In the Bible Reincarnation is spoken of and often. Many critics say it is not; scholars say it is not. Jesus asks the people to whom they think he was – meaning either the long awaited messiah ( in which he denounced) or the reincarnation of some ancient person as mentioned in some passages from the Gospels. Nostradamus speaks about reincarnation  . Socrates and Plato speak about reincarnation. Buddha and many other traditions speak about reincarnation. Origin (Patristic father) believed that souls await in a place in heaven before arriving into the mother’s womb before being delivered on earth. This was denounced at these ecumenical councils that arouse around the doctrine of Christianity. Like faith and love which cannot be rationally explained, so is a reincarnation and such as an issue of an idea. Egyptian texts tell us that some traditions believed in reincarnation or the afterlife.   The Christmas Story by MichaelJ McDonald Jesus Christ [mjm] 23 December 2009 begun 23 December 2009: somewhat based upon PBS’s “From Jesus to Christ.” Salvation comes by believing in Jesus not by Empire building or warmongering!   My father always reiterated that the Bible was written by men, and not by God. He meant that either some of it or all of it was fallible. It could not be trusted. Therefore, as for my understanding of his conjecture it cannot be taken literally, but inspirationally, and we must use discretion and we must use a critical evaluation without passing some preconceived judgments as too whom was God. As with any historical investigation, we will use a critical analysis in light of what the current research has too offer and we will uncover mysteries without allowing our biasness to interfere with group consensus toward our subject. Basically, Jesus had changed the world and it was of no matter to which version was accepted or was denied.  Jesus is, was, and will be, a major factor in our world society! Who was Jesus? Jesus had redefined a human’s purpose. Pantheonism, the idealization of rich, the play ground of the privileged; the removed group from responsibility, the removed group from empathy, the removed group from responsibility, for all too well known as a mean and a cruel suppressor elite, and to which demanded money and worship from the commoners or to which the rulers would punish their subject’s discretions, was overthrown by Jesus. Jesus teaches the poor that they are as valuable as kings. He taught humans to love each other.  Humans therefore were transformed by the pure of heart. He gave the world incredible hope. It was hope that could contend with the horrible and an unjust reality of an animalistic survival where a reality lay in the idea that ‘might is right’ – or that might is the only key to a survival.  Jesus offered us a different way to act and be a part of our world. He called for a just and a decent society and moreover he called for us to care for one another. The Gospels had been written well after Jesus’ time, and at that time a competing Christian movement defined the different religious references from a variety of sources, both oral and written.   We do not know if Jesus actually died/resurrected at 33 ACE. We simply have no confirmation. Jesus could have been crucified as early as 27 ACE. Synoptic Gospels: Mark, Mathew and Luke:  because these are similar in many respects: all are direct, literalist, and pithy.   The Gospel of Mark ~ 65 years later The Gospel of Mark (not an apostle of Jesus but a follower that wrote the first account of Jesus' ministry in chronological order, and also may have  taken his information from some oral tradition) predates all other gospels.  While there is no ascension story, Mark perhaps used some earlier collections of miracle stories from  more than once source. Mark tells the story of a mysterious Jesus who does want everyone to know too much about him. In Mark’s account, Jesus does not come back to life after the crucifixion ,  but we find at the end of the story that Jesus is not in his tomb. While there is no ascension story,  Marks makes it clear that Jesus is a dooms- day prophet of sorts who reacts to the first revolt of the Jews. To Mark, Jesus was an enigmatic figure who tries to deny his power and tells the people to keep what he does a secret. This is in contrast to the other gospels.  To Mark, Jesus was a physician, a healer, and from the great traditions of the medical workers' of the ancient world. Overall, Marx explicates that it is the death of Jesus as the guiding principle of the Gospel. As a guiding principle, Mark sets the stage for the next group of Gospels. And The Gospel of Mark is a part of the Synoptic group (Mark, Matthew, and Luke) of Gospels in the New Testament. We get a perspective from Mark that Jesus is not in control. This is a key to understanding the evolution of the other Gospels and later apocrypha. Gospel of Matthew:~75 ADE Mathew’s Gospel is symbolic of the Old Testament: Jesus is on the mountain five times speaking to the crowds, a reference to the five books of the Torah, etc.. The Jewish traditions are included with symbolism, and the style differed from Mark’s account. At this time, the  Jews were in persecution and Matthew portrays Jesus rising up against Roman occupation of which this is a view of Jesus as out of control, but the Jews in need for a militant savior.  