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This website is devoted to the study of the varying concepts of "the Christ" as held down through history; even since Egypt. That might be a surprise to many (that we find the concept of "the Christ" as far back as Egypt) but I assure you that this will not be the only surprise in store for the diligent student of this website. I will share truths and knowledge with the reader which will help him see for himself that the concept of "the Christ" as taught in the earliest New Testament collected by Marcion, the Gnostic, differs dramatically for the concept of "the Christ" in Rome's later refutation of the "Gnostic Christ" of Gnosticism which we find in today's New Testament. This means that Rome's Second New Testament alters and changes the concept of "the Christ" of the earliest New Testament and the religious beliefs held by many of the earliest Christians and followers of Jesus. "Impossible" you say? Well just wait until we have finished our analysis of and reconstruction of the earliest New Testament (called the First New Testament in this site for clarity) and done the necessary studies to familiarize ourselves with the Gnostic understanding of "the Christ" and follow the alteration of this concept by later Western Christianity with its refutation of it in their later alteration of and additions to this earlier New Testament (called the Second New Testament in this site for clarity). Let me remind you that it is this altered New Testament which deviates from the earliest New Testament which we as Christians and followers of Jesus have inherited today.This should make you seriously wonder if we have been taught correctly about "the Christ" and its implications for Jesus of Nazareth.
It is possible to come to the truth and received the needed answers concerning just who Paul was writing about in his authentic epistles that comprised the First New Testament. Today we benefit like no other time in being able to consult the evidences presented from archeology, biblical manuscripts, biblical language, anthropology, church history, and comparative religion in helping us piece together the picture correctly concerning just who this "Christ" was that we find on the pages of the First New Testament and the transformation of "the Christ" which we find in the Second New Testament.
But first let us get started on how this information was discovered and then get our feet wet as we begin to look into Gnosticism and their understanding of God, the Universe, and Salvation; remembering all the while that it was these Gnostics who first saw fit to collect the documents that comprised the First New Testament in the first place.
Blessings...Craig Lyons M.Div.
Bet Emet's Pilgrimage: The Recovery Of Lost Truths Concerning The New Testament
It is impossible to understand Gnosticism and its theology which lie on the pages of today's New Testaments, which goes without detection by most, unless we become familiar with its religious tenants. This is important for several reasons. You will be startled at what you will find if you approach the New Testament possessing such knowledge concerning Gnosticism. Once possessing this knowledge of Gnosticism and then undertaking a comparison of the documents that first comprised the "First New Testament" of Marcion (140-150 C.E.) with the "Second New Testament" of Rome (180 C.E.) which follows later you will see for yourself how industrious and diligent efforts were made by Rome to change these earliest views of the Gnostics concerning "the Christ" and Jesus. We will come to find that the Gnosticism and the Gnostic "Savior" of the First New Testament has lost its allegorical understanding and presentation completely in the Second New Testament. Now in place of the Gnostic Savior we have a "historical-physical savior" through Rome's adulteration of the Gnostic First New Testament. Without understanding thoroughly the concepts of the "Logos," "Sophia" and "the Christ" as held by the earliest Christians and as reflected in the First New Testament before its revision by Irenaeus and others that come later then you will never come to see the truth about Jesus let alone God and His true plan of salvation given to the ancients. So we have to begin there. Once we come to understand these Gnostic religious concepts then the First New Testament of Marcion and the writings of Paul will become much clearer as to their intent and true "allegorical" message and presentation of "the Christ" that is lost to millions today.
Having been introduced in the above introduction to many of the religious tenants of Gnosticism and the religious beliefs of the earliest Christians concerning "the Christ" then it behooves us to look a little more deeply into just a few more concepts such as "the Logos," "the Sophia," and "the Christ" since these ideas will be later associated with both the allegorical Joshua-Jesus as well as the mythological historical Jesus by many of his followers. It again is extremely important that since the First New Testament was changed regarding the understanding of these concepts (whereby their "allegorical" understanding of "the Christ" was "literalized") we then need to accurately understand these religious concepts as understood by the Ancients who gave them to us if we are ever to be able to pick up the Second New Testament today and ever hope to arrive at the truth concerning a supposed historical Jesus of Nazareth. Now let us begin at looking at the "Logos" as it has been understood since the beginning of time by mankind as far back as Egypt. We will find that these same "religious perceptions" were carried down throughout history as they expressed Eternal Divine Concepts of God since the beginning of mankind. Failure to understand these concepts guarantee that we will not be able to come to the truth concerning "the Christ".
Up to now we have only scratched the surface of Christian "literalism". Now we plunge ourselves into the thick of it as we come to how how this "literal" interpretation of the Gnostic "allegorical Christ" developed towards the send of the second century. This began as a minor cult with a unique claim that Jesus has literally lived out the Pagan myth of the dying and resurrecting Godman. Literalists fabricated a lineage to link themselves back to the supposed disciples and forged letters of Paul to make him appear anti-Gnostic (Pastoral Epistles). Patterning much of the historical Jesus around the pattern of the Persian Godman Mithras Christian literalism would gradually grow into the official religion of the Roman Empire by the fourth century. With the full might of the Roman state behind them, Christian Literalist waged a barbaric war against Paganism and Christian Gnosticism, destroying temples and burning libraries and historical records of these movements along with dissidents, and plunging Western civilization into the Dark Ages. The legacy of Christian liberalism has not only been the lost of precious Ancient truths concerning God and His Christ but the misquided obsession with the historical Jesus which can be shown to today to be a mythological figure who appears to mankind in different ways according to the understanding of the individual based upon prior teachings (both good and not so good). In the end this Christ is the indwelling Spirit of God which lives within us and eternally call us to Himself. Now the facts and evidence of this historical deception by Roman Catholicism follows.
It is assumed that by now the reader has a fairly good grasp of Gnosticism and many of its religious beliefs. This will be necessary in analyzing Marcion and his First New Testament that espoused and taught such beliefs about "the Christ." Now let us look at the man and his religious beliefs and how they were reflected in his collection of Pauline literature and the earliest written gospel which makes up his First New Testament.
If you have been diligent to study with us this far in this website then by now you have a very good perspective and knowledge base regarding Gnosticism, Christian Gnosticism, the authentic Paul and his theology, and that later changes will be made to Marcion's First New Testament along with the existing Pauline writings. On top of that there will be creative theological invention at work in Rome's refutation of the Gnostic Christ. This will be accomplished by forgery, manipulation, addition, deletion, and outright invention of Scripture in the names of the "pillars" of the Jerusalem Church as well as Paul by proto-Roman Catholics which take control of the direction of the "Christian Church" in the second and later centuries. It is time we look not so much as "what as in the First New Testament" as we have already done this above; rather it is now time to look at "what was not in the First New Testament" in order to see how "theology" was created much later by the likes of Irenaeus and other textual forgers that will come later. This study will reveal what books and epistles that comprised the First New Testament and which were not in it as well. This study will enlighten us to what theologies are really "mixed" in the First New Testament and how this understanding of "the Christ" was altered later by Rome in their "Second New Testament".
Attention: On many of our articles the "E-mail" address is wrong; no longer "bennoah1@airmail.net"....time will not allow for changing them all....so if you wish to E-mail us please use the bottom "correct" E-mail.
please contact us...we would love to help you with your studies...Shalom...and Baruch HaShem
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