TCC

After Hamon withdrew the Ark of the Covenant the king of Babylon burned down  the temple in Yerushalayim and forever  ended  the line of  Dawid on the throne. The city became a ruin  and  the countryside round about was reduced to a mere tenth of its for- mer population.

The surviving soldiers of Yehudah and much of the  common  folk fled as far as Eygpt. Bands of brigands multiplied in the hills to take their place. King Nebuchadnezzar marched the princes and scribes and  priests and great men  to Babylon. With his  army went the spoils of the city.

But fifty years later the king of Persia defeated  Babylon  and allowed many  of the exiled Yehudim to return  from  captivity. Nehemiah restored the temple and Ezra restored the  priesthood. But they were conpelled to pay tribute to the Persians from the increase of the temple.

After those days a Macedonian king conquered the known world in a campaign that ceased only with his untimely death. His gener- als divided the conquests among themselves to rule as kings  in their turn. In a violent uprising against one particularly over- weening king the Yehudim cast off the Greek yoke and  annointed their own high priest as king. For fifty years they paid tribute to no foreign power.

A Roman general named Pompey conquered Syria and elevated  John Hyrcanus II over King Aristobulus II as ethnarch of the Yehudim. He was followed by his  grandson Antigonus. But when Antigonus was murdered by the foreigner, Herod, the Roman Senate set aside the lesser title of ethnarch and named this Idumean the king of Yehudah.

Then Bar-El remembered his covenant with Avraham, when he prom- ised to make a great nation of the fruit of his loins, and make their cities secure in the land of promise. A tiny remnant had been set aside after the fall of Jerusalem, priests of the house of Levi who thrived in Kemen despite every attempt by Malkuth to put them to the edge of the sword. Yet Bar-El was not satisfied with this state of affairs.

At his home in Haaretz Hamon took counsel with his wife and two of the B'nei Elohim. He spoke to them of the strange ways of the Yehudim in the season of the second temple.

HAMON: 

LILITH: 

HAMON: 

ELIN: 

HAMON: 

LILITH: 

ELIN: [Your counsel seems good, Your Majesty, but the  greatest obstacle is  the temple. It has been centuries since  a  real prophet of  the  school of the B'nei Hannebim  has  been  heard preaching to them. They have a tradition that Eliyahu will re- turn to them, but now it almost borders on myth.

Elin turned  to hear if Yonan would give counsel. After all, Yonan really was the Eliyahu that che had just mentioned.

YONAN: [I have given it some thought. There might be a way,  a rite  that involves water. I believe I can show them how to re- store their right standing with God without recourse to  sacri- fices at the temple]

HAMON: [And yet, Yonan, if you go once more to the children  of Yisrael and preach against their temple it may come to pass that you will be put to death. So they habitually did to the prophets I once sent to them]

YONAN: [Nevertheless,  Lord, I am willing go, as it  was  never appointed to the B'nei Elohim to abide long in the flesh]

Hamon nodded his acceptance, then turned to catch the eye of his wife.

LILITH: [You already know my feelings on the matter, Hamon, and I know you will walk with Yonan into the teeth of danger as you once did alone at Adan. At the very least allow me to accompany you to Earth and share the risk until the very end. But do take under advisement that after the end, if you insist on committing suicide by  agency of the Yehudim or the Romans,  I  will  have things my own way]

Hamon smiled with genuine affection for his wife.

HAMON: [And  I am sure you will remain silent about  what  that really means, as you also once did at Adan]

After that the B'nei Hannebim were seen once more in the world. They set the Migdal in Tarichee back in order and taught at the Tower of Fish once more. There Yonan took the ancient Nazarite vow. He could touch no wine nor any dead thing, and  no  razor could come near to his head.

Yonan altered his name slightly to Yohanan, but from his vow he was also called the Nazarene. The men and women who followed him were called Nazareans.

With his preaching Yohanan introduced a water immersion  ritual called the  tevilah. It was for repentance and  the  spiritual cleansing from sins. At first, while the temple yet  existed, there was fierce resistance to this practice, but in the  years that followed when the temple and the city was destroyed a sec- ond time the immersion of Yohanan was reluctantly  embraced  by the  survivors. Two thousand years later the  Yehudim  would still construct facilities called mikveh to practice this rite. By tradition construction of the mikveh even took priority over the building of a synagogue.

