what religion was jesus?

My Dear OlderWaterBrother,
But isn't that what we all do?

 

No, not everybody.

 

Completely true once you find the connection with the creator. It will flow freely from you in a state of trance. Quite amazing I dont understand how but I have felt it and I am in no sense religious. Spiritual however I am very!

 

You must see religion as a rocket that gets you into orbit then falls away.

It's up to you to stay "up there".

Trance? More like bi-focals. You can shift back and forth without much effort.




x

 

Then I admire you WaterBrother. I myself admit my hypocracy for I believe I am flawed rather then believe the Truth, that God created me in His image and therefore I am perfect. Can't seem to wrap my head around that one!

 

Yes, I considered that, but absence of evidence is still not evidence. It is undoubtably true that the Christian faction that triumphed in the struggle among competing views of Jesus, suppressed rival views, including those of the Gnostics. We now have the gospels of Thomas, Philip, Mary, and even Judas. Maybe some more will turn up to substantiate your claim, in which case I might reconsider my objection.

Do you have a citation for that quote? Is it canonical, or from a Gnostic scripture? I've seen it a lot, on New Age websites, always minus a citation.

 

It sounds a little like John 14:12.

 

Oh, I'm nothing to admire but I do believe the the bible only makes complete sense when taken as a whole and not just bits and pieces.

 

I agree with you WaterBrother, the Bible should be taken as a whole, and if it is ever completed, we will all know how to enter the Kingdom. In Truth, winning the Kingdom is as simple as living as Jesus did. If only the whole Truth of that could be accepted.
And thank you very much! I am very grateful for you having cited my quote. "It sounds [a little?] like John 14:12. grudgingly given but gratefully received! Thanks!

 

I feel the Bible is completed enough for us to know how to enter the Kingdom; because, for one thing, it teaches us how Jesus lived when on earth so we can follow his example.

Actually not grudgingly given. The reason I said that it sounds “a little” like John 14:12 is that the quote you gave is not word for word John 14:12 and did not want to put words in your mouth if that was not the scripture you were thinking of.

 

A little, but not quite. My Bible translates John 14:2 as: "whoever believes in me will do what I do--yes he will do even greater things, because I am going to the Father."

 

Jesus was a Jew.
Idiot question. =/

 

A jew does not have to be a member of the jewish religion. Idiot answer?

 

Wow, is this debate still going on? It's impossible to resolve, you know. Even as early as the First Century, Christians debated the issue as intensely as they debated the nature of Jesus. One view is that he was the Jewish Messiah, but not necessarily God and/or the Son of God, except possilby in an adoptive sense. Christians holding this view were Jews by heritage, were called Ebionites and Nazerens, and believed that Christians had to keep the Jewish laws, including all the dietary stuff and circumcision. At the other extreme were Greco-Roman Gentile converts to Christianity, like Marcion and the Gnostics, who emphatically rejected Judaism, believed that Yahweh was a lesser and even evil God, and that Jesus was sent to set things straight. In the middle was Paul, whose mission was to bring Christianity to the Gentiles. He caused a fuss with Christians in Jerusalem (Nasoreans and Ebionites), whom he referred to as the "circumcision faction", by admitting uncircumcised converts and abandoning the dietary laws. His Jesus seems to be the Son of Yaweh, but there was a new emphasis on Jesus as the Paschal lamb, sent as a sacrifice for original sin--very Jewish concepts. Of the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew takes pains to emphasize Jesus' connection with Jewish tradition, as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy and observer of the Law of Moses (Mathew 5-7). There Mathew’s Jesus affirms the continuing validity of the Jewish law for the followers of Jesus:“Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them." The other Gospels reflect less of this emphasis, and Luke and John show definite Greek influences. Jesus' teachings are at odds with the temple priests of the Sadduccees and the Shamai school of Pharisees, but were similar in some respects to the Hillel school of Pharisees, and some scholars even claim influences from another Jewish sect, the Essenes, whom Jesus never attacks. He is in the tradition of the Prophets who attacked the Establishment Jews of the Temple. His brother James, who became the leader of the Jerusalem Christians was a naserite, dedicated to Jewish traditions of purity, which he carried out conspicuously as a kind of guerrilla theater in protest against the Roman collaborators in the temple priesthood.

 

Jesus was actually a Gnostic, all of the thoughts and beliefs he taught were almost completly unique at the time to the early Gnostic religion. Gnostics were originally a sect of jews who believed that a divine being would manifest himself in human form to lead people to eternal enlightenment. They predate the Christian religion by almost 1000 years, if not more.

