Who would answer the question with a NO? However, by far the majority would say that too often they were too busy: which in essence is really a NO! Can you HANDLE the TRUTH?
Monthly Archive for July, 2010
When one understands that Jesus was a JEW, one can better understand and interpret the New Testament. When one understands that Jesus was an ESSENE, the virgin birth story now makes sense! Are you ready for this? I’ll try to simplify!
>For Essenes, celibacy was the highest way of life.
>For those few who did marry betrothal was 2-3 years normally.
>A trial marriage ceremony was held and sex was permissible.
>Once pregnant, no contact was allowed for three months.
>At the end of three months, a permanent marriage ceremony was held.
>Thus, all women were three months pregnant at the final marriage ceremony.
As Barbara Thiering wrote, “If it happened that during the betrothal period and before the first wedding, the passions became too strong, and a child was conceived, then it could be said by a play on words that a ‘Virgin had conceived’. The woman was still a Virgin legally, but not physically.”
Joseph was a descendant of King David. He was an Essene. James, the brother of Jesus was an Essene (wearing only white linen and never allowing oil to touch his skin as an example). Because Joseph committed the breach of allowing his passions to get the better of him (who would have THUNK IT?) during the betrothal, he would have had to “Put Mary away” (for three months).
Can you see the language seeping into the narrative?
The writings of Matthew and Luke (the only virgin birth stories) were written on two levels (pesher interpretation), as were almost all sacred works. Additionally, there were strong influences as to WHY Jesus needed to be presented as from a virginal conception. Jesus could be no LESS than the many Pagan gods such as Kore, Cybele, and Diana to mention a few.
Almost all ancient god-types had been of a virginal birth. Why not Jesus too?
And then there’s the spiritual message that we’re ALL of a miraculous virginal birth- of the Spirit. Works for me: that you, and everyone else, is a miraculous child of God! Namaste!
I loved the stories of Hannibal- and his elephants!
In the Second Punic War Hannibal traveled across Northern Africa, up to Spain, and over to Italy where in the battle of Cannae Hannibal killed 70,000 Roman soldiers (losing 8,000 of his own). The victory was short lived s Hannibal had to return to Carthage , where the Romans were counter attacking.
It was in the Punic Wars that Greece had to call upon Rome to help them fend off the Carthaginians. In other words, the BEST that the Greeks had (Pyrrhus of Epirus) Rome had trampled on and it was over for Greece! What Greece lacked in military might, it still had supremacy in philosophy and religious power.
Constantine would deliver the final blow in that area by making Christianity the “state religion”.
Alvin Boyd Kuhn writes, ” With the enthronement of Christianity in world power through the conversion of the Roman Empire, all Hellenistic concepts were forced to take refuge in Gnosticism, Essenism, and the mystico-occult societies, which had little world influence.” Thus the final nail was hammered into the coffin of Christianity and Cristianism was resurrected in its stead.
“There was never a time that Christianity did not exist”, St. Augustine.
It took another couple hundred years for the last of the Plato Mystery Schools to be abandoned; however, enough esoteric literature had been sent underground and preserved for us today to resurrect that which was thought killed. Thanks to the Dead Sea Scrolls, Nag Hammadi finds, and others (more will be discovered as well) we will be able to take back what has been lost.
All religion is or should be about the HEART and mans relationship to the inner “I AM” of his-her own being, and as that relates to others- including nature!
What irony that the founder of Christianity wasn’t a part of the IN group!
What a paradox, maybe even an oxymoron as I search for an adequate description, of how it came about that and esoteric, mystical, and Hellenistic Jew would have so much influence on what Christianity would start out with. Even more bizarre is the fact the Paul never knew Jesus- never even saw him other than in a vision.
Hey, I’ve done that myself!
Why was it that the brother of Jesus, James the Just, and the so-called first Pope (Peter) could barely keep together the church at Jerusalem, after the death of Jesus, while Paul spread the GOOD NEWS throughout the land? Christians were first so-labeled at Antioch, not Jerusalem. Have you ever wondered why that was?
The natural-historical life of Jesus was of no importance to Paul!
When one finds it written that Paul speaks of ”this Jesus we have seen”, he’s not talking of a man of the flesh, as MSR (main stream religion) so interprets it. And when we read of Paul writing to the various churches in Asia Minor, he not writing to churches (if we can even call them such) built on a Christianity such as the Gospels present.
Listen, there were NO GOSPELS when Paul was writing these so-called letters or epistles.
