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Answer for yourself: Is there such a thing as "Bible Truth?" Why should we trust this "holy book" any more than any other spiritual, religious or philosophical treatise? How can we be sure that the Bible we read today is the same collection of 66 books that were originally written in ancient times? These are interesting questions with even more interesting and startling answers. But before we begin we must consider a few things.
Ultimately we are responsible for our own beliefs, which must mean that we should never blindly accept the dogmas of others. Fundamentalists will try to indoctrinate you, evangelists to "save" you, cults to arrange "re-birth" into their particular fold, atheists to ridicule your conclusions. Listen, probe, analyze, and then if necessary modify your own faith. Approach everything you are told with the same sympathetic caution that I hope you will bring to these pages.
There is one essential pre-requisite, however. You must be prepared to re-assess what you currently accept as true in light of truth, facts, and demonstrateable evidences gathered along the way of our studies. This may be particularly difficult for anyone brought up in a fundamentalist tradition, and taught that some particular dogma may not be challenged for fear of some terrible consequence. Such dogmas must be put aside, and if at the end of your search they are found to be incompatible with truth they must be rejected.
Now let us take a look at "Bible truth". Let's take a look! The Bible is unquestionably the world's all-time bestseller with an estimated 2 billion copies in print. The Bible was completed in its entirety nearly 2,000 years ago and stands today as the best-preserved literary work of all antiquity. The problem that confronts us right from the start of this study is the question of reliability of our current Scriptural texts as well as the "hermeneutic", "approach" and "interpretation" of these ancients Sacred Scriptures which were written more than 2,000 years ago; in fact some writings reaching as far back as 3,500 years ago and oral traditions giving rise to these later written texts that reach as far back as only God knows.
The fact of the matter is that much of the Bible does claim to be history, to be an account of real things that took place in real time. Interestingly, a 2005 gallop poll found that 63 percent of Americans & and 77 percent of Republicans believe in the Bible's literal truth. Today, in light of modern scholarship and with the great benefit of archeology the Bible is best viewed as "pseudo-history"; much of it can be seen without a doubt today as religious and Spiritual myths which tell of archetypal events that take place outside of time but which were related over and over again down through recorded time in various nations and their "religions" and cultures like ancient Egypt, Israel, Babylon, Persia, and others.
Given that as the foundation for where our studies will take us the aim of this site is to offer analysis and information to help to resolve some of these differences regarding the reliability of our Bible texts as well as our approach to our Bible and how we are to correctly interpret it given our current "literal" and "historical" approach to reading and interpreting our Bibles. Most startling we will come to see in the pursuit of our studies that these ancient texts in our Bibles were fashioned thousands of years ago by religious cultures which never intended their Sacred Scriptures be interpreted "literally" or "historically". It is in our Bible that we will come to find that Spiritual truth cloaked under the veil of Religious and Spiritual allegories myths and this is enmeshed in a type of pseudo-historical truth and so being are woven and bound together. Discernment of these differences is the "key" that brings sense to our Bible and the Spiritual realm in which we really live; a discernment that too few possess today since we live in a age of religious fundamentalism with its hard-nosed "literal" and "historical" approach to the Bible in most circles.
We find another problem that goes beyond the sole "literal" and "historical" approach and interpretation of our Bible; that being the reliability of our current texts in our Bibles as we have them today. In ancient times, prior to moveable type and the printing press, scribes replicated books by hand, one letter at a time. Not surprisingly, numerous transcription mistakes occurred, and for a variety of reasons, some scribes would intentionally add or delete passages. We know this for a fact since their "scribbling" can be found in the corners of earlier manuscripts only to found later "included in the Greek texts" as if it were the "Word of God". Again, "theology" is created and added as well as sometimes "deleted" to what we call our Bibles today. In spite of this alteration of our New Testaments the reformation held the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, the Bible is the only guide to truth, and any Christian who sincerely reads the Bible guided by the Holy Spirit can find the truth. Well that sounds good on the surface but the existence of over 2,000 different and conflicting denominations and rivaling "doctrines of Christ" prove this very foolish. What complicates this even more is the fact that often in our studies we run across heart-stopping quotes of early Church Fathers like the 3rd century Origin which complained about pervasive scribal mistakes and alterations of the Gospels "… they make additions or deletions as they please." As a result, early New Testament manuscripts are riddled with errors, inconsistencies, and "creative theology"; much of which denies the unbroken Spiritual Truths Judaism and the ancient Spiritual religions of mankind held sacred since recorded time. What's worse, it's impossible to know with certainty what the original manuscripts said because those first-generation examples no longer exist.
