Opinion: The Real Reason Jesus Was Crucified

A tablet preceding Jesus by 100 or more years ignites debate. The author, an Anthropologist and theologian, weighs in on his own research and a startling theory on the Real reason Jesus was so suddenly crucified.

PAINTINGS BY AUTHOR The Real Reason Jesus Was Crucified: Ancient Tablet Ignites Debate A short time ago, in JERUSALEM, a stone tablet, all of three-feet-tall, carried on its surface 87 lines of Hebrew in which biblical scholars, evolutionists and paleontologists have found of some interest. The Stone, which many scholars believe dates from some decades before Jesus’ birth is causing major ripples which are stirring up the never too still waters in which uneasily treads theologians and scientists. The reason is that it appears to give some credence with a tale of a messiah who would be resurrected from the dead after three days. Only a very few scholars, however, believe it to be a fraud. A fellow name of David Jeselsohn bought the ancient tablet, but he was unaware of its significance. If the initial translations were accurate, it would lend credence to the Christian views of Jesus’ as Messiah and Son of God. Moreover, it would display to both Jews and Christians that they do share a common interest in what the stone reveals. If indeed, it were authentic, it would have to be recognized by Judaism as having been a part of accepted Jewish tradition at that time, 2000 years ago. The stone is not engraved but written upon in ancient ink, as are the scrolls, which contain the Old Testament and the Codex’s, which contain the new. The text on the stone is arranged into two well-designed columns, very similar to the columns traditionally found in ancient Torah writings. However, the stone is broken, and a bit of the text has faded, making a clear translation a bit less likely.

P. Bagnolo Jesus' Resurrection after 3 days image:46789:2::0

Professor of Talmudic Culture at the University of California at Berkeley Daniel Boyarin said that the stone is one more piece of the growing evidence suggesting that Jesus might be best understood through a closer reading of Jewish history during Jesus’ lifetime. Professor Boyarin says, “Some Christians will find it shocking, a challenge to the uniqueness of their theology, while others will be comforted by the idea of it being a traditional part of Judaism.” Despite the fact that it has been 60 years since the Dead Sea Scrolls were uncovered, and a bit longer since the Nag Hammadi “Lost Gospels” were discovered, in 1945, two years before the Dead Sea Scrolls, both still generate much infighting in both scientific and theological circles. The Nag Hammadi material displays 59 pieces of ancient material, which contains several gospels not among the four accepted canonical books, and some of them shed strong light on a Jesus quite different in some ways from the Jesus of the four canonical Gospels. Much of the text, a vision of the apocalypse transmitted by the angel Gabriel, draws on the Old Testament, especially the prophets Daniel, Zechariah and Haggai. Ms. Yardeni, who analyzed the stone along with Binyamin Elitzur, is an expert on Hebrew script, and is focused upon the reign of King Herod, who died in 4 B.C., a few years after Jesus’ birth, and they believe that the text dated from the late first century B.C. The Dead Sea Scrolls, documents found in the Qumran caves of the West Bank, contain some of the only known surviving copies of biblical writings from before the first century A.D. Besides quoting from the books of the Bible, they describe a variety of practices and beliefs of a Jewish sect at the time of Jesus. Many theologians (myself included) believe that John The Baptist and perhaps even Jesus, emerged from that sect. The wide spread belief is that these were, Essenes, an extremely monastic and severely unmaterialistic group. The fact that French Roman Catholics had control of the materials from the caves and refused to seat any Jewish scholars on the team has left bitter tastes in the mouths of Liberal Theologian’s worldwide. I believe that a fair share of Hebrews should have been seated for this is a matter that has common ground for both Christians and Jews. It was wrong of the Catholics (my faith) to refuse to allow Jews on the panel. The writers of some of the articles are debating whether the authors of the scrolls were members of a monastic sect or in mainstream. While the Essenes were a part of the ruling council for a long period, it is doubtful that they were mainstream in Jesus' Day. A conference at the Israel Museum was in place in Jerusalem for the 60th year anniversary of the discovery of the scrolls, where the stone, and the debate over whether it speaks of a resurrected messiah, as one scholar believes, also will be discussed. Oddly, the stone was discovered about a decade ago by an Israeli-Swiss collector from a Jordanian antiquities dealer who kept it in his home in Zurich. There is now a mountain of scholarly articles on the stone. Much of the text involves a vision of the Apocalypse transmitted by the Angel Gabriel, especially from the prophets Daniel, Zechariah and Haggai. A chemical examination a by Yuval Goren, professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University who specializes in the verification of ancient artifacts, said that he knew of no reason to doubt the stone’s authenticity. In Cathedra Israel, Knohl, a professor of Bible studies, published a book in 2000 expounding on the idea of a suffering messiah before Jesus, using a various rabbinic and other early apocalyptic literature including the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, his theory did not shake the world of Christology as he had hoped, partly because he had no textual evidence from before Jesus.

