This is the season in which manycelebrate the birth of Jesus or perhaps realistically the birth ofChristianity.  What I want to addresstoday is the boy and man and as much as possible the claims he made.  I want to do this in light of my conjecturein which we recognize GOD as the governing authority for the colonization ofEarth with human beings able to implement agriculture in order to properlyterraform the place.  Unsurprisingly thismission is meant to be completed and it is reasonable that from time to time ateacher would be encouraged to engage in forms of social engineering aimed atspeeding things up in a predictable manner. Without question, the emergence of Christianity has been a remarkablysuccessful piece of direct social engineering that ushered in the modern worldafter reforming the barbarian culture of Europeparticularly.

All this begs the question ofjust what can we say about Jesus?

He was a genius class individualborn into a prosperous Jewish culture then impacting with the antique Romanempire consolidating and opening up the Mediterranean basin to culturalexchange.  He obviously had aphotographic memory as demonstrated as a twelve year old and this was remarkedand is passed down to us.  This obviouslyled to the young man finding himself on what passed for the academic fast trackand this surely led to studies of languages and other scriptures at otherforeign centers.

When he returned, he camebelieving that he had been chosen to introduce new teachings into hissociety.  Curiously he appears to havefelt empowered and he speaks of direct communication with GOD and of been hischild which we assume to be metaphorical. The end result was that he quickly stopped trying to redirect the templehierarchy and went out to teach the masses and develop his own cadre ofteachers.

His impact was obviouslysignificant and this earned him a pretty quick trip to the cross.  His startling reemergence and departure a fewweeks later was sufficient to establish his cult of immortality and theimportance of the immortal soul.  Thoseactions and the enthusiasm of the apostles led to the emergence of a canon ofteachings under Constantinethat reset the idea of religion and simultaneously suppressed competing dogmas.

So do any of the oral traditionsand written materials that were produced soon after his lifetime tell usanything?  They outline his doctrine assimply as it can be made and his claim to divine descent from GOD.  This assumes an authority that he then shareswith his apostles.  He certainly was achange agent.

The unusual aspect of hisministry was the ability to induce apparent divine intervention on demand toconvince followers that his claims regarding personal divinity were real.  This is important because without all that hejust was another human speaker in the eyes of his listeners.  Thus the only tangible evidence of directcontact with GOD that comes down to us and would have been convincing are theseries of miracles actually listed including the resurrection.

We have to leave it at that.  He was a classic genius grade intellect whohad absorbed the available literature in several languages and had reached arange of conclusions that he introduced as teachings in his homeland.  That alone made him important.  Yet he lived in a world in which the onlymethod of communicating was word of mouth. To handle that he shaped his message in a form that his apostles couldreplicate and repeat to produce succeeding generations of teachers without anymystical or racial baggage.  No wheredoes he mention the chosen people idea at all. This omission is significant because it is blinding and unexpected.  Of course, it may well be that it all endedup on the cutting floor under Constantinebut we still have evidence of it.

The only evidence that we havethat GOD was promoting a bit of social engineering is the apparent sequence ofmiraculous interventions in support of the message that what Jesus was sayingwas important.  It certainly was theoutcome and we can reasonably assume a number of failures also happened overthe years.

Miraculous intervention continuesto be part of the ongoing development of Christianity and we likely need to paymuch more attention to this aspect rather than simply dismissing the subject aswe are all encouraged to do.

The thesis that GOD promotesChristianity through judicious divine interventions is hardly new and a part ofit from the beginning.  It is stillunexpected to find it a natural corollary of a tangible GOD that is apart fromlocal authorities since the foundation.

The mythological idea of theSecond Coming that is wrapped all around this and is open to a fullreinterpretation which I will save for another time.