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Did Jesus master Kaballism??

G

GratiaCorpusChristi

Guest
I think this makes no sense, and none of the primary players in historical Jesus literature (Meier, Wright, Dunn, Crossan, Borg, Vemes, Sanders) have long entertained any such theory.

First of all, before one even begins this historical inquiry, one has to first give in to the philosophical/religious position that kabbalah actually works. But bringing philosophical propositions to the table of historical research is just bad historiography.

Second, kabbalah as a historically verifiable source doesn't even begin until the late first century with the writings called Bahir and Heichalot, to say nothing of the fact that the main kabbalistic text, the Zohar, wasn't written until the thirteenth century.

Third, Jesus of Nazareth, from what we can tell based on primary source literature, showed no real interest in Jewish mysticism of the sort practiced by kabbalah. Like the kabbalists, he showed an intense interest in the theme of creation, but there the similarities stop; his focus on creation is eschatological in nature, focusing on themes like Zion and the New Jerusalem, whereas kabbalistic teaching is primarily concerned with Eden.
 
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