Paul, Acts, Forgeries & Marcion – Conclusion

Posted on October 21, 2024 by Professor Taboo

Finishing my 3-part series I want to examine Marcion of Sinope in relation to the 2^nd-century CE Roman Orthodox Church, the Church Fathers, and their Bishops.

Marcion the Heretic?

A good starting point for this conclusion of the series is to ask the question, Why was Marcion of Sinope considered a heretic by the earliest Roman Orthodox Church Fathers? After all, Marcion was a bishop of that same church and his father was a bishop as well. And by 150–160 CE, when nothing theologically was completely orthodox or standardized for the Roman Church until 367 CE at Council of Nicaea where the Old and New Testament canon was closed for the last time. Well, sort of closed permanently or not so closed. But that is another Pandora’s Box I do not have time to open here.

Therefore, who really had any final authority over another Church Father/Bishop and theologian during those uncertain, fledgling Christological and Trinitarian times? Earliest Christianity at that time was still very sparse and unordered. A big reason why was that there existed no Hebrew-written manuscripts of Yeshua’s/Jesus’ teachings. They were all in Greek and from a Greco-Roman transliteration. And it must be noted too that these “controversial divisions” among these religious church men between c. 130 CE to 367 CE were all strictly Hellenistic, or Greco-Roman, in nature, philosophy, and culture, not within and from Homeland Judaism of the time. And critically that was indeed Yeshua’s/Jesus’ background. There’s another Pandora’s Box within the other Pandora’s Box.

Unfortunately, during those infantile Judeo-Christian decades, if one was not in favor with Roman Imperial authorities, empire or church, you were treated quite harshly and swiftly as an enemy to “the glory of Rome.” As a result, when Marcion fell out of favor with these imperial and theological authorities, his writings were hunted down and destroyed by Rome and its new Orthodox Church. Consequently, our only sources for Marcion’s theological philosophical views come from proto-orthodox church fathers such as Justyn Martyr, Tertullian, and Irenaeus who denounced him. Due to the fact that none of Marcion’s writings survived, we cannot fully trust what his enemies say about him and his theology.

*the Holy Trinity, or the Triune God* *as symbolized by the Greco-Roman proto-orthodox church*

Perhaps the biggest theological view that got Marcion excommunicated from the 2^nd century Hellenistic Roman Church and its first generation Fathers was that he rejected the entire Hebrew Old Testament and to a large part its conveyed God, Yahweh. The next biggest Marcion view which got him denounced as a heretic was his dualistic Gods, that is Yahweh was not the same God as Yeshua’s or Jesus’ God. Why did Marcion not care for Yahweh? Well, for one, Yahweh explicitly commands the Israelites to slaughter every man, woman, and child in Jericho then rule the city (Joshua 6:21-25).

The God of Yeshua-Jesus, however, says love your enemies, pray for those who harm you; turn the other cheek (Luke 6:27-36). These are two very different Gods. To Marcion the all in one Trinitarian God of the proto-orthodox church fathers was wrong, or at least Yahweh changed His nature by the time Yeshua-Jesus comes on the scene c. 4-6 BCE to c. 33 CE, or thereabouts. Or perhaps the New Testament God slayed the Old Testament Yahweh? We will never know exactly what happened with the angry, just Yahweh and the sweet, passive JC God. Why? Because Rome and its Orthodox church destroyed all opposing theologies once Emperor Constantine and the Council of Nicaea decreed debates over. Think of it today as our modern book bannings and book burnings by fanatical ultra-Conservative groups.

Whatever the case may be, Marcion had an excellent, profound theological view of God’s nature. In fact, his views were incredibly popular throughout the 2^nd century Roman Empire with Marcionite churches founded in Syria, Arabia, the Italian Peninsula, Egypt, Persia, and Asia Minor all of which were highly organized in their ecclesiastical discipline. Obviously, with this popularity Marcion became a huge threat to the proto-orthodox church and its ambitious theologians seeking Roman-backed authority and power, i.e. from Emperors Domitian to Constantine the Great.

*The destruction and burning of the Great Library of Alexandria, 272 CE and 297 CE*

Another reason Marcion was eventually excommunicated from the proto-orthodox Roman church was his rejection of the entire Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John, and even much of Luke. His apparent reason for keeping parts of Luke was because he was Saul’s (of Tarsus) or Paul’s follower/assistant on his missionary travels to Gentiles. Marcion heavily favored Paul’s renditions of a new universal Good God, not the angry, vengeful, jealous, and violent God of the Jews, Yahweh. For those people and their enraged god, Roman Gentiles loathed and despised Yahweh and His Jews. When Paul hits the scene he ushered in a new sort of Covenant that usurped the old Yahweh and His bickering, sectarian Jews. Marcion hitched his wagon and career strictly to Paul and his neo-Christology.

Yet, here is the irony of this, Marcion’s docetic theological beliefs in several ways falls in line with Paul’s neo-Christology than contradicts it. And one must keep in mind, that neither Marcion or Paul ever met Yeshua bar Yosef (Jesus) in person, in the flesh. Never. See video-clip below about Paul’s “vision.” Everything Paul and Marcion learned about Jesus was hearsay, stories verbally passed along by groups of people who were curious or new converts until c. 70 CE, some 4-decades after Jesus’ execution and death, and the approximate writing of the Gospel Mark, chronologically the oldest and first gospel about Jesus’ teachings.

Paul’s affliction he often spoke about in his letters was in all likelihood epilepsy, or the “Sacred Disease” as it has been referred to since 1067 BCE

It is also important to remember that Marcion never once met Saul/Paul in person in the flesh because Paul died in approximately 64-65 CE. Marcion wasn’t born until 85 CE. Once again, like most all of the Greco-Roman New Testament, events weren’t copied down until many decades later after the narrated events. Paul’s letters—who never listened to or watched Jesus in the flesh—are the earliest letters regarding events surrounding Jesus, however, Paul’s letters are hearsay written some 17- to 31-years later. And Paul writes his own theological responses to new churches regarding Christos, not historical facts about Jesus.

With Marcion’s and to a degree Paul’s personal theologies of Jesus as nonhuman, a divine phantasm, how then did the physical death of Jesus and sheading his blood as a sacrifice work within Marcion’s unhuman, no flesh and blood body, but physically died as testified by granted already deceased witnesses and perhaps a few old geriatric 1^st generation believers copied in the four Gospels? How does that work? How could it jive with Paul’s theological Epistles?

Well, if there is one theological precept that Paul and Marcion did fully agree on it was that Paul was the one truest apostle of Jesus Christos, not the twelve original disciples/apostles. And that agreement is reflected in the modern western Christian churches everywhere which are primarily based upon Pauline theology and doctrines. Had Marcion been born a couple of decades earlier living during Paul’s life, I imagine their theological debates about the nature of God, of Christos, and of Marcion’s dual gods, i.e. one of the Hebrew Tanakh versus the god of Jesus in his Gospel of Luke, would have been very heated debates and would be nothing short of award-winning entertainment.

What Marcion Showed Us About God/Yahweh

What certainly can be counted as invaluable to the earliest burgeoning proto-orthodox Christian church (130–180 CE) as well as us today was that Marcion revealed, if anything at all, that by assuming a single god throughout both the Old and New Testaments, Yahweh/God was incredibly temperamental, impulsive, easily made jealous, manic in His wrath or compassion, blood-thirsty or forgiving, and hence bordering on bipolar schizophrenia. This is what Marcion explicitly revealed to the earliest followers of 1^st– and 2^nd-century Christos and still does today.

To prove his controversial position on Yahweh versus God of Jesus, Marcion revealed the Scriptural divergences or contradictions between the Old Testament Yahweh and the New Testament Pauline God. The angry, easily enraged god of the Hebrew Bible was petty as the story of Elisha in 2 Kings 2:23-24 demonstrates:

*Just two examples of many in Scripture — New American Standard Bible 1995 (NASB 1995)*

However, the god of Yeshua/Jesus said, “let the little children come unto me,” a completely different tempered more forgiving god (also Romans 8:3-4). Marcion rightly argued that with these two passages and many others, were obviously two opposed very different gods. Therefore, Marcion further argued that the twelve disciples/apostles of Jesus/Yeshua got their Messiah’s teachings all wrong. Paul was the only apostle to correctly interpret Jesus’/Yeshua’s teachings and reforms, and this by default would have included Marcion. The twelve disciples couldn’t grasp the esoteric, gnostic(?) theology. Marcion even argued that Jesus’ twelve disciples altered his teachings as recorded in the popular Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and John, and substantial parts of Luke. Therefore, in Marcion’s mind and soul, Saul/Paul was divinely sent to clarify and make straight the twelve and what Jesus/Yeshua really meant. And these challenges to the proto-orthodoxy and proto-theology of Jesus/Yeshua were commonplace in the eastern Roman Empire between 60 CE — 367 CE.

