P.T.
Guest
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 Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 6:03 am Post subject: The Jesus Dynasty |
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The hidden history of Jesus, his royal family, and the birth of
Christianity. Based on a careful analysis of the earliest Christian
documents and recent archeological discoveries, The Jesus Dynasty offers a
bold new interpretation of the life of Jesus and the origins of
Christianity. www.jesusdynasty.com
A REVIEW:
As James Tabor, the author of "The Jesus Dynasty: The Hidden History of
Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity," a much more
plausible consideration of the historical Jesus, writes, "What we have to
realize is that the gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John were written between
forty to seventy years after the death of Jesus by authors who were not
original witnesses and who were not living in Roman Palestine." Mark, the
earliest of the gospels, was written 30 years after Jesus' death and like
all the gospels was altered by scribes over the years to make it better
conform to the emerging Christian orthodoxy.
The oldest manuscripts of Mark, for example, do not report any appearances
of the resurrected Jesus at all; they end with the two Marys and Salome
fleeing in astonishment from the empty tomb. "Pious scribes," Tabor writes,
"who copied Mark made up an ending for him and added it to his text sometime
in the 4th century A.D. -- over 300 years after the original text was
composed." The ending printed in most Bibles -- "a clumsy composite of the
sightings of Jesus reported by Matthew, Luke, and John" is clearly not by
the same author. The Revised Standard Version of the Bible published in
1946, which printed the added ending as a footnote, caused such a "storm"
that the nonoriginal ending had to be put back in later editions.
Readers who have only recently learned, via "The Da Vinci Code," of the
complicated history of the New Testament, are much better served by books
like Tabor's than by conspiracy-mongering like "The Jesus Papers." Tabor
chairs the religious studies department at the University of North Carolina
at Charlotte, has studied the Dead Sea Scrolls, worked on archaeological
excavations in the Middle East and is the editor in chief of the Original
Bible Project, "an effort to produce a historical-linguistic translation of
the Bible with notes." Like Baigent, he doesn't believe in the literal truth
of the resurrection, but unlike Baigent, he keeps his religious beliefs to
himself.
Like all efforts to re-create historical events from the New Testament,
"The Jesus Dynasty" is by necessity highly interpretive and contestable, but
it's certainly more grounded than the fantasias of "The Jesus Papers." Tabor
is primarily interested in recovering the history of Jesus' immediate
family -- his mother, four brothers and two sisters -- who, he maintains,
played a far more important role in the young religious movement than is
generally known. The exact configuration of Jesus' extended family is pretty
hazy; Tabor suspects that an elderly Joseph married the teenage Mary when
she was already pregnant by another man and then died a few years later,
leaving Jesus at the head of a large family.
Jesus' brothers -- sons of Joseph or perhaps of Joseph's brother, who
according to tradition was likely to have married Mary after Joseph's
death -- took over the church in succession after Jesus' death. The eldest,
James, stood for the continuation of the original identity of Jesus'
movement. It was a profoundly Jewish, messianic sect that believed Jesus to
be divinely inspired but not divine, that foresaw a coming "Kingdom of God"
that was earthly rather than heavenly, that sought the restoration of Jewish
self-rule in the form of a king descended from David, that did not view the
celebration of the Eucharist as the symbolic consumption of Jesus' flesh and
blood and that considered Jesus himself to be well and truly dead.
"There are two completely separate and distinct 'Christianities' embedded
in the New Testament," Tabor writes. The version that triumphed -- Jesus as
God in human form, born of the eternally virgin Mary, whose death mystically
atoned for the sins of humankind, who rose from the dead and inaugurated a
new covenant with God that superceded the necessity of following Jewish
law -- is largely the creation of Paul. Tabor's mission with "The Jesus
Dynasty" is to recover what he can of the vein of Christianity led by James,
the one that "lost" and that eventually withered away.
Although messiahs and messianic movements seem to have been a dime a dozen
in the Jewish world before, during and after Jesus' lifetime, as the Jews
fought their doomed battle against their Roman overlords, Tabor believes
that John the Baptizer was among the most galvanizing. "The Jesus Dynasty"
seeks to restore John to some of the status he enjoyed before Christian
theologians reduced him to a mere precursor of the Christ. In actuality,
Tabor argues, John's radical cause was fully in motion by the time Jesus, a
kinsman of John's, turned up to be baptized in the Jordan River at age 30.
"Jesus was a disciple of John and John was the rabbi or teacher of Jesus,"
not the other way around.
Eventually, Jesus and John became "full partners" in a movement that
anticipated the overthrow of the corrupt civil and religious authorities in
Israel and eventually the entire world. They heralded the establishment of a
new age, in which the people would be ruled by two messiahs, a king
descended from David (Jesus) and a high priest descended from Aaron (John),
who would preside over the temple in Jerusalem. But John and Jesus didn't
advocate armed revolution -- they believed, on the basis of their
interpretation of passages in the Old Testament, that God would intervene
and effect the change when the right moment arrived. Although Tabor
describes their movement as "apocalyptic," he doesn't mean that they
expected the end of the world, only its utter transformation.
Given this view, it's not surprising that Tabor considers John's execution
by King Herod to be "the most disappointing and shocking event in Jesus'
entire life." The loss seems to have inaugurated a new, darker vision of his
own destiny in Jesus' mind. In the best section of "The Jesus Dynasty,"
Tabor imagines the last few days of Jesus' life. Although the story is
familiar, as Tabor retells it, minus the supernatural elements and taking
the very Jewish nature of Jesus himself into account, it becomes new and in
its own way just as powerful.
Tabor's Jesus is a man who considers himself chosen by God and who
reconciles himself to enduring terrible suffering before God's kingdom can
be established. He deliberately provokes a Jewish religious establishment
glutted on temple tributes, and the Roman authorities, known for their
creatively sadistic execution methods. "He firmly believed that if he and
his followers offered themselves up, placing their fate in God's hands,"
they could bring about the beginning of the new age, Tabor writes. Although,
as Tabor admits, we can never know Jesus' inner thoughts, it's possible that
even on the cross, "up until the last minutes, perhaps, Jesus believed that
God would intervene and save his life, and openly manifest his Kingdom."
That hope was betrayed and eventually Jesus' own legacy was transformed
into a religion that, Tabor argues, he would have scarcely recognized. The
more faithful -- and more Jewish -- remnant of Jesus' following, led by
James and possibly two other half-brothers, became utterly overshadowed by
Paul's Christianity, a faith that swept through the Gentile world to become
the biggest religion on the planet.
This is a remarkable enough story without a lot of folderol about Egyptian
mystery cults, faked deaths and the Holy Grail, plus it has the added
attraction of being rooted in some legitimate scholarship and it's better
written. "The Jesus Dynasty" surely has enough in it to challenge the
religious orthodoxies that many Americans were raised with, one of the
qualities of "The Da Vinci Code" that seems to have made the deepest
impression on the novel's fans. Of course, Tabor's never been in the
position to sue Dan Brown, but if his book can't win at least a few readers
away from "The Jesus Papers" this Easter, then, well, there is no God.
-- By Laura Miller |
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Michael
Guest
|
| Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 11:00 am Post subject: Re: The Jesus Dynasty |
|
|
In article <TxC%f.47470$Da7.5812@twister.nyroc.rr.com>, "P.T."
<pt@yahoo.com> wrote:
| Quote: | The hidden history of Jesus, his royal family, and the birth of
Christianity.
|
Christianity started in Genesis according to my Bible, which one is he reading?
Based on a careful analysis of the earliest Christian
Which ones and what is the 'documenation' they were 'Christian'?
and recent archeological discoveries,
Such as?