Gospel of Luke ~75 ADE Luke was a physician who wrote in Greek. His Gospel holds many similarities to Mathew’s.  He wrote to a Greco audience. Luke was the first to call in to action the new Christians’ focuses toward a Roman political and social arena – and not of some Jewish inclusiveness. In Luke’s Acts, things moved westward and into the Roman Empire. In the Nag Hammandi writings, things had moved all over the world – even to unto India and unto the Far East. John of Patmos, for example if we hold him as the author of the Gospel of John and as part of the New Testament,  wrote to seven churches in which one was Asian. The Gospel of John ~95 ADE The Gospel of John, written during the virulent battle between the competing Gospels and their splintered groups,  offers the most idealized version of Jesus. This was a divine, a revelatory figure, to whom steeped in symbols,  Jesus is in full control. Jesus dies on a different day than in the synoptic gospels. Jesus eats the last supper before the Passover, and eats the last supper during the period the Jews slaughtered their lambs– thus giving the symbolism that Jesus is the Lamb of God as well as the sacrifice.  As symbolism, Jesus does not eat the Passover meal, he is the Passover meal. This was heretical, because drinking of blood was restricted in Jewish costumes. So this is a total break away from the Jewish traditions. Jesus is a global figure in John's account, and so a separation from the Jews’ inclusiveness is given precedence. Eventually John’s community were kicked out of synagogues in contention to the synoptic versions – thus they were marginalized and by a language of invective. It quite possibly was Paul’s expression that a non-Jew could also be included to the new Church which later gave rise to the notion that Christianity was not only for Jews but for all people of the earth. Christmas Story Origin. The Infancy Gospel of James (alleged to be written in 4 BCE the year that Herod died, but scholarly assessments place it in the second century, due to its encomium style) are the earliest efforts to idealize Mother Mary ( as the virgin who gave birth to Jesus as a virgin, and pertains to the earliest Christmas Story, enacted by Francis of Assisi in 1223, in Grecio, Italy. Josephus tells us that James, the brother of Jesus died in 62 ACE. In 18:4, Joseph, Jesus’ father is stunned as he looks for midwives in the desert as time appears to stand still, then resumes – indicating that was when Jesus was born – as he returned to the cave with two midwives the baby had already been birthed. To hide Jesus from the Roman government by an order to kill newborns ( possibly only 20 babies at that time between zero and two years-old, as there were only about 1,000 families living at that time in the area of Jews) out of fear for usurpation of a coming king, Jesus is hidden in a manager – thus giving rise to the nativity scene. James’ Gospel has the star, the magi, the census, but Jesus was not born in Bethlehem but in a cave in the desert (17:10). Circa 112 ACE The Stories Spread, so what to do? In 112 ACE, Pliny the Younger starts a policy to ask Christians’ if they are followers of this new Jesus religion. He was appointed governor and a friend of Emperor Hadrian. The reason was that as the Gospels proliferated then more and more commoners refused to attend some Roman state festivals where they would spend money, as in even giving money to the local Panthonic temple for sacrifice. He does not go as far as to search out Christians, as the Roman pagan policy was to allow different religions to be tolerated, but as long a citizen participated in normative Roman calendar festivals and groups caused no commotion. However, these new Jesus groups became themselves reclusive from state functions which garnered suspicion.   There may have been a source of Jesus sayings in which scholars call ‘Q.’ This may have been a type of a template to use when writing the Gospels, along with an oral tradition of which the competing groups viewed for dominance in novelty. Still the crucifixion of Jesus is a constant, and the focuses of Jesus’ mission was to have no sing ( in this sense no state crime) and be persecuted in such a horrid way and still become more popular than the Pantheonic gods. Although, it took centuries, Constantine finally made Jesus a state sanctioned religion and produced Bibles from public funds, built churches and formed institutions based upon Christian ideas. Social Implications ~200 ADE The Martyr Period Christianity was seen as not anciently perceived by the current rulers of society,  so thereby seen as a superstition by the Roman and Jewish authorities. It was not until Christians in the first half of the third century in which many became literate and help local offices that Roman authorities understood there was a persistent threat to their paganistic and elitist rule. Thus The Martyr Period or the age of heroes when a celebrated case of Perpetual (c. 203 ACE) was thrown to the beasts in the arena and a gladiator was told to dispatcher after the animals had torn her up and he hesitated in which she grabbed his arm and thrust in the sword into herself. The fact that humans came to see human sacrifice illustrated the barbaric society that these times allowed to fester and expound. So the second century was a self definition and some Christian churches were in towns along side Jewish, pagan and gnostic schools, and institutions rose as well as the papal tradition. Also this is the time that Heretics arose.   Bishop Irenaus: Orthodox was a coined word which implied straightness or ‘strait ideas;’ directness, one line; as compared to heterodox in which out came the connotative expression heretic.  This was one of these attempts to bring Christians under one community of ideas and rules and therefore control them.   The Calendar of the Solar Equinox, that is about spring around the 24th of March was challenged by one group against the Roman Julian church (1st of January), which was close to Saturnalia, the Winter Solstice. Nicaea: Council of the Bishops circa 325 ADE Council of Nicaea 325 ADE: At the Council of Nicaea, Anatolia, Roman Emperor Constantine summoned all the bishops from all the regions of Christianity to come to a consensus to determine if Jesus was God or a man. It was decided that Jesus was the Son of God, and at the same time God. So there was this first and third person discourse. This led to concept of trinitarianism. Therefore, Jesus was the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost – all in one deity but still in separate forms of deifications. Constantine never made Christianity the state religion, literally by fait. However, he promoted Christianity and funded building projects which later became institutions –allowing Christianity to have agency within the Roman boarders and then allowing his wife to go to Jerusalem and fund a major Christian Church as a symbol of Christian legitimacy. In a sense, The Romans conquered Jerusalem but Jesus conquered Rome. As with Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus, the wings of change most possibly nudged Paul into accepting the growing anti-establishment movements of Jesus followers. The Council of Nicaea is when the New Testament was considered and bound with what became then known as the Old Testament. Since Jesus offered another choice than the Old Testament, which of a promised place in another realm – heaven – this became a new covenant and a direct breakage to Judaism. Jesus advocated for living a pacifist life for rewards in the afterlife, while strict Judaism still awaits a militant Empire-builder messiah. The model is king David, who along with his son Jews enjoyed the pinnacle of earthly respectability. However, King David was never a pacifist nor a peacemaker – but a warrior king who listened to the prophet Samuel that proposed killing all the Israeli enemies as a show of purified allegiance to the House of Israel – or at least from Samuel’s perspective. Thereby, in the Gospels there are two pictures of Jesus – the pacifist, promoting meekness and Good Samaritan works, helping the poor, and doing hospice work, and then there is the militant Jesus who brings war, division, discord and chaos to the ruling establishment. It is a wonder that Atheists and even agnostics have field-day denouncing Christianity as a viable cohesive and rational social program. Much of the contending Gospel narratives relate an irrational viewpoint and something rather non-logical.     Also, for doctrinal purposes, one of the major criterion was Jesus’ suffering which was needed to have the celebration of the Eucharist – which cannot be celebrated without the suffering.  Notes:   As with Muhammad, during the period of Jesus, there was no speaking of a religion. Christianity became later understood -- mainly as a derogatory term for early followers of Jesus – as the identifiable namesake for this new religion. Crucified, the actual word comes from these enemies of these followers of Christ – they by calling them Christians meant they should be crucified too – as was Jesus.  During Muhammad’s life, Islam was not spoken of as a new religion. Again, this happened well after Muhammad’s life. Love thy Enemies     (Michael Johnathan McDonald, January 2010)

