"The Religion thread" Part II

[Vaelahr]

Jesus was crucified for advocating the overthrow of Roman rule. His religious ideas were irrelevant.

Many of Christ's teachings were considered heretical and blasphemous by the religious leaders, and is why he was arrested by the chief priests and elders. They delivered him to Pilate who found no grounds for execution despite the priests' accusations, "He calls himself a king. We've no king but Caesar and anyone who calls himself a king opposes Caesar....He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar". Pilate sent him to King Herod who dismissed him back to Pilate. The Jewish authorities grew more insistent with a near-riotous assembly. Not wanting a revolt from the people, Pilate has him flogged. The mob insists crucifixion and Pilate eventually does as they demanded.

[HATEFACE]

These ideas of jesus overthrowing roman rule are based upon lies and are completely false. Christians continue to perpetuate this delusional way of thinking through the bible and teaching others to believe the same way. This is a trap, that has seized us from the truth. We evolved from lesser life forms. I think Mulu can agree with me here, that even though we have evolved from lesser forms of life, that doesn't mean we are bad people!! We can eventually evolve into greater beings! Intelligent individuals sometimes stumble upon our past through research into our own evolution. Some christians may "imagine" what it was like to live back then but these imagined dreamscapes have been implanted by body thetans put there by psychiatrists and extensive drug use. We are, in reality immortal beings trapped here by the all powerful lord Xenu who has taken control of our true lives! These body thetans cause trauma to us by imagining these "dreamscapes" from our past lives. But thankfully through help, we can eliminate these horrible traumatic events and grow spiritually. The reason you all disagree about the history of jesus is due to a implant error and you should all seek auditing by a professional immediatly! Once you have been cleared you'll be labeled as a operational thetan, meaning; you'll be able to recover your true lives faster and grow mentally and physically. Once we are clear of these harmful effects we'll be happier and much more content with ourselves and each other.

[Mulu]

You do not have to be religious to be a nut.

No, but it sure helps. More to the point, religiosity is essentially a form of mental illness, so being religious means you are a nut. In other words, you can't be religious without being at least a little nutty, and the more religious you are, the nuttier you are. Dangerously nutty, given the desire for the world to end.

I mean, the world *is* going to end eventually, in 5 billion years or so if not before. But there's a big difference between acknowledging that the nest isn't going to last forever and wishing it would hurry up and fall already, before we've learned to fly.

Jesus was crucified for advocating the overthrow of Roman rule. His religious ideas were irrelevant.

Many of Christ's teachings were considered heretical and blasphemous by the religious leaders, and is why he was arrested by the chief priests and elders. They delivered him to Pilate who found no grounds for execution despite the priests' accusations, "He calls himself a king. We've no king but Caesar and anyone who calls himself a king opposes Caesar....He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar". Pilate sent him to King Herod who dismissed him back to Pilate. The Jewish authorities grew more insistent with a near-riotous assembly. Not wanting a revolt from the people, Pilate has him flogged. The mob insists crucifixion and Pilate eventually does as they demanded.

According to the authors of the gospel. Given the ease of getting crucified in Judea at that time, that account seems likely to have been heavily dramatized for visceral impact, and to make the Jews out to be the bad guys since Romans were the primary target of conversion. Well, here's a more complete analysis than I'm willing to do:

The Problem with Jesus’ Arrest and Trial
James Still
There is a problem when dealing with the various contradictory biblical accounts of Jesus' arrest and trial as they relate to each other and Jewish practice of the day. We are told in Mark's gospel that after Jesus enters Jerusalem he is soon arrested praying at the Mount of Olives with his disciples who flee upon his arrest. (Mk. 15)

The High Priest Caiaphas, a Sadducee priest and a Roman-appointee, actively sought to prevent open rebellion against Rome lest it escalate and endanger what little autonomy the Temple priests were given by Caesar Augustus. It was Caiaphas who sent out the Temple police to arrest Jesus, most certainly on grounds that Jesus was seditious (rebellious) against Roman authority.

Our evidence is good that Jesus did act politically seditious against Roman authority:

1. Several of Jesus' disciples were known Zealots, e.g., Simon the Zealot (Lk. 6:15); Simon Peter who was known as "Bar-jona" (Mt. 16:17) a derivation of of "baryona" Aramaic for "outlaw" which was a common name applied to Zealots; James and John shared the nickname "Boanerges" or in Hebrew "benei ra'ash" which is to say "sons of thunder" another common Zealot reference; and the most famous Zealot was Judas Iscariot, "Iscariot" a corruption of the Latin "sicarius" or "knife-man" which was a common Roman reference to Zealots.

2. The Zealot movement was a breakaway from the Pharisees who themselves sympathized with the nationalistic causes espoused by the Zealots and were awaiting a Messiah to seize the throne of Israel. Jesus himself is attributed with many sayings that are Pharasaic in origin, e.g., Mt. 7:12, Mk 2:27, Jn 7:22, B. Yoma 85b (Talmud), Mt. 7:15; and Jesus' own affinity for the poor demonstrate Pharasaic philosophy. Jesus' actions that are not depoliticized in the gospels (partially referenced here) indicate that Jesus sympathized with the Zealot cause.

3. The Zealot Judas, refers to Jesus as "Rabbi" a Pharasaic-title. (Mk 14:45) Many scholars subscribe to the "walks like a duck, must be a duck" philosophy and go as far as to say that Jesus himself was a Pharisee rabbi. The evidence does seem to support this conclusion, although Jesus seems to favor a more apocalyptic flavor of fringe Pharasaic thought. The "Jesus as Essene" theory still captivates many scholars as well--a theory that would also support his role of political Messiah as argued here.

4. Jesus equipped his followers with swords in anticipation of trouble. (Lk 22:36-38 ) and at least one of Jesus' supporters scuffled with the Temple police to aid in resisting Jesus' arrest. (Mk 14:47)

5. The manner in which Jesus entered Jerusalem was that of a Jewish king who claimed the throne. Convinced that he was King of the Jews and in deliberate fulfillment of Zechariah's prophecy, Jesus rides into Jerusalem on an ass's colt. The people greet Jesus with strewn palms and cries of "Hosanna!" the ancient cry of Jewish independence. For Jesus to not have known the seditious actions that this implied, and the political impact that his act caused, would be incredulous to say the least. (This is in direct contrast with the Gospels which attempt to contradict Jesus' action and claim that he was not seeking an earthly kingdom--clearly absurd given the circumstances.)

