minds of Christianity’s constituency that the Jews – who brought us those iconic Ten Commandments in the first place – might just be a peg higher on the status ladder than we are. Not to worry. That would be taken care of.
The fostering of a virulent anti–Semitism will be calculated as a necessary, albeit not sufficient, arrow in the power quiver of the Catholic Church to first convert – and then hold – the masses of Christianity. All for the Glory of Christ.
***
‘Triplet’ paradigms
in First Century Gnosticism
Both Father–Mother–Son and Father–Son–Holy Ghost paradigms exist in First Century Gnosticism.
Christianity will later incorporate the Trinity (the Father–the Son–
the Holy Ghost) as an ‘orthodoxy’ (core doctrine) at the First
Council of Nicae in 325 CE. (Nicae was in Bithynia, present day Iznik in Turkey.)
But, Christianity will also de facto incorporate the Father–Mother–Son paradigm via central Christian “God the Father–Mary the Mother–Jesus the Son” lore and tradition….
As regards the Trinity, many will challenge that it violates the First Commandment of the Ten Commandments, and that the iconography and other representations of the now–deified Jesus, then transgress the Second Commandment. Christianity disputes both assertions of any transgression.
‘Triplet’ paradigms
in First Century Gnosticism
[continued]
Here are the first two of
the Ten Commandments:
I 2 I the LORD am your God who brought you
out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage:
3 You shall have no other gods besides Me.
II 4 You shall not make for yourself a sculptured
image, or any likeness of what is in the heavens above,
or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth.
5You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I the LORD your God am an impassioned God,…
– TORAH EXODUS 20: 2–5 YITRO
‘Triplet’ paradigms
in First Century Gnosticism
[continued]
In any event, the roots of both ‘triplets’ are Gnostic.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
There is one reference only to a ‘trinity’ in the Four Canon Gospels, one sentence in Matthew (28:19) ‘Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.’ However, given the history of the Canon Gospels, one simply does not know if the lone sentence in four tracts was inserted later in the Third–Fourth Century CE to anchor the theme retroactively.
***
Gnosticism
Font of Christianity
Gnosticism was and is heavily dualistic: The Forces of Good
combat the Forces of Evil.
In Gnosticism (including at the time of the Early Christians) there was a Savior (in Greek, “Soter”) who was one of a Trinity of divine beings. This savior was also called “the Son of God” – from the World of Light. He redeemed mankind by his suffering and then ascended to Heaven to sit by his Father in Everlasting Glory.
Gnostics sometimes incorporate the Jewish God, Jehovah, in their tradition, and sometimes as a kind of dark entity Devil, the Creator (Demiurge) of this evil fallen world – from which the Savior comes to redeem us.
Christianity, a composite tributary of Gnosticism, will incorporate major and key Gnostic motifs. Christianity will compete ‘theologically with Judaism, and attack ‘personally,’ and quite viciously.
Gnosticism
Font of Christianity
[continued]
Gnosticism is pejorative to the extent that, as noted, the Jewish God/god is sometimes portrayed as evil. In successor Christian theology, the Jewish God is good, but the contemporaneous First Century Jewish people – and the Jew per se – are portrayed as diabolical and as evil (incarnate).
Gnostic theological anti–Jewish thrusts overlap with Greek cultural anti–Jewish submotifs competition. The Greeks, highly-educated and intellectually versatile, are key players across the Mediterranean in sundry fields in the First Century. The Greek–Turkish–Syrian community (Greece–Turkey–Syria) and the Gnostic community overlap significantly.
Greek–Jewish rivalry plays–out on multiple levels. Both cultures asserted a superior, top–of–the–pyramid cultural super–system
(literature, culture, heritage, philosophy, theology etc.). Both
cultures had rich cultural traditions and formidable histories.
The elites of both cultures competed for key posts in the Roman Empire, throughout which Greek functionaries were quite heavily entrenched. The Greeks and Jews competed across the Mediterranean in finance, trade, and business and ultimately for status
and power.
Gnosticism
Font of Christianity
[continued]
They also apparently competed in religion. Some First Century strains of Judaism were actively involved in proselytizing, thus
going head–to–head with Gnostic (often Greek–Turkish–Syrian) missionaries, In the Eastern Mediterranean.
*
Both rivalries converge in key trading centers like Antioch (northeastern Mediterranean, currently Turkey) and Alexandria (southeastern Mediterranean, Egypt). Gnostic writings flourished in both centers along with Gnostic–Jewish rivalry and Greek–Jewish rivalry. Anti–Jewish disturbances and riots will flare in both centers spanning the First through the Sixth Centuries.
Following the sacking of the Jewish Temple in 70 CE, (the Roman) Titus posted the cherubim (the angel–sculpture part of the Holy Ark) from the Temple (Beit ha–Mikdash) above the city gates of (heavily Greek) Antioch. A gift to his Greek–Turkish–Syrian allies. Antioch was a cradle of Christianity.
Gnosticism
Font of Christianity
[continued]
As noted, the four Canon Gospels (the New Testament) are written in Greece–Turkey–Syria, with heavily anti–Jewish history rewrites laced throughout. The Gospels are written in the approximately 40–50 years subsequent to the Roman vanquishment of Judea. They are written outside of Judea. Their Gospels contain at their core, centerpiece Gnostic themes of Dualism – the Forces of Good v. the Forces of Evil. The Trinity paradigm will be introduced embryonically later – in the Second Century by the Church Fathers.
One might observe that the crafters of Christianity absorbed some of the most emotionally and politically appealing components of various religious belief systems into their new theological superstructure. The diabolical twist is that Christianity then turned–on some of those same ‘originator belief systems.’
As Christianity later ascended in power first across Europe, it
attacked other major ‘contributor belief systems,’ not just Judaism. In the First through the Sixth centuries, Christianity attacked the organized Gnostics – politically and even militarily.
Gnosticism
Font of Christianity
[continued]
The Albigensian Crusade a.k.a. the Cathar Crusade (1209–1229 CE) was a 20–year military campaign initiated by the Roman Catholic Church to eliminate the “Cathar heresy,” a Christian religious sect which had emerged with too heavy a Gnostic/Dualistic orientation and insufficient political capital with the Church.
The Greek Paulines and their successors, the Church Fathers,
will incorporate into Christianity, among other motifs –
the Trinity concept from Gnosticism
a transplanting of the Torah from Jewish history–1250 BCE – as the so–called Old Testament, to add gravitas and authenticity to the Canon Gospels, the ‘New Testament’
the Jewish martyr Jesus from Jewish history 33 CE, albeit
with an inverted/distorted Jewish context
a transplanted dualism, albeit a highly toxic and venom–loaded version thereof, from Dualism/Gnosticism
Mystery Cult Savior as well as Redeemer themes
Neo–pagan Immaculate Conception and Virgin Birth themes
Gnosticism
Font of Christianity
[continued]
Tapping–into a latent receptivity to a potentially compelling multi–faceted religious paradigm, across the First–Fourth Century CE Roman Empire, Church doctrine will achieve traction. The framers of the Canon Gospels in concert with the Early Church Fathers connect with their target audience.
Co–opting and/or morphing compelling–to–the–populace Gnostic, Dualistic, Mystery Cult, Jewish and other themes, whether by
synthesis, inversion or outright transplanting, Early Christianity takes root. With a vengeance.
Christianity is by no means an extension of Judaism. From the get–go, Christianity was radically more an extension of Gnosticism/Dualism than of Judaism. The ‘book cover’ was Jewish and the key martyr is Jewish. But the book text is not.
***
Mystery Cults
“…The whole idea of a god–man who sacrifices himself in order to atone for the sins of mankind is alien to the Jewish tradition. It is part of the sadomasochistic romanticism of the Hellenistic mystery–cults, with their irresistible appeal to those who found the burden of guilt unbearably heavy and who longed for it to be taken away from them by some charismatic divine figure….”
“...As the civilization of Greece took over other cultures, its own mystery–cults began to imbibe and become infected by the mystery–cults of other nations…. These cults had a long history behind them and were derived ultimately from pre–historic vegetation–religions designed to promote the fertility of the earth. In their original form they were cults of human sacrifice in which a chosen victim was killed in order to replenish the vigor of nature. The victim came back to life as a god and was worshipped….”
Mystery Cults
[continued]
“…The [annual] enactment of the death and rebirth of the Phrygian god Attis, one of the most popular of these deities, corresponded to Easter–time; and the period between the death and rebirth of the god was frequently three days, (this being probably a remnant of moon–worship, since this is the time between the death of the old moon and the birth of the new)*….”
* See J. Leipoldt, Sterbende und auferstende G…tter, Leipzig 1923,
pp. 77–78; and Von den Musterien zur Kirche, Hamburg 1962, p. 201
***
– Hyam Maccoby
Revolution of Judaea
pp. 87–88, 103
Dualism
Dualism denotes a state of polar–opposites.
For instance, positive vs. negative.
Some metaphysical, philosophical and religious systems
incorporate dualism in their systems.
Good v. Evil
Dark v. Light
Love v. Hate
Mainstream Jewish philosophy does not give dualism significant attention. Remember that front and center, Judaism is projecting Monotheism: One God. Thus, any dualism in the cosmos would need to be a subordinate and lower tier dynamic.
However, the Garden of Eden saga, front and center in the Torah, has a significant undercurrent of Good v. Evil, as do other Torah sagas. Meaning, the Torah itself is dualistic, although mainstream Jewish philosophy is overwhelmingly not so.
Kabbalah, the mystical philosophical offshoot of Judaism, does give significant play to dualism. [My own work, Summa Metaphysica, pegs–off of some Lurianic Kabbalistic motifs in this area, and
incorporates some dualistic themes.]
Dualism
[continued]
Mainstream Gnosticism is very heavily dualistic.
Christianity rewrites the historical record vis à vis the Jews, so it is in a position to undermine the Jews via a dualistic paradigm. Christianity then employs a highly–charged dualism as a cudgel to beat down the Jews.
Jesus is positioned as a combination
all–pure / God / cosmic Sacrifice (Christian)
who is
set–up / murdered–by the
all–Evil / Diabolical / betrayers (Jews)
The message imparted throughout the Gospels is implicitly; if not explicitly:
Love (the heavenly) Jesus v.
Hate the (diabolical) Jew.
Dualism
[continued]
The Canon Gospels, along with their theological offspring,
the passion sagas, allege or imply –
Pure Christianity v. Impure Judaism
Love–filled Christianity v. Hate–filled Judaism
Saintly Christians v. Diabolical Jews
The Martyr Jesus v. the Killer Jews
In combination, these projections would achieve critical mass,
and ultimately prove genocidal. Over the course of nineteen
centuries of the Catholic Church’s projecting and manipulating its own highly–toxic dualism–spin (just–noted above), a critical mass of hatred would be generated in Europe towards the Jews.
Many millions of Jews would be real victims – to ultimately be terrorized and murdered. In its time–honored fashion, the Vatican then piously and sanctimoniously wrung its hands. How terrible were those Nazis…..What could we possibly have done?
***
Baptism
roots
Sethian Gnosticism roots –
A baptismal rite is prevalent in First Century Sethianism, a First Century Gnostic sect. The Serthians call baptism the “Five Seals.” Baptism was originally distinctively Sethian.
“It is clear that some form of baptismal ritual is peculiar
to the Sethians.”
http://jdt.unl.edu/lithist.html
– SETHIAN GNOSTICISM: A LITERARY HISTORY
by John D. Turner, 2001, University of Nebraska
Jewish roots –
Mikvah – both ritual – respectively for both women and men,
has deep roots in the Torah and in Jewish cultural practice.
***
Where are the Romans?
Where are the Romans in the Canon Gospels?
Rome was the governing entity in Judea since 6 CE, when Jesus was around nine or ten years old. Rome was the Occupying Power. Rome appointed and controlled the High Priest. The Jewish religious community was in continual protest from that point on, in one form or another, against Rome for the 27 years leading up to the crucifixion of their fellow Orthodox Jew, Jesus.
The Gospels center around the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus.
But, since Rome was calling all the shots, would it not be relevant–
to relate Rome’s tyrannical power–grip on Judea?
to relate Rome’s co–opting the High Priest Caiaphas?
to relate Rome’s multi–decade dark alliance with the
High Priesthood?
to relate that Rome – and only Rome – had the power
to execute Jesus?
to relate that Rome – and only Rome – was in the
crucifixion business?
to relate that the Jews did Rome’s bidding, and not
vice versa?
Where are the Romans?
[continued]
to relate Rome’s rapacious cruelty across Judea?
to relate the ongoing multi–decade Jewish communal resistance against Rome – of which Jesus was
part and parcel of?
In the span of the four Canon Gospels, the word “Romans”
appears only once (in John xi. 48). Why do the Gospels remove Rome from the landscape?
