God Hates You, Hate Him Back: Making Sense of The Bible (35 page)

Nothing like the threat of shit smeared on your face to maintain your faith in the Almighty!

God via his prophet Malachi also forewarns of judgment day, with typical verve:

This is the juncture of the Bible whereby Christianity continues and Judaism ends, and thus the reason why Jews refer to the Old Testament as the Hebrew Bible.

Whilst Christianity’s central tenets are found in the New Testament, its foundations are built on Old Testament lore and prophecy. This is especially obvious when we find a multitude of examples whereby Christians (after Christ’s death) desperately and crudely hacked together scripture in an effort to support Old Testament premonitions, with the objective of adding credence to the sparse claims of Christ’s divinity.

At the time of the writings of the New Testament, the Israelites, or Jews as we will now call them, were living under Roman domination and just like the fictitious times of Moses and Egypt, the Jews were desperate for a savior; a Messiah to carry them into a new age. A Son of God, in human form, that would bring the believers and obedient servants to salvation out from under the hardships inflicted on them by the Romans. Although, for the most part, Jews and Romans coexisted in harmony.

This national eagerness for a Messiah, or deliverer, resulted in the countryside becoming literally littered
with opportunistic silver-tongues, all proclaiming themselves as the new prophet of God. If you can recall Monty Python’s
Life of Brian
you get a clear picture of what I am trying to describe. Hundreds of loony eccentric Jews, perched atop their ‘soapbox’ whilst preaching idiotic gibberish and arguing they had a direct line to God. After all, without television or radio, the ancient celebrities were those that could convince others they were on speaking terms with the gods, this ensuring their fame, fortune or both.

Christianity never began as a sweeping movement, and for more than three centuries after the alleged date of the crucifixion, those that labelled themselves ‘Christian’ were a modest minority. How modest? Well, it is accepted by biblical scholars and ancient historians that in 300 AD there were less than fifty thousand Christians living under the Roman Empire, a tiny number, especially when compared to the more than five million Jews. And in Rome itself, the birthplace of the Church of Christianity, Mr. Lambert, author of
Beloved and God,
estimates that in 100 AD less than ten percent of the city’s population were Jews and less than ten percent of those Jews were Christians. Thus, it is evident that not only did the church of Christianity originate from humble beginnings, but it also highlights that the life of Jesus Christ, if he were actually a real person, was not adequately remarkable to generate a fan base outside of a fringe following with their own motives, fears or desires we will never truly know.

In fact, we know nothing of Jesus’ life outside of his four official biographers - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John - except for some hardly flattering accounts from the writers of the Gnostic gospels, that were hand-picked as omissions due to their lack of divinical ‘spin’. There is absolutely no external independent eyewitness evidence to support or corroborate the stories of the gospels, nor any external historical records, journals or documents that even confirm the existence of Jesus. Mind you, this period was not absent of historians. Nor was Jerusalem absent of well publicized historians. Take, for instance, Philo-Judaeus and Justus of Tiberius, both historians and both living in or near Jerusalem during Jesus’ alleged lifetime, but neither utters a single word about this character we know so well today. By comparison, consider that similarly proclaimed people of the same era as Jesus Christ, such as Aesop, Plato, Julius Caesar. We, we have hundreds and thousands of impartial eyewitness accounts. For Jesus, however, a man whose pagan-mythological-inspired life has undoubtedly caused the needless suffering of tens, possibly hundreds, of millions of people throughout the centuries, we have no writings outside of this book, albeit for the aforementioned handful of Gnostic gospels that were excluded from the Bible, as an arbitrary decision, in 320 AD, because they did not support the claim that Jesus was anything more than a normal, everyday, human dude.

Of the gospels that are written as Jesus’ biographies, they were written 40-100 years after his supposed death. Thus, not only was nothing written of Jesus whilst he was alive but Jesus himself wrote not a single piece of prose. The claimed Son of God didn’t even have it in him to write a book let alone distribute a brochure. These facts must cause you deep concern if you are still holding on to the myth of Christ. Put simply, at the commencement of the second century, an overwhelming majority of citizens of the Roman Empire had never heard of Jesus let alone Christianity. The Romans and Jews believed the tenets of the Christian story, virgin birth, walking on water, crucified as a criminal and resurrection to be so bizarre that instead of hauling this minority sect of wackos to the lunatic asylum they used them for gladiator sports in the Coliseum, where they were pitted, with no protective wear or weapons, against lions and bears.

This invariably leads to defenders of Christianity adopting the argument that if Jesus were not true, then how did it come about that 2,000 years later his story is still so widely followed and believed? So, how did the original band of Christian brothers that existed only as a weird fringe group for three centuries successfully make Christianity the dominant religion of the western world? The answer to that question does not come from the authors of the New Testament, nor from any of Jesus’ disciples. You can, however, credit Christianity’s success to one man, The Roman Emperor Constantine.

The ancient Romans were pagan worshippers. They had gods for a myriad of elements and things. God of the Sun, God of the Ocean, God of Agriculture, etc. The turning point for Christianity’s fortunes occurred at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312 AD. According to legend, it was during the heat of battle, a battle the Emperor’s troops were losing, that Constantine had his alleged epiphany. The story has it that Constantine looked skywards and before the sun he saw a cross of light above it with the Greek words “
Εν
Τουτω
Νικα
” translated into English meaning “by this, conquer!” Constantine commanded his troops to adorn their shields with the Christian symbol; presumably the cross and thereafter they conquered their enemy. From this point forth, Constantine became a believer of the obscure religion and the rest, as they say, is history. Although historians believe his conversion was primarily aimed at restoring Empire unity, as the Roman dream was showing signs of tearing apart at the seams by the fourth century. Seeing an opportunity to rally the people around one god rather than dozens also provided an opening to institutionalize religion and he knew if he could achieve that then he could control it, and if you can control it you can tax it.

