The Philosophy of Jesus

The Philosophy of Jesus

By John D. Heinmiller

Smashwords Edition

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Copyright 2021 by John D. Heinmiller. All rights reserved.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Forward

Notes on the Book

1 The Man

2 The World of Jesus

3 GOD

4 The Second Commandment

5 The Golden Guide

6 The Ten Commandments

7 The Torah

8 Hypocrisy

9 How Does the Rest of What Jesus Said Fit

10 Conclusion

Bibliography

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

FORWARD 5

Notes on the Book 7

Endnotes on This Chapter 9

1

The Man 10

Endnotes on Chapter 22

2

The World of Jesus 23

Endnotes on Chapter 30

3

GOD 31

Endnotes on Chapter 40

4

The Second Commandment 41

Endnotes on Chapter 48

5

The Golden Guide 49

6

The Ten Commandments 52

7

The Torah 64

Endnotes on Chapter 71

8

Hypocrisy 72

Endnotes on Chapter 78

9

How Does the Rest of What Jesus Said Fit? 79

Endnotes on Chapter 92

10

Conclusion 94

Bibliography 96

FORWARD

JESUS!

The name means many things to many people. He is a savior to some, a deceiver to others; a great leader of men or a terrible hypocrite, a god or a fool. Seldom has anyone achieved such distinction or notoriety as to be so loved and hated at the same time. Regardless, one thing is certain: Jesus was not mediocre.

His name has been spread far and wide. True believers whisper his name in full conviction that he can cure the evils that afflict them. He is respected as a god, as an avatar, a prophet, a savior, a great man. Detractors call him a liar and the greatest deceiver to ever walk the face of the world. He is respected and reviled in diverse places, by diverse beliefs and religions, throughout the world. Rare is the person who has heard his name without having some sort of opinion on him, what he has done and what his influence is.

What is it that allowed him to achieve such greatness? What is it that allowed him to become so famous throughout the world, to remain so famous almost two thousand years after he died?

Jesus preached a message of love and peace. In many ways it is similar to other messages of love and peace that have sprung up in different times throughout the history of the world. Buddha, in Northern India, also had a message of love and peace four centuries before Jesus. Mohammed also had a message of love and peace over six centuries after Jesus. There have been others. Yet none of them have been more admired or respected than Jesus, none of them have more adherents or people who claimed to follow him.

Yet nowhere else is this message so ignored than among his supposed followers. Christians the world over are among the most ready to fly to the force of arms, devoted to the task of martial craft, desiring all things military. The record speaks for itself: The willingness of the early Christians to destroy all sources of knowledge, simply because it did not come from him; the feudal period, where people willingly embraced their ignorance, simply because it allowed their faith to be greater; the various crusades where Christians willingly went to war against others, simply to take over some land, or to wipe out the teachings of a people. All of these things Jesus would have abhorred, even condemned, yet this fact never stopped his later followers from doing these things.

It certainly does not stop his followers from fighting among themselves. As is well known, Jesus taught people to turn the other cheek, to accept wrongs done to them. Yet what do people who profess to believe in him do? They take the mildest of insults and turn them into monstrous wrongs, wrongs needing the spilling of blood to make things right. What was the result of this? The feuding between the Catholic and the Orthodox churches. The Protestant revolt and the Catholic Counter-Reformation, with all the conflicts that resulted. The Religious Wars. The Inquisition. Even today we see this taking place in Belfast, in the feuding between the Catholics and the Protestants over which church is His. What other reason is there for the IRA and the Orangemen? Pure politics? No! Religion is the real key! The willful arrogance that one’s assumption as to what the purpose of Jesus was is the only true teaching and meaning that had to be imposed on others at the point of the sword or gun.

Jesus would have condemned this. In fact, he did. Several times it is stated that he rejected violence. Many times he turned and left, rather than face a violent mob. Always he taught that love, not violence, was the way to go. In fact, it was central to his whole philosophy.

Philosophy? Jesus had a philosophy? Of course Jesus had a philosophy. Few have been the people to actually practice it, but the fact remains that Jesus had a philosophy. It may be one of the most taught, yet least followed and understood philosophies of all times. Still, it is a philosophy that existed, that still exists. It has a world view, a moral teaching, even a way of life. For Jesus, like all the great religious founders, was a philosopher; in many ways one of the greater moral philosophers of all times. Love him or hate him, follow him or reject him, acclaim him or despise him, you cannot deny that he was a philosopher of some ability, without absurdity.

To understand who Jesus was, what his teaching, his philosophy was; this is the task of this book.