This fascinating history of New Testament textual criticism is the topic of a wonderful new book by religious scholar Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. Ehrman chairs the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is considered an authority on the history of the New Testament, the early church and the life of Jesus. According to Ehrman, thousands of New Testament manuscripts exist, including over 5,700 in the original Greek language, but "among these thousands of copies, no two of them are exactly alike in their wording." Ehrman describes the sheer number of errors by way of comparison, "There are more variations among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament."
Most differences among early manuscripts are insignificant, merely misspellings or deleted lines, but unlike such insignificant changes there exits many manuscript differences and alterations that impact core Christian beliefs and the theology of our "Jesus Story" at its very core! In fact, Ehrman explains some scribes were theologically motivated to make alterations in the text based on conflicts of faith raging in the early days of Christianity; conflicts that existed between the earlier Gnostic "Chrestians" and followers of "the Christ" and the later "literal" and "historical" Christians who also became "followers" of a "literal" and "historical Christ". These alterations were motivated by disagreements over many central Christian beliefs, including the divinity of Jesus, his Christology, doctrine of the trinity, Emanationism, the virgin birth, the miracle stories, etc. At the core of this lies the validity and importance of the ancient Spiritual Wisdom and its manner of interpretation of "the Krst/Christ" which finds its earliest origin and meanings as far back as ancient Egypt; the interpretation of which was argued for centuries between the Gnostic Chrestians and the later Roman Christians who eventually won this theological battle and provided us the Bibles we have in our possession today.
It's commonly believed by most Christians uneducated in the true origins of the Christian religion that the early Christian Church reflected an untainted purity of belief. Nothing could be further from the truth! In reality, however, early Christian cults embraced a highly diverse variety of beliefs and disagreed on numerous fundamental elements of faith. Some Christian groups believed Jesus was divine, but others believed he was merely a man. Some Jesus cults believed in One God, others believed in One God with many emanations of Himself which exist through the totality of all creation (like the Angels in Judeo-Christianity and the "neteru" in ancient Egypt). Ehrman writes, "All these groups claimed to be Christian, insisting that their views were true and had been taught by Jesus and his followers."
The New Testament eventually emerged from this conflict and Ehrman reminds us "the winning side decided which books were going to count as scripture and which books were going to be excluded. The books that were excluded, of course, are deemed heretical." Most "heretical" texts were destroyed by Rome along with their adherents; to the tune of 18 million people during the Dark Ages at best guess by the scholars today.
Thus it does not take a rocket scientist to see that the chaotic history of the New Testament simply isn't compatible with the concept of an inerrant text of our Bible transmitted perfectly by God. This fact should make us wonder just what we are reading in our Bibles today and how we are to interpret the Spiritual Truths within it when found.
The popular and influential King James Version of the Bible certainly doesn't escape the consequences of bad source material. Ehrman asserts that it was largely based on "one of the worst manuscripts that we now have available to us" and points out the obvious: "The King James was not given by God but was a translation by a group of scholars … who based their rendition on a faulty Greek text."
