Non-Judaic Nature of Christ

[Armenian]

Re: Non-Judaic Nature of Christ

Parallel Sayings of Buddha and Christ

Although the Buddha and Jesus lived hundreds of years and cultures apart, there are striking parallels to the sayings attributed to them. It is not that they said exactly the same things, it is rather that their distinctive and independent sayings pierce the veil of illusion, reminding us that God, or truth or whatever word that we choose to call that which is ultimate, binds us together in a timeless and infinite garment of mutuality. The parallel teachings of Buddha and Christ are from the book Jesus and Buddha, the Parallel Teachings by Marcus Borg, Jesus scholar and Buddhist writer, Jack Kornfield. The Buddha sayings are taken from the Dhammapada and the sutras of the Buddha. The Jesus sayings are taken from the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Buddha: They agreed among themselves, friends, here comes the recluse, Gotama, who lives luxuriously, who gives up his striving and reverted to luxury.

Jesus: The son of humanity came eating and drinking and they said look a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.

Buddha: With the relinquishing of all thought and egotism, the enlightened one is liberated through not clinging.

Jesus: Those who want to save their life will loose it. Those who loose their live for my sake will save it.

Buddha: One is the way to gain, the other is the way to Nirvana, knowing this fact, students of the Buddha should not take pleasure in being honored, but, should practice detachment.

Jesus: No slave can serve two masters For a slave will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

Buddha: Just as a mother would protect her only child at the risk of her own life, even so, cultivate a boundless heart towards all beings. Let your thoughts of boundless love pervade the whole world.

Jesus: This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.

Buddha: If you do not tend to one another then who is there to tend to you? Whoever who would tend me, he should tend the sick.

Jesus: Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these, so you have done it unto me.

Buddha: Consider others as yourself.

Jesus: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Buddha: One who acts on truth is happy, in this world and beyond.

Jesus: You will know the truth and the truth will make you free.

Buddha: Hatred do not ever cease in this world by hating, but by love; this is an eternal truth... Overcome anger by love, Overcome evil by good. overcome the miser by giving, overcome the liar by truth.

Jesus: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. From anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.

Source: http://www.heartlandsangha.org/parallel-sayings.html

Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings

By Marcus Borg

Revered as two of the greatest spiritual figures in the history of man, Jesus Christ and Buddha forged and articulated the precepts that would form the ideological foundations of the Christian and Buddhist religions. From what were austere beginnings, these visionary doctrines evolved over time into universal forces in their own right. Only a handful of other belief systems have influenced the lives of so vast a number of people throughout the world to the extent that these two great religions have.

In appreciating what Christianity and Buddhism stand for in the eyes of their followers, it is important to understand the doctrinal association that exists between the two faiths. Although Western scholarship has acknowledged the similarities that link some of the teachings and beliefs of Christianity with those of the two other monotheistic religions, Islam and Judaism, it has subordinated the notion of a fundamental relationship between those teachings and beliefs with their counterparts in Buddhism. Guilty perhaps, of what could be called shallow historiography or deliberate obscurantism, scholars in the West have channeled the gist of their attention and assent on the divisions that separate Buddhism and Christianity.

The book Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings however, runs against that scholarly tendency as it de-emphasizes the distinctions between Christianity and Buddhism and discerns a remarkable similitude in their teachings. Whereas previous scholarship attempted to minimize the amount of discourse on the subject, a meaningful correlation between the two religions is the essential proposition being tendered in Jesus and Buddha. Buddhist writer Jack Kornfield eloquently sums up this correspondence when he writes about the efficacy of Jesus’s and Buddha’s teachings in the book’s introduction: "When we listen deeply to their words, we find that in many ways, they speak with one heart."

Jesus and Buddha’s co-editor, Jesus scholar Marcus Borg, partitions the book—the main body of which is comprised of some of Jesus’s and Buddha’s most famous sayings—into twelve categories that conform with where the two prophets’ teachings appear to closely intersect. Borg maintains that the spiritual kinship shared between both men took shape before either one of them were even conceived to the world. In the Digha Nikaya (Collection of Long Discourses), one of the renowned texts of the Buddhist canon, some devas urge Queen Maya, after she had given birth to the infant Buddha, to celebrate for "a mighty son has been born to you." Along similar lines in the Gospel of Luke, the Angel Gabriel reveals to the Virgin Mary that she will give birth to the one "who will be called the Son of the Most High."

One of the categories in Jesus and Buddha is entitled "Materialism." We are reminded here of both men’s unwavering antipathy towards the material world. Gnostic in tone, the Buddha preached that an individual’s insatiable appetite for material wealth and physical pleasure must be purged before he or she can live a life of virtue, and therefore embark upon the path to nirvana. Buddha also says in the Jatakamala that "Riches make most people greedy, and so are like caravans lurching down the road to perdition." In an excerpt from the Udanavarga, Buddha cautions us to bear in mind that death is the great levelling force of the cosmos, as he declares that even "though one accumulates hundreds of thousands of worldly goods, one still succumbs to the spell of death."

Jesus’s sayings on materialism are certainly identical in spirit, if not in composition, with Buddha’s. As a champion of the poor, Jesus experienced firsthand what he perceived to be the hard-hearted, sacrilegious ethos of his time. Distressed by this cold reality, he formed an image of "personal enrichment" that was to be "found in heaven rather than in the marketplaces of the world." As written in the Gospel of Matthew and as indicated in Jesus and Buddha, Jesus taught that in order to become perfect, you must "sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven." These humanistic tenets—including the famous saying, "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God."—have great resonance in the world we live in today.

Both men also resemble each other a great deal in their respective teachings on love. Jesus and Buddha treats this category—entitled "Compassion"—as the most conspicuous area of convergence for Buddhist and Christian thought. As is written in the book, "Both teachers invoked the Golden Rule of treating others as you want them to treat you." Burnett Hillman Streeter, an Oxford scholar, is quoted in Jesus and Buddha as saying that "The moral teaching of Buddha…has a remarkable resemblance to the Sermon on the Mount."

The Sermon, a focal point in the life of the adult Jesus, is replete with sayings that appear to be a genuine reflection of what is put forth in Buddhism’s principal text, the Dhammapada ("Religious Sentences"). Jesus for example, is purported to have said in the Gospel of Luke to "Do to others as you would have them do to you." The comparison with the Dhammapada is extraordinary when we read that the Buddha, in like fashion, instructed his followers to "Consider others as yourself."

Although it is hardly Jesus and Buddha’s intent to do so, its proposition of a close doctrinal parallelism between Christianity and Buddhism gives rise to a hitherto devalued religio-historical controversy. The book directs us to a minority of scholars who posit that the doctrinal affinity between both religions is the result of "cultural borrowing." If any such borrowing truly took place, then, as Marcus Borg concedes, "the direction of borrowing would have been from the Buddha to Jesus," since the historical Buddha lived some five centuries before the birth of Christ.

To its editor’s credit (Borg after all, calls himself a "non-exclusivist Christian"), Jesus and Buddha makes several references to specific scholarly works that were written in defense of the idea that Jesus was influenced by what Thomas Cahill, the author of the bestselling How the Irish Saved Civilization, calls "the quiet refinements of Buddhism." Jesus and Buddha briefly discusses the theories broached in these scholarly works, which claim to resolve the question of how Jesus was exposed to an ideology that maturated thousands of miles away from his homeland of Palestine.

Curiously, Borg dismisses the concept of cultural borrowing as a viable explanation for the parallels in Christian and Buddhist thought. He chooses instead to attribute the parallels to a "commonality of religious experiences." By doing so, Borg conveniently sidesteps the possibility that Buddhist doctrines were transmitted to Palestine. That is to say, he rules out the possibility that Buddhist thought was physically conveyed across the great trans-continental distance that lies between Palestine and northern India, which is where Buddhism originated from. If true, it is more than likely that this transmission was conducted by various travelers who journeyed amidst the lands between the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent during ancient times, as well as during the time of Christ.

