NOTE:     In the preceding post we began to construct a biography of the early first century BCE prophet Yeshu ha-Notsri from Jewish rabbinical records. Though Jewish/Talmudic references to Yeshu are few, when viewed together they permit one to construct the outline of a radical, courageous, and successful prophet in Judea who was so hated and feared by the Jewish religious authorities that they arrested him, tried him for apostasy, and executed him.      Parallels with the later Jesus of Nazareth of the New Testament are obvious. Not only did Yeshu’s biography certainly influence the canonical storyline, it may also surprise readers that the names are identical: Yeshu ha-Notsri translates directly to “Jesus the Nazarene,” as I explain here.      This post continues to … Continue reading →

     For at Christ’s arrival the rulers in succession from Judah came to an end. Until his time the rulers were anointed priests, but after his birth in Bethlehem of Judea the order ended and changed with Alexander, a ruler of priestly and kingly stock. After Alexander this heritage from the time of Salina—also known as Alexandra—died out under King Herod and the Roman Emperor Augustus.      (Epiphanius, Panarion 29.3.3, Williams edition.) Scholars have ever found this passage inexplicable. Epiphanius wrote his Panarion about 375 CE, and it is entirely bizarre that the bishop of Salamis in Cyprus would date Jesus to the time of Alexander Janneus. Epiphanius writes that after Jesus’ “birth in Bethlehem of Judea the order ended and changed … Continue reading →

Readers who have followed my writings over the last decade or so are aware—from the book NazarethGate (final chapter) and on this website—of my thesis that Yeshu ha-Notsri was the historical founder of Christianity (e.g., see here). Yeshu lived in the early decades of the first century BCE (not CE!), thus exactly one century before the putative Jesus of Nazareth. Unlike Jesus of Nazareth, however, Yeshu is a prophet known to non-Christian literary records dating back to antiquity. That datum is critical, for the same cannot be said for Jesus of Nazareth. Over the last century, Jesus mythicists have scientifically shown that early attestations for the man from Nazareth are, without exception, either Christian forgeries or late Christian interpolations. The … Continue reading →