In Part 1 of this 3-part series, we discovered that Paul wasn’t really an apostle of Jesus and he wasn’t preaching the same Gospel as the other Twelve Apostles. So what “gospel” was Paul preaching and where did his NEW Jesus really come from … ?

Paul’s “New” Jesus

There is a reason why the Pagan leadership of the Church in Rome chose Paul as their “guy” and not the Jewish Apostles in Jerusalem. We’ve already covered that a Jewish Jesus didn’t sell well with the Pagan (Gentile) Romans.

Marcion was doing bang-up business with his Pauline Bible canon and the leaders of the Church in Rome were all over that bandwagon.

What we may not know is that Marcion regarded Paul as the only legitimate Apostle. Part of the reason for this was Paul wasn’t really (culturally) Jewish, and neither was Paul’s Jesus, nor was the “gospel” that Paul’s new “Jesus” preached.

Part of the reason why Paul’s Jesus sold so well with the Roman Pagans was because Paul’s Jesus already had an ancient pedigree and was already well-known within the Empire.

The fact is, Paul’s Jesus was quite simply — Mithras. A cipher for, or a rebranding of, another Pagan god.

Most of us have never even heard of Mithras (also spelled “Mithra”); probably because our Christian leadership doesn’t want us knowing about him.

Again, the Church is guilty of a half-truth, a LIE of omission here. If your god, your messiah, is based on or is a rehashing of a previously existing faith, you have a duty to tell people that. But the Church attempts to hide this fact.

So who was Mithras?

In a nutshell, Mithras was a Pagan god who emerged out of ancient Persia some 1,500 years before Jesus and the Apostles would even be born.

It was said that Mithras came to Earth from heaven in the flesh of man. Depending on the version of Mithras you read from antiquity, he was said to have been born out of a rock. Other accounts said that he was born of a human virgin. There were plenty of other Pagan gods in the Greco-Roman mythos who were born of virgins as well. Something Christianity also downplays and doesn’t tell us about.

I grew up in the Church thinking that this virgin birth event was unique to Christianity; that’s part of what made us so special! No one else had a virgin birth god. But it was a a lie. Christianity deliberately hid the stories of other faiths from me, from all of us. This is part of the reason. My church didn’t want me to know the truth.

In fact, what Christian has never heard their pastor say something to the effect of: “If you ever read this or that book, you’ll lose your salvation in Jesus!” Well, you may not hear this so much today, but I was told this numerous times growing up. But it was just another lie of the Church to keep me from learning the truth.

So, it’s not hard to see where Paul got his Jesus’ virgin birth story. In any event, Mithras was killed as a human blood sacrifice to abate punishment for the sins of the whole world. He was buried in a stone tomb. And after three days he was raised to life again.

Sound familiar?

Adherents to the faith of Mithras believed that it was his blood that cleansed them from sin, and they would literally slay animals, covering themselves in animal blood so as to be “washed in the blood” from their sins and be “born again”. They also ceremonially ate Mithras’ body and drank his blood as the means of internalizing their god within themselves.

No, I am not making this up.

Note again, the religion of Mithras originated in ancient Persia and predates James, Jesus and the Apostles by some 1,500 years. As Jewish men, I can guarantee you that none of the Jewish Apostles would have been preaching a PAGAN Jesus lifted from Persian myth. Nor would they be preaching Mithras’ pagan gospel.

But Paul indeed was.

Paul admits that he spent some time in Arabia — this is simply another term for ancient Persia. When Paul returns, his understandings of Mithraism are complete and he begins his ministry by preaching a version of Jesus that looks almost exactly like the Pagan Persian god.

Jesus is, in Paul’s mind, the reincarnation of Mithras.

The fact of the matter is, Paul ALREADY knew about Mithras before he journeyed to Arabia. He grew up in Tarsus which is only a few miles from Antioch — and Antioch was the center of Mithraic worship in the Roman world.

Mithras was well-known in Rome by the first century and his cult only grew in popularity, to the point that Mithras was made the “Protector of the Empire” by the Romans in 307 CE, right before Constantine would declare Christianity to be the official religion of Rome.

To the pagan turned convert to Christianity, Constantine likely saw little difference between pagan Catholic Christianity’s paganized Pauline version of Jesus and Mithras. They were damn near identical.

As I just mentioned, some versions of the Mithras story, well predating Christianity, make the Pagan Persian god the son of a human virgin with his birth attended by shepherds and Magi who brought gifts to a cave, the place of his birth.

Rome would even adopt the same birthday for Mithras that would be shared with Rome’s sun god. Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (Latin) was the “Birthday of the Invincible Sun” (god), and was celebrated on December 25, just after the Winter Solstice. Not so ironically, this would become the Church’s official birthday for Paul’s Jesus as well.

You still think I’m making all of this up.

Trust me, I’m not.

