Misnomers about Jesus

[mojobadshah]

Somewhere along the lines I became aware of two things about Jesus's portrayal that is contrary to what I remember and bring me to the following questions:

1.) Did Jesus or Simon carry the cross?

Mathew, Mark, and Luke don't make any mention of Jesus carrying a cross. They say it was Simon of Cyrene who carried the cross. But John on the other hand doesn't mention Simon and says that Jesus carried his own cross.

2.) Was Jesus nailed to a cross or a tree?

Was this a breakdown in the translation or was Jesus really nailed to a tree? According to wikipedia there is only evidence of one crucifixion among the Romans that dates back to the time Jesus would have lived and Tertullian mentions a 1st-century AD case in which trees were used for crucifixion.

 

[Thomas]

1.) Did Jesus or Simon carry the cross?

Tradition holds that Jesus began carrying the cross, but fell, and Simon was forced to carry it, for fear that Jesus would die before they could crucify Him.

2.) Was Jesus nailed to a cross or a tree?

A cross, as was the custom. The idea of the tree seems to be from Peter, although Paul uses it, and as such it represents an esoteric teaching, correlative with the tree in the Garden of Eden.

God bless,

Thomas

 

[bob x]

According to wikipedia there is only evidence of one crucifixion among the Romans that dates back to the time Jesus would have lived

There is only one case where a body was found with a nail still embedded in his foot because the people burying him couldn't manage to pull it out. But the documentation mentions MASSIVE use of crucifixions: lining the whole road from Rome to Naples after the Spartacus revolt, for example.

and Tertullian mentions a 1st-century AD case in which trees were used for crucifixion.

In the Jewish Revolt, there were so many crucifixions that they had to use trees because they weren't making crosses fast enough.

 

[mojobadshah]

Tradition holds that Jesus began carrying the cross, but fell, and Simon was forced to carry it, for fear that Jesus would die before they could crucify Him.

Is this some unwritten custom? Because as far as I can tell its just as I have described it. Three of the apostles say it was Simon and one of them say there was no Simon and Jesus carried it all the way.

In the Jewish Revolt, there were so many crucifixions that they had to use trees because they weren't making crosses fast enough.

So it's possible that Jesus was really nailed to a tree as Greek translations of the NT describe it?

 

[Thomas]

Is this some unwritten custom?

It's oral tradition.

So it's possible that Jesus was really nailed to a tree as Greek translations of the NT describe it?

Probably not. As you point out, the Gospels all say cross, and as Bob X says, trees were used when they ran out of crosses, but there's no reason to assume that on this occasion.

From a symbolist point of view, being crucified to a tree would have been far more meaningful to the Early Church than a cross, for a number of reasons, so had it been a tree, the tradition would not have ignored that.

I think Peter, and following him Paul, introduced the idea of a tree within the context of their preaching. Paul's salvation theology is one of 'recapitulation' in which the image of the cross as tree fits the overall schemata.

God bless,

Thomas

 

[Amergin]

Somewhere along the lines I became aware of two things about Jesus’ portrayal that is contrary to what I remember and bring me to the following questions:

1.) Did Jesus or Simon carry the cross?

Mathew, Mark, and Luke do not make any mention of Jesus carrying a cross. They say it was Simon of Cyrene who carried the cross. But John on the other hand doesn't mention Simon and says that Jesus carried his own cross.

Putting the gospels together, it is that Jesus carried the cross until he faltered, and Simon of Cyrene was ordered to pick up the cross and carry it further. I do not know if Jesus later resumed carrying the cross. However, I see no significant issue. Simon's role seems to be unimportant to the theme of the story.

2.) Was Jesus nailed to a cross or a tree?

Was this a breakdown in the translation or was Jesus really nailed to a tree? According to wikipedia there is only evidence of one crucifixion among the Romans that dates back to the time Jesus would have lived and Tertullian mentions a 1st-century AD case in which trees were used for crucifixion.

There are three issues here. One is that trees were used for crucifixion many times. This was most likely if the victims were so many, that there was not enough time for carpenters to make a lot of crosses. Trees could be a substitute as in the crucifixion of the entire rebel army of Spartacus and likely, in the mass executions of the 70-73 CE Jewish defeated rebellion.

The second issue is that executions in Roman territories were typically crucifixion if the crimes were political, insurrectionists, rebel leaders, or dissidents claiming a royal throne in a Roman occupied territory. In cases of violations of religious law, local customs prevailed. In Roman occupied Israel, a criminal who violated religious laws such as committing blasphemy, the penalty was stoned to death. St. Steven was not crucified. He violated Judaic commandments by worshiping a human being (Jesus) as a new God. Steven was stoned to death.

