Jesus And Christians

Did any of you watch the brilliant PBS documentary on Jesus and the early Christians? If you didn't, I strongly suggest that you catch it at some time. Simply put, there is an ocean of difference between Jesus and Christians.

Jesus was a Jew and he strongly believed in the Jewish faith. He had a problem with the bureaucracy of the religion. He rebelled against the Temple's hierarchy. He took his message to the poor and the rural people. He stayed away from the big cities and the wealthy class. In a sense, he was an early DUer. Even if you don't believe in God or that he was the son of God, you have to admit that he was a pretty cool dude, someone that we can all respect, especially DUers.

After Jesus' death, the early Christians considered themselves a part of the Jewish faith. They were a sect that became more and more distant from the mainstream Jewish religion. After the failure of the second Jewish insurgency against the Roman occupation in Israel (hmmm....insurgency against an occupying force, where have I heard that before....hmmm....anyway), Jews and Christians formally parted ways.

There's a lot more to the story than I can post here. What I think that people must know is that the Christian religion that grew up after Jesus' death would be unrecognizable to Jesus himself. The Christian religion was an amalgamation of various Jewish sects throughout the Mediterranean region, and it was the sect that got the endorsement of the Roman emperor, Constantine, which we now know as Christianity.

It's an extremely fascinating historical and spiritual subject.

I know many people don't even believed that he lived, but I think he did. As for all the other things that go along with it, I'm still thinking about it. I was raised a Catholic but I ended up having questions they couldn't answer, so I decided to look into things myself.

I don't consider myself a Christian, but I say that based on the way that Jesus' teachings were manipulated and distorted to fit the church's political power moves. Going by the Gnostic Gospels it would seem that Jesus' teachings were far different than what was handed down since Constantine. The Bible, as we know it, isn't really the way to go if anyone wants to know what he had to say.

I have never read anything that Jesus taught that would be considered dangerous or detrimental to humanity. The "modern" Christians can be very dangerous, but they don't follow Jesus.

That show is fascinating...I wore out the video tape I had of it and finally had to just buy it on DVD. I learned so much from that, and it gave me a better understanding of Jesus and the early church than the WASP-Jesus that people kept pushing on me when I was growing up. It also helped me to branch out and try to find out more, and not just of the Christian faith.

I also enjoyed the part when the compare and contrast the first four Gospels of the New Testament...hmmm...

I've watched it every time it's been on. Frontline did such an excellent job. I may have to follow you and buy the DVD.

The sad thing is, while this is stuff that most mainline seminarians know, you probably won't find it being taught in church sunday school, because that's not what people want to hear. Sad.

And I quite agree with you - I find it incredibly sad that this side of Jesus isn't being shared more. It's what I find the most beautiful about him.

That was the one video tape I cried over when I found out it had gone skitzy! :o

I felt like I was coming home. It pieced togther so many diparate thoughts I'd had over the years about what it must have been like to be alive in that place and time. And I did change my outlook about the usefulness of "church" today. Watching that show was where I begain to get a very different idea of what a community can be, rather than the model we are stuck with today.

For one (I believe) He lived a perfect life. A life that, as a Christian, I try to follow. Although, I fall short more than not. He wasn't a Christian b/c He was Christ. Being a Christian means (in a short explanation) that you believe Jesus died on the cross for you and your sins. I think He would be/is very repulsed by a lot of the things "Christians" do in His name.

perhaps even Ultra Orthodox.

But you're right, our job is to follow Him as a role model.