Yes, it is most likely true, I’m not kidding and I am ecstatic about it. Ever since the late 1970’s the sources of unbiased, calm, in-depth, productive journalism in the U.S. has been whittled away by big-money and news privatization. The beginning? The Supreme Court Landmark decision of Buckley vs Valeo followed up by Citizens United vs FEC which threw open the money-bribe flood-gates.
Through the Reagan years and after, U.S. news consumers had only a few television news providers in which to select: CBS, NBC, and ABC, called The Big Three. There were major news publications in print such as the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and the New York Times. There were a few major weekly news magazines: U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek, and Time Magazine. There were also a few major business journals: Business Week, Forbes, and Fortune Magazine. Perhaps less popular were the news radio broadcasts such as NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered. My father regularly enjoyed PBS shows, both news radio and TV entertainment. Often while driving his Chrysler Plymouth Sedan with adolescent me he’d listen to the Paul Harvey News and Comment show on the radio. I can never forget Harvey’s sign-off, “Paul Harvey… Good day.” or “Paul Harvey… Good night.” Growing up I was exposed to a lot of excellent news journalism because of Dad. He taught me the methods of core critical-thinking skills using analysis, identifying biases, inference, evaluation and problem-solving, all while being open-minded and inquisitive.
Josh Rushing of Al-Jazeera’s Let’s Focus show
However, as I began reaching my 40’s and 50’s I noticed something in U.S. news broadcasting that had changed. Time and pejorative tones and manners. News commentary had become in-house discussion panels (cheaper costs) rather than out in the field and investigative. Propaganda had increasingly crept in more and more and I had to know why.
Ironically enough, last week as I watched and listened to my usual dose of varied news sources, I happen to catch an excellent segment on Al-Jazeera called Let’s Focus, hosted by Josh Rushing. His two guest were Emily Jashinsky, host of After Party and an anchor at Breaking Points, and Cenk Uygur, founder of The Young Turks show. Rushing was asking them, What future is there for podcasts and have podcasts become political powerhouses? It was an utterly informing, fascinating 47-minute discussion by the three of them I had to share it here! It was just too good to pass up. If any of you have problems watching the show, let me know. It’s viewable on the Al-Jazeera website as well as on YouTube, here.
The portion of the show I found very engrossing and profound was at the 28:45-minute mark or 29:15 mark when they discussed the inevitable death of private, corporate, traditional news goliaths to the rising popularity of the individual podcasting circuit. Catch it. Cenk Uygur begins with “lying to the audience” as goliath mass media such as FOX News and Newsmax as well as MSNow wants/wanted versus, “not lying to the podcast audience” because they will call you out and permanently burn you! The podcast audience do not want lies and propaganda.
Around the 29:50 mark (and following) is when the discussion got even better! Uygur went on to speak about the Podcast Era today “is a much better media ecosystem” because the host/provider is “audience responsive” as opposed to the cement guardrails the mega-corporate media giants surround the host/anchor(s) and reporters like a slip-knot noose. Then Emily Jashinsky and Cenk Uygur both agree the traditional news media giants cannot buy-out or control the discussion content with their millions or billions of dollars, their private, political interests or agendas, and more importantly with their self-imposed strict time-limits of 2-3 minute snippets or 8-10 minute short discussion panels before breaking off for more advertising dollars. They are themselves heavily restrained by Time=Money in advertising, commercials, and especially during election years their high-yield profits from super-pac campaign ads take the number one priority, forever, as long as they chain themselves to that business model.
The mainstream media behemoths are addicted to, enslaved to more money (greed), more monopolizing mass media buy-outs (popularity reach), and more high-paying super-pacs with special interests (power, authority) that appease the individual corporate owners’ or their Board of Executives’ swayed mission statement. Simply put, the traditional news media goliaths—CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, FOX News, etc.—don’t have the irreplaceable time (in ads and campaign funds/donations) that the podcast circuit is free from and not enslaved to. And Goldwater-conservative podcast co-host Emily Jashinsky stated unequivocally that “We [podcasters] don’t need access; FOX News, MS, CNN, they need access” because those small regular audiences want to see the hosts/anchors talking to the politicians. But “our audience,” Jashinsky says, “don’t give a damn if we talk to politicians. They do not care.” As Cenk Uygur stated correctly, we news consumers are no longer in the past era of a small pond of providers. “But now,” he says “we are in an ocean of content” due to the evolving, advancing tech-online ability to be everywhere at once, repeatedly.
But no more spoilers for the short attention spanners.😉 I strongly urge my followers and readers to watch this episode of Let’s Focus. You won’t regret it. In my opinion, taking away the propaganda-biased mega-profit machines of media and putting it back into the hands of We the People is the best thing ever for this very divided country. After all, the power belongs to the people in a true democracy our Core Founding Fathers intended in the first place.
Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always
Just the other day I found myself in a heated dispute with a married couple in Chattanooga, Tennessee—friends of my wife’s middle brother—about the cause and purpose of the American Civil War. I was astonished by what she (the wife) was yelling saying in the background to me while Sandy and I were speaking on the phone with her brother.
We were only explaining for the third or fourth time to my brother-in-law that we still could not help him with the back-taxes (of 4-years) on their deceased Aunt’s house in Hamilton County Tennessee where the brother now resides. The wife, Sandy, was living and financially helping with payments before we married. Basically, my repeated answer was that the current hyper-inflated Cost of Living in Texas and across the entire U.S. proper was being caused by one man and one party:the President of the United States and his radical sycophant MAGA Republicans. Just our cost of energy and groceries are so exorbitantly high that we run out of money by the 19th or 20th of every month… and have been since February of 2026 when our POTUS ignorantly picked and started a war with Iran and the Straight of Hormuz.
Overhearing what I was telling Sandy’s brother this woman chimed in unsolicited to try and antagonize me over what I was saying to my brother-in-law. She also overheard me saying that “I cannot for the life of me understand WHY several Deep South states still have the Confederate flag or symbols of the 1861 Confederacy within their state flags.” She yelled stated loudly, “We love our Confederate flag here and we love President Trump!” In response I asked, “Does she even realize that she is implying she supports racism and slavery!?” Her uneducated reply? It was:
“You saying that makes YOU the racist!”
Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, July 1–3, 1863, the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War.
Yes, even in this 21st-century there are many, too many, Americans that have been misinformed or intentionally wrongly taught to believe that the American Civil War was NOT fought and lost over slavery, but fought over states rights and centralized power and authority. This bogus belief in false history could not be further from the verified facts and truth. Here is why she and any other Americans defending the Confederate States of America and their motive for starting the Civil War are purely and simply flagrantly wrong. Following are the own written words and declarations of secession of all thirteen Confederate States and two more that were essentially shadow/rump Confederate governments.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
— U.S. Declaration of Independence, adopted July 4, 1776
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The Causes of Seceding Confederate States 1860-1861
As the quote above states, drafted primarily by Thomas Jefferson—and later revised by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston, Roger Sherman, and Jefferson—there is no distinction whatsoever between any human race or any human ethnicity. It explicitly states, “all men [and women] are created equal” in God’s eyes and His work on Earth. This fact must be first established and accepted (embraced) by all American citizens then and now. Period. No grey areas.
Precisely, what do the eleven (11) seceding Confederate states say as to why they are seceding from the U.S. Declaration, the U.S. Constitution, and the United States of America that our Founding Fathers drew up only 84-years earlier? In just four words this:
Keeping Slavery — and that all men are NOT created equal in God’s eyes/work.
States’ Rights — to maintain slavery as an economic model and profit for white plantation owners.
Those reasons, those causes are explicitly stated to protect their institution of slavery. Following are the four major states—Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, and South Carolina—using words defending pro-slavery, followed by the clear centrality of slavery and the states’ rights to keep slavery.
