What about the figure of Jesus? According to the Gnostic's beliefs, Jesus was a Gnostic teacher! What do the Bible and related material tell us? (The fact remains that there are different types of widely differing philosophies linked together in the New Testament and should a Jesus come back, it would be the Church of today doing the explaining.)
"Whom do men say I am, Son of Man?" Is a question asked by Jesus in Matt.16:13. No doubt, Jesus is here referring to himself as the Son of Man.
Jesus says that all that has been written by the prophets about the Son of Man is about to come true (Luke 18:31). The fact remains, nothing was written about any son of Man savior figure with the possible exception of Enoch. The only place where the son of Man is really mentioned, and where the savior figure known as the son of Man is mentioned, is the Gnostic Prophesies. The Gnostic manuscripts predate Jesus. No one can possibly deny this fact, no one who is looking at the material analytically.
The Church can not admit to the fact that the Gnostic writings predate Christ because the entire New Testament would fall back into Gnostic hands where it belongs. There is only one thing left to say when this happens, for happen it will. The Gnostics predate not only Jesus, but Plato, Socrates and Homer too. When they come back, we should all join in and welcome them.
No person who looks at the Gnostic's material and uses their head for anything other than a temporary resting place for a cap, can deny that the Gnostic Philosophies are far more ancient than anything written in the New Testament.
I would argue strongly for the Gnostic material predating all of the Old Testament. After all, we have nothing written which is a part of the Old Testament which dates from before the Dead Sea Scrolls, of about two hundred B.C.E. at the earliest. Only allegations by those who wish it was otherwise. (The dates of the Dead Sea Scrolls are being revised now, it seems there is nothing there from much before 100 B.C.E. and most was written after the new era, or after Jesus.
Matt.12:8 states: "For the Son of Man is Lord even on the Sabbath day." Matt.13:41 again depicts Jesus by the Gnostic description, "Son of Man."
Mark 9:12 states: And he answered and told them, "Elias verily cometh first, and restoreth all things; and how it is written of the Son of Man, that he must suffer many things, and be set at naught." This means Elias in the Old Testament has been heavily edited or Jesus speaks of something he has not read. There is no such reference by Elijah. The possibility this was a later addition to the New Testament statements of Jesus by later theologians to validate their views is also very real. The only reference to something like this is a psalm, supposedly written by David, but not really written by him or Elias.
According to scholars, the place where this is referred to is Psalm 22:6-7, "But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn..." Yes, as you can see, this material is a real validation of Jesus or the messiah or whatever you want to call the Canaanite dragon god Yammu. Yammu was the son of the Canaanite god El. An earlier name for him was Yawwu, but he came to recruit Man for his underworld and not to save Man. The comparison of Jesus may indeed be proverbial. The great possibility that Yammu/Yawwu was the real Israelite God is more than a passing fancy, and we will have more to say about this later.
The worm (dragon) Yammu in this psalm is depicted suffering at the hands of Baal when he again is resurrected from the underworld as he was every season, similar to another God or another epithet of the same God, Tammuz. When Baal was in the underworld, Yammu/Yawwu was the God in charge. Yet, when Baal returned, the people derided him and Baal defeated him. Yammu was sent back to the underworld where he always vowed revenge.
The other reference where Elijah was supposed to have prophesied this about the messiah is Daniel 9:26, "And after threescore and two weeks (62 weeks each day = one year or 434 years) shall the Messiah be cut off, but not for himself. And the people of the prince that shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolation's are determined."
Here, it is easy to think that the cap fell down over the eyes of those who correlated this with the advent of Jesus. It could possibly be ascribed to the war of 67-74 C.E. where the Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed, but not Jesus. Elijah did not write Daniel! Daniel was written under the persecution of the Jews under Antiochus IV, Epiphanes or about 170 B.C.E. It relates various traditions centering about the conversion of the Babylonian king Nabonidus to the cult of the moon God.
The last reference given to this part about Jesus by the "Scholars" is Isaiah 53:3-4, "He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows. Yet, we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted."
Here, there is no talk about any Son of Man! This could quite possibly be stated about the well known Near Eastern motif known as Job, but not about a savior. It reflects the past, not the future so Job would fit, but it is not Job. As so much of Isaiah, this too reflects the ancient Canaanite societies such as the one depicted by the material found at Ugarit. That material was written down about the same time as Ahmoses kicked the Hyksos out of Egypt. A more original version of this part of Isaiah was found at Qumran. It was translated about fifty years ago, and while the Church vehemently denies hiding any of the material from the Dead Sea Scrolls, they will not let anyone have a look at this material. We could speculate about the possibility that Elijah has been rewritten in the Old Testament to a point where it is no longer recognizable. The other possibility is that Jesus spoke about something he had not read. There just does not exist any such prophesy written by Elijah in the entire Bible. The most likely explanation is that the whole thing has been a later addition to the New Testament doctrine in order to validate the mission of Jesus along with the opinions held by the later founders of the Church. By linking the things Jesus said with the prophet Elijah, they were attempting to have Jesus tied to the prophets of earlier Judaism and the whole doctrine would be more appealing to the Israelites.
