the Jesus Opus Dei

Why does Paul state in 1 Corinthians 2:6-8 that demons (arcontes) killed Jesus[16] and not that Pilate killed Jesus as narrated in the Gospels?
1 Corinthians 2:6-8 (New International Version)

“If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give it to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me” - Mt 19:21 vs. “Cast ye unprofitable servant into outer darkness” (Mt 25:30). For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. Cast ye unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Mt 25: 14-30).

Wisdom From the Spirit
 6We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

In Sumerian tablets, we learn that the goddess Inanna "abandoned heaven, abandoned earth, and descended to the underworld," crossing seven gates there (Samuel Kramer, History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-Nine Firsts in Man's Recorded History, rev. ed., 1981: cf. p. 162). Eventually she is killed by a demon in Hell: "The sick woman was turned into a corpse. The corpse was hung from a nail. After three days and three nights had passed," her vizier petitions the gods in heaven to resurrect her. Her Father gives her the "food of life" and the "water of life" and resurrects her, then she ascends from the land of the dead, sending another God (her lover) to die in her place: "the shepherd Dumuzi" (aka Tammuz, a forerunner of Attis)

The basic teaching of Jewish civilization was the liberation of a nation of slaves, pitted against all the oppressive regimes of the world by a unitary and unifying pact with Almighty God, who refused to co-exist with the gods who had betrayed mankind into slavery.

The basic myth of Rome was identical with its foundation myth: a triumphant Cain-figure, Romulus, leader of a band of desperate outlaws, given the omen of a flight of vultures to show that his descendants would prey on mankind like vultures, or like the wolves by whom Romulus was nurtured.

The basic myth of the Christian civilization, again, identical with its foundation myth was the liberation of mankind from a “yoke of slavery”: “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a “yoke of slavery” (meaning the Law, the Torah).

Judea under Herod's Occupation

Situations in Galilee and in Judea were different. Samaria had its own laws. The Tractate Kuthim is dediacted to them. Herod the Great and his immediate successors built a number of town, which were inhabited chiefly by Gentiles, and had independent constitutions, like those of Hellenic cities. Thus, Herod himself built Sebaste (Samaria), in the center of the country; Caesarea in the west, commanding the sea-coast; Gaba in Galilee, close to the great plain of Esdraelon; and Esbonitis in Perea. Smiliarly, Philip the Tetrarch built Caesarea Philippi and Julias (Bethsaida-Julias, on the western shore of the lake); and Herod Antipas another Julias, and Tiberias. The object of these cities was twofold. As Herod, well knowing his unpopularity, surrounded himself by foreign mercenaries, and reared fortresses around his palace and the Temple which he built, so he erected these fortified posts, which he populated with strangers (veterans of Roman army), to surround and command Jerusalem and the Jews on all sides. Again as, despite his profession of Judaism, he reared magnificent heathen temples in honor of Augustus at Sebaste and Caesarea, so those cities were really intended to form centers of Hellenistic influence within the sacred territory itself. At the same time, the Herodian cities enjoyed not the same amount of liberty as the 'Hellenic', which, with the exception of certain imposts, were entirely self-governed, while in the former there were representatives of the Herodian rulers.

In 138 Aelia Capitolina was established on the ruins of the Jewish capital, but no Jew was allowed to return. The new town was Gentile. The community of Aelia Capitolina was Gentile and therefore Pauline.

The philosophy of the Roman robber state was expressed by Seneca in his book “De clementia”: “Pity is a mental illness induced by the spectacle of other people’s miseries…The sage does not succumb to mental diseases of that sort.” The writer who was once tutor and adviser to Nero, after watching the gladiators’ fight one day wrote: “I have come home more greedy, more cruel and inhuman…” Indeed, the Roman circus hardened the hearts of the slaveholders. In Rome sick slaves were killed (euthanasia!) or turned out by their masters arbitrarily and infant slaves were killed by exposing them to the elements. That was Roman birth control policy. The Roman poet Horace who was an owner of a smaller farm proclaimed; “Make money, money by fair means if you can, if not, by any means, money.” Because as the Latin proverb taught them, Pecuniae obediunt omnia (All things obey money). Interestingly, the mantra of the ancient votaries of Elagabal, Man is only man by his wealth, became an Arab proverb and the political slogan of the so-called OPEC countries.
In the movie Wall Street, the lead character Gordon Gekko says: “Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed is good.” Now, we better understand why Pope John Paul II recognized evolution as something more than a mere hypothesis. Don't forget the spirit is also evolutionary. (http://arras.cef.fr/page-13021-logo-diocese.html) This is from the desk of the Hindu goddess of wealth.

The senatorial proconsuls, the tax gatherers, the moneylenders, and the business agents milked the provinces at a rate that would have angered their predecessors with envy. They served without pay, usually for a year's term; in that brief time they had to accumulate enough to pay their debts, buy another office, and set themselves up for life in the style befitting a great Roman. The sole check upon their venality was the Senate; and the senators could be trusted as gentlemen not to raise a fuss, since nearly all of them had done, or hoped soon to do, the same.
In some years the province of Asia paid Romans twice as much in interest on loans as it paid to the publicans and the Treasury. The paid and unpaid interest on money borrowed by the cities of Asia Minor to meet Sulla's exactions in 84 had swelled by 70 to six times the principal. To meet the charges on this debt communities sold their public buildings and statuary, and parents sold their children into slavery, for defaulting debtors could be stretched on the rack (Will Durant, Caesar and Christ. pp. 129-30)

Natural Avarice of Governors 
Antiquities 18.6.2 172 
(Emperor Tiberius' philosophy) 
For it was a law of nature that governors were prone to engage in extortion.
Like the gospels before it, Acts does everything to document the good relations of the Christians with the Romans and to shift all the responsibility for Paul's Roman imprisonment onto the Jews. This is exactly what the Gospels had done with the crucifixion of Jesus. Thus the bloodcurdling ballad of Jewish injustice against God's saints, and the hymn praising Roman justice and the correctness of Roman officials, were repeatedly sung and spread throughout the Roman empire.