Marcion went further. He argued that the Twelve’s gross misinterpretation of Jesus/Yeshua affected other Christian churches, including the very scribes that copied the writings of Paul and Luke saying that the ten/eleven books had in reality been miscopied, mistransliterated from Mishnaic Hebrew or Aramaic into Koine Greek. This is a superb argument by Marcion (see The Failures of Koine Greek & Christianity for more elaboration). Hebraisms and their Mishnaic idioms were near impossible for average Greeks to accurately translate/transliterate, including the copying scribes. Those nine or ten epistles of Paul that Marcion knew about were all circulating—except 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus he didn’t know about—plus his own edited, revised version of Luke, making eleven canonical books of Marcion, were in his expert theological opinion the only true, precise interpretation and interpolation of Jesus’/Yeshua’s ministry.

Clearly, Marcion’s challenges for and to an official canon of Scripture during the earliest formation of the New Testament and Greco-Roman Catholic Church, were huge and valid, but greatly threatened the establishment and gravitas of the early ascendant proto-orthodox Greco-Roman Fathers and Bishops of the time.

Unfortunately, Marcion and his church followers had other non-canonical writings and epistles which were forged under Paul’s name (see header Letter to Laodiceans). Even though this was an often popular church or theologian’s or congregation’s tactic, which included all competing sides, those forgeries (including the Book of Acts) turned out to be one of Marcion’s downfall and excommunication from the proto-orthodox Fathers and Bishops.

Marcion’s “Phantom” Jesus

Marcion of Sinope had an enormous following. In fact, toward the end of the 2^nd-century CE there were more Marcionites than any other kind of Christians throughout the Roman Empire. What is more fascinating is that even today Marcion’s docetism is quite popular among Christians who have never heard of him! Other modern Christians would label him a “heretic” because that is what they have been taught in church by their priests and ministers. The critical point to understand these modern controversies of docetism versus ebionism is what is often described in theological terms as the Old Covenant of the Tanakh (Old Testament) versus the New Covenant of Jesus/Yeshua of the New Testament canon.

*From the MAP website at* *https://www.mapministry.org/articles/2017/09/01/the-old-and-new-covenant*

The principle difference between this controversy today can be further described as the God of Wrath (Moses and the Laws) against or opposed to the God of Love in Jesus/Yeshua, but heavy in Pauline Christology. The former no longer applies today due to widespread Pauline theology. Here is 4-minute video further explaining these theological debates by Ligonier Ministries, founded by my seminary’s acclaimed adjunct professor R.C. Sproul, who I studied under:

These are a bit weakened doctrines of Marcion’s docetism theology, but its argument is still well aligned with Marcionism. These modern advocates of Jesus’ divine nature often unwittingly imply that he wasn’t ever really a mortal human, particularly because of the immaculate conception of his earthly mother the virgin Mary. In other words, he was a sort of “phantom.” When these Christians are further pressed they say various things that make it pretty clear they really don’t think Jesus was human, but a phantom. Examples of this unwitting posture and expression of Jesus is that Christos didn’t need to eat, he didn’t require normal bodily functions, he had no male desires, he really did know everything of Earth and the Universe, and he could do absolutely anything (miracles) in the name of the Father. He was “Christ the God” rather than Christ the man.

Legalism versus Antinomianism

Today, no well-versed Christian would readily admit publicly they are a Marcionite phantom-believer. However, Marcion’s 2^nd-century views are today a subtle underlying theme in many Christian’s evangelism and teachings.

Contrary to the anti-Christs found in 1 John 2, Marcion did not take his stand based on the Gospel of John, he took his theological stance from the apostle Paul. Why? Because as mentioned earlier Marcion believed that Paul was the one and only apostle who truly grasped Jesus’/Yeshua’s teachings and reforms. It was Paul who differentiated in no uncertain terms the God of Wrath and Laws versus the God of Love and the blood of Jesus. Paul preached that only believing in the death and resurrection of Jesus could one obtain eternal salvation/paradise in the afterlife. And according to Marcion it was obvious that these were two opposed, different Gods.

Another way to distinguish modern Christians who are unwittingly closet Marcionites versus Christians that are (pseudo?) Judaizers, and give credence to works in Christ, are the opposing Christians of Legalist vs Antinomians. What Christian denominations today are Legalist? Following are a few:

Independent Baptist churches
Non-denominational churches, like Joel Osteen churches
Presbyterian and Reformed Anglican churches
Conservative Anabaptist
Beachy Amish
Apostolic Christian churches
Charity Christian Fellowships
Methodists
Bible Holiness churches
Church of God
United Missionary churches

This is still the unsettled controversial case between today’s Christians because they simply do not take serious the earliest Christian origins of the 1^st– through 4^th-centuries and the heated theological debates at that time between the purpose and nature of Jesus’ God versus Paul’s definition of grace and faith-only. Because most of modern Christianity today is heavily steeped in Pauline grace and faith-only (Antinomianism), I won’t spend much time explaining or rehashing what most mainstream Christians and their churches make abundantly available. Instead, I want to focus on what Jesus/Yeshua, a Torah-lover and Torah-keeper (and Jew), had to say about it.

In other words, a Torah-keeper Christian is always held accountable, responsible for sinful behavior, an Antinomian Christian is not because of full Pauline grace and Christology. It can be well argued that Marcion is mostly responsible for these valid, stark distinctions of ancient Christian theology as well as modern Christian theology. However, it can also be well argued that some two millenia of anti-Semitism is responsible for a dead and unnecessary Old Testament or Jewish Tanakh covenant and “old” Yahweh of the Jews. Paul and Marcion are both responsible for this Christian/Christology movement both in Antiquity and today.

What are some consequences of this Pauline-Marcion perspective and world-view?

A wrong hatred for the Torah — many Christians now live in lawlessness committing sins that even non-believers would be appalled and scared to commit.
Christians are unwittingly prevented or made ignorant — many or most Christians today cannot recognize the fullness of how to live deeply in and like Yeshua/Christ.
Many of God’s blessings are lost — by living out of and with the Torah many/most modern Christians miss out and without God’s rewards and blessings of the Laws of Moses.
A low regard of the Old Testament or Tanakh is and has been established — many or most Christians today don’t care for the Old Testament unless it reaffirms their personal lifestyle of lawlessness under full Pauline grace.

This begs the important question for all Christians, Does Paul’s and indirectly Marcion’s “grace” do away with God’s Mosaic Law? A Christian’s answer is critical because it will affect your attitude toward the Old Testament (Tanakh) and Jesus’ Jewishness as well as the Greek New Testament, and by default your attitude on the entire Holy Scriptures!

The Jewish-Jesus Understanding of the Torah

As I covered in great detail Jesus’ profound Jewishness in my blogs Saul the Apostate — Part II, The Failures of Koine Greek & Christianity, and Christ: The Roman Ruse, modern Christians today severely lack just an elementary understanding of who and what Yeshua/Jesus really was during his lifetime. Who else to turn to for an uncommon understanding of the real Yeshuah than Tannaitic rabbinical history, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and modern Karaite Judaism. You cannot get any more factual authenticity than these three sources on Yeshuah/Jesus.

The Gospel of Matthew 1:21 tells the legend from a Jewish perspective of the angel Gabriel speaking to Mother Mary:

And she shall bear BEN (Son) and you will call SHMO (his name, Zech 6:12) YEHOSHUA (Zech 6:11-12) because he will bring his people Yeshuah (rescue, salvation, deliverance) from their peyshaim (rebellions).

Jesus in Koine Greek (adopted by English Bibles today) translates to Iesous literally meaning “Son of Zeus” because Zeus is the Greek “god” and so Jesus is the Son of Zeus [God]. Yet, in the Greek it has absolutely no redemptive or salvation meaning. The word “salvation” in Koine Greek is “soter” which is not even close to “Iesous.” But in Mishnaic Hebrew—Jesus’ native tongue—Yeshuah means “salvation” from its root “yoshia” which means “he will save.” Therefore, Yeshua means “savior” in actual Mishnaic Hebrew, but Jesus means “son of Zeus” the Greco-Roman definition. And a important reminder is that the great tenets of Christian faith are not original in the least. They are all Homeland Jewish concepts. This is obscurely confirmed in 2 Timothy 3:14-17:

“But as for you, remain in the shiurim you learned, and the things you were convinced of, knowing under which rabbi you sat,

And that from infancy you have known the Kitvei HaKodesh, which are able to make you chocham with a view to Yeshu’at Eloheynu through emunah in Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach Yehoshua.

