The Forged Origin of The New Testament Monday, August 14, 2017

By Tony Bushby

Spanish version

March 2007

Extracted from Nexus Magazine

Volume 14, Number 4 (June - July 2007)

from NexusMagazine Website

In the fourth century, the Roman Emperor Constantine united all religious factions under one composite deity, and ordered the compilation of new and old writings into a uniform collection that became the New Testament.

About the Author

Tony Bushby, an Australian, became a businessman and entrepreneur early in his adult life. He established a magazine-publishing business and spent 20 years researching, writing and publishing his own magazines, primarily for the Australian and New Zealand markets.

With strong spiritual beliefs and an interest in metaphysical subjects, Tony has developed long relationships with many associations and societies throughout the world that have assisted his research by making their archives available. He is the author of The Bible Fraud (2001; reviewed in NEXUS 8/06 with extracts in NEXUS 9/01—03), The Secret in the Bible (2003; reviewed in 11/02, with extract, "Ancient Cities under the Sands of Giza", in 11/03) and The Crucifixion of Truth (2005; reviewed in 12/02) and The Twin Deception (2007; reviewed 14/03).

Copies of these books are available from the NEXUS website and the Joshua Books website address here: http://www.joshuabooks.com

As Tony Bushby vigorously protects his privacy, any correspondence should be sent to him care of NEXUS Magazine, PO Box 30, Mapleton Qld 4560, Australia, fax +61 (0) 7 5442 9381.

WHAT THE CHURCH DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW

It has often been emphasized that Christianity is unlike any other religion, for it stands or falls by certain events which are alleged to have occurred during a short period of time some 20 centuries ago. Those stories are presented in the New Testament, and as new evidence is revealed it will become clear that they do not represent historical realities.

The Church agrees, saying:

"Our documentary sources of knowledge about the origins of Christianity and its earliest development are chiefly the New Testament Scriptures, the authenticity of which we must, to a great extent, take for granted."

(Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. iii, p. 712)

The Church makes extraordinary admissions about its New Testament. For example, when discussing the origin of those writings,

"the most distinguished body of academic opinion ever assembled" (Catholic Encyclopedias, Preface) admits that the Gospels "do not go back to the first century of the Christian era"

(Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. vi, p. 137, pp. 655-6).

This statement conflicts with priesthood assertions that the earliest Gospels were progressively written during the decades following the death of the Gospel Jesus Christ.

In a remarkable aside, the Church further admits that,

"the earliest of the extant manuscripts [of the New Testament], it is true, do not date back beyond the middle of the fourth century AD"

(Catholic Encyclopedia, op. cit., pp. 656-7).

That is some 350 years after the time the Church claims that a Jesus Christ walked the sands of Palestine, and here the true story of Christian origins slips into one of the biggest black holes in history. There is, however, a reason why there were no New Testaments until the fourth century: they were not written until then, and here we find evidence of the greatest misrepresentation of all time.

It was British-born Flavius Constantinus (Constantine, originally Custennyn or Custennin) (272-337) who authorized the compilation of the writings now called the New Testament. After the death of his father in 306, Constantine became King of Britain, Gaul and Spain, and then, after a series of victorious battles, Emperor of the Roman Empire. Christian historians give little or no hint of the turmoil of the times and suspend Constantine in the air, free of all human events happening around him. In truth, one of Constantine's main problems was the uncontrollable disorder amongst presbyters and their belief in numerous gods.

The majority of modern-day Christian writers suppress the truth about the development of their religion and conceal Constantine's efforts to curb the disreputable character of the presbyters who are now called "Church Fathers" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. xiv, pp. 370-1). They were "maddened", he said (Life of Constantine, attributed to Eusebius Pamphilius of Caesarea, c. 335, vol. iii, p. 171; The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, cited as N&PNF, attributed to St Ambrose, Rev. Prof. Roberts, DD, and Principal James Donaldson, LLD, editors, 1891, vol. iv, p. 467).

The "peculiar type of oratory" expounded by them was a challenge to a settled religious order (The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Religion, Literature and Art, Oskar Seyffert, Gramercy, New York, 1995, pp. 544-5). Ancient records reveal the true nature of the presbyters, and the low regard in which they were held has been subtly suppressed by modern Church historians.

In reality, they were:

"...the most rustic fellows, teaching strange paradoxes. They openly declared that none but the ignorant was fit to hear their discourses ... they never appeared in the circles of the wiser and better sort, but always took care to intrude themselves among the ignorant and uncultured, rambling around to play tricks at fairs and markets ... they lard their lean books with the fat of old fables ... and still the less do they understand ... and they write nonsense on vellum ... and still be doing, never done."

(Contra Celsum ["Against Celsus"], Origen of Alexandria, c. 251, Bk I, p. lxvii, Bk III, p. xliv, passim)

Clusters of presbyters had developed "many gods and many lords" (1 Cor. 8:5) and numerous religious sects existed, each with differing doctrines (Gal. 1:6). Presbyterial groups clashed over attributes of their various gods and "altar was set against altar" in competing for an audience (Optatus of Milevis, 1:15, 19, early fourth century). From Constantine's point of view, there were several factions that needed satisfying, and he set out to develop an all-embracing religion during a period of irreverent confusion. In an age of crass ignorance, with nine-tenths of the peoples of Europe illiterate, stabilizing religious splinter groups was only one of Constantine's problems.

The smooth generalization, which so many historians are content to repeat, thatConstantine "embraced the Christian religion" and subsequently granted "official toleration", is "contrary to historical fact" and should be erased from our literature forever (Catholic Encyclopedia, Pecci ed., vol. iii, p. 299, passim). Simply put, there was no Christian religion at Constantine's time, and the Church acknowledges that the tale of his "conversion" and "baptism" are "entirely legendary" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. xiv, pp. 370-1).

Constantine "never acquired a solid theological knowledge" and "depended heavily on his advisers in religious questions" (Catholic Encyclopedia, New Edition, vol. xii, p. 576, passim). According to Eusebeius (260-339), Constantine noted that among the presbyterian factions "strife had grown so serious, vigorous action was necessary to establish a more religious state", but he could not bring about a settlement between rival god factions (Life of Constantine, op. cit., pp. 26-8). His advisers warned him that the presbyters' religions were "destitute of foundation" and needed official stabilization (ibid.).

Constantine saw in this confused system of fragmented dogmas the opportunity to create a new and combined State religion, neutral in concept, and to protect it by law. When he conquered the East in 324 he sent his Spanish religious adviser, Osius of Córdoba, to Alexandria with letters to several bishops exhorting them to make peace among themselves. The mission failed and Constantine, probably at the suggestion of Osius, then issued a decree commanding all presbyters and their subordinates "be mounted on asses, mules and horses belonging to the public, and travel to the city of Nicaea" in the Roman province of Bithynia in Asia Minor.

They were instructed to bring with them the testimonies they orated to the rabble, "bound in leather" for protection during the long journey, and surrender them to Constantine upon arrival in Nicaea (The Catholic Dictionary, Addis and Arnold, 1917, "Council of Nicaea" entry).

Their writings totaled,

"in all, two thousand two hundred and thirty-one scrolls and legendary tales of godsand saviors, together with a record of the doctrines orated by them"

(Life of Constantine, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 73; N&PNF, op. cit., vol. i, p. 518).

