In the beginning of the Old Testament, it is written that the Israelites were living in the land of Canaan and they were worshiping the god “Yahweh.” The Israel god, “Yahweh,” came from the Canaanite god, “El.” At this time “Yahweh,” just like “El,” had a wife. “El’s” wife’s name was “Athirat” and “Yahweh’s” wife’s name was “Asherah.” There are several references in the Bible to a goddess named Asherah. Even as of the late twentieth century, archaeologists discovered intriguing inscriptions, dating to around 800 B.C., at two different Middle Eastern sites. The inscriptions were blessings in the name not just of Yahweh but of “his Asherah.” So how did our references to God of today not have a wife as he once use to? Where did she go?!?! The following text below will explain how God had his wife removed from the myths of religion today in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.
Now man's disobedience to God is a theme that runs right through the Bible. The Bible states that God made a covenant with Abraham and his seed. This covenant pact was that Abraham and all his seed would keep the Lord's commandments. In exchange God promised to protect all the children of Abraham. This covenant was renewed when Moses was given the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai around the year 1200 B.C. At that time the Israelites had long been held as slaves in Egypt, but with God's help they were led back to the land of Israel.
About 1,000 years before Christ, we hear of three great kings of Israel. The first was Saul, then came David, and after him came Solomon. Now under King David all the Israelites were united in one kingdom, and they experienced a period of political, military, and cultural glory.
When kings were chosen, they were anointed by the people. They thus received the title Messiah, which means "the anointed one." In a religious sense kings were looked upon as a go-between between God and his people. The king could therefore also be called the "Son of God" and the country could be called the "Kingdom of God."
But before long Israel began to lose its power and the kingdom was divided into a Northern kingdom (Israel) and a Southern kingdom (Judea). In 722 B.C. the Northern kingdom was conquered by the Assyrians and it lost all political and religious significance. The Southern kingdom fared no better, being conquered by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. Its temple was destroyed and most of its people were carried off to slavery in Babylon. This "Babylonian captivity" lasted until 539 B.C. when the people were permitted to return to Jerusalem, and the great temple was restored. But when the Israelites were defeated in battle and made slaves by the Babylonians, the Jewish Priests decided that the reason why Yahweh allowed them to be defeated was because they had him married to a woman.
Now for the rest of the period before the birth of Christ the Jews continued to live under foreign domination. An example would be the Roman Empire’s rule over Palestine in which the Jews lived. Palestine of course is the lands that use to be Canaan, Israel, Judea, etc. The question Jews constantly asked themselves was why the Kingdom of David was destroyed and why catastrophe after catastrophe rained down on them, for God had promised to hold Israel in his hand but the people had also promised to keep God's commandments. It gradually became widely accepted that God was punishing Israel for their disobedience.
From around 750 B.C. various prophets began to come forward preaching God's wrath over Israel for not keeping his commandments. One day God would hold a Day of Judgment over Israel. We call these types of prophecies, “Doomsday Prophecies.”
So to sum this all up, the children of Israel lived happily under King David, but later on when their situation deteriorated, their prophets began to proclaim that there would one day come a new king of the House of David. This "Messiah," or "Son of God," would "redeem" the people, restore Israel to greatness, and found a "Kingdom of God."
Now along comes Jesus.
In December 1945 an Arab peasant made an astonishing archeological discovery in Upper Egypt, there was a find near the town of Naj 'Hammádì at the Jabal al-Tárif, a mountain honeycombed with more than 150 caves. Originally natural, some of these caves were cut and painted and used as grave sites as early as the sixth dynasty, some 4,300 years ago.
Within one of these caves, some fifty-two texts were found from the early centuries of the Christian era, which included a collection of early Christian gospels previously unknown. The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Philip, The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, The Gospel of Truth and the Gospel to the Egyptians, which identifies itself as "the sacred book of the Great Invisible Spirit." Another group of texts consists of writings attributed to Jesus' followers, such as the Secret Book of James, the Apocalypse of Paul, the Letter of Peter to Philip, and the Apocalypse of Peter.
Within the Gospels of Thomas, Philip, and Mary Magdalene, it is stated that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and after the crucifixion of Jesus, these three went to Egypt. I want to remind the readers that at this time Alexandra, Egypt was the center of culture, education, scientific and philosophic knowledge. These three who really knew Jesus wrote in their gospels that Jesus was married to Mary and soon after arriving in Egypt, she bore a child who was called, Sarah, which means “Princess” in Hebrew.
Now in closing, as we remember, it was decided after being conquered by Babylon, God cannot have a wife so one has to ask if it is true that Jesus was married, did Mary have to be removed from the myth so that God could honor the covenant pact with Abraham. Would this ensure that all of his seed would then be keep the Lord's commandments so in exchange God’s promise to protect all the children of Abraham based on this aspect? Do Christian’s become outraged for simply posing the question that Jesus could have been married, is based on the Jewish Religion morphing a fact?
If Jesus was a fully-functioning and caring adult, as I suspect he was, then surely he had a wife, Mary of Magdala. Why would he not especially as it was a rarity for a man to remain unwed.
ReplyDeleteThe tribal god that the Jews created reflected the society which they created, and this was a male-dominant culture. There was no room in the myth for Mrs. God.
The so-called Fathers of the Church in the 3rd century were interested in forming a solid and invincible church and women were deemed too weak for leadership roles: only a man was capable of adequately defending it against the various forces competing with it.
Thus Mrs. Jesus was summarily written out of the canonical scriptures which had to do with the life of Jesus.
Our world suffers greatly because the goddess is missing. Until she is restored, the chaos and fighting among religions will continue to fester and eat away at humanity.
