JESUS WAS A REVOLUTIONARY WHO BETRAYED HIS CAUSE
So here’s the story on Jesus, according to Michael Baigent in The Jesus Papers. He also co-wrote Holy Blood, Holy Grail. The Jesus Paper’s is an addition to the latter book and further explains Jesus’s mission (which changed in mid stream according to Baigent) his marriage to Mary Magdalene and their disappearance into France with the help of Roman authorities after a faked crucifixion.
Let me admit, however, that Michael Baigent writes in a very circuitous manner, in such a way that one wonders why his narrative does not travel in a straight line. It leaps back and forth in time. Is this a fault in his method? Is this the only way he can work his thesis in a satisfactory manner, or is it that a more straightforward methodology would make his case appear weaker? Frankly, I think the case for Jesus being a revolutionary rather than the son of God, as the Catholic Church claimed and passed on to the Protestants, is very strong. After that, I don’t know, but if those two letters (read on) are true, wow, what a smack to the senses of anyone raised in our modern world so much dominated by the “People of the Book” (Muslims, Christians and Jews). Another point, after reading this book and several others, I and no objective person can believe in the facts as presented in the Bible, the Koran or anywhere else. Baigent and others have clearly revealed just how much empty supposition goes into every line of the Bible and its interpretations. When you finish reading The Jesus Papers, you should realize that everything is a chimera, created by people who had a political motive to interpret everything just as they did rather than a spiritual one.
According to Baigent, Jesus (because he descended from the house of David) was chosen at an early age by Zealots to fulfill the Old Testament mission of a promised Messiah who would lead them on a political war against the Roman authorities. Thus Jesus consciously fulfilled the many prophecies of the Old Testament, but he had spent part of his undiscovered youth in Egypt where he came across the sort of mysticism which informed early Greek and Egyptian religions. He became an initiate of those mysteries by which people learn to have visionary experiences in caves and dark underground places in Egypt. The Greeks called this inward journey visiting the Netherworld, the Egyptians called the underground journey going to the “Far-world”, and Christians called it, and still do, the “Kingdom of Heaven within”. As Jesus said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.” Not out there >>>. We modern people, of course, understand that people from everywhere have always sought these transcendent moments through the use of drugs or sensory deprivation in deep caves or in modern chambers that are much like wombs or in groups full of music and shouting. We recognize them as self-induced psychological experiences rather than spiritual experiences. Baigent points out the many passages in the New Testament and in the scrolls from Nag Hammadi and in the Dead Sea scrolls where it is clear that the mystics of those days, one of which Jesus became, believed they could journey to these places of death and return by initiations that only the initiate knew how perform.
Baigent further claims that there is a written message that Paul took for his own purposes that split the Jewish tradition between the political Zealots and James, Jesus’s brother, and the messianic Jews who eventually became the Christianity of the Roman Church which is based on the unsubstantiated claim that Jesus arose from the dead and is, essentially, God. The Vatican to this day is trying to suppress and hide the fact that there is much evidence that shows that Jesus never claimed to be God and, of course, never was God, that all he spoke of were these mystical moments when an initiate could think he had personally experienced the realms of the gods. Baigent claims that Jesus revealed his changed course when he was asked if the Jews of Jerusalem ought to pay their taxes to the Roman Emperor. The Zealots felt double-crossed when Jesus said that they should pay those taxes. That’s why Judas Iscariot (sicarii = knife bearer and, thus, Zealot) betrayed him to the Roman authorities. Jesus was no longer useful to the Zealots.
Of course you must read this book for yourself because Baigent must work long and hard to tie all the loose ends together. The kicker to the book, coming at the very end, is that Baigent saw with his own eyes two letters (circa 32CE that he could not translate to read) which were in the hands of a wealthy private Jewish collector of antiquities. He believed they were authentic and written by a “bani meshiha—the Messiah of the Children of Israel”. The letter writer is defending himself to the Sanhedrin against charges that he had called himself the “son of God”. He explains that he did not mean that he was physically the son of God but only that he is spiritually adopted as a son of God, and that anyone who is filled with a similar spirit can also, in that sense, call himself a son of God. Thus, Jesus is not God and never was. As you can see, if these letters are authentic, they can change the course of history, but, as of yet, in the murky world of antiquities, they have not yet been surfaced by this collector or by anyone he sold them to, if he did sell them, if they are, indeed, letters written by Jesus in his own defense. Interesting, eh? Much more interesting than that hanger in dry dusty Southwestern America.
Showing posts with label holy blood holy grail. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holy blood holy grail. Show all posts
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
THE MAN AND THE SCAM
These passages are the last I have taken from Holy Blood, Holy Grail to titillate your interest in, perhaps, reading the entire book. It was from this book that the book, The DaVinci Code, was made and upon that book, the movie was made. The following snippet briefly outlines how the Christian “message” and the man, Jesus, became separate. You have to read the entire book, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, to understand some the references which are included in these paragraphs.
[SNIP]
We were well aware, of course, that our scenario did not concur with established Christian teachings. But the more we researched, the more apparent it became that those teachings, as they have been passed down through the centuries, represent only a highly selective compilation of fragments subjected to stringent expurgation and revision. The New Testament, in other words, offers a portrait of Jesus and his age that conforms to the needs of certain vested interests—of certain groups and individuals who had, and to a significant degree still have, an important stake in the matter. And anything that might compromise or embarrass these interests—like the "secret" Gospel of Mark, for example—has been duly excised. So much has been excised, as a matter of fact, that a sort of vacuum has been created. In this vacuum speculation becomes both justified and necessary.
If Jesus was a legitimate claimant to the throne, it is probable that he was supported, at least initially, by a relatively small percentage of the populace—his immediate family from Galilee, certain other members of his own aristocratic social class, and a few strategically placed representatives in Judaea and the capital city of Jerusalem. Such a following, albeit distinguished, would hardly have been sufficient to ensure the realization of his objectives—the success of his bid for the throne. In consequence he would have been obliged to recruit a more substantial following from other classes—in the same way that Bonnie Prince Charlie, to pursue a previous analogy, did in 1745.