Author Paint of Jesus Healing a man image:46788:7::0

When Knohl read “Gabriel’s Revelation,” he said, he believed he saw what he needed to solidify his thesis, and he has published his argument in the latest issue of The Journal of Religion. “This should shake our basic view of Christianity,” Professor Knohl said. “Resurrection after three days becomes a motif developed before Jesus, which runs contrary to nearly all scholarship. What happens in the New Testament was adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story.” Ms. Yardeni said she was impressed with the reading and considered it indeed likely that the key illegible word was “hayeh,” or “live.” Whether that means Simon is the messiah under discussion, she is less sure. However, for what little it may be worth, I stand in disagreement with Professor Knohl’s view, for several reasons. First, if the stone is authentic it confirms two distinct and yet merging ideas. The first is that if the Suffering Messiah idea is an accurate portrayal of Hebrew religious belief at the time, then indeed Jesus’ was crucified by Herodian Chief Priests, even while those which condemned Jesus (rabbi Yeshua) held full knowledge of that premise, making them all the more culpable. Secondly, if the implication of some is true and the stone was not a mainstream idea, or even if it were, then those who followed Jesus were enlightened and those who persecuted him were not. The Suffering Messiah, were it known should have told his persecutors that he may have been authentic and opposing his ministry was anathema. I do not believe that the bulk of Israeli's wished Jesus dead, for one reason his brother James The Just, Brother of the Lord had a congregation of 8,000 members, all Hebrews. More than all of that, the reality that Jesus’ ideas overall were not new ones, they mostly came from Old Testament Prophetic knowledge available to all who could read or listen. More of his ideas were similar to those of the great Rabbi Hillel. Hillel was born in 110 BCE and lived 120 years and shared Archaic Aramaic with Jesus as a language. Aramaic, the Language of Jesus Lives and is still spoken in Maula, a cliff-side village in southwestern Syria. It however, may not be Archaic Aramaic, exactly that several thousand year old language, it has changed a bit. There is little evidence that in truth Jesus was murdered because of his religious philosophies. Rabbi’s loved to argue and often in many small towns held ideas vastly different from those in cities. Arguments about theology were a part of the love of their faith for intellectual rabbis. The Sadducees were members of a Jewish sect and were rivals of the Pharisees (today's Rabbinical Jews), founded in the second century BC. They ceased to exist some time after the destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem (Herod's Temple) in 70 AD. They believed neither in the immortality of the soul, nor in angels. They also believed that a man’s status and his health, lack thereof, his wealth, or power were signs of his standing with the Lord. Sadducees represented the aristocratic group of Hasmonean High Priests, who replaced the High Priestly lineage. From Josephus; “For there are three philosophical sects among the Jews. The followers of the first of which are the Pharisees; of the second, the Sadducees; and the third sect, which pretends to a severer discipline, are called Essenes.” The Essenes appear to have been at one time a powerful sect. Most of severe Catholic orders take their precepts from the Essenes, who also were forbidden to marry. The Pharisees, however, who appeared in the New Testament to be Jesus enemies, accepted, in philosophies, much of what Jesus believed. In the NT, it appears from the language and tone of the arguments between Jesus and the Pharisees that those arguments did not occur to Jesus and them, but between the later Christians and the Pharisees. In fact St. Paul says, “Paul states, "Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees!" (Acts 23.6)” The Gospels were written between AD 64-110, therefore from 39-85 years after Jesus’ death. They skipped long years between his age’s birth and twelve and between twelve and 30-35 years. When the last Gospels were written between 92-110 AD by “John” they contain stories long after the death of Jesus that none of the other three contain (the Raising of Lazarus among them). However, the most important part of the death of Jesus was the rush to kill him directly following his “Year of The Lord” speech in Jerusalem. The Herodian Chief Priests correctly interpreted his meaning as “The Jubilee Year. Below are the meanings of that event. I say that Jesus was not crucified because of his religious views, but because of the circumstances I describe below. The Real Reason Jesus Was Crucified Rabbi Yeshua, Joshua, (Jesus Ben Yoseph) was born in the reign of Herod the Great, sometime between 8-4 BC and died somewhere between 25-29 AD. The gospels were written: 1st-Mark's between 65-72 AD, 2nd-Matthews, between then and about 80 AD, Luke's about the late 80's AD, John's in 92-110 AD. Because the extant gospels were not written until 36-85 years after the death of Jesus, it is doubtful that any of the writers of the gospels ever met Jesus or even, with the later writers, ever met anyone