Christians who are blind to any dissimilarity between reality and their faith, will likely remain unconcerned with problems of Biblical reliability. For me, knowing this truth and the facts of the matter first hand from my twenty years of study simply cannot remain unconcerned! Rational people, however, will recognize that the Bible is a demonstrably imperfect, purposely altered and error-ridden collection of texts created by humans, not a mythical Supreme being. Given this, as ugly and disconcerting as it might first appear, does not preclude one from approaching our Bibles armed with enough knowledge that we can open this Sacred Book, as altered as it truly is, and obtain from it the highest Spiritual Truths that the ancients both knew and cherished. The Bible can yet illuminate our Souls to the highest Spiritual reality possible if we come to it possessing the very "Truth" of its real condition and the "keys" necessary to unveiling the Spiritual Mysteries within it despite its purposeful "theological" corruption at the hands of Rome. All that is necessary is that one must know "the Spiritual Truth" of the ancient Spiritual Mysteries as it existed and was understood for thousands and thousands of years prior to the rise of Roman Christianity and its later corruption of the ancient Spiritual Wisdom and their Sacred Scriptures and religious dogmas which are today contained in our Bibles given us by Rome. This sounds easy, and it is; but it requires your diligent and personal study to known the difference between "truth" and "lies", for both lie side beside on the pages of our Bibles today.
So picking up our Bibles and believing that we can simply read our Bibles and approach them with a "literal" and "historical" manner of interpretation and thereby obtain "truth" since being led by the Holy Spirit sounds fine as long as the Bible is completely reliable and as long as the "literal" and "historical" approach to the whole of our Bible is the hemeneutic that is needed to obtain its Spiritual Truths. But neither assumed condition is true and can easily be discerned and proven when one does his personal study into these matters. The Bible is at best a "pseudo-history" relating over and over again the Divine Mysteries of the Spiritual Realm as understood and conveyed to the higher chronicling of the Spiritual Consciouenss of mankind since the beginning of time by God our Creator. By the time of the reformation once exegetes started to get to work on the Bible they showed that the Bible in not to be approached strictly in a "literal" or "historical" manner. In fact they found the opposite; that much of the Bible is fiction, albeit holy fiction, or termed more appropriately, much of the Bible is a Spiritual Divine Myth and Spiritual Allegory which is set into historical sequences in the evolution of mankind and his Spiritual Consciousness.
So we find today that there are maybe a dozen major Christian religions, hundreds of major sects, thousands of minor sects and offshoots. Nearly all of these exist because of theological differences with some parent body. Yet all have the same single source for their theology: the Bible. But they all interpret the Bible differently.
One important aspect of our Christian faith that we must base all our studies on is seeking the TRUTH. Anything we find to be false, we should throw out regardless of whether or not it might be more popular or taught in our Church. For obedience to the truth that has been revealed to us is the key to being led into more truth. This, I believe is very important:
The eyes of our Creator seeks those whose heart is perfect toward Him.
Here Yahweh is telling Jeremiah that if he can find just "one person" in Jerusalem that really seeks the truth, God will pardon the whole city!
Jer 5:1 Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be [any] that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth; and I will pardon it.
Here is the New Testament Christ speaking of the importance of knowing truth:
Joh 4:23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. 24 Elohim [is] a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship [him] in spirit and in truth.
The Spirit is what guides us into all truth:
Joh 14:17 [Even] the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
Joh 15:26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, [even] the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:
Joh 16:13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into ALL TRUTH: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, [that] shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.
The path to truth will stop if we don't obey the truth He has given us:
1Pe 1:22 Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, [see that ye] love one another with a pure heart fervently
Having pleasure in unrighteousness is the same as not obeying the truth He has given us. Those that ignore His ways will never find Him, though they seek:
Pr 1:22 How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? 23 Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. 24 Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; 25 But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: 26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; 27 When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. 28 Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; THEY SHALL SEEK ME EARLY, BUT THEY SHALL NOT FIND ME: 29 For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of Yahweh: 30 They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.
