Menorah

There is more than one kind of Jew

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 known world. Jewish nationalism and xenophobia turned inward and whispered quietly to itself in a language it hoped that no one else would understand. (Ref 1)

The Pharisees

The group we now call ‘Pharisees’ became Rabbinical Judaism and over the next one and a half millennia, the Rabbis brainwashed their own people and the world into thinking that there was only ever one legitimate form of Judaism and everything else was ‘idolatry’ and ‘filthy fornication’ – a childish and lazy slander but nevertheless effective. Just as Christians silence any suggestion of their Jewish roots with a Pavlovian shout of ‘Legalism!’ So too do Jews recoil from any suggestion that Jesus was in fact a Jew. (Ref 2)

Kabbalah

Unpalatable as it may be to some, but the truth is that prior to the cataclysmic events of the first century, common Jewish religious belief had stubbornly resisted the religious fanaticism of its own elites. I believe that the historical Jesus was a part of a popular religious movement and an Israeli religious school, which was firmly based in a uniquely Jewish vision of the universe and that this vision has survived hidden within the secret texts of Kabbalah to this day. Further, it is my contention that there is a relationship between the original Israeli understanding of God expressed in the images of ‘El’ and ‘Asherah’ and its modern counterpart in the eternal God and the Shekinah spoken of within modern Lurianic Kabbalah. (Ref 3)

Rabbinical Judaism

So why would I say such a thing? Modern Jewish thought and in particular several prominent Rabbis teach a vision of God which is without form and beyond all thought. Rabbi David Aaron, when speaking to liberal atheists, is fond of saying, “the God you don’t believe in, I don’t believe in either!” The horrific and violent Yahweh of the Torah is neatly sidestepped with the simple literary device of asserting that the stories don’t mean what they say they mean. A sensible but somewhat cowardly and disingenuous retort. But what if there is a deeper story hidden behind this paradox? What if, with the fall of the Jewish homeland and the rise of Rabbinical Judaism, it became too dangerous to express any vision antithetical to the opinion of the victorious Pharisees. What if the Israeli vision of God had to be hidden in order to protect it from the Judean elites? (Ref 4)

Two Countries

After the death of King Solomon just after the turn of the first millennium BC, the tribes of Benjamin and Judah split from Israel and set up a new capital in the south called Jerusalem and named their country Judah. Around this time the Judeans rejected ‘El’ of Isra EL and adopted a new form of God. (Ref 5)

Yahweh from the NegvThere is more than one kind of ‘God’

Yahweh was the mirror image of Marduk, a cosmic superman. This new Judean God was frighteningly capricious, prone to bouts of senseless anger, jealously and murderous rage. Where ‘El’ was without form and everything, Yahweh was a physical being. Yahweh was originally represented anthropomorphically. Where ‘El’ created through ‘word’ (Bara), Yahweh fashions with his hands (Yeser). (Ref 6)

Ark of the Covenant

 

Messengers

The worship of El and Asherah was focused on the mountain tops and wild groves, not in temples. Incense and olive oil was offered on a stone pillar. Asherah is represented to this day by the Menorah, describing as it does the unity and common source of all life. As God could not be grasped or seen by mortal man, angels were the messengers of El. El appeared to Moses as a light supported on the wings of angels. From the time of Jacob, the worship of El had been at Shechem in the north of the Jewish homeland. (Ref 7)

“The hosts of Heaven” is a euphemism for the study of phases of the moon and the procession of the Zodiac through the agricultural year. Internal textual and external archaeological evidence indicate that the original religious belief of the Jewish people was expressed within the images and ideas surrounding the God ‘El’ and an understanding of the hosts of heaven.

Conclusion

To summarise, I believe that this ‘Elohist’ vision of God as the ‘All’ and ‘Disincarnate’ within which all life is united was possibly one of the oldest and most popular among the common Jewish people, as we have seen in my ‘True Sayings of Jesus’ lecture series, the teachings of Jesus only make sense in the context of the Elohist religious framework.

I suspect that after the murder of Ya’akob, the brother of Rav Yeshua, in the Temple in Jerusalem, this popular Israeli Yeshiva went underground and eventually resurfaced in the twelfth century as, what we now call, Kabbalah.

And, Finally

Obviously, after fifteen hundred years the distinctions between Yahweh and El have been eroded to the point where they are virtually indistinguishable. Unfortunately, this leaves the forged stories of the Judeans inculcating the horrific Babylonian God Marduk with his anger and punishments that, to this day, are used by people all over the world to justify cruelty beyond imagination.

