The Jesus Dynasty: An Alternative History of Jesus' Royal Family By Destro
This is a thesis I have been working on that began with me trying to figure out why King Herod would according to New Testament accounts go out of his way to order a massacre of new born males upon hearing of Magi's tale of the birth of Jesus.
If the event did happen - and I think it did - then I an explanation for Herod's motives needs to be found.
First we must understand the significance of the Magi. The Magi were the holy men of the Zoroastrian faith and thus would have been considered a hostile presence by the Roman world. The Romans were in a Cold War with the Persian empire of their day and the borders were closely watched and patrolled by both sides. Unlike what one may think, the borders of that are were not free to travelers - if the Magi or the so called 'Three Wise Men' were entering Roman territory they must have entered through a check point. The Magi probably traveled as part of a large caravan and thus could not have sunk in and told of their wealth and importance.
This is the scenario I see from the past that relates to Jesus Christ and the situation around his birth.
The era of Herod/Roman rule was an uneasy one for the local Hebrew people. They were always on the verge of open revolt. There were many factions that were agitating for revolt against the ruling order. It seems Jesus was born into a family that may have had such a movement of resistors gathered around it.
The New Testament says that both Mary's line and Joseph's line were of royal blood via David.
The lineage of Jesus is recorded in two places: Joseph's lineage is recorded in Matthew 1:1-17 and Mary's in Luke 3:28-38.
The Matthew genealogy follows Joseph's line (Jesus' legal father), through David's son Solomon. Luke follows Mary's line (Jesus' blood mother), through David's son Nathan.
Through both of these lines, Jesus Christ is David's descendant and is eligible to be the promised Messiah. Though while many focus on the Messiah aspect of the lineage few comment on the fact that this lineage made Jesus eligible to also be a secular (non messiah) king of Jerusalem as well.
Joseph and Mary need not have come from a main branch of the royal David line. In fact of David's humble origins are accurate then David had many relatives who were royal without the trappings of wealth and office though they retained the prestige of belonging to the royal line.
It is easy to see a following develop around the Joseph/Mary clan. In fact it may have been Mary's line that this resistance was centered on. Why do I think so? Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, were cousins. John The Baptist and Jesus were thus also cousins.
I will get to John and Jesus later.
Babylon, where the Magi came from was a major center of Jewish life outside of Roman rule and thus a likely center for support of Jewish resistance to Roman rule. The Persian Shah would no doubt have helped the Jewish resistance with aid. When Mary gave birth to Jesus word would have gone to the east - to Babylon - announcing the birth of a royal son born under auspicious signs. The Zoroastrians looking for allies against the Romans could have authorized a diplomatic mission via their Magi acting as emissaries of good will to present gifts to the new born prince Jesus (and maybe gain an ally against Rome).
The arrival of such a delegation to Herod's territory would clearly have made Herod paranoid about Persian support of a rival. The Persian ambassadors would have been untouchable under the rules of diplomacy and were allowed to depart. In fact the New Testament clearly states that Jesus' family fled only after the Magi departed.
The massacre of the innocents by Herod could be based on Herod launching an attack on the followers of this Joseph/Mary clan of resistors to his rule.
Joseph received early warning of this attack and fled with his family into Egypt.
One piece of circumstantial evidence that I think works for my thesis is that Joseph did not flee to Persia. Why not seek refuge with the Magi who just honored him and his child? My answer was that the route to Persia/Babylon was being covered looking to arrest the Joseph/Mary family fleeing Herod for safety in Persia - the likely escape route.
The only other option for the Joseph/Mary royal family and their supporters was to flee to Egypt where Herod had no authority and they could find support among Jewish supporters living there.
What happened to John the cousin of Christ? Well next he pops up he is living in the wilderness. It seems possible that 'Prince' John and his family also fled when Herod's police came looking for these royal claimants to his throne.
It also looks like Jesus takes over the leadership of the 'resistance' after John. Which could explain why most of Jesus' life was of no import until later in life when he took over for John. Since John and his family stayed behind John not Jesus would have been the logical next leader of this resistance movement (or the one with more clout). Jesus inheriting a following from John makes more sense to me then Jesus just appearing and gathering a following from nothing out of nowhere. Jesus' must have had a reputation and cache via his royal blood line.
Another circumstantial piece of evidence that indicates to me that Jesus was known to be of royal blood was the tale of a young Jesus slipping into the Temple in Jerusalem away from his parents. Jesus said to his worried parents that they should not have been worried because 'he was in his Father's house'. Clearly such a claim made in the Temple around all those people would have been considered blasphemous and led to stoning but it did not. It indicates to me that Jesus asserted his claim to the Temple in a manner that the people would have thought was in relation to his Davidic lineage - a claim the seems to have been generally accepted by others.
Finally, when Jesus entered Jerusalem he was treated like an arriving king. Which means that the people who supported him considered him a legitimate royal heir to David - no one was calling Jesus the messiah as yet or if they were they were equating the messiah to being a earthly royal king.
Anger against Jesus among his supporters could have arisen when Jesus renounced the earthly crown and preached a message that was spiritual rather than temporal. It has been suggested that one of Jesus' followers, Judas was either angered that Jesus did not make the claim to the temporal crown of David or did what he did in an attempt to force Jesus to defend himself and take up the crown of David.
The Romans who executed him clearly thought they were executing a pretender to the Judean crown and not a religious leader.
Lastly, the movement that Jesus founded was taken over by Jesus' brother, James (son of Joseph via tradition), who became the head of the Jerusalem church - which also points to circumstantial evidence of control of this movement belonging to a royal family and being passed on through royal bloodlines.
This royal succession of the Jesus Dynasty and his movement comes to an end with his brother James being the last in the line when the Romans sack Jerusalem and scatter the Jews out of Judea.
From then on the movement of the church is decentralised based on autonomous churches run by bishops enthroned under the principals of apostolic succession through the the laying of hands. The laying of hands is a principal people of various cultures use to transfer authority or blessing from kings or people of authority to others - thus forming another circumstantial piece of evidence to Jesus' royal claims of authority.