I had an insane theory about the Christian story.
When I was a teenager and still a believer, a theory popped into my mind after reading a few verses from the bible.
Matthew 2:1,2
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi[a] from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
Matthew 2:9,10
After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.
Luke 3:21,22
When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you, I am well pleased.”
Matthew 17:1,2,5
After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.
While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him, I am well pleased. Listen to him!”
Acts 1:9
After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
Stars don’t move like an aeroplane. What if it was some kind of aerial device and the people of the time mistook it for a star? And what are these voices coming from the cloud? Wait a minute, is it, aliens? I know it sounds insane, therefore the title. Now, I find it cringy and hilarious when I look back on it.
What about canonical Christian stories?
What about the canon Christian Story? Is that true? Is that how things happened? Did Jesus even exist? My honest answer is that I don’t know. Given how little information we have, it is tough to conclude anything. The nature of the material makes it even harder to conclude anything. Moreover, I am neither a historian nor a biblical scholar. But I don’t think one needs to be a historical scholar to truly understand God’s work. That would be unfair if that’s the case.
Even scholars disagree about what really happened. Based on this, we can say that evidence is not convincing.
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” — Carl Sagan
Let me explain this with an example.
Suppose your friend calls you and tells you he bought a Dog. Your friend is a dog person, so it seems plausible. Even if your friend is lying, you would not require much evidence for that.
Now, let’s say your friend says that the dog can do acrobatics. Now you might ask them to send a video. You might doubt it, but dogs can be trained to do acrobatics, so it seems plausible.
Now, let’s say your friend says that the dog can talk. Now you would say, I need to see that myself; only then I will believe you.
I don’t think the evidence is enough to support the Christian story. Compared to the canonical story, even the alien theory seems plausible but let’s not go there. We can have a natural explanation of the events without veering off much from the canonical gospels. Given how little information we have, the best we can do is speculate only. One might argue that assuming naturalism is not fair, but if it was not for Christian theology, this is how we would have analyzed the Christian story. This is how we would treat any other historical tale. Why give this a special pass? In fact, not assuming naturalism would be unfair.
First of all, did Jesus exist? Based on the gospels, Paul and Josephus, I am assuming Jesus existed. Yes, I am taking gospels as historic. I think they are historical but not reliable.
An alternate view
As I mentioned earlier, I am not a historian, and the following theory is not mine. I am not even claiming that this is how the event of the gospels happened. I am just showing an alternative to how the events of the gospels could have happened. Why I picked this? Because this was the first story of Jesus, I read outside of the bible, and somehow at that time, it made complete sense as if someone had given me the missing piece of the puzzle. Now when I look back, I think it is very speculative but excellent speculation. There is no Jesus visiting India. Jesus is not a mushroom and certainly not an alien.
I am referring to the book “The Jesus Dynasty” by James Daniel Tabor. The author is a biblical scholar and professor of ancient Judaism. James Tabor has studied the earliest surviving documents of Christianity for more than thirty years and has participated in important archaeological excavations in Israel.
Early Life
So, it goes like this. James Tabor starts his book with a description of an archaeological excavation, and he tries to relate the tombs found to the family of Jesus. Then he describes the politics and history of Judea around the time of the birth of Jesus. This is important because, according to James Tabor, Jesus’s movement was a religious/spiritual and political movement that began with John the Baptist, not Jesus. John the Baptist was the first leader of the movement, but in the canonical gospels, John’s role is highly side-lined. There is another character who, according to James Tabor, is side-lined by gospel authors, and that is Jesus’s half-brother, James. After Jesus, he led the movement and was the leader of the church of Jerusalem.
I am going ahead of myself. According to James Tabor, Jesus had a biological father. He speculates a roman soldier (I will not go into the detail here. You can read the book for that). While Mary was pregnant, she married Joseph. Mary bore other children after Jesus, either by Joseph or his brother (According to ancient Jewish traditions because Joseph probably died early). Joseph’s brother also probably died early. Being the eldest Son, Jesus was the leader of the family. He was perhaps humiliated because his neighbours knew about Jesus’s biological father. What I want to say is that Jesus’s life was not easy. While he was young only, he had the responsibility of a family. He probably witnessed first-hand the atrocities of Herod. Also, he probably disagreed with the ways of the Jewish sects of Pharisees and Sadducees.