The entire Kitvei HaKodesh is Hashem-breathed and useful for hora’ah (teaching), for reproof, for correction, for training in tzedek, That the ish haElohim may be proficient, having been equipped for every one of the ma’asim mitzvot.”

Keep in mind, for a fact, that when 2 Timothy 3 was written, the “Scriptures” were only the Old Testament or Tanakh. The New Testament and Paul’s Epistles were not yet codified (official) until 367 CE, many centuries later. And make no mistake, Yeshua/Jesus was a VERY Torah-loving and Torah-keeping Homeland Jew! Herodian(?) Paul, not so much, and neither was Marcion his protégé. Jesus’/Yeshua’s Judaism was not then and is not useless today as most modern, mainstream Christians and their churches make him (Luke 1:5-6).

What Marcion did for original Christianity/Christology was nothing short of monumental and revealing, a revelation of original and modern Greco-Roman faith-believers. Today’s Christians are primarily Pauline and Marcion followers, they are not Torah-keeping, Torah-loving Yeshua/Jesus followers. Christians today are misguided because they still consider the “Old Covenant” and its daily blessings as worthless so they unwittingly live in anti-Jesus lawlessness and sin.

Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always

Paul, Acts, Forgeries & Marcion – Part II

Posted on March 23, 2024 by Professor Taboo

In this part two I want to examine (reexamine?) the reliability or unreliability of Paul’s epistles and facts hidden in the Greek New Testament as well as other contemporary sources of the time about Paul. I will also examine Paul’s third epistle to the Corinthians and the forgeries within it done in his name by later Greek Church Fathers and their copyists.

∼ ∼ ∼ § ∼ ∼ ∼

The Eccentric Yet Dubious Apostle Paul

Labelling Paul as dubious is quite the understatement if one knows the various extant accounts of him available outside the popular Greek New Testament. From what we know, however, in his epistles and the book of Acts is that he was loved and hated, welcomed and shunned, provocative and a pestilence. There is even the chance he never existed as one man, but was a reference class as Dr. Richard Carrier places him. Carrier states that Paul’s six authentic letters are “far more probable hypothesis (for more on this point see How Do We Know the Apostle Paul Wrote His Epistles in the 50s A.D.?). And that makes Paul far better attested than Jesus: because we have some things written by Paul himself! That’s a serious issue of reliability of whether Paul actually understood and knew Jesus simply from an epileptic vision on the road to Damascus or from resurrection appearances after Jesus’ execution and burial.

Epilepsy and Paul

Another problematic account of Paul was his medical health issues of ectasia and exstatic seizures and its form(s) of disease classified as the “Sacred Disease” or focal epilepsy. This disease disrupts one’s daily life in many significant ways from learning, to bodily dysfunctions, to hyper-sensations such as hallucinations (visual, hearing, and taste), mood swings, to communication, speaking and cognitive functions. It isn’t hard to conclude that with all those “disruptions” in a person’s life causes all sorts of positive and negative social interactions and relationships, especially around ancient people who have little to no understanding of the disease and its manifestations, privately or publicly. And as mentioned earlier, this disease in the 1^st century CE most surely caused eccentricity and dubious behavior and speech in the eyes of other Jews and Gentiles. There’s another reliability issue.

Unfounded Claims of Jewish Lineage

In the Greek New Testament Paul claims he was born of Jewish parents in the Roman Province of Cilicia in its capital Tarsus. During his life there Cilicia was heavily Hellenized going as far back as 333 BCE when Alexander conquered Anatolia. As I covered in my 2018 series Saul the Apostate, this claim of Jewish heritage from the tribe of Benjamin is a major snag and mess.

*The Gate of Cleopatra, or the Sea Gate and Roman road in modern day Tarsus, Turkey.*

First, nowhere in Jewish Rabbinical history is there a tribal list or ancestry of Benjamin in existence in Cilicia or Tarsus at that time, not even rumors of it. Second, it is claimed in Acts 22:3 that Paul’s rabbinic studies were under Gamaliel in Jerusalem. Yet, none of his ascribed writings and arguments in the Greek New Testament are Gamaliel or rabbinic in nature. Most historical scholars of Late Second Temple Judaism and Zugot-Tannaitic Rabbinical literature agree with this falsehood. Yet another problem of Paul’s reliability.

Paul’s Hellenic Studies and Education

On a positive inference of Paul’s eccentric exuberance for public or church preaching, his infatuation with mysteries and the Spirit of God through tongues, supernatural powers, sacraments, and fatalism (mood symptom) can be directly traced to the Gnostic lore of Alexandria and the Corpus Hermeticum, specifically the Poimandres, heavy in Greek mythology and later Hellenism. Probably not so coincidental was his education and exposure in the Hillel school. There Paul would have learned classic Hellenistic literature, ethics, and philosophy (Stoicism) and these influences do indeed reveal themselves in all his ascribed letters, especially from the Hellenistic Book of Wisdom and other Apocrypha, as well as Philo of Alexandria who is the father of harmonizing Greek philosophy with the Jewish Torah; both are transparent in Paul’s writings.

Paul’s Roman Citizenship & Anti-Semitism

Interesting enough, Paul’s background and study of Hellenistic philosophy, literature, and ethics would have suited him well to becoming a Roman citizen, later saved by a Roman centurion at the Temple amongst a serious dispute and angry Jewish mob (Acts 21:27-36), and as a result becomes a hunter-prosecutor of early annoying Christians to the Roman Empire (Acts 22:22–23:11) all while despised by Homeland Jews for his attacks on them and apostacy of Judaism.

Evidence of Paul’s Herodian Lineage & Unions

This is the most intriguing inferences and connections of Paul’s dubious reliability from the Greek canonical New Testament that is veiled, hidden inside his Epistles and Acts. There is also internal and extraneous sources of him belonging to Herodian-Jews, not Pharisaic-Jews and these sources combined and understood as a whole picture reveal a plausible conclusion he was likely/probably a Hellenic “Herodian Christos” evangelist not a Jesus evangelist. Where do we find these sources?

Alluding to and probably referencing terminology in the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSSs) of Qumran we find almost identical terms used in Paul’s letters to the Galatian, Corinthian, and Roman Herodian-Christians. The DSSs frequently use terms like the Enemy, the Liar or Spouter of Lies, Man of Lying, Comedian of Lying (i.e. epileptic?), and some others. They strongly pointed to the adversary of “The Righteous Teacher” within the Judean “The Way” Movement of Jesus’ disciples and followers. Paul refers to them repeatedly in his letters in Gal. 1:20, 2 Corinthians 11:31, and Romans 9:1 (to name just three) that he was not “a Liar” or he “does not lie.” This explicitly implies that his groups/churches in those three cities had been told that Saul of Tarsus deceives and maligns the truth and the faith.

*Dead Sea Scrolls today and the Pesher Habakkuk scroll written c. 2,000 years ago about the “Wicked Priest” and “the Spouter of Lies” as well as “the Enemy.”*

Furthermore, “The Enemy” terminology is also strong and prevalent in the Pseudo-Clementines. For example, in Homilies the apparent Epistle of Peter to James the brother in Jerusalem, it states:

For some from among the Gentiles have rejected my legal preaching, attaching themselves to certain lawless and trifling preaching of the man who is my enemy. […]

[The Gentile Enemies] transform my words by certain various interpretations, in order to the dissolution of the law. […]

…the law of God which was spoken by Moses, and was borne witness to by our Lord… for thus he spoke: “The heavens and the earth shall pass away, but one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law.” (quoting Matt. 5:18)
— Homilies, Epistle of Peter to James, Ch. 2

Dr. Bart Ehrman describes the significance of this Epistle of Peter to James as a Palestinian counter-balance against the Hellenic canonical NT and Acts of the Apostles. He writes:

This book provides the counter-view to that found in the New Testament book of Acts, where Paul and Peter are thought to be completely on the same side and simpatico on every major issue. Not according to this short letter. Here Peter and James are the heroes of the faith, and Paul is the great enemy.
— Bart Ehrman Blog, “Another Forgery in the Name of Peter, April 2013, accessed Oct. 11, 2018

I cover more extensively the overall, hateful opinions of Paul by 1^st century Homeland Jews and in their DSSs in my fourth part of Saul the Apostate. And by the way, Herodian Jews did indeed receive Roman citizenry. Ironically, Paul himself openly supports this method of Roman-Herodian citizenship:

Greet Apelles, the approved in Christ. Greet those who are of the household of Aristobulus. Greet Herodion, my kinsman.
— Romans 16:10-11

Be sure to read closely Dr. Robert Eisenman’s extensive work on Paul’s Herodian bloodline and unions in my Part IV. They are quite compelling. With these sources it is no stretch to conclude that Paul’s Christ-cult and ~~theology~~ Christology was easily embraced by Hellenic Pagans/Gentiles because it represented very little of what Jesus’ Tannaitic, Torah-loving teachings and Sectarian reforms.