Of course, the answer is transparent: The all–powerful Romans must be made to practically disappear from the scene, the power of the Jews must be magnified 100–fold from reality, the background Jewish communal resistance to Rome must be edited–out, and Jesus’ historical resistance against Rome must be re–spun and fabricated as resistance against the Jews.
If Rome is to be courted by the Church, and Rome’s citizens proselytized, best for the Gospels to lo–key Rome’s culpability in the arrest, conviction and execution of Jesus. In fact, best for the Gospels to make Rome disappear almost–completely from the pages of the Gospels…
Where are the Romans?
[continued]
And if Rome must make an appearance, best to portray it as nearly impotent, perhaps as gently benign. Maybe no one will notice that Rome has magically been transformed. The ultimate ‘makeover.’
Maybe no one will notice that the power of the Roman Empire has been made to shrivel. Maybe no one will notice that in the Gospels, Rome has been made to practically evaporate from the governing scene of Judea.
Maybe no one will notice that a ruthless and overbearing empire is suddenly a docile entity. Maybe no one will notice that the subject people, the Jews, incredibly suddenly seem to be dictating to the Empire, and not vice versa.
Maybe no one will remember that crucifixion was the signature
Roman execution–terror mode. And finally, maybe no one will
remember that Rome – and only Rome – and its despotic
plenipotentiary Pontius Pilate – had crucified many, many
hundreds of Judeans – before and after Jesus of Nazareth….
***
Historian Jules Isaac
on Where are the Romans?
“In 1960 Father Leon–Dufour put it more frankly: “In the main, the Jews were more and more accused, the Romans more and more excused…probably because the Christian apostolate was turning toward the pagans.: The impartial historian Marcel Simon is even more explicit: “The authors [of the Gospels], anxious to humor Rome, visibly took pains to present the passion in such a way that the Roman government, represented by Pilate, comes out of the affair practically spotless, while the Jews are weighed down with
a guilt which they openly admit.”
What conclusions may be drawn from this preliminary examination? That the historian has a right and a duty, an absolute duty, to see the Gospel accounts of the Passion as testimony weighted against the Jews.”
Jules Isaac (b. November 18, 1877; d. 1963, Aix–en–Provence) was a Jewish French historian.
source: Jules Isaac, The Teaching of Contempt, Canada: Holt, Rinehart and
Winston, © 1962, p. 132
Roots I
“Love Thy Neighbor”
c. 1250 BCE – Torah
Based on the Torah (c. 1250 BCE, Pentateuch) precept: “If thou meet thine enemy’s ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again.” (Exodus xxiii). Also “Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear a grudge against the children of thy people,
but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord.”
(Torah [Pentateuch] Leviticus 19:18).
c. 10 BCE – Hillel
A man went to [the legendary Jewish sage] Rabbi Hillel and asked him "teach me the whole Torah on one leg." Hillel looked at him curiously, and then thought for a long time. Eventually he took a piece of paper and wrote on it "love your fellow like yourself." He gave this note to the man and said "This is the whole Torah on one leg." (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a)
c. 30 CE – Jesus
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you… (Matthew 5:43–44)
c. 30 CE – Jesus
For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment,
‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ (Galatians 5:14)
***
Roots II
comparison
The Dead Sea Scrolls
(150 BCE – 70 CE)
and
The Canon Gospels
(70 CE – 110 CE)
One of the iconic Dead Sea Scrolls is “The War Scroll,” referred to in academic circles as “IQM.” The War Scroll’s focus is Armageddon – the war to end all wars.
Intriguing parallels exist between the Jewish Essene sect text “The War Scroll” (written in Hebrew c. 100 BCE and crafted in the Dead Sea area, Judea) and the later Christian [Canon Gospel] ‘Luke’ (written in Greek c. 85 CE and crafted in the Turkey–Syria area).
See side–by–side comparison chart on the following two pages.
Roots II
[continued]
Roots II
[continued]
source: David Flusser, Judaism and the Origins of Christianity,
Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University © 1988, pp. 138–9
Barabbas the Convenient
According to closely parallel vignettes in the gospels of Mathew and Mark, the ‘crowd’ (which has magically morphed from a small anonymous crowd to a howling Jewish mob over the course of
the gospels) [in the early morning post–Last Supper] chose the criminal Barabbas to be released from Roman death row, and Jesus to be crucified.
According to this rendering of events, Roman Procurator Pontius Pilate was ambivalent about crucifying Jesus and threw the
decision of which of the two prisoners to be killed, up to the crowd.
For, according to Peter (the non–canonical Gospel of Peter), there was a Passover custom for the praefectus (governor) of Judea
to commute the death sentence of one prisoner.
However, scholars aggressively challenge this entire saga on
several inter–related grounds.
First, there are no contemporaneous historical accounts –
in either Jewish or non–Jewish texts – of this supposed Passover pardon practice. (The asserted “Passover privilege” is ‘fictional’ – Maccoby, Revolution in Judaea – p. 19)
Second, the astute political survivor Pilate was unlikely to leave
his political fortunes at the hands of a [Jewish] crowd.
Barabbas the Convenient
[continued]
Third, this was all occurring at Passover itself, with Jerusalem
at peak annual tension due to the tens of thousands of pilgrims converging upon it, when Rome was acutely aware that its
authority was most vulnerable. Why free any potential trouble-
generators at this point-in-time?
Fourth, it is highly dubious that Pilate would choose that tender moment in time to free possibly the single most dangerous entity in Judea in decades – Jesus of Nazareth – to electrify and ignite the populace – against Rome.
But, fifth, the fatal flaw in the (alleged) Barabbas vignette is that there is an insurmountable contradiction: For the same Jewish crowd which had, according to the Gospels, adoringly welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem on Sunday, is now portrayed 4–5 days later, Friday at daybreak, as howling for his death. Notwithstanding that Jesus had acted with consistent honor and valor in the interim.
Why would a Jewish crowd that adoringly acclaimed Jesus as a hero on Sunday, hatefully mobilize approximately 5 A.M. just four days later on a Holiday morning to howl for his blood?
Barabbas the Convenient
[continued]
Thus, while the saga has the convenient for the Early Christians effect of cleansing Pilate/Rome of culpability, and demonizing
the Jews, the facts themselves respectfully do not wash. And,
of course toxicity has consequences. And severe toxicity in the guise of religious history can have mega–consequences, as we have unfortunately come to learn.
A passage found only in the Gospel of Matthew (27:25) has the [Jewish] crowd saying, “Let his blood be upon us and upon our children.”
By manipulating the “hatred button” of young Christian minds via assorted hate-charged fabricated vignettes, the Church will
insidiously first poison an entire continent, and eventually the world-at-large.
But,
Who is the true diabolical entity in this picture?
Who is the true hate-filled entity in this picture?
Should not the gospel writers, perhaps, gaze into the mirror?
***
Historian John Gager
on The Grego–Roman View
of the Jews pre–Christian Era
The Greek and Roman Encounter with Judaism
THE HELLENISTIC ERA (to 50 BCE)
“In the Greco–Roman world, the earliest and most abiding view of the Jews was as a nation of philosophers. Theophrastus (c. 300 BCE), Megasthenes (c. 300 BCE), Clearchus of Soli (c. 300 BCE), Hermippus of Smyrna (c. 200 BCE), and Ocellus Lucanus (second century BCE) all associate Judaism with the traditions of ancient philosophy.1 A similar image appears among Hellenistic ethnographers. Hecataeus of Abdera (c. 300 BCE) as well as numerous authors cited by Josephus in his Against Apion indicate a strong and appreciative interest in Jewish history and culture throughout the Hellenistic period. In short, there is considerable evidence to substantiate Martin Hengel’s observation that ‘down to Posidonius [c. 50 BCE]…the earliest Greek witnesses, for all their variety, present a relatively uniform picture: they portray the Jews as a people of philosophers.’2
1 For a discussion of these authors see Stern, Authors, vol. I, pp. 8–17
(Theophrastus); pp. 45–52 (Megathenes, Clearchus); pp. 93–96 (Hermippus),
and pp. 131–133 (Ocellus).
2 M. Hengel, Hellenism and Judaism (Philadelphia, 1974). p. 255.
Historian John Gager
on The Grego–Roman View
of the Jews pre–Christian Era
[continued]
We may now speak of a new consensus on the nature of relations between Jews and Gentiles during most of the Hellenistic period. As Hengel comments, not even the bitterness arising from the Maccabean revolt failed to dampen the sense of ‘amazement at the founder of the Jewish religion and the original teaching of Moses.’3 When contrasted with the years 30 BCE to 135 CE, the Hellenistic period is striking not just for the absence of anti–Semitic actions and the low level of anti–Semitic beliefs but for the indications of active interest in Jewish history and religion. Those who would assess this period differently must do so on shaky grounds. The cultural exchange between Jews and Greeks from the Hellenistic side was, by and large, open and appreciative.”
John Gager is Professor of Religion at Princeton University.
3 Hengel, Hellenism and Judaism, vol. I, p. 258.
source: John Gager, The Origins of anti–Semitism, New York: Oxford University Press, Inc. © 1983, pp. 39 and 43.
The Question
“Why then had the Roman world in the time of Constantine
become so much more hostile to Jews and Judaism than
it had been in the time of Jesus, three centuries earlier?
Was there a seam of malevolence…?”
***
source: Martin Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem, New York: Vintage Books, © 2007, p. 551
The Creation of anti–Semitism
c. 66–100 CE
The ‘demonic-amalgam’ implant
Christianity, would over the 32 year span following the Roman assault on Judea (67 BCE) become a virulently anti–Jewish enterprise.
Garden variety Greek and Gnostic competitive anti–Jewishness will be sculpted by the Greek Paulines, and later refined by their successors, the Church Fathers, into a uniquely destructive diabolical theological lethal virus.
Garbed in theology, inverted history and toxic imagery, this toxin would be a quantum level more virulent than anything ever employed by previous competitors of the Jews. The Greek Paulines create anti–Semitism as we know it post–68 CE. It is their other signature creation.
This created virus will be “Holy Writ”–grounded. It will be a smear campaign of virulent intensity. The virus will burn to the core of the psyche of those infected by it.
This European Church–crafted virus will brand the Jew as a diabolical entity embodying the inter–related and overlapping toxic attributes of –
evil
the Forces of Darkness
the demonic / satanic
the sinister
a betraying entity
a Christ killing entity
a blood lusting entity
a criminal entity
The Creation of anti–Semitism
c. 66–100 CE
The ‘demonic-amalgam’ implant
[continued]
The Gospels/Passion Sagas will be a “double–credit” ‘introductory course’ provided by the Church to Christian children for twenty centuries.
Introduction to Judaism 101
and
Introduction to Hatred 101
Slander and smear: This entire multi–century, multi–tentacled
campaign will be written, directed and produced by a group whose centerpiece theme is none other than “Brotherly Love.”
Via manipulated imagery, fabricated vignettes and twisted history, the Church will conjure–up its genocidal amalgam. It will be an amalgam from the depths of hell. This venom-laced demonic construct will be the Church’s notorious and ongoing ‘contribution’ to Western Civilization.
Post–Holocaust; anti–Semitism has been muted by the Church.
But the thick roots of the poison vine in the Church Canon and theological lore most certainly remain.
Metaphorically, some branches have been cut down. However,
the trunk and the roots remain. A hundred years after the Holocaust, (by 2045) memories of the photographs of the piled corpses will fade; but the Christian Canon will remain.
The Creation of anti–Semitism
c. 66–100 CE
The ‘demonic-amalgam’ implant
[continued]
The virulent Church–incubated toxin would infect Europe for almost 1900 years. And the virus would achieve its desired goal. Victim after Jewish victim. Death after death. Over and over. Same theme; different modalities. Century after century. As Christianity spread across the world, anti–Semitism followed the Cross. Period.
Christianity would theologically brand the Jews as representing the Forces of Darkness. Demonic and subhuman imagery would be superimposed on the Jews.
With toxic imagery interspersed throughout the Gospels and their offspring – the passion sagas – a young Christian mind would be implanted from childhood, if not from Baptism, with multiple
imagery demonizing the Jew. The 'demonic amalgam' implant. Invisible embedded hatred primed to be activated.
The Creation of anti–Semitism
c. 66–100 CE
The ‘demonic-amalgam’ implant
[continued]
The toxic themes would resonate through the young psyche. In due course, the psyche would connect the dots. A diabolical 'virulent amalgam' implant. Subconsciously and/or consciously a unique animosity would fill the psyche of the Church–harpooned prey.
The ‘implant’ would be ‘successful.’
The Greek Paulines successfully created a practically invisible
virulent genocidal modality. They could still posture as the
religious enterprise bestowing LOVE and SALVATION upon
Mankind. Presumably all is fair in love, war and religion–creation. In any event, the Greek Paulines could rationalize that the Jews were juxtaposed against the quintessential Force of Light, the sacred sacrifice, the Son of God.
In the process, the European Church would thoroughly betray this very same Jesus and his people, but that is another matter. All is for the Glory of Christ – if it furthers the power and manipulation prerogatives of the Church power elite.
