My dear friend, Brian M, was over this weekend – and while he is not a Bible-Thumper/Basher – he has a pretty strong belief that Jesus was the son-of-god. I can’t consider myself an atheist, as any of my readers knows that I believe we are ALL god – putting itself back-together-again. But I’m sure the devout Christian might consider me the devil – tempting them to swerve from whatever Christian course they feel they are on (and the exquisite diversity of the innumerable Christian roads is yet another delicious irony). Brian M doesn’t view me as atheist or devil, however, and, is actually willing to hear me out: but today I had to let him know that this blind faith in a 2000-year-old dead dude is truly cutting off half-of-his brain: a veritable lobotomy of the faith.
To get to the root of the matter, one has to realize that it was the Jews who declared themselves to be the chosen people of god. And this one god — that the Jews suggested wanted them as HIS chosen people — is allegedly Jesus’ daddy. Don’t forget that Mother Mary was just one of many thousands (probably hundreds-of-thousands) of women who ensured the lives of their unborn bastards and their lives as well – by wisely suggesting that they had been impregnated by a god. Please don’t tell me that there was a 3000-year pause in sex before marriage between Perseus’ Mother and Mother Mary!
Now Laurence Gardiner, in his Bloodline of the Holy Grail, does a much better job of describing what may very well have been the duties, values and mores of Essene culture (which he suggests Jesus most likely was [and that goes a long to explaining why Jesus was reportedly frustrated with your average Jerusalem Jew]) than I ever could – but I think I’ve made a-couple-of-connections that Laurence didn’t address in his books on Jesus and Jesus’ family.
Gardiner does note that even the New Testament acknowledges that Jesus was of the House of David (which can only be passed along by his earth father’s side [and that would be Joseph]) – and that Jesus may very likely have been the true heir to the Judean throne (which was occupied by those Herods). But Gardiner doesn’t tell us (because no one seems to know) where Jesus spent 20-years-or-more after he reportedly spoke with those learned scribes in the temple. Some folks place him in Egypt – while others place him in India during these years. Still others believe that he was dutifully wittling his life away (talk about irony: a carpenter’s adopted son getting nailed to a tree!).
I once read an article that got me thinking about why Jesus didn’t appreciate the Roman occupation: in this article, the author suggested that Jesus probably witnessed crucifixions from a very early age – as they were reportedly very commonplace. We also know that Jesus was quite conscious of the Roman presence and how being captured by the Herods could cost you your head! To wit, Jesus went “underground” for 6 months following his cousin John’s execution.
But the thing that fascinates me about what Jesus might really have been up to is the fact that there is historical documentation of an armed insurrection in the city of Jerusalem on the day Jesus road into Jerusalem on a donkey! And this selfsame documentation (the historian Josephus, I believe [but I could be wrong on this]) – suggests that the weapons used for this uprising against the Roman garrison posted in Jerusalem were smuggled in beneath the palm fronds being waved at Jesus. Could Jesus have missed this? Obviously the Roman guards did.
TBC…