Jesus and the Jubilee year

I was asked to read a book by Michael Hudson arguing that the mission of Jesus was debt cancellation, declaring the year of the Jubilee. I have not yet read the book, not even ordered it yet (but will do it). But some counterarguments to this claim were so obvious that I decided to write this post.

            The Jubilee year is implied in the teachings of Jesus, but for the Day of the Lord. Letter of James in the New testament is probably closest to the original teachings of Jesus for the following reasons: even if it may not be written by James the Righteous, it comes from the Church of Jerusalem and it is in conflict with Pauline teachings (everything is allowed to me, redemption only by faith and not by deeds), yet it has been accepted as canonical. In this letter James tells not to judge, for with the measure that you judge you will be judged. It follows that if you will not forgive debts to those who owe to you, your debts to God will not be forgiven in the Day of the Lord when Jesus comes to judge the living and the dead. In this logic, in order to be saved Jews should have forgiven debts for the whole time spell from the time of Jesus to the Day of the Lord. Thus, it is not the Jubilee years, which is once in 50 years (3. Moses 25:10). The message of Jesus is better explained by the demand that the disciples should be perfect as God is perfect. If they are perfect, then they go to the Heaven, else they go to Sheol (Hades), like all dead before and after Jesus’ time did. Only two persons before Jesus went to Heaven instead of Hades: Enoch, who was taken up, and Eliah, who was taken by a storm. Eliah was reincarnated as John the Baptist, the smallest in Heaven, and Jesus was reincarnated Enoch, the savior of the first times. Why this is so is clearly shown by John: in that Gospel Jesus says that no-one has gone to Heaven except for the one who has descended from Heaven.

If Jesus announced the Jubilee year in his earthly mission, then the Day of the Lord should have been within a year. This is not the case in the Gospels. In the Gospels Jesus told that nobody knows when the Day of the Lord will come, but it will be in one generation from his time. The generation is 30-40 years in prophetic calculation and Jesus was crucified either in the year 30 AD or 33 AD.

It is also not so that Jesus announced one Jubilee year and there was to come another Jubilee year, which was the Day of the Lord. Had Jesus meant that any of the 3 years when preached was a Jubilee year, he would have known precisely the year of the Day of the Lord: it would be 50 years later. Yet, Jesus told that the time is known only to God. This explanation would also imply that debts were allowed in the time between these two years, but nothing suggests that Jesus allowed debts. He proposes lending money to those who cannot pay back. That is not a debt but a gift.

Furthermore, it follows from the teachings of Jesus that Jews would not repent their sins and consequently not forgive debts to those who owe to them. Most Jews would remain sinners and would be judged. The temple would be destroyed and God would select the chosen few as the new promised people.

So, I discard Hudson’s idea of a Jubilee year. Let us make a better theory.

            The temple and the city were destroyed in 70 AD, as was prophesized by Daniel (Dan 9:26) and Zechariah (Zech 14:2). According to Josephus Flavius the war that started in 66 AD was fought because of the star prophecy (Numbers 24:17) of the coming king Messiah, as it was in the Simon Bar Kokhba revolt in 132-135 AD. (Notice that 132 AD is 70 years after the death of James the Righteous in 62 AD. Both belonged to the same messianic movement.)  Thus, the war was messianic. It started when Halley’s Comet was seen in 66 AD. Josephus tells also of other signs in the heaven. These signs identify the war as the Day of the Lord and the second coming of Jesus in heavens.

            What is curious in the revolt of 66-73 AD is that though it was clearly messianic and inspired by the star prophecy and there were signs in the heaven, Josephus does not tell that there was any widely supported messiah. He does tell of some messiah aspirants, but none of them had wider support and none of them were prophet messiahs. There had to be both the king messiah and the prophet messiah, otherwise this war would not have started. Josephus is the most likely candidate as the king messiah. He was leading the troops in Galilee, which was the stronghold of all zealot movements since the time of Judas of Galilee. Also Jesus was from Galilee. Josephus also was one of the very few descendants of Hasmoenan kings, albeit through a woman, but from the direct male like Hasmoneans had no descendants after Antigonus Mattathias and his sons were crucified by the Romans. If Josephus was not the intended king messiah, how could he declare Vespasian as the king messiah and get Pharisees accept a non-Jewish messiah.