How does one recruit a sizable following? Obviously by promulgating a message calculated to enlist their allegiance and support. Such a message need not necessarily have been as cynical as those associated with modern politics. On the contrary, it may have been promulgated in perfectly good faith, with thoroughly noble and burning idealism, But despite its distinctly religious orientation, its primary objective would have been the same as those of modern politics—to ensure the adherence of the populace. Jesus promulgated a message that attempted to do just that—to offer hope to the downtrodden, the afflicted, the disenfranchised, the oppressed. In short, it was a message with a promise, If the modern reader overcomes his prejudices and preconceptions on the matter, he will discern a mechanism extraordinarily akin to that visible everywhere in the world today—a mechanism whereby people are, and always have been, united in the name of a common cause and welded into an instrument for the overthrow of a despotic regime. The point is that Jesus' message was both ethical and political. It was directed to a particular segment of the populace in accordance with political considerations. For it would only have been among the oppressed, the downtrodden, the disenfranchised, and the afflicted that he could have hoped to recruit a sizable following. The Sadducees, who had come to terms with the Roman occupation, would have been as loath as all the Sadducees throughout history to part with what they possessed, or to risk their security and stability.
Jesus' message, as it appears in the Gospels, is neither wholly new nor wholly unique. It is probable that he himself was a Pharisee, and his teachings contain a number of elements of Pharisaic doctrine. As the Dead Sea Scrolls attest, they also contain a number of important aspects of Essene thought. But if the message, as such, was not entirely original, the means of transmitting it probably was. Jesus himself was undoubtedly an immensely charismatic individual. He may well have had an aptitude for healing and other such "miracles." He certainly possessed a gift for communicating his ideas by means of evocative and vivid parables—which did not require any sophisticated training in his audience, but were accessible, in some sense, to the populace at large. Moreover, unlike his Essene precursors, Jesus was not obliged to confine himself to forecasting the advent of a Messiah. He could claim to be that Messiah, And this, quite naturally, would have imparted a much greater authority and credibility to his words.
It is clear that by the time of his triumphal entry into Jerusalem Jesus had recruited a following. But this following would have been composed of two quite distinct elements—whose interests were not precisely the same. On the one hand, there would have been a small nucleus of "initiates"—immediate family, other members of the nobility, wealthy and influential supporters, whose primary objective was to see their candidate installed on the throne. On the other hand, there would have been a much larger entourage of "common people"—the "rank and file" of the movement, whose primary objective was to see the message, and the promise it contained, fulfilled. It is important to recognize the distinction between these two factions. Their political objective—to establish Jesus on the throne-would have been the same. But their motivations would have been essentially different.
When the enterprise failed, as it obviously did, the uneasy alliance between these two factions—"adherents of the message" and adherents of the family—would seem to have collapsed. Confronted by debacle and the threat of imminent annihilation, the family would have placed a priority on the single factor that, from time immemorial, has been of paramount importance to noble and royal families—preservation of the bloodline at all costs, if necessary in exile. For the "adherents of the message," however, the family's future would have become irrelevant; for them survival of the bloodline would have been of secondary consequence. Their primary objective would have been perpetuation and dissemination of the message.
Christianity, as it evolves through its early centuries and eventually comes down to us today, is a product of the "adherents of message." The course of its spread and development has been too widely charted by other scholars to necessitate much attention here. Suffice it to say that with Saint Paul "the message" had already begun to assume a crystallized and definitive form, and this form became the basis on which the whole theological edifice of Christianity was erected. By the time the Gospels were composed, the basic tenets of the new religion were virtually complete.
The new religion was oriented primarily toward a Roman or Romanized audience. Thus, the role of Rome in Jesus' death was, by necessity, whitewashed, and guilt was transferred to the Jews. But this was not the only liberty taken with events to render them palatable to the Roman world. For the Roman world was accustomed to defying its rulers, and Caesar had already been officially instated as a god. In order to compete, Jesus-whom nobody had previously deemed divine—had to be deified as well. In Paul’s hands he was.
[PASTE]
These passages are the last I have taken from Holy Blood, Holy Grail to titillate your interest in, perhaps, reading the entire book. It was from this book that the book, The DaVinci Code, was made and upon that book, the movie was made. The following snippet briefly outlines how the Christian “message” and the man, Jesus, became separate. You have to read the entire book, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, to understand some the references which are included in these paragraphs.
[SNIP]We were well aware, of course, that our scenario did not concur with established Christian teachings. But the more we researched, the more apparent it became that those teachings, as they have been passed down through the centuries, represent only a highly selective compilation of fragments subjected to stringent expurgation and revision. The New Testament, in other words, offers a portrait of Jesus and his age that conforms to the needs of certain vested interests—of certain groups and individuals who had, and to a significant degree still have, an important stake in the matter. And anything that might compromise or embarrass these interests—like the "secret" Gospel of Mark, for example—has been duly excised. So much has been excised, as a matter of fact, that a sort of vacuum has been created. In this vacuum speculation becomes both justified and necessary.
If Jesus was a legitimate claimant to the throne, it is probable that he was supported, at least initially, by a relatively small percentage of the populace—his immediate family from Galilee, certain other members of his own aristocratic social class, and a few strategically placed representatives in Judaea and the capital city of Jerusalem. Such a following, albeit distinguished, would hardly have been sufficient to ensure the realization of his objectives—the success of his bid for the throne. In consequence he would have been obliged to recruit a more substantial following from other classes—in the same way that Bonnie Prince Charlie, to pursue a previous analogy, did in 1745.
How does one recruit a sizable following? Obviously by promulgating a message calculated to enlist their allegiance and support. Such a message need not necessarily have been as cynical as those associated with modern politics. On the contrary, it may have been promulgated in perfectly good faith, with thoroughly noble and burning idealism, But despite its distinctly religious orientation, its primary objective would have been the same as those of modern politics—to ensure the adherence of the populace. Jesus promulgated a message that attempted to do just that—to offer hope to the downtrodden, the afflicted, the disenfranchised, the oppressed. In short, it was a message with a promise, If the modern reader overcomes his prejudices and preconceptions on the matter, he will discern a mechanism extraordinarily akin to that visible everywhere in the world today—a mechanism whereby people are, and always have been, united in the name of a common cause and welded into an instrument for the overthrow of a despotic regime. The point is that Jesus' message was both ethical and political. It was directed to a particular segment of the populace in accordance with political considerations. For it would only have been among the oppressed, the downtrodden, the disenfranchised, and the afflicted that he could have hoped to recruit a sizable following. The Sadducees, who had come to terms with the Roman occupation, would have been as loath as all the Sadducees throughout history to part with what they possessed, or to risk their security and stability.
