The Mystery of Gospel Jesus
The Greatest Story ever told
The story of Jesus Christ is without question the greatest story ever sold, er, told. The word "Gospel" comes from Old English "God Spell" meaning "Good Story" and that's what whatever the unknown first Gospel was, a Good Story, good enough for ambitious men to form Church territories with a Bishop ruling each one and of course, benefiting from the income produced by believers in the form of church tithes and donations and then finally, taxes. This was how the Story was used to form Church Territories. But we have no idea what that first Gospel was as the ones we have are from later dates and already redacted for public consumption. Who wrote it? Yeishu/Jesus? We don't know.
The Mystery Man
From elusive indications of an obscure Jewish sage preaching radical Jewish ethics and wisdom in a Cynic philosopher-like style in Galilee who may or may not have thought of himself as the Messiah along the lines of Isaiah's suffering messiah model, to the New Testament writers portrayal of Him as the Christ, the literal Son of God incarnated in human form and working incredible miracles, chief of which was rising from the dead and spiritually overthrowing the Jewish religion. The power of the story of Jesus and the rise of Christianity to become the most powerful religious movement in history is proof patent that God has truly given It's hand to the Spirit of Jesus Christ. But the story of Jesus Christ is still a story and in these End Times of the Apocalypse or revealing what was hidden, that story will be torn to shreds until the Spirit of Jesus Christ stands naked.
"His disciples said, 'When will You become revealed to us and when shall we see You?' Jesus said, 'When you disrobe without being ashamed and take up your garments and place them under your feet like little children and tread on them, then will you see the Son of the Living One and you will not be afraid."--Saying 37, Gospel of Thomas.
Christians are warned that Mark probably wrote the first Story of Jesus, the 1st Gospel, from Rome and Rome greatly benefited from everything destroying the spiritual authority of Judaism in Palestine and throughout the Roman Empire. I have noticed in my readings of bible scholars attempting to show how the Gospel stories were written that they pay little or no attention to the symbolic meanings in the imagery of the Gospel stories, even in the gospels found outside of the New Testament. An example of this is the repeated scholarly assertion that the Gospel of Thomas was written later than the lost Sayings Gospel or Q and shows bias in favor of Gnostic theology, and to prove this they point to an enigmatic saying in the Gospel of Thomas, "Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone and you will find Me there" (Saying 77). They assume that this is some sort of later Gnostic addition that doesn't fit in with their picture of Jesus and was only meant for later Gnostic secret interpretation.
In my original religious conversion experience I was propelled by God into a mystical consciousness that could "see" how the Spirit of God was in incarnate in absolutely everything of this world. Anything and everything carried symbolic meaning that pointed back to God and God's omnipresence and God's desire for us to follow the Good. In my "biomystical" consciousness lifting up a stone could bring bring back a host of memories of associated symbolic spiritual messages, e.g. the story of the stone being rolled away from Christ's tomb, or the stone of Jacob where he has the vision of the ladder to heaven. So many of the enigmatic sayings of Jesus in Thomas' Gospel make a whole lot of sense to people who have gone through mystical experiences.
In my Biomystical Christian writings about Jesus I try to show how finding the "authentic" voice and message of Jesus Christ hinges on knowledge of the meanings in the symbolic language of Old and New Testament writers. Instead of thinking that the "story of Jesus" was compounded by later Jesus cult communities for purposes specific to their problems and ambitions, or that each Gospel writer felt free to "attribute" this or that saying to Jesus because it fit his "character" and personal style and such attribution was perfectly acceptable in Greco-Roman times, the mode I have been literally led to use, (by signs and symbolic meanings of words--Gnosis), to solve the mystery of Jesus points to a different, mystical interpretation.
The Jesus Phenomenon
Inherent propensity for empathy and humanitarian concern is triggered by belief in the Name, by belief in the act of the sacrifice of Jesus, the sacrifice of self-interest and imposition of moral choice; not by blood sacrifice because Jesus as a sacrificial human was never kosher, only Christians ignorant of Jewish law could believe human sacrifice could ever be sanctioned by God.
Necessary racial cooperation and co-dependency
Yeishu was both Jewish and Gentile
Yeishu ben Pantera, the original "Jesus Christ", was likely half Gentile. His Story was given the spiritual Power while Yeishu's was buried and forgotten. Judaism and Jews must be mixed with Gentiles to get the real spiritual result and power like Jesus Christ in historical reality mixed Jewish and Gentile, like Yeishu ben Pantera, like me..
