Posts Tagged ‘Saint Paul’
Jesus is denied the Sanhedrin
Posted by: adonis49 on: September 23, 2009
Jesus is denied the Sanhedrin; (September 20, 2009)
Thus, Jesus accompanied by large numbers of followers is marching slowly toward Jerusalem. Jesus and most of his disciples are apprehensive of entering this hostile city of Jerusalem; they belong to a Jewish sect Essonite (Essenian) who worships in the Great Temple on Mount Carmel. The Sanhedrin in Jerusalem has infiltrated the masses of followers and is luring Jesus to advance. The Sanhedrin formed of the highest priests of the Pharisee and Sadducee sects have no administrative, religious, or political hold on Jesus in the countries of his peregrination. (Read https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2009/09/19/complete-story-of-jesus-visit-to-jerusalem/)
Jesus camped outside Jerusalem City limits and enjoyed a triumphal entrance on Sunday; he was acclaimed “Glory to son of man” (Oshana Ibn al Inssan). Jesus returned to outside the city limits and sent Judas Iscariot (a genuine Jew from the tribe of Benjamin in south Palestine) to negotiate a formal meeting with the highest priests of the Sanhedrin.
The Sanhedrin had gathered through intelligence on Jesus; it knew that Jesus of Galilee was the “son of Marie”; it was convinced, and their rumors aided a lot, that Joseph was not the legitimate father of Jesus; Mathew poured oil on the fire by relating a not convincing story 60 years later. I don’t care one way or another who was the real father of Jesus but everyone else at that period did care and must have known, especially the Sanhedrin. The Jews named the sons and, especially, the eldest son after the patriarch of the family. The Sanhedrin knew that Jesus was a “gentile” who was circumcised by law during the century old Macabe Kingdom and were coerced to follow the Jewish rituals. Jesus sect the Essonite had many headquarters outside Galilee; it had the largest and most flourishing center in Alexandria and other centers in Damascus in Mesopotamia. Jesus was a high priest in that sect. The Essonite sect read from their own Books and the educated members were very literate in Greek philosophy and Indian theologies; they preached mostly Gnostic messages while adhering to the strict Jewish laws and rituals.
Initially, Jesus was to disseminate the Essonite message in Galilee and around Damascus. Then, on the third year of wandering in the vicinities Jesus was assigned the task of including the Essonite as a formal sect in the Sanhedrin along side the Pharisee and Sadducee sects. It was fundamentally the job of imposing reforms within the Sanhedrin to unite all Jewish sects under common denominators. Jesus entered Jerusalem in a strong show of force; his followers were numerous, a credible entity, and willing to accept Jerusalem as one of their main religious centers for worship.
Judas was lured into believing that a meeting is scheduled on Thursday. The Sanhedrin was not about to permit Jesus in the Holy of Holy of the Jewish organization; Jesus was to face humiliation and an appropriate punishment for spreading a different message to the masses. Judas must have told Jesus that the Sanhedrin position was to apprehend Jesus for questioning before any decision of formal meeting could be contemplated. Jesus realized that his mission has failed and that he is trapped; the chances were very slim to meet the high priest at equal footing but it was an opportunity not to avoid. Jesus ordered Judas to lead the apprehending force. The customs were that anyone with high rank or standing should be apprehended with someone of equal ranking; since no high priest was to lead the force then Judas is bestowed the rank of brother; honor was saved. Indeed, the kiss of Judas to Jesus at Gethsemane was of equal ranks nature; Judas was thus to lead the disciple in periods of emergencies. The swift trial and execution dashed any hope for further leadership. Jack, the brother of Jesus and not even one of Jesus’ followers or believer in his message, was anointed leader of the congregation: customs are hard to break. In any case, the third of the original disciples were close relatives of Jesus and of the same town of Qana (Lebanon).
Most probably Judas hoped that Jesus will have at least an occasion to expose and discuss his proposal; he had no idea that the events were planed to end into putting Jesus to death and even crucifixion, the lowest forms of execution. Jesus loved Judas and Judas’ family and this love was returned. Judas could not imagine the Sanhedrin behaving for these kinds of humiliations and mistreatments.
Judas did not flee; he stayed in Jerusalem and bought a piece of land. Judas was not scared of the disciples who were huddled in secrecy and scared for their lives; actually, Judas didn’t have the heart of meeting with this bunch of cowards who followed Jesus in triumph and failed to support him in time of need: they would have had a stoke assuming that he might be leading the Pharisee forces to their hideout. Judas followed ordered; he was the man for the hard missions, and he had no excuses to offer to anyone. There are two stories: Judas hanged himself or he fell from a wall while working in his olive field. Both versions are plausible; I am inclined that Judas had the courage to decide for his own destiny. He was a leader, he had a mission, he failed, and he must commit suicide.
The first martyr, the Greek educated Saint Etienne (Estephanous), was lapidated to death shortly after Jesus crucifixion. The Nazarene congregation in Jerusalem (as they were called for over 30 years after Jesus crucifixion), was headed by Jack (brother of Jesus). Jack easily stroked a deal with the Sanhedrin; mainly with the Pharisee sect within the Sanhedrin. It seems that the terms were acceptable to Jack and most of the original ultra conservative disciples who observed the Jewish laws even stingier than the majority of the Jews in Jerusalem. This moratorium with the Sanhedrin could not have been reached without the initial attempt by Jesus and Judas Iscariot.
A barely tenable coexistence went on for another 20 years until Jack was lapidated to death; the “Christians” fled Jerusalem and settled first in Qana (the birth town of Virgin Mary in Lebanon) before pushing further on to all directions. I contend that most of the Essonite members in these vicinities joined the Nazarenes. It is during this peaceful period that St. Paul visited the Nazarene congregation three times in Jerusalem. Saint Paul transformed the Essonite sect from one of the Jewish sects into a new religion with world ramifications.
Note 1: The Prophet Muhammad was initially a convert to an Essonite Christian sect in Mecca (the Arabic Peninsula). The first 13 years of Muhammad’s message was to unite the three main Christian sects in the Peninsula under a common denominator dogma. The religion of Muhammad deleted most of the abstract concepts in the Byzantium “orthodox” Christian religion into a down to earth and simple dogma that could be understood by the Arabic tribes. (read “Common denomenator prophet”)
Note 2: The Christian Copts in Alexandria (Egypt), mostly of Essonite sources, converted to Islam: there were no major theological differences between their brand of Christian dogma and Islam. This principle applies to many Christian sects in Syria, Lebanon, and Mesopotamia (Iraq) when Islam conquered all these lands.
Who are the Israelites?
Posted by: adonis49 on: March 31, 2009
Who are the Israelites? (March 30, 2009)
Note: I decided to combine several articles I had posted on that topic to form a comprehensive essay.
I am no theologian; and frankly I don’t feel hot for any structured and formalized religion. I am a guy who is appalled by sects abusing religion for political ends, for institutional profit, and for personal aggrandizement.
I am mostly appalled by civil administrations using religion for political ends. The spirit of Democracy is actually designed to prohibit civil governments from using religion as a political tool .