Jer 29:13 And ye shall seek me, and find [me], when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
Simply because in the following web pages and articles you will be exposed to a vast amount of knowledge and facts which will challenge long cherished “religious beliefs” and “church traditions.” Many beliefs held by the vast majority of Christians today are simply false and many are an offense to God and you simply are not aware of such a tragic situations that exists in your life. You can thank Rome for this as this tragic loss of "Spiritual Truth" was accomplished by them during the 2nd through the 5th century and we today yet continually fall into such great "religious darkness" and are not aware of this fact unless our eyes are opened to the "truth" of our current predicament. The problem is, as alluded before in earlier articles, that our Biblical "texts" which Christians hold sacred are not always accurate when compared to the Hebrew originals. That means much of the "theology" that we have "inherited" and are taught to "believe" for our salvation is simply WRONG! Upon diligent study these "texts" like the Christian's Old Testament and New Testament can be shown to be a purposeful corruption of the true Jewish Bible that a Jew like Jesus would have used in the first century of the common era. Consequently "religious beliefs" derived from these corrupted texts will lead one to error and sin without his knowledge; that is until he dies and finds out that he has been wrong about the most important thing in his life; namely his relationship with God and His "Krst/Christ". It is my hope to be of help in exposing such error and misinformation which we have been given by our Christian traditions and less than reliable Biblical texts and replacing them with the Spiritual and Divine Truths that you deserve. It is my hope that one's repentance when shown these higher truths will bring him closer to God and His "Krst/Christ". I do not wish to offend anyone and apologies are first given if such occurs, but in the Spirit of love and truth I lay down my life for the flock of God in hopes of shinning a light upon the hidden Divine and Spiritual Truths that yet today lay hidden behind our "Jesus Story" and in so doing I give my life to helping others to return to the unity of the faith and restoring “the Faith once given to the Saints.”
When world-class biblical scholar Bart Ehrman first began to study the texts of the Bible in their original languages he was startled to discover the multitude of mistakes and intentional alterations that had been made to the Christian Bible by earlier translators. First let us get to know a little about Bart Ehrman. Bart D. Ehrman is a New Testament scholar and an expert on early Christianity. He received his Ph.D and M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary where he studied under Bruce Metzger. He currently serves as the chairperson of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was the President of the Southeast Region of the Society of Biblical Literature, and worked closely as an editor on a number of the Society's publications. Currently, he co-edits the series New Testament Tools and Studies. Much of Ehrman's writing has concentrated on various aspects of Walter Bauer's thesis that Christianity was always diversified or at odds with itself. Ehrman is often considered a pioneer in connecting the history of the early church to textual variants within biblical manuscripts and in coining such terms as "Proto-orthodox Christianity." In his writings, Ehrman has turned around textual criticism. His findings and evidence presented are absolutely startling to the Christian mind. From the time of the Church Fathers, it was the supposed Gnostic heretics, like Marcion, for example, that were charged with tampering with the biblical manuscripts. But he found that was not the case and such "traditions" are seriously flawed. Ehrman proves that that it was actually the Orthodox that "corrupted" the earlier traditions and earliest manuscripts. His scholarly output is extensive. He has authored or contributed to nineteen books. In Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman tells the story behind the mistakes and changes that ancient scribes made to the New Testament and shows the great impact they had upon the Bible we use today. He frames his account with personal reflections on how his study of the Greek manuscripts made him abandon his once ultraconservative views of the Bible.
Since the advent of the printing press and the accurate reproduction of texts, most Christians have assumed that when they read the New Testament they are reading an exact copy of Jesus's words or Saint Paul's writings. And yet, for almost fifteen hundred years these manuscripts were hand copied by scribes who were deeply influenced by the cultural, theological, and political disputes of their day. Both mistakes and intentional theological changes abound in the surviving manuscripts, making the original words difficult to reconstruct. For the first time, Ehrman reveals where and why these changes were made and how scholars go about reconstructing the original words of the New Testament as closely as possible. Ehrman makes the provocative case that many of our cherished biblical stories and widely held beliefs concerning the divinity of Jesus, the Trinity, and the divine origins of the Bible itself stem from both intentional and accidental alterations by scribes--alterations that dramatically affected all subsequent versions of the Bible. Other scholars today are re-evaluating the New Testament in light of the discoveries of the Nag Hammadi Gnostic Library discovered over 50 years ago in Egypt. It appears now, in light of these abundant alterations and purposeful changes to the earlier oral traditions of the nation's "Krsts/Christ Stories" as well as our "Jesus Story" that the New Testament should be seen more in a "Metaphysical", "Mystical", and "Mythological" light than a "literal" or "historical" account of "the Christ". This impacts all religions "dogmas" and "doctrines" we have inherited as traditional Christians. Truly in this information age in which we have been so blessed to have been born the "Truth" about our Christian Bible and its "Christ" is being made known like never before. By way of introduction we not proceed to the "meat" of these articles.
