NPC Avatar Yeshua

Yeshua

LE Medium outsider (human, extraplanar, lawful), Avatar (equivalent to an Old One)

With his Omnifarious ability, Yeshua can assume any form, any shape, and often does depending on his mood or the encounter in question. Use this table for ideas:

1. His features are of the utmost perfection, created by Yahweh to be the wonder of the entire universe. He is sublime, a masterpiece of comeliness, the grandeur found in him is unparalleled, a delight to gaze upon. And yet... there was a glimpse of something other, a fleeting thing, a dark thing, a flash of black lightning against the brilliance. His face seems as if it should be serene, instead it reflects an underlying anger and quick temper. The splendor of his unique symmetry cannot mask the evil lurking there. How such an awesome entity could also be flawed is unthinkable.

2. Yeshua appears as his own corpse. This form still resembles Yeshua, but the eyes smolder white, and a thick red liquid oozes from his mouth and nostrils. His very flesh seems to decompose before the viewer's eyes, and parts of it are gone to reveal the white of the bones underneath. A foul stench accompanies him. Maggots drip from his lips and the edges of his eye sockets, and flies accompany him. He still bears the horrific wounds of his ordeal, and those wounds are filthy with dried blood that has turned as black as tar.

Spell-Like Abilities (CL 30th)

Constant—detect chaos, discern lies (DC 21), fly, moral facade (LG) true seeing, water walk

At Will—aid, animate objects, commune, continual flame, dimensional anchor, greater dispel magic, holy smite (DC 21), imprisonment (DC 26), invisibility (self only), lesser restoration, remove curse, remove disease, remove fear, true resurrection, resist energy, speak with dead (DC 20), waves of fatigue

5/day limited wish

3/day—blade barrier (DC 23), earthquake (DC 25), heal, greater restoration, power word blind, power word kill, power word stun, waves of exhaustion, wish

1/day—magic missile fusillade (DC 24), miraculous wish

Spells Prepared (CL 20th)

9th—mass heal, miracle, storm of vengeance (x2; DC 27)

8th—fire storm (DC 26), holy aura (x2; DC 26), mass cure critical wounds (x22)

7th—destruction (DC 25), dictum (DC 25), greater restoration, holy word (x2; DC 25)

6th—banishment (DC 24), heroes’ feast, mass cure moderate wounds, undeath to death (DC 24), word of recall

5th—break enchantment, breath of life, dispel evil (DC 23), plane shift (DC 23), righteous might, symbol of sleep (DC 23)

4th—cure critical wounds (x3), dismissal (x2; DC 22), neutralize poison (x2; DC 22)

3rd—cure serious wounds, daylight, invisibility purge, magic circle against evil, prayer, protection from energy, wind wall

2nd—align weapon, bear’s endurance, consecrate (x2), cure moderate wounds (x3)

1st—bless, cure light wounds (x3), shield of faith (x3) 0 (at will)—detect magic, purify food and drink, stabilize, virtue

Special Abilities

Eternal and Uncreated: If Jesus is ever reduced to 0 hp, He is immediately subject to a resurrection spell at the beginning of the next round and returns at 50% of normal hit points.

Spells: Jesus can cast spells as a 30th-level cleric.

Equipment: Yeshua possesses three golden crowns, each crown permanently produces the effects of the spells Crown of Flame, Crown of Glory and Crown of Brilliance respectively. He also possesses a vestment that duplicates the effect of the spell Exalted Raiment.

In combat Yeshua usually carries a +5 flaming Greatsword. He also carries the Scepter of Iron; a unique item whenever he presides over affairs.

Kills: By the end of the Tribulation Yeshua will have greatly exceeded his Father's kill count. Through the breaking of the Seven Seals alone, Yeshua will have slaughtered over 1/4 of humanity. By the end of the Great Tribulation, Yeshua will have extinguished most of humanity and virtually all life on Earth. Upon his return, hundreds of thousands will be personally slaughtered in the "battle" of Megiddo, so much that their blood will stain his garments. His voice kills millions more survivors around the globe.

At first glance it appears that Yeshua is the amended version of Yahweh. After all, he was the one who came up with the much-vaunted Sermon on the Mount, blessing those who are meek and merciful, who hunger after righteousness and are the peacemakers. He told his followers to turn the other cheek, love their enemies, and love their neighbors as ourselves. He counseled tolerance and forbearance: "Judge not, that ye be not judged."