Corruption of the Procurators
After the removal of Herod's son Archelaus in 6 CE until the outbreak of the war, Judea was administered as a province by a series of fourteen Roman governors with the title of  Procurator. They did not hesitate to keep firm control of the country with force. Frequent outbreaks of sedition, robber gangs, and ethnic rioting were put down with beatings and killings.

These are usually reported neutrally or even with approval by Josephus. His main goal is to demonstrate the difficulty controlling the country, while seeming to admit that the procurator's actions are justified. And aside from occasional cases of insensitivity to the Jewish religion, particularly on the part of  Pontius Pilate, the conduct of the procurators is not presented by Josephus as being outrageous, until the moment  Nero became Emperor in 54 CE. 

Philo in his Embassy to Gaius 302) wrote about Pilate: “Pilate used briberies, insults, robberies, outrages, wanon injuries, constantly repeated executions without trial, ceaseless and supremely grievous cruelty.”

From then on it seemed there was nothing to hinder the procurators from whatever action they desired for their personal gain and power. These men -- Felix (52-60), Festus (60-62), Albinus (62-64), and Florus (64-66) -- produced twelve years of corrupt government that provoked the populace and was ill-equipped to contain revolution. 

The “Yoke of Slavery”

We read in Leviticus 25:35-38, “And if your brother has grown poor, and his hand fails with you; then you shall uphold him: as a stranger and a sojourner shall he lived with you. Take no interest of him or increase, but fear your God; that your brother may live with you. You shall not give him your money on interest, nor give him your food for increase. I am YHWH your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, and be your God.”

The combined cost of the wars that have been fought by the U.S.A. during this century would nearly equal the national debt as it stands at this moment with the added interest. We are still, even today, a very wealthy country, and this debt would not be insurmountable – if no interest was piled on top of it. However, the service charge on the national debt is so immense that, today, it represents a major item on the national budget. Last year (2007), the amount was $429,977,998,108.22.

“A new covenant has made the first obsolete.” Heb 8:13

“For the kingdom of heaven is as a man traveling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he gave 5 talents, to another two, and to another one. He that received 5 talents…made them other 5 talents…He that received two, he also gained other two. But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money. After a long time the lord of those servants reckoneth with them. The lord said unto him which has gained 5 talents more, Well done, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. And unto him which has gained two other talents, the lord said, Well done, I will make thee ruler over many things… Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art a hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed. And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. His lord said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou oughtest to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. Take therefore the talent from him, and give I unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. Cast ye unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Mt 25: 14-30).

Buddha taught: “The only miracle that should be performed are these: when you see a man full of passion, craving and greed and you teach him to free himself from passion, craving and greed...this is a worthy 'miracle' you can perform.” (http://tektonics.org/copycat/buddha01.html)

Matthew, before he became an evangelist, was the well-schooled Jewish tax collector and Roman employee. The above parable is –Logos-Jesus’ lesson of politics of inflation: Speculating seems more sensible than saving and investing.

Jesus preached the same elitist principle regarding his method of teaching: ”To you it has been granted to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but not to them. For those who have will be given more, till they have enough and to spare; and those who have not, will forfeit what they have. That is why I speak to them in parables, for they look without saying, and listen without hearing or understanding.” (Matthew 13:10-14)

According to the law of nature it is only fair that no one should become richer through damages and injuries suffered by another. Marcus Tullius Cicero

John 18:19-20
“The high priest then asked Jesus of his disciples, and of his doctrine.
Jesus answered him, I spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue, and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said nothing.” Jesus lied like the Buddhist missionaries. If Jesus lied the whole structure of the perfect, sinless godman crumbles and it drags the very foundation of Christianity down with it.
Even demons were instructed by Jesus to conceal the truth.

Mark 3:11-12
And unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son of God.
And he(Jesus) straitly charged them that they should not make him known.
Like the officers of the famous Enron company Jesus revealed one truth to corporate insiders while revealing another truth (i.e. deceptions) to the investing public in the form of bogus financial statements.
Scholars such as Funk, Wilder and Crossan agree that practical advise and moral preaching is almost completely foreign to Jesus authentic pronouncements on the Kingdom of God. There is very little evidence in the parables of Jesus to suggest that he intended to give a series of moral maxims or lessons in living an ethical life, or that he offered a structured program for achieving ones worldly plans. So rather than speaking in objective and descriptive terms about the ways of God’s kingdom, Jesus spoke obliquely or indirectly and consistently refused to be explicit about the advent of the Kingdom.
Unlike Jesus in his Sermon for the Publicans, John the Baptist in his sermon for the same people was telling them to exact no more taxes than those prescribed, to the soldiers he declared that they should avoid violence and calumny (as informers) and to be content with their wages, and for that he was beheaded by Herod.

In the sixteenth chapter of Luke Jesus tells the parable of the dishonest steward. While not necessarily praising the steward's dishonesty, he presents the steward's shrewdness as exemplary. In the parable of Luke 16 Jesus states that "the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the sons of light" (v. 8, NRSV). Now the term "sons of light" does not appear often in the New Testament. It is used once in the Gospel of John to describe Christians, and Paul uses the term twice. But was Jesus thinking of Christians in Luke 16:8? We cannot be sure, since Jesus was not in the habit of calling his followers “sons of light” and whoever these "sons of the light" are in this passage, Jesus does not describe them in very positive terms. He describes them as being more foolish than worldly people. When Jesus originally spoke this parable, who did his followers believe he was talking about?