Answer for yourself: Has the faith once delivered to the early "pre-Roman" church nearly 2000 years ago been accurately delivered to the Churches of God today? Has our Bible faithfully represented the earliest beliefs in "the Christ" as held by the first Church in the first century of the common era? How can you answer this question accurately unless you know for certain what these earliest "Chrestians" and "Christians" believed way back then when compared with what we are taught today or what we are told to "believe today" by our inherited Roman traditions in vogue in traditional Christianity today?
This is a question that all church members should ask themselves, and prove one way or the other. But most members would not dare ask or bring up that question, nor will they even permit themselves to be challenged to do so.
2 Cor 13:5 5 Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? (KJV)
Answer for yourself: Here is a great hypothetical question for our readers. If Jesus of Nazareth were to return to the earth today, would He recognize the religion that is using His name? Not at all! Mankind has twisted the Christ’s teachings let alone the identity of "the Christ" so much over these last 1,800 years that the religion bearing the name of "Jesus" has practically no relationship to what messianic Judaism actually believed and taught in the first century of the common era.
Answer for yourself: Can you find a Church that strives to live by the teachings of true Apostolic Christianity as seen in the first century? Do you even know what theologies and "religious beliefs" were taught in the "doctrines of Christ" as found in normative Judaism in the first century and how they compare to what our traditional "post-Nicean" and "post-Constantinian" Christianity teaches today? Can you prove for yourself what God’s Truth really is in light of what you have been taught to believe today? Does it matter to you? Should not our "faith" be established more upon "truth" than "tradition"? Is a man who believes "error" in his religious beliefs just as well off as a man who believes "truth"?
Answer for yourself: In John 8:32 the Jewish Christ said: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Here we see that to "the Christ" truth was very important. He said we must know the truth, because it can make us free. Free from what? Verse 34 shows that "the Jewish Christ" teaches that this freedom is from sin. But if truth is necessary to free us from sin, then how could we please God if we believe error instead of truth?
Most genuine religious scholars recognize that vast changes have overtaken professing Christianity; changes that render it totally different from the Christianity of early messianic Judaism as followed by the disciples and Apostles who followed the message and teachings of the "Jewish Christ". As respected mainline Protestant scholar Jesse Lyman Hurlburt acknowledges: "For fifty years after St. Paul’s life a curtain hangs over the church, through which we strive vainly to look; and when at last it rises, about 120 A.D. with the writings of the earliest church-fathers, we find a church in many aspects very different from that in the days of St. Peter and St. Paul" (Jessie Hurlburt, Story of the Christian Church, p. 41).
Answer for yourself: If the leaders, during this time that Mr. Hurlbut elsewhere called an "age of shadows," were filled with and led by God’s Spirit, then why would the Church suddenly be "very different"?
Heb 13:8 8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. (KJV)
Answer for yourself: What are we to do with the passage in Hebrews 13:8 which says that "the Christ" changes not in light of the fact that modern scholarship teaches us that the early Church "suddenly become very different" after 120 A.D.?
Acts 20:29-31 29 For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. 30 Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. 31 Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears. (KJV)
When Paul realized the depth of the apostasy that would overtake most of the Church, it hit him emotionally. He then "did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears"! Very few people today seem to be concerned enough about this massive apostasy to even begin to shed tears over this awesome change; many are never aware that such a change has taken place and we today follow a completely "different religion" other than the one modeled and taught by "the Jewish Christ" in the first century of the common era.
This massive apostasy occurred because men and women back then, just like today, did not zealously prove to themselves where God’s Truth was being taught. That is why the living Christ corrected those Christians living near the end of the Apostolic Era:
Rev 2:4-5 4 Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. 5 Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. (KJV)
Answer for yourself: And what about today? How can we account for the more than 2,000 different Christian denominations and sects all of which call themselves "Christian" and all of which teach different versions of a supposed "literal" and "historical" Jesus? How can all of these variant Christian sects have different ideas, different religious beliefs, traditions and approaches and yet claiming to follow the same "mind" of Christ?
