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Guru


Guru

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இயேசு போற்றத்தக்கவரா?
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இயேசு போற்றத்தக்கவரா?


well
இயேசு சொல்லியதானதாக மத்தேயு சுவியிலுள்ள மலைப் பிரசங்கம், இதுவே இரண்டு மூன்றாகப் பிரித்து தரையில் செய்ததாக லுக்கா சுவிக் கதாசிரியர் புனைந்துள்ளார்.
இந்த மலைப் பிரசஙத்தில் ஏசு நிறைய ந்ல்ல போதனைகள் கூறுவதாக அமைந்துள்ளது. அவற்றில் சில நாம் காண்போம்.

ஏசு தன் சீடர்களொடு இயங்கியபோது நடந்து கொண்டதையும் ஒன்றிணைத்துப் பார்ப்போம்.முடிவு.
மத்தேயு: 5:44. நான் உங்களுக்குச் சொல்லுகிறேன், உங்கள் சத்துருக்களைச் சிநேகியுங்கள்; உங்களைச் சபிக்கிறவர்களை ஆசீர்வதியுங்கள்; உங்களைப் பகைக்கிறவர்களுக்கு நன்மை செய்யுங்கள்; உங்களை நிந்திக்கிறவர்களுக்காகவும் உங்களைத் துன்பப்படுத்துகிறவர்களுக்காகவும் ஜெபம் பண்ணுங்கள்.

ஏசு வாழ்வில் நட்ந்தது
மத்தேயு: 10: . 5. இந்தப் பன்னிருவரையும் இயேசு அனுப்புகையில், அவர்களுக்குக் கட்டளையிட்டுச் சொன்னது என்னவென்றால், நீங்கள் புறஜாதியார் நாட்டுக்குப் போகாமலும், சமாரியர் பட்டணங்களில் பிரவேசியாமலும், 6. காணாமற் போன ஆடுகளாகிய இஸ்ரவேல் வீட்டாரிடத்திற்குப் போங்கள். 7. போகையில், பரலோகராஜ்ஜியம் சமீபித்திருக்கிறது என்று பிரசங்கியுங்கள்.

ஏசு வாழ்வில் நட்ந்தது

பகைவருக்காக ஜெபம் போய் சாபம்.
11. எந்தப் பட்டணத்திலாவது கிராமத்திலாவது நீங்கள் பிரவேசிக்கும்போது, அதிலே பாத்திரமானவன் யாரென்று விசாரித்து, நீங்கள் புறப்படுமளவும் அவனிடத்தில் தங்கியிருங்கள். 12. ஒரு வீட்டுக்குள் நீங்கள் பிரவேசிக்கும்போது அதை வாழ்த்துங்கள். 13. அந்த வீடு பாத்திரமாயிருந்தால் நீங்கள் கூறின சமாதானம் அவர்கள்மேல் வரக்கடவது; அபாத்திரமாயிருந்தால் நீங்கள் கூறின சமாதானம் உங்களிடத்திற்கு திரும்பக்கடவது; 14. எவனாகிலும் உங்களை ஏற்றுக்கொள்ளாமலும், உங்கள் வார்த்தைகளைக் கேளாமலும்போனால், அந்த வீட்டையாவது பட்டணத்தையாவது விட்டுப் புறப்படும்போது, உங்கள் கால்களில் படிந்த தூசியை உதறிப்போடுங்கள். 15. நியாயத்தீர்ப்பு நாளிலே அந்தப் பட்டணத்திற்கு நேரிடுவதைப்பார்க்கிலும் சோதோம் கொமோரா நாட்டிற்கு நேரிடுவது இலகுவாயிருக்கும் என்று, மெய்யாகவே உங்களுக்குச் சொல்லுகிறேன்.

ஏசு வாழ்வில் நட்ந்தது சமாரியர்கள் என்பவர்களும் யூதர்களே, BCE 200 வாக்கில் பிரிந்தவர்கள், அப்போது பழைய ஏற்பாடு- முதல் ஐந்து புத்தகங்கள் மட்டுமே தயாரையிருக்க சமாரிய பைபிள் நியாயப் பிரமாணங்கள் 5 புத்தகம் மட்டுமே. இவர்கள் அரசியல் ரீதியில் எதிரிக்கு உத்வி செய்ததால் பிரிந்தவர்கள், ஜெருசலேம் கர்த்தர் ஆலயத்தினுள் அனுமதி கிடையாது. யூதர்களே ஆயினும் கீழாகப் பார்க்கப்பட்டவர்களிடம் போக வேண்டம் என்கிறார் ஏசு. யூத்ப் பிரிவினர்தான் அவர்களும், ஆனால் அவர்கள் கடவுளை அறியாதவர்கள் என்கின்றார் இயேசு. இவர் போற்றும்படி நடக்கவில்லை.

ஏசு வாழ்வில் நட்ந்தது-பகைவருக்காக ஜெபம்

யோவான்: 17நீர்,என்னை அனுப்பினீர் என்று விசுவாசித்திருக்கிறார்கள்.9. நான் அவர்களுக்காக வேண்டிக்கொள்ளுகிறேன்; உலகத்துக்காக வேண்டிக்கொள்ளாமல், நீர்எனக்குத் தந்தவர்களுக்காக வேண்டிக்கொள்ளுகிறேன்;

20. நான் இவர்களுக்காக வேண்டிக்கொள்ளுகிறதுமல்லாமல், இவர்களுடைய வார்த்தையினால் என்னைவிசாசிக்கிறவர்களுக்காகவும் வேண்டிக்கொள்ளுகிறேன்

ஏசு வாழ்வில் நட்ந்தது ஏசு தன் வாழ்நாளில் உலக முடிவை எதிர்பார்த்தார்

send
மத்தேயு:24: 23. ஒரு பட்டணத்தில் உங்களைத் துன்பப்படுத்தினால் மறு பட்டணத்திற்கு ஓடிப்போங்கள்; மனுஷகுமாரன் வருவதற்குள்ளாக நீங்கள் இஸ்ரவேல் பட்டணங்களையெல்லாம் சுற்றிமுடியாதென்று மெய்யாகவே உங்களுக்குச் சொல்லுகிறேன்.
மத்தேயு:27: 34. இவைகளெல்லாம் சம்பவிக்குமுன்னே இந்தச் சந்ததி ஒழிந்துபோகாதென்று உங்களுக்குச் சொல்லுகிறேன். 35. வானமும் பூமியும் ஒழிந்துபோம், என் வார்த்தைகளோ ஒழிந்துபோவதில்லை.
மத்தேயு:27:27. மின்னல் கிழக்கிலிருந்து தோன்றி மேற்கு வரைக்கும் பிரகாசிக்கிறதுபோல, மனுஷகுமாரனுடைய வருகையும் இருக்கும். 28.பிணம் எங்கேயோ அங்கே கழுகுகள் வந்து கூடும். 29. அந்நாட்களின் உபத்திரவம் முடிந்தவுடனே, சூரியன் அந்தகாரப்படும், சந்திரன் ஒளியைக்கொடாதிருக்கும், நட்சத்திரங்கள் வானத்திலிருந்து விழும், வானத்தின் சத்துவங்கள் அசைக்கப்படும். 30. அப்பொழுது, மனுஷகுமாரனுடைய அடையாளம் வானத்தில் காணப்படும். அப்பொழுது மனுஷகுமாரன் வல்லமையோடும் மிகுந்த மகிமையோடும் வானத்தின் மேகங்கள்மேல் வருகிறதை பூமியிலுள்ள சகல கோத்திரத்தாரும் கண்டு புலம்புவார்கள். 31. வலுவாய்த் தொனிக்கும் எக்காள சத்தத்தோடே அவர் தமது தூதர்களை அனுப்புவார்; அவர்கள் அவரால் தெரிந்துகொள்ளப்பட்டவர்களை வானத்தின் ஒரு முனை முதற்கொண்டு மறுமுனைமட்டும் நாலு திசைகளிலுமிருந்து கூட்டிச்சேர்ப்பார்கள்.
die
ஒரு இயக்கத் தலைவன் தன் தொண்டர்களை சரியாக மதிப்பிட்டு பணிகளைப் பிரித்துத் தர வேண்டும். யூதாஸ் ஸ்காரியோத்துவைத் பணப்பை வைத்துக் கோள்ள ஏசு பணித்தாராம். இவர் தலைமை பண்பு இங்கு குறைபாடுள்ளது என்பது தெரியும்.

யோவான்: 13: 26. இயேசு பிரதியுத்தரமாக, நான் இந்தத் துணிக்கையைத் தோய்த்து எவனுக்குக் கொடுப்பேனோஅவன்தான் என்று சொல்லி, துணிக்கையைத் தோய்த்து, சீமோன் குமாரனாகியயூதாஸ்காரியோத்துக்குக் கொடுத்தார்.27. அந்தத் துணிக்கையை அவன் வாங்கினபின்பு, சாத்தான் அவனுக்குள் புகுந்தான்.

29. யூதாஸ் பணப்பையை வைத்துக்கொண்டிருந்தபடியினால், அவன் போய், பண்டிகைக்குத்தேவையானவைகளைக் கொள்ளும்படிக்காவது, தரித்திரருக்கு ஏதாகிலும் கொடுக்கும்படிக்காவது,இயேசு அவனுடனே சொல்லியிருப்பார் என்று சிலர் நினைத்தார்கள்.

யோவான்: 12:4. அப்பொழுது அவருடைய சீஷரில் ஒருவனும் அவரைக் காட்டிக்கொடுக்கப்போகிறவனுமாகியசீமோனுடைய குமாரனான யூதாஸ்காரியோத்து,5. இந்தத் தைலத்தை முந்நூறு பணத்துக்கு விற்று, தரித்திரருக்குக் கொடாமல் போனதென்ன என்றான்.6. அவன் தரித்திரரைக் குறித்துக் கவலைப்பட்டு இப்படிச் சொல்லாமல், அவன்திருடனானபடியினாலும், பணப்பையை வைத்துக்கொண்டு அதிலே போடப்பட்டதைச்சுமக்கிறவனானபடியினாலும் இப்படிச் சொன்னான்

யூதரல்லாதவர்களைப் பன்றி-நாய் என்பவர், தலைமைப் பண்பு இல்லாதவர். சமாரியரிடம் நேரடியாக கேலி பேசியவர். தினமும் நிமிடத்திற்கு 400-600 ஆடு பலியும், தலைமைப் பாதிரி 88 புறா சாப்பிடச் சொல்லும் சட்டங்கள் முழுமையாக தொடரும் என்கிறார்.

தன்னை சாலமனைவிட மோசேயைவிடவும் பெரியவர் என பழைய ஏற்பாட்டு வார்த்தைகட்கு மீறி தற்பெருமையோடு பேசுவார்.
நல்ல் போதனைகள் யாரும் சொல்லமுடியும், ஆனால் தன் வாழ்வே ஒரு அடையாளம் என நடத்தல் வேண்டும்.
சொல்லுதல் யார்க்கும் எளிதம் அரியவாம்
சொல்லிய வண்ணம் செயல் - என்பார் தெய்வப்புலவர்.
சுவி கதைப்படி ஏசுவின் செயல்பாடு அவரைப் போற்றதக்கவராக ஆக்கவில்லை.

 

 

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John Israel

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Dear Devapriyaji,

You should read Gospels with Open mind and also

kindly note that

Jesus birth has many miracles.

Jesus did many miracles.

Jesus birth, actions and death fulfilled many Prophecies.

You can understand Jesus only accepting the above things.

I look for your reply


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Ananthan

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Devapriya analyses Gospels as Historic Document and finds that Authors of the Story does not know Jesus.

You want to assume a lot of things which has no historic basis

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Guru


Guru

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Jesus in the Vedas bySwami B.V. Giri

http://www.gosai.com/krishna-talk/58-jesus-in-the-vedas.html

Jesus VedasBhavisya PuranaA recent flurry of articles and website postings have been made to indicate that the fable of Jesus is mentioned in the Vedas [Bhavisya Purana]. Many Vaisnavas have been enthused [confused] by these Vedic findings, confirming Jesus as a messenger of God [Krsna] and a pure devotee. However, a closer look at the prediction of Jesus found in the Bhavisya Purana strongly suggests foul play or interpolation on the part of Christian Missionaries in India during the late 18th century.

Although the Bhavisya Purana is certainly a bona-fide literature, its predictions concerning certain events cannot be taken as absolute because of evangelical interference.

The Bhavisya Purana is considered to be one of the major 18 Puranas of the Vedic canon. As the name suggests, it mainly deals with future events (bhaviysati). The Bhavisya Purana is also mentioned in the ancient text of the Apastambha-dharma-sutras, so it is to be taken as an original Puranic literature dating from the time of Vyasadeva.

However, there are four known editions of the Bhavisya Purana, each having different predictions from the other, but suspiciously having one consistent prediction - that of Jesus.

One edition contains five chapters, one contains four, another contains three and yet another contains only two. Additionally, the contents in all four editions differ in various degrees - some having extra verses and some having less. Due to these circumstances, it is difficult to ascertain which of the four is the original text of the Bhavisya Purana, if indeed an original text still exists, but suspiciously all four editions do mention Jesus.

The Venkateswar Steam Press edition of the Bhavisya Purana printed in Bombay in 1829 (and reprinted by Nag Publishers in 2003) is probably the most complete version available, containing all the main features of the four manuscripts. Since none of the four editions of the Bhavisya Purana predate British Rule in India, this further suggests a discrepancy, plus the fact that all four versions mention Jesus.

The consistent prophecy in all four editions that seems to indicate an interpolation concerns the so-called meeting of Maharaja Salivahana and Jesus. This is found in the 19th chapter of the Pratisarga-parva. However, in examining this section, certain flaws can be found which betray its dubious origins. The section begins thus:

vikramaditya-pautrasca 
pitr-rajyam grhitavan
jitva sakanduradharsams
cina-taittiridesajan

bahlikankamarupasca
romajankhurajanchhatan
tesam kosan-grhitva ca
danda-yogyanakarayat

sthapita tena maryada
mleccharyanam prthak-prthak
sindhusthanam iti jneyam
rastramaryasya cottamam

mlecchasthanam param sindhoh
krtam tena mahatmana
ekada tu sakadiso
himatungam samayayau

"Ruling over the Aryans was a king called Salivahana, the grandson of Vikramaditya, who occupied the throne of his father. He defeated the Sakas who were very difficult to subdue, the Cinas, the people from Tittiri, Bahlikas and the people of Kamarupa. He also defeated the people from Roma and the descendants of Khuru, who were deceitful and wicked. He punished them severely and took their wealth. Salivahana thus established the boundaries dividing the separate countries of the Mlecchas and the Aryans. In this way Sindusthan came to be known as the greatest country. That great personality appointed the abode of the Mlecchas beyond the Sindhu River and to the west. One time, that subduer of the Sakas went towards Himatunga (the Himalayas)." (19.19-22)

At the very outset, this section is fraught with historical inaccuracies. Salivahana was the king of Ujjain (in modern day Madhya Pradesh), and while it is not surprising that Salivahana traveled to the Himalayas, the enemies that he supposedly vanquished in battle before he went, should be looked into more thoroughly. Historical research tells us that the only invading force that Salivahana actually subdued were the Sakas, who entered India from the north-west regions. But as for his defeating the Cinas (Chinese), Bahlikas (Bactrians), Kamarupas (Assamese), Romas (Romans) and the Khurus (Khorasans, or Persians), there is no historical evidence that validates Salivahana doing this, nor is their any historical proof of the Romans and the Chinese ever invading India. The Bactrians (Greeks) came earlier during the Gupta Period and the Persians (Moguls) came later. The people of Assam were simply a small hill-tribe during this period of Indian history [conquering which would not have warranted Vedic verse]. The text continues:

hunadesasya madhye vai
giristhan purusam subham
dadarsa balabanraja
gaurangam sveta-vastrakam

"In the middle of the Huna country (Hunadesa - the area near Manasa Sarovara or Kailasa mountain in Western Tibet), the powerful king saw an auspicious man who was living on a mountain. The man's complexion was golden and his clothes were white." (19:22)

After Salivahana defeated the Sakas he established his empire, thus the Salivahana period of Indian history began, circa 78 CE. According to this apparently interpolated section of the Bhavisya Purana, at some point after establishing his kingdom, Salivahana traveled to the Himalayas and met Jesus. Yet Christian scholars opine that Jesus was born in 4 BCE and was crucified somewhere between 27 and 36 CE. If we entertain the idea that Christ somehow survived the crucifixion and met Salivahana in the Himalayas, this would make him around 80 years old at that time. Yet surprisingly, the description of Jesus in the Bhavisya Purana does not mention that he was an old man.

The text continues with Salivahana asking Jesus, "Who are you?" to which Jesus replies:

isa-putram mam viddhi
kumari-garbha sambhavam

"I am the Son of God (isa-putra) and I am born of a virgin (kumari-garbha)."(19:23)

The idea common amongst Christians that Jesus was born of a virgin only came into existence several centuries after Jesus and was not part of early Christianity. Thus, it is unlikely that Jesus would have spoken of his birth as such.

The Christian idea that Jesus was born of a virgin is based on the following verse found in the Christian version of the Old Testament in the Book of Isaiah:

"Behold, a virgin has conceived and bears a son and she will call his name Immanuel."

However, the original Hebrew text of the Book of Isaiah does not mention anything about a virgin:

hinneh ha-almah harah ve-yeldeth ben ve-karath shem-o immanuel

"Behold, the young woman has conceived - and bears a son and calls his name Immanuel." (Isaiah 7.14)

The Hebrew word for virgin is 'betulah' yet it appears nowhere in this verse of Isaiah. The word used is 'almah' which simply means 'a young woman'. Isaiah only uses 'almah' once. However, the word 'Betulah' is used five times throughout the Book of Isaiah, so Isaiah obviously made a distinction between these two words.

After Jesus has introduced himself to Salivahana he explains that he is teaching religion in the distant land of the Mlecchas and tells the king what those teachings are:

mlecchasa sthapito dharmo
maya tacchrnu bhupate
manasam nirmalam krtva
malam dehe subhasubham

naigamam japamasthaya
japeta nirmalam param
nyayena satyavacasaa
manasyaikena manavah

dhyanena pujayedisam
surya-mandala-samsthitam
acaloyam prabhuh sakshat-
atha suryocalah sada

"Please hear from me, O King, about the religion that I have established amongst the Mlecchas. The mind should be purified by taking recourse of proper conduct, since we are subject to auspicious and inauspicious contaminations - by following the scriptures and concentrating on japa (repetition of God's names) one will attain the highest level of purity; by speaking true words and by mental harmony, and by meditation and worship, O descendant of Manu. Just as the immovable sun attracts from all directions the elements of all living beings, the Lord who resides in the Surya-mandala (sun globe) and is fixed and all-attractive, attracts the hearts of all living creatures." (19:28-30)

Nowhere in the Gospels do we find in the ministry of Jesus the above teachings to his followers. Furthermore, in this passage, Jesus is advocating the worship of the Sun-god (again, something that is absent in his instructions to the apostles). Japa, meditation, the negation of both good and bad karma, are all concepts that are familiar to eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, but not to the Abrahamic religions of the west.

Considering the above anomalies and the fact that no edition of the Bhavisya Purana can be found prior to the British period in India, we can only deduce that the Bhavisya Purana was tampered with by the Christian missionaries who added the chapter on Jesus. Their motive is obvious - to make the personality of Jesus acceptable to the Hindus, in order to convert them to Christianity.

In 1784, the famous Indologist Sir William Jones wrote the following letter to Sir Warren Hastings, Governor General of India, confirming our suspicions.

"As to the general extension of our pure faith in Hindoostan there are at present many sad obstacles to it... We may assure ourselves, that Hindoos will never be converted by any mission from the church of Rome, or from any other church; and the only human mode, perhaps, of causing so great a revolution, will be to translate into Sanscrit... such chapters of the Prophets, particularly of ISAIAH, as are indisputably evangelical, together with one of the gospels, and a plain prefatory discourse, containing full evidence of the very distant ages, in which the predictions themselves, and the history of the Divine Person (Jesus) is predicted, were severally made public and then quietly to disperse the work among the well-educated natives." (Asiatic Researches Vol. 1. Published 1979, pages 234-235. First published 1788).

It may also be noted that throughout the Pratisarga-parva of the Bhavisya Purana we find the stories of Adam and Eve (Adhama and Havyavati), Noah (Nyuha), Moses (Musa), and other Biblical characters. These we also consider to be added by zealous Christians.

In conclusion, the Bhavisya Purana may well be a genuine Vedic scripture prophesying future events, but from the above analysis we can say with certainty that the Jesus episode of the Bhavisya Purana is not an authentic Vedic revelation.



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அன்பே சிவம்...Om Namasivaya

அண்மையில் அர்த்தமமுள்ள இந்துமதம் என்ற தலைப்பில் தங்கள் மதத்தில் எந்த சரத்தோ, அல்லது எடுத்துச் சொல்ல எந்த நல்ல விடயமோ இல்லாததலோ என்னவோ ஏனைய மதங்களில் இல்லாத சிலவற்றை கூறி தங்கள் மதத்திற்கு வரும்படி அழைக்கும் கீழ்தரமான மதப்பிரசாரத்தினைக் கண்டேன். இதற்கு பதிலழிக்க வேண்டிய ஒரு கட்டாய நிலைக்கு எங்களை தள்ளி விட்டுள்ளனர்.

An article about Hinduism by Ramesh


 இவற்றிலிருந்து அவர்கள் என்ன சொல்ல விரும்புகிறார்கள் என்றால் பூமியில் அவதரித்து இரத்தம் சிந்தி மரித்த இயேசுவே கடவுள் என்று. ஆனால் இயேசு கிறிஸ்து எந்த சந்தர்பத்திலும் தன்னை இறைவனாக கூறியதில்லை. பிதா என்று ஒருவர் பரமண்டலத்தில் இருக்கிறார். அவரே தேவன். நான் தேவ குமாரன் என்றே கூறியுள்ளார்.


ஜேசு கிறிஸ்து தன்னை எந்த சந்தர்ப்பத்திலும் கடவுள் என்ற கூறியதாக நான் அறியவில்லை. தன்னை தேவ குமாரன் என்றும் இறைவனின் பிரதிநிதி என்றுமே கூறியிருக்கிறார். இதிலிருந்து என்ன தெரிகிறது என்றால் இறைவன் என்று ஒருவர் இருக்கிறார். அவர் யார்? இதை நன்றாக சிந்தித்து முடிவுசெய்யுங்கள். எனவே உயிரோடு வந்த முதற் கடவுளே யார் என்று உங்களிற்கு தெரியாத போது இன்னொரு என்ற வார்த்தையே தேவையில்லை என நினைக்கிறேன். உண்மையை உணர வேண்டிய நிலையிருப்பது யார் என்பது புரியவில்லை. காசு பணத்தைக்காட்டி மதமாற்றம் செய்ய வேண்டிய கட்டாய நிலையிலிருக்கும் ஒரு பிரிவினர் இப்படி பேசுவது மிகவும் வேடிக்கையானது. இன்று அமெரிக்காவில் எத்தனை பேர் இந்து மதத்திறகு மாறுகிறார்கள் என்பது நிதர்சனம். இங்கு மதக்கோட்பாடு மட்டுமே மதமாற்றத்திற்கு காரணம். உங்கள் மதத்தின் பெருமைகளை மட்டும் சொல்லி மற்றவர்களை உங்கள் மதத்திற்கு கூப்பிடுங்கள். அதை ஏற்று நம்பி வருபவர்களை ஏற்றுக்கொள்ளுங்கள்.

பாவிகளே என்னிடம் வாருங்கள் உங்களை இரட்சிக்கிறேன் என்று சொன்னவர். தனது கடைசி நாட்களில் பிதாவே இந்தப் பாவிகளின் பாவ மூட்டைகளை என்னால் சுமக்க முடியவில்லை என்னை உம்மிடம் அழைத்துக் கொள்ளும் என வேண்டியதை நாம் கருத்திற் கொள்ள வேண்டும். அதாவது தன்னுடைய கடைசி நாட்களில் அவர் அடுத்தவரின் பாவத்தை சுமக்க விரும்பவில்லை என்பதனையே இது காட்டுகிறது. இப்படி பாவ சுமைகளை சுமக்க முடியாது என மனம் வருத்தி தன்னையே காத்துக் கொள்ள முடியாமல் அழிந்து போன ஒருவரின் பின்னால் நான் போகிறேன் நீங்களும் வாருங்கள் அதாவது தன்னையே காத்துக் கொள்ள முடியாத ஒருவர் என்னைக் காக்கிறார் உங்களையும் வாருங்கள் என அழைப்பது மண் குதிரையை நம்பி நான் ஆற்றில் இறங்கியுள்ளேன் நீங்களும் வந்து இந்த மண் குதிரையில் ஏறுங்கள் என்று அழைப்பது போலிருக்கிறது. 

உலகிற்கு வந்து இரத்தம் சிந்தி சென்றவர் தான் கடவுள் இல்லை தேவ குமாரன் தான் என்று அவரே சொல்லியிருக்கும் போது இவர்கள் அவரை கடவுளாக்குவது வேடிக்கையானது.

இறைவன் நமக்காக பூமியில் அவதரித்து இரத்தம் சிந்தினார் ரிக் வேதத்தில் புரு~ சூக்தத்தில் சொல்லிருப்பது கிறிஸ்தவ மதத்தினைப்பற்றியல்ல. ஸ்ரீனிவாச பெருமான் இவ்வுலகில் தோன்றி இரத்தம் சிந்தியது தாங்கள் அறிந்திருக்கவில்லை என நினைக்கிறேன்.

சாம வேதத்திலிருந்து உதாரணம் காட்டி சிந்திக்கச் சொல்லிருக்கிறீர்கள். யேசு கிறிஸ்து வாழ்ந்த காலத்தில் அவர் சொன்ன கருத்துக்கள் அன்றய காலகட்டத்தில் வாழ்ந்த மக்களிற்கு தவறாக தெரிந்து அவர் அதற்காக தண்டிக்கப்பட்டார். அவர் தம்மை உலக மக்களின் வாழ்க்கை முறைக்காக பலி கொடுக்கவில்லை என்பதனை நீங்கள் தான் சிந்தித்துப் பார்க்க வேண்டும். பலி கொடுத்தல் என்ற தமிழ் வார்த்தையிற்கு சரியான அர்தத்தினைப் தெரிந்து நன்றாக சிந்தித்துப் பாருங்கள். 

