JESUS - THE PACIFIST ZEALOT Part 5

JESUS AN EXILE WITH A MISSION Part 5.

Driven by personal or family aspirations ?

A series by Michael Mifsud

The aim of the Jewish governing body in the days of Jesus was to use the power of Rome as a bridge to the outside world and carry their influence surreptitiously with grace and favour support from those they worked with . Jewish people have always done this throughout history for whatever legitimate reason. Even in the days of the Caliphate of Cordoba and Emirates of Granada, they worked to establish their rule and influence with the usual catastrophic results that have haunted the "race" throughout history. The Jewish people see the world through their own historical perspective and have always refused to accept the fact that they are only one of the many tribes that made up ancient Israel. The world at large however, Christian and Muslim in the main, see it through their attachment to the ancient tribes with the exclusion of Judea. The intense involvement in banking which involves interest rates was abhorred by most religious factions and it is this particular inclination that has mistakingly earned the ordinary Jewish people a great deal of unfair apelativos. The Jewish claim to Israel, however, is patently false and its only genuine cultural attachment is Jerusalem which was never the capital of Israel but very much a conquest of the Ju deans over the Jebbusites as I have mentioned previously. Any attempt to change the order of these meaningful biblical chain of events, is (as is already happening) a long slide to self destruction. The more´s the pity, because the contribution to the wealth of the area is of great importance to the Palestinians and Islam as a whole. The conundrum is that both sides of this senseless, unequal tussle, enjoy the same genetic bloodline - as scientists have recently discovered. They are of the same genre. If there is going to be a Judea, then there has to be a cosmopolitan Palestinian Israel with every major religion respected within an area that for most brings religious fervour to the heart. That is the only way that Israeli Jesus, the Issa of the muslim world, would have wanted it and he made it more than blatantly clear. All faiths based on love possess admirable qualities that enable them to endure the vicissitudes of time, forever destined to influence and fascinate with their ceremonies and cultural expressions that speak of truth and compassion. Any deviation from these virtues produce a side of the coin that deny it´s place in the pantheon of human inspiration and right to leadership. They fall under their own misguided weight.

It is not within the parameters of these investigations into the reality of the person of Jesus, to take the matter of Jewish claims very far, but in view of the sensitive nature of the much persecuted Jewish people, perhaps it is not untimely to underline that all pogroms and mutilations of the ordinary members of the tribe are based on false assumptions. Whereas it is not surprising that the base of the religious pride feeds a deep aspiration to outshine as a people through instilled discipline in family education, the average Jew is happy to go along with life in any society and accept its tenets whilst being allowed to practice his own. The ruling and religious bigots however, as with other sectarian organisations, utilize their own narrow ideologies with the sort of aspirations that create a false sense of achievement, as is the case with the so called takeover of a Holy Land that was never their´s exclusively. In fact they are repeating history in so far as they were not officially the leading force in the Jerusalem that they shared with the Jebussite inhabitants and proto Phoenicians. It also echoes the takeover of Canaan whose inhabitants tolerated but allowed their occupation, probably because of their superior skills. Their leader we are told, terrified David. The claim to Jerusalem therefore as being the very centre of their prime historical heritage, is also patently incorrect since the Judeans were Hammites and any claim to Royalty in the tribe comes from their ancient Sabean origins. The Yemen, Mecca, Egypt and Ethiopia are probably of greater religious affinity than Jerusalem whose Temple never had the Ark of the Covenant and may have also, according to scholars, been shared with the indigenous population in its first occupation. This may lend truth to the statement often made, that the only tablet of the law every found was the one at the temple of Baalbeck and contained the Laws of Hammurabi (similar to the ones attributed to Moses). The tablets of Moses were never found and neither is there a record of a copy having been made in case of loss. The remains of the last Temple in Jerusalem however is what is left of what was built as a sop to the crowds by a very anti Jewish, pagan of the likes of the Herods. Moses, if he ever existed, probably wandered with his great multitude (born and bred in Egypt) throughout the Arabian Peninsular and there is every reason to suspect that the Canaan of the Bible is nowhere near Palestine of today. It is also very much an academic suspicion that the forty years of these travels in the wild, led them to the straits of Hormuz and eventual entry into what is now Iran. The Jewish people, especially those classified as Serphadi, are in fact very close in cultural identity to the Andalucian gypsies whose very name echoes the Pharaonic lands. The Ashkenazi are a different kettle of fish and whereas, they are thought to derive from the Caucasian Kazzars whose origins go through early Christian influence, it is possible that in fact it also refers to Akhenaton, the Pharaoh many scholars now associate with the figure and religious teachings of Moses. Proving just who is of the House of Judah or not is sometimes better seen through the family names that identify the tribe. The post Christian texts, make it even more difficult to identify what is meant by a Jew and a member of the tribes of Jacob "Ben Iacoub" which is what non Judeans of the other tribes, modern scholars insist, differentiates Israelis from Judeans i.e. members of the lost tribes and not of the tribe of Judah.

