The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold
Acharya S is the pen name of D.M.Murdock, a proponent of the Jesus myth hypothesis. In 1999, she published her first book having the above title. In her Website http://truthbeknown.com/, she has given a six-part digest of the book under the title The Origins of Christianity and the Quest for the Historical Jesus Christ. The digest is studded with extensive footnotes counting up to 120.
Acharya S quotes several Christian scholars in support of her findings on how the myth of Jesus Christ was woven, scripted and “cobbled up” from the religious, spiritual and astronomical legends all around the world. Here is a compilation of the six-part digest in her Website that throws fresh light on the discussions about Jesus, Christ and the origins of Christianity here.
Hindus need to remember here that her views on Krishna and other Hindu gods, Hindu texts and legends is typically that of the western scholars–more flawed than correct, and tailored to suit their purpose on hand. Whatever the accuracy of her other views, the digest does give solid pointers to the sources of the Myth of Jesus Christ.
After disproving the historicity of Jesus in the first two parts, the author starts with the myth of Jesus from the third part. My take on some of the presentations I have given in italics. I have also underlined key points in the digest and boldfaced key names. In addition, I have broken up long paragraphs into shorter ones for easier reading.
The Characters
It is evident that there was no single historical person upon whom the Christian religion was founded, and that “Jesus Christ” is a compilation of legends, heroes, gods and godmen. There is not adequate room here to go into detail about each god or godman that contributed to the formation of the Jewish Jesus character; suffice it to say that there is plenty of documentation to show that this issue is not a question of “faith” or “belief.”
The truth is that during the era this character supposedly lived there was an extensive library at Alexandria and an incredibly nimble brotherhood network that stretched from Europe to China, and this information network had access to numerous manuscripts that told the same narrative portrayed in the New Testament with different place names and ethnicity for the characters.
A typical strain in the writings of a Christian Aplolgist is: if something is favourable to their line of argument, it is the work of God through his Son Jesus. In all other cases, it is the Devil is at work, scheming to overthrow man from the Kingdom of God that can be had only through the Son of God.–sd
Justin Martyr (c.100-165), one of the earliest Christian Apologists says in his First Apology (incidentally he knew nothing of the four cannonical gospels of NT–sd):
"ANALOGIES TO THE HISTORY OF CHRIST. And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter.
"For you know how many sons your esteemed writers ascribed to Jupiter: Mercury, the interpreting word and teacher of all; Aesculapius, who, though he was a great physician, was struck by a thunderbolt, and so ascended to heaven; and Bacchus too, after he had been torn limb from limb; and Hercules, when he had committed himself to the flames to escape his toils; and the sons of Leda, and Dioscuri; and Perseus, son of Danae; and Bellerophon, who, though sprung from mortals, rose to heaven on the horse Pegasus.
“For what shall I say of Ariadne, and those who, like her, have been declared to be set among the stars? And what of the emperors who die among yourselves, whom you deem worthy of deification, and in whose behalf you produce some one who swears he has seen the burning Caesar rise to heaven from the funeral pyre?”
In his endless apologizing, Justin reiterates the similarities between his godman and the gods of other cultures:
“As to the objection of our Jesus’s being crucified, I say, that suffering was common to all the aforementioned sons of Jove [Jupiter]… As to his being born of a virgin, you have your Perseus to balance that. As to his curing the lame, and the paralytic, and such as were cripples from birth, this is little more than what you say of your Aesculapius.”
And here comes the typical Christian strain, ‘the-devil-got-there-first’ syndrome!–sd
“It having reached the Devil’s ears that the prophets had foretold the coming of Christ, the Son of God, he set the heathen Poets to bring forward a great many who should be called the sons of Jove. The Devil laying his scheme in this, to get men to imagine that the true history of Christ was of the same characters the prodigious fables related of the sons of Jove.”
