The Psychic Life of Jesus,
[Dedication] To all who seriously try to understand what they read.
Preface
Jesus is reported to have said, "He that believeth on me the works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he do," and that "signs", such as the healing of the sick, would follow them that believe.
Jesus healed the sick. It was one of his "works". The Church, while professing to believe in Jesus, does not heal the sick, does not do his "works".
But, according to Jesus, if the Church "believed" the sick would be healed. He said so. The healing of the sick was to be a "sign" of "belief".
How comes it then that a Church, with the New Testament in hand, makes no attempt, as a Body, to do the works that Jesus did?
The reason is surely this: For centuries the Church has regarded Jesus as a "miraculous" person who performed "miracles". This belief has made it almost impossible for the Church to believe that Jesus really meant what he said. She admits that the disciples performed miracles of healing, and that there were "signs and wonders" in the Early Church. But she attributes these miracle-working powers either to the exceptional gifts or the exceptional faith of these early disciples, or, she regards these miracle-working powers as functioning only during the "Dispensation of 'signs and wonders'", which she would liken to the bell-ringing period prior to divine service in Church. When the service begins the bells cease to ring. When the Church is "established" the "signs and wonders" cease to be performed.
What is the truth about it all?
Harnack, Principal Cairns and Dr. Glover have given us the facts.
Harnack writes: "The Church now had its priests, its altars, its sacraments, and its Holy Book.... But it no longer possessed the spirit and the power of the spirit."
Principal Cairns writes: "And the miracles of the Spirit gradually ceased, because by compromise with the world the Church got out of touch with the pure grace of God. It no longer possessed the strong, unconventional faith of the first generation."
Dr. Glover writes: "The ministry of the Spirit, the ministry of 'gifts' was succeeded by the ministry of Office with its lower ideals of the practical and expedient."
That was it! That is it!
Miracles ceased when the Church became unworthy of them.
Miracles are unclassified phenomena. They are not unnatural. They are not supernatural. They are supernormal. Yesterday's miracles are today's natural laws. The most natural laws are spiritual laws, for Man is spirit.
Jesus came to reveal God to Man, and Man to himself.
Jesus taught men that they could be as he, and do the works that he did, if only they would think as he thought, trust as he trusted, pray as he prayed.
The Church in ascribing the miracles of Jesus to his Godhead has made a fatal mistake. She has divorced Jesus from the rest of Humanity. Had she ascribed his miracles to his perfect manhood she might then have conceived the possibility of men being able to do at least some of the works that he did.
This book is a humble attempt to show that all the so-called miracles of Jesus were performed in complete accordance with LAW -- sometimes Natural Law, sometimes Psychical Law, sometimes Spiritual Law, sometimes all three, but always in accordance with LAW.
There is much that the Church has taught men about Jesus that they cannot understand. But men are beginning to understand what Jesus taught them about themselves, about the power of thought, the power of trust, the power of prayer, and they are beginning to realize that these powers are God-given for the healing of the sick in body, mind and spirit. And they are exercising these powers; they are doing the works that Jesus did; "signs" are following them because they believe.
The Psychic Life of Jesus
Chapter 23
Rejected by the Church, denied by Peter, betrayed by Judas, deserted by all the Apostles, arrested by Church guards and temple police, Jesus was condemned, crucified and buried.
The eleven deserters hid themselves in the Upper Room for fear of the Jews. They were in the depths of despondency. They had expected Jesus to lead them in battle against the hated Romans. He had failed to them. All was now lost.
Did it ever a teacher have a more ignorant and dull-witted set of disciples? In spite of all he had told them, and all that they had seen, they did not believe that he would rise from the "dead".
Fortunately, there were two members of the Jewish Council who secretly believed in Jesus, though they feared to support him. Joseph of Arimathaea asked Pilate for the dead body. Nicodemus brought a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes to embalm it. Otherwise the body might have been thrown in a pit or left to the vultures.
Joseph carried the body to a new tomb which he had prepared for himself. And the women from Galilee saw where the body was laid.
Very early on the Sunday -- "while it was yet dark" - Mary Magdalene hastened to the Upper Room. She had already been to the tomb, and she told the eleven deserters that the stone had been rolled away.
Then other women, Salome, Mary (mother of James the Less) and Joanna (wife of Herod's steward), who had been to the tomb, came to the Upper Room and told the disciples what they had seen. They said that the stone had been rolled away, and that the body of Jesus was not in the tomb. A "young man in a white robe" (Matthew says, "an angel") had told them that Jesus had risen. He had bidden them tell the disciples that they would see Jesus in Galilee.
To the eleven disciples this story of the women seemed sheer nonsense. They would not believe it! But Peter and John raced off to the sepulchre. John was first to reach the tomb. He glanced in and saw the bandages lying on the ground, but did not go inside.
Peter went inside the tomb and did not merely glance at the bandages. He riveted his gaze upon them. Why? what were those bandages? Coffins were not in use.
The dead body was wrapped in grave-clothes which were linen bandages -- the "winding-sheet". These were wrapped round and round from the feet up to the shoulder. The upper surface of the shoulders, the neck and the face were left bare. And a napkin was folded around the crown of the head. (It is important to know these details.)
Between each fold of the bandages myrrh and aloes were sprinkled, and Nicodemus had brought enough of these spices to cover the whole body, and the floor of the tomb as well -- which means that the bandages would be heavily laden with these unguents.
What so astonished Peter was that the bandages had not been unwrapped from the body. The body had presumably exhaled itself out of them without disturbing either them or their fastenings. Being convinced by these phenomena that Jesus had "risen" from the dead, Peter and John returned to their hiding-place, but Mary stood sobbing outside the tomb.
Now, no one who has outgrown the old idea of "miracle" can believe such a story as this unless he is familiar with the fact of dematerialisation, unless he knows that today, in London and elsewhere, not only can bodies be dematerialised, but clothes as well.
Why was the body of Jesus dematerialised? For at least two reasons:
(a) To confound his enemies. They would hear that he had risen and appeared to many, and would be unable to produce the body as evidence against the testimony, and they would be haunted by the Old Testament prophecy, "Thou wilt not suffer thy loyal one to be left in the grave" (Moffatt's translation); (b) To fulfil his own "prediction". The high priests and Pharisees gathered round Pilate and said, "We remember, sir, that when this impostor was alive he said, 'I will rise after three days.' Give orders, then, for the tomb to be sealed and guarded." And the tomb was sealed and guarded by four soldiers.
The Modernists, having given up belief in "miracle", regard the whole story as an invention by the early Church for polemical reasons. Some state quite frankly, "The body decayed in the tomb." Others think that his disciples may well have removed it.
The Report of the "Commission on Church Doctrine" admits, of course, the fact of his rising, but not the fact of the "empty tomb". It regards the story of the empty tomb as the symbol of the fact. In other words, the body of Jesus may have decayed in a natural way.
The majority (we are not told how many) of the Commission accepts the traditional explanation that Jesus rose "in his physical body from death and the tomb", but they are obliged to admit that "other explanations were suggested", and, of course, allowed.
I quite agree that, unless the body dematerialised, it must either have decayed in the tomb or been taken away.
But Spiritualists know that spirit operators can cause a body to dematerialise in a few minutes -- sometimes even in a flash. So they have no difficulty in believing the story.
Mary stood sobbing outside the tomb. Then she stooped down and looked in, and saw two angels (spirit messengers) in white sitting one at the head and the other at the feet where the body of Jesus had lain.
They saw her and asked, "Woman, why are you sobbing? Who are you looking for?" She answered: "They have taken away my Master, and I do not know where they have laid him."
Turning round, she saw a man who looked like the gardener, and asked him if he had removed the body.
Why did she not recognise Jesus? Why did she mistake him for the gardener?
The Christian scholar who is not also a Spiritualist can give no satisfactory answers to the questions. For example, one great orthodox scholar writes, "It is idle to speculate on the nature of the change in his appearance, as the subject is beyond our comprehension." Not very enlightening, is it?
