Jesus, Resurrection, and Rapture

Paul, in I Thessalonians, chapter 4, verses 16 and 17 said similar:

"For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

"Then we which are alive [and notice that he says including him in the "we"] and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."

A writer I read not too long ago said that Paul must have died with great regret and disappointment, and also confusion since Jesus hadn't come as yet. Jesus' generation came and went, and no resurrection of the believers.

Two thousand years later, he still hasn't come.

Remember: a prophet is known to be for real if when he says "Thus saith the Lord", what he said comes true, otherwise he is not a true prophet for God would be God, and errorless if we are told he is God, and Jesus and God are one, so they say Jesus said.

* * * *

WHO WAS AT THE CRUCIFIXION?

There's no question that who was at the cross is jumbled up and varies fairly badly. One of the problems is that Jesus has brothers named James and Joses (Matthew, 13:55). It is odd therefore, that Matthew 27:56 identifies Mary Magdalene before Mary the mother of James and Joses. If this is not the same Mary, Jesus' mother, why don't they say so since she has children of that name? Anyway, he also mentions that the mother of Zebedee's children [James and John] is there too.

Mark 15:40, identifies Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James the less and Joses maybe identifying this Mary as Matthew didn't, and Salome.

Luke doesn't say if there were any women as he was crucified.

John, 19:25, however, says that Jesus' mother was there, as was his aunt, his mother's sister, another Mary, and a third Mary, the wife of Cleophus, and finally, a fourth Mary, the Magdalene, and in verse 26, "the disciple...whom he loved..."

Okay, who was at the cross? There's no way of factually knowing with a certainty, save for Mary Magdalene, if this isn't all a story anyway, which they make it seem that it is. Certainly there is no real knowledge here, but then all of these authors, we must remember, are anonymous and not the one's cited at the start of any of the gospels.

One thing that is never mentioned as a possibility though: In John, 19:26 mentioned above, as the disciple [Jesus] loved—it has always been speculated that it was John (the son of Zebedee perhaps?), but might it not have been the "...young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body...And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked" (Mark, chapter14, verses51 and 52).

It would certainly seem that there is a plausible connection there, though none may like holding that thought as a possibility. Still, why was that in Mark's gospel?

* * * *

WHO GOES TO THE TOMB AND DISCOVERS...?

Who goes to the tomb after Jesus in laid within is a mishmash, a complete set of errors which leave only one to be correct, if any. Looked at objectively, they probably all made it up according to what they heard, and what they heard couldn't have been inspired, it's so mixed up. Here's the sequence, or lack thereof:

Matthew says that Mary Magdalene and the "other" Mary went to the tomb (28:1). An angel says Jesus is gone and goes before them into Galilee. They go to tell the disciples (verse 9), but Jesus meets them and they worship him holding his feet. In verse 10 he tells them to tell his disciples to go to Galilee to see him.

Aside from the creative writing of the author, he interpolates what he could not have known—if indeed it did happen—that the "watch" went into the city and "showed" the chief priests all the things that were done, and were given money to be silent (verses11-15). This is more than obvious fiction, an embellishment that was not known, as I say, if it did happen, which is doubtful.

In Mark (16:1), he has Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James (Jesus' mother or the wife of Zebedee?), and Salome too. Note that Salome was omitted in Matthew's account.

What they see is a young man who tells them Jesus goes to Galilee where they will see him so tell the disciples(16:5&7). That's what Matthew said too, but:

In verse 12, we're told he was seen of two others in another form; when told of that, it's reported (verse 14) that he appeared to the eleven, but it doesn't say where.

In Luke, 24:1, we're told "...they..." came to the tomb and saw "two men" (verse 4). We're told in verses 10 that Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women who told of this to the apostles.

Then Peter goes to the tomb in verse 12, and sees nothing.