who ever met Jesus. None of the writers, Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, were apostles, in fact no one knows their real names. Those names were added to the gospels by early church authorities to lend credence to the writings. (This is information that can be found in most unbiased bibles, like the St. Joseph New American Version, found in most bookstores.) Although it is possible, but only barely, that Mark was the Mark who sometimes traveled with St. Paul. There is also strong evidence that the writers were not Hebrews, but Gentiles, because of the many errors in Hebrew culture displayed in the New Testament. The earliest gospels extant are copies, of copies, of copies, of copies, are in Greek, and date to the late second to early third centuries. There have been about 5400 manuscripts representing gospels found over the last 1700 years; some are small fragments, some more than that, some are complete versions. Over the course of those 5400 versions of the New Testament, there are many differences, ranging from subtle edits, redaction's, and changes to major story insertions or removals and later reinsertions with and without changes. There are also a great many errors of cultural and historical note. For one Quirynius mentioned as the governor who ordered the census, which forced Joseph and Mary than pregnant with Jesus to go to Bethlehem, has been found to be governor of Judea when Jesus was a teenager, so could not have ordered that census. There is great doubt among historians expert in the practicality of the Romans, that they would have instituted such an ineffective and unintelligent complexity of moving people around the country to "register" in their hometown. The Romans, if nothing else were not stupid and such a census was simply stupid. Moving an entire population around in that way would accomplish nothing and would have been useless for taxing purposes since people paid their taxes in the towns in which they lived, not the towns in which they were born but no longer live. If there were records of who was born where, the records would have been transferred, not the people, if necessary, but it was unnecessary back then when records were poorly kept if kept at all in smaller towns, which is an excellent reason for people to simply never go and register at all because no one would have been the wiser about their life, death or very existence. The emphasis on Mary's eternal virginity came about more than 300 years after her death and surfaced as dogma during Constantine's reign. The evidence of the mentions of Jesus brothers and sisters being cousins is poor. Paul who spoke and wrote excellent Greek never used the word Anepsios, Greek for cousin, when referring to Jesus' siblings, using instead the word Adelphos, Greek for brother, when speaking of Jesus' Brothers, and most specifically when speaking of Jesus' brother St. James, Paul, and other's fluent in Greek referred to St. James as, James the Just, the Brother of the Lord using the word Adelphos for Brother." Since we know little of Jesus' life from ages 12-30, there is no evidence that he was not married, as we do know that some of the apostles were married and most probably all who worked were married. In one of the Lost Gospels of the Nag Hammadi discovery in 1945 outside of that town, 3rd century monks had buried the Codex's, more than 50 of them, because suddenly under the military dogma of the new convert Constantine, Emperor, only the "accepted" (canon) version of the New Testament were to be allowed to survive. The Monks, of a more democratic state of mind hid them hoping that after the reign of Constantine led by Athanasius' purge of books, they could unearth their beloved gospels-it never was to be, not until 1945. In correct translations, Jesus never stated that he was "The Only Begotten Son of God." The term "son of man" was a common one to distinguish a man born out of woman of man, was human neither an angel nor a demon. God used the term as a greeting to Ezekiel and others. It was never capitalized except in the New Testament and capitalized or not, it still means the same thing, a human being born of a man out of a woman, nothing more. The phrase son of man is a primarily Semitic idiom that originated in Ancient Mesopotamia, used to denote humanity or self. Here is a quote directly from a Hebrew translation of their Old Testament concerning the use of the word Almah that Christians use to describe Mary as virgin in the prophecy of Isaiah: Judaism reads the verse in Isaiah 7:14 as: "Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: behold, the young woman [ha-Almah] shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanu-el". Judaism affirms that [ha-almah] ("young woman") does not refer to a virgin and that had the Tanakh intended to refer to such, the specific Hebrew word for virgin [bethulah] would have been used. This view is often disputed by Christians (see below), and has been a point of contention between Jews and Christians since the formation of the modern Church. Jerome, in 383 CE, wrote in "Adversus Helvidium" that Helvidius misunderstood just this same point of confusion between the Greek and the Hebrew. To those of faith the words and deeds of the true Jesus; Mary need not be a virgin and Jesus need not be "The Only