Jesus cannot be identified culturally with Judea or the Jews.

Jesus as one would expect of an Israeli teacher, never mentions Judean history or figures like Solomon or Moses. He always refers to the Israeli patriarchs, like Elias and Elijah which proves the point. The only mention he ever made of David, was scathing, when he was addressed as the son of David by the Judean woman. He did not like it at all and as mentioned earlier, embarrassed the woman against the pleas of his own disciples. Whoever therefore speaks of Jesus as the Judean Messiah has not done his or her sums properly and cannot see the forest for the trees. Perhaps from this angle of vision, as a Syrian/Asian heir of leaders of the ruling tribes of Israel, Jesus begins to emerge with all his eccentricities, as a very correct and unperturbed pacifistic, freedom fighter, intent on achieving his goals in a very calculated and psychological way. This is the way any Sufi or Asian guru would go about spreading dissent and pointing the way. Perhaps Jesus´s father instilled the sense of futility of the sword as a means of conquest and perhaps then we can understand what he meant when he tried to make it clear that the destruction and rebuilding of the Temple was a thing of the mind and heart and not a physical concept. It must be remembered that the stones and mortar were Herodian and possibly Roman and anyone attempting to damage them was an instant sacrifice. It was after all one of the ways the priesthood hoped to enlist the aid of Rome to remove a popular teacher, without alerting their own tribal members. Jesus wanted his people, (who now covered most of the ancient world), to stand up and be noticed - to mix with their brother revolutionaries and follow the lead to the nation of nations that Alexander had carved out before him, in the name of Israel. Alexander, I must repeat was a Royal Messianic name and in many ways he did what any warrior Messiah would have done. The name actually means liberator anointed, according to the most prominent of the etymologists of the 19th. Century. In that Messianic context, Jesus did succeed, but it seems that the inner core of spiritual values, he preached with great fervour, were not to survive. Alexander is always depicted with a chain around his neck from which hangs a heart. This symbol of love was also the symbol of all ancient love tribes, including the Phoenicians and Etruscans. It was also analogous with the Rose, which represented the heart and the mind – love and knowledge. The sad thing for those who share the vision of the birth of a religion of love associated with Jesus, is the realisation that the turn of historical events imply that it became a shell from which power devoid of that essential spark of love, emerged. It became a contradiction in terms, as periods of the Byzantine and Catholic history so dramatically illustrate. The Kingdom that Jesus alluded to therefore was one that constantly came off its tracks and needed one of his true followers and interpreters to bring it back on course all the time. I would not be surprised if that is not what is meant by the perilous seat in the Grail legends, for whomever dared to face the forces of organised politicized religion in the name of Jesus, faced their own executioners, if they lacked the conviction and strength that Jesus demonstrated. Taking on the role of Messiah through bloodline was not enough – the divine nature and heart had to form a binding part for an incarnation to herald a new leaderhship and age. Lancelot, for example, failed the test.

