Why Jesus Carried a Leper and Not a Cross

[PhilosopherJay]

Hi All,

This is a companion thread to the thread "Why Jesus Cut off the Ear of the High Priest" viewtopic.php?f=3&t=988. As with that proposal, it takes what is now gibberish and shows how with very small, logical changes, we get a logical story that fits with all the surrounding material.

We begin by noting how Mark discusses the mockery of Jesus by the Roman soldiers:

16 The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers. 17 They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. 18 And they began to call out to him, “Hail, king of the Jews!” 19 Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. 20 And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.

This makes sense. The Roman soldiers did not particularly like Jewish criminals. We might expect that the soldiers would find more ways to torment Jesus as they lead him to crucifixion. This is in fact what seems to happen in the gospel of John:

So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called the place of a skull, which is called in Hebrew Gol'gotha

Carrying his own cross can be seen as another torment to Jesus. However, what we get from Mark (later copied by Matthew and Luke) makes no sense whatsoever.

21 A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross. They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means “the place of the skull”).

There are at least four things I find crazy about this:
1. Mark’s story takes place mainly in and around the Roman province of Judea. The furthest place he names from Jerusalem are the cities of Tyre and Sidon, about 100 and 125 miles North. Cyrene was nearly 1000 miles West in Libya. Cyrene only became famous around 115 CE when Jews rebelled and allegedly according to Cassius Dio massacred 200,000 Roman citizens.
2. Simon from Cyrene is entirely unknown. Mentioning his children as Alexander and Rufus, both common names at the time is ridiculous as they are entirely unknown too. Albeit, there is a Rufus named in Talmudic sources as Titus Aniosrufus, or Tyrannus Rufus and he is alleged to have ploughed the city of Jerusalem, after either the First Jewish Roman War (67-73) or the Bar Kochkbar War (132-135). There is no indication that this Rufus had a brother named Alexander. They are all neither mentioned before or after this in any story.
3. There is no reason given for Simon carrying the cross. Why him? What did he do that he was selected? Was he a friend of Jesus? Was he particularly strong and could carry a heavy stake?
4. Crucifixion was done by a number of different devices. There was no particular “cross” that one could carry to be executed on. The word "stake" would be better here, perhaps. Stakes were basically fence posts. There were thousands of them all over the place and it really doesn't matter who carries them. Think of an electrocution of a criminal. When was the last time that you read in a story of an execution about the people who installed the electric chair?

There is one clue that perhaps allows us to reconstruct what was originally in this place instead of the incomprehensible nonsense that now exists. We may look for the nearest previous use of the name Simon? In the previous chapter, Mark 14, we read:

3 While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar...

There is no other mention of Simon the Leper. Why was Jesus staying at the house of a Leper? No explanation is given. Like Simon the Cyrene, Simon the Leper is never mentioned again.
The mention of Simon the Leper is perhaps an important clue with what actually went on with Simon of Cyrene. If we assume that Simon the Leper and Simon the Cyrene are one and the same then we can get some sense out of the two incomprehensible passages. Simon the Leper came in from the countryside (Bethany). Jesus had been staying at his house, so there was a relationship between them.

Another consideration is that the place Golgotha is unknown before this passage, although it is apparently right outside the gates of Jerusalem. However, Jeremiah 31:39 mentions places called Gareb and Goath that are just outside the gates of Jerusalem:

and the measuring line shall yet go forth over against it on the hill Gareb, and shall compass about to Goath.

Jeremiah is talking about the rebuilding of a new Jerusalem in this passage. Gareb means hill of lepers and goath’s meaning is indeterminable, but it has been associated with the place David buried the head of Goliath and Golgotha.
We can now reconstruct the original passage somewhat –

A certain man from Cyrene, Simon the Leper, the father of Lazarus and Mary, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced Jesus to carry him. They brought Jesus to the place called Gareb (the hill of the lepers). They continued to Goath.