In his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, Martyr again admits the pre-existence of the Christian tale and then uses his standard, irrational and self-serving apology, i.e., “the devil got there first”:
"Be well assured, then, Trypho, that I am established in the knowledge of and faith in the Scriptures by those counterfeits which he who is called the devil is said to have performed among the Greeks; just as some were wrought by the Magi in Egypt, and others by the false prophets in Elijah’s days.
"For when they tell that Bacchus, son of Jupiter, was begotten by [Jupiter’s] intercourse with Semele, and that he was the discoverer of the vine; and when they relate, that being torn in pieces, and having died, he rose again, and ascended to heaven; and when they introduce wine into his mysteries, do I not perceive that [the devil] has imitated the prophecy announced by the patriarch Jacob, and recorded by Moses?
“And when they tell that Hercules was strong, and travelled over all the world, and was begotten by Jove of Alcmene, and ascended to heaven when he died, do I not perceive that the Scripture which speaks of Christ, “strong as a giant to run his race,” has been in like manner imitated? And when he [the devil] brings forward Aesculapius as the raiser of the dead and healer of all diseases, may I not say that in this matter likewise he has imitated the prophecies about Christ?.. And when I hear, Trypho, that Perseus was begotten of a virgin, I understand that the deceiving serpent counterfeited also this.”
The Jesus story incorporated elements from the tales of other deities recorded in this widespread area, such as many of the following world saviors and “sons of God,” most or all of whom predate the Christian myth, and a number of whom were crucified or executed.
• Adad of Assyria
• Adonis, Apollo, Heracles (“Hercules”) and Zeus of Greece
• Alcides of Thebes
• Attis of Phrygia
• Baal of Phoenicia
• Bali of Afghanistan
• Beddu of Japan
• Buddha of India
• Crite of Chaldea
• Deva Tat of Siam
• Hesus of the Druids
• Horus, Osiris, and Serapis of Egypt, whose long-haired, bearded appearance was adopted for the Christ character
Taylor quotes the letter of Emperor Hadrian (134 C.E.): “The worshippers of Serapis are Christians, and those are devoted to the God Serapis, who (I find) call themselves the bishops of Christ.”
• Indra of Tibet/India
• Jao of Nepal
• Krishna of India
• Mikado of the Sintoos
• Mithra of Persia
• Odin of the Scandinavians
• Prometheus of Caucasus/Greece
• Quetzalcoatl of Mexico
• Salivahana of Bermuda
• Tammuz of Syria (who was, in a typical mythmaking move, later turned into the disciple Thomas)
Walker: “… Later, an unknown Gospel writer inserted the story of doubting Thomas, who insisted on touching Jesus. This was to combat the heretical idea that there was no resurrection in the flesh, and also to subordinate Jerusalem’s municipal god Tammuz (Thomas) to the new savior. Actually, the most likely source of primary Christian mythology was the Tammuz cult in Jerusalem.” The “doubting Thomas” character also finds its place in the Mythos, as the “genius” of the time when the sun is at its weakest (winter solstice). (Taylor)
• Thor of the Gauls
• Universal Monarch of the Sibyls
The Sibylline Oracles, books produced over time allegedly by a number of pagan prophetesses called Sibyls, were widely regarded in the ancient world prior to the advent of the Christian era. “The Sibyls are quoted frequently by the early Fathers and Christian writers, Justin, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria, etc.” (Catholic Encyclopedia, cited by Wheless) These books or Oracles were often cited by Christians as proof of their religion.
For instance, the following is considered a Sibylline Oracle: “With five loaves at the same time, and with two fishes, He shall satisfy five thousand men in the wilderness; And afterwards taking all the fragments that remain, He shall fill twelve baskets to the hope of many. . . .He shall still the winds by His word, and calm the sea as it rages, treading with feet of peace and faith. … He shall walk on the waves, He shall release men from disease. He shall raise the dead, and drive away many pains. …” (Wheless)
Although the Christians interpreted this as a prophecy of Christ becoming fulfilled, it is in fact an aspect of the ubiquitous Mythos and was already said of Horus, for one, hundreds of years earlier. It has never referred to an actual man but, once again, is astrotheological. The fact that it purportedly existed prior to the Christian era constitutes proof to those who use logic that the Christians utilized it in creating their Christ character, rather than it acting as a prophecy of their godman.