So, who were these people in these groups that we today think of as churches (there were no church buildings)? The answer is that they were followers of a spiritual, mystic, esoteric philosophy that they had grown up in comprehended. Paul the Jew, was now more Paul the Hellenistic Roman who was pointing people to a religion more like the earlier Mystery religions.
Paul had alienated his earlier Jewish roots!
Peter and James, who were trying to build on who they saw Jesus was (in the flesh), were intent on extending the Jewish mantle and the return of Jesus would accomplish that; therefore, when Paul returned to Jerusalem he found himself an OUTSIDER looking in and a prisoner looking out. As you know Paul was sent to Rome to die with the hope that his ideas would die with him
It didn’t happen- as we all know!
However, what we do know is that over the next 300years, Christianity would become something unlike what Paul and Jesus were modeling. And so it is still today. Christianity has become ChristianISM (as I wrote yesterday) looking to the EXTERNALS to build a faith when Jesus had said that the Kingdom of God is WITHIN (Luke 17:21),and Paul had affirmed such.
Are you OUTSIDE (living) and looking in when you’re welcome to COME ON IN and live the abundantly life (John 10)?
Alvin Boyd Kuhn said it this way, “It is evident that, like most events in human history, the Christian movement developed into something quite different from what was intended from the beginning.” The original Christianity, under Constantine and other demanding church fathers, was developed into yet another ISM- thus more schisms!
Christianity began as a PAGAN religion. Such a description would scare the beejeebees out of most mainline Christians. Simply put Paganism meant “country dweller”, and it was a blanket term used to refer to various non-Abrahamic religious traditions. In other words, they were BAD, and they were OUT, because “they” weren’t like “we”.
You know how the game is played, right?
In a wider sense, extended to contemporary religions, it includes most of the Eastern religions, and the indigenous traditions of the Americas, Central Asia, Australia and Africa, as well as non-Abrahamic folk religion in general. Today, ethnologists avoid the term “paganism,” with its uncertain and varied meanings, in referring to traditional or historic faiths, preferring more precise categories such as polytheism, shamanism, pantheism, or animism (all four of course being BAD words).
Tom Harpur in his book, The Pagan Christ, wrote, “There was one primal, central myth- originating undoubtedly from Egypt- and all the rest flowed from that. In Christianity, however, the myths were eventually literalized. Jesus was historicized. The consequences of this were to prove very damaging over the centuries to come. A believer had to put his or her trust in Jesus ALONE to know both divinity and resurrection. That’s the kind of religion on which I, like many of you, was rasied. The pre-Christian Christianity spoken of by St. Augustine had become ‘Christianism’ instead”.
Here’s a big difference in case you got lost in Harpur’s musings.
In the pre-Christianism Christianity, it was believed that the coming of the Messiah (or Christos if you will) was taking place in the life of all persons at all time. In other words, “Christianism” is an exclusive club open only to those who subscribe to a set of dogma and doctrines of which there are thousands of varying animals. Original Christianity (pre indoctrination of Christianism) was innocent, free flowing, loving, and one with all.
That’s where I AM.
Where are you?
I am sure I could get an argument (it’s the Protestant thing to do you know) about what the main teaching of Christianity is all about. That’s GOOD NEWS because Christianity has so many wonderful aspects to its nature; however, would say that the central teaching- at the core, is the principle of INCARNATION!
God came to earth in MAN!
Unfortunately it wasn’t ONLY the MAN known as Jesus, although he’s my model since I grew up in the environment of these American states. The concept of INCARANTION though is the CORE or central teaching of almost all ancient belief systems. If Christianity was so taught, how many millions of lives could have been spared? Granted, it’s not just Christianity that’s played the EXCLUSIVITY CARD; however, it from that religion that I write.
We find the incarnation painted on the tomb of Pharoah Tuthmosis III in 1425BCE as an example.
Tom Harpur writes, “Ancients cults focused all their efforts upon the cultivation of the God WITHIN man. It was true of the Sumerians and the Chaldeans; it was true of the Egyptian dynasties for untold millennia; it was true for the authors of the Old Testament (the psalmist prayed, ‘take not thy holy Spirit from me’), for Pythagoras and Plato, and for all the varied Mystery Religions of the Greco-Roman world in the four centuries B.C.E. and beyond.”
This in no way takes away the beauty, the mystery, and sacredness of Christianity.
What it does do is remove the arrogance and self righteousness of priests who would try to force their beliefs upon others claiming them to be UNIQUE and superior to all others. God, how we who call ourselves Christians, need to embrace the entire world in LOVE. Isn’t that what Jesus did- what Jesus was all about?
