Abstract

© Dr M D Magee
Contents Updated: Sunday, June 11, 2000

Christian Scholarship

A notable Christian Professor, C H Dodd, a few years ago is said to have described a book by the Bishop of Birmingham, Dr Barnes, as a “travesty of criticism”. Harsh words from one Christian theologian to another, but one might say that all Christian scolarship is a travesty, or, to avoid an injustice to a few, most of it is. Dodd did not like Barnes being too honest.

Rudolf Otto, another man noted in history as a theologian, shows just what we mean. Otto claims that one school of religious criticism “confuses criticism with scepticism and so becomes dogmatic”. Christians desperately want to show that scepticism is as dogmatic as Christianity. But scepticism is the scientific method of discovering the truth. In essence, it is: “I do not believe you. Prove it!” It is the diametric opposite of dogma, which says: “You have to believe me, even though I cannot prove it”. Criticism comes in when evidence is presented. The sceptic is always inclined to disbelieve any evidence until satisfied. The believer is, of course, oppositely inclined. The gospels purport to be Christian evidence of Jesus as messiah. The sceptic can hardly see the evidence in this for the holes.

The truth is that there are any number of alternative hypotheses that rational people would accept before accepting that a god had put in an appearance on earth. One of them is presented and defended on these pages. The scientific sceptic does not try to build theories based on gold hooks from the sky, as the Christian does, theories based on the impossible and the supernatural. Sceptics build from the ground up, from the familiar to the unfamiliar, from the known to the unknown.

If something is plausible because it is familiar, the sceptic will be more inclined to accept it as evidence. If something is unfamiliar, sceptics reject it without solid proof. So, the sceptic takes a view about the evidence based on its plausibility and the degree of authority it carries. Implausible and weakly substantiated evidence is rejected. The whole process involves skills and judgement unlike dogma which requires only simple mindedness. Criticism can only seem to be dogma to those who are dogmatic.

Otto did not like the idea that Jesus spoke in parables meant to stop some people from understanding what he meant. He called it a “monstrous idea”. There you are—Christian scholarship by a famous doctor of the Church. He knows it is monstrous because he reads in Mark:

And with many such parables spake he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it.

Mk 4:33

Most people would read this as meaning some were able to hear it and some were not, but Otto wants the word “as” to be “and” so that when Jesus spoke his parables everyone was able to hear the “word”. He refers back to Mark 4:11:

And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables.

Otto tells us this does not mean that those of them “without” did not comprehend the parables, just that they were taught by using them, and did not understand the mystery of the kingdom of God from them. What is he talking about? Ah, well, he tells us that in Hebrew a parable is a “mashal”, which can mean a riddle and not all of the audience understood the riddle. There, it is easy! Forgive us poor sceptics but, that is the point, surely. Jesus taught in riddles—if you like—so that only the worthy Jews could understand. Greeks and Romans and creepy little Hellenized Jews who knew no Torah or Aramaic and were collaborating with the occupying foreigners could not comprehend.

Later Christians made out that the twelve apostles were total dunces so they certainly would never have understood what Jesus was on about. The whole point of the parables was that Jesus spoke only to Jews who were versed in the scriptures, Hebrew and Aramaic. Any Roman, Greek or Jew not fluent in Hebrew and Aramaic would have immediate problems comprehending, and—this is the point—most of those who were fluent in these eastern languages would have had difficulty understanding the veiled meaning of the parables, because they often alluded to scripture or custom that only local or devout Jews would have understood. After all, they have fooled scholars for 2000 years so we can be confident that they fooled the Roman spies listening to Jesus giving homely stories to the faithful.

The allegories Jesus used in his parables seem transparent now, perhaps because Christians have rendered them more transparently, but they were sufficiently disguised and protected by allusions to scripture and Jewish culture to baffle foreigners already struggling with Aramaic. By couchng his message of the coming kingdom—a call to arms—as child-like stories, he hid their true meaning. “Hidden things” remained hidden to those who did not have “ears to hear!”

Otto thinks Matthew 13:35 refutes it:

That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.

And also Matthew 25:34:

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

So Jesus would not be hiding things in parables and the “hidden things” really means “the kingdom of God”. The point is though that the hearers of the parables can know the “hidden things” but only if they understand the parables, and whereas the kingdom of God was not a hidden thing to Jews, it had to be hidden from Romans who would rightly take it to mean a challenge to Caesar. So the “hidden things” were really the signs that the kingdom was imminent. These arcane secrets have to be kept from certain people, notably the foreigners and incorrigible Hellenized Jewish apostates who collaborated with the oppressors.

