Posted: Mar 13, 2016 5:07 pm
I believe that Jesus was a historical figure, a prophet, for two reasons:-
1. some of the statements he made require great insight, eg "the kingdom of heaven is within you",
2. Mohammed talked about Jesus and did not believe that he was crucified.
I think a lot of what Jesus said was distorted and rewritten by many but most particularly by Paul.
I suspect that Paul was an agent of the Romans. The Romans had a serious problem with the Jewish uprisings, which culminated in 66AD and they kicked the Romans out and formed their own government. The question is why didn't the Romans tackle them immediately? I suspect that Jesus and Jewish religious literature had a wide readership once it was translated into Greek. And from at least some of the Greek philosophers of the time, had a high respect for the teachings of Jesus.
I believe that if the Romans had attacked the Jews in the decades of Jesus's teaching life, they would have lost the Eastern Roman Empire because they would not have been simply fighting Jews but Greeks, Syrians, Egyptians and more. So they got The Romans got Paul, a Roman citizen, educated in Greek and Hebrew, and a Jew, to reinvent himself as a saint (you'd know the "religious" experience on the way to Damascus is total fraud, if you have ever had a religious experience). Did he go to Arabia after the experience? I doubt it somehow. It was a way to take distance from what his real mission was about. He first converted the tribes of what is today northern Turkey, who happened to be employed as mercenaries by the Greeks whenever they needed to fight some battle. Then he tackled the Greeks and I would say under pain of death. You only got to look at the Ananias story to see that criminal means were used and parceled off as "acts of God".
And the words that he put into Jesus's mouth were designed to favor the Romans. For example, love thy enemy, do good to those that harm you, forgive your enemies and if someone robs you take off your coat and give them that as well. NO prophet would ever teach such rubbish. Only after taming the masses.. err establishing the many churches did he sail off while the Romans attacked the Jews and raised the temple to the ground.
There are stories that Jesus went to India as did some of his followers such as Thomas. It is not inconceivable since all of the lands between Judea and India were part of the Hellenic world, even under Roman occupation.
The Romans also had Josephus in their pockets. Conveniently as he was the Jewish "historian". He wrote the history as it was desired by his Roman masters.
1. some of the statements he made require great insight, eg "the kingdom of heaven is within you",
2. Mohammed talked about Jesus and did not believe that he was crucified.
I think a lot of what Jesus said was distorted and rewritten by many but most particularly by Paul.
I suspect that Paul was an agent of the Romans. The Romans had a serious problem with the Jewish uprisings, which culminated in 66AD and they kicked the Romans out and formed their own government. The question is why didn't the Romans tackle them immediately? I suspect that Jesus and Jewish religious literature had a wide readership once it was translated into Greek. And from at least some of the Greek philosophers of the time, had a high respect for the teachings of Jesus.
I believe that if the Romans had attacked the Jews in the decades of Jesus's teaching life, they would have lost the Eastern Roman Empire because they would not have been simply fighting Jews but Greeks, Syrians, Egyptians and more. So they got The Romans got Paul, a Roman citizen, educated in Greek and Hebrew, and a Jew, to reinvent himself as a saint (you'd know the "religious" experience on the way to Damascus is total fraud, if you have ever had a religious experience). Did he go to Arabia after the experience? I doubt it somehow. It was a way to take distance from what his real mission was about. He first converted the tribes of what is today northern Turkey, who happened to be employed as mercenaries by the Greeks whenever they needed to fight some battle. Then he tackled the Greeks and I would say under pain of death. You only got to look at the Ananias story to see that criminal means were used and parceled off as "acts of God".
And the words that he put into Jesus's mouth were designed to favor the Romans. For example, love thy enemy, do good to those that harm you, forgive your enemies and if someone robs you take off your coat and give them that as well. NO prophet would ever teach such rubbish. Only after taming the masses.. err establishing the many churches did he sail off while the Romans attacked the Jews and raised the temple to the ground.
There are stories that Jesus went to India as did some of his followers such as Thomas. It is not inconceivable since all of the lands between Judea and India were part of the Hellenic world, even under Roman occupation.
The Romans also had Josephus in their pockets. Conveniently as he was the Jewish "historian". He wrote the history as it was desired by his Roman masters.