Quote from Turok:
Been there, done that -- I've read the bible from cover to cover more than a dozen times and have committed close to 25 percent of it to memory.
Some Biblical scholars have concluded that I said only about 20% of the things the New Testament quotes me as saying.
Actually, its less than that.
The four popular gospels are actually novels.
They are cut-and-paste, virtually copied from earlier sources...then spiced to taste.
Matthew and Luke copied from the same source, and also copied from Mark.
Biblical scholarship assumes that if many sources say the same thing, it must be true. That doesn't fly when the earlier sources are the same, same and incorrect, or "lost" after they've been changed in translation.
Though Mark is the oldest, it is second in order that the series start more like a novel. So Matthew and a long genealogy tracing my heritage back to King David was put first.
This was to emphasize a fulfillment of a prophecy regarding a virgin birth. But actually, the prophecy only states that "a young woman shall give birth to him". It never said that a virgin will give birth. And had such a birth occurred, it ironically would have nullified the genealogy, because it is traced back through Joseph.
These are novels.
Besides that, the New Testament is a continuation of the Old in it's basic thought paradigm.
As the road was paved from the Old to the New, my message was paved over and flattened by heavy machinery.
The novels that became the Gospels were written 20 to 60 years after the letters of Paul.
Paul married his understanding of the Old Testament with some of the ideas my early followers had floated, and came up with a New Sacrifice and the resurrection Of The Body. He also carried over the concept of a God of Wrath, and a license to both Bless and Curse out of the same mouth.
Thomas, and a few others suspected correctly, that resurrection is of the mind and has nothing to do with the body. But this was rejected by Paul and the emerging church. Thomas was marginalized. The emphasis on mind awakening-resurrecting was carried forth by the gnostics. As gospels were destroyed, the works of Thomas and of gnostics were buried side by side for protection.
As a result, you will find that what passes for Christianity involves:
A. A God who makes all of time, space and form...including bodies.
B. The reality of guilt
C. The idea that some guilt is unforgivable.
D. Time limits regarding choice.
E. The idea that guilt can be vicariously expiated by sacrifice.
F. A New Earth for resurrected - "glorified" - bodies to live on eternally under obedience to Godly rule.
None of these concepts are anything I taught. They are carry-overs from Old notions repackaged for sale to a New audience.
All of them lended themselves to popularity, and so to usefulness in the hands of emperors beginning with Constantine.
As you read the New Testament, remember that I told my disciples that there were many things they would understand later...because they were not yet ready to follow me wholeheartedly. In time, some of them are still working out their salvation.
When you consider that salvation is for a mind gone mad, you can easily understand what seems to have gone wild...and also easily forgive those who made efforts despite thier handicaps.
There is no sacrifice that will mend a mad mind. Rather, sacrifice is what drives minds mad. Mercy and peace restore a mind to sanity.
The New Testament is an ambiguous symbol that is not readily understood. Only the Holy Spirit Himself could possibly reinterpret it for it to have any meaning whatsoever. And having done so, it is not recognizable to those who cherish the above list of erroneous fallacies. But it will be recognizable to those who love the truth.
Remember this: All ignorance is actually repression that exists in order to produce a particular effect for a specific reason.
The world itself emerges out of just this type of ignorance. Can you expect it's institutions to be unlike their father?
In such a world, I work "underground".
Jesus
