Jesus, Resurrection, and Rapture

There is no doubt that the book of Daniel is a fictive, most likely written, as said earlier [The Catholic Family Connection Bible] to give hope to the Jews in the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, and his attempt to change the Jewish religious rites.

These rites were set forth by Ezra were to germinate in their culture over a period of two to three hundred years as stated in the book of Nehemiah, where Ezra is said to read the book of the law to the ignorant Jews after the return to Judea and Jerusalem per the Persian king of the time.

The Jews of the mid second century did indeed need hope in order to remain a coherent and viable people, a stable society where everyone knew their place and drew comfort from it. There was no comfort in the exploding world of "great" powers. They had been used to Egypt, but suddenly there was Assyria, then they saw Israel, the Kingdom of the North, destroyed by Assyria. The Jews of Jerusalem saw their population swell with immigrants from Israel, but then came Babylon. Where Assyria threatened Jerusalem, Babylon destroyed their now holy city.

All of the intelligentsia were taken captive, but they had longed to keep their fledgling nation alive.

When the Persian empire came into power they were gratefully, treated well by them for two hundred years. However, Ezra came along and forced those who were prosperous but had taken foreign wives, to send those wives away and forged a new consciousness into the people.

They may have prospered somewhat for a time, and with their new law and belief instilled in them, the idea of a nation grew. Was this the time of Ruth and Boaz? Perhaps, but they were back to the reality of having to live with super powers, and a new one came along in Alexander the Great.

Like a whirlwind, he blew past all nations including Persia, but quickly died, and his kingdom was divided among his generals. Seleucus expanded his new kingdom quickly and grew his territory.

The Jews would never know peace again.

Wars raged, and Rome was growing in power. When Antiocus IV Epiphanes came to power in the Selucid line of kings, he decided to make the Jews change their religious habits. Why? Idiocy and ego most likely! The Jews had a religion instilled in them, and they looked to it hopefully—hope was all they could do in the face of the mighty military powers. The exploits of the god of their law were no where to be found for they were a fictive, but they didn't know that yet. Still, their religion was all that they had, all that they knew other than the subservience they had to endure.

What is so important about Daniel is that the book, though written about 163 BCE, was about that god they had learned to rely on, and it now promised a resurrection and life everlasting when their then present times of tribulation were over.

That gave them hope!

Since they didn't know how to read or write, they couldn't question the veracity of their religion. Like all peasants of the early days of civilization, they were very illiterate and ignorant, and generally always did as their leaders said to do. They had no idea that Abraham—who was said by their religion to be the founder of their nation almost two thousand years before then—had never been told to expect a resurrection or life everlasting—only that when his existence was over, he would have many children and then sleep with his fathers.

The need for hope in their religion made them fanatical to preserve their way of life and not permit anyone to desecrate the temple of their god. So they fought. Those were the wars of the Maccabees who refused to do obeisance to the foreign statue of a god that Antiochus IV Epiphanes said they had to bow to.

And they won, but not fully. They got their own High Priest, cleansed their temple, and Hanukkah began as a celebration, but it soon went to their heads and they had an internal falling out. Eventually, in came the Romans.

There was no peace, but the cult of a Messiah came into being, and it all took on a life of its own. Resurrection, a Messiah who was a warrior king, and a High Priest. They would come and the promises of Daniel, etc., would come to pass. The Jews would be god's people.

It would all eventually morph into Christianity.

Jesus would be said by many Jews to be the Messiah, and the strife was ongoing, but Jewish history has others also proclaiming to be the Messiah.

Daniel is important because before him, there was no mention of a resurrection. That they were God's people and their God would do "exploits" as in the past as a mighty warrior was never in question, but it never happened as Jesus said it might—at least in part.

Now let's look at Jesus, what he is supposed to have said, and how it never came to pass as they said that he said it would. The bible testifies to this as fact!

