Post by Jim BeardThe Christian population, in comparison, is perhaps a third
of the world population, but there are arguments that many
included in that figure properly do not qualify as adherents,
being "non-religious" or heretics. E.g. can one be a Christian
yet not believe that God was the physical father of Jesus (note that the
Hebrew word for "virgin" as in the "virgin Mary" in
those days was one synonym for "unmarried") or not believe that Jesus
performed miracles? Some accept Christian guidance on
morality and behavior, but consider "immaculate conception"
and "miracles" as either nonsense or errors derived from
misunderstanding of the old languages.
It seems to me that the writer of the Fourth Gospel was a wonderful
heretic. The authorship of the first three is unknown, but he'd been a
boy at the Last Supper and the Crucifixion. He wrote because he found
lies in the first three. The Church had already destroyed most of the
first known gospel, in Aramaic, thought to be Matthew's, called the
Gospel of the Nazoreans. As the town did not exist until 300 AD,
Matthew had to be talking about the Samaritan sect called the Nazoreans.
John had to be subtle to get past Church censors. He says nobody has
ever seen God. So much for Abraham, Moses, and the Trinity. He says
nothing of any virgin birth. He writes a lot about the Last Supper but
says nothing of a ceremony with bread and wine, which was later supposed
to give priests magical powers.
Three times he sneaks in allusions that Jesus was a descendant of
Joseph, not David. That was a bombshell. Centuries earlier, the
descendants of Joseph, called Samaritans, had accused the mainstream
Israelites of altering the Bible. The mainstream retaliated by saying
the Tribe of Joseph had disappeared and the Samaritans were gentiles.
"Samaritan" was like the N word.
As a boy, John had probably been told Jesus had once made wine. John's
account suggests that he had come to realize it was a myth. Mary had
paid the caterer for a lot of expensive wine for a big wedding. The
wine she tasted was cheaper. Rather than accuse him, she said the good
stuff was missing. Jesus didn't want to get involved, but he found the
wine in vases that the caterer had claimed contained water. Solving the
mystery gave Jesus credibility.
John's account debunks the "feeding of the 5,000." Plenty of food was
for sale in the area. When the crowd provided more food than they took,
it meant they had already purchased food from vendors who had seen the
crowd on the hill, like the boy who had just sold a basket of food to
the disciples. When disciples (probably Peter) proclaimed it a miracle,
Jesus was so appalled that he walked away and never came back.
He walked all the way back to Bethsaida in the dark. As soon as he got
into the boat, they realized they'd reached the shore. In other words,
he'd waded out so they would see him and take him to one of their homes
to sleep. They had thought they were in deep water because they hadn't
seen the beach.
Peter spread stories that Jesus was like David Copperfield, having made
food for 5,000 and walked across the lake. Peter didn't care about
Jesus' preaching; he just wanted to be the powerful manager of a
big-time magician. Peter's lies wrecked Jesus' ministry; the disciples
didn't get together until the Crucifixion, a year later and in another
province.