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!

With all the different views presented in the various Gospels and Sayings we have looked at so far it makes sense to try to find out how many in total actually came from Jesus.

We do not know exactly how the texts in the bible were chosen but we do know that whatever happened occurred principally in the middle of the second century up until 325 C.E. when the First Ecumenical Council of Nicea was convened by Emperor Constantine.

He established the Nicene Creed as the fundamental statement of Christian doctrine........................

In his book “The Silence of Jesus,” James Breech takes an in-depth and impartial view of the words that have been attributed to “Christ,” and compared these with the words that composed the core material said by the historical “Jesus.” (See previous chapter!)

According to Breech, all the thoughts attributed to Jesus, a collection of eight sayings and eleven parables, can definitely be followed back to (Q) and do not have the taint of something said by “Christ.”

Modern day scholars would agree that these sayings, at least, are authentic.

They are remarkably free of the language and concepts of the early Christian movement, and show a purity of thought and concept, that upon close examination, reveals a simplicity and universal message not constrained by time or culture.

To truly understand the sayings that were uttered by the historical Jesus, we must keep an open mind and not make assumptions, or at least keep them to a minimum.

To do otherwise would be to fall into the same trap that ensnared the early “Christians.”

They created a body of work that first collected, then glossed over and distorted the sayings of Jesus to provide a basis for their own teachings.

One of the most basic assumptions that Breech examines is the concept of Christian “love” that forms the basis of most of the teachings of Jesus.

Let me explain:

** The foundation of Christian ideology revolves around “Love” for one and another.

To understand this we need to define exactly how the term or meaning of “Love” is used when compared to (the small L) love!!

In the first instance, there is the true “Love,” which means it is rooted in the power of the kingdom of God.

This is the “Love” that the historical Jesus preached to his followers.

The second type of Christian “love” (small L) is defined solely as an ethical idea that was propagated by the spreading Christian faith in trying to define the words of Christ.

Nietzsche probably best defined this form of Christian ‘love’ as a masked feeling of pity or charity.

In other words, we feel sorry for others and from this superior moral ground, we lend a helping hand.

Nietzsche claims that Christian ‘pity’ (love) is a device used by those who are not themselves truly vital and alive to obtain a perverse elevation of their own position by undermining others.

In other words, “I can make myself feel better by thinking you or someone else is worse-off and deserving of love.”

We often confuse the feeling of Christian “love” for someone with:

1. Pity for them.

2. Humanitarianism-or a love of Mankind.

3. Altruism, or self denial, and:

4. Sentimentalism, or wanting to be with others.

** These concepts of “love” have been re-enforced over and over again through one story or another.

What Jesus actually said was something more basic and infinitely harder to achieve.

The historical Jesus did not urge us to love humankind or to feel pity for someone else. He did not tell us to deny ourselves for someone else’s sake, or flagellate ourselves, or even to enjoy another’s company!

What He did say was pure and simple and straight to the point, “Love one another!”

This sort of Love is not the altruistic love of humanity, nor the possessive love for our mate, but rather something that requires hard work, tenacity, and sacrifice.

It is easy to love your wife or husband, child or parent, but to Love your neighbor (or stranger) is a task that is never ending and always requires effort.

It is a Love that seems to have no immediate benefit and is therefore not practiced by many people.

However, in the end, this is what will make Humanity rise up to it is potential and approach what Jesus referred to as the “Kingdom of God.” (The Father)

This is not something that is to be expected in the near, or far, future. Rather, it was a state of being that is present at this time, and only has to be observed and followed in order to achieve a state of Grace.

One of the core sayings of Jesus was “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, nor will they say ‘Lo, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ For behold, that kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”

Jesus tells us quite clearly that the “Kingdom of God” is not a coming kingdom, or a future kingdom, but rather something already in and amongst his disciples. It is not a place, but rather a state of mind!

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 5 - Timelines)

Chapter 5 – TIMELINE
You cannot tell who, or where you are, unless you know how you got there!