Mississippi’s Declaration of Secession (verbatim): “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery— the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth… These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.” 1
Georgia’s Declaration of Secession (verbatim): “That reason was [the North’s] fixed purpose to limit, restrain, and finally abolish slavery in the States where it exists. The South with great unanimity declared her purpose to resist the principle of prohibition to the last extremity.” 2
Texas’ Declaration of Secession (verbatim): “The servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations.” 3
South Carolina’s Declaration of Secession (verbatim): “Those [Union] States have assumed the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States.” 4
These four leading pro-slavery states go on to express arguments and other concepts and methods from their interpretation of the U.S. Constitution to try and show eight reasons why the protection, expansion, and perpetuation of African-American slavery and white supremacy were the primary drivers of secession. The individual state documents explicitly cite Northern states passing personal liberty laws, nullifying the Fugitive Slave Act5:
Some states argue that slavery should be expanded as an economic benefit and fair representation in the federal government’s trade and commerce.
Abolitionism is a method of inciting violent uprisings both in the South and among the Northern Confederates.
Mississippi and Georgia point out in their Causes of Secession that slavery accounts for a huge portion of the Southern economy.
The Southern states argue that the Union is a compact, one that can be annulled if the states are not satisfied with what they receive in return from other states and/or from the federal government.
The states argue that the North’s reluctance to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (mandating that fugitive slaves be returned to the South) means that the compact is no longer satisfactory.
All of the Southern states negatively mention Abraham Lincoln’s election and his suspected abolitionist leanings.
Georgia accuses Northern manufacturing interests of exploiting the South and dominating the federal government.
Texas expresses dissatisfaction with federal military protection.
To further validate the primary cause of the American Civil War, here are the actual explicit written words, their declarations, and causes of secession by the thirteen (13) Confederate States in chronological order defending their right to keep slavery:
South Carolina – Dec. 20-24, 1860
“Confederate States of America – Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union:
The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
And now the State of South Carolina having resumed her separate and equal place among nations, deems it due to herself, to the remaining United States of America, and to the nations of the world, that she should declare the immediate causes which have led to this act. […]
We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they [the North] have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.”” […more]
Mississippi – January 9, 1861
“A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippifrom the Federal Union:
In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. […]
It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.
It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst. […]
It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.
It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.” […more]
Florida – January 10, 1861
“Form of Government for the People of Florida – Ordinance of Secession from the Federal Union.
“We, the People of the State of Florida, in Convention assembled, do solemnly ordain, publish and declare, that the State of Florida hereby withdraws herself from the Confederacy of States existing under the name of the United States of America, and from the existing government of said States; and that all political connection between her and the government of said States ought to be and the same is hereby totally annulled and said Union of States dissolved, and the State of Florida is hereby declared a sovereign and independent Nation; and that all ordinances heretofore adopted, in so far as they create or recognize said Union, are rescinded, and all laws or parts of laws in force in this State, in so far as they recognize or assent to said Union, be and they are hereby repealed.
Done in open Convention, January 10, 1861.””
On January 10, 1861, with 62 delegates voting yea and 7 voting nay, the President of Florida’s Secession Convention, John C. McGehee, speaking for the vast majority of Floridians he declared five days earlier:
“At the South, and with our People of course, slavery is the element of all value, and a destruction of that destroys all that is property.”
And remaining in the rule of the federal Union would…
“…destroy every vestige of right growing out of property in slaves.”
Alabama – January 11, 1861
“An Ordinance to dissolve the union between the State of Alabama and the other States united under the compact styled “The Constitution of the United States of America.”
“Whereas, the election of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin to the offices of president and vice-president of the United States of America, by a sectional party, avowedly hostile to the domestic institutions and to the peace and security of the people of the State of Alabama, preceded by many and dangerous infractions of the constitution of the United States by many of the States and people of the Northern section, is a political wrong of so insulting and menacing a character as to justify the people of the State of Alabama in the adoption of prompt and decided measures for their future peace and security, therefore:
Be it declared and ordained by the people of the State of Alabama, in Convention assembled, That the State of Alabama now withdraws, and is hereby withdrawn from the Union known as “the United States of America,” and henceforth ceases to be one of said United States, and is, and of right ought to be a Sovereign and Independent State. […]
And as it is the desire and purpose of the people of Alabama to meet the slaveholding States of the South, who may approve such purpose, in order to frame a provisional as well as permanent Government upon the principles of the Constitution of the United States, …”” […more]
Georgia – January 19, 1861
“We the people of the State of Georgia in Convention assembled do declare and ordain and it is hereby declared and ordained that the ordinance adopted by the State of Georgia in convention on the 2nd day of Jany. in the year of our Lord seventeen hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the constitution of the United States of America was assented to, ratified and adopted, and also all acts and parts of acts of the general assembly of this State, ratifying and adopting amendments to said constitution, are hereby repealed, rescinded and abrogated.
We do further declare and ordain that the union now existing between the State of Georgia and other States under the name of the United States of America is hereby dissolved, and that the State of Georgia is in full possession and exercise of all those rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State.
Passed January 19, 1861.”
A slave market in Atlanta, Georgia, 1864. Library of Congress
The following is the State of Georgia’s Declaration of Secession:
“The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic. This hostile policy of our confederates has been pursued with every circumstance of aggravation which could arouse the passions and excite the hatred of our people, and has placed the two sections of the Union for many years past in the condition of virtual civil war. Our people, still attached to the Union from habit and national traditions, and averse to change, hoped that time, reason, and argument would bring, if not redress, at least exemption from further insults, injuries, and dangers. Recent events have fully dissipated all such hopes and demonstrated the necessity of separation. Our Northern confederates, after a full and calm hearing of all the facts, after a fair warning of our purpose not to submit to the rule of the authors of all these wrongs and injuries, have by a large majority committed the Government of the United States into their hands. The people of Georgia, after an equally full and fair and deliberate hearing of the case, have declared with equal firmness that they shall not rule over them. A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia. The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party.”
“AN ORDINANCE to dissolve the union between the State of Louisiana and other States united with her under the compact entitled “The Constitution of the United States of America.”
“We, the people of the State of Louisiana, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the ordinance passed by us in convention on the 22d day of November, in the year eighteen hundred and eleven, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America and the amendments of the said Constitution were adopted, and all laws and ordinances by which the State of Louisiana became a member of the Federal Union, be, and the same are hereby, repealed and abrogated; and that the union now subsisting between Louisiana and other States under the name of “The United States of America” is hereby dissolved. […]
Adopted in convention at Baton Rouge this 26th day of January, 1861.””
By this point in time, January–February 1861, an all new Confederate States of America Constitution was being drafted. The first seven slave-holding states would adopt and ratify the new Constitution on March 11, 1861. The six remaining slave-holding states, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and Arkansas would soon follow suit.
Furthermore, to absolutely prove beyond a shadow of doubt that the American Civil War was fought for keeping and the protection of slavery in the South as well as its expansion into other western states, newly appointed President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson F. Davis, wrote this veto to the Congress in Washington D.C. and its Executive Department:
“VETO MESSAGE.
EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, February 28, 1861.”
“Gentlemen of Congress: With sincere deference to the judgment of Congress, I have carefully considered the bill in relation to the slave trade, and to punish persons offending therein, but have not been able to approve it, and therefore do return it with a statement of my objections. The Constitution (section 7, article I.) provides that the importation of African negroes from any foreign country other than slave-holding States of the United States is hereby forbidden, and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same. The rule herein given is emphatic, and distinctly directs the legislation which shall effectually prevent the importation of African negroes. The bill before me denounces as high misdemeanor the importation of African negroes or other persons of color, either to be sold as slaves or to be held to service or labor, affixing heavy, degrading penalties on the act, if done with such intent. To that extent it accords with the requirements of the Constitution, but in the sixth section of the bill provision is made for the transfer of persons who may have been illegally imported into the Confederate States to the custody of foreign States or societies, upon condition of deportation and future freedom, and if the proposition thus to surrender them shall not be accepted, it is then made the duty of the President to cause said negroes to be sold at public outcry to the highest bidder in any one of the States where such sale shall not be inconsistent with the laws thereof. This provision seems to me to be in opposition to the policy declared in the Constitution – the prohibition of the importation of African negroes – and in derogation of its mandate to legislate for the effectuation of that object. Wherefore the bill is returned to you for your further consideration, and, together with the objections, most respectfully submitted.