The term "sons of light" may not appear frequently in the New Testament, but it occurs very frequently in the Dead Sea Scrolls. We have even seen the term a time or two in previous quotations in this essay. The Essenes of Qumran were fond of calling themselves "sons of light." Perhaps Jesus was talking about them.
This possibility becomes even more likely when we consider the second phrase in this parable which is a technical term of the Dead Sea Scrolls. That term is "the wealth of unrighteousness" which appears in verses 9 and 11. In the Dead Sea Scrolls that term was used to describe the money of unbelievers and outsiders. The members of the Qumran community were explicitly forbidden to do business with outsiders; they were not to take money from unbelievers. Jesus in this parable is saying that it is foolish not to make friends from the wealth of unrighteousness. David Flusser writes: “Jesus claimed in the parable that the “sons of light” did not behave cleverly when they practiced an economic separatism and did not make friends for themselves from the “wealth of unrighteousness.” This is his criticism of the extreme Essene attitude. He asks his followers to remain trustworthy with the “wealth of unrighteousness” which belongs to others. Only in this way will they be able to gain friends among nonbelievers.” Cp. Paul's method of pretending to be a Greek for Greeks, a Jew for Jews, a woman for women...
In Rom 3:7 Paul is saying that is quite OK to lie as long you do so for the greater glory of God. In the opinion of Christian Lindtner expressed in his Response to Dr Burkhard Scherer (www.jesusisbuddha.com/SCHERER1.html)
such an attitude is based on the concept of upaya-kausalya, which is fundamental to the Buddhist text known as Suddharmapundarika-Sutra (SDP=Lotussutra). It implies that you, as a missionary, can use all sorts if tricks, including puns, miracles, transformations (a man disguised as a woman etc.), white lies, in order to fool ignorant people into having faith in the SDP and its message, namely that all living beings eventually will become buddhas, and that the Buddha never really died.

jtaplin.wordpress.com/2008/04/16/rich-get-richer/
schooloffish.wordpress.com/.../
answersinhistory.wordpress.com/.../

In Rome, nothing that resulted in profit was regarded as disgraceful. They followed into the footsteps of Etruscans who allowed their young women to obtain dowries by prostitution. The Master’s hard saying that “to him who has, more will be given, and from him who has nothing, even that which he has will be taken away (Lk 19:26) is, in the opinion of Will Durant, an excellent summary of market operations. The principle of cruel Roman utilitarianism matching the Darwinian principle of the survival of the fittest was expressed by Jesus in the words: “Cast ye unprofitable servant into outer darkness” (Mt 25:30). In a secret Gospel written by St. Mark Jesus teaches “the mystery of the Kingdom of God” only the rich men.

It was nothing new to be indifferent to the feelings of the slave. The slaves lived in a empire that had swallowed up the world. The rulers had waged victorious wars in which more people had been enslaved than ever before in history. The victim’s lives were held cheap by rulers and masters who enjoyed absolute power. Branding, burnings, floggings, and maimings were inflicted by the masters who, as Seneca once said, would “punish for absurd reasons – an obscure answer, and impertinent look, a whisper so subdued that we cannot even hear it.”

The sight of blood and suffering, said Cicero, taught contempt for pain and death. Pliny the Younger – who himself could not stand the sight of an arena strewn with corpses – believed the massacres inspired courage. But Seneca, the writer who was once tutor and adviser to Nero, disagreed.

Opus Dei accuses BBC of defamation
Evening Standard, UK/January 23, 2007

The controversial religious sect, Opus Dei has accused the BBC of portraying its members as "murderers, thieves and adulterers" in a furious row over a popular fictional drama.
The secretive Catholic organization lodged an official complaint of defamation on Tuesday after the award-winning drama, Waking the Dead showed an episode featuring a murder investigation of a Opus Dei devotee.
Religious leaders have condemned the episode of the BBC drama shown this week as deeply offensive, accusing programme makers of portraying members as "pious hypocrites and murderers bent on acquiring wealth and power".
In the drama, a spurned Opus Dei member exacts revenge on his lover, a married woman - also a member of the sect - by shooting her and his love rival to death in what the organization has called "gratuitous scenes of sex and violence".
The episode entitled "The Fall" shown to an estimated audience of eight million viewers, also sees the fictional head of Opus Dei being portrayed as a shadowy figure pursuing wealth and influence.
“Every great theologian has always known how to turn ... a deficit into riches” (Rudolf Augstein, Jesus Menschensohn (1974), p. 230)

Dooh Nibor Economics
Paul Krugman (New York Times, June 1, 2004)

Last week The Washington Post got hold of an Office Management and Budget memo that directed federal agencies to prepare for post-election cuts in programs that G. Bush has been touting on the campaign trail. These include nutrition for women, infants and children; Head Start; and homeland security. The numbers match those on computer printout leaked earlier this year – one that administration officials claimed did not reflect policy.

Beyond the routine mendacity, the case of the leaked memo points us to a larger truth: whatever they may say in public, administration officials know that sustaining Mr. Bush’s tax cuts will require large cuts in popular government programs. And for the vast majority of Americans, the losses from these cut will outweigh any gains from lower taxes.

It has long been clear that the Bush administration’s claim that it can simultaneously pursue war, large tax cuts and a “compassionate” agenda doesn’t add up. Now we have direct confrontation that the White House is engaged in bait and switch that it intends to pursue a not at all compassionate agenda after this year’s election.

That agenda is to impress Dooh Nibor economics – Robin Hood in reverse. The end result of current policies will be a large-scale transfer of income from the middle class to the very affluent, in which about 80% of the population will lose and the bulk of the gains will go to people with incomes of more than $200,000 per year.

I can’t back that assertion with official numbers, because under Mr. Bush the Treasury Department has stopped releasing information on the distribution of tax cuts by income level. Estimates by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, which now provides the numbers the administration doesn’t want you to know, reveal why. This year, the average tax reduction per family due to Bush-era cuts was $1,448. But this average reflects huge cuts for a few affluent families, with most families receiving much less (which helps explain why most people, according to polls, don’t believe their taxes have been cut). In fact, the 257,000 taxpayers with incomes of more than $1 million received a bigger combined tax cut than the 85 million taxpayers who make up the bottom 60% of the population.