Jesus is talking about the things prophets and righteous men would want to see, namely signs of the kingdom of God:

For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.

Mt 13:17

Christians get thrown by Matthew 5:10 where even the author of this later gospel admits that parables are meant to conceal. Tortuously they try to explain it by the fact that some of the audience did not understand because they were stupid, particularly the apostles. So, babyish stories meant to elucidate even children could not be understood by Jesus’s main henchmen!? Ludicrous. The truth is that they were indeed meant to conceal.

Parables are Cryptic

And with many such parables spake he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it. But without a parable spake he not unto them: and when they were alone, he expounded all things to his disciples.

Mk 4:33-34

These two verses simply point out that the parables were cryptic and needed to be interpreted but those within the circle had been taught how to do it. This is purely Essene.

Mark gives the whole of chapter 4 largely to the significance of parables and to Jesus’s parables of the kingdom, intended to encourage his band.

Mark is convinced that parables are meant to obscure not to clarify but this has been generally ignored by theologians who give long explanations why the parables are actually not obscure. In the rabbinic tradition parables are used to clarify, yet the clergy are not averse to claiming this proves that Jesus, though supposedly repudiating the rabbinic tradition, used them in the same way. All of this fails to look at the question from Mark’s own conviction that they were intended to obscure, the reason being that Jesus was in the Essene tradition not the Pharisaic. Since the evangelist is quite explicit that the parables are allegorical—Jesus is saying so in Mark 4:13:

And he said unto them, Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables?

where “know” means “understand”—it is dishonest for later clergymen to maintain that they are not. But their meaning is not to be sought in the mystical interpretations of the later church but in what we know of the traditions of the Essenes of the time, and what we can deduce of the intentions of the variant sect we call the Nazarenes.

Essenes considered that truth was obscure, drawing on the passage in Isaiah 6:9-12 where the prophet was commanded by God to tell the people:

Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.

Note the final expression “convert and be healed” in which healing is equated with conversion. The Essenes took this to mean that people were blind, deaf and hard of heart because they were unrighteous and would not take the trouble to learn the mysteries which God had given them in the scriptures. Taking this literally, they accepted nothing at face value and sought the hidden meaning in the scriptures. Only God’s righteous took the trouble to do this and it was against God’s will for them to bandy their discoveries about, so they kept them to themselves, in turn couching their own truths in an allegorical language which could be understood by other Essenes but not by anyone else.

In Mark 3.23, the evangelist told us that Jesus spoke in parables, further proof that Jesus was an Essene. For the Nazarenes he was the Master, the Maskil, whose duty was to impart knowledge with discretion and keep it secret from the wicked. We can conclude from this that the parables were allegorical and not, as theologians stoutly maintain, simple stories. If you still do not believe it read Matthew 13:14-15 where Jesus uses the above quotation from Isaiah to explain why he was teaching in parables.

In the Community Rule, the Master chants in his song of blessings to God:

My eyes have gazed on that which is everlasting, on wisdom concealed from men, on knowledge and wise design hidden from the sons of men.

The poem goes on to say that God has given these secrets to His elect as an everlasting possession. The Damascus Rule has similar phrases:

With the remnant which held fast to the commandments of God, He made his covenant with Israel forever, revealing to them the hidden things in which all Israel had gone astray.

In Isaiah 48:6 is God’s promise to reveal hidden things (nasar), yet another pun on the word Nazarene—a revealer of hidden things. It was the duty of the Master to instruct the sectaries in these mysteries of amazing truth, that they may walk perfectly together in all that has been revealed to them. Nevertheless, earlier in his song the Master promises: “I will impart knowledge with discretion”. Thus, though the Community Rule prescribes that all novitiates will be taught the things hidden from Israel without fear that he will become an apostate (and reveal them elsewhere), for the men of deceit, the Master was obliged to maintain a spirit of secrecy and to conceal from them the knowledge of the truth and righteous judgement that was required for a proper understanding of the law and the prophets.

Taking this further we can see that Mark was himself playing the same game, whence our treatment of his gospel. Christians have been happy to recognize that some of the meaning of the parables has been lost because the context has been lost in time. We contend that the context is that of an Essene sect working to help God bring in the Jewish kingdom of God on earth (not the later invention of a mystical kingdom of God in some other dimension). Once this is realized the gospel becomes much more transparent.