Jesus tells the disciples not to talk before the third day, after the Son of Man has arisen, and later in the same chapter, he goes on to say that Elias has also returned to save Man (Matt. 17:9).
"The son of Man indeed goeth, as it is written of him. But woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! Good were it for that man if he had never been born." (Mark 14:21). Here, we see it stated that the Son of Man is going away as it is written about him. No reference is even given to where this is written, and it is right enough. No biblical material anywhere prophesied that the Son of Man would go away again; that is only found in Gnostic material.
Jesus states the disciples are not to tell anyone about this particular vision before he is risen from the Dead, whereupon the disciples questions him if Elijah was not supposed to come and straighten it all up for the Son of Man (Matt.17:9-11). But what is it that they are talking about here? There is no such prophesies in the Old Testament. An Elijah of the New Testament would not be valid. What were they waiting for? Could it have been the Dardakea from the Gnostic scriptures?
All those true words which are stated in the New Testament are only allegations. There is nothing which can be verified other than the fact things are not as the Church would have liked them to be. What there is are translations which supposedly come from an Aramaic original. All traces of the originals have been lost a long time ago. No trace of them are to be found anywhere. While this is so, it does not necessarily mean that all the things stated by Jesus are wrong. All it means is that before we accept anything at face value, we have to thoroughly examine it. There is an awful lot of material which has been written into the New Testament centuries after the death of Jesus to validate all sorts of opinions by later officials.
Then Jesus said unto them, "Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you; for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While we have the light believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light." (John 12:35-36). These words spoken by Christ indicate him as the Son of Man, which was in reality what he claimed to be. Children of Light and Son of Man are the same. Where he is spoken of as the Son of God, we have a later addition. Today, our leaders state that God's Son and Son of Man are the same thing, yet nothing could be further from the truth! The concept is dual, the Son of God and the Son of Man are opposite.
Here, the disciples were supposed to be the Children of Light and since the Children of Light are the same as the Children of Man, this is a clear statement that the disciples are to be his equals. No one can dispute these as being anything other than Gnostic statements. At Qumran, the Sons of Light are also mentioned often, but these lights are not the savior figures of any Messiah.
The Old Testament never mentions the Son of Man as the savior. In the Old Testament, the savior was to have been the likes of Melchizedek and a Son of God. Son of Man in literature such as Ezekiel was merely a human being. The only place where the Son of Man savior figure could have been received from would have been 1 Enoch. This was a canonical book at the time, but then it would not have been Elias/Elisha who was mentioned but Enoch.
To understand the scriptures, it is necessary to know the time of the writings of the scriptures and the currently held philosophical beliefs of the people of that time and place. By looking at the teachings, we know one thing. Jesus would never have claimed to have been the Son of God. Very much literature existed at the time on the Sons of God, and for the time being it may suffice to mention the book of Enoch, or 1 Enoch. 1 Enoch describes the Sons of God who came to Earth and sired giants after they seduced the daughters of men. These giants then proceeded to run out of food, and ate men to satiate their hunger. The Sons of God thought men some secrets which really angered the God of the Hebrews, and this was what brought on the Flood. The book of Enoch was very well known at the time of Jesus, and we will have more to say about it later. Some of today's experts studying the earlier forms of Christianity seem to think of them as a primitive undeveloped form of the religion. If the early forms of Christianity were primitive, one must realize it was not back then that it was wrong, but if the founders believed different from today's theology, it is today's altered versions and the justification of the alterations which are primitive.
What the Bible teaches us is the worship of the evil Hebrew Deity which was so well depicted by the Gnostic. It teaches that the Sons of God are better at adapting themselves to this world than the Sons of light (Luke 16:8). Children of this world (sons of god) are wiser than the Children of Light (sons of men).
How long after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. this could have been written I do not know. I doubt if it could have appeared before Irenaeus, the "Great"(?) Christian forefather of about 180 C.E.
"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they choose. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came onto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown." (Gen. 6:1,2&4). After this is when God sees the wickedness of men, and decides to bring on the Flood.