Occasionally, a few books of historical nature in matter of religion drop into my hands and they expose a few lethal fallacies; and I have no choice but to react, to expose the confusion related to abstract concepts out of their historical, geographical, and cultural context. I cannot withstand sects that abolish individual reflection for the benefit of the “collective” or their close knit communities.
There is huge confusion and contentions out of subject matter between abstract belief concepts in religion and the context of the belief system. No wonder that Christianity generates as many splits as abstraction can sustain.
Without firm comprehension of the customs and traditions in the Levant (mainly, current Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria) and its geographical, historical, and religious context, the Christians, in their entire spectrum of sects, will stay disoriented and out of touch with their identity.
A Short Introduction
I will have to skip thousands of years of major civilizations in the Near East and Mesopotamia in order to focus on the subject.
Thus, I start from the period (of the story) that Abraham and his successive clans settled in the Land of Canaan, then discuss the period that the Hebrews of Moses sneaked in Palestine over one thousand years later after the settlement of Abraham, the Kingdom of David and Solomon that lasted less than a century, the split of Solomon’s Kingdom into 12 districts or tribes, the schism between the Samaritans and the Hebrews of Judea, the deportations of the Samaritans followed by the Hebrews of Jerusalem to Babylon, the contribution of Cyrus of Persia to the reconstruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in the 6th century BC,
Followed with the Seleucid Dynasty that lasted two centuries, the revolt of the Maccabees (Hashmonides) and their Kingdom that lasted less than a century, then the conquest of the Roman General Pompeii to the Levant, the advent of Jesus Christ, the first Christian communities, the conclave of Nicee (Turkey) in 325 during Emperor Constantine and the persecution of the “heretic” Christian sects, the establishment of the Ashkenazi Hebraic Kingdom in the Caucasus till its destruction in 950 AC by the emerging Russia, the schism between Papal Rome and Constantinople around the year 1000 and the second wave of persecution of “heretic” Christian sects.
Then the Crusaders’ campaigns that lasted for a century, the schism between Papal Rome and Martin Luther and Calvin in late 15th century, the emergence of the various sects in England and transferred to the USA such as the Mormons, the Jehovah Witnesses, the Baptists, and the New Conservative sects in the south of the USA, and finally, the re-colonization of Palestine by the Central Europe Ashkenazi Zionists in the 20th century.
From Abraham to the Macabe Kingdom 160 BC
Period one: Abraham Abraham was very familiar with the customs, traditions, and culture of the Land when he decided to settle his clans in Canaan coming from the Kingdom of Ur in lower Mesopotamia. Abraham was a genuine leader of the Land. He paid the tribute and the tithe (the tenth of income to the highest priest of the Land Melki Sadek who was the King of Jerusalem.
Abraham recognized the high sacerdotal rank of Melki Sadek who worshiped God El (pronounce Eel) as the all unifying God of the Land. Issac and Jacob also paid the tithe to the highest priest of the Land.
For example, Abraham had no piece of land in Canaan; his clan let their goats and sheep graze in unclaimed lands. As there was a death in the family of Abraham then he resolved to prepare for the burial ceremony. Abraham sent a third party to ask Afroun son of Sohar of the tribe of Hath for a small piece of land to bury the dead. Abraham said: “I am a guest in your land. Could you give me a swath so that I may bury what is in front of me?”
Every village had a burying ground facing east and guests, by the custom of hospitality, could be enjoying the same facilities. Afroun replied: “Abraham you are a reverend and I shall bury the deceased in the best of our graves” Abraham had set his mind to settle in Canaan and wanted his own burial ground, thus he asked to buy a piece of land. Afroun replied: “A land of no more than 400 silver shekels should not be an obstacle” Abraham got the hint and sent the amount.
This polite and diplomatic negotiation is part of the Levant customs thousand of years before Abraham came to Canaan.
Jacob started his trip from the southern confine of Canaan at Beer Sheba (Bir El Sabeh or the well of the Lion) toward Haran (a city situated 280 miles north-east of Damascus and located between the Euphrates and Tiger Rivers by the Bleekh River). He stopped for the night at the village of Ola Loz (which Jacob named Beit El or the House of God El). Jacob had a dream of a ladder reaching heaven and angels coming down and up this ladder. Jacob marked this place with a stone and poured oil on it.
Then, Jacob resumed his travel toward the “Easter Land”. Jacob’s wife Rachel (Raheel) died of child birth at Efrateh of Bethlehem (in Galilee) and was buried there. Rachel named the new born Ben Oni which Jacob transformed to Ben Yamine (Benjamin).
The ancient Old Bibles mentioned only the ancient and prosperous town of Bethlehem Efrateh in Galilee (because members of the tribe Efrat lived in the vicinity), on the east side of Mount Carmel. Bethlehem of Judea was a fortified garrison and not a town during David. In the Book of Mikha it is said “And you, Bethlehem Efrateh, is the smallest of the Jewish tribes (Zebulon) but from you will come out the one who will rule Israel (The Tribes of God EL)”.
Period two: Moses
Moses led all the strangers in Egypt who were ordered to leave because they supported the previous monarch Akhenaton. Akhnaton instituted the worship of the One God Sun (Aton) for over 20 years before he died and his religion replaced by the older religion of Amon and his followers persecuted. The tribes of Moses were swelled by other foreigners who left in a hurry with “unleavened bread”, meaning at night.
Those Egyptian Hebrew tribes were not familiar with the culture and traditions of the Land in the Levant. They occupied land by the sword and committed genocide in every town they entered. For example, “Joshua (Yashou) son of Noun entered the town of Makid, and exterminated its inhabitants as he did with the king of Hebron (Ariha), then progressed to Lebna, then Lakish, then Horam, the Ajloun, then Habroun, then to Dabeer and killed the kings, destroyed the towns, slaughtered the handicapped, the babies and even the animals; any breathing inhabitant was massacred in these towns and villages”
The God of the Hebrew was called Jehovah (Yahwa), sort of a totem to discriminate themselves from the tribes of the Land in Canaan. Thus, the name Jew (yahoud) was given to Moses’ tribes. Before Moses arrival there was no such religion as Jew or Hebrew. The God of the Land was El and all the other minor Gods were sorts of patron saints to syndicates and towns that felt the need for an identity. The Hebrew wanted Jehovah to establish a Kingdom on earth in any way available because their culture was different from the culture of the Levant.
The nomadic tribes of Moses were mercenaries to the Canaanite king of Jerusalem fighting the newly settled maritime power called Philistine in Gaza; thus, a small temple for the warrior God Jehova was build for these mercenaries in Jerusalem. The temple was mostly discarded until another war required the mercenaries to join the army; then the temple was re-opened and dusted off.
Joshua son of Noun (Yashou Bin Noun) distributed lands for the 12 tribes that he planned to conquer up north but failed to conquer; he barely ruled over Judea and the southern part of Palestine. Thus, the tribe of Asher was allocated Upper Galilee extending from Tyr to Mount Carmel, the tribe Zebulon the east side of Mount Carmel or Lower Galilee, and the tribe of Nephtali extending to Lake Howla and up to Mount Harmon (Haramoun).