Parable of the Sower

The first parable is that of the sower much of whose seed goes to waste. It is an allegory, a coded story, which is explained to the twelve—Mark’s way of showing that the disciples had to be taught how to understand them. He tells us that the parables are allegories by deciphering this one. The reader realizes that the parables were meant to be obscure but because this one does not seem particularly so, it serves the aim of the followers of Paul, who had gained hold of the church, to denigrate as idiots the original followers of Jesus. The deciphering is bogus because it is done to suit the Christian church and not to interpret the original parable, but the changes are not great.

Some Christian scholars like to say that the parable of the sower is not an allegory because we can “understand its perfectly simple and single point”. But the point is not about a farmer! Christians like to tell us an allegory must be complete—everything in it must stand for something else. Well, if they want to believe it, so be it. Let us say then that this is simply an incomplete allegory.

The harvest is the judgement or the reward. It is the kingdom of God, and the point of the story is that it grows in or on earth from seeds, not all of which bear fruit. The seeds are those who God has offered the chance to come into his kingdom, the Jewish people, the seed of Abraham chosen by God himself. But not all of them get in! This is an allegory! Not every seed will bear fruit because not every Jew will enter God’s kingdom. Meanwhile, as seeds do, it is growing “of itself”.

Why must the allegory be like Pilgrim’s Progress? And what literary rule was Jesus obliged to follow? The farmer is God and the judgement is his, but so what if the implication of the story was that the seeds themselves had a role also as a man with a sickle and had to harvest a few of God’s enemies to get to their goal.

The parable itself actually is based on several scriptural passages which effectively trace the fortunes of the seed of Abraham—the Jews. It says to Jews that various of their ancestors have been unrighteous in divers ways, and have spiritually died. If they did not repeat their mistakes then they would yield spiritual fruit aplenty and would enter into God’s kingdom.

In Mark, the seed is “the word”, possibly a Christian interpolation, but possibly Jesus’s original message of the word of God to the children—the need to repent and to prepare for the coming kingdom. Some people reject the message altogether; some believe it but do not have the strength of character to persevere when the going gets rough; some accept the message but fear that they have too much to lose in the world as it is to risk replacing it; finally there are the elect who accept the message and profit a hundredfold in the kingdom of God on earth. The meaning of the allegory is only thinly disguised. Jesus is making a speech of encouragement. Despite the initial interest many recruits were coming up with excuses and leaving the band. Jesus was giving a morale boost to his remaining followers.

The story was meant to be cryptic but “those with ears to hear” understood it. What mattered was that the foreigners did not understand. The fact that Mark felt obliged to add an explanation surely means that the story was not properly understood by gentile audiences. It was not meant to be understood by gentiles, but doubtless it is not as cryptic in the form we have it today as it was originally when it was made up of scriptural references now made explicit.

The command “Hearken!” at the beginning might be an echo of the transfiguration, when Jesus becomes “that prophet”, implying that this passage should appear after it. If so, Jesus is now teaching believing himself to be the messiah. The Damascus Rule has sections introduced with the expression “Hear Now!” reminiscent of God’s instruction regarding His prophets and also the ears to hear of the gospels. Indeed in one section we find:

Hear now, all you who enter the covenant, and I will unstop your ears concerning the ways of the wicked;

and in another, further down the same column:

Hear now, my sons, and I will uncover your eyes that you may see and understand the ways of God.

Deafness and blindness were Essene ways of describing lack of understanding—and Jesus used the same language. The author of one fragment of the Essene scrolls of Qumran admits he is writing in parables so that only a wise man would understand the deep mysteries that lay behind them. Elsewhere we get expressions like:

give ear to me… those who pursue righteousness: you will understand my words and be seekers after faith and the hidden things of the testimony.

Essenes regarded scripture as mysterious. The use of the phrase, “mystery of the kingdom of God”, emphasizes the link between the gospel and the Essene scrolls. Paul often uses the word “mystery” (sometimes translated as “secret”) in his epistles. The Essenes used the pesher method whereby old documents were interpreted as prophetic of current events. The Habakkuk Commentary of the Dead Sea Scrolls is of this type. The Essene sages sought to read in the scriptures the hidden things of God and, having discovered them, they sought to conceal them from unrighteous ears. This is the real significance of the parables of Jesus. They look like simple moralistic folk tales but there is more to them than meets the eye… or ear! Those that had ears to hear, those who had been taught and had grasped the method, would understand references intended to baffle the ignorant.