Yohanan drew to himself four disciples who acted in the role of screeners. They would listen to the people confess their  sins and judge whether they were ready to advance to the  waters  of the river Yarden to be immersed of Yohanan.

Hamon himself went about Galilee as the fifth of Yohanan's dis- ciples, and the people came to know his healing touch  even  as the people of Shalem once did in Kemen. Hamon told the onlook- ers and the other disciples of Yohanan, who did not know a ser- aph on sight, that he was called Yeshua bar Yosef.

All Yohanan could do, after his disciples determined they  were contrite, was immerse them in living water and  give  assurance they were  forgiven by God. He could not make them  physically well. But when Yeshua laid his hands on them they received genu- ine healing  even as many of them hoped would  accompany  their conversion.

The crowd of people who came to see the sect of  the  Nazarenes began to grow much faster than was true in the beginning.

Yeshua healed a man who was thought to be a leper  and  ordered him to make a gift to the priest in the temple of God according to the Mosaic Law, but he was saddened because the man only had psoriasis. He was not infectious, yet the priests had commanded him to live in solitude.

Yeshua healed  a man with a withered hand on Shabbat,  but  the priests and scribes and teachers of the Law rebuked him, saying that was  a day when no  work should  be  done. Yeshua  could hardly believe his ears.

YESHUA: [If your lamb falls in a hole on Shabbat, will you not fetch it out? This man is worth much more  than a lamb!]

Yohanan's disciple  Andreia spoke of Yeshua's healings  to  his brother, Shimon, a boatman who caught fish on Lake Kinneret  to be  dried and preserved by salt in Tarichee. Shimon listened to what  Andreia  told him of  Yohanan's  preaching. Andreia also spoke of Yeshua's power and how the crowds coming to hear  them grew ever larger. For a time Shimon left his boat in the hands of the men who worked under him that he might join his  brother and also become a Nazarene.

Yohanan walked with his growing retinue of disciples and a crowd of onlookers to the capital city of Tiberias, which  was  newly built on Lake Kinneret. There he preached directly from the Code of Moshe. One passage in particular seemed poignant.

YOHANAN : [If a man marries his brother's wife he has dishonored his brother with impurity. They shall be childless]

When Herod Antipas heard these words he knew Yohanan was delib- erately antagonizing him. He had married Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, after she had divorced him. She deemed Anti- pas to have a more promising future. But there was no provision in the Code of Moshe for a woman to initiate a divorce. She had invoked Roman law to do this, and Philip was likely intimidated by a powerful Roman someone not to contest it.

Herodias pitched a fit, so Herod Antipas sent forth lackeys from among the Jews armed with clubs. They were ordered to seize Yo- hanan and  mistreat any of his disciples who would  attempt  to thwart the arrest of their master.

When Yohanan saw the Herodians he called them the get of vipers.

YOHANAN: [Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath of God?]

HERODIAN: <Certainly the blameless under the law do nothing wor- thy of repentance. How then would such as we come under condem- nation?]

YOHANAN: [Even now the axe is made sharp. Every tree which does not bear good fruit shall fall victim to the tree feller]

VIPER: [Save your admonitions for the foreign soldiers and  the gentiles of Galilee. We are the children of the Covenant!]

Yohanan picked up two stones as though to cast missiles.

YOHANAN: [Blood means nothing to God, for he is able  of  these stones to raise up the descendants he promised Avraham!]

Shimon, the brother of Andreia, moved to stand close to Yohanan, as he was a large and formidable man who was zealous  to  prove himself as  a new disciple. But he was waved off. Yohanan had made his point. The ones who claimed to be blameless under the law supported an adulterer.

Yohanan's four original disciples were Phillipos, Andreia, Bar- thulumawus, and Yudah. They all thought God would strike  down the men who took Yohanan captive. So they said and did nothing, and merely watched until Yohanan disappeared from view.

