Jesus Meek and Mild
In
most Christian Churches we find main focus is a image of a half naked
man called Jesus nailed to a cross. Looking at this objectively
without any religious explanations, this is an extremely weird image.
Christians
do attempt to explain Jesus’s crucifixion and claimed he died for
our sins. Though Christians disagree about what this means. As a
child every time I went to church I was told the following.
“For
God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.”
Suggesting
that it was God’s idea to have Jesus crucified, though why he had
to do this to grant people eternal life, is not made clear. Some
Christians claim that Jesus was the Passover Lamb. In this Jewish
ritual all the sins of the community was put on the lamb and was then
sacrificed. While other Christians claim that Jesus was sacrificed to
appease an angry God. Which is not the behaviour of a loving,
reasonable or even sensible deity.
Human
sacrifice to appease an angry male god is nothing new and was
commonplace in ancient times. We see this in the Bible in the book of
Genesis where Abraham was commanded by God to sacrifice his son
Isaac, but at the last moment God changed his mind and Isaac was
saved. After this there was no more human sacrifice in Judaism. So
it wouldn’t make sense for Jesus to be sacrificed if he was Jewish.
So there has to be another explanation for this.
To
try and make sense of all this, we can get from Christians long
convoluted explanations like the following.
“When
we say "Jesus died for our sins," we are saying that He
died because of our sins. Sin leads to death (Romans 6:23). We were
sinners consigned to death, and we had no way to stop sinning. Jesus
came into our world and lived a perfect life, so death had no hold on
Him. Yet, in His grace, Jesus chose to die on our behalf. He took our
punishment for us. As He died "for our sins," as our
substitute, He prayed that we would be forgiven. Since our penalty
has already been paid, God will forgive all who put their trust in
Jesus.”
The
behaviour Jesus doesn’t make sense, as he knowing allowed Judas to
betray him, he made no resistance to his arrest, he refused to defend
himself against any accusation, and finally allowed himself to be
whipped, abused and finally crucified. So if we take away all the
religious justifications for his behaviour, we are left with a man
with that seems to have extreme masochistic tendencies.
We
even find this in his in his teachings. As we can see in the
following two examples, taken from the King James version of the
Bible.
In
Matthew chapter 5 verse 38
Ye
have heard that it hath been said. And eye for an eye a tooth for a
tooth:
But
I say unto you. That ye resist not evil: but whosoever she smite
thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
And
if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him
have thy cloak also.
And
whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.
Give
to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee and
not turn not thou away.
Ye
have heard that it hath been said. Thou shalt love thy neighbour,
and hate thine enemy.
But
I say unto you. Love your enemies, bless them that hate you, and
pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you:
That
ye many be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he
maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth the
rain on the just and on the unjust.
We
can see a similar concept in another Gospel.
Luke
chapter 6 verse 27
But
I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which
hate you.
Bless
them that curse you and pray for them which despitefully use you.
And
unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and
him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take away thy coat also.
Give
to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy
goods ask them not again
And
as ye would that man should do to you, do also to them likewise
For
if ye love them which love you, what thanks have ye for sinners also,
love those that love them.
And
if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? For
sinners also do even the same.
And
if ye lend to them of whom you hope to receive, what thank ye? For
sinners also lend to sinners, to receive much gain.
But
love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend hoping for nothing again;
and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the
highest: For he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.
Be
ye therefore merciful, as your Father is merciful.
Judge
not and ye shall not be judged: condemn not and ye shall not be
condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.
Now
for obvious reasons many Christians are embarrassed by such teachings
and try to ignore them as it makes Jesus seem like a wimp. This is
why many Christians prefer the teachings of the Old Testament with
its macho heroes like David, Moses and Samson who stood up for
themselves and fought back.
Yet
clearly if every man was to follow Jesus’s masochistic teachings we
would live in a far more caring, loving and compassionate world.
Jesus
also said, “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the
earth.” (Matthew 5:5). The joke that goes with this is, “If
that’s alright with everyone else”. Suggesting that aggressive
and competitive people will always end up ruling the world.