As an analogy, there is substantial evidence showing that the sources of some of Christianity’s most sacred beliefs, such as the Resurrection of Christ, are to be found in the pre-Islamic Persian religions of Mithraism and Zoroastrianism. It is believed that Mithraic and Zoroastrian doctrines were disseminated by wayfarers and traders from Persia in the Holy Land, where they were then incorporated into what was to become the Christian faith.

As much as the book Jesus and Buddha deals with issues that leave to chance how Christianity and Buddhism are rendered by the individual, collective, and historical imagination, it comes down to being a spiritual guide for those who seek moral instruction and inner strength from the best of what both religions have to offer. In coming together "in an encounter of the spirit in the West," as Jack Kornfield writes, Buddha’s and Jesus’s words are designed to lead the faithful on the same "path of liberation from our anxious grasping, resurrection into a new way of being, and transformation into the compassionate life."

Source: http://www.eclectica.org/v2n3/gaborro.html

[Armenian]

Re: Non-Judaic Nature of Christ

For 2000 years, J-ews have rejected
the Christian idea of Jesus as messiah. Why?

It is important to understand why xxxs don't believe in Jesus. The purpose is not to disparage other religions, but rather to clarify the xxxish position. The more data that's available, the better-informed choices people can make about their spiritual path.

J-EWS DO NOT ACCEPT JESUS AS THE MESSIAH BECAUSE:

1) Jesus did not fulfill the messianic prophecies.
2) Jesus did not embody the personal qualifications of the Messiah.
3) Biblical verses "referring" to Jesus are mistranslations.
4) xxxish belief is based on national revelation.
At the end of this article, we will examine these additional topics:
5) Christianity contradicts xxxish theology
6) xxxs and Gentiles
7) Bringing the Messiah

What exactly is the Messiah?

The word "Messiah" is an English rendering of the Hebrew word "Mashiach", which means "Anointed." It usually refers to a person initiated into God's service by being anointed with oil. (Exodus 29:7, I Kings 1:39, II Kings 9:3)

Since every King and High Priest was anointed with oil, each may be referred to as "an anointed one" (a Mashiach or a Messiah). For example: "God forbid that I [David] should stretch out my hand against the Lord's Messiah [Saul]..." (I Samuel 26:11. Cf. II Samuel 23:1, Isaiah 45:1, Psalms 20:6)

Where does the xxxish concept of Messiah come from? One of the central themes of Biblical prophecy is the promise of a future age of perfection characterized by universal peace and recognition of God. (Isaiah 2:1-4; Zephaniah 3:9; Hosea 2:20-22; Amos 9:13-15; Isaiah 32:15-18, 60:15-18; Micah 4:1-4; Zechariah 8:23, 14:9; Jeremiah 31:33-34)

Many of these prophetic passages speak of a descendant of King David who will rule Israel during the age of perfection. (Isaiah 11:1-9; Jeremiah 23:5-6, 30:7-10, 33:14-16; Ezekiel 34:11-31, 37:21-28; Hosea 3:4-5)

Since every King is a Messiah, by convention, we refer to this future anointed king as The Messiah. The above is the only description in the Bible of a Davidic descendant who is to come in the future. We will recognize the Messiah by seeing who the King of Israel is at the time of complete universal perfection.

1) JESUS DID NOT FULFILL THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES

What is the Messiah supposed to accomplish? The Bible says that he will:

A. Build the Third Temple (Ezekiel 37:26-28).

B. Gather all xxxs back to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6).

C. Usher in an era of world peace, and end all hatred, oppression, suffering and disease. As it says: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall man learn war anymore." (Isaiah 2:4)

D. Spread universal knowledge of the God of Israel, which will unite humanity as one. As it says: "God will be King over all the world -- on that day, God will be One and His Name will be One" (Zechariah 14:9).

The historical fact is that Jesus fulfilled none of these messianic prophecies.

Christians counter that Jesus will fulfill these in the Second Coming, but xxxish sources show that the Messiah will fulfill the prophecies outright, and no concept of a second coming exists.

2) JESUS DID NOT EMBODY THE PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS OF MESSIAH

A. MESSIAH AS PROPHET

Jesus was not a prophet. Prophecy can only exist in Israel when the land is inhabited by a majority of world xxxry. During the time of Ezra (circa 300 BCE), when the majority of xxxs refused to move from Babylon to Israel, prophecy ended upon the death of the last prophets -- Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. Jesus appeared on the scene approximately 350 years after prophecy had ended.

B. DESCENDENT OF DAVID

According to xxxish sources, the Messiah will be born of human parents and possess normal physical attributes like other people. He will not be a demi-god, (1) nor will he possess supernatural qualities.

The Messiah must be descended on his father's side from King David (see Genesis 49:10 and Isaiah 11:1). According to the Christian claim that Jesus was the product of a virgin birth, he had no father -- and thus could not have possibly fulfilled the messianic requirement of being descended on his father's side from King David! (2)

C. TORAH OBSERVANCE

The Messiah will lead the xxxish people to full Torah observance. The Torah states that all mitzvot (commandments) remain binding forever, and anyone coming to change the Torah is immediately identified as a false prophet. (Deut. 13:1-4)

Throughout the New Testament, Jesus contradicts the Torah and states that its commandments are no longer applicable. (see John 1:45 and 9:16, Acts 3:22 and 7:37) For example, John 9:14 records that Jesus made a paste in violation of Shabbat, which caused the Pharisees to say (verse 16), "He does not observe Shabbat!"

3) MISTRANSLATED VERSES "REFERRING" TO JESUS

Biblical verses can only be understood by studying the original Hebrew text -- which reveals many discrepancies in the Christian translation.

A. VIRGIN BIRTH

The Christian idea of a virgin birth is derived from the verse in Isaiah 7:14 describing an "alma" as giving birth. The word "alma" has always meant a young woman, but Christian theologians came centuries later and translated it as "virgin." This accords Jesus' birth with the first century pagan idea of mortals being impregnated by gods.

B. CRUCIFIXION

The verse in Psalms 22:17 reads: "Like a lion, they are at my hands and feet." The Hebrew word ki-ari (like a lion) is grammatically similar to the word "gouged." Thus Christianity reads the verse as a reference to crucifixion: "They pierced my hands and feet."

C. SUFFERING SERVANT

Christianity claims that Isaiah chapter 53 refers to Jesus, as the "suffering servant."

In actuality, Isaiah 53 directly follows the theme of chapter 52, describing the exile and redemption of the xxxish people. The prophecies are written in the singular form because the xxxs ("Israel") are regarded as one unit. The Torah is filled with examples of the xxxish nation referred to with a singular pronoun.

Ironically, Isaiah's prophecies of persecution refer in part to the 11th century when xxxs were tortured and killed by Crusaders who acted in the name of Jesus.

From where did these mistranslations stem? St. Gregory, 4th century Bishop of Nazianzus, wrote: "A little jargon is all that is necessary to impose on the people. The less they comprehend, the more they admire."

4) J-EWISH BELIEF IS BASED SOLELY ON NATIONAL REVELATION

Of the 15,000 religions in human history, only Judaism bases its belief on national revelation -- i.e. God speaking to the entire nation. If God is going to start a religion, it makes sense He'll tell everyone, not just one person. Throughout history, thousands of religions have been started by individuals, attempting to convince people that he or she is God's true prophet. But personal revelation is an extremely weak basis for a religion because one can never know if it is indeed true. Since others did not hear God speak to this person, they have to take his word for it. Even if the individual claiming personal revelation performs miracles, there is still no verification that he is a genuine prophet. Miracles do not prove anything. All they show -- assuming they are genuine -- is that he has certain powers. It has nothing to do with his claim of prophecy. Judaism, unique among all of the world's major religions, does not rely on "claims of miracles" as the basis for its religion. In fact, the Bible says that God sometimes grants the power of "miracles" to charlatans, in order to test xxxish loyalty to the Torah (Deut. 13:4).

