Josephus Flavius, in Antiquities (93 or 94 AD) tells of earthquake that killed 30,000 people in Jerusalem in 31 AD. Matthew (85-90 AD) and Mark (66-70 AD) mention two earthquakes, which occurred when Jesus was crucified and resurrected. Physical evidence confirms that there were two earthquakes with the center close to Jerusalem in 31 AD ±5 years, but cannot give the exact year. Josephus wrote a bit later than Mark, but as a historian he is usually more reliable, thus let us assume the earthquakes occurred in 31 AD. Assuming that Jesus was crucified in 33 AD, he was baptized in 29/30 AD and had already started his mission before the earthquake. John tells that priests decided to kill Jesus because he raised Lazarus from death. That may have happened around 31 AD. A possibility is that the earthquakes moved stones away from a few graves, and maybe tossed recently dead bodies out of the graves. Such an event, happening to a grave of a known person, may have started rumors that Jesus has awoken Lazarus from the death.
John tells that the priests decided to kill Jesus because otherwise all people would believe in him and Romans would take the land. John lets the High Priest say: it is better that one man dies than that all perish. The two problems here are that Romans already had taken the land. Judea was under a Roman prefect, and that the priest must have known the prophecies of Isaiah 53, Zechariah 12:10 and Psalm 22:17 that the prophet Messiah would die. The messianic reading of Psalm 22:17 is quite specific: the son of David is be crucified, but God would save him.
Taking this into account, the high priest may have meant that it is better that one man dies than that all people perish under the rule of Romans. Should the Jesus die crucified and should he rise from the death, all people would believe that he was the Messiah and God would soon revenge and destroy the Romans. People would start a war against Romans. This is possible, though not sure. Sadducee priests are told to have been on the Roman side, yet the son of the High Priest was the one who stopped sacrifices to the Roman emperor and actually started the war of 66 AD. Those, who were on the Roman side in the 66-73 AD war were Pharisees. After the war Romans allowed Pharisees to continue, Sadducee priests perished.
If this interpretation is correct, then priests decided in 31 AD that they will help Jesus to fulfill all prophecies of the prophet Messiah, which includes dying in the cross and being resurrected.
Many words of Jesus have close parallels in Jewish Wisdom literature. Some concepts are from Ecclesiastes. Wisdom is light (Eccl. 2:13). Do you know the beginning and the end (Eccl. 3:11). Everybody has sinned (Eccl. 7:21). Lamp, light, way of life (Eccl. 6:23). There is one difference: Ecclesiastes asks to look at diligent ants and do work (Eccl. 6:6), while Jesus asks to look at wild flowers, which do not work.
Many words of Jesus are from Proverbs, or resemble them. The Word in John 1:1-5 is Wisdom in Proverb 8:22-31. Search and you will find is from Proverb 8:17 and it means wisdom. Wisdom is life (Proverb 8:35). Words of a righteous one is spring of life (Proverb 10:11), and tree of life (Proverb 11:30). Righteousness is the light and the lamp that has oil (Proverb 13:4) Love your enemy is Proverb 25:21-22. Do not brag of what you will do tomorrow is Proverb 27:1. Who takes what should go to parents as an offering resembles Proverb 28:24. High will be lowered and lowly set high is Proverb 25:7. Who has been raised to heaven and descended from there, what is his name and his son’s name is from Proverb 30:4.
Some are from Psalms, including the following: Do not take interest from loans (Ps. 15:5). The humble inherit the land (Ps. 37:11). No-one is good (Ps. 53). God is father, the Messiah is the firstborn son (Ps. 89:27) God opens the eyes of the blind (Ps.146:6) God sends his Word (Ps. 137:15, Ps. 107:20). They have eyes but do not see (Ps. 115). This is the gate (i.e., I am the door) (Ps. 118:20). Stone, that the builders forgot (Ps. 118:22). Interestingly, Jesus disagrees with Ps. 119:99 where a pupil claims being better than all teachers, but Jesus is right: surely such a thing could not happen.