References:

  1. Jewish texts were kept in Aramaic or Hebrew and many Jews spoke Yiddish in the home. One of the most important reasons a people maintain their own language is to prevent full integration with the host culture. The result of this is that most Gentiles are unaware of the inherent racism and xenophobia within Rabbinic culture. The Rabbinic belief is that the Jewish soul itself is inherently superior to that of a Goy.
  2. The Talmud and Tanakh are divided on this issue. However, quotes where Goyim are denigrated are too legion to list here. Examples of the underlying contempt can be found all over the social media and in the news: http://www.independent.ie/world-news/middle-east/galilee-church-where-jesus-fed-the-5000-gutted-in-arson-attack-31312157.html
  3. Zohar (Beresheet A)
  4. The study of Kabbalah was banned by Rabbinic law until the sixteenth century. All forms of meditation were and are frowned upon despite the fact that the Torah and Tanakh are full of references to altered states of consciousness. Conservative (Judean) Jews to this day look on the work of Kabbalists with contempt.
  5. In particular I would recommend Dr Steven DiMattei’s work on ‘Contradictions in the Bible’. http://contradictionsinthebible.com/steven-dimattei/ – Genesis 33:20 Ya’akob builds a an altar to El – the God of Israel in Shechem – it is worth noting that El is a proper name. When the later Judean kings destroy what they call ‘idolatry’ it is the worship of El that they are destroying. The groves and high places where the people offered incense and libations, the Serpent Staff that God had given to Moses, all of these things were destroyed by the Judeans. Namely Hezekiah the son of Ahaz (2 Kings 18:4) and Josiah. It is interesting to note that no sooner do the Judean elites complete a religious persecution of El worship on the insistence of the priests than they are condemned for regressing back to the religion of their ancestors. Both Hezekiah and his son Abijah are accused of this as are most of the original ‘kings’.
  6. The similarities between Yahweh and Marduk are too numerous to list here. If anyone is interested, a ten minute Google search will prove conclusive. As an example: “He (Marduk) shall be ‘Lord of All the Gods’. . . . No one among the gods shall (equal) to him. —Enuma Elish Tablet VI:141 and VII:14 “Our God is above all gods . . . God of gods . . . Lord of lords.” —Hebrew Bible, Psalm 135:5 and 136:2, 3 – I would recommend Edward Babinski’s excellent blog for a succinct list of similarities: http://edward-babinski.blogspot.com.es/2012/07/israel-and-babylons-high-gods-yahweh.html
  7. The Northern Elohist vision was characterised by the visions of Ezekiel and Jacob – angels and mystic practice lead the aspirant to a direct relationship with El – the book the Sepher Yetzirah and the Zohar are perfect examples of the spiritual practices denounced by the Judean cult of animal sacrifice. The book called Yetzirah, which, it is believed, was available in first century Galilee inculcates an understanding of the Zodiac, Numerology and Mystic self-transformation.

If you enjoyed this blog, then you might like: Two Gods and Two Countries and Are there two Gods in the Bible?

Research Paper: The Jesus of History Versus Judean Supremacism

Non-Fiction Book – The True Sayings of Jesus: The Jesus of History Vs. The Christ Myth

Historical Fiction Book – The Last Letters of Jesus

The True Sayings of JesusThe Last Letters of Jesus

US and UK Flags

Is the Bible Fact or Fiction?

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 be history. The Synoptic Q-Source and the extra-biblical Q-Source leave us with many sayings that are almost impossible to understand if all we have of Jewish history is the New Testament.

When Jesus said ‘Judeans’ did he mean all Jews? What was his problem with Pharisees? Why disrupt the animal sacrifices? Why teach in the wilderness?

Talking Donkeys

Unfortunately, the Old Testament fares little better with talking donkeys, genocidal wars, and genital mutilation. History, archaeology and common sense would suggest caution when we approach these books. The Old Testament speaks of Jerusalem as the centre of a Davidic Kingdom, which stretched from Egypt to Damascus. There was only one legitimate form of Jewish religion and the books suggest that all the ills that befall the Jewish people are due to some ‘Failure’ of worship within this cult of animal sacrifice.

I would suggest that to understand what the historical Jesus might have meant and what might have been actually happening, you have to understand his past from his point of view.