Jesus

How nice it would have been had the so-called authors of the various books of the bible—Old and New Testament alike—actually been the authors of those works, and more, had they not been edited to conform to what the powers in place wanted us to believe. That was not so though.

None of the gospels were written by the authors whose names are used; in fact, half the letters of Paul are forgeries. Yes, other writers who tried—and for a long time succeeded—in passing off their work as being Paul's. In fact, much of Christianity to this day thinks all of the letters bearing Paul's name were written by him. Fundamentalists definitely think so, and thus continue to try to keep women in subservience to their husbands. Shades of the Taliban.

In the gospel according to Luke, in chapter 6, verse 49, it quotes Jesus as saying:

"But he that heareth and doeth not, islike a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great." [Bold mine.]

Let's consider some of the foundations of the story of Jesus, or lack thereof. As in my previous essay, "Which God, If Any", I wrote:

"...the path to any truth had to be laden with verifiable facts that are germane to the subject."

We need to look for the facts of Jesus even at the cost of revealing the falseness of cherished ideas of culture in order to learn the truth of the lies that may be hidden, or not so hidden.

There must be hidden lies that are passed as truths in order to have a viable religion that all can cling to for their hope in a world of terror for the poor and unlearned. The known world had not changed save to grow in population, and religion seeks to control as many as possible, and stories made up to appeal to their illiteracy and fears, as well as hope, work superbly. Shortly we'll see some of those lies, but first we need to know that there was a fight for the hearts of the populace to fill the religious sects for without adherents, there can be no religion.

The early church was Jewish, and not too many to begin with. It was Paul who extended Christianity to the gentiles, but not without a fight, or so we're told in the book of Acts of the Apostles, as well as known history. Paul was apparently the first to write about Jesus. He was a Pharisee, and, some believe, so was Jesus, but that's speculation though he believed, we're told, as the Pharisees did, in the resurrection.

After Paul's personal efforts which couldn't have reached many for he had to travel, and travel was slow, but he wrote some letters about his belief in Jesus who he termed Christ, the anointed Messiah, the savior of us all. Not all of the letters that bear Paul's name were written by him, only about half of them, or so. Some words from one letter are different from the words of another thereby showing a different author.

One huge example of this is in the letter of 1 Timothy, chapter 2, verses 11 and 12 where he is said to command:

"Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.

"But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to learn in silence."

The two letters to Timothy are considered spurious by many textual critics. This due to comparisons with what are considered original letters of Paul. In the case cited above, there is this from 1 Corinthians, chapter 11, verse 5:

"But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoreth her head:..."

For a woman to prophesy she needs an audience, and generally does as all who prophesied, in church, or synagogue, or even in public, but she is definitely not silent.

The reason for saying these things about Paul is to point out that though the following of Jesus was at first a thing of the Jews, Paul helped to spread it to gentiles by his personal teachings and the popularization of his letters. How his letters were made known to others is not known or expressed by anyone to my knowledge, and parts may well thus have been mildly edited. Textual critics are searching these questions out.

In time, however, even the Jews were seeking converts among the gentiles, but to Judaism. This was against the laws of Moses as given to be known to the Jews by Ezra (mentioned earlier). Judaism was popular among many gentiles for its uniqueness, and one-god theme.

In short order, however, there were competing sects seeking followers to believe in their version of what Jesus really taught. They weren't too popular though, most likely due to their need of much thought and study, and to the strange ideas of what they said Jesus' religion was all about; these were commonly called gnostics.

One of charismatic appeal to the public also espoused what were thought to be the teachings of Jesus, was a fellow named Marcion, who was well to do. Marcion was the first to establish a bible consisting, we are told, of ten of Paul's letters and the gospel of Luke.

Worth mentioning just to point out a part of the many differences in the beliefs of Jesus, as well as a rejection of Jesus and a belief in John the Baptist, is a group called the Mandaeans, some of which are said to still exist in or near modern day Iraq. They are also said to reject Abraham and Moses, and consider the god of the Old Testament as a different god from the god of the New Testament, and revered John the Baptist as opposed to Jesus. This is a curious thing to most of us, but we'll see this again momentarily.