THE FIRST COUNCIL OF NICEA AND THE 'MISSING RECORDS'

Thus, the first ecclesiastical gathering in history was summoned and is today known as the Council of Nicaea. It was a bizarre event that provided many details of early clerical thinking and presents a clear picture of the intellectual climate prevailing at the time. It was at this gathering that Christianity was born, and the ramifications of decisions made at the time are difficult to calculate.

About four years prior to chairing the Council, Constantine had been initiated into the religious order of Sol Invictus, one of the two thriving cults that regarded the Sun as the one and only Supreme God (the other was Mithraism). Because of his Sun worship, he instructed Eusebius to convene the first of three sittings on the summer solstice, 21 June 325 (Catholic Encyclopedia, New Edition, vol. i, p. 792), and it was "held in a hall in Osius's palace" (Ecclesiastical History, Bishop Louis Dupin, Paris, 1686, vol. i, p. 598).

In an account of the proceedings of the conclave of presbyters gathered at Nicaea,Sabinius, Bishop of Hereclea, who was in attendance, said,

"Excepting Constantine himself and Eusebius Pamphilius, they were a set of illiterate, simple creatures who understood nothing"

(Secrets of the Christian Fathers, Bishop J. W. Sergerus, 1685, 1897 reprint).

This is another luminous confession of the ignorance and uncritical credulity of early churchmen. Dr Richard Watson (1737-1816), a disillusioned Christian historian and one-time Bishop of Llandaff in Wales (1782), referred to them as "a set of gibbering idiots" (An Apology for Christianity, 1776, 1796 reprint; also, Theological Tracts, Dr Richard Watson, "On Councils" entry, vol. 2, London, 1786, revised reprint 1791). From his extensive research into Church councils, Dr Watson concluded that "the clergy at the Council of Nicaea were all under the power of the devil, and the convention was composed of the lowest rabble and patronized the vilest abominations" (An Apology for Christianity, op. cit.).

It was that infantile body of men who were responsible for the commencement of a new religion and the theological creation of Jesus Christ.

The Church admits that vital elements of the proceedings at Nicaea are "strangely absent from the canons" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. iii, p. 160). We shall see shortly what happened to them. However, according to records that endured, Eusebius "occupied the first seat on the right of the emperor and delivered the inaugural address on the emperor's behalf" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. v, pp. 619-620).

There were no British presbyters at the council but many Greek delegates. "Seventy Eastern bishops" represented Asiatic factions, and small numbers came from other areas (Ecclesiastical History, ibid.). Caecilian of Carthage traveled from Africa, Paphnutius of Thebes from Egypt, Nicasius of Die (Dijon) from Gaul, and Donnus of Stridon made the journey from Pannonia.

It was at that puerile assembly, and with so many cults represented, that a total of 318 "bishops, priests, deacons, subdeacons, acolytes and exorcists" gathered to debate and decide upon a unified belief system that encompassed only one god (An Apology for Christianity, op. cit.). By this time, a huge assortment of "wild texts" (Catholic Encyclopedia, New Edition, "Gospel and Gospels") circulated amongst presbyters and they supported a great variety of Eastern and Western gods and goddesses:

Jove, Jupiter, Salenus, Baal, Thor, Gade, Apollo, Juno, Aries, Taurus, Minerva, Rhets, Mithra, Theo, Fragapatti, Atys, Durga, Indra, Neptune, Vulcan, Kriste, Agni, Croesus, Pelides, Huit, Hermes, Thulis, Thammus, Eguptus, Iao, Aph, Saturn, Gitchens, Minos, Maximo, Hecla and Phernes

(God's Book of Eskra, anon., ch. xlviii, paragraph 36).

Up until the First Council of Nicaea, the Roman aristocracy primarily worshipped two Greek gods -Apollo and Zeus- but the great bulk of common people idolized either Julius Caesar orMithras (the Romanized version of the Persian deity Mithra). Caesar was deified by the Roman Senate after his death (15 March 44 BC) and subsequently venerated as "the Divine Julius". The word "Savior" was affixed to his name, its literal meaning being "one who sows the seed", i.e., he was a phallic god.

Julius Caesar was hailed as, "God made manifest and universal Savior of human life", and his successor Augustus was called the "ancestral God and Savior of the whole human race"

(Man and his Gods, Homer Smith, Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1952).

Emperor Nero (54-68), whose original name was Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (37-68), was immortalized on his coins as the "Savior of mankind" (ibid.). The Divine Julius as Roman Savior and "Father of the Empire" was considered "God" among the Roman rabble for more than 300 years. He was the deity in some Western presbyters' texts, but was not recognized in Eastern or Oriental writings.

Constantine's intention at Nicaea was to create an entirely new god for his empire who would unite all religious factions under one deity. Presbyters were asked to debate and decide who their new god would be. Delegates argued among themselves, expressing personal motives for inclusion of particular writings that promoted the finer traits of their own special deity. Throughout the meeting, howling factions were immersed in heated debates, and the names of 53 gods were tabled for discussion.

"As yet, no God had been selected by the council, and so they balloted in order to determine that matter... For one year and five months the balloting lasted..."

(God's Book of Eskra, Prof. S. L. MacGuire's translation, Salisbury, 1922, chapter xlviii, paragraphs 36, 41).

At the end of that time, Constantine returned to the gathering to discover that the presbyters had not agreed on a new deity but had balloted down to a shortlist of five prospects:

Caesar
Krishna
Mithra
Horus
Zeus

(Historia Ecclesiastica, Eusebius, c. 325).

Constantine was the ruling spirit at Nicaea and he ultimately decided upon a new god for them. To involve British factions, he ruled that the name of the great Druid god, Hesus, be joined with the Eastern Savior-god, Krishna (Krishna is Sanskrit for Christ), and thus Hesus Krishna would be the official name of the new Roman god.

A vote was taken and it was with a majority show of hands (161 votes to 157) that both divinities became one God. Following longstanding heathen custom, Constantine used the official gathering and the Roman apotheosis decree to legally deify two deities as one, and did so by democratic consent. A new god was proclaimed and "officially" ratified byConstantine (Acta Concilii Nicaeni, 1618). That purely political act of deification effectively and legally placed Hesus and Krishna among the Roman gods as one individual composite.

That abstraction lent Earthly existence to amalgamated doctrines for the Empire's new religion; and because there was no letter "J" in alphabets until around the ninth century, the name subsequently evolved into "

Jesus Christ".

HOW THE GOSPELS WERE CREATED

Constantine then instructed Eusebius to organize the compilation of a uniform collection of new writings developed from primary aspects of the religious texts submitted at the council.

His instructions were:

"Search ye these books, and whatever is good in them, that retain; but whatsoever is evil, that cast away. What is good in one book, unite ye with that which is good in another book. And whatsoever is thus brought together shall be called The Book of Books. And it shall be the doctrine of my people, which I will recommend unto all nations, that there shall be no more war for religions' sake."

(God's Book of Eskra, op. cit., chapter xlviii, paragraph 31)

"Make them to astonish" said Constantine, and "the books were written accordingly"

(Life of Constantine, vol. iv, pp. 36-39).

Eusebius amalgamated the "legendary tales of all the religious doctrines of the world together as one", using the standard god-myths from the presbyters' manuscripts as his exemplars.

Merging the supernatural "god" stories of Mithra and Krishna with British Culdean beliefseffectively joined the orations of Eastern and Western presbyters together "to form a new universal belief" (ibid.). Constantine believed that the amalgamated collection of myths would unite variant and opposing religious factions under one representative story.

