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In the Jewish and Christian communities, our Bibles play very important roles. One could rightfully say we grew up in America under the influences of religions that were religions that founded their authority upon a "book". Since Judaism had their writings containing the Torah, the writings of Moses ("Teaching/Law" also known as the Pentateuch), the Former and Later Prophets along with the Writings, it became mandatory that the later emerging Christian should likewise need a book in order to establish themselves as a religion commanding authority that came as well from an authoritative "book". Therefore the need for a "New" testament. Accordingly, in both communities we hold that our Bibles are based on revelation from God and thereby are "inspired" from God. In both the Jewish and Christian communities we find that each religious community teaches their religious doctrines are based on "the" Bible.
Answer for yourself: So what is the problem with that?
The only problem is that these "religious doctrines" that are taught to the world are often contradictory and oppose each other in what they teach but even more alarming is that they both supposedly cite the Hebrew Scriptures for their authority. Somebody has to be wrong somewhere. The problem is deciding whether Judaism or Christianity is teaching religious doctrines and dogmas that are incorrect since they both say they are teaching the revelation of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Here is the bottom line. Never did I realize when I was in Seminary that my Christian Bible and it's Old Testament was not accurately translated when compared to these earlier Hebrew Scriptures. In fact one could say upon doing comparative personal study of both the Hebrew and later Christian Bibles that our Christian Bible has been "selectively" and "carefully" corrupted in "key" theological positions in order to promote the later evolving theologies of the early emerging Gentile Christian Church. This revelation and truth is most alarming for a Christian to both hear and study out thus proving this premise to himself.
Now in every part of the world, and in all ages, people have been seeking for this knowledge of God; and the different ways of their seeking and the different ways of worshipping Him, have been called "religions". As you are aware, the national religion in most of the countries of Europe, Canada and North and South America is Christianity; in India it is Hinduism; in Ceylon it is Buddhism; in Palestine it was Judaism; and in Arabia and Persia, Zoroastrianism and Islam. But this simplification is terribly inadequate but you get the picture. There is not "one" religion out there that unties all; or is there?
You will have learnt from your history books that in times past (and alas! even to-day the same thing happens in some places) terrible persecutions have been carried on in the name of religion, the followers of one religion persecuting and torturing the believers of another. It is not the religion that is at fault in these cases; rather it is that those who profess a particular faith have not grasped one of the central truths of all religion, that although there is but one God in the Universe, He may be worshipped through many different forms, and that whilst we may give to Him whom we worship as Supreme Being the name of God, our brothers in Asia or Africa may be equally worshipping Him under the name of Brahman, or Allah, or by refusing to call Him by any name at all.
Today we live in a world emerging from the Dark Ages of fear and ignorance and many Spirit-led people the world over have been used by this One God to bring back to the world the knowledge of this great truth, that had in the course of time been forgotten-this important fact, that all the religions in the world come forth from the one Divine Being whom we worship under different names, and that therefore the main teachings of them in all their Sacred Books are very similar; for all the great religions teach that the Universe, and everything within it, comes forth from God; that man is an immortal being, a child of his Heavenly Father, and that his work is to struggle against the lower side of his nature, and to strive to become true and pure and holy, and Spiritually minded, so that in due time he shall grow into the likeness of his Father. This commonality is too often overlook by the glaring disagreements that exist between the teachings of Judaism and the teachings of Christianity; especially the disagreements regarding Jesus Christ as the historical and literal Messiah of the Jews which yet today separates and divides Judaism and Christianity.
And the differences, dissimilarities, distinctions, and cultural and racial divergencies that are seen on the surface of all religions, even Judaism and Christianity, and which have for so long blinded men to the likenesses of religious truths buried underneath, are such as were necessary in order that each faith might be suited to the nation to which it was given and the time in which it was given to a certain people by this God through His "angels" or "messengers".
For you must know that just as we are all of us first babies, then children, then young men and women, and afterwards older men and women, so do the peoples of the world grow and pass through different stages. A "young" nation, that is to say a nation of which the men and women who compose it, a nation of "savages" whose chief pleasures are in eating and drinking and hunting creatures for food, such a people would need a very simple kind of religion, a religion perhaps which would teach them that there is a difference between right and wrong, and that there is a Divine Being above them Who is just and good, that they please Him when they do right, but that when they do wrong He has to punish them. Such ideas as these we find to be the principal ones in the religions of what are called "primitive tribes" or races; and there is generally also the doctrine that if a man does right he will be happy after death, while if he does wrong now he will suffer hereafter.
But when later men and women are born into more civilized nations, they will have learnt a great deal that their forefathers did not know when they were "savages," and they will need a different and a higher form of religion. Although they may not be much more able than was the "child-man" to unravel the great mysteries of the Universe, yet they will have developed to a much greater degree their intellectual and moral faculties, and will in consequence need a more Spiritual and intellectual form of religion than the races whose higher faculties are entirely undeveloped. So you see we need not be surprised or distressed when we find that everyone does not worship in the same way as we have been taught to worship; but when we come across any who use different forms of worship, or to whom some other Scripture is as sacred as the Bible is to some of us, then we can quite contentedly recognize that we have met someone who is searching in a different way for the same Truth which we also are seeking; and putting aside any feeling that our way is best, we may humbly and gratefully learn from him anything that he may be able to teach us, whilst gladly sharing with him any knowledge that we possess.
