The Sunday Mail
PREVIOUSLY, the readers were taken through the layers of how truth was preserved and presented in early civilisations.
This was prevalent among Greeks, Hebrews especially Essenes, Babylonians, Indians, Persians, Sumerians and ancient Egyptians.
A few weeks ago, we discussed how the name of Yahoshua the Nazarene was perverted into a Greek “Iesous” (Jesus).
The new name Iesous had nothing to do with the possibly historical figure of Yahoshua. It is important to note that “Iesous” had everything to do with the mythical Zeus, the Greek supreme deity.
In other earlier articles, a background of the Hebraic religious framework was provided.
It is such a background within which Yahoshua was brought up. He did not invent a new religion called Christianity because he was a Rabbi of Hebraic Nazarene fervent practice.
There was an article providing a search for the story about who the Nazarenes were.
Around the time of a possibly historical time of Yahoshua the Nazarene, Judea was under the cultural and intellectual colonisation of Hellenism and the military and political absolute authority of the Roman Empire.
The original written narratives about Yahoshua’s conception, stages of life (childhood, teenage, maturity and death) and teachings were in Greek even if he spoke Aramaic.
It is now the appropriate time to check how close to the truth these gospel narratives were. We received the gospel narratives from the Roman Empire.
We want to prove or disprove “beyond the possibility of denial, evasion or refutation” that the Hebraic narrative of Yahoshua was grossly distorted and perverted by Greeks and Romans.
We shall be using the Hebraic lenses to determine facts and evidence. Not that there is an exclusive Hebraic truth, but we need to search for it using the life, culture and thinking of Hebrews.
We are told by Christian authorities that Yahoshua was miraculously conceived. His mother, Miryam, did not have a sexual relationship with a man. To the Greek scribes, this means that Yahoshua was both human and divine or was YHVH(“Ain Soph”) who became a human being.
“The Roman war-god Mars likewise kept amorous tryst with the vestal virgin Rhea Silvia, from which the twins Romulus and Remus resulted.
The great hero Achilles was also the product of the amours of, this time, a human father and the immortal sea-goddess Thetis. Divine hybrids in human form resulted.
Alexander the Great was reputed son of his mother Olympias and Jupiter Ammon, as that god himself declared. The Egyptian Pharaohs and the Roman emperors were gods, the former by birth, the latter by apotheosis, just as are saints by canonisation.” – Joseph Wheless, “Is it God’s Word” (1926).
To the Hebrew mind, there were previous “miraculous” conceptions of Isaac, Samson, Samuel and John the Baptist.
If Yahoshua was miraculously conceived, we would not get references that he was naturally conceived or that he was a “seed of David according to the flesh”(Mark 3:21, John 10:20, Psalm 132:11,12,Rom. 1:3 and 1:4, Rev. 22:16).
Therefore, miraculous conception if it was true, was not exceptional nor without precedent.
In the levels of truth, “miraculous” conception meant an occurrence to be known by few people.
“The term ‘Spirit’ translates the Hebrew word “rua” which, in its primary sense, means “breath, air, wind.” The Greek word is “pneuma.” In both Hebrew and Greek sense, the words are feminine.
The expression, “Holy Spirit” is exactly the same as the “Spirit/Breath of YHVH” and “Spirit/Breath of Elohim” in the Talmud and Midrash. It is translated as “Rua ha-odesh” in Hebrew.
According to Rabbi Azriel Schreiber, the Hebraic religious perspective does not accept a separate Hellenic “Holy Spirit” because the YHVH’s presence or Spirit (Breath) is Holy. Judaism does not believe in a separate or independent actualisation of YHVH referred to as the “Holy Spirit”.
The “Holy Spirit” in Judaism generally refers to the divine aspect of wisdom.
It also refers to the force, quality and influence of the Divine, YHVH, over the universe – Alan Unterman and Rivka Horowitz, “Ruach ha-Kodesh,” – Encyclopedia Judaica.
Spirit is “the most noticeable difference between sentient beings and dead things, between the living and the dead, is in the breath.
Whatever lives breathes; whatever is dead does not breathe . . . In most languages breath and spirit are designated by the same term.” – Jewish Encyclopedia.
The gospels say that Yahoshua’s mother fell pregnant through the “Holy Spirit.” Both Miryam and her husband Yosef were Hebrews of Nazarene formation.
They were definitely not familiar with the term “Holy Spirit” as used in the Greek Scriptures.
Therefore, it can be noticed that the concept of “Holy Spirit” was neither a discovery nor a revelation to Miryam and Yosef but an invention of the Greeks (Hellenics) to clothe some “naked truth.” The truth may be found outside the conventional texts!
Next, let’s search for the origins of miraculous conception from Rome.
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