Month: February 2015

“And the four and twenty elders, who sit before God on their thrones, fell upon their faces and worshiped God…” —Revelations 11:16

Strange Greece and Italy would absorb a religion created in Judea, but the fertile crescent is where much of the action took place at the dawn of civilization, and it’s where written language appeared 3,000 years before Christianity. The West has always maintained their fascination with Eastern spirituality.

The Scythians are the most overlooked culture in this story. They traveled in hemp-covered wagons pulled by oxen and were ardent explorers, traders, and warriors, and they built the silk road.

King Darius went to war against them because they were the only people other than the Greeks he’d failed to subjugate. Even more amazing, the Scythians were the first knight culture and covered their bodies with psychedelic tattoos of griffins and dragons.

They are likely overlooked because of the affection and use of cannabis. They threw the flowers on hot coals in tipis in order to inhale the smoke, a ritual described by Herodotus, who witnessed it first-hand.

The arrival of the written word could be compared with the invention of the Internet. Suddenly, ideas could be sent to all corners of the world. The Phoenicians brought written language to the Greeks after it had already been established in the fertile crescent, and some say Homer was a Phoenician.

Despite being over 10,000 lines of poetry, the Iliad was an oral tradition for centuries, recited at festivals and games. Any child with a prodigious memory would have likely been recruited by the nearest temple. Even in the fertile crescent, the altar boys were the ones who recited the sacred words with accuracy. The Iliad is the bible of Greece, and established a pantheon of gods and goddesses who ruled the universe from a nearby mountain top. The Greeks triumphed over Persia largely because of their democracy. Free men were more committed than slaves when it came to combat, especially as they had families to protect and were defending their homeland.

Several hundred years later, Rome built its culture on top of Greek tradition, and Virgil wrote the Aeneid establishing Rome’s divine right to rule. Epic poems were designed to enchant and entertain with allegory and parable, but also to keep the population in place by anointing the oligarchy with divine connections. I’m sure there were many aspiring poets in all cultures who never made it into the history books, while others who pleased the rulers got recited at games and festivals.

In ancient times, slavery was a fact of life, and cultures with the most slaves built the biggest temples. It was not unknown for poor people to sell their children into slavery.

Just about everything in the Jesus myth has origins in some previous culture. His birth and death are based largely on Zoroastrian sun worship, which is why the Magi attend his birth, and parts of his early years were lifted from the bio of Mani, a real living avatar who tried to foment world peace, but ended up crucified around 270 AD.

Mani’s murder only made his hybrid synthesis of Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Christianity and Judaism more popular than ever, something that greatly alarmed Emperor Constantine. This is likely why Mani was erased from history, and cannabis was erased along with him.

The word “Christ” originally meant “anointed” and was a reference to anyone treated with the sacred oil of Moses. But hundreds of years after the fact, the words Jesus and Christ were fused together, and could have had their origins in Zeus Krishna.

Remember when they laughed about Wikipedia? I can assure you the sections on Christianity are well-researched and edited, and abound with links to primary sources, making the trails so much easier to navigate.

You might as well call the Internet the Jesus Channel because it’s so packed with documentation and debate concerning every possible nook and cranny. Except one. That one dark hole in the center of the Jesus story.

Meet James the Just, first Bishop of Jerusalem, (above) which makes him the first Pope in Christendom. Wonder why almost nobody heard of him or celebrates his name? There’s a reason for that, and it’s because he led the movement that was sweeping through the Jewish ghetto in Jerusalem. James didn’t eat meat, drink alcohol, cut his hair, respect Roman authority.

But he did respect Jewish authority, for James and his congregation all had to be circumcised in order to get baptized, as they considered themselves a Hebrew sect and not a completely separate religion.

Any sick among the new inductees would have been treated with their holy anointing oil, whose primary ingredient was cannabis, which was having a miraculous success rate. James was a conservative who respected the ancient ways of Moses and the prophets, and rejected the materialism of Rome. He was leading a non-violent movement, family friendly, and not a bunch of gangsters plotting a government coup. I don’t believe James and his crew were getting high on cannabis, at least not on a daily basis, but I could be wrong.

Paul was a relative of King Herod, a Roman citizen, and he led a goon squad on a mission to wipe Christianity off the face of the earth. Despite the oppression, or maybe because of it, the First Christian Church of Jerusalem took off like a rocket.

Paul conspired with Peter to seize control of the church from within, and they do this through the Council in Jerusalem in the year 50. In the New Testament version of this epic meeting, Peter submits a proposal saying gentiles do not need to be circumcised to be baptized and James accepts idea and makes it dogma, thereby dividing Christianity and Judaism into two separate religions.

I would submit to you it is far more likely that the vegetarian James, who likely had hair past his waist as a razor had never touched his head, rejected this proposal and kept his church firmly within the realms of Judaism. Meanwhile, Peter had to be put in protective custody because everyone was so outraged by this proposal. Fortunately, Peter is rescued by an angel and whisked off to Rome, and anytime a magic story like that appears, I suspect some real story is being covered-up.

Paul had a vision of meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus, was blinded and then healed by a Christian and converted.  But soon he had to flee to Rome, because nobody in Jerusalem believed this conversion.

Paul eventually met up with the incredibly talented Luke, who will write a third of the New Testament in highly literate Greek, while blending Egyptian and Greek art styles into the first Christian art movement. The bulk of the rest of the New Testament are letters written by Paul discussing various aspects of church dogma.

Soon after his Judgment in Jerusalem, James was lured to a parapet under guise of speaking to the multitudes and then pushed off, stoned and battered with a bat used to beat-out dirty laundry, sparking some of the worst riots the city has ever seen.  When the population cannot be brought back under control, the Romans were forced to destroy the Temple and banish all Jews from Judea.

Think about it. Jesus crucified, no big deal, and no riots. James murdered, tear down the Temple and make the Jews homeless. The only way this makes sense is if Jesus never lived and was given human form 50 years after the fact.