Solomon
Solomon succeeded his son David and built a Kingdom that lasted less than 50 years. Solomon got to appreciate the culture and civilization of the Land. He cooperated and negotiated with the King of Tyr Ahiram to build the temple in Jerusalem and also to build a sea fleet. The fleet was wrecked at its first attempt to take to the sea; they say “Les Hebraiques n’avaient pas the pied marin” (they had not the mariners’ feet). In fact, no Kingdom in Judea ever controlled the sea coast.
The Hebrews in Judea sank into abject materialism and their sacerdotal caste developed 640 Laws to regulate their daily life. Thus, the Hebrews of Moses viewed the inhabitants of the Land as their enemies to be subjugated and cowed into submission for the loot. The detailed gory tales in the Bible are mostly from that bloody period
Period three:Samaria
The tribes of the Land where chased out of Judea by the new settlers of the Hebrews of Moses. They regrouped in Samaria and Galilee “of Nations” and formed their own fiefdoms which were called Israel or the “Tribes of El” in Aramaic. The “tribes” of Asher, Zebulon, and Naphtali settled in Galilee and merged with the culture of the land.
The Hebrews of Judea considered the districts of upper and lower Galilee as “Goyim” or gentile of many “Nations” but they viewed the Samaritans as Jews hostile to the strict Hebraic Laws and who worshipped El instead of Jehovah. The King of Tyr married his daughter Isabelle to a Samaritan tribe leader. Atalia, the daughter of Isabelle, married the King of Jerusalem and rule after his death. Then the Kingdom of Ashur in upper Mesopotamia conquered Samaria and deported the population. A century later, it was the lot of Judea to be conquered by the Kingdom of Babylon and deported.
For a palpable political appreciation you may consider the split between the Sephardim and the Ashkenazi in current Israel. The Ashkenazi of Central Europe dominate the economic and policy making; a fresh immigrant from Europe can contemplate to rise quickly in the political and economic landscape while the Jews of the Arab and Moslem World have to fight the good fight for the crumbs. It is of no wonder that the Ashkenazi decided for Hebrew to be the national language that in no way compared to the versatile and rich Yiddish German/Slavic language they used to write and communicate with. Hebrew was simply selected for its political connotation. Galilee generated four prophets though the Pharisee caste mocked Jesus saying that “no prophets can come from Galilee”.
Period four:
In 167 BC, the Seleucid King Antiochus IV Epiphanus banned the worshiping of Jehovah, forbid circumcision, and ordered burning the Hebrew Bible; those decrees were executed efficiently and occasionally by harsh measures. Only the Hebrews of Judea revolted against these decrees; they were led by the priest Matatia of the Hashmonid tribe. Matatia’s son Judah, nicknamed Macabe (the handler of ax), resumed the revolt until he vanquished the Seleucid King. From 166 to 63 BC the zealot Macabe Kingdom ruled the Land. In 103 BC, Aristopoulos, son of Simon Macabe, ordered every citizen to be circumcised and to abide by Moses’ Law. The ancestors of Judas Iscariot were from the Macabe town.
Consequently, the non-Jews of Galilee were subjected to these rules, including the ancestors of Jesus Christ who lived in upper Galilee (current south Lebanon). It is worth mentioning that much later, in 132 AC, Emperor Hadrian banned circumcision and the Hebrews in Judea revolted again; the revolt of Barcoba (son of the star) was squashed and the remaining Jews experienced the greatest dispersion.
During the Hellenistic period, God El was called Helios (the Greek added an H before an E at the beginning of a word; for example Heliopolis means the city of El).
On the Origins of the Virgin Mary
Joachim (Youwakeem) Omram and Hanna, the parents of the Virgin Mary, were from the village of Qana (ten kilometers south of the city of Tyr and at an altitude of 85 meters. This Qana was called Qana of Tyr of Upper Galilee and was within the district of Phoenicia during the Seleucid and early Roman Empires. The administrative district of Upper Galilee extended from Tyr to Dora and included Acre, Haifa and Mount Carmel.
Joachim was one of the eminent personalities in the town of Qana and was an Essenean high priest. He had been frustrated because he could not secure any descendents. Joachim took his sheep to a remote area and fasted and prayed for 40 days. Hanna was also frustrated with this extended absence and decided to take off her black cloth and washed her hair and went out in the garden. Hanna received an apparition that she will soon get pregnant and that Joachim is on his way home.
Mary was born in Qana and her parents dedicated (pledge) her to the Great Temple on Mount Carmel to be one of the 12 virgin nuns of the elite families in the region in the monastery. When Mary was three years of age she was interned in the monastery to serve and worship in the temple and she was named “The Pigeon of God El”. (The Hebrews in Judea never allowed girls to serve in temples). Joseph was also from Qana and one of Mary’s relatives; he was one of the superintendents at the temple and he cleaned, painted and did the various tasks of maintenance. Mary received the “Good Tiding” from the Archangel while serving in Mount Carmel.
Mary and Joseph got married and Jesus was born in one of the many caves on the north-eastern side of Mount Carmel where the Essenean sect had instituted many dispensaries and hospitals for the sick and pregnant women. The Virgin Mary was allocated a comfortable dispensary because she was the favorite among the 12 virgin nuns. Jesus was also a “nazeer” because the Virgin Mary had an apparition and vowed her born kid to the monastery. Thus, Jesus spent his early youth as an intern in the monastery from age 6 till he was able to aid his parents earning a living.
Mary visited her aunt Elizabeth (Elisabat) in Galilee who was 6 months pregnant and who gave birth to John the Baptist, also a “nazeer” since Elizabeth received a revelation. Joseph and Mary lived in Bethlehem of Tyr or Efratat east of Mount Carmel. The town of Nazareth did not exist yet and the area was called “nazereen” because of the many monasteries in that region.
Joseph, the husband of Mary was also from Qana of Tyr and a relative. They settled in the very ancient and prosperous town of Bethlehem of Tyr, also called Bethlehem Efrata, less than 6 miles east of Mount Carmel. Bethlehem Efrata is situated on the south edge of the fertile plain of El Netouf where wheat and grain were harvested; thus the name of Bethlehem (House of Bread) because wheat grain was stored there to be redistributed to the region. The River Keeshond (Kishoun) passes between Bethlehem and Mount Carmel and ends in the bay of Haifa.
After Joseph died the Virgin Mary and her sons Jesus, Jacob, Joseph, Simon, and Judah returned to her hometown of Qana of Tyr. The Virgin Mary had two residences: Qana was the winter residence because close to the seashore at altitude of 85 meters, and the summer residence (the dry season extending 7 months) in Magdoushi (East of the city of Sidon).