On a final note about Paul’s probable Herodian connections, the question must be asked, What would be the best alternative approach—centuries-later in the eyes and minds of the Hellenic Patristic Fathers—to a failed Messiah, who never returns, and the related Messianic OT prophecies hence also failed? Be sure to read Dr. James Tabor’s answers to this question.

Reliability & the Author(s) of Acts

The book of Acts is generally regarded by scholars to be a two-part compilation sometimes labelled Luke–Acts. Both works were addressed to a man named Theophilus, an obscure friend of Luke and by unsubstantiated conjecture, Paul’s lawyer. Nevertheless, the name Theophilus as the recipient, appears in both Luke’s Gospel and in Acts which implies Luke would be the author. That’s the traditional Greek-church theory.

But the timespan of 5–35 years (possibly 40-yrs) between writings of the two volumes—Luke in c. 80-110 CE and Acts in c. 90-120 CE—suggests that Acts was probably written well after Luke. And since both works’ authorship are anonymous, i.e. no explicit signature of the author, opens the debate that Acts had more than one author. The latter would also explain nicely the many contradictions between Luke and Acts, as well as those between Paul’s epistles and Acts. In my opinion and research, the wide differences of composition time-frames and author anonymity of Luke–Acts makes a good case that Acts had more than one author, or source, resulting in many inconsistencies and irreconcilable blunders.

What are the most glaring, damaging fallacies and inconsistencies of the book of Acts portrayal of Paul and Paul’s description of himself in his letters?

*Apostles performing Acts of miracles and evangelizing Gentiles and Jews alike — Image from pereprava.org*

Many biblical scholars like John Crossan, Clare Rothschild, Gregory Sterling, Thomas Brodie, perhaps Richard Carrier, and Bart Ehrman are all in agreement that in specific historical details Acts is unreliable. But as far as general portrayals of Paul the book of Acts is more accurate. But does that make Acts a historical narrative? No. However, it does make Acts a theological drama and sensationalized story. In that arena I am in the same boat or posture as Richard Carrier: if a narrative isn’t completely factual, then it must be classified as an inspired-by-actual-events legend, but not an irrefutable factual transcript. Big difference.

If one needs Acts to be a reliable history, and not revisionist history (a.k.a. “bullshit”), one needs to “leave out” all the evidence that it repeatedly contradicts the eyewitness testimony of Paul, and in precisely the ways that suit its author’s agendas, and that it mimics known tropes and features distinctive of fiction and propaganda, and conspicuously omits all the actual markers of reliable histories.
— Richard carrier, “how we know acts is a fake history,” accessed 3/17/2024

Carrier goes on with his sharp criticism of the author(s) of Acts stating, “That people [of the 1^st and 2^nd century CE] routinely tried to pass off lies as genuine history was a major problem regularly complained of at the time.” He cites three different sources of these complaints, T.J. Luce, “Ancient Views on the Causes of Bias in Historical Writing,” Lucian’s “How to Write History,” and Plutarch’s “On the Malice of Herodotus.” Then Carrier lays it on thick by stating there are over 20 other “Acts” that even most all Orthodox Christians agree are bogus.

Then Carrier goes even further stating that Christians and their self-proclaimed, self-perceived impunity to bend laws of nature as God-initiated “miracles” and rewriting, re-visioning actual historical events for believers afforded Christians and their scribes the license to freely doctor up stories/Acts that suited their own agenda and lure, recruit Gentiles into the new Pauline Christology.

Additionally, Acts contains some serious historical fallacies, four that are glaring. The first fallacy is the Roman Cohorts/troops stationed supposedly in Caesarea c. 37 CE. In Acts 10:1 the “Italian regiment” would be the Cohors II Italica Civium Romanorum, or an Italian Auxiliary Unit based out of Syria. The problem with this specific unit and Acts’ account of it is that its presence in Caesarea or Judea is confirmed to be no earlier than 69 CE, thirty-two years later.

A second fallacy (of many) is the event of the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 put next to Galatians 2. Examine the following image table:

Paul and Barnabas are appointed by Antioch church (v. 2). Meeting involves the church, the apostles, and the elders (v.4, 6). No report. Includes the Apostolic Decree (v , 29). Gal. 2. Paul goes up (with Barnabas and Titus) by revelation (v. 2). Meeting is private, before those of repute (v.2). Includes an agreement on division of labor (v. 9). Mentions a request and agreement to remember the poor (v. 10). Those of repute added nothing to me (v.6).

Once again this shows compellingly, in my knowledgeable opinion, that Acts was written noticeably later by more than one author and authors who naïvely did not have the Gospel of Luke in front of them, making their work in Acts highly unreliable.

A third fallacy or problem is James’, the brother of Jesus, speech in Jerusalem (Acts 15:16-18) where he quotes literally from the Greek Septuagint speaking Greek. But James’ audience would’ve only been the Council members who spoke Aramaic or Mishnaic Hebrew amongst each other. Why on Earth would James speak to them in Greek? Because he would not; that would’ve been completely unnecessary, unless Acts 15 is a later retro-report than the actual speech the Acts’ author(s) haphazardly and naïvely penned.

Finally, the fourth fallacy or problem of Acts’ reliability is the Egyptian and the assassins/terrorists called Sicarii of 1^st century Judea (prior to 70 CE) and the narrative in Acts 21:38. By confusing this Egyptian with Paul the author(s) of Acts demonstrates that they used Josephus’ as a prior source and completely mistook that “The Egyptian” led them… which is wholly false.

To conclude this portion, I am in agreement with biblical scholars like Bart Ehrman and critics like Richard Carrier that as a whole the book of Acts is mostly unreliable, if not completely unreliable. It does easily give convenient historical facts about events of 1^st century CE to lend itself as valid, reliable to readers about events in Judea, Jerusalem, and its Roman rule, however, it cannot be trusted on the specific details and verifiable, confirmed external facts of the time that we do possess today.

Paul’s “Third” Epistle & Letter to the Laodiceans? What?

There are two letters (falsely) attributed to Paul called 3^rd Corinthians and another called Laodiceans. They are noted in Acts 8: 9-24 and in the Acts of Paul, a pseudepigraphal apocryphal work neither of which are in the present day NT canon.

Third Corinthians is a forgery written by Orthodox Christian Fathers to oppose circulating forgeries during the 3^rd century CE to support their own seven separate Nicene Councils’ final theologies. Marcion of Sinope became the very first major heretic of the Greco-Roman Catholic Church and our present Orthodox Christian Churches, Protestant ones included.

Bodmer Papyrus 66 (3rd Corinthians?) by an unknown writer in the 3rd century CE – http://www.bible-researcher.com/papyrus66.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9422663

There were apparently Pauline letters about Marcion of Sinope circulating around c. 135 CE in Rome. Sadly, none of them exist today because extreme 2^nd–4^th century orthodox Christians destroyed and burned them. However, as luck would have it we do have letters forged in Paul’s name by Greek Church Fathers which seem to oppose Marcion. And they wrote forgeries to oppose him and his “heretical” theology in the name of Paul. Yes, the second and third generation Church Fathers fabricated and invented their own Pauline forgeries to fight Marcion. Bart Ehrman explains:

It was quite common for “orthodox” Christians (that is, Christians who accepted the theological views that eventually became widely accepted throughout Christianity) to charge “heretics” (those who taught “false teachings”) with forging documents in the names of the apostles in order to support their views. […]

The Gospel of Peter, for example, was charged with being heretical, as teaching a docetic view of Jesus. But orthodox Christians forged documents of their own. We have far more of this kind of forgery, since orthodox writings were more likely to be preserved for posterity, even if they were not actually written by their alleged authors.
— Bart ehrman, “Paul’s *THIRD* Letter to the Corinthians? A Very Interesting Forgery” — 3/6/2024, accessed 3/18/2024

Two different theologians had gone to Corinth during Paul’s missions, one named Simon (the Magician) and the other Cleobius. Both were preaching a very different gospel than Paul’s. The Corinthian Christians wanted Paul to come in person to whip the ones who had gone astray from Simon’s and Cleobius’ teachings. Their teachings were essentially:

Do not petition the Old Testament prophets
God is “not Almighty,” not omnipotent
No resurrection of the flesh/dead will happen
Earth was not created by God, but by angels
Christos did not come here in the flesh as a man
Christos was not born from Mary

Much of these theological doctrines sound like Marcion’s teachings. Consequently, followers of Marcion rejected an afterlife “in the flesh” at the end of time. This also meant that Christos could not have been born and had human flesh. Since the Old Testament did not belong in the canonical New Testament, disregarding the OT prophets was fine, they were no longer needed. Imagine the impact of these teachings to traditional Judeo-Christians, even Paul’s Corinthians.

