I love this stuff Tereza, even though the nature of the possible deception at play is quite dark and disturbing, and i'm glad I have found a fellow Wholesome Bible Conspirator: you have clearly been at this longer than I have, and I very much come at it from an outsiders perspective in being raised fundamentally anti-religious and anti-Christianity.
The more I learn about the Good Book, the more it seems founded in inversion - profound truths packaged and delivered for the end result of serving and reinforcing power - so this political bait and switch definitely rings true. The most blatant red flag for me was when I learned that the dude's (if he did exist) name wasn't even Jesus, and that "J" doesn't even appear in the Hebrew language.
Not sure if this fits into the broader thesis you are discussing here, but a popular Gnostic-leaning YouTuber who I have been following for a while (who has some eye-wateringly spicy takes on the true nature of The Bible) makes the convincing case that the Jesus story and The Gospels in general are appropriated from the Gospel of Marcion: https://youtu.be/pzwqSPWKcOA
The spiciest spiritual take I have seen is that Jesus/Yeshua is actually a slight watering down of the Lucifer/Prometheus archetype: the original wronged one, the serpent in the garden, who was merely trying to free humanity from its oppressive spiritual overlords (we might interpret this materially as the church, clergy etc, or spiritually as the Archons/Demiurge) and was sacrificed to them for his efforts. So: Christianity is essentially, from an archetypal perspective, the cult of Lucifer: which would explain much about the psychopathically freedom-orientated, self-obsessed and "merit"-based imperialistic culture of the West and the US in particular (he/she is right there in The Statue of Liberty, after all).
Now that The Coronaspiracy and its position within the broader Germ Conspiracy is winding down (for the time being, until pandemics become wholly removed from nature and completely simulated in the metaverse) The Bible Conspiracy feels like the most urgent wombat hole to be explored. I have written a few different articles from different angles about how The Bible appears to have been manipulated in order to manipulate - this is one of my oldest one's that I just republished that, as promised, contains a wholesome wombat video at the end: https://downthewombathole.substack.com/p/a-biblical-case-of-lost-in-translation
More recently, I have been trying to point people towards the OT concepts of the Shemitah/Shmita and Jubilee, and how they provide an almost perfect framework within which to understand the current economic and social disruption we are passing through: we are likely halfway through Jubilee, and we can expect a ramping up of chaos before our current 50 year cycle ends around September: https://downthewombathole.substack.com/p/the-shemitah-the-jubilee-and-whats
Glad that you're enjoying this wombat hole, Isaac, and I'll watch and read your links with relish.
Yes, one of the key signifiers of an actually historical figure would be their name ;-) Josephus, however, is famous for his plays on words, and all the letters in Jesus are in his name, the same way he changed Judas the Sicariot to Judas Iscariot.
Rather than seeing the Bible as dark, see it as an indication of how good and kind people might be naturally if they hadn't been confused by this substitution of hate for love.
One of the difficulties of presenting this material is that people who know it well tend to be believers and those who reject it don't know it well enough to understand what it says. I went to Catholic grade school, HS and college, starting as a religion major. Then picked my interest back up after I had my third daughter at 41. So I do know it inside-out, which is how I now see it ;-)
I'll have to think about how Lucifer fits in. Someone else here (unless that was you) also mentioned him.
The theme I see repeating in the OT is the second son who turns out to be more beloved to the father than the first, and takes the first's inheritance (which under primogeniture would have been everything.) It's there in Cain and the third son, Seth. Cain loses the inheritance by supposedly killing Abel, so Seth is the favorite. Cain is similar to Canaan as Seth is to Shem.
Then there's Jacob who tricks his blind father into giving him the inheritance of Esau. There are lots more, including the youngest son Joseph where there's a lot more to say.
This fits the Josephus story as the adopted second (and perhaps actual) son of Caesar, with Titus who reconquered Jerusalem being the actual son. More on this to come.
I used to think the Jubilee was a good idea. However, what it does is keep the debt cycle going. And since Hebrews could never sell their land, only lease it, it always reverted to its 'real' owners.
Interesting that it's called the Shemitah, eh? When Shem was deemed ruler of the whole earth?
I'm not sure how I never connected the dot from Shemitah to Shem! And Josephus down to Jesus: my goodness they love their word play, don't they?
"Rather than seeing the Bible as dark, see it as an indication of how good and kind people might be naturally if they hadn't been confused by this substitution of hate for love."
Yes, thankyou. I certainly don't think it is dark: as it is ultimately there to be what we each personally take out of it. But it has been used for such purposes, as have as all religious scriptures (while I have never been Christian, I was active in a very little known Abrahamic religion called the Baha'i Faith for a few years).
The Lucifer angle comes from a more archetypal (I said spiritual before, which probably isn't the best word) angle. Basically, that each Biblical story and character operates as both reflecting a part of the journey of humanity and actual world history, but also the internal journey we must go through (Genesis to Revelation can also be seen in that context of personal awakening). I think I am stealing that last part straight from Emanuel Swedenborg.
Oh, I didn't mean to say the Bible isn't dark. The more you see what's really there, the more sinister and macabre it becomes. I had to give up my favorite hermitage because knowing they were chanting the praises of a bloodthirsty traitor was too much cognitive dissonance.
I've been commenting on William's stack about the word archetype. I wondered if it was related to archon or ruler, which the etymology confirms. But he's talking about the King Archetype, so it particularly fits.
And Swedenborg! The only journal to have published me is their Chrysalis Reader in a story called The Gnostic and the Atheist. I also think the Baha'i are very cool. I like the eclectic approach. But maybe they're more cultish than I know?
The Baha'is are for the most part very cool (and Persian food is my fave). They have the best approach to systematic and spiritual community building that I have come across. But there is a very strong cult apparatus that runs underneath it: this is the only way, institutions must not be questioned, questioners must be shunned and/or literally treated like a cancer and cut off from the Faith etc.
It describes a righteous man named Yesus (also known as Buda) who went to the East and studied there for years, then returned and did all sorts of great deeds.
You'll also probably enjoy reading Mauro Biglino (many interviews w/him on Youtube).
Hi Dave! Thanks for sending me these links. Very interesting. I looked first at Mauro Biglino, and I think I'd find his translations from the Hebrew of 19 books of the OT fascinating. I'll be doing another episode on Jewish scriptures, about which I also have much research calling into question their origins from an oppressed people vs. dynastic rulers. But as I replied to Mark, there is no Hebrew or Aramaic story of Jesus, either written or oral.
One of my go-to translations of the gospels is by Willis Barnstone, who translated directly from the Greek. What he found was that later translations have 'softened the blows' of how viciously Jesus attacks his fellow Jews in his speeches. I think this shocked Willis, who is a gentle person, but as an honest scholar he decided to translate verbatim. If you look at Jesus without assuming his divinity, he's not a very nice person. We have a handful of sayings that get quoted a lot but there are others that you can't imagine someone we think of as spiritual--Thich Nhat Hahn or the Dalai Lama for instance--saying such mean things.
Miracles are not stunts for self-aggrandizement, imo or the teachings of A Course in Miracles. They're the recognition that other people are part of you, and the evidence that we are One. Jesus was the opposite of this in promoting only himself, and rewarding those who 'believed' that he, and only he, was beloved as God's true son.
What Judas the Nazarene and Zakok the Pharisee taught, with their deeds, was that there was nothing to fear and no one could hurt you when you stood up for the equality and sovereignty of all. Resurrection is inclusive and ongoing. Death and pain are not your rulers, no matter how ruthless your adversary is. Isn't that more powerful than one person's great deeds?
