by Katherine Frisk
In a recent article that I wrote: Damascus, the Anti-Christ and Armageddon, I came to the conclusion after reading the comments section that the Muslims are the only ones who have any real understanding of what I am getting at. According to one comment: “Then Jesus will return, the Imam will point to him and say, this is the True Messiah!” Hence the title.
The term “Israel,” in the Old Testament texts, more often than not, refers to refers to the Northern Kingdom of Israel, the Ephraimite Kingdom, not to the Kingdom of Judea. When the Prophets refer to “Israel,” this is who they are talking about. But most people read the texts and assume that the term “Israel” and “Ephraim,”automatically refers to the “Jews,” the tribe of Judah. When the Assyrians attacked, Judea at first stood down and did not come to their aid. They willingly let them be destroyed and Israel was defeated in 722 B.C. Thousands of them fled south where they were treated as slaves by the “Jews.”
As Judah sold Joseph into slavery so Judea sold the Joseph tribes, Israel into slavery. Judea was also eventually invaded and the “Jews”were taken to Babylon. If they had helped to protect their brothers instead of treating them like slaves, this disaster might not have happened.
In the New Testament, the story is repeated. The 12 at the Last Supper represent the 12 tribes of Israel, the sons of Jacob. Jesus represents Ephraim, the son of Joseph, the “Firstborn,” of God. Or rather the firstborn as blessed by Jacob. Judas like Judah before him in the Old Testament, sells out “Jesus”for thirty pieces of silver. And so history repeats. Everything is done in parables for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. They lived in dangerous times, persecuted by the Sadducee priesthood, the Herod Kings and the Romans.
I have come to the conclusion that the genealogy given to Jesus to the House of David and in turn Judah in the Gospels, was a later insertion by the likes of Paul, a Jew with Roman citizenship and later adopted by the Roman Emperor Constantine and his Bishop Eusebius at the Council of Nicea. The political implications of adopting this “Jewish” genealogy will become self evident below.
The Gospel texts are written in Greek, not in Aramaic, they are not original documents or eye witnesses accounts by the Essenes or the disciples. They appear to be a patchwork quilt of the original teachings of the Teachers of Righteousness intermingled with “Jewish” i.e. Judaic and Roman bias, containing a dubious historical backdrop that often contradicts the Jewish historian Josephus.
A study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi texts makes this very evident. What these texts also make evident is a major split in Israel between the Judaic faction in Judea and Jerusalem, and the Joseph tribes from the north in Galilee. The Pharisees were of the opinion that nothing good could come out of Galilee and it is interesting to note that in John’s Gospel he often quotes Jesus as saying:
“The Jews say you… but I tell you…”
This implies a fundamental divergence of basic principles between the Judaic Sadducee faction and the Essene Joseph faction in Galilee and in Qumram.
Muslims honour Moses, Joshua and Jesus. Not David. And they see Jesus as a prophet, not the “son of God,”which I believe is an accurate conclusion. In the Old Testament, Yeshua (Joshua) was by inheritance the “firstborn,” the grandson of Ephraim, blessed by Israel and as such, the designated leader of the tribe. And Israel was very much a tribal society. Joshua led the Hebrews, all twelve tribes into the Promised Land and dedicated them to the Law at Mount Gerizim, in Samaria, the original Mount Zion, the watchtower.
The same applies in the New Testament. In the Gospels Yeshua (Joshua-Jesus) says in frustration:
“If you have seen me then you have seen the father. Why do you not understand what I am saying?”
Or words to that effect. His title of “firstborn” is by inheritance and from the Joseph tribes not the tribe of Judah. As the firstborn he is a representative of Jacob, Israel itself. Hence, if you see him, then you see the father. This has been clouded and covered over with misinterpretation, lack of understanding and blatant interpolation into the texts of Judaic bias.
The title has also been skewered into a Greco/Roman version of the “Gods” and the planets that are associated with them. The Gods and Goddesses of the ancient world are basically Astronomy, stone carved in human form representing the planets. Artists, potters, fashioning celestial bodies from the clay of the earth in their own image. Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Neptune look nothing like we do. Jesus has been “elevated” to God status, in competition with these planets. He was never a “Sky Daddy,” he was always a “Son of Man,” but it seems one of our own is never good enough.
