JESUS CHRIST-ANOTHER NOTE

I had already written a note on Jesus once and posted in the group. This is an elaboration of that note.

Augustus Caesar was ruling the Roman Empire when Christ was born. He was succeeded by Tiberius Caesar who ruled when Christ was crucified. Tiberius was later succeeded by the notorious Caligula. 

As already mentioned in the earlier note, the life of Jesus comes from the 4 Gospels. Gospel means Good news. The gospels are not strictly biographies of Jesus but they are stories told in such a way to evoke a certain image of Jesus. They contain the theological reflections on Jesus and they are not eye witness accounts of what he had done.  Jesus started preaching only when he was 30 years old which means he hardly preached for 6 years before he was crucified.

Jesus was a penniless preacher and he wandered about the dusty sun bit country of Judea preaching his doctrine. He lived upon casual gift of food by the people.

What did Jesus preach? He preached the Universal Fatherhood of God and the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. He must have had intense personal magnetism to attract his followers because he had no personal belongings, no money and no family backing either. He is said to be of delicate physique and died much before the 2 thieves who were also crucified along with him.

Christianity then was a very bold doctrine in Judea. The Jews believed in a humanlike God who had made a bargain with their father Abraham about them. When Christ preached their teachings have been hopelessly left behind. He taught that God was no bargainer and there were no chosen people for him and no favourites in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Jesus had scorn for the natural tendency to glorify our own people and minimize the righteousness of the other creeds and other races. Thus Jesus appears very tolerant and did not scorn other religions. It is rather unfortunate that the Christian preachers we see today in India go contrary to this. Jesus’s teachings have been distorted in practice by his followers like the same way it happens in all religions.

God is the loving father of all life he said, and is as incapable of showering a favour as the Sun. He said all men were brothers and were sons of the Divine father. While he was talking to people one day his mother and siblings came to visit him and this was conveyed to him saying that his brethren was waiting for him outside. He then said to his audience, who is my mother and who is my brethren? He then stretched his hands towards the audience and said you are my mother and brethren. For whoever shall do the will of my father who is in Heaven, the same is my brother and sister and mother.

Now the Jews had very strong family ties and they were outraged with the teachings of Jesus who said everyone is family. Christ condemned all the gradations of the economic system, all private wealth and personal advantages. So that actually means Jesus liked Communism. Of course he said everyone is equal and free, but Communism in the world has taken away the freedom.

As per Jesus all men belonged to the Kingdom, all their possession belonged to the Kingdom, the righteous life is for all men, and the only righteous life is the service of God’s will with all that we had and all that we were. I can see some similarity here to the Bhakti movement of Ramanuja and the Alwars. All these concepts of Jesus are of course got by us from the Gospels.

As already mentioned in the earlier note, there are 4 Gospels that are found in the New Testament and they are 1. Mathew, 2. Mark, 3. Luke & 4. John. The first 3 are referred to as the Synoptic Gospels as they give the story of Jesus in a similar way. Of these Mark is the oldest being compiled somewhere between 70 and 75 AD 40 years after the Jesus Christ was crucified. Mathew and Luke depend on Mark. The latest of them is John which was compiled between 80 and 95 AD.

As per L Michael White, Professor of Classics and Director of Religious Studies Program of the University of Texas at Austin, the gospels are not biographies in the modern sense of the word. Rather, they are stories told in such a way as to evoke a certain image of Jesus for a particular audience. They're trying to convey a message about Jesus, about his significance to the audience and thus we have to think of them as a kind of preaching, as well as storytelling. That's what the gospel, the Good News, is really all about.

Thus all the 4 Gospels have been written by Evangelists and they reflect their respective community’s needs.

As per John Dominic Crossan, a professor Emeritus of Religious studies at De Paul University located in Chicago which is the largest Catholic University in the US, the Gospel of John is written for Jewish audiences.

Like Professor Michael white, he says that the Gospels do not merely report Jesus but they interpret Jesus and are for audiences because most of the Christians of that time were illiterate and cannot read. They can only learn from the preaching Evangelists and the Gospels are written by the 4 first evangelists for their respective people’s understanding.

As per Harold W Attridge who is the Lilian Claus Professor of New Testament at Yale Divinity School there are many statements in the Gospels which reveal tensions between the Christians and the local Jewish community. He says that this may well be the reason for the Christian anti-Semitism that developed later. Professor John Dominic Crossan reiterates this.