Rome’s aim in destroying the Temple was to destroy Christianity

Why was the medieval Roman church and the Orthodox church so antisemitic? Why were the Hebrew scriptures and all knowledge of Hebrew banned? Why were Christians expelled for 'judaizing' when it is clear that Jesus and nearly all the early Christians were Jews?

The last verse of Luke says that Christ's disciples were “continually in the Temple, praising and blessing God.” In the book of Acts, James, the brother of Jesus, instructs the Apostle Paul how best to perform Temple ritual. In early Christian writings up to the time of Jerome around 400, James is described as bishop of bishops, praying inside the Temple as Sagan priest.
Church history has been turned upside down. Black means white and white black. Judaism is allegedly anti-Christian. Paul is proclaimed as making a break with all aspects of the Temple tradition. The Bible, on the other hand, shows Paul anxious to fulfill the Temple tradition scrupulously. He is taught by someone whom the Roman church writes out of their history—James the brother of Jesus!
Why in short was Christian history re-written between the first century when Christians took full part in the Temple services, as the gospels and Acts say, and the time of Constantine in 325 when at Nicea he created an imperial Catholic Church profoundly anti-Jewish?  

Meir Ben-Dov pointed out the Titus pillar

A major discovery mentioned in archaeologist Meir Ben-Dov's book 'In the Shadow of the Temple' p187f  helps explains what was behind the so-called 'lost centuries' of Christian history.

Here's what he wrote about an extraordinary discovery during the first modern dig near Temple Mount:

"Among the most outstanding volunteers working on our dig were students from Ambassador College in Pasadena, California, who returned annually in groups of 100 and spent six weeks in arduous and energetic labor. Because of their remarkable fortitude and energy we often assigned them to particularly difficult projects.
One was to uncover what could be found under the remains of the Moslem palace south of the Temple Mount. A group of Ambassador students set work among the foundations of the building, which sometimes extended as far down as 7 meters and included parts of columns from earlier buildings placed in secondary use by the Moslem builders. The year was 1970 and we were approaching the 9th of Av -- when one of the members of this group came running towards me flushed with excitement.

"I've been looking all over for you!" he shouted. "What's up?" I asked, though it seemed pretty clear from the state he was in that he had found something interesting. "There's an inscription down there," he told me, and I accompanied him back to the area and climbed down the ladder to find that a column that the Moslems had incorporated into the palace foundation walls bore a clear inscription in Latin letters.
Even at first glance I could tell that this was a royal inscription, though most of it was still not visible. After a few hours' hard work we managed to free the column from the wall of which it had become a part -- without damaging the wall itself -- and cleaned off the remaining plaster that still clung on to it. Then came our startling discovery that it was a dedicatory inscription to the Tenth Legion mentioning none other than Titus himself.
We were filled with emotion because of the uncanny symbolism of the find. Here we were on the eve of the 9th of Av. One thousand nine hundred years ago to the day, Titus had briefed his troops on the storming of the Temple Mount. And now, in the renewed State of Israel, standing in Jerusalem, digging alongside the Temple Mount, we had come into tangible contact with Titus and his legions." (emphasis added.)

Ambassador College was collaborating in the first dig at Jerusalem organized by Prof Benjamin Mazar of the Hebrew University and the Israel Exploration Society. 

 Dr Ernest L Martin, who led the Ambassador College group, revealed the truth about Titus at the time that student John Turner uncovered the Titus Pillar inscribed with the imperial name of his father Emperor Vespasian.
There are two versions of the briefing that Titus gave to his General Staff about storming and looting of the Temple in 70 CE. One is a short version. It looks more like Roman propaganda. Why? Because it appears to be a censored version that gives the entirely wrong impression of the facts. This was a common technique in Rhetoric or "spin" management as we would say today. It excises inconvenient facts from and account to lead the reader to a distorted conclusion.

What it leaves out is more significant than what it mentions. The fragment is attributed to the historian Tacitus and says:
The military staff told Titus:

“This holy building is the most beautiful structure ever built by the hand of man and should not be destroyed. If we leave it unharmed, its continued existence would serve as a witness to the moderation of the Romans. But if it were destroyed, the Roman name would be forever blackened. "

What it admits is striking. That the 'Jewish' Temple outshone anything in the Roman world is an extraordinary admission for any Roman writer, proud of Rome's achievements.

