Project J (9 page)

“It was a common belief, and had been for a long time, that God would come to Earth, overthrow the oppressors and restore the Jews to their rightful place.
 
There were even some who believed that in this apocalyptic vision the Jewish people would rule the entire world.

“You should understand that this was the world Jesus was born into.
 
His people were under what they considered a harsh foreign rule; the times were rough and violent, with people often barely eking out an existence.
 
Add to that mix the fact that these were a highly religious people whose worldview did not separate reality from religion.
 
Theirs was a hard world dominated by a dissatisfaction that often spilled over into rebellion.

“Jesus, from the beginning of his life, was taught obedience to God in all things and that God would come to save his chosen people.
 
The Hebrew bible contained many passages that proclaim such, even describing the one who would come to initiate God’s Kingdom.

“Am I telling you that which you already know?” he paused to ask.

“Pretty much.
 
That is the picture I had gotten from my readings.”

“Well, then, back to your original question.

“From an early age, Jesus was different.
 
He was and is an intelligent person.
 
Very probably irritated his elders with questions that were hard to answer – you know the type.
 
He was also on the quiet, shy side.
 
To understand why, you have to understand the circumstances of his birth.

“First off, to correct a common misconception.
 
Jesus was not born of a virgin.
 
In the first place, the use of the term virgin in the Bible is incorrect.
 
The Greek word ‘
parthenos
’ means ‘maiden’ not virgin.
 
It was translated into ‘virgin’ by those who rewrote the gospels, to imply that Jesus had a miraculous birth rather than the old, common method.
 
Second, Jesus himself told me that his mother, Miriam in Aramaic, had told him that she was not a virgin and that Yosef (aka Joseph) was, indeed, his father.

“As a side note, he also told me that he had an older brother by his father with a prior wife, Leah, and three younger brothers and two sisters by Mary.
 
The oldest was James.
 
After Jesus came Jose.
 
The next younger brothers were Judas and Simon.
 
The sisters were Rachel and Tamar.
 
The last one, Simon, was born of Mary by another husband after the original Joseph died.
 
Jesus never got along with this stepfather.
 
In fact, he won’t even tell me his name.

“Oh, I see by your expression that I’m boring you with that which you already know.”

Tamara protested, “I had heard some of that, but it is interesting that you heard it from his own lips.
 
And this bit about a stepfather is new.”
 
She paused for a second.
 
“Say, the Bible doesn’t name his sisters, does it?”

“No.
 
But Jesus liked them and told me their names.
 
Tamar, by the way, is the root of your name.
 
It was also one of the daughters of King David.

“Well, Joseph and Mary were betrothed to marry after his first wife died.
 
He had a young son and wanted to remarry for that reason, if no other.
 
And, yes, he was considerably older than Mary.
 
However, as is often the case, they got a little carried away, and when the time for the marriage approached it was obvious that she was with child.
 
She was, as near as I can calculate, only fourteen or so at the time.
 
Not really that unusual in those days.
 
I never asked Jesus how old his father was.
 
Joseph died when Jesus was eleven.

“Well, then as now, having sex and getting pregnant out of wedlock was a no-no, but not all that bad or uncommon. They didn’t have the pill, after all.
 
The problem was that Joseph lived in
Bethlehem
while Mary lived in
Nazareth.
 
In the strict Jewish rules, unless she could bring witness to show that she was with the licit father, Joseph, it was assumed that she might have been impregnated by a man outside her community, possibly a prohibited person.
 
Rumor and gossip were no less in those days than they are today.
 
She was condemned for it.

“This made him, in Aramaic, a ‘
mamzer’
.
 
This is important to know, because it affected his standing in the village where he was born and raised.
 
It was sort of like having to wear a scarlet ‘A’ on your clothes.
 
The charge that he was illicitly conceived plagued him all his life, even outside his hometown and later in life.
 
See John 8:13.”
 