Most of the various groups with their different beliefs are mostly gone. The big survivor turned out to be what became known as the Catholic Church. Along the way, humans being humans, there were many intelligent people who became famous and gave direction to the new faith. Some of these people had huge egos, and were sure that they were right.

One of the largest of egos belonged to the bishop of Rome, Stephen 1, who somewhere between 254 and 257 decided that the Roman bishopric had primacy over all of Christianity since Peter was, they thought, the first bishop of Rome and held the "keys" to the kingdom according to scripture.

Stop here and consider that at this time it was over two hundred years since Jesus was said to have been crucified. That is a long time, and the Christian church still wasn't unified, and still had many different versions of just who and what Jesus was. To put it in perspective, that's longer than the United States as a nation.

It took the Emperor Constantine to make Catholicism the main church in 313 CE, and there were still differing ideas of who Jesus was and wasn't.

In fact, we still don't know. There is only belief, but no real proof. He is believed to be mentioned vaguely in history by Tacitus and Josephus, however, Josephus' writings as we have them now are not original and are thought to possibly have been edited in the 1800s, so that leaves us with Jesus' biographies, namely the gospels.

There are said to be four gospels that are well known and testifying of Jesus and his mission, but—they were all written thirty plus years after Jesus' death, and after Paul's letters.

More, all of those gospels are prefaced with "According to" before their name. Of a truth, it seems that no one can verify that any of the people who are said to have written them: Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, really wrote them. No one knows who actually did the writing of them, and they all differ significantly in some very important telling of events that are very salient.

What the Catholic Church has admitted to:

The Catholic bible admits to many things about the individual books of the bible. Here are some of the things they say about the individual gospels:

* * * *

MATTHEW:

Jesus "leaves [Galilee] for Judea only in [chapter] 19:1, and his ministry in Jerusalem, the goal of his journey, is limited to a few days (21:1—25:46)."

This will be important when we consider inerrancy—whether the bible is the error free word of god. It goes on:

"The ancient tradition that the author was the disciple and apostle of Jesus named Matthew...isuntenable because the gospel is based, in large part, on the Gospel according to Mark (almost all the verses of that gospel have been utilized in this), and it is hardly likely that a companion of Jesus would have followed extensively an account that came from one who admittedly never had such an association [Mark] rather than rely on his own memories." [Bold mine.]

"The unknown author, whom we shall continue to call Matthew for the sake of convenience, drew not only upon the Gospel according to Mark but upon a large body of material (principally, sayings of Jesus) not found in Mk that corresponds, sometimes exactly, to material found also in the Gospel according to Luke. This material called 'Q' (probably from the first letter of the German word Quelle, meaning 'source'), represents traditions, written and oral, used by both Matthew and Luke."

"The post-A.D. 70 date is confirmed within the text by [chapter] 22:7, which refers to the destruction of Jerusalem." [Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD so "Matthew" was doing as the author of Daniel and writing a novel based on some facts, just not as long after Daniel was written, but about 45 plus years after Jesus is thought to have been crucified.]

"Date written: approximately AD 85"

* * * *

MARK:

For Mark's gospel, the Catholic bible gives this information:

"The Gospel of Mark ends in the most ancient manuscripts with an abrupt scene at Jesus' tomb, which the women find empty (16:1-8). His own prophecy of 14:28 is reiterated, that Jesus goes before the disciples into Galilee; 'there you will see him.' "

In other words, the final ending of the gospel was added at a later time as opposed to what an earlier manuscript says.

"Although the book is anonymous, apart from the ancient heading..., it has traditionally been assigned to John Mark."

In other words, they have no earthly idea who actually wrote it.

"Traditionally, the gospel is said to have been written shortly before A.D. 70 in Rome..."

