Pagan, Whodunit?: Sid Harth

[cogitoergosum]

Pagan, Whodunit?: Sid Harth
http://bakulaji.typepad.com/blog/pagan-whoduint-sid-harth.html

Pagan and paganism

Origin of the word "Pagan."

Origin of the term:
There is general agreement that the word "Pagan" comes from the Latin
word "pagans." Unfortunately, there is no consensus on the precise
meaning of the word in the fifth century CE and earlier. There are
three main interpretations. 1 None has won general acceptance:

Most modern sources by persons who consider themselves Neopagans or
Pagans interpret the word to have meant "rustic," "hick," or "country
bumpkin" -- a pejorative term. The implication was that Christians
used the term to ridicule country folk who tenaciously held on to what
the Christians considered old-fashioned, outmoded Pagan beliefs. Those
in the country were much slower in adopting the new religion of
Christianity than were the urban dwellers. Many rural dwellers still
followed the Greek state religion, Roman state religion, Mithraism,
various mystery religions, etc., long after those in urban areas had
converted.

Some believe that in the early Roman Empire, "paganus" came to mean
"civilian" as opposed to "military." Christians at the time often
called themselves "miles Christi" (Soldiers of Christ). The non-
Christians became "pagani" -- non-soldiers or civilians. No
denigration would be implied.

C. Mohrmann suggests that the general meaning was any "outsider," --
a neutral term -- and that the other meanings, "civilian" and "hick,"
were merely specialized uses of the term. 2

By the fifth century CE, its meaning evolved to include all non-
Christians. Eventually, it became an evil term that implied the
possibility of Satan worship. The latter two meanings are still in
widespread use today.

There is no generally accepted, single, current definition for the
word "Pagan." The word is among the terms that the newsgroup
alt.usage.english, calls "skunk words." They have varied meanings to
different people. The field of religion is rife with such words.
consider: Christian, cult, hell, heaven, occult, Paganism, pluralism,
salvation, Witch, Witchcraft, Unitarian Universalist, Voodoo, etc.
Each has at least two meanings. They often cause misunderstandings
wherever they are used. Unfortunately, most people do not know this,
and naturally assume that the meaning that they have been taught is
universally accepted. A reader must often look at the context in which
the word is used in order to guess at the intent of the writer.

Many Wiccans, Neopagans, and others regularly use the terms "Pagan"
and "Paganism" to describe themselves. Everyone should be free to
continue whatever definitions that they wish. However, the possibility
of major confusion exists -- particularly if one is talking to a
general audience. When addressing non-Wiccans or non-Neopagans, it is
important that the term:

Be carefully defined in advance, or that

Its meaning is clearly understandable from the content of the text.

Otherwise, the speaker or writer will be discussing one group of
people, while the listeners or readers will assume that other groups
are being referred to.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/paganism1.htm

The first of seven definitions: Pagans consist of Wiccans and other
Neopagans:
We recommend that this should be the primary definition of "Pagan,"
for the simple reason that many Wiccans and other Neopagans embrace
the term for themselves. "Paganism" in this sense refers to a range of
spiritual paths. These are generally Neopagan religions based on the
deities, symbols, practices, seasonal days of celebration and other
surviving components of ancient religions, which had been long
suppressed. For example:

The Druidic religion is based on the faith and practices of the
ancient Celtic professional class;

Followers of Asatru adhere to the ancient, pre-Christian Norse
religion;

Wiccans generally trace their roots back to the early Celtic era in
Europe.

Other Neo-pagans follow Hellenismos (ancient Greek religion), Religio
Romana (ancient Roman religion), Kemetism (ancient Egyptian religion)
and other traditions.

Some Neopagan religions, like Wicca and Druidism, are Earth centered.
They emphasize living in harmony with the Earth and observing its
cycles. Others, like Hellenismos and Religio Romana, are deity
centered.

Some typical quotations which demonstrate this meaning of "Pagan"
are:

"Witchcraft, or Wicca, is considered part of the occult, but has
little relationship to Satanism. Wicca is pagan (pre-Christian, as
opposed to anti-Christian) and is currently gaining popularity." 3

"Witches do not worship the devil...Witches are more interested in
magical arts and the divinity of nature...Wiccans are considered
pagans because they worship several nature gods instead of a single
god." 4

"The World Christian Encyclopedia estimates 6 million Americans
profess to be witches and engage in practices like these. They are a
sub-group of over 10 million persons the encyclopedia says call
themselves pagans, who practice "primitive" religions such as
Druidism, Odin worship and Native American shamanism." 5

In this sense, "Pagan" refers to a group of religious traditions, and
should be capitalized, as are Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/paganism1.htm

The second of seven definitons: Pagans are people to hate:

Religious and social conservatives sometimes use "Pagan" as a general
purpose "snarl" word to refer to cultures or religions that are very
different from the speaker's. There is no general consensus as to
meaning. It can be seen directed at any religious or cultural group
that the speaker hates. Some examples:

Dr. John Patrick, professor at the University of Ottawa, Canada was
discussing at a conference the number of abortions performed
worldwide. He said: "Gods and goddesses are beginning to re-inhabit
the Western world. Infant sacrifice -- there are 52 million a year. It
is paganism." 6

Dr. Richard Swenson, director of the Future Health Study Center said
at the same conference: "We went into post-Christian and neopaganism
very quickly...We want the culture to change, we want some spiritual
sanity, but we need to understand that this is a pluralistic and even
neopaganist society." 6

Jerry Falwell appeared as a guest on Pat Robertson's "700 Club"
program on 2001-SEP-13. He said that God became sufficiently angry at
America that he engineered the terrorist attack on New York City and
Washington-- presumably to send Americans a message. He said:
"I really believe that the Pagans, and the abortionists, and the
feminists, and the gays and the lesbians -- all of them who have tried
to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say 'you
helped this happen.' "
Pat Robertson responded: "Well, I totally concur..." 7

Falwell did not elaborate on how a religious group such as Pagans
contributed to the secularization of the U.S.

[We sent a series of Emails to Falwell's office asking exactly to whom
he was referring with the word "Pagans." They declined to respond.
Since he died in 2007-MAY, we suspect that the question will never be
answered.] More details.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/paganism1.htm

References used:

The following information sources were used to prepare and update the
above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.

James J. O'Donnell, "PAGANUS," Classical Folia 31(1977) 163-69. Online
at: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/
C. Mohrmann, "Encore une fois: paganus," 'tudes sur le latin des
chr'tiens (Rome, 1958-1965), 3.277-289; orig. pub. in Vigiliae
Christianae, 6 (1952), 109-121. Quoted in Ref. 16.
Rob Tucker, IPCA REPORT (Spring 1989) Volume 2 #1. P. 8 The Institute
for the Prevention of Child Abuse, 25 Spadina Rd, Toronto ON M5R 2S9,
Canada.
McDowell & Stewart, "THE OCCULT", Here's Life Publishers, (1992) P.
199.
Sharon Rufus, "WHO ARE THE WITCHES?", Fate (1986 AUG), P. 59: quoted
by Nelson Price in "NEW AGE, THE OCCULT AND LION COUNTRY", Power Books
(1989), P. 98:
From speeches delivered at the Bioethics in the New Millennium
conference, Deerfield IL., 2000-JUL-22. Reported by Jordan Lite in
"Bioethicists Man the Pulpit," Wired News, at: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/
"PFAW President, Ralpy G. Neas, Addresses Divisive Comments by
Religious Right Leaders," People for the American Way, at: http://www.pfaw.org/

http://www.religioustolerance.org/paganism1.htm

Pagan and paganism
Five more definitions of "Pagan."

Pagan and paganism
Five more definitions of "Pagan."

Third of seven definitions: Pagans are ancient polytheists:

The term "Pagan" is sometimes used to refer to ancient polytheistic
religions. The Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary defines "pagan"
as: "belonging to a religion which worships many gods, especially one
which existed before the main world religions." 1

The Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) contain many references to the
societies surrounding the Israelites -- Babylonians, Canaanites,
Philistines, etc. These are commonly referred to as Pagans:

There are allegations that these societies engaged in human
sacrifices: II Kings 3:26-27: "...the king of Moab...took his eldest
son that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt
offering upon the wall."

Psalms 106:37-38: "Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their
daughters unto devils, And shed innocent blood, even the blood of
their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols
of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood."

Their altars were often referred to as "high places:" II Kings 16:4:
"And he sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places, and on the
hills, and under every green tree."

Surrounding tribes were viewed as committing idolatry by worshiping
golden images of animals: II Kings 17:16: "And they left all the
commandments of the LORD their God, and made them molten images, even
two calves, and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven,
and served Baal."

Ancient faiths of ancient Celtic, Egypt, Greece, Norse, Rome, and
other cultures are frequently referred to as Pagan religions. Even
though many of these religions had strict social and sexual behavioral
codes, their followers were often portrayed as hedonist and immoral:
1 Peter 4:3: "For the time past of our life may suffice us to have
wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness,
lusts, excess of wine, revelings, banquetings, and abominable
idolatries."

A recent example of this definition is: Referring to sun wheels and
obelisks: "...These symbols of pagan sun worship were associated with
Baal worship, or Baalim, which is strongly condemned in scripture. So
why are they so prevalent in the Roman Catholic Church, if they are
associated with paganism and apostasy?" From an anti-Catholic essay on
a conservative Protestant Christian web site. 2

Fourth of seven definitions: Pagans are those who follow Aboriginal
religions:
Paganism is occasionally used to refer to animism -- the belief that
all natural objects and the universe itself have souls. Animism is
common among primitive cultures. 3 Their beliefs are based upon direct
perception of the forces of nature and usually involve the use of
idols, talismans and taboos in order to convey respect for these
forces and beings. Many native, aboriginal religions from all of the
continents in the world fit this definition.

Fifth of seven definitions: Pagans are followers of non-Abrahamic
religions:
A rare use of "Pagan" is to describe a person who does not follow an
main Abrahamic religion. That is, their faith does not recognize
Abraham as a patriarch. The individual is neither Christian, Muslim,
Baha'i nor Jew. Pagans under this definition would include Agnostics,
Atheists, Buddhists, Hindus, Humanists, Scientologists, Taoists,
Wiccans, etc. About 45% of the people of the world are Pagans, by this
definition.

Sixth of seven definitions: Pagans are those who don't belong to any
of the main world religions:
The Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary gives an alternative
definition of the word "pagan" as: "relating to religious beliefs
that do not belong to any of the main religions of the world" 1 This
definition is rather vague, because it does not describe how a "main
religion of the world" is defined. If it is any religion with more
than, say, 1% of the world's population (i.e. 65 million members),
then: Aboriginal religions, Atheism, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism,
Islam, Taoism would be non-pagan, whereas Judaism, Sikhism,
Confucianism, the Baha'i Faith, Wicca, Zoroastrianism etc. would be
pagan. I doubt that many members of the latter religions would be
happy with their classification.

Seventh of seven definitions: Pagans are Atheists, Agnostics,
Humanists, etc:
The term "Pagan" was once widely used by Atheists, Agnostics,
Humanists, etc. to refer to themselves. The word was also used by
others to describe these groups. The usage dropped after the rise of
Neopaganism in the middle of the 20th century, and is rarely seen
today.

References used:

The following information sources were used to prepare and update the
above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.

"Definition: pagan," Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, at:
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/
"Pagan sun worship and Catholicism: The Pagan sun wheel, the obelisk
and Baal," Michael Scheifler's Bible Light Home Page, at: http://www.aloha.net/
"Animism," WordNet Search, at: http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/

Copyright © 2000 to 2010 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Originally written: 2000-JUL-28
Latest update: 2010-JAN-10
Author: B.A. Robinson

http://www.religioustolerance.org/paganism2.htm

Pagan and paganism

Which are the most common definitions?
Conclusions. Recommendations. Books

How common are the various meanings of "Pagan"?

On the Internet itself: Wiccans and other Neopagans have made
extensive use of the Internet; they probably have more web pages per
capita than followers of any other religion. Using the search string
"Pagan," the Google search engine found about 459,000 hits on the
Internet in the year 2000. 1 We found that: The first 14 hits all
referred to Wicca or another Neopagan religion.
24 of the first 27 hits referred to a Neopagan faith tradition.

In 2010, the same search word found almost 24 million hits, with
similar results on the first few dozen hits.

In conservative Christian search engines: We used the same search
string on Goshen. It was perhaps the largest conservative Christian
search engine when the first draft of this essay was written. 2 It
found ten web sites which referred to Paganism. Some were broken
links; others had no apparent references to Pagans. But others did:

Five referred to ancient polytheistic religions, such as the faiths
of Babylonians, Celts, Romans, etc. during biblical times and in the
early history of Christianity:
An anti-Roman Catholic essay which described the use of sun wheels
and obelisks of ancient Pagan religions within Roman Catholicism. 3

One condemned Christmas' practices as "merely variations of the
ceremonies invented by the corrupt pagans of yesterday." It refers to
the Christian concept of the Trinity as deriving from "Pagan Babylon."
"The religion of pagan Babylon did not disappear...it was passed on
down, to 'Mystery Babylon,'...[the] mother of abominations of the
earth." 4

One promotes Christian observance of Halloween: "...someone is bound
to ask why we allow our children to act out a ritual rooted in pagan
and satanic beliefs..." 5

One referred to the Pagan cultures surrounding the early Christian
movement. 6

Another anti-Roman Catholic essay discusses Jesus' mother Mary. It
notes that the titles "Mother of God" and "Queen of Heaven" came from
Pagan cultures that surrounded the early Christian movements. It says
that the concept of the perpetual virginity of Mary is also Pagan,
being derived from the worship of "Ashtoroth, also known as Isis,
Diana, Venus, Vesta, Samariums, Istarte and Helen...".

One probably refers to Neopagans: The author writes that "all belief
systems except atheism, paganism and satanism have had their roots
from certain scriptures..." 7 Presumably, the author is not referring
to ancient polytheistic religions because various cultures from
Babylon to Rome had religious writings. He might possibly be referring
to Aboriginal religions, which typically use an oral tradition.

Various secular news sources attributing unusual meanings to "Pagan":

The vast majority of references to Pagans and Paganism in the secular
media relate to Wiccans and other Neopagans. Some exceptions were:

Paganism = secularization + New Age religion, + politically liberal
thinking + others:

According to U.S. Newswire:

The National Clergy Council and Operation Save Our Nation have
scheduled for 2000-OCT-28 a "Jericho March" of 100 religious
"intercessors" around Capitol Hill and the White House. President of
the Council, the Rev. Rob Schenck said:
"The concept behind this Jericho March is to 'tear down' the walls of
the new 'Washington Paganism' -- the secularization, New Ageism and
postmodern amoralism -- epitomized in the Clinton-Gore Administration,
in the morally weak leadership in the Congress, and in the liberal
members of the Supreme Court."

Paganism = ancient polytheists:

According to John Silber writing in the Boston Herald:

"This opposition [to Christmas trees], then and now, rests on a
recognition of the pagan origin of the Christmas tree. Indeed, as
columnist Kimberley Strassel has noted in The Wall Street Journal, the
Prophet Jeremiah specifically condemned as pagan the practice of
cutting down trees, bringing them inside and decorating them." 8

Paganism = Non-Abrahamics:

According to a Pagan news service:

"Vatican officials have labeled Europe a "Pagan country." The comment
was prompted by a statistic from Austria that 43,632 Austrians
formally renounced their Roman Catholic affiliation in 1999, whereas
only 3,387 converts joined the Church.

Pagans = members of a motorcycle club in West Virginia:

The Miami Herald carried an article about the "Pagans Motorcycle
Club." The term "Pagan" here seems to have the connotation of outlaw
bikers, and is not related to any religious group. 20

Conclusions:

Most Internet references to Paganism refer to Wiccans and other
Neopagans.

Conservative Christians often use the term Pagan to refer to ancient
Polytheistic religions.

Other meanings of "Paganism" appear to be rarely used in contemporary
literature.

Recommendations:

We recommend that the terms "Pagan" and "Paganism" never be used in
speech or written form, unless:

They are precisely defined in advance, or

A known and homogenous audience is being addressed.

Otherwise mass confusion will occur. Even if it is carefully defined,
listeners or readers' interpretation of the text will probably be
distorted. They will carry over some of the baggage associated with
their own definition of "Pagan." In place of "Pagan," we suggest that
you use the actual name of the religious group that you are referring
to: (e.g. Animism, Asatru, Buddhism, Druidism, Hinduism, Native
American Spirituality, Wicca, etc.) to avoid ambiguity.

The term "Neopagan" has a unique definition and can be used without
confusion among those who know its meaning. However, not everyone is
aware of what it means.

A search of the Amazon data base for "Paganism":

The following books are the result of a book search at the Amazon.com
web site -- the world's biggest online bookstore.

A highly recommended book with stories by over 50 Pagans:

Laura Wildman, Ed., "Celebrating the Pagan soul," Citadel. (2005).
Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book
store

Caroline Tully, one of the contributors to the book, writes:

"Gardnerian High Priestess and Cherry Hill Seminary instructor, Laura
Wildman, has collected amazing stories from a diverse set of
practitioners, each with their own individual perspective on what it
means to be Pagan in the modern world. With over fifty contributors -
including famous names like Starhawk, Macha NightMare and Oberon Zell-
Ravenheart, as well as a plethora of less well-known but just as
gifted writers - this book has something that will appeal to everyone.
The book is divided into five sections; Earth: Community - the roots
that nourish, the families we create, the coming home; Air: The
learning process - teachers, mentors, students and inner guides; Fire:
magical transformation - from Wow! To Oops!; Water: the seasons and
the cycles of life; and Spirit: The God and Goddess in our lives. The
reader can dip into the book anywhere - you need not start at the
beginning - and find honest, creative, thought-provoking stories about
joy, awe, triumph, failure, consternation, love, loss and sorrow, that
stand out as being written by deeper-than-average thinkers. A ripe
collection of wisdom-fruit from people who really live their Paganism.
Highly recommended."

References used:

The following information sources were used to prepare and update the
above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.

The Google search engine had indexed 1.06 billion web pages in the
year 2000. They have indexed many billions by 2010. See: http://www.google.com/
The Goshen search engine appears to have moved to: http://forums.crosswalk.com/
"Pagan sun worship and Catholicism: The Pagan sun wheel, the obelisk
and Baal," Michael Scheifler's Bible Light Home Page, at: http://www.aloha.net/~
Steve Hancock, "Who says Christmas is wrong?" at: http://web.wt.net/
David Keating, "Boo...Who?," at: http://www.osiem.org/community/
Rev. Paul Howden, "Annunciation to the Virgin Mary, 2000," at:
http://www.stlukesrec.org/
David Rivera, "Controlled by the calendar: The Pagan origins of our
major holidays," at: http://members.tripod.com/
John Silber, "Anti-Christmas stance isn't rooted in fact," Boston
Herald, 2000-DEC-28. See: http://www.bostonherald.com/

http://www.religioustolerance.org/paganism3.htm

Halloween, Samhain, All Saints' Day
Facts and misinformation

The Halloween season of OCT-31 to NOV-2 each year is unique. It
includes:
A Neopagan Sabbat: Samhain, usually celebrated on or near the
evening of OCT-31. It was originally a celebration of the final
harvest of the growing season among the ancient Celts. It was also
their new year celebration. Today, it is mainly celebrated by Wiccans
and other Neo-Pagans

Three Christian holy days: All Saints' Day (a.k.a. All Hallows'
Day) on NOV-1. The holiday was first celebrated on 609-MAY-13 CE when
Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome to the Virgin Mary.
The date was later changed to NOV-1 by Pope Gregory III who dedicated
a chapel in honor of all saints in the Vatican Basilica. Pope Gregory
IV (827-844) later extended the feast to the whole church. The Eastern
Orthodox churches celebrate All Saints Day in the springtime -- the
Sunday after Pentecost.

All Souls' Day (a.k.a. the Day of the Dead) which is normally
celebrated on NOV-2. When NOV-2 is a Sunday, as it was for the years
2003 and 2008, the celebration is held on the following Monday. This
is a day for prayer and almsgiving in memory of ancestors who have
died. Believers pray for the souls of the dead, in an effort to hasten
their transition from Purgatory to Heaven. It is primarily celebrated
by Roman Catholics. The day is believed to have been selected by "St.
Odilo, the fifth abbot of Cluny...France because he wanted to follow
the example of Cluny in offering special prayers and singing the
Office of the Dead on the day following the feast of All Saints." 1

Some Protestants celebrate Reformation Day. This is the anniversary
of 1517-OCT-31 CE, the day that Martin Luther's published his 95
theses. These were criticisms of beliefs and practices of the Roman
Catholic church, particularly related to the sale of indulgences. He
is widely believed to have published them in a dramatic manner, by
nailing them to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany.
Actually, that may never have happened. There is some evidence that he
did write a letter to his superiors attacking the sale of indulgences;
the 95 theses were merely appended to the letter. This triggered the
Protestant Reformation, leading to a decades-long war in Europe,
enmity between Catholics and Protestants, and the eventual fracture of
Christianity into thousands of individual faith groups.

A secular celebration, Halloween on the evening of OCT-31. In some
areas, if OCT-31 falls on a Sunday, Halloween is celebrated on the
evening of OCT-30. Stores love Halloween. It is the festival when the
largest amount of candy is sold. It is second only to Christmas in
total commercial sales. The total sale of costumes, candy and other
Halloween material reached almost $7 billion in 2003. 2 A 2008 survey
by the National Federation in the U.S., revealed that the average
person was spending $66.54.

There is probably more misinformation circulated about these festivals
than about any other yearly celebration.

Halloween topics covered:

Opinions about Halloween: By the public

By religious groups

Analysis of websites dealing with Halloween: Four web sites

More of the same

Accurate web sites on Halloween

Evangelical Christian beliefs about Halloween
How Evangelicals celebrate the season

Hell houses, Judgment houses. revelation walks, etc.

Neopagan beliefs about Halloween

Halloween customs and traditions

Hoaxes about Halloween: "Razor blades in the apples" hoax

Ritual abuse and sacrificing black cats

The myth of Samhain: Celtic god of the dead

Vaguely related sections in this web site:

The Goth culture
Vampyres and vampires
Wicca

Interesting web sites related to Halloween:

The Neverendingwonder Radio Empire broadcasts halloween songs,
comedy, musicals, etc. via the Internet. See: http://www.neverendingwonder.com/

"Bev" et al., have an essay on the "Day of the Dead," at: http://www.nacnet.org/

Cards: Many web sites allow you to send Halloween cards to friends:
Care2.com has Halloween cards with a difference. They have 250 free
eCards from which you can choose. For each free card sent via Email,
Care2 makes a donation to an environmental nonprofit to save a square
foot of rainforest! That's 929.030 square centimeters! Did I mention
they are free? See: http://www.care2.com/

Halloween Greeting Cards at: http://www.halloweengreetingcards.com/

123 Greetings at: http://www.123greetings.com/events/halloween/

Regards.com at: http://www.regards.com/

Halloween Horrors at: http://www.halloweenhorrors.net

Dana's Designs supplied icons for our Halloween essays. Thanks, Dana.

