Saturday Morning Confusion. # 5

Since this is Easter weekend, it's time to pick on the Christians.

I am confused as hell by all the religious nuts who would let themselves be nailed to a cross just because some guy was killed that way 2000 years ago.

Is the whole world nuts?

Here we go again with a story from the Philippines!

Philippine devotees re-enacted Jesus Christ's suffering Friday by having themselves nailed to crosses. (I do have to admit that the Catholic Church has matured somewhat because these rites are now frowned upon by church leaders in Asia's largest predominantly Roman Catholic nation.)

This means our current chump is a double-play winner of the "Looser of the Week" trophy" and also the "Asshole of the day" award.

Fernando Mamangon, 37, was among the first of some 30 men scheduled to go through the Good Friday rites in three villages in northern Pampanga province's San Fernando city.

Five other devotees, including a woman, were nailed to crosses in nearby Bulacan province. (What the hell, let's have a gang-hang and nominate all 30 of them for these awards. Come on folks, let's hear it for them!!!!!!)

It was Mamangon's 13th straight year for the rite, which penitents endure to fulfill a vow or pray for a cure for illnesses.

"I started having myself nailed to the cross in 1995 because my eldest son got sick and almost died," Mamangon, clad in a maroon robe with a crown of vines and thorns, said minutes before he was nailed to a wooden cross on a dusty mound in Santa Lucia village.

He said his eldest son was cured of complications from measles, but his 5-year-old son Alex still suffers from a stomach ailment.

On Wednesday, Archbishop Paciano B. Aniceto of San Fernando city urged devotees not to turn Holy Week into a "circus."

Aniceto said he has been telling penitents "to take time to thank God for the blessings and never use their devotion for tourism purposes."

The yearly tradition has become a tourist attraction, especially in San Fernando's San Pedro Cutud village, which sometimes draws thousands of local and foreign tourists.

Aside from the cross nailing, scores of men pound their bleeding bare backs with bamboo sticks dangling from ropes in a flagellation rite meant to atone for sins.

Aniceto lamented that a surge of vendors and tourists has injected too much commercialism into Holy Week celebrations.

But Mamangon vowed to continue with the practice handed down by his late father, who was nailed to the cross 15 times.

"After being nailed to the cross, I feel so refreshed, like all my sins are washed away," Mamangon said. "I will continue this until my son Alex is cured."

Ain't faith grand?

(On a side note; I am really glad that Christ wasn't crucified in the twentieth century. Otherwise we would all be walking around with little, wee electric chairs hanging on a chain around our neck!)

NOW! We are going to take a test to see just how good a Christian some of you folks are......!

Answer these questions as truthfully as possible.

(By the way, these are the only things you need to get into the "Church of Allan!")

1. Trying to keep the Ten Commandments.
2. Gifts to charity
3. Doing your best.
4. Living a good life.
5. Good works.
6. Trying to obey the Golden Rule.
7. Giving money to the church. (VERY IMPORTANT!)
8. Being Ecologically responsible.
9. Confirmation.
10. Prayers.

OK, how many did you get? 5? 7? All 10?

DON'T MATTER, YOU'RE SCREWED UNLESS YOU FOLLOW THE CHURCH RULES;

You don't have to do a God Damned thing except believe what the Christian Church feeds you.

"NO! None of these things can save you stupid! You can do nothing to earn eternal life.

It is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ alone that can save you.

The way to have eternal life is not found in what we do ourselves, but by having a perfect righteousness given to us.

We receive this when we believe the Lord Jesus Christ took our sins on Himself and paid for them by His death on the cross."

So there you have it boys and girls, you don't have to do ANYTHING!

It's a no fuss, no bother religion that fits in with our easy living lifestyle.

Screw up your life all you want because you can go to church on Sunday and have it all forgiven so that you can go out Monday morning and do it all over again.

If Jesus knew what his teachings have been turned into he would spin in his grave!

(And for all this we can thank Paul, because he is the actual originator of Christianity and just used Jesus as a stage prop!)

