Well, let's look at this little problem. In my opinion, there's a real possibility that the "god" that the man around whom the Jesus myth accreted WAS talking about in terms of the "heavenly father" and the "kingdom of god" was "Beelzebul."
In "Christian Origins and the Language of the Kingdom of God," Michael L. Humphries analyzes the "Beelzebul controversy" and draws some fascinating conclusions, though he doesn't go as far as I have in the above statement. When reading his analysis, it occurred to me that it was obvious that the god of the real "Jesus" WAS Beelzebul.
Walter Bauer proposes:
Perhaps - I repeat, perhaps - certain manifestations of Christian life that the authors of the church renounce as "heresies" originally had not been such at all, but were the only form of the new religion - that is, for those regions they were simply "Christianity." The possibility also exists that their adherents constituted the majority, and that they looked down with hatred and scorn on the orthodox, who for them were the false believers.
That's pretty much the attitude the Cathars had toward the Catholic Church - that the church was the false religion. They also claimed that the god of the Old Testament - the Jewish Yahweh/Jehovah - was the evil demiurge. We notice that Christianity has adopted this god as the "father of Jesus."
So, clearly, something is wrong with Christianity as we know it.
Norman Perrin wrote:
The central aspect of the teaching of Jesus was that concerning the Kingdom of God. Of this there can be no doubt and today no scholar does, in fact, doubt it. Jesus appeared as one who proclaimed the Kingdom; all else in his message and ministry serves a function in relation to that proclamation and derives meaning from it. The challenge to discipleship, the ethical teaching, the disputes about oral tradition or ceremonial law, even the pronouncement of the forgiveness of sins and the welcoming of the outcast in the name of God - all these are to be understood in context of the Kingdom proclamation or they are not to be understood at all.
Burton Mack writes:
The concept of the kingdom therefore functions like a "skeleton key" whereby all seemingly loose threads are gathered into a unifying whole; and comprehension comes only to the reader who knows this to be true. [...] Crossan effectively argues on behalf of a sapiential or ethical understanding of the kingdom as represented by a first-century Mediterranean Jewish peasantry. The kingdom constitutes a present reality characterized by social and cultural engagement with ruling powers ... resistance against oppression.
I don't know why it doesn't occur to biblical scholars such as Mack, to consider the hyperdimensional hypothesis and compare Jesus to the Siberian Shaman who has access to the "kingdom."
The Beelzebul controversy has been going on for a long time. Nobody really understands the meaning of the accusation that "He [Jesus] casts out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of demons."
The designation of Beelzebul as the "ruler of demons (Satan) is difficult to trace to any other source. According to one scholar quoted by Humphries:
The derivation of the name is disputed, and is in any case unimportant for the meaning of the text, since Beelzebul is simply a popular name for the prince of demons. The name dos NOT occur in Jewish literature, but appears to represent the same figure as Belial in the intertestamental literature. (Marshall)
Humphries does not agree with this easy tossing away of the importance of the etymology of the name. He points out that Marshall says 1) the name is absent in the Jewish literature, and thus disputed; BUT 2) is said to represent a popular name for the ruler of demons! That is contradictory.
The precise explanation of the name Beelzebul is, apparently, without documentation prior to the composition of the biblical text. It appears later in the writings of Origen, Hippolytus, and "The Testament of Solomon."
The correlation of Beelzebul with the "ruler of demons" (Satan) is actually quite problematic. Hippolytus, in fact, distinguishes between Beelzebul and Satan and Origen makes no connection between the two at all.
The brainwashed type of Bible scholar (the true believers with an agenda) tend to assume that Beelzebul was a well-known lord of demons, but that is, in fact, not the case. It is not established that Mediterranean Jews customarily regarded Beelzebul as the "ruler of demons." This designation only occurs in later Christian literature.
Humphries argues a connection between Beelzebul and the Canaanite-Syrian deity zbl bl ars, or "the prince, lord of the earth".
Beel is the Greek transliteration of the Aramaic Beel from the Hebrew Baal, meaning "owner," "lord," or "prince." The problem is with the "zebul" part.
The majority of New Testament texts read "Beelzeboul" but the Vulgate and Syrian text cite the alternate: Beelzeboub. This leaves open the possibility that there was an association between Beelzebul(b) and the ancient PHILISTINE deity Ball zebub (Baal muian in the Septuagint "Lord of the flies"). Some scholars propose that Beelzebul and Baalzebub are one and the same. The more likely possibility is that Baalzebub represents a pun ("lord of the flies") on the original name of Baal zebul whose rule was not limited to the region of Philistia.
The reading of this name that seems to be gaining support translates the name as: LORD OF HEAVEN. This thesis was developed by W.E.M. Aitken and Lloyd Gaston. Each took a different approach to analyzing the word ZEBUL, and arrived at the same conclusion that ZEBUL signifies the DWELLING OF GOD, whether heaven or a temple.
This conclusion came from analyzing rabbinic literature. According to Rosh ha-shanah 17a: "There is no zebul except the temple, for it is written: 'I have built thee a beth zebul.'"
In Aboth de Rabbi Nathan, it is said that ZEBUL is the name of one of the SEVEN HEAVENS.
According to Hagigah 12b, ZEBUL is the fifth heaven ...