Ongoing denigration, degradation, terror, horror, and mass murder. All included.
The Creation of anti–Semitism
c. 66–100 CE
The ‘demonic-amalgam’ implant
[continued]
While simultaneously posturing ‘LOVE’ as its centerpiece theological and philosophical theme, the Church would stir this toxic brew for centuries. It would disseminate its poison on a daily basis via various modes, its bible included.
The police power of the Roman Empire enforced the Church’s neo–genocidal campaign. An ongoing hate–fest was unleashed. Isolated, unarmed and outnumbered 100:1, the Jews were good target practice for the Church.
Enveloped by “surround–sound” vilification and hate, the Jews played for survival. Simultaneously the Church would blame the Jews for bringing opprobrium upon themselves. With intermittent absolute power, the Church was intermittently absolutely corrupt.
The Cathedral spires would go up; the Jews would be cut down.
A cosmic symmetry, for sure.
“Children – Watch the Jewish boys and girls being trashed, hounded, raped, degraded, murdered, burnt, and starved.
That’s what happens when you don’t believe in Christ the King.”
The Creation of anti–Semitism
c. 66–100 CE
The ‘demonic-amalgam’ implant
[continued]
The Catholic Church protects its hate-mongering behind a holy shield of alleged historicity – itself an inversion/perversion of the historical record.
At the apex of European society for centuries, and the religion of hundreds of millions, the Church would not be held to account, would it?
The Church would actually never need to officially stir its entire constituency to action in order to visit massive ongoing trauma and devastation on the Jews. Outnumbering the Jews often by over 100:1, the Church had room to maneuver.
If the Church’s toxicity dissemination incited to various levels of
toxic action only the basest 5 percent of its constituency, say the 5 percent who were abused one way or another by society or by the Church itself, it would still have five rabid on the prowl hate–filled and twisted human torpedoes, for every isolated Jew. That should
do the trick.
The Creation of anti–Semitism
c. 66–100 CE
The ‘demonic-amalgam’ implant
[continued]
The other 95 of 100 Christians would not necessarily be
kissing cousins of the Jews either. At a minimum, there would
be a ‘distance.’
Humans are not born with animus. 99.9 percent of “God’s children” are born without malice. Indeed, they probably have built–in
psychological defenses against permanent malice.
However,
if one subjects these children to an ongoing “toxic wash”
of demonization of a particular group,
if one implants in them fraudulent diabolical imagery
masquerading as historical truth,
if one can package these defamations as theology
if one subtly enlists even their parents into this de facto
brainwashing endeavor,
if one can subtly indoctrinate animosity into these kids
if one can impress upon them that it is de facto
God’s will that the Jews are undermined every
which way,
The Creation of anti–Semitism
c. 66–100 CE
The ‘demonic-amalgam’ implant
[continued]
then,
one can potentially bypass the defenses.
one can potentially manipulate decent kids into becoming lifetime carriers of an infectious virus,
one can potentially implant a diabolical amalgam
– for a lifetime.
and then, with a little luck,
one has a lifetime warrior for Christ – and a soldier in
God’s war.
No one ever said it was easy to engage in mass manipulation on a global scale – and get away with it.
The unquestionably overwhelmingly decent Christian kids would be subjected, often through their entire childhood,
to the above–noted manipulative toxic wash – in Church and
in Church schools, if not as well in family and friend milieus.
It’s the Gospel Truth, is it not?
An insidious, programmed hatred waiting to be activated,had been implanted in the impressionable young. Invisible – and indeed, unbeknownst – to child and parent alike.
A diabolical subliminal mind programming.
The Creation of anti–Semitism
c. 66–100 CE
The ‘demonic-amalgam’ implant
[continued]
The religious belief system of Paul of Tarsus, itself a radical departure from the Orthodox Judaism of Jesus, is radically morphed, overlaid and re–invented further by the Greek Pauline ‘successors’ to Paul. The Greeks were masters of imagery and of the human psyche. This diabolical group – and their theological successors– would send millions of innocents to their doom.
The clever Greek group, which synthesized anti–Semitism, would
in due course build a virtual empire – and simultaneously send
millions to their doom to prop up this temporal empire, positioned as a Church of God.
“We have prevailed – so we must have been right all along.”
“We have the majestic cathedrals and the red and white pennants and the pomp and pageantry. We have swept the Roman Empire. It must be God’s will.”
“Anti–Semisitsm? Nothing to do with us. It must be an ancient curse… We posture LOVE, do we not?”
The Creation of anti–Semitism
c. 66–100 CE
The ‘demonic-amalgam’ implant
[continued]
Once history has been inverted, once multi–faceted hate imagery is widely disseminated, once demonization is systematically implanted – all under the rubric of theology – among many hundreds of millions of impressionable young minds – ongoing for hundreds of years – it is virtually impossible to calibrate the depth and breadth of the toxic ocean creation.
Hatred–generation wreaks destruction both upon the children of the ‘attacker group’ and upon the children of the ‘target group,’ for starters.
Hatred has wings. And fangs. Spanning centuries.
Ann Frank in the 1945 was subject to years of ongoing Nazi hounding, fear and terror before ultimately being ‘arrested’ at age 15, and dying horrifically of typhus in the midst of degradation and mass dying in the Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp. She lived to witness the typhus death throes of her sister several days prior.
“Love thy neighbor.”
***
Historian Jules Isaac
on Core Christian
Theological anti–Semitism
“Consiously or subconsciously, anti–Semitism is profoundly rooted in Christianity….
It will be objected that anti–Semitism has always existed; but this argument has no solid historical foundation….
On the historical level there is nothing to justify the assertion that anti–Semitism was present from the beginning of Israel’s history. That a pagan anti–Semitism existed in antiquity is incontestable, but it turns out to have been much more localized in time and space than is generally believed.
The argument of “universal anti–Semitism” has no more historical foundation than that of “eternal anti–Semitism.” The Jews who were deported to Chaldea [Persian Gulf] in the sixth century BCE lived there quietly and prosperously for several centuries; Babylonia [geographic center of the Jewish Babylonian exile] became one of the principal [historic scholarly] centers of Judaism. The Jews who emigrated to China encountered no hostility….
Historian Jules Isaac
on Core Christian
Theological anti–Semitism
[continued]
At any rate, it is an error to state that the Jews have always been subjected to intolerance, and persecuted by the pagans. The reverse is true: the persecutions were spasmodic, and more often than not the Jews enjoyed the good will of the government. The Ptolemies of Egypt esteemed them and employed them as soldiers, customs inspectors, colonists, and revenue officers; it appears that Jews served as commanding officers of the Egyptian army. In the Roman Empire, the religion of the Jews was the only foreign creed to be licita, or officially tolerated; it had a powerful attraction for a great many people, and every synagogue had its sympathizing, or “God–fearing,” pagans. None of this agrees with the [alleged] “scorn” and [alleged] “universal antipathy” which so many [alleged] historians cite without offering sufficient evidence.
Christian anti–Semitism, which is essentially theological, has been infinitely more pernicious and persistent, since it has continued up to our own time.
Historian Jules Isaac
on Core Christian
Theological anti–Semitism
[continued]
From this essential fact derives another of vital importance. For the Christian apostolate in pagan lands, there was nothing more irritating or more galling than the passionate resistance of the Jews which they encountered everywhere, their refusal to recognize Jesus as Christ (or Messiah) and as Son of God in the fullest sense of the word—that is, as his “only Son.” In the eyes of the pagan world this obstinate refusal was a stunning contradiction of Christian teachings….
How could the Christians succeed? Only by destroying the prestige of their adversary [the Jews], by a campaign to discredit him. Indeed, this was a constant aim of Christian apologetics, and was already noticeable in many passages of the four canonical Gospels. It became even more obvious in the apocryphal Gospels, and reached its height with the Church Fathers of the fourth century. From then on, the victorious Church was allied with the Empire, and caution was no longer necessary [in demonizing the Jews].
Historian Jules Isaac
on Core Christian
Theological anti–Semitism
[continued]
…The impartial Marcel Simon writes: “Unlike pagan anti–Semitism [anti–Jewishness], which is more apt to consist of a spontaneous reaction, [Christian anti–Semitism] is exceptionally well directed and organized toward a precise end: to render the Jews hateful.”*
It [Christian theological anti–Semitism] has, moreover, “an official, systematic and unified quality which has always been lacking in the former [pagan anti–Jewishness]. It [Christian anti–Semitism] is at the service of theology and is fed by her; it borrows her arguments...in a special kind of [politicized] exegesis of biblical interpretation…for what amounts to a long indictment of the chosen people.”
* Marcel Simon, Verus Isarël (Paris, 1948), p. 268
source: Jules Isaac, The Teaching of Contempt, Toronto: Holt, Rinehart and
Winston, © 1962, pp. 23, 26, 27, 28, 31–36.
Rosemary Ruether
on The Creation of anti–Semitism
“In sum we might say that pagan anti–Semitism provided a
certain seed bed of cultural antipathy to the Jews in Greco–Roman society, which Christianity inherited in inheriting that world. But this antipathy had been kept in check and balanced by Roman practicality and Hellenistic Jewish cultural apologetics. It was only when Christianity, with its distinctively religious type of anti–Semitism, based on profound theological cleavage within the fraternity of
biblical religion, entered the picture that we begin to have that
special translation of religious hatred into social hatred that is to become characteristic of Christendom.... In my judgment, the special virulence of Christian anti–Semitism can be understood only from its source in a religious fraternity in exclusive faith turned rivalrous. Pagan anti–Semitism, at most, provides a fertile soil for Christian polemics and legislation against the Jews.”
source: Rosemary Ruether, Faith and Fratricide, Oregon: WS Publishers, © 1995, Chapter 1, pp. 30–31.
Britannica
on the
Origins of Christian anti–Semitism
The origins of Christian anti–Semitism Britannica online
Aug 23, 2009:
“Enmity toward the Jews was expressed most acutely in the church’s teaching of contempt. From St. Augustine in the fourth century to Martin Luther in the 16th, some of the most eloquent and persuasive
Christian theologians excoriated the Jews as rebels against God and murderers of the Lord. They were described as companions
of the Devil and a race of vipers. Church liturgy, particularly the scriptural readings for the Good Friday commemoration of the
Crucifixion, contributed to this enmity.”
source: Britannica Online, http://www.britannica.com/holocaust/article–215020,
retrieved August 23, 2009
The Theological Roots
of Anti–Semitism
“The injustices and pogroms inflicted over the centuries on the Jews by Christian nations, often in the name of Christian principles, did not stir the conscience of theologians until fairly recently. It was the advent of Hitler’s anti–Semitism that produced uneasiness in some Church circles and made theologians take a new look at their Christian past. Was the refutation of Judaism that was implicit in the Christian religion and in the Christian polemics against the unbelieving Jews in any way connected with the anti–Semitism prevalent in Western history and its culmination in the racial anti–Semitism of the Nazis? Some Christian thinkers began to speak out in favor of the Jews on theological grounds. They abhorred anti–Semitism: they came to recognize that the Church’s anti–Jewish polemics have created anti–Jewish feelings in the past, but they trusted that the Church’s central message, namely the love of God and neighbor, would be able to overcome the prejudices and antipathies generated by the ancient polemics. The Catholic names that come to mind in this connection are Jacques Maritain, Charles Journet, Henri de Lubac. These and some other authors sought a Christian manner of speaking of Judaism that would not produce contempt for the Jews; they searched for scriptural promises that applied to Christians and Jews alike; and they tried to acknowledge an abiding vocation for the Jewish people.*A
The Theological Roots
of Anti–Semitism
[continued]
These authors were convinced that the anti–Jewish trends were peripheral to the Church’s teaching, that they were in fact deformations of the gospel introduced at a later point in history, and that it would consequently be comparatively easy to purify the Church’s life and message from anti–Jewish prejudices and the expressions of contempt. Little did these authors realize, despite their generosity, how deeply the anti–Jewish trends were woven into the significant documents of the Christian religion and how closely these trends were connected with the Church’s expression of its faith.”
– Gregory Baum
Jesuit Centre, Toronto
Introduction to
Faith and Fratricide
by Rosemary Ruether
*A see Alan Davies’s valuable study, Antisemitism and the Christian Mind
(New York: Seabury, 1969), for a careful analysis of the Christian theological
literature dealing with the Jewish people after Hitler’s persecution and genocide.
source: Rosemary Ruether, Faith and Fratricide, Oregon: WS Publishers, © 1995, pp. 1–2.
The Theological Roots
of Anti–Semitism
[continued]
Gregory Baum, OC (born 1923) is a Canadian Roman Catholic theologian.
Born in Berlin, Germany, he came to Canada from England in 1940. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics and physics in 1946 from McMaster University, a Master of Arts degree in mathematics in 1947 from Ohio State University, and a Th.D. in 1956 from the University of Fribourg.