Your "Let's put things back into perspective here!" scribe;
Allan W Janssen

Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available at the web site www.God-101.com

Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://God-101.blogspot.com

The Chuch of Allan - The Plain Truth About God

A serialization of the book, The Plain Truth About God.

Chapter 11. “THE JESUS TAPES”

As we have discussed, the way we have come to know the historical Jesus is through the gospels, and as we now know, these Gospels were written relatively late in the dawning of Christianity.

As mentioned in the previous chapter, the reason for the time lag before the biographies were written was that early Christians felt no need for a biography or collection of his sayings.

This was because his followers considered the event of “The Christ” or “Anointed One” was the immediate prelude to the end of the world and final judgment of humanity.

Paul of Tarsus, in his epistles, wrote that his generation would see the apocalypse.

This was because Jesus of Nazareth claimed that the people around him would still be alive for the end days. Since there was no future, there was also no need to record any of these events for posterity.

These early Christians were more concerned with preparing themselves for the expected apocalypse and for spreading what they saw as the truth of Christianity to as many people as possible before the anticipated “End Time.”

(On a side note here, I still vividly recall when I was twelve years old in 1960; our next-door neighbor told me that the world would end on a specific date that year. She was just like any “end of the world” adherent, still trying after 2000 years to experience the rapture, and all she managed to do was scare the crap out of a young kid - me!)

At the same time these apocalyptic stories and sayings were circulating around the Christian world, another set of stories about Jesus were also being created by Paul.

When Paul of Tarsus had his vision, underwent an epiphany, and converted to Christianity, he did so with such energy and creativity that it soon made him the most prominent leader of the new movement.

In fact, Paul was so instrumental in spreading Christianity that the movement became the world religion it is today almost solely on his account.

Unlike Jesus of Nazareth, Paul’s role in the founding of Christianity is clear. The narrative of his career was collected within a few short years of his death so that, unlike Jesus, many of the writings were preserved.

Therefore, we can be definite in ascribing certain ideas and doctrines to Paul, while there is much dispute over what genuinely belongs to Jesus in the accounts of his career.

Different from the other followers of Christianity in those early years, Paul was not a native of Palestine. As a citizen of Tarsus, he was officially a citizen of Rome and was raised in a Greek culture and fluent in Greek.

Because of this, it was only natural that he would take the side of the Hellenists in the dispute over the direction of the Church.

Paul orientated towards the Greek world, and because of this, his innovations in the new religion left it a substantially different one than the material he started out with.

Where Jesus and many of his followers seemed to consider their beliefs as a “religion of the Jews,” Paul, in the debate between the Hebrews and the Hellenists, re-cast Christianity as a universal religion for all peoples.

Paul had to do a lot of juggling with the new religion because of the debate between the Hebrews and the Hellenists about the refusal of the Hellenists Christians to abide by Jewish law.

It was, after all, a foreign law to them.

The main sticking point in the dispute was the Jewish rule of diet and the act of circumcision, neither of which the non-Jewish Christians wanted to adopt.

This made the Jewish Christians consider the Greek Christians unclean!

Paul had an epiphany and came up with the novel idea that Jewish Law was worthless in gaining salvation since the sacrifice of Christ on the cross was what really mattered.

He relied on the Greek and Roman legal concept on the difference between the spirit and the letter of the Law.

He argued that even though the non-Jewish adherent had broken the letter of the Law about diet and circumcision, they had not broken the law in terms of the spirit or intent.

This outright rejection of the Jewish Law was an unheard of precedent since it allowed Christianity, which did not have many Jewish followers anyway, to spread rapidly amongst the Gentile population of the Roman World.

It should also be noted that “Jewish” Christianity was mainly restricted to rural adherents while Paul promoted “Gentile” Christianity amongst the towns and cities in the region.

(Jewish Christianity for the country hicks and Gentile Christianity for the sophisticated townsfolk!)

This led to a rapid rise in non-Jewish adherents and widened the schism between the two.

Despite his efforts to make Christianity a populous religion, some of Paul’s prejudices show themselves in remarkable ways that have caused us trouble for the last 2000 years!

While Jesus strongly focused on women and the status of women, Paul was an old reactionary misogynist.