Jesus was called “Jesus of Mary” after the death of Joseph to distinguish him from the other Jesus. (The Hebrews of Judea never referred a son to his mother). Mary was also called “the sister of Jacob” because her mother Hanna had remarried after the death of Joachim and gave birth of many offspring; the eldest son of Hanna was apparently named Jacob. Jesus was also called Emanuel (Amanoueel) which means (The God El is among us). All the names that start with El or finish with El refer to the God El, the all encompassing God of the Land.
In the wedding of Qana, where Jesus showed his miraculous power of transforming water into wine, Mary was in her own town and it is Jesus who was invited. Jesus came up from Lake Tiberiad to join the wedding. After the wedding, Mary and the brothers of Jesus (Jacob, Joseph, Simon, and Judah) followed him down to Cafarnaom by the Lake and stayed there for a few days and then were part of Jesus’ party from then on.
Mary retained the title of Virgin because she earned it serving as one of the virgins in the Great Temple. There is this tradition in the Levant to keep bestow the title of nun and priest even for those who later relinquished their sacerdotal duties.
The first church was built on Mount Carmel and dedicated to the Virgin Mary while still alive. A church was built in Qana by the disciples and excavations showed a church from the first century. The Moslems had veneration for the tomb of Joachim called “The tomb of the prophet Omran”. When Israel bombarded south Lebanon in 1996 for 15 days one of the missiles made a large crater, 4 meters off the tomb of the prophet Omran. The excavations uncovered a buried church and the tombs of the family of Omran.
Note 1: Qana is famous today because Israel massacred over 100 civilians and gravely injured 120 when her bombs targeted a UN compound in Qana and then hit that same town in 2006 and killed 50 more civilians. Qana was an important town for many centuries before Christ and the main resting place of the disciples before venturing any further. Qana of Upper Galilee (The Galilee of Nations or the Gentiles for the Hebrews) was the location where the disciples gathered for a while after the lapidating of the first martyr Etienne (Estefanos).
Note 2: The astrophysist Reznicoff confirms that the Comet Halley that showed the way to the mages crossed Galilee and not Judea.
On the Life of Christ the Messiah
For two decades the Essenean sect was in a frantic state of expectation; they were waiting for the coming of a Messiah any time soon. This state has all the signs of a turn of millennium. The question is: the millennium of which religion and of which temple? Is it one of the millennium of the construction of The Great Temple on Mount Carmel or in Jerusalem? Is it the millennia of the highest priest Melki Sadek who was the King of Jerusalem and to whom Abraham paid the tithe? Or was it one of the millennium of Ahura Mazda, the Persian Sun God that was preponderant in the region at this turn of the century?
Jesus was born in the years 9 to 7 BC if we have to take account of the Comet Haley appearance in Galilee that showed the way to the Mages. Caesar’s census started in the year 10 BC. Jesus was a “nazeer” because the Virgin Mary had an apparition and vowed her born kid to the monastery. Thus, Jesus spent his early youth as an intern in the monastery from age 6 till he was able to aid his parents earning a living.
After the death of his father Joseph, Mary returned to her hometown of Qana with her children. Jesus attended The Law University in Sidon and taught for a few years after graduation. On Fridays, Mary would wait on a hill for Jesus to ascend and spend the weekend. A church was built in Magdoushi named the “Lady of Mantara” or the waiting lady close to the Darb El Seem (the path of the moon, in honor of Goddess Ashtarut). Being the eldest son, Jesus had many administrative and accounting duties to attend to during the weekends. Probably the family owned a flock of sheep and cows and they didn’t need temporary stockades in Magdoushi to dismantle at the end of the grazing season; the flock would move out to Qana for the winter season.
After Jesus graduated in Law at the University of Sidon he went on an extended trip, far and long, to further his education and knowledge in the famous schools of Alexandria, Damascus, Babylon, and Persia. Either he ventured on his own volition or the Essenean high priest sent him on a mission to gather more sightings or signs on the imminent second coming at the turn of the millennia. This tour of knowledge acquisition and spiritual maturation abroad must have been one of the main criterions for being elevated to the rank of priest.
Before spreading the message, Jesus was anointed (Messiah) to the order of Melki Sadek. Jesus was about 35 of age and he was not preaching a different message than that of the Esseneans but he got the arduous job of teaching a spiritual message that was opposed by the rigid Hebrew Laws. The Essenean sect was sending Jesus among the wolves out of necessity: they were sincerely expecting the second coming of the Messiah. John the Baptist was already preparing the spiritual climate for the coming of the Messiah.
Jesus later received the revelation that he was indeed the Messiah and his plans changed. Jesus’ new mission was to save or win over the “lost sheep” of the tribes of Judea, Benjamin, Ephraim, and Simeon. Those tribes were the remnants that Moses led to Canaan and worshipped Jehovah (Yahwa) instead of the all encompassing God El of the land; thus the name Jews (Yahoud).and had to visit Jerusalem.
For two years Jesus was testing and evaluating on his disciples the proper means for spreading the spiritual message; it was a hard task and it was not that intuitive to the disciples even with stories, miracles, and parables. At least four of the disciples were from Qana of Tyr (Simon the Zealot was one of them and a close relative of Joseph) and the rest from Galilee; with an exception, Judas Iscariot.
Judas Iscariot was from the town of Magdala in Lower Galilee. It was the summer residence of his father Simon the leper, his brother Lazarus, and his sisters Martha, and Mary Magdalena. The ancestors of this family were from the tribe of Simeon south of Judea and from the same town of the Macabe Dynasty (Iscariot) that ruled Palestine and all Galilee for over a century (166-60 BC) and imposed the Hebrew Laws and circumcision to the people of the Land. The highly educated and rich Judas was a zealot who wanted to defeat the Romans and had no sympathy for the sacerdotal caste in Judea that obliged the Roman rulers.
For two years Jesus carried his disciples through Tyr, Sidon, Damascus, the Decapolis (ten cities) in north east the Jordan River and performed miracles and had followers. As he was in Capharnaoum, he received an invitation to a wedding in Qana of Tyr; his mother was there and Jesus transformed water to wine. Then, Jesus, his mother and four brothers descended to Capharnaoum and stayed there for a while. The third year witnessed mass followers on the steps of Jesus heading toward Jerusalem. Jesus was not permitted to cross through Samaria and thus had to opt for the longer but easier route along the Jordan River, to Jericho and then ascending to Jerusalem.
On his way to Jerusalem Jesus felt the danger and he appreciated the sapping techniques of the sacerdotal caste in Judea; questions with political undertones and innuendos increased; questions on his qualifications, on his practices of the Mosaic Laws, on his legitimacy for chasing demons out and absolving sins. Jesus felt that he is being watched and dragged into the trap. As he approached Jerusalem Jesus was on a war path and acted accordingly and vehemently as he entered the city. It was this fighting behavior that the Pharisees and Sadducee wished Jesus to express.
Jesus experienced a cultural shock as he witnessed business transactions going on in full swing in the Temple; he made a whip and chased out the merchants and usurers and overturned their tables. Jesus told them: “It is said that the Temple is the House of God and not a cavern for thieves.” The first martyr Stephen said to the Pharisees before being stoned to death “Ye stiff necked; ye the uncircumcised in heart and ear”. Jesus was welcomed on Palm Sunday as a fresh leader with high moral values that could re-establish justice and fairness.
