THE WITNESS OF JUDAISM THAT JESUS WAS IN LEAGUE WITH EVIL SPIRITS

Though the Bible at its very start says all men and all women are in the image of God - God is in them so we learn what he is like from learning about people, Jesus is portrayed in the New Testament as the word or image of God.  The evil thing about that is that it implies he is the only image of God you need.  It totally makes the image of God doctrine obsolete or if not obsolete impractical.  If Jesus was a fraud then we must not lose sight of how cruel that fraud is.  And what if that fraud was aided by evil spirits?

Paul says that Jesus was the resurrected Son of God because he had visions of him. His evidence for Jesus’ holiness is no good for he thinks Jesus is holy for he has appeared to him as the Son of God. The real world’s evidence comes first even if miracles do happen and are real because you cannot authenticate miracles unless you accept concrete ordinary evidence. So Paul needed affidavits and records of Jesus to have the right to declare him sinless. He couldn’t for his Jesus was just a dream.

Then there is the four gospels and Acts. Do these prove that Jesus was a holy man?

The gospels make it clear that many of the Jews and all the leadership were hostile to Jesus and considered him to be a heretic and an evil man. Mother Teresa would have been a person with no credible critics if she had kept her vicious mouth shut and not said things like poverty being a gift from God and contraception was wrong even when it saves lives. But even with that it is taboo to condemn her and few dare to. Jesus could have looked after the poor better so that the critics would have been few but he did not. He just had loads of enemies which in his case proves he deserved them.

The Baraita and the Talmud’s speak of Jesus Christ. They were created by Jewish rabbis some centuries after Jesus though they contain many traditions that hail from the time of Jesus.

Some say there is no proof that they meant Jesus. Others say that when they usually tended not to mention his name it is clear they were on about someone who the readers would have known. If so they were convinced that to mention his name much would be a terrible thing for he was such an evil man which indicates that they were sincerely opposed to him in a well meaning sense and it was not spite. But why wouldn’t they mention his name? After all they named people as bad. Weren’t they afraid in case the Christians would fabricate evidence that they meant Jesus when somebody else was meant? It looks as if they did not want to say what they said about Jesus but felt that they had to because they thought it was the truth.
 
The Baraita says, “On the Eve of Passover, Yeshu of Nazareth was hanged. And a herald went about ahead of him for forty days shouting: “Yeshu of Nazareth has tricked Israel and performed evil magic. He shall be stoned. Those who can defend him against these charges must come and plead for him and clear him.” But there was nothing to indicate that he was guiltless so they strung him up on the day before the Passover”. The Jews did not practice crucifixion feeling that it was a Gentile form of execution. When this man was hanged it must mean that he was put up on a pole for the people to fire stones at him. This is more believable than the gospel version which has a Jesus who gets up the noses of the ruthless establishment and wreaks havoc unfettered and who then bizarrely ends up crucified.

Also, this Yeshu is not said to have lived in the time Jesus did. Nazareth did not exist in the thirties so it must have been long after. The Jews might have believed that this man was the basis of Jesus Christ whereas Jesus might have been totally made up.
 
The Jewish Law as given by God specified a penalty of stoning to death for the following offences only. Consorting with familiar spirits (not necessarily evil spirits just spirits) Leviticus 20:27. Cursing or blasphemy Leviticus 24:10 23. False prophets who encourage idolatry Deuteronomy 13:5 10. Adult son who is incorrigibly out of control Deuteronomy 18:18 21. Adultery Deuteronomy 22:21 24. Rape Leviticus 20:10. In John 8 the Jews pick up stones to kill Jesus because they say he blasphemed. In John 10:33 they do the same thing because they say Jesus is making himself out to be God. But Jesus never claimed to be God. If he did the Jews would not have accused him of blasphemy but of being a false prophet who was trying to seduce people into idolatry. That required stoning read Deuteronomy 13:5 10. It is most likely that if there is some truth in the reports that Jesus was nearly stoned it is because he was into familiar spirits.

Justin Martyr who was killed in the 160s inferred that he knew that the Jews called Jesus a sorcerer.

The Baraita informs us that Jesus had five disciples, Mattai, Naqui, Netsar, Buni and Todah. It calls Jesus the son of Pandera. Pandera was the man they thought was Jesus’ father. It says that Jesus taught that he had not come to take laws from the Law of Moses or to make new laws to put in it.

It is likely that the apostles of Jesus were impostors and that these men were the real disciples. And that Jesus had a human father.

The gospels say that Jesus was the model of goodness but often let the real truth out.

But even if they coherently stated that he was good and nothing else the fact would remain that the evidence for his wickedness would be stronger.

We read in the Gospels and Acts that the people who knew Jesus best, his neighbours and family and the educated, did not believe that he was telling the truth when he preached. He complained that the generation he was a part of was an unbelieving one. The Church says that when he died even his apostles turned against him. False prophets who preached religion just as demanding as Jesus’ have done tremendously better. Joseph Smith had built the Mormon Church up to 30,000 members by the time he died despite his wickedness, his changing of doctrine and his failed prophecies. He did it in just fourteen years. These people suffered terribly for their religion. Jesus must have been worse at religion mongering. When we have just four writers possibly saying that Jesus was sinless and a multitude denying it is obvious who we should believe. We should believe the majority.

John the Baptist who Jesus said was the most important man ever born of woman must have been so if he was the forerunner of the Son of God. But John did not acknowledge Christ despite being in jail knowing he could be killed any time. Jesus himself then said that John was the most important witness in relation to him. Whatever John testified about Jesus had supreme standing on account of who John was. John did not believe in Jesus so he testified that Jesus was a fraud.
 