 

Third Secret of Fatima

Third Secret of Fatima: Sister Lucia related in her third secret that God (Jesus) will not take the blame for the chastisement or sins of humans in this apocalypse. Rather, Jesus ushers it in and delegates the blames to humans. This is in a stark contrast to Jesus suffering on the cross for humanity’s sins by absolving them if they accept his grace. The third secret intends that grace has run out and peace is not the objective but war is the solution.

 

Similarities appear also in the writings of Nostradamus and in the Book of the Apocalypse. Revelation, its common title, was allegedly written by John on the island of Patmos and is contained in the last book of the New Testament, a decision by a majority consensus at the Council of Nicaea in the year of 325 ADE, in Anatolia. It apparently is  the only apocryphal book to be included into the New Testament canon. It was controversial at that time of inclusion and because in it Jesus is cloaked with blood and is linked with the planet Venus. And by its old testament parallel it is a frame to the fallen angel Lucifer of whom is also associated to the ‘bright and morning star.’ Lucifer apparently fell by pride; the angel upset because it had lost its power and wanted the place of God as supreme ruler of the Universe. Also, as we find not in Luke but the other Gospels, Jesus is the root of David. Apparently, from Moses, to Joshua, to Gideon, to Saul and to David, but not to Solomon, these were warrior Israelite leaders. These figures did not preach peace but war, revenge, and annihilation.  The section of the Bible describing the Israelis flight out of Egypt to eventually conquer Canaan are stories of military prowess, determination, nation building, and pathologic warfare. at the battle of Jericho, the Israelites not only take the fortress town, but slaughter all living things inside it as a measure of stamping out culture and opposition to their enemies. Jesus on the other hand is usually depicted in Mark as a healer, and someone that is not in control or unsure of his purpose. In Mathew, Jesus’ purpose is to realign himself and the Jewish people to the past and their heroic Emperioric climb to regional power. At this time Rome was expanding its empire and threatening to conquer the known world.

 

Yet, my father said that humans wrote the Bible. Also what about the expression ‘ the root of David?’ Will  in Matthew do we get a genealogy trying to directly link Joseph, Jesus’ father,  to king David of the Israeli Empire – so this is suspect. Why, because this view forms a perspective of Judaism . In Mark, Jesus is not in control of anything. In John, Jesus is in full control of everything. In the Book of the Apocalypse, Jesus is back to being the Prophet of Doom – he is both Satan and God, or Bad and good or good and evil as an all encompassing entity as if  we see physics today and by an understanding that light and that darkness or that positive energy and/or that dark energy which we believe is negative and not well understood is the force of energy itself driving the equation of energy into matter.

50 days after the crucifixion

Until 50 days after the crucifixion,  the Holy Spirit descends to tell the followers how to precede with a mission.

Two Messengers

Peter and Paul (A Roman citizen). James, Jesus’ brother made a church in Jerusalem. And two decades later they had this serious decision. Peter and James believed that only Jews could be come Christians. Paul was a Roman citizen so he had to do some quick thinking. In the church meeting Paul argued that he was a gentile, and for Jesus to be considered acceptable to many other persons who are against Rome, there must be a allowance for inclusion of non-Jews. Miraculously, James agreed and therefore the meaning of Jesus’ cause forewent Hebrew identification and now included the Kingdom of God is for everyone – if they so choose. So Paul as a genius had preached to these pagans and these Jews all over wherever he went spreading the message of the Jesus the Crucified ( Christ) that rose from the dead – a symbol of conquering the Roman attempt to silence a social rebel.

Emperor Nero was one of the first Roman emperors to persecute this new movement. Having mental problems in 64 ACE Nero fiddled while ancient sections of Rome burnt; he had a plan to clear out space for new buildings, so he fiddled and burnt a vast area of Rome but the Roman people became concerned that he actually set the fire. So Nero was blamed by the public and had to think of how to escape this scandal? Nero blamed the Christians. He used them as scapegoats and began to persecute them to take the focus off of his grand building plans – so this was the first persecution for early Christians – they were persecuted in part because they were known to be trouble makers. Early Christians did not have churches of places of worship, thereby using private homes which spurred on conspiracies – as they as a group in a general sense became anti-Roman-social. Becoming anti-Roman-social was important to Roman leaders because it affected economic prosperity. The more Christians became assembled the less they admired the old festival traditions of the pagan temples. Therefore, they stayed home and did not spend there monies.