Maimonides states (Foundations of Torah, ch. 8):

The xxxs did not believe in Moses, our teacher, because of the miracles he performed. Whenever anyone's belief is based on seeing miracles, he has lingering doubts, because it is possible the miracles were performed through magic or sorcery. All of the miracles performed by Moses in the desert were because they were necessary, and not as proof of his prophecy. What then was the basis of [xxxish] belief? The Revelation at Mount Sinai, which we saw with our own eyes and heard with our own ears, not dependent on the testimony of others... as it says, "Face to face, God spoke with you..." The Torah also states: "God did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us -- who are all here alive today." (Deut. 5:3) Judaism is not miracles. It is the personal eyewitness experience of every man, woman and child, standing at Mount Sinai 3,300 years ago.

5) CHRISTIANITY CONTRADICTS J-EWISH THEOLOGY

The following theological points apply primarily to the Roman Catholic Church, the largest Christian denomination.

A. GOD AS THREE?

The Catholic idea of Trinity breaks God into three separate beings: The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost (Matthew 28:19). Contrast this to the Shema, the basis of xxxish belief: "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is ONE" (Deut. 6:4). xxxs declare the Shema every day, while writing it on doorposts (Mezuzah), and binding it to the hand and head (Tefillin). This statement of God's One-ness is the first words a xxxish child is taught to say, and the last words uttered before a xxx dies.

In xxxish law, worship of a three-part god is considered idolatry -- one of the three cardinal sins that a xxx should rather give up his life than transgress. This explains why during the Inquisitions and throughout history, xxxs gave up their lives rather than convert.

B. MAN AS GOD?

Roman Catholics believe that God came down to earth in human form, as Jesus said: "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30). Maimonides devotes most of the "Guide for the Perplexed" to the fundamental idea that God is incorporeal, meaning that He assumes no physical form. God is Eternal, above time. He is Infinite, beyond space. He cannot be born, and cannot die. Saying that God assumes human form makes God small, diminishing both His unity and His divinity. As the Torah says: "God is not a mortal" (Numbers 23:19).

Judaism says that the Messiah will be born of human parents, and possess normal physical attributes like other people. He will not be a demi-god, and will not possess supernatural qualities. In fact, an individual is alive in every generation with the capacity to step into the role of the Messiah. (see Maimonides - Laws of Kings 11:3)

C. INTERMEDIARY FOR PRAYER?

The Catholic belief is that prayer must be directed through an intermediary -- i.e. confessing one's sins to a priest. Jesus himself is an intermediary, as Jesus said: "No man cometh unto the Father but by me." In Judaism, prayer is a totally private matter, between each individual and God. As the Bible says: "God is near to all who call unto Him" (Psalms 145:18). Further, the Ten Commandments state: "You shall have no other gods BEFORE ME," meaning that it is forbidden to set up a mediator between God and man. (see Maimonides - Laws of Idolatry ch. 1)

D. INVOLVEMENT IN THE PHYSICAL WORLD

Catholic doctrine often treats the physical world as an evil to be avoided. Mary, the holiest woman, is portrayed as a virgin. Priests and nuns are celibate. And monasteries are in remote, secluded locations. By contrast, Judaism believes that God created the physical world not to frustrate us, but for our pleasure. xxxish spirituality comes through grappling with the mundane world in a way that uplifts and elevates. Sex in the proper context is one of the holiest acts we can perform. The Talmud says if a person has the opportunity to taste a new fruit and refuses to do so, he will have to account for that in the World to Come. xxxish rabbinical schools teach how to live amidst the bustle of commercial activity. xxxs don't retreat from life, we elevate it.

6) J-EWS AND GENTILES

Judaism does not demand that everyone convert to the religion. The Torah of Moses is a truth for all humanity, whether xxxish or not. King Solomon asked God to heed the prayers of non-xxxs who come to the Holy Temple (Kings I 8:41-43). The prophet Isaiah refers to the Temple as a "House for all nations." The Temple service during Sukkot featured 70 bull offerings, corresponding to the 70 nations of the world. The Talmud says that if the Romans would have realized how much benefit they were getting from the Temple, they'd never have destroyed it. xxxs have never actively sought converts to Judaism because the Torah prescribes a righteous path for gentiles to follow, known as the "Seven Laws of Noah." Maimonides explains that any human being who faithfully observes these basic moral laws earns a proper place in heaven.

Source: http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/xxxsandjesus.htm

[Armenian]

Re: Non-Judaic Nature of Christ

ZOROASTRIANISM, JUDAISM, AND CHRISTIANITY

Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Christianity share so many features that it seems that there must be a connection between them. Does this connection really exist? If so, how did it happen? And how much of the similarity between these faiths is due simply to parallel evolution, rather than direct contact and influence?

The simplest answer to the first question is, yes, there is a great deal of Zoroastrian influence on Judaism and Christianity, but the problem is that it is hard to document this exactly, at least in the early stages of Judaism. The evidence is there, but it is all "circumstantial" evidence and often does not stand up to the rigorous judgment of scholarship. Nevertheless, I will dare to present these ideas assertively, with the qualification that there will likely be no definite way to prove them either true or untrue.

In 586 BCE, the forces of the Babylonian Empire conquered the xxxs, destroying their Temple and carrying off a proportion of the xxxish population into exile. The captives consisted especially of educated and upper-class people as well as the royal family. This "Babylonian captivity" lasted almost fifty years. In 539 BCE the Persians, under the leadership of the Achaemenid King Cyrus, conquered Babylon, and in 538 Cyrus issued a decree stating that the xxxs would be allowed to return to their homeland. Not only were the Exiles released, but Cyrus, and to some extent his Achaemenid successors, also supported the rebuilding of the xxxish Temple in Jerusalem. Cyrus' policy was motivated not only by his religious tolerance (he also encouraged other, pagan peoples to maintain their own religions) but by statesmanlike wisdom; people treated generously are less likely to rebel.

But not all the xxxs wanted to go home. In the years of Exile, the adaptable xxxish people had established themselves in Mesopotamia, settling there and engaging in business and even politics. Many xxxs, while remaining devout xxxs, did not go back to their homeland. They carried on their lives in their new home, and as the Persian Empire consolidated its rule, some xxxs even rose to high positions of service in the imperial court.

It was during the end of the Exile, among the xxxs now living in the Persian Empire, that the first significant contact was made between the xxxish and Iranian cultures. And it is evident in the Bible that xxxish thinking changed after the Exile. The question is then: are these changes the result of the cultural meeting of xxxish and Iranian thinkers, or are these changes due to the shock of Exile? During the Exile, xxxs had to change not only how they worshipped, since they no longer had their temple or the animal sacrifices which had been at the center of their faith, but also how they thought about God. The xxxish concept of God as their tribal protector, who would save them from being conquered or exiled, had to undergo revision.

I believe that both factors are present, inspiring the changes in post-exilic Judaism: not only the xxxs thinking new thoughts about God and humanity, but also contact with the Zoroastrian religion of the Persian Empire. But then another question arises: how did the ancient xxxs learn about Zoroastrianism? It is highly unlikely that xxxish scholars and thinkers ever directly encountered Zoroastrian scriptures such as the Gathas (the founding text of the Zoroastrian faith, attributed to the Prophet Zarathushtra himself) or the Yashts (hymns of praise to various intermediate deities and guardian spirits, adapted from pre- Zarathushtrian mythology). The priestly usage and archaic language of the Avesta scriptures would be a barrier to xxxs. But most of Zoroastrianism, known and practiced among the people, existed in oral tradition: through word of mouth, not by the study of written scriptures. This oral tradition included stories about God, the Creation, the ethical and cosmic conflict of Good and Evil, the divine Judgment and the end of the world. The tradition would also include the well-known Zoroastrian symbolism of fire, light and darkness, as well as stories and prayers about the yazatas or intermediate spiritual beings and the Prophet Zarathushtra. These are all elements of what might be called "classic" Zoroastrianism (as it developed from the "primal" Zoroastrianism of the Gathas).

