Some writers have called Jesus a rabbi. And Lenny Bruce said "rabbi means lawyer." But to judge from the Gospel of John 8:12-20, Jesus was not simply a lawyer; he was a shyster.
Here is the relevant quotation, in which Jesus debated with the Pharisees:
"Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
"The Pharisees therefore said unto him, Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true.
"Jesus answered and said unto them, Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I go; but ye cannot tell whence I come, and whither I go.
"Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man.
"And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me.
"It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true .
"I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me.
Then they said unto him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither know me nor my Father; if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also.
"These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as he taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on him; for his hour was not yet come."
When Jesus said, "It is also written in you law, that the testimony of two men is true," he was
referring to the Mosaic law that can be found in Deuteronomy 17:6: "At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death."
Much of what Jesus said in his debate with the Pharisees was simply unproven assertion. Insofar as he had an actual argument, it basically boiled down to this: Mosaic law requires two witnesses to prove something true. He and the Father that sent him were two witnesses that he was the light of the world. Q.E.D. Jesus was the light of the world.
Jesus' citation of the Mosaic law--"your law," as he put it to the Pharisees--may have been an effective debating gambit. The Pharisees were probably in no position to challenge that law. But it should be obvious that the law in question is not the expression of any objective truth, but is only an abitrary rule of thumb, at best.The idea that to have two witnesses, instead of just one, making the same claim, is always going to lead to the truth is absurd and ridiculous. It is entirely possible for two or more witnesses to agree, but to be mistaken, or maybe even lying.
Furthermore, Jesus claimed the Father that sent him as his second witness, but the Father that supposedly sent him never testified to the Pharisees on his behalf. From the Pharisees' point of view, Jesus had only one witness, himself.
All in all, Jesus' argument, insofar as he had any argument, was completely specious. That he relied on such a specious argument shows that Jesus was a shyster and not a god, unless, perhaps, a god can also be a shyster.
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Out of Egypt
Both the Old Testament and the early Church Fathers identify Jesus as the same person as Joshua who succeeded Moses as the leader of the Israelites (just as Tutankhamun succeeded Akhenaten as Pharaoh). The early Church Father Origen, the outstanding theologian of the third century AD, commented on Exodus 17:9 where Joshua is first mentioned with Moses: 'Up to this point nowhere has there occurred mention of the blessed man Jesus. Here first the brilliance of this name shone torth.' The historical Jesus (Tutankhamun) was tortured and hanged by the wicked priest Panhesy or Phineas at the foot of Mount Sinai on the eve of the Passover, probably in 1352 BC. His body was claimed by Aye, and buried in the valley of the Kings.
The memory of these events, together with the tradition of Jesus the Teacher and the expectation of the Second Coming was preserved by three sects: the ascetic, contemplative Theraputae (identified as the first Christians by Eusebius); the Essenes, who were Judaeo-Christians (i.e. followers of Jesus, the Teacher of Righteousness) and whose Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947; and the Gnostics, who were Gentile Christians and whose library at Nag Hammadi was discovered in 1945. These Messianic sects survived for many centuries until the start of the Christian era.
According to the New Testament, Jesus is supposed to have lived, suffered and died in the 1st century AD. Scholarly research, both biblical and historical, coupled with the accumulation of archaeological evidence, can find no reliable indication of the historical Jesus during this period. It was a time of fervent spiritual expectations1 particularly on the part of the Essenes and the Gnostics. The cornerstone of their belief was put forward by the Israelite prophet Isaiah writing in the 6th century BC. He wrote in the past tense that a divinely appointed 'Saviour' (the 'Suffering Servant') had lived and was sacrificed in the cause of mankind's spiritual salvation and the securing of life after death. Isaiah, declared prophet of the Jesus of an historian of The Essenes and who had come and the Gospels by the Early Church, was in fact events that took place some 600 years earlier. the Gnostics fervently awaited not the Messiah -gone - but the Second Coming.
The Dead Sea Scrolls, what remains of the Essenes' library, date from 200 BC. They make it abundantly clear that the Essenes were followers of Jesus: indeed the name 'Essenes' derives from 'Essa', the Arabic name for Jesus which is used in the Koran.
The Gnostics held many beliefs in common with the Essenes. Their library, found at Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt in 1945, contains previously unknown gospels, including the Gospel of Thomas which predates all the books of the New Testament and includes more than 100 sayings attributed to Jesus. Many of these Gnostic texts are specifically Christian: the Gnostics were seekers after self-knowledge which they interpreted as knowledge of God, for they regarded the self as being part of the divine nature, and salvation as the release of man's spirit from the imprisonment of the body. They took Joshua to be, as the Old Testament has it, the historical Jesus. Gnostic sects had spread far and wide from Egypt by the end of the 1st century BC, including to Rome.
Since the historical Jesus cannot have lived after the 1st century AD, we must look for him during an earlier period. We have the evidence of Isaiah, who is much quoted in the Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The book of Joshua (largely a work of fiction) calls Joshua/Jesus 'the son of Nun', and indicates him as a contemporary of and successor to Moses. The word 'Nun' means 'fish', one of the earliest symbols of Christianity. Paul vividly acknowledges the historical Jesus, and the rabbianical Talmud does the same. The argument for an earlier historical Jesus is reinforced by the fact that the events recounted and the dates implied in the four gospels are mutually contradictory: the only point at which they agree is that Jesus lived and died some time between 27 BC and AD 37 - a timespan of 64 years. The three Roman historians of the time, Philo Judaeus (himself a considerable student of the Old Testament), Justus of Tiberius, and Flavius Josephus, while recording clear evidence of John the Baptist's mission and death, make no mention whatsoever of Jesus. (A copy of Josephus does in fact make mention of him, but this is now dismissed as a forgery, as is the Acts of Pilate, written some centuries later.) What is abundantly clear from writings earlier than the Gospels is that Jesus was an anointed king of royal descent (the son of David and son of God), that he suffered for his people, and was executed.
MetaTron: The Arabic name for Jesus in the Koran is "Isa," not "Essa," as claimed by you and, coincidentally no doubt, Ahmed Osman. You can do an Internet search for "Arabic name for Jesus in the Koran" to confirm this. Or you could look at the list of proper names on page liv of the 1995 printing of Maulana Muhammad Ali's English translation of The Holy Qur'an.
MetaTron: At the start of page 37 of "Jesus in the House of the Pharaohs," Ahmed Osman Wrote: "The Talmus is quite specific: 'Pinhas...killed him[Jesus]' (b. Sanh.106b)." Yes, the Talmud is quite specific. It says Pinhas killed Zimri. But in the above quotation from the Talmud, Ahmed Osman has taken the liberty of inserting the name "Jesus" instead of Zimri.
MetaTron: Maybe Origen wrote what you (and coincidentall0 Ahmed Osman quote him as writing. I don't know. Ihaven't the original. Have you> But even if Origen did write that: Did Ahmed Osman quote him out of context and twist the meaning? Do you know? D you care?
MetaTron: Origem might have only meant that Joshua ib the OT foreshadowed or prefigured Jesus, the NT savior, and not that they were the same person. Over the centuries, a lot of Christians have spent a lot of time going through the OT looking for anticipations of Jesus, allegedly the Christ, in the NT. There's a pamphlet titled "Christ in the Old Testament," currently advertised online which identiies 13 men in the OT as foreshadowing the Christ, the NT savior. One of the 13 is Joshua.
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