Jerusalem Syndrome and Jesus Christ's Last Days

Azwaldo55

We all know the familiar story of Jesus entering the Holy City of Jerusalem on a donkey as his followers waved palms, entering the Temple where he preached and also threw out the money changers, arousing the paranoia of the priesthood and the Romans who had him crucified along with all the brigands and revolutionaries and trouble makers on Golgotha.

But could Jesus have been suffering from the psychological condition known as Jerusalem Syndrome?

The symptoms include:

Anxiety, agitation, nervousness and tension, plus other unspecified reactions.
Declaration of the desire to split away from the group or the family and to tour Jerusalem alone. Tourist guides aware of the Jerusalem syndrome and of the significance of such declarations may at this point refer the tourist to an institution for psychiatric evaluation in an attempt to preempt the subsequent stages of the syndrome. If unattended, these stages are usually unavoidable.
A need to be clean and pure: obsession with taking baths and showers; compulsive fingernail and toenail cutting.
Preparation, often with the aid of hotel bed-linen, of a long, ankle-length, toga-like gown, which is always white.
The need to shout psalms or verses from the Bible, or to sing hymns or spirituals loudly. Manifestations of this type serve as a warning to hotel personnel and tourist guides, who should then attempt to have the tourist taken for professional treatment. Failing this, the two last stages will develop.
A procession or march to one of Jerusalem's holy places, ex:The Western Wall.
Delivery of a sermon in a holy place. The sermon is typically based on a plea to humankind to adopt a more wholesome, moral, simple way of life. Such sermons are typically ill-prepared and disjointed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_syndrome

So let's compare:

Jesus spoke of his death and crucifixion.
He wore a white single piece garment.
He gave speeches in the Temple and he created a riot when he overthrew the tables of the money changers and drove them out with a whip.
During the Last Supper he stripped and wearing just a towel around his waist washed the feet of his apostles.
He retreated to the Mount of Olives and then went away by his own to pray and his sweat fell like great drops of blood (extreme stress can result in Hematidrosis which literally the sweating of blood).
While he was being taken away to be arrested a young man was following them and the soldiers tried to apprehend him only for him to run away naked leaving behind a white robe.

Of course many years later a Jewish revolt led by similar messianic leaders led to the capture of the city and the creation of a brief theocratic Jewish state before it was brutally turned to ashes by the Romans who tore down the Temple and massacred Roman, Jew and Christian alike.

During the Christian era, the Muslim era, the Crusader period and once again the Muslim period, manifestations of religious fanaticism among pilgrims who visited the various Jewish, Christian and Muslim shrines was routine. The imagery in the Book of Revelation of the streets pouring with blood as people are crushed in a winepress is actually accurate as armies of fanatics piled the narrow streets with rotting bursting corpses and gore.

Today the Kfar Shaul Mental Health Centre regularly admits pilgrims to the city who go temporarily insane.

So was Jesus just one more victim of Jerusalem syndrome?

His ancestor David also went nuts when he entered the city - dancing naked in front of the Ark of the Covenant as it was carried inside the walls.

SebBerkovich

The stories about Jesus are heavily fictionalised. It would be an enormous leap to try and diagnose his character considering the contradictions that already exist within the bible about his actions and achievements.

Also - Jerusalem Syndrome seems to be a description of a common behaviour rather than a psychological illness so it's not something that afflicts someone.

Standman

I think Jerusalem Syndrome is only a thing because of the religious significance of the city. The symptoms seem to be influenced by biblical happenings. In that case it wouldn't really have been the same for Jesus in those days.

I Heart Internet

I think Jerusalem Syndrome is very interesting and akin (maybe) to the reports of Asian (often Japanese) tourists going crazy when they arrive in Paris.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome

It is well known and has been well documented that Jerusalem has a funny effect on some people. It can drive people crazy and has been the object of men's desires for centuries.

But like Standman says, claiming the Jesus suffered from Jerusalem Syndrome makes no sense as it's putting the cart before the horse. Jesus, the man, would have been very familiar with and reasonably comfortable in that landscape and society of the time. Jerusalem Syndrome is a result (in large part) of the religious significance that most of the world puts on the place today and their pre-conceived notions of what Jerusalem will be like.

GLaDOS

Declaration of the desire to split away from the group or the family

Splitters!

Azwaldo55

Standman wrote: »

I think Jerusalem Syndrome is only a thing because of the religious significance of the city. The symptoms seem to be influenced by biblical happenings. In that case it wouldn't really have been the same for Jesus in those days.

There is a similar condition called Paris Syndrome that appears to affect Japanese tourists in particular.

Sulla Felix

Azwaldo55 wrote: »

There is a similar condition called Paris Syndrome that appears to affect Japanese tourists in particular.

Paris is placed on a pedestal in Japanese culture though, much as Jerusalem is in Christian culture.
There's similar reports from Mecca during hajira, holy sites in India etc etc.

Azwaldo55

Sulla Felix wrote: »

Paris is placed on a pedestal in Japanese culture though, much as Jerusalem is in Christian culture.
There's similar reports from Mecca during hajira, holy sites in India etc etc.

In 1979 a group of Islamic extremists led by Mohammed Abdullah al-Qahtani who claimed to the Mahdi (the promised "Redeemer of Islam") stormed the Grand Mosque in Mecca before hundreds of terrorists, pilgrims and security forces were killed in the battle to take it back.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Mosque_Seizure