This is how the xxxs encountered Zoroastrianism - in private dialogues and political and civic experience, rather than in formal religious studies. And as the xxxish religion was re-made after the catastrophe of the Exile, these Zoroastrian teachings began to filter into the xxxish religious culture.

There are some venturesome scholars who say that the xxxish idea of monotheism was inspired by contact with Zoroastrian monotheism. While it is true that xxxish monotheistic ideas did change after the Exile, I do not believe that it was Zoroastrian contact which inspired this change. Rather, it was the fact of the Exile itself. xxxish thinkers and prophets even before the Exile were hinting at a concept of One God who was greater than just an ethnic divinity. When the Captivity threw these thinkers into a foreign culture, away from their divinely appointed homeland, it was necessary to broaden their idea of God to a more universal and abstract deity, who could be worshipped with praise and moral actions rather than animal sacrifices and liturgies. The concept of a single God whom all nations would eventually worship evolved among a conquered and exiled people no longer assured of their divinely protected status.

The Gathas of Zarathushtra, which may pre-date Cyrus by almost a thousand years, do describe God in universalist and abstract terms, but by the time of the xxxish contact, it is unclear just what type of monotheism was believed in the Zoroastrian community. Was it a true monotheism which worships only One God, to whom all other gods are either evil demons or simply non- existent? This seems to be the monotheism of Zarathushtra, but not of the Achaemenid kings of the Persian Empire, who were able to incorporate the veneration of subordinate divinities into their worship, as long as these subordinates were recognized as creations of the One God and not gods in their own right. The xxxs, as we will see, would recognize angels as semi-divine intermediaries, but would not go so far as the Zoroastrians in honoring those intermediaries with hymns of praise such as the Yashts.

One of the most important differences beween xxxish monotheism and Zoroastrian monotheism is that xxxs recognize the one God as the source of both good and evil, light and darkness, while Zoroastrians, during all the phases of their long theological history, think of God only as the source of Good, with Evil as a separate principle. There is a famous passage in Second Isaiah, composed during or after the Exile, which is sometimes cited as a xxxish rebuke to the Zoroastrian idea of a dualistic God: "I am YHVH, unrivalled: I form the light and create the dark. I make good fortune and create calamity, it is I, YHVH, who do all this." (Isaiah 45:7) This passage, which is a major source for xxxish speculation on the source of good and evil in the world, denies the Zoroastrian idea of a God who is the source only of "good" and favorable things.

Therefore I would not say that contact with Zoroastrian monotheism influenced xxxish monotheism. The philosophical minds of the two cultures may indeed have recognized each other as fellow monotheists, but this central xxxish doctrine is one which was not learned from the Zoroastrians. It grew from the original monotheistic revelation attributed to Moses, just as Zoroastrian monotheism grew from the revelation of Zarathushtra (who may indeed have been roughly contemporary, though completely unconnected, with Moses). These were two parallel journeys towards understanding of one God.

There are other developments, however, in the xxxish faith which are much more easily connected with Zoroastrian ideas. One of the most visible changes after the Exile is the emergence of a xxxish idea of Heaven, Hell, and the afterlife. Before the Exile and Persian contact, xxxs believed that the souls of the dead went to a dull, Hades-like place called "Sheol." After the Exile, the idea of a moralized afterlife, with heavenly rewards for the good and hellish punishment for the evil, appear in Judaism. One of the words for "heaven" in the Bible is Paradise - and this word, from the ancient Iranian words pairi-daeza, "enclosed garden," is one of the very few definite Persian loan-words in the Bible. This moral view of the afterlife is characteristic of Zarathushtrian teaching from its very beginning in the Gathas.

It is also thought that the xxxish idea of a coming Savior, or Messiah, was influenced by Zoroastrian messianism. Already in the book of Second Isaiah, possibly written during the Exile, the prophet speaks of a Savior who would come to rescue the xxxish people: a benefactor, "anointed" by God to fulfill his role (the word "messiah" means "anointed one"). In many verses, he identifies Cyrus the liberator as that Messiah. The growth of messianic ideas is parallel in both xxxish and Iranian thought. Zarathushtra, in his Gathas, describes a saoshyant (savior) as anyone who is a benefactor of the people. Similarly in xxxish prophecy, the Messiah is not a single special Savior but anyone who does great things for the xxxish people - even if that person is a Persian King. But as both Persian and xxxish savior-mythology evolve, the Saoshyant - and the Messiah - take on a special, individual, almost divine quality which will be very important in the birth of Christianity.

The conquests of Alexander of Macedon in the fourth century BCE created the first "global" culture (at least for the Western world) in which people, goods, and ideas could circulate from southern Europe, through the Middle East, all the way to Iran and India, and vice versa. It was in this cosmopolitan, Hellenistic world that xxxs and Persians had further contact, and the Zoroastrian influence on Judaism became much stronger. This influence is clearly visible in the later xxxish writings such as the Book of Daniel and the books of the Maccabees, which were written in the second century BCE.

An interesting Biblical account of Zoroastrian-xxxish contact, as well as an early attestation of Middle Eastern petroleum, appears in the Second Book of the Maccabees (which is not found in xxxish Bibles, only in Catholic Christian ones). This document dates from about 124 BCE, which places it among the latest books of the Old Testament - so late that the xxxish canon does not recognize it. In the first chapter of this book, there is a story of how the xxxish altar fire was restored to the Temple after the Captivity. xxxish Temple practice required a continuously burning flame at the altar (Exodus 27:20) though this flame did not have the special "iconic" quality of the Zoroastrian sacred fire. Nevertheless, during the restoration of the xxxish temple, this story arose and is repeated in the Book of the Maccabees, four hundred years later: "When the matter (restoring the fire) became known and the king of the Persians heard that in the place where the exiled priests had hidden the fire a liquid had appeared, with which Nehemiah and his people had purified the materials of the sacrifice, the king, after verifying the facts, had the place enclosed and pronounced sacred." (2 Maccabees 1:33-34) This shows that at least at the time of the composition of 2 Maccabees, the xxxish writers were aware of the Zoroastrian reverence for fire - and also that, if the story is true, the Zoroastrians saw and respected similarities in practice between their own religion and that of the xxxs. The fiery liquid cited here is petroleum, called "naphtha," a word which arises from a combination of Persian and Hebrew words.

The Iranian influence continues to be evident in xxxish writings from what is known as the "inter-testamental" period, that is, after the last canonical book of the Old Testament and before Christianity and the composition of the New Testament. This covers an era between about 150 BCE to 100 CE. These xxxish inter-testamental writings describe a complicated hierarchy of angelic beings, in an echo of the Zoroastrian concept of the holy court of the Yazatas. The xxxish idea of seven chief archangels probably has its inspiration in the seven Amesha Spentas, the highest guardian spirits of Zoroastrian belief. xxxs had their own ideas of angels long before they encountered Zoroastrianism; angels were nameless, impersonal representatives of God's message and action. But after the Exile, xxxish angels gain names and personalities, and also are spoken of as guardians of various natural phenomena, just like the Zoroastrian yazatas. The xxxish and Christian idea of a personal "guardian angel" may also have been inspired by the Zoroastrian figure of the fravashi, the divine guardian-spirit of each individual human being.

Zoroastrian influence on Judaism is also evident in the evolution of xxxish ideas about good, evil, and the End of Time. The original statement of the famous Zoroastrian dualism of good and evil is found in the Gathas, where Zarathushtra describes the two conflicting principles of good and evil in what might be called psychological, or ethical terms. Human beings are faced with the existence of good and evil within themselves - he describes these principles as the "beneficent" and the "hostile" spirits - and everyone must make the choice for Good in order to follow God's will.

But by the Hellenistic era, Zoroastrianism had already developed its doctrine of "cosmic dualism" - the idea that the entire Universe is a battlefield between the One Good God, Ahura Mazda, and the separate Spirit of Evil, Ahriman. This view of dualism is a symbolic transformation, and an expansion, of the more psychologically based teaching of Zarathushtra that good and evil are ethical choices and states of mind.

[..]