Eusebius then arranged for scribes to produce,

"fifty sumptuous copies ... to be written on parchment in a legible manner, and in a convenient portable form, by professional scribes thoroughly accomplished in their art"

(ibid.).

"These orders," said Eusebius, "were followed by the immediate execution of the work itself ... we sent him [Constantine] magnificently and elaborately bound volumes of three-fold and four-fold forms"

(Life of Constantine, vol. iv, p. 36).

They were the "New Testimonies", and this is the first mention (c. 331) of the New Testament in the historical record.

With his instructions fulfilled, Constantine then decreed that the New Testimonies would thereafter be called the "word of the Roman Savior God" (Life of Constantine, vol. iii, p. 29) and official to all presbyters sermonizing in the Roman Empire. He then ordered earlier presbyterial manuscripts and the records of the council "burnt" and declared that "any man found concealing writings should be stricken off from his shoulders" (beheaded) (ibid.). As the record shows, presbyterial writings previous to the Council of Nicaea no longer exist, except for some fragments that have survived.

Some council records also survived, and they provide alarming ramifications for the Church. Some old documents say that the First Council of Nicaea ended in mid-November 326, while others say the struggle to establish a god was so fierce that it extended "for four years and seven months" from its beginning in June 325 (Secrets of the Christian Fathers, op. cit.). Regardless of when it ended, the savagery and violence it encompassed were concealed under the glossy title "Great and Holy Synod", assigned to the assembly by the Church in the 18th century.

Earlier Churchmen, however, expressed a different opinion. The Second Council of Nicaea in 786-87 denounced the First Council of Nicaea as,

"a synod of fools and madmen" and sought to annul "decisions passed by men with troubled brains"

(History of the Christian Church, H. H. Milman, DD, 1871).

If one chooses to read the records of the Second Nicaean Council and notes references to "affrighted bishops" and the "soldiery" needed to "quell proceedings", the "fools and madmen" declaration is surely an example of the pot calling the kettle black.

Constantine died in 337 and his outgrowth of many now-called pagan beliefs into a new religious system brought many converts. Later Church writers made him "the great champion of Christianity" which he gave,

"legal status as the religion of the Roman Empire"

(Encyclopedia of the Roman Empire, Matthew Bunson, Facts on File, New York, 1994, p. 86).

Historical records reveal this to be incorrect, for it was "self-interest" that led him to create Christianity (A Smaller Classical Dictionary, J. M. Dent, London, 1910, p. 161). Yet it wasn't called "Christianity" until the 15th century (How The Great Pan Died, Professor Edmond S. Bordeaux [Vatican archivist], Mille Meditations, USA, MCMLXVIII, pp. 45-7).

Over the ensuing centuries, Constantine's New Testimonies were expanded upon, "interpolations" were added and other writings included (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. vi, pp. 135-137; also, Pecci ed., vol. ii, pp. 121-122). For example, in 397 John "golden-mouthed" Chrysostom restructured the writings of Apollonius of Tyana, a first-century wandering sage, and made them part of the New Testimonies (Secrets of the Christian Fathers, op. cit.).

The Latinized name for Apollonius is Paulus (A Latin-English Dictionary, J. T. White and J. E. Riddle, Ginn & Heath, Boston, 1880), and the Church today calls those writings the Epistles of Paul. Apollonius's personal attendant, Damis, an Assyrian scribe, is Demis in the New Testament (2 Tim. 4:10).

The Church hierarchy knows the truth about the origin of its Epistles, for Cardinal Bembo (d. 1547), secretary to Pope Leo X (d. 1521), advised his associate, Cardinal Sadoleto, to disregard them, saying,

"put away these trifles, for such absurdities do not become a man of dignity; they were introduced on the scene later by a sly voice from heaven"

(Cardinal Bembo: His Letters and Comments on Pope Leo X, A. L. Collins, London, 1842 reprint).

The Church admits that the Epistles of Paul are forgeries, saying,

"Even the genuine Epistles were greatly interpolated to lend weight to the personal views of their authors"

(Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. vii, p. 645).

Likewise, St Jerome (d. 420) declared that the Acts of the Apostles, the fifth book of the New Testament, was also "falsely written" ("The Letters of Jerome", Library of the Fathers, Oxford Movement, 1833-45, vol. v, p. 445).

THE SHOCK DISCOVERY OF AN ANCIENT BIBLE

The New Testament subsequently evolved into a fulsome piece of priesthood propaganda, and the Church claimed it recorded the intervention of a divine Jesus Christ into Earthly affairs. However, a spectacular discovery in a remote Egyptian monastery revealed to the world the extent of later falsifications of the Christian texts, themselves only an "assemblage of legendary tales" (Encyclopédie, Diderot, 1759).

On 4 February 1859, 346 leaves of an ancient codex were discovered in the furnace room at St Catherine's monastery at Mt Sinai, and its contents sent shockwaves through the Christian world. Along with other old codices, it was scheduled to be burned in the kilns to provide winter warmth for the inhabitants of the monastery. Written in Greek on donkey skins, it carried both the Old and New Testaments, and later in time archaeologists dated its composition to around the year 380.

It was discovered by Dr Constantin von Tischendorf (1815-1874), a brilliant and pious German biblical scholar, and he called it the Sinaiticus, the Sinai Bible. Tischendorf was a professor of theology who devoted his entire life to the study of New Testament origins, and his desire to read all the ancient Christian texts led him on the long, camel-mounted journey to St Catherine's Monastery.

During his lifetime, Tischendorf had access to other ancient Bibles unavailable to the public, such as the Alexandrian (or Alexandrinus) Bible, believed to be the second oldest Bible in the world. It was so named because in 1627 it was taken from Alexandria to Britain and gifted to King Charles I (1600-49). Today it is displayed alongside the world's oldest known Bible, the Sinaiticus, in the British Library in London. During his research, Tischendorf had access to the Vaticanus, the Vatican Bible, believed to be the third oldest in the world and dated to the mid-sixth century (The Various Versions of the Bible, Dr Constantin von Tischendorf, 1874, available in the British Library).

It was locked away in the Vatican's inner library. Tischendorf asked if he could extract handwritten notes, but his request was declined. However, when his guard took refreshment breaks, Tischendorf wrote comparative narratives on the palm of his hand and sometimes on his fingernails ("Are Our Gospels Genuine or Not?", Dr Constantin von Tischendorf, lecture, 1869, available in the British Library).

Today, there are several other Bibles written in various languages during the fifth and sixth centuries, examples being the Syriacus, the Cantabrigiensis (Bezae), the Sarravianus and the Marchalianus.

A shudder of apprehension echoed through Christendom in the last quarter of the 19th century when English-language versions of the Sinai Bible were published. Recorded within these pages is information that disputes Christianity's claim of historicity. Christians were provided with irrefutable evidence of willful falsifications in all modern New Testaments. So different was the Sinai Bible's New Testament from versions then being published that the Church angrily tried to annul the dramatic new evidence that challenged its very existence.

In a series of articles published in the London Quarterly Review in 1883, John W. Burgon, Dean of Chichester, used every rhetorical device at his disposal to attack the Sinaiticus' earlier and opposing story of Jesus Christ, saying that,

"...without a particle of hesitation, the Sinaiticus is scandalously corrupt ... exhibiting the most shamefully mutilated texts which are anywhere to be met with; they have become, by whatever process, the depositories of the largest amount of fabricated readings, ancient blunders and intentional perversions of the truth which are discoverable in any known copies of the word of God".

