jesus: the holy bible & the holy koran studies

The Holy Bible and the Holy Koran Studies

1

The Holy Bible and The Holy Qurʾān Studies


2

The stories enshrined in the Holy Bible and the Holy Koran are revelations

about us, the human race …

MYTH IS THE GREAT STORY OF MAN

Storytelling

is an integral part of the human experience. Here is Zeus seducing Leda, mother of

Helen of Troy …

Stories tell something about us, about the human condition, even if the story is not true.

They contain certain morales and axioms that everybody can accept. I define myth in this way.

The term derives from the Greek root, mythos.

I believe there are a number of origins for the Creation of Myth:

� Legend

� Allegory

� Personification

� Rites

People become the stuff of legend because they affected our lives in some personal way.

Simply put, that person made us ‘happy.’ And around 320 BCE a mythographer by the name of

(Εὐήµερος) Euhēmeros—Greek for ‘happy’ theorized that myth originated from human beings

made legend. I couldn’t agree more. We have the famous legends of Troy (present-day Turkey)

and the Pharos Lighthouse (modern-day Egypt) for example. The historicity of all these legends

are confirmed by modern archeology.


3

So what of the biblical legends: e.g. Adam, Abraham, Moses, or Jesus and Muḥammad?

Are these legends historical too? That is the theme for our presentation, to find out if the stories

of the Bible are ‘historical truths’ or just plain ‘storytelling truths.’ This power-point presentation

consists of two parts. This demonstration is part one. Part one is broken up into 10 modules to

make the intake of vast information digestible.

MODULE I: One school says that the origin of mythology is allegory.

That is, allegories were used to describe the natural world. Gradually these allegories became

interpreted literally. I agree. If we look at our first civilization in Africa 5,000 years ago, Egypt,

man beheld the lushness of the food plant as the key to life. Life began with sex.

The Ancient Egyptian creation myth is that the gods were created by the Sun, the chief

source of life. That heavenly star was personified as god Amun . Myth: Amun masturbated

and from his seed he made the gods. The gods grew (as plants grew) from a seed. Life began

with a single seed. A seed conceals the mysteries of life.

And we have the African slave Luq'mān (ن��), a black sage in the Koran who provides

us the ageless wisdom of a seed. Luq'mān the wiseman taught his son (also a victim of slavery)

the ‘Parable of the Mustard Seed’ in Koran 31:16 (italics are mine):

“O my son!" (said Luq'mān), "If there be (but)

the weight of a mustard-seed and it were

(hidden) in a rock, or (anywhere) in the

heavens or on earth, God will bring it forth:

for God understands the finest mysteries, (and)

is well-acquainted (with them)."”


4

1,000 years later a Syro-Arabian slave by the name of Yēšūă‘ ( ַיְהֹוֻׁשע), another great sage

of the al-Koran, taught the same parable in Matthew 13:31-32. Being granted hikmah—wisdom

(as Luq'mān), the seer revealed, “the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed which a man took

and planted in his field.” Then he explains himself (by repeating the lesson of Luq'mān):

“Though it is the smallest of all your seeds,

yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden

plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds

of the air come and perch in its branches.”

Morale of the Story: Two koranic ‘prophet-slaves,’ one black, the other white: 1,000 years

divide them yet they are sent by God. But, sent for what? To bid us Ἁγία Σοφία ‘Hagia Sophia,’

that is, to do “an atom’s weight of good” (even if subdued) God will see it (Kor 99:8). The lesson?

(1) We are slaves to no one, except God. (2) Treating each other well is worship.

Jesus’ lessons of the mustard seed are encapsulated in his Sermon on the Mound as told in

Matthew (chapters 5, 6, and 7), the first book of the New Testament. The ‘life giving’ interchange

was delivered on a mound because, in the ancient Egyptian formation myth, the receded waters

of the Nile brought forth the mound which is life. The trilateral shape of the pharaoh’s pyramid,

the resurrection machine, is a mound. In other words, the mound represents sacred ground. Thus,

even the smallest seed planted on the earth mound can grow life everlasting, this is his discourse.

Buddha conveyed a similar sermon at Benares वाराणसी (Vārāṇasī) in the 6th century B.C.E.

The traditions of the Holy Bible and the Holy Koran are melodious. The life mysteries of

Luq'mān and of Yēšūă‘are like the ‘ebony & ivory’ keys on the keyboard of Allāh’s grand piano

that gave us the timeless rapture of the ‘Great G minor symphony’ by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

(a.k.a. Symphony No. 40 in G minor, KV. 550) or the ecstatic descant of Symphony No. 5 in C minor,

Op. 67 in two-quarter time by Ludwig van Beethoven:

Fertility in Ancient Egyptian myth was anthropomorphized as the dead and resurrected

king of the Egyptians (e.g. king of the Jews), Osiris (e.g. Jesus), the son of Amun (e.g. son of Abba).

He is the first to begin the physical resurrection. This concept was inspired by the annual harvest:

plants die in winter and rise in spring. The plant which dies in the wintertime lies underground

in the thionic realm, hell. What mythologist Joseph Campbell calls the telluric earth. Christ Jesus

was in the sepulcher for two nights in the belly of the earth as Jonah was in the belly of the fish

(Mt 12:40). He was in hell! To refresh your memory, simply recite the Apostles’ credo:


5

1. I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

2. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.

3. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.

4. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.

5. He descended into Hell. On the third day he rose again.

“It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body” —St Paul

John 19:39 gives a vivid account of the king of the Jews—Jesus’ burial:

“Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds.” A burial for a

king of the Jews sounds more like the burial for a king of the Egyptians as we have in the above

example of Ramses II.

Before John 19:39, Mark 15:46 (cf. Mt 27:60; Lk 23:53; Jn 19:40) tells us that a secret disciple (John 19:38) Joseph of Arimathaea: “bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him

in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a

stone against the entrance of the tomb.” Mark is describing embalming an Ancient Egyptian

burial technique. Part of the rite is to mince the pharaoh’s carcass with medicals. Embalmers

then wrap the body in a linen shroud and bury it in the belly of the earth: ‘in a tomb that has been cut out of the rock’ i.e. a temple-pyramid. The entry is sealed to prevent robbery.

The aim of the ritual is to mimic the first Osirian bodily resurrection with the intent to be

returned to the natural world which created us—from our mother’s womb, who was made from

earth, to Mother Earth’s womb. In Genesis 3:19 God said, “for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt

thou return.” God repeated His verso in Koran 3:59, “He created him from dust.” ʿĀp̄hār (ר (ָעָפ֖

in the Holy Bible and turābin ( ٍَُ�اب�) in the Holy Koran mean the same thing, dust or clay.


6

“Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the

Spirit of God dwells in you?” 1 Corinthians 3:16 –St Paul

Jesus is buried expensively, regally, outside the realm of a typical peasant Jewish burial.

In short, all four gospels DO NOT offer us a Jewish burial account, it is, Egyptian mummification.

John 19:33/36 is the proof. The two verses say that his legs were not broken. Aside from fulfilling

the promise of Psalm 34:20, why does a dead man need legs? In Ancient Egypt, the afterlife is

an extension of this one. That is, he needs his limbs for bodily resurrection. But, in order to rise

you must die. John 19:34 solves that problem by intentionally inserting into the text that his side

was pierced by a lance. It was written with the intent to alleviate doubt. Some might believe

that Christ in the tomb was resuscitated (by Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus) rather than

resurrected. This is our first evidence that the evangelists were Gentiles.

Joseph of Arimathaea /Nicodemus are, actually, one biblical code invented by the evangelists

to initiate us into Old Egypt’s secrecies for material rebirth in a physical universe (see John 19:2-21).

In other words, the resurrection, and more, we inherited from Roman-Egypt over 2,000 years ago.

Thus, myth is tied to ritual. Indeed, myth originated from ritual.

Another theory

holds that mythology is the result of the personification of inanimate

objects and/or natural phenomenon, e.g. Jesus in a wafer …


7

The resurrection motif originated from the waters of the Nile spewing silt on the land,

making the corn grow, it means that king Osiris has resurrected from the dead. Osiris has risen!

The Nile flood will come again for the following harvest. And we can translate these semantics in

modern terms: “Christ has died. Christ has risen! Christ will come again.” The homily we chant

at mass has very old roots.