Source: http://www.pyracantha.com/zjc3.html

[Armenian]

Re: Non-Judaic Nature of Christ

Influence of Zoroastrianism on Judaism and Christianity

By Mark Willey

"Now it was from this very creed of Zoroaster that the xxxs derived all the angelology of their religion...the belief in a future state; of rewards and punishments, ...the soul's immortality, and the Last Judgment - all of them essential parts of the Zoroastrian scheme." From The Gnostics and Their Remains (London 1887) by King and Moore quoted at 607a in Peake's Bible Commentary.

FROM ENCYCLOPEDIA AMERICANA: "First, the figure of Satan, originally a servant of God, appointed by Him as His prosecutor, came more and more to resemble Ahriman, the enemy of God. Secondly, the figure of the Messiah, originally a future King of Israel who would save his people from oppression, evolved, in Deutero-Isaiah for instance, into a universal Savior very similar to the Iranian Saoshyant. Other points of comparison between Iran and Israel include the doctrine of the millennia; the Last Judgment; the heavenly book in which human actions are inscribed; the Resurrection; the final transformation of the earth; paradise on earth or in heaven; and hell." by J. Duchesne-Guillemin, University of Liege, Belgium

MONOTHEISM

Fundamentally the xxxs were polytheists. But whatever its date, the idea of the covenant tells us that the Israelites were not yet monotheists, since it only made sense in a polytheistic setting. God stated that there are many gods: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me"(Exodus 20:3). The full monotheistic conception of God came later (Isaiah 43:10-13, Jer 10:1-16). The second Isaiah juxtaposes the great Persian King Cyrus with the first monotheistic declarations in the Bible. The second Isaiah is the first expression of universalism which has no antecedent in the Bible, according to the Anchor Bible note at Isaiah 45. He also first introduces the idea of false gods - a fundamental and indispensable criteria for monotheism. A universal God determines that only one is worshiped; a tribal god, of necessity, implies polytheism since there are other tribes. Before the exile, God was a vengeful, bloodthirsty, and jealous anthropomorphic tribal God of fear. After the exile, He became a good, perfect, remote, and universal God of love: identical to Ahura-Mazda. It needed the subsequent missions of Nehemiah and Ezra backed by the Achaemenian Imperial Government's authority to make the xxxs ruefully conform to the new ideal of monotheism.


EZRA, THE SUBVERTER OF JUDAISM

In 397 B.C. Ezra, a courtier of the Persian king, was sent from Babylon "to teach in Israel statutes and ordinances" (Ezra 7:10). Ezra had been born and educated as a divine reader in Babylon and was sent by Artaxerxes to see if the people of Judea "be agreeable to the law of God". There are explicit indications of widespread religious conversion in Ezra 6:19-21 and Nehemiah 10:28-29, but why would xxxs have to convert to Judaism? Nehemiah, chapter 8, discusses an event where Ezra read from the book of law which neither Hebrew speakers nor Aramaic speakers could understand - the words had to be translated by priests. What strange language could Ezra have been reading, Avestan maybe? Ezra's major reform was the prohibition of foreign wives. Although marrying foreign wives had always been the most favored xxxish practice, such marriages violate Zoroastrian law (e.g. Denkard, Book 3, ch 80). The alien nature of other laws to the xxxs shows itself in the distinction between clean and unclean animals in Leviticus and Ezekial which was derived from the Vendidad, a Zoroastrian holy book, where alone it is explained. The purification rituals are identical in the Pentateuch and the older Vendidad. Von Gall in Brasileia tou Theou, 1926, gives a detailed catalog of xxxish laws taken from the Persians. Ezra also introduced the new festival of booths in the seventh month, which is of course the Zoroastrian holiday of Ayathrem. Finally, in about 400 B.C. the Old Testament was put in written form when Jerusalem was still under the power of the Persians.

SADDUCEES VS PHARISEES

The xxxs greatly resisted the imposition of Zoroastrianism charading as Judaism. The construction of the temple designed by the great Persian king Cyrus for the xxxs was delayed by both political and physical means. "The true Israelis" built their own temple on MT. Gerizim and wrote Jerusalem out of their Pentateuch. So, whatever the Persian governors and priests were doing in Jersusalem in the name of Judaism, it caused a great schism. The Sadducees, the 'purists', made up over 97% of the population and believed in "no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit" (Acts 23:8) - in a word, no Persian ideas. The Pharisees or Persian faction - Pharisee, Parsee, Farsi - never numbered very high, not more than 6,000, although only Pharisaism survived the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

CHRISTIANITY AS A MITHRAIC CULT

In addition, Christianity adopted these doctrines from Zoroastrianism: baptism, communion - the haoma ceremony, guardian angels, the heavenly journey of the soul, worship on Sunday, the celebration of Mithras' birthday on December 25th, celibate priests that mediate between man and God, the Trinity, Zvarnah - the idea that emanations from the sun are collected in the head and radiate in the form of nimbus and rays, and asha-arta, "the true prayer". Centuries later in Greece this became Logos or "true sentence" and like in Persia it was associated with fire. Mithraism is widely considered to be a syncretistic religion, that is: a combination of Persian, Babylonian and Greek influences. However, the Greek influence seems to be limited to the identification in Greece of Mithras with the Greek god Perseus. The Babylonian influence seems to have been limited to astrology. Perhaps, though, the Persian interest in astrology has been overlooked. Zoroastrians worshipped at alters on hills and had a whole class of professional Magi or priests who had lots of time on their hands to do astrological research. Rather than a syncretistic religion, it would be more proper to call Mithraism a Zoroastrian subcult.

The center of the Mithric cult was in Tarsus in Cilicia, Southeast Turkey. This is whence Paul, the founder of the Christian church, came from as a young man. Paul's insight on the road to Damascus was that instead of treating Jesus as a false savior, he could be identified as the true savior if combined with the new idea of "the second coming". That would cure the embarrassing fact that nothing had come of Jesus' time on earth. The rest was simple, Paul identified Jesus with Mithras and taught a modified Mithraism. That got Paul branded as a heretic by the true church and James the brother of Jesus. Eventually it cost Paul his life. However, the Mithric ideas were so generally attractive that they eventually won out.

Source: http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Religi..._influence.htm

Zoroastrianism

During the 7th and 6th centuries BC the ancient polytheistic religion of the Iranians was reformed and given new dimensions by the prophet Zoroaster (or Zarathusthra). Zoroaster's life dates have been traditionally given as (c. 628 - 551 BC), but many scholars argue for earlier dates. Linguistic evidence suggests that he was born in northeastern Iran, but the prophet's message was to spread throughout the Persian Empire. Adopted as the faith of the Persian kings, Zoroastrianism became the official religion of the Achaemenid empire and flourished under its successors, the Parthian and Sassanian empires. Its theology and cosmology may have influenced the development of Greek, later xxxish, Christian, and Muslim thought. The Muslim conquest of the 7th century AD marked the beginning of a steady decline of Zoroastrianism. Persecution resulted in the migration (about the 10th century) of the majority of Zoroastrians to India, where the Parsis of Bombay are their modern descendants.

The religion of ancient Iran was derived from that of the ancient Indo Europeans, or Aryans. The language of the earliest Zoroastrian writings is close to that of the Indian Vedas, and much of the mythology is recognizably the same. Two groups of gods were worshiped, the ahuras and the daevas. The worship of the ahuras (lords) may have reflected the practice of the pastoral upper classes, and tradition holds that Zoroaster was born into a family that worshiped only the ahuras. The message of the prophet, however, was that Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord, was the sole creator and lord of the world and that the worship of the daevas was the worship of evil.

In Zoroaster's theology the Amesha Spentas, or Bountiful Immortals, were divine beings who acted essentially as agents of the power of Ahura Mazda; they were traditionally seven in number: Bounteous Spirit, Good Mind, Truth, Rightmindedness, Dominion, Health, and Life. The first of these, Spenta Mainyu, is of special importance in that he is paired with a "twin," Angra Mainyu, or Hostile Spirit. When given a choice between good and evil, or truth and the lie, Bounteous Spirit chose truth and Hostile Spirit the lie. Creation becomes a battleground, with the demoted ahuras invoked for the doing of good and the daevas enlisted by Angra Mainyu in the doing of evil. Nevertheless, Ahura Mazda has decreed that truth will triumph, and the old world will be destroyed by fire and a new creation instituted.