Part of the answer is the fact that extremely few professing Christians really study their Bibles, and when they do so they don't possess the "keys" so necessary for recognizing the reliable texts from the unreliable ones let alone how to correctly interpret these ancient texts as did the ancients before them! So they do not "prove" virtually anything they believe by carefully researching it in the Bible and in other extra-Biblical sources to confirm for themselves that these same dogmas found in their Bibles have not changed over these last 2,000 years. So few spend any time in learning how to actually "interpret" these ancient Sacred Scriptures in the same manner as the ancients who first wrote them and taught them thousands of years ago! Oh, we may enthusiastically study books and articles on health, on self-improvement or on investing and making more money. But somehow it does not occur to us to thoroughly study the most vital subjects of all:
Most people have just "accepted" the religion passed down through their families. Most have just "gone along" with the beliefs and the traditions taught to them as children. Noting the publics' lack of attention to their religion, Los Angeles Times religion writer Teresa Watanabe reported:
"According to one religious research firm, two-thirds of Americans don't regularly read the Bible or know the names of the Four Gospels. More than half of Americans surveyed can't name even five of the Ten Commandments. And the majority say they find the Good Book irrelevant.… ‘We still hold the Bible in high regard, but in terms of actually spending the time reading it, studying it and applying it; that is a thing of the past,’ said George Barna. The reasons cited range from changes in American culture to the intrinsic difficulty of the text itself. Now religious organizations are making a major effort to jazz up the ancient Scripture’s doddering image. Bible publishers are producing a dizzying array of products, with translations and editions pitched to every conceivable niche market, to convince people that the book is neither arcane nor irrelevant" (Los Angeles Times, July 23, 1999).
In the comfortable surroundings of western civilization, most people fail to realize that the overwhelming majority of human beings on this planet have never believed in any form of "Christianity" let alone the "real Christianity of Christ" as expressed through Judaism in the first centuries. Instead, mankind has made its own religion that is almost completely different from what the Jewish Christ preached through first century Judaism. This different religion of today is ironically called by the same name, "Christianity", as if it were connected with the message and teachings expressed by the "Jewish Christ" through Judaism in the earliest centuries. It is not! As the philosopher and theologian Soren Kirkegaard put it:
"The Christianity of the New Testament simply does not exist…what has to be done is to throw light upon a criminal offense against Christianity prolonged through centuries, perpetrated by millions (more or less guiltily), whereby they have cunningly, under the guise of perfecting Christianity, sought little by little to cheat God out of Christianity and have succeeded in making Christianity exactly the opposite of what it is in the New Testament" (S. Kirkegaard, Attack Upon Christendom, , 1956, pp. 32–33).
Those are strong words, but they are hardly unique. Professor Rufus M. Jones concurs, noting how Christ’s true teachings were quickly detached from the religion bearing His name:
"If by any chance Christ Himself had been taken by His later followers as the model and pattern of the new way, and a serious attempt had been made to set up His life and teaching as the standard and norm for the Church, Christianity would have been something vastly different from what it became. Then ‘heresy’ would have been as it is not now, deviation from His way, His teaching, His spirit, His kingdom.… What we may properly call ‘Galilean Christianity’ had a short life, though there have been notable attempts to revive it and make it live again, and here and there spiritual prophets have insisted that anything else other than this simple Galilean religion is ‘heresy’; but the main line of historic development has taken a different course and has marked the emphasis very differently" (R. Jones, The Church’s Debt to Heretics, Jones, 1924, pp. 15–16).
The key issue, then, is our desire and willingness to get back to the true Christian faith, "the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3).
Answer for yourself: Are you willing to genuinely try to follow the Christianity of the true "Krst/Christ" and not the one of Rome's making?
Let us note carefully what the Gnostic Paul was inspired to write to the Thessalonians:
1Thes 2:14 14 For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews: (KJV)
Amazing! The book of Acts makes it clear that the earthly "headquarters" of the Church of God, for many decades, was the Jerusalem Church and not Rome. We hardly ever take notice of that.
