"From his life, we know that he surrounded himself with women, who were powerful and well respected in his circle,"
Well there was Mary Magdeline and... ? I only count one and she was a hooker, likely a beautiful, intelligent hooker but certainly not powerful unless you consider her powerful because she influenced Jesus. Salome was probably more powerful for influencing her step dad to hack off the head of John the Baptist.
"that he was not vengeful,"
Actually he was quite vengeful or do you forget the account of the fig tree that Jesus withered because it did not bear fruit or the herd of pigs he drove over a cliff during an exorcism.
...that he had compassion for the poor and the sick, and not much else, really, do we know."
The gospels are so vague and contradictory they can be used to explain away or justify practically anything. We also don't hear Christians quoting the passage where Jesus said to a woman that he came not to save gentiles but the scattered tribes of Israel.
"The Essenes were probably vegetarians (they may have eaten fish)."
Nice try Grainne but we really don't know anything about them.
"Jesus was a radical leftist."
So was Stalin.
"And perhaps a Buddhist--there is much in common between his philosophy and Buddhism, and many believe he traveled to India and lived there for awhile (or perhaps even China)."
This I doubt.
"The harsh, judgmental, narrow-minded, warmongering, homosexual hating, zealously patriotic views of much of the American rightwing have absolutely nothing in common with Jesus."
We will never know. |