Now this sounds easy but history records this with the blood of the saints as one warring "religious" faction destroys another. This becomes somewhat more confusing as we recognize that there are two basic camps in the Christian community: Catholic and Protestant. It goes without saying that the Bibles of these two communities differ not only in their "theologies" regarding the same "Christ" but in the number of books that they contain. When we include the Jewish community in this equation we soon arrive at the grand total of "three" Bibles. This presents us with our first question. It goes without saying that is you are born in the Americas then you are taught to look at the Bible for your source for God and His plan for mankind. The first big question we are faced with is the selection of a Bible to help us learn of God.
Answer for yourself: Which Bible is "the Bible?"
I am sure that if a Jew, a Catholic, and a Protestant was asked that question the expected response would be "MINE!"
Below I have given you a breakdown of the three basic Bibles:
Notice if you will, that all three faiths (Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant) are all in agreement that the Tanakh (Old Testament) is an inspired document, but that is where the agreement stops. Notice also that the Catholic and Protestant communities are in agreement that the New Testament is inspired, but not the Jewish community. Notice also that only the Catholic community alone considers the Apocrypha in the same category as the Tanakh and the New Testament.
Answer for yourself: Why doesn't the Jewish community and their Rabbis accept the New Testament with it quotes from the Hebrew Scriptures? Could it be that the Jewish community and their Rabbis know that many of the quotes taken from the Hebrew Scriptures as found in the Christian Old and New Testament are purposefully misquoted, mistranslated, and falsified when compared to the original Hebrew texts as taken from the Hebrew Bible? Just remember these question as the answers to them will be forthcoming the more you study the truth about our Bible, a Bible given us by Rome that is supposed to lead us to God and His will for our lives.
Answer for yourself: When did each of these Bibles comes into existence? Under the surface reading where we see racial and cultural differences could there be an esoteric secret and hidden deeper Spiritual teaching that connects both the Old and New Testaments? Are are "lesser" and "greater mysteries" in the books of our Bibles which only the "initiated" eye of the enlightened see? Were these "hidden teachings" once there but today are removed or the books made to appear otherwise?
Answer for yourself: Who decided which books would be included or excluded from each Bible?
Answer for yourself: Were were certain books later added and why were they?
Answer for yourself: Were certain books excluded from our Bible which were once in it and why? Why are some books in some Bibles and not in other Bibles?
Since each Bible is directly linked to a community, our first question must begin with the origin of each of the communities in question.
Answer for yourself: When did each of these communities originate?
The development of the canon proved to be a revolutionary step in the history of religion. This concept is distinctive and characteristically Jewish according to tradition but the real truth is the ancient Egyptian Religion was the first "religion of the Book" with is found in the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead in which we find a multitude of its religious dogmas and doctrines taught later in almost all world religions. We find these ancient Egyptian religious dogmas and doctrines contained in our Bibles and in Judaism as well as Christianity; although sadly they exist radically reinterpreted in later Christianity but not so in Judaism. Regardless of what you have seen in the way of bumper stickers of late, the Jew's "canon" caused other nations to call the people of Israel "the People of the Book." Judaism needed a book because the originators of the earliest expression of what was later to become the Jewish Faith had a book as well; it was called the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The Jewish concept of "canonization" of their Sacred Texts was to be largely adopted by Christianity and later Islam. It appears we need a "book" for our authority no matter what it says or what is in it. Some of these Sacred Books, dear ones, are better than others as you will come to see.
Canon is the Greek word that originally meant "a straight rod." Later it was used to mean a "carpenter's measuring rod." Finally it became a figurative term for "a standard by which other things could be measured." As applied to Biblical canonization, it designated "the closed nature of a body of sacred literature which had been accepted as 'authoritative'." This is because it has come to be understood in our day that a "canon" is "divinely revealed" to the community, regardless of whether it was or it wasn't!
Answer for yourself: How did we develop a Canon?
Although the process of "officially" assigning authority to a select group of books and thus creating a "canon" originated with the Jewish nation, the word "canon" and the word "bible" originated within the Greek language. Most reputable scholars agree that there was no canon of the Hebrew Scriptures (Tanakh) until the end of the 1st century C.E. (A.D.). Prior to that time there were a number of pieces of Hebrew literature with varying degrees of authority. The authority of this material, as well as the material itself, depended on the particular sect or community within Judaism.
Tribal traditions, collections of community laws, cultic and ritual laws, songs and hymns, oracles from priestly circles, utterances of the prophets, sayings attributed to wise sages, and chronicles of court events were gathered together and preserved. Not all of the materials recorded were related to the religious practices of the community, although much of it did concern their religious life. As national life stabilized and the "RELIGIOUS BELIEF SYSTEM" of the community developed, literary material of this kind was used in the religious rituals and woven into historical narratives telling the story of the community of Yahweh's people. Gradually, and most unconsciously, there emerged out of this body of literature certain writings which the community recognized as speaking with unique authority for their religious life. As such it was given a special designation and treated with a reverence not accorded to other writings in use among them.
In Israel the community came to recognize these words as God speaking to them. Once the words became an approved collection, this "collection" developed into the basic authority for Israel's "RELIGIOUS BELIEF SYSTEM." The books that make up the Bible did not comprise the whole literary production of ancient Israel. The Scriptures make mention of the existence of an extensive literature which is now lost! Let us look at some examples:
In the process of determining which books would be included in the canon we have a record of the disputes between the rabbis as to the validity of certain writings. Customs and traditions were used as one of several guidelines for including or excluding questionable books. Other criteria included the content of the book and the position of the writer within Jewish history. The Bible of the Jews considered of some twelve to twenty scrolls of different sizes and did not include the New Testament which did not exist at that time.