The Fright Catalog has been named "best overall" for Halloween
shopping by the Wall Street Journal! See: http://www.frightcatalog.com

Glow Inc. sells glow-in-the-dark powders and paints, particularly to
the Fun House and Halloween community. See: http://www.glowinc.com/

Halloween Express has an immense variety of adult, kids, TV & movie
and other costumes. See: http://www.halloweenexpress.com/

Halloween Manor offers a wide variety of costumes for children,
teens, and adults. See: http://www.halloweenmanor.com/

Haunted Fog has foggers (machines that generate fog), lighting
products, flyers, Halloween E-Cards, tombstones and many other
products.

The Holiday Spot at Theholidayspot.com/ is a place to "celebrate the
holidays." They have a well-written history of Halloween at:
http://theholidayspot.com/

Nickscape.net has a list of links to online suppliers of Halloween
costumes, decorations and party supplies. See: http://nickscape.net/

Pure Costumes carries "... a large selection of Halloween costumes
for adults, kids, teens, pre teens - tweens, and plus size, as well as
wigs, masks and accessories. See: http://www.purecostumes.com/

References used:

The following information sources were used to prepare and update the
above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.

Isaac Bonewits describes "The real origins of Halloween." It is a
carefully researched essay at: http://www.neopagan.net/ He has other
well researched essays at: http://www.neopagan.net/
Geraldine Sealey, "Satan's Big Day? Culture Wars Don't Take a Holiday
on Halloween," ABC News, 2003-OCT-31, at: http://abcnews.go.com/ This
is now offline.
"Samhain on the Cauldron" discusses the history of Halloween and the
Pagan celebration of Samhain. See: http://www.ecauldron.com/p
David Beaulieu, "Origins of Halloween, All Hallows' Eve," About.com,
at: http://landscaping.about.com/
"Halloween: Myths, monsters and devils" analyzes the many errors in
four essays about Halloween at: http://www.featherlessbiped.com/
Elspeth Sapphire has a pleasant and accurate description of Halloween
at: http://www.ecauldron.net/

http://www.religioustolerance.org/hallowee.htm

ALL ABOUT THE CHRISTMAS TREE

Pagan origins, Christian adaptation, & secular status

Quotation:

"Many Americans celebrate both Christmas and Xmas. Others celebrate
one or the other. And some of us celebrate holidays that, although
unconnected with the [winter] solstice, occur near it: Ramadan,
Hanukkah and Kwanzaa." John Silber 1

Overview:

Some have traced the Christmas tree back at least as far as the
Prophet Jeremiah who wrote the book Jeremiah in the Hebrew Scriptures
(Old Testament). Opposition to the Christmas tree was strong in past
centuries. The early Christian Church in the third century strictly
prohibited the decoration of their houses with evergreen boughs. The
decorated Christmas tree only caught on in the mid-19th century.
Modern-day opposition continues: some condemn the Christmas tree
because they believe it to be a Christian symbol; others condemn it
because they believe -- incorrectly -- that the custom of cutting down
a tree, erecting it in the home and decorating it is a Pagan custom. 1
For many people today, it is primarily as a secular symbol of hope
for the New Year and the future return of warmth to the earth. Its
future is assured in spite of opposition.

Objections to the Christmas Tree:

In the past, there have been many objections to Christmas trees:

The Prophet Jeremiah condemned as Pagan the ancient Middle Eastern
practice of cutting down trees, bringing them into the home and
decorating them. Of course, these were not really Christmas trees,
because Jesus was not born until centuries later, and the use of
Christmas trees was not introduced for many centuries after his birth.
Apparently, in Jeremiah's time the "heathen" would cut down trees,
carve or decorate them in the form of a god or goddess, and overlay it
with precious metals. Some Christians feel that this Pagan practice
was similar enough to our present use of Christmas trees that this
passage from Jeremiah can be used to condemn both:

Jeremiah 10:2-4: "Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the
heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen
are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one
cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the
workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they
fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not." (KJV).

In Europe, Pagans in the past did not cut down evergreen trees, bring
them into their homes and decorate them. That would have been far too
destructive of nature. But during the Roman celebration of the feast
of Saturnalia, Pagans did decorate their houses with clippings of
evergreen shrubs. They also decorated living trees with bits of metal
and replicas of their God, Bacchus. Tertullian (circa 160 - 230), an
early Christian leader and a prolific writer, complained that too many
fellow-Christians had copied the Pagan practice of adorning their
houses with lamps and with wreathes of laurel at Christmas time.
8,9,10,11
The English Puritans condemned a number of customs associated with
Christmas, such as the use of the Yule log, holly, mistletoe, etc.
Oliver Cromwell preached against "the heathen traditions" of Christmas
carols, decorated trees and any joyful expression that desecrated
"that sacred event." 2,4
In America, the Pilgrim's second governor, William Bradford, a
Puritan, tried hard to stamp out all "pagan mockery" at Christmas
time. 4 Christmas trees were not used by Puritans in colonial times.
However, if they were, they would certainly have been forbidden.
In 1851, Pastor Henry Schwan of Cleveland OH appears to have been the
person responsible for decorating the first Christmas tree in an
American church. His parishioners condemned the idea as a Pagan
practice; some even threatened the pastor with harm. But objections
soon dissipated. 2

Even today, the complaints continue:

At Christmas 2000, the city manager of Eugene OR ordered that
Christmas trees could not be erected on city properties because he
considered them Christian religious symbols. He felt that their
presence would violate the principle of church and state. 1 This is
just one of countless conflicts that have surfaced at Christmas time
over religious and quasi-religious observances.
Some Fundamentalist Christian groups oppose Christmas trees and even
the celebration of Christmas for their members. This includes the
Jehovah's Witnesses and, until recently, the Worldwide Church of God.
Part of the opposition is because the custom of decorated trees
originated in Paganism. They also oppose trees because of a literal
interpretation of the quotation from Jeremiah.

Origins of the Christmas Tree:

Pagan traditions: Many Pagan cultures used to cut boughs of evergreen
trees in December, move them into the home or temple, and decorate
them. 7 Modern-day Pagans still do. This was to recognize the winter
solstice -- the time of the year that had the shortest daylight hours,
and longest night of the year. This occurs annually sometime between
DEC-20 to 23. They noticed that the days were gradually getting
shorter; many feared that the sun would eventually disappear forever,
and everyone would freeze. But, even though deciduous trees, bushes,
and crops died or hibernated for the winter, the evergreen trees
remained green. They seemed to have magical powers that enabled them
to withstand the rigors of winter. Not having evergreen trees, the
ancient Egyptians considered the palm tree to symbolize resurrection.
They decorated their homes with its branches during the winter
solstice. 3
"The first decorating of an evergreen tree began with the heathen
Greeks and their worship of their god Adonia, who allegedly was
brought back to life by the serpent Aessulapius after having been
slain." 5
The ancient Pagan Romans decorated their "trees with bits of metal
and replicas of their god, Bacchus [a fertility god]. They also placed
12 candles on the tree in honor of their sun god" 2 Their mid-winter
festival of Saturnalia started on DEC-17 and often lasted until a few
days after the Solstice.
In Northern Europe, the ancient Germanic people tied fruit and
attached candles to evergreen tree branches, in honor of their god
Woden. Trees were viewed as symbolizing eternal life. This is the
deity after which Wednesday was named. The trees joined holly,
mistletoe, the wassail bowl and the Yule log as symbols of the season.
All predated Christianity. 5

Christmas traditions: One Christmas tradition was that St. Boniface
(675? - 755; a.k.a. Winfred) cut down a deciduous tree in the presence
of some newly-baptized Christians. The tree was an oak -- once sacred
to the former Pagans. It miraculously split into four pieces,
revealing an evergreen tree growing from the center of the oak stump.
This symbolized the death of Paganism and the establishment of
Christianity. 3
Another is that Martin Luther (1483 - 1546) was so impressed by a
forest scene that he allegedly cut down a small fir tree, took it
home, and decorated it with lighted candles. This is probably a myth,
because the earliest documented record of a Christmas tree in Germany
is dated to almost 60 years after his death.

History of the Christmas Tree:

The Christmas tree tradition dates back to Western Germany in the 16th
century. They were called "Paradeisbaum" (paradise trees) and were
brought into homes to celebrate the annual Feast of Adam and Eve on
DEC-24. 4 They were first brought to America by German immigrants
about 1700. Christmas trees became popular among the general
population about 1850. 2

President Franklin Pierce (1804-1869) arranged to have the first
Christmas tree in the White House, during the mid-1850's. President
Calvin Coolidge (1885-1933) started the National Christmas Tree
Lighting Ceremony on the White House lawn in 1923. 4

Today, the Christmas Tree has become accepted by Christians, by people
of other faiths, and for those who do not follow an organized
religion. It has become a popular late-December tradition and part of
our present-day culture. As Gail Quick, University of South Carolina -
Beaufort's dean of university relations, commented on the occasion of
a community tree-lighting ceremony.: "This Christmas event every year
is the glue that holds this community together - this and the July 4th
fireworks. This always makes me feel good. Some of us still believe in
Santa Claus." 6

References used:

The following information sources were used to prepare and update the
above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.

John Silber, "Anti-Christmas stance isn't rooted in fact," Boston
Herald, 2000-DEC-28. See: http://www.bostonherald.com/ Note: The
Islamic holy month of Ramadan is based on a lunar calendar that moves
each year relative to the Gregorian calendar. Thus it just happens to
be celebrated near Christmas at this time.
Diane Relf, "Christmas Tree Traditions," Virginia Cooperative
Extension, 1997-AOR, at: http://www.ext.vt.edu/
"Christmas tree: Pointing towards heaven," at: http://ww2.netnitco.net/
"What is a tree?," at: http://www.serve.com/
"Should Christians celebrate Christmas?," at: http://www.sovereigngrace.net/
William Dean, "Christmas tree lighting sparks holiday spirit,"
Carolina Morning News on the Web, at: http://www.lowcountrynow.com/
"The Christmas Tree as a Symbol of Pagan Baal Worship," The Ellen
White Research Project, at: http://www.ellenwhite.org/
"Tertullian," Wikipedia, at: http://en.wikipedia.org/
David Beaulieu, "Christmas Tree Decorating: The History of the
Christmas Tree," Landscaping, About.com, at: http://landscaping.about.com/
Turtulian, "On Idolatry," XV.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/xmas_tree.htm

THE CHRISTMAS STORY:

AN OVERVIEW OF CHRISTIAN BELIEFS

The Christmas Story, as interpreted by conservative Christians:

Essentially all conservative theologians believe in the inspiration of
the Bible authors and the inerrancy of the Bible itself. This leads
them to regard the birth stories in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke to
be absolutely accurate in every detail. The Gospels of Mark and John,
and the various epistles by Paul and other authors do not refer to
Jesus' birth as being unusual in any way. But it is not necessary that
most writers of the Christian Scriptures (New Testament) mention the
virgin birth and other special events at Jesus birth. The fact that
Matthew and Luke did so is sufficient proof. One need only read the
early chapters of these two gospels to obtain an accurate account of
the events surrounding Jesus' birth. We won't provide a further
analysis here, because the story in Matthew 1:1 to 2:12 and Luke 1:5
to 2:20 are easily accessible and easy to understand. More details.

The Christmas Story, as interpreted by liberal Christians

Among many liberal theologians, many (if not most) components of the
stories should be regarded as myth. There are many elements in the
Gospels relating to Jesus' birth which they believe did not happen.
Common beliefs among religious liberals are:

Gospel of Q: This gospel was written circa 50 CE, probably before any
of the books that became the Christian Scirptures (New Testament).
Although it has been lost, theologians have been able to reconstruct
its text. It does not mention Jesus' birth as being in any way
special. One can assume that the Christians at the time had not yet
developed a birth myth.
Writings of Paul: These were probably written a few years after the
Gospel of Q, and pre-dated the remaining gospels by up to 5 decades.
He makes reference to Jesus' birth in two passages. In both cases, the
virgin birth and the miracles associated with the birth were not
mentioned. Jesus was presented as having a normal birth: Galatians
4:4: "But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born
of woman, born under the law."
Romans 1:3: "...Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of
David according to the flesh."

Mark: This gospel was written by an unknown author circa 70 CE. He
apparently knew nothing about miraculous events associated with Jesus'
birth, and thus did not record any in his writings. If he were aware
of them, he certainly would have mentioned them.
Matthew: This was written by another unknown author, probably a Jew
who lived remote from Palestine. He wrote the Gospel circa 80 CE,
presumably after some of the early Christian movements had invented
miraculous traditions associated with Jesus' birth. Most of the
elements associated with this myth appear to have never happened:
Matthew 1:1: The author traces Jesus' genealogy from Abraham. He lists
Jacob as being Jesus' grandfather. This conflicts with Luke, who lists
Eli. Jesus' line is traced through Solomon, son of David. Luke traces
the Messianic line through Nathan, son of David. The author lists 28
generations between David and Jesus; Luke says it was 41.
Matthew 1:18: The virgin conception of Jesus by Mary is an obvious
myth. The Gospel of Q does not mention it. St. Paul not only does not
mention it, but implies that Jesus' birth was normal. The author of
the Gospel probably invented the virgin birth so that the story of
Jesus' could compete with the magical conception of many heroes and
gods in surrounding Pagan religions: e.g. Horus (circa 1550 BCE),
Zoroaster (1000 - 1500 BCE?), Krishna (circa 1200 BCE), Indra (circa
750 BCE), Buddha (circa 600 BCE), Mithra (circa 500 BCE), Quirrnus
(circa 550 BCE), Attis (circa 200 BCE), Adonis (born in Bethlehem many
centuries before Jesus).
Matthew 1:22: The author cites a passage in an ancient Greek
translation of Isaiah. The translation was an error: it substituted
"virgin" for "young woman." Matthew and Luke probably felt compelled
to go along with the expectation that Jesus' mother was a virgin.
Matthew 2:1: The story of the Magi coming to Palestine to give homage
to the King of the Jews appears to have been freely adapted from the
story of Mithra's birth. He was mythical Persian savior, also
allegedly born of a virgin on DEC-25, who was worshiped many centuries
before Jesus' birth
Matthew 2:7: Herod inquired as to the exact time that the star
appeared. According to Matthew 2:16, this was to learn exactly when
Jesus was born, so that he could have all of the male children of a
suitable age in the Bethlehem area murdered. Since he later ordered
all of the children under 2 years of age slaughtered, Jesus must have
been living with his parents in Bethlehem for many months by the time
that the Magi arrived - perhaps at least a year. If Jesus had been
just born, then Herod would have ordered only newborn infants killed.
This conflicts with Luke 2:39 which states that when Mary was ritually
purified 40 days after the birth, that the family returned to Nazareth
immediately afterwards.
Matthew 2:9: The story element which has the Magi following a star is
obvious mythical. Any star or super-nova or comet or alignment of
planets would obviously be tens or hundreds of millions of miles away
from earth. In order to serve as a marker for the house in Bethlehem
where Jesus was, it would have to be only a few hundred feet above the
town.
Matthew 2:11: The author presents Joseph and Mary as being residents
of Bethlehem, living in a house. This conflicts with Luke's account
which describes Jesus' parents as residents of Nazareth and only
temporary visitors to Bethlehem
Matthew 2:13: The author describes the family fleeing to Egypt. No
record of this is seen in Luke. It was apparently added to the gospel
in order to match the prophecy in Hosea 11:1 that the Messiah must
come out of Egypt.
Matthew 2:16: Herod's extermination order is certainly a myth, as
described above.
Matthew 2:23: Joseph and Mary bypassed Judea and settled in Nazareth.
The prophecy that "He will be called a Nazarene" does not exist in the
Hebrew Scriptures.

Luke: This gospel was written by an unknown author circa 90 CE. He
was probably the only writer in the Christian Scriptures who was not
born a Jew. Originally, it was believed that the author of Luke and
Acts was a physician. But recent analysis of the text indicates that
his medical knowledge was typical of any educated person of his era.
The Christmas story that we see portrayed in plays and pageants is
most often taken from this gospel. Matthew's mention of the Magi is
then tacked onto the end. Some suspicious elements from Luke's birth
story are: Luke 3:38: As noted above, Luke's genealogy cannot be
reconciled with Matthew's.
Luke 1:26: The description of the virgin conception is, as described
above, an attempt to make a mistranslated prophecy from the Hebrew
Scriptures come true. Alternatively the author might have incorporated
a birth tradition invented by his religious group in order to make
Jesus appear to be a great hero or god, like those of the surrounding
religions in the Mediterranean.
Luke 2:1: The census never happened.
Luke 2:2: Even if a census did occur at the time of Jesus' birth, the
people would not have been required to return to their ancestral home.
That would be a totally impractical arrangement. If it happened this
way, all work throughout the Roman Empire would stop. Some people
would have had to travel for months to return to their ancestral home.
The transportation infrastructure could not possibly have handled the
flood of travelers.
Luke 2:5: Joseph would not have taken Mary with him, even if he had
to go to Bethlehem to register. Only men were enumerated or taxed, so
there was no necessity for her to accompany Joseph. Mary's pregnancy
was in its 9th month at the time. She would not have been in a
condition to travel.
Luke 2:8: The author seems to have invented the shepherds; the latter
do not appear in Matthew.
Luke 2:39: The author describes Joseph and Mary as being residents of
Nazareth. This is probably true, but conflicts with Matthew's story
which has them living in Bethlehem, and only deciding to go to
Nazareth because it would be too dangerous to remain in Judea.
Luke 2:39: Luke describes them as going directly from Bethlehem to
Nazareth. This conflicts with Matthew's account which has them fleeing
to Egypt and only returning after Herod died. At least one of these
accounts must be wrong.

John: This gospel was written by one or more authors circa 100 CE.
The writers would have certainly been aware of the birth stories of
Matthew and Luke. But they seem to have rejected the stories as myths,
and not worthy of being incorporated into their gospel.

After removing all of the fantasy and myth from the birth stories, we
are left with the following probable facts: "Jeshua was born to Mary
and Joseph, in Nazareth in the fall circa 4 BCE." But it would be a
mistake to reject all of the other events associated with the
Christmas season, just because they never happened. We can still enjoy
the stories as beautiful myths and legends, which have inspired
Christians for centuries.

Another analysis.

References:

The following information sources were used to prepare and update the
above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.

A.N. Wilson, "Jesus", Sinclair-Stevenson, London, UK (1992), Pages
73-83. You can read reviews of this book or order it safely from
Amazon.com
J.S. Spong, "Resurrection: Myth or Reality?", Harper Collins, San
Francisco CA (1994), Page 8-9. Review/order the book
J.S. Spong, "Born of a Woman: A Bishop Rethinks the Birth of Jesus",
Harper San Francisco, CA, (1992), P. 74-79. Review/order the book
Kenneth E. Nahigian, "A Virgin-Birth Prophecy?" at:
http://www.mantis.co.uk/sceptical/2virgi93.html
B.G. Walker, "The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets," Harper &
Row, (1983) Review/order the book
Hilke Dokter, "The Messiah's True birth date" at: http://www.members.shaw.ca/hdokters
A countdown of the months, days, hours, minutes and seconds remaining
until Christmas is at: http://christmas.com/html/countdown.html
Kenneth E. Nahigian, "A Virgin-Birth Prophecy?" at:
http://www.mantis.co.uk/sceptical/2virgi93.html
Robin L. Fox, "The Unauthorized Version: Truth and fiction in the
Bible," Knopf, New York, NY (1992) Review/order the book
W. Keller, "The Bible as History," Morrow, New York NY (1981) Review/
order the book
Anon, "Does the Bible Indicated that Christ was Born on December 25?,"
The World Ahead, 1997- OCT/NOV
M. J. Borg, Ed., "Jesus at 2000," Westview Press, (1997), Page 2.
Review/order the book

http://www.religioustolerance.org/xmas_dir.htm

Christianity

Inerrancy: Is the Bible free of error?
All points of view.

Overview:

The word "inerrancy" is used to refer to a text that is considered
accurate, truthful, and totally free of error. A text that contains
mistakes is errant.

The term is often used by conservative theologians:

In Judaism to refer to the Torah,
In Christianity to refer to the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures
(a.k.a. the Old and New Testaments),

In Islam to refer to the Qur'an, and
In other religions to refer to their own holy books.

The Torah, Hebrew/Christian Scriptures, and Qur'an do not agree on
many topics including the nature of God; creation and origin of life,
the world and the rest of the universe; various scientific topics;
morality and ethics; personal salvation; the afterlife; abortion
access; equal rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, and
transgendered persons; same-sex marriage; and many other cultural
matters.

Because the holy books of the world differ from each other, only one
of them -- at most -- can be inerrant. Some people suggest that none
are inerrant.

Since all of the people who are affiliated with a religion are members
of a minority religions, most people's holy book cannot be inerrant.
If they believe that their holy book is inerrant, they are probably
wrong. Perhaps all are wrong.

Topics dealing with inerrancy in this section:

Most of the following essays deal with inerrancy from a Christian
perspective

A brief overview; quotations; historical impacts of belief in
inerrancy

A more detailed introduction to inerrancy

What is the impact of biblical inerrancy, authority, etc. on North
American culture?

More material on biblical inerrancy: What is biblical inerrancy?
Terms associated with inerrancy -- authority, infallibility,
inspiration
The linkage between biblical inerrancy and inspiration
Problems with infallibility

Why inerrancy is critical; problems with inerrancy

Biblical inerrancy: beliefs, references: What Americans believe.
Web sites dealing with inerrancy and errancy.

Is inerrancy important?: Arguments yes and no

What the Bible says about its own Inerrancy

Inerrancy, as interpreted by: Fundamentalist and other evangelical
Protestants
Mainline and liberal/progressive Protestants
The Roman Catholic Church
Contrasting beliefs among different Christian groups

Why we cannot prove biblical inerrancy or errancy

Harmonizing apparent biblical conflicts

Twelve tests of biblical inerrancy/errancy: Part 1: Four indicators
of errancy
Part 2: Five more indicators of errancy
Three indicators that are currently inconclusive
A final indicator of errancy based on biblical ambiguity

Did the Holy Spirit inspire the authors of the Bible?

Books on biblical errancy, inerrancy, reliability, etc.

Classroom video:

Bible.org provides a theology program (TTP) which explains various
historical beliefs from a conservative Protestant perspective. One
free video is Session 8 - Inerrancy. See: http://www.bible.org/

References used:

The following information sources were used to prepare and update the
above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.