While he taught people should 'love their enemies' and 'turn the other cheek', he acted with a great deal of contempt towards those who disagreed with him. He displayed barely concealed hostility for his foreign neighbors, equating them to "dogs" and once instructing his disciples to "go nowhere among the Gentiles."

He could have apologized for the crimes of his Father. He could have condemned his Father's extermination of entire towns or the drowning of twenty million people, including innocent infants and fetuses.

Why didn’t Jesus denounce the practices of the "previous administration" and proclaim that ethnic cleansing and wholesale bloodshed are wrong? Yeshua instead quoted his murderous father with glowing approval.

The Beatitudes, where he devoted a mini-speech making it a virtue to be persecuted, but barely gave honorable mention to the merciful and the peacemakers. No mini-speech about compassion, about the value of one's fellow human being, their capacity to suffer and thrive, about treating each other with the utmost respect and dignity. Nothing about one's own value as a human being. No instructions on good communication skills. Instead of saying, “Despotic violence is morally abhorrent,” he told a parable in which he approves of a thieving king who says “But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and slaughter them in my presence.” (Luke 19:27)

Why didn’t Jesus point out that vindictive pestilential genocide is criminal? Why didn’t he apologize for his father being a petty control freak? Wasn’t he supposed to be better than that? He should have felt horrible about his father’s inhumane treatment of animals, but had no qualms about causing a herd of swine to drown in the sea (Matthew 8:30–32). Instead of condemning his father’s flame-happy pyromania, he taught that nonbelievers should be incinerated: “Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.” (John 15:6) The burning of witches, heretics, and atheists throughout the shameful history of Christianity was based on that one cruel verse spoken by the loving Jesus.

No pithy sayings like, I forbid you to own slaves. I forbid you to cause harm to anyone, especially not in my name. Don’t etch my words in stone—in a hundred years you’ll have considerations I can’t even imagine.

Just a handful would have been nice. Maybe some stories emphasizing sexual and racial equality. Good parenting technique. Compassionate treatment of the animals you eat.

Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them. He said,

“Blessed are:

…the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.

…those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

…the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

…those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

…the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

…the pure in heart, for they will see God.

…the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

…those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

The Beatitudes, Matthew 5:1–12

These are the first twelve verses of Jesus’s Sermon on The Mount. Concluding his blessings here, he spent three chapters extending Yahweh’s existing thought-crime laws to include anger and lust, telling people to turn the other cheek, pray for their enemies, judge not, pray like this, and when you give to the needy, it has nothing to do with the needy—it’s about the person and God, and their relationship with other people who have the means to give.  One's fellow man and his humanity and his capacity to suffer are not even part of the equation. Nothing worthy can be built on such a bankrupt, crass foundation. The bedrock foundation of Jesus’s morality is punishment-reward. Punishment and reward are the only answers he has to any question of motivations. He never once suggests simple compassion.

Compassion is the only workable foundation for a moral framework: a concern for the suffering and thriving of one’s fellow humans. Jesus completely missed the point.

But least we forget, Yeshua is the avatar of Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament. He is not just a chip off the old block, so to speak. He is the block itself. Every single attribute of Yahweh applies equally to Yeshua. Instead of a newer, kinder, more loving testament, Jesus was like a politician who got elected, promising sweeping reforms, but immediately took up with the same old corruption.

Try to guess what Jesus’s favorite phrase was. Love thy neighbor? Do unto others? Turn the other cheek? That’s the holiday Jesus. In terms of usage frequency, those don’t even come close. One of his favorites is weeping and gnashing of teeth, which he uses six times, as the grand finale of some gruesome story or other. In some of these stories, the wicked are thrown into a mysterious place where there is already weeping and gnashing going on. Other times the offender is trussed beforehand—or even brutally murdered.

Jesus had an impressive imagination. He told stories of human immolation, psychological punishment, drowning, torture, a city being burned down by the king’s army. He conjured images of gruesome self-mutilation, stoning, unjust imprisonment, the blind leading the blind into a pit, neighbors destroying each other’s property, family members having each other killed.

Jesus became rather worked up when declaiming his vision of the end times: war, famine, earthquakes, persecution, execution, betrayal, hate, distress unparalleled in all of human history. But that would be only the opening act. Rather than revealing details, Jesus invited his listeners to imagine the main event for themselves, saying,

"All the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see me coming down from Heaven."

