of character who filled the space around with a presence that did not fail to impress Josephus. It was not beauty – it was rugged character and eyes and smile that made the needy and unhappy flock to him. He was no soft touch however and had an organisational ability that came from his Greek learning. It has been said that his parables reflect a Greek format called Cynicism although it does not mean what it means today. Others call it Sophism which implies study of deep knowledge, which without doubt he had, but in the overall, it was all a curious mix that amazingly smacks of the much derided Scientology with its emphasis on non attachment. How anyone can associate one thing with the other, would no doubt raise hackles, but when we perceive the statement attributed to him with regard to the “day off to bury his father” that one of his followers wanted to take, his answer is not far short of what this modern institution tries to forment. “Let the dead bury the dead ” Tie that in with his scalding rebuke to his mother when she thought she had lost him when he was only eleven years old ” Can you not see that I must go about my father´s business?” and we have short temper, intransigence and royal arrogance. I believe these things stem from real events because they do not show him in the sort of pink light the Church elders would have liked recorded. It also makes him very human to a fault. There is also a type of “mind over matter”and fraternity regard over family duties – a man´s world with business in hand. This is not the voice of an orthodox Jew, but of a stern taskmaster with a mission as disciplined as that of a modern Mormon or Scientologist.
There is therefore no hint in Jesus of anything remotely resembling the traditions of the