THE EXODUS ALLEGORY & THE GNOSTIC CREATION OF
THE JESUS MYTH OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
Let's examine the various elements from which the Jesus myth was constructed, beginning, as the original Christians undoubtedly did themselves, with the myth of Exodus.
This famous Jewish myth relates the story of Moses leading his people out of captivity in Egypt by miraculously parting the Red Sea. There follows 40 years of wandering in the wilderness in search of the Promised Land, at the end of which Moses dies. It is his successor, Joshua ben Nun, who miraculously parts the river Jordan to lead the Jews to the destined homeland. So far so good as this sticks to the "literal" understanding of the text that we are familiar with.
It is important to understand right up front that the name "Jesus" itself comes from Exodus (Joshua/Jesus makes his first appearance in Exodus 17:8). In Greek the Hebrew name "Joshua" becomes "Jesus".
Answer for yourself: How come most of us are not aware of this fact? Now hold on to your seat for I assure you that I am not craze but only "well taught". Could this "Joshua" of history, whose name also means "Jesus", who once lived in Egypt and the time of Moses, be the substrate from which all later "historical Jesus stories" and myths were told? "Impossible", you say then I challenge to look at the evidence seriously and you will think different.
When we can find no evidence for a historical Jesus in the first century other than a few clumsy forgeries in Josephus and have to "misinterpret" the references to the Gnostic Christ in the writings of Pliny, Sutonius, and Tacticus in order to try to place a literal and historical "Christos" in the first century, when all their writings mentioned the "Chrestus", the Gnostic Christ, and not the "Christos" (later the historical Christ of Rome), then maybe we should look for existing evidence that could place this "Jesus" in Egypt during the 18th Dynasty. If we know to do so then we finally find our "Historical Jesus" who was slain on the eve of the Passover and hung on a tree like Paul says. Well, first of all, we don't know to look there and second few if any Christians every find out that there is no credible, unforged evidence for a historical Jesus existing in the first century. Now on with this study.
Few know this because today it is normal practice to use Joshua for the hero of Exodus and "Jesus" for the hero of the gospels, which avoids any comparison of the two. In the days of the first century, however, it would have been completely obvious that they shared the same name. In fact if a Gnostic Jew was writing for a Gentile audience then he would have written "Jesus" and not "Joshua" long before the time of the supposed historical Jesus.This is not a coincidence.
Answer for yourself: Could it be remotely possible that the Christian Jesus is a mythic development of the Jesus/Joshua of Exodus? Well that is a very serious question but with our previous study into the importance of "myths" as a vehicle for encoded Divine Truth then let us examine this possibility as best as possible.
- In Hebrew the name Joshua/Jesus is written with the letters Yod Heh Shin Vah Heh.
- The letters Yod Heh Vah Heh (minus the Shin) is known as the Tetragrammaton and was extremely significant to Jewish Gnostics, as they were used to signify the unpronounceable name of God, usually rendered today with added vowels as either Jehovah or Yahweh.
As Philo explains, when the middle letter Shin, known as the Holy Letter, is added, the name means "Saviour of the Lord".
Answer for yourself: Then does "Joshua" and or "Jesus" mean "Savior of the Lord"? Yes!
The "Christ" is also linked to the Exodus myth. Paul tells us that, as well as Jesus, Moses was also "God's Christ" (Heb. 11:24-27).
Heb 12:24-27 24 And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. 25 See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: 26 Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. 27 And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. (KJV)
"Christ", which means "Anointed One", is a Greek rendering of the Hebrew word "Messiah", which was an epithet for a leader, used of Jewish kings. Although today the name "Jesus Christ" is inextricably linked to the Literalist figure of the supposed founder of Christianity, in the first century C.E. the name would have been heard as obviously symbolic, meaning "The Saviour King".
Jewish Gnostics, and Christian Gnostics after them, understood Exodus to be an initiation allegory.
THE ALLEGORY EXPLAINED...COMING OUT OF EGYPT
Egypt represents the physical body in Ancient Wisdom teachings and Ancient Scriptures. When the initiate identifies with only the body and the flesh they are "in captivity". To "come forth out of Egypt" was understood as leaving behind the idea of being merely a body and discovering the Soul. This was the beginning of the Spiritual experience and discovery of God. Hippolytus recounts for us that those who are ignorant...are Egyptians in need of departing Egypt; that is from their body centered existence (Hippolytus, Ref., 5.11). The ignorant Egyptians represent those "without Gnosis", without the knowledge of the Divine Spark within them (the Christ dwelling within). It was this class of people who remain identified with their physical selves and who did not possess the "knowledge/Gnosis"; that they were Divine Sparks of God entrapped in these fleshy and carnal bodies.