When Jesus says, “them that are without” he means those outside the company of the elect who could not understand the method and he gives a scriptural reference to the passage in Isaiah quoted above (Isa 6:10) by way of explanation. Specifically though he meant the foreigners present in the crowd who might understand Aramaic but would not be able to understand Jesus’s hidden messages—though they would be transparent to an Essene—and would not be saved if they did.

The speech would have ended with a quotation from Zechariah 8:12:

For the seed shall be prosperous; the vine shall give her fruit, and the ground shall give her increase, and the heavens shall give their dew; and I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things.

In the kingdom, of course. The remnant is as always the elect of God—the remnant of Israel who are righteous as opposed to all Israel who are wicked. Only they inherit the earth.

A Candlestick under a Bushel

These verses seem to contradict Mark 4:11-12 but they do not. The struggle for the coming kingdom would uncover all secrets. Jesus is explaining that secrecy was an expediency that would become unnecessary. They would soon reveal themselves openly as elite soldiers of God and begin the battle for the kingdom. When they succeeded everything would be clear. The candle conjures up an image of the menorah, the seven branched candlestick, which represents the omniscience of God. God knows everything and when his kingdom is entered, so shall the righteous. It might well have been of some special significance to the Essenes who favoured the number seven, and who favoured bread as an offering to God rather than animal sacrifices. The menorah was set up to illuminate the temple showbread.

Rewards

The gospels give the impression that Jesus never opened his mouth without saying something new, when in fact he must have made the same, or similar speeches repeatedly during his campaigning. This is partly the reason why different gospels have some sayings in different contexts. They were used more than once as proverbs or slogans and were recollected by different people in different contexts. These verses, which Jesus possibly used on several occasions, carry on the theme that the insurgents will be rewarded in the coming kingdom.

Mark 4:24 is quite crucial for it is saying that the Nazarene band (“you that hear” means they that understand the mysteries of the kingdom—the repentant) have to do something to get the reward. By taking the initial steps the reward of the kingdom will be given by God, but in verse 25 it is made clear that doubters and skeptics will get nothing. They would not enter the kingdom, indeed they would be destroyed. However this saying appears elsewhere and can be omitted here.

The Harvester

Jesus explains here that their duty is like that of a farmer who has to sow his seed but then can leave it to grow under God’s care as if of its own accord. Once the Nazarene band had sowed the seed of rebellion, the growth to fruition of the kingdom would begin under God’s care and God would reap the harvest. In short, all the hard work is done by God provided that the farmer sows the seed in the first place. The harvest is scriptural code for the kingdom of God and the judgement that accompanies it, and indeed the final verse is a quotation of Joel 3:13. By putting this verse in its context (Joel 3:09-22) the full aims of Jesus and the Nazarenes become clear. It is the day of the vengeance of God and the restoration of His kingdom in Israel—the Lord dwelling in Zion.

The men of war draw near; let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruninghooks into spears. Let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about. Thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, get you down, for the press is full, the fats overflow, for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision. For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth shall shake, but the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel. So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain. Then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the valley of Shittim. Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness, for the violence against the children of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land. But Judah shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation. For I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed: for the Lord dwelleth in Zion.

God promises to destroy the enemies of Judah. This ought to be sufficient proof that there is more to the parables than clergymen believe and more to Jesus’s intentions than persuading people that Christianity was being invented. The quotation ending this parable would have put the whole context of this passage from Joel in the mind of any educated Jew—he that hath ears to hear. His words would have been cryptic above all to gentiles.

Indeed, parables do not apply to gentiles as these prove quite explicitly. The seed represents the children of Israel who are the seed of Isaac. These are the seed who are fulfilled an hundredfold and no one else. Thus, this short parable says that the sower, Isaac, sowed the seed of the children of Israel then died (slept). The seed brought forth fruit by stages until God reaped the harvest of the righteous. A gentile editor added a couple of helpful phrases which confused the simplicity of the original tale.

Matthew at this point has the parable of the tares and the wheat (Mt 13:24-30), in which the enemy, the devil, sows tares among the wheat of the good farmer, God. The servants are willing to go and pull up the tares but God tells them to wait until the harvest when the tares can be separated and burnt. This is a straightforward apocalyptic parable in which the wicked (the tares) are destroyed at the judgement day while the righteous are saved. This dualist outlook is thoroughly Essene.

