Pythagorean Influences (Pythagore influences)
The Dead Sea Scrolls were found after WWII to be regraded as Essenes' library; accordingly this sect that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE in Palestine got big attentions.
Christ Jesus was identified by some scholars with Teacher of Righteousness depicted in the Essenes' library. They think that the Teacher was the true figure of Jesus having lived about 150 years before the time of the Gospels.
Yet, some think that Essenes were actually Pythagorean practitioners who were influenced by Buddhists living around the Dead Sea.
As a consequence, Christ Jesus was linked to Buddhism through Essenes and Pythagoreans, to our surprise, according to a theory.
SECTION I: Christ vs. A Pythagorean
Apollonius of Tyana was better known to Roman citizens than Christ Jesus in the first century.
Apollonius of Tyana (15?–100? AD) was a Greek Neopythagorean philosopher from the town of Tyana in the Roman province of Cappadocia in Asia Minor. Little is certainly known about him. Being a 1st-century orator and philosopher around the time of Christ, he was compared to Jesus of Nazareth by Christians in the 4th century[3] and by various popular writers in modern times...
The sage may really have written some of these works, along with the no-longer extant Biography of Pythagoras...
What we can safely assume is that he was indeed a Pythagorean and as such, in conformity with the Pythagorean tradition, opposed animal sacrifice, and lived on a frugal, strictly vegetarian diet...
A minimalist view is that he spent his entire life in the cities of his native Asia Minor and of northern Syria, in particular his home town of Tyana, Ephesus, Aegae, and Antioch,[18] though the letters suggest wider travels, and there seems no reason to deny that, like many wandering philosophers, he at least visited Rome...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonius_of_Tyana
The rival of Christ in Rome in the first century was a follower of Pythagoras. Though the Pythagorean got more popular than Christ, only noble class Romans seem to have respected Apollonius. According to one account, Apollonius was educated in Tarsos where St. Paul was born. He had big inherited assets but spent them for the poor. Wearing worn-out clothes and walking barefoot, he restored a dead man to life, read thoughts of people, and understood words of animals.
His work can be regarded as one level higher than other magics having been performed among people in Rome, since Apollonius learnt work of Pythagoras, though he could not establish a new religion in Rome like early Christians.
SECTION II: Christ & Pythagoras
Pythagoras ( 570–c. 495 BC) was a Greek but had the base for his activities in Croton, a Greek colony in southern Italy. He is believed to have been killed in Croton or died in Metapontum, southern Italy. Yet it is said that he had traveled to Egypt and might have traveled to India to see the Buddha.
Pythagoras was a believer of metempsychosis. He believed in transmigration, or the reincarnation of the soul again and again into the bodies of humans, animals, or vegetables until it became immortal. His ideas of reincarnation were influenced by ancient Greek religion.Pythagoras was a controversial man. He reportedly killed one of his followers who proved existence of irrational numbers by pushing him off a cliff. Yet, pacifism, communalism, and vegetarianism featured Pythagoras' way, which were shared by followers of Christ Jesus. But there is another thing shared by Pythagoras and Christ:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras#Religion_and_science
As a confirmation, John 21:11 records that Jesus performed a miracle which enabled Simon Peter to catch exactly 153 fish:The figure Vesica Piscis related to 153 is as follows:
"And [Jesus] said to them, 'Cast the net on the right-hand side of the boat and you will find a catch.' So they cast, and then they were not able to haul it in because of the great number of fish.
"Simon Peter went up and drew the net to land, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three; and although there were so many, the net was not torn."
John 21:6,11.
Pythagoreans considered 153 a sacred number. The ratio of 153 to 265 was referred to as "the measure of the fish." That ratio is the very ratio between the height and the width of the Vesica Piscis.
http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/3862/vescicapiscis153265.jpg
When we look into the Life of Pythagoras by Iamblichus, we see the story of how Pythagoras was “going from Sybaris to Krotona. At the shore, he stood with some men fishing with nets; they were still hauling the nets weighed down with fish from the depths. He said he knew the number of fish they had hauled in: 153. The men agreed to do what he ordered if the number of fish was as he said. He ordered the fish to be set free, alive, after they were counted accurately to total 153. Now it is said that in the time the fish were out of the water being counted, none of them died while Pythagoras stood there. He paid them the price of the fish and went to Krotona. They announced the deed everywhere, having learned his name from some children”.