Jesus' message, as it appears in the Gospels, is neither wholly new nor wholly unique. It is probable that he himself was a Pharisee, and his teachings contain a number of elements of Pharisaic doctrine. As the Dead Sea Scrolls attest, they also contain a number of important aspects of Essene thought. But if the message, as such, was not entirely original, the means of transmitting it probably was. Jesus himself was undoubtedly an immensely charismatic individual. He may well have had an aptitude for healing and other such "miracles." He certainly possessed a gift for communicating his ideas by means of evocative and vivid parables—which did not require any sophisticated training in his audience, but were accessible, in some sense, to the populace at large. Moreover, unlike his Essene precursors, Jesus was not obliged to confine himself to forecasting the advent of a Messiah. He could claim to be that Messiah, And this, quite naturally, would have imparted a much greater authority and credibility to his words.
It is clear that by the time of his triumphal entry into Jerusalem Jesus had recruited a following. But this following would have been composed of two quite distinct elements—whose interests were not precisely the same. On the one hand, there would have been a small nucleus of "initiates"—immediate family, other members of the nobility, wealthy and influential supporters, whose primary objective was to see their candidate installed on the throne. On the other hand, there would have been a much larger entourage of "common people"—the "rank and file" of the movement, whose primary objective was to see the message, and the promise it contained, fulfilled. It is important to recognize the distinction between these two factions. Their political objective—to establish Jesus on the throne-would have been the same. But their motivations would have been essentially different.
When the enterprise failed, as it obviously did, the uneasy alliance between these two factions—"adherents of the message" and adherents of the family—would seem to have collapsed. Confronted by debacle and the threat of imminent annihilation, the family would have placed a priority on the single factor that, from time immemorial, has been of paramount importance to noble and royal families—preservation of the bloodline at all costs, if necessary in exile. For the "adherents of the message," however, the family's future would have become irrelevant; for them survival of the bloodline would have been of secondary consequence. Their primary objective would have been perpetuation and dissemination of the message.
Christianity, as it evolves through its early centuries and eventually comes down to us today, is a product of the "adherents of message." The course of its spread and development has been too widely charted by other scholars to necessitate much attention here. Suffice it to say that with Saint Paul "the message" had already begun to assume a crystallized and definitive form, and this form became the basis on which the whole theological edifice of Christianity was erected. By the time the Gospels were composed, the basic tenets of the new religion were virtually complete.
The new religion was oriented primarily toward a Roman or Romanized audience. Thus, the role of Rome in Jesus' death was, by necessity, whitewashed, and guilt was transferred to the Jews. But this was not the only liberty taken with events to render them palatable to the Roman world. For the Roman world was accustomed to defying its rulers, and Caesar had already been officially instated as a god. In order to compete, Jesus-whom nobody had previously deemed divine—had to be deified as well. In Paul’s hands he was.
[PASTE]
Friday, May 25, 2007
JESUS WAS A POLITICO AND A FATHER
Time for a little more Holy Blood, Holy Grail:
[SNIP]
We had already sketched a tentative hypothesis that proposed a bloodline descended from Jesus. We now began to enlarge on that hypothesis and—albeit still provisionally—to fill in a number of crucial details. As we did so, the overall picture began to gain both coherence and plausibility.
It seemed increasingly clear that Jesus was a priest-king—an aristocrat and legitimate claimant to the throne—embarking on an attempt to regain his rightful heritage. He himself would have been a native of Galilee, a traditional hotbed of opposition to the Roman regime, At the same time, he would have had numerous noble, rich, and influential supporters throughout Palestine, including the capital city of Jerusalem; and one of these supporters, a powerful member of the Sanhedrin, may also have been his kin. In the Jerusalem suburb of Bethany, moreover, was the home of either his wife or his wife's family; and here, on the eve of his triumphal entry into the capital, the aspiring priest-king resided. Here he established the center for his mystery cult. Here he augmented his following by performing ritual initiations, including that of his brother-in-law.
Such an aspiring priest-king would have generated powerful opposition in certain quarters—inevitably among the Roman administration and perhaps among entrenched Judaic interests represented by the Sadducees. One or both of these interests apparently contrived to thwart his bid for the throne. But in their attempt to exterminate him they were not as successful as they had hoped to be. For the priest-king would seem to have had friends in high places; and these friends, working in collusion with a corrupt, easily bribed Roman procurator, appear to have engineered a mock crucifixion—on private grounds, inaccessible to all but a select few. With the general populace kept at a convenient distance, an execution was then staged—in which a substitute took the priest-king's place on the cross or in which the priest-king himself did not actually die. Toward dusk—which would have further impeded visibility—a "body" was removed to an opportunely adjacent tomb, from which, a day or two later, it "miraculously" disappeared.
If our scenario was accurate, where did Jesus go then? So far as our hypothesis of a bloodline was concerned, the answer to that question did not particularly matter. According to certain Islamic and Indian legends he eventually died, at a ripe old age, somewhere in the east—in Kashmir, it is claimed most frequently. On the other hand, an Australian journalist has put forward an intriguing and persuasive argument that Jesus died at Masada when the fortress fell to the Romans in A.D. 74—by which time he would have been approaching his eightieth year.
