What
the Church doesn't want you to know
It has
often been emphasized that Christianity is unlike any other
religion, for it stands or falls by certain events which are
alleged to have occurred during a short period of time some 20
centuries ago. Those stories are presented in the New Testament,
and as new evidence is revealed it will become clear that they do
not represent historical realities. The Church agrees, saying:
"Our
documentary sources of knowledge about the origins of
Christianity and its earliest development are chiefly the New
Testament Scriptures, the authenticity of which we must, to a
great extent, take for granted."
(Catholic
Encyclopedia,
Farley ed., vol. iii, p. 712)
The Church
makes extraordinary admissions about its New Testament. For
example, when discussing the origin of those writings, "the
most distinguished body of academic opinion ever assembled"
(Catholic
Encyclopedias,
Preface) admits that the Gospels "do not go back to the
first century of the Christian era" (Catholic
Encyclopedia,
Farley ed., vol. vi, p. 137, pp. 655-6). This statement conflicts
with priesthood assertions that the earliest Gospels were
progressively written during the decades following the death of
the Gospel Jesus Christ. In a remarkable aside, the Church
further admits that "the earliest of the extant manuscripts
[of the New Testament], it is true, do not date back beyond the
middle of the fourth century AD" (Catholic
Encyclopedia,
op. cit., pp. 656-7). That is some 350 years after the time the
Church claims that a Jesus Christ walked the sands of Palestine,
and here the true story of Christian origins slips into one of
the biggest black holes in history. There is, however, a reason
why there were no New Testaments until the fourth century: they
were not written until then, and here we find evidence of the
greatest misrepresentation of all time.
It was
British-born Flavius Constantinus (Constantine, originally
Custennyn or Custennin) (272-337) who authorized the compilation
of the writings now called the New Testament. After the death of
his father in 306, Constantine became King of Britain, Gaul and
Spain, and then, after a series of victorious battles, Emperor of
the Roman Empire. Christian historians give little or no hint of
the turmoil of the times and suspend Constantine in the air, free
of all human events happening around him. In truth, one of
Constantine's main problems was the uncontrollable disorder
amongst presbyters and their belief in numerous gods.
The
majority of modern-day Christian writers suppress the truth about
the development of their religion and conceal Constantine's
efforts to curb the disreputable character of the presbyters who
are now called "Church Fathers" (Catholic
Encyclopedia,
Farley ed., vol. xiv, pp. 370-1). They were "maddened",
he said (Life
of Constantine,
attributed to Eusebius Pamphilius of Caesarea, c. 335, vol. iii,
p. 171; The
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,
cited as N&PNF, attributed to St Ambrose, Rev. Prof. Roberts,
DD, and Principal James Donaldson, LLD, editors, 1891, vol. iv,
p. 467). The "peculiar type of oratory" expounded by
them was a challenge to a settled religious order (The
Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Religion, Literature and Art,
Oskar Seyffert, Gramercy, New York, 1995, pp. 544-5). Ancient
records reveal the true nature of the presbyters, and the low
regard in which they were held has been subtly suppressed by
modern Church historians. In reality, they were:
"...the
most rustic fellows, teaching strange paradoxes. They openly
declared that none but the ignorant was fit to hear their
discourses ... they never appeared in the circles of the wiser
and better sort, but always took care to intrude themselves among
the ignorant and uncultured, rambling around to play tricks at
fairs and markets ... they lard their lean books with the fat of
old fables ... and still the less do they understand ... and they
write nonsense on vellum ... and still be doing, never
done."(Contra
Celsum ["Against
Celsus"], Origen of Alexandria, c. 251, Bk I, p. lxvii, Bk
III, p. xliv, passim)
Clusters
of presbyters had developed "many gods and many lords"
(1 Cor. 8:5) and numerous religious sects existed, each with
differing doctrines (Gal. 1:6). Presbyterial groups clashed over
attributes of their various gods and "altar was set against
altar" in competing for an audience (Optatus
of Milevis,
1:15, 19, early fourth century). From Constantine's point of
view, there were several factions that needed satisfying, and he
set out to develop an all-embracing religion during a period of
irreverent confusion. In an age of crass ignorance, with
nine-tenths of the peoples of Europe illiterate, stabilizing
religious splinter groups was only one of Constantine's problems.
The smooth generalization, which so many historians are content
to repeat, that Constantine "embraced the Christian
religion" and subsequently granted "official
toleration", is "contrary to historical fact" and
should be erased from our literature forever (Catholic
Encyclopedia,
Pecci ed., vol. iii, p. 299, passim). Simply put, there was no
Christian religion at Constantine's time, and the Church
acknowledges that the tale of his "conversion" and
"baptism" are "entirely legendary" (Catholic
Encyclopedia,
Farley ed., vol. xiv, pp. 370-1).
Constantine
"never acquired a solid theological knowledge" and
"depended heavily on his advisers in religious questions"
(Catholic
Encyclopedia,
New Edition, vol. xii, p. 576, passim). According to Eusebeius
(260-339), Constantine noted that among the presbyterian factions
"strife had grown so serious, vigorous action was necessary
to establish a more religious state", but he could not bring
about a settlement between rival god factions (Life
of Constantine,
op. cit., pp. 26-8). His advisers warned him that the presbyters'
religions were "destitute of foundation" and needed
official stabilization (ibid.).