He was against both Jesus’ radicalism towards women and the Greek liberality that allowed women a stronger voice in the community than was allowed among the Jews.

Do not forget that in the Middle East, then as now, women were culturally treated as no better than chattel and have suffered for it at the hands of men for many millennia.

Paul demanded that women be silent in church and in matters of theology.

Jesus had worked hard to erase these injustices but in the end old habits and cultural prejudices won out.

It was the same with the matter of slavery.

Jesus had nothing to say about slavery but Paul seemed to have approved of it.

While he demands that slaves obey their masters, he also understands the contradiction of one Christian owning another as a slave so he waffles.

(While he does not demand that slave-owners give up their slaves, he does say it would be the Christian thing to do.)

One of the most contentious issues from the works of Paul is the subject of the resurrection.

St. Paul, along with St. Clement of Alexandria after him (115-215 C.E.) took the allegorical / spiritual approach to the scriptures and would have been shocked to see the way today’s “Christianity” often distorts the original reality.

Paul is quoted in 1st Corinthians 15 as saying that Jesus’ resurrection, and by default our own, was categorically and supremely a “spiritual” event!

According to Tom Harper, amongst others, Paul quotes the tradition handed down to him on how various people “saw” the risen Lord as “one born out of due time.”

This was a technical term, widely used in the popular Mystery Religions of the time, to denote a paranormal, psychic vision.

Obviously, he was not talking about ordinary physical sightings at all!

When you move on to verse 35 he discusses and answers the obviously legitimate question, “How are the dead raised up?”

His argument, after all is said and done, is basically that what goes into the ground at death is definitely not what moves on to the dimension of eternal life or the life of the “age to come.”

What goes into the grave is corporeal, physical, and eminently corruptible.

What comes out is immortal, spiritual, and certainly non-corporeal. On the other hand, as the old Egyptians said: “The body to earth, the soul to heaven!”

Paul’s most emphatic statement on this was when he said; “Now this I say…flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption…we shall all be changed!”

This also helps explain why he was not immediately recognized when he appeared after the crucifixion.

*****When you’re dead, you’re dead! The body is gone but the spirit goes on!

Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available at the web site www.God-101.com

Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://God-101.blogspot.com

The Chuch of Allan - The Plain Truth About God

A serialization of the book, The Plain Truth About God.

Chapter 11. “THE JESUS TAPES”

Here we have, after decades and even centuries of research, what can be defined as the core sayings of Jesus.

These sayings -at least- can be directly attributed to Jesus.

Researchers have considered many variables to gain an insight into what Jesus actually said to his disciples and followers. All of the sayings had to have the ring of authenticity of having originally come from the historical Jesus.

They also had to be in character with Jesus and not something that was obviously added later by one of his “Christian” followers.

In other words, it had to be historically appropriate rather than something that was obviously a product of early Christianity or borrowed from the contemporary world! (His or Ours)

It was also helpful to have it confirmed by being included in two or more Gospels.

1.**-“The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Lo, here it is!’ or ‘There! ‘For behold, the kingdom of God (Father) is in the midst of you.” (Luke 17:20)

2.**-“From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of God (Father) has suffered violence, and men of violence take it by force.” (Matt 11:12; cf., Luke 16:16.)

3.**-“But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places and calling to their playmates, ‘we piped to you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; I came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” (Matt11:16-19; Luke 7:31-34)

4.**-“Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God (Father) like a child shall not enter it!” (Mark 10:15 = Luke 18:17)

5.**-“If it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God
(Father) has come to you!” (Luke 11:20)

6.**-“No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom
of God (Father).” (Luke 9:62)

7.**-“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God (Father)!” (Mark 10:25 = Matt 19:24 = Luke 18:25)

8.**-“Father. Hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us what we owe those whom we have injured. As we ourselves forgive what is owing from those who have injured us. Put us not to the test!” (Luke 11:2-4 Matt 6:9-10)

There is one other saying attributed to Jesus but not one of the core sayings because it was widely used in antiquity and is know from both pagan and Jewish sources - but the thrust of it coheres with the meaning of Jesus’ core sayings.