அகத்திய மா முனிவரின் ஞானம் 30 நூலிருந்து 23ம் பாடலை உதாரணம் காட்டியுள்ளீர்கள் அந்தப்பாடல் அந்த நூலிற்குரியது அல்ல


வணங்குவாய் ஜெகஜோதி ஒருவனாகி
மானிலத்தை ஒரு நொடியில் வகுத்தே மண்ணில்
குணமான மனிதரையும் படைத்த பின் 
குவலயத்திற்றானு தித்துக்குவாய் வந்து
கனமான சமுசாரம் ஒன்றிலாமல்
சன்யாசி போலிருந்து தவத்தைக்காட்டி
அன்பான சித்தர்களை இருத்திப்போட்டு
அகண்டதலஞ்சென்றவரை யண்டுவாயே.
(இது நீங்கள் கொடுத்திருந்த பாடல்)

மாயனாம்பூரகந்தான் மயங்குவாண்
ராமசீதாலெட்சுமியுமாலும் பாரு
ஆயனாம்பச்சைமா கமலமேனி
மாயனோடுஅரனைப்போற் காந்தியாகும்
தூயமாம்புரியவட்டம் வாசிதேசி
யுயிர்க்குசுகமாந்தி ஆலம் பொசிப்பாய்
ஞாயமாம் ஓம்-வம்-மம்-உமாவென்று
நாட்டமாம்பிராணாய வரிசையாமே (அகத்திய ஞானம் 30 பாடல் 23)


இந்தப்பாடல் தான் அகத்திய ஞானம் 30 ல் 23 ம் பாடல் 
அகத்தியர் ஞானம் 30 ன் முழுப்பாடல்களும் வெகு விரைவில் எமது இணையத் தளத்தில் வெளியிடப்படும்.


அகத்திய முனிவரின் பாடல் என்று சொல்லி ஏதோ ஒரு பாடலை உதாரணம் காட்டிய நீங்கள் அகத்திய மாமுனிவரின்; முழப்பாடல்களையும் அதாவது அவரின் முழு நூற்களையும் படித்துள்ளீர்களா? 
வாத சௌமியம் என்னும் சௌமிய சாகரம் 1200 ல் அகத்திய மா முனிவர் உலகம் தோன்றிய வரலாற்றினை 118 ஆம் பாடலிலிருந்து 139 ஆம் பாடல் வரை மிக தெளிவாகவும் உண்மையான கடவுள் யார் என்பதற்கும் விளக்கம் கூறியுள்ளார். அதிலிருந்து 121 ஆம் பாடல்
கேளப்பா பராபரமாய் நின்ற சோதி 
கிருபையுடன் சிவன் படைக்க நினைத்த போது 
மாளப்பா வல்ல பரம் தன்னில்தான் 
வளமான சிவமதுதான் உண்டாச்சப்பா
மேலப்பா சிவமதிலேதான் சக்தி உண்டாகி
வுpளங்கி நின்ற சக்தியிலே மைந்தா கேள் 
சூளப்பா சதாசிவம்தான் துலங்கி நின்ற 
சொற்பெரிய சதாசிவத்தின் மகேசுவரம்தானே 121 

இப்படியாக தெய்வங்கள் உருவான வழிமுறையைக் கூறி உலகம் தோன்றிய வரலாற்றினை கூறியுள்ளார். இதிலிருந்து என்ன அகத்திய மகரி~p தெரிவிக்கின்றார் என்றால் உலகத்தினையும் அதிலுள்ள சகலவற்றினையும் படைத்து காப்பது சிவனே அன்றி வேறு தெய்வமில்லை. இதனை மிகத் தெளிவாக கூறியுள்ளார். 

சக்தியே பராபரமே ஒன்றே தெய்வம்
சகலவுயிர் சீவனுக்கு மதுதானாச்சு
புத்தியினா லறிந்தவர்கள் புண்ணியோர்கள்
பூதலத்தில் கோடியிலே யொருவருண்டு
பக்தியினால் மனமடக்கி நிலையில் நிற்பார்
பாழிலே மனத்தைவிடார் பரமஞானி
சுத்தியே அலைவதில்லை சூட்சஞ் சூட்சம்
சுழியிலே நிலையறிந்தால் மோட்சம்தானே 1

இது அகத்தியர் ஞானம் - 9 இன் முதற்பாடல் பராபரம் ஒன்றே தெய்வம் சகல உயிர்களிற்கும் அதுவே தெய்வம் என்று கூறியுள்ளதை கவனிக்கவும். இப்படியாக தனது நூல்கள் எல்லாவற்றிலும் இந்து மத தெய்வங்களின் உயர்வை எடுத்துகச் சொல்லியிருக்கிறார் அகத்திய மா முனிவர்

அடுத்து பட்டினத்தார் பாடலை எடுத்துக் கொண்டால் பட்டினத்தார் ஒரு இந்துவாக பிறந்து நல்ல சிவ பக்தானாக வாழ்ந்து சிவனடியை சேர்ந்தவர். சிவனின் பெருமைகளை அவரின் பாடல்களில் மிகச் சிறப்பாக சொல்லிருப்பவர். இவர் யேசுவை வழிபடுங்கள் என்று சொல்லியிருப்பது நம்பமுடியாதது. கீழ்த்தரமான பிரச்சார யுக்தி.

பாவிகளை இரட்சிக்க முடியாமல் போனவர் மீண்டும் உங்களை இரட்சிப்பார் என கனவு கண்டு காத்திருப்பது என்ன வேடிக்கை. நீங்கள் மட்டு;ம் கனவுடன் காலம் தள்ளுவது மட்டுமில்லாமல் அடுத்தவரையும் அழைப்பது மிகமிக வேடிக்கையாகும். 
பிற மதங்களை இழிவுபடுத்தாமல் எங்களின் மதக்கருத்துக்களை மட்டும் கூறி நம்புபவர்களை சரியான பாதையில் வழி நடத்தவே நாங்கள் விரும்புகிறோம். இதற்கு உதாரணம் ஜெர்மணி நாட்டிலிருந்து இந்தியா வந்தவர் இந்து மதத்தின் உண்மைகளைப்புரிந்து கொண்டு வீரமாமுனிவர் ஆகி இந்து மதத்திற்கும் தமிழிற்கும் அளப்பறிய சேவைகளை ஆற்றியது. 
தற்காலத்தில் அமரிக்கரான சுவாமி தந்திரதேவா இலங்கையில் ஒரு இந்து சமய சங்கத்திற்கு தலைவராக இருப்பது.
மற்றும் ஜேசு கிறிஸ்து பாவிகளே என்னிடம் வாருங்கள் என்று பாவிகளை தான் அழைத்தார்கள். எனவே மற்ற மதத்தினர் எல்லாம் பாவிகள் என்று நினைத்தா நீங்கள் அழைக்கிறீர்கள்.
ஜேசு கிறிஸ்துவின் வாழ்க்கை வரலாற்றில் ஒரு 13 ஆண்டுகள் அவர் எங்கிருந்தார் என்ன செய்தார் என ஆராய்ந்து பார்த்து நீங்கள் எழுதியுள்ளது போல் மனச்சாட்சியுடன் நல்ல முடிவு எடுங்கள். புதிய பழைய ஏற்பாடுகளிலிருந்து நிறைய ஆதாரங்களை எங்களால் தரமுடியும். அதை நாங்கள் விரும்பவில்லை. இப்படியொரு பதிலினை உங்களின் சிலவார்த்தைகளினாலேயே எழுதநேர்ந்தது. தயவு செய்து இப்படிப்பட்ட கீழ்த்தரமான பிரச்சாரத்தில் இறங்கி எங்களையும் உங்களைப் போல் உங்கள் மதத்தை மட்டப்படுத்தி மூன்றாம் தரப்பிரச்சாரம் செய்ய தள்ளி விடாதீர்கள். 


Mithraa Samy..SMP.DA



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Jesus did not die on cross, says scholar

Jesus may not have died nailed to the cross because there is no evidence that the Romans crucified prisoners two thousand years ago, a scholar has claimed.

Published: 11:47AM BST 23 Jun 2010

penitents2_1382345c.jpg
A penitent is nailed to a wooden cross to mark the death of Jesus Christ on Good Friday in the town of Pampanga , Philippines Photo: EPA

The legend of his execution is based on the traditions of the Christian church and artistic illustrations rather than antique texts, according to theologian Gunnar Samuelsson.

He claims the Bible has been misinterpreted as there are no explicit references the use of nails or to crucifixion - only that Jesus bore a "staurus" towards Calvary which is not necessarily a cross but can also mean a "pole".

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Mr Samuelsson, who has written a 400-page thesis after studying the original texts, said: "The problem is descriptions of crucifixions are remarkably absent in the antique literature.

"The sources where you would expect to find support for the established understanding of the event really don't say anything."

The ancient Greek, Latin and Hebrew literature from Homer to the first century AD describe an arsenal of suspension punishments but none mention "crosses" or "crucifixion."

Mr Samuelsson, of Gothenburg University, said: "Consequently, the contemporary understanding of crucifixion as a punishment is severely challenged.

"And what's even more challenging is the same can be concluded about the accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus. The New Testament doesn't say as much as we'd like to believe."

Any evidence that Jesus was left to die after being nailed to a cross is strikingly sparse - both in the ancient pre-Christian and extra-Biblical literature as well as The Bible.

Mr Samuelsson, a committed Christian himself, admitted his claims are so close to the heart of his faith that it is easy to react emotionally instead of logically.

Mr Samuelsson said the actual execution texts do not describe how Christ was attached to the execution device.

He said: "This is the heart of the problem. The text of the passion narratives is not that exact and information loaded, as we Christians sometimes want it to be."

Mr Samuelsson said: "If you are looking for texts that depict the act of nailing persons to a cross you will not find any beside the Gospels."

A lot of contemporary literature all use the same vague terminology - including the Latin accounts.

Nor does the Latin word crux automatically refer to a cross while patibulum refer to the cross-beam. Both words are used in a wider sense that that.

Mr Samuelsson said: "That a man named Jesus existed in that part of the world and in that time is well-documented. He left a rather good foot-print in the literature of the time.

"I do believe that the mentioned man is the son of God. My suggestion is not that Christians should reject or doubt the biblical text.

"My suggestion is that we should read the text as it is, not as we think it is. We should read on the lines, not between the lines. The text of the Bible is sufficient. We do not need to add anything."




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Vicar orders removal of 'unsuitable' crucifix from church

Vicar Rev Ewen Souter ordered the removal of a sculpture of Jesus Christ being crucified from the front of his church after branding it 'unsuitable' and 'a horrifying depiction of pain and suffering'.

Published: 4:15PM GMT 06 Jan 2009

Vicar orders removal of crucifix from church saying it is 'unsuitable'
St John's Church was opened in 1963 and the crucifix was installed within a year Photo: KENT

Rev Souter said the traditional Christian symbol was frightening children and scaring off worshippers at St John's Church in Horsham, West Sussex.

He has had the 10ft resin sculpture, created by Edward Bainbridge Copnall MBE, a former president of the Royal Society of British Sculptors, removed, to be replaced by an ultra-modern stainless steel cross.

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Some church-goers have reacted angrily to the decision, saying it is another nail in the coffin of ancient Christian tradition.

Rev Souter, formerly a cell biologist, said: "The crucifix expressed suffering, torment, pain and anguish. It was a scary image, particularly for children.

"Parents didn't want to walk past it with their kids, because they found it so horrifying.

"It wasn't a suitable image for the outside of a church wanting to welcome worshippers. In fact, it was a real put-off.

"We're all about hope, encouragement and the joy of the Christian faith. We want to communicate good news, not bad news, so we need a more uplifting and inspiring symbol than execution on a cross."

St John's Church was opened in 1963 and the crucifix was installed within a year.

The sculpture was removed on a low-loader truck and delivered to nearby Horsham Museum, where it will continue to be displayed.

One long-standing member of the church, who asked not to be named, said: "The crucifix is the oldest and most famous symbol of the Christian church.

"Pulling it down and putting up something that would look more at home on the side of a flashy modern shopping centre is not the way to get more bums on seats.

"Next they'll be ripping out the pews and putting sofas in their place, or throwing out all the Bibles and replacing them with laptops. It's just not right."

Rev Souter, who has been vicar at St John's since 2001, believes the modern new cross, which has been designed by artist Angela Godfrey, will present 'a positive message of hope' on the side of his church.

A spokesman at Horsham Museum said: "Thanks to the generosity of St John's, we have been given the remarkable sculpture of Jesus on the Cross by Edward Bainbridge Copnall.

"The museum was keen to have the figure because it is a stunning example of Edward's ability and skill as a sculptor.

"Being made out of coal dust and resin it represents the cutting edge of materials, as well as being a dramatic interpretation of a well-known image."

 



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'Jesus in jeans' sculpture unveiled

A church in East Sussex has unveiled a Marcus Cornish bronze statue dubbed "Jesus in jeans" depicting Christ as a man of the 21st century.

Published: 2:49PM BST 13 May 2009

Bronze statue showing Jesus in baggy jeans: 'Jesus in jeans' sculpture unveiled
This bronze statue showing Jesus in his best baggy jeans has proved a hit outside Our Lady Immaculate and St Phillip Neri church in Uckfield Photo: IMAGES INTERNATIONAL

Father David Buckley unveiled the £35,000 seven-foot high bronze statue at the Our Lady Immaculate and St Philip Neri Catholic church in Uckfield.

Cornish's sculpture was funded by money left by Winifred Gregory, 87, a member of the congregation who passed away last year.

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Christ is wearing jeans and a shirt billowing in the wind while his hair and beard are neatly and fashionably trimmed.

Father Buckley said: "You are always looking for new ways to enrich people in the experience of Christianity and it is good people can be open-minded to appreciate it.

"On the continent you often encounter modern representations of Jesus but it is not so common over here. We wanted a figure of Christ not in suffering but dynamic and welcoming.

"We felt this design summed up the spirit and activity of Christ perfectly and I think it speaks for itself.

Members of a congregation committee opened a competition last year to find a winning statue to mark the church's 50-year anniversary.

Mr Cornish's design was the overwhelming favourite with more than 200 voting in favour last May and only 14 parishioners against.

The statue will be hoisted 100-feet in the air later this week to sit at the top of the church's bell tower after a gold leaf halo has been added to the head.

Mr Cornish, who is based in nearby Lewes and whose work has been bought by The Prince of Wales in the past, said: "The sculpture is simple and direct and I hope it sums up the feeling that Christ is always with us and that we are not to be afraid.

"His clothing is being blown vigorously to add the sense of him being alive and his strength in defying earthly cares.

"The clothing is loosely contemporary in order to connect Christ to his people now as much as to his past.

"I hope this sculpture will inspire and communicate in very human terms, reaching out and being relevant to both the congregation and local community."



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60ft Jesus statue burns to ground

A 60ft statue of Jesus with his arms raised along a motorway was struck by lightning in a thunderstorm and burned to the ground, police said.

Published: 9:33PM BST 15 Jun 2010

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The "King of Kings" statue, one of Ohio's most familiar landmarks, had stood since 2004 at the evangelical Solid Rock Church along Interstate 75 in Monroe, just north of Cincinnati.

The 62ft tall 40ft wide sculpture, showed Jesus from the torso up and was nicknamed Touchdown Jesus because of the way the arms were raised, similar to a referee signaling a touchdown in a game of football.

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It was made of plastic foam and fiberglass over a steel frame, which is all that remained early Tuesday.

The fire spread from the statue to an adjacent amphitheater but was confined to the attic area, and no one was injured, police Chief Mark Neu said.

The 4,000-member, nondenominational church was founded by former horse trader Lawrence Bishop and his wife. Mr Bishop said in 2004 he was trying to help people, not impress them, with the statue. He said his wife proposed the Jesus figure as a beacon of hope and salvation and they spent about $250,000 to finance it.



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Wooden figure of Jesus Christ is not work of Michelangelo, art historians say

A wooden statue bought by the Italian government for £2.5 million and attributed to Michelangelo is a fake art historians have claimed.

By Nick Pisa in Rome 
Published: 6:32PM BST 25 May 2009

Wooden figure of Jesus Christ is not work of Michelangelo, art historians say
The wooden statue bought by the Italian Government for £2.5 millon Photo: AFP

The 41cm long figure, named Cristo Ritrovato (Christ Refound) was bought late last year from a private collection and since then has been on a marathon tour of the country.

It started in Rome where among those to admire it were Pope Benedict XVI and various senior government officials and has also been displayed in Milan, Trapani, Palermo and is currently on show in Naples.

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More than 60,000 people have seen the sculpture but there is a growing concern within the Italian artworld that it was not created from the hand of the Renaissance master Michelangelo Buonarroti.

When it was presented last December among those to vouch for its authenticity were Italy's ambassador to the Holy See Antonio Zanardi Landi and Professor Antonio Paolucci, art historian and Vatican museum director.

At a press conference they described the "svelte form and the sweetness of the finishing touches as similar to those of Michelangelo's Pieta in the Basilica of St Peter's".

The experts, who also included Cristina Acidini, director of the Museums of Florence where many of Michelangelo's works are displayed, said the "animation of the torso with its vibrant profile was also an anticipation of the artist's later famous work, David".

Ms Acidini said that it was most certainly the work of a "young Michelangelo probably around 1492-94" but added that as with many works of art there were no documents to prove its authenticity.

However Tomaso Montanari, an art history professor from Naples University, believes the work is a fake and that there is a "political strategy behind the operation".

Professor Montanari said:"If we exclude the three art historians and Cristina Acidini there is no-one else who believes that this is a work by Michelangelo.

"The state has paid out £2.5 million for something it thinks is Michelangelo but it is not his style or technique – it is made up of pieces of wood glued together.

"There are at least another dozen or so crosses out there made in a similar fashion and this was a style common to the studios of Florence at the end of the 1400s.

"What is amazing is that the Italian government did not ask for a third party opinion on the work before buying it and proclaiming it as Michelangelo which it is clearly not.

"It is not worth the £2.5 million paid, at the most it would be worth around £70,000 and thousands of people including Pope Benedict XVI believe it to be genuine."

Professor Montanari also pointed out how the Culture Ministry – which bought the statue – had had its budget slashed and had been forced to cut jobs to save money.



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Virgin Mary made into 'normal mum' to widen Christianity's appeal

Church leaders turned the Virgin Mary from being a "serious, official, imperial" figure into a normal "mum" to widen Christianity's appeal, according to a leading medieval historian.

Published: 3:33PM BST 27 May 2009

Speaking at the Hay Festival in Wales, Mary Rubin, the author of Mother of God – A History of the Virgin Mary, said the transformation took place in the 11th and 12th century, with images of her knitting and cooking.

She said: "Artists and writers increasingly explore the mundane nature of the holy family.

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"There's an attempt to make Mary into the mother next door, not just the mother of Jesus in heaven, who cooks and does everything that mothers do."

By comparison she was portrayed in the early church as "a figure of enormous solemnity and enormous majesty", as befitting the mother of God in human form.

But the church became so worried about people worshipping Mary rather than Christ that rosaries were introduced in the late middle ages to "create a way of praying to Mary that is more monitored," she added.

"It's almost a way of trying to balance the 'Mary content' and the 'Christ content'," she said.

 



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Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls

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Thursday 01 Jun, 2006

 

 

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Tiger Chan

Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, authors of The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception, argue that a pacifistic Jesus was very unlikely. As the authors point out, Qumranian phrases flowed from his lips, sometimes word for word. Traditionally, scholars concede that at least some Zealots made up Jesus inner circle. The Bible itself reveals him acting in a Zealot-like way, driving the money changers out of the Temple. He states in the gospels: “I am come not to bring peace, but a sword”. In the same vein, when a cohort of Roman soldiers comes for him in Gethsemane, Peter raises his sword against them, hardly the act of a meek Christian. As revealing is the number of soldiers in a Roman cohort, six hundred. Why send six hundred soldiers except in anticipation of armed resistance? And crucifixion, remember, was the method of execution for rebels, not rabbis. These biblical events, in conflict with Christian tradition, do not conflict with the Qumran context. On the contrary, they fit.

Through gleanings from the gospels, however, and from more obscure sources that we shall explore, Jesus appears nothing less than a revolutionary, albeit a deeply mystical one, drawing on traditions from a far broader geographic and spiritual context than even the renegades of modern scholarship dare speculate. Was the master of Galilee far from Palestine, as some claim, during the time of unrest? Could he have been in India, or Tibet, and returned to political chaos? The Bible itself, specifically the letters of Paul, supplies some clues.

Woven through the poetic and mystical language, the scrolls reveal a devotion to Jewish Law that, if we are dealing with early Christianity, seems to preclude Paul’s evangelism among the Gentiles, who were strictly off limits to the supposedly xenophobic Qumranians. Unfortunately, the Bible provides little historical information about the Early Church. What is known has been gleaned from historians writing centuries later. Reliable accounts vanished with the fall of the Jewish Temple in A.D. 70, the burning of the library at Alexandria and, as Morton Smith has suggested, with the possible suppression of texts written by Jesus himself. The writings of the apostle Paul, however, help explain how early Christianity may have evolved from a fervent nationalistic Judaism into the spiritual movement that swept the Western world. Also, Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus may provide another piece in the puzzle, mystical communion.

After the death of Jesus, Paul traveled and preached beyond Judea and Palestine, actions inconsistent with the religious nationalism of the Qumranians, or Judaism for that matter, although his language resembles that of the scrolls. Was he a Roman agent infiltrating the Jewish rebels, co-opting the movement, as Baigent and Leigh suggest? Or was he a mystic teacher inspired by progressive revelation? Let’s look more closely at his story.

After being struck by his vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus, Paul sets out for Rome, Greece and Asia Minor, spreading a new religion that extols Faith in Christ, in contrast to the scrolls, the writings of James Jerusalem Church, which, we are told, extol Jewish law and works over faith. Keep in mind the New Testament did not yet exist. Christian doctrine, as we know it, did not manifest until the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325. Yet Paul makes Jesus into an Eastern-style avatar, like Krishna, capable of leading his followers into a divine state, a mystical promised land. He preaches joint heirship with Christ, a oneness through inner contact, the force of the Star Wars trilogy, a blend of eastern mysticism and Persian dualism that to this day, though biblical, defies orthodoxy (where spiritual parity with Christ is blasphemy). Paul speaks of an inner man of the heart, much in the way the Vedas of ancient India speak of a inner spiritual identity united with Brahman, the All. The Dead Sea Scrolls also speak of this identity, suggesting ties, or at least shared knowledge, between Eastern mystics and the Jews of the New and Old Testament. That the scrolls resemble the Jewish mystical writings known as Kabbalah, support this as well.

Eisenman offers the following revealing translation from a Dead Sea text, called The Beatitudes for its similarity to the biblical passage of the same name. His translation reads: Bring forth the knowledge of your inner self. This phrase (among others in Western scripture) appears to derive from the Vedas of India, just as Jesus referring to himself as the Light of the World evokes Krishna’s language in the Bhagavad Gita. Implicit in the translation is that this self, or atman in the Sanskrit, is the identity of Brahman, or God, residing mysteriously within the individual. (the force?) This teaching is not Judeo-Christian in the orthodox sense. So, do the traditions of East and West have a common origin in eastern mystical experience?

Other evidence tells us that Jesus taught the initiatic mysteries, the science of immortality, like the great Eastern mystics. In 1958 at a Greek Orthodox monastery in the Judaean desert, Morton Smith discovered a letter written in A.D. 200 by Clement of Alexandria. The letter speaks of a secret gospel of Mark, a more spiritual gospel, Clement writes, “…read only to those who are being initiated into the great mysteries.” This intriguing letter, written long before Eusebius, speaks of a secret mystical tradition without nationalistic borders. That Jesus taught and participated in this tradition is more than likely. So doing, he, in all likelihood, was no slave to regional agendas, rising beyond symbols of relative good and evil, Jew and Gentile, while fiercely opposed to spiritual evil embodied in corrupt priests.

Could it be that Paul seized the kernel of Christian and Vedic wisdom, leaving behind the rind of politics, that as a mystical initiate in Eastern wisdom that he attempted to bring to the Western world? The teachings of Joint Heirship and the inner man of the heart seem to do exactly that, suggesting spiritual parity with Christ, the path of oneness in the Dead Sea Scrolls, stated as: Bring forth the knowledge of your inner self. Could this be the real threat the scrolls present, spiritual freedom, individual enlightenment as opposed to subservience to orthodoxy? Going a step farther, was this pursuit of mystical oneness at the heart of early Christianity?

Texts from a Tibetan monastery provide some clues.

For many years rumors have suggested that the Vatican holds exotic texts about the life of Jesus Christ, which would drastically alter traditional beliefs about Christian origins. In 1887 a Russian traveler, Dr. Nicholas Notovitch, claimed he discovered these texts in a monastery at Himis, Tibet. Returning to Russia he wrote The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ, a book about Jesus journey eastward as a young man, his lost years. Another book by Notovitch, The Life of Saint Issa, describes Jesus studying and teaching the Vedas in India. Taking up with a caravan at an early age, the story goes, Jesus traveled the Silk Road, then to Kapilavastu, birthplace of Buddha. While in India, he fiercely denounces the Hindu priest-class, the Brahmins, in much the same way he denounces the Pharisees in Matthew’s gospel, which, as stated, resemble the tone of the Dead Sea texts. An Indian Swami, Abhedananda, published a Bengali translation of the Buddhist texts in 1929. The same year, Nicholas Roerich, the painter and explorer, traveled the far East. Transcriptions from his diary reveal a mystical teaching on the Divine Feminine given by Jesus in India, again, similar to teachings in the scrolls, and a decidedly different view of reality than that of the Vatican.

If it seems a stretch that Jesus traveled to India, studied the Vedas, that Vatican clerics stashed away Buddhist accounts of his journey, then remember the Vatican-founded Ecole Biblique and its handling of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Consider that Thomas, the follower of Christ, journeyed to and built a mission in India, where faithful Christians worship to this day.

If Jesus spent much of his short life in India and Persia, as the texts say, far from the din of Palestine, the alleged militancy of early Christianity becomes less of an issue. On his return, Jesus would have found himself in the midst of zealotry and rebellion, which he would have, it seems likely, honored in principle. If he was God, he was also man, as the gospels point out, telling us he wept and got angry, much like the rest of us. Why should we deny him the right to be caught up in the struggle of his people?

Pieces of this puzzle, scattered across time, tell us there is more to early Christianity, more to ourselves, than Western tradition reveals. The truth reaches from crumbling texts, barren landscapes, into the most inward part of us, prompting us to remember the force, to solve the mystery from within. The battle over the nature of Christian origins rages nevertheless, like the battle over the Holy Land itself, as if the most sacred treasure stands to be won or lost, and this is more than likely the truth. As the veil parts above the Dead Sea, the real treasure revealed may prove to be that of our own history, our origin. Our soul.



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The "Inspirators" Behind The New Testament: A Critical ObservationMohd Elfie Nieshaem Juferi

Christian apologists in recent times try to propagate that the Bible is the word of God, written by “inspired” scribes. Despite what they would like to believe, many discoveries, however, refute this belief. Most of the books of the Bible are not known, and is simply attributed to certain authors which, when examined, shows that they could not have written it. Richard E. Friedman aptly describes the situation of Bible “authorship”.

People have been reading the Bible for nearly two thousand years. They have taken it literally, figuratively, or symbolically. They have regarded it as divinely dictated, revealed, or inspired, or as a human creation. They have acquired more copies of it than of any other book. It is quoted (and misquoted) more often than other books. It is translated (and mistranslated) more than others as well. It is called a great work of literature, the first work of history. It is at the heart of Christianity and Judaism. Ministers, priests, and rabbis preach it. Scholars spend their lives studying and teaching it in universities and seminaries. People read it, study it, admire it, disdain it, write about it, argue about it, and love it. People have lived by it and died for it. And we do not know who wrote it.[1]

Bart Ehrman makes an interesting observation regarding the written text of the New Testament manuscripts, and reached a conclusion not dissimilar to the Qur’?nic charge.