Jesus would never have desired to associate himself with the sons of God. Not as a son of the Hebrew God at least, that would have been the same as stating he was a threat to humanity because he and his offsprings would eventually become guilty of cannibalism.
Again, Children of this world (Sons of God) are wiser than the Children of Light [sons of Men] (Luke 16:8) .This proclamation is made by the Hebrew God.
"For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doeth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." (Luke 6:43). We will also look at the type of fruit brought forth by the Hebrew Deity. The blind faith advocated by religious leaders today is, acording to the Gnostics' tenets, the destruction of us all as spiritual entities.
It is not merely a coincidence that many a leader of today negates all things spiritual. It is hardly possible to look at a magazine rack without seeing one of the magazines featuring an article on the limits of Man. It is stated that we are a brain. It is stated that we are a product of incidental evolution. It is stated that the brain is what does the thinking. How the Archons would love to have us believe such garbage.
It is not difficult to prove that there are reactions within the brain to thinking. It is not difficult to prove there is a reaction in the brain to stimulus of many sorts. This proves there is a connection between the spiritual mind and the physical brain. No big deal. Today's scientists look at one aspect of the physical because, by the use of physical instruments, it is easy to verify and demonstrate all things physical. They have no measuring devises of a spiritual nature so they have no instruments they can connect to the Soul to measure it with. The Soul does not exist in time/space and all instruments do. The closest they get are the measurements within quantum physics, and here too they will go astray if they do not soon realize the prime mover is the Soul that each and every one of us is.
Man is good. Much more to come on the nature of Man. However, according to the Hebrew doctrines, Man was created in the image of their god and thus was evil. Using this train of thought, is the tree stating the fruit mentioned above is like its tree? Man is deemed to be evil by his creator. The creator may be said to look at man as an image which has his qualities. Man is not the image of this God! The god claiming to have created Man was but another creation of the evil god who created bodies in which to trap the spiritual pleroma of a different dimension.
That god was not evil himself. His actions were evil. His creations were evil. He employed excuses for his creations and that was the origin of evil. He employed excuses for his failures and that was the cause of all suffering and travail. Because he created the bodies and knew he did evil, he stated the creation was like the creator. Had he not had such high thoughts of himself, it would all have been different. Instead of admitting to having made a mistake and trying again to do it right, he made excuses for his failures. Excuses are the real source of all evil anywhere.
What the god was not aware of was that he was not the creator of the only thing which was of importance, the Spirit. He knew he had not created the Soul, but no thought to it's significance is evident anywhere within the Biblical literature. Isaiah 1:14 says, "your new moon and feasts my soul hates." It is written, the god has a Soul! The difference between the god and mankind is that the god has a Soul and we, who all are the sons of Man, are Souls. A god who thinks of himself as having a Soul is totally useless. Not until he is able to get out from under the cloak of darkness and realize that he too is a Soul can he get rid of that inferiority complex which makes him so jealous. When this happens, we will all be able to rest from evil.
"...My spirit (Soul) shall not always strive with man... (Gen.6:3). Again, the god has a Soul! The Son of Man is a Soul. The god only thinks of himself as having a Soul. When he too comes up from under the cloak of darkness and sees that he is a Soul he will no longer be inferior and he will no longer need to be jealous. Then and only then will there be rest from all evil.
But who was Jesus of the New Testament? Was he Gnostic or was he not? He was supposed to have preached the correct Hebrew Tradition and have insight into the scriptures.
"It is written, Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word which comes out of the mouth of God." (Matt 4:4). This is not a part of the Old Testament. No scripture in the Old Testament states this! What the religious experts give as a reference is Deut. 8:3 which states: "And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doeth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doeth man live."
Here we have a case of the biblical authors believing all those not indoctrinated live with a cap drawn over his eyes to impede understanding. What is this manna which here is described as coming out of the Gods mouth? Spittle? Here, at least, it is something which feeds hungry bodies and it is also something new which the forefathers never knew. Should the god be able to sustain the bodies with a strange food this does not in any way indicate any ability to take care of the Soul. Man needs no physical fodder; it is spiritual fodder we are after.
To be just, it should be mentioned that this is an exceptional long verse as compared with the rest of the verses in Deuteronomy. It should also be known that if we were to remove the part about the food which comes out of the mouth of the God to teach Man that he lives by everything which comes out of the mouth of the god the verse fits better with the next verse and also the rest of the chapter. When something was supposedly stated by Jesus which the early Christians did not find in the Old Testament, they found a place for it in the Old Testament by writing it in. This they must have thought was a good place for it, but they were wrong. It does not fit either logically or with the rest of the Old Testament.