To the multitudes of thinking persons the whole subject is "beyond their comprehension". They therefore either remain agnostic, or they accept the Modernist belief that "the body decayed in the tomb, or had been removed," and that the story of the "empty tomb" was invented by the early Church.
The only persons who can believe the story are the Spiritualists, and they have a reason for the faith that is in them. Their "reason" is knowledge. They know that when the "dead" materialise, their facial appearance often resembles that of the person from whom they have drawn most of the materialising power.
And if the "power" is strong, the materialised form may be as solid and substantial as the human body. But if the power is weak the materialised form is far less substantial.
Jesus evidently drew from the gardener "power" to materialise and show himself to Mary. He "resembled" the gardener. But he was able to produce a voice which so resembled his own that when he said "Mary" she at once recognised him.
Now, seriously-minded persons ask serious questions for serious reasons. And one of the many questions I would like to ask the Traditionalists is this: If Jesus rose from the tomb in his original physical body, where did he obtain clothes? He did not even take the linen cloths with him!
What clothes was he wearing when Mary mistook him for the gardener? Where did he get them from? "Beyond our comprehension!" say the Traditionalists. Exactly! But not beyond the comprehension of Spiritualists.
Why not? Because they have seen clothes materialise as well as bodies. So that part of the Resurrection story does not worry them.
"Do not cling to me!" said Jesus to Mary. Why not? If Jesus had risen in his physical body, surely he would have encouraged Mary to hold him firmly and to report the fact to his disciples. What better evidence!
But it was not his physical body. That had been dematerialised. It was a weak materialisation built up with the aid of "power" drawn mainly from the gardener. Jesus knew, as Spiritualists know, that a weak materialisation may at any moment fall to pieces. So he begged Mary, for her own sake, not to cling to him.
How do the orthodox commentators explained the words, "Do not cling to me"?
The latest Commentary on the New Testament tells us that "the meaning is twofold:
(a) Do not hold me back from My passage to the Father, when I can send the Spirit, nor delay to carry out your proper task. Each has higher work to do.
(b) Do not cling to Me, as if things were to be as when I was on earth; I go to My Father, and the approach to Me must be spiritual worship."
Poor Mary! Why did the loving Jesus exasperate her sorrow in this inhuman way? But, of course, he didn't; it is unthinkable.
When Jesus said, "I am not yet ascended to my Father" he meant that Mary must not be too disappointed at his not wishing her to cling to him because there would be other occasions when she could. It is as if he had said to her (with an assuring smile of love), "I don't want you to cling to me just now. I have not yet gone away, have I?" The important word to Mary was "yet".
And that little word spoken with a smile of love would have told her that there would be other opportunities of showing her devotion to him; "I am not yet ascended." He remained on earth for forty days.
We are told that if everything that Jesus said and did were to be written down in detail the world itself could not hold the written records. And, surely, one of the things that he did was to fulfill his promise to Mary!
Chapter 24
Jesus said to Mary, "Touch me not." A few minutes later, "other women" fell at his feet and "clasped" them. The Greek says "seized hold of his feet". But Jesus did not say to them, "Touch me not." Why was that?
The materialised body in which he was manifesting was evidently now stronger, more substantial than when Mary sought to "touch" him. The "conditions" were better. There was more "power". There were more persons from whom power could be drawn. The materialisation was more complete. The women "recognised" him. Mary did not.
Spiritualists will be interested to read that these materialisations took place "while it was still dark".
Some of the soldiers who had guarded the tomb went to the high priests and "reported all that had happened". What did they report? How much had they seen?
They did not, of course, go like lambs to the slaughter and tell the high priest that, while they slept, the huge stone door had been removed, the bandages on the body unwound, fold by fold, the body stolen, and the bandages rewound, fold on fold, and left in exactly the same condition and position as before.
They must have witnessed at least some of the amazing phenomena at the sepulchre, and have told the high priests so. We read that they were in no way censured for their reprehensible neglect of duty. Instead, they were given a considerable sum of money to propagate a lie, namely, that "his disciples came by night and stole the body while we were asleep".
No lie could have been weaker in its effect, for obviously his disciples would never have preached, suffered, and "died" for their own gigantic fraud.
The fact was that the priests could not produce the body, and were at their wits' end to know what to do and say.
Now back to the Upper Room, where the disciples were "mourning and weeping". Mary had just burst in with the news, "I have seen the Lord. He has spoken to me. He called me by my name, 'Mary'." But the disciples did not believe her.
Then came the "other women" and told how they too had seen Jesus and clasped his feet. But "their words seemed as idle tales, and they believed them not."
I conjecture that it was at this time that Peter felt compelled to reveal his secret. He too had seen Jesus, and he could not bear to hear his fellow-apostles ridicule the testimony of the women. So he frankly confessed that he too had seen Jesus alive from the "dead".
When had he seen him? We are not told. What did Jesus say to him? Not a word is recorded. I think the interview was too sacred, too delicate, too personal for Peter to make it public. Remember, it was the first time that Peter had met Jesus since his denial. Need more be said? But his testimony convinced the unbelieving apostles.
And when, a few moments later two disciples - Cleopas and another -- came in with their wondrous story of what had happened on the road to Emmaus, they were greeted with the joyful cry, "Jesus is risen! It is a fact! He has been seen by Peter." The two disciples then told what they too had seen.
And what they had seen can only be understood by Spiritualists, as I shall show.
Here is their story: While on the road to Emmaus, they were talking together about the stupendous events of the past week when a stranger approached and journeyed with them. His appearance did not resemble that of Jesus, and they therefore did not recognise him. The materialisation was imperfect or weak.
"What are you discussing so intently?" he asked. Cleopas answered: "You must indeed be an utter stranger in Jerusalem if you do not know what has been happening there."
When they reached Emmaus it was getting dark, and they persuaded the stranger to stay at their house. And at supper he took bread, blessed it, broke it and handed it to them. They then recognised him.
The "conditions" were better indoors than "on the road". There was far less light and much more "power", and the materialised form was stronger. All this can be quite well understood by Spiritualists. Their experiences of the process of materialisation at séances have made them familiar with "conditions", "power", weak and strong materialised forms.
On the road to Emmaus the two disciples had been telling the stranger of the empty tomb, and what Peter had told them about the condition and position of the "bandages", which showed that the body had exhaled from them, and how puzzled they all were.
Jesus did not attempt to explain to them the process of "dematerialisation". He knew that a demonstration of it would be far more convincing. So at supper he just "vanished from them".
The Greek here is most interesting and might have been written by a psychic scientist. It evidently reports faithfully what the two disciples declared they saw.
It does not say "he vanished out of their sight". Nor does it say "he became invisible to them". It says "he became invisible from them", and it means that he gradually faded from them, gradually dematerialised from them.
They witnessed it, and hurried back to the Upper Room to tell the apostles -- especially Peter -- exactly what they had seen. This gave Peter the key to the problem of the undisturbed bandages, and the "humped-up" napkin.
I said that the report, in the Greek, might have been written by a psychic scientist. Well, compare it with the report of Katie King's famous demonstration of dematerialisation. She was fully "materialised" in a room sixteen feet square, and then allowed three gas-burners to be turned on to their full extent. She remained recognisable for one second only (after the light was turned on) for she immediately began to melt away until nothing of her was left and "we were left staring at the spot on which she had stood)". She "became invisible from them".
It was dark outside, and there would have been only a dim light in the Upper Room (for the disciples were in hiding) when the two entered. They at once began to tell of their amazing experience, and, while they were speaking, ("the doors being shut") Jesus materialised in their midst.
They were all (except Thomas, who was not present) terrified, imagining it was a ghost they saw. But Jesus said to them, "Why are you so afraid and unbelieving? Look at my hands and feet. See the nail prints. It is I. Feel me and see; a ghost has not flesh and bones as you see I have."
It was too good to be true. "They could not believe for sheer joy." So to calm them and convince them, Jesus asked for food, and ate some broiled fish.