As they did with other texts, the Christians forged and interpolated many passages into the well-known Oracles in order to cement their fiction and convert followers. It is also amusing to note that the Christians had to resort to despised “pagan” documents for their enterprise, especially since they spent their lives attempting to demonstrate that everything that preceded them was “of the devil.” This then implies that Christianity was also a work of the devil.
• Wittoba of the Bilingonese
• Xamolxis of Thrace
• Zarathustra/Zoroaster of Persia
• Zoar of the Bonzes
The Major Players
Buddha and Krishna of India
Although most people think of Buddha as being one person who lived around 500 B.C.E., like Jesus the character commonly portrayed as Buddha can also be demonstrated to be a compilation of godmen, legends and sayings of various holy men both preceding and succeeding the period attributed to the Buddha.
(http://truthbeknown.com/buddha.htm)
Quote:
It seems that in many of the Western and Christian scholars’ view, Buddha and Krishna were mythical characters ‘cobbled up’ (to use Sarabhanga’s phrase) from several earlier legends. These scholars often simply ignore the version in Hindu texts and dismissing them as ‘orthodox or traditional view’. However, they fail to provide any solid evidence for their arguments here, often stating that they heard the story from Brahmanas and other learned Hindu scholars.
Acharya S, the author of the website (http://truthbeknown.com/) has stated as above in Buddha’s case. In the case of Krishna, she simply cites the version of the French ‘scholar and Indianist’ Jacolliot who ‘recounts the death of Christna’ as a case of crucifixion.
Acharya S, citing Jacolliot says “After thrice plunging into the sacred river, Krishna knelt and prayed as he awaited death, which was ultimately caused by multiple arrows shot by a criminal whose offenses had been exposed by Krishna. The executioner, named Angada, was thereafter condemned to wander the banks of the Ganges for eternity, subsisting off the dead.”–sd
(http://truthbeknown.com/kcrucified.htm , http://truthbeknown.com/virgin.htm)
Regarding the Buddhist influence on the gospel story, in 2003 Buddhist and Sanskrit scholar Dr.Christian Lindtner wrote the following:
“The Sanskrit manuscripts prove without a shadow of doubt: Everything that Jesus says or does was already said or done by the Buddha. Jesus, therefore, is a mere literary fiction.” And the scholar cites these cases of Buddha as adopted for the Christ character: 'Last Supper, Baptism, miracles, twelve disciples, Kind Gautama crucifixion (?–sd).
Concerning the “crucifixion” of Buddha, as related in a Buddhist text dating to the first century BCE (Samghabhedavastu/ Mah?parinirv?na s?tra), Ken Humphreys states:
“In this story of ‘Gautama, a holy man’ our hero is wrongfully condemned to die on the cross for murdering the courtesan Bhadra. Gautama is impaled on a cross, and his mentor Krishna Dvapayana visits him and enters into a long dialogue, at the end of which Gautama dies at the place of skulls after engendering two offspring - the progenitors of the Ikshavaku Dynasty.”
Humphreys further relates that “the dead Buddha is burned and it is the smoke of his corpse which rises - the true ‘resurrection.’”
Horus of Egypt
The stories of Jesus and Horus are very similar, with Horus even contributing the name of Jesus Christ. Horus and his once-and-future Father, Osiris, are frequently interchangeable in the mythos (“I and my Father are one”). The legends of Horus go back thousands of years, and he shares the following in common with Jesus:
virgin birth–child teacher–“Anup the Baptizer,” becomes “John the Baptist”–12 disciples–miracles, raising El-Azar-us from dead–walking on water–transfigured on the Mount–killed, buried in tomb and resurrected–The Messiah, God’s Anointed Son–‘The Fisher’ associated with the Lamb, Lion and Fish (“Ichthys”)–Horus’s personal epithet was “Iusa,” the “ever-becoming son” of “Ptah,” the “Father.”–Horus (or Osiris) was called “the KRST,” long before the Christians duplicated the story.