If Jesus was executed for posing as God (which he did not), he would have been stoned to death and his body hung on a tree as a warning to blasphemers or heretics. However, Jesus was supposedly crucified, which suggest he broke a Roman law. Roma officially tolerated all of the hundreds of religions in the Empire. They would not have crucified him for blasphemy against a local tribal god. The Romans crucified Jesus for a perceived claim to be King of Israel, a political crime. They said so in placing a sign above his head on the cross saying, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews." It was clear he was crucified as a rebel pretender to the vacant throne of old Israel. Gospel writers went to a lot of trouble tracing the genealogy of Jesus back to King David. They would not do that to prove Jesus was a god but the rightful heir to the Israeli Throne.

The Talmud mentions a Jesus (Yeshua ben Pacheria) more than a century before the time of Jesus of Nazareth. This earlier Jesus was the son of a Mary of Magdala. He was taken to Egypt where he studied and practiced sorcery. He returned to Israel where he healed the sick, and performed other miracles (magic.). He was tried by the priests for the sin of sorcery. Then he was stoned to death (the Jewish method of execution for sin). After the stoning death, his dead and mutilated body was hung on a tree for several days so people could see the penalty for the religious sin of sorcery.

My personal opinion is that the story from the Talmud bears so much similarity to the Gospel stories that they may have been the source of the fictional plot in the Gospels. It makes one sceptical if the Jesus of Nazareth’s brief narrative in the Gospels came from the earlier Jesus ben Pacheria. Dr. Massey in his published lectures mentions that when the Romans first entered Israel before even the time of Herod the Great, they found a Jesus Cult. Remnants of this cult may have influenced the growth of the new religion later called Christianity. I think Jesus was real but may have been a Zealot or insurrectionist captured and executed by the Romans in the prescribed Roman method of political execution (crucifixion).

The two different Jesus' merged in oral stories, later influenced by the cult of Mithras, a "son" of God (Ahura Mazda) and the Sun God. This later evolved into Trinitarian Christianity in the late 3rd Century rival to the Arian Christianity of Paul and Arius. The Gospels augment the Arian version of the new religion.

Jesus followers did not use the cross, a Roman execution symbol, in the first century. The abstract fish symbol was the earlier icon for Christians. How the Cross or Crucifix became the Christian symbol is up to speculation. I note that the Cult of Sol Invictus used a symbol of the Solar Disk with rays of light projection in the four major directions, up, down, left, and right. It resembled a cross with a big circle in the centre. This symbol was not only of Sol Invictus but is seen on ancient Irish burial sites with a cross circling the centre of the cross but without a body on it. This was long before Christianity. When the Irish became Christians, they continued to use the Irish Cross in burials but added the figure of Jesus that we still see today. In any Irish grave yard, you will likely find a fancy sculpted stone cross with Jesus in the crucifixion position but surrounded by a stone circle.

Amergin

 

[wil]

The Talmud mentions a Jesus (Yeshua ben Pacheria) more than a century before the time of Jesus of Nazareth. This earlier Jesus was the son of a Mary of Magdala. He was taken to Egypt where he studied and practiced sorcery. He returned to Israel where he healed the sick, and performed other miracles (magic.). He was tried by the priests for the sin of sorcery. Then he was stoned to death (the Jewish method of execution for sin). After the stoning death, his dead and mutilated body was hung on a tree for several days so people could see the penalty for the religious sin of sorcery.

Where do we find this and what are the oldest known documents, and when is it determined to have been written?

 

[Amergin]

Where do we find this and what are the oldest known documents, and when is it determined to have been written?

The most important source for my views has been the Bible itself. My doubts began from reading the Bible at an early age. In the early years I just knew that the Jesus story did not make sense to me, but I had no evidence to back it up apart from that. Since then I have found serious scholars. My own thinking after exposure to Old Testament horror stories led me to think God was either an evil space monster like Cthulhu or he was totally imaginary. The New Testament and the quite psychotic Book of Revelation made me definitively reject Christianity. I gradually found that other religions like Judaism and Islam also made no sense.

The most famous is Gerald Massey’s HISTORICAL JESUS AND MYTHICAL CHRIST. This was written in 1900 and given in London Lectures. It is found in several books of essays. Here is a web link: http://www.theosophical.ca/MythicalChrist.htm

Another excellent book is DECONSTRUCTING JESUS, by Robert M. Price, professor of biblical criticism at the Centre for Inquiry Institute, Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York, USA 14228-2107, and year 2000. Website for Prometheus: Prometheus Books

PARALLEL MYTHS, by J. F. Bierlein, Ballantine Publishing division of Random House, 1994. Go to Random House - Bringing you the best in fiction, nonfiction, and children's books. (or try amazon.com).