"Modern research often proposes as the author an unknown Hellenistic Jewish Christian, possibly in Syria, and perhaps shortly after the year 70."

In other words, chapter 13, verse 2 that says in part: "...there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down." gives credence to the fact that the writer already knew what had happened, and wrote it in just as Matthew did, thus making this at the very least a partially historical novel.

* * * *

LUKE:

As for Luke, the Catholic bible gives us this as information:

"Early Christian tradition, from the late second century on, identifies the author of this gospel and of the Acts of the Apostles as Luke, a Syrian from Antioch, who is mentioned in the New Testament in Col [Colossians]... The prologue of the gospel makes it clear that Luke is not part of the first generation of Christian disciples but is himself dependent upon the traditions he received from those who were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word (1:2)."

In other words, he retells what he thinks he heard, and naturally embellishes it.

"Among the likely sources for the composition of this gospel...were the Gospel of Mark, a written collection of sayings of Jesus known also to the author of the Gospel of Matthew (Q...)..and other 'special traditions' that were used by Luke alone among the gospel writers."

Translation: Luke was passing on what he'd heard, but had no knowledge as to anything Jesus did or said.

Then there's this mysterious "Q"—who is this "Q", and when were his sayings of Jesus written; more, did he even know Jesus? Nobody knows anything about who "Q" was.

As to his "special traditions", it can so very easily be called "embellishments". More on that later.

At any rate, they admit that they only think this "Luke" was the author, and set his gospel at somewhere between 80-90 AD.

* * * *

JOHN:

The information given for the gospel of John is interesting:

"The author's purpose is clearly expressed in what must have been the original ending of the gospel at the end of ch. 20: 'Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of [his] disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may [come to] believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through this belief you have life in his name.' "

In other words, plain and simple, where something looks out of place, it probably is due to editing, and this was edited. Read on in what the Catholic bible says:

"Critical analysis makes itdifficult to accept the idea that the gospel as it now stands was written by one person. Chapter 21 seems to have been added after the gospel was completed: it exhibits a Greek style somewhat different from that of the rest of the work." [Bold mine.]

Doesn't it make you wonder what all else is added, deleted, changed, that they don't own up to? And what is anyone suppose to believe in, the changed, or added?

One of the more famous entries in this gospel, aside from "John 3:16" fame, is the opening. It just doesn't fit with the writing in the rest of the gospel, compellingly written though it is. Here's how the Catholic Church puts it:

"The prologue (1:1-18) apparently contains anindependent hymn, subsequently adapted to serve as a preface to the gospel." [Bold mine.]

Translation: It was added by who knows who, but not the same "who knows who" that wrote most of this gospel.

Another admitted error is:

"Within the gospel itself there are also some inconsistencies, e.g., there are two endings of Jesus' discourses in the upper room (14:31; 18:1. ... most [scholars] have come to the conclusion that the inconsistencies are probably produced by subsequent editing in which homogeneous materials were added to a shorter original." [Bold mine.]

So there it is: it was edited—had to be edited—for it makes no sense otherwise, as is true of other places in the bible.

"Thefinal editing of the gospel and arrangement in its present form probably dates from between A.D. 90 and 100." [Bold mine.]

"The final editing of the gospel and arrangement" it says. Again, how many edits and rearrangements were made?

My congratulations to the Catholic Church for having owned up to what they have here, difficult though it is for them. However, as I said in my previous essay (Which God, If Any), they don't shout these admissions of theirs from the rooftops. It's like the fine print of many contracts of today when buying some product—the fine print is small to tiny, and quite voluminous.

What really gets to me is how they joined with radical Fundamentalists in declaring that "the word of God" is final in declaring that lesbianism is an abomination in God's sight, and going all out to pass Prop. 8 in California.

There is nothing inerrant about the bible. In fact, instead of "Holy Bible", it should be "Bible full of holes with regards to truth of deities," or the holely bible. I'll make this abundantly clear soon (if I haven't done so in my last essay or my other essays and stories).