The main essence of the Christian faith is this. When Adam and Eve, our first parents, who lived in paradise, and had everything according to the will and love of God, sinned, going against the will of God, at the instigation of the tempting serpent, they lost their immortality and were cast out by God from paradise. Since then, their descendants have been forced to live and die. Because God loves us, He sent His only begotten Son, who became incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary (the most worthy one, chosen by God for this great purpose), and was born as a man, while retaining his divine essence.
The purpose of this incarnation was to save people from original sin, defeat death, and enable people again (like Adam and Eve) to gain immortality. At the same time, people who live according to God’s commandments will be able, after death, to enter the Kingdom of God created by Jesus Christ, and live there with him forever in prosperity and joy. People who were given such an opportunity, but did not take advantage of it, did not behave with dignity, did not follow the commandments, will be deprived of such an opportunity, and will forever be in hell, far from the Lord. They will forever regret their earthly life, during which they could have done everything for their eternal life in paradise, but neglected this opportunity.
For many millennia (this is for human life, but for eternity it is just a moment), God prepared humanity for this event, sending prophets to earth who told people about the coming of the Savior of the world.
How it all happened
Having chosen the most pure Virgin Mary, an orphan from the royal family of David, under the care of her elderly distant relative Joseph of Nazareth, for the birth of the Savior, the Lord sent the Archangel Michael to inform the girl that she had been chosen for such a great purpose. Mary was excited, but immediately meekly informed the Archangel of her consent. Mary was a very religious girl, devoted to the Lord with all her soul, and she worthily accepted into her womb the child born of the Holy Spirit. She was given in marriage to Joseph, to whom an Angel in a dream revealed the meaning and essence of Mary’s pregnancy, and Joseph was made guardian of Mary, her virginity, and the baby born from her until the time determined by the Lord.
Jesus grew up like an ordinary baby until he reached the age of 30. However, He showed His Divine essence already at the age of 12. When His Mother was looking for Him and found Him in the temple, where He was sitting with learned men and talking, and they were amazed at His intelligence and amazed at His answers, His mother reproached Him for worrying about where He had gone. to this the boy replied:
Why did you look for me, or did you not know that I should be in what belongs to My Father?
At the age of thirty, Jesus came to the Jordan River and was baptized there by Prophet John, thereby sanctifying the waters of the river. During the baptism, the heavens opened and a loud voice was heard from there: “Behold my beloved Son, in him I am well pleased,” then the heavens opened and John saw the Spirit of God descending from heaven on Jesus in the form of a dove. So God showed people that Jesus is the Son of God, and he is the Savior awaited by the people.
Before public service
Before embarking on his mission, Jesus Christ, being both God and man, went into the desert. There he spent 40 days in fasting and prayer, during which Satan tried in every possible way to tempt Him, and after that He set off to realize his goal.
The Lord began his ministry in Galilee, where he chose 12 of his disciples, the apostles, who were to accept His teaching, and after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and His ascension into heaven, continue to bring the teaching to people, so that they would accept the Christian faith and follow His word and example, and were able to receive eternal life in the Kingdom of God. During Jesus' ministry, many miracles were shown (such as turning water into wine, raising the dead, healing lepers, the blind, lame and dumb, the Transfiguration before His disciples when they heard a voice from heaven confirming that He was the Son of God and to them one must obey Him.
The purpose of the Savior's coming
Jesus Christ had to accept death on the cross in order to be resurrected three days later and ascend into heaven, thereby defeating death and giving us immortal life, which happened three years after the start of the public ministry of Jesus Christ. He laid the foundation for our immortality and resurrection from the dead. Upon His second coming into the world, this will happen, and each person will answer to the Lord about his life at the Last Judgment, after which his place will be determined - either in heaven for a pious life and following the commandments of the Lord, or in hell for an unworthy life.
A film based on the Gospel of John, directed by a British director, telling about the life and teachings of Christ from His baptism to his appearance to the apostles.
Discussion: 4 comments
Having found myself here by chance and having seen what topic is being discussed, I can’t help but mention another one interesting book, in which, it seems to me, the historical existence of Jesus is proven - the book “The Party of Jesus” (available on Ozone and liters).
Answer
Biography
Born in Palestine, Bethlehem (Beit Lehem), he spent his childhood in Nazareth (Nazareth). Little is known about childhood, even fewer universally accepted sources, although there are apocrypha. Then he began to preach and gathered a group of disciples around him. Had no family. He preached that he was God and the Son of God, and announced the coming of the Kingdom of God to earth. Then he was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane on the denunciation of Judas Iscariot and executed by the Romans by crucifixion. According to the Gospels, he rose from the dead. Later, the entire sermon of the apostles was based on the assertion that Jesus Christ was resurrected, ascended to heaven and sent them to baptize and “teach all nations.”
The canonical text of the New Testament is attributed to Jesus' disciples - the apostles. Some of his sayings are known, recorded in the gospels and other monuments of church writing, which were not included in the canon, but were not rejected as apocrypha. In particular, the saying “it is more blessed to give than to receive,” recorded in the Didache (Teaching of the Twelve Apostles). In the Gospels, the Epistles of the Apostles and the Apocalypse, no detailed presentation of the teachings of Jesus Christ was recorded, only a fragmentary presentation of some of its points. Much of it was preserved in oral tradition. Only over time were all versions of the creeds of different church communities brought to a single form. By the 8th-9th centuries, the eastern version of the Christian doctrine was finally formalized, and at the same time the unofficial version of the doctrine of the Roman Church began to contradict the eastern one, which led to a break in church communication in 1054.
Assessments of the personality of Jesus Christ
The personality of Jesus Christ is assessed differently by different ideologies:
- Trinitarian Christians (the most numerous branch of Christianity today) consider him to be God and man at the same time;
- Unitarian Christians and Gnostic Christians (for example, Manichaeans) consider Jesus Christ to be an intermediate being between God and man, something like an angel, many of them also deny that Christ has a real body (Docetism); Monophysites are also close to Docetism, who, nevertheless, are Trinitarians, that is, they consider Christ to be God, and not an angel or logos;
- Muslims and some Unitarian Christians (for example, Tolstoyans) consider Jesus Christ an outstanding person and prophet;
- in the secular culture of Europe of the 19th-21st centuries, there is a widespread opinion that Jesus is a real historical figure, a Jewish sage and mystic (this opinion is expressed, for example, by E. Renan and so on);
- many militant atheists generally deny that such a person existed, and his biography is considered a compilation of various myths, fairy tales and religious texts (this opinion was official in the USSR and is stated, for example, by Berlioz in a conversation with Ivan Bezdomny in M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master” and Margarita").
Meaning
In culture
In the 20-21st century, Jesus Christ became a media figure - he appears in South Park, The Simpsons and the musical "Jesus Christ Superstar".
The Jewish polemical book Toldot Yeshu, contrary to popular belief, tells rather about another person or even several other people, Yehoshua is a very common name in ancient Palestine.
Opinions
There is a Gnostic version (common among the Mandaeans of the 2nd-4th centuries) that Jesus Christ was not ethnically a Jew, which explains his many problems with Jewish religious authorities.
Mythological image
At the same time, criticism of the mythological school is clearly directed mainly against the Catholic interpretation of Jesus Christ, since, for example, the Manichaeans do not claim anything about the virginity of Mary, they believe that Christ could not die and rise again, since he did not have a real body, and so on. Muslims or Hindus also have completely different interpretations of Jesus. Accordingly, the mythological school, taking into account the real variety of interpretations of Jesus Christ, acts as a mirror image of Catholicism; it was born in Germany in the 19th century as a counterweight to Catholic and Lutheran Christianity.
Video
see also
Notes
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| Events | Resurrection of Jesus Christ Easter |
| Personalities | Jesus Christ Myrrh-Bearing Women Apostles |
| Related stories | The Descent of Christ into Hell The Appearance of Christ to the Disciples The Appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene The Appearance of Jesus Christ to the Virgin Mary |
| Places | Jerusalem Holy Sepulcher Church of the Holy Sepulcher Shroud of Turin Upper Room of Zion |
| Christian traditions | |
The divine and human natures are united in the Hypostasis of Jesus Christ, unfused, immutable, inseparable and inseparable. This means that neither the Divine nor the human nature, as a result of the union, underwent the slightest change; they did not merge and did not form a new nature; will never separate. Since the Son of God is not only God, but also Man, He also possesses two wills: Divine and human. At the same time, His human will agrees with the Divine will in everything.
2) According to His human nature, Jesus Christ is the Son of the Most Holy Theotokos, a descendant of the king and prophet David. His conception took place without the participation of her husband’s seed and without violating the virginity of Mary, which She preserved both at the Birth and after the Birth of the Son.
Why did Christ appear?
As is known, the Good God “created man for incorruptibility and made him the image of His eternal existence” (Wis. 23:2). But man resisted the will of the Creator, and “sin entered the world, and death through sin” (). As a result of the Fall, corruption affected not only the human conscience, but also the human essence itself. Man could no longer give birth to holy and sinless descendants; he became prone to evil, susceptible to the influence of fallen spirits: “Oh, what have you done, Adam? When you sinned, it was not only you who fell, but also us, who come from you” (). The Fall “perverted all the powers of the soul, weakening its natural attractions to virtue” (St.).
Man could only get rid of the power of sin only through the special intervention of Almighty God. And so, revealing His boundless love for mankind, God sends His Son into the world ().
How did Christ deliver man from the power of sin, the corruption of death and the devil?
Coming out to preach at the age of thirty, Christ taught by word and example. Confirming His Divine mission and dignity, He more than once performed miracles and signs, including healings from illnesses and resurrections. The apogee of the ministry was the sacrifice of Himself on the Cross in atonement for sins: “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we, having been delivered from sins, would live for righteousness: by His stripes you were healed.” ()
Having voluntarily accepted the Passion of the Cross and death, the Son of God descended in soul to hell, bound Satan, destroyed the souls of the righteous and, trampling death, was resurrected. Then He repeatedly appeared to His disciples and on the fortieth day He ascended to Heaven, paving the way to the Kingdom of God for all who would follow Him. On the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles, who has been continuously present in the Church since then. By joining the Church of Christ and living an active church life, a person draws closer to God, is sanctified, deified, and as a result is awarded eternal blissful life in Heaven.
How Christ confirmed that He is both God and Man
As God, Jesus Christ openly declares His Divine nature. He says: “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (), “I and the Father are one” (), “no one knows the Son except the Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son, and to whom the Son wants to reveal it” (). To the question of the Jews, “Who are you?” He replies: “He was from the beginning, just as I tell you” (). Speaking to them about Abraham, He says: “Truly, truly, I say to you: before Abraham was, I am” ().
Introduction.
1. What will we talk about?
2. We don't know Jesus, we don't know Christ.
Part I.
