The Mystery Gospel of Mark

The term Pauline Christianity exists because of the daylight between the teachings of paul and the teachings of Christ.

 

I think he came to clear up things that man, the religious authority didnt understand. Like the idea that god could live in man and not be totally separate . And then he told the Jews how their salvation takes place which involves what it takes for this to happen. By inwardly seeking the kingdom knocking on inner doors and a rebirth of consciousness. m Blood sacrifice of animals or even his own killing had nothing to do with salvation. This was anathema to the religious authority. That it was rejected by the experts is obvious yet his apostles believed him or they would not have followed him. Even when it also would have gotten them killed by traditional Jewish beliefs . He brought a new understanding directly from god and most Jews rejected it except for the chosen few.

The messiah the Jews expected was a warrior. Christ did not meet that idea at all. So they had it wrong. If christ was only schooled by the traditions in the OT he would have been that warrior. But you got something else. ..a spiritual window cleaner that explained god accurately .

Judaism had been corrupted by man to his own ends. In telling people the truth he was rejected and killed. For it was different in key ways to tradition and understanding. What he taught was not a good fit with Judaism that was waiting for a warrior messiah. Instead of a messiah of Truth and love .

 

You can 'like to believe' what you will. There is no evidence that a Divine being exists. There are many religious books in different civilisations. And some have subjective evidence that alien beings actually exist. Many were treated as gods because they were beyond the understanding of ancient minds.There are some references in the Bible to these creatures. Have you ever read the RigVeda hymns? Long before Christianity 'gods' were believed to descend to the earth in unimaginable - to them - machines. This is from all across the world. Who are you to say they were wrong?

The messiah the Jews expected was a warrior. Christ did not meet that idea at all. So they had it wrong. If christ was only schooled by the traditions in the OT he would have been that warrior. But you got something else. ..a spiritual window cleaner that explained god accurately .

Again you assume that Jesus thought he was the Jewish Messiah. If we are to believe what he said he refused that idea in the Garden of Gethsemane when he told them to put up their swords, it was not his way. And the disciples fled. Why? Perhaps they suddenly realised that what the Jews had been looking for was not Jesus. Jesus did not speak against Rome and actually ascribed 'what is Caesars give to Caesar ........' 'My kingdom is not of this world'.
If Christianity were to accept that Jesus was simply a Jewish preacher, it would be finished. Christianity wants it that way. Jesus came to bring his people back to Yahweh.

And Judaism had not been corrupted. Pharisaism had been. The Sadducees still went by the Law of Moses and refused the Pharisaic 'oral traditions'.

 

I understand that - but WHAT teaching is different?

 

Thanks for that. I too wonder when it says the penalty for something is "death" yet
everyone is doing it. Even Jesus railed against an "adulterous generation" (what
would He say of OUR generation?) yet adultery was punishable with "death."
Same in Moses' time. Death penalties for everything - and everyone was doing it.
Same too I suspect with killing or driving out the Canaanites - they were dead or
gone, and still all there.
Truth be told, God said that if you don't drive out the Canaanite then you yourself
will become like a Canaanite. And this is spiritual language for warning you that
you must take out of your life the things that offend God - and the punishment, if
you don't, is that you will be left to be like the things you let stay within you.

 

I suggest you read Psalm 22 with an open mind.
Unlike his son Solomon, David was gifted with the vision/revelation of the Redeemer.
God did a work in David that He couldn't do in Solomon - and David's suffering, like
Job's suffering, gave him an insight into The One who would suffer and die for his
people (Daniel says the Messiah will be "cut off" along with Jerusalem and the temple,
but he won't die for Himself.)
My favorite prophecy is Jacob's blessing to Judah - he said in effect there will one day
be a Hebrew nation with a monarchy and law but it will only last until the Messiah comes.
How could he foresee that 2,000 years before Jesus?

 

I suspect the penalties cited in Mosaic Law - were not actually the penalties at the time. The strict laws were likely a function of an overzealous contributions from the Priestly source - written long after the time of Moses.

In Mosaic Law - if a few people are found worshiping other Gods - everyone in the city is to be killed. Obviously this didn't happen - as per Joshua's farewell speech - cited in the previous post.

Cleansing according to what we find in the OT - was - wipe everyone out - women, children babies - even livestock in some cases.

Back to the main idea here though - which is that that some of the passages in the Bible that we have today - have been changed from the original - in some cases - to the point where the meaning is completely lost.

In addition to passages referencing other Gods - another favorite is passages related to sex. In OT times - there was no prohibition against premarital sex - and a man cheating on his wife was not Adultery - only if she did

One passage I like from Proverbs is supposed to read " A man can hire a prostitute for the price of a loaf of bread - but Adultery will cost you your life".

