Jesus and After | From Reades #2

MAKING IT KNOWN

Reader: There is a real disconnect between what Jesus taught about during his life and wheat Paul and the other Apostles taught after his death. I think the shock of his death and resurrection wiped out of their minds the message/gospel that Jesus taught, and replaced in with the message of his glorification and resurrection. In short, they started a message/gospel/religion ABOUT the risen Christ and forgot all about the gospel that Jesus taught, which was the gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven. It is quite possible that the Apostles never really understood these teachings. So this will be a lot of fun, unpacking the mysteries of these teachings and presenting them for all to see. I believe this will usher in the next phase of Christianity, shorn of its unappealing dogmas.

I believe you are playing a role in this shift with the work you are doing. Thank you. May God bless.

Author: What I see in the record is a little more shocking. Jesus was not a god, he was human, and being human, he made mistakes. He though that he could realize the Promise to David, restore the Kingdom of David, and get rid of the Romans. The Romans killed Jesus, and won that argument.

Then his followers, who were also human, and who also made mistakes, substituted the idea that Jesus was a god, and would return and judge the world at the Last Day, as God was expected to. They sought to reinterpret the Scriptures so that they predicted the Return of Jesus, not the Return of David. They tried to take over Judaism. The Rabbis expelled the Jesus followers, and won that argument.

Maybe both sides were right, but about what? My sense is that they were right about the ethical teachings of parts of the Hebrew Scriptures (there is more to that tradition than the one passage in Micah that I quoted in the book). It was the appeal of that tradition within Judaism that attracted the so-called God Fearers, the interested Gentiles, to sit in on synagogue meetings before Jesus, and that also attracted outsiders to the Jesus sect after Jesus.

I like to think that the book may help to point out this strand within both early Judaism and early Christianity, and encourage those who find it appealing, despite the "dogmas" present on both sides. Thank you for your encouraging word, and your blessing. May it count toward realizing a better Kingdom of This World. One where the justice and mercy which are there in all of us have a little more scope than they always do at present.

The Author

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