3. "Jesus" or "Emmanuel"?
4. From Nazareth - to Bethlehem or from Bethlehem - to Nazareth?
6. The name of Jesus in the cult in the life of Christians.
Part II.
8. “Christ” - “Anointed One”.
12. Conclusion.
Introduction.
1. What will we talk about?
In the history and content of Christianity, the names “Jesus” and “Christ” have much higher value than believers, theologians and scientists realize. In our private opinion, a comprehensive study, illumination and understanding of these names opens up for everyone - believer and non-believer, intellectual and layman, interested and indifferent - new aspects of the vision of both Christianity itself and much of what is connected with it, Christianity. What exactly can be seen is a matter for each individual person, his tastes and the knowledge he already has. We, in particular, believe that the study of these names can become a significant additional contribution to the study of the history of the emergence of Christianity and lead to a radically new, possibly final solution to the problem of the historical existence of Jesus Christ. True, in this article we do not set ourselves the task of providing a solution to this problem, although we will talk about it. Our task is extremely narrow and extremely specific: we will talk only about what the name “Jesus” means and the name “Christ”, which is attached to the founder and God of the Christian religion.
2. We don't know Jesus, we don't know Christ.
The first Christian communities (churches) arose almost 2,000 years ago. Christianity officially came to Kievan Rus 1,000 years ago and became first the state and then the dominant religion of the peoples of Kievan Rus. The knowledge about Christianity and about Jesus Christ is acquired by our contemporaries spontaneously, “with mother’s milk,” just as the name and content of all other traditional folk elements of our people are acquired: religion, art, everyday life, and the like. As a result, the overwhelming majority among all segments of the population seem to know the content of the expression “Jesus Christ” just as well as they know other phrases of general dictionary meaning. But in fact, as Volodya Vysotsky sang, “all this is not so, all this is different.” Neither theological nor scientific studies from antiquity to the present day have paid due attention to the names of Jesus Christ. Moreover, the original views on this problem have now been forgotten; the meaningful history of the penetration of the name of the founder and God of the Christian religion into our everyday life has not been traced.
For almost two thousand years, heated theological and scientific debates have been continuously simmering around the problems of Christianity, as a result of which the irreconcilable points of view on Christianity not only do not decrease, but, on the contrary, constantly increase. In the field of religious-theological and historical-scientific views, the evangelical predictions seem to come true word-for-word. That's what it means. According to the Gospel of Luke, Simeon the God-Receiver, holding the newborn Jesus in his hands, says about him: “Behold, he lies in my arms who will become the subject of controversy and the cause of the fall of many” (2:34). (Biblical quotations from the Hebrew and Greek Koine dialect are translated by us throughout. The Synodal translation of the Bible is polished according to the standards of the Orthodox faith and does not quite accurately convey the content of the originals. After a quotation from the Bible, the biblical book is called in parentheses, a chapter separated by a comma, and a verse of that book separated by a colon chapters. For example, "(Luke 2:34)" would mean: "Gospel of Luke, chapter two, verse thirty-four"). “Do you really think that I came to create peace on earth? By no means! (I brought) division. From now on, five in the same house will be opposed to each other: three against two and two against three. Father will speak out against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law,” Jesus Christ himself says to his disciples (Luke 12:51-53).
We are not going to reconcile religious or scientific points of view on Christianity that are hostile to each other, or to make our own, additional, “mite” (Mark 12:42; Luke 21:2) to the far from peaceful disputes generated by Jesus Christ. We will focus the readers' attention only on the content of the expressions "Jesus" and "Christ".
Of course, contrary to the efforts and intentions of the author of the article, he will have to speak out on certain puzzling issues. And there are such questions, and there are many of them. They arise immediately as soon as we begin, even superficially, to become acquainted with the biblical message about the origin of the name “Jesus” as applied to Christ (A special story about the origin and name “Christ” will be below.)
___Part I.___
3. "Jesus" or "Emmanuel"?
On the very first page of the New Testament, in the first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, the following is written about the origin of the name “Jesus”:
| “The birth of Jesus Christ happened like this. When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before he approached her, it turned out that she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit. But her husband Joseph, being a decent man, did not want to discredit Mary and decided to secretly let her go. As soon as he thought of this, an angel of God appeared to him in a dream (In a similar case, we would say: “He dreamed of an angel.” But that would be too modern. The author of the Gospel of Matthew quite seriously says that angels do not dream, but appear in dreams in all their reality. This is clear from the subsequent behavior of Joseph depicted by the evangelist.) and said: “Joseph, son of David! Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child with whom she is pregnant is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you will give him the name “Jesus,” for he will save his people from their sins.” . All this happened so that the words of the Lord, which were spoken to him through the prophet, would be fulfilled: "Behold, a virgin becomes pregnant with a son Gospel of Matthew, 1:18-23. |
There is no need to analyze the entire New Testament text. Let us focus our attention on the name of the newborn Savior.
The books of the New Testament include four gospels - four versions of stories about the earthly life of Jesus Christ. Each of the gospels describes dozens of times events that seemed to have been foreseen by the prophets of the Old Testament. At the same time, the evangelists certainly emphasize that such and such, such and such, and not otherwise happened to Jesus Christ precisely because certain prophecies were fulfilled on him. Moreover, after describing a certain event, it is separately emphasized that it was predicted by such and such a prophet. (For examples of such fulfillment of prophecies, see: Matthew, 2:15; 8:17; 12:17; 13:35; 21:4; Mark, 14:49; 15:28; Luke, 14,21; 24:27-45 ; John, 12:38; 17:12; Drawing attention to what we have noted, a number of well-known and prominent scientific researchers: Friedrich Strauss, Arthur Drews, Andrzej Nemoevsky, S.I. Kovalev, I.A. Kryvelev, Scott Ouzer, Gordon Stein, Earl Dougherty, Jack Kirsey and many, many others deny the historical existence of Jesus Christ. In their unanimous opinion, the authors of the gospels described the life of the founder of Christianity not based on real historical or everyday events, but on the basis of their subjective desires. The apostles, they say, really wanted their Christ to be born, live, create, teach, die and rise again exactly in accordance with the prophecies of the Bible. According to the prophecies of the Bible, they came up with the biography of Jesus Christ.
We will now neither deny nor confirm the views of those who consider the Gospel Jesus Christ to be a mythical creature from beginning to end. Let us only note that not everything in such views is based on irrefutable scientific foundations. It is enough to pay attention to the name of the founder of the Christian religion. If, for example, the author of the Gospel of Matthew actually invented his Jesus Christ from beginning to end exclusively in accordance with biblical prophecies, then why?.. Well, why did he call his literary hero, Christ, Jesus, and not Emmanuel? ! After all, Matthew referred to biblical prophecy and immediately illustrated that the prophecy did not come true. Some kind of confusion. And again why. Well, why didn't subsequent scribes and church authorities correct Matthew by omitting his reference to prophecy?
The author of the Gospel of Matthew certainly looked at the Christ he described as the Messiah promised by the prophets of the Old Testament and sent by God. He, Matthew, really wanted to see everyone fulfilled (or, in extreme cases, more) Bible prophecies on the one he describes literary hero. But with all this, Matthew clearly overdid it, for the name “Emmanuel” is not identical in sound or content to the name “Jesus.” The Hebrew word "Em-manu-il" literally means "God is with us," and the word "Jesus" means "Savior." Cunning preachers convince their listeners that the word "Jesus" is the same as "Emmanuel." But that's not true. We, for example, never identify the name of Latin origin “Victor” with the name of Greek origin “Nicholas”, although both of these words mean the same thing, namely “Winner”. And the words “Jesus” and “Emmanuel” are completely different not only in sound, but also in content. This is the first thing. And secondly. The prophecy of Isaiah, to which Matthew refers, about the birth of Emmanuel was told to the Jewish king Ahaz, and during his lifetime the latter was fulfilled even 8 centuries BC. This is joyfully reported in the same book of the prophet Isaiah (chapters 7-8; 8:8,10). It is no coincidence that Isaiah's prophecy about the birth of Emmanuel, when applied to Jesus Christ, does not use any of the remaining three canonical gospels. His prophecy about Emmanuel was not used by any of the authors of the other 36 gospels not canonized by the church.
So, let's fix an important point. Referring to the prophet Isaiah, the author of the Gospel of Matthew did not follow the biblical prophecy about the name of the born Savior. Why? - Yes, only because the writer of the Gospel was under pressure from the historically real Christ, whose name was not Emmanuel, but Jesus. There are no other plausible explanations for this incident and there cannot be.
4. From Nazareth to Bethlehem or from Bethlehem to Nazareth?
There is ample evidence in the Gospels to support the idea that behind the gospel Jesus Christ there is a solid figure of the historical Jesus who became the Christ. Here is one of the convincing evidence.
The real Jesus was from the settlement of Nazareth (A number of researchers refer to the fact that in the historical documents that have reached us, the city of Nazareth is mentioned only from the 3rd century, and on this basis they deny the existence of Nazareth at the beginning of our era. “How did Jesus Christ manage to be born in a city that appeared three centuries after his birth?" - with such a rhetorical question they deny the historical existence of Jesus Christ. But this is not scientific. If, for example, the village of Zaplazy in the Odessa region was first mentioned in documents from the end of the 18th century, this does not mean that it did not exist before that. It existed! It was founded and inhabited by the Turks. During the Russian-Turkish war of the late 18th century, the Turks were expelled from the Tauride region. Part of the Turkish population of the village of Zaplazy remained in place, converted to Orthodoxy, and then the village was settled by settlers from Russia, Ukraine, and Polish lands. Are there really many settlements that are not reflected in historically reliable documents?) in Galilee. It is no coincidence that in the stories of all the canonical and apocryphal gospels he is called Jesus of Nazareth. (Matthew, 1:24; 2:33; 4:67; 21:11; Mark, 10:47; Luke, 4:34; 18:37; 24:19; John, 1:45; 18:5; 19 :19; Acts 2:22; 4:10; 24:5; Based on an analysis of the words spoken by Jesus Christ on the cross (In the Gospel of Matthew (27:46) these words are conveyed in Greek writing: (Hili, Hili, lema sabachphani; Or, Or, lema sabachphani) - God, God, why have you forsaken me? And in the Gospel of Mark (15: 34) these words of Jesus Christ on the cross are conveyed somewhat differently: Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachvani") some researchers have concluded that the Savior spoke Hebrew in the Galilean dialect. There is other evidence that Jesus Christ was from Galilee. (After the death of Herod the Great (4 BC), the kingdom of Judea came under the control of Roman governors - prefects and procurators. The legacy of Herod the Great, which occupied all of Palestine, was divided into four parts, into tetrarchies: Judea, Samaria, Galilee and Decapolis. The latter was located on the left bank of the Jordan and was inhabited by Hellenes. The Jews of Judea were disdainful of the inhabitants of other tetrarchies, including the Jews there. According to the reports of the first three gospels, which researchers call synoptic, all the activities of Jesus Christ took place in Galilee. Jerusalem, he came only a week before the holiday, began to preach, expel merchants from the temple, declare himself the Son of God, for which he was accused by the Jewish church authorities (Sanhedrin), convicted and handed over to the Roman authorities as a state criminal against the Roman Empire. Only the fourth. The Gospel of John, which was written in the second half of the second century, dates the main activity of Jesus Christ to Jerusalem and Judea, which, in our opinion, not only contradicts the messages of the synoptic gospels, but also the actual state of affairs.)
