Featured
From Moses to Chicago
by Katherine Frisk, via The Phaser.com:
With all the hoopla surrounding the pro and anti Bible bashing brigade, in all the pro and anti religion sites and comments across the net, what is buried and forgotten in these piles of contrary, conflicting and often times derogatory arguments, is the fundamental basis in both the Old and the New Testaments that is conveniently swept aside.
Whether you believe in “God”or not, whether you think the Biblical stories are true or false, the central theme is always forgotten in a stream of critical analysis, archaeological evidence and bias from all quarters. The bottom line is this: we are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
The Bible was complied by joining together four main sources. The E, J, R and P documents. These in turn plagiarised a lot of material from Ethiopia, Egypt and Sumeria, transposing many stories into a Hebrew context.
Today we do the same thing. Take the British film, Death at a Funeral for example. This was reworked into an African American setting. Often the original intent is changed, especially when a book is brought to the screen, and does not stick to the story as it was originally conceived, but takes on the culture and the bias of it’s newly adopted producers and audience.
A contemporary example would be a book compiled 1,000 years from now, explaining the United States from four different points of view, including narratives from other parts of the world which have become integrated into American culture. Someone finds the fragments of each, puts it altogether, sometimes even combining a paragraph from one text into another and for the next 2,000 years everyone is trying to figure it out. Eventually some scholar defines four main threads. The Ron Paul version, the Sheldon Adelson version, the Carlo Maria Viganò version and the Chris Hedges version. You get the picture.
And then maybe there are other works, like Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, The Colour Purple etc, that might not been included in the great Book and considered works of mere fiction. As we have discovered since the discovery of Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi texts, a lot has been “conveniently”left out of our Bibles.
If we strip the Biblical story to it’s bare bones, what we are left with? What is the fundamental basis in both Testaments that is unique and that is conveniently skipped over in all the ifs, ands and buts?
It is a story of a people, the Hebrews, who lived in an area they called Israel, named after the patriarch Jacob who was also known as Israel and the father of the twelve tribes.
God aside, it is about two men who set up a political system that was unheard of in the annuals of history, and to a certain extent still isn’t today. The basis of this system is what the Founding Fathers of the United States of America fully understood and used as a template for the Constitution.
Israel, as envisioned by Mosis and Yeshua (Joshua), the great grandson of Joseph, was a country with no king, no high priest, no temple and no hierarchical structure. When Yeshua commanded the waters of the Jordan to part and led the Hebrews into the promised land, he established a Republic, a Federation of twelve tribes who each had equal standing. There was no king. No single individual was considered a son of God and no single individual was given a divine right to rule. Instead of building a Temple like the many Temples that line the Nile River or the Temples built in Sumeria or even India for that matter, Israel worshiped on the Mountain, Mount Gerizim, and their temple was the sky. The movement of the sun by day and the movement of the stars by night. No man made structure, no false Gods made of stone, only the Heaven above.
Each tribe had their Rabbis, the holders of the law, all considered to be equals. Above them were the Judges, the High Priests also known as the Kohan, regarded as first amongst equals. The first Judge of Israel was Deborah, a woman. Women were not excluded, if anything they were honoured and took a leading role both in the home and outside of it. The Sabbath meal on the most Holy day as the sun goes down, led by the mother of the house, is a prime example. It is she who blesses the bread and the wine. Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper depicts a woman sitting at the right hand side of Yeshua (Jesus). It is a reflection of the Biblical passage in Proverbs 8. and in keeping with Yeshua’s Hebrew heritage. From the point of psychology, the right hand side of the brain is considered to be the feminine spiritual side, the left hand side of the brai is considered t be the masculine logical side. The sides of the brain cross over, the right controlling the left hand side of the body, the left controlling the right hand side of the body. When we look at Leonardo’s painting the brain automatically flips the women on the left in our visual perspective to the right hand side of the brain and the man to the right of her to the left hand side of the brain.
The most important part of this political system designed by Moses and Yeshua, is a right to a free and fair trial. If someone was accused of breaking the law, they were entitled to a defence, to speak for themselves and to have witnesses to speak on their behalf. The law was applicable to all, no matter how rich or poor or powerful that person might be. Equal Justice for all. Both Isaiah and Jeremiah speak of a time when the law will be written in everyone’s hearts and minds and nobody will have to teach his neighbour, because it will be common knowledge.
This system eventually became corrupted. And as the Bible puts it, the Hebrews broke the Covenant they had made with “God.” They demanded a monarchy, built a temple, installed a high priest , taxed the people and threw aside the most important part of the law. The right to a self defence, witnesses to speak on their behalf and a fair and just trial.
A perfect example of how far Israel had fallen and how far removed they had become from the Convenant can be encapsulated in the story of Alexander Jannaeus, not only a King of Judea, but also a high priest of the Temple. Like Herod Anitpas after him who married Herodias, Jannaeus married his brother’s widow.
“Josephus reports that Jannaeus brought 800 rebels to Jerusalem and had them crucified, and had the throats of the rebel’s wives and children cut before their eyes as Jannaeus ate with his concubines.”