The reverse is amply evident also. Jesus said unto him, "It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." (Matt 4:7). Strangely enough this is written in the Old Testament. But this is something which could not have been thought by the God advocated by Jesus. "Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God, as ye tempted him in Massah. (Deut. 6:16). Exodus 17:2-7 shows us what type of temptation this is not to be. The people are here complaining because of the fact they have no water and the children are thirsty. In other words, the God leads these people into the wilderness where they are dying of thirst, yet they are not allowed to complain about it? And here, it is the God who is tempted by man! The most logical question of course would be: How could it be a temptation to the God when the people he took on the responsibility for let him know they are dying?
The fact of the matter is, I believe, that Matt. 4:4 was written into the Old Testament to indicate Jesus employed it's material. Deut. 6:16 was written into the New Testament in order to show Jesus preaching from the Old Testament and making the father he spoke of the Hebrew God.
On the other hand, we see this God tempted by man. How could one possibly be tempted by an inferior creation? It all makes sense, not the same sense we are accustomed to seeing. An understanding which will make it a better place for you and for me.
"He that soweth the good seed is the Son of Man; but the tares (weed) the wicked one [Son of God]" (Matt. 13:37-38).
We see Jesus comparing the Pharisees to the blind, and he describes them as the blind leading the blind who shall both fall into the pit (Matt. 15:12-14). The Pharisees are the teachers of the Hebrew religion, and the Old Testament which we have in today's Bible, if they are blind, then Jesus is also saying their teaching is blind, and the teaching is leading the followers into the pit.
Today we are given the impression that Jesus meant they were not practicing the faith correctly, and their teaching had gone astray. This picture is what has gone astray regarding the devout teaching of the Pharisees. The Israelite people always have done the best job they could with the teaching they had. There exist absolutely no evidence the Pharisees were teaching other than the devout teachings of the Old Testament God as arduously as possible and following the scriptures as best humanly possible. There is an abundance of evidence of the fact that it was Jesus who was teaching a different religious philosophy.
Baal was the champion of exorcists which is why the Pharisees said Jesus is Beelzebub (Matt. 12:24). The Canaanite religion was far better known at the time of Jesus than has been known until the last few years thanks to the material discovered at places such as Ugarit. We will also take a closer look at this fact later. The fact that Jesus is referred to as Lord is of no more significance than the fact Baal also was called Lord along with a Great number of ancient Gods including the Hebrew Deity. On the other hand, it is doubtful whether Jesus desired to promote the worship of any Deity. I strongly believe the Gnostics were right in that Jesus was not proclaiming the worship of any of the prevalent Gods. Jesus was Gnostic! The idea he thought the teachings of the Israelites has as a foundation, a very thin layer of ice which soon shall melt away. He was promoting the elevation of Son of Man and elevating him to a level surpassing the Gods. He was teaching that Man was a four dimensional being independent of the three dimensional universe and the three dimensional teaching. We will look at how his teachings were changed later on.
Matt. 22:31,32 is most interesting: "...have ye not read that which was spoken onto you by God saying, 'I am the god of Abraham, and the god of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?'" God is not the god of the Dead, but of the living.
Now this is in direct opposition to the teaching of the Hebrews. The Hebrew Deity was the God who also was over the Dead such as those people mentioned. They were not in heaven according to the doctrines. 1 Enoch is where they got their information from.
1 Enoch was a valid scripture for the Israelites at that time as it was for the Christians for hundreds of years after the death of Jesus. Jesus here is identifying his God with the God who is over living people, the living Abraham, Isaac and this is a new God for the Israelites. Their God is the God over these Dead people. The answer to what Jesus stated and what he saw is very simply that the Gnostics saw all as Dead until they became resurrected in knowledge. With Gnosis, they could leave the physical universe if they wished. It did not matter if a person walked around in a body or was a spirit without a body. If he was not aware of himself as a spiritual entity surpassing the physical universe, he was Dead.
According to the Gnostics, the Dead bodies were never significant. The possibility of them being resurrected was never a question among the Gnostics who believed the trap of the physical universe was to have to live here in one body after the next. Jesus here identifies the God he is promoting as the God of the Gnostic, the God of the living. That the physical body was a trap for the Soul is an idea which is not Christian. Had Jesus read Plato, which he well could have done, he would have read the fact Socrates uttered the exact same sentiments in Phaedo a few hundred years earlier.
