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Judaism & Christianity

By: wistfall1



PREFACE

Please note: There will be no voting—this is for information only. However comments are welcome, as are PMs and email with any questions about this essay, but any comment which is simply "testimony" otherwise known as witnessing. by churchy people, argumentative, or preachy, will be deleted immediately. This is not a forum for debating—most of the facts are from the bible itself and speak for themselves, or from verifiable and known history.

The King James Version of the bible is principally used unless noted otherwise As well, I've used Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible which identifies every word in the KJV of the bible as well as where to find them. Other bibles say essentially the same basic things which, where needed or appropriate, I quote from.

This essay deals with whether or not we can ascertain the origin of Judaism and Christianity, and what is known and not known about the Old Testament's origin, as well as that of the New Testament.

My writings were originally intended for lesbians who have been intimidated from birth, shamed, humiliated, pushed to feel guilty, and made to believe that they are an abomination in the sight of the god of the bible, that is, the Old and New Testaments of Judaism and Christianity. They have been made to feel a need to hide their true sense of who and what they are in body and mind. Many have given in and attempted to conform to that "accepted normal" life that society, culture, and especially religion, say that it is how they should live.

Today, we find it difficult to imagine life in the days spoken of in the Bible. Our culture, at least in what we consider the Western World of the United States and Canada; Europe for the most part plus Scandinavia; Australia and New Zealand, we have what Liv, in my stories, The Devil's Gateway, called a Golden Age of Books. Before the Bible began to seriously be doubted as reliable history, and even unto this day, there are many of what Liv called "Me-too" books written by rabid believers of the Bible as God's word to all of humanity.

Since then, and particularly of late, there have come to light the writings of biblical historians of a different sort. They are archeologists, historians, researchers with a particular bent toward historical and textual criticism, as well as many who are feeling a newer Zeitgeist that does not fear the wrath of the Christian churches coming down on them as Copernicus and other scientists such as Galileo feared.

Much has come to light, verifiable knowledge that is changing the landscape of biblical times, as well as the veracity of the Bible—or the lack of truth in it. This Golden Age of Books didn't come about until the latter part of the twentieth century. In fact, there were few books about the Bible save those by dedicated Christians who wrote from pure belief, and no objective inquiry as to the veracity of what they were writing. What they were writing is popularly called "Witnessing" by the churches, and generally written to bolster the faith of those who are already pretty much "faithful".

In biblical times, and until the Golden Age of Books, there was a great lack of knowledge (unlike today); the bible being accepted as true in every respect—from a lack of means of communication, as well as illiteracy which for much too long was rampant, approximating 95 percent according to the best educated guesses in biblical times and for centuries afterward.

For this essay I will, for the most part, offer two authors—three really as two wrote one book jointly—whose books I urge any who are interested in learning what the facts really are as regards to whether or not the Bible is actually the "Holy and inerrant" (no errors in the Bible) word of God as the Fundamentalists say of the Bible, and that the Catholic Church is still allowing their faithful to believe, though quietly admitting to what researchers have discovered, namely that the Bible was written at various times, and some books (such as Daniel) were written centuries later than the time it purports to speak about. Too, it has been openly recognized that none of the books of the Old Testament, and very few of those of the New Testament, were written by authors who are actually known (such as the gospels).

I also often cite from the Catholic Family Connections Bible which contains many admissions (that we have no idea who the authors of books in the Bible are), as well as other interesting information.

What isn't, and is known is that no one knows for sure how Judaism began, but it is known that what we're told in the Bible is not how it began. There are far too many errors in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament.

This essay, then, looks to see if any discernible beginning can be found as to how, first, Judaism came into being, and secondly, how Christianity began, and if they are believable.

Scientifically, the very first chapter of Genesis reveals an error of major proportions that is also irrefutable. In verses 11 and 12, we read:

And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth: and it was so.

And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. (From the King James Version of the Bible, but other versions read much the same.)

What the error here is that this is said to occur on the third day of creation (verse 13). There is no sun until the next day according to verses 16 through 19. Plants and trees get their energy from the sun——no sun, no plants or trees, and definitely no fruit to be given as the Bible says that there was. The creative writers got it backward, but at that time they probably didn't know that. No God, or gods, or Goddess, could make such a mistake if they are the true creators as is claimed in the Bible that their God is.

How Judaism may have come about

Though the actual origins of the Bible stories are unknown, much has been extrapolated based on some textual criticism and known factual history itself along with archeology. Also, the Bible itself offers a most interesting tease as to how it may all have begun. This last is found in II Kings, chapter 22. The much favored of God, king Hezekiah, dies and is succeeded by Manasseh, who was said to reign for fifty and five years (II Kings, chapter 22, verse 1). On dying, he was succeeded by Amon who was said to reign for two years (II Kings, chapter 22, verse 19), and was slain by servants (verse 23).

This brings us to Josiah, another favored of God in chapter 22, who "...reigned for thirty and one years...' (verse 1). Josiah is said to have ordered the temple to be remodeled, when in chapter 22, verse 8, Hilkiah, the high priest is said to have found "...the book of the law in the house of the Lord."

Other than the lost stones containing the Ten Commandments supposedly written by God and given to Moses, this is the first time we're told of any writing of the law actually being written by someone in what is called a "book" (verse10), and it is told to Josiah.

Which book that we now have, if any of them, was this book, or books? We're not told, only that Josiah took it very seriously. Are there any clues as to which book, if any, this was?

The Catholic Family Connections Bible offers some clues that are verified by others also. It says that "Inspired authors: scribes from the eighth century BC [700s BCE] adapting the earlier Covenant Law to Israel's changing situation." This what they say in a sort of preface to the book of Deuteronomy.

Earlier in the Introduction to the Pentateuch (what the first five books of the Old Testament are called, of which Deuteronomy is the fifth book), the Catholic Family Connections Bible tells of there being "...several historic traditions, or sources. These are primarily four-the so-called Yahwist, Elohist, Priestly, and Deuteronomic strands that run through the Pentateuch."

In other words, the first five books were written by four different people or groups of people, plus the word "primarily" tells us that others at some time or other had their input too. Is this true?

Most who have read of the creation in chapter 1 of Genesis, and then again in chapter 2 of Genesis, have noted the vast difference between the two accounts. The chapter 2 version is attributed to the Yahwist person or group, while the chapter 1 version is attributed to the Priestly person or group.

We are further told that "However, even this analysis of Pentateuch is an over-simplification, for it is not always possible to distinguish with certainty among the various sources. The fact is that each of these individual traditions incorporates much older material."

In other words, it's all a fairly much indecipherable mishmash that is being faked in good faith. Yes, that's strong, but passing off "scripture" as holy and to be obeyed is worse and never should have occurred.

However, let's continue on. There is even more to substantiate the above minor rant, for it further says:

Even the later laws which have been added in P [Priestly writings] and D [Deuteronomic writings] are presented as a Moasaic heritage. Moses is the lawgiver par excellence, and all later legislation is conceived in his spirit, and therefore attributed to him."

Translation: No matter that Moses is not supposed to really have said (written) it, they think it fits how he might have said/written it, so it's his. There's more to this travesty too:

"The laws in Exodus and Leviticus (P tradition) are both early and late."

If I read this right, some "P" type inserts were made at various times, including somewhat later. We'll be able to see more on this as a great possibility as far as some researchers are concerned. In the meantime, here's some Catholic PR writings and guidance—or mis-guidance.

This sacred history [the Pentateuch] was formed within the bosom of early Israel, guided by the spirit of God. It was sung beside the desert campfires; it was brought together in writing about the sixth century B.C., when the literary formation of the Pentateuch came to an end."

What is being said here is that all of what these illiterate people were able to remember everything and pass it on to their illiterate children for about four hundred years until one of the books could be set in writing [somewhere in about the 7 or 500s BCE]. From my previous essay on the Old Testament, you may recall that the Bible states that there were six hundred thousand men who were considered warriors in the Exodus, and when wives, children, and Levites, as well as old people, are considered, it has been conservatively estimated that there had to be two and a half to three million people in the Exodus, and all of the warriors originally, save two, died. That means their wives and the old people died too, so who remembered it all in the proper order and sang?

The Catholic Bible being used doesn't say when the book of Exodus may have been written, however, of Leviticus, it says:

Inspired Author: the Priestly writer writing after the Babylonian Exile," as well the same for the book of Numbers save that it cites "Authors" instead of one author.