Crossing the Red Sea was understood as symbolizing a purifying baptism, which is the first stage of initiation on the path of spiritual awakening for those who are "conscious". This in Judaism was called being "born again". Explaining that Exodus should be understood "allegorically", Paul writes:
"Our ancestors passed through the Red Sea and so received baptism into the fellowship of Moses" (I Cor. 10:1-6):
1 Cor 10:1-6 1 Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; 2 And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; 3 And did all eat the same spiritual meat; 4 And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ. 5 But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness. 6 Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. (KJV)
Initiation by baptism begins a process in which initiates must face their doubts and confusion, symbolized by the Jews being afflicted in the desert for 40 years.
Having come to possess this "knowledge" & "Gnosis" that within their body dwells the Divine Spark or Soul of God then the next stage is experiencing the "death" of the old self which was represented by the death of Moses. Moses is mythically reborn as Joshua/Jesus (Joshua was his successor).
It is through this "new Moses, this Joshua/Jesus, that one completes the journey to the Promised Land, representing the "reborn" initiate who realizes Gnosis. It is only thought this "new man" (Joshua/Jesus) that the goal of salvation can be achieved in the Old Testament for Israel. All of this was understood in a "literal" sense. But that will change with the Gnostic New Testament of Marcion.
The basic structure of the Exodus allegory, representing the fundamental stages of Gnostic initiation, is the framework upon which the Jesus myth was constructed. When you possess the keys to the "Jesus Story" it can be seen on a deeper level to be the birth, life, death, and rebirth of the Soul, of the Divine in us.
This same Exodus story is retold through the Gnostic Christ of the New Testament.
The first stage of initiation into this higher self-awareness of one's self and the "Soul within" is one of cleansing and purification and struggle. In the Exodus myth this is the crossing of the Red Sea, which inaugurates 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. We find the exact same thing inn the Jesus story represented by Jesus" baptism, followed by his 40 days in the wilderness.
The next stage in the process of initiation is the "death" of the old self which precipitates Gnosis. This is represented in the Exodus myth by the death of Moses and in the Jesus myth by the death of Jesus on the cross.
Answer for yourself: Does Paul teach this Gnostic Exodus allegory through the New Testament "Christ"? He sure does.
Rom 6:6 6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him (Christ), that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. (KJV)
Eph 4:22-23 22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; 23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind (to the revelation of Christ-God within you); (KJV)
Col 3:9-10 9 Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; 10 And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: (KJV)
In Col 3:9-10 Paul appeals to believers who have come to the "Gnosis" of God within them and that they have been created in the image of God, to not fall back into lives typified by sin and fleshly deeds. Live according to the higher knowledge that they have received:
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)
The experience of Gnosis is represented in Exodus by Joshua-Jesus crossing to the Promised Land. This is the salvation of Israel as depicted in the Old Testament. Its paralleled in the New Testament if found in Jesus' resurrection from the dead and ascension to Heaven.
COMPARING THE STRUCTURE OF THE EXODUS WITH THE JESUS STORY IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
SEEN AS GNOSTIC INITIATION ALLEGORIES INITIATION PROCESS
- PURIFICATION
- Old Testament...Exodus' example: Crossing of the Red Sea
- New Testament...Jesus example: Baptism by John
- DEATH OF THE OLD SELF
- Old Testament...Exodus example: Death of Moses
- New Testament...Jesus example: Crucifixion of Jesus
- REALIZATION OF GNOSIS
- Old Testament...Exodus example: The Promised Land
- New Testament...Jesus example: Crucifixion and Resurrection
The earliest Christians understood the Exodus allegory as we do not today as contemporary Christians and followers of "the Christ". That being so the original Christians classified people as "the captive, the called and the chosen". These were the Naasene Gnostics as described by Hippolytus, op. cit., 5.1-2 ff. Hippolytus relates to us of three churches of the Gnostics, the angelis, the psychic and the earthly, and their names are the chosen, the called and the captive. These terms clearly derive from the myth of the Exodus. Those yet to undergo initiation and still trapped in the idea of being a physical body are like the Jews captive in Egypt. Those who have heard the call to awaken and begun the spiritual journey by being initiated into the Outer Mysteries of Christianity are like those Jews who were "called out of Egypt" to begin the journey to their true home. Those who have undergone the process of purification and spiritual struggle necessary to prepare themselves for Gnosis and been chosen to be initiated into the secret Inner Mysteries of Christianity are like those "chosen people" whom Joshua-Jesus leads across the river Jordan to the Promised Land. Clement regarded those Christians who have yet to reach Gnosis as being of three different types, defined by their relationship to God, as the slave, the faithful slave and the friend (Clement, Strom., 3). Initiates who finally realized Gnosis were known as "those who have crossed over" (Mead, Fragments of a Faith Forgotten, 1906, p. 186).