He was the Professor of theology and sociology at University of Saint Michael’s College in the University of Toronto and subsequently professor of theological ethics at McGill University’s Faculty of Religious Studies.
He is currently associated with the Jesuit Centre Justice et Foi in Montreal.
During the church council Vatican II he was a peritus, or theological advisor, at the Ecumenical Secretariat, the commission responsible for three conciliar documents, On Religious Liberty, On Ecumenism, and On the Church’s Relation to Non–Christian Religions.
Explicit Anti–Semitism in the New Testament
(compiled by Shmuel Golding)
“These anti–Semitic statements were and still are the principal cause of all persecutions, oppressions and pogroms in which Jews have suffered. These anti–Semitic accounts in the New Testament have taught mankind to hate the Jew. As long as the New Testament continues in print (at least in its present form) the Jew will be hated. Here are but a few verses from where Christianity borrowed its anti–Semitic sentiments.
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold your house is left unto you desolate.” (Matthew 23.37, 38). Then answered all the people (Jews) and said, “His blood be on us and on our children”
(Matthew 27:25). “But take heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you to councils, and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten” (Mark 13.9)
“Ye are of your father the devil and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. Which of you convinceth me of sin? And I say the truth, why do you not believe me? He that is of God heareth God’s words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God” (John 8.43–47)
Explicit Anti–Semitism in the New Testament
[continued]
“Stiff–necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so you do. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers” (Acts 7.51–53)
“Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is an antichrist, that denieth the father and the son. Whoever denieth the son, the same hath not the father” (l John 2.22, 23)
“I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan ...” (Revelation 2.9, 10)
“Behold I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews and are not but do lie; behold I will make them to come and worship before thy feet...” (Revelation 3.9)
These vicious and treacherous New Testament verses, have given the impression that the Jews in the time of Jesus were degenerate and cruel and that they are a deicide race. They have been spread by the church for the last two millennia, and have not been rooted out of Christian thinking to the present day…
*
Explicit Anti–Semitism in the New Testament
[continued]
Moses Bazes [born and died: unknown], author of “Jesus the Jew, the Historical Jesus,” after examining the anti–Semitic statements in the New Testament writes:
“I believe that because of the anti–Jewish narratives of the New Testament, the Jews were hounded from one country to another, denied to live as human beings, denied to work as other people worked, denied to play as others played, were in no country at peace, in no era at peace and finally persecuted and massacred. This was all because of the Christian bigotry and hatred in the name of Jesus. Obviously it cannot be possible to regard Jesus as none other than the scourge of God for the Jews. The tragic existence of the Jews during 1900 years in the Diaspora, the hatred they experienced, the pogroms, persecutions, murders and the destructions they suffered, must be mainly attributed to anti– Jewish statements in the New Testament. Christianity introduced contempt for the Jew and is thus responsible for what happened in the Second World War at the Dachau Concentration camp in Germany and at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. What was started at the Church Council at Nicea
in 325 CE was duly completed in the concentration camps and crematories of Christian Germany where six million
Jews perished.”
Explicit Anti–Semitism in the New Testament
[continued]
*
We will now examine the words of some Christian “saints” and leaders and notice how their anti–Jewish expressions are based on New Testament verses listed earlier in this article.
Origen: “Their rejection of Jesus has resulted in their present calamity and exile. We say with confidence that they will never be restored to their former condition. For they have committed a crime of the most unhallowed kind, in conspiring against the savior.”
St. Gregory: “Jews are slayers of the Lord, murderers of the prophets, enemies of God, haters of God, adversaries of grace, enemies of their fathers’ faith, advocates of the devil, brood of vipers, slanderers, scoffers, men of darkened minds, leaven of the Pharisees, congregation of demons, sinners, wicked men, stoners and haters of goodness.”
St. Jerome: “....serpents, haters of all men, their image is Judas ... their psalms and prayers are the braying of donkeys…”
Explicit Anti–Semitism in the New Testament
[continued]
St. John Chrysostom: “I know that many people hold a high regard for the Jews and consider their way of life worthy of respect at the present time... This is why I am hurrying to pull up this fatal notion by the roots ... A place where a whore stands on display is a whorehouse. What is more, the synagogue is not only a whorehouse and a theater; it is also a den of thieves and a haunt of wild animals ... not the cave of a wild animal merely, but of an unclean wild animal ... When animals are unfit for work, they are marked for slaughter, and this is the very thing which the Jews have experienced. By making themselves unfit for work, they have become ready for slaughter. This is why Christ said: “ask for my enemies, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them and slay them before me’ (Luke 19.27).”
St. Augustine: “Judaism is a corruption. Indeed Judas is the image of the Jewish people. Their understanding of the Scriptures is carnal. They bear the guilt for the death of the savior, for through their fathers they have killed the Christ.”
St. Thomas Aquinas: “It would be licit [legal] to hold Jews, because of the crimes, in perpetual servitude, and therefore the princes may regard the possessions of Jews as belonging to the State.”
*
Explicit Anti–Semitism in the New Testament
[continued]
These anti–semitic words uttered by popes, priests, pastors and laymen, were put into action by unruly Christian mobs and later by Hitler’s followers.
Adolf Hitler: “I believe that I am today acting according to the purposes of the Almighty Creator. In resisting the Jew, I am fighting the Lord’s battle.””
***
Composed by Shmuel Golding [b. unknown; d. 2010], was the founder of The Jerusalem Institute of Biblical Polemics (JIBP) – founded 1981.
source: http://www.christianity–revealed.com/cr/files/antisemitisminthenewtestament_1.html
Historian Young
on
Jewish Protectiveness
of Jesus & Disciples
“[Roman] soldiers were unable to arrest him during the day on the Temple Mount because large crowds of [Jewish] people supported Jesus. In fact, after the crucifixion when the [Roman lackey] Sadducees seek to arrest the apostles [Disciples], the soldiers are commanded not to use force because the people [the Pharisees/Jews] will stone them (Acts 5:26). This New Testament text from Acts is seldom mentioned, most probably because it describes the Jewish population of Jerusalem as protecting the apostles [Disciples] from Roman persecution through [by] the Sadducean aristocracy.
After the [Roman lackey] Sadducees apprehended the apostles [Disciples], the leader of the Pharisees [the Jews] Rabban
Gamaliel persuaded the [Sadducee] council to release them.”
***
source: R. Steven Notley, Marc Turnage and Brian Becker, Jesus’ Last Week.
The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill © 2006, p. 203.
Rosemary Ruether*
on Theological Critique
of The Christian Anti–Judaic Myth
“We have seen that the anti–Judaic myth is neither a superficial nor a secondary element in Christian thought. The foundations of anti–Judaic thought were laid in the New Testament. They were developed in the classical age of Christian theology in a way that laid the basis for attitudes and practices that continually produced terrible results. Most Christians today may seem more than willing to prune back the cruder expressions of these attitudes and practices. But to get at the roots from which these grew is a much more profound problem. The wheat and the tares have grown together from the beginning, and so it may seem impossible to pull up the weed without uprooting the seed of Christian faith as well. Yet as long as Christology and anti–Judaism intertwine, one cannot be safe from a repetition of this history in new form. The end of Christendom may seem to have brought an end to the possibility of legislating theological anti–Judaism as social policy. But we witnessed in Nazism the ability of this virus to appear in even worse form in secular dress. Yet I believe that this is actually a critical moment when a deep encounter with the structures of anti–Judaism is not only necessary to atone for this history, but may be essential to revilatizing the original Christian vision itself. “
source: Rosemary Ruether, Faith and Fratricide, Oregon: WS Publishers, © 1995, Chapter 5, p. 226.
Foundation Fabrication Work
There are at least three salient defamatory New Testament
vignettes frontally employed.
The subsequent ‘passion sagas’ over the centuries then amplify these defamations/degradations of the Jews.
All three vignettes have been turbo–charged with toxicity by Church lore over the centuries to construct a demonic amalgam of the Jew. This demonic amalgam then sets the stage for genocide.
The three fabricated core neo–genocidal vignettes are –
the alleged Sanhedrin Trial saga
the invented Barabbas saga
the Judas Iscariot literary gambit
The three are by now recognized by a substantial number of
noted independent scholars as either gross distortions or as total fabrications…
Foundation Fabrication Work
[continued]
Regarding the third vignette, Judas Iscariot, even if one Disciple did unilaterally betray Jesus, which is highly unlikely, Catholic lore seized on the alleged action of one of 12 Jewish disciples. The Church would seize on the one with a name symbolizing the Jews as a whole – which might achieve ‘traction.’ The Church then quite dishonestly portrays him as the salient Jewish disciple, totally demonizes his character, and then twists even his physical portrayal into that of a grotesque entity.
Finally, as noted, diabolical blood themes are introduced. The sculptor of hatred, whoever he/she was, produced a timeless signature piece of hatred.
Impressionable psyches of young Christians would be primed
with hate and contempt, even if just below the surface, for life.
At a very young age, in Church, at school and at bedtime,
Christian youngsters would have diabolical imagery concocted
by the Church subtly and cynically embedded in their psyches.
Foundation Fabrication Work
[continued]
No Machiavellian gambit could possibly trump the hatred priming fostered under the auspices of the Church – ongoing for centuries. The Manchurian Candidate handlers, would be proud.
Details of each of these 13 convolutions (the three fabrication/
distortions plus the 10 inversions) are each incorporated in
separate exhibits in this work.
Cumulatively, these 13 contortions of the historical record, of course conveniently vector towards a multi–faceted demonization of the Jews. These corruptions of history lay a nefarious foundation for a virulent anti–Semitism, which has now spanned twenty
centuries. Respectfully, this virulent foundation work, in turn,
directly laid the groundwork for the Nazi genocidal nightmare.
***
Inversions:
White is Black
There are ten 180 degree inversions in the Canon Gospels.
The result of each and every one of the inversions is to cast
significant negativity onto the Jews.
Inversion #1
Gospel inversion – presentation:
Jesus was juxtaposed against the Pharisees
(the mainstream Jewish community)
Historical reality:
Jesus was a Pharisee and was aligned with the Pharisees.
Inversion #2
Gospel inversion – presentation:
The High Priest Caiaphas represented the Jews.
Historical reality:
The High Priest Caiaphas represented Rome.
Inversions:
White is Black
[continued]
Inversion #3
Gospel inversion – presentation:
Jesus was not Orthodox Jewish.
Historical reality:
Jesus was Orthodox Jewish.
Inversion #4
Gospel inversion – presentation:
Pontius Pilate was politically weak.
Historical reality:
Pontius Pilate was politically strong, indeed locally
omnipotent. Pilate was (sole) judge, (sole) jury and
executioner of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
Inversion #5
Gospel inversion – presentation:
It is contrary to Jewish law to heal the sick
on the (Jewish) Sabbath.
Historical reality:
It is mandatory Jewish law to heal the sick on Sabbath.
Inversions:
White is Black
[continued]
Inversion #6
Gospel inversion – presentation:
Jesus challenged the Rabbis.
Historical reality:
Jesus challenged Rome.
Inversion #7
Gospel inversion – presentation:
The Jews wanted Jesus crucified.
Historical reality:
The Jews were opposed to the crucifixion of Jesus –
or to the crucifixion of any fellow Pharisee opponent of Rome.
Inversion #8
Gospel inversion – presentation:
Rome is mentioned only once in the entire Canon Gospels.
Historical reality:
Rome was the reigning power in Judea.
Inversions:
White is Black
[continued]
Inversion #9
Gospel inversion – presentation:
The Pharisees were aligned with the High Priest.
Historical reality:
The Pharisees were bitter enemies of the High Priest.
Inversion #10
Gospel inversion – presentation:
Pontius Pilate was a benign individual.
Historical reality:
Pontius Pilate was a notoriously cruel and vicious individual.
***
Misrepresentation and Manipulation
at the core
A sampling of material misrepresentations – related to the Jews – at the core of Christianity would include the following inter–related manipulations.
[In each instance, I have noted the reality, as opposed to the
misrepresentation.]
1) REALITY: The authorship of the gospels was not only not eye–witness, and not only not contemporaneous, the authorship was not even from within Judea
2) REALITY: The Greek–Turkish–Syrian, non–Jewish shadow craftsmen of the New Testament had their own political agenda vis à vis the Jews. The narrative does not conform to historical reality.
3) REALITY: The Greek–Turkish–Syrian authors of the anti–Jewish vignettes are authorship unknown. No one has a clue who they were individually. They were most definitely not Jewish, and most definitely not any of the (Jewish) disciples of Jesus.
4) REALITY: Mainstream Judaism was not opposed to Jesus. Mainstream Judaism’s core philosophy, core theology and
practice were all synchronous with that of Jesus. Philosophical divergence was in the subjective realm of messianism.
Misrepresentation and Manipulation
at the core
[continued]
5) REALITY: The Canon Gospels, as regards the Jewish vignettes, are not a testament at all: Most, if not all, are heavily spun to undermine the Jews.