In 313 AD Constantine endorsed the Edict of Milan, which declared religious tolerance for Christians, thus putting an end to them being fed to the lions. This edict basically cleared any obstacles for Constantine to profit from his new enterprising venture.

In my conversations with Christians, it is apparent, especially amongst the born again ‘happy clapper’ denominations, that many reject the horrors of the Old Testament and thus stake their claim on the puritanical merits of Jesus. However, if Jesus were a real person, and I’m far from convinced that he was, then he was not the soft and cuddly long-haired, meek and mild evangelist that we have been sold into believing through our church leaders, television and religious propagandists. Jesus introduces us to the wickedness and morally disgusting idea of eternal suffering and torture. Consider that as barbaric as the Old Testament is, at least when you died, your suffering was over. Jesus comes along, however, and tells us that we will be burnt perpetually for millions and billions of years in a place called Hell, if we don’t follow his lead. What a wicked doctrine to scare children with. What an evil concept to motivate people to do what he believes is morally right out of nothing but naked fear alone.

If Jesus were as morally pure as his followers attest, then why did he not denounce the immorality of slavery? Jesus speaks repeatedly about having slaves but never says anything that would suggest he at least questioned the righteousness of it. Furthermore, it always seemed odd to me that Jesus healed a blind man, but didn’t cure blindness. What is so super-human of a man who heals only those that he comes in direct contact with in a small patch of the Middle East, but does nothing to heal any suffering of mankind. Additionally, he was completely unconcerned by the suffering of non-Jews, this no more evident in the Book of Matthew in which Jesus presents himself as a racist bigot.

As you read the fabricated life of Jesus Christ, bear in mind that the story of his time is not even an original tale. The ancient world is littered with similar fictitious biographies and often with blatant plagiarism on behalf of the Gospels. Ultimately, the story of Jesus is a lazy attempt to offer itself as a unique piece of literature. Consider the following stories of gods that preceded the Jesus era:

Horus: Sun God of Egypt, born on December 25th of the virgin Isis-Meri. Had 12 disciples he travelled about with, performing miracles such as healing the sick and walking on water. After being betrayed by Typhon, Horus was crucified, buried for 3 days and resurrected.

Attis of Phyrigia: Born of the virgin Nana on December 25th, crucified, placed in a tomb and after 3 days, was resurrected.

Krishna of India: Born of the virgin Devaki with a star in the east signalling his coming, performed miracles with his disciples and upon his death was resurrected.

Dionysus of Greece: Born of a virgin on December 25th, was a travelling teacher who performed miracles such as turning water into wine.

Mithra of Persia: Born of a virgin on December 25th, he had 12 disciples and performed miracles and upon his death was buried for 3 days and later resurrected.

Important Note

The first four books of the New Testament are the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Better known as the gospels. As mentioned earlier, these are the biographies of Jesus. For a summary of these first four books I will deviate from the path taken thus far of dissecting each book separately on its own merit, as these four books appear to tell exactly the same story when read individually, or vertically. However, to highlight the contradictions and inconsistencies of the competing biographers I believe it more effective to read them side by side or horizontally. Therefore, the next four chapters of the Bible will read as one.

Of the four Gospels it is only Matthew and Luke that go to the trouble of listing all of Jesus’ descendents.

According to Matthew, Jesus is the descendent of Abraham and thus Jesus’ lineage travels all the way from Isaac to Jacob. Remember Jacob, the shyster that duped his father and brother to become the father of Israel, in Genesis? Does this not mean that Jesus is the descendent of a fraudulent huckster?

Anyway, the lineage of Jesus carries through the long line of kings of Israel such as David, Solomon, Rehoboam, Ahaz and Hezekiah. This is an obvious attempt by Matthew to show that Jesus is true Israelite blue blood, citing his father Joseph as the son of Jacob in this great Hebrew family tree which includes fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile in Babylon and fourteen from the exile to Jesus. All nice round numbers! However, there is only one major flaw to this opening stanza, that being that the family lineage was only documented on the father’s side in biblical and Hebrew records. Therefore, how could Jesus possibly be a descendent of Abraham et al if he was born of a virgin?

Further compounding the coming story of Jesus is that Matthew has already stated that Jesus is the son of Joseph. A transparent attempt by early Christians to convince the Jews that
their
man was ‘the’ man, but in doing so, they dropped the ball in order to maintain a consistent story.

Luke further compounds the myth by writing that:

So, is Heli or Jacob Jesus’ grandfather? More importantly, Luke has made the claim in black and white that Jesus is the son of Joseph. Additionally, Luke goes to the effort to show that Jesus’ parentage runs right back through to Noah, then to Adam and then God.

Matthew sets the scene for the immaculate conception in a somewhat idiotic fashion as he claims that at the time of Mary’s discovered pregnancy Joseph was only ‘pledged’ or engaged to be married to her, but before they had ever engaged in sexual congress with one another she informed Joseph that she was carrying a child. Joseph was livid assuming that she must have snuck over the neighbor’s fence to get it on with Jesse and in his rage Matthew claims that Joseph wanted to file for divorce. Divorce? But he had said they were only “pledged to be married”. Time for God to step in and sort this mess out and he does so by sending down one of his angels, who appears to Joseph in a dream: