Archive for February 5th, 2009
Jesus “The Nazarene”: A coherent biography
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 5, 2009
The Nazarene: An unpublished coherent biography (December 16, 2008)
Preamble: Over a hundred different manuscripts (Bibles) have been written on Jesus and his message in the early days of Christianity and before the four New Testaments (that were written by Mathew, Luke, Mark and John) that the Council of Nicee (Turkey) in 325 decided to select as the official representatives of the story of Jesus.
(Ironically, the selected Bibles were written in Greek; maybe the language was one of the main factors for retaining them).
There are evidences that the Bible of Mathew was originally written in Aramaic before being translated into Greek. Many of these early manuscripts were written by the disciples of Jesus and close companions like Barnaby (the spiritual guide of Paul and who accompanied Paul in his first apostolic trip in the interior of Turkey),
Thomas (not necessarily the twin brother of Jesus who established the first Christian community in the port of Deb on the Indus River), Philip, Bartholomew, and others. There are many folk tales that are to be considered as more valid than the canonical “truths or facts”.
What we are told is that Jesus had his Bar Mitzvah in Jerusalem and he sat among the priests and had a discussed with them. In between this event and his preaching adventure (over 25 years) the Church has nothing to offer but that Jesus obeyed his parents.
Even the story of his birth until his Bar Mitzvah is not reliable and could be considered as one of the acceptable version.
It is said that Jesus was 33-year old when he was crucified; that is the minimum age because Jesus was older and probably close to be forty.
How Jesus spent the time in between (a span of at least 20 years) and where did he live and grew to maturity? As is the custom in Judaism, boys were married at 13 and Jesus was not to be an exception but he had an outlet to tradition: Nazareth was a hotbed for the Essenien Jewish sect located in Qumran (not far from the western side of the Dead Sea).
The Essenien sect (cabala) lived in a closed community; women were not included, and the members vowed celibacy; they were vegetarians, ate together, distributed their wealth to the whole community, and each member worked according to his skills.
The members wore a unique white dress code in summer and another outfit in winter. The members of this community were known to be excellent healers. This sect was also labeled the “Baptist“, the “Nazoreen” and “Ossene” (the Strong).
The teachings of Buddhism had reached this community two centuries ago because King Ashoka of India had dispatched Buddhist monks to this region. It is very plausible that Jesus opted to join the Qumran community to avoid being wed. The Essenien caste had branches in Alexandria (Egypt) called Therapeutic or healers and also in Syria.
John the Baptist was Essenien. The fact that the canonic testaments reveal that John the Baptist didn’t recognize Jesus at the first sight might suggests that the two men didn’t meet in the community of Qumran at the same periods or that Jesus had left the community long time ago: Jesus was a traveler and not a community dweller.
There are evidences that Jesus was a wide traveler, knew many languages and was highly versed in religions and other legal aspects of the land. It is very plausible that Jesus visited Alexandria, Syria, and even reached India; he lingered in India and Persia before returning to Syria and Galilee.
A manuscript named “Himis” was discovered in Kashmir, close to the city of Leh, which described the “Lost years of Jesus”. In that manuscript it is referred to Jesus as Issa (an Aramaic name that the Arabs adopted) who traveled to most of the Holy Cities in India such as Djagguernat, Radjagriha, and Benares, and was frequently chased out by the clergies (sacerdotal officers).
The manuscript relates multitudes of pronouncements and teachings by Issa that are compatible to the canonic Bibles. Issa fled to Kashmir, Afghanistan, and Persia.
It is plausible that a Christian sect in the vicinity of Kashmir wrote that narrative. It is also plausible that Jesus survived his wounds and headed eastward: the shroud of Milan have marks of a body still hot and not of a cadaver.
I frankly cannot see why this story should be thrown out; countless adolescents tour the world nowadays; it was even more common in those times for young people trekking to learn and attend renowned schools.
Jesus knew more than three language; Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek (the language of the educated of the time) and Latin since he spoke to Roman centurions and Pontus Pilate.
It is also narrated that Jesus lived for a time in Sidon (a Lebanese port) teaching in its famous law school. His mother Mary and part of her family moved to a town nearby (Qana) when Jesus was a lecturer in the law school.
It is no fluke incident that Jesus and Mary attended a wedding in Qana (a town close to Sidon); it is also very rational that Jesus decided to start his message after Qana when his mother removed the cover of secrecy and exposed his supernatural gifts of turning water to wine.
Jesus was a high priest in the Essen sect and preached a message based in symbolism and fables and was highly spiritual and staunchly anti-Pharisee. The Jewish cabala sect is a branch of the Essen sect and is founded on the Sumerian theology and myths.
Albert Schweitzer, a theologian, physician, thinker, organ player and Nobel Peace laureate offered his version on Jesus. Schweitzer said, based on the first two Bibles of Mathew and Marc, that Jesus preached his message to the general public in the last year before his crucifixion. Six months, all in all, was the period that Jesus was accompanied by the public; the remaining months he spent them among his close disciple around Caesarea of Philippi.