Still, won’t most families gain something? No – because the tax cuts must eventually be offset with spending cuts.

Three years ago G. Bush claimed that he was cutting taxes to return a budget surplus to the public. Instead, he presided over a move to huge deficits. As a result, the modest tax cuts received by the great majority of Americans are, in a fundamental sense, fraudulent. It’s as if someone expected gratitude for giving you a gift, when he actually bought it using your credit card.

The administration has not, of course, explained how it intends to pay the bill. But unless taxes are increased again, the answer will have to be severe program cuts, which will fall mainly on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid – because that’s where the bulk of the money is.

For most families, the losses from these cuts ill far outweigh any gain from lower taxes. My back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that 80% of all families will end up worse off; the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities will soon come out with a more careful, detailed analysis that arrives at a similar conclusion. And the only really big beneficiaries will be the wealthiest few percent of the population

Does Mr. Bush understand that the end result of his policies will be to make most Americans worse off, while enriching the already affluent? Who knows? But the ideologues and political operatives behind his agenda know exactly what they’re doing.

Of course, voters would never support this agenda if they understood it. That’s why dishonesty – as illustrated by the administration’s consistent reliance on phony accounting, and now by the business with the budget cut memo – is such a central feature of the White House political strategy.

Right now, it seems that the 2004 election will be a referendum on Mr. Bush’s calamitous foreign policy. But something else is at stake: whether he and his party can lock in the unassailable political position they need to proceed with their pro-rich, anti-middle-class economic strategy. And no, I’m not engaging in class warfare. They are.

The King-Messiah

“See, Lord, and raise up for them (the Jews) their King (their Messiah), the son of David ... undergird him with strength to destroy the unrighteous rulers, to purge Jerusalem from gentiles ... to smash the arrogance of sinners like a potter's jar; To shatter all their substance with an iron rod ... their king will be their lord Messiah.” (Psalms of Solomon 17:21-24, 32)

“Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's”
A High Priest, Joezar, son of Boethus, the Egyptian that Herod made Priest, had persuaded the Jews to pay tax to Rome which the Herodians collected. Josehus also explains in the Jewish War that the acceptance of gifts, which was an innovation introduced by the Boethusians, helped spark the War.

Florus Takes Treasure from the Temple  (66 CE) 
Josephus JW 2.14.6  

Moreover, as to the citizens of Jerusalem, although they took this matter [the dealings in Caesarea] very ill, yet did they restrain their passion; but Florus acted herein as if he had been hired, and blew up the war into a flame, and sent some to take seventeen talents out of the sacred treasure, and pretended that Caesar wanted them. At this the people were in confusion immediately, and ran together to the Temple, with prodigious clamours, and called upon Caesar by name, and besought him to free them from the tyranny of Florus. 
The First letter of Peter is not only not stamped with hostility to the Roman state, it even makes propaganda for it: “Be subjects for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right ...Fear God. Honor the emperor” (1 Pet. 2:13-14)

“Let every man submit himself to the governing authorities. So that he that sets himself against the authority is opposing the divine order. For civil authorities are not a terror to good conduct, but to those of bad behavior. And wouldest thou have no fear of the power then do what is good, and you will win their praise. For the magistrate is God's minister to thee for good. But if you are wrong doer you may well be afraid, for the sword they carry is not without meaning. You are bound therefore, to obey not only through fear of God's punishments, but also as a matter of conscience.” (Rom 13:1-5)

The commandant of Jerusalem, Claudius Lysias (23:29), and later in Caesarea the two governors Felix (24:22) and Festus (24:4, 16; cf 26:32) reject the proposal to condemn Paul. To make sure that Paul arrives safely in Caesarea and doesn't fall victim to an attack by “more than forty Jews”, half of the whole Roman garrison in Jerusalem is mustered out at night. This large band of Jewish assassins have sworn “neither to eat or drink till they had killed Paul” (23:13ff). So Claudius Lysias assigns “two hundred soldiers with seventy horsemen and two hundred spearmen” to protect Paul from the Jewish conspirators and to bring him into the safe custody of the Roman governor, Felix, in Caesarea (23:23ff). This is already the third time in only two days that the Romans have saved Paul from the hands of the Jews (cf 21:33 and 23:10)

The financial controller of Egypt, the Jewish patrician Alexander Lysimachus (alabarch or chief tax collector), was a major donor to the Jerusalem Temple. His son, General Tiberius Alexander, prefect of Egypt from AD 46 to 48 and in AD 66 was a close friend of Titus's and chief of staff of the Roman army that destroyed the Temple in AD 70. Neither father nor son would have any love for the Zealots – or, by extension, the Zadokites.. Gen. Tiberius Alexander was a close friend of Josephus' who was another millionaire. “The only pagan contamination in Israel was among the very rich, inspired by self-interest or snobbery, and there were not many of these” (Daniel Rops, Jesus and his Times. 1954, p.408).Josephus was a millionaire!

One of Alexander's sons, and Philo's nephews, Marcus, was married to Berenice, daughter of Herod Agrippa, tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, 39-40. After the exile of Herod Antipas – villain of the Jesus saga – he ruled as King of the Jews, 41-44 AD.

Philo produced a theory of Natural Law that joined traditions of Greek philosophy and Hebrew religion. Natural Law is in effect the Torah, manifested in unwritten form in Logos (i.e. the structure of nature), present in written form in the Law of Moses and impressed in the minds of human beings who are created in the image of God. Thus did Philo subordinated the obligation of the Jews to Rome, to a higher authority, the Logos of the megapolis, the great city of God (see Paul's Letter to the Romans) (M. Eliade, Encyclopedia of Religion, entry Natural Law)

The veil of concealment has been created by the omissions and distortions of Josephus' history, which has indeed led astray all the secular writers, who failed to recognize the fact that Josephus wrote his books at the behest of Agrippa II and his party for the express purpose of distorting the truth (See Vita 65: “And as for King Agrippa, he wrote me 62 letters” - which demonstrates how greatly Agrippa influenced Josephus' history).

