WHAT ARE WE TO DO WITH THIS "JESUS CHRIST"?
MY THOUGHTS ON JESUS AFTER 20 YEARS OF STUDY
#2
WHAT ARE WE TO DO WITH THIS "JESUS CHRIST"?
MY THOUGHTS ON JESUS AFTER 20 YEARS OF STUDY #2
Like most being reared in Christianity as my birth faith I assumed before Seminary that all is well that end well and never questioned anything in the Bible for I had been positively programed to believe that I had a "infallible, inerrant, and inspired" Bible as the unadulterated Word of God. That worked until I set in classes in Seminary and saw the "Swiss cheese theology" that was taught that came from an intensive investigation of the Christian Bible. Something was wrong and at that time I could not put my finger upon what was really wrong with it but I would be able later to achieve that goal as my studies following graduation from Southwestern Theological Seminary, in Ft. Worth, Texas, would provide me with such "answers" to the many questions I had when I left there concerning both a "Jewish Jesus" and a "Historical Christ".
At present Bet Emet Ministries has over ten websites; 13 to be accurate. We need to talk about them for a second. Understanding that growing up any beginning study of the Bible is normally taken from a "literalistic" view since we are basically "Greeks" and grow up with a "literalistic" interpretation of the Bible. Literal interpretation is taking the Bible at face value and reading it as a literature and as a narrative of historical and factual events. We assume that a "literal interpretation" of what we are reading in the Bible is the normal and accurate thing to do for the most part never wondering if this approach to interpretation could be inaccurate for some reason. That is what we all do when first coming to the Bible in study; that is until our studies progress enough to see that such a "literal interpretation" is often folly and absurdity in light of the newly learned facts provided by modern scholarship that shows that these Ancient writers often wrote in "pictures, allegories, similes, and symbolism" and never intended their writings and spiritual concepts to be interpreted "literally" by anyone.
Answer for yourself: What should this mean to us?
This means that we have to start all over and begin a serious reevaluation of what we have been taught and learned since our prior interpretation of many texts are flawed when examined under the light of modern scholarship. Understand that few ever study to this level necessary to see this fallacy and principle of erroneous "literal" interpretation of much of the New Testament and live their whole lives with a false hermeneutic and interpretation of religious passages written as far back as 1500 B.C.E. To think that these Ancient people wrote literally just because that is the way we do it in our culture today is the height of foolishness. No where is this principle so important to understand is when we come to interpreting the "Jesus Story".
Mark 8:27 27 And Jesus went out, and his disciples, into the towns of Caesarea Philippi: and by the way he asked his disciples, saying unto them, Whom do men say that I am? (KJV)
What a question! I found over these last 18 years of study that in order to recover the truths regarding the question "Whom is Jesus Christ" then 4 areas of study will be necessary. It is to these areas of study we now turn in order to determine whom this "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament really is and how he was understood by the Ancients and writers of the New Testament.
Answer for yourself: Why not just accept the "literal" interpretation of Jesus Christ as we have our whole lives? Simply because modern scholarship today is revealing to us facts and evidence that have detrimental and damaging consequences to a "literal interpretation" of the "Jesus Story" which we find in our Christian Bibles.