**“The gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter it are many”! “The gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those that find it are few.” (Mat 7:13-14: cf., Luke 13:24)

This saying, whether a core saying or not, is in the tradition of a neutral observer of the human condition. An observer who notices that most people lead lives that end in destruction. (As well as quiet desperation)

Only a few “find” the way to life, a way that involves hardship, and presumably, courage. The saying, if authentic, promises to those who choose to enter the realm of the power of God nothing more than life itself!

A life in the here and now, that if properly lived, opens the door to whatever may come after!

There are no transcendental promises, no rewards, or punishments.

It is an eloquent expression of the fulfillment or destruction of human existence.
It depends entirely on the mode of being human that one chooses.

“Hell” then would be the wasting of human existence, and “Heaven” would be life fulfilled!

This sounds very interesting from an Eastern viewpoint, since, as we speculated before, there are hints that Jesus was exposed to Hinduism and other eastern philosophies.

It also relates to a belief among North American Indians that the way to live is to be in the “Now.”

That is, life is meant to be lived moment by moment in the present, not wondering abut what is to come, or remorse about what has happened.

We are rather to fully experience, and if possible, enjoy life, from one moment to the next.

****To be fully human there is nothing more or less than to live “now.”

*THE ELEVEN PARABLES OF JESUS ACCORDING TO “Q”

1.-The Sower. - “The kingdom of heaven can be compared to a man who sowed good seed. Some fell on the path and did not grow, some fell amongst thorns and were choked, and some fell on good ground and increased a hundredfold.”
** -This tells us that in a ministry not everyone will be converted. Those that do multiply!

2.-The Mustard Seed. “The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of seeds, but grows to be the greatest of all shrubs, giving shade to the birds of the air.”
** -In spreading the word of a ministry, it may start out small indeed, but has the potential to grow beyond all bounds.

3.-The Leaven. “There was a woman who took leaven, and hid it in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened.”
**-In a ministry, scatter or hide the faithful amongst the masses and they will eventually “leaven” the rest.

4.-The Hidden Treasure. There was a man who found treasure hidden in a field, which he covered up; he then went and sold all that he had and bought that field.
**-The kingdom of God is like a treasure hidden in a field. If you find it, give all you have to posses it!

5.-The Lost Sheep. “The Kingdom of God is like a shepherd who has one hundred sheep. If one goes astray he will leave the other 99 to seek the one.”
**-Everyone is important. If 99 are safe, go after the one who wandered.

6.-The Lost Coin. “What woman, having ten silver coins, if she looses one coin, does she not light a lamp and sweep until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends to rejoice with her. Likewise when God finds one sinner who repents, there is joy in heaven.”
**-God rejoices in finding a sinner who repents and comes back into the fold.

7.-The Unjust Steward. (servant) There was a rich man who had a steward. He said to him, “what is this I hear about you?” “You are no longer able to steward!” The man then went to his master’s debtors one by one and said, “Write down half of what you owe (1/2, 4/5, ¾ etc.) so that they might be ingratiated to him in the future when he no longer was a steward.”
**-This parable is about trust.

8.-The Great Supper. There was a man who once gave a dinner and invited guests. At the time of the dinner, he sent his servants to call those who had been invited. They all made excuses why they could not come so the master said; “Go outside to the streets and bring back the first people you meet.”
**-Share your bounty with those who appreciate it.

9.-The Laborers in the Vineyard. A man went into the town market at dawn and hired men for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them one (1) denarius for the days work. He went back at mid morning and hired more and again in the early afternoon and hired more. All for one denarius per day. When we wanted to pay them at suppertime, the ones who had been there since early morning complained, saying: “We worked many more hours for the same pay as those that started in the afternoon and it’s not fair.” The man said: “Of course it’s fair, you agreed to work for a denarius, and how I pay my money is my business!”
**-Life is not fair!

10.-The Prodigal Son. A son asked his father for an early share of his inheritance and then went out into the world. He did not do well and thought: “Even my father’s servants are better off than me. I will go back to my father and ask to be treated as one of the servants so that I may at least eat.” While he was still some distance off, his father saw him and came running saying: “Bring a robe for my son and kill a fated calf for him, for my son was dead but now he is alive and returned to me!”
** - What we have done is in the past. A father will always love his son.