After that  the  disciples wailed in grief. They rent  their clothes and tore at their beards. As the day wore on and Yohanan did not return to them the crowd began to disperse.

PHILIPPOS (to Yeshua): 

YESHUA: 

Something about Yeshua's words conveyed a deep  sincerity  that immediately convinced all the disciples. Barthulumaus sobbed, Yudah pulled at his hair. Shimon wringed his hands.

ANDREIA: 

YESHUA: 

Yohanan's disciples  remained near the palace until  sunset  as Philippos  held on to the hope that his master would  simply  be beaten  and released. But it grew dark, and he asked of  Yeshua dolefully where they should go next.

YESHUA: [I have money. We shall dine and lodge here in Tiberias tonight, and when it is light we shall go north]

Yeshua knew there was a broken trust between people over  need- less scarcity on Earth as it was in Kemen. This was made mani- fest when  he led his disciples through rocky fields  and  over fences of stones rather than walking the roads. Yudah of Kerioth asked why.

YESHUA: 

When they were come to the city of Tarichee on  Lake  Kinnereth Yeshua spoke to Yohanan's other disciples and the crowd that had followed them.

YESHUA: [Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Give to anyone who asks, and if anyone takes away your belongings, do not demand to have them back. If you only love those who love you, what credit is that  to  you? Even the tax collectors love those who love them, do they  not? And if you embrace only your brothers, what more are you  doing than the heathens? If you lend only to those from whom you ex- pect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners  lend with the expectation to be repaid. Instead, lend without expect- ing anything in return, and your reward will be great in heaven. For God makes his sun rise on both the evil and on the good; he sends rain on the just and on the unjust]

A man  named Mattiya was so moved by what Yeshua said  that  he drew near.

MATTIYA: [Teacher, I would that you and your disciples  recline at table in my house, for I would hear more]

Yeshua accepted, but Barthulumawus objected that the man was  a tax collecting sinner.

YESHUA: [The taxes ultimately flow to Rome, Barthulumawus,  and you fail to see how the Romans deflect the anger of  those  who pay the taxes by directing it against our brothers who gather it for them]

BARTHULUMAWUS: [Teacher, you well know this man makes  his  own living by what he can extract over and above what Rome  demands of the people]

YESHUA: [Howbeit, I am not calling the righteous to repentance]

As they dined Mattiya asked about conditions in the coming king- dom of God.

YESHUA: [What will the kingdom of God be like? To what should I compare it? It will be like yeast which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour until it leavened the whole mass. Store up treasure for yourselves in a heavenly account,  where  moths and rust do not consume, and where thieves cannot break in  and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will  also be. Strive to enter the kingdom by the narrow way, for many will try to enter and will not be able. Once the owner of the house has locked the door they will stand outside, knock at the door, and say,  'We  ate and drank with you, and you  taught  in  our streets,' But he will say, 'I do not know you. Depart from me, all you who work evil]

After hearing all these things, Matthiya begged to be  numbered with Yeshua's disciples.

YESHUA: [You must immediately abandon your work as a publican to follow me]

Mattiya agreed and the objection of Barthulumawus  over  dining with a tax collector was answered quite neatly. Yeshua led his disciples to the shore Lake Kinneret that Mattiya might be bap- tized, and  he  asked Barthulumawus to do  the  honors.

Yeshua watched his disciple intently but Barthulumawus  thought his scutiny to be unnecessary. He knew the meaning of the ritual cleansing taught of him by Yohanan even before Yeshua first made his own appearance. And when Mattiya was come again out of the waters of the lake he was fully accepted by  Barthulumawus  and all of the disciples as one of their own.

Yeshua wife Miriam came out of the Tower of Fish and kissed him on the lips. The disciples saw how she was arrayed like a queen, which in fact she was, and fair of hair and skin, like those who came from the mountains in the north of Italy. Miriam spoke to her husband in a tongue that was strange to the disciples.

LILITH: [Will Vulgar Latin be sufficiently obscure that we  may speak openly?]