In the period following Zoroaster, for which little evidence remains, Zoroastrianism consolidated its position and spread throughout Iran. The rise of the southern Persians and Medes seems to have been accompanied by the reinstatement of many of the ahuras, although Ahura Mazda is still recognized as supreme god. Among the most important figures to revive at this time were Mithra (Mithraism), usually associated with the sun, and Anahita, associated with the waters and fertility. Ahura Mazda (who becomes Ormazd) becomes identified with Spenta Mainyu, and Angra Mainyu (Ahriman) remains his antagonist. Ahura Mazda has relinquished some of his absolute supremacy and appears to need the assistance of the lesser ahuras, particularly Mithra, who appears as mediator and protector of the created world.

This dualist view eventually became the orthodox position. Its development may have owed much to the Magi, a hereditary priestly caste, although their role is unclear. From them, however, the Greco Roman world learned much of what it knew of the religion. An important reform movement, however, arose within Zoroastrianism - the movement around Zurvan. The Zurvanites posited a supreme god, Zurvan (Infinite Time), who had sacrificed for 1,000 years in order to gain offspring. At the end of that time he experienced momentary doubt, and from that doubt arose Ahriman; at the same time, Ormazd came into being because of the efficacy of the sacrifices. At the end of 3,000 years Ahriman crossed the void that separated them and attacked Ormazd. The two made a pact to limit the struggle, and Ahriman fell back into the abyss, where he lay for 3,000 years.

During that period Ormazd created the material and spiritual world; in retaliation, Ahriman called into being six demons and an opposing material world. In the next 3,000 year period Ahriman attempted to corrupt the creation of Ormazd; he was successful but was trapped in the world of light. The final period of 3,000 years was ushered in by the birth of Zoroaster, who revealed this struggle to man; the prophet is to be followed by three saviors, appearing at intervals of 1,000 years. At the appearance of the last, a day of judgment will occur, the drink of immortality will be offered to those who have fought against Ahriman, and a new creation will be established.

The sacred literature of Zoroastrianism is found in the Avesta, which was compiled sometime during the Sassanian period (224 - 640 AD) from much earlier materials. Only a portion of the Avesta remains, but the language of its earliest sections is extremely ancient, closely related to that of the Indian Vedas. These sections, the Gathas, are thought to be by Zoroaster himself. They are hymns and form the primary part of the Yasna, the central liturgy of the religion. Also contained in the Avesta are the Yashts, hymns to a number of the ahuras, and later in date than the Gathas. Finally comes the Videvdat, which is concerned with purity and ritual. A large body of commentary exists in Pahlavi, dating from the 9th century AD, which contains quotations from earlier material no longer extant.

The rituals of Zoroastrianism revolve around devotion to the good and the battle against the forces of evil. Fire plays a major role, being seen as the manifestation of the truth of Ahura Mazda, as preached by Zoroaster. Also important is the ritual drink, haoma, which is related to the Vedic soma.

Source: http://mb-soft.com/believe/txo/zoroastr.htm

[Armenian]

Re: Non-Judaic Nature of Christ

Let's stop insisting that we know better than them who their long awaited Messiah is. The J-ewish perspective regarding Christ and Yahweh:

Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine

By Harold Bloom

Yahweh was and is the uncanniest personification of God ever ventured by humankind, and yet early in his career he began as the warrior monarch of the people we call Israel. Whether we encounter Yahweh early or late, we confront an exuberant personality and a character so complex that unraveling it is impossible. I speak only of the Yahweh of the Hebrew Bible, and not of the God of that totally revised work, the Christian Bible, with its Old Testament and fulfilling New Testament. Historicism, be it older or newer, seems incapable of confronting the total incompatibility of Yahweh and Jesus Christ.

Jack Miles, Yahweh's Boswell, in his "God: A Biography," depicts a Yahweh who begins in a kind of self-ignorance fused with total power and a high degree of narcissism. After various divine debacles, Miles decides, Yahweh loses interest, even in himself. Miles rightly reminds us that Yahweh, in II Samuel, promises David that Solomon will find a second father in the Lord, an adoption that sets the pattern for Jesus' asserting his sonship to God. The historical Jesus evidently insisted both upon his own authority to speak for Yahweh, and upon his own intimate relationship with his abba (father), and I see little difference there from some of his precursors among the charismatic prophets of Israel.

The authentic difference came about with the development of the theological God, Jesus Christ, where the chain of tradition indeed is broken. Yahweh, aside from all questions of power, diverges from the gods of Canaan primarily by transcending both sexuality and death. More bluntly, Yahweh cannot be regarded as dying. Kabbalah has a vision of the erotic life of God but severely enforces the normative tradition of divine immortality. I find nothing in theological Christianity to be more difficult for me to apprehend than the conception of Jesus Christ as a dying and reviving God.

The Incarnation-Atonement-Resurrection complex shatters both the Tanakh--an acronym for the three parts that make up the Hebrew Bible: the Torah (Five Books of Moses), Prophets, and Writings--and the xxxish oral tradition. I can understand Yahweh as being in eclipse, desertion, self-exile, but Yahweh's suicide is indeed beyond Hebraism. I can object to myself that the frequently outrageous Yahweh also baffles my understanding, and that Jesus Christ is nearly as much an imaginative triumph as Yahweh is, though in a very different mode. I alternate endlessly between agnosticism and a mystical gnosis, but my Orthodox Judaic childhood lingers in me as an awe of Yahweh.

No other representation of God that I have read approaches the paradoxical Yahweh of the J Writer. Perhaps I should omit "of God" from that sentence, since even Shakespeare did not invent a character whose personality is so rich in contraries. Mark's Jesus, Hamlet, and Don Quixote are among the principal competitors, and so is the Homeric Odysseus transmuted into the Ulysses whose story of quest and drowning reduces Dante the Pilgrim to silence. Dennis R. MacDonald, in his "The Homeric Epics and the Gospel if Mark" (2000), argues that Mark's literary culture was more Greek than xxxish, which I find persuasive in so far as the earliest Gospel's eclecticism is thus emphasized, but a touch dubious, since Mark's God remains Yahweh. Matthew is rightly known as "the xxxish Gospel"; the Gospel of Mark is something else, though it may well have been composed just after the Temple was destroyed, and in the midst of the Roman slaughter of the xxxs.

Hamlet has something of the bewildering mood swings of Mark's Jesus, and of Yahweh. If Don Quixote can be regarded as the protagonist of the Spanish scripture, then his enigmas also can compete with those of the Marcan Jesus and of Hamlet. We cannot know how much of Yahweh's character and personality was invented by the J Writer [the name given to one of the biblical authors by proponents of the Documentary Hypothesis], just as Mark's Jesus to some degree seems to be an original, though doubtless informed by oral tradition just as J's Yahweh was. I wonder if the author of Mark is not responsible for giving us a Jesus addicted to dark sayings. In a "cannot know" context, where what we regard as Pauline faith replaces knowledge, Mark's brilliance exploits our limits of understanding.

His Jesus asserts authority, which sometimes masks wistfulness in regard to the will of Yahweh, the loving but inscrutable abba. Only Mark's Jesus goes through an all-night agony because his death is near. Whether, as MacDonald thinks, the suffering of Jesus emulates that of Hector at the end of the "Iliad" cannot be resolved. Jesus dies after uttering an Aramaic paraphrase of Psalm 22, an outcry of his ancestor David, a pathos distant from the Homeric variety.