I found that in order to learn the truth behind the "Jesus Story" one has to become very familiar and competent in 4 areas of study:
- The Analysis Of History In Relationship To The Documentation Of The Historical Jesus
- The Analysis Of Gnosticism
- The Analysis Of Comparative Religion
- The Analysis Of Solar Mythology
Troubling most for me during my years of study was, as stated in the prior article, the fact that there isn't a single "unforged" reference to Jesus Christ anywhere in recorded history that exists outside of this one book given us by Rome for the time he supposedly lived. The few references which some say allude to him are, according to modern scholarship, are forged, fabricated, or manufactured long after the original writing in order to bolster support for the existence of a "Historical Jesus" in the face of accusations to the contrary by Christianity's detractors. What should be inconceivable to a "thinking believer" is that during the alleged time of Jesus no one bothered to write down anything about this most extraordinary person and presumed Messiah. Many people alive at that time wrote extensively about everything that happened for it was a very troublesome time in the Middle East, and yet there is not a single reference to Jesus anywhere in all this wealth of first hand accounts and the few that do exist are shown by modern scholarship to be "doctored". This strange silence on Jesus Christ which pervades almost a century of Christian correspondence cries out for explanation. Modern scholarship to day will tell us that all references to Jesus Christ outside of this "one" book given to the world by Rome are either forged, fabricated, or purely invented in order to place this "Jesus Christ" into a historical time-line of Rome's choosing. Of course they chose the Messianic time-line of the Jews but ironically the Jews tell us today that their expected Messiah never appeared and never fulfilled the expected Jewish and Hebrew prophecies in their Hebrew Scriptures. These same Jews and Jewish Rabbis also tell us, if we care to look, that our Christian Bibles are forged and not accurate to the true Hebrew Scriptures. We at Bet Emet have Websites detailing this gross forgery in the Christian Bible if you care to look.
An unbiased study of History will show you that there is not a smitch of legitimate and unforged historical evidence existing anywhere today that teaches us that the Jesus Story originated as the biography of a man named Jesus of Nazareth and actually presents opposing evidence to the contrary.
If one does some serious study and examine when the Bible itself was truly written they discover that the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John; the four books detailing the life of Jesus) are not referenced in any writings by any Christian writer or Church Father until the later half of the second century, a full 140 years after the "Christ Event" supposedly happened. I am speaking of 170 A.D. as the first time any Christian writer, defending his faith, ever mentions a "gospel" by name. The Catholic Church admits a date of 70 A.D. for the earliest Gospel, a full 40 years after the alleged event, but this again upon serious examination is but "received tradition" for no quote or mention of any early gospel can be discovered today in the prolific writings of the early Christians until 170 A.D. when Irenaeus mentions them first. Many lay at hid feet the production of the replacement Second New Testament that replaced the prior Gnostic Scriptures or as I prefer to call it the "First New Testament". Bible scholars claim the Gospels were written in 170 A.D. mainly because there is no reference to the gospels by anyone, Christian or non-Christian, prior to 170 A.D., especially by certain people who definitely would have included references to them had they existed. This is where our inquiry has to begin and this will be addressed as we make our way through this website. Next we must look into comparative religion. We already have addressed this in detail on prior websites by this ministry.
Let me say that I have found out what I would call a "universal axiom"; that being that "winners write history". Rome won and the Jews lost; Greece won and Egypt lost. The accounts that have come down to us by way of tradition today which are supposed to represent "historical truth" often are anything but that. I found through my studies that you often learn "historical truth" not by reading the accounts of the winners of battles and the history written from triumphant nations but by readings the accounts of the "losers" of these political-religious struggles. No truer words could ever be spoken I believe. Let me move on with a recommendation for good book to read to help the reader see the truths of history that Rome and Greece have tried so desperately to cover up. It is facts like these that caused Rome to burn the libraries of the world to cover up their lies and deceit. This book with reveal to you the greatness of the Egyptian nation and religion and how mankind owes everything he has today to the greatness of this first Monotheistic black race of Africa.
- Stolen Legacy by George G. M. James
Gnosticism flourished in Egypt and Western Asia between 250 B.C. and AD. 400. It was a Theosophic movement made up of elements of Egyptian mythology, Indian metaphysics, Judaism, and Greek philosophy. Gnosticism was overwhelmed by Christianity in the fourth century, AD., but some of the lost Gnostic literature has been recovered, and I shall briefly consider it. The ancient Gnostics were those who "knew", just as the modern Agnostics are those who "do not know". Gnostics believed in a Supreme God who was both unknown and unknowable. This unknown god was not the creator of the world; this task was delegated to lesser gods, who were emanations of the Supreme God. Egypt called this the "many in the One". These subordinate gods or emanations from the One true God, who created and governed the world, were called Aeons. Among the Aeons were:
- The Logos (The Word, Christ [masculine])
- Sophia (Wisdom [feminine])
- Nous (Mind)
- Phronesis (Judgment)
- Dynamis (Power)
What I uncovered in my studies is that all of the above are but attributes of the One Supreme God, yet they exist separately. The Supreme God and the Aeons altogether formed the Pleroma (Fullness of the Godhead).
