Who is Jesus Christ to you?

Greetings all,Hi John

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John: He almost certainly would have been Jewish by descent, at least through Mary, and that would have made him officially Jewish by Jewish law.

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Actually, this is not correct.Ancient Jews did not trace descent thrugh the mother - this is a modern idea - the human egg was only discovered in the 19th century.Iasion

Greetings sagg et al,Lord Liar, Lunatic

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sagg: Jesus was one of three things: Liar, Lunatic, or Lord.

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I do not agree.
That is just modern Christian mythology, not based on any evidence - its just a nice pithy quote that has been repeated so many times that some people actually believe it.He COULD also have been:
* a minor Gallilean teacher
* the Teacher of Righteousness of the DSS
* a myth
* a spiritual being of some sortMartyrs

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However, we know from extra-biblical sources that all of the 12 diciples[sic] except John died extremely painful deaths for their beliefs.

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No we don't.
There is NO hard evidence for any early Christian being martyred for their beliefs - this myth dates no earlier than the (probably forged) writings of Ignatius in the early-mid 2nd century.If YOU claim there is early extra-biblical evidence that ANY of the disciples were martyred (let alone ALL of them except John) - please produce it.In fact there is little evidence that the 12 disciples even existed at all - most of them were toally unknown to any Christian writer until the Gospel myths arose in the early-mid 2nd century. The 12 disciples are most likely types of the Zodiac.

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saqq: Many had to watch their families killed before them first. Yet, none of them took back their testimonies or changed their convictions.

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No they didn't.
There is no real evidence for any of that - merely later Christian legends.Furthermore,
there are MANY people who choose to die for their beliefs :* the Heaven's gate cult died for their beliefs - do you therfore believe their wacky views?* suicide bombers die every day (horrible, fiery deaths) for their beliefs - do you therefore agree with their violent beliefs?Modern Christian beliefs arose in 2nd centuryIn fact, the vast majority of Christian belief is NOT supported by any early Christian evidence - some interesting examples :No early Christian writer EVEN ONCE MENTIONS the following -* Joseph and Mary, Bethlehem or Nazareth
* the birth stories
* John the Baptist or the baptism in the Jordan
* Pilate, Herod, Lazarus, Nicodemus
* miracles of Jesus
* the cleansing of the temple
* the trumphal entry
* the passion of Jesus
* the Sermon on the Mount
* the transfiguration
* the trial of Jesus
* the twelve disciples
* Calvary, 2 thieves
* the empty tomb !!
* etc...
until early-mid 2nd century when the Gospel myths arise.You can see an overview of this astonishing fact here :
iiNet | naked dsl - broadband - adsl - phone - voipThe most amazing part of this is Paul - he wrote about 1/4 of the NT but mentions NOTHING about the earthly life of Jesus of Nazareth - merely some vague spiritual (somewhat Gnostic even) references to resurrection, rising, and crucifixion - which seem to have occurred in the higher dimensions.Paul even goes to Jerusalem and makes NO mention that the cruficixion and major Gospel events allegedly happened there! He explicitly considers himself just as much an apostle as e.g. James and he emphasises that he got his knowledge about Jesus from NO MAN.The clearest explanation is that Paul and the early Christians believed in Iesous Christos as some sort of spiritual being - at best.In fact, some Christians even describe a Christianity WITHOUT a Jesus Christ -Minucius Felix wrote "Octavius" in mid 2nd century (probably) and explicitly denies that Christians believe in a crucifixion or the incarnation.

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Minucius Felix : "he who explains their ceremonies by reference to a man punished by extreme suffering for his wickedness, and to the deadly wood of the cross, appropriates fitting altars for reprobate and wicked men ... when you attribute to our religion the worship of a criminal and his cross you wander far from the truth", and also: "Men who have died cannot become gods, because a god cannot die; nor can men who are born (become gods) ... Why, I pray, are gods not born today, if such have ever been born?"

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His words are very obtuse (which is probably why this "smoking gun" survived the Christian censors), but he argues that the crucifixion and the incarnation are NOT Christian views at all. And he is not just disagreeing that Christ was a criminal - its clear from the context that he is totally dismissing the whole idea of a crucifixion along with other horrible accusations against Christianity.Athenagoras of Athens wrote a detailed esoteric Christian treatise "On The Resurrection Of The Dead" arguing that resurrection is possible (in a non-fleshly body), but without once mentioning the resurrection of Jesus, or even using the words Jesus or Christ !
He also composed "In Defense of the Christians" - no Jesus nor Christ is mentioned even ONCE, but the Logos is directly equated with the Son of God.Gospels unknown until mid 2nd centuryEarly Christianity was a mixed bag of various groups and people and beliefs, but the Gospels only finally arose in early-mid 2nd century, but were still fluid till mid-late 2nd century :* Papias (c.130?) makes vague references to Gospels not yet quite like ours
* Aristides c.125 refers to the "Gospels, a short time preached"
* Marcion c.142 published the first UN-NAMED Gospel
* Justin c.150 quotes Gospel-like material (NOT yet named, merely called the "memoirs of the Apostles")
* Tatian (POSSIBLY) c.172 wrote the diaTessaron (harmony of FOUR) - numbering the Gospels before they were named.
* Finally Irenaeus c.185 is the VERY FIRST to quote and name our FOUR modern Gospels.A detailed Chronology can be found here :
iiNet | naked dsl - broadband - adsl - phone - voipThe evidence of the early years of Christianity best supports the view that the Gospel stories of Jesus were only grafted onto Christian beliefs in mid 2nd century.In short -
Jesus Christ was a Myth.Iasion[This message has been edited by Iasion, 05-22-2003]

Greetings drummmachine et al,

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drummmachine: Jesus Christ is the King of the Jews.