Above is the ‘Osiris-Nepra’ with wheat growing from his body. This illustration is taken

from a bas-relief at Philae, the sprouting corn implies resurrection. In Holy Communion rites,

the priest offers: a wafer, the grain, or a piece of cornbread to the congregation so that we may

be raised with Christ (i.e. the rising of the corn. He’s the grain, our life-food source—Lord Osiris!

We’re ‘Children of the Corn’ that is to say ‘Children of the Resurrection.’). If resurrection, however,

was earthly than how is it that we possess the 3,000 year old mummy of king Ramses the Great?

For in 1 Corinthians 15:44 we are told that the resurrection is mystically transcendent.

In the Eucharist we are gods (the gods are projections of us). A Christ

consciousness or a Christ in you Hindu saying: “None but a god can worship a god (The Power of

Myth, Campbell, p. 263).” We eat the wafer as gods because food comes from god. Christ said,

“Is it not written in your Law…Ye are gods (Jn 10:34)?” Paul said Christ’s death and resurrection

is our salvation: we live not under law, but under grace (see Rom 6:4-14). At dinner we say grace

before we eat with an understanding that we’re eating divine food thanks to the divine. In turn,

we’re divine for recognizing these otherworldly matters. The Osirian order of Old Egypt employ

the same dynamics. Thus, once again quoting Paul, our body is the ‘temple of god.’

MODULE II: I believe that Jesus was made a myth …

Christos in the New Testament has been mythologized over a period of two millennia by

a) legend, b) allegory, c) rite, and d) personification. In module II, we will briefly survey the

assumed memoire of the supposed founder of Christianity as reported by his four biographers:

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. We will see if any history can be pieced back together after 20

centuries. This segment will reveal where history ends and where mystery begins.


8

Holy Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

It was constructed by St. Constantine in the 4th century. A hole on the ground marks the spot

where he’s said to have been born in Jerusalem.

Only two gospels offer clues on the Nativity—

Matthew and Luke. And both offer mostly contradictory accounts of the Nativity Story with

the exception that both evangelists agree that Christos was born miraculously in the holy city.

Thus, the ‘Virgin Birth’ in Bethlehem fulfilled the Hebrew promise that the messiah, the king of

Israel, would be born in the holy city of King David (see Is 7:14 and Mic 5:2).

Jesus was conceived ‘out of wedlock.’ It’s subtly written into the texts. The gospel writers

Matthew and Luke invented a Nativity Story to give credibility to Jesus as a Jew, as the messiah.

Meanwhile, Mark opens his gospel at the start of Jesus’ ministry. John cleverly has Jesus’ ‘birth’

at creation instead of a D.O.B. These alterations mean: that varying cultures receive ‘the Word’

in differing ways. St. Paul the Apostle informs us: “To the weak I became weak, to win the weak.

I have become all things to all men (1 Cor 9:22).” The evangelists, Gentile followers of St. Paul,

took the next literary/evolutionary step and made Christ ‘all things to all men’ to win the men.

Paul gives the gospels writers the blueprint for evangelism in 2 Cor 11:4.


9

Above The Nativity Scene. Luke 2:8 says that shepherds where nearby out in the field

attending to their sheep on the night of December 25. It is a little known fact, however, that

Judaea and North America lie in the Northern Hemisphere, our winters are the same. In the print

the babe Jesus is exposed as the white arrow above indicates. The temperature drops at night

during winter. What do you think the artist is conveying us? It would seem the print is more

consistent with a warm night. Many years ago Acharya S theorized that the Virgin Mary may be

the Zodiac sign of the goddess Virgo (♍), August 23 to September 22. This could be evidence of

a freemason message in the Bible that Christ Jesus was born in summer.

Four verses earlier, Luke 2:4-5 states that Joseph the Carpenter took Mary his wife from

Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem in Jerusalem to be counted in a Roman tally. Joseph and Mary

would have to journey 90 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem on a donkey, their only means of

transport. Worst, St. Luke says that Mary was pregnant. St. Matthew reports quite the reverse,

that Joseph and Mary already resided in Bethlehem. At any rate, the evangelists were aware of

the messianic prophesy of Micah 2:5. St. Luke was editing St. Matthew’s evangel concerning the

state of affairs that would cause these two meager Galilean Jews to migrate to Judaea at the time

of Christ’s birth. The problem is solved in Luke 2:1: “In those days, … went out a decree from

Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.” In short, the theme here is to sell religion,

not to record history. The discrepancies in the Bible prove this.


10

Still not convinced?

Matthew 2:1 states that Jesus was born ‘in the days of Herod the king.’ Herod I ‘the Great’

died of an illness in 4 B.C.E at Jericho. The year of death is confirmed by archeological proof.

Here is an aerial view of his gravesite. The large tomb was recently discovered at Herodium by

Israeli professor Ehud Netzer of Hebrew University in 2007. Furthermore, Herod’s passing is

also recorded in Antiquities of the Jews by Jewish historian Josephus (see Antiq. 17.199).

Contrary to Matthew 2:1, Luke 2:5 testifies that Christ was born at the time of a registry.

But, when did such a registry occur? Luke 2:1-2 states that Augustus decreed this poll tax when

Κυρηνίου Kyrēniou Quirin’i-us, a Roman senator, was governor of Syria. He took over in 6 C.E.

Josephus noted the appointment in Antiquities 17.355 and 18.1-2 (cf. Mt 2:22).

The German Protestant theologian Emil Schürer wrote extensively regarding when that

census took place in his volume Geschichte des judischen Volks im Zeitalter Jesu Christi (1886–1890;

4th ed. 1901-1909). It was translated later The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ

Vol I (1973-1987). The revised English version was the collective work of editors Geza Vermes,

Fergus Millar, and Matthew Black. On page 424 of the revised English version, fn. 123, Schürer

provides an exact date for the tax registry:

“It was started after the banishment of

Archelaus, at the earliest in the summer

of A.D. 6, and, according to Ant. xviii 2,

1 (26), completed…at the latest in the

autumn of A.D. 7.”

So the census took a year to complete under Quirin’i-us. But, how does the birth of Christ fit in?


11

Schürer further comments that the Lukan account is historically inaccurate, “the

underlying idea that the birth of Jesus occurred in the time of Quirinius … is impossible

(Schürer, 1973, p. 424).” His closing argument (italics are mine):

“Thus the Lukan report can be justified

historically only if it can be proved that

Quirinius was already in the time of

Herod the regular and sole governor

of Syria. But such a proof can never be

produced since the contrary is an

established fact (Schürer, 1973, p. 425).”

Quintilius Varus (Chief of Syria, c. 4 B.C.E.)

Schürer beautifully articulated the ‘established’ historical fact that Quirin’i-us did not take

office until after Herod’s death in 4 B.C.E. This is crucial because the witness of Matthew is that

Jesus was born ‘in the days of Herod’:

“Luke without doubt, that is to say, considers

Quirinius to be the regular legate of Syria.

But it is historically established that this office

was occupied in the last years of Herod, not by

Quirinius, but by Sentius Saturninus (?10/9-

?7/6 B.C.), and then Quintilius Varus (7/6-

4 B.C.)…(Schürer, 1973, p. 424).”


12

What is noteworthy is that an inscription was found possibly showing that Quirin’i-us

served twice as chief over Syria. It was suggested that he could have served ‘in the days of Herod’

in his first term thus placing the date of his appointment to 4 B.C.E. Schürer, however, pointed

out on page 423 of his commentary that the evidence doesn’t hold:

“Indeed, the discovery of the inscription supposedly

showing two governorships of Quirinius in Syria,

some have thought that everything has been cleared

up. But…, the inscription in fact settles nothing.

Even a dual governorship (which is in any case not

proved by the inscription) would not justify Luke’s

report. For the first governorship of Quirinius

cannot have begun, at the earliest, until six months

after Herod’s death, whereas according to Luke,

Quirinius, must already have been governor in Herod’s

lifetime. ... [T]he census was started by Sentius Satrurninus

(9-6 B.C.), continued by Quintilius Varsus (6-4 B.C.) and

finished by Quirinius during his first governership …

It was from Quirinius, as the person who completed the

work, that the census received its name; it is also why

Luke states that it took place under him.”