GOSPEL FICTIONS, by Randel Helms, Prometheus Books (see website above).

HOW WE BELIEVE, by Michael Shermer, "The search for God in an Age of Science," Ch. 8, pp. 186-190.

THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS AND THE CHRISTIAN MYTH, by John M. Allegro, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY 14215. 1984. See Ch. 13, pp 190-203, "Will the real Jesus Christ please stand up?

THE ORIGINS OF THE MITHRAIC CULTS, Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World, by David Ulansey, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. 1989. See esp. Ch. 6 "The Philosophers of Tarsus."

THE CASE AGAINST CHRISTIANITY, Michael Martin, Temple University Press, Philadelphia. 1991.

A DEVIL’S CHAPLAIN, Reflections on hope, lies, science, and love. Richard Dawkins, Ph. D., Houghton Mifflin Company. Boston-New York, Chapter 3.2 pp 128-145 “Viruses of the Mind.” 2003.

MYTHOLOGY'S LAST GODS, Yahweh and Jesus, by William Harwood, Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY, USA. 1992.

AN ANTHOLOGY OF ATHEISM AND RATIONALISM, a collection of great essays (esp. "The Historical Reality of Jesus," by Edward Greenly, "The Historical Jesus," by John M. Robertson, and the classical essay "The Historical Jesus and Mythical Christ" by Gerald Massey.) Edited by Gordon Stein, Ph.D., Prometheus Books, 1980.

DECEPTIONS AND MYTHS OF THE BIBLE, "Is the Holy Bible Holy? Is it the Word of god?" by Lloyd M. Graham, Bell Publishing Company, New York, USA. Also distributed by Crown Publishers, Inc. 1979. See "The Mythical Nature of Christ," Ch.XIX, pp. 279-294.

THE RIGHT BRAIN AND RELIGION, A discussion of religion in the context of Right- and Left- Brain Theory. C. W. Dalton, Big Blue Books, Lakeside, California 1990.

I caution insecure religionists who come here for reinforcement not a thinking challenge. You may be troubled by these writings.

I was lucky to have parents who taught me how to think, not what to believe. I find Christians, especially fundamentalists, only read the Christian side of the isssue. They avoid critiques. I read both sides.

Amergin.

 

[wil]

Thanx for that list Amergin, but where do I find in the Talmud the Yeshua story?

Is that a midrash story?

 

[bob x]

Thanx for that list Amergin, but where do I find in the Talmud the Yeshua story?

Is that a midrash story?

Amergin has it completely garbled, as I have told him before. The Yeshua from 100 years earlier was the son of "Eli" and "the witch of Ashdod"; nothing to do with the Yeshua who is described as the son of "Panthera" (an evident pun on the gospel of Matthew's claim that he was the son of a parthenos "virgin"; Panthera was a common name, here supposed to be a rapist Roman soldier) and "Mary the hair-dresser" (mugaddeleh "hair-dresser"; apparently the Talmudic authors had the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene confused); neither of these are the same character as "ben Stada", more usually just called "that Egyptian", a charlatan from the generation of the Jewish revolt (mentioned in Acts and Josephus as well; Josephus puts his birth about the time of the Crucifixion).

 

[taijasi]

Let's see, Jesus was born in 105BC?

Yes, I'll go with that. Plenty of us do. We have all the reason in the world to believe it, ample proof, historical reference and far more than the hearsay and clever con job which the early `fathers' played upon us, twisting and distorting even history itself, redefining the "slaugher of the Innocents," and making of this Great and Holy Man, this Therapeute, a god ... to be idolized, worshipped ... ANYTHING but emulated.

For that, we are constantly reminded, is impossible, since "Jesus was the very, LITERAL `son of God,' and - despite Biblical IMPERATIVE, time and again, most often from JESUS HIMSELF to do NO LESS than fulfil our Duty to God via Service to our fellow man, and even to work "GREATER works than [this]" ... - DESPITE this imperative, the attitude somehow exists among plenty of Christians that we are worthless, inept and constantly erring SINNERS.

Strange, that Jesus, even with His `dark sayings,' was not a man of such bleak outlook, such superstition and mindless, rote repetition and bowing down to Holy writ [why was the Sabbath created again? that Man might serve IT?] ... yet this ends up the cookie-cutter false Messiah worshipped now by many hundreds of millions.

No, I will find my meaning, my understanding, in WHAT MAKES SENSE for me, thank you. And bob_x, I don't care if you and fifty bajillion other great historians will continue to entertain popular mythology until your dying days. Your interest will take you, in the DAYS THAT FOLLOW, my atheist friend, right where you want to go. If that happens to include a final reconciliation of all your studies, pursuits and interests with THE TRUTH ... I think you may look back upon my silly, foolish notions ... and

For you see, I TOLD YOU SO ... and you would hear it not!

