JESUS’
MYTH GREW AND GREW
Hugh Fogelman
The first and second centuries witnessed the preaching of many
salvation cults and their deities, i.e. Isis, Mithras,
Attis and Jesus.
There
is not one piece of evidence (outside the Christian’s own story) that this
individual they call Jesus ever existed, especially as the Son of God. The Christian story is apparently a
composite of much older pagan myths of a “god” who died and
was reborn in the spring; a demigod, who had a human mother but a god for a
father. These pagan religions also had SONS OF GOD: Mithras,
Osiris, Attis, Dionysus,
Hercules,
As for preaching the
Besides, if the “something” was a wise man or sage who preached the coming of
the Kingdom, how did this sage manage to get himself turned into the divine Son
of God, pre existent creator of the world, sustaining force of the universe and
a cosmic redeemer―as the epistles variously
describe him? Such things are hardly the usual gear attached to even the “wiser
and more charismatic” among such figures. This mind-boggling elevation,
together with the early record about the Christian divine Son, shows no sign of
Jesus having preached (or even lived a life) as a “wise sage.”
After 2,000 years of “spinning” the Christian myth, Christian
apologists try to explain away certain events, behavior on the part of the
Apostles, characteristics allotted to Jesus, etc., which appear embarrassing,
unflattering, and paint a negative picture and rejects the notion that this man
was the Son of God.
The rejection of Jesus in his home-town:
And the
multitude cometh together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread. And
when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself. Mark 3:20-21 (KJV)
His brethren therefore
said unto him, Depart hence, and go into
His “brethren” are his blood brothers,
not his cousins, friends, or disciples.
Jesus’ brothers, at this point during his ministry, are reported
to have no belief in him. Isn’t this surprising? For if the story of the miraculous birth and announcement of the messiah
child were true, Jesus’ home would have been filled with a wondrous awe.
Did not his mother have any clue what the Holy Ghost told her?
The failure of the
disciples to understand Jesus’ teaching:
And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know
the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto
them that are without, all these things are done in parables: That seeing they may see, and not perceive;
and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be
converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.
Mark 4:11-12 (KJV)
Also the denial by Peter hardly presents a picture of “a perfect
Son of God.”―as told in Mark 14-26, Matthew 26:34, Luke
22:31-34 and John 13:36-38.1```
Sectarian groups, in the face of failure, often take refuge in
declaring their doctrines fit only for the spiritually mature, something they
know cannot be proven one way or another, inaccessible to any but the mind with
an ‘inside track’. This is the case for the New Testaments (NT) failure of
Jesus’ disciples to understand him. It is supposed to make acceptable the outsiders
failure to understand the new sect’s preaching. According to the NT, God
himself has set up this ‘chosen-few’ response capability, a kind of
predestination, which is the theme of Mark 4:11-12. Mark’s dim-witted Apostles,
slow to understand, serve these archetypal purposes. Sometimes they are portrayed
as guilty of other failings, even of denial of Jesus himself.
When the later evangelists deliberately changed such potential “problems,”
this helps prove that. Matthew, Luke and especially John regularly change Mark’s
features which they, or their communities, cannot accept, because they would
have had different standards. John recasts Jesus as indeed “the perfect Son of
God,” fully in control of the situation, never doubting, barely suffering not
needing baptism (because he was perfect). This is no more that a
fictional creation fitting John’s tastes and requirements. But if John and to
some extent Matthew and Luke could create their own revised portraits of Jesus
to fit their needs, why not Mark? If it is claimed that Mark had to be “true to
tradition” and was forced to include elements, which were supposedly
problematic, why did not the same strictures apply to the other NT writers?
John in particular shows not the slightest regret about doing a
thorough recasting job on his Jesus story. He chucked not only the baptism, but
also
The
reason why so many believe in Christianity is ignorance, conditioning, brain-washing
and mind control. Christians do not reason for themselves.
Christians have been told the outcome
of their book of lies, the NT. Christians have a preconceived notion of Jesus,
and therefore, everything they read enforces that preconceived notion. Hence,
anything they read would fit into everything they had been told. This would be
like knowing the murderer first, and then reading the book. All the actions of
the murderer will jump out at you in every page of the book.
To fully understand the Christian bible
one MUST have a clear mind. Empty it from any thoughts of Jesus. Go back in
time when there were just two groups of people, the Monotheistic Jews and the
Polytheistic Pagan Gentiles. Then, supposedly Jesus was born. There were a few
Jewish followers of Jesus looking for their savior to save them not from sin,
but to save them from the harsh Roman oppression. It was Paul, knowing he could
not convert Jews away from Judaism, took on the task to convert those pagan
Gentiles, giving them a great “easy hook”―believing
in a one God of Judaism, no circumcision, and no following the Torah. He
succeeded.
At the Council of Nicaea
in 325 CE, the ex-pagan Roman Emperor Constantine, with a snap of his fingers
made Christianity the “Official Religion” of the entire
The New Testament that today’s Christians
hold so dear was canonized at the Council of Nicaea,
and subsequent councils. Did this
canonized NT contain the words of their Jesus? NO! The Christian bible, what
Christians read today, is only what the Early Church Fathers wanted you to
read. Once learning this, one would think Christians would get their backs up
and say “Whoa right here.” You’d think they would do some serious research into
the matter of betting their souls. Most sports gamblers do a lot of research
before they place their bets – should not Christians do likewise?
Father Eusebius, who wrote the History
of the Church, had his own ideas, and the early writers later copied and edited
(altered) to fit his agenda―the image the Early Church Fathers wanted to
paint. Those writings were gathered together and re-written to present Jesus in
a different light. From that time on Jesus was to be seen as a miracle worker,
a prophet, a supernatural being on par with God.
History shows that the church closely
held all information. People did not have―until
the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in c1450―a bible. They only
knew what the Catholic Church told them, and in many cases they HAD to believe or
else face death/execution. It does not take too many years of this oppression
and ignorance for a NEW replacement myth to take hold.
To recap:
1. With a snap of the finger, millions of pagans
became Christians.
2. The Christian Church Leaders decided what they
wanted their “sheep” to follow.
3. Those same leaders canonized the books they
wanted their “sheep” to learn.
4. The Christian layman were
not allowed to read the bible.
5.
The Christian layman only heard the words of their bible through the
pulpit.
Hopefully, you will now see how the
myth of Jesus grew. The pulpit could
tell their audience anything and they would believe it. Would the pulpit lie?
After nearly a thousand years of “brain-washing,” the Christian was given their
bible to read. Be honest; do you think those Christians had preconceived
notions of Jesus? Do you think they built up a dream out of sand?
Christians will just take the words of
their leaders without verifying that what they have been told is correct or
not, and then go happily along their way, singing their hymn, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the bible
tells me so.”1 Most
Christians will never go out of their way to FIRST read the SOURCE BIBLE, God’s
Tanakh (Hebrew Bible). They erroneously think that everything in their bible
was “inspired” by God. Christians, with their bible intoxicated mentality, they cannot nor will not see the forgeries,
errors, fictions and misquotations in their bible, especially when compared to
the SOURCE BIBLE.
So many times a fable will grow because
the followers are too embarrassed to admit that what they believed in was a
bunch of lies. No matter how much proof is shown them, they are so embarrassed
that they had been living in a world of lies and they just continue the myth.
Well, as the old saying goes, “no guts,
no glory!”
FOOTNOTE:
“Jesus Loves Me, a Baptist hymn written by Anna Warner
Copyright © 2004, Hugh
Fogelman. All rights reserved.