RESTORING THE "KEYS" TO PROPER
BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION OF "THE CHRIST"
#1

Untitled Document

RESTORING THE "KEYS" TO PROPER BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION OF "THE CHRIST" #1

I must preface this article with the the most shocking statement. After consistent scholarly study for these past twenty years I can say, and the evidence backs me up, that almost no Christian I have ever met in the last twenty years knows accurately of what they read in the Bible. The reason for this is that they fail to posses the necessary "keys" for proper Biblical interpretation of the passages they read. This is all the more important considering the extent and influence of the Christian Bible and its "indoctrination".

Like millions of other Christians, I can't remember when I first laid eyes on the Bible. I do remember however that my name was written in the front of Dad's large print King James Version, and in Mom's family Bible. At our church, the pastor preached messages from the Bible, with lots of verses, and the Sunday School teachers used it every week in our lessons. We were expected to bring our Bibles to church, to learn Sword drills, to be able to read the King James Version, and to memorize scripture verses. Before we understood anything about the truths of this Bible, we were indoctrinated with the "literal-historical" understanding of what we read and this for me laid the foundation that "The Bible is the "Word of God" for me. I believe that is true today but I must quality that statement with reservations. If we lack the "keys" necessary to interpret correctly this Ancient Book, written in a different language, in a different Age, with multiple types and variety of literature within it, then have we really every heard the "real message" of this Book? I can remember my first questions about the Bible forming as a youth, sitting in the balcony during church, flipping through the pages and looking at the colored picture and occasionally reading whatever I found. I wondered what was this strange book from long, long ago with the odd print and self-pronouncing names. As I grew older I became interested in History and Archeology as a boy, and I began to wonder often wondered why the Bible was different from other ancient writings and why I was so lucky to "have the truth" when so many others did not and thereby by default became the object of our "missions" department. But you get the idea.

Well that was a long time ago and I since then I have had the privilege to go to Seminary and it was there that the good Baptist folks equipped me with the "tools" and the "desire" necessary to do Bible study like few other Christians can ever know or do. Unlike a lot of other graduates from Seminary I continued my studies along with my ministry and continue to do so today; never relenting for my quest for truth and this brings me to this website and the others provided by Bet Emet Ministries. For me, analytically minded like I am, too often in Seminary "things just did not add up correctly" and I had to know why! It would take years of serious investigative study "outside the box", so to speak, to find out why!

The word "method" comes from the Greek word "methodos", which literally means "a way or path of transit." Methodology in Bible study is therefore concerned with "the proper path to be taken in order to arrive at Scriptural truth."

Answer for yourself: What should that teach us?

This clearly implies that improper paths can be taken. Of course, proper methodology is essential to many fields of endeavor. One only has to look at the medical profession to get a grasp on the importance of "proper methodology" necessary to preserve and improve "physical life". I am here to tell you today that equally important is the "proper methodology" to preserve, sustain, and improve one's "Spiritual life" as well. Improper methodology in interpreting Scripture is nothing new.

There are three good reasons why we have difficulty understanding the biblical text:

We are separated from the historical events written about in the Bible by many thousands of years of history.
We live in a dramatically different culture,
The biblical texts were written in foreign languages

These obstacles to understanding can be daunting to those who want quick and easy comprehension of the Bible. Honesty it takes years of hard-nosed study to obtain the necessary "keys" to proper interpretation of the Bible. I found that to be true by my own exhaustive study of this Book over the last 16 plus years. Sadly few people will ever take the time and put forth the effort to uncover what the Biblical writer's original intent might have been and what lies behind the surface of the passages we read in our Bibles. Our goal should be to exegete, or draw meaning from the Scriptures, and to understand the passages we read exactly like the original writer so did when these verses were penned rather than to impose meaning or our "indoctrination" onto them.

Unknown to almost all Christians, and to me before Seminary, is the fact that prior to the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s, biblical interpretation, as well as the interpretation of Ancient Spiritual writings around the world since the beginning of recorded time, was dominated by the allegorical method of interpretation. This is very, very, very important to understand since it can be shown today that the "Jesus Story" is parallel in the majority of its "events" and "sayings" to these Ancient writings that have come down to us through the corridors of history from a host of different nations. One only has to look at Comparative religions and do some cursory study to see this fact for themselves. Our recommended book list gives the reader such sources for his own individual study in these areas. Looking back to Augustine, the medieval Catholic Church believed that every biblical passage contained four levels of meaning. These four levels were:

The literal,
The allegorical,
The moral, and
The eschatological.

Answer for yourself: And where did the Church gather these 4 different levels of interpretation?

Form the Jews for Rabbis for countless centuries have taught this fourfold method of textual interpretation [hermeneutics] in Judaism long before the birth of Christianity. The four levels of interpretation are:

Peshat: The literal meaning;
Remez=The allegorical meaning;
Derash=Moral or homiletic meaning;
Sod=Mystical or spiritual meaning.

By the time of the reformation, knowledge of the Bible was scarce. However, with a new emphasis on the original languages of Hebrew and Greek, the fourfold method of interpretation was beginning to fade and influential Christians like Martin Luther argued for the rejection of the allegorical method of interpreting Scripture. Luther argued that a proper understanding of what a passage teaches comes from a literal interpretation "only" and not the allegorical understanding of the text. This means that the reader must consider the historical context and the grammatical structure of each passage, and strive to maintain contextual consistency. This method was a result of Luther's belief that the Scriptures are clear, in opposition to the medieval church's position that they are so obscure that only the church can uncover their true meaning. Calvin agreed in principle with Luther. He also placed great importance on the notion that "Scripture interprets Scripture," stressing that the grammar, context, words, and parallel passages found in the text were more important that any meaning we might impose on them. What I want you to notice is that further from the Ancient sources of religious literature Christianity moves further away from the "allegorical" interpretation of religious texts to the "literal-historical" interpretation of religious texts where often we find "new" imposed meanings attached to these spiritual texts which were never there in Ancient times.