He quoted from memory: “
The Pharisees therefore said unto him, Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true.

“
Jesus answered and said unto them, Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I go; but ye cannot tell whence I come, and whither I go.

“Well, being a
mamzer
had a strong influence on him.
 
For one thing, it made him more tolerant of those who were considered sinners.
 
It is still a touchy subject with him, so don’t call him a bastard.”

The twinkle in his eye told her he was making a joke.
 
The very idea of calling Jesus a bastard to his face was ludicrous enough to be comical.

He took in a breath and said, “Sorry, I’m digressing.
 
You asked about who he was.
 
Jesus was born in a poor village, Bethlehem.
 
Oh, by the way, that was Bethlehem in Galilee, not the Bethlehem near Jerusalem.
 
Apparently Joseph took Mary there rather than have her give birth in her home town of Nazareth.
 
Maybe he thought it would help with the whole illegitimate thing.
 
After he was born, they took up residence in Nazareth.
 
Anyway, Jesus was raised as a good Jewish boy, taught the oral traditions of his people and apparently had quite an interest in religious matters from the start.
 
When he was thirteen, his family made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Tabernacles or
Sukkoth
festival.
 
This trip had a profound influence on the impressionable Jesus.
 
The Temple in Jerusalem was the largest religious building in the world.
 
It was not only huge, but also impressive almost beyond imagining.
 
The walls were...

“Oh, sorry, I was supposed to be giving the short version.
 
Well, Jesus was mightily impressed with the Temple, but more so with the feeling of being near God.
 
He was supposed to have gone into the holy of holies, the innermost part of the Temple, you know.
 
This became an important turning point in Jesus’ life.
 
In fact, he left his family and stayed in Jerusalem, wanting to be close to the feeling of God he had felt there.
 
Eventually, his family returned to Nazareth without him.”

“That was the beginning of the missing years,” Tamara said.
 
“That period of his life no one knows about.”

“Ah...!
 
But that’s not true.
 
I know what he was doing!”

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense.
 
Tell me!”

Chapter 15:
 
John the Baptist

“For a while, Jesus wandered the streets of Jerusalem, begging for food, sleeping in hidden places.
 
He would undoubtedly have gone into the Temple daily but for the fact he had no money and the Temple requires you take a ritual cleansing bath before going in, a service for which they charged.”

Dr. Myers was warming to his task, a common trait when a college professor finds an eager audience.

“At that time in history, there was an itinerant preacher wandering around in the wilderness, talking up the coming Kingdom of God and that all should prepare themselves for it by becoming pure.
 
His name was
Yochanan
the Immerser, but you know him as John the Baptist, and it was his contention that being baptized in ‘living’ water was the best way to renounce your sins and become pure so you will have a place in the coming Kingdom.
 
‘Living water,’ by the way, was that which came from springs or rivers, natural sources.
 
Of course, it may be argued that all water comes from natural sources, but many came to listen to him preach of the coming salvation of the Jewish people and to partake of a dip into the Jordan River.

“Jesus had heard of John.
 
What little he had heard of the Baptist’s views was much along the lines of what he thought himself.
 
He went out to seek this man and found him by the river, loudly preaching to all who would hear and dunking them in living water.
 
Well, to make a long story short, he approached John, they talked, and he became one of John’s followers.
 
Eventually he was baptized by John and it was like a revelation, an epiphany for the young boy.
 
He was filled with confidence that he had discovered what he was looking for: the Truth.

“John was your classic hermit preacher, wild looking, with a straggly beard and long hair matted into dreads.
 
He wore a camel-hair tunic and was surrounded by a small handful of disciples who had chosen to stay with him, learn from him, and help spread the word.

“Jesus stayed and became one of those disciples.
 
It was that or return to Nazareth and a stepfather he hated, a boring life tilling the fields and doing repair work, just as his father, Joseph, had.
 
He would eventually marry and become just another peasant.