Is it any wonder the Jews said Jesus was a satanic magician when apparitions of him after his death told deliberate lies? He appeared to people to tell them his crucifixion and death and resurrection were related before they happened in the Law and the Prophets and the Writings. Not a single New Testament text mentions anything about the Messiah dying and rising again like Jesus supposedly did.

Arnold, Clifton E. Ephesians: Power and Magic, The Concept of Power in Ephesians in Light of its Historical Setting, 1989, Cambridge University Press.
—. The Colossian Syncretism: The Interface between Christianity and Folk Belief at Colossae, 1996, Mohr Siebeck.
Aune, David F. “Magic in Early Christianity,” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, H. Temporini & W. Haase, (eds), 2.23.2 (1980), 1507 1557.
Baur, Walter, William F. Arndt & F. Wilbur Gingrich. A Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 1957, University of Chicago Press.
Bertram, George. “energew,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, G. Kittel (ed), 1964, William B. Eerdmans.
Bolt, Peter G. Jesus’ Defeat of Death: Persuading Mark’s Early Readers, 2003, Cambridge University Press.
Conybeare, Frederick C. The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, II, 1921, Harvard University Press.
Eitrem, Samson. Some Notes on the Demonology in the New Testament, 2nd edition revised and enlarged, 1966, Symbolae Osloenses, Supplement XX.
Frayer Griggs, Daniel. ‘More Than a Prophet’: Echoes of Exorcism in Mar kan and Matthean Baptist Traditions,’ Matthew and Mark Across Perspectives: Essays in Honour of Stephen C. Barton and William R. Telford, K.A. Bendorais & N.K. Gupta (eds), 2016, T&T Clark.
Garrett, Susan R. The Demise of the Devil: Magic and the Demonic in Luke’s Writings, 1989, Fortress Press.
Gordon, Richard. “Imagining Greek and Roman Magic,” Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: Ancient Greece and Rome, B. Ankarloo & S. Clark (eds), 1999, University of Pennsylvania Press.
Hanse, Hermann. “ecw,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, G. Kittel (ed), 1964, William B. Eerdmans.
Harmon, Austin M. (tr). Lucian, III, Harvard University Press.
—. Lucian, V, Harvard University Press.
Hoehner, Harold W. Herod Antipas: A Contemporary of Jesus Christ, 1972, Cambridge University Press.
Hull, John M. Hellenistic Magic and the Synoptic Tradition, 1974, SCM Press Ltd.
Jennings, Theodore W., Jr & Tat Siong Benny Liew. “Mistaken Identities But Model Faith: Rereading the Centurion, the Chap, and the Christ in Matthew 8:5 13,” Journal of Biblical Literature 123 (2004): 467 494.
Jones, Christopher P. Culture and Society in Lucian, 1986, Harvard University Press.
Kannaday, Wayne C. Apologetic Discourse and the Scribal Tradition: Evidence of the Influence of Apologetic Interests on the Text of the Canonical Gospels, 2004, Society of Biblical Literature.
Kotansky, Roy. Greek Magical Amulets: The Inscribed Gold, Silver, Copper, and Bronze Lamellae, Part I, Published Texts of Known Provenance, 1994, Westdeutscher Verlag.
Kraeling, Carl H. “Was Jesus Accused of Necromancy?” Journal of Biblical Literature 59 (1940): 147 157.
Kraemer, Ross S. “Implicating Herodias and Her Daughter in the Death of John the Baptizer: A (Christian) Theological Strategy?” Journal of Biblical Literature 125 (2006): 321 349.
Marcovich, Miroslav. Origenes: Contra Celsum Libri VIII, 2001, Brill Academic Publishers.
Margalioth, Mordecai. Sepher Ha Razim, 1966, Yediot Achronot.
Morgan, Michael A. Sepher Ha Razim: The Book of Mysteries, H.W. Attridge (ed), 1983, Scholars Press.
Myllykoski, Matti. “Being There: The Function of the Supernatural in Acts 1 12,” Wonders Never Cease: The Purpose of Narrative Miracle Stories in the New Testament and its Religious Environment, M. Labahn & B.J.L. Peerbolte (eds), 2006, T&T Clark.
Ogden, Daniel. Greek and Roman Necromancy, 2001, Princeton University Press.
—. In Search of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice: The traditional tales of Lucian’s Lover of Lies, 2007, The Classical Press of Wales.
Philostratus, Flavius. The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, I & II, F.C. Conybeare (tr), 1912, Harvard University Press.
Preisendanz, Karl. Papyri Graecae Magicae: Die Grieschischen Zauberpapyri, I & II, 2001 (reprint), K.G. Saur.
Rabinowitz, Jacob. The Rotting Goddess: The Origin of the Witch in Classical Antiquity’s Demonization of Fertility Religion, 1998, Automedia.
Reimer, Andy M. Miracle and Magic: A Study in the Acts of the Apostles and the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, 2002, JSNT Supplement Series 235.
Ricks, Steven D. “The Magician as Outsider in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament,” Ancient Magic and Ritual Power, M. Meyer & P. Mirecki (eds), 2001, Brill Academic Publishers.
Samain, P. “L’accusation de magie contre le Christ dans les évangiles,” Ephe merides Theologicae Lovanienses 15 (1932): 449 490.
Schäfer, Peter. Jesus in the Talmud, 2007, Princeton University Press.
Smith, Morton. Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God? 1978, Harper & Row.
Sorensen, Eric. Possession and Exorcism in the New Testament and Early Christianity, 2002, Mohr Siebeck.
Twelftree, Graham H. Jesus the Exorcist: A Contribution to the Study of the Historical Jesus, 1993, Mohr Siebeck.
Vermeule, Emily. Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry, 1979, University of California Press.

Williams, Jean, Winning with Witchcraft, Finbarr Books, Kent