"Literal and figurative," Worldwide Church of God, at: http://www.wcg.org/
Dave Miller, "Why I Believe in the Inerrancy of the Scriptures"
http://www.infidels.org/
S.B. Ferguson et al, "New Dictionary of Theology", Inter-Varsity
Press, Downers Grove, IL (1988), Pages 337-339.
"Homosexual ordination vote widens gap between Presbyterian factions,"
ReligionToday, 2001-JUN-20, at: http://news.crosswalk.com/
Millard J. Erickson, "Christian Theology," Baker, (1985), Page 241.
Steven Ibbotson, "Biblical Authority," Prairie Bible Institute,
(2000), at: http://instructor.pbi.ab.ca/
"Inerrancy and Infallibility of the Bible," Believe web site, at:
http://mb-soft.com/
Bishop John Shelby Spong, "Q&A on the Bible as a weapon of control,"
weekly mailing for 2007-OCT-31. You can subscribe to these mailings
at: http://secure.agoramedia.com

http://www.religioustolerance.org/inerrant.htm

Christian beliefs; biblical inerrancy
Did the Holy Spirit inspire the Bible's authors?

Definition:

"With regard to the Bible, inspiration denotes the doctrine that the
human authors and editors of canonical scripture were led or
influenced by the Deity with the result that their writings many be
designated in some sense the word of God." 1

Overview:

Inerrancy and inspiration of the Bible are two closely related
concepts:

Historically, Christians have generally believed the entire Bible to
be inerrant -- free of error -- in the books' original, autograph
versions. However, the entire Bible was written by a group of very
human authors. The only way in which fallible humans could have
written so much inerrant text would have been for them to have been
inspired by God. Given biblical inerrancy, one can assume that God
must have overseen the creation of the Bible's text in some way, and
pro-actively prevented the authors from committing any error.

Fundamentalists and other Evangelicals Christians still follow the
traditional belief. Liberal Christians have generally abandoned belief
in both inerrancy and inspiration of the Bible. Instead, they analyze
the Bible as a historical document using techniques of "higher
criticism."

References to inspiration in the Bible:

In the Gospel of John, Jesus is recorded as referring to scripture as
being fixed -- presumably because it comes from God:

John 10:35 "If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came,
and the scripture cannot be broken..." (KJV)

The Book of Acts refers to God speaking through the mouth of David:

Acts 4:24-25: "...Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven, and
earth, and the sea, and all that in them is: Who by the mouth of thy
servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people
imagine vain things?"
(KJV)

Paul describes the process of inspiration by the Holy Spirit in one of
his Epistles:

1 Corinthians 2:9-13: "But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor
ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things
which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed
them unto us by his Spirit: ...Now we have received, not the spirit of
the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the
things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak,
not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost
teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual." (KJV)

Paul refers to the Hebrew Scriptures as the "word of God," not of men:

1 Thessalonians 2:13: "For this cause also thank we God without
ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of
us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the
word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe."
(KJV)

A key proof text used by conservative Christians to support their
belief in inspiration is in one of the Pastoral Epistles. It states
that all of the Scriptures are "theopneustos" in the original Greek --
"breathed out by God:"

2 Timothy 3:16: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction
in righteousness." (KJV).

A second popular verse which supports the concept of inspiration is in
one of the General Epistles:

2 Peter 1:20-21: "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the
scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not
in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost. (KJV)"

The 2 Timothy verse was written circa 64 CE by Paul, according to most
conservative Christians or circa 100 to 150 CE by an unknown author,
according to most liberal theologians. The 2 Peter verse was written
circa 67 CE by Peter, according to most conservative Christians or
circa 125 to 150 CE by an unknown author, according to most liberal
theologians. The remaining citations listed above were also composed
in the first century or the first half of the second century. All were
written centuries before the canon of the Christian Scriptures (New
Testament) was officially established. Still, the word "scripture" in
these passages is now generally interpreted by conservative Christians
to refer to the entire Bible -- Hebrew Scriptures and Christian
Scriptures combined.

Types of inspiration:

Various Christian groups have different beliefs concerning the
mechanism by which inspiration took place:

"Automatic writing" theory: The Oxford Companion to the Bible states
that Philo of Alexandria (20 BCE to 40 CE) "proposed what might be
termed the 'mantic theory' of the inspiration of the scriptures, in
which the human author becomes possessed by God and loses
consciousness of self, surrendering to the divine spirit and its
communicatory powers." 6 This is not a popular belief today.

"Dictation theory:" This is the belief that the Holy Spirit pre-
determined each word that the authors wrote. The "authors" were thus
performing the function of a secretary. The words recorded are thus
considered the actual, authoritative words of God. 1 The First Vatican
Council of 1868-1870 reflects this point of view by stating: "they
have God as their author."

Texas Pastor, Johnny Ramsay, writes that the Scriptures "contain the
very words (not ideas, notions, advice or concepts) that the Almighty
wanted mankind to clearly know. Holy men of God spake as they were
moved by the Holy Spirit. It was truly not the word of men but the
Word of God!" 4

This belief is difficult to support, because a close reading of the
Bible shows many different writing styles. According to most mainline
and liberal theologians: The book of Isaiah and the Gospel of John
were clearly written by two authors.
Much of the Pentateuch is a combination of texts from authors who
followed four different traditions.

Paul wrote with "long, complicated sentences," in a highly educated
Greek style. Mark used "short, action-packed sentences," in a common
form of Greek. 2 This is not particularly obvious in most English
Bibles because translators have often homogenized the writing styles.
But the writing techniques of the different authors is clearly seen in
the original Greek texts.

"Negative assistance" theory: Jacques Bonfriere (1573-1642)
suggested that the authors expressed their thoughts in their own style
and words, while the Holy Spirit only intervened asn needed, in order
to prevent them from making any mistakes. There are many variations of
this belief, called by various names, such as: Concept Inspiration,
Neo-orthodox Theory of Inspiration, Partial Inspiration, Verbal
Plenary Inspiration, etc. 3

Other theories of inspiration include: That the Holy Spirit provided
the precise ideas, thoughts and concepts to the authors, who then
wrote it down in their own words using their own writing style.

That the authors were inspired by the Holy Spirit so that their
normal powers of observation and writing were heightened. They were
thus able to describe their religious thoughts with greater accuracy
than normal, but not to the level of inerrancy. The term Inspiration
as Illumination has been used to describe this concept.

That God did not directly inspire the writers of the Bible. The texts
are not inerrant, but were written by authors with a "high degree of
religious insight." 3 They were inspired in the same way that great
artists and musicians have been considered inspired.

Beliefs of Jews concerning the Hebrew Scriptures:

The famous Hellenistic Jewish theologian and philosopher, Philo of
Alexandria, referred to the Hebrew Scriptures as: "sacred books",
"sacred word", and of "most holy scripture." 5

Flavius Josephus (A.D. 37-95 CE) is believed to have been the first to
use the word "inspiration" (in Greek: epipnoia) to refer to the Hebrew
Scriptures. 7 According to New Advent:

"He speaks of twenty-two books which the Jews with good reason
consider Divine...The belief of the Jews in the inspiration of the
Scriptures did not diminish from the time in which they were dispersed
throughout the world, without temple, without altar, without priests;
on the contrary this faith increased so much that it took the place of
everything else." 7

Beliefs of liberal Christians:

Liberal Christians generally reject the concepts of biblical inerrancy
and inspiration. They view the Bible as a collection of books written
by religious, military, and political leaders whose purpose was
promote their own beliefs or the beliefs of their faith group. They
see concepts in the Bible that violate contemporary religious and
secular ethics. Examples are mass murders and genocides; oppression of
women; acceptance of human slavery; torture of prisoners, murder of
non-combatants, rape, execution of religious and sexual minorities;
polygyny, owning of concubines, burning some prostitutes alive;
executing brides who were not virgins, etc. They feel that there is so
much material in the Bible that is obviously opposed to the will of
God, that the concept of inspiration is untenable.

Can the God's inspiration of the Bible be proven?

At least three proofs have been offered to prove that the Bible could
not have been written by humans without the direct inspiration of God.
Needless to say, none have been accepted by religious liberals or
secularists:

Prophecy: Various modern-day writers have counted many hundreds of
prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) alone.
Conservative Christians generally state that all of the 200 or so
prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures that foretold the life of Jesus
Christ came true; they had a 100% accuracy. Hundreds of other
prophecies not related to Jesus have already come true. This could not
have happened unless the authors of the Bible were inspired by God.
But at lest one skeptic believes that not one "real" prediction has
conclusively come true. He has very stringent rules for what defines a
"real" prophecy. He points out that the Jesus life story was written
after the Hebrew Scriptures were completed. Thus, the writers of the
Christian Scriptures could easily have created non-existent events in
Jesus' life to match the prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures. 11

Bible codes: A research team at Hebrew University in Jerusalem,
headed by Eliyahu Rips used a Equidistant Letter Sequence (ELS)
analysis method to search for hidden Bible codes in the Book of
Genesis. They found many names, birth dates and death dates imbedded
in Genesis of famous Jews who lived millennia after the book was
written. Other researchers examined the entire Pentateuch and found
descriptions of recent world events and predictions in our future. At
first, it appeared as if the codes were a positive proof of biblical
inspiration. This belief is still being circulated as such a "proof."
10 What isn't being reported widely is that other researchers have
found similar secret hidden codes in Moby Dick and various other long
pieces of text.

Archaeological data: In his book "The new evidence that demands a
verdict," Josh McDowell quotes a number of archaeologists who maintain
that biblical accounts are in total agreement with the archaeological
record: Nelson Glueck: "It may be stated categorically that no
archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference."
F.F. Bruce: "...it may be legitimate to say that archaeology has
confirmed the New Testament record."

McDowell and others make the point that it is inconceivable that a
book covering thousands of years of history could be this free of
error unless it was written under the inspiration of God. However,
religious liberals and secularists probably agree with the opposite
conclusions of a growing group of biblical archaeologists like Philip
Davies who wrote:

"The gap between the Biblical Israel and the historical Israel as we
derive it from archaeology is huge. We have almost two entirely
different societies. Beyond the name 'Israel' and the same
geographical location, they have almost nothing in common." 9

It is doubtful whether religious conservatives and liberals will reach
a consensus over the inspiration of the Bible soon.

Classroom video:

Bible.org maintains a theology program (TTP) which explains various
historical beliefs from a conservative Protestant perspective. One
free video is Session 6 - Inspiration of Scripture. See: http://www.bible.org/

References used:

B.M. Metzger & M.D. Coogan, "The Oxford Companion to the Bible,"
Oxford University Press, New York, NY, (1993), Pages 302 to 304
"Is the Bible inspired? And what does that mean?," International Bible
Society, at: http://www.gospelcom.net/
M. J. Sawyer, "Theories of Inspiration" at: http://www.bible.org/
Johnny Ramsey, "Precious Bible - Inspired, inerrant, infallible,"
Brown Trail Church of Christ, at: http://www.btcoc.com/
Philo of Alexandria, "De vita Moysis," iii, no. 23.
Op Cit., B.M. Metzger & M.D. Coogan, Page 304.
"Inspiration of the Bible," http://www.newadvent.org/ Replicated at:
http://www.madrosc.com
Josh McDowell, "The new evidence that demands a verdict," Nelson,
(1999), Pages 61 & 62. Read reviews or order this book safely from
Amazon.com online book store
Philip Davies, "What separates a Minimalist from a Maximalist? Not
much," Bible Archaeology Review, 2000-MAR/APR Vol. 26, #2, Pages 24 to
27; 72 & 73.
F.L. Walker, "A whisper of thunder," at: http://www.godsbook.com/
Tim Callahan, "Bible prophecy: Failure or fulfillment?," Millennium
Press, (1997). Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com
online book store

Is the Bible free of error?
Books dealing with
biblical errancy & inerrancy

The following books deal with apparently conflicting passages in the
Bible and with apparent conflicts that the Bible has with archaeology
and other sciences. The books arrive at different conclusions:

That the Bible is inerrant, or is generally accurate, or is riddled
with errors.
That its authors were inspired by God, or that they were each trying
to promote their own belief systems:

Books promoting inerrancy:

G.L. Archer, et al., "When critics ask: A popular handbook on Bible
difficulties," Baker, (1999). Read reviews or order this book safely
from the Amazon.com online book store

G.L. Archer, "New International Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties,"
Zondervan, (2001). "Clear, scholarly answers to apparent discrepancies
in the Bible, confirming that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God."
Read reviews or order this book

Baptist Sunday School Board, "The Proceedings of the Conference on
Biblical Inerrancy," (1987). Read reviews or order this book

Craig Blomberg, "The Historical Reliability of the Gospels,"
InterVarsity Press, (1987). "Examining the history of Gospel
criticism, the persistent allegations of inconsistency among the
Gospels, and the information provided by extrabiblical sources, Craig
Blomberg makes a strong and comprehensive case for the historical
reliability of these texts." Read reviews or order

Ron Brooks, et al., "When Skeptics Ask: A handbook of Christian
evidence," Baker, (1995). Contains: "arguments for the existence of
God, the problem of evil, miracles, the person Jesus, the Bible and
its reliability, apparent 'contradictions' in the Bible, archaeology
and the Bible, science and evolution, what happens when we die, the
issue of truth, and morals." Read reviews or order

Daniel Fuller, "The Unity of the Bible: Unfolding God's plan for
humanity," Zondervan, (1992). It takes "the Bible as a coherent and
unified whole, in order to understand the unified teachings of the
Bible." Read reviews or order

Geisler, "Inerrancy," Zondervan, (1980) Contains "essays by fourteen
leading evangelical scholars on a wide range of topics related to the
doctrine of the inerrancy of the Bible." Read reviews or order

G.L. Gleason, "Encyclopedia of Bible difficulties," Zondervan (1982).
Read reviews or order this book

John Haley, "Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible," Whitaker House,
(Reprinted 1996). Originally written in the 19th century, it
harmonizes hundreds of apparent inconsistencies in the Bible. Read
reviews or order

J.C. Laney, "Answers to tough questions from every book of the Bible:
A survey of problem passages and issues," Kregel Publ., (1997). Read
reviews or order this book

Erwin Lutzer, "Seven reasons why you can trust the Bible," Moody,
(2001). The book examines proof of the authenticity of the Bible. Read
reviews or order

Josh McDowell: "Evidence that demands a verdict: Historical evidences
for the Christian faith," Thomas Nelson, (1999-MAR). Read reviews or
order this book
"The new evidence that demands a verdict: Fully updated to answer the
questions challenging Christians today," Nelson, (1999). This book is
considered by many conservative Christians to be the best book of its
type. Skeptics have a field day criticizing it. Read reviews or order

Josh McDowell & Don Stewart, "Tough questions skeptics ask," Tyndale
House, (1986). Read reviews or order this book

Henry Morris III, "Many Infallible Proofs: Evidences for the
Christian Faith," Master Books, (Reprinted 1988). "...covers many
areas such as prophecy and fulfillment including examples and
statistical data, history, astronomy, geology and many other topics."
Read reviews or order

Ralph Muncaster, "Is the Bible really a message from God? Examine the
evidence," Harvest House, (2000). "...packs a powerful punch of highly
compelling and abundant evidence that the Bible must have been
divinely inspired." Read reviews or order

Jeffery Sheler "Is the Bible true? How modern debates & discoveries
affirm the essence of Scriptures," Harper SanFrancisco, (2000) "...the
Bible emerges affirmed but not unscathed, a credible but complex
chronicle of humanity's encounter with God." Read reviews or order

Amazon.com, the world's biggest online bookstore, lists these books on
biblical inerrancy:

If the above graphic only shows a generic Amazon.com ad, please click
on your browser's refresh key one or more times.

As of 2009-APR, Amazon offers free shipping for orders over $25.00

Books promoting errancy:

Gail Evans, "The firstborn of God: Resolving the contradictions in
the Bible," iUniverse Publ., (2000). The author feels that there are
two threads running through the Bible which "advocate two completely
different religious, social, economic and political philosophies....
[One promotes] equality and democracy. [The other promotes] an
autocracy. Read reviews/order this Book safely from Amazon.com

Lloyd Graham, "Deceptions and Myths of the Bible," Citadel Press,
(1989). Describes how many stories in the Bible originated from other
Middle Eastern religions. Read reviews or order

R.H. Green, "The born again skeptic's guide to the Bible," Freedom
from Religion Foundation, (1999) Read reviews or order this book

C. Dennis McKinsey, "The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy,"
Promethean Books, (1995). "...the most comprehensive critique of the
Bible ever written....[a] thoroughly-researched expos? of the Bible's
errors, contradictions, and fallacies." Read reviews or order this
book

Thomas Thompson, "The Bible in history: How writers create a past,"
Pimlico, (2000). The book views "the Bible as a body of literature
that reflects the philosophical and moral views of its authors." Read
reviews or order

Amazon.com, the world's biggest online bookstore, lists these books on
biblical errancy:
Unfortunately, there are few books on this topic, so Amazon.com fills
up the image with unrelated books.

If the above graphic only shows a generic Amazon.com ad, please click
on your browser's refresh key one or more times.

As of 2009-APR, Amazon offers free shipping for orders over $25.00

http://www.religioustolerance.org/ine_none5.htm

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_insp.htm

Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament)

The Documentary Hypothesis on the identity of the Pentateuch's
authors

History of the Documentary Hypothesis:

Both Judaism and Christianity assumed that the Pentateuch -- the first
five books of the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) were written by
Moses, as the Bible itself states. However, in recent centuries,
alternative authorship has been proposed. The documentary hypothesis
is now accepted by essentially all mainline and liberal theologians.

11th Century CE: Isaac ibn Yashush suggested that the list of the
Edomite kings in Genesis 36 was added by an unknown person after Moses
died. For this assertion, he became known as "Isaac the Blunderer." 1
15th Century: Bishop Tostatus suggested that certain passages were
written by one of the prophets, not by Moses.
16th Century: Andreas van Maes suggested that an editor added
additional material to some of Moses' writings.
17th Century: Thomas Hobbes prepared a collection of passages that
seemed to negate Moses' authorship.
18th Century: Three investigators (Witter, Astruc and Eichhorn)
independently concluded that doublets in the Torah were written by two
different authors. A doublet is a story that is described twice, as
in: the two creation stories in Genesis
two descriptions of the covenant between God and Abraham
two stories about the naming of Isaac
two stories about the renaming of Jacob
two versions of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20 & Deuteronomy 5)
two accounts of Moses' striking the rock at Meribah

These doublets appeared to contradict each other. In most cases, one
referred to God as Yahweh while the other used the term Elohim.

19th Century: Scholars noticed that there were a few triplets in the
Torah. This indicated that a third author was involved. Then, they
determined that the book of Deuteronomy was written in a different
language style from the remaining 4 books in the Pentateuch. Finally,
by the end of the 19th Century, liberal scholars reached a consensus
that 4 authors and one redactor (editor) had been actively involved in
the writing of the Pentateuch.
20th Century: Academics have continued to refine the Documentary
Hypothesis by identifying which verses (and parts of verses) were
authored by the various writers. They have also attempted to uncover
the names of the authors. In 1943, Pope Pius XII issued an encyclical
Divino Afflante Spiritu in which he urged academics to study the
sources of Biblical texts. Recent archaeological discoveries and new
linguistic analysis tools have facilitated the research into the
hypothesis.

Belief in the documentary hypothesis was triggered by a number of
factors, such as:

Anachronisms, like the list of the Edomite kings
Duplicate and triplicate passages.
Various passages portrayed God in different ways.
The flood story appears to involve the meshing of two separate
stories
The belief, centuries ago, by archaeologists and linguists that
writing among the ancient Hebrews only developed after the events
portrayed in the Pentateuch. Thus, Moses would have been incapable of
writing the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures.

These factors led theologians to the conclusion that the Pentateuch is
a hybrid document which was written well after Moses' death, and much
later than the events portrayed. The authors and redactors are
unknown. As it happens, their belief about Moses being illiterate is
probably wrong. Archaeological evidence has since been found which
shows that all of the major civilizations surrounding the Hebrews were
literate at the apparent time of the Exodus. So one can assume that
Moses knew how to read and write.

Writing by various authors, according to the documentary hypothesis:

J: a writer who focuses on humanity in his writing

might possibly have been a woman. His/her writing shows much greater
sensitivity towards women than does E
regularly used "JHWH" as God's name
describes God in anthropomorphic terms: God formed Adam from clay; he
walked and talked with Adam and Eve in the garden; he spoke to Moses.
lived in the southern kingdom of Judah, during an early period of
Israel's history when they followed a nature/fertility religion. May
have been a member of the Judean court.
wrote a more or less complete story of the history of the Israelites
from a Judean perspective
J was probably written between 848 BCE (when King Jehoram gained
power in Judah) and 722 BCE when the Assyrians destroyed the northern
kingdom Israel and took its people into exile. Some scholars date J to
the 10th century BCE.

E: a writer who writes about religious and moralistic concerns

in all probability was a man
consistently used "Elohim" as God's name
lived in the northern kingdom of Israel
wrote a more or less complete story of the history of the Israelites
from the perspective of the northern kingdom, including that version
of the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20
probably wrote between 922 and 722 BCE
may have been a priest from Shiloh who viewed Moses as his spiritual
ancestor. 2

D: a writer who lived after J and E, because he was familiar with
later developments in Israel's history. He lived at a time when the
religion of ancient Israel was in its spiritual/ethical stage, about
622 BCE.
wrote almost all of book of Deuteronomy, as well as Joshua, Judges, 1
& 2 Samuel and 1 & 2 Kings. A second writer edited the original text
after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587 BCE. He
added the last two chapters to 2 Kings and inserted short passages
elsewhere to reflect the change in circumstances brought about by the
Babylonian attack.
lived in Judah - probably in Jerusalem
was probably a Levitical priest - perhaps Jeremiah

P: a writer who focused his writings on God

added material from a priestly perspective. It discusses priests'
lives, religious rituals, dates, measurements, chronologies,
genealogies, worship and law.
was a priest who identified Aaron as his spiritual ancestor
views God as a distant, transcendent deity, less personal than in J
and E; sometimes harsh and critical. The words "mercy," "grace" and
"repentance" do not appear in his writing; they appear about 70 times
in J, E, and D.
was displeased with the work of J and E and wrote P as an alternative
history
rejected the concepts of angels, dreams and talking animals that are
seen in J & E
believed that only Levites who were descended from Aaron could be
priests
lived after J, E and D because he was aware of the books of the
Prophets which were unknown to the others. Lived when the country's
religion reached a priestly/legal stage, before the destruction of
Jerusalem in 587 BCE.
patterned his writing after the topics in J and E.

R: a redactor who was an Aaronid priest and thus definitely a male

joined the writings of J, E, P and D together into the present
Pentateuch.

We have prepared a copy of the first ten chapters of Genesis which
identifies the passages by J, P and R. Each of the authors' writings
is shown in text of a different color. In the case of the creation
stories, the first legend was written by P. Part way through chapter
2, J takes over and describes a second story. In the case of the
Noachian Flood, from Genesis 6:5 to 8:22, the redactor has taken a
different approach. He alternates between short passages from P and J.
One can start at Genesis 6:5 and read the contribution of J; it is a
complete story. One can then restart at the beginning and read P's
text. Again, P has written a consistent account - one that differs
significantly from J.