But there are discrepancies above with the followers—in the forged 3^rd Corinthians that is—to what Maricon actually taught. Marcion in fact did teach that Earth was created by the OT God. Hence, it was an apparent wayward group of Corinthians that deviated from traditional Judeo-Christian creationism, not Marcion, as the Greco-Roman Church Fathers purported in their forged letter of 3^rd Corinthians. However, this group of Corinthians had similar theological ideas with Marcion, but they were not identical. It seems the 2^nd century Church Fathers like Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Justin Martyr, got it wrong in making their forged epistle in the name of Paul.

The phony 3^rd letter to the Corinthians was a denunciation aimed at the rising movement of Gnostic Christianity and docetism in the 1^st and 2^nd centuries CE. In this “response letter” the early Church Fathers, not Paul, underscored several doctrines about the real nature of Christos as opposed to Marcion’s and the Gnostics’ version. One particular doctrine that 3^rd Corinthians addresses is the importance of the flesh. No, not pornography—although that would be a nice respite from this crazy religion—they mean (the early Greek Church Fathers) actual flesh and bone and blood in order to make Christos’ Incarnation theologically workable.

Assaulting the Gnostics’ beliefs, the forger(s) chastise any who proclaim that heaven, Earth, and all within them was not God’s creation are labelled heretics. In attempting to mimic Paul the forger(s) slip up and show their papyrus caper. Making the flesh one of the primary focal points caught Bart Ehrman’s attention:

This emphasis on the “flesh” is very interesting, but also a bit ironic. One recent study of 3 Corinthians has shown that the forger[s], who was intent on opposing the false teachings of the heretics, does so by teaching ideas about the flesh that are contrary to what the real, historical Paul taught.[2] Paul himself certainly believed that God had created this world, and that at the end of time he would redeem it. Paul, like most Jews and Christians in his day, thought that at the end of this age there would be a bodily resurrection. That is to say, that humans would face judgment, either reward or punishment, in their own bodies that had been raised from the dead (see for example 1 Corinthians 15). But Paul did not call the body “the flesh.” On the contrary “the flesh” meant something completely different for Paul. It meant that part of human nature that is controlled by sin and that is alienated from God (see for example Romans 8:1-9). For Paul, the “flesh” needed to be overcome, since it was controlled by sin. The human body would be raised from the dead, but the flesh had to die.

This somewhat technical understanding of the term flesh came to be lost in later orthodox Christianity, when theologians began thinking that flesh and body were the same thing. And that has happened here in 3 Corinthians. Unlike Paul, this [forgery] emphasizes the importance of flesh as a creation of God that will be raised. In other words, this is an instance in which a forger claiming to be Paul represents a point of view that is contrary to Paul’s, even though he is trying to correct, in Paul’s name, teachings that he thinks are false.
— Bart Ehrman, “Paul’s *third* letter to the corinthians? a very interesting forgery.” accessed 3/21/2024.

Letter to the Laodiceans

Another forged “letter” by early Hellenic Church Fathers done in the name of Paul is the one to the Laodiceans. According to many biblical scholars this fake letter is the epitome of stale and lacking in theme and intent. In fact, nine-tenths of the letter is just a repeat of Philippians. The opening line is from Galatians 1:1 so it shows no substance and no pop, no inspiration. Adolf von Harnack says, “[The letter,] it is with regard to content and form the most worthless document that has come down to us from Christian antiquity.“

*Ruins of ancient Laodicea, a city 10.5 miles northwest of Colossae, Asia Minor or modern day Turkey*

The mystery about a letter or letters to the Laodiceans is that only one exists. It is the letter found in the Latin Vulgate, but it is remarkably short and claims to be written by Paul. Any letter to the Laodiceans from Marcion does not exist, only Tertullian writes about it attacking the Marcionites for using a revised version of Ephesians. The 4^th–5^th century Epiphanius of Salamis also references a Laodicean letter, but he merely quotes straight from Ephesians 4:5. Nonetheless, the quagmire of confusion was only made much worse by the early Greco-Roman Orthodox Church Fathers. At the very least, this paints a dubious picture on their reputation and integrity.

But here’s the rub. Forgeries were rampant during the Latin Middle Ages both in the Orthodox Roman Church—the ancestor of today’s Protestant Churches—and possibly too, we can’t know with certainty, from the Marcionites, all trying to plagiarize and imponere Paul’s letters. And whether it comes down to an age of coincidental loss of history or to an age of ruthless hunter-eradicators, it is not coincidence that the only surviving records of papyrus and manuscripts somehow all belong to the victorious Greco-Roman Orthodox Church and its 2^nd–4^th century Hellenic Fathers. Think about it.

In my last and final Part III of Paul, Acts, Forgeries & Marcion, I will explore and examine a bit further the very first major heretic and threat of the early 1^st century Roman Orthodox Church, Marcion, and why he was such an “apparent” danger.

Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always

Origins and Orthodoxy

Posted on August 18, 2016 by Professor Taboo

The six of us were all sitting around the kitchen table discussing time-travel and the effects of gravity on time itself. A good friend of the family repeated once again what she had stated earlier, “It is all merely philosophy and theory.” The word speculation would probably have been another word she would have approved and used. My political and respectful(?) response was “But how will we learn and know if we don’t GET OUT THERE and collect the actual data?” She agreed.

You see, our sweet good friend comes from a long maternal ancestral line of Protestant evangelical fundamental Christian indoctrination. She has not known any other lifestyle or worldview her entire life of 32-years. Because of this and also where I currently reside — the Hill Country towns of central Texas and nearer a few of my extended family — I am confronted daily or weekly with this religious mindset and way of life which they automatically assume to be true and right from generations after generations, after generations. I ask… should we not get out there, explore, examine, scrutinize, and always ask the hardest questions in order to arrive at the most plausible truths? I think so.

From 1983 to 2002 “getting out there” was exactly what I set out to do regarding a real God, the Christian bible, then the Hebrew bible, and more recently the Quran. This post and some of my other related blog-posts are what I discovered over those 19-years and counting. This post is another condensed study and research from those years based on 20 scholars listed in this supporting Bibliography Library-Page, as well as my personal experiences with fundamental Christian evangelists, extended family, apologists and one particular Hindi futeboller from Kashmir, India. My purpose for writing another post about biblical fundamentalism, particularly Christian, is simple. Share with the public and anyone interested just how few questions are asked about the roots of earliest Christianity under the contextual dominance of the early through late epochs of the Imperial Roman Empire. It is safe to assume that mainstream Christianity, if not church leadership too, are naïve of their own faith’s history and origins.
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The Nature of God?

How does a person learn who God is, what She/He/It is like, and how do we know it is truly God and not some imposter or auditory or visual hallucination? This question of course presupposes that a God exists in the first place. Ignoring this a priori step in the process of logic and reasoning would be a serious mistake. However, for the sake of time and subject matter, I will not go into the existence or non-existence of God. For a plethora of reasons much of the world believes God or a Supreme Being exists anyway.

Therefore, assuming a God(s) does exist, how can we know this God? Morgan Freeman’s recent National Geographic mini-series The Story of God was pretty well received by audiences and critics as Freeman and his team traveled the world gathering various cultural perspectives of God. I Google-searched the question “How can we know God?” and it returned these first 10 resources, out of about 483,000,000 results:

“How to Know God Personally —

What does it take to begin a relationship with God? Devote yourself to unselfish religious deeds? Become a better person so that God will accept you?

You may be surprised that none of those things will work. But God has made it very clear in the Bible how we can know Him.

The following principles will explain how you can personally begin a relationship with God, right now, through Jesus Christ…”

(from the Campus Crusade for Christ International website)

From the Joyce Meyer Ministries website “Everyday Answers”…

“There was a time in my life when I struggled with all types of fears and insecurities, constantly worried about the future, my job, my ministry, and my family. Needless to say, I wasn’t really enjoying my life!

