Does the book of Isaiah say anything about Jesus of Nazareth?

[intaglio]

35. I said he was an apologist. Many faiths have apologists

In this case he was a Deist issuing an apologia in respect of the Bible; Christianity does not hold a patent on self deception. Any insights that Jefferson may have had regarding the "true" words of Jesus were as valueless as those of any other one of the Founding Fathers because these insight are based solely upon introspection without evidence. The only evidence available to Jefferson and his ilk were the Bible and commentaries upon the Bible by intelligent (but similarly ill informed, or malicious) persons. The only justification that Jefferson can offer for his selection of the "true" teachings of Jesus is that they are nicer or prettier than those teachings he rejects. I do not say that introspection cannot be valuable but at some point that introspection must be supported by evidence or else it is nothing but vanity.

Onto your own faith. To be honest if it walks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks I would tend to regard it as a duck; in the same way your teachers talk about reforming Christianity because everyone else has got it wrong merely means to me that he is another Christian sectary who seeks affirmation from elements of other, disparate, faiths. Additionally quote mining the Bible for words to support these ideas is as old as any schism you care to mention. The differentiation between "saviour" and "messiah" is little more than verbal froth as far as I am concerned, given that I do not regard either term as having any bearing on reality.

One thing I will apologise for, however, is my misreading of your words regarding Torah scholars. Of course the fact that Sanhedrin 98 did not regard those words a applying to any man yet has no bearing on your argument. what is more your distinction does not give you the right to ignore the continued insistence of significant scholars that the words apply only to the nation, not any man.

You mention "publication"; the correct term is written or issued. Publication did not happen, copies were made from original texts one at a time with all of the inherent problems manual copying entails. Original manuscripts were often amended by their owners, sometimes to explain difficult concepts, sometimes to emphasise a particular element favoured by the owner and sometimes to falsify the original documents. In no case has any uncorrupted document survived from the time because of these human weaknesses.

Now various books of the NT. Mark, do you mean the original 666 verse Mark or the 678 verse Mark from 3 to 4 hundred years later? Mark actually only really differs from the early Pauline epistles in that Paul did not write of Jesus as a real person but only as an ideal. The later epistles were either contemporaneous with the Mark account or somewhat later, all of the later epistles show signs of editing where it they are not forgeries constructed "from the whole cloth". The Gospel most at odds with Pauline orthodoxy is Matthew, which shows every sign that it was written for the Jewish community of Christians because of the repeated emphasis on Jesus both obeying and fulfilling Jewish Law. Luke and the author of Acts were followers of Paul and their writings reflect that.

Next, none of the writers discussed actually knew or observed Jesus. Paul, supposedly the great oppressor of Christians, never mentions meeting or seeing him. Mark might have seen the Messiah as a young man but never sees fit to mention it. Matthew, Luke and the author of Acts were probably not even born at that time. John would not even have been a glimmer in his mothers eye at the time of the Crucifixion. None of the works these authors produced even contains direct quotes from the Disciples. Given this incredibly dubious background, why place any reliance on the Bible at all?

Because the Bible has such a fragile relationship with what actually occurred in those times, relying on that book for your insights is nonsensical, this last insight was impossible for Jefferson to have because that knowledge was not available to him. Your view that multiple late works from the same community of faith assists in judging the veracity of the accepted texts is doubtful and is why I did not mention the "Gnostic" texts or other elements found at Nag Hammadi. The texts that are inportant are any early, non-Christian texts. If early copies of Josephus or Tacitus were to be found it would be worth more than all the false Gospels and Epistles put together.