Written after the Babylonian Exile?

So, if Deuteronomy was the book of the Law found in Josiah's time, then the books of Leviticus and Numbers, placed before Deuteronomy in our present Bibles, is in an incorrect order.

In a reading of Deuteronomy, one will find much that is repeated from previous books that were placed before it. As stated, it is a mishmash.

Researchers' findings

Of a certainty, Judaism didn't start with Genesis, or with the Exodus. From the findings of Textual critics, along with the lack of writing in Hebrew until about one thousand BCE about the time David was said to be king), that was quite impossible. That leaves the Bible saying that "the Law" was found by Hilkiah in the time of Josiah in question.

We not only don't know what "book" of the Law was found by Hilkiah that was shown to the king, Josiah, that started (or, as believers would say, "restarted") the religious fervor for Yahweh, but we are told by the bible that it was accepted as scripture. The king accepted it, and more, was said to have acted vigorously to do as the Law commanded.

The book is thought to be what we now have as Deuteronomy (the fifth and last book of the Pentateuch), but that is the principal belief. Who wrote it, and when is not known, but since the Hebrew language wasn't known to be in use until about one thousand BCE, or about the time of David's rule, some think scribes and priests from David's time may have written it. Nothing is certain in this.

The main thing is, no one questioned the finding by Hilkiah that we know about, nor did anyone really read it save maybe some scribes and priests, and perhaps Josiah. Just about everyone was illiterate, and more, the "books" were actually scrolls (as we've found from the Dead Sea Scrolls), as printing and bound books would not be known for another two thousand or so years. Naturally, there were no researchers either.

The same is true of the "books" of the Law that were said to be read by Ezra as is written of in the book of Nehemiah. Again, those were scrolls, and there were no researchers. We only have the book of Nehemiah to tell us that they had it and read it to the people that were left in Judea. More, the time frames of this are unknown.

However, in the book of Ezra, it says that Ezra went to Judea from Babylon, but it doesn't say that he took any scrolls with him. Oddly, he took vessels of gold and silver (first chapter of Ezra). I say oddly because the Catholic Family Connections Bible says that Ezra and Nehemiah were originally one book which is thought to be an extension of the books of Chronicles. Further, it says that the author of those books is commonly called the "Chronicler".

In other words, the two books, Ezra and Nehemiah, may have been written by the same author as the books of Chronicles, which was thought to have been written about 400 BCE.

Another peculiarity of these books is that no known king of Persia of the time of the supposed happenings of these books is mentioned in either Ezra or Nehemiah. In Ezra, a king is mentioned as "Ahasuerus" in chapter 4, verse 6. There never has been a king of Persia named Ahasuerus.

An Internet search reveals that there are several guesses as to who this Ahasuerus may have been, and some rationales for their guessing, but nothing definitive, and definitely not factual. Again, this guessing has the supposed time of this occurrence in limbo.

However, we can readily extrapolate that something did happen. From history, we know that administrators, priests, skilled people, and anyone not a peasant was taken away, first by Assyrians in the northern kingdom of Israel, and then from Judah by the Babylonians.

There were books written at some time, and somehow the peasants were stimulated to a belief that seemed to stick, though who Ezra and Nehemiah were is unknown to history. We can accept that someone taught the Jews still in Judea the Law, either the one said extent from the time of Josiah, or a newer one. This being so, we can say:

The people they were read to were still illiterate, and none seemed to have known about the Law if we take Nehemiah's version of Ezra's reading to be a fact, for chapter 8, verses 8 through 9 say that it happened, and the people wept. Verse 13 says that all were given to understand the words of the law as they were taught by the Levites (verse 9) , indicating as Ms. Armstrong suggests, that most were hearing of the Law for the first time.

There had been a span of about two or three hundred years or so between Josiah's time and the possible time of Ezra's reading of the Law. It was said, or thought, that the priests that had been left behind didn't do much to keep the Law, or readings in it, the peasants being mostly the only ones left behind by both the Assyrians and Babylonians.

But what books of the Law did Ezra have that he read to the Judeans? No one knows, nor is it said. Was it still just the one book, Deuteronomy, or more?

It is believed that the books of the history—Judges, Samuel and Kings—have a similar style as the writing in Deuteronomy. However, since all of the books seem to have been edited time and again, and possibly written new, they are suspected to have been primarily written and edited while in Babylon. The various differences are said to be attributable to all being in scrolls rather than the easily referred to books we now have that can be read side-by-side.

Ezra being said to have started in Babylon gives some connection to the possibility that he had books—scrolls—written by those in Babylonian exile.

After these readings, there may have been one or more centuries for the Law to take hold in the people's consciousness. There had been so much strife and wars for hundreds of years, and there was still a great anxiety. In the time since they were given the Law by Ezra, or whomever, it was a comfort to them, a hope that a mighty and benevolent God would look out for their well being. The Law was something to hold onto, something that gave them a certainty for their present anxieties and the harder times that were soon to revisit them.

* * * *

At this point I'll quote some of what some researchers say.

In her book, The Bible, Ms. Armstrong, looking at the extant Hebrew scriptures at the time of the Babylonian exile writes:

In exile, the scribes pored over the scrolls [books] in the royal archive. The Deuteronomists added passages to their history to account for the disaster, which they attributed to Manasseh's religious policies [the king before Josiah who reigned fifty-five years and was said to have permitted idol worship]. But some of the priests, who in losing their temple had lost their whole world, looked back to the past and found a reason for hope. Scholars call this priestly layer of the Pentateuch 'P', though we do not know whether P was an individual or, as seems more likely, and entire school. P revised the JE narrative [Yahwist, "J" because Yahweh is spelled with a J in German) and Elohist mentioned earler as the writers of some parts of the Pentateuch] and added the books of Numbers and Leviticus, drawing upon older document—genealogies, laws, and ritual texts—some written down, others transmitted." (Page25)

With this we have a possible corroboration of the strong possibility of Deuteronomy having been written before Leviticus and Numbers and maybe being the "book of the law" that Hilkiah said he found in the temple.

The authors of The Bible Unearthed give it further credence by writing (page 13):

"Scholars long ago recognized this book's [Deuteronomy ] possible connection to the otherwise mysterious "book of the Law" discovered by the high priest Hilkiah in the course of renovations to the Temple during the reign of Kind Josiah—in 622 BCE."

They continue:, "The impact of the book of Deuteronomy on the ultimate message of the Hebrew Bible goes far beyond its strict legal codes. The connected historical narrative of the books that follow the Pentateuch—Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings—is so closely related to Deuteronomy linguistically and theologically that it has come to be called by scholars since the middle of the 1940s the 'Deuteronomistic History' " 

* * * *

So what is the beginning of Judaism? The only other place to look for a possible beginning is again given in the Bible itself, and that is in the stories of Abraham, Jacob, and Moses.


Judaism & Christianity



From their book, The Bible Unearthed, by Israel Finkelstein (director of the Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University), and Neil Asher Silberman, Director of historical interpretation for the Ename Center for Public Archaeology and Heritage Presentation in Belgium), we are given this on page 23:

Much of what is commonly taken for granted as accurate history—the stories of the patriarchs, the Exodus, the conquest of Canaan, and even the saga of the glorious united monarch of David and Solomon—are, rather, the creative expressions of a powerful religious reform movement that flourished in the kingdom of Judah in the Late Iron Age. Although these stories may have been based on certain historical kernels, they primarily reflect the ideology and the world-view of the writers.

"Creative expressions" can readily be seen in the book of Genesis where time and again "Philistines" are mentioned, a time supposedly in the days of the patriarch, Abraham (initially named Abram until God supposedly changed his name).

This use of the Philistines gives us irrevocable historical clues not only for when the Bible was written, or edited, but verification that the Bible is in error. The first historical knowledge of the Philistines is in the days of Rameses III, the son and successor of the Mighty Rameses II, Egypt's last great warrior Pharaoh. The mention is that several "Sea Peoples" which included Philistines, attempted to invade Egypt. This was in about the 1180s BCE.