Dean Burgon's concerns mirror opposing aspects of Gospel stories then current, having by now evolved to a new stage through centuries of tampering with the fabric of an already unhistorical document.

THE REVELATIONS OF ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT TESTING

In 1933, the British Museum in London purchased the Sinai Bible from the Soviet government for £100,000, of which £65,000 was gifted by public subscription. Prior to the acquisition, this Bible was displayed in the Imperial Library in St Petersburg, Russia, and "few scholars had set eyes on it" (The Daily Telegraph and Morning Post, 11 January 1938, p. 3). When it went on display in 1933 as "the oldest Bible in the world" (ibid.), it became the centre of a pilgrimage unequalled in the history of the British Museum.

Before I summarize its conflictions, it should be noted that this old codex is by no means a reliable guide to New Testament study as it contains superabundant errors and serious re-editing. These anomalies were exposed as a result of the months of ultraviolet-light tests carried out at the British Museum in the mid-1930s. The findings revealed replacements of numerous passages by at least nine different editors.

Photographs taken during testing revealed that ink pigments had been retained deep in the pores of the skin. The original words were readable under ultraviolet light. Anybody wishing to read the results of the tests should refer to the book written by the researchers who did the analysis: the Keepers of the Department of Manuscripts at the British Museum (Scribes and Correctors of the Codex Sinaiticus, H. J. M. Milne and T. C. Skeat, British Museum, London, 1938).

FORGERY IN THE GOSPELS

When the New Testament in the Sinai Bible is compared with a modern-day New Testament, a staggering 14,800 editorial alterations can be identified. These amendments can be recognized by a simple comparative exercise that anybody can and should do. Serious study of Christian origins must emanate from the Sinai Bible's version of the New Testament, not modern editions.

Of importance is the fact that the Sinaiticus carries three Gospels since rejected:

1. the Shepherd of Hermas (written by two resurrected ghosts, Charinus and Lenthius)
2. the Missive of Barnabas
3. the Odes of Solomon

Space excludes elaboration on these bizarre writings and also discussion on dilemmas associated with translation variations.

Modern Bibles are five removes in translation from early editions, and disputes rage between translators over variant interpretations of more than 5,000 ancient words. However, it is what is not written in that old Bible that embarrasses the Church, and this article discusses only a few of those omissions.

One glaring example is subtly revealed in the Encyclopaedia Biblica (Adam & Charles Black, London, 1899, vol. iii, p. 3344), where the Church divulges its knowledge about exclusions in old Bibles, saying:

"The remark has long ago and often been made that, like Paul, even the earliest Gospels knew nothing of the miraculous birth of our Saviour".

That is because there never was a virgin birth.

It is apparent that when Eusebius assembled scribes to write the New Testimonies, he first produced a single document that provided an exemplar or master version. Today it is called the Gospel of Mark, and the Church admits that it was "the first Gospel written" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. vi, p. 657), even though it appears second in the New Testament today. The scribes of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were dependent upon the Mark writing as the source and framework for the compilation of their works. The Gospel of John is independent of those writings, and the late-15th-century theory that it was written later to support the earlier writings is the truth (The Crucifixion of Truth, Tony Bushby, Joshua Books, 2004, pp. 33-40).

Thus, the Gospel of Mark in the Sinai Bible carries the "first" story of Jesus Christ in history, one completely different to what is in modern Bibles. It starts with Jesus "at about the age of thirty" (Mark 1:9), and doesn't know of Mary, a virgin birth or mass murders of baby boys by Herod. Words describing Jesus Christ as "the son of God" do not appear in the opening narrative as they do in today's editions (Mark 1:1), and the modern-day family tree tracing a "messianic bloodline" back to King David is non-existent in all ancient Bibles, as are the now-called "messianic prophecies" (51 in total).

The Sinai Bible carries a conflicting version of events surrounding the "raising of Lazarus", and reveals an extraordinary omission that later became the central doctrine of the Christian faith: the resurrection appearances of Jesus Christ and his ascension into Heaven. No supernatural appearance of a resurrected Jesus Christ is recorded in any ancient Gospels of Mark, but a description of over 500 words now appears in modern Bibles (Mark 16:9-20).

Despite a multitude of long-drawn-out self-justifications by Church apologists, there is no unanimity of Christian opinion regarding the non-existence of "resurrection" appearances in ancient Gospel accounts of the story. Not only are those narratives missing in the Sinai Bible, but they are absent in the Alexandrian Bible, the Vatican Bible, the Bezae Bible and an ancient Latin manuscript of Mark, code-named "K" by analysts. They are also lacking in the oldest Armenian version of the New Testament, in sixth-century manuscripts of the Ethiopic version and ninth-century Anglo-Saxon Bibles. However, some 12th-century Gospels have the now-known resurrection verses written within asterisks-marks used by scribes to indicate spurious passages in a literary document.

The Church claims that "the resurrection is the fundamental argument for our Christian belief" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. xii, p. 792), yet no supernatural appearance of a resurrected Jesus Christ is recorded in any of the earliest Gospels of Mark available. A resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ is the sine qua non ("without which, nothing") of Christianity (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. xii, p. 792), confirmed by words attributed to Paul:

"If Christ has not been raised, your faith is in vain"
(1 Cor. 5:17).

The resurrection verses in today's Gospels of Mark are universally acknowledged asforgeries and the Church agrees, saying,

"the conclusion of Mark is admittedly not genuine ... almost the entire section is a later compilation"

(Encyclopaedia Biblica, vol. ii, p. 1880, vol. iii, pp. 1767, 1781; also, Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. iii, under the heading "The Evidence of its Spuriousness"; Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. iii, pp. 274-9 under heading "Canons").

Undaunted, however, the Church accepted the forgery into its dogma and made it the basis of Christianity.

The trend of fictitious resurrection narratives continues. The final chapter of the Gospel of John (21) is a sixth-century forgery, one entirely devoted to describing Jesus' resurrection to his disciples.

The Church admits:

"The sole conclusion that can be deduced from this is that the 21st chapter was afterwards added and is therefore to be regarded as an appendix to the Gospel"

(Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. viii, pp. 441-442; New Catholic Encyclopedia (NCE), "Gospel of John", p. 1080; also NCE, vol. xii, p. 407).

'THE GREAT INSERTION' AND 'THE GREAT OMISSION'

Modern-day versions of the Gospel of Luke have a staggering 10,000 more words than the same Gospel in the Sinai Bible. Six of those words say of Jesus "and was carried up into heaven", but this narrative does not appear in any of the oldest Gospels of Luke available today ("Three Early Doctrinal Modifications of the Text of the Gospels", F. C. Conybeare, The Hibbert Journal, London, vol. 1, no. 1, Oct 1902, pp. 96-113). Ancient versions do not verify modern-day accounts of an ascension of Jesus Christ, and this falsification clearly indicates an intention to deceive.

Today, the Gospel of Luke is the longest of the canonical Gospels because it now includes "The Great Insertion", an extraordinary 15th-century addition totaling around 8,500 words (Luke 9:51-18:14). The insertion of these forgeries into that Gospel bewilders modern Christian analysts, and of them the Church said:

"The character of these passages makes it dangerous to draw inferences"
(Catholic Encyclopedia, Pecci ed., vol. ii, p. 407).