Many other writers, however, make the same assessment. This account, in itself, indicates the desperation to put some form of positive gloss on what in effect was a global disaster to its prestige. Rome destroyed the World's Wonder, a city greater than Rome and in direct violation to the Treaty between Caesar and the Jewish Ethnarch at the time of the Maccabees. It blackened its reputation forever.
The extract implies that the Roman army were careful not to harm this Wonder of the World.
Is it true?
  

The fuller story is revealed in the Sacred History of Sulpicius Severus, an educated Gallic Christian, a post-Nicene father (NPNF, s2, vol xi, p111). He appears to be quoting from the same or similar historical records but this time he gives the unvarnished truth. The Caesars wanted to destroy the Temple because the Temple Teacher and his Resurrection made nonsense of their pagan pantheon of false gods. Hence the Empire was threatened.

"Titus is said, after calling the council, to have first deliberated whether he should destroy the Temple, a structure of such extraordinary work. For it seemed good to some that a sacred edifice, distinguished above all human achievements, ought not to be destroyed, inasmuch as, if preserved, it would furnish an evidence of Roman moderation, but, if destroyed would serve as a perpetual proof of Roman cruelty. But on the opposite side, others and Titus himself, thought that the Temple ought especially to be overthrown, in order that the religion of the Jews and Christians might more thoroughly be subverted; for these religions, although contrary to each other, had nevertheless proceeded from the same authors; that the Christians had sprung up from among the Jews; and that, if the root were extirpated, the offshoot would speedily perish. "

The Titus Pillar may have been a Roman celebration of the brutal destruction of the Temple and the subjugation of Jews and Christians. It was the victory pole of paganism. If it was erected near where it was found, it would have stood like a vile asherah, decorated with an pagan eagle in the court before the Temple.
If that is so, it would have echoed repeated attempts to erect the pagan symbol in the Temple to proclaim to all Roman supremacy of their pantheon.

The Roman Governor Pontius Pilate had, according to the contemporary historian Josephus, tried to infiltrate Roman Legion standards into Jerusalem, something forbidden by the earlier treaty between Julius Caesar and the Maccabees. He failed, due to the passive resistance of the Jewish nation, who would rather die than see their Temple defiled.
An even more remarkable event occurred around the time of the birth of Christ and the dying days of Herod the Great. Josephus records that Romans attempted to raise an eagle at the great gate of the Temple. Jews, in fervent expectation of the coming of the Messiah at this time, ripped it down. They were led by two fervent Jewish scholars, Judas of Sepphoris and Matthias of Margalus. Fearing the whole nations would rise against him and Rome, Herod burnt alive the main perpetrators and killed their students in a bloody slaughter. Wracked with a putrefying disease, Herod in his last days instructed his soldiers to gather the most illustrious leaders from the entire Jewish nation into the hippodrome and slaughter them all at his death.


Seventy years later Titus may have erected this Pillar as the Roman signal of their definitive destruction of Judaism and Christianity.


Despite the myriad of martyrs who maintained the facts of the resurrections, miraculous healings and personal revelations, Rome was unable to accomplish the human destruction of Christianity or Judaism. Roman emperors conceded that the resurrections and miracles had taken place and were taking place in their own times. (Jesus, James, Joseph, p530 and chapter 32).

Then it became obvious that Rome had lost the war against truth. It tried another tactic: Fake history, disinformation and dissembling about why the Temple was destroyed.
The Titus Pillar reveals one reason for the truth gap, the so-called 'missing centuries' of Christian history. It took centuries of antisemitic propaganda before the Romans could dissociate and expunge the real facts of the New Testament. The NT showed Christians' strong involvement in the Temple. Jesus, James and Joseph taught and officiated there.
Rome was destroyer of the building God had decreed to be built. How then could Rome, the determined destroyer of the King of Jews, the Chief Priest of that building, present itself as champion of Christianity? It banned first the Hebrew Scriptures and then the Greek New Testament. It persecuted and exiled its opponents.

It took centuries of killings and propaganda to subvert all connections between Christ, the Bible and Israel. Then with an empire that had only modified its effete and dying paganism, Constantine could proclaim an imperial religion that he called 'Christianity' where the Hebrew scriptures, the Temple, Sabbath and the festivals were banned on pain of death.

                                      David Heilbron Price, Nazarene Project   8/2018

Why was Mariam shocked to learn she would bear Jesus?

In the Gospel of Luke a virgin betrothed to Joseph was visited by the angel or messenger Gabriel. He announced that she would bear a son to be named Jesus. 

She was shocked. She said in Luke 1:35 'How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?' 

But she was 'betrothed' to Joseph! The verb 'know' must mean have sexual relations with him. 

Isn't that peculiar? Did it need an angel to tell her that marriage leads to children?

The reply of Gabriel is also unusual. It is not what we would expect.

'The holy spirit will come upon you and the power of the Highest shall overshadow you. Therefore the holy born one shall be called the son of God. And behold, your cousin Elizabeth. She also conceived a son in her old age. And this is the sixth month with her that was called barren. For with God, nothing is impossible.' 
Does this expression 'the holy spirit will come upon you' have anything to do with insemination of seed so Joseph was sidelined and rendered redundant? Hardly. A few verses later we learn in 2:25 that the holy spirit 'was upon' someone else. Who? Simeon the retired high priest! He was old and hardly pregnant! 

Was Mary 14 years old?
If as many churches say, Mary -- or Mariam as it is in the Greek NT -- was 14 years of age, why is she so surprised that one day in her marriage she will become pregnant. And what was Joseph doing marrying a 14 year old? Isn't that child abuse? Nothing in scripture supports a teenage girl. The only source of this is pagan mythologies where unmarried, unbetrothed virgins are inseminated by Jupiter or some other god. 
Why does the angel mention an old, grey or white haired cousin called Elizabeth? The word for old age here is the Greek, gera, from which we derive our term geriatrics. Cousins are usually in the same age bracket. This is confirmed in the Greek text. Note the word 'also'.

The Greek says:
And behold, (idou -- Just take a look at that!) your cousin Elizabeth! She also conceived a son in her old age. And this is the sixth month with her that was called barren. For with God, nothing is impossible.' (Or more correctly 'Also she conceived in her old age.' 

Luke also uses the word idou in chapter 2: 25 meaning Surprise, surprise! when Joseph and Mariam meet Simeon the former high priest in the Temple. He was forcibly retired by the paranoid and murderous Herod the Great. He is Mariam's relative. 
For reasons of self-preservation in those dangerous Herodian times they lived quite separately without contact.

'Behold Elizabeth! Also she conceived in her old age.' The 'also' of Luke 1 verse 35 must refer to a miracle relating to either pregnancy or old age ... or both. If Mariam was a young girl or even in her twenties it would not be a miracle that she would become pregnant as announced. A married Jewish woman would expect to have children as part of the reasons for marriage. In her case much more so as Joseph was inheritor of the house of David and her son would be a royal born at a prophetic time according to Daniel when many expected the Messiah. It had obviously not happened, much to her disappointment. Mariam was not some unknown woman but esteemed in her own right as a direct descendant of Aaron, with an authentic genealogy.

If she were in her 20s she should still expect to have children.

Let's make the first correction. Instead 'man' she is asking: 

'How can this be since I have not known (had relations) with my husband?' 

The Greek word here 'andra' does not mean 'man' in the sense of 'any man'. 'I have not been with a man.' That's what the RCC-Protestants say. They say she was a young girl engaged to Joseph but didn't know a man. Was she looking for other men? The text says in KJV she was 'betrothed'! Would she say to the angel that she was looking for someone else to have sex with? That's a crazy and blasphemous idea. 
Engagement

Non-Jewish sectarians are patently wrong because they fail to understand -- or do not want to understand -- what were Jewish marriages/ weddings customs. The answer is simple. They could crack open a Jewish encyclopedia or ask a local Jew at the synagogue. That is not too difficult. Instead they transpose Roman or even loose, modern ideas about 'engagement'. Not so.