[signed] JEFF’N DAVIS.”
Texas – February 1, 1861
“AN ORDINANCE To dissolve the Union between the State of Texas and the other States united under the Compact styled “the Constitution of the United States of America.””
“WHEREAS, The Federal Government has failed to accomplish the purposes of the compact of union between these States, in giving protection either to the persons of our people upon an exposed frontier, or to the property of our citizens, and
WHEREAS, the action of the Northern States of the Union is violative of the compact between the States and the guarantees of the Constitution; and,
WHEREAS, The recent developments in Federal affairs make it evident that the power of the Federal Government is sought to be made a weapon with which to strike down the interests and property of the people of Texas, and her sister slave-holding States, instead of permitting it to be, as was intended, our shield against outrage and aggression; THEREFORE, […]
Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery– the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits– a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?
That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.” […more]
Between April 17 and June 8, 1861, the States of Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, Missouri, and Kentucky all seceded from the Union, adopted and then ratified their new Constitution of the Confederate States of America therefore keeping their slave property, protecting it, and sought to expand slavery into western territories as far as the Pacific Ocean if possible such as into the Arizona Territory and beyond.
Wealthy white Southern plantation owners along with their white foreman separated from the Union, from the U.S. Declaration of Independence, and the U.S. Constitution to establish a negro slave-commerce which fattened their opulent southern Antebellum lifestyles. Moreover, unlike slavery in the ancient world where servants/slaves were of diverse skin-colors and ethnicities, even Caucasian slaves, in the United States slavery was strictly based on race or skin-color. Leading up to the Civil War blacks were the enslaved people in the South and whites were not.
As of today, October 14, 2026, one hundred and sixty-one years (161) and counting, there are seven state flags in the U.S. that feature explicit symbols, historical references, or structural designs tied to the Confederate States of America and still numerous state monuments and statues celebrating, glorifying the Confederacy’s heroes and cause. Here are those seven states and some of the still standing Confederate sites:
Adopted in 1895, the flag features a crimson St. Andrew’s cross (saltire) on a white field, designed to preserve the cross element of the Confederate battle flag.
The state flag includes four blue stars inside a white diamond. The top blue star, added in 1923 (with the diamond’s border design echoing the Confederate saltire), explicitly represents the Confederacy.
Adopted around 1900, the flag incorporates a red St. Andrew’s cross intersecting the state seal, a design choice influenced by former Confederate governor Francis P. Fleming.
The current flag, adopted in 2003, is directly modeled after the first official national flag of the Confederacy, known as the “Stars and Bars” (three red and white stripes with a blue canton containing a circle of white stars around the state coat of arms).
Mississippi did retire its previous state flag containing the Confederate battle emblem in 2020, though its current state flag (featuring a magnolia blossom) continues to include the motto “In God We Trust”, which also appears on the flags of Georgia and Florida.
The flag design dates back to 1861 (updated in 1885) and directly mirrors the post-secession state flag adopted when North Carolina joined the Confederacy.
The flag features a vertical blue bar on the fly side and a circle of three stars, sharing historical design parallels with late-era Confederate national banners.
There are six Confederate figures in the National Statuary Hall Collection, in the United States Capitol.
Confederate Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery.
Confederate Soldier Statue, in Monroe County, West Virginia, 2016.
The Confederate Memorial in Fulton, Kentucky is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
A commemorative sign and a plaque commemorated the Battle of Picacho Pass, the westernmost Confederate engagement of the war. The sign is “dedicated to Capt. Sherod Hunter’s ‘Arizona Rangers, Arizona Volunteers’ C.S.A.”, while the plaque states three Union soldiers buried on battlefield and includes both US Union and CSA flags. The sign was removed in 2015 due to deterioration of the wood and the plaque was moved onto the Union stone monument.
Van Buren Confederate Monument at Crawford County Courthouse in Van Buren, Arkansas.
Bentonville, Arkansas Confederate Monument.
Battlefield monument, Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park (1912). Inscription: Here was fought on February 20, 1864, the Battle of Ocean Pond under the immediate command of General Alfred Holt Colquitt, “Hero of Olustee.” This decisive engagement prevented a Sherman-like invasion of Georgia from the south. Erected April 20, 1936, by the Alfred Holt Colquitt Chapter, United Daughters of the Confederacy Ga. Div.
Confederate Monument at Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago, Illinois.
If you would like to review further the more than 685 to 700 Confederate monuments and well over 2,000 total Confederate symbols, including streets, highways, buildings, forts, airbases, and parks still remaining in public spaces nationwide… then start with Wikipedia’s site here. When the former Confederacy and its cause (slavery, racism) is still sanctified today, even as one’s family heritage, and in degrees sanitized so not to appear evil or wrong, what does that teach our youth and American generations that come after? Are they being (intentionally?) taught immoral values?
Most Americans today know full well that defeating Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and 20th-century fascism, had to be done, if for no other reason than atrocities and war crimes blatantly committed by these two evil powers. The Nazi Holocaust and war crimes by Japan against the Chinese people followed by the “enemies” of The Rising Sun clearly show they both had to be stopped and defeated for their forms of evil prejudice and racism. How is the prejudice, racism, and brutality of the Confederate South any different? It’s not. So why support the former Confederacy and the racist slavery it stood for? Isn’t that the same as exalting Nazism and Imperial Japan?
For these same reasons, why are Americans still believing and supporting racism and prejudice, or rather The Lost Cause? Here’s one reason and I strongly recommend you watch all 7-minutes:
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More than 150-years later in a Pew Research Center poll found in 2011 and still today in 2026 that Americans are somehow still seriously divided over what the American Civil War was fought for and how and why it started. In that 2011 poll about 48% stated the Civil War was mainly about states’ rights and 38% state it was primarily about slavery. Another 9% thought it was about both issues equally or neither/don’t know. And for some mysterious reason (or is it?) the poll revealed:
“Young people are more likely than older Americans to say that the war’s main cause was states’ rights – 60% of those younger than 30 express this view, the highest percentage of any age group. Those 65 and older are the only age group in which more say that slavery, rather than states’ rights, was the main cause of the Civil War (by 50% to 34%). While 48% of whites view states’ rights was the war’s main cause, so too do 39% of African Americans.”
How is that possible? We have in American archives across the nation, as I have shown above for anyone to see with their own eyes, all the 1850-1865 original state declarations, ordinances, government correspondence, messages, and personal letters by all the main-players from the Union North and the Confederate South—they all explicitly and implicitly show and read that the institution of slavery and its defense was the #1 cause for the Confederate States to secede and start the Civil War. Anyone who states otherwise is unequivocally wrong and does not know the authenticated, verified historical evidence. Period. This makes one ask, “Were these portions of the U.S. populous, 20th– and 21st-century generations, wrongly and intentionally misguided in school?” Has there been a subtle undercurrent of prejudice and racism being taught in our school systems, in Social Studies and/or History classes?