It is highly likely that many of these “rebels”were the Essenes from Qumram who opposed the Sadducess. Some Biblical scholars are of the opinion that in order to tell a story without attracting assassination, the story was often set in a different time period. Moreover, it is common knowledge that people will relate to an event more readily if the event is personalised and reduced to the story of one individual. In the Old Testament, The Wisdom of Solomon chapters 2 and 3, if cross correlated with the Qumram Texts, the Essenes and the story of Alexander Jannaeus who was both King and High Priest, is the story of persecution and crucifixtion of the Essene Righteous, and the Teachers of Righteousness in a manner that totally defies the law. Some scholars are of the belief that Yeshua (Jesus) was an Essene and his story was told in another time frame with the 800 crucified compressed into the story of one man. Hence the descrepancies between Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and so far, ( you never know what might turn up next) the lack of evidence for an historical “Jesus.” This does sound very familiar:
Wisdom of Solomon Chapter 2: 11 – 24
11 Let our strength be the law of justice: for that which is feeble is found to be nothing worth.
12 Therefore let us lie in wait for the righteous; because he is not for our turn, and he is clean contrary to our doings: he upbraideth us with our offending the law, and objecteth to our infamy the transgressings of our education.
13 He professeth to have the knowledge of God: and he calleth himself the child of the Lord.
14 He was made to reprove our thoughts.
15 He is grievous unto us even to behold: for his life is not like other men’s, his ways are of another fashion.
16 We are esteemed of him as counterfeits: he abstaineth from our ways as from filthiness: he pronounceth the end of the just to be blessed, and maketh his boast that God is his father.
17 Let us see if his words be true: and let us prove what shall happen in the end of him.
18 For if the just man be the son of God, he will help him, and deliver him from the hand of his enemies.
19 Let us examine him with despitefulness and torture, that we may know his meekness, and prove his patience.
20 Let us condemn him with a shameful death: for by his own saying he shall be respected.
21 Such things they did imagine, and were deceived: for their own wickedness hath blinded them.
22 As for the mysteries of God, they knew them not: neither hoped they for the wages of righteousness, nor discerned a reward for blameless souls.
23 For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity.
24 Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that do hold of his side do find it.
Moreover, Chapter 3 begins with the following verse:
“But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them. ”
The New Testament in turn, is the story of a man who turned his back on the monarchy; whipped the money lenders in the temple; accused the Pharisees, Sadducees and the High priest of teaching lies and falsehood; was arrested through trickery; brought before an unjust court in the middle of the night; underwent trial by ordeal with no witnesses to speak on his behalf and did not have a fair hearing; was whipped and tortured and whose death was determined by a frenzied crowd of people on a whim, with no hard evidence having been brought against him.
Shades of Charlie Hebdo and the Boston Bombing. If it was today, Judas would claim that he had found Yeshua’s ID at the scene of the crime, and they would shoot him before he could talk, the real perpetrators having engineered the whole scenario to frame him in a false flag operation. Or his motor car would crash into a tree, a la Michael Hastings!
Yeshua was accused of calling himself “King of the Jews,”a title which he never gave himself. When asked by Pilot if he was the King of the Jews, Yeshua replied, “The words are yours.” It is clear from Christian scripture that he would never have supported a monarchy as this would be breaking the Covenant.
Also see: Matthew 4: 8 – 11
8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
11 Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
Throughout the Gospel of John, he writes that Yeshua said, “The Jews say, but I tell you..” This implies that Yeshua did not follow the Babylonian- Judaic-Talmudic version of the Hebrew religion, but rather was a devout follower of the Torah. We find the same discrepancy today between Torah Jews and Zionist Jews.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlqXwGfS_CQ
When asked by the Samaritan woman at the well whether we should worship on the Mountain meaning Mount Gerizim or at the temple in Jerusalem, Yeshua replied that we should worship in our hearts and in our minds. By doing so we free ourselves from time, place and ritual and believe in a timeless fashion. As Isaiah and Jeremiah wrote, it shall be written in their hearts and in their minds and nobody shall teach his neighbour, for they shall know the law, from the least of them to the greatest.
In the last ten years we have seen the horrors of Abu Ghraib, Guantanimo Bay, whistle blowers finally lifting the lid on CIA Black sites around the world and more recently disappearing civilians in Chicago while the National Defense Authorisation Act (NDAA) has been signed into law.
You do not have to search for the Anti-Christ, it is staring you in the face, whether you are a Christian or not, whether you believe in a “God”or not. If you have not seen this panel discussion with Amy Goodman on RT , it is well worth watching, and if you have seen it, it is worth watching again.
While injustice is carried out by the people of the land of the free and the brave, the land the Founding Fathers established with a Constitution that is slowly but surely being torn to shreds, one man who every single Corporate owned Western media outlet loves to hate, had this to say:
“Am I a ‘pure democrat’? (laughs) Of course I am. Absolutely. The problem is that I’m all alone, the only one of my kind in the whole world. Just look at what’s happening in America, it’s terrible—torture, homeless people, Guantanamo, people detained without trial or investigation. And look at Europe—harsh treatment of demonstrators, rubber bullets and tear gas used in one capital after another, demonstrators killed on the streets….. I have no one to talk to since Gandhi died.”
As Nelson Mandela said, it is a long walk to freedom. From Moses to Chicago… to?