Col 1:19 19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell; (KJV)
Col 2:8-9 8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. 9 For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. (KJV)
In the Gospel of St. John, the Logos, or Word, is identified with "the Christ" which to these earliest writers was not a "historical fleshly person" but a manifestation of God existing in the metaphysical realm. The Gnostic influence among the primitive Christians was very strong. St. Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, was Gnostic. As Rhys has observed: It will be noticed that generally speaking the earlier Epistles show signs of Gnostic influence, while the later show signs of anti-Gnostic bias. In the earlier epistles long before Rome's later forgery of the First New Testament, "the Christ" is spoken of as a spiritual being who has always existed. . . . This Christ spirit was in Paul himself, just as it had been in Jesus: "Christ liveth in me." (Galatians 2:20) (Rhys, Shaken Creeds, p. 39.) A later Christian Gnostic, Manes (216-275), formed a sect known as the Manichaeans. The Manichaeans according to Rhys, "believed that Jesus descended from heaven in the form of a man about thirty years of age. His body was illusory, as he was in reality a purely spiritual being; and in the same way the dove (Holy Spirit) which descended upon him, or rather into him, at his baptism was also an illusion." This explains why Paul never concerns himself with a "fleshly Jesus" or mentions hardly any teachings associated with the later traditions of "Jesus of Nazareth". Paul's Christ was not a human being; that is until Rome makes it look that way by later forgeries of anti-gnostic writings to which they attach Paul's name thereby giving these anti-gnostic forgeries immediate "authority".
Manes, the founder of this sect called Manichaeans, described the Virgin Birth story as a fable which had grown up around the imaginary figure of this pre-existing spirit Jesus, and drew attention to the fact that no first-hand witness gave evidence to its occurrence. (Rhys, Shaken Creeds, p. 173.) A later form of Manichaean Gnosticism was established in the late sixth century of Mazdak, who combined his religious doctrine with socialism: Mazdakism is mentioned in Chapter XLI of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and Professor J. B. Bury appended the following note on this esoteric cult: Its religious character distinguished Mazdakism from all modern socialistic theories. His doctrines were embraced by the ancient Gnostics and Mazdak was enrolled by them with Thoth, Saturn, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Epicurus, John and Christ as teachers of the true Gnostic doctrines (Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. by Oliphant Smeaton, Vol. II, Modern Library Two-Volume Edition, pp. 255-256).