Jesus was said to have been arrested due to a charge of blasphemy. The evidence for this is highly suspect. We begin to immediately question the gospel-accounts regarding the preliminary investigation and it is likely the gospel writers knew nothing of Jewish law regarding such matters. Additionally, the gospel accounts may be trying to smooth over Jesus political mission since when they wrote they had the benefit of hindsight and knew the political outcome of Jesus' actions did end in failure. The gospel's attempt to depoliticize Jesus while at the same time supporting his brief stint as the King of the Jews by reporting events that they seemed to not understand the Jewish context for. Let's look at the story as Luke relates it and then discuss the context problems.

Luke tells us in chapter 26 that Jesus was taken in the middle of the night to the home of Caiaphas for questioning. Frustrated at Jesus' answers to their questions as to whether or not he claimed to be the Messiah, the scribes and priests hit Jesus in the face and spit on him in disgust. There are several problems with this gospel account:

1. It was against Jewish law for the Sanhedrin to meet outside of the designated Chamber of Hewn Stone in the Temple and would not have been violated under any circumstance.

2. The Sanhredrin had an express rule that it could not meet at night because justice must be carried out in the "light of day."

3. Jesus' entry into Jerusalem was probably during the Feast of the Tabernacles, not Passover. (the palm leaves strewn in front of Jesus as he entered Jerusalem would not have been in bloom during Passover) The Sanhedrin would not have met during the eight-day festival for any reason.

4. The Elders of the Sanhedrin would no more strike or spit on an accused person, than would the Supreme Court of the U.S. hearing a case! Luke's account is completely out-of-context and shows remarkable ignorance as to the machinations of Jewish Law.

5. It was not blasphemous to declare oneself a "Messiah" or a "Son of God" any more than it would have been to claim to be an angel. The Pharisees who composed the majority of the Sanhredrin would dismiss such a charge at once since blasphemy could only be applied to anyone who claimed to be God Almighty. Jesus' declaration that he was a Messiah, merely referred to his earthly desire to ascend to the throne of David--an act of sedition against Rome surely, but not one of blasphemy.

If the Gospel of John is to be our authority, his account disagrees with the Synopticists in that the High Priest Caiaphas interrogates Jesus alone and charges him with sedition, not blasphemy, as the Synoptic Gospels allege. Clearly, the pseudipigraphical author of John is not as ignorant of Jewish Law as are the Synopticists for his account is in context with our findings thus far. If Jesus were charged with sedition, then a gathering of the Sanhedrin would not be necessary, the affair would be preliminarily investigated by the High Priest before turning the matter over to the Roman authorities. (Indeed Caiaphas would not wish to involve the Sanhedrin if Jesus really was seditious. In the trial of Peter as reported in Acts, the Pharisees sided against the High Priest and voted to release the accused.)

We can safely conclude at this point that Jesus was indeed supportive of the Zealot movement if not in deed, then certainly in principle. If Jesus were seeking the throne as the evidence suggests, he would have enlisted the aid of the militant Zealots. Also his actions as a claimant to the throne of Israel--which surely would have involved a rebellion of some sort for the Romans were not likely to cede authority quietly--made him guilty of sedition against Rome. Jesus was a patriot for the restoration of Israel. His motives were political and the context of his actions as we find in the more credible portions of the Gospels supports this conclusion.

Further complicating the truth of the Gospel accounts is the motivations and actions of the Roman Procurator Pontius Pilate, whom Jesus is brought to by the High Priest. Jesus is handed over to Pilate, accused of sedition, and Pilate questions Jesus personally asking him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" to which Jesus replies "I am." For some reason, the priests are said to go on "heaping accusations" against Jesus despite the fact that his sedition was clearly established by Jesus himself. Even stranger still, Pilate seems to not even care that Jesus claims to be the King of the Jews and Pilate "wonders" if Jesus is dangerous. (Mk 15:1-5) At this point the author of Mark is either blatantly ignorant of the facts, or spinning a good yarn for the sake of his overall story.

This account is quite out of context with the monster that Philo wrote Gaius Caesar about, reporting that Pilate was inflexible and "cruel." Further, Josephus reports several occurances where Pilate flagrantly incites insurrection in order to ruthlessly purge it with his soldiers. Pilate was eventually recalled to Vitellius (then Legate of Syria) after a particularly violent attack on the Samaritans in 36 CE, and was ordered sent to Rome in order to stand accusations of the slaughter. (Antiquities 18.4.85) The anti-Semitic Pilate was not the sort of governor that would have acted with even the slightest civility toward a Jew who openly admitted to sedition. Pilate's dismal record of purges and punishments against seditious behavior was anathema and history shows him to be one of, if not the cruelest of the Procurators of Judaea.

These irreconciable problems with the arrest and trial of Jesus show that the Gospel accounts cannot be trusted with the truth of the matter. With the mystique and misunderstanding surrounding Jesus' arrest, coupled with the legend and myth attached to the accounts at later times, the truth may never be fully known. But we can surmise a few things: Jesus was a political figure and a claimant to the throne of Israel. His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem as that of a long-awaited Messiah who would destroy the Romans and seize his rightful kingship ended in failure and crucifixion as a rebel.

source

And as for Helios, I'd say his post makes exactly as much sense as the bible.

[Mulu]

Hmm, now I wish I had found this site before, I like his explanation for the virgin-birth myth as well.

The Virgin Birth and Childhood
Mysteries of Jesus
James Still
Biblical scholars have long ago dismissed the literal interpretation of the miraculous virgin-birth of Jesus. Also, many liberal Christian denominations have either quietly purged the curious piece of teaching from their body of philosophy, or conveniently ignore the issue altogether. Despite this, the allure of such an intriguing concept is still very powerful and Jesus' virgin birth continues to enjoy the unquestioning belief of millions of people. The purpose of this essay is to explore the mythological connections between prodigal children in history with an emphasis on the meaning and symbology of virgin birth as it particularly relates to Jesus. In this way Jesus' virgin birth and the mysteries surrounding it will be fully explored in the mythological context from which it derives.