The American Civil Rights icon, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote some rather extensive work on the similarities between Jesus and Mithras:

Originally Mithra was one of the lesser gods of the ancient Persian pantheon, but at the time of Christ he had come to be co-equal with Ahura Mazda, the Supreme Being. He possessed many attributes, the most important being his office of defender of truth and all good things… He hears all and sees all: none can deceive him. [Footnote: Cumont, Mysteries of Mithra, pp. 2, 3.]

Tarsus, the home of Saint Paul, was one of the great centers of his [Mithra’s] worship; and there is a decided tinge of Mithraism in the Epistles and Gospels. Such designations of our Lord as the Dayspring from on High, The Light, the Sun of Righteousness, and similar expressions seem to come directly from Mithraic influence.” [Footnote: Weigall, op. cit., p. 129.]

Again tradition has it that Mithra was born from a rock, “the god out of the rock.” It must also be noticed that his worship was always conducted in a cave. Now it seems that the general belief of the early church that Jesus was born in a cave grows directly out of Mithraic ideas. The words of St. Paul, “They drank of that spiritual rock… and that rock was Christ” also seem to be a direct borrow from the Mithraic scriptures.

The Hebrew Sabbath having been abolished by [Roman Catholic] Christians, the Church made a sacred day of Sunday, partly because it was the day of resurrection. But when we observe a little further we find that as a solar festival, Sunday was the sacred day of Mithra; it is also interesting to notice that since Mithra was addressed as Lord, Sunday must have been “the Lord’s Day” long before Christian use. [Footnote: Ibid., p. 137.] It is also to be noticed that our Christmas, December 25th, was the birthday of Mithra, and was only taken over in the Fourth Century as the date, actually unknown, of the birth of Jesus.

To make the picture a little more clear, we may list a few of the similarities between these two religions: (1) Both regard Sunday as a holy day. (2) December 25 came to be considered as the anniversary of the birth of Mithra and Christ also. (3) Baptism and a communion meal were important parts of the ritual of both groups. (4) The rebirth of converts was a fundamental idea in the two cults. (5) The struggle with evil and the eventual triumph of good were essential ideas in both religions. (6) In summary we may say that the belief in immortality, a mediator between god and man, the observance of certain sacramental rites, the rebirth of converts, and (in most cases) the support of high ethical ideas were common to Mithraism as well as Christianity. In fact, the comparison became so evident that many believed the Christian movement itself became a mystery cult. “Jesus was the divine Lord. He too had found the road to heaven by his suffering and resurrection. He too had God for his father. He had left behind the secret whereby men could achieve the goal with him.” [Footnote: Enslin, op. cit., p. 190.] [1]

Historian Franz Cumont, whom King references in his footnotes, elaborates,

The struggle between the two rival religions was the more stubborn as their characters were the more alike. The adepts of both formed secret conventicles, closely united, the members of which gave themselves the name of ‘Brothers.’ The rites which they practised offered numerous analogies…. Their conceptions of the world and of the destiny of man were similar. They both admitted the existence of a Heaven inhabited by beautified ones, situate in the upper regions, and of a Hell peopled by demons, situate in the bowels of the earth. They both placed a Flood at the beginning of history; they both assigned as the source of their traditions a primitive revelation; they both, finally, believed in the immortality of the soul, in a last judgment, and in a resurrection of the dead, consequent upon a final conflagration of the universe.

We have seen that the theology of the Mysteries made of Mithra a ‘mediator’ equivalent to the Alexandrian Logos. Like him, Christ also was an intermediary between his celestial father and men, and like him he also was one of a trinity. These resemblances were certainly not the only ones that pagan exegesis established between the two religions, and the figure of the tauroctonous god reluctantly immolating his victim that he might create and save the human race, was certainly compared to the picture of the redeemer sacrificing his own person for the salvation of the world. [2]

I told you I wasn’t making this up. It is actually well-known Roman history that Christianity’s so-called scholars already know (many of them anyway), but attempt to ignore and would like to bury.

But the fact remains: Paul’s “Jesus”, Paul’s entire “Gospel” in fact, was little more than a near complete plagiarizing and rebranding of the Pagan god Mithras and the bloody pagan religion that surrounded him.

It makes one wonder just exactly what different “spirit” Paul was preaching under the influence of? Well, we already know that from part 1 of this series: Paul admits that GOD punished him with a demon, and angel of Satan that tormented him.

Again, these are Paul’s own words.

The only difference here is that I’m not watering down Paul’s Greek like your Christian translators have done to hide what GOD actually did to punish Paul. Christian translators have themselves LIED to you about Paul, tried to hide his true affliction and condition and what “spirit” was influencing Paul’s Pagan “gospel” and Pagan version of “Jesus”.

I’m also revealing hard FACTS and history your Church is hiding from you and doesn’t want you to know.

The pagan religion of Mithras is all well-known and well-established history. Again, it is not by any stretch unique or so-called “original research”.