People watching Jesus mix with and address the crowd would have in turn attracted his individual scrutiny immediately. He would not have missed those lurking in the shadows and if they did not belong or appear to be there for the wrong reasons, he would keep them in sight and address them on a second plane that only they would have understood. Jesus could sweep through the crowd with eyes of an objective intensity that earned him the fascination of those who came close to him. These eyes could alight on anything that struck him as different or meaningful in the context of what he was doing and provoke an instant response. It was these blind, "wasters" that he was referring to in the parable of the talents.Those whose pride did not allow them to learn or open their minds to higher things, despite having the ability to do so. For Jesus, there was a time for play, for laughter and deep concern for the sick and grief stricken, but whilst they could get out of their sorrows on their own, he would only look on. He would admonish as a father or perhaps strengthen their way with encouragement, but essentially he demanded faith in the future through determined, unfaltering adherence to the teachingsthat were not always very clear. Doubting Thomas is a case in points. Jesus did not tolerate weaklings, especially when he felt that what others needed of them was strength and support - not handfuls of crumbling straws. A very preliminary study of some of his better known parables and supposed sayings brings this out very clearly. This cold manner of address has earned Jesus a bad image,only slightly diluted by his "known" actions in defence of the victims of subjective injustice. The combination of silent anger and directed comments went side by side with his often frivolous attempts to humour the crowds with the miracles or puzzling effects he achieved with his so called "magic". Whether we can take these miraculous happenings, like walking on water, water to wine, feeding of the multitudes etc. as any more than careful additions by future scribes intent on proving his divinity, is irrelevant, but they do demand a logical interpretation with respect to what really happened. Jesus was clever enough to know when to apply these techniques and when to excuse the taunt of the temple spies who demanded them.

His bearing was probably what Josephus implies

Jesus attracted from afar. His bearing as Josephus appears to imply in his "Jewish Wars" (and assuming it is Jesus he is referring to) was striking. He made the arrogant Pharisees envious and they could ill disguise their ruffled pride. They could not help goading him despite alienating the crowd who in the main were aware of what they were up to. Jesus did not lose the opportunity to fire right back. He knew how much weight his personality carried and how much better off he was to teach the crowds and bring them back to the ancient dream of a new Canaan. He sounds and probably was, someone who had spent most of his life in very sophisticated company (and major cities) on the one hand and among cheerful, chanting and generous poor in the most squalid of mountain villages. He appears to be new to this close contact with Judeans. The long absence is implicit and underlined by the fact that John his first cousin – the man who played with him when only an infant, did not recognize him. Yet, they played together as the Mediaeval artists like Leonardo and Michelangelo tell us in their disturbing paintings. They were almost born together and were of the same age –yet John does not know who he is. What we, do not know, is whether John ever found out or whether he was killed because of this crucial meeting, rather than as a result of the bizarre bible story of his comments with respect to the Herod family. If John - a respected Holy Man who did not represent a political danger to the establishment, was seen or even heard to say what he apparently said, "Are you the Messiah to come ?" in front of any of the temple spies, it is not surprising that Jesus fled with apprehension and great sorrow knowing what he may have caused. A politicized Messiah of the stature of Jesus, straight from the arms of a revered hermit pastor much loved in those days, would have been a totally different story and the loud demands for his life for having as much as assumed the mantle of a leader or Son of God, are probably the very origins of the Passion. The scale and ferocity of the events contain all the necessary drama, public participation, ceremonial and cruelty that only a bitter, cynical and political Priesthood could have conjured up and yet the description of the whole process is that of a much guarded "Mithraic" mystery including all the regalia and acts of punishment. The temple priests may well have been members of these "cults" to please and perhaps spy on the Romans, but perhaps we may never know.