With this revision, the passages about Simon the Leper and Simon of Cyrene make sense, but we get the added bonus of explaining how the name Golgotha came about. Gareb was Hill of the Lepers and apparently Goath was where Goliath of Gath’s head was buried by King David. The combination of Gareb and Goath led to “Golgotha” in the version of the story in Mark.
Probably when producing this passage about Jesus curing a leper, the original writers had in mind the story of the curing of Naaman by the prophet Elisha.

Kings 2:5
9 So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha.
10 And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean.
11 But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the LORD his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper.
12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage.
13 And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?
14 Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.
15 And he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and came, and stood before him: and he said, Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel: now therefore, I pray thee, take a blessing of thy servant.

Note that Naaman undergoes a resurrection of the flesh as it becomes “like unto the flesh of a little child,” thus forshadowing Jesus’ resurrection.
Instead of two passages that make no sense, we now have two passages that make good sense and reference Hebrew scriptures.

We can take this a step further. Jesus was staying at the house of Simon the Leper and Jesus carries him just before his death. This would indicate a very strong relationship between them. One can postulate that Simon the Leper was actually Jesus' father in the original material. Jesus carries his father to the Hill of Lepers (Gareb) before going to be executed at Goath (where David buried Goliath).
The action would also be a reference to Aeneas carrying his father Anchises outside Troy to the nearby hills. It would show Jesus' piety to his Earthly father.

Thus we can reconstruct the passage this way.

Simon the Leper, the father of Lazarus and Jesus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced Jesus to carry him to the place called Gareb (the hill of the lepers). They continued to Goath.

The combination of Gareb and Goath led to “Golgotha” in the revised version of the text in Mark. Later Christians erased the reference of Simon the Leper being the father of Jesus and just made him into some anonymous man from Cyrene. The original story was meant to be a reference to Elisha curing Naaman the Leper, and Aeneas carrying his father outside Troy (showing Jesus was a dutiful son).
The idea of Jesus carrying his own father before his execution makes much more sense than the trivial observation that he carried his own stake before his execution. It also explains what Jesus was doing in the house of Simon the Leper and why he raised Lazarus. Lazarus was his brother.

This also explains why Lazarus is portrayed as a Leper in the parable at Luke 16:19-31:

19 “There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. 20 But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, 21 desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell[a] from the rich man’s table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

24 “Then he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. 26 And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.’

27 “Then he said, ‘I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house, 28 for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.’ 29 Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’”

Lazarus was the son of the leper, Simon the leper, and thus was also a leper; he was the brother of Jesus and that is why he also rose from the dead.

Through this revision of the text to make it comprehensible and logically and dramatically readable, we get to see an earlier version of the Jesus story quite different than the one Mark wrote.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

[Charles Wilson]

Jay, you keep going places that no one else wants to see. I thank you for your good work.

Here again is an important point. I've seen it in some other ways, also revolving around Lazarus in at least one instance. The point may be simply stated:

"Jesus was Unclean when he was Crucified".

[PhilosopherJay]

Thanks Charlie,

What other stuff do you have about Jesus being unclean when he was crucified?

I have been thinking further about Jesus coming from a family of lepers, with his father being Simon and his brother being Lazarus. This seems to me to be a perfect charge that the Jews would make against Jesus. This was the charge that Josephus says that Egyptian historians made against the Jews and Moses.

Once we know that Jesus was regarded as Lazarus' brother, we can understand the Jewish origin of Luke's parable at Luke 16:19-31:

Code: Select all

    19 “There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. 20 But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, 21 desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell[a] from the rich man’s table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

    24 “Then he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. 26 And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.’

    27 “Then he said, ‘I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house, 28 for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.’ 29 Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’”

All we have to do is substitute Jesus for the rich man and the parable makes sense in a way that it never could as stated by Luke. Here is the Parable with Jesus' name added as the rich man and the description of Lazarus as his brother.

19 "Jesus was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. 20 But he had a brother a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, 21 desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell[a] from the rich man’s table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

24 “Then he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. 26 And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.’