By the time YOUR Jesus was supposed to have lived, the Nazarene DID INDEED walk the Earth, yet He was a different man, in a different body, as HISTORY RECORDS.

Study the life of Apollonius of Tyana, see the parallels ... and if you would set aside PRE-JUDGING, plus the attachment to views, I think you will come, of YOUR OWN conclusions, to see what good sense this makes.

A stick in the mud, of course, is just a stick in the mud.

Naturally it will become clear in time, if you seek the Truth, that Jesus was a man of THREE prior incarnations with the same NAME ... and perhaps one day I will publish something about `Jesus of the Maccabees,' for the true story DOES need to be told, and I have a great deal of interest in telling it.

Blind, foolish men cannot see ... yet even a young child, with a pure heart, an unselfish interest, and little yet of EGO and VANITY ... may recognize an earnest, honest appeal to him, Soul to Soul.

The Soul knows Truth, yearns for it, burns for it.
The ego will defend its `treasures' at all cost.

Which did JESUS advise that we thirst after?

 

[mojobadshah]

Putting the gospels together, it is that Jesus carried the cross until he faltered, and Simon of Cyrene was ordered to pick up the cross and carry it further. I do not know if Jesus later resumed carrying the cross. However, I see no significant issue. Simon's role seems to be unimportant to the theme of the story.

That's not what I read. I read two different stories. Could you site here?

Probably not. As you point out, the Gospels all say cross, and as Bob X says, trees were used when they ran out of crosses, but there's no reason to assume that on this occasion.

Actually what I was pointing out was it appears that in the earliest translations of the OT, which if I'm not mistaken were Greek translations, there is a discrepancy as to whether it was a tree or a cross.

A cross, as was the custom. The idea of the tree seems to be from Peter, although Paul uses it, and as such it represents an esoteric teaching, correlative with the tree in the Garden of Eden.

And if Peter and Paul use it I don't see why wouldn't further reinforce that it was actually a tree.

I think Peter, and following him Paul, introduced the idea of a tree within the context of their preaching. Paul's salvation theology is one of 'recapitulation' in which the image of the cross as tree fits the overall schemata.

Could you expound upon this?

 

[mojobadshah]

Jesus followers did not use the cross, a Roman execution symbol, in the first century. The abstract fish symbol was the earlier icon for Christians. How the Cross or Crucifix became the Christian symbol is up to speculation. I note that the Cult of Sol Invictus used a symbol of the Solar Disk with rays of light projection in the four major directions, up, down, left, and right. It resembled a cross with a big circle in the centre. This symbol was not only of Sol Invictus but is seen on ancient Irish burial sites with a cross circling the centre of the cross but without a body on it. This was long before Christianity. When the Irish became Christians, they continued to use the Irish Cross in burials but added the figure of Jesus that we still see today. In any Irish grave yard, you will likely find a fancy sculpted stone cross with Jesus in the crucifixion position but surrounded by a stone circle.

What was the earliest representation of the Sol Invictus Solar Disk?

 

[Thomas]

Hi mojobadshah —

Actually what I was pointing out was it appears that in the earliest translations of the OT, which if I'm not mistaken were Greek translations, there is a discrepancy as to whether it was a tree or a cross.

I think the which or whether is actually immaterial. As I understand it, the common practice was the cross.

And if Peter and Paul use it I don't see why wouldn't further reinforce that it was actually a tree.

Well Peter and Paul use it only a couple of times, and Paul refers to the cross over a dozen times elsewhere, as do all the Gospels, and the Letter to the Hebrews. So the tradition of the cross is far stronger than the tradition of the tree.

Could you expound upon this?

Salvation theology is quite a complex argument. All agree and believe that salvation comes through the Cross and Resurrection, but not all agree as to the precise how and why of it.

Irenaeus, the first systematic theologian (and notably not a Platonist, as were most of the Fathers) proposed what became the Recapitulation theory, based on the letters of St Paul.

Thus he saw the actions of Christ as reversing the sin of Adam — an idea that is also signified symbolically and esoterically by the stone rolled away from the tomb.

Thus Christ undoes what Adam has done — by the Cross and Resurrection, man is not only potentially restored to his primordial perfection (recapitulation), but also raised beyond it, into participation in the Divine Life of the Godhead, which transcends the possibility open to the Primordial Couple.

The liturgies of the early church reveal how the Christian community understood what happened on Golgotha. From a very early date, the concept of Christ’s death as a sacrifice was clearly connected to and articulated in the Eucharistic liturgies.

God bless,

Thomas