The Grain of Mustard Seed

And he said, Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? or with what comparison shall we compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth: But when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it.

Mark 4:30-4:32

Once a seed is planted it can grow into a mighty tree. An insignificant mustard seed will grow so large that even wild birds can roost under its shadow. In like manner, the initial effort of the Nazarenes will grow into the kingdom of God. Of course a mustard plant is not a large plant so even the image created by the parable is of an insignificant plant becoming all embracing. Jesus is making no point about growth but about the contrast between the start and the end. From a tiny start, God’s kingdom on earth will provide peace and protection for all men—some gentiles too in righteous supplication—but under the benevolent rule of the saved Jews, the Nazarenes, themselves led by the elect of God, the Essenes. Once the seed is planted all of the growth is provided by God just as it was in the previous parable.

But what is the seed? It is that remnant of Israel that have adopted righteousness by accepting the soldier’s sacramentum of baptism and entered the fray as soldiers of God in the cosmic battle. Jesus is assuring his band of diehards that they are the keys to the kingdom of God.

A parable of leaven appears in the two synoptics derived from Mark (Mt 13:33; Lk 13:21). A little leaven only is needed to raise a mass of dough. Its message is the same as that of the parable of the mustard seed. Essentially it is: “You’ve got to begin small”, but having started the revolutionary momentum will build under its own power.

Matthew has a parable of a net catching all kinds of fish but no separation of kinds occurs showing it does not refer to judgement. It could imply that the fisher, God, could collect all Jews whatever their sins provided they offer themselves as sincere penitents and be baptized or it might be God collecting all the different nations (genos) for punishment as oppressors of the Jews. If the latter, “fishers of men” would not have to be kind to men any more than fishers of fish are kind to fish. Being a “fisher” is imposing force on to the foreign oppressors.

The parables of a treasure in a field and the pearl of great price both illustrate the riches to be had in the kingdom of God, and which will come unexpectedly. The riches are, of course, not trinkets like jewelry and wealth but spiritual treasure.

Violence

Otto thinks Jesus achieved his mystical mission as an exorcist, driving out supernatural monsters called demons. He did, indeed, drive out demons but they were metaphors for his enemies and the enemies of the Jews—the Romans and collaborating Jews, those who did not have ears to hear that the kingdom was coming.

The debate about Beelzebul in which Jesus defends himself against accusations of being an agent of Satan is plainly a justification for attacking the Romans. If Satan represents Rome then binding him means defeating the Romans. Demons are euphemisms for the Romans in the speeches of Jesus and Essenes.

Jesus’s source is Isaiah 49:24, where two strong men contend until Yehouah smites the stronger, indicating that God will intervene to save Israel from a stronger foe. At the time of Jesus, the foe was Rome. So, the strong man bound can only be Rome. Jesus is defending his decision to overwhelm Satan to inaugurate God’s kingdom.

If I, by the spirit of God, cast out demons, then is the kingdom of God come upon you.

Jesus wants to attempt to defeat the Romans and he promises that, if he does, then the kingdom has come. Note though that God, through his spirit still brings it in, not the Victory.

And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.

Mt 11:12

How could a future transcendental kingdom be forced to come about, which seems to be the meaning. It cannot, but a kingdom on earth can. Rudolf Otto, who often has quite conventional ideas of Jesus, even thinks it means “the kingdom” itself acts violently, the meaning of the Greek word used here, “biazein”. The meaning of Matthew 11:12 is therefore:

The kingdom of God will exercise its force and those who exercise force on its behalf will capture it.

Otto says the connotations of the underlying Aramaic need to be considered when examining the Greek. Otto sees in the original the Hebrew “Chazak” meaning strong, growing or reaching ascendency (cf Judges 1:28). Jesus is saying that the chance to be ascendant must be seized! Luke expresses it in deliberately toned down form in Luke 16:16. The reason is that Jesus is advocating zealotry.

Otto says that Jesus “was convinced that the kingdom able to vanquish Satan’s kingdom was dawning in his own work, and he knows himself to be the instrument of its victorious power”. All that is needed to convert this expression of faith into fact is the realization that “Satan’s kingdom” was the Roman Empire and “The Kingdom”, the kingdom of God, was Israel. Jesus then immediately becomes a realistic historical figure rather than a figment of pious delusions. Instead of being an ingratiating doorman to the Grand Hotel of god in Heaven, he becomes a Jewish freedom fighter and martyr akin to the Maccabees, Judas of Galilee, Simon bar Giora, bar Kosiba and dozens of others.