In the beginning, Jesus accepted the label of a prophet among the prophets but then he reached the belief that he is the Messiah of the Jews.
Thus, he sent his disciples two by two to preach the message of the end of time. Jesus was very surprised when all his disciples returned safe and sound; he expected his disciples to suffer terribly and be put to death if the “prophesy of end of time” was to be accomplished.
Jesus then decided that God would accept his sacrifice and save his close disciples from atrocious deaths before the first coming of the Messiah. The version of what happened in Jerusalem and Jesus crucifixion can be followed in my article “Judas Iscariot“.
Note 1: Jesus had a large extended family; he had many brothers and sisters and his grandmother Ann married a second time and had many boys and girls. Mathew made a valiant attempt through 42 generations to link Jesus to David. If we have no records of Jesus own family then how could we go that far back in genealogy?
The Christian Jews wanted a Jewish King very badly. Actually, several early Christian communities unified the New Testament into one coherent book and had eliminated Mathew’s ridiculous endeavor.
Note 2: The first Christian communities emulated the monastic and ascetic life of the Essenien sect. A few early Christian sects went beyond the ascetic of the Essenians; for example, the author Amine Maaluf, in his book on Mani, mentions a community called in Aramaic “Halle Haware” or white garment clad people; this caste did not eat meat or drink wine or leavened bread; the disciples wore white garments from top to bottom, were scared of fire (symbol of evil), and thus would eat only raw fruits and vegetables grown by the community.
Outside food was prohibited and considered “female” food because women were banished from the community and the female names in the scriptures were not mentioned unless the names represented calamities and bad augurs. Travelers of this community carried with them the unleavened bread and produce of their home grown community because outside food was not pure.
Many monophysist Christian sects (Jesus is only divine) like the Jacobite and Nastourian (a name originated from the name Nazareth) had reached China before Islam (around 600 AC); they translated their Bible into Chinese and were permitted to preach their brand of religion and build churches.
The Nastourians built churches all along the Silk Road and many of these edifices can still be found in Tibet, Mongolia, China, Afghanistan, and Persia.
It is also believed that the Prophet Mohammad learned about Christianity from these sects that were marginalized by the official Byzantine Church and labelled “heretics” and persecuted.
Psychological test: Introspection
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 5, 2009
Introspection (continue 40)
Psychological testing
I recall an event in summer of 1985 at the University of Oklahoma (Norman); I had just arrived from Lebanon a week ago and I was waiting for the fall semester to start. I was roaming the campus re-discovering the various facilities and programs offered after 8 years of absence after I earned an MS in Industrial engineering.
I stumbled on a program, free of charge, which claimed to provide aid, comfort, and psychological evaluation to students.
I had time to spare and I am curious by nature. I sat for this long 2-hour psychiatry test, the kind of paper and pencil test that I cherish very much, hoping for enlightenment in that venue. I diligently answered the couple hundred questions as frankly as I knew.
Since I didn’t know myself, I assume that many of the answers about my characteristics and attitudes might be wrong, but I had to give a grade for each general question. I still keep the results that the computer generated. I have to dig up the results and restudy them.
As far as I can remember, most of the indicators were average, the indicators with good connotations were lousily rated and the ones with bad connotations were highly rated. I submitted my results to the intern graduate psychology student working at the facility who repeated what was written and could not provide me with any satisfactory explanation of who am I. He suggested that free psychological sessions are offered, free of charge, for us who have taken the trouble to sit for two hours for the test. I guess these tests were kind of a final year project to the graduate student.
The appointed graduate student in psychology read the results but was not qualified for evaluation; he referred me to attend a meeting. I am by nature curious and I obliged.
A dozen students where seated in a circle around a moderator. Soon, the session took a turn that was highly disturbing to me. Students started divulging, in total candor, their inner troubles, failings, and sufferings. Many cried telling their stories and many others sympathized by sharing with their cries. I was sitting still, stone faced, and stoic during the whole session.
I kept coming for all the duration of the program, of maybe 5 sessions, because I felt it would be rude of me to quit and admit that my enrollment was a plain mistake. I never spoke a word or felt compelled to deliver a story, lacking imagination and not recalling that my upbringing was an excellent subject for shared compassion.
I was completely sure that I am not one of them and that it was just a one time experience. I laughed inside and did not resume anything.
I sincerely doubt that I can open up to a shrink, even lying down on a sofa: I have a sick ego and I am too sarcastic and critical to pull a session through.
I knew that my emotions and feelings towards my parents are sort of neutral, a sort of tacit recognition that we have responsibilities to our survival as a family but no overt expression of affection either verbally or in writing.
I may guess that this is the worst case in psychological imbalances because we lack the constant opening up in our relations.
Maybe our angers surface occasionally when we realize that we needed more care and encouragement to mingle than be sheltered as immature kids.