Between 9 B.C.E and 8 B.C.E Publius Quintilius Varus was head of the province of Africa.

An African coin with his image is displayed above. After this, he went to rule Syria with some

Roman legions at his command. When he was governing Syria he was known for his cruelties.

He placed ‘heavy tariffs’ on the Jews. We also find at this time a remark in Josephus’ writings

detailing the swift actions of Varus against a ‘messianic revolt’ in Judaea following Herod I’s

death in 4 B.C.E (Antiq. 17.10.1 & 9, 10).

After securing Jerusalem, Varus crucified two thousand mutineers (see Antiq. 17.295).

Needless to say, he became the object of anti-Roman sentiment in Judaea. As we shall witness,

the archaeological record seems to verify the demonstrations against Varus.

~ ~

In the next module we will begin to understand why there is mystery

surrounding the birth of Christ …

~ ~


13

MODULE III: Resulting from a vicarious leadership, Varus was recalled back to Rome

(as his successor Pilate decades later) due to misconduct. This is where the story of Jesus fits in.

The town where the messianic uprisings transpired was in Galilee, Jesus’ home. The Greek villa

was called Sepphoris or Tzippori in Hebrew. Little wonder Jesus’ grandparents: Ann and Joachim

were from Sepphoris according to Christian tradition. The villa was only 3.7 miles due north of

Nazareth. And scholars believe that Jesus traded in the market place. It’s possible that he may

have even attended the synagogue at Tzippori and learned the scriptures.

Mona Lisa of Galilee

Galilee Theatre


14

Mysteries revealed

~ ~

Josephus describes in Antiquities how Aretas, king of Arabia Petrea, sent men to assist

Varus in squashing the revolt at Galilee. In the attack, the Arabs put the insurgents ‘in flight.’

They made slaves of the inhabitants and burnt the city (see Antiq. 17.289). Varus successfully

crushed the mutiny, but at no less the cost of enslaving the villagers, burning down a village,

and executing masses of people. The city was later rebuilt into a bustling Roman villa.

Christ was conceived during Jewish-Roman conflicts, a revolution. So it comes as no

surprise that we know little of him. Luke stated that the betrothed couple, Joseph and Mary,

moved to the Holy Land to be counted in a worldwide census. Matthew said they lived there.

But, suppose he, like other messiahs before him, was not born in Bethlehem. Say he was born in

the countryside, in Galilee, near the site where the burning of Sepphoris occurred.

In 4 B.C.E. prior to Jesus’ birth, Simon of Peraea revolted against Herod at Jericho not long

before the Romans decapitated him. In the Synoptic, shortly before being hanged, Christ healed

many blind at Jericho (see Mk 10:46-52; Mt 20:29-34; Lk 18:35-43). Athronges fought Herod’s son

in 3 C.E. A final messianist worth noting was that of Judas of Galilee who led an uprising against

the tax of Quirin’i-us in 6 C.E. Josephus noted all these messiahs. Acts 5:37 recounted the latter.

Note that there are no declarations of a messianic birth in Βηθλεέµ Bēthleem regarding these self-

proclaimed messiahs from no-man’s land. So why is Jesus different in the Bible?

As astute historians we can fit some of the missing pieces of the jigsaw: e.g. we can infer

that he was fathered by a Roman soldier, not born miraculously or asexually. He was raised a Jew.

His birthplace and Jewish upbringing was in the country, not in the city. This would account

for his inconspicuousness in history. After learning the Tanakh, and of the messianic protests,

about the age of 30 he began to minister (Lk 3:23). He taught chiefly in the rural and desert parts

of Old Palestine, avoiding the major Greco-Roman cities and gained the support of the down-

trotten. Early in the third year of his ministry, however, he was caught and slain for treachery.

After, the Hellenistic Jew—Saint Paul and Jesus’ Gentile biographers developed an urban legend

to sell him in the city market. Jesus became a fairytale in the Bible because his true life on earth

was far from ideal. He was nailed to the cross not for our sins, but for his. If you know where

and when he was born, then you will understand why he was hung.

Conclusion: The evangelists in their cryptic writing styles try to place Jesus Christ away

from Galilee. Matthew and Luke say that he was born in Bēthleem. John says he was Ἐν ἀρχῇ

en archē or ‘in the Beginning.’ Mark the first writer doesn’t care to entertain us. Lest we all forget

‘the missing years?’ Eighteen years of his life at Galilee are non-existent in the Bible.


15

~ ~

Do you recall Nathanael’s remark to Philip in John 1:46 about the reputation of Jesus’

hometown, “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Why the cover up with Galilee,

with Nazareth? In part, because there is no prophesy for a messiah born in Nazareth. The other

part is due to the fact that Nazarene as a title, not a place, has a connotation.

Finally, we have Pilate’s writing above Christ Jesus’ head on the cross in the Synoptic:

“THE KING OF THE JEWS.” But, guess what? John 19:19, the last gospel, gives the full text:

“And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH

THE KING OF THE JEWS.” Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the Synoptic authors, were all writing

between 65-85 and John 90-120, a period of 40 years. 60 years after the crucifixion, John was

able to tell where THE KING OF THE JEWS was from. He wasn’t known as ‘Jesus of Bethlehem,’

he was known as ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ an incubating habitat for messianism. At his trial, he refused

to answer Pilate’s question about where he was from (John 19:9). And in the very first handout

you will recall that I dealt with the issue of the term ‘Nazorene.’ Nazareth may not have been on

the map when Christ was born. The phrase may refer to a ‘Zionist.’ At least one of his apostles

was a Zionist, Simon ‘the Zealot.’ (Refer to pages 2 and 8 of the first handout.)

~ ~

So Christ Jesus was executed by the Romans for sedition. He was an ‘enemy-of-the-state.’

He was involved with a Palestinian Liberation Organization—or PLO—a ‘messianic movement.’

In short, Jesus who is called ‘Christ’ or ‘messiah’ in Hebrew saw himself as the new king David,

at least from a Romanesque viewpoint. That’s why basic details are lost in the Bible.

In closing, I have demonstrated how the gospel writers have blatantly confused history

in their plots. But, to what end? I say to propagate. The media tool used by the early Christians

to spread ‘the Word’ was the written gospel. The etymology of evangel stems from Old English,

gōd-spell, meaning ‘glad tidings’ or ‘good news.’ THE NEWS is Jesus is the Christ! It’s like a cover

in the Sunday Times. To sell the paper journalists ‘sensationalize.’ What we read in the Bible is

melodrama. It’s business. And the key to selling the gospel is to say ‘it’s from God.’ To hard-sell

an obscure outlaw, a bucolic Jew, is to say he’s ‘god.’ Who refuses God? That’s why the Bible is

a world best-seller and the Koran is the world’s most recited book! Jointly, these faiths take 4 billion

people out of a human population of 7 billion. Religion is a rewarding industry!

The fabled Jesus is so appealing and lucrative that he makes for a great

movie … And one in particular did very well recently in the box office …


16

“So woe to those who write the "scripture" with their own hands,

then say, "This is from God," in order to exchange it for a small

price. Woe to them for what their hands have written and woe

to them for what they earn.”

Sūrat Al-Baqarah (The Cow)

MODULE IV: I stated at the outset that storytelling is central to the human experience.

Stories say things about us, about the human condition, even if the story is not true. They entail

certain morales and axioms. This is how I defined myth. That’s what happened with the tale of

the Birth. In our subconscious, the psyche, we are timid—too afraid to admit that a sinless babe

was cursed at birth. To blot out this painful reality we substitute reality with illusion by turning

‘a curse’ into a ‘blessing.’ There’s nothing wrong in relating the story in that spirit … this is what

society refers to as a ‘white lie.’ A politically correct glossing of facts so that we can share stories

with our kids. It starts out innocently, but overtime, innocence becomes the ‘gospel truth.’

Some notes:

Jesus as the Son of God is allegory, the Eucharist rite, lastly, Jesus is god is personification

all of these traditions became historicized mythology. The gospel writers invented the sound

bites e.g. Son of Man, Son of God, and Lord-Saviour, so on and so forth to sell the new religion

throughout the empire. But, the real ‘Jesus of history’ was unlikely to have used these slogans.