Doubtless the real Jesus existed, but he never will be found, nor need he be. My sole purpose is to suggest that the historical Jesus, the theological Jesus Christ, and Yahweh are three totally incompatible personages, and to explain just how and why this is so. Of the three beings (to call them that), Yahweh troubles me the most. His misrepresentations are endless, including by much of rabbinical tradition, and by suppressed scholarship--Christian, Judaic, and secular. He remains the West's major literary, spiritual, and ideological character, whether he is called by names as various as Kabbalah's Ein-Sof ("without end") or the Qur'an's Allah. A capricious God, this stern imp, he reminds me of an aphorism of the dark Heraxxxxus: "Time is a child playing draughts. The lordship is the child."

Where shall we find the meaning of Yahweh, or of Jesus Christ, or of Yeshua of Nazareth? We cannot and will not find it, and "meaning" possibly is the wrong category to seek. Yahweh declares his unknowability, Jesus Christ is totally smothered beneath the massive superstructure of historical theology, and of Yeshua all we rightly can say is that he is a concave mirror, where what we see is all the distortions each of us has become. The Hebrew God, like Plato's, is a mad moralist, while Jesus Christ is a theological labyrinth, and Yeshua seems as forlorn and solitary as anyone we may know. Like Walt Whitman at the close of "Song of Myself," Yeshua stops somewhere waiting for us.

Source: http://www.beliefnet.com/story/180/story_18006_1.html

[Armenian]

Re: Non-Judaic Nature of Christ

Intentions of the apostles

The apostles of Christ seem to have gone to great lengths to directly connect the risen Christ to Hebrew scripture within their writings. Perhaps this was done by the followers of Christ in order to convert J-ews at the time from their seemingly primitive and corrupt faith. The aforementioned is precisely the reason why there seem to be contrived attempts by the apostles connecting Christ to the Hebrew scriptures. Attempts such as making Christ sit on a donkey and enter Jerusalem, as prophesied in Hebrew scriptures, to convince the J-ews that Christ was indeed their long awaited Messiah. Unfortunately, our present day knowledge and understanding of Christ is primarily based upon these contrived attempts of the apostles. Nevertheless, the attempts of the apostles would prove to be a futile effort in the long run.

The rejection of "Christ" by Judaism

Christ, as God on earth, was such an indigestible theosophical concept for a great majority of J-ews at the time that he was mercilessly tortured and put to death. But for whatever reason, the J-ewish followers of Christ, namely Paul, were very concerned about convincing the J-ewish population of Asia Minor and the Levant at the time that Christ was their long awaited Messiah. Nevertheless, even after the many contrived efforts, the general population, especially the religious establishment did not recognize Christ to be their promised Messiah. I personally think that the J-ews at the time would have been better able to recognize their promised Messiah, at the very least - much better than us pagans. And to this day, J-ewish theologians scoff at us Christians when we tell them that our Christ-God was their promised Messiah.

I once heard a Rabbi state - “you [Christians] have stolen our watch and for two thousand years have been telling us what time it is.” He was clearly implying that we Christians have taken their sacred scriptures, the Tanakh/Torah, and for two thousand years we have been 'reinterpreting' it for them. The comments of the Rabbi have profound implications for the so-called Old Testament is their national/ethnic holy book, they are the ones that should know it intimately - not us pagans.

Frankly, I do not blame the J-ews for rejecting Christ because Christ was not their expected savior, their promised Messiah, a King that would save the J-ewish nation from pagan oppression as promised to them by Yahweh. And that, as well as Christ's early popularity amongst the peasants of the region, was precisely the reason why the J-ewish religious establishment at the time became extremely concerned about Christ's corrupting influence over the J-ewish faithful. As a result, the J-ewish authorities considered Christ to be a wizard, a wicked man, and a man that represented a belief system associated with paganism. Nothing about Christ other than the coincidental and/or the contrived was what J-ews at the time were expecting in their Messiah - according to their sacred scriptures.

However, our Triune God was a universal deity known to ancient man throughout Asia Minor. I also believe that in addition to John the Baptist, who as I stated earlier is said to be an Essene, individuals such as Pythagoras, Zoroaster and Buddha were also prophets sent by the supreme creator God in order to "prepare the way" for Christ. The problem within Christendom today is its biblical fundamentalism, as exemplified by the Evangelical movement within the United States, that basically shuts out all other theological concepts and literature as the works of the Devil. In my opinion, however, the theosophies and rituals associated with Christ are fundamentally non-Hebraic in nature and origin. Any serious or well learned theologian would be able to make that speculation, if not out right conclusion.

However, a question still remains. Regardless of Christ's nature, why did God manifest himself within Palestine? I'm afraid that is a question that only God can answer. Nevertheless, if one takes into consideration the claim attributed to Christ that he was on earth to cure the sick and not the healthy, one may easily conclude the following: What people do we know of in that region of the world that most needed Christ's healing powers?

Armenian

[Armenian]

Several years ago I wrote the following compilation of thoughts about what I perceive to be the non-Hebraic nature of Christ and Christianity. Having made some modifications to the text, I wanted to share it with you here. I hope you find the contents of my article here thought inducing at the very least. Nevertheless, do not loose faith in Christ, as many do once traditionally held beliefs concerning him are challenged. Allow your faith in Christ grow even stronger when you begin seeing his boundless nature and divine essence in a new light. I would be glad to entertain any questions and comments and I’m even open to criticisms.

Armenian

Non-Judaic Nature of Christ


Zoroastrian Priests Worshiping the Infant Christ

Our Christian God represented by God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit is a supreme deity known to mankind since the dawn of time. I hope one day we Christians, especially evangelicals amongst us, will realize this as fact and stop preaching a theological paradox known today as Judeo-Christian belief system. Allow me to first being by stating that the nature of Christ, our God, has more in common with Zoroaster's Ahura Mazda (Armenian: Aramazd) than with Moses' tribal god called Yahweh.

Was Christ a J-ew?

I believe that our clergy places too much emphasis on the literal interpretations of traditional J-ewish scriptures and not enough on the vast and complex histories, philosophies and theologies of the ancient Near East and Asia Minor. Regardless of New Testament passages suggesting a J-ewish lineage to Christ, the very essence of Christ and Christianity are exclusively pagan in nature, thereby canceling out any possibility that he may have been a J-ewish rabbi or the J-ewish Messiah. What's more, although Christ is said to have lived within Palestine during the first century AD, we the faithful must remember that Christ was God manifest. Thus, humanizing him or making him out to be a mere J-ew, an African, or a Scandinavian for that matter, is an affront to the universal reality of a supreme deity. What’s more, Christ’s philosophies and all subsequent theologies associated with traditional Christianity are virtually all non-J-ewish in nature and character as well. There are many aspects of church rituals within the Catholic and Orthodox faiths that are strikingly pagan in character. However, for the purpose and intent of this article I will only address the non-Hebraic nature of Christ and not dwell in the many pagan rituals that exist within our traditional churches.

To begin with, many J-ewish scholars throughout history have suggested that Christ was not a J-ew. The Talmud, the absolute scriptural authority within Judaism, clearly suggests that Christ was not a J-ew. However, let us put aside for a moment what they, or what we Christians for that matter, have to say about Christ and let's begin to look at the very nature of Christ and the theologies and philosophies he represented more closely. Many biblical scholars today agree that when he preached to the masses in Palestine Christ exclusively quoted from the Septuagint. This would be odd for a J-ew to do because the Septuagint was the Greek translation of the J-ewish scriptures that J-ewish scholars and rabbinical authorities throughout history have strongly condemned as utterly corrupted by paganism. A simple question arises here: Why did Christ not quote from traditional Hebrew texts, the Tanakh/Torah, and instead chose to quote texts that J-ews universally claim to be pagan corrupted? It is also worthy to note that Christ's J-ewish apostles seem to have been Hellenized. Moreover, why did Christ speak Aramaic and not Hebrew? More importantly, why were the very first worshipers of the newly born infant Christ Zoroastrian priests (the three Magi of the east)? Why are there discrepancies regarding Christ's J-ewish genealogy in the Gospels? And finally, how did Christianity spread like wildfire through the pagan world and got no where within J-ewish society?