Now to be fair - some bibles get it correct. Others - take the KJV for example - you can tell the scribes could not deal with the implication that going to a Prostitute is not a big deal - and so they substituted in gibberish.

"For by means of a harlot A man is reduced to a crust of bread; And an adulteress will prey upon his precious life"

 

The issue here is deeper - did Moses say this, and did Jesus say that?
If these men didn't say what the bible says then what's the point in even discussing it?
We are reading nothing more than a Pharisee's handbook.
I hold that, within reason, and bearing in mind translations, word of mouth etc that these
men said what they are written as saying.
Proof? None. But if you believe in God, and you believe the bible is God's word then
why would God allow man to tamper with His word that is meant for all generations?
In other words it's an article of faith.

 

Perhaps God does not tamper - period - who know's what God is thinking ? Perhaps there are many different experiments - going on in other worlds- other dimensions. The scientists sets up the initial conditions -and lets the experiment run its course.

One can believe in God - and not believe that every word of the bible is literally God's word - and thank God for that - it is a nasty book in many ways .. and good in others.

I will tell you one thing - asking a question we don't know the answer to (why would God allow man to Tamper) - does not prove that God does not allow tampering - there are numerous other possibilities .. such as the one given above. One of those possibilities is that there is a God but the Bible does not represent that God at all - rather the texts of some other religion do - or do not. We don't know.

There is another possibility - Perhaps the Godhead - the "Universal Consciousness" if you will - sends humanity messages of inspiration from time to time .. and perhaps some of those messages of inspiration are in the Bible - I certainly think so -

BUT - the idea that the entire Bible is inspired is a logical absurdity on so many levels - that it would require God to be some xenophobic genocidal God with the most petty and nasty of human characteristics - and my brain will not allow me to think that.. but hey .. perhaps your right .. and the entire Bible is inspired... I can't prove otherwise ... and I hope folks never try to use this argument because 1) it is logical fallacy on steroids 2) it is big time thought avoidance.

 

Yeah, good points.

You can believe God is "genocidal" and say
1 - there is no God because God cannot be genocidal
2 - God exists but I cannot love Him because he is genocidal.

The key word is "genocide"
And it was coined in WWII for the experience of the Jew.
And Jesus said the enemy would bring Jerusalem under siege,
and its inhabitants would fall by sword, even the children. And
the Jews would be taken into exile and captivity.
But one day they will return from nations that were their "graves."

So it's quite plausible to say what Jesus said came true. But is
Jesus "genocidal." ???
Maybe - consider the flood, the fall of the Canaanites, the exile
of the Jews, the pogroms-holocaust-crusaders-genocide of the
Jews etc.. And there's the wars the new Israel today must
fight, including Armageddon and war of Magog - and even the
promise of judgment and hell itself.

 

You are wandering to the edges of the page - Jesus did not order mass slaughter of towns - women children babies. Jesus did not make a rule stating "Children should not be punished for the sin's of their Parents" and then command humans "the chosen ones" to punish children for the sins of their parents - with death.

Nor did Jesus write Revelations - nor did he say all the things said in revelations - This was a vision - a dream someone had - many years after Christs death. Jesus did state the world would end in the generation he was speaking to - and we all know how that turned out.

Jesus talked about loving neighbor as self, Judge not lest you be judged, take log out of own eye before picking spec out of brothers, let ye who is without sin cast the first rock.

The above are all restatements of the Golden Rule - Jesus stressed this rule above all others .. sans "Love God" - but this is not in the category of how we treat others - how one gets through the pearly gates via works.

Not sure where on the spectrum you come from .. but Christianity has yet to agree on the salvation formulation. Protestants believe that "Faith Alone" does it .. The majority (Catholic and Orthodox) believe works is a component of salvation.

Jesus says .. Do unto others as you would have done to you - "This rule sums up the Law and the Prophets". Matt 7:12.

Rabbi Hillel - 110 BC - 10 AD - very famous Rabbi - if for nothing else than his age - said this when questioned on the Torah - "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn." Babylonian Talmud - Shabbat 31a.

So perhaps the echo of the Universal consciousness - be it through Jesus or this Rabbi - is trying to tell us something.
If you want more echo's .. Confucius, Buddha, Hammurabi's law code - also stressed this rule.

That's all we need to get - the rest is just commentary.

If there is a God - and that God is trying to tell you something - perhaps this is it. Or perhaps you favor the genocidal maniac version.

Perhaps there is a reason why - in this experiment - you were given the ability to discern good from evil - right from wrong.

My suggestion is this rule is a good place to start - and end

 

Luke 21
“When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea
flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city. For this is the time of punishment
in fulfillment of all that has been written. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! There will
be great distress in the land and wrath against this people. They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations.
Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled."