Jesus tells the disciples that he must go trough with it and be crucified in order to fulfill the scriptures (Matt. 26:52-56). Where are the scriptures that call for the sacrifice? There are not any scriptures in the Old Testament of such a nature. Isaiah 53:7-12 is supposedly where this is received from. There is no possible way Jesus' suffering and death is what is talked about here. It is again a sick person which is talked about. It talks about a person whom it pleased the Lord to bruise and destroy. Again this is more of the ancient Job story which relates how the people in their desire to please their Gods could never quite be good enough and, because of the whims of the Gods, had to suffer great maladies and eventually death regardless how faithful they were. Again we are but seeing more of the Canaanite tales from Isaiah. (I really wonder what exactly is stated in the Isaiah scroll which was found at Qumran which the Church is refusing to surrender?)
There is absolutely nothing in any ancient literature about any worship or any savior son who dies and is then again resurrected. Not in the literature we ascribe to the Bible. Outside the Bible, it was common. There were the worshippers of the moon cult who had the son of the God resurrected to save Mankind. There was the cults dedicated to the worship of the sun, where every year at Christmas time, the father (sun) died and the sun was resurrected as his son and saved Mankind. There were the ancient fertility cults where Tammuz died to take care of the crops in the underworld. Every growing season, he was resurrected to save Mankind from hunger. And there was the religion of the Canaanites.
Baal went to the underworld at the end of each rainy season. He was defeated by Mot, and he had to be or the rains would not stop and the crops wouldn't have a chance to ripen. Baal was usually resurrected at the start of every rainy season, but he could stay defeated for an entire seven year period which would herald great draughts and famine throughout the land. It is only partially correct to state that Yammu/Yawwu ruled the land only while Baal was away. This evil dragon was one of the sons of the chief God El, and each of El's seventy sons was given one tribe of people to rule over. Yammu had his tribe all the time.
"I will declare the decree: the lord hath said unto me, Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee." (Psalm 2:7). This is supposed to be a prediction of Jesus but it is a prediction of a Son of God, not a Son of Man. Besides, it is ambiguous and refers to a specific time in the past. "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." (Isa.7:14 ). This supposedly predicts Jesus. Not so. As an argument, Isa.7:14 could have been employed to state it was a prediction of Jesus until a great amount of ancient material was found from the Canaanites at Ugarit. It comes from material written at least a thousand years prior to Isaiah and is a parallel to the myth and ritual from Ugarit of the Canaanites referring to the Moon God taking a bride and conceiving a son. That it talks of a virgin conceiving and bearing a son is no more than terminology. All females at Ugarit were considered virgins until they had conceived and given birth to a son. (More about the Hebrews and the worship of the Moon God to follow.)
Isa.9:16 also supposedly predicts Christ. But it too is matched by the myth of Baal from Ugarit. It has to do with the Canaanite God Mot, the God of death and El's favorite son having been humiliated by Baal (Baal 6:10).
Isa.9:6 also supposedly talks of Jesus. It takes a lot of imagination to justify that conclusion. "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting father, The Prince of Peace."
Yammu was the Canaanite Prince of the sea, he was the God associated with the watery depths. Mot was the prince of death, the God associated with death. Baal was the prince of peace, he was the God associated with peace and the salvation of Man. You can not state that since the Israelites did not believe in the God Baal that he is not the God which is talked about here. The Gods were known by their epithets, and when it is here used, he is the God talked about. This could be a hard pill to swallow, but there is a mountain of related data about whom the Israelites worshipped prior to the advent of the Persians. Bear with me and I will touch on some of it later. The difficulty is not finding Israelite material which obviously has as its source Canaanite and other related Near Eastern material. The difficulty is in finding anything at all in the Old Testament which can not be seen to come from external sources.
"Thou shall also suck the milk of the gentiles, and shall suck the breast of the kings: and thou shall know that I the Lord am thy savior and redeemer, the mighty One [Bull is correct] of Jacob [of Baal is correct] (Isa. 60:16). This is also supposed to predict Christ. What a pile of bunk to be fed.
Isa. 60:16 is directly borrowed from the Canaanites. It refers to the wife of Baal, Anatu, and Baal the mighty bull, who also was known as the Savior among the Canaanites. Virtually all of Isaiah can be attributed to the Canaanite beliefs written down at Ugarit more than a thousand years before any of our currently known Biblical writings. We will take a closer look at these beliefs of the Canaanites before we are done.
If there is anything at all in Isaiah which does not have as its source the Canaanite religion with documents similar to the type found at Ugarit, I for one can not find it. These "experts" tells us all that if we desire to know what the Dead Sea Scroll regarding Isaiah tells us, we should just read Isaiah in the Bible. They state the material is of interest only to scholars. I state that if you can discover where to set in the fertility God Baal, the god of death Mot, the evil God Yammu, the chief God El and if you can see where Baal's wife Anatu is talked about and the rest of the Canaanite Gods in Isaiah, you will have a better idea than all the experts of what the original manuscript stated. The originals, such as those found at Ugarit, were written down a thousand years or more before anything was allegedly written by the "great" prophet Isaiah.