100,000 B.C.E. – Although highly speculative, it is thought that this is about the time when humans first attained all the traits (Including consciousness) that we see in people today!
90,000 B.C.E. - Early Gravettian man competes with Neanderthals for space and game in regions of Southern Europe centered on the hills of Southern France.
50,000 B.C.E. - Early men reach the Pacific Islands and Australia. Ice cover in Northern and Southern Hemispheres at their maximum.
30,000 B.C.E. - First ancient artwork found in Dordogne, Southern France. (Other than cave paintings) Clay figurines representing a Fertility goddess. Invention of the bow and arrow.
10,000 B.C.E. - Neolithic Age: Glaciers retreating, warmer climate develops in California, S W Australia, Chile, SW Africa and then deserts in sub-tropic regions.
8000 B.C.E. - World population 5 million. Copper age, silkworm cultivation in China. - Plants domesticated and first pottery in China and Japan.
7000 B.C.E. -Walls of Jericho erected. - The area that is now central Turkey sees the beginning of Indo-European language—the mother tongue of all modern European languages.
6000 B.C.E. -Wheel invented and chickens domesticated.
5500 B.C.E. - With the melting of the polar ice caps and a gigantic shift-and-melting of the ice fields in northern Canada, world ocean levels rise dramatically. •The The Greenland Ice cap melts and the Mediterranean Sea breaks through at the location of modern Istanbul (Bosporus) to flood what is now the Black Sea. It floods the basin fast enough to wipe out entire villages and towns giving rise to the world flood legends. Evidence of the old shoreline still there under hundreds of metres of water.
5000 B.C.E. - Earliest small cities. - Horses domesticated. (Modern horses not native to North America - introduced by the Spanish)
3761 B.C.E. - (Year of Creation) October 7 - Year 1, Jewish calendar.

HUMANITY FIRST STARTS TO BECOME A CIVILIZED SOCIETY!