How the Pentateuch evolved, according to the documentary hypothesis:

Friedmann 3 suggests that when the Assyrians conquered the northern
kingdom in 722 BCE, many refugees streamed south into Judea, bringing
their sacred writing "E" with them. Subsequently, E and J were
combined into a single document, referred to as "JE."

D was written perhaps a century later. It was conveniently
"discovered" in the temple by the priest Hilkiah in 622 BCE, shortly
after it was written. D was then joined with JE

P was written before the death of King Josiah in 609 BCE, probably
during the reign of King Hezekiah. It was written as an alternative to
JE.

R combined J, E, P and other documents together into the first four
books of the Hebrew Scriptures. To this, he added D's writings, the
book of Deuteronomy, to complete the Pentateuch. By the time that he
did the editing, the JE, D and P documents were in wide circulation.
Each was supported by various factions. R saw his task as attempting
to join these sources together into a more or less cohesive, single
document. Friedmann suspects that Ezra was the redactor.

Of course, the various writers often incorporated into their writings
earlier material obtained from Pagan sources outside of Israel and
Judah. "From the texts found in Mesopotamia, it is clear that types of
literature parallel to what is in the Old Testament existed during the
period from the third to the first millennia BC. We know of law codes,
creation stories, primeval histories, epic stories and the like from
various periods of Mesopotamian history." 4 One might add a flood
story with many parallels to the Noachian flood.

Misuse of the Documentary Hypothesis:

By the year 1919, when the German Nazi party was founded, the
Documentary Hypothesis was widely accepted among German theologians.
The Nazis used the Hypothesis to promote their beliefs that the Hebrew
Scriptures (Old Testament) was a collection of legends, myths, hero
stories, and fictional material. According to author Ken Collins:

"The Nazis promoted a revised form of Christianity called Deutsches
Christentum, in which they replaced the Old Testament with Germanic
myths and legends. Deutsches Christentum never caught on with the
public, but since it epitomized the beliefs of the leadership of the
Nazi party, it contributed to the martyrdom of a number of famous
German Christians." 5

References:

R.E. Friedman, "Who Wrote the Bible?" Harper Collins, San Francisco,
CA, (1997).
Ibid, Page 79
Ibid, Page 87-88
P.C. Craigie, "The Old Testament: Its Background, Growth & Content,"
Welch Publ. Co, Burlington ON Canada, Page 121.
Ken Collins, "The Torah in modern scholarship," at: http://www.kencollins.com/

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_tora1.htm

Two definitions of "Pagan."

How Is "Goth" 1,000 Years Old?

Main Entry: pa·gan

Pronunciation: \ˈpā-gən\

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle English, from Late Latin paganus, from Latin,
civilian, country dweller, from pagus country district; akin to Latin
pangere to fix — more at pact

Date: 14th century

1 : heathen 1; especially : a follower of a polytheistic religion (as
in ancient Rome)
2 : one who has little or no religion and who delights in sensual
pleasures and material goods : an irreligious or hedonistic person
3 : neo-pagan

— pagan adjective

— pa·gan·ish \-gə-nish\ adjective

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pagan

...and I am Sid Harth

[cogitoergosum]

Pagan, Whodunit?: Sid Harth
http://bakulaji.typepad.com/blog/pagan-whodunit-sid-harth.html

Atheism vs Christianity

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The Historiocity of Christ - Acharya S.

Acharya S - The Origins Of Christianity And The Quest For The
Historical Jesus Christ - Upload a Document to Scribd
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/biblianazar/esp_biblianazar_9a.htm

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/biblianazar/esp_biblianazar_9b.htm#(115)_

The Origins of Christianity and the Quest for the Historical Jesus
Christ
by Acharya S

Introduction

Around the world over the centuries, much has been written about
religion, its meaning, its relevance and contribution to humanity. In
the West particularly, sizable tomes have been composed speculating
upon the nature and historical background of the main character of
Western religions, Jesus Christ. Many have tried to dig into the
precious few clues as to Jesus's identity and come up with a
biographical sketch that either bolsters faith or reveals a more human
side of this godman to which we can all relate. Obviously, considering
the time and energy spent on them, the subjects of Christianity and
its legendary founder are very important to the Western mind and
culture.

The Controversy

Despite all of this literature continuously being cranked out and the
significance of the issue, in the public at large there is a serious
lack of formal and broad education regarding religion and mythology,
and most individuals are highly uninformed in this area. Concerning
the issue of Christianity, for example, the majority of people are
taught in most schools and churches that Jesus Christ was an actual
historical figure and that the only controversy regarding him is that
some people accept him as the Son of God and the Messiah, while others
do not. However, whereas this is the raging debate most evident in
this field today, it is not the most important. Shocking as it may
seem to the general populace, the most enduring and profound
controversy in this subject is whether or not a person named Jesus
Christ ever really existed.

Although this debate may not be evident from publications readily
found in popular bookstores 1, when one examines this issue closely,
one will find a tremendous volume of literature that demonstrates,
logically and intelligently, time and again that Jesus Christ is a
mythological character along the same lines as the Greek, Roman,
Egyptian, Sumerian, Phoenician, Indian or other godmen, who are all
presently accepted as myths rather than historical figures 2.

Delving deeply into this large body of work, one uncovers evidence
that the Jesus character is based upon much older myths and heroes
from around the globe. One discovers that this story is not,
therefore, a historical representation of a Jewish rebel carpenter who
had physical incarnation in the Levant 2,000 years ago. In other
words, it has been demonstrated continually for centuries that this
character, Jesus Christ, was invented and did not depict a real person
who was either the "son of God" or was "evemeristically" made into a
superhuman by enthusiastic followers 3.

History and Positions of the Debate

This controversy has existed from the very beginning, and the writings
of the "Church Fathers" themselves reveal that they were constantly
forced by the pagan intelligentsia to defend what the non-Christians
and other Christians ("heretics") 4 alike saw as a preposterous and
fabricated yarn with absolutely no evidence of it ever having taken
place in history. As Rev. Robert Taylor says,

"And from the apostolic age downwards, in a never interrupted
succession, but never so strongly and emphatically as in the most
primitive times, was the existence of Christ as a man most strenuously
denied." 5

Emperor Julian, who, coming after the reign of the fanatical and
murderous "good Christian" Constantine, returned rights to pagan
worshippers, stated,

"If anyone should wish to know the truth with respect to you
Christians, he will find your impiety to be made up partly of the
Jewish audacity, and partly of the indifference and confusion of the
Gentiles, and that you have put together not the best, but the worst
characteristics of them both." 6

According to these learned dissenters, the New Testament could rightly
be called, "Gospel Fictions." 7 A century ago, mythicist Albert
Churchward said,

"The canonical gospels can be shown to be a collection of sayings from
the Egyptian Mythos and Eschatology." 8

In Forgery in Christianity, Joseph Wheless states,

"The gospels are all priestly forgeries over a century after their
pretended dates." 9

Those who concocted some of the hundreds of "alternative" gospels and
epistles that were being kicked about during the first several
centuries C.E. have even admitted that they had forged the documents.
10 Forgery during the first centuries of the Church's existence was
admittedly rampant, so common in fact that a new phrase was coined to
describe it: "pious fraud." 11 Such prevarication is confessed to
repeatedly in the Catholic Encyclopedia.12 Some of the "great" church
fathers, such as Eusebius 13, were determined by their own peers to be
unbelievable liars who regularly wrote their own fictions of what "the
Lord" said and did during "his" alleged sojourn upon the earth.14

The Proof

The assertion that Jesus Christ is a myth can be proved not only
through the works of dissenters and "pagans" who knew the truth - and
who were viciously refuted or murdered for their battle against the
Christian priests and "Church Fathers" fooling the masses with their
fictions - but also through the very statements of the Christians
themselves, who continuously disclose that they knew Jesus Christ was
a myth founded upon more ancient deities located throughout the known
ancient world. In fact, Pope Leo X, privy to the truth because of his
high rank, made this curious declaration,

"What profit has not that fable of Christ brought us!"15 (Emphasis
added.)

As Wheless says, "The proofs of my indictment are marvelously easy."

The Gnostics

From their own admissions, the early Christians were incessantly under
criticism by scholars of great repute who were impugned as "heathens"
by their Christian adversaries. This group included many Gnostics, who
strenuously objected to the carnalization of their deity, as the
Christians can be shown to have taken many of the characteristics of
their god and godman from the Gnostics, meaning "Ones who know," a
loose designation applied to members of a variety of esoteric schools
and brotherhoods. The refutations of the Christians against the
Gnostics reveal that the Christian godman was an insult to the
Gnostics, who held that their god could never take human form.16

Biblical Sources

It is very telling that the earliest Christian documents, the Epistles
attributed to "Paul," never discuss a historical background of Jesus
but deal exclusively with a spiritual being who was known to all
gnostic sects for hundreds to thousands of years. The few "historical"
references to an actual life of Jesus cited in the Epistles are
demonstrably interpolations and forgeries, as are, according to
Wheless, the Epistles themselves, as they were not written by
"Paul."17

Aside from the brief reference to Pontius Pilate at 1 Timothy 6:13, an
epistle dated ben Yehoshua to 144 CE and thus not written by Paul, the
Pauline literature (as pointed out by Edouard Dujardin) "does not
refer to Pilate 18, or the Romans, or Caiaphas, or the Sanhedrin, or
Herod 19, or Judas, or the holy women, or any person in the gospel
account of the Passion, and that it also never makes any allusion to
them; lastly, that it mentions absolutely none of the events of the
Passion, either directly or by way of allusion."20

Dujardin additionally relates that other early "Christian" writings
such as Revelation do not mention any historical details or drama.21
Mangasarian notes that Paul also never quotes from Jesus's purported
sermons and speeches, parables and prayers, nor does he mention
Jesus's supernatural birth or any of his alleged wonders and miracles,
all which one would presume would be very important to his followers,
had such exploits and sayings been known prior to "Paul."22

Turning to the gospels themselves, which were composed between 170-180
C.E. 22a, their pretended authors, the apostles, give sparse histories
and genealogies of Jesus that contradict each other and themselves in
numerous places. The birthdate of Jesus is depicted as having taken
place at different times. His birth and childhood are not mentioned in
"Mark," and although he is claimed in "Matthew" and "Luke" to have
been "born of a virgin," his lineage is traced to the House of David
through Joseph, such that he may "fulfill prophecy."23

He is said in the first three (Synoptic) gospels to have taught for
one year before he died, while in "John" the number is three years.
"Matthew" relates that Jesus delivered "The Sermon on the Mount"24
before "the multitudes," while "Luke" says it was a private talk given
only to the disciples. The accounts of his Passion and Resurrection
differ utterly from each other, and no one states how old he was when
he died. 25

Wheless says,

"The so-called 'canonical' books of the New Testament, as of the Old,
are a mess of contradictions and confusions of text, to the present
estimate of 150,000 and more 'variant readings,' as is well known and
admitted."26

In addition, of the dozens of gospels, ones that were once considered
canonical or genuine were later rejected as "apocryphal" or spurious,
and vice versa. So much for the "infallible Word of God" and
"infallible" Church! The confusion exists because the Christian
plagiarists over the centuries were attempting to amalgamate and fuse
practically every myth, fairytale, legend, doctrine or bit of wisdom
they could pilfer from the innumerable different mystery religions and
philosophies that existed at the time. In doing so, they forged,
interpolated, mutilated, changed, and rewrote these texts for
centuries.27

Non-Biblical Sources

Basically, there are no non-biblical references to a historical Jesus
by any known historian of the time during and after Jesus's purported
advent. Walker says, "No literate person of his own time mentioned him
in any known writing." Eminent Hellenistic Jewish historian and
philosopher Philo (20 B.C.E.-50 C.E.), alive at the purported time of
Jesus, makes no mention of him. Nor do any of the some 40 other
historians who wrote during the first one to two centuries of the
Common Era.

"Enough of the writings of [these] authors . . . remain to form a
library. Yet in this mass of Jewish and Pagan literature, aside from
two forged passages in the works of a Jewish author, and two disputed
passages in the works of Roman writers, there is to be found no
mention of Jesus Christ."28

Their silence is deafening testimony against the historicizers.

In the entire works of the Jewish historian Josephus, which constitute
many volumes, there are only two paragraphs that purport to refer to
Jesus. Although much has been made of these "references," they have
been dismissed by all scholars and even by Christian apologists as
forgeries, as have been those referring to John the Baptist and James,
"brother" of Jesus. Bishop Warburton labeled the Josephus
interpolation regarding Jesus as "a rank forgery, and a very stupid
one, too." 29

Wheless notes that,

"The first mention ever made of this passage, and its text, are in the
Church History of that 'very dishonest writer,' Bishop Eusebius, in
the fourth century. . . CE [Catholic Encyclopedia] admits . . . the
above cited passage was not known to Origen and the earlier patristic
writers."

Wheless, a lawyer, and Taylor, a minister, agree that it was Eusebius
himself who forged the passage.

Regarding the letter to Trajan supposedly written by Pliny the
Younger, which is one of the pitifully few "references" to Jesus or
Christianity held up by Christians as evidence of the existence of
Jesus, there is but one word that is applicable - "Christian" - and
that has been demonstrated to be spurious, as is also suspected of the
entire letter. Concerning the passage in the works of the historian
Tacitus, who did not live during the purported time of Jesus but was
born two decades after his purported death, this is also considered by
competent scholars as an interpolation and forgery.30

Christian defenders also like to hold up the passage in Suetonius that
refers to someone named "Chrestus" or "Chresto" as reference to their
Savior; however, while some have speculated that there was a Roman man
of that name at that time, the name "Chrestus" or "Chrestos," meaning
"useful," was frequently held by freed slaves. Others opine that this
passage is also an interpolation.

As these references and their constant regurgitation by Christian
apologists, Dr. Alvin Boyd Kuhn says:

"The average Christian minister who has not read outside the pale of
accredited Church authorities will impart to any parishioner making
the inquiry the information that no event in history is better
attested by witness than the occurrences in the Gospel narrative of
Christ's life. He will go over the usual citation of the historians
who mention Jesus and the letters claiming to have been written about
him. When the credulous questioner, putting trust in the intelligence
and good faith of his pastor, gets this answer, he goes away assured
on the point of the veracity of the Gospel story. The pastor does not
qualify his data with the information that the practice of forgery,
fictionizing and fable was rampant in the early Church. In the simple
interest of truth, then, it is important to examine the body of
alleged testimony from secular history and see what credibility and
authority it possess.

"First, as to the historians whose works record the existence of
Jesus, the list comprises but four. They are Pliny, Tacitus, Suetonius
and Josephus. There are short paragraphs in the works of each of
these, two in Josephus. The total quantity of this material is given
by Harry Elmer Barnes in The Twilight of Christianity as some twenty-
four lines. It may total a little more, perhaps twice that amount.
This meager testimony constitutes the body or mass of the evidence of
'one of the best attested events in history.' Even if it could be
accepted as indisputably authentic and reliable, it would be faltering
support for an event that has dominated the thought of half the world
for eighteen centuries.

"But what is the standing of this witness? Not even Catholic scholars
of importance have dissented from a general agreement of academic
investigators that these passages, one and all, must by put down as
forgeries and interpolations by partisan Christian scribes who wished
zealously to array the authority of these historians behind the
historicity of the Gospel life of Jesus. A sum total of forty or fifty
lines from secular history supporting the existence of Jesus of
Nazareth, and they completely discredited!" 30a

Of these "references," Dujardin says,

"But even if they are authentic, and were derived from earlier
sources, they would not carry us back earlier than the period in which
the gospel legend took form, and so could attest only the legend of
Jesus, and not his historicity."

In any case, these scarce and brief "references" to a man who
supposedly shook up the world can hardly be held up as proof of his
existence, and it is absurd that the purported historicity of the
entire Christian religion is founded upon them.31 As it is said,
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof"; yet, no proof of
any kind for the historicity of Jesus has ever existed or is
forthcoming.

The Characters

It is evident that there was no single historical person upon whom the
Christian religion was founded, and that "Jesus Christ" is a
compilation of legends, heroes, gods and godmen. There is not adequate
room here to go into detail about each god or godman that contributed
to the formation of the Jewish Jesus character; suffice it to say that
there is plenty of documentation to show that this issue is not a
question of "faith" or "belief."

The truth is that during the era this character supposedly lived there
was an extensive library at Alexandria and an incredibly nimble
brotherhood network that stretched from Europe to China, and this
information network had access to numerous manuscripts that told the
same narrative portrayed in the New Testament with different place
names and ethnicity for the characters. In actuality, the legend of
Jesus nearly identically parallels the story of Krishna, for example,
even in detail, as was presented by noted mythologist and scholar
Gerald Massey over 100 years ago, as well as by Rev. Robert Taylor 160
years ago, among others.32

The Krishna tale as told in the Hindu Vedas has been dated to at least
as far back as 1400 B.C.E.33 The same can be said of the well-woven
Horus mythos, which also is practically identical, in detail, to the
Jesus story, but which predates the Christian version by thousands of
years.

The Jesus story incorporated elements from the tales of other deities
recorded in this widespread area, such as many of the following world
saviors and "sons of God," most or all of whom predate the Christian
myth, and a number of whom were crucified or executed. 33a

Adad of Assyria

Adonis, Apollo, Heracles ("Hercules") and Zeus of Greece

Alcides of Thebes

Attis of Phrygia

Baal of Phoenicia

Bali of Afghanistan

Beddru of Japan

Buddha of India

Crite of Chaldea

Deva Tat of Siam

Hesus of the Druids

Horus, Osiris, and Serapis of Egypt, whose long-haired, bearded
appearance was adopted for the Christ character 34

Indra of Tibet/India

Jao of Nepal

Krishna of India

Mikado of the Sintoos

Mithra of Persia

Odin of the Scandinavians

Prometheus of Caucasus/Greece

Quetzalcoatl of Mexico

Salivahana of Bermuda

Tammuz of Syria (who was, in a typical mythmaking move, later turned
into the disciple Thomas 35)

Thor of the Gauls

Universal Monarch of the Sibyls 36

Wittoba of the Bilingonese

Xamolxis of Thrace

Zarathustra/Zoroaster of Persia

Zoar of the Bonzes

Back to Contents

The Major Players

Buddha

Although most people think of Buddha as being one person who lived
around 500 B.C.E., the character commonly portrayed as Buddha can also
be demonstrated to be a compilation of godmen, legends and sayings of
various holy men both preceding and succeeding the period attributed
to the Buddha.37

The Buddha character has the following in common with the Christ
figure:38

Buddha was born of the virgin Maya, who was considered the "Queen of
Heaven."38aa

He was of royal descent.

He crushed a serpent's head.

He performed miracles and wonders, healed the sick, fed 500 men from a
"small basket of cakes," and walked on water.38a

He abolished idolatry, was a "sower of the word," and preached "the
establishment of a kingdom of righteousness."38b

He taught chastity, temperance, tolerance, compassion, love, and the
equality of all.

He was transfigured on a mount.

Sakya Buddha was crucified in a sin-atonement, suffered for three days
in hell, and was resurrected.38c

He ascended to Nirvana or "heaven."

Buddha was considered the "Good Shepherd" 39, the "Carpenter" 40, the
"Infinite and Everlasting." 40a

He was called the "Savior of the World" and the "Light of the World."

Horus of Egypt

The stories of Jesus and Horus are very similar, with Horus even
contributing the name of Jesus Christ. Horus and his once-and-future
Father, Osiris, are frequently interchangeable in the mythos ("I and
my Father are one").41 The legends of Horus go back thousands of
years, and he shares the following in common with Jesus:

Horus was born of the virgin Isis-Meri on December 25th in a cave/
manger 42, with his birth being announced by a star in the East and
attended by three wise men.43

He was a child teacher in the Temple and was baptized when he was 30
years old.44

Horus was also baptized by "Anup the Baptizer," who becomes "John the
Baptist."

He had 12 disciples.

He performed miracles and raised one man, El-Azar-us, from the dead.

He walked on water.

Horus was transfigured on the Mount.

He was crucified, buried in a tomb and resurrected.

He was also the "Way, the Truth, the Light, the Messiah, God's
Anointed Son, the Son of Man, the Good Shepherd, the Lamb of God, the
Word" etc.

He was "the Fisher," and was associated with the Lamb, Lion and Fish
("Ichthys").45

Horus's personal epithet was "Iusa," the "ever-becoming son" of
"Ptah," the "Father."46

Horus was called "the KRST," or "Anointed One," long before the
Christians duplicated the story.47

In fact, in the catacombs at Rome are pictures of the baby Horus being
held by the virgin mother Isis - the original "Madonna and Child" 48 -
and the Vatican itself is built upon the papacy of Mithra 49, who
shares many qualities with Jesus and who existed as a deity long
before the Jesus character was formalized. The Christian hierarchy is
nearly identical to the Mithraic version it replaced 50. Virtually all
of the elements of the Catholic ritual, from miter to wafer to water
to altar to doxology, are directly taken from earlier pagan mystery
religions.51

Mithra, Sungod of Persia

The story of Mithra precedes the Christian fable by at least 600
years. According to Wheless, the cult of Mithra was, shortly before
the Christian era, "the most popular and widely spread 'Pagan'
religion of the times." Mithra has the following in common with the
Christ character:

Mithra was born of a virgin on December 25th.

He was considered a great traveling teacher and master.

He had 12 companions or disciples.

He performed miracles.

He was buried in a tomb.

After three days he rose again.

His resurrection was celebrated every year.

Mithra was called "the Good Shepherd."

He was considered "the Way, the Truth and the Light, the Redeemer, the
Savior, the Messiah."

He was identified with both the Lion and the Lamb.

His sacred day was Sunday, "the Lord's Day," hundreds of years before
the appearance of Christ.

Mithra had his principal festival on what was later to become Easter,
at which time he was resurrected.

His religion had a Eucharist or "Lord's Supper." 52

Krishna of India

The similarities between the Christian character and the Indian
messiah are many. Indeed, Massey finds over 100 similarities between
the Hindu and Christian saviors, and Graves, who includes the various
noncanonical gospels in his analysis, lists over 300 likenesses. It
should be noted that a common earlier English spelling of Krishna was
"Christna," which reveals its relation to '"Christ." It should also be
noted that, like the Jewish godman, many people have believed in a
historical, carnalized Krishna.53

Krishna was born of the Virgin Devaki ("Divine One") 53a

His father was a carpenter.54

His birth was attended by angels, wise men and shepherds, and he was
presented with gold, frankincense and myrrh.54a

He was persecuted by a tyrant who ordered the slaughter of thousands
of infants.55

He was of royal descent.

He was baptized in the River Ganges.55a

He worked miracles and wonders.

He raised the dead and healed lepers, the deaf and the blind.

Krishna used parables to teach the people about charity and love.

"He lived poor and he loved the poor."56

He was transfigured in front of his disciples.57

In some traditions he died on a tree or was crucified between two
thieves.58

He rose from the dead and ascended to heaven.