The works of Josephus were not accepted by the Jews of antiquity. He was regarded by his fellow Jews as a traitor and his work received attention outside of Roman circles only when Christianity started to be spread. It is a fairly common understanding that Luke seems to have read at least some of Josephus' writings. (See G.J. Goldberg, The Josephus-Luke Connection http://members.aol/FLJOSEPHUS/LUKECH.htm). Josephus wrote in Wars (5.9): “God...is now settled in Italy.”

The scholars never want us to forget that Luke wrote Acts with a purpose that is, to reconcile the two factions in early Christianity – Jerusalem and Antioch, those who thought that the Jesus-movement was always to be contained within the parent of Judaism, and those who believed that the gentile believers were the new Israel, that 'Judaism' had been supplanted by 'Christianity'.

Luke's accurate and relatively abundant knowledge about the Herod family may be due to his acquaintance with certain people who had close contact with the family. He mentions Joanna the wife of one of Antipas's stewards, among the well-to-do women who supported Jesus and his disciples during their itinerant ministry, and his reference to Manaen (in Persian Manaem or Menahem, means Paraclete or Comforter) 'companion' or 'courtier' of Herod, the tetrarch who became one of the leading teachers and prophets in the church of Syrian Antioch about AD 47 is also of interest. Luke must have found in Manaen a valuable informant on the contacts of Antipas and his relatives with the early Christian story.

“And it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and shewing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with him. And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, and Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod’s steward (Chuza was King Herod’s business manager and was in charge of his palace and domestic affairs), and Susanna, and many others, who gave him of their wealth for his needs. “ (Lk. 8:1-3). Interestingly, some early Christian mosaics depict Jesus in uniform of a Roman legionary.
With Philo's close connection to the house of Herod, one might reasonably expect that the miraculous escape from a royal prison of a gang of apostles (Acts 5.18,40), or the second, angel-assisted, flight of Peter, even though chained between soldiers and guarded by four squads of troops (acts 12.2,7) are not real miracles after all. They knew that they were being arrested to make them popular among the oppressed Jews.
Now you will grasp the full meaning of Luke 16:17: “The law and prophets were in force until John's day, from that time the gospel of the kingdom of God is preached.”

In the synoptic gospels Jesus' ministry began at the same time as the disappearance of John from the scene; he was imprisoned by the authorities. Only in the gospel of John it is implied that both of them carry out baptisms for a wile in parallel, and possibly in competition.

When he (Jesus) heard that John had been arrested, Jesus withdrew to Galilee,” it is written in the gospel of Matthew. And it was in Galilee that Jesus started to preach and gather together disciples.

Why was Herod afraid of John the Baptist? Well, he knew that John's preparation for the kingdom of God, was connected only with the Messiah who would reject the yoke of Rome and establish a truly independent Jewish state.
Those whom John baptized were rebaptized by Paul (Acts 18:24; 19:7).

According to The Arabic manuscript discovered by Professor of the Hebrew University, Shlomo Pines Paul abandoned the observance of the Torah mainly in order to obtain the backing of Rome and achieve power and influence for himself. Paul is even held responsible for the destruction of the Temple by the Romans, since his anti-Jewish propaganda inflamed the Romans against the Jews. His Christianity, says this source, was 'Romanism'; instead of converting Romans into Christians, he converted Christians into Romans. (http://ebionite.com/Evidence_of_the_Ebionites.htm)

According to 4Q521 the Messiah expected by the Essenes “will heal wounded, resurrect the dead, and proclaim glad tidings to the poor”. According to Luke 7:22-23 and Matthew 11:4-5 Jesus when asked by John from the prison if he was the coming one answered him: “the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have glad tidings preached to them”.

Actually, it was the rich who had glad tidings preached to them. Since Jesus kingdom was not of this world the poor could not expect from him any help to satisfy their needs. The economic fabric of the Roman empire with millions of slaves precluded such promises. The Romans wanted to confront the Jewish Messiah with the Messiah who was willing to collaborate with them by appealing to the Jews to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar's”.

Buddha taught: “The supernatural powers, like passing through walls, flying through the air, walking on water, if displayed for their own sake in order to impress people, are no different from the performances of magicians. A Bhikkhu who practices such worldly miracles is a source of shame, humiliation and disgust. Such actions may impress and win converts and followers, but they do not bring Enlightenment to help them put an end to suffering.”

Philo's Paganization of Judaism

Alexander Lysimachus had a famous brother: the philosopher Philo of Alexandria. Philo attempted to draw together Platonic and Jewish philosophy, taking a mystical approach to Jewish thought. He wrote about many of the Jewish religious groups he considered important. He tended to side personally with those groups of a mystical, even esoteric nature – groups within Judaism that, to his mind, seemed to be the Jewish equivalents of the Greek philosophical traditions he admired most, such as the Platonists and the Pythagoreans.

In Greek mythology, gods impregnated mortal women. Influenced by the Greek culture, Philo wrote that God impregnated Hannah: “Hannah ... received the divine seed {God’s seed} and became pregnant. ... She brought forth ... Samuel ...”  He wrote that God impregnated Leah: “You will find her {Leah} receiving seed and offspring out of no created being but by God’s own gift.” He wrote that God impregnated Tamar: “Thus she receives the divine impregnation ...” But according to Genesis, God did not impregnate those women. He just miraculously opened their wombs: “And when the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb.” (Genesis 29:31 KJV) God opened their wombs so that their husbands would impregnate them. Philo equated opening the womb with impregnating. He wrote, “... in the case of Leah, where he {Moses} says that ‘God opened her womb.’ But to open the womb is the special duty of the husband.” Influenced by Philo (and by the Greek myths about god-men), the editors of Matthew and Luke added in the beginning of those gospels that God impregnated Mary.