“Now, you have to remember, this teenage boy had not been accepted by his own village because he was a
mamzer
and, as such, was ostracized by the elders in Nazareth.
 
Although Joseph openly claimed him as his son, Jesus did not accompany him to the gathering of elders called the synagogue.
 
His fellow villagers kept him from the gatherings, while his older brother, James, emerged as an authority in the congregation.
 
James could claim that he was descended from King David through his father, while Jesus’ claim to his birthright was always challenged.
 
This birthright, which Jesus felt was rightfully his also, gave James a special place in Israel.
 
James would go on to become an important leader in the church, especially after Jesus’ death.

“I’m sure,” Myers said, “that there was a good case of sibling rivalry there.
 
James got to do the things Jesus could not, yet wanted to.
 
But Jesus has never spoken of that to me.
 
Any reference he makes to his older half-brother is polite and respectful, but little more.
 
I think there has always been some resentment there.

“Well, anyway, Jesus found something that had been lacking in Nazareth: a place that accepted him as he was.
 
He stayed with John for years, about five, near as I can tell.
 
He learned the older man’s
Mishnah
.
 
A rabbi’s
Mishnah
was his repetition, the words and actions that conveyed his teachings.
 
Jesus learned this well from John.
 
John, in turn, gave Jesus something he needed, a sense of belonging to a family.

“Jesus came to accept John’s insistence on the relationship between repentance and release from sin, and it became a major part of his own ministry.
 
Release from sin might be best translated as ‘forgiveness’.
 
Jesus had a firm conviction that release from sin made every Israelite pure – and thus acceptable in God’s eyes.”

He paused for a moment and sighed.

“Sorry, I’m getting off on too many sidetracks.
 
Comes from being an old man, you know.
 
You cannot focus your thoughts as well any more.

“One day, eight armed guards of Herod Antipas came into the camp.
 
With drawn swords, they arrested John and took him away.
 
It seems that John had condemned Herod’s marriage to Herodias, his half-brother’s wife.
 
This was in violation of the basic understanding of purity, and was prohibited by the Torah.
 
Jesus thinks it was much more because John’s teachings ran counter to those of the Pharisees and the official priests in Jerusalem.
 
There was also the fact that Antipas might have feared that John would ferment rebellion, something that would be terrible for the people and their king, Herod Antipas himself.
 
The Romans were known for being strict with kings who could not keep their people in line.

“Whatever the real reason for John’s arrest, Jesus and the other disciples scattered in fear of their own lives.
 
A short time later, he heard of John’s beheading and experienced a period of fear, disorientation and pain.
 
The man who had become the focal point of his life was dead.
 
It left him aching and lonely.
 
But it also gave him a new sense of confidence and independence.
 
He was a disciple of a great man, a man who had tried to show the people the way to salvation in the coming apocalypse.

“He returned to Galilee and his family.
 
Surprisingly, he was welcomed by his family.
 
Part of that was because his stepfather, whom he still refuses to even name, had died.
 
And another hand could always be used in the fields or as a repairman, which was the trade his father had taught him.
 
There was also the fact that Galilee had heard of John and some of the respect for what some considered a prophet rubbed off on Jesus.
 
Anyway, he settled down in Nazareth, but not to the life he had known.
 
Here was someone who had done things not done by normal villagers.
 
Here was a man who had rubbed shoulders with a local folk hero, John, and now spoke much as that prophet had.
 
He began to tell others of his views.
 
In short, he became a teacher, a rabbi.

“He was twenty years old when this happened.
 
It was the actual beginning of his ministry.
 
Slowly, his notoriety grew and more people came to listen to him.
 
Not all agreed with him, especially the priests, but eventually the small towns around Nazareth were not enough and he switched his base of operations to Capernaum.

“Other changes came about.
 
He ceased the immersion in living water as a means of release from sin.
 
Instead, he emphasized the use of a meal as a festive celebration.
 