Jesus Christ of the Gospels is a spiritual being, not human
Yeishu ben Pantera was the human "Jesus". Jesus Christ is the heavenly Redeemer created by Gospel writers inspired by God and the legends of Yeishu. Jesus tells this himself:
"For I say to you, among those born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the Kingdom of God is greater than he."
Jesus is saying in this verse that he is not "born of woman", i.e., he is not a human being. "Son of Man" also indicates a spiritual being and not a real person. While Adam was created by God, Jesus, the Second Adam, was the creation of men.*
* How true this was in a way much different than I thought I didn't know until July, 2008 when I found out humanity is God and God is humanity.
Jesus as a golem
I believe Gospel writers, starting with Mark, intentionally created what later mystical Judaism called a "Golem" in Jesus Christ to purposely invoke the Spirit of Christ from Heaven. In mystical Judaism a golem is a being supposedly able to be created by extremely devote Jews who ritualistically follow God's example turning a lump of clay into a living man. In the golem ritual the secret name of God placed on the clay lump does the magic trick. Without the secret name no Spirit of God can be invoked and no life can be created.
In John's Gospel, the Word of God is incarnate in Jesus Christ. For a long time I couldn't understand how and why New Testament gospel writers could stoop to fabricating a miraculous, but supposedly historical birth, life, death, and after-life for a prophet-sage none of them knew personally. But John's Gospel holds some key explanations:
"It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life."
--John 6:63
Jesus as the Christ was given "flesh" by being clothed in "garments" of words describing his miraculous mission on earth.*
Jesus was clothed in miracle stories based on, and outdoing, the miracle stories in the Old Testament about Moses, Elijah, and Elisha. And, as in the creation of a golem where the name of God is the single most important aspect of the ritual for invoking the Spirit of God into a living being, New Testament writers stress believing in the name of Jesus Christ in all prayers to God; In other words, invoking the Spirit of Christ. Belief then in the magical power of the word becomes the standard of evidence of Christian conversion and loyalty to Christ and the Church.
"Therefore my Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it again.
No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself.
I have power to to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.
This command I have received from my Father."
--John 10:17,18
John is writing as Jesus because John, like all the New Testament writers, believes himself to be the instrument of God bringing forth the Spirit of Christ in the creation of Jesus Christ the Son of God. John can pick up his pen or lay it down and "Jesus" lives or dies accordingly. It is not a deceit because for these religious fanatics the line between sacred words and reality was quite blurred. "Truth" meant conforming to sacred spiritual words, not communicating accurate description of reality.
Paul's gospel was that Jesus Christ, as the Son of God, died for our sins. Following Paul's doctrine, New Testament based Christianity becomes a Jewish Mystery Religion. Jesus has much more in common with Mithra, Attis, and Osiris, than he has in common with Jewish prophets and kings. As in mystery religions, traditional Christian belief in the resurrecting power of the slain God-Man come back from the dead to regenerate Life, is given far more importance than following difficult teachings of compassionate action. Like Peter Pan says to the lost children "if you believe with all your heart" Tinker Bell will be saved and live. And if you only believe with all your heart and soul in the name of Jesus Christ and His miracle of bodily resurrection you will be saved and live forever. Besides, isn't believing with all your mind, heart, and soul the Great Commandment one must obey if Jesus is God in human form?
It is a magic theatre the Gospel writers have created where reason and critical thought must be put aside in unquestioning belief in the power of the magician to work his miraculous wonders and healings. So the New Testament writers, inspired by previous Old Testament Scriptures, believed with all their hearts that in clothing Jesus with the miraculous stories of his Christ mission from God they were but following the will of God and obeying the first and greatest commandment. But it was a false painting of Jesus that was made by Pauline Christ Cult doctrine, a painting of blood red, black and white. The real picture of Jesus is rich in the colors of a garden in full bloom.
* See the Gospel of Philip regarding interpreting Paul's doctrine of the Word as "flesh".
How can a mythological being, a god-man, really be killed?
God's by definition are immortal beings. They cannot be killed if they are really gods and not mortals. So the question that should have arisen from the very first in Christian theology, is how does an immortal god-man atone for the sins of mortals when it cannot die like they do? This question was never asked by Mystery Religionists whose faith in Mithra or Jesus is absolute.
Many Jesuses
"Jesus" was a common name in Palestine at the time of Christ. Since the Romans crucified hundreds of Jews, perhaps thousands, there were likely many "Jesuses" put to death by crucifixion. They all died as Jesus on the Cross. And they all stood for such death when Paul generalizes the death of Jesus Christ, the Suffering Servant, the Spirit of the Son of God incarnate in human form. Jews did kill Yeishu ben Pantera, the original historical Jesus. They stoned him and his five disciples to death and hung Yeishu on a tree as per Jewish Law. See Paul's reference to this in Gal 3:13.