However, over time, the Lord helped me to change… and He helped me understand an important key to truly enjoying life. It all begins with what the apostle Paul says in Philippians 3:10… something I believe we should all pray regularly…

“[For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him…understanding the wonders of His person more strongly and more clearly]…” (AMP).”

From the Got Questions Ministries website…

“How can I get to know God better?” —

Answer: Everyone knows that God exists. “God has made it plain” that He is real, “for since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse” (Romans 1:19-20). Some try to suppress the knowledge of God; most try to add to it. The Christian has a deep desire to know God better (Psalm 25:4). — by J.I. Packer

(the next 7 paragraphs reference the Christian bible 13-times)

From the In Touch Ministries website…

“Getting To Know God” —

Did you know God wants to show you more of Himself every day? Does your time with the Lord revitalize you, or does it feel more like a ritualistic experience? In Hosea 6:6, God is clear: “I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”

(the next 6 directives reference the Christian bible 3-times)

From the Every Student website…

“What does it take to begin a relationship with God? —

Wait for lightning to strike? Devote yourself to unselfish religious deeds? Become a better person so that God will accept you? NONE of these. God has made it very clear in the Bible how we can know Him. This will explain how you can personally begin a relationship with God, right now…”

(the rest of the page references the Christian bible 16-times)

And jumping to the 10th result on the Harvest Ministries website…

“Know God —

You were created to know God in a personal way—to have a relationship with Him, through His Son, Jesus Christ. How do you start a relationship with God?”

(the following 4 step procedure references the Christian bible in every step)

Noticing the pattern? The bible, the bible, the bible, and repeatedly the bible apparently has all the answers to knowing God. There doesn’t seem to be any tangible physical meeting of God where you actually see God, or hear Her/His/Its voice, you cannot call God up for an interview, nor is there a global standard of where to find God or how to find God’s collective global nature from any of these websites… except, in the Bible.

This has been my own experience when asking faith-followers these questions about God. In other words, the more people asked, there seems to be more than just one simple version of God! Hmmm. Maybe what should be asked is what “version” of God is most popular in the world?

According to www.Adherents.com and other sources, the world’s largest religion by population is Christianity (2.1 billion), followed by Islam (1.5 billion), then the Non-religious or unaffiliated (1.1 billion), Hinduism (900 million), Chinese Traditional (394 million), and Buddhism at 376 million respectively. As a result of popularity then, let’s look more closely at the Christian version of knowing God. How can it be done?
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Divine Revelation?

Throughout the lore and archaeological evidence of humans, when a divine spirit or Supreme Beings disclosed themselves to people, or something about existence, or about the world, in theological terms that is often defined as revelation. Because video and audio technology did not exist 50,000 years ago when forms of verbal human language began, and institutionalized morality only began long after around 10,200 BCE in the Neolithic Period, we cannot know the types of divine revelations that took place. Prior to the start of human writing (cuneiform) 5,000 years ago or around 3,000 BCE, there was still no video or audio technology available to literally record gods or God. Only rituals, song and dance, and oral traditions passed to descendants in various chiefdoms and tribes in ancient Egypt, Sumeria, and Mesopotamia were the way to know about God or gods.

Kesh Temple Hymn tablet

Today, one of the oldest known religious texts is the Kesh Temple Hymn from ancient Sumer which dates to around 2,600 BCE. Yet, other than Sumerian admonishments the hymn offers only glimpses and inference into their gods. The other oldest religious text — the Egyptian Pyramid Texts — was carved into the walls of the pyramids at Saqqarah and date to around ca. 2400–2300 BCE. However, these Egyptian texts do not reveal any specific ways to know the gods other than again by inference.

As a result of very very ancient oral traditions or storytelling, and very ancient cuneiform inferences, both from an area of the ancient world covering over 1.5 million sq. miles, how then do Christians today really know God? Are all of them experts in palaeography and epigraphy and their interpretations? Of course not. Do they speak regularly with those deceased Neolithic Sumerian, Egyptian, Mesopotamian storytellers, or ancient Hebrew, Arabian, or Greek orators? Of course not. It would be wise, therefore, to better understand what exactly it is and why Christians place so much unquestioning faith and belief in 1) a religion based on ancient storytelling, 2) widespread fluid (imprecise) cuneiform art, 3) a couple or three very small Hebrew tribes from the ancient Middle East, and followed by 4) more letters and stories about a man’s life and teachings recorded 60 to 110 years AFTER the actual events occurred in the 2nd century CE.

The Fertile Crescent

Yet, despite this precarious framework of revelation, a great number of evangelical fundamental Christians would disagree with my above assessment. Why?
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Special Communion

They disagree because they and apparently 2.1 billion in the world proclaim that God CAN be known. They disagree because God has made Herself/Himself/Itself available to be communed with through two or more methods. If anyone can list and explain more than these two methods, please feel free to share in the comments below! Nevertheless, take a large enough sample of those 2.1 billion Christ-believers — similar to hearing a complete sentence on the trading-floor of the New York Stock Exchange during heavy screaming — and one can start to narrow the methods down. I will borrow from Theopedia.com to explain…

General Communion/Revelation – “Also known as Universal revelation, general revelation deals with how God can be understood through his creation. More specifically, this can be manifest in physical nature, human nature, and history.“
Special Communion/Revelation – “is distinguished from general revelation in that it is direct revelation from God. Examples include God’s direct speech to various people (e.g., prophets; cf. 2 Peter 1:20-21), the incarnation (cf. Hebrews 1:1-2), and the Bible. Such revelation is sufficient to communicate the gospel, unlike general revelation, and thus salvation is possible only through special revelation.“

Is General Communion/Revelation adequate to authenticate evidence of a God as Christians claim from Romans 1:19-20? The controversy over this religious tenet versus human reasoning (science?) started way before 2nd century CE Christianity and as early as the 7th century BCE in Mesopotamia by Assyrian and Babylonian astronomers.

The lethal controversy was over the purpose or reason for lunar eclipses. The Assyrian-Babylonian priests believed that lunar eclipses were evil omens and vindictive restlessness of the gods directed against their kings. However, due to hundreds of centuries of recorded astronomical data, by the 1st century BCE Babylonian astronomers knew an upcoming lunar eclipse would happen on May 28th, 585 BCE at sunset. In fact, their mathematical calculations were accurate within a couple of minutes! The astronomers had calculated the 18 year and 11.3 day (223 synodic month) interval between lunar eclipses. This suggested that the eclipses had a natural (scientific) cause. If lunar eclipses were predictable, then the Babylonians could appoint a temporary king (likely through coercion) who would accept the horrible wrath of the gods, thus saving the real king from a death-omen.

The most famous controversy of church tenets versus human reasoning and mathematics was between Galileo Galilei (1564-1642 CE) and the second organized Christian church, the Roman Catholic Church. As most already know, Galileo was tried and convicted as a heretic by the church for his correct Heliocentric system of our solar system. It made no difference though, God’s Holy Church and Testaments infallibly ruled. It wasn’t until over 350 years after Galileo’s death that the church addressed their ‘mishap‘:

“… Pope John Paul II gave an address on behalf of the Catholic Church in which he admitted that errors had been made by the theological advisors in the case of Galileo. He declared the Galileo case closed, but he did not admit that the Church was wrong to convict Galileo on a charge of heresy …”
— National Center for Biotechnology Information, October 1992

Therefore, given that the physical world has not and cannot be wholly described at a moment in time as monistic evidence, or substance monism/Neoplatonism, for evidence of God — i.e. one creation by one source during the sixth day of creation while new species are being discovered and others going extinct every decade or century — this leaves us with only Special Communion/Revelation to know God.

As stated by Theopedia and most Christian-believers, Special Communion/Revelation is their firm foundation for knowing and experiencing the Judeo-Christian God. This communion has three components:

Direct speech – through past and present prophets carried by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:20-21).
The Incarnation – through the birth, life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ (Hebrews 1:1-2).
Holy Bible – a communal collection of ancient writings breathed by God which comprise the sixty-six books of both the Old Testament and the New Testament.

For the sake of my reader’s time and mine, I will make brief comments on the first two special-revelation components which I hope will cause anyone to examine or reexamine their dubious implications. Following those comments we will finally delve into the origins and developments of the Christian Bible.