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Pardon?
The ancient Jews did NOT consider Jesus their King.
Modern Jews do NOT think Jesus was their King.
Why do you claim he was?

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All the disciples and writers of the New Testament were Jews except Luke.

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The author of G.Mark was probably NOT a Jew -* he makes mistakes about regional geography
* he makes mistakes about Jewish customs
* he includes LatinismsG.Mark was probably written in Rome by a Roman who had never even been to Jerusalem.
The other Gospels copied from G.Mark, showing they also had no first-hand information.Further evidence that Jesus was a myth, added late to Christianity.Iasion

Greetings Brian,Thanks for your reply.Here, I meant Mythical Jesus in specific distinction to a Historical Jesus - the JM-ers and the HJ-ers being the poles of the current debate. This is the rather loose informal sense of "myth" : not literally true.Specifically, I argue that there was no historical person Jesus as Nazareth, and that the original Christians had no idea of a physical person Jesus of Nazareth.However, its true that "myth" has a more subtle meaning - a story which carries truth, not literally, but allegorically or in some deeper way (my own crude definition).I think Jesus fits this category as well, perhaps explaining his popularity.I think Christianity crystalized with Paul (out of the matrix of the milieu - neo-Platonism, the mysteries, early Kabalah, the Hermetica) who tried to explain some deep spiritual concept with his "Iesous Christos".Paul was perhaps somewhat like a Blavatsky or Gurdjieff or Robert Monroe - a spiritual seeker of the day. Paul said he had an out-of-body experience and made it to the third heaven to hear unspeakable spiritual secrets. This seems to have struck a chord with seekers of the day - e.g. the Gnostics revered Paul as their founder (as well as the later anti-Gnostic orthodox Christians).In Paul's day, the neo-Platonic world-view seems to have captured the imagination of spiritual seekers - from back in Cicero's Dream of Scipio, through to Plutarch's Vision of Aradeus, the concept of multiple layers of existence can be seen.Also, there seem to be multiple BODIES, or components to human beings that are non-physical - the "pneuma" or "soma pneumatikon" or "augoeides" or "astroeides" (how can I do Greek here?, {font doesn't seem to work). Proclus and Porphyry have much to say about this - I think Paul was a pioneer of the same school.So, I think Paul's Iesous Christos is a Myth of the very highest sort, and meant something perhaps like this :* the CROSS is our BODY
* Iesous Christos is our SOUL
* crucifixion is our LIFE down on the PHYSICAL plane
* when we die - its not the end, we go back HOME to heavenLater, the Gospel stories arise, and Christians come to see Jesus of Nazareth as a real person .. and the rest is history, as they say Iasion

Greetings contracycle,Thanks for your reply :-)

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Lost[sic] of societies followed descent through the female line.

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Perhaps they did - what ancient examples can you cite?My point was that the ancient Jews did NOT trace descent through the mother (but I could be wrong).Are you arguing that they did?
If so, what evidence can you adduce?Iasion

Greetings again,

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unfortunately your link to the table did not work, could you check it as I appreciate seeing it.

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Hmmm? .. the link worked when I just tested it...Here is the entry page:
iiNet | naked dsl - broadband - adsl - phone - voipFrom there, enter the main page and click on
"An updated visual TABLE..."which should take you to the page here:
iiNet | naked dsl - broadband - adsl - phone - voipThis page shows that the Gospel stories of Jesus of Nazareth were totally unknown to the early Christians.Iasion

Greetings John et al,Thanks for your reply(s).It appears I was mistaken, Jewish matrilineal descent is not modern, and has nothing to do with the human egg and its discovery.John is correct, the subject was originally about Jesus' time, I confused the issue by using the vague term "ancient Jews" - I will try and be more clear and specific :-)However,
John's and others' comments notwithstanding,
the evidence is NOT clear - this practice is not clearly outlined in the Torah, which has patrilineal descent.Apparently by 200CE a "Jewish law" defined a Jew as someone with a Jewish mother (can anyone provide the details - perhaps the Mishna in Tractate Kiddushin 66b ?)But it is not known when this practice started - opinions vary from 400BCE or 200BCE to 200CE or even 500CE.The following scripture is cited (e.g. by Judaism 101 site at
Who Is A Jew? - Judaism 101 (JewFAQ)) -

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In Deuteronomy 7:1-5, in expressing the prohibition against intermarriage, G-d says "he [ie, the non-Jewish male spouse] will cause your child to turn away from Me and they will worship the gods of others." No such concern is expressed about the child of a non-Jewish female spouse. From this, we infer that the child of a non-Jewish male spouse is Jewish (and can therefore be turned away from Judaism), but the child of a non-Jewish female spouse is not Jewish (and therefore turning away is not an issue).

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Leviticus 24:10 speaks of the son of an Israelite woman and an Egyptian man as being "among the community of Israel" (ie, a Jew).

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On the other hand, in Ezra 10:2-3, the Jews returning to Israel vowed to put aside their non-Jewish wives and the children born to those wives. They could not have put aside those children if those children were Jews.

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Note the last item, from Ezra, which argues AGAINST matrilineal descent - however, this very Ezra passage is sometimes cited as the basis for matrilineal descent - perhaps someone here can explain the reasoning?So,
in summary, it is NOT clear whether Jews of Jesus' time practiced matrilineal descent -
although it is possible, or even probable.Iasion