6) REALITY: The Canon Gospel authors are, as well,
simultaneously, the very founders of anti–Semitism.
7) REALITY: The Torah, the Old Testament, is in direct theological opposition to the New Testament, The two are not synchronous. The packaging of the Torah with the Canon Gospels is a severe manipulation. The New Testament frontally undermines the Torah and nefariously undermines its people.
8) REALITY: The Catholic Church hierarchy has institutionally
and knowingly subtly manipulated – for more than nineteen consecutive centuries – its own constituency into a programmed toxic animus towards the Jews.
Misrepresentation and Manipulation
at the core
[continued]
9) REALITY: Christianity as we know it today was crafted/
sculpted/created by the Greek Paulines and then by the Church Fathers subsequent to the death of Paul; not by Jesus
(executed by Rome c. 33 CE), not by James the Just (killed
c. 62 CE) and not by Paul himself (killed c. 65 CE). The agenda of the Greek Paulines was radically different from that of Jesus or of James the Just.
*
While some of the above points are clearly inter–related, we now count 3 fabrications (see prior Exhibit) PLUS 10 inversions (see prior Exhibit) PLUS 9 misrepresentations (see above)
– for a total of 22 manipulations – all vectoring towards
undermining the Jews.
*
Misrepresentation and Manipulation
at the core
[continued]
*
Beware of sanctimonious holders
of power and prestige,
who might betray the authentic legacy of Jesus
of bona fide universal love,
and betray your respectful and pure trust
in the clerical hierarchy
by subtly priming you
for a lifetime of focused ill will
*
***
Did the Judas saga occur at all?
“Our conclusion must be therefore that no tradition of the betrayal and the defection of Jesus existed before 60 CE” …The whole story of betrayal was invented not less than 30 years after Jesus’ death (Maccoby, Judas Iscariot and the Myth of Jewish Evil, p. 25)
There is general scholarly consensus that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, with this attributable authorship to a major Christian figure juxtaposed against the four Canon Gospels, whose true authorship is
unknown. Paul, founder of Christianity, writes in 1 Corinthians 15:5
that Jesus, immediately after his crucifixion was seen by “the Twelve." Meaning, all twelve Disciples were present and accounted for. Judas Iscariot included.
So, Paul, the very founder of Christendom, in a key document
written (in the 50s CE) prior to the writing of the first Cannon Gospel by writers unknown (in the 70s CE), does not seem to include any Judas betrayal vignette.
Why might that be?
***
Gospel Truth?
deicide Accusation
Back at the (clumsily fabricated alleged) 3 A.M. deicide Trial –
construct, did Jesus answer the charges of the (phantom)
Sanhedrin?
CANON GOSPELS
answer #1
NONE: Jesus did not answer any of the charges
And when he was accused of the chief priests and elders, he answered nothing. Then said Pilate unto him, Hearest thous not how many things they witness against thee?
And he answered him to never a word; insomuch that the governor marveled greatly. (Matthew 27:12–14)
Then he questioned with him in many words; but he
answered him nothing. (Luke 23:9)
CANON GOSPELS
answer #2
SOME: Jesus answered some of the charges
But he held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. (Mark 14:61–62)
Gospel Truth?
deicide Accusation
[continued]
CANON GOSPELS
answer #3
ALL: Jesus answered all of the charges
Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews? Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me? Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. (John 18:33–37)
“ All we need do is to accept the obvious, that we do not have detailed knowledge of what happened when the high priest and possibly others questioned Jesus. We cannot know even that ‘the Sanhedrin’ met. Further, I doubt that the earliest followers of Jesus knew….”
— E.P. Sanders*
Professor of Religion
Duke University
* E.P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985,
Chapter 10, p. 299.
New World Encyclopedia
on “Rejection”
"Many of Jesus' [supposed] parables, such as the 'wedding feast' (Matthew 22:1–14), present the Jewish people and leaders as failing and being rejected by God. There is a strong supersessionist [i.e. the replacement of one group by another] theology in parables like the 'tenants in the vineyard' (Matthew 21:33–46) where the Jews are [allegedly] replaced in God's providence.
The Gospel of John particularly portrays 'the Jews' in general as rejecting Jesus, and even quotes Jesus as speaking of 'the Jews' as a group to which he does not seem to belong (John 18, 19) [even though Jesus himself is Jewish]. Finally anyone who did not follow Jesus was effectively sidelined [by the Gospels] as John's Gospel said, 'I am the way the truth and the life: no one comes to the Father but by me.' (John 14:6)
[According to the intermittently vitriolic Gospel of John] Jesus
goes even further in this [alleged] polemic against his [fabricated] opponents 'the Jews':
'You are of your father the devil [i.e. you, the Jews are children of the devil], and the lusts of your [devil] father ye will do. He [your father, the devil] was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because then there is no truth in him [your Jewish heritage, your father, the devil] When he [your father the devil] speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own [your innate Jewish lying state]; for he [your father and heritage] is a liar, and the father of it [your lying heritage]' (John 8: 44) – King James Version"
New World Encyclopedia
on “Rejection”
[continued]
Author's note – Interesting, So all the Jews, according to the New Testament are the ‘children of the devil, liars and part of a big lying heritage. Interesting. So, John – whoever he really was – seems to have “discovered” a pretty hateful and rabid Jesus? But we thought that the martyred Jesus was a fine, loving Orthodox Jewish (Pharisee) rabbi and teacher? Hmm….. Is this the same iconic New Testament figure who stresses Love Thy Neighbor as a core tenet? Seems just a bit non–loving does it not? A little Fourth
Century Church editing here, perhaps?
How many Jewish innocents over the ages were sentenced to early and tortured deaths by that one holy and loving New Testament sentence alone? A hundred thousand? A few million here and there? A little burning–at–the–stake action here, a little mass murder there...before you know it, there are real numbers…..real coffins…. Or were there coffins at Auschwitz?
Of course, it is Gospel Truth, so it must be quite holy. Must it
not be?
Is this the same loving Jesus we have come to know and love? Doesn’t seem all that loving, does it?
New World Encyclopedia
on “Rejection”
[continued]
The Jews are 'a murderer from the beginning'? Hmm… But are these not the same Jews who are central to the so–called Old
Testament, who were the recipients of the Torah at Sinai, the same Old Testament which is simultaneously the first part of all those millions upon millions of Christian bibles distributed to this day? In all those hotel and motel rooms, as well?
If this literature were distributed by the Klu Klux Klan in 2010,
would they not be forcefully prosecuted under Hate Crime
statutes? I think so. Indeed.
Is this Gospel of John 8:44 sentence all that different from the most virulent 1930s hate–mongering propaganda? Seems pretty similar to me. Oh, but this is the Holy Church, and it so Holy, is it not?
But, wait a second, was Jesus not Orthodox Jewish himself?
So, Moses was a “murderer and liar” aside from being “the Devil”?
Ditto for King Solomon?
for the Prophet Isaiah?
for the Prophet Jeremiah?
for the Prophet Ezekial?
Is this vitriol actually in a religious book – a bible?
source: New World Encyclopedia Online, http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/
Anti–Semitism, (accessed March 3, 2010)
The Ninth Commandment
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
— [Exodus 20:16]
Just for the record.
Historian David Flusser*
on
The Sanhedrin ***
“…according to all that is reported about the Pharisees, they could not have acquiesced in the surrender of Jesus to the Romans….
… Was it an official assembly of the Sanhedrin [or a rogue group of Sadducee priests] that condemned Jesus to death? John knew nothing about it, and in the whole of Luke – not just in his description of the Passion – a verdict of the supreme court is not even mentioned.3…
…To be blunt, the night session in the high priest’s house is a product of Mark’s [manipulative and toxic] literary creativity, as is his notion of Jesus’ condemnation to death by the Jewish Supreme Court.5 By contrast, Luke is free from the assertion that Jesus was
formally condemned to death by the Jewish authorities. …
*** see also our discussion in exhibit:
The Alleged Sanhedrin Trial of Jesus, 33 CE.
Historian David Flusser*
on
The Sanhedrin ***
[continued]
… One final additional piece of evidence allows us to deduce that is was not the Sanhedrin who condemned Jesus to death. This is indicated by the fact that he was buried in neither of the two graves reserved for those executed by order of the supreme council.6 …”
* David Flusser (b. 1917; d. 2000) was Professor Emeritus at the
Hebrew University where he taught Judaism in the Second Temple
Period and Early Christianity. He was a member of the Israel
Academy of Sciences and Humanities. In 1980 he was awarded
the Israel Prize in literature.
3 see P. Winter, On the Trial of Jesus (Berlin, 1961), p. 28
5 I hope that I have succeeded in proving the unreality of these inventions
by my literary analysis of the Gospels in my article in the supplementary studies, “Who is it that Struck You?”
6 M. Sanhedrin 6:5. See Billerbeck, I, p. 1049.
source: David Flusser, Jesus. Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press © 2001
Concurrent and Integral
c. 66–100 CE
Less than a decade after the deaths of Paul and James the Just, and simultaneous with the Roman assault on Judea, the Greek Paulines layer–on a virulent anti–Semitism into the corpus of their religion. Anti–Semitism and Christianity will be connected at the hip from 66 CE until Nostre Aetate in the 1960s, almost 1900 years later to the day.
The Greek Paulines have their own agenda. They will dramatically morph the vision of Paul into their own. Step by step, they will significantly overlay Greek, Pagan, Gnostic, Mystery Cult and other resonant motifs onto the theological legacy of Paul, which was itself a major morphing of the legacy of the Orthodox Jewish Jesus.
However, the Greek Paulines know that they will have to bear the brunt of a potentially fatal Pharisee intellectual, philosophical, and theological counter–attack. This potential Jewish intellectual counter–attack was – and is – the Achilles heel of (Pauline) Christianity.
Additionally, the Christians did not want to bear the brunt of any despotic Roman Emperor’s scapegoating. Better that the Jews
play that role.
Like all groups, the Greek Paulines will play first to survive – and then to prevail. The Greek Pauline ‘solution’ to the Jewish intellectual threat, would be to raise the stakes and shift the battlefield. The Greek Pauline counter–measure would be to delegitimize and blacken the Jews as a people. Delegitimize, Defame and Destroy.
Concurrent and Integral
c. 66–100 CE
[continued]
Psychological or theological gambits which might ‘further that cause,’ would be incorporated into its very theological core and lore. Layers of character assassination of the Jews would be
embedded into its core texts and Canon. Who could argue with
a bible? Who could doubt Holy Writ?
Historical veracity – or the facts in general – would not be allowed to interfere with the gambits. After all, was this not all for the greater glory of God and Christ? They killed the Christ, after all, did they not?
The Greek Pauline group which created both anti–Semitism and the New Testament was acutely attuned to the contours and vulnerabilities of the human psyche. The members of the group’s power hierarchy were masters of the psychic buttons of both love – and hatred. The group possessed not inconsiderable expertise in the power of imagery, as well.
As noted over the span of multiple exhibits in this work, a virulent anti–Semitism ‘construct’ is intertwined with the historical, theological and psychological constructs of Christianity. The founders of the Church crafted all three components to ‘fit’ together – and to dovetail with the anti–Jewish construct.
Concurrent and Integral
c. 66–100 CE
[continued]
Intense emotion – loving the Christ twinned with hating the Jew – will be one of the ‘glues’ which holds the intertwined fabricated constructs together.
The interdependence of all the above–noted constructs is presumably one of the reasons that the Church over the centuries has so vigilantly protected the horrific anti–Semitism at its core. The Church hierarchy has never been quite sure what would happen to the Church, if it cut out this toxic vine enmeshed through its sinews.
Of course, now the Church has a countervailing problem:
In the courtroom of public opinion, in a hypothetical trial scenario, a disinterested random jury might just convict ‘God’s representative,’ the Church, of Accessory to Mass Murder, as regards the Holocaust in particular.
Being branded an Accessory to Murder, might not ‘play well’ in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Best to lo–key any anti–Jewishness. Let the post–Holocaust Vatican reprieve for the Jews play out.
And, as for increased scrutiny in the internet age, we are a Holy Church, are we not? A preeminent world religion, are we not? We have two billion adherents under our greater umbrella, do we not? Who would dare challenge our core?
***
Three–Front War
70 CE
Classically, entities are averse to even a 2–front war. However,
in 70 CE, the Jews found themselves in a lethal and diabolical 3–front war.
The first front – the military front – was the crushing Roman
military assault.
The next front was the High Priest/Hellenistic axis – which was aligned with Rome.
The third front was the Church–front. While packaged as an
extension of Jesus’ Judaism, the Church was in fact directly
undermining/demonizing the character of the Jew and the integrity of Judaism.
The Church assault was all but invisible to the preoccupied Jews, while the Roman assault, conquest and exile/enslavements were quite frontal. This Church–assault on Judaism would have a decimating and sustained effect, far outlasting the consequences of the military onslaught by Rome.