Since the Civil War, some Southern Americans with some level of ties to the Confederacy have attempted to reframe the main cause of the conflict by focusing on states’ rights or other issues, such as taxes and tariffs. This may be because it’s painful to accept the truth that millions fought to uphold a cruel and inhuman system. It may be because people want to believe the best about their ancestors, or their state or region. Or it may be due to prejudice. Whatever their rationalizing the historical evidence makes it clear that the American Civil War was fought over the issue of slavery, and that the Confederate cause was the continuation of white supremacy. Plain and simple. Controversy over. Yes, “Learn authentic, corroborated, verified factual history,” not propaganda and racism.
This is a follow-up to my previous blog-post, Theological or Historical? I thought it important to distinguish clearly just how conflicting, how antithetical 1st-century CE Messianic Judaism was to Hellenism. They were/are so polar-opposite that they fit perfectly the cliché “Apples to Oranges.” Why? Why is this sharp distinction so important to write about, to understand comprehensively, and to equip ourselves today with the actual historical truth and reality of Christianity’s factual soil, if you will, or context of its very first roots in Near East Antiquity?
Ancient Jerusalem and Herod’s Temple, the Second Temple for the Jews
The sharp contrast is critically important to know and understand because Christianity today is not what its (assumed) founder, i.e. Jesus Christ, wanted it to be after his execution and death. In fact, “Christianity” over the last 1,978 years is today very, very different than what Jesus’ little sect named The Way and his teachings and reforms were meant to be. It can be very well argued, even convincingly concluded that what we know as “Christianity” for the last 2,000 years is nothing similar to what Jesus of Nazareth had in mind nor what he felt or thought was his life’s true purpose.
Hellenism in Contrast to Messianic Judaism of the 1st Century CE
What exactly is Hellenism? Today it is often unknown, equally misunderstood, and often overlooked or dismissed. Putting ancient Hellenism in historical context can be generally defined this way:
“Hellenism refers to the culture, ideals, and civilization of ancient Greece, or the spread and adoption of those Greek customs and language across the ancient world.”
There are generally two components to this definition. First, the devotion to ancient Greek culture and ideals with classical values in thought, art, philosophy, and civic standards of ancient Greece, such as reason, moderation, and the pursuit of knowledge as well as a national character of distinct spirit and traits associated with the ancient Greek people.
Second, the historical spread where the diffusion of Greek language, literature, and culture into non-Greek societies following the conquests of Alexander the Great and that historical influence was a shared civilization that dominated the Mediterranean and Near East from the 4th century BCE until the rise of the Roman Empire. The infusion or clash of these cultures, ideals, and religions in ancient Palestine were tolerated in several regions, but greatly unwelcomed in other Jewish regions. With the latter, those areas were primarily rural interior towns and villages whereas Hellenism was more dominant in coastal cities, urban centers, and the frontier border regions of Palestine. For example, Hellenism existed heavily in the Decapolis, or “Ten Cities,” all along the Mediterranean coastline such as Ptolemais (Acre), Ascalon (Ashkelon), Gaza, and Caesarea Maritima. Hellenism was also in Samaria, and the urban pockets of Galilea and Judea, specifically Sepphoris and Jerusalem respectfully. In Judea where Homeland Jews resided they began refusing all things Greek or Roman.
1st century Jews in the Lower Levant were ethnically diverse with many various forms of worship and Hellenistic influences
During the Late Second Temple Period (27 BCE – 70 CE) in Judea, Samaria, Galilea, Perea, and Idumea, Jewish Messianism was widely varied for several reasons. The most major conflict was the very nature of the Israelite religion, Was the God of Israel to be worshipped alongside other gods, or was He to be venerated exclusively? Along side this controversy was the question of centralization of Jewish worship. Was it to be strictly limited to the Temple in Jerusalem as with the Deuteronomic tradition, or were those Jews believing that the God of Israel was to be one among many who saw no reason to centralize worship or to limit membership in a legitimate priesthood not bound to the Temple? And furthermore, many other Jewish believers (Sectarians) argued a larger religious cultural question, Should the Israelite religion be a total way of life leaving no room for outside (Hellenistic) elements, or was Judaism to be only a part, a mix of the life of the individual and their resident national culture, wherever that may be? Be that as it may, the sectarian conflicts were by no means black and white. Dr. Lawrence Schiffman, professor at New York University and renown scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls states:
“The issue [for Jews] was never whether or not to reject outside influence. The question was rather whether to assimilate some elements not considered harmful or to allow the wholesale entry of foreign elements into the way of life of the Jews. Those seeking exclusive worship of God felt that adoption of foreign elements without restriction was nothing more than apostasy and the abandonment of Judaism. Others [post Second Temple], against whom our sources so often polemicize [Hellenize], disagreed.”
Consequently, the schism widened between Israel (the North – Galilee & Samaria) and Judea (in the South). The conflicts were so volatile that by the time King Herod was rebuilding the Jewish (Second) Temple in Jerusalem (536 BCE – 20 BCE), the Samaritans offered to help, but the Judeans refused their offer. By this time, therefore, it was clear that the Judeans had chosen to follow in the footsteps of those who believed that only the God of Israel was to be worshipped, no foreign influences, and that this worship was to be done strictly according to the ancient traditions of Israel, not the Samaritan way.
For these reasons, the issue of Hellenism can be viewed as a larger issue of openness to foreign cultures and influences, a conflict which was foremost in biblical times and which continued into the Late Second Temple period and Jesus’ lifetime. As the landscape of world politics and culture changed and expanded, Homeland Judaism first found itself in confrontation with the Canaanite culture and then with the phenomenon and permeation of Hellenism and the Roman Empire.
Because of the blending of many cultures and influences from centuries of conquering kingdoms and empires from 423 BCE and the Babylonians to 69 CE and the Romans, the Jewish people in general formed five (5) distinct groups or sects within Palestine during the Hellenistic period. Who were they?
Diaspora Jews Most Diaspora (dispersed) Jews were saturated in Hellenism. Of these Jews many held that embracing Greek educational and cultural forms ought to be imposed on the biblical heritage so that Jews might enter into the cosmos as Hellenistic citizens. Judaism would then become one of the Hellenistic cults, and the God of Israel just one of the many manifestations of Zeus, the major god of the Greek pantheon. After all, throughout the rest of the Hellenistic world, the local deities were identified with the gods of the Hellenic pantheon. By 167-141 BCE it was against this extreme Hellenization that the Maccabees revolted. In time, those Jews holding these radical views, whether in the Land of Israel or in the Diaspora, probably assimilated completely into the Greek way of life that they and their descendants were lost to Yahweh and to the Torah-loving Homeland Jews in Judea.
Alexandrian (Egypt) Jews of Philo Judaeus A large population of Koine Greek-speaking Jews lived and worshipped in Alexandria, Egypt and surrounding areas. They were less Hellenized because their fundamental loyalties were to Jewish traditions, however, their culture was significantly influenced by Hellenism with the center of both in Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great of Macedonia. The single biggest contribution of these Jews was the Greek Septuagint Bible and writings of Philo Judaeus (ca. 20 BCE – 40 CE). These Jews sought to integrate the Torah with Greek Platonic notions. There was also a pocket of these moderate Hellenistic Jews inside Judea such as Josephus and Greek-speaking Jews in the Land of Palestine. Many books of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha came from these Jews and most certainly had numerous wealthy aristocrats and members of the Sadducean and Boethusian priesthood in Judea. Closely aligned with the Sadducees the Boethusian priests are ascribed to Simeon ben Boethus, an appointed high priest by Herod in 24 BCE.
Near Eastern Levitical Pharisees This Jewish sect will be well-known by most because of the four Gospels in the Greek Septuagint and church Sunday schools. The name of these Jews was derived from the Hebrew perushim, or “separate.” The moniker most probably refers to their separation from Levitically impure food and from the tables of the am ha’arets, the poorer common people, who were not scrupulous regarding the laws of Levitical purity or tithes. This would have included the impoverished rural Jews. That said, the sources for who the Pharisees were exactly is extremely limited and slanted in the sense that no other independent sources outside of the Gospels and during Jonathan Maccabee (ca. 150 BCE) in Talmudic literature exist today.