But the appearance of the Jewish Messiah-Christ from Galilee, and even more so from the unknown Nazareth, was not foreseen by biblical prophecies, (In biblical prophecies one can read various indications of the tribe (tribe) and the place from where the Messiah should come to the Jews. We will talk about this in more detail below.) in any case, by those prophecies that are used in abundance by all the authors of the canonical and apocryphal gospels. This was well understood by the Jews of Judea at the beginning of our era, which is clearly expressed in the gospel stories. So, Nathanael, having heard from his Galilean fellow countryman Philip a story about a meeting with Jesus, whose appearance was supposedly predicted by Moses and the biblical prophets, asks with surprise: “Can something good (for the Jewish people) come from Nazareth?” (John 1:46). The prophets who were revered in Judea said that the Messiah should come, like his distant ancestor David, from Bethlehem. Given these prophecies, Matthew and Luke describe the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem. Matthew even refers to the corresponding words of the prophet Micah (5:2). But according to the description of the Gospel of Matthew, the parents of Jesus Christ permanently lived in Bethlehem, which corresponds to biblical prophecies, but, in our opinion, differs from the actual state of affairs. The more educated author of the Gospel of Luke states the fact that his parents lived in Nazareth. And since for the authors of both gospels both the prophecy about Bethlehem and the fact of Jesus Christ’s residence in Nazareth are authoritative, each of the evangelists is forced with their own conjectures to build a chain of connections between Bethlehem and Nazareth. Matthew tries to show how Jesus from Bethlehem came to live in Nazareth, and Luke - how a resident of Nazareth managed to be born in Bethlehem. And this is what each of them comes up with.
In order to move Jesus Christ to permanent residence in Nazareth, the author of the Gospel of Matthew needed to come up with a completely unnatural story about three eastern wise men, whom a star leads to the house of the newborn King of the Jews. (We call the event described in the Gospel of Matthew (2:1-12) unnatural for two reasons. Firstly, at least that by the star/planet the Magi could not in any way determine the house in which the future King of the Jews is located. If it was not a star, but some kind of miraculous phenomenon, then miracles are outside of nature, outside of history and outside of science. Secondly, the birth of the King of the Jews is not so. an important event, so that the eastern wise men, abandoning all their affairs, set off on a long journey to worship him. At that time, the King of the Jews was an insignificant person, dependent in everything on the Roman governor in Damascus. The King of the Jews was a significant figure only in Judea itself and for the Jews. Truly, " Stronger than cats- there is no beast!" It may be objected to me that the Magi came to worship the future Savior of the world. But those who object in this case either do not read the Gospel of Matthew or are blaspheming in a Christian way. Matthew speaks only about the worship of the Magi to the future King of the Jews. And as for the Savior, then Did the Son of God really stoop to the point of accepting worship from the Magi, that is, sorcerers and warlocks, who, according to the Bible (Deuteronomy 18:10; Isaiah, Micah 5,12; Nahum 3:14; 8:19; Acts , 19:19; Apocalypse, 9:21; 21:8; 22:15), are the servants of Satan and whom God cannot tolerate?) To this he adds the most incredible beating of infants at Bethlehem by order of King Herod, (The last king of the Jews, Herod the Great, was a cruel man. We have received information about this scoundrel in official documents of the Roman Empire, historians Josephus, the philosopher Philo of Alexandria, a relative and personally close to Herod, and other contemporaries. All witnesses have an extremely negative attitude towards Herod, in their the descriptions do not omit a single event discrediting Herod. But none of them even remotely hints at the massacre of the infants at Bethlehem.) the flight of Joseph and Mary with Jesus to Egypt. After Herod's death holy family returns home. But on the way he learns that Judea is ruled by Herod’s son Archelaus, bypasses Judea, comes to Galilee and settles there in the inconspicuous town of Nazareth. In the residence of Jesus Christ in Nazareth, Matthew sees the fulfillment of prophecy (The author of the Gospel of Matthew inappropriately draws on biblical prophecy to call Jesus Christ a Nazarene. In the Bible, the words that “she who is born will be called a Nazarite” are said only in the Book of Judges in chapter 13, verse 3. But it is clearly written there that this prophecy was expressed by the barren Manoah, the wife of Zorah. It is also said that this prophecy was fulfilled - Manoah gave birth to a son, Samson (13:24). Here it should be said that Matthew is completely illiterate in connecting the residence of Jesus Christ in Nazareth with the biblical Nazarite life. Chapter of the book of Numbers says that a Nazirite (who has taken the vow of a Nazirite) should not drink wine, not eat grapes, not touch the dead, not cut his hair. In this regard, Jesus Christ depicted in the Gospels was not at all like a Nazirite. that he turned water into wine (John, chapter 2); if he drank with sinners, undoubtedly, with alcoholics (Matthew 11:18-19; Luke 5:30-33), on the farewell evening He touched his disciples with wine. dead at least in the case when he resurrected them. Therefore, Christ was in no way a Nazirite.) that the Messiah “will be called a Nazirite” (2:23).
The author of the Gospel of Luke has the opposite problem - the problem of forcing the inhabitants of Nazareth, Joseph and Mary, to give birth to Christ in Bethlehem. To do this, he composes a story about the population census carried out by Emperor Augustus “throughout the whole earth” (We talked in more detail about the “census of population” and other historical facts mentioned by Luke in the article “Calendars, chronology and the date of the birth of Christ.” The article is on the pages of the same site.) and thus forces Joseph and his nine-month-pregnant wife Mary to rush “to Bethlehem, the birthplace of David” (2:1-5), in order to give birth to Jesus there. After fulfilling the prophecy determined by God about the place of Christ's birth, Joseph, along with his wife Mary and the newborn Jesus, calmly return home to Nazareth. And no worship of the Magi, no beating of infants, no flight to Egypt, no search for a new place to live.
5. “Jesus” - semantic content; variants of name and word.
According to the gospel stories, the boy “conceived in the womb” was named Jesus by an angel who appeared first to Mary in reality (Luke 1:3) and then to Joseph in a dream (Matthew 1:21). In both the first and second cases, the angel explains the reason for this name of the future newborn.
According to the Gospel of Luke The angel explains the meaning of the name of the future King of the Jews to Mary in these words: “He will be great, he will be called the Son of God. God will give him the throne of his father David. He will reign over the house of Israel forever, and his kingdom will have no end” (1:31- 33). In passing, we note that Luke in the future life of the “conceived child” sees the fulfillment of biblical prophecies about the eternal existence of the kingdom of Israel and the eternal reign in it of the direct descendants of David, king of the 10th century BC (1 Samuel, 22:10; 2 Samuel, 7:12 ; Isaiah 9:7; Jeremiah 23:5; Micah 4:17).
It should be said that at the beginning of our era, during the time of Jesus Christ, these prophecies could not possibly be fulfilled. After all, after the death of Solomon, the son of David, his kingdom split into two: Judah and Israel. The famous Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III (745 - 727 BC) conquered the northern and western parts of the kingdom of Israel and resettled the tribes of Dan, Manasseh, Nephilim, Gad to Media - in the basins of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (2 Kings, 15:29; 17: 6; 18:11). The son of Tiglathpasar, the famous Sargon III (722 - 705 BC), in 722 took the capital city of Samaria by storm and thus liquidated the Kingdom of Israel. All Jews were taken to the regions of Assyria, where they finally dissolved among the non-Jewish peoples. Judaism, from the 4th century BC to the present day, considers the 10 tribes (tribes) of Israel, taken captive by the Assyrians, to be completely lost to the Jewish people.
And the kingdom of Judah, which was inhabited by the tribe of Judah and partly by the tribe of Benjamin, was conquered by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC, again taken into captivity, in which all the direct and indirect descendants of King David were completely destroyed. This unfortunate fact is attested to by the prophet Jeremiah, who lived during the Babylonian captivity of the Jews (52:9-11). How could it be that in the gospels Jesus Christ is constantly and emphatically called “the descendant (son) of David” (Matthew, 9:26; 12:23; 15:22; 20:30-31; 21:9; Mark, 10 :47; Luke 1:27; 18:38-39; ? In our opinion, this can only be explained by the following circumstances.
It is known that among the Jews, after their return from Babylonian captivity, figures of various ranks periodically appeared who called themselves Messiahs - the saviors of God's chosen people promised by God. Such, for example, were considered the Maccabean brothers, who in the 60s BC led an uprising against Syrian enslavement. Bar Kochba, the leader of the Jewish uprising against Roman enslavement, was recognized as the same Messiah in the 130s. But what is noteworthy is that not one of them declared himself (he was not recognized) as a descendant of King David! Why?!
Yes, because both he and his followers were well aware that the line of King David ceased to exist during the Babylonian captivity. It should be clarified that the complete absence of a descendant of David by the beginning of our era was well known only to the inhabitants of Judea, in the capital of which was the High Priest of the Temple of Jerusalem, and with him a caste of highly educated clergy, unsurpassed experts in the history of the Jewish people and the Holy Scriptures.
But in Judea, far from Jerusalem, administratively isolated and hostile, in God-forsaken Galilee, the home-grown and ignorant clergy could only perform a religious cult at the request of believers. This situation with the Jewish clergy can also be read from the Gospel stories. Thus, according to biblical instructions, which are effective to this day, only a person from the tribe of Levi - a Levite - can be a minister of worship (servant of the Jewish God Yahweh). Jesus Christ - both in the gospels and in reality - was not a Levite. But even he, not a Levite, could walk around the Galilean synagogues and conduct his own propaganda, which was very far from Judaism. Modern Christians, who accept their faith from the words of the priests, have the impression that Jesus Christ immediately came out with propaganda of the new religion on the mountain, along the roads, on the river bank, in general - in open areas. But that's not true. The main propaganda, both in content and duration, was carried out by him in the Galilean synagogues, and Christ performed most of his healings in the Galilean synagogues, and Christ spoke most of his parables in the Galilean synagogues (Matthew, 4:23; 12:9; 13:54; Mark, 1:23-29; Luke 4:15-20; 13:10; At the trial of the Jerusalem high priests, Jesus Christ said in his justification: “I always taught in the synagogue.” The ignorant priests of Judaism internally disagreed with the content of his sermons and his interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, but were unable to object to him. All they could do was lure him to the mountain to push him over it (Luke 4:28-30).