"Resurrection is inclusive and ongoing. Death and pain are not your rulers, no matter how ruthless your adversary is. Isn't that more powerful than one person's great deeds?"
Agree. But I think that, combined with Eastern teachings of metaphysics even more powerful.
These are different narrators, different channel names. The voices, other than both being male, are distinctly different. The emails on the about page are different, with the Servus Christi one predating the other by seven years and seeming to be a collective led by a Joshua Chavez. I don't see a point to the question.
Joshua, Servus Christi, has admitted he owns the other channel.
The voices use different recording equipment, otherwise phonation, annunctiation, vocabulary and rate are identical.
That aside, he's already come out and acknowledged it.
So the question remains. Why? Other than maybe the obvious: monetization.
In one he promoted nordic pagan religion supremacy, indo-european supremacy. In the other he purports to be a follower of Christ.
Why be disingenuous that way? Who is he trying to fool or lead astray? If anyone? Or just a money gig?
If you have a spare 24 hours to watch both series, I think it becomes clear.
If there's genuine interest I could elaborate further. For now, maybe those with eyes and ears might see/hear it, but it would take a bit of investigating into the video's themselves.
They both have about 75k subsrcribers each, and loads of ads on the video's. I'm suggesting that's the easy way to dismiss why he's doing it. The other side of that coin, is to spread half truths. If you take time, if you have it, to watch the series. I'm almost through the Asha Logo's Subverted History (Oera Linda Book) one. Half is true. In the other, what does he have to gain by being pro Bible though?
I was responding to your previous comment, paraphrased:
"Thanks, I'm going to listen to both of those, but can you give a few highlights to tease others into listening?" (edited)
What I'm saying is that they're the same person narrating, making the video's, owning the channels. It's the same person. Listen long enough you'll understand.
The Servus Christi one pretends to be a Christian. It attacks other denominations, particularly the Catholic Church. The other is mostly anti-Christian, attacking the Roman/Gothic/Christians and promoting norse pagan religion mostly.
Why would someone play two seemingly opposite roles? What sort of game is he playing?
He narrates on screen in the Servus Christi persona.
I've watch several video's of both channels. He gets a lot of his history wrong, and contradicts himself many times over.
The channels are fairly "informative" and video's well done, but why would he play opposing roles?
It's not just the voice. He's been outed in different mediums. Same guy. The question remains and if you have time to go through enough of his video's you'll figure it out too, what is he trying to destroy?
Tereza - I both love this post and it makes my head spin. My friend and I have commented all through the pandemic that we feel rather 'lucky' that we can see the manipulation and lies - but what else are we missing? What other lies are we buying? We, like you, come back to being no different than those around me, that I am not special or unique in cutting through the bs, we just have backgrounds that gave us a leg up this time around.
This revealing of "Jesus" and the Bible and seeing it as bits put together for manipulation and power purposes - it is not surprising, but it boggles me. My whole family is built upon religion. In my ring of aunts and uncles I count 8 religious professionals - pastors, missionaries, chaplain, and professor. And pastors line the way in the paternal ancestors for all the generations that I know. So I feel protestant religion thickly, even though its been a long time since I identified as a Christian. I guess what boggles me is - are all these religious professionals working for a lie???? I've only recently come to place of finally releasing a lot of old anger at the church and religious people, and figured I could glean the goodness from the original intents and original message that Jesus was living. Is there anything useful in the Bible? Or is it all distorted, now knowing it's origins of manipulation and control?
Such excellent questions, marta, and not ones I have a clear answer to. Here's my suspicion: like any propaganda, I think the Bible has skewed the truth to serve its purpose. The editing of the NT under Constantine was done under armed guard and those who disagreed with his interpretation were banished. His vision was a cross in the sky in battle saying, "Under this sign, conquer." James Carroll, a devout Catholic, came to these realizations hard that he put in his book Constantine's Cross.
I too have grown up surrounded by Catholics, in particular, and kept my association with it as an adult, although it became more nuanced. Some of the most committed people I know are radical Catholics--funny, caring, full of compassion and integrity. That led me to engage in the research I did on the Bible, never thinking that I'd come to this conclusion but unable to deny the evidence. Honestly, it seemed like a topic that had picked me rather than the other way around. I held out my hand, and some new data point would drop into it, often when I wasn't looking at all.
What I've come to believe is that truth and goodness are inherent in us, and we project that truth and goodness onto the Bible, using it as a tool. But it's a tool that was designed to fit empire's hand, where it can be wielded destructively to undo everything we've laboriously built.
If my suspicions are correct, the Bible set us back 2000 years in shaking empire off our backs. What Judas and Zakok taught through the gnostics and zealots are what we're rediscovering now.
My advice is to file it away in a corner of your mind as a possibility and see what your experience tells you. Religion empowers good people to do good and necessary things. We have so little community left, and they fill that niche with rituals, gatherings, wisdom, faith that there's meaning in life, and faith in each other.
Lonely as it was, I decided that I would hold this knowledge within myself and not create internal conflict for my beloved monastery monks. But it was too much conflict for me to be around it, so I left. You're welcome for giving this conflict to you ;-) Seriously, however, there are two decisions--whether to see something and what to do about it. Release yourself from the second and let your life lead you towards whatever is useful for you.
Haha, thanks for sharing the inner conflict with me. It's ok - I've handled this conflict for so long anyways, it's just one more reveal about the Bible and the church, plus all the reveals that keep happening in our world these days! I was a church musician for years, and it was such a grind to hold the conflict then. Now after a long hiatus, I'm returning to church music subbing and finding much more enjoyment in it now and less attachment to the teachings on Sundays.
One mentor of mind is saying that the energy is changing so much so fast that the old ways of manifesting aren't working in ways people had figured out previously anymore. I think she alluded to The Secret, which is not something that I am knowledgeable about. I haven't read the Course in Miracles either, but your dedication to it inspires me to consider it. Thoughts on this perspective, if you care to muse on this?
Oh I definitely relate to your friend's statement that the energy is changing so much so fast. I feel like the ground under me is zooming forward these days, it's all I can do to keep my balance.
Right now my meditations from the Workbook are supposed to be done the first five minutes of every waking hour. I've had a couple of unscheduled days so I've set my alarm for every hour and then start the five minute timer. My daughter's been doing it too when she's in the room. It's been interesting to have those hourly resets.
I never feel like I have the big reveals like some people but it continues to make logical sense to me, and to ring true. I'm sort of a plodder, I just keep putting one foot in front of the other. But it always feels new to me, I keep finding things I could swear weren't there the last seven times I've done it. As the friend said when I first heard about it, it's not for everyone. But if you're asking, it might be right for you.
Very interesting stuff, thanks. I should try to find Joe Atwill's book.
Although I was raised as an Episcopalian, went to an Episcopal grade school, and probably went to church a thousand times, the religion never really "took" in me, and I remained an agnostic. So I'm quite ignorant about biblical scholarship. The only reading I've done on this subject is "The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins", by Burton Mack. If I remember correctly, the idea there was that scholars have used textual analysis to show that there was a lost proto-Gospel that preceded the canonical Gospels, which they call Q. This was a "sayings" Gospel, that had none of the familiar stories of Jesus' divinity, miracles, etc. Q shows Jesus to be a kind of itinerant philosopher in the Stoic tradition. If you've read this book, can you say whether this fits in with what you're saying about the Gospels?
