September 25, 2009, 8:21 am by dc-agape.

John Chapter 14

This chapter stresses two things: love and obedience.  Jesus continually repeats that YHWH and he are inseparable, and indicates that once someone becomes a Christian (disciple of Jesus) they too are inseparable from YHWH and Jesus.  Jesus even promises a Spirit of truth to help his future disciples to follow his commandments.  And he makes one guarantee that has rarely been proven:

John 14:13-14 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.  You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

Odd how this guarantee is that any pray (that glorifies the Father) will be answered!  Yet how often do prayers get a “No” as an answer.  It is pretty clear that Jesus had just promised that there would be no answers of “No”.  Yet today, Christians assume that this is a valid response from YHWH.  But this Tradition of Man is not valid and it is not within the teachings or commandments of Jesus!

And what is this chapter’s major theme?  This is that those who love Jesus will obey everything that Jesus taught (not Paul, not James, not Luther, and definitely not the Pope).  And we only have four surviving documents of these teachings, of which the Synoptic Gospels are almost complete duplicates.  I find it very suspicious that we only have 2 documents, as a result, that describe Jesus’ actual words…were there not at least 11 Apostles and untold number of disciples?  Why do we not hear what they have to say about their personal experience with Jesus?  Has not Jesus’ teachings been tampered with (destroyed) by the canonization of only the Synoptic Gospels and John’s Gospel?  The Book of Acts is the only other book that comes close to directly describing the teachings of Jesus.  Why is 66.6% of the NT written by the “Apostle” Paul?  Why is it that the rest of the NT does not quote Jesus?  Yet to love Jesus is to obey Jesus…which means focusing on what Jesus taught!  Why do today’s Christians not focus on what Jesus taught?  This was his last desire to his disciples that they would love and obey his teachings…should not the modern disciples of Jesus also obey this desire?  Would not Christendom be one unified Church if this was the case?  Wouldn’t the non-believer know that YHWH existed if the Church actually loved (and obeyed) Jesus’ teachings? 

Do notice right away that the words “way”, “truth” and “life” were not capitalized.  This tells us something as well.  What this tells us is that Jesus is not the “Truth” nor the “Way” nor even the “Life”.  The traditions of men have changed the meanings of Jesus’ words from words that mean something spiritual to words that must be taken literally.  These three words (way, truth, and life) only apply to the disciples of Jesus, not to the world in general.  I know that my “Christian” readers will not grasp the difference, but the un-capitalized word is meaningful only to the followers of Jesus, while the Capitalized words are imperatives (related to all humankind and the universe).  Jesus did not use the word as capitals and they are not imperatives, they are specific to his followers and only his followers.

But what should we make of this Spirit of truth?  Other places it is referred to as the Holy Spirit.  Jesus here teaches the meaning of this concept.  This Spirit will:

John 14:26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

This Counselor will only be sent to those who love Jesus, which implies those who obey Jesus.  So this crap about “praying Jesus into your heart” and being saved is only a Tradition of Men.  It does not save your soul!  Only by loving Jesus and obeying his teachings can one be truly a follower of Jesus (a Christian) – Jesus own words.

To the non-believer this begins to make sense out of the chaos that Christianity presents.  It is obvious that only one Church exists (not 45,000).  It is becomes obvious why it is hard to tell the difference between disciples of Jesus and Christians.  It becomes clear that today’s Christian has elected to follow the Traditions of Men instead of the teaching of Jesus (66.6% of the NT being written by Paul).  And, finally, it becomes all too clear why prayers can be answered with “No”, because they are not prays of the faithful!  Christianity is just a religion, being a disciple of Jesus is something completely different.

Posted in Love, Gospel of John, Holy Spirit, Traditions of Men, Readings | Print | 3 Comments »

August 21, 2009, 7:26 am by dc-agape.

My apologies for not hitting publish yesterday!!!

John Chapter 4:1 – 42

Having read the entire section about the Samaritans, I cannot find a good place to break the posts.  I will attempt to keep this section short but this is a long section with a number of topics of interest.  The first interesting thing is this verse:

John 4:1-2 The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples.