The Jews in Judea wanted a revolt against the Romans and not an in-fighting with the priesthood and thus, Jesus lost his initial momentum for not putting forward explicit political or social reforms. By Thursday Jesus understood that the good fight for verbal challenges with the sacerdotal caste were over. Jesus was to be put to death before he leaves Jerusalem when it would be too late to stopping his message and be protected by the other Israeli tribes outside of Judea.
The Pharisees and Sadducees knew the origins of Jesus and Jesus confirmed their knowledge; the Pharisees strongly suspected that Jesus was the Messiah and he replied “You said it” but they would not relinquish centuries of earthly dreams of domination; the Pharisees knew full well that Jesus was as good a leader as any but he was from the “nazareen” region (Galilee) where monasteries for the “nazeers” abound, where girls and women served in the Temples, and Jesus was as good as a “gentile”. (The town of Nazareth would be built two centuries later but it did not exist at the time of Jesus). The sacerdotal caste in Judea could never allow a leader outside of its tribes. (Read the piece of The Last Supper). Jesus was elevated to Heaven on Mount Carmel.
Jesus was highly educated. He could speak Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek and Latin. The name Jesus is also called Emanuel (Amanueel) which mean “Eel (God) is among us”; thus, God was made human. Jesus was also called Rabbi (Rabuny) which means teacher in Aramaic. Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not let anyone call you Rabbi since you have only one teacher in Christ and you are all brethren”
Jesus wore the same long white robe that the Essenean sect of Mount Carmel wore; the consecrated members were called “The White Brethren” and they were famous as healers. The Esseneans had many branches in Galilee and a prosperous one in Alexandria (Egypt) and had places for welcoming travelers and the sick. John the Baptist, close relative of Jesus and just 6 months older, never left the region of Galilee; he baptized with water as of the Esseneans traditions and baptized Jesus and recognized him as the Messiah.
Judas Iscariot must have decided on a drastic plan to challenge Jesus into serious reaction. Either Jesus successfully challenges the sacerdotal caste and wins politically or if he fails then Judas will have nothing to do with further excursions outside of Judea. Judas mainly betrayed the members of his family who worshiped Jesus. Judas Iscariot’s was in heart a zealot and his ancestors were from the southern region where the Macabe revolt started in 166 BC.
On the Early Christian Communities:
After Jesus crucifixion, a few disciples and the new converts of Christian-Jews, particularly the community of the Church of the Circumcised, headed by Jack (brother of Jesus) and Peter (as the moral icon) in Jerusalem, knew intuitively that in order to “save” the Hebrew Jews, “those lost sheep” of Israel, then Jesus had to be re-created to be a genuine and full blooded descendent of King David, because the Jews of Judea would never believe in a Messiah outside their tribes of Benjamin and Judea. They steadfastly practiced the Hebrew Laws in order to maintain excellent relationship with the sacerdotal caste and survive as a community of “brethren”. They ate all together and administered their community of Jerusalem as they learned to do within the Essenean communities.
This community in Jerusalem effectively contributed to the disinformation that Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea and went to the ludicrous extent of attributing Jesus’ ancestors to King David; though they knew well as the Pharisees knew that Jesus was a “gentile”. All the falsifications by the late writers of the New Testament, written in Greek and a few translated in Greek, especially the four legally and officially accepted by the Christian Church were tampered with on purpose. The much earlier testimonies and manuscripts that recounted the origins of Jesus and his family were obscured and shelved one way or another.
Saint Paul spent most of his energy fighting against these Christian Jews communities who did their best to visit each of the communities that Paul established in Turkey and Greece and forced the application of the Hebrew Laws. The comprehension of the message of Jesus was so weak and blurred in the main community of Jerusalem that Saint Paul had to proclaim “We are Christians because we believe in the resurrection of Christ the Messiah” It was an implicit message that the Hebrew Laws were thus redundant since the Messiah had already come. Customs and traditions are enduring and they survived for centuries. It would be advisable for further information to refer to my book review “Saint Paul: The Runt of God”.
In the first 3 centuries, many Christian sects organized their communities according to self-autonomous dogmas and laws. Most of them had already adopted their own Bible before the conclave of Necee in 325 formalized the four Testaments. There were hundreds of “apocryphal” Bibles; many Bibles have effectively dropped any mention of Jesus’ ancestry to David or even any physical existence because they could not admit that Jesus was human. Other sects refused to admit that Jesus was God. There were contentions on the status of the Virgin Mary. All these differences had foundations on the traditions and customs of the Land and for political autonomy as dictated by the spirit of the Land and the level of education of the communities for assimilating abstract concepts.
The pagan Emperor Constantine convened a conclave of hundreds of bishops in Nicee (Turkey) in 325 in order to formalize and set up a unified structure to Christianity. It was the mentality of an Emperor who required a State-like belief system to be run as a State institution that would also satisfy the majority of the pagans in his Kingdom by adopting their yearly rituals and pomp and hierarchical structure.
Those Christian communities that dissented and were in majority were persecuted as “heretics” and dispersed to the confines of the Kingdom and to remote inaccessible mountain regions.
Rituals of Human Sacrifices
Posted by: adonis49 on: March 10, 2009
Rituals of Human Sacrifices, (March 10, 2009)
One of my lately recurring dreams is that a secret association (cultist sect), constituted of elites and former leaders of the superpower Nations, is planning to stage a yearly “ritual of human sacrifices“.
The sacrificial humans are selected from samples in the 6 continents in order to stave off the forecasted calamities.
The very few Primitive tribes, even now, and every year, launched their warriors to cut off heads of their enemies as sacrifice for better harvest. (I wish one of the conditions was that the bodies of the enemies were to be eaten so that the sick, elderly, disgusting looking, and dying enemies would be saved)
Rituals of human sacrifices are as old as history.
These rituals were practiced in almost all ancient civilizations, before man settled in towns and managed to plan ahead of time for basic necessities.
Most of these rituals were of the slow-death kinds of sacrifices, meant to generate profits, like during carnivals.
The sacerdotal castes, in every religion, instituted religious sex trades and enticed little virgins, by myths and by pressure, to sell their services in temples.
Most of these victims were to die prematurely, mostly of sexually transmitted diseases, after their youth had no value.
During the early Babylonian Empire, sexual diseases were diagnosed as transacted by “concubine priestesses“. I am not hot in theology or for the study of theology. I still have this distinct impression that among all prophets, or messiahs, or messengers, or predicators, Jesus is the unique one who fought the good fight against sacrifices in all shapes and forms, including animal sacrifices, that were practiced by the Jews.
Jesus’ disciples were well rooted in the Judaic customs and traditions and could not accept the new religion dissociated from the Judaic laws. They tried hard to force circumcision among the ‘gentiles” Christians, which is fundamentally a sacrificial ceremony of part of our body to “our creator” before a complementary health excuse was attached to it.