This Church–assault was sustained, and intensified periodically over the centuries – after the Jews were crushed militarily by Rome, and after Rome itself was co–opted by Christianity.
As noted, with the adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire, the Church accrued unbridled power to project its demonizations.
Three–Front War
70 CE
[continued]
*
In an uncanny historical symmetry, c. 1900 years after 70 CE,
the Jews would again fight 3–front wars to regain the precise same territory – and stature: the 1948 War of Independence, and then again, the sweeping 1967 Six Day War victory.
Thus, in the twentieth century, the fronts would be the Egyptian,
Syrian and Jordanian military fronts. All three, of course, were
frontal enemies which were clearly seen on the radar.
In the second half of the twentieth century, the ‘Church–front’ was quiescent post–Auschwitz. The Holocaust pictures made anti–Semitism politically incorrect.
*
Phoenix Israel was arising from the ashes of hatred. Post–Holocaust, as Israel struggled to establish its independence, Western Christian political backing would prove pivotal. It would actually tip the political balance in Israel’s favor.
***
The High Priest
The High Priest – by Torah statute – was a high level religious ‘functionary’ with no freedom of action. The High Priest’s duties were strictly delineated and demarcated. He had no political or theological power. No executive, legislative or judicial power.
A random synagogue rabbi today has more political leeway than did the High Priest of Israel by Torah law. The High Priest had zero leeway. His duties and even his thoughts were carefully bracketed.
The High Priest never occupied the preeminent position it held in other belief systems. For instance, Aaron the first High Priest was radically subordinate to Moses, the Lawgiver.
The position of the High Priest, the Kohen Gadol, commenced with Aaron, brother of Moses.
By Torah prescription, succession to the High Priesthood was
mandated to be via the male descendants of Aaron. The priesthood was thus a subset of the Tribe of Levi.
Classically, the role of the High Priest was to carefully – technically and spiritually – administer the rituals of the Temple. When two sons of the High Priest, the sons of Aaron, Nadab and Avihu, stepped out of line apparently subtly, they were, according to the Torah, consumed by fire.
The High Priest
[continued]
According to Torah law, the High Priest was never to be the
lawgiver or chief judge or supreme authority. Judaism stipulated
a strict separation of Church and State (i.e. Temple and State).
Over the course of Jewish history, particularly during the Hasmonean (Maccabee) Dynasty, (c. 140–37 BCE) the High Priest position was compromised. Under the Hasmoneans, more than once the High Priest position was co–opted politically and/or compromised halachically (meaning compromised as per Jewish law). And once co–opted or compromised, the High Priest’s credibility within Israel was, of course, undermined. The legitimacy of the
regime as a whole was brought into question. (This co–opting of the High Priest position, was the pernicious precedent lead–in to the Occupying Romans’ co–opting the same High Priesthood in
6 CE, 43 years after the Hasmonean Dynasty imploded.)
The Ramban (Nachmanides), one of Judaism’s preeminent historical rabbinic authorities, posits (see his commentary on ‘lo yasur shevet mi’yehuda’ – “The scepter shall not pass from Judah” – Genesis 49:10, citing Talmud Bavli: Bava Basra 3b) that the reason the Maccabees ultimately lost power totally, was their subversion of the separation of the divinely stipulated separation between the “priesthood” and the “rulership.”
The High Priest
[continued]
When Rome ratcheted–up ever–increasing control over Judea
c. 6 CE, it entered into an alignment with the minority Sadducee group, opposed by the Pharisee Mainstream Jewish group. The Sadducee group controlled the priesthood.
The Sadducees/Priesthood was opposed with varying degrees of intensity by various Jewish Pharisee factions. When the Roman procurator chose to flex his political muscle and appoint the High Priest, the position’s credibility and purity were fatally polluted in the eyes of mainstream Judaism.
*
Commencing 6 CE, the Sadducee Jewish High Priest was not only appointed by the Roman procurator, it was also vested with a small degree of political and localized Temple police power by the
Roman procurator.
The High Priest at that point essentially became an enemy of the Jews. That was the context in which Jesus, synchronous with the Pharisees at large, challenged the High Priest and the High Priest’s personal direct sphere of influence, the Temple.
Subsequent to the death of Jesus and through the implosion of the Sadducees ending with the destruction of Temple II, the High Priest remained an agent of Rome, dedicated to stamping out sedition. To that end, the High Priest co–opted the legitimate authority of the former Sanhedrin, and employed confederates packaged as a neo–Sanhedrin in various gambits, some politically fatal to the targets of the quisling High Priest.
*
The High Priest
[continued]
As noted, when the Roman procurator chose to flex his political muscle and appoint the High Priest, the position’s credibility and purity were fatally polluted in the eyes of mainstream Judaism. With the implosion of the legitimacy of the Priesthood, the Temple gradually and increasingly became supplanted by (the Pharisee–promoted institution), the synagogue as the preeminent religious venue of Judaism.
The very institution of the (Jewish) synagogue was the Jewish response to the Roman undermining of the Priesthood.
*
As noted in the text, the Sicarii were violent cloaked–dagger wielding right–wing Jewish militants, who were informally aligned with the Jewish Pharisee Zealots. The Sicarii intermittently assassinated collaborators with Rome, with the mass Passover pilgrimage often providing ‘cover.’
The High Priest Caiaphas can be presumed to have been high on the Sicarii Assassination ‘To Do’ List. Caiaphas, the quintessential survivor, can be presumed not to have been oblivious of the hatred of the Jews towards him. (Later, in the very early 60s CE, the High Priest Jonathan is indeed, assassinated in the Temple by cloaked dagger–wielding assassins in circumstances that are unclear.)
The High Priest
[continued]
The above was the general context back in 33 CE when Jesus, synchronous with the Pharisees at large, challenged the High Priest on the Temple grounds.
Not necessarily able to get too in–close to the High Priest, Jesus is storied to have overturned tables at the periphery of the Temple. Perhaps. But political protest against the High Priests’ collaboration with Rome and desecration of the Temple, is not theological
protest against normative Judaism (which was a political and
theological foe of the High Priest).
Judea on the eve of Passover 33 CE is a tinderbox, potentially quite explosive. Jesus is leading a salient political protest. against the power player at the Temple, Caiaphas. Rome’s lackey.
The Temple, in turn, is ‘ground zero’ of the Roman pollution of Judea. It is the epicenter of the scar in the Jewish psyche.
Jesus challenges at the Temple periphery, perhaps in the Courtyard itself. He is a symbolic salient of the greater ongoing and emergent Jewish resistance to Rome. Jesus attempts to light the fire, but the fire of rebellion will not be lit until 34 years later in 67 CE. Jesus is picked–off by the Romans and their henchmen. He is crucified for sedition, and as an example to other would–be Jewish insurgents or challengers.
The High Priest
[continued]
*
One could argue that with the Priesthood compromised, the
Pharisees should have boycotted the Temple totally. That line
of approach would have been emotionally, philosophically and
politically wrenching, for sure. Clearly, in hindsight it might have been the play.
The most notorious of the ‘quisling’ High Priests was Caiaphas, who occupied the position under Roman sponsorship – from 18–37 CE (four years after the crucifixion of Jesus). From every conceivable angle, Caiaphas was a curse upon the Jews. In a pejorative play on his name, the Mishnah (Talmud Bavli: Mishnah Parah 3:5) refers to Caiaphas as ha–Koph – ‘the monkey.’
Jesus, an Orthodox Mainstream Jewish Pharisee activist, among his several aspects, railed against the Sadducee High Priest.
As noted, this was parallel to – and part of – the overall Pharisee opposition and disparagement of that contemporary Sadducee priesthood.
The High Priest
[continued]
The High Priesthood of Israel position ceased with the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. From every direction, for the two last centuries of its approximately thirteen century span, the High Priest was a plague on Israel.
*
Solomon’s Temple was established in an environment (c. 1000–
900 BCE) of peak Judean military strength and political autonomy. However, a thousand years later, c. 6 CE, in an environment of undermined autonomy, the Temple – and the attendant High Priesthood – become toys and tools to be used and abused in the hands of the Occupying Empire.
The High Priest
[continued]
In an Occupation scenario, the Temple becomes a flash–point, especially for the Orthodox and the Nationalistic, and, certainly for the Orthodox Nationalistic. With the power of the formal leadership of the Jews eviscerated, the High Priest position – officiating over Jewish religious ritual at the Temple – by tradition and law, a strictly functionary position, suddenly assumes disproportionate visibility and importance. If the title–holder of the position can be co–opted by the Occupying Authority, Judea is then wedged further under the thumb of the local Enforcer. And the populace is then truly subservient to the Occupier.
*
In 50 percent of the Canon Gospels – the last two, Matthew and John – the (collaborator) High Priest is positioned in connection with an alleged trial of Jesus. But in 99.9 percent of passion sagas for more than 19 centuries, a very, very Jewish and a very, very diabolical High Priest is positioned front and center behind the alleged arrest and actual crucifixion of Jesus.
*
In ancient Rome, the Roman high priest was known as Pontiflex Maximus (Great Bridge–Builder). The office was usually filled by
a leading politician or statesman, not by a classic priest per se. Pontiflex Maximus continues to be one of the titles of the Pope.
***
Historian Jules Isaac*
on the High Priest
“they do not even know his name?”
“The name of the high priest in office is unknown, or incorrectly known, to the Evangelists [i.e. Gospel Writers]. What? The high priest, to whom they assign the leading role and the gravest
responsibilities, they do not even know his name? Their uncertainty is especially strange in that the high priest then in office—who
according to Josephus was Caiphas—held his position for eighteen years (18–36), a tenure that is quite extraordinary and implies great submissiveness toward the Roman Procurator (who from the year 26 up until 36 was Pontius Pilate: of this name not one of the Evangelists has any doubt: Paul Winter’s On the Trial of Jesus.*A
No name is given to the high priest in the Gospel of Mark, acknowledged to be the oldest of the four. No name is given to the high priest in the account by Luke of the passion. Later, as anti–Jewish prejudice grew in Christian circles, it became necessary to fill an awkward gap, and to name the high priest involved; this, each of the writers did in his own way. Only Matthew, better informed on Jewish affairs than the others, belatedly gave the name of Caiphas. If we examine closely the Gospels according to Luke and John, we find the name inaccurately given as Annas. For the sake of consistency the name of Caiphas was later added to that of Annas in Luke 3:2 and in Acts 4:6. In the Gospel of John, the name Caiphas has been interpolated as being that of the son–in–law of Annas, but it is obvious that in John 18:19–33 Annas is the officiating high priest who interrogates Jesus; everything relating to Caiphas has been rather ineptly added.
Historian Jules Isaac*
on the High Priest
“they do not even know his name?”
[continued]
On the basis of this ignorance and uncertainty, Paul Winter is then perfectly justified in deducing that “the hierarch’s [high priest’s] part in the proceedings against Jesus was far from being as prominent as the Evangelists suggest.”*B This simple observation also indicated the extent to which the Gospel tradition in regard to the Passion was, at the outset, divorced from certain fundamental realities.”
*Jules Isaac (b. November 18, 1877; d. 1963, Aix–en–Provence)
was a Jewish French historian.
*A See the author’s analysis of this book in Revue Historique, 1961, no. 3,
pp. 127–137.
*B Paul Winter, On the Trial of Jesus (Berlin, 1961), p. 39
source: Jules Isaac, The Teaching of Contempt, Canada: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, © 1962, pp. 133–134
New Testament
Contradiction
vis à vis the
Jewish Patriarch Abraham
Abraham was “justified by works”
Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had
offered Isaac his son upon the altar? (James 2:21)
Abraham was “not justified by works”
For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. (Romans 4:2)
note: New Living Translation (© 2007)
If his good deeds had made him acceptable to God, he would have had something to boast about. But that was not God’s way. (Romans 4:2)
New World Encyclopedia
on the Demonization
of the Jews
DEMONIC: Jews were portrayed as possessing the attributes of the Devil, the personification of evil. They were depicted with horns, tails, the beard of a goat...... "Christian anti–Semitism stemmed largely from the conception of the Jew as the demonic agent of Satan."A Despite {according to the New Testament] witnessing Jesus and his miracles and seen the prophecies fulfilled they rejected him. They [the Jews] were accused of knowing the truth of Christianity, because they knew the Old Testament prophecies, but still rejecting it. Thus they appeared to be scarcely human.
A Dan Cohn–Sherbok. Anti–Semiticism: A History. (Stroud: Sutton, 2002),
81. ISBN 0750924926
0, http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Anti–Semitism, (accessed March 3, 2010)
New Testament
“Confusion”
about the phantasmagoric Judas
AND, WHO BOUGHT THE FAMOUS (BLOOD) FIELD?
NEW TESTAMENT answer #1: The chief priests bought the field.
And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood. And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in. (Matthew 27:6–7)
NEW TESTAMENT answer # 2: Judas bought the field.
