I want to say that I respect Jesus greatly . Jesus was a great thinker , a rebel and a Anarchist . That's right Jesus was a ANARCHIST . He was crucified because he was danger to the stablish order of the Jews and Romans but the way that the gospels contradicts themselves is amazing .
This week, my church has been having a Spiritual Development Week as we do every first week of December. The topic was about Advent, but specifically how Jesus came to fulfill prophecies and how He was a radical.
The professor who is teaching the classes is awesome and has made us all think differently about Jesus and His mission on earth. Because of translation into English, many things have been "softened", but when examining the original texts we see that Jesus was most likely killed because he was a political threat to the Roman empire.
A couple things that the professor brought up:
Jesus was a threat to the priests because he healed people, which took away money from their pockets, as well as food offerings. People who had diseases were supposed to go to the priests at the Temple to be healed or cleansed. When Jesus healed people, there was no money coming in and the animal offerings (which the priests ate) were not brought in either. This was a severe impact on the priests coffers.
We know Jesus kept company with sinners, which was totally against the mindset of the Pharisees and Saducees, but he did not condemn people. He showed them love. In the instance of the Roman centurion who came to Jesus to have his "servant" healed of paralysis, the English text reads that the centurion had faith that Jesus could heal and Jesus healed the servant. In the Greek text, the word "doulos" (servant/slave) is not used, but the word "pais" is used which is translated as young boy/lover. The centurion, in typical fashion, had a young male lover, which Jesus healed without judgement. This was against the law of the Pharisees because they were opposed to homosexuality.
Also, in the Hebrew scriptures, when references to fishing were made, it was a veiled reference to overthrowing government. There are numerous times when a prophet makes a statement about rulers (including the Pharoah) being plucked up with a hook in their mouth like a fish. Compare that to Jesus' comments about making the Disciples "fishers of men/people", which in the original texts can be interpreted as a veiled reference to overthrow the Roman government.
Jesus' condemnation, cruicifixion and death were all orchestrated by God, but it makes more sense why there was so much uproar from the Roman citizens of Judea about Jesus' claim to be King of the Jews. So then, the Romans would have had much more reason to crucify Him because His mission was to radically alter the governmental and religious system.
Just a few things to make you think the next time you read your Bible.
:duh:
