jesus and nonviolence

Not from Nazareth: Why Jesus the Nazarene Changes Everything

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By Julie Tourangeau

I was raised Catholic, like many kids in the Midwest, with soft church pews, the scent of candle wax, and a deep reverence for the man they called Jesus of Nazareth. That name was carved into my earliest images of Christ — painted in Sunday school books, spoken from the pulpit, and etched into the Stations of the Cross: the man from the tiny Galilean town who died to save the world.

But what if I told you… Jesus may not have been from Nazareth at all?

This isn’t some rebellious modern theory for its own sake. It’s a sacred thread I pulled as an adult — a thread that unraveled the tightly stitched version of history I was handed, and instead revealed a luminous, hidden tapestry of truth. One that changes everything we thought we knew about Jesus — and ourselves.

The Nazarene — A Title, Not a Town

The term Nazarene appears dozens of times in early texts. But the word used — Nazōraios in Greek — doesn’t mean “from Nazareth.” It’s not a geographical label. It’s a spiritual one. And many scholars now believe Jesus wasn’t being located — he was being identified. As a member of a radical spiritual order.

The Nazarenes were known in ancient times as a mystical sect — possibly linked to the Essenes — who lived apart from mainstream society. They practiced sacred discipline. They opposed animal sacrifice. They lived simply, shared in community, and upheld a code of purity, peace, and spiritual awakening. They were known as healers and truth-tellers. And Jesus may have been one of them.

This isn’t just conjecture. Church fathers like Epiphanius mention the Nazarenes directly. So does Acts 24:5, where Paul is called “a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.” That’s not a hometown reference. That’s a movement.

So Why the Confusion?

The Gospels mention Jesus of “Nazareth,” but there’s a problem: Nazareth likely didn’t exist as a populated village during Jesus’ lifetime. It appears nowhere in the Old Testament. Not in the writings of Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian who listed dozens of Galilean towns. And early archaeological digs turned up tombs — but not houses, synagogues, or signs of community life.

Some scholars now believe the town of Nazareth may have been a retroactive invention — a narrative placeholder — to explain a title the early church no longer understood or chose to suppress.

Because if Jesus was a Nazarene — not by birthplace, but by sacred affiliation — then he wasn’t just a teacher. He was a trained mystic. A spiritual revolutionary. A radical peacemaker who stood with a long, esoteric lineage — one that challenged both empire and religion with the most subversive message of all: that the divine lives within us, and no temple, no government, and no sacrifice is needed to reach it.

A Liberator, Not a Martyr

Seeing Jesus through this lens opened something in me I didn’t even know had been locked.

The Jesus I was taught to revere was a passive lamb, sent to suffer and die. But the Jesus I’ve come to know — the Nazarene — was a lion disguised as a lamb. He was a disruptor of oppression. A liberator of animals, people, and minds. He flipped tables not to be dramatic, but because the divine law of love had been violated — and it burned in his bones to make it right.

And this Jesus… this Nazarene… is not gone. He’s rising in us now.

In every heart that refuses cruelty. In every soul waking up from dogma. In every voice choosing compassion over conformity.

The Nazarene isn’t just a historical figure. It’s a path. A vibration. A way of living that defies the machinery of power — and calls us back to sacred freedom.

What This Means for Us

To reclaim the truth about Jesus is to reclaim the truth about ourselves.

We are not born sinful. We are born sacred.

We don’t need to earn love. We need to remember it.

And the deepest teachings of Christ — the ones buried, burned, or mistranslated — are rising like seeds through stone.

You don’t have to leave your faith to find the Nazarene. You just have to let him speak again — not from the pages of control, but from the living current of love that never left.

And when you do… you’ll find him where I found him.

Not in Nazareth.

But in your own soul.

The Forgotten Gospel Reclaimed: A New Look at The Gospel of the Holy Twelve

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I read The Gospel of the Holy Twelve front to back after having a spiritual moment in France that made me question the origins of Christianity. I couldn’t put it down. It resonated with the Holy Spirit that dwells within me, deeper than any sermon or scripture I had encountered growing up. I was raised a vegetarian Catholic, yet I never knew there were early Christian teachings that not only supported this lifestyle but embodied it. I had never been told that reincarnation was plausible… or that a vegetarian Jesus was very likely. These truths had been hidden… but once I saw them, I couldn’t unsee them.

For centuries, Christianity has been presented through the lens of empire, tradition, and convenience. But what if the original teachings of Jesus were far more radical… far more compassionate… than we’ve been led to believe? What if Christianity, at its very roots, was a vegan movement?

That’s the bold yet spiritually grounded claim made in The Gospel of the Holy Twelve, a recovered text translated by Reverend Gideon Jasper Ouseley in the late 19th century. Ouseley claimed he had access to ancient Aramaic manuscripts preserved by a secret brotherhood, which offered a truer, unedited version of Jesus’ life and message. While the origins of the manuscript remain controversial, the gospel’s teachings align strikingly with what we know of early Jewish-Christian sects, particularly the Ebionites and the Essenes (Eisenman, James the Brother of Jesus, 1997).