According to the letter we received, the documents found hy Berenger Sauniere at Rennes-le-Chateau contained “incontrovertible proof” that Jesus was alive in A.D. 45, but there is no indication as to where. One likely possibility would be Egypt, specifically Alexandria—where, at about the same time, the sage Ormus is said to have created the Rose-Croix by amalgamating Christianity with earlier, pre-Christian mysteries. It has even been hinted that Jesus' mummified body may be concealed somewhere in the environs of Rennes-le-Chateau—which would explain the ciphered message in Sauniere's parchments "IL EST LA MORT" ("He is there dead.”). We are not prepared to assert that he accompanied his family to Marseilles. In fact, circumstances would argue against it. He might not have been in any condition to travel, and his presence would have constituted a threat to his relatives' safety. He may have deemed it more important to remain in the Holy Land—like his brother, Saint James—to pursue his objectives there. In short, we can offer no real suggestion about what became of him—any more than the Gospels themselves do.
For the purposes of our hypothesis, however, what happened to Jesus was of less importance than what happened to the holy family—and especially to his brother-in-law, his wife, and his children. If our scenario was correct, they, together with Joseph of Arimathea and certain others, were smuggled by ship from the Holy Land, And when they were set ashore at Marseilles, the Magdalen would indeed have brought the Sangraal—the "blood royal," the scion of the house of David—into France.
[PASTE]
Time for a little more Holy Blood, Holy Grail:
[SNIP]
THE SCENARIO
We had already sketched a tentative hypothesis that proposed a bloodline descended from Jesus. We now began to enlarge on that hypothesis and—albeit still provisionally—to fill in a number of crucial details. As we did so, the overall picture began to gain both coherence and plausibility.
It seemed increasingly clear that Jesus was a priest-king—an aristocrat and legitimate claimant to the throne—embarking on an attempt to regain his rightful heritage. He himself would have been a native of Galilee, a traditional hotbed of opposition to the Roman regime, At the same time, he would have had numerous noble, rich, and influential supporters throughout Palestine, including the capital city of Jerusalem; and one of these supporters, a powerful member of the Sanhedrin, may also have been his kin. In the Jerusalem suburb of Bethany, moreover, was the home of either his wife or his wife's family; and here, on the eve of his triumphal entry into the capital, the aspiring priest-king resided. Here he established the center for his mystery cult. Here he augmented his following by performing ritual initiations, including that of his brother-in-law.
Such an aspiring priest-king would have generated powerful opposition in certain quarters—inevitably among the Roman administration and perhaps among entrenched Judaic interests represented by the Sadducees. One or both of these interests apparently contrived to thwart his bid for the throne. But in their attempt to exterminate him they were not as successful as they had hoped to be. For the priest-king would seem to have had friends in high places; and these friends, working in collusion with a corrupt, easily bribed Roman procurator, appear to have engineered a mock crucifixion—on private grounds, inaccessible to all but a select few. With the general populace kept at a convenient distance, an execution was then staged—in which a substitute took the priest-king's place on the cross or in which the priest-king himself did not actually die. Toward dusk—which would have further impeded visibility—a "body" was removed to an opportunely adjacent tomb, from which, a day or two later, it "miraculously" disappeared.
If our scenario was accurate, where did Jesus go then? So far as our hypothesis of a bloodline was concerned, the answer to that question did not particularly matter. According to certain Islamic and Indian legends he eventually died, at a ripe old age, somewhere in the east—in Kashmir, it is claimed most frequently. On the other hand, an Australian journalist has put forward an intriguing and persuasive argument that Jesus died at Masada when the fortress fell to the Romans in A.D. 74—by which time he would have been approaching his eightieth year.
According to the letter we received, the documents found hy Berenger Sauniere at Rennes-le-Chateau contained “incontrovertible proof” that Jesus was alive in A.D. 45, but there is no indication as to where. One likely possibility would be Egypt, specifically Alexandria—where, at about the same time, the sage Ormus is said to have created the Rose-Croix by amalgamating Christianity with earlier, pre-Christian mysteries. It has even been hinted that Jesus' mummified body may be concealed somewhere in the environs of Rennes-le-Chateau—which would explain the ciphered message in Sauniere's parchments "IL EST LA MORT" ("He is there dead.”). We are not prepared to assert that he accompanied his family to Marseilles. In fact, circumstances would argue against it. He might not have been in any condition to travel, and his presence would have constituted a threat to his relatives' safety. He may have deemed it more important to remain in the Holy Land—like his brother, Saint James—to pursue his objectives there. In short, we can offer no real suggestion about what became of him—any more than the Gospels themselves do.
For the purposes of our hypothesis, however, what happened to Jesus was of less importance than what happened to the holy family—and especially to his brother-in-law, his wife, and his children. If our scenario was correct, they, together with Joseph of Arimathea and certain others, were smuggled by ship from the Holy Land, And when they were set ashore at Marseilles, the Magdalen would indeed have brought the Sangraal—the "blood royal," the scion of the house of David—into France.
[PASTE]
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
THIS IS THE WAY IT WAS. . . .
NO, THIS WAY. . . .
ARE YOU KIDDEN, I SAW. . . .
EYE-WITNESS ACCOUNTS ARE LEAST RELIABLE
How the Jews came to be the fall guys or here are some more paragraphs from the book pictured below:
[SLICE]
Modern scholars are unanimous in concurring that the Gospels do not date from Jesus' lifetime. For the most part they date from the period between the two major revolts in Judaea—66 to 74 and 132 to l35—although they are almost certainly based on earlier accounts. These earlier accounts may have included written documents since lost—for there was a wholesale destruction of records in the wake of the first rebellion. But there would certainly have been oral traditions as well. Some of these were undoubtedly grossly exaggerated and/or distorted, received and transmitted at second, third or fourth hand. Others, however, may have derived from individuals who were alive in Jesus' lifetime and may even have known him personally. A young man at the time of the Crucifixion might well have been alive when the Gospels were composed [doubtful].
The earliest of the Gospels is generally considered to be Mark's, composed sometime during the revolt of 66-74 or shortly thereafter—except for its treatment of the Resurrection, which is a later and spurious addition. Although not himself one of Jesus' original disciples, Mark seems to have come from Jerusalem. He seems to have been a companion of Saint Paul, and his Gospel bears an unmistakable stamp of Pauline thought. But if Mark was a native of Jerusalem, his Gospel—as Clement of Alexandria states—was composed in Rome and addressed to a Greco-Roman audience. This in itself explains a great deal. At the time that Mark's Gospel was composed, Judaea was, or had recently been, in open revolt, and thousands of Jews were being crucified for rebellion against the Roman regime. If Mark wished his Gospel to survive and impress itself on a Roman audience, he could not possibly present Jesus as anti-Roman. Indeed, he could not feasibly present Jesus as politically oriented at all. In order to ensure the survival of his message he would have been obliged to exonerate the Romans of all guilt for Jesus' death—to whitewash the existing and entrenched regime and blame the death of the Messiah on certain Jews. This device was adopted, not only by the authors of the other Gospels, but by the early Christian Church as well. Without such a device neither Gospels nor Church would have survived.