Answer for yourself: Why is this important to know? Simply because many of the major religious tenets handed down through history by the Ancients, many of which continue to be found today in Judaism and Christianity, like "the Christ" for example, are changed and reinterpreted in later historical ages by succeeding conquering nations, like Rome, and in so doing the "truth" concerning, for example, this "Christ", is lost or hidden behind a false "literal-historical" hermeneutic. In other words, the "interpretation" of many of these religious doctrines revealed to the Ancients by the Creator as found in their Ancient scriptures and Sacred Books, their "Bibles", can be found to be "changed" over time down through history. That is why the study of various religious disciplines like Comparative religion and Gnosticism is so critically important as they reveal to us how mankind understood the Creator and His message to all of mankind for thousands of years before the rise of the "Holy Roman Empire".

Answer for yourself: What should that say to us? It should tell us that today it is quite possible that we do not have the accurate understanding of many "religious doctrines" which we have been taught to cherish in our lives. This to me is important for I want to know and understand and "believe" in such Divine Concepts correctly for failure to do so only muddles my understanding and perception of God and His message to me.

Answer for yourself: How many "religious dogmas" and "doctrines" in the Roman Christian Bible have been altered down through the Middle Ages by the Roman Church and when did this adulteration begin? Well there are many and it all began around the 3rd century. But important for us in this article is not just "when" but "which ones" of these Divine Concepts have lost their original purport when handed down to us by Roman Christianity!

The Christian Bible, like other "Spiritual Books" in other parts of the world, presents to the thoughtful mind one of the most astounding phenomena encountered in modern life.

Answer for yourself: And what would that be? It would be the power of "indoctrination". Again I hope you see the seriousness of this in light of the "possible" adulteration of Spiritual Truth as handed down to us by Rome today. One only has to look at the Doctrine of the Messiah as taught by Judaism and Roman Christianity to grasp the importance of such differences and hopefully ask "why" since it was to the Jews this "Messiah" was promised and not to Rome.

The dominance of the Bible in the thoughts of Christians comes originally through childhood indoctrination. Many people born into a strongly religious family submit to that belief system throughout their lives; others, like myself get lucky and begin to study their faith where they undergo a long, tortuous, and painful road from being a "blind-believer" to a "thinking-believer". Others no so fortunate drift slowly and passively away from their cradle faith to become lukewarm Christians or "nothingarians" without fully confronting what the religious indoctrination of "altered religious doctrines" has done to them as human beings. Our Christian Bible exercises through the subtle power of tradition and child-indoctrination a totally unbelievable power over the common mind which can only be compared to a type of hypnotic obsession by some. Most don't even recognize that they worship this Book more than God Himself. Again don't loose sight of the fact that if we have been "indoctrinated" with "altered Spiritual Truths" then we have strayed from the path intended for us by the Creator and this tragedy can be laid upon the doorstep of Rome. But study is necessary to see this "fact" for yourself. It seems to matter not to most that serious study of this Book can be enlightening and rewarding whereby their lives can be more rewarding than continuing in the "status quo".The only problem which one encounters in such serious study of this Bible and which often stops one right in their tracks right from the beginning is that one quickly finds in such study that many, and I mean many of our "inherited" and "cherished childhood indoctrinations" from this Bible can be shown to be less than reliable when exposed to the light of modern scholarship and historical evidences that exist today. Gripped by "fear of losing one's salvation" they recoil from such study of the Bible believing that the Devil is deceiving them. This only goes to reinforce the power of indoctrination of "falsehoods" instead of "truths" which we have received in the Western Hemisphere under the blanket of Roman Christianity today. The power of "belief" is amazing when select "tenets" are reinforced repeatedly since childhood, be they "right" or "wrong". Too often it matters not that what we are taught is wrong but hey, if it came from the Bible most unquestioningly assume that it has to be right. The repetition of error, or lets say the "misinterpretation" of what we read and have heard for twenty years in Church sermons makes one' exodus into truth almost impossible and unattainable. I am one of the lucky ones having gone to Seminary where I did not "check my brain" at the door and being "analytically minded" things had to add up and if they did not then I saw this as a problem that no faith could bridge. I kept telling myself over and over for 3 years in Seminary that "if God is not the author of confusion", as the Bible says, "then who do we blame this on"? I did not know at the time when I graduated with my Masters in Divinity why things did not "add up" but as I left the campus for the last time I set out on a life-long investigation of this perplexing problem and the result of my studies birthed Bet Emet Ministries (Hebrew for "the House of Truth").