The New Testament manuscripts were not produced impersonally by machines capable of flawless reproduction. They were copied by hand, by living, breathing human beings who were deeply rooted in the conditions and controversies of their day. Did the scribes’ polemical contexts influence the way they transcribed their sacred Scriptures? The burden of the present study is that they did, that theological disputes, specifically disputes over Christology, prompted Christian scribes to alter the words of Scripture in order to make them more serviceable for the polemical task. Scribes modified their manuscripts to make them more patently ‘orthodox’ and less susceptible to ‘abuse’ by the opponents of orthodoxy.[2]

We will be focusing on the New Testament and the “inspiration” behind its authorship. The development of the canonization of the New Testament has been discussed elsewhere.

The Problems of Attributing Authorship to the New Testament Books

Let us start with “The Gospel according to Matthew”. It has been assumed that the author of the Gospel of Matthew was Matthew himself, one of the disciples of Jesus(P). However, the internal evidence proves otherwise. Matthew did not write the Gospel attributed to him:

“…And as Jesus passed forth thence, he (Jesus) saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he (Jesus) saith unto him (Matthew), follow me (Jesus) and he (Matthew) arose, and followed him (Jesus).” (Matthew 9:9)

It does not need to take a Biblical scholar to figure out that neither Jesus(P) nor Matthew wrote this verse of “Matthew”. This verse points to the fact that there is a third person besides Jesus and Matthew and that person wrote the “Gospel According to Matthew”. J. B. Philips, an Anglican translator of the Bible, in the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew, reluctantly acknowledges this fact:

Early tradition ascribed this Gospel to the apostle Matthew, but scholars nowadays almost all reject this view. The author, whom we still can conveniently call Matthew, has plainly drawn on the mysterious “Q”, which may have been a collection of oral traditions. He has used Mark’s Gospel freely, though he has rearranged the order of events and has in several instances used different words for what is plainly the same story. The style is lucid, calm and “tidy”. Matthew writes with a certain judiciousness as though he himself had carefully digested his material and is convinced not only of its truth but of the divine pattern that lies behind the historic facts.[3]

Another gospel worth mentioning is the “Gospel According to John”. This gospel is so different from the other three Synoptic Gospels that it is categorized distinctly from the other three. The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) stand together and are in several respects different from the Fourth Gospel (according to John). It is commonly attributed to John son of Zebedee the Apostle of Christ, which makes it an eyewitness account of Christ?s life and works but there were also dissident voices. K. Luke notes that

Irenaeus mentions groups who rejected Gospel of John. The Roman presbyter Gaius, appealing to the differences between Synoptics and Johannine Gospel, concluded that the later was the work of heresiarch Cenrinthus. Another group that repudiated the Gospel was the Alogoi. The negative position, it should be remembered never won acceptance in the early church, and any number of testimonies can be cited in support of the apostolic origin of the Gospel according to John.[4]

Such evidence can be found in many places throughout the New Testament. Although many people have hypothesized that it is possible that an author sometimes may write in the third person, still, in light of the rest of the evidence, there is simply too much evidence against this hypothesis.

Sometimes it is an individual’s own silence which proves to be the most deafening proclamation. For the period of a century and more the only “Scriptures” used by the first Jewish followers of Jesus were the Greek Septuagint translations (commonly designated LXX) of the Hebrew Old Testament, “the Law and the Prophets”, supplemented by various Jewish apocrypha and the Sibylline Oracles (150 BC to AD 180); these were the only “authorities” appealed to by the early “Church Fathers” when preaching their new faith. Nowhere do they quote the books which we know today as the “New Testament.”

Naturally, if the “history” of the Trinitarian Church regarding their chosen Gospels and what are claimed to be the inspired writings of Jesus’ first Apostles were true, and these writings had indeed been accepted as authoritative at that time, then they would have been the most precious and potent documents of preaching for their doctrine. Undoubtedly, they would have spoken of nothing else, but would have quoted them and appealed to their authority at every turn as they have been doing through the centuries since. But, for some 150 years, little or nothing besides the Old Testament and these Oracles were known or quoted. As said by the great critic, Solomon Reinach

With the exception of Papias, who speaks of a narrative by Mark, and a collection of sayings of Jesus, no Christian writer of the first half of the second century (i.e., up to 150 C.E.) quotes the Gospels or their reputed authors.[5]

In this day and age, some Christian scholars are even making the case for the authenticity of the Gospel of Thomas as the “fifth” Gospel. The Christians of this age have claimed that these books are false and forgeries. The Greek Church, Catholic church and the Protestant Church are unanimous on this point. Similarly the Greek Church claims that the third book of Ezra is a part of the Old Testament and believes it to have been written by the Prophet Ezra while the Protestant and Catholic Churches have declared it false and fabricated.

Grolier’s Encyclopedia says under the heading “New Testament, canon”:

The process by which the canon of the New Testament was formed began in the 2d century, probably with a collection of ten letters of Paul. Toward the end of that century, Irenaeus argued for the unique authority of the portion of the Canon called the Gospels. Acceptance of the other books came gradually. The church in Egypt used more than the present 27 books, and the Syriac-speaking churches fewer. The question of an official canon became urgent during the 4th century. It was mainly through the influence of Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, and because Jerome included the 27 books in his Latin version of the Bible called the Vulgate, that the present canon came to be accepted…[6]

Notice how the writings of Paul were the first to be accepted by the Trinitarian church. All other gospels were then either accepted or destroyed based upon their conformance to the teachings of Paul.

As have been already mentioned, we have already seen how “St. Paul” had all but totally obliterated the religion of Jesus(P) based upon the authority of his alleged “vision”. We then saw how his teachings were based more upon his personal philosophy and beliefs than any attempt to cite words or actions of Jesus himself[7]. We further saw how he was later made the “majority author” of the New Testament and countless authentic gospels were burned and labeled “apocrypha” by his followers.

Conclusion

It is clear that where the authorship of the New Testament is concerned, it is shrouded in the mystery of assumptions by the attribution of the works to authors which are immediately disproved once the internal evidence is studied. If the authors of the New Testament cannot be wholly traced to the works which are attributed to them, how could the New Testament stand to the scrutiny of being ‘the Word of God’? The question raises serious doubts about the legitimacy of “inspiration” behind the New Testament, as it is obviously the work of not only multiple hands, butunknown multiple hands.

References

[1] Richard E. Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible, (Harper San Francisco, 1989), p. 15

[2] Bart Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, p. 4

[3] J. B. Philips, The Gospels, (Geoffrey Bless, London), Introduction

[4] K. Luke, Companion to the Bible, Vol 2, (Theological Publications in India, Bangalore, 1988), p .9

[5] Solomon Reinach, Orpheus a General History of Religions, p. 218

[6] Grolier’s Encyclopedia, under “New Testament, canon”

[7] c.f. Galatians 2. Refer also to our section on Paul for an analysis of Paul from the Muslim perspective.



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The Terrorist

Praise be to Allah who granted us with the blessing of monotheism, I seek the refuge of Allah from disbelief and those people who associate themselves with disbelief.

The author of the Book of Revelations had described/portrayed his god as a slain lamb with seven horns and seven eyes. He says as follows.

And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.1

And in another passage:

These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings.2

and:

After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.3

Please notice the distinction in the last verse between God “which sitteth upon the throne” and the Lamb indicating that Christians have another god — a lamb — to worship in association with Allah, the True God Who is upon the throne.

l001 100x100 The Lamb of The Christians
l011 100x100 The Lamb of The Christians

l021 100x100 The Lamb of The Christians
l031 100x100 The Lamb of The Christians

l041 100x100 The Lamb of The Christians
l051 100x100 The Lamb of The Christians


What kind of god is that which is described/portrayed/viewed as a lamb, a sheep? And with seven eyes and seven horns! Indeed it is said in the New Testament that:

How much then is a man better than a sheep?4

And only God knows best! bismika tombstone The Lamb of The Christians

  1. Revelations 5:6 [back]
  2. Revelations 17:14 [back]
  3. Revelations 7:9-10 [back]
  4. Matthew 12:12 [back]


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Paul's Dependency on Talmudic Writings: Evidence of New Testament Borrowing

Mohd Elfie Nieshaem Juferi

While Christians would prefer to allude to the notion that Paul, the self-acclaimed “apostle” of Jesus, was “inspired” when he wrote his epistles, the evidences we have researched states otherwise. We have seen how Paul had cited a verse from the “apocryphal books of Elijah” but claimed that he was citing from the book of Isaiah. Apparantly this citing of quotations from apocryphal or Rabbinic writings was not alien to Paul, for in the epistles of Paul, there are abundant signs that he was extremely familiar with Rabbanic material and constantly refers to them. This is not surprising since Paul himself had admitted to familiarity with Jewish traditions under the tutelage of Gamaliel (Acts 22:3).

Paul’s Dependency on the Talmudic Writings: The Evidence

In 2 Timothy 3:8, we see that Paul traditionally names two of the Egyptian magicians who withstood Moses as Jannes and Jambres, respectively. He compares the both of them with his enemies, as the following verse records:

“Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so do these men oppose the truth, corrupt thinkers as they are and counterfeits so far as faith is concerned.”

The names of these two Egyptian magicians are nowhere to be found in the Old Testament. The Midrash Rabbah on Exodus, however, makes mention of these two names as “Yochani” and “Mamre” respectively, and states:

Amru Yochani uMamre L’Moshe: “teben atah makhnis L’efrayim?” Amar Lahem “L’matah yarqa yarqa sh’qol.”

Yochani and Mamre said to Moshe “Would you carry straw to Afraim?” He [Moses] said to them: “carry herbs to herb-town.”1

The names of these Egyptian magicians also appears in Midrash Tanchuma (Parshat Ki Tisa) 19:19 as a Commentary on Exodus 32:

Forty thousand people had assembled to leave Egypt with the Israelites, and among them were two Egyptians named Jannes and Jambres, who had performed magical feats for Pharaoh.2

Thus it is clear that these magicians’ names came from the Rabbinic traditions and had no doubt influenced Paul considerably to include these names in his epistle.

Paul also adopted the current Jewish chronologies in Acts 13:20-21. He alludes to the notion that the Adam of Genesis 1 is the ideal or spiritual, the Adam of Gen 2 the concrete and sinful Adam (1 Corinthians 15:47, also found in Philo, De Opif. Mund i.32). The conception of the last trumpet (1 Corinthians 15:52; 1 Thessalonians 4:16) , of the giving of the Law at Sinai by Angels (Galatians 3:19), of Satan as the god of this world and the prince of the air (Ephesians 2:2) and of the celestial and infernal hierarchies (Ephesians 1:21, 3:10; 4:12; Colossians 1:16; 2:15) are all recurrent in Talmudic writings.

When Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:10 that a women ought to have a veil on her head because of the angel, as stated in the following:

“The woman, therefore, ought to have a token of authority on her head, because of the angels”

he demonstrates a very high familiarity with the Talmudic writings, as he is apparently referring to the Rabbinic interpretation of Genesis 6:2 as follows:

Binei Elohim. B’nei ha-sarim v’ha-shoftim. Davar acher: b’nei ha-Elohim, hem ha-sarim ha-holkhim bishlichuto shel maqom, af hem hayu mitarvim bahem; kal elohim shebamiqra l’shon marut, v’zeh yokhiach: V’atah tiyeh lo lelohim, r’eh n’tatikha elohim.

THE SONS OF GOD. The sons of princes and rulers. Another explanation of B’nei Elohim is that these were princely angels who came as messengers of God, and they intermingled with the daughters of men. Wherever the word “elohim” appears in the scriptures, it signifies authority, thus the following passages: “And you shall be his master (elohim)” [Exodus 4:16] and “see, I have made you a master (elohim).” [Exodus 7:1]3

Paul obviously believed this Rabbinic tradition which states that angels have mingled with the daughters of men to have included this in his epistle. The Targum, as quoted in the epistle of Jude (2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6), clearly ascribe the Fall to the angels to their guilty love for earthly women.

The Jewish mind – a notion which is found over and over again in the Talmud, and which is still prevalent among Oriental Jews, is that they never let their women to be unveiled in the public lest the shedin, or evil spirits, should injure them or others. A headdress called khalbi is worn as a religious duty by Jewish women.

The reason why Solomon’s bed was guarded by sixty valiant men with drawn swords was because of fear in the night. (Cant iii 7, 8). This is alluded to the following story in Pesachim 112b:

“Lo yetse Y’chidi bifnei; lo b’leilei r’vi’iyot, v’lo b’leilei shabatot, mifnei she-Agrat bat Machalat, hi ushmoneh esreh ribo shel malakhei chabalah yotsin , v’kal echad v’echad yesh lo r’shut l’chaber bifnei atsmo.”

“Do not go out at night. Not on Wednesday night or on Sabbath night, because Igrath (Agrat) the daughter of Mahalath (Machalat) along with 180,000 destroying angels are out, each with permission to cause destruction independently.”4

They are called ruchin, shedin, lilin, tiharim.

Again, in Romans 4:5-12, Paul evidently accepts the tradition, also referred to by St. Stephen, that Abraham had been uncircumcised idolater when he first obeyed the call of God, and that he then received a promise – unknown to the text of the scripture – that he should be the heir of the world. (Romans 4:13, cf. Joshua 24:15). In Romans 9:9, whereby it states:

“For this is the message of the promise, ‘At about this time next year, I will come, and Sarah will have a son’”

it has been supposed, from the form of his quotation, that he is alluding to the Rabbinic notion that Isaac was created in the womb by a fiat of God. In Galatians 4:29, whereby it says

“But just as then the one born in a fleshly way persecuted the one born in accord with the Spirit, so too at present”

this is in accordance to the Haggadah tradition that Ishmael had not only laughed, but also jeered, insulted, and mistreated Isaac. Thus we find the following in Sanhedrin 89b:

“Rabbi Levi aamar: achar d’varaiv shel Yishma’el l’Yitschaq. Aamar lo Yishma’el l’Yitschaq: ‘Ani gadol mimkha b’mitsot, she-atah malta ben sh’monat yamim, v’ani ben sh’lash esreh shanah.’ Aamar lo: ‘Uvever echad atah m’ghareh bi? Im omer li ha-Qadosh, baruch Hu, z’vach atsmkha l’fanay, ani zovech.’ Miyad v’ha-Elohim nisah et Avraham.”

Rabbi Levi said: These are the words of Ishmael to Isaac. Ishmael said to Isaac: “I am greater than you in commandments, for you were circumcised at eight days old, and I when I was thirteen years old.” He [Isaac] said to him: “You tease me over one organ? If the Holy One, blessed be He, says to me ’sacrifice yourself to me,’ I will sacrifice myself.” Immediately God tested Abraham.5

In 2 Corinthians 11:14, whereby we read that

“…and no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light”

Paul adhered to the notion that the angel who wrestled with Jacob was Satan assuming the semblance of an Angel of Light. There is a remarkable resemblance to the smitten rock in the wilderness, which in 1 Corinthians 10:4 is called

“…a spiritual following rock.”

To the Rabbis the rock, from which water flowed, was round and like a swarm of bees, and rolled itself up and went with them in their journeys. When the Tabernacle was pitched, the rock came and settled in its vestibule. Then Israel sang the following:

“Spring up, O well; sing ye to it!” (Numbers 21:17)

and it sprang up. Paul’s instant addition of the words

“[...]which rock was Christ”

has Haggadistic elements which, in the national consciousness, had got mingled up with the great story of the wanderings in the Wilderness. Seven such current national traditions are alluded to in St. Stephen’s speech.

Conclusions

The Rabbinic teachings as recorded in the Talmudic writings was influential for Paul, and it is with these traditions in his mind that he had based his epistles on. Some of these stories have no basis in the Tanakh or the Old Testament, but only in the Talmud of the Jews. This clearly shows that Paul’s claim of being an “apostle” of Jesus and was divinely “inspired” in his writings can certainly be cast into reasonable doubt. The evidences as shown above clearly shows that Paul had resorted to heavy borrowing from the Jewish traditions as recorded in the Talmudic writings.

  1. English-Hebrew of Shemot Rabbah (Midrash Rabbah on Exodus), 7:12 [back]
  2. Midrash Tanchuma’s Commentary on Exodus 32, Samuel A. Berman (trans.), Midrash Tanhuma-Yelammedenu (KTAV Publishing, 1996), p. 598 [back]
  3. Rashi’s Commentary on B’re**** (Genesis), 6:2 [back]
  4. Pesahim 112b, Babylonian Talmud [back]
  5. Sanhedrin 89b, Babylonian Talmud [back]


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Behind The Bible Fraud - 
What Was The Church 
Trying To Hide?
By Robert Adams
New Dawn Magazine.com
6-21-5

Be sure to reload this page for the latest comments!
When I first spoke to a close Christian friend of mine about the publishing of Tony Bushby's The Bible Fraud, her reaction was one that many Christians have expressed, and one that made me aghast. She didn't want the book available because it would "persuade them away from the Bible and the word of God." Further discussions with her and many other Christians around the world about The Bible Fraud all result in the Bible being quoted as the ultimate reference for the apparent "words of God," and therefore the basis for their arguments. The problem lies in that they believe the Bible is infallible.
If we examine the oldest known Bible to date, the "Sinai Bible" housed in the British Museum (I believe that, during his many years of research, Tony had a private viewing of this priceless book), we find a staggering 14,800 differences from today's Bible and yet it still remains the word of God?
As Tony points out, the history of our 'genuine' Bibles is a convoluted one. Firstly we cannot be sure that we have the full version as it was originally intended. In 1415 the Church of Rome took an extraordinary step to destroy all knowledge of two second century Jewish books that it said contained the true name of Jesus Christ. The Antipope Benedict XIII firstly singled out for condemnation a secret Latin treatise called "Mar Yesu" and then issued instructions to destroy all copies of the book of Elxai. The Rabbinic fraternity once held the destroyed manuscripts with great reverence for they were comprehensive original records reporting the life of Rabbi Jesus.
Later, Pope Alexander VI ordered all copies of the Talmud destroyed, with the Spanish Grand Inquisitor Tomas de Torquemada (1420-98) responsible for the elimination of 6,000 volumes at Salamanca alone.
Solomon Romano (1554) also burnt many thousands of Hebrew scrolls and, in 1559, every Hebrew book in the city of Prague was confiscated. The mass destruction of Jewish books included hundreds of copies of the Old Testament and caused the irretrievable loss of many original handwritten documents.
The oldest text of the Old Testament that survived, before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls" was said to be the Bodleian Codex (Oxford), which was dated to circa 1100 AD. In an attempt by the church to remove damaging Rabbinic information about Jesus Christ from the face of the earth, the Inquisition burnt 12,000 volumes of the Talmud.
In 1607, forty-seven men (some records say fifty four) took two years and nine months to re-write the Bible and make it ready for press. It was, by the order of King James, issued with a set of personal 'rules' the translators were to follow. Upon its completion in 1609, it was handed over to the King James for his final approval. However, "It was self evident that James was not competent to check their work and edit it, so he passed the manuscripts onto the greatest genius of all time... Sir Francis Bacon"
The first English language manuscripts of the Bible remained in Bacon's possession for nearly a year. During that time ... "he hammered the various styles of the translators into the unity, rhythm, and music of Shakespearean prose, wrote the prefaces and created the whole scheme of the Authorized Version. At the completion of the editing, King James ordered a 'dedication to the King' to be drawn up and included in the opening pages. He also wanted the phrase 'Appointed to be read in the churches' to appear on the title page.
The King James Bible is considered by many today to be the 'original' Bible and therefore 'genuine' and all later revisions simply counterfeits forged by 'higher critics'. Others think the King James Bible is 'authentic' and 'authorized' and presents the original words of the authors as translated into English from the 'original' Greek texts. However, as Tony points out, the 'original' Greek text was not written until around the mid fourth century and was a revised edition of writings compiled decades earlier in Aramaic and Hebrew. Those earlier documents no longer exist and the Bibles we have today are five linguistic removes from the first bibles written. What was written in the 'original originals' is quite unknown. It is important to remember that the words 'authorized' and 'original', as applied to the Bible do not mean 'genuine', 'authentic' or 'true'.
By the early third century, it became well noted that a problem was occurring . politics! In 251AD, the number of Presbyter's (roving orator or priest) writings had increased dramatically and bitter arguments raged between opposing factions about their conflicting stories. According to Presbyter Albius Theodoret (circa 255), there were "more than two hundred" variant gospels in use in his time. In 313, groups of Presbyters and Biscops (Bishops) violently clashed over the variations in their writings and "altar was set against altar" in competing for an audience and territory.
When Emperor Constantine conquered the East in 324, he sent his Spanish religious advisor, Osius of Cordoba, to Alexandria with letters to several Biscops exhorting them to make peace among their own. But the mission failed and Constantine, probably at the suggestions of Osius, then issued a decree commanding all Presbyters and their subordinates "be mounted on asses, mules and horses belonging to the public and travel to the city of Nicaea" in the Roman province of Bithymia, the country of Asia. The Presbyters were instructed by the Emperor to bring with them the manuscripts from which they orated to the rabble (that's us!) "wrapped and bound in leather".
Constantine saw in this developing system of belief the opportunity to make a combined state religion and protect it by law. The first general church council was thus convened and the year was 325.
On 21 June, the day of the Summer Solstice, (and under those cult conditions) a total of 2048 "presbyters, deacons, sub-deacons, acolytes and exorcists" gathered at Nicaea to decide what Christianity really was, what it would be, what writings were to be used and who was to be it's God.
Ancient church evidence established that a new 'god' was to be approved by the Roman Emperor and an earlier attempt (circa 210) to deify either Judas Khrestus or his twin brother Rabbi Jesus (or somebody else) had been 'declined'. Therefore, as late as 325, the Christian religion did not have an official god.
After a long and bitter debate, a vote was finally taken and it was with a majority show of hands that Judas Khrestus and Rabbi Jesus both became God (161votes for and 157 votes against). The Emperor effectively joined elements of the two individual life stories of the twin brothers into a singular creation. The doctrine of the Celtic / British church of the west was democratically attached to the Presbyters stories of the east.
A deification ceremony was then performed 'Apotheosis'. Thus the deified ones were then called 'saviours' and looked upon as gods. Temples, altars, and images with attributes of divinity were then erected and public holidays proclaimed on their birthdays.
Following the original example set by the deification of Caesar, their funerals were dramatized as the scene of their resurrection and immortality. All these godly attributes passed as a legal right to Emperor Constantine's new deity, Jesus Christ.
The Emperor then instructed Bishop Eusebius to compile a uniform collection of new writings "bound together as one" using the stories from the large collection of Presbyters as his reference source. Eusebius was to arrange for the production of "fifty sumptuous copies ... to be written on parchment in a legible manner, and in a convenient portable form, by professional scribes thoroughly accomplished in the art". This was the first mention of finished copies of a Christian 'New Testament' in the history of mankind.
As one can imagine, to condense the real life of the Jesus Christ, the Church and His teachings with supporting evidence into a short article is very difficult. It is therefore wise for those who wish to have supportable evidence to read and study Tony Bushby's epic work, The Bible Fraud, along with it's detailed blood lines (family trees) and over 869 references. (see www.thebiblefraud.com)
However, attempting to summarize what Tony has written..... in 325 AD, the first Christian council was called at Nicaea to bring the stories of twin brothers, Jesus 'the Rabbi' and Judas Khrestus into one deity that we now know as Jesus Christ. Tony says they were not born of virgin birth but to Nabatean Arab Mariamne Herod (now known as the Virgin Mary) and fathered by Tiberius ben Panthera, a Roman Centurion. The brothers were raised in the Essene community and became Khrists of their faith. Rabbi Jesus later was initiated in Egypt at the highest of levels similar to the 33rd degree of Freemasonry of which many Prime ministers and Presidents around the world today are members. He then later married three wives, one of whom we know as a Mary Magdalene, a Druidic Princess, stole the Torah from the temple and moved to Lud, now London.
Tony believes the reason Jesus stole the Torah was that he said it contained "a very special secret", which he was going to reveal that secret to the world. He was stoned to death and the Torah taken from him before he could.
The elder brother, Judas Khrestus, with his "Khrestian" followers conspired to take the throne of Rome, his royal birthright, and was captured, tried, and was sentenced to be crucified. (The "Khrestians" and the Essenic army, the Nazarenes, would today be likened to terrorists.) At the trial, Judas exercised his royal birthright to have a replacement in Simon of Cyrene (Luke 23:41) and then was sold as a slave to live out his days as a carpenter in India.
Rabbi Jesus spent a considerable amount of time at the Palace of the British in Rome and sometime around 48 AD, he left for Egypt to pursue his greatest esoteric goal. The spiritual knowledge from his secret education in the Essene and Druid movements was soon to be elevated to the highest level possible - initiation into the innermost rite of the Egyptian temples.
It was probable that Rabbi Jesus' earlier initiation into both the Essene and Druid schools played a major part in his acceptance into the Egyptian school. The Druids could claim a very early origin and the essence of their wisdom was also that of the Essenes. In the case of the Essenes, it is possible to show that their movement was specifically established to preserve secret information, for they knew and used the sacred writing of the Initiates. The full meaning of the point being made by Bushby is that in the case of all Secret Schools, the inner and ultimate Mystery was revealed only to a High Initiate.
Those who were initiated into the Ancient mysteries took a solemn oath never to reveal what had passed within the sacred walls. Every year only a comparatively few Egyptian initiations were conducted, and the number of persons who knew their secrets was never at any time large. The initiations always took place with the onset of darkness and the candidate was entranced for periods of varying length, depending upon the level of the degree for which he had entered.
The first initiatory step involved a forty-day procedure that basically involved purification, not only in physical form, but dissolving all tendencies to evil thoughts, purifying the mind as well. It appears that he would have fasted, alternatively on vegetables, juices and very special herbal concoctions.
The New Testament recorded that this happened to Rabbi Jesus who "was led into the desert.... and he fasted forty days and forty nights" (Matt. 4:1-2).
This trial period involved more than just fasting. During the forty days and nights' ordeal, Tony says the candidate was required to study astronomical charts to supplement his skills in astronomy and memorize charts of the heavens. They were also given a particular ritual from which to memorize certain passwords, secret signs and handclasps, skills that are still practiced to this day in Freemasonry.
These initiations were not limited to Egypt. The ancient civilizations inherited these Mysteries from a remote antiquity and they constituted part of a primitive revelation from the gods to the human race. Almost every people of pre-Christian times possessed its institution and tradition of the mysteries. The Romans, the Druids of Britain, the Greeks, the Cretans, the Syrians, the Hindus, the Persians, the Maya and the American Indians, among others, had corresponding temples and rites with a system of graduated illuminations for the initiates.
The modern world knows little of these ancient rites yet they were conducted in a huge variety of buildings the world over.
The 'Towers' that are found throughout the East in Asia were directly connected with the Mystery-initiations. The candidates for initiation were placed in them for three days and three nights, whenever there was no temple with a subterranean crypt close at hand.
In this aspect of the initiatory procedure, Tony points out a direct Gospel parallel with Rabbi Jesus saying, "After three days I shall rise again", for he knew the finishing process he was to undertake would take three days being a symbol of the period of time required to complete a condition of development. The ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic texts speak of an initiate as 'twice-born', and he was permitted to add to his name the words 'he who has renewed his life', so that on some ancient tomb-inscriptions archaeologists still discover these phases descriptive of the spiritual status of the deceased person.
So little did the later Gospel writers understand the initiatory process that they never perceived they were developing a story that included a Rabbi's (and Arch Druid of Britain) experience in an Egyptian Mystery School.
St Austin (c. 380) asserted that it was generally known in church circles that Rabbi Jesus had been initiated in Egypt, and that "he wrote books concerning magic". In the Gospel of Nicodemus, the Jews brought the same accusation before Pontius Pilate, "Did we not tell you he was a magician?" Celsus (c. 178) spoke of the same charge. In the Clementine Recognitions, the accusation was brought against Rabbi Jesus that he did not perform any miracles but practiced magic and carried about with him the figure of a seated skeleton.
Jewish tradition invariably asserted that Rabbi Jesus learned 'magic' in Egypt. Bushby says the kernel of this persistent accusation may perhaps be reduced to the simple historical element that Rabbi Jesus went to Egypt and returned with far wider and more enlightened views than those of his former religious associates.
Now, I'm sure that many of you are having trouble grasping some of the ideas presented in this article and I congratulate you on taking the effort to read this far. We all need to demand our local Church, the Church scholars, theologians and media make an open examination of the evidence compiled in Tony Bushby's The Bible Fraud. It may rattle some core beliefs but what is more important to you . the truth or what sits comfortably because it's what you've known all you life?
I leave you with a quote from one of the conspirators
"How well we know what a profitable superstition this fable of Christ has been for us." Pope Leo X (1513-1521)
Article first published in New Dawn Magazine No 71, March 2002


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Jesus Predicted in the Vedic Literature?