In fact, in the catacombs at Rome are pictures of the baby Horus being held by the virgin mother Isis–the original “Madonna and Child”–and the Vatican itself is built upon the papacy of Mithra, who shares many qualities with Jesus and who existed as a deity long before the Jesus character was formalized. The Christian hierarchy is nearly identical to the Mithraic version it replaced. Virtually all of the elements of the Catholic ritual, from miter to wafer to water to altar to doxology, are directly taken from earlier pagan mystery religions.
Mithra, Sungod of Persia
The story of Mithra precedes the Christian fable by at least 600 years. According to Wheless, the cult of Mithra was, shortly before the Christian era, “the most popular and widely spread ‘Pagan’ religion of the times.” Mithra has the following in common with the Christ character:
Birthdate Dec 25–great travelling teacher and master–12 companions or disciples–performed miracles–buried in a tomb–rose again after three days–resurrection celebrated every year–called “The Good Shepherd”–considered “the Way, the Truth and the Light, the Redeemer, the Savior, the Messiah”–identified with both the Lion and the Lamb–His sacred day was Sunday, “the Lord’s Day,” hundreds of years before the appearance of Christ.–his principal festival was what later became Easter, at which time he was resurrected.–His religion had a Eucharist or “Lord’s Supper.”
Prometheus of Greece
The Greek god Prometheus has been claimed to have come from Egypt, but his drama took place in the Caucasus mountains. Prometheus shares a number of striking similarities with the Christ character.
• Prometheus descended from heaven as God incarnate as man, to save mankind.
• He was crucified, suffered and rose from the dead.
• He was called the Logos or Word.
Five centuries before the Christian era, esteemed Greek poet Aeschylus wrote Prometheus Bound, which, according to Taylor, was presented in the theater in Athens. Taylor claims that in the play Prometheus is crucified “on a fatal tree” and the sky goes dark.
Tradition holds that Prometheus was crucified on a rock, yet some sources have opined that legend also held he was crucified on a tree. … In any case, the sun hiding in darkness parallels the Christian fable of the darkness descending when Jesus was crucified. This remarkable occurrence is not recorded in history but is only explainable within the Mythos and as part of a recurring play.
The Creation of a Myth
The Christians went on a censorship rampage that led to the virtual illiteracy of the ancient world and ensured that their secret would be hidden from the masses, but the scholars of other schools/sects never gave up their arguments against the historicizing of a very ancient mythological creature. We have lost the arguments of these learned dissenters because the Christians destroyed any traces of their works. Nonetheless, the Christians preserved the contentions of their detractors through the Christians’ own refutations.
For example, early Church Father Tertullian (@ 160-220 C.E.), an “ex-Pagan” and Bishop of Carthage, ironically admits the true origins of the Christ story and of all other such godmen by stating in refutation of his critics, “You say we worship the sun; so do you.” Interestingly, a previously strident believer and defender of the faith, Tertullian later renounced Christianity.
The “Son” of God is the “Sun” of God
The reason why all these narratives are so similar, with a godman who is crucified and resurrected, who does miracles and has 12 disciples, is that these stories were based on the movements of the sun through the heavens, an astrotheological development that can be found throughout the planet because the sun and the 12 zodiac signs can be observed around the globe.
In other words, Jesus Christ and all the others upon whom this character is predicated are personifications of the sun, and the Gospel fable is merely a rehash of a mythological formula (the “Mythos,” as mentioned above) revolving around the movements of the sun through the heavens.
For instance, many of the world’s crucified godmen have their traditional birthday on December 25th (“Christmas”). This is because the ancients recognized that (from an earthcentric perspective) the sun makes an annual descent southward until December 21st or 22nd, the winter solstice, when it stops moving southerly for three days and then starts to move northward again.