Philo: The word (logos)is the second god
“the second god, who is the Word of the other {god, the Father of the Universe} ...”

John: The Word (Logos) was a god, “... and the Word was a god” (John 1:1)

Like Philo, Jesus was a polytheist:

John 10:34 Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your (!) law, I said, Ye are gods?

But what Jesus omitted is very revealing: The Hebrew text of Psalm 81:6 says, “I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you children of the Most High.

Only a polytheist could have called the God of the Torah Devil, like Jesus did in the gospel of John 8:44.

The Minim (the Talmudic appellation of Christians) were intensifying their efforts to harass the Jews spiritually and physically, and they were busy inciting Rome against them. (“A Min said to rabbi: He who formed mountains is not the one who created the wind, for it is written 'Behold He forms mountains and He creates the wind' – Amos 4:13. Rabbi replied: Foolish one, go to the end of the verse, which states: “The L-d of Hosts is His name.” - Hullin 87A. That this was a matter of great gravity is evident from the fact that when the Min promised to reply after three days, Rabbi fasted during the ensuing three days until the report came that the Min had taken his life because he found no reply. (Rav Avigdor Miller, EXALTED NATION. A History of the People from the Destruction of the Second Sanctuary to the Sealing of the Talmud. CIS Publishers. New York.London.Jerusalem 1991)

Paul, as a Roman citizen, was expected to take part in the Roman religious cult, which means he was a polytheist too. In the spirit of the Roman polytheism Paul contrasts earthly bodies of flesh with heavenly bodies, the sun and stars which were regarded as gods (1 Cor 15:35-44a). Interestingly, Copernicus described the sun as a”visible god” and called the “heavenly bodies” divina corpora and and wrote about divinis mundi revolutionibus. The different altars around churches recall the manifold deities in their niches inside Hindu temples.

Samadhi is a trance-state of meditation whose deepest form is the same as being “out-of-body” (Janet Lee Mitchell, Out of Body Experiences: A handbook. 1981). The Apolline or solar revelation was fully elaborated by the 13th century German Mystic Meister Eckhart. There is within the man who is capable of having a mystical experience, a “ground” (also called Funklein or scintilla) which can “fly” to the godhead. 2 Cor 12:2-4 Paul says he was caught up to the third heaven and heard unutterable words in the body, or out of the body.

“At midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining around me... And when we were all fallen to the earth I heard a voice speaking unto me...it is hard to kick against the goads” (KJV Acts 26:13-14). In Euripides the persecuted god is Dionysus, and his persecutor is Pentheus, king of Thebes. Just like Jesus, Dionysus calls his persecutor to account: “You disregard my words of warning ... and kick against necessity (literally 'against the goads') a man defying god”.The only peculiar thing is that Jesus should quote a Greek proverb to Paul while speaking Aramaic (“in the Hebrew language”) (Uta Ranke-Heinemann, Putting away Childish Things. . HarperSanFrancisko 1994, p. 163)

One of the fundamental practices of Hinduism is the recitation twice a day of the Savitri Gayatri Mantra, a prayer for enlightenment directed to the Solar Power
“For in thee we live and move and have our being”. This line from Hymn to Zeus by Epimenides (6th c. BCE) quoted by Paul of Tarsus at Acts 17:28 as follows: “For in him we live, and move, and have our being. For we also are his (Zeus's) offspring.”

Jesus Unveiled

The purpose of a general policy of Hellenizing local communities, pursued by Seleucids all over their empire was to unify their divergent cultures and to diminish resistance to the central authority. Antiochus forbade all sacrifices, keeping the Shabbath, circumcision (which the Greeks mocked).
John’s Christ abolished cult in Jerusalem, circumcision and Shabbat; all ties to Jewish synagogue were cut. Acts 15:9. Jesus even symbolically destroys the temple just as he had destroyed the fig tree. He destroys the Temple by attacking its fiscal, sacrificial, and cultic necessities. It is all symbolic, of course, but so was removing the golden eagle. That action did not actually destroy Roman rule any more that Jesus' action destroyed the Temple's giant edifice. But later, as Jesus dies, Mark records that God ratifies his action by abandoning the Temple's inner sanctuary through a symbolic act of departure: “And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom” (Mark 15:38) (John Dominic Crossan. Who Killed Jesus. Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism. 1995, p. 63).
Aristotle justifies slavery with the argument that the masters require leisure…Sacred Scripture, on the other hand, ordains leisure (Sabbath)…that the day of rest…may be enjoyed by all who work during the week. (M. Lazaraus, Ethics of Judaism, 1901, II. 19, Note 1.) One of every three people in Greek “democracy” was a slave. The slaves in Greece or Rome did not have a day of rest.

Prof. James H. Breasted describes the life of the slaves on the great plantations as “little better than that of beasts. Worthy and freeborn men…were branded with a hot iron like oxen to identify them forever. They were herded at night in cellar barracks, and in the morning were driven like half-starved beasts of burden to work in the fields. The green fields of Italy, where sturdy farmers once watched the growing grain sown and cultivated by their own hands, were now worked by wretched and hopeless creatures who wished they had never been born.”