Now for an amazing fact that is unknown to most Christians today. As renowned historian Edward Gibbon wrote: "The first fifteen bishops of Jerusalem were all circumcised Jews; and the congregation over which they presided united the law of Moses with the doctrine of Christ. It was natural that the primitive tradition of a church which was founded ... and was governed almost as many years under the immediate inspection of his apostle, should be received as the standard of orthodoxy. The distant churches very frequently appealed to the authority of their venerable Parent" (E. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. 15, sec. 1, p. 389). Here we see the "standard of orthodoxy" is to be found in Jerusalem and not Rome!
Clearly the original Apostles and the Jerusalem Church of God set the inspired "pattern" for true Christianity, not just for that time, but for all time! Contrary to the heretical Roman and Protestant ideas penned under the "Romanized Paul" to "reinvent" Christianity, the real Gnostic Paul of the Bible constantly showed deep respect for the Jerusalem congregation and deferred to the leadership at Jerusalem in all major matters! And it was Paul who wrote the primarily Gentile church at Corinth: "Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing,but keeping the commandments of God is what matters" (1 Corinthians 7:19).
And all along we are taught in our Churches that Paul teaches a "lawless" religion based upon "Faith in Jesus" alone; not "the Faith of Jesus"! It appears not, or at least not until we get to the later "Romanized Paul" and later New Testament corruptions as the hands of monks that write as this "Romanized Paul". But keeping the commandments of God is hard in a Christian religions which prides itself on "not being under the Law but under grace" and that "Christ is the end of the Law". Keeping the commandments of God is not needed in a "Faith in Jesus"; only in "the Faith of Jesus". Again, what lies at the very heart of the dichotomy between the "Faith in Jesus" and "the Faith of Jesus" is the wholesale destruction and corruption of the Hebrew Scriptures as found in today's Christian Bible.
Modern day Christian doctrine rests upon the premise that God preserved the Bible in an absolute infallible and pure state, in order that all men should know the "literal" and "historical" truth concerning the New Testament and so believe in the "literal" and "historical" Son of God. Their doctrinal position is that if God permitted the Bible to have been altered, then the present day church could not be genuine. Based upon this dogmatic presumption that the Christian Church must be maintained in order for man to be saved, they reason that God would not allow the written word of the Scriptures to be corrupted. Thus, modern Christians cling to this doctrine all the while ignoring overwhelming evidence to the contrary; evidence that demonstrates conclusively that our Bible has been severely altered and edited. They stubbornly do so because they fail to grasp the very foundational principles of the New Covenant itself; principles that are not "historical", but Spiritual. It is not until we understand that the Bible is a road-map that leads us to the Gate of the Kingdom, and the Word that is written in our hearts, rather than a final revelation from God to man, that we are able to even begin to come to terms with the Spiritual Gospel of Christ that can never be corrupted.
The very assertion of Christian Church Authority that either the Church or the Scriptures must be preserved in order for man to obtain salvation not only demonstrates a total inability to perceive the essence of the Gospel message but perhaps more importantly, has already been historically disproven and demonstrated to be in error. Once the Church was adopted by Rome in the fourth century, it became unlawful for the Scriptures to be given into the hands of the common believer. Therefore, throughout most of Christian history the written text of the Scriptures was not available to the people. Furthermore, the Church itself became so Pagan and corrupt, that it was often referred to throughout history as the "synagogue of Satan" (Rev 2:9;3:9). Let us look at the following evidences that bears out this sorry state of affairs affecting the earliest Gentile Roman Church.
In a letter to Pope Leo X on September 6th, 1520, Martin Luther wrote of the Christianity of his day that the church, "…once the holiest of all, has become the most licentious den of thieves, the most shameless of all brothels, the kingdom of sin, death, and hell. It is so bad that even Antichrist himself, if he should come, could think of nothing to add to its wickedness" (George Seldes, The Great Thoughts).