            Clearly, Josephus Flavius could not have been the original king messiah. He probably did not have the aspirations and there is an earlier Hasmonean prince who fits much better. The original intended king messiah was Herod I Agrippa, who was born soon after the previous appearance of the Halley Comet in 11 AD or 10 AD, the Star of Bethlehem. The Hasmonean king family was the Bethlehem Ephrata in Mica 5:1, a small family among the families of Judea. Bethlehem Ephrata does not refer to a village but to a family and Herod the Great did not kill sons of the village of Bethlehem, he killed Hasmonean princes. The second genealogy of Jesus includes Jannai, Alexander Jannaeus, who was an ancestor of Herod I Agrippa, the rest of the genealogy also matches Herod Agrippa.

However, Herod I Agrippa died, probably poisoned by Romans. Paul met his son Herod II Agrippa, who said to Paul: easily you think to convert me to Christianity. This may well indicate that Paul tried to get Herod II Agrippa to accept the role of king messiah, but Herod II Agrippa was not interested. After he declined, there was hardly any Hasmonean left. Josephus was one of the very few. Thus, Josephus was likely the intended king messiah, as there had to be one and one cannot find a better candidate. It is very understandable that his books are silent about this fact.

There also had to be a prophet messiah. Only Jesus can fulfill this role in this time period. The role of the prophet messiah was to die for the sins of the people and to redeem the sins, see Zechariah 3:8-9, in one day I will take away the sins of this land, about the Branch, the prophet messiah. This role was essential because the war against Rome could not be won unless God was on the side of the rebels. Form Josephus or from other sources we hear of no other prophet messiah redeeming sins of the people by dying, only of Jesus. Furthermore, the calculation of the time when the messiah comes in Daniel (9:24-27) fits Jesus.

The abomination of desolation in Dan 9:27, which Jesus mentions as a sign to come, fits well to Caligula’s plan to set his statue to the temple in Jerusalem. As Herod I Agrippa was a good friend of Caligula, we can suspect that the idea of putting a statue to the temple was suggested by Herod, who very well knew that it would be an abomination to Jews and be instrumental in starting a popular revolt against Romans. Herod I Agrippa started building a wall around Jerusalem (which Claudius told him to stop), which shows that he intended to separate Judea from Rome. That explains why he died as he did. As the king messiah, told by the comet, he aspired to be the future world ruler of the prophecies.

            Now we have found both the king messiah Herod I Agrippa, later Josephus, and the prophet messiah Jesus. This is not in any way to imply that Herod I Agrippa and Jesus worked together in some kind of a plot for conquering the world. The prophet messiah was selected by prophetic schools or circles, while the king messiah came from the court. In the old Israelite system of government there were three institutions, which were relatively independent: the king with his court, the high priest of the temple, and the prophet from a prophet school. Usually the prophet criticized the deeds of the king, as John the Baptist criticized Herod Antipas and was beheaded. Jesus did not prophesize success in the coming war (he did know of the war, he had come to bring the sword, not the peace): he predicted that the temple would be destroyed in the Day of the Lord, the Jews would not repent and only few selected would be saved. In fact, all this follows from the books of the prophets, so Jesus could not predict in any other way. Herod I Agrippa was not too happy with the Jesus movement and beheaded Jacob the Greater, but after Herod tried to declare himself divine, he died suddenly.

            The books of the Old Testament can also be divided into these three institutions. The five books of Moses are priestly and contain the law. The historical and the fictional historical books are courtly history and largely include propaganda aimed for claiming the Northern Kingdom as a part of later Judea. Most of the rest is prophetic. It includes the books of the prophets and the wisdom literature (Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs). What remains is also quite interesting, Esther may be fiction, but it shows one way of getting to power by infiltration with women.