America and England unite

Imagine, if you will, that America is attacked by China and its people seek refuge in England. Over hundreds of years it might become expedient to unite Northern Europeans, both American and English, against the Asian threat. A scribe in England begins to rewrite history, downplaying the importance of America and creating a narrative where London is the centre of the world and the English church ruled over the historical kingdom of America of which England was the centre. In this narrative all the presidents were idiots and God punishes them for their failings as Anglican Christians. The legends and memories used by the scribe are based on truth but they are twisted to mean something new, which advances this English/European agenda and justifies the authority of London over all Northern Europeans.

Israel was like America is now. It was based in the fertile north of Palestine and was big enough to be an Egyptian headache. Judea was an insignificant and barren wasteland centred around the village of Jerusalem (Ref 1). Israel was centred around Shechem and it was to Shechem that Davidic Kings went to be crowned (Ref 2).

Israel and JudahInvasion

Judea and Israel had coexisted for centuries. When the Assyrians invaded Israel in the north, the Israeli refugees fled to Jerusalem and we see a village with one water source explode into a city. The refugees bring with them their stories both written and oral. After the return from Babylon a movement toward unifying the Jewish people begins within the Judean elite (Ref 3).

The stories of the Israelis were spun to create the myth of Judean supremacism and a justification for Jerusalem and its Theocracy to assume authority over all Jews everywhere. It was through the appropriation of the Davidic legend that this was achieved.

Some religious movements within the Jewish people resented and rejected what they saw as the subversion of their religion, history and culture. We know from several contemporary sources that the Nazarenes rejected the Judean view, their forged books of Moses and the cult of animal sacrifice (Ref 4). When Jesus is reported as saying ‘Judeans’ it is very likely that he did actually mean, Judeans and not Jews as a whole. When he disrupted the Temple Sacrifices, it makes no sense to think he suddenly got upset about the money – this Judean cult had been running for 500 years.

Whose agenda?

In the book ‘The Last Letters of Jesus’ we get to see the temple from the Israeli perspective. It is very likely that the Judean cult of animal sacrifice was as offensive to the Nazarenes as it is to us. Suddenly many of the most obscure sayings of Jesus in the Q-Source start to make sense (Ref 5). The stories, legends and histories of the Jewish people are remarkably accurate covering, as they do, thousands of years but just like any history written at third hand, a long time after the fact, the Bible stories reflect the bias and agenda of the writer and in the case of most of the Old Testament, the bias and agenda was principally Judean. The fact that the New Testament utterly mistakes the context and implication of the words of Jesus is further proof that the New Testament was almost entirely written by Greeks and Romans (Ref 6).

References:

  1. A Great United Monarchy? Archaeological and Historical Perspectives, in: R.G. Kratz and H. Spieckermann eds. 2010. One God – One Cult – One Nation: Archaeological and Biblical Perspectives. Berlin (2010): 3-28.
  2. 1 Kings 12-13.
  3. Prof Israel Finkelstein: The forgotten Kingdom – the archaeology and history of northern Israel.
  4. Epiphanius of Salamis: The Panarion.
  5. Burton L Mack: The Q-Source.
  6. Bart D. Ehrman: How Jesus became God.

If you enjoyed this Blog, then you might like to read: Animal Sacrifice is Evil and Did Jesus believe in Sacrifice?

Research Paper: The Jesus of History Versus Judean Supremacism

Non-Fiction – The True Sayings of Jesus: The Jesus of History Vs. The Christ Myth

The True Sayings of Jesus

Historical Fiction – The Last Letters of Jesus

The Last Letters of Jesus

Angel Cloud

If not Christ why even bother with Jesus?

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?”

Truthfully, before I can answer these two, rather pertinent, questions I would have to insert the caveat that the relevance of the Jesus of History entirely depends on what you are looking for. Therefore, in order to clarify our terms of reference, I will need to make a bit of a digression, so please bear with me.

Angels and Eagles

MountainImagine, if you will, that I had climbed the mountain behind my house. I trained and prepared for months and months and after much effort I got to the summit. I could draw you a detailed map. I could list the items of equipment that you would need. I could stipulate the kind of clothing you would need to wear. I could even try to describe the view and I could say that ‘as the sun rose I saw angels flying with the eagles’ but without repeating my experiment for yourself the experience would remain forever beyond you.

You might choose to believe in my descriptions and you would be able to pass on those stories to other people but your belief would not have changed you. You could decide to worship the map as sacred and revere the stories of the angels as scripture but no matter how deeply you ‘believed’ it would not give you the wisdom and the strength of the actual experience.