History

One would have thought that such a wonderous child who had arrived with an angelic fanfare, who had been announced as the Savior of the whole world, and whose destiny had been sensed by distant Zoroastrian priests, would have been carefully watched in awe during his childhood and youth, but among his own family and townspeople he enjoyed no deference. Such treatment may have accounted for his bitterness and readiness to assign his detractors forevermore to Hell.

Jesus came and attacked the Jewish authorities, mainly the Pharisees and Sadducees, so that both opposed him strongly. Again, he simply classified them as wicked. Any rational deity would have gone out of his way to work with the leaders of his people until they understood him, but not Yeshua. He had not time. The eternal God only had time to walk about preaching occasionally for three years here and there.

What did the proclaimed Son of God accomplish in the best part of thirty-three years on Earth? Six of his thirty-four miracles were wasted on healing people that he believed were possessed by demons. An illness mistakenly diagnosed for centuries until the Germ Theory for disease was discovered.

Jesus met numerous people whom he commended for their great faith, never inviting any of them to be his disciples. Yet he spent a lot of time criticizing his disciples for their dullness and their lack of faith. One wonders why Jesus never took a moment to ask himself whether he could improve at choosing disciples.

Yeshua talked about slavery but never denounced it as morally abhorrent. He healed a blind person but didn't cure blindness. He healed a leper but didn't cure leprosy. He never stood up for the Jewish people while they groaned under Roman oppression. But most significantly, he failed to impress all but a handful of Jews that he was in fact the descendant of the Almighty.

Yeshua never offered any thought, any actual science, or other such proposition that could not have been uttered by absolutely any Bronze Age layperson. Jesus' philosophies were most often simplistic and even nonsensical, vastly inferior to those proposed by Greeks, Egyptians, and Persians, centuries before the Savior supposedly spoke to the masses in Judea.

But it is apparently obvious that for all the supposed miracles Jesus reportedly performed within these Jewish towns, he fell well short of impressing more than a small band of followers. If he really was so special while he was alive, then why did his own people dismiss him as little more than a raving eccentric?

Yeshua repeatedly said that his Second Coming and the End times would happen almost immediately, that many who were listening to him speak would live to see those events.

At three different times, Yeshua was asked what a person must do to be saved, enter heaven, etc. Each time he gave a completely different answer.

Yesuha, the "Prince of Peace," declared: "I came not to send peace but a sword."

Jesus laid down a guilt trip and demeaned his twelve disciples, announcing that they would all abandon him when the authorities came to arrest him. Peter was stung by this uncharitable commentary, and insisted that he would never fall away. Warm sentiments and hurt feelings be damned; Jesus had not a kind word to say. Rather, he humiliated Peter in front of all the other disciples, sniping that Peter would be the most disloyal and cowardly of them all.

Nasty comments notwithstanding, when the authorities finally came for Jesus, the most disloyal and cowardly of them all wasn’t Peter. It was Jesus himself. When informed that the authorities were coming, Jesus had ordered his disciples to grab their swords. Although they were outnumbered, the disciples bravely started swinging to protect their master. Jesus saw that it was going to be a rout, which would mean arrests, perhaps executions. Well, he didn’t want anyone to think he had ordered the fighting. So he ran out shouting surrender, and when it quieted down, he loudly scolded the disciples who so recently had risked their lives for him, blaming them for the attack: “He who lives by the sword will die by the sword.”

Jesus was convicted and crucified. By the Romans, for sedition. This comes as a surprise to many people, who have heard only the Christian version of the story, which is that Jesus was crucified by “the Jews” for blasphemy. It also comes as a surprise to many that Jesus’s crucifixion ushered anti-Semitism into the world.

Yeshua, omnipotent and perfect son of God, needed an angel to appear to him to give him power (Luke 22:43)

Yeshua fled the material world without accomplishing what Israel's prophets said the Messiah was commissioned to do: (1) He did not deliver the covenant people from their Gentile enemies, (2) reassemble those scattered in the Diaspora, (3) restore the Davidic kingdom, or (4) establish universal peace. The Jews rejected (and continue to reject) Jesus because he did not fulfill the prophecies pertaining to the Messiah. How could Jesus be the Messiah when he not only did not defeat or conquer Israel’s enemies, but he never even led an army into a single war? Instead of freeing Jews from oppressors and thereby fulfilling Yanweh's ancient promises for land, nationhood, kingship and blessing, Yeshua died a shameful death, defeated by the very political powers the Messiah was prophesied to overcome. Indeed, the Hebrew prophets did not foresee that Israel's savior would be executed as a common criminal by Gentiles, making Yesuha's crucifixion a stumbling block for scripturally literate Jews.