Jesus had awoken the temple authorities with a very strange sense of impending change and public leadership – a foreboding that told them that the Northern Messiah, much predicted by the Hasmodean Essene, may have arrived. To Judeans that was the end of their era and the fear "that Israel would slip through the legs of Judea" to assume its lost authority, as prophecied, was enough to set the path for any form of twisted evidence to condemn and have him removed from the scene. The storming of the temple and the direct involvement in the castigation of the bankers from the temple precincts, was all they needed to involve Rome in the blood of this innocent man. A man who simply wished to liberate the downtrodden and abused and give them a share in their own destiny.

Ambitions of a few – damnation of the rest.

In the main, most conspiracy theories involving hidden hands, often Jewish, usually refer to influential members of their international community but even if true, have little to do with the average fellow members who pay the price. Jewish bankers conversely, have often played the part of Rabbis exerting their influence through their wealth and power, but did they inadvertently unleash political forces incapable of bringing them to heel ? The "anti-Semitism" plea wears a bit thin when it comes to it being considered some sort of intrinsic, divinely forbidden, anti "chosen people" trait. The same could be said of any anti whether Christian or Muslim and yet the world allows it in the name of free speech – which is quite correct. What does produce this so called anti semitic backlash is often the consequence of actions taken in the name of the Jewish people and by implication, their God, which are seen as unacceptable by the world at large. Even the holocaust which has had the world grilled with horror and compassion for decades, often betrays signs of pity on demand that do not seem to tie up with the action of bullets and incandescent fury on relatively innocent and vulnerable people whose land they occupy. If this thing called antisemitism then arises, it is in the form of resentment and the unwillingness to trade malice for malice. The Jewish people at heart,did and do not recognize, nor can they do so, the absolute authority of the religious governments that they form a part of at any time. Their religious state constitution denies them the division between things temporal and things spiritual. For many, this is one reason for not seeking Jewish nationality. For those who took the step, it is the essence of their faith, their culture and their inbred history and it makes a great deal of people wonder whether this is not the seeding ground of a few who sought to create an anachronistic power state utilising the very instruments of old – religious indoctrination. This is the very criticism aimed at the Islamic religious states so abhorred by the West.

The result of the abomination of the holocaust, of course, was a demand for an impossible homeland, which today, underlines the very base of violent confrontations between the people of the new Canaan and their invaders. The catastrophic results and the vicious circle which has always met the singular prophetic demands of Armageddon throughout biblical and modern history seem to imply a type of destruction on demand. The genocidal violence of the Russian Pogroms also stemmed from confusion within the Courts of the Czar as to the nature and origins of Zionism which appeared to claim world domination. Coincidentally, the modern Knights Templar (public installation in Versailles 1705) who were very influential in those courts at the same period of time, according to the Paris records, had an indistinct relationship with an order called the Order of Sion whose aspirations often described as "synergy" were exactly those attributed to the Jewish hierarchy at the time. There is no doubt in my mind, having read these, that they coincide with the so called "Protocols of Solomon" and were probably extracted and manipulated to produce the horrendous effect, by some outside agency, eager to harm all the Jews. The continuous harassment and persecution comes therefore from two very distinct and provocative sources – the banking influence (which also brought the Templars down) and the claim to the chosen people which is patently, biblically incorrect. If a divine ruler actually gave that accolade,it would have applied to all the tribes and not just to that of Judah. These are the main issues of direct conflict between Jewry and those States which fight for the cause of a modern multi religious Israel (a tenet at the heart of many powerful secret societies like the illuminati, Templars, Rosicrucians, masons etc.) One seeks to establish a Christian Israel and the other a Judaic one. Both are chasing shadows in their attempts to bring the past to the future, but in those circles, rational concepts are seen as shadows of opposition and whilst they both assume the same mantle, conflict and world wars will always be round the corner. Jesus fought and died to bring it all about through love without conflict or religious demands. It is for this reason that Islam considers him the Prophet of Atonement to come at the end of days to unite the triumphant remnants of the great final battle against evil. Curiously, it is exactly what Christians are taught about him.

The two vague historical lines of Jewry.

