[continued from previous message]   
      
   From any point of view, it was imperative that the body be removed from the   
   grave. If it was really Jesus in the grave, it was most urgent that he be   
   taken elsewhere for proper medical treatment, to enable him to reappear, in   
   good health, in a very few    
   days. If it was not Jesus, but rather Judas, or some other unfortunate person,   
   in the sepulcher, then that corpse (or future corpse) had to be removed to   
   conceal the fraud, and to make it appear that Jesus had risen from his grave.   
   Timing played an    
   enormous part in the success of such a plan. In order to make certain that   
   nobody would enter the tomb to view the body, or corpse, before it could be   
   removed, it was mandatory that the crucifixion drama be enacted in the hours   
   just preceding the Jewish    
   Sabbath. In that way Jesus could be buried just around sunset, when the Jewish   
   Sabbath begins. Then, once Joseph of Arimathaea had rolled a “great stone” in   
   front of the door, no Jew would have dared to push It aside in order to enter   
   the tomb, for that    
   act would have been a clear violation of the Sabbath which, according to   
   Mosaic law, was punishable by death. [202] However, the Romans had no   
   superstition nor any qualms about working on Saturdays, nor did Jesus and his   
   disciples, [203] and so it became    
   a relatively simple matter for the body to be spirited away from the tomb   
   either that night or the very next day, but definitely some time during the   
   hours of the Sabbath. [204]   
      
   At this point we come to consider the sixth and most critical, most secret   
   aspect of Jesus' strategy. Jesus believed that the Jewish Messiah had to   
   appear to be crucified, and he knew that, according to Roman law, only the   
   Romans had the authority to    
   order and enforce a crucifixion. [205] Jesus also knew that, without the basic   
   support of Pontius Pilate, it would be just about impossible for him to   
   organize an authentic crucifixion – one which would not prove fatal to himself   
   and which might,    
   nevertheless, convince the Jews that he had indeed died and been resurrected.   
   Hence Jesus was prepared to go to great lengths to win favor with the Romans.   
   In order to gain the sympathy and support of Pontius Pilate, Jesus was   
   prepared to pay the heavy    
   price of enslaving forever the Jews, or those who followed him, to the whims   
   of any corrupt political leader. This is why I have called Jesus a traitor,   
   and this is why his ruthless lust for power has had such a harmful effect   
   throughout the past two    
   thousand years on humanity. If we are to know a tree by the fruit it bears,   
   [206] then we need only examine the devastating impact on society of the   
   Christian religion and its Church to judge what sort of man was Jesus.   
      
   Here one may wonder what real value Jesus could have to the Romans. To answer,   
   we need only consider the difficulties which faced any political leader or   
   nation which sought to control the Jews. Throughout their history, the Jews   
   have rarely opposed    
   science and study – rather they generally encouraged these pursuits, Judaism   
   being perhaps the only major world religion to do so. Furthermore, to a Jew   
   wealth was never a curse, but always a blessing, so the Jews sought material   
   gain while all other    
   religions were preaching the gospel of holy poverty and blind faith. For these   
   reasons, the Jews, the People of the Book, always tended to dominate, both   
   socially and economically, the surrounding population of non-Jews.   
   Unfortunately the Jews also    
   suffered from an arrogant superiority feeling due to their self-image as the   
   Chosen People of God, and so they had the tendency to resist any type of   
   non-Jewish or even Jewish rulership. Not surprisingly, the Jews never became   
   large in number; but, few    
   though they were, the Jews were by and large a quite capable people. If   
   somehow they could be made docile, the Jews were a considerable asset to any   
   Empire, e.g. the Roman Empire.   
      
   Pontius Pilate, as the Roman Governor of Judaea, must have been aware of all   
   these facets of the “Jewish problem”. Moreover, the difficulty manifested in   
   those days had been exacerbated by the stated intent of Rome to tax Israel,   
   whereas many or most    
   Jews opposed this tax on the ground that Israel was their God-given country.   
   Already some Galilean rebels, known as the Zealots, had started an   
   insurrection against the Roman occupation. And then, along came a different   
   kind of Galilean, Jesus of    
   Nazareth. He, or his Essene representatives, promised to pacify the Jews by   
   exploiting their one major weakness – the hope, the Messianic expectation – in   
   return for a little timely and critical support, and the assurance that Jesus   
   (and the Essenes    
   through him) would be allowed to supplant Herod and become, ultimately, the   
   Roman-sponsored tetrarch, or client king of all Israel. Naturally, the full   
   results of this contract could not be known until after the crucifixion drama   
   and the resurrection, so    
   Pilate had to guarantee his assistance if he wanted to accomplish his own   
   purpose. Pilate, of course, hoped that Jesus' miraculous reappearance would   
   finally convince the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah, and he further hoped   
   that Jesus would then be able    
   to pacify the rebellious Jews, the Zealots, through their acceptance of him   
   and by his doctrine of servility to Rome. It was a gamble, but not one that   
   Pilate could afford to pass up. When the King of Babylon could take pains to   
   liberate the prophet    
   Jeremiah from the hands of the Jews who rejected his poisonous philosophy,   
   [207] why then should not Pontius Pilate take similar steps on behalf of   
   Jesus? After all, though Jesus may have sought to supplant Herod, he posed no   
   real threat to Rome, or to    
   Pilate himself. In fact, Pilate may have had some other selfish reasons to   
   quietly support Jesus, because Pilate was known personally to dislike Herod.   
   [208] In any event – win, lose or draw – Jesus would have provided   
   considerable servi   
   es by the time that Pilate would be called upon to save him. And, even if   
   Jesus did not succeed one hundred percent in his mission, he would still have   
   left the Jews somewhat more divided and, thus, a little easier to control.   
      
   As things turned out, Jesus more than kept his side of the bargain. Where the   
   Jews felt that they were God's “first-born son”, [209] Jesus declared himself   
   as God's “only begotten son”, the only medium through which God could be   
   personally realized. [210]   
    Where the Jews believed in knowledge, Jesus demanded blind faith. [211] Where   
   the Jews had superiority complex, Jesus tried to instill an inferiority   
   complex and a guilt complex by calling the Jews a “generation of vipers”,   
   evil, faithless and    
   hypocritical. [212] Where the Jews ran after money, Jesus told them that a   
   rich person had as much chance to reach heaven as a camel had to pass through   
   the eye of a needle. [213] Where the Jews believed in “an eye for an eye, a   
   tooth for a tooth”, Jesus    
   taught that they should not resist evil, but rather they should love their   
   enemy and always “turn the other cheek”. [214] Jesus openly told the Jews to   
   pay the Roman taxes and to submit to Roman rule. [215] He also freely admitted   
   that his mission was to    
   create disunity among the Jews. [216] All this Jesus managed to accomplish by   
   using quite subtle logic, starting with such hypocritical lines as: “Whoever   
   shall break one of the least commandments (of Mosaic law) and shall teach men   
   so, he shall be    
   called least in the kingdom of heaven.” [217]   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)