The Gospel of Luke is dated by scholars at around A.D, 80. Luke himself appears to have been a Greek doctor who composed his work for a high-ranking Roman official at Caesarea, the Roman capital of Palestine. For Luke, too, therefore, it would have been necessary to placate and appease the Romans and transfer the blame elsewhere. [colors mine] By the time the Gospel of Matthew was composed—approximately A.D. 85—such a transference seems to have been accepted as an established fact and gone unquestioned. More than half of Matthew's Gospel, in fact, is derived directly from Mark's, although it was composed originally in Greek and reflects specifically Greek characteristics. The author seems to have been a Jew, quite possibly a refugee from Palestine. He is not to be confused with the disciple named Matthew, who would have lived much earlier and would probably have known only Aramaic.
The Gospels of Mark, Luke, and Matthew are known collectively as the Synoptic Gospels, implying that they see "eye to eye" or " with one eye"—which, of course, they do not [colors mine]. Nevertheless, there is enough overlap between them to suggest that they derived from a single common source—either an oral tradition or some other document subsequently lost. This distinguishes them from the Gospel of John, which betrays significantly different origins.
Nothing whatever is known about the author of the Fourth Gospel. Indeed there is no reason to assume his name was John. Except for John the Baptist, the name John is mentioned at no point in the Gospel itself, and its attribution to a man called John is generally accepted as later tradition. The Fourth Gospel is the latest of those in the New Testament—composed around A.D. 100 in the vicinity of the Greek city of Ephesus. It displays a number of quite distinctive features. There is no Nativity scene, for example, no description whatever of Jesus' birth, and the opening is almost Gnostic in character. The text is of a decidedly more mystical nature than the other Gospels, and the content differs as well. The other Gospels, for instance, concentrate primarily on Jesus' activities in the northern province of Galilee and reflect what appears to be only a second- or third-hand knowledge of events to the south in Judaea and Jerusalem—including the Crucifixion. The Fourth Gospel, in contrast, says relatively little about Galilee. It dwells exhaustively on the events in Judaea and Jerusalem that concluded Jesus' career, and its account of the Crucifixion may well rest ultimately on some first-hand eyewitness testimony. It also contains a number of episodes and incidents that do not figure in the other Gospels at all—the wedding at Cana, the roles of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, and the raising of Lazarus (although the last of these was once included in Mark's Gospel). On the basis of such factors modern scholars have suggested that the Gospel of John, despite its late composition, may well be the most reliable and historically accurate of the four. More than the other Gospels it seems to draw upon traditions current among contemporaries of Jesus, as well as other material unavailable to Mark, Luke, and Matthew. One modern researcher points out that it reflects an apparently first-hand topographical knowledge of Jerusalem prior to the revolt of A.D. 66. The same author concludes, "'Behind the Fourth Gospel lies an ancient tradition independent of the other Gospels.” This is not an isolated opinion. In fact, it is the most prevalent in modern biblical scholarship. According to another writer, "The Gospel of John, though not adhering to the Markian chronological framework and being much later in date, appears to know a tradition concerning Jesus that must be primitive and authentic."
[SEW]
NO, THIS WAY. . . .
ARE YOU KIDDEN, I SAW. . . .
EYE-WITNESS ACCOUNTS ARE LEAST RELIABLE
How the Jews came to be the fall guys or here are some more paragraphs from the book pictured below:
[SLICE]
Modern scholars are unanimous in concurring that the Gospels do not date from Jesus' lifetime. For the most part they date from the period between the two major revolts in Judaea—66 to 74 and 132 to l35—although they are almost certainly based on earlier accounts. These earlier accounts may have included written documents since lost—for there was a wholesale destruction of records in the wake of the first rebellion. But there would certainly have been oral traditions as well. Some of these were undoubtedly grossly exaggerated and/or distorted, received and transmitted at second, third or fourth hand. Others, however, may have derived from individuals who were alive in Jesus' lifetime and may even have known him personally. A young man at the time of the Crucifixion might well have been alive when the Gospels were composed [doubtful].
The earliest of the Gospels is generally considered to be Mark's, composed sometime during the revolt of 66-74 or shortly thereafter—except for its treatment of the Resurrection, which is a later and spurious addition. Although not himself one of Jesus' original disciples, Mark seems to have come from Jerusalem. He seems to have been a companion of Saint Paul, and his Gospel bears an unmistakable stamp of Pauline thought. But if Mark was a native of Jerusalem, his Gospel—as Clement of Alexandria states—was composed in Rome and addressed to a Greco-Roman audience. This in itself explains a great deal. At the time that Mark's Gospel was composed, Judaea was, or had recently been, in open revolt, and thousands of Jews were being crucified for rebellion against the Roman regime. If Mark wished his Gospel to survive and impress itself on a Roman audience, he could not possibly present Jesus as anti-Roman. Indeed, he could not feasibly present Jesus as politically oriented at all. In order to ensure the survival of his message he would have been obliged to exonerate the Romans of all guilt for Jesus' death—to whitewash the existing and entrenched regime and blame the death of the Messiah on certain Jews. This device was adopted, not only by the authors of the other Gospels, but by the early Christian Church as well. Without such a device neither Gospels nor Church would have survived.
The Gospel of Luke is dated by scholars at around A.D, 80. Luke himself appears to have been a Greek doctor who composed his work for a high-ranking Roman official at Caesarea, the Roman capital of Palestine. For Luke, too, therefore, it would have been necessary to placate and appease the Romans and transfer the blame elsewhere. [colors mine] By the time the Gospel of Matthew was composed—approximately A.D. 85—such a transference seems to have been accepted as an established fact and gone unquestioned. More than half of Matthew's Gospel, in fact, is derived directly from Mark's, although it was composed originally in Greek and reflects specifically Greek characteristics. The author seems to have been a Jew, quite possibly a refugee from Palestine. He is not to be confused with the disciple named Matthew, who would have lived much earlier and would probably have known only Aramaic.
