This is a great post. It should be used as the definitive post for religious debates.
I am only going to focus on historical truths. I am not trying to disprove anything, merely to provide a historical backdrop.
We can all agree that Jesus was definitely a Jew. At the time of Jesus’s life, Jews were factionalized into different sects: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, etc. Rome allowed the Jews some measure of limited self-rule for a few reasons:
Jews were very difficult to conquer.
Jews had been in the area for a long time, and were familiar with trade routes and regional populations.
This factionalizing of Jews was beneficial to Rome as well. By dividing the Jews, it was easier for Rome to keep them conquered. This same principle is how a few thousand British were able to subjugate tens of millions of people in conquered India. Some would say that the two party system is how American leaders pacify a population of almost 300million.
Nevertheless, Rome understood "divide and conquer" and used it on the Jews.
To help shed a little light on the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes;
(ref: NIV)
The Sadducees: In Palestine, the Greek world made its greatest impact through the party of the Sadducees. Made up of aristocrats, it became the temple party. Because of their position, the Sadducees had a vested interest in the status quo. Relatively few in number, they wielded disproportionate political power and controlled the high priesthood. They rejected all religious writings except the Torah, as well as any doctrine (such as the resurrection) not found in those five books.
The Pharisees: As the party of the synagogue, the Pharisees strove to reinterpret the law. They built a "hedge" around it to enable Jews to live righteously before God in a world that had changed drastically since the days of Moses. Although they were comparitively few in number, the Pharisees enjoyed the support of the people and influenced popular opinion, if not national policy. They were the only party to survive the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70 and were the spiritual progenitors of modern Judiasm.
The Essenes: An almost forgotten Jewish sect until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Essenes were a small, seperatist group that grew out of the conflicts of the Maccabean age. Like the Pharisees, they stressed strict legal observance, but they considered the temple priesthood corruptand rejected much of the temple ritual and sacrificial system. Mentioned by several aincent writers, the precise nature of the Essenes is still not certain, though it is generally agreed that the Qumran community that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls was an Essene group. Because they were convinced that they were the true remnant, these Qumran Essenes had seperated themselves from Judism at large and devoted themselves to personal purity and preperation for the final war between the "Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness." They practiced an apocalyptic faith, looking back to the contributions of their "Teacher of Righteousness" and forward to the coming of two, and possibly three, Messiahs. The destruction of the temple in A.D. 70, however, seems to have delivered a death blow to their apocalyptic expectations.
Attempts have been made to equate aspects of the beliefs of the Qumran community with the origins of Christianity. Some have seen a prototype of Jesus in their "Teacher of Righteousness," and both John the Baptist and Jesus have been assigned membership in the sect. There is, however, only a superficial, speculative base for these conjectures.
In order to add more perspective I will talk about the Jewish perception of the Messiah. This is a little bit rough but captures the main points. Jews do not believe in life after death as Christians or Muslims do. Jews believe that the Messiah will come at the end of the world, and all the righteous will be resurrected and live in the kingdom of God. Jews - uniquely among monotheistic religions - do not believe that only their kind can be saved. Christians do not allow for non-Christian salvation. (You have to accept Jesus). Likewise, Muslims do not allow for non-Muslim salvation.
Jews believe that God created Light, then earth. When imperfect man appeared, the light was shattered, and that by following God’s laws, the light will slowly be put back together. Jews believe that man is created in God’s image, and that man has to choice to glorify or profane that image. When man adheres to God’s laws, the light is slowly put back together. The Jews believe that following God’s laws makes the world better, and that slowly but surely, the world can get better and better to the point of perfection. This “perfection” means that the Light has been put back together, and God can come to a perfect Earth, the only kind he would countenance. But it is up to man to make the world this way - God will not do it for us. The Christian belief is that Jesus opened the gates of Paradise to us. Jews believe that we have to make the world perfect before God will be with us.
Jews also so not seek converts. Whether Jesus said “go and make disciples of all nations” or not is a matter of belief. But we do know the following:
Jesus was a Jew.
The apostles and disciples were Jews.
A practicing Jew would never have said such a thing. Even if a Jew did, it would never have been listened to by other Jews in any significant number. It doesn’t jive with what is known of Judaism, or of he amount of Jewish followersd Jesus had.
It is, however, easy to see how such a statement would have considerable political influence when coupled with Roman state sponsorship, (you have to join, Jesus himself told you to) or perhaps, in the hands of a power-hungry Paul, seeking converts among Greeks.