The lack of proper priests and experts in the Jewish Scriptures in Galilee provided Jesus with fertile ground for promoting reformed Judaism, the version of belief that served as the primary source of Christian doctrine. This is, first of all, propaganda of the equality of all tribes and peoples before God, which Judaism categorically did not allow and still does not allow. It is precisely this nature of religious propaganda that the Gospel text silently testifies to, reporting that “Jesus walked throughout Galilee, teaching in the synagogues... And rumors about him spread throughout Syria... And people followed him (It can also be translated so that it would be more correct: “And it came to learn from him.”) a multitude of people from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and beyond the Jordan" (Matthew 4:23-25). Jesus did not limit himself to attracting non-Jews to himself, he personally and together with his disciples (apostles) visited Gentiles (pagans) territories within Tire and Sidon (Matthew, 15:21; Mark, 3:8; 7:24-31;), was in the pagan country of the Gadarenes (Mark, 5:1-17; Luke, 8:26), visited the people Gergesinsky (Matthew 8:28) and so on. In the conditions of Judea, such behavior of a purebred Jewish Jesus was simply unthinkable. From the success of his preaching work in Galilee, Jesus, to put it mildly, became dizzy and decided to consolidate his work with propaganda. in Judea. The three first evangelists, the authors of the synoptic gospels, unanimously testify that as soon as Jesus, having gone to Jerusalem, tried to preach his Galilean themes in the capital of Judea, he was immediately accused by the court of the most authoritative experts of the Holy Scriptures and the guardians of the piety of God's chosen people. Let’s say on our own: they are fully qualified in blasphemy and, adding to the blasphemy they invented the rebellion of Jesus against Caesar (Emperor of the Roman Empire), they handed over to Pontius Pilate for trial.
Due to an important addition to general history In the preaching activities of Jesus in Galilee, we deviated somewhat from the narrow topic of our research - from the hereditary genealogy of Jesus. Let's get back to it now. Only in the climate of ignorance of the Galilean Jews and their clergy could Jesus easily declare himself the Messiah and be perceived by his followers as a direct descendant of the biblical king David.
Now let’s draw a conclusion from our consideration. The proclamation of Jesus as a descendant of King David could have entered the gospel stories not from the texts of the Old Testament, but in spite of it - from the life of the historically real Galilean Messiah Jesus .
Let us now turn to the messages of the Gospel of Matthew. In it, the angel explains to Joseph: “Mary will give birth to a son, and you will give him the name Jesus, for he will save his people.” (“Our people” are the same (and only!) Jews, God’s chosen people.) from their sins" (1:21).
Among the Jews, even before they settled Palestine, the name “Jesus” was quite respectful. This was the name given to the closest assistant and successor of the prophet Moses Joshua (Jesus Nun). The return from Babylonian captivity and the restoration of the Jerusalem temple was carried out under the leadership of Zerubbabel and Jesus (Ezra 3:2). The prophets Haggai (1:1) and Zechariah (3:1-9; 6:11) also mention Jesus among the names of their contemporaries. The author of one of the books of the Old Testament is called Jesus, the son of Sirach. From the works of the contemporary of Jesus Christ, the philosopher Philo of Alexandria (21 BC - 49 AD) and the historian Josephus, we learn that at the beginning of our era the name Jesus was the most common among Jews. Jews named Jesus were also among the preachers of early Christianity (Colossians 4:11).
In the Massoretic texts of the Bible, which do not use vowels, the name of Jesus is written in three letters: "YSHV", which is read as "Jeshua" (Yeshua) or "Joshua" (Yoshua) and literally means: "Yahweh" (Yahweh is the name of the God of the Jewish tribe of Jews. Scientific research identified in different Jewish tribes of biblical times with different gods. In the Massoretic text of the Bible (and sometimes in the most conscientious Christian translations from it), God is still called Eloah, Elohim, Yahweh, Adonai, Shekinah, Hosts, and the Angel of Yahweh.) will save." This is exactly how the meaning of this word is interpreted by Philo of Alexandria, whom we mentioned. The philosopher wrote his works in Greek and on one of his pages he found it necessary to explain that the Hebrew word “Jesus” means “The Salvation of the Lord.” (Philo of Alexandria wrote: Iesous - soteria kyrion (Iesus - soteria kyrion), Jesus is the savior of the Lord.)
Consequently, the same style of letters for the ancient Jew could mean different names and different persons. The first pronunciation (Yeshua) means what is translated into our language as Jesus, the second (Yoshua) - Josiah. Several kings of Judah were called Josiah (not Jesus!). One of these kings is named among the direct ancestors of Jesus Christ (Luke 3:29). When the Jewish Bible was translated into Greek in the 2nd-3rd centuries BC, the translators did not distinguish Biblical Jesus from the biblical Josiah. In the 10th century, the Masoretes introduced vowel signs into Hebrew writing - and thus separated Jesus from Josiah. But in Christian translations of the Bible before the 10th century, the name Jesus was often confused with the name Josiah. Only after the 10th century did appropriate corrections of biblical names begin to be introduced into the Greek copies of the Bible. But still in the Latin-language editions of the Bible among the ancestors of Jesus (Luke 3:29) in most cases it is written not Josiah (Joshua - Joshua), as it should be written, but Jesus (Jesus), which is incorrect.
In the 4th century BC, Judea was captured from Alexander the Great and experienced the beneficial influence of Greek culture. The Jews began to quickly Hellenize. Hellenism even penetrated into everyday and religious speech. A few decades later, they began to call their Jesuses Jasons in the Hellenic manner. Several people with the name "Jason" are found in the biblical deuterocanonical books of Maccabees (1 Maccabees, 8:15; 12;16; 14:22; 2 Maccabees, 1:7; 2:24; 4:7, 26 ; 5:5, 10). Such Jasons took an active part in the formation of Christianity; they can be found among the retinue of the apostles (Acts 17:5-6; Romans 16:21). The Hellenized name "Jason" is consonant with the Greek word "Ηιστοι" (Histoy, histoy), which means "to Heal."
All the variants and meanings of the word “Jesus” mentioned above were generously used by churchmen in revealing the image of Jesus Christ to believers. Thus, taking into account the words of the angel according to the Gospel of Matthew, a prominent figure of the 4th century, Cyril of Jerusalem, proclaimed the Holy Father and Teacher of the Church, explained to his believers that the word “Jesus” means “God the Savior” (Θεοσ Σοτεριον, Theos Soterion). A contemporary of Cyril of Jerusalem, the famous church historian Eusebius Pamphilus, Bishop of Caesarea, associated the meaning of the name of Jesus with the Greek word “to heal.” The name of Christ, according to Eusebius, tells us that the Son of God is the Healer of our souls and bodies. John Chrysostom said that an angel told Joseph the name of Christ in Hebrew and that the name “Jesus” literally means “Σοτηρ” (Sotir) - Savior. Clement of Alexandria and many other famous figures of the 4th and 5th centuries associated the name of Jesus Christ not with the Hebrew language, but with the Greek language, since at that time anti-Semitism began to influence the Holy Fathers.
6. The name of Jesus in the cult and life of Christians.
In Christianity, the name of Jesus was written in Greek from the very beginning as "Ιησουσ" (I-yes-ou-s, Jesus); up to the 15th century in the Latin Vulgate - “IHESUS” (Ihesus); in Church Slavonic literature it was always written - ²èñqñ (Jesus). Local Christians pronounced the name of Christ in different ways. The Council of Trent of the Catholic Church in the 16th century canonized the spelling and pronunciation of the name of Christ - “Jesus”. In Russian it is written “Iesus”, but it is always pronounced “Isus”, in Ukrainian it is written and pronounced “Isus” (Isus).
During the Middle Ages, it began to take root name cult Jesus. The church saw the admissibility of such a cult in biblical texts: " In my name", - said Christ, - you will cast out demons" (Mark 16:17-18). "What have you not asked in my name, the heavenly Father will give it to you" (John 14:18; 16:13; 24:26). In the name of Jesus the apostles healed the sick (Acts 3:6; 9:34). The Apostle Paul wrote that "at the name of Jesus every tribe in heaven, on earth, and in the grave" (Philippians 2:10).
There is a legend that these words of the Bible gave the basis to Saint Bernandina of Siena, and after her to Saint John of Capistral and Pope Martin V (1417 - 1431) to call believers to worship medallions on which the name “IHESUS” or abbreviated “IHS” is inscribed. Now the wooden medallion of Bernandina of Siena is exhibited for worship by believers in the Roman church "Santa Maria" (Santa Maria - Holy Mary). Modern Catholic clergy the words on the medallion "IHS" are interpreted as "Jesus Hominum Salvater" (Jesus is the Savior of people).
At the end of the 16th century, a monogram with the letters "IHS" became the emblem of the Jesuit Order. But before this monogram, the Jesuits drew a cross above the letter “H”, and below it three lines, shortened from top to bottom, the ends of which seemed to be inserted into the letter “V” (Victoria - Victory). Under the entire image is written “Hic Victorio” (With this you will win). It is believed that this is the image of the cross that Emperor Constantine the Great saw in 314, when he opposed his rival for the Roman throne, Licinius.
Over time, the popes began to introduce the name of Jesus into the everyday life of Catholics through their decrees. At the same time, the Catholic Church still justifies its actions with the following reasoning: “In all religions, it is customary to pronounce the names of their gods during spells... The name of Jesus protects us from Satan and his criminal intentions, since the Devil is very afraid to hear the name of Jesus.” (Encyсlopedia Catholica. 1913, "Jesus."). Pope Urban IV (13th century) and Pope John XXII (13th century) began to offer indulgences for 30 days of freedom from torment in hell/purgatory to all those Catholics who, before exclamation in honor of the Virgin Mary - "Ave Maria", will add the exclamation of the word " Jesus". Pope Sixtus V on July 2, 1587, by a special bull, granted an indulgence for 50 days to those who would familiarize themselves with the words “Glory to Jesus” or respond to this greeting with the word “Amen.” It should be said that the pope’s recommendations immediately began to be implemented most successfully among Polish and Ukrainian Catholics, and then the Uniates. Indulgences who will carry out the pope's recommendations regarding greetings to each other were confirmed on September 5, 1759 by Pope Clement XIII, and Pius X on October 10, 1904 increased the validity of indulgences to 300 days. The same pope guaranteed remission of all sins before death to those who did not forget to pronounce the words “Esus” and “Mary” every day. Today in the Catholic Church there are dozens of monastic and secular organizations with one name or another, “Holy Name of Jesus.”
