Abstract

Sunday, 08 August 2010

Mike, I have the following comments on: AskWhy! Books: Religion of Puzzlement—The Patriarchal God. You take the falsity of many Christian beliefs as a given. Why should I accept your assumptions any more than those with contrary views? For example, I cannot prove the existence of more than a dozen or two of my ancestors, yet I believe I had hundreds, if not thousands of them, in just the last 40,000 years, since the practically unquestioned most recent possible advent of modern man. Just because you cannot prove something exists does not mean it doesn’t.

I cannot believe what you say. Have you read the pages? I have literally hundreds of pages offering masses of evidence that Christian and indeed Jewish beliefs are just plain wrong, or are simply unbelievable otherwise, that your statement that the falsity of Christian beliefs is taken as a given shows you cannot have read the pages at all. I suggest that you do a little reading before you start beefing about my supposed assumptions.

As for your ancestors, you have sound reasons for believing you had thousands of them, based on the fact that every generation has a mother and a father so that you must have 2ⁿ ancestors of the generation “n” generations ago, but you have no reasons except demonstratively unsound or unreliable ones for believing a religion based on unbelievable things. “Just because you cannot prove something exists does not mean it doesn’t”, you say, and that is obviously true, but it does not mean that we should all believe that impossible things did happen. God is supposed to be almighty, so He has no need to devise stupid and gratuitous ways of breaking His own laws, as believers will have it, to prove His intent. We are told that the Devil can do the same tricks, so how can any Christian be sure he has not done? The state of the world looks Satanic to me. The basis of science is skepticism, which stops us from having to believe fantasy. You believe nothing until you have adequate reason for it. There is no adequate reason to believe Christianity.

Looking at your site and books—interesting. You sound almost militant. So what is our purpose on this planet??

I suppose I am fairly militant, but your question assumes the answer. I mean it assumes we have a purpose. I know it is hard for us, conceited as we are, to imagine we do not have one, but when millions of us get killed as they did in the Asian tsunami, it is hard for me to think we are any different from a nest of wasps killed by a kettle of boiling water.

Certainly Christians like Bush and Blair have proved they have no regard at all for the sanctity of any human life that is not American and British respectively, and it is arguable, since they send American and British soldiers into an unnecessary war to be killed themselves, that they have no regard for their fellow countrymen either. Yet these are the great leaders of western Christendom.

A man called Norman Kember, not an unintelligent man by any means, since he was a professor of physics before he retired, went into the Iraq war zone on a Christian peacemaking mission and got caught by enemy bandits. He was lucky or blessed enough to get away with his life, but he illustrates the futility of these gestures. Christians would do much better by calling their own leaders to order, but then Christians have some sort of mutual chivalry, that they do not criticize or attack each other. It is the only way I can account for the religion of the God of peace remaining silent, except, of course, that Christians are all liars and hypocrites. They have taken over from the Pharisees criticized by the Christian God when he was on earth, according to their own holy book!

If I seem to be off track in adding all this, in answer to your question, it is simply that there is no evidence that any religion, Christianity among them, does anything useful at all in the world, so it or they give us no more purpose in life than none at all. Good people will be good whatever their religion, and wicked people remain wicked however ostentatiously they pray in public. The Christian god pointed that out too. Hypocrites.

Thanks for the lengthy reply you sent. I agree with many of your sentiments about christians, especially blair and bush. Are you against all religions or just christians?

As I said before, I have little regard for any of them, but I particularly despise the so-called patriarchal religions. Their history condemns them, and the original one, Judaism, even has a shocking and immoral God in its holy book, the Jewish scriptures, so what hope was there for its offspring.

Somehow, all of them end up with a gang of rogues pretending they have some direct line to God, and the simple of the world believe them. Even Buddhism which began as free of all spiritualism and such nonsense is now no different from the rest, though perhaps it can still be followed in the original form. I also have some regard for Nature religions, again inasmuch as we steer clear of the ghouls who begin to suck poor people’s blood.

If there is a god at all, it is the world itself. To invent anything bigger and beyond the world (universe), seems to me to be pointless. The world is already bigger than we can imagine, and anything beyond it must simply tell us that we had not defined it properly before. The universe is everything there is. It must include any God that there is.