The very scale of events brought about by foreign nationals embracing the Jewish flag, has brought a considerable number of "genuinely" Jewish people together in a major venture of historical proportions, but whether these people who flock to their Holy Land, derive from the tribe of Judea, is questionable. TheAshkenazi,for example, are more than likely descendants of early Christians and probably the very ancestors of theCattharsand for which there is enough circumstantial evidence to show, in both cases, that they were the mystical and mysterious wanderingKazzars. Recent studies which reached best seller proportions show that they had a cultural identity which they were prepared to subdue to ease their way through different cultures. Their choice it seems, was either Islam or Judaism. So much therefore for them being Jews, although of course they could have been Jews before they became Christian and or assumed a new identity that could not be attributed to either. Their strange name however implies that their origins go further back and if their link with the Catthars (probable) is anything to go by, they were Yezidic or Mazdeans.

There is so little known about the Catthars that it makes sense to link them with the only thing that makes historical sense. Some hold that the Kazzars converted to whichever faith offered the highest security factors and could have had a hidden tradition in which case then, they could have been an offshoot of Christianity (because of the known Catthar /Jesus affinity) with Mazdean/(Mithraic or Yezidic origins (because of their so called Satanic acknowledgements). Curiously, this word rings bells with the term Hazidic which throws the cat among the pigeons. If they are of the same origins then the Ashkenazi and Hazidic could be of the same line and both potentially Yezidic which makes for very uncomfortbale bedfellowship. For the Catthars however, Jesus was their founder teacher and for whom they lived and prayed, but the devil (as with the Yezidis), was the perversive ruler of the earth and judging what they went through, they may well have been right - (if only to get off the subject on a lighter note). The curious thing is that the present day Hazidic call themselves descendants of the Ashkenazi and want to segregate themselves from their fellow Serphadi which starts to turn Jerusalem into an impossible equation likely to lose balance at any time.

The chosen race mistaken claim.

If there ever was such a thing as a chosen race, it implies all – not just Judeans or Jews and which assumption cannot be utilised, in all honesty, by one single and very detached member of the ancient Al Israel. Despite academic outcries about the claims made by the Jewish people to the exclusion of all other members of the ancient tribes, (which curiously includes many now under Islamic cultural identity) it is only recently that the world press has started to refer to the Jewish homeland and the Jewish State, dropping the false Israeli claim. In this context, the Sceptred Isles (Britain) would be Israel as would be Canada and America - all set up to establish the biblical Canaan and therefore the United States of Israel - (it may well lie behind the strong support they provide for an "Israel" which the whole world fails to associate with a country set on establishing the international high moral ground). All British Empire Canaans, the Arcadia of The Golden Bough, as mentioned above, including the British Isles themselves do not make them Jewish nations and the Jews among them are simply part and parcel of this giant mix of mainly ancient Asiatic peoples likely to have been gleaned from the mass of Israeli tribes who appear to have provided an important genetic and cultural base within the then Roman and Greek empire. Biblical prophecy however, makes it quite clear when it speaks of the scattering of the tribes and the establishment of a great Kingdom in the name of Israel that this is what was meant - dispersal, reconstitution and domination. But this was to be of all the tribes – not just that of Judea which broke away from Israel quite early in the game and after the great internal conflict. How modern Judea has been allowed to be called Israel therefore is incomprehensible taking into account the amount of academic criticism that followed the announcement of the use of the name by the people of the House of Judah – the very Jewish whose customs and traditions Jesus, including his name, could not be associated with. Neither can modern Christians really stick to the false premise that the Jews killed him. Their politicians at the time caused it but the people as always were probably too frightened to demonstrate against it. Jesus may well have been a well known, but controversial character of the times and even associated with the death of John. The Jews after all, are a race all of their own and their synagogues and customs are just as valid as any Islamic, Hindu or Christian and their places of worship or gathering should be represented wherever they choose provided of course, they do not conspire against the dominant evolving culture. This was what was happening at the time of Jesus.