During this time, the ancients declared that “God’s sun” had “died” for three days and was “born again” on December 25th. The ancients realized quite abundantly that they needed the sun to return every day and that they would be in big trouble if the sun continued to move southward and did not stop and reverse its direction. Thus, these many different cultures celebrated the “sun of God’s” birthday on December 25th. The following are the characteristics of the “sun of God”:
The sun “dies” for three days on December 22nd, the winter solstice, when it stops in its movement south, to be born again or resurrected on December 25th, when it resumes its movement north.
In some areas, the calendar originally began in the constellation of Virgo, and the sun would therefore be “born of a Virgin.” Thus:
• The sun is the “Light of the World.”
• The sun “cometh on clouds, and every eye shall see him.”
• The sun rising in the morning is the “Savior of mankind.”
• The sun wears a corona, “crown of thorns” or halo.71
• The sun “walks on water.”
• The sun’s “followers,” “helpers” or “disciples” are the 12 months and the 12 signs of the zodiac or constellations, through which the sun must pass.
• The sun at 12 noon is in the house or temple of the “Most High”; thus, “he” begins “his Father’s work” at “age” 12.
• The sun enters into each sign of the zodiac at 30?; hence, the “Sun of God” begins his ministry at “age” 30.
• The sun is hung on a cross or “crucified,” which represents its passing through the equinoxes, the vernal equinox being Easter, at which time it is then resurrected.
Contrary to popular belief, the ancients were not an ignorant and superstitious lot who actually believed their deities to be literal characters. Indeed, this slanderous propaganda has been part of the conspiracy to make the ancients appear as if they were truly the dark and dumb rabble that was in need of the “light of Jesus”.
The reality is that the ancients were no less advanced in their morals and spiritual practices, and in many cases were far more advanced, than the Christians in their own supposed morality and ideology, which, in its very attempt at historicity, is in actuality a degradation of the ancient Mythos.
Indeed, unlike the “superior” Christians, the true intelligentsia amongst the ancients were well aware that their gods were astronomical and atmospheric in nature. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle surely knew that Zeus, the sky god father figure who migrated to Greece from India and/or Egypt, was never a real person, despite the fact that the Greeks have designated on Crete both a birth cave and a death cave of Zeus. In addition, all over the world are to be found sites where this god or that allegedly was born, walked, suffered, died, etc., a common and unremarkable occurrence that is not monopolized by, and did not originate with, Christianity.
Etymology Tells the Story
Zeus, aka “Zeus Pateras,” who we now automatically believe to be a myth and not a historical figure, takes his name from the Indian version, “Dyaus Pitar.” Dyaus Pitar in turn is related to the Egyptian “Ptah,” and from both Pitar and Ptah comes the word “pater,” or “father.”
“Zeus” equals “Dyaus,” which became “Deos,” “Deus” and “Dios”–“God.” “Zeus Pateras,” like Dyaus Pitar, means, “God the Father,” a very ancient concept that in no way originated with “Jesus” and Christianity. There is no question of Zeus being a historical character.
Dyaus Pitar becomes “Jupiter” in Roman mythology, and likewise is not representative of an actual, historical character. In Egyptian mythology, Ptah, the Father, is the unseen god-force, and the sun was viewed as Ptah’s visible proxy who brings everlasting life to the earth; hence, the “son of God” is really the “sun of God.”
Indeed, according to Hotema, the very name “Christ” comes from the Hindi word “Kris” (as in Krishna), which is a name for the sun.
Furthermore, since Horus was called “Iusa/Iao/Iesu” the “KRST,” and Krishna/Christna was called “Jezeus,” (?–sd) centuries before any Jewish character similarly named, it would be safe to assume that Jesus Christ is just a repeat of Horus and Krishna, among the rest.
According to Rev.Taylor, the title “Christ” in its Hebraic form meaning “Anointed” (“Masiah”) was held by all kings of Israel, as well as being “so commonly assumed by all sorts of impostors, conjurers, and pretenders to supernatural communications, that the very claim to it is in the gospel itself considered as an indication of imposture…”
Hotema states that the name “Jesus Christ” was not formally adopted in its present form until after the first Council of Nicea, i.e., in 325 C.E.