HAMON: [You may speak openly with the Syrian tongue,  Lil. Al- ready my followers think you to be afflicted with devils]

And indeed,  until that momen Yohanan's  disciples  never  knew Yeshua to speak anything but Aramaic, or read aloud Hebrew from scripture.

LILITH: [Yohanan has been executed. Joanna is the wife of Her- od's steward,  Chuza, and she saw it happen. It was  a  clean death. Antipas actually respected him, according to Joanna. He liked to hear him preach, he just needed him off the street. But Herodias could never forgive what he preached about her in pub- lic so she maneuvered to have him beheaded]

HAMON: [Thus have they done to all the prophets of God Most High from Hebel to Zechariah]

Yeshua glanced at Philippos, who had begun to weep openly,  and he expressed genuine sorrow.

PHILIPPOS: [When you told me I would never see the Teacher again you spoke truly]

As the evening came on Miriam invited the closest followers  of Yeshua  to  lodge in the Migdal, the Tower of Fish,  and  Yeshua himself went in to his wife.

In the morning Yeshua, Miriam, and his followers began to wander through Galilee and Samaria on the west side of the Yarden riv- er, and they also visited Edom and Perea on the east side. An- tipas ruled all of these lands, and the  religious  authorities who favored  Herod always shadowed Yeshua. As Yeshua  roamed Perea making the sick whole, crowds began to grow again as they did in Galilee.

One of them asked if they should be separated from the one  who sins.

YESHUA: [How can you look for the splinter in your brother's eye and not notice the stick in your own eye? How can you  say  to your  brother, "Let me remove the splinter in your   eye,"  when you do not see the stick in your own eye?]

Another one of them asked what to do to attain to the resurrec- tion.

YESHUA: [Everyone who hears my words and does them is like a man who built  a  house on rock. The rain fell,  a  torrent  broke against the house, and it did not fall, for it had a rock foun- dation. But everyone who hears my words and does not do them is like  a man who built a house on sand. The rain came, the  tor- rent broke against it, and it collapsed. No one lights a  lamp and puts it under a bushel basket. The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is good your whole body will be full of light. But if it is bad your whole body will be full of darkness. And if the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness]

A third begged Yeshua to tell his brother to divide an  inheri- tance with him.

YESHUA: [Sir, who made me your judge or lawyer?]

Yeshua then told the crowd a parable.

YESHUA: [The land of a rich man produced in abundance,  and  he thought  to  himself, "What should I do, for I have  nowhere  to store  my  crops?' Then he said, 'I will put down my  barns  and build  larger ones, and there I will store all my grain  and  my goods. And I will say to myself, 'You have ample goods stored up for many years. Eat, drink, and be merry.' But God said to  him, 'Foolish man! This very night your life is required of you,  and the  things you produced, whose will they be? That is what  hap- pens  to the one who stores up treasure for himself and  is  not rich  in  the sight of God. So I am telling you,  do  not  worry  about  your  life, what you will eat, or about your  body,  what  you  will  wear. Isn't life more than food, and  the  body  more  than  clothing?  Think of the ravens. They do not  plant,   har- vest,  or store grain in barns, and God feeds them. Aren't   you worth more than the birds? Which one of you can add a single day to your life by worrying? And why do you worry about clothing? Think of the way lilies grow. They do not work or spin. If God puts beautiful clothes on the grass that is in the field  today and tomorrow is thrown into a furnace, won't he put clothes  on you,  fainthearts? So, don't worry, thinking,  'What  will  we eat,'  or  'What will we drink,' or, What  will we  wear?'  Your father knows that you need these things. Instead, make  certain of his  rule over you, and all these things will  be  yours  as well]

Then Hamon sent his followers to the cities of Galilee by twos.

YESHUA: [Stay in the same house, eating and  drinking  whatever they provide, as the worker deserves his wages. When you enter a town, if they receive you, pay attention to the poorest  ones and say  to them, 'God's kingdom has come near to you.' But  if you  enter  a town and they do not receive you, shake the   dust from your  feet and say, 'Nevertheless, be sure  of  this,  the kingdom of God has already come to you.']

After he finished saying these things, a woman from  the  crowd spoke up.