The Jesus Christ stories are later Hellenized Jewish or Gentile renditions of the tales of Yeishu that floated down around nearly a hundred years before the time of Christ. See if I'm wrong. Check out the Yeishu ben Pantera stories in the Talmud that contain most all the elements of Jesus Christ's family history only reversed from their godly interpretation to rather mundane worldly affairs--i.e. Joseph ben Pantera's affair with Miriam the hairdresser that produced Yeishu. Early Christians sanitized Yeishu's story by reversing his bastard pedigree with the Immaculate Conception myth. Everything about the earthly Yieshu was cleaned up to make Jesus Christ the supreme sinless sacrifice only a mythical God-man could be.
"A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD."
--Deuteronomy 23:2
Yeishu ben Pantera: the Historical Jesus
I am persuaded that the Jewish oblique references to "Yeishu ben Pantera" are the closest we will ever get to the historical Jesus. These stories about "Yeishu" "who led many astray" have elements found in the Gospels, e.g., reason why Jesus or Yeishu made forgiveness of sins a primary doctrine as Yeishu's rabbi refused to forgive Yeishu, reasons why Jesus or Yeishu would condemn Pharisee teachings, references to how Miriam became pregnant without miracle but as an adulteress, and two disciples named, Matthias and Thoda which may be Thaddeus and Matthew of the Gospels, and how the name "Mary Magdalene" may be a mistranslation of the Hebrew words for "Miriam the hairdresser".
These accounts of Yeishu are referred to by other non-Christians, e.g., the Roman pagan historian Celsus and also in the Quran where Jesus' miraculous birth is defended against charges of Miriam's adultery. Also, the Mandean sect in Iraq refers to "Jesus the Roman". The whole New Testament may be the Christ Cult's attempt to reverse the historical slander attached to Jesus or Yeishu by creating a Big Lie that is so outrageous that it can only be believed by a suspension of rationality, i.e., the idea Mary was impregnated by God and not Joseph ben Pantera. These Jewish Talmud and Mishna stories of Yeishu place him farther back in time than the Gospel Jesus which may explain why Christian communities show up so early in the 1st century around Palestine and Asia Minor that Paul ran into only a few years after the supposed death of Jesus.
Yeishu ben Pantera seems to have lived at least a hundred years earlier than Jesus of the Gospels. This answers the puzzling story of Paul meeting entrenched Christian communities so early on in his missionary work and why Christians seem to be in Rome so very early after Jesus' crucifixion. Yeishu ben Pantera is the normally born son of Joseph ben Pantera, a mercenary in the Roman army with whom Miriam the hairdresser had an affair with while engaged to another man. "Hairdresser" in Hebrew looks like the word "Magdalene". This answers the question why a whore plays a prominent role in the NT gospels. Also explains Jesus' compassionate non-judgment of the woman accused of adultery and facing stoning in the Gospel of John. In fact, the whole New Testament gospels may have been written to re-invent the history of Yeishu ben Pantera as Jesus of Narareth.
Yeishu had five disciples among which is a Mattias (Matthew) and a Toda which could possibly be Thaddeus. Yeishu ran into conflict with his rabbi. His rabbi accused him of lust and Yeishu asked for forgiveness and was given none. Yeishu set up a brick and bowed down and worshipped it in front of this rabbi and was excommunicated. Yeishu was accused of using Egyptian magic to work miraculous cures that even the rabbis agreed he'd done. Yeishu was brought before the rabbis and sentenced to death by stoning. Afterward he was hung on a tree as per Jewish law and later said to have been buried in a cabbage patch. His disciples were likewise killed. If this Yeishu story is a deliberate Jewish slander of the Jesus of the gospel stories why have themselves as the ones who killed this Jesus? Considering how much anti-Judaism has been generated by the Gospel story account where Jesus is executed according to Roman law, you'd think Jews would be careful not to paint any blame for Yeishu's death on themselves if Yeishu was indeed Jesus Christ. I think the rabbis were telling the truth albeit obliquely so one had to fill in the blanks to know they were talking about Jesus of Narareth. This is the primary reason I think the story of Yeishu ben Pantera is the closest we will ever get to the historical Jesus.
The Tree is real
The Cross is myth
Yet it is the mythic Cross which holds the great spiritual power. As "Jesus" was a common name in 1st Century Palestine, there were many "Jesuses" who were crucified. Each one was Jesus Christ in the minds of Paul and all the early Christians who remembered Yeishu's magical cures and astounding teachings like they never heard before.
