Hi Rob,


> The idea of a Holy Bloodline, IMO, negates the message that
> Jesus brought, ie, that the future Kingdom will be born out
> of the spirit and not out of man made political rulership.

I can't help feeling that this argument is back to front, it's kind of like: this evidence can't be right because it doesn't fit my theory. But even if we do argue it back to front then one could still argue that Jesus' message is that humanity's path forward is spiritual is surely stronger if he is a man like all the rest of us and manages to take the spiritual path. Otherwise a man might not be totally unjustified in saying, "OK Jesus, its alright for you to say look at me I've taken the spiritual path, but you are a god after all."

I think a problem in all of this is that there is very little real historical documentation about Jesus. There are only a couple of passages from Josephus if I remember correctly and it is also clear that the Church has a vested interest in dissuading any serious historical research in the matter. Most of the information that we use to asses whether a story can be right or not is that which was compiled at the Council of Nicea in AD 325. Most Bible scholars seem to agree that none of the Gospels so included were actually written by the deciples, rather the first ones were probably written in AD100 or thereabouts in Alexandria.

Because of this I think taking into account cultural issues like the rareness of an Unmarried teacher of Jesus' kind in that time is actually a very strong one and that we find little evidence of it in the Bible which amongst other things proposes the Papal succession and a patriarchal society is not so surprising. We have read often enough on this site that history is written by the winners and I think is is fair to say that the Bible can hardly be seen as an unbiased history.

From what I read of the Dead Sea Scroles which were probably written closer to Jesus' time, his posse, the Jerusalem Church, was less into the divine aspect of Jesus and also refers to Paul as "the liar" or such.

Sorry I haven't got any reference books with me.

Best,
Ant