In the New Testament epistles there are only 2 references to the Shabbat (Col. 2:16; Heb. 4:4), both these passages Paul clearly explains that the day is not a required day to be observed by Christians. There is no command after the death and resurrection for the Church to keep the Shabbat as an obligation to Christ. Why?
The Stoic philosopher, Seneca who was contemporary with the apostles and whose elder brother, Gallio, encountered St. Paul in Corinth in AD 52 (Acts 18, 12) attacked the rites of the Jews, and the Sabbath in particular. He maintained that the Sabbath is a harmful institution, since by the interposition of this one day in seven they practically lose a seventh part of their life in inactivity, and they suffer by having to put off urgent tasks. As for the Christians, who were at that time already bitterly opposed to the Jews, he did not dare to mention them for good or ill – not wishing to praise them in defiance of the ancient traditions of his country, nor to criticize them against (it may be) his personal feelings. It is in speaking of the Jews that he says: “The customs of this detestable race have become so prevalent that they have been adopted in almost all the world. The vanquished have imposed their laws on the conquerors.” An apocryphal correspondence (of unutterable banality) between Seneca and St. Paul is extant; and we know from Jerome and from St. Augustine himself it was accepted as authentic, and widely read, in the fourth century.

Seneca also advised euthanasia of useless slaves “It makes a great difference whether a man is lengthening his life or his death. But if a body is useless for service, why should one not free the struggling soul? Perhaps one ought to do this a little before the debt is due, lest, when it falls due, he may be unable to perform the act? Seneca (4BC -AD65). This teaching inspired Jesus' words “Cast ye unprofitable servant into outer darkness” (Mt 25:30).

In Rev. 14:14 One like unto the Son of man with a sharp scythe in his hand is ordered by “another angel to harvest the earth – meaning its humanity – with this sharp scythe, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.”

Plato called by the church fathers “divine Plato” said that a poor man...who was no longer able to work because of sickness should be left to die.” (Alvin Schmidt, How Christianity Changed the World, 2004, p. 128)

Voltaire said that Plato should have been canonized by the Christian Church, for, being the propounder of the Christos mystery, he contributed more to its fundamental doctrines than any other single individual. Some argue that Plato's tyranny, his cruelty and lust for dominance are forgivable because he was writing so early in the history of rationalism. Well, the Ten Commandments were revealed even earlier. Plato famously warned of the evil of democracy.

Ethics in Plato's writings are always a matter of discussion and debate, and more discussion and debate during the drunk symposiums. Indeed, both Plato and Paul have flexible rules that are good examples of situational ethics. If one's mind is satisfied, then all is well...

“The graceful Greeks laughed at the 'graceless' Jews for recoiling in horror at the Greek custom of exposing an infant to death when the shape of its skull or nose did not please them.” (Max Dimont, Jews, God and History, 1994, p.108)

“Society as great authorized agent of life must be made responsible for every unsuccessful life – it has to pay for it, so it must prohibit it.” -A. Hitler, Mein Kampf

Inspired by the gloomy Report of Rome, a man who identified himself as Mr. R. C. Christian, a pseudonym with symbolic meaning,built in Georgia a huge monument known now as The Georgia Guidestones warning the world population that scarce resources of the earth can support no more than 500.000.000 people and thus suggesting unavoidable mass extermination of people. This seems to be the only logical conclusion if you reject the God of the Bible who creates and maintains the world and who promised to Abraham as many people as the stars in heaven. The apostle of the Gentiles Paul rejected the Law and proclaimed instead the Gentile Christianity advertised now by an official Vatican publication, Guide to the Vatican Museums (Gestione Vendita Publicazioni Musei Vaticani, Citta del Vaticano. 1979) www.crystalinks.com/gaguidestones.html

The Biblical scholar Raymond E. Brown in his book The Death of the Messiah insists: “If one takes the Gospel at face value (and even if one examines them through the microscope of historical criticism), there emerges a Jesus capable of generating intense dislike.” (p. 392) Christ's was the gospel that would make a hell of this life, on purpose to win heaven thereafter.

The Roman robber economics red in tooth and claw embraced by Jesus, when confronted with the social teachings of the Hebrew Bible, will be rejected out of hand by any sentient human being. Let me make my point by quoting from then book of prophet Amos. Sometime in the 750s B.C.E. this prophet denounced the social policy of the king Jeroboam II. The reason for this denunciation was the aristocracy's preference for commerce over compassion and for liturgical worship over social justice. Here are his accusing words:

“The Lord said: You people crush those in need and wipe out the poor, saying, 'When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale?...We can't wait to cheat and charge high prices for the grain we sell. We will use dishonest scales and mix dust in grain. Those who are needy and poor don't have any money. We will make them our slaves for the price of a pair of sandals.'”

Take for example the “Leviathan” or a Polish Enron

It is one of tragedies of modern history that the Polish Republic failed to deal swiftly and sternly with its legacy of economic oligarchism. While the vast majority of farmers and agricultural laborers lived in a state of semiserfdom, a relatively small group of Polish nobles and clerics continued to maintain a tight grip on most of the arable soil of the country. In addition the powerful Catholic hierarchy, the largest of Poland's landowners, was in control of the country's educational system, and did not hesitate to use the schools as well as the church pulpits to defend the inviolability of the status quo..

In the urban areas, too, Poland's heavy industry was largely concentrated in the hands of a few dozen of enormously wealthy businessmen. Banded together in the Leviathan, a kind of Polish National Association of Manufacturers, the industrialists manged to raise the prices of their products to a level utterly out of relationship to the laws of supply and demand. None of these groups – the aristocracy, the Church, the Leviathan – was willing to accept a change in the economic fabric of the country.