The Priest and the King
We know very little about Jesus’s early life. All of the events in the gospels happened in the span of 3 years. Later Jesus Joined John the Baptist. They probably preached together, and maybe they were best friends. John is the priest, and Jesus is the king (Metaphorically because Jesus himself said his kingdom is not of this world). We have to note one thing. Jesus was accused of calling himself king. Why would Romans do that if he didn’t call himself king? Romans, along with a few Jewish leaders, found Jesus to be potentially harmful to their political stability. Canonical gospels try to blame Jewish religious leaders for the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus. According to James Tabor, this narrative was set by early Christians to appeal to Romans. Why would Pontius Pilatus try to release Jesus as described in the Canonical gospels? It doesn’t make sense.
One thing is common in the teaching of John and Jesus. They believed God’s Kingdom was coming soon, and they probably believed they were the messenger of that (Jesus never claimed to be God. That’s a later Christian addition). Repent and being a loving human being that’s the basic theme of their teaching. Their movement was not a political revolution. They did not take arms to overthrow Herod or the Romans. They focused on spirituality. How to be ready for God’s kingdom. This Kingdom of God was to be a new era of justice, righteousness, and peace for all humankind. From this reformed Israel, God would radiate knowledge and universal ethics of the Torah to all the world. This is beyond worldly politics. Neither John nor Jesus had any idea of beginning a new religion.
An unexpected turn of events
Since John was the leader of the movement, he got arrested by Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee. Jesus continued the work they had begun. He chose an inner council of twelve, maybe representing twelve tribes of Israel. He preached in the area around Galilee and also sent his disciples to different locations around Judea. Perhaps they performed exorcisms also. Then the unexpected happened. Herod murdered John the Baptist. This must have been shocking for the group. This may have even shocked Jesus. They probably tried to avoid authorities now. Jesus probably tried to look into the scriptures for answers. According to James Tabor, after reading the scriptures, Jesus was convinced that even he would be arrested and crucified. With this new-found knowledge, he continued the movement now with more confidence. He went to Jerusalem like a king. Caused trouble in the temple and confronted the religious and political authorities directly.
We don’t know why Judas betrayed Jesus, but all of this led to Jesus being arrested. Like his kinsman John, Jesus died in faith that his cause would be realized. James Tabor didn’t say much about the resurrection story, although he claimed that Jesus’s tomb was temporary and probably his body was later moved. As Paul said, resurrection is the most crucial aspect of Christianity. It’s totally a different debate in itself. No matter what, Christians will never accept any alternate answer, so I will not say much here. You are limiting your belief by letting it depend on one single event, which we can’t even verify. It should not be like that.
The challenge of Paul
Losing two of your leaders back-to-back would have been difficult for the group. Later, James, Peter, and John continued the movement, but this original group is now lost in history. According to James Tabor, we have lost the teachings of this authentic Christianity. Then came Paul. We have to realize one thing Paul never met Jesus, yet most of the New Testament books are from Paul or influenced by Paul. Paul set the foundation for Christianity as we know it today. By the time the gospels were written, even Paul was dead. By that time, Pauline’s theology was already famous. Popularity is not a synonym for authenticity but this is probably what happened with early Christianity. Out of all the different versions of early Christianity Pauline Christianity appealed to the people most especially non-Jews. One can understand why Jesus’s brother James, or even John, was side-lined. Paul was seemingly teaching his own heavenly revelations.
Conclusion
I will end this article with one of the paragraphs from James Tabor’s book.
Given what I have presented in The Jesus Dynasty one might be tempted to classify Jesus with other “failed messiahs” whose hopes and dreams were never realized as they expected. But the cause is always greater than the person. Jesus’s cause was the kingdom of God. But he defined it most elegantly: “Let your Kingdom come, let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The second phrase is an explanation of the first. The kingdom coming is when the will of God is realized on earth, not in heaven. The kingdom Jesus expected was not an earthly kingdom, but it was a kingdom on earth. But Jesus not only proclaimed the arrival of the kingdom of God, he pinpointed a set of central ethical and spiritual values, based upon the message of the Hebrew Prophets.
Jesus’s teaching probably was never about going to heaven or hell as traditional Christianity tells us but to bring heaven onto earth. It is for this cause John was beheaded. Jesus and Simon were crucified. James was stoned to death.