Peter refers to Jesus' death on the tree in Acts 5: 29, 30.
"Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, 'We out to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree."
And also in 1 Peter 2:24.
"who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness--by whose stripes you were healed."
Paul refers to the tree for the death of Jesus Christ in Galatians 3:13.
"Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.'"
Yeishu ben Pantera was hung on a tree. His body supposedly buried in a cabbage patch in Lydda. Find him and dig him up to end the Mystery of Gospel Jesus and expose the New Testament as fiction.
The Mandean and John the Baptist clue
There is a another major clue to the mystery of Jesus in the fact of the Mandean Gnostic communities existing today in Iraq who claim John the Baptist as the leading human figure in their religious teachings. "Manda" means Knowledge or Gnosis in their Aramaic dialect which they still use as their sacred religious language. Scholars believe they stem from a heretical Jewish sect in first century Palestine. The Mandean religion revolves around complex baptism rituals performed in Iraqi rivers and streams they still refer to as "the Jordan". Mandeans claim their forerunners were called Nasoreans (meaning "guardians of Knowledge as truth and light) and driven out of Palestine into Iraq during the turmoil following the Jewish-Roman war in the 60's and 70's AD.
The Mandean religion is classical Gnosticism. The Gospel of Thomas, one of the oldest texts of Christianity includes many of the sayings of Jesus found in the lost sayings source known as "Q", (short "Quelle" or source in German), that wound up embedded in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. But the Gospel of Thomas is very much Gnostic in tone, symbolism and instruction. The Mandeans to this day aren't friendly towards the Jesus of history who they call "the Roman Jesus" and who they claim stole John the Baptist's preaching and perhaps most of his followers after John was beheaded by Herod Antipas.
I've also read somewhere that archeologists think the town of Nazareth where Jesus supposedly came from didn't exist in Jesus' time. It's not mentioned in the Old Testament or in Josephus' chronicles of Jewish history. Perhaps Jesus was a Nasorean for a time with John the Baptist and the heretical Jewish community that later on became the Mandeans.
The Gnostic Redeemer
In many ways, the story of Jesus is a story of a Jewish Gnostic redeemer. John's gospel is thoroughly Gnostic in character although he and the other New Testament letter writers like Paul, Peter, and Jude go out of their way to put down Gnostics and their teachings as works of the Devil. In the lost gospel of Q, the foundation sayings source of the synoptic gospels, scholars have traced a three part development where in the first part, referred to as Q1, Jesus seems to be like a Galilean-Jewish version of the Greek Cynic-type sage. Jesus' teachings here are very much in the Cynic style and philosophy. Later on, a dramatic change occurs in the Q sayings of Jesus and Jesus takes on the apocalyptic imagery of the "Son of Man". John the Baptist also shows up in this Q2 stage of the teachings of Jesus. I think it's possible that two things happened to Jesus that thoroughly changed Him and His message to the world-- meeting John the Baptist and, either Himself having a visionary experience very much like those reported by people having near-death experiences, or His willing acceptance of personally manifesting the Gnostic Redeemer as envoy on Earth for the Being of Light.
Jesus meets John the Baptist
I believe Jesus or the Gospel authors who either wrote about him or created him probably met John the Baptist and got reintroduced to Jewish apocalyptic judgement and prophesies of the End Times. Meeting John changed the tenor of Jesus' former teachings to match John's and the Jewish expectations of the coming of a new Messiah, but a cosmic or Gnostic Messiah and not one fulfilling the political Davidic Messiah model. If John the Baptist was a Jewish apocalyptic Gnostic preaching the coming destruction of the material, and therefore evil world, he would have been on the lookout for a Messiah along the lines of the Gnostic Redeemer and the mysterious Son of Man model who was prophesized to appear in the the Last Days and the Day of Judgment. But then John and Jesus part their ways.
Jesus' message from God was for the whole world while Jewish Gnosticism had no use for it. Gnostic teachings led people to the creation of a new "chosen" elite, the Gnostics, the one's who "Know" God and by knowing God are saved, while others who haven't Gnosis are still lost souls trapped in the world of matter and flesh. Thus, the old Gnostics committed the same error as the Jews. Followers of Jesus also created a new chosen people, the Christians, but God aimed Christ and Christianity at the whole world. I think a new apocalyptic Jesus with strong Gnostic overtones in His teachings emerged after His meeting John the Baptist. I think the change is reflected in the Sayings of Jesus in the second phase of composition of Q, (known as Q2), and also in the Gospel of Thomas. I think that when Jesus split with John, later Christ cult followers took that as a sign from God to split off from the Gnostic component of early Christianity.