In her book, The Bible, Ms. Armstrong writes:

"However, Israeli archaeologists, who have been excavating the region since 1967, have found no evidence to corroborate this story: there is no sigh of foreign invasion or mass destruction, and nothing to indicate a large-scale change of population. The scholarly consensus is that the story of Exodus is not historical. There are many theories. Egypt had ruled the Canaanite city states since the nineteenth century BCE, and had withdrawn at the end of the thirteenth century" [the end of the 1200s BCE] shortly before the first settlements appeared in the formerly uninhabitable highlands.

She continues: We first hear about a people called 'Israel' in this region in about 1200 BCE. Some scholars argue that the Israelites were refugees from the failing city-states on the coastal plains. They may have been joined there by other tribes from the south, who brought with them their god Yahweh, who seems to have originated in the southern regions around Sinai. Those who had lived under Egyptian rule in the Canaanite cities may have felt that they had indeed been liberated from Egypt—but in their own country.

As stated earlier, no one is sure exactly how these Israelites came to be though the authors of The Bible Unearthed feel that they were Canaanite to begin with (page 107):

"The discovery of the remains of a dense network of highland villages—all apparently established within the span of a few generations—indicated that a dramatic social transformation had taken place in the central hill country of Canaan around 1200 BCE. There was no sign of violent invasion or even the infiltration of a clearly defined ethnic group. Instead, it seemed to be a revolution in lifestyle. In the formerly sparsely populated highlands from the Judean hills in the south to the hills of Samaria in the north, far from the Canaanite cities that were in the process of collapse and disintegration, about two-hundred fifty hilltop communities suddenly sprang up. Here were the first Israelites."

No war, no senseless destruction of cities or slaughter of innocent women and children. No genocide.

What we have so far is a motley group of books from which have been derived the notion of the Jews introducing monotheism through God revealing himselfto Abraham. From Abraham on, the fables continue, but there is a great oddity in them that is very telling. In the book of Exodus, chapter 10, verses 2 and 3 we have what is called the first commandment given to Moses:

"I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

I had always been taught that there is no other god. All other gods are false. Yet this commandment opens up a possibility of there being other gods. Yes, one can say that that's not how this should be taken.

But is that true?

Those who have read my previous stories and essays may recall my quoting Psalm 82's first two verses:

"God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.

How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked?"

God in the congregation of the mighty? He judgeth among the gods?

How can this be if there are no other gods?

In the King James Version of the Bible, Deuteronomy, chapter 32, verses 8 and 9, a portion of what it calls the Song of Moses, reads:

"When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.

For the Lord's portion is his people: Jacob is the lot of his inheritance."

The Most High separated out Jacob for the Lord's inheritance?

Surely there must be a mistake in the King James Version of the bible; this cannot be so. Or can it? Let's see what some other versions of these two verses read like:

NRSV (New Revised Standard Version):

8 When the Most High apportioned the nations,

when he divided humankind,

he fixed the boundaries of the peoples

according to the number of the gods;

9 the Lord's own portion was his people,

Jacob his allotted share.

That says the same thing, but more explicitly. It is saying that another, higher god split up humanity among the subservient gods; one has one group, another has another group, and each group having their own god to call upon.

"Thou shalt have no other god before me" now has a different ring to it, a new meaning, one that says that there are other gods, but Yahweh is the particular god of the Jews, thus, perhaps, for them, they aren't allowed any other gods ("..for I the Lord, am a jealous God." Exodus, chapter 20, verse 5).

But what does another Bible version say?

NIV (New International Version) reads:

"8 When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance,

when he divided all mankind, 

he set up boundaries for the peoples

according to the number of the sons of Israel. 

9 For the Lord's portion is his people,

Jacob his allotted inheritance."

Different words, but still the same thing and just as explicit.

The Catholic Family Connections Bible renders it:

"When the Most High assigned the nations their heritage, when he parceled out the descendants of Adam, He set up the boundaries of the peoples after the number of the sons of God;

While the Lord's own portion was Jacob, his hereditary share was Israel."

It's still the same thing: there was another god recognized as the greatest god, and there were many gods, or so says the Bible.

Whatever was that scroll of the Law that Hilkiah found, it may well have been Deuteronomy. Using the above scriptures with regards to other gods called The Song of Moses, and factoring in that Leviticus and Numbers may have been added later by the Priestly writers, as well as that all of these scriptures have been redacted, edited, several times, we may be able to work backward and extrapolate how it may have all begun.

For a fact, the second Isaiah (who wrote chapters 40-55 covering a later time period from the first Isaiah), as Ms. Armstrong writes, began touting the God of the Bible as the only god starting in chapter 45, verse 5 and for many times in that chapter.

When we take and extrapolate that this may well have been the first mention of monotheism—one god—and the fact of the commandment saying "...thou shalt have no other gods before me", then we may have our answer for when it all began.

There have been many instances where editing was known to have happened, as Ms. Armstrong attributes to Abraham ibn Ezra (1039-1164, a poet/philosopher from Spain) who recognized that the original Isaiah couldn't have written what is now known to be from the second Isaiah.

Also, the two different creations give credence to the "many writers" theory that is fairly well proven by textual critics, as well as a second Zechariah writing the last chapters (12-14).

By all of this, we can only conclude that the Old Testament is a series of stories that are pure fiction save for the sprinkling of some historical facts that they are woven around.

But why?

Let's revisit what I had written a little earlier:

"The discovery of the remains of a dense network of highland villages—all apparently established within the span of a few generations—indicated that a dramatic social transformation had taken place in the central hill country of Canaan around 1200 BCE. There was no sign of violent invasion or even the infiltration of a clearly defined ethnic group. Instead, it seemed to be a revolution in lifestyle. In the formerly sparsely populated highlands from the Judean hills in the south to the hills of Samaria in the north, far from the Canaanite cities that were in the process of collapse and disintegration, about two-hundred fifty hilltop communities suddenly sprang up.

Surveys led to this by the authors of The Bible Unearthed:

"Excavations of some of the small Iron Age I sites discovered in the course of the surveys showed how surprisingly uniform the sudden wave of highland settlement was. The typical village was usually located on a hilltop or on a steep ridge, with a commanding view of the surrounding landscape. It was in an open area surrounded by natural forests comprised mainly of oak and terebinth trees. In some cases, villages were found on the edge of narrow valleys between the mountains—presumably for easier access to agricultural fields. ... The entire population of these hill country villages at the peak of the settlement process, around 1000 BCE, could not have been much more than forty-five thousand." [Pages 107-109]

Further:

"The evolution of the highlands of Canaan into two distinct polities was a natural development. There is no archaeological evidence whatsoever that this situation of north and south grew out of an earlier political unity—particularly one centered in the south. In the tenth and ninth centuries BCE [900-800 BCE], Judah was still very thinly inhabited, with a limited number of small villages, in fact, not much more than twenty or so."

Israel, the northern kingdom, grew and prospered and fielded a large army able to withstand Assyria at one point. However, it is well known historically that in the due course of time, Assyria defeated Israel and relocated many of the surviving inhabitants. They ever incorporated many of the charioteers from the Israeli army and used them to bolster their own army, they were so good. The authors continue:

"Despite Judah's prominence in the Bible, however, there is no archeological indiction until the eighth century BCE [700s BCE] that this small and rather isolated highland area, surrounded by arid steppe land on both east and south, possessed any particular importance. As we have seen, its population was meager, its towns—even Jerusalem—were small and few. It was Israel, not Judah, that initiated wars in the region. ... On the international scene, Judah seems to have been just a rather small and isolated kingdom that, as the great conquering Assyrian king Sargon II derisively put it, 'lies far away.' "

They go on to say that after Israel's defeat by Assyia:

"But beginning in the late eighth century [700s BCE] ,something extraordinary happened. A series of epoch-making changes, beginning with Israel's fall, suddenly altered the political and religious landscape. Judah's population swelled to unprecedented levels. Its capital city became a national religious center and a bustling metropolis for the first time."

What the above leads us to is a goodly part of the "why" that many historians arrive at as the reason for establishing what we know as Judaism.

With all of their hearts, the exiles in Babylon longed for their native lands as they remembered it. With the knowledge of a Law, the Babylonian intellectuals that were scribes and priests, as well as others perhaps, they rewrote and in many ways, created a religion to keep the fires burning, to give hope to their people as an indigenous nation. It was to unify them, to keep them as they had been. In time, what was given to them by Ezra stuck: they were God's chosen people.

Many researchers do not believe that the Law was ever intended for any other reason. Perhaps their "books" being in scrolls had much to do with so many errors, contradictions, redactions, etc.