The Gospels of Mark, Luke, and Matthew are known collectively as the Synoptic Gospels, implying that they see "eye to eye" or " with one eye"—which, of course, they do not [colors mine]. Nevertheless, there is enough overlap between them to suggest that they derived from a single common source—either an oral tradition or some other document subsequently lost. This distinguishes them from the Gospel of John, which betrays significantly different origins.
Nothing whatever is known about the author of the Fourth Gospel. Indeed there is no reason to assume his name was John. Except for John the Baptist, the name John is mentioned at no point in the Gospel itself, and its attribution to a man called John is generally accepted as later tradition. The Fourth Gospel is the latest of those in the New Testament—composed around A.D. 100 in the vicinity of the Greek city of Ephesus. It displays a number of quite distinctive features. There is no Nativity scene, for example, no description whatever of Jesus' birth, and the opening is almost Gnostic in character. The text is of a decidedly more mystical nature than the other Gospels, and the content differs as well. The other Gospels, for instance, concentrate primarily on Jesus' activities in the northern province of Galilee and reflect what appears to be only a second- or third-hand knowledge of events to the south in Judaea and Jerusalem—including the Crucifixion. The Fourth Gospel, in contrast, says relatively little about Galilee. It dwells exhaustively on the events in Judaea and Jerusalem that concluded Jesus' career, and its account of the Crucifixion may well rest ultimately on some first-hand eyewitness testimony. It also contains a number of episodes and incidents that do not figure in the other Gospels at all—the wedding at Cana, the roles of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, and the raising of Lazarus (although the last of these was once included in Mark's Gospel). On the basis of such factors modern scholars have suggested that the Gospel of John, despite its late composition, may well be the most reliable and historically accurate of the four. More than the other Gospels it seems to draw upon traditions current among contemporaries of Jesus, as well as other material unavailable to Mark, Luke, and Matthew. One modern researcher points out that it reflects an apparently first-hand topographical knowledge of Jerusalem prior to the revolt of A.D. 66. The same author concludes, "'Behind the Fourth Gospel lies an ancient tradition independent of the other Gospels.” This is not an isolated opinion. In fact, it is the most prevalent in modern biblical scholarship. According to another writer, "The Gospel of John, though not adhering to the Markian chronological framework and being much later in date, appears to know a tradition concerning Jesus that must be primitive and authentic."
[SEW]
Monday, May 07, 2007
OFFICIAL APOLOGETICS
In this snippet, the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail explain their approach to their book, and they also point out that their findings do not diminish Christ’s acheivements nor reputation—if one remains open to the real message of the Gospels. From the facts in this book and from facts much like the facts in this book, The Davinci Code was imagined which I have not read. But I saw the movie!!!!!!!!
[SNIP]
Even before we began our research, we ourselves were agnostic, neither pro-Christian nor anti-Christian. By virtue of our background and study of comparative religions we were sympathetic to the core of validity inherent in most of the world's major faiths and indifferent to the dogma, the theology, the accouterments that make up their superstructures. And while we could accord respect to almost every creed, we could not accord to any of them a monopoly of truth.
Thus, when our research led us to Jesus we could approach him with what we hoped was a sense of balance and perspective. We had no prejudices or preconceptions one way or the other, no vested interests of any kind, nothing to be gained by either proving or disproving anything. Insofar as "objectivity" is possible, we were able to approach Jesus objectively—as a historian would be expected to approach Alexander, for example, or Caesar. And the conclusions that forced themselves upon us, though certainly startling, were not shattering. They did not necessitate a reappraisal of our personal convictions or shake our personal hierarchies of values.
But what of other people? What of the millions of individuals across the world for whom Jesus is the Son of God, the Savior, the Redeemer? To what extent does the historical Jesus, the priest-king who emerged from our research, threaten their faith? To what extent have we violated what constitutes for many people their most cherished understanding of the sacred? To what extent have we committed an act of desecration?
We are well aware, of course, that our research has led us to conclusions that, in many respects, are inimical to certain basic tenets of modern Christianity—conclusions that are heretical, perhaps even blasphemous. From the standpoint of certain established dogma we are no doubt guilty of such transgressions. But we do not believe that we have desecrated, or even diminished, Jesus in the eyes of those who do genuinely revere him. And while we ourselves cannot subscribe to Jesus' divinity, our conclusions do not preclude others from doing so. Quite simply there is no reason why Jesus could not have married and fathered children while still retaining his divinity. There is no reason whatever why his divinity should be dependent on sexual chastity. Even if he were the Son of God, there is no reason why he should not have wed and sired a family. [Let me point out that many gods of this world who are just as authentic (or inauthentic?) as Jesus have sexual identities—some Greek gods, certain Egyptian gods, Hindu gods, at any rate, many gods are sexual as well as godly. So godliness and a healthy sexual appetite are not mutually exclusive.]
Underlying most Christian theology is the assumption that Jesus is God incarnate. In other words, God, taking pity on His creation, incarnated Himself in that creation and assumed human form. By doing so He would be able to acquaint Himself at first hand, so to speak, with the human condition. He would experience at first hand the vicissitudes of human existence. He would come to understand, in the most profound sense, what it means to be a man—to confront from a human standpoint the loneliness, the anguish, the helplessness, the tragic mortality that the status of manhood entails. By dint of becoming man God would come to know man in a way that the Old Testament does not allow. Renouncing His Olympian aloofness and remoteness, He would partake directly of man's lot. By doing so He would redeem man's lot—would validate and justify it by partaking of it, suffering from it, and eventually being sacrificed by it.
The symbolic significance of Jesus is that he is God exposed to the spectrum of human experience—exposed to the first-hand knowledge of what being a man entails. But could God, incarnate as Jesus, truly claim to be a man, to encompass the spectrum of human experience, without coming to know two of the most basic, most elemental facets of the human condition? Could God claim to know the totality of human existence without confronting two such essential aspects of humanity as sexuality and paternity?