3600 B.C.E. - Troy founded. - Beginning of Sumerian Culture in the Tigris-Euphrates river basin and first crude writing. The Sumerians (Aryans) make use of many agricultural advances, such as domestic animals to pull plows, irrigation of the land, drained marshlands and more. - A large, cosmopolitan civilization appears.
- The increased output of food allows for the further development of a “leisure class” which does not have to work for food, allowing them to become priests, artist, merchants, scholars, etc. - The Sumerians also develop oar-powered ships, animal-drawn wheeled chariots, and other, similar vehicles. - Bronze objects and written cuneiform alphabet begun.
3500-3000 B.C.E. - Man’s earliest civilizations developed in Mesopotamia and Egypt. -The Indus Valley followed soon afterwards and later a farming population emerged along the Yellow River in China.
3000-2800 B.C.E. - World population 100M. (Increased twenty-fold in five thousand years due to agriculture.) - The subsequent history of Eurasia became a contest between the superior military ability of the Nomads in the North, and the superior numbers of people made possible by farming in the South. - In the North, the wide grasslands of the steppes provided a feeding ground for the herds of the Nomads. The mobility of the warlike Nomads provided them with an advantage in any military confrontation with the richer farming communities further south. - Sea levels about at present levels after rising 1000’-1500’ with the melting of the polar ice caps. - Bering Straight, English Channel, low costal areas of the Mediterranean, large parts of Indonesia, and many other locations now under water. - Rising water levels may also have flooded some ancient coastal or island civilization to give rise to the “Atlantis” theory. (Such as the Mediterranean breaking through the Bosporus Straight and flooding what is now the Black Sea!)
2800 B.C.E. - Advances in Sumerian Cuneiform writing. - Agriculture in Peru. - Chinese alphabet and early Minoan pictographic writing.
2767 B.C.E. -Methuselah tree, oldest living thing. (Carbon dated!)
2637 B.C.E. -Year 1 of Chinese calendar.
2600 B.C.E. - Historical Gilgamesh? King of Uruk, Sumeria. (First and oldest person referred to in ancient literature, Epic of Gilgamesh; written c.1200 B.C.E.) - Fu Hsi, first Chinese King?
2550 B.C.E. - Old Egypt - Beginning of Pyramids and mummies
2400 B.C.E. - Harappan Civilization before Indo-European Invasions
2350 B.C.E. -Walls of Jericho fall.
2200 B.C.E. - Troy sacked. - Hsiao dynasty in China - Indo-European invaders come over and under Black Sea and enter the mainland of Greece. - Stonehenge built in Britain.
2000 B.C.E. - Rise of Babylon and Minoan Civilization on Crete.
1800? B.C.E. - Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.
1800 B.C.E (?) - Approximate date of historical Zoroaster (???) and beginning of cult of Zoroastrianism! (Date for Zarathustra could have been before this time, could be around this time or could be later - around 600-700 B.C. when his teachings finally became very widespread in Mesopotamia.) – He was a major influence on Cyrus the Great and so inadvertently saved the Jews. Zoroastrian dogma also a great influence on Judaism, Christianity and then - Islam!
1800-1700 B.C.E. -Vedic period. Aryan invasion of Indus Valley in India.
1750 B.C.E. -Founding of Hittite Empire
1750 B.C.E. - Mesopotamia/Babylon - Development of “Code of Laws.” - Hammurabi created his code of laws, which consists of 282 laws, in the year 1750 B.C.E. The code of laws encouraged people to accept the authority of a king, who was trying to give common rules to govern the subjects’ behavior. The actual laws range from public to private matters, with humane approaches to societal problems.
The code of laws applies to the entire Babylonian society. The penalties of the code varied according to the status of the victim. The law of retaliation protected the patricians, while the lower classes received only monetary compensation.
The purpose of the Code of Hammurabi was to use political power to create common bonds among the diverse people of the society. It greatly influenced a total dependence on the power of their one ruler, and it was a conscious effort to exalt the king as the source, the only source, of earthly powers.
It unified the empire by offering the standards for moral values, class structure, gender relationships, and religion. It was the most important of all Mesopotamian contributions to civilization.
1700 B.C.E. -Joseph in Egypt. - Cult of Yahweh (Jewish “God.”) - Beginning of Persian Empire! - The Mycenaean Civilization emerges.
1628 B.C.E. -Santorini Greece destroyed by volcano. (Legend of Atlantis?)
1595 B.C.E. -Babylon sacked for first time.
1500 B.CE. -Beginning of Iron Age. -Shang dynasty in China 1492 B.CE.
1470 B.C.E. - Minoan Civilization destroyed by volcanoes and earthquake. (Possible site of Atlantis!)
1450 B.C.E - Mycenaean civilization replaces Minoa after the destruction of Thera and Knossos. Dominates the Aegean world for 200 years.
1400 B.C.E. - Cult of Mithra starts some where between Persia and India. Based on, or even a part of Zoroaster’s ideology, it becomes a major player in the region until finally being driven into extinction in Rome by the fledgling Catholic Church.
1350 B.C.E. (?) - Ten Commandments given to Moses.- EXODUS out of Egypt – Parting of the Red Sea. Israelites refuse to enter Canaan and wander the desert for forty years. Etc.
1325 B.C.E. (?) - Tutankhamen assassinated. (3300 years later, King Tut-farewell tour - coming soon to a city near you!)
1300 B.C.E. For several generations the Hittites and Egyptians remained diplomatic and military rivals.
The great battle of Kadesh was fought between these superpowers around 1300 BC and was commemorated in Egypt by a great pictorial relief, an epic poem, and an official written record. Despite the heroics of Rameses II, the battle apparently was a draw.
After several decades of uneasy peace, the two powers signed a peace treaty and mutual defense pact, perhaps in response to growing Assyrian power to the east.
A copy of the treaty was inscribed on the walls of an Egyptian temple at Karnack where it can still be read today.
1284 B.C.E. - Troy Sacked again, one possible date for Homers Trojan War! Because of its strategic location, sacking Troy was a regional pastime for almost 1000 years!
1280? B.C.E. - The next eighty years were relatively peaceful and prosperous for the Hittites and much of the Middle East.
1200 B.C.E - The Hittite Empire was destroyed, leaving only the shell of a civilization that was overrun 500 years later by the Assyrian’s Collapse of Mediterranean trade world. ** This era, at times referred to as the “great catastrophe” saw a time when invaders finally learned how to overcome chariots in battle and many civilizations were overrun. - Joshua

- End of the Bronze Age.

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