Solving the Palestinian Problem

Everyone it seems, has an opinion about the “Palestinians” in Israel. Unfortunately, many of these opinions are coming from people who only heard about Palestinians the day before yesterday. And worse, much of what they have heard ranges, from misleading to down-right false.

In the interest of setting the record straight, this article will include some very important details of what has really transpired and has gotten us into the confusion we now face. The “facts’ as reported by Western news media are consistently at best, ignorant or worse, deliberately devoid of truth.

There are nineteen or more Arab States. There is only one Jewish State. In 1948, the United Nations attempted to recognize two nations in the area the occupying British called “Palestine”. At the time, part of this so-called Palestinian territory included an area that was already illegally occupied by Jordan. That area which was then known as Trans-Jordan included what the rest of the world tends to call the “West Bank”.

The United Nations attempted to create a two-state solution. Today the Nation of Israel legitimately exists because it enthusiastically accepted the arrangement proposed by the world’s other nations. Israel was willing to accept this compromise even though there were many Jews living in the West Bank (known by Israelis as Judea and Samaria) at that time.

But the Arabs who lived in the region not only rejected the United Nations offer but responded by starting the first of many wars with the newly formed State of Israel. To them, there could never be a Nation of Israel.

For whatever ridiculous reason, very few of those arguing in favor of the Palestinians today are aware of what happened immediately after Britain and the majority of nations proposed the two-state solution. Instead of working with the Israelis on a peaceful resolution, they presented the middle finger to Israel and the United Nations.

The Arab response was immediate. Jordan, Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon attacked Israel and seized Trans-Jordan and Gaza. Just before launching the attack, the Arab leaders broadcasted radio messages to the Arabs living in these regions advising them to leave their homes temporarily while they drive the Jews into the sea”. They seized what we now call the West Bank and Gaza.

After Egypt started and lost another war in 1956, things continued to boil over for a decade.

This led to the greatest existential stand-off in modern Israeli history. In 1967, the Arab leaders again encouraged Arabs living in the region to go away for a few days while they drive the Jews into the sea. Egypt, Jordan and Syria assembled their armies on all of Israel’s borders preparing to attack.

As before, they underestimated Israel. In a preemptive attack, Israel cleaned house in six days. It kicked them out of the illegally occupied region they were calling Trans-Jordan, and took the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights.

Young people listening to news media today have been led to believe Israel “occupied” this territory illegally. That is a lie. They fought off outside countries who were desperately trying to illegally occupy these territories. And they won the war!

Unfortunately, the disappointed Arabs who remained never accepted the existence of Israel and launched countless terror attacks since then. They started a terrorist organization called the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and spent decades murdering innocent civilians, hijacking planes, and bombing ambulances and school busses. These continual terrorist attacks seldom attracted the attention of the news media to anywhere near the extent Israel’s responses did.  

Prior to 1967, the Arabs controlled the most holy site on earth to Jews – the Temple Mount in East Jerusalem. You should know that while the Temple Mount was under Arab control, Jews were not allowed to even go near, let alone pray at the Western Wall.

But after Israel defeated Jordan in the war it and two other Arab countries started, Israel did not kick the Arabs out of the Temple Mount, which includes the Dome of the Rock (which they hold out to be their third most holy site). They even allowed them to operate their own police station and control over what they consider to be their religious sites on the Temple Mount.

Of course, the terrorism continued. I recall in the late eighties an incident that was recorded in international media. “Israel shoots stone-throwing youths” was all over the headlines. There was little to no mention of why they were shot. I guess that was not important. But just in case it is, we should have been told that the “stone-throwing” youths had taken over and set fire to the Israeli police station at the Western Wall, and were hurling rocks from overhead on Jewish people as they were praying at the wall.

Fast forward to the terrorist attacks on Israeli families and students on October 7, 2023. Israel had voluntarily done in Gaza, what the world seems to want them to do all over. Israel had given them self-rule, which they promptly handed to the vicious terrorist organization, Hamas. They were rewarded by the greatest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.

For most of us, raping and torturing entire families before murdering them is an act of war. War is ugly. Innocent people suffer. No doubt, many innocent children were killed in the Israeli response. No one is defending that. But it bears mentioning that because the group they chose to lead them routinely uses children as human shields and built its military tunnels under schools and hospitals precisely because they can always count on the western media to blame the result on Israel.

But let us not forget how it got like this. There has never been a legitimate “Palestinian State” in all of history. There could have been, but the Arabs who lived there wanted none of it. After getting their asses kicked over and over, the PLO did finally recognize Israel’s right to exist. But they were only willing to do that with a two-state solution similar to the one they thumbed their noses at prior to 1978 after Egypt and Syria lost the Yom Kippur war which they, in typical fashion, started themselves.

Today, we are supposed to acquiesce in the myth that there were “Palestinians” legitimately living in the region that were violently displaced for no reason by Israel. That idea is as cruel and nasty as it is ignorant. The world knows the history of Israel because it has actually been a thing since 3,000 years ago.

The “history” of “Palestine” is less known because it was always a lie. Only recently are the details being made up to fool the uneducated.

Ironically, it has always been Jew-haters and powers that illegally occupied the land who identified this region as “Palestine” beginning with the Roman Emperor Hadrian and culminating with Britain’s occupation of the territory. There has never been a time in history when Arabs controlled this part of the world under a legitimate government called “Palestine”.

And now, the rest of the world, like blind ignorant sheep, wants to impose that idea as a reality on the only people in the region who ever wanted peace in the first place.

The solution is obvious. It just isn’t popular. The rest of the world, which unlike the jews, has not been abused, oppressed, and betrayed by the other nations for two thousand years, needs to stop preaching about “human rights” to Israel for defending herself.

Tell Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and the other outside Arab countries to put up or shut up. This conflict would have been over years ago if existing Arab countries were willing to take in these “poor displaced people” they worry so much about. If these countries who have incessantly attacked Israel since 1948 wanted peace, they would work with (instead of against) Israel to establish a two-state solution that they (and not these other outside countries) can live with. Meanwhile, in the interest of moving away from blatant hypocrisy, the other Arab countries should stop rejecting their own people just to keep this going.

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Uncovering Hidden History From the Wilderness

Previously in Why Should We Care About the Dead Sea Scrolls, we took a look at some of the reasons these documents are so important to our understanding of actual history.

From the Damascus Document, the War Scroll, the Habakkuk Pesher, the Rules of Discipline, and other archeological evidence we can, for the first time, see the real story. After a lifetime of study and research, one thing is clear: the official stories about the development of Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism are almost exclusively Roman propaganda. The true story can now be discerned from ancient documents the Romans never had the chance to destroy.

We should not lose sight of the fact that the caretakers of the Dead Sea Scrolls were, until the 1990s, under the control of Catholic scholars who were beholden to the Catholic Church.