The Orthodox Church did not follow the Catholic Church in the cult of the name of Jesus. But in it there indirectly exists a cult of the initial letters of the full name of Jesus Christ. On Orthodox icons of the Son of God and on crosses you can now see and read the following letters - “ІНЦІ” (ИНЦИ), which mean: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” It is believed that these were the words that Pilate ordered to be written on the cross of Jesus Christ. But based on the text of the Holy Gospels, it is impossible to establish what exact expression was written on the cross of Jesus. The gospel writers were very careless in reproducing the record of Jesus on the cross. The Evangelist John reports that over the crucified Jesus Christ there was an inscription in Hebrew, Greek and Roman: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” (19:19). The Evangelist Matthew says something else: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews” and does not say that it was written in three languages (27:37). Luke testifies that on the cross it was written “in Greek, Roman and Hebrew words: “This is the King of the Jews” (23:38). And Mark is even more brief: “King of the Jews” (15:26). It turns out that the evangelists in their notes They didn’t bother to accurately convey the sacramental text of the most tragic moment of the torment of Jesus Christ. What reason do we have to trust the evangelists and the apostles when they try to convey the complex and incomprehensible teachings of Christ about salvation, the Holy Trinity, the heavenly hierarchy and other puzzling dogmas of a godly life. They are not able to accurately reproduce the inscription of only 2-4 words, but they undertook to accurately retell the spoken words of Christ. Everything they do is very, very fragile!
They did not escape the cult of the names of Jesus and Protestant churches and sects. Pentecostals in the name of “Jesus” do their best to heal and make believers and non-believers healthy, in the name of Jesus to punish apostates, to “stop the mouths” of their religious and atheistic opponents. In the 30s of this century in the USA, in the depths of Protestantism, a movement of admirers of the Name of Jesus was formed under the name: “The Sacred Name Movement”. The movement's pastors identified the name of Jesus with the name of the biblical God Yahweh. For them, God the Father is Jahovah, and God the Son is not Jesus, but Jahoshuah. Having figured out for itself the name of God and Christ, the movement began the corresponding edition of the biblical text, in which the well-known: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21; Mark 12:17) was written and read: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” - to Caesar, to Yagovago - to Yagovah."
___Part 2___
7. "Christ" is the "Anointed One"
The word “Christ,” which has now become familiar and familiar in the culture of all Christianized peoples, was not so either for the population of the then Roman Empire or for the original Christians themselves.
The historical origins of the word "Christ" are rooted in the Hebrew word "Moshiag" (Messiah, Massiah, Mossiah), which literally means: "He who has been doused with (fragrant) oil", "Anointed", "Anointed", "Anointed". As the Catholic Encyclopedia notes, the origin and original meaning of ritual anointing (watering, sprinkling, rubbing, oil) of the home, body (primarily the head), sacred place, the stone at the fork in the road is not exactly identified. Ritual anointing is found in many religions. Most likely, the anointing originally had a sexual meaning. (Encyclopedia Catholica, 1913, words "Anointed" and "Messiah".)
According to the text of the Old Testament, special oil (myrrh) was prepared for ritual anointing from the seeds of precisely selected fragrant herbs (Exodus, 24-33). When a priest (high priest, prophet) poured myrrh on the head of this or that person, it meant that God this person ordained to the position of king, priest, prophet, miracle worker, healer. A person thus initiated became Anointed - elected and approved for the execution of certain social functions.
During the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, the Jewish scriptures (Old Testament) were translated into Koine Greek. In the latter, the biblical word “Moshiach” was translated by a tracing-word that is not usual for the Greek language - “Christ” (Anointed). In both Hebrew and Greek, the word Moshiach-Christ is not proper names, did not mean any specific person, but only those officials who received appointment to office through anointing. In this sense, all of God’s chosen Jewish people are also called in the Bible a people anointed by God himself. Moreover, God, according to the stories of the Bible, could anoint not only his chosen people and their members, but also people from other nations and tribes. Thus, during the time of Abraham, who was still childless, although already chosen by God, among the pagan tribes (among the “goyim”), the high priest of the Most High God was Melchizedek, the king of Salem, who greeted and blessed Abraham in a friendly manner (Genesis 14:17-20). The prophet Isaiah declared the Persian king Cyrus anointed (Moshiach) (45:1).
In the first and second centuries AD, the original Christians called themselves Christians not because they believed in Jesus, (According to the rules of the Greek and Latin languages \u200b\u200bthat existed at that time, the followers of Jesus should have been called Jesusists and in no case Christians.) but because they considered themselves anointed with the Holy Spirit. Thus, defending his co-religionists, the second-century apologist Theophylact of Antioch in his work “To Autolycus” (180) answered the question: “Why do you call yourselves Christians (anointed)”? He answered: “Because we are anointed (chrysanitos) with oil from God.” .
8. “Christ” - “Anointed One”.
Like every people in the world, the Jews considered themselves chosen by God, their relationship with God, him and their mutual obligations were recorded both orally and in writing. Agreements (Covenants) with God became the core material of the entire Jewish Bible, which, under the name of the Old Testament, became an integral part of the Holy Scriptures of the Christian religion. Together with the Old Testament, Christianity inherited, and then transformed, the Hebrew understanding of Moshiach into its Christ. Let us first trace the stories of the Jewish Bible about the Anointed Ones.
The Bible tells us that God expresses his will to Jewish believers through his messengers, mainly through angels (Genesis 16:7-9; 19:1-5; 22:11; 24:7; Numbers 22:23- 34; Judges, 2:1-4; 1 Chronicles, 21:15 ...) and prophets (2 Chronicles, 24:19; 25:15; 36:1; Isaiah, 6:8; .. .). Saying goodbye to the Jewish people before his death, the prophet Moses conveyed to them the following words spoken to him by God: “Prophet from your midst, from among your brothers, like me, (Please note: God promises to “raise up a prophet” from the line of Moses. Moses was from the tribe (family) of Levi, a Levite. Subsequently, Christian theologians will refer to this testament of Moses as a prediction about Jesus Christ. But Jesus Christ, according to the stories of all the gospels, was a descendant not of the Levites, not of Moses, but of King David, who belonged to the tribe of Judah, not Levi. In the Russian Synodal translation of the Bible, for the sake of the Christian teaching about Jesus Christ, the words of the prophet Moses were distorted.) - The Lord your God will give you. You will listen to him... I will put my words into his mouth and he will say everything that I tell him. And he who does not obey my words that he (the Prophet) speaks, I will punish him” (Deuteronomy 18: 15-19).
In addition to the prophets, God constantly sent individual judges, saviors, chosen with warnings, to the Jews. Some of these messengers of God were anointed for service, while others fulfilled God’s orders without anointing. Then, by order of God, the prophet Samuel anointed Saul to the position of the first king (1 Samuel, 10). After this, the people from the tribe of Judah themselves anointed David as king (2 Samuel 2:2-4). David's descendants became kings both through those anointed and without him. Moreover, among the kings, both anointed and unanointed, there were many wicked and blasphemers. For the bad behavior of the kings and for the disobedience of the Jewish people, God punishes them with the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel (722 BC), and then the Kingdom of Judah (586 BC). Descendants of the 10 tribes of Israel (In fact, not 10, but 9 tribes of Israel were scattered. The tribe of Levites (descendants of Levi) performed priestly functions among all the tribes of Israel, including among the tribe of Judah and Benjamin. Therefore, part of the Levites was preserved along with the Jews and Benjamites. But also in the Bible and In the Jewish tradition, the assertion has become stronger that in Assyrian captivity 10 tribes disappeared irrevocably for the Jewish people.) As a result of captivity, they were scattered among the peoples of Mesopotamia and Persia, and the descendants of the tribe of Judah, Benjamin and part of the Levites returned to Judea from Babylonian captivity in 536. At the head of those who returned were the leader Zerubbabel (Zerubbabel) from the tribe of Judah and the priest Jesus from the tribe of Levi. The two of them led the restoration of the city of Jerusalem and the temple in it. The prophets Haggai and Zechariah, contemporaries of all these events) praise the leaders of the Jewish people and unanimously prophesy that Zerubbabel will sit on the throne of David (become the king of the restored Judah), and Jesus will become the high priest (bishop). “These two,” writes Zechariah, “are anointed with oil, standing before the Lord of all the earth” (4:14). After the restoration of Jerusalem and the construction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem (516 BC), Jesus actually became the high priest. But the state of Judah remained a vassal of Persia, and Zerubbabel did not become the king of Judah.
Later, as part of Hellenistic Syria, the Jews of Judea were subjected to religious persecution. In 168 BC, the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes, in order to convert Jews to the Hellenic religious faith, ordered a statue of the God Zeus to be brought into the Jerusalem Temple and sacrifices made to him there. The prophet Daniel called the God Zeus and the desecration of the Temple of Jerusalem “the abomination of desolation,” as this phrase is translated in the Russian text of the Bible, and literally “a stinking city.”
The family of Jewish high priests, the Maccabean brothers, in 167 BC raised and led the uprising of the Jewish people against Syrian oppression. Simon Maccabee proclaimed himself the messenger of the Lord God to save God's chosen Jewish people. The Maccabees were Levites. Namely, the Levite was the prophet Moses, from whose family God promised to raise up the Prophet-Savior (Deuteronomy 18:15-19). In 147 BC, the Jews achieved independence from Syria. Judea became an independent state, and the Maccabee family marked the beginning of the reign of the high priests, who went down in history as the Asmonean dynasty.
It should be said that Messiah (Moshiach) with a capital letter - in its personalized meaning of defining an individual person - is used in the Jewish Bible only two times: in the book of the prophet Daniel (9:26) and the Psalter (2:2). It is these two words that are rendered “Christ” in the Greek translation of the Bible, the Septuagint. Both biblical texts were written during the Maccabean revolt. It was the Asmonean dynasty that contributed to the formation in the religious environment of Jews of the concept of the Messiah, as a separate person - the messenger of God Yahweh, the Savior of the Jewish people from foreign oppression.
The Asmonaeans did not live up to the Messianic expectations of God's chosen people. They intensified the oppression of the Jews, unleashed an ongoing massacre against real and imaginary enemies within their state; wars of conquest caused a hostile attitude towards Judea from all neighboring states. All this is read quite clearly in the second psalm.
The Jews themselves began to speak out against the power of the high priests. At that time, this was in most cases carried out under the religious slogans of the Sicarii (axemen), Zealots (poor people), Pharisees (pure ones), Essenes, Nazarenes, Qumranites and other various sects. In 63 BC, Pompey's troops captured Jerusalem, control of the country was transferred to the hands of the delegates of Rome, and in 37 BC, the Romans transferred the leadership of the Jews into the hands of an Edomite, a man from a tribe hated by the Jews, Herod the Great (37-4 BC era). (Herod the Great did more for the greatness and culture of Judea in just over 30 years of his reign than many anointed kings did in several centuries. Hated by the Jews, during his lifetime he entered the history of the Jewish people with the name “Great.”) Thus passed and ended the history of God's chosen people under the control of the first Messiah and his direct heirs - the high priests of the Asmoneans from the tribe (family) of the Levites.