By Stephen Knapp

Every once in a while someone writes in to ask me what I know about Jesus being mentioned in the Vedic literature, specifically the Bhavishya Purana. So I've decided to make the information that I know available to everyone.

Dr. Vedavyas, a research scholar with a doctorate in Sanskrit, discusses some important prophecies from the Bhavishya Purana, which he says dates back to 3000 B.C. He states that one prophecy describes the future appearance of Isha putra, the son (putra) of God (Isha)(Jesus Christ), born of an unmarried woman named Kumari (Mary) Garbha Sambhava. He would visit India at the age of thirteen and go to the Himalayan Mountains and do tapas or penance to acquire spiritual maturity under the guidance of rishis and siddha-yogis before going back to Palestine to preach to his people. So, if Jesus was trained by the sages of India, this would explain why he was able to perform various miracles (siddhas). It also explains why there are so many philosophical similarities between early Christianity and Hinduism.

Dr. Vedavyas goes on to say that the Bhavishya Purana describes how Jesus would visit Varanasi and other Hindu and Buddhist holy places. This is also corroborated by the manuscript on the life of Isha (or Issa), discovered by Mr. Notovich in 1886 at the Hemis monastery in Ladakh, India, as well as by the Hebrew inscriptions found in Srinagar, Kashmir at the Roza bal, the tomb of Yuz Asaf [Isha or Issa]. The Bhavishya Purana also is also said to have predicted how Jesus would meet Emperor Shalivahana who established the Shalivahana or “Saka” era. Dr. Vedavyas describes this in his Telegu book, Veerabrahmendra Yogipai Parishodhana.

Some scholars feel that the king in the following description encountered Jesus at a spot about 10 miles northeast of Srinagar where there is a sulfur spring. However, the description mentions that this took place in Tibet, near Mount Kailash, which is a good distance away from Srinagar. During the king's inquiries of who he was, Jesus is reported to have replied that he was Yusashaphat (interpreted as Yuz Asaf by K. N. Ahmad), and that he had become known as Isha Masiha (Jesus the Messiah). K. N. Ahmad dates the writing of these verses to 115 C.E. Although details of the verses may indicate that they received later editing, their basic theme that Jesus had traveled through India, Tibet and Kashmir continues.

However, I should also point out that this prophecy of Jesus in the Bhavishya Purana is found in no other Puranas, which often corroborate each other. This is why a study of the 18 majorPuranas will reveal an assortment of prophecies that are often repeated one in another. So to find this story of Isha Mashiha in no other Purana sends a red flag of warning. Furthermore, not everyone gives the Bhavishya Purana pure confidence. It is known that as many as 200 pages from this text had become lost or misplaced, and various interpolations are likely to have occurred in this text while India was under the British administration. So, we should be somewhat cautious about accepting this on face value.

The description that is taken to be of Jesus is found in verses 17-32 in the 19th chapter of the Chaturyuga Khanda Dvitiyadhyayah of the Bhavishya Purana. Nonetheless, to get a clearer understanding, here is what the verses say:

Texts 17 - 21

vikramaditya-pautrasca
pitr-rajyam grhitavan
jitva sakanduradharsams
cina-taittiridesajan

bahlikankamarupasca
romajankhurajanchhatan
tesam kosan-grhitva ca
danda-yogyanakarayat

sthapita tena maryada
mleccharyanam prthak-prthak
sindhusthanam iti jneyam
rastramaryasya cottamam

mlecchasthanam param sindhoh
krtam tena mahatmana
ekada tu sakadiso
himatungam samayayau

“Ruling over the Aryans was a king called Shalivahana, the grandson of Vikramaditya, who occupied the throne of his father. He defeated the Shakas who were very difficult to subdue, the Cinas [Chinese], and the people from Tittiri and Bahikaus who could assume any form at will. He also defeated the people from Rome and the descendants of Khuru, who were deceitful and wicked. He punished them severely and took their wealth. Shalivahana thus established the boundaries dividing the separate countries of the mlecchas [low classes] and the Aryans. In this way Sindusthan came to be known as the greatest country. That personality appointed the abode of the mlecchas beyond the Sindhu River and to the west.”

Text 22

ekadaa tu shakadhisho
himatungari samaayayau
hunadeshasya madhye vai
giristhan purusam shubhano
dadarsha balaram raajaa

Once upon a time the subduer of the Sakas went towards Himatunga and in the middle of the Huna country (Hunadesh - the area near Manasa Sarovara or Kailash mountain in Western Tibet), the powerful king saw an auspicious man who was living on a mountain. The man’s complexion was golden and his clothes were white.

Text 23

ko bharam iti tam praaha
su hovacha mudanvitah
iishaa purtagm maam viddhi
kumaarigarbha sambhavam

“The king asked, ‘Who are you sir?’ ‘You should know that I am Isha Putra, the Son of God’, he replied blissfully, and ‘am born of a virgin.’”

Text 24

mleccha dharmasya vaktaram
satyavata paraayanam
iti srutva nrpa praaha
dharmah ko bhavato matah

“‘I am the expounder of the religion of the mlecchas and I strictly adhere to the Absolute Truth.’ Hearing this the king enquired, ‘What are the religious principles according to your opinion?’

Texts 25 - 26

shruto vaaca mahaaraaja
praapte satyasya samkshaye
nirmaaryaade mlechadeshe
masiiho 'ham samagatah

iishaamasii ca dasyuunaa
praadurbhuutaa bhayankarii
taamaham mlecchataah praapya
masiihatva mupaagatah

“Hearing this questions of Shalivahana, Isha putra said, ‘O king, when the destruction of the truth occurred, I, Masiha the prophet, came to this country of degraded people where there are no rules and regulations. Finding that fearful irreligious condition of the barbarians spreading from Mleccha-Desha, I have taken to prophethood’.”

Texts 27 - 29

mlecchasa sthaapito dharmo
mayaa tacchrnu bhuupate
maanasam nirmalam krtva
malam dehe subhaasbham

naiganam apamasthaya
japeta nirmalam param
nyayena satyavacasaa
manasyai kena manavah

dhyayena pujayedisham
suurya-mandala-samsthitam
acaloyam prabhuh sakshat-
athaa suuryacalah sada

“Please hear, Oh king, which religious principles I have established among the mlecchas. The living entity is subject to good and bad contaminations. The mind should be purified by taking recourse of proper conduct and performance of japa [meditation on the chanting of the holy names of God]. By chanting the holy names one attains the highest purity. Just as the immovable sun attracts, from all directions, the elements of all living beings, the Lord of the Surya Mandala [solar planet], who is fixed and all-attractive, and attracts the hearts of all living creatures. Thus by following rules, speaking truthful words, by mental harmony and by meditation, Oh descendant of Manu, one should worship that immovable Lord’.”

Text 30

isha muurtirt-dradi praptaa
nityashuddha sivamkari
ishamasihah iti ca
mama nama pratishthitam

“Having placed the eternally pure and auspicious form of the Supreme Lord in my heart, O protector of the earth planet, I preached these principles through the mlecchas’ own faith and thus my name became ‘isha-masiha’.”

Text 31

iti shrutra sa bhuupale
natraa tam mlecchapujaam
sthaapayaamaasa tam tutra
mlecchasthaane hi daarune

“After hearing these words and paying obeisances to that person who is worshiped by the wicked, the king humbly requested him to stay there in the dreadful land of mlecchas.”

Text 32

svaraajyam praaptavaan raajaa
hayamedhan ciikirat
raajyam kriitvaa sa shashthyabdam
svarga lokamu paayayau

“King Shalivahana, after leaving his kingdom performed an asvamedha yajna and after ruling for sixty years, went to heaven. Now please hear what happened when the king went to (the heavenly region of) svargaloka.”

Thus ends the second chapter entitled, “The Age of Shalivahana” of the story of Kali Yuga of the Chaturyuga Khanda also called Pratisarga-parva of the wonderful Bhavishya Maha Purana.


As we can read here, this relates that the grandson of Bikrama Jit, Shalivahana, was the ruler of the Kushans. Some estimate that he ruled from 39 to 50 A.D. So the above described meeting had to have taken place within that time period. It is also said that the king vanquished the attackers from China, Parthia, Scythia, and the Bactrians. After establishing a border between the Aryans and the mlecchas, he ordered all the mlecchas to leave India. Once when Shalivahana went to the Himalayas he reached the land of the Hun, or Ladakh, and saw a man who was fair and dressed in white, looking very saintly. The powerful king asked who he was. The man replied that he was called a son of God, born of a virgin, a teacher of the nonbelievers, and was earnestly searching for the truth.

The king asked his religion. The man replied that he came from a foreign country where there was no truth, only unlimited evil. He had appeared as the Messiah but the terrible demon Ihamasi [illusion] of the barbarians appeared and he had ended up in her realm.

The man explained to the king that his religion was to purify the consciousness and impure body, after which, seeking guidance in the Naigama [a scripture], man could pray to the Supreme. By acting in truth and justice and engaging in meditation and spiritual unity, man will return to Isha, the Supreme Being. God will one day unite with all wandering spiritual beings, and Ihamasi [the evil of illusion] will be destroyed. Then man will be absorbed in the ecstatic image of Isha who exists in the heart and is the source of happiness. The man then told the king, "I am called Isha-Masiha" [interpreted by some to mean Jesus the Messiah, but is this really Jesus in this narration or someone else?]. After the king heard the man speak, the king sent the teacher of the faithless back to his land of nonbelievers.

Another thing Dr. Vedavyas says is that there is evidence that it was not Jesus Christ whom they crucified on the cross but his double. The last words, “Oh Lord, why have you forsaken me?” refers to Jesus having left him on the cross after Jesus went to the “promised land” of Kashmir. Of course, there are other theories on this. Among other scholars, some say Jesus did not die on the cross but was crucified, suffered and was later revived. Others also say his ascent into heaven was actually his journey up to the heavenly land of Kashmir, where he eventually died and was buried in Srinagar at the Roza bal, the presently known grave of Yuz Asaf, a name known to be that of Jesus.

Dr. Vedavyas goes on to say that the coming of Lord Kalki, as described in the Bhavishya as well as many other Puranas, is the avatara equivalent to the second coming of Christ as described in the Bible. Lord Kalki will be the next great world leader many years from now and will establish a world government based on Vedic Dharma and bring back the Vedic culture in a new Satya-yuga, a new kingdom of God. However, before this will happen, Dr. Vedavyas says the Bhavishya Purana describes a great tribulation and global disaster. Such things have also been described in Nostradamus’s predictions. However, we know these things tend to be cyclical and have happened before throughout the great expanse of time. So what may or may not continue to happen remains to be seen.

The Bhavishya Purana also relates the likelihood of a great war of wars which could change the entire map of the world, at least politically, and possibly even geographically if nuclear weapons are used. This has been further corroborated by other psychics and astrologers. The timing of such still remains to be seen.

Aside from all of this, the Bhavishya Purana also contains quotes relating to various personalities, such as Adam, Noah, Allah, Shankaracarya, Jayadev, Kabir, Nanak, Aurangzeb, Shivaji, and on up to the rule of Queen Victavati, meaning Queen Victoria. It even describes how the British will build factories in Calcutta. Most of these quotations are rather short with little elaboration, thus leaving the reader with few details to further the confirmation of what is described. An example of one such quote is that which describes the appearance of Mohammed, which is merely two lines with few details.

SPECIAL NOTE:

One point we must clearly understand, is that if we do accept that Jesus was predicted in the Bhavishya Purana and traveled to India, and if Jesus did study under the Vedic brahmanas and priests before returning to his homeland to preach, which some evidence indicates, then I’m sure it would come as a shock to most Christians that Jesus was an initiate of the Vedic wisdom of India. Thus, he naturally based much of his own teachings on Vedic knowledge, as anyone who is familiar with Eastern philosophy can see. This would also explain why there are so many similarities between early Christianity and the Dharmic wisdom, much of which seems to have been lost from the Christian fold through the ages.

It is obvious that Christianity is but a modified form of Sanatana-dharma. Yet, since Jesus spoke in parables on many occasions, the connection with Vedic knowledge and the deeper meaning of his teachings are not always made clear. In fact, there have been numerous diversions and misunderstandings made because of this, as shown by the hundreds of sects that have developed within the Christian community. So, essentially, this would also mean that you cannot comprehend the deepest aspects of Jesus’ teachings without understanding Vedic scripture or the philosophy of Sanatana-dharma, since those are really the roots of Christianity and the basis of the teachings of Jesus. Therefore, it makes sense that we all look into, study and learn this Vedic knowledge and follow its principles for a higher degree and more complete form of spirituality that we can add to our lives, for this is the foundation of most of the spiritual knowledge that has spread throughout the world into its many forms that we find today.


WAS JESUS REALLY PREDICTED IN THE BHAVISHYA PURANA?

Though some people have become convinced that Jesus went to India, or is predicted in the Vedic literature, there is also another view to this. With the help of the research done by B. V. Giri Swami, based near Mysore, India, he relates that a closer look at the prediction of Jesus found in the Bhavishya Purana strongly suggests foul play or interpolation on the part of Christian missionaries in India during the late 18th century.

The Bhavishya Purana is considered to be one of the major 18 Puranas of the Vedic canon. As the name suggests, it mainly deals with future events (bhaviysati). The Bhavishya Puranais also mentioned in the ancient text of the Apastambha-dharma-sutras, so it is to be taken as an original Puranic literature dating from the time of Srila Vyasadeva, who is said to be its original author.

However, there are presently four known editions of the Bhavishya Purana, each having different predictions from the other, but suspiciously having one consistent prediction - that of Jesus or Isha Masiha. One edition contains five chapters, one contains four, another contains three and yet another contains only two. Additionally, the contents in all four editions differ in various degrees - some having extra verses and some having less. Due to these circumstances, it is difficult to ascertain which of the four is the original text of the Bhavishya Purana, if indeed an original text still exists, but suspiciously, as mentioned, all four editions do mention Jesus.

The Venkateswar Steam Press edition of the Bhavishya Purana printed in Bombay in 1829 (and reprinted by Nag Publishers in 2003) is probably the most complete version available, containing all the main features of the four manuscripts. Since none of the four editions of the Bhavishya Purana predate British Rule in India, this further suggests a discrepancy. The fact is that the British tried to monopolize the publishing of all Sanskrit literature during the British Raj. They bought or confiscated any Sanskrit literature they could locate. And that is why you practically cannot find any Vedic literature that is published before 200 years ago. It is further known that they liked to publish their own translations, as if India could not produce its own Sanskrit scholars to translate the Sanskrit themselves. Plus, they would also try to interpolate various verses here and there to have the reader draw a different conclusion of the personality or traits of the characters described in the texts. Most were quite noble, but by slipping in verses that said certain persons had less than admirable qualities or degraded habits, or that questionable practices were used, it would change the reader’s disposition and attitude toward such personalities or the Vedic culture itself, even if they were Indian born followers of it.

Therefore, the consistent prophecy of Jesus in all four editions of the Bhavishya Purana, in spite of the differences in the editions found, seems to indicate an interpolation regarding the so-called meeting of Maharaja Shalivahana and Jesus. This is found in the 19th chapter of the Pratisarga-parva. However, as B. V. Giri Swami relates, in examining this section, certain flaws can be found which betray its dubious origins.

For example, at the very outset of this description of Jesus meeting Shalivahana, this section is fraught with historical inaccuracies. Shalivahana was the king of Ujjain (in modern day Madhya Pradesh), and while it is not surprising that Shalivahana traveled to the Himalayas, the enemies that he supposedly vanquished in battle before he went should be looked into more thoroughly. Historical research tells us that the only invading force that Shalivahana actually subdued were the Sakas, who entered India from the north-west regions. But as for his defeating the Cinas (Chinese), Bahlikas (Bactrians), Kamarupas (Assamese), Romas (Romans) and the Khurus (Khorasans, or Persians), there is no historical evidence that validates Shalivahana doing this, nor is their any historical proof of the Romans and the Chinese ever invading India at that time. The Bactrians (Greeks) came earlier during the Gupta Period and the Persians (Moguls) came later. The people of Assam were simply a small hill-tribe during this period of Indian history [the conquering of which would not have warranted a mention in Vedic verse].

Later, the king asks Jesus “Who are you?” and Jesus answers that he was born of a virgin. However, the Christian idea that Jesus was born of a virgin is based on the following verse found in the Christian version of the Old Testament in the Book of Isaiah: “Behold, a virgin has conceived and bears a son and she will call his name Immanuel.” But the original Hebrew text of the Book of Isaiah does not mention anything about a virgin. The original text being: hinneh ha-almah harah ve-yeldeth ben ve-karath shem-o immanuel, “Behold, the young woman has conceived - and bears a son and calls his name Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7.14)

The Hebrew word for virgin is betulah yet it appears nowhere in this verse of Isaiah. The word used is almah which simply means “a young woman”. Isaiah only uses almah once. However, the word betulah is used five times throughout the Book of Isaiah, so Isaiah obviously made a distinction between these two words.

After Jesus has introduced himself to Shalivahana, he explains that he is teaching religion in the distant land of the mlecchas and tells the king what those teachings are, in which he says: “Please hear from me, O King, about the religion that I have established amongst the mlecchas. The mind should be purified by taking recourse of proper conduct, since we are subject to auspicious and inauspicious contaminations - by following the scriptures and concentrating on japa (meditation on the repetition of God’s names) one will attain the highest level of purity; by speaking true words and by mental harmony, and by meditation and worship, O descendant of Manu. Just as the immovable sun attracts from all directions the elements of all living beings, the Lord of the Surya-mandala (sun globe) is fixed and all-attractive, and attracts the hearts of all living creatures.” (19:27-29)

However, nowhere in the Gospels do we find in the ministry of Jesus the above teachings to his followers, unless they had been removed from the Gospels and somehow preserved in theBhavishya Purana. Furthermore, in this passage, Jesus is advocating the worship of the sun-god (again, something that is absent in his instructions to the apostles, and in Christianity would be considered part of paganism). Japa, meditation, the negation of both good and bad karma, are all concepts that are familiar to eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, but not to the Abrahamic religions of the west, unless Jesus had already been trained by Vedic brahmanas and Buddhist priests at that time. In such a case, the Bhavishya Purana may have preserved some of the concepts of the teachings of Jesus that were never included in the Gospels, or were later deleted from them because of manipulating politics.

Considering the above anomalies and the fact that no edition of the Bhavishya Purana can be found prior to the British period in India, we can deduce that the Bhavishya Purana may have been tampered with by the Christian missionaries who added the chapter on Jesus. Their motive would be obvious -- to make the personality of Jesus acceptable to the Hindus in order to convert them to Christianity. This indeed was one of their tactics in regard to other texts as well.

In 1784, the famous Indologist Sir William Jones wrote the following letter to Sir Warren Hastings, Governor General of India, confirming our suspicions that this was indeed part of their program:

“As to the general extension [spreading] of our pure faith [Christianity] in Hindoostan [India] there are at present many sad obstacles to it... We may assure ourselves, that Hindoos will never be converted by any mission from the church of Rome, or from any other church; and the only human mode, perhaps, of causing so great a revolution, will be to translate into Sanscrit... such chapters of the Prophets, particularly of ISAIAH, as are indisputably evangelical, together with one of the gospels, and a plain prefatory discourse, containing full evidence of the very distant ages, in which the predictions themselves, and the history of the Divine Person (Jesus) is predicted, were severally made public and then quietly to disperse the work among the well-educated natives.” (Asiatic Researches Vol. 1. Published 1979, pages 234-235. First published 1788).

What better way to translate into Sanskrit whatever they could of predictions of the Christian prophets and then disperse them among the well-educated natives than to slip such translations into some of the Vedic texts themselves? Plus, we often see that Christians, especially in India, tell Hindus that since Jesus is supposed to be predicted in the Vedic texts, then they should accept Jesus as their ultimate savior. But the Vedic texts are much more open and inclusive than that and also describe so many more avataras and incarnations of Lord Vishnu. So why shouldn’t the Christians also accept Lord Vishnu or Krishna as the Supreme Person, or at least aspects of the Supreme Being? After all, it was proclaimed that Jesus was the son of God. And who is the Father? So Vishnu or Krishna must have been the Supreme Father as the Bhagavad-gita and other Vedic texts clearly state, and as Jesus himself says he is the son of God the Father. And if Jesus did go to India, then he was familiar with this concept, which he thus expressed in his own teachings in his homeland. This is not going against the Biblical tenants. After all, the Bible does not exactly describe who is the Supreme Person, but only gives Him a name, such as Yahweh. The Vedic texts, however, give God innumerable names and describes much more about Him, such as His character, personality, pastimes, and so on.

Swami B.V. Giri concludes that it may also be noted that throughout the Pratisarga-parva of the Bhavishya Purana we find the stories of Adam and Eve (Adhama and Havyavati), Noah (Nyuha), Moses (Musa), and other Biblical characters. These he also considers to be likely additions by zealous Christians. The Bhavishya Purana may well be a genuine Vedic scripture prophesying future events, but from the above analysis we may want to reconsider how likely it is that the Jesus episode of the Bhavishya Purana is an authentic Vedic revelation. Take the evidence and decide for yourself.

For more information on what it is like and what you will find by visiting the grave of Jesus in Srinagar, Kashmir and some of the background information that gives this place its significance, you can read the article on this website, Visiting the Grave of Jesus in Srinagar, Kashmir.

[This article available at: www.stephen-knapp.com]



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Haindava Keralam - Christian Missionary frauds to plant 'Jesus' in Vedas exposed

  • Haindava Keralam - global community of dedicated Hindu Keralites with a peace mission

    tags: no_tag

    • Christian Missionaries after their failure in refuting Vedas and Hindu scriptures even after repeated attempts , their tactics to dupe naïve Hindus had changed. Now their  attempt is to – To prove that  Jesus arrival was prophesied in Vedas and there by Hindus should convert to Christianity. Following the path of these Christian propagandists , Jihadi's are also trying die hard to plant their Allah and  Muhammad into Vedas. 
    • It is very interesting that the Christian propagandists are now willing to accept that Vedas originated even before their Bible and Jesus. It will also be interesting to search the truth that the life of Jesus was missing from his age 13 to 30 yrs from history books. In his research book titled ‘Christianity is Krishnanity’  by renowned historian and INA veteran Late Sri. PN Oak clearly proved with strong evidence regarding this view.  Since our missionary brothers started acknowledging the Vedas, it is right time for them to study more on Vedas, Hinduism and return to their parent religion i.e. Vedic Religion! 

      Om Krinvantho Vishwamaryam!



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Baptism of Jesus is not bedrock fact. It is entirely creative literature.


The baptism of Jesus by John the baptist, as i...

This is how Mark did NOT portray Jesus' baptism. Image via Wikipedia

The baptism of Jesus by John in the Gospel of Mark

  • is stitched together with images from Old Testament passages, and
  • serves the particular theological agenda of Mark that was challenged by later evangelists

So,

  1. if a passage in the Gospels can be shown to serve a theological agenda of an evangelist, thenaccording to widely accepted standards of biblical historiography, we have reason to question its historical authenticity; and
  2. if a passage can be shown to be a pastiche of other texts certainly known to the author and his audience, and if once we strip away those textual borrowings and are left with nothing that stands alone, or in other words, if once we remove the sheepskin and find nothing left underneath, then we have further support in our doubts as to the historical originality of the event; and
  3. if the only external testimony to John the Baptist contradicts or fails to support our narrative at significant points, then we will need more than three bag’s full of special pleading to justify holding to any shred of historicity in our little narrative.

To repeat what I won’t repeat here

I have discussed the evidence for the John the Baptist of Mark’s gospel being cut from OT passages, and how this cut-out shape stands opposed to the apparently historical account in Josephus’ Antiquities, and how the episode of the baptism of Jesus in Mark’s gospel is disqualified from being historical even on the grounds of one of mainstream biblical scholarly criteria for historicity. (The criterion of embarrassment only applies to those later evangelists, Matthew, Luke and John, who demonstrate embarrassment with Mark’s story, not with any historical event per se.) These demonstrations are inEngaging Sanders point by point: JB, and JB, strangest of prophets, so I won’t repeat those arguments here. Nor will I address the possibility that the baptism reflects an adoptionist or separationist Christology. Nor even the arguments advanced to suggest John the Baptist himself was a mythical creation.



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Galilee, where Angels fell and Jesus came; and where the Temple was condemned

Filed under: Enoch,Fallen Watchers,Gospel of Mark — neilgodfrey @ 4:01 pm 
Tags: Tel Dan, Mount Hermon, Dan, Paneion, Paneas, Caesarea Philippi

transfigurationmap1.jpg?w=313&h=297In both 1 Enoch and the Gospel of Mark the location of God’s revelation is in Galilee, and especially upper Galilee in the Tel Dan region extending through Caesarea Philippi to Mount Hermon. It was outside Caesarea Philippi that Jesus was acknowledged as the Christ, and at a nearby mountain where he was transfigured.

In both books, this northern location that has long been associated with sacred sites of Jewish and pagan origin is set in opposition to the earthly and corrupt priesthood and Temple system based at Jerusalem.

It may not be insignificant that in the Hebrew scriptures, Dan (part of this region), is regularly associated with apostasy from the faith centred at the Jerusalem Temple and priesthood.

(I would not normally have thought of this region as strictly “Galilee” but I am using the term as used by George W. E. Nickelsburg in his 1981 JBL 100/4 article, “Enoch, Levi, and Peter: Recipients of Revelation in Upper Galilee”, on which this post is based.)