The force and reach of the subtle acceptance of various philosophies and religious tenets is not dreamed of by the person who has not become consciously liberated from it and can view it objectively, or from the outside. Few people have not been able to dissociate themselves sufficiently from their indoctrined preconceptions in this regard to substantiate this phenomenon of the psychological "brainwashing". Only a trained and liberated mind can stand out from under its own inherited habits of thought and feeling and subject them to rational and dispassionate criticism and examination in the endeavor of serious Bible study. I pray the readers and students of Bet Emet Ministries, if given enough time and the right materials to study, can extricate themselves from this subtle mind control we grow up with in this basically "Christian nation". I am not saying that Christianity as we know it is wrong but that it is erroneous at the core of its central thesis and belief. Without serious study few can grasp or apprehend such a statement. But we fortunately today to live in a world where one can free himself from religious censorship and mind control of Rome which too often many of our spiritual forefathers were subjected; often unknowingly. This truly is the information Age and what a shame if we did not take advantage of it while we pass on this Earth. For the most part, people accept as authoritative the mass conceptions and religious belief systems amidst which they grow up, and regard their general trend as the seal and certainty of their rightness. I did; that is until I went to Seminary and began to seriously read and study the tragic history of my Christian faith. Let me say that there are two sides to every coin and winners of wars not only write the history but "change" it. Rome won and the Jewish nation lost. Rome in the 3rd century altered Ancient divine "Spiritual Truths" and the truth of God given to mankind over thousands and thousands of years was lost to the world and remains lost today but to only a select few who enter into such serious study of Christianity and the alteration of these Ancient Spiritual understands of God. This is what I found and continue to find as my studies deepened year after year. The joy that comes in such study sadly comes mixed with pain as we eventually find the truth and realize that we did not have it most of our lives. This is called "repentance" This joy comes when one realizes that he is liberated from the darkness of deceit and falsehood and the result is not only one's emancipation from error and misjudgment and often sin but attaining to the the proper worship of the Creator commanded in the beginning of time. But all of this is strange and unbelievable to those who have not studied this "Bible" as they should.

In such fashion as I mention above this Bible, which I both love and mistrust in many places, has been accepted as the great unique work of Divine authority, and, with the force of hallowed devotion back of it for generations going on now for some 1,700 years or so, it now wields a perfectly unrealized power over the common minds of most. Even those who have outwardly spurn it find themselves often unwittingly influenced by it in ways they little dream of since our society has been cunningly saturated with the seeds of a thousand ideas that spring from the vast number of phrases, texts and incidents which have taken unshakable rootage in the mass consciousness. In the area of Christendom this book is still regarded as the supreme moral and spiritual guide of the faith. And from time to time one reads or hears that to solve the world's ailments all that is needed is more consecrated study of the Bible. Yes, there is truth in the Bible but I say that with tremendous qualifications and reservations. We can all agree that more study of spiritual things is decidedly a need of our time and country but we face a strange situation here, which does not seem to have been discerned by the majority of proponents of Bible study. Understand that there never has been a book that has been studied so exhaustively and enthusiastically as this. No book has received such devotion and reverence. No other book than the Christian Bible has been preached on so often and so passionately. It has been organically dissected and analyzed without end. Thousands of volumes of exegesis have been written upon it. I remember a few years ago reading a prominent scholar that stated that the Bible has been dubbed "The Book Nobody Knows", and its central hero, "The Man Nobody Knows".

Answer for yourself: How can such a thing be said of the Bible or "the Christ"? Why would it have been said at all? Is such a statement true and is there something we don't know that would make such a statement just? If this is the outcome of past study on an enormous scale, and the consensus of many scholars today, what gain does it do us to study it further?
Answer for yourself: Are we lacking "keys" necessary to properly interpret and understand this Bible and have we approached this Bible unknowingly with the "wrong key" for its interpretation most of our lives?
Answer for yourself: Has our childhood-indoctrination given us the wrong "keys" to interpret this book correctly?
Answer for yourself: How long has mankind been devoid of these "proper keys" for interpretation of this Bible and what are they?
Answer for yourself: Could by chance mankind have lost these "necessary keys" for proper Biblical interpretation in the 3rd century at the hands of Rome?

Make no mistake about it this Bible we cherish is a "sealed book". Few, if any, know that within this Bible is a hidden message beneath the surface stories we read and have been taught to interpret "historically" and "literally". Few, if any, know that this Bible is truly the legacy of a grand past Ancient Wisdom. And perhaps no one now living knows thoroughly what is hidden in its pages. If you study hard for a long time this Christian Bible and study other religious disciplines along with it like Comparative Religions, Gnosticism, Egyptian religion, Judaism, etc., then the unmistakable conclusion to which you are drawn and repeatedly assured in such studies is that it is futile to give this Bible more study of the kind that it has received heretofore for the last 1,700 years. If it lacks study it is because thousands have labored to get its meaning and have failed. The effort has bred disappointment and resentment against its incomprehensibility. The Bible is at the same time both a "difficult book" to understand and a "simple book" to understand, "simple" if you have the "keys" necessary to its proper comprehension. What we as Christians and followers of "the Christ" need in this modern age in which we live with regard to the Bible is not more study but some accurate comprehension; not more waste of unproductive wrestling with its puzzles and mysteries, but a few rays of proper interpretation that bring accurate understanding. In brief, what is needed is a knowledge of the background out of which it grew, and in reference to which alone it can be comprehended correctly!

The vast majority of Christians today fail when reading this Bible to hear the deep message of the Book. This is primarily to modern Christian scholars who densely and stubbornly refuse to see that ancient scriptural writing was esoteric or hidden as to its meaning, and allegorical and symbolical as to its method. This should not be surprising to the reader once he understands that since the 3rd century, almost 1,700 years, conscious efforts have been made to "alter" the Ancient understanding of God and His message to mankind by Rome and their redactors of Holy Writ.

When mankind lost the allegorical, mystical, and mythical understanding of Ancient Sacred literature and the Bible then mankind lost the Divine Truth in the Bible.

The ancients did not use newspaper directness as we would expect today. In other words they did write using the Greek "literal-historical" method when writing their sacred volumes. On the contrary they put up their secret wisdom, conceded to them by the great Sages, in the form of allegories and myths, which were to be taken as fiction in their outward dress, but as the cinematograph of profoundest truths and knowledge in inward sense. By a combination of symbols, nature signs and allegories, often woven into a background of real history, they sought to portray the deepest types of spiritual experience and an intellectual grip on reality. The Bible has been crudely taken for literal truth about living personages on the stage of mortal history when often this is not the case. It has been rendered literally and historically to its detriment. This is the most gross mistake, the most pretentious error, in all of human history, this mistaking of spiritual allegorism for literal human narrative.

