Religion
In reply to the discussion: Does anyone here think the Nativity is not pure myth? [View all]Karadeniz
(23,135 posts)Routine, not worth mentioning. By the time we get to John, we're at a soul/god level up in the cosmos. There's some John the Baptist (?) sect that is/was in a heavily Muslim country like Iran or Iraq. According to one source, that sect describes Jesus as a "book"character, a literary creation for the purpose of disseminating the truths acquired by near death experiences, out of body experiences, psychics, mediums. This might explain why there were quite a few early Christian communities which disputed the physicality of Jesus, claiming he could feel no pain or he was an image which appeared physical, but wasn't.
This makes me wonder about the theories which attach Jesus to the Essenes. They believed in reincarnation; Jesus's parables teach reincarnation. They were devoted to water for spiritual reasons; water is a major feature in Jesus's symbology. They were totally antimaterialism; you had to give up material pursuits to be Christian. But if the book Jesus is true, I have to wonder if the Essenes' Teacher of Righteousness wasn't also the personification of the soul, which would be the teacher of righteousness to which we all have access, if we only will!