Only Saint Paul comprehended Jesus’ message and the need to remove the heavy burdens of daily laws, which govern and enslave the life of believers and rob them of happiness and hope.
Unfortunately, the Prophet Muhammad was very impressed by the customs and traditions of the early Christian-Jews sects, practiced around Damascus and he adopted the sacrificial ceremonies of animals.
Even today, there is this custom among most religious sects that, when even a third level leader visits a town or a village, for no important reason, the municipalities feel that it is appropriate to slaughter sheep in public and on the path of the “personality” coming to town. A totally disgusting and depressing custom that makes me believe that Jesus is already dead in the East.
Timorlank, the Turkish Central Asian conqueror from 1350 to1405, ransacked the prosperous city of Isfahan in Iran. This brutal commander divided his armies into sections of the city, with a quota of heads chopped off allocated to each soldier.
Since Timorlank and his army were recent converted Moslems, many soldiers were not into personally killing their coreligionists. Instead, they bought heads from other non scrupulous soldiers for 20 dinars the head in order to come up with the daily quota.
Soon, the men vanished from the city, but the soldiers were not instructed to kill women or children. Consequently, women were made to be shaved and then decapitated. The price per head dropped to only one dinar and the business was no longer worth pursuing and the city of Isfahan was salvaged after 70,000 of its citizens perished and the heads mounted on 45 minarets of human sculls.
The multinationals are performing live sacrifices on billion of people every day in slave shops and slave exploitation of all kinds, with the blessing of their superpower government… Those million of people dying of hunger and of curable diseases are the modern-day sacrificial entities on the alter of the less than 1% richest elite in every nation…
Saint Paul by Alain Decaux. Part 1
Posted by: adonis49 on: October 24, 2008
“L’Avorton de Dieu; une vie de Saint Paul” by Alain Decaux (Written inApril 23, 2008)
“A life of St. Paul, the runt of God” is an engaging book that describes in minute details the multiple apostolic trips of St. Paul, his message, his organizational skills and how his theology differed from the traditional Christian community established in Jerusalem that we are going to label the Christian-Jews in the review. We can comprehend Paul’s epistles in their context and targeted purposes and we can enjoy an Antiquity tourist travel in the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
The Jewish Paul was born about the year 8 AC in Tarsus, in current coastal Turkey by Syria, from several generations of Jews living there and was a Roman citizen and inherited from his father. Paul is shown a cultivated Diaspora Jew and was imbibed with Hellenistic civilization as opposed to a Sabra Jew who speaks Hebrew and his culture was centered on the Hebraic Bibles.
Tarsus was founded by the Hittites around 1,400 BC and it was a large city of over 100,000 inhabitants by the sea-shore during Paul’s period. Paul was a tent maker by profession because Jews were supposed to learn a manual skill according to the Torah.
Paul’s dad sent him to Jerusalem when he was about 15 years old to get religious educated at the hand of the Pharisee rabbi mentor Gamaliel.
Paul joined a land caravan traveling by the maritime route through Lebanon. He lingered many years in his education and extended his learning of the strict Jewish laws for another eight years; a long time for the period. Thus, Paul was in Jerusalem during Jesus preaching and death, but Paul never mentioned these facts; possibly his mentor was not interested in Jesus’ news and Paul was left in the dark of current events.
The Pharisees were a Jewish sect with the most stringent numbers of laws, over 650 laws, to govern their daily life, a fact that Jesus condemned as laying too many burdens on anyone to be capable of obeying and following laws. The main differences between the Pharisee and the Sadducee Jewish sects were that the latter didn’t believe in the resurrection, angels or spirit.
Paul was small in stature, skinny, bow-legged, and balding. He could read Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. Paul was plagued with arthritis, and pains were his lot for the remaining of his life.
He watched the Jews lapidate (kill to death by throwing stones at a person) St. Etienne in Jerusalem, the first Christian martyr. The convert Etienne was a Hellenistic Jew from the Diaspora (he spoke Greek and knew its philosophy) in opposition to Jews from Judea who spoke Aramaic and could read Hebrew.
Etienne was bold enough to proclaim Jesus the son of God in the Temple at the moment Peter broke the secrecy and mystery of the Christians in Jerusalem by performing a “miracle”, ordering an invalid to walk. After the lapidation of Etienne Paul lead the persecution of the Christians in Judea for many months and rounded many of them and sent them to prisons.
Paul even decided to drive his persecution of the Christians to Damascus when he was stricken blind by the apparition of Jesus to him. Jesus appears to Ananias and orders him to visit Paul and give his sight back, which he did and then baptized Paul.
Paul then vanished for three years in Petra, the Nabataean Capital. Nietzsche said: “The one who carries an important message needs to be silent for a long time; anyone who is destined to produce lightning has to become cloud”.
Paul worked in his profession and then fled to Damascus. The Nabataean king pursued Paul to Damascus and Paul was aided to quit Damascus by being dangled in a basket from the fortified walls.
Paul walked to Jerusalem. Joseph Barnabas from Cyprus introduced Paul to Peter. Paul met Peter almost exclusively for 15 days and barely communicated with any one else of the apostles because they could not trust him for his earlier persecutions.
Peter, Jack (the brother of Jesus who was not a disciple at the time of Jesus teachings but to whom it is said that Jesus appeared exclusively to him after his resurrection), and John the well-loved by Jesus were the three columns of the Christian community in Jerusalem. Jack was the de facto leader for the community and he was a strict Jew. I assume that Peter filled in Paul on Jesus preaching period but Paul never accounted of their conversations.
The leaders sent Paul packing outside of Judea and back to Tarsus because there was much resentment for his previous persecutions. Paul went about his profession as tent maker for three years in his hometown.
The large Christian community in Antioch of Syria, not to confuse with Antioch of Pisidia in the Anatolian region, was divided on the premise of whether the non-Jewish new converts should learn the Jewish laws and abide by them like being circumcised and eating “halal” meat or sharing meals together like was the custom among the early Christian communities. Barnabas was dispatched to investigate.
Antioch was a large metropolis where the Christian convert were first labeled Christians instead of Nazarenes. Barnabas needed urgent help in this large metropolis. Barnabas then decided to join Paul in Tarsus and bring him to Antioch. That was the impetus that set Paul on his apostolic adventure and became a wide traveler.
Paul lives with Barnabas in Antioch for one year; they are both celibate. Paul teaches more than baptizes new converts. He talks with Romans as well as in Synagogues and he says: “My Master Jesus Christ declared to me that his grace is enough for me; thus, I lay my pride in my weaknesses, because my master’s strength offers all its measure in my weaknesses. The insults, persecutions, and anguish I offer to Christ“.
While the vast majority of the first generation of Christians believed that their purpose was to convert Jews, Paul ambition was to focus on converting the non-Jews. In his second trip to Jerusalem Paul extracted an agreement from the three leaders (namely, Jack, Peter and John) that Paul will convert the pagans with the Jewish Laws relaxed while Peter would focus on the Jews and demands stricter prescriptions. Thus, Paul set the problem of circumcision as a non-issue for the new converts and he started his new brand of theology without an agreement with the mother community in Jerusalem.