And I think that after the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D., the later followers of Jesus pounced on this change in Jesus after His meeting John the Baptist and molded their Gospels stories around the apocalyptic Jesus as fulfilling Judaic End Times prophesies and Messianic expectations. Gnosticism and John the Baptist, if the Mandean traditions about him have any validity, had divorced themselves from the God of Moses and the Jewish epic and so could not claim fulfillment of Jewish messiah expectations as could Jesus with the help of Christian interpretation of Old Testament Scriptures. Jesus' teachings, both early Cynic-like ones and the later apocalyptic, Son of Man ones, plus Jesus' likely death by crucifixion, were the main components of the legend of Jesus held by the Christ cult communities of Mark and Paul. The Christ cult communities focused on interpreting Jesus' death as foretelling Jerusalem's destruction in 70 AD and Jesus fulfilling Isaiah's prophesies of a suffering Messiah. Jesus, like stories of the first born son of a besieged ancient near-eastern king and his city, is sacrificed for the salvation of the king's city and his people.
After the fall of Jerusalem I think the Christ cult writers took all these "signs" and readings of the symbolic imagery in Old Testament stories as their sign from God to start a new religion of invocation of the Spirit of God as Christ, the Messiah, to fulfill and replace Judaism with which God was obviously very greatly angered. The anvil of God had come down on the Temple and Judaism for the third time in history and Gospel writers jumped into the spiritual vacuum left after the fall of Jerusalem to create a Golem, Jesus the Christ. But the Spirit of God during those days really was with them and their Christ and the new, open to the Gentile world, Christian communitarian communities which were non-violent and didn't pose a military threat to Rome's rule. The Spirit of God lived and expanded with Christianity while the Law of Moses contracted with rabbinical Judaism, going inward into surviving Jewish families.
Gnosis lived on for a few centuries more then died when Constantine changed world history by making Christianity the Roman state religion. But the root experience of Gnosticism, gnosis of God, could not be killed and Gnostic Christianity blossomed again in the Middle Ages in France and in mystical Christian traditions. Even the Protestant Reformation owes a debt to Gnostic predecessors. In modern times, Gnosticism has been resurrected once again but in a new form- in love with the the Tree of Life as much as the Tree of Knowledge. Gnosis of the Spirit of Christ and the Holy One of Heaven and Earth have entered once again into our world to guide us through the transition to the New Age.
The Being of Light
The second thing that I believe happened to Jesus was His either having a visionary experience Himself similar to those reported in out of the body near-death experiences, or His willing acceptance of fulfilling the Gnostic Redeemer mythology by becoming the representative on Earth for the Being of Light. I believe Gnostic mythologies and spiritual power was originally derived from some mystic sage or sages somewhere having experienced near-death and returned with reports about the Being of Light that many people in our times who have had near-death experiences report meeting at the threshold of Heaven. Perhaps Jesus had this experience when He was reported to have fasted the symbolic forty days in the desert. (Forty days, by the way, = Moses and the Israelites wandering forty years before reaching the Promised Land). Perhaps near death Himself from hunger and thirst He too met the Being of Light. Perhaps that Being of Light also opened The Library other near-death experiencers have encountered which gave Jesus the secrets of life, death, and human existence. Perhaps the Being of Light chose Jesus to represent Him, the Being of Light, to all human beings on earth. And perhaps, Jesus, like many people having near death experiences, returned to His body bringing back a message of compassion, love and forgiveness for one another.
Significantly, in the Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter, Jesus makes a distinction between His body being nailed to the cross and suffering while His Spirit is separate from it and laughing at the attempt to harm His real being, His soul. In many near-death experience reports, the soul or spirit of a person leaves the body traveling upward and can even look down upon its material self as it moves around or goes into the well-known tunnel leading to Heaven's Gate. I personally believe the Great Spirit of God has appointed the Spirit of Jesus Christ to represent It as the Being of Light met when one dies and goes through that symbolic birth canal tunnel into that other world beyond the grave. And this honor of the Spirit of Jesus Christ representing the Being of Light is the source of Jesus Christ's tremendous spiritual power for the last two thousand years, and will be for all time.
Jesus' "Good Father" is EL and not Yahweh
(From Internet discussion boards)
ND posts: "I think that the God I read about is scary, as he seems to have more than one persona and one of them is more than a little judgmental, with a cruel disposition and a yen for the dispensation of unimaginably torturous punishments to his lowly creations. Me being one of them, I'd like to recast the part of God in my life as a more compassionate and benign Being with lots of empathy and compassion, one who treats me as I would treat others, at least. One more in line with my experience, I am being as we speak,gifted, if this is so, and it is, God must be very very forgiving."