We know very little about the desert nomads and goddess worshippers who settled the fertile Tigris-Euphrates river valley. Mesopotamia, situated as it was between the ancient lands of Ur and Sumer, was almost constantly at war in the three millennia preceding the Common Era. What we do know comes down to us through the Ashurbanipal library. King Ashurbanipal (fl. 620 BCE) of Nineveh ruled the Assyrian empire just prior to its decline. His brutal accomplishments on the battlefield were tempered only by a driving passion for letters and learning so that, over time his spoils included the religious texts and history books of all of his conquered neighbors including the Mesopotamians. After his death, his empire collapsed and in a few short years Nineveh itself was utterly destroyed by Persian invaders. The invaders were only interested in destroying Nineveh's military might; they ruined the city's walls, but completely ignored the Ashurbanipal's library, perhaps considering it a mere whimsical endeavor. The library was soon swallowed up by the shifting sands of the desert. Finally in 1845 British archaeologists rediscovered Nineveh and the wealth of books which lay buried there.

The pre-civilized world of ancient Mesopotamia, consisted of small farming settlements whose people worshipped Ishtar, a fertile, mother goddess. Ishtar caused the rains to fall and the crops to grow in a continuous cycle of birth, life, and death. Over time, Ishtar-worship began to wane as the warlike male gods of neighboring tribes emerged in positions of prominence. The warrior-kings of neighboring desert tribes continually invaded the fertile lands of Mesopotamia, eventually seizing the land and incorporating it into their own rising and falling empires. One of the first warrior-kings to rise up among these early peoples was Sargon of Akkad, who established his kingdom in 2200 BCE. Ishtar was by now fully absorbed into the stronger cults of the patriarchal deities and she became a lesser deity who was subservient to the new male gods of the warrior-kings.

Sargon is perhaps the first Babylonian king who was said to have a larger-than-life birth and childhood. He was born in secret to a mother of lowly birth and a father who was a mountain god. In a motif which would later be borrowed and attributed to Horus and Moses, Sargon's mother placed the child in a basket of rushes and sent him down a river to protect him from the god's enemies. The babe was rescued downstream by simple folk and the goddess Ishtar loved and guided Sargon through his early childhood and to his final destiny: the ascension of the throne. Sargon's biography started a "tall tale" tradition that subsequent kings felt the need to match. The attribute of divine birth and predestination became an important vehicle whereby a mortal king was said to be god-favored; gaining recognition and power during his life which often continued into posterity long after death.

By 1000 BCE, we find this tradition improved upon so that the biography of kings and important men insist that they were not only divinely born, but said to have transcended death to become gods themselves. Zoroaster, the Persian prophet and patriarch who lived and preached in ancient Babylon, was said to have been God-begotten and virgin born. Virgin-birth was the responsibility of the Ishtar priestesses, who conducted fertility rites, prophesied and performed elaborate rituals in the temples throughout Babylon. The priestesses who administered the temples also managed a lucrative prostitution business that provided a steady stream of financial support for temple activities. Upon their return to Palestine, Hebrews of the Babylonian captivity brought back to the Mediterranean peoples wondrous tales of the priestesses and their blasphemous sexual ministries to the men who visited them. The role of the Ishtar priestess was to act as both mother to the prospective man's child and minister to the child's divine needs:

"Holy Virgin" was the title of harlot-priestesses of Ishtar (and) Asherah. The title didn't mean physical virginity; it meant simply "unmarried." The function of such "holy virgins" was to dispense the Mother's grace through sexual worship; to heal; to prophesy; to perform sacred dances; to wail for the dead; and to become Brides of God."[1]

The Hebrews called the children of these priestesses bathur, which meant literally "virgin-born" as in those children who were born of the holy harlot-priestesses of the temple. The Hellenic world had no equivalent to the bizarre rituals of Ishtar, and mistranslated and misunderstood the literal Hebrew's bathur as parthenioi, also "virgin-born" but in the sense of physical, not spiritual, virginity.

The Zoroastrian cosmology told of the world lasting for twelve thousand years in four, three-thousand year blocks of time. The last block of time began with the divine birth of the prophet and would end by ushering in the apocalyptic end of the world and the restoration of good over evil:

[Zoraster's] birth and teaching in the world marked the opening of the final three thousand of the world span of twelve thousand years--at the end of which term his spritual sons Saoshyant, "the Coming Savior," the World Messiah, would appear, to culminate the victory of Truth over the Lie and establish forever the restoration of the pristine creation of God. As the legend tells, the birthplace of Zoroaster . . . was beside the river Daiti, in the central land of the seven lands of the earth, Eran Vej. . . . Angra Mainyu [Demon of the Lie] rushed from the regions of the north, crying to his horde, "Annihilate him!" But the holy babe chanted aloud . . . and the demons were dispersed.[2]

In the Hellenic empire carved out by Alexander the Great during the third century BCE, these eastern beliefs and myths mingled with those of the Greeks, Egyptians, and Semitic peoples. Alexander was anxious to connect the Mediterranean world with the strange ways and customs of the Orient and sought to connect his two empires culturally as well as politically. The Greeks had already devised well-developed concepts of divine impregnation. The savior-god Dionysus was said to have been born after Zeus visited Persephone in the form of a serpent. The Persian contribution to these Hellenic myths was to bring the fascinating idea of the virgin (parthenioi) birth to the old Dionysus and Herakles stories. Eventually the pagan mysteries had fully incorporated the virgin-birth ceremonies of the Ishtar priestesses into their own beliefs and religions as each savior- god took on the divine attribute themselves.