In verse 13, we're told of two going to Emmaus, and one of them is Cleophus, and Jesus appears to them, but doesn't let them know it is he. In verse 30, he stays with them at "meat, and in the next verse their eyes are opened and see him as Jesus, but then he vanishes.

In verse 33, they go to Jerusalem (not Galilee as in Matthew and Mark), then Jesus appears in their midst. He shows them his hands and feet and tells them to "handle me".

In verses 42 and 43, he eats broiled fish and honeycomb, then in verse 49, he tells them to "tarry in Jerusalem to be "endued with power from on high".

All very different from the two previous accounts.

In John, we have another different story of what happened, and the only thread that is the same is Mary Magdalene. In chapter 20, verse 1, she finds the stone removed and in verse 2 runs to tell Peter, who in verse 3, goes with "that other [unnamed] disciple to see. They find only clothes and nothing else and leave.

However, in verse 11, Mary stays (apparently having gone back with Peter and the "other"), and in verse 12, she sees two angels. After telling them that she knows not where Jesus has been taken, in verse 14, sees Jesus. In verse 15, he identifies himself.

Now here's another strange difference: In verse 17, Jesus says to her not to touch him for he is not yet ascended, quite contradictory to Luke where he invited them to "handle" him, and eats with them (as above in L, 33 and 42-43), or Matthew 28:9 where they held his feet.

The author of John has Jesus predict that Jerusalem will fall (but that had already happened and the writer knows that).

In verse 19, again Jesus is in their midst that "same evening", but Thomas Didymus is not there, and doesn't believe.

In verse 26, it is eight days later, and Jesus returns, and in verse 27, he invites Thomas to "...reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side..." unlike telling Mary not to touch him. Again, this is not in Galilee. In chapter 21, he does go to Galilee where the disciples are.

As said before, preached about piece meal, that is, cherry picked verses, it sounds very good and uplifting, but when looked at as a whole, we can easily see the fairy tale aspects of it all. They never give you the whole, never show you in one setting the differences, and when a different side is presented, it is not in succession to where one can see that it is different. No one tells you about any other than the few "chosen" verses, that there are conflicting verses which render it all as just plain stories that have been created by "unknown" writers.

Conclusion

As in my previous essay, Which God, If Any?, there is still no foundation to this house of cards that has been built on sand that is an illusion that disappears when looked at objectively, and as a whole. It is then that we find that the bible does indeed have many holes in its tale.

Keep in mind not only of the lack of factual foundation, but the ignorance of the masses that in time had this religion forced on them. Forced because even before Constantine's telling them to have only one religion that is Christianity, they had tried to do this by declaring the bishop of Rome to be the supreme pontiff of all of Christianity. Constantine made it a reality though there were still many other Christian sects.

How they made the one religion out of Christianity was by force, by terror, as in having one bishop murdered for presumed heresy. That became the norm, and with ignorant preachers going about pushing it through the centuries, it soon became a cultural imperative to be Christian as the Catholic Church dictated it.

There was no "bible" as we now have for over three hundred years, and that not officially so for another two hundred years. It mattered not, the people couldn't read anyway, and more, there was nothing to read publicly if they could read.

The cultural imperative to do as the church commanded evolved into Cultural Genes that had us all automatically being "Christians" even after Martin Luther. Indeed, Martin Luther's canon had no books that weren't in the Catholic canon—his main concern was the corruption of the clergy, and the taking of "indulgences" which "remitted" the sins of those who "donated" money to the church.

The public saw the same rituals until the Protestantism of other preachers came into being, and like Luther, they too kept the same books without question, and many of the rituals like Christmas and Easter. To question the scriptures was blasphemy, and to offer other than what each new group preached in their location was heresy subject to burning at the stake, which they liberally did thus further ingraining the Cultural Genes already in us through terror of the church of the time and place.

No one was safe!

Now it is the same, or as much as it can be the same. Our cultural genes are still appealed to, and in being other than what they deem "correct" living, they would still burn people at the stake, or pen them in in an electrified fence as on preacher recommended, if not outright killed as one Mississippi official hoped to be able to do, as do many others (see my previous stories and essays).