Punishment;
fulfillment;
dreadful.. for pregnant women and nursing mothers;
great distress;
wrath;
fall by the sword;
taken
prisoners to all nations;
trampled on by the Gentiles

Luke died ca AD 66. The Christians in that land fled. Many got out of Jerusalem when there was one brief moment of escape because
they remember what Jesus said. And this prophecy was fulfilled only in the 1960's when Jerusalem was again back in Jewish hands.

And there's actually a few verses in the Old Testament where God challenges His people on these points - am I evil because of what
I have done to my own creation? I don't "favor" anything - I just fear.

 

Prophetic scenes from what is to come ? who knows. This on a different page.

 

With the Jewish nation we are witness to prophecy that is now nearly fulfilled.
Yes, the temple, city and nation will be destroyed
Yes, there will be exile, slavery and death
Yes, there will be a return when the Gentiles time is finished.
... and the rest is yet to happen.
hope I am not around when the Magog war in Ezekiel 38,39 happens.

 

If that is the case than this would make the US the great whore of Babylon.

 

And I suggest you study outside the Bible.There's no evidence that Judah ever existed. In fact, there is no evidence for anything before the era of the Kings of Israel. The story was written during the Babylonian exile to give the Jews an origin. They had no recorded history before the indigenous tribes united to throw out the Egyptians from Palestine. The story in the Bible is a reverse of what actually happened. Archaeology shows that.. Would any sane leader rescue his people from their enemy and lead them straight back into enemies territory. The Egyptians ruled Palestine. The Armana Letters show the Egyptian rulers in Palestine pleading with Pharaoh to send troops to deal with the rebellion. He couldn't, and the tribes won. The Bible tells us that the supposedly invading Jews overthrew 3 cities but one was already in ruins.. Archaeology shows that the tribes overthrew many more cities at the time. Jericho was supposedly overthrown. It certainly was destroyed around that period, but as it is in an earthquake area and had been destroyed in the same way more than once, it's hardly surprising. The latest earthquake for Jericho was in 1926 where damage was caused for miles around. The story is a good one but not based on fact.

David was gifted with a vision/revelation? Just another Christian interpretation. David was a tribal king nearly 1000 years before Jesus. You're stretching credulity,beyond belief. Prophecies were for the time - not 1000 years in the future. If I prophesied that in the year 2900 an asteroid would destroy the earth, would you even care? It's beyond affecting you by 900 years. And no-one would even remember 900 years later.

'Daniel' is a story based on an early Hero, The 'lions' were not animals, but enemies of the king living in the Palace. In a Neo-Assyrian letter from an ousted court official named Urad-Gula to King Ashurbanipal, Urad-Gula asks for financial assistance and, in the course of this request, describes the royal court metaphorically as a den or pit of lions First half of Daniel is a series of folktales. The second half was written as history and is a summary of the Maccabean Kingdom.

 

Until recently people would say, "There's no evidence there was a King David."
Abusing science, they would infer King David never existed, on the basis of science.
But absence of evidence is not evidence for absence.
And now we have evidence for King David. But those who said there's no such
king are not in a hurry to say they were wrong. And those who lost their Christian
faith because of such erroneous statements are in no hurry to return.
I wonder what a post Christian world will look like? I saw a hint a few years ago
when some Australian schools started remedial courses for 5-7 year old boys to
teach them that girls are not sex objects.

 

Jacob's prophecy was doubly strange - he spoke of a Hebrew nation, not a nation of slaves.
And a monarchy of kings of Judah. And these kings would be protectors of the law. And all
this would end with the Messiah.
Daniel said the Romans would come into Israel like a flood, and the prince (Titus, son of
emperor Vespasian) would destroy Israel, Jerusalem, the temple and even the Messiah.
That jarred with Jewish notions of the Messiah as conquering king.
David saw the Messiah upon the cross. Isaiah saw him in His suffering like a lamb to the
slaughter. Zechariah saw the Jewish nation mourning to see their Messiah King is the
same Messiah who they crucified.
Napoleon was amazed to see Jews in frozen Russia mourning the loss of their temple
in sub-tropical Palestine. They were still Jews after 1800 years, and surely, he said, they
would one day get their temple back. "Next year in Jerusalem" was sung for nearly 2,000
years - and it happened, despite the ridicule of the intelligentsia.
So yes, when you read of the rising tide of anti-Semitism in the Western nations, just
recall what I write here - Ezekiel says the Jews will return to Israel a second time, and
they will be there, "all of them."

 

I suspect that Ezekiel 38 and 39 is speaking of America. It names the nations
that come again Israel but does not know the name of Israel's ally - other than
to say it's across the ocean, or on the islands or coastlands.

 

One would need to understand words, language, and how they function both in the brain and in society. There is little evidence of this understanding being present generally.

 

And obviously there's a lot of that problem right here.

