Was Jesus a space man or something else?

by ballistic 7 Replies latest jw friends

  • ballistic
    ballistic

    was Jesus a space man or something else? I found this thought provoking stuff at http://www.wearetraversecity.com/reference/jesus.htm

    I'm not so sure about some of the ideas, but thinking about the age of the galaxy and the fact we have evolved quite recently, there is a possibility that there are much more advanced civilizations than us. And if one of them came here at that point in our history, it would be quite easy for them to change our world as JC did.

    JESUS

    Like the rainbow bumper sticker, people get what they want to out of a symbol. For instance, here is a random sampling of statements held to be true at one time or another by passionate believers in Jesus the Christ.

    Jesus is a space man

    In his book 'God Drives A Flying Saucer', published in the 1970s, author R.L. Dione used the Old and New Testaments to "prove" that God was an alien buzzing around in a flying saucer above his son (who was, of course, the product of other-worldly artificial insemination).

    Jesus was the front man for the operation, shunning high-tech gadgetry in order not to scare the locals. "It seems doubtful," wrote Dione, "whether Jesus carried with him any saucerian devices, such as paralysing ray guns or mind-reading and brain-manipulating machines. It would have been far simpler, when the occasion demanded, to have a nearby UFO perform these tasks."

    Jesus survived the Crucifixion

    Not in itself a theologically controversial assertion, except when applied to the period immediately after the Crucifixion. In her 1995 book 'Jesus of the Apocalypse', theologian Barbara Thiering makes the claim that the New Testament proves that Jesus did not die on the cross.

    "Above all," she wrote, "the Book of Revelation contains evidence ... that Jesus survived the crucifixion and remained active for many years afterwards."

    Jesus was a drunkard. Terrible news for the Temperance League, but apparently true, according to respected historian A.N. Wilson in his 1993 biography 'Jesus'.

    Wilson's research led him to conclude that the historical Jesus was a man of very healthy appetites.

    "He is described in the Gospels as a glutton and a wine-bibber," he noted, "(and) certainly no ascetic."

    Jesus lived In Britain

    The 19th century philosophy of British-Israelism held that the Poms were the lost tribes of Israel. Believers claimed that Jesus visited England several times in the company of Joseph of Arimathaea.

    He was said to be particularly fond of the Somerset village of Glastonbury.

    Oddly, this theory received a reworking in 'The Marian Conspiracy', a book written last year by UK author and lecturer Graham Phillips.

    Phillips attempts to prove that Jesus built a church on the island of Anglesey that later provided a cosy retirement home for the elderly Virgin Mary.

    Jesus is a woman

    In the 18th century, a Manchester Quaker, Ann Lee, was put in prison for disturbing the peace. When she was released, she claimed that she had been visited by Jesus, who had "become one with her in form and person".

    Some of her Quaker colleagues pronounced her the female Christ.

    Ms Lee and her mates later sailed to America, where they founded the Shaker movement. Later generations of Shakers came to doubt their founder's claims of divinity -- mainly because she died.

    Jesus was a woman

    According to British biochemist Anthony Harris, who is formerly of Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, and Kings College in London. The evidence, he says, lies in records dating back to the Inquisition.

    According to the records, Harris explains, Cathar relics found in the preceptory of Villeneuve, France, included a hinged casket shaped like a woman's head. Reportedly within the casket were two pieces of a female skull labeled CAPUT LVIII. The Cathari had claimed to possess Christ's flesh and blood, and as far as Harris is concerned, Caput LVIII was the skull.

    Harris wrote a book called The Sacred Virgin and the Holy Whore (Sphere Books, London). In it, he claims that Jesus - whom he calls Yeshu, a variation on Jesus' Hebrew name - suffered from Turner's syndrome, a form of degeneration of the gonads. Women with this condition are short, with wide chests but have undeveloped breasts and overgrowths of small blood vessels in the skin. An absence of menstrual bleeding is another symptom.

    In her agony in Gethsemane, says Harris, Yeshu literally sweated blood. Because she knew she was about to be arrested and crucified, her capillaries burst under intense blood pressure, while the powerful beating of her heart and her high adrenaline levels combined to cause blood to flow.