Dead Sea (Qumran) Zadokite Jews This Jewish sect was much more anti-Hellenistic than even the Pharisees and thoroughly shunned Greek culture all together. They refused it so much that they settled in distant rural areas around the Dead Sea. The most well-known community was at Qumran and there they hid a series of clay pots filled with scrolls, which have been dated mostly to the 2nd and 1st BCE. These scrolls summarized these Zadokite Qumran Jews’ doctrines, rituals, and daily life. Their foremost characteristic of the Qumran sect was their renunciation of extra-biblical traditions to the Torah. The Qumranites derived the laws of the Torah strictly from exegesis which they spent the greater parts of their daily life doing. This was equivalent to the tasks of the Sadducees as well. In fact, a number of their decrees and exegesis typify closely that of Zadokite/Sadducean inclinations of Jewish law.
Saul/Paul the Herodian Hellenized Jew
Herodian Jews Herodian Jews were a priestly party under the reign of King Herod and his successors; called by the Rabbis “Boethusians,” as adherents of the family of Boethus, whose daughter Mariamne was one of the wives of King Herod, and whose sons were successively made high priests by him. They followed the Sadducees in their opposition to the Pharisees, and were therefore often identified with the Sadduceans.
To summarize then it is abundantly apparent that Syro-Palestine, including Judea, Galilea, and Samaria were in great flux socially, politically, geographically, commercially, and perhaps most importantly, religiously for many centuries as Greek culture and the Roman Empire took hold and reigned supreme. The Jewish sects of Qumran/Zadokite and the Sadducees by the 1st-century CE both rejected wholeheartedly Hellenism and the Romans literally, figuratively, and politically, and no more so than with the corrosive elements creeping into their Torah worship and orthodoxy.
Second Temple Jewish Messianism The Messianic concept in Judaism has a very complex history in the Hebrew Bible, in the interpretation of those scriptural passages, and was of course further compounded by Jewish sectarianism over traditions, doctrines, practices, and most of all the struggles with Hellenism closing in from all sides. Therefore, Messianism developed in various forms among the Jewish sects. Within those disputes emerged two separate trends, a restorative versus a utopian Messianism.
With the restorative Messianism it sought to reunite with ancient Jewish splendor. It was a practical approach where the present world was expected to become more improved and ideal. This trend was likened to God’s Kingdom on Earth.
On the other hand the utopian Messianism shaped a better future transcending anything existing previously. It was layered with an apocalyptic nature and seeking widespread catastrophes ushing in major changes with the arrival of the Jewish Messiah or Messiahs, plural.
During early Second Temple times the prophets Haggai and Zechariah foretold a Davidic kingdom was to be restored under the reign of Zerubbabel. Both of the trends had the same Messianic conclusion, however, there was one significant difference:
““Behold, a man whose name is Branch, for He will branch out from where He is; and He will build the temple of the Lord. Yes, it is He who will build the temple of the Lord, and He who will bear the honor and sit and rule on His throne. Thus, He will be a priest on His throne, and the counsel of peace will be between the two offices.”’ Now the crown will become a reminder in the temple of the Lord to Helem, Tobijah, Jedaiah and Hen the son of Zephaniah.” — Zechariah 6:12-14 (my emphasis)
The Zechariah passage clearly implies there will be two Messiahs, not one. One is to be a priest (Levitical?) and the other will be a king (Davidic?). By the end of the Late Second Temple Period the restorative Messianic approach would fuse into the utopian/apocalyptic approach of the Qumran Dead Sea sect. This evolved mixture would cause more debate, more division/sectarianism far into the future of the nature of Judaic Messianism, which certainly crept into early Christianity and its highly complicated theology for seven centuries. One final summation about Messianism can be made beyond any doubt; in time the concept of Messianism became heavily convoluted and confusing, whether in a Jewish sense or a Christian sense, so much so it still very much exists today in the two religions. It exists for the simple reason that Judaism fathered Christianity. The blood line, so to speak, is patently contaminated with ancient Second Temple partisanships.
Severing Jesus’ Reforms & Teachings from His Torah-loving Judaism
For the above reasons and many others Jesus (Yeshua) firmly spurned Hellenism as a replacement for or an equal partner to Jewish Torah law, but he operated within a deeply Hellenized world without entirely rejecting its cultural presence. As a first-century Jewish teacher, Jesus’ (Yeshua’s) primary identity, audience, and theological framework were heavily rooted in the Hebrew scriptures and Second Temple Judaism. However, historians view his relationship with Hellenism through four distinct lenses:
Retention of a Jewish Identity — Jesus did not advocate for any Hellenization, which was the adoption of Greek culture, polytheistic religion, and philosophical ideals. He maintained core Jewish “boundary markers”—such as observing the Sabbath, honoring the temple, and adhering strictly to monotheism. When Jesus criticized Jewish religious leaders, it was not to replace Judaism with Greek customs or Greek Apotheosis, but rather to call his people back to what he viewed as the true heart of God’s law in the Torah.
Living in a Hellenized Environment — Despite his focus on Israel, Jesus lived and ministered more in Galilee, an area heavily exposed to Greek culture. Why?
Proximity to Greek Cities: Major Hellenistic urban centers like Sepphoris and Tiberias were just miles from his hometown of Nazareth.
Language: While Jesus primarily taught in Aramaic, he likely knew just enough Koine Greek—the commercial language of the region—to communicate during his ministry, such as during his trial with the Roman governor Pontius Pilate.
Interaction with Gentiles: The Gospels record Jesus occasionally interacting with and praising the faith of Gentiles and Hellenized individuals (such as a Roman centurion and a Syrophoenician woman), signaling a slight willingness to extend his message beyond traditional Jewish boundaries.
Parallels to Greek Philosophy — Some modern historians note that parts of Jesus’ teaching style shared striking similarities with certain Greek philosophical movements, specifically the Greek Cynics. Like the Cynics, Jesus advocated for a simple lifestyle, free from material anxieties, and used pithy, counter-cultural aphorisms to challenge societal norms. However, Jesus’ core message was explicitly theological—focused on the “Kingdom of God“—whereas Greek Cynicism was entirely secular and philosophical.
Post-Jesus Hellenization of the Church — While Jesus himself remained a first-century Jew, the reform movement he started became rapidly and deeply Hellenized shortly after his death. Because the early Church shifted its focus predominantly to the Gentile world—the New Testament was written entirely in Greek, not Hebrew or Aramaic, the two languages Jesus spoke regularly and fluently. Early theologians like Paul (who never met or knew Jesus in the flesh) and Justin Martyr explicitly used Hellenistic concepts (such as the philosophical idea of the Logos, or universal reason) to explain who Jesus was to the wider Roman and Greek world. However, this did not align at all with Jesus’ Torah-loving, Torah-abiding Jewishness.
The Stark Contrasts of Jesus’ Purpose vs Later Hellenism While early Christianity eventually adopted Greek philosophical language to define its theology, the core teachings and person of Jesus of Nazareth stand in sharp, fundamental contrast to Hellenism (the culture, ideals, and philosophy of the ancient Greco-Roman world). The primary structural, theological, and ethical contrasts include:
The Incarnation vs. The Impassibility of the Divine
The Hellenistic View: In Greek philosophy (especially Platonism and Stoicism), the ultimate divine principle or Logos was completely transcendent, immaterial, and changeless. The physical realm was often viewed as inferior or inherently flawed. To a Greek mind, the idea that a perfect, divine being would take on actual human flesh was absurd.
The Contrast in Jesus: The central claim of Jesus is the Incarnation—the Logos becoming vulnerable physical flesh. Jesus lived a concrete, earth-bound life, experiencing hunger, pain, and death, which directly clashed with Hellenistic concepts of divine detachment.