And in a final wicked act, Yeshua did not return within the time frame promised to his followers, and ultimately the false prophet turned out to be Yeshua himself!

The name "Jesus" attained an idealized status as a mythic symbol of love, gentleness, sacrifice and goodness and was been profoundly revered for twenty centuries. Countless people had given their lives, often dying in unspeakable ways, for love of him. Even people who thought he was just a man considered him a paragon of compassion, a fount of timeless wisdom, a moral innovator, a spiritual genius. Atheists thought he was great. Jews thought he was good. Gandhi approved. Muhammad considered him a prophet at least equal to himself. Even many nonbelievers would concede Yeshua was a great moral teacher, in spite of the fact that only a few of his teachings were passable, and some were ambiguous, with many being appalling. Any human could have come up with something better, but Yeshua was just another puppet of Yahweh, and so could do no better.

The vast majority of Christians also believe Jesus was a peaceful and even perfect being. Upon undertaking the task of an honest and thorough reading of the Bible one learns this is not remotely true. If a believing Christian actually reads the New Testament with honesty—even just the four Gospels—while indeed cringing, he or she would realize the truth: Jesus was just an average man at best, a fallible and simple human who believed all the superstitions of the ancient Hebrews. At worst, the Jesus character was an egotistical, angry, needy, violent, hateful, naïve racist—in fact a horse thief and pig murderer, even accused of being a drunkard. His philosophical offerings were, frankly, mostly foolish and largely immoral.

Ultimately, Christians revere Jesus' teachings not because they were profoundly extraordinary or uniquely spectacular. Simply they award his teachings praise and accolades because of their source, Jesus. This is counter with the understanding that moral behavior should be evaluated on its own, regardless of who might have formulated them.

Ever since the first trading posts, as connectedness has increased, treatment of one other has improved. People had grown in their recognition of each other, increasingly recognizing themselves in each others’ eyes. Their values have changed accordingly. Public torture used to be widely acceptable. Now, it’s widely frowned on. Same for slavery. Corporal punishment is going away. As our values have changed, we have projected them back onto Jesus.

People thought that Jesus made them good, either by inhabiting their souls or by being an inspiring exemplar. But Jesus didn’t make people good. People made Jesus good. And that was no small feat.

Teachings

What superior moral advice did Yeshua actually bequeath to humanity?

Here are some examples: 

1. Accumulate no wealth or possessions. There is no need for them. Besides one would run the risk of getting rich. If you do, be sure to give it all away.

2. Make no plans. Give no thought to the morrow. Do no buy groceries or cook. Don't buy patterns or sew. Just stand there like a lily. God will feed and clothe you.

3. Be gloomy and mournful.

4. Be self-righteous and put-upon, holier than thou. Parade your perfection in such a way as to invite persecution.

5. Be smug and know that you are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Let everyone know this.

6. Do behave so you can be high up in the class system in Heaven.

7. Think of yourself as a gross sinner. Nearly every thought you have and almost everything you do must be regarded as a sin that will require repentance and forgiveness.

8. Take no pleasure in this world. Constantly point toward the Kingdom of God, the coming of which is imminent.

9. Be sure to believe that someone else bought your way into Heaven by being tortured to death, a death in which you had a hand. Be comfortable in that concept of salvation.

10. Agree with everyone else.

11. Don't admit to having sexual urges. If a sight of a member of the opposite sex arouses you, pluck out your eye.

12. Be a eunuch, if you want to win special approval of God.

13. Don't have deep love for one's family. Abandon them, if you want to receive a "hundred fold" and attain everlasting life in Heaven for certain.

14. Be retiring, do not lead, take a back seat, do not assert yourself, Do not be proud of your accomplishments.

15.  Love everybody. Have no special feeling for those who might otherwise endear themselves to you.

16. If a criminal robs you, give him twice as much.

17. Do not use reason or your mind. Remain as a child, with no moral sense, ability to discriminate or make rational decisions, or experience to guide you.

18. Be gullible and credulous. Do not question or philosophize.

19. Don't resist any attacker. Let him abuse you again.

20. If you lose a lawsuit, pay double what you are assessed.

21. If someone kidnaps you and take you five miles, offer to go ten.

22. Love all who mistreat you. This will encourage them to continue.

23. Don't declare your charitable giving for income tax credit.

24. Avoid the "dogs" and "swine" of this world. Save your uplifting thoughts for worthy persons.

25. Don't worry or rebel at misfortune (which will be your special lot). Be content and passive, confident you have a heavenly father who loves you so much if you don't grovel, he'll throw you into a lake of fire forever.