The Galilean setting of Enoch’s vision and the fallen angels

1 Enoch 13:7-9

7. And I went off and sat down at the waters of Dan, in the land of Dan, to the south of the west of Hermon: I read their petition till I fell asleep. 8. And behold a dream came to me, and visions fell down upon me, and I saw visions of chastisement, and a voice came bidding (me) I to tell it to the sons of heaven, and reprimand them. 9. And when I awaked, I came unto them, and they were all sitting gathered together, weeping in ’Abelsjâîl [Abel-Maîn], which is between Lebanon and Sênêsêr [Senir], with their faces covered.

So Enoch delivered his message of judgment against the fallen angels seven kilometers from Dan, at Abel beth Maacah:

abel-beth-maacah.jpg

And we know that the rebel angels descended at Mount Hermon, according to Enoch 6:6:

And they were in all two hundred; who descended in the days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon

“Thus the whole of this primordial drama unfolds in a narrowly circumscribed geographical region.” (Nickelsburg, Enoch, Levi, and Peter, JBL 100/4 (1981) 583)

Historically sacred territory

  • Some scholars have seen links with the Ugaritic tale of Aqhat.
  • Archaeological excavations (much from Avraham Biran) have uncovered a high place extending back to the Middle Bronze Age (ca 2000 bce). . . .
  • The stories of Micah in Judges 17-18 indicate cultic activity at Dan
  • Jeroboam I chose this site for his northernmost shrine (I Kings 12:26-31)
  • Amos wrote of the shrine there (8:14)
  • Ahab rebuilt it
  • It was again rebuilt in 8th to 7th centuries, perhaps after the Assyrian conquest
  • It was enlarged in Hellenistic and Roman periods
  • Archaeological remnants include a Greek and Aramaic inscription, “to the God who is in Dan”, and a nearby statue of Aphrodite.
  • At the foot of the south slope of Mount Hermon was the Paneion, a sacred grotto dedicated to the Greek god Pan. Josephus describes it inAntiquities 15.10.3:

    This is a very fine cave in a mountain, under which there is a great cavity in the earth, and the cavern is abrupt, and prodigiously deep, and frill of a still water; over it hangs a vast mountain; and under the caverns arise the springs of the river Jordan. Herod adorned this place, which was already a very remarkable one, still further by the erection of this temple, which he dedicated to Caesar.

  • Polybius (16.18.2) references the name in association with Antiochus III’s victory in 198 bce, thus indicating that the worship of Pan was well established there in the Hellenistic era.
  • As quoted above, Herod the Great erected a temple there in honour of Augustus.
  • Greek inscriptions as late as perhaps the 3rd century ce indicate that the site continued to have religious significance into the early Christian era.

TransfigurationMap2.jpg

 

Spring of Banias river, one of the main tributory of the Jordan River. In the background Pan's cave

Spring of Banias (Panias) river, one of the main tributory of the Jordan River. In the background Pan's cave, in which the river originated in ancient times until an earthquake blocked it.

Gateway to Heaven

As quoted above (Enoch 6:6), the angels came down to earth, leaving their rightful station in heaven, at Mount Hermon.

We are reminded of Genesis 28 where Jacob slept at Bethel and finds he is at “the gate of heaven” where angels descend and ascend between heaven and earth. Bethel is at the southern end of Israel, with Dan at the northern border, and it is at Bethel we later find a companion shrine to Dan (I Kings 12:26-31; II Kings 10:29).

It is at the waters of Dan that Enoch sees the gates of the heavenly temple. In the Aramaic text of 1 Enoch 13:8 we read:

I raised my eyelids to the gates of the [heavenly temple].

After Enoch announces God’s judgment upon the fallen angels, they commission Enoch to intercede for them, including writing out a petition for them, and “to recite it in the presence of the Lord of Heaven” (13:4). The phrase, “in the presence of”, is a specific cultic term, as we learn from its many uses throughout Exodus and Leviticus.

To carry out this request, Enoch goes to Dan, and it from there that he is taken up into the heavenly temple to come before God. It is evident that the reason he went to Dan was for just this purpose — to find the presence of God in order to deliver the petition of the fallen watchers. It is by the waters of Dan (see previous post on Rivers and Revelation) that Enoch reads himself into a trance and is taken up into heaven. His way is marked by the usual signs of the presence of God: dark clouds, lightning, winds.

If Mount Hermon is the ladder from the heavenly sanctuary (12:4; 15:3) to earth, the waters of Dan stand in polar relationship to the gates of heaven and, through them, to the sanctuary and the throne of God. (Nickelsburg, p. 584)

Polemics against the Jerusalem Temple priesthood

In Enoch 15:2-4 Nickelsburg sees “yet another, more specific type of cultic language, which closely resembles explicit polemics against the priesthood”:

2. And go, say to the Watchers of heaven, who have sent thee to intercede for them: “You should intercede” for men, and not men for you: 3. Wherefore have ye left the high, holy, and eternal heaven, and lain with women, and defiled yourselves with the daughters of men and taken to yourselves wives, and done like the children of earth . . . .  4. And though ye were holy, spiritual, living the eternal life, you have defiled yourselves with the blood of women, and have begotten . . .

Compare Enoch 12:4

‘Enoch, thou scribe of righteousness, go, declare to the Watchers of the heaven who have left the high heaven, the holy eternal place, and have defiled themselves with women, and have done as the children of earth do, and have taken unto themselves wives

The polemic echoes those we read against the priests.

First, note the setting.

God is depicted as dwelling in a heavenly temple (in earlier OT texts such as Ezekiel, God descended to earth to commission his prophets) where he is attended by angels who are sometimes described as if they are priests. Thus Enoch 14:

8. And the vision was shown to me thus: Behold, in the vision clouds invited me and a mist summoned me, and the course of the stars and the lightnings sped and hastened me, and the winds in the vision caused me to fly and lifted me upward, and bore me into heaven. 9. And I went in till I drew nigh to a wall which is built of crystals and surrounded by tongues of fire: and it began to affright me. And I went into the tongues of fire and drew nigh to a large house which was built of crystals: and the walls of the house were like a tesselated floor (made) of crystals, and its groundwork was of crystal. 11. Its ceiling was like the path of the stars and the lightnings, and between them were fiery cherubim, and their heaven was (clear as) water. 12. A flaming fire surrounded the walls, and its portals blazed with fire. 13. And I entered into that house, and it was hot as fire and cold as ice: there were no delights of life therein: fear covered me, and trembling got hold upon me. 14. And as I quaked and trembled, I fell upon my face. 15. And I beheld a vision, And lo! there was a second house, greater than the former, and the entire portal stood open before me, and it was built of flames of fire. 16. And in every respect it so excelled in splendour and magnificence and extent that I cannot describe to you its splendour and its extent. 17. And its floor was of fire, and above it were lightnings and the path of the stars, and its ceiling also was flaming fire. 18. And I looked and saw therein a lofty throne: its appearance was as crystal, and the wheels thereof as the shining sun, and there was the vision of cherubim. 19. And from underneath the throne came streams of flaming fire so that I could not look thereon. 20. And the Great Glory sat thereon, and His raiment shone more brightly than the sun and was whiter than any snow. 21. None of the angels could enter and could behold His face by reason of the magnificence and glory and no flesh could behold Him. 22. The flaming fire was round about Him, and a great fire stood before Him, and none around could draw nigh Him: ten thousand times ten thousand (stood) before Him, yet He needed no counselor. 23. And the most holy ones who were nigh to Him did not leave by night nor depart from Him. 24. And until then I had been prostrate on my face, trembling: and the Lord called me with His own mouth, and said to me: ‘Come hither, Enoch, and hear my word.’ 25. And one of the holy ones came to me and waked me, and He made me rise up and approach the door: and I bowed my face downwards.

In verse 23 above, the word for “were nigh” is a technical word with cultic (priestly) connotations in a similar scene in Ezekiel 44:13, 15, 16; 45:4.

Similarly, the description of the angels serving God “night and day” is a cultic temple image: Josephus in Antiquities 7.14.7 writes

He also ordained that all the tribe of Levi, as well as the priests, should serve God night and day, as Moses had enjoined them.

and in Luke 2:37

and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying.

Nickelsburg sees comparisons with other polemics against the priests including those in the Damascus Document (CD5:6-7)

and they also continuously polluted the sanctuary by not separating according to the Torah, and they habitually lay with a woman who sees blood of flowing

and Psalm of Solomon 8:12

They walked on the place of sacrifice of the Lord, (coming) from all kinds of uncleanness; and (coming) with menstrual blood (on them), they defiled the sacrifices as if they were common meat.

and the last chapters of Ezra:

  • Thus like Ezra, Enoch’s title is “Scribe“: Compare Ezra 7:6, 11; Neh 8:4 with Enoch 12:3-4 and 15:1.
  • Compare the language of intercession in Enoch and Ezra:
    • 1 Enoch 13: 4. And they besought me to draw up a petition for them that they might find forgiveness, and to read their petition in the presence of the Lord of heaven. 5. For from thenceforward they could not speak (with Him) nor lift up their eyes to heaven for shame of their sins for which they had been condemned.
    • Ezra 9:6 And said, O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens.
  • The stories of Ezra and Enoch are very similar here:
    • Ezra arrives to find many Israelites, but especially priests and Levites, who have married foreign women, and thereby defiled the holy people and the priesthood.
    • Ezra prays on their behalf.
    • The people assemble before him, confessing their guilt and seeking forgiveness.
  • Compare Enoch:
    • The priests of the heavenly sanctuary have defiled themselves by marrying and intercourse with women who have been, as a class, forbidden to them.
    • They ask Enoch, the scribe, to intercede for them
    • The watchers assemble before Enoch to hear the outcome of the petition. They are condemned. No forgiveness.

The Geography Wars: Galilee versus Jerusalem

Now for the extraordinary irony that surely must have some significance for the earliest gospel narrative, that of Mark. Nickelsburg comments:

At several points, 1 Enoch asserts the geographical centrality and ultimate sanctity of Jerusalem (25:4-6;  26:1-2;  89:50; 90:20-36). It is striking, therefore, to say the least that the compilers of this post-biblical document have incorporated into it a vision that grants sacred status to the territory around the ancient and bitterly denounced shrine of the north.

Nickelsburg concludes that this must mean that the tradition found in Enoch must have been long and firmly grounded in this geographic area of Upper Galilee. He also sees the very precise cartographic descriptions of the locations of Dan and Abel Maîn as indicators that the tradition at some point embrace those who had first hand familiarity with this geographical region.

For these two reasons, then, Nickelsburg decides that the this Enochian tradition indeed originated in the Galilean area itself, and must in turn be closely associated with the visionary activity for which the area of Dan-Hermon was famous.

And there is the further support of later Jewish and Christian uses of this tradition, again with the same geographic locale.

But what is one to make of the priest-related language in this tradition in Enoch?

Nickelsburg suggests that what we see here is the well-known apocalyptic typology between primordial and end-time events.  Does the sin of the angels at the beginning of time speak, in fact, of the author’s consternation over what he sees as the defiled priesthood in Jerusalem?

We must make our historical extrapolations tentatively and with care. Nevertheless, myths are not created ex nihilo; they reflect the real world as the mythmakers see it. In the case at hand we note that a myth about the origins of the demonic world is framed in language that recalls and is at home in the indictments against a polluted priesthood (Ps. Sol.; CD).

Thy hypothesis is that circles in Upper Galilee who viewed the Jerusalem priesthood as defiled, and under God’s judgment, were the same from whom originated the apocalyptic myth of the fallen watchers of Enoch.

If the Temple priests in Jerusalem were defiled, then where did these communities find the presence and revelation of God? The suggestion is, of course, around the holy area of Dan. So there appears to be some indication that the traditionally sacred sites of Dan were the centres of divine revelation from God whose heavenly temple — and the gateway between heaven and earth — was nearby.

Jerusalem’s future hope

As we find in certain Old Testament prophets, the present defilement of Jerusalem’s temple and priesthood is not the end of the story. After the judgment comes the purified restoration.

If Jerusalem is impure now, in the last days the tree of life will be transferred to it.

Enoch 25:4-6

4. And as for this fragrant tree no mortal is permitted to touch it till the great judgement, when He shall take vengeance on all and bring (everything) to its consummation for ever. It shall then be given to the righteous and holy.

5. Its fruit shall be for food to the elect: it shall be transplanted to the holy place, to the temple of the Lord, the Eternal King.

6 Then shall they rejoice with joy and be glad,
And into the holy place shall they enter;
And its fragrance shall be in their bones,
And they shall live a long life on earth,
Such as thy fathers lived:
And in their days shall no sorrow or plague
Or torment or calamity touch them.’

But when the present condition of the Temple is described in the Enochian compilation, it is always negative.

Enoch 89:50, 73, 74

50. And that house became great and broad, and it was built for those sheep: (and) a tower lofty and great was built on the house for the Lord of the sheep, and that house was low, but the tower was elevated and lofty, and the Lord of the sheep stood on that tower and they offered a full table before Him.

73. And they began again to build as before, and they reared up that tower, and it was named the high tower; and they began again to place a table before the tower, but all the bread on it was polluted and not pure. 74. And as touching all this the eyes of those sheep were blinded so that they saw not, and (the eyes of) their shepherds likewise; and they delivered them in large numbers to their shepherds for destruction, and they trampled the sheep with their feet and devoured them.

Compare Malachi 1:7. This situation continues right up to the time of the author’s generation when eyes began to be opened (1 Enoch 90:6).

Qumran evidence

Multiple copies (or part copies) of Enoch have been found at Qumran. If, as is widely accepted, this collection represents a community who also had their own differences with the Jerusalem priesthood, we may have our first evidence of a tangible community who were among the heirs of the Enochian tradition.

Testament of Levi and the Gospel accounts of Peter

The above is just one section of Nickelsburg’s discussion. He goes on to examine threads that stitch together the Testament of Levi and Gospel narratives about Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi (in the same region), his being the first to witness the resurrection of Jesus, and his denial of Jesus which was in the context of the household of the high priest.

It may seem a very minor point by comparison with all of this, but one little detail that comes to my attention is the potential significance for the exorcism scene just after the transfiguration of Jesus, presumably on Mount Hermon. This had always seemed something of an anti-climax after a scene that resonates with the drama of Moses himself standing within the presence of God. When Moses returned from the mountain there was an adventure to match the glory in which he had been immersed. But if we see an exorcism by Jesus as a signifier of his power over the demons who fell at this very place, perhaps we can appreciate there was a bit more to the drama than a less informed reading of the text suggests.

The more significant point, I think, is that the Gospel of Mark itself presents Jesus’ climactic revelation, his transfiguration, at this same sacred area; and it is from this moment that he turns to face Jerusalem and its priesthood who is opposed to who he is and what he preaches. Before that final conflict, he himself will pronounce judgement on both the Temple and Jerusalem, and will repeat this before the high priest himself at his trial.

It is hard not to see at least this version of early Christianity itself having its roots in whatever was behind those Upper Galilean communities who preserved the Enochian myths and literature.
map3b3.jpg?w=303&h=426



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Mark: failed geography, but great bible student

Filed under: Gospel of Mark — neilgodfrey @ 8:07 pm 
Tags: Gospel of Mark, Gospel of Matthew, Galilee, Sea of Galilee, Book of Isaiah
Picture of Map
Image via Wikipedia

Much has been said about Mark’s poor knowledge of the geography of Palestine. A classic case is his bizarre itinerary for Jesus leaving Tyre to go north, then south-east, then back east again, to reach is final destination. On the map here, locate Tyre, run your finger north to Sidon, than let it wander to the right and downwards till it reaches Decapolis, then zero up to the “lake” of Galilee.

That is the route that the Gospel of Mark says Jesus took in order to get from Tyre to the “sea of Galilee”.

Jesus’ travel agent must have been offering a super-bargain or Mark had little real knowledge of the geography of the area, or . . . . and there IS a very simple explanation, I think.

And that explanation is, suggests R. Steven Notley in an article in the Journal of Biblical Literature(128, no. 1, 2009: 183-188), that the author of this gospel was simply following a passage in the Book of Isaiah that early Christians interpreted as a prophecy of where the Messiah was to appear and perform his saving works.

Isaiah 9:1

. . . in earlier times He treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt, but later on He shall make it glorious, by the way of the sea, on the other side of Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles.

This passage is better known from the Gospel of Matthew (4:12-16). But Notley finds good reasons to suggest Mark knew it — and used it — in his gospel, and has suffered the reputation of being a geographic illiterate ever since!

Mark informs us that Jesus was on his way to Bethsaida on the “Sea of Galilee”. But misadventure (stormy winds, ghosts, etc — Mark 6:45-53) led them astray and he and his disciples were obliged to resume their journey from 7:31

And again, departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he came unto the Sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis.

It’s now time to have another look at Isaiah 9:1. There are three geographical referents here, in order:

  1. the way of the sea
  2. the other side of Jordan
  3. [Galilee - Greek/LXX] [region - Hebrew] of the gentiles

Point 3 is important here. The Hebrew word was understood as “region”, but the Greek translation interpreted it as “Galilee”.

Originally Isaiah probably meant by “way of the sea” the main road to the Mediterranean Sea that marked the northern border of the uppermost lands of Israel threatened by the Assyrian invaders; and by “the other side of Jordan”, Isaiah was probably referring to the eastern frontier of Israel’s territory facing the first thrust of Assyrian conquests; and finally, by “region of the gentiles” (for the Hebrew takes the word that Greek translations have read as “Galilee” as originally meaning “region”) Isaiah was indicating the southern boundaries of these northern settlements.

Matthew took these three diverse regions and reinterpreted them for his Gospel to point to a single point on the map — the area of Christ’s ministry. By so doing, the word for “sea” became associated with Galilee (and it’s lake) and thus displaced from its original reference to the Mediterranean. Notley suggests, if I understand correctly, that Matthew was actually drawing on a pre-gospel Christian tradition or “midrash” of this verse in Isaiah.

In this way Notley explains the oddity of describing the more technically correct name, Lake of Gennesar (Luke), as a “sea” of Galilee.

The interesting point concerning this passage in Mark’s gospel, then, is that Mark’s itinerary for Jesus appears to follow the order of the geographical references in Isaiah. And in so doing, Mark has constructed a bizarre way to get Jesus from Tyre to the “sea of Galilee”, but has demonstrated a very close affinity to the passage in Isaiah:

So Jesus in Mark:

  1. leaves the Tyre-Sidon route, which is part of what was the ancient main highway from Galilee to and along the Mediterranean Sea (Isaiah’s “by the way of the sea”)
  2. travels across through the other side of Jordan, (through the Decapolis or gentile region)
  3. to finally arrive at the shore of the “sea of Galilee”

If this stands up to scrutiny, then perhaps we have an explanation for an itinerary for Jesus that Mark has long been criticized over.

Mark may have known little about the geography of Palestine, but he did know his Jewish scriptures.



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Did a Davidic Messiah have to be a descendant of David?

Filed under: Barker: The Great Angel — neilgodfrey @ 12:15 am 
Tags: Alan F. Segal, Ancient of Days, Bar Kochba, Christianity, David, Jesus
Rabbi Akiba (illustration from the 1568 Mantua...
Image via Wikipedia

No. At least not in the time of Bar Kochba‘s revolt against Rome, 132-136 ce.

That’s if we can trust the later rabbinic evidence that attributed certain beliefs to famous Rabbi Akiba who supported Bar Kochba’s claim to be the messiah.

(The relevance of this discussion to Christian origins lies in the context of arguments that Jesus being said, at various places, to have been of the seed of David or of Davidic descent. For starters, given modern scholarly (archaeological) understanding of the reality of “King David”, and even the “Davidic dynasty”, there was evidently no such thing as a “family of David” existing in Palestine at the time of Jesus, before and later, anyway.)

Bar Kochba’s original name was Simeon ben Kosiba. It was subsequently changed to Bar Kochba, which was Aramaic for “Son of a Star”, an allusion to the prophecy of Numbers 24:17. (This sort of name change based on a pun on the original name in order to fit a biblical prophecy is worth keeping in mind when one compares other apparent puns in names found within the gospels.)

The rabbinic passage is discussing this bible’s reference to the plural “thrones” in heaven, one for the Ancient of Days, and another, presumably, for the Son of Man (Daniel 7:9, 13-14). The passage follows on from references to a biblical contradiction where God is described as an old man (with white hair) in Daniel 7, but as a young black-headed man according to their interpretation of Song of Solomon 5:11.

One passage says: His throne was fiery flames; and another Passage says: Till thrones were placed, and One that was ancient of days did sit!

— There is no contradiction: one [throne] for Him, and one for David; this is the view of R. Akiba.

Said R. Jose the Galilean to him: Akiba, how long wilt thou treat the Divine Presence as profane! Rather, [it must mean], one for justice and one for grace.

Did he accept [this explanation from him, or did he not accept it?

— Come and hear: One for justice and one for grace; this is the view of R. Akiba. (Hagigah, 14a)

This passage in the Hagigah is really a little debate about a whether the two thrones in Daniel 7 are for two separate divine beings, or if they really represent two aspects of the one divine being, God. In this "correct" view that Akiba is said to have at first opposed, but eventually agreed with, the Son of Man represents God as the youthful warrior executing justice, while the Ancient of Days represents God as the indulgent old man dispensing grace. (Another disputant later chimes in by arguing one of the thrones was really only the footstool for the other!)

It seems scarcely likely that Akiba did actually change his mind, since he was killed before the war's end. So we are thrown up doubts about the reliability of the passage as a whole. If it appeared in the gospels, many critics would argue that the whole debate is written to meet the needs of its day, and the different arguments are put in the mouths of renowned past masters for rhetorical effect.

But for the sake of argument, and holding in abeyance for now all the caveats, let's accept at least the first part of the passage as reflecting the belief and teaching of Rabbi Akiba in the time of the Bar Kochba revolt.

What Akiba taught was that in Daniel 7 there were two thrones in heaven. One for the Ancient of Days and the other for David.

That can only mean (I think) that Akiba was said to have believed that the throne of the Son of Man in heaven was the throne of the Davidic Messiah.

Akiba in the 130s ce, we might say, taught that the Book of Daniel's Son of Man was the Davidic Messiah in heaven.

But we also know (or are informed) that Akiba supported the messianic claim of Bar Kochba, who is nowhere said to have been of the line of David. (I don't think there was any such thing as a real Davidic lineage except in literature, as mentioned earlier, anyway.)

Nonetheless, according to the rabbinic tradition, Akiba at the same time taught that the Messiah in heaven is "David", apparently metonymy for the Messianic throne.

Much of the above is derived from Alan F. Segal's Two Powers in Heaven.

The beliefs are not at all necessarily contradictory. We know enough about ancient beliefs to understand that the earthly is often said to represent the events and conditions above. So it would appear that Jews in the time of the Bar Kochba rebellion could conceive of an earthly Messiah who was, according to a strictly heavenly designation, also a Davidic Messiah. The earthly Messiah's genealogy had nothing to do with it.

Much of the following is derived from Margaret Barker's The Great Angel.

There is nothing to suggest that R. Akiba saw the Davidic messiah figure, for whom the second throne was set, as merely human; he could have viewed the Messiah as a manifestation of the second divine figure. He saw in Bar Kochba a political messiah, but this does not exclude the possibility that that Messiah figure was thought to have had a heavenly aspect. (pp.155-6)

Another point of significance that Barker brings out is how early such discussions and beliefs must have been. If we accept the Hagigah 14a passage as evidence for the historical Akiba's beliefs in the early 130's, then we might fairly conclude that he is addressing or countering debates and controversies that existed prior to his time.

In other words, we have some reason to think that, according to this Jewish evidence, the idea of the Son of Man in Daniel 7 should be interpreted as the Messiah precedes the 130s. Presumably this is evidence for other Jewish sects, possibly the Christians too, having such beliefs or debates at the turn of the century.

Of additional interest is Margaret Barker's conclusion of this particular discussion by reference to Justin's Dialogue with Trypho. This testifies to being written soon after the Bar Kochba war.

In this work, Justin is engaging a Jew in a debate (Justin is the author of both sides, of course). What is significant here is that Justin merely finds himself debating the identity of the Son of Man -- whether it was Jesus or someone else. There is no controversy over whether or not the Son of Man was a Messianic figure. It appears that Justin can presume that even the Jews he knew, whom he summed up in Trypho, took for granted that Daniel 7's Son of Man was understood to be the Messiah.

And when I had ceased, Trypho said, "These and such like Scriptures, sir, compel us to wait for Him who, as Son of man, receives from the Ancient of days the everlasting kingdom. But this so-called Christ of yours was dishonourable and inglorious, so much so that the last curse contained in the law of God fell on him, for he was crucified." (Trypho, 32)


133—4 AD

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தேவனுடைய நாமங்கள் மொத்தமாக 272 நாமங்கள் உள்ளன.

அவற்றில் பழைய எற்பாட்டில் ஒரே தேவனை எபிரெய பாஷையில் இப்படி அழைத்தார்கள்.

 

யேகோவா-ஏலோஹெக்கா     உன் தேவனாகிய கர்த்தராய் இருக்கிற நான் அல்லது கர்த்தருடைய  யாத் 20:2,5,7

யேகோவா- மெக்கடெஷ்        கர்த்தர் பரிசுத்தர்  யாத் 31:13, லேவி 20:8

யேகோவா-ஷாபோத்           சேனைகளின் கர்த்தர்   1 சாமு 1:3

யேகோவா-கோசீன்னு          நம்மை உண்டாக்கின கர்த்தர் சங் 95:6

யேகோவா-ஏலோகீம்           கர்த்தரே நம்முடைய தேவன் சங் 95:7 , 100:3

யேகோவா-நக்கா               கர்த்தர் நித்தமும் உன்னை நடத்துவார் ,

கர்த்தர் உன் ஆத்துமாவைத் திருப்தியாக்குவார்  ஏசா 58:11

யேகோவா-யீரே                கர்த்தர் காண்கிறார்  ஆதி 22:13-14

யேகோவா-றாப்ஹே {றோபா}     கர்த்தர் உன் பரிகாரி யாத் 17:26

யேகோவா-நிசி                 கர்த்தர் என் விருதுக்கொடி  யாத் 17:15

யேகோவா-ஷாலோம்           கர்த்தர் என் சமாதானம் நியா 6:24

யேகோவா-ஷம்மா              கர்த்தர் அங்கே இருக்கிறார்  எசே 48:35

யேகோவா-ஜிட்கேனு            நமது நீதியாயிருக்கிற கர்த்தர்  எரே 23:6

யேகோவா-றோஷி              கர்த்தர் என் மேய்ப்பர் சங் 23:1

யேகோவா-கமுவா              தேவனாகிய கர்த்தர் நிச்சயமாக பதில் அளிப்பவர்  எரே 51:56

யேகோவா-மெக்கா              நான் கர்த்தர்  எசே 7:9

யேகோவா -ஏல்யோன்          தேவன் நீதியுள்ள நியாயாதிபதி  சங் 7:17,9,11

யேகோவா -ஏலோகே           என் தேவனாகிய கர்த்தர் வருவார் சக 14:5

யேகோவா-ஏலோஹீனு         கர்த்தர் -என்பரிசுத்தர் - மன்னிக்கிறவர்    சங் 99:5,8.,9

யேகோவா-அடோனை           கர்த்தர் நானே, கர்த்தர் என் கேடகமும்,என் மகா பெரிய பலனுமானவர்  ஆதி15:1,7

யேகோவா-கெட்மா              நான் உன் சத்துருக்களுக்கு நீங்கலாக்கி விடுவிக்கிற சகாயர்   உபா 33:7,17 சங் 46:1

ஏல்ஷாடாய்                     சர்வ வல்லமையள்ளவர்   ஆதி 17:1,28:3  யாத் 6:3

ஏல்எலியோன்                   உன்னதமான தேவன் ஆதி 14:18,  சங் 82:6

அடோனாய்                      ஆண்டவர்   எசா 6:11 , 21:6

யேகோவா-சபாயோத்            சேனைகளின் கர்த்தர்  ஏரே 46:18




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REFUTING MISSIONARIES
by Hayyim ben Yehoshua
PART 1: THE MYTH OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS

Much concern has been expressed in the Jewish media regarding the activity of "Jews for Jesus" and other missionary organizations who go out of their way to convert Jews to Christianity. Unfortunately, many Jews are ill equipped to deal with Christian missionaries and their arguments. Hopefully this article will contribute to remedying this situation.