            Who the prophet messiah is and what Jesus therefore said follows directly from the Old Testament, which is natural as there was no New Testament that Jesus could read. All of the books have hints to the messiah, or to the two messiahs, the king and the prophet. Small prophets and wisdom literature have the clearest references and it is from them that we can learn that Jesus was the son of God and more than a man. Proverbs 30:4 says: “Who has gone up to heaven and come down? Whose hands have gathered up the wind? Who has wrapped up the waters in a cloak? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is the name of his son? Surely you know!” So, God has a son and the son is Wisdom. The prophet messiah is not quite a man because Psalm 49:7-8 says: “No one can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom for them— the ransom for a life is costly, no payment is ever enough”. But the messiah redeems, Zechariah 3:9 says of the Branch: ” See, the stone I have set in front of Joshua! There are seven eyes on that one stone, and I will engrave an inscription on it,’ says the LORD Almighty, ‘and I will remove the sin of this land in a single day.” That means, Jesus was not only a man, he was also more than a man.

            The New Testament confirms all this, but it says everything in parables and every story must be interpreted. As an example, in the story where Jesus prays on the Mount of Olives and the disciples were sleeping, Peter sees an apparition of three lights, one around Jesus and two around Moses and Eliah. Assuming that Peter could not see such lights in reality, the story must be interpreted. Moses represents the law of Moses and Eliah represents the books of the prophets. The suffering and blood sacrifice of the prophet messiah, shown in the story by the tears of blood, follows from the books, e.g. Isaiah 53:5-12 and Psalm 22:17, in Septuagint “they dug my hands and feet”, which early translations understand as bite like lions at my hand and feet, or pierce my hands and feet. The task of God’s servant in Isaiah 53:10 is to be the sacrifice that redeems the sins of others.

            Now we see that the prophet messiah is Wisdom and his task was to be sacrificed for redeeming sins. We can understand some parts of the prophecy of Zechariah. In Zech (11:14) God breaks the brotherhood between Judah and Israel. When did this happen? Zechariah prophesized in the time of Darius, around 520 BC. The event in (11:14) does not refer to Saul and David. It must refer to the civil war in Hasmoean times: Aristobulus II rebelled against his brother Hyrcanus II around 66 BC. This may seem strange as most scholars date the Book of Zecharias to the 6th and 5th century allowing only two authors. But this is a common feature in the Old Testament. Prophetic books were edited later. For instance, the Book of Daniel is usually dated to 167 BC because events after Antiochus IV Epiphanes took Jerusalem are not correctly related. But the end is correctly told if we assume that Daniel 11:36-45 refers to Octavian, later Emperor Augustus. Octavian worshipped the new god Julius Caesar and he fought the battle of Actium against Marc Antonius in 31 BC. Later Romans governed Judea from Cesarea between the sea and the temple mount.

            Assuming that it is true that prophetic books were edited up to the times very close to the time of Jesus, we can interpret Zechariah 11:15-17, the description of the bad shepherd. His right eye is blinded and one hand is dried. The three institutions: prophet, king, priest, correspond to Wisdom, Crown, Understanding in the Kabbalistic tree of life. These three pillars existed in the time of Jesus. Paul tells of the three pillars of the Christians of Jerusalem: John, Peter and Jacob the Righteous. Jacob was the priest, responsible for the law and severity. John writes of mercy in his gospel and prophecy in the Revelation. The real leader of the Christian community of Jerusalem was Peter, as Jesus had appointed him as the leader. Jacob was the head of the Church, a high priest, but Peter was the leader of the community, the crown. The highest level nodes in the tree of life are the eyes. The right eye being blind means that the king has no wisdom, no prophecy. Prophecy is wisdom, the prophet messiah is wisdom. He has only an understanding of the law. Below this highest level are the arms. The right arm is mercy, the left is severity/judgment. Thus, Mercy is in the pillar of Wisdom, prophecy. This is correct: prophets always spoke of mercy, so did Jesus as the prophet messiah. In order that nobody mistakes the true nature of the Yahwe religion, let us remember Psalm 2:7-9: He said to me, “You are my son; today I have become your father. Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You will break them with a rod of iron; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.” Reading more of the Old Testament confirms this true character of the religion and the king messiah. Jesus, being merciful, did not make another interpretation of this religion. He only acted the role of the prophet messiah. Nothing in the Old Testament was changed and there is nothing good and kind in this religion, neither for the Jews and especially not for non-Jews.