The Apostle Paul wrote, regarding the Old Testament, “Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Cor. 10:11). The use of the Old Testament Scriptures by the Christian Church has been the subject of some debate from the early church fathers up to the present day. The debate is primarily concerned with the question of what writings are truly in the canon of the Old Testament Scriptures. Yet for some Christians the “revealed truth” represented more than for others. Augustine is a fine example of this, as he “. . . regarded the church to be the custodian of Scripture and thus may easily have concluded that on matters of the extent of the canon the church had the authority to decide. . . Augustine seemed to consider church reception to be sufficient warrant for canonical authority; this he gave as the reason for accepting the Maccabean books as canonical” (Schultz, Samuel J. “Augustine and the Old Testament Canon,” Bibliotheca Sacra , Vol. 112 #447 -- July, 1955, 230, 232). Initially, it was not as if the canon itself was debated as much as it was looked at differently. Some held that the canon was extensive enough to encompass all the books read in the church for edification, which would include the Apocrypha and sometimes the Pseudipigrapha (anonymous apocalyptic writings). Others held that the canon was simply that of the Jewish Bible, representing also the Protestant Bibles of today (Roger Beckwith, The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985, p. 2). It was not until the age of the Reformation that the debate began to rage. In 1546 when the Council of Trent made a formal statement that all not accepting the selected Apocryphal writings should be damned, the Protestants retorted with an equally resolute voice. If there are disputes about what is Scripture, the validity of faith itself is greatly at stake. For as Beckwith puts it so well, “. . . with no canon there is no Bible" (Roger Beckwith, The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985, p. 5).
Contrary to common belief, there was never a one-time, truly universal decision as to which books should be included in the Christian Bible. It took over a century of the proliferation of numerous writings before anyone even bothered to start picking and choosing, and then it was largely a cumulative, individual and happenstance event, guided by chance and prejudice more than objective and scholarly research, until priests and academics began pronouncing what was authoritative and holy, and even they were not unanimous. Every church had its favored books, and since there was nothing like a clearly-defined orthodoxy regarding Christian Scripture until the 4th century. The truth of the matter is that before the 4th century there were in fact many simultaneous literary traditions of Scripture. The illusion that it was otherwise is created by the fact that the church that came out on top simply preserved texts in its favor and destroyed or let vanish opposing documents. Hence what we call "orthodoxy" is simply "the church that won."
Astonishingly, the story isn't even that simple: for the Catholic church centered in Rome never had any extensive control over the Eastern churches, which were in turn divided even among themselves, with Ethiopian and Coptic and Syrian and Byzantine and Armenian canons all riding side-by-side with each other and with the Western Catholic canon, which itself was never perfectly settled until the 15th century at the earliest, although it was essentially established by the middle of the 4th century. Indeed, the current Catholic Bible is largely accepted as canonical from fatigue: the details are so ancient and convoluted that it is easier to simply accept an ancient and enduring tradition than to bother actually questioning its merit. This is further secured by the fact that the long habit of time has dictated the status of the texts: favored books have been more scrupulously preserved and survive in more copies than unfavored books, such that even if some unfavored books should happen to be earlier and more authoritative, in many cases we are no longer able to reconstruct them with any accuracy. To make matters worse, we know of some very early books that simply did not survive at all (the most astonishing example is Paul's earlier Epistle to the Colossians, cf. Col. 4:16, where the mentions the Epistle of Laodicia), and have recently discovered the very ancient fragments of others that we never knew existed, because no one had even mentioned them.
Most alarming for traditional Christian today is the fact that the Gospel of John shows the clearest similarity to later gnostic writing style in general, and parts of the gospel have a similar dream-like quality to the writing (compare the Gospel of Truth, and more especially the Trimorphic Protennoia). The opening verses of John, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" allude to Heraclitus and the Gnostic concept of the Logos (which translates as Word), a Divine presence. The themes of light and knowledge contrast with the themes of physical being and worldliness throughout the Gospel John which is so characteristic of Gnosticism and Hermeticism.
It has been suggested by scholars, such as Hyam Maccoby and Elaine Pagels - Professor of Religion at Princeton - as well as Timothy Freke, that Paul of Tarsus (the Christian Saint Paul) was a Gnostic believer who developed the early Christian church as a mystery religion with a Jewish flavor, and that elements of this church over time and centuries forgot or misunderstood the deeper mystical and hidden Spiritual mysteries and mystery elements; thereby largely abandoned its Jewish foundation, and took up a perverse literal interpretation of the text as well as the interpretation of "the Christ" as a solidary individual!
The argument for Paul being a gnostic relies heavily on arguments about the authorship of the Pauline Epistles. Though no where in the works of Saint Paul does he write that within God is both parallel energies or forces (positive/negative; or good/evil) and is thus the solution to the problem of evil as understood by mankind, which is at the very core of gnostic belief. The pastoral epistles (those to Timothy and Titus), are generally acknowledged as being clearly anti-gnostic, and the second Epistle to the Thessalonians clearly refutes certain gnostic interpretations of the first Epistle to the Thessalonians. Thus we find in the New Testament both a "Gnostic Paul" as well as a "anti-Gnostic Paul". Both cannot be right! Consequently, with the clearly anti-gnostic epistles being seen as later Roman forgeries and falsifications of the true beliefs of Paul and thereby discounted by a majority of scholars, those of Paul's writings which are more compatible with gnostic interpretations are also the only ones thought today to be the only genuine writings worthy to carry his name.