Psalms 40:7, 51:16 and 50:13 tell that God does not want animal sacrifices, Ps. 51:17 suggests a broken spirit as a sacrifice, but nevertheless, God wanted a human sacrifice: the prophet Messiah had to die for the redemption if Israel’s sins (Ps. 130:7-8). By Ps. 107:20 God sent his word and healed and saved them from the grave, thus Word was the savior. By Ps. 118 Word was not to die but to live. He was not to be given to death, but this can mean that Word was resurrected. Ps. 49:8 informs that no human can redeem his brother, so the redeemer was not quite human.
The message in all these references to the Old Testament is always the same. For instance, Jesus was given vinegar to drink on the cross. This refers to Ps. 69:22. The Psalm continues with a curse on the enemies of the Messiah. The goal of crushing or enslaving all other nations is naturally clear already from Psalm 2.
There is even a reference to the Song of Solomon. Jesus calls Herod Antipas a fox. In Song of Solomon 2:15 foxes are damaging the vineyard, which is Israel, and foxes are the Herodian kings. The bride is Israel and the bridegroom is the divine king, the other God. This God has black hair 5:11 and he is white and red, while the higher God is all white and full of mercy, the Ancient one of Daniel 7:9. The lower God is the divine form of the king Messiah, who will be victorious and who will deliver the judgment. It is of this God that Ps. 18:9 tells that smoke came from his nostrils. This God has nostrils, as he likes to sense the sweet smell of the burnt offering.
This takes us to the Cabbalistic concept of two Gods. It is rather similar to the Gnostic idea of two Gods and also to what John says in the Gospel. The true high God is unknown. In John it is told that nobody has seen God, only Jesus, since by Proverb 30:4 there is God and his Son and only the Son has been in heaven. God has two helpers. The first is Wisdom, who is feminine in Proverb 7:9, like Sophia (Wisdom) was feminine in Gnosticism. The corresponding concept in John is Word, who is identified with Jesus. In Zohar Wisdom (Chokmah) is masculine and understanding (Binah) is feminine.
Understanding is the second helper of God, mentioned e.g. in Ps. 147:5 and in Proverb 7:4, where Understanding is a relative, a bit less than Wisdom, which is a sister. Psalm 147 mentions also God’s Mercy (Chesed) in Ps. 147:11 and strength (Geburah) in Ps. 147:5, which Zohar included to the Tree of Life model (the 10 Sephiroth) of God.
The two outer pillars of the Sephiroth Tree of Life correspond to the two pillars of the temple of Solomon: (Chokmah, Chesed, Netzach) is Jachin and (Binah, Geburah. Hod) is Boaz. Boaz means strength, as does Geburah. This identification is quite natural. Jachin means “He will establish”. Chesed means grace, benovalence, lovingkindness, mercy. This correspondence is clear in Freemasonry. Zohar does not make is so clear, but it is fairly obvious that this must be the case also in Cabbalism.
Between the two outer pillars is the actual Tree of Life, the middle pillar: Kether, Tipheroth, Yesod and Malkuth. In this pillar, Kether is the high God, the unknown Ancient one, a patient God of love and mercy. Tipheterh (Beauty) is the Son, as Mercy (Chesed) is Father and Strenght (Geburah) is Mother. Tipheterh is also the sacrifice. Yesod is the Pillar. He is the High Priest giving the offering. Paul talks about three pillars of the Jerusalem Church in 50 AD: Simon Peter, James the Just, and John (bar Zebedee). In Gospel of Thomas it is told that James the Just is the reason why the sky and the earth were created. This simply means that James was the Pillar, the High Priest of the Community, a Tzaddik. Yesod in the Sephiroth tree is the divine correspondence of a High Priest. Below Yesod is the material world, Malkuth, but Malkuth is also the Bride, Israel, the Kingdom. She is the Bride of the lower God, who is made of Mercy, Netzach, Strength, Hod, Tiphereth and Yesod. Alternatively this person can be considered Adam Kadmon, and in that case the four nodes of the outer pillars are four cherubs. These cherubs have wings and with them they cover the eyes, genitals and feet of Adam Kadmon. The wings are naturally paths from the nodes of the outer pillars to the nodes in the middle pillar in the lower six Sephiroth part of the Three of Life.