This simple verse has extreme consequences to modern Christians, which I will attempt to touch upon shortly.  One of the greatest questions is whether the Samaritans are Jews or are they not?  It is quite a complete topic and I will most likely address it in a full post, but for this story, and for Jesus’ ministry in general, was Jesus biased (racist)?  The final topic that I want to bring up is the “harvest”.  For Jesus uses the concept of sowing and reaping to describe what his disciples are to do.

From John 4:1-2 notice that Jesus has followers and all of them are called disciples.  All the disciples were baptized.  And all the disciples were baptizing!  It was not just the Apostles (leaders) that were doing the baptizing.  This leads to a very important question: why, in modern Christianity, do only the religious leaders baptize? And yes, I know that a very small percent of churches allow others to baptize.  How did this Tradition of Man seep into the Church?  And is this Tradition proof that Christianity is now riddled with teachings that are not from Jesus?  How many more Traditions of Men are allowed to remain in the Church, just because “this is how it has always been”?  More importantly, how does this weaken the connection between YHWH and humans, when Traditions of Men interfere with YHWH’s desire and Jesus’ teachings?  To say the least the responsibility of the disciples (not just the Apostles) is worthy of a Biblical Topics post section, and I still plan on getting to it.

The situation with the Samaritans is very intriguing.  In almost every case Jesus is open to the Samaritans (John 4 Luke 9:52, Luke 10:25-37) he treats them just like the Jews of his time!  But for one odd verse:

Matt 10:5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans.

Yet we know that the Samaritans were Jews. In fact, they were more Israelite than the Jews.  You see, they were the ones that stayed in Israel (Northern Kingdom – 10 tribes) during the Assyrian Exile.  If intermarrying gentiles disqualifies you from being a Jew, then how can those that were exiled be considered Jews (during their depth of “sin” you know damn well they were intermarrying the Assyrians or later the Babylonians).  The Samaritans separated from the Jews in 880BCE.  Right about the time that all the newer OT books were being written.  So of course the Samaritans did not use the same Books of the OT that the “proper” Israelites used – they didn’t need to!  It would seem that Jesus was not the racist, no it was Matthew (or at least the author of the Gospel of Matthew) that was the racist!  Why else would the author of the Gospel of Matthew include a passage that is in direct opposition to Jesus’ own teachings?  For it certainly seems that Jesus attempted to teach that the Samaritans were equal to the Jews.

I do want to cover the “harvest”.  Jesus has clearly saved an entire Samaritan town (of Sychar) or at least a large number of the inhabitants.  During this episode, Jesus uses it to teach his disciples about what he calls the “harvest”.   He explains to his disciples that they are not just sowing the seeds but at the same time harvesting what others have worked so hard to bring to fruit.  Who exactly did the work that the first disciples will be harvesting?  It certainly cannot be them, for Jesus tells them that the harvest is already ready!  Some say that it was John the Baptist and his disciples, but this is a rather difficult argument.  For John’s ministry did not completely cover all of Israel.  Others claim that it was the work of the earlier prophets, but this is also difficult to interpret as the truth.  If this was the case then the Samaritans would not be ready for “harvest”.  That then leaves only one source: YHWH’s spirit.  If it is the Holy Spirit (I reaaallly need to get to this Biblical Topic) is the source of the sowing for the “harvest”…only one result is possible.  Freewill does not exist, for it takes the Holy Ghost (a supernatural agent) to prepare humans for the “harvest”.

Editorial Note (Aug 22, 2009):

Racism does not have to be directed at all other cultures.  It can be directed at one specific culture.  This is exactly how the Jews directed their racism to the Samaritans.

Posted in Holy Spirit, Gospel of John, Traditions of Men, Disciples, Freewill, Readings | Print | 10 Comments »

August 17, 2009, 8:10 am by dc-agape.

John Chapter 2

In reading this chapter two of Jesus’ most endearing moments are described.  At the beginning of the chapter Jesus helps wedding guest get even more drunk by one of his “miracles”.  The end of the chapter describes how he was already in Jerusalem!  The wedding scene is only recorded by John, yet the Temple explosion is recorded by all four Gospels.  Yet the Synoptic Gospels put it at a much later time in Jesus’ ministry. 