Early Christians were well aware of the parallels between their Jesus Christ and the Jesus Christ of Exodus. Justin Martyr, for example, explains that the Christian Jesus will lead his people to the Promised Land just as the Jesus of Exodus led his people to the Promised Land (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Typho, chap. 113). Justin entitled this chapter "Joshua was a figure of Christ." Justin referred to the Old Testament Joshua 38 times in an effort to convince the Jew Typho that the Hebrew Scriptures are full of references to Jesus. Justin traces the motif of the cross to Exodus, where Moses holds up a serpent on a cross and says, "If you look at this image and believe, you shall be saved by it" (Num. 21:8). In this Justin claims that Plato borrowed his idea of the "Son of God" crucified in the cosmos (Timaeus, 34) from Moses. This source is made explicit in The Gospel of John, where Jesus is made to announce:
"The Son of Man must be lifted up as the serpent was lifted up by Moses in the wilderness." (John 3:14)
Other, more incidental, mythic motifs found in the Jesus myth also come from Exodus. Once he has crossed the river Jordan, the Jesus of Exodus selects 12 men to represent the 12 tribes of Israel. After his baptism in the river Jordan, the Jesus of the gospels likewise selects 12 men as his immediate followers (John 3:13).
Answer for yourself: What is the origin for these references to the number "12"?
Both motifs refer to the 12 astrological signs of the zodiac." After the crossing of the Jordan Joshua-Jesus orders that 12 stones be set up, one for each of the 12 tribes, at a place called Gilgal.
Answer for yourself: What are we missing? The Hebrew word for Gilgal means "wheel" or "circle". This is an illusion to the Zodiac once again. In the later "Jesus Myth" Gilgal was interpreted as the zodiac and the Jordan as the Milky Way. Important to note is that Attis was born by a river which symbolized "the Galaxy, or the milky circle, from which a passive body descends to the Earth" (Sallust, On The Gods and the World, 4). In mystical Judaism reincarnation is still called "Gilgul". Jesus' appearance in Galilee (which comes from the same root word) where he selects the 12 disciples, echoes those early exploits of the Old Testament Joshua-Jesus (A. Drews, The Christ Myth, 1968, p.240). Such a reference is not surprising. The Jews had adopted astrology from both Egypt and later with the Babylonians whilst in exile in Babylon, eventually becoming renowned throughout the ancient world as astrologers. They even claimed that the Jewish Patriarch Abraham had been the inventor of this ancient science.
In the myth of Moses, at his birth the evil Pharaoh, fearful of a prophesy that Moses would be the cause of his downfall, commits mass infanticide in an attempt to kill him, In the gospel myth of Jesus this becomes the "slaughter of the innocents" perpetrated by the evil King Herod who, fearful of a prophesy that the true King of the Jews has been born, attempts to kill the infant Jesus (Matt. 2:2-16). Kronos devours all his children of Rhea because of a prophesy that he would be overthrown by one of them. Rhea is smuggled away to a secret cave where she gives birth to Zeus, who later supplants his father.
Answer for yourself: Sound familiar?
Mary the sister of Moses becomes Jesus' mother Mary, a correspondence pointed out in many Christian texts, as well as in the Muslim Qur'an.
Like the Jews in Exodus, in the gospel story Jesus is called out of Egypt, where he has been in hiding, like the Soul lying hidden within the fleshly body. The Gospel of Matthew explains that this is to fulfil the prophesy "Out of Egypt I have called my Son" (Matt. 2:15). Here, as elsewhere in the gospels, we should read "fulfill the prophesy" as a coded reference to the source of the symbolic motif and its intended allegorical meaning. This is prophesy in retrospect.
Answer for yourself: Are you aware that almost all the Messianic prophecies in the New Testament were written and intended to be taken "allegorically" and not "literally"? Read that again!
Answer for yourself: Are you aware that the translation of the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures was altered for this purpose by the Therapeutae-Essenes of Alexandria, Egypt? This was done to spread the "allegorical" understanding of "the Christ" as Joshua-Jesus to the Greek speaking world. This translation of the Hebrew Scriptures took great license with the Hebrew Scriptures and we end up with a Greek translation that was intended to be taken "allegorically" at best but sadly has been taken "literally" by the world today. By these translators, the expected human Jewish Messiah was, as shown in prior articles, blended with Mystery Religions and Gnosticism in presenting the Jewish Messiah as a dying - resurrecting Godman which was NEVER to be interpreted "LITERALLY" in the first place. This brings us to the forgery of Marcion's and the first New Testament by Rome where they took the Gnostic "allegorical" Christ-Concept and put flesh on him in the late second century by adding to Marcion's Gnostic First New Testament the genealogies, infancy narratives, and anti-Gnostic writings to which they placed Paul's name like the Pastoral epistles!!!