Krishna is called the "Shepherd God" and "Lord of lords," and was
considered "the Redeemer, Firstborn, Sin Bearer, Liberator, Universal
Word."59

He is the second person of the Trinity,60 and proclaimed himself the
"Resurrection" and the "way to the Father."60a

He was considered the "Beginning, the Middle and the End," ("Alpha and
Omega"), as well as being omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent.

His disciples bestowed upon him the title "Jezeus," meaning "pure
essence."61

Krishna is to return to do battle with the "Prince of Evil," who will
desolate the earth.62

Prometheus of Greece

The Greek god Prometheus has been claimed to have come from Egypt, but
his drama took place in the Caucasus mountains. Prometheus shares a
number of striking similarities with the Christ character.

Prometheus descended from heaven as God incarnate as man, to save
mankind.

He was crucified, suffered and rose from the dead.

He was called the Logos or Word.62a

Five centuries before the Christian era, esteemed Greek poet Aeschylus
wrote Prometheus Bound, which, according to Taylor, was presented in
the theater in Athens. Taylor claims that in the play Prometheus is
crucified "on a fatal tree" and the sky goes dark:

"The darkness which closed the scene on the suffering Prometheus, was
easily exhibited on the stage, by putting out the lamps; but when the
tragedy was to become history, and the fiction to be turned into fact,
the lamp of day could not be so easily disposed of. Nor can it be
denied that the miraculous darkness which the Evangelists so solemnly
declare to have attended the crucifixion of Christ, labours under
precisely the same fatality of an absolute and total want of
evidence."63

Tradition holds that Prometheus was crucified on a rock, yet some
sources have opined that legend also held he was crucified on a tree
and that Christians muddled the story and/or mutilated the text, as
they did with the works of so many ancient authors. In any case, the
sun hiding in darkness parallels the Christian fable of the darkness
descending when Jesus was crucified. This remarkable occurrence is not
recorded in history but is only explainable within the Mythos and as
part of a recurring play.

The Creation of a Myth

The Christians went on a censorship rampage that led to the virtual
illiteracy of the ancient world and ensured that their secret would be
hidden from the masses 64, but the scholars of other schools/sects
never gave up their arguments against the historicizing of a very
ancient mythological creature. We have lost the arguments of these
learned dissenters because the Christians destroyed any traces of
their works. Nonetheless, the Christians preserved the contentions of
their detractors through the Christians' own refutations.

For example, early Church Father Tertullian (@ 160-220 C.E.), an "ex-
Pagan" and Bishop of Carthage, ironically admits the true origins of
the Christ story and of all other such godmen by stating in refutation
of his critics, "You say we worship the sun; so do you."65
Interestingly, a previously strident believer and defender of the
faith, Tertullian later renounced Christianity 66.

The "Son" of God is the "Sun" of God 67

The reason why all these narratives are so similar, with a godman who
is crucified and resurrected, who does miracles and has 12 disciples,
is that these stories were based on the movements of the sun through
the heavens, an astrotheological development that can be found
throughout the planet because the sun and the 12 zodiac signs can be
observed around the globe. In other words, Jesus Christ and all the
others upon whom this character is predicated are personifications of
the sun, and the Gospel fable is merely a rehash of a mythological
formula (the "Mythos," as mentioned above) revolving around the
movements of the sun through the heavens.68

For instance, many of the world's crucified godmen have their
traditional birthday on December 25th ("Christmas" 69). This is
because the ancients recognized that (from an earthcentric
perspective) the sun makes an annual descent southward until December
21st or 22nd, the winter solstice, when it stops moving southerly for
three days and then starts to move northward again. During this time,
the ancients declared that "God's sun" had "died" for three days and
was "born again" on December 25th.

The ancients realized quite abundantly that they needed the sun to
return every day and that they would be in big trouble if the sun
continued to move southward and did not stop and reverse its
direction. Thus, these many different cultures celebrated the "sun of
God's" birthday on December 25th.70 The following are the
characteristics of the "sun of God":

The sun "dies" for three days on December 22nd, the winter solstice,
when it stops in its movement south, to be born again or resurrected
on December 25th, when it resumes its movement north.

In some areas, the calendar originally began in the constellation of
Virgo, and the sun would therefore be "born of a Virgin."

The sun is the "Light of the World."

The sun "cometh on clouds, and every eye shall see him."

The sun rising in the morning is the "Savior of mankind."

The sun wears a corona, "crown of thorns" or halo.71

The sun "walks on water."

The sun's "followers," "helpers" or "disciples" are the 12 months and
the 12 signs of the zodiac or constellations, through which the sun
must pass.

The sun at 12 noon is in the house or temple of the "Most High"; thus,
"he" begins "his Father's work" at "age" 12.

The sun enters into each sign of the zodiac at 30°; hence, the "Sun of
God" begins his ministry at "age" 30.

The sun is hung on a cross or "crucified," which represents its
passing through the equinoxes, the vernal equinox being Easter, at
which time it is then resurrected.72

Contrary to popular belief, the ancients were not an ignorant and
superstitious lot who actually believed their deities to be literal
characters. Indeed, this slanderous propaganda has been part of the
conspiracy to make the ancients appear as if they were truly the dark
and dumb rabble that was in need of the "light of Jesus." 73 The
reality is that the ancients were no less advanced in their morals and
spiritual practices, and in many cases were far more advanced, than
the Christians in their own supposed morality and ideology, which, in
its very attempt at historicity, is in actuality a degradation of the
ancient Mythos.

Indeed, unlike the "superior" Christians, the true intelligentsia
amongst the ancients were well aware that their gods were astronomical
and atmospheric in nature. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle 74surely knew
that Zeus, the sky god father figure who migrated to Greece from India
and/or Egypt, was never a real person, despite the fact that the
Greeks have designated on Crete both a birth cave and a death cave of
Zeus. In addition, all over the world are to be found sites where this
god or that allegedly was born, walked, suffered, died, etc., a common
and unremarkable occurrence that is not monopolized by, and did not
originate with, Christianity.74a

Etymology Tells the Story

Zeus, aka "Zeus Pateras," who we now automatically believe to be a
myth and not a historical figure, takes his name from the Indian
version, "Dyaus Pitar." Dyaus Pitar in turn is related to the Egyptian
"Ptah," and from both Pitar and Ptah comes the word "pater," or
"father." "Zeus" equals "Dyaus," which became "Deos," "Deus" and
"Dios" - "God." "Zeus Pateras," like Dyaus Pitar, means, "God the
Father," a very ancient concept that in no way originated with "Jesus"
and Christianity.

There is no question of Zeus being a historical character. Dyaus Pitar
becomes "Jupiter" in Roman mythology, and likewise is not
representative of an actual, historical character. In Egyptian
mythology, Ptah, the Father, is the unseen god-force, and the sun was
viewed as Ptah's visible proxy who brings everlasting life to the
earth; hence, the "son of God" is really the "sun of God." Indeed,
according to Hotema, the very name "Christ" comes from the Hindi word
"Kris" (as in Krishna), which is a name for the sun.75

Furthermore, since Horus was called "Iusa/Iao/Iesu" 76 the "KRST," and
Krishna/Christna was called "Jezeus," centuries before any Jewish
character similarly named, it would be safe to assume that Jesus
Christ is just a repeat of Horus and Krishna, among the rest.
According to Rev. Taylor, the title "Christ" in its Hebraic form
meaning "Anointed" ("Masiah" 77) was held by all kings of Israel, as
well as being "so commonly assumed by all sorts of impostors,
conjurers, and pretenders to supernatural communications, that the
very claim to it is in the gospel itself considered as an indication
of imposture . . ."78 Hotema states that the name "Jesus Christ" was
not formally adopted in its present form until after the first Council
of Nicea, i.e., in 325 C.E.79

In actuality, even the place names and the appellations of many other
characters in the New Testament can be revealed to be Hebraicized
renderings of the Egyptian texts.

As an example, in the fable of "Lazarus," the mummy raised from the
dead by Jesus, the Christian copyists did not change his name much,
"El-Azar-us" being the Egyptian mummy raised from the dead by Horus
possibly 1,000 years or more before the Jewish version.80 This story
is allegory for the sun reviving its old, dying self, or father, as in
"El-Osiris." 81 It is not a true story.

Horus's principal enemy - originally Horus's other face or "dark"
aspect - was "Set" or "Sata," whence comes "Satan." 82 Horus
struggles with Set in the exact manner that Jesus battles with Satan,
with 40 days in the wilderness, among other similarities.83 This is
because this myth represents the triumph of light over dark, or the
sun's return to relieve the terror of the night.

"Jerusalem" simply means "City of Peace," and the actual city in
Israel was named after the holy city of peace in the Egyptian sacred
texts that already existed at the time the city was founded. Likewise,
"Bethany," site of the famous multiplying of the loaves, means "House
of God," and is allegory for the "multiplication of the many out of
the One."84 Any town of that designation was named for the allegorical
place in the texts that existed before the town's foundation. The
Egyptian predecessor and counterpart is "Bethanu."85

The Book of Revelation is Egyptian and Zoroastrian

One can find certain allegorical place names such as "Jerusalem" and
"Israel" in the Book of Revelation. Massey has stated that Revelation,
rather than having been written by any apostle called John during the
1st Century C.E., is a very ancient text that dates to the beginning
of this era of history, i.e. possibly as early as 4,000 years ago. 86
Massey asserts that Revelation relates the Mithraic legend of
Zarathustra/Zoroaster. 87 Hotema says of this mysterious book, which
has baffled mankind for centuries:

"It is expressed in terms of creative phenomena; its hero is not Jesus
but the Sun of the Universe, its heroine is the Moon; and all its
other characters are Planets, Stars and Constellations; while its
stage-setting comprises the Sky, the Earth, the Rivers and the Sea."

The common form of this text has been attributed by Churchward to
Horus's scribe, Aan, whose name has been passed down to us as
"John."88

The word Israel itself, far from being a Jewish appellation, probably
comes from the combination of three different reigning deities: Isis,
the Earth Mother Goddess revered throughout the ancient world; Ra, the
Egyptian sungod; and El, the Semitic deity passed down in form as
Saturn. 90 El was one of the earliest names for the god of the ancient
Hebrews (whence Emmanu-El, Micha-El, Gabri-El, Samu-El, etc.), and his
worship is reflected in the fact that the Jews still consider Saturday
as "God's Day." 91
Indeed, that the Christians worship on Sunday betrays the genuine
origins of their god and godman. Their "savior" is actually the sun,
which is the "Light of the world that every eye can see." The sun has
been viewed consistently throughout history as the savior of mankind
for reasons that are obvious. Without the sun, the planet would
scarcely last one day. So important was the sun to the ancients that
they composed a "Sun Book," or "Helio Biblia," which became the "Holy
Bible." 91a

The "Patriarchs" and "Saints" are the Gods of Other Cultures

When one studies mythmaking, one can readily discern and delineate a
pattern that is repeated throughout history. Whenever an invading
culture takes over its predecessors, it either vilifies the preceding
deities or makes them into lesser gods, "patriarchs" or, in the case
of Christianity, "saints." This process is exemplified in the adoption
of the Hindu god Brahma as the Hebrew patriarch Abraham.92

Another school of thought proposes that the patriarch Joshua was based
on Horus as "Iusa," since the cult of Horus had migrated by this
period to the Levant. In this theory, the cult of Joshua, which was
situated in exactly the area where the Christ drama allegedly took
place, then mutated into the Christian story, with Joshua becoming
Jesus.93 As Robertson says,

"The Book of Joshua leads us to think that he had several attributes
of the Sun-god, and that, like Samson and Moses, he was an ancient
deity reduced to human status."

Indeed, the legend of Moses, rather than being that of a historical
Hebrew character, is found around the ancient Middle and Far East,
with the character having different names and races, depending on the
locale: "Manou" is the Indian legislator; "Nemo the lawgiver," who
brought down the tablets from the Mountain of God, hails from Babylon;
"Mises" is found in Syria and Egypt, where also "Manes the lawgiver"
takes the stage; "Minos" is the Cretan reformer; and the Ten
Commandments are simply a repetition of the Babylonian Code of
Hammurabi and the Hindu Vedas, among others.94

Like Moses, Krishna was placed by his mother in a reed boat and set
adrift in a river to be discovered by another woman.95 A century ago,
Massey outlined, and Graham recently reiterated, that even the Exodus
itself is not a historical event. That the historicity of the Exodus
has been questioned is echoed by the lack of any archaeological
record, as is reported in Biblical Archaeology Review ("BAR"),
September/October 1994.96

Like many biblical characters, Noah is also a myth 97, long ago
appropriated from the Egyptians, the Sumerians and others, as any
sophisticated scholar could demonstrate, and yet we find all sorts of
books - some even presumably "channeling" the "ultimate truth" from a
mystical, omniscient, omnipresent and eternal being such as Jesus
himself - prattling on about a genuine, historical Noah, his
extraordinary adventures, and the "Great Flood!" 98

Additionally, the "Esther" of the Old Testament Book of Esther is a
remake of the Goddess Ishtar, Astarte, Astoreth or Isis, from whom
comes "Easter" 99 and about whose long and ubiquitous reign little is
said in "God's infallible Word." 100 The Virgin Mother/Goddess/Queen
of Heaven motif is found around the globe, long before the Christian
era, with Isis, for instance, also being called "Mata-Meri" ("Mother
Mary").

As Walker says, "Mari" was the "basic name of the Goddess known to the
Chaldeans as Marratu, to the Jews as Marah, to the Persians as
Mariham, to the Christians as Mary... Semites worshipped an
androgynous combination of Goddess and God called Mari-El (Mary-God),
corresponding to the Egyptian Meri-Ra, which combined the feminine
principle of water with the masculine principle of the sun."

Even the Hebraic name of God, "Yahweh," was taken from the Egyptian
"IAO."101

In one of the most notorious of Christian deceptions, in order to
convert followers of "Lord Buddha," the Church canonized him as "St.
Josaphat," which represented a Christian corruption of the buddhistic
title, "Bodhisat."102

The "Disciples" are the Signs of the Zodiac

Moreover, it is no accident that there are 12 patriarchs and 12
disciples, 12 being the number of the astrological signs, or months.
Indeed, like the 12 Herculean tasks and the 12 "helpers" of Horus,
Jesus's 12 disciples are symbolic for the zodiacal signs and do not
depict any literal figures who played out a drama upon the earth circa
30 C.E. The disciples can be shown to have been an earlier deity/
folkloric hero/constellation. 103

Peter is easily revealed to be a mythological character 104, while
Judas has been said to represent Scorpio, "the backbiter," the time of
year when the sun's rays are weakening and the sun appears to be
dying. 105 James, "brother of Jesus" and "brother of the Lord," is
equivalent to Amset, brother of Osiris and brother of the Lord. 106

Massey says "Taht-Matiu was the scribe of the gods, and in Christian
art Matthew is depicted as the scribe of the gods, with an angel
standing near him, to dictate the gospel." 107 Even the apostle Paul
is a compilation of several characters: The Old Testament Saul,
Apollonius of Tyana and the Greek demigod Orpheus.108

Was Jesus an Essene Master? 109

As regards Jesus being an Essene according to "secret" Dead Sea
Scrolls, even before the discovery of the scrolls, over the centuries
there has been much speculation to this effect, but Massey skillfully
argued that many of Jesus's presumed teachings were either in
contradiction to or were non-existent in Essene philosophy.110

The Essenes did not believe in corporeal resurrection, nor did they
believe in a carnalized messiah. They did not accept the historicity
of Jesus. They were not followers of the Hebrew Bible, or its
prophets, or the concept of the original fall that must produce a
savior. Massey further points out that the Essenes were teetotalers
and ate to live rather than the other way around. Compared to this,
the assumed Essene Jesus appears to be a glutton and drunkard.

Also, whereas according to Josephus the Essenes abhorred the swearing
of oaths, Jesus was fond of "swearing unto" his disciples. 111 While
many Essenic doctrines are included in the New Testament, the list of
disparities between the Dead Sea Scroll Essenes and their alleged
great master Jesus goes on.112

Qumran is Not an Essene Community

It should also be noted that there is another debate as to whether or
not Qumran, the site traditionally associated with the Dead Sea
Scrolls, was an Essene community. In BAR, previously cited, it is
reported that archaeological finds indicate Qumran was not an Essene
community but was possibly a waystation for travelers and merchants
crossing the Dead Sea.

In BAR, it has also been hypothesized that the fervent tone and
warrior-stance of some of the scrolls unearthed near Qumran belie any
Essene origin and indicate a possible attribution to Jewish Zealots
instead. In Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, Norman Golb makes a very
good case that the Dead Sea Scrolls were not written by any Essene
scribes but were a collection of tomes from various libraries that
were secreted in caves throughout eastern Israel by Jews fleeing the
Roman armies during the First Revolt of 70 A.D.

Golb also hypothesizes that Qumran itself was a fortress, not a
monastery. In any case, it is impossible to equate the "Teacher of
Righteousness" found in any scrolls with Jesus Christ.

Was the New Testament Composed by Therapeuts?

In 1829 Rev. Taylor adeptly made the case that the entire Gospel story
was already in existence long before the beginning of the Common Era
and was probably composed by the monks at Alexandria called
"Therapeuts" in Greek and "Essenes" in Egyptian, both names meaning
"healers."113 This theory has stemmed in part from the statement of
early church father Eusebius, who, in a rare moment of seeming
honesty,

"admitted . . . that the canonical Christian gospels and epistles were
the ancient writings of the Essenes or Therapeutae reproduced in the
name of Jesus."114

Taylor also opines that

"the traveling Egyptian Therapeuts brought the whole story from India
to their monasteries in Egypt, where, some time after the commencement
of the Roman monarchy, it was transmuted in Christianity."115

In addition, Wheless evinces that one can find much of the fable of
"Jesus Christ" in the Book of Enoch 116, which predated the supposed
advent of the Jewish master by hundreds of years.117According to
Massey, it was the "pagan" Gnostics - who included members of the
Essene/Therapeut and Nazarene 118 brotherhoods, among others - who
actually carried to Rome the esoteric (gnostic) texts containing the
Mythos, upon which the numerous gospels, including the canonical four,
were based. Wheless says,

"Obviously, the Gospels and other New Testament booklets, written in
Greek and quoting 300 times the Greek Septuagint, and several Greek
Pagan authors, as Aratus, and Cleanthes, were written, not by
illiterate Jewish peasants, but by Greek-speaking ex-Pagan Fathers and
priests far from the Holy Land of the Jews."119

Mead averred, "We thus conclude that the autographs of our four
Gospels were most probably written in Egypt, in the reign of
Hadrian."120

Conclusion

As Walker said,

"Scholars' efforts to eliminate paganism from the Gospels in order to
find a historical Jesus have proved as hopeless as searching for a
core in an onion."

The "gospel" story of Jesus is not a factual portrayal of a historical
"master" who walked the earth 2,000 years ago. It is a myth built upon
other myths and godmen, who in turn were personifications of the
ubiquitous sungod mythos.

Footnotes

(1)
In the '80s this controversy erupted once again when GA Wells
published Did Jesus Exist? and later The Historical Evidence for
Jesus, both of which sought to prove that Jesus is a nonhistorical
character. An attempt to repudiate Wells was made by Ian Wilson in
Jesus: The Evidence, an entire book written to establish that Jesus
did exist. (There is a chapter titled, "Did Jesus Even Exist?," which
in itself immediately places a possibly hitherto unknown doubt in the
reader's mind.) It should be noted that no such book would be needed
if the existence of Jesus Christ as a historical figure were a proven
fact accepted by all.

(2)
As regards the work of Erich von Daniken, Zecharia Sitchin and others,
it should be understood that few of the stories of godmen can be taken
literally to reveal actual superhuman "masters" or alien presences and
influences. Most of these characters are, to learned mythologists,
clearly myths. (See below)

(3)
"Evemerism," named after Evemeras, a 4th Century B.C.E. Greek
philosopher who developed the idea that, rather than being
mythological creatures as was accepted by the reigning intellectuals,
the gods of old were in fact historical characters, kings, emperors
and heroes whose exploits were then deified. Evemerists have put forth
a great deal of literature attempting to prove that Jesus was a great
Jewish reformer and revolutionary who threatened the status quo and
thus had to be put to death. Unfortunately for historicizers, no
historian of his purported time even noticed this "great reformer." In
Ancient History of the God Jesus, Dujardin states, "This doctrine
[Evemerism] is nowadays discredited except in the case of Jesus. No
scholar believes that Osiris or Jupiter or Dionysus was an historical
person promoted to the rank of a god, but exception is made only in
favour of Jesus. . . .It is impossible to rest the colossal work of
Christianity on Jesus, if he was a man." The standard Christian
response to the Evemerists has been that no such Jesus, stripped of
his miracles and other supernatural attributes, could ever "have been
adored as a god or even been saluted as the Messiah of
Israel." (Dujardin) This response is quite accurate: No man could have
caused such a hullabaloo and hellish fanaticism, the product of which
has been the unending spilling of blood. The crazed "inspiration" that
has kept the Church afloat merely confirms the mythological origins of
this tale. "The general assumption concerning the canonical gospels is
that the historic element was the kernel of the whole, and that the
fables accreted round it; whereas the mythos, being pre-extant, proves
the core of the matter was mythical, and it follows that the history
is incremental. . . . It was the human history that accreted round the
divinity, and not a human being who became divine." (Massey, The
Historical Jesus and the Mythical Christ, henceforth, "MC") The bottom
line is that when one removes all the elements of those preceding
deities and myths that contributed to the formation of this Jewish god-
man - which is what Evemerists insist on doing - there is nothing
historical left to point to. As Massey says, ". . . a composite
likeness of twenty different persons merged in one . . . is not
anybody." (MC)

(4)
"Those who denied the humanity of Christ were the first class of
professing Christians, and not only first in order of time, but in
dignity of character, in intelligence, and in moral
influence." (Taylor) While those who held onto the millennia-old
gnostic Mythos of Christ preceded the carnalizers, or sarkolaters
(those who made Christ into flesh), having long-established rituals
and doctrines, it was they who were accused of being heretics by their
younger, ignorant, carnalizing cousins, who were in reality the true
heretics. Taylor: "The deniers of the humanity of Christ, or, in a
word, professing Christians, who denied that any such man as Jesus
Christ ever existed at all, but who took the name Jesus Christ to
signify only an abstraction, or prosopopæia, the principle of Reason
personified; and who understood the whole gospel story to be a sublime
allegory . . . these were the first, and (it is not dishonour to
Christianity to pronounce them) the best and most rational
Christians."

(5)
Rev. Robert Taylor, The Diegesis. Rev. Taylor was an English clergyman
widely known for his "heretical" sermons, which he began to deliver
after discovering, through a superior classical education, that Christ
was a mythological character. He was twice imprisoned in England in
the 1820's for "blasphemy." Taylor was one of the early
"freethinkers," although he maintained he was a "Deist," and,
therefore, not an atheist. Taylor suffered tremendous persecution for
his stance, yet from his prison cell, he composed The Diegesis, a
remarkable and scholarly dissertation of the highest quality.

(6)
Ibid.

(7)
With acknowledgment to Randel Helms, author of Gospel Fictions.

