Ruhan

I have come across an interesting essay from a Judaic point of view which traces the possible existence of a historical Jesus back to a Rabbi Yeishu who lived during the early 1st century, as well as other fascinating resemblances with the modern Jesus narrative including his disciples, parents, virgin birth, death, geneology, and John the Baptist amongst others. In addition, the story of Yeishu is convincingly mixed with other local Pagan traditions to form the Jesus we know today. Here is an excerpt:

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachyah once repelled Yeishu with both hands. People believed that Yeishu was a sorcerer and they considered him to be a person who had led the Jews astray. As a result of charges brought against him (the details of which are not known, but which probably involved high treason) Yeishu was stoned and his body hung up on the eve of Passover. Before this he was paraded around for forty days with a herald going in front of him announcing that he would be stoned and calling for people to come forward to plead for him. Nothing was brought forward in his favour however. Yeishu had five disciples: Mattai, Naqai, Neitzer, Buni, and Todah.

The connection between Yeishu and Jesus is corroborated by the the fact that Mattai and Todah, the names of two of Yeishu's disciples, are the original Hebrew forms of Matthew and Thaddaeus, the names of two of Jesus' disciples in Christian mythology.

Read the rest on http://mama.indstate.edu/users/nizra...efutation.html

Is this a plausible explanation for a historical Jesus? Any views on this?

jjramsey

From http://mama.indstate.edu/users/nizra...futation.html:

I notice that he doesn't mention that he doesn't report that Yehuda of Galilee, a.k.a. Judas the Galilean, led a revolt at the time when Judaea switched from being a client kingdom to a Roman province. Josephus does not mention how Judas died. Theudas also wasn't crucified but beheaded.

I would also beware of anyone who mentions "December 25" as a pagan parallel. That date comes from the fourth century, not the first.

This guy seems to have his facts in a muddle.

Asha'man

Well, possibly.

First, check out this: Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.? by G.R.S.Mead

You might also want to read The Jesus the Jews Never Knew by Frank Zindler.

I think there are three ways to look at this problem:

1. The Jews never wrote about the Christian Jesus, and any similarity is purely a coincidence.
2. The Jews wrote about a historical Jesus, and the Gospels stole and modified the story to match their needs.
3. The Jews learned about Jesus from the Christians, and wrote rebuttals that changed the story to be more favorable to the Jews.

Unfortunately, it's very hard to tell the difference between these three scenarios. Mead argues for the 2nd one, while Zindler argues for the 1st.

Personally, I don't put much weight on the last one, since claiming to be directly responsible for the death of Jesus would seem to be the wrong direction. If the Jews were motivated to make up stories, I'd expect the Romans to take a larger part of the blame.

Most likely, it was some mixture of all three. There were one or more men named Yeshu who got in trouble with Jewish authorities. The Christian stories contain a small remembrance of these real men, but changed virtually all of the details. Much later, Jewish writers got confused as to which Yeshu was which, and the stories intermingled again, adding story elements from the Christian Jesus to the Jewish Yeshu(s).

Ruhan

Obviously the early church only started celebrating the birth of Jesus at this latter date and the author is not describing 1st century Christianity but rather the cannonized version we have today.

Ruhan

This paragraph also intrigued me:

John the Baptist is largely based on an historical person who practiced ritual immersion in water as a physical symbol for repentance. He did not perform Christian style sacramental baptisms to cleanse people's souls - such an idea was totally foreign to Judaism. John's name in Greek was "Ioannes" and in Latin "Johannes." Although these names were usually used for the Hebrew name Yochanan, it is unlikely that this was John's actual Hebrew name. "Ioannes" closely resembles "Oannes" the Greek name for the pagan god Ea. Oannes was the "God of the House of Water." Sacramental baptism for magically cleansing souls was a practice which apparently originated in the worship of Oannes. The most likely explanation of John's name and its connection with Oannes is that John probably bore the nickname "Oannes" since he practised baptism which he had adapted from the worship of Oannes. The name "Oannes" was later confused with "Ioannes." (In fact, the New Testament legend concerning John provides a clue that his real name might have been Zacharia.) It is known from Josephus's writings that the historical John rejected the pagan "soul-cleansing" interpretation of baptism. The Christians, however, returned to this original pagan interpretation.