Who REALLY was the one called Jesus?
Where is the line drawn between the man and the myth?
And what secrets does history, geography and the Bible itself reveal to us about the real Jesus?
Jesus arguably has the most spoken name in the entire world.
The Holy Bible, which is now available in approximately 4,876 languages, is printed more than any book in history. Whether it be on Christmas or Easter, a large percentage of the world recognizes Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
Yet why is it that so many know so little about the actual man named Jesus?
In this article, Moorish scholar Dr. Jose Pimienta Bey ushers us through a geographical and historical investigation of Jesus The Christ. He also provides a practical perspective on the aftermath of Jesus, and the rocky beginnings of the Christian religion.
Later in this post, we’ll also provide you with FREE study notes of everything presented in this article.
Dr. Jose Pimienta Bey:
The whole idea of believing in the teachings of Christ Jesus, means that we have to know to the best of our ability, what Jesus actually taught.
Jesus, who to us is understood to be an Asiatic man, an olive complexioned man — someone who was born in Palestine 2,000 years ago, who is born to the Hebrew people of that time.
And yet most people think of Jesus in terms of the classic blonde hair blue-eyed or brunette haired brown-eyed, Europeanized version of Jesus.
That in and of itself creates a problem.
It means that we’re presenting something that clearly is not rooted either in reason, geography or history.
Jesus The Christ: Investigating The Man & The Myth
Jesus is a Jew of the ancient world.
And one of the criticisms that sometimes people make is, “We don’t know what Jesus looked like because nobody took any photographs.”
But I say, well we don’t know what Buddha looked like because we
didn’t take any photographs. But we do know that Buddha was an Indian.
We don’t have any photographs of Confucius we know that Confucius was Chinese.
So we’re talking about Jesus. We know he was a Jew of 2,000 years ago, which is a big difference from what we think of in terms of being Jewish now.
And that has to do with a lack of understanding about the history even of Judaism and Christianity — because Christianity comes out of the Judaic traditions.
Investigating Jesus Geographically
Geographically, Jesus is born in Palestine which is part of what we might call the Middle East or the Near East — however you want to put it, but that region is what I refer to as near Asia (meaning near to Africa Northeast Africa).
That’s why Jesus and his family are able to flee into Egypt when they are trying to avoid the assault that has been initiated by Herod.
Tacitus, a Roman historian of the second century of the Common Era. Tacitus equates the Jews to having Egyptian origins.
Strabo who was a Greek chronicler and geographer. Strabo equates the Jews to having an Ethiopian origin.
So you have primary source references from Strabo a Greek acquainting the origins of the Jews to being Ethiopian, and we know what that means — that these are dark complexion, African or Asiatic people.
Tacitus says the same thing.
So we’re told by looking at these Greek and Roman accounts, that the Greeks and Romans understood the people to have an “Ethiopian” or an African origin.
Investigating Jesus Biblically
Look at references in the Bible with Revelations:
- Having hair like lamb’s wool and
- feet like burnt or burnished brass.
Brass is already a tone that has color. If you burn it, it becomes darker.
Then to say hair white like lamb’s wool — Generally when people talked about people’s hair and reference wool, they weren’t [only] talking about the color, they were talking about the texture.
So those are a couple of other clues that exist even from a biblical standpoint.
Investigating Jesus Genealogically
Look at the genealogy of Jesus in terms of who he descends from.
Literally one of his ancestors (Ruth) is a Moabitess. Trace who the people were that lived in that area prior to the coming of the Greeks or the Romans.
These are people who are understood to be people, as one might say, “of color.”
African people. Africoid people. People of dark complexion. Asiatic people.
The reason for the confusion?
The teachings of Jesus will be embraced by Gentiles (Gentile meaning those who are not Jewish or Hebrews).
Paul of Tarsus, after he has his vision while he’s on the road to Damascus, goes out in the world and starts teaching about Jesus. This is someone who will do a lot of things to make the practice of Christianity accommodate the new Gentile converts.
Jesus’ brother James, who had a very different understanding of what his brother was about, was followed primarily by a group that would be known as the Ebionites.
Paul’s teachings and Paul’s interpretation ends up being the predominant one.
In fact you might even call Paul’s teachings “Judaism Lite”.
Case-in-point: There’s a huge rift between the followers of Paul and the followers of James who are coming out of Jerusalem (James and Peter are often referred to as the Saints).
James’s understanding of what Jesus taught is different:
- James says that men still need to be circumcised.
- James still says you need to avoid the eating of pork.
In fact food is a big issue for the early Christian community. You have followers of Paul who was saying, “Paul is saying something different. We don’t have to worry about getting circumcised and now we can eat anything.”
The followers of James are the earlier followers, just to be clear. They’re the ones more closely associated with the early ministry of Jesus. Jesus passes off the scene around 30–32 of the Common Era.
Paul only starts to preach and know about the teachings of Jesus 20 years later. So Jesus is already off the scene.
So Paul’s experience of having the vision on the road to Damascus is one that is quite different than that of James who says: “Look I knew my brother. I was with my brother. We were here at the seat, the proverbial Ground Zero of what our Lord, The Master was teaching.”
You have to ask yourself, who’s account of Jesus is likely to bemore accurate?
Moving forward with the Truth
If you’re studying the works of Jesus and can’t decipher what is the man and what is myth, just think about Jesus from a geographical, genealogical and historical perspective.
And don’t worry. You don’t need to memorize all of this. You can click here and download the Study Notes for this article for FREE!
PLUS: We added 18 research links to further streamline your search for more information!
Using the exact notes from this article will definitely elevate your own studies.
In addition to this first chapter of Bible Audit, there are 5 MORE chapters available here.
In this series Dr. Jose Pimienta Bey embarks on a historical and geographical investigation of The Bible, Jesus and Christianity as a whole.
Peace and Love.
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Originally published at Amexem.