After Ezra, more sorrows befell the Jews for after Alexander the Great died, and his empire divided up by his generals, there were many wars between those generals and The Levant was much desired by them. This put the Jews right in the middle of it, and finally culminated in the desecration of their temple by Antiochus IV Epiphanes that in short order ushered in the Romans. Just before, and during the time of the Romans, the Zealots came into being, as well as the Pharisees. With the writing of the book of Daniel in the second century BCE, the resurrection theology began. With the Jews still needing to hold onto something, they hoped for a messiah (actually, two of them for some, one Priestly, and one a King to deliver them from the Romans), the book of Daniel also ushered in apocalyptic beliefs. Those also took hold in many of the Jews.

What we've seen so far:

From archeological research, historical research, and biblical textual research, we have seen here, and in my previous essay, Which God, If Any, that there were Canaanites who lived apart from the cities such as Jericho. In a time those cities crumbled from within, and many groups were, or formed tribes with two main groups, the one that became the northern tribes of Israel, and the other that formed a loose confederation of small, simple villages in the highlands of Judea that became what was called Judah.

Israel prospered greatly, Judah stayed bucolic, pastoral, raising farm animals and small parcels of agriculture. Israel became large enough to have an army that was formidable, along with an estimated population of about three hundred-fifty thousand people.

Both worshiped many gods, including Yahweh. Yahweh is portrayed, initially, as a warrior god, and the scriptures bear this out. However, Egypt, long a power, began to share their great power with Assyria, and great wars were the norm as both, along with others, vied for dominance.

Tiglath-pileser III—(sometimes known as king Pul, circa 745 BCE) (per Richard E. Rubenstein, in his book, Thus Saith The Lord, 2006, Harcourt Books) was said to invent "...a new form of state terror: the mass deportation and resettlement of subject populations." (Page 58)

He goes on to write: "...the Assyrians wielded a terrifying new political weapon. For the first time in history, those facing superior military forces were threatened not only with defeat, domination, and possible loss of their national independence, but their extinction as a culture." (Page 59) Tiglath-pileser captured much of the rich lands of Israel.

In about 720 BCE, Shalmaneser V, Tiglath-pileser's successor, took Samaria and deported many Israelites. Many of those Israelites fled to Judah in the south.

As mentioned earlier, the Assyrians didn't pay any attention to Judah at that time. However, when the Babylonians defeated the Assyrians, and Judah's population had swelled enough, the Babylonians came twice, the second time destroying Jerusalem and their temple.

Not long before that is when the time of Josiah was, and the Law was "found".

That Law was expanded upon, and embellished more than it was before, and in time Ezra expounded that Law to the Jews in Judah. It took effect, and grew, and though defeated, subjugated, and in many ways demoralized, they clung to their Law—the created Law that was invented in order to unify them as a people.

As said in my earlier essay, Which God, If Any, clinging to that Law eventually saw it morphing in the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanies in about 160 BCE, and the Zealots came into being with the war against him, and the Pharisees came into being also.

The end result was the world was too suffocating and squeezing them from all sides. They were located in a path that all traversed in their path to riches and war, including the Romans, which brought more wars over their religion that was by then firmly ingrained in them, though created by men. Dispersal, foolish wars, and misery was their lot for two thousand years, and adding insult to injury, as it were, was the bloodshed that was heaped upon them later by Christians that were born of them.

Yet they remained steadfast, or so it seems. For a long time, none questioned whether their religion was really true, or fiction, they simply accepted it all in great fear and hope. As far as they were concerned, it was true no matter that it was all created by the mind of men. Ignorance and illiteracy has a steep price.

Christianity's beginning

It is without question that the original Jesus believers were Jewish. Over the years it all slowly began to spread and grow, and basically all due to one person—Paul, who was himself a Pharisee as Jesus may well have been. As a Pharisee, Paul most likely, as other Pharisees, believed in the resurrection. Jesus expounded a resurrection as in the book of Daniel (where it all began), and maybe that's what fueled Paul's initial anger that he was said to have had for Jesus followers. I'll touch on Paul more shortly.

* * * *

There is a vast difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament the while they share many things in common. Those things they share in common are because Jesus was a Jew and freely associated his beliefs with those of the Old Testament.

One of the most visible differences though, can be found in the gospels according to Matthew and Luke. Both of those gospels contain some very exaggerated language designed to appeal to the illiterate and the very poor and downcast which, it can be said, was most of the then population. They both contain many "Gee whiz!" and "Oh, wow!" segments.

In Matthew, we have the so-called birth of Jesus. If you were as I was, and lived in the solid Christian world, the birth of Jesus was as if bred in you, as if innate and in your genes. It's easy to feel that way for it doesn't take many generations of like thought to have things feel as if they've been forever.

As rendered, Jesus' birth is a very heart-warming story as told in Matthew's gospel, one to elicit marvelous feelings of joy, and then there's Christmas Eve, and or Christmas day, and all the presents and gift giving, and merry making. Indeed, this tale has been with us for ages. Even the very poor loved it if only momentarily.

The problem is that it is false. There was no census called for, and there is no mention of it in Roman records. More, the tale of Herod the Great having all children of the age of two and under killed is only in Matthew's so-called gospel (chapter 2, verse16). There is no recording in history of anything such as this happening. As alike as the first three gospels are, it's telling that none of the those others mentions something as momentous as this supposed slaughter.

If you've read my essay, Jesus, Resurrection, and Rapture, you have seen that none of the gospels were actually written by those we're told that they're "according" to. We have no idea who wrote them, nor when. In fact, no book of the New Testament is known to have been written by anyone who actually knew Jesus. Not one!




Judaism & Christianity



The Catholic Church has historically zealously guarded what it has forced upon us for two thousand years; they have always been loathe to change anything in their doctrine, yet now they are slowly admitting what many textual critics have been saying, though as I've said before, if you're waiting for them to shout from the rooftops that they've changed their minds about anything, don't hold your breath. Still, in their bible, The Catholic Family Connections Bible, they have quietly admitted what I have just written, if not openly in each case, then tacitly.

If you're familiar with history in that time, you're most likely aware that Christianity was embraced by Constantine, then later declared the religion of the empire by Theodusious. Up until then, there had been many different sects of Christians. Constantine wanted one belief, and that was strongly begun at the Council of Nicene (from which we get the Nicene Creed). This one Christian belief came to be called Catholicism for Catholic, or Universal.

Whereas all were previously felt forced to be Pagan, suddenly all began to feel forced to be Catholic. With Constantine's backing, the church, now becoming centered in Rome, felt egotistically strong enough to physically begin to enforce their beliefs upon others. They now became the persecutors, particularly of those they deemed heretical in the independent Christian beliefs. In a little more than fifty years after the Nicene Council, Priscillian, Catholic bishop of Avila in Spain, was executed for heresy.

Research reveals that the emperors of Rome were used in the process. That was to become the usual save that in due time, the Pope was emboldened to begin to dictate to the emperors rather than seek their assistance.

In the next millennium, the Popes would also call for the Crusades which lasted for about two hundred years. During all of these centuries, Paganism was mostly unknown, though surreptitiously practiced as the Catholic Church had co-opted Pagan rites and had the people believe that they were Christian rites. Christmas in December was originally a Pagan rite called the Saturnalia. As previously noted, Literotica doesn't permit the posting of any Internet sites, but an independent search will validate this.

Remember that it doesn't take too many generations for something to become as if it always has been. What had originally been going on for two hundred years in small groups as a belief in Jesus was suddenly thought to have always been. Soon the old tales were of Christianity, and Paganism was something to be shunned. There were still no books, and literacy had not grown—ignorance and illiteracy were still the norm for most people. Only the priests read the bible to the public, but ritually in the mass that has come down to us through the ages.

The biggest "feel good" books of the New Testament are Matthews gospel, as well as Luke's gospel, and the Book of Acts of the Apostles. However, the so-called resurrection of Lazarus as in the gospel of John took hold as did the so-called virgin birth of Jesus as mainly told in Matthew's goslpel. Again, see my essay on Jesus, Resurrection and the Rapture for more about this. However, here I can point out some of what is wrong in the book of Acts.

Incubating for almost three hundred years, the Catholic church had quietly bridged the Old Testament to their new beliefs with the more than great help of Paul's letters, as well as his forged letters.

