If we follow the gospels, we see that Jesus did not agree with the Pharisees or the Saducees, actually he often made fun of them, we also know from the NT that Jesus was not accepted by them. The fact is if Jesus had been through a Pharisee or saducee rabbinical school he would have been expelled as a renegade. There is no indication of this whatsoever. Clearly Jesus obtained his knowledge elsewhere.

There was a third school of Jewish thought , an extraordinarily conservative fraternity of the Essenes that existed up till AD 68, they lived in isolation in a monastic habitat situated at Chirbet Qumran, at the mountainous edge of the dead sea. Calling themselves the ‘Army of Salvation’, they traced their origins to a ‘’teacher of righteousness’’ through the Maccabees, centuries before Jesus, they concluded their ‘’new covenant’’ in order to prepare the messianic kingdom. Philo of Alexandria (25 BC-AD 50) gives us a full report. (quod omnis probus liber sit 14)

The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (37-97) was clearly intrigued by the Essene’s , in chapter 7 of book II of the ‘’Jewish war’’ we get a full picture of the life of this religious community, so taken by them was he, that he lived among them for three years. In 1947 original documents hidden by the Essenes were found by accident in a series of caves at Qumran, they are now commonly known as the ‘dead sea scrolls’ and the rest as they say, is history……or is it ?
For 19 centuries very intelligent guys laboured over Josephus’ account of the Essene’s, was it a work of fiction? was he deluded ? afterall there is no mention of such a group in the bible, not in the Gospels or the Acts of the Apostles, what was going on ? The find in 1947 was and remains the most illuminating event of the NT. The translations of the Qumran texts show clearly that vital parts of the Gospels originated from the Essene school, that Jesus’ style and way of life followed the customs of the Essene’s and that parables and indeed entire sermons attributed to him had been taught by the Essene’s long before him. We see the following examples;

The Essene’s did not baptize. Neither did Jesus
The Essene’s denounced the theologians of their time…..as did Jesus
The Essene’s preached meekness and humility…so did Jesus
The Essene’s warned of imminent ‘last judgement with fire’ ……..sound familiar ?
The Essene’s talked of the sons of light who fight against the ‘’powers of darkness’’…….
The Essene’s talked of the ‘spirit of truth’’ and promised ‘’eternal life’’…….surely a give-away
The Essene’s had communal meals preceded by saying grace…….ditto the last supper !
Beatitudes were found in the fourth Qumran cave beginning every sentence with the word ‘’blessed’’……the opening phrase Jesus used in his sermon on the mount.
The Essene’s required every member who joined them to confess his sins……..a major tenet of present day Christianity.

And on and on and on it goes …practices and beliefs held by the Essene’s long before Jesus. Further it is clear Josephus was a scrupulous historian.

Why then is there not one word about this ascetic monastic group in the NT ?
Why are the Gospels silent on the true teaching of Jesus being grounded on the Essenic school of thought who actually had more in common with Jesus than either the Pharisees or Saducees ?
Why has the church refused to acknowledge the far reaching effects of the findings of the Qumran scrolls on present day dogma and made the necessary changes to further strengthen the religion.

Lets take a look at some of the answers to the questions above in a later part.

Part 2
In order to fully understand the answers to some of the questions in the first part above, it is useful to re-acquaint ourselves with the antecedents of the Bible and its relation to the church.

On November 18, 1965 the Catholic church in its dogmatic constitution reaffirmed and proclaimed as follows;

-----that God was the originator of the Bible,
-----that all parts of the Bible are sacred and that all parts of the Bible were composed under the influence of the Holy Ghost.
Furthermore…that everything the inspired composers of the Bible say must be considered to be written by the Holy Ghost and that what is taught in the Bible is accurate, true and without error.

The facts however are different, none of the evangelists was a contemporary of Jesus and no contemporary wrote an eyewitness account. Mark, the first author of the Bible wrote his Gospel fully forty years after the crucifixion of Jesus. More to the point, the ‘original texts’ so often quoted do not exist at all, what we do have are transcripts that without exception originated between the 4th and 10th centuries AD, and these transcripts, about 1500 of them are transcripts of transcripts, and not a single transcript agrees with another, more than 80,000 variations have been counted. There is not a single page of the ‘original texts’ without contradictions. From copy to copy the verses were understood differently by sympathetic authors and their meanings transformed to suit contemporary needs.
The ‘original texts’ abound with thousands and thousands of easily proven and well known errors. The most well- known of these texts, the Codex Sinaiticus was found in the Sinai convent in 1844. It contains 16,000 corrections going back to seven correctors, many passages were altered three times and replaced by a fourth ‘original text’

First century AD church fathers argued amongst themselves about who the culprits were but agreed the texts were falsified. Frequently the same passage has been ‘corrected’ by one corrector in one sense and immediately ‘recorrected’ in the opposite sense by another depending entirely on the prevailing dogma of the day.
We know why there are Four Gospels and not 2 or 3 or 5, because Irenaeus tells us the reason
We know that Father Eusebius, founding father of Christianity altered the scriptures drastically….He admits it.

