The Sunday Mail
WE have established that there are two varieties of “being Christian”.
First, it means “Christos-consciousness”; that is the exalted state of having discovered the existence and actualising the awareness of the indwelling divinity, ie “the Kingdom of Heaven is within you”.
Such an indwelling divinity is the “Infinite Light” (“Ain Soph”) energising one’s mundane activities. This union with the indwelling divinity is the walk of the “narrow path”!
Second, it means an ardent, submissive and fiery follower of the Greek mythical figure personality, “Iesous” (Greek for “Jesus”) the “Christos” (Greek for “Christ”), whom Greeks and Romans perversely merged with Yahoshua (“YHVH saves”), the Nazarene Rabbi.
For those of the followership approach, scriptures were written by the direct instruction or inspiration of a humanoid divine. Such a divine with human attributes is considered to be located somewhere out there yearning and craving for human attention to reward and punish humanity at whim.
Is this not idolatry?
The following general doctrinal events are the basis of the life of a mythical Iesous (Jesus) forming the definitive core of organised Christianity in the literalist way:
1. Incarnation — assumedly, a humanoid and masculine divine embodied itself in human form through Yahoshua so that he was the divine in human flesh by taking the nature, qualities and personality of a man. The word “incarnation” is derived from the Latin word “incarnatio” meaning “enfleshment”. The Greek equivalent word is “enanthropoisis,” meaning “enmanment.”
2. Virginal conception — an Iesous incarnated that is embodied in human form and as the divine’s son on Earth, born of a virgin Hebrew mother, “Miryam” in Hebrew meaning the beautiful or loved one, derived from ancient Egyptian, “mar/mer” according to the Catholic Encyclopedia. She is said to have been miraculously fertilised by the “Holy Spirit” outside the natural laws of reproduction.
3. Atonement — assumedly, Iesous sacrificed himself for all human beings through a substitutionary or vicarious atonement. It’s based on “hilastrion/hilasmos” in Greek and “kippur” in Hebrew (ref, Wenstrom Bible ministries. This is “the doctrine that an individual . . . atones through the sufferings visited upon his person for the sins of all . . .” (M Kadushin, “The Theology of Seder Eliahu”, 1932)
4. Resurrection — assumedly, there was a physical bodily resurrection of Iesous from the dead after crucifixion. He was allegedly crucified as a Roman form of punishment for sedition for a Hebraic offence of blasphemy. According to the Hebraic law, a person whom the Sanhedrin finds guilty of blasphemy was stoned to death (Mishnah Sanhedrin).
5. Second coming (divine imminence or “Parousia” in Greek) — assumedly, Iesous is living in the metaphysical realm and there is the possibility of his second coming to rule while he has continued to influence natural events and human life.
6. Judgment Day (“Rosh Hashanah” in Hebrew) — the day of judgment by the humanoid divine based on the record of one’s life and the certainty of Heaven and Hell as the after-death physical places of eternal reward and punishment.
Without these fundamentals, one cannot call him/herself a Christian.
Ironically, none of these fundamentals were informed by Nazarene Judaism for which Yahoshua was a Hebraic Rabbi. Greeks and Romans formulated these fundamentals centuries after the death of Yahoshua into an organised religion.
Organised Christianity was formulated from the life of a mythical “Iesous” out of Greek and Roman mythology. It later became an institutionalised religion in 325 CE under the political authority of Roman Emperor Constantine at Nicene.
This makes Christianity in its literalist form to be referred to as “Nicene Christianity”.
Therefore, it is very misleading and fraudulent to say that Yahoshua the Nazarene had anything to do with the founding of Christianity as an organised religion.
Extremists present the fundamentals in an unexamined mantra, “There is only one true religion. That religion is Christianity. All other religions are false.”
This is can be called religious bigotry and arrogance! Such statements perpetuate theological ignorance, perversion and exerts “force in the direction of intolerance, the concentration of power, and the suppression of free thought”. (Richard Heinberg, “In Search of the Historical Jesus,” New Dawn No 50, September-October 1998).
A historical Yahoshua would have been a Hebrew and a Nazarene Rabbi. He did NOT create a new institutionalised religion called Christianity. The Roman imperialist narrative suppressed his possible historicity among the Dead Sea Essenes.
A Nazarene narrative of a possibly historical Yahoshua would be: “The message of (Yahoshua the Nazarene) was not that he considered himself the unique and only son of (the Divine), but that each person has the potential to expand their (unconditioned) consciousness across the vast emptiness to the level of (divinity) or Self-realisation . . . (Yahoshua’s) crucifixion and resurrection serve as metaphors for our own daily immolation and extrication.”
Next week, we examine the alleged miraculous birth.
Please email feedback at [email protected] and read more of his writings on www.shingaindoro.blogspot.com. A gallery of previous articles is available on www.sundaymail.co.zw///