In other words, these catchphrases were not part of the true Gospel. By using these aphorisms,

the Jesus mythos snowballed. That giant snow ball started with his birth.

The real ‘negative aspect’ to embellishing the Nativity is winning a return, a profit ... And

verse 79 of the second chapter of the al-Koran reminds us of this evil. The scripture says: woe to

those who pen ‘in the name of God’ then earn a prize. And woe to them for what they earned.

The Bible says it plainly: “Woe to those who call evil good (Is 5:20).”

The

Nativity

is a legend


17

I can think of no greater recent example of the evil which the holy books speak of then

what was done at the box office with the PG film The Nativity Story written by Mike Rich and

directed by Catherine Hardwicke. It starred: Keisha Castle-Hughes as Mary, Alexander Siddig

as the Angel Gabriel, and Oscar Isaac as Joseph. When the picture opened in December of 2006

it made world history as the first film to have its world premiere in the Vatican City. The show

made a worldwide net profit of 47 million U.S. dollars out of a budget of 35 million U.S. dollars.

12 million U.S. dollars is ‘a small price’ in worldly terms in comparison to the harm. The evil was

passing off a false godly story as true and collecting money and praise for it.

What’s the real story?

The Nativity Story cast from left to right: Nadim Sawalh as Melchior, Stefan Kalipha as

Gaspar, and Eriq Ebouaney as Balthasar the three ‘wise men’ or ‘Magi.’ Matthew is the only

evangelist to narrate the visit. Luke says ‘shepherds’ visited. But, most notably, HEROD IS 10

YEARS DEAD WHEN THE SHEPERDS VISIT! Oddly enough, Ciarán Hinds played ‘Herod’

and Ted Rusoff played an ‘Old shepherd.’

Now, this is supposed to be a film that has been, “meticulously researched … visually lush

adaptation of the biblical tale of the Nativity from director Catherine Hardwicke” according to

the synopsis from www.netflix.com (italics are mine). Who’s missing in this ‘researched’ picture?

You guessed it, Quirin’i-us the poll tax man, the director of Syria after Herod died. There were,

however, tax collectors in the film. In short, this is a movie for children.

The Nativity Story movie doesn’t tell us who Jesus’ father was


18

WHO IS THE FATHER?

MODULE V: Another issue in the precarious narrative of Christ is the heritage of

Joseph. The evangelists give two fathers to Joseph. Luke 3:23 testifies that Joseph is the son of

Heli. Matthew 1:16 testifies that Joseph is the son of Jacob …

Since the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke do not explicitly name either of

Mary's parents, but apparently name two different fathers for Joseph, many scholars (and in

particular Protestant scholars) argue that the genealogy in Luke is actually the genealogy of

Mary. That is ridiculous. Luke 3:23 reads: Ἰωσήφ τοῦ Ἠλὶ “JOSEPH, THE SON HELI.” The

notion that Mary’s line was concealed in Joseph’s family is cleaver reasoning, but by the same

token, it’s utter nonsense.

In Islam, her parents are Hannah and ان��ʿIm’rān. In The Protoevangelium, an early non-

canonical tradition, Mary’s parents are Anne and Ἰωακείµ Iōākeím, i.e. Joachim, which means ‘he

who YHWH has established.’ I mentioned them earlier. What is interesting is that in Islamic

custom Mary’s pa is called ʻAmrām after the father of Moses because God ‘set-up’ the family of

Moses (and Mary) above others (see Kor 3:33). Mary is called ‘sister of Aaron’ in the al-Koran

(Kor 19:28) to confirm her priestly lineage and spiritual connection from the house of ʻAmrām

(which includes his daughter Mary as well as his sons Moses and Aaron). This is why the third

chapter of the Koran is titled Sūrat āl ʿIm'rān or The Family of ʿIm'rān.

~ ~

Why do we have conflicting genealogies for Joseph who was not the biological father?

Read the first two chapters of Matthew and chapter three of Luke. Even the Holy Koran and

Islamic tradition do not name Joseph the Carpenter as the father of Jesus. What do his

descendants have to do with Jesus?

~ ~

Giving birth out of matrimony is strongly condemned in the Tanakh. Indeed, such an

act is sinful in Jewish ethos. And we’ve all been indoctrinated from Christian-Muslim Sunday

School that Jesus was sinless. The consequence of not inserting Joseph into the framework of the

Nativity Story is obvious:

“A bastard shall not enter into the congregation

of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall

he not enter into the congregation of the LORD

(Deut. 23:2, KJV).”


19

WHO IS THE FATHER? PART II

I frequently quote from the Holy Bible and the Holy Koran to establish their ‘assembly.’

These books originate from the same geographical location in the East. ‘Tanakh’ and ‘Koran’ are

Semitic texts. ‘Bible’ and ‘Koran’ translated means ‘book’. These books are ONE and the SAME

revelation sent from God. He repeated His Message! In the Koran we have the Gospel of Jesus

and the Torah or the Law of the Jews. But, clergyman and rabbis are silent on this taboo theme.

So, we will form our own cloister.

God has a number of labels in the Old Testament. To start with is the Tetragrammaton—

‘YHWH.’ Without the vowels it is conjecture as to how to pronounce the immutable holy name.

But among the several nomenclature for God in the Tanakh: Elah or al-Lah, for example, there is

also the not so well-known Syro-Aramaic name ʼAlâhâ. This is a Semitic word originating from

an arid region known as the ‘Syro-Arabian Desert.’

The etymology for God in the Holy Koran—Allāh—derives from Aramaic, Jesus’ tongue.

Hebrew and Arabic are, in fact, offshoot sister languages from the Aramaic dialect. By the time

the prophet was born in the 6th century, in the Arabian Desert, the Arabic dialectical was wholly

developed. Hence, ‘al-Lah’ (Hebrew) or ‘ʼAlâhâ’ (Aramaic) and ‘Allāh’ (Arabic) is the same God,

in the Bible, in the Koran, the same scriptures. Arabic translations of the Bible use the lexicon

Allāh which means ‘the God.’ This lexis is as biblical as it is koranic.

As we are on the theme of the Holy Bible and the Holy Koran as, actually, one holy book

coming from one God, I call your attention to two passages. The first writ is the Bible Luke 1:34

and the second is the Koran 19:20. Both these scriptures deal with the Annunciation: when it was

revealed by the Arch Angel Gabriel to the Virgin that she will bare a holy child. (I have chosen

these texts to example what is meant by ‘divine intervention’ in regard to the ‘Virgin Birth’ from

Judeo-Christian and Islamic literature.) A confused Mary responds:

“Then said Mary unto the angel,

How shall this be, seeing I know

not a man?”

“She [Mary] said [unto the angel],

"How shall I have a son when no

man has touched me?”

Was Jesus really born without a father?


20

Three verses earlier, the Koran says that Virgin Mary was greeted by an angel in the

form of a ‘well-proportioned man.’ The following verse in Luke says that: the Holy Spirit will

come upon her and the power of the Most High ‘will overshadow her (italics are mine).’ Referring

to the nature by which she will conceive of course. But, what are the subtleties here?

Coming to the Jewish tradition, classical rabbinic literature has a very different construal

on the characters of Jesus and his mother. In the Babylonian Talmud, it states that Jesus was the

offspring of Mary. But, unlike Islamo-Christian works, the rabbis claim that he did have a pa

who was a Roman archer of the First Cohort by the name of Stada. Other sources refer to him as

Pantera, Greek for panther. Until very recently, Christians and Muslims dismissed the Pharisaic

commentary as nothing more than vile malice and rumor. The aim being to discredit him.

As fate would have it, the old chap was found at a Roman cemetery in Bingerbrück,

Germany. In my view, this find is the most significant biblical archeological discovery. It truly

puts a human quality to the fictitious Jesus story. It’s possible that he presumed, and correctly,

that he was the product of a rape. To make himself legitimate he took up the mantle to fight for

Jewish freedom and be the king. He could turn his bastard line into royalty. If he didn’t cut it,

then it’s better to die a hero and be immortalized through legend. All the messiahs before him,

nobodies from the country, had similar motives. That is why urban Rome was successful in

assassinating these messiahs because they were rustic, peasant folk, not military men.

