Christ's childhood?

[House-Of-Leaves]

THIS IS A LONG POST! I WARN YOU NOW!

Most of it is text from a book that I raved about a while back, tho not in this forum. It's not political, perse, but I've decided to post it anyway in light of a few other threads, and the fact that it might spur some controversy among the masses. Well. Maybe not controversy, but at least entertaining conversation and speculation.

It's from a book called "Lame: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal" by Christoper Moore. In this small passage, Christ and Biff are writing the Sermon on the Mount together, and discussing the beatitudes.

Small note: Jesus' name, in hebrew, is actually Y'shua. In this book he was "Joshua". The names in front of each line are not usually there. I did that for ease of reading.

Jesus: "What I need is help writing this sermon. How we doing on the Beatitudes?"

Biff: "Pardon me?"

Jesus: "The blesseds."

Biff: "We've got: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness; blessed are the poor in spirit, the pure in heart, the whiners, the meek, the--"

Jesus: "Wait, what are we giving the meek?"

Biff: "Let's see, uh, here: Blessed are the meek, for to them we shall say, 'attaboy.' "

Jesus: "A little weak."

Biff: "Yeah."

Jesus: "Let's let the meek inherit the earth."

Biff: "Can't. You gave the earth to the whiners."

Jesus: "Well then, cut the whiners and give the earth to the meek."

Biff: "Okay. Earth to the meek. Here we go. Blessed are the peacemakers, the mourners, and that's it."

Jesus: "How many is that?"

Biff: "Seven."

Jesus: "Not enough. We need one more. How about the dumbfucks?"

Biff: "No, Josh, not the dumbfucks. You've done enough for the dumbfucks. Nathaniel, Thomas--"

Jesus: "Blessed are the dumbfucks, for they, uh -- I don't know -- they shall never be disappointed."

Biff: "No, I'm drawing the line at dumbfucks. Come on, Josh, why can't we have any powerful guys on our team? Why do we have to have the meek, and the poor, the oppressed, and the pissed on? Why can't we, for once, have blessed are the big powerful rich guys with swords?"

Jesus: "Because they don't need us."

Biff: "Okay, but no 'Blessed are the dumbfucks.' "

Jesus: "Who then?"

Biff: "Sluts?"

Jesus: "No."

Biff: "How about the wankers? I can think of five or six disciples that would be really blessed."

Jesus: "No wankers. I've got it: Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake."

Biff: "Okay, better. What are you going to give them?"

Jesus: "A fruit basket."

Biff: "You can't give the meek the whole -earth- and these guys a fruit basket."

Jesus: "Give them the kingdom of heaven."

Biff: "The poor in spirit got that."

Jesus: "Everybody gets some."

Biff: "Okay then, 'share the Kingdom of Heaven.' I wrote it down."

Jesus: "We could give the fruit basket to the dumbfucks."

Biff: "NO DUMBFUCKS!"

Jesus: "Sorry, I just feel for them."

Biff: "You feel for everyone, Josh. It's your job."

Jesus: "Oh yeah. I forgot."

--end scene--

LOL, okay. That's it. Sorry for such a long-winded post, but if it doesn't spark any conversation, at least it'll make a few people laugh.

[House-Of-Leaves]

At 5/31/03 04:13 PM, House_Of_Leaves wrote: It's from a book called "Lame: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal" by Christoper Moore.

*cough* Let's try that again.

"LAMB: ..." Not "Lame". LOL

[antiqkk]

I have written this before under another thread topic, but this topic is rather much more directly concerned with my discussion, so I post here again. I apologise, if anyone finds the fact that I wrote this twice extremely offensive

At 5/31/03 02:25 PM, House_Of_Leaves wrote: Jesus didn't condone stoning. In fact, one of the most popular stories in the bible has to do with passing judgement. A woman was to be stoned.