Of this future ruler of the church, the Gnostic Paul writes:
2 Cor 11:13-15 13 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. 14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. 15 Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works. (KJV)
Moreover, in view of the fact that Paul warns that the church would be soon guided by false apostles, some of whom were the very scribes who copied the biblical manuscripts we use to make our translations today, then for the sincere believer to blindly accept the position of the modern church that the Scriptures were preserved in a pure state, is merely asking to be deceived and misled. In our search today for Truth and Light, it is imperative that we recognize the warning in Paul's 7 authentic Epistles where we can clearly see that Paul predicts that counterfeit apostles and ministers would arise, and would control the church of this world which the masses of people will mistakenly believe is the genuine church of God.
The problem is that, regardless of how much evidence is shown to the majority of modern Christians, evidence which demonstrates conclusively that the New Testament Scriptures were severely altered by the Church of Rome, they will refuse to acknowledge the facts.
Answer for yourself: Why do Christians when confronted with such facts and evidence regarding their Bibles refuse to acknowledge the facts and turn their heads and minds away from such truth?
The answer is simple; because the majority of modern Christians are a disenfranchised people, severed from the presence of the indwelling Spirit which is given to the truly faithful disciples in order to teach them, and they are afraid to deviate from their present-day doctrine and church dogma which has assured them that they are "saved". But because the modern believer has been alienated from the very essence of the fundamentals of New Covenant teachings, they fear the Spiritual journey associated with the beginning of the walk in "The Way" of "the Christ" which opposes the "Roman Road of Salvation". The "indwelling Spirit of Truth", the "indwelling Christ-Mind" calls out to them but because they are anchored to this world by religious indoctrination and religious "brain-washing", pernicious religious false doctrines and traditions of men, they are afraid to actually dare to question their own faith fearful of loosing their salvation. Sadly it never dawns upon them that such a salvation, if shown to be built upon lies and untruth, is no salvation at all from a God of Truth.
When directly confronted with the overwhelming evidence and facts with respect to the wholesale corruption of the Christian Bible, the fundamentalist defensively responds with the rather absurd assertion that "God wrote the King James Version of the Bible". Thus, no amount of rationale will convince them that because we are the prodigal sons of our Heavenly Father, and the Kingdom is within us (Luke 17:21), that all those who truly live a consecrated life will be shown the undefiled Word of God that can be accessed by journeying along the narrow path that opens the "strait gate" that leads to the indwelling Temple (1 Cor 3:16). The great truth which the modern Christian fails to comprehend is that, even in its corrupted form, the Bible as it has been passed down to us is sufficient to manifest the Living Word of God in the life of the individual believer. One only has to open the New Testament to almost any page to find the simple message: If the believer consecrates their lives, becomes teachable by releasing their minds from an adherence to the doctrines of men, forgives and judges no one, lives a simple life that is unencumbered, does no harm to any of God’s creatures, and seeks in solitude the companionship of the Lord in the inner Temple, the Holy Spirit will Anoint and Teach you all the Mysteries of God as you begin your journey home to the Kingdom of God. If the believer begins to live the consecrated Christian life, free of the thinking and entanglements of this world, then the indwelling Word will reveal all things to those who are sincere in their search for the Truth.
If it is true that the fourth century Roman Church severely altered the written word of the Scriptures, then it is absolutely necessary for the modern believer to search out the facts. Faith in the Word means that if we are a truly faithful people, that the Son of God will open our minds and enlighten us to the Truth. When we therefore ignore the facts, and blindly cling to the error of the corrupt church of Rome, then we inhibit the Lord from teaching us the truth.
Most Christians believe that our Scriptures were protected from being altered. But, contrary to our many assertions of denial, the historical evidence shows conclusively that this is not the case and that our Christian Bible no longer represents the original form of the text. Yet, it is only because the modern church no longer possesses the Spiritual essence and vision of the original Church that was established in the first century, that the corruption of our Scriptures creates a hindrance to the believer in our present time. Make no mistake about this; such alterations have affected "religious dogmas" as they have come down the corridors of history to you and me. The bottom line as I have found it in my exhaustive studies is that we no longer have "the Faith of Jesus"; rather we have bought into a "Faith in Jesus" and God's true salvation message to mankind and the very identity of "the Christ" has been altered beyond recognition in the process.
Let us continue our study in the next article in this series.