Why such a passion for a unique and different message?

Basically the power of Christianity is that prominent and intelligent figures sacrifice their own safety, lives, and livelihood to go out and preach when they know they will stir up trouble with the local or regional authorities. They simply have a notion in the back of their minds that they will someday be held accountable and martyred. Paul goes to prison and gets a citizen trial. He is his found guilty and beheaded. Peter crucified upside down, and James stoned to death in Jerusalem. This lead to news a such as a modern type of some public relations (P.R). Why would these people die for this one human? The curiosity eventually caught on and people wanted to know the Jesus story. The story was different then the old-hat Roman aristocracy, Roman emperor is born into royalty goes out and performs some military service for a number of years and then rules the kingdom by fanfare and cult of personality. The Jesus story is radically a different narrative – something that was not commonly portrayed in mythos narratives.
 

Sovereign state Attempt

First Jewish Roman War (66-73 ACE)

From Syria, through Galilee the military mistake by the Hebrews led to the doom of the temple. When the Roman forces advanced southward toward Jerusalem, the Jewish revolt armies fled the fields and then surrounded the temple. This was a mistake. So Titus surrounded Jerusalem, and besieged Jerusalem’s temple. This symbolized that the temple was of supreme importance. It was a waiting game. Titus’ plans intended as normative siege tactics to starve out the Jewish military. Also, he wanted a Jewish faction to fight another Jewish faction as supplies ran out hoping that tempers increased and a quick surrender ensured. The last hold-out was Masada, yet when the Roman troops finally got through and on the mountain fortress, they found mass suicides – a sign of never surrender. Slaughtering 580,000 Jews, according to Cassius Dio probably was an overstatement meant to bolster the Roman legends of great conquests. [Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus, a Roman councilor and historian] In his work “Roman History” which originally claimed 80 books but only 36 so far were found with many fragments intends that most Jews were either killed or hurt, and 985 villages were razed and 50 fortified towns invaded. Titus, according to the councilor, pillaged the gold, pillaged the silver and pillaged the copper from the Temple and then back at Rome the Romans smelted it and adorned the sides of the Roman Coliseum. This was of course, insult to injury. By destroying the temple the Romans intended to put a final solution to the Jewish problem. As with some of Julius Caesar’s decision to exterminate the Gauls he came into battle and pillage –conquest, this was no precedent for Roman generals. 

The Temple

70 ACE

Temple Obligation to the Temple 3 times a year – it was central to the Jewish identity.

 

With the Temple gone, the Jews would be gone for good, it was thought. So for a 1,000 years the Jews had their temple, a place to practice their traditions and live life as they wanted to live. This is a part of the new era for the Jews called the Diaspora.   So one Jewish person escaped the conflict in a coffin, and he later  asked a then  Roman Emperor to set up a rabbinic school, but no with affiliation to militantism.  Surprisingly the Emperor allowed this to take place and another threat of separate Judaism arose from the ashes of First Jewish Roman War. In conclusion, one synagogue began now and the new Judaism would run parallel with Christianity from then onward.

 

So the Temple is gone so what to do? The apocalypse had happened as far as the Jewish people were concerned; the oppressor conquered Palestine and that was the proof. So a total destruction fulfilled Jesus’ prophetic claims. Yet, was this the end of the world or age as some of Jesus’ disciples had asked him. Jesus told them during these end of ages there would be wars and rumors of wars.  Each period’s critic points to endless historical eras where millennialism or centurism had accounted for fear mongering of the intending apocalypse. In the Book of Daniel, the end times is accompanied by an increase in knowledge. Today we have nuclear proliferation, we have British funding a new generation of nuclear warheads and missiles, we have Saudi Arabia creating secretly there own nuclear weapons force, in fear of Iran as well as both China, India, Pakistan, Europeans and the U.S.A. The world is overpopulated in comparison to the resources for living in a first-world condition. As China’s industrial complex increases, more and more citizens will wants houses, cars, and material things which will stress the planet’s resources. The U.S.A. is the largest consumer of resources and the model on which first-world lifestyles illustrate the decadence to over-using the world’s resources. Sustainability at these paces from the twentieth century’s empirical industrial buildup cannot take place on a global scale without some sort of management controls.