If you wish to do your own study into this most important area of study of the earliest understandings of "the allegorical or Gnostic Christ" then I recommend to the readers that you consider:
- Gnosticism, Judaism, and Egyptian Christianity by Birger Pearson
- Fragments of a Faith Forgotten by G. R. S. Mead
- Pistis Sophia, A Gnostic Gospel by G. R. S. Mead
- Did Jesus Live 100 B. C.?, by G. R. S. Mead,
- Thrice Greatest Hermes by G. R. S. Mead,
- Shadow of the Third Century, Dr. Alvin Boyd Kuhn,
- Early Christian Heresies by Joan O'Grady
- The True Origins of Christianity and the Bible by Andrew Benson
- The Beginning Of Christianity by Andrew Welburn
- The Historical Jesus And The Mythical Christ by Gerald Massey
- Jung And The Lost Gospels by Stephan Hoeller
- Gnosticism: New Light On The Ancient Tradition by Stephan Hoeller
- Gnosis: The Nature & History Of Gnosticism by Kurt Rudolph
- The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
- The Gnostic Paul by Elaine Pagels
- The Gnostic Scriptures by Bentley Layton
I discovered in all of my studies over these years that after the Roman Emperor Constantine made the Christian religion the State religion of the empire, the remaining Gnostics were persecuted out of existence and their literature was destroyed. How and why Gnosticism was destroyed by organized Christianity is, as a rule, glossed over in history textbooks. One American scholar has penned an accurate and colorful account of these episodes. I ask the reader to read the following slowly and gleam the truths from it that I have found reiterated consistently throughout my studies by many infallible proofs:
"Preceding Christianity there was a school of science and philosophy which had accumulated practically all the wisdom and knowledge understandable to mankind. The object was to broadly educate the masses of the people by a unit system which would give to humanity a wisdom in common. This was the most potential period in human intellectual advancement the world has known. This school was called Gnosticism. Gnosis means to know - knowledge. Christianity means to believe - ignorance. These are the two schools; the one advocating the universal education of men, the other the universal ignorance of men. The one desired to develop the unit man, the other desired to suppress the unit and level all mankind to a common plastic mass. To accomplish this necessitated the suppressing of all extant knowledge and Rome excelled in this first of all by burning the world's libraries to destroy this Ancient knowledge of mankind about God which was followed by the closing of all the avenues through which people might acquire independent learning, education and intellectual training; the fruit of which was the debasement of humanity in abject ignorance. The school which pitted itself against Gnosticism assumed the name Ecclesia (the organized Roman Church). This name at once identified the purpose for which the organization was created to seize control of government, that it might exploit mankind for profit, and for its own glorification. Temporal power was the church goal. The name Ecclesia was derived from the Greek, and signified the legislative body which governed ancient Athens long before Christianity was invented. The first essential act of the Ecciesiasts was to suppress Gnosticism, and confiscate its vast accumulation of wisdom and knowledge, in order to control the education of future generations in a manner to adjust mankind to its purposes. This is "mind control" at its best.
The Gnostic wisdom was not wholly lost to the world but its great, universal educational system was supplanted and displaced. It is a well-established historical fact, not denied by the church that it required about 500 years to accomplish this submersion of Gnosticism, and to degrade the new generations in ignorance equal to the state of imbecility. History again points its accusing finger at the living evidence. The horrible results of such a crime against nature and mankind are pictured in the Dark Ages ... these thousand or so years are not called "dark" for nothing. Not even priests or prelates were permitted to learn to read or write. Even bishops could barely spell out their Latin. During this period of mental darkness, the ignorant masses were trained in intolerance, bigotry, fanaticism, and superstitious fear of an invisible power secretly controlled by the church; all of which begat a state of hysteria and imbecility. Through this terrorism popes seized control of the temporal power, retaining this control for nearly 500 years. They appointed and deposed kings at will, hence they dictated legislation to their ends and purposes - the very essence of government . . . This process of legislating evil into mankind is to vindicate that damnable doctrine of original sin, which slanders nature and insults all mankind . . . Originally the motive was to confiscate the intellects of man, but the modern policy is much more concerned in confiscating their personal rights and property.
Here is the other aspect of the suppression of Gnosticism. Its method of teaching was an understandable symbolism. It specifically recognized nature as the great teacher, and visible things as the traditional records of past events, in progressive evolution from the lowest state to the highest, with thinking, reasoning man as the highest evoluted being. Man did not fall, he was raised up by a natural promotion. Hence every man was a Gnostic to the extent of his accumulated knowledge and understanding. Thus each unit man became a teacher, and all men were given equal rights in the acquirement of knowledge. It was wholly an educational system, and a natural consequence in evolution. The Ecciesiasts, the Roman church, being thoroughly familiar with the Gnostic wisdom concerning astronomy, chemistry, and mathematics, as demonstrated by the splendid systems of Babylon, Egypt and Assyria, conceived the idea of developing a religio-political form of universal government, to control and exploit the future generations of people upon the earth through living, personified agents of the imaginary heavenly powers. . . to monopolize such a divine power as that contemplated it was necessary to personify nature, using the Gnostic system of symbolisms, and to give to these wholly imaginary beings names and functions. The Gnostic system had to be confiscated, and Gnosticism suppressed, to prevent exposure. This is why Christianity was so viciously antagonistic towards science and philosophy during the Middle Ages (Thomas Sawyer Spivey, . The Last of The Gnostic Masters, Beverly Hills, California: Published by the author, 1926, pp. 544-551.)
