Benjamín Urrutia

From Freepedia

Benjamín Urrutia or Benjamin Urrutia (born 1950), author and scholar, was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador. According to the Mormon Literature Database[1], Urrutia is "the only LDS Basque Israeli American anthropologist, linguist, and science fiction writer in the universe." Urrutia co-edited, with Guy Davenport, The Logia of Yeshua, which collected what they consider to be Jesus' authentic sayings from a variety of canonical and non-canonical sources. Urrutia interprets Jesus' mission to be that of a leadership role in the "Israelite nonviolent resistance to Roman oppression".

Urrutia contends that Rabbi Yeshua Bar Abba was the historical Jesus of Nazareth and was the leader of the successful nonviolent Jewish resistance to Pilate's attempt to place Roman eagles — symbols of the worship of Jupiter — on Jerusalem's Temple Mount. This episode is found in Josephus, who does not say who the leader of this resistance was, but shortly afterwards states that Pontius Pilate had Jesus crucified. (Some scholars believe this passage of Josephus may have been slightly but significantly altered by later editors. The Arabic version of Josephus is free from the apparent Christian interpolations, but still makes it clear that Pilate ordered the crucifixion of Jesus.) For further discussion of this theory see the articles on Jesus and on Barabbas.

Benjamin Urrutia lived in Ecuador until 1968, and has lived since in the United States of America, save for the years 1974-1977, when he resided in Israel, studying the cultural and historical background of the life of Jesus. During this period he also participated in an archaeological excavation near Beersheba, contributed to the writings of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and was interviewed by The Jerusalem Post.