The Jesus Dynasty offers a
| Quote: | bold new interpretation of the life of Jesus and the origins of
Christianity. www.jesusdynasty.com
|
Pretty bold alright, but more Christophobic mythology, if anything.
| Quote: |
A REVIEW:
As James Tabor, the author of "The Jesus Dynasty: The Hidden History of
Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity," a much more
plausible consideration
|
According to whom and by what evidence?
of the historical Jesus, writes, "What we have to
| Quote: | realize is that the gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John were written between
forty to seventy years after the death of Jesus by authors who were not
original witnesses
|
According to whom and by what evidence? Does Mr. Tabor think that his
2000 year johnny come lately witness is more historically accurate than
the Gospels because they were written down (but in existence prior to
that) a mere 40 years after the event? First he argues that because they
were written down 40 years after the event they are not reliable, then
asks us to accept his opinion written down 2000 years later as more
authoritative? there is a bit of double speek here.
| Quote: | and who were not living in Roman Palestine."
|
According to what evidence?
Mark, the
| Quote: | earliest of the gospels, was written 30 years after Jesus' death and like
all the gospels was altered by scribes over the years to make it better
conform to the emerging Christian orthodoxy.
|
And the revisions were?
| Quote: | The oldest manuscripts of Mark, for example, do not report any appearances
of the resurrected Jesus at all; they end with the two Marys and Salome
fleeing in astonishment from the empty tomb.
|
That does not validate them as more accurate. Earliest 'surviving'
manuscript does not necessarily translate as the earliest manuscripte If
you had a valuable book that was accurate and a similar one which was less
than accurate, which one would you wear out first leaving the less
accurate better capable of surviving the ages?
"Pious scribes," Tabor writes,
| Quote: | "who copied Mark made up an ending for him and added it to his text sometime
in the 4th century A.D. -- over 300 years after the original text was
composed."
|
As I recall, however, which Tabor leaves out, is that Esubus quoted the
'4th century addition' in the first century.
The ending printed in most Bibles -- "a clumsy composite of the
| Quote: | sightings of Jesus reported by Matthew, Luke, and John" is clearly not by
the same author.
|
Who said that they were the same human author? What makes them 'clumsy'?
If they were identical, that would require Matthew, Mark and John to see
and be in the same place at the same time, every time.
The Revised Standard Version of the Bible published in
| Quote: | 1946, which printed the added ending as a footnote, caused such a "storm"
that the nonoriginal ending had to be put back in later editions.
|
Actually, the fire storm began with the Wescott and Hort New Greek Text
which relies upon questionable texts, and was rejected in their day. Nor
is there any scant evidence to indicate that Wescott and Hort's text, upon
which the RSV was based is accurate.
| Quote: | Readers who have only recently learned, via "The Da Vinci Code," of the
complicated history of the New Testament,
|
So, let me get this straight, we are to receive instruction from novels?
are much better served by books
| Quote: | like Tabor's than by conspiracy-mongering like "The Jesus Papers." Tabor
chairs the religious studies department at the University of North Carolina
at Charlotte, has studied the Dead Sea Scrolls, worked on archaeological
excavations in the Middle East and is the editor in chief of the Original
Bible Project, "an effort to produce a historical-linguistic translation of
the Bible with notes." Like Baigent, he doesn't believe in the literal truth
of the resurrection, but unlike Baigent, he keeps his religious beliefs to
himself.
|
IOW, he isn't a Christian.
| Quote: | Like all efforts to re-create historical events from the New Testament,
"The Jesus Dynasty" is by necessity highly interpretive and contestable,
|
And we should believe 'interpretive and contestable opinions' of men who
don't belive in the reseruction written 2000 years after the event why?
but
| Quote: | it's certainly more grounded than the fantasias of "The Jesus Papers."
|
This is its greatest credit?
Tabor
| Quote: | is primarily interested in recovering the history of Jesus' immediate
family -- his mother, four brothers and two sisters -- who, he maintains,
played a far more important role in the young religious movement than is
generally known.
|
What difference would it make?
