IN SEARCH OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS...CAN WE FIND ONE?
Well the answer to the above question is "yes"; but the identity of just whom this "Jesus" is will not be to the liking of most contemporary Christians. I used to ask of new members joining our mega-church years ago this question: "How many of you want the truth and what will you do with it once you find it"? Little did I know back then in 1985 that this question would have to be answered by myself again as my studies in the "Jewish Jesus" would evolve into the deeper studies of Ancient Egypt where I would find the " and "Pattern" for all later nation's "Sungods", "Goddesses", and Christs" which evolve later into our own "Jesus Stories" which more than likely we have all heard in our lives in one way or the other; we just never knew that our same "Jesus Story" had been told about Horus, the son of Osiris and Isis before some 10,000 years B.C.E. or even earlier. The is very problematic for the "thinking believer" or at least it should be. This should make you wonder what really lies behind this "Patterned Story" told over and over again for 10,000 years from nation to nation under different "names".
Answer for yourself: Are you currently aware that much of what passes for Christian History and the "Jesus Story" was pre-extant as Egyptian Mythology and can be dated as far back the the Sphinx some 13,000 B.C.E. and even before? This knowledge is not taught in Seminary and few if any Christians every come to possess such knowledge in their typical Christian experience and Church lives. Needless to say such an awareness brings into question the whole of Christian dogmas and doctrines which surround the "Christian Jesus Krst/Christ".
Before many of your discount such a question outright you need know that archeology has rediscovered and makes available today visible facts and evidences which were buried out of sight for thousands of years in a hieroglyphical language and which was never really read or could be understood by Greeks or Romans, and which could not have been read and understood until the lost clue was discovered by Champollion, which can once the hieroglyphs were restored be shown to be identical in the most all minute points to the later inherited "Jesus Story" which we have heard and "believed" since growing up as children in our Christian Churches across this land. This is simply amazing. Again, this should make you want to know what lies behind the "Jesus Story" which has its origin some 12,000 years ago or much earlier in oral traditions.
Because of the lost ability to read, understand, and interpret
Egyptian hieroglyphics the original sources of our Mytholatry and
Christology behind the "Jesus Story" remained hidden from
Christian scholars and parishioners until the century in which we live.
The name Rosetta refers to the crucial breakthrough in the research regarding Egyptian
hieroglyphs. It especially represents the "translation" of "silent" symbols into a living language, which is necessary in order to make the
whole content of information of these symbols
accessible. The name Rosetta is attached to the stone of Rosette. This is
a compact basalt slab (114x72x28 cm) that was found in July
1799 in the small Egyptian village Rosette (Raschid),
which is located in the western delta of the Nile. Today the stone is kept
at the British Museum in London. It contains three inscriptions that
represent a single text in three different variants of script, a decree of
the priests of Memphis in honor of Ptolemaios V. (196 B.C.E.). The text
appears in form of:
- Hieroglyphs (script of the official and religious texts),
- Demotic (everyday Egyptian script), and in
- Greek.
The representation of a single text of the three mentioned script variants enabled the French scholar Jean Francois Champollion (1790-1832) in 1822 to basically decipher the hieroglyphs. Furthermore, with the aid of the Coptic language (language of the Christian descendants of the ancient Egyptians), he succeeded to realize the phonetic value of the hieroglyphs. This proved the fact that hieroglyphs do not have only symbolic meaning, but that they also served as a "spoken language". The mystical matter enshrouded in the language of Egyptian hieroglyphs was sacredly entrusted to the keeping of the buried dead, who have faithfully preserved it as their Book of Life (The Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Egyptian Bible), which was placed beneath their pillows, or clasped to their bosoms, in their coffins and their tombs. It is through this discovery that the ability to read and understand the Egyptian hieroglyphs that we have discovered the Egyptian "Jesus Story" which we now know existed many thousands and thousands of years before the assumed historical Jesus of 2000 years ago. Let us deal with only one short example in this introduction article.
Answer for Yourself: Could it be possible that the "Jesus Story" is carved on stones in ancient Egypt and we not know it but having now restored the hieroglyphs we can now read it on Egypt's stones and it reads like the Gospel of Luke?
Inscribed about 3,500 years ago on the walls of the Temple at Luxor were images of the Annunciation, Immaculate Conception, Birth and Adoration of Horus, with Thoth announcing to the Virgin Isis that she will conceive Horus; with Kneph, the "Holy Ghost," impregnating the virgin; and with the infant being attended by three kings, or magi, bearing gifts.
