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Word Gems
exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
The Missing Historical Jesus
return to main-page of the "Jesus" article
It is commonly held, by ecclesiastical faithful, that Jesus and his followers "turned the world upside down," utterly changed society, with miraculous works and compelling teaching.
In view of this purported iconoclasm, we should expect "pagan" writers to at least offer a mention here or there of this social mayhem, the end of their world. However, not a peep to be found. In all of the first century, not until 93 AD, the writings of Josephus, there is not so much as one written word about Jesus from extra-biblical sources.
The silence of the historical record will come as a shock to church-goers. But only because priests and ministers either are ignorant of such fact or they deem the "sheep" to be too easily ruffled by disturbing information.
In any case, the missing historical Jesus (along with the missing historical 12 apostles) is a fact well known to many scholars. This is not a new idea. I will not rehearse their findings here; you must do your own research. I will merely assert that the first reference to Jesus, in extra-biblical records, does not occur until very near the second century! - nearly 100 years after the purported birth of Jesus.
Confident claims to the contrary here, first century corroborations have been shown to be a massaging and re-writing of the records by a propagandist Church. These first-century claims of corroboration have been revealed as fraudulent by modern scholarship.
- There is as much historical evidence - or, as little, if you prefer - for the existence of other savior-gods, such as Osiris or Mithra or Dionysus, or gods like Hercules, as there is for Jesus - and those who would decry otherwise merely display a cultural prejudice.
Where does this leave us? Did Jesus really exist? If he did, there is no historical evidence for such assertion.
What do I think? I think there was a teacher named Jesus who once walked the earth. And I think he lives today. But any certitude in this area is supplied to us from one source -- thousands of afterlife testimonies offered via psychic-mediums who report of his existence in the next world.
But even if Jesus does not exist, this would have zero effect on our lives. Our "salvation" does not derive from any savior-god. Indeed, the whole notion of traditional "salvation" is but one more dark Nicene-Council effort to control us, to make us feel needy, requiring us to look to Big Religion for security.
We were made in the "image of God." We already have everything we need for a good future. No "salvation" is required. We merely need to open our eyes to what we've already been given, which will allow us to attain a happy eternal life.
Jesus, we are told from the afterlife testimonies (particularly see "A Course In Miracles"), is involved in bringing all of humankind to a better level of consciousness. But even if Jesus does not exist, there is a vast army of billions of spirit-persons laboring to help all of us toward maturity.
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