Mariam was a daughter of Aaron -- a highly esteemed priestly family with only a few survivors. She was married to a royal son of the House of David. This took place according to ancient custom. Even common people of Israel in first century Judea and elsewhere around the world, followed these customs, according to Josephus and Philo. They kept registers in all the global depositories showing these customs of betrothal, wedding, birth were respected, with names of witnesses. Jews do this today. If a child of a man named Cohen = priest in Hebrew) does not conform to Hebrew rules of marriage, then all his offspring for ever cannot be considered viable as priests.

This regulation was essential if children were to be considered fit for marriage as priests and the same goes for kings and tribal leaders. Ten generations had to be verified by these interlocking methods where many independent registries confirm ancient families.

Betrothal
The first question to ask is: what did the Hebrew or first century Jews mean by 'betrothal'? Qiddushin or Betrothal in the Hebrew or Jewish sense gave the couple the right to live together with all rights of sexual relationship. If either man or wife wanted to separate, a divorce called a 'get' was needed before a judge.

So the shock reply of Mariam: 'How can this be?!' to a pregnancy has to be explained.

We further learn that she was still a virgin! In Jewish custom the term primarily has to do with menstruation. So when a woman says she is still a virgin it means that she was not menstruating or had not menstruated. Amongst the priestly class, no intercourse could take place until a wife had had three successive, regular monthly periods to show she was in good health. That's in Josephus and other sources of the time. The Talmud tractate Niddah written a few centuries later also says that a woman who was old and undergone the change and ceased to menstruate could also be considered a virgin.

Virgin
So the reason for her shock must be (a) she was 11 or 12 and had not menstruated and was naive and thought she never would, (b) she was married a long time she had not had regular periods, and Joseph had never 'known' her, or (c) she was old and had had her menopause some long while ago. Her infertility was certain to her.

Two other points. Firstly, context. The whole of Luke's first two long chapters is about women in their old age. In chapter one we have her cousin, Elizabeth/ Elisheva who was 'stricken in years'. Then we have Mariam / Miriam. The sister of Moses, Miriam the prophetess, married in her old age, Caleb, according to Jewish tradition. She had a flourishing and important family. Then in chapter two we have Anna or Hanna in Hebrew the prophetess of the tribe of Asher. Hanna as a name recalls that of the mother of Samuel the prophet who gave birth in old age, miraculously after much prayer. The NT Anna or Hanna was either 84 years old or much older depending how you read the text. She was 'advanced in years' v 36 having lived with her husband from her virginity seven years. That seems to confirm the Niddah laws of the Hebrew scriptures (and Talmud) are in force.

Secondly we can make a mathematical calculation of Mariam's age. I did this in section 15.17 of the book, Jesus, James, Joseph. It is based on Eusebius. After James the brother of Jesus was killed, Symeon the cousin of Jesus was made the Bishop / Supervisor or Governor/ Sagan of the ekklesia at Jerusalem. He was a younger son of of the younger brother of Joseph called Cleopas or Alpheus. Eusebius gives us his age at his death. We do not know the age of Maria, the wife of Cleopas when she started having children. But the calculation shows that Mariam was old when she had Jesus and later James, Jude, Simeon, Joses and probably three or so daughters.

Mariam was obviously old and past her menopause. That is why she was surprised at the announcement of a birth of a son to come.

Jesus was not a Preacher or a Peasant!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yte-ad6Y31s