The exact configuration of Jesus' extended family is pretty
| Quote: | hazy; Tabor suspects
|
IOW, he doesn't know.
that an elderly Joseph married the teenage Mary when
| Quote: | she was already pregnant by another man and then died a few years later,
leaving Jesus at the head of a large family.
|
IOW, Christ was not the ha Mashiyack, at least according to Tabor. And
you want folks to read this? This is akin to Jesus Seminar mythology and
opinionated what if fiction.
| Quote: | Jesus' brothers -- sons of Joseph or perhaps of Joseph's brother,
|
'Perhaps'? IOW, he doesn't know.
who
| Quote: | according to tradition was likely
|
'was likely'? IOW, he doesn't know. Is this supposed to be fiction?
to have married Mary after Joseph's
| Quote: | death -- took over the church in succession after Jesus' death.
|
Finally, something in Scripture.
The eldest,
| Quote: | James, stood for the continuation of the original identity of Jesus'
movement. It was a profoundly Jewish
|
Jewish? Hmmm, didn't Jesus reject what was being hawed at the Temple?
Now if Jesus rejected that which was being taught at the Temple which was
not in Scripture but later codified in Talmud, in what way was He of any
Jewish sect?
, messianic sect that believed Jesus to
| Quote: | be divinely inspired but not divine,
|
IOW, it is his opinion that Jesus was not the Son of the Living God, but
was a liar. Nice blasphemy on a Christian newsgroup. He is entitled to
his opinion even if his opinion has little merit.
that foresaw a coming "Kingdom of God"
| Quote: | that was earthly rather than heavenly, that sought the restoration of Jewish
self-rule in the form of a king descended from David, that did not view the
celebration of the Eucharist as the symbolic consumption of Jesus' flesh and
blood and that considered Jesus himself to be well and truly dead.
|
At least that is the spin of the Christophobes.
| Quote: | "There are two completely separate and distinct 'Christianities' embedded
in the New Testament,"
|
Wow, this is creative. And the two are?
| Quote: | Tabor writes. The version that triumphed -- Jesus as
God in human form, born of the eternally virgin Mary, whose death mystically
atoned for the sins of humankind, who rose from the dead and inaugurated a
new covenant with God that superceded the necessity of following Jewish
law -- is largely the creation of Paul.
|
Oh, the Paul did it mythology. And where with specificity and
particularity did Paul's teachings ever disagree with Christ's?
Tabor's mission with "The Jesus
| Quote: | Dynasty" is to recover what he can of the vein of Christianity led by James,
the one that "lost" and that eventually withered away.
|
IOW, he has an agenda.
| Quote: | Although messiahs and messianic movements seem to have been a dime a dozen
in the Jewish world before, during and after Jesus' lifetime, as the Jews
fought their doomed battle against their Roman overlords,
|
Why wouldn't they, they were prophesized in the Old Testament and copy
cats abound, then as now.
IOW, he doesn't know.
| Quote: | that John the Baptizer was among the most galvanizing. "The Jesus Dynasty"
seeks to restore John to some of the status he enjoyed before Christian
theologians reduced him to a mere precursor of the Christ.
|
IOW, Isaiah (quoted by Christ) was wrong and Tabor (who ignors Isaiah) is right.
In actuality,
IOW, he doeesn't know.
John's radical cause was fully in motion by the time Jesus, a
| Quote: | kinsman of John's, turned up to be baptized in the Jordan River at age 30.
"Jesus was a disciple of John and John was the rabbi or teacher of Jesus,"
not the other way around.
|
And the documentation beyond Tablr argues without documentation?
| Quote: | Eventually, Jesus and John became "full partners" in a movement that
anticipated the overthrow of the corrupt civil and religious authorities in
Israel
|
Israel? Jesus died in Judea, not Israel.
and eventually the entire world. They heralded the establishment of a
| Quote: | new age, in which the people would be ruled by two messiahs, a king
descended from David (Jesus) and a high priest descended from Aaron (John),
|
Obviously, Table is cluless (again) that Mary's mother was Levitical as
evidenced in her geanology and relationship to Elizabeth in Luke, making
Christ the uniting of both the tribes of Levi and Judah which does not
need a John.
| Quote: | who would preside over the temple in Jerusalem. But John and Jesus didn't
advocate armed revolution -- they believed, on the basis of their
interpretation of passages
|
"they believed, on the basis of their interpretation of passages"...IOW,
Tabor's opinion lacking a scintilla of evidence.
in the Old Testament, that God would intervene
| Quote: | and effect the change when the right moment arrived. Although Tabor
describes their movement as "apocalyptic," he doesn't mean that they
expected the end of the world, only its utter transformation.
|
Not clear that Tabor understands that heaven is and has always been at hand.