The Wedding scene occurs only a couple of days after Jesus’ baptism.  And we do know that the Baptism of Jesus was near Jerusalem (Matt 3:1).  It happens near the Sea of Galilee, and because Jesus’ mother encourages her son to perform the “miracle”…yet we know that from the Synoptic Gospels that Mary was not fully on board until much later in Jesus’ ministry.  In fact:

Mark 3:21 When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”

Further in Mark we read that his mother is one of those that came to “take charge of him”.  Why on the third day of Jesus ministry would Mary support him and then after Jesus has appointed his twelve Apostles call him crazy?  As I have said before some temporal errors are to be expected from “eyewitness”, but this one seems to be erroneously out of place.  One of my commenters has ask the question “why not (allow these to be different accounts)”?  If you know my previous posts you would know that “Why not” is not an acceptable answer to any question that I ask.  It is similar to “why”, and leaves nothing answered.  It also requires that I just “believe” you to be accurate, which I have no reason to assume.  Further, it leaves no room to investigate the root of the question.  Finally, it assumes that I cannot understand even if you told me…basically insulting my intelligence.  When I ask a legitimate question I request an honest answer.  “I don’t know” is much more honest than “why not” or “just believe”. 

In the second part of this chapter I have already covered this story in my posts on the Gospel of Mark.  Throughout the Synoptic Gospel Jesus did not enter Jerusalem until his final phase of his ministry, but for John he rapidly moves from Jerusalem (his baptism) to the Sea of Galilee and back to Jerusalem in just days.  My same commenter has requested that I assume that this trip can be done in one day (65 miles [104 km] minimum – at 4 miles/hour [6.4km/hour]).  This is at least a two day walk.  This time John does not give exact dates, he only says that a few days later Jesus heads to Jerusalem.  Unless Jesus clears the temple in Jerusalem twice, one at the beginning of his ministry and one near his death, one of the Gospel stories is out of place.  Human error can be used to explain this, but when you add the “Holy Ghost’s inspiration” should not the stories be more accurate?  Why would two men (or more) working in the same ministry (Jerusalem) not be able to collaborate their stories?  This is a unique opportunity to see the development of the NT doctrine.  The Gospel of John was written in a vacuum that did not include the Synoptic Gospels, or otherwise they would have been similar.

The ending of the Temple scene is expanded in the Gospel of John beyond what the Synoptic Gospels describe.  This is interesting in itself, because it shows John’s preferences for Jesus’ more radical teachings.  This closing of the Temple scene is only described by John.  In it Jesus uses a form of double speak which leaves his listeners believing that he is describing the physical Temple.  Yet hindsight is 20/20 and we know that he was describing his own body.  During this time in Jerusalem Jesus began doing miracles and we are told that many people believed in him.  Is it not odd that the other Gospel leaves this story until much later in Jesus’ ministry and leave out two important details (his promise to rebuild and that he made many converts)?  Each of the Synoptic Gospels does record his miracles in the Jerusalem Temple, but instead of converting the people in Jerusalem Jesus only amazed the masses and made the leaders of the Jews angry.

From an Atheist perspective both these stories indicate that the Gospel of John was not written by the same group of Christians as the Synoptic Gospels.  Both stories contradict the Synoptic Gospels both temporal and in physical locations.  If the Gospel of John was written after the Synoptic Gospels, would he not have had them as source materials?  Why did he feel the need to describe things in a different order and different attitudes towards Jesus?  If, on the other hand, the Gospel of John was written before the Synoptic Gospels, then the same questions apply to these gospels.  Only if we are already seeing two different churches do these dissimilarities begin to make sense.  The believers that remained in Jerusalem (the Gospel of John) and those that moved to Rome (the Synoptic Gospels) did have differences.  It is obvious that those in Rome won the struggle for supremacy and have influenced Christian doctrine ever since.  Yet it was the eyewitnesses that stayed in Jerusalem (the Apostles), the group that moved to Rome were lead by Paul.  True near the end of his life Peter moved to Rome but that was after the power shift had occurred.  Could it be possible that Paul took over the religion and changed it from what Jesus taught to what he thought Jesus taught?  He had never met Jesus and only knew of his teachings by word of mouth (from the leaders of Judaism).  Could it be possible that Paul created the schism in Christianity that we see today as 40,000 denominations (most claiming that they are the only ones that are right)?