Inscription CIL XIII 7514 on the tombstone reads in Latin: “Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera

(c. 22 BCE – AD 40 CE).” From his title, he was a slave of the Romans. The caption also tells us

that he was from Sidonia in Phoenicia, present-day Israel. He was with the First Cohort archers

stationed in Palestine at the time of Mary’s conception. She would have been roughly 13 and

Pantera about 18, a ‘well-proportioned man’ of Jewish abstraction. In his Roman attire he would

have appeared angelic to an inexperienced and impressionable Jewess. Compare this not so

well known or disseminated information with the above writ. Was Pantera that ‘spirit’ who

‘came upon her’ and ‘overshadowed her’ as the Talmud puts forward? “Where is the God of justice

(Mal 2:17)? ” Matthew, Luke, and the Koran replied. God gave HIS DIVINE COUNCIL to the

inexperienced Mary. He used her, a virgin heart, as His vessel.

Mary was not a ‘virgin,’ Mt 1:23. She was ‘a young unmarried

woman’ which is the correct reading of Is 7:14 in Hebrew. The mix-up

stems from a flawed Greek translation. This means that the evangelist

was reading from the Septuagint, the Greek Bible. Therefore, ‘Matthew’

is definitely not an eyewitness. More proof is in Matthew 9:9 …


21

WHO IS THE FATHER? PART III

Inscription CIL XIII 7514Inscription CIL XIII 7514Inscription CIL XIII 7514Inscription CIL XIII 7514

Tib(erius) Iul(ius) Abdes Pantera

Sidonia ann(orum) LXII

stipen(diorum) XXXX miles exs(ignifer?)

coh(orte) I sagittariorum

h(ic) s(itus) e(st)

Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera

from Sidonia, aged 62 years

served 40 years, former standard bearer(?)

of the first cohort of archers

lies here


22

Above slide, the Crucifix c. 1287-1288. Panel: 448 × 390 cm (176.4 × 153.5 in). Housed in

the Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence. This Byzantine-style wood painting is by ‘Cimabue’ also

known as Benvenuto di Giuseppe, a medieval Florentine Christian artist.

DID HE DIE THEN RISE?

The gospels say that Jesus was crucified by the Roman director of Judaea, Pontius Pilate,

in the reign of Tiberius. Pantera was given his Roman name from Tiberius. There is, however,

no recorded date for this capital punishment. All we know is that he was killed by the Romans

on the Jewish Passover according to John or on Passover eve as the Synoptic and Talmud imply.

We also know that Pilate was the fifth prefect from 27 to 36. In 36/7 he (like Varus before him)

was recalled back to Rome for his cruelty to the Jews. Josephus noted it in Antiquities of the Jews

(Antiq. 18.4.2. See also the crucifixion of Jesus, Antiq. 18.3.1).


23

I submit that it is not a coincidence that a ten year gap clouds the date of Christ’s death

as does his birth. Add another eighteen years that are absent from his biography, ages 12 to 30,

and it soon becomes apparent that he is an enigma. In Part II, I will unravel secrets behind this

messianic-masonic figurehead. I will demonstrate how a real flesh and blood messianic reformer

was transformed into myth and masonic symbols by the grand builders of Western Civilization,

the Romans.

Above The engraving bears the name Pontius Pilate. Israel Museum. It was discovered

in 1961 at the Roman theatre in the biblical seaport of Caesarea, a Roman military dock built by

King Herod as noted by Josephus (see Antiq. 15.9.6). The city served as the residence of Herod

and as the capital of Judaea. In Acts, Paul was held there by the Romans for almost two years

(57 – 59 CE) following a conflict with Oriental Jews. So Pilate, as with Herod, were real persons.

But, despite the scientific confirmation of historical persons and places, it still does not warrant

the belief that the tales of the Bible are historical facts. From what I have shown so far in regard

to the biblical Nativity Story, my argument cannot be contested.


24

“For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made

known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were

eyewitnesses of his majesty.” 2 Peter 1:16

MODULE VI: Having only a vague knowledge of Christ, by miracles mostly, definitely

caused a unique situation, it lead to his veneration. And his greatest miracle is returning back

from the dead! But, is resurrection physical or spiritual? The answer lies in deciphering the inner

hidden language of the Bible. The way as to go about that is to know something about the time

in which the Bible was written, who wrote it, and most importantly why.

In this unit we will quickly examine some textual criticisms of the

death and resurrection of Christ …

I want to point out at the outset that it is my belief that the death of Christ on the cross

and the resurrection was seen in the Ancient World as an actual and spiritual fulfillment of the

classical religions. Remember Dr. Campbell’s supporting statement of my supposition in his

last PBS series? Let me repeat the quote from The Power of Myth (italics are mine):

“Read the text [of the Apostolic Church Fathers]

where it is declared that "those forms which were merely mythological forms in the past are now actual

and incarnate in our Savior (Campbell, p. 223).”

Dr. Campbell explains that the ‘risen Christ’ mythos was built from previous myths:

“The mythologies here referred to were of the dead

and resurrected god: Attis, Adonis, Gilgamesh, Osiris,

one after the other. The death and resurrection of the

god is everywhere associated with the moon, which dies

and is resurrected every month. It is for two nights, or

three days dark, and we have Christ for two nights, or

three days in the tomb (Ibid).”

~ ~

“Those forms which were merely mythological forms in the past are

now actual and incarnate in our Savior.” The Power of Myth


25

“It is finished” (Jn 19:30), one of Christ’s last words. In other words, the issue is settled.

In a few words Dr. Joseph Campbell articulated resurrection as metaphysical. As you can see,

the gospels are very sophisticated texts. Simpletons, Galilean peasant Jews, did NOT write it!

Where would Jews receive the education to pen a theology that even by today’s standards is

perplexing? The four gospels were written in Koine Greek, not Aramaic. Koine was the tongue

of the learned in the Old World.

First century bone records from Israel’s leading centers of forensic science prove that the

physiology of Palestinian Jews from antiquity are different from us. For example, male Jewish

skulls are egg-shaped. This proves that there was little or no intermarriage. Analysis of the

bone tissue indicated stress, the result of hard labor. Further examination also showed that the

average life expectancy was below 50 due to exposure to diseases like malaria, a common killer

among Jews. By the time the gospels were written (c. 64/5-70? to 90-120?), decades after Christ,

the original twelve were dead.

Moreover, the works of Josephus confirm that James the Just, a sibling of Christ and head

of the Church in Jerusalem, was stoned to death by the Sanhedrin c. 62 for blasphemy (Antiq.

20.9.1). This was the same Jewish Supreme Court, and the same charge, that killed his brother

thirty years earlier. Christian tradition places the deaths of the apostles Peter and Paul in Rome,

c. 67. If so, that would account for the desperate need to write gospels. The last leaders such as

James, Peter, and Paul were all eliminated by 70 when Mark was written.

Conclusion: The intensity of the theology involved in the canon, the Koine dialectal, the

inconsistencies, along with forensic evidence from first century Jewish fossils all point to one

conclusion: the four gospels were not written by the original twelve, THE GOSPELS WERE

WRITTEN BY A THIRD-PARTY.

Furthermore, modern Christian scholars agree that St. Luke was the personal physician of

St. Paul and his disciple. Read the text in Luke chapter 1, he freely admits that he’s not a disciple.

St. Mark was the companion and interpreter for St. Peter, John Mark. He escorted Peter in Rome in

the second year of Claudius and wrote down Peter’s sermons which is now The Gospel of Mark.

The Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius Pamphilus by Eusebius of Caesarea, the Bishop of Caesarea,

said so himself (Eccl Hist 15-16). Why does Peter the Apostle need John Mark if he is literate?

So not only does Eusebius offer crucial information that the disciples did not author the gospels,

he also enlightens us that Peter did not author the two epistles attributed to him.

In the case of Matthew and John, I have already dealt with this issue in the first handout.

To recap, I indicated that Matthew is not the author, read Matthew 9:9. The text was penned in

the third person. As for John, modern scholars agree that many persons wrote John. The final

editor or redactor is called ‘R.’ What you and I have been taught is tradition.


26

“I try to please everybody in every way.” 1 Cor 10:33 –St Paul

Paul’s letters are the first writings of Christian literature. His letters place emphasis on

the crucifixion and the resurrection. Contrary to the popular view, however, Paul understood

spiritual resurrection as is Jewish thought. The uncanny notion of a physical resurrection does not

materialize until the gospels are written. The origin of physical resurrection comes from Egypt.