These reading apparently derive from the saying in 1 Kings 8:13, where BETH ZEBUL represents a parallel expression for Yahweh's eternal dwelling, and from Isaiah 63:15, where ZEBUL designates the heavenly throne of Yahweh. Habakkuk 3:11 uses ZEBUL as the "dwelling place of the Sun and Moon." Aitken draws the conclusion:
This makes it clear that ZEBUL was understood specifically of the dwelling of God, whether that was though of as the temple on earth or the heavens; in later ages when the temple has disappeared it was still used of heaven.
Additional evidence was provided by another scholar, Gaston, who pointed out that the Septuagint texts of 1 Kings 8:13 and Isaiah 63:15 translate ZEBUL with the Greek OIKOS, meaning "temple."
So, it seems pretty certain that Beelzebul means Lord of Heaven or the one that dwells in the dwelling place of God.
So, how did he come to be known as the Lord of Demons???
One theory suggested is that this was a Jewish thing, a rendering of Baalshamaim, the Jewish name for Zeus Olympios. Baalshamaim was a pagan sky god whose cult was a source of rear and hatred for loyal Palestinian Jews during the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes whom the book of Daniel labels the "abomination of desolation." The argument is:
1) since Baalshamaim is a foreign deity, he is a demon ("for all the gods of the nations are demons" psalms 95:5)
2) Since he is the god of heaven, he is the chief rival of Yahweh, and therefore must be Satan, the ruler of demons.
3) Because Yahweh is the only TRUE god of heaven, therefore, no other deity can carry that name - Baalshamaim) and therefore an alternate designation is necessary: ZEBUL replaces SHAMAIM.
It is also thought that the principle target of the text could have been the early Jesus people, keeping in mind that Jesus identified himself with the "master of the house" which they took to be threats toward the Temple.
Of course, all of the above assumes that we are discussing a real, historical event, and it is not really clear that this is the case! The Q document gives no indication of conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees regarding his behavior toward the temple. The charge that Jesus sought to destroy the temple is a much later story wrapped around Jesus - the same as the claim that he was the "son of god."
Moreover, there is another possible interpretation for ZEBUL: elevate, exalted, height, glorified.
That, of course, fits better with my notion that what was being discussed as the "kingdom of god" was actually an understanding of hyperdimensional realities.
There is quite a bit of discussion of this word and its possible etymology in the book referenced above.
Bottom line is, to the Jews, all other gods were demons, so, if there was any historical reality to this event, what it means is that the basis of the accusation was that Jesus cast out demons by the power of some foreign god.
As I suggest, maybe he did.
The point is that this was a charge of "deviance." The accusation is saying: "He is not one of us, he is not a Jew, he is not a child of Israel, but a child of Beelzebul." And, since Jesus was said to be a Galilean, from the North, this makes perfect sense. The charge was intended to label Jesus as an outsider: he does not belong.
Jesus retort is introduced with a statement that he is able to discern the strategy of his accusers - that they intend to label him as a deviant. The charge of Black Magic is intended to defame, to diminish, to label Jesus as an outsider and to garner support against him. Being labeled in this way is supposed to draw lines, to create in others the impression of us vs. them.
The response is in two parts.
The first part is his remark about the disasters that befall those who are divided: the charge of demon collusion to cast out demons is absurd because everyone knows that a divided kingdom falls.
This does not, of course, address the deeper charge of deviance; it only attacks the surface logic of the accusation. The accusers are, essentially, caught in a trap for the issue of the unity of the demonic kingdom was not even in their minds.
Since this is a chreia - an elaboration tale that was created to exemplify what Jesus WOULD or MIGHT have said in such a situation - one scholar suggests that it was based on some knowledge of the real Jesus, that it is possible that when Jesus was once reproached for exorcising demons by Beelzebul, he retorted: "Devil against devil? some strategy!" This is a clever bit of sophistry similar to the numerous Cynic chreiai.
However, he does not counter the charge of deviance!!!
What he does is point out that when the accuser's own sons perform exorcisms, they are not charged with demon collusion so, what the accuser grant to their own sons - that they are performing exorcisms by the power of god - must also be granted to Jesus, or the sons will also be held up to question. In other words, the practice of exorcism itself precludes demon collusion.
This does not, of course, necessarily mean that there were Jewish exorcists because we must remember that this is a chreia, not a historical account, but rather a clever story created by later Jewish Christians within a Jewish context. The implication is actually deeper. Humphries writes:
The force of the arguments aims to locate oneself within the Israelite field, to designate and legitimate one's ethos thereby. The discourse is not about distinguishing between valid and invalid exorcisms, but about being for Beelzebul or for Yahweh, for Satan's kingdom or Yahweh's kingdom, an outsider or an insider. [...] It is also quite clear... that Jesus' response turns the tables on his accusers. Insofar as they refuse to recognize the power of the kingdom in his exorcisms, they find themselves in danger of standing outside the kingdom. No one belonging to the kingdom of God could identify Jesus' exorcisms, or any exorcism for that matter, a s satanic. If the accusers do not accept the "quality in common" ... if they do not grant to Jesus what they grant to their own sons, then it is precisely this failure of recognition that renders the accusers themselves as deviant. And so a sharp distinction is indeed established. The exchange between Jesus and his accusers constitutes a battle over who represents the legitimate expression of Israel.
Clearly, to my mind, the individual writing this story understood himself as an "insider" of Israel and sought to use this method to draw Jesus in as an insider as well. This suggests strongly that Jesus WAS an outsider to Israel, was NOT a Jew, and Beelzebul WAS the name of the deity Jesus "promoted" originally.