Answer for yourself: What should this mean to the traditional Christian? We should at all costs study to find our what the earliest Christian Gnostics believed about "the Christ" before this ancient religious and Spiritual idea was later "radially reinterpreted" and "mutilated" by Rome as it currently exists in the New Testament today. This alteration of the ancient understanding of "the Christ" can be found initially in the difference existing in the Christianized Old Testament rejected by Judaism today as well as its later "quotes" in the New Testament which cannot find textual validity when examined in the original Hebrew Scriptures. Here before is the enigma concerning which Bible is "correct" or the "more correct"; the Jewish or Christian Bible?
A few scholars have claimed that it was Irenaeus who was the forger of the earliest Christian Bible, and that he forged the documents to support his strongly anti-Gnostic views. With a Gnostic Paul, Paul's assertion that salvation is by faith alone must be interpreted as an assertion that salvation can only come about by achieving gnosis - that one can only achieve enlightenment by achieving enlightenment concerning his True Self and the indwelling Christ and Divine Mind within himself and not as an assertion that one must hold certain mental religious belief or dogmas of a certain religious system of beliefs to be saved as Rome has maintained now for over 1,800 years.
The continual growth of Gnostic followings throughout the second century so troubled the non-Gnostics that to refute it Irenaeus wrote a vast five-volume book (On the Detection and Overthrow of the So-Called Gnosis commonly referred to as Against Heresies). The significance of Paul's influence was sufficient for Irenaeus to consider it important to proclaim that Paul was never gnostic and never supported gnostic teachings, using the evidence of the later forged Pastoral epistles and the Gospel of John to support it. Despite Irenaeus' claims for Paul's non-gnosticism, Valentinus, the leader of a large faction of gnostics, claimed that Paul had initiated his own teacher Theudas into the Deeper Mysteries of Christianity, which revealed a secret gnostic doctrine of God and His Christ.
Answer for yourself: So what does all of this have to do with the cannon? Everything!
We have before us two developing and diverging branches of "Christianity" in early Christianity, a prior Gnostic Christianity (Metaphysical, Mystical, allegorical and symbolical interpretation of Sacred Texts) and a later Literal-Historical Interpretation of Roman Christianity's Sacred Texts (anti-Mystical and anti-Metaphysical interpretation of Sacred Texts) with a strong anti-Gnostic or anti-Allegorical interpretation of these same Sacred Texts. The question for us concerns "Which Bible" is the more correct and which better represents to us the intended understanding of God and His Christ for mankind. One thing is certain, these two different Bibles, the Jewish and the Christian Bible, as well as the Gnostic New Testament as well as the anti-Gnostic New Testament is of primary importance for any Christian let alone "truth-seeker".
The Christian Gnostics were a rather diverse group of early movements finding a basis often in Christianity or Judaism. These people did not refer to themselves as "Gnostics"; rather they called themselves "Christians" but the label of " Gnostics" was applied mostly by their opponents and modern scholars. The Christian Gnostic movement were strongly associated with mysticism, and the concept of gnosis, which refers to an intimately personal kind of knowledge. The Gnostic movements were centered around gnosis of the divine rather than faith (pistis) and therefore are often associated with mysticism. While Gnosticism proper was stamped out by Rome in the 4th and 5th centuries, the Albigensian and Cathar movements of the Middle Ages are often linked to it, which is rather questionable from a historical and philosophical perspective. Many Gnostic movements made extensive use of allegory and metaphor in their interpretation of Spiritual texts.
Another gnostic leader, and the most powerful, Marcion, was the first person to construct a formal New Testament Biblical canon, and in it he included only the Gospel of Luke (in a version that differs from the orthodoxically known text which we have today from Rome), the Epistles of Paul (except the Pastoral Epistles), and the Book of Acts, which primarily recounts the activities of Paul. He excluded all of the Jewish text of the Septuagint. If you have every studied the LXX, the Septuagint and its forgery of the Hebrew Scriptures which our websites detail in making a "god-man" out of a purely human "messa" or "messiah" then you understand why. The importance of Paul to Marcion's faction of gnosticism even led to one of the main anti-Marcion writers, Tertullian, going as far as to declare that Paul was the heretic's apostle. Marcion himself claimed to be the rightful heir of Paul's authority, and although clearly at odds with the position taken by later orthodoxy, it was certainly true that Marcion was, in his time, the leader of the seven communities to which Paul's epistles were earlier addressed. Though it is possible that Marcion's movement had converted the communities in question from literalism to Marcionism (allegorical interpretation of the Scriptures), it is significantly more plausible for him to have gained control had the communities already been gnostic when Paul was writing to them. Ultimately the church even ex-communicated these communities and the communities to which Paul's epistles were addressed since Rome feared the ancient Spiritual Mysteries as taught by Marcionism.
Early Christian narratives that supported the position which later became Roman orthodoxy also exhibit a distaste for Pauline Gnostic positions. The Book of Acts, which appears in the New Testament and mostly concentrates on Paul, contains what most biblical scholars view as veiled criticism of the Gnostic Paul. For example, by the criteria of Acts 1:21, Paul is undeserving of apostleship because he had neither been with Jesus during his lifetime nor seen the resurrected Jesus in the flesh, merely seeing him as a vision. Amongst biblical scholars, the prevailing Christian view is that Acts favors the Jewish Christian Jerusalem Church, in conflict with a Gentile Christian Paul, though advocates of the idea that Paul is gnostic often argue that it was Paul's gnosticism that later "literalizers" of the Christ in seen in the Book of Acts was criticizing.