It began with the mythic Egyptian king, Osiris. Greeks and Romans inherited this materialistic

African belief after conquering Egypt in the last three centuries leading up to Christ.

In the 1st century there was a dispute in the empire as to the nature of the resurrection:

Jesus says resurrection is spiritual in Luke 20:36. Four chapters later (Lk 24:36) he rises bodily to

disprove Luke 20:36. Paul clearly says that the resurrection is spiritual in 1 Cor. 15:44. But, as

in Luke, Paul changes the immaterial raising of YHWH to material in letter two.

Here is the second letter addressed to the Corinthians around 57 C.E. St. Paul relays his

vision of on the Damascus road (italics are mine):

“I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago,

(whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out

of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an

one caught up to the third heaven (2 Cor. 12:2, KJV).”

In this essential verso, Paul admits that he may have witnessed a spiritual resurrection.

Now, let us compare another account about the same event. Scholars place this text at c. 54 CE,

it’s Paul’s first letter to Corinth three years earlier (italics are mine):

“He was buried, and … he rose again the third day according

to the scriptures: And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the

twelve: After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren

at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but

some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then

of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also

(1 Cor. 15:4-8, KJV).”

Notice the difference in the tone of this letter? In the first letter, he’s confident about the

resurrection that he witnessed. In fact, the resurrection was ‘seen’ by many. The Greek word for

seen is ὤφθη ōphthē which means ‘he appeared.’ That is to say: ‘he appeared’ to Cephas or Peter, to

the twelve, to over 500, etc. In other words, we are dealing with an ‘out-of-the-body experience.’

Thus, Paul’s description is not physical resurrection. More importantly, he recanted his witness

in letter two. And this would not be the last time Paul would retract his testimony.


27

By positioning the account of Paul’s vision side-by-side, reading it horizontally rather

than vertically, it becomes evident that there are discrepancies (italics and underline are mine):

In the very first account, Acts 9:3-4, Paul is not the narrator. We have, again, a report in

the third person, a non-witness. In the second report, Acts 22:6-7, Paul stated that a light from

heaven shone around him. Then, he fell to the ground and he heard a voice. In the last detail, Acts

26:13-14, Paul’s testimonial to King Agrippa (while held at Caesarea) was that a heavenly light

shone around him and entourage! Everyone fell down. But, only he heard the voice. Paul’s witness

to the king changed. To make his story more believable, he included other witnesses in Acts 26,

but ONLY HE HEARD THE VOICE. He pulled this stunt at Corinth. In other words, the risen

Christ solely rests on the authority of Paul, i.e. the epistles of Paul and Acts. Modern scholars

like John D. Crossan Emeritus at DePaul University contest that not all the 14 letters attributed

to Paul were written by him. And most scholars agree that Acts was written by Luke.

A disclaimer, in the first three centuries, the apostolic fathers doubted the authenticity of

the letters of James and Peter. These letters have a late canonized date, as does the three letters

of John. So we are left with ‘testimonies’ from pseudonymous books in the Bible.

Acts 9:3-4

Acts 22:6-7

Acts 26:13-14

And as he

journeyed, he came

near Damascus: and

suddenly there shined round about him a

light from heaven:

And it came to

pass, that, as I made my

journey, and was come nigh

unto Damascus about noon,

suddenly there shone from

heaven a great light round

about me.

At midday, O

king, I saw in the way a

light from heaven, above

the brightness of the

sun, shining round about

me and them which

journeyed with me.

And he fell to

the earth, and heard a

voice saying unto him,

Saul, Saul, why

persecutest thou me?

And I fell unto the

ground, and heard a voice

saying unto me, Saul, Saul,

why persecutest thou me?

And when we

were all fallen to the

earth, I heard a voice

speaking unto me, and

saying in the Hebrew

tongue, Saul, Saul, why

persecutest thou me?


28

What follows? St. Paul the Apostle had a physical reaction. He was blinded by light.

How can we classify his religious experience: as a dream, a trance, an epileptic seizure, or

perhaps a hallucination? I was intrigued to pursue studies of the latter.

Paul was persecuting the early Christians and was no doubt in contact with them before

his conversion. Many years ago British scholar John M. Allegro hypothesized in The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross: A study of the nature and origins of Christianity within the fertility cults of the ancient Near East (1970) that early Christianity was a drug cult. Christ, naturally, was at the

center of the cult. This secret society used a powerful hallucinogen, Amanita muscaria, an

umbrella shaped mushroom plant. The plant is shaped very much like a cross. It was imported

from the Orient and grown in the Near East. Allegro argued that this mushroom was used by

the early Christians because of its potent hallucinogenic properties which contain psychoactive

chemicals. He maintained that proof for this cult’s drug use is in the Bible.

Allegro held the view that what we read in the Bible is a cover story. He beautifully

articulated that there are hidden messages beneath the cover story. This is because a drug cult

cannot disclose all information. Allegro documented names in the Bible which are actually the

names of fertility drug plants like the Amanita muscaria.

Needless to say, after writing the book in the 70s, Allegro’s bright academic career was

finished. And this was the man who was a part of the first international team to translate the

recently discovered Dead Sea Scrolls. But, was he shunned from academe because he was hot?

If there was value to his research, Paul then could have gotten mixed up in a mafioso.

This leads us to the prime question, what happened to the historical Jesus after he was

crucified? I will let British theologian John Hick in a lecture answer:

“Some scholars (e.g., Marianne Sawicki, Seeing the Lord, 1994, Fortress Press, p.180; followed by John Dominic Crossan, The Birth of Christianity, 1998, New York: HarperCollins, pp. xxvii, 528, 555) believe that the whole story of Joseph of Arimathea and his family tomb, and Jesus' burial in it, is a later creation. According to them the dead bodies of crucified criminals were thrown by the Roman soldiers into a limed pit, which dissolves the body quickly and hygienically, and this is the reason why virtually no skeletal remains have been found of the thousands who were crucified outside Jerusalem in the first century. (The Resurrection of Jesus, a talk (A talk given to ecumenical churches audience in Birmingham, U.K., 2006, http://www.johnhick.org.uk/jsite/index.php? option=com_content&view=article&id=61:resurrection&catid=37: articles&Itemid=58).”


29

Mythos I: The Mystical Life:

In this series Campbell suggested reading The Road to Eleusis by Albert Hofmann the man who

discovered LSD, R. Gordon Wasson, and classical scholar Carl A. P. Ruck. I recommend it too.

It describes how the Old World had many secret societies. One in particular was a popular cult

at Eleusis in Greece. A drink was prepared for the candidate prior to initiation. The drink was

made from a barely plant that contained a parasite called ergot. People hallucinated from the

barley broth (during the physical activity of the rite). Even Socrates reported that a vision was

believed to have occurred there …

… Then one day a man traveled on The Road to Damascus at midday, the hottest time of

the day. He is suddenly dumbstruck. He enters an altered state of consciousness—sees a light,

has a vision, then collapses. Optic nerves are shot. Three days after he fully recovered. Was it

drug abuse? In all probability, he was drugged by the cartel he pursued. Shortly thereafter, he

converted to Christianity. This man was Saul of Tarsus, our Saint Paul.

~ ~


30

Mythos I:

The Mystical Life (Courtesy of PBS) Under Constantine I, Christianity was one of the permitted

religions in the empire. Soon thereafter, under Theodosius I, Christianity was the only permitted

religion in the empire. Pagan temples and shrines were destroyed. The most popular of these

temples to be desecrated was that of Eleusis in 395. Two years later, Byzantium completes the

present Catholic Bible.

~ ~

MODULE VII: Coming back to the cross … do you recall the ‘Agnus Dei’ of John 1:29?

He was proclaimed Agnus by Yahya ‘the Baptiser.’ Only John says Christos is the ‘Lamb of God.’

He is the ultimate sacrifice, the final sacrifice, according to the evangelist.

~ ~

In Matthew, the Lamb of God prayed so earnestly at Gethsemane—crying in the knight:

“O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou

wilt (Mt 26:39).” He is praying as if unaware that he is the Agnus. What happened to his plea?