What can the scrolls tell us about the group the Roman Empire (and its successor, the Roman Catholic Church) so masterfully kept hid from us for two thousand years?

About two-thirds of the Dead Sea Scrolls consist of biblical documents. As has often been repeated, those documents are quite similar to the texts of the Hebrew scriptures that were transmitted over the centuries. For many religious folks, that is where the story ends. But that is actually only the beginning. If you are curious as to what kinds of differences have been found, you may want to check out this video from James Tabor’s blog.

Almost a third of the documents are sectarian, written by a very anti-establishment group with chapters (or what they called “camps”) all over the place. Prior to their discovery we only knew of the people who composed these documents from small references written by Roman officials who had no use for them.

An exception would be the writings of the man who called himself Flavious Josephus. He was a contemporary of the patriots at Qumran and claimed to have spent some time with them. That was a problem for him because at the time of his writing, he had betrayed them and everything they stood for. He was sucking from the tete of the Roman emperor. He actually wrote his works from Vespasian’s place in Rome.

Because he was already identified with this group, Josephus appears to have modified his description of the “Essenes” into two categories: one almost nauseatingly peaceful, and the other a band of militant terrorists determined to overthrow Rome. These people, he tells us, were a “Fourth Philosophy” along with that of the Scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees. This left room for him to be counted among the Roman friendly section of the group.

Josephus tells us this so-called Fourth Philosophy was founded by a person known as Judah the Galilean. According to his account, this group in “the Wilderness” were wreaking havoc on the stability of Roman rule in the region:  

. . . the nation was infected with this doctrine to an incredible degree; one violent war came upon us after another, and we lost our friends who used to alleviate our pain; there were also very great robberies and murders of our principle men.

It should be no surprise that the Romans who totally controlled everything that was published, retained Josephus (and as we will later see, the New Testament writers) to write the official Roman version of events for posterity. But for the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Roman versions of these stories would be all we have.

In the coming months, be on the lookout for my new book. Based on historical evidence, this will be a fictional account of the very historical leader of the last Messianic movement to reclaim Jerusalem and the land of Zion.

For an in-depth inquiry into what these labels may mean, check my most recent book, Revelation and the AntiChrist. It explores how many of the New Testament mysteries can be explained without resorting to the magical thinking of most commentaries.

For a deep dive into the actual history of Jesus and his followers, check out The Second Crucifixion of Jesus.

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What They Don’t Tell You About the Ten Commandments

Oil Painting – Smithsonian American Art Museum

Last week, Jeff Landry, Governor of Louisiana signed into law a statute mandating that his version of the ten commandments be posted in every classroom in the state.1

As an attorney, I realize that this is a blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution and the well-established principle of the separation of Church and State. That the government could direct teachers in public schools to promote a specific religion defies our fundamental laws and basic common sense.

Some may ask: “what is wrong with teaching children these rules anyway?”. “Aren’t most of these good rules for everyone to live by?” Hidden beneath the surface in this reasoning is the fact that those who make this observation cannot even tell you what the ten commandments are. For example, as we will see below, the Catholic list and the Protestant list are significantly different.

That Governor Landry said he “cannot wait to be sued” says it all. He is a political hack. He knows this is unconstitutional and is only doing this to pander to his base. Of course, because the purpose was to impress a fundamentalist Christian audience, the specific list and enumeration (of which there are several) specifically included in the statute is the fundamentalist Christian version, (that’s right, he is a Catholic) – and he is not even promoting the Catholic version.

Half of Them are Exclusively Religious

As the famous routine from George Carlin points out, we don’t really need any of them outside the context of someone’s religion.

The Christian Taliban Does Not Even Agree on What They Are

The list of commandments typically referred to as the ten commandments appears three places in the Bible. All three of these lists are in what Christians call the “Old Testament.” They can be found at Exodus 20:2–17, Exodus 34:11–26 (11-27 in the original) and Deuteronomy 5:6–21.

The Catholics and the Protestants have both spent thousands of years picking and choosing which parts of these passages they wanted to keep and what parts they wanted to ignore. To that end, differing versions of the ten were created.

For those such as myself, who are always interested in where these things really came from, the differences between these versions speak volumes.

Here they are for comparison:

You will notice that both Catholics and Protestants can live with the opening directive that you are not to have any other gods. After years of theological jiu jitsu, Christians have managed to explain away the problem that the first commandment never anticipated Jesus. By re-assigning meanings to the clear and unambiguous original language, they managed to solve the problem without the necessity of removing it entirely.  2 

But it immediately goes off the rails after that.

For the Catholic version, that whole business about not making graven images, nor bowing down to them gets jettisoned completely. This practice (a hallmark of Catholicism and a cottage industry for the Church), must be protected. So that prohibition gets ripped right out of there.

However, the surgical removal of the prohibition against idolatry created another problem. If we take out the part that forbids the manufacture of crucifixes, St. Christophers, and images of the “Virgin Mary”, that leaves only nine commandments.

Not to worry. They fixed it further down. They split the last single prohibition into two – making the coveting of your neighbor’s wife a separate offense from coveting his house or his ass.

But the second commandment was not the only rule that was blown off by Christians. While they were re-writing these rules to match their own practices, the Catholic leaders (taking their list from Deuteronomy Chapter 5) also found it necessary to change the words of the fourth (or in their case third since they had already removed the second) commandment.

The Hebrew text, as it existed before Christian redlining, read “the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall perform no labor. . .”

יוֹם֙ הַשְּׁבִיעִ֔י שַׁבָּ֖ת לַֽיהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֑יךָ לֹא־תַֽעֲשֶׂ֨ה כָל־מְלָאכָ֜ה אַתָּ֣ה

See Deuteronomy 5:14.

It would appear that early Catholic leaders realized you have to ignore the text itself to characterize Sunday (the first day of the week) as the Sabbath (which is derived from the Hebrew root meaning seven) as the Sabbath.

By the third century, the Church had abandoned the Sabbath and replaced it with Sunday. Since the very antisemitic third and fourth century Christians were not about to take this commandment literally, they felt it necessary to write a new text replacing the “Sabbath” with the “Lord’s Day” (which is a completely dishonest translation).

The Protestant version does not worry about the contradiction between the text and its practices. They simply ignore the meaning of the word and leave it in their list.

In all of the back and forth about posting the “ten commandments” in various places, no one seems to mention that they don’t even appear in the New Testament. There is no place in the Christian scriptures that lists all of the commandments to which the phrase refers.

The closest thing Jesus is recorded as having said regarding them is a reference to “the commandments” in Mark 10:19 and repeated in Matthew 22:36-40 and Luke 18:20. Of course, that passage should be read in light of the words also attributed to Jesus in Mark 12:28-31. This is the passage from the NASV:

One of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that he had answered them well, asked Him, “What commandment is the foremost of all?”

Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’

The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.

In Matthew 22:40 Jesus is quoted as having said “on these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”

Considering the source of this directive, the dishonesty and downright hypocrisy of incorporating this language into the statute is overwhelming. If this is (and it obviously is) a thinly veiled attempt to get the Christian message into the classroom, why didn’t the statute list the two commandments which Jesus is said to have placed above them all as the words to be posted in classrooms?

Compounding the hypocrisy is the fact that Christians (with the exception of a few rogue denominations such as the Seventh Day Adventists, Church of God Seventh day, and factions from the Worldwide Church of God), have universally rejected the fourth commandment and replaced observance of the Sabbath Day with Sunday. Never mind that there is literally no scriptural support for this in the entire collection of Christian scriptures. Why did they include a “commandment” they have unilaterally agreed to ignore in their list?

These are Jewish rules. They were never intended to apply to Gentiles. The Jewish Talmud enumerated seven laws that were to apply to Gentiles. And two of them do not occur in any of the lists of “ten commandments”. See Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 56a. That should be important to Christians because according to the words attributed to Jesus, the Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat and have authority to determine how scripture is observed and followed. Matthew 23:2-3.

While it is true that some (but not all) of the founding fathers believed the ten commandments were handed down from Moses, most of them were deists and believed nothing of the kind. Even if they did, a declaration that this is what some leaders of the original thirteen colonies believed would be fine – as long as it is taught that way and not posted as an absolute truth.

Most of the folks in the original colonies believed in the existence and execution of witches. But no one today would support the legally mandated posting of the Malleus Maleficarum in every classroom as though it were an established fact for all children to learn.

It is arrogant and nutty to enact a law that says anyone’s religious creed is to be posted in “every classroom”. The idea would be equally ridiculous if the creed were that of the Moslems, the Mormons, the Jehovah Witnesses, or any other group “mainstream” Christians believe is wrong. “Faith”, by definition, is the belief in something without evidence. Religious institutions promote that idea. But institutions of secular education should avoid even the appearance of encouraging children to believe in a concept or idea without regard to empirical evidence.

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For a more in-depth analysis of the historical Jesus as opposed to the “Christ” of the New Testament, check out my books The Second Crucifixion of Jesus and Revelation and the AntiChrist.

  1. The statute requires display of the Ten Commandments in every elementary, secondary, and post-secondary education classroom. You can read the full text of the law here. ↩︎
  2. The concept of a “trinity” is a third and fourth century Christian invention. The Jewish scriptures which Christians relabeled as the “Old Testament” state otherwise. “I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.” Isaiah 44:6. ↩︎

A Few Words About the “Apostle” Paul

Most Christians are aware that sometime after the crucifixion of Jesus, Peter and John under the leadership of Jesus’ brother, James, controlled and maintained the Jerusalem congregation. They sent out emissaries (known as “apostles”) to speak in their behalf to other Jewish congregations across Asia Minor.

Some years later, Paul announced that the resurrected Jesus appeared to him and gave him special knowledge about the meaning of Jesus. He said he was endorsed by Jesus’ own brother, James and by Peter and John. He recounted how they told him to spread the message of Jesus to the rest of the Gentile world. He believed his understanding of Jesus was superior to the message the world had received so far. He insisted that his message was transmitted directly from God and was therefore, beyond question.

He further asserted that he was appointed as an “apostle” by none other than James, Peter, and John.

He wrote of his visions and interpretations of the sacred texts that eventually took their place alongside of the existing scriptures the followers of Jesus already believed.

What? . . . Wait a minute. . . . I am sorry. . . did I say “Paul”?

. . . I meant “Joseph Smith”.

These were claims he made beginning in 1820 that became the foundation of the Mormon church.1 He was and is almost universally rejected as a false prophet by main-stream fundamentalist Christians.

They see no reason to believe his unsubstantiated claims, made years after the time of Jesus. After all, by his own admission, he never met Jesus before his execution. And yet, for two thousand years, fundamentalist Christians have bought into the same story – hook, line and sinker. Just switch out Joseph Smith and replace him with (Paul) Saul of Tarsus.

Paul proclaimed himself to be an apostle (ἀπόστολος), one “sent” to proclaim the gospel to the Gentiles. Romans 11:13. But aside from the writings attributed to him, there is no evidence in support of this proposition. The only alleged contemporary “witness” to his claims was his traveling companion, Luke, who also never met Jesus.

Why then, you may ask, do Christians unanimously accept his claims, the earliest of which were written at least twenty years after the crucifixion?

Back in my Christian years, I struggled with hopeless attempts to reconcile Paul’s teachings with those that other New Testament writers attributed to Jesus and to his own brother, Jacob (universally mistranslated as “James”).

Jesus was reported to have said “think not that I am come to destroy the law [Torah}, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” But he didn’t stop there. He went on to say “till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” Matthew 5:17-18 Emphasis mine.

Jesus’ brother, James, clearly believed nothing in the Torah had changed. No one was to pick and choose what they wanted and reject what they did not. He said “whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” James 2:10.2

According to the writer of Matthew, Jesus proclaimed that everyone is to be judged by what they did in life. When it comes to rewards or punishments in the afterlife, Jesus displayed literally no interest in what people did or did not believe. In his account of the final judgment, what people believe is not even mentioned as a criteria for reward or punishment. Matthew 25:31-46.

It is impossible to reconcile these claims with Paul’s assertion that “sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under the law, but under grace.” Romans 6:14 And “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes.” Romans 10:4.3 This was Paul’s position, even though heaven and earth had clearly not yet passed away.

James said “faith without works is dead, being alone.” James 2:17-24. Compare his approach with that of Paul, who emphasized the belief, rather than the actions of Abraham as the thing that was “counted to him as righteousness”, James said it was the actions of Abraham that made the difference. According to Paul’s “other Gospel”4, it was not what Abraham did, but what he thought in his head that made all the difference. Romans 4:1-3. For Paul, one’s acts of compassion and kindness are of no value at all. See Romans 3:28.

Modern Christians may not clearly understand that what Paul was saying amounted to teaching others to disregard the law. But according to Luke, James and the other leaders in Jerusalem certainly did.

They told Paul there were “many thousands of Jews . . . which believe; and they are all zealous of the law”. But they had heard rumors that Paul was teaching “all of the Jews that are among the Gentiles [overseas congregations in places such as Alexandria, Corinth and Galatia]” to “forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs”. Acts 21:20-22.

Apparently, this “other Gospel” of Paul did not play well among those who had actually known Jesus back in Jerusalem. But it was precisely what he was communicating to the congregation in Galatia.5 In an attempt to save himself from the mob (you know, Jesus’ own family and those Paul refers to as those who “seemed to be pillars” of the Church)6, he jumped through hoops to demonstrate to them that he was still 100 percent on the obey-the-law train. See Acts 21:23-26.

