Jesus--Fact or Fiction??

[Baruch]

Well at least in Babylon, you would have had them fill out the clay tablets in triplicate ;-)

[Mike Cl]

Element 38:
a)In this same popular cosmology, the havens, including the firmament, were not empty expanses but filled with all manner of things, including palaces and gardens, and it was possible to be buried there.  b) In this worldview everything on earth was thought to be a mere imperfect copy of their truer forms in heaven, which were not abstract Platonic forms but actual physical objects in outer space.

This cosmological view is explicit in Hebrews:  "According to the laws almost everything is cleansed by blood, and apart from the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.  So it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be cleansed with these[i.e. Jewish blood rites]:  but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.  For Christ entered not into a holy place made with hands built to look like the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God on our behalf (9.22-24).

Here we have multiple heavens (plural) in which reside the true versions of everything (including the temple itself), and of which the things on earth are only imperfect copies.  The celestial temple is 'not made with hands' because it was made by God, just like our celestial bodies will be (2 Cor. 5.1).  We see this already in the Dead Sea Scrolls, where the 'Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice describe seven ascending levels of heaven, several of which have more perfect copies of the temple and the holy of holies , and in yet higher ones 'angels offer pure and perfect sacrifices'.  There are even versions of earthly things in the firmament, as we learn in the Ascension of Isaiah 7.10, which says, 'as it is above, so is it also on earth'.  Although those things would not be the perfect models, which resided only in the perfect heavens above, but half-corrupt imitations, in between the models above and their earthly copies below.

[Baruch]

Basically Kabbalah of 2000 years ago.  It continued to develop in limited circles, in spite of rabbinic opposition.  The most recent version, Lurianic Kabbalah, from the 1500s, dispenses with the more anthropic angelology and demonology, becoming a more abstract vision and agenda.  Basically to free what is good, trapped now in evil, so it can ascend.  Like letting the fizz out of carbonated water.  Basically gnostic.  I relate well to Kabbalah, and gnosticism, because it takes the ordinary human experience as mostly evil, with little chance of redemption .. the theology of the Books of Job, Ecclesiastes and Lamentations.

[Mike Cl]

Element 39:
(a) In this cosmology there were also two Adams: one perfect celestial version, of which the earthly version (who fathered the human race) is just a copy.  And (b) the first Christians appear to have connected their Jesus Christ to that original celestial Adam.

In Philo's scheme, the first Adam was an invisible perfect man, having no gender and being immortal and imperishable, and this is what explains there being two creation accounts in Genesis (Gen. 1-2.3 vs Gen 2.4-25): the first related to the creation of the true man, and the second related to the creation of his mortal copy.

We have already seen that Paul's Jesus was a preexistent celestial being (Element 10).  And here we see that this idea of a preexistent heavenly man predates even Christianity.  ...........................
Paul flat out says Christ 'is the image of God' (2 Cor. 4.4); and another Pauline author says Christ 'is the image of the invisible God' and 'the firstborn of all creation' (Col 1.15), which explicitly connects Paul's Christ with Philo's primordial Adam, the celestial one, who was in that the understood Jesus to be the first created being: as it is through Jesus that God created everything else (1 Cor. 8.6), and Paul explicitly calls Jesus God's firstborn (in Rom 8.29).

................................What distinguishes Christianity's talk of the 'two Adams' from Philo's talk of the 'two Adams', apart from Philo's own Platonizing tendencies, is that Christianity claimed a special fate for the celestial Adam (he descended from the heavens to die and rise from the dead), and placed it as a historical event--presumably a recent historical event, portending that the 'end was nigh' (since Christ's resurrection was imagined by Paul to be the 'firstfruits' of the general eschatological resurrection: 1 Cor. 15.20).  But apart from that, the Christians appear to have been working from the same core Jewish doctrine that there was a perfect celestial Adam, firstborn of all creation, and (somehow) that man turned out to be Jesus.

[Baruch]

Element 39:
(a) In this cosmology there were also two Adams: one perfect celestial version, of which the earthly version (who fathered the human race) is just a copy.  And (b) the first Christians appear to have connected their Jesus Christ to that original celestial Adam.

In Philo's scheme, the first Adam was an invisible perfect man, having no gender and being immortal and imperishable, and this is what explains there being two creation accounts in Genesis (Gen. 1-2.3 vs Gen 2.4-25): the first related to the creation of the true man, and the second related to the creation of his mortal copy.

We have already seen that Paul's Jesus was a preexistent celestial being (Element 10).  And here we see that this idea of a preexistent heavenly man predates even Christianity.  ...........................
Paul flat out says Christ 'is the image of God' (2 Cor. 4.4); and another Pauline author says Christ 'is the image of the invisible God' and 'the firstborn of all creation' (Col 1.15), which explicitly connects Paul's Christ with Philo's primordial Adam, the celestial one, who was in that the understood Jesus to be the first created being: as it is through Jesus that God created everything else (1 Cor. 8.6), and Paul explicitly calls Jesus God's firstborn (in Rom 8.29).