 

So currently a small but evocative sect of Zionists want to rebuild the Jewish Temple, in which the Dome of the Rock (where Muhammad is have been reported to ascend to heaven from this location) stands in the way. In a sense these are dooms day scenarios that would bring about conflict and war in which narrative ancient texts tell about a final conflagration. The difference between the milleniumism of the tenth and eleventh centuries are empirical non-the-less. Today we have the tools to usher in this configuration and the difficulties of nationhoods and ethnic traditions all vying for their end of time and dooms day scenarios. Iran wants the Hebrews relocated, and all but for small Islamic states still contain the hagg laws on the books – even though most do not practice these inhuman right laws – they still are there, persistent, inglorious and inhumane.

The Gospel

Gospel = is not a history nor a diary and or nor some biographies, which cannot be read literally:  but as a divine inspiration of an apocalypse (a disclosure, a truth, it is beyond all human apprehension as the rational brain only allows 200 bits of information into the brain processes as compared to the irrational bit allowance of millions of bits of information per second), text – this is how these were written. And Jesus was that human that was mystifying and not to be understood by the human reasoning capabilities of the rational brain. Irrational constructs such as love, empathy, compassion are called human trappings by scholars, where everything is usually robotic measured and unfeeling by the rational statistician. But faith, belief, and truth are all irrational concepts and not a part of the Age of Reason. The Age of Reason brought us the Atheist viewpoint that Religion had caused all the problems of the world. During the twentieth century at one time one-third of the world’s landmass was dictated by Atheist state government. An estimated 100,000,000 or more people were sacrificed to this program and called a success while religious states such as the United States of America led the human rights movements that changed the world’s view of multi-class and multi-ethnic socio-political and economic inclusion. Atheists have yet failed to illustrate proof that religion has killed more people than atheism. Julius Caesar, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, and it can be argued Hannibal were not spear headed by Religious dogma to run their military campaigns, but by some of purpose, some of self-pleasure, and as for Hannibal economic revenge. Jesus’ message of ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ is not a message of might-is-right or kills for money and pleasure. Atheists simply have little ground to argue when tackling the more macro issues of global issues on traditions. Julius Caesar did not conquer Gaul and commit genocide of perhaps, twenty-percent of its population for the glory of a Roman pantheonic deity. No, he believed he was a deity which was not religious but power politics itself. The Roman period in which Jesus arose was a period when unheard of crimes against innocent and some criminals, possibly, were at its low point – and death was just a part of entertainment and population control.

 

Jesus offered another way into which to view community and life and by the time Constantine made it politically powerful, the trappings of Christianity made it institutionalized. Although Constantine did not make Christianity a state religion, he rather gave it preference, publically funded institutions and texts and sought to unify the dis-group Roman provinces under a more scholarly and intellectually promising idea. Christians under Roman during the beginning of the fourth century were highly literate, more educated, and held local offices which meant that the institutions of Rome were run by persons who disregarded the ancient Roman paganistic pantheon and favored one man who challenged the world’s outlook as to whom controls the earth. That was Jesus. The Good News was that one did not have to be an aristocrat, kill thousands of people nor be an earthly king to worshipped and understand life’s prescriptions and playbook. Now Jesus brought another way of looking to the afterlife as a goal to love and compassion rather than war, subjugation and narcissism. 