From the beginning of modern biblical criticism with Ferdinand Christian Baur, it has been argued that the Pseudo-Clementines, texts that in early times were frequently regarded as part of Biblical canon, are a disguised and coded attack on the Gnostic Paul, fictionalizing him under the name of Simon Magus, in deliberate contrast to Simon Peter. All surviving references to Simon Magus in ancient literature present him in a decidedly negative and highly caricatured light, frequently portraying him as adhering to gnostic theology, and figures in the 2nd century early church, such as Irenaeus, referred to Simon Magus as being the source of all heresies. Thus the conclusion that Simon Magus is a polemical parody of someone, not a real figure in itself, is quite plausible. A clearer connection between Simon Magus and Paul can be found in Marcion's teachings. Marcion claimed he had obtained his teachings from Paul, while Irenaeus stated that Marcion's teacher was Simon Magus, a man whose existence Marcion never even mentions. In all likely hood Simon Magus is a code for the Gnostic Paul.
In 144, Marcion proposed a reform of Christianity for which the church leaders expelled him merely for suggesting: that the Old Testament was contradictory and barbaric and only the Gnostic Paul's teachings are true. Marcion struggled with origin of evil that comes from a loving God; a God not always portrayed so "Loving" in the Old Testament. Marcion, like all philosophers, tries to reconcile the existence of evil and good in the cosmos with the idea of only One God. Not wishing to lay evil at the feet of God Marcion proposes exactly what the ancient did. Marcion postulated that this One God had to emanate from Himself other "Elohim" or "gods" responsible for matter and inherent evil thereby protecting God's reputation as being "all loving". Ancient Egypt had done the same with the Ennead and Ogodod, Judaism the same with the Kabbalah. Moreover, Marcion rejected the idea that Jesus was a historical fleshy individual, rather that "the Christ" was incarnated within each child of God awaiting "birth" from the death imposed on them by their material incarnation and fleshly existence. This is nothing more than the reiteration of the secret teachings of all Sacred Books found in nation after nation. Once one get below the surface "literal" reading of the texts and discovers the hidden wisdom and gnosis of the higher mysteries than the beauty and depth of this allegorical interpretation of the ancient Scriptures and the Christian Bible becomes evident. Marion denounced the profane literal interpretation of the Old Testament and saw it at best as a pseudo-history that overemphasized the evil of God than the love of God. Such characterization of God as being vengeful and evil comes from, as we mentioned above, the evolution of mankind from a tribal and primitive understanding of Nature and the forces of the cosmos. But now, in the first century, such primitive ideas of God were seen to pale in comparison of higher revelations of this One God to mankind over the centuries when these oral traditions of God were first given to mankind by tribal mentalities. As mankind grew in character over the centuries and moved away from a savage mentality so did their understandings of God as being a loving God and not a vengeful God to be feared. Marcion saw the genius of the ancient higher mysteries and the ancient Wisdom Religions as taught by the Gnostic Paul. Rome would not for if they had tried to control mankind through love instead of fear and ignorance of the truth mankind would never had been able to be manipulated so thoroughly as history shows it was by the dogmas of Roman Catholicism. Fear of damnation and the Bishop coupled with ignorance has always been the most powerful tools of religion to control the masses.
Expelled as a Christian from Christianity, Marcion started his own church and was the first to clearly establish a canon, consisting of ten of the Epistles and one Gospel, which Tertullian decades later identified as the Gospel of Luke, though stripped of "unacceptable features" such as the nativity, Old Testament references, etc. Common to all of these items missing from the Lukian account used by Marcion are all the features contributing to a supposed literal & historical existence of a solitary Christ when "the Krst/Christ" was known to be incarnated in all of God's children' a Spiritual dogma which had been taught since ancient Egypt and even before to whole humanity.
Marcion's canon influenced the final canon of the Church. His prefaces to the letters of Paul that he thought authentic were even retained in several versions of the Latin Vulgate Bible, and many of his proposed emendations of these letters and the Gospel of Luke have turned up in numerous surviving manuscripts, showing that his legacy was intimately integrated at various levels throughout the surviving Church, affecting the transmission as well as the selection of the final canonical texts. Marcion, in 145 C.E., as mentioned earlier, created the first fixed canon of Scriptures and the First New Testament regarding "the Christ" which eliminated all of the Old Testament Scriptures and most of the writings of the early Jewish believers with the exception of Paul and a part of what would later be recognized and called Luke's Gospel. Several factions of Christianity went beyond Marcion's stance and retained the Tanakh and most of today's New Testament canon but added as many as fourteen additional writings. In northern Mesopotamia the early Messianic Community of Judaism (Christianity) included a Gospel of Thomas, since Thomas was the one who had brought the Gospel to that regions. Even after the canon officially closed in the later 4th century, new writing appeared that were considered "inspired" by those individual communities. Early printed editions of Bibles in the Armenian church contained a book entitles, "Third Corinthians."