He spoke of
lakhma d’ateh
, the “bread that is to come.”
 
Bread and other foods came from the land and were pure in God’s eyes.
 
As was wine.
 
He used the meal as a means of spreading the word and as a means of purification.

“Again, I’m getting off the subject.
 
I apologize.

“Jesus taught, moved around, constantly spreading the word of the coming of the ‘Son of Man’ and the apocalypse, when God would cleanse the land of the impure and install Israel to its proper place.
 
He had troubles with the established priesthood in Jerusalem who felt him a menace.
 
You must always remember that their land was under the rule of Rome, and the Pharisees feared Roman intervention.
 
And the Pharisees just plain did not like anyone teaching against their rules.

“Do not get Jesus off on the subject of the Pharisees.
 
He hates the way they defiled the Temple – at least in his view.
 
One of the main bones of contention was the manner in which sacrifices were made in the Temple.
 
But I won’t get into that.
 
Suffice it to say that there was no love lost between him and the ruling priesthood.

“Now here is where I have to back up and explain something.”
 
He took a deep breath.
 
“Up to a certain point, Jesus had preached that the ‘Son of Man’ would come to inaugurate the Kingdom of God during the apocalypse.
 
He firmly believed that this apocalypse would happen very soon.
 
This was a common belief of many Jews at that time.
 
God would step in and set everything right.
 
And any day now.

“But...
 
He taught that this Son of Man was a divine one sent directly from God.
 
He always referred to him in the third person.
 
This man would be as an angel, holy and blessed with powers by God.

“At some point, his view changed.
 
I think he grew tired of waiting.
 
Or something like that.
 
Or maybe he had always been heading in that direction anyway, but at some point be began to think of himself as that appointed agent of God.
 
It was he who would do as God wished, bring in the Kingdom of God, to be the Messiah, the savior of the people.

“He began to really believe this.
 
You can see a hint of that inspired belief in his eyes when he talks of it.
 
But also a bitter sense that he had failed or was wrong to begin with.

“Regardless of what he thinks right now, at that time, and right up to his crucifixion, he believed that he was the Son of Man, God’s own chosen one.
 
That affected his thinking and actions from that point on.
 
He felt that it was upon his shoulders alone to help bring about the apocalypse.
 
He had prophecies of the old prophets to guide him.
 
He set out to fulfill them.

“Eventually, this led him to Jerusalem on that fateful Passover, and you know what happened then.

“I have tried to understand when this change in understanding of his nature happened and what, if anything, triggered it.
 
So far, I have been unsuccessful.
 
Perhaps it was always there, lurking in his subconscious.
 
Are not there enough examples throughout history of men who proclaimed themselves to be the Messiah?
 
Even in Jesus’ time and before, there were Messiahs.
 
Even today, there are men who claim to be Jesus returned or a part of God in some way.”

He sighed, and suddenly looked a lot older.

“I’m sure a psychiatrist would have a lot to say about this.
 
Perhaps someday one will examine Jesus.
 
Oh, that will be interesting!”

He shook his head.

“Sorry to be so long-winded.
 
The simple answer to your question is that the Jesus we have here, as far as I can tell, is simply a man.
 
There is nothing divine about him.
 
He cannot work miracles.
 
He cannot walk on water.
 
He is a man.
 
Just a man with a vision, and depressed that his vision never came true.”

It was Tamara’s turn to shake her head.
 
“But what about the claims of the gospels?
 
That he did perform these miracles?
 
Raise the dead?
 
That he is the Son of God?”

Myers leaned back in his chair.
 
“First,” he said, “you have to understand and accept that God does exist.
 
Of that there can be no doubt.
 
But Jesus, even if he thought he was fulfilling God’s will, was a man.
 
Those who wrote of him did so many years after the events.
 
And, for the most part, they were people who did not know Jesus, nor even know one of those who did.
 
The gospels describe what these unknown writers wanted Jesus to be.
 
And wanted to believe he did.