The simple mathematics of Jesus

€ 14.95, epub 2.99

PDF online. In 2012-2024 this was behind a paywall because religion was a special interest group.
With the 2025 world crisis, there are wrong developments on religion so that it becomes an issue of general concern.
While SMOJ is agnostic on the origin of Jesus, since 2022 I recognise the Roman management of religion in the Roman Empire, see below.

Cover text

See pages 1 to 12 with Contents and Introduction

Included: Education of mathematics and brain research, July 2011
 

Structure of the essay

5000 years of history are not easy to handle.
The book consists of "panels" of each a page, that each summarizes key information. 
The panels are collected by kind: theory, astronomy / astrology, cultural layer, patterns, and evaluation.
The leading questions are: what do we want to know, and what can we prove ?
Since the information is available in panels, the reader is free to pose the own questions:
wat do you want to know, and what do you consider proven ?
In the evaluation at the end, the essay crystallises into the questions indicated by logic,
in what we necessarily want to know and can use as proof for that.
 

Readership

Introducing the book
Why Christ came down to Earth
Historical judgement on Jesus and the sieve of realism

Article

Review by an outsider of ancient history and new testament studies of
"Maurice Casey (2014): Jesus. Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths" (May 11 2014)
How a mainstream historical method creates its own Jesus. Not quite a Book Review: Comparing "Israël verdeeld" (Israel divided) by Lendering 2014 with "The simple mathematics of Jesus" by Colignatus 2012 (December 6 2014)

Update on rabbits and Carotta 2025

SMOJ 2012 is not outdated. The "panels" in SMOJ are still relevant for understanding the elements in history, philosophy and theology. SMOJ locates key events around the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and ends with the open question that we still know too little for more definite answers about the origin of Christianity. Since 2012 I have been looking at the issue on occasion, see here.

Neil Godfrey reported on the finding by Russell Gmirkin that the Books of Moses, Genesis to Deuteronomy, would be based largely upon the writings of Babylonian and Egyptian historians - rather than upon verbal transmission in Jerusalem over the centuries. When Ptolemy took over Egypt, he not only syncretised Serapis for the Greeks and Egyptians, but he also had to do something about Canaan, whence the Septuagint (LXX), about 270 BCE. There may not have been a Hebrew bible before LXX. A tidbit of proof is that "rabbit" or "hare" would not occur in the LXX. (In Leviticus 11:6 an English translation has rabbit but the original LXX uses hyrax.) Ptolemy descended from Lagos, Greek for hare. The reference might have been abused as a symbol of promiscuity. The Middle East might only have known hares, with rabbits likely later imported from Spain when the Roman empire expanded (wiktionay, LSJ, and the LSJ lexicon on lagon).

I now recognise that Francesco Carotta's hypothesis is the proper explanation for the rise of Christianity. The Roman origin explains why Christianity took over the whole Roman empire in such short time of 350 years given the entrenched beliefs in Jupiter and his pantheon. Remember that the Romans had a government department for dealing with religious affairs, and that they knew that winning the hearts and minds of people was more effective and cheaper and generating more tax revenue than conquest by force. This leaves the "panels" of SMOJ intact but it provides the proper red line in the history. Wikipedia: Ethelbert Stauffer "undertook much research into the relationship between the Roman sources and early Christianity. He showed that the Easter liturgy does not follow the Gospel but the funerary ritual of Julius Caesar (...) and that the Clementia Caesaris was the pre-Christian forerunner of Christ's forgiveness." Julius Caesar had been called the "divine saviour", in Greek "Theos Soter" (omega), what for the Roman soldiers stationed in Palestine became Jewish "Joshua" meaning "God is salvation". First there was the "Divus Julius" cult after the assassination of Caesar in 44 BC. The Roman civil war was won by Augustus, son of Divus, which gave the "divine emperor cult". The Book of Revelations by John can be analysed as a transformation of Octavian's role in the civil war. The number of the beast 666 is a code for Cleopatra. She was Caesar's wife and mother of his biological son Caesarion, and thus a direct threat to adopted Augustus. Vespasian and Titus who destroyed Jerusalem had to invent something to handle the dispersed Jews and also for their own worship since they were no family of the Julians (so that Divus Julius presented a problem). Later Constantine made it official. Thus we have IC -> IX (Iulius Caesar is turned into Iesous Xristos (Greek X = Chi)). There was a "historical Jesus" but not quite what scholars would regard as a "historical Jesus".

Jiang Xueqin lets the Hebrew Bible be written by scholars in the court of David. Jesus would have existed as a gnostic preacher, see the gospel of Thomas. Apostle Paul would have turned Christianity into something quite different. This is one way to look at it indeed. My earlier estimate was that there might have been 38 preaching Jesuses and 10 of those might have been crucified. This increases the chance that there was our unique Jesus Christ too. But it also increases the burden of proof why he would have been so exceptional. The analysis by Carotta is much more convincing.

Would we be able to discuss these issues without getting bogged down into politics ? Martin Luther had effectively established the separation of church and state (not to be confused with the peace of Westphalia). When elected as US House Speaker in 2023 Mike Johnson called this separation into question, given his background as (revised) evangelical, wanting to have a theocracy. A Newsweek article in 2024 discusses that the Speaker may decide that votes for a presidential election may be reconsidered by the States. The Speaker might be seduced to an abuse of legal power rather than a violent insurrection as happened in 2021. Frank Schaeffer, who grew up in an evangelical cult with his father in a prominent role, warns about Johnson's political aims. It still should be possible to discuss the origins of Christianity without such recent political developments.