11.-The Good Samaritan. A man fell amongst robbers who beat him and departed, leaving him half-dead. Several men who passed him walked to the other side of the road until a Samaritan stopped and helped him. He dressed his wounds and then took him to an Inn. As he left he said to the Innkeeper: “Here are two denarii’s, give him what he needs till he is better!”
** -Two lessons here! First, it is our responsibility to look after each other. Secondly, the Samaritans were considered outcasts at the time, so the lesson was also do not judge a person by what he is, rather by what he does!

Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available at the web site www.God-101.com

Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://God-101.blogspot.com

The Chuch of Allan - The Plain Truth About God

A serialization of the book, The Plain Truth About God.

Chapter 10. - Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up!

To quote James Breech once more: “Your concept of the kingdom of God, whether it belongs to the future mythological conceived, in either eschatological or apocalyptic terms, misses the reality of the kingdom.

The symbolism really refers to a power that is a basic factor in human experience!”

In the teachings attributed to Jesus, it is abundantly clear that he was an apocalyptic teacher who believed that the world would end within the lifetime of the people to which he was speaking.

The foundation of these teachings was that human beings could be saved by both believing his word and by modeling their lives on the higher moral law of God.
That higher moral law was the foundation of Jewish law.

To this end, he believed that Pharisaical teaching were an appropriate guide to following this higher moral law.

His criticism of the Pharisees was that they did not live by what they taught.

In line with this higher moral law, Jesus of Nazareth preached an ethics of selfless concern for the welfare of others, rejection of material wealth, and non-retribution, all of which were standard in Jewish ethics.

The religion that he taught was an intensely individual religion. Righteousness, which means the performance of right actions, was not a quality of actions but rather a quality of the interior state of the individual.

There is also abundant evidence in the Gospels that Jesus considered his teachings to be for Jews only.

This is a curious tradition to maintain in the face of the massive spread of Christianity into the Gentile world.

However, nowhere does Jesus of Nazareth construe his teachings or the religion he is espousing as anything other than for Jews and in one place explicitly says that his mission is only to the Jews.

Ultimately, the Jesus who emerges from the gospels is concerned with preparing the Jews for the last event in history.

The Christian religion was at first, obviously, a Jewish religion. It was a movement amongst the population in the immediate area of the land Jesus lived in.

Its message aimed directly at a Jewish audience by Jews.

However, with the advent of the Prophet Paul the message changed and was geared towards a Gentile population that was eager for the “word” as well.

Onto this template, Paul of Tarsus would add a new emphasis Jesus as a dead and risen God co-extensive with God.

This developed into two branches, which we could call a Jewish Christian and a Pauline (Gentile) Christian.

They not only lived side by side, but also competed for the same converts.

It was not until the Romans suppressed an uprising by the Jews in c A.D. 66-74 and again A.D. 132-135 that led to the destruction of Massada that the Pauline Christians gradually won out.

They became the defenders of the faith while the Jewish Christians were left by the wayside.

(Actually in the ashes of Massada!)

Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available at the web site www.God-101.com

Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://God-101.blogspot.com

The Church of Allan - The Plain Truth About God

A serialization of the book, The Plain Truth About God.

Chapter 9. ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS .

There has been much debate on why there are no early records of the sayings of Jesus.

It would be natural to assume that they would be preserved and handed down to us, and this would normally be the case, but remember the early Christians felt no need for either a biography of Jesus or a collection of his sayings.

They believed that the “Christ” event in history was the immediate prelude to the end of the world and final judgment of humankind.

Paul, in his epistles, wrote that the present generation, his own, would see the apocalypse.

In the Synoptic gospels, Jesus of Nazareth also claimed that the people around him would still be alive for the “Last Days.”

Anticipating the immediate end of the world at any moment, the early Christians felt no obligation to record the life or sayings of Jesus.

There was, after all, no future anticipated for this material.

These early Christians were more concerned with preparing themselves for the expected apocalypse and for spreading the truth of Christianity to as many people as possible before the end of history.