Constantine
saw in this confused system of fragmented dogmas the opportunity
to create a new and combined State religion, neutral in concept,
and to protect it by law. When he conquered the East in 324 he
sent his Spanish religious adviser, Osius of Córdoba, to
Alexandria with letters to several bishops exhorting them to make
peace among themselves. The mission failed and Constantine,
probably at the suggestion of Osius, then issued a decree
commanding all presbyters and their subordinates "be mounted
on asses, mules and horses belonging to the public, and travel to
the city of Nicaea" in the Roman province of Bithynia in
Asia Minor. They were instructed to bring with them the
testimonies they orated to the rabble, "bound in leather"
for protection during the long journey, and surrender them to
Constantine upon arrival in Nicaea (The Catholic Dictionary,
Addis and Arnold, 1917, "Council of Nicaea" entry).
Their writings totaled "in all, two thousand two hundred and
thirty-one scrolls and legendary tales of gods and saviours,
together with a record of the doctrines orated by them"
(Life
of Constantine,
op. cit., vol. ii, p. 73; N&PNF, op. cit., vol. i, p. 518).
The
First Council of Nicaea and the "missing records"
Thus, the
first ecclesiastical gathering in history was summoned and is
today known as the Council of Nicaea. It was a bizarre event that
provided many details of early clerical thinking and presents a
clear picture of the intellectual climate prevailing at the time.
It was at this gathering that Christianity was born, and the
ramifications of decisions made at the time are difficult to
calculate. About four years prior to chairing the Council,
Constantine had been initiated into the religious order of Sol
Invictus, one of the two thriving cults that regarded the Sun as
the one and only Supreme God (the other was Mithraism). Because
of his Sun worship, he instructed Eusebius to convene the first
of three sittings on the summer solstice, 21 June 325 (Catholic
Encyclopedia,
New Edition, vol. i, p. 792), and it was "held in a hall in
Osius's palace" (Ecclesiastical
History,
Bishop Louis Dupin, Paris, 1686, vol. i, p. 598). In an account
of the proceedings of the conclave of presbyters gathered at
Nicaea, Sabinius, Bishop of Hereclea, who was in attendance,
said, "Excepting Constantine himself and Eusebius
Pamphilius, they were a set of illiterate, simple creatures who
understood nothing" (Secrets
of the Christian Fathers,
Bishop J. W. Sergerus, 1685, 1897 reprint).
This is
another luminous confession of the ignorance and uncritical
credulity of early churchmen. Dr Richard Watson (1737-1816), a
disillusioned Christian historian and one-time Bishop of Llandaff
in Wales (1782), referred to them as "a set of gibbering
idiots" (An
Apology for Christianity,
1776, 1796 reprint; also, Theological
Tracts,
Dr Richard Watson, "On Councils" entry, vol. 2, London,
1786, revised reprint 1791). From his extensive research into
Church councils, Dr Watson concluded that "the clergy at the
Council of Nicaea were all under the power of the devil, and the
convention was composed of the lowest rabble and patronized the
vilest abominations" (An
Apology for Christianity,
op. cit.). It was that infantile body of men who were responsible
for the commencement of a new religion and the theological
creation of Jesus Christ.
The Church
admits that vital elements of the proceedings at Nicaea are
"strangely absent from the canons" (Catholic
Encyclopedia, Farley
ed., vol. iii, p. 160). We shall see shortly what happened to
them. However, according to records that endured, Eusebius
"occupied the first seat on the right of the emperor and
delivered the inaugural address on the emperor's behalf"
(Catholic
Encyclopedia,
Farley ed., vol. v, pp. 619-620). There were no British
presbyters at the council but many Greek delegates. "Seventy
Eastern bishops" represented Asiatic factions, and small
numbers came from other areas (Ecclesiastical
History,
ibid.). Caecilian of Carthage travelled from Africa, Paphnutius
of Thebes from Egypt, Nicasius of Die (Dijon) from Gaul, and
Donnus of Stridon made the journey from Pannonia.
It was at
that puerile assembly, and with so many cults represented, that a
total of 318 "bishops, priests, deacons, subdeacons,
acolytes and exorcists" gathered to debate and decide upon a
unified belief system that encompassed only one god (An
Apology for Christianity,
op. cit.). By this time, a huge assortment of "wild texts"
(Catholic
Encyclopedia,
New Edition, "Gospel and Gospels") circulated amongst
presbyters and they supported a great variety of Eastern and
Western gods and goddesses: Jove, Jupiter, Salenus, Baal, Thor,
Gade, Apollo, Juno, Aries, Taurus, Minerva, Rhets, Mithra, Theo,
Fragapatti, Atys, Durga, Indra, Neptune, Vulcan, Kriste, Agni,
Croesus, Pelides, Huit, Hermes, Thulis, Thammus, Eguptus, Iao,
Aph, Saturn, Gitchens, Minos, Maximo, Hecla and Phernes (God's
Book of Eskra, anon., ch. xlviii, paragraph 36).