Thanks Mark! I like your use of the word agnostic, as in 'I don't know' rather than atheist. I often see atheism as a rejection of the God of the Bible but it first gives the Bible the power to define God. I call myself a gnostic because I think that, if there is a God, that God would want to be knowable. I'm not dogmatic about whether God exists but I refuse to entertain the possibility of a God who wants pain, death and suffering as proof of our love. We're better off believing we created ourselves out of monkey genes than believing in a sadistic God.
I did read Lost Christianities by Bart Ehrman but not The Lost Gospel. Thank you for reminding me about Q! I had been trying to remember the term for the hypothetical proto-Gospel. The Jesus Seminars talked a lot about Q. One of the things they voted on was the authenticity of the sayings attributed to Jesus. If I'm remembering, 70% of them were not, either because they'd been attributed already to someone earlier or they referred to events that happened later.
One of the most significant facts I gleaned from the JS was about proto-Q: the oral tradition that was presumably in Aramaic that preceded any written version in Greek, since we know there's no Aramaic written version. But scholars have found that the parables of Jesus use tropes and plays on words that only make sense in Greek. If Jesus was an itinerant philosopher speaking to Judean peasants, he'd be telling stories in Aramaic.
And then there's the story of 'No prophet is respected in his hometown' when Jesus goes back to Nazareth, walks into the temple and reads scripture from the scroll and teaches, and they try to throw him off a cliff but he walks through the mob unharmed. No archeological evidence of any temple in Nazareth. 90% illiterate, so no scrolls. But most importantly, NO CLIFF! Cliffs don't come and go that you can throw a man off of. Jerusalem, however, birthplace of Josephus, has all of these things.
"I refuse to entertain the possibility of a God who wants pain, death and suffering as proof of our love."
Same here. I know C.S. Lewis has written about this, but it's been a while since I've read his stuff.
The story of Elisha calling on God to send a she-bear to kill the kids who were teasing him was one of the things that caused me to turn away from the church. I just couldn't accept the idea that teasing someone for being bald could be a death sentence.
1 - Instead of Monkey, please use Primate or Hominid genes. monkeys are current day ancestors.
2 - Also, Big Sur is closed due to Slides on HWY 1. :)
3 - Thanks for the power lens of Empires. It does make tons of sense. Psyops for the retention of power over time.
I'm not too scholarly in this area, but I can see the basics. I think you present a fair argument, without having to claim you know it all. You have achieved malleable thinking. Congrats.
And yes, I heard about Hwy 1 when my daughter tried to drive to San Diego from Santa Cruz on 1. She thought it was the 101 but they'd left a couple of numbers off. But that got her back for another night before they tried again the next day ;-)
Fits with my own biases that we as humans became entranced with some idea we could be better off and oh so superior to our fellow animals thousands of years ago. Everything since has been a long slow fall from Grace. Buying into some hucksters dream of paradise in a series of psyops. I see them everywhere. They permeate our literature, art, science, architecture. I physically recoil from their existence whenever and wherever I encounter them. Thanks for this particular synthesis. Reminds me of the Dylan line:
“Nobody has to guess that baby can’t be blessed ‘til she sees finally that she’s like all the rest.”
Well first off in defence of Naomi (as if she would need that, lol).
My interpretation of 'I am a poor boy' is : I may be a mentally well exercised person, my emotional side is hardly developed and definetly not integrated 'to be in the moment' in an authentic way.
So in that sense I am a poor boy, but i am well aware of that :).
Writing a book and publicize it in a totaliterian regime requires not courage, it requires cunning.
Knowing the near future makes that the wordings are veiled. What better way to publish and get it distrubuted by the very opponent : do some clever ass-kissing and lay it on !
Make it a manual that needs a person in the know to show how to really interpret it.
And that resulted in the best published work in millenia : the Bible !
Now i am off perusing the rest of this well filled article.
I'm glad you're defending Naomi. In the video, I really didn't emphasize how much I love her and her ideas, which I tried to correct in the text version. I have her book, The End of America, from 2007 and it's remarkably prescient.
At some point the reading of 'Blessed are the poor' became 'Blessed are the poor in spirit.' That made no sense to me, isn't spirit where we want to be rich? I suspect, Leo, that God created you perfect, perfect in your emotional authenticity that's responding to this moment in exactly the right way. How could it be otherwise from a perfect God?
It's not the belief in God where I differ from the Bible, it's the belief in sin (which I see as an acronym for seeing inferiority) and evil and the exclusivity of one person being loved by God more than the rest of us. The Bible has justified slavery, colonization, war, torture, environmental destruction. No single document or institution has caused more pain and suffering in history. Is that because human nature is flawed or because we've been fooled? If the latter, it can be corrected and not perpetuated into the future.
Yay! Thank you for this. there must be at least a 100 books along these lines. the christ conspiracy, How Jesus became god, Jesus the Egyptian, The messianic legacy, ... and so on, But, a really pleasurable read, i must recommend, was The darkening age by Catherene Nixey. But really, a god who created the whole magnificent cosmos, will not be communicating anything to us through a book. that is probably always a man mad religion psyop. always.
Really enjoyed the article Tereza. Your experience with the book "Caesar’s Messiah" reminds me of my experience in a very conservative Baptist Seminary back in the early 80s. I can see myself throwing a book like that across the room too but, later going back and taking another look. Actually, reading other (not approved) books gave me a different view or, at the very least, it opened my mind to other possibilities. But, I was in the minority. Everyone there followed the conservative line, except me. While in school I eventually came to realize I wasn't the genius I thought I was but, I also realized that my teachers and my fellow students were locked in their dogma and not letting up. Their 'dogma' shown much brighter than mine. Just so you know, I was a devout Christian before my 'education'. After graduation I don't think I ever set foot in another church except for weddings and funerals. If Jesus is real and He wants to help me believe, all He has to do is appear to me like he did Thomas. Thomas was close to Jesus and still didn't believe. He had to be shown. To me, and evidently Thomas, it definitely takes more than 'faith' to believe the story of the resurrection. I personally need more proof rather than an unverified story about it. You definitely shed light on the story today.
On another note: Looks like someone else inquired about "Jesus: Rebel or Imperialist?" just a few weeks ago. I also see that you haven't found and posted it yet. Please try again. I know you're a busy lady and it may be time for you to enlist a helper. Thanks so much for sharing your mind with the world. Can't speak for others but I'm impressed. Guess it's time for me to upgrade so you can get the help you desperately need.
Ray, thank you! So funny that you read this one and responded. I was just thinking that we needed a new term to describe the Biblical form of Christianity--Jesuscentrism. The first question is whether the Christ is a what or a who. Is it the Mind that recognizes we're all One or the belief that one person was more beloved by God than all the rest of us put together?
The two are mutually exclusive, obviously. In the same way, I distinguish between Torah/ OT Semitism that says God gives some the right to rule others and the Judaism of the zealots who said all people were equal and free, and revolted against the Roman empire. I don't know if you've seen this one: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/the-devil-and-naomi-wolf.
And the issue of Thomas is VERY interesting. The name means Didymous or double/ twin. If the gospels are written as duplicitous, with the truth twisted within them, it's significant that his full name is Judas Thomas or Thomas Judas, I forget which. And, as I mention here, I think, the two who introduced the Christ-mind (if my theory is correct) were Judas the Galillean, the Nazarene, the Healer and Zadok or Saduc the Pharisee whose followers were the Saducees.