"The mystery is wholly beyond our comprehension, because it is wholly beyond our experience," says one of our great commentators. But is it?
Ernest Oaten tells us in his priceless little book, "That Reminds Me", that he has seen a "materialised" spirit (a spirit is a person!) eat food, and that after the person had dematerialised there was no trace of the food.
Dr. Abraham Wallace tells us, in his "Jesus of Nazareth", that at his home circle the "dead" wife of one of the sitters materialised, "clad in robes of such snowy and dazzling whiteness as forcibly to remind us of the 'shining garments' of those other glorified spirits who, eighteen hundred years ago, stood within the sepulchre.
"She took from the table a plate of biscuits and cakes and handed them round, and 'did eat before us' a small piece of cake, and drank some milk."
I have only given two cases of "materialised" persons who have partaken of food. There have been quite a number of such cases. And it is these modern cases which make it possible for the modern reasoning and questioning mind to believe that Jesus "ate a piece of broiled fish" when in a "materialised" body.
Once again, it is the Spiritualist who is saving the Bible and Christianity from destruction at the hands of bigoted scholars and scientists who refuse to face the facts of psychic science.
When Jesus materialised again in the Upper Room, Thomas the doubter was present. What did Jesus mean when he said to him, "You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are they who have not seen me and have believed."
He meant that the nine disciples who had believed Peter's testimony were happier than unbelieving Thomas. He meant that Thomas would have been a happier man had he but believed the testimony of ten of his most intimate and trusted companions, instead of insisting on seeing the nail-prints.
Jesus did not, of course, mean that those who had seen him were less blessed than those who had not seen him. Such an interpretation of his words plays havoc with their context, and is wholly forced and unnatural.
Jesus knew that there would have been no religion without external, objective psychical phenomena, without seeing and hearing. All religion is revelation.
Jesus knew that Israel's religion was founded on, and kept alive by, objective revelations received by those in whom the psychical faculty was developed, and who saw and heard and spoke to God's "ministering spirits".
Jesus knew that his own religion was rooted and grounded in objective manifestations, in "signs and wonders", which were seen.
And he would never have dreamed of saying that those who had not seen were more blessed than those who had seen. He was referring, as the context shows, to the nine apostles who had not seen but had believed the testimony of Peter. They had not seen, but had believed.
Thomas had seen Jesus perform "signs and wonders". He had himself performed some. So had all the apostles.
It was bad enough for the eleven apostles to disbelieve the testimony of the women. But it was far worse for Thomas to disbelieve the testimony of his ten intimate and trusted friends.
So Jesus rebuked them all -- especially Thomas. And well they deserved it!
Chapter 25
Jesus "materialised" many times after his crucifixion. Paul mentions a few of the instances: "He appeared to Peter, to the eleven, to five hundred disciples at once, to James, to all the apostles, and to me also." Luke says, "With abundant proofs he showed himself to them alive after his death."
Yes, for nearly six weeks Jesus showed himself, under different conditions, until he was satisfied that his disciples were fully and firmly convinced that he was still living.
And what a training he gave them in the various "forms" of manifestation that are possible to a discarnate person!
They had received overwhelming proof that he was alive by his "appearances" in the Upper Room at Jerusalem.
Jesus now wished them to go to Galilee, where he promised to meet them. They had been away from their homes for about six months, and Jesus had evidently told them to return to their trades as it was necessary for them to earn their living.
On one occasion in Galilee, seven of them had spent the night fishing on the lake and had caught nothing. In the dawn they saw on the shore a stranger who called out to them, "Lads, have you found any fish?" "No," they answered. So he told them to throw their net on the other side of the boat and they would find.
His words puzzled them. Their boat was 100 yards from the shore! How could this stranger know that fishes were on the other side of the boat? However, they threw the net on the other side, and could not haul it in for the mass of fish.
None of the disciples had recognised in the form or voice of the stranger that it was Jesus who had called to them.
But John, recalling the "draught of fishes" of earlier days, when Jesus was in the fishing boat, felt that the stranger must be Jesus and told Peter so.
When they had dragged their netful of fish to the land, they saw a charcoal fire burning, with fish cooking on it, and some bread.
The stranger said to them, "Bring some of the fish you have caught, and come and have breakfast." Then follows the writer's comment, "Not one of the disciples dared to ask him who he was; they knew it was the Lord." What an extraordinary sentence! Why, if he perfectly resembled Jesus in appearance and voice, should they even wish to ask who he was?
Once again, it was evidently a case of imperfect or incomplete materialisation.
The word translated "ask" in the sentence "None ... dared to ask him" means to "search out" or "examine". It is the same word as that used in the sentence, "Into whatsoever city or village ye shall enter search out who in it is worthy" and "Search out carefully the young child" (Herod to the "wise men").
It means that, although the "appearance" of the stranger did not much resemble Jesus, his disciples were convinced by this second "draught of fishes" and no doubt by the stranger's manner too, that it was their beloved leader.
I think there was also something else that helped to convince them. In the Upper Room the disciples had given Jesus a fish supper. On the shore he "returned the compliment" by preparing a fish breakfast for them. And would they not have said to one another, "Just like him, isn't it?" There was no need to cross-question him.
There was a hill in Galilee to which Jesus, when he was in the flesh, used to retire for rest and prayer. Matthew refers to it as "The hill".
The disciples went to this hill because Jesus had promised to meet them again there. And we are told that "when they saw him they bowed low before him, and some doubted." The Greek can equally well mean "and all doubted".
But why did any doubt? The eleven disciples had seen him in a perfectly materialised form in the Upper Room. Seven of them had breakfasted with him on the shore. Why should they have "doubted" on the hill? It may have been that the "materialisation" was far from perfect.
It is generally believed that this was the occasion on which Jesus "appeared to more than five hundred brethren at once". In any case, it is pretty evident that the "materialised" form did not altogether "resemble" Jesus. Hence the doubt in the disciples' minds.
To the student of psychic science, these various accounts of the post-crucifixion "materialisations" are absorbingly interesting. They confirm in detail what happens today when those on the Other Side try to show themselves in "materialised" form. Given good "conditions" and plenty of "power", the materialised form is quite solid and recognizable.
But where "conditions" are not good, the form is less solid and less recognizable. When it is dark, results are better -- as they were with the "materialisations" of Jesus. Materialisations -- ancient and modern -- are dependent upon the same immutable psychic laws.
After Jesus had manifested on the hill, the apostles returned to Jerusalem.
The final manifestation of Jesus was to his disciples on the Mount of Olives, where he was "received up into heaven" and where "a cloud received him out of their sight". The Greek says "a cloud withdrew him from their sight".
What kind of a "cloud" was it? Where is heaven? Traditionalists do not ask such questions as these. The whole of the life story of Jesus is for them miraculous and "beyond their comprehension".
But well-informed modern thinkers do ask such questions. They want to know. For today no intelligent persons believe in "miracle". No intelligent persons believe that "heaven is above the clouds".
Today no intelligent persons fear the frown of God in their search for truth. They no longer fear to "doubt". They know that "there lives more faith in honest doubt than in half the creeds". And they no longer fear to differ from bishop, priest and church. They know only too well how fallible are men and systems. They know, too, that the Bible is by no means infallible.
They know that Paul, claiming the highest inspiration -- "the word of the Lord" -- was quite wrong when he informed his readers that, before their "death", some of them would "be caught up in the clouds and meet the Lord in the air". They were not "caught up". They did not "meet the Lord in the air". The Lord was not in the air.
Today, all serious students of the Bible claim the right to question, if need be, every part of it, because their sole object is to try and understand what they read.
They therefore ask, "What kind of cloud was it that 'withdrew' the 'materialised' body in which Jesus manifested on the Mount?"
Psychic science alone can give an intelligent and satisfying answer to that question.
It tells them that at the beginning of the process of "materialisation" a luminous cloud is often seen. This "cloud" increases in size until it reaches the proportions of a man, and from it emerges, or is evolved, a materialised body.
It tells them that when the body dematerialises the process is reversed. And, as the body dissipates, the luminous cloud envelops it until, at last, the body is completely resolved into the clouds. Sometimes it is the feet which are the first to dematerialise, and this gives the impression that the body is being levitated, or beginning to float in the air. The luminous cloud grows larger and larger as the rest of the body dematerialises. This gives the impression that the body is being "withdrawn" into the "cloud".
Psychic science interprets the phenomena of the resurrection and subsequent appearances and disappearances of Jesus as clear cases of materialisation and dematerialisation. These phenomena thus become intelligible, and the Gospel story is no longer "beyond our comprehension".
Without the knowledge which psychic science has given us, the Gospel story is utterly incomprehensible, a mass of inconsistencies, and is quietly "turned down" by the vast majority of modern reasoning persons.
F.W.H. Myers wrote, "We predict that, in consequence of the new evidence, all reasonable men and women, a century hence, will believe in the Resurrection of Christ; whereas, in default of the new evidence, no reasoning man a century hence will believe it." Myers "passed on" some thirty-seven years ago. His prediction shows every sign of coming true.
My task is finished. I have done my best in these pages to show that Jesus came not only to give us a full of revelation of God, but also to give us a full of revelation of the powers inherent in ourselves. The works that he did he would have us do, and greater works.
His "signs and wonders" were part of his works. His faith in prayer and his "prayer of faith" were part of his works -- the preparatory process. And he has assured us that if we will but attend to the "preparatory process" we shall do the works that he did. "These 'signs' shall follow them that believe."
[End]
I am highly suspicious that "Jesus" whoever he was, had a near death experience. Came back from it talking about oneness and connectedness, Love, and The Light that he experienced while on the other side. Over a period of years his story grew and became embellished, especially with the Egyptian God Horus myth, and influenced by the culture which surrounded it, until today what we're left with is a Christianity that is a mandala or matrix of many different religions. Most of the books of the New Testament weren't written till many decades after Jesus was supposed to have lived.
Posted by: Art | July 30, 2007 at 02:00 AM
I am by no means a biblical scholar, but I believe that Paul's letters to the Corinthians were written very soon (15 years?) after the death of Christ. His depiction of the post resurrection Jesus was more spirit like than the other Gospels.
Also, again I may be wrong, but some date the first Gospel to within 30 years of Christ's death, close enough to be refuted.
Posted by: Greg | July 30, 2007 at 11:06 AM
I am by no means a biblical scholar, but I believe that Paul's letters to the Corinthians were written very soon (15 years?) after the death of Christ.
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I don't think that's true but even if it is, fifteen years is more than enough time to embellish and change a story to fit the culture it evolved from. People add their own twists to stories. They interpret it from their own perspective. The life review turns into the Judgement; and visions of demons (think Howard Storm's NDE) turns int Hell. I can very easily see how stories about near death experiences turned into what we see in the New Testament. Heck, the book of John says that God is Light and God is Love, both concepts straight out of NDE's. Jesus prays in the gospel of John, "I pray that they may all be one as we are one, I in you and you in me." A large percentage of NDE's talk about feelings of oneness and connectedness. (It's all very holographic by the way).
Posted by: Art | July 30, 2007 at 12:24 PM
>I believe that Paul's letters to the Corinthians were written very soon (15 years?) after the death of Christ.
A good chart showing the probable dates of the New Testament writings can be found here. The two letters to the Corinthians are usually dated between 50 and 56 A.D. Paul's earliest letters are usually taken to be the two letters to the Thessalonians, circa 48-51 A.D. Jesus' cricifixion is normally dated at 33 A.D.
It should be pointed out that some poetic passages in Paul's writings appear to be drawn from church liturgies, and would therefore be older than the letters themselves.
Personally I find it unlikely that an NDE can explain the resurrection story. On the other hand, I do think that some kind of induced NDE may have been at the heart of the Eleusinian Mysteries - the Greco-Roman "mystery religion" in which initiates underwent a life-changing secret ceremony. My guess is that the initiate was made to have an OBE or NDE in order to complete his indoctrination. Of course this is only conjecture. No one was allowed to speak or write about the Mysteries, so we don't know what went on.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | July 30, 2007 at 01:00 PM
>A good chart showing the probable dates of the New Testament writings can be found here.
These datings of the Gospels place some of the earliest writings to within 7 years of Christ's death. I have never heard of such early datings, but if true, there were many people around who could have refuted the whole story, if it was a complete lie.
I do not know what really happened, but if the Gospels were composed within 7 years of his death, something certainly did happen.
Whether it was a "ghostly" psychic type of phenonmena or a group hallucination who knows.
Posted by: Greg | July 30, 2007 at 02:47 PM
>These datings of the Gospels place some of the earliest writings to within 7 years of Christ's death. I have never heard of such early datings
The chart gives both early dates and more conventional dates. The early dates are based on John A. T. Robinson's Redating the New Testament. Robinson was a fairly liberal scholar who surprised the academic comunity by writing a revisionist book arguing that the entire New Testament could be dated earlier than 70 A.D. I've read the book and found it very interesting, but there is no way to know who's right or wrong here.
In any case, even if the orthodox dates are right, Paul's letters started coming out only about 15 years after Jesus' death, and seem to contain older material. That's not much time for mythology to take over, especially since Jesus' followers were mostly still alive.
I also find it difficult to believe that Peter, for instance, would have gone willingly to his agonizing death (crucified upside-down) merely on the basis of an NDE reported by Jesus.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | July 30, 2007 at 03:12 PM
At the Ashley House seance where Home reportedly levitated out the window and back in again, there later followed a really interesting event which struck me immediately as the events of Pentecost recounted in Acts:
"We now had a series of very curious manifestations. Lindsay and Charlie saw tongues or jets of flame proceeding from Home's head. We then all distinctly heard, as it were, a bird flying round the room, whistling and chirping, but saw nothing, except Lindsay, who perceived an indistinct form resembling a bird. There then came a sound as of a great wind rushing through the room, we also felt the wind strongly; the moaning rushing sound was the most weird thing I have ever heard. Home then got up, being in a trance, and spoke something in a language that none of us understood; it may have been nonsense, but it sounded like a sentence in a foreign tongue."
Was Jesus a great physical medium?
Posted by: Darryn | July 30, 2007 at 04:14 PM
Darryn,
A synchronicity - I was about to point out that some passages of the Bible, namely the Pentecost, suggest a certain type of mystical experience related to NDEs etc. In particular, the 'rushing of wind' is an often found 'symptom' of mystical experiences. So imagine my surprise when you brought up D.D. Home and the Pentecost (and I agree, the parallels in that account to the Pentecost are quite intriguing!).
Kind regards,
Greg
Posted by: Greg Taylor | July 30, 2007 at 08:03 PM
Rushing wind was also felt strongly in some of Eusapia Palladino's seances (even when all windows were closed). Moving lights or globules of fire have been seen in many seances, and while these can be faked, using phosphorus, the observed phenomena sometimes go beyond anything explainable by trickery. (The lights respond to commands, etc.)
>Was Jesus a great physical medium?
This is the main point of Elliott's book - that Jesus had the full complement of mediumistic talents, both physical and mental (as well as healing and ESP). Whether or not this is true, it does present a different way of assessing the New Testament reports. Elliott also believes that the twelve apostles were chosen primarily for latent psychic abilities of their own, which might suggest how they were able to duplicate some of Jesus' feats.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | July 30, 2007 at 09:53 PM
Michael: Apparently you are not up-to-date on the dating of the supposed "epistles of Paul" Read "Suns of God" by Acharya S.
http://forums.truthbeknown.com/viewtopic.php?p=4202#4202
Posted by: drew hempel | July 31, 2007 at 12:24 PM
I'm not up to date? Acharya's "solar god" theory, popular in the 19th century, has been discredited for decades and is accepted by no reputable scholar today.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | July 31, 2007 at 04:10 PM
A fantastic article looking at these things from an angle I had never thought of before.