Up until
the First Council of Nicaea, the Roman aristocracy primarily
worshipped two Greek gods-Apollo and Zeus-but the great bulk of
common people idolized either Julius Caesar or Mithras (the
Romanised version of the Persian deity Mithra). Caesar was
deified by the Roman Senate after his death (15 March 44 BC) and
subsequently venerated as "the Divine Julius". The word
"Saviour" was affixed to his name, its literal meaning
being "one who sows the seed", i.e., he was a phallic
god. Julius Caesar was hailed as "God made manifest and
universal Saviour of human life", and his successor Augustus
was called the "ancestral God and Saviour of the whole human
race" (Man
and his Gods,
Homer Smith, Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1952). Emperor Nero
(54-68), whose original name was Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus
(37-68), was immortalized on his coins as the "Saviour of
mankind" (ibid.). The Divine Julius as Roman Saviour and
"Father of the Empire" was considered "God"
among the Roman rabble for more than 300 years. He was the deity
in some Western presbyters' texts, but was not recognized in
Eastern or Oriental writings.
Constantine's
intention at Nicaea was to create an entirely new god for his
empire who would unite all religious factions under one deity.
Presbyters were asked to debate and decide who their new god
would be. Delegates argued among themselves, expressing personal
motives for inclusion of particular writings that promoted the
finer traits of their own special deity. Throughout the meeting,
howling factions were immersed in heated debates, and the names
of 53 gods were tabled for discussion. "As yet, no God had
been selected by the council, and so they balloted in order to
determine that matter... For one year and five months the
balloting lasted..." (God's
Book of Eskra,
Prof. S. L. MacGuire's translation, Salisbury, 1922, chapter
xlviii, paragraphs 36, 41).
At the end
of that time, Constantine returned to the gathering to discover
that the presbyters had not agreed on a new deity but had
balloted down to a shortlist of five prospects: Caesar, Krishna,
Mithra, Horus and Zeus (Historia Ecclesiastica, Eusebius, c.
325). Constantine was the ruling spirit at Nicaea and he
ultimately decided upon a new god for them. To involve British
factions, he ruled that the name of the great Druid god, Hesus,
be joined with the Eastern Saviour-god, Krishna (Krishna is
Sanskrit for Christ), and thus Hesus Krishna would be the
official name of the new Roman god. A vote was taken and it was
with a majority show of hands (161 votes to 157) that both
divinities became one God. Following longstanding heathen custom,
Constantine used the official gathering and the Roman apotheosis
decree to legally deify two deities as one, and did so by
democratic consent. A new god was proclaimed and "officially"
ratified by Constantine (Acta
Concilii Nicaeni,
1618). That purely political act of deification effectively and
legally placed Hesus and Krishna among the Roman gods as one
individual composite. That abstraction lent Earthly existence to
amalgamated doctrines for the Empire's new religion; and because
there was no letter "J" in alphabets until around the
ninth century, the name subsequently evolved into "Jesus
Christ".
How
the Gospels were created
Constantine
then instructed Eusebius to organize the compilation of a uniform
collection of new writings developed from primary aspects of the
religious texts submitted at the council. His instructions were:
"Search
ye these books, and whatever is good in them, that retain; but
whatsoever is evil, that cast away. What is good in one book,
unite ye with that which is good in another book. And whatsoever
is thus brought together shall be called The Book of Books. And
it shall be the doctrine of my people, which I will recommend
unto all nations, that there shall be no more war for religions'
sake."
(God's
Book of Eskra,
op. cit., chapter xlviii, paragraph 31)
"Make
them to astonish" said Constantine, and "the books were
written accordingly" (Life
of Constantine,
vol. iv, pp. 36-39). Eusebius amalgamated the "legendary
tales of all the religious doctrines of the world together as
one", using the standard god-myths from the presbyters'
manuscripts as his exemplars. Merging the supernatural "god"
stories of Mithra and Krishna with British Culdean beliefs
effectively joined the orations of Eastern and Western presbyters
together "to form a new universal belief" (ibid.).
Constantine believed that the amalgamated collection of myths
would unite variant and opposing religious factions under one
representative story. Eusebius then arranged for scribes to
produce "fifty sumptuous copies ... to be written on
parchment in a legible manner, and in a convenient portable form,
by professional scribes thoroughly accomplished in their art"
(ibid.). "These orders," said Eusebius, "were
followed by the immediate execution of the work itself ... we
sent him [Constantine] magnificently and elaborately bound
volumes of three-fold and four-fold forms" (Life
of Constantine,
vol. iv, p. 36). They were the "New Testimonies", and
this is the first mention (c. 331) of the New Testament in the
historical record.
With his
instructions fulfilled, Constantine then decreed that the New
Testimonies would thereafter be called the "word of the
Roman Saviour God" (Life
of Constantine,
vol. iii, p. 29) and official to all presbyters sermonizing in
the Roman Empire. He then ordered earlier presbyterial
manuscripts and the records of the council "burnt" and
declared that "any man found concealing writings should be
stricken off from his shoulders" (beheaded) (ibid.). As the
record shows, presbyterial writings previous to the Council of
Nicaea no longer exist, except for some fragments that have
survived.
