For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus

[EGross]

As an aside, there is, according to the Jerusalem Talmud, a religious leader named יודה which is probably a corruption form of יהודע (Judah/Yehudah), who was the grandson of R'Yehudah haNasi (aka "Rebbi"). He was strong in spirit.

Yes, the force was strong in Yoda.

He lived in the 3rd century in Israel (first amoraic period) and tried to rally his students against the dark force, that was Christianity.

That's right, there is written evidence that Yoda and his rebel fighters existed almost 2000 years ago!

And while the force was strong within them, we know that the followers of the dark force were many. And while he is listed 622 times in the Jerusalem Talmud, his end is not known. But there are those who believe that he and his rebels escaped to a galaxy far, far, away (since it happened long ago).

After all, who could make up such a story?

---

Now - lets see - how did xtianity get started without a real "jesus"
That is supposed to mean something - there had to be a jesus because xtianity mentions him.

No there doesn't have to be Jesus. Here is a list of new religious movements, most of which were founded in the 20th century. Due to their being recent it's possible to know who founded them and when. So, somebody must have founded Christianity. The point of this topic is to suggest how Christianity got started if there wasn't a real man who preached something which got turned into a religion.

After WWII, Rabbi Birnbaum wrote the Siddur HaShalem prayerbook. What made it unique is that he removed most of the messianic references and was quite popular. (Not too many people use it these days). He said that he did so because in jewish history, when there is a great disaster, the Jews think that it is the "birthpangs of the moshiach" and some fraud always comes forth and misleads people. Shabbatei Tzvi immediately comes to mind, and of course Bar Kochba, that when things go bad, the people look for a savior.

If you look at the period when Paul was supposed to have lived, the Jews were in a walled city, the Romans had them locked down and would destroy the Temple that had been taken over by the Sadducees. The primary religious party had been infiltrated by the Zealots and Biryonim (Think of the Tea Party taking over the Republicans, but they are allowwed to kill whoever disagrees with them. Zealots were slashers and Biryonim were burners). While in lock down, the psychos burnt all of the food to force them to fight. And any religious leader who spoke against it was killed (the students of Hillel were massacred and the students of Shammai took over).

There were no religious leaders to turn to. There was no functioning Temple service that was considered valid, the Romans were crushing them through a lockdown (there was one rebellion before the destruction that failed as well), and if God wasn't answering, then these must be the days of the Messiah!

You end up with a series of leaders with a messianic vision just before the fall of the Temple. Shimon ben Giora (69CE), Yehonatan ben Levi (68CE), Eleazer ben Shimon (66CE), Menachem ben Yehuda (70CE), and probably a lot more. And after the destruction you had leaders, such as Joshua ben Levi who was a big advocate of messianism and gained followers.

And all of them had a message and believed that they could lead the people to redemption.

Some people forget how messianic that time was, especially after the destruction of the Temple. If that was not a sign of the birthpangs of the Moshiach, what could be?!

There were no praybooks then. There was no formal prayer. And without a Temple, most Jews felt spirtually lost and were willing to grab onto anything. No sacrifices. Yom Kippur was but a shadow of itself.

Here is one possibility. In the middle of this, a charismatic preacher comes to town and say "Hey, folks. Why so glum? Don't you know that these were the birthpangs of the Messiah?! And he already was here, but he will return any day now. What? You missed him? How could you have missed him? Didn't you see the Temple curtain rip in half when he died? No? Come closer one and all, and let me tell you his story..."

I am not saying Paul did exactly that. I am saying it only would take someone with a bit of ambition to take advantage of the feelings of that day, and to bring a messiah that they could buy. And if the Jews would not come in droves, or felt really weird about some of the miracles, well, the other downtrodden are just waiting.

What I am suggesting is that when there is a disaster or a series of disasters, some people become very vulnerable to con artists. And that there were a number of messiahs that you get to pick from during that period, or messiah wannabes, and maybe make a character that reflects the hopes of that time.

There didn't need to be a real Jesus to start a religion, just a bunch of real suckers.

As I said, Rabbi Birnbaum knew that, which is why he worked on removing any reference of the Messiah from his prayerbook.

Suckers!