Well, since we have now established the IF soley on opinion without facts
in evidence, I assume that next we get treated to the IF that unproven
opinion is true then now I want you to believe THIS.
it's not surprising that Tabor considers John's execution
| Quote: | by King Herod to be "the most disappointing and shocking event in Jesus'
entire life."
|
Hmmmm, and the evidence of that is? I would have picked the sweating of
blood in Getheseme over that event.
Seems? IOW, he doesn't know.
to have inaugurated a new, darker vision of his
| Quote: | own destiny in Jesus' mind. In the best section of "The Jesus Dynasty,"
Tabor imagines the last few days of Jesus' life. Although the story is
familiar, as Tabor retells it,
|
As only Tabor can, I am sure.
| Quote: | minus the supernatural elements
|
Of course. IOW, he is a religious humanist from the radical religious left.
| Quote: | and taking
the very Jewish nature of Jesus himself into account, it becomes new and in
its own way just as powerful.
|
WOW, you mean that no fulfillment of any prophesy was required at all.
Certainly not the Jesus of Scriputre.
is a man who considers himself chosen by God and who
| Quote: | reconciles himself to enduring terrible suffering before God's kingdom can
be established. He deliberately provokes a Jewish religious establishment
glutted on temple tributes, and the Roman authorities, known for their
creatively sadistic execution methods.
|
Or, the more believable alternative, He just followed the Word of God.
"He firmly believed that if he and
| Quote: | his followers offered themselves up, placing their fate in God's hands,"
they could bring about the beginning of the new age,
|
Which He and they certainly did.
Tabor writes. Although,
| Quote: | as Tabor admits, we can never know Jesus' inner thoughts, e
|
Tabor seems to claim to know a lot about Jesus' inner thoughts so far, why
the pull back now?
it's possible that
| Quote: | even on the cross, "up until the last minutes, perhaps, Jesus believed that
God would intervene and save his life, and openly manifest his Kingdom."
|
Possible? IOW, more conjucture ignoring the Scripture.
| Quote: | That hope was betrayed and eventually Jesus' own legacy was transformed
into a religion that, Tabor argues,
|
No one else is arguing it.
he would have scarcely recognized. The
| Quote: | more faithful -- and more Jewish -- remnant of Jesus' following, led by
James and possibly two other half-brothers, became utterly overshadowed by
Paul's Christianity, a faith that swept through the Gentile world to become
the biggest religion on the planet
|
Oh, the Paul mythology again. One wonders why the apostles picked
Matthias when Christ picked Paul since Paul "transformed [that] into a
religion that, Tabor argues, Christ would have scarcely recognized"
| Quote: | This is a remarkable enough story without a lot of folderol about Egyptian
mystery cults, faked deaths and the Holy Grail,
|
All of the required Christophobic mythologies apparently.
plus it has the added
| Quote: | attraction of being rooted in some legitimate scholarship
|
At least in someone's opinion.
and it's better
| Quote: | written. "The Jesus Dynasty" surely has enough in it to challenge the
religious orthodoxies that many Americans were raised with,
|
Oh, now the Christian America is clueless mythology and needs to be
enlightened by the religious beliefs of atheistic humanism.
one of the
| Quote: | qualities of "The Da Vinci Code" that seems to have made the deepest
impression on the novel's fans.
|
Novel? IOW, its fiction.
Of course, Tabor's never been in the
| Quote: | position to sue Dan Brown, but if his book can't win at least a few readers
away from "The Jesus Papers" this Easter, then, well, there is no God.
|
IOW, he is hawking his opinion and religious mythologies for economic gain.
--
"-----------------"
May God Bless You
Michael |
|