The belief in a Trinity as more than suggested by the church father, Tertullian, was a part of the new package of dogma that had to be adhered to. Then the idea of Original Sin as stated by Augustine entered into the dogma, and thus we were all deemed to be born filled with sin. More was added as they thought it proper to do so regardless of a lack of proper foundation—stretching the truth, in other words.

* * * *

However, since Christmas, aka, the Saturnalia, is upon us, this is a good place to bring up a couple of major discrepancies that are always overlooked, or purposely not mentioned.

Noted researcher, Geza Vermes in his book, The Nativity: History and Legend, points out something that always seemed too time consuming to look into. Fortunately he did take the time. The gospels of Matthew and Luke are the only two that give us any information on the birth of Jesus. In the gospel of Matthew, it begins with an itemization of the generations that show Jesus' pedigree, principally as being of the root of Jesse and the house of Jesse's son, David the second king of Judah united with Israel. In chapter 1, verse 6, it says:

"And Jesse begat David the king; and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias..."; [Uriah as it is otherwise spelled].

Whereas in Luke's gospel he begins with Jesus and works his genealogy backward so that going from Jesus' father in Chapter 3, verse 23 and then in verse 31, he cites:

"...being (as he was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli,

Which was the son of Melea, which was the son of Menan, which was the son of Mattatha, which was the son of Nathan, which was the son of David."

Nathan? What does that mean, and where is Solomon?

In II Samuel, chapter 5, verse 14, it itemizes some of David's children:

And these be the names of those that were born unto him in Jerusalem; Shammuah, and Shobah, and Nathan, and Solomon,

There are other children named in succeeding verses, but no mother is identified.

In I Chronicles, chapter 3, the children of David are itemized; in verse 5, he is said to have:

"And these were born unto him in Jerusalem; Shimea, and Shobah, and Nathan, and Solomon, four of Bathshua the daughter of Ammiel:"

Bahshua is another spelling of Bathsheba from what I understand, but there is no question that Solomon and Nathan are mentioned as brothers from her. These two are the only mentions I could find of Nathan other than in Luke's gospel, but that begs the question of what is the line of Jesus from the time of David, and why aren't the two gospel writers in agreement as to who is who, and how can this discrepancy be if the bible is inerrant?

More insofar as the nativity story goes, there is the point that Vermes brought up, which again is never mentioned from the pulpit on the differences of the later occurrences.

Matthew tells of the Three Wise Men, how Herod was fooled by them, and subsequently we're told in chapter 2, verses 12, 13 and 16:

"And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.

"And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him."

"Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men."

In Luke's version, there are no wise men, but shepherds and angels at his birth in chapter 2, but from verses 21 and 22, we're told:

And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord;

Circumcision is on the eighth day. In Leviticus, chapter 12, verses 2, 3 and 4, it says:

 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean.

And she shall then continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days: she shall touch no hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying be fulfilled.

From there, we are given the story of Simeon who had the Holy Ghost reveal to him who Jesus truly was, and another tale of Anna, but then it all wraps up in verse 39:

And when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth.

Note that there is no flight to Egypt. Note also that Matthew doesn't leave time, or mention, any circumcision or purification, as well as other differences as mentioned, and some not mentioned.

Why? Because the actual writers didn't know what happened, if anything according as they try to tell us; they made it all up in great part like a historical novel. We can't trust anything they say for a truth.

* * * *

Now going continuing in the book of Acts.

The most famous and quoted story of Paul's change of heart while on the road to Damascus is told in the book of Acts, chapter 9. In particular, verses 19 and 20 say:

And when he had received meat, he was strengthened. Then was Saul certain days with the disciples which were in Damascus.

And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God.

Of the books of Paul that textual critics readily attribute as being actually written by Paul, one is is Galatians. Any who will look at chapter 1, verses 15 through 18, you will find this:

But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace,

To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:

Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again into Damascus.

Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days.

Paul got some things wrong, but he was the first person in the New Testament to write anything about Jesus.

Again, Paul himself says that he did not go to Damascus. Instead he specifically states that "immediately" he didn't confer with flesh and blood, but went into Arabia, which is south and slightly east of Jerusalem. I'm also now noting that there's no mention of his being blinded, and especially not going to Ananias and having his sight restored.

Again, in the book of Acts, in the first chapter, speaking of Judas, verse 18 says:

Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out.

However, the gospel of Matthew, chapter 27, verse 5, contradicts this, saying:

And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.

As is often the case, there is a vast difference; which all are asked to believe without question, and more, if these are "inspired" writings as the Catholic Bible I've been quoting from says—and as Fundamentalists insist is an inerrant and inspired work of God—why are they telling us two different stories (as is often the case as noted in my previous essays, Which God, If Any, and Jesus, Resurrection and Rapture)?

Christianity was claimed to be started from the teachings of Jesus said to be of Nazareth. We are told of him supposedly personally, by the four gospels "According to" Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. None of these actually wrote anything that we know of, and neither did Thomas or Judas who are said to have gospels of their own about Jesus, as does Phillip, and several others.

Everything written about Jesus was by those who had heard of him, but never knew him personally.

The first known writing of Jesus was by Paul (Saul of Tarsus), who never met Jesus while he lived. There are thirteen letters attributed to Paul in the New Testament. Only seven of those letters are accepted as originally written by Paul. Those accepted as truly written by Paul are: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon (from Bart D. Ehrman's book, Forged, 2011, Harper Collins), page 93). I have seen this list in other books too, as well as the reasoning for considering the others forged.

Others that are believed to be forged are 1 and 2 Peter. He was supposed to be an Apostle of Jesus, and therefore knew of him firsthand. However, Ehrman, in his above mentioned book, says that the book of Acts of the Apostles, chapter 4, verse 13, calling Peter and John "...unlearned and ignorant...", and says that the word used in Greek is "agrammatoi", meaning literally "unlettered, that is, illiterate."

This agrammatoi (designation) is attested to in the book, Life In Year One, What the World Was Like in First Century Palestine, by Scott Korb (Riverhead Books, 2010), in which he writes:

"Capernaum, on the other hand, that very modest fishing town, had no sewage system at all, and waste of any kind—seepages, ashes, wastewater, whatever—would have been collected have been collected by families and poured out into the alleyways between the houses. With streets of packed dirt—dusty in the dry months, muddy in the rain—who could tell the difference between what was there to begin with and what had accumulated over years of waste disposal unaided by any inner public works? It's no wonder that during construction homebuilders situated their windows as far from the ground as possible." (page 95).

Quoting John Crossan from his book, Jesus, page 25, he notes: "Literacy in general at the start of the first century is estimated at between 3 and 5 percent. That would not be in dispute for a town like Capernaum whose population was thought to be between 600 to 1,500." (Korb, page 30).

Notice that John was mentioned in the same vein as Peter. Is he the same John of the three epistles right after Peter's? The Catholic Family Connections Bible says of all of these letters—Peter's and John's—that the author is unknown.

And that's it—other than a few of Paul's letters, they're all unknown writers. Paul's letters that we have are all believed to have been written at the earliest, 51 CE, at least fifteen or more years after the crucifixion of Jesus (which date is also in question).

In fact, there are only three historical references to Jesus; two by Roman writers, and only as if in passing and nothing of any depth or knowledge of any facts other than that he was crucified. Josephus is the only other one mentioning Jesus, but nothing in any depth either. It must be said, however, that one author has stated that the books of Josephus that we have now were published in the 1800s; no originals are said to be extant.

We do have the book of Acts of the Apostles, but it is also by an unknown author, and highly unreliable.

However, it was Paul who singlehandedly convinced many gentiles to believe in the Jesus resurrected and soon to return in power, and in Paul's own time (1 Thessalonians, chapter 4, verses 15-17).

Those who have read my essay, Jesus, Resurrection, and Rapture, may recall, as stated here too, that the idea of a resurrection only began with the book of Daniel, which the Catholic Family Connections Bible admits was not written by Daniel, but by an unknown author in approximately the 160s BCE to bolster any Jews who might be disheartened due to the difficulties with Antiochus IV Epiphanes.