Was the Lamb abandoned? He did cry on the cross: “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’’ That is to say

“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me (Mt 27:46 cf. Psalm 22:1)?”


31

Abraham was forced by God

in the Tanakh to give up his most prized possession, his son. The sacrifice. In this slide you can

see a ram next to Abraham’s son on the right, the substituted sacrifice. In mainstream al-Islam,

the idea of ‘substituted sacrifice’ is reiterated in the Koran. In the Arabic text, the Sunnis believe

that Christ was substituted on the cross in verse 157 chapter 4: “wa-lakin shubi alahum” that is

“appeared to them so.” ‘Them’ refers to the eyewitnesses on Good Friday who believed that it

was him on the cross. The interpretation: Christ was spared as Abraham’s son. HE WAS NOT

ABODONED BY GOD. Sunnis find support for their view in Hebrews 5:7 and Luke 22:43.

~ ~

After the crucifixion, we have his burial. Christ is in the ‘womb of Mother Earth,’ go read

Matthew 12:40. It is dark for two nights. He’s resting in a newly hewn seplechure on a slab in a

child-like state, unaware, dead! He’s in the underworld, in Hell. Come first day of the week,

early Sunday morning at first light: THE TOMB IS EMPTY! He’s left, he has come out of the

earth into the light raised, illuminated. He’s died and is now reborn. It’s the old: ‘come in a boy’

and ‘come out a man’ as well as ‘death and rebirth’ motif. And two chief cultures have that myth,

the cave dwellers during the glaciation and planters afterward.

The Origin of Sacrifice in Western Tradition: Goes way back to very old times when the

responsibility for hunting food was the man’s. He belonged to a group that we’ve been taught

as the ‘hunters and gatherers.’ This group existed all over, but for the purpose of the presentation

I want to focus on Old Europe.


32

The hunting and gathering group that I am concerned with lived about 20,000 years ago

in the Paleolithic Age. I am taking about those people who produced those awesome paintings

in the cave. Caves such as this one served as temples for hunting mysteries.

Animal sacrifices

continued in the time of Abraham all the way up to the time of Christ, the ultimate sacrifice.

This rite ended with Muḥammad, the ‘khatam an-nabiyyeen’ (Koran 33:40). The ‘Seal of the

(biblical) Prophets.’ Myth: In animal/man covenant, animals are ‘willing sacrifices’ (e.g. Christ

was willing sacrifice, the Agnus, in the new covenant).

In this slide: the ‘Hall of Bulls,’ a grand gallery of animal sacrifices and sacrificial eating.

You can easily replace the sacrament of the Eucharist and all the trappings of the inner church

in this cave. This is the first cathedral of Europe. Carbon-dating tells us that the art was made

over 17,000 years ago by Cro-Magnon. This is Lascaux Cave in Southwestern France.

The cave paintings are the earliest evidence of mystery rites. Young boys were taught

the mysteries of the hunt in dark caves like this one. The idea is to enter the abyss—the cave

chamber in a child-like state, ignorant of the mysteries, and then come out of the cave and into

the light as one illuminated—a fully grown man. Same idea we have with Christ in the tomb.

So we’ve come full-circle, from womb to tomb. It is Western mythology, a holdover from rites

during the last Ice Age in Europe. A good read on the empty tomb is The Jesus Mysteries (1999)

by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy.


33

In close, about 20,000 years ago the last Ice Age reached its zenith. Food, and the hunt,

was extremely important. It meant survival. The animal flesh and blood provided nourishment

for our physical and spiritual needs just as Jesus’ body is the bread and his blood is the wine of

our physical and spiritual nourishment.

~ ~

The cave dwellers tried to capture the spirit of the sacrificed animal, the hunted animal

in the cave paintings. It was done out of reverence. It was a reminder that they are eating

divine food. Everyone is seated together as a family unit with the understanding that eating the

food is divine grace. Paul’s said that we are all living in grace. At mass we partake in the eating

of the divine flesh and blood of Christ, the Agnus, it’s his sacrifice that puts us in grace.

~ ~

I explained in the previous ditto that early images of Christ: i.e. lengthy hair and beard

comes down to us over 1,600 years ago from the catacombs of Commodilla in the Via Ostiensis.

Below: Commodilla, Rome, late 4th century. Compare the Commodilla with Lascaux.

In the same Byzantine age, i.e. the 4th century, a mosaic from the Hinton St. Mary, Dorset

depicts Jesus without beard—as Apollo (slide #8). The only marker which identifies Jesus apart

from the Sun-god Apollo is a Chi-Rho christogram < XP > Greek abbreviation < Ch > (‘Christos’).

Byzantine artists used the images from popular cults as a template for Christ.


34

8.

The christogram likewise appears at Commodilla. The Greek letters: Alpha (Α) and

Omega (ω) form the Chi-Rho monogram (above right).

~ ~

“Paul’s first converts were merchants”—Dr Campbell

Mythos I: On Being Human …

In close, the foundation of mainstream Islamic eschatology is the total refutation of

atonement. Adam was forgiven (Kor. 2:37). And someone else was crucified (Kor. 4:157). The

foundation of Christian eschatology, however, is based on atonement. Paul in his first epistle to

the Corinthians states that in order to be redeemed: Christ must die on the cross (i.e. Agnus Dei)

to amend sins (Col. 1:20, 1 Cor. 5:7, and 1 Cor. 15:3, 22). Without atonement Christian faith is

vain (1 Cor. 15:14-19). Now, as a Pharisee (Acts 23:6), Paul has some bold interpretations of the

scriptures. This is not what the Old Testament teaches.

Contrary to the Pauline Christology of expiation, the concept of inherited sin does not

exist in the Hebrew scriptures. Ezekiel 18:20 reads: “The son shall not bear the iniquity of the

father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son.” Isaiah 43:25 reads: “I, even I, am He

that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and I will not remember thy sins.” How

then can man be saved? The formula for salvation is in Ezekiel 18:21: “if a … man turns away

from all the sins he has committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, he

will surely live.”


35

MODULE VII: In the Neolithic Age: the myth makers are human, you and me. Two

archetypes of humans emerge and dominate the landscape: the Indo-Europeans or Aryans and

the Semites. The Aryans gave us: Hinduism/Buddhism/Jainism/Zoroastrianism/Occidental

religions and of course Christianity. The Semites gave us the nomadic tribal god of the desert:

Elah or al-Lah, otherwise, ʼAlâhâ or Allāh of Judaism/Islam, the monotheist faiths.

The Holy Bible is a book about life, civilization. It’s an all-inclusive politically correct

understanding of god, passed down from the ages, from the Aryan and Semitic camps. My

favorite example to illustrate the point is the issue regarding the nature of Christ, is he god? In

the Bible, we have Jesus saying that he is and he isn’t at the same time. For instance, John 5:31

reads, “If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.” Then in John 8:14 Jesus retracts,

“Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid.” He also says that he is the fertile

food we grow, “I am that bread of life” in John 6:48. In another place he says that he’s Sunlight,

“I am the light of the world (Jn 8:12).” And only the Jewish God said, “I AM WHO I AM” as He

revealed Himself to Moses in the Sinai in Exodus 3:14. But, we tend to forget that before John

he also says in Mark, the earliest tradition, “Why callest thou me good? there is none good but

one, that is, God (Mk 10:18 cf. Mt 19:17; Lk 18:19).” It’s no surprise that John doesn’t have this.

About 10-20 years later Luke reads, “why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I

say (Lk 6:46 cf. Mt 7:21)?” The debate lingers, but I call your attention to Mark 12:29 the earliest

Jesus tradition. It’s the only verse in the entire Bible to quote his affirmation of the Jewish faith.

And in the latest Jesus tradition he says, “I can of my own self do nothing (Jn 5:30).”

The last glaciation ended about 12,000 years ago. About this time man shifts from a

hunting and gathering society to a society of settlers. Man is a planter now and animals are

domesticated: sheeps, goats, dogs, horses, and camels, etc. People are living in villages for the

first time. The earliest villages appear in the Fertile Crescent where Jesus was born. New medals

are introduced: copper, iron, bronze, etc. The calendar is made. Math, writing, and megaliths

define the era. Planting societies dominate myth in this period e.g. the mystic symbols of death

and resurrection as the threshold to spiritual life is represented by the food plant, the harvest,

which dies and blooms every winter and spring. We spoke about the risen Christ Jesus being

represented in the sacrament as the growing grain, a food plant. He is also the willing sacrifice

going back over 20 millennia to our near death experience during the glaciation.