Cult of the Mountain

Over the years you might become a priest of the cult of the mountain and dress as if for climbing. How you dress would now define your idea of yourself and you would shun anyone who is not like you and think of them as less. Indeed, you might reserve the cult of the mountain to only members of your race, as the chosen people of the mountain. You might mutilate the genitals of your children as a mark of your cult.

In your heart of hearts you suspect that there are no angels at the top of the mountain so any information or opinion that challenges your belief you resist violently. You would have achieved ‘belief without effort, superiority and belonging without the need to excel’. You might then feel well justified in violently subjugating the world to the will of the priests of your cult and avoid ever having your ‘belief’ challenged.

Belief, Knowledge and Wisdom

Groundhog DayFrom this little analogy we can say that ‘belief’ based on ‘knowledge’ is inherently empty. ‘Wisdom’, on the other hand, comes from work, change and direct experience.

To understand the importance of the teachings of the Jesus of history (if you will indulge me further) there is yet another detour we need to make. Do you remember the film, ‘Groundhog Day’? If not, I’m guessing that most people will be familiar with the film ‘Scrooge’?

In both films, a cruel and selfish man objectively sees his past, present and future and through the experience fundamentally connects to a reality of which we are all subconsciously aware. When Phil Connors realises that, contrary to his previous cynicism, every moment of life and everyone he meets is infinitely precious. That message resonates deep within all of us. If that were not true, these films and millions like them would not really work.

A separate Self

We all recoil when we watch yet another narcissistic suicide bomber lecture the world on why he feels aggrieved enough to go out and kill innocent people. We all mourn as yet another self-obsessed star, lost within the illusion of their own desires, manages to kill themselves.

The common denominator to all of these sad stories is the universal sensation of a separate self and the suffering that illusion causes. Phil Connors, the Islamic Terrorist, Scrooge, the sexually obsessed actor with a needle in his arm all choose themselves over something else.

That ‘something else’ is the opposite to the ‘illusion of the self’ and can be thought of as that mountain behind my house. The teachings of the Jesus of History were designed to get you to the top. They were designed to help you do something about ‘you‘. The Jesus of History taught that nobody but you can make that journey.

Nicene Creed

Nicene CreedPrior to the fall of Herod’s Temple and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, Hebrew spiritual life was extremely diverse. That destruction put an end to a religious reformation and civil war that had been raging since the fall of Israel to the Assyrians in 722 BC. In the first half of the first millennium, the Pharisees united what was left of the Jewish people and became what we now call ‘Rabbinical Judaism’.

It is true that the teachings of the Jesus of History can only really be understood when returned to their Jewish context but they go beyond the confines of Rabbinical Judaism. It is also true that the teachings of the Jesus of History have been accidentally preserved by Christians but they fundamentally contradict the Nicene Creed. It is true that the silent discipline and the required ‘mindfulness’ of Nazarene prayer is similar to Buddhist practice, but it sees the world as full of God rather than empty of reality and therefore infinitely precious.

So if you want to worship the map and if you feel the need to believe in the angels at the top of the mountain then I guess that the teachings of the Jesus History, and his example, are probably not for you.

The Narrow Gate

If, on the other hand, you want to climb the mountain for yourself but keep tripping over the stories told by ‘religions’ and their unhealthy preoccupation with the map; then, like me, you could well find that the words of the Jesus of History are the most profound spiritual teachings you have ever found.

The teachings of the Jesus of History include the ‘Two Ways’ and the ‘Narrow Gate’ doctrines. These teachings actually result in a form of Judaism that is, in many ways, much stricter than the ‘Rabbinical’ form but is free of its racial divisions. Where for many Jews the Mitzvah are cultural identifiers and totem objects, by focussing on and guarding the gate of intention they once again become tools that bring us closer to the ‘Mountain’ to which we are all connected.

Every life matters

The ‘Narrow Gate’ doctrine reveals all mental constructions of the self to be ‘idolatry’. Within the teachings of the Jesus of History, there is nowhere to hide. We cannot feel the satisfaction of being ‘saved’ through belief. Nor can we feel justified by an accident of birth and superior by virtue of our culture. We are, like Scrooge and Phil Connors, confronted by reality naked of the pretensions we clothe our self in and finally we learn that every moment and every life ‘matters’. In my opinion, this is why the teachings of the Jesus of History are so important and in a world torn apart by fundamentalist violence on every side we have never needed a way past ‘belief’ more.