The followers of the later Gnostic Valentinius systematically decoded the Epistles, claiming that most Christians made the mistake of reading the Epistles literally rather than allegorically. Valentinius understood the conflict between Jews and Gentiles in Romans to be a coded reference to the differences between:
The Valentian Gnostic argued that such codes were intrinsic in gnosticism, secrecy being important to ensuring proper progression to true inner understanding and Spiritual growth and evolution of Divinity within mankind. In 2 Corinthians, Paul states he had heard ineffable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter:
2 Cor 12:4 4 How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. (KJV)
2 Corinthians 12:4 supports the position that gnostic initiates supported with respect to the higher gnostic teachings. However, Paul does also suggest Gnosis puffeth up:
1 Cor 8:1 1 Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge (gnosis) puffeth up, but charity edifieth. (KJV)
Too often this passage is found with gnosis translated as "knowledge" that puffeth up, which appears to diminish support for gnosticism.
Let us focus for a second. I am sure by now you can imagine the "erratic practices" that developed over time from one group to the next as well as their various interpretative approaches to the Sacred Scriptures. Here we have the Jews, the Gnostic Christians, the anti-Gnostic Christians; both the Jews, the earliest Gnostic Christians, and the later anti-Gnostic Catholics and their daughter the anti-Gnostic Protestants which each relied upon a book, Bible for their religious dogmas.
Unique to all of this were the Gnostics which claimed not the Jewish Old Testament Scriptures for reasons elicited above but yet relied heavily upon the allegorical interpretation of Genesis and creation narratives. Christianity, both Catholic and Protestant, shared common Hebrew Scriptures that both agreed and disagreed with the Jewish Tanakh as well as a host of other New Testament texts; many of which again disagreed with the Hebrew original texts. Then let us not forget the texts common to both that were interpreted gnostically by some and anti-gnostically by others, allegorically by some and literally by others. In light of such a situation we must consider where unity could to be found if any with every community having their "own canon" and "authority" for their own beliefs actions, and often using "their canon" to correct the other communities.
Such inconsistencies were perceived as a big danger by the leaders of the young emerging Gentile Roman Church. This prompted these leaders to define what was "sacred" or "inspired", "accepted" or "rejected" as to the canon and what was to be included as well as excluded from the Bible. Finally, in the latter part of the 4th century the church's canon was closed. The last two books to be admitted were Hebrews and Revelation. Hundreds of Gospels were rejected by Rome that were in circulation in that day and time along with many other writings and in time they made their way to the fires of Rome.
Once the canon was "closed" by the Gentile leaders of the Christian church, the church was free to establish their doctrines and dogmas. Besides relying on the Scriptures, the Gentile leaders of the Christian community, particularly Irenaeus and Tertullian, did irreparable damage to "the faith" by relegating the Scriptures to "second place" in matters of doctrine and authority. Tertullian develop a universal antidote for all heresy in his argument which cuts off heretics at the outset. Tertullian denied every right of appeal to the Holy Scriptures on the grounds that the Holy Scriptures were entrusted to the church of Christ, and only in her (Gentile Christian Church) and by her can they be rightly understood. For your information this violates Scripture for in Romans 9:3 the apostle Paul states: "Who are Israelites (notice he did not say Christians); to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the services of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen."
Answer for yourself: Did you notice that Paul contradicts Tertullian by saying the Scriptures were given to Israel and from Israel would come the Scriptures teaching concerning covenants, law or commandments, services (worship), promises (again allusion to Scripture), and who has been established as the "authority" over all flesh by God....Israel! Are you aware of the 4 levels of Scriptural interpretation used by the Rabbis which are to be used to interpret any and all Sacred Scriptures no matter what? Are you aware that the "literal" reading and interpretation of these Sacred Scriptures were only for children and beginners and that when of "full age" the Sod or Mystical and Metaphysical interpretation of these Sacred Texts was the goal for each Soul? Most likely being raised in a Christian Church you are not.
Heb 5:11-14 11 Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. 12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. 13 For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. 14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. (KJV)
Here above is a veiled allusion and reference to the Kabbalah or the Ennead and Ogodod of ancient Egypt which teaches cosmology, the truth about "the Christ" mistakenly believed to be limited to but one person by the literalizers of the Sacred Scriptures, the true identity of man and his role in creation. It is in such study that one sees that all religions proceed from one source, and are given to different nations of the world from time to time according to their development. It is in such study that one sees why there are so many different forms of religion since mankind is separated from each others and therefore in different stages of growth and Spiritual development. Thus, there are many Sacred Books and in Christianity many different Bibles, some containing books that other branches of the same Christian tree centuries ago decided to cut off to others. It is one thing to have a Bible that is touted correct and inerrant but there is sadly no such thing since being handed down by the hands of finite mankind; many of which had unrighteous religious agendas which not only cut out important teachings of the ancients intended for the whole of mankind but altering the books contained in them at the same time before given to the nations. But that is only half of the problem. Along with this came a never before rigidly imposed "literal" and "historical" interpretation only of the texts; a severely limited hermeneutic that guarantees that one will live and die with such an interpretation never understanding correctly what this Sacred Book, our Bible, truly is teaching. The only salvation for such Bibles is the restored knowledge and gnosis of the ancient Spiritual Wisdom and mystery religions that the Gnostic Paul taught before such sacred teachings were butchered during the 2nd through the 5th century by Rome in the making and editing constantly of their Bible.