Just as remarkable, the oldest Gospels of Luke omit all verses from 6:45 to 8:26, known in priesthood circles as "The Great Omission", a total of 1,547 words. In today's versions, that hole has been "plugged up" with passages plagiarized from other Gospels. Dr Tischendorffound that three paragraphs in newer versions of the Gospel of Luke's version of the Last Supper appeared in the 15th century, but the Church still passes its Gospels off as the unadulterated "word of God" ("Are Our Gospels Genuine or Not?", op. cit.)

THE 'EXPURGATORY INDEX'

As was the case with the New Testament, so also were damaging writings of early "Church Fathers" modified in centuries of copying, and many of their records were intentionally rewritten or suppressed.

Adopting the decrees of the Council of Trent (1545-63), the Church subsequently extended the process of erasure and ordered the preparation of a special list of specific information to be expunged from early Christian writings (Delineation of Roman Catholicism, Rev. Charles Elliott, DD, G. Lane & P. P. Sandford, New York, 1842, p. 89; also, The Vatican Censors, Professor Peter Elmsley, Oxford, p. 327, pub. date n/a).

In 1562, the Vatican established a special censoring office called Index Expurgatorius. Its purpose was to prohibit publication of "erroneous passages of the early Church Fathers" that carried statements opposing modern-day doctrine.

When Vatican archivists came across,

"genuine copies of the Fathers, they corrected them according to the Expurgatory Index"

(Index Expurgatorius Vaticanus, R. Gibbings, ed., Dublin, 1837; The Literary Policy of the Church of Rome, Joseph Mendham, J. Duncan, London, 1830, 2nd ed., 1840; The Vatican Censors, op. cit., p. 328).

This Church record provides researchers with,

"grave doubts about the value of all patristic writings released to the public"

(The Propaganda Press of Rome, Sir James W. L. Claxton, Whitehaven Books, London, 1942, p. 182).

Important for our story is the fact that the Encyclopaedia Biblica reveals that around 1,200 years of Christian history are unknown: "Unfortunately, only few of the records [of the Church] prior to the year 1198 have been released". It was not by chance that, in that same year (1198), Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) suppressed all records of earlier Church history by establishing the Secret Archives (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. xv, p. 287). Some seven-and-a-half centuries later, and after spending some years in those Archives, Professor Edmond S. Bordeaux wrote How The Great Pan Died.

In a chapter titled "The Whole of Church History is Nothing but a Retroactive Fabrication", he said this (in part):

"The Church ante-dated all her late works, some newly made, some revised and some counterfeited, which contained the final expression of her history ... her technique was to make it appear that much later works written by Church writers were composed a long time earlier, so that they might become evidence of the first, second or third centuries."

(How The Great Pan Died, op. cit., p. 46)

Supporting Professor Bordeaux's findings is the fact that, in 1587, Pope Sixtus V (1585-90) established an official Vatican publishing division and said in his own words,

"Church history will be now be established ... we shall seek to print our own account"

(Encyclopédie, Diderot, 1759).

Vatican records also reveal that Sixtus V spent 18 months of his life as pope personally writing a new Bible and then introduced into Catholicism a "New Learning" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. v, p. 442, vol. xv, p. 376). The evidence that the Church wrote its own history is found in Diderot's Encyclopédie, and it reveals the reason why PopeClement XIII (1758-69) ordered all volumes to be destroyed immediately after publication in 1759.

GOSPEL AUTHORS EXPOSED AS IMPOSTERS

There is something else involved in this scenario and it is recorded in the Catholic Encyclopedia. An appreciation of the clerical mindset arises when the Church itself admits that it does not know who wrote its Gospels and Epistles, confessing that all 27 New Testament writings began life anonymously:

"It thus appears that the present titles of the Gospels are not traceable to the evangelists themselves ... they [the New Testament collection] are supplied with titles which, however ancient, do not go back to the respective authors of those writings."

(Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. vi, pp. 655-6)

The Church maintains that "the titles of our Gospels were not intended to indicate authorship", adding that "the headings ... were affixed to them" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. i, p. 117, vol. vi, pp. 655, 656). Therefore they are not Gospels written "according to Matthew, Mark, Luke or John", as publicly stated. The full force of this confession reveals that there are no genuine apostolic Gospels, and that the Church's shadowy writings today embody the very ground and pillar of Christian foundations and faith.

The consequences are fatal to the pretence of Divine origin of the entire New Testament and expose Christian texts as having no special authority. For centuries, fabricated Gospels bore Church certification of authenticity now confessed to be false, and this provides evidence that Christian writings are wholly fallacious.

After years of dedicated New Testament research, Dr Tischendorf expressed dismay at the differences between the oldest and newest Gospels, and had trouble understanding...

"...how scribes could allow themselves to bring in here and there changes which were not simply verbal ones, but such as materially affected the very meaning and, what is worse still, did not shrink from cutting out a passage or inserting one."

(Alterations to the Sinai Bible, Dr Constantin von Tischendorf, 1863, available in the British Library, London)

After years of validating the fabricated nature of the New Testament, a disillusioned Dr Tischendorf confessed that modern-day editions have "been altered in many places" and are "not to be accepted as true" (When Were Our Gospels Written?, Dr Constantin von Tischendorf, 1865, British Library, London).

JUST WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY?

The important question then to ask is this: if the New Testament is not historical, what is it?

Dr Tischendorf provided part of the answer when he said in his 15,000 pages of critical notes on the Sinai Bible that,

"it seems that the personage of Jesus Christ was made narrator for many religions".

This explains how narratives from the ancient Indian epic, the Mahabharata, appear verbatim in the Gospels today (e.g., Matt. 1:25, 2:11, 8:1-4, 9:1-8, 9:18-26), and why passages from the Phenomena of the Greek statesman Aratus of Sicyon (271-213 BC) are in the New Testament.

Extracts from the Hymn to Zeus, written by Greek philosopher Cleanthes (c. 331-232 BC), are also found in the Gospels, as are 207 words from the Thais of Menander (c. 343-291), one of the "seven wise men" of Greece. Quotes from the semi-legendary Greek poetEpimenides (7th or 6th century BC) are applied to the lips of Jesus Christ, and seven passages from the curious Ode of Jupiter (c. 150 BC; author unknown) are reprinted in the New Testament.

Tischendorf's conclusion also supports Professor Bordeaux's Vatican findings that revealthe allegory of Jesus Christ derived from the fable of Mithra, the divine son of God (Ahura Mazda) and messiah of the first kings of the Persian Empire around 400 BC. His birth in a grotto was attended by magi who followed a star from the East. They brought "gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh" (as in Matt. 2:11) and the newborn baby was adored by shepherds. He came into the world wearing the Mithraic cap, which popes imitated in various designs until well into the 15th century.

Mithra, one of a trinity, stood on a rock, the emblem of the foundation of his religion, and was anointed with honey. After a last supper with Helios and 11 other companions, Mithra was crucified on a cross, bound in linen, placed in a rock tomb and rose on the third day or around 25 March (the full moon at the spring equinox, a time now called Easter after the Babylonian goddess Ishtar). The fiery destruction of the universe was a major doctrine of Mithraism - a time in which Mithra promised to return in person to Earth and save deserving souls. Devotees of Mithra partook in a sacred communion banquet of bread and wine, a ceremony that paralleled the Christian Eucharist and preceded it by more than four centuries. Christianity is an adaptation of,

• Mithraism welded with the Druidic principles of the Culdees 

• some Egyptian elements (the pre-Christian Book of Revelation was originally called The Mysteries of Osiris and Isis) 

• Greek philosophy 

• various aspects of Hinduism

WHY THERE ARE NO RECORDS OF JESUS CHRIST  

It is not possible to find in any legitimate religious or historical writings compiled between the beginning of the first century and well into the fourth century any reference to Jesus Christand the spectacular events that the Church says accompanied his life.