I believe that genetically the emotional development of my younger brother, my younger sister and I were lacking because many other kids were also confined in boarding schools and their parents were not as providing as our parents and somehow they turned out enterprising and raised better than normal families of their own.
Maybe emotional development has nothing to do with being successful to the eyes of the community.
In our case, my brother, sister and I, the development was worsened by the ignorance of our parents in bringing up kids. Neither their past nor their characters nor their level of education and upbringing offered my folks the means to express their feelings frankly and openly, especially my father who lived separated from both his parents for many years since his childhood.
My dad might have decided to dissociate emotionally from us on the fact that mother was showing signs of being over protective and as her sole responsibility, save the financial side. (More on these topics in later sections)
First war on Iraq: Introspection
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 5, 2009
The first war on Iraq
I was finishing my PhD program at the University of Oklahoma at Norman when Bush Sr. declared war on Iraq. The USA lead a war on Iraq in 1991 with a vast network of alliance. Saddam Hussein of Iraq mindlessly invaded Kuwait because Kuwait demanded its loans to be repaid after the armistice with Khomeini of Iran. The savage war of Iraq against Iran, instigated by the US, France, and Saudi Arabia, lasted 8 years and cost over one million casualties on both sides; both States were ravaged and bleeding economically. The Arab Golf States funded Iraq’s war and the US and France provided the military supplies.
I sent ten articles to the Oklahoma University Daily (the student daily) and only two were published after my persistent visits to the daily. At the time I wanted to learn writing newspaper articles professionally and getting familiar with the publishing business. I thus had volunteered work at the university daily. The work room in the Oklahoma Daily started to recognize me as I entered to pressure for my rights to be published. The excuse was that there were hundreds of articles demanding attention, but it was not true: The mood was to totally support the US policies and no deviant opinions were to disseminated. I didn’t support Saddam’s invasion but I had a distinctive position on how the war was managed and carried out.
Dr. Foote, one of my advisor, complimented my article on the Palestinian plights: all the Palestinians residing in Kuwait and who were well established there for many years were kicked out of Kuwait; simply because Yasser Arafat was forced to taking position with the dictator Saddam. Dr. Foote didn’t like my second published article where I lambasted the US forces to turning the Arab/Persian Gulf to a mazout lake; Saddam had ordered all the oil wells in Kuwait burned and the refineries were pouring oil in the gulf as the Iraqi troops withdrew.
My advisor Dr. Purswell was confident that Saddam had no chance of winning this war because of the terrible imbalance in war equipments and technology; Bush Senior had managed to put together a wide alliance against the nitwit Saddam Hussein. Even Syria was part of the contingent; in return Hafez Assad of Syria got sole mandate in Lebanon for over 15 years. It was a lousy time for political activities on campus; the Iranian students who had frequently marched and demonstrated against the Shah had vanished from the campus after the Khomeini take over of power.
The mood was to getting a job because the US was experiencing a recession and joblessness was increasing. The climate was to be quiet but I managed to organize a couple of demonstrations within campus.
Nelson Chip: Tagger
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 5, 2009
Nelson Chip: Tagger (February 4, 2009)
I got the idea of this article out of a chapter in the French book “Like a drifting eagled” by the Lebanese author Alexandre Najjar.
Nelson Chip is a tagger; that is how he describes his profession. Nelson cannot help it; he always carries a painting “bomb” to tag his graffiti on anything drab, ugly, plain boring; he tags on crumbling walls, graying train carriages, dirty metro subways but never on private properties, telephone booths, private cars, or window shops. Nelson is not a drug addict or a drunkard; he works alone and by night fall; he likes his privacy and solitude. Nelson tags works of art, messages of peace, of hope, expressive words in order to cheer up what he judges to be drab and uninspiring; many gangs try to emulate his artistic calligraphy design by tagging their war names for narcissistic exhibition.
Larry Chip is his brother; he also paints. The ID plaque on his combat uniform states “CDR-Larry Chip-Combat Artist”. The Navy Art Gallery dispatched Larry to Kuwait during Desert Storm war against Iraq in 1992. Larry’s job was to draw soldiers and immortalize the G.I. He then painted over 30 of these portraits for the exhibit in his honor. During the war, Larry was distinguished and received recognition by painting graffiti on missiles and bomb shells destined for the Iraqi civilians.
Two brothers, two artists; Nelson is serving jail terms for carrying a painting bomb in his bag; he is charged of “voluntary defacing, degrading, deterioration of public properties and monuments”. Nelson is no longer permitted shaving foam; he said: “My hands itch when I carry a painting bomb; I have to relieve my idea, to express my revolt; I have then this irrepressible desire to paint” Larry returned home a War Hero; the famous and glamorous are flocking to watch his artistic “chef d’oeuvre” in Washington, DC.
Two brothers, two artists “painters”; Nelson’s art are still emulated by the little people to express their frustrated emotions and miserable living. Larry’s graffiti disintegrated; only the hate mongers are emulating his art: the Zionists painted blasphemous graffiti on missiles and shells targeted to Palestinian babies in Gaza.
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