Definition of Power: Suffering Servant vs. Superhuman Hero
The Hellenistic View: Hellenistic culture glorified the epic hero (such as Achilles or Hercules) who exercised power through physical dominance, military triumph, and social status. Greek gods, when they interacted with humanity, magnified these traits, empowering humans to become physically superior and unyielding.
The Contrast in Jesus: Jesus completely redefined power through humility, service, and weakness. Instead of conquering his enemies with force, he submitted to a shameful, lower-class execution on a cross. He taught that true greatness comes from being the “servant of all.”
Concept of God: Relational Monotheism vs. Polytheism and Fate
The Hellenistic View: Hellenistic religion was thoroughly polytheistic, demanding reciprocal, ritualistic appeasement of various deities to ensure good fortune in this life. Alternatively, philosophical strains viewed the universe as governed by cold, unyielding Fate (Ananke) or a detached prime mover.
The Contrast in Jesus: Jesus preached an exclusive, fiercely personal monotheism rooted in the Hebrew tradition. He taught that God is an intimately relational “Father” who cares for individuals, answers prayer, and acts out of love rather than a rigid system of cosmic reciprocity.
Linear Redemption vs. Cyclical Time
The Hellenistic View: Classical Greek thought generally viewed history as cyclical—an ongoing, repetitive series of cosmic ages with no ultimate physical culmination or “end-game”. Human souls sought escape from the physical world into an immortal spiritual realm.
The Contrast in Jesus: Jesus’s message was apocalyptic and historically linear. He preached the imminent arrival of the Kingdom of God and a physical, bodily resurrection of the dead at a final judgment. History, in Jesus’s view, moves toward a deliberate point of final redemption and the renewal of the material creation.
How Hellenism Replaced the True Jesus Reform Movement
Upon the execution and death of Yeshua bar Yosef (aka Jesus) in c. 33 CE, followed by the stoning-death of James his brother (44 CE), John a disciple of The Way who fled, Simon Peter’s death by crucifixion (c. 65 CE), and the beginning of the First Jewish-Roman war (66 CE), the early Jerusalem Church-Council collapsed leaving no real authentic leadership of Jesus’ original Jewish Reform Movement. A large vacuum developed and as was always the case and tradition, Rome and its Hellenized culture took advantage of the opportunity to invent an entirely new and radically different Greek religion of their own.
Enter Saul of Tarsus (aka Paul), a very appropriate acceptable Roman citizen and version to the constant discord sewn by stubborn, bullish, disruptive sectarian Homeland Jews and their monotheism. There was also a nice big perk to Paul and his Hellenistic theology for Rome: Paul for the time being was a likeable Herodian Jew, at the very least heavily connected to the court of King Herod and his family, if not by blood.
Two renown scholars of the Late Second Temple Period, Sectarian Judaism, and the earliest Roman Church and Fathers make this highly controversial connection between Herod, particularly Herod Antipas, the third son to King Herod, and Saul/Paul.
Dr. Robert Eisenman is currently professor of Middle East religions, archaeology, and Islamic law and director of the Institute for the Study of Judaeo-Christian Origins at California State University Long Beach. He has a Master’s degree from NYU in Hebrew and Near Eastern Studies, and a PhD in Middle East Languages and Cultures. He is considered one of the foremost scholars of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Qumran).
Eisenman makes the Herodian connections to Paul by Rabbinic Tannaitic literature, the Roman–Jewish historian and military leader Flavius Josephus, earliest Church literature, and even the Greek New Testament (Septuagint) itself. The fact that it is undeniable that Paul considered himself Jewish—so did the Herodians, generally—but Paul also had significant Herodian ties and loyalties. And though as noted previously the Herodians were quite hated disliked by the majority of Torah-loving Jewish sects, including Jesus’ The Way movement makes Paul’s peculiar twist of Jesus’ Jewish theology and practices even more divided, plausibly heretical, causing more confusion/division among Gentile Christian converts (see my blog-post Theological or Historical?) for over 700-years.
Though I typically avoid religious political types in today’s climate and landscape that are associated with the present federal administration, Dr. Taylor Marshall, like Dr. Eisenman, also makes the clear-cut connections of Paul to the Herodians, Herod Agrippa, and Herod Antipas. Marshall is well studied from Texas A&M University (BA) and Westminster Theological Seminary. He holds a Master’s and PhD from the University of Dallas. Despite my opposition to many of his beliefs and postures Dr. Marshall does the correct and verifiable work on the very Herodian Paul. Here is the brief conclusion he makes:
“Some might counter my arguments by stating that Saul/Paul himself claims to have been a Pharisee and not a Herodian. But this is where things get interesting. The Pharisees and Herodians worked together!
When the Herodians are mentioned in the Gospels (Mark 3:6, 12:13; Matthew 22:16; cf. also Mark 8:15, Luke 13:31-32, Acts 4:27), they are coupled with the Pharisees. For example, in Mark 3:6, the Pharisees plot against Jesus regarding his teaching on the Sabbath day by incorporating the Herodians into their conspiracy. In Mark 8:15, Christ described the alliance of Pharisees and Herod against Him. In Mark 12, the Pharisees and Herodians together, try to trap Christ with their question about paying taxes.
The fact that Saul/Paul was a Pharisee does not disqualify him from being a Herodian. Rather, it substantiates it.”
It is beyond doubt that Paul had great favor from Rome through his close ties and connections with the Herod Dynasty. He was a Roman citizen with those privileges. Much if not most of Paul’s Hellenized neo-theology was a serious contention, a heresy to Homeland Jews opposed to Greco-Roman influences and doctrines changing Torah-Judaism; this included The Way Reform movement founded by Yeshua/Jesus.
The Vatican in Rome representing the Universal church of Christ – Massimo Sestini/Italian National Police via Getty Images
The escalating crisis and eventual Jewish-Roman war (66 CE) and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem (70 CE) either wiped out most staunch Judean Torah Jews or dispersed them from Judea, or both. This was the time Paul began “preaching” his new Gentile version of Hellenized Christ Apotheosis across Cyprus, Asia Minor, Thrace, Macedonia, Greece, Crete, Sicily, and finally to Rome. As a consequence, primarily by Rome and its heavily Hellenized empire, Yeshua’s/Jesus’ reform movement died with him and with the early Jerusalem Church during the upheaval and war (60–70 CE). By this time there was no one left in Judea, no “pillar” of authority to check or to protect the Torah-loving, Torah-abiding Jewish-Jesus reforms, teachings, and practices he wanted. Paul’s teachings, or apostacy, had an endless audience throughout the Roman Mediterranean and Rome’s ascending Church Fathers would back it.
∼ ∼ ∼ § ∼ ∼ ∼
Now that the significant, stark differences have been contrasted and revealed between Jesus’/Yeshua’s very Jewish purpose in total alignment with his strict Torah-abiding Homeland Judaism, with his family background in and around Galilea, Samaria, and Judea regionally, along with the fact he rejected all forms of Hellenism infiltrating traditional Judaism, including the heretical takeover of Jewish theology, laws, and Messianism by Rome and Rome’s alliance to priestly aristocrats such as the Alexandrian and Herodian/Boethusian priestly sects… the question should be asked:
How was the real Jesus/Yeshua distorted and mostly “lost” to a culture he despised and fought to keep out of his strict Jewish laws and worship?
Answer: the power and might of Rome and its Greco-Roman influences within a few Jewish sects. Greco-Rome hijacked a floundering small Jesus-Jewish movement and turned it into a Hellenistic Roman religion that appealed to Gentiles. Saul of Tarsus, or Paul, was one such Jew that Rome favored and he was a Herodian-Boethusian Jew who proselytized to and recruited Roman Gentiles. All they had to do was embrace Greek Apotheosisin Christ (not the real Jesus) and forsake their Torah-abiding Judaism, what Jesus/Yeshua never wanted.