In actuality, even the place names and the appellations of many other characters in the New Testament can be revealed to be Hebraicized renderings of the Egyptian texts.
As an example, in the fable of “Lazarus,” the mummy raised from the dead by Jesus, the Christian copyists did not change his name much, “El-Azar-us” being the Egyptian mummy raised from the dead by Horus possibly 1,000 years or more before the Jewish version.80 This story is allegory for the sun reviving its old, dying self, or father, as in “El-Osiris.” It is not a true story.
Horus’s principal enemy–originally Horus’s other face or “dark” aspect - was “Set” or “Sata,” whence comes “Satan.” Horus struggles with Set in the exact manner that Jesus battles with Satan, with 40 days in the wilderness, among other similarities. This is because this myth represents the triumph of light over dark, or the sun’s return to relieve the terror of the night.
“Jerusalem” simply means “City of Peace,” and the actual city in Israel was named after the holy city of peace in the Egyptian sacred texts that already existed at the time the city was founded. Likewise, “Bethany,” site of the famous multiplying of the loaves, means “House of God,” and is allegory for the “multiplication of the many out of the One.” Any town of that designation was named for the allegorical place in the texts that existed before the town’s foundation. The Egyptian predecessor and counterpart is “Bethanu.”
The Book of Revelation is Egyptian and Zoroastrian
One can find certain allegorical place names such as “Jerusalem” and “Israel” in the Book of Revelation. Massey has stated that Revelation, rather than having been written by any apostle called John during the 1st Century C.E., is a very ancient text that dates to the beginning of this era of history, i.e. possibly as early as 4,000 years ago. Massey asserts that Revelation relates the Mithraic legend of Zarathustra/Zoroaster.
Hotema says of this mysterious book, which has baffled mankind for centuries: “It is expressed in terms of creative phenomena; its hero is not Jesus but the Sun of the Universe, its heroine is the Moon; and all its other characters are Planets, Stars and Constellations; while its stage-setting comprises the Sky, the Earth, the Rivers and the Sea.” The common form of this text has been attributed by Churchward to Horus’s scribe, Aan, whose name has been passed down to us as “John.”
The word Israel itself, far from being a Jewish appellation, probably comes from the combination of three different reigning deities: Isis, the Earth Mother Goddess revered throughout the ancient world; Ra, the Egyptian sungod; and El, the Semitic deity passed down in form as Saturn. El was one of the earliest names for the god of the ancient Hebrews (whence Emmanu-El, Micha-El, Gabri-El, Samu-El, etc., and his worship is reflected in the fact that the Jews still consider Saturday as “God’s Day.”
Indeed, that the Christians worship on Sunday betrays the genuine origins of their god and godman. Their “savior” is actually the sun, which is the “Light of the world that every eye can see.” The sun has been viewed consistently throughout history as the savior of mankind for reasons that are obvious. Without the sun, the planet would scarcely last one day. So important was the sun to the ancients that they composed a “Sun Book,” or “Helio Biblia,” which became the “Holy Bible.”
The “Patriarchs” and “Saints” are the Gods of Other Cultures
When one studies mythmaking, one can readily discern and delineate a pattern that is repeated throughout history. Whenever an invading culture takes over its predecessors, it either vilifies the preceding deities or makes them into lesser gods, “patriarchs” or, in the case of Christianity, “saints.”
This process is exemplified in the adoption of the Hindu god Brahma as the Hebrew patriarch Abraham. Another school of thought proposes that the patriarch Joshua was based on Horus as “Iusa,” since the cult of Horus had migrated by this period to the Levant. In this theory, the cult of Joshua, which was situated in exactly the area where the Christ drama allegedly took place, then mutated into the Christian story, with Joshua becoming Jesus. As Robertson says, “The Book of Joshua leads us to think that he had several attributes of the Sun-god, and that, like Samson and Moses, he was an ancient deity reduced to human status.”