The Greeks related that Persephone was hidden in a cave by her mother, the goddess Demeter. While there, Persephone began weaving a great tapestry of the universe out of aweb of wool. Zeus learned of her presence and approached Persephone in the guise of a serpent. She conceived a son for Zeus and named him Dionysus, whom she cared for and nurtured in the cave to protect the young child from other jealous wives of Zeus. Eventually Herakles, whom the Romans would rename to Hercules, was said to have been born of a god as well. In due time Perseus, Minos, Asclepius, Miletus, and many others, were all reputably born of a specially selected mortal woman and a god in the manner of the Ishtar virgin priestesses. Often the god would impregnate the woman as a spirit in special ceremonies. Zeus was said to have impregnated Danae by visiting her as a ray of sunlight and the dove, sacred to Ishtar, manifests itself as a Holy Ghost to impregnate Mary and announce Jesus as the son of God.[3]

One result of the Persian-Hellenic blend of myths was Mithras.Mithras was a Persian deity, but other than his name used" to give itself an exotic oriental flavor,"[4] Hellenic Mithraism wasdistinctly pagan. Mithraism began and flourished at the same timeas did Christianity. The cult gained enormous popularity and bythe third century hundreds of mithraeum--underground temples whereMithras was worshipped--were spread out across Asia Minor, Africa,Italy, Greece, and the German and Scottish frontiers where Romansoldiers were stationed. Mithras is the most recognizable of theMediterranean gods that was said to have been physically virgin-born; a flattering imitation of the Ishtar priestesses ofBabylon. Mithras was depicted as a" bull-slayer" and stone-carved reliefs display a tauroctony where Mithras plunges a knife into the neck of a great bull, while the blood spills down to the ground. The bull-slaying scene always takes place inside of a cave, symbolically represented by the mithraeum's locations in caves and underground grottos. To understand this symbolic bull- slaying, we must first look briefly at the Greco-Roman world's understanding of the universe.

The ancients believed that the sun, the moon, "wandering" stars (planets), comets, and other celestial bodies were heavenly gods who were in motion about a stationary earth. Since the sun (Sol invictus) seemed to be the most influential of the celestial gods, it was especially worshipped and regarded as annually "reborn" at its lowest point in the sky during the winter solstice of December 25th.[5] Since the plane of the ecliptic--the path that the sun travels in the sky--traces out the band of the twelve star-patterns that make up the zodiac, the sun was considered a god that gave "birth" to, or was a father of, the twelve zodiacal gods. The Greek astronomer Hipparchus made the astounding discovery in 128 BCE that the zodiac of constellations slowly drifted backward over time so that they appeared, with respect to the suns position at winter solstice, in a new location in the heavens. Every 25 thousand years these constellations slowly moved; a phenomenon we know today to be the precession of the equinoxes which is caused by the "wobble" of the earth on its axis. To the ancients, it was a frightening and astounding event:

Hipparchus, who assumed that the earth was immovable and at the center of the cosmos, could only understand the precession as a movement of the entire cosmic sphere. In other words, Hipparchus's discovery amounted to the revelation that the entire universe was moving in a way that no one had ever been aware of before. . . . [The precession] had profound religious implications. A new force had been detected capable of shifting the cosmic sphere: Was it not likely that this new force was a sign of the activity of a new god, a god so powerful that he was capable of moving the entire universe?[6]

At the time Hipparchus made his discovery, the spring equinox, which signaled the resurrection of the sun-god, appeared in the constellation of Aries the Ram. Before Aries, it was seen that the equinox fell on Taurus the Bull. This celestial movement taking place among the heavenly gods and the "death" of Taurus the Bull made a tremendous impact. Mithras became that celestial force who was strong enough to slay the bull and was able to command the very heavens to do his bidding.

In Mithraism, just as in Christianity and Zoroastrianism before them, the world was a constant battleground of good and evil; a bitter dualistic struggle between the hosts of demons and the elect who serve God. Spirituality warred against the physical, and darkness imperiled the good fortune of light. Mithras represented the divine son of the sun-god and the savior of good against darkness in the universe who battled against the minions of evil to save mankind.

Because Mithras could move the celestial sphere at will, he was seen as outside of the universe. Carvings of Mithras reflect his birth as a naked child bursting from an egg-shaped petra genetrix, or "Generative Rock." The rock caves where the mithraeum were located symbolize the "womb" from which Mithras emerged. His escape from the confines of the rock, attest to his extra-universal power to escape the celestial sphere and command the heavens:

[Mithras'] birth is said to have been brought about solo aestu libidinis, "by the sole heat of libido...." The earth has given birth--a virgin birth--to the archetypal Man.[7]

Mithras was born on December 25th, the eve of the winter solstice when the sun is at its lowest point in the sky. With the dawn of light on Mithras' birth "the priest emerged from the temple to announce triumphantly: The God is born!"[8]

When Christianity gained power in the fifth century, Mithraism was declared heretical and ruthlessly scourged. Before that time, Christianity and Mithraism coexisted and were undoubtedly influencial upon each other. This mingling and influence are apparent in the manner with which Christianity overtook Mithraism. The former had no trouble incorporating Mithraism's followers into its own ranks and many former mithraeums were converted to churches. Many Roman churches today, the Church of San Clemente in Rome most notably, still contain well-preserved mithraeums in their vaulted burial crypts. The lines that divided Mithraism from Christianity were understandably blurred due to this slow and steady absorption of Mithraism by Christianity during the centuries that the two existed side-by-side. This process led to the similarities that we now see shared between the two religions:

[Mithras] was said to have been sent by a father-god to vanquish darkness and evil in the world. Born of a virgin (a birth witnessed only by shepherds), Mithras was described variously as the Way, the Truth, the Light, the Word, the Son of God, and the Good Shepherd and was often depicted carrying a lamb upon his shoulders. Followers of Mithras celebrated December 25th (the winter solstice) by ringing bells, singing hymns, lighting candles, giving gifts, and administering a sacrament of bread and water. Between December 25th and the spring equinox (Easter, from the Latin for earth goddess) came the 40 days' search for Osiris, a god of justice and love. The cult also observed Black Friday, commemorating Mithras' sacrificial bull-slaying which fructified the earth. Worn out by the battle, Mithras is symbolically represented as a corpse and is placed in a sacred rock tomb from which he is removed after three days in a festival of rejoicing.[9]

