I believe that the majority of this thread has been a load of hooey. I would love to see some citations from scholarly sources for the false history being portrayed here.
I will pray for you.
"God against the Gods" -Jonathan Kersh.
"Origin of Pagan and Christian Beliefs" Ed Carpenter.
"Jesus the Magician" -Morton Smith.
"The Christ" - (I think the author's name was Degobert or something similar. He was a popular Biblical historian from the 1920s in France).
Those are just a few recent reads.
Also of interest would be
"The Hiram Key" by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas - which is mostly about freemasonry but has a LOT of information about the Essenes and the early pre-Roman Christians.
I have studied this stuff on and off for more than 20 years. I noticed when I read the Bible cover to cover the first time (at age seven) that a lot of what I had been taught in Church was basically not true, and that a lot of claims made did not really add up.
For example, the Bible is FILLED with contradictions. Probably the best examples being the different versions of Paul's conversion story.
Look at some examples where the Bible says Christ was coming back soon in the Disciples lifetime, including John 321:22-23; Romans 13:11; Corintiahsn 7-29-31; 10:11, 15:51-52, First Thessalonians 4:15-18, First Timothy 6:14, Second Timothy 4:1-3, James 5:8-9; Hebrews 1:1-2 and 8:13; Peter 1:20 4:7, 17 and Jude 17-23.
But he didn't.
• Matthew 2:13-15 says immediatly after his birth Jesus family fled to Egypt to avoid Herod's massacre, an account that does not jibe at all with Luke 2:21-39, which is very different having the family go to Jerusalem after his circumcision and then returning to Nazareth and making an annual return to Jerusalem every year after that
• Judas hanged himself in Matthew 27:5 but in Acts he falls and splits himself open (presumably on a sword) (Acts 1:18).
Ask the typical protestant minister a question about this stuff and you get a nonsensical answer like "I will pray for you." Because typically they don't know- they have not studied this stuff. They just study doctrines and never wonder about WHERE those doctrines really came from or when. Let alone why.
Just like their followers, most of them have never sat down and read the Bible from beginning to end in order. They read it like they want you to read it. A line here a chapter there, a passage over there, out of order. Out of context.
Could you get anything out of any 700 page book read that way?
When you understand that in the original Pentatuch, (old testament) written in the 8th century B.C.E., there isn't a clearly monotheistic statement to be found, and that a century later the author of Deuteronomy has Joshua threatening the Israelites and making sure they became monotheistic under threat of being destroyed, and that the different semetic tribes that became "the Jews" worshipped a pantheon prior to that, it makes it easier to understand why god behaves one way in one story and an entirely different way in another.
It was stories about different gods.
It also makes you understand why "God" rushes back to the other "gods" in Genesis and says "now they shall be as us."
Organized religion is about politics. And just as politics changes and evolves over time, so did organized religion.
As per what Swampdoc says, Scott Bidstrup notes,"Virtually every story surrounding Jesus, whether it be the virgin birth (borrowed from the myth of the birth of Tammuz, a pagan god from northern Israel who was supposed to have been born of the virgin Myrrha), the miracle stories found in the Bacchus and Isis cults, the betrayal and crucifixion, were part of one or more of the pagan religions of the time. "
Remember, the Essenes was the church started by Jesus and John the Baptist that was run by James, Jesus' brother. That is what Christianity was SUPPOSED TO BE.
The Essenes were so admired even the Romans left them alone because of their pious, blameless lives.
On the other hand....
The other Christian groups, especially the one started by Paul were HEAVILY influenced by Greek myths and religions and the Greek veiw of things.
For example, a lot of the Hercules myth wound up being retread in the way Jesus was viewed by the early Greek influenced Christians. In the myths, Hercules was known as "The Savior" and Hercules toiled to benefit mankind and was often tortured on behalf of humanity. When he died on Mt. Oetna, the human part of him burned away and the divine part ascended to Mt. Olympus with his heavenly father, Zeus....
So you have a savior who is part human, part son of god, who dies for humanity and is ressurrected as a god. Other examples would be Tammuz, Mithra, etc...
What it boils down to is this. Jesus said and did what he said and did for the best of reasons. IE that if we would follow those teachings we really and truly would be living in the Kingdom of God. No wars. No crime. No hatred. A true paradise on earth.
Jesus called himself "The Son of Man" and taught that we are all children of a divine parent and thus should treat each other as family with love and tolerance and understanding. Which divine parent is not important, nor are the miracles done. What is important is the message. A message that gets glossed over because Political types know that it is hard to get you to stop being selfish or self oriented, so they babble on about things like souls, the after life and such. Jesus knew that if we lived a life of love and brotherhood we would benefit spiritually.
Remember, Appolonius of Tyanna was a contemporary of Jesus, and he went around performing miracles too. He also cast out demons and healed people and charged nothing. In his time, he was actually better known than Jesus. The only reason we still remember Jesus today is becuase of politics and because Jesus had a MESSAGE that was different than anybody else in those days. A message about selflessness.
Politicians created an organized religion out of Christianity and starting in the fifth century A.D. they started converting people ....First by influence, later by bribery and by the tenth century by forcible conversion at swords' point.
Organized religion is not about that. Its not about benefitting you or god. Its about benefitting whoever is in charge.
If 90 percent of the earth's resources are controlled by 10 percent of the population there really is enough for everybody if we just share and live as family.
This was a pretty radical message in a time when folks did not put much effort into charity and such when Jesus walked the earth. 300 years later, politicians decide to use this new movement to base an organized religion about it for purely political reasons. From 325 a.d. to today, you have people schisming off, borrowing the Roman book, the Roman doctrines and the Roman dogmas, but notice nobody seems to be trying to go back and recreate Christianity as it was in Christ's time. Its just "do it yourself" Catholocism run by a local minipope.
Those doctrines and those doctrines are not important. What is important is what Jesus said and taught. Jesus said and taught love, not fear and not hatred.
Organized religion cannot exist without fear and hatred, because Organized Religion is a tool used by people to advance themselves, not God or man.
The truth will set you free.