Bart Ehrman, in his book, Forgeries, says of this book:

"The book of Daniel claims to be written, in part, by the prophet Daniel during the Babylonian captivity in the sixth century [500s BCE] BCE. But there is no way it was written then. Scholars for over a hundred years have shown clear and compelling reasons for thinking that it was written four hundred years later, in the second century BCE, by someone falsely claiming to be Daniel." (Page 117)

Once again, the lies were perpetuated by many, though Paul may have truly believed what he was saying since he was a Pharisee and Pharisees believed in the resurrection as spoken of by (pseudo)Daniel. The problem with him is that he must have died knowing he was wrong for Jesus did not return in his lifetime as he expected as he wrote in 1 Thessalonians (chapter 4, verses16 and 17).

Not only the fact that there was little written that was true, but Bart Ehrman, in his book, Lost Christianities (Oxford University Press, Inc, 2003) itemizes forty-four (44) additional gospels and letters that are known of. More, other gospels have been discovered also From this, you can see how difficult it must have been to come up with the one basic Christian faith that ensued and has lasted lo these many centuries.

However, the gullibility of many, especially highly intelligent men who were very educated, bought into the Jesus story. The on-god theme and the dedication/obstinacy of the Jews did it for them. Any way some wrote voluminously in defense of how and what they believed about Jesus, especially Iraneus in about the 180s, and Origen, the boy genius who wrote the most (and in a fit of making himself worthy and temptation free, castrated himself). Of course, much of what they wrote about was the heresy of others who were Christians.

Another was Tertullian (about whom I wrote in my story, The Devil's Gateway), and of course, Augustine, the one who invented Original Sin that was bought by the Catholic Church (with the help of Paul's writings). Tertullian and Augustine had problems with women, especially Tertullian. Their "women" problem can easily be verified on the Internet.

Then there were the Gnostics, of which there were several varieties, some believing that Jesus just used an available body and took it over, then left it to die on the cross when his mission was finished. There were also those who believed that other gods had created our world, and Jesus was sent to set us free from their lies and domination. Gnosis: knowledge of the truth, would set us free, but it took a lot of mental work to acquire the knowledge they proclaimed. An early Gnostic was Marcion, a rich man who was reported going to Rome to preach his version of Jesus. He is said to have been in Rome about the 140s CE.

According to Ehrman in his book, Forgeries, Marcion preached that the god of the Old Testament who gave the Jewish Law was not the god of Jesus and Paul; that the Jewish god created this world. Jesus' god sent Jesus into the world in order to die for the sins of others, to save people from the wrathful God of the Old Testament though Paul believed in Moses. (Page 85)

Marcion was the first to come up with a canon, a bible, that is, and it contained some of Paul's letters, and a version of Luke's gospel (said to have been altered).

Perhaps it was the lack of authentic information about Jesus that was verifiable that left many to come up with their own versions of who he really was, and why, as well as how, and what he truly preached. Perhaps too, the one god of the Jews enticed many for something else to believe in for there were many gods in the pantheon of the pagans, and none seemed to be of benefit to the many. There were many gentiles who were known by the title of God-fearers, who readily attended the synagoges but did not convert to Judaism.

Manicheans, Valentinians, and quite a few more, preached their own versions of Jesus. There were even splits among those who believed similarly, but had varying ideas on some points such as the Trinity. After the apostles, and after the gospels and Paul's letters were written, the new Christianity had many faces such as itemized by Ehrman above, but they tried to put what was what together and answer all the questions that many had.

Marshall D. Johnson wrote The Evolution of Christianity (The Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005) wherein he itemized many of the multitude of questions unanswered in the gospels. The Trinity was one of the questions; it came about principally through one of church fathers, so called for their erudition and education, and their turning to Christianity. That church father was Tertullian (mentioned above) in the 200s CE, but others had opposing views of just what divinity Jesus had, if any, and what was his place in the hierarchy, if there was an hierarchy.




Judaism & Christianity



Another question was that of Original Sin, and if there was such a thing as proposed principally by Augustine in the early 400s CE. A British monk, Pelagius, disagreed not believing that god made impossible demands for it would make god cruel and unjust of human ability (see Johnson above, page 64 but I've seen this from other sources too).

Wouldn't you know it, there was a Synod in the 500s that settled some arguments as to what was doctrine. Think about it: two hundred years after Jesus, then another two hundred, and finally another hundred, and many of the big arguments were settled by a committee of bishops. Did they feel that though Pelagius made sense that Augustine's take on it gave them more to hold over people as being sinful and them the only ones to make it all better? That may sound glib, but considering their propensity of taking money to guarantee forgiveness of sin(s), it may not be glib at all. Martin Luther didn't think so.

They were, when one looked at it, making up what god was. In other words, their god was man made. They had no proofs for what they decided. They couldn't have any for as Paul in one of his original letters said in I Corinthians, chapter 2, verse 16:

"For who has known the mind of the Lord..."

The bishops in that Synod felt that they knew though they didn't have the mind to come up with the theories they were judging.

And they were judging theories!

Is it any wonder that there was no real doctrine of Christianity until they created one that they thought was right and proper though it took them centuries to do so? In the meantime they winged it, holding the illiterate masses in their grip.

Even sex was in the mix of proper worshiping. One man known as Carpocrates (about the 130s CE) had a community of worshipers that was as a hippie group even sharing the women no matter that they were married. His son was said to have done much more than his father. A search of the Internet revealed that their customs are still accepted by some. A part of that was taken and expanded on by the youth mentioned in Mark's gospel in chapter 14, verses 51 and 52, and said to be elaborated on by The Secret Gospel of Mark which he said he had acquired which indicated licentiousness in Jesus.

It is food for thought; after all, why was this tidbit included in Mark's gospel? That question is never answered, and never mentioned, simply ignored.

Egos also entered in, the bishops of Rome claiming primacy, and an unprovable insistence that Peter, being given the keys to the kingdom by Jesus made the bishops of Rome as the heads of the church in all matters. This, they claimed, due to what they called a fact that Peter was the first bishop of Rome, which also is unprovable. It is a commonly held belief that Peter did visit Rome and was crucified there, but again, it's not verifiable. Naturally, this idea of primacy of the bishop of Rome got a boost when Constantine became the sole emperor, though the bishop of Constantinople in time claimed the same.

No matter, as said earlier, Constantine changed everything and Christianity won out over Paganism and in time, most of the other Christianities lost to Catholicism, but history interrupted not long afterward—the barbarians were not only at the gate, but entered in and split the empire with Constantinople remaining strong. That split Christianity to this day. Still, in the West, the barbarians came and went, and the Catholic Church became the stalwart holding it all together with their rituals, their preaching, and the fear and the ignorance of the populace.

The book by Johnson gives a detailed look at the many controversies, and is very readable as are many of the other books in my bibliographies.

Before the famous and vaunted Carlemagne, there were the Merovingians until the Catholic Church had amassed enough power to depose the last one, and anoint a Carolingian from which Charlemagne emerged. Thereafter, Charlemagne was anointed the Holy Roman Emperor. The Catholic Church took unto itself the power to make and depose kings, and the people were likewise under the thumb of the Catholic Church.

Their very lives depended on it!

In the meantime, the Catholic Church formally decided to accept the canon set forth by Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria in about 367 CE, as the official bible. This was done in the 500s in one of the Councils of Trent. That was literally about five hundred years after Jesus' death.

Conclusion:

What may have started out as an attempt to retain the identity of a people—the Judeans by the exiles in Babylon—and meant only for them as a distinct people (see Nehemiah and how Ezra ordered the expulsion of foreign wives), to a new fight to keep their religious identity from being obliterated by Antiochus IV Epiphanes, to the creation of a Daniel as a historical novel meant to appear as if a real prophet of old written to bolster their faith in their fight with Antiochus, to Jesus who was said to rely on said false prophet (Daniel) and the new idea of a resurrection, to his crucifixion, we have the makings of a new religious paradigm that turned out to be Christianity.

In my previous essay, Jesus, the Resurrection and Rapture, I itemized how the Jews, having accepted their religion after so many horrors from the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians, were finally were given a modicum of peace, but not for long (Alexander the Great). In short order, they felt squeezed out of their religion after Alexander died and they finally came under the rule of the dynasty of one of Alexander's general, Selucus, and an heir, Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Antiochus tried to make the Jews worship his idols thereby desecrating the Temple with statues of his gods and the Jews rebelled. The history of the Jews for centuries was one of wars, fears, subjugation first to Egypt, then Assyria, followed by Babylon, then had somewhat of a respite when Persia defeated Babylon.