The only predictions of Christ as the one whom we had in Jerusalem are those talked about in the New Testament. Absolutely no prediction exist of him in the Old Testament. The ones alluded to by the preachers and scholars are ridiculous and could not possibly be substantiated by anything other than a vivid imagination. Contrarily, the prediction of the Son of Man is abundantly evident in Gnostic material, including material which would have been extant before the birth of Jesus.
The Gnostic's stated that the religion which was adopted after the emperor Constantine was nothing but an empty river bed. The society which has developed over the last 1500 years prove the fact that they were correct. All the predictions and prophesies in the Old Testament which supposedly demonstrates that Jesus was the Messiah are but proof of the ignorance of those preachers and "specialists" who allege they exist. Nothing can be substantiated.
We have to look to Gnostic materials in order to find any prophesies about any spiritual savior. Among the Gnostics, we all were saviors after receiving Gnosis, so there would have been a lot of material indicating future saviors. The Gnostic material talked especially about the coming Son of Man who would come and save those trapped in the three dimensional universe, save Man from the evil God of the Old Testament and the Archons.
John 3:3 states: "... Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom." One way the Gnostic described the ascent of Gnosis on Man was that he was reborn. Still in the same body, only the cloak of darkness was lifted by Gnosis. True rebirth was to have the cloak of darkness removed.
"But Jesus said unto him, 'Follow me; and let the Dead bury the Dead.'" (Matt. 8:22). This is a verification of the above statement that Jesus saw the people without Gnosis as Dead. At least, he is referring to people who are going to conduct a funeral, and here, he is calling them Dead. Who else has referred to living people as Dead other than the Gnostics? The Israelite religion did not ever refer to people who moved around as being Dead. Only the Gnostic Jesus could have come with such an utterance.
In John 3:3-9, Jesus tells Nicodemus that unless a person is born anew he can never see the domain of God. Nicodemus asks how an old man is to be reborn and proposes perhaps he enters a second time into his mothers womb. Jesus tells him that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of spirit is spirit. It is the reborn spirit which is born of water and spirit which enters into the kingdom.
What is this water the Soul takes with him into the "kingdom of heaven"? The Church takes this to mean the body and states that the physical manifestation of Man is saved by the Soul, and they then go into a paradise together where they bore themselves to death for all eternity or something of that nature. This water is probably another addition to John to justify the later teachings of the Church. The idea that the Soul went into the kingdom of heaven was a commonly held belief of a Great number of religions at the time of Jesus. The only real difference with the Christians was they also brought along their physical bodies.
It is very doubtful the water mentioned was a symbol for the body. Even more difficult to understand is why anyone would desire to go to a heaven and that these poor fragile bodies are something to desire. No, here it is the anointed Soul which comes into the heavenly kingdom. A Soul which had been anointed is a Soul which has been given access to privileged information.
The later Christian cult could not control and manipulate people who were thinking in this fashion. They proposed the flesh was of importance and would be reborn. The idea is stupid. If my body gets back up after I am done with it, I will personally beat it back into the grave.
Some of today's Christians hold that it is not really the same body we will receive when we get to heaven. We will receive a spiritual body. How do they get this information which is not anywhere in the Christian doctrine? The ancients stated the Soul was a spiritual body and they would not have needed to receive anything to go there and would not have fought with the Christians had this been their statement. What gives some Christians the right to state that the beliefs of the ancients are wrong now that we have more knowledge and they are privileged to information the early christians did not have?
Has their Jesus been resurrected and given them this new information without anyone knowing about it except for the elite few? It is irrelevant where they got this information from. What they are then preaching is a heathen religion and a doctrine held by many a heathen at the time of Christ.
"The Vision of Paul" is a document which supposedly was found in about 388 C.E. It tells us how people thought in those days, and this was also employed for over a thousand years by the Christians to explain how things really were. In this version, when the angels come to get a dying man, they tell the Soul it has to remember the body from which it was taken, for on the day of resurrection, it has to go back to the same one.
(On the day of resurrection, can you imagine billions of Souls scampering about trying to find the correct body? I can just imagine them having them bracketed by race, all the Chinese in one corner of heaven and the blacks in another and then the whites in one and the Latinos in another. There would be a small pile of Eskimo bodies over to one side, ... and you thought it was a problem finding your car in a large parking lot?)