We are in position to make the unqualified pronouncement for the first time in the modern age that there is not one iota of history, in the ordinary acceptation of that term, in the Bible from beginning to end. What often is mistaken as "literal history" is in reality but allegory of Divine Spiritual truth related to subsequent generations through the vehicle of allegory, myth, legend, and metaphor. Make no mistake about it, there is some "literal history" within the Bible but misinterpretation of much of its allegory has contributed to mistaken understanding of Divine concepts as if "literal historical narrative" which it was never intended to convey. Some portions of Jewish history are utilized as the base and frame of these spiritual myths and concepts.

Unknown to most Christians is the comment by Eusebius, one of the three chief formulators of Roman Christian theology, that the Gospels of the New Testament are themselves nothing but old dramatic books of the Essenes in pre-Christian days.

Answer for yourself: How could this be? How could Eusebius make the blatant statement that Christianity and "the Christ" existed before the rise of Christianity with its later Gospels?

Unknown to most Christians is the fact that the earliest and greatest of the framers of Christian theology, Philo, Clement and Origen, expressly declared it was impossible and an impiety to assert that the logos of God could take the flesh of a human personality.

Church father Origen, one of the most accomplished biblical scholars of early Christianity said, “The Scriptures were of little use to those who understood them literally, as they are written” (Higgins, Anacalpysis II, p.270) St. Augustine also thought of the bible in allegorical terms by saying, “There is no way of preserving the literal sense of the first chapter of Genesis, without impiety, and attributing things to God unworthy of him.” St. Athanasius bishop of Alexandria admonishes us that “Should we understand sacred writ according to the letter, we should fall into the most enormous blasphemies” (Pike, p. 266). Basically this is exactly what the modern day Christians have done. They take the bible literally when it was not to be taken that way. As I shall prove in this letter.

Answer for yourself: Is is correct to say that these pioneer Early Church Fathers did not believe in a "fleshly "Jesus" but believed in the Spiritual Concept of "the Christ" among mankind? Yes it is!

Unknown to most Christians is the fact that today's modern Biblical scholarship reveals without question that the Old Testament narratives are in their entirety rewritings of old Egyptian material, distorted and obscured as it passed through later Hebrew hands.

Answer for yourself: Where can I find such materials for my own study? Our recommended book list offers many books on this Egyptian-Jewish link but a good book to start with is Gary Greenberg, Myths of the Bible, Sourcebooks, inc., 2000). Long acknowledged as an integral part of the heritage of western civilization, ancient Egypt’s importance to world history cannot be exaggerated, especially in the context of religions. At least three of the world’s major religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—can trace their roots and/or early dissemination to the land of the Nile. The religious dogmas and doctrines found in Egyptian religion can be traced to both later Judaism and later still Christianity; albeit often with "altered" interpretations as sifted through these later nations and their histories. These religions, especially the Coptic Church branch of Christianity, can even find parallels between many of their practices and rituals and the ancient religion of the pharaohs. Today, Egypt’s landscape is dotted with the churches, temples and mosques of these religions that stand alongside the temples of Isis, Osiris, Horus and other ancient Egyptian deities.

Answer for yourself: What is important to know concerning this link between Egypt and later Judaism and later even still Christianity?

Egyptian Scripture was never historical. Egyptian Scripture was spiritual symbology, pure and unadulterated. The sadest phenomenon of world history transpired when later ignorance took the Egyptian interpretations of Divine Concepts given to mankind in the beginning of time and and converted them into absurd literal narrative at the hands of Rome in the 3rd century. And the thinking of the whole world of the civilized West, at least for some 1,700 years at present, has thus been based on "literal history" that can be shown through the efforts of modern scholarship to have never occurred, and the Christian Church has been founded on a set of miracles supposedly at the hands of a "literal historical" Christ that were never performed in the natural realm. It has been so appropriately said that the only miracle envisioned in ancient theology was the transformation of human character by the indwelling presence of the Creator, and this spiritual miracle of the Descent of the Soul, the Divine, into physical matter, into the flesh of mankind, was poetized, dramatized and allegorized in a hundred forms of outward representation, all of which has been absurdly taken for personal "literal" history for the last 1,700 years.

Answer for yourself: Why is reinterpretation of Divine allegory of Divine Concepts as held by the Ancient Spiritual Masters of mankind since our beginning on this planet and later presentation and misrepresentation as if a "literal" and "historical" event not good?

This conversion of Spiritual and Mystical into an assumed "literal" biographical history has made Christianity the instrument of the grossest degradation of exalted Ancient truth to which it has ever been subject. That is to say, that all Christian doctrines present the ancient wisdom in a more literal and hence cruder form of meaning than had ever been done before in the history of mankind's religions. In the transmutation of the spiritual crucifixion and sacrifice of man's soul within him to the nailing of an assumed and personal "literal" Jesus on a wooden cross Christianity has reduced the glorious drama of the spiritual life of mankind's Soul and its evolutionary plan of maturation to its grossest and most repellant form. There is no religion higher than truth! It is the business of enlightened study of the Bible to not only recover the "keys" that reveal this truth of the Divine realties around us that have tragically been purposefully misinterpreted since the 3rd century as if "literal-historical" but at the same time see that under the disguise of a historical crucified savior lies the pattern for the descent, growth and development of the Divine Soul within matter (mankind). This is the goal for man's existence. We must study this Bible from many areas until we can come to see for ourselves the Spiritual Truths behind the "Jesus Story" and lift this weight of crude literal dogmatism from off the modern imagination and conscience at whatever cost. The light of the true spiritual Gnosis of Ancient times much enlighten the Sacred Scriptures of Christianity as it once did and in so doing remove the darkness of Roman literal dogmatism if mankind is ever to reach the zenith of its creation and in so doing dispel errant and shameless false hermeneutic given us by Rome. It is firm belief, based on years of the most diligent research, that it is impossible to understand the stories and allegories of the Bible and the host of religious dogmas and doctrines contained within it properly without a knowledge of ancient methods of sacred writing, and of the ancient philosophies that adorn its pages.

