My Historical Jesus theory Jesus was Philo's Therapeutae

Mon Aug 06, 2018

another sunday school lesson from redpill

the mainstream secular historical jesus studies as exemplified by Bart Ehrman, Paual Fredrickson, Dale Martin James McGrath et al is that

1-Jesus existed,
2- the gospels and Pauline epistles contain valid historical information about historical Jesus
3- Jesus was a failed apocalyptic prophet

Bart Ehrman Dale Martin et al, summarizing the mainstream new testament scholarship, emphasizes Jesus apocalpytic end of the world teachings as central to understanding Jesus, in the context of Jewish apoclaptyicism. The Dead Sea Scrolls, some of which were contemporary to Jesus, also speak of the coming Son of David, a Messiah figure who will over throw the Romans and bring about God's rule centered on Israel. the dead Jews would rise and come to life in the resurrection.

obviously these events never transpired and in fact the romans crushed the jews.

certainly the gospels mention Jesus and John the baptist and even Paul's end of the world threats, which many christian doomsday preppers take to heart.

the historical records as preserved in the canonical gospels make Jesus healing front and center of his ministry

there actually is a jewish group identified by philo that focused on healing

Therapeutae

here's a wikipedia summary

The Therapeutae were a Jewish sect, including men and women, which existed in Alexandria and other parts of the Diaspora of Hellenistic Judaism in the final years of the Second Temple period.

The primary source concerning the Therapeutae is the De vita contemplativa ("The Contemplative Life") (purportedly by the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BCE – 50 CE).[1][2]) The author appears to have been personally acquainted with them. The author describes the Therapeutae as "philosophers" (cf. I.2) and mentions a group that lived on a low hill by the Lake Mareotis close to Alexandria in circumstances resembling lavrite life (cf. III.22). They were "the best" of a kind given to "perfect goodness" that "exists in many places in the inhabited world" (cf. III.21). The author was unsure of the origin of the name and derives the name Therapeutae/Therapeutides from Greek θεραπεύω in the sense of "cure" or "worship" (cf. I.2).

Philo's eyewitness of them

According to De Vita Contemplativa, the Therapeutae were widely distributed in the Ancient world, among the Greeks and beyond in the non-Greek world of the "barbarians", with one of their major gathering points being in Alexandria, in the area of the Lake Mareotis:

Now this class of persons may be met with in many places, for it was fitting that both Greece and the country of the barbarians should partake of whatever is perfectly good; and there is the greatest number of such men in Egypt, in every one of the districts, or nomes, as they are called, and especially around Alexandria; and from all quarters those who are the best of these therapeutae proceed on their pilgrimage to some most suitable place as if it were their country, which is beyond the Maereotic lake.
— De Vita Contemplativa[9]

These men abandon their property without being influenced by any predominant attraction, and flee without even turning their heads back again.
— De Vita Contemplativa para. 18

the entire interval from dawn to evening is given up by them to spiritual exercises. For they read the holy scriptures and draw out in thought and allegory their ancestral philosophy, since they regard the literal meanings as symbols of an inner and hidden nature revealing itself in covert ideas.
— De Vita Contemplativa, para. 28

On the seventh day the Therapeutae met in a meeting house, the men on one side of an open partition, the women modestly on the other, to hear discourses. Once in seven weeks they meet for a night-long vigil after a banquet where they served one another, for "they are not waited on by slaves, because they deem any possession of servants whatever to be contrary to nature. For she has begotten all men alike free" (De Vita Contemplativa, para.70) and sing antiphonal hymns until dawn.

The author notes that they "professed an art of healing superior to that practiced in the cities".[10]

these Jewish healers would engage in the art of healing based on God. they were highly mystical and spiritual and they were contemporary to Jesus as Philo was a contemporary.

I suspect that

Philo was describing Jesus and his followers. He does not identify Therapeutae by name, and he locates them in Egypt and not in Galilee,
but given that he makes healing the centerpiece of their religious practice, and the gospels make Jesus healings center

My Historical Jesus theory Jesus was Philo's Therapeutae

gospel of Matthew does have Jesus in Egypt, where he may have learned from Therapeutae

I suspect that this group would later be known as "Christians", and as this overlaps in geography with the Nag Hammadi library, "Gnostics"

as a serious proposal, the apocalpytic teachings in the gospel was a later addition to what was originally a Therapeutae gospel.

the earliest Jesus as exemplified in Q and Thomas was Therapeutae, but his apocalyptic followers with apocalyptic interests later added their words to Jesus.

Q/Thomas then represents the oldest and most original sayings of Jesus as the real historical Jesus was a Therapeutae.

or alternatively Jesus started out a Therapeutae and then developed mental illness, psychosis, and had feverish apocalyptic visions of the end of the world, which is why both sets of traditions claim Jesus as their founder.