You are, Ray, the perfect audience for my research--someone who's intimately familiar with the Bible but not a believer. It's a hard combination to find because people who just dismiss it don't get the significance of how it's fooled us into following the empire for 2000 yrs.
And darn! I just arrived at my hometown to work on my AirBnB for three weeks, and my computers with my old files are at home. I'm going to look into transferring my domains to a new host and see if I can restore that one but it's a bigger job. The gist of that article, which is my most scholarly, is that it takes the Greek word that translates as thief or robber in the NT and finds every use of it in Josephus' War of the Jews. In all cases, it means rebel, revolutionary, insurgent. That's who was being crucified. Then I look at the gospel uses and how that flips the script, so that the 'Good Thief' is the one who repents and says Jesus was never one of them, and the 'Bad Thief' says "I did it and I'd do it again because people deserve to be free."
And thank you for recognizing that I desperately need help on the technology side! For the time being, I'm okay on the money side and didn't want to create a two-tier system for readers. But I very much appreciate your kind intent and your interest, which means the world to me!
Tereza, many thanks for giving me the opportunity to read this post. It’s really interesting!
As you know, I’m no scholar and haven’t studied religious matters as deeply as you have. However, having done a little reading of different sources, I would offer the following: I don’t think the Romans quite invented Jesus. I think they reinvented him and subverted/reinvented his teachings to create a control and harvesting mechanism that met their political objectives, to serve the empire.
I don’t think the Flavians “created Christianity” either. What they created was The Church of Rome. The British Apostolic Church had already been founded by Joseph of Arimathea (Saint Ilid) in AD 37, decades before “Christianity” arrived in Rome, and more than five centuries before The Vatican sent Augustine to convert the British to The Church of Rome.
Constantine The Great was himself raised in the British Apostolic Church. His mother was the British Empress, Saint Helen of The Cross. Constantine understood the church and the power it had.
I tried to read your article “Jesus: Rebel or Imperialist” but the link appears to be broken.
I don’t think that you and I disagree about very much. The conclusions I have come to are that The Church of Rome is a political institution masquerading as a church, and the New Testament is political propaganda interwoven with religious teachings.
I think you're right, Tirion, that we don't disagree about the important things. And what I have to offer is how the same details look from the perspective of my and Atwill's theory. What I once envisioned was a side by side interpretation of the gospels, showing how a traditional narrative would fit and how our propaganda pov would read the same passage. I think that systematic approach is the only way you could really establish enough data points to show definitively an overall pattern.
So Joseph of Arimathea has really interested me because he shares the name of Josephus and is from a wealthy family like Josephus. Could they be the same? And Arimathea, I believe, means son of Mathew or the Greek version of that--another version of the gospel and family name for Josephus. They typically alternated names in generations, so the son was the same as the grandfather and the son's son the same as his father.
And Constantine's Cross by James Carroll is a great read, I don't know if it's in audio. Yes to the NT being political propaganda interwoven with religious teaching! And yes, my whole thirdparadigm.org website got 'disappeared' soon after my Naomi Wolf article linking to some OT episodes. Most likely a coincidence since my provider has gotten shadier and shadier. I'll get it off an older computer when I'm home and read it into a new episode. Thanks for your careful reading of this!
No, I don’t think Josephus Flavius and Joseph of Arimathea (JoA) were the same person. JoA was probably already dead and buried by the time Josephus Flavius was writing. JoA’s grave on the site of the ancient Church of St Mary in what is today Bute Park, Cardiff can still be visited today.
Arimathea is a reference to Mesopotamia, the ancient land of the Arameans/Arimatheans. According to Strong’s Concordance (H.758), “Aram” means Syria (Aramea) and its inhabitants (Arimatheans), also the name of a son of Shem.
JoA re-located to Britain with other members of The Holy Family in AD 37. They established the British Apostolic Church. JoA was chaplain to the young Bran, King of Britain. To Gweirydd/George, King of Britain, JoA presented a white flag with a red cross, which is now the flag of England and at the center of the Union Jack. There is a document recording a grant of land from King Gweirydd/George to JoA for the establishment of an abbey.
The Holy Family had at least two reasons for fleeing to Britain: firstly, in AD 37, Britain was still outside the Roman Empire; and, secondly, their kith and kin were already there. Around 1500 BC, Albyne had led a large migration of Ancient Syrians to Britain. This is referenced in modern place names in England, eg, Surrey.
The Holy Family, itself highborn, of course, inter-married with several Ancient British royal families, who also intermarried with the Caesars - hence Constantine’s mother empress was the daughter of King Cole of Colchester, that merry old soul of the nursery rhyme, who himself claimed descent from The Holy Family. The genealogies of several Ancient British royal families claim descent from The Holy family, especially Mother Mary. This is why today’s British royal family is able to claim descent from King David.
Could it be “Constantine’s Sword” rather than “Cross”? That seems to be available as an audio book :)
Sorry to hear about your website, Tereza. I didn’t know. Looks like Jesus was not the only one they’ve tried to cancel (sorry - couldn’t resist!).
I think you already sent this in a comment but what's the evidence that Jesus was high-born and not from a lowly carpenter and peasant woman from Nazareth?
Very interesting about the sons of Shem being Aram! And the intermarriage with the British royal families and Caesars. And the descent of Jesus from King David. These would certainly fit my theories about Jesus being a pseudonym for Josephus, who claimed all the royal blood lines and was the adopted and perhaps actual son of Caesar, aka God. You already read my article on the sons of Shem, I think? https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/the-devil-and-naomi-wolf
The evidence for Jesus’s pedigree would not stand up in court; but I guess it would be based on:
- The two genealogies given for him in the Gospels,
- His marriage to Mary Magdalene (grand daughter of Marc Antony and Cleopatra)
- The records of the Holy family intermarrying with Ancient British royalty
- The traditions kept and handed down in the Egyptian mystery schools.
BTW, I just stumbled across a reference to a book, “Jesus: The Evidence,” by Ian Wilson. Apparently it is a companion volume to a TV documentary mini-series broadcast in the UK in 1984:
As you know, there are so many stories, some of them contradictory!
I don’t know about being the son of Caesar, but there is certainly a Jewish tradition that Yeshua was the son of a Roman soldier named Pantera, Panterra or Panthera. There was indeed a senior Roman officer named Tiberius Julius Aides Panterra at the relevant time. Ian Wilson covers this in his book.
This is such a worthy topic to write about as it has had immeasurable impact over the past 2000 years. I might have to read this book one day! Thank you.
I love this stuff Tereza, even though the nature of the possible deception at play is quite dark and disturbing, and i'm glad I have found a fellow Wholesome Bible Conspirator: you have clearly been at this longer than I have, and I very much come at it from an outsiders perspective in being raised fundamentally anti-religious and anti-Christianity.
The more I learn about the Good Book, the more it seems founded in inversion - profound truths packaged and delivered for the end result of serving and reinforcing power - so this political bait and switch definitely rings true. The most blatant red flag for me was when I learned that the dude's (if he did exist) name wasn't even Jesus, and that "J" doesn't even appear in the Hebrew language.
