The man behind the myth
In the first century, Judea’s days were numbered and after the first Jewish-Roman war ended in 73 AD the Romans were fast running out of patience. The Bar-Kokhba revolt of 132-136 AD sealed its fate. The Judean people were scattered over the face of ...
The religiously motivated massacre in Orlando, Florida, is a sad reminder of the dangers of trying to find absolute truth in the written word. All books, without exception, are only shadows of the minds of the people who write them. Whatever motivati ...
The problem many people have is that the Jesus in the New Testament makes very little sense. The image of an anti-Semitic Jew on a donkey driving two hundred thousand people out of a temple with a knotted piece of string was obviously never meant to ...
There is a question that has been waiting for an answer for two thousand years. “How many Gods are in the Bible?” It is one of the most common questions in Bible or Torah class. Any one with even a rudimentary grip of language comprehension would be ...
In Spanish we call roses, ‘rosas’. In Welsh they are called rhosyn. Strangely enough, by whatever name you choose to call them, roses smell the same. By the same token, the idea of ‘Teacher’ in English is named ‘Professor’ in Spanish. Morah would be ...
When I was young, in the 1960s, the establishment told us that divorce was a good thing and that children were resilient. That has not proved to be the case, in fact the opposite has proved true. In the early 1900s, my family, on my father’s side, ...
When I was young, scientists were queuing up to convince us of the health benefits of smoking cigarettes. Most good restaurants used to have a bowl of cigarettes on the table. Smoking in-between courses was normal. Scientists knew that it would kill ...
For those people who are blind to the colour red, for them it just doesn’t exist. Such people live in a ‘redless’ world! It is almost impossible to explain to such people what the colour ‘red’ means to the rest of us. Discussions about ‘Good and Evil ...
By way of a reply to the Kabbalah Centre and to Billy Phillips, I would like to tell you a story: Beelzebub is another word for Satan. The name Beelzebub has nine letters. Rav Berg who started the Kabbalah Centre came from Brooklyn in New York. Th ...
The Greek word ‘Gnosis’, like ‘racist’ or ‘fascist,’ is a word that can be used in any debate like a grenade. These words, although used somewhat indiscriminately, have never really lost their power. ‘Gnostic’ is a ‘catch-all’ dismissal used to descr ...
Now that we’ve finally separated the Jesus of History from the Christ story it would be logical for many people to ask, “If not Christ why even bother with Jesus?” An even more important question might be, “After two thousand years, why now?” Trut ...
Helicopters are not fun! They are noisy, cramped and very uncomfortable. They are even worse when they have engine problems. A loud bang woke us and we all stiffened as the helicopter lost altitude. Looking up I could see smoke filling the cabin ...
Before the fall of the Second Temple, the Jewish people were trying to decide the nature of God. With the destruction of the Kingdom of Judah, the Romans prevented a reformation of Judaism and have left Jewish religious vision frozen in time like a f ...
Many Biblical Scholars believe that the earliest followers of the Historical Jesus (33-55 CE) had written down a collection of his 'Sayings' and used them as the basis of their daily Jewish practice. Apparently, they were not interested in (or knew n ...
What do you expect to get out of meditation? A lot of people sit down to try 'meditation' but soon give up because they either fell asleep or 'nothing happened'. Nobody seems to know what 'meditation' is for! 'Guided Meditation' seems to be the only ...
"Nothing's happening! I must be doing it wrong?" It's your first day in a meditation class. You carefully open one eye to see if anyone has started levitating without you. Everyone is firmly rooted to the gym floor but there's something 'otherworldl ...
This is a re-post from an old website of a blog we produced back in 2015 about the sayings of the Jesus of History. We hope you enjoy. Before I go any further, I just want to make this clear; I am not saying anyone is wrong. Everyone says that the ...
Christians constantly tell us that they are ‘saved’. They tell us that Yoga is demonic and music is ‘of the devil’. They want to kill gays. They use verses they don’t understand like weapons. They seem to have their own language, which marks them out ...
Can you explain why you believe the things you do? Many of our beliefs come with our culture or our age group as a job lot. It takes a lot of courage to analyse your own beliefs. It can be frightening. It is much easier to buy our beliefs off the she ...
One of the strangest things about studying the Jesus of History is the fact that every week, Christians go out of their way to tell me that the Gospels were originally written in Aramaic. As if that 'fact' alone itself validated Christianity. At f ...
Can you prove to me that your grandfather actually existed? We have been using photography for over a hundred and fifty years but despite this technological advantage many of us would struggle to prove that our grandparents really existed. What pr ...
If you hear the word ‘Jesus’ and find you have uncomfortable feelings and urges, you may have been traumatised in your past and you may be suffering from mental health issues of which you are not aware. Many people from a religious background have su ...
Two weeks ago it was Easter and greeting cards and emails were flying around the world, rejoicing in the death and the story of a resurrection of the Galilean Jew. These stories are based on the ideas of human sacrifice, universal sin, and vicarious ...
There are over 33,000 denominations of Christian in the world and each one believes and asserts that they alone have the truth. One would assume that 32,999 must be wrong! Muslims are instructed to convert or kill the world and it is a sentiment many ...
After the Second World War, the peculiar culture of the East End of London began to spread along the north bank of the Thames like gangrene on a septic wound. It infected that ancient countryside and turned it into an urban wasteland of narcissistic ...
