Which Jesus?

Rabbi:

Great to hear from you. Immediately I should
do well to inform us that EVEN Christianity
suggests that it is quite possible that only
one person has the right interpretation of
the Bible. I say this to put you at ease,
for the primary conflation is to see the abominable
behavior and works of the multitude today who
claim to be followers of the Christ and then
conclude that this behavior is evidence that
Christ is not real or was a charlatan. Indeed
there is, to be sure, a healthy tradition of debate
within the Christian community, ultimately culminating
in a dichotomy between the mainstream "church" who
are then derided, to a degree, by the Jehovah's Witness
congregation who pride themselves in knowing what the
bible REALLY teaches. I have taken the side of the Witnesses
in most cases, since I am one of the few who still feels
that following the Christ ought not be a detriment to
human intelligence. I am glad to tell you that, as with
the Torah, in fact intelligence is an advantage when it
comes to reading and understanding the bible. If so,
then be clear that I am an evangelist of intelligence
for the sake of betterment of humanity, and will thus
hope to demonstrate to you, in a perfectly intelligent
context, what Christianity is and how it is relevant to
Judaism.

No man can hope to differentiate himself from his culture.
No man, that is, save for the one who updates that culture
with information pertinent to its growth. Such an anomaly,
of a man who comes from within the culture but who has information
about the culture that is new is rare. But it has happened
upon occasion. We see Akhenaton in Egypt and we see Zoroastria
in Persia and realize that these men were beyond seminal: they
were the fuel their culture and civilization needed in order
to thrive, when possibly at its lowest.

About forty or so years after Julius Caesar reconciled the
solar and sidereal calendars, time brought forth a man, a Jew,
who was named Jesus. Christianity insists that any spirit
that denies that Jesus came in the flesh "is not of God"
so we will put to rest, for now, speculation as concerns whether
Jesus actually existed. In fact, within the context which we
speak, it does not make sense that he does not exist. So why
do people ponder this thing? It is because of the miracles in
the synoptic story of his life. These miracles make him out to
be a charlatan, magician and trickster and I cannot blame you one
second, Rabbi, for being oppressed in spirit by those who worship
Jesus BECAUSE of the miracles he is claimed to have performed.

Instead, Rabbi, being a man of deep scholarship, won't you ignore,
for the moment, the synopsis of Jesus embedded in the gospels, Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John, and read, again for one moment, the ACTUAL
writing of the Christ? This writing, signified through an angel
using the phrase "I, Jesus" is a masterpiece of literature that
puts Homer and his Illiad to shame. Nothing Shakespeare has done
will ever compare. And since the time God has sent prophets to Israel,
even you will have to admit Rabbi, no prophesy has been quite as captivating
as the Revelation of the Christ. The actual writing of Jesus.
Well, his teachings. We speculate that being a prophet/sage
in the mold of the greek teacher-sages, Jesus may not actually
have WRITTEN anything down. So the precision and mastery in the book
of the Revelation is probably, we speculate, a teaching over time
that the author was able to pen down when circumstances availed themselves.

At any rate, as we like to say where I'm from, when one reads the
Revelation one is immediately reconciled to the fact that it is
a poetic compendium of the Hebrew Prophesies in an order that is
shaped by the Judaic philosophy of this man, Jesus. In other words,
Rabbi, as you have the Holy Torah and then the Talmud, and the Muslims
have the Holy Koran and the Hadith, people like myself have the Holy
Torah AND the Book of the Revelation of the Christ.

WHY?

Because the point is that Jesus differentiated himself from
Jewish culture by bringing something new, is the claim, a symbolic
understanding, a masonry if you will, that would allow the message
of YHWH transcend the Jewish race and return mankind to Eden.
For me, the message of YHWH finds traction in pace and resource
management. As well, the Torah speaks to me of the concept of
shame and nakedness, the sins of fathers and the effects on sons,
and the importance of decisions in foundational moments. When
I add the writings of the Christ I am able to observe the Sabbath
and keep it holy, but not necessarily on Saturdays. I am able
to keep the commandments of God in a way that are not burdensome
but which make a lot of sense to me. The LESSONS, Rabbi, of
the Torah allow me to keep God's commandments and obey his will
while adhering to my philosophy that any good religion should
make sense to the intelligent. The Torah, and its lessons (guided
by the highest symbolisms of the Christ in Revelation) is my
version of religion.

The synoptic gospels, which turn most people off from Christianity,
are riddled with miracles and mysteries when they ought not be.
The true miracle, the true mystery is in attempting to discern
just how rich the Revelation of the Christ is in the context of
God's prophets sent to Israel in times past. Rabbi, you certainly
will at least agree with Muslims in believing, aside from the
synoptic gospels, the book of the Revelation demonstrates he
was the greatest student of the Hebrew prophets that we have
evidence of. This must at least be true. And so I ask you
to ignore the miracles of the synoptic gospels. Alas I cannot
ask you to ignore these gospels themselves, for aside from
the TOTALLY IRRELEVANT miracles Jesus did, these gospels as well
tell the RELEVANT story of a dialectic, a debate between a son
and his fathers. Jesus and the Rabbis of that era, Rabbi,
disagreed often and because of this disagreement the gospels
make the claim that Jesus was put to death. The Revelation
of the Christ, according to Christian theology, is the evidence
that Jesus "conquered death," which now leaves open the possibility
that the miracles, if put in the story, be read in the same
context as the crucifixion. Mysteries, they. Again, the
RELEVANT story told by the witnesses to the life of Christ
concerns the fact that he was put to death by Rabbis who
he disagreed with, then proved through the Revelation that
he was certainly the most astute student of the prophets
we have evidence of, making it likely if not clear that he
was right in the debate and THOSE Rabbis were wrong.
What shall history say of you, Rabbi?

So, yes, I ask you to ignore the miracles and the things
that license the behaviors you and I abhor. But place
the Bible in its proper context. The last verse in the
old testament suggests that God is to send a messenger to
warn fathers and sons to return to that primary relationship.
The new testament then gives us a historical battle between
a son--a student of the prophets--and fathers, Rabbis who
did not, in the end, seem to have the knowledge the son did.
This, Rabbi, I consider the warning that God gave us. This
man was of the spirit of Elias, sent to restore all things.

Have we heeded God's warning? Lest he come and smite the
earth with a curse? I think you will find today, Rabbi,
that the story of Jesus lives on even in Israel. You surely
have young ones of the family of David who may believe they
have the highest symbolisms of Judaism, perhaps which
transcend the traditionally accepted views, some held by
the rabbinate. I would ask you, then, to study the book
of the Revelation: Study it with great care, honesty, and
bravery. Then tell me, Rabbi, if in fact you do not believe
that Jesus was what in the west we would call a Grand Mason of
the 33rd Degree, a man of the highest and total symbolism
of the guilds of our civilization. I think you will find,
whatever your misgivings with Christians who behave as
though magic and charlatanry license strange behavior in religion,
that the revealed Jesus was, in fact, a Rabbi too. Now that... sir
.. that is the truth about Jesus.

The common thread between Jesus and Moses is Egypt. This is my
expertize, sir, and Jesus today takes on the bearings of a Pharaoh.