Not sure if this fits into the broader thesis you are discussing here, but a popular Gnostic-leaning YouTuber who I have been following for a while (who has some eye-wateringly spicy takes on the true nature of The Bible) makes the convincing case that the Jesus story and The Gospels in general are appropriated from the Gospel of Marcion: https://youtu.be/pzwqSPWKcOA
The spiciest spiritual take I have seen is that Jesus/Yeshua is actually a slight watering down of the Lucifer/Prometheus archetype: the original wronged one, the serpent in the garden, who was merely trying to free humanity from its oppressive spiritual overlords (we might interpret this materially as the church, clergy etc, or spiritually as the Archons/Demiurge) and was sacrificed to them for his efforts. So: Christianity is essentially, from an archetypal perspective, the cult of Lucifer: which would explain much about the psychopathically freedom-orientated, self-obsessed and "merit"-based imperialistic culture of the West and the US in particular (he/she is right there in The Statue of Liberty, after all).
Now that The Coronaspiracy and its position within the broader Germ Conspiracy is winding down (for the time being, until pandemics become wholly removed from nature and completely simulated in the metaverse) The Bible Conspiracy feels like the most urgent wombat hole to be explored. I have written a few different articles from different angles about how The Bible appears to have been manipulated in order to manipulate - this is one of my oldest one's that I just republished that, as promised, contains a wholesome wombat video at the end: https://downthewombathole.substack.com/p/a-biblical-case-of-lost-in-translation
More recently, I have been trying to point people towards the OT concepts of the Shemitah/Shmita and Jubilee, and how they provide an almost perfect framework within which to understand the current economic and social disruption we are passing through: we are likely halfway through Jubilee, and we can expect a ramping up of chaos before our current 50 year cycle ends around September: https://downthewombathole.substack.com/p/the-shemitah-the-jubilee-and-whats
Glad that you're enjoying this wombat hole, Isaac, and I'll watch and read your links with relish.
Yes, one of the key signifiers of an actually historical figure would be their name ;-) Josephus, however, is famous for his plays on words, and all the letters in Jesus are in his name, the same way he changed Judas the Sicariot to Judas Iscariot.
Rather than seeing the Bible as dark, see it as an indication of how good and kind people might be naturally if they hadn't been confused by this substitution of hate for love.
One of the difficulties of presenting this material is that people who know it well tend to be believers and those who reject it don't know it well enough to understand what it says. I went to Catholic grade school, HS and college, starting as a religion major. Then picked my interest back up after I had my third daughter at 41. So I do know it inside-out, which is how I now see it ;-)
I'll have to think about how Lucifer fits in. Someone else here (unless that was you) also mentioned him.
The theme I see repeating in the OT is the second son who turns out to be more beloved to the father than the first, and takes the first's inheritance (which under primogeniture would have been everything.) It's there in Cain and the third son, Seth. Cain loses the inheritance by supposedly killing Abel, so Seth is the favorite. Cain is similar to Canaan as Seth is to Shem.
Then there's Jacob who tricks his blind father into giving him the inheritance of Esau. There are lots more, including the youngest son Joseph where there's a lot more to say.
This fits the Josephus story as the adopted second (and perhaps actual) son of Caesar, with Titus who reconquered Jerusalem being the actual son. More on this to come.
I used to think the Jubilee was a good idea. However, what it does is keep the debt cycle going. And since Hebrews could never sell their land, only lease it, it always reverted to its 'real' owners.
Interesting that it's called the Shemitah, eh? When Shem was deemed ruler of the whole earth?
I'm not sure how I never connected the dot from Shemitah to Shem! And Josephus down to Jesus: my goodness they love their word play, don't they?
"Rather than seeing the Bible as dark, see it as an indication of how good and kind people might be naturally if they hadn't been confused by this substitution of hate for love."
Yes, thankyou. I certainly don't think it is dark: as it is ultimately there to be what we each personally take out of it. But it has been used for such purposes, as have as all religious scriptures (while I have never been Christian, I was active in a very little known Abrahamic religion called the Baha'i Faith for a few years).
The Lucifer angle comes from a more archetypal (I said spiritual before, which probably isn't the best word) angle. Basically, that each Biblical story and character operates as both reflecting a part of the journey of humanity and actual world history, but also the internal journey we must go through (Genesis to Revelation can also be seen in that context of personal awakening). I think I am stealing that last part straight from Emanuel Swedenborg.
Oh, I didn't mean to say the Bible isn't dark. The more you see what's really there, the more sinister and macabre it becomes. I had to give up my favorite hermitage because knowing they were chanting the praises of a bloodthirsty traitor was too much cognitive dissonance.
I've been commenting on William's stack about the word archetype. I wondered if it was related to archon or ruler, which the etymology confirms. But he's talking about the King Archetype, so it particularly fits.
And Swedenborg! The only journal to have published me is their Chrysalis Reader in a story called The Gnostic and the Atheist. I also think the Baha'i are very cool. I like the eclectic approach. But maybe they're more cultish than I know?
The Baha'is are for the most part very cool (and Persian food is my fave). They have the best approach to systematic and spiritual community building that I have come across. But there is a very strong cult apparatus that runs underneath it: this is the only way, institutions must not be questioned, questioners must be shunned and/or literally treated like a cancer and cut off from the Faith etc.
Yet another look at Christianity, thank you Tereza!
You should check out the Codex Aurea Linda:
https://home.solari.com/book-review-codex-oera-linda-english-edition-translated-by-jan-ott/
https://oeralinda.org/
It describes a righteous man named Yesus (also known as Buda) who went to the East and studied there for years, then returned and did all sorts of great deeds.
You'll also probably enjoy reading Mauro Biglino (many interviews w/him on Youtube).
https://www.maurobiglino.com/en/biography/
I recommend The Naked Bible, but probably any of his books that appeal to you are good as well.
Hi Dave! Thanks for sending me these links. Very interesting. I looked first at Mauro Biglino, and I think I'd find his translations from the Hebrew of 19 books of the OT fascinating. I'll be doing another episode on Jewish scriptures, about which I also have much research calling into question their origins from an oppressed people vs. dynastic rulers. But as I replied to Mark, there is no Hebrew or Aramaic story of Jesus, either written or oral.
One of my go-to translations of the gospels is by Willis Barnstone, who translated directly from the Greek. What he found was that later translations have 'softened the blows' of how viciously Jesus attacks his fellow Jews in his speeches. I think this shocked Willis, who is a gentle person, but as an honest scholar he decided to translate verbatim. If you look at Jesus without assuming his divinity, he's not a very nice person. We have a handful of sayings that get quoted a lot but there are others that you can't imagine someone we think of as spiritual--Thich Nhat Hahn or the Dalai Lama for instance--saying such mean things.
Miracles are not stunts for self-aggrandizement, imo or the teachings of A Course in Miracles. They're the recognition that other people are part of you, and the evidence that we are One. Jesus was the opposite of this in promoting only himself, and rewarding those who 'believed' that he, and only he, was beloved as God's true son.
What Judas the Nazarene and Zakok the Pharisee taught, with their deeds, was that there was nothing to fear and no one could hurt you when you stood up for the equality and sovereignty of all. Resurrection is inclusive and ongoing. Death and pain are not your rulers, no matter how ruthless your adversary is. Isn't that more powerful than one person's great deeds?
"Resurrection is inclusive and ongoing. Death and pain are not your rulers, no matter how ruthless your adversary is. Isn't that more powerful than one person's great deeds?"
Agree. But I think that, combined with Eastern teachings of metaphysics even more powerful.
The youtube video's in the first link are attributed to Asha Logos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYT_WugMLoY&ab_channel=AshaLogos
That youtube channel is the same one by this author:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYW1oEvVBuI
You will notice in the first that the author is pro Christian narrative. In the second the opposite is true.
Now why would someone do that?
What are they really trying to destroy?