I understand where you're coming from, but political power was not part of Jesus' (nor His disciples) agenda. Paul (Saul) was obviously of a different mindset before his experience on the road to Damascus (see: Acts ch.9), but whatever vested "political" (read: standing among the Saducees, Pharisees, etc) motives he may have had were left behind after his encounter. Do you know of any references citing either Jesus or any of His followers ever trying to appease or gain favor with the priests, or any other religious leaders? Neither Jesus nor His followers ever tried to gain favor with them. Jesus' entire ministry flew in the face of their teaching, and their conflicts are well known. Some of Jesus' followers met their demise at the hands of the religious leaders (see: Acts 4, Peter and John before the Sanhedrin, and Acts 7, Stephen addressing the Sanhedrin, and his subsequent stoning) for their antagonism. Hardly what I'd call "trying to gain favor."
You are right that Jesus exposed them for the hypocrites that they were. But what made them hypocrites? Perhaps it was that they were paying lip-service to Jewish custom, while being “Rome’s bitches”. Today the same could be said of most Congressmen; pandering to any interest they can while serving the interests of their big donors. It is the nature of power and was the same 2000 years ago. Rome was the sponsor of limited Jewish authority over their own people. The message that would have most upset them was that they needed to be faithful to Jewish laws, not Roman ones. This is outright public derision of them.
Read the Gospels; they clearly bring to light the hypocracy of the religious leaders.
I also have to take issue with Jesus’ claims to be God incarnate. Let’s consider this outside of Scripture for a minute. No Jew would have attracted even a single Jewish follower with this claim. Jews simply do not believe that a man can be holy, or that God can have a human component. Since we agree that Jesus had numerous Jewish followers, it is questionable that Jesus would have ever claimed it.
The Bible has many passages that bolster Jesus’ claims of divinity. However, some of those are simply statements taken out of context. Every Jew refers to themselves as son of man, and son of God. This is to remind Jews that they are of human origin but created in God’s image. Jesus using those words about himself is not a claim of divinity, despite a change in interpretation over time.
Other Scripture passages about Jesus’ claim to divine origins are matters of faith. But it is crucial to remember that none of the Gospels were written until 60 years after Jesus. Consider also that Paul was seeking converts among the Greeks prior to this, and his version of what the teachings of Jesus really were would be subject to his audience. Also, as there was no means to electronically capture words, the likelihood of teachings changing through oral discussion pre-Gospel is tremendous.
Jesus' claims to be God incarnate were what led to His crucifixion (along with His agitation of the religious leaders as previously mentioned).
One example: See matthew 14:53-65 where Jesus is before the Sanhedrin. The high priest asked Jesus "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?" Jesus responded by saying "I AM." The next words out of the priests mouth were "Why do we need anymore witness...You have heard the blasphemy" and tore his clothes (I'm sure you're aware of the significance of this).
OK...WHY did the priest get SO upset with Jesus' answer?...why did he refer to it as blasphemy?...seems like a simple answer.
Refer to my first post where Moses asked God whom shall I say sent me? God answered with "I AM." When Jesus used this same response to the high priests question as to who He was, the high priest immediately reacted because Jesus' answer equated Himself with God. There are many other instances where Jesus made His divinity known (see my 1st post), but in the interest of brevity...
Regarding the teachings of Jesus being subject to interpretation, oral inconsistencies, or being modified to suit the audience at hand...
If this logic is to be used, then the same logic would have to apply to ALL of scripture...the Torah, the entire O.T., etc., as there were no electronic means of capturing their words either. If trust is to be granted to the reliability of O.T. writings, then it must also be extended to N.T. writings as well.
The Gospel of Matthew was written in the early 50's A.D., Mark inbetween 65-70 A.D., Luke between 59-63 A.D., and John between 50-85 A.D., depending on whom you ask. Some believe the book of Joshua was written as late as 800 years after the events of the book, yet few question its authenticity. Many other O.T. writings follow suit, but again, I'm not aware of anyone questioning their authenticity either.
As Jews have a litany of commentaries on religious thought (the Talmud etc.) the idea of discussion and commentary on Jesus' teaching after his death is perfectly natural. In fact, such a thing existed; scholaras call it the "kerygma". These commentaries likely formed the basis for the Gospels, rather than the actual words of Jesus.
The Dead Sea Scrolls testify to the fact that Scripture has been largely unchanged over almost two millennia. They do not weigh in on what happened from Jesus’ death to the writing of the Gospels.
See above
I agree with the “can’t beat them, join them” categorization. However, it is also widely known that Constantine made up whole parts of the religion wholesale.
“Christmas” is a complete lie.
Agreed, and I do not celebrate it.
Much of what is considered central to Christianity today is derived from Constantine’s actions. We previously discussed the idea of Virgin Birth - this was taken wholesale from pagan Mithraism. No Jew would have listened to Jesus for even a second if he claimed to be born of a Virgin.
See: Micah 5:2 and Isaiah 7:14 for O.T. prophesies regarding Jesus' virgin birth. Also note that if Jesus had been sired by Joseph, He would not have been able to claim the legal rights to the throne of David. According to Jeremiah 22:28-30, there could be no king in Israel who was a descendant of king Jeconiah, and Matthew 1:12 relates that Joseph was of the lineage of Jeconiah. Had Joseph sired Jesus, Jesus would have been of a cursed bloodline. Mary, however, was of Davids bloodline; Matthew 1:2-17 gives Jesus' geneaology. This further attests to Jesus' virgin birth. Again, there are many more examples I can cite, but as I said before, in the interest of brevity...
Regarding Mithriasm: I did a search and found some interesting information on this web page:
http://www.tektonics.org/tekton_04_02_04_MMM.html
If Mithriasm had any influence on the "Christian" church, I would think it to have influenced Constantine's bastardized version of Christianity. Reference my earlier comment about the true Christian church of the time refusing to accept the obvious Roman and pagan influences. It is widely known that Jesus was not born on December 25th, as you referenced. This is one of many "left-overs" that have been handed down through the ages, attributed to tradition rather than fact.
Constantine’s mother walked Jerusalem and literally invented - out of thin air - “holy” sites. “Jesus carried the cross here”…”Jesus fell here” etc. were all simply creations of Constantine.
We agree that Constantine’s bastardization of early Christianity was a strictly political maneuver. This also explains why he would “humanize” the religion. Jews do not have things like “relics” or “saints”. Jews consider Moses the most important figure in their religion, but they don’t pray to him. It is actually forbidden in Judaism to revere a man that way. Jewish history conveys Moses’ humanity clearly; he led the Jews to the Promised Land, he gave them their laws, but he did not get to partake in the Promised Land.
However, relics and holy sites would be useful in enlisting pagan coverts.
Once these changes started to take place, the Jews became a liability. Jews wanted to nothing to do with Constantine’s version of Christianity. It’s paganism: statues and icons and such. This is the origin of the “rejection” of Jesus by Jews. This time in Roman history is actually called the time of the “Jewish problem”: what to do with a population (Jews) that knows about the real origins of Christianity but does not believe the new version? This is a real issue for rulers.
The Council of Nicaea was in 325. This was the codification of Christianity at the behest of Constantine. Soon after that was the era of the Jewish problem.... Rome started killing Jews at a furious rate of speed: kill them all and no one will remember them. Rome was so zealous in killing Jews that historians often say “if Rome had tanks and machine guns, they’d have gotten them all.”
The Jewish problem raged on through the mid to late 300s, but eventually, the killing of Jews stopped. It stopped not out of mercy, but because of a new philosophical approach: Jews must be allowed to survive, but never thrive; a permanent reminder of what happens to those who reject Rome.. (Reject Rome, not Jesus- Jesus became the human face of a political movement.)
In fact, it was Augustin of Hippo (St Augustin, son of St Monica) who uttered the exact phrase “Jews must be allowed to survive but never thrive.”
Historians believe (and your faith tells you otherwise, which is for you to decide) that the idea of Jesus as God did not arise until approximately 400 AD as part of a long term solution to the “Jewish problem”. Jesus is God, and the jews rejected him!
Note that the Jewish problem plagued Christianity for 1500 more years under the guise of rejecting God. This gave Christians "moral authority" to denigrate and mistreat, even kill off, the Jews. Jesus tried to save them,but they wouldn't listen. If they rejected Jesus, kill them! Remember, infidel is a Christian word. Yet the heart of the "Jewish problem" was the politics of Constantine! What a legacy: 1600 years.
Popes put the Jews in ghettos, forced conversion, etc., all the way up until the late 1800s. Martin Luther had some interesting comments on how to handle Jews as well. In fact, these practices only stopped in the late 1800’s when the Italians took all of the Pope’s land away for good, relegating him to 90 acres on Vatican Hill.
The last attempt at solving the “Jewish problem” was of course the rise of the Nazis. Hitler was a devout Catholic who used the historical messages of Catholicism along with Martin Luther’s vitriolic Jew-hatred to galvanize a population to kill Jews. When the Nazis spoke of a “Final Solution”, it was a “solution” to the Jewish problem. If this sounds far fetched, consider that the German city of Trier was a Roman outpost all the way back to the time of Constantine. He had a palace there. It was called Augustus Treverorum, but it was Trier. The roots of the “Jewish problem” in Germany were 1600 years old when Hitler came to power.
I am making all these points to show the extremely political nature of Christianity.
I understand completely where you're coming from, but again I ask that you not confuse protestant Christianity with Catholocism. While the two may seem similar on initial inspection, as I stated before there are vast differences in theologies. Martin Luthers 95 thesis bears this out well, but is not a complete list of discrepancies between the two faiths.
The Dead Sea Scrolls do speak to an amazing consistency of Scripture despite translation. The truth of them, though, remains a matter of faith.
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