(8)
The Origin and Evolution of Religion by Albert Churchward.

(9)
Forgery in Christianity by Joseph Wheless: "As said by the great
critic, Salomon 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 A.D.) quotes the Gospels or their reputed authors.'" In The Book
Your Church Doesn't Want You to Read, John Remsburg states: "The Four
Gospels were unknown to the early Christian Fathers. Justin Martyr,
the most eminent of the early Fathers, wrote about the middle of the
second century. His writings in proof of the divinity of Christ
demanded the use of these Gospels had they existed in his time. He
makes more than 300 quotations from the books of the Old Testament,
and nearly one hundred from the Apocryphal books of the New Testament;
but none from the four Gospels. Rev. Giles says: 'The very names of
the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, are never mentioned by
him (Justin) - do not occur once in all his writings.'" In A Short
History of the Bible, Keeler says, "The books [canonical gospels] are
not heard of till 150 A.D., that is, till Jesus had been dead nearly a
hundred and twenty years. No writer before 150 A.D. makes the
slightest mention of them."

(10)
Wheless quotes the Catholic Encyclopedia: "Enterprising spirits
responded to this natural craving by pretended gospels full of
romantic fables, and fantastic and striking details; their
fabrications were eagerly read and accepted as true by common folk who
were devoid of any critical faculty and who were predisposed to
believe what so luxuriously fed their pious curiosity. Both Catholics
and Gnostics were concerned in writing these fictions. The former had
no motive other than that of a PIOUS FRAUD." (NB: "C.E." denotes
"Common Era" and is equivalent to "A.D.," whereas "B.C.E." denotes
"Before the Common Era" and is equivalent to "B.C." )

(11)
Wheless, op cit. Mangasarian states: "The church historian, Mosheim,
writes that, 'The Christian Fathers deemed it a pious act to employ
deception and fraud.' [Ecclesiastical Hist., Vol. I, p. 347.] Again,
he says: 'The greatest and most pious teachers were nearly all of them
infected with this leprosy.' Will not some believer tell us why
forgery and fraud were necessary to prove the historicity of
Jesus. . . . Another historian, Milman, writes that, 'Pious fraud was
admitted and avowed by the early missionaries of Jesus.' 'It was an
age of literary frauds,' writes Bishop Ellicott, speaking of the times
immediately following the alleged crucifixion of Jesus. Dr. Giles
declares that, 'There can be no doubt that great numbers of books were
written with no other purpose than to deceive.' And it is the opinion
of Dr. Robertson Smith that, 'There was an enormous floating mass of
spurious literature created to suit party views.'"

(12)
Wheless: "The clerical confessions of lies and frauds in the ponderous
volumes of the Catholic Encyclopedia alone suffice . . . to wreck the
Church and to destroy utterly the Christian religion. . . . The Church
exists mostly for wealth and self-aggrandizement; to quit paying money
to the priests would kill the whole scheme in a couple of years. This
is the sovereign remedy."

(13)
In one of his works, Eusebius provides this handy chapter entitled:
"How it may be Lawful and Fitting to use Falsehood as Medicine, and
for the Benefit of those who Want to be Deceived." (Wheless) Wheless
also calls Justin Martyr, Eusebius and Tertullian "three luminous
liars." Keeler: "The early Christian fathers were extremely ignorant
and superstitious; and they were singularly incompetent to deal with
the supernatural."

(14)
Wheless. "If the pious Christians, confessedly, committed so many and
so extensive forgeries and frauds to adapt these popular Jewish fairy-
tales of their God and holy Worthies to the new Christian Jesus and
his Apostles, we need feel no surprise when we discover these same
Christians forging outright new wonder-tales of their Christ under the
fiction of the most noted Christian names and in the guise of inspired
Gospels, Epistles, Acts and Apocalypses. . . . Half a hundred of false
and forged Apostolic 'Gospels of Jesus Christ,' together with more
numerous other 'Scripture' forgeries, was the output, so far as known
now, of the lying pens of the pious Christians of the first two
centuries of the Christian 'Age of Apocryphal Literature' . . .
'Almost every one of the Apostles had a Gospel fathered upon him by
one early sect or another.' . . .If the Gospel tales were true, why
should God need pious lies to give them credit? Lies and forgeries are
only needed to bolster up falsehood. . . But Jesus Christ must needs
be propagated by lies upon lies; and what better proof of his
actuality than to exhibit letters written by him in his own
handwriting? The 'Little Liars of the Lord' were equal to the forgery
of the signature of their God - false letters in his name, as above
cited from that exhaustless mine of clerical falsities, the Catholic
Encyclopedia [C.E.] . . . The forged New Testament booklets and the
foolish writings of the Fathers, are the sole 'evidence' we have for
the alleged facts and doctrines of our most holy Faith, as is admitted
by C.E."

(15)
The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, by Barbara Walker, p.
471. Rev. Taylor, in The Diegesis, reports a slightly different
version of Leo X's admission: "It was well known how profitable this
fable of Christ has been to us." (footnote, p. 35.)

(16)
Massey, MC: ". . . It was the Gnostics who had faithfully preserved
the true traditions. It was they who continued the mythos intact from
Egypt; they who made the images in the Christian iconography, and
reproduced the Iao-Chnubis and the Kamite Horus on the talismanic
stones and the catacombs of Rome . . . "

(17)
"The entire 'Pauline group' is the same forged class . . . says E.B.
[Encyclopedia Biblica] . . .'With respect to the canonical Pauline
Epistles, . . .. there are none of them by Paul; neither fourteen, nor
thirteen, nor nine or eight, nor yet even the four so long
"universally" regarded as unassailable. They are all, without
distinction, pseudographia (false-writings, forgeries). . . ' They are
thus all uninspired anonymous church forgeries for Christ's sweet
sake!" (Wheless)

(18)
Walker: "The most 'historical' figure in the Gospels was Pontius
Pilate, to whom Jesus was presented as 'king' of the Jews and
simultaneously as a criminal deserving the death penalty for
'blasphemy' because he called himself Christ, Son of the
Blessed. . . . This alleged crime was no real crime. Eastern provinces
swarmed with self-styled Christs and Messiahs, calling themselves Sons
of god and announcing the end of the world. None of them was executed
for 'blasphemy.'" Massey (MC) avers: "The great judge of the dead in
Amenti [Egyptian place of afterlife] was designated the Rhat (Eg.),
whence the Greek Rhadamanthus. The Rhat with the letter L instead of R
is the Lat, and with the masculine article Pi, becomes Pilate, for the
judge in Amenti." Mangasarian states: "A Roman judge, while admitting
that he finds no guilt in Jesus deserving of death, is nevertheless
represented as handing him over to the mob to be killed, after he has
himself scourged him. No Roman judge could have behaved as this Pilate
is reported to have behaved toward an accused person on trial for his
life." As to the "Acts of Pilate," an "apocryphal" and spurious
document that purports to relate the trial of Jesus before Pilate, in
accordance with the canonical gospel accounts but with greater detail,
Mead relates that a scholar named Rendel Harris opined that the scenes
in the "Acts" were directly lifted from the Iliad: ". . . Pilate has
been turned into Achilles, . . . Joseph is the good old Priam, begging
the body of Hector, and the the whole story is based upon the dramatic
passages of the twenty-fourth book of the Iliad." (Did Jesus Live 100
B.C.?) Jacolliot evinces, " . . . the Iliad of Homer is nothing but an
echo, an enfeebled souvenir of the Ramayana, a Hindoo poem in which
Rama goes at the head of his allies to recover his wife, Sita, who had
been carried off by the King of Ceylon."

(19)
Massey, ibid., states: "It is demonstrable that Herod is a form of the
Apophis serpent called the enemy of the sun. In Syriac Herod is a red
dragon. Herod in Hebrew signifies a terror. Her (Eg.) is to terrify,
and herrut (Eg.) is the snake, or typical reptile."

(20)
Ancient History of the God Jesus by Edouard Dujardin, p. 33.

(21)
Ibid., p. 36.

(22)
"Is it conceivable that a preacher of Jesus could go throughout the
world to convert people to the teachings of Jesus, as Paul did,
without ever quoting a single one of his sayings? Had Paul known that
Jesus had preached a sermon, or formulated a prayer, or said many
inspired things about the here and the hereafter, he could not have
helped quoting, now and then, from the words of his master. If
Christianity could have been established without a knowledge of the
teachings of Jesus, why then, did Jesus come to teach, and why were
his teachings preserved by divine inspiration? . . . If Paul knew of a
miracle-working Jesus, one who could feed the multitude with a few
loaves and fishes, who could command the grave to open, who could cast
out devils, and cleanse the land of the foulest disease of leprosy,
who could, and did, perform many other wonderful works to convince the
unbelieving generation of his divinity - is it conceivable that either
intentionally or inadvertently he would have never once referred to
them in all his preaching? . . . The position, then, that there is not
a single saying of Jesus in the gospels which is quoted by Paul in his
many epistles is unassailable, and certainly fatal to the historicity
of the gospel Jesus." (Mangasarian) Massey: "The 'sayings' [logia]
were common property in the mysteries ages before they were ever
written down." (MC) Meaning they were not original with Jesus, also
leading one to conclude that "Paul" and crew were not initiates into
the mysteries, since they were ignorant of these ages-old logia.

(22a)
". . . the New Testament is not a single book but a collection of
groups of books and single volumes, which were at first and even long
afterwards circulated separately. . . . the Gospels are found in any
and every order. . . . Egyptian tradition places Jn. [John] first
among the Gospels." (Mead, The Gospels and the Gospel)

(23)
Wheless: "Both genealogies are false and forged lists of mostly
fictitious names."

(24)
Wheless: "Like the whole 'Sermon on the Mount,' the [Lord's] Prayer is
a composite of ancient sayings of the Scripture strung together to
form it, as the marginal cross-references show throughout." We might
add that the "Scripture" is not only from the Old Testament but is
part of the ancient Mythos/Ritual. Many of the concepts within the
Sermon, which is held up by Christian defenders as the core of Jesus's
teachings and a reflection of his compassion, can also be found in the
Vedas as spoken by the compassionate Krishna, in the doctrines of the
Therapeuts, and in the "Dhammapada" attributed to the equally
compassionate Buddha. There is nothing new here that would merit such
attention as has been given this Jesus character. Also, there is
apparently within the Egyptian Hermetic or Trismegistic tradition a
discourse called "The Secret Sermon on the Mount," so it would seem
that "Sermons on the Mount" were also a common occurrence within the
Mythos and Ritual. (Mead, Did Jesus Live)

(25)
There have been "Passions" of many gods. Dujardin: "Other scholars
have been impressed by the resemblance between the Passion of Jesus as
told in the gospels and the ceremonies of the popular fêtes, such as
the Sacæa in Babylon, the festival of Kronos in Greece, and the
Saturnalia in Italy. . . . If the stories of the Passions of Dionysus,
Attis, Osiris and Demeter are the transpositions of cult dramas, and
not actual events, it can hardly be otherwise with the Passion of
Jesus." (See footnote 93 below.) As concerns the accounts of the
resurrection, Graves states, "With respect to the persons who first
visited the sepulchre, Matthew states that it was Mary Magdalene and
another Mary; but Luke says it was 'Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and
Mary the mother of James, and other women;' while, according to John
(and he virtually reiterates it), Mary Magdalene went alone. It will
be observed, then, that the first 'inspired' and 'infallible' witness
testifies there were two witnesses; and the second that there were
four; and the third witness declares there was but one. What beautiful
harmony! No court in the civilized world would accept such discordant
testimony!"

(26)
In the canonical gospels, Jesus himself makes many illogical
contradictions concerning some of his most important teachings. First,
he repeatedly states the he is sent only "to the lost sheep of
Israel," and forbids his disciples to preach to the Gentiles. Then he
is made to say, "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost." (It is also interesting to note that the Trinity was not
adopted by the Church until the 4th century, long after "Jesus's"
purported statements concerning it. These proselytizers, then, were
awfully slow in their preaching of this doctrine!) Next, Jesus claims
that the end of the world is imminent and warns his disciples to be
prepared at a moment's notice. Then he tells them to build a church
from which to preach his message. Now, if the end of the world is
coming, why should they build anything? We know that this "prophecy"
didn't happen; nor has Jesus returned "soon," as was his promise. Even
if he had been real, he would not have been worthy of listening to.
"The Gentile Church of Christ has therefore no divine sanction; was
never contemplated nor created by Jesus Christ. The Christian Church
is thus founded on a forgery of pretended words of the pretended
Christ." (Wheless) "Again, 'several of the reported sayings of Jesus
clearly bear the impress of a time he did not live to see.'" (Mead)

(27)
Wheless: ". . . the Hebrew and Greek religious forgers were so
ignorant or careless of the principles of criticism, that they
'interpolated' their fraudulent new matter into old manuscripts
without taking care to erase or suppress the previous statements
glaringly contradicted by the new interpolations." The Church forgery
mill did not limit itself to mere writings but for centuries cranked
out thousands of phony "relics" of its "Lord," "Apostles" and
"Saints." The Shroud of Turin, among innumerable others, is counted in
this group."There were at least 26 'authentic' burial shrouds
scattered throughout the abbeys of Europe, of which the Shroud of
Turin is just one. . . .The Shroud of Turin is one of the many relics
manufactured for profit during the Middle Ages. Shortly after the
Shroud emerged it was declared a fake by the bishop who discovered the
artist. This is verified by recent scientific investigation which
found paint in the image areas. The Shroud of Turin is also not
consistent with Gospel accounts of Jesus' burial, which clearly refer
to multiple cloths and a separate napkin over his face." (Freethought
Datasheet #5, Atheists United) At one point, a number of churches
claimed the one foreskin of Jesus, and there were enough splinters of
the "True Cross" that Calvin said the amount of wood would make "a
full load for a good ship." (Walker) The disgraceful list of
absurdities and frauds goes on, and, as Pope Leo X claimed, it has
been enormously profitable for the Church. And where the fraud failed,
fear and force prevailed, as millions were subjected to horrible
tortures and murders in the name of the pretended "Prince of Peace,"
during an abysmally dark Age of Faith that propelled the world into a
state of ignorance.

(28)
McKlintock and Strong's Cyclopædia of Theological Literature.

(29)

Mangasarian. Wheless: "The fact is, that with the exception of this
one incongruous forged passage, section 3, the wonder-mongering
Josephus makes not the slightest mention of his wonder-working fellow-
countryman, Jesus the Christ - though some score of other Joshuas, or
Jesuses, are recorded by him, nor does he mention any of his
transcendent wonders."

(30)
Massey, Mangasarian, Taylor. Zealous defender of the faith Eusebius
never mentions the Tacitus passage, nor does anyone else prior to the
15th century C.E. (Taylor)

(30a)
Who is this King of Glory?, p. 258-9.

(31)
See Taylor and Wheless for more on the fraudulent nature of these
passages. "It has always been unfailing source of astonishment to the
historical investigator of Christian beginnings, that there is not a
single word from the pen of any Pagan writer of the first century of
our era, which can in any fashion be referred to the marvellous story
recounted by the Gospel writer. The very existence of Jesus seems
unknown." (Mead, Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.?)

(32)
Gnostic and Historic Christianity by Massey (see below). See also The
Diegesis by Rev. Robert Taylor, The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors
by Kersey Graves, Pagan Christs by JM Robertson, any works by Hilton
Hotema, Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter, and Deceptions
and Myths of the Bible by Lloyd Graham. Although some historicizers
may glob onto these dates as proof that the research is outdated, this
is simply not true. These numbers are provided here to demonstrate
that this truth has been known, and has been suppressed by vested
interests, for a long time.

(33)
Graves, p. 15. "'We cannot,' says the celebrated Orientalist, Sir
William Jones, 'refuse to the Vedas the honor of an antiquity the most
distant.'" (Jacolliot, The Bible in India) Indeed, certain scholars
have opined that the Rig Veda contains mention of an astronomical
configuration that could only have occurred 90,000 years ago; it true,
this would attest that the Veda was recording the experience of
someone far too advanced for that period, according to the
standardized anthrolopogical perspective, not to mention that the Veda
would represent the world's oldest "historical" recording, although
the actual physically extant copies are, obviously, very recent.
Ancient scribes India mostly used, as occurs in some places today,
leaves to write on, and these were endlessly copied over the thousands
of years. As everywhere, knowledge was also passed along orally. This
subject opens up the debate as to whether ancient India or Egypt was
the progenitor of Western and Middle Eastern culture. Both have claims
to extreme antiquity. The question is who came first within the
Mythos, Brahma-Krishna or Osiris-Horus? Based on linguistical
evidence, many scholars have concluded it was India. However, the
ancient Egyptian language is not fully known, nor has the extent of
its influence been adequately examined. Walker hypothesizes that
"Horus" was "Heruka" of India, indicating that the Horus myth
succeeded and was built upon the Indian. The chronology of the
Brahmins goes back millions of years, and there has been effort made
by such Hare Krishna authors as Thompson and Cremo to push
civilization, rather than man's apelike progenitors, back at least to
that period. Obviously, such "Forbidden Archeology" is widely
dismissed for seeming lack of solid evidence. What is known is that
the Judeo-Christian bible can be found in earlier versions in both
countries. Thus, it is the rehash of the well-developed systems and
ideologies (Ritual and Mythos) of both nations. (See Jacolliot and
Massey.)

(33a)
Many on this list come from The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors by
Graves. This is not to suggest that all of these godmen characters
were utilized in the formation of the Christian myth, as overt contact
had not occurred in such places as Mexico or Bermuda. Also, modern
orthodoxy does not allow for the dates provided by Graves, i.e., that
Quetzalcoatl originates in the 6th B.C.E., a date far too early in the
orthodox perspective. However, we utilize this list to demonstrate
that the same concepts are found worldwide with and without cultural
exchange, because they are derived from the same astrotheological
observations. Also, we are in concurrence with the "ancient advanced
civilization" theory ("Atlantis") that would allow for one or more
centralized civilizations to have spread throughout the world during a
very remote period in protohistory, thus taking with it the well-
developed Mythos and Ritual, which would then mutate into the various
forms found around the globe.

(34)
Taylor quotes the letter of Emperor Adrian (134 C.E.): "The
worshippers of Serapis are Christians, and those are devoted to the
God Serapis, who (I find) call themselves the bishops of Christ."

(35)
Walker: ". . . Later, an unknown Gospel writer inserted the story of
doubting Thomas, who insisted on touching Jesus. This was to combat
the heretical idea that there was no resurrection in the flesh, and
also to subordinate Jerusalem's municipal god Tammuz (Thomas) to the
new savior. Actually, the most likely source of primary Christian
mythology was the Tammuz cult in Jerusalem." The "doubting Thomas"
character also finds its place in the Mythos, as the "genius" of the
time when the sun is at its weakest (winter solstice). (Taylor)

(36)
The Sibylline Oracles, books produced over time allegedly by a number
of pagan prophetesses called Sibyls, were widely regarded in the
ancient world prior to the advent of the Christian era. "The Sibyls
are quoted frequently by the early Fathers and Christian writers,
Justin, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria,
etc." (Catholic Encyclopedia, cited by Wheless) These books or Oracles
were often cited by Christians as proof of their religion. For
instance, the following is considered a Sibylline Oracle: "With five
loaves at the same time, and with two fishes, He shall satisfy five
thousand men in the wilderness; And afterwards taking all the
fragments that remain, He shall fill twelve baskets to the hope of
many. . . .He shall still the winds by His word, and calm the sea as
it rages, treading with feet of peace and faith. . . . He shall walk
on the waves, He shall release men from disease. He shall raise the
dead, and drive away many pains. . ." (Wheless) Although the
Christians interpreted this as a prophecy of Christ becoming
fulfilled, it is in fact an aspect of the ubiquitous Mythos and was
already said of Horus, for one, hundreds of years earlier. It has
never referred to an actual man but, once again, is astrotheological.
The fact that it purportedly existed prior to the Christian era
constitutes proof to those who use logic that the Christians utilized
it in creating their Christ character, rather than it acting as a
prophecy of their godman. As they did with other texts, the Christians
forged and interpolated many passages into the well-known Oracles in
order to cement their fiction and convert followers. It is also
amusing to note that the Christians had to resort to despised "pagan"
documents for their enterprise, especially since they spent their
lives attempting to demonstrate that everything that preceded them was
"of the devil." This then implies that Christianity was also a work of
the devil.

(37)
Pagan Christs by JM Robertson.

(38)
In Gnostic and Historian Christianity, Massey says, "In . . . Buddhism
in Christendom, [author] Mr. Lillie thinks he has found Jesus, the
author of Christianity, as one of the Essenes, and a Buddhist! But
there is no need of craning one's neck out of joint in looking to
India, or straining in that direction at all, for the origin of that
which was Egyptian born and Gnostic bred! Essenism was no new birth of
Hindu Buddhism brought to Alexandria about two centuries before our
era; and Christianity, whether considered to be mystical or
historical, was not derived from Buddhism at any time. They have some
things in common, because there is a Beyond to both." We will add that
the Egyptians refined the Mythos in exquisite and overwhelming detail,
but linguistical theory has in the past, and now again with the
Nostratic theory, traced the origins of Western and Middle Eastern
language and culture in large part to India. It is yet difficult to
say which came first, Krishna, the predecessor of Buddha, or Osiris-
Horus. Certainly Horus was a well-developed savior-god by the time
attributed to THE Buddha. There would be no need to build Horus upon
Buddha (Egyptian "Putha" or "Ptah"), and it is true that Christianity
did not need to rely on the doctrines of Buddhism, having the complete
Mythos at hand. However, we do know absolutely that there was cultural
exchange between the West/Levant and the Buddhistic world of the Far
East prior to the inception of Christianity, in the form of travelers,
traders, and monks of the vast brotherhood network, who were
constantly exchanging information concerning religion, the esoteric
gnosis, and the Mythos and Ritual. Also, it has been suggested that
there was at least one group of Brahmanic and Vedic scholars living in
the Levant prior to the founding of Christianity. These individuals,
who would likely be members of one or more aspects of the brotherhood
network, would certainly also be exchanging information about the very
ancient Krishna, et al., and contributing to the culture around them.
It is not only entirely possible but probable that Hindus ventured to
the Levant over the millennia. But they would not have needed to, in
order to spread their version of the Mythos, since there were those,
such as Alexander the Great, who went to them. Indeed, Louis Jacolliot
expertly traces the Judeo-Christian Bible back to India, noting many
similarities between the Hindu and Christian priesthoods. (The Bible
in India) There are also quite a few similarities between the Catholic
and Tibetan Buddhist hierarchies and rituals. The influence from the
Far East has come in waves beginning several thousand years ago, and
culture may have begun to develop there in in the protohistoric period
some 12,000 years ago or more. If the reckonings of maverick
Egyptologists are accurate, however, Egypt would have been developing
simultaneously with this Indian culture, the origins of both, then,
being a possibly much older civilization. There is no question,
however, that the archaic Indian language Sanskrit or its Nostratic
predecessor has highly influenced many of the Western/Middle Eastern
languages. Therefore, there has unquestionably been early and ongoing
contact, and with language comes religion. "The ancient peoples of
India were Asiatic Ethiopians, and it should not surprise us that they
shared common traditions with their brothers in Africa." (John
Jackson, Christianity Before Christ)

(38aa)

Some people have tried to dispute the "virgin" status of Buddha's
mother. However, in the first place, it should be remembered that the
"life of the Buddha" does not represent the biography of a person but
is an account of a solar hero; thus, the typical solar attribute would
be appropriate. In any case, Joseph McCabe relates: " . . . Mr.
Robertson shows from St. Jerome that the Buddhists themselves did call
Maya 'a virgin' - they believed in a 'virgin birth' - and he rightly
rejects the statement of Professor Rhys Davids that these Buddhists
understood the birth of Buddha quite differently from the Christians
because 'before his descent into his mother's womb he was a deva.'
That is exactly what Christians say of Jesus."