Tertullian, as well as Irenaeus, are perfect examples of men bent upon given mankind a radical reinterpretation of the ancient Spiritual Wisdom, today called "replacement" theology which is so violently contrary to the true interpretation of the ancient existing mysteries of Sacred Scripture found repeated and veiled by an imposed "literal" and "historical" interpretation of our Bibles. Let us not forget that the KJV version of the Bible says the exact opposite of what Tertullian and modern preachers preach today; namely, that authority was given in the Bible to Israel to teach and rightly interpret the Scriptures for the Gentiles! It is here in Judaism we see the growth of interpretation of all Sacred Scripture culminating in the Mystical and Sod interpretation of Scripture; an interpretation sadly lacking in Christianity today. In this proclamation by Tertullian, the the Church is the only interpreter of Scripture, he establishes a "false" succession of Gentile authority and mistakenly gives it to the Gentile community in hopes to protect them from sects of heretics; in particular referring the earlier Gnostic Christians and their Mystical and "non-literal" and "non-historical" interpretation of "the Christ". There is only one problem! The Jews and Gnostics were not the heretics, in fact, the Jews are the vehicle given to us, the Gentile church, by which we are to learn about the Jewish Scriptures (every book in your Old Testament Christian Bible was written by Jews and not one was written by a Gentile). Ironically, in supposedly protecting the Gentile church from error, Tertullian accomplished what he tried to prevent. We need only look to the over 2,000 different Protestant denominations present today, with over 2,000 different interpretations of the same Bible, and the lack of unity which abounds among them to discern that at least 1,999 have not rightly divided the Word of Truth. The reason; God gave the Jews as the interpreters of the Jewish Book called the Bible and not the Gentiles. What we must to is realize that Scriptural interpretation must be progressive; beginning only with a "literal" interpretation and progressing ultimately to a "Sod" or "Mystical" interpretation if we ever desire to have the ultimate truth concerning what we are to believe about God and His Christ. For me to say that a Baptist's interpretation of the Bible is just as valid and correct as the Jew's interpretation is no less ludicrous than saying that an Eskimo is just as valid interpreter of Judaism as the Rabbi. No wonder that the Jewish nation has rejected our Roman Christian "literalized" and "historicized" theology of Jesus for the last 1,900 years and will continue to do so forever.
At the end of the 15th century when, through the actions of Martin Luther, the Protestant Reformation was born. Luther understood that this "choke-hold" of Roman Catholic authority and interpretation of the Bible had to be wrestled from Rome. The mechanism for achieving this was the very Bible itself. Martin Luther simply removed the Catholic Church as the final authority and substituted his personal belief system and deleted the Apocrypha from the Catholic Bible. The effect of this was that he not only created a "new Bible," the Protestant Bible, but he provided a new standard for interpretation for the Bible. This was a step in the right direction but woefully inadequate as we shall see.
Answer for yourself: First of all, don't you think it strange that a Catholic priest create a Protestant Bible?
Luther not only deleted sacred books from the Bible, but sadly gave authority to the leaders of the newly emerging religious community and the people of God to interpret or misinterpret Scriptures for themselves as they pleased. For Luther, training and education in Scriptural analysis, both linguistical, historical, cultural, and political was not necessary according to Luther. Boy was he wrong and we suffer for this idea today. We call it the "priesthood of the believer" but when you truly understand it and see its awful fruit it a sad joke. The Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth. Really now! I know Christians that will tell me the same thing as Luther, that the Holy Spirit taught me...this...or that...yet they are 180 degrees opposite in their understanding between themselves on the matter from what the Bible clearly teaches; no matter which of the 4 levels of interpretation they use. Most absurdly they usually only use the "literal" or "historical" manner of interpretation and cannot even agree among themselves on this.
It never ceases to amaze me that Protestant Christians accept the New Testament given to them by the early anti-Semitic Catholic Church but refuse the doctrines that these same men teach. Let us take a moment to look at the doctrines taught by those who also gave us the New Testament. As you read as yourself this question:
Answer for yourself: Why do you accept their book but not their doctrines?
Answer for yourself: Can we trust the Holy Spirit to have led these early anti-Semitic Catholics into all truth, and should we trust their collection of writings called the New Testament when they, in many places, contradict Moses and Judaism?
We at Bet Emet cannot, and we offer no man apologies.
Answer for yourself: How can the Holy Spirit, the Christian Bible, teach of the same doctrine yet arrive at diametrically opposite conclusions (just look at the conflicting and contrasting 2,000 different denominations in Christianity today) and not be schizophrenic? Could our interpretation of the Scriptures we inherited be the culprit? Does there exist an ancient understanding of these same or similar Scriptures as found in various nations and Scared Books that held a common understanding among them? Do we have it in Christianity today and if not then why not?
History teaches us that five factors fueled the growth of the Protestant movement and paved the way for countless numbers of denominations, non-denominations, inter-denominations and cults in the 20th century:
Answer for yourself: What has history recorded for us concerning the last four hundred and fifty years since Martin Luther began his protest? Even before his death Luther was confronted by those who were protesting "his" belief system and within a few years the cycle was repeated over and over again.