Posted in Gospel of John, Contradictions, Holy Spirit, Traditions of Men, Readings | Print | 10 Comments »

March 16, 2009, 9:12 am by dc-agape.

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Codex 1, Tractate 2, 2:23 – 6:20

This section of the Apocryphon of James begins with Jesus telling the twelve apostles that he is about to leave.  A conversation about how to enter heaven ensues. During this brief dialog Jesus tells them that he cannot command anyone to enter heaven.  But he tells them that they must be full.  At this point we don’t get a sense of what they must be full of…. But Jesus requests both James and Peter to follow him to a different location.  They leave the other to continue the recording of their experiences during Jesus’ ministry.  The way it is written it does seem that the author was the apostle James and not the brother James.  But historians claim that it could not have been the apostle James because he died in Acts 12:3.  But if that was 42CE (Episcopal Church Lectionary), I don’t see how James the brother of Jesus was any more likely, he was killed in 62CE (Wikipedia).

I just came across a reference that explains that James the brother of Jesus was actually an apostle (Gal 1:18-19).  So there were more than twelve apostles.   Yet the author of this Holy Christian Document refers to himself as one of the twelve apostles.  So my comments about the turmoil in the 1^st century may have begun immediately after the death of Jesus. 

This is where the “secret” message that Jesus had for James and Peter begins.  Jesus starts off telling them that they have received mercy, should they not “desire” to be filled.  He also describes their situation as being drunk, where they should “desire” to be sober.  The narrative is quite broken, not due to damage to the Codex but just the way the topics are covered.  It is quite obvious that this was handed down verbally for some time before being recorded, or that many copy errors occurred before being set in the Nag Hammadi Codex.

The next topic covered by Jesus is how these men needed to remember that they have seen, spoken to, and listened to the Son of Man.  An aside, Jesus only spoke of himself as the Son of Man; other people called him the Christ, Son of God, and the Messiah.  Jesus then goes on to tell them that it is wretched to have seen Jesus.  Those who have not seen Jesus are blessed and have life compared to those who lived with Jesus!  At the end of this mishmash, Jesus again tells them to be full.  But he gives them a reason, he warns about a person who is coming who will mock them.

Peter then asks the big question…how can we be more full than we already are?  Jesus’ answer is worse than the most esoteric woo you can imagine.  He babbles about being full is good and being in want as bad, then switches the two around.  One point that does make sense in this woo is the need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. 

Jesus jumps to the next topic: suffering.  Jesus then warns them to stop loving the flesh.  He goes on to tell them that they will suffer the same things that he did.  He ends this with a powerful statement that all Christians should remember:

5:31-35 Scorn death, therefore, and take thought for life!  Remember my cross and death, and you will live!

He basically is warning them to remember his life and death and stop being afraid of death.  He goes on to tell them to “be seekers of death”!  This next passage must be repeated:

6:14-18 Verily I say unto you , none who fear death will be saved; for the kingdom of God belongs to those who put themselves to death.

Yet today, almost all “Christian” I know fear death!  They force people to stay on life support (Terry Schiavo) and themselves mourn when a loved one dies and goes to heaven. BTW, this is not the only source of material that warns Christians to seek death (death of sin or death of body).  Jesus finishes this section with this comment:

6:19-20 Become better than I; make yourselves the son of the Holy Spirit!

Here Jesus is not telling his disciples to imitate him.  He is telling them to be better than him!  But it returns to the Holy Spirit, Christians you must be filled with the Holy Spirit.  You can’t live by your bodily needs and wants. 

Gal 5:16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

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Posted in Holy Spirit, Apocryphon of James, The Nag Hammadi | Print | 5 Comments »