I claim a Gnostic Christian belief system because I share some basic religious views as they did, but their answer to your problem with Yahweh's OT rep for heavy judgement and pain and misery for unbelievers was to say Yahweh sucks, He's an Imposter, a lower deity than Wisdom personified as Sophia, who was above Him in the Gnostic emanation Trilogies, Quadrulogies, Ogumpteendilogies, and a far better person as God's primary representative from the Unknowable One above Her.
So just get rid of Yahweh worship because the Guy's a low-life killer ape Blind God who created this flawed world and caused a continuous chain of low-life killer-ape emanations that imprison people's minds and souls in animal territorial battling war games and stupid archon power trips.
Well, I can't go for the old Gnostic view of Yahweh wholeheartedly. There's a lot of truth in pointing out the flaws of Yahweh, but, Creation?, It's just got too much Beauty and Wondrous Incredible Everything going for it despite our lifelong prison sentences, despite the pain and misery of life and death reality of physical existence.
I notice that human images of Heaven seem to come from the best aspects of Life in God's Creation. Now I that I know the Grand Cosmic Plan of the Holy One I value God's Creation with all my heart, all my mind, all my soul. Because God is part and parcel of that creation as well as beyond it. Send a self-addressed stamped envelope to God's Grand Cosmic Plan Revealed for further details..
Nd posts: "I think that the God I read about is scary, as he seems to have more than one persona and one of them is more than a little judgmental, with a cruel disposition and a yen for the dispensation of unimaginably torturous punishments to his lowly creations."
Nd, to me this is the tragedy of Judeo-Christianity that is echoed in the words of Jesus from the cross: "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
The God Jesus is named after is Yahweh but the God Jesus claims has forsaken him on the cross is El, as in all the Hebrew names that have the "El" prefix or suffix, like Elohim, Elijah, Elisha, Ezeki-El, Dan'El, AriEl, etc.
"El" was the Canaanites' highest God. When the Hebrews came into Canaan they assimilated El's characteristics into Yahweh's. Read the Canaanite descriptions of El: He is "The God Most High", "the Father of Men", "the Creator of Created Things", the Kindly One, El the Compassionate". He is the father of the Divine Assembly* and gives his sanction to all decisions among the gods and affecting nature and society.
Jesus has some of EL's "son"'s Baal's characteristics. Jesus, like Baal who gained power over the Goddess' Sea and could calm the waters, "walked on water" and could calm the sea.The Spirit of Yahweh "created" man and woman "sinful" from the beginning with the "sin" of Adam and Eve in the second Genesis creation story. EL, as Elohim, did not put any such condemnation on human beings whom It considered to be "Good", "Very Good" in the first Genesis creation account.
Here's Moses' God Yahweh in Ex 34:5-7:
"Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, 'The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.'"
The Canaanite God El did not punish. He was depicted as a kindly Grandfather type but he was the Canaanite's Highest God. So it seems like the Hebrews claiming Canaan as their Promised Land also claimed the Canaanite God El characteristics and added them to Yahweh as the Jealous God of Retribution. The two Gods characteristics didn't match in the original Exodus blend and they don't match in the traditional Christian blend. Kindness, Compassion and Forgiveness are contradicted and negated by Jealousy and Retribution.
To me Jesus was the Holy One's spiritual bridge back to EL. Jesus is named after Yahweh but Isaiah's prophesy calls for the Messiah to be named "ImmanuEL". He was to be the "son of the Most High" (Luke 1:29). EL's appellation was "El Elyon", God Most High. Jesus' teachings do not reflect Yahweh's Love/Hate dualism. Jesus' teachings reflect El's compassion and kindness. So when Jesus says why call him, Jesus, good, when 'there is only One who is Good', he isn't referring to Yahweh but to El. Jesus, as a Jew, is stuck in the Yahweh split personality syndrome and its impact on Hebrew beliefs but he knows it's not right so in the earliest Christian gospel accounts in the "Q" sections of Luke and Matthew and in the Gospel of Thomas there is very little reference to punishment of sinners and mostly wisdom sayings on how to deal with the material world and how and where to seek God's Kingdom in the here and now.