Clearly, the notion of total inspiration of the Bible and God being its author is untenable, it is refuted by the Bible itself and can only be defended by ignorant evangelists and congregations devoid of common sense.

How then does this impact on the teachings of Jesus and the questions posed in the first part above, we’ll examine this at a later time.

Indeed strong evidence point to Jesus being Essence...Can you post your source on Eusebius admittance to scriptural alteration?

@ Mkmyers45
Yes it is compelling indication that Jesus was a member of the Essene community.

With respect to Eusebius

1. Eusebius 'Historia Ecclesiastica' Ch.8 P.21
He states he was by no means scrupulous in recording the whole truth about the early christians in the various works he has left behind

2. Rise and fall of the Roman Empire : '' Eusebius indirectly confesses that he had included stories that would do credit to the glory of Christianity and that he had suppressed all that could tend to discredit it'' (Eusebius and the Christian Martyrs Ch. 16 Pg 197)

Stravinsky: @ Mkmyers45
Yes it is compelling indication that Jesus was a member of the Essene community.

With respect to Eusebius

1. Eusebius 'Historia Ecclesiastica' Ch.8 P.21
He states he was by no means scrupulous in recording the whole truth about the early christians in the various works he has left behind

2. Rise and fall of the Roman Empire : '' Eusebius indirectly confesses that he had included stories that would do credit to the glory of Christianity and that he had suppressed all that could tend to discredit it'' (Eusebius and the Christian Martyrs Ch. 16 Pg 197)

Do you have the books? I know he forged Testimunium Flavalium...and i suspect the Comma Johanneum and the Pericope Adulterae too

mkmyers45: Do you have the books? I know he forged Testimunium Flavalium...and i suspect the Comma Johanneum and the Pericope Adulterae too

No, i do not have the books, but i have used them in research. I believe the second book is probably online. I agree that Josephus' Testimunium has had a blatant insertion. The Comma Johanneum does present a problem indeed as does the Gospel of John generally. As for the Pericope Adulterae, it appears in neither the Codex Sinaiticus nor the Vaticanus.

Stravinsky:

No, i do not have the books, but i have used them in research. I believe the second book is probably online. I agree that Josephus' Testimunium has had a blatant insertion. The Comma Johanneum does present a problem indeed as does the Gospel of John generally. As for the Pericope Adulterae, it appears in neither the Codex Sinaiticus nor the Vaticanus.

What research did you undertake? Historically how are convinced of the existence of Jesus?

mkmyers45: What research did you undertake? Historically how are convinced of the existence of Jesus?

mkmyers45: What research did you undertake? Historically how are convinced of the existence of Jesus?

I did Doctoral work on Semitics including Hebrew Antiquity. For good measure i also took Ugaritic. At the moment i am producing a dissertation on my findings in relation to the clay tablets of Ebla. How convinced am i of the historicity of Jesus ? As you may well know, there is precious little reliable contemporary evidence of the existence of Jesus,none of HIS words survive, his name appears in no known birth register, even the Gospels aren't sure where he was born, Matthew and Luke say Bethlehem, Mark merely states Jesus came from Nazareth, interestingly Mark is the earlier writer of all the Gospels. It may be useful to point out that saviours and redeemers abounded in first century Palestine since it was a sure way to gain notoriety and Jesus or more accurately Yeshua was the name of choice. Of course none of this precludes the existence of Jesus of Nazareth. What are your thoughts ?

Stravinsky:

I did Doctoral work on Semitics including Hebrew Antiquity. For good measure i also took Ugaritic. At the moment i am producing a dissertation on my findings in relation to the clay tablets of Ebla. How convinced am i of the historicity of Jesus ? As you may well know, there is precious little reliable contemporary evidence of the existence of Jesus,none of HIS words survive, his name appears in no known birth register, even the Gospels aren't sure where he was born, Matthew and Luke say Bethlehem, Mark merely states Jesus came from Nazareth, interestingly Mark is the earlier writer of all the Gospels. It may be useful to point out that saviours and redeemers abounded in first century Palestine since it was a sure way to gain notoriety and Jesus or more accurately Yeshua was the name of choice. Of course none of this precludes the existence of Jesus of Nazareth. What are your thoughts ?