Jesus' virgin-birth was probably attributed to him during this time. Matthew and Luke write that Jesus was born of a virgin in 1:18-25, and 1:26-35, respectively. Mark, the earliest of the synoptics, makes no such claim and the Gospel of John would never think of reducing Jesus, the divine Logos, to mere flesh and blood. The Gospel of Mark aligns itself closely with the earlier Q--the forty or so oral tradition sayings that are believed to be derived from Jesus' teachings directly--and does not think to concern itself with the biography of Jesus prior to his baptism by John. To early Christians, the childhood or place and manner of the birth of Jesus was irrelevant. The Kingdom of God was at hand and Jesus the messenger had warned them of that fact and that they should prepare for the new heaven and earth that was to come in their lifetimes. Given Jesus' apoclyptic message and instructions to repent and prepare for the Lord, a posterity-driven biography would seem absurd. If the Kingdom of God was at hand, as Jesus taught, then there would be no future generations to read anything that was codified in the present. Thus, the oral tradition preserved Jesus' teachings in short, concise pericopes (short sayings) and Jesus' followers gave little thought to writing them down at first because of the very nature of the apocalyptic movement that had sprung up around them.

As time went by it could be seen that the Kingdom of God was delayed. Among the Hellenized Jews and the Greek pagans who were considering conversion to Christianity, this delay posed more questions than answers. Additionally, Greek pagans, from which Christianity was to draw its converts and eventually thrive, were naturally skeptical of any new savior and the heavenly rewards they might promise. These Greeks had to pick and choose among the dozens of mystery cults and gods that had sprung up, each promising riches and eternal bliss in a heavenly afterlife. Jesus had little to offer these Greeks. He was, by all accounts, a mortal Jewish messiah, speaking only to the sons of Abraham and telling them to prepare the way of the Lord who would build a new Jerusalem especially for his chosen people. The Marcan Jesus that was known to his followers during the middle-to-late first-century (before the gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John) shared none of the attributes of the time-honored moral-savior deities of Dionysus or Herakles. Jesus' later-added attribute of virgin-birth necessary if Jesus was to be made acceptable to the pagans of the Hellenized world.

Hebrew teachings do not specify that the Messiah would be born of a virgin; the very idea is alien to Jewish expectations of who the Messiah would be. Quite contrary to the Hellenized Jesus "there is nothing in the Jewish sacred books to suggest that the Messiah or anyone else was, or was to be, born of a virgin."[10] Jesus had been thoroughly rejected by the Jews who had decided that he was not the messiah that would usher in the new Kingdom. Early Christians had no choice but to turn away from Palestine and introduce Jesus to the Gentiles.

The Gospel of Mark begins with the Baptist in the River Jordan and the baptism of Jesus there. Early versions of Matthew and Luke, which were circulated among Greek Christians, began with the Baptist as well. At some point, these Christians felt the need to tailor their savior after the Greek savior-gods that they were familiar with and felt that it would be necessary to write a biography of Jesus to fill that need and make him as powerful and honorable as the pagan gods. The Gospel of Mark (70 CE) was already too well known and circulated, but the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were perfect for inserting the childhood biography of Jesus:

The first two chapters of Matthew and the first three chapters of Luke were added in the second century by Hellenizers who would accept only a divinely born savior-god like those of the pagan mystery-cults. . . ."[11]

By the close of the first century it became necessary to codify the origins of Jesus so as to defend him from the pagan critics who hesitated at following a new god when their current ones, like Herakles and Perseus, were well known to have been born by the union of a god and a virgin mother. Writing independently of each other, the authors or interpolators of Matthew and Luke proceeded to elevate Jesus to the status of the Greek savior-gods by inserting at the front of their gospels, the birth narrative of Jesus. The end result however created another problem:

Although Matthew and Luke, who deal with the Virgin Birth story, are considered "inspired" writers . . . they yet disagree on minor details. It was to Joseph that the angel appeared to according to Matthew; it was to Mary according to Luke. And the Annunciation (the angel Gabriel's announcement of the Incarnation) took place before Mary's conception, if Luke is the authority; and after, if Matthew is the authority.[12]

At the time of Matthew and Luke's interpolation, Christianity deeply rooted itself in the Graeco-Roman world and had completely separated itself from its mother religion Judaism. Former pagans were converting en masse and brought their religious beliefs with them to the new religion.

Even the Hebrew's Tanakh was forgotten, having been replaced by the Greek Septuagint which translated the Old Testament books into Greek terms and concepts that often were misleading, innacurate, or mistranslated from the Hebrew texts. The Greek- speaking author of Matthew, relying on the faulty translation of the Septuagint, rendered the Hebrew word almah (young woman) into Greek parthenos (virgin) when he wrote:

Behold, a parthenos shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.[13]

The Septuagint had retained the Ishtar-worshipping virgin-temple practices in part by insisting on the physical virgin-birth of Isaiah's prophetic Emmanuel in verses 7:14. The later writers of Matthew and Luke relied on the Septuagint for their references. After reading this passage in Isaiah, Matthew sought to find a way to fit Jesus into the virgin-birth role that Isaiah spoke of, thus achieving a prophecy in Jesus' own birth. The impetus for the idea and the motivation which would eventually permanently seal it into the canon, came from the huge numbers of pagan converts. These converts didn't want to leave behind Mithras and Perseus, who were both virgin-born, in exchange for a Jewish Messiah who was not.

The text in Isaiah 7:14, properly translated from the Hebrew Nevi'im reads:

Assuredly, my Lord will give you a sign of His own accord! Look, the young woman is with child and about to give birth to a son. Let her name him Immanuel.

