AW! Epistles
From Kenneth Blackledge
Abstract
Monday, September 25, 2000
I had been reading your book Christianity Unadorned on its Web page, but since Friday I haven’t been able to access it. Every time I try, I get a "Crash" message from my Norton Utilities program—something about a stack overflow. I’m using Internet Explorer 3.0 with Windows 95. Is there anything you can do about this, or could the problem be at my end? I am still able to access your home page, at least for now. (That’s how I got the e-mail address.)
PS. What I read of your book so far is interesting; I’ve never paid much attention to the Jesus-was-an-Essene theory before, although I had come to realize that Christianity didn’t have a leg to stand on. Your text does get a bit repetitive in places, making it look like a first draft. Am I right in assuming that it is?
I’m glad you are reading Christianity Unadorned and hope we can track down the problem. I updated the whole set of pages last weekend by adding a new header banner and a sound clip. When I received your e-mail I looked at the page again to see whether a problem had arisen, but it displays perfectly well on my IE5 browser. The sound clip is played using a little Java file called Vivace which I suspect might be clogging an old browser like IE3. Have you a special reason why you cannot use a more modern browser?
Do you get the contents page for Christianity Unadorned? Vivace is not on that page, only on the separate files. No one else has e-mailed with the same problem but I don’t get that many visitors, so some might be ignoring the pages because they don’t load. I don’t have the disk space to run Netscape as well as IE5, so if you can do any more diagnostics, or have friends running different browsers, please let me know what you find. if it proves to be Vivace, I’ll remove it.
I think it is hard not to accept that Jesus was an Essene of some kind. The file, Similarities and Differences between Jesus and the Essenes is pretty conclusive, I think. Sorry about repetitions, Christianity Unadorned is the two other books merged (The Mystery of Barabbas and The Hidden Jesus) with a lot of new material from the Apostolic Age and several additional files, like that one I just mentioned. My idea was to work it into a more coherent form, but I find that the evidence just continues to accumulate. I just added a piece on Joseph and Aseneth.
Best wishes, and let me know if you find the problem is more widespread than your own set-up and I’ll pull out Vivace.
I’m still using IE3. The contents page for Christianity Unadorned is the one I can’t get. I’ve gotten the home page by typing in the address, and some of the other links work, but not Christianity Unadorned, or the goddess pages. I haven’t had time to ask anybody else about this yet, and besides, there’s not a lot of people I know who are into computers.
It’s strange, especially that you cannot get The Goddess Pages either. Is it possible that one of your partners in the computer has installed some censoring software. Crude censoring software might block both pages because of the words ’Unadorned’ and ’Goddess’ which they interpret as signifying porn websites. A lot of Christian parents would be quite happy that these non-porn sites got blocked as well because they disapprove of them as much as porn! Regards
My brother and I may not see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, but I know he doesn’t have any blocking programs in the computer. He doesn’t believe in censorship as a general principle, and he also knows that those programs paint with too broad a brush.
I can tell you that I keep getting this message: "IEXPLORE.EXE caused fault #c00000fd in KERNEL32.DLL at address 014fibff9a3c0" followed by a bunch of numbers that don’t mean anything to me. I found some information on KERNEL32 problems on a Microsoft Support page, but you have to be a computer geek to understand most of the stuff on there. As for getting IE5, even if I could get it downloaded on this single phone line with CALL WAITING (AUUUGGH!), I would be reluctant to do so. I know IE3 (actually I found out I have IE3.02) works, I remember people bitching about IE4 when it first came out, and considering the newness of IE5, I’m sure it’s got bugs up the wazoo—especially for those of us who still have Windows 95.
So since I’m pretty much stuck with this fossil, it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to finish your book. I was wondering, however, if you could answer a question for me. Two other books I had previously read, Born of a Woman by John Shelby Spong, and The Woman with the Alabaster Jar by Margaret Starbird dealt with the theory that Jesus had been married to Mary Magdalene. Do you have reason to believe that may have happened? I know you’ve said that celibacy was a ideal, not a requirement, for an Essene. And Ms. Starbird seems to think that is Jesus was going to "establish the kingdom," that would include preparing for a dynastic line. Also, do you think, as they do, that Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany were one and the same person? Best regards.
I’ve had no other complaints this week, and in fact some mail has referred to Christianity Unadorned, so some at least are getting it fine. Hit statistics vary a lot week by week but, I wouldn’t say they look much different from typical. So, yep, I guess it’s not a clue.