PART 1: The Mystery of the Lamb Book is Yet Unknown To Us

Jesus was a right stoner from what I can tell. He spent his whole week stealing donkeys and other memorabilia in the name of God, only to rest on Sunday, stone people, as well as get stoned himself. No wonder, he was to work on monday stealing more and more farm animals under the influence. By the age of 33 his brain cells withered away from all the stoning that went on, his mind created an imaginary friend, whom him believed to be God and his father (thus he denied his own real biological father).

Note that in the Bible not much is said of his teenage years. He must have become a fan of stoning after college or something. That is when all the weird dreams started coming to him. After every subsequent session of getting stoned in the streets with the 12 of his followers, he began talking gibberish anywhere and everywhere he went.

The nightmare only stopped when Judas reported Jesus's favourite past time activity to the police. Being a drug dealer as well as a chronic stoner himself (Jesus encouraged all people without sin to get stoned), the court ordered his immediate execution (the laws were a bit harsh back in those times). And Jesus died.

Three days after the burial, some of his totally-stoned companions witnessed him rise to the sky. Weed must have been of excptional quality back then to bring around such hallucinations.

PART II: The Mystery Was Uncovered And the Concept Slightly Changed

At 5/31/03 03:56 PM, House_Of_Leaves wrote:

In the bible, we see Christ's birth, we hear of him speaking/debating in the temple when he was...I can't remember. 10? 12? Then all of a sudden he's 30, and we hear of the last few years of his life.

"Lamb", writted by Christopher Moore, would probably be considered blasphemous by some of the more strict Christians about, but I LOVED IT! It told a fictional tale of Christ and Biff (nick name, his real name was Levi) and how they grew up. It was great. I highly recommend it. :)

Jesus punches Biff more than a few times. ;)

I could then presume and make a rough statement here (as I have not actually read this document yet), that this book is some sort of a top secret file on Jesus' childhood years, kept hidden by the church for a long time and then accidentally slipping into the hands of mass media after 2000 thousands years of confusion.

I can understand why the church would want to keep this document from reaching the public eye, as it would surely prove my theory of Jesus being a stoner and a lunatic.

First of all, before I assumed that he became a stoner after college, but if this book is based on solid facts that would mean that Jesus actually started abusing harmful substances in the earlier years (thus the reason to punch his friends, who did not want to get stoned with him).

It now even makes more sense, that Jesus arrived to his manhood as a complete drug addict, with vivid halluciantions and a distorted mind, stealing donkeys to make a living (drugs must have cost some hard cash back then as well and Jesus earned the cash by selling the stolen donkeys at the black markets to Albanians). By the age of 30 Jesus had a steady belief of being God, or more specifically his son. Under the influence of all the drugs he tried over the years (glue, marijuana, crack, heroin, morphine, LSD, shrooms, gas, ecstasy; etc etc and so on and so on), Jesus' has gone completely insane, if you can put it this way.

It is totally logical that the church would want to hide the true facts of his teenage years, as this would give a logical explanation on Jesus's words later on, thus bringing the whole Christian religion into a new light. The whole concept of Godliness would be changed into some form of low-life drug abuse and illusions, which had nothing miraculous about them...

[bumcheekcity]

House, that is a brilliant post. It didn't inspire conversation, but it made me laugh.

[House-Of-Leaves]

At 5/31/03 04:36 PM, bumcheekycity wrote: House, that is a brilliant post. It didn't inspire conversation, but it made me laugh.

*lmao* Thank you BCC.

I can't tell you how much I laughed when I first read that in the book. My stomach hurt so much...

Jesus saying 'dumbfuck' just got to me...

[Ozcar]

There are a lot of books talking about Jesus Childhood, and this one doesn't amazed me...

Anyway, the Jesus childhood is at the Bible when he started talking to the people of Galilea ( I don't know the names that in english the people use, so I'll use the spanish names) all the people there were really amazed and they asked to an a others: Isn't this Jesus, the carpenter? These aren't his brothers and sisters? and that Maria his mother?

That was because all his life he was at Galilea working with his father and learning the job of a carpenter (Remember that in those days the father teached to the sons the job of the family) and when Jose (or Joe) his adoptive father died, (around when Jesus was 24 years old)he worked as a carpenter...

[antiqkk]

At 5/31/03 04:53 PM, Ozcar wrote: There are a lot of books talking about Jesus Childhood, and this one doesn't amazed me...

Anyway, the Jesus childhood is at the Bible when he started talking to the people of Galilea ( I don't know the names that in english the people use, so I'll use the spanish names) all the people there were really amazed and they asked to an a others: Isn't this Jesus, the carpenter? These aren't his brothers and sisters? and that Maria his mother?

That was because all his life he was at Galilea working with his father and learning the job of a carpenter (Remember that in those days the father teached to the sons the job of the family) and when Jose (or Joe) his adoptive father died, (around when Jesus was 24 years old)he worked as a carpenter...

What a waste of time for the Son of the almighty God. He could at least like milk cows to provide the hungry with some food.

Maybe his manic depression came into the scene at the age of 24, when his father died. Jesus mourned over the death of his father Joseph and the loneliness within his hard pushed him over the limits, urging him to somehow fill the emptiness inside. With the aid of powerful chemical substances, Jesus came to believe his real father was God, a rather abstract figure, which overwhelmed his future until the very death.

[Ozcar]

At 5/31/03 04:59 PM, antiqkk wrote: What a waste of time for the Son of the almighty God. He could at least like milk cows to provide the hungry with some food.

Cows in Jerusalen? Yes... only for the rich people. he maybe drinked milk of donkey....

Maybe his manic depression came into the scene at the age of 24, when his father died. Jesus mourned over the death of his father Joseph and the loneliness within his hard pushed him over the limits, urging him to somehow fill the emptiness inside. With the aid of powerful chemical substances, Jesus came to believe his real father was God, a rather abstract figure, which overwhelmed his future until the very death.

Yes.. is deep and can be true, later of lose his father, ha takes to God as his father...

[House-Of-Leaves]

At 5/31/03 04:53 PM, Ozcar wrote: That was because all his life he was at Galilea working with his father and learning the job of a carpenter (Remember that in those days the father teached to the sons the job of the family) and when Jose (or Joe) his adoptive father died, (around when Jesus was 24 years old)he worked as a carpenter...

Very true. :)

Actually, that's a point they covered in the book. Sorta.

See, Biff's dad worked with rocks. He sorta scoffed at Jesus for wanting to work with Joseph, because, and I quote...

"Look around, Josh! Do you SEE many trees? Rocks are where it's at."

Then Biff started working with Jesus and Joseph. LOL

Anyway, what I -really- wanted to say was this. It's likely that Jesus worked as a carpenter until the time was right to proclaim himself as the Messiah. But it's also possible that he travelled, knowing what his mother had told him, that he was to be the saviour of man-kind, learning all the life-lessons he needed to know to be so wise.

Who knows? No one for sure. :)

[Ozcar]

At 5/31/03 05:52 PM, House_Of_Leaves wrote: But it's also possible that he travelled, knowing what his mother had told him, that he was to be the saviour of man-kind, learning all the life-lessons he needed to know to be so wise.

Who knows? No one for sure. :)

All the wisdom and all the things that he knew he learned of all the cotidian days of his life, for that reason he always used to talk about his historys with comparations...

And about the traveles: is posible, but very remote... None woman in those days was free, the needed to be under the name and protection of a man so, when his father dies all the responsability of Mary was on the shoulders of Jesus... If he wanted to travel, he needed to take with him his mother...

We can see that when he traveled to the wedding of "Canaa" (In the book of Jhon) was with him his mother, and later the mother taked the role of a pupile of him, just for be together...

So, in the case of the travel, he needed to take with him his mother... so that could make this a long travel...some people think that Joseph of Arimatea (his uncle, the same that gave to Mary the place to buried to Jesus) traveled with him to Egypt... but none is sure of nothing...

[Commander-K25]

An interesting document is the Gospel of Thomas. It contains many sayings and utterances of Jesus, some quite enigmatic. This book was discovered in 1945 at Naj 'Hammádì at the Jabal al-Tárif mountain. It is not part of the accepted bible and is linked with Gnosticism which is considered heretical by the church.

A translation here.

[Ozcar]

Wow! That book is amazing... Mmmmm...

I was thinking: He knew how to write? or someone helped him?

I'm remembering now that movie of the "Stigmas" where the girl find a book writed for Jesus...

I think that he doesn't had enough time for write something, but I don't have doubt that he knew how to write...

[House-Of-Leaves]

At 5/31/03 06:39 PM, Commander-K25 wrote: An interesting document is the Gospel of Thomas. It contains many sayings and utterances of Jesus, some quite enigmatic. This book was discovered in 1945 at Naj 'Hammádì at the Jabal al-Tárif mountain. It is not part of the accepted bible and is linked with Gnosticism which is considered heretical by the church.

I believe, actually, that the Gospel of Thomas was the inspiration of the movie "Stigmata".

Of course it's considered heresy. If it wasn't, it would topple the church as the world knows it. In fact, it's very close to a passage found in the bible. Acts 7:8 "the Most High does not dwell in houses made with hands."

I was so moved by the idea in that movie that I memorized what verse they kept repeating: ""The Kingdom of God is inside you and all about you, not in buildings of wood and stone. Split a piece of wood and I am there, lift a stone and you will find me."

That saying, while not 'biblical', helped me build my ideas of doctrines all over the world, and the motivation behind them. I do not need a church, or people of a church, to tell me what I believe.

Yes, of course it's heresy. Vatican City would be a ghost town!

[Kenney333]

That was funny, well it was interesting, maybe i just like the use of the name biff

[antiqkk]

At 5/31/03 10:36 PM, Kenney333 wrote: That was funny, well it was interesting, maybe i just like the use of the name biff

Maybe it reminds you of "beef" and your a selfish meat eater! YOU! </sarcasm>

[Ted-Easton]

My eyes hurt so much I could hardly read it, but it made me chuckle, house.
That's pretty damn good considering I'm a goat-loving emotionless robot.

head over to snooble to hear me ranting with my eyes closed soon.

[bumcheekcity]

I have a theory Jesus was just a bloke with a time machine and a LOT of time on his hands.

[Commander-K25]

With my belief that God is the universe, and vice versa, I think Jesus was like a subprogram, an NPC of sorts that God preprogammed to appear at a key moment and preach a certain message that would steer future events.

[TheShrike]

Jesus: So, Dad, if you want me to go down there and spread your word, you gotta explain some things to me..

God: WHAT THEN?

Jesus: Well, I don't understand the whole creation bit...

God: WHAT CONFUSES YOU, MY SON?

Jesus: I don't understand the way you explained the creation of humankind...

God: SON, THESE PEOPLE WERE NOMADS WHEN I FIRST CAME UPON THEM. NO REAL EDUCATION, NO REAL IMAGINATION. THAT'S WHY I PUT IT LIKE THAT.

Jesus: You said you made them out of dirt... I mean, c'mon!

God: OK, IT DOES OVERSIMPLIFY THE REAL EVENTS A BIT...

[FUNKbrs]

Matt 21:2-3

"Saying unto them (Jesus) "Go into the village over against you, and straighaway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: Loose them, and bring them unto me."

"and if any man say aught to you, ye shall say, "the Lord hath need of them"; and straightway he will send them"

basically He's saying her, "Go get these animals for me, dont ask anyone, just take them. If anyone says anything, just tell them, "the Lord needs them, or something"

[Freakapotimus]

I'd heard a theory that during the "unknown years" from age 12 to age 30 (approximate) Jesus was studying religion and mysticism in other countries like India and Egypt. I'll try to find out if there's an article or website about this, unless someone else also heard this theory?

[Shih]

I've always heard about this too and have sort of filed it under the same category as the Irish being the lost tribe of Israel. A fun story but not very likely. Not that the whole Moses ordering the deah of a third of his followers is a "fun" story per se, but you get my point.

