Why Jejus changed the name of Simon to peter? Why shaul name changed to paul in OT jacob become israel? any specific meaning of this ?

I am an Orthodox Rabbi who chose for religious reasons to live anonymously for the past for 21 years so I'm as yet unfamiliar with the pathways of social media.

Our sages told us many moons ago, "Chachma bagoyim tamin, Torah bagoyim al tamin. -- If you are told that the other nations have human-gained-wisdom, Believe it! But if you are told that I, The One True God bestowed my personal instructions to any other nation, Do Not Believe It."

And this is how Judaism has been for 3,500 years.

Nobody respects Sir Isaac Newton more than our physicists, and no one loves Darwin more than our geneticists.

But while our every yeshiva boy knows that our grandest sage, Moses Maimonides, considered Aristotle to have been in many ways nearer to God than anyone who ever lived, even historian rabbis like myself can't easily come up with examples of even 4th rate historical rabbis studying the religious works of other faiths -- other than to refute them, of course.

My own view is one nearly impossible to thread the needle on.

To do so I would need to be like Paul, a Jew to Jews, and a Greek to Greeks.

But publicly. In the TikTok generation.

That seems an impossible thing to do as a single individual against the mob of a billion trolls, especially as I am, in a way, new to the internet.

It appears to me that The Christian Bible is, in reality, a slightly tampered but otherwise magnificent collection of Judaism Documents.

This "torah" among "The Goyim" may not be torah but it is an outgrowth of Torah, and that at least 95% of it originated in Judaism, and the closer you get to the Sermon On The Mount, the closer to an astonishing person and group whose words speak to us Jews alive in this world with you today.

At the same time, our appreciation to the Christian nations in general and to Christian individuals in particular extends only so far as our vast appreciation for your having had the WISDOM to preserve texts, traditionals, practices, and sentiments (to varying degrees across the ages, lol) that we Jews would have definitely otherwise lost.

So long as we are Israelites however we can never accept the idea that the ultimate GOD can be trifurcated, nor that the disappointedly imperfect world we see around us is one that post-dates the death (or "obscuration") of The Messiah, nor that "sin" is something that can be understood, quantified, punished or cleansed of through any means but the heart.

It's important to me in my communication with you to be as sincere and understandable possible while also emphasizing my own vulnerability.

This makes it nearly impossible for me to know the right words to use to describe the person I was when I made the following video.

For some communities the word "prophecy" implies nearly nothing, while in other communities it's nearly the equivalent of explaining to be the Alpha and the Omega, or else the surest sign of stupidity.

So I will let the video speak for itself.

Growing up ultra-orthodox, neither I nor any of my friends had ever danced. And certainly not tangoed, square-danced or salsa'ed.

And now, whether in one of your dens if iniquity (I kid!) or over at my place with all the men and women separately holding hands and almost-rhythmically sing-chanting as we run around and our separate circles, I'm asking you to please come and dance.

I have no idea how to reach the sort of Christians who would be interested in this letter and video.

Social media is a foreign language and Christian media, whether live, broadcast or on social media is to me a foreign language spoken with an accent.

So, having just joined reddit a week ago, I'm doing my hopefully efficient best asking you if you find this video interesting and worthy of your fellow's consideration to please do what I can not do, and take my message where it wants ro be heard.

I thank you my friends, with all my heart.

MY JEWISH JESUS: an urgent message

I believe she is not referred to by that name in the bible, and the historian Josephus wrote it down first.

in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, Mary has a fundamental part in the life of Jesus, but in the gospel according to Mark, which is the first to be written, we only see her once and that is when she says that he is out of his mind, so it would be Mary a mother absent from the life of Jesus and his ministry and the gospels are trying to fix this?

Since there was no hospitals in acient world and If there was hospital they should be for rich people ,in wich place was jesus born ? In home ? In a Synagogue or Jewish shrine?or what ?

I began my search for this historical Jesus in 1990-1 this is what I have uncovered so far:

the first Author of anything "christian" was Paul, who admits he never met a flesh and blood Jesus, but only had "visions" and the hebrew bible to tell him who Jesus was... He claims that all the apostles he knew about knew Jesus the same way.

Marcion (as written by Teltullian) tells us that the very first gospel, the only one he considered valid, was known as the gospel of the lord and was dictated by Paul to Luke.

Papias, who claimed to have known people who directly knew apostles, tells us the very first Gospel he knew about was written by Matthew in Hebrew. (no one has ever found this version as the current Matthew seems little more than an expansion on the current Mark Gospel without any trace of being written in anything but Koine Greek).

Papias further tells us that the Gospel of Mark he knew about was an out of order group of sayings and events that Peter recalled and dictated to Mark.(nothing like our current Mark).

Luke, as we have it today is admittedly not an eye witness account at all and seems to draw heavily on the currently known version of Mark.

The Gospel of John seems nearly universally recognized as a late 1st century, perhaps even early 2nd century invention of a church group completely removed from the original events... the Jesus seminar voted most of it completely alien to anything an historical Jesus would have said or done.

Josephus writes about Jesus... or does he? one of his references is nearly universally seen as at least a partial forgery and many see it as a complete fake.(no church father ever quotes it until after the 2nd century). A 2nd reference to Jesus may be another person entirely(the name was very common) and a 3rd was about a preacher who for seven years said the city of Jerusalem was going to be destroyed by the Romans and ended up killed by a Roman missile(boulder).