27 “Then he said, ‘I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house, 28 for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.’ 29 Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’”[/color]

We can now read the parable as a clearly Jewish diatribe against Jesus. Jesus asks Abraham to raise him from the dead, so he can warn his five brothers about not living the kind of wealthy, callous life that he led while alive. The great retort of Abraham to Jesus is "If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded through one rise from the dead. Luke's punch line is clearly anti-Jesus rising from the dead and makes no sense. As a Jewish attack on the idea that Jesus returned from the dead, it is dead on. Also notice that the rich man (Jesus) asks Abraham to send Lazarus with some water for him and to deliver a message to his five brothers. There is no reason to ask him if Lazarus is a total stranger. It makes much more sense if Jesus want Lazarus, his brother, to bring him water and communicate with his five remaining brothers.

If Jesus has five living brothers and Lazarus is his sixth brother, this would make Jesus one of seven brothers. This immediately reminds us of the seven martyred brothers in 2 Maccabees 7.

It also happened that seven brothers with their mother were arrested and tortured with whips and scourges by the king to force them to eat pork in violation of God’s law.a 2One of the brothers, speaking for the others, said: “What do you expect to learn by questioning us? We are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our ancestors.”

3At that the king, in a fury, gave orders to have pans and caldrons heated. 4These were quickly heated, and he gave the order to cut out the tongue of the one who had spoken for the others, to scalp him and cut off his hands and feet, while the rest of his brothers and his mother looked on. 5When he was completely maimed but still breathing, the king ordered them to carry him to the fire and fry him. As a cloud of smoke spread from the pan, the brothers and their mother encouraged one another to die nobly, with these words: 6“The Lord God is looking on and truly has compassion on us, as Moses declared in his song, when he openly bore witness, saying, ‘And God will have compassion on his servants.’”

7After the first brother had died in this manner, they brought the second to be made sport of. After tearing off the skin and hair of his head, they asked him, “Will you eat the pork rather than have your body tortured limb by limb?” 8Answering in the language of his ancestors, he said, “Never!” So he in turn suffered the same tortures as the first. 9With his last breath he said: “You accursed fiend, you are depriving us of this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up* to live again forever, because we are dying for his laws.”...

We can see the Jesus character as a character originally meant to show what a Jew should not do. He is the evil seventh brother who doesn't follow the law and betrays his family and faith. He is a negative example. Later, this negative example gets embraced as a messiah figure. he may be compared with the Namor, Sub-Mariner character in Marvel Comics: (from Wikipedia: Sub Mariner)

In his first appearances Namor was an enemy of the United States. Comics historian Les Daniels noted that "Namor was a freak in the service of chaos. Although the Sub-Mariner acted like a villain, his cause had some justice, and readers reveled in his assaults on civilization. His enthusiastic fans weren't offended by the carnage he created as he wrecked everything from ships to skyscrapers."[6] Everett's antihero would eventually battle Carl Burgos' android superhero, the Human Torch, when in 1940 Namor threatened to sink the island of Manhattan underneath a tidal wave. When the U.S. entered World War II, Namor would aid the Allies of World War II against Adolf Hitler and the Axis powers.

Being a Jewish anti-hero did not stop people from embracing the character. After the defeat of the Bar Kochbar war (132-135), the character was embraced as the Messiah.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin


I

[Charles Wilson]

Hello Jay-

Let's start with:

Numbers 19: 11 - 20 (RSV):

