Jesus- Messiah or Agent of the Roman Empire

by designs 5 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  designs

  Several modern scholars doubt that a real Yeshua ben Yoseph lived but was rather a literary device, fiction if you will. Other sources maintain that yes there was someone like this person but much has been lost and distorted to create a history for certain followers and its religious influence on cultures in the region. A more cynical approach, if you will, comes from the victims of the 'propaganda' contained in the New Testament. Primarily those victims were the Jews.

  Did 'Jesus' Yeshua ben Yoseph, if real, actually work as an Agent of the Roman Empire. Rome was of course the dominate military power of the time when Jesus is said to have lived. They had conquered the Palestine region and subjugated the indigenous peoples. Imagine losing your ancestral lands that went back over a thousand years. It is difficult for western minds to grasp ancestral lands. In America people relocate rather often whereas some villages in the Middle East and Europe date back thousands of years and the same families still live in their ancestral villages. So some sympathy is lost with respect to land ownership and heritage.

  Along comes the Jesus character with some rather suspicious and strange messages for 'his people' the Jews.

  Tell your people to be subservient to their conquerors

  Pay the conquerors money for being your dictators

  Blame your people for not getting along with their conquerors

  Tell your people they are performing their religious duties and faith wrong

  Tell your people their covenant with their god is no longer valid

  Tell your people they have no place to worship with validity

  Blame the death of the messanger on the victims of the conquerors

  _____________

  The Book Of Jewish Knowledge

  Ausubel
• 

  betterdaze

  I was discussing this with a relative about "turn the other cheek" and "go the extra mile" other not-so-original teachings that had their origins in the occupying Roman army. Just a little too convenient!
  
  
  

  Imagine losing your ancestral lands that went back over a thousand years.

  
  
  You mean like the natives of Palestine for the past 2,000 years who lost their ancestral lands to Europeans?
  
  
  "Ancestral lands" for the ancient Hebrews? Their very own scriptures celebrate murdering their merry way across Canaan to steal grazing land, when they weren't wandering around aimlessly in the desert.
  
  Primitive tribal nomads moving flocks around in tent clans, up to their ankles in goat crap. There's a certain resentment in the OT for settled city dwellers (builders and tool-users), the same way the Watchtower resents educated people.
  
  Where is their distinct Hebrew art, architecture, pottery, etc. until they came into contact with more civilized peoples? Even their alphabet was adapted from others. Jerusalem itself was built by previous "pagan" inhabitants.
  
  They were pirates and pillagers. Probably the best thing that ever happened was the civilizing influence of Babylonian captivity. Agriculture, mathematics, technology, all sorts of shiny pretty things they could never dream of on their own.
  
  The Romans gave them much leeway to operate their disgusting animal sacrifice bank-and-barbecue system. But I can see the Romans eventually saying "enough is enough" and creating a scenario by which there is one last sacrifice for all time.
• 

  designs

  Interesting take on history, some true some prejudices like we all have.
• 

  transhuman68

  LOL designs, you got more than you bargained for there! This debate about who Jesus was has been going for at least a hundred years now, with virtually every possibility being examined, regardless of how outrageous they may be; but Bart Ehrman’s belief that Jesus was just a rabbi seems most plausible, if a little boring. The fact is, Jesus was reported to have said so many contradictory things, that he could have been virtually anything. Interestingly though, the anti-Jewish sentiments in the NT seem to be a later development, and/or may not be authentic to the original manuscripts.
• 

  designs

  Trans- fun and a good challenge though I had an old Jewish man as a return visit as a JW and he believed that Jesus was a real historical figure and referred to him as 'the itinerant Rabbi'. A little known Jewish scholar of the 10th century, Kirkisani a Karaite, said this of Jesus- 'Jesus founded a jewish sect, but following the cruxifiction by the Romans, Paul of Tarsus, ..had originated from it a new religion..grafting a whole series of pagan notions, myths, rites, and practices. This was part of the De-Judaizing process which was continued by the four canonical Gospel writers...' This Rabbi saw the order as Paul being the culprit and influencing the Gospels which came later.
• 

  designs

  One passage in the gospels caused the death of millions of Jews over centuries at the hands of Christians- 'his blood be upon us'. Thomas Aquinas was influenced by this passage to later write of 'servitus Judaeorum' with the servitude of the Jews to Christians- because the Jews had rejected Jesus as their saviour and had caused his death'.

  Bernard of Clairvaux, the spiritual mentor of the Second Crusade wrote about the Jews- 'They are living symbols for us representing the Lord's Passion. They are dispersed to all lands, so that while they pay the just penalty for so great a crimethey may be witnesses for our Christian redemption'. There is a bit of sick twisted logic if ever there was one.