He desperately needed the illusion of their endorsement. If he was not an “apostle” or authorized messenger sent from James, Peter and John, the Jewish congregations overseas would never listen to his radical theories about the expiration of the law (Torah).

No wonder he thought it was necessary to write to the congregation in Galatia that he was definitely not lying to them. Galatians 1:207

But the people in Jerusalem were not buying it. He was arrested and almost killed by the leadership in Jerusalem. This would have been the end of his “ministry” had he not been rescued by Roman guards.

Indeed, Paul’s message was as different from the message of Jesus and his people back in Jerusalem as his language of choice (Greek) was from the language of everything they considered to be scripture.

For a deeper dive into this important difference, see my previous article about the “other gospel“. For more details about how the books of the New Testament, including the writings of Paul, were published in the first place, see my last post Presenting Myth as an Historical Record and check out my most recent books that thoroughly document this subject.

The only way to really understand what an author was trying to accomplish is to learn as much as we can about who his intended audience was and what were his motives.

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  1. At the time, he had three supporting witnesses (Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris) who claimed in a document written by Harris that Smith’s claims were true. ↩︎
  2. For meticulously documented discussions of the disparity between the position of James and the Qumran (Dead Sea Scrolls) community and that of Paul, see my books The Second Crucifixion of Jesus and Revelation and the AntiChrist. ↩︎
  3. Paul was all in on supporting, eating with, and obeying the rules of Rome. He even went so far as to say “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers [the Roman Empire]. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.” Romans 13:1. He further argues that the Roman authorities “. . . are God’s ministers” and instructed his readers to pay Roman taxes and to follow all of their rules (verses 6 -7). ↩︎
  4. Romans 2:16. ↩︎
  5. See Galatians 6:15. “in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.” ↩︎
  6. Galatians 2:9. ↩︎
  7. Note the glaring difference between the account of how Paul submissively complied with the demands of the Jerusalem leaders when there (Acts 21:21-26), and his story of how he really showed Peter a thing or two in Antioch. Galatians 2:11-14. ↩︎

Why Should We Care About the Dead Sea Scrolls?

Caves near Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were dicsocvered

(Based on my previous article from February 2023)

If you could step into a time machine and get a first-hand look at the world of Jerusalem in the first century C.E., would you be interested? Would you be willing to pull back the cover and take a look, even if doing so revealed that we have been lied to for two thousand years?

Thanks to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the subsequent fight to have their contents released to the public by Robert Eisenman and a few other honest, dedicated scholars, we now have that chance.

When I first read about the discovery of hundreds of ancient scrolls in caves along the Dead Sea, many of which were biblical texts written two thousand years ago, I had no concept of their actual significance. I was still young and had not yet freed myself from the blinders of my family’s fundamentalist Christian limitations.

Like other Christians I knew, my first thought was not “wow this is great”, “I wonder if there are things the scrolls can tell us we did not know before about this period.”  

Oh, no. I, like the other Christians I knew, immediately thought about validation. We were Lazar focused on two things and two things only: Do they say anything about Jesus; and how close are the biblical passages to the manuscripts we had before?

This was important because, until now, these documents were literally one thousand years older than the oldest known manuscripts of material Christians call the “Old Testament”. In other words, to “believers”, their value was not as a window into history that was previously unknown.

Their primary importance to fundamentalists was (and by the way, still seems to be) to demonstrate that the official stories and “scriptures” that were passed down to us by the Church were accurate and true. There was little to fear in that regard because their translation and publication were meticulously controlled by a handful of Catholic scholars. And they made sure no one who doesn’t drink the grape cool-aid had access to them.

Scholars had already debated over whether or not John the Baptist was from this group. As I explained in The Second Crucifixion of Jesus, the more we look at the scrolls, the harder it is to believe he was not.

To the extent that any of this material appears in the New Testament (and some of it almost certainly does), it was the New Testament writers who borrowed from it. That is because all of this material predates everything in the New Testament with one singular exception: the writings of Paul.

The epistles of Paul (at least the seven which scholars attribute to him as the genuine author) were written at the approximately the same time as the latest sectarian documents among the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, Paul and his audience were on the opposite side of the fence from the People at Qumran.

The scrolls anticipate a coming war between their caretakers (the “sons of Light”) and the forces of darkness. Much of that language seems remarkably similar to descriptions of Jesus’ followers in the New Testament.

Again, the latest of these scrolls were being written during the time the events described in the New Testament were going down. Also writing shortly after the caretakers of the scrolls were murdered, Josephus, a Jewish turncoat who became a historian for the Romans, published his account of the community at Qumran.

They were not entirely composed of peaceful monks as we were previously led to believe. They included a very militant faction which he called the “Fourth Philosophy,”[i] and credited their founding to a character named Judah the Galilean, whose movement is mentioned along with a greatly exaggerated rumor of its demise by Luke in Acts 5:37.[ii]  In Josephus’ words:

. . . the nation was infected with this doctrine to an incredible degree; one violent war came upon us after another, and we lost our friends who used to alleviate our pain; there were also very great robberies and murders of our principle men[iii].

Throughout his writings, Josephus (writing from the Roman perspective) refers to those of this underground movement as “Robbers,” “Zealots,” and “Sicarii.” Today scholars and historians generally refer to them as “Zealots.” Zealots were the most radical and uncompromising faction of the Essenes. They were the driving force of the active arm of the Messianic Movement. As Robert Eisenman has shown, at least a couple of Jesus’ brothers were more than likely among their ranks.[iv]

The Zealots were guerilla fighters whose goal in life was to overthrow the Roman domination of their land and of their Temple.

Attempted insurrections and the threat of insurrections were constantly monitored and addressed by Roman officials. 

The Sectarian Non-Biblical Scrolls Contain the Nuggets of Forgotten History

Many of the texts written and maintained by this group were never included in official versions of Jewish or Christian bibles. One of the most interesting of these, is a scroll known as the Damascus Document. Prior to the discovery of the caves in 1947, some locals over the years had already discovered some documents in caves near the Dead Sea. Various pieces and fragments were among the documents from the caves.

An entire manuscript of this document had been recovered from the Cairo Geniza and published by Rabbi Solomon Schechter in 1910. At the time, some claimed this document must be a forgery. But its authenticity was established when virtually identical fragments of the same document were found in the caves since 1947.

The document addresses its vision of the community in a lengthy narrative that speaks of figures that dominated the community’s thinking at the time. It also includes a set of rules for the community.