These are different narrators, different channel names. The voices, other than both being male, are distinctly different. The emails on the about page are different, with the Servus Christi one predating the other by seven years and seeming to be a collective led by a Joshua Chavez. I don't see a point to the question.
Joshua, Servus Christi, has admitted he owns the other channel.
The voices use different recording equipment, otherwise phonation, annunctiation, vocabulary and rate are identical.
That aside, he's already come out and acknowledged it.
So the question remains. Why? Other than maybe the obvious: monetization.
In one he promoted nordic pagan religion supremacy, indo-european supremacy. In the other he purports to be a follower of Christ.
Why be disingenuous that way? Who is he trying to fool or lead astray? If anyone? Or just a money gig?
If you have a spare 24 hours to watch both series, I think it becomes clear.
If there's genuine interest I could elaborate further. For now, maybe those with eyes and ears might see/hear it, but it would take a bit of investigating into the video's themselves.
Ah, that makes sense and does seem to be a mystery. And which one is he using for purely monetary gain, if he is? Maybe both?
They both have about 75k subsrcribers each, and loads of ads on the video's. I'm suggesting that's the easy way to dismiss why he's doing it. The other side of that coin, is to spread half truths. If you take time, if you have it, to watch the series. I'm almost through the Asha Logo's Subverted History (Oera Linda Book) one. Half is true. In the other, what does he have to gain by being pro Bible though?
Those look like they were created by different people, why do you think they're the same?
I was responding to your previous comment, paraphrased:
"Thanks, I'm going to listen to both of those, but can you give a few highlights to tease others into listening?" (edited)
What I'm saying is that they're the same person narrating, making the video's, owning the channels. It's the same person. Listen long enough you'll understand.
The Servus Christi one pretends to be a Christian. It attacks other denominations, particularly the Catholic Church. The other is mostly anti-Christian, attacking the Roman/Gothic/Christians and promoting norse pagan religion mostly.
Why would someone play two seemingly opposite roles? What sort of game is he playing?
He narrates on screen in the Servus Christi persona.
I've watch several video's of both channels. He gets a lot of his history wrong, and contradicts himself many times over.
The channels are fairly "informative" and video's well done, but why would he play opposing roles?
The voices sound somewhat similar but IMO they're not the same person, I believe you are mistaken.
It's not just the voice. He's been outed in different mediums. Same guy. The question remains and if you have time to go through enough of his video's you'll figure it out too, what is he trying to destroy?
dang you're fast
Thanks, I will investigate further.
Tereza - I both love this post and it makes my head spin. My friend and I have commented all through the pandemic that we feel rather 'lucky' that we can see the manipulation and lies - but what else are we missing? What other lies are we buying? We, like you, come back to being no different than those around me, that I am not special or unique in cutting through the bs, we just have backgrounds that gave us a leg up this time around.
This revealing of "Jesus" and the Bible and seeing it as bits put together for manipulation and power purposes - it is not surprising, but it boggles me. My whole family is built upon religion. In my ring of aunts and uncles I count 8 religious professionals - pastors, missionaries, chaplain, and professor. And pastors line the way in the paternal ancestors for all the generations that I know. So I feel protestant religion thickly, even though its been a long time since I identified as a Christian. I guess what boggles me is - are all these religious professionals working for a lie???? I've only recently come to place of finally releasing a lot of old anger at the church and religious people, and figured I could glean the goodness from the original intents and original message that Jesus was living. Is there anything useful in the Bible? Or is it all distorted, now knowing it's origins of manipulation and control?
Such excellent questions, marta, and not ones I have a clear answer to. Here's my suspicion: like any propaganda, I think the Bible has skewed the truth to serve its purpose. The editing of the NT under Constantine was done under armed guard and those who disagreed with his interpretation were banished. His vision was a cross in the sky in battle saying, "Under this sign, conquer." James Carroll, a devout Catholic, came to these realizations hard that he put in his book Constantine's Cross.
I too have grown up surrounded by Catholics, in particular, and kept my association with it as an adult, although it became more nuanced. Some of the most committed people I know are radical Catholics--funny, caring, full of compassion and integrity. That led me to engage in the research I did on the Bible, never thinking that I'd come to this conclusion but unable to deny the evidence. Honestly, it seemed like a topic that had picked me rather than the other way around. I held out my hand, and some new data point would drop into it, often when I wasn't looking at all.
What I've come to believe is that truth and goodness are inherent in us, and we project that truth and goodness onto the Bible, using it as a tool. But it's a tool that was designed to fit empire's hand, where it can be wielded destructively to undo everything we've laboriously built.
If my suspicions are correct, the Bible set us back 2000 years in shaking empire off our backs. What Judas and Zakok taught through the gnostics and zealots are what we're rediscovering now.
My advice is to file it away in a corner of your mind as a possibility and see what your experience tells you. Religion empowers good people to do good and necessary things. We have so little community left, and they fill that niche with rituals, gatherings, wisdom, faith that there's meaning in life, and faith in each other.
Lonely as it was, I decided that I would hold this knowledge within myself and not create internal conflict for my beloved monastery monks. But it was too much conflict for me to be around it, so I left. You're welcome for giving this conflict to you ;-) Seriously, however, there are two decisions--whether to see something and what to do about it. Release yourself from the second and let your life lead you towards whatever is useful for you.
Haha, thanks for sharing the inner conflict with me. It's ok - I've handled this conflict for so long anyways, it's just one more reveal about the Bible and the church, plus all the reveals that keep happening in our world these days! I was a church musician for years, and it was such a grind to hold the conflict then. Now after a long hiatus, I'm returning to church music subbing and finding much more enjoyment in it now and less attachment to the teachings on Sundays.
One mentor of mind is saying that the energy is changing so much so fast that the old ways of manifesting aren't working in ways people had figured out previously anymore. I think she alluded to The Secret, which is not something that I am knowledgeable about. I haven't read the Course in Miracles either, but your dedication to it inspires me to consider it. Thoughts on this perspective, if you care to muse on this?
Oh I definitely relate to your friend's statement that the energy is changing so much so fast. I feel like the ground under me is zooming forward these days, it's all I can do to keep my balance.
Right now my meditations from the Workbook are supposed to be done the first five minutes of every waking hour. I've had a couple of unscheduled days so I've set my alarm for every hour and then start the five minute timer. My daughter's been doing it too when she's in the room. It's been interesting to have those hourly resets.
I never feel like I have the big reveals like some people but it continues to make logical sense to me, and to ring true. I'm sort of a plodder, I just keep putting one foot in front of the other. But it always feels new to me, I keep finding things I could swear weren't there the last seven times I've done it. As the friend said when I first heard about it, it's not for everyone. But if you're asking, it might be right for you.
555, (thai for lol)
My new content is gone while i checked the spelling of 'miraculously'. Isn't that amazing
I hate it when that happens! I hope you try again.
Very interesting stuff, thanks. I should try to find Joe Atwill's book.
Although I was raised as an Episcopalian, went to an Episcopal grade school, and probably went to church a thousand times, the religion never really "took" in me, and I remained an agnostic. So I'm quite ignorant about biblical scholarship. The only reading I've done on this subject is "The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins", by Burton Mack. If I remember correctly, the idea there was that scholars have used textual analysis to show that there was a lost proto-Gospel that preceded the canonical Gospels, which they call Q. This was a "sayings" Gospel, that had none of the familiar stories of Jesus' divinity, miracles, etc. Q shows Jesus to be a kind of itinerant philosopher in the Stoic tradition. If you've read this book, can you say whether this fits in with what you're saying about the Gospels?