Now this man [Judas] purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; (Acts 1:18)
AND, WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FAMOUS COINS?
NEW TESTAMENT answer #1: Judas threw down the money and left.
And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and
departed,… (Matthew 27:5)
New Testament
“Confusion”
about the phantasmagoric Judas
[continued]
NEW TESTAMENT answer # 2: Judas used the coins to buy the field.
Now this man [Judas] purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; (Acts 1:18)
AND, HOW DID THE NOTORIOUS JUDAS DIE?
NEW TESTAMENT answer #1: Judas hanged himself.
…and [Judas] went and hanged himself. (Matthew 27:5)
NEW TESTAMENT answer # 2: Judas fell headlong and burst his bowels open.
…and falling headling, he [Judas] burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. (Acts 1:18)
Contradictory & Confused
The Canon Gospels are internally contradictory, and collectively confused. There is a consistent pattern of historical ‘fix.’ As noted, the Gospels contradict each other on key events, such as the
crucial date relative to the First Night of Passover, that Jesus is
actually executed by Rome. Was it the day leading into Passover, the First day of Passover, or a later day in Passover? As noted, the four gospels give three different versions. Thus, even on the core and crucial date of the very public execution of Jesus, around which the entire Gospels, and indeed Christendom, pivot, and to which presumably there was indeed clear contemporaneous
witness, there is cumulative gospel contradiction and confusion.
Notwithstanding the amorphous and disembodied portrayal of key events and sequences in the Canon Gospels, notwithstanding the fact that the gospel narrators were not contemporaneous with the events they write of, notwithstanding that to this day we do not know who these anonymous Gospel authors actually were, notwithstanding a myriad of problems with the historical veracity of any of the gospels, notwithstanding all of the above, the Church Fathers, operating under the rubric of Love Thy Neighbor, felt no compulsion in stitching–together and fostering the dissemination over 19 centuries of the virulently anti–Jewish ‘normative
Passion Saga’ which has a very direct and central message:
Hate The Jews.
Contradictory & Confused
[continued]
The Passion Sagas, extant and thriving to this day, are a Death Warrant to the Jews. First they murder the reputation of the Jews, collectively and individually, and second, they lead to the actual mass killings of the Jews.
Thus, the founders and promulgators of a religion professing humanism as its key tenet – and their papal successors spanning the millennia – seem to generally lose the way pretty quickly when it comes to the convenient goal of inspiring hatred towards the vulnerable isolated Jews.
***
Expropriating the Martyr
With the First Century Greek Pauline Apostles intent on expropriating the Jesus martyr saga for their new religion, these Apostles had to ‘immunize’ potential recruits and new adherents from going after the original, meaning from converting to Judaism. The Church stratagem would consequently be to simultaneously idolize Jesus and his Disciples, while trashing the Jewish people and the Jewish character.
This dual focus stratagem is the fount of all that ensued, from the ‘New Testament’ thru the Crusades thru the Inquisition thru the Russian pogroms and leading into the twentieth century.
The ongoing multi–century Church ‘cover–up’ then assumes
‘center stage.’ The tactics of the cover–up include both the
demonization and the decimation of the Jews. The Church Fathers, and in particular, the Doctors of the Church, turbo–charged the vitriol of the Greek Paulines even further.
Expropriating the Martyr
[continued]
The ‘eyewitness’ – meaning the Jews – needed to be sidelined, delegitimized, smeared, and optimally annihilated altogether.
The credible witness had to be neutered – or removed as a threat – one way or another.
But the Church had to maintain its patina of brotherly love.
The Church had to protect this sublime centerpiece metaphysical concept and its projection as a loving and wholesome entity– even while effecting the ongoing assassination of both the character of the Jews, and while enabling and abetting the murders of many, many tens of thousands. The Church had to appear innocent even as the Jews were hacked to pieces emotionally, economically and often physically. The closer to a Catholic Church steeple a Jew lived, the more this individual was likely to be a victim of Church–inspired venom.
The Church had to carefully posture as innocent and benign –
as the Christian nation per se was not diabolical and not murderous and not evil. The Christian laity presumably just wanted a genuine, decent and uplifting religious structure for their families. The Christian nation believed in the Church hierarchy and trusted–in the genuine–ness of its ‘gospel truth’ teachings. The Church understood this devotion, trust and belief acutely. And cynically manipulated and abused it.
Expropriating the Martyr
[continued]
A finely calibrated balancing act was required of the Church leadership, for sure. It wasn’t easy being a pope or a bishop or a cardinal. But there was no great rush to decimate the Jews further physically. As long as the Jews were fully trashed and delegitimized on an ongoing basis, as long as the masses of the youngsters of Europe were diligently programmed from early childhood with a torrent of anti–Semitism, then matters would take their natural course.
Pogroms via surrogates would proceed intermittently at their own pace. The local bishops would posture regret and empathy. And the Sunday morning parish inculcations of contempt would, of course, proceed unabated. The bible was the bible, after all.
Either way, via trashing ongoing or via murder intermittently, the Jews were being decimated – and undermined. The Church had effectively branded them as corrupt and contemptible Christ killers, and the Christian youngsters would carry that lethal toxin embedded within them for the rest of their lives.
Expropriating the Martyr
[continued]
The Jews were outnumbered 100:1, trapped, neutered – and doomed, one way or another. They had no ‘voice’ and they had
no power. Their credibility and reputations had been decimated hundreds of years prior and ongoing by prior Church luminaries.
The Church could literally get away with murder. Century after century.
A diabolical and murderous – but time tested – stratagem. In any event, no one would believe the dimensions of the con. And no
one would believe the Jews, who, in any event, had no power or voice. How would any Jewish protest be communicated, in any event… from some isolated and remote synagogue pulpit in some impoverished shtetl (Jewish village)?
“The Jews had it coming to them, anyway.”
***
Programming
Blame
Employ–
Thought Control,
Mind Manipulation,
Subliminal Suggestion
Image Implantation,
Resonance,
and
quasi–Post–Hypnotic Suggestion
– to plant the seeds of hatred in young, fertile minds
and indoctrinate these youngsters with: fear, distrust, animus, hatred
– effecting, an invisible programming of these young minds–in–formation
all vectoring towards one embedded thought:
The Jews are available for you – for blame and scapegoating
Employing Positives –
to foster Hatred
Love the Deity
Hate the Devil,
and any entity we can associate with the Devil
+ the need to cast targeted groups as in–league with the devil, diabolical, and sinister.
Purify Society / the Church
Hatred of the different 'other';
encourage the conversion or liquidation of the ‘other’;
as for the vulnerable and diminished remnants of the 'other,' artificially magnify and concoct alleged nefarious powers of the 'other' – and then – layer–on and bear down on the ‘other’ with further fury.
Protect Society / the Church
Defend against those different and threatening
+ the need to demarcate or fabricate vile differences –
and manufacture the alleged sinister threat of 'the other.'
Employing Positives –
to foster Hatred
[continued]
Love those who love my deity / the Church
Hate those who reject our deity
– even if THEY [the Jews] want no part of the argument;
– even if WE [the Church] were the ones who rejected their concept of deity in the first place.
Love your Protector / the Church
Hate those nefariously challenging your Protector
+ the need to fabricate an insidious, sinister, diabolical
and potentially powerful 'threat' to your Protector.
Past, Present & Future
Framed,
Blamed,
Branded &
Convicted
by the Holy Church & hangers–on:
for the Past
for the crucifixion of Jesus
for the Present
for any of society's ills
for the Future
for any future economic woes, epidemics, plagues….
and even for mysterious disappearances or random deaths
“Division of Labor”
The 'Stages of Life'
Assembly Line
300 CE – 1300 CE
player: The Church
psychological gambit: plant the seed of hatred/distrust/fear/animus
target audience ages: Christian children ages ~4 – 12
player: The Church
psychological gambit: nurture the seedling/plant of hatred
target audience ages: Christians ~5 – 25
player: demagogues, rulers outside the formal Church hierarchy
psychological gambit: call to action / harvest the hatred
target audience ages: Christians ~15 – 55
The Morphing
The theology of Jesus of Nazareth
would be morphed by the Church over a 600 year period
– from the heavily humanistic Orthodox Judaism
of Pharisee Rabbi Jesus
targeting the Jews of Galilee –
imbued over the generations with their culturally–wired tradition
of monotheistic Judaism cum Jewish Observance,
into
a subliminally appealing
humanistic neo–Mythological amalgam theology
– incorporating a synthesized universal–humanist Jesus –
and targeting a far vaster and much broader–based Mediterranean/Roman Empire Gentile populace –
imbued over the generations with their culturally–wired
neo–Gnostic, neo–Dualistic, neo–Mystery Cult headset.
*
The Morphing
[continued]
Ongoing through this multi–century Church–morphing endeavor,
the Jewish aspect of Jesus would need to be neutered, sublimated and ultimately delegitimized and discredited by the Church.
In turn, the surviving witness – the Jews themselves – would need to be totally dehumanized, totally undermined character–wise, and totally trashed morally – collectively and individually.
A key Church objective would be to preemptively absolutely,
neuter any potential delegitimization thrust emanating from that (Jewish) front.
*
The Morphing
[continued]
They – the Jews – heirs to Sinai and the actual religious fount
of Jesus himself –
would, by Church imperative, need to have their credibility
irreparably crippled.
They – the Jews – and their elite –
would need to be rendered de facto
irrevocably unable to bear witness –
to the theological and historical manipulations
of the multi–century and ongoing Church–gambit.
*
And, if a few million of those Jews
should happen to be brutalized and/or murdered in the process,
so be it.......
it must most surely be
.....the will of God.
***
The Church Legacy
and
modus operandi
“Anti–Jewish traditions run deep in church teachings in large part because they rest on particular readings of Christianity’s core canon…. Throughout the long centuries that stand between the earliest followers of Jesus and ourselves, these readings have come to have the force and weight of historical description….”
– from the back cover (and Introduction)
of Jesus, Judaism & Christian Anti–Judaism
by Fredriksen and Reinhartz
Paula Fredriksen is the William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of the Appreciation of Scripture at Boston University.
Adele Reinhartz is the Dean of Graduate Studies and Research, and Professor in the Department of Religion and Culture, at Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario.
The Church Legacy
and
modus operandi
[continued]
“…[Why] by the fourth century, did [Roman] imperial patronage not soften their [the official Church] tone? After all, by then this church had won. Its Christian competition was on the run; its communities were subsidized by government largesse; its bishops had powers that their secular counterparts (whose tenure in office was at most a few years; bishops, by contrast, held life appointments) could only envy. What was true in the second century was still true…
the Jews had no temple and no territory. Why then, at this point, does the contra Judaeos [anti–Semitic Church rhetoric] tradition only become worse—more strident, more comprehensive, more furious? It metastasizes through all known genres of surviving Christian literature, including systematic theologies, biblical
commentaries, martyr stories, church histories, antiheretical
tracts, preaching handbooks, sermons. Why?”
source: Paula Fredriksen and Adele Reinhartz, Jesus, Judaism & Christian Anti–Judaism. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, © 2002, p. 29.
The Core Canon
Multi–Pronged
Intense Polarity/Duality*
Worship/Love/Deify/Adore/Revere/Venerate/Adore/Trust/Idealize/
Glorify/Sanctify/Hallow
the baby Jesus
the Loving Jesus
the Son of God Jesus
the Martyred Jesus
the Triune Jesus
the Virgin Mary
the Immaculate / Conception
the Disciples of Jesus
the Apostles / Church Fathers
the Martyrs / Saints
the Church / Christianity
the Cherubs / Angels
Despise/Hate/Criminalize/Fear/Loathe/Despise/Revile/Disdain/
Demonize/Trash/Dehumanize/Diabolicalize
the Jews
‘Surround Sound’ Middle Ages style
The Core Canon
Multi–Pronged
Intense Polarity/Duality*
[continued]
Pervasive toxicity towards the Jews thus not only effectively winds its way through all the niches and crannies of Christian theology and lore, it also winds its way through all the nooks and crannies of the psyche.
As well, toxicity towards the Jews becomes a built–in de facto complementary theology itself, inextricably connected to the spinal column of Christianity: Hatred of the Jews emerges as pervasively integral to the theology.
* of the 300 CE – 1300 CE Church
Manipulating the Faithful
The mind savants at the apex of the First Century Greek Pauline hierarchy implanted an ancient mind–manipulation technique:
By juxtaposing multi–pronged and intense HATE v. multi–pronged and intense LOVE, the group leadership would not only be able to potentially turbo–charge both polarities, but could potentially ‘charge–up’ the psyche in–between and as–a–whole.
Meaning,
(a) the intense juxtaposition first revs–up both polarities –
Love vs. Hate – (as the two intense polarities will 'ping' off
each other)
(b) the greater the emotional distance between the polarity of
intense love at the one extreme, and the polarity of intense hatred at the other extreme, the higher the probability that the psyche in–between would be 'charged–up'
When individuals are operating in ‘intense duality,’ it feels good (charges the ego) to experience intense separation. ("I am not them." "They are bad." "I hate them." "They need to be destroyed.")