AskWhy! on Jerusalem’s Essene Quarter—Christianity Revealed. Could you tell me whether Saladin, or Suleiman walled up the Eastern Gate? Was it in 1187, or 1517?

If it was walled up in 1187, it was Saladin, if 1517, Selim the Grim.

Would that I were the fount of all knowledge, or at least had a huge library to hand. A quick survey of what I have tells me that Saladin walled up the southern gates of the Temple Mount in 1187. Suleiman the Magnificent walled up the eastern Gate of the Ummayad Palace, immediately to the south of the Al Aksa mosque, at some time in his rule, but apparently not the eastern gate of the temple. Perhaps there is a confusion here. Hope this helps.

Mike, I have the following comments on: Prophecies of the Messiah: Biblical Prophecies 3. Science or Religion? Truth or Lies? Dr Michael Magee’s God’s Truth? Pages. AskWhy! Publications.

Dear Mike, my question is in the book of psalms in 19:35 when David speaks of God protecting him with his right arm or the word is “sheild” from the niv version. Could he be speaking of Jesus since Jesus was to be placed on his right side and there are parts of the bible that say Jesus was here before the earth was made so why would he not be at his Father’s side. It also the strong right hand protecting him agian in Psalms 21:8. I am just trying the best I can to learn the bible, I do not claim to know phrophecies are anything like that. But I do want have a better understanding of prophicies that came true about Jesus. Thank you for taking time and reading this.God bless you.

The right hand in the bible might, of course, mean simply the right hand as opposed to the left, but when it does, it is usually clear, the left hand contrasting with it in doing something else. We read in Exodus when the waters of the sea came in to swamp the Egyptian soldiers: “But the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left” Exodus 14:29. But the right hand was the hand that conferred rights and expressed power. Thus we also read in Exodus: “Thy right hand, O LORD, is become glorious in power: thy right hand, O LORD, hath dashed in pieces the enemy” Exodus 15:6. Here the right hand is power. But earlier we read in Genesis: “And Israel stretched out his right hand, and laid it upon Ephraim’s head, who was the younger, and his left hand upon Manasseh’s head, guiding his hands wittingly; for Manasseh was the firstborn” Genesis 48:14. The right hand of Israel conferred rights on to the younger son, when the elder should have had them.

When God protects with his right arm or hand He is using it as power, and this is the implication of references to the right hand in the New Testament. “But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?” Hebrews 1:13. The messiah of the Jews sat at the right hand of God because he stood for the power and might of God in Jewish tradition. The Jewish messiah was to be a warrior prince like king David who would save the Jews from their enemies. The Christians began as people who believed this and were gravely disappointed when Jesus was killed by the Romans as a rebel. But when the body vanished, they thought Jesus had, after all, been the victor because he had been resurrected from death into life as the first fruits of the dead, an ancient Jewish believe that the righteous dead would be resurrected into heaven after three days (Hosea 6:2). So, those who remained followers of Jesus, and became the first Christians, had to change many of the Jewish ideas about the messiah and had to fit as many messianic prophecies as they could on to Jesus.

So, you are right that the right hand was seen as strength, might, power, and that was what the messiah was supposed to have had, meaning it in the normal way—militarily. When Jesus got crucified by his enemies, the power had to change. It was made into spiritual power by the Christians, and so it has remained. It was not envisaged in that way by the Jews. Hope that helps.

Mike, I have the following comments on: AW! Discussion Pages 034. From Don. Askwhy! Publications.

• does God believe in atheists?
• how can a man hate a God who dosnt exist
• I pitty you
• may He forgive you
• when your dead your dead. PROVE IT !
• I find you some what obsessed with your topic. If this life is all there is you should turn off your pc and go and enjoy it while it lasts.