As a result, the life and sayings of Jesus circulated in an oral form through Christian teachers and public speakers.

This oral material included stories and sayings attributed to Jesus, but they did not exist in any systematic, organized, or universal form.

Teachers and speakers alike would use these sayings and stories to emphasize the particular occasion or subject. In other words, a public speaker would use a saying attributed to Jesus as an occasion to lecture or discuss some aspect of Christianity or morality with his audience.

What the speaker talked about largely determined what the speaker chose to remember about the life and sayings of Jesus.

The very first thing that needed to be accounted for was the death and resurrection of Jesus. The history of Jesus’ death (The Passion) and the resurrection are probably the oldest of the stories surrounding Jesus.

The early Christians, however, needed more than the Passion and the Resurrection to legitimize Christ as having Divine status.

Therefore, the early Hebrew teachers of Christianity turned to the prophetic and messianic tradition of Judaism and began to develop proofs of Christ’s divinity by aligning events in Jesus’ life with older prophecies.

This process also included configuring the humbly born Jesus of Nazareth to a descendant of King David through his father, Joseph, since the messianic prophecies were clear that the Messiah would come from the line of David.

This legitimizing process continued when the religion entered the Greek world.

The Greeks associated divinity with miraculous stories and miraculous birth. From here came the idea that Jesus of Nazareth was born of a virgin…….. even though the virgin birth of Jesus contradicted the placement of Jesus as a descendant of David through Joseph.

We also, dare I say it, have a major problem with the physical resurrection of Jesus.

This we will discuss further when we have a look at St. Paul.

The Gospels, in spite of being a “product of their time,” and open to various revisions and alterations during their telling and eventual documentation, still came from a recognizable and firm historical reality.

This was a time of rebellion, political unrest, civil disobedience, and social discontent. It was also a time of religious questioning, and hopes and dreams for the arrival of a new King.

It was a time where the anticipation of the arrival of a new Messiah reaches a fever pitch verging on mass hysteria.

It was a time where the political freedoms of Judea were brutally extinguished by the two wars of A.D. 66-74 and again A.D. 132-135 that led to the destruction of Massada.

The Gospels were the first attempts in early Christianity to come up with a coherent picture of the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.

During and after this time there was a wholesale destruction of written records and documents, including, no doubt, the first few gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and even John.

The earliest of these documents, Mark, seems to have been actually composed during the revolt of 66-74 or shortly after.

Although not one of Jesus’ original disciples, Mark (whoever he was) was a disciple of Paul and his Gospel bears an affinity to Pauline thought.

Mark is the shortest of the Gospels and shows the greatest familiarity with Jewish life and thought.

The later gospels, however, show increasingly less familiarity with the Jewish context of Jesus’ life and mission until we come to the last gospel whose author is totally uninterested in that context.

All of the authors of the gospels show some unfamiliarity with Palestinian geography which indicates that they were written by non-Palestinians, either Jewish or Greek.

Mark seemed to be a native of Jerusalem, and as Clement of Alexandria stated many years later, the document (as well as Paul’s epistles) was composed in Rome, and addressed to a Greek-Roman Audience.

Judea and Galilee had recently been in open revolt against Rome. Thousands of Jews were being crucified for their rebellion against the state, just as Jesus had.

If Mark wanted his Gospel to survive and impress a Roman Audience, he could not possibly present Jesus as being politically oriented, let alone anti-Roman!

In order to ensure the survival of his message, he would have to exonerate the Romans of all guilt for Jesus’ death and blame the “death of the Messiah” on certain Jews who were against his teachings because Jesus challenged the existing power structure.

This was the start of the myth that the Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus.

About a decade later, the authors of Matthew expanded Mark’s gospel, this time also using “Q” and other traditional material.

Five to ten years after this, the author of Luke-Acts (a two-volume work produced by the same person) also published his own revised and expanded version of Mark, again using “Q” and even more traditions about Jesus.

As Christian teachers moved into different communities, it had a couple of results.
First, they would find need for different parts of the tradition for different circumstances.

Second, the long period of oral transmission and the decentralized way in which the stories and sayings were distributed indicate that many of these were distorted, or even made up whole-cloth, to suit particular needs.

