Pandora

Both the early Church leaders, and Paul amongst others believed that Jesus had existed in two forms – as a historical character and as a spiritual one.

A interesting point is the translation difference brought about when the names Joshua and Jesus are considered. Both would have originally been YEHOSHUAH in Hebrew, which then translates to Iesous in Greek. During translation into English, one was written as Joshua and the other as Jesus.

Origen in 300 CE, comments on Exodus 17.9 “Up to this point nowhere has there occurred mention of the blessed man Jesus. Here first the brilliance of this name shone forth.”

Both the OT and the early church fathers identify Jesus as the same person who succeeded Moses as leader of the Israelites. However, they considered the Joshua “Jesus” to be the spiritual Jesus rather than the historical one.

Writings in the DSS and the libraries found in the 1940’s show that other sects of Judeo Christian origins believed that the Joshua “Jesus” was the historical Jesus.

There is very little knowledge of the life of Tutankhamun, but probably the more important strand to be following as a theory would be the comparisons of the historical figure of Akhenaten with that of Moses.

The reason why there is so little information on Tut is because the ancient Egyptians did everything possible to destroy all evidence of his and his father’s reigns, both to restore stability and appease the ancient gods that had been defiled and swept aside in order to worship Aten.

I am not necessarily convinced by the theories, but I think that there is such a lack of archaeological evidence that supports the OT stories as literal history, that we should be looking for a historical basis for the myths that can be supported by hard evidence; and so little archaeological evidence for NT writings and accounts of Jesus that we should examine the personal agendas of the Early Church founders more carefully before accepting what seems the easy answer. The Vatican is still good on media relations and spin doctors.

Tomije

I'd love to read the bit where Origen wrote (as stated, at 300 CE) that either Joshua or Jesus was the supreme leader of the Egyptians.

Conspiracy theory barely works when one goes back 40 years.

Their is little to no evidence outside of the Bible that Jesus or Joshua even existed. Making connections for the sake of connections is a habit of conspiracy theorists.

These conspiracies often take as much faith as much the original concept did.

Haran

The DSS were written by a sect of Judaism (believed to be the Essenes) with some similarities to Christianity in their writings. Nowhere in them is there a belief that "Joshua (Jesus) was the historical Jesus".

I suppose this is rather subjective, but I happen to believe there is quite a bit of archaeological evidence for both the NT and OT. There is at least as much or more than we have to corroborate other ancient "historical" documents.

Haran

Haran

This quote may have come from the book you read, but is there more specific information like book name, chapter, verse, etc. that is listed so that we may check the surrounding context?

Some of Origen's works are on the web. This particular one may not be... However, I can probably find it.

Thanks,
Haran

[ February 16, 2002: Message edited by: Haran ]</p>