This confirmation comes from Frederic Farrar (1831-1903) of Trinity College, Cambridge:

"It is amazing that history has not embalmed for us even one certain or definite saying or circumstance in the life of the Saviour of mankind ... there is no statement in all history that says anyone saw Jesus or talked with him. Nothing in history is more astonishing than the silence of contemporary writers about events relayed in the four Gospels."

(The Life of Christ, Frederic W. Farrar, Cassell, London, 1874)

This situation arises from a conflict between history and New Testament narratives. DrTischendorf made this comment:

"We must frankly admit that we have no source of information with respect to the life ofJesus Christ other than ecclesiastic writings assembled during the fourth century."

(Codex Sinaiticus, Dr Constantin von Tischendorf, British Library, London)

There is an explanation for those hundreds of years of silence:

the construct of Christianity did not begin until after the first quarter of the fourth century, and that is why Pope Leo X (d. 1521) called Christ a "fable"

(Cardinal Bembo: His Letters..., op. cit.).

[Source: bibliotecapleyades.net]

The True Origin of "BC" and "AD" Sunday, August 13, 2017

ANNO DOMINI is the Roman expression for: The year of the dominium of the Lord. This is to say that the "Lord" as a title was given to the highest office of the Roman Empire. At that time this was Julius Caesar and it related to any year he was in office. 

There was a gate in Jerusalem, that had the statue of Caesar posted at the gate. It was expected that the Jews come into the city through that gate and pay their respect to the statue as their Lord and Master. After all, the Romans occupied the territory at that time, and also ruled over the Jews. The Jews avoided that gate like the plague, because they would have not been able to keep the commandment: 'Thou shall not worship other Idols..' The Christians did not have this problem.

Christianity really was promoted in Greece and spread from there. Remember that the world as it was known AT THAT TIME, was mainly ruled by Julius Caesar, and anything that was Roman was also in fashion. That is why the ANNO DOMINI was simply transferred to the God of the Christians by the Christians of that time as THEIR Lord.

Now, "B.C." stands for any year "BEFORE CAESAR". This is to say the Romans could not care less what came BEFORE CAESAR, and remember, the Romans ruled! 

Again, Christianity saw this as a golden opportunity to make this one of their own significance, by simply changing it to "Before Christ." Since the Greek word for king is "Christos", it fit. The Roman word REX or the Hebrew word MELEG would not have worked.

At that time the Christian movement was a small and insignificant sect. No one can seriously believe that the Roman Empire would have fixed something as important as the accounting of historic time and events to the Christian movement, especially if it was centered around a Jew to whom the Greek title of king was assigned, and whom they had crucified for rebellion against their own.

I think you would have to go to the library and look up works about Roman periods, especially under Julius Caesar. It was he who was determined to be worshiped as IDOL (GOD) by all nations of his time, especially those nations that he had conquered, and where his troops occupied the land. His role was not simply to rule, but to DOMINATE, hence DOMINI, and not simply a number of some sort of keeping track of time. 

Anything B.C (Before Caesar) did not matter to him one way or another. It was also coined to play down the achievements of Alexander the Great, (356-323 B.C) who was still in the people's mind at that time.

[By Kevan Coleman]

The Lost Book Of The Bible

• Hell is only mankinds grave. The bible even says that Jesus went to Hell. Bet you didn't know that.

• Quote the verse, please.

Now I realize what his post to me with a verse from acts without any context was about. He couldn't even come up with a verse to suport his assertation with as his acts 2:31 or whatever only says Jesus didn't just die.

• I do not recall any Bible verse stating Jesus went to Hell, but it is part of the Christian mythology of Jesus. It is said that he went to Hell for three days (just like most of the sons of god before him) to "plead for the lost souls." I think Jesus's trip through Hell is in one of the Apocrypha.

• Oh, it's in the bible all right, but it's a typo! See below from a previous post of mine.

I just finished reading The Lost Years of Jesus Revealed and Did Jesus Write This Book, both by Charles Francis Potter. He proposes that the Books of Enoch and similar writings were "lost" on purpose because they document the evolutionary development of theology later grafted onto Jesus. In particular he points to Enoch as the source for the beatitudes and "but I say" and ethical teachings of Jesus. As evidence he cites the exclusion of the books of the Psalms of Solomon, Epistle of Barnabas, and Shepherd of Hermas. These are found in various of the oldest existing manuscripts and attested to by early church fathers.

Barnabas, for example, is included in the Codex Sinaiticus, Clement of Alexandria quotes it as scripture and Origen terms it a "Catholic Episle." Barnabas 16:5 quotes Enoch 89:55, 66, 67 and Barnabas chapter 4 reads "as Enoch says". Enoch was recogonized as scripture in the first century by the current new testament book of Jude, in the second century by Barnabas and Athenagoras, and in the third century by Clement of Alexandria, by Irenaeus, and Tertullian. After Hilary, Jerome and Augustine it was "lost".

On page 95 of The Lost Years of J Revealed, Potter shows that the phrase "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." was added to Acts 8:37 because it isn't in fourth century Codexes Vaticanus and Sinaiticus nor the fifth century Codexes Alexandrinus and Ephraemi. It's still in the King James Version but has been removed from the Revised, American Standard Revised, and the new Revised Standard Version. In a strange twist of fate, he notes that the ethiopian eunuch falsely attributed as saying this, may in fact have been the source of the book of Enoch transported to europe where it escaped destruction and a copy was discovered late in the 19th century.

On the next several pages, Potter shows that the "he" refered to in 1 Peter 3:18-20 that "went and preached to the spirits in prison", the source of the credial phrase about descending into hell, is not Jesus but in fact originally refered to Enoch! He lists several Greek specialists that support this translation: Bowyer, Spitta, Cramer, Rendel Harris, M.R. James, Moffattt and Goodspeed. In Enoch chapters 6 to sixteen, Enoch not only preached to these spirits but the circumstances of their imprisonment are explained.

This story became a point of contention between Augustine and Tertullian. Guess who became the heretic and who the saint and which believed what? Fundi scholars attribute this little change to a scribal error known as "haplography", or writing only one of two identical groups of letters occuring near together. Another accident like "losing" all the copies of Enoch, no doubt. BTW, these "spirits" were the fallen angels of Genesis 6:1-4, Isaiah 14:12 and 24:21-23. Paul was apparently aware of this and still afraid of them when he gives the reason why women should cover their heads in church in 1 Cor 11:10, "because of the angels."

Further evidence of the evolution of biblical theology can be found in Luke 3:22 which in the "Gospel of the Ebionites", several ancient manuscripts, quotations by Justin, Clement, Origen, and even Augustine describes the descent of the Holy Spirit as Jesus baptism thus, "Thou are my Son, today I have begotten thee." This clear text is the basis for Adoptianism, or the belief that Jesus was only a human till god endowed (or adopted) him with divine nature. This belief can be traced back through Arius, Lucian, Paul of Samosata, to Theodotus of Byzantium and Artemon in Rome about 185 and before that to the Ebionites of the first and second centuries, the survivors of Qumran and Jerusalem in 70.