1. If God does not exist, he cannot believe in atheists.
2. How can anyone love something that does not exist? The website you mention is devoted to showing from historical evidence that Christianity has always been monstrous in its consequences. So, even if Christians are right and there is a God, He cannot be good, or cannot be the God of Christianity which is itself evil.
3. The people to be pitied are those who waste their lives believing in ghosts and figments, and by so believing have been led into disgusting disregard for the bulk of humanity that do not share their silly fantasies.
4. What does not exist cannot forgive.
5. All the evidence there is shows that life ends permanently in death, when the body dissolves as putrefaction. You believe otherwise contrary to the evidence. You must prove your ignorant belief. It is not for me to prove a fact of life, but for you to prove the fact is wrong. The truth is that you cannot face death. That is why Christianity, and most religions have so many followers still. Mostly, we enjoy the life we know we have, and do not believe a load of bunkum that says there is a better one to be had after death.
6. I do this because I enjoy it, and few people are keen on doing it. If that is obsession then so be it. It cannot be as obsessive as indulging in empty ritual in the hope that a superbeing will favour you.
7. I have had a most enjoyable life so far, and now get some satisfaction out of researching the warped views of those without the courage to accept that we all die. That is a full stop, you will note, after the word “die”.

Best wishes to you and your fellow Lions of Oz. May you find a heart.

Mike, I have the following comments on: AskWhy Christian and Jewish History for Students and Skeptics; Nature or Christianity? The Judaeo-Christian religion has for me reeked of a distinctive lack of originality, where have the scribes of these superstitions not appropriated material from the mythologies that they ridicule. From the flood, to the messiah there are templates for every central concept of these faiths. Be it the nativity and life of Mithras, or the confessions that Egyptian pharaohs make to Anubis before their souls are weighed, I cannot for the life of me find what distinguishes the mythologies that they despise and their own beliefs.

I am, though I dislike the term, a self-avowed atheist, more, I am an anti-theist, not just to the Judaeo-Christian and its appendage of Islam, but to all religion. For me personally religion in its organised form is a crime against humanity, it is a perversion of what is genuinely good about our race. For too long it has subsumed genuine ethics for its own purposes. For many years I have sought to find whether anybody actually does find religion, or whether it is more religious people preying on the vulnerable and easily susceptible, ie especially the young. My belief is that children are indoctrinated in to these belief systems; their minds are corrupted by these perversities. Some time ago I watched a program called bulls**t by the magicians Penn and teller, in that program they referred to psychics as memory rapists, is not religion in the hands of religious people a form of mental rape? The mind of a person is being molested by these appalling ideas typically before that person is capable of articulate thinking and presentation.

I could not agree with you more, and I like your word Antitheist. Oddly enough, I saw only last night a programme by a young man called Darren Brown, who used his cold-reading skills to fool several people with different uncritical beliefs that he had some skill or power that suited their belief system. Not one of them spotted him as simply using observational and psychological skills. That is the origin of religion, no doubt. Clever people fooled credulous ones, and so it has gone on.

I too saw the derren brown program, it was informative in that it showed those who attend such things are already in an uncritical state, witness the crying participants, the continuous nodding- indicating yes yes it fits me. There was a program also on last year exposing psychics, this trained an actor to “talk to the dead” and notably afterwards when they were told that it wasn’t genuine it didn’t break their belief—some even insisted that the said actor had genuine psychic ability!

I was also pleasantly surprised to have seen the “who wrote the bible” program during the festive holidays. With a national media that usually avoids such damning conclusions of “sacred” religion it was surprising to have seen such a thing, even if notable damning evidence such as the dead sea scrolls, the early Christian apologists etc that yourself and other writers have brought to the fore were omitted. It was for a Christian theologian pretty honest. Keep up the good work.

I felt the same as you about the “Who Wrote the Bible” program. It was an advance, but only to the situation as it was in Victorian times, if that even. Wellhausen could have presented a better program then. Still, it was also good to see a programme presented by someone who knows what he is on about and not some celebrity, and also a black man too. Nice to talk to you.

Analogies and Conjectures AskWhy! Publications. Mr Magee, I am very sorry to hear that you are ill. I have been visiting your site (on and off) for many years now. Your theories are interesting and thought provoking. I hope your health improves. Best wishes, Milos

Thanks for your good wishes. I have been OK throughout September, 2004, but need a minor operation by keyhole surgery in October. Thereafter, I hope I will be all right, so long as I stick to the prescribed diet.