 

2nd Century Jewish Independence and A Split

 

Cross Roads. Bar Kohova Revolt (~ 132 ACE)

 

Another serious revolt against Roman hegemony began in the second century (~132 CE). Siman Bar Kokhba (varies transliterated as Bar Kokhva or Bar Kochba) was a charismatic Jewish leader whose purpose was to establish an independent Jewish state of Israel. This meant the Jews had rejected Jesus. So that episode was another definitive break between Judaism and Christianity. During this time, Monks, heretics, and others had written their own stories about Jesus; and this set of a martyrdom split and new program of socio-economic and ideological protest. Roman laws tolerated differing belief systems and somewhat religions, as long as the people sacrificed to their pantheon gods ( meaning providing wealth and commerce to their institutions), and act like they loved the Roman ideas at festivals and other calendar social events. Christians started to revolt  in a passive manner by not showing up but staying home for these festivals and sacrifices. This was an economic disaster for Rome who then once the numbers started to increase became extraordinarily wary of the economic circumstances that this minor faction of believers contributed to economic instability.

 

The New Testament

 

As the first missionaries were being killed and martyred; then there came a need to keep the story of Jesus alive. So persons began to record these stories and sayings of Jesus. It is quite possible that Mark took his ideas from one of these saying tests that circulated before the Gospels.

 

1945: Muhammad Ali, while digging for bird droppings – a type of kindle -- found some papyruses hid away in some sealed jars;  and his mother burnt some texts to kindle fire for some tea, but then some survive  by chance and they were sold a ancient text dealer, in which we have these texts today.

 

By The Nile, Nag Hammadi, 13 ancient books and over 50 texts helps us understand the beginning of Christianity. There were many Gospels composed but we knew of only four of them before this find. Now we know there are many. What it meant was we could see a different perspective on the early movements of Christianity.

 

Gnostics, a sect who lived in Egypt in the second century, wrote their version of Jesus – finding God within oneself. Gnostic protest materialistic trappings and some of us will be woken up and the redeemer will re introduce to us the true spiritual crown. It is attractive, it was seductive, it offered self realization, and produced a very spiritual. interdisciplinary view of the world. The most famous sect was the Essences. By-and-large gnosticism is a variety of a compendium of vying cultural traditions and conscriptions. Some gnostics are militaristic while others are not militaristic. From gnostics comes the antonym agnostic. Theism’s antonym is atheism.

 

New Testament Gospels are about The Cross; the Gnostic look to stimulate wisdom. The Gnostic community, perhaps, favored female equality. Therefore, in some of their sects,  God is also female and male. The misogynic New Testament pertains to Adam's dominance over his wife Eve; Gnostic assaults the Orthodox view of western tradition, whereas in the East women are venerated --sometimes on equal or superior footing than the male. . A Gospel of Judas Iscariot was discovered in the Nag Hammadi find. The good news of Jesus.  Gnostic Gospel of Philip. It said that Jesus loved Mary Magdalene, that he loved her more than his disciples and she was a disciples, and kissed her on the lips often. Scholars do not see this as marriage, but some do. These texts were written decades to centuries after the first four Gospels had come into existence. They do not fairly represent the [ deny the Old Testament traditions, so they are anti-Semitic, says a Rabbi on TV] Jewish background. [ But Mathew is too Jewish]

 

The day Jesus rose from the dead was apparently Sunday, not Saturday on the Sabbath.  So from Saturn to the Sun, the god Apollo is produced; but so Islam took Friday and not Monday --Monday the traditional day of the Moon and second day of the week; the day of Venus would be the second to last day, as Saturn would hold the last day or the seventh day -- the day God actually rested.

 

Ekklisia means an assembly – took on a connotation of Church. First they met in the synagogue, then left the synagogue and met in villa or homes. These were the first Ekklisia. The early Christian gatherings were truly egalitarian. Episcopas, means a pastor but becomes to mean a Bishop as more structure was needed.

 

The early Churches formed first from various homes and then buildings. Around The Mediterranean the first churches form. First women were important and spread Christianity and also run the ekklisia; but then later men took control. Written on about the period of 100 ADE is the Dedicacy. This was the first teaching-guide, a rule book, a how do you do things; it was a structure to live by and with structures of being came power and with power came control.