How they came to accept Yahweh as a god, we don't know, nor is Yahweh known, as far as I can tell, a god that was worshiped by any other group, though the bible tells us that he was acknowledged as the god of the Jews, though maybe previously unknown to others.

Their religion seems to have been born of some scribes and priests who wrote a book (or several books) that we are told were discovered in the time of Josiah many years after the reign of David. The Hebrew language is not known to have existed prior to David's time (about one thousand BCE).

The Babylonian captivity is thought to have caused their religion to nearly die in Judah, but not among the Jews who were the leaders that were taken to Babylon. Those leaders are thought to have written or rewritten most of the then extent books that we know as the Old Testament. Ezra, who took the Law to Judah while Persia ruled, is said to have been born in Babylon and was a scribe and priest. He, along with Nehemiah, rekindled Judaism and the Law of Moses in an edited form, though forcibly. As there were just about only peasants left in Judah, they accepted it (see the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, and my essay, Which God, If Any).

As stated, the respite before Alexander and the subsequent division of his kingdom, had the religion take hold and the created history of their people was believed. Without books and ability to read, it only took a few generations to believe all that they had been told was their history, and thus their national pride of David and Solomon, as well as Moses and those that they believed followed thereafter.

Alexander's defeat of the Persians would change everything in the external world, and deepen their national pride and religion. Since Alexander's kingdom was divided up by his generals, then the Seulucid rulers of the Middle East, warred with the Ptolemies of Egypt. The Seulucid rulers finally rested Judea from the Ptolemies after many wars; Judea was smack in the middle of the paths between them.

Again, their refuge was their religion.

It is the thinking of most scholars that the Jews never intended for their religion to be other than for the Jews for the Law of Moses forbade mixing with other than Jews.

However, those wars, and the greed for power and supremacy by the new rulers of the Middle East and Egypt, and the subsequent hubris of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, caused the writing of the book of Daniel, and that is the bridge that brought about Christianity, for it is written in the gospels that Jesus subscribed to what Daniel wrote about the resurrection.

In the end Christianity was created out of a mass of sects that evolved somewhat willy-nilly from those Jewish beginnings, and just as the many nations are known to have warred seeking supremacy over many other nations, so those sects grew over nearly three hundred years and morphed into Christianity as we are familiar with it. The many sects grew among the poor and illiterate for the promise of something better than the miserable lives that they led. Jesus' god, the god of the Jews, of which they knew little, gave them a hope of a better life without the harshness of the present rulers and their gods who took no pity on their plight.

And Paul fed the hopes of the gentiles, and along with the Apostles, the hopes of the Jews too. But Jews weren't to mix with gentiles. Though a common belief was brewing, the schism between Jew and gentile grew.

Paul, though, believed in the near return of Jesus in all of his heavenly power. When, at the end of Paul's life, as far as the new Christianity was concerned, it didn't matter, for a hierarchy or new believers started to make up stories that were fanciful, as well as very appealing to those in need of hope.

When the Jews rebelled anew against Rome, and their temple, as well as Jerusalem was destroyed, and many more Jews again dispersed, Christianity spread even more, and gospels began to be written (Mark's considered the first probably after the razing of the Temple and Jerusalem). However, as noted previously, this was years after Jesus' death, and most likely even after Paul's death.

The other apostles also dead or dispersed, leaders such as Ignatius came to the fore, gladly going to his death as a Christian believer, and writing about it as if joyful to come to his end on earth and a new life in Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah.

A few years later, Marcion, mentioned earlier as the first to come up with a canon (bible), followed in capturing the imaginations of pagans to the new belief. It was all taking on a life of its own.

After Marcion, there were other intellectuals who, without much in the way of any original documents to rely on, decided that Christianity and the one god over all and none other god or gods needed, began to write on what they felt was true. These, finally, were considered the Church Fathers: Iraneus of Lyon, Clement (of whom the Secret Gospel of Mark was said to be stolen), Origen (the genius boy wonder), then Tertullian, he of the Devil's Gateway (in)fame(y), and Augustine, another mixed up personality who pushed Original Sin, as well as many others.

In three hundred years a myth developed, written by those who never knew Jesus, and had no writings of his (if any were ever had which is doubted) on which to base their beliefs. It all took on a life of its own and morphed, but in a way that eventually benefitted those who were the final successors of what became Christianity pretty much as we know it today.

The morphing that is now the Catholic Church was what Luther carped about. There was far too much of the selling of "indulgences", the forgiveness of sins in exchange for a "donation", usually of great sums. The ignorance of the many went on unabated, as well as their illiteracy, and since there were no books to read to let them have any knowledge of their own, they relied on the Catholic Church, which was how that church wanted them to do.

Martin Luther and Gutenberg—he of the new printing press—started a revolution. Still, the Catholic Church didn't fold their tent. For centuries more they warred, both figuratively and literally, with the new Protestant church(es).

However, they lost sight of the one thing Luther included as his rationale for disputing with the Catholic Church. He proclaimed: Sola Scriptura! Only what was scriptural was to be included in what the Christian churches were to be. But it was not taken literally in every way; it was mostly in denying things like indulgences and the greed they fostered in the corrupt church.

The Lutheran faith, as well as the Anglican, and some of their spin-offs, retained the trappings of the ritual mass and the fancy robes and hats (such as the fish tale one of the old god, Dagon, which was somewhat modified by shortening the fish tails—see any Internet sites on the findings in ancient Nineveh).

Just about all of the writers on Christianity from those early days only extolled what was passed on to them as truth. Very few did any research as we know it now to try to verify what was what in the beginning of it all. This can be seen by checking out all of the books of the bibles used by Protestants as compared to those used in the Catholic bibles. All books in the Protestant bibles are in the Catholic bible. The Protestants only omitted some books and some of the rituals.

The books in the Protestant bibles contain just about all of the errors that are in the Catholic bibles. As stated at the start, I principally used the Protestant King James version of the bible, and as deemed proper, I used other bibles to compare some passages from the King James bible.

Why have I written these essays?

Recently (about Dec. 15, 2014) there was a news item that Creationist believers were going to set up a Noah's Ark replica, and that it would include a, or some, dinosaurs. These Creationist people take the bible literally, including that the god of the bible is the creator who created the Universe, and everything in it in the span of six days. They also believe that the earth is only six thousand years old, though some say ten thousand years.

That's fine and dandy, but they're trying to push their beliefs on everybody, and by that I mean denying the right to same-sex marriage simply because it's against their belief, and their belief covers all. Shades of the Taliban!

However, their plan, no matter how misguided I, or anyone else believes, ran into a road block because, the news release says, they were going to restrict the people they hire to avowed Christians who are fundamental believers as they are, and have them sign that they are so and will live by their standards. Yes, isn't this how the Taliban and the new ISIS believes?

These Fundamentalists are not the only believers in fundamentalism. There is another branch of them that are what can be considered to be not as ignorant as those original Creationist people. However, they go by the moniker of Intelligent Design. Together, they are dangerous to our freedom, threatening to make us as the Islamist fundamentalists, toeing the line of their dogma, never mind that the origins of that dogma is full of errors and contradictions.

Those of the Intelligent Design are themselves very intelligent, and are waging war on evolution and much else about modern science, and all based on their belief that the bible is the inerrant—error free—word of god.

As I said, these people are very intelligent, but they are more willfully blind than their original counterparts who started Creationism for they don't acknowledge the errors and contradicions I have found and shown in my essays.

So how do they present a danger to worry about? Also recently, there was a news article about some seeing a danger in what was to be included in textbooks in the state of Texas. Yes, you have it right, they were going to inject their beliefs into the textbooks. These people are the same ones that say that homosexual love and marriage should be forbidden simply because they believe it's against their biblical beliefs.

This should not stand.

Not only, as I have documented in my essays, is the bible a book that includes many books that are error-filled, but most of those errors are very visible to any who will look. One may see this simply by checking out the individual proofs I offer, again, most right in the bible itself and with book, chapter, and verse(s) included. There are hundreds of errors shown in this book that is supposedly error free.

In one or more of my previous essays, I included some articles about the very danger of these Creation believers, as well as those of the Intelligent Design offshoot. Here are some of them again:

* * * *

It has never been my intent to cause anyone to lose their personal and spiritual belief, however, what has been going on these last few years is intolerable. There are many who are called Fundamentalists who not only believe that the bible is the inerrant word of God (without error, that is), but they believe that one and all should be bound by their bible and obey the words of the god therein.