Afterall, Jesus the Jew was apples and Pauline Apotheosis in a Christ was oranges. They still are today.
Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always
“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the [willful] illusion of [divine] knowledge [and revelation].” — Stephen Hawking, modified by me
Actually I want to better clarify the title of this post: “Theological or Factually Historical?” No, no, no… better yet, “Theologically Canonical or Factually Historical & Widely Verified?” Yes, that is much better.
Agnotology. What is it? What does it mean? What is its significance to us today?
I think I can help you get a general, in-depth understanding of what agnotology is, what it means, and why it is very significant to us in the 21st-century and beyond. Just go to my 4-part series, Games of Unknowledging. However, if you are incredibly impatient with a lacking attention span, then here’s a simple quick definition of Agnotology:
Agnotology is the process of intentionally creating or encouraging doubt or ignorance (or lack of knowledge), for example by spreading false information, in order to influence opinion, sell an ideology, sell a product, or gain an advantage, or the study of these processes.
But keep in mind my impatient followers and readers, that may not be enough.
For the purpose of this blog-post I want to distinguish the growing chasm between religion (Abrahamic religions especially) and historical fact that is verified and corroborated by the majority of scholars and experts in all the many, many scientific fields of human history.
Christianity Cracking, Crumbling, and Collapsing as a Truthful Faith
The most significant of these failures is the historical reality of widely diverse “Christianities” or denominations, today over 40,000 plus. The political process of deciding the New Testament canon over a 400–700 year period, known as Ecumenical Counsels of the Early Catholic Church (circa 4th-century) by their highest ranking Greek priests, Greek bishops, Greek archbishops, and Greek cardinals caused immeasurable amounts of ambiguity. The first counsel you may have heard about was the First Council of Nicaea from May to July of 325 CE. After the Nicene Council it was followed-up by no less than seven (7) more counsels all the way into 754–787 CE last at the Palace of Hieria near Constantinople of the Eastern Roman Empire. Why so many counsels to decide what theology was correct, was truthful, was divine revelation over 400+ years after Jesus’ death and then everything that was later found wrong? What were the many disagreements, fractures, mistakes, false testimonies of the nature of “Christ the Messiah?” The still present enigma of Christ’s nature begs the bigger question of What was all of the mass confusion among the earliest Christian followers? Let’s get some historically verified background.
From the table above we see the major problem of earliest Christianity in the 4th-century and 5th-century was:
Divine Inspired Unity vs. Human (or Roman) Politics and Welfare — the traditional religious narrative suggests that Jesus established a single, clear doctrine passed down perfectly through his apostles. However, historical and archaeological discoveries—most notably the Nag Hammadi library found in 1945—proved that early Christianity was a chaotic web of competing groups with radically different beliefs about Jesus’ purpose.
The “Orthodoxy” — the heavy indoctrination we know today did not naturally emerge as the sole truth; it was codified through centuries of intense political maneuvering, theological debates, and Roman Imperial intervention by Greek-Roman men.
The Selection of Scripture Was Absolutely Political from the Start: The books of the New Testament were not bound together immediately after Jesus’s death. They were not tossed down from the heavens from God either. For the first few centuries after Jesus’ execution, different Christian sects used completely different gospels. The choice of which books to include (and which to burn or banish) into a codified Bible was a slow, human process finalized centuries later. Books like the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Mary were rejected not because they lacked historical merit, but because their theology didn’t align with the specific authoritarian faction that eventually won political power.
Imperial Intervention (The Council of Nicaea): In 325 CE, the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great—a political ruler, not a religious prophet—convened the Council of Nicaea. He did this because Christian infighting was threatening the stability of the Roman Empire. The council voted on foundational doctrines, such as the exact nature of Jesus’s divinity (the Arian controversy). This solidified the reality that modern Christian orthodoxy was heavily shaped by Roman statecraft, not Jesus’ reform movement.
The “Synoptic Problem” and Textual Evolution: Textual criticism shows that the Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses as eyewitness accounts. They were written decades later (between 70 and 110 CE) by anonymous, Greek-speaking authors, not Mishnaic Hebrew-speaking Jews such as Jesus Christ. Furthermore, Matthew and Luke heavily copied from Mark and a lost source known as “Q,” changing details, theological emphasis, and even historical timelines to fit or retrofit their specific interests and audiences.
Ultimately, whether these facts “undermine” or dismantle Christendom as I think they do, it all depends on the individual faith-believer, not an All-knowing, All-present God and Son. For fundamentalists or Christian Nationalists today who require literal, historical inerrancy, these historical facts pose a severe challenge. For the progressive or mainline theologians, they simply show that God worked through the messy, complex reality of human history, a bit of a cop-out in my opinion. Why? Because if you collect the entire whole of everything related to Earliest Christianity up to the last seventh ecumenical counsel, which certainly includes Roman Empire recorded, extant history (of which they were obsessed with) and all Jewish literature such as the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Tannaim Period of Jewish rabbinic-sage literature—that does indeed still exist between 10–220 CE—and during the lifetime of Yeshua bar Yosef, or Jesus, they overwhelmingly show just how messy, erroneous, retro-fitted via hindsight to cover problematic (false?) theology of the new Roman Catholic Church, and how the person named Jesus or Iisoús in Koine Greek in the canonical New Testament, was in fact NOT the divine resurrected messiah the Roman Empire (via Greco-Roman tradition of Apotheosis) fabricated. For example, there were many, many regional pagan and Jewish historians of the time during Jesus’ lifetime or within less-than 100-years of his life that wrote NO INDEPEDENT RECORDS whatsoever of a “Jesus Christ.” That is damning of Christianity. Furthermore, within a century of Jesus’ life do any of these known authors/historians make any mention of the later twelve disciples or apostles. Who are they? They are:
So this begs the question, Why the literal hiding of such a supposed Lord and Savior for all humankind to the rest of the world? What’s the purpose of the cloak and dagger? The answer? There is none and it is very, very poor foresight for an All-knowing, All-present theological God.
The Stark Comparisons and Distinctions Within Christianity Then and Today
historical fact
Christian belief
historical reality
The New Testament
A divinely inspired, unchanging set of books.
A curated collection from dozens of competing texts by early church leaders/men.
Early Church Doctrine
A unified, universally agreed-upon faith.
A fractured landscape of Gnostics, Marcionites, & Ebionites who fiercely disagreed on the nature of Jesus Christ.
Rise of Roman Orthodoxy post-320 CE
The Holy Spirit naturally guided the “true faith” to world victory.
Roman Imperial enforcement outlawed, suppressed, and destroyed competing Christian sects.
To surmise, 1) the above table, 2) the lack of independent historical sources, 3) the widely diverse, disagreeing, sometimes fighting sects over the nature of who Jesus actually was from a Greco-Roman tradition, versus 4) the historical realities of the time-period between 63 BCE and 70 CE known as the Jewish Late Second Temple Period, all show as a whole that 5) the roots of earliest Christianity (i.e. The Way Movement) through the end of the Seven Ecumenical Counsels in 787 CE reveal at best Christianity’s flimsy foundation. At worst it clearly reveals no unified theology, doctrine, or orthodoxy of practices or faith. Why?
Plain and simply, the vast chasm that existed between imperial Greco-Roman (Hellenistic-Herodian) traditions, language (Koine Greek), and culture was factually incompatible with Jesus’ beliefs, his Jewish background, he and his people’s Mishnaic Hebrew language that also included Syro-Aramaic at times, and their long established Jewish literature and traditions on who, what, and why the Jewish Messiah was to arrive for them.