Jesus would have anyway, failed to understand the concepts being aired today because he was a mystic and his kingdom was definitely not of this world. He was however, by right, it would seem, a scion of the House of Israel with possible part Judean bloodlines , but not a Jew either by manner or religious beliefs. It is worth noting that the remains of the family of the cave in Masada found recently, were linked with a document which appears to be the last words of the man who writes as "Jesus ben Iacoup" which properly translated means Jesus son of Israel. Had this man present at the last stand of Judas Bar Cobba, a Jew, been a Jew himself, he would have inscribed himself as Jesus Ben Judah, according to bible scholars. This man has been the focal point of controversy as to whether it was Jesus himself and therefore his remains. He would have been 76 at the time.

Was he the Master of Righteousness ?

Whether he was the Master of Righteousness of the Essenes and whether he was brought up by them throughout his life for the purpose of the final act of submission to execution, is really what we have to dig deep into. His spiritual evolution coupled with his extraordinary learning, left him in a void which only blind disciplined following could attach itself to. He was a teacher foremostly and a leader by result. He could perhaps not have fully understood the final definition of his own mission, but his immediate objectives were to make himself aware to the scattered members of the ancient tribes in places as far afield as Anatolia and Alexandria. Both were centres of the remnants of the diaspora and both had Jews and descendants of the tribes who, after all, did have some historical common ground. We shall see later that this common ground is reflected in the teachings and passion of Jesus. It is no coincidence that after Jesus left the scene and long after his death (which may or may not have been on the cross), the Jewish cultural descent continued parallel to the lines of descent that can only be called Christian, but which were essentially spiritually aligned with the love cultures of the Phoenicians and earlier Assyrians. These lines of cultural and religious descent are now becoming fairly obvious as the legacy of the Hittites and the evolution of the early Sumerian and Assyrian beliefs are brought into question. There have been two distinct social streams since then appearance of Jesus on the scene – the Jewish and the so called Christians. The latter, amazingly, in their own revolutionary way, loyal to their roots and aided by blind faith on the Divinity of their leader, took over the Roman Empire in the name of Jesus whilst essentially discarding his teachings. The Jewish people, who aspired to this very ambition were to be left completely out of the picture for thousands of years. None would have been more surprised than Jesus himself. Without doubt, such absorption by Jesus´s own followers into nondescript millions within the distinctly different Roman world, would have dissuaded him from even attempting to become their spiritual leader. Jesus would have found the whole evolutionary process of Christianity both meaningless and disjointed. For him modern Christianity would have demonstrated a clear lack of understanding of what made him go through the whole process of torture and unimaginable pain. The very base of neighbourly love would have simply not been there and if anything and disquietingly, he would have seen his movement become what the Jewish hierarchy would have wanted in their own name and in exactly the same way, with the centralised worship that had driven the tribes away. It is perhaps this strange phenomenon of the creation of the Christian Empire (without Jews) that prove that what Jesus started was independent of Jewish aspirations. It was what the priests feared and for which reason they wanted him dead. Conversely, the teachings of Jesus and his Asiatic, love consciousness, would for thousands of years be trapped in a hypocritical worldly power structure that at times would kill indiscriminately in his name. Something went very wrong both for the House of Judah and the people of Israel. Jesus would have therefore been very conscious of the fact that unless his death and resurrection ordeal was fully understood and taken as an example of the ultimate sacrifice of man for fellow man, that the results would have hardly been worth it. Jesus had grave doubts about it all. He started to falter from the moment he set the final act into motion. Judas,the very messenger of death he sent on his way that fateful night, was a reflection of his defiance of the very Jews whom he knew would rush to Rome for his head. He could have slipped quietly back to Samaria camouflaged in the everyday robe of the times, but chose to begin what he must have known was in store. What matters is whether the whole truth is still to be told – the full implication of the trial and complex execution of a blasphemer placed in the hands of Rome.