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The Jesus of History Versus Judean Supremacism
ABSTRACT
After the 2nd World War, the Jewish people became the target of Evangelical Christian missionaries. Many of the Jewish people who have been successfully converted had left orthodox Judaism years, if not generations, previously.
Most of those Christian converts explain that they saw Judaism as being the repetition of empty ritual in the worship of a God to whom they could not connect. They almost unanimously say that they joined Christianity to have a direct connection to the divine.
This paper had two objectives:
- To discover if the textual and historical evidence supported a homogeneous, original and continuous form of orthodox Judaism.
- To confirm or deny the validity of the idea that the Jesus of History created a form of proto-Christianity or if he was a part of the continuum of Hebrew spirituality and history.
We examined textual, archaeological and historical evidence using philosophical coherence as a logical datum.
The results showed that the Jesus of History was part of a philosophical, spiritual and religious continuum that stretched back to the birth of Israel. That Hebrew teaching was, and is, the antithesis of Christian dogma.
© 2021 M. A. Sebastian. All rights reserved.
The Jesus of History: did he really exist - The Jesus Family Tomb
ABSTRACT
It is impossible to provide a logically satisfying answer to the question, ‘Did the Jesus of History really exist’, without first taking the time to define exactly what we mean when we say the word, ‘Jesus’.
Because we have all grown up with images of the ‘Baby Jesus’ at Christmas and the sacrificed Christ at Easter, we all assume that we know exactly who ‘Jesus’ is, but the truth is that those iconic images are the product of the artist’s imagination – not reality.
The New Testament does not contain one physical description of the Jesus of History.
This paper, therefore, examines all available relevant physical, textual and cultural archaeology with the following objectives:
- In order to determine historical fact from
literary fiction. - To examine the extent to which those
historical facts build a reliable profile of
the Jesus of History. - To analyse that profile of the Jesus
of History within the context of Hebrew
culture in the 1st century Southern Levant. - To Examine the archaeology of the Jesus
Family Tomb in the context of that
historical and cultural profile.
© 2021 M. A. Sebastian. All rights reserved.
What did the Jesus of History Really Say: The use of forensic textual analysis based on philosophical coherence
ABSTRACT
It is a fact that the words attributed to the Christ character of the New Testament are the creation of at least five individuals. It is evident that each of the four gospel writers felt free to create their own narrative speech for their own version of the Christ character in order to further the cultic needs of the evolving Christian Church.
In reality, over the space of two thousand years, those words have been amended and expanded by many copyist and editors. To further complicate this already confusing situation, it is also evident that a core of uniquely Hebrew sayings were copied by the gospel writers, almost word for word, into their texts in order to bring their stories to life.
This paper seeks to provide anyone, with an interest in historical reality, a way to differentiate between the actual sayings of the Jesus of History and the biographical narratives of the Greco-Roman writers of the gospels.
By assuming that the Jesus of History was a real person and applying the comprehension skills already available to us, this paper demonstrates that it is possible to differentiate the words of one man, as an expression of one mind, whose words reflect the coherence and internal logic of that individual. It is proposed that by understanding the ‘matrix of reality’ of the Jesus of History it is possible to confidently identify those sayings spoken by him.
© 2020 M. A. Sebastian. All rights reserved.
The Nature of Evil According to the Jesus of History
ABSTRACT
The question, “What is the nature of evil”, is rarely asked in times of prosperity and political stability. It is no surprise therefore that since the end of the Second World War the academic elite have dismissed the concept of evil as a figment of the medieval imagination.
Until now, in 2020, as we see western civilisation implode in the face of the tyranny of the One-World Government questions about the nature of evil have suddenly taken on a new relevance.
Christianity looks at the phenomena of human suffering through a distinctly Greco-Roman philosophical paradigm and understands ‘Evil’ to be a state, not an action. While Rabbinical Judaism understands ‘Evil’ to be caused by human disobedience of the diktats made by their anthropomorphic god. Neither of these explanations have proved satisfying or very useful in the past.
Using forensic textual analysis, based on philosophical coherence, this paper examines those sayings that we can reliably attribute to the Jesus of History. We recreate the Nazarene doctrine of the Narrow Gate and show how it explains the nature of evil, how evil is created and how to avoid it.
Using practical examples from the modern world, we allow the Jesus of History to shed light on the phenomena of human suffering in the 21st century.
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The Codex Sinaiticus Project
Codex Sinaiticus is one of the most important books in the world. Handwritten well over 1600 years ago, the manuscript contains the Christian Bible in Greek, including the oldest complete copy of the New Testament.
Its heavily corrected text is of outstanding importance for the history of the Bible and the manuscript – the oldest substantial book to survive Antiquity – is of supreme importance for the history of the book.