 

How to control what Gospels were favored? Not destroy any gospel, however, but not reproduce them would be a significant plot to produce a version for acceptance. As a hierarchy was established in the structure, the four gospels were reproduced while the unfavorable texts were not. This was power, and millions then began to know Mark, Mathew, Luke and John and Peter and Paul who preached became the first fathers of the Church, as the main sources of the story of Jesus proliferated by their testimony and martyrdom. The reason why the story of Jesus and Christianity is so powerful and so hated by atheists takes form in that many humans simply died for the religion than to submit to old traditions of the periods they lived in and this begot jealousy and then envy of the establishment. They establishment, so far as Rome was concerned was based upon a Darwinism survival of the fittest, and natural selection. War, murder, bloodshed, violence, and dominance were natural occurrences in nature and so the common people of Rome were tricked to believe that to entertain the royalty and aristocracy, they needed to support the pantheonic overlords such as Jupiter who raped, pillaged, suppressed, and laughed at human suffering. The pacificity of the Jesus movement frightened and awed its audience. Jesus promised an afterlife for good works --- the Roman Pantheon offered bleakness and emptiness which had come by natural selection and hierarchal status quo and class levels. When The Roman Empire came to be – it came as a hierarchal behemoth and the Jesus movement offered an egalitarian, resistant and equitable meritocracy. This frightened the Roman Establishment which reacted in the attempting suppression of the movement.

Martyrdom

The driving force for the claim of life after death. The power to the people was protesting the establishment and an inner conviction that life after death was predicated upon moral, ethical, and spiritual ideas. These ideas reflected a materialistic opposition to state normalcy. So the Roman people came to see the Christians get thrown to the animals, tortured and killed. Christians treated each other as brothers and sisters. Once a plague hit Rome and a third got sick, most Roman scholars and doctors fled, but the Christians stayed and helped the sick and especially women. And  Romans who were on the periphery took notice. Who actually cared for humanity?

 

Diocletian’s’ own wife and daughter may have been converts. So 60,000,000 Romans and out of this possibly 3,000,000 were Christians. So he began a persecution – these were public persecutions – which had a psychological effect that worked in the opposite. It was a Public Relations PR. More people questioned why innocent citizens would go to their deaths for one man’s belief system. After the mocking people saw the anguish on the faces of the death - sacrifices – they began to question themselves as inhuman beings.

 

The Bible And Our World:

First Five Books of Old Testament: Adam and Eve are separated from God, and God gives no forgiveness or redemption. His only contracts (Covenant) to his people are to follow basic moral and ethical laws. These main laws, the 10 Commandments are non-negotiable, are to be followed if one is to be under an organ of communal participation, and help bind together a diverse set of people.

Later Books of Old Testament (Prophecy): God will send himself to redeem his creation, in human flesh. Prophecy tells the story of a continuing saga of God and his people.

Some Jews reject Jesus and are still waiting for the messiah!  
Islam intends that Hagar’s lineage is the correct descendant of the real God’s messenger, Prophet Muhammad; Jesus was only a prophet and not God.

New Testament & Christianity: (New Covenant), God sends himself as human flesh under the name Jesus Christ, to forgive the sins from Adam to all humans. Humans now have the choice to return to paradise and remain forever with God, their creator. All they need to do is accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Revelation, the final book of the New Testament -- Bible: God now accepts that masses of people do not accept the Lord, so he ushers in a configuration. And instead of taking on the sins of the world as he did during the coming of Jesus, God delegates the blame on to his creation. In order to stop the configuration, so as not to wipe out the entire human population, people need to believe in God.

Qur'an: Islam; Jesus returns as promised by the Christians, but he follows the Mahdi against the forces of Gog and Magog, in a final battle between good and evil.

 

Christianity offers redemption and forgiveness. Buddhism offers understanding one’s pain but not forgiveness, nor a belief in any particular God. During Buddha’s life the normative pluralistic deities defined lifestyle management. Disillusioned about something, Buddha left his royal heritage and looked inward to understand the suffering he felt by describing ones predisposition to self-desire. To reach Nirvana ( Heaven or bliss) one had to become a deity. Buddha did not offer forgiveness nor redemption nor eternal life. If one attained the highest level of the path of Buddhist, one would cease reincarnating.