This vision was extremely popular in the middle ages because it held the information about heaven so sorely lacking today from biblical material. Contrary to the beliefs of religious scholars, I believe it is the spin off of a Gnostic composition from the first or second centuries C.E. called "The Apocalypse of Paul." The Apocalypse of Paul is entirely different but all the main points of this Apocalypse are found in the vision of Paul.
The ancient philosophers stated it was ridiculous to have the body resurrected because the same body could never be reassembled. Further, they stated that which composed one body would be decayed and then through the natural processes on Earth, may be employed in the formation of a different body. This is correct, but today we know that through the DNA chain, the creation of a new body from this chain could theoretically be done. If we were to create a new body from the DNA chain of an old body, the body would however be similar and could not possibly be identical. Should the false soul the Hebrew Deity supposedly gave us have contained the DNA structure of bodies, we would have the basic blueprint of our bodies, but the copy would be similar, never identical.
John 3:19 tells us about the men who loved the evil darkness of ignorance as opposed to the Light of Gnosis. Darkness are the Sons of the Earth or Children of Earth previously referred to. Children of Light we have covered also. In spite of heavy editing by the fathers of the Church, they have not been able to get rid of everything. I and many others feel the main culprits of the dark teaching were Polykarp and his protégé, the Antichrist Irenaeus. These were followed by many others whom we will take a brief look at. We will have to take a brief look at these later in order to remove the "cloak of darkness." Lucky for us, they could not manage to get rid of everything. The writings of old were supposed to be a book of enlightenment. It has become a book of deception.
In John 4:21, Jesus tells a woman that the day is coming when not even in Jerusalem shall the father be worshipped. The Gnostics did not worship any God. They were a part in God, and God was a part in them, as Christ was. There was nothing to pay homage to.
John 5:25 states: "Verily, verily I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the Dead shall hear the voice of the son of Man; and they that hear shall live." The Gnostics saw all men as Dead until they received Gnosis as previously mentioned. We also see in the letter of Paul to the Ephesians 2:1, "And you hath he quickened, (made alive) who were Dead in trespasses and sins."
In John 6:27, Jesus tells the disciples not to labor for perishable flesh, but everlasting life. Flesh was the great evil of the Gnostic's. To labor for the survival of flesh is to labor for evil. Only the Archons desire flesh to survive. Irenaeus believed it was the flesh which would arise complete with the Soul. He stated the flesh was perishable, but by the worship of the word of God (Jesus) and following the commandments of the Hebrew Deity, this made the flesh UN-perishable. Thus it was Jesus' body and all which ascended to heaven. A heaven where we live eternally in material bodies may be good enough for Irenaeus, but not for me.
John 7:7 states: "The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it that the works thereof are evil." Spoken like a true Gnostic leader. The world according to the Christians was created by a God who said it was all good. Here Jesus is stating that he is a testimony to the fact that the world is evil. The Christians state that the flesh which Jesus witnessed was evil shall be resurrected and we shall be stuck with it for eternity.
Because Jesus stated the bodies of the world were evil it would have been ridiculous to assume that he prophesied we would stand up in these evil bodies. I can just see some Christian apologist (excuse maker) attempt to tell us that the bodies we will be resurrected and are no longer evil. They are now holy! God has made them holy since the people worshipped the God properly or some equally idiotic idea. The God supposedly made the entire physical universe, and then the entire physical universe would have been holy and not evil as Jesus here stated.
John 8:12 states: "I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." The Light of Life is Gnosis. It has nothing to do with the Hebrew religion. John 1:4 states: "In him was life; and the life was the light of Men." John 9:5 states: "As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. John 12:35 states: "Then Jesus said unto them, `Yet a little while is the light (knowledge) with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness (ignorance) come upon you: for he that walked in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.'"
The Light of Knowledge which found itself into many religions is not of the Israelite faith. It is from the Greek philosophies. This Light talked about which again is the Greek lynx or lume is the Light spoken of in the Bible. When it is employed in the fashion written in places such as John, it is not light to illuminate the physical surroundings. It is the Light which illuminates mental and spiritual activity. The opposite is life under the "cloak of darkness."
In John 8:31-32, he tells the Jews who follow him that they shall know the truth, and the truth shall set them free. This could not possibly be the Hebrew truth. Their truth was the following of their commandments, right or wrong.
Truth here is the Gnostic concept. John goes on and on. John was a Gnostic, and nearly 2000 years of editing can not hide this fact. How much has been added to the Bible as we know it today and how much has been deleted can only be guessed at.
