John of Gamala
John of Gamala was, according to Luigi Cascioli, a person whom the Catholic Church deliberately conflated with Jesus to build up their religion. Cascioli claims that his book The Fable of Christ is a decisive collection of proof demonstrating that Jesus is the result of manipulation and falsification of documents which in reality refer to John of Gamala, son of Jude the Galilean and grandson of the rabbi Ezechia, a direct descendant of the Hasmonean dynasty founded by Simon, son of Mattathias the Maccabean.
Genealogy
The paternal lineage of Jesus/John of Gamala that is given by Cascioli is as follows:
- Mattathias (founder of the Hasmonean line, heir to the Davidic throne)
- Simon, son of Mattathias
- John Hyrcanus I, son of Simon
- Alexander Jannaeus, son of John Hyrcanus I
- Aristobulus II, son of Alexander Jannaeus
- Ezekias, direct descendant of Aristobulus II
- Judas of Galilee, son of Ezekias
- Jesus, son of Judas, oldest brother of Simon Peter, James the Great, Judas Thaddeus, Jacob, Menahem, Eleazar, and two unnamed sisters. Husband to Mary Magdalene and brother in law to Lazarus. True name: John of Gamala, the Nazarite/Nazarene.
In literature
John of Gàmala was a character from the nineteenth century novel For the Temple by George Alfred Henty. The book depicts him as a heroic figure who fought the Romans, particularly after the latter destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem in 70 AD. After this event John converted and became a disciple of Jesus. In the book's preface Henty clearly specifies that John of Gàmala is simply his literary creation.
Afanasij Ivanovic Bulgakov, the father of Michail Bulgakov, the author of the novel The Master and Margarita and professor of History of Religions at the Theological Academy in Kiev informed his son of having discovered that Gàmala, the homeland of anti-Roman Zealotry, was the true homeland of Jesus, and that the father of Christ was Syrian; in fact Gàmala was located in Gaulanitis, in the southernmost part of Syria. The reference (even if indirect) to Judas the Galilean as father of Jesus is clear. Michail Bulgakov remembered what his father had told him and later included this precise information in his novel, in chapter two dedicated to Pontius Pilate.
The first biblicist to identify John of Gàmala as the person who gave birth to the myth of Jesus was Daniel Massè. A Frenchman born in 1872 with a degree in law who, after dedicating himself to the study of the historical Jesus, wrote the book entitled L'enigme de Jésus Christ. Although he does not offer any concrete proof, through analyses of New Testament documents he arrived at the conclusion that the true identity of Jesus corresponded to that of one of the son of Judas of Galilee. The latter was the most famous first century AD Jewish revolutionary and was born in the city of Gamala. In 6 AD he became the head of the national liberation movement (zealotry) aimed at freeing the nation from Roman rule. Massè indicated him as being the father of seven sons: John (Jesus), Simon (Peter), James the Greater, James the Minor, Judas, Philip, Menahem. In addition, according to the French biblicist, John, son of Judas the Galilean, was John the Baptist.