The five deacons of Antioch community permit Paul and Barnabas to resume their mission elsewhere. Barnabas led Paul to his native land of Cyprus. The Roman Proconsul of Cyprus, Sergius Paulus, invited the trio Paul, Barnabas and the young Mark, the future writer of the first New Testament, to his palace. The Proconsul became a believer and Saul changed his own name to Paulus.
Paul, Barnabas and Mark sailed from Paphos in the year 45 before the period of maritime restrictions to sailing during part of autumn and winter. From now on it seems that Barnabas has considered Paul as the head of the mission. They headed toward Attaleia, currently known as Antalya, with the purpose of visiting central Anatolia where the proconsul Sergius had farm lands. The emperor August was worshiped as God in these regions as were the following emperors.
Mark quits the team of missionary at the city of Perge when he learned of the planned long, dangerous and gruesome trip ahead of him in the Taurus Mountains. They reach Lake Egridir and then cross the high mountain of Sultan Dag toward Antioch of Pisidia that emperor August enlarged and modernized in the middle of no where.
The Diaspora Jews enjoyed special favors and rights from Emperor August and they were clever in frequently claiming their granted rights and appealing to the locale Roman authorities for redress and they were more educated than the autochthonous and spoke Greek or Latin. There came a period where many local Greeks were seduced to learn more about the Jewish religion and their unique God and they attended the Synagogues and were labeled the “fearing-God” or “proselyte adorators”.
Paul is asked to speak during the sabath and he dragged on the history of the Jews, their prophets, and their fathers. Then Paul proclaims that there are limits to Moses laws because the messiah Jesus, son of God, was indeed sent and the Jews did not recognize Him and he was resurrected. Jesus announced the pardon of the sins for all who believed in Christ, the Jews and the “fearing-God”.
The Jews started to perturb the atmosphere because they could not permit Paul to equal the pagans with the “chosen people” simply for believing in Christ. Paul and Barnabas were forced by the local Roman authority to leave the city.
Instead of taking the Via Sebaste to Cappadocia, Paul and Barnabas walk to Konya (Claudiconium) and Paul preach and convert many pagans and then they had to flee in time before being lapidated. They reach Lystre (present Hatursaray), a day walk, a small village that Cicero disparaged the inhabitants as ignorant and little evolved. In fact they cannot communicate with Paul because no one speaks Greek or Latin. Paul performs a miracle and an invalid walks; the people admit naturally that God is incarnated in a human.
Eunice and her mother Lois are baptized; the Timothy the son of Eunice asks Paul to take him in his trips but he was still very young and will join Paul in his next trip to the region and stay his staunchest companion through thick and thin. The Jews in Konya hear that successes of Paul and storm Lystre and easily communicate their anger to the inhabitants.
Paul is lapidated and left for dead. Barnabas hides Paul at one of the converts’ house for a few days and then borrows a chariot to evacuate Paul to Derbe (currently Kerti Huyuk) where they stay six months until Paul recovers from his wounds.
It was winter and the sea is blocked to navigation and the crossing of the Taurus is not practicable. Paul and Barnabas retraced their previous route and installed leaders (deacons) to each community that they had founded. The first trip must have lasted at least two years before they sailed to Antioch of Syria. The two well-defined separation between Christian-Jews and Christian-pagan is growing firmer and Paul to declare: “Freedom from sins comes from Jesus. The reign of God is not a matter of food and beverage; it is justice, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit“.
Representatives from the two camps converge to Jerusalem to take council. Paul and Barnabas take Tite with them and the community of Antioch pays the expenses for the trip; Tite would become one of Paul’s scribes and he was a pagan and uncircumcised. Thus, the second apostolic trip of Paul began.
They traveled by land through Lebanon and Samaria. We might date the first official council of the Church taking place in Jerusalem where critical issues were discussed. Paul was so frustrated that he labeled the Christian-Pharisees “the intruder fake-brothers“.
Finally, Paul was given the authority not to burden the pagan converts with the Jewish laws. The two delegates Silas and Judas accompany Paul and Barnabas to Antioch with the mission of delivering a letter from Jack stating that the Holy Spirit has decided not to burden the converts but with the inevitable exigencies of abstaining from eating the meat of the pagan or drinking the blood of sacrifices that have been immolated by suffocation. Paul later wrote that he never conceded to the Christian-Jews and not even temporarily.
Suddenly, the community of Antioch learns the prompt arrival of Peter. In the beginning, Peter behaves correctly and partakes on the same table with the Christian-pagan. The Jack sends messengers to Peter stating that it is not because a few pagans have acknowledged Yahweh and his Messiah that they should be considered intrinsic to the “chosen people”.
Consequently, Peter stopped sharing his meal with the Christian-pagan and communion tables were separated.
A rift between Peter and Paul aggravates the untenable situation. Barnabas sided with peter and would not join Paul on his apostolic trip. Paul wrote that he said to Peter in front of all converts: “We are just Jew by birth. If you act as a pagan how you could force the pagans to behave as Jews? If we accede to justice simply by following the Law then it is for naught that Christ died”
Paul takes Silas on this second apostolic trip. Marc accompanies Barnabas to Cyprus. Paul walks to Tarsus after 13 years of absence and confirms the communities that he founded on route. Paul walks to the Galatea region during winter and crosses high mountains and then passes by Derbe where he got horribly sick but the community cared for him in his disgusting sickness.
In Lystre Paul insists to circumcise Timothy, of a Jewish mother and a Greek father, before taking him on his voyage! Most probably, Paul decided that his apostolic message would be less criticized by the Christian-Jews if all his companions are circumcised.
It is during that period that Paul instructs his disciples such as Tite and later Timothy on the responsibility of the episcopal and the deacons to obey the instructions of the Ancients in Jerusalem and how to behave in purity, not to indulge in drinking wine and be an example to adopt; he urges them for a husband to have only one wife and the children to be believers. Prayer could be done in any place by raising the hands toward the sky without anger or disputation. Women should wear decently and put on modest adornment. A wife should not be permitted to instruct in the faith or dominate her man and keep silent because she is from Man’s rib. A wife would be saved by her maternity, love, modesty and her sanctity.
All these restrictions and attitudes toward women are extracted from the book of the Genesee. The priorities in this new hierarchical institution were to convert and then to strengthen the convictions of the new Christians.
After visiting the previous communities the Holy Ghost instructs Paul to tour the Bithynia region, of present Ankara and Midas Sehri, with destination Troas on the sea-shore because a Macedonian appeared to Paul in dream and “implored him to visit Macedonia and come to their rescue” Macedonia has not yet been visited by Christian missionaries. Luca is now a direct witness because he accompanies Paul to Macedonia. Luca is a physician and a talented writer in classical Greek; he was sort of special correspondent to Paul of present day journalism.