    Jesus is commander-in-chief

    Jesus as the bringer of peace was nowhere to be seen in 11th century Europe, when warrior saints were venerated and the faithful crusaders set out to massacre non-believers.

    In her 1993 book, 'A History God', theologian and former nun, Karen Armstrong noted that Jesus was seen as the feudal lord of the crusaders rather than the incarnate, Logos: he had summoned his knights to recover his patrimony -- the Holy Land -- from the infidels".


    Clearly, the figure of Jesus can be all things to all people, and one person's blasphemy is another's devotion.

    People often ask whether Jesus will return to earth.

    The more pertinent question is whether anyone would recognise Jesus if s/he did.
  • sens
    sens

    how do they come up with this utter crap

  • gumby
    gumby

    If a person can do ENOUGH re-search .......they can find if there is ANY credible evidence for the proof of a historical Jesus OUTSIDE the writings of the gospels or not, ............then you would ALSO know if he was a spaceman or not.

  • franklin J
    franklin J

    Interesting thesis topic.

    the personality of Jesus Christ ( assuming he did exist; and there is no secular evidence to indicate that he did) had to have had tremendous charismatic charm. His thinking swayed an entire nation.

    It is also interesting to note that during this time period of the Roman Empire , approximately two thirds of humanity in that empire were "slaves" with no real lives of their own. The belief of christianity and the promise of "the life hereafter" could take hold because they HAD nothing else which would deliver them from their existence as slaves. (sound familiar, anyone?)

    I like the spaceman theory better; has more imagination for the 21 century.

  • Gadget
    Gadget

    I've always thought that if Jesus was a spaceman then it would account for a lot of things. How many of the miracles in the bible could be easily explained and recreated using modern technology. Somebody visiting from space could easily have done these things and they would have sppeared to be miraculous. But I think that this would create more questions than it would answer.

  • gaiagirl
    gaiagirl

    In considering who Jesus was, there are some important points to consider:

    1) The earliest of the gospels in the Bible canon were written at least 35 years after the events they purport to describe. The latest was written more than 70 years after those events. They disagree with one another on numerous details. How accurate can they be?

    2) In the first century, and for several centuries thereafter, additional gospels also were in use by Christians. They gave other details not listed in the 'approved' four. These were selected against in the fourth century when the 'official' Bible canon was confirmed.

    3) Jews had wanted a Messiah to lead them in revolt against their rulers for many years prior to the appearance of Jesus. There were others who were also thought to be the Messiah both before, and after the time of Jesus. The followers of those other Messiahs were driven underground by Christians once they attained political power.

    In light of these things, I believe that, if Jesus was anything more than a fictional culture hero, he was a man who saw problems in the way that the Jewish religion had come to be practiced in his time. He set out to institute reforms, many of which were astonishing to people who had always accepted things the way they were. The religious leaders did not approve of his reforms, and accused him of seditious acts against the Roman government, specifically setting up a kingdom which would overpower Rome. As a result, he was convicted under Roman law and sentenced to die.

    gaiagirl

  • JamesThomas
    JamesThomas

    Titillating ideas. However... perhaps it doesn't really matter if Jesus existed or in what form. Perhaps what matters is what the Christ signifies, what the Buddha signifies, what Divinity from any past reference or myth signifies -- right now. They may all point to the same most significant and foundational Truth. A Truth that can not be found via the intellectual debate and story telling of the mind. A Truth that is too close, too alive, too immense and free to be caught by thought. The Truth of the real identity of who everyone and everything actually is. j

  • Enishi
    Enishi

    ET was Jesus.

    You know, the WTS once had this article about the movie ET, and how people were comparing Jesus to ET. I had to be one of the stupiest articles I've ever seen. They claimed the movie encouraged delinquient behavior because the kids were playing dungeons and dragons at one part. Furthermore, they had several paragraphs about how Jesus is real, and how ET is just a fictional character(umm, duh, as if we didn't know? )

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