Initially, it was assumed (and some scholars still believe) that the document references two messiahs – one from the priestly line, and one from the Davidic line. But some scholars such as Robert Eisenman believe it is more likely that they anticipated one messiah who would descend from both lineages.

This was an anti-establishment, anti-Roman community. When one is planning an insurrection, you would not expect that the leaders would be identified by name. And such is the case here. Prominent individuals are identified by labels such as the “Teacher of Righteousness” and the “Spouter of Lies”.

For an in-depth inquiry into what these labels may mean, check my most recent book, Revelation and the AntiChrist. It explores how many of the New Testament mysteries can be explained without resorting to the magical thinking of most commentaries.

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[i] Josephus seems to identify this group as Essenes – but of a very militant variety. The other three philosophies identified by Josephus were the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the peaceful Essenes. See Antiquities of the Jews Book XVIII, 1, 1-6.

[ii] Luke downplays the success of this movement claiming: “he also perished, and all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed.” But in fact, it was this same Movement that fought to defend Jerusalem in the last war that began in 66 C.E. Wars of the Jews. Book II, 17, 8.

[iii] Antiquities of the Jews, Book XVIII, 1, 1.

[iv] According to various historical sources, Jesus’ brothers Simon and Jude, fall “squarely into the Zealot tradition.” Eisenman, Robert. James the Brother of Jesus. New York: Penguin Books, 1997. pp. 858-866.

What’s So Bad About Speaking Greek?

(Slightly revised version of the article originally published on June 30, 2023)

In discussions about the New Testament over the years, we always seem to go back to blind spots that keep the parts everyone knows about from making logical sense.

Such is the case when we talk about how things got the way they were at the time the Gospel accounts begin. Who were the scribes and pharisees? Where did they come from? What did the average Jew on the street in the first century think about them? Few realize the most important question of all. What is going on with that group of “Essenes” who wrote and maintained the Dead Sea Scrolls?

My second book, Revelation and the AntiChrist, discusses many common assumptions about concepts and ideas in Revelation that are not actually there at all. My new book goes into more detail about the striking similarity between the book of Revelation and other works of first century apocalyptic Jews found in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Dead Sea Scrolls came from a vast library that was maintained at or near Qumran until 68 C.E. Some of the documents in that library came from other parts of the world. And some of those documents are written in Greek. But there is no evidence that the caretakers of that library wrote anything in Greek. All of the documents that appear to have been composed there are in Hebrew or Aramaic.

There is a good reason for that which is often overlooked by modern Christians. All of the earliest copies of New Testament documents are in Greek. But the people at Qumran were violently opposed to foreign languages and customs. And even though they required fluency in Greek from their leaders, they were especially opposed to Greek writing and culture.

Where did this visceral rejection of anything Greek come from? The following excerpt from Chapter Three should help clear up some of this confusion:

We Have Met the Enemy and They are Greek

Jeremiah, writing in the sixth century B.C.E., shortly after Babylon had taken the Jewish people into captivity (in 586 B.C.E.), predicted that their captivity would end after seventy years.

When the Persian King Cyrus conquered Babylon (539 B.C.E.) their suffering should have ended. The Temple was to be rebuilt and the golden eternal age of peace and prosperity would begin.

But within two hundred years the rebuilt Temple and all it represented faced a new threat of annihilation.  In 332 B.C.E., Alexander the Great stood poised to capture Jerusalem and replace Jewish culture with Greek.

It would seem that enough appeasers occupied positions of leadership to convince Alexander to preserve the status quo for a while. Josephus relates a fantastical story of how they pointed him to a prophecy from Daniel[i] that predicted a great Greek ruler would come through at about that time[ii].

Whenever Josephus relates something that he cannot rationally explain (or his handlers do not want him to explain), he tends to use this technique to move the narrative along.[iii]

Regardless of the real reason, the bore worm of Greek influence was now firmly planted within Jerusalem leadership. In another one hundred and fifty years, the gloves came off and the pretensions were gone.

By 175 B.C.E., the Greeks had their boy. Antiochus forced Onias III who was against the Hellenization of Israel to relinquish the office of High Priest to his brother, Joseph (a/k/a Jason). Antiochus IV had become king of the Seleucid Empire and was now auctioning off the office of High Priest in Israel.

Like Paul of the New Testament and like Josephus of the first century, the new High Priest traded in his Hebrew name “Joshua” for the Greek name “Jason”.

Israel was selling out to Greek culture in every conceivable way. Jason was granted permission to build a city (Antioch) and a gymnasium for Greek style games. Because these games were played in the nude, a surgical procedure was developed to undo circumcision[iv]. That way Jewish athletes could perform with Greek competitors without looking so conspicuously Jewish.[v]

But alas, even Jason was not Greek enough to make everyone happy. A group of malcontents led by Menelaus believed Jason was still favoring at least some aspects of traditional Judaism.

In 171 B.C.E. Jason sent him to Antiochus to pay the annual tax/tribute to maintain the office of High Priest, Menelaus outbid him and claimed the office for himself.[vi] Antiochus sent an officer and soldiers to make sure Jason was ousted and to collect the increased tribute promised to him by Menelaus.

Menelaus and his brother, Lysimachus pissed off everyone by looting the Temple and murdering the former High Priest Onias.

You Don’t Tug on Antiochus’ Cape – You Don’t Spit Into the Wind

Hope, greed, and hunger for power do not die easily. After hearing a rumor that Antiochus had died in Egypt, Jason instigated a coup to reclaim the office for himself. This resulted in an ugly war. Unfortunately for Jason (and the people of Israel) Antiochus was not so dead after all.

When he heard of these goings-on he was not amused. Antiochus interpreted this as an insult to his authority. He reacted in 168 B.C.E. by sending an army whose initial purpose was to destroy Jason and his allies.

Jerusalem was attacked twice. The new government took over everything and seized the property of those who had been loyal to Jason.

The simmering cauldron boiled over in 167 B.C.E. when a Jewish priest, Mattathias ben Johanan, was ordered to make a sacrifice to the Greek gods. He refused, then killed the guy who stepped forward to do the sacrifice in his place. He then killed the Seleucid government official who ordered the sacrifice. This was the beginning of a rebellion and a guerilla war led by Judah Maccabee[vii] and his family, and ultimately the recapture of the Temple in 164 B.C.E.

The Maccabees’ victory and subsequent cleansing and dedication of the Temple to purge the sacred place from Hellenistic corruption are remembered each year at Hanukkah. These were the pioneers of the Hasmonean Dynasty. Ironically, the official story of their exploits was only preserved in the books of I Maccabees and II Maccabees – both written in Greek.

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Notes

[i] Antiquities II.8.5. Whiston, William. trans. The Works of Josephus Complete and Unabridged. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 1987. p.307.

[ii] If those sections of Daniel had existed in 332 B.C.E. this would probably have been a reference to Daniel 7:6; 8:3-8; 8:20-22; and 11.3.