I have run across many Christian sources which make the claim that there is more EVIDENCE for an historical Jesus than any other historical personage... this seems to be a complete lie... there is ZERO evidence, only hearsay, rumors and legends... not one verifiable bit of actual evidence.

Was there an historical Jesus? perhaps, but the one in the gospels seems to be completely mythological.

I know that there are films which approach the story of Jesus from a more humanized perspective, thus distancing themselves from the Gospels (such as 'The Last Temptation of Christ' and 'Jesus Christ Superstar'). Even so, I believe these productions are more reinterpretations based on biblical texts than necessarily historical approaches to the real Jesus. Are there any films that can be considered the closest to the Historical Jesus?

I'm new to this subreddit and apologize in advance for redundancy if my question has been addressed previously. If this is the case, I'd appreciate a kind soul simply pointing me in the right direction. ;-)

My question is: is there any evidence that Jesus' origin story (i.e., virgin birth, three kings, born in a manger in Bethlehem, Roman census, star in the east, etc.) was known to his apostles or to ANYONE while Jesus was living? Likewise is there any evidence that Jesus himself knew about his own origin story or ever spoke on it?

Thanks much.

For any of you who do not frequent academic biblical, Dale Allison will be doing an AMA there on October 10 from 8 - 10 PM

While I understand that the teachings of the gospels have been in circulation for a few decades after being written down, is it true that because Jews of that time held the importance of transmitting oral tradition accurately along with a possible hypothetical Q source document, we can be quite confident that the accounts in the gospels reflect the teachings of the historical Jesus?

I wonder how you guys read NT from a historical perspective and what sources you drew upon. Also wondering if some groups are online to read and discuss NT that could be helpful.

As you can see on the sidebar we've had two previous discussions about what the rules should be here.

Here they are again:

[#1] What are the rules here?

[#2] What are the rules here?

Let us, again, discuss what the rules should be here. Thank you.

Is it accurate to say that the NT is currently the only source of uncovering what Jesus actually taught? Are there other non biblical sources that contribute to the possible teachings taught by the historical Jesus?

The Next Quest conference recently wrapped up. All sessions were recorded and available on the Enoch Seminar's FB page.

James Crossley's JSHJ article

Day 1 Part 1 (Online)

Day 1 Part 2 (Online)

Day 1 Part 1 (Bedfork, UK)

Day 1 Part 2 (Bedford, UK) [I believe the Zoom cut out in the middle of a presentation from Part 1]

Day 2 Part 1 (Bedford, UK)

Day 2 Part 2 (Bedford, UK)

I just heard it claimed -- by Dr. Ali Ataie on "Blogging Theology" -- that Jesus' prediction of an imminent 'coming of the Son of Man' is something Mark put into Jesus' mouth, and not something that Jesus himself said.The claim was that Paul came up with the idea of an imminent return of Jesus, and Mark borrowed it from Paul and put it in Jesus' mouth. Thus, we can absolve Jesus of making a false prophecy.What do you all think of this explanation?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJA_vXm8nEk

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Look at some parallels. Hyam Maccoby pretty much touted this. He often goes pretty extreme in trying to get Jesus to fit this mold.. I do personally think there is some merit to this idea:

1. Jesus seems well-versed in the Bible. Unless he memorized it ala Homer style (perhaps he did?), the illiteracy claim for Jesus seems not grounded.
2. Jesus seems well-aware of the Pharisaic intra-sectarian debates of the time (Hillel vs. Shammai.. healing on the Sabbath, etc.).
3. It seems there could have been sympathies from other Pharisees (Gamliel, for example).

My only questions pertain to the "otherwordly" outlook of the Hillelite Pharisees.. (or any Pharisee).

We know Pharisees believed in an end times where there would be a general resurrection and that there was reward and punishment in an afterlife (or the World to Come).

However, what would the Pharisees think of:

1. John the Baptist.. He seems Essenic in certain respects.. Would Pharisees have been friendly with John the Baptist? Jesus definitely followed him early on as an influence.
2. Son of Man terminology.. Did Pharisees put any stock in messianic figures being associated with a Son of Man character? We know post-facto that post-Temple Rabbinic literature discusses Enoch and angelic beings heavily, so would they have been drawn to the more eschatological elements of the End Times, and Son of Man that Jesus seemed to discuss? This part seems more Essenic and less pharisaic but maybe Pharisees had sympathies with this idea too.

I am not a historian. I am also not super interested in speculation of the form "historical Jesus was ____ which coincidentally aligns with my worldview". I am looking for an approachable but rigorous book laying out the case for why we believe Jesus existed. Thank you in advance.

Edit: the title should have been "historical evidence for Jesus" not "Historical Jesus".

I have very recently rehosted the original site of the late Thomas Paterson Brown, who has the best interlinear translation on Thomas - and as a result I looked into the Gospel of Philip

Philip has 5 counts of ⲭⲣⲏⲥⲧⲟⲥ, or χρηστός for those who prefer plain Greek - and nobody ever knew; just do a Google search on it. I did a short paper on it and continued through Codex II, and also checked Codex I of the NHL - and then decided to check all of the NHL.

It's 5,000 pages if you count all the Brill volumes, but I like to work smart, not hard: so here is the paper, and here is the academia.edu Discussion for those who want to verify with their own eyes what I claim about the NHL

No Coptic knowledge needed for sure! It's all plain English

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Bonus info: How often does χριστός occur then, in the entire NHL?

2 times