Onias

Btw, when I entitled this thread "Was the Original Jesus a Militant", I was not referring to the fictional Jesus Christ of the gospels.

I was suggesting the original militant and historic messiah figure(s) of that time may have been the kernel or the inspiration for the anti-messiah figure of JC of the Roman approved gospel tales.

I see the gospels as a satire or lampoon that ridicules the failed efforts of real messiah-aspirants of that time.
Onias

aa5874

That is your precise problem. You are asking about a Jesus of which there is no known evidence.

Effectively, your supposed Militant Jesus is also a Jesus of Faith.

Your supposed Militant Jesus has no more evidence than Jesus that was born of a Ghost.

You must have realized that NT Jesus was imagined into existence using Hebrew Scripture.

If you did not use the NT to imagine your Militant Jesus then you must have used your own imagination.

Militant Jesus=NT Jesus= the products of imagination.

Onias

aa,
It is not a militant Jesus I imagine but the precursor to the fictional JC who may have inspired the story of a pacifist Jesus who was actually an anti-messiah.

And of course all ideas come from our imagination, and that should go without saying.

mountainman

What do you see the gnostic gospels as being?




εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

jdboy

I think Josephus says that when Eleazar defeated Cestius the Jewish people thought that God was on their side. Meaning Eleazar was the chosen one of God. Maybe

"Eleazar ben Simon was a Zealot leader during the First Jewish-Roman War who fought against the armies of Cestius Gallus, Vespasian, and Titus Flavius. From the onset of the war in 66 CE until the destruction of the temple in 70 CE, he fought vehemently against the Roman garrisons in Judea and against his fellow Jewish political opponents in order to establish an independent Jewish state at Jerusalem."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleazar_ben_Simon

Onias

The gnostic gospels are in a wholly different category.

I think they were suppressed because they promised a path to salvation and the Godhead that did not involve any interaction or approval from worldly authorities.

In contrast, the gospels and especially the Paulines urged obedience to the governing authorities and were therefore allowed to survive, thrive and proliferate.
Onias