The consequences of the anti-Syrian uprising contributed to the rethinking of the concept of Moshiach among the Jews. The understanding has already strengthened that Moshiach is one specific person, and not anointed priests, prophets and kings in general. In the religious consciousness of the Jews, Moshiach began to rise above other anointed ones and gradually take on the dignity of all the anointed ones. He is at the same time a king, a priest, and a prophet... He is God’s favorite and the closest to him... And from here it’s just a stone’s throw from portraying the Messiah as the son of God,.. the only son,.. equal to God,.. By God.
The process of transformation of biblical ideas about the Messiah is clearly visible in the extra-biblical literature of the Jews, in the Babylonian and Jerusalem editions of the Talmud, in the Jewish apocryphal apocalypses, Sibylline books, additional prophetic books that were attributed to the twelve patriarchs, various kinds of Testaments (Contractual texts with God) and many similar literature. All these books were written during the 2nd century BC - 1st century AD.
It was extra-biblical creativity that radically transformed the biblical understanding of the Messiah and came close to creating a fundamentally new image of the Christian Savior - the image of Jesus Christ. Here are just a few examples of this kind.
In the apocryphal Book of Enoch it was written that in order to save the Jewish people on Mount Zion (The Temple of Jerusalem and the royal chambers were built on Mount Zion. A continuous fortress wall was erected around the circumference of Mount Zion.) God Yahweh himself will sit and begin to judge all the righteous and sinners. He will divide everyone into two parts: he will place the righteous on his right, and the sinners on his left. God's chosen righteous after the judgment will live for many centuries, like the biblical patriarchs (1:30-36). The Apocalypse of Baruch prophesies the coming of a thousand-year kingdom of righteous Jews on earth under the control of the “Anointed One Yahweh.” In the non-canonical Psalm of Solomon, which was written 50 years BC, the “Anointed One of Yahweh” (Moshiach Yahweh) is called a descendant of King David. The Pharisees, irreconcilable enemies of the Asmoneans and Sadducees, persistently propagated that the real Messiah would not be from the Levites, but from the line of King David. (Only in the non-canonical book “The Testament of the 12 Patriarchs” are the Asmoneans praised and the origin of the Messiah from the Levites is proven) All these views later became an organic part of the content of the Christian canonical books of the New Testament.
The socio-economic conditions of the beginning of our era, extra-biblical religious creativity, national lawlessness and oppression increased expectations among the Jewish people of the imminent coming of the Messiah. The Gospels, for example, testify that even a simple Samaritan woman at that time knew that the Messiah, that is, Christ, was about to come (John 4:25). All the majestic and best things that could be read in all the biblical and extra-biblical promises of God Yahweh were transferred to the expected Messiah. Among the lower classes, the simple masses of the Jewish people, the image of the coming Messiah was simplified to the visible features of a certain Liberator from national oppression, or a Teacher of Justice, or a Healer of souls and bodies, or a Ruler over all nations, or a descendant of King David... Historical documents preserve information about the appearance of a dozen and a half similar Messiahs at the beginning of our era in the lands of Palestine. Thus, the famous historian Josephus Flavius (37-102) in his works “The Jewish War” and “Jewish Antiquities” calls the Roman real Messiah (Jewish and Christian theologians accuse Josephus of blasphemy for recognizing the Roman emperor Vespasian as the Messiah. How, they say, can a non-Jew and a pagan become the Messiah, the Anointed of God’s chosen Jewish people. But Joseph did not blaspheme, but imitated the prophet Isaiah, who are no less than the pagan Persian King Cyrus also called God's Anointed (Isaiah 45:1).), at the same time calling John the Baptist, Theudas, and Jesus the impostor Messiahs. About one of these Messiahs he writes: “Seven years before the destruction of Jerusalem (that is, in 67), a peasant named Joshua (Some historians translate the name of this peasant Joshua as Joseph, others as Jesus.) appeared in Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles and began shouting in an excited voice: (According to the stories of the Gospel of John, Jesus Christ also once came to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles, stood on the street and exclaimed something incomprehensible about rivers of living water from the womb (7:37-41).)"The voice of the morning. The voice of the evening. The voice of the four winds. The voice of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. (Jesus Christ also proclaimed the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple (Matthew 24:2; Mark 13:2; Luke 19:44; 21:6)) A voice against houses and bridges. ABOUT! ABOUT! Woe! Woe to you, Jerusalem!" The peasant was arrested, but he, without offering resistance, shouted: Oh! Oh!" It had the appearance of stretched skin over bone. He was taken to the procurator Albinius. He did not answer questions, and in response to blows with a whip he shouted: “Oh! Oh, Jerusalem!”... The unfortunate man was declared crazy and released. But he walked around Jerusalem for another 6 months and exclaimed his own. Then he climbed the fortress wall. He was driven out of there and finally the Romans from the tower brought a stone down on his head. (Josephus. The Jewish War. VI:5,§3.) Other sources preserve information about the Messiah on Mount Gerazim, about Judas the Galilean, whom the local population revered as the Messiah, (Pilate attacked the worshipers of Judas the Galilean while they were making a sacrifice to God. An echo of this event is reflected in the Gospel of Luke (13:1-5).) about a certain “miracle worker from Egypt.” The Talmud, which was written at the beginning of our era, mentions Jesus ben Pandira, the son of the virgin Mary from the Roman soldier Pandera. Now a number of theologians, in their oral and written publications, claim that the Talmud confirms the existence of the gospel Jesus Christ, talking about him under the guise of ben Pandira. But the Talmudic Jesus is a child of fornication, an illegitimate son. It is noteworthy that in the Middle Ages, the Christian Church ensured that in editions of the Talmud, Jews did not reproduce pages where there were references (and there were several) about Jesus ben Pandir. Only in Arab countries and in Europe, since the end of the 18th century, has the Jewish Talmud been published in in full.
The Gospel Jesus Christ acted and stories about him were written in an atmosphere filled with Messiahs like himself. It is not in vain and not by chance that in a number of books of the New Testament, Christians are often warned, openly and in hints, not to believe in other Christs other than Christ Jesus (Matthew 24:5, 23; Mark 13:21; John 20:31; Acts , 9:22; 18:5,28; 1 John, 2:22;).
Since the Jews at the beginning of our era spoke not Hebrew, but Greek, they called the expected Moshiach Christ. By the way, in the New Testament the word “Messiah” is used only twice, and both times only in the Gospel of John (1:41; 4:25). Throughout the entire text of the New Testament, both Jews and pagans, and the authors of the text, call Jesus not the Messiah (Moshiach), but Christ.
9. "Christ" and derivative words.
Among historians, discussions continue to this day regarding the mention by the Roman historian Suetonius (70-140) in his work “On the Lives of the Twelve Caesars” of the rebel Chrestus, through whose fault Emperor Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome. Some scientists see this as evidence of an outstanding historian about the existence of Jesus Christ. Others deny the commonality between the names Christos and Chrestos. For our part, we will add that in the Greek language there is a word “chrestos”, which can be translated as sweet, tasty, edible. There is also evidence that the name Chrest was common among the Romans and Greeks. The word Chrestos is also found in the text of the New Testament. Thus, in the first letter of the Apostle Peter we read: “Like newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow to salvation; for you have tasted that the Lord is sweet (chrestos o kyrios)” (2:2-3).
Prominent Latin figures of the Christian church of the 3rd and 4th centuries: Tertullian, Lactantius, Blessed Jerome knew that in their church Jesus was mainly called Christos, but occasionally also Chrestos. With their interpretations they even supported this name. Later, from the interpretations of the holy fathers, a cult was created with the hymn "Sweet Jesus", which is still performed in Catholic and Orthodox churches.
The name of the Christian religion comes from the word “Christ”. Now believers in Jesus Christ nowhere call themselves “Anointed,” but only Christians.
The Slavic word “Baptism” has a more indirect relationship with the word “Christ”, in Ukrainian - “Khreshchennia”. In the Septuagint (Greek text of the Bible), in all modern Romano-Germanic languages baptism is called baptism, from the Greek word “Baptizo” - I dip in water, baptize. Our word “Baptism” is based not on the word “Christ” or “Chrestos”, but on the “Cross”. Hence, in all non-Slavic languages, John the Baptist is called John the Baptist, since he dipped Jesus Christ in water (“baptized”) in the Jordan River. And had nothing to do with the cross. It should be noted here that only in icons and paintings of Slavic origin is John the Baptist depicted with a cross.
10. Christ anointed to serve
as King, Prophet and Priest
Church authorities clarified the content of the word “Christ” and the positions assigned to Jesus for themselves and for the entire Church of Christ over the centuries after the emergence and establishment of the dominant position of Christianity in the Roman Empire. To solve the problems of Christ, Ecumenical Councils were convened, the blessings of the curse were proclaimed, and the active figures in this entire process were destroyed and elevated to the rank of saints. IN church history the period of such discussions and decisions is called the period of Christological disputes. Among Christian churches, schisms and heresies to this day there is no general agreement regarding the nature and mission of Jesus Christ, nor regarding his anointing for anything.
In the book of the Acts of the Holy Apostles, Christian proselytes, when addressing God, mention “Your Holy Son, Jesus, anointed by You” (4:27). But not one of the 4 canonical or 36 non-canonical gospels even mentions that Jesus was ritually anointed by someone, somewhere, with something. Modern theologians convince others and themselves that Jesus was anointed to his appropriate ministry by the very act of being born of the Holy Spirit, or by the act of baptism in the Jordan River, already at the age of 30. They try to confirm both the first and second versions of the “anointing” by referring to specially selected and deliberately interpreted Bible quotations, as well as appeals to “common sense.” It goes without saying that it is clear that birth from the Holy Spirit or baptism in the waters of the Jordan is nothing more than the anointing established by the Bible. From such explanations it should be clear to us that theological interpretations in in this case very far from... the true state of affairs.
According to clear biblical instructions, ritual anointing could be performed, especially during the earthly life of Jesus Christ, only by the high priest or the prophet appointed for such a ritual. Namely, they try to conform to the expressed thought. John the Baptist was a prophet, about whom the Evangelist Mark wrote: “As it is written in the prophets: “Behold. I (that is, God) am sending my angel before your face, who will prepare your way before you" (1:2). But John the Baptist did not anoint Jesus, but only baptized him. And he baptized Jesus exactly as he had baptized and others coming to him. It was not an anointing. But this behavior of all the authors of the gospels serves... What do you think serves as additional evidence of the historical existence of Jesus Christ? And here I want to throw my stone towards the scientists of the mythological school who say. that the gospel Jesus Christ is a myth; that Christianity began with the belief in an unearthly, heavenly and non-human being, and only then they gradually began to give this creature human features, lower it to earth, and, according to biblical prophecies, compose a fictitious biography of Jesus from beginning to end. But if the Gospel “testimonies” about Jesus Christ were created in this way, then a story about the anointing of Jesus would certainly be invented for them.
