RE: For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus
March 3, 2013 at 7:24 am
(This post was last modified: March 3, 2013 at 7:48 am by EGross.)
Heres a fun fact that many may not be aware of.
There is a saying by Yochanan ben Zakkai who spoke during the messianic fever in Jerusalem (sometime between 30-69CE, which is when he had such authority there), where they were showing up every few months for a time, plus, apparently there were dozens of such insignificance that they are bundled into "them".
A Midrash from has him saying: "If you are planting a tree [In Israel, which is a mitzvah] and you hear [the horns blasting to announce that] the messiah has arrived...just keep planting your tree." (Pirkei d'Rabbi Natan 31b).
Meaning, it's just one more con man among many. If he's the real thing, he will be there when you are done doing something useful and good.
Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakki went on, by the way, to help his students escape with their lives just before the Temple destruction from Jerusalem and they founded a new center of leadership. And none of them, obviously, believed that the Messiah had ever come. Rabbi Eliezer would later be excommunicated for trying to create one in order to overthrow the Romans, and his student, Rabbi Akiva, will take up where his teacher left off and only after the death of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, will Rabbi Akiva crown Bar Kochba as the messiah, and create a new ferver in Israel.
None of these guys who formed a new government further north ever saw any messiah between 30-70 in Jerusalem. You would think that they would have noticed the horrors and miracles mentioned in Matthew, for example. There is a tradition of the Jews to read dirge-like poetry that extend all the way back to the second temple period. They are called "Kinot", and are read before "T'sha B'av" (a holiday comemorating a series of disasters). There is one where a mother has killed and roasted her own child (Josephus paraphrases it) and ate half of it since the rebels had destroyed all of the food in Jerusalem that was walled up tight.
If they Jews would write about such a horrific visual, you would think that they might have mentioned something about a massacre of all of the firstborn Jewish boys, as written in Matthew. Some cry out in such poetry in the hope of the resurrection of the dead at the end of days, but none of them mention the walking dead that is also mentioned in Matthew.
Rather, more dead was added as the Romans wiped out any trace of the rebels, or anyone who assciated with them, and Vespasian made sure that enyone from the House of David was also destroyed (he had this weird belief that he could be the Messiah for the Jews as well as Roman emperor and didn't want any competition).
It was a weird and hectic time.
Unless one is committed to a vast conspiracy, none of the Jews, nor the Roman leadership noticed any messiah and were weeping because one was not forthcoming (and franky, never did and, from a Jewish perspective, hopefully never will).
But then, that's what makes me an apikoris!
There is a saying by Yochanan ben Zakkai who spoke during the messianic fever in Jerusalem (sometime between 30-69CE, which is when he had such authority there), where they were showing up every few months for a time, plus, apparently there were dozens of such insignificance that they are bundled into "them".
A Midrash from has him saying: "If you are planting a tree [In Israel, which is a mitzvah] and you hear [the horns blasting to announce that] the messiah has arrived...just keep planting your tree." (Pirkei d'Rabbi Natan 31b).
Meaning, it's just one more con man among many. If he's the real thing, he will be there when you are done doing something useful and good.
Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakki went on, by the way, to help his students escape with their lives just before the Temple destruction from Jerusalem and they founded a new center of leadership. And none of them, obviously, believed that the Messiah had ever come. Rabbi Eliezer would later be excommunicated for trying to create one in order to overthrow the Romans, and his student, Rabbi Akiva, will take up where his teacher left off and only after the death of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, will Rabbi Akiva crown Bar Kochba as the messiah, and create a new ferver in Israel.
None of these guys who formed a new government further north ever saw any messiah between 30-70 in Jerusalem. You would think that they would have noticed the horrors and miracles mentioned in Matthew, for example. There is a tradition of the Jews to read dirge-like poetry that extend all the way back to the second temple period. They are called "Kinot", and are read before "T'sha B'av" (a holiday comemorating a series of disasters). There is one where a mother has killed and roasted her own child (Josephus paraphrases it) and ate half of it since the rebels had destroyed all of the food in Jerusalem that was walled up tight.
If they Jews would write about such a horrific visual, you would think that they might have mentioned something about a massacre of all of the firstborn Jewish boys, as written in Matthew. Some cry out in such poetry in the hope of the resurrection of the dead at the end of days, but none of them mention the walking dead that is also mentioned in Matthew.
Rather, more dead was added as the Romans wiped out any trace of the rebels, or anyone who assciated with them, and Vespasian made sure that enyone from the House of David was also destroyed (he had this weird belief that he could be the Messiah for the Jews as well as Roman emperor and didn't want any competition).
It was a weird and hectic time.
Unless one is committed to a vast conspiracy, none of the Jews, nor the Roman leadership noticed any messiah and were weeping because one was not forthcoming (and franky, never did and, from a Jewish perspective, hopefully never will).
But then, that's what makes me an apikoris!
“I've done everything the Bible says — even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff!"— Ned Flanders