We do not think so. In fact, we do not think the incarnation truly symbolizes what it is intended to symbolize unless Jesus was married and sired children. The Jesus of the Gospels and of established Christianity is ultimately incomplete—a God whose incarnation as man is only partial. The Jesus who emerged from our rcsearch enjoys, in our opinion, a much more valid claim to what Christianity would have him be.
On the whole, then, we do not think we have compromised or belittled Jesus. We do not think he has suffered from the conclusions to which our research led us. From our investigations emerges a living and plausible Jesus—a Jesus whose life is both meaningful and comprehensible to modern man.
[PASTE]
In this snippet, the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail explain their approach to their book, and they also point out that their findings do not diminish Christ’s acheivements nor reputation—if one remains open to the real message of the Gospels. From the facts in this book and from facts much like the facts in this book, The Davinci Code was imagined which I have not read. But I saw the movie!!!!!!!!
[SNIP]
Even before we began our research, we ourselves were agnostic, neither pro-Christian nor anti-Christian. By virtue of our background and study of comparative religions we were sympathetic to the core of validity inherent in most of the world's major faiths and indifferent to the dogma, the theology, the accouterments that make up their superstructures. And while we could accord respect to almost every creed, we could not accord to any of them a monopoly of truth.
Thus, when our research led us to Jesus we could approach him with what we hoped was a sense of balance and perspective. We had no prejudices or preconceptions one way or the other, no vested interests of any kind, nothing to be gained by either proving or disproving anything. Insofar as "objectivity" is possible, we were able to approach Jesus objectively—as a historian would be expected to approach Alexander, for example, or Caesar. And the conclusions that forced themselves upon us, though certainly startling, were not shattering. They did not necessitate a reappraisal of our personal convictions or shake our personal hierarchies of values.
But what of other people? What of the millions of individuals across the world for whom Jesus is the Son of God, the Savior, the Redeemer? To what extent does the historical Jesus, the priest-king who emerged from our research, threaten their faith? To what extent have we violated what constitutes for many people their most cherished understanding of the sacred? To what extent have we committed an act of desecration?
We are well aware, of course, that our research has led us to conclusions that, in many respects, are inimical to certain basic tenets of modern Christianity—conclusions that are heretical, perhaps even blasphemous. From the standpoint of certain established dogma we are no doubt guilty of such transgressions. But we do not believe that we have desecrated, or even diminished, Jesus in the eyes of those who do genuinely revere him. And while we ourselves cannot subscribe to Jesus' divinity, our conclusions do not preclude others from doing so. Quite simply there is no reason why Jesus could not have married and fathered children while still retaining his divinity. There is no reason whatever why his divinity should be dependent on sexual chastity. Even if he were the Son of God, there is no reason why he should not have wed and sired a family. [Let me point out that many gods of this world who are just as authentic (or inauthentic?) as Jesus have sexual identities—some Greek gods, certain Egyptian gods, Hindu gods, at any rate, many gods are sexual as well as godly. So godliness and a healthy sexual appetite are not mutually exclusive.]
Underlying most Christian theology is the assumption that Jesus is God incarnate. In other words, God, taking pity on His creation, incarnated Himself in that creation and assumed human form. By doing so He would be able to acquaint Himself at first hand, so to speak, with the human condition. He would experience at first hand the vicissitudes of human existence. He would come to understand, in the most profound sense, what it means to be a man—to confront from a human standpoint the loneliness, the anguish, the helplessness, the tragic mortality that the status of manhood entails. By dint of becoming man God would come to know man in a way that the Old Testament does not allow. Renouncing His Olympian aloofness and remoteness, He would partake directly of man's lot. By doing so He would redeem man's lot—would validate and justify it by partaking of it, suffering from it, and eventually being sacrificed by it.
The symbolic significance of Jesus is that he is God exposed to the spectrum of human experience—exposed to the first-hand knowledge of what being a man entails. But could God, incarnate as Jesus, truly claim to be a man, to encompass the spectrum of human experience, without coming to know two of the most basic, most elemental facets of the human condition? Could God claim to know the totality of human existence without confronting two such essential aspects of humanity as sexuality and paternity?
We do not think so. In fact, we do not think the incarnation truly symbolizes what it is intended to symbolize unless Jesus was married and sired children. The Jesus of the Gospels and of established Christianity is ultimately incomplete—a God whose incarnation as man is only partial. The Jesus who emerged from our rcsearch enjoys, in our opinion, a much more valid claim to what Christianity would have him be.
On the whole, then, we do not think we have compromised or belittled Jesus. We do not think he has suffered from the conclusions to which our research led us. From our investigations emerges a living and plausible Jesus—a Jesus whose life is both meaningful and comprehensible to modern man.
[PASTE]
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
JESUS H. CHRIST!!! WHAT’S IN A NAME?The following is on pages 326-27 in the book pictured to the left.
“Jesus' lifetime spanned roughly the first 35 years of a turmoil extending over 140 years. The turmoil did not cease with his death, but continued for another century. And it engendered the psychological and cultural adjuncts inevitably attending any such sustained defiance of an oppressor. One of these adjuncts was the hope and longing for a Messiah who would deliver his people from the tyrant's yoke. It was only by virtue of historical and semantic accident that this term came to be applied specifically and exclusively to Jesus.
“For Jesus' contemporaries no Messiah would ever have been regarded as divine. Indeed, the very idea of a divine Messiah would have been preposterous, if not unthinkable. The Greek word for Messiah is Christ or Christos. The term—whether in Hebrew or Greek—meant simply "the anointed one" and generally referred to a king. Thus, David, when he was anointed king in the Old Testament, became, quite explicitly, a "Messiah" or a "Christ." And every subsequent Jewish king of the house of David was known by the same appellation. Even during the Roman occupation of Judaea, the Roman-appointed high priest was known as the Priest Messiah or Priest Christ.