 

I really think you need to get up to date.

A few years ago the invasion of Palestine by the Hebrews must have taken place because of the destruction of Ai and Jericho. Well, Ai had been desolate for centuries and the city of Jericho was subject to destruction by earthquakes. Recent discoveries show that the Palestinian indigenous tribes took over from the Egyptians. The Bible says that Jacob and his sons went to Egypt. Then we are supposed to believe descendants of each of these sons left Egypt. What a pity neither Matthew or Luke have any information on the descendants to include them in their genealogical lists. 400+ years of nothingness. 400+ years of zilch from Jewish history and Egyptian history.

Daniel said the Romans would come into Israel like a flood. And they did. The Roman general Pompey entered Israel at the request of one side in a civil war. (Brief) With that war won they never left. Long before the invasion of Titus etc. The second half of the book was written during the Maccabean period. It is a history book.

You've been well indoctrinated. Shame that you will never know the real truth to be found outside the Bible.

 

No-one knows when Luke died.

 

Connecting visions from different sources - there are some issues here but, OK .. this is often done with Daniel as well. Going back to Revelation - and the description of the whore of Babylon -

Revelations 13

The symbol of Britain - last world economic empire - the hierarchy of who still exist - and who run the USA - along with other big money interests .. is the Lion. The Bear is Russia - not sure about the leopard - Afghanistan/Pakistan

The Dragon - China - is standing on the shore - has authority over the beast. The people worship them both - "Who can wage war against the beast". The conglomeration of interests (sans the leopard) can be made to fit well into the historical past up to recent times.

What if the passage were read - The Dragon cedes authority to the Beast - a very defensible position IMO - China has in essence ceded authority to the West - the sleeping giant slept for a long time - posed no threat to the interests of the Western consortia of old money.

China is then standing on the shore - watching - while the beast arises -

Russia was once part of the European Royal Class - and has old money ties. The people worship both. Obviously true for the worship of the big money interests in the West. The rise of China - in recent times - was due to huge amounts of capital pouring into that nation - and it is now worshiped - in the same way as the beast.

Who can wage war against the Beast ?

Dead ringer for the Consortia - of which the USA is the symbol. At one point the whole world was fixated on the "American Dream" - and an empire like no other we were/ are w/respect to the consortia.

Revelations 18

Again describing the consortia and the great empire that has fallen .. Notice again how the economic aspect is stressed.. and how when this perspective is added the story makes a whole lot more sense.

America outsourced all its manufacturing - few things are "Made in USA" - these nations committing adultery with the whore.

This is an allusion to the whole economic system .. which is part of the Beast - and it is describing a fallen empire - fitting present day history quite well. It also alludes to a general economic collapse - which is likely coming to a theater near us soon .. or it may have already happened/is happening .... with 2008 crash and subsequent financial crisis .. which has led to pressure to come up with an alternative to the US system of international payments.

Recent Tariff wars - and Trump using the "Nuclear option" - economic warfare on other nations by threatening if they do not worship the unilateral Iran sanctions - their Banks and Corporations will be blocked out of the international system of payments.

The Nations of the world have revolted against the whore .. and are working hard to set up an alternative.

The day that a viable alternative to the US system of international payments exists - is the day the History books will record as the defacto end of the US economic empire .. Full Stop.

Rev 13 .. cont

Out of this chaos a new beast arises - and is capable of all kinds of wonders. The technology revolution might fit.
All those who refuse to worship the first beast are killed - an allusion to those who go against the economic system - go against the consortia - the word killed may be better expressed as "destroyed"

The beast is currently waging this war - against the nations that do not conform - Syria, Libya, certainly had a rough go of it lately - both events triggered by economic issues. Iran is another story. Russia and China are feeling the pressure to worship the Beast - to conform.

Once again the story hearkens back to economic issues - the inability to buy or sell goods anonymously.

This is a dangerous dangerous power to give the State .. under any circumstances - forget all this Revelations stuff. Electronic purchases allow any individual to be tracked - along with our phones and cars. Alexa, our computer, and smart TV can watch and listen to us.

We worship this technology - put our trust in it - and we trust that the folks in high places will not abuse this trust.

 

So called prophecies can be made to mean anything the 'interpreter' wants. There are no Prophecies in Daniel. The first part is a collective of folk tales containing too many details which are contrary to historical facts and cultural mistakes for the supposed events of the time. and the second part is the History of the Maccabean period. Written at the time. Daniel is not, and never was, part of the Ne'evin (Prophets) but of the Ketuvim (Writings) in the Tanakh. Simply because it was written in the 2nd century.

Why would any god make a prophecy when it can mean anything anyone wants it too? The Essenes had their own book of Revelation, using the same OT Scriptures as the Biblical author. They use Mother Earth as their subject instead of Jesus.