Once more, told piece meal (cherry picking verses as they do), they make it all sound marvelous, and true, but they never give you all the facts, all the contradictions, all the untruths.

What was once intended for the Jews was morphed into something that got out of hand with them during the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, and then was coopted by others after Jesus' death. Stories, like legends, are hard to not believe especially when you do not know how to read, are not allowed to ask questions, and are threatened with death. Ignorance is an invite to let the lies run wild, and they have.

None of these writings like this one would have been necessary had people not tried to push their way of living, their belief of how all should live—realistic or not—and not tried to force all as best they could with more lies such as things like Defense of Marriage, etc. They made all of this an issue that has been screamed from the pulpits to the extreme, and from there, used their still extant cultural gene imperative to intimidate, shame, humiliate, dominate, force, and in every way cause any woman who even begins to feel "different", decide that they shouldn't listen to their own inner imperative to live as she feels she has to, love whom she will.

They rip apart the fabric of the personal being that one was born with, and all due to a fabrication that has no foundation as has been shown by these writings which mostly use the bible itself to expose their falsity, their fiction.

There is no solid foundation for the New Testament when the Old Testament is used; the Old Testament has been proven to be full or errors and contradictions by my previous essay, Which God, If Any, as well as my other essays and stories, particularly The Devil's Gateway which reveals the lack of foundation for the bible's fictional stories.

No foundation, a vengeful, psychopathic, genocidal god who demands strict obedience, even unto death for picking up sticks on the wrong day; who deceives his own prophet intentionally even after he has done what he was sent to do, and rationally believes another prophet who says he speaks truly in god's name and tells all that God had told him so he'll believe, then God kills him. (see my essay, Which God, If Any?). Sorry, Fundamentalists, your story is shameful and untrue, and frankly, sick when one considers all the knowledge that is ours in this day.

Jesus, whoever he really was, has a story put in his mouth that had its inception about the year 160 BCE, meaning it was a relatively new story—a fiction based loosely on history that was bastardized—Belshazzar was not Nebuchadnezzar's son, nor was he the last king of Babylon, but the son of the last king, Nabonidus, and between Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus, there were several kings of Babylon.

Jesus was given to tell the tale of a fiction created by an unknown author, thus all the words to that effect had to be fictions. The cultural genes started to reach for their heights.

"Prove all things," saith the main creator of Christianity, Paul, but I add "keep that which you verify as factual". The path to truth must be laden with nothing but facts. Don't accept cherry picked verses unless you don't mind being misled. If you mind being used and misled, then verify all that I have given you here—just about all of it is from the bible they tout as "God's inerrant word". It is not true. Prove it and set yourself free.

To be humiliated, or made to feel fear, shame or guilt over being as you know within you that you are, is something that truly needs to be addressed, and corrected. As I have said, the best path to truth is to follow the path of verifiable facts. Herein are facts and their sources which you can easily check out for yourself to help you decide if there is any reason to believe in the bible and its condemnation with regards to your lesbianism, gayness, or other difference.

If it is possible, you should live and love as is in you to live with those who welcome you as you are, as you were born to be, or as you have chosen to be. If it is possible! Some may feel that it is not possible. For those who feel trapped and unable to confront it, I wish you as much peace as you can find within yourself. However, by no means should anyone be allowed to make you feel shame or guilt, or to humiliate you for being as you know within you that you are, nor push you into a church where you will find your redemption for your erroneous way of wanting to live. That's BS!

For those lesbians who have special circumstances that fairly prohibit them from liberating themselves openly, it is understandable; this is a harsh culture that has been set in place—do the best you comfortably can.

To one and all, I wish you the best, much peace, the knowledge of the facts, and much love in your lives.

*

This is an original essay by the author, wistfall1, protected by copyright ©.