[iii] Aside from the fact that the passages from Daniel that describe the rise and fall of the Greek empire had not been written yet, we must notice that Josephus says exactly the same thing about Vespasian’s decision to spare his own life and to spare Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai and allow him to found the academy at Yavne.

[iv] This was still evidently practiced in the first century as it is referenced by Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:18.

[v] See Antiquities XII.5. Whiston, William. trans. The Works of Josephus Complete and Unabridged. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 1987. p.323.

[vi] 2 Maccabees 4:24.

[vii] Maccabee means “hammer” in Aramaic. But the name is thought to have been taken from an acronym for the Hebrew battle cry of the Maccabean fighters: מי־כמכה באלם יי “Who is like you among the mighty, O’ Lord!” Exodus 15:11.

The Great Isaiah Scroll

Someone recently pointed out that there is relatively little on this site about the Great Isaiah Scroll. Let’s fix that now.

Among the scrolls that were found in what is now known as Cave I in 1947 was the largest complete scroll to be found so far. It is also the only complete scroll of a biblical text to be discovered so far. Scholars call it the Great Isaih Scroll. This document includes (with the exception of a few damaged places) the entire text of the Book of Isaiah.

Visitors to the Shrine of the Book museum in Jerusalem can view a detailed replica on display there. Modern Israeli school children can read this document today. The language is completely familiar to them as there is little difference between modern Hebrew and that of the scrolls 2000 years ago.

As interesting as all of that is, there is so much more to be gleaned from this first-century document.

Similarity to Later Versions

The claims of so many Christian apologists notwithstanding, there are some (though fewer than one might expect) differences between the Masoretic text and that of the Isaiah Scroll.

That there are so few differences between this first century document and the Masoretic text (the oldest surviving copy of which is from 1000 years later) is less surprising when we consider the incredible rules ancient Jewish scholars enacted to ensure preservation of the original text.

To me, the reason this scroll is so incredibly important is that it underscores the hidden history of the movement that collected and preserved it. Today, scholars refer to the caretakers of these documents as the Essenes for reasons too elaborate to explore here. But they refer to themselves as the “Community” (יחד) as well as the “Chosen” or the “elect” (בחרים) and other designations modern readers would recognize.

The point is that the very designations they used to describe themselves are exactly the ones attributed to Jesus and his followers to describe themselves in the New Testament. These were the militant anti-Roman freedom fighters from what today is known as the archeological site of Qumran – but also from all over Judea in various towns they called “camps” (מחנות).

There are good reasons most of us never heard of these people. The Roman Empire and subsequently the Roman Catholic Church jumped through enormous hoops to ensure we never did. They wrote them out of the official stories that were written and commissioned by Flavian Roman leaders. It was those stories that were passed down to us as the New Testament and the works of Flavious Josephus.

Alas, these documents were not confiscated and destroyed because the Romans had no idea where they were. Neither did anyone else until they began to show up in the early twentieth century.

Because they wrote so much about who they were, what they believed, and why they were there, we now know precisely what was buried so long ago.

These folks literally stood in shifts reading scripture day and night to keep the sacred words on their lips through every moment of every day.

Interestingly, we also know one of the passages they read repeatedly was from Isaiah 40:3-5. The back of the scroll has stains from human hands as they unrolled to this section often.

You may recognize this passage as it is often quoted (and mistranslated) in the New Testament. This passage is rendered in the King James Version and most English translations as:

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:

And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

The translation problem is not in the actual words, but something that does not appear at all in the Hebrew text. The error is in the punctuation. The translators have placed a comma in the wrong place. And that completely changes the meaning.

The original Hebrew passage is written in metered poetry. Placing the comma (pause) after the word “wilderness” as in most English translations, totally obliterates the poetic flow of the reading. The arbitrary and incorrect positioning of the comma in many translations has led generations of readers to believe John was some lunatic wandering around the desert in camel skins and eating locusts.

A more accurate translation would be:

A voice calls out, “In the desert, clear the way of the Lord, straighten out in the wilderness, a highway for our God.”

Every valley shall be raised, and every mountain and hill shall be lowered, and the crooked terrain shall become a plain and the close mountains a valley.

And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh together shall see that the mouth of the Lord spoke.

But the Hebrew (which is the same here as the Masoretic text) says something entirely different.

First century believers, including Jesus’ cousin “John the Baptist” read the passage exactly this way. They took it as an imperative that the prophet who would prepare “the way” for the Messiah was to begin in the desert. That is why they made their speeches there; and that is why Jews like Jesus came out to the desert to hear them.

If you would like to dig deeper into the voluminous connections between these folks, John the Baptist, and family of Jesus check out my book The Second Crucifixion of Jesus.

Did Jesus Read These Scrolls?

A passage from the Book of Isaiah is referenced in the New Testament as one Jesus is said to have read in the synagogue.

The Masoretic text reads:

The spirit of the Lord God was upon me, since the Lord anointed me to bring tidings to the humble, He sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to declare freedom for the captives, and for the prisoners to free from captivity.

This passage is apparently referenced in Luke 4:17-21 with the additional language thrown in.

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.

And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,

To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.

And he said to them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.

There can be no credible argument that Jesus was unaware of these people. He was identified with them, by Roman officials on numerous occasions. The odds are extremely high that he read from at least one of these very scrolls at some time in his life.

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Presenting Myth as an Historical Record

“It isn’t what he doesn’t know that bothers me. It’s what he knows for sure that just ain’t so” I am not sure who first said this (it has been attributed to Josh Billings, Will Rogers, Mark Twain, and others). But it so perfectly fits so many people.

Many historians believe there is no evidence that a historical “Jesus” existed. They base this conclusion largely on the fact that aside from the biblical writers, he is not mentioned in contemporary sources.

First century Roman sources speak of groups called “Christians”. But with the exception of an obvious later interpolation about him in the writings of Josephus, they don’t speak of the man upon whom Christianity claims to be based.

They are right. That man did not exist. The stories of Paul about a figure he claims to have seen the ghost of called “Christ” have become conflated with the life of the Jewish rebel, Yeshua ישוע who was crucified as an insurrectionist. For a more thorough explanation and supporting documentation of how this came about, see my books, The Second Crucifixion of Jesus, and Revelation and the AntiChrist.

Paul never met Jesus. He began writing his earliest letters at least twenty years after the crucifixion. But he had a lot to say about the message of “Christ”, which incidentally, contradicts what we can know about Jesus and his real world.

Paul speaks of some mystical figure he claims to have seen “whether in the body or out of the body I do not know” (2 Corinthians 12:2). But he never mentions in his own writings the incident on the road to Damascus as told by his traveling companion Luke in Acts 9:3-22.