................................What distinguishes Christianity's talk of the 'two Adams' from Philo's talk of the 'two Adams', apart from Philo's own Platonizing tendencies, is that Christianity claimed a special fate for the celestial Adam (he descended from the heavens to die and rise from the dead), and placed it as a historical event--presumably a recent historical event, portending that the 'end was nigh' (since Christ's resurrection was imagined by Paul to be the 'firstfruits' of the general eschatological resurrection: 1 Cor. 15.20).  But apart from that, the Christians appear to have been working from the same core Jewish doctrine that there was a perfect celestial Adam, firstborn of all creation, and (somehow) that man turned out to be Jesus.

Part of Kabbalah a long time now ... Primordial Man/Logos is called Adam Kadmon.  If you assume that Adam Kadmon is the angel Metatron, and Metatron can incarnate same as Sandalphon (as John the Baptist) then this isn't extraordinary in context.  The latter rabbis were very much against this, for obvious reasons.

[Mike Cl]

Element 40:
In fact, the Christian idea of a preexistent spiritual son of God called the Logos, who was God's true high priest in heaven, was also not a novel idea but already held by some pre-Christian Jews; and this preexistent spiritual son of God had already been explicitly connected with a celestial Jesus figure in the OT ( discussed in Element 6), and therefore some Jews already believed there was a supernatural son of God named Jesus--because Paul's contemporary Philo interprets the messianic prophecy of Zech. 6.12 in just such a way.  This is the prophecy about a high priest crowned king in heaven named 'Jesus Rising', God's 'servant', who will 'rise' from below and be given godly authority and somehow he involved in cleansing the world of sin. 

.....................................Philo's remarks prove that some Jews already believed that God had a firstborn son in heaven, a preexistent being through whom God created the universe, the very image of God, the supreme of all beings next to God whose name could already be identified as Jesus (per Philo's explanation of Zech. 6), and who advocates on our behalf to procure forgiveness of sins, and that all earthly priests were but a copy of him.  Not only is this clearly the same deity as Jesus in Christian documents such as the canonical book of Hebrews (see Chapter 11), but it is clearly the same deity worshiped by Paul and all Christians he had any communication with.  It is therefore, so far as we can tell, the same deity Christianity began with.  Any theory of the origins of Christianity must take this into account.

[Cavebear]

I had a few Jehovah's Witnesses visit last year.  Since I had been up all night on the computer (here actually), and I saw them coming, I put on my atheist hat and waited.  We had an interestesting discussion after I pointed to my hat.

They were a bit shocked.  Never mind that about 10-14% of the people they talked to were atheists, I was possibly one of the few declared ones.

So we talked on my front steps.  After giving them about 3 minutes, I asked them how they know that "Jesus" actually existed.

Complete silence for 15 seconds.  Then they said it was in the bible.  So I said that was just a book and and I had books about Hobbits and were THEY real?   I pointed out books are books and suggested they offer proof.

They left.  3 months later, they returned.  To my house only.  They were focussed on ME!  I wasn't available to discuss it, so they left a pamphlet of claims of the existence of Jesus. 

I read it.  It was mostly hearsay, claims from a century later, and Josephus.  Ah Josephus, the pathological liar about Masada...  Who could pay attention to HIM?

[Baruch]

I had a few Jehovah's Witnesses visit last year.  Since I had been up all night on the computer (here actually), and I saw them coming, I put on my atheist hat and waited.  We had an interestesting discussion after I pointed to my hat.

They were a bit shocked.  Never mind that about 10-14% of the people they talked to were atheists, I was possibly one of the few declared ones.

So we talked on my front steps.  After giving them about 3 minutes, I asked them how they know that "Jesus" actually existed.

Complete silence for 15 seconds.  Then they said it was in the bible.  So I said that was just a book and and I had books about Hobbits and were THEY real?   I pointed out books are books and suggested they offer proof.

They left.  3 months later, they returned.  To my house only.  They were focussed on ME!  I wasn't available to discuss it, so they left a pamphlet of claims of the existence of Jesus. 

I read it.  It was mostly hearsay, claims from a century later, and Josephus.  Ah Josephus, the pathological liar about Masada...  Who could pay attention to HIM?

My Ex did the same.   At the time she was an ex Catholic nun, and a choir director.  JW folk only know a sales pitch, but they don't know what they are saying, it is memorized.  Same with Mormon missionaries.  We had some visit our synagogue once.  They stayed for service.  It put them in tears (since they think they are Jewish).  An overdone of chutzpah perhaps?

[Cavebear]

My Ex did the same.   At the time she was an ex Catholic nun, and a choir director.  JW folk only know a sales pitch, but they don't know what they are saying, it is memorized.  Same with Mormon missionaries.  We had some visit our synagogue once.  They stayed for service.  It put them in tears (since they think they are Jewish).  An overdone of chutzpah perhaps?

I agree the JW can't actually discuss much.  *I* baffled them and I wasn't at my best being up 36 hours.  I have never had any Mormons visit, but if some did, I have a few questions to annoy them too.

[Mike Cl]

Element 41:
(a) The 'Son of Man' (an apocalyptic title Jesus is given in the Gospels) was another being foreseen in the visions of Enoch to be a preexistent celestial superman whom God will one day put in charge of the universe, overthrowing all demonic power, and in a text that we know the first Christians used as scripture ( 1 Enoch).  (b) According to that scripture, this 'Son of Man' will in the appointed day reveal divine secrets to mankind, when also his name will be revealed; and it is implied that he may be the Christ (Jesus likewise was regarded as holding the divine secrets and revealing them).  (c) But his identity has been kept secret so evildoers will not know him when the time comes (just like Jesus).  (d) Yet he already sounds in many respects like the same being as the primordial Adam (Element 39) and Logos (Element 40).  The fact that at Qumran he was already fully equated with Melchizedek only confirms all these figures were at times thought to be the same.

[Baruch]

Element 41:
(a) The 'Son of Man' (an apocalyptic title Jesus is given in the Gospels) was another being foreseen in the visions of Enoch to be a preexistent celestial superman whom God will one day put in charge of the universe, overthrowing all demonic power, and in a text that we know the first Christians used as scripture ( 1 Enoch).  (b) According to that scripture, this 'Son of Man' will in the appointed day reveal divine secrets to mankind, when also his name will be revealed; and it is implied that he may be the Christ (Jesus likewise was regarded as holding the divine secrets and revealing them).  (c) But his identity has been kept secret so evildoers will not know him when the time comes (just like Jesus).  (d) Yet he already sounds in many respects like the same being as the primordial Adam (Element 39) and Logos (Element 40).  The fact that at Qumran he was already fully equated with Melchizedek only confirms all these figures were at times thought to be the same.

Melchizedek means "righteous king".  Something we are still lacking.  I see "son of man" differently ... it refers to everyone being "jesus aka godly salvation".  But in particular, see how this mythology plays out in post-Christian Germany.  Hitler was seen by his followers as the Messiah/Mahdi of the Aryans.  Both are false messiahs, but unfortunately Hitler was real.

[Mike Cl]

Melchizedek means "righteous king".  Something we are still lacking.  I see "son of man" differently ... it refers to everyone being "jesus aka godly salvation".  But in particular, see how this mythology plays out in post-Christian Germany.  Hitler was seen by his followers as the Messiah/Mahdi of the Aryans.  Both are false messiahs, but unfortunately Hitler was real.

Melchizedek is element 42--the next element.

[Baruch]

Melchizedek is element 42--the next element.

The Homily to the Hebrews, isn't an epistle and isn't by Paul.  But it does reflect yet another faction in the false messiah business.

[Mike Cl]

Element 42
There is a parallel tradition of a perfect and eternal celestial high priest named Melchizedek, which means in Hebrew 'Righteous King'.  We have already seen that a celestial Jesus was already called Righteous and King by some pre-Christian Jews.  And a connection between the Christ and the Melchizedek figure was probably made before Christianity, as the very Dead Sea scroll that appears to link the dying Christ of Daniel 9 to the dying servant of Isaiah 52-53 is specifically a pesher on this Melchizedek figure, and by most obvious interpretation it states that its dying Christ (the Anointed in the Spirit) is Melchizedek. 

Of course, in Jewish understanding, all kings (e.g. 1 Sam. 15.17) and all high priests were Christs (Lev. 4.5, 16; 6.22), thus, being both, Melchizedek would be understood as a Christ, and thus passages about 'the' Christ could easily be connected to him in the pesherim, particularly once he evolved into a salvific, apocalyptic figure, as he clearly had become by the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls.  Once you see him as having the attributes of the Christ, the fact that he was already a Christ would automatically warrant linking him to messianic passages in the scriptures, and this is exactly what the scribes at Qumran appear to be doing.  And the Christians seem to have done so as well.  Crispin Fletches-Louis, for example, argues that there is evidence in the Gospel of mark indicating that 'Jesus' thought he was the high priest Melchizedek.  Yet we could just as easily use all his same evidence to argue that Mark is depicting Jesus as such, in his characteristically veiled way. 

[Baruch]

Righteous King theology was hijacked by the Maccabees, which seriously disrupted the High Priesthood and led to the Pharisee movement, to put lay people in charge of the Temple.  The original Righteous King/false messiah was King Josiah of Judah, circa 620 BCE, 500 years earlier.