In an interview about his book, "How Jesus became God, the exaltations of a Jewish preacher from Galilee", Bart Ehrman starts on the wrong track. The title of the book is an error common among Protestants. Jesus was NOT a preacher and nor a peasant.  
He was a an anointed Teacher in the Temple -- a post that required both a proven Aaronic genealogy and a higher level of education than the priests and lawyers inside the Temple. The high priest of the time was inferior because he was not anointed. No one could enter the Temple unless he could prove his father and mother back over nine generations, unsullied by marriage to a gentile -- as the book of Ezra shows. A priest (Cohen) had to marry the virgin daughter of a Cohen or an Israelite.
Jesus was also a son of David through his father, Joseph, an Israelite of the tribe of Judah, as Matt 1 shows. Hence king of Israel and king of the Jews. Anointing applies to 3 offices, king, priest and prophet. 
John the Baptist was an Aaronic priest and had the power and authority to anoint, provided he had the special holy oil. Some vials of a special oil have been found among the Dead Sea caves, as then reported in the New York Times. This is covered in the book Jesus, James, Joseph, p306.  
Ehrman is also wrong in saying there is no historical contemporary evidence of the Resurrection. Several letters to Roman Caesars affirm this. I am not aware of any imperial documents of the first century attempting to deny the Resurrection. The proof was evident -- and other archaeological finds affirm it, such as the imperial Edict plaque found near Nazareth, p530 of my book. It is dealing with bodies missing from unpillaged, empty graves! This shows that the Romans were also aware of other people resurrected to physical life among early believers. 
I agree Pilate was a nasty anti-semite and mean personality but he did not bow to religious sensibilities as Ehrman says. He realised that he had broken Roman law and an imperial treaty because Jesus was a king and you cannot kill a king without consequences. He had no warrant to do so either from the Emperor or from the Senate. When this was explained to him by Joseph of Arimethea (who held a Roman title and held an imperial office), he took the body down. Sharpish. A treaty had been made with Jewish leaders and Julius Caesar and Pilate had ignored this. Pilate wrote reports to Tiberius trying to explain. So say early Christian writers. But he was hauled off to Rome to a Court process and punished. 
Ehrman is also wrong about no documents existing in the first 20 years after the Resurrection. RCC and Protestants just ignore the Nazarene documents because they do not agree with their Church doctrine, that arose with Constantine in the 300s. Ehrman also gets confused because he uses modern ideas, based on pagan Greek ones, to deal with the divinity of Christ. He should deal with Hebrew theology and philosophy.
He also omits the fact that the pagan gods were destroyed by the impact of the Resurrection. The empire changed to sun worshippers! 
Further information about the Nazarenes and how to get a free copy of the book, Jesus, James, Joseph and the past and future Temple, can be found on the Nazarene Project website. nazareneproject(dot)com.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yte-ad6Y31s

If Jesus Never Called Himself God, How Did He Become One?

Terry Gross is the host and co-executive producer of…

YOUTUBE.COM

How old was Jesus when he became Teacher-Priest?

Luke 3 describes the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. John, six months older than Jesus, was then imprisoned and executed by Herod. John was an Aaronic priest through his mother Elizabeth. His father, Zacharias, was also a priest but not of such a highly esteemed family.
Luke then puts the spotlight on Jesus. He was a son of Mariam who like her cousin Elizabeth, Lk 1:5, was also of 'the daughters of Aaron'. They could trace their family back to Elisheba, wife of Aaron, and Miriam sister of Aaron and Moses. Luke then gives the priestly lineage of Jesus from Joseph to Adam.
The Bible says that a priest had to be 30 years old before he took up the mature, senior office of priest, Num 4:3. "From thirty years old and above, even to fifty years old..." (Some other junior posts could start when men reached twenty.)

"Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age," says Luke in 3:21.

But if Jesus was born in the autumn of 3 BCE and died at Passover 30 CE after 3 1/2 years mission, how could he be 30 when he started the mission? That would mean he started his mission in the autumn of 26 CE. Are there 30 years between 3BCE and 26CE?
That depends how you count them and Luke is very clear. The King James Version (KJV) says he began to be 'about' 30. The Greek however does not use the normal word 'peri' for 'about'. It uses another word for 'about' which invokes a comparison, oosei.
Why? Clearly it is drawing a distinction between the Greek or Roman calculation or arithmetic and the Hebrew.
Luke is after all writing to the Most Excellent Theophilus, chapter 1:3. This son of high priest Annas of the gospels, Theophilus, was put in office as the high priest in 37 CE by Vitellius who replaced Pontius Pilate. He was thus ethnarch or political leader of the nation. As such he was addressed with the respectful title of Most Excellent or Most Noble, kratiste.
He  was educated. He knew how to count in Greek and also in the Hebrew Torah!
Following the death of Tiberius who gave 7 years of peace to Nazarenes and Jews, Gaius Caligula threatened the entire Jewish people. He commanded that his statue should be placed and worshipped in all synagogues. Massacres of Jews took place in Alexandria, Egypt under Roman governor Flaccus and elsewhere. Then Caligula announced that he would place a huge golden idol of himself as Jupiter in the Temple itself. He would move the center of the Roman empire to the Temple and install himself there after having his divine status confirmed in Egypt by its pagan priests.
The cause of Caligula's wrath against the Jews? The Resurrection of Jesus the Christ -- which Tiberius had acknowledged as a fact but which threatened the fragile myths of the Roman gods, the invention of men.
Theophilus was high priest during the whole reign of Caligula. He needed to be stalwart in character to resist wisely with the minimum of bloodshed. That depended on his knowledge and education. How was he educated? By a teaching priest. Luke says:

"Seeing that many did take in hand to set in order a narration of the matters that have been fully assured among us, as they did deliver to us who from the beginning became eye-witnesses and officers of the Word, it seemed good also to me, having followed from the first after all things exactly, to write to you in order, Most Noble Theophilus, that you may know the certainty of the things wherein you were catechised." Lk 1 Literal translation 

Yes, a teacher catechised a potential high priest and one new in office to understand and fulfill all the complex rites and rituals. He was also informed about all recent political events that would effect the Jewish nation. He was the nominal head of government under the Romans. Theophilus had a very delicate task to perform.
In 37 James (Jacob) the brother of Jesus was recognised as the Superintendent (sagan or bishop) of the Temple and matters pertaining to the ordering of priests (see Acts 15 and 21:17).  Luke and the other gospels record that the resurrection of Jesus had been witnessed by all at Jerusalem. The priests in the Temple had a full view of the Ascension of Jesus forty days later from the nearby Mount of Olives.
What is a Teacher-Priest? To understand the basics we must rid ourselves of centuries of misinformation and gentile, antisemitic propaganda. Jesus is called throughout the Gospels, 'Teacher'. An unknown person, who according to the common "Christian" belief was a carpenter and who suddenly decided to become a roaming preacher, would not in first century Israel be called a Teacher. He would be called a carpenter. He would also be dismissed as a vagabond.
Jesus taught priests and lawyers in the Temple, many times. Obviously he had better education about the Temple and the Law than they had. He commanded their attention by his authoritative presentations and cutting reprimands, Matt 23. He called them hypocrites and blind guides.
A Temple Teacher must not only have deep learning but also an authentic pedigree to even enter the Holy Place. Genealogies were checked at the outer gates. He could not enter to teach priests if he had not fulfilled the requirements of priest himself. He must have been legally at least 30 years old in 26/27 CE.
So let us go to the Bible rather than traditions of a sect. Teacher in Hebrew is Moreh. It is a title. We find the term Teacher-Priest or Teaching Priest in the early days of the Temple. In Hebrew it is Cohen-Moreh. In 2 Chronicles 15:3 we learn that King Asa of Judah was greatly helped when the post of Teacher-Priest was re-established.

"For many days Israel was without a true God, and without a teaching priest (cohen moreh), and without law (Torah, teaching)."

Asa was the son of Abijah, the son of Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, the son of king David.
He carried out a reform and purified the land of idolatry. This might seem costly in one sense as it required righteousness and energy. But the whole land was in turmoil, city against city and nations were against nations in the area. He destroyed idols. Asa's reforms were a disruption only to those who were not believers in the true God. That included some of his own family.

The result was that peace reigned instead of internal turmoil and external wars. In reality righteousness was a very inexpensive policy and it was a sure-fire way of protecting national security.

In 15:2 Asa was told: "The Eternal is with you while you are with him. If you seek him he will be found of you."

Soon after he started the reform, Judah and Israel were faced with a massive invasion from Egypt, then controlled by the Ethiopians and led by Zerah. He expected easy pickings from the what he had heard of turmoil and wars.
All Judah could muster as an army was 280,000 men. That is a considerable army in modern terms. But it was far outclassed by the Ethiopian army. They numbered one million!
In spite of being massively outnumbered the Jews vanquished the invaders.
Thus instituting reform towards the true God of Israel was the best insurance policy that anyone could ever have.
So what was the office of Teacher-Priest? This post is mentioned to Aaron in Leviticus 10:11, so it is very ancient. When the Bible uses the term Teacher it does not mean 'preacher'. That is a Protestant term. It means teacher of Torah. It is associated with the Temple. Who was the Teacher-Priest in the time of Jesus?
The lineage that follows in Luke 3 shows that Joseph, his father, was this teacher before him and Heli or Eli before him. Joseph is called a tekton in the gospels. This word means 'technical expert'. It does not mean carpenter in the Jewish context. It means expert teacher of the Torah. Jesus too was a tekton, a teacher.  From Asa's experience we see that a Hebrew tekton was a master of security for the nation because he could turn Jews and their surrounding gentiles to God.
Josephus, the first century historian, calls Jesus a teacher and also refers to him by another Greek word in the famous passage in Antiquities book 18. That is poietes, a divinely inspired prophet.  (Our English word 'poet' derives from this word.) Jesus, he said, was