[11] "He who touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean seven days;
[12] he shall cleanse himself with the water on the third day and on the seventh day, and so be clean; but if he does not cleanse himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he will not become clean.
[13] Whoever touches a dead person, the body of any man who has died, and does not cleanse himself, defiles the tabernacle of the LORD, and that person shall be cut off from Israel; because the water for impurity was not thrown upon him, he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is still on him.
[14] "This is the law when a man dies in a tent: every one who comes into the tent, and every one who is in the tent, shall be unclean seven days.
[15] And every open vessel, which has no cover fastened upon it, is unclean.
[16] Whoever in the open field touches one who is slain with a sword, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.
[17] For the unclean they shall take some ashes of the burnt sin offering, and running water shall be added in a vessel;
[18] then a clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it upon the tent, and upon all the furnishings, and upon the persons who were there, and upon him who touched the bone, or the slain, or the dead, or the grave;
[19] and the clean person shall sprinkle upon the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day; thus on the seventh day he shall cleanse him, and he shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and at evening he shall be clean.
[20] "But the man who is unclean and does not cleanse himself, that person shall be cut off from the midst of the assembly, since he has defiled the sanctuary of the LORD; because the water for impurity has not been thrown upon him, he is unclean.

John 12: 1 - 2 (RSV):

[1] Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Laz'arus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.
[2] There they made him a supper; Martha served, and Laz'arus was one of those at table with him.

So Jesus has touched/been around/ate supper with/been around the grave and the eating utensils of/etc. and it is six days before Passover. Joseph of Arimethea takes down the body but HE can be clean if he goes to the Second Passover in a month. Jesus can't. If Jesus waited for the Second Passover, that certainly would change the Story as we have it. Didn't happen. Jesus is Unclean.

Numbers 5: 1 - 4 (RSV):

[1] The LORD said to Moses,
[2] "Command the people of Israel that they put out of the camp every leper, and every one having a discharge, and every one that is unclean through contact with the dead;
[3] you shall put out both male and female, putting them outside the camp, that they may not defile their camp, in the midst of which I dwell."
[4] And the people of Israel did so, and drove them outside the camp; as the LORD said to Moses, so the people of Israel did.

Numbers 12: 10 - 13 (RSV):

[10] and when the cloud removed from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, as white as snow. And Aaron turned towards Miriam, and behold, she was leprous.
[11] And Aaron said to Moses, "Oh, my lord, do not punish us because we have done foolishly and have sinned.
[12] Let her not be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he comes out of his mother's womb."
[13] And Moses cried to the LORD, "Heal her, O God, I beseech thee."

Leviticus 14: (RSV):

[33] The LORD said to Moses and Aaron,
[34] "When you come into the land of Canaan, which I give you for a possession, and I put a leprous disease in a house in the land of your possession,
[35] then he who owns the house shall come and tell the priest, `There seems to me to be some sort of disease in my house.'
[36] Then the priest shall command that they empty the house before the priest goes to examine the disease, lest all that is in the house be declared unclean; and afterward the priest shall go in to see the house.
[37] And he shall examine the disease; and if the disease is in the walls of the house with greenish or reddish spots, and if it appears to be deeper than the surface,
[38] then the priest shall go out of the house to the door of the house, and shut up the house seven days.
[39] And the priest shall come again on the seventh day, and look; and if the disease has spread in the walls of the house,
[40] then the priest shall command that they take out the stones in which is the disease and throw them into an unclean place outside the city;
[41] and he shall cause the inside of the house to be scraped round about, and the plaster that they scrape off they shall pour into an unclean place outside the city;
[42] then they shall take other stones and put them in the place of those stones, and he shall take other plaster and plaster the house.

No bouda doubt it. Jesus is in heap big Trouble. He is UNCLEAN.

So let's move onto the Post-Resurrection Situation:
Jesus is supposed to be our New! Improved! High Priest to replace the old, out-of-date High Priests of those retrograde Jews, who were given the High Priesthood for Eternity, ungrateful inbred thieves that they were.

John 20: 24 - 27 (RSV):

[24] Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came.
[25] So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe."
[26] Eight days later, his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. The doors were shut, but Jesus came and stood among them, and said, "Peace be with you."
[27] Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing."

So our New High Priest is Unclean and Scarred, having wounds, nail holes and who knows what else at the hands of those damned Romans. "Those OTHER High Priests didn't have such bad luck..."

Someone is laughing at us hysterically for all of this.