Look, I’m running Windows 95 with ie5 and it seems more stable than with ie4. I agree a download is a pain, but most of the Net and PC mags have been putting ie5 on their cover disks lately.
Regarding Jesus and Mary Magdalene. It has been popular latterly to suggest that these two were married but it is very wild speculation. I base my interpretation of the gospel story on Mark, considered the earliest and least adulterated by Christianity. Mary Magdalene hardly appears, and the most significant of her appearances are in the blatantly forged bit at the end. The village Essenes certainly married but the monastic ones seemed not to, but held celibacy in high esteem so as not to spoil their perfection. There is nothing in Mark’s gospel to lead us to believe that Jesus was anything other than a senior Essene, a leader and I believe THE leader or Nasi, the prince—it means "lifted up." Such a man would remain chaste and celibate.
Regarding the idea of a dynasty, Jesus would not have despoiled his chastity for the reasons just given, but besides that, much of the idea is based on a falsehood. The Jews expected a Davidic messiah, a warrior like king David and therefore taken to be of the line of David. But Jesus denies that he was of the line of David!
Admittedly, it did not deter his Christian followers from sticking to the original belief, and they still do to this day despite Jesus’s denial (Mk 12:35). The point Jesus makes is that a father (David) could not call his son, Lord, so the Christ could not be David’s son because David does call him Lord. Remember, this is Jesus’s own argument, "and the common people heard him gladly." Jesus was answering a suppressed question: "How can you, an orphan, be the son of David?" It is all in the book, The Hidden Jesus. Anyway, the only basis for Jesus to set up a dynasty would have been if he was the blood heir of David. Since David lived 1000 years earlier, every Jew must have been a blood heir of David, admittedly, but no one can have had any particular claim by then, and a celibate monk was the least likely to restore the royal line, especially as he denied he was a blood heir. Jesus and the common people were content with a leader in the mould of David, not necessarily of his blood.
Finally, Jesus really believed the world was about to end. Why should such a man want to start a dynasty that lasted only a few days or weeks and had only one member, himself? Though he believed in the general resurrection on the third day, he believed that people would be resurrected as sexless beings like angels, (Mk 12:25) so there could have been no purpose in his having a wife in the "Kingdom of God."
So all the speculation about the bloodline of Jesus, the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, Spong and the lot are just spinning yarns to make money. Believe me, books that simply try to interpret the data truthfully, make no money!
Hope this helps, and hope you manage to get through again somehow! All the best.
I finally managed to access your Web page again. It was so simple it’s laughable. All I needed to do was disable the Active Content. I had tried that before but apparently did not go far enough in during so. Right now I just finished Chapter 35, the one about Peter. Incidently, since disabling the Active Content, I’m no longer getting the pop-up ad, but that’s not much of a loss.
Thanks for your answer to my question about the theories on Jesus’ alleged marriage. I was looking over Margaret Starbird’s book last night (The Woman with the Alabaster Jar) and on pages 55-56 she mentions the Qumran community, so she is aware that there is a connection between Jesus and the Essenes. She also realizes that the circumstances of his death (crucifixion) proves that he was an insurrectionist. But she seems to be too interested in the medieval Grail legends to see him as anything more than an Essene sympathiser. Maybe she would say that he was a village Essene. Then she could keep the story of the marriage, but then she’d have to explain how a village Essene could rise to such a prominant position in the brotherhood.
As for Bishop Spong, he doesn’t mention the Grail legends, but bases his arguements on the Gospel of John. (Yes, I know, it’s the last written, most gnostically-tinged and considered least accurate of the four.) Also, it occupies a single chapter near the end of his book and is almost an afterthought. Born of a Woman is primarily concerned with debunking the physical virginity of Jesus’ mother Mary, an image Spong believes has led to the suppression of women thoughout history. I don’t think there can be any argument on that point. He also mentions the spectulations that Jesus was an illegitimate child, which ties in with your assertion that he was a waif adopted by the Essenes. I have some quarrels with Spong on other points, but I’ve read enough of his books to know he’s not in it for the money. I think he’s just another example of a Christian with blinders on. (As if there’s any other kind.) He seems to be making a genuine effort to salvage something that I believe is unsalvageable. Regards.
You are right, but I quite admire Spong for at least being willing to criticise these things from within the church. Christians might consider something that a bishop says when they will not even look at one of my pages, for example. I used to think the same about the former Bishop of Durham, when he spoke of "conjuring tricks with bones," but on a documentary discussion with Melvin Bragg and Jonathan Miller recently, he just burbled nonsense. He is getting a bit old. Miller was terrific, though. All best wishes.
