Rob emails: Dear Mr. Ford,
Let us assume that there is a modicum of historical accuracy in the Authorized Biographies (a.k.a. “Gospels,” both Canonical and not) of Y’shua bar Joseph ha Nazir. To this “Pagan,” he comes across as delusional. At his time, “sons of G-d” were a dime the dozen in the eastern Mediterranean/western Asia.
According to those “Gospels,” he irritated the Powers That Be in the Jewish community sufficient that they denounced him to the Roman occupation authority. Examining him, Pontius Pilate is recorded to have said, “I find no guilt in this man.” None the less, Pilate allowed him to be executed, as the local Jewish P.T.B. demanded.
With respect, I none the less assert that that was a world-historical error: This made a martyr out of him. Do not you Jewish folk know the power of martyrdom?
In my humble opinion, what should have been done with Y’shua bar Joseph is to invoke Din Meshugga upon him. He is a rabble-rouser, trouble-maker, an all-around pain in the tuchus; but instead of crucifying him, remand him to Beth Meshugga. Whenever he is thirsty, give him cannabis tea; and be sure to cook plenty of the right kind of (hallucinogenic) mushrooms in his food. In short order, symptoms will present themselves more and more blatantly, and the cult-let of his followers will dissipate in disillusion.
I am someone to whom Christianity never made sense. On the other hand, what I have read of your People over the last fifty-six years, shows a core of straight-line sense, covered by your share of any tribal People’s non-canonical mythology, interspersed with suggestions for group survival among other Peoples. Indeed, I personally regard the Jewish People as the Gods’ heuristic example, a.k.a “classroom demonstration model,” of group survival: Other ethnies have been, metaphorically, “tested in the crucible;” with your People, that metaphoric crucible broke, and your People were tested in the fire. It behooves anyone concerned with the survival, and continuity into the future, to learn everything admissible of intellectual apprehension, about your People, in order to discover your success formula, thereafter to appropriate what parts thereof can be tweaked for application to one’s own People.
Having seriously enjoyed your blog since I first discovered it, I urge you, please, keep up the good work.