CW

[PhilosopherJay]

Hi Charlie,

Thanks for this. I am not sure about the whole unclean thing as the text does not discuss it, but I think the scene strongly supports the idea that Jesus was the Rich Man in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Look at the full text of the scene:

12 Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead.

2 There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him.

3 Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment.

4 Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him,

5 Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?

6 This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.

7 Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this.

8 For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.

9 Much people of the Jews therefore knew that he was there: and they came not for Jesus' sake only, but that they might see Lazarus also, whom he had raised from the dead.

10 But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death;

The cost of the perfume would have been in the thousands of dollars of dollars. This shows that Jesus was a rich man and this is part of the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus. We may presume from the conflict between brothers that is traditional in Jewish stories, that Jesus and Lazarus are the antagonist and protagonist in the story. Judas Iscariot is a later addition. It must be Lazarus who confronts Jesus in this scene. However, since it is said that Judas Iscariot is the son of Simon, we may take it that Simon the Leper is Simon Iscariot and his two sons are Jesus Iscariot and Lazarus Iscariot.
The second problem with the text is the line "This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein. It is actually Jesus who shows that he does not care about the poor both by his actions and words. By moving the line about the poor until after Jesus speaks, we get much more sense from the scene. Here is how the scene probably went orginally:

12 Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead.

2 There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him.

3 Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment.

4 Then saith[box=] one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot[/box], Simon's son, which should betray him,

5 Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?

7 Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this.

8 For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.

6 This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.

9 Much people of the Jews therefore knew that he was there: and they came not for Jesus' sake only, but that they might see Lazarus also, whom he had raised from the dead.

10 But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death;

Reconstructed logically this way, we see that Jesus is a rich man, a thief who steals from the poor, and anoints himself with expensive perfumes.

One may suppose that he also killed his brother Lazarus. Think about this line from the King James Bible, John 11:21

Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.

In other words Martha held Jesus responsible for Lazarus' death. We may take it that Jesus was showing off his magical powers when he killed Lazarus and showing them off again when he brought Lazarus back to life.

With this understanding, line 10 now makes more sense: 10 But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death...

One might understand this as the chief priests wanting to put Jesus and Lazarus to death, but up until this point, there has been nothing about the chief priests wanting to put Jesus to death. Therefore we should probably read this line as the chief priests wanted to put Lazarus to death also, just as Jesus had put Lazarus to death.

This all suggests that the Jesus character, before he became Jesus the Messiah, was Jesus Iscariot, an evil magician.

This matches up well with the talmud version of Jesus, Sanhedrin 43a

it was taught: On the even of the Passover Yeshu [6] was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried, 'He is going forth to be stoned because has practised sorcery and enticed Israel to apostacy. Any one who can say anything in his favour, let him come forward and plead on his behalf.' But since nothing was brought forward in his favour he was hanged on the even of the Passover! [7] — 'Ulla retorted: Do you suppose that he was one for whom a defence could be made? Was he not a Meshith [enticer, concerning whom Scripture says, Neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him.'

[1] With Yeshu however it was different, for he was connected with the government [or royalty, i.e., influential].

This suggests that at least some of the Talmud traditions about Jesus are not based on the gospels, but at least some of the gospel stories are based on rewriting Jewish stories about Jesus the evil Magician.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

[Adam]

Jay,
I've always said that you are very inventive and imaginative,
thus a pleasure to read that cannot be missed.
However, here you've gone so far with the former that the latter no longer applies.

[Leucius Charinus]

This suggests that at least some of the Talmud traditions about Jesus are not based on the gospels, but at least some of the gospel stories are based on rewriting Jewish stories about Jesus the evil Magician.

Hi Philosopher Jay,

Do you know the approximate date of authorship for these Jewish stories?

Be well,



LC

[PhilosopherJay]

Hi Leucius Charinus,

The traditional date of the Mishnah, the first part of the Talmud is around 200 CE, which I don't think is too far from the time of the NT gospels creation.