So
this then seems to be the problem. Yes, if would be great if every
man was to act and behave like Jesus as it would end conflict, wars
and oppression in our world. But in the end he was totally
defenceless and unable to fight back when aggressive and violent
people decided to arrest him on trumped up charges, then abuse and
crucify him.
The
Bible has no-answer to this. But we also know that his teachings were
probably censored as many versions of the Bible was destroyed when
Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire. In the
20th century some of these lost gospels were re-discovered and called
the Gnostic Gospels. One of these is the “Sophia of Jesus Christ”.
Sophia was the ancient Jewish Goddess of wisdom before Judaism became
a monolithic religion.
In
the “Sophia of Jesus Christ” or "Pistis Sophia" she is called, “the Mother of the
Universe”. In ancient times people worshipped the Great Mother who
gave birth to the universe, so this is telling us that Sophia is the
ancient Great Mother. This then gives us a clue for why Jesus
voluntary sacrificed himself.
Scholars,
points out that the story of Jesus is not original or unique because
many pagan gods like Osiris, Orpheus, Dionysus, Bacchus, Mithras,
Odin, Bader and Loki also had similar histories. The story of a
god-man who performed miracles like healing the sick, then was
condemned to death and crucified was commonplace in many
pre-Christian religions. Most of these gods died on trees or stakes
and some like Dionysus and Jesus died on crosses.
Though
Osiris was murdered by his brother Set or Seth and cut up into many
pieces, before the Goddess Isis found all pieces and magically
brought him back to life so she could conceive her son Horus.
These
were called sacrificial/saviour gods, the idea being that humankind
is saved by the voluntary sacrifice of these gods. So how can this
happen? The biggest cause of all the suffering of our world is that
it is ruled by men.
We
can see how the masculine operates in the animal world where male
animals fight and even kill each other for access to females and
dominance.
Now
this is not a big problem when animals fight with horns, teeth or
claws but a far bigger problem when we have men fighting each other
with spears, swords, rifles, machine guns, bomber aircraft, guided
missiles and nuclear bombs. For this reason men today have not only
become a danger to himself but to the whole planet.
Not
only this, masculine aggression, also leads to oppression and
exploitation. In all very masculine societies of the past we find
slavery, serfdom, and extreme oppression of women.
The
feminine is in total contrast to this, as the instincts of the
females, in nearly all animals, is to give birth and nurture her
young. So the feminine is maternal, nurturing, loving and caring and
for this reason it would make far more sense if compassionate women
ruled the world instead of men. This then makes logical sense so why
aren’t people clamouring for this?
In
our patriarchal world the feminine is seen as a weakness. Loving men
are condemned as wimps and told that they are not ‘real men’.
This is why so many Christians ignore the teachings of Jesus as they
think they are too wimpy.
As
we see in many Hollywood films the masculine is glorified. To the
degree that even woman are influenced by this and feel if they wants
to gain respect she also has to act and behave like a masculine man.
So we live in a world where women are encouraged to act like
aggressive, cruel and ruthless men but men are not encouraged to be
as loving and nurturing as women.
Because
men are encouraged to be macho men, our history shows us a world
ruled by macho men is a world of conflict, wars, exploitation and
chaos. Even men do not like living in a cruel world like this as men
are exploited by other men and used as cannon-fodder on the
battlefield.
So
did Jesus try to create a Goddess religion where men worshipped
women? To many people this might seem preposterous but we accept it
as normal to have religions where men dominate women so why not have
the reverse of this?
THIS IS A GREAT WRITING. I HAVE JUST BEGUN READING IT & HAVE LEARNED A LOT. IT BRINGS FORTH TERRIFIC IDEAS. THE RESEARCH IS BRILLIANT--I AM NOW READING CHAPTER 3 --- ENJOY THIS FRIENDS & PLEASE COMMENT AFTER YOU HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT IT DEEPLY.
ReplyDeleteSo far, so good, William! Keep up the great work!
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