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/pda/thread.php?topic_id=11356
However, note that...
The mathematical ratio of the width of the vesica piscis to its height is the square root of 3, or approximately 1.7320508... (since if straight lines are drawn connecting the centers of the two circles with each other and with the two points where the circles intersect, two equilateral triangles join along an edge). The ratios 265:153 = 1.7320261... and 1351:780 = 1.7320513... are two of a series of approximations to this value, each with the property that no better approximation can be obtained with smaller whole numbers. Archimedes of Syracuse, in his On the Measurement of the Circle, uses these ratios as upper and lower bounds:For 153, refer to http://eereporter.blogspot.com/2011/07/when-forty-years-were-expired.html
1351/780 > Square root of 3 > 265/153
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesica_piscis
Anyway, it is important to think how Christianity was influenced by the then intellectual elite Greek scholars, such as followers of Pythagoras even if Christ Jesus is God Himself:
The fact that the measure of the fish was known to include 153, as one of its two numbers, and that the measure of how many fish the disciples are said to have caught is also 153, has not gone unnoticed by many scholars, with some suggesting that the number of fish in the New Testament episode is simply down to being the most familiar large number to the writer, or a deliberate reference to the geometric nomenclature as a sort of in-joke. It is significant that a story was told of Pythagoras by Iamblichus[2], then Porphyry[3], and later reported by Plato, that is very similar, even in wording, to the Biblical narrative of this event; some scholars have argued that the entire Biblical episode is a coded reference to a geometric diagram, since Pythagoreanism saw geometry and numbers as having deep esoteric meaning, and via Hermeticism (and more minor routes) it was profoundly influential in the development of Hellenic mystery religions, and in certain aspects of gnosticism, an early belief system with disputed origins[4]. While such themes would be unusual if the New Testament was only intended to be taken literally, several modern scholars, as well as most ancient followers of gnosticism, have argued that parts of the New Testament were written as gnostic documents.
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081023145435AAr3Fhs
While Romans were busy being engaged in war with the Parthian Empire, various scholars, philosophers, magicians of various classes, and religious sect members seem to have been moving around the Mediterranean. One of them looks likes having been St. Paul. Apollonius of Tyana must have been another. But, even Jesus Christ looks like having been on this trend. This phenomenon ended eventually when Islam was endowed with Arabs in the seventh century, though Islam was also influenced by Pythagoreans.
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The number 153 is also related to the Second Coming of Christ Jesus:
Another theory is calculated from the observation that Jesus was the 77th generation from Adam. Now, let’s subtract 77 from 153. 153 - 77 = 76. This number (153) could symbolize that Jesus came after the 1st 76 generations of man and will return IN US after the following 76th. His return will be fully visible in the 77th.In this context, the Second Advent of Christ Jesus must be around 2010 as I discussed but not 2060 as Newton predicted. (Refer to http://eereporter.blogspot.com/2011/08/have-ye-your-heart-yet-hardened.html)
http://kluane.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=160&Itemid=216
By the way, a Japanese professor has found that there is a calculation that everybody in the world fails in. He tried it in an international seminar using a projector:
1000 +
40 +
1000 +
30 +
1000 +
20 +
1000 +
10 = ?
He asked the audience to tell the sequence and an answer loudly together. "...Thousand and ten! 5000!" they shouted. But a German participant stood up, saying, "It is 4100! It is easy!" And, an Italian also stood up with a calculator in the hand, "It is 5000. See the calculator...Oh, it is 4100! This device is broken!" He threw away the poor electronic calculator.
(http://youseijuku.org/?p=369)
What is remarkable in the above example is that the four intermediate steps of + 40, + 30, + 20, and + 10 were used to obtain the conclusion.
Anyway what is this?
5 + X = 5000 + 12 x 5
X = 5 x (1000 + 12 - 1) = 5 x 1011
= 5055
There were 55 men and women who were following Christ Jesus as a holy band 2000 years ago.
If 5000 people are actually 4100, then X = 5 x (820 + 12 - 1) = 5 x 831 = 4155
There were still 55 men and women who were following Christ Jesus as a holy band 2000 years ago.
Of course, when people and His followers came to a mountain to listen to Christ Jesus, everyone had secretly one loaf of bread in his or her pocket in case.
Mar 8:19 When I brake the five loaves among five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? They say unto him, Twelve.