Atheists starting godless churches

[fadedrose]

74. The Australian angle...

Maybe it was an idea that sprung from the writings of Dr. Barbara Thiering, a professor at the University of Australia. She has several books out about Jesus being a man, a rabbi, married, a fund-raiser, who wanted to make peace with the Romans in order to convert them. Trouble with conversion was that orthodox Judaism would never have been accepted by the Romans. Too strict, with circumcision, diet, religious holidays, etc.

That was a no-no with the zealots in his group at Qumron. They were against any relaxing Jewish law.

He was crucified, drugged to appear dead, hidden in a cave till he recovered, made some appearances and moved to France, I believe, with a wife, who was Mary Magdalene. He died rather old...had children. Traveled with Paul in Acts.

This was the group that wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Theiring does all her transcriptions directly from the Greek. These were written at the time that Jesus lived there...Thiering claims that these Jews lived there and called it Jerusalem because the chief rabbi in Jerusalem was put there by the Romans and they refused to accept him. She also claims that these were the earliest Christians...which the RC Church denies. The 4 Gospels were written not in Jerusalem, but in Qumron which the Jews called Jerusalem, and scholars have long been puzzled about the geography in the gospels. She claims there was a gay group there as well.

She's popular in Australia, but her first book was practically outlawed here.

Oh ya, where was I? Giving my opinion about why there's atheists in Austrailia...