Tony Atkinson
1 min readNov 16, 2024

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Mention of Jesus in the Qu'ran as a mortal prophet who was not crucified lends weight to the notion of a Jesus who taught and preached.

The Jesus who was crucified could possibly have been a Judaean Zealotleader of Davidian descent rather than a Galilean carpenter turned preacher. Jesus/Yeshu'a/Joshua was not an uncommon name at the time. This answers, to me, the oddity of Barabbas - the notorious criminal whom the crowd petitioned Pilate to pardon rather than Christ. This event is mentioned in all four Gospels, and in Matthew Barabbas is given the forename Jesus. In other words, Jesus bar Abbas, Jesus, Son of the Father. Given that the so-called 'Paschal Pardon' appears not to have actually existed as a custom implies that Barabbas might have bee the one who was crucified, and that the two figures were later conflated.

What confuses the matter is that Paul, a Hellenised Jew almost certainly familiar with the vegetation and mystery cults practised all around the Mediterranean, selected the 'dying ad rising' version for his new religion (probably in the hope of securing more Gentile members). Competing versions of the story continued to exist for centuries.

The decision made much later to exclude the more mystical or Gnostic books from the accepted Christian canon might also have led to the loss of Jesus' core message in favour of the sociopolitical path Paul and his church wanted to follow.

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Tony Atkinson
Tony Atkinson

Written by Tony Atkinson

Snapper-up of unconsidered trifles, walker of paths less travelled by. Writer of fanfiction. Player of games. argonaut57@gmail.com

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