26. Behave as you please most of your life and say you're sorry at the end. That way you'll get your reward before more exemplary persons at the seat of judgment.

27. Do not achieve prominence in this world, for the first shall be last in the next.

28. For special approbation, refrain from eating, pour oil on your head, and wash your face. Then take a gift to church.

Many of the behavior rules laid down by Yeshua are guilty of an impractical morality that would essentially render those who follow them into spineless, passionless, unresponsive robots. Some of the more traditional rules for good conduct, if not all, were borrowed from the Mosaic law and from the Book of Proverbs, which had been appropriated from the Gentles, and from philosophers such as Confucius, Plato, and Aristotle, who lived a few centuries before Christ. Every teacher of morality has or her own unique style - some are authoritative, others are collaborative, whereas others still prefer to give direct answers, and some prefer to lead their students along the path to knowledge with well placed clues. Yeshua was completely arbitrary, blatantly impetuous, flighty, and schizophrenic. Even Yeshua couldn't follow his own advice, regularly referring to his doubters as "brood of vipers", "hypocrites," or worse, imparting the threat of fiery damnation for eternity.

While Yeshua could read ["Luke iv, 16.] and was familiar with the scriptures, it is possible that he was not acquainted with the system of dictatorship formerly employed by his Father Yahweh. Occasionally Jesus denounced the ethics of "them of old time", but he always referred to his Father as perfect.

Of course the words and tales attributed to Yeshua arise from anonymous and unreliable sources, very possibly sayings of several different self-appointed ecclesistics of the first century and even before.

Powers

• • Dark Lord ("True Hero"):

• Deity Soul ("Godly Incarnation"): 

  • • Demiurge Physiology ("I and the Father are One"): As an avatar of Yahweh, Yeshua may call upon the almighty abilities of the Demiurge.

    • Nigh Omnipotence

      • Cosmic Manipulation

        • Fundamental Forces Manipulation ("Absolute Force Manipulation"): 

          • Control all.

    • Cosmic Knowledge/Divine Sight ('Omniscience'):

Personality

Just as his "father" Yahweh shares the mentality of a simple-minded bronze-age tyrannical despot, Yesuha has many of the qualities of a typical cult leader. Cult leaders are said to be self centered and egotistical because they require complete obedience and conformity to whatever agenda the leader has in mind. On top of this, cult leaders tend to divide people into two groups, those who are members of the cult and those who aren't. Those who don't accept the agenda and views of the cult leader are often vilified and declared enemies of the group. Cult leaders also try to separate children from their parents and create a division between them which often results in total isolation and rejection of the parental influence. Cult leaders will also promise great rewards to their followers for their sacrifice to the cult service.

 Yeshua claims, like all cult leaders do, that special "all power" has been given to him exclusively, whatever the cult leader commands, the follower should do because the highest level of authority resides in the cult leader. And like many self-absorbed cult leaders, Jesus deems anyone who doesn't jump on his theological bandwagon to be an enemy. And like many cult leaders, Jesus won't tolerate anyone who doesn't want him to rule their lives. As other cult leaders proclaim, simple unbelief will merit punishment. And like many cult leaders, Jesus in his glorified Final Solution, will send out his army of angels to cleanse the world of anything that Jesus deems or defines as "wicked". Naturally, unbelievers will be exterminated along with all the other unworthy human "weeds".  Of course, since it is Yeshua the disturbing similarities are deemed "holy" and the "will of God". But let there be no mistake, the character called Jesus, has the same egotistical, power hungry message that any other zealous cult leader or dictator has. That message is: "Obey me in all things or you will be punished."

Oddly enough, the Old Testament doesn't support Yeshua and his attempt to usurp authority from Yahweh. Yahweh said quite clearly that he is not a man (Num 23:19) and will not give his glory to another (Isa 42:8). There is nothing in the Old Testament which states that people should worship a man, a Son of Man, or a Messiah as God and such a thing is abomination in the eyes of Yahweh.

Racist

Yeshua made it clear in this dialogue that he was concerned for Jews only, as was his nation’s psyche at the time, and anyone unfortunate, in his eyes, not to have been born a descendant of Jacob is unworthy of the scraps from his table.