Thanks Mark! I like your use of the word agnostic, as in 'I don't know' rather than atheist. I often see atheism as a rejection of the God of the Bible but it first gives the Bible the power to define God. I call myself a gnostic because I think that, if there is a God, that God would want to be knowable. I'm not dogmatic about whether God exists but I refuse to entertain the possibility of a God who wants pain, death and suffering as proof of our love. We're better off believing we created ourselves out of monkey genes than believing in a sadistic God.
I did read Lost Christianities by Bart Ehrman but not The Lost Gospel. Thank you for reminding me about Q! I had been trying to remember the term for the hypothetical proto-Gospel. The Jesus Seminars talked a lot about Q. One of the things they voted on was the authenticity of the sayings attributed to Jesus. If I'm remembering, 70% of them were not, either because they'd been attributed already to someone earlier or they referred to events that happened later.
One of the most significant facts I gleaned from the JS was about proto-Q: the oral tradition that was presumably in Aramaic that preceded any written version in Greek, since we know there's no Aramaic written version. But scholars have found that the parables of Jesus use tropes and plays on words that only make sense in Greek. If Jesus was an itinerant philosopher speaking to Judean peasants, he'd be telling stories in Aramaic.
And then there's the story of 'No prophet is respected in his hometown' when Jesus goes back to Nazareth, walks into the temple and reads scripture from the scroll and teaches, and they try to throw him off a cliff but he walks through the mob unharmed. No archeological evidence of any temple in Nazareth. 90% illiterate, so no scrolls. But most importantly, NO CLIFF! Cliffs don't come and go that you can throw a man off of. Jerusalem, however, birthplace of Josephus, has all of these things.
"I refuse to entertain the possibility of a God who wants pain, death and suffering as proof of our love."
Same here. I know C.S. Lewis has written about this, but it's been a while since I've read his stuff.
The story of Elisha calling on God to send a she-bear to kill the kids who were teasing him was one of the things that caused me to turn away from the church. I just couldn't accept the idea that teasing someone for being bald could be a death sentence.
1 - Instead of Monkey, please use Primate or Hominid genes. monkeys are current day ancestors.
2 - Also, Big Sur is closed due to Slides on HWY 1. :)
3 - Thanks for the power lens of Empires. It does make tons of sense. Psyops for the retention of power over time.
I'm not too scholarly in this area, but I can see the basics. I think you present a fair argument, without having to claim you know it all. You have achieved malleable thinking. Congrats.
Haha, malleable thinking. I'll have to use that.
And yes, I heard about Hwy 1 when my daughter tried to drive to San Diego from Santa Cruz on 1. She thought it was the 101 but they'd left a couple of numbers off. But that got her back for another night before they tried again the next day ;-)
Super Read! Thank you. Happy New Year
Fits with my own biases that we as humans became entranced with some idea we could be better off and oh so superior to our fellow animals thousands of years ago. Everything since has been a long slow fall from Grace. Buying into some hucksters dream of paradise in a series of psyops. I see them everywhere. They permeate our literature, art, science, architecture. I physically recoil from their existence whenever and wherever I encounter them. Thanks for this particular synthesis. Reminds me of the Dylan line:
“Nobody has to guess that baby can’t be blessed ‘til she sees finally that she’s like all the rest.”
I love that Dylan line! Thanks so much KW for pointing it out to me.
Thanks Tereza.
So much content. How to respond ?
Well first off in defence of Naomi (as if she would need that, lol).
My interpretation of 'I am a poor boy' is : I may be a mentally well exercised person, my emotional side is hardly developed and definetly not integrated 'to be in the moment' in an authentic way.
So in that sense I am a poor boy, but i am well aware of that :).
Writing a book and publicize it in a totaliterian regime requires not courage, it requires cunning.
Knowing the near future makes that the wordings are veiled. What better way to publish and get it distrubuted by the very opponent : do some clever ass-kissing and lay it on !
Make it a manual that needs a person in the know to show how to really interpret it.
And that resulted in the best published work in millenia : the Bible !
Now i am off perusing the rest of this well filled article.
God Bless !
I'm glad you're defending Naomi. In the video, I really didn't emphasize how much I love her and her ideas, which I tried to correct in the text version. I have her book, The End of America, from 2007 and it's remarkably prescient.
At some point the reading of 'Blessed are the poor' became 'Blessed are the poor in spirit.' That made no sense to me, isn't spirit where we want to be rich? I suspect, Leo, that God created you perfect, perfect in your emotional authenticity that's responding to this moment in exactly the right way. How could it be otherwise from a perfect God?
It's not the belief in God where I differ from the Bible, it's the belief in sin (which I see as an acronym for seeing inferiority) and evil and the exclusivity of one person being loved by God more than the rest of us. The Bible has justified slavery, colonization, war, torture, environmental destruction. No single document or institution has caused more pain and suffering in history. Is that because human nature is flawed or because we've been fooled? If the latter, it can be corrected and not perpetuated into the future.
Fascinating read! Thank you
Yay! Thank you for this. there must be at least a 100 books along these lines. the christ conspiracy, How Jesus became god, Jesus the Egyptian, The messianic legacy, ... and so on, But, a really pleasurable read, i must recommend, was The darkening age by Catherene Nixey. But really, a god who created the whole magnificent cosmos, will not be communicating anything to us through a book. that is probably always a man mad religion psyop. always.
Thanks for that recommendation, Artemis. I'll put it on my list!
yay!
Thanks for linking this post to my recent look at the true authorship of the New Testament. It caused a wide variety of comments and niggles..... it is not a subject that has been settled yet.... almost a year on! https://francesleader.substack.com/p/the-true-authorship-of-the-new-testament
Really enjoyed the article Tereza. Your experience with the book "Caesar’s Messiah" reminds me of my experience in a very conservative Baptist Seminary back in the early 80s. I can see myself throwing a book like that across the room too but, later going back and taking another look. Actually, reading other (not approved) books gave me a different view or, at the very least, it opened my mind to other possibilities. But, I was in the minority. Everyone there followed the conservative line, except me. While in school I eventually came to realize I wasn't the genius I thought I was but, I also realized that my teachers and my fellow students were locked in their dogma and not letting up. Their 'dogma' shown much brighter than mine. Just so you know, I was a devout Christian before my 'education'. After graduation I don't think I ever set foot in another church except for weddings and funerals. If Jesus is real and He wants to help me believe, all He has to do is appear to me like he did Thomas. Thomas was close to Jesus and still didn't believe. He had to be shown. To me, and evidently Thomas, it definitely takes more than 'faith' to believe the story of the resurrection. I personally need more proof rather than an unverified story about it. You definitely shed light on the story today.
On another note: Looks like someone else inquired about "Jesus: Rebel or Imperialist?" just a few weeks ago. I also see that you haven't found and posted it yet. Please try again. I know you're a busy lady and it may be time for you to enlist a helper. Thanks so much for sharing your mind with the world. Can't speak for others but I'm impressed. Guess it's time for me to upgrade so you can get the help you desperately need.
Ray, thank you! So funny that you read this one and responded. I was just thinking that we needed a new term to describe the Biblical form of Christianity--Jesuscentrism. The first question is whether the Christ is a what or a who. Is it the Mind that recognizes we're all One or the belief that one person was more beloved by God than all the rest of us put together?
The two are mutually exclusive, obviously. In the same way, I distinguish between Torah/ OT Semitism that says God gives some the right to rule others and the Judaism of the zealots who said all people were equal and free, and revolted against the Roman empire. I don't know if you've seen this one: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/the-devil-and-naomi-wolf.