When countering Christian missionaries it is important to base one's arguments on correct facts. Arguments based on incorrect facts can easily backfire and end up strengthening the arguments of the missionaries.

It is rather unfortunate that many well-meaning Jewish Studies teachers have unwittingly aided missionaries by teaching Jewish pupils incorrect information about the origins of Christianity. I can recall being taught the following story about Jesus at the Jewish day school I attended:

A few years after being taught this seemingly innocent story, I became interested in the origins of Christianity and decided to do some further reading on the "famous Rabbi Yehoshua." Much to my dismay, I discovered that there was no historical evidence of this Rabbi Yehoshua. The claim that Jesus was a rabbi named Yehoshua and the claim that his body was probably stolen both turned out to be pure conjecture. The rest of the story was nothing more than a watered down version of the story which Christians believe as part of the Christian religion but which is not supported by any legitimate historical source.

There was absolutely no historical evidence that Jesus, Joseph or Mary ever existed, let alone that Joseph was a carpenter or that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and lived in Nazareth.

Despite the lack of evidence for Jesus's existence many Jews have made the tragic mistake of assuming that the New Testament story is largely correct and have tried to refute Christianity by attempting to rationalize the various miracles that allegedly occurred during Jesus's life and after his death. Numerous books have been written which take this approach to Christianity. This approach however is hopelessly flawed and is in fact dangerous since it encourages belief in the New Testament.

When the Israelites were confronted with the worship of Baal they did not blindly accept the ancient West Semitic myths as history. When the Maccabees were confronted with Greek religion they did not blindly accept Greek mythology as history. Why do so many modern Jews blindly accept Christian mythology? The answer to this question seems to be that many Christians do not know themselves where the distinction between established history and Christian belief lies and they have passed their confusion on to the Jewish community. Browsing through the religion section of a local bookstore, I recently came across a book which claimed to be an objective biography of Jesus. It turned out to be nothing more than a summary of the usual New Testament story. It even included claims that Jesus's miracles had been witnessed but that rational explanations for them might exist. Many history books written by Christians take a similar approach. Some Christian authors will suggest that perhaps the miracles are not completely historical but they nevertheless follow the general New Testament story. The idea that there was a real historical Jesus has thus become entrenched in Christian society and Jews living in the Christian world have come to blindly accept this belief because they have never seen it seriously challenged.

Despite the widespread belief in Jesus the fact remains that there is no historical Jesus. In order to understand what is meant by an "historical Jesus," consider King Midas in Greek mythology. The story that King Midas turned everything he touched into gold is clearly nonsense, yet despite this we know that there was a real King Midas. Archaeologists have excavated his tomb and found his skeletal remains. The Greeks who told the story of Midas and his golden touch clearly intended people to identify him with the real Midas. So although the story of the golden touch is fictional, the story is about a person whose existence is known as a fact--the "historical Midas." In the case of Jesus, however, there is no single person whose existence is known as a fact and who is also intended to be the subject of the Jesus stories, i.e. there is no historical Jesus.

When confronted by a Christian missionary, one should immediately point out that the very existence of Jesus has not been proven. When missionaries argue they usually appeal to emotions rather than to reason and they will attempt to make you feel embarrassed about denying the historicity of Jesus. The usual response is something like "Isn't denying the existence of Jesus just as silly as denying the existence of Julius Caesar or Queen Elizabeth?" A popular variation of this response used especially against Jews is "Isn't denying the existence of Jesus like denying the Holocaust?" One should then point out that there are ample historical sources confirming the existence of Julius Caesar, Queen Elizabeth or whoever else is named, while there is no corresponding evidence for Jesus.

To be perfectly thorough you should take time to do some research on the historical personalities mentioned by the missionaries and present hard evidence of their existence. At the same time you should challenge the missionaries to provide similar evidence of Jesus's existence. You should point out that although the existence of Julius Caesar, or Queen Elizabeth, etc., is accepted worldwide, the same is not true of Jesus. In the Far East where the major religions are Buddhism, Shinto, Taoism and Confucianism, Jesus is considered to be just another character in Western religious mythology, on a par with Thor, Zeus and Osiris. Most Hindus do not believe in Jesus, but those who do consider him to be one of the many avatars of the Hindu god Vishnu. Muslims certainly believe in Jesus but they reject the New Testament story and consider him to be a prophet who announced the coming of Muhammed. They explicitly deny that he was ever crucified.

To sum up, there is no story of Jesus which is uniformly accepted worldwide. It is this fact which puts Jesus on a different level to established historical personalities. If the missionaries use the "Holocaust reply," you should point out that the Holocaust is well-documented and that there are numerous eyewitness reports. It should be pointed out that most of the people who deny the Holocaust have turned out to be antisemitic hate-mongers with fraudulent credentials. On the other hand, millions of honest people in Asia, who make up the majority of the world's population, have failed to be convinced by the Christian story of Jesus since there is no compelling evidence for its authenticity. The missionaries will insist that the story of Jesus is a well-established fact and will argue that there is "plenty of evidence supporting it." One should then insist on seeing this evidence and refuse to listen any further until they produce it.

If Jesus was not an historical person, where did the whole New Testament story come from in the first place? The Hebrew name for Christians has always been Notzrim. This name is derived from the Hebrew wordneitzer, which means a shoot or sprout--an obvious Messianic symbol. There were already people called Notzrim at the time of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachyah (c. 100 B.C.E.). Although modern Christians claim that Christianity only started in the first century C.E., it is clear that the first century Christians in Israel considered themselves to be a continuation of the Notzri movement which had been in existence for about 150 years. One of the most notorious Notzrim was Yeishu ben Pandeira, also known as Yeishu ha-Notzri. Talmudic scholars have always maintained that the story of Jesus began with Yeishu. The Hebrew name for Jesus has always been Yeishu and the Hebrew for "Jesus the Nazarene" has always been "Yeishu ha-Notzri." (The name Yeishu is a shortened form of the name Yeishua, not Yehoshua.) It is important to note that Yeishu ha-Notzri is not an historical Jesus since modern Christianity denies any connection between Jesus and Yeishu and moreover, parts of the Jesus myth are based on other historical people besides Yeishu.

We know very little about Yeishu ha-Notzri. All modern works that mention him are based on information taken from the Tosefta and the Baraitas - writings made at the same time as the Mishna but not contained in it. Because the historical information concerning Yeishu is so damaging to Christianity, most Christian authors (and even some Jewish ones) have tried to discredit this information and have invented many ingenious arguments to explain it away. Many of their arguments are based on misunderstandings and misquotations of the Baraitas and in order to get an accurate picture of Yeishu one should ignore Christian authors and examine the Baraitas directly.

The skimpy information contained in the Baraitas is as follows: Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachyah once repelled Yeishu with both hands. People believed that Yeishu was a sorcerer and they considered him to be a person who had led the Jews astray. As a result of charges brought against him (the details of which are not known, but which probably involved high treason) Yeishu was stoned and his body hung up on the eve of Passover. Before this he was paraded around for forty days with a herald going in front of him announcing that he would be stoned and calling for people to come forward to plead for him. Nothing was brought forward in his favor however. Yeishu had five disciples: Mattai, Naqai, Neitzer, Buni, and Todah.

In the Tosefta and the Baraitas, Yeishu's father is named Pandeira or Panteiri. These are Hebrew-Aramaic forms of a Greek name. In Hebrew the third consonant of the name is written either with a dalet or a tet. Comparison with other Greek words transliterated into Hebrew shows that the original Greek must have had a delta as its third consonant and so the only possibility for the father's Greek name is Panderos. Since Greek names were common among Jews during Hashmonean times it is not necessary to assume that he was Greek, as some authors have done.

The connection between Yeishu and Jesus is corroborated by the the fact that Mattai and Todah, the names of two of Yeishu's disciples, are the original Hebrew forms of Matthew and Thaddaeus, the names of two of Jesus's disciples in Christian mythology.

The early Christians were also aware of the name "ben Pandeira" for Jesus. The pagan philosopher Celsus, who was famous for his arguments against Christianity, claimed in 178 C.E. that he had heard from a Jew that Jesus's mother, Mary, had been divorced by her husband, a carpenter, after it had been proved that she was an adultress. She wandered about in shame and bore Jesus in secret. His real father was a soldier named Pantheras. According to the Christian writer Epiphanius (c. 320 - 403 C.E.), the Christian apologist Origen (c.185 – 254 C.E.) had claimed that "Panther" was the nickname for Jacob the father of Joseph, the stepfather of Jesus. It should be noted that Origen's claim is not based on any historical information. It is purely a conjecture aimed at explaining away the Pantheras story of Celsus. That story is also not historical. The claim that the name of Jesus's mother was Mary and the claim that her husband was a carpenter is taken directly from Christian belief. The claim that Jesus's real father was named Pantheras is based on an incorrect attempt at reconstructing the original form of Pandeira. This incorrect reconstruction was probably influenced by the fact that the name Pantheras was found among Roman soldiers.

Why did people believe that Jesus's mother was named Mary and her husband named Joseph? Why did non-Christians accuse Mary of being an adultress while Christians believed she was a virgin? To answer these questions one must examine some of the legends surrounding Yeishu. We cannot hope to obtain the absolute truth concerning the origins of the Jesus myth but we can show that reasonable alternatives exist to blindly accepting the New Testament.

The name Joseph for Jesus's stepfather is easy to explain. The Notzri movement was particularly popular with the Samaritan Jews. While the Pharisees were waiting for a Messiah who would be a descendant of David, the Samaritans wanted a Messiah who would restore the northern kingdom of Israel. The Samaritans emphasized their partial descent from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, who were descended from the Joseph of the Torah. The Samaritans considered themselves to be "Bnei Yoseph" i.e. "sons of Joseph," and since they believed that Jesus had been their Messiah, they would have assumed that he was a "son of Joseph." The Greek speaking population, who had little knowledge of Hebrew and true Jewish traditions, could have easily misunderstood this term and assumed that Joseph was the actual name of Jesus's father. This conjecture is corroborated by the fact that according to the Gospel of Matthew, Joseph's father is named Jacob, just like the Torah Joseph. Later, other Christians, who followed the idea that the Messiah was to be descended from David, tried to trace Joseph back to David. They came up with two contradictory genealogies for him, one recorded in Matthew and the other in Luke. When the idea that Mary was a virgin developed, the mythical Joseph was relegated to the position of simply being her husband and the stepfather of Jesus.

To understand where the Mary story came from we have to turn to another historical character who contributed to the Jesus myth, namely ben Stada. All the information we have on ben Stada again comes from the Tosefta and the Baraitas. There is even less information about him than about Yeishu. Some people believed that he had brought spells out of Egypt in a cut in his flesh, others thought that he was a madman. He was a beguiler and was caught by the method of concealed witnesses. He was stoned in Lod.

In the Tosefta, ben Stada is called ben Sotera or ben Sitera. Sotera seems to be the Hebrew-Aramaic form of the Greek name Soteros. The forms "Sitera" and "Stada" seem have arisen as misreadings and spelling mistakes (yod replacing vav and dalet replacing reish).

Since there was so little information concerning ben Stada, many conjectures arose as to who he was. It is known from the Gemara that he was confused with Yeishu. This probably resulted from the fact that both were executed for treasonous teachings and were associated with sorcery. People who confused ben Stada with Yeishu had to explain why he was also called ben Pandeira. Since the name "Stada" resembles the Aramaic expression "stat da," meaning "she went astray" it was thought that "Stada" referred to the mother of Yeishu and that she was an adultress. Consequently, people began to think that Yeishu was the illegitimate son of Pandeira. These ideas are in fact mentioned in the Gemara and are probably much older. Since ben Stada lived in Roman times and the name Pandeira resembled the name Pantheras found among Roman soldiers, it was assumed that Pandeira had been a Roman soldier stationed in Israel. This certainly explains the story mentioned by Celsus.

The Tosefta mentions a famous case of a woman named Miriam bat Bilgah marrying a Roman soldier. The idea that Yeishu had been born to a Jewish woman who had had an affair with a Roman soldier probably resulted in Yeishu's mother being confused with this Miriam. The name "Miriam" is of course the original form of the name "Mary." It is in fact known from the Gemara that some of the people who confused Yeishu with ben Stada believed that Yeishu's mother was "Miriam the women's hairdresser."

The story that Mary (Miriam) the mother of Jesus was an adulteress was certainly not acceptable to the early Christians. The virgin birth story was probably invented to clear Mary's name. The early Christians did not suck this story out of their thumbs. Virgin birth stories were fairly common in pagan myths. The following mythological characters were all believed to have been born to divinely impregnated virgins: Romulus and Remus, Perseus, Zoroaster, Mithras, Osiris-Aion, Agdistis, Attis, Tammuz, Adonis, Korybas, Dionysus. The pagan belief in unions between gods and women, regardless of whether they were virgins or not, is even more common. Many characters in pagan mythology were believed to be sons of divine fathers and human females. The Christian belief that Jesus was the son of God born to a virgin, is typical of Greco-Roman superstition. The Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexandria (c. 30 B.C.E - 45 C.E.), warned against the widespread superstitious belief in unions between male gods and human females which returned women to a state of virginity.

The god Tammuz, worshipped by pagans in northern Israel, was said to have been born to the virgin Myrrha. The name "Myrrha" superficially resembles "Mary/Miriam" and it is possible that this particular virgin birth story influenced the Mary story more than the others. Like Jesus, Tammuz was always called Adon, meaning "Lord." (The character Adonis in Greek mythology is based on Tammuz.) As we will see later, the connection between Jesus and Tammuz goes much further than this.

The idea that Mary had been an adultress never completely disappeared in Christian mythology. Instead, the character of Mary was split into two: Mary the mother of Jesus, believed to be a virgin, and Mary Magdalene, believed to be a woman of ill repute. The idea that the character of Mary Magdalene is also derived from Miriam the mythical mother of Yeishu, is corroborated by the fact that the strange name "Magdalene" clearly resembles the Aramaic term "mgadla nshaya," meaning "womens' hairdresser." As mentioned before, there was a belief that Yeishu's mother was "Miriam the women's hairdresser." Because the Christians did not know what the name "Magdalene" meant, they later conjectured that it meant that she had come from a place called Magdala on the west of Lake Kinneret. The idea of the two Marys fitted in well with the pagan way of thinking. The image of Jesus being followed by the two Marys is strongly reminiscent of Dionysus being followed by Demeter and Persephone.

The Gemara contains an interesting legend concerning Yeishu which attempts to elucidate the Beraita which says that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachyah repelled Yeishu with both hands. The legend claims that when the Hashmonean king Yannai was killing the Pharisees, Rabbi Yehoshua and Yeishu fled to Egypt. When returning they came upon an inn. The Aramaic word "aksanya" means both "inn" or "innkeeper." Rabbi Yehoshua remarked how beautiful the "aksanya" was (meaning the inn). Yeishu (meaning the innkeeper) replied that her eyes were too narrow. Rabbi Yehoshua was very angry with Yeishu and excommunicated him. Yeishu asked many times for forgiveness but Rabbi Yehoshua would not forgive him. Once when Rabbi Yehoshua was reciting the Shema, Yeishu came up to him. He made a sign to him that he should wait. Yeishu misunderstood and thought that he was being rejected again. He mocked Rabbi Yehoshua by setting up a brick and worshipping it. Rabbi Yehoshua told him to repent but he refused to, saying that he had learned from him that anyone who sins and causes many to sin, is not given the opportunity to repent.

The above story, up to the events at the inn, closely resembles another legend in which the protagonist is not Rabbi Yehoshua but his disciple Yehuda ben Tabbai. In this legend, Yeishu is not named. One may thus question whether Yeishu really went to Egypt or not. It is possible that Yeishu was confused with some other disciple of either Rabbi Yehoshua or Rabbi Yehuda. The confusion might have resulted from the fact that Yeishu was confused with ben Stada who had returned from Egypt. On the other hand, Yeishu might have really fled to Egypt and returned, and this in turn could have contributed to the confusion between Yeishu and ben Stada. Whatever the case, the belief that Yeishu fled to Egypt to escape being killed by a cruel king, appears to be the origin of the Christian belief that Jesus and his family fled to Egypt to escape King Herod.

Since the early Christians believed that Jesus had lived in Roman times it is natural that they would have confused the evil king who wanted to kill Jesus with Herod, since there were no other suitable evil kings during the Roman period. Yeishu was an adult at the time that the rabbis fled from Yannai; why did the Christians believe that Jesus and his family had fled to Egypt when Jesus was an infant? Why did the Christians believe that Herod had ordered all baby boys born in Bethlehem to be killed, when there is no historical evidence of this? To answer these questions we again have to look at pagan mythology.

The theme of a divine or semi-divine child who is feared by an evil king is very common in pagan mythology. The usual story is that the evil king receives a prophecy that a certain child will be born who will usurp the throne. In some stories the child is born to a virgin and usually he is son of a god. The mother of the child tries to hide him. The king usually orders the slaying of all babies who might be the prophecied king. Examples of myths which follow this plot are the birth stories of Romulus and Remus, Perseus, Krishna, Zeus, and Oedipus. Although Torah literalists will not like to admit it, the story of Moses's birth also resembles these myths (some of which claim that the mother put the child in a basket and placed him in a river). There were probably several such stories circulating in the Levant which have been lost. The Christian myth of the slaughter of the innocents by Herod is simply a Christain version of this theme. The plot was so well known that one Midrashic scholar could not resist using it for an apocryphal account of Abraham's birth.

The early Christians believed that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem. This belief is based on a misunderstanding of Micah 5.2 which simply names Bethlehem as the town where the Davidic lineage began. Since the early Christians believed that Jesus was the Messiah, they automatically believed that he was born in Bethlehem. But why did the Christians believe that he lived in Nazareth? The answer is quite simple. The early Greek speaking Christians did not know what the word "Nazarene" meant. The earliest Greek form of this word is "Nazoraios," which is derived from "Natzoriya," the Aramaic equivalent of the Hebrew "Notzri." (Recall that "Yeishu ha-Notzri" is the original Hebrew for "Jesus the Nazarene.") The early Christians conjectured that "Nazarene" meant a person from Nazareth and so it was assumed that Jesus lived in Nazareth. Even today, Christians blithely confuse the Hebrew words "Notzri" (Nazarene, Christian), "Natzrati" (Nazarethite) and "nazir" (nazarite), all of which have completely different meanings.

The information in the Talmud (which contains the Baraitas and the Gemara), concerning Yeishu and ben Stada, is so damaging to Christianity that Christians have always taken drastic measures against it. When the Christians first discovered the information they immediately tried to wipe it out by censoring the Talmud. The Basle edition of the Talmud (c. 1578 - 1580) had all the passages relating to Yeishu and ben Stada deleted by the Christians. Even today, editions of the Talmud used by Christian scholars lack these passages!

During the first few decades of this century, fierce academic battles raged between atheist and Christian scholars over the true origins of Christianity. The Christians were forced to face up to the Talmudic evidence. They could no longer ignore it and so they decided to attack it instead. They claimed that the Talmudic Yeishu was a distortion of the "historical Jesus." They claimed that the name "Pandeira" was simply a Hebrew attempt at pronouncing the Greek word for virgin--"parthenos." Although there is a superficial resemblence between the words, one should note that in order for "Pandeira" to be derived from "parthenos," the "n" and "r" have to be interchanged. However, the Jews did not suffer from any speech impediment which would cause this to happen! The Christian response is that possibly the Jews purposefully altered the word "parthenos" to either the name "Pantheras" (found in Celsus's story) or to "pantheros" meaning a panther, and "Pandeira" is derived from the deliberately altered word. This argument also fails since the third consonant of both the altered and unaltered "parthenos" is theta. This letter is always transliterated by the Hebrew letter tav, whose pronunciation during classical times most closely resembled that of the Greek letter. However, the name "Pandeira" is never spelled with a tav but with either a dalet or a tet which show that the original Greek form had a delta as its third consonant, not a theta. The Christian argument can also be turned on its head: maybe the Christians deliberately altered "Pantheras" to "parthenos" when they invented the virgin birth story. It should also be noted that the resemblence between "Pantheras" (or "pantheros") and "parthenos" is actually much less when written in Greek since in the original Greek spelling their second vowels are completely different.

The Christians also did not accept that Mary Magdalene was connected to Miriam the alleged mother of Yeishu in the Talmud. They argued that the name "Magdalene" does mean a person from Magdala and that the Jews invented "Miriam the women’s hairdresser mgadla nshaya)" either to mock the Christians, or out of their own misunderstanding of the name "Magdalene." This argument is also false. Firstly, it ignores Greek grammar: the correct Greek for "of Magdala" is "Magdales" and the correct Greek for a person from Magdala is "Magdalaios." The original Greek root of "Magdalene" is "Magdalen-," with a conspicuous "n" showing that the word has nothing to do with Magdala. Secondly, Magdala only got its name after the Gospels were written. Before that it was called Magadan or Dalmanutha. (Although "Magadan" has an "n," it lacks an "l" and so it cannot be the derivation of "Magdalene.") In fact, the ruins of this area were renamed Magdala by the Christian community because they believed that Mary Magdalene had come from there.

The Christians also claimed that the word "Notzri" means a person from Nazareth. This is of course false since the original Hebrew for Nazareth is "Natzrat" and a person from Nazareth is a "Natzrati." The name "Notzri" lacks the letter tav from "Natzrat" as so it cannot be derived from it. The Christians argue that perhaps the Aramaic name for Nazareth was "Natzarah" or "Natzirah" (like the modern Arabic name) which explains the missing tav in "Notzri." This is also nonsense since the Aramaic word for a person from Nazareth would then be "Natzaratiya" or "Natziratiya" (with a tav since the feminine ending "-ah" would become "-at-" when the suffix "-iya" is added), and besides, the Aramaic form would not be used in Hebrew. The Christians also came up with various other arguments which can be dismissed since they confuse the Hebrew words "Notzri" and "nazir" or ignore the fact that "Notzri" is the earliest form of the word "Nazarene."

To sum up, all the Christian arguments were based on impossible phonetic changes and grammatical forms, and were consequently dismissed. Moreover, although the legends in the Gemara cannot be taken as fact, the evidence in the Baraitas and Tosefta concerning Yeishu can be traced back directly to Yehoshua ben Perachyah, Shimon ben Shetach and Yehuda ben Tabbai and their disciples who were contemporaries of Yeishu, while the evidence in the Baraitas and Tosefta concerning ben Stada can be traced to Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus and his disciples who were ben Stada's contempories. Consequently the evidence can be regarded as historically accurate. Therefore modern Christians no longer attack the Talmud but instead deny any connection between Jesus and Yeishu or ben Stada. They dismiss the similarities as pure coincidence. However, one must still be aware of the false attacks on the Talmud since many Christian books still mention them and they can and do resurface from time to time.

Many parts of the Jesus story are not based on Yeishu or ben Stada. Most Christian denominations claim that Jesus was born on 25 December. Originally the eastern Christains believed that he was born on 6 January. The Armenian Christians still follow this early belief while most Christians consider it to be the date of the visit of the Magi. As pointed out already, Jesus was probably confused with Tammuz born of the virgin Myrrha. We know that in Roman times, the gods Tammuz, Aion and Osiris were identified. Osiris-Aion was said to be born of the virgin Isis on the 6 January and this explains the earlier date for Christmas. Isis was sometimes represented as a sacred cow and her temple as a stable which is probably the origin of the Christian belief that Jesus was born in a stable. Although some might find this claim to be farfetched, it is known as a fact that certain early Christian sects identified Jesus and Osiris in their writings. The date of 25 December for Christmas was originally the pagan birthday of the sun god, whose day of the week is still known as Sunday. The halo of light which is usually shown surrounding the face of Jesus and Christian saints, is another concept taken from the sun god.

The theme of temptation by a devil-like creature was also found in pagan mythology. In particular the story of Jesus's temptation by Satan resembles the temptation of Osiris by the devil-god Set in Egyptian mythology.

We have already hinted that there was also a connection between Jesus and the pagan god Dionysus. Like Dionysus, the infant Jesus was wrapped in swaddling clothes and placed in a manger; like Dionysus, Jesus could turn water into wine; like Dionysus, Jesus rode on an ass and fed a multitude in the wilderness; like Dionysus, Jesus suffered and was mocked. Some early Christians claimed that Jesus had in fact been born, not in a stable, but in a cave--just like Dionysus.

Where did the story that Jesus was crucified come from? It appears to have resulted from a number of sources. Firstly there were three historical characters during the Roman period who people thought were Messiahs and who were crucified by the Romans, namely Yehuda of Galilee (6 C.E.), Theudas (44 C.E.), and Benjamin the Egyptian (60 C.E.). Since these three people were all thought to be the Messiah, they were naturally confused with Yeishu and ben Stada. Yehuda of Galilee had preached in Galilee and had collected many followers before being crucified by the Romans. The story of Jesus's ministry in Galilee appears to be based on the life of Yehuda of Galilee. This story and the belief that Jesus lived in Nazareth in Galilee, reinforced each other. The belief that some of Jesus's disciples were killed in c. 44 C.E. by Agrippa appears to be based the fate of Theudas's disciples. Since ben Stada had come from Egypt it is natural that he would have been confused with Benjamin the Egyptian. They were probably also contemporaries. Even some modern authors have suggested that they were the same person, although this is not possible since the stories of their deaths are completely different. In the New Testament book of Acts, which uses Josephus's book Jewish Antiquities (93 - 94 C.E.) as a reference, it is made clear that the author considered Jesus, Yehuda of Galilee, Theudas and Benjamin the Egyptian, to be four different people. However, by that time it was too late to undo the confusions which had already taken place before the New Testament was written, and the idea of Jesus's crucifixion had become an integral part of the myth.