Piecing together previously existing mythological material in a new way was a traditional Jewish technique known as midrash. It has long been known to scholars, for example, that the entire passion narrative in the gospels has been created from motifs taken from Psalms 22, 23, 38 and 39 and from the depiction of the "suffering servant" in The Book of Isaiah (E. Doherty, The Gospels as Midrash and Symbolism, 1999, 225 ff.).
The Essenes taught that in ancient times the Jesus of Exodus had hidden secret teachings, so only those who were worthy could discover them at the appropriate time (The Essene Damascus Document, 5:2-4). These Essenes developed a contemporary mythic Christ figure called the "Teacher of Righteousness", whom they identified with the Jesus of Exodus (S. A. Hoeller, Jung and the Lost Gospels: Insights into the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library, 1989, p. 50). This figure eventually became the Jesus of the gospels, a mythical reincarnation of the great hero of the most important of all the Jewish Gnostic myths. The secret teachings hidden by Jesus the Christ of Exodus are finally made public by the reworked figure of Jesus the Christ in the gospels. This is the "secret not revealed in former times" but "now disclosed" of which Paul writes in his letters.
Eph 3:3-6 3 How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, 4 Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) 5 Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; 6 That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel: (KJV)
As you are beginning to see "the Christ" written of by Paul in his authentic and earliest epistles was not a human Christ in the form of a human Jesus. Rather "the Christ" was the embodiment of the Divine come to tabernacle within mankind and bridge the gap from the Spirit realm to the realm of physical existence. This Logos and "the Christ" was an intermediary in non-human form that connects mankind to God (Energy/Spirit to matter). Coming to the understanding of the self-knowledge that God dwelt within you was explained to initiates who were coming to this understanding through an allegory based upon the Exodus of history. The "literal" history of Israel was expressed as an "allegory" and applied to a higher salvation experience in those coming to the knowledge of God in centuries before and after the first century. The old man of fleshly lusts was dying when coming to this "Gnosis" and being resurrected as a "new man" with a new spiritual revelation of God within and the purpose for one's existence above a life of sin.Through the "myth" of the dying-resurrecting Godman, which was at this time ONLY UNDERSTOOD ALLEGORICALLY, one was to identify with the "pattern" of salvation in the Old Testament as lived out in his own personal life.
This plan of salvation was, for the earliest Chrestians (Christians), coming to the understanding that through baptism (being born again), repentance (death of self and flesh) and resurrection (living with a new awareness and surrender to the will of God and His Christ within them) one was one achieving the New Testament salvation.
That is until Rome
will later come along and take this allegorical New Testament of Marcion
that expressed the above Spiritual beliefs and change it almost beyond
recognition with their
"literalized" and "carnalized" Christ. It was God in Christ within mankind and that is
it. The Jews still looked and prayed and hoped for one to come in the
power and Spirit of David but this "Christ" within all mankind
was not it. The whole narrative of the baptism, crucifixion, and
resurrection of "the Christ" in the First New Testament was only
intended to be a parallel and allegory of what "physically"
happened to Israel in the Old Testament. The principles in this story were
"allegorized" by the earliest Christian Gnostics and
Essenes-Therapeutae and applied to the awakening of the Spirit within
mankind and the liberation from darkness into the light of God. Later Rome
will come and reinterpret "the Christ" as if a "literal"
incarnation of God within a human as was thought of their Roman Emperors.
This "literalized" godman, in the form of the Roman historical
Jesus, only gave sanction to the Emperor who was a self-declared "literal
God". In so doing they will in time though first oral
reinterpretation and teaching and later through forgery of Marcion's First
New Testament and invention of other documents espousing their theological
views distort beyond recognition the earliest understanding of "the
Christ" as had been held by the earliest Gentile and Jewish Gnostic
Christians. With the purge of Gnostic materials and the subsequent burning
of the world's libraries over the next two or more centuries the
censorship of Rome was complete. The knowledge of "the Christ",
that was to be understood only "allegorically" and which had
been since Egypt, was now lost to mankind; that is until the discovery of
the Nag Hammadi library some fifty years ago. Throughout the last two
hundred years sporadic voices were heard faintly as to this truth but
today with the aid of archeology and the proliferation once again of this
knowledge we can learn of this deception and restore the truth concerning
God's Christ. No longer must we be enslaved to a "literal"
interpretation of "the Christ" as the Joshua-Jesus of the New
Testament and be overtaken by idolatry and false worship since accepting
these "literal" views of "the Christ."
- Bet Emet Ministries
- Craig M. Lyons Ms.D., D.D., M.Div.
- 902 Cardigan
- Garland, Texas 75040
- 972-4964238