And the issue of Thomas is VERY interesting. The name means Didymous or double/ twin. If the gospels are written as duplicitous, with the truth twisted within them, it's significant that his full name is Judas Thomas or Thomas Judas, I forget which. And, as I mention here, I think, the two who introduced the Christ-mind (if my theory is correct) were Judas the Galillean, the Nazarene, the Healer and Zadok or Saduc the Pharisee whose followers were the Saducees.
You are, Ray, the perfect audience for my research--someone who's intimately familiar with the Bible but not a believer. It's a hard combination to find because people who just dismiss it don't get the significance of how it's fooled us into following the empire for 2000 yrs.
And darn! I just arrived at my hometown to work on my AirBnB for three weeks, and my computers with my old files are at home. I'm going to look into transferring my domains to a new host and see if I can restore that one but it's a bigger job. The gist of that article, which is my most scholarly, is that it takes the Greek word that translates as thief or robber in the NT and finds every use of it in Josephus' War of the Jews. In all cases, it means rebel, revolutionary, insurgent. That's who was being crucified. Then I look at the gospel uses and how that flips the script, so that the 'Good Thief' is the one who repents and says Jesus was never one of them, and the 'Bad Thief' says "I did it and I'd do it again because people deserve to be free."
And thank you for recognizing that I desperately need help on the technology side! For the time being, I'm okay on the money side and didn't want to create a two-tier system for readers. But I very much appreciate your kind intent and your interest, which means the world to me!
I actually didn't realize.... you don't require or even ask for donations. A gold mine of information and it costs nothing. Thank you!!
Tereza, many thanks for giving me the opportunity to read this post. It’s really interesting!
As you know, I’m no scholar and haven’t studied religious matters as deeply as you have. However, having done a little reading of different sources, I would offer the following: I don’t think the Romans quite invented Jesus. I think they reinvented him and subverted/reinvented his teachings to create a control and harvesting mechanism that met their political objectives, to serve the empire.
I don’t think the Flavians “created Christianity” either. What they created was The Church of Rome. The British Apostolic Church had already been founded by Joseph of Arimathea (Saint Ilid) in AD 37, decades before “Christianity” arrived in Rome, and more than five centuries before The Vatican sent Augustine to convert the British to The Church of Rome.
Constantine The Great was himself raised in the British Apostolic Church. His mother was the British Empress, Saint Helen of The Cross. Constantine understood the church and the power it had.
I tried to read your article “Jesus: Rebel or Imperialist” but the link appears to be broken.
I don’t think that you and I disagree about very much. The conclusions I have come to are that The Church of Rome is a political institution masquerading as a church, and the New Testament is political propaganda interwoven with religious teachings.
My twopenn’orth!
I think you're right, Tirion, that we don't disagree about the important things. And what I have to offer is how the same details look from the perspective of my and Atwill's theory. What I once envisioned was a side by side interpretation of the gospels, showing how a traditional narrative would fit and how our propaganda pov would read the same passage. I think that systematic approach is the only way you could really establish enough data points to show definitively an overall pattern.
So Joseph of Arimathea has really interested me because he shares the name of Josephus and is from a wealthy family like Josephus. Could they be the same? And Arimathea, I believe, means son of Mathew or the Greek version of that--another version of the gospel and family name for Josephus. They typically alternated names in generations, so the son was the same as the grandfather and the son's son the same as his father.
And Constantine's Cross by James Carroll is a great read, I don't know if it's in audio. Yes to the NT being political propaganda interwoven with religious teaching! And yes, my whole thirdparadigm.org website got 'disappeared' soon after my Naomi Wolf article linking to some OT episodes. Most likely a coincidence since my provider has gotten shadier and shadier. I'll get it off an older computer when I'm home and read it into a new episode. Thanks for your careful reading of this!
No, I don’t think Josephus Flavius and Joseph of Arimathea (JoA) were the same person. JoA was probably already dead and buried by the time Josephus Flavius was writing. JoA’s grave on the site of the ancient Church of St Mary in what is today Bute Park, Cardiff can still be visited today.
Arimathea is a reference to Mesopotamia, the ancient land of the Arameans/Arimatheans. According to Strong’s Concordance (H.758), “Aram” means Syria (Aramea) and its inhabitants (Arimatheans), also the name of a son of Shem.
JoA re-located to Britain with other members of The Holy Family in AD 37. They established the British Apostolic Church. JoA was chaplain to the young Bran, King of Britain. To Gweirydd/George, King of Britain, JoA presented a white flag with a red cross, which is now the flag of England and at the center of the Union Jack. There is a document recording a grant of land from King Gweirydd/George to JoA for the establishment of an abbey.
The Holy Family had at least two reasons for fleeing to Britain: firstly, in AD 37, Britain was still outside the Roman Empire; and, secondly, their kith and kin were already there. Around 1500 BC, Albyne had led a large migration of Ancient Syrians to Britain. This is referenced in modern place names in England, eg, Surrey.
The Holy Family, itself highborn, of course, inter-married with several Ancient British royal families, who also intermarried with the Caesars - hence Constantine’s mother empress was the daughter of King Cole of Colchester, that merry old soul of the nursery rhyme, who himself claimed descent from The Holy Family. The genealogies of several Ancient British royal families claim descent from The Holy family, especially Mother Mary. This is why today’s British royal family is able to claim descent from King David.
Could it be “Constantine’s Sword” rather than “Cross”? That seems to be available as an audio book :)
Sorry to hear about your website, Tereza. I didn’t know. Looks like Jesus was not the only one they’ve tried to cancel (sorry - couldn’t resist!).
Oh yes, Constantine's Sword! That was it.
I think you already sent this in a comment but what's the evidence that Jesus was high-born and not from a lowly carpenter and peasant woman from Nazareth?
Very interesting about the sons of Shem being Aram! And the intermarriage with the British royal families and Caesars. And the descent of Jesus from King David. These would certainly fit my theories about Jesus being a pseudonym for Josephus, who claimed all the royal blood lines and was the adopted and perhaps actual son of Caesar, aka God. You already read my article on the sons of Shem, I think? https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/the-devil-and-naomi-wolf
The evidence for Jesus’s pedigree would not stand up in court; but I guess it would be based on:
- The two genealogies given for him in the Gospels,
- His marriage to Mary Magdalene (grand daughter of Marc Antony and Cleopatra)
- The records of the Holy family intermarrying with Ancient British royalty
- The traditions kept and handed down in the Egyptian mystery schools.
BTW, I just stumbled across a reference to a book, “Jesus: The Evidence,” by Ian Wilson. Apparently it is a companion volume to a TV documentary mini-series broadcast in the UK in 1984:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1489998.Jesus?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_29
As you know, there are so many stories, some of them contradictory!
I don’t know about being the son of Caesar, but there is certainly a Jewish tradition that Yeshua was the son of a Roman soldier named Pantera, Panterra or Panthera. There was indeed a senior Roman officer named Tiberius Julius Aides Panterra at the relevant time. Ian Wilson covers this in his book.
This is such a worthy topic to write about as it has had immeasurable impact over the past 2000 years. I might have to read this book one day! Thank you.
Here's a pretty interesting documentary tracing the roots of the stories and how uncannily similar they are to what Julius Caesar said and did.
The gospel of Caesar
https://youtu.be/gvga-98x6Nk
Very interesting! I'll check it out.