The Jesus Controversy 2

Genealogy line

What are the first impressions that enter your mind when you hear the word 'Israel?' Isn't it Jewish?  You straight away associate Israel with the Jews, and solely the Jews? But that's okay.  That's how you have been conditioned to think.  And if you are one of these Christians that carries the Old Testament in the back of your pocket you will also associate Israel as God's chosen people, and probably, as St. Paul stated: first the Jew and then the Gentile.  You won't argue this as you were also taught that Jesus himself was a Jew.  You would associate the Jews with the Holy Land without realizing that that land was considered holy by the gentiles long before the Jews settled there. If you were to dissect the name Israel you would get Is/is Ra/Elohim.  Preordained for the English language?

When we consider the historical fact that Israel was constantly at war with Judah we are tempted to question - was Jesus really Jewish?  It's obvious that the early Church Fathers were determined to connect Jesus to the House of David, in other words, Judah.  They even drew out a long genealogy line connecting Jesus all the way down to Adam.  This could not possibly be accurate because the emergence of man is much older than 6,000 years.  They were determined also to connect Jesus to Biblical prophesies to an expected Jewish messiah whereas the Jews themselves never believed that Jesus was the promised one.  They knew that Jesus was from Galilee which was known as the land of the gentiles and thereby not Jewish.  Jesus declared himself as a messiah and the Jews pointed out to him that the messiah is prophesied to come through the House of David, to which Jesus replied: "If I am from the House of David, then why did David call me Lord?"  Did Jesus here deny having come from the line of David?

We have to bear in mind that the gospels were written long after the event and were copies of earlier originals of which we have no knowledge, and we have no originals to compare the accuracy of later copies.  Arguing that ancient prophesies foretold the coming of Christ because these things manifested in his life is no evidence of truth.  Any later scribe trying to connect Jesus to these ancient prophesies could just as easily have added these events as having occurred in his life.  But this doesn't actually mean that they did. It may simply be an attempt to convince people that Jesus was that promised Jewish messiah.  If this is correct, as no one can prove it wrong, then it has worked.  So it remains a matter of personal faith and belief.

Galilee lies in the north of the Holy Land and is where the real ancient Nation of Israel was located, stretching as far south to Samaria, to the border of ancient Judah.  During the time of Christ all this area was under the jurisdiction of Judea under Roman rule.  Although most of the ten tribes migrated abroad during the invasion,  many of them returned to re-settle in their home land once peace was established with the seafarers.  The Samaritans themselves, who were hated by the Jews, had always declared themselves as being part of the lost tribes of Israel.

The closest of Christ's disciples were Galileans.  They spoke a different dialect as the Jews.  We know this because when Peter denied Christ three times and entirely disassociated himself from Christ the Jews still accused him of being a follower of Christ by saying "You are one of them as your speech betrays you."  besides being recognized as Galileans they were also referred to as the Nazarenes.  Jesus of Nazareth is a badly mistranslated title as the correct translation is Jesus the Nazarene.  They were also mentioned as the "sect of the Nazarenes.'  Obviously, although coming under the dictates of Judaism, they were members of a different religious sect, as were the Essen's of the time.