Abundance

For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.

Christians try to make out that knowledge or understanding is meant here, but he is, of course, talking about wealth. Not material wealth—that is what those that have not have that is taken away from them—but spiritual wealth in God’s kingdom. The wealth that is desirable and that takes the righteous into the kingdom of God is righteousness. The Essenes were the Ebionim—The Poor—and despised material wealth.

Essenes—like Christians—believed that it was purely god’s grace that decided who would enter the kingdom but there was no doubt that sinners would not enter. The Epistle of James shows that at an early stage righteousness was counted in good works, just as the Essenes believed. So Jesus is saying that being a bit good was not enough. Such people would be cast out with the gross sinners. Those however who had been thoroughly righteous would be given the abundance of the kingdom of God. But Jesus was also recruiting an army of rebels, and there is no mistaking that the works needed included an active commitment and perhaps personal sacrifice for the cause of liberating Judaea.

The Wonder Worker

I saw Satan falling from heaven like lightning…

Revelation 7:7 is a celebration of the victory of Jesus over the dragon, a traditional symbol of the enemy of the children if Israel—here, the Romans. The casting down to earth of Satan meant, for the Nazarenes, the casting down of Rome. When it happened came the kingdom of God exercised on the authority of Jesus Christ according to the Christianised version. Note though that the defeat of the dragon only meant that it came to earth to continue its attacks on those who kept the commandments of God. So, casting Satan down did not make any difference to the Righteous. This is a recognition of the subsequent defeat of the Nazarenes, and the apparent continuation of evil with the failure of Jesus to return within 40 years. Thus the events of first century Palestine were interpreted in Iranian apocalyptic terms. The dragon appears again in Revelation 2:20. It devours a third part of the earth showing its origins—the Aryan dragon does the same.

Jesus became known as a wonder or miracle worker because he achieved a great miracle—he defeated the Romans.

”A historical fact requires a sufficient cause”, writes Otto. Jesus differed little from many Jewish leaders of the first century, most of whom are unknown to anyone except readers of Josephus. These leaders were all militant men, not peaceful rabbis, the Aunt Sally explanation given by Otto. Why then was Jesus remembered? Because of the disappearance of his body, which his followers thought meant he had been resurrected as the first fruits.

The Kingdom Already Present

In Luke 17:20-21, the mention by Jesus of the kingdom of God “in your midst” or “within you:”

And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you,

if not a later rationalisation by the church of it not coming as prophesied, means the Essene movement, which considered itself to be building heaven on earth as the foundation stone, or precious corner stone, and Essenes considered themselves as a living temple, just like early Christians. The answer, if genuine, suggests that Jesus was talking to his own supporters, not to Pharisees. Alternatively Jesus might have meant the law of Moses.

Some Christians say Jesus is rejecting omens, but he read and used omens himself and the Essenes considered themselves as prophets who interpreted scripture correctly. In Matthew 13:28, Jesus parabolically explains that there are signs to be seen and elsewhere in the same chapter, he explains some of them using Mark.

Another verse implying the kingdom had already arrived in some sense is Mark 9:1:

There be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.

Because the coming of the kingdom is qualified with the phrase “with power” there is a possible implication that “the kingdom is already here but not with power”. The kingdom is embodied in the Essenes, so it was already in existence in seedling form but when the Essenes declare themselves as warriors for God’s kingdom, it would come with power.

The gentile bishops, a generation after the crucifixion, were already looking for alternatives to the failed parousia, and were writing “is” instead of the correct future tense, which was beginning to look distinctly wrong. Otto says that the future tense renders the expression a banality, because all Jews knew it would come sometime. But Jesus thinks the time will be soon, and he is undoubtedly addressing recruits who had repented and been baptized, so they had had their sins wiped clean, the belief Christians have always had in baptism, but which really applies only to repentance—the baptism being a concomittant cleansing of the body to match the cleansing of the spirit.

Why did the idea of a kingdom of God coming “soon” fall into the background in favour of an already present kingdom of God introduced by Jesus himself. The answer is that once the day dawned in the Garden of Gethsemane, the chance of the kingdom of God coming soon had receded forever. Jesus—and the Essenes—had been wrong about the kingdom of God being “nigh”. 2000 years later he is still wrong.