This has led some scholars to assert that, even if there was a historical Jesus, his life and teachings are permanently lost to history.

In spite of this, there is a remarkable consistency to the teachings and actions of Jesus of Nazareth. (Except those contained in John)

This lends tremendous credence to the Christian belief that the fact of a historical Jesus is not only proven, but that he is the Jesus of the Gospels.

Therefore, it would be a fair bet to assume that Jesus was an actual historical figure who had great influence on his peers and times. As for his teachings, they have to be looked at not only by what he said, but also by what his actions portrayed.

There is much truth to the saying “Actions speak louder than words!”

The truth probably lies somewhere between the scholarly belief in the unreliability of the gospels and the Christian belief in them as an infallible, literal portrait of Jesus.

Most Christians would say that their religion is based on the teachings of Jesus, in words divinely inspired to men who wrote the New Testament.

But, the first books of the New Testament all came from one man, Paul of Tarsus.

The books were later rearranged to take some of the emphasis off Paul, but it is impossible to deny that he was the primary architect of what would become Christianity.

Paul of Tarsus, or Saint Paul, is the person most responsible for the spread of Christianity. Without Paul, Christianity may have well died as an obscure apocalyptic Jewish sect.

Paul wrote up to about half of the New Testament. His influence on the bible is hard to discount.

Many Christians will tell you that his words were God inspired, so it doesn’t matter who actually penned them, or when.

If that is true, it doesn’t explain the myriad contradictions between the ideas of Paul and the rest of the bible.

Paul knew little of the actual life and history of Jesus, and most likely never met him. What mattered to Paul was the resurrected Christ and his soon to be expected return.

Paul was very apocalyptic and believed the return of Christ to be imminent, and preached so.

In his letters and writings that became part of the Christian New Testament, Paul put forth much of the doctrine followed by Christians today.

Paul had very stern things to say when it came to matters of home life, including husband wife relationships and sexuality. He wrote that a woman “may not teach or have authority over a man” although Jesus never said that.

He also railed against homosexuality, another subject not mentioned by Christ.
Paul may well have been the first popular Christian homophobe!

One of the most important differences in the teachings of Paul, as they differed from what other Christians at the time were teaching and learning, was the doctrine of salvation through grace.

Essentially, Paul taught that the lost are forgiven through the grace of God, not through any works.

This has come to be an excuse where individual Christians and Churches separate themselves from the teachings of Jesus.

Instead of living a life that helps others, Christians were able to free themselves from the heavy responsibilities for their brothers that Jesus taught, and instead put all the responsibility on Christ’s resurrection.

But, however you come down on Paul himself and how he related (or manufactured) Christian doctrine, his influence throughout the Mediterranean and the Mid-East cannot be denied.

He dedicated a good portion of his life to traveling throughout the area, converting Gentiles to Christianity.

Churches that he started grew until Christianity overtook the Pagan traditions and eventually led to their demise.

In spite of Christianities triumph over the unbelievers, remember a very important fact!

Jesus never personally claimed to be conducting his ministry to “erase man’s sins,” just as he never claimed to be Divine himself.

Jesus constantly referred to himself as the “son of God,”—just as we all are!

TOMORROW: Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up!

Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available at the web site www.God-101.com

Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://God-101.blogspot.com

Saturday Morning Confusion! Episode 9.

O.K. Enough with the cats! (For Now)


In the meantime the usual amount of stupid stuff has occurred to keep me amused and perplexed during the past week.

(And that's not even counting the "Asshole of the Week," who we will get to later!)

Got a story here about a smudge of driveway sealant resembling the face of Jesus Christ that has fetched more than US$1,500 in an online auction.

The family that found the image on its garage floor sold it for $1,525.69 on EBay Wednesday, more than a week after the slab of concrete was put on sale.

Deb Serio, a high school teacher, says her family has hired a contractor to remove the section of concrete. The chunk will be turned over to the winner, identified only as "islandoffthecoast."


Is this Christ, or just a very dirty driveway?