I am not surprised at how fast Greeks, Assyrians, Armenians, Copts, Ethiopians, Romans and Hellenized J-ews embraced Christianity, these people recognized God’s manifestation on earth and his universal message. The social egalitarianism, universality of the Triune God and the theological concepts represented by Christ and his message were familiar to the ancient pagans of the civilized world. This familiarity of pagans towards Christs nature, in essence, explains the unprecedented and astronomically fast spread of the Christian faith. In my opinion, Christ was the God known to all gentiles under different names and different forms at different times and different locations. And for reasons yet unknown, his last manifestation was in Palestine approximately two thousand years ago. It is crucial, however, to remember that Palestine at the time was heavily influenced by Greeks, Egyptians and Romans. Moreover, the general region of Palestine, which was adjacent to the great pagan theological centers of Alexandria, Byblos and Babylon, was also home to many pagan cults and Greco-Roman and Zoroastrian centers of worship.

Pagan influences upon Judaism and Christianity

There is not much that is unique within Judaic belief. The J-ewish biblical traditions, which are known to have been compiled within the first century AD, are not original theological concepts. Upon close analysis, they seem to be nothing more than reinterpretations of the aforementioned pagan traditions, the overpowering foreign traditions that they were exposed to during their long and turbulent national journey. Since Babylon has a very bad reputation within religious circles, for the sake of objectivity it should be mentioned that ancient Babylon was a great center of theology, a city within which existed good and evil, truth and lie, God and Satan.

Within this perspective let’s look at some of the key locations, events and individuals within J-ewish sacred tradition that are inherently tied to Babylon: Abraham the “father” of J-ews was a Babylonian. Noah, the second Adam, was a Sumerian/Babylonian. The Garden of Eden is said to have been located within historic Armenia, which was located north of Babylon. Well known to us all, the known world at the time was repopulated after the Great Deluge from the Armenian region of Mount Ararat. And finally, the longterm captivity of the J-ewish nation within Babylon. Thus, simply taking into account the aforementioned core biblical tales and beliefs, it should be easy to see that the core foundations of the sacred scriptures found within the J-ewish Torah (the first five books of the J-ewish Tanakh) were clearly non-J-ewish in nature and may have actually been Anatolian and/or Mesopotamian in origin. It is also important to note here that the sacred traditions of the Persians, Armenians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Indians and the Hellenic world predated that of Judaism by many centuries.

In the opinion of many scholars, it was precisely during the captivity of the J-ews (sixth century BC) within Babylon that the Hebrew tribal deity known as Yahweh began taking more recognizable forms that are familiar to us Christians today. Observing religion from this perspective, it is easy to conclude that Christianity was the natural continuation and/or evolution of the primordial realization by man of a universal creator God. This primordial realization by man clearly echoes the well known biblical accounts of the Garden of Eden, the Great Flood and the Tower of Babylon. Civilized man first lived, as the biblical and archaeological sources attest, within Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, known universally as the Cradle of Civilization.

Council of Nicaea

When one closely studies the Christian Gospels and the J-ewish scriptures one clearly sees that there are essentially no similarities between the nature, ethics and theosophies associated with the Triune God of Christianity and the tribal deity found within the so-called Old Testament - other than the ones that seem to be coincidental or simply contrived by Christ's J-ewish apostles in order to "fit" Christ into Hebrew society and tradition. Some Christian apologists today claim that pagan element that may exist within Christianity was a result of doctrinal formulations made during the Church councils such as the Council of Nicaea, the first major convention of prominent Christian leaders held within Byzantium in 325 AD under the close supervision of the pagan Emperor Constantine the Great.

It should be taken into consideration that prior to the Council of Nicaea there were many popular forms of Christianity in existence and some of the them, such as the Marcionites, wanted nothing to do Judaic traditions. However, when the powerful Roman Emperor at the time cast his final verdict all other Christian schools of thought simply disappeared. The Emperor Constantine chose a school of thought that essentially combined the Christian and J-ewish traditions, known at the time as the Pauline sect of Christianity. The Pauline Christians, with the Emperor's stamp of approval, proved to be very violent, mercilessly eradicating all other groups that opposed them. Another consequence of the church council was the rejection and subsequent destruction of various troublesome texts at the time that simply did not fit into the Pauline mentality, such as the Gospels of Thomas.

Why did Constantine take this action? Based on contemporary accounts, Constantine was a very warlike man. He was a proud pagan until the last day of his life. He was cunning and he was ruthless. After the split of the Rome Empire, Constantine found himself ruling over a large number of J-ews, many of them prominent, within his eastern half of the Roman Empire. It is also said that Constantine had many prominent J-ews within his royal court. Some historians claim that Constantine intent at Nicaea was to unite his pagan, Christian and J-ewish subjects under one religious banner. At the time, J-ews and Christians formed a large minority in the Roman Empire. After the final sacking of Jerusalem by Rome, the wealthy Hellenized J-ews, as well as many ordinary J-ews, moved into Roman held territories. The famous Roman J-ewish historian Josephus is just one example. Let's also not forget that at the time in question religion was a powerful sociopolitical institution, much like what democracy, capitalism, socialism or communism are today. Thus, directly controlling a given population's religion meant controlling the population. Therefore, as a result of the geopolitical climate within the eastern Roman Empire at the time we got the brand of Christianity tat we are familiar with today.

Non-Judaic tenants within Christianity

It is also important to note that Palestine at the time of Christ had a strong cult called the Essenes. This was a reclusive group of eccentric individuals who's members chose to abandon earthly possessions and live aesthetic lives in the desert. Historians today consider the Essenes to be more-or-less a Zoroastrian cult within Palestine. This group is also said to have been severely persecuted by orthodox J-ews at the time. According to many biblical scholars, the Essene connection to early Christianity is very strong. Many of the social attributes associated with early Christians closely resemble that of the Essenes. Some prominent biblical scholars even claim that John the Baptist and Christ may have been Essenes as well. Perhaps the narrated friction that existed in the Gospels between the John the Baptist and the Sadducees and the Pharisees and the ultimate beheading of John the Baptist authenticates this speculation.

Nevertheless, let's keep in mind that biblical scholars state that the scriptures were written within a generation or two after Christ's crucifixion and resurrection. Thus, the following non-J-ewish elements within Christianity existed generations before the famous Council of Nicaea. Therefore, no one can rightfully claim that the Nicaean Council, or any other church council for that matter, manipulated the scriptures of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and various other agnostic gospels in order to incorporate pagan beliefs into the Christian texts.

How could one reconcile or associate the following natures and characteristics of Christ and Christianity with classical Judaism? A brief look at the non-J-ewish nature of Christianity as it existed at the time of Christ:

The Holy Trinity (had similar counterparts only within the pagan world)

The Holy Spirit (appears exclusively within the Christian Gospel and the only other place that such a being is mentioned is within the Zoroastrian Avesta)

God being all good, not capable of evil (exclusively Zoroastrian in nature)

The Son of God (a non-J-ewish concept that was ubiquitous within the pagan world)

The nature and order of the angelic world (exclusively Zoroastrian in nature)

Proselytizing (exclusivly pagan in nature)

Nature of the spirit world (exclusivly pagan in nature)

Sainthood (exclusively pagan in nature)

Clergy celibacy (exclusively pagan in nature)

The performance of healing miracles (exclusively pagan in nature)

The virgin giving birth to God (exclusivly pagan in nature)

God descending to earth to dwell with mankind (exclusivly pagan in nature)

God being all-good, compassionate and loving (exclusivly Zoroastrian in nature)

Last judgment at the end-days (exclusivly pagan in nature)

Savior of mankind (exclusivly pagan in nature)

Cleansing and purification rites through water (exclusivly pagan in nature)

Partaking in a communal meal ritual (pagan/Mithraic in nature)

The nature of the demonic world, Satan and heaven/hell (exclusivly Zoroastrian in nature)

Divine numerology, symbolic numbers such as forty, seven, three, twelve, etc (exclusively pagan in nature)