I personally believe Jesus knew the problem about the contradiction between compassion and forgiveness and punishment of sinners, and knew his teachings from the Highest God would again be become polluted, adulterated with the the Spirit of Yahweh as a God of Wrath and Vengeance. And this is why I believe Jesus is said to have repeated the words of in Palm 21 using the Hebrew or Aramaic word for the God El. "El, El, why has thou forsaken me?"..Jesus and Israel, servants of the Holy One. Since Jesus was put to death on the cross, El's Spirit of Compassion, kindness and forgiveness has been replaced by Paul's Yahweh and Yahweh's love only of his own kind who believe in his code of retribution for sinners. Yahweh, the split personality God of the Jews, of Paul, and of Revelation, and of traditional Christianity was once again enthroned instead of El. Now we must save Jesus to have Jesus save us.
Saving Jesus will save us
Jesus Knows El is again abandoning him and the Jews. And I believe Jesus Knows the future where traditional Christianity will abandon El too in favor of Yahweh as a God of Retribution against sinners. As Christians facing the New Millennium, we must Restore the Good Father, El, the Compassionate One, as God Most High, "El Elyon" as He is called by name in Gen 14:19 "Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth." and we must abandon the corruption of El into Yahweh, the War God, the God of Vengeance, in the second half of Gen 14:19 "And blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand."
Abram got his name changed to Abraham when God instructed Abram about the rite of circumcision, which symbolizes the castration of the male instinct, (remember the eunuch example Jesus gave) to war as biological animals instead of developing as spiritual human beings. In El's Covenant instructions El promised Abraham and his descendents, the whole land of Canaan, to be a possession of his, even though an alien, forever. All true Christians, all Christians true to the Spirit of Christ which is of El, have spiritually inherited Canaan, the Holy Land, the land which EL created and which El was held as "God Most High" "El, the Kindly One", "El the Compassionate One."
Now we get to the part that only Gnostic, or Nazarene Essene, or Ebionite Christianity can take guide traditional Christians back to El to Save Jesus by Restoring El to the be the name of the Good Father that Jesus worshipped and told us to worship, El, who abandoned the Jews, who abandoned Jesus Christ at his crucifixion death being once again replaced by Yahweh the Kind only to His Kind, His Chosen People, His Christian Elect, who Vengeance to all others. Restoring El to God Most High to inherit Spiritual Canaan, the Holy Land, to bring back the Good Father, El, the Compassionate One, we must bring back El's Wife, the Great Mother. Her Canaanite name is Asherah and She is the Tree of Life..She has many others names as well..see Asherah in the Asherah page and Other Great Goddesses page for more on EL's Heavenly and Earthly Co-partner.
The Biomystical Christian interpretation of the story of Jesus
and the symbolic imagery in the Gospels
In many ways Jesus Christ is a throwback to the Savior God and Dying/Resurrection God motif of pagan religions of the ancient Near East and Mediterranean region. Attis, Mithra, Osiris, Tammuz, Apollo, Marduk, Heracles, and Jesus share many traits in common such as miraculous births by "virgin" mothers, signs in the heavens predicting their births, birthdays on or around the Winter Solstice, miracle-working, agonizing deaths, journeys to the underworld to save souls there, resurrection from the dead and the granting of eternal life to believers, to mention a few.
Christianity is a blend of pagan religious rituals grafted onto Jewish cult and mythology, the epic of Israel. The Christian religious rituals of the Eucharist and belief in resurrection are taken directly from pagan mystery religions and have no connection with traditional Jewish cult and spirituality. Jesus has much more in common with Mithra than with Jewish Messianic expectations.
"Jesus Christ"means "Savior Savior":"Jesus" is Hellenized Hebrew for Yeshua, meaning "Salvation is of God", and "Christ" is Greek for Messiah in Hebrew and also means anointed Savior. Jesus knew He wasn't a Davidic type Messiah; He wasn't a "son of David"-"If David then calls Him Lord, how is He (God's Messiah) his Son?" (Matthew 22:45).
Jesus is the outside spiritual agent of God. As "Son of God" He is the exterior authority figure of God, as God the Father. "Immanuel" means "God is with us" or within us. The Spirit of God is interiorized and becomes our conscience guiding us to follow Jesus' example overcoming our egos to be "born again" to do good for others and the world. But this isn't the most profound meaning of Jesus' sacrificial death which is "biomystical" in meaning.
* This is explained in the Biomystical meaning of the Crucifixion chapter.
The Good Samaritan story
"'for I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see, and have not seen it, and to hear what you hear, and have not heard it. And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, 'Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?' He said to him, 'What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?'
So he answered and said, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind', and 'your neighbor as yourself'. And He said to him, 'You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.' But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, 'And who is my neighbor?'".
--Luke 10:24-37
Jesus then tells him the story of the Good Samaritan who helped a man wounded by thieves when priests and Levites refused to help. Jesus and Biomystical Christians are against "us" and "them" divisions of people. Goodness is of God no matter where it's found or who it is found in. Like the old Pogo comic strip said, "We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us."