Only the discoveries of more ancient literature predating the manuscripts which exist today can divulge this. The Nag Hammadi manuscripts were definitely such a discovery, yet so few of the things therein are employed to discover the truth about the guiding principle in our lifereligion. It is far easier to adjust facts to the mind, than to adjust the mind to the facts, but far less valuable. There is no valor in defending a lie.
The "Dead Sea Scrolls" are also able to teach us more about the religious concepts of the early Christians. Some great books have been written recently in this regard, and the book by Barbara Thiering called "Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls" puts it all in a better perspective.
We have all these very good people (and I am not being sarcastic, most of them are very good) attempting to discover the truth. As soon as they find something which does not agree with the truth as they would have liked it to be, the material is regarded as a forgery. I, along with many others, know where the real forgeries are. Fixed opinions are totally useless when it comes to science and, when it comes to religion, are in reality a devastating liability for all of Mankind. As mentioned, it is far easier to adjust data to the mind than the mind to the data, but it is a liability. If today's religions are useless and a liability to all of Mankind it does not matter how much revenue it brings to the Church. The truth must be told!
John 10:34 states: "Is it not written in your law, I said, ye are gods?" If this is the definition of the law which Jesus was talking he was undoubtedly Gnostic. And Psalm 82:6 states: "I have said, Ye are Gods; and all of you are children of the most high."
However, Psalm 82 is Canaanite and the content speaks of the Canaanite El judging amongst Gods and men, identifying men with Gods. All of Mankind as well as the Gods according to the Canaanites were the children of El. Jesus could only have employed such literature if he was not promoting the Israelite philosophies. Man was too far beneath the God in the Israelite religion after the reworking of the faith subsequent to the Persian occupation, to be compared with God. Gnostic thought however teaches that none of us are beneath the original thought and we are all a part of this thought and equal to it. This four dimensional philosophy was not very easy to understand back then, and some may still have problems with it today.
While "Gods" was a poor terminology, it was correct according to the Gnostic that the Son of Man is what we all were, and God or Gods superior is what we all are. And here, when the Bible as mentioned tells us we are Gods, how could it be that we are not able to judge the moral and ethical qualities of the God who is supposed to be our leader? The answer is easy. If we look at this God, his actions are so atrocious that we would never follow such a leader. What we must do is get hold of him and convert him to Gnosticism, and he too can be as Great as Man.
Chapter 11 of John is a later addition. We will look at it later, who wrote it and why.
John 12:25 states: "He that loveth his life shall loose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal" is another Gnostic statement telling their followers life in the physical universe is nothing to get attached to. It was but an imitation of real life.
John 12:36 states: "While ye have light believe in the light that ye may be children of light." And 12:46, "I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth in me should not abide in darkness." Or 14:17, "Even the spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not ... for he dwelleth with you." Or 14:20, "At that day ye shall know I am in the father and ye in me, and I in you." The amount of Gnostic material in the New Testament is amazing. The reason why it was interpreted the way it was is even more amazing. Yet we must remember Luke 16:8, "And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light." This is from the King James version of the Bible, and just as a cross reference, I looked it up in the Lutheran Bible in Norwegian, where a translation into English would be: "This world's children are better at adapting themselves than the children of light."
This is the God of the Hebrews talking! He is commending the children of this world, and negating the abilities of the Children of Light. This is found throughout the Bible, both the New and Old Testaments. Much more needs to be said about the Gnostics and their beliefs. First however, it has become necessary to clear away the stumbling block in front of the Children of Light. The Children of this world are but Children of Light beneath the cloak of darkness. To understand the truth as depicted in Greek and Gnostic doctrines, we have to shed this cloak of ignorance, get out from under the darkness and know.
Before we do this, I have to make clear something which troubles me. It could possibly be interpreted by some that I am indulging in an attack on established religion and the people who are the leaders and proponents of these. This is not the case. I have profound respect for all religious leaders and servants who on a whole constitute the best people alive on this planet. It has almost always been that way. These people, often at Great self sacrifice, are attempting to make this world a better place for us all to live. That has been their main motivation for thousands of years, and those who would discredit their effort are not worthy of the Light. Should we discover that some teachings have been done from under the cloak of darkness, all the more power to them. Even under the most difficult of conditions, they have never ceased hoping they could make this place a better world for you and for me.
But there is nothing in the New Testament which was written until after the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in about 70 C.E. When this Temple and the war with the Romans were over, all the leaders of the Jewish movement were dead or in jail. The only ones of the Christian movement that survived were those who followed Paul. Paul may have been identified from the Dead Sea documents as none other than the "Liar."