Introduction
26/11/05 16:55
I am a modern man somewhat through
living my life. How the time has gone so fast! I remember it was
such a short time ago, it seems like, that I studied ancient
history, always with the thought that I, a young person, am reading
about people long dead, yet who lived their lives as fully as I
hoped to live mine.
Take Alexander the Great. He died with just the same number of years that Jesus had when he died. Alexander the Great was a man of history because he conquered much of the known world and brought to these new lands Greek learning and emphasis on clear thinking and human values of living a healthy and good life on earth.
The Jews of Jesus' day did not have these human values. They lived for God's commandments, even if it meant they suffered for this kind of righteousness. The Jewish establishment wanted you to be good before God. To be a good Jew you could not be free with your eating, you could not be free with your sexual expression, you could not be free with how you brought up your children, you could not be free in what work you took, you could not be free in what kind of religion you worshiped in, you could not be free to not worship in any religion, you could not be free not to fight your enemies with force and violence if you did not want to. To be a Jew in Jesus' day you had to be a good Jew.
Such attitudes about being Jewish led to the Jewish leaders of Jerusalem in 70 J.E. getting their own people killed to the tune of over one million souls, most of them the old, the children and the women. At no time was there a Jewish fighting force of more than thirty thousand males. Yet these males killed their own people in the name of being Jewish. They antagonized the Romans who did not want to kill them all. It was not good to be Jewish in those days. You were not in control of your own life if you were Jewish.
The Jesus I have read about and depict here is not the Jesus of the Christians who came after Jesus. Paul and the other first Christians did not know Jesus. They made up a story about a human being called Jesus and painted him with their religious imaginations to be God. They called him one of the current words for God. They called him the Messiah, the Savior of all the people. Remember how it says in the gospels that the disciples asked Jesus to explain his teachings, often in the form of parables, and he explained them only once? Well, this explanation of his teachings is false. It is added by the early Christians and not what the original Jesus taught at all.
The actual wisdom teachings of the historical Jesus are not and never were in the Christian church. This may amaze you but it is certainly true. There are a few who have been in the Christian church practicing the real Jesus teachings, but they remained hidden and obscure, or masqueraded as a good Christian. The most famous of which is Hildegard de Bingen. In 1141 Hildegard had a vision . . . but that is another story. You can read up on her yourself. There is every reason that the modern mystic, Thomas Merton, also practiced the secret wisdom teachings of Jesus. Thomas Aquinas had a powerful vision of the presence of the historical Jesus that led him to repudiate his rational theology, the Summa Theologica. Study these yourself for answers. While this novel is not theological it still has all the secret teachings of the historical Jesus dramatized in it as Jesus lived them in his human life.
As Jesus teaches, there was a fisherman who pulled in a full catch from the sea. He was overjoyed and looked through his fish. From the catch he picked the biggest fish to keep and threw the rest back into the sea. So is it that way in the kingdom of God as it lives itself out on earth. We shall see what happened, what happens with this book. Maybe the writer won't, but maybe the world will! This is why I write!
- Strephon Kaplan-Williams -
Take Alexander the Great. He died with just the same number of years that Jesus had when he died. Alexander the Great was a man of history because he conquered much of the known world and brought to these new lands Greek learning and emphasis on clear thinking and human values of living a healthy and good life on earth.
The Jews of Jesus' day did not have these human values. They lived for God's commandments, even if it meant they suffered for this kind of righteousness. The Jewish establishment wanted you to be good before God. To be a good Jew you could not be free with your eating, you could not be free with your sexual expression, you could not be free with how you brought up your children, you could not be free in what work you took, you could not be free in what kind of religion you worshiped in, you could not be free to not worship in any religion, you could not be free not to fight your enemies with force and violence if you did not want to. To be a Jew in Jesus' day you had to be a good Jew.
Such attitudes about being Jewish led to the Jewish leaders of Jerusalem in 70 J.E. getting their own people killed to the tune of over one million souls, most of them the old, the children and the women. At no time was there a Jewish fighting force of more than thirty thousand males. Yet these males killed their own people in the name of being Jewish. They antagonized the Romans who did not want to kill them all. It was not good to be Jewish in those days. You were not in control of your own life if you were Jewish.
The Jesus I have read about and depict here is not the Jesus of the Christians who came after Jesus. Paul and the other first Christians did not know Jesus. They made up a story about a human being called Jesus and painted him with their religious imaginations to be God. They called him one of the current words for God. They called him the Messiah, the Savior of all the people. Remember how it says in the gospels that the disciples asked Jesus to explain his teachings, often in the form of parables, and he explained them only once? Well, this explanation of his teachings is false. It is added by the early Christians and not what the original Jesus taught at all.
The actual wisdom teachings of the historical Jesus are not and never were in the Christian church. This may amaze you but it is certainly true. There are a few who have been in the Christian church practicing the real Jesus teachings, but they remained hidden and obscure, or masqueraded as a good Christian. The most famous of which is Hildegard de Bingen. In 1141 Hildegard had a vision . . . but that is another story. You can read up on her yourself. There is every reason that the modern mystic, Thomas Merton, also practiced the secret wisdom teachings of Jesus. Thomas Aquinas had a powerful vision of the presence of the historical Jesus that led him to repudiate his rational theology, the Summa Theologica. Study these yourself for answers. While this novel is not theological it still has all the secret teachings of the historical Jesus dramatized in it as Jesus lived them in his human life.
As Jesus teaches, there was a fisherman who pulled in a full catch from the sea. He was overjoyed and looked through his fish. From the catch he picked the biggest fish to keep and threw the rest back into the sea. So is it that way in the kingdom of God as it lives itself out on earth. We shall see what happened, what happens with this book. Maybe the writer won't, but maybe the world will! This is why I write!
- Strephon Kaplan-Williams -
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