Direct speech
By popular definition prophets hear or sense the voice of God directly then obey. Innumerable documented examples reside both in ancient and modern history. About 1,550 BCE the prophet Joshua was told by God to go conquer the land and people across the Jordan River (Joshua 1:1-6), killing all the men, women, and children (Joshua 6:21). After Jericho was razed, on the further commands of God Joshua then razed the town of Ai, killing 12,000 men and women (Joshua 8:24-28). Genocide is not the only command by God either, mass suicide is also spoken by God to the more faithful zealous followers. At the fortress of Masada in 73 CE led by the apocalyptic prophet Eleazar ben Yair, though details are debateable, 960 Jewish revolutionaries committed suicide/murder for their God rather than endure enslavement by Rome.

Jones (left) and Koresh

In modern history three iconic prophets also followed God’s direct speech for mass suicide of all their most faithful zealous followers. They do not need any elaboration here. They were Jim Jones in Jonestown, Guyana (Nov. 1978) of 918 followers — nearly 300 were children — Marshall Applewhite in Rancho Santa Fe, CA (March 1997) convincing 39 followers, and David Koresh in Waco, TX (April 1993) leading 85 followers — 22 of them children/teenagers — to their mass suicide/incineration.

In a 2007 co-authored article by Erich Follath (diplomatic journalist), Manfred Müller, Ulrich Schwarz (theologian), and Stefan Simons (Spiegel Online correspondent) entitled “Following Divine Orders“ which focuses on the Age Old irresistible appeal of religiosity for fanatics, or rather those who are not moderate or “luke warm” about their beliefs:

“According to the three Abrahamic faiths, God only revealed the truth about Himself, humankind and the world to their respective religion; it is therefore recorded separately in their holy scriptures: the Hebrew Bible (the Torah, or Old Testament to Christians), the Christian New Testament and the Islamic Koran.

These [bibles] contain countless contradictions. Both the Koran and the Bible’s Old and New Testaments bear witness to a good and merciful God. They urge humans to live in peace and harmony. This is reflected most clearly in the instruction attributed to Jesus in the Hebrew Bible: “Love thy neighbor as thyself.“

But these messages of brotherhood clash with sentiments that condone intolerance and violence: “For I came to set a son against his father, a daughter against her mother …“; “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me“; “Do not think that I came to bring peace on Earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword.” The prophet Mohammed also delivered harsh threats from Allah: “Fear the fire prepared for the infidels.“

Throughout history, the Abrahamic religions’ claim of absolute authority has exerted an irresistible appeal on fanatics, encouraging them to impose their own faith on nonbelievers and dissidents alike – if need be by using fire and the sword. To this day, nearly all religions supply the kindling that fuels wars and acts of persecution, sparks torture and murder, and inflames ethnic hatred. Examples abound: the bloody wars between Hindus and Muslims in India, or the enmity between Muslims and Christians in Indonesia.

For centuries, it seemed that the Abrahamic religions had come to terms with – and discarded – extremism. In the case of Christianity, this dates back to the Enlightenment, when the symbiosis between church and state collapsed and a new system of ethics emerged – one that was independent of faith in God and derived solely from social consensus.”

Those above examples of ancient and modern direct divine revelation seriously beg the questions What exactly is the Holy Spirit and how is it (a prophet) accurately tested for authenticity? Anyone who wishes to answer these questions, good luck! I do NOT envy you. There are as many various definitions of the Holy Spirit/False Prophet debate by Christians as there are species and sub-species in the animal kingdom! It is truly unimaginable. Suffice it to say here that almost all Christ-believers, scholars and laypersons alike, ultimately and exclusively refer to their Bibles for definitive Holy Spirit or non-Holy Spirit answers. Naturally, that only leads to more questions. Therefore, “direct speech” is not a religious consensus to really knowing God.

Greek soccer fans

It is worth mentioning, the fields of psychology, neurology, and sociology have many theoretical studies associating heightened religious behaviour due to Temporal lobe epilepsy and minor forms of schizophrenia, and sociologists have found that social God-constructs can persuade individuals into states of euphoria because of large numbers of people acting together in a strongly shared belief — crowd psychology or mass hysteria, also known as Mass Psychogenic Disorder/Hysteria. Huge sporting events are good examples of this phenomena. Extreme isolation can have similar effects of hyper-religiosity and paranormal hallucinations, sometimes negative.

The Incarnation
In theological terms, this is simply God in and as Jesus Christ; both God and man simultaneously. The first grave problem with this Christian doctrine is that it is based upon only “Christian-biased” historical sources and traditions riddled with inconsistencies. In other words, who and what Jesus of Nazareth was historically between 6-4 BCE and 30-36 CE, the generally agreed upon lifespan, cannot be verified with absolute certainty outside of the Christian Synoptic Gospels. Many Christian apologists vehemently claim that writings by Flavius Josephus, Pliny the Younger, and Tacitus are non-Christian evidence for the historicity of Jesus. F. Josephus, however, was not completely unbiased about the new Jesus-Movement called The Way by Judean-Christians; he too was involved in 1st century CE Jewish Messianism as a Pharisee. Pliny and Tacitus were indeed Roman and non-Christian, but their very brief mentions are about Christians as a whole, rather than a biography about a specific person named Jesus.

Therefore, the best that Christian-believers can hope for regarding an actual verifiable incarnation of God through Jesus of Nazareth is by Christian scribes and followers 30-90 years after his death based on oral-storytelling traditions. That is the closest that honest scholarship can provide at this time, and beyond that is a question of individual faith within crowd psychology. This now leaves us only with the Bible… what the doctrines of Direct speech and The Incarnation frequently must reference anyway.
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The Canonical Bible

Many modern Christians are unaware of the origins, early development, and the 2nd and 3rd century CE controversies surrounding the final compilation of their Bibles. Some believers might even think their bible suddenly dropped out of heaven long long ago after God finished writing the 66 books, never thinking to ask “Why just 66 books? Why not 40 or 10 simple books?” And honestly, orthodoxed American society today, including many Christians, know very little of the ancient world of Jesus, the Levant, and the Fertile Crescent.

click here to enlarge

The birthplace of Jesus was Judea, the Jewish province ruled by Rome. Divided by intense religious factionalism, the people of Judea, as well as Galilee, Idumea, Nabatea, and Perea were anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Messiah and God’s salvation. First century CE Romans would have encountered a large mix of traditions and philosophies in this world. The Hebrews had for many centuries suffered foreign invasions and been harshly buffeted by powerful external cultural forces. The most potent of these was Alexander the Great’s Greek civilization supported by several centuries of Hellenistic overlords in Egypt and Syria.

The Jews in these regions were divided over subjects ranging from the legitimacy of the priesthood to the acceptance of certain books into the Hebrew Canon. The Essenes rejected the priesthood entirely. Samaritans formulated their own unique doctrines. Various cadres of Jewish zealots pledged themselves to the expulsion of the Romans. Sadducees made up their prestige with the aristocratic clans making up the priesthood in Jerusalem and exclusive supervision of the Temple. They rejected the books of the Prophets and Writings and also became more ingratiated with Herod and Roman governors who eventually granted them local rule in the Sanhedrin. The Pharisees were more progressive than the Sadducees in that they not only accepted those books, but also believed in angels, demons, resurrection, and — like the Essenes and other groups — passionately in the coming of the Messiah, e.g. the Apostle Paul. The Pharisees also had grown a body of unrecorded commentary on Hebrew Scriptures and rulings by Jewish sages. This was intended to help Jews adapt the ancient Law of Moses to the circumstances of their own time.

Essentially, roots of the Christian New Testament began during this period of great Jewish disunity, alienation, isolation, and confusion before anything Christian was written down. Once Christ-followers began recording an anthology or testaments of Jesus’ parables, prophetic and wisdom teachings, and exhortations — by around 150 CE (over a century after Jesus’ death) — there was no less than 42 testaments or gospels for Christian teachings which were freely circulating as opposed to just 27-books in today’s New Testament. The formulation of the Hebrew Bible, i.e. the Old Testament, went through similar reconfigurations between 500 BCE and 70 CE, i.e. approximately 600 years!

Naturally, all this diversity and variety of who and what the Nazarene was caused more confusing fractures among outlying Christians and Judean-Christians for centuries! It is like trying to answer “What is an American?” today in one single description from 324+ million citizens. To learn more about the various origins of Nazarene-Nasorean-Nasara-Nazirite, go here to my bibliography subpage: The Nasara-Nazirites.