A genocidal contempt for all non-Hebrew societies was unashamedly illustrated via the leadership of Moses to Joshua, from David to Solomon. Yeshua, claiming descendance with the Davidic line, follows this "noble" tradition. None of the Gospel writers record Jesus criticizing the genocide and dispossession of the Canaanites.

Imperialistic

Not Humble

For all his reputation as a loving pacific deity, Jesus actually manifests traits that are much like the intolerant, vainglorious Yahweh. He is his father's son after all. Instead of wincing at the overweening megalomania of Yahweh, Yeshua repeatedly described himself as the sole source of salvation and used over twenty complimentary cognomens including: "the only begotten Son of God," "the light of the world," and "the prince of this world." He called himself "the bread of life"; "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. " To those who would study the preaching of Jonas and the wisdom of Solomon he offered himself as "greater than Jonas," and "behold, a greater than Solomon is here." He brushes aside the notion that he is merely one of the prophets. Unequivocally he declares, "I and my Father are one," and "I am the Son of God."  He appeared to suffer from a warlord's paranoia when he said "Whoever is not with me is against me" and warned his followers not to be deceived by the "false Christs and false prophets" who try to seduce "even the elect."  A resurrected Jesus announced to his disciples the imperial mission of the coming Christianity: "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations.... Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you."

Vengeful

Jesus designated as his "enemies" those who spurn the idea "that I should reign over them." He ordered his followers to bring such nonbelievers to him "and slay them before me. " Any community that refuses to accept his message will meet a fate more horrendous than that which beset Sodom and Gomorrah.  Whole cities such as Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum that rejected his "mighty works" and fail to repent, "shalt be brought down to Hell."

No one in the universe dwells so persistently on the fiery torments of hell as does Jesus Christ. Those who offend Jesus "shall be in danger of hell fire" and cast "into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth"; many shall be "cast into everlasting fire," and cannot hope to "escape the damnation of hell"; "into the fire that never shall be quenched," to be "tormented in this flame". He repeatedly damns those who do not embrace him as the one true savior: ("Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?") Not even trees escaped his ire. On one occasion, feeling hungry, he approached a fig tree only to find that it bore no fruit, for the season had not yet begun. Jesus deliverd an angry curse: "No man eat fruit of thee hereafter forever," and the helpless tree withered and died by the following morn.

Home Wrecker

Jesus is not what could be called a family man. In his demands for personal loyalty and dedication, he sometimes sounds more like a cult leader who wages war against the competing loyalties posed by the families of his followers. On Earth, Jesus manifested little interest in family values or filial attachments, having neither married nor fathered any children. He demands that his disciples and other followers cast aside their families and give devotion only to him: "a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." But those who abandon their families "for the kingdom of God's sake" shall receive manifold repayment in this world and everlasting life in the world to come.

Jesus treated his own kin with something less than civility. Informed that his mother and siblings were waiting at the edge of a gathered crowd, hoping to speak to him, he responded, "Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?" He then stretched out his hand toward his disciples and exclaimed, "Behold my mother and my brethren!" On another occasion, Jesus and his disciples were invited to a wedding feast. His mother, Mary, who happened to be there, mentioned to him that they had no wine, to which he responded rudely, "Woman, what have Ito do with thee?"

Misogyny

Jesus is a product of his day; he shares the male supremacist convictions of ancient times.  Despite possessing divinely inspired wisdom that is supposedly timeless and universal, transcending the historic limitations of place and culture, his attitude toward women is not all that outdated. Yeshua acknowledges women only when they are performing some act of subservience, such as anointing his head with oil and his feet with ointment, or washing his feet with water or with their tears, then wiping his feet with their hair. He tells his disciples, "This woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet," and for this, "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven." Even more revealing is what Jesus does not say about women. He does not say wives should have the same rights in regard to marriage and divorce as their husbands and should not have to submit to patriarchal rule. He seems to accept the idea that a groom can have many brides. He does not say that women have a right to play an active role in congregational preaching and spreading the word of God. To this day every sect and government is still run mostly by men, in service to godheads that are almost always male.

Socialist

For Jesus, the poor were no more than a means for the rich to maintain their relationship with God.

Jesus had the following to say in reference to the poor:

• • If you’re poor and/or hungry, you’re blessed — Luke 6

  • To legalistic believers: In order to be ritually clean, be generous to the poor — Luke 11

  • To a rich man: Sell your possessions and give to the poor — Luke 18

  • To a general audience: Sell your possessions and give to the poor — Luke 12

  • To those with the means to throw parties: Snub your rich friends and invite the poor — Luke 14

  • Do your charitable giving in secret — Matthew 6

  • If you’re poverty-stricken, it’s a good thing to give up every last cent you have — Mark 12

That’s all Jesus has to say to the poor, about the poor, or in favor of the poor.