Answer for yourself: What must we know for our efforts at Bible study to be productive and assure us that our efforts are rewarded in Spiritual Truth and no longer error? As I see it there are 4 things we must know.

1. We must know that the writers of the Ancient Scriptures were poets, allegorists, dramatists and mythicists. In other words, Ancient Scripture, whether Egyptian, Jewish, or early Christian, were never written with a "historical-literal" interpretation in mind. These writers come from a line of generations of sages and seers who had developed the art of spiritual representation to a point of the utmost ingenuity and complexity, completely shrouding the intended real meaning under veils of symbolism, which have utterly misled modern scholars who could not pierce the outer veil to read the truth hidden underneath. These Ancient Scriptures were written by masters of the Hidden Mysteries of the Divine realm. Thus the works can not be read without the "keys" to the myths and reference to the symbols used within the many texts. To try to do so guarantees mistaken interpretation and resultant conduct and religious beliefs. The ancients themselves testify plentifully that the scriptures are allegories. Origen (185-254 C.E.) was an early church Father and apologist for Christianity. While Origen claimed that the Bible was divinely inspired, he did not accept the complete historicity of Scripture, nor did he interpret it all literally. Like others in the Alexandrian school of interpretation, he often allegorized the Scriptures as had the Ancients before him with similar if not the same "religious beliefs". Origen regards the whole Bible as a set of allegories. Allegorical interpretation was widely used in the early Church, and according to Philo it was commonplace amongst the Palestinian Rabbinical schools of the 1st century C.E. Greek philosophers used allegorical interpretation to expound the writings of Homer and Plato, and these methods met with some limited acceptance amongst Jews and early Christians. Most of the Fathers (Irenaeus, Clement of Rome, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, ... used Allegorical interpretation to expound the Christian Gospel from the Hebrew scriptures, and to interpret the Christian scriptures to the contemporary Church. The Latin Fathers, especially Ambrose and Augustine, held an intermediate view, allowing for both a literal and an allegorical interpretation of the Hebrew texts. But the most astonishing declaration to this effect is St. Paul's own statement in Galatians that the whole story of Abraham and Sarah and Hagar is "an allegory."

2. We must know that the writers of the Ancient Scriptures were esotericists, writing only of the inner life and for initiated pupils. They wrote of inner things under an outer veil. They wrote of the Greater Mysteries which were never given out to the multitude, but taught in secret to disciplined students. Spiritual truth was not published in modern fashion. Whatever was written, was veiled under glyph and symbol. Mostly it was taught by oral tradition. Most Christians have been taught to take the bible literally, and word for word instead of looking for the "allegorical truths" behind the surface of what we read. Then there are some Christians who realize that the bible is not to be taken this way, at least not all of it. Paul gives us a clue about one bible story. Paul gives us a clue about this "hidden" truth behind allegories that we read as if "literal" stories today. Paul says: “Now this is allegory: these two women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.” Galatians 4:22-25. Now it is clear that Paul is saying that this story is NOT about historical people. He just admits that they are really representative of two covenants.

Answer for yourself: Could it also be that the "Jesus Story" is to be understood as an allegory expressing deeper mysteries and Divine Truths and not as a "literal-historical" person? Paul was a Gnostic. For those who say he was not well if he wasn't then he was close enough. Gnostics did not believe in taking the bible in a literal sense. This is what could explain so many contradictions with Paul’s letters. That is IF all of his supposed letters were written by him. I used to do that but as my studies increased along with my knowledge I can now recognize and separate the "real Gnostic Paul" from the Roman counterfeit of their own imagination to promote a false "historical Christ".

3. We must know that the writers of the Ancient Scriptures were "uranographers." Christians today believe that God created the stars and the Sun and the whole universe. But anyone who is especially fond of this present universe and looks to the stars for insight, they claim it is a sin and evil. Many have again been indoctrinated to believe that astrology is wrong and against what the bible teaches. Well that is totally false and a lie. In fact the bible teaches the opposite, Astro-theology plays a very big role in Christianity. Astro-theology is a “theology founded on the observation of the celestial bodies.” (Webster’s 1828 Dictionary). If you have been a faithful student of Bet Emet Ministries then many of our other websites had begun to open your eyes to the many, many problems that surround the Jesus of the New Testament. After you read this websites it should convince you that Jesus Christ, as depicted in the New Testament, was not a real, historical person. Jesus Christ is a "Spiritual Concept", originally expressed in myth and allegory for thousands of years since Ancient Egypt but today mistakenly understood due to Rome as a historical literal person. Many biblical and historical scholars are saying that this Roman representation of "the Christ" is not truthful.

Answer for yourself: How do we know? What did the early "Chrestians" or Christians believe? With our prior indoctrination and forged Christian Bibles you have to study a lot to find the truth behind this "Jesus Story".

Most of you will not know about the things which will be discussed in this website.

Answer for yourself: And why not? Because as I have stated before, you and I have been brainwashed into thinking that Astrology is bad and evil.

Ancient astrologers had a double role in society. They were responsible for observing and charting stars and using this information to regulate the calendar, which was of great utility to agriculture. Because agriculture affected the welfare of the nation, astrologers tried to extend their skills to the other aspects of national welfare, and the divination aspect of astrology was born. Ancient astrologers restricted their divination to nations and kings, as the modern practice of casting individual horoscopes for ordinary folks did not yet exist. Ancient astrologers were concerned not only with astronomical phenomena and the regulation of the calendar, but also with the meaning that could be derived from the position of the zodiac, the motion of the Sun, planets and comets, and the phases of the moon. To the ancients, while the planets wandered through the zodiac--the word "planet" means "wanderer"--the stars seemed fixed in place relative to the zodiac. Therefore, celestial phenomena involving motion could be measured with these stars as reference points. The fixed stars do actually move, but so slowly that a naked-eye observer would have to be hundreds of years old to notice it. Thus the ‘star of Bethlehem’ seen by the wise men was most likely a mundane star which rose at a significant time, or a planet (planets were considered stars by the ancients) that appeared in what was for them a significant constellation at a significant time. This is borne out by Matthew, who describes a phenomenon observed only by astrologers and no one else. Important for us to recognize at this point in our study and to prepare us for what follows is that these observations of the Cosmos made by uranographers since the beginning of recorded time in Egypt on down through history, particularly of the Sun and its path through the Zodiac, will become, through the literary vehicle of personification, metaphor, myth, and allegory, the very foundation to explain the Descent of the Soul (the Christos of God) into matter and this finds expression in the various Ancient myths of the sungods and ultimately in the chronological "Jesus Story" as found in the Gospels. It is these allegories and myths revealing a hidden mystery of the intersection of the Divine into matter, the Soul into mankind's flesh, that finds later a false "literal-historical" interpretation in the Roman "Jesus Story" in the Christian's Bible.

The "uranograph" was a chart of heaven. By this is meant a map outlined by the early sages charting the spiritual constitution and physiology of man, the psychic centers, areas of spiritual force, and all "after the pattern of things in the heavens." Man, the microcosm, is a replica of the heavenly man and the universe. From the history of man written thus in the constellation of the skies, the early religious formulators transferred the record to earth and distributed the various phenomena and localities over the national maps in accordance with the heavenly chart! Very important for us to recognize at this point in our study is that all nations tried to frame their own history (Egyptian, Jewish, ie.) and geography after the pattern of things in the heavenly mount. Mainly the Egyptians and after them the Jews made this transfer almost completely. According to this chart each nation was given an upper and lower section, had a river flowing from the upper down to the lower (Nile, Jordan), had a lake or sea, a central city representing the Holy City, and a score of parallel features found in every case. There was first a division into seven nomes or districts, later into twelve.

Answer for yourself: Why is this important? Each nation thus strove to have its history interpreted as a fulfillment of the sacred allegory; and its national history, thus diverted into the form of the celestial myth, was made into the national epic. And finally came the claim on the part of several, notably the Jews, that since their history fulfilled the outlines of the sacred story, they were proven to be the "chosen people" of God. There is not a scrap of evidence anywhere to identify the Israelites of today as the historical Hebrews or Jews of the Biblical period. Judaism is not a "race" but a "religion" and today we find in Israel European proselytes whereas we find the "black skinned" Jews of the Bible scattered throughout Africa today. The latter, the Jews, simply appropriated the distinction to themselves and fitted their history into the sacred scheme.

4. We must know that the writers of all Ancient religious writings since Egypt deal with but one central fact, the incarnation of man, or the birth, descent, death and resurrection of the soul. This one religious concept is the whole story of religion and the "mystery" which lies behind the various stories, myths, legends, and allegories of the sungods and the mistakenly interpreted "literal-historical Jesus Story". The old Ancient spiritual books deal with nothing beyond this story and its involvements. This fact alone, seldom recognized today, is itself the key to all philosophy and religion. In the light of this one fact all complicated meanings can be reduced to clear significance. It unravels the infinite complexities of the symbology that have confounded the learned scholars and theologians. That man is a god, a spark of the ultimate uncreated Intelligent Energy of the Cosmos, dwelling in an animal-matter form is the central and cardinal fact of all religion and all Ancient religious texts from Egypt on that find their ultimate expressions in Judaism and prior-Roman Christianity.

This without question is one of the biggest, if not the biggest puzzle facing Ancient mankind that has only been answered in this century by the like of A. Einstein and other physicists. The Ancients might not have had the same terminology as we do today but they certainly understood this metaphysical concept of the Descent of the Divine Soul into matter like none since. This Divine reality was expressed in varied forms from Osiris on down through history till we find the culmination of "the Christ" of Gnostic Christianity. Only with the emergence of Roman Christianity will we find the adulteration of this Spiritual message and the destruction of the worlds libraries by Rome where the Ancient Gnostic understanding of the Creator was almost exterminated where in its place we find today the "historical Christ" in place of the "Mystical Christ within all mankind".

Answer for yourself: What was so special about this Jesus Christ of Rome's New Testament when there were so many other similar "Jesus Stories" in the names of other prior sungods that were just like him hundreds if not thousands of years before a historical Jesus Christ was assumed to even exist? That a great question with only one answer for a "thinking believer". There was no difference only that the last "Jesus Story" given by Rome as "literalized" and "historicized" unlike the host of prior parallel stories that were always understood as Spiritual and Divine allegories.

As I have on other websites shown, let alone this one, there are things in the Bible that most Christians just do not know or think about because they have not been taught the truth behind their "Jesus Story". The fact is that Christianity was just another mystery religion like all the others at the time. Mystery is a key word in Christianity it appears in the New Testament 22 times.

Paul, a Gnostic, informs us:

1 Tim 3:16 16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. (KJV)

1 Tim 3:9 9 Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience. (KJV)

So we see here that the faith of the Christian religion is a mystery.

Eph 3:9 9 And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: (KJV)

Answer for yourself: Now we see there is a fellowship of the mystery and if "Jesus Christ" is not "historical-literal" when whom is this "Jesus Christ" that created matter in the "Big Bang"?

Answer for yourself: What is this mystery? Have you ever wondered?

Eph 5:32 32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. (KJV)

So here we see that this mystery is about Jesus the Christ and the church (the fellowship of believers in God). But Paul uses the term “mystery of Christ” more than once.

Col 4:3 3 Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds: (KJV)

1 Cor 4:1 1 Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. (KJV)

This just proves that Christianity was a “mystery religion”. Even the resurrection was mystery.

1 Cor 15:51 51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, (KJV)

Mystery religions were very prevalent at the time of early Christianity. Ignatius of Antioch, bishop of Antioch, Syria, states in his letter to the Ephesians, “…you are …fellow initiates with [the apostle] Paul.” (Ignatius to the Ephesians, XII.2).

Answer for yourself: What is important about this statement?

Only mystery religions had initiates and if Paul was an apostle of Christianity in the beginning that means that Christianity is a Mystery Religion as were all world religions before it; that is before the emergence of the Holy Roman Empire in the 3rd century.

Clement of Alexandria invited pagans to be initiated in the “mysteries” of Christianity “Then you will have the vision of my God, and will be initiated in those holy mysteries…” (Exhortation to the Greeks, chpt. XII, par. 91). Clement then goes on to say, “He saw the light and a vision, he was sanctified by initiation, and Jesus marked the initiate with his seal: ‘O Truly sacred mysteries!’…I became holy by initiation…” (EG chpt XII, par. 92). Gnostics were a part of these. Of course the Gnostics believed in the revealing of the “secret knowledge”. Gnosis is mentioned in the bible over 15 times.

Answer for yourself: Was Paul a Gnostic? It sure would appear so. And if he was what does that mean?

Philo Judaeus of Alexandria (20 B.C.E.-45 C.E.) is considered the forerunner of Christian theology. Philo lived and died before any of the New Testament scriptures were written. This is important to remember. Philo applied Platonic philosophy to the Jewish scriptures. In Platonism there was a major separation between the higher world (the heavenlies) of the spiritual realities, where things were perfect and unchanging. The earthly world was an imperfect reflection of the upper one, comprised of things that were changing and perishable.

Answer for yourself: Could this be the reason for the Spiritual axiom of Egypt which said: So Above, So Below? Was it man's responsibility to change the Earth into the image of a perfect and ordered Heaven which the Egyptians called "Ma'at"? Is this the same as the Jewish religious concept of Tikkun Olam?

Isaac Luria, the renowned sixteenth century Kabbalist, used the phrase “tikkun olam,” usually translated as repairing the world, to encapsulate the true role of humanity in the ongoing evolution and spiritualization of the cosmos. Luria taught that God created the world by forming vessels of light (think energy) to hold the Divine Light. But as God poured the Light into the vessels, they catastrophically shattered, tumbling down toward the realm of matter. Thus, our world consists of countless shards of the original vessels entrapping sparks of the Divine Light (the energy of God). Humanity’s great task involves helping God by freeing and reuniting the scattered Light, raising the sparks back to Divinity and restoring the broken world. This is accomplished through man's commitment to good works.

Eph 2:10 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. (KJV)

Philo looked upon Plato as being great, “As the great Plato says…” (On the eternity of the World, ch. X, 52) He believed that the teachings of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics were holy. Philo states that Plato has a sacred authority, “…since we have it on the sacred authority of Plato…” This concept of two different worlds is very important to remember, a higher world that is unseen and the lower world that is seen. The two worlds are identical, in a metaphorical sense, but the upper world is perfect and the lower world is not. It can be proven that Philos teachings greatly influenced Christianity. Philo allegorized the scriptures and did almost all if not all of the Ancient Spiritual Masters; that is until the rise of Rome in the 3rd century C.E.

Paul himself never mentions Jesus as if real history, albeit he lived at the time.

Answer for yourself: Is that a problem? It sure it if we are to believe that Jesus Christ was a real historical person and goes a long way to why Paul never mentions the virgin birth or only two of the many teachings of Jesus found later in the New Testament.

Answer for yourself: Where did Paul get the message about Jesus? Did it come from first hand experience? No it did not.

Gal 1:11-12 11 But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. 12 For I neither received (paralambano) it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. (KJV)

Answer for yourself: Here Paul admits that he did not hear of this Jesus from apostolic tradition but he uses the word “paralambano” for "receive" which is used in the Greek mysteries to refer to some Gnostic experience where by an initiate "receives" hidden mystical revelation from the Divine realm. So Paul makes clear that the gospel he preaches about Christ has come to him through personal revelation. But think about this.

Answer for yourself: If at the time Paul wrote this why would he have to state that his gospel of Christ is from personal revelation when he could very well have used the 12 disciples themselves as witnesses? Something is amiss here if you think about.

Answer for yourself: Could it be that there was no such thing as the “tradition of the disciples” about Jesus and that Paul did not know of any such thing?

1 Cor 2:6-8 6 Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: 7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: 8 Which none of the princes of this world (age) knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. (KJV)

So here we see that this “wisdom” is a mystery.

Answer for yourself: The important question is who are these “rulers of this age (mistakenly translated as world)”? It is these “rulers” and "princes" that crucified Jesus Christ.

Here we get our answer. These rulers are in the heavens not earth.

Eph 6:12 12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. (KJV)

Again we see that this battle is in the heavens NOT earth. Here Paul is not attributing Jesus’ crucifixion to Pontius Pilate and the Jewish leaders but to some planetary powers or demonic beings. It is all Astro-theology.

