A friend recently challenged me to discuss the concept of Jesus as a Messiah. Of course, as a Jew and the son of a liberator of Buchenwald, and as someone acutely aware of the millions of people tortured and slaughtered in the name of Jesus. I have trouble taking this on. In unprejudiced manner. Nonetheless, here’s a try.
1. Was there a historical Jesus.?
The truth is that no one actually knows. The usual argument I have read by Christian scholars is that there must’ve been someone who form the basis for the stories in the Gospels. Frankly, this seems to me to be rather thin treacle. On this basis, Johnny Appleseed, Paul Bunyan, and Prseber John “must” have existed.
There are no Roman records, the usual text found in Josephus is accepted by scholars as a late forgery inserted into Josephus text and no other contemporary writer mentions Jesus.
2. Is it even credible that Jesus existed ?
Yes, if you accept the argument that some real figure must have been the source for the story is in the Gospels.
A similar figure is referred to in Josephus as the brother of James, a blasphemous Jew who claimed that his brother was somehow divine. James was stoned to death for this claim. The other citation that is more descriptive of Jesus is accepted by scholars as a forgery.
There is also a Talmudic claim that a Jesus-like lay Pharisee existed as Joshua ben Pantera. Pantera is the bastard son of a Roman soldier and part of the resistance to Rome. During the Inquisition the Talmud was accused of Jesus by telling the story of Pantera. A grave of a Roman soldier with this name was recently found in Germany.
Yes, if you mean does literary analysis of the words attributed to Jesus suggest there was such a person. Whether that author and the person in the Jesus stories is the same is, however, much less clear.
3. Was Jesus the Jewish “Messiah?”
No. There is simply no Christian like concept within Judaism. The term “Moshiach” in Jewish history has never referred to any individual with the powers of divine salvation. The expectation of an anointed leader .. aka Moshiach .. refer instead to a human who rescues the Jews from foreign or unjust rule.
No. If Jess had claimed a divIne identity he would not have had to be crucified. Any “Messiah,” making the claims cited for Jesus would’ve been considered a blasphemer and, under Jewish law, punished by stoning, with no need for Roman approval. See my note above about the fate of James.
4. Could Jesus be a composite of contemporary Jews from his time?
Yes, but only if one drops the claim to being divine.
The conquest f Judea was unique in Roman and perhaps world history. The Hasmonean government that fell to Rome was no popular. Resistance was not to having a roman governor but to the imposition of the Greek way of life and Roman state religion.
The leaders of this resistance, the people we now call the Pharisees, had no objection to paying Roman taxes or submitting to a Roman governor.. They did however object to the imposition of the Roman religion, accepting a Roman imposed King, accepting Roman imposed priests, and obeying those laws that contravened the laws accepted as having been given by Moses.
Joshua Ben Pantera is supposed to have been one of those in the resistance.
The great leader of the Pharisees, was Hillel. Many of the teachings attributed by Christians to “Jesus” are the teachings of Hillel and the Pharisees. “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” may have a different meaning to you. If you put it into the Pharisaic context
Apparently the Romans were less susceptible to peaceful resistance than their successors as oppressors. The British, the American South, and the Apartheid regime gave into the tools of passive resistance. Judean passive resistance, an obvious forebear of the work of Gandhi, King, and Mandela, eventually failed. 30 years after the supposed death of Jesus, at a time when Paul’s cult was insignificant, the Jews rose up, the Romans responded, the word “Judea” was expunged., ad Romans created their client state … the first state to be called Palestine.”
It was another great Pharisee who rescued Judean Jewry from cultural genocide. (quoting from the Wiki:) Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai was the most distinguished disciple of Hillel’ According to tradition, ben Zakkai was a pacifist in Jerusalem in 68 C.E. When the city was under siege by General Vespasian. Jerusalem was controlled by the Zealots, people who would rather die than surrender to Rome (these are the same people who controlled Masada). Ben Zakkai urged surrender, but the Zealots would not hear of it, so ben Zakkai faked his own death and had his disciples smuggle him out of Jerusalem in a coffin. They carried the coffin to Vespasian’s tent, where ben Zakkai emerged from the coffin. He told Vespasian that he had had a vision (some would say, a shrewd political insight) that Vespasian would soon be emperor, and he asked Vespasian to set aside a place in Yavneh (near modern Rehovot) where he could move his yeshivah (school) and study Torah in peace. Vespasian promised that if the prophecy came true, he would grant ben Zakkai’s request. Vespasian became Emperor and kept his word, allowing the school to be established after the war was over. The yeshiva survived and was a center of Jewish learning for centuries. The
Sadly, this too was not enough. Sixty years later a more forceful military resistance arose to Rome This was led by by Simon bar Kochba. Many Judeans referred to bar Kochba as Moshiach .. a term used again with later efforts by the Jews to achieve self rule.
Bar Kochba had a rabbi as his advisor. This rabbi, Rabbi Akiba, is today considered one of the great Pharisees. He was captured by Rom and skinned alive for refusing to renounce Judaism.
Is it any wonder that Roman Christianity demonized the Pharisees?
5. Is quote “Jesus” and engraftment of Dionysus on to a Jewish root?
Yes, at least most historians that I have read see Jesus as the engraftment of the widespread and varied forms of religion based on Dionysus on to the tendril growing out of whoever the real Jesus was. Mithra, another mystery cult religion competing to succeed as the Roman state religion also had roots in the story of Dionysus. That story and the concept of Dionysus is far too complicated for this post, however, a few elements are very easy to recognize in Christianity. Dionysus is always paired with a female deity. Dionysus saves mankind by some form of self-sacrifice. Dionysus is a God of ecstasy and kindness rather than a hard unremitting God like the Jewish God or, for that matter, the major gods of Rome. As I said, understanding Dionysus is difficult, so I have suggested that you read Joseph Campbell, rather than put up with my feeble efforts.