Notes on the Book

Because of the interest this work would have for Christians, it is not possible to treat it like an ordinary scholarly work. The passions that are invoked by the mere usage of any words of Jesus can elicit a storm of argument one way or the other. Various Christian denominations have very strong opinions as to what it means to be a Christian. Atheists opposed to anything with religious connotations have strong desires and wishes to debunk anything that even remotely sounds like it came from Jesus. Scientific thought has long been opposed to one of the key principles of the thought of Jesus, that of the existence of God, because it threatens the foundation of the principle that has been so useful in developing the various sciences, the Principle of Determinism.¹ Of course, mystics who strive for spiritual union with the one, or om, often take the stand that Jesus is a hindrance to their goal.

Consequently, it is impossible for this work to avoid all religious implications. His name and words are too closely tied to the religious thought that is known as Christianity. That said, I have refused to abandon scholarly principles in order to make a purely religious book. It is true that I have found myself occasionally arguing as he would have, not because I believe what he says but out of a desire to get across what he intended. Nevertheless, I have still tried to present what he said and taught in as objective and scholarly a manner as possible. My goal in all this is to give a feel for what Jesus said, what he thought, what he preached, and what his philosophy was.

I have made a deliberately conscious choice to accept the claim that there is something out there, not determined by material causes. Being a deist, I do accept the claim that there is a deity, though I reject the claims by all religions that they understand what that deity is. Because of this, I do recoil from certain claims that even the religious admit are matters of faith, not provable. I do not come out and declare this to be the one true faith as many people would want me to. At the same time, I also do not declare that it is an outright fabrication, as others would want me to. I do not have the knowledge of a god, so I cannot know if certain matters of faith are true or not. So be it.

Still, I try to look at the philosophy from a purely objective viewpoint. What was his philosophy? What was it he truly said? What was it he intended to be said? What he actually said I have found too often be at variance to what most priests and ministers claim is said. Consequently, this book will be disturbing. This cannot to be avoided. For Jesus knew that his teaching would be disturbing. He taught a message of peace and love to others, but he also brought a sword between family members, community members, even nations. Nevertheless, as his words were meant for a time in the distant past, I have tried to give commentary to his words, in one case even updating what he said in order to make it as disturbing to modern day readers as his words were to the Hebraic People during the beginning of the Roman Empire.

In this work, I have italicized without quotation marks the actual words of Jesus wherever I quoted him. Other quotes are done according to the standard method. Footnotes for all biblical references are simply given according to the standard biblical method of book, chapter and verse. All other quotes are done according to the standard conventional method.

I also make reference to the Tanakh. This is the Hebrew Bible, the holy book that became the majority of the Old Testament in the Christian Bible. I reference the Tanakh deliberately, because the Old Testament comes from the Tanakh.

The picture on the cover is taken from a famous painting of Jesus by an unknown artist.

Endnotes on This Chapter

1 The Principle of Determinism states that everything is determined by events before it. Simply put, it is the principle of cause and effect. No choice is allowed. Everything, even our supposed choices, is determined by prior events and material causes.

1

The Man

Who was Jesus?

This is not a simple question. Many people around the world have strong opinions as to whom and what Jesus is. To Christians, Jesus is the Messiah, the anointed one, the chosen savior of men from their sins. Some Christians consider Jesus to be no less than God himself. Other Christians consider him to be the redeemer par excellence. Of course, non-Christians have different opinions. Many Hindu Yogis of India consider Jesus to be an Avatar, an incarnation of Godhood. Some call him a pure avatar, or a pure incarnation of godhood, on par with the legendary founder of Hinduism, Ram Das and superior to other incarnations like Krishna. Muslims respect Jesus for his greatness; they call him one of the great prophets of Allah. Though they deny the divinity Christians tend to give Jesus, they respect him for embracing Allah’s law, for being one who cried out in the wilderness of Judah to make straight the way of Allah in that land. However, not everyone respects him. Atheists reject him completely, considering him to be a liar, a hypocrite, a fool and a suicide. They are convinced Jesus is long dead and buried, long converted into dust. Still, these are all taken as matters of faith. While faith is blessed and beautiful, giving us a comfort in our certainty however warranted or unwarranted, it does not answer our question: Who was Jesus?

What we know of his life is less than what people want to accept. Some of the legends and myths about him are clearly dispelled by the sources we have, the four gospels being the main sources of what we know of him. This trouble is made more difficult by apparent contradictions in the sources we have. For instance, Luke claims that Jesus was born in a stable and rested on a manger, a feeding trough for animals.¹ Matthew, however, claims that Jesus stayed in a house, not a stable.² From what Matthew writes, it is indicated that Joseph was a resident of Bethlehem, he lived in a house and only moved to Nazareth to avoid Archelaus, son of Herod the Great.³ In contradiction, Luke claims that Joseph was a citizen of Nazareth.⁴ The lack of modern scholarly attention to details by the four writers give us an ambiguity that will probably forever haunt our attempts to truly understand the man. Some information will be forever unknown.

One question is apparent and is heatedly debated: Did Jesus have any brothers or sisters? There are some who claim that Jesus was always an only child. Others claim that after Jesus was born, Joseph and Mary had other children. In defending the tradition that Jesus was an only child,