Terrific reading.
Posted by: Nazreel | July 31, 2007 at 04:16 PM
Is it possible to come back in full physical form after the grave? I have read a few accounts of this happening. One such story a war veteran got up out of his coffin and went home and got his war medals and then signed himself into the funeral home and got back into his coffin. Unsolved mysteries case on TV. TV producers would not lie to us for ratings would they?
The self-realization guru (Yogananda) claimed to have his guru come back in full physical form and when he hugged him so tight his guru asked to lighten up a bit with the hug. He claimed to have had a long conversation with his guru on what he found in the afterlife.
He also claimed a neighbor woman also saw his guru that day and did not know he had died. Seemed pretty strange to me that a neighbor woman would not know this famous guru had died but in India sometimes an enlighten master can live next door and no one in the neighborhood knows about him or her. Never a master in your own neighborhood I suspect.
Valid stories you decide.
As far as Jesus coming back after death. It appears that something happened to give his followers a new focus on life and the afterlife. I happen to think he may have indeed came back but then maybe those few Sunday school lessons I had as a child has biased me on that one.
Posted by: william | July 31, 2007 at 06:26 PM
"Jesus came to reveal God to man and man to himself."
I like this, but not the attempts to show that all of the wild tales are more or less accurate, no matter that some unknown portion of them _may_ have been, to an unknown degree.
I would strip away the wild tales and focus on whatever the message was, if at all possible. This may in fact turn out to be the above, or something similar.
(Is there any reason to treat the gospels as Gospel Truth when believing they are creates a nearly completely circular situation, leaving aside the small number of sayings that appear in both official and unofficial gospels? The idea that the narratives -- aside from being greatly distorted and pertaining primarily to myth and/or symbolism -- manage to intertwine the lives of possibly as many as three different men seems plausible to me).
What's left to do, if you put aside the gospels, official and unofficial?
Maybe the next best thing would be to focus on the inner self of the man (even though many claim there never was such a man).
Certainly it wouldn't hurt to try and might even be fun.
Does this reveal a message somewhere along the lines of "the divine being is within everyone?," not so different from the above quote? Maybe.
For those not likely to indulge in such activities there is always _The Secret Magdalene_, the well researched and highly entertaining novel by Ki Longfellow.
See http://www.thesecretmagdalene.com
Regards
Bill I.
Posted by: Bill Ingle | July 31, 2007 at 07:26 PM
"Jesus came to reveal God to man and man to himself."
I like this, but not the attempts to show that all of the wild tales are more or less accurate, no matter that some unknown portion of them _may_ have been, to an unknown degree.
I would strip away the wild tales and focus on whatever the message was, if at all possible. This may in fact turn out to be the above, or something similar.
(Is there any reason to treat the gospels as Gospel Truth when believing they are creates a nearly completely circular situation, leaving aside the small number of sayings that appear in both official and unofficial gospels? The idea that the narratives -- aside from being greatly distorted and pertaining primarily to myth and/or symbolism -- manage to intertwine the lives of possibly as many as three different men seems plausible to me).
What's left to do, if you put aside the gospels, official and unofficial?
Maybe the next best thing would be to focus on the inner self of the man (even though many claim there never was such a man).
Certainly it wouldn't hurt to try and might even be fun.
Does this reveal a message somewhere along the lines of "the divine being is within everyone?," not so different from the above quote? Maybe.
For those not likely to indulge in such activities there is always _The Secret Magdalene_, the well researched and highly entertaining novel by Ki Longfellow.
See http://www.thesecretmagdalene.com
Regards
Bill I.
Posted by: Bill Ingle | July 31, 2007 at 08:27 PM
Hi, i think Rev. Elliot produced a good analysis on the Resurrection stories, if only the church hadn't demonised the psychic side of our existance, but then i think religions would be in trouble of everyone accepted the OOB realities.
As for the new testament that supposedly build on Jerusalem as religious centre, it's a shambles. i quote here
" Emporer Constantine was the ruling spirit at Nicaea and he ultimately decided upon a new god for them. To involve British factions, he ruled that the name of the great Druid god, Hesus, be joined with the Eastern Saviour-god, Krishna (Krishna is Sanskrit for Christ), and thus Hesus Krishna would be the official name of the new Roman god. A vote was taken and it was with a majority show of hands (161 votes to 157) that both divinities became one God." Well there's much more and specially the catholics have been messing about with the scriptures. Absolute papal power and in all very easy as in those days ignorance ruled. Here's the article that explains how the new testament came about ...
The Forged Origins of The New Testament/a>
Best Wishes
Rho
Posted by: Rho | July 31, 2007 at 10:15 PM
>" Emporer Constantine was the ruling spirit at Nicaea and he ultimately decided upon a new god for them. To involve British factions, he ruled that the name of the great Druid god, Hesus, be joined with the Eastern Saviour-god, Krishna (Krishna is Sanskrit for Christ), and thus Hesus Krishna would be the official name of the new Roman god."
I'm sorry, but there's not a serious New Testament scholar anywhere in the world who would endorse this nonsense. Jesus is Greek for Yeshua (Joshua); Christ is Greek for "the Anointed," i.e., the Messiah. The name has nothing to do with Druids or Sanskrit.
There is a great deal of pseudo-scholarship on the Internet about the New Testament, much of it attempting to capitalize on the commercial success of The Da Vinci Code. It is best to stick to reputable scholars in this area. Some of the best are N.T. Wright, J.D. Crossan, Marcus Borg, and Bart Ehrman. Among them you will get a range of opinions, from conservative Christian (Wright) to liberal Christian (Borg), to iconoclast (Crossan), to agnostic/atheist (Ehrman). With academic authorities of this caliber to draw on, there really is no reason to rely on nonscholarly sources who mainly spread misinformation.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | July 31, 2007 at 10:56 PM
Additional point: The notion that the term "Christ" originated with Constantine is belied by the fact that Jesus' followers were known as Christians from almost the beginning of the movement. Here is an excerpt from Tacitus' Annals, written in 109 A.D, describing the Neronian persecution of 64 A.D.:
“And so, to get rid of this rumor, Nero set up as the culprits and punished with the utmost refinement of cruelty a class hated for their abominations, who are commonly called Christians. Christus, from whom their name is derived, was executed at the hands of the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. Checked for a moment, this pernicious superstition again broke out, not only in Judea, the source of the evil, but even in Rome."
Constantine convened the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D., more than 200 years after Tacitus wrote this description.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | July 31, 2007 at 11:06 PM
Michael: I recommend you read Bishop Lightfoot's "Essays on Supernatural Religion." I had to go to the U of MN access center to read this "scholarly" work that was the definitive academic dismissal of the 19th C. "suns of god" thesis you claim has been discredited. Bishop Lightfoot's book was recently reissued though so you can order it if you don't frequent a good University.
To my amazement Bishop Lightfoot admits that indeed the "Ancient Texts" were of spurious origin and of great contention, with the canon gospels not composed till after 150 A.D. Not only that but Bishop Lightfoot is very clear that the Roman Church had a political agenda to attack the gnostics.
I have a masters degree so I know how to check my sources! haha You're just relying on vapid, empty "authority" for your own psychological reasons. Good luck!
Posted by: drew hempel | July 31, 2007 at 11:45 PM
I'm really sorry but it's obvious to me that modern day Christianity is a matrix or mandala of many different religions. There are too many parallels with other religions of that era for it to be a coincidence. If there was a Jesus at all he was probably some little carpenter/rabbi who had a NDE. The parallels between Jesus of the New Testament and the Egyptian god Horus are so numerous that it's impossible for me not to believe that there was a mixing of the myths. I have noticed a few New Testament scriptures though that seem to corroborate some NDE's that I've read.