He does however claim to have seen the resurrected “Christ” as “one born out of due time”. 1 Corinthians 13:8. Never mind the fact that Jesus never – ever called himself “Christ”. Jesus and his family spoke Hebrew and would never have adopted “Christ” or any other Greek word to describe themselves. See my blog post What’s so Bad about Speaking Greek.

The first and most obvious tell that indicates the writer is not a legitimate member of the group who actually knew Jesus is self-identification with Greek, and writing in the Greek language.

Saul, proudly changed his name from the original Hebrew to “Paul” (see Acts 13:9), a Greek name. Josephus is the Greek version of Yoseph יעסף the original Hebrew name abandoned by the turncoat who wrote for Titus under the name Flavious Josephus.

Likewise, the name “James” never occurs in any of the oldest manuscripts of the New Testament. It was substituted for the original name of Jesus’ brother Yaacov יעקב (Jacob), by later New Testament writers.

As Joseph Atwill demonstrates in his controversial book, Caesar’s Messiah, the sequence of events describing the “ministry” of Jesus in the New Testament are obviously based on earlier stories about the exploits of Titus. He points out that even in the numerous places where the gospels contradict one another, the sequence of events is unchanged.

Atwill has been trashed by mainstream Christian apologists such as James M. Rochford. Mr. Rochford (whose Master’s Degree in Theological Studies) hardly qualifies him as an historian) attacks Atwill for his alleged lack of scholarly credentials. It seems to me that his critique of Atwill demonstrates that he either has not read, or has completely failed to understand the premise of the book.1

Simplistic apologetics in support of the traditional story notwithstanding, Atwill makes an interesting and robust case for the Roman approved Gospel accounts and their circulation in Asia Minor at time when Rome controlled everything that was published.

This video sums up the claims of Joseph Atwill’s book, Caesar’s Messiah:

Before any of the gospels were written, the Roman-friendly version of the Christ story was already in circulation thanks to the person who identifies himself as the “apostle” Paul.

That Paul was a blood relative of the Herod family is clear from his own statements.2 And the composition of the gospel accounts after the fall of Jerusalem is well established by historians and biblical scholars. These documents were freely distributed in the Roman Empire at the same time Roman officials were systematically tracking down and burning every writing they did not like.

While under “house arrest” (having been literally rescued from “the Jews” by Roman guards), Paul converses quite openly and freely with the Roman Governor Felix, his wife Drusilla, and her sister, Bernice (who appeared suspiciously close to her own brother, Agrippa II).3

Note the cozy relationship of Paul with Roman officials and particularly with Bernice, a well-connected member of the Herodian-Flavian family who was to become the mistress of Titus. These Roman officials were on the same page with him. Luke credits King Agrippa with exclaiming to Paul “you almost persuade me to be a Christian”. Acts 26:28.

At this meeting with Festus, Agrippa and Bernice all agreed that Paul was innocent and should not be in chains. Verses 30-31.

In a world of Us versus Them (where “Us” represents the Romans, and “Them” represents the followers of the historical Jesus) Paul and the Romans are clearly in the “Us” column. Paul shows no interest in the historical “Jesus”. He is only concerned with the Greek-Roman figure he calls “Christ”.4

The family and followers of Jesus had no use for the Romans. They took their place along with the other rebels at Qumran. They were ready and willing to die before accepting Roman authority. They were proud to be conspicuously in the “Them” column.

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  1. For example, Rochford accuses Atwill of claiming Josephus wrote all 27 books of the New Testament. But this either deliberately or mistakenly fails to understand Atwill’s contention that the New Testament was written by three groups or families: the Falvians, Herods, and Alexanders. See Atwill Joseph. Caesars’ Messiah. Charleston, S.C.: CreateSpace, 2011. p.276.
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  2. He openly salutes Herodion (little Herod) as “my kinsman”. Romans 16:11
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  3. Drusilla, second wife of the Roman Governor, Felix, was-pure bred Herodian but is called a “Jewess” in Acts 24:24.
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  4. To explore this enormous difference, check out the blog article What was the Other Gospel?. ↩︎

The Relentless Pursuit of Ignorance

(Article originally published in 2023)

Things did not change quickly in ancient Egypt. But in 1353 B.C.E. there was a new sheriff in town. Akhenaten the son of Amenhotep III made changes that must have had his dad spinning in his pyramid. The establishment priesthood had a nice gig until Akhenaten stripped them of their authority, declared that the empire would now only worship one God, and moved the capital.

But smart-aleck kids, even if they are considered to be deities, don’t live forever. The system and the aristocracy that spawned them always gets the last laugh.

Subsequent pharaohs restored the national religion, moved the capital back to Thebes, and dealt with the legacy of Akhenaton the way totalitarian systems always do – they took that ugly little piece of history and tossed it on the dung heap.

Akhenaten was labeled as a criminal. His monuments were dismantled. His statues were destroyed. His name was redacted from public records and official lists of Egyptian rulers. He was so thoroughly scrubbed from historical records that he was completely forgotten until just over one hundred years ago.

Why Re-Invent the Wheel?

That level of thinking did not change much over the next 1500 years. The Roman empire turned it into an art form. It destroyed the civilization of Carthage, then built a new one on its ashes.

It brilliantly wiped out the memory of the Jewish zealots in the first century while simultaneously sponsoring a replacement for their Judaism. Two new theologies emerged – both completely accepting of Roman authority: Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity.

For more on how that came about, see my blog What was the “Other” Gospel, and check out The Second Crucifixion of Jesus on Amazon or at the Barns & Noble website.

Insecurity Breeds Tyranny

The longing to control the thoughts of us peasants is not new. Whenever you see a movement to ban (or burn) books, or to discredit (or burn) those who write them, there you will find a scared, nervous idiot who is paranoid about what the rest of us may find out.

The three bastions of defense instinctively raised by folks without supporting evidence on their side have always been the same: attack the messenger, kill the message, call on faith.

In 1925, John T. Scopes was found guilty of violating Tennessee’s Butler Act which made it a criminal offense to teach the science of evolution in state-funded public schools. Anything that may expose the peasants to legitimate science and history scares the daylights out of those in power.

When history scholar James Loewen, examined twelve history books that were being taught in high school classrooms, he found that they consistently hid, sugar-coated, ignored, or outright lied about the major milestones of American history. [i]

To this day, there is a persistent effort to remove science from the classrooms or to at least “supplement” it with the superstitious mythology that has been deceptively labeled “creation science”.

After years of seeking and failing to find evidence to support the stories in the Christian Bible, most of our children are still taught that faith is a virtue. The older I get, the more I see the real world, the less patience I have with that silly notion.

Some would argue that faith can be a good thing because it offers hope for desperate people. Unfortunately, it also closes the windows of reality. In times of impending doom, its benefits of strengthening us with hope are more than offset by its tendency to support bad decisions.