[bumcheekcity]

At 6/2/03 11:09 AM, Freakapotimus wrote: I'd heard a theory that during the "unknown years" from age 12 to age 30 (approximate) Jesus was studying religion and mysticism in other countries like India and Egypt. I'll try to find out if there's an article or website about this, unless someone else also heard this theory?

I heard he wass preaching to people during these years. Oh well... It's kinda the same thing.

[mysecondstar]

this actually reminds me of my beliefs in the New Testament. like my belief that, after Acts, the Bible is flawed. why? because just about the rest of it was written by Paul who wanted to put his own agenda into the gospel. i won't go immerse myself into too much detail, but Paul's belief in the submissive woman. Jesus would treat even the servant girl who annointed his feet with perfumes as his equal. no lesser a creation of God as a man.

[mysecondstar]

At 6/2/03 03:28 PM, bumcheekycity wrote: I heard he wass preaching to people during these years. Oh well... It's kinda the same thing.

i imagine him being scared as hell knowing that he was the Son of God and just trying to come to grips with himself and the fact that he would die for humanity. why isn't Jesus in the Bible from 10-30? because no one wants to see a vulnerable Messiah.

[House-Of-Leaves]

At 6/2/03 11:09 AM, Freakapotimus wrote: I'd heard a theory that during the "unknown years" from age 12 to age 30 (approximate) Jesus was studying religion and mysticism in other countries like India and Egypt. I'll try to find out if there's an article or website about this, unless someone else also heard this theory?

Actually...it's funny you say that.

That's pretty much what the author of "Lamb" was going on, I believe, are the theories that Jesus roamed about to learn as much as he could. All sorts of other religions and mysticism...and while this book is fiction, it puts a lot of things in one's mind.

For instance, Jesus is (in the book) taught how to multiply grains of rice by some sort of mystical something or other. It's never really explained...but it sure comes in handy when he needed to multiply the loaves and fishes for the sermon on the mount.

That's all theories are, really. Fiction. No on can know for sure what Jesus did back then, whether he travelled or stayed with his mother. Ozcar brought up something interesting...the fact that he'd need to take care of Mary after Joseph died. There's a possibility that Jesus had brothers, too. And cousins. Other family members that history just simply doesn't take care of or mention.

[nitroxide]

At 6/4/03 02:43 AM, House_Of_Leaves wrote:

At 6/2/03 11:09 AM, Freakapotimus wrote:

That's all theories are, really. Fiction. No on can know for sure what Jesus did back then, whether he travelled or stayed with his mother.

Or noone can know he really even existed.Even religion is a theory.

[mysecondstar]

At 6/4/03 02:43 AM, House_Of_Leaves wrote: There's a possibility that Jesus had brothers, too. And cousins. Other family members that history just simply doesn't take care of or mention.

there is that coffin/altar that has the inscription "James son of Joseph brother of Jesus". it still can be argued whether the artifact is legitimate, but if it is it will further legitmize Jesus' existence (no real need for it) but also that he had brothers. plus let's think realistically. a man gets married to a woman who is carrying the son of God. but forget about the whole Son of God deal. he got married. MARRIED. and you don't think he'll do his instinctive duty and maintain his blood line? 'nuff said.

[House-Of-Leaves]

At 6/4/03 02:51 AM, nitroxide wrote:
Or noone can know he really even existed.Even religion is a theory.

Actually, nitro...there's several historical and archeological evidences that proved Jesus was on earth. The problem lies in proving that he's God. That he was resurrected.

That's where faith comes in, and that's exactly why I don't preach to deaf ears. If someone asks me? I'll gladly tell them what they need to hear. But I won't force myself or my faith on someone who would just be pushed farther away by it.

All beliefs are theories. But then there comes the age-old, 'Prove to me there's a God' question.

My answer to that, inevitably, is always, "Prove to me there isn't."

[mysecondstar]

amen.