Parallels between Jesus and Horus:
http://www.perankhgroup.com/the_true_identity_of_jesus.htm
Posted by: Art | August 01, 2007 at 01:07 AM
On the forging of Tacitus' Annals:
http://www.truthbeknown.com/pliny.htm
Posted by: drew hempel | August 01, 2007 at 01:26 AM
Michael, Drew,
Was thinking about truth & how you find it.
On the Internet, it is particularly hard, as “publishing costs” are low, so there are many views, often opposing.( This being both the good & bad point of the Internet )
In the end, I think you settle on views that are self-consistent; you test them against various scenarios, and they “resonate” with your own internal “moral compass”.
In this case, I think I thus:- because parallels between Jesus & Horus /Osiris /Mithrus / Dionysus / Krishna seem too much to be coincidence plus I am very suspicious of R.C.church
( this quote Sums up my thinking about “Organised Religion” :-
You're basically killing each other to see who's got the better imaginary friend.
Richard Jeni
-- (On going to war over religion)
)
On this point, I stumbled across this-
http://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2007/06/seeking-the-tru.html
( It’s argued that searching is better than knowing? )
What’s your thoughts?
Posted by: RodMcK | August 01, 2007 at 01:31 AM
art did Horus ever make the statement "the meek shall inherit the earth"?
Posted by: william | August 01, 2007 at 01:32 AM
Well for my "thoughts" you can also read my new free blogbook: http://mothershiplanding.blogspot.com. Admittedly it's turgid as hell but hey I live in Minnesota so the point is to burn a whole through the skull which such intense mind power. haha.
Posted by: drew hempel | August 01, 2007 at 02:11 AM
Most of the alleged parallels between Jesus and Horus are spurious. There is a lot of good scholarship available in this area. Why not consult it?
Drew wrote,
>haha You're just relying on vapid, empty "authority" for your own psychological reasons. Good luck!
I'm not much interested in being psychoanalyzed by someone who believes the CIA was behind 9-11. Insult me again and I'm blocking your IP address. I am weary of you.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | August 01, 2007 at 09:22 AM
art did Horus ever make the statement "the meek shall inherit the earth"? - william
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I don't have a clue where that statement originated. Who knows? I don't believe all of christianity came verbatim from Egyptian Horus worship, but I think a good slug of it did. It's just so obvious to me that Christianity is a mixture of a whole bunch of different religions. Mithraism, Zoroastrian, Judeaism, and god knows what else. It's a hodge-podge of religions, all mixed together.
Posted by: Art | August 01, 2007 at 03:06 PM
Michael you already censored my one post where I pondered the afterlife of the 30,000 kids that die a day from nutrition-based disease, like starvation. Luckily you didn't censor my reposting of the link.
As Acharya S. details in her new forum thread, created specifically for Michael's "special needs" the argument that Christianity is Sun Worship is not from the 19th C. nor has it been discredited:
http://forums.truthbeknown.com/viewtopic.php?t=903
Posted by: drew hempel | August 01, 2007 at 05:26 PM
I have not "censored" any of your previous comments, Drew. If one of them disappeared, it was a Typepad glitch.
I asked you not to insult me again. You responded by accusing me of censorship and making a crack about my "special needs."
Sayonara.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | August 01, 2007 at 07:08 PM
Hi Michael,
I assume “Sayonara” means that you’ve blocked Drew Hempel’s IP.
Whilst I don’t agree with all his views, I think the world, in general, and this blog, in particular, are better for a diversity of views.
Please don’t fall into the trap of acting like the media skeptics.
Turn the other cheek and all that.
For the record, for what it’s worth, I’m with you, on this one Art.
Imagine how we’d react if the defendant stood up in court and said I killed all those people because god appeared in a vision and told me to do it.
The Bible has countless similar stories, but lots & lots of people believe it. Why?
RodMcK
Posted by: RodMcK | August 01, 2007 at 10:21 PM
He's not banned because I disagree with him. He's banned because he was repeatedly rude.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | August 01, 2007 at 11:48 PM
i'm with michael on this one.
it seemed drew took it way too personally when michael said that the sun god theory has been discredited and no serious scholars took it seriously. he was the one that started making insulting remarks.
heck, after all, it is michael's blog, if he can't do whatever he wants, then what's the point of having his own blog.
diversity of opinion is great, as long you dont mix it with insults. and whether you have a master degree or not, it doesnt make a person any less gullible than those who don't. our gullibility comes from our need to affirm what we believe is the 'truth.'
we all look for evidence to support our belief, whatever that may be, but once we start degrading other people because of their different viewpoint, then we are no better than those dogmatic skeptics.
Posted by: TomC | August 02, 2007 at 12:00 AM
Re Ban. OK. "Fair Cop" (Just thought I'm Australian, maybe this is an Australian slang saying:- rough translation is "I'm wrong, sorry etc" )
Hi William.
At
http://jdstone.org/cr/files/thesermononthemount.html
is a comparison of Sermon on the mount sayings including ( “Blessed are the meek….” ) and sayings of Judaism.
Also, I’ve heard it argued persuasively that most of Jesuses teachings can be attributed to Rabbi Hillel, who lived prior to Jesus.
Speaking of which, is there any proof Jesus actually existed?
RodMcK
Posted by: RodMcK | August 02, 2007 at 04:08 AM
Two comments about the historicity and the teachings of Jesus:
1) There is independent historical (secular) confirmation about the man named Jesus of Nazareth, most notably from the Jewish-Roman historian Josephus:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus
2) The main difference between the teachings of Jesus and other important Jewish rabbi, like Hillel the Elder, is that in Jesus the Golden Rule is a positive command (DO unto others as you would have them do unto you), while all the other Jewish commandments are prohibitions (Do NOT do … this and that). Big difference from the karmic standpoint.
Posted by: Ulysses | August 02, 2007 at 09:24 AM
Michael bans me and my city's bridge collapse. That's some serious juju.
Posted by: drew hempel | August 02, 2007 at 01:43 PM
Anyway here's my final post since I'm officially banned:
Yep I'm back at the U of MN "cavern" for old book storage, reading Bishop Lightfoot's attack on W.R. Cassel's "Supernatural Religion." Lightfoot readily admits that Eusebius was parsing through the writings "of the Ancients" to decide what was authentic or not. Just based on that simple fact alone the spurious nature of the Gospels is evident. Yet Lightfoot argues:
"Of the Gospels the historian will only record anecdotes concerning them. On the other hand, in the case of the Apocalypse mere references and quotations will be mentioned, because they afford important data for arriving at a decision concerning its Canonical authority." (p. 39)
That seems a back-handed strategy at best and at worse a strange way to treat supposedly sacred works. According to Lightfoot the sources for the 4 Gospels are, as per Eusebius:
"As regards these, he [Eusebius]contents himself with preserving any anecdotes which he may have found illustrating the circumstances under which they were written, e.g. the notices of St. Matthew and St. Mark in Papias, and of the Four Gospels in Irenaeus." (p. 46)
Considering how much Lightfoot questions the authenticity of Ignatius and others, besides the fact the Eusebius openly was questioning his sources as being not authentic, the origin of the Gospels disappears into a cloud of smoke. There is much speculation about Papias and Irenaeus and Polycarp but that the Roman Church was fighting off the ascetic Gnostics is quite clear.
Posted by: drew hempel | August 02, 2007 at 01:52 PM
Drew, if your earlier comments had been as thoughtful as that one, there would have been no need for a ban.
I'll tell you what. I'll lift the ban if you will eschew derogatory personal remarks when someone disagrees with you.
Congratulations. You are unbanned!
Posted by: Michael Prescott | August 02, 2007 at 02:03 PM
For those who are wondering why I was so ticked off at Drew, it might help to know that he posted some unflattering things about me on Acharya S's site.
Here was part of his first comment:
>Anyway let's see if I garnered any response because usually he ignores the "dissident" information I present but sometimes I get under his collar so much that I provoke an ad hominem from him....
>You may want to check out other people posting similar information to this famous apologist! haha. ...