Some
council records also survived, and they provide alarming
ramifications for the Church.Some old documents say that the
First Council of Nicaea ended in mid-November 326, while others
say the struggle to establish a god was so fierce that it
extended "for four years and seven months" from its
beginning in June 325 (Secrets
of the Christian Fathers,
op. cit.). Regardless of when it ended, the savagery and violence
it encompassed were concealed under the glossy title "Great
and Holy Synod", assigned to the assembly by the Church in
the 18th century. Earlier Churchmen, however, expressed a
different opinion.
The Second
Council of Nicaea in 786-87 denounced the First Council of Nicaea
as "a synod of fools and madmen" and sought to annul
"decisions passed by men with troubled brains" (History
of the Christian Church, H. H. Milman, DD, 1871). If one chooses
to read the records of the Second Nicaean Council and notes
references to "affrighted bishops" and the "soldiery"
needed to "quell proceedings", the "fools and
madmen" declaration is surely an example of the pot calling
the kettle black.
Constantine
died in 337 and his outgrowth of many now-called pagan beliefs
into a new religious system brought many converts. Later Church
writers made him "the great champion of Christianity"
which he gave "legal status as the religion of the Roman
Empire" (Encyclopedia
of the Roman Empire,
Matthew Bunson, Facts on File, New York, 1994, p. 86). Historical
records reveal this to be incorrect, for it was "self-interest"
that led him to create Christianity (A
Smaller Classical Dictionary,
J. M. Dent, London, 1910, p. 161). Yet it wasn't called
"Christianity" until the 15th century (How
The Great Pan Died,
Professor Edmond S. Bordeaux [Vatican archivist], Mille
Meditations, USA, MCMLXVIII, pp. 45-7).
Over the
ensuing centuries, Constantine's New Testimonies were expanded
upon, "interpolations" were added and other writings
included (Catholic
Encyclopedia,
Farley ed., vol. vi, pp. 135-137; also, Pecci ed., vol. ii, pp.
121-122). For example, in 397 John "golden-mouthed"
Chrysostom restructured the writings of Apollonius of Tyana, a
first-century wandering sage, and made them part of the New
Testimonies (Secrets
of the Christian Fathers,
op. cit.). The Latinised name for Apollonius is Paulus (A
Latin-English Dictionary,
J. T. White and J. E. Riddle, Ginn & Heath, Boston, 1880),
and the Church today calls those writings the Epistles of Paul.
Apollonius's personal attendant, Damis, an Assyrian scribe, is
Demis in the New Testament (2 Tim. 4:10).
The Church
hierarchy knows the truth about the origin of its Epistles, for
Cardinal Bembo (d. 1547), secretary to Pope Leo X (d. 1521),
advised his associate, Cardinal Sadoleto, to disregard them,
saying "put away these trifles, for such absurdities do not
become a man of dignity; they were introduced on the scene later
by a sly voice from heaven" (Cardinal
Bembo: His Letters and Comments on Pope Leo X,
A. L. Collins, London, 1842 reprint).
The Church
admits that the Epistles of Paul are forgeries, saying, "Even
the genuine Epistles were greatly interpolated to lend weight to
the personal views of their authors" (Catholic
Encyclopedia,
Farley ed., vol. vii, p. 645). Likewise, St Jerome (d. 420)
declared that the Acts of the Apostles, the fifth book of the New
Testament, was also "falsely written" ("The
Letters of Jerome", Library of the Fathers, Oxford Movement,
1833-45, vol. v, p. 445).
The
shock discovery of an ancient Bible
The New
Testament subsequently evolved into a fulsome piece of priesthood
propaganda, and the Church claimed it recorded the intervention
of a divine Jesus Christ into Earthly affairs. However, a
spectacular discovery in a remote Egyptian monastery revealed to
the world the extent of later falsifications of the Christian
texts, themselves only an "assemblage of legendary tales"
(Encyclopédie, Diderot,
1759). On 4 February 1859, 346 leaves of an ancient codex were
discovered in the furnace room at St Catherine's monastery at Mt
Sinai, and its contents sent shockwaves through the Christian
world. Along with other old codices, it was scheduled to be
burned in the kilns to provide winter warmth for the inhabitants
of the monastery. Written in Greek on donkey skins, it carried
both the Old and New Testaments, and later in time archaeologists
dated its composition to around the year 380. It was discovered
by Dr Constantin von Tischendorf (1815-1874), a brilliant and
pious German biblical scholar, and he called it the Sinaiticus,
the Sinai Bible. Tischendorf was a professor of theology who
devoted his entire life to the study of New Testament origins,
and his desire to read all the ancient Christian texts led him on
the long, camel-mounted journey to St Catherine's Monastery.
During his
lifetime, Tischendorf had access to other ancient Bibles
unavailable to the public, such as the Alexandrian (or
Alexandrinus) Bible, believed to be the second oldest Bible in
the world. It was so named because in 1627 it was taken from
Alexandria to Britain and gifted to King Charles I (1600-49).
