Review of Censored Messiah by Peter Cresswell
Paperback 240 pages (April 1, 2004)
Publisher: O Books
ISBN: 190381667X
Fascinating theory for what the Jesus of History was really like
There was a time when the “Jesus of History” behind the “Christ of Faith” was thought to be pretty much unknowable. The view was that someone called Jesus probably existed at about the time specified but what he was really like would be impossible to find out behind the myths and legends that had built up around the founder of Christianity. This view is becoming increasingly challenged today for a number of reasons.
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has given us a much greater insight into the time Jesus lived, and has allowed us to re-read the gospels and Josephus to make more sense of what is written there.
The discoveries of Nag Hammadi and other suppressed heretical Christian writings such as the Secret Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Judas have given us more insight into early Christianity and the variety of beliefs that existed in the first few centuries of the Common Era.
Research by Nicolai Notovich (1887), Janet Bock (1980) and Holger Kersten (1995) into pre-Islamic and Buddhist texts together with analysis of place names have suggested that Jesus did not die on the cross but was able to survive the crucifixion and after appearing to his disciples travelled to Kashmir where he continued to practise his ministry until his death at over eighty years of age. He is buried in a Srinigar suburb north of Rozabal.
Finally writings by Jewish historians such as Hyam Maccoby and Geza Vermes have given us new insights into how the New Testament authors treated Judaism, showing for example that Jesus was not opposed to the Pharisees and that Paul was not trained, as he claimed, as a Pharisee.
Peter Cresswell in his book Censored Messiah brings all these strands together – as well as adding his own suggested explanations for some of the events in the life of Jesus. The result is a fascinating story of the real Jesus consistent with the evidence from the above named sources.
Jesus and his family claimed descent from King David, with Jesus presenting himself as the promised Messiah who would deliver Israel. Jesus and his family were at the head of a large movement which included Pharisees, Essenes and Zealots. Many of these – including Jesus – did not believe in armed struggle but followed the prophecy of the book of Daniel that God himself would deliver Israel. However there were some within the movement who did believe in armed struggle, following the model of the Maccabees.
This struggle reached its height at the Passover feast recorded in the gospels. From Josephus we know a number of believers were imprisoned by Pilot. To free them Jesus offered himself in exchange. What then followed was a carefully worked plan to fake Jesus’ death on the cross and arrange his escape from the tomb, following which Jesus appeared to his followers then left for Kashmir, perhaps in the hope of returning later.
With Jesus gone the movement continued, led by Jesus’ brother James and then his brother Simon, and finally by his nephew Menahem, these were all killed either by the Romans or the Jewish collaborators the Sadducees, destroying the original Jewish followers of Jesus.
This left the way clear for the collaborator Saul – who became Paul – to take over the movement with his own pagan interpretation of Jesus. He was originally opposed by the family of Jesus but when the Jewish followers of Jesus were killed Paul’s interpretation remained and his was the perspective through which the gospels were written.
Paul created a religion which ultimately became acceptable to the Romans by including ideas already familiar to the pagan world such as the dead and resurrected god of the mystery religions. It was the victory of Paul’s religion that caused the original story of Jesus to remain hidden within the writings of the New Testament, and according to Peter Cresswell only now are we able to piece together what really happened.