>Ah how ignorance is bliss.
Note that my responses are characterized as ad hominems, and that he says he's just trying to "get under my collar" and "provoke" me. He also calls me a "famous apologist." Of course I'm not an apologist at all. I'm not even a Christian. He also calls me ignorant - but I guess that's not an ad hominem.
In a later comment, Drew wrote,
>Yeah Michael Prescott just threatened to ban me! haha. ...
>He already censored my "threatening" post when I pondered the afterlife of the 30,000 kids that die a day from nutrition-based disease like starvation.
>So I reposted that threatening information! Too bad several other posters were saying the same thing as me about the Christ Conspiracy but I was the only one to claim that Prescott has a psychological hang-up.
>I guess that is an insult. haha.
Here he accuses me of censoring some comment of his (which I didn't - if it disappeared, blame the quirks of Typepad, which has been known to swallow whole posts). He also apparently has trouble understanding that accusing someone of having "a psychological hang-up" is an insult.
Incidentally, in this same thread Acharya S. herself writes,
>There's nothing solid about THE James who supposedly wrote Revelation and the epistle.
You'd think such a careful scholar would know that Revelation is attributed to John, not James. (Rev 1:4)
I freely admit I am no Biblical scholar. But neither is Drew. And neither is Acharya S.
For the work of real scholars, see N.T. Wright, Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crosssan, and Bert Ehrman, among many others. They provide a cross-section of well-informed, up-to-date views ranging from broad skepticism (Ehrman) to conservative Christian belief (Wright). And they know the difference between James and John!
Posted by: Michael Prescott | August 02, 2007 at 05:42 PM
Well Michael I posted your response to Acharya S.' above quote to see what she says about your response. Hopefully she will but I do regard her as a bible scholar as I've checked her sources. John Dominic Crossan is not up to snuff at all! I've read a current Yale Professor of Religious Studies book on the early history of the Church and it too was sorely lacking in comparision to Acharya S.' research.
Anyway today my friend Bert was pondering how the WTC could have collapsed, in lieu of the Minneapolis bridge collapse a few blocks from where we sat. Suddenly I pulled out a fact-card from a letter I was going to send to my sister -- it had a photo of WTC Tower 7 as a perfect demolition, noting that no major media has shown the collapse of WTC 7. Immediately, for psychological reaons, Bert said he didn't want to consider this information -- even though it was just a half-sheet, with a list of 11 reasons why 9-11 was an inside job.
But again, as my career is in policy change, I've long encountered how political information, whether it's the Roman Imperial Church formation or the formation of the U.S. Empire, is avoided like the plague.
Posted by: drew hempel | August 02, 2007 at 07:34 PM
Hi Drew.
Welcome back.
TomC & MP’s posts have made me reconsider my position.
Posting to this Blog is a privilege, not a right.
Please no more “baiting”, insults, etc.
Hi Michael,
Thanks for restoring my faith in Americans
Hi Ulysses,
Thanks for you input, I think I’m missing something though?
1, Much of the Wikipedia article discusses the authenticity or rather lack of authenticity.
2. Interesting point about Karma, but I rechecked website I gave, and found that negative prescriptions were much more common in Sermon on the mount than Judaism (Approx.( 11: 3 ) or ( 10:2 ) depending on how you count them )
What am I doing wrong?
I also came across an interesting site which looks at Christianity from a Hindu perspective.
http://www.hinduism.co.za/jesus.htm
It’s a long article, but interesting
I think the writer is a hindu fundamentalist ( is there such a thing? ),but interesting “take” nevertheless,
( And I think it’s important to “see the world through other peoples eyes” )
RodMcK
Posted by: RodMcK | August 02, 2007 at 11:36 PM
"I pondered the afterlife of the 30,000 kids that die a day from nutrition-based disease like starvation."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Everything I've read in near death experiences points in the direction that after we die we'll look back on this life like it was a dream and the blink of an eye. We are here just long enough to learn a few simple lessons then cross back over into the Spiritual Universe. In fact, most Near Death Experiencers say that the other side will feel more real to us than our present life does. Everyone becomes instantly enlightened upon entering the light, and the "life review" is just another tool to help with that enlightenment and is not meant to be a judgement or punishment. Life's lessons seem to be embedded in our everyday lives and the soul learns holistically what it is it's supposed to learn. The soul learns what it's supposed to regardless of what we do with our lives, and after we die the soul looks back on the physical body in a similar way to how we view a pair of worn out tennis shoes. Our bodies are tools to help the soul learn what it feels like to be a separate, unique, individual. Experience time and space, and imprint memories of what it felt like to inhabit a physical body. Everything involving touch in our lives imprints on the soul the paramters of our physical body, from scratching our heads to stubbing our toes, to brushing our hair to brushing our teeth. The soul is here to learn what it's like to live in a 3D + 1T Universe.
Posted by: Art | August 03, 2007 at 12:07 AM
Hi Michael -- if you didn't read Acharya S.'s forum, where I posted your comment, she has a reply, and she said she just made a typo that had been corrected. Acharya S. has a whole chapter of Revelation in her book the Christ Conspiracy.
As I've stated her sources have all stood up to attack and her sources go to a deeper analysis of the Bible than I've been able to find by the Roman Imperial Church apologists.
Because my favorite thing is to disprove my own beliefs I will now go to the library and read the authors that Michael Prescott lists as legitimate Bible scholars.
But Michael why have you no evidence for a historical person called Jesus Christ? You have yet to respond to Tacitus' Annals being a fraudulent source. If Tacitus' Annals are not fradulent then what is wrong with the evidence that proves they are?
Please provide any evidence and please read Acharya S' research Michael Prescott! If I find any evidence that disproves her research I will be happy to post it here but I've tried and her work is more detailed.
I could not even find John Dominic Crossan addressing the question as to whether there is evidence that Jesus Christ was a person. All scholars have the same problem. The apologists just assume that Jesus Christ was a person without looking at the validity of the evidence.
Then based on an insecure foundation the whole "bridge" of the Holy Roman Empire and the U.S. comes tumbling down.
Posted by: drew hempel | August 03, 2007 at 01:11 PM
OK So I'm at the Minneapolis Central public library which is the largest public collection so should have the list of scholars Michael has listed. I have Bart Ehrman's book in my lap: After the New Testament: A Reader in Early Christianity.
He states in the introduction:
"Even among church people, it is sacrcely realized that early Christians engaged in heated and often acrimonious debates over fundmental issues, such as...."
But whether Jesus was a historical person is NOT mentioned as one of the issues, even though it blatantly was an issue!
Ehrman then states that Eusebius "was the first Christian author to provide a full sketch of the history of the church, from the days of Jesus down to his own time (his first edition was published in 311 C.E.)." (p. 2)
So there we have it! He gives Eusebius as the main source for the "historical" Jesus yet I just posted quotes from a detailed analysis of Eusebius' writing, Bishop Lightfoot's attack against the book Supernatural Religion by WR Cassels. As my excerpts indicate Eusebius himself was deciding what was fake and what was authentic, based on his own political bias, not on any real evidence.
The real evidence is of belief in Jesus as meaning "savior" in spiritual terms, not in an historical person named Jesus.
Posted by: drew hempel | August 03, 2007 at 01:55 PM
Ok now I have Professor Marcus J. Borg's book:
Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship. (1994)
Again I'm amazed that he does not address the issue of whether Jesus existed historically. This book covers John Dominic Crossan by the way and with that the whole list provided by Michael Prescott.
First of all Borg has the psychic balls to admit that Rudolf Bultmann led the way in proving that there's no evidence for a historical Jesus. Then Borg says that scholars realized that a historical Jesus just wasn't important to theology. Then Borg admits the following:
"For much of its history, the agenda of Jesus scholarship has been set, consciously or unconsciously, by theological questions. This is not surprising, given that Christianity was until recently the dominant cultural consciousness of the West. Thus, the questions brought to the texts, whether for the sake of undermining or supporting Christian convictions, have commonly had those convictions in mind." (p. 6)
At this point Borg asks the question: "Can any of the chrstological 'titles' of Jesus be traced back to Jesus?"