Many syncretistic religions formed gnosticism. Gnosticism was rivaling against Christianity and gnosticism held itself better religion as Christianity was. Word gnosticism comes from Greek word gnosis, which means knowledge. Gnosticism was various effects, for instance, some Gnostics taught that divinity can be achieved through unity of the man and woman. This thought led some Gnostics to reach for divinity through sexual intercourse between the man and woman. There existed also some Gnostics, who abstained from sexual intercourse. When we know the fact that Gnostics held Christians as their enemies and that Gnostics held themselves better as Christians and that Gnostics wanted to show in every way that Gnosticism was better as Christianity, so Gnostics made so called gnostic gospels were they twisted, slandered and misrepresented the real gospels. Gnostics went so far in this misrepresent that they wrote "new gospels" by faking the real gospels. In these faked gospels Gnostics wrote that Jesus Christ was an ordinary man who has a sexual relationship with Mary Magdalene.
ReplyDeletehttp://koti.phnet.fi/elohim/marymagdalene.html
"Mary Magdalene wasn't Jesus' wife" is in BOLD print early in the link presented above.
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting claim. And the proof for this statement is what? Speculation? Hope? Ruby slippers?
Only a person with specific knowledge, exact evidence can make such a claim. You have none, only speculation.
You castigate those Gnostic gospels to which you refer as 'fake.' Where's the proof that these were fake yet those in the canonical scripture were not?
Speculation is not proof.
Hello Juhani,
ReplyDeleteI want to first thank you for your input and it is welcomed.
Through my own research, (I have been to Italy and spent much time at the Vatican) theologian historians within the Vatican quietly acknowledge the plausibility and even concede that there was ultimately no real theological objection to a married Jesus. Whether Jesus was married or not, does not change the teaching message he was trying to pass to all of us.
Allow me to present the following as an example on how reality morphs into myth. I have also been to Bari, Italy were those of the first crusaders brought back from Constantinople the remains of St. Nicolas (the common name for Nicholas of Myra, a saint and Bishop of Myra in Lycia, part of modern-day Turkey). Because of the many miracles attributed to his intercession, he is also known as Nicholas the Wonderworker. He had a reputation for secret gift-giving, such as putting coins in the shoes of those who left them out for him, and thus became the model for Santa Claus. Of course if you mention St. Nicolas today, he is the commercial image that evolved over the last 150 years. I can show you, and I am sure you have seen for yourself, many examples of this image on church lawns during Christmas along with the nativity. I am confident should you ask someone today, you will get the latter description answer to your question than who the person really was from the years of 270 -334. St. Nicholas holds a much high esteemed within the Greek Orthodox Christian than he holds within the Roman Catholic Church. As a side point, one of the differences is that the Orthodox believed that Jesus became divine when he was crucified. Roman Catholic believes that Jesus was born divine. St. Nicolas was of the Orthodox belief.
You bring up the statement of, “the Gnostics went so far in this misrepresent that they wrote "new gospels" by faking the real gospels.” I cannot agree with this statement. It is hard for me to think that Philip, Thomas, and Mary intentionally passed on and faked gospels because they wanted to attack Christianity. Just like the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Gnostics gospels were written within the same time frame. If you review French history with reference to the Cathars you will find the inverse to be true. Catharism was a name given to a Christian religious sect with dualistic and Gnostic elements that appeared in the Languedoc region of France and other parts of Europe in the 11th century and flourished in the 12th and 13th centuries. Catharism had its roots in the Paulician (the writings of Paul) movement in Armenia and the Bogomils of Bulgaria with whom the Paulicians merged. You are somewhat correct if you alluded to the Gnostic’s who practiced birth control hence the term “Bugger” named after those from Bulgaria. (Unlike today, it originally did not mean anal sex.) Just like today, the Catholic Church then decided that trying to prevent pregnancy in the act of sexual intercourse is against their teachings. We can see the same teachings much like today with the Southern Baptist’s “Full Quiver Project.” For these differences in religious faith, the Roman Catholic Church at this time sanctioned the genocide of the Cathars in what was called the Albigensian Crusade.
A continuation:
ReplyDeleteAnother example how myths have morphed. The Greek founded city of Alexandra, Egypt was the intellectual and educational center of the Mediterranean at this time; that it should also not be surprising that the Egyptian virgin birth myth of Isis would be morphed and absorbed by the Christians relating to the Virgin Mary to make this new religion acceptable to the Greeks that Luke was writing his letters to. Luke was not an eyewitness to Christ but was just the traveling companion of Paul (Saul) on some of his latter missionary journeys. It should also be noted that Paul never knew Christ because he came along about 30 years after Christ. So Luke was writing in the time frame of about 60 years after the crucifixion of Christ.
The original twelve disciples were Simon who became “Peter”, Andrew, James son of Zebedee, his brother John, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeds, Simon the Zealot (also known as Simon the Canaanite) and Judas Iscariot. It should be interesting to note that none of these original twelve ever wrote or conveyed the story of a virgin birth for Christ.
The next generation of those who wrote of Christ’s life and their writings were put into the New Testament were Mark and Paul (Saul). Once again it is interesting to note that they never relayed the story of a virgin birth.
It was not until the third generation, Luke, after he was no longer traveling with Paul, began telling the story of the Gifts of the Magi, Bethlehem’s star in the sky above the manger, Virgin Mary and Joseph, etc, which oddly enough is almost a verbatim of Isis giving a virgin birth to Horus. Isis was visited by the spirit of the dead (an angle), Osiris, who entered her through her head and she conceived Horus, the son of the Sun God “Amun-Ra.”
Again, thank you again for your input as I have enjoyed this very much.