If you enjoyed this Blog, then you might like: What did Jesus say and what did he actually mean?  and The Sayings of the Jesus of History

Research Paper: What did the Jesus of History Really Say – The use of forensic textual analysis based on philosophical coherence

Non-Fiction Book: The True Sayings of Jesus – The Jesus of History Vs. The Christ Myth

The True Sayings of Jesus

Synoptic Gospels

The Sayings of the Jesus of History

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 their idea of “God” is right and unless you agree, you must be wrong. I am not going to waste my time and yours telling you something you probably won’t even hear. This blog is concerned with and discusses the words of a man not a God.

Albert Mohler33,000 denominations of Christians in the world argue about who “Jesus” was and interpret his story differently. Some people have even resorted to making up their own Gospels and put ‘better’ words in the mouth of ‘Jesus’. If you are the sort of person that needs to believe in the Cosmic Christ or you need to believe in nothing, you might want to stop reading here; you won’t like where I am going.

Assuming you are still with me, let’s put our ‘idols’ to one side and just look at the facts logically. Let’s look for the original teaching of the historical Jesus using textual criticism and biblical archaeology. This is not to say that anyone else’s view is wrong, I am just saying that I am not looking for the same things as they are. I am not looking for another ‘idol’; I am not looking for a ‘God’.

I am just looking to understand, if I can, the mind of the man that said,

“The Kingdom of God is within you

if, indeed, he did?

Kingdom of GodLooking at the Gospels we notice that there are two kinds of exposition. There are a lot of ‘narrative stories’ and there are a series of ‘sayings’. Reading the Gospels horizontally, the narrative stories do not line up. They contradict each other and make factual errors in geography and culture. Once we look at the chronological sequence of the texts we have to accept that these stories were obviously written by people who did not know Palestine in the first century and did not understand Jewish culture. What does become glaringly obvious is that the narrative stories follow the evolution of ideas within the nascent Roman Church culminating in the Gospel of John. So rather than represent the unique and coherent vision of one man at one time, the ‘narrative stories’ are evidence of an evolution of a belief.

The sayings, however, do line up; the sayings are shared by the Synoptic Gospels and also with external texts. Revealing that they were copied from a common source. The source exhibits a particularly Hebrew world view and its syntax suggests an Aramaic and Hebrew origin. What it does offer is a coherent vision, as if from one man with a unique and profound philosophy.

What is most interesting is if we look at the ‘sayings’ from the point of view of meaning something dramatic happens. Look at the ‘sayings’ separate from the narrative stories, you will soon see that the philosophy expounded by the ‘sayings’ almost exactly contradicts the philosophy of the ‘narrative stories’.

The evolved Christian dogma of the ‘Narrative Stories’

  1. We are creations of God and are separate from ‘him’ and each other
  2. God’s love is conditional on our obedience and worship
  3. Inherent nature of life is depraved and evil
  4. The ‘elect’ through ‘belief’ find ‘salvation’ from a sinful world, while the rest of creation is damned
  5. Our actions are irrelevant
  6. Cosmic Christ as a sacrifice for sin

Original ‘Sayings’ dogma

  1. We are all ONE with God and each other
  2. God’s love is unconditional and eternal – we judge ourselves
  3. Inherent nature of life is divine
  4. Light of the Creator is constantly available to all – requiring only that we turn toward him
  5. Our actions are vital to the evolution of the world
  6. The most important thing about the Jesus of History was his sayings

Don’t take my word for it – research the texts for yourself.

It seems sad to me that many of the ‘made-up’ Gospels of recent centuries, like the Gospel of the Holy Twelve and the Aquarian Gospel, while trying to reform the Church, ultimately cling to so much that is antithetical to the original sayings, like concepts of sacrifice and atonement, that they manage to refute themselves.

Just as Progressive Christians of today are fighting so hard to change the Pauline Church into their own image while ignoring the obvious fact that the philosophy inculcated within the original ‘sayings’ already gives them the affirmation they instinctively know they deserve.

Many people can only think in terms of the Cosmic Christ and that is fine for them. I cannot visualise the eternal in terms of a Native American Indian and that does not make me any less.

I offer these observations, only to gently suggest that for some of us there might be an alternative to Atheism, the Roman Church or Calvinistic Hell. From my research, I have concluded that just the ‘sayings’ alone will take me a lifetime to come to terms with and try to understand. I feel no need to add more.

If you enjoyed this Blog, then you might like to read: What did Jesus say and what did he actually mean?

Research Paper: What did the Jesus of History Really Say – The use of forensic textual analysis based on philosophical coherence

The True Sayings of Jesus: The Jesus of History Vs. The Christ Myth

The True Sayings of Jesus