Further, their belief has been carried to extremes, and they are doing all that they can to ensure that everyone is made to believe the same things that they do. This was attempted by the Catholic Church for centuries, then by Protestants that broke away from the Catholic Church. The extremes then went so far as to kill those that refused, or were found to be heretics—holding views that were contrary to their beliefs, many of them burned at the stake, some while still alive. Genocide was not out of the order.

That was then, this is now. We are supposed to be enlightened in our modern times, and not hold to the old extremist ways—or are we?

I have posted the following publicly stated comments—many pulpit ravings—in other stories and essays. Here are some of them again.

* * * * 

The barrage of anti-gay sermons delivered by North Carolina-based pastors to hit the blogosphere continues with yet another disturbing rant caught on tape.

The pastor...Charles L. Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, N.C., condemns President Obama's [endorsement of same sex marriage], while calling for gays and lesbians to be put in an electrified pen and ultimately killed off. [Bold mine]

"Build a great, big, large fence—150 or 100 mile long —put all the lesbians in there," Worley suggests in the clip, reportedly filmed on May 13.

He continues:"Do the same thing for the queers and the homosexuals and have that fence electrified so they can't get out...and you know what, in a few years, they'll die out...do you know why? They can't reproduce!"

He also said that if he's asked who he'll vote for, he'll reply, "I'm not going to vote for a baby killer and a homosexual lover!" Many of the congregants cheer and reply, "Amen."

The pastor's comments seem in line with statements made by Ron Baity, founding pastor of Berean Baptist Church in Winston-Salem and head of the anti-marriage equality organization Return America, who told his own congregation that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) [be prosecuted as they were historically—was originally shown as a link] and Pastor Sean Harris of the Berean Baptist Church in Fayetteville [who advocated punching the child—was a link] if he is effeminate and "crack that wrist" if he is limp-wristed.

Ron Baity, founding pastor of Winston-Salem's Berean Baptist Church and head of the anti-marriage equality organization Return America, referred to homosexuality as "a perverted lifestyle" in a Sunday sermon before telling his congregation that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people should be prosecuted, Good as You is reporting. "For 300 years, we had laws that would prosecute that lifestyle," he is quoted as saying. "We've gone down the wrong path.

Victoria Jackson: Homophobia Is 'Buzzword Of Liberal Agenda'




Judaism & Christianity



The former "Saturday Night Live" star and now Tea Party activist sparked national furor when she [criticized "Glee" for showing a same-sex kiss—was a link] in a column for WorldNetDaily. In the column, Jackson wrote in response to an emotional, long awaited kiss between Kurt (Chris Colfer) and Blaine (Darren Criss). "Did you see "Glee" this week? Sickening! And, besides shoving the gay thing down our throats, they made a mockery of Christians - again! I wonder what their agenda is? Hey, producers of "Glee" - what's your agenda? One-way tolerance?" She later appeared on "Showbiz Tonight" to clarify her thoughts. "Well, it doesn't matter what I think," Jackson said. "What matters is what the Bible says. [Bold mine.] And I'm really concerned about our country because immorality is, well, let's see: secular humanism rules the airwaves, and it's stealing the innocence away from this whole generation of children. My daughter is a teenager and I can't find any show that she can watch." With that diatribe, Jackson was asked, based on her remarks, both in the column and in the interview, whether she was homophobic. "That's a cute little buzzword of the liberal agenda," Jackson smirked. "Basically, the Bible says that homosexuality is a sin." [Bold mine.]

A Mississippi state lawmaker quoted a Bible passage on] Facebook calling for gay men to be "put to death"  [Bold and underline mine.] has taken to the social networking site again to refuse to apologize for the remark.

Rep. Andy Gipson (R-Braxton) Friday to say that although he has been receiving emails and calls [with regard to his statement], he will not say he's sorry. [Bold mine.] The emails have come in response to a petition calling on the lawmaker to issue an apology and to meet with LGBT groups in Mississippi.

"To be clear, I want the world to know that I do not, cannot, and will not apologize for the inspired truth of God's Word. It is one thing that will never 'change,'" [Bold mine] Gipson wrote. "Anyone who knows me knows I also believe that all people are created in God's image, and that all people are loved by God, so much so that He gave us the truth of His Word which convicts us of the reality and guilt of our sin, and He gave us His Son Jesus who paid the full penalty for all our sins, by His grace through our faith in Him as we repent of our sin. It is this message that I preach every Sunday. I sincerely pray God will reach someone through this message."

Gipson is a Baptist minister [Bold mine.] and a business lawyer [Bold mine.] when not serving in the Legislature. He notes... that his family are "of the Christian faith, and are affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention." [Bold mine.]

The passage from Leviticus that Gipson first cited reads: "If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."

On Facebook at least, Gipson has received overwhelming support for his original comments and his refusal to apologize. Eighty-three people have "liked" his post, and he's received dozens of supportive comments, including praise for supporting God and sticking to his original message. 

"I stand with you my friend. ... GOD is in control ... no place for Gays," Ted W. Cole.

Gipson, 35, has served in the Mississippi Legislature since 2008. He chairs a judiciary committee. [Bold mine.]

* * * *

Looks like there are still many that have not changed.

Even worse is that those running for public office, as well as those already in public office, are pushing to make the nation adhere to their beliefs even though their beliefs have been exposed as false—untrue, factitious stories woven around pieces of known history like a modern day historical novel.

What they reserve for themselves they try to deny to all others if there is any deviation from what they think should be applicable to everyone: namely, marriage unless it is one man to one woman.

For certain, this is not biblical. According to the bible, Jacob, the father of the so-called twelve tribes of Israel, had two wives (sisters Rachel and Leah), and also two concubines who gave Jacob over half of his sons.

Jesus was never said to say that this couldn't be; he simply said a man could not put away his wife as in the Law of Moses. However, what words did Jesus really speak, and what words were put in his mouth by the many fictitious writers of the books in the bible? Close study, using facts alone, bring it all into great suspicion.

Final words

As stated early on, this is intended for those in need of knowing that the bible is not correct and error free—to the contrary, it is error filled.

So why can't everyone see that it is error filled? Aside from those with vested interests in keeping the status quo, the bible is literally a mishmash of books that don't really make sense when considered as a whole. It has taken years of research, beginning very mildly in the 1800s, but picking up speed in the last decade or two.

Another problem is the voluminous amount of what the character, Liv (in my story, The Devil's Gateway) called "Me-too" books that overfill the book shelves. Good objective books seeking only to reveal the real facts as made available by textual criticism, archeology, and known history are not overly and popularly known, but they are making headway.

That Hollywood continues to make movies that appeal to Christians doesn't help the truth to be known and accepted.

If Abraham and Jacob were real people, they weren't as the Old Testament portrays them, and neither was Moses. There was no Exodus (of two and a half million or more people that they don't tell you about), and there was no parting of the Red Sea.

Bones have been found in deserts and bogs, and in Arctic sediments, but there is nothing to indicate that over a million and a half Jews perished in the limited wilderness in which they are said to have wandered, nor that of any of their animals that had to have died in the forty-one plus years they were said to have wandered. Yes, forty-one plus for the bible says they were there for over a year before the forty year injunction was unleashed on them.

David is a historical fable—a real person, and a king perhaps, but not the person he is depicted as being. In fact, there are more errors that I don't have the time to write and give proofs on lest it take up volumes.

Look at all of what I have written thus far, and check out what I have said. I don't mind being checked out as those with those vested interests mind.

If you have been made to feel guilty, ashamed of being as you know within you that you are as opposed to how you've been culturally led to believe you should be, then learn the "truth of the lies" as the character Liv has said. Do not allow yourself to be humiliated by their lies, and find the peace and love we all can have, but unencumbered by cultural norms that are in error, by societal genes that are virtual and far too prevalent.

Peace and love to you.

PS: I'm slow to put out these works, but perhaps I'll be able to put out another work on The Golden Age of Books as Liv spoke about (in The Devil's Gateway); books that are easy to read, objective, and reveal how the bible was made sense of, and where and why it is wrong, man-made, and totally a fictitious work that can be classified as a historical novel—a little bit of historical fact(s) wrapped around by a collage of tales.

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