An active Lutheran, Serio considers the smudge just an odd occurrence - not a sign of a miracle, even though lots of people put a much greater significance to it.

(If these artifacts are so popular then I have to tell you that I took a shit this week that looks exactly like my next door neighbor Fred. Will let it go, [pardon the pun] for fifty bucks!)

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On a different note, it would seem to me that if I had a public relations problem of the same magnitude that Muslim's are starting to get in the West, one of the first things I would do is keep a low profile and try and fit in!

Are the Islamic Faithful trying to do this? NOOOOOOOOOO!

Religious tolerance in Britain is getting put to the test, following two attempted car bombings earlier this summer. All the suspects are Muslims.

A separate protest movement by young Muslim women only adds to increased tensions between many Britons and minority Muslims. It is an issue shrouded in controversy.

The niqab, Islam’s full-face veil, is surging in popularity among British Muslims. Many non-Muslims see it as a rejection of Western culture, others as a form of radicalism.

Christopher Doyle, from the Council of British-Arab Understanding, says it is neither. “Increasingly in communities, not just in Britain — in Europe, in the Middle East and elsewhere.

They feel that Islam is under threat and being demeaned, particularly in the West. They wear it to say, ‘I’m proud of being a Muslim.’

Mahjabeen Khan started wearing the niqab in university. She says more and more Muslim women are reaching for the veil. “Since the terror attacks in America and in the U.K., I think a lot of people have embraced wearing the hijab and the niqab because they are proud to say they are Muslims.”

And it is largely young women who are choosing to cover themselves, says veil vendor, Yasmin Salaam. “Such negativity that you get from a lot of people, for example the media, it does encourage a lot more unity amongst young people to actually do the opposite, to put the veil on and the niqab, and to actually make a statement.”

But not all Muslims support the trend. Author and poet Shusha Guppy says it sickens her. “I would like to go to those girls and say this is not a symbol of difference or identity, it is simply a symbol of oppression.

The generations of my mother fought with their lives to get rid of this dreadful symbol, and you want to put it back on voluntarily? It’s insane, it’s giving ammunition to the enemies of Islam.”

Another Muslim woman, Shah Rokh Hussein, agrees. She says the veil is not a symbol of her faith. “What I do disapprove of is sometimes very aggressive militant groups present it as something that is very much part of the religion of Islam, when it actually isn’t.”

By its very nature, Islam makes it extremely difficult for Muslims to integrate.

Islam means submission, and the Quran makes it clear that Muslims expect non-Muslims to submit to Islam.

Western values are not compatible with Islam. As a result, many Muslims form ghettos and engage in other forms of non-integration.

Hair-trigger sensitivities that have Muslim extremists respond to real or perceived insults with death threats, violent demonstrations, murder and terrorism, make it difficult or even impossible for non-Muslims to believe the claim that Islam is a ‘religion of peace.’

Therefore a high birthrate among Muslims, combined with high (legal and illegal) immigration figures, have Europeans and others worried about the Muslims in their midst.

Latest fiqures show almost a quarter of UK-based Muslims believe the July 7, 2005 terrorist bombings in London were justified

Research resources on Islam and on Islamic ExtremismBritain’s Office of National Statistics says there are about two million Muslims living in Britain, making Islam the country’s second-most popular faith.

The Muslim Council of Britain says the community has come under growing scrutiny since the 2005 London terrorist bombings and attempted terror attacks this summer in Glasgow and London.

British politicians have gone on the offensive.

As for the full face viel, the justice minister calls the niqab “a barrier to communication,” and former Prime Minister Tony Blair, “a mark of separation.”

In March, the government gave local school administrators the authority to ban students from wearing full-face Muslim veils.

The London think-tank Policy Exchange says an increasing number of Muslims see it as a statement, showing their opposition to government policies, particularly the war in Iraq.

The wide diversity of Muslim followers means the different sects of Islam often do not see eye to eye.

The Muslim Council of Britain says education and dialogue are needed to not only promote understanding between the various Islamic groups but also to repair relations with the non-Muslim community. And it says that until that happens, there will be suspicion on all sides.

Allan W Janssen is the author of The Plain Truth About God at www.God-101.com