All hominids or other species did not survive the New Stone Age.

Neanderthals are the last on the evolutionary scale to survive. They went

extinct about 40,000 years ago …


36

~ ~

An interesting find in Romania was recently made, it was a 35,000 to 40,000 year old

skull in temporal flux—a Neanderthal with modern human traits. The skull is a paradox, aside

from hybrid traits, we can’t tell the sex. In 2002/3 a team digging at Peștera cu Oase (Cave with

Bones; 45°01’N, 21°50’E) found the earliest modern human remains in Europe, south of

Transylvania. In one cave gallery they found a partial human skull. < 14C > Late Pleistocene.

Ethnicity: < 14C > 2 yields Eurasian; Southwest Asian, northeast African. Diagram: Oase 2

cranium below.

~ ~

Oase 2Oase 2Oase 2Oase 2 in norma lateralis left. (Scale bar, 10 cm.) Oase 2Oase 2Oase 2Oase 2 in norma frontalis. (Scale bar, 10 cm.)


37

6.

7.


38

“It is He that has created you in diverse stages.”

Photos #6 & #7 were taken from Peștera cu Oase ‘the Cave with Bones’ in southwestern

Romania. In February ‘02, a speleological team was exploring the karstic system of Miniș Valley

in the southwestern Carpathian Mountains. They discovered an unknown bear cave chamber

with a cornucopia of mammalian skeletal remains. On the first visit the team found a mandible

designated Oase 1. < 14C > 35,000 BCE, 40,500 ± years ago. This find is considered the oldest

known early modern human fossil from Europe.

The specimen exhibits early modern human and probable Neanderthal morphological

features (possible interbreeding). On the second visit in June 2003, an entire anterior cranial

skeleton was found along with a largely complete left temporal bone and a number of frontal,

parietal and occipital bone fragments designated Oase 2 (diagram on p. 16). The cave primarily

served as hibernation quarters for Late Pleistocene cave bears (Ursus spelaeus). BBC aired the

finding in a five-episode science documentary called The Incredible Human Journey (2009)

hosted by Dr. Alice Roberts. Roberts also authored the accompanying book.

MODULE IX: Oase is important for three reasons:

(A) The skeletons (Oase 1 and Oase 2 in the above photo) help us to understand the transition

from Neanderthal and human living together, to just the human race living solo. (B) They also

offer clues as to the racial/ethnic development of modern day Europeans. But, the significant

factor for me is (C) it gives acumen into our human origins. This realization prompted me to a

Koranic verso that is worth quoting here: “What is the matter with you that you are not afraid

of the greatness of God. Seeing that it is He that has created you in diverse stages (Kor 71:13-14)?”

So we evolved from a primitive state says the Holy Koran.


39

The quote is selected from chapter 71 of the Holy Koran. It’s dedicated to the prophet

Noah. In the Holy Bible, Noah repopulated the earth after a Great Flood. In Genesis 9:20-27,

Noah cursed his grandson Canaan, son of Ham. Negroes descend from Ham. Oase 2 is

Negroid and the earliest modern human to populate Europe (c. 35,000 years before Ham

repopulated the earth).

There’s a high probability that modern humans interbred with Homo neanderthalensis.

Evidence: Oase 2 displays archaic traits: huge molars and outsized jaws. Theory: The Negroids

came by way of Turkey and entered Romania through the Danube c. 40,000 years ago. Shell

beads from this period called nassarius gibbosulus (made by Negroids) were found in Turkey.

Vestiges from Qafzeh Cave in GALILEE, Jesus’ home, date c. 80,000 to 120,000 years ago.

It’s our first religious human burial (w/n.g. beads). They’re reps of the FIRST EXODUS out of

Africa. The set went north of the Sahara Desert and traversed the Sinai (c. 100,000 years before

Moses/Hebrew tribe). But, these forerunners are an evolutionary dead end. We’re not related

to < M1 > (1st migration).

Other migrants, about 250 people or so (a tribe?), left Africa and CROSSED THE RED

SEA. The set went over a narrow ten mile stretch of water (through the Gates of Grief and

Arabian cape) 80,000 ± years ago. Our mitochondrial mtDNA says so. This was theorized by

geneticist Stephen Oppenheimer in The Real Eve: Modern Man's Journey Out of Africa (2004).

Early stone tools from Yemen prove the exodus. Koran 3:96 says Arabia is man’s oldest

settlement: ‘first house of prayer for mankind is Becca (Mecca).’ ALL MANKIND descends

from < M2 > (2nd migration).

THE HUMAN STORY: Eve leaving Eden; Moses/Hebrew tribe/Exodus; crossing the

Red Sea, Muḥammad founds plea in Mecca—IS FROM AFRICA 80,000 years ago. Eve is not

6,000 years old, multiply by factor 10(x), she’s over 60,000 years old. And the Garden was in the

far East, Africa! Bias and jealousy placed Eden in space. Our exit out of Africa influenced a lot

of the legends in the Holy Bible and the Holy Koran.


40

Dr. Richard Neave

is a professor of Science and Art at the University of Manchester and a foremost expert

in forensics. By using the skulls of victims, he has helped the police solve murder cases.


41

Dr. Richard Neave

was featured in BBC’s The Incredible Human Journey (2009) hosted by Dr. Alice Roberts (left).

Dr. Roberts gazes at Neave’s reconstruction of Oase 2 (right), the first modern European.

Frontal of Oase 2. Photo is courtesy of BBC.

The Incredible Human Journey (2009). Below The map indicates the location of where Oase 2’s

skull was unearthed in 2002/3.


42

Qafzeh near Nazareth, Galilee (Israel)

A Qafzeh Cave burial cast.

Skeleton in the fetal position, in Mother Earth’s womb. Est. 100 ± [100,000 years ago].


43

Newsweek Magazine, “The Search for Adam & Eve”

MODULE X: In the January 1st 1987 issue of Nature, a controversial article called—

“Mitochondrial DNA and Human Evolution” was written by three biologists: Rebecca Cann,

Mark Stoneking, and Allan C. Wilson (Cann, et al., 1987). The scientists announced a radical

theory that all modern human beings can trace their line back to a single woman who lived

about 150,000 to 200,000 years ago in Africa. She was dubbed “African Eve” (“Mitochondrial

Eve”). A year later, the same findings were published in Newsweek in the article “The Search

for Adam and Eve” (Tierney, et al., 1988).


44

Omo I/II unearthed by Richard Leakey

Between 1967 and 1974 the oldest modern

human fossils were found at Kibish near the Omo River in Ethiopia. Est. 195 ± 5 ka.

Dr. Roberts holds a cast of Omo (BBC)


45

Reconstruction of Qafzeh skull (near Nazareth)

Dr. Richard Neave’s Jesus.

A reconstruction of a 2,000 year old Jerusalem man’s cranium. 98,000 years separate these

Galileans yet they share similar Negroid/Neanderthal or archaic features.


46

The Talpiot Tomb of Jesus?

Talpiot Jesus ossuary, 1st century

The ossuary reads, ‘Jesus son of Joseph’


47

What little remained of Jesus after the crucifixion was placed in an

ossuary—his cursed name hastily carved at night. The scribbling proves it.

The body was taken away at night by his disciples as the first book of the

New Testament intimates in Matthew 28:13. This was done in secret to bury

the cursed man with his cursed family at an undisclosed location, Talpiot.

The chevron or family emblem and circle on the Talpiot tomb marks the spot

for the resting place of the damned.

After the first Jewish-Roman war in 73 when Mark was written in

Rome, the shrine was abandoned and forgotten. But, the folklore of his

resurrection to guide his followers continued … his rise, as well as his virgin

birth will signify forever that he was born and died unlike any man. And

he is still among us in spirit, remembered for all time. I end with this

thought, whether the Talpiot box is our Jesus or not, it’s historical value is

not diminished. We know what happened to him. He stayed on the cross, he

was not brought down before the Sabbath as the gospels say. His vestiges were

quietly and respectfully placed in his family tomb.

jesus: the holy bible & the holy koran studies

Documents