This "young woman" may perhaps be unmarried or a physical virgin, but she should not be confused with the role of the Holy Virgins of the pagan temples of Ishtar whose job it was to bear savior- gods. This passage could not refer to anything other than a direct sign of Yahweh concerning the events of Isaiah's time. Isaiah specifically refers to the time and place in which the prophet is speaking to King Ahaz and reassuring him that Syria and Ephraim will not go to war with Judah.[14] Isaiah "is simply saying to Ahaz that a lady who is now a virgin will shortly fall pregnant and bear a son, and that by the time this has happened the political dangers will have been averted."[15] Matthew, straining to provide some kind of scriptural basis for the virgin- birth of Jesus, takes Isaiah out of context in order to support a prophecy fulfillment through Jesus' virgin birth. We see the context-dropping in 8:3-4 where Isaiah's prophecy is said to have come true in that "the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria" shall be plundered by Assyria while the child is yet an infant. These invasions and the resultant booty did occur in the seventh century BCE. How did such a doctrine ever become promulgated?

What actually happened is obvious enough: at an early date, Judaizers interpolated passages designed to make Jesus the Messiah who would establish a Jewish empire at His Parousia; but then, about 115-125 (CE), since it had become impossible to remove these interpolations, certain Hellenizers simply superimposed Matt. 1:18-25 and Luke 1 upon them, which provided Jesus with a Virgin Birth and made of Him a savior generically similar to Dionysus and therefore acceptable in the pagan world.[16]

By the time pagan philosophers like Celsus (fl. 180 CE) were denouncing the virgin-birth mythology, it was too late. The doctrine was already imbedded in the collective minds and manuscripts of the early Christians. Celsus anticipated the motive behind the virgin birth narrative and accused Christians of attributing the virgin birth to Jesus in order to imitate the pagan savior-gods:

Many of the nations of the world hold doctrines similar to those espoused by the Christians.... The Galactophagi of Homer, the Druids of Gaul, and even the Getae (for example) believe doctrines very close to (the historicity of Christianity and Judaism) ... Linus, Musaeus, Orpheus, Pherecydes, Zoroaster the Persian, and Pythagoras understood these doctrines .... What absurdity! Clearly the Christians have used the myths of the Danae and the Melanippe, or of the Auge and the Antiope in fabricating the story of Jesus' virgin birth.[17]

Celsus' bitter criticism necessitated a Christian apology that never quite overcame the defensive posture that it was forced to take. Early Church fathers like Eusebius and Augustine compare and contrast Jesus heavily against his pagan contemporaries, claiming that if Jesus is false, then so is Mithras and Herakles. During this period, the early Christians were still tied to their pagan roots and had not yet stated a clear case for why their god should not be considered an equal of Mithras, Dionysus, and other Greek and Roman gods. Roman critics and neoplatonic philosophers who argued against Christianity from a conservative status quo position, couldn't understand why Christians would want to so closely fashion their god after those of the standard repertoire of state-endorsed gods.

The pagan idea of a savior-god being virgin-born was very persistent:

a...factor making for the survival of such tales (virgin birth) in religious cults is stressed by Gilbert Murray. He notes that it is the saviour gods of paganism who are often reputed virgin-born. The father-god supplies the human race with a saviour, his son, by impregnating a goddess or a mortal. He must, however, not be regarded as actuated by lust. His purpose is the birth of a great saviour of mankind, and so the impregnation has to be effected without carnal intercourse. Hence Io was made pregnant by the laying on of the divine hand, Danae by the golden sunlight.[18]

Nowhere is virgin birth so stressed as in the Graeco-Roman world where the synoptic interpolators were deeply rooted:

[T]he doctrine of the Virgin Birth, without which no prophet or savior-god could be a divine incarnation, was so common among ancient cults that it was impossible for any religious founder to achieve acceptance without it.[19]

The virgin-birth story which is attributed to Jesus, is a later pagan addition interpolated for the sole purpose of adding support for the Christian savior. Not having been based upon a solid textual foundation like the Jews, early Christians needed to attribute the characteristics and events of existing gods to their savior in order to legitimize him as a god worthy of worship. Jesus represents a crossover from Messianic Judaism and Graeco-Roman paganism; an embodiment of the best of both worlds.

Clues from the apocryphal--texts not included in the canon--that account for the persistence of Jesus' virgin-birth may be from the Gospel of Thomas, which dates to perhaps 50 CE. Jesus is preaching in the desert using parables and saying that "he who has ears, let him hear." A woman calls out saying "lessed are the womb which bore you and the breasts which nourished you" to which Jesus replies:

Blessed are those who have heard the word of the father and have truly kept it. For there will be days when you will say, `Blessed are the womb which has not conceived and the breasts which have not given milk.'[20]

Jesus is referring to the hard times that may befall those who choose to serve God for the path to the Kingdom of God is narrow indeed. Often Jesus is depicted in the gospels as being taken literally (e.g., Nicodemus' "born from above" narrative) when he meant to use figurative speech, so this may be just such a case. Also, in the same gospel Jesus tells his disciples that when they "go into any land" and "see one who was not born of woman, prostrate yourselves on your faces and worship him."[21] Thomas' Jesus constantly plays on words and tells his disciples that only by searching for the beginning will they find the end of their journey. Aside from the Buddhist overtones of this statement, it is possible that later Christians decided that the "beginning" (Jesus) must have been one not born of woman since no mention is made of such beings after the disciples traveled and preached.

The Gospel of Mark, the earliest of the gospels, relates that Jesus is a Jewish Messiah, and so born quite naturally in the manner expected of the Davidic Messiah. The Jewish ascetic sects who were expecting a son of David to arrive who would invoke the Parousia and regain the throne, said that he would be born in Bethlehem. The earliest references, upon which Mark's gospel is based, insist that Jesus was instead born in Galilee at Nazareth. The last two synoptics, Matthew and Luke, attempt to correct Mark's error by again placing Jesus' birth back in Bethlehem. The Gospel of John, which is totally unconcerned with any notion of Jewish expectations of the Messiah, places Jesus back at Nazareth merely for the sake of argument ascribing the conflict as a "division among the people over him" (Jn. 7:43). The conflict would be a minor one if it were not for the fact that there was no such town in Galilee named Nazareth during Jesus' birth. In a humorous self-fulfilling prophecy, the Galilean town was established in the third century after news of Jesus' birthplace had become famous. This curious insistence on associating Jesus with Nazareth may predate the Christian oral traditions and told among apocalyptic groups like the Essenes, who practiced a form of sun worship. Early Christians may have considered Jesus a sun-god. Nazareth is very closely worded to Nazaroth which in Hebrew is "the twelve signs (of the zodiac)." The root verb nazar means to "surround" as in the twelve constellations of the zodiac which pass overhead each night, thus surrounding the earth.[22] Job is reminded of his human limitations and the celestial astrological power of Yahweh, when the latter speaks to him from a raging desert whirlwind:

Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Nazaroth in his season?[23]

This theory is supported by the evidence that the inhabitants of Qumran by the Dead Sea, who Pliny referred to as Essenes, used a solar-based calendar, rather than the traditional lunar-based Judaic calendar. Pliny the Younger reported in a letter to the emperor Trajan in 112 CE that "Christians appear to be harmless people who meet at daybreak and sign hymns to the honor of the Christo quasi deo (the Christ as if he were a god)."

Matthew and Luke sought to fill in the missing genealogy for Jesus. Jewish Messiah's were considered important only in the capacity that they fulfilled the role of a "Son of man" and told their people the message of God who had appointed them. The Messiah himself was unimportant compared to the mission which he was elected to perform. But when Matthew and Luke wrote, Jesus had taken on a greater meaning to the Christians than just a fulfiller of Messianic duties. Understandably, many early Christians wanted to know more about Jesus than the earlier texts and the Sayings Sources had shown. Writing independently of each other, Matthew and Luke wrote conflicting genealogies based on OT scripture and numerology.

Matthew's genealogy is an attempt to invoke credibility through powerful numerological magic. He bases Jesus' lineage on watershed events in history in three sets of fourteen:

"So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations."[24]

Since "seven" is the Hebrew magical number we find a strong desire to tailor Jesus' genealogy in groups that are divisible by seven, and in groupings that denote historical events of which Jesus' birth is as important as the "carrying away into Babylon" and King David himself:

Here are the six sets of seven names each that Matthew derives:


Abraham Aminadab | Solomon Joatham | Jechonias Achim

Isaac Naasson | Roboam Achaz | Salathiel Eliud

Jacob Salmon | Abia Ezekias | Zorobabel Eleazar

Judas Booz | Asa Manasses | Abiud Matthan

Phares Obed | Josaphat Amon | Eliakim Jacob

Esrom Jesse | Joram Josias | Azor Joseph

Aram David | Ozias Jechonias | Sadoc Jesus

-- -----------------+---------------------+--------------------

Formation of | Babylonian | Jesus as Messiah

Israel | Captivity |


Matthew omits Joash, Amaziah, and Azoriah from the genealogy in 1 Chronicles 3 and mistakenly counts Jechonias twice in order to achieve the perfect three sets of fourteen which when halved invoke the magical properties of the number seven. Jesus can be said according to Matthew's genealogy as being the "seventh son thrice and one" of King David himself. An impressive lineage indeed and one which testifies to the powerful influences astrology and numerology had on the ancient world and the early Christians in particular. Pagan critics accused Christians of practicing chicanery and magic learned from the Masters in Egypt. Matthew and Luke's birth narratives also show astrological magic in practice by having Jesus born when the stars are correct in the heavens. These myth-making elements liven up the gospels, but should not be taken literally. Again, we can safely assume that these accretions which attach magical properties and visiting magicians to Jesus' birth are stories designed to Hellenize Jesus for the pagan converts sake.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

End Notes:

1. Walker, p. 1048.

2. Campbell, Occ. M., p. 210.

3. Luke 3:22. "And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him..."

4. Ulansey, David, Solving the Mithraic Mysteries, Biblical Archaeology Review, Sep/Oct 1994, p. 41.

5. December 25th was the winter solstice on the pre-Gregorian Julian calendar.

6. Ulansey, David, Ibid., p. 50.

7. Campbell, Occ. M., p. 260-261.

8. Larson, Story, p. 184.

9. Temple, Kerry, Who Do Men Say That I Am?, The Humanist, May/June 1991, p. 4.

10. Wells, p. 30.

11. Larson, Essene, p. 175.

12. Cutner, p. 13.

13. Matthew 1:23.

14. Wells, p. 29.

15. Ibid., p. 29-31.

16. Larson, Story, p. 470.

17. Celsus, p. 55-56.

18. Wells, p. 30.

19. Larson, Story, p. 154.

20 Nag Hammadi, Gospel of Thomas, II, 2, (79).

21. Ibid., (15).

22. Cutner, p. 15.

23. Job 38:1-32. The Authorized Version renders Mazzaroth, which is an acceptable translation since Hebrew uses the letter m and n interchangeably.

24. Matthew 1:17

[HATEFACE]

Mulu, I'm glad you agree with me that religion is caused by mental illness and that the bible is filled with insanity caused by psychiatrists. You're more level headed then what you've lead me to believe. You are still not clear enough to be OT, I think you need to solidify our arguements with the truth of our path caused by evolution. Perhaps we came from apes, but it's more logical that we came from clams. Clams are the worlds most basic organism.

[Veilan]

*hijack*

On a related note, the german government banned filming for an american Nazi flick in Germany lest Tom Cruise gets off the cast for Claus Schenk Graf Stauffenberg.

Omg growing a spine against sectarian cultists, quickly remind us we're all evil and not allowed to !

[Zakharra]

You do not have to be religious to be a nut.

No, but it sure helps. More to the point, religiosity is essentially a form of mental illness, so being religious means you are a nut. In other words, you can't be religious without being at least a little nutty, and the more religious you are, the nuttier you are. Dangerously nutty, given the desire for the world to end.

I mean, the world *is* going to end eventually, in 5 billion years or so if not before. But there's a big difference between acknowledging that the nest isn't going to last forever and wishing it would hurry up and fall already, before we've learned to fly.

Why? Your coming from one point. Religious people are insane. By your own words, anyone who believes in ANY religion is insane(nuts).

What would yopu do then? Have all religious people commited? Put in therapy, on drugs? Remove some rightsto keep other people safe? Like voting, the freedom of speech?