“For the Zealots, however, and for other opponents of Rome, this puppet priest was, of necessity, a false Messiah, For them the true Messiah implied something very different—the legitimate roi perdu or "lost king, "the unknown descendant of the house of David who would deliver his people from Roman tyranny. During Jesus' lifetime anticipation of the coming of such a Messiah attained a pitch verging on mass hysteria. And this anticipation continued after Jesus' death. Indeed, the revolt of A.D. 66 was prompted in large part by Zealot agitation and propaganda on behalf of a Messiah whose advent was said to be imminent.
“The term "Messiah," then, implied nothing in any way divine, Strictly defined, it meant nothing more than an anointed king, and in the popular mind it came to mean an anointed king who would also be a liberator. In other words, it was a term with specifically political connotations—something quite different from the later Christian idea of a "Son of God." It was this mundane political term that was applied to Jesus. He was called "Jesus the Messiah" or—translated into Greek—"Jesus the Christ." Only later was this designation contracted to "Jesus Christ" and a purely functional title distorted into a proper name.”
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
WHICH JESUS LIVED WHERE, DIED WHEN, FATHERED WHO?
It’s in the book pictured on pages 317-18:
“So far as popular tradition is concerned, the origin and birth of Jesus are well enough known. But in reality the Gospels, on which that tradition is based, are considerably more vague on the matter. Only two of the Gospels—Matthew and Luke—say anything at all about Jesus' origins and birth; and they are flagrantly at odds with each other. According to Matthew, for example, Jesus was an aristocrat, if not a rightful and legitimate king—descended from David via Solomon. According to Luke, on the other hand, Jesus' family, though descended from the house of David, was of somewhat less exalted stock; and it is on the basis of Mark's account that the legend of the "poor carpenter" came into being. The two genealogies, in short, are so strikingly discordant that they might well be referring to two quite different individuals.
“The discrepancies between the Gospels are not confined to the question of Jesus' ancestry and genealogy. According to Luke, Jesus, on his birth, was visited by shepherds. According to Matthew he was visited by kings. According to Luke, Jesus' family lived in Nazareth. From here they are said to have journeyed—for a census that history suggests never in fact occurred—to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born in the poverty of a manger. But according to Matthew, Jesus' family had been fairly well-to-do residents of Bethlehem all along, and Jesus himself was born in a house. In Mathew's version Herod's persecution of the innocents prompts the family to flee into Egypt, and only on their return do they make their home in Nazareth.
“The information in each of these accounts is quite specific and—assuming the census did occur—perfectly plausible. And yet the information itself simply does not agree. This contradiction cannot be rationalized. There is no possible means whereby the two conflicting narratives can both be correct, and there is no means whereby they can be reconciled. Whether one cares to admit it or not, the fact must be recognized that one or both of the Gospels are wrong. In the face of so glaring and inevitable a conclusion, the Gospels cannot be regarded as unimpugnable. How can they be unimpugnable when they impugn each other?
“The more one studies the Gospels, the more the contradictions between them become apparent. Indeed, they do not even agree on the day of the Crucifixion. According to John's Gospel the Crucifixion occurred on the day before the Passover. According to the Gospels of Mark, Luke, and Matthew, it occurred on the day after. Nor are the Gospels in accord on the personality and character of Jesus. Each depicts a figure who is patently at odds with the figure depicted in the others—a meek, lamblike Savior in Luke, for example, a powerful and majestic sovereign in Matthew who comes "not to bring peace but a sword." And there is further disagreement about Jesus' last words on the cross. In Matthew and Mark these words are, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" In Luke they are, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." And in John they are simply, "It is finished."
“Given these discrepancies, the Gospels can only be accepted as a highly questionable authority, and certainly not as definitive.”
It’s in the book pictured on pages 317-18:
“So far as popular tradition is concerned, the origin and birth of Jesus are well enough known. But in reality the Gospels, on which that tradition is based, are considerably more vague on the matter. Only two of the Gospels—Matthew and Luke—say anything at all about Jesus' origins and birth; and they are flagrantly at odds with each other. According to Matthew, for example, Jesus was an aristocrat, if not a rightful and legitimate king—descended from David via Solomon. According to Luke, on the other hand, Jesus' family, though descended from the house of David, was of somewhat less exalted stock; and it is on the basis of Mark's account that the legend of the "poor carpenter" came into being. The two genealogies, in short, are so strikingly discordant that they might well be referring to two quite different individuals.
“The discrepancies between the Gospels are not confined to the question of Jesus' ancestry and genealogy. According to Luke, Jesus, on his birth, was visited by shepherds. According to Matthew he was visited by kings. According to Luke, Jesus' family lived in Nazareth. From here they are said to have journeyed—for a census that history suggests never in fact occurred—to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born in the poverty of a manger. But according to Matthew, Jesus' family had been fairly well-to-do residents of Bethlehem all along, and Jesus himself was born in a house. In Mathew's version Herod's persecution of the innocents prompts the family to flee into Egypt, and only on their return do they make their home in Nazareth.
“The information in each of these accounts is quite specific and—assuming the census did occur—perfectly plausible. And yet the information itself simply does not agree. This contradiction cannot be rationalized. There is no possible means whereby the two conflicting narratives can both be correct, and there is no means whereby they can be reconciled. Whether one cares to admit it or not, the fact must be recognized that one or both of the Gospels are wrong. In the face of so glaring and inevitable a conclusion, the Gospels cannot be regarded as unimpugnable. How can they be unimpugnable when they impugn each other?
“The more one studies the Gospels, the more the contradictions between them become apparent. Indeed, they do not even agree on the day of the Crucifixion. According to John's Gospel the Crucifixion occurred on the day before the Passover. According to the Gospels of Mark, Luke, and Matthew, it occurred on the day after. Nor are the Gospels in accord on the personality and character of Jesus. Each depicts a figure who is patently at odds with the figure depicted in the others—a meek, lamblike Savior in Luke, for example, a powerful and majestic sovereign in Matthew who comes "not to bring peace but a sword." And there is further disagreement about Jesus' last words on the cross. In Matthew and Mark these words are, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" In Luke they are, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." And in John they are simply, "It is finished."
“Given these discrepancies, the Gospels can only be accepted as a highly questionable authority, and certainly not as definitive.”
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