In every respect, faith is the opposite of knowledge. Because it promotes intellectual paralysis, its only fruit is the status quo. Growth is made possible by learning – and learning by research.

Insistence on believing something regardless of evidence is the very definition of foolish. No one has ever grown in knowledge after beginning with the assumption that learning will not be permitted to change an existing belief.

Only by having the intellectual curiosity and personal courage to question the things we have been told, can we cut through the fog into which we were born.

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Notes

[i] Loewen, James W. Lies My Teacher Told Me. New York: The New Press, 2018.

If Blood Could Talk

(Article originally published in 2023)

In 1983 I was all in with the Messianic Jewish movement. This was a very personal journey. I never bought into the idea that I, as a Christian, needed to convert Jews to Christianity. Just the opposite was the case. I wanted to be closer to Jews so I could learn from them.

I took a trip to Israel as part of that personal journey. There were random leaflets posted on lamps and poles near the Temple Mount. Written in English, they said “Warning, the New Testament refers to rabbis and Jewish religious teachers as hypocrites and whitewashed tombs”.

I recognized the scripture they were quoting. I knew the quote was accurate. But I was convinced it did not mean modern rabbis who sincerely follow their convictions. This was a reference to insincere religious leaders. On the other hand, I instantly realized this was a reaction to the proselytization efforts of Messianic Jews. I wanted to tell them I did not want to change them – only to learn from them.

That was the first time I felt strange about identifying with the Messianic Jewish movement. A few days later it got worse.

In the old part of Jerusalem is a holocaust museum known as the “Chamber of the Holocaust”. After touring the horrendous exhibits, relics of disgusting unimaginable cruelty at the hands of the Nazis, I entered the adjacent section which consisted primarily of documentation. This was not documentation from the nazis in World War II.

These were contemporary documents. Page after page of modern, recent documents spouting the same antisemitic sewage that the Nazis were publishing before. But these were not my grandparent’s nazis. There were written and proudly signed by Christians. Most of them identified as “Reverend” so and so.

I struggled to remember any of the Christian leaders I had known over the years who had condemned the Church’s role in the holocaust. I knew there were good Christians who sacrificed their own lives to save Jews in the second world war. But these were good people who happened to be Christians. In many cases, they were going against their own Church leaders.

I had heard sermons about how bad the nazis were. But absent from those sermons was condemnation of the Church leaders who actively supported the Nazi movement. Nor have I ever heard anyone from the pulpit condemn the silent complicity of Church leaders who looked the other way while human beings were being tortured and murdered all around them.

I have never heard a sermon about the role of the Church in the promotion of antisemitism. The Church has never owned its guilt from the bullshit stories in the gospels that falsely claim, “all of the people” were screaming “his blood be on us and on our children” (Matthew 27:25). Every subsequent generation of Jewish people have come into the world with this stupid lie hanging over their heads.

This false and hateful portrayal of an imaginary mob trying to persuade the reluctant Roman, Pilate to crucify Jesus, is only one of many examples of the hateful depiction of Jesus’ own people in the New Testament.

Through the years, the Church did its part to nurture antisemitism from the hateful remarks of the “great reformers” such as Martin Luther, to the quotations from the New Testament and from these Church fathers that were cited by Nazis to justify their actions.

These things were racing through my mind as I came out of the last exhibit area and into the gift shop in front of the exit. It was at that moment that I experienced something I never saw coming. This was the first time in my life I felt a sense of shame for my beliefs. I knew the lady at the gift shop was Jewish. I could not look her in the eye. I knew she saw me as a Christian.

That identification took me out of the group in the human race that includes Jews. It put me in the group with a two-thousand-year record of hating Jews. I was ashamed and embarrassed to be seen as a representative of that group. To this day, I regret that I ever did identify with them.

Do You Believe in Magic

Humans think in stories. Whenever we see or learn something new, we try to sort it into one of our existing stories. That is easy. The hard, unnatural seeming thing is to change the baseline story. For most people, changing a fundamental story is too difficult, too much work, and offers little reward.

Religion is always dependent on some fundamental story. Most of us never replace the stories that were passed down to us from our parents. I suspect that very few would ever second-guess the story they inherited without some emotional trauma or dissatisfaction with the status quo.

While I definitely had emotional trauma and dissatisfaction in my life, I want to think I would have been a seeker anyway. My path from Pentecostal non-denominational Christian to Messianic Jewish Christian, to Conservative Jew, and finally to agnostic atheist has been bumpy – but very interesting.

As a child, or a hurting adult, coping with life can instill a need to believe in magic. Looking back, most of my path was haunted by that need. Having been deeply involved in three different flavors of religion, I understand them as various combinations of magic, philosophy, and emotional distress.

The recipe changes depending on which set of stories drive things. For those not born into it, Pentecostalism almost exclusively attracts people who are suffering from some form of intense emotional distress. In my early years I noticed that people who migrated into the Pentecostal movement were almost always hurting. They suffered from alcohol or drug addiction, or from serious medical conditions for which magic seemed to be the last and only hope.

The transition from Pentecostalism to the Messianic Jewish perspective was not a big leap. Non-denominational Pentecostalism has less of a centrally controlled set of doctrines than most Christian groups.

Because the acceptable beliefs are already varied, I only had to abandon one Christian idea to move from Pentecostalism to Messianic Judaism. I already believed Jesus was not the same entity as his “Heavenly Father” to whom he prayed from time to time according to the New Testament. Letting go of the concept that he was also “God” made better sense to me. He was only portrayed as equal to “God” in the fourth gospel. He was never portrayed that way in the earlier synoptic gospels.

Because my studies had not yet brought me to the realization that the purported “messianic prophecies” were not fulfilled by Jesus, dropping the idea that he was “God” while accepting the story that he was the Jewish Messiah seemed more like a stage in my growth than a change in religion.

Eventually, after more years of studying these prophecies in Hebrew, I finally concluded that Jesus had in fact, not fulfilled these prophecies. But I still believed the Jewish scriptures were God’s word. The natural progression then, was to convert to Judaism.

It took about five more years to realize that the Jewish scriptures were not written by God. They were smudged with the same human fingerprints I had previously found all over the New Testament. My acceptance of all these beliefs had depended on the “Bible” as a product of divine inspiration. If there was no divinely inspired book, there was no evidence of communication from a supernatural deity.

For a more in-depth study of the historical context, check out my latest book, Revelation and the AntiChrist, now available at Amazon.

Meanwhile, click here to get a copy of The Second Crucifixion of Jesus. It contains a treasure trove of evidence and sources that you can use in your own quest to learn more about this subject.

As always, my goal is to introduce you to things you are not likely to find in other places. Watch this space for future updates.

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