Answer for yourself: Is the birth of Horus, the Egyptian Krst/Karest/Christ the original "Prototype" and "Pattern" for the later "Jesus Story"? I suggest that you read the "link" and article and see for yourself. Here is what you find:
- Annunciation: In the first panel, Thoth ("Gabriel") hails Mut-em-ua ("Mother of One"), informing her she will bear a son (Amenhotep) in the character of Horus, the divine child.
- Conception: In the second panel, Kneph ("the Holy Spirit") descends & assisted by Hathor, impregnates the virgin by holding the "ankh", symbol of life, to her mouth.
- Birth: In the the third panel, Mut-em-ua, is seated on a birthing stool; a nurse holds the newborn child.
- Adoration: Below, the child is enthroned and receives gifts from three kneeling human figures.
Answer for yourself: Does this sound remotely similar to our "Jesus Story"? Is this but a coincidence when compared to the birth of Horus, let alone the births of other saviors down through history?
In addition, in the catacombs at Rome are pictures of the baby Horus
being held by the virgin mother Isis - the
original "Madonna and Child."
Answer for yourself: What should such examples teach us? Simply this; there exists factual evidence today that teaches us that the "Jesus Story", as portrayed in the Gospels, is nearly identical in detail to those of the earlier "savior-gods" like Horus, Osiris, Krishna, Dionysus, and many others, and once seeing these facts for yourself it becomes impossible to conclude that the "Jesus Story" was original and unique let alone some Divine revelation under Heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved (Acts 4:13, KJV) in the manner than Rome has taught since their presentation of this "Pattern" is but a tragic mischaracterization and radical reinterpretation of the original Egyptian metaphysical teaching of "the Krst". Rather, it can be demonstrated beyond any doubt that the "Jesus Story" represents excerpts taken from the very ancient body of knowledge derived from various celestial observations and observations of natural forces which were later "personalized" and "personalized" and told through the medium of myths, metaphors, oral traditions, and legends as portrayed in the lives of various personified "saviors and godmen". What I came to see having done such studies over these many years is that the religion of Christianity and the "Jesus Story" were created by members of various secret societies, mystery schools and religions and later adapted by the Roman emperor Constantine in order to unify the Roman Empire under one state religion! These groups drew upon a multitude of religious myths and rituals that already existed long before the Christian era and reworked them into the story the Christian religion presents today-known to most Westerners as the "Jesus Story" contained in the New Testament. I am sorry to have to say it but for a "thinking believer" such a realization through one's personal study is fatal to the belief that there ever existed a historical Jesus and that Constantine's presentation of a "literalization" of prior Mythical and Mythical Gnostic understandings of "the indwelling Christ" and "Deific Mind of God" which had incarnated into "matter" are the substance that gave life to the historical "Jesus Story" in the first place.
In other websites, in particular the "Jesus-Astro-Theology" website I discuss the 3 different "Jesuses" or "Christs" we encounter when seriously studying "the Christ" down through history: the Mystical, the Mythical, and the assumed Historical Jesus. We continue to examine these three different interpretations of "the Christ" in this series of articles devoted to the scrutiny of the historical Jesus in hopes of finally deciding and demonstrating beyond any doubt, through the bringing forth of irrefutable evidences, just which of these three different "Jesus" or "Christs" are the more trusted and truthful understandings of "Jesus Christ" for us today in light of the Roman misinterpretation and mischaracterization of the ancient "Krst" some 1,800 years ago at present. This proper understanding of "the Krst", as I will demonstrate to the reader, is not possible without a through understanding of the Egyptian Mythos concerning "the Christ" as the Egyptian Spiritual Masters both understood and taught the Spiritual idea behind "the Christ within" and taught this spiritual idea to all initiates into the secret Mysteries. It always seemed reasonable to me in all the years of my studies that if we want to know the true meaning of a "Spiritual concept" or "teaching" we must begin with the origin of such a teaching and what it meant to those who first came to understand the Spiritual Concept and bequeathed it to others. This same logic will be applied to the search for the "historical Jesus" and "the Christ". This was and continues to be the very goal of my study no matter what areas it encompass.