Let me say in closing this part of the article that once I obtained a through understanding of Ancient Gnosticism, and that took a great deal of time, I could see the terrible and horrific transformation of their earlier and simpler Ancient truths as presented through the hands of Rome today that line the pages of our New Testaments. Not only would Rome burn the libraries of the world for hundreds of years to eradicate this prior knowledge of the Divine as understood since the beginning of time on this planet but would be responsible for the tragic reinterpretation of all things "gnostic" and in so doing present the world with a counterfeit religion in the name of a "Historical Jesus" which up to that time has been treasured and believed by the Ancient Egyptians on down through every successive nation as the "Christ Within" which was of a Mystical Nature and not possessing "flesh" of any sort. Paul and his authentic 7 epistles taught it correctly:
Col 1:27 27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: (KJV)
Gal 4:19 19 My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you, (KJV)
Answer for yourself: Where did this Paul think that this "Christ" resided? Through later Roman forgery of epistles bearing the name of Paul as well as the Roman Gospels which appear after 180 A.D. by the hands of Roman Christians like Irenaeus this "truism" of the "Christ Within" all mankind become blurred almost beyond recognition.
Paul and the earliest Christians, or should I say "Chrestians", which I found upon my intense studies and the reading of the best of the books on these issues that exist today, knew no "Historical Jesus" and had no belief in a "fleshly Jesus of Nazareth". With Rome's falsification and forgery of the earlier existing Gnostic New Testament presented by Marcion the "Mystical Christ Within" and the "Gnostic Christ" will be given "flesh" and in so doing be able now to be fit into a historical time-line of Rome's choosing. Roman "Scriptural Invention" become wide spread with verses like the following. You need ask yourself "Why" this verse even had to be penned if "Jesus" was a historical person (THINK)!
I Jn 4:3 3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. (KJV)
Answer for yourself: Can you imagine John writing a verse like this which has to declare that Jesus was "human" and "had flesh" if he had walked with Jesus for years? Remember that Jews like John NEVER believed their Messiah was to be "God Incarnated"; this is a later invention of Rome at the Council of Nicea some 300 or so years later! Scriptural forgery by Rome had no limits.
Our websites deal with this issue in detail. The more I studied the more my "Historical Jesus" began to vanish into the background of Rome's lies and deceptions and alterations of "the faith once given to the Saints which was definitely as I was finding more "Mystical" than "literal-historical". I have studied these areas and allied areas of study in detail along with Egyptian studies as they are related for over the last 6 years and the more that I study the more I see that this view of the Ancients Egyptian "Karast/Christ" is accurate to the earliest wisdom of the Ancients down through history for thousands of years. My turmoil at discovering uneasy things concerning my Jesus finally turned into harmony and peace the more I found these Ancient Truths for myself and saw God as the earliest Ancients understood Him and whom also gave these earliest Ancient Divine Truths to the world which were captured for all Eternity through the medium of allegory and myths. Finally I found the peace and truth behind the "Jesus Story" but there were other problems that yet needed my attention if I were to cover all my bases in getting to the bottom of the "Jesus Story". I had yet to deal with the realm of Mythology. That was next on the agenda but I never dreamed as to what I would find there. Time to get your telescope out of the closet. You will understand shortly.
Let us continue our study in the third article in this series
- Bet Emet Ministries
- Craig M. Lyons Ms.D., D.D., M.Div.
- 902 Cardigan
- Garland, Texas 75040
- 972-4964238