Today it is displayed alongside the world's oldest known Bible,
the Sinaiticus, in the British Library in London. During his
research, Tischendorf had access to the Vaticanus, the Vatican
Bible, believed to be the third oldest in the world and dated to
the mid-sixth century (The
Various Versions of the Bible,
Dr Constantin von Tischendorf, 1874, available in the British
Library). It was locked away in the Vatican's inner library.
Tischendorf asked if he could extract handwritten notes, but his
request was declined. However, when his guard took refreshment
breaks, Tischendorf wrote comparative narratives on the palm of
his hand and sometimes on his fingernails ("Are Our Gospels
Genuine or Not?", Dr Constantin von Tischendorf, lecture,
1869, available in the British Library).
Today,
there are several other Bibles written in various languages
during the fifth and sixth centuries, examples being the
Syriacus, the Cantabrigiensis (Bezae), the Sarravianus and the
Marchalianus.
A shudder
of apprehension echoed through Christendom in the last quarter of
the 19th century when English-language versions of the Sinai
Bible were published. Recorded within these pages is information
that disputes Christianity's claim of historicity. Christians
were provided with irrefutable evidence of willful falsifications
in all modern New Testaments. So different was the Sinai Bible's
New Testament from versions then being published that the Church
angrily tried to annul the dramatic new evidence that challenged
its very existence. In a series of articles published in
the London
Quarterly Review in
1883, John W. Burgon, Dean of Chichester, used every rhetorical
device at his disposal to attack the Sinaiticus' earlier and
opposing story of Jesus Christ, saying that "...without a
particle of hesitation, the Sinaiticus is scandalously corrupt
... exhibiting the most shamefully mutilated texts which are
anywhere to be met with; they have become, by whatever process,
the depositories of the largest amount of fabricated readings,
ancient blunders and intentional perversions of the truth which
are discoverable in any known copies of the word of God".
Dean Burgon's concerns mirror opposing aspects of Gospel stories
then current, having by now evolved to a new stage through
centuries of tampering with the fabric of an already unhistorical
document.
The
revelations of ultraviolet light testing
In 1933,
the British Museum in London purchased the Sinai Bible from the
Soviet government for £100,000, of which £65,000 was gifted by
public subscription. Prior to the acquisition, this Bible was
displayed in the Imperial Library in St Petersburg, Russia, and
"few scholars had set eyes on it" (The
Daily Telegraph and Morning
Post,
11 January 1938, p. 3). When it went on display in 1933 as "the
oldest Bible in the world" (ibid.), it became the centre of
a pilgrimage unequalled in the history of the British Museum.
Before I
summarize its conflictions, it should be noted that this old
codex is by no means a reliable guide to New Testament study as
it contains superabundant errors and serious re-editing. These
anomalies were exposed as a result of the months of
ultraviolet-light tests carried out at the British Museum in the
mid-1930s. The findings revealed replacements of numerous
passages by at least nine different editors. Photographs taken
during testing revealed that ink pigments had been retained deep
in the pores of the skin. The original words were readable under
ultraviolet light. Anybody wishing to read the results of the
tests should refer to the book written by the researchers who did
the analysis: the Keepers of the Department of Manuscripts at the
British Museum (Scribes
and Correctors of the Codex Sinaiticus,
H. J. M. Milne and T. C. Skeat, British Museum, London, 1938).
Forgery
in the Gospels
When the
New Testament in the Sinai Bible is compared with a modern-day
New Testament, a staggering 14,800 editorial alterations can be
identified. These amendments can be recognized by a simple
comparative exercise that anybody can and should do. Serious
study of Christian origins must emanate from the Sinai Bible's
version of the New Testament, not modern editions.
Of
importance is the fact that the Sinaiticus carries three Gospels
since rejected: the Shepherd of Hermas (written by two
resurrected ghosts, Charinus and Lenthius), the Missive of
Barnabas and the Odes of Solomon. Space excludes elaboration on
these bizarre writings and also discussion on dilemmas associated
with translation variations.
Modern
Bibles are five removes in translation from early editions, and
disputes rage between translators over variant interpretations of
more than 5,000 ancient words. However, it is what isnot written
in that old Bible that embarrasses the Church, and this article
discusses only a few of those omissions. One glaring example is
subtly revealed in the Encyclopaedia
Biblica (Adam
& Charles Black, London, 1899, vol. iii, p. 3344), where the
Church divulges its knowledge about exclusions in old Bibles,
saying: "The remark has long ago and often been made that,
like Paul, even the earliest Gospels knew nothing of the
miraculous birth of our Saviour". That is because there
never was a virgin birth.
It is
apparent that when Eusebius assembled scribes to write the New
Testimonies, he first produced a single document that provided an
exemplar or master version. Today it is called the Gospel of
Mark, and the Church admits that it was "the first Gospel
written" (Catholic
Encyclopedia,
Farley ed., vol. vi, p. 657), even though it appears second in
the New Testament today. The scribes of the Gospels of Matthew
and Luke were dependent upon the Mark writing as the source and
framework for the compilation of their works. The Gospel of John
is independent of those writings, and the late-15th-century
theory that it was written later to support the earlier writings
is the truth (The
Crucifixion of Truth,
Tony Bushby, Joshua Books, 2004, pp. 33-40).