It is for me!
Namaste! The God in me recognizes the God in you- and in everyone, regardless of how deeply covered over, or how small that CORE might be! Until I let me LIGHT SHINE, I will be hard pressed to discover yours.
The GOOD NEWS is that we’ve been put in the game and allowed to play, but more importantly, our Father is in the stands rooting us on- and he never misses a game!
Just to make sure that we’re on the same page, I am taking about the Apostle Paul, the founder of Christianity, who lived roughly from 5-57CE. And then there’s this fellow names Socrates who lived about 500 years before Paul (actually 469BCE-399BCE) who was a classical Greek philosopher. Socrates had a very bright student named Plato.
Are we together now? Okay then, let’s jump off the cliff together.
The early Church historian by the name of Eusebius (260-340CE) wrote many times about how Christianity was really not a new concept, but an older religion with some new nuances. More specifically he wrote, “The religion published by Jesus to all nations is neither new nor strange. While the name Christian is new, yet the manner of of life and the principles are ancient.”
This is taken as heretical by those who believe the Christian religion was parachuted out of the heavenly skies, and handed to humanity as a replacement of all others.
The highly esteemed church father, St. Augustine wrote, “Socrates was as grand a Christian as any churchy saint or martyr. Indeed Socrates’ Pagan brand of Christianity was as lofty and pure as that which I know.” Let me put my interpretation on that statement and ask, was Paul a greater Christian than Socrates? Can we compare them in any way?
When Christianity decides that it isn’t the ONLY WAY, that JESUS isn’t the only person to carry the divine seed of God, and that we are ALL made in the image of God, life will be a battle of comparisons. Paul or Socrates? Christianity or Judaism? Catholicism or Protestantism?
Why not And-Also? Tell your religious ego to kiss off!
Why not just love everyone and follow your conscience without feeling a need to judge others for their beliefs?
I’ve lost count of how many denominations there are in the world: I am talking just about Christian denominations. I seem to remember that there are 7,000 in America and more than 25,000 world-wide. Protestants have sure been living up to their name (I protest).
How did Christianity get to such a state of consciousness?
It’s not like we weren’t warned or told about the problems associated with such divisiveness. Jesus is reported to have said in Matthew 12:25 (NIV), “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand”. Add whatever NOUN you want to the principle: nation, family, religion, corporation, community, etc.
The mythological encouragement is found in John 10:30, “I and the Father are ONE.”
This isn’t just a statement about one man and His Creator. This is a principle that speaks of everyone, every man, woman, and child. We are ALL ONE. In John 17: 20-21 we read (NIV), “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me”
Why can’t we SEE (Be) this?
Professor Vittorio D. Macchioro wrote, “From the Apostolic Age it has been shown a dispersive tendency, a tendency to divide, dissolve into churches, sects, and heresies. The whole sad history of Christian disintegration takes its rise from the theory of the cognitive function of theology.” In other words what about the BEING of a LOVING person who doesn’t feel a need to CONTROL, CONVERT, or CASTIGATE those who have not the same theology as you?
Whatever happened to the God is LOVE and so too are we principle?
Not Doing Unto The Other!
Is it just me, or are you seeing that it’s more difficult these days to find a religious person who is humble, tolerant, open, and using seemingly sound logic?
In my religious journey of life I have met some very gracious people who became very ungracious the moment I espoused a thought contrary to theirs. I’ve adopted the strategy recently that before I invest too deeply in a friendship-relationship, I throw out a non-traditional thought to see how they’ll deal with it. Usually they then throw me out or desire to get closer in order to get me SAVED!
It’s strange how so many PIOUS PEOPLE get caught in situations that you’d think wouldn’t be their downfall.
However, following Hermes Trismegistus (thrice greater than Hermes), “The voice of a soul is ignorance, the virtue of a soul is knowledge”. The “getting of WISDOM” can only come from experiencing life while still embracing the solitude of oneness with the Spirit. Unfortunately the Western world has for too long been deluded into thinking that observing the LAW and demonstrating a pious and devout disposition isn’t the end game.
The END game is the NOW game of LOVE!
Life is more than appearances, coming off as a NICE person, and performing PUBLIC DEEDS that cause people to take notice and commend us. We are truly LIVING EPISTLES and that’s proven in the closet, in the heat of the moment, in the sacrifices for a spouse or friend, and most importantly in the QUIET of the day when we’re alone with the one within- the I AM that’s created us and longs for communion and communication with us.
The hardest thing I DO every day is to……….NOT DO…to the “Other”!
Do you now what I mean?