The Ebionites are also the ones that first call Paul a liar! What does the present day bible say at Luke 3:22? The "today" has been removed to match the eternal divinity dogma and all the Adoptionists are declaired heretics even by Augustine who knew what the bible originally said!

[From Larry Sites to David Rice: JESUS IN HELL]

Can God Do Anything?

Subject: Can God Do ANYthing?

Reproduced for you reading pleasure, with permission, from Biblical Errancy, Issue #134, Feb, 1994:

Dear Mr. McKinsey,
I've read a number of back issues of B. E., and I think I have a pretty good idea of what you're trying to do, but as far as I can see, in all this time, you've neglected one very important point that affects all your arguments, and that is this: God can do anything. Any Sunday-school child can tell you that.

And what does that mean? It means that God can, whenever He wants to, take a contradiction and turn it into a non- contradiction. He can take a fallacy and turn it into truth. That is only one way He can 'confound the wise'.

You can say 'Well, 'white is black' is a contradiction.' It is, unless and until God wants it not to be. Then 'white is black' is no longer a contradiction, but is gospel truth. God is more powerful than all the laws of reason and logic, and can nulify or change the rules in any way at any time. Don't ask me how He can do it. His ways are omnipotent, and beyond my understanding or yours. If he wants to turn 'up' into 'down' or say that '1 + 1 = 3' He can do it and it will make perfect sense in a microsecond. Every verse in the Bible is literally true. People like you are just too narrow-minded and have such tunnel vision that you can't accept the almightly power of an infinite and omnipotent God.

Change your ways, Mr. McKinsey, and you can have a great reward at the end of your life.

Editor's Response

Dear Dr. KM, You have taken pseudo-intellectual anti-intellectualism to new heights by submitting the ultimate in religious inculcation and gibberish. I always thought Dr. Peter Ruckman's book Science and Philosophy was the most anti-intellectual composition in my repertoire, but your letter has surpassed even his absurd meanderings. This situation is made all the more tragic by the fact that your perverse thought processes and those of Ruckman are loaned an aura of respectability by a doctorate in something or other. Critiquing your letter is in a category by itself. You are among those pathetic beings who have left the realm of reason, logic, rationality, evidence, proof, data, and common sense and entered a never-never land of make believe and self-indulgent bliss. You refer to a being whose existance you can in no way prove and assert he is capable of performing deeds which you can in no way demonstrate.

As sad as it is to say, KM, you are a disgrace to every scientist, every inventor, every person who has ever tried to improve the status of mankind by demonstrating that which they allege. All you have succeeded in doing is proving that when carried to its ultimate conclusion religious propaganda is dangerous to sane minds and can only lead to a total divorce from reality not unlike that found in neurotics and psycotics. You would have humanity believe that there can be a square circle, a four-sided triangle, and a non-existant existing being. You would have us believe that God can totally, not partially, _totally_ destroy himself and then bring himself back into existence. You would have us believe that God can create a being more powerful than himself or create something too heavy for him to lift. You would have us reject the law of non-contradiction itself and have us believe that something can be itself and not itself simultaneously. You would literally have us believe that black can be white--the quintessence of inculcation, propaganda, indoctrination, and brainwashing.

Is it any wonder that you would have us accept the Bible as the inerrant word of a supreme being. It's nothing more than the logical culmination of an up-is-down philosophy that can only lead to the rejection of all contradictions per se. Once people seriously adopt your philosophy, then anything they chose to believe can be justified on the grounds that God can do anything and God is on their side. They don't have to prove by reason or demonstrate by proof; all they need do is assert and that alone is sufficient for verification. Talk about being divorced from the real world and dwelling in phantasia!

Following that stream of thought I could claim to be God and defy you to prove otherwise. After all, you said God can do anything, anything. If that's true, then I could very well be god. Even more important, my claim to be God is true until you can prove the contrary, which is impossible. How do you know for certain that I am not God; prove it. I defy you to prove that I am not God. If you were to ask me to perform some stupendous feats, I need only say that I do not choose to do so, and you were told by Scripture not to test the Lord thy God. If you say my behavior is imperfect, I would only ask you to observe the activities of God in the OT and note that they were justified as well. That settles the matter. Every one of your thrusts could be easily parried. In fact, everyone on the face of this planet could make equally incredible claims and your stance with them would be no stronger than with me.

You religionists just don't realize that you have to PROVE things. You completely ignore your own book which clearly says 'Prove all things' (1 Thess. 5:21). Merely saying or believing something is wholly insufficient. You just don't understand that when you alter or remove a basic intellectual concept, such as the law of non-contradiction, a chain reaction is set in motion that affects everything down the line. Everything is interrelated and what you think will work to your favor in one instance will operate to your detriment in others. If you can go on a wild spree, then so can I. If you can make ludicrous claims, then so can I. And mine are not only as valid as yours but equally incapable of being disproven.

The pandora's box you seek to open for yourself is also opened for all of mankind and the only limits are the imaginations of all concerned. Someone could murder the person you love most and claim they are either god or acting on God's orders, and until you proved otherwise, you would have no right whatever to punish them. How do you know they aren't being truthful? I challenge you to prove otherwise! If you took their life, you could very well be killing a physical manifestation of God and I don't need to tell you what the ultimate punishment for that would be.

Sample issue free upon request from:

Dennis McKinsey,

3158 Sherwood Park Drive,

Springfield, Ohio

45505

The Jesus Of The Gospels

The Jesus of the Gospels 

The Jesus of the Gospels is hardly the character that Christians like to present, eg. he used violence - John 2:15 (and apparently encouraged it; before his arrest he told his disciples to buy a sword; this was used immediately afterwards - Luke 23:36,49-50; if he was the omniscient Son of God, he would have known this was to happen). 

• His purpose was to break up families - Matthew 10:34-35, Luke 12:51-53. He taught the gospel was not available for certain races - Matthew 10:5-8, 15:24. 
• He was ignorant of the Scriptures he quoted - Mark 2:26 (In fact the priest was Ahimelech, not Abiathar - see 1 Samuel 21:1,6). 
• He was cruel to animals - Matthew 8:1-4 ('the offering' Jesus commanded was a bird being sacrificed - Leviticus 14:2-5), 8:28-34. 
• He treated his mother with contempt - John 2:4, He suffered fits of temper, not justified by the situation - Matt 21:18-19, 23:13-33 (In the John 7 outburst, in John 7:37, the Greek is 'to screech like a raven'). 
• He was hypocritical - Matthew 5:22 (Compare his action in Matthew 23:17), Matthew 6:14 (Compare Matthew 10:14-15), Matthew 7:1 (Compare John 5:30, 8:26). 
• He lacked sympathy for other people's suffering - Matthew 8:21-22. He rejected his own family - Matthew 12:46-50, Mark 3:32-35. He had contempt for other religions and their adherents - Matthew 12:30, 23:2-33, John 8:44,55. 
• He deliberately taught in a way so people would not understand him (and therefore be saved from going to eternal hellfire)- Mark 4:9-12. He encouraged people to desert their families - Matthew 19:29, Mark 10:29. 
• He taught people to hate* their families - Luke 14:26 (*The Greek here means 'active ill-will' or 'persecuting spirit'). He taught that suffering was to show God's glory - John 9:1-3. 
• He ignored a woman pleading for his help: only after she asked him three times did he condescend to help - Matthew 15:22-28 (Here he alludes to Gentiles as "dogs"). 
• He taught that ill-health and human suffering was the result of sin, or for the purpose of glorifying God - Mark 2:5,11,12, John 5:8-14. 