From Troas Paul, Silas, Timothy and Luca sail towards Samothrace in the year 49. The team walks the Via Egnatia toward Philippe, Thessalonica, Edessa, and Apollonia on the shore. At Philippe they baptize Lydia who invite the four missionaries to stay at her home and Paul meets Syntyche and Evodie. Paul was successful beyond hope in Philippe and founded a devoted community. A slave girl was a seer and every time she saw Paul and Silas she would exclaim: “These two are the servants of God the Highest up”. Exasperated, Paul ordered Satan to leave the body of the slave girl and she lost her power to the chagrin of her rich owner who made money out of his slave capacities.
The rich owner excited the Roman authority to arrest Paul. Paul and Silas were flogged and put in prison. Being flogged is a painful and many times a deadly punishment because the Roman special whip tears the flesh and the pain shoots out from the neck, descends to the toes, irradiate to the hand fingers and then pass by the heart as if stabbed by a knife; blood is vomited from the lungs. Though Paul and Silas were Romans and should not be flogged they could not prove it because they had no acquaintances to support their claims in these new counties.
During the night in prison the area suffers an earthquake and the prison walls collapse. The jailer is convinced that his two prisoners have fled and is ready to commit suicide when Paul reassures him. The jailer is baptized and he takes the prisoners to his home to be cleaned and fed and then returned to jail. The authorities ordered the two prisoners free but Paul refuses and asks for the presence of the authority and formal apologies which are granted and Paul is asked to leave the city promptly.
The community offers Paul financial support to continue his mission south to Thessalonica, 150 kilometers away. Luca does not accompany Paul, Silas and Timothy. They pass Amphipolis then Apollonia then a swamp region infested of malaria. Thessalonica was named in honor of the sister of Alexander and founded in 315 BC. The Diaspora Jews living in Rome would flock to this city after Emperor Claude chased them out of Rome and became after 1492 the center for the Jews when Catholic Spain expelled them from Andalusia.
Paul pays a visit to his cousin Jason who provides Paul a job as tent maker. Aristarchus and Secundus are baptized. Paul is chased out of the city and leave during the night for Berea, 75 kilometers down south, with his two companions. The gigantic palace of the kings of Macedonia is not far from Brea and where the tomb of Philip II is. Paul enjoyed a large success but again the Jews of Thessalonica are marching to Berea to get hold of Paul.
Paul flees without Silas and Timothy but several new converts accompany him to the port and sail with him to Athens. The Athenians listen intently until Paul mentions the resurrection of Jesus and he is mocked and laughed at. Paul is furious and humiliated and will never return to Athens.
In Cenchrees, the port of Corinth, Paul finds a job as tent maker with a Jewish couple named Aquilae and Priscilla. This couple will become his most steadfast allies. Corinth is famous for the thousands of expensive “virgins” consecrated to satisfy the pleasures of the pilgrims and the sailors. Paul attended the Olympic Games in the year 51. Timothy and Silas joined Paul after a long while and Paul starts dictating epistles to the Thessalonica and Philippes communities.
Paul realized that the majority of the Jews will refuse his message and thus he tore open his clothes and furiously proclaimed that from now on he will mostly address his message to the pagans. This decision never meant that Paul relinquished his Jewish roots and that the Jews are the chosen people of his “own flesh” but it was more practical to focus on other religions, especially the “fearing-God” people who are waiting for fresh “Good News”.
Paul was beaten by the Jews in front of the proconsul Gallion who released Paul from the accusations heaped on him because the Jewish diversities in opinions were out of his jurisdictions. Paul totally clipped his head before leaving Corinth in the spring of 52 by sea to Ephesus (Afasos). Timothy, Aquilas and Pricilla accompany Paul. Paul stopped over in Ephesus, time enough to present Aquilas and Pricilla to the community.
Ephesus was one of the main capitals in the Roman Empire and where Homer, Heraclitus, Pythagoras and Tales founded their sciences. Another stop over in Cyprus and then landing in Caesarea and Paul walks to Jerusalem but we have no documents on what was the purpose and what happened. Paul is back to Antioch where he started his apostolic life.
Paul does not stay long in Antioch because he got news from Aquilas and Pricilla in Ephesus that they have a real problem with a certain Apollos, a Jew from Alexandria, who is a powerful orator and gives sermons in the synagogue on account that he knows Jesus who appeared to him. Apollos had been baptizing in the name of John the Baptist but never mentioned the Holy Spirit.
Paul is on his third apostolic trip and he is 45 years of age. He will walk 1,100 kilometers with Timothy in a hot summer through mountains and valleys. The two missionaries will visit the communities already created in Iconium, Lystre, and Antioch of Pisidia and then found new communities in Magnesia and Tralles. They reach Ephesus (225,000 people) at the end of summer 52 and Paul would work as tent maker with Aquilas. The day will come when Luca would be buried a martyr in Ephesus near the upper agora (the central meeting quarter of a city).
Paul chose Ephesus as the epicenter for his apostolic preaching because it was situated about equal distances (from 350 to 500 km) from the Galatea region, Thessalonica, Corinth, Philipes and Antioch of Pisidie. From the jail in Ephesus Paul sent messengers and epistles to all his new communities in Galatia, Macedonia, and Corinth. Ephesus was a rich city and held the seventh wonder of the world the Artemisia (Artemision), four times vaster than the Parthenon with 190 meters in length and 55 meters in width.
Paul stayed three years in Ephesus, performed many miracles and gained many converts and recognition; he teaches at the school of Tyrannos. He sends disciples to evangelize in the neighboring cities of Colosses, Laodicee and Hierapolis. He dispatches Timothy and Eraste to Macedonia. The famous Apollos join Paul in Ephesus. It is mentioned that 50,000 manuscripts on exorcism have been burned when people started to perform healings in the name of Jesus.
The league of goldsmiths was losing money because Paul and his disciples were exhorting people to desist buying pagan artifacts. Paul is then was thrown in jail with a few of the leading disciples for over a year. Meanwhile, the messengers of Jack are sent in large numbers to every community founded by Paul to rectify the orthodox doctrine rooted in Judaism.
The Christian-Jews are successful beyond imagination: Paul thus sent the most violent of his epistles to the Galatea communities. The epistle starts: “Paul, apostle, not on behalf of men, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father. The Gospel that I announced to you was not taught to me by a man, but it was transmitted to me by Jesus Christ when he revealed it on my way to Damascus. Is it because of The Law that you converted or because of your faith in the resurrection of Christ? You who were guided by the Spirit how could you the flesh lead you to perfection? Christ had paid dearly to free us from the malediction of The Law”
St. Paul was not that interested in the details of Jesus’ teachings or his life history; Paul’s epistles never mentioned the name of Jesus alone but attached to Christ such as Jesus Christ or simply Christ (the one who was anointed); Paul got the important message that Christ, the Son of God, has come down among us to absolve us of our sins and that Christ was resurrected on the third day.
If Paul was not sent by Christ to spread the “Good News” among all the people then Christianity would have rationally been transformed to another Jewish sect and a minority sect at best.
Paul still believed that Abraham and all the fathers of the Jews were specifically chosen by God to convert all nations. Many Christian sects have tried to connect Christianity as another branch to the Jewish root.
Adonis Diaries 