We must be willing to go back behind Protestantism, Catholicism, and Rabbinic Judaism, back to the time period in which the concept of canon began to first take hold. We must be willing to go behind these religions and their canons as they exist today to find the ancient Spiritual ideas sacred to mankind for thousands of years which, for better or for worse, are but blurred distortions in the Sacred Scriptures which we have inherited today. We must be willing to go behind the inherited "literal" and "historical" interpretations of our Bibles today to uncover the hidden sacred Mystical and Metaphysical interpretations of our Scriptures as the ancients understood them since they gave them to the world in the first place. Be must begin with the "faith once given to the saints" and this is not just a reference to Judaism but to its forefathers the ancient Egyptians. Such a faith and truth regarding how to best approach and interpret our Sacred Scriptures today is best sought beginning with Judaism and tracing the origins for its dogmas and doctrines to their earliest origins. Having see the "radical reinterpretation" of almost all religious dogmas by 2nd century Roman Catholicism, the hope for find original truth is useless here. We must begin our study before these religious dogmas were "radically reinterpreted" by Rome; that is why Judaism is the place to begin and having done that then we only need to trace them backwards in religious history as well as follow their interpretations to its ultimate fount and source; that being ancient Egypt and it is here we find the "common" link and thread of interpretation running through thousands of years until Rome's 2nd century alteration of this ancient Sacred Wisdom.
In so doing you will find what I did; namely the founders of all world religions, the Givers of the Scriptures of the world, are all members of a mighty Brotherhood of Spiritual Teachers, who watch over and guide the nations. These Divine Men have charge of the body of teaching known as the Ancient Wisdom. When you study the different religions you will find that always much the same events are recorded for their Founders; they are often said to be "born of a virgin" in a cave or a dungeon; to be in danger of being slaughtered as infants; to be worshipped by wise men who recognize their divinity, and so on; and they are always represented as being tempted, and as undergoing great suffering on account of the sin and sorrow of the world. Not only that when you get beneath the different cultural representations and unique symbolisms particular to every culture and religion there lies a "commonality" in the esoteric interpretation of their religion that goes unnoticed by most when only viewing the exoteric and surface dissimilarities between them. Just because "symbols" are different from culture to culture and religion to religion does not mean that when you "crack" the esoteric understanding of these symbols that you will not find an astonishing similarity in all world religions and what they taught; that is until you come to the 2nd through the 5th century when this esoteric understanding of God and His cosmos and His interconnections with all that exists though "His Krst/Christ" was "literalized" and "historicized" and confined to but one solitary supposed person in the form of a supposed "literal" and "historical" Christ as the 3rd Logos. The Kingdom of Heaven is within each child of being being created in the image of this God but Rome saw fit to distance this Spiritual reality from mankind and limit such blessedness to but one solitary supposed person of their own creation; this creation of Rome being a "literalization" of a "Mystical" understanding of man's True Self as "the Christ". And yes, there are 3 Logi but that is a study for another day. Let me give you a hint such a study is connected to the principle expressed in the two different and conflicting creation stories in Genesis chapter 1 and chapter 2. Metaphysics is the key that unveils this secret and mystery to the sincere seeker of truth.
In closing, we have many Bible that share among them a common "pattern" that is to be understood and identified in our Sacred Scriptures and the common "literal" and "historical" understanding only of these Scriptures is devoid of such an understanding. Our task is not easy but yet not impossible. We must begin with our first feeble steps trying to understand that what was common to all canons and this cannot be done with only a superficial and primary "literal" and "historical" understanding of these pseudo-historical texts. To do this we must examine the culture of the people who gave us the Tanakh at first and go beneath the symbols which appear to separate Judaism from other world religions. Remember that beneath the exoteric interpretation of all Sacred Scripture and it apparent cultural and religious differences resides an undercurrent of esoteric interpretation that is similar if not identical shared by all world religions and Sacred Books. Yes, we can use our Bibles but we need knowledge concerning the integrity of our Bibles when compared with the Hebrew to begin with; then and only then can we then look at methods of interpretations. But our texts must be accurate and honestly interpreted from the Hebrew if we are even to try such such an endeavor. This is where we must begin; textual analysis before we even try to graduate to interpretative analysis. We can start by examining the words of our Bibles from the perspective of first the Jewish culture, within their own time period, and according to the original language they were spoken from. This means first of all a Jewish interpretation of the Bible and the Hebrew Texts from the Jewish Tanakh and not the later forgeries of them as they exist in our Christian Bibles. If our understanding of the Bible is different from the understanding we would have had in the first century then rest assured then we have the wrong understanding today no matter how we might interpret it. Arguing over interpretation is foolish if our texts are wrong in the first place. If the words of our Bible are interpreted in English, and they have different meanings when examined from the Jewish Scriptures and their interpretation of them, then we have the wrong meanings attached to these words today, regardless of what Webster says. Once we have this information we will be able to examine Judaic, Catholic, and Protestant belief systems and their interpretations of these Scriptures and in so doing note particularly the divergence and difference we find that should not be there. Only then can be assured we have "the" truth that is taken from our restored texts after they are compared to how they exist in the Hebrew Tanakh. The next step once we are assured of the accuracy of the texts is to learn their meaning using the 4 levels of Rabbinical exegesis of these "corrected" Christian texts since compared with their Hebrew originals. Having graduate to the Sol level of interpretation we see the highest Spiritual hidden mysteries of which we never dreamed. Only then are we ready for the last step in such study as we move beyond the 4 levels of Jewish interpretation of their own Scriptures and trace the Sod meaning back through history and connect the dots with the ancient Spiritual Wisdom and see for ourselves that truly there is nothing "new" under the Sun; that the ancients had this marvelous and breath-taking understanding of our Spiritual existence and True Self since the beginning of time. Only then can we for certain see the fallacy of such a rigorous and foolishness imposed "literal" and "historical" interpretation of our Bibles and its "Jesus Story".
When one is ready let me recommend astounding authors to help you in such a pursuit of Divine Truth like Alvin Kuhn, William Kingsland, Gerald Massey, and others.