I am glad you like the site, and, in case I do have to retire from upkeeping it and do not renew the site license, I have advised people to download the whole site and keep it for reference, perhaps on a CD ROM. There are programs for doing this such as Teleport and Ziptheweb which can usually be tried for free, giving you the chance of downloading a few sites that you like.

AskWhy! on Nazarene - Christianity Revealed. “I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people. Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I am full of joy over you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil.” (Romans 16:17-19)

Christians are very fond of citing bits of their bible to me apparently thinking that I should, like them, dwell morbidly on ancient works of propaganda. Paul does not want his “brothers” to listen to any views other than those he offers. In case you had not noticed such bigotry is not the way of the modern world, where people are urged to read widely and compare different beliefs. Certainly, any of them that is so fearful of competition that its disciples are not allowed to hear alternatives is so inadequate that no one should even consider converting to it. Most Christians are Christian only because they are indoctrinated into it as children, and then are refused any alternative with censorious texts like this. You have made up your mind, but to those who have not I still recommend not to chose anything as wicked as Christianity. Read my pages and you might begin to see why, if you can remain open minded for long enough.

Please ask God himselfe for revelation. I am not wanting to win an argument or anything as foolish. I am trying to set you free by speaking the truth. “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. 19 And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.” (Rev 22:18-19)

“He who testifies to these things says, Yes, I am coming soon.” (Rev 22:20). Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people.” (Rev 22:21). Amen.

You are a strange Christian if you are not trying to win the argument about Christianity. Most of you regard it as a duty to do it and pester us who are not Christians interminably. I am trying to win an argument though, with those willing to hear my views. Few Christians will even listen to them.

Anyway, appeals to authority, especially the authority of old and invalid texts like the bible, do not persuade me. So a fresh lot of readings from the same book can have no more effect than the earlier one. Nor can I pray to God because I cannot perceive any God able to answer my prayers, and if I could, as you do, I would expect an omniscient being to know already what my prayer would be, making it unnecessary. Not only that, but God, though He knew what my petition would be, has still allowed the cause of it to continue. He has not answered the prayer he foresaw, so why should I imagine any prayer would be answered. Plainly God has already decided what is best for me, and praying to Him is superfluous. As for Revelations, I have made no attempt to alter it, and can see no purpose in it. The best thing to do would be for people to stop reading it, just as they stopped reading the Enuma Elish, until scholars found it engraved on tablets of stone and decided to study it, after thousands of years. Finally, if “he who testifies to these things” is coming soon, and he wrote this 2000 years ago, he must be coming by rail, because he must be considered to be late by now. Perhaps the train was cancelled, and it is a few thousand years before the next one.

Good writing and well researched. I have been writing to a friend on this very subject only days ago. I was quite amazed to find some of your observations an almost perfect mirror to my comments. I agree with well over 90% of your chapter Pious Lies, however, as a lifelong seeker of truths I find much of your empirical attachments almost rigidly scientific. Never the less it was refreshing to read a more challenging perspective of religious development. Well done, Shane.

Thanks for your kind words. There are a lot of pages there and you do not indicate how far you have gone in reading them, but I hope you will read more. Some of them are on the scientific worldview. What have you got against it?

I have read only a few chapters. I don’t have that much against the scientific view except its refusal to acknowledge that there are some things that it cannot explain. DeMorgan said something along the lines of, “I shall never see that cessation of evidence of existence necessarily means evidence of cessation of existence”. I feel that sometimes the scientific community can express dogma that would rival the most dogmatic of religious belief systems. Consequently science can be as guilty of tunnel vision as the most devout of zealots.

I do not know what you mean when you say science refuses to acknowledge there are things it cannot explain. Science acknowledges that there are whole regions of space-time that no one will ever explain because the information it contains cannot get to us. The scientific method is a modest technique that no one could seriously oppose, but one which has revealed to us virtually everything that we know today in little more than 300 years. Religions and occultism have had thousands of years and did not come up with a single invention of benefit to humanity. Nor can science be dogmatic because it is self-correcting. It is openly published, as is its methods, and anyone is free to repeat the work done to confirm it. If it were mere dogma, it could not stand because each brick in the scientific edifice depends on the validity of those it stands on. On the one hand, you seem to subscribe to the popular misconception that science is arbitrary, yet on the other appreciate that it can only be valid because it has been tested against reality and stood up to the scrutiny.