An interpolation of an unrealistic “virgin birth,”in turn, ensures a dissociation of Yeshua/Jesus from his father, his “Joseph” roots. The authors who wrote this could of course have been taking magic mushrooms at the time. Magic mushrooms aside, the implications of a real, human birth and Joseph as his biological father through a logical progression going back, includes a biological inheritance to the Joseph tribes, the Northern Kingdom of Israel, Joshua who dedicated the people to the law in Samaria at Mount Gerizim and his title through Ephraim being the “firstborn” and in effect, a representative of Israel itself. This is pure genealogy going back to the “source,” being Jacob and his twelve sons.
According to the archaeologist Aviram Oshri, Bethlehem in Judea was unoccupied during Herodian times, but Bethlehem in Galilee, a short distance from Nazareth, was a thriving town and Herodian remains have been found on the site. This Bethlehem would be the most logical place for Mary to go in search of a midwife during her confinement. Rather than Jesus being born in the city of King David, he was born in the city of Joshua. Which for our purposes starts to make more sense than the counter view.
The Quran denounces monarchy and for good reason. Israel was abandoned by “God” because they broke the Covenant by demanding a King. The first commandment is to love God alone, not a monarch or even a high temple priest. 1 Samuel 8:
Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah,And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord.And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also unto thee.Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them.And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king.And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots.And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots.And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants.And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work.He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants.And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day.
Building a Temple in Jerusalem and re-instating a King David from the line of Judah, is to all intents and purposes is an abomination to “God” as is a “High Priest” in any form. The Judges of Israel, the elders, formed what we would call a constitutional body as opposed to a ruling elite class of people.
Again we go back to tampering with the texts, creating cognitive dissonance, and duplicity. By giving Jesus a genealogy to King David, the political system in the Middle East and the Mediterranean at the time, through “Christianity,” maintained the ongoing concept of monarchy. But this is contradicted by the very actions and words of “Jesus” himself.
“Jesus” was a highly educated teacher who had studied all texts and would have read Samuel and all the Prophets. It comes as no surprise then that when the devil tempted him in the desert with all the kingdoms of world, he turned the devil down. When the people wanted to make him a king, he left for the hills. When Pilate asked him if he was the king of the “Jews,” he simply replied, “The words are yours.”
Early Christianity was very much Essene in nature and the Teachers of Righteousness appear to be a blueprint for the story of Jesus, both in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Wisdom of Solomon 2.For this reason, I put the name in parenthesis. The name “Yeshua,” was an initiation name, and used by many of these teachers. As such their teachings are in and of themselves the political framework established by Joshua. Our “Jesus,”could have been a political movement of dissent as opposed to the story of one individual. Like “Anonymous,” they moved against the prevailing corruption of the time. Jesus whipped the money lenders in the Temple, they opposed the Herodian Kings and the fought against Rome, the “Legion.”
Christianity in the first century was an Apostolic Church. It was not based on a hierarchical order. And any “leader”might have been first, but was always regarded as first amongst equals. Which in structure meant that it was not in alignment with temple practice as it was under Alexander Jannaeus, Caiaphas and other notable characters in Jerusalem well documented by Josephus, a Jewish scholar with Roman citizenship, who recorded both Jewish and Roman history between B.C. and A.D. History is written by the victors not the crucified.
The return of the Messiah might very well be a concept as opposed to an individual, and it might very well be that from the Shiite, the Mahdi, the Imam, that the truth of Yeshua, which has been grossly misrepresented for almost 2,000 years, is made known to the world.
Who is “Israel”today? We find them in Samaria where they always have been. We find them in the old Jewish communities in Iran, often referring to themselves as “Torah Jews.” We find them in the old Christian communities across the Middle East. And we find them in Islamic communities. All are the sons of Joseph. All are Israel scattered.
According to the Prophets, “Israel,” all twelve tribes will be restored, but not as a “Jewish” Zionist state. Time will tell.
Jim W. Dean was an active editor on VT from 2010-2022. He was involved in operations, development, and writing, plus an active schedule of TV and radio interviews.
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