Because of these deep chasms mentioned between two clashing, adversarial cultures—Roman Empire vs. Judaism—when the earliest Roman Catholic Church began to ascend, the rewritten, hijacked, edited, redacted, ambiguous, suppressive manmade orthodoxy of forming the Biblical canon over seven Roman counsels in a 300-400 year period was failing and failing bad, particularly after the siege and sacking of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE killing most Homeland Jews royally screwed any hope of total unity. As a result, the Christian canons became so heavily contaminated and contradictory later that it caused incessant confusion among all Christians then and to this day over a meager, simple 1st-century CE Jewish rabbi-reformer who failed to be the Jewish Messiah according to Jesus’ own people, then and today.
Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always
Tomorrow as we remember the tragic events of 9-11 twenty-five years ago which happened in Lower Manhattan, New York, American Airlines Flight 11 flew into the North Tower at 8:46am and United Airlines Flight 175 into the South Tower at 9:03am of the World Trade Center Twin Towers. A bit later American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, Washington D.C. at 9:37am, this was followed by another cockpit-hijacked jumbo jet, United Airlines Flight 93. Passengers had managed to get wind via phone calls with family of the crashes at the WTC towers and the Pentagon. As a result, those passengers rushed the cockpit to stop the hijackers. Sadly, the hijackers flew the jumbo jet straight down and it plowed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania at 10:02am. Its target was not certain, but it was most likely the White House or the US Capitol building.
After those first 76-minutes of September 11, 2001, 265 people were instantly killed (not including the 19 Jihadist hijackers) aboard those four planes, including eight small children younger than 12-years old. Approximately 125-130 people inside the Pentagon perished immediately when Flight 77 impacted the the outer three rings and a portion of the inner fourth ring. The exact number of people killed instantly by the jumbo jets crashing into the North and South Towers cannot be determined due to the eventual collapses of both towers. However, Wikipedia does offer a good idea of approximately how many were instantly killed by the plane crashes at the WTC.
The point of this blog-post is to remind all Americans that the horrifying attacks of September 11th could have and should have been stopped if it weren’t for too many personal sensitive government egos, arrogance, and them losing complete sight of who it is they really work for and serve: the safety and well-being of American citizens! The American people pay their salaries! Ultimately, the People of the United States are their financier, their payroll paychecks! Why was there so much internal power struggles inside our federal government? Why did those top government officials let their own hurt feelings and personal egos get in the way of saving American lives?
Yesterday I rewatched an excellent investigative PBS program by Frontline called The Man Who Knew. Here is a trailer of the documentary:
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Six of those “lost” hurt government officials inside the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), an ambassador in Yemen, East Africa, and the Office of the U.S. Attorney General during the time of at least 1992 to September 11, 2001, could have and should have protected and saved American lives, both domestically and abroad, instead of only concerning themselves with their hurt, damaged childish feelings and pride when told repeatedly about how highly organized globally and growing the terrorist group Al-Qaeda was becoming with Osama bin-Laden as the mastermind and money-funder. The first attack by Al-Qaeda at the Gold Mohur Hotel in Aden, Yemen, in December 1992, then the first attack on the WTC in February 1993, the attack in November 1995 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, followed by the attacks in August 1998 in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Finally, the attack on the USS Cole in January 2000 and once again in Yemen’s Aden harbor all should have been massive red flags to U.S. leading, top officials inside the FBI and the federal Attorney General’s office. But too much prideful lack of collaboration and open communication between federal departments failed miserably to protect and save American lives between 1992 and 2001. Period, no ifs ands or buts. Who are the five American officials that absolutely failed the American people and were appallingly derelict of their sworn duties as federal employees? They are…
James Woolsey – CIA Director 1993–1995. Though Woolsey was not a primary icon in the earliest Al-Qaeda attacks during his two years at the CIA, he could have amplified more persistently to his upper superiors what they were learning and had learned so far about Al-Qaeda’s plans. Sound the alarm bells louder and longer about the Bojinka Plot.
Robert “Bear” Bryant – FBI Deputy Director 1997–1999. Like Woolsey above Bryant could have done more, such as going to the news media to allow the alarm bells to be heard because Bryant believed in John O’Neill, the top go-to Guru of Al-Qaeda and Osama bin-Laden. Unfortunately, that would not have been FBI protocol and the repercussions from one’s FBI superiors and their superiors above them in the Department of Justice and the White House would or could ruin one’s entire career for going to the public behind their back. Ironically, it is in fact THE PUBLIC the federal government works for and serves and protects!
Louis J. Freeh – FBI Director 1993-2001. Freeh was good friends with Tom Pickard and both of them did not care for (hated?) John O’Neill’s personality, methods, or expertise on terrorism. After Ruby Ridge, Waco & the Branch Davidians, the Khobar Towers bombing Saudi Arabia, the TWA Flight 800 crash, and a long list of other American tragedies, by December 2001 Freeh was heavily criticized as one of the worst FBI Directors to hold the office, Freeh’s biggest criticism came from former Attorney General Janet Reno who also had unpleasant things to say about then acting Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Thomas J. Pickard – FBI Interim Assistant Director in 1996–1998, then Deputy Director in 1999, and FBI Director in June 2001–Sept 2001. Pickard was implicated as a direct opponent to John O’Neill and eventually had the top Guru of Osama bin-Laden/Al-Qaeda expended and terminated by a minor FBI offense. Pickard is most likely the leak to the New York Times about O’Neill’s insubstantial offense. Pickard never liked John O’Neill as a person or FBI agent/supervisor on Al-Qaeda and bin-Laden and his personal vendetta to O’Neill cost thousands and thousands of American lives.
John D. Ashcroft – U.S. Attorney General 2001–2005. Ashcroft was often criticized for doing far too little too late about terrorist threats on American soil and at foreign locations around the world, particularly in Africa and the Middle East. Perhaps his largest blunder was not having any clue about the sophisticated build-up of Al-Qaeda cells around the world and inside the United States due to internal strife and egos in the FBI and poor collaboration between his office and the FBI. Ashcroft is not exempt from his part of complacency and ignorance to and about 9/11. In fact, sworn testimony of two FBI agents later interviewed by the 9/11 Commission stated “he had ignored warnings of an imminent al-Qaida attack.”
Barbara K. Bodine – U.S. Ambassador to Yemen 1997–2001. There were many conflicts between Bodine and John O’Neill during the aftermath of the USS Cole bombing there. The most controversial and colossal blunder by Bodine to O’Neill was denying him visa re-entry into Yemen after a trip back to the New York for Thanksgiving. Because of her ego, pride, and lack of investigative protocol, she hindered further investigation into the Cole bombing which would have or could have led O’Neill and the FBI to bin-Laden and the already present Al-Qaeda cells in the United States and the 19 Jihadist terrorist-hijackers training to fly American jumbo jets. This could have likely foiled and stopped bin-Laden’s ultimate plan for September 11th.
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With the current horrid detrimental shape and direction of this United States of America are going through today under the President’s administration, co-led by his MAGA officials in Congress (Supreme Court included), and his public base, I really recommend (urge you?) watching the full hour and twenty-five minute PBS FRONTLINE® documentary, The Man Who Knew. Had so many FBI and Attorney General’s office personnel and deputy directors and directors under President George W. Bush’s watch not had their toes stepped on, feelings hurt, egos and pride dented, and minor protocol debates and rules of etiquette arguments—something that is happening here right now in Washington D.C. …this country would not have to suffer through and remember every year the terrible events of September 11, 2001, and perhaps again now until 2028. Think about it. This country badly needs, requires our federal and state government employees to serve and work for the American people, not for themselves or for more money and campaign donations. Elect those candidates who live that Constitutional principle (for us) this October and November.
I have zero expectation that anything I ever say will end someone’s belief in their God. Not my goal or purpose. That alone belongs to the individual. ~ Zoe