I have studied the esoteric for over 20 years. As a predominantly logical person I can see a lot of scientific and psychological principles are applied to many of its subjects. Whilst I try to remain open minded I am also a skeptic. Consequently I use the scientific priniciple of observation and repetition. Scientifically speaking, some of the things I have worked with successfully should not work—having no empirical foundation—and yet they have.

If you have really tested them in the way you suggest, then they might have some validity. You have to remember too that science can only do what it is funded to do. This is the core of criticism of science. It is funded by governments and corporations to do what they think is important. Scientists have little choice, if they want to do anything at all, but to accept the conditions placed on them by the fundholders. The effect is that ignorant people blame the scientists for doing horrid work like making bombs and adulterating food.

The science of medicine is only as successful as the art of medical diagnosis. I do believe that science and art have the potential to meet but art by its very nature is disinclined to be straight-jacketed into strict scientific formulas.

There is more to medicine than just diagnoseis, and even that is helped by scientific instruments. Treatment is also aided by science, both instrumentally and in drugs.

I think it is here were we are inclined to disagree. Other than that I cannot fault your observations. And as I said earlier, I actually expressed the same notions about religion to a friend only two days before I read your article. Now scientifically speaking, what were the chances of that?

Not that remote, I would guess. Anyway, thanks for your generous words, and I hope you get more out of the site. I have a section on scientific matters and mathod, and its relationship with Christianity. There will be even more of a basis there for us to disagree no doubt.

Mike, I have the following comments on: AskWhy! on Jesus Myths—Christianity Revealed. My comments pertain to all of the Christianity Revealed site, not just the Jesus myth section. Extensive, excellent in a variety of ways, and informative. The intellectual dishonesty and antics that are required to hold Christianity together as the “one true faith” are nicely exposed in your essays. Christianity has had it’s opportunity to demonstrate that it offers truth and sound answers to the world. Christianity has failed on both counts. It’s high time people question the generations of acquired beliefs they have been conditioned to accept as facts from childhood. Christianity is like a superficial actor in a play. All dressed up and no real place to go except on a stage to act (or to deceive). Brad.

Thanks for the appreciation. People like yourself do write to say they like the site from time to time, but mainly I get Christians, either patronising or abusive. So, it is encouraging to get the pleasant words. What is difficult is spreading the message that there is a useful skeptical site here and so we do not get many people logging on. We depend upon people linking to us or telling their friends.

I’m just curious why a Pagan would go to all the trouble of designing a site which seems to almost exclusively dwell on Judeo-Christianity? I enjoy cracking the dogma as much as anyone, but it’s strictly an anti-X-tian thing. It has nothing to do with being a Pagan, or with loving nature.

Also in "How Persia Created Judaism III" under the heading of "Eschatology" it says "…the oldest Zoroastrian writings, the Gathas, dating to about 1000 BC…" I’d love to know how there could be any Zoroastrian writings at all 400 years prior to the birth of Zoroaster (630-550 BCE). I was going to send this article to a Christian friend who had asked me about the topic, but at this point in my reading I just shook my head and went to your main page to see what the rest of the site was about (found it in a search engine). I was a bit shaken to see very little beyond more of the same at askwhy.co.uk/adelphiasophism/ which was purportedly the new location for the Goddess Pages, nature worship, etc.

If you’re going to spend all your time debunking the X-tian fundies, firstly, you shouldn’t advertise it as a Goddess site or Pagan, and secondly the least you could do is get your facts straight. :)

You are a bit of an arrogant little twerp aren’t you? If you read the pages instead of imagining you are smart, you will find the answers to your point about Zoroaster and the Gathas.