The writer of the book of Hebrews states that Jesus’ sacrifice was a spiritual one not physical.

Heb 9:14 14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? (KJV)

And then the writer goes on to say that a heavenly sacrifice is better than an earthly one confirming that the writer of the book of Hebrews believed that Jesus’ sacrifice was heavenly and NOT earthly, “Therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.” Hebrews 9:23 Notice also that there are copies of the heavenly and the earthly. That is why some Christians later actually thought that Jesus existed on earth. But he did not. Everything was in the heavens, even his crucifixion as we have seen.

Answer for yourself: Where was Christ crucified? Wait a minute and don't answer too fast.

"And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified."

Here we have Revelation declaring in words as clear as can be found, that our Lord was crucified, not in historical Jerusalem, but in a spiritual city, a city, furthermore, with two names, one of which is not even a city name, but that of a country, Egypt. Not only does this verse negate the whole literal and historical interpretation of the Gospel chronicle, but it adds its own corroboration to the new rendering of the meaning of "death". For the place where the dead bodies of the two witnesses, the two segments of our dual life as Soul (Divine Energy of God) and body (matter), shall lie, as well as where the Christ in us is crucified, is thus marked as the place of "death", which, as the new truth reveals, is this earth and our life upon it.

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)

And it is further significant that Revelation gives as one of its (many) names, Egypt. No one can long study Hebrew, Greek and Egyptian religious literature without being assured that this term, Egypt, is used, never in the sense of the geographical unit on the map, but as the chief designation for the place, country or habitat of earthly incarnation (the fleshly body). It is therefore a figurative term for life on earth, or earth as the scene of incarnate life.

In fact the writer of Hebrews even says that Jesus was not on earth.

Heb 8:4 4 For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law: (KJV)

Folks these verse alone prove that the earliest Christians, in reality called "Chrestians" as in "Gnostic Chrestians", or believers in the indwelling God, Logos, Christ, did not believe in a historical Jesus. They believed in a spiritual Jesus that was crucified in the heavens and not on earth.

Phil 2:6-7 6 Who (the Christ), being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: (KJV)

This verse speaks of God humbling Himself and through the Spiritual Process of emanation emptied Himself of Spirit whereby He could come and tabernacle in matter and human flesh. In the Theosophical Glossary, under "The Doctrine of Emanation", Madame Blavatsky states: ...while the Occultists and Theosophists believe thoroughly in the doctrine of Evolution as given out by Kapila and Manu, they are Emanationists rather than Evolutionists.The doctrine of Emanation was at one time universal. It was taught by the Alexandrian (think early Church Fathers before the 3rd century) as well as by the Indian philosophers, by the Egyptian, the Chaldean and Hellenic Hierophants (initiates), and also by the Hebrews (in their Kabbala, and even in Genesis). This is what a lot of the mystery religions and salvation cults were teaching then. As I said this copy and shadow of things on earth and in the heavens were Gnostic and Platonic theology.

These and a hundred other irrationalities make it sheer folly to uphold the literal historicity of the Bible and Jesus Christ. Yet the major theses of Christianity stand on this weak ground. Yet understand we certainly can learn by the earthy example of the Divine Soul in matter as symbolized as a model for all mankind in the "Jesus Story".

Sadly however because of Rome's alteration of prior Divine Truth existing for thousands of years and their militant dogmatism it is not surprising that the history of the Church has been a tale of warfare, controversy, schism, blind faith and frightful cruelty, and that it is repudiated by about 2/3 of the known world today.

I go on record saying that the Bible, sadly misinterpreted by its most loyal devotees, is in reality a collection of ancient works that embody in veiled figures the fundamentals of the genuine old wisdom of the Hierophants and initiates of the Gnostic metaphysical understanding of God. One can go so far and say that the Bible, a book I love and have finally come to interpret correctly now possessing the "keys" for a correct hermeneutic, is a repository of the great Mystery teaching of early times going as far back as the beginning of mankind. In fact, properly studied and recognized the Bible is a synthesis and collection of religious works down through history comprising the substance of Hermeticism, Gnosticism, Kabalism, Egyptian and Chaldean astrology and astronomy, Greek Orphism and Hindu Wisdom, drawn mostly from ancient Egypt. That is why I have come to love Egypt so as I recognize today their Spiritual genius and that they, in my opinion, knew this Creator better than any other nation in the world since the beginning of time and that goes for today as well. Sadly Egypt is destroyed but their legacy lives today thanks to the efforts of dedicated Egyptologists and the Jewish nation which are their biological offspring. The Bible would not inappropriately be described as a book of Platonic Theosophy. For Plato summed up most of the elements of these systems. To an orthodox churchman it would doubtless seem to belittle the Book to say that it contains nothing but the Platonic philosophy. But this is only because the average Christian knows nothing of the grandeur and rank of the Platonic wisdom. It is enough to say that it could not be a great book if it did not embody Plato's philosophy. For this was truly "of the gods," and perhaps the most luminous presentation of spiritual knowledge ever to be granted to the human intellect. Fortunate is Christianity that its Bible is heavily charged with the elements of the great Divine Wisdom of past ages.

But be not mistaken in this. The "historical-literal" Jesus is an aberration of the Divine Christ and the Logos that resides within all matter and flesh. It is my desire and hope that through the study of this website, as well as others sites provided by Bet Emet Ministries, that the diligent student and readers of our articles are blessed and further in their pursuit of perfection as "the Soul prospers".

We will continue in the second article in this introduction to the Jesus-Astrotheology website.

Bet Emet Ministries
Craig M. Lyons Ms.D., D.D., M.Div.
902 Cardigan
Garland, Texas 75040
972-4964238

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