[Mulu]

I already answered this question quite completely the last time you asked it.

[Zakharra]

Which was when? There have been several arguement/discussion threads in the last few months.

[Stormseeker]

It comes down to faith and hope. I see it in my grandmother who will be 79 this year. Religion gives her faith that there is something better waiting for her, a reward for a good honest and often hard life. The hope is seeing her loved ones that have passed away these last ten years(my grandfather and 4 out of 5 of her brothers, along with a long list of family and friends)

She beleaves the more that she can take with a grin the better heaven will be for her. And if that is what keeps her with us for a few more years then i don't care if she worships a pet rock.(oh she is a southern baptist)

[Mulu]

I think everyone's grandmothers are like that. Mine sure were, and I didn't bother trying to change them, nor would there be any reason to. Having maintained their beliefs for so long, nothing was going to change them. But the absolute faith I saw in them was primarily a product of three things: cultural indoctrination, fear of death, and wishful thinking.

You can cheat your fear of death by pretending that there is something better waiting for you after it, or you can face your fear of death by acknowledging there isn't. It takes a lot of courage to give up that wishful thinking of an afterlife. When it's destroyed, what replaces it (in an ethical person) is a desire to make this world better, because this world and this life are all you have.

BTW, I know that virgin-birth passage was a long quote, but it's worth reading if you're interested in that stuff. I think it's a slam dunk. Of course I mostly like it because he agrees with me, "Jesus represents a crossover from Messianic Judaism and Graeco-Roman paganism; an embodiment of the best of both worlds." In other words, a multi-classed power build.

[Killthorne]

I find Mulu amusing in his " There is no afterlife, save the world we live in!" shpiel. By your thinking, and it's obviously proven considering the state of the world, that is quite the opposite reality: people are be living it up (i.e.: greed, control issues via power, gluttony) while they have a chance, and by all common sense in your thinking, we should stop procreating more death.

" Hey honey, let's have children, so they can live a flash in the pan existence for pure shits and giggles and then die. Wheeee.. sounds like fun to me."

" Oh yes. Let's throw some more fleshbags into the mix! Gotta make this world we live in perfect, you know. And that can only be done by making more pointless lives, trying to make the world a better place by realizing we don't have much time in short, meaningless lifespans to do so!"

Sounds like a losing battle to me.

*shakes head*

I don't know if you realize this, but religion isn't the only thing what's wrong with the world today, and I do believe, that it's used in ways that makes it look worse than what it should be. Like a christian's idea of revenge, or the idea of a holy war between faiths. That's not religion. That's a fsckin' joke to cover up their base animalistic qualities that rate us right alongside those apes you think we've come from.


~Killthorne~

[Mulu]

I find Mulu amusing in his " There is no afterlife, save the world we live in!" shpiel. By your thinking, and it's obviously proven considering the state of the world, that is quite the opposite reality: people are be living it up (i.e.: greed, control issues via power, gluttony) while they have a chance, and by all common sense in your thinking, we should stop procreating more death.

" Hey honey, let's have children, so they can live a flash in the pan existence for pure shits and giggles and then die. Wheeee.. sounds like fun to me."

" Oh yes. Let's throw some more fleshbags into the mix! Gotta make this world we live in perfect, you know. And that can only be done by making more pointless lives, trying to make the world a better place by realizing we don't have much time in short, meaningless lifespans to do so!"

Sounds like a losing battle to me.

Thank you for proving my point. It's precisely this need for more than we are given that makes humans so wretched, and religion so seductive. We should learn to appreciate what we have. Continuity comes from accomplishment, not longevity.

I don't know if you realize this, but religion isn't the only thing what's wrong with the world today

Oh trust me, as a liberal and a humanist I have a long list of complaints.

and I do believe, that it's used in ways that makes it look worse than what it should be. Like a christian's idea of revenge, or the idea of a holy war between faiths. That's not religion.

On the contrary, that most certainly *is* religion. Religion is *exactly* what people make of it. It's not the words on the paper that matter, it's the actions taken by the followers. Religion is religious people, and their actions on this planet, just as government is the people that make it up, and their actions on this planet.

Lots of things look good on paper, few things look good in practice. Government is a necessary evil, religion is an unnecessary evil. (Dualities in expression should never occur in series, lest you sound like you're Buddhist....)

[HATEFACE]

I find Mulu amusing in his " There is no afterlife, save the world we live in!" shpiel. By your thinking, and it's obviously proven considering the state of the world, that is quite the opposite reality: people are be living it up (i.e.: greed, control issues via power, gluttony) while they have a chance, and by all common sense in your thinking, we should stop procreating more death.

" Hey honey, let's have children, so they can live a flash in the pan existence for pure shits and giggles and then die. Wheeee.. sounds like fun to me."

" Oh yes. Let's throw some more fleshbags into the mix! Gotta make this world we live in perfect, you know. And that can only be done by making more pointless lives, trying to make the world a better place by realizing we don't have much time in short, meaningless lifespans to do so!"

Sounds like a losing battle to me.

Thank you for proving my point. It's precisely this need for more than we are given that makes humans so wretched, and religion so seductive. We should learn to appreciate what we have. Continuity comes from accomplishment, not longevity.

I don't know if you realize this, but religion isn't the only thing what's wrong with the world today

Oh trust me, as a liberal and a humanist I have a long list of complaints.

and I do believe, that it's used in ways that makes it look worse than what it should be. Like a christian's idea of revenge, or the idea of a holy war between faiths. That's not religion.

On the contrary, that most certainly *is* religion. Religion is *exactly* what people make of it. It's not the words on the paper that matter, it's the actions taken by the followers. Religion is religious people, and their actions on this planet, just as government is the people that make it up, and their actions on this planet.

Lots of things look good on paper, few things look good in practice. Government is a necessary evil, religion is an unnecessary evil. (Dualities in expression should never occur in series, lest you sound like you're Buddhist....)

Science curse you United Atheist League! Our science is the only true science!

[Mulu]

Oh, and Killy, I have to assume that you have no children, because looking into my daughter's face gives me all the reasons I need to try to make this world a better place, despite her mortal nature.