            The illusion of a kind religion was the work of Apostle Paul. I think Robert Eisenman was correct concluding that Paul was an Idumean, not of Jewish origins. Idumea was forcibly converted to Judaism by Alexander Jannaeus, so Paul was a Jew and his parents were Jews by religion. He could also say that he was of the tribe of Benjamin. This tribe was nearly extinguished in a war against the tribe of Benjamin and in order to survive the men of Benjamin had to look for wives outside their tribe. Thus, it was understood as a mixed tribe and some Idumeans could be accepted as Benjamites. Eisenman thought that Paul was of the Herodos family, as he knew people in Nero’s court and sends greetings to Herodion, his kinsman. As a member of the Herodos family he would have got the citizenship of Rome at birth. Usually Paul’s Roman citizenship is explained by his remark that he was from Tarsus. Tarsus was a free city and the citizens of Tarsus had got the special privilege that they were citizens of Rome. However, a Jew in disapora usually was not a citizen of the city where he lived. Indeed, how could he be. Jews were given privileges, the most important for them being that they did not need to worship the Roman emperor as divine. Roman citizens had to. Thus, either Paul was a Roman citizen, or he was a Jew. The special case of a Herodian could fill both roles: appearing as a Jew to Jews and as a Roman to Romans. Paul does say something of this type, being a Jew to Jews and a Greek to Greeks. Finally, would a Jew of Tarsus have studied under the feet of one of the most famous Rabbis, Gamaliel, not be mentioned as his disciple anywhere and not obeying the rules of Judaism? A member of the Herodes family could.

            The Pauline version of Christianity was a success and it become a good religion. Yet, I doubt that the religion of Jesus was anywhere close to what Christianity is today. It is not that the text of the New Testament were wrong. It is only that a far too kind meaning is read to the text. It is exactly a part of the messianic movement, an effort to conquer the world and rule it with an iron rod. It is much more serious than debt cancellation.

            The Jubilee year has the period of 50 years. The relevant period for messianism seems to be 70 years, so it is not the same. The period of Halley’s Comet was known to be about 70 years. It is more like 76 years, but that only meant that it was not possible to precisely predict the day of the Lord, i.e., the end of the times. (Not the end of the world. Time in Judaism was divided into times. At the end of times there was a catastrophe, like a war or flood, and a new promised people was selected.) There is another 70 years period: the precession of equinoxes moves one degree in about 72 years. As the vision in the sky with a dragon and a woman in the Revelation shows, Christianity was strongly connected with astrology (and with magic, exorcism, sacrifices). There is only one dragon in the night sky, the constellation of Draco. The woman in labor is clearly Ursa Minores and the tragedy of the times was that the polar star was moving away from the box of Ursa Minores, the temple. This is why Josephus writes that in 66 AD a sign was heard from the sky: we are leaving (the God is leaving the temple). The polar star moved towards the Polaris star, but that was to take a thousand years. 

Just for the record, what was the explanation of the verses in Zechariah? It is easy, After the civil war there was only one king that counts here, Herod the Great. So it was him who did not listen to what the prophetic schools had to say. He did not see with his right eye of wisdom, as every king was offered two eyes, those of the priests and those of the prophets, but Herod the Great did not ask the prophets. A big mistake, especially in Judea. One hand dried up. That must be the right hand as the eye of wisdom was the right eye. I have always a problem with right and left. If the Kabbalistic tree of life faces me (as it does) the right side is what appears to me as the left side. In that side there is Wisdom and below it is Mercy. Two attributes of prophets. That is, if the right eye become blind, it is the right hand that dried up. The right eye is wisdom and the right hand is mercy. The bad shepherd had no wisdom (did not ask the prophetic schools, as one should) and had no mercy (like, killed Hasmonean princes, the boys of Bethlehem). Now we see, the foolish shepherd (meaning the king of Jews) was Herod the Great. So, in order to interpret the Gospels, I think the best way is to reason something like this. It is lunatic, yes, but that’s what it was.