Thus, the
Gospel of Mark in the Sinai Bible carries the "first"
story of Jesus Christ in history, one completely different to
what is in modern Bibles. It starts with Jesus "at about the
age of thirty" (Mark 1:9), and doesn't know of Mary, a
virgin birth or mass murders of baby boys by Herod. Words
describing Jesus Christ as "the son of God" do not
appear in the opening narrative as they do in today's editions
(Mark 1:1), and the modern-day family tree tracing a "messianic
bloodline" back to King David is non-existent in all ancient
Bibles, as are the now-called "messianic prophecies"
(51 in total). The Sinai Bible carries a conflicting version of
events surrounding the "raising of Lazarus", and
reveals an extraordinary omission that later became the central
doctrine of the Christian faith: the resurrection appearances of
Jesus Christ and his ascension into Heaven. No supernatural
appearance of a resurrected Jesus Christ is recorded in any
ancient Gospels of Mark, but a description of over 500 words now
appears in modern Bibles (Mark 16:9-20).
Despite a
multitude of long-drawn-out self-justifications by Church
apologists, there is no unanimity of Christian opinion regarding
the non-existence of "resurrection" appearances in
ancient Gospel accounts of the story. Not only are those
narratives missing in the Sinai Bible, but they are absent in the
Alexandrian Bible, the Vatican Bible, the Bezae Bible and an
ancient Latin manuscript of Mark, code-named "K" by
analysts. They are also lacking in the oldest Armenian version of
the New Testament, in sixth-century manuscripts of the Ethiopic
version and ninth-century Anglo-Saxon Bibles. However, some
12th-century Gospels have the now-known resurrection verses
written within asterisks marks used by scribes to indicate
spurious passages in a literary document.
The Church
claims that "the resurrection is the fundamental argument
for our Christian belief" (Catholic
Encyclopedia,
Farley ed., vol. xii, p. 792), yet no supernatural appearance of
a resurrected Jesus Christ is recorded in any of the earliest
Gospels of Mark available. A resurrection and ascension of Jesus
Christ is the sine qua non ("without which, nothing")
of Christianity (Catholic
Encyclopedia,
Farley ed., vol. xii, p. 792), confirmed by words attributed to
Paul: "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is in vain"
(1 Cor. 5:17). The resurrection verses in today's Gospels of Mark
are universally acknowledged as forgeries and the Church agrees,
saying "the conclusion of Mark is admittedly not genuine ...
almost the entire section is a later compilation"
(Encyclopaedia
Biblica,
vol. ii, p. 1880, vol. iii, pp. 1767, 1781; also, Catholic
Encyclopedia, vol. iii, under the heading "The Evidence of
its Spuriousness"; Catholic
Encyclopedia,
Farley ed., vol. iii, pp. 274-9 under heading "Canons").
Undaunted, however, the Church accepted the forgery into its
dogma and made it the basis of Christianity.
The trend
of fictitious resurrection narratives continues. The final
chapter of the Gospel of John (21) is a sixth-century forgery,
one entirely devoted to describing Jesus' resurrection to his
disciples. The Church admits: "The sole conclusion that can
be deduced from this is that the 21st chapter was afterwards
added and is therefore to be regarded as an appendix to the
Gospel" (Catholic
Encyclopedia,
Farley ed., vol. viii, pp. 441-442; New
Catholic Encyclopedia(NCE),
"Gospel of John", p. 1080; also NCE,
vol. xii, p. 407).
"The
Great Insertion" and "The Great Omission"
Modern-day
versions of the Gospel of Luke have a staggering 10,000 more
words than the same Gospel in the Sinai Bible. Six of those words
say of Jesus "and was carried up into heaven", but this
narrative does not appear in any of the oldest Gospels of Luke
available today ("Three Early Doctrinal Modifications of the
Text of the Gospels", F. C. Conybeare, The
Hibbert Journal,
London, vol. 1, no. 1, Oct 1902, pp. 96-113). Ancient versions do
not verify modern-day accounts of an ascension of Jesus Christ,
and this falsification clearly indicates an intention to deceive.
Today, the
Gospel of Luke is the longest of the canonical Gospels because it
now includes "The Great Insertion", an extraordinary
15th-century addition totaling around 8,500 words (Luke
9:51-18:14). The insertion of these forgeries into that Gospel
bewilders modern Christian analysts, and of them the Church said:
"The character of these passages makes it dangerous to draw
inferences" (Catholic
Encyclopedia,
Pecci ed., vol. ii, p. 407).