It was during the years of my Pastorate when beginning studies into a "Jewish Jesus" only lead to deeper and more enlightening avenues of study into "the Christ" that I awoke to the realization that I had been misled into believing in the traditional "Christian scheme" of things and that the "literalistic" interpretation of "Jesus" in the New Testament was incorrect as well as that the New Testament as a biographical historical representation of a first century Rabbi and "Jewish Messiah to-be" was a fraud. It would take serious studies into associated subjects like Biblical languages, Biblical History, manuscript evidences and comparisons, comparative religions, and Egyptian religion and Egyptian history where I would find and state beyond any doubt that my "Jesus Story" was a Roman fraud built totally upon a misinterpretation of or a complete ignorance of the older "gnosis" of the Egyptian Mythos and the "Osiris-Horus Story" and secret mysteries of Egypt. It was at this time both before and during Seminary, before embarking upon such important studies mentioned above like studies in Egyptian religion and comparative religions, that I accepted the Canonical Gospels and the New Testament as containing a veritable human history, and assumed, as others most likely do as typical Christians, that the history provided and assumed accurate in the New Testament proved itself. Finding that Jesus existed in Judaism, known as Jehoshua Ben-Pandira, and was believed to be a historical character, known to the Talmud, I made the common mistake of supposing that this Talmudic Jesus, which existed a hundred or so years prior to the assumed historical Jesus, proved the personal existence of the Jesus found later portrayed in the Canonical Gospels. But after doing further study over the years and weighing the evidence now for the first time collected and presented to the public, you will not wonder that I should have changed my views, or that I should be impelled to tell the truth to others, as it now appears to myself after having repeated such studies in order to verify the findings as "factual" and "beyond any doubt" to the inquiring mind. I learned a hard lesson that will follow me all the days of my life in all studies that I ever undertake again; namely, we cannot "suppose" or "assume" anything for this is the quickest way to error and guarantees anything but the truth.
The personal existence of a "Jesus" as Jehoshua Ben-Pandira can be established beyond a doubt; the only problem is that this is not the "Jesus" of the later New Testament owing to the fact that the Jesus or Jehoshua Ben-Pandira existed over 100 years prior to the assumed historical Jesus of the Gospels. Simply said the events recorded concerning the assumed historical Jesus simply could not have overlapped with other Biblical personages like Herod the Great and others had the Jesus of the New Testament been this Talmudic Jesus (Jehoshua Ben-Pandira). This rules out Jehoshua Ben-Pandira as being the historical Jesus of the New Testament. Simply said, the two characters and identities are not the same.
But something yet lurks in the annals of ancinet Egyptian history that speaks to the "crucifixion" of a "messa" or "messiah" on the eve of the Passover in the 18th Dynasty of the Hebrew Pharaohs. It is to such an account that we now turn as to others in hopes of determining just whom is this "Jesus" character of the "Jesus Story" as related in the New Testament as if "historical" and what he truthfully represents to us as children of God. So we begin the most challenging set of studies that a Christian can possible do; namely looking into the evidences existing today both for and against the existence of a historical Jesus who as we shall see went by another name. We will examine thoroughly all claims made for a historical Jesus from hearsay accounts, the Biblical Gospels, other New Testament writings, the sayings from the Church fathers, the evidence from the Gnostic Gospels, the sayings of the Gnostic Paul, the Logia of the Lord or the Pre-Christian sayings attributed to Jesus the Christ, the non-Christian sources from the likes of Josephus Flavius, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, the Talmud, auxiliary writings during the time period of the assumed historical Jesus, historical scholars, citations from geography, comparison of Jesus to other historical figures, the evidence from Astronomy whereby we can interpret the origin and identity of Jesus the Christ, etc. Little will be omitted in our scrutiny and search for the truth to the question poised in the New Testament itself. After looking at all this evidence we will look at the ancinet Egyptian accounts of the crucifixion of the Egyptian "Messiah" in a historical setting which provides the oral tradition that is incorporated into our "Jesus Story" today. We will at that time examine the death and crucifixon of the Pharaoh Akhenaten's successor and son who was "hanged" on a tree on the eve of the Passover as mentioned in the Talmud.
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)
There are answers to this question; many satisfy and bring comfort having finally learned the truth that lies behind the lies of Constantine and the Council of Nicea and some only bring sadness and disappointment when the truth finally hits home. Shame on those who changed "the truth" into a "lie" and gave it to the world at the point of a sword.
The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900), The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895, Act I
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- Craig M. Lyons Ms.D., D.D., M.Div.
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