Begotten Son of God" for us to hold him in reverence any less then we hold Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Elias, Elijah, David, St. Jude, St. Francis, St. Teresa, or Mother Teresa. Paul felt the need to convert Greeks and other Gentiles who would accept nothing less than a god that the tact of elevating Jesus to the rank of God was born. In the 3rd century, the argument began about Jesus eternality and Godship, supported by Athanasius and opposed by Arius, whose assessment of the situation was more logical, and saw Jesus as Messiah, appointed to adopted son of God because of Jesus' piety and courage. St. James the Just, Brother of the Lord, had a church, which rivals even the congregation's of today's churches, more than 8600 members James believed Jesus, his brother to be the Messiah, not God. He called his church the Church of the Nazarene. Judeo/Christian views of property, bankruptcy and the Jubilee Year, were being trampled upon by conservative businessmen of the era, which bytheway was the real reason for Jesus' hasty execution-he was reexamining Moses idea of socializing the land and the people. You probably know all this and it is in one of my upcoming books, which shoots down the idea of religious persecution of Jesus. Everything is always about the money. The execution of Jesus by Rome and the Chief Herodian Priests, was no exception, and was not about theology. Religious Arguments far exceeding those of Jesus and his opponents were always brewing in Israel among the argumentive rabbi's. Jesus' execution was as much about the money as it Bush' attack on Iraq. Funny how Americans accept socialization of government, of schools, police, fire departments, city services, the military, but socialization of not necessary products like fuel, water, housing, medical care and other personal necessities? It is about the money, avarice, and about contempt for the masses and for the God, these fascists claim to serve-hypocrisy. Moses deeded to each Judean Peasant a few acres of land as "Social Security" on which to grow enough food for the family and allow some excess to be sold. He wanted them healthy for many reasons, one being he might need them for combat. Both Romans and some Herodian officials were Practicing Fascism, before the term was defined and coined in modern times. They were confiscating land breaking the bankruptcy laws initiated by Moses. They were also commercializing the land, in violation of his ancient concept. Priests were banned form owning land, like Cheney they made up their own rules. They were also outsourcing labor to scabs and selling it to rich Greeks and Romans at prices out of the reach of peasant Jews. (Sound familiar?) There was aside from the Seven (7) years-bankruptcy forgiveness policy, in the seventh application of each seven (7) year's of forgiveness of bankruptcy-the 50th year, was the JUBILEE YEAR or as Jesus called it, THE YEAR OF THE LORD, in which all land confiscated or bought for debt had to be returned to the family from which it was taken. The Romans, my rather brutal ancestors, rarely if ever crucified mere minor leaders alone. When they captured Spartacus they crucified him and 6,000 of his officers-mass execution was their means of ideas-nullification through forced attrition. Among Jesus' followers, none but he were executed. His speech on the portico after his attack on the profiteers there earlier in the day, sealed his fate. The turning point was his mention of the YEAR OF THE LORD disguised to mean THE JUBILEE YEAR in the New Testament. Apparently, some Herodian Priests were buying and commercializing land against Jewish Law, they claimed they could own, but not work land. Therefore, they had to get rid of Jesus before his next opportunity to speak, the next day or there might have been a riot turning the Zealots to assassination of Chief Herodian Priests instead of Romans. The Romans agreed with the idea of eliminating Jesus in a hurry because many lower level Roman officials were joined in the land commercialization scheme thus were "skimming' on the take to Caesar, a no-no for sure. Rome would only tolerate corruption at the top. The article in Time magazine referred to a Darrell Bock, a professor at the conservative Protestant Dallas Seminary, whom the Discovery Channel had review the film recently, asked a question which disqualifies him as an expert: "Why would Jesus' family or followers bury his bones in a family plot and then turn around and preach that he had been physically raised from the dead?" Why? If Bock should should have known that Jesus' family and Apostles, save for James, His brother, who was assassinated, and Peter who was crucified, were ousted, excised, from any participation in the later church by Paul and others who did not want the power of James The Just, Brother of The Lord's huge following (8,000 parishioners at His Messianic Hebrew Church) which did not depict Jesus as "Son of God" but as messiah/prophet. In addition, apparently the burial secrecy worked, because it took 2000 years to uncover the switch. Jesus' family and only a few apostles were sparsely present in the Acts and other books, which followed the four gospels. I am a descendant of both Duke Bagnolo, Leader of the Albigensian Heresy and St. John Leonardi, canonized Saint.