 

It ain't necessarily so. See my post supra. And the notion that the Gnostics predate the Christian religion is debatable, depending on one's definition of Gnosticism. Gnosticism does reflect Babylonian and Chaldean influences that were detectable after the Babylonian captivity of the Jews in the 6th century BCE, and increased during the Hellenistic and Roman occupations. Arguably, the Essenes were Jewish Gnostics or a related orientation, possibly reflecting Pythagorian influence.

 

Ok let me elaborate a bit. Jesus was an Essene. The Essenes were jewish outcasts who beleived the same as the modern Gnostics.

"The Nazarean - they were Jews by nationality - originally from Gileaditis, Bashanitis and the Transjordon... They acknowledged Moses and believed that he had received laws - not this law, however, but some other. And so, they were Jews who kept all the Jewish observances, but they would not offer sacrifice or eat meat. They considered it unlawful to eat meat or make sacrifices with it. They claim that these Books are fictions, and that none of these customs were instituted by the fathers. This was the difference between the Nazarean and the others...
(Panarion 1:18)
After this [Nazarean] sect in turn comes another closely connected with them, called the Ossaeanes. These are Jews like the former ... originally came from Nabataea, Ituraea, Moabitis and Arielis, the lands beyond the basin of what sacred scripture called the Salt Sea... Though it is different from the other six of these seven sects, it causes schism only by forbidding the books of Moses like the Nazarean.
(Panarion 1:19)
If it is correct to identify the community at Qumran with the Essenes (and that the community at Qumran are the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls), then according to the Dead Sea Scrolls the Essenes' community school was called "Yahad" (meaning "unity") in order to differentiate themselves from the rest of the Jews who are repeatedly labeled "The Breakers of the Covenant"."
Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essenes

Note the tie in?

 

Very impressive! But I'd take issue with the bald assertion that "Jesus was an Essene". I don't think that's clear at all. The Essenes had many beliefs which were different from Jesus, especially the exclusivity and esoteric knowledge shared by an elite. As I said above, there were strong similarities between the Essenes and the Greek Pythagorians, who showed Babylonian-Chaldean influence. To call them "Gnostics" is importing a term from a later period to a belief system which has some similarities to Gnosticism. You mention Nazareans and Ossaenes, who show definite Essene influence. The Ebionite Christians, who were ultra-Jewish observers of the law, retained this vegetarianism. John the Baptist seems to have been a Nazarean, and Jesus at first may have been part of his group (some scholars believe that references to him as a Nazarene were not referring to the town of Nazareth), but soon established a very different kind of ministry with a differernt mission--outreach to the rural peasants, healing the sick, and preaching the gospel of love. The Gnostics had a much different, complex, concept of God and Christ, similar to that of the Essenes. The Mandaens of southern Iraq and Iran reflect Gnosticism in its purest surviving form. Their priestly elite are called Nazoreans, and they revere John the Baptist, but not Jesus, whom they believe went astray. Of course there were very influential Christian Gnostics in the second century, and they claimed that your interpretation of Jesus is absolutely the correct one--and had scriptures to prove it!

 

I understand that calling him Gnostic is incorrect, which is why I quickly delved into my mind and recalled the essenes. Due to the fact that many nazerenes were taken by essene ideas, and the fact that Mary and Joseph were both Nazerene in heritage, it is only a simple act of thought to come to the conclusion that Jesus himself was essene. My first post about Jesus being Gnostic was incorrect I will not disagree with you there. The reasons the Nazerenes disowned Jesus was because he himself claimed to be this divine being, thus blaspheming against their belief. It is only one small step from believing in such a thing and then saying you are that thing.

Or in contrast it is possible that Jesus was simply remade by the gospel writers to fit their beleifs. Hmm

 

It's hard to even know if Jesus actually existed, let alone what religion he was. If we can agree that the New Testament and it's apocryphal books are not proof, then we are left with a few historians who mention him. Josephus is one of them, but there is quite a debate in the historical community about the validity of Josephus' claims. There to this day remains no contemporary records of Pontius Pilate having a man named Jesus crucified. Any evidence at all lies in a very select few writings, all of which (except presumably the new testament, but as said we cannot ascertain its validity, in large part because of its inconsistencies and fantastic claims) are hearsay.

Not saying Jesus definitively did not exist, but the fact that this is even in question by today's historians and archaelogists makes figuring his religious beliefs out all the more difficult.