The oldest part of our brains – the limbic system of the brain – which is near the brain stem – is fine–tuned with regards issues
of anger, revenge, fear, love and sex. The limbic portion of the brain potentially gets a ‘charge’ from intense stimulation of these core components of the psyche. Intense dualities only increase
the charge.
Manipulating the Faithful
[continued]
Thus, the most primitive parts of our brain – the most emotionally primitive and potentially intense – will be the part of the brain most directly impacted by intense ‘demonization,’ and ‘intense dualities.’ All of the core components of the limbic system will be present front and center in a 300 CE – 1300 CE Church service, with some severely and intensely juxtaposed against one another. Burning incense and magisterial Church music will provide additional stimulation.
A subtle "high" would might thus be generated in the psyche of any individual primed with focused intensities at both of the polarities. This “high” would be “valuable” to the Church.
Thus, by revving–up both ‘focused polarities’ – hatred and love – the Church would raise individuals to a subtle "high" from which they would – at least subconsciously – be reluctant to withdraw. After all, “withdrawal” is at least subtly painful and at least subtly depression–filled. The target practitioners (the Christian faithful) would be filled with a sense of a subtly higher level psychic charge.
Focused hatred towards a target minority was thus not optional in the eyes of the Church hierarchy; it was a crucial manipulation tool. Ever–endeavoring to advance and consolidate its power, the Church hierarchy would callously demonize and terrorize the Jews – even if they happened–to–be the very fount of Jesus.
Manipulating the Faithful
[continued]
To keep the faithful and devoted both off–balance and gently intoxicated with this subtle 'high,' the Church would thus need to focus and stir consistent hatred towards the designated target – ongoing. Always maintaining however, that the Church hierarchy itself was pure and love–filled.
And of course, the Church hierarchy would posture that it could
not control the excesses of the masses if the masses vented their
(‘obviously thoroughly understandable’) rage towards the
(‘obviously evil and forsaken’ – and 100:1 outnumbered) Jews.
The Church would ceremoniously wash its hands of any guilt as regards the persecution and/or murder of members of the minority target group falling within the fabricated evil polarity, even if the toll of victims stretched into the millions. Because the Church calculation would be that the intense polarities would need to be maintained to keep the faithful on board and optimally motivated.
This little grain of nefarious wisdom – manipulating intense polarities of the psyche – would then be passed–down 'Pope to Pope' to this very day. The Vatican would as a consequence of this motive, among other inter–related mass psychology ploys, tenaciously hold onto its insidious and pervasive demonization gambit – to seal the allegiance of its constituency. And protect, consolidate and expand its power.
***
Historian Young
on
The Cross, Jesus, and the Jewish People
“Jesus was a Jew. He was crucified by the order of the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate….
After a fresh examination of the compelling evidence, it is evident that Jesus was a religious Jew, loyal to Torah and to his people. Historically the cross should be considered a symbol of the intense persecution of faithful Jews by the Roman authorities of the first century…. It is surprising to many modern Christians and Jews that Jewish sources mention executions by crucifixion prior to the rise of Christianity….
Perhaps the most gruesome sight of mass crucifixions, which must have left a lasting impression on the Jewish inhabitants of the small country of Israel, occurred at about the time of Jesus’ birth in the wake of Herod’s death. According to Josephus, Quintilius Varus [Augustinian–appointed Roman General Publius Quinetilius Varus (b. 46 BCE; d. 9 CE)] had two thousand Jewish people crucified…. The account of Josephus suggests that although crucifixion was all too familiar, the acts of Varus would not soon have been forgotten….
Historian Young
on
The Cross, Jesus, and the Jewish People
[continued]
It should not be surprising that Israel’s sages also show an
awareness of how crucifixion could symbolize the sufferings of the Jewish people in a hostile world…. In the Mekhilta de–Rabbi Ishmael, the Tanna Rabbi Nathan displays a keen awareness that observance of the commandments can lead to persecution and martyrdom. On Exodus 20:6 he comments:
‘Of them that love Me and keep My commandments,’ refers to those who dwell in the Land of Israel and risk their lives for the sake of the commandments. ‘Why are you being led out to be
decapitated?’ ‘Because I circumcised my son to be an Israelite.’ ‘Why are being led out to be burned?’ ‘Because I read the Torah.; ‘Why are you being led out to be crucified?’ ‘Because I ate the unleavened bread.’A
…During the Second Temple period, Jews were crucified for being loyal to Torah and observing their faith traditions. Moreover, Jewish writers who witnessed these acts of persecution wrote about faithful Jews who suffered a martyr’s death upon a cross….
A very different image of the cross emerges, however, when it is viewed in its historical context. It then appears as a symbol of the readiness of Jews to suffer martyrdom for their faith….
Historian Young
on
The Cross, Jesus, and the Jewish People
[continued]
….It is a tragic paradox that Jesus’ suffering on the cross, which we have seen to be representative of Jewish suffering of the period, was so readily employed by leaders of the church for the absurd claim that the Jewish people must bear the collective responsibility for the death of Jesus. Jesus was one of the many Jews who willingly suffered for their faith and their people under the yoke of Rome, yet his passion has been made into the theological basis and justification for Christian persecution of the Jews, paving the way for their own long and torturous Via Dolorosa. It became a spring from which haters of Israel have constantly drunk, as they perpetrated acts of violence against the people of Jesus—his own family and nation that he loved and for whom he suffered….
The Romans had crucified thousands of Jews even before Jesus. They ardently maintained a policy of suppressing popular Jewish messianic hopes. Jesus and his followers presented them with a familiar threat. He was another problematic Jew who had to be dealt with quickly and severely. The cross thus demonstrates Jesus’ solidarity with his people, the Jews, and their national suffering in history.”
***
Historian Young
on
The Cross, Jesus, and the Jewish People
[continued]
Brad H. Young is a Professor of Biblical Literature in Judeo
Christian Studies at the Graduate Department of Oral Roberts
University. He is also the founder and President of the Gospel
Research Foundation. He is one of the founding scholars, along
with Hebrew University's Prof. David Flusser, of the Jerusalem School of Synoptic Studies.
A Mekilta DeRabbi Ishmael on Exodus 20:6. Compare also the Testament of Moses cited in note 4 above.
source: R. Steven Notley, Marc Turnage and Brian Becker, Jesus’ Last Week. The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill © 2006, pp. 191, 193, 198–199, 207–208.
Parsing AUTHENTICITY
A seeker of a religious approach to life will inevitably be drawn to the religious system projecting the highest-level “authenticity/legitimacy.” Almost by definition.
Christianity is compelled to hinge its own declared authenticity on the source-authenticity of Sinai (c. 1250 BCE), i.e. the giving of the Torah at Sinai. But Christianity, of course, simultaneously did not/does not want the potential-for-conversion masses or its exiting adherents leapfrogging over Christianity directly towards the “original-source,” Judaism.
Thus, the Church Father stratagem has been to grant “authenticity” to “Sinai” while simultaneously taking-the-edge-off of the legitimacy of Judaism per se.
Thus, the Church “parses” the authenticity/legitimacy
of Sinai/Judaism:
Sinai—YES; but Judaism—NOT QUITE.
or
Sinai—YES; but Judaism—MAYBE THEN.
Now, the Church remains with a great deal of difficulty in dealing with the Torah – The Five Books of Moses. Because Church
doctrine contradicts Torah doctrine. Essentially, the Church
stratagem would be to simultaneously pontificate that the Torah is both legitimate – and illegitimate. This stratagem is hard to finesse.
Parsing AUTHENTICITY
[continued]
When it suits the Church’s purposes to “ground' Christianity at
Sinai, the Church gives the Torah legitimacy. And, indeed, as noted, the Church packages the Torah in “the Bible.”
But, when it suits the Church's purpose to de-humanize the Jews and/or to undermine the theological validity of Judaism, the Church disses both Moses and the Torah. Both icons – the Torah and Moses – are too central to Church core doctrine to eviscerate their authenticity per se; So the Church stratagem will be to subtly undermine their respective humanism, and, ergo their “contemporary legitimacy.”
This is a dicey dance, because, of necessity, according to core Church doctrine, the Torah is of necessity, God-given. So, by undermining the Torah, even if not frontally, the Church is de facto undermining the Source of the Torah….
Christianity endeavored – from its earliest origins mid-First Century – to fully de-legitimize “contemporary Judaism” and to undermine, to various extents, pre-Jesus Judaism. This twin deadly gambit continued ongoing for 19+ centuries.
As noted, Christianity proceeded to destructively and intensely de-legitimize not only the theological validity of post-Jesus Judaism, but to de-legitimize, as well, the Jewish people – collectively as well as individually. The de-legitimization morphs to de-humanization and demonization.
Parsing AUTHENTICITY
[continued]
As noted, once de-humanization and demonization of the Jews is institutionalized in the Church Canon itself (starting with each of the Canon Gospels), and is de facto Church policy ongoing for centuries, the stage is set for death. Jewish death. First, pogroms of various flavors and magnitudes. Then, genocide.
With the resonant triumph of the Maccabees over the Seleucids,
c. 160 BCE, the Jews – with their center-of-gravity in ethereal and iconic Jerusalem – stood at the apex of authenticity/legitimacy in the Eastern Mediterranean pre-Christianity. Commencing with the introduction of Pauline Greek Christianity via the Canon Gospels, however, roughly two centuries later c. 66-68 CE, the Jews are maneuvered, century-by-century downward ultimately to the nadir of legitimacy.
By 1942 CE in Europe after 19 centuries of ascendant Christian influence, pervasive Church demonization of the Jews, including the simultaneous inculcation of Christian children cradle-thru-adolescence with a demonic amalgam of these same Jews, critical mass of hatred will be attained. One million+ Jewish children alone will vainly grasp for breath and life in the tenth-level sub-dungeon-of-Hell torture/death chambers of Europe – aided, abetted, and of course, executed by sundry lethal sociopathic demagogues. The Church will blame a neo-pagan Hitler. But, of course, Adolf Hitler was just the demonic-sociopath-genius student…. harvesting the 19+ centuries of virulent hatred.
Parsing AUTHENTICITY
[continued]
Courtesy of Christian theology overlaid over Europe,
“parsing authenticity” had morphed to “de-legitimization” –
which then morphs to “demonization” –
which then – aided and abetted by politically astute sundry demagogues – morphs to “genocide-lite” (my term ) –
institutionalized contempt*, dis-enfranchisement, persecution and pogroms –
which in-turn ultimately morphs to full-blown genocide
– the self-righteous “crocodile tear” breast-beating on the part of sundry popes – medieval and modern – notwithstanding.
***
* a teaching of contempt for the Jews,
institutionalized by the Church
LOVE
Wearing a picture–perfect
Mask of Humanism,
playing the eternal victim of Crucifixion,
posturing as the exclusive Instrument of God,
and as the ultimate fount of Love & Kindness,
the Church –
week after week,
month after month;
year after year;
century after century –
would subtly inject
a very carefully calibrated venom –
re–packaged as alleged–history and theology.
Injecting this almost–invisible sugar–coated but lethal
poison–capsule
into its trusting flock
on a weekly basis in Church.
LOVE
[continued]
The bishops would smile beatifically,
the choirs would sing angelically;
the sun–drenched stained–glass windows
would portray the angelic cherubs resonantly,
the majestic cathedral architecture would convey celestial import –
both externally and internally
while the message of the Sunday morning service and sermon
inevitably contained an embedded capsule of hatred –
– a quasi–theological message implying a Holy imperative
of a very finely focused toxin –
carefully included within the ostensible Love homily –
“Hate those diabolical sub–human Jews.”
The poison would inevitably be injected subtly
and with a celestial smile – altar candles and incense included.
LOVE
[continued]
And the (apparently Holy) venom would thus
morally co–opt the trusting and faithful,
with yet another booster–shot of toxin,
while sentencing the outnumbered scattered pockets of Jewry to
yet another round of ongoing "surround sound" of contempt,
obloquy, and hate.
"They – the Jews – had it coming to them,
did they not?"
They still had not overthrown, for starters, the straightforward monotheism of Jesus himself and of the Ten Commandments
*
Intermittently, post–massacre and post–pogrom and post–Holocaust,
as now,
the “software” of the Church would temporarily be recalibrated
to position the Church on the side of the angels;
"We, the Church, are the fount of Love, are we not?"
LOVE
[continued]
*
But the “hardware of hatred”
then and now,
would inevitably always, always remain in place;
– unto this very day.
***
"This was Holy Writ, was it not?"
“Gospel Truth, for sure, was it not?”
***
The Church's self–righteous hands – then and now – "would be clean,"
Would they not?
"We – the emissaries of Christ the Lord – have the clout
to protect this venomous chicanery,
do we not?"
***