I think visual evidence for Jesus first being regarded as a magician is quite striking, See http://www.rome101.com/Topics/Christian/Magician/ It is interesting that Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead is the image we see most often portrayed in these images. If I am correct that the gospel writers have copied a Jewish story about this, it would make sense for this to be the case. It would have been a story talked about by both Jews and Christians. This might have made it the most famous story about Jesus.

A couple of the rebels that Josephus talks about ("Theudas" and "the Magician") are named as magicians. Both were executed by the Romans. Both Simon Magus and Jesus might be literary characters developed from these two and others like them.

We also have to consider that the Jews want to know by what or whose authority Jesus is doing his magic/miracles. That was all important. If you did magic without authorization from higher authority you were dangerous and evil. If you did it with higher authority you were in the clear. The emperors and other high officials in the Roman Emperor kept magicians/wonder workers around them to help them. In a sense practicing magic without a license was the offense that could get you in serious trouble. When the Jewish officials ask Jesus for his authority, they are asking about his magician's license.

Another interesting idea that I think needs investigating is the idea that Jesus was a necromancer - a person who revived a dead person, usually to get information about the future. Jesus seems to start making predictions about the future (One of you will betray me, Peter will deny me three times, etc.) mainly after he revives Lazarus. Is Lazarus feeding him the information? People actually believed in necromancers and stories about them were pretty common. Apparently the Romans even passed laws against necromancy.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

This suggests that at least some of the Talmud traditions about Jesus are not based on the gospels, but at least some of the gospel stories are based on rewriting Jewish stories about Jesus the evil Magician.

Hi Philosopher Jay,

Do you know the approximate date of authorship for these Jewish stories?

Be well,



LC

[PhilosopherJay]

Hi Adam,

Sorry, I try to use logical deductions and check my imagination as much as possible. It doesn't matter what we imagine, it matters what we can demonstrate to be most probable.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

Jay,
I've always said that you are very inventive and imaginative,
thus a pleasure to read that cannot be missed.
However, here you've gone so far with the former that the latter no longer applies.

[Leucius Charinus]

Hi Philosopher Jay,

The traditional date of the Mishnah, the first part of the Talmud is around 200 CE, which I don't think is too far from the time of the NT gospels creation.

That's rather late. A whole new set of parameters opens up with a date that late. One critical event I can see as becoming super important was the study made on the NT gospels by Ammonius of Alexandria, from whom Eusebius received the "Ammonmian Sections". Ammonius seems to have been a very studious fellow to exhaustively produce the definitive sets of agreement between the four gospel authors. I'd put money on him implementing the nomina sacra. His student Origen produced the Hexampla, an ancient spreadsheet / database, and his LXX was used for the bible. Using a late chronology such as this, the library of Origen may have once housed the Origins of the many christs and many christianities.

I think visual evidence for Jesus first being regarded as a magician is quite striking, See http://www.rome101.com/Topics/Christian/Magician/ It is interesting that Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead is the image we see most often portrayed in these images. If I am correct that the gospel writers have copied a Jewish story about this, it would make sense for this to be the case. It would have been a story talked about by both Jews and Christians. This might have made it the most famous story about Jesus.

Most interesting archaeological relics. Jesus has a wand. Shades of Harry Potter. Have you checked for such a story in the LXX yet?

A couple of the rebels that Josephus talks about ("Theudas" and "the Magician") are named as magicians. Both were executed by the Romans. Both Simon Magus and Jesus might be literary characters developed from these two and others like them.

The archaeology showing Jesus used a wand to resurrect Lazarus was according to your source a prevalent motif used during the life time of the church historian Eusebius Eusebius writes at length about whether Jesus or Apollonius of Tyana were to be regarded as magicians in his "Against Hierocles ...". Eusebius may be useful for something.

We also have to consider that the Jews want to know by what or whose authority Jesus is doing his magic/miracles. That was all important. If you did magic without authorization from higher authority you were dangerous and evil.

Especially on the Sabbath.


Be well,


LC