Unearthing text excluded from the canonical Bible during the First Council of Nicaea, biblical historians at the University of Oxford revealed Thursday that the man recognized by Christians as the Son of God chose Jesus Christ as a stage name in order to come off as less Jewish. “According to these newly discovered writings, Jesus was advised that He would never make it as a religious figure or be worshipped by billions with a last name like Moskowitz,” textual scholar Dean Wilson said of the reconstructed Gospel passage, in which Jesus appears to adopt the surname Christ so He can appeal to a broader audience in the antisemitic Roman Empire. “As Jesus Moskowitz, He had done pretty well drawing local crowds in Galilee, but He concluded that if He ever wanted to be anything more than a small-time cult leader with some revolutionary ideas, He’d need a less ethnic-sounding name. And of course, it was as Jesus Christ that He achieved worldwide success. He was so pleased with the change that He later advised Saul of Taurus to drop his Hebrew name for the Latinized Paul in order to attract more Romans to Christianity.” The new finding by biblical scholars follows a startling discovery last year in which art historians concluded that frequent depictions of Jesus with European features merely reflect the fact that Christ’s vanity and His hunger for fame and glory led Him to get nose job.
Interesting but not a complete shocker.
So, what do you think? Was Jesus anti-Semitic? Did bronze-age monks make up an Anglican name, because they couldn’t reconcile his actual Jewish name? Or was it intentional to white-wash him into someone church endorsed illiterate Europeans would worship?