Biomystical Christian consciousness considers all human beings and all societies as part and parcel of the web of Life. There are reasons why individuals or societies of people behave the ways they do but to isolate individuals or one component of a society or to isolate one society from another in terms of prohibitions on mutual assistance is to deny God's will for us to overcome false "us" and "them" divisions.
Death on the Cross and the Crown of Thorns symbolism
The dead Tree of Life
The Cross represents a dead Tree of Life. The Cross is also the grave marker for Woman's spirit with the symbol for woman, the cross below the circle of the world turned upright so we are made aware that something is wrong with the Feminine side of the Godhead. Jesus is nailed to the Woman symbol. His back is to Her because He is portrayed by traditional Christianity as still carrying on the Jewish religious war against the Goddess side of the Holy One of Heaven and Earth.
In the New Age of Biomystical Christianity, Man will face Woman, and Jesus is taken off the Cross of Piscean martyrdom. His Crown of Thorns also symbolizes the Judeo-Christian patriarchal war against Hiero Gamos, the Holy Marriage between God and Goddess, where the Sacred King as phallic Male symbol is ritually "anointed" and wears not a Crown of Thorns but a Garland of Flowers. The Holy One has hidden this deeper meaning as a spiritual Trojan Horse within the Judeo-Christian concept of the Messiah. Gnostic Christian men who know the true meaning of the Crown of Thorns cannot but help find icons of Jesus nailed to the cross totally repulsive.*
* Here is the forward signaling for the change in the Biomystical Christian cross in 2008 that resulted from the Egyptian Connection restoring spiritual knowledge of the ankh cross.
Jesus' wound
"But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out." --John 19:34
"This is He who came by water and blood--Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood." --1 John 5:6
The issue of blood and water from Jesus' wound symbolizes Birth where the woman in labor discharges water and blood. That the wound is in Jesus' side can also be seen as a reminder of Eve coming from Adam's rib, Jesus being a second direct Son of God after Adam. His spear wound and His death on the cross remind us that the loving kindness of Woman Spirit as manifested in Jesus has also been wounded and killed by male authority.
2011 Update:
The Egyptian Connection is proving to be the strongest contender for the basic Story of Jesus as a dying/resurrection Sun God bearing the Horus and Osiris mythos in his being. This embedded Egyptian theology within a Jewish framework has made this identification only possible in our times where the Egyptian hieroglyphic language has been translated and the mythos of their solar deities known. Evidence points more and more to an Alexandria, Egypt origin for the Gospels and indeed, Mark is considered by Egyptian Coptic Christians as their founder founding the first Christian church in the world in Alexandria. The famous Library of Alexandria was at the disposal of the Jewish authors of the Gospels which now have been proven to show the Egyptian astro-theology system.
See Acharya Sanning's book, Christ in Egypt, for more on the Egyptian Connection to the foundation story of Jesus Christ.
2012 Update:
With the Christ Aquarius Revelation the water reference is to remind us of the Christ/Son of Man/Aquarius connection.
Jesus is raised from the dead
Jesus is raised from the dead in three days. On the third day of Creation God brings forth the growing plants yielding seeds. From the bowels of the earth a living seed generates a new plant. Jesus as the Gnostic "Seed of Light" is resurrected at Easter and becomes the Christian symbol for Spring and the regeneration of life after Winter. Jesus has returned us to the fertility symbolism of the Goddess religions. He is at once the final fulfillment of the Patriarchal overthrow of the Goddess religions of the world through the spread of Christianity and the Trojan Horse of the Goddess who brings Her back into the dominant Patriarchy secretly in hidden symbolic imagery of OT and NT texts to become His Bride for the Wedding of God and Goddess in the heirogamos of the Holy One of Heaven and Earth.
The Gospel promoted Spirit of Christ burdened with its still ever-present Patriarchal pathological narcissism cannot credibly restore the Divine Feminine
as this Gospel of Thomas Saying implies
"For every woman who will make herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven."--Gospel of Thomas.
And the opposite is true
The Vision of Christ Josephine and the Christ Aquarius Revelation begin the Restoration of the Divine Feminine
The Spirit of Christ enters you when you are "born again" into the Christ Aquarius consciousness. Because the Sign of Aquarius is purposely bisexual to represent Humanity, the Spirit of the New Age and the Spirit of Christ unite as one to feminize and soften men and remove the Strong Man pathology with Christ's unconditional love while it masculinizes and empowers women to demand equal stature. The Spirit of Christ makes you whole and Holy One.