As for being a Pagan, Pagans have more reason to criticise Christianity than anyone. We happen to be among the first bothered enough or able to do it. Most of those who might have been cooked a long time ago. Thanks for the advice, though. When you show you merit listening to, I might listen. :)

I enjoy your website and find it provocative though perhaps overly speculative. What is your take on the views of Doherty and others that there was no historical figure behind the Jesus myth at all? You may refer me to an article in your website, all of which I have not yet read. Thank you.

I think there is a lot to be said for it, though I can hardly agree with him if I postulate that JC did exist! The point is, I think, that a lot of legendary attributes were attached to Jesus as soon as it became believed that he had been resurrected. Since the gentile bishops could not accept that their new god was a Jewish rebel, however saintly, they were happy to let him be seen as transcendental from the beginning. But there were stories circulating about the real man and especially after the diaspora of 70 AD. So they had to write an anodyne version of the exploits of Jesus. It was Mark’s gospel. The general idea that Jesus never existed is well explained in books by G A Wells, but doubtless you have visited Earl Doherty’s site where it is also explained at some length.

Was Jesus Semitic, Caucasion, Oriental, or Black? Chessfan.

The predominant race in Palestine was Semitic, but the Greeks under Alexander had set up a military colony in Samaria, so Jesus could have had Macedonian blood (Caucasian), and there was a rumour that possibly was at the base of the Virgin birth legend, that Jesus was the bastard son of a Roman legionary called Pantherus (a name of a black man), so he could have been half black. Mike.

Hello from New Zealand… I am a mature student from Wellington. I am writing an essay at present on "Does Religion need Myth?" The course I am doing is called "Myth vs Modernity" I would really appreciate any comments or thoughts you have on the question and would it be ok if I used any of your material that I find helpful. How would I reference you in my essay? Claire Beaumont

My next door neighbour is from New Zealand, and she and her English husband hope to go to live there in a few years when they have made a few shillings. I once thought about going there myself as a research student but my professor discouraged me because it was a backwater. That was 40 years ago and now it seems more likely that England is the backwater and the Pacific fringe, as they call it here, is the place to be.

Anyway, your questions are too hard for me, Claire! To judge by popular religions themselves, they always seem to be based on popular myths. So, observation suggests religion does need myth—to be popular at any rate. My colleague Shirlie and I belong to a religion, Adelphiasophism, that does not have myth, but I doubt that it will ever become popular. It is satisfying, though.

If you look on the first page of the AskWhy! web pages, towards the bottom are our copyrights and conditions. Among them is permission to use any of it for personal use and also to cite it with proper acknowledgement. If you are referring to any of the three books, cite their titles, author, year and publisher (according to the house style your school recommends). Otherwise cite the web address, preferably of the appropriate index, just in case the particular page is so revised that it needs renaming.

If you find any interesting material in your researches, send it to us. Mike

Do you have any direct evidence of an insurrection by Jesus? Was there any references to it outside of the gospels? I would think that Josephus would have mentioned it. C Wolf

Direct evidence? I suppose you mean that someone somewhere says: "Jesus was hung for rebelling against the Romans." If there were, I doubt that even Christians would continue to believe. Josephus had it in his books originally but Christians had control of all printing in the western world for almost 2000 years. What was there originally has long been expunged, as many scholars will concede. Other books that might have had it have been "lost!" Books like the relevant volumes of Tacitus and lesser known historians. The Roman archives have been "lost."

Even so, anyone who read the gospels as history, and not a deeply revered religious text, could conclude nothing other than that Jesus was a rebel. The Romans at the time thought so. That is why he suffered a rebel’s fate—he was hung on a cross! Together with all the other evidence, there can be no doubt to anyone other than those who have had their mind made up for them by priests and preachers.

Look at my pages at: Christianity Revealed. The whole thing is dealt with in exhaustive detail. Mike

This is a thoroughly fascinating site and Dr Magee tells a wonderful story which I am a little over half way through (Christianity Unadorned). I am writing to ask whether in any of his writings he has addressed the theories put forward by Barbara Thiering in "Jesus the Man" and "Jesus of the Apocalypse". She certainly appears in his bibliography.