WOMAN: [How  fortunate  is the womb that  bore  you,  and   the breasts that you sucked!]

YESHUA: How fortunate,  rather, are those who listen  to  God's teaching and observe it!]

When the disciples returned from the field they reported  mixed results. Yeshua's wife also weighed in.

MIRIAM: [You  should to take your ministry  to  another  level. Nothing will come of antagonizing the Herodian faction here  in the  north, and the common folk only come to you with a mind  to be healed, not to embrace God's Kingdom]

Then Yeshua spoke against the Galilean towns.

YESHUA: [Woe  to you, Chorazim! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the deeds performed among you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have changed their ways long ago, sitting  in   sackcloth and ashes. In the judgement Tyre and Sidon will have a lighter punishment than you. And you, Capernaum, do you think you will be praised to high heaven? Sodom will have a lighter punishment on the day of judgment than your town!]

Yeshua and his followers moved south from Lake  Kinneret  along the Yarden River past Yeriho until they reached the steep  road that wound twenty miles into the Yudean hills to  Yerushayalim. But at this fork in the desert road they took to their tents and did not ascend until the morning after Shabbat had passed.

Along the route were many caves where travelers could take shel- ter during the night. When they drew near to the city late on Monday  afternoon the apostles unburdened their donkey and  car- ried the supplies on their own backs so that Hamon  could  ride the animal through the gates. This he did to fulfill what was written by the prophet Zechariah: "Behold, your king  comes  to you:  he is just, and brings salvation.  He is lowly, and  comes upon the foal of an ass."

The symbolism of this gesture was not lost on the  people,  who hailed him as their king, and most particularly it was not lost on the ruling priests.

Yeshua leased a second-floor room in the heart of the  city  to serve  as his temporary base of operations. The way leading to this  property  was a twisting labyrinth of narrow  "roads"  not much larger than a passageway indoors.

On Tuesday morning the people who lived in and around Jerusalem saw Yeshua  heal the infirm and they heard him  teach  for  the first time. Prior to this he had remained solely in the  north country even as his reputation spread much further. He taught from the  ridge east of the city amid the olive  trees  planted there. One of the men in the crowd demanded to see a sign.

YESHUA: [A wicked generation looks for a sign, but no sign will be shown to it. The queen of the south will arise at the judge- ment and condemn this generation. For she came from the ends of the  earth  to hear the wisdom of Solomon,  but  now  something greater than Solomon is here. The men of Nineveh will arise  at the judgement and condemn this generation. For they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and look, something greater than   Jonah is here. Fortunate is the servant whom the master finds serving the household meals at the proper time. I tell you for sure, his master will promote him and give him charge of all his  posses- sions. But if that servant says to himself, 'My master is de- layed' and  begins to mistreat his fellow servants and  to  eat and drink with the wayward crowd, the master will come on a day and hour he does not know. He will punish him severely and con- sign him to the destiny of those who are unfaithful]

Yeshua continued to speak to the crowds in a voice that no  one had trouble to hear, and some put this down to a trick  of  the stone walls around him, but Miriam knew his stentorian voice was a standard part of the B'nei Elohim tool kit.

YESHUA: [When you see a cloud rising in the west you say, 'It is going to  rain'; and so it does. When a south wind is  blowing you say, 'It will be hot'; and so it comes to be. If you  know how to read the signs of the sky, why can't you judge the signs of the  times? The son of man is coming at an hour you do  not expect. Nothing is hidden that will not be made known, or  se- cret that will not come to light. Every one who admits in pub- lic that they know me, the son of man will acknowledge   before the angels of God. But the one who disowns me in public,   the son of man will disown before the angels of God. The days  are coming when they will say to you, 'Look, he is in  the  wilder- ness.' Do  not  go out. Or 'Look, he is  sequestered  in  some house.' Do not follow them. For just as lightning flashes  and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so it will be  on the day when the son of man appears. Just as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be on the day of the son of man. They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage right  up until the day when Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and took them all. In the days of Lot it was the same - they  ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted,  they  built. But on the day when Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. This is how it will be  on the  day when the son of man appears. I am telling you, on that night there will be two in the field. One will be seized and the other left. Two women will be grinding together. One will  be taken and the other left. Where the corpses are, there the vul- tures will gather]

In the evening after supper Yeshua found, to his delight,  that he could walk in a certain garden near an olive oil press in the Kidron Valley and none of the crowds followed him or even  knew he was outdoors. He could lose them in the winding streets of the city and by the narrow hidden ways that he went to and  from the Upper Room. Yeshua's fame had become a heavy burden and he savored those moments when the eyes of the people were not  upon him, and  their  hands were not stretched  out  begging  to  be healed.