Just as
remarkable, the oldest Gospels of Luke omit all verses from 6:45
to 8:26, known in priesthood circles as "The Great
Omission", a total of 1,547 words. In today's versions, that
hole has been "plugged up" with passages plagiarized
from other Gospels. Dr Tischendorf found that three paragraphs in
newer versions of the Gospel of Luke's version of the Last Supper
appeared in the 15th century, but the Church still passes its
Gospels off as the unadulterated "word of God" ("Are
Our Gospels Genuine or Not?", op. cit.)
The
"Expurgatory Index"
As was the
case with the New Testament, so also were damaging writings of
early "Church Fathers" modified in centuries of
copying, and many of their records were intentionally rewritten
or suppressed.
Adopting
the decrees of the Council of Trent (1545-63), the Church
subsequently extended the process of erasure and ordered the
preparation of a special list of specific information to be
expunged from early Christian writings (Delineation
of Roman Catholicism,
Rev. Charles Elliott, DD, G. Lane & P. P. Sandford, New York,
1842, p. 89; also, The
Vatican Censors,
Professor Peter Elmsley, Oxford, p. 327, pub. date n/a).
In 1562,
the Vatican established a special censoring office called Index
Expurgatorius. Its purpose was to prohibit publication of
"erroneous passages of the early Church Fathers" that
carried statements opposing modern-day doctrine.
When
Vatican archivists came across "genuine copies of the
Fathers, they corrected them according to the Expurgatory Index"
(Index
Expurgatorius Vaticanus,
R. Gibbings, ed., Dublin, 1837; The
Literary Policy of the Church of Rome,
Joseph Mendham, J. Duncan, London, 1830, 2nd ed., 1840; The
Vatican Censors,
op. cit., p. 328). This Church record provides researchers with
"grave doubts about the value of all patristic writings
released to the public" (The
Propaganda Press of Rome,
Sir James W. L. Claxton, Whitehaven Books, London, 1942, p. 182).
Important
for our story is the fact that the Encyclopaedia Biblica reveals
that around 1,200 years of Christian history are unknown:
"Unfortunately, only few of the records [of the Church]
prior to the year 1198 have been released". It was not by
chance that, in that same year (1198), Pope Innocent III
(1198-1216) suppressed all records of earlier Church history by
establishing the Secret Archives (Catholic
Encyclopedia,
Farley ed., vol. xv, p. 287). Some seven-and-a-half centuries
later, and after spending some years in those Archives, Professor
Edmond S. Bordeaux wrote How
The Great Pan Died.
In a chapter titled "The Whole of Church History is Nothing
but a Retroactive Fabrication", he said this (in part):
"The
Church ante-dated all her late works, some newly made, some
revised and some counterfeited, which contained the final
expression of her history ... her technique was to make it appear
that much later works written by Church writers were composed a
long time earlier, so that they might become evidence of the
first, second or third centuries." (How
The Great Pan Died,
op. cit., p. 46)
Supporting
Professor Bordeaux's findings is the fact that, in 1587, Pope
Sixtus V (1585-90) established an official Vatican publishing
division and said in his own words, "Church history will be
now be established ... we shall seek to print our own
account" Encyclopédie, Diderot,
1759). Vatican records also reveal that Sixtus V spent 18 months
of his life as pope personally writing a new Bible and then
introduced into Catholicism a "New Learning" (Catholic
Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. v, p. 442, vol. xv, p. 376). The
evidence that the Church wrote its own history is found in
Diderot's Encyclopédie,
and it reveals the reason why Pope Clement XIII (1758-69) ordered
all volumes to be destroyed immediately after publication in
1759.
Gospel
authors exposed as imposters
There is
something else involved in this scenario and it is recorded in
the Catholic
Encyclopedia.
An appreciation of the clerical mindset arises when the Church
itself admits that it does not know who wrote its Gospels and
Epistles, confessing that all 27 New Testament writings began
life anonymously:
"It
thus appears that the present titles of the Gospels are not
traceable to the evangelists themselves ... they [the New
Testament collection] are supplied with titles which, however
ancient, do not go back to the respective authors of those
writings." (Catholic
Encyclopedia,
Farley ed., vol. vi, pp. 655-6)
The Church
maintains that "the titles of our Gospels were not intended
to indicate authorship", adding that "the headings ...
were affixed to them" (Catholic
Encyclopedia,
Farley ed., vol. i, p. 117, vol. vi, pp. 655, 656). Therefore
they are not Gospels written "according to Matthew, Mark,
Luke or John", as publicly stated. The full force of this
confession reveals that there are no genuine apostolic Gospels,
and that the Church's shadowy writings today embody the very
ground and pillar of Christian foundations and faith. The
consequences are fatal to the pretence of Divine origin of the
entire New Testament and expose Christian texts as having no
special authority. For centuries, fabricated Gospels bore Church
certification of authenticity now confessed to be false, and this
provides evidence that Christian writings are wholly fallacious.
After
years of dedicated New Testament research, Dr Tischendorf
expressed dismay at the differences between the oldest and newest
Gospels, and had trouble understanding...
"...how scribes
could allow themselves to bring in here and there changes which
were not simply verbal ones, but such as materially affected the
very meaning and, what is worse still, did not shrink from
cutting out a passage or inserting one."