Secondly, the idea arose that Jesus had been executed on the eve of Passover. This belief is apparently based on Yeishu's execution. Passover occurs at the time of the Vernal Equinox, an event considered important by astrologers during the Roman Empire. The astrologers thought of this time as the time of the crossing of two astrological celestial circles, and this event was symbolized by a cross. Thus there was a belief that Jesus had died on "the cross." The misunderstanding of this term by those who were not initiated into the astrological cults, was another factor contributing to the belief that Jesus was crucified. In one of the earliest Christian documents (theTeaching of the Twelve Apostles) there is no mention of Jesus being crucified yet the sign of a cross in the sky is used to represent Jesus's coming. It should be noted that the center of astrological superstition in the Roman Empire was the city of Tarsus in Asia Minor - the place where the legendary missionary Paul came from. The idea that a special star had heralded the birth of Jesus, and that a solar eclipse occurred at his death, is typical of Tarsian astrological superstition.

The third factor contributing to the crucifixion story is again pagan mythology. The theme of a divine or semi-divine being sacrificed against a tree, pole or cross, and then being resurrected, is very common in pagan mythology. It was found in the mythologies of all western civilizations stretching from as far west as Ireland and as far east as India. In particular it is found in the mythologies of Osiris and Attis, both of whom were often identified with Tammuz. Osiris landed up with his arms stretched out on a tree like Jesus on the cross. This tree was sometimes shown as a pole with outstretched arms - the same shape as the Christian cross. In the worship of Serapis (a composite of Osiris and Apis) the cross was a religious symbol. Indeed, the Christian "Latin cross" symbol seems to be based directly on the cross symbol of Osiris and Serapis. The Romans never used this traditional Christian cross for crucifixions, they used crosses shaped either like an X or a T. The hieroglyph of a cross on a hill was associated with Osiris. This heiroglyph stood for the "Good One," in Greek "Chrestos," a name applied to Osiris and other pagan gods. The confusion of this name with "Christos" (Messiah, Christ) strengthened the confusion between Jesus and the pagan gods.

At the Vernal Equinox, pagans in northern Israel would celebrate the death and resurrection of the virgin-born Tammuz-Osiris. In Asia Minor (where the earliest Christian churches were established) a similar celebration was held for the virgin-born Attis. Attis was shown as dying against a tree, being buried in a cave and then being resurrected on the third day. We thus see where the Christian story of Jesus's resurrection comes from. In the worship of Baal, it was believed that Baal cheated Mavet (the god of death) at the time of the Vernal Equinox. He pretended to be dead but later appeared alive. He accomplished this ruse by giving his only son as a sacrifice.

The occurrence of Passover at the same time of year as the pagan "Easter" festivals is not coincidental. Many of the Pessach customs were designed as Jewish alternatives to pagan customs. The pagans believed that when their nature god (such as Tammuz, Osiris or Attis) died and was resurrected, his life went into the plants used by man as food. The matza made from the spring harvest was his new body and the wine from the grapes was his new blood. In Judaism, matza, was not used to represent the body of a god but the poor man's bread which the Jews ate before leaving Egypt. The pagans used the paschal sacrifice to represent the sacrifice of a god or his only son, but Judaism used it to represent the meal eaten before leaving Egypt. Instead of telling stories about Baal sacrificing his first born son to Mavet, the Jews told how mal'ach ha-mavet (the angel of death) slew the first born sons of the Egyptians. The pagans ate eggs to represent the resurrection and rebirth of their nature god, but the egg on the seder plate represents the rebirth of the Jewish people escaping captivity in Egypt. When the early Christians noticed the similarities between Pessach customs and pagan customs, they came full circle and converted the Pessach customs back to their old pagan interpretations. The seder became the last supper of Jesus, similar to the last supper of Osiris commemorated at the Vernal Equinox. The matza and wine once again became the body and blood of a false god, this time Jesus. Easter eggs are again eaten to commemorate the resurrection of a "god" and also the "rebirth" obtained by accepting his sacrifice on the cross.

The Last Supper myth is particularly interesting. As mentioned, the basic idea of last supper occurring at the Vernal Equinox comes from the story of the last supper of Osiris. In the Christian story, Jesus is present with twelve apostles. Where did the story of the twelve apostles come from? It appears that in its earliest version, the story was understood to be an allegory. The first time that twelve apostles are mentioned is in the document known as the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. This document apparently originated as a sectarian Jewish document written in the first century C.E., but it was adopted by Christians who altered it substantially and added Christian ideas to it. In the earliest versions it is clear that the "twelve apostles" are the twelve sons of Jacob representing the twelve tribes of Israel. The Christians later considered the "twelve apostles" to be allegorical disciples of Jesus.

In Egyptian mythology, Osiris was betrayed at his last supper by the evil god Set, whom the Greeks identified with Typhon. This seems to be the origin of the idea that Jesus's betrayer was present at his last supper. The idea that this betrayer was named "Judas" goes back to the time when the twelve apostles were still understood to be the sons of Jacob. The idea of Judas (Judah, Yehuda) betraying Jesus (the "son" of Joseph) is strongly reminiscent of the story of the Torah Joseph being betrayed by his brothers with Yehuda as the ringleader. This allegory would have been particulary appealing to the Samaritan Notzrim who considered themselves to be sons of Joseph betrayed by mainstream Jews (represented by Judas/Yehuda).

However, the story of the twelve apostles lost its original allegorical interpretation and the Christians began to think that the "twelve apostles" were twelve real people who followed Jesus. The Christians attempted to find names for these twelve apostles. Matthew and Thaddaeus were based on Mattai and Todah, two of Yeishu's disciples. One or both of the apostles named Jacobus (James) is possibly based on Jacob of Kfar Sekanya, an early Christian known to Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, but this is just a guess. As we have seen, the character of Judas is mostly based on the Judah of the Torah but there might also be a connection with Yeishu's contemporary, Yehuda ben Tabbai the disciple of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachyah. As already mentioned, the idea of the betrayer at the last supper is derived from the mythology of Osiris who was betrayed by Set-Typhon. Set-Typhon had red hair and this is probably the origin of the claim that Judas had red hair. This idea has led to the Christian stereotypical portrayal of Jews as having red hair, despite the fact that in reality, red hair is far more common among Aryans than among Jews.

Judas is often given the nickname "Iscariot." In some places where English New Testaments have "Iscariot," the Greek text actually has "apo Kariotou" which means "from Karyot." Karyot was the name of a town in Israel, probably the modern site known in Arabic as Karyatein. We thus see that the name Iscariot is derived from the Hebrew "ish Karyot" meaning "man from Karyot." This is in fact the accepted modern Christian understanding of the name. However, in the past, the Christians misunderstood this name and legends arose that Judas was from the town of Sychar, that he was a member of the extremist party known as the Sicarii and that he was from the tribe of Issacher. The most interesting misunderstanding of the name is its early confusion with the word scortea meaning a leather money bag. This led to the New Testament myth that Judas carried such a bag, which in turn led to the belief that he was the treasurer of the apostles.

The apostle Peter appears to be a largely fictitious character. According to Christian mythology, Jesus chose him to be the "keeper of the keys to the kingdom of heaven." This is clearly based on the Egyptian pagan deity, Petra, who was the door-keeper of heaven and the afterlife ruled over by Osiris. We must also doubt the story of Luke "the good healer" who was supposed to be a friend of Paul. The original Greek for "Luke" is "Lykos" which was another name for Apollo, the god of healing.

John the Baptist is largely based on an historical person who practiced ritual immersion in water as a physical symbol for repentance. He did not perform Christian style sacramental baptisms to cleanse people's souls - such an idea was totally foreign to Judaism. He was put to death by Herod Antipas, who feared that he was about to start a rebellion. John's name in Greek was "Ioannes" and in Latin "Johannes." Although these names were usually used for the Hebrew name Yochanan, it is unlikely that this was John's actual Hebrew name. "Ioannes" closely resembles "Oannes" the Greek name for the pagan god Ea. Oannes was the "God of the House of Water." Sacramental baptism for magically cleansing souls was a practice which apparently originated in the worship of Oannes. The most likely explanation of John's name and its connection with Oannes is that John probably bore the nickname "Oannes" since he practised baptism which he had adapted from the worship of Oannes. The name "Oannes" was later confused with "Ioannes." (In fact, the New Testament legend concerning John provides a clue that his real name might have been Zacharia.) It is known from Josephus's writings that the historical John rejected the pagan "soul-cleansing" interpretation of baptism. The Christians, however, returned to this original pagan interpretation.

The god Oannes was associated with the constellation Capricorn. Both Oannes and the constellation Capricorn were associated with water. (The constellation is supposed to depict a mythical sea-creature with the body of a fish and the foreparts of a goat.) We have already seen that Jesus was given the same birthday as the sun god (25 December), when the sun is in the constellation of Capricorn. The pagans thought of this period as one where the sun god is immersed in the waters of Oannes and emerges reborn. (The Winter Solstice, when days start getting longer, occurs near 25 December.) This astrological myth is apparently the origin of the story that Jesus was baptized by John. It probably started as an allegorical astrological story, but it appears that the god Oannes later became confused with the historical person nicknamed Oannes (John).

The belief that Jesus had met John contributed to the belief that Jesus's ministry and crucifixion occurred when Pontius Pilate was procurator of Judaea. It should be noted that most dates for Jesus quoted by Christians are completely nonsense. Jesus was partly based on Yeishu and ben Stada who probably lived more than a century apart. He was also based on the three false Messiahs, Yehuda, Theudas and Benjamin, who were crucified by the Romans at various different times. Another fact that contributed to confused dating of Jesus was that Jacob of Kfar Sekanya and probably other Notzrim as well, used expressions like "thus was I taught by Yeishu ha-Notzri," even though he had not been taught by Yeishu in person. We know from the Gemara that Jacob's statement led Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus to incorrectly conclude that Jacob was a disciple of Yeishu. This suggests that there were rabbis who were unaware of the fact that Yeishu had lived in Hashmonean times. Even after Christians placed Jesus in the first century C.E., confusion continued among non-Christians. There was a contemporary of Rabbi Akiva named Pappus ben Yehuda who used to lock up his unfaithful wife. We know from the Gemara that some people who confused Yeishu and ben Stada confused the wife of Pappus with Miriam the unfaithful mother of Yeishu. This would place Yeishu more than two centuries after he actually lived!

The New Testament story confuses so many historical periods that there is no way of reconciling it with history. The traditional year of Jesus's birth is 1 C.E. Jesus was supposed to be not more than two years old when Herod ordered the slaughter of the innocents. However, Herod died before April 12, 4 B.C.E. This has led some Christians to redate the birth of Jesus in 6 - 4 B.C.E. However, Jesus was also supposed have been born during the census of Quirinius. This census took place after Archelaus was deposed in 6 C.E., ten years after Herod's death. Jesus was supposed to have been baptized by John soon after John had started baptizing and preaching in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberias, i.e. 28-29 C.E., when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judaea i.e. 26-36 C.E. According to the New Testament, this also happened when Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene and Annas and Caiaphas were high priests. But Lysanias ruled Abilene from c. 40 B.C.E until he was executed in 36 B.C.E by Mark Antony, about 60 years before the date for Tiberias and about 30 years before the supposed birth of Jesus! Also, there were never two joint high priests, in particular, Annas was not a joint high priest with Caiaphas. Annas was removed from the office of high priest in 15 C.E after holding office for some nine years. Caiaphas only became high priest in c. 18 C.E, about three years after Annas. (He held this office for about eighteen years, so his dates are consistent with Tiberias and Pontius Pilate, but not with Annas or Lysanias.) Although the book of Acts presents Yehuda of Galilee, Theudas and Jesus as three different people, it incorrectly places Theudas (crucified 44 C.E.) before Yehuda who it correctly mentions as being crucified during the census (6 C.E.). Many of these chronological absurdities seem to be based on misreadings and misunderstandings of Josephus's book Jewish Antiquities, which was used as reference by the author of Luke andActs.

The story of Jesus's trial is also highly suspicious. It clearly tries to placate the Romans while defaming the Jews. The historical Pontius Pilate was arrogant and despotic. He hated the Jews and never delegated any authority to them. However, in Christian mythology, he is portrayed as a concerned ruler who distanced himself from the accusations against Jesus and who was coerced into obeying the demands of the Jews. According to Christian mythology, every Passover, the Jews would ask Pilate to free any one criminal they chose. This is of course a blatant lie. Jews never had a custom of freeing guilty criminals at Passover or any other time of the year. According the myth, Pilate gave the Jews the choice of freeing Jesus the Christ or a murderer named Jesus Barabbas. The Jews are alleged to have enthusiastically chosen Jesus Barabbas. This story is a vicious antisemitic lie, one of many such lies found in the New Testament (largely written by antisemites). What is particularly disgusting about this rubbish story is that it is apparently a distortion of an earlier story which claimed that the Jews demanded that Jesus Christ be set free. The name "Barabbas" is simply the Greek form of the Aramaic "bar Abba" which means "son of the Father." Thus "Jesus Barabbas" originally meant "Jesus the son of the Father," in other words, the usual Christian Jesus. When the earlier story claimed that the Jews wanted Jesus Barabbas to be set free it was referring to the usual Jesus. Somebody distorted the story by claiming that Jesus Barabbas was a different person to Jesus Christ and this fooled the Roman and Greek Christians who did not know the meaning of the name "Barabbas."

Lastly, the claim that the resurrected Jesus appeared to his disciples is also based on pagan superstition. In Roman mythology, the virgin born Romulus appeared to his friend on the road before he was taken up to heaven. (The theme of being taken up to heaven is found in scores of pagan myths and legends and even in Jewish stories.) It was claimed that Apollonius of Tyana had also appeared to his disciples after having been resurrected. It is interesting to note that the historical Apollonius was born more or less at the same time as the mythical Jesus was supposed to have been born. In legends people claimed that he had performed many miracles which were identical to those also ascribed to Jesus, such as exorcisms of demons and the raising to life of a dead girl.

When confronted with Christian missionaries one should point out as much information as possible about the origins of Christianity and the Jesus myth. You will almost never succeed in convincing them that Christianity is a false religion. You will not be able to prove beyond all doubt that the story of Jesus arose in the way we have claimed it has, since most of the evidence is circumstantial. Indeed we cannot be certain about the precise origin of many particular points in the story of Jesus. This does not matter. What is important is that you yourself realize that logical alternatives exist to blind belief in Christian myths and that reasonable doubt can be cast on the New Testament narrative.



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REFUTING MISSIONARIES
by Hayyim ben Yehoshua
PART 1: THE MYTH OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS

Much concern has been expressed in the Jewish media regarding the activity of "Jews for Jesus" and other missionary organizations who go out of their way to convert Jews to Christianity. Unfortunately, many Jews are ill equipped to deal with Christian missionaries and their arguments. Hopefully this article will contribute to remedying this situation.

When countering Christian missionaries it is important to base one's arguments on correct facts. Arguments based on incorrect facts can easily backfire and end up strengthening the arguments of the missionaries.

It is rather unfortunate that many well-meaning Jewish Studies teachers have unwittingly aided missionaries by teaching Jewish pupils incorrect information about the origins of Christianity. I can recall being taught the following story about Jesus at the Jewish day school I attended:

A few years after being taught this seemingly innocent story, I became interested in the origins of Christianity and decided to do some further reading on the "famous Rabbi Yehoshua." Much to my dismay, I discovered that there was no historical evidence of this Rabbi Yehoshua. The claim that Jesus was a rabbi named Yehoshua and the claim that his body was probably stolen both turned out to be pure conjecture. The rest of the story was nothing more than a watered down version of the story which Christians believe as part of the Christian religion but which is not supported by any legitimate historical source.

There was absolutely no historical evidence that Jesus, Joseph or Mary ever existed, let alone that Joseph was a carpenter or that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and lived in Nazareth.

Despite the lack of evidence for Jesus's existence many Jews have made the tragic mistake of assuming that the New Testament story is largely correct and have tried to refute Christianity by attempting to rationalize the various miracles that allegedly occurred during Jesus's life and after his death. Numerous books have been written which take this approach to Christianity. This approach however is hopelessly flawed and is in fact dangerous since it encourages belief in the New Testament.

When the Israelites were confronted with the worship of Baal they did not blindly accept the ancient West Semitic myths as history. When the Maccabees were confronted with Greek religion they did not blindly accept Greek mythology as history. Why do so many modern Jews blindly accept Christian mythology? The answer to this question seems to be that many Christians do not know themselves where the distinction between established history and Christian belief lies and they have passed their confusion on to the Jewish community. Browsing through the religion section of a local bookstore, I recently came across a book which claimed to be an objective biography of Jesus. It turned out to be nothing more than a summary of the usual New Testament story. It even included claims that Jesus's miracles had been witnessed but that rational explanations for them might exist. Many history books written by Christians take a similar approach. Some Christian authors will suggest that perhaps the miracles are not completely historical but they nevertheless follow the general New Testament story. The idea that there was a real historical Jesus has thus become entrenched in Christian society and Jews living in the Christian world have come to blindly accept this belief because they have never seen it seriously challenged.

Despite the widespread belief in Jesus the fact remains that there is no historical Jesus. In order to understand what is meant by an "historical Jesus," consider King Midas in Greek mythology. The story that King Midas turned everything he touched into gold is clearly nonsense, yet despite this we know that there was a real King Midas. Archaeologists have excavated his tomb and found his skeletal remains. The Greeks who told the story of Midas and his golden touch clearly intended people to identify him with the real Midas. So although the story of the golden touch is fictional, the story is about a person whose existence is known as a fact--the "historical Midas." In the case of Jesus, however, there is no single person whose existence is known as a fact and who is also intended to be the subject of the Jesus stories, i.e. there is no historical Jesus.

When confronted by a Christian missionary, one should immediately point out that the very existence of Jesus has not been proven. When missionaries argue they usually appeal to emotions rather than to reason and they will attempt to make you feel embarrassed about denying the historicity of Jesus. The usual response is something like "Isn't denying the existence of Jesus just as silly as denying the existence of Julius Caesar or Queen Elizabeth?" A popular variation of this response used especially against Jews is "Isn't denying the existence of Jesus like denying the Holocaust?" One should then point out that there are ample historical sources confirming the existence of Julius Caesar, Queen Elizabeth or whoever else is named, while there is no corresponding evidence for Jesus.

To be perfectly thorough you should take time to do some research on the historical personalities mentioned by the missionaries and present hard evidence of their existence. At the same time you should challenge the missionaries to provide similar evidence of Jesus's existence. You should point out that although the existence of Julius Caesar, or Queen Elizabeth, etc., is accepted worldwide, the same is not true of Jesus. In the Far East where the major religions are Buddhism, Shinto, Taoism and Confucianism, Jesus is considered to be just another character in Western religious mythology, on a par with Thor, Zeus and Osiris. Most Hindus do not believe in Jesus, but those who do consider him to be one of the many avatars of the Hindu god Vishnu. Muslims certainly believe in Jesus but they reject the New Testament story and consider him to be a prophet who announced the coming of Muhammed. They explicitly deny that he was ever crucified.

To sum up, there is no story of Jesus which is uniformly accepted worldwide. It is this fact which puts Jesus on a different level to established historical personalities. If the missionaries use the "Holocaust reply," you should point out that the Holocaust is well-documented and that there are numerous eyewitness reports. It should be pointed out that most of the people who deny the Holocaust have turned out to be antisemitic hate-mongers with fraudulent credentials. On the other hand, millions of honest people in Asia, who make up the majority of the world's population, have failed to be convinced by the Christian story of Jesus since there is no compelling evidence for its authenticity. The missionaries will insist that the story of Jesus is a well-established fact and will argue that there is "plenty of evidence supporting it." One should then insist on seeing this evidence and refuse to listen any further until they produce it.

If Jesus was not an historical person, where did the whole New Testament story come from in the first place? The Hebrew name for Christians has always been Notzrim. This name is derived from the Hebrew wordneitzer, which means a shoot or sprout--an obvious Messianic symbol. There were already people called Notzrim at the time of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachyah (c. 100 B.C.E.). Although modern Christians claim that Christianity only started in the first century C.E., it is clear that the first century Christians in Israel considered themselves to be a continuation of the Notzri movement which had been in existence for about 150 years. One of the most notorious Notzrim was Yeishu ben Pandeira, also known as Yeishu ha-Notzri. Talmudic scholars have always maintained that the story of Jesus began with Yeishu. The Hebrew name for Jesus has always been Yeishu and the Hebrew for "Jesus the Nazarene" has always been "Yeishu ha-Notzri." (The name Yeishu is a shortened form of the name Yeishua, not Yehoshua.) It is important to note that Yeishu ha-Notzri is not an historical Jesus since modern Christianity denies any connection between Jesus and Yeishu and moreover, parts of the Jesus myth are based on other historical people besides Yeishu.

We know very little about Yeishu ha-Notzri. All modern works that mention him are based on information taken from the Tosefta and the Baraitas - writings made at the same time as the Mishna but not contained in it. Because the historical information concerning Yeishu is so damaging to Christianity, most Christian authors (and even some Jewish ones) have tried to discredit this information and have invented many ingenious arguments to explain it away. Many of their arguments are based on misunderstandings and misquotations of the Baraitas and in order to get an accurate picture of Yeishu one should ignore Christian authors and examine the Baraitas directly.

The skimpy information contained in the Baraitas is as follows: Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachyah once repelled Yeishu with both hands. People believed that Yeishu was a sorcerer and they considered him to be a person who had led the Jews astray. As a result of charges brought against him (the details of which are not known, but which probably involved high treason) Yeishu was stoned and his body hung up on the eve of Passover. Before this he was paraded around for forty days with a herald going in front of him announcing that he would be stoned and calling for people to come forward to plead for him. Nothing was brought forward in his favor however. Yeishu had five disciples: Mattai, Naqai, Neitzer, Buni, and Todah.

In the Tosefta and the Baraitas, Yeishu's father is named Pandeira or Panteiri. These are Hebrew-Aramaic forms of a Greek name. In Hebrew the third consonant of the name is written either with a dalet or a tet. Comparison with other Greek words transliterated into Hebrew shows that the original Greek must have had a delta as its third consonant and so the only possibility for the father's Greek name is Panderos. Since Greek names were common among Jews during Hashmonean times it is not necessary to assume that he was Greek, as some authors have done.

The connection between Yeishu and Jesus is corroborated by the the fact that Mattai and Todah, the names of two of Yeishu's disciples, are the original Hebrew forms of Matthew and Thaddaeus, the names of two of Jesus's disciples in Christian mythology.

The early Christians were also aware of the name "ben Pandeira" for Jesus. The pagan philosopher Celsus, who was famous for his arguments against Christianity, claimed in 178 C.E. that he had heard from a Jew that Jesus's mother, Mary, had been divorced by her husband, a carpenter, after it had been proved that she was an adultress. She wandered about in shame and bore Jesus in secret. His real father was a soldier named Pantheras. According to the Christian writer Epiphanius (c. 320 - 403 C.E.), the Christian apologist Origen (c.185 – 254 C.E.) had claimed that "Panther" was the nickname for Jacob the father of Joseph, the stepfather of Jesus. It should be noted that Origen's claim is not based on any historical information. It is purely a conjecture aimed at explaining away the Pantheras story of Celsus. That story is also not historical. The claim that the name of Jesus's mother was Mary and the claim that her husband was a carpenter is taken directly from Christian belief. The claim that Jesus's real father was named Pantheras is based on an incorrect attempt at reconstructing the original form of Pandeira. This incorrect reconstruction was probably influenced by the fact that the name Pantheras was found among Roman soldiers.

Why did people believe that Jesus's mother was named Mary and her husband named Joseph? Why did non-Christians accuse Mary of being an adultress while Christians believed she was a virgin? To answer these questions one must examine some of the legends surrounding Yeishu. We cannot hope to obtain the absolute truth concerning the origins of the Jesus myth but we can show that reasonable alternatives exist to blindly accepting the New Testament.

The name Joseph for Jesus's stepfather is easy to explain. The Notzri movement was particularly popular with the Samaritan Jews. While the Pharisees were waiting for a Messiah who would be a descendant of David, the Samaritans wanted a Messiah who would restore the northern kingdom of Israel. The Samaritans emphasized their partial descent from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, who were descended from the Joseph of the Torah. The Samaritans considered themselves to be "Bnei Yoseph" i.e. "sons of Joseph," and since they believed that Jesus had been their Messiah, they would have assumed that he was a "son of Joseph." The Greek speaking population, who had little knowledge of Hebrew and true Jewish traditions, could have easily misunderstood this term and assumed that Joseph was the actual name of Jesus's father. This conjecture is corroborated by the fact that according to the Gospel of Matthew, Joseph's father is named Jacob, just like the Torah Joseph. Later, other Christians, who followed the idea that the Messiah was to be descended from David, tried to trace Joseph back to David. They came up with two contradictory genealogies for him, one recorded in Matthew and the other in Luke. When the idea that Mary was a virgin developed, the mythical Joseph was relegated to the position of simply being her husband and the stepfather of Jesus.

To understand where the Mary story came from we have to turn to another historical character who contributed to the Jesus myth, namely ben Stada. All the information we have on ben Stada again comes from the Tosefta and the Baraitas. There is even less information about him than about Yeishu. Some people believed that he had brought spells out of Egypt in a cut in his flesh, others thought that he was a madman. He was a beguiler and was caught by the method of concealed witnesses. He was stoned in Lod.

In the Tosefta, ben Stada is called ben Sotera or ben Sitera. Sotera seems to be the Hebrew-Aramaic form of the Greek name Soteros. The forms "Sitera" and "Stada" seem have arisen as misreadings and spelling mistakes (yod replacing vav and dalet replacing reish).

Since there was so little information concerning ben Stada, many conjectures arose as to who he was. It is known from the Gemara that he was confused with Yeishu. This probably resulted from the fact that both were executed for treasonous teachings and were associated with sorcery. People who confused ben Stada with Yeishu had to explain why he was also called ben Pandeira. Since the name "Stada" resembles the Aramaic expression "stat da," meaning "she went astray" it was thought that "Stada" referred to the mother of Yeishu and that she was an adultress. Consequently, people began to think that Yeishu was the illegitimate son of Pandeira. These ideas are in fact mentioned in the Gemara and are probably much older. Since ben Stada lived in Roman times and the name Pandeira resembled the name Pantheras found among Roman soldiers, it was assumed that Pandeira had been a Roman soldier stationed in Israel. This certainly explains the story mentioned by Celsus.

The Tosefta mentions a famous case of a woman named Miriam bat Bilgah marrying a Roman soldier. The idea that Yeishu had been born to a Jewish woman who had had an affair with a Roman soldier probably resulted in Yeishu's mother being confused with this Miriam. The name "Miriam" is of course the original form of the name "Mary." It is in fact known from the Gemara that some of the people who confused Yeishu with ben Stada believed that Yeishu's mother was "Miriam the women's hairdresser."

The story that Mary (Miriam) the mother of Jesus was an adulteress was certainly not acceptable to the early Christians. The virgin birth story was probably invented to clear Mary's name. The early Christians did not suck this story out of their thumbs. Virgin birth stories were fairly common in pagan myths. The following mythological characters were all believed to have been born to divinely impregnated virgins: Romulus and Remus, Perseus, Zoroaster, Mithras, Osiris-Aion, Agdistis, Attis, Tammuz, Adonis, Korybas, Dionysus. The pagan belief in unions between gods and women, regardless of whether they were virgins or not, is even more common. Many characters in pagan mythology were believed to be sons of divine fathers and human females. The Christian belief that Jesus was the son of God born to a virgin, is typical of Greco-Roman superstition. The Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexandria (c. 30 B.C.E - 45 C.E.), warned against the widespread superstitious belief in unions between male gods and human females which returned women to a state of virginity.