On Wednesday morning Yeshua paid a visit to the temple. His ini- tial plan was to preach from Yeremiah concerning how the temple had become  a den of thieves. Not a place where thievery  took place, but where thieves went to avoid the consequences of their theft. He was unprepared for the real situation.

Without sensing the irony, the Yehudim made a mandatory pilgrim- age once a year to Yerushayalim to offer sacrifice in what began as a harvest festival and later became a celebration of freedom from slavery, all while remaining slaves of Rome.

This 'celebration' of liberty was required by the Code of Moshe, but very few of the people of Yehudah were actually involved in raising the animals specified for slaughter so the situation was ripe for  abuse. The presence of soldiers even spoke of  Roman graft.

Yeshua grew angry to see how the outer court had become a teem- ing marketplace.

Animals acceptable for sacrifice were sold at a huge markup, and coins were changed, again for a steep fee, into special 'temple money' conveniently  acceptable to the priests for  the  temple tax.

What made it special is that it was minted at Tyre and  guaran- teed to be at least ninety-five percent pure silver. The priests were willing to overlook the image of Heracles and of the pagan temple that was stamped on them for the peace of mind the value of the money was not diluted.

In a bold piece of theater for public consumptopn  Yeshua  pro- duced one of the silver disks that had been minted by  Antipas, with no image whatsoever, but the moneychangers said  that  was not acceptable to God. So Yeshua found some rope and began to prepare  it as a whip while telling his disciples to prepare  to be bouncers and block anyone who tried to stop him. Yeshua then ripped through  the Court of the Gentiles with  genuine  wrath, flipping tables.

YESHUA: [The house of my father is a place for worship and pray- er, but you have made it into a place to turn a profit!]

None of his disciples had ever seen him act that way before.

Sadducees come down to confront this rabble-rouser, Yeshua, the one the Herodians had described in their epistles, as he was now attacking their own livelihood. A portion of the profits made in the temple were kicked upstairs to them, and a portion of that, in turn, was kicked further upstairs to the Romans.

The priests  took up stones to strike him, but they  could  not kill Yeshua for fear of the crowd and the disciples who  closed around their  master. So they sent to the Roman governor  for reinforcements.

Yeshua wasn't done playing with his food.

YESHUA: [Behold the land owning priests who crave approval from the Romans, and to be seen in purple robes, to have loud saluta- tions in the marketplace, and a place of honor at  the  feasts. Shame on you, for you are scrupulous about accepting a tithe of mint and dill and cumin, but you neglect justice and the love of God. These things you ought to have required, without neglecting the others. You clean the outside of the cup and the dish,  but inside you  are full of greed and incontinence. You love  the front seats   in the assemblies and greetings  in  the  market- places. Shame on you, for you are like graves, outwardly  beau- tiful, but full of pollution inside. You load people with bur- dens to heavy to bear, but you yourselves refuse to carry  even a light load. You erect memorials for the very  prophets  your own fathers killed. God will hold this generation  accountable for the blood of all the  prophets shed from the foundation  of the world!]

Yeshua saw the presence of the temple police was  beginning  to grow, and scattered among them were soldiers of Legio III Galli- ca detached from their garrison in Damascus to  maintain  order during Pesach.

One by one, he began suggesting to his disciples that they dis- appear into the crowd. Some of them hesitated to go and Yeshua made it an imperative. At the end only Mattiya and Yeshua among the Nazareans remained standing in the temple courtyard, because Mattiya emphatically refused his master's command to escape.