What benefit might the poor gain as a result of these teachings? Perhaps the greatest benefit would be Jesus’s admonishment to the legalistic believers: simply be generous to them. At least it could be applied in a meaningful way.

His blessing to the poor and hungry didn’t feed anyone. Yeshua advised the rich to give away all their possessions to the poor (thereby reducing themselves to poverty). Selling one’s possessions and giving to the poor helps the poor only in the very short term. It would help the poor over the long term if you were to keep your job, or manage your great wealth, so you could give to the poor continuously. Inviting the poor to your parties would be even less helpful than selling all your possessions. You’d be feeding them only once, unless you gave parties all the time.

When one of his many female admirers pours precious ointment on his head, some of his apostles complain that the ointment might have been sold for a handsome sum and the money then given to the poor. Jesus dismisses their concern, reminding them that they will always have the poor with them, "but me ye have not always." As the incident suggests, he accepts poverty as an unavoidable social condition of no great urgency. Jesus repeatedly heals "great multitudes" of all manner of disease -- except the disease of poverty. He celebrates his accomplishments: "The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. " There is no miraculous reversal for that last group. While Yeshua could easily taken the opportunity to establish programs to help the poor, he was more interpreted in attracting attention to himself. The poor are not rescued from their plight; they must content themselves with preachments.

Further, consider: how many people actually sold their possessions when they heard his preachments? Not enough to be meaningful to the poor. Similarly for parties. How many people actually did it when he suggested it? In setting the bar so preposterously high, he guaranteed that almost no one would ever do it. If he had been thinking of the poor, he wouldn’t have made such empty pronouncements. He simply would have sent his disciples around during his speeches, taking a collection from the audience, asking no more than what they can spare. He would have gotten a much better return, and some hungry people could have gotten some food right away.

It’s definitely not a good thing for a destitute widow to donate her last pennies to the poor—”all she had to live on,” in Jesus’s words. The widow is the poor.

Jesus was never thinking about real, live, suffering poor people when he made these pronouncements. If he had been thinking of them, he would have given better advice. Jesus saw the poor only as an abstract concept.

In regard to national groups, Jesus himself wavers between an egalitarian universality and an ethnocentric tribalism. We all know the parable he tells of the Good Samaritan, who selflessly aids an Israelite who has been robbed and beaten by brigands. The message is a laudable one of universal brotherhood: the Samaritan is to be loved as a neighbor and an equal. (Samaritans were a rival heretical sect that separated from Judaism generations earlier.)

As for the lowest of the low, Jesus never urges those locked in servitude to rebel against their masters. He does not urge the poverty stricken to mobilize against the opulent hierarchy. His precursor, John the Baptist, told the working poor to "be content with your wages." Jesus has no problem with that. He reminds the poor that "the servant [slave] is not greater than his lord. " He accepts the notion that masters have a right to render whippings whenever a servant's performance is not up to snuff. The servant who knowingly disobeys his lord "shall be beaten with many stripes," while the servant who performs poorly but without deliberate disobedience "shall be beaten with few stripes." He accepts the master-servant relationship as a legitimate one. He holds in high regard "the faithful and wise servant" who conscientiously tends to his lord. He does not encourage the leveling of ranks; rather, he instructs people to accept their station in the existing social order. When attending a wedding, for instance, one should not sit oneself in the highest room "lest a more honorable man than thou" come claim the seat. Those at the bottom of the social pyramid do not win his special regard.

Jesus is not quite as stern with the rich as is commonly believed. It can be seen to some extent in his activities, and rather glaringly in the stories he tells. As for his activities, Jesus spent a lot of time being wined and dined by rich people. His disciple Matthew was a man of means; he held a great banquet for Jesus and a large crowd of tax collectors (Luke 5). The wedding reception at Cana (John 2), at which he converted water to wine, was held at the home of a man who could afford servants. Passing through Jericho, Jesus invited himself to be fed and lodged in the home of the very wealthy tax collector Zacchaeus (Luke 19). The Last Supper (Luke 22), took place in a not-exactly-humble setting. Rather, Jesus had an unnamed friend in the city who has at least one servant/slave, and owned a two-story house, with a furnished guest room large enough to accommodate 13 men eating a meal, so Jesus and his disciples could dine in style.