"a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer (poietes) of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was the Anointed of God (Christ)."

So we have not only a priest and teacher but an anointed one. Anointing was not performed for the  high priests, like Theophilus, Annas or Caiaphas. The Talmud records that an anointed priest is in a higher category of holiness from an unanointed one and the latter must withdraw before him.
So having established that Jesus had this special, divine office of Teaching Priest, how can we show he was of an age that allowed him to take office, namely 30 years?
Understanding how the Hebrews counted reigns of kings and priests will explain why the Bible does not mention that king X reigned 5 years three months and two days. It always gives a whole number of years. Why?
In the Hebrew scriptures, the dates of kings and priests were governed by regnal years. Instead of noting a specific date in the calendar when the last king died and counting the days, the method was to note who was the king on the first day of the beginning of the civil year and then count the number of years that this applied. The civil year began on the first day of the month of Tishri, the Feast of Trumpets.
Counting the number of number of these feast days gives the length of the regnal years for the king. If a king B took over from his father king A in January and stayed on the throne until Trumpets, then he had reigned a year. If he died before Trumpets he would not have reigned that year, but the year would be given to the next king C who was in office on Trumpets. This would be noted as C's first year. The chronologer would not bother to note that he had only reigned a few months of that year.
So how does this apply to Christ?
According to the calculation made by Dr Ernest L Martin in his book, The Star that astonished the World, Jesus was born at the beginning of the first of Tishri at the start of the Feast of Trumpets, 3 BCE.
So we can calculate:
3 BCE to 2BCE is one year.
3 BCE to 1 BCE is two years.
Then we have to remember that there was no year zero. The next year is 1 CE.
3 BCE to 1 CE is 3 years.
3 BCE to 6 CE is 8 years.
3 BCE to 26 CE is 28 years!

So how could Jesus be reckoned to be 30?
Firstly, we should note that Jesus was born at the beginning of Trumpets -- at night. Hebrew days begin at sunset and end at sunset. There were shepherds in the field at night who announced that he had been born in their crib in their tents. (Jesus, James Joseph chapter 15)
So what part of the whole day of the Feast of Trumpets was the critical time that marked the king's reign and distinguished it from the previous king?
The clue is in the name -- Feast of Trumpets. It was the time when the trumpets sounded. If this was midday, then if the king B died before the trumpet he was without the regnal year.  If he took office only just before and died a few seconds after the trumpet he had reigned a whole year!
So we must count the time before the trumpets of 3 BCE as the first year of Jesus's life. The second year started with the Trumpet and continued to the next first of Tishri in 2 BCE.
So the calculation should read as following:
Birth to the time of Trumpets 3 BCE year one
3 BCE to 2 BCE 2 years.
3 BCE to 1 BCE is three years.
3 BCE to 26 CE is 29 years.

But aren't we still a year short of 30?

That's when we need to look at the gospel of Luke again. Luke 3:23 says:

"And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being according to Torah law (Greek does not mean 'supposed' as Jerome mistranslated it into Latin for doctrinal purposes. The word 'enomizeto' means regulated and according to nomos, Hebrew or Torah Law, literally legalized)  son of Joseph, ... "

Jesus was beginning his thirtieth year. Come the1st of Tishri, this would all be recognized as his year.  Under Hebrew law he was entitled to count this year. As Jesus was alive on this next feast of Trumpets, we can say with Luke Jesus was beginning to be thirty years and fully qualified to be priest.
Jesus, James, Joseph and the past and future Temple is available free on www.academia.edu/25051668 or in bookshops.