Can i read your work? Its indeed baffling of the absence of civil records in favour of Yeshua the Christ as he did assert that he paid taxes....What can you say to be the strongest evidence against the existence of Jesus? Are you religous? What are your thoughts on the Holy Relics of Jesus and the true Holy Grail bieng Mary Magdalene's womb?

mkmyers45: Can i read your work? Its indeed baffling of the absence of civil records in favour of Yeshua the Christ as he did assert that he paid taxes....What can you say to be the strongest evidence against the existence of Jesus? Are you religous? What are your thoughts on the Holy Relics of Jesus and the true Holy Grail bieng Mary Magdalene's womb?

Yes I will be uploading some of my stuff on Ugarit Literature in the next few weeks and will happily provide you a link. To answer your question, the strongest evidence against the existence of Jesus surely is the singular lack of contemporary evidence. In my opinion, even though not of a religious persuasion i do believe Jesus lived. However his life and true teachings are likely lost to antiquity, clearly Christianity in its present form is little more than Pauline theology. We see snippets of the real Jesus here and there, for instance the Apocrypha of Mary of Magdala which in my opinion is simply stunning, stunning in its simplicity and complexity in equal measure, so advanced were the teachings of Jesus to Mary that the likes of Peter simply refused to accept that Jesus had imparted such knowledge to a woman. Peter made the remark that the ''Masters teaching was strange'' not least because Jesus had taught that ''there was no Sin''.

Stravinsky:

Yes I will be uploading some of my stuff on Ugarit Literature in the next few weeks and will happily provide you a link. To answer your question, the strongest evidence against the existence of Jesus surely is the singular lack of contemporary evidence. In my opinion, even though not of a religious persuasion i do believe Jesus lived. However his life and true teachings are likely lost to antiquity, clearly Christianity in its present form is little more than Pauline theology. We see snippets of the real Jesus here and there, for instance the Apocrypha of Mary of Magdala which in my opinion is simply stunning, stunning in its simplicity and complexity in equal measure, so advanced were the teachings of Jesus to Mary that the likes of Peter simply refused to accept that Jesus had imparted such knowledge to a woman. Peter made the remark that the ''Masters teaching was strange'' not least because Jesus had taught that ''there was no Sin''.

Are you religous? What
are your thoughts on the Holy
Relics of Jesus and the true Holy
Grail bieng Mary Magdalene's
womb?

mkmyers45: Are you religous? What
are your thoughts on the Holy
Relics of Jesus and the true Holy
Grail bieng Mary Magdalene's
womb?

No, I am not religious
I have no thoughts on the Holy relics of Jesus, if there are any
I have no thoughts on the Holy Grail being Mary Magdalene's womb
My interest in Mary Magdalene does not extend beyond her Gospel.

Another patchwork copy and paste job. Nairaland "intellectuals" and plagiarism, ehn?

Stravinsky: . . . . The fact is if Jesus had been through a Pharisee or saducee rabbinical school he would have been expelled as a renegade. There is no indication of this whatsoever.

Stravinsky: There was a third school of Jewish thought , an extraordinarily conservative fraternity of the Essenes that existed up till AD 68, they lived in isolation in a monastic habitat situated at Chirbet Qumran, at the mountainous edge of the dead sea.

Compare

from http://www.100book.ru/circumstantialism_an_essay_on_situational_determinism_b823556.html

and also http://www.rulit.net/books/miracles-of-the-gods-read-150768-17.html
and a couple of other websites etc etc

But if Jesus had been a graduate of a Sadducees' or Pharisees school, he would have been recognized or expelled as a renegade.

Was there a. third school? There was, but it has not been common knowledge for very long. Until A.D. 68 the extraordinary conservative fraternity of the Essenes lived deliberately isolated from temple Jewry in a monastic-like habitat that had been rebuilt after an earthquake. It was situated at Chirbet Qumran in a fissured mountainous region on the Dead Sea.

Reminds of an earlier and rather quite similar episode!

https://www.nairaland.com/751299/did-biblical-kings-david-solomon/1#msg9157536

https://www.nairaland.com/759143/gospel-john#9148886

Stravinsky:

No, I am not religious
I have no thoughts on the Holy relics of Jesus, if there are any
I have no thoughts on the Holy Grail being Mary Magdalene's womb
My interest in Mary Magdalene does not extend beyond her Gospel.

What diffrence are there between Ugaratic texts and other texts?