Let us draw the reader’s attention, since this idea is expressed and argued for the first time by the author throughout the entire article. The authors of the gospel stories were forced to invent a fragment about the anointing of Jesus Christ for his ministry by the biblical texts that evangelists use in abundance, and no less by the very name of Jesus Christ (the Anointed One). But when talking about the conception, birth, circumcision of Jesus, the authors of the gospels do not even hint at his ritual anointing, attributed by the Bible to kings, prophets, priests and the Messiah (Moshiach) himself. Once again - why? Yes, because there was no such ritual anointing over Jesus Christ. And in that real situation! century AD could not have happened. From the gospel stories themselves it is clear that the Jerusalem high priests could not perform or at least allow such an anointing, since they fiercely hated Jesus and did not recognize him either as a descendant of King David or as Christ the Messiah.
Obviously, the authors of the gospel stories were concerned about the lack of ritual biblical anointing of Jesus. This is evidenced by the fact that the Evangelist Mark (14:3-9), Luke (7:37-50) and John (12:3-8) were forced to record a completely petty fact, compared to the greatness of Jesus’ deeds anointing the feet of Christ by Mary Magdalene, from whom he once cast out seven demons, or by Mary, the sister of Martha and the resurrected Lazarus. The gospel writers clumsily try to elevate this fact to an event of universal significance and force Jesus himself to utter the words: “Truly I say to you, wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, in memory of this woman everything that she has done will be told” (Mark , 14:9). Despite the obvious desire of the apostles, not one of them openly declared that this was the ritual anointing of Jesus as Christ the Messiah.
The name of Jesus as Christ forced later - no longer Jewish, but purely Christian theologians - to consider in detail the consequences of the (failed) anointing of Jesus as Christ the Messiah. And in the process of heated discussion of this issue over the course of the 4th-16th centuries (up to the Council of Trent), the Catholic Church, and after it the Orthodox Church, came to the conclusion that the anointing of Jesus was, so to speak, multi-vectoral and everywhere - the High Quality. As a result of his (again, we are forced to say: failed) anointing, that divine grace was poured out on Jesus Christ, which the biblical prophets received through the anointing (Deuteronomy 18:15-22; Daniel, chapter 7), the biblical high priests (Genesis, 14-14-20 ; Psalm 109) and biblical kings (Genesis, 49:10; Numbers, 24:15; 4th Kings, 7:13; Psalm 71:8-11; Isaiah, 42:6; 52:13-53; 61: 5-8; Jeremiah, 23:6;), As a result of all this, Jesus Christ became at the same time an anointed Prophet, an anointed Bishop (High Priest), and an anointed King.. To confirm precisely this view of Jesus Christ, theologians like to refer to the Eastern Magi. (sorcerers) who to the newborn Jesus with great symbolic meaning presented in Bethlehem gold (as to the king), frankincense (as to the high priest) and myrrh (as to the prophet),
11. From Jesus - to Christ or from Christ - to Jesus.
According to the stories of the canonical gospels and the unanimous recognition of all Christian believers (with the exception of Unitarians and partially Jehovah's Witnesses), the founder of their religion and God appeared on earth immediately as Jesus and immediately as Christ. In historical science, as we already know, supernatural factors are not taken into account. Based on natural factors, researchers of early Christianity and the Gospel Jesus Christ were divided into two groups, they are called two schools. We have already talked about the mythological school. The historical school proceeds from the fact that there really was a certain religious reformer of Judaism, Jesus, around whom, after his death, additional fabrications and legends began to be created and thus created for him the image of the eternal son of God, Christ. Summarizing the views of both approaches, we can say that the mythological school proves the movement of the heavenly Christ to the earthly Jesus Christ, and the historical school explores the movement of the real earthly Jesus to the image of the divine being. Both the first and second approaches justify their conclusions with an innumerable variety of documents, analogies, conclusions and conclusions. Based on the results of two thousand years of scientific discussions around the evangelical Jesus Christ on the anniversary of Christianity, we can, in our opinion, draw the only correct conclusion. We will operate with the achievements that both schools already have, adding to them the fundamentally new vision of the problem outlined in this article.
At the beginning of our era, faith in the heavenly Christ the Savior began to spread among Jewish believers. These beliefs are clearly recorded in the book “Apocalypse, or the Revelation of John the Theologian,” written in the late 60s, which is still contained in the books of the New Testament. We can say with confidence that this book marked the beginning of the separation of believers in the heavenly Christ from Judaism, although the author of the Apocalypse and its addressees did not yet realize this at all. Christ was then portrayed as a completely mythical, unearthly creature, whose eyes burn with fire, his legs are made of red-hot copper, his hair is white as snow, his voice is like the sound of waterfalls, he holds seven stars in his hands, and a double-edged sword comes from his mouth. sword... (1:13-16). Followers of the Apocalypse believed that all evil on earth comes from the fact that something is wrong up there, in heaven. They saw the essence of this disorder in the fact that in the heavenly palaces (in modern terms: in the heavenly office) the enemy of the human race (more specifically: the enemy of the Jews, God's chosen people) Satan, had taken up residence. According to Jewish apocryphal literature, Satan is the eldest Angel (in other versions - the eldest son of God), who, by the law of primogeniture and by his position, received from God the right to sit in the heavenly temple and rule the whole world. Taking the most high position in the heavenly hierarchy, Satan became proud and began to rule the world not in a divine way, but according to his pride. In the heavenly heights, decay began; began what we call “Fish stinks from the head.” And since there is no divine order above, in heaven, then what kind of order can we talk about below, on earth? Hence, accordingly, the reign of evil and hatred towards God’s chosen people was established on earth. And no earthly efforts, no transformations can eliminate evil on earth and establish goodness in its place. The sufficient practice of the Jewish people in the struggle for their liberation and the healthy comparison of their forces with the forces of the Roman Empire confirmed the most pessimistic assumptions. A major expert on the history of the origins of Christianity, the English scientist of the mid-20th century, Robertson, said: “Christ won because Spartacus was defeated.” According to the author of the Apocalypse and his followers, it is possible to eliminate evil and establish goodness only by “establishing order” in heaven.
And therefore, in all respects, the apocalyptic Christ will perform all his great works of Salvation in heaven. He will receive anointing from God to overthrow Satan, enter the heavenly temple, bind Satan and throw him onto the earth into a deep well (into the abyss), which he will close with locks for a thousand years. After this, Christ will cleanse the heavenly sanctuary from the spirit of Satan and sit on the throne. There will be peace and quiet and God's grace on earth and in heaven (Apocalypse, chapter 20).
On the basis of apocalyptic beliefs, until the beginning of the 2nd century, the belief in the coming of the Heavenly Savior, which was joined by the belief in the Last Judgment of the enemies of the Jewish people, the End of the World and the Millennial Kingdom on earth, spread exclusively among Jewish believers. After the capture of Jerusalem by Roman troops under the leadership of Titus and the destruction of the temple in it, the Jews settled in the diasporas of Asia, Africa and Europe. Their beliefs in the heavenly Christ the Savior became known to the local non-Jewish population and mixed with the beliefs of the latter. Biblical and apocryphal beliefs in Christ of the Jews began to be filled with pagan beliefs, and therefore - in general with elements of spiritual life and culture different nations Roman Empire. The philosophy of Philo of Alexandria provided a particularly favorable basis for this belief. Philo of Alexandria was the greatest philosopher of that time. He, a Jew by birth, tried to combine his biblical beliefs with the philosophy of Plato. He taught that between God and the earth there is a whole chain of intermediate links. The closest link to God is the Logos (Word), which is eternally inherent in God, through which it creates the world. In the Jewish environment, Philo's Logos gradually merges with the image of Christ. Already in the middle of the 2nd century, the author of the Gospel of John will begin his story about Jesus Christ with the words of Philo of Alexandria: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. God had it from the very beginning. Through him everything became exist. Without him, nothing that exists began to exist. There was life in him, and life became light for people. And the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness cannot cover it... No one has ever seen God, only through his only begotten son, who abides in God the Father from all eternity, God himself appears to us" (1:1-18). The philosophy of Philo of Alexandria opened the way for future Christianity to assimilate the philosophical heritage of the Greco-Roman world. On the other hand, the Philosophy of Philo of Alexandria, with its teaching about mediators between God and people, became a bridge through which the modernized biblical-apocryphal belief about Christ penetrated into the environment of pagan beliefs of the Greco-Roman world. Under the influence of all this, the heavenly, mythical Christ in the religious and creative imagination of believers gradually descended to earth, acquired the features of an immense number of humanoid gods of the Saviors (Attis, Ormuzd, Mithra, Hercules or, there, Prometheus) until he was embodied in the gospel image of Jesus Christ. (The path of transformation that we have sketched within the framework of the origin of Christianity of the heavenly Christ the Savior into the image of the Evangelical Jesus Christ has been studied in all the most detailed detail over the past one and a half hundred years by numerous representatives of the so-called mythological school.)
Regardless of the apocalyptic beliefs in Christ, perhaps somewhat earlier than the appearance of the book “Apocalypse of St. John the Theologian,” Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth began his reform activities in Galilee, and then throughout Palestine. Through an objective analysis of various sources - and there are very, very few of them - we can reliably establish that he was the illegitimate son of the virgin Mary (possibly conceived by her from a Roman soldier-guest) (This is if we follow the numerous hints of the Talmud, which modern Christian theologians so readily refer to in their attempts (let's face it: primitive and clumsy attempts) to prove the historical existence of Jesus Christ.); that he was adopted by the carpenter Joseph, who married the already pregnant Mary; that he had four brothers and two sisters who did not believe in Jesus as the Christ (Matthew 13:55-56; Mark 6:3; John 7:3-7). The sermon of Rabbi Jesus was modeled on Jewish midrashim, in which the chosen topic was revealed on the basis of the selection and interpretation of the texts of the Holy Scripture (Tanakh, Old Testament) and the Holy Tradition (Talmudic tales) of Judaism. He didn't write anything (The Gospel of John (8:8) says that one day Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger (or a stick) on the ground. This happened when a harlot (according to church tradition - Mary Magdalene), who was caught in fornication, was brought to Jesus. The story of this first appeared in the text of the Gospel of Luke at the beginning of the 3rd century, but several decades later it was transferred to the Gospel of John, where it remains today.) although he knew how to read (Luke 2:46-49; 4:16). Jesus preached reconciliation between nations and classes; he sympathized with the poor and enjoyed the greatest authority and respect among them; mercilessly denounced the rich and, especially, priests. On one of the Easter holidays, already surrounded by universal respect, all-Jewish glory and a crowd of admirers, he noisily entered Jerusalem. The embittered Jerusalem clergy seized Jesus, accused him of blasphemy, added a fictitious charge of a state crime, and handed him over to Roman justice. The prefect (not procurator) of Judea, Pontius Pilate, after ten minutes of consideration of the court case, ordered the crucifixion of Jesus, who admitted that he was Christ and a descendant of the Jewish king David.