The god Tammuz, worshipped by pagans in northern Israel, was said to have been born to the virgin Myrrha. The name "Myrrha" superficially resembles "Mary/Miriam" and it is possible that this particular virgin birth story influenced the Mary story more than the others. Like Jesus, Tammuz was always called Adon, meaning "Lord." (The character Adonis in Greek mythology is based on Tammuz.) As we will see later, the connection between Jesus and Tammuz goes much further than this.

The idea that Mary had been an adultress never completely disappeared in Christian mythology. Instead, the character of Mary was split into two: Mary the mother of Jesus, believed to be a virgin, and Mary Magdalene, believed to be a woman of ill repute. The idea that the character of Mary Magdalene is also derived from Miriam the mythical mother of Yeishu, is corroborated by the fact that the strange name "Magdalene" clearly resembles the Aramaic term "mgadla nshaya," meaning "womens' hairdresser." As mentioned before, there was a belief that Yeishu's mother was "Miriam the women's hairdresser." Because the Christians did not know what the name "Magdalene" meant, they later conjectured that it meant that she had come from a place called Magdala on the west of Lake Kinneret. The idea of the two Marys fitted in well with the pagan way of thinking. The image of Jesus being followed by the two Marys is strongly reminiscent of Dionysus being followed by Demeter and Persephone.

The Gemara contains an interesting legend concerning Yeishu which attempts to elucidate the Beraita which says that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachyah repelled Yeishu with both hands. The legend claims that when the Hashmonean king Yannai was killing the Pharisees, Rabbi Yehoshua and Yeishu fled to Egypt. When returning they came upon an inn. The Aramaic word "aksanya" means both "inn" or "innkeeper." Rabbi Yehoshua remarked how beautiful the "aksanya" was (meaning the inn). Yeishu (meaning the innkeeper) replied that her eyes were too narrow. Rabbi Yehoshua was very angry with Yeishu and excommunicated him. Yeishu asked many times for forgiveness but Rabbi Yehoshua would not forgive him. Once when Rabbi Yehoshua was reciting the Shema, Yeishu came up to him. He made a sign to him that he should wait. Yeishu misunderstood and thought that he was being rejected again. He mocked Rabbi Yehoshua by setting up a brick and worshipping it. Rabbi Yehoshua told him to repent but he refused to, saying that he had learned from him that anyone who sins and causes many to sin, is not given the opportunity to repent.

The above story, up to the events at the inn, closely resembles another legend in which the protagonist is not Rabbi Yehoshua but his disciple Yehuda ben Tabbai. In this legend, Yeishu is not named. One may thus question whether Yeishu really went to Egypt or not. It is possible that Yeishu was confused with some other disciple of either Rabbi Yehoshua or Rabbi Yehuda. The confusion might have resulted from the fact that Yeishu was confused with ben Stada who had returned from Egypt. On the other hand, Yeishu might have really fled to Egypt and returned, and this in turn could have contributed to the confusion between Yeishu and ben Stada. Whatever the case, the belief that Yeishu fled to Egypt to escape being killed by a cruel king, appears to be the origin of the Christian belief that Jesus and his family fled to Egypt to escape King Herod.

Since the early Christians believed that Jesus had lived in Roman times it is natural that they would have confused the evil king who wanted to kill Jesus with Herod, since there were no other suitable evil kings during the Roman period. Yeishu was an adult at the time that the rabbis fled from Yannai; why did the Christians believe that Jesus and his family had fled to Egypt when Jesus was an infant? Why did the Christians believe that Herod had ordered all baby boys born in Bethlehem to be killed, when there is no historical evidence of this? To answer these questions we again have to look at pagan mythology.

The theme of a divine or semi-divine child who is feared by an evil king is very common in pagan mythology. The usual story is that the evil king receives a prophecy that a certain child will be born who will usurp the throne. In some stories the child is born to a virgin and usually he is son of a god. The mother of the child tries to hide him. The king usually orders the slaying of all babies who might be the prophecied king. Examples of myths which follow this plot are the birth stories of Romulus and Remus, Perseus, Krishna, Zeus, and Oedipus. Although Torah literalists will not like to admit it, the story of Moses's birth also resembles these myths (some of which claim that the mother put the child in a basket and placed him in a river). There were probably several such stories circulating in the Levant which have been lost. The Christian myth of the slaughter of the innocents by Herod is simply a Christain version of this theme. The plot was so well known that one Midrashic scholar could not resist using it for an apocryphal account of Abraham's birth.

The early Christians believed that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem. This belief is based on a misunderstanding of Micah 5.2 which simply names Bethlehem as the town where the Davidic lineage began. Since the early Christians believed that Jesus was the Messiah, they automatically believed that he was born in Bethlehem. But why did the Christians believe that he lived in Nazareth? The answer is quite simple. The early Greek speaking Christians did not know what the word "Nazarene" meant. The earliest Greek form of this word is "Nazoraios," which is derived from "Natzoriya," the Aramaic equivalent of the Hebrew "Notzri." (Recall that "Yeishu ha-Notzri" is the original Hebrew for "Jesus the Nazarene.") The early Christians conjectured that "Nazarene" meant a person from Nazareth and so it was assumed that Jesus lived in Nazareth. Even today, Christians blithely confuse the Hebrew words "Notzri" (Nazarene, Christian), "Natzrati" (Nazarethite) and "nazir" (nazarite), all of which have completely different meanings.

The information in the Talmud (which contains the Baraitas and the Gemara), concerning Yeishu and ben Stada, is so damaging to Christianity that Christians have always taken drastic measures against it. When the Christians first discovered the information they immediately tried to wipe it out by censoring the Talmud. The Basle edition of the Talmud (c. 1578 - 1580) had all the passages relating to Yeishu and ben Stada deleted by the Christians. Even today, editions of the Talmud used by Christian scholars lack these passages!

During the first few decades of this century, fierce academic battles raged between atheist and Christian scholars over the true origins of Christianity. The Christians were forced to face up to the Talmudic evidence. They could no longer ignore it and so they decided to attack it instead. They claimed that the Talmudic Yeishu was a distortion of the "historical Jesus." They claimed that the name "Pandeira" was simply a Hebrew attempt at pronouncing the Greek word for virgin--"parthenos." Although there is a superficial resemblence between the words, one should note that in order for "Pandeira" to be derived from "parthenos," the "n" and "r" have to be interchanged. However, the Jews did not suffer from any speech impediment which would cause this to happen! The Christian response is that possibly the Jews purposefully altered the word "parthenos" to either the name "Pantheras" (found in Celsus's story) or to "pantheros" meaning a panther, and "Pandeira" is derived from the deliberately altered word. This argument also fails since the third consonant of both the altered and unaltered "parthenos" is theta. This letter is always transliterated by the Hebrew letter tav, whose pronunciation during classical times most closely resembled that of the Greek letter. However, the name "Pandeira" is never spelled with a tav but with either a dalet or a tet which show that the original Greek form had a delta as its third consonant, not a theta. The Christian argument can also be turned on its head: maybe the Christians deliberately altered "Pantheras" to "parthenos" when they invented the virgin birth story. It should also be noted that the resemblence between "Pantheras" (or "pantheros") and "parthenos" is actually much less when written in Greek since in the original Greek spelling their second vowels are completely different.

The Christians also did not accept that Mary Magdalene was connected to Miriam the alleged mother of Yeishu in the Talmud. They argued that the name "Magdalene" does mean a person from Magdala and that the Jews invented "Miriam the women’s hairdresser mgadla nshaya)" either to mock the Christians, or out of their own misunderstanding of the name "Magdalene." This argument is also false. Firstly, it ignores Greek grammar: the correct Greek for "of Magdala" is "Magdales" and the correct Greek for a person from Magdala is "Magdalaios." The original Greek root of "Magdalene" is "Magdalen-," with a conspicuous "n" showing that the word has nothing to do with Magdala. Secondly, Magdala only got its name after the Gospels were written. Before that it was called Magadan or Dalmanutha. (Although "Magadan" has an "n," it lacks an "l" and so it cannot be the derivation of "Magdalene.") In fact, the ruins of this area were renamed Magdala by the Christian community because they believed that Mary Magdalene had come from there.

The Christians also claimed that the word "Notzri" means a person from Nazareth. This is of course false since the original Hebrew for Nazareth is "Natzrat" and a person from Nazareth is a "Natzrati." The name "Notzri" lacks the letter tav from "Natzrat" as so it cannot be derived from it. The Christians argue that perhaps the Aramaic name for Nazareth was "Natzarah" or "Natzirah" (like the modern Arabic name) which explains the missing tav in "Notzri." This is also nonsense since the Aramaic word for a person from Nazareth would then be "Natzaratiya" or "Natziratiya" (with a tav since the feminine ending "-ah" would become "-at-" when the suffix "-iya" is added), and besides, the Aramaic form would not be used in Hebrew. The Christians also came up with various other arguments which can be dismissed since they confuse the Hebrew words "Notzri" and "nazir" or ignore the fact that "Notzri" is the earliest form of the word "Nazarene."

To sum up, all the Christian arguments were based on impossible phonetic changes and grammatical forms, and were consequently dismissed. Moreover, although the legends in the Gemara cannot be taken as fact, the evidence in the Baraitas and Tosefta concerning Yeishu can be traced back directly to Yehoshua ben Perachyah, Shimon ben Shetach and Yehuda ben Tabbai and their disciples who were contemporaries of Yeishu, while the evidence in the Baraitas and Tosefta concerning ben Stada can be traced to Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus and his disciples who were ben Stada's contempories. Consequently the evidence can be regarded as historically accurate. Therefore modern Christians no longer attack the Talmud but instead deny any connection between Jesus and Yeishu or ben Stada. They dismiss the similarities as pure coincidence. However, one must still be aware of the false attacks on the Talmud since many Christian books still mention them and they can and do resurface from time to time.

Many parts of the Jesus story are not based on Yeishu or ben Stada. Most Christian denominations claim that Jesus was born on 25 December. Originally the eastern Christains believed that he was born on 6 January. The Armenian Christians still follow this early belief while most Christians consider it to be the date of the visit of the Magi. As pointed out already, Jesus was probably confused with Tammuz born of the virgin Myrrha. We know that in Roman times, the gods Tammuz, Aion and Osiris were identified. Osiris-Aion was said to be born of the virgin Isis on the 6 January and this explains the earlier date for Christmas. Isis was sometimes represented as a sacred cow and her temple as a stable which is probably the origin of the Christian belief that Jesus was born in a stable. Although some might find this claim to be farfetched, it is known as a fact that certain early Christian sects identified Jesus and Osiris in their writings. The date of 25 December for Christmas was originally the pagan birthday of the sun god, whose day of the week is still known as Sunday. The halo of light which is usually shown surrounding the face of Jesus and Christian saints, is another concept taken from the sun god.

The theme of temptation by a devil-like creature was also found in pagan mythology. In particular the story of Jesus's temptation by Satan resembles the temptation of Osiris by the devil-god Set in Egyptian mythology.

We have already hinted that there was also a connection between Jesus and the pagan god Dionysus. Like Dionysus, the infant Jesus was wrapped in swaddling clothes and placed in a manger; like Dionysus, Jesus could turn water into wine; like Dionysus, Jesus rode on an ass and fed a multitude in the wilderness; like Dionysus, Jesus suffered and was mocked. Some early Christians claimed that Jesus had in fact been born, not in a stable, but in a cave--just like Dionysus.

Where did the story that Jesus was crucified come from? It appears to have resulted from a number of sources. Firstly there were three historical characters during the Roman period who people thought were Messiahs and who were crucified by the Romans, namely Yehuda of Galilee (6 C.E.), Theudas (44 C.E.), and Benjamin the Egyptian (60 C.E.). Since these three people were all thought to be the Messiah, they were naturally confused with Yeishu and ben Stada. Yehuda of Galilee had preached in Galilee and had collected many followers before being crucified by the Romans. The story of Jesus's ministry in Galilee appears to be based on the life of Yehuda of Galilee. This story and the belief that Jesus lived in Nazareth in Galilee, reinforced each other. The belief that some of Jesus's disciples were killed in c. 44 C.E. by Agrippa appears to be based the fate of Theudas's disciples. Since ben Stada had come from Egypt it is natural that he would have been confused with Benjamin the Egyptian. They were probably also contemporaries. Even some modern authors have suggested that they were the same person, although this is not possible since the stories of their deaths are completely different. In the New Testament book of Acts, which uses Josephus's book Jewish Antiquities (93 - 94 C.E.) as a reference, it is made clear that the author considered Jesus, Yehuda of Galilee, Theudas and Benjamin the Egyptian, to be four different people. However, by that time it was too late to undo the confusions which had already taken place before the New Testament was written, and the idea of Jesus's crucifixion had become an integral part of the myth.

Secondly, the idea arose that Jesus had been executed on the eve of Passover. This belief is apparently based on Yeishu's execution. Passover occurs at the time of the Vernal Equinox, an event considered important by astrologers during the Roman Empire. The astrologers thought of this time as the time of the crossing of two astrological celestial circles, and this event was symbolized by a cross. Thus there was a belief that Jesus had died on "the cross." The misunderstanding of this term by those who were not initiated into the astrological cults, was another factor contributing to the belief that Jesus was crucified. In one of the earliest Christian documents (theTeaching of the Twelve Apostles) there is no mention of Jesus being crucified yet the sign of a cross in the sky is used to represent Jesus's coming. It should be noted that the center of astrological superstition in the Roman Empire was the city of Tarsus in Asia Minor - the place where the legendary missionary Paul came from. The idea that a special star had heralded the birth of Jesus, and that a solar eclipse occurred at his death, is typical of Tarsian astrological superstition.

The third factor contributing to the crucifixion story is again pagan mythology. The theme of a divine or semi-divine being sacrificed against a tree, pole or cross, and then being resurrected, is very common in pagan mythology. It was found in the mythologies of all western civilizations stretching from as far west as Ireland and as far east as India. In particular it is found in the mythologies of Osiris and Attis, both of whom were often identified with Tammuz. Osiris landed up with his arms stretched out on a tree like Jesus on the cross. This tree was sometimes shown as a pole with outstretched arms - the same shape as the Christian cross. In the worship of Serapis (a composite of Osiris and Apis) the cross was a religious symbol. Indeed, the Christian "Latin cross" symbol seems to be based directly on the cross symbol of Osiris and Serapis. The Romans never used this traditional Christian cross for crucifixions, they used crosses shaped either like an X or a T. The hieroglyph of a cross on a hill was associated with Osiris. This heiroglyph stood for the "Good One," in Greek "Chrestos," a name applied to Osiris and other pagan gods. The confusion of this name with "Christos" (Messiah, Christ) strengthened the confusion between Jesus and the pagan gods.

At the Vernal Equinox, pagans in northern Israel would celebrate the death and resurrection of the virgin-born Tammuz-Osiris. In Asia Minor (where the earliest Christian churches were established) a similar celebration was held for the virgin-born Attis. Attis was shown as dying against a tree, being buried in a cave and then being resurrected on the third day. We thus see where the Christian story of Jesus's resurrection comes from. In the worship of Baal, it was believed that Baal cheated Mavet (the god of death) at the time of the Vernal Equinox. He pretended to be dead but later appeared alive. He accomplished this ruse by giving his only son as a sacrifice.

The occurrence of Passover at the same time of year as the pagan "Easter" festivals is not coincidental. Many of the Pessach customs were designed as Jewish alternatives to pagan customs. The pagans believed that when their nature god (such as Tammuz, Osiris or Attis) died and was resurrected, his life went into the plants used by man as food. The matza made from the spring harvest was his new body and the wine from the grapes was his new blood. In Judaism, matza, was not used to represent the body of a god but the poor man's bread which the Jews ate before leaving Egypt. The pagans used the paschal sacrifice to represent the sacrifice of a god or his only son, but Judaism used it to represent the meal eaten before leaving Egypt. Instead of telling stories about Baal sacrificing his first born son to Mavet, the Jews told how mal'ach ha-mavet (the angel of death) slew the first born sons of the Egyptians. The pagans ate eggs to represent the resurrection and rebirth of their nature god, but the egg on the seder plate represents the rebirth of the Jewish people escaping captivity in Egypt. When the early Christians noticed the similarities between Pessach customs and pagan customs, they came full circle and converted the Pessach customs back to their old pagan interpretations. The seder became the last supper of Jesus, similar to the last supper of Osiris commemorated at the Vernal Equinox. The matza and wine once again became the body and blood of a false god, this time Jesus. Easter eggs are again eaten to commemorate the resurrection of a "god" and also the "rebirth" obtained by accepting his sacrifice on the cross.

The Last Supper myth is particularly interesting. As mentioned, the basic idea of last supper occurring at the Vernal Equinox comes from the story of the last supper of Osiris. In the Christian story, Jesus is present with twelve apostles. Where did the story of the twelve apostles come from? It appears that in its earliest version, the story was understood to be an allegory. The first time that twelve apostles are mentioned is in the document known as the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. This document apparently originated as a sectarian Jewish document written in the first century C.E., but it was adopted by Christians who altered it substantially and added Christian ideas to it. In the earliest versions it is clear that the "twelve apostles" are the twelve sons of Jacob representing the twelve tribes of Israel. The Christians later considered the "twelve apostles" to be allegorical disciples of Jesus.

In Egyptian mythology, Osiris was betrayed at his last supper by the evil god Set, whom the Greeks identified with Typhon. This seems to be the origin of the idea that Jesus's betrayer was present at his last supper. The idea that this betrayer was named "Judas" goes back to the time when the twelve apostles were still understood to be the sons of Jacob. The idea of Judas (Judah, Yehuda) betraying Jesus (the "son" of Joseph) is strongly reminiscent of the story of the Torah Joseph being betrayed by his brothers with Yehuda as the ringleader. This allegory would have been particulary appealing to the Samaritan Notzrim who considered themselves to be sons of Joseph betrayed by mainstream Jews (represented by Judas/Yehuda).

However, the story of the twelve apostles lost its original allegorical interpretation and the Christians began to think that the "twelve apostles" were twelve real people who followed Jesus. The Christians attempted to find names for these twelve apostles. Matthew and Thaddaeus were based on Mattai and Todah, two of Yeishu's disciples. One or both of the apostles named Jacobus (James) is possibly based on Jacob of Kfar Sekanya, an early Christian known to Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, but this is just a guess. As we have seen, the character of Judas is mostly based on the Judah of the Torah but there might also be a connection with Yeishu's contemporary, Yehuda ben Tabbai the disciple of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachyah. As already mentioned, the idea of the betrayer at the last supper is derived from the mythology of Osiris who was betrayed by Set-Typhon. Set-Typhon had red hair and this is probably the origin of the claim that Judas had red hair. This idea has led to the Christian stereotypical portrayal of Jews as having red hair, despite the fact that in reality, red hair is far more common among Aryans than among Jews.

Judas is often given the nickname "Iscariot." In some places where English New Testaments have "Iscariot," the Greek text actually has "apo Kariotou" which means "from Karyot." Karyot was the name of a town in Israel, probably the modern site known in Arabic as Karyatein. We thus see that the name Iscariot is derived from the Hebrew "ish Karyot" meaning "man from Karyot." This is in fact the accepted modern Christian understanding of the name. However, in the past, the Christians misunderstood this name and legends arose that Judas was from the town of Sychar, that he was a member of the extremist party known as the Sicarii and that he was from the tribe of Issacher. The most interesting misunderstanding of the name is its early confusion with the word scortea meaning a leather money bag. This led to the New Testament myth that Judas carried such a bag, which in turn led to the belief that he was the treasurer of the apostles.

The apostle Peter appears to be a largely fictitious character. According to Christian mythology, Jesus chose him to be the "keeper of the keys to the kingdom of heaven." This is clearly based on the Egyptian pagan deity, Petra, who was the door-keeper of heaven and the afterlife ruled over by Osiris. We must also doubt the story of Luke "the good healer" who was supposed to be a friend of Paul. The original Greek for "Luke" is "Lykos" which was another name for Apollo, the god of healing.

John the Baptist is largely based on an historical person who practiced ritual immersion in water as a physical symbol for repentance. He did not perform Christian style sacramental baptisms to cleanse people's souls - such an idea was totally foreign to Judaism. He was put to death by Herod Antipas, who feared that he was about to start a rebellion. John's name in Greek was "Ioannes" and in Latin "Johannes." Although these names were usually used for the Hebrew name Yochanan, it is unlikely that this was John's actual Hebrew name. "Ioannes" closely resembles "Oannes" the Greek name for the pagan god Ea. Oannes was the "God of the House of Water." Sacramental baptism for magically cleansing souls was a practice which apparently originated in the worship of Oannes. The most likely explanation of John's name and its connection with Oannes is that John probably bore the nickname "Oannes" since he practised baptism which he had adapted from the worship of Oannes. The name "Oannes" was later confused with "Ioannes." (In fact, the New Testament legend concerning John provides a clue that his real name might have been Zacharia.) It is known from Josephus's writings that the historical John rejected the pagan "soul-cleansing" interpretation of baptism. The Christians, however, returned to this original pagan interpretation.

The god Oannes was associated with the constellation Capricorn. Both Oannes and the constellation Capricorn were associated with water. (The constellation is supposed to depict a mythical sea-creature with the body of a fish and the foreparts of a goat.) We have already seen that Jesus was given the same birthday as the sun god (25 December), when the sun is in the constellation of Capricorn. The pagans thought of this period as one where the sun god is immersed in the waters of Oannes and emerges reborn. (The Winter Solstice, when days start getting longer, occurs near 25 December.) This astrological myth is apparently the origin of the story that Jesus was baptized by John. It probably started as an allegorical astrological story, but it appears that the god Oannes later became confused with the historical person nicknamed Oannes (John).

The belief that Jesus had met John contributed to the belief that Jesus's ministry and crucifixion occurred when Pontius Pilate was procurator of Judaea. It should be noted that most dates for Jesus quoted by Christians are completely nonsense. Jesus was partly based on Yeishu and ben Stada who probably lived more than a century apart. He was also based on the three false Messiahs, Yehuda, Theudas and Benjamin, who were crucified by the Romans at various different times. Another fact that contributed to confused dating of Jesus was that Jacob of Kfar Sekanya and probably other Notzrim as well, used expressions like "thus was I taught by Yeishu ha-Notzri," even though he had not been taught by Yeishu in person. We know from the Gemara that Jacob's statement led Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus to incorrectly conclude that Jacob was a disciple of Yeishu. This suggests that there were rabbis who were unaware of the fact that Yeishu had lived in Hashmonean times. Even after Christians placed Jesus in the first century C.E., confusion continued among non-Christians. There was a contemporary of Rabbi Akiva named Pappus ben Yehuda who used to lock up his unfaithful wife. We know from the Gemara that some people who confused Yeishu and ben Stada confused the wife of Pappus with Miriam the unfaithful mother of Yeishu. This would place Yeishu more than two centuries after he actually lived!

The New Testament story confuses so many historical periods that there is no way of reconciling it with history. The traditional year of Jesus's birth is 1 C.E. Jesus was supposed to be not more than two years old when Herod ordered the slaughter of the innocents. However, Herod died before April 12, 4 B.C.E. This has led some Christians to redate the birth of Jesus in 6 - 4 B.C.E. However, Jesus was also supposed have been born during the census of Quirinius. This census took place after Archelaus was deposed in 6 C.E., ten years after Herod's death. Jesus was supposed to have been baptized by John soon after John had started baptizing and preaching in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberias, i.e. 28-29 C.E., when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judaea i.e. 26-36 C.E. According to the New Testament, this also happened when Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene and Annas and Caiaphas were high priests. But Lysanias ruled Abilene from c. 40 B.C.E until he was executed in 36 B.C.E by Mark Antony, about 60 years before the date for Tiberias and about 30 years before the supposed birth of Jesus! Also, there were never two joint high priests, in particular, Annas was not a joint high priest with Caiaphas. Annas was removed from the office of high priest in 15 C.E after holding office for some nine years. Caiaphas only became high priest in c. 18 C.E, about three years after Annas. (He held this office for about eighteen years, so his dates are consistent with Tiberias and Pontius Pilate, but not with Annas or Lysanias.) Although the book of Acts presents Yehuda of Galilee, Theudas and Jesus as three different people, it incorrectly places Theudas (crucified 44 C.E.) before Yehuda who it correctly mentions as being crucified during the census (6 C.E.). Many of these chronological absurdities seem to be based on misreadings and misunderstandings of Josephus's book Jewish Antiquities, which was used as reference by the author of Luke andActs.

The story of Jesus's trial is also highly suspicious. It clearly tries to placate the Romans while defaming the Jews. The historical Pontius Pilate was arrogant and despotic. He hated the Jews and never delegated any authority to them. However, in Christian mythology, he is portrayed as a concerned ruler who distanced himself from the accusations against Jesus and who was coerced into obeying the demands of the Jews. According to Christian mythology, every Passover, the Jews would ask Pilate to free any one criminal they chose. This is of course a blatant lie. Jews never had a custom of freeing guilty criminals at Passover or any other time of the year. According the myth, Pilate gave the Jews the choice of freeing Jesus the Christ or a murderer named Jesus Barabbas. The Jews are alleged to have enthusiastically chosen Jesus Barabbas. This story is a vicious antisemitic lie, one of many such lies found in the New Testament (largely written by antisemites). What is particularly disgusting about this rubbish story is that it is apparently a distortion of an earlier story which claimed that the Jews demanded that Jesus Christ be set free. The name "Barabbas" is simply the Greek form of the Aramaic "bar Abba" which means "son of the Father." Thus "Jesus Barabbas" originally meant "Jesus the son of the Father," in other words, the usual Christian Jesus. When the earlier story claimed that the Jews wanted Jesus Barabbas to be set free it was referring to the usual Jesus. Somebody distorted the story by claiming that Jesus Barabbas was a different person to Jesus Christ and this fooled the Roman and Greek Christians who did not know the meaning of the name "Barabbas."

Lastly, the claim that the resurrected Jesus appeared to his disciples is also based on pagan superstition. In Roman mythology, the virgin born Romulus appeared to his friend on the road before he was taken up to heaven. (The theme of being taken up to heaven is found in scores of pagan myths and legends and even in Jewish stories.) It was claimed that Apollonius of Tyana had also appeared to his disciples after having been resurrected. It is interesting to note that the historical Apollonius was born more or less at the same time as the mythical Jesus was supposed to have been born. In legends people claimed that he had performed many miracles which were identical to those also ascribed to Jesus, such as exorcisms of demons and the raising to life of a dead girl.

When confronted with Christian missionaries one should point out as much information as possible about the origins of Christianity and the Jesus myth. You will almost never succeed in convincing them that Christianity is a false religion. You will not be able to prove beyond all doubt that the story of Jesus arose in the way we have claimed it has, since most of the evidence is circumstantial. Indeed we cannot be certain about the precise origin of many particular points in the story of Jesus. This does not matter. What is important is that you yourself realize that logical alternatives exist to blind belief in Christian myths and that reasonable doubt can be cast on the New Testament narrative.



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