Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .ix

Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xi

The Lost Tomb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

From Jesus to Christ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

The Historical Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

The Spiritual Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

Conclusion: The Good News According to This Paul . . . . . . . . .19

The Historical Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

The Spiritual Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20

Notes/References: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21

The Jesus Seminar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21

Ossuary inscriptions associated with the “Jesus Family Tomb” . .22

Mary Mother of Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24

The Eye of Horus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26

The Gospel of Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26

The Gospel According to Mary Magdalene . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50

Introduction

All of the great religious leaders/teachers (Abraham,

Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, Confucius, etc.)

were involved in responding to a special spiritual calling/communication

with a universal power that most people refer to as

“God.” There are many powerful influences that control the

physical universe, including: gravitational, centrifugal, magnetic,

electrical, atomic, and nuclear forces. Similarly, there are

forces contained within every human being on Earth that influence

the direction and quality of that individual’s life. Among

these forces are self-preservation, ego, and what I will call the

“life force” for good. All of the luminaries above and many

more, including Aristotle, Socrates, Da Vinci, Newton, Bach,

Lincoln, Gandhi, Einstein, Martin Luther King, and Mother

Teresa, were clearly operating on a heightened level of life

force. This life force is also known as: the soul, the Divine Spirit,

the conscience, morality, spirituality, or what the Dalai

Lama identified as “ethical compassion” in a May 5, 2009,

In Search of Jesus of Nazareth and His Original Teaching ix

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speech at MIT. He also indicated, “There’s potential to increase

that internal force, just as knowledge can be increased by education.”

Jesus of Nazareth declared that the same internal force

that drove him was in every individual, and he called it “the

Kingdom of God.”

x Paul A. Weekes

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Background

I grew up in Central New York State during the 1940s and

50s. My father passed away when I was seven, and my

mother believed that I would benefit from religious instruction.

So, I attended the required classes and was confirmed as a

member of the Episcopal Church. While I understand that it

has become much more liberal, at that time, the Episcopal

Church was “Catholic-Light.” The only difference was that divorce

was allowed, and the services were not conducted in

Latin. Even at that early age, I was math- and science-oriented

and had a great deal of difficulty buying into the religious

dogma of a flat world, Jonah and the Whale, the Sun revolving

around the Earth, walking on water, etc. My takeaway was, “Do

unto others as you would have them do unto you,” and I erased

religion from my conscious thought. However, there always remained

a vague subconscious sense of void.

As I approached the age of 60, my employment had taken

us to Austin, TX. At my wife’s urging, we joined the First

Unitarian Universalist Church. The minister, Davidson Loehr,

was a Biblical scholar, educated at the University of Chicago,

and a member of Jesus Seminar. He not only introduced me to

the work of the Jesus Seminar (1), but to the concept of the three

different aspects of Jesus, upon which this analysis is based. For

the record, I will define the three faces of Jesus as follows:

1) The Theological Jesus – The religions about Jesus, as

defined by the various Christian theologies.

2) The Historical Jesus – The physical Jesus, as defined

by historical records and archaeology.

3) The Spiritual Jesus – The Religion of Jesus, as defined

by his spiritual teaching.

Since my retirement in 2001, I have been developing a personal

understanding of the “Historical Jesus” through subscription

to the Jesus Seminar Newsletter, reading books, Internet

(Google) research, watching TV documentaries about Jesus,

and DVD lectures.

The Lost Tomb

In November of 2008, I completed the reading of The Jesus

Dynasty (James Tabor, Simon & Schuster, April 4, 2006,

ISBN-978-0743287234) and was very impressed with the scope

and readability of this work. It has greatly augmented and clarified

my own understanding of the “Historical Jesus”, his family

and original followers. Of particular interest was the reference

to a Discovery Channel documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus,

first broadcast in 2007. This is a highly controversial/religiously

incorrect documentary that both the Israeli (Jewish) Government

and the conservative Christian establishment are trying

to suppress/refute. It therefore has only been aired once. I immediately

ordered a copy of the DVD online. Briefly, during

the excavation for an apartment complex between Jerusalem

and Bethlehem in 1980, a family tomb was unearthed. The linguistic

forms of the names/nicknames on the ossuaries correlated

with the biblically identified extended family and

Disciples of Jesus of Nazareth/Son of Joseph, with a probability

of 99.997 percent (2). Unfortunately, the significance of this archeological

find was not understood before one of the ossuaries

was stolen. The genetic material was returned for burial in accordance

with Jewish tradition. The ossuaries were contaminated

by being placed in the Jerusalem ossuary warehouse.

Basic forensic and DNA analysis of potentially the greatest archeological

find of all time could have resolved some of history’s

most important mysteries. However, we now know beyond a

reasonable doubt that:

• The physical remains of Jesus were interned in a family

tomb, probably having been moved from the temporary

tomb where he was placed after his crucifixion.

• The tomb also originally contained the remains of his

brother James who was executed in 62 CE. He was the

last known leader of the direct followers of Jesus in Jerusalem.

Also of interest is the chevron over circle that appears

above the entrance to the tomb and the

cruder chevron over dot symbols that have been

found incised on contemporary “Early Christian”

ossuaries including that of Simon bar Jonahs, who helped

Jesus carry his cross.

From Jesus to Christ

The most critical input to both the “Historical” and “Spiritual”

Jesus stories is an analysis of “The Baptism of Jesus in

the Gospel of Mark,” an article on the Ebionites in the Fourth

R (Westar Institute) Volume 18 Number 5 September – October

2005, where Sakari Hakkinen, a Lutheran pastor and Diocese

officer with a PhD in Theology, cites this Biblical passage:

Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized

in the Jordan by John. And just as he got up

out of the water, he saw the skies torn open and the

Spirit like a dove descending into him. There was

also a voice from the skies: “You are my favored son

- I fully approve of you. (Mark 1:9-1 1)

Hakkinen then asserts:

“In contrast with later evangelists, Mark here uses

the Greek preposition eis (“into”) to describe the descent

of the Spirit into Jesus, not upon him, like most

translations have it. The posses sion of Jesus by the

Spirit was an early view of Jesus’ significance. He

was seen as a prophet who acted in the power of the

Spirit.

Mark obviously believed that Jesus received the

Spirit only at his baptism, not before. The Spirit in

fact possesses him at the moment of his baptism and

immediately afterwards takes him to the desert.

Jesus then preaches, heals, and exorcizes in the

power of the Spirit. His true identity is recognized

only by those possessed by spirits. The Gospel of

Mark thus represents possessionist Christology in its

most typical form: Jesus was an ordinary man––not

divine––before he was filled with the Spirit at his

baptism. Both the authors of the Gospels of Matthew

and Luke rejected this kind of Christology, as

can be seen in their nar ratives of Jesus’ baptism (in

which the Spirit descends upon, not into, Jesus) and

in their addition of the birth and childhood stories

of Jesus. For them, Jesus was the divine Son of God

already from his birth.”

Mark is the earliest Gospel writer that overlaps (in time) the

original followers of Jesus. Mark’s Gospel begins with the Baptism

of Jesus and, in its original form, ends with the empty temporary

tomb. We must assume that any part of the story that

he left out was either because:

He considered it unimportant and irrelevant to the readers

understanding of the “Good News”; or

He was unaware of those details, possibly because they had

not yet been created.

It is interesting to note God’s quote, “You are my favored son - I fully

approve of you.” This would imply that God has other children.

After all, we are all children of God. Here, he is selecting Jesus as

the favored one and, as we will see later, literally giving him the

“Keys to the Kingdom.” They didn’t have cars in those days.