The first Christians allowed for this by at first extending the period before it would come from “soon” to “a generation”, picking on a less certain prophesy of Jesus before he had suceeded in defeating the Roman Jerusalem garrison. Or the whole talk of a generation might have been added after the death of Jesus by the Jerusalem Church revising its schedule. Nevertheless, they were still expecting it to come and the first gentile Christians evidently were too. But a Jewish generation of 40 years gave the bishops a lot of time to devise contingency plans. They began to say:

1. Jesus himself started the kingdom of God, so it is already here;
2. Jesus would still return sometime with the kingdom in power;
3. the kingdom of God acts through the Holy Ghost;
4. the kingdom of God is the church.

All are excuses for the plain fact that the promised kingdom did not come, within a generation or ever—so far.

• ”1” is the original message that the kingdom had already begun through the Essenes
• ”2” is the original belief displaced to an indeterminate time and with Jesus playing the role of the archangel Michael
• ”3” is the Essene belief that God acts through a holy spirit, given added impetus by the story in Acts of the events at Pentecost (the main Essene festival)
• ”4” is the original Essene belief that God’s house is the “community” (yahad) of the Essenes, changed into the “communion” of the church.

Christians have the argument that the existence of the church is proof of the gospel events. The church could not have come into being unless it was all true. Yet the true explanation is easier to believe than that a superhuman descended from heaven. It is that Jesus came to believe he had been designated as the messiah because of certain omens he, and the sect of Essenes to which he belonged, was expecting.

As messiah, his duty was to bring about the unification of heaven and earth in the kingdom of God, led by God’s own people, righteous Jews, by defeating the foreign enemy usurping God’s role in Judaea. This would be the earthly contribution to a cosmic war fought between Good and Evil and which would conclude by the archangel Michael leading the heavenly hosts of angels and saints from the Mount of Olives to ensure victory (nasach) and inaugurate the kingdom. He captured Jerusalem with the help of many pilgrims but lost it to a counter attack about a week later and was hanged as a rebel.

His surviving followers despaired but then his body was reported missing and they assumed that he had risen as the first of the saints to be lifted up into God’s kingdom—as they expected. Jesus had been correct all along. He was the first fruits of the righteous also known as the perfectly holy ones, or saints, who were to be resurrected into God’s kingdom on the third day. The kingdom had come. Theory had not been quite right—the cosmic battle had not finished with Jesus, it had only begun—so other saints would have to wait the forty years of the cosmic war before they too would enter or be resurrected into God’s kingdom.

After the forty years, the war would conclude with Jesus returning as the archangel Michael and the heavenly hosts to complete the victory. For forty years, Christians spread the message that God’s messiah had been to earth, had risen as the first of the saints to be resurrected and would return “soon”. By the time anyone still living was questioning the failure of the messiah to return on a cloud, a new generation of faithful had been indoctrinated with less immediate expectations. “Soon” kept receding and became indeterminate but still “soon”. The faithful, simple folk all, remained faithful.

Was Jesus the Christ of God?

The Christ of God is a myth, like that of Pegasus, the winged horse. No one would believe in a flying horse but Christians want us to believe in a man who can walk on water—just as astonishing an act as seeing a horse propel itself through the air on birds’ wings. Jesus was a Jewish hero who came to believe he was the messiah and who tried to evict the Romans from Jerusalem half a century before the Jewish War. He gained a spectacular, albeit minor victory, before being defeated in turn, was crucified and, according to his followers, rose fronm the dead. Thus he became mythologised as the messiah or Christ.

Skeptical Resources—Internet infidels | Jesus Never Existed | Steven Carr’s Website | Christianism | Early Christian Writings | God is Imaginary | “Religion Detoxification” | Our Judaio-Christian Heritage | Archaeoastronomy | No Deity | No Beliefs | Evil Bible | Bible God | ex-Christians | Jesus Police | Islamic Faith Freedom | Atheist Experience | American Atheists | Jovial Atheist | Askwhy! books
Other Resources—Early Christian Docs | Resources for Study | Traditional Bible-History | Traditional Bible World History | Traditional Bible History | about.com biblical history | Apologetics web sites | Advent Ch Fathers | Orion center links | Wikipedia | Traditional Jewish History