As for Jesus’s stories, the pattern in those that depicted interactions between rich and poor, or between aristocrats and commoners. The rich person was always righteous, and even represented God, always inflicting divine justice on the wicked poor. The unmerciful servant, Matthew 18: A king becomes angry at a citizen. Without any kind of inquiry, trial, or due process, and no laws broken whatsoever, the king has the citizen hideously tortured. The workers in the vineyard, Matthew 20: A rich businessman hires underemployed day-laborers in bad faith. Jesus defended the rich man by changing the subject, making the story about the rich man’s rights to his own money, rather than the laborers’ feelings of betrayal and anger at being duped. The wedding banquet, Matthew 22: A king has a city burned down in revenge against a few of the inhabitants of the city. Again, the wedding banquet: The king is offended by a guest, so he orders that the guest be thrown out of the party—but first, orders that the guest be tied up, hand and foot. Presumably the ejected guest gets to lie on the ground, until someone decided to override the King’s wishes and untie him. The talents, Matthew 25: A rich businessman goes away on business, leaving three of his servants/slaves in charge of managing his investments. He returns to find that one of the servants, paralyzed by fear of his master, has done nothing with the money that was assigned to him. The master has the servant thrown out of the house and left to his fate. Luke 12:42–48: Slaves who unwittingly break the rules will be beaten. Slaves who deliberately break the rules will be beaten severely. Slaves who behave very badly will be brutally murdered.

For comparison against all of these rich-over-poor stories, Jesus tells one story in which the poor person is righteous and the rich person is unrighteous: Lazarus the Beggar, in Luke Chapter 16. Lazarus goes to Heaven, and the rich man goes to Hell.

Encountering Jesus:

On other occasions, however, Jesus sounds like a Judaic supremacist, as when he scorns a courteous Samaritan woman, for "ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews." When he sends forth his twelve disciples, he commands them to avoid the Gentiles and the Samaritans. "But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." In Matthew Chapter 15, there is the appalling story of Jesus heaping racial abuse on a woman who has asked him to heal her daughter, who is suffering terribly. His bigotry was out in the open, for anyone to see. What’s hidden in plain sight is the daughter, suffering terribly. The whole time. The mother approached Jesus and began begging. He knew the girl was suffering. He walked away. The mother pestered his disciples for a while—daughter still suffering terribly. Finally the disciples pestered Jesus to get rid of her. He heaped racial abuse on her—the daughter was still suffering terribly. The religious will excuse Jesus for his treatment of the woman: he was testing her faith; he was acting out some symbolism for future Christians to mine for inspiration. But they don’t mention the girl. And why should they? Jesus clearly didn’t care about the girl. And when the mother finally debases her self as low as she can possibly go—all for the sake of her daughter—Jesus heartily commends her. For being an awesome, devoted mother? No, for having great faith in him! Imagine how she must have felt, going through all that humiliation, only to have Jesus degrade even her deep love for her daughter. Only because of that love did she go home too relieved to despise him.

Jesus is occasionally capable of expressing mercy and tolerance. He does not share the fundamentalists' obsession with homosexuality, but is also is downright hostile toward family commitments. He is largely indifferent to existing class and gender oppressions, but fails to condemn them as well. Being capable of making great strides in women's equality, he instead choose to maintain the status quo. His inner circle of twelve disciples are all male. No woman was invited to the Last Supper. Women were present on the sidelines of his life story, but never in positions of leadership. The women who discovered his empty tomb on Easter were instructed to meet the resurrected Yeshua in Galilee, but they themselves were not invited.

He persistently talks of hellfire and damnation, and repeatedly insists that only through him can salvation be attained. He is brimming with scornful intolerance for those who are not ready on blind faith to embrace his grandiose claim of reigning over heaven and earth alongside "my Father." His ultimate vision is of an impending apocalypse, with its slaughter of the multitude and rapturous deliverance of an elect few.

One frequently debated aspect of Yeshua's personality is his apparent asexuality. If only this were true. While Jesus was a man, now a fully functioning physical deity, he did have a normal, healthy sex drive. As the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. he is far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. If he so chose, he could have had the largest harem in human history.

Horrifyingly, Yeshua's tastes are not for women, or even men. Was it not he who said: "Suffer the little children to come under me." His angels supply him as all he needs, and as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, who can deny him what he desires? Who can question what he wills done?

It is said that both the laughter and the screams of children can be heard echoing from the Temple in Jerusalem. Wise ears shut them out.