1st & 2nd century Roman Empire

Authoritative or Not Authoritative?
For over three and a half centuries (between 337 and 389 years!) after Jesus’ death, there existed no standardized written collection about Jesus’ ministry or precisely what he did or taught. Everything known about him (and not known) was by word-of-mouth across 2,000 sq. miles. What is more dubious and astounding is that what little there was written down about Jesus’ message was by a foreigner, a Hellenistic Pharisee named Saul of Tarsus who had never once met Jesus in the flesh, in person. No surprise, after Saul’s ‘paranormal conversion‘ to “The Way” on the road to Damascus, he fell into serious conflict with the Council of Jerusalem headed by Jesus’s next-in-line brother James, Peter, Cornelius, and other Judean-Christian leaders who had personally known Jesus quite well compared to Saul. Yet, today Pauline-Christianity (aka Saul) predominates the New Testament, seminaries, and modern churches. James Tabor, professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, writes about this heavy influence from a near total stranger to the Jerusalem leaders… and their and Jesus’ Neo-Jewish teachings. Tabor states:

The fundamental doctrinal tenets of Christianity, namely that Christ is God “born in the flesh,” that his sacrificial death atones for the sins of humankind, and that his resurrection from the dead guarantees eternal life to all who believe, can be traced back to Paul — not to Jesus…

In contrast, the original Christianity before Paul is somewhat difficult to find in the New Testament, since Paul’s 13 letters predominate and Paul heavily influences even our four Gospels. Fortunately, in the letter of James, attributed to the brother of Jesus, as well as in a collection of the sayings of Jesus now embedded in the Gospel of Luke (the source scholars call Q), we can still get a glimpse of the original teachings of Jesus…

What we have preserved in this precious document is a reflection of the original apocalyptic proclamation of Jesus: the “Gospel of the kingdom of God” with its political and social implications.
— Christianity Before Paul, The Huffington Post, November 2012 cited Aug. 16, 2016 at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-d-tabor/christianity-before-paul_b_2200409.html

With this and other additional alternative extant evidence, one has to ask “What formula was used some 300-years later to configure and reconfigure the vast oral and written testaments/gospels of Jesus?” Hitherto is a list of the most significant testaments/gospels about Jesus of/the Nazareth/Nazarene out of approx. 130 known writings not present in the New Testament today:

For a more complete list of the many known writings of Jesus and his earliest followers, go to the NNU Wesley Center’s page of Non-Canonical Literature.

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Apostolic Fathers and the Canon Formula

Signs that much of these various Jesus-literatures had been accepted as authoritative by church leaders and early Christian congregations as early as the 1st and 2nd centuries CE appear in the letters of the Apostolic Fathers. During these centuries of the new upcoming churches, no official creed or universally accepted liturgy existed. In the following paragraphs, notice the similarities from the first churches to modern-day Christian churches.

The biggest and most heated controversy was a newer version of an old Jewish sectarian problem: Are the Hebrew Laws, Prophets, and Writings above, below, or void in light of Paul’s Hellenistic teachings — deeds or faith? Another ongoing spinoff debate was the Gnostic challenge: There are two dualistic worlds and two Gods, and there was no Incarnation, explained as follows:

The World of Darkness was created by an inferior God, the Hebrew God, and so the Hebrew scriptures were rejected or severely de-emphasized.
Material aspects of this Dark World, including the human body, were burdens that humanity was forced to endure by the Hebrew God.
The World of Light and Knowledge was ruled by a Supreme Being. Salvation was possible only through gnosis of this divine world and the Supreme Being’s mysteries, but salvation was available only to some, not all. Some Gnostics had a three-tiered class system too.
There was No Incarnation because he was not the Son of the inferior Hebrew God, nor did he become a man, suffer human pain, or die on a cross. Resurrection was merely a spiritual linking of the soul with the World of Light and had nothing to do with a human body.

Because Pauline Orthodoxy had the support of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch, and their power and influences of those churches and bishops, by the 4th century CE the Gnostics would quickly be labelled heretics and harshly hunted down and most all their holy literature burned. With the four strongest episcopal sees in the Roman Empire, Ignatius, Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Hermas, and their colleagues along with their heavy power and influence… the weaker episcopal sees around the Empire and the remaining Jewish-Christians in and around Jerusalem simply could not stand up to the might of Hellenistic Constantinian Rome.
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Victors and Emperors Always Make the “Authoritative” Laws and Histories

Walter Benjamin posited that “History is written by the victors.” Historical records of major social, national, economic, ethnic, or religious upheavals and cleansings bear this philosophy out to some/large degrees. And so with his maternal-influenced-miracle-based sanction of the “official” Christianity, Emperor Constantine not only led the Roman Empire, but was also Head (Pope?) of the Church. He called for unity as a whole within the Church and agreement on its scriptures. Easier said than done inside one of history’s largest empires.

There were no less than seven failed attempts to form an official universal Bible. On the eighth failed attempt by Eusebius of Caesarea at the request of Emperor Constantine, Eusebius’ rejection of the popular Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Matthias; the Acts of Andrew, of Paul and of John; the Shepard of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas; the Didache, 1 and 2 Clement; and the Apocalypse of Peter… got his configuration rejected (see Table of Canonical Debate below). His reasons for classifying certain texts as questionable or spurious had revealed the basic formula for inclusion. Probably more important for him was a writing’s perceived apostolic authorship, though its antiquity and orthodoxy were also of significant consequence. Study closely the following table…

Athanasius of Alexandria wrote his Easter letter to the churches and monasteries in his diocese identifying the books they were to include in the testaments. Athanasius was one of the more flamboyant patriarchs. He was exiled from his pentarchy five times leading back to the Council of Nicaea due to his unyielding defense and decisions to compromise with other Roman patriarchs (which at times included Eusebius) over controversial points of Christian doctrine. His canon had been later confirmed by the church in Rome in 405 CE, in 393 at Hippo Regius in North Africa, and in Carthage twice, in 397 and then again after the growing Gnostic churches in 419 CE in reaction to the intensifying debate regarding James, Jude, and Hebrews. The Syrians used the Diatessaron as their canon for another 50-years. The Ethiopian church continues to this day to recognize a book of Clement and several other non-canonical books of liturgy. Though the various pentarchy churches had made ground toward unity, it is important to know they were never in absolute agreement on the New Testament canon and Christian doctrines.

Notice from the above Table how even the seven Patriarchs, who were themselves understudies to the Apostolic Fathers, after 300 years still did NOT completely agree on what God’s Son, the Messiah, and the new and old messages was suppose to mean to all people. Yet Constantine, his bishops, and propraetors had to have orthodoxy — a long standing Greco-Roman political tradition.

It wasn’t until around 400-419 CE and centuries of compromise and more compromise that the final configuration of the Christian New Testament was officially closed — closed by the declaration of the Emperor, put into law, and enforced by the torches and swords of his Roman Legions. For a God who is proclaimed as omnipotent, omniscient, and infallible, and whose traits are “proven” in the special revelations of the Canonical Bible, raises the glaring question:

Why was there three centuries of confusion, fracturing, and compromise among its early most prolific theologians… and even still to this day!?

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For Jews and Christians alike, study of the Scriptures has often been an end to itself — a simple act of devotion — rather than an exercise in absolute truth. These peaceful moderates likely realize today that human interpretation, interpolation, and orthodoxy (individual or group) cannot create an inerrant testimony of the nature of a God, nor of the full nature and teachings of a Jew named Jesus based from ancient oral traditions and differing literature spread over multiple centuries… or from differing regional cultures over 2,000 sq. miles. From an early date, believers then also began to scrutinize the Bible for what it had to say to their own generation and community along with their prolific leaders. Exegesis back then was done for purposes of preaching, pastoral care, formulating codes of behavior, and finding answers to theological and ethical questions not explicitly addressed by the texts.

As it happens today, inevitably back in Antiquity, disagreements arose — over importance of texts, their relative authority to the community, how to account for known inconsistencies and contradictions, and how to explain confusing biblical stories. Like our dear family friend in the kitchen at the beginning, both sides of the debates were probably saying to each other, “Your posture is all merely philosophy and theory.” But orthodoxy nonetheless developed, often based on a pseudo-definite set of human-like rules or patterns regarding multiple meanings and levels of meaning. To imagine there to be just one universal way, one universal lifestyle, one universal truth (e.g. John 14:6), one universal orthodoxy extracted from these millenia of “divine revelations” then and now… is not only an attempt to force a square peg into a round hole, but it is a blatant denial and/or ignorance of historical facts, wide-ranging scholarly critical thinking, reasoning, and probability, and/or a lack of deeper persistent curiosity.
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Or it could be only ~~tunnel-vision~~ “faith.” Right? (wink)

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Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always

Blog-posts for additional information:

—Constantine: Christianity’s True Catalyst/Christ
—The Suffering Messiah That Wasn’t Jesus
—Correcting the Gospels of Jesus
—Masada, Texas: How Egos and History Repeat
—The “Holy” River

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