Paula, my mention of Moses just came from my feeling that most ideas come from earlier humans and not from the air, from 'God' is all.
Seems to me the essay is as moot as so many statements about religious origins and research so one could fairly say it's all moot.
Since many scholars even question the reality of the individuals Moses and Jesus then the essay is as legit as much else.
Anyway, you have me revisiting, Ian Wilson's 'Jesus The Evidence' .. also i'd forgotten for instance that Moses, assuming he existed, was 2nd generation Egyptian, that he was at one time the 'brother' of a future Pharoah, and that he fled Egypt after murdering an Egyptian. .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses ..
Jesus was a rabbi on the Hillel side .. Thanks, Paula, for the reminder of Mr. Hillel the Elder ..
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
The birth story about Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew explains his name. Yehoshua = "God will save." It's often written Joshua, one of the most common Jewish names of his time. Jesus is a Greek form of the name Joshua. He spoke Aramaic, his family language, and Greek, for talking with the Romans.
In Judaism there were two dominant traditions. The HOUSE OF SHAMMAI was the more rigid and conservative that emphasized adherence to the letter of religious law. The key ethical principle seems to be adherence to it's very detailed, highly legalistic rules. The HOUSE OF HILLEL, by contrast, followed the great Jewish teacher Hillel and was the more liberal side that emphasizes openheartedness. We always know more than we can say, more than we can write down, it maintained.
At an early age Jesus became a Rabbi of the House of Hillel. He saw himself as a reformer, trying to work within his own tradition to improve it. There is no evidence that he intentionally set out to found a new religion. He doesn't seem to think he was doing anything new or unexpected. He seems to have picked up a number of Old Testament prophecies and figured, "this must mean me," and this apparently included saving his people through suffering and death. There are all kinds of things in Matthew like, "And Jesus did that because it is written." Jesus was especially given to quoting the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. The term "Rabbi" literally means "my master", a term which turns up frequently in the gospels. The word usually translated as "master" or "teacher in the new testament is in fact written as "Rabbi" in the Greek texts from which the English has been translated.
Where in the Bible Jesus attacks Jews for being legalistic and lacking in compassion, he is siding with the House of Hillel and attacking the House of Shammai. At this point we have an internal philosophical debate within Judaism, not Jesus as an outsider. Jesus said, "the letter kills but the spirit gives life." This was the Hillel side of the debate--for compassion. (If Jerusalem had not been destroyed, we might have found Jesus quoted along with other Rabbis. There are many close parallels to Jesus' teachings in Jewish writings, such as the Mishnah, The "Sayings of the Fathers," which dates from the 2nd or 3rd century B.C. Many of Jesus' teachings are almost identical to those found there. Lots of little bits and pieces of the Mishnah still exist in the Catholic blessing of the Eucharist.") After several centuries it came to be generally agreed within Judaism that the House of Hillel was right.
In fact, Jesus did not teach a new set of ethics. His ethics were no different from those of Hillel. Christianity focuses not on what he taught but on who he was. For example, the story is told that someone said to Hillel, "Teach me the whole of the gospel while standing on one foot." Accepting the challenge, Hillel stood on one foot and said, "Love the Lord with your whole hear, mind, and spirit, and your neighbor as yourself;all else is commentary." The central belief wasn't about heaven and hell, but about spiritual resurrection.
Jesus was, however, a reformer in emphasizing the right of women to sit with the men and learn with the men, and in emphasizing the compassionate aspect of the ethics of Hillel even more than Hillel himself did. His emphasis was on openheartedness and loving kindness. The greatest tragedy was in being spiritually dead. Where the House of Shammai said: "You get what you deserve," Jusus said, "What we get is a gift, because God is a loving parent." The Lord gives you things as a gift, said Jesus. God is unconditional love, and he's forever giving away the store to people who haven't earned it.
There was also a very heavy patriarchial, anti-woman bias in traditional Judaism. Jesus, by contrast, was notorious for conversing openly with women. He was very pro-woman in a culture that was very anti-woman. He was a leading advocate for women's liberation in his time. The Gnostics insist that Mary Magdalene was his wife and that much of their understanding was transmitted through her. The Gospels do not say at any point that Jesus was not married, and Rabbinic law awas very clear on the point that you could not be a rabbi if you were not married. When she is weeping at his tomb on Easter morning, she spoke words that mean, "My Lord and Master; my husband." The evidence seems pretty clear that Mary Magdalene was his wife. Mary Me Gadallah in Hebrew means "Mary who was great." She was also nicknamed "Mary the magnificent."
It is conceivable that if Jesus had not been killed, he would have discouraged attempts to set up a new religion in his name and would instead have been viewed as a Jewish teacher even greater than Hillel.
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