When people called Jesus ‘The Nazarene’ what did that mean? If you are reading something from long ago or words that have been translated, it is always dangerous to assume you understand what the writer meant without asking and checking. No Woman, N ...
It’s not often that transcendental truth can be found in the eye of a Twitter storm but Joan Bakewell the famous face of the British progressive left, recently and unwittingly spoke for Jesus when she had the courage (or stupidity) to suggest that an ...
Both the advocates for religion, people like the late Ravi Zacharias, and those against it, people like Richard Dawkins, tend to focus exclusively on the scriptures. This has always struck me as somewhat strange, as though the written words themselve ...
Dr Steven DiMattei is probably the most clear sighted New Testament scholar working in the field of Biblical Studies today. What is even more remarkable is that his field of study is, in fact, the Tanakh ‘The Old Testament’ rather than the ‘New’. ...
Dr Steven DiMattei writes: What do we mean when we ask ‘What is the Bible?’ Think about it for a moment. Think about the question, about what the question might already assume or take for granted. Think about the ways in which we might respond to ...
It is Written Every religion since time began has tried to come up with an answer to the question of human suffering. Religions try to deal with our suffering by telling us what is good and what is evil. The implication of all religions is tha ...
All religions are based, more or less, on the same premise that only the spirit is real. Since the dawn of time, there has always been a man in a twenty-thousand dollar suit waiting to take advantage of your need to find meaning in your life. H ...
In May 2020, the famous Christian apologist, Ravi Zacharias, sadly passed away after losing his battle with cancer. Almost immediately, and somewhat inevitably, a host of women came forward to accuse the allegedly energetic septuagenarian Ravi of sex ...
Consider the following sayings attributed to Christ, three of which may well be from the common source. In order to confirm our suspicion let’s examine the text for philosophical coherence. “I am telling you, love your enemies, bless those who curse ...
Everyone wants to know what Evil is and how to avoid it. Nobody wants to suffer or cause suffering but most of us are blind to it. The Jesus of History taught the Narrow Gate as a way to overcome human suffering. Unfortunately, before you can 'ent ...
For some of you, this might come as a bit of a shock but the actual physical tomb of the Jesus of History was found in 1980. If that’s news to you, I can tell you why! Nearly everyone involved in Biblical archaeology has a ‘dog in the fight’ and none ...
Professor Karen Leigh King presented a papyrus, in 2012, to the International Congress of Coptic Studies called ‘The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife’. Prior to publication she had obtained confirmation of its authenticity. Nevertheless, a small group of pseudo ...
If we exhume the Jesus of History from the grave of the Christ myth, the evidence for an historical person on whom Christianity was based is overwhelming. Josephus The famous Jewish/Roman historian, Josephus, (writing around 90 CE) mentions ‘the de ...
Most people go through their lives like robots. Something happens, which they perceive to be good for them, in the short-term, and they have pleasant feelings. Is that happiness? Conversely, something happens to them that they perceive to be bad, ...
In India it is quite normal to see people defecate in the street. In fact, fifty percent of the people in India defecate in the open. Despite having a space program, in India you can wait for a train and watch people pooping on the tracks (http://www ...
Written Word Christianity has been a major part of Western culture for the last two thousand years and as a textual based religion it has programmed people to think of the written word as their spiritual datum. For two thousand years, people have be ...
What is the Self? If I asked you to point to the part of your body where your ‘self ’ lives, which part would you point to? So is your ‘self ’ in your brain? It has been shown that a human being can lose 95% of his brain and still have an IQ of 1 ...
The question is, 'Do Atheists Really Exist?' It's true that many people say that they don’t believe in God but that's not the same thing. Over 20% of the population call themselves atheists, but are they? There are a lot of people in the world ...
Christianity would be nothing without the idea of Satan or Lucifer as a rival to God. I’m sure you will have noticed by now the amazing similarity between the dualistic philosophy of the Gnostics and Christian dogma. Satan versus Jesus — the ide ...
After the 7/7 London bombings in 2005, a recording of the Islamic Terrorist, Mohammad Sidique Khan, was played on the world’s media in which Mr Khan explains why he felt compelled to murder fifty-six innocent people. He very eloquently and thoroug ...
On 27 March 1980 the underground tomb of the Jesus family was found. In 2007, James Cameron, the writer and director of films like Avatar and Titanic made a documentary with Simcha Jacobovici on the Lost Tomb of Jesus - most people have never he ...
The God in the Bible is a monster is such a common criticism, it's almost a cliche? The Bible consists of sixty-six books written between the 5th century BCE and 2nd century CE. All of the books were written by different authors for different audienc ...
Does everyone hate the Jesus of History? The Christian Church is entirely responsible for the fact that everyone, in the modern world, hates the Jesus of History. Popular ‘artists’ exhibit statues of him crucified in urine! Other ‘artists’ portray ...
Muslims are often more interested in the Jesus of History than Christians. If the Jesus of History returned tomorrow, if he was forced to make a choice, he would probably be a Muslim and why shouldn't he be? Christianity tends to assume that Christia ...
Was Jesus a God? In fact, more importantly, did the Jesus of History believe he was God? If you don't understand Greek and Hebrew culture and history it is very hard to make sense of the Gospels. Terms like 'The Son of Man' and 'Son of God' are t ...