Indeed, the legend of Moses, rather than being that of a historical Hebrew character, is found around the ancient Middle and Far East, with the character having different names and races, depending on the locale:
“Manou” is the Indian legislator; “Nemo the lawgiver,” who brought down the tablets from the Mountain of God, hails from Babylon; “Mises” is found in Syria and Egypt, where also “Manes the lawgiver” takes the stage; “Minos” is the Cretan reformer; and the Ten Commandments are simply a repetition of the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi and the Hindu Vedas, among others.
Like Moses, Krishna was placed by his mother in a reed boat and set adrift in a river to be discovered by another woman. (the author cites the story Mahabharata in her footnote, obviously mistaking Karna for Krishna. Incidentally, Karna was also the ‘son of the Sun god’.–sd)
A century ago, Massey outlined, and Graham recently reiterated, that even the Exodus itself is not a historical event. That the historicity of the Exodus has been questioned is echoed by the lack of any archaeological record, as is reported in Biblical Archaeology Review (“BAR”), September/October 1994
Like many biblical characters, Noah is also a myth, long ago appropriated from the Egyptians, the Sumerians and others, as any sophisticated scholar could demonstrate, and yet we find all sorts of books–some even presumably “channeling” the “ultimate truth” from a mystical, omniscient, omnipresent and eternal being such as Jesus himself - prattling on about a genuine, historical Noah, his extraordinary adventures, and the “Great Flood!”
Additionally, the “Esther” of the Old Testament Book of Esther is a remake of the Goddess Ishtar, Astarte, Astoreth or Isis, from whom comes “Easter” and about whose long and ubiquitous reign little is said in “God’s infallible Word.”
Per Harwood (Mythology’s Last Gods, 230), “Esther” is best transliterated “Ishtar” and “Mordechai” is “Mardukay.” The Virgin Mother/Goddess/Queen of Heaven motif is found around the globe, long before the Christian era, with Isis, for instance, also being called “Mata-Meri” (“Mother Mary”).
As Walker says, “Mari” was the “basic name of the Goddess known to the Chaldeans as Marratu, to the Jews as Marah, to the Persians as Mariham, to the Christians as Mary… Semites worshipped an androgynous combination of Goddess and God called Mari-El (Mary-God), corresponding to the Egyptian Meri-Ra, which combined the feminine principle of water with the masculine principle of the sun.”
Even the Hebraic name of God, “Yahweh,” was taken from the Egyptian “IAO.”
In one of the most notorious of Christian deceptions, in order to convert followers of “Lord Buddha,” the Church canonized him as “St. Josaphat,” which represented a Christian corruption of the buddhistic title, “Bodhisat.”
The “Disciples” are the Signs of the Zodiac
Moreover, it is no accident that there are 12 patriarchs and 12 disciples, 12 being the number of the astrological signs, or months. Indeed, like the 12 Herculean tasks and the 12 “helpers” of Horus, Jesus’s 12 disciples are symbolic for the zodiacal signs and do not depict any literal figures who played out a drama upon the earth circa 30 C.E.
The disciples can be shown to have been an earlier deity/folkloric hero/constellation.
• Peter is easily revealed to be a mythological character,
• while Judas has been said to represent Scorpio, “the backbiter,” the time of year when the sun’s rays are weakening and the sun appears to be dying.
• James, “brother of Jesus” and “brother of the Lord,” is equivalent to Amset, brother of Osiris and brother of the Lord.
• Massey says “Taht-Matiu was the scribe of the gods, and in Christian art Matthew is depicted as the scribe of the gods, with an angel standing near him, to dictate the gospel.”
• Even the apostle Paul is a compilation of several characters: The Old Testament Saul, Apollonius of Tyana and the Greek demigod Orpheus.
Was Jesus an Essene Master?
As regards Jesus being an Essene according to “secret” Dead Sea Scrolls, even before the discovery of the scrolls, over the centuries there has been much speculation to this effect, but Massey skillfully argued that many of Jesus’s presumed teachings were either in contradiction to or were non-existent in Essene philosophy.