And furthermore, he clearly seemed to have thought that his second coming/the end of the world, ie. the final judgement (etc, etc) was only a short time away, eg. he told the high priest that he would see his return - Mark 14:61-62, he told three disciples that they would see his return - Matt 16:28, he told the disciples he would return before they had preached throughout Palestine - Matt 10:23.

Furthermore, when Jesus told his disciples about the end of the world (Mark 13:3-27), he told them that the generation living at that time (ca. 30 AD) would still be alive when "all these things", (ie. the Second Coming, the Final Judgement, the end of the world, etc, etc) took place (Mark 13:30). Despite saying all this, only seconds later he then told the disciples that no one - including himself - knew when the end would come (13:32).

Also, he foretold that he would be buried for 3 days and 3 nights in Matthew 12:40 - but Friday evening (Mark 15:42-46) to before Sunday daybreak (John 20:1-2) is not 3 days and 3 nights. Mark 15:42 states he was buried after sundown on the Friday, ie. the sabbath (this is Saturday in Jewish reckoning - something quite impossible to have happened anyway).

The Gospels repeately say how Jesus' death etc 'fulfilled' the Old Test scriptures (eg. Luke 24:27), but nowhere in the Old Test does it say the messiah is to be killed, buried and resurrected after 3 days.

With regard to the end of the world etc, Jesus stated that there would be an "abominating sacrilege" (Matthew 24:l5, Mark 13:14) which would cause a tribulation (Matt 24:16-28, Mark 13:15-23) and IMMEDIATELY after this (Matthew 24:29), he would return to usher in the Final Judgement (Matthew 24:29-31).

Now Luke has in the parallel passage, the "abominating sacrilege" as the Fall of Jerusalem (Luke 21:20; as can be seen by Luke 21:21-23, the author of Luke does equate "the abominating sacrilege" with Jerusalem's destruction). However, Jerusalem's destruction (particularly as described in Luke) occurred in 70 AD - isn't Jesus' return (which was supposed to occur "Immediately" afterwards), somewhat overdue ?

And its on a clown like this that Christians base all their hope - and expect others to do likewise!

[Source: HolySmoke.Org]

Dating Saul of Tarsus

The date of Paul's conversion, as suggested in the "infallible inerrant Bible" indicates he saw the risen Christ before Christ even died. Using Acts and Gal together, the following is arrived:

Paul's conversion (Acts 9:3ff, Gal 1:16) = 31 AD.

First visit to Jerusalem (Acts 9:26,Gal 1:18). This was 3 years after conversion (Gal 1:18) = 34 AD.

Second visit to Jerusalem (Acts l5:2-4, Gal 2:1-10). 14 years after lst Jerusalem visit = 48 AD.

Paul visits the churches (through Syria and Cilicia to Derbe and Lystra, through Phrygia and Galatia to Troas and Macedonia, through Amphipolis and Apollonia to Thessalonica (3 weeks - Acts 17:2), to Beroea, then Athens and onto Corinth (Acts 15:40-18:1). Say 1 year = 49 AD. (NB. This is known as "Paul's second missionary journey").

Paul arrives in Corinth (Acts 18:1); after l.5 years (Acts 18:11) he then appears before Gallio, the proconsul of Achaia (Acts 18:12-16) (NB. Paul leaves Corinth in Acts 18:18) = Summer 51 AD.

NOTES:

(N1). With regard to (5), an inscription from Delphi includes a letter from the emperor Claudius (41-54 AD) and in this there is a ref to Gallio as proconsul; the date is the 26th acclamation of Claudius and as the 22nd, 23rd and 24th were all made in 52 AD and the 27th was before August 52 AD - the 26th would therefore be in Spring/Summer 52.

The term of office as a proconsul was just one year - beginning in the late Spring or early Summer; therefore as Gallio's time is factually known, the Acts story in chapter 18 can be located in Spring/Summer 51 or 52 - most likely 51. Therefore in dating Paul's life up to Acts 18, it leads up to this specific date as it is absolutely definite. No one disputes this.

(N2) In 18:2, Paul meets two Jews who had been expelled from Rome; this edict of banishment was in 49 AD and supports the date given in (4).

(N3) Taking Acts and Gal as being accurate, yet more problems arise:

(a) Is the 3 years of Gal 1:18 to be dated from Paul's conversion or his returning to Damascus?

(b) How long did the missionary work in (4) take? The above includes a year.

(c) When does the 14 years in Gal 2:1 begin - his conversion (his starting point in the passage) or the 1st Jerusalem visit mentioned just before?

Therefore, it appears from the above table that Paul's conversion took place in the year after Christ died and yet much was supposed to have occurred between these events, ie. all that is included in Acts 1:1 - 9:1.

Furthermore the minimum times possible have been allowed in the above so there cannot be any accusation that it has been formulated in a way to presuppose anything, or deliberately cause problems.

For example, in (4) - it would be most unlikely all this travelling could be done in just one year. If it was (say) two years because there is a fixed point (ie. (5).) as 51 AD which is known to be correct and can't be altered, the starting point has to be moved back to fit in the extra year into the schedule and Paul's conversion is then dated as 30 AD. However that would mean Paul was converted by seeing the risen Christ before he even died.

The same applies with Gal 1:18 - if the 3 years begins from Paul returning to Damascus and not the conversion, there would have to be time also included for Paul's antics in Arabia (Gal 1:17) and being included in the time before 51 AD would again would push Paul's conversion back to something like 29 AD. In fact some Christians do state Jesus' death was 33 AD and this would mean Paul was converted by seeing the risen Christ (ie. 29 AD) before Christ had even started his three-year ministry (30 AD) let alone had died and risen.

Dating Paul's conversion as 31 AD and Christ's death in 30 AD creates many problems, ie. it is known that the Jewish Passover (8th April - the Jewish 15 Nisan) fell on a Saturday in the year 30 AD; but the Synoptics make it clear that Jesus was crucified on the Passover but the following day was Saturday and they therefore date the Passover as a Friday. The Passover began on Thursday evening (the Jewish day begins the previous evening) and ended Friday evening - ie. Mark 14:l2 to 15:42. In sum, the different narratives cannot be reconciled and appear to be divorced from historical fact.

It should also be mentioned that with regard to working out when Paul was converted, that whilst just 1 year for Paul's 2nd missionary journey was given, others say it was longer, eg. the evangelical New International Version (Bible) in its schedule of Paul's life says it was 2 years (ie. this then makes Paul's conversion 30 AD). Furthermore they date the time between Christ's ascension and Paul's conversion (ie. Acts l:l-9:l) as SEVEN YEARS.

If this figure was used above then it would make Paul's conversion remain as 31 AD (this cannot be changed or made later), but Christ's death/ascension would be 7 years earlier, ie. in 23 AD. However, this cannot be so as Luke (3:1) states that Christ's ministry began in the fifteenth year of Tiberius and as there is no doubt about the time of his rule, the l5th year is definitely 28-29 AD.

Therefore using the information that the Bible itself supplies, the accounts given of Christ's death and/or Paul's conversion, etc, are shown to be ficticious. Furthermore one question that must be asked is why the New Testament writers appear to have this amazing difficulty in locating Jesus in a chronological setting if he really existed?

[Source: HolySmoke.Org]