(Alterations
to the Sinai Bible,
Dr Constantin von Tischendorf, 1863, available in the British
Library, London)
After
years of validating the fabricated nature of the New Testament, a
disillusioned Dr Tischendorf confessed that modern-day editions
have "been altered in many places" and are "not to
be accepted as true" (When
Were Our Gospels Written?,
Dr Constantin von Tischendorf, 1865, British Library, London).
Just
what is Christianity?
The
important question then to ask is this: if the New Testament is
not historical, what is it?
Dr Tischendorf provided part of
the answer when he said in his 15,000 pages of critical notes on
the Sinai Bible that "it seems that the personage of Jesus
Christ was made narrator for many religions". This explains
how narratives from the ancient Indian epic, the Mahabharata,
appear verbatim in the Gospels today (e.g., Matt. 1:25, 2:11,
8:1-4, 9:1-8, 9:18-26), and why passages from the Phenomena of
the Greek statesman Aratus of Sicyon (271-213 BC) are in the New
Testament.
Extracts
from the Hymn
to Zeus,
written by Greek philosopher Cleanthes (c. 331-232 BC), are also
found in the Gospels, as are 207 words from the Thais of
Menander (c. 343-291), one of the "seven wise men" of
Greece. Quotes from the semi-legendary Greek poet Epimenides (7th
or 6th century BC) are applied to the lips of Jesus Christ, and
seven passages from the curious Ode
of Jupiter (c.
150 BC; author unknown) are reprinted in the New Testament.
Tischendorf's
conclusion also supports Professor Bordeaux's Vatican findings
that reveal the allegory of Jesus Christ derived from the fable
of Mithra, the divine son of God (Ahura Mazda) and messiah of the
first kings of the Persian Empire around 400 BC. His birth in a
grotto was attended by magi who followed a star from the East.
They brought "gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh"
(as in Matt. 2:11) and the newborn baby was adored by shepherds.
He came into the world wearing the Mithraic cap, which popes
imitated in various designs until well into the 15th century.
Mithra,
one of a trinity, stood on a rock, the emblem of the foundation
of his religion, and was anointed with honey. After a last supper
with Helios and 11 other companions, Mithra was crucified on a
cross, bound in linen, placed in a rock tomb and rose on the
third day or around 25 March (the full moon at the spring
equinox, a time now called Easter after the Babylonian goddess
Ishtar). The fiery destruction of the universe was a major
doctrine of Mithraism-a time in which Mithra promised to return
in person to Earth and save deserving souls. Devotees of Mithra
partook in a sacred communion banquet of bread and wine, a
ceremony that paralleled the Christian Eucharist and preceded it
by more than four centuries.
Christianity
is an adaptation of Mithraism welded with the Druidic principles
of the Culdees, some Egyptian elements (the pre-Christian Book of
Revelation was originally called The
Mysteries of Osiris and Isis),
Greek philosophy and various aspects of Hinduism.
Why
there are no records of Jesus Christ
It is not
possible to find in any legitimate religious or historical
writings compiled between the beginning of the first century and
well into the fourth century any reference to Jesus Christ and
the spectacular events that the Church says accompanied his life.
This confirmation comes from Frederic Farrar (1831-1903) of
Trinity College, Cambridge:
"It is amazing that history
has not embalmed for us even one certain or definite saying or
circumstance in the life of the Saviour of mankind ... there is
no statement in all history that says anyone saw Jesus or talked
with him. Nothing in history is more astonishing than the silence
of contemporary writers about events relayed in the four
Gospels."
(The
Life of Christ,
Frederic W. Farrar, Cassell, London, 1874)
This
situation arises from a conflict between history and New
Testament narratives. Dr Tischendorf made this comment:
"We
must frankly admit that we have no source of information with
respect to the life of Jesus Christ other than ecclesiastic
writings assembled during the fourth century."
(Codex
Sinaiticus,
Dr Constantin von Tischendorf, British Library, London)
There is
an explanation for those hundreds of years of silence: the
construct of Christianity did not begin until after the first
quarter of the fourth century, and that is why Pope Leo X (d.
1521) called Christ a "fable" (Cardinal
Bembo: His Letters...,
op. cit.).
About
the Author:
Tony
Bushby, an Australian, became a businessman and entrepreneur
early in his adult life. He established a magazine-publishing
business and spent 20 years researching, writing and publishing
his own magazines, primarily for the Australian and New Zealand
markets.
With strong spiritual beliefs and an interest in
metaphysical subjects, Tony has developed long relationships with
many associations and societies throughout the world that have
assisted his research by making their archives available. He is
the author of The
Bible Fraud (2001;
reviewed in NEXUS 8/06 with extracts in NEXUS 9/01—03), The
Secret in the Bible (2003;
reviewed in 11/02, with extract, "Ancient Cities under the
Sands of Giza", in 11/03) and The
Crucifixion of Truth (2005;
reviewed in 12/02) and The
Twin Deception (2007;
reviewed 14/03). Copies of these books are available from the
NEXUS website and the Joshua Books website
http://www.joshuabooks.com.
Source:
http://www.exminister.org/Bushby-forged-origins-NewTestament.html
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