(38a)
Mead, p. 133.

(38b)
Ibid.

(38c)
Graves, p. 118.

(39)
Isis Unveiled by Helena Blavatsky, vol. II, pp. 209, 537-538.

(40)
Massey, MC, p. 150.

(40a)
Mead, p. 134.

(41)
Walker says, "Of all savior-gods worshipped at the beginning of the
Christian era, Osiris may have contributed more details to the
evolving Christ figure than any other. Already very old in Egypt,
Osiris was identified with nearly every other Egyptian god and was on
the way to absorbing them all. He had well over 200 divine names. He
was called the Lord of Lords, King of Kings, God of Gods. He was the
Resurrection and the Life, the Good Shepherd, Eternity and
Everlastingness, the god who 'made men and women to be born again.'
Budge says, 'From first to last, Osiris was to the Egyptians the god-
man who suffered, and died, and rose again, and reigned eternally in
heaven. They believed that they would inherit eternal life, just as he
had done. . . . Osiris's coming was announced by Three Wise Men: the
three stars Mintaka, Anilam, and Alnitak in the belt of Orion, which
point directly to Osiris's star in the east, Sirius (Sothis),
significator of his birth. . . . Certainly Osiris was a prototypical
Messiah, as well as a devoured Host. His flesh was eaten in the form
of communion cakes of wheat, the 'plant of Truth.' . . . The cult of
Osiris contributed a number of ideas and phrases to the Bible. The
23rd Psalm copied an Egyptian text appealing to Osiris the Good
Shepherd to lead the deceased to the 'green pastures' and 'still
waters' of the nefer-nefer land, to restore the soul to the body, and
to give protection in the valley of the shadow of death (the Tuat).
The Lord's Prayer was prefigured by an Egyptian hymn to Osiris-Amen
beginning. 'O Amen, O Amen, who are in heaven.' Amen was also invoked
at the end of every prayer."

(42)
The celestial manger in the Mythos is also thought of as a cave.
(Massey) Although Jesus is typically depicted as being born in a
manger, early Christian tradition places Jesus's birth in a cave, like
that of many other preceding gods. Walker: "The cave was universally
identified with the womb of Mother Earth, the logical place for
symbolic birth and regeneration. . . . Like Adonis, Jesus was born of
a consecrated temple maiden in the sacred cave of Bethlehem, 'The
House of God.'"

(43)
Massey, Churchward, et al. Massey (MC) says, ". . . the Star in the
East will afford undeniable data for showing the mythical and
celestial origin of the gospel history. When the divine child is born,
the wise men or magi declare that they have seen his star in the east.
The wise men are identified as the Three Kings of other legends who
are not to be derived from the canonical gospels. The three kings or
three solar representatives are as ancient as the male triad that was
first typified when the three regions were established as heaven,
earth, and nether-world, from which the triad bring their gifts. . .
When the birthplace was in the sign of the Bull [6,000 years ago], the
Star in the East that arose to announce the birth of the babe was
Orion, which is therefore called the star of Horus. That was once the
star of the three kings; for the 'three kings' is still a name of
three stars in Orion's belt . . . "

(44)
Like Jesus, Horus has no history between the ages of 12 and 30. "And
the mythos alone will account for the chasm which is wide and deep
enough to engulf a supposed history of 18 years." (Massey, MC) There
exists a very old Egyptian papyrus dated to 75 C.E. but based on an
older document, which contains a story about the "Son of
Osiris" (i.e., the "Son of God") that parallels in a number of details
the gospel narratives. The Son of God is claimed to have wondrous
powers and to have outwitted all of the teachers in the Temple of
Ptah. In the papyrus is also related a tale of two dead men that
closely resembles the biblical fable of Dives and Lazarus (Lk.
16:19-31). (Mead)

(45)
Massey: "Horus in Egypt had been a fish from time immemorial, and when
the equinox entered the sign of Pisces, Horus, was portrayed as
Ichthys with the fish sign of over his head." Dujardin: "The patriarch
Joshua, who was plainly an ancient god of Palestine and bore the same
name as the god of Christianity, is called the son of Nun, which
signifies 'son of the fish.'" Walker: "The fish symbol of the yonic
Goddess was so revered throughout the Roman empire that Christian
authorities insisted on taking it over, with extensive revision of
myths to deny its earlier female-genital meanings." Wheless: "The fish
anagram was an ancient Pagan symbol of fecundity . . ."

(46)
Churchward, op cit., p. 365. See also The Book Your Church Doesn't
Want You to Read, pp. 15-16.

(47)
Churchward, ibid., p. 397. See also The Egyptian Book of the Dead by
Massey, pp. 13 and 64; MC.

(48)
Churchward. Massey, MC: "It was the gnostic art that reproduced the
Hathor-Meri and Horus of Egypt as the Virgin and child-Christ of
Rome . . . .You poor idiotai [idiots], said the Gnostics [to the early
Christians], you have mistaken the mysteries of old for modern
history, and accepted literally all that was only meant mystically."

(49)
Walker: "The cave of the Vatican belonged to Mithra until 376 A.D.,
when a city prefect suppressed the cult of the rival Savior and seized
the shrine in the name of Christ, on the very birthday of the pagan
god, December 25." Shmuel Golding, in The Book Your Church: "Paul
says, 'They drank from that spiritual rock and that rock was
Christ' (I Cor. 10:4). These are identical words to those found in the
Mithraic scriptures, except that the name Mithra is used instead of
Christ. The Vatican hill in Rome that is regarded as sacred to Peter,
the Christian rock, was already sacred to Mithra. Many Mithraic
remains have been found there. The merging of the worship of Attis
into that of Mithra, then later into that of Jesus, was effected
almost without interruption."

(50)
Robertson. Wheless: "Mithraism is one of the oldest religious systems
on earth, as it dates from the dawn of history before the primitive
Iranian race divided into sections which became Persian and
Indian . . . When in 65-63 B.C., the conquering armies of Pompey were
largely converted by its high precepts, they brought it with them into
the Roman Empire. Mithraism spread with great rapidity throughout the
Empire, and it was adopted, patronized and protected by a number of
the Emperors up to the time of Constantine." Of Mithraism, the
Catholic Encyclopedia states, as related by Wheless: "The fathers
conducted the worship. The chief of the fathers, a sort of pope, who
always lived at Rome, was called 'Pater Patratus."'

(51)
Taylor: "'That Popery has borrowed its principal ceremonies and
doctrines from the rituals of Paganism,' is a fact which the most
learned and orthodox of the established church have most strenuously
maintained and most convincingly demonstrated."

(52)
The Eucharist, or the sharing of the god's blood and body, has been a
sacred ritual within many ancient mystery religions and is part of the
Mythos and Ritual. In a standard ritual that was practiced around the
world, and which continues in some places, participants in the ritual
actually ate and drank the "god's" body and blood, which was in
reality that of a sacrificed human (king) or animal. The Christian
form of the Eucharist is very similar to the ritual that was practiced
as part of the Greek Eleusinian Mysteries, in detail, as is outlined
by Taylor. The Eleusinian Eucharist honored both Ceres, goddess of
wheat, and Bacchus/Dionysus, god of the vine. The Christians also
adopted the Bacchanal symbol IHS (Greek) or IES - Iesu/Jesus. These
letters stood for the sun. (See below.) "Mr. Higgins observes, 'The
whole paschal supper (the Lord's supper with the Christians) was in
fact a festival of joy to celebrate the passage of the sun across the
equinox of spring.'" (Graves)

(53)
At this point, the following needs to be addressed: Jesus believers
distinguish their godman from all these others by claiming a
historical framework, which gives more credence to their "Savior"
being the "right" one. We contend that this is precisely why the
sungod mythos was carnalized or made historical in the first place.
However, let us pretend that Jesus was historical. Followers of
Krishna also claim he was historical, yet his advent predates that of
Jesus by hundreds to thousands of years. If we assume both are
historical, and both are teaching nearly the identical thing, why
should we not go to the source and become Krishna followers? Here we
see clearly the ugly head of cultural bigotry, when the Christians
claim their godman superior to one already in existence that is
virtually identical. Why not go with Krishna? Because he was not of
the "right" ethnicity. The question is moot, however, since both
characters are mythological and, by the arguments of the Christians,
should then be dismissed. However, we must not dismiss the Mythos upon
which they are formulated, as it is true revelation of the workings of
the cosmos.

(53a)
As with "Buddha," a number of people have disputed the "virgin" status
of Krishna's mother. As Joseph McCabe says, "The orthodox legend of
Krishna is that he was born of a married woman, Devaki; but like Maya,
Buddha's mother, she was considered to have had a miraculous
conception. . . . Thus one of the familiar religious emblems of India
was the statue of the virgin mother (as the Hindus repute her) Devaki
and her divine son Krishna, an incarnation of the great god Vishnu.
Christian writers have held that this model was borrowed from
Christianity, but, as Mr. Robertson observes, the Hindus had far
earlier been in communication with Egypt and were more likely to
borrow the model of Isis and Horus."

(54)
The Book Your Church . . . p. 185. See also Taylor.

(54a)
Graves, The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors: "And we have the
statement from Mr. Higgins, that the same assortment of spices (with
the gold) constituted the materials offered as gifts to the sun, in
Persia more than three thousand years ago; and likewise in Arabia near
the same era."

(55)
It should be noted that the terrible story of Herod killing the
infants as portrayed in Matthew is not found in any histories of the
day, including Josephus, who does otherwise expose Herod's real
abuses. The "slaughter of the infants" is yet another part of the
standard Mythos. This story is a rehash of the Krishna tale: "[The
tyrant Kansa] ordained the massacre in all his states, of all the
children of the male sex, born during the night of the birth of
Christna. . ." (Jacolliot)

(55a)
Graves, p. 110.

(56)
Jacolliot, p. 250.

(57)
Ibid., p. 306.

(58)
The Book Your Church; Graves; Taylor. The crucifixion of the godman
between two "thieves" is an element of the Mythos, and is found in a
number of sungod traditions that predate the Christian myth. "Anup on
one side of Horus, and Aan on the other, are the two thieves on either
hand of the Kamite Christ upon the cross at Easter." (Massey, MC) Anup
and Aan are also the two "witnesses" of Horus, and are the
predecessors of the two Johns who are Jesus's witnesses. (Churchward,
Massey, ibid.)

(59)
Blavatsky, Walker, Graves.

(60)
"At first, Christianity did not hold to the Trinity doctrine. That
doctrine developed slowly and did not become officially the creedal
fact until C.E. 325." (Adrian Swindler, The Book Your Church) Walker:
"From the earliest ages, the concept of the Great Goddess was a
trinity and the model for all subsequent trinities, female, male or
mixed. . . .Even though Brahmans evolved a male trinity of Brahma,
Vishnu, and Shiva to play these parts [of Creator, Preserver and
Destroyer], Tantric scriptures insisted that the Triple Goddess had
created these gods in the first place. . . . The Middle East had many
trinities, most originally female. As time went on, one or two members
of the triad turned male. The usual pattern was Father-Mother-Son, the
Son figure envisioned as a Savior. . . . Among Arabian Christians
there was apparently a holy trinity of God, Mary, and Jesus,
worshipped as an interchangeable replacement for the Egyptian trinity
of Osiris, Isis, and Horus. . . " Jacolliot: "The Trinity in Unity,
rejected by Moses, became afterwards the foundation of Christian
theology, which incontestably acquired it from India."

(60a)
Graves.

(61)
Jacolliot, p. 251. "As we have seen, all these names of Jesus,
Jeosuah, Josias, Josué derive from two Sanscrit words Zeus and Jezeus,
which signify, one, the Supreme Being, and the other, the Divine
Essence. These names, moreover, were common not only amongst the Jews,
but throughout the East." (Ibid., p. 301.)

(62)
Jacolliot, p. 282.

(62a)
The "Word" is a very ancient concept and does not originate with
Christianity. The term "Logos" is Greek, and it is obvious that the
Christian copyists adopted the Word concept directly from the Greeks,
whether it be from Plato or applicable to the gods Prometheus and
Hermes. However, the Greeks in turn had adopted this idea from more
ancient traditions, such as the Indian and Egyptian. Graves states,
". . . the Chinese bible, much older than the Christian's New
Testament, likewise declares, 'God pronounced the primeval Word, and
his own eternal and glorious abode sprang into existence.' Mr. Guizot,
in a note on Gibbon's work, says, 'According to the Zend-Avesta (the
Persian bible, more than three thousand years old), it is by the Word,
more ancient than the world, that Ormuzd created the universe.' . . .
And the ancient Greek writer Amelias, speaking of the God Mercury
[Hermes] says, 'And this plainly was the Logos (the Word), by whom all
things were made, he being himself eternal, as Heraclitus would
say, . . . He assumed to be with God, and to be God, and in him
everything that was made, has its life and being, who, descending into
body, and putting on flesh, took the appearance of a man, though still
retaining the majesty of his nature.' Here is 'the Word made flesh,'
set forth in most explicit terms."

(63)
Taylor, The Diegesis, pp. 192-4. Taylor indicates that the following
stanza is found in "Potter's beautiful translation" of Aeschylsus's
play: "Lo, streaming from the fatal tree, His all-atoning blood! Is
this the Infinite? 'Tis he - Prometheus, and a God! Well might the sun
in darkness hide, And veil his glories in, When God, the great
Prometheus, died, For man, the creature's sin." However, this stanza
apparently does not appear in modern translations, including Potter's.
It is well-known that the Christians mutilated or destroyed virtually
all of the works of ancient Greek and Roman authors, such that we
might suspect this stanza has either been removed or obfuscated
through mistranslation. On the other hand, it may be a mistake on
Taylor's part or a result of his ambiguous language preceding the
passage, or he may have been thinking of another "Prometheus Bound"
written after the Christian era, perhaps by Milton. Taylor was in
prison when he wrote The Diegesis, thereby having difficulty accessing
books, so he is to be excused for errors that invariably creep into
anyone's work.

(64)
"To get rid of the damning fact that there is no historical basis for
their theological fictions, the Christian priesthood have been guilty
of the heinous crime of destroying nearly all traces of the concurrent
history of the first two centuries of the Christian era. What little
of it they have permitted to come down to us, they have so altered and
changed, as to destroy its historical value." (JM Roberts, Esq.) "In
some of the ancient Egyptian temples the Christian iconoclasts, when
tired of hacking and hewing at the symbolic figures incised in the
chambers of imagery, and defacing the most prominent features of the
monuments, found they could not dig out the hieroglyphics, and took to
covering them over with plaster; and this plaster, intended to hide
the meaning and stop the mouth of the stone word, has served to
preserve the ancient writings as fresh in hue and sharp in outline as
when they were first cut and colored. In a similar manner the temple
of ancient religion was invaded and possession gradually gained by
connivance of Roman power; and that enduring fortress, not built but
quarried out of sold rock, was stuccoed all over the front and made
white a-while with its look of brand-newness, and reopened under the
sign of another name - that of the carnalized Christ." (Massey, MC)

(65)
Wheless, p. 147.

(66)
Ibid., p. 144.

(67)
Mangasarian: "The idea of a Son of God is as old as the oldest cult.
The sun is the son of heaven in all primitive faiths. The physical sun
becomes in the course of evolution, the Son of Righteousness, or the
Son of God, and heaven is personified as the Father on High. The halo
around the head of Jesus, the horns of the older deities, the rays of
light radiating from the heads of Hindu and Pagan gods are
incontrovertible evidence that all gods were at one time - the sun in
heaven."

(68)
Jordan Maxwell, The Book Your Church Doesn't Want You to Read, Pagan
and Christian Creeds, by Carpenter, The Diegesis by Taylor. See also
Massey, Churchward, Hotema, Graves, et al.

(69)
The logical question arises: Why, if Jesus is a historical character,
are there are presently two dates for both Christmas and Easter? This
purportedly well-known character, who set the world on fire, has no
birthdate whatsoever, and the "historical" references and genealogies
found in the gospel accounts differ from each other. The gospels are
not history at all but a retelling of the Mythos. The historical Jesus
is a phantom. "These, which cannot both be historical, are based on
the two birthdays of the double Horus in Egypt." (Massey, as related
by Jackson) In addition, early Christian "doctors" were constantly
contradicting themselves as to when exactly "the Lord" died or
"ascended to heaven" after "he" was resurrected. Two of the most
powerful early bishops, Irenaeus and Papias opined that Christ lived
to be very old, "flatly denying as 'heresy' the Gospel stories as to
his crucifixion at about thirty years of age." (Wheless)

(70)
See above. In "The Truth about Jesus, M. Mangasarian states: "The
selection of the twenty-fifth of December as his birthday is not only
an arbitrary one, but that date, having been from time immemorial
dedicated to the Sun, the inference is that the Son of God and the Sun
of heaven enjoying the same birthday, were at one time identical
beings. The fact that Jesus' death was accompanied with the darkening
of the Sun, and that the date of his resurrection is also associated
with the position of the Sun at the time of the vernal equinox, is a
further intimation that we have in the story of the birth, death, and
resurrection of Jesus, an ancient and nearly universal Sun-myth,
instead of verifiable historical events."

(71)
Many of the sungods, including Horus, Buddha and Krishna, are depicted
with haloes, hundreds to thousands of years before it became
fashionable in Christianity.

(71a)
Jordan Maxwell, "The Naked Truth."

(72)
Mangasarian: "Like the dogmas of the Trinity, the virgin birth, and
the resurrection, the sign of the cross or the cross as an emblem or a
symbol was borrowed from the more ancient faiths of Asia." Walker:
"Early Christians even repudiated the cross because it was
pagan. . . . Early images of Jesus represented him not on a cross, but
in the guise of the Osirian or Hermetic 'Good Shepherd,' carrying a
lamb." In Christianity, the original occupant of the cross was a lamb,
not a man. The man hanging on the cross did not occur until the 7th
cent. C.E. "The stave, stake, prop or stay of the suffering sun was
the Stauros, which was primarily a stake for supporting, shaped as a
cross." (Massey, MC) This image can be found in crosses that have a
circle on them. Taylor: "On a Phoenician medal found in the ruins of
Citium, and engraved in Dr. Clarke's Travels, and proved by him to be
Phoenician, are inscribed not only the cross, but the rosary, or
string of beads, attached to it, together with the identical Lamb of
God, which taketh away the sins of the world." Graves: ". . . the
consecrated twenty-fifth of March is also the day marked in our
calendars as the date of the conception and annunciation of the
Blessed Virgin Mary." March 25th was considered the end of the sun's
passing through the vernal equinox, when the sun was "resurrected,"
i.e., the day was now longer than the night.

(73)
"The picture of the New Beginning commonly presented is Rembrandt-like
in tone. The whole world around Judea lay in the shadow of outer
darkness, when suddenly there was a great light seen at the centre of
all, and the face of the startled universe was illuminated by an
apparition of the child-Christ lying in the lap of Mary. Such was the
dawn of Christianity, in which the Light of the World had come to it
at last! That explanation is beautifully simple for the simple-minded;
but the picture is purely false - or, in sterner words, it is entirely
false." (Massey, G&HC) Jacolliot: "We have repudiated Greek and Roman
mythologies with disdain. Why, then, admit with respect the mythology
of the Jews? Ought the miracles of Jehovah to impress us more that
those of Jupiter? . . . I have much more respect for the Greek Jupiter
[Zeus] than for the God of Moses; for if he gives some examples not of
the purest morality, at least he does not flood his altar with streams
of human blood."

(74)
As it had with so many preceding purveyors of wisdom and ideologies,
the Church ripped off both Aristotle and Plato, presenting their known
accomplishments in philosophy. The "Logos" is pure Platonism, which
refined the "Word" aspect of the extant Mythos, the Logos in Greece
being Hermes, who is also found in Egypt as the "Trismegistus."
Cardinal Palavicino is quoted as saying, "Without Aristotle we should
be without many Articles of Faith." It is amusing to consider that the
omniscient "Lord," who came to deliver a "New Dispensation," needed
the writings of Aristotle to determine doctrine for his Church.

(74a)
As concerns the "Jesus Lived in India" theory by Kersten, et al., it
is claimed that in Kashmir is a tomb of a traveling prophet named "Yuz
Asaf," which is an Arab name that some have attempted to link to
"Jesus." Notovich claimed to have found a text in Tibet about the
"Life of Saint Issa." It is also claimed that the tombs of "Moses" and
"Thomas" are in India. And there are several places where the "Virgin
Mary" purportedly rested and/or died. It should be noted that there
were innumerable "traveling prophets" throughout the ancient world,
all spouting the same parables and platitudes and doing the standard
bag of magic tricks, as do the countless Indian yogis of today. It is
difficult to believe that the Indians or Tibetans would be very
impressed by such stories, since they have had numerous miraculous
godmen of their own. It has also been claimed by the Athenians that
the olive tree alive today on the Acropolis was miraculously planted
by the goddess Athena, an act for which she was honored by having that
city-state named after her; and, there are numberless "footprints" of
this Buddha and that throughout Buddhist countries. In addition, in
the Notovich text concerning the "Life of Saint Issa," which is of
late date, it says at the very beginning, "This is what is related on
this subject by the merchants who have come from Israel," thus
demonstrating both that it is not an eyewitness account of a visit by
the Jewish godman and that there was an extensive trading and
brotherhood network which would readily allow for such stories to
spread. Again, all around the globe are stories of where this god or
that set foot, did miracles, was born or died. This is standard in the
world of mythmaking, and it is not an indication or evidence of
historicity.

(75)
The Egyptian Book of the Dead by Massey, pp. 1-2. Morals and Dogma of
Freemasonry, p. 78. Taylor: "'. . . Chrishna in Irish means the Sun.'"

(76)
"'Ies,' the Phoenician name of the god Bacchus or the Sun personified;
the etymological meaning of that title being, 'i' the one and 'es' the
fire or light; or taken as one word 'ies' the one light. This is none
other than the light of St. John's gospel; and this name is to be
found everywhere on Christian altars, both Protestant and Catholic,
thus clearly showing that the Christian religion is but a modification
of Oriental Sun Worship, attributed to Zoroaster. The same letters
IHS, which are in the Greek text, are read by Christians 'Jes,' and
the Roman Christian priesthood added the terminus 'us'. . ." (Roberts)

(77)
Dujardin says, "The title of Messiah is one that the Rabbis seldom
apply to the Liberator; it is mainly the Christians who state that the
Jews expected 'the Messiah.'"

