Hi Craig,

I glanced at your Web site and want to spend more time there learning about your conception of Deism.

Yeshua was thoroughly Jewish. We tend to forget that in the twenty-first century after two millennia of separation from Judaism that began quite early--within decades after Yeshua's departure. We view Yeshua as the founder of Christianity. He certainly was not that. He had no intention of breaking with Judaism.

However, he had a radical view of what Judaism should be that was quite remarkable for his time. Many had eschewed the Temple, such as the Essenes and the Qumran sect. However, for a Jewish spiritual teacher to assert that the Kingdom of God would be within each Jew, not in a geographical area, was an unparalleled break with the traditional view. Yeshua had a spiritual viewpoint that fits more with twenty-first century belief than first-century belief. That shows that he was an even more unusual man than the Christians realize. In other words, Yeshua hasn't been heard yet, after two millennia.

Yeshua deliberately, repeatedly, uses the term Abba, meaning "Papa" or "Daddy," for God, and portrays the High God as a personal, familiar, loving deity, not the YHWH Ẓeba'ot, the God of Armies. If we were to look at Yeshua's references to the Father and categorize them as "King" references, in keeping with first-century Judaism or "servant" references, in keeping with an entirely new conception of God Yeshua taught and lived, we would see that he consistently portrays God as personal and anxious to give humankind all we need to grow spiritually. Yeshua’s Abba is remarkably unkingly and strikingly approachable--his door is always open.

However, it's quite apparent that the God Yeshua describes is not the God of the Evangelicals, who can be bribed into giving gifts, moved to action through whining, or flattered into favoring someone who fawns, worships, and self-flagellates before him. Yeshua's God isn't a big sugar daddy.

This God Yeshua describes is imminent, available, and full of wisdom and counsel given freely--all to help the individual Jew of the first century grow in spiritual stature: to love God and all men unconditionally, not judge or condemn, forgive without limit, respond to violence with peace making, approach enemies with caring and compassion, and live a blissful life without worry. Yeshua foresaw a Kingdom of God already available to the Twelve Tribes if they would just love God and love one another unconditionally.

Yeshua believed he and the Father were one, but in no way different from the fact that we and the father are one. In other words, in an astounding break with the tradition of his time, Yeshua saw the Kingdom of God as being within each Judean. The Kingdom of God, he said, is spread out upon the face of the earth and men do not see it. God is not apart from man; God is in man, and man grows to be more like God through growing in spiritual maturity.

As to whether Yeshua communicated with God, we know that he did that continually. He went into meditation (prayer) and counseled those who listened to his words to do the same thing. He was continually in touch with God, and he told those who listened to him to have the same close relationship. He undoubtedly did say that the Holy Spirit, Ruah haqodesh or paracletus, was with them, and that they only needed to ask and they would receive answers. He was saying that God was always imminent and available to provide guidance.

And so my answer would be that the earliest sources, Mark and the Q source, show us clearly that Yeshua was in continual spiritual contact with a personal God who is one with Yeshua and one with us.

Love and peace, Craig