The upper three nodes (Chokmah, Kether, Binah) form a triangle. This is the higher God. Actually, God is only Kether, but Wisdom and Understanding are his tools. Kether has been from the beginning, while the other nodes are eminated, but they were eminated before time and space was created. Thus, Wisdom, or Word in John, has existed always, before the time, and will exist always. Yet, it is an eminated form of Kether, the only God. This higher God is called the Long Nose in Zohar, as he is very patient God of love. The lower God, the Short Nose, is impatient and tends to get angry and be jealous. Clearly, he is Yahveh of the Old Testament. In Gnosticism this God is called Yaldabaoth, the Demiurge, a stupid and jealous God, who incorrectly claims that he is the only God, though he was created by Sophia (Wisdom). In John, and in general in Judaism, Yahveh is not an evil God like Yaldabaoth. The lower God is both good and bad (as he punishes Israel), he is white and read as the Song of Solomon says. Only the higher God is only good, purely white. The lower God has the attributes of Victory (Netzach) and Glory (Hod), so he will be victorious and the pagan peoples will be crushed like clay pots.
Jesus was the Son, thus he was Tiphereth, the sacrificed one, and then he went to sit on the right side of God and will bring judgment to all people. This means that he become Strength, in the pillar Boaz. Jesus, as the son of David called God with the name Father (Ps. 89:27). This Father is the left pillar Jachin. Mercy is in the left pillar and Jesus applied to God’s mercy. The Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit, is the higher God, of whom we can only know words of Wisdom and Understanding. Thus, when the Holy Spirit fills a human, this human speaks words of Wisdom. Those, who mock Wisdom, will not have life as wisdom is the way, life and truth. Clearly, those who offend the Holy Spirit cannot be saved.
The outer pillars of the Tree of Life are not only the pillars of the temple of Solomon, but also the two stars, Kochab and Pherkad, of Ursa Minor. Ursa Minor includes a square, which apparently was interpreted by Israelites (or maybe Hyksos) as a heavenly temple. Around 1700 BC the previous celestial North Pole star Thuban had moved too far from the celestial North Pole and Kochab became the new Pole star. But it never was very close to the pole and the position of the pole had to be calculated with the help of Pherkad. These two stars are most probably the origin of the ladder of Jacob: a ladder from earth to heaven implies two pillars, two stars in the night sky close to the seat of God, that is, close to the celestial North Pole. All stars circulate the North Pole, so there must be the throne of the king of heaven. The earthly temple was an image of the heavenly one. In the first century AD the closest visible star to the celestial North Pole was no longer Kochab. As Josephus said it, Gods were leaving the temple of Jerusalem. Sometime after 100 AD the celestial North Pole was so close to Polaris that Polaris became the new Pole star. Yet, for 1000 years there was no good Pole star in the Northern night sky.
Another explanation for the two pillars is from the Tree of Life. Very old depictions of the Tree of Life show a man and a woman standing on opposite sides of a tree. The pillars are the man and the woman, while the middle pillar is the tree. In the tree there is a curled snake. This snake became later the miracle making snake of Moses. It healed the ill, but as the snake of Paradise it cheated Eve to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Originally, in Proverb 7:9, Wisdom is feminine. Probably originally Wisdom ate this fruit, but later it was concluded that the knowledge of good and bad was more understanding than wisdom, so Understanding became feminine and Wisdom masculine in the Sephiroth Tree of Life. The snake told Eve that she and her husband will live forever. This is, naturally, what the prophet Messiah, Tiphereth, also told. Maybe it never was any cheating. Indeed, there was a Gnostic sect of Ophites, who thought that the snake was good and identified Christ with the snake of Paradise and the snake of Moses. Gnosticism was rejected as heresy by the early Church.
There is also a direct connection to early Canaanite/Israelite religion. This religion seems to have had two rituals: sacrifice of the firstborn son and sacred sex under threes in high places. Both fit well to the Cabbalistic Tree of Life: the outer pillars are Father and Mother, thus the Son (Tiphereth) is an outcome of sex, while the sky god El required the sacrifice of every firstborn, including the firstborn son. The crucifixion of Jesus was the sacrifice of the firstborn son, so this concept was still alive in 1st century Judaism.
To be continued.