In this gospel, Jesus stands not only as a healer and teacher but as an advocate for all sentient life. He does not bless the slaughter of animals… he condemns it. He does not multiply fish… he frees them. And he declares, “They who partake of benefits which are gotten by wronging one of God’s creatures, cannot be righteous: nor can they touch holy things, or teach the mysteries of the kingdom.” (Ouseley, The Gospel of the Holy Twelve, Lection XLVI)

Rooted in Early Tradition

Though The Gospel of the Holy Twelve is not part of the modern biblical canon, its tone and teachings are not without historical merit. Ouseley and others believed it to reflect the original Hebrew Gospel referenced by early Church Fathers like Jerome, who wrote of a “Gospel of the Hebrews” used by Jewish-Christian groups (Jerome, De Viris Illustribus, 3).

These groups, including the Ebionites and the Nazarenes, believed Jesus came not to abolish Jewish law but to fulfill it through love and nonviolence (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book III). They rejected blood sacrifice, practiced vegetarianism, and upheld a mystical form of Judaism centered around compassion and purity. The Church Father Epiphanius, though critical, confirmed the Ebionites’ vegetarianism and rejection of temple sacrifice (Panarion, 30.15.3).

The broader context of these communities was later supported by discoveries like the Dead Sea Scrolls. Found between 1947 and 1956 near Qumran, the scrolls revealed a rich diversity of Jewish sects in the Second Temple period, many of whom—especially the Essenes—emphasized spiritual law, nonviolence, ritual purity, and apocalyptic expectations. Scholars such as Geza Vermes and Elaine Pagels have argued that the scrolls lend credibility to the existence of early traditions outside the later Christian orthodoxy (Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 2004; Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels, 1979).

When Empire Meets Religion

The Jesus portrayed in The Gospel of the Holy Twelve is far removed from the sanitized, empire-friendly figure canonized under Constantine. By the fourth century, Christianity was institutionalized under the Roman Empire. With the Council of Nicaea (325 AD) and subsequent imperial sponsorship, the faith became increasingly aligned with hierarchy, sacrifice, and patriarchy.

This shift has been documented by historians such as Bart Ehrman and Karen Armstrong, who show how early diversity in Christian theology was gradually suppressed as the church merged with imperial power (Ehrman, Lost Christianities, 2003; Armstrong, The Battle for God, 2000). The radical, liberating message of the original Jesus movement—rooted in inner transformation and justice for the marginalized—was traded for control, conformity, and obedience.

The teachings found in The Gospel of the Holy Twelve directly challenge this evolution. In one passage, Jesus drives the animal sellers from the temple—not merely for commercializing religion, but for desecrating life itself. “Ye have made the House of Prayer a den of thieves, and filled it with cruelty and blood,” he says (Ouseley, Lection XXXIV). Notably, the word “thieves” in the original Hebrew could also be rendered as “violent ones” (Strong’s Concordance, H2555 – chamas), reinforcing this interpretation.

A Logos of Compassion

In the text, Jesus speaks of the “Holy Law” written not on scrolls, but in the heart—echoing the Jewish prophetic tradition (Jeremiah 31:33). He embodies the Logos not as doctrine, but as a way of life grounded in reverence for all creation. This connects not only to early Jewish mysticism, but to figures like St. Francis of Assisi, who called animals his brothers and sisters, and rejected worldly power in favor of divine simplicity.

Indeed, The Gospel of the Holy Twelve suggests that spiritual awakening is inseparable from ethical living. This idea, though controversial to institutional religion, resonates with mystical traditions across faiths—including Kabbalah, Sufism, and Eastern philosophies, all of which honor the sacred interdependence of life.

A Christianity Worth Returning To

What would Christianity look like if we re-centered it around this compassionate Christ? Around a Jesus who called for mercy, not sacrifice (Hosea 6:6, quoted by Jesus in Matthew 9:13)… who broke chains, not breaded fish… who lived in harmony with creation rather than domination over it?

Many are beginning to ask this question—not out of rebellion, but out of a deep spiritual longing to reclaim what was lost.

We may never fully prove the historical origin of The Gospel of the Holy Twelve. But history alone doesn’t determine truth. As Jesus said, “Ye shall know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16). And if truth bears good fruit—if it leads to greater compassion, justice, and unity—then the gospel’s message is one worth listening to.

Whether we call it the Holy Spirit, the voice of conscience, or divine wisdom… something is guiding many of us back to this lost path. And perhaps that’s not a coincidence—but a resurrection of something long buried.

Knowing what we now know about early Christianity, if Jesus were here—reincarnated, as some traditions suggest, with his radical compassion intact—would modern Christianity even recognize Him?