Using much the same source materials, she paints a very different picture of a Jesus who is an actual descendant of the line of David, who survived the crucifixion (at Qumran) and goes on to father a bunch of children, and is involved actively behind the scenes in the setting up of the Christian Church, before finally spending a good deal of time in India, and dying at a ripe old age.

If Dr Magee has addressed these theories, I would be delighted if you can point me in the direction of his comments on the subject. Dave Woodward.

Thanks for your kind words about our website. I have Barbara Thiering’s books and am willing to express the opinion that Barbara has gone crackers. Of course, she is or was a professional biblical scholar, so her views deserve attention, but her theories seem so far fetched, it is hard to believe anything of them. It is almost easier to believe that Jesus was the son of God. Her theories seem almost to be as bad as Drosman’s (Broznan? or whatever) who finds secret codes in the Hebrew scriptures using computers. Both Old and New Testaments are paste and scissors compilations and there is no "correct" version, or if there was, no one knows what it was. Without a "correct" version how can the messages be anything other than spurious? Differnt recensiosn must yield different answers. Doubtless the Holy Ghost is telling the computer what the messages are.

Barbara Thiering says that all the four gospels, and the apocalypse too, should be read together. They have been cleverly written so that they have a joint ciphered message—the complete early history of the Jesus movement until about the end of the first century. Unlike Drozman it is not simply a random numerical code but is one based on designations of times and names. Which versions of the books does she use? Do the different versions lead to different interpretations and if not, what in the method has made it immune from interpolaters and redacters? How can the method work with books written in such widely varying styles?

Thiering claims her method is self confirmatory, because otherwise the results would be meaningless, but the people that inhabit her world have lots of code names all different that appear in different places and she seems to pick on the ones that yield a story rather than those that do not. Her method is therefore ultimately subjective. It is an accusation that can be made of anyone who tries to interpret the gospels, but the sheer detail, elaborateness and unlikeliness of Thiering’s thesis makes it seem more subjective than most. She calls it the peshar method from the method the Essenes used to interpret scripture, but it is a far cry from what the Essenes did to read their own messages into scripture to devising an elaborate way of coding history within an innocent looking manuscript. It is more correct to say that Thiering is being an Essene in reading into the New Testament books what she wants to see. It is a sort of peshar method, but it is hers, not anything worked out by the authors of MMLJ and A.

OK, so let us look at the story that emerges. It is even more incredible. I won’t bore you any further, especially as you are perhaps fans of BT. But if you have read The Hidden Jesus, you will see why I cannot agree with BT. My view is that Mark, is decipherable without having to turn to self-consciously applied codes. Yes, it is coded, but largely by accident. The Essenes had an arcane language based on the scriptures that they used as a code and that later Christians misread as literal—the blind, deaf, etc were different types of apostates or opponents of the Essenes but the Christians took them, not as metaphors, but as really blind or deaf people. Jesus cured them by persuading them to return to Judaism, specifically his apocalyptic brand, but Christians thought he had physically cured a blind man.

Then the gentile bishops got tales they did not like about their new saviour and deliberately distorted them to persuade their flocks that the tales themselves had been distorted. If Jesus ordered his disciples to silence an opponent decrying them in public, a demon had been driven out. This is hardly a code and is pretty transparent, but everyone of us brought up in Christian households and schools have been taught so to revere gentle Jesus that it has become impossible to see him as a tough rebel who would impose his will by force. As soon as the bishops’ cover stories are seen through, the real tale springs at you. The Hidden Jesus is a simple commentary on Mark’s gospel that exposes the true story thinly disguised by the bishops and by ignorance. Only Mark’s is chosen to avoid as much Christian elaboration as possible—it is still agreed by most scholars to be the earliest and least adulterated gospel. Thiering wants to elaborate it even more!

Intuitively, Thiering’s theory is just too fanciful, and I would not put money on it. Sorry if I’ve gone on a bit. Mike

Thanks very much. Exactly what I wanted, though I hadn’t thought to trouble you to the extent that you have gone to. I wouldn’t describe myself as a fan of Barbara’s so much as simply making the initial approach to the Essene territory through her books. Dave

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