Quote from dylan57:
Many prophecies foretold the coming of Jesus. He was born in bethlehem, betrayed for 30 pieces of silver, the romans threw lots for his garment, all foretold in the old testament and many more, too many to list.
Look again...
http://biblia.com/jesusbible/prophecies.htm#Here are just 50
These are rather forced. This is overreaching. This type of exegesis dates back to the earliest sects that grew out of my legacy, and encouraged even by my apostles. They revered the old scriptures and were yet divided as to what I actually taught.
Look at the 30 pieces of silver legend.
Look at the Bethlehem legend.
Look at the parting of garments legend.
Look at them all, all 300, all 500, all 1000 of them!
Read the books they come from. Look at the context. Look honestly.
See for yourself how willing the legend-makers were to force my story to match bits and pieces of literature with no obvious intent other than to describe personal misfortune, hopes, dreams, and fantasies of a warrior-Lord to take vengeance upon personal enemies and enemies of the state.
Brother, this is not what I am about.
Psalm 22, Isaiah 53...on and on...none of these apply to me. These are personal blogs describing the circumstances and feelings of the writers and their contemporaries.
There are two things going on here:
1. An attempt to gain credibility by matching my circumstances with bits and pieces of old scripture....which was revered as authoritative.
2. An attempt to lend credibility to old scripture by borrowing from my own authority.
To accomplish this, the legend-makers were willing to embellish the circumstances surrounding me, or look for scriptures that resembled my circumstances. This was and is a ridiculous waste of effort, and actually compromises the credibility of the legend-makers and the legend purveyors.
Only about 5% of the popular gospels have substance, accurate quotes, unbiased description of events. The rest is a feverish embellishment edited according to an agenda. It serves only to vindicate a mad reverence for a false god...the biblical idea of God.
True scholars would do well to understand the pressures in those days to conform to the Jewish way of thinking. Assumptions are made that because I came from among the Jews that this constitutes an endorsement of their book and their God. But I was accused of blasphemy, and wouldn't give the scribes an inch. I reminded people that the prophets were all
dead. What does a dead man know? If he was so close to the truth, why did he die?
Had I come from China, perhaps they would have linked me with the I-Ching. Indians might have linked me to their totems.
What's important is that I taught by parable and parody. If I seemed to die, it's because all men die...and all men are the prodigal Son of God. If I seemed to rise from the dead, it's because all will one day rise from the dead death of mental sleep...waking to who they are: The Son of God. What applies to me applies to all men, and visa versa. I am not special. I am the first to accomplish what all will accomplish. I opened the door of the collective mind by giving my mind to God. Through that door, all will follow. It's only a matter of time.
Think about it a minute. Why do I need obscure arcane literature to give me credibility? How can loose connections with dead men prove anything anyway?
I challenge anyone to look at the literature honestly, and see that there is no connection except in the minds of a few very scared and very confused Jewish disciples of a way of looking at the world that was way ahead of it's time. Just because they were near me does not mean they understood me, or were willing to follow me wholeheartedly.
Jesus