But does he try to answer this question: NO!!
Instead he does a "bait and switch" tactic to comparative religion.
"In the recent past, the framework for formulating the questions brought to the texts [i.e. the questions of whether Jesus was a historical person] has become less specifically Christian....Instead, the questions have become more 'global,' that is, related to the broad sweep of human history and experience. How is the figure of Jesus similar or dissimilar to religous figures in other traditions?" (p. 6)
See BAIT AND SWITCH -- all of a sudden Borg is back to assuming that "the figure of Jesus" existed and now the question is how his life compares to Lao Tzu or Buddha -- yet Borg had ignored the vital question of evidence for whether Jesus was a historical person or not.
Posted by: drew hempel | August 03, 2007 at 02:33 PM
The most thorough rebuttal of Acharya S. that I've found on the Web is this essay.
I concede that this comes from a Christian apologetics site, and I don't agree with all of the author's assertions (for instance, he disputes the generally accepted JEDP theory). But he does note numerous problems with Acharya's claims and research.
Borg, Crossan, et al may not specifically address the question of Jesus' historical reality only because the issue was settled (in academic circles) so long ago. As far as I know, there are only two credentialed academics who maintain that Jesus was (or may have been) a fictional character. They are G.A. Wells and Michael Martin. (Martin, however, is a philosopher, not a New Testament scholar.) I read one of Wells' books, The Jesus Legend; I haven't read anything by Martin. Their views have not attracted a following.
Incidentally, I've also read nonscholarly books asserting Jesus' nonexistence, such as Freke and Gandy's The Jesus Mysteries and their Jesus and the Lost Goddess, and Arthur Weigall's 1928 book The Paganism in Our Christianity. And I've read The Golden Bough, The White Goddess, and similar books. So I'm not entirely unacquainted with this line of argument. In fact, for a while I was persuaded by it, but I now think it is mistaken.
If you're looking specifically for arguments that Jesus existed, one source to consult is The Historical Jesus, by Gary R. Habermas. Habermas is a conservative Chistian scholar; again, I don't endorse all his views, but he has a solid grasp of the evidence. Another book to consider is The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? by F.F. Bruce.
In order to support her claims, Acharya S. must assert that all the ancient documents referring to Jesus and his followers were forged or were written much later than most academics believe. I find this line of argument tendentious, but your mileage may vary.
A discussion of claims that Tacitus' Annals were forged is found here. In 1878 J.W. Ross claimed that the Annals were forged by someone named Poggio in the 1400s. Unfortunately for this thesis, references to Tacitus' Annals are found in much earlier centuries. From the above-linked page:
Various citations follow. Read the whole thing for details.
Note that Tacitus is not the only ancient non-Christian writer to discuss Jesus and his movement. Suetonius, Pliny the Younger, Josephus, Julius Africanus (citing Thallus and Phlegon), the Emperor Trajan, the Emperor Hadrian, Lucian, Mara Bar-Serapion, and portions of the Talmud all address this subject. It is unlikely, to say the least, that all of these passages were forged.
Anyway, we are unlikely to convince each other, and I don't have time to debate the issue forever, so we will have to agree to disagree. Thanks for the library info. It's good to have you back!
Posted by: Michael Prescott | August 03, 2007 at 03:20 PM
Michael I saw the book "The Historical Jesus" on the shelve and so I immediately opened it to look for its sources. It relies on the same ones you have listed -- Josephus, Pliny, etc. -- sources which are admitted to by unreliable by numerous bible scholars referenced by Acharya S.
As I stated even Professor Marcus Borg notes that Rudolf Bultmann discredited any evidence for a historical Jesus. Here's Borg again:
"Fifteen years after Schweitzer's book, Rudolf Bultmann, this century's single most influential New Testament scholar, published The History of the Synoptic Tradition (1921). His study of how the traditions about Jesus developed during the oral period suggested that very little of the preaching and teaching of Jesus as reported in the gospels can be traced back to Jesus himself. This historical skepticism engendered by Bultmann's form-critical work was reinforced after World War II by redaction criticism, the meticulous study of how the evangelists modified and shaped the traditions they received to adapt them to their own times and convictions." (p. 4)
In your discussion of Tacitus -- there's a difference between his writings and his Annals that supposedly mention Christ yet you have conflated the two.
Again there is much evidence of forgery for political reasons and there is no evidence for a historical person named Jesus. I read Bishop Lightfoot's attempt to find such evidence and his book is a very detailed scholarly attack against the case for forged documents. Bishop Lightfoot notes, as I quoted, that Eusebius himself decided which documents were forged or not, based on his own political views, in support of the Roman Imperial Church.
Posted by: drew hempel | August 03, 2007 at 03:56 PM
I forgot to mention another noteworthy book - Jesus: An Historian's Look at the Gospels, by Michael Grant. Also, although I don't have a copy handy, I seem to recall that N.T. Wright deals with the issue of Jesus' historical existence in his Jesus and the Victory of God.
Finally, an excellent overview of this issue is found at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
See also the discussion page linked to that entry.
The article concludes, "Overall, the unhistoricity theory is regarded as effectively refuted by almost all Biblical scholars and historians." I believe this assessment is correct. Of course, "almost all Biblical scholars and historians" could be wrong. But that's not the way to bet.
Okay, I've had my say, and I will leave it to others to have the last word.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | August 03, 2007 at 04:06 PM
P.S. My last comment posted simultaneously with Drew's and was not intended as a response.
One quick response: Though Bultmann interpreted much of the Gospels as myth, he did not believe that Jesus himself was a mythical figure.
I don't think anyone is still reading this thread except Drew and me, so I'm done.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | August 03, 2007 at 04:16 PM
Listen Michael -- what books by Bultmann have you actually read? My parents have one of his books which I thought was awesome but it's not mentioned in the Wikipedia entrance for Bultmann. This goes to show that Wikipedia is not a "scholarly" source but simply a volunteer-based information center.
Consider this analysis of Bultmann from another website:
The first myth to be examined is the virgin birth; did it really happen, or is it an unfounded myth used to express a scriptural meaning? Rudolf Bultmann would suggest the latter.
The website then continues to detail how Bultmann believed that Jesus was pre-existing, before time, therefore how could he have a virgin birth? In other words Bultmann did NOT believe in a historical Jesus.
Bultmann's views are very much the same as Advaita Vedanta of Jnana which I have discussed before on your blog.
For your sake I hope no one else is reading this as well. haha.
Posted by: drew hempel | August 03, 2007 at 04:38 PM
Hi Drew & Michael
Interesting argument, but one observation is that Drew seems fond of leaping to his conclusions based on misreading sources - at no point in his life did Bultmann ever deny Jesus existed. What he did deny was reading the Gospels as merely biography/history, rather than as what they are - Gospel, Good News. Yes, they're tendentious because they're basically 1st Century Jewish agit-prop, but that doesn't stop them from being accurate within their limitations.
Likewise reading Eusebius as if he had no sources and thus just "made it all up"... good grief as if 300 years of Church Fathers don't exist in between. Of course you can say it was all forged, but how is ANY history possible if you start being hyper-sceptical about all the sources?
It's easy to win an argument by claiming all your opponent's evidence has been conveniently forged to back their viewpoint. But how can you then claim anything as evidence for such a viewpoint? The charge of forgery cuts both ways.
Nice to see a return to civil behaviour between you both, though.
As for NDEs and the Gospel of 'John' - Ben Witherington III has made the case that the eye-witness behind that Gospel was Lazarus himself, the Gospel being written by "John the Elder" who was one of Lazarus' disciples. Certainly gives more cogency to the idea that an NDE had a role in the creation of that Gospel. Certainly explains the Light imagery, especially 'in light' of Howard Storm's 'NDE' testimony.
Posted by: Adam | August 05, 2007 at 05:37 AM