After the death of Jesus Christ, his followers fled. None of them wrote a word about their teacher. They only spread messages about their Moshiach orally. The first attempts to record these stories, to convey in writing the midrashim of Jesus Christ, by the early Christians were met with condemnation. Thus, the famous Christian figure of the mid-2nd century, Papias of Hierapolis, reacted with great distrust to the “Memoirs of the Apostles” that appeared in written form (possibly the first versions of the gospels). It is likely that the abstracts of Jesus Christ's sermons once existed in the form of a collection called "The Logies (Words) of Jesus." Of these, only about two dozen proposals have reached us. The content of the “Logis of Jesus” became an integral part of the current gospel parables and midrashim, especially the content of the famous Sermon on the Mount (Matthew, chapter 5-7; Luke, 6:20-49).
In the second century, among the Jewish diaspora populations, the streams of believers in the apocalyptic Christ and the followers of Christ of Nazareth met and began to interact and mingle with each other. In church literature, the internal/external dialectical struggle between them in the process of the formation of Christianity as a separate and independent religion was reflected in the form of the history of the struggle of Paulinism (supporters of the Apostle Paul, in general - an apocalyptic movement) and Petrinism (supporters of the Apostle Peter, in general - supporters of Jesus Christ of Nazareth). The victory of Paulinism opened the door for Christianity to win the hearts of believers throughout the Roman Empire. The remaining elements of Patrinism armed Christianity with the rich religious heritage of the Jewish religion, allowing it to acquire its own sacred scripture, the Bible, the first part of which was the sacred scripture of the Jewish religion (Tanakh, Old Testament).
12. Conclusion.
In reality, the historical Jesus of Nazareth and the mythical Christ from biblical apocalyptic sources evenly walked towards each other. Their unification in agony gave humanity not only a largely touching, albeit contradictory, image of the Evangelical Jesus Christ, but also led to the emergence of the first monotheistic, interethnic and now most powerful world religion.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.
The birth of Jesus Christ was predicted by angels. Archangel Gabriel announced that she would become the mother of the Savior, who would be miraculously conceived through the action of the Holy Spirit. Another angel revealed this secret to Joseph the Betrothed, Mary's nominal husband, appearing to him in a dream. Jesus Christ is born in Bethlehem - the legendary city of David, where, according to Old Testament prophecies, the Messianic king should be born. The shepherds come to worship the Baby, and then the wise men, led by a wonderful star. Saving their son from Herod, who learned about the birth of the King of Judah from the Magi, Mary and Joseph flee with the baby to Egypt, and after the death of the tetrarch they find refuge in the Galilean city of Nazareth (according to Luke, the couple initially lived in Nazareth).
The canonical Gnaigelia are silent about the years of childhood and youth of Jesus Christ. Only one episode is covered, connected with the moment Christ reached his 12th birthday (the age of religious majority, according to Jewish law). During the Easter pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the boy disappears, and three days later he is found in the temple, where he, as an equal, talks with the rabbis. To the reproaches of the mother of Jesus Christ, she answers: “Why did you look for me? Or did you not know what I should do about what belongs to my Father?” In the apocrypha, the young Jesus Christ is portrayed as a wise youth and a miracle worker. He is able with one word to revive birds sculpted from clay, to kill and revive peers who have quarreled with him, etc.
As an adult, Jesus Christ receives baptism from John the Baptist, and then retires to and, after a 40-day fast, meets in spiritual combat with the devil. He refuses to miraculously turn stones into bread (“man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”); refuses to throw himself down from a height in order to be supported by angels and thereby prove his sonship with God (“do not tempt the Lord your God”); refuses to bow to Satan in order to receive from him “all the kingdoms of the world and their glory” (“Worship the Lord your God and serve him only”).
Having called disciples from among the Galilean fishermen, Jesus Christ walks with them throughout Palestine, preaching the Gospel and performing miracles. He constantly violates the norms of Jewish law: he allows his disciples to gather ears of corn on Saturday, communicates with outcast sinners, and forgives people their sins (which in Judaism is considered the exclusive right of God). In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ proclaims the commandments of a new morality, abolishing the establishment of the Torah. Care about tomorrow, O material well-being condemned, for “blessed are the poor in spirit” (in a more accurate translation - “blessed are the voluntarily poor”, or “those who are poor at the command of their spirit”). Divorce is prohibited, “except for the guilt of fornication,” the pronouncing of any oath is considered unacceptable, the ancient norm of “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” which gives the right to personal revenge, etc., is rejected. Zealots of the law see in Jesus, a native of the despised Galilee, a dangerous sectarian rebel and possible political rival. The elders of the Sanhedrin (the highest Jewish court) decide to try Jesus Christ in order to then hand him over to the Roman authorities for execution.
In the days before Easter, Jesus Christ solemnly enters Jerusalem on a donkey (an animal symbolizing peace, as opposed to a war horse) and, coming to the temple, expels the money changers and merchants from it. During the ritual of the Easter dinner (Last Supper), Jesus Christ predicts to his apostles that one of the disciples will betray him, and then serves bread and wine to the disciples, mystically transforming them into his body and.
He spends the night in the Garden of Gethsemane, “is horrified and sad,” asks three of the apostles to stay awake with him and turns to God with the prayer: “Father! Oh, if only you would deign to carry this cup past me! however, not my will, but Yours be done.” Soon after this, Judas Iscariot brings armed accomplices of the Jewish elders and kisses Jesus Christ - this is a sign who needs to be captured. The high priests judge Jesus and give him a death sentence, which must be confirmed by the Roman authorities. However, the procurator Pontius Pilate, having interrogated the convict, is looking for a reason to save him. According to custom, in honor of Easter one criminal could be pardoned, and Pilate offers to release Christ, but the Jews demand that the thief Barabbas be forgiven and Christ crucified.
The suffering of Jesus Christ on the cross lasts about 6 hours. He entrusts the care of the Virgin Mary to John the Theologian, reads (in Aramaic) a verse of the mournful psalm: “My God! My God! Why did you leave me!” - and dies. At the moment of his death, an eclipse occurs, an earthquake occurs, and the veil in the Jerusalem temple is torn by itself. The body of Jesus Christ was given to friends, at the request of Joseph of Arimathea, wrapped in a shroud and hastily buried in a cave. However, when, at the end of the Sabbath, Mary Magdalene and two other women came to anoint the Master’s body with incense, the cave was empty. A “young man dressed in a white robe” (an angel) sitting on its edge announced that Christ had risen. The risen Savior appeared to the apostles and sent them to preach a new teaching throughout the earth.
This is how the biography of Jesus Christ appears in the texts of the canonical Gospels.
Legacy of ancient cults
Christian mythology has a number of similarities in common with the cults of “sedentary” civilizations:
- the image of the dying and resurrecting god-savior (Osiris, Adonis, Mithra and other deities associated with the idea of fertility and the agricultural cycle);
- stories about the death and rebirth of the world, about the battle with evil in the form of a chthonic beast, about the self-sacrifice of God (Agni, Krishna, Mithra, etc.);
- a number of persistent mythological motifs, such as the virgin birth and miraculous birth, persecution divine baby and his salvation, etc. (Egyptian myth about Horus and Seth, Assyrian myth about King Sargon, etc.).
Ancient Palestine also knew its dying and rising god. It was the beautiful Tammuz (Dumuzi, Fammuz), beloved of Astarte (Inanna, Ishtar - eastern Venus), who came here from Mesopotamia long before the emergence of Jewish statehood - in the 3rd-2nd millennium BC. e. During the 1st millennium BC. e. the veneration of Tammuz coexisted next to the state religion of Israel - the cult of Yahweh. The author of the book of the prophet Ezekiel speaks about the rivalry of the gods with anger: “And he said to me: turn around, and you will see even greater abominations that they are doing. And he brought me to the entrance of the gates of the house of the Lord... and behold, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz..." (Ezek. 8:14)
Lamentation for the untimely death of the deity was only part of the ritual. The buried god miraculously disappeared from the grave, and sadness was replaced by joy. Thomas Mann in the novel “Joseph and His Brothers” describes the mystery of Tammuz as follows: “...pots are burning everywhere. People come to the grave and cry again... for a long time after this crying, women’s scratches on their chests do not heal. At midnight everything calms down... There is silence. But from afar comes a voice, a lonely, ringing and joyful voice: Tammuz is alive! The Lord has risen! He destroyed the home of death and shadow! Glory to the lord!”
Often the gods of this series fight with a demon, dragon or other creature that personifies the destructive forces of nature (for example, Osiris with Set, Palu with Mutu). The dragon, symbolizing world evil, also appears in the New Testament. In the Revelation of John the Theologian we read: “This dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth, he would devour her child... who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron.”
Having been resurrected, the deity regains its former greatness, sometimes becoming the god of the underworld (such as Osiris). Wed. in Revelation, ch. 1: “...and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever, Amen, I have the keys of hell and death.”
Myths about a dying and resurrecting god are permeated with agricultural semantics: God dies and is reborn annually, along with all living nature, and is dependent on the movement of the sun (or is identical to the solar deity). The features of the solar-astral deity can also be seen in the image of Christ: he is born on December 25 (January 7 according to the old style), on the day the sun turns to spring after the winter solstice, wanders accompanied by 12 apostles (the annual path of the sun through 12 zodiacal constellations) , dies and is resurrected on the third day (a three-day new moon, when it is not visible, and then “resurrects” again, etc.).
The Church in all centuries has emphasized the uniqueness of sacred dates, the uniqueness of sacred history, but among the common people, without further ado, they correlated the returning cycle of church holidays and fasts with the cycle of peasant work. As a result, the Christian pantheon acquired a pronounced “agrarian” overtones. In Rus' they said: “Boris and Gleb are sowing grain”, “Drive a mare to John the Theologian and plow under the wheat”, “Elijah the prophet is counting the hay in the field”, etc.
The cults of dying and resurrecting gods go back to the even more ancient cult of a female deity, including a male aspect, represented by a weaker, dependent and only temporarily reborn mythological character (often the goddess gives birth to a son-husband without the participation of a male deity). The myth of a dying and resurrecting beast is equally ancient, for example, the story of the Phoenix - a bird that lives for 500 years and then burns to be reborn from the ashes. Interestingly, in the early Christian era, the revival of the phoenix is a common resurrection of Jesus Christ.