The New Testament Heliocentrism

The notion of “outer darkness” belongs to the heliocentric cosmology of the Aryans. The poetic figure of the Candle-Sun (See Mt. 5:15) stood for the Expanding Center exemplified in the Shri-Yantra mandala, which was composed around a central point – the metaphysical and irradiating point of primordial energy of Big Bang. The earliest state of disorganized creation or chaos was impelled towards the creation of a New Order (Dharma, Tao, Logos) whose heavenly nature holds from the center and spins all else around it because monarchy is necessary to the world for its well being (Dante). The swastika signifies the action of the origin (solar energy) upon the Universe. The “outer darkness” is beyond the actual reach of the expanding center of light, or, using the poetic figure of the Persian poet Omar Khayyam “outside the box.” “And the light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not.” John 1:5

The seven branched candlesticks seen in all Catholic churches are taken from Revelation 1:12-16. These seven candlesticks are nothing more than the sun as the central light and represented as Jesus again, and the Moon, Mercury, and Venus on one side and Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn on the other. Because in the “middle of the lamp stand one like a son of man ... girded across like a flame of fire. And in his right hand he held seven stars ... and his face was like the SUN shining in its strength. (Vs.16)

In the early 1680s, shortly before publishing the Principia, Newton began work on a treatise which he called The Philosophical Origins of Gentile Theology. This argued that Noah had founded the primordial religion – a Gentile theology – which had been free of superstition and had advocated a rational worship of one God. The only commandments were love of God and love of neighbor. Pythagoras had learned about this religion and brought it to the West. Jesus had been one of these prophets sent to call mankind back to the truth, but his pure religion had been corrupted. According to legend, Pythagoras was one of the many sages of antiquity for whom an immaculate conception is asserted. To the Pythagoreans the most sacred of all numbers was the 10, the symbol of which is an X, or cross.
Well, the book pioneering the contraception and abortion in the modern world was entitled The Fruits of Philosophy (it was Pythagoras who introduced the term 'philosophy').The book was published in 1877 by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh.
Teilhard de Chardin, a French Jesuit paleontologist worked out his ideas, mourning his Church’s unwillingness to incorporate what Science had discovered into its understanding of the world, criticizing the “geocentricity” to which she clung psychologically for four hundred years after she had ceased to support it astronomically, and rebuking those religious thinkers who recognized nothing new under the sun since “instantaneous creation”. De Chardin wrote: “Christianity’s only chance to grow lay in her being born again among the Gentiles because only the Gentiles had retained their pagan taste for the earth.” Pope John Paul II granted his wish when he apologized to Galileo.

The St. Paul Economics
One of the favorite passages of slave-owning Christians was St. Paul's infamous instruction that slaves to obey their owners in the same way that they obey Christ: “Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men; Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him.” (Eph. 6:5-9)

Dt. 23:15-16 requires a Jew to protect a runaway slave, and not return him/her to their owner...However, St. Paul violated the Law. While in prison, he met a runaway slave, Onesimus, the slave of a Christian. Rather than give the slave sanctuary, he returned him to his owner.

By Grace and Faith, not by Deeds
THE WORKERS IN THE VINEYARD, Matthew 20:1-16

With the laborers who spent all day in the vineyard, the hard work that justifies their expectations of favorable status and extra pay from the landowner is really the root of their sense of injustice and their lack of gratitude when they are paid the same as those who work just one hour. And at the same time, the apparent unworthiness of those who stood around all day - and the seeming injustice of their receiving equal pay for less work, is really the context within which God’s unconditional grace is revealed. Or again, while the unmerited efforts of those who labored all day in the vineyard for the same pay as those who started last, is really the context within which they are reprimanded for being jealous and ungrateful in the face a seeming injustice, the apparently unfair judgment of the landowner in his allocation of equal pay.

THE PRODIGAL SON, Luke 15:11-32

With the prodigal son gathering his inheritance, what at first appears to be a life of unmerited favor and luxury quickly becomes a life of poverty and servitude, while what appears to be a good reason to expect a life of poverty and servitude on his homecoming, is really an event that brings about the unmerited favor and luxury of the father's compassion with a joyful celebration that symbolizes God's unconditional love. In the same way what appears to be a life of rebellion and corrupt living with the prodigal son is suddenly transformed into a celebratory homecoming with the unconditional favor of the father’s feast, while what appears to be a life of unconditional favor with the dutiful son - who always lived in obedience to his father, is really the root cause of his rebellion and his corrupt refusal to share in the homecoming celebrations of the father’s feast.

“Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two, and two against three.” (KJV Lk 12::51-52). Divide et impera; this is the principle of the Jesus Tyranny!

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, even his own life, he cannot be a disciple of mine.” (Lk 14:26).

And while the Jewish law allowed divorce, Jesus forbids it. Well, there is no word for 'divorce' in Hindi, but there is one in Urdu: 'talak'.

“Therefore by the deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the Law is the knowledge of sin...Therefore we conclude, that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the Law.”(Rom 3:20, 28)

“Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works; shew me thy faith without thy works, and I show you my faith by my works.” (James 2: 17-18)

www.aldokkan.com/society/slavery.htm
ancient-anatolia.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_arch...
paredes59.blogspot.com/.../laibach-opus-dei.html

Most Beautiful Shelter for “Unprofitable Servants”

With chandeliers instead of neon lighting and designer furnishings instead of springless sofas, a newly revamped homeless hostel in south Berlin looks more like a hip hotel – and aims to give some dignity to those worn out by life on the streets, from whom it was taken even that they had.

The hostel, which reopened its doors in late November, 2008, was designed to restore a sense of self-worth in people who have been dealt a raw deal, to show them that they too deserve a decent home. “I wanted to give homeless people, people who had lost everything in their life, respect and dignity back,” the Berlin-based artist Miriam Kilali told SPIEGEL ONLINE. “I wanted to create a place where they could recover from the stress of life on the street.”

The Berlin hostel follows in the footsteps of “Hotel Marfino” a similarly extravagant homeless shelter she had opened in Moscow. Her next project will be in New York where she is working towards creating Reichtum (Wealth) 3.

Speaking to Berliner Morgenpost, the “useless servant”, Wolfgang Binder described his old room with its tatty furnishings: “there were blue carpets, blue walls, blue wall-paper up to the ceiling.” But those days are long gone. As of this week, each resident has his own meticulously refurbished room – without a worn-out carpet or saggy sofa in sight. (www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,591894,00.html)