What Is a Yeshuan?

I recently wrote a poem (based on a dream), in which I identified myself as a Yeshuan, in other words, a follower of the teachings of Rabbi Yeshua (Jesus). Does this mean that I am a Christian? I don't think so, at least as I define it. I am also a Bergsonian, a Jungian, and an admirer of Hillel, but I don't deify any of them.

I see a lot of differences between the Jewish Jesus of the Gospels, especially that of Matthew (and more so when read in its original Hebrew) on the one hand, and the "Christ" of the Epistles. The former is a flesh-and-blood person who was born, who taught, who suffered, and who died; the latter is a symbol and a mental construct.

It was Rabbi Yeshua who said, "To the lands of the Gentiles do not go and into the cities of the Samaritans do not enter. Go to the sheep who have strayed from the house of Israel.." (Mt. 10:5-6)

It was the ambitious Shaul / Paul of Tarsus who said, "I live now, not I, but Christ liveth in me" (Ga 2:20), which sounds to me like the height of chutzpah.

The one wanted to reform his own world; the other wanted to take over the goyish world.

Can I not have the one without the other?

Text © 2020 by Donald C. Traxler aka Donald Jacobson Traxler.