(78)
The Diegesis, p. 7.

(79)
Introduction to The Egyptian Book of the Dead by Massey, p. 9.

(80)
Deceptions and Myths of the Bible, by Lloyd Graham, p. 338.

(81)
Massey, Gnostic and Historic Christianity, p. 3.

(82)
See Walker, Massey, Churchward.

(83)
Ibid.

(84)
See Massey, Churchward and Graham.

(85)
Ibid.

(86)
Massey, Mythical Christ, pp. 3-6 Wheless cites the Encyclopedia
Biblica: "The author of Revelation calls himself John the Apostle. As
he was not John the Apostle, who died perhaps in Palestine about 66,
he was a forger." We would that "died perhaps" is also accurate, in
that John "lived not at all."

(87)
Jacolliot states that "Zoroaster" is a Persian version of the more
ancient Indian "Zuryastara (who restores the worship of the sun) from
which comes this name of Zoroaster, which is itself but a title
assigned to a political and religious legislator."

(88)
Churchward, 399.

(89)
Ibid., p. 397. There are two astrotheological interpretations of John-
Anup the Baptist, neither of which necessarily precludes the other,
since the Mythos was ever-changing and evolving. As stated above, John
the Baptist was considered the month of Aquarius, the initiation time
of the sun, which was "born" in the previous month. The other
interpretation, of which the Bible and other Christian-Pagan
traditions and rituals serve as evidence, revolves around Saint John's
day, June 25th, which would be precisely the opposite of December
25th; in other words, as the sun is "born again" on December 25th, the
edge of the winter solstice, and its strength continues to increase,
while on June 25th, the edge of the summer solstice, its strength
begins to decrease again. This drama is reflected in the enigmatic
statement by John the Baptist at John 3:30: "He must increase, but I
must decrease." This curious remark only makes sense in
astrotheological terms, in the sungod mythos.

(90)
Walker.

(91)
See the IRES's "The Naked Truth" video series available at PO Box
7536, Newport Beach, CA 92658-7536 or through Lightworks.

(91a)
Hotema, Intro, Egyptian Book of the Dead by Massey. Like the New
Testament, the Old Testament is also filled with sungod stories, such
as the tale of Sampson, or Samson, which means "sun," whose
"hair" (rays) was cut off by Delilah. "Sol-om-on" refers to the sun in
three different languages. In 2 Kings 23:11 is clear evidence of
Jewish sunworshipping, as the king Josiah, "removed the horses that
the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun. . . " More obscure
references such as those referring to "eternal light" or any variety
of names that mean "sun" are found peppered throughout the Judeo-
Christian bible.

(92)
Walker, p. 5. Dujardin: "Many of the old Baals of Palestine were
assimilated by Judaism, which converted them into heroes in the cause
of Jahveh [Yahweh], and in fact many scholars agree that the
patriarchs of the Bible are the ancient gods of Palestine."

(93)
Dujardin and others demonstrate that the Christ drama, with its
obvious Passion play, is indeed a play, with its condensed time-frame,
stage directions and ritualistic lines. The entire gospel story
purports to take place over a period of a few days. In content and
form, it is clearly a sacred king drama, based originally on the sun
and other elements such as fertility rites, that became a ritual
practiced yearly or at some other increment. This sacrificial and/or
redemptive drama was acted out in numerous places over the millennia,
long before the Jesus story, in much the same form as that presented
in the gospels. In an imitation of the earlier Mythos, in which this
drama took place in the heavens, with the sun as the sacrificed Son of
God, etc., ancient practitioners would sacrifice a surrogate for the
god in order to ensure fecundity and prosperity. This "victim" of the
sacrifice was at times a human, usually a king or other high official,
or an animal or grain offering. When the surrogate was killed, the
blood was sprinkled upon the congregation or audience of the play, who
would cry, "Let his blood be upon us and our children," a standard
play/ritual line that was designed to ensure future fertility and the
continuation of life. Later, wine was substituted for blood. The
Passion only makes sense as part of the Mythos and Ritual. As a
historical tale about foaming-at-the-mouth Jews calling for the blood
of the "gentle" Jesus, it is not only an ugly insult to Jews but a
dangerous, unfounded belief that has led to innumerable pogroms and
much prejudice against them for nearly 2,000 years, as they have thus
been perceived as rabid, evil "Christkillers." As Dujardin says, "It
is absurd to imagine that the crowd would demand the death of an
innocent man and would wish his blood to be on their heads and those
of their children."

(94)
Maxwell, Graham, Taylor, Jacolliot. Jacolliot traces the original to
the Indian Manou: "This name of Manou, or Manes . . . is not a
substantive, applying to an individual man; its Sanscrit signification
is the man, par excellence, the legislator. It is a title aspired to
by all the leaders of men in antiquity." He also says, "We shall
presently see Egypt, Judea, Greece, Rome, all antiquity, in fact, copy
Brahminical Society in its castes, its theories, its religious
opinions; and adopt its Brahmins, its priests, its levities, as they
had already adopted the language, legislation and philosophy of that
ancient Vedic Society whence their ancestors had departed through the
world to disseminate the grand ideas of primitive revelation."

(95)
The Mahabharata.

(96)
The BAR article seeks to prove that the Exodus is historical. Massey:
"The Exodus or 'Coming out of Egypt' first celebrated by the festival
of Passover or the transit at the vernal equinox, occurred in the
heavens before it was made historical as the migration of the Jews.
The 600,000 men who came up out of Egypt as Hebrew warriors in the
Book of Exodus are 600,000 inhabitants of Israel in the heavens
according to Jewish Kabalah, and the same scenes, events, and
personages that appear as mundane in the Pentateuch are celestial in
the Book of Enoch." Mead: ". . . Bishop Colenso's . . . mathematical
arguments that an army of 600,000 men could not very well have been
mobilized in a single night, that three millions of people with their
flocks and herds could not very well have drawn water from a single
well, and hundreds of other equally ludicrous inaccuracies of a
similar nature, were popular points which even the most unlearned
could appreciate, and therefore especially roused the ire of
apologists and conservatives."

(97)
See Walker, Maxwell, et al.

(98)
There have been floods and deluge stories in many different parts of
the world, including but not limited to the Middle East. The so-called
Flood of Noah may refer to the annual flooding of the Nile - an event
that was incorporated in Egyptian mythology. However, it is also yet
another part of ancient mythology. As Walker says, "The biblical flood
story, the 'deluge,' was a late offshoot of a cycle of flood myths
known everywhere in the ancient world. Thousands of years before the
Bible was written, an ark was built by the Sumerian Ziusudra. In
Akkad, the flood hero's name was Atrakhasis. In Babylon, he was Uta-
Napishtim, the only mortal to become immortal. In Greece he was
Deucalion, who repopulated the earth after the waters subsided [and
after the ark landed on Mt. Parnassos] . . . In Armenia, the hero was
Xisuthros - a corruption of Sumerian Ziusudra - whose ark landed on
Mount Ararat. . . . According to the original Chaldean account, the
flood hero was told by his god, 'Build a vessel and finish it. By a
deluge I will destroy substance and life. Cause thou to go up into the
vessel the substance of all that has life."

(99)
Walker, et al., and The Encyclopedia of Religions.

(100)
Indeed, although professing to contain the history of the universe,
the supposedly all-knowing "Word of God" barely mentions the many
thousands of years on this planet that the Goddess was recognized and
worshipped and only does so in order to disparage her and convert her
followers. At Acts 19:27, the author does admit the existence and
popularity of the "great goddess Artemis . . . she whom all Asia and
the world worship." In addition, despite all efforts to erase from
history the memory of the Goddess in the Old Testament, the truth of
her existence slipped by the redactor's pen at 1 Kings 11:5, where
Solomon "went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Simonians."
Regardless of the presence of these few passages and any others
concerning the Goddess, the compilers of the Bible certainly did not
wish to acknowledge how powerful and widespread was the belief in and
reverence for the divine feminine principle. In addition, Wheless has
this to say about the books of the Old Testament: "It may stated with
assurance that not one of them bears the name of its true author; that
every one of them is a composite work of many hands 'interpolating'
the most anachronistic and contradictory matters into the original
writings, and often reciting as accomplished facts things which
occurred many centuries after the time of the supposed writer . . . "
Indeed, we would add that the bulk of the Old Testament is as mythical
as the entire New Testament.

(101)
Taylor, pp. 21-22.

(102)
" . . . the holy Saint Josaphat, under which name and due to an odd
slip of inerrant inspiration, the great Lord Buddha, 'The Light of
Asia,' was duly certified a Saint in the Roman Martyrology." (Wheless)
Walker: "Medieval saintmakers adapted the story of Buddha's early life
to their own fictions, calling the father of St. Josaphat 'an Indian
king' who kept the young saint confined to prevent him from becoming a
Christian. He was converted anyway, and produced the usual assortment
of miracles, some of them copied from incidents in the life story of
Buddha. St. Josaphat enjoyed great popularity in the Middle Ages, an
ironical development in a Europe that abhorred Buddhism as the work of
the devil."

(103)
In Antiquities Unveiled, JM Roberts, Esq., reiterates that Christ
drama represents " . . . the passage of the Sun, in its annual course
through the constellations of the Zodiac; having his birth in the sign
of the Goat, the Augean stable of the Greeks; his baptism in Aquarius,
the John the Baptist in the heavens; his triumph when he becomes the
Lamb of God in Aries; his greatest exaltation on St. John's, the
beloved disciple's day, on the 21st of June, in the Sign of the Twins,
the emblem of double power; his tribulation in the Garden of
Gethsemane, in the sign of the rural Virgo; his betrayal in the sign
of Scorpio, the malignant emblem of his approaching death in the
stormy and adverse sign, Sagittarius, and his resurrection or renewed
birth on the twenty-fifth of December in the same sign of the
celestial Goat . . ." Walker states, "Medieval monks tried to
Christianize the zodiac as they Christianized everything else, by
renaming it the Corona seu Circulus Sanctorum Apostolorum: the Crown
of the Circle of the Holy Apostles. They placed John the Baptist at
the position of Aquarius, to finish off the circle."

(104)
Walker, p. 787: "The myth of St. Peter was the slender thread from
which hung the whole weighty structure of the Roman papacy. . . .
Unfortunately for papal credibility, the so-called Petrine passage was
a forgery. It was deliberately inserted into the scripture about the
3rd century A.D. as a political ploy, to uphold the primacy of the
Roman see against rival churches in the east. Various Christian
bishropics were engaged in a power struggle in which the chief weapons
were bribery, forgery, and intrigue, with elaborate fictions and
hoaxes written into sacred books, and the ruthless competition between
rival parties for the lucrative position of God's elite. . . . Most
early churches put forth spurious claims to foundation by apostles,
even though the apostles themselves were no more than the mandatory
'zodiacal twelve' attached to the figure of the sacred king."

(105)
"The Naked Truth" video series by IRES. Antiquities Unveiled, above.

(106)
Massey, MC.

(107)
Ibid. "The lion is Matthew's symbol, and that is the zodiacal sign of
the month of Taht-Matiu (Thoth), in the fixed year. Tradition makes
Matthew to have been the eighth of the apostles; and the eighth
(Esmen) is a title of Taht-Matiu. Moreover, it is Matthias, upon whom
the lot fell, who was chosen to fill the place of the Typhonian
traitor Judas. So was it in the mythos when Matiu (Taht) succeeded Sut
[Set], and occupied his place after the betrayal of Osiris. . . . It
is to the Gnostics that we must turn for the missing link between the
oral and the written word; between the Egyptian Ritual and the
canonical gospels; between the Matthew who wrote the Hebrew or Aramaic
gospel of the sayings, and Taht-Mati, who wrote the Ritual, the
Hermetic, which means inspired writings, that are said to have been
inscribed in hieroglyphics by the very finger of Mati himself."

(108)
Deceptions and Myths of the Bible by Graham; Apollonius the Nazarene
by Raymond Bernard, PhD. Like Bernard, et al., Hotema also claims the
"historical" details later added to the sungod mythos were those from
the life of Apollonius of Tyana, who was also called "Pol." According
to this theory, "Pol" then serves as a model for both the Christ
character and the apostle Paul. It is said that Apollonius brought the
New Testament from India, and that he had certain yogic powers which
allowed him to do miracles. This theory is, to our mind,
unsatisfactorily reconciled at this time. While it may be true that
the historicizers, looking back in time, decided they needed to pluck
up a quasi-historical character who was still in memory upon which to
base their fictions, they would not have needed to add much to the
extant sungod mythos and ritual, merely a few "historical" details.

(109)
"Another popular delusion most ignorantly cherished is, that there was
a golden age of primitive Christianity, which followed the preaching
of the Founder and the practice of his apostles; and that there was a
falling away from this paradisiacal state of primordial perfection
when the Catholic Church in Rome lapsed into idolatry, Paganised and
perverted the original religion, and poisoned the springs of the faith
at the very fountain-head of their flowing purity. Such is the pious
opinion of those orthodox Protestants who are always clamoring to get
back beyond the Roman Church to that ideal of primitive perfection
supposed to be found in the simple teachings of Jesus, and the lives
of his personal followers, as recorded in the four canonical gospels
and in the Acts of the Apostles. But when we do penetrate far enough
into the past to see somewhat clearly through and beyond the cloud of
dust that was the cause of a great obscuration in the first two
centuries of our era, we find that there was no such new beginning,
that the earliest days of the purest Christianity were pre-historic,
and that the real golden age of knowledge and simple morality
preceded, and did not follow, the Apostolic Roman Church, or the
Deification of its Founder, or the humanising of the 'Lamb of
God' . . ." (Massey, G&HC) "It sounds strange to hear persons in these
days express a desire for a 'return to primitive Christianithy, when
all was peace and love.' There never was such a time." (Keeler)

(110)
Indeed, Jesus's character and many of his actions were utterly
contrary to the notion of him being a great Essene healer. "A poor
Canaanitish woman comes to him from a long distance and beseeches him
to cure her daughter who is grievously obsessed. 'Have mercy on me, O
Lord,' she pleads. But he answered her not a word. The disciples,
brutes as they were, if the scene were real, besought him to send her
away because she cried after them. Jesus answered, and said: 'I was
only sent to the lost sheep of the House of Israel.' She worships him,
he calls her one of the dogs." (Massey, G&HC) We might add that if
Jesus only came for the 'lost sheep of the House of Israel,' then we
may ignore him, for we are not lost sheep, nor are we of the House of
Israel.

(111)
This is another aspect of the Christian character that is conflicted.
While Jesus is busy swearing unto, he also exhorts his followers to
"swear not at all." (Matt. 5:34; James 5:12) These are Essenic/
Therapeutan dictates that would be appropriate for a spiritual
community, such that they were no doubt useful to the Christian
copyists in their attempts at making the drama appear to be
historical. It is an intricately, if clumsily, woven tale, utilizing
everything possible at hand, which is the only explanation for the
glaring contradictions.

(112)
Massey, Gnostic and Historic Christianity. Graves provides numerous
examples of Essenic doctrine, such as the Essene writer Philo's
pronouncement, "It is our first duty to seek the kingdom of God and
his righteousness." (Matt. 6:33; Lk. 12:31) It would seem that, in
order to give the sungod mythos the appearance of a historical man
heading a spiritual movement, the NT compilers also drew heavily on
the Essene spiritual community. (See below.)

(113)
Taylor: ". . . Eusebius has attested, that the Therapeutan monks were
Christians, many ages before the period assigned to the birth of
Christ; and that the Diegesis and Gnomologue, from which the
Evangelists compiled their gospels, were writings which had for ages
constituted the sacred scriptures of those Egyptian visionaries."
While this Therapeut/Essene origins of the autograph or original
"gospel" texts would seem to contradict what Massey says about "Jesus"
not being an Essene, it is the Essenes of Josephus to whom he refers,
rather than the Alexandrian/Egyptian Therapeuts. Of the two differing
groups of "healers," historian Philo opined that the communities in
Palestine and Arabia "did not soar to such a lofty height of
philosophic and mystic endeavour as the members of the community near
Alexandria. . . " (Mead, DJL) In our opinion, the Essenes of
Palestine, i.e., those who may or may not have lived near the Dead
Sea, were much simpler and more contemplative than the worldly
Therapeuts, who were profoundly engaged in the mystery religions,
initiations and rituals. Clearly, while both were called "healers,"
these are two different sects, although they were probably connected.
The Therapeuts seems to have been a solid part of the brotherhood
network that stretched from Egypt to India and up into Europe, while
the Dead Sea Essenes - for want of a better term - were isolationists.

(114)
Massey, MC.

(115)
Taylor: "The first draft of the mystical adventures of Chrishna, as
brought from India into Egypt, was The Diegesis; the first version of
the Diegesis was the Gospel according to the Egyptians; the first
renderings out of the language of Egypt into that of Greece, for the
purpose of imposing on the nations of Europe, were the apocryphal
gospels; the correct, castigated, and authorised versions of these
apocryphal compilations were the gospels of our [sic] four
evangelists." There is, however, a legend about the Egyptian god
Osiris traveling to India in very ancient times and establishing his
religion there. This brings up again the "out-of-India" v. "out-of-
Egypt" debate. It may very well be that an extremely ancient culture
from Africa/Egypt migrated many thousands of years ago to India. In
this theory, India would still remain the cradle of Western/Middle
Eastern culture, with subsequent migrations back to the west, carrying
the mutated Proto-Egyptian/Indian language and the refined Mythos,
which would be further refined or change by Egyptians. What cannot be
disputed is that India and Egypt have both have a profound impact on
Western/Middle Eastern culture and that the original Mythos and Ritual
were well developed by both nations.

(116)
Massey says, "In the Book of Enoch one form of the Messiah is the 'Son
of Woman'; this was Enoch or Enos, the Egyptian Sut-Anush [Set], who
had been twin with Horus but was superseded by him." (MC) Wheless:
"The Book of Enoch, forged in the name of the grandson of Adam, is the
fragmentary remains of a whole literature which circulated under the
pretended authorship of that mythical Patriarch. . . . This work is a
composite of at least five unknown Jewish writers, and was composed
during the last two centuries B.C. . . .In this Book we first find the
lofty titles: 'Christ' or 'the Anointed One, 'Son of Man,' the
Righteous One,' 'the Elect One,' - all of which were boldly
plagiarized by the later Christians and bestowed upon Jesus of
Nazareth. . . . It abounds in such 'Christian' doctrines as the
Messianic Kingdom, Hell, the Resurrection, and Demonology, the Seven
Heavens, and the Millennium, all of which have here their apocryphal
Jewish promulgation, after being plagiarized bodily from the Persian
and Babylonian myths and superstitions, as we have seen confessed.
There are numerous quotations, phrases, clauses, or thoughts derived
from Enoch, or of closest of kin with it, in several of the New
Testament Gospels and Epistles. . ."

(117)
Wheless, pp. 85-87.

(118)
In yet another attempt to produce a history for this mythical
character, Bible translators have taken to rendering the title "Jesus
the Nazarene" as "Jesus of Nazareth," a village that many scholars
opine did not yet exist at the time of Jesus's purported birth. "There
is no such place as Nazareth in the Old Testament or in Josephus'
works, or on early maps of the Holy Land. The name was apparently a
later Christian invention." (Holley) As Dujardin states, "It is
universally admitted that Jesus the Nazarene does not mean Jesus of
Nazareth." Massey and Churchward point out that the title "Nazarene"
is part of the Mythos, with Horus/Jesus being considered "the plant,
the shoot, the natzar. . . . the true vine." (Churchward)

(119)
"There is another proof that the Gospels were not written by Jews.
Traditionally, Jesus and all the 'Apostles' were Jews; all their
associates and the people of their country with whom they came into
contact, were Jews. But throughout the Gospels, scores of times, 'the
Jews' are spoken of, always as a distinct and alien people away from
the writers, and mostly with a sense of racial hatred and
contempt." (Wheless)

(120)
The date of Hadrian's reign (117-138) precedes the period we have
ascribed to the appearance of the canonical gospels. However, we are
proposing that the texts composed by the Alexandrian Therapeuts were
autographs, or originals, upon which the Christian gospels were based.
This would mean that these originals were nonhistorical, gnostic texts
composed to commit the Mythos and Ritual in its totality to writing.
These texts then were transported to Rome, where they were worked upon
by historicizers and eventually changed into the Christian gospels.

Sources:

Ancient History of the God Jesus by Edouard Dujardin

Antiquities Unveiled by JM Roberts, Esq.

Apollonius the Nazarene by Raymond Bernard, PhD

A Short History of the Bible by Bronson C. Keeler

Christianity Before Christ by John G. Jackson

Christianity: The Last Great Creation of the Pagan World by Vernal
Holley

Deceptions and Myths of the Bible by Lloyd Graham

Did Jesus Exist? by GA Wells

Forgery in Christianity by Joseph Wheless, Esq.

Gnostic and Historic Christianity by Gerald Massey

Isis Unveiled by Helena Blavatsky

Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter

Pagan Christs by JM Roberts

The Bible in India by Louis Jacolliot

The Book Your Church Doesn't Want You to Read by Tim C. Leedom

The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth by John Allegro

The Diegesis by Rev. Robert Taylor

The Egyptian Book of the Dead by Gerald Massey

"The Great Myth of the Sun-Gods" by Alvin Boyd Kuhn, PhD

The Gospels and the Gospel by G.R.S. Mead

The Historical Jesus and the Mythical Christ by Gerald Massey

The Historical Evidence for Jesus by GA Wells

"The Naked Truth" video series

The Origin and Evolution of Religion by Albert Churchward

"The Truth about Jesus," lecture by M. Mangasarian

The Woman's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects by Barbara Walker

The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara Walker

The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors by Kersey Graves

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Created by Trance Gemini - Sep 27 2008

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Oct 9 2008 by Trance Gemini

When you have something useful to offer I'll respond.
I also checked out several sources and they are not fake except in the
minds
of theological historians who will generally speaking shovel any shit
to
defend the historicity of their doctrine.

This is the general criticism of those theological "historians" that
parts

Oct 9 2008 by theRabbit

i'm sorry for the "blah blah blah" part. but the fact is that the
author just says that there is a "very old papyrus" in his sources
section, instead of giving something traceable.

Oct 8 2008 by Trance Gemini

Ummm. You'll have to do better than that if you want to actually
refute the
article.

Making vague assertions criticizing that which you don't agree with
appears
to be typical of you theists.

Along the lines of the "many historians" blah blah blah. Then when you
ask
them to provide names and/or quotes they're strangely silent.

http://groups.google.com/group/atheism-vs-christianity/browse_thread/thread/ba513528889c87e3

http://groups.google.com/group/atheism-vs-christianity/web/the-historiocity-of-christ---acharya-s

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