The Essenes did not believe in corporeal resurrection, nor did they believe in a carnalized messiah. They did not accept the historicity of Jesus. They were not followers of the Hebrew Bible, or its prophets, or the concept of the original fall that must produce a savior. Massey further points out that the Essenes were teetotalers and ate to live rather than the other way around.
Compared to this, the assumed Essene Jesus appears to be a glutton and drunkard. Also, whereas according to Josephus the Essenes abhorred the swearing of oaths, Jesus was fond of “swearing unto” his disciples. While many Essenic doctrines are included in the New Testament, the list of disparities between the Dead Sea Scroll Essenes and their alleged great master Jesus goes on.
Qumran is Not an Essene Community
It should also be noted that there is another debate as to whether or not Qumran, the site traditionally associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls, was an Essene community. In BAR, previously cited, it is reported that archaeological finds indicate Qumran was not an Essene community but was possibly a waystation for travelers and merchants crossing the Dead Sea. In BAR, it has also been hypothesized that the fervent tone and warrior-stance of some of the scrolls unearthed near Qumran belie any Essene origin and indicate a possible attribution to Jewish Zealots instead.
In ‘Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls’, Norman Golb makes a very good case that the Dead Sea Scrolls were not written by any Essene scribes but were a collection of tomes from various libraries that were secreted in caves throughout eastern Israel by Jews fleeing the Roman armies during the First Revolt of 70 A.D. Golb also hypothesizes that Qumran itself was a fortress, not a monastery. In any case, it is impossible to equate the “Teacher of Righteousness” found in any scrolls with Jesus Christ.
Was the New Testament Composed by Therapeuts?
In 1829 Rev.Taylor adeptly made the case that the entire Gospel story was already in existence long before the beginning of the Common Era and was probably composed by the monks at Alexandria called “Therapeuts” in Greek and “Essenes” in Egyptian, both names meaning “healers.”
• This theory has stemmed in part from the statement of early church father Eusebius, who, in a rare moment of seeming honesty, “admitted…that the canonical Christian gospels and epistles were the ancient writings of the Essenes or Therapeutae reproduced in the name of Jesus.”
• Taylor also opines that “the travelling Egyptian Therapeuts brought the whole story from India to their monasteries in Egypt, where, some time after the commencement of the Roman monarchy, it was transmuted in Christianity.”
• In addition, Wheless evinces that one can find much of the fable of “Jesus Christ” in the Book of Enoch, which predated the supposed advent of the Jewish master by hundreds of years.
• According to Massey, it was the “pagan” Gnostics–who included members of the Essene/Therapeut and Nazarene brotherhoods, among others–who actually carried to Rome the esoteric (gnostic) texts containing the Mythos, upon which the numerous gospels, including the canonical four, were based.
• Wheless says, “Obviously, the Gospels and other New Testament booklets, written in Greek and quoting 300 times the Greek Septuagint, and several Greek Pagan authors, as Aratus, and Cleanthes, were written, not by illiterate Jewish peasants, but by Greek-speaking ex-Pagan Fathers and priests far from the Holy Land of the Jews.”
• Mead averred, “We thus conclude that the autographs of our four Gospels were most probably written in Egypt, in the reign of Hadrian.”
Conclusion
As Walker said, “Scholars’ efforts to eliminate paganism from the Gospels in order to find a historical Jesus have proved as hopeless as searching for a core in an onion.” The “gospel” story of Jesus is not a factual portrayal of a historical “master” who walked the earth 2,000 years ago. It is a myth built upon other myths and godmen, who in turn were personifications of the ubiquitous sungod mythos.
“The Christ of the gospels is in no sense an historical personage or a supreme model of humanity, a hero who strove, and suffered, and failed to save the world by his death. It is impossible to establish the existence of an historical character even as an impostor. For such an one the two witnesses, astronomical mythology and gnosticism, completely prove an alibi. The Christ is a popular lay-figure that never lived, and a lay-figure of Pagan origin; a lay-figure that was once the Ram and afterwards the Fish; a lay-figure that in human form was the portrait and image of a dozen different gods.” --Gerald Massey