Paul’s Jesus, and by extension Paul’s Gospel; the Jesus you think you know and pray to; the Jesus that was canonized into their Bible by the Pagan Roman Catholic Church; is not the true “historical” Jesus at all.

The Church’s Jesus is a sham. A counterfeit Jesus. One that does not and has never existed.

I know this is a bombshell revelation.

It is.

We as unsuspecting Christian believers have been basing our view of Jesus and of GOD on a Pagan charlatan fake apostle who was influenced and tormented by a demonic spirit!

“I Desire Mercy, Not Sacrifice” — GOD

So, who was the REAL historical Jesus and what Gospel did he preach?

To understand the true Gospel of Jesus, James, John and the rest we need to back up a bit and untangle some lies that predate even the Christian era, some falsehoods that got inserted into Judaism’s own faith long before the Christian era.

In many ways, first-century Judaism was undergoing its own reformation, so to speak, within Jesus family. Both Jesus and James (his brother) and their cousin John (the Baptist) had been born into the family business (for lack of a more accurate term) of the Temple and its sacrificial system. The first-century Priesthood was a massive money-maker for the elites; but it was something GOD would put an end to.

The fact was, Temple sacrifices were themselves a lie. GOD had not actually demanded any kind of sacrifice to forgive. We see this clearly on display after the fall of Israel being taken into captivity by Babylon. The Prophet Jeremiah laments the words of GOD, saying:

“How can you [priests and elders] say, ‘We are wise for we have the Law of the LORD!’, when the lying pen of the scribes [priests and elders] has handled it falsely?” (Jeremiah 8:8) [amplification supplied]

Within this one verse, GOD, speaking via the prophet Jeremiah, utterly destroys the Protestant dogma (belief) of Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone); the belief that GOD somehow protected the Bible from error. Here GOD says in no uncertain terms that the “lying pen” of the scribes “falsified” the Law (Torah) of GOD.

I know, Paul says that all Scripture is “God-breathed …” But GOD says its not all God-breathed. In fact, GOD says it’s a “lie”. Not all of it, but enough of it that it cannot be trusted to be accurate or true.

James, Jesus, and John, and the rest of the Apostles understood this as well.

“Wait, Keith, if the Law of God was falsified, why did Jesus say he was coming to ‘fulfill’ it?”

And that is precisely where we are headed next, because modern Christianity’s man-made traditions do not observe what the historical Jesus and Apostles knew about the “scriptures”.

“Fulfilling” the Law

In Matthew 5:17–18 we see something interesting that most if not all of us have read and studied as Christians. Jesus is recorded as saying:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”

Some of us will now think that this is Jesus upholding the Law of God as being somehow perfect. But this passage has been interpreted by many people in many ways over the centuries. It’s kind of a contradiction all by itself. It doesn’t make any logical sense. Until you do a bit of non-Biblical research.

Within the Clementine Homilies, we again see Peter discussing this very passage and it makes perfect sense if you understand that the Law was messed with by the Priesthood,

Then Peter: ‘As to the mixture of truth with falsehood, I remember that on one occasion he [Jesus], finding fault with the Sadducees, said, “Wherefore ye do err, not knowing the true things of the Scriptures; … But if he cast up to them that they knew not the true things of the Scriptures, it is manifest that there are false things in them. And also, inasmuch as He said, “Be ye prudent money-changers,” it is because there are genuine and spurious words [written within the scriptures].

And whereas He said, “Wherefore do ye not perceive that which is reasonable in the Scriptures?” He makes the understanding of him stronger who voluntarily judges soundly. … And also that He said, “I am not come to destroy the law,” [Matthew 5:17–20] and yet that He appeared to be destroying it, is the part of one intimating that the things which He destroyed did not belong to the law.

And His saying, “The heaven and the earth shall pass away, but one jot or one tittle shall not pass from the law,” intimated that the things which pass away before the heaven and the earth do not belong to the law in reality. Since, then, while the heaven and the earth still stand, sacrifices have passed away, … as not being ordinances of God.’

While the Old English translation of these passages from the Homilies may be a bit difficult for us to read, in a nutshell Clement (or the author or authors of the Homilies) cements the points that Jesus indeed taught Peter and the rest of the Apostles that there were false things within the Law of God. This is wholly in keeping with what we just read in Jeremiah 8: that the law was altered by the lying pen of the scribes. Jesus never taught people to follow what he considered to be “false” laws.

Now take note of the last paragraph:

“Since, then, while the heaven and the earth still stand, sacrifices have passed away, … as not being ordinances of God.”

This is going to be a bombshell revelation for most of us as Christians: GOD never commanded sacrifices.

Ever.

We are not the only Christians to recognize this. Other early Christians knew what Jesus and the Apostles were teaching as well: they were preaching that the sacrificial system as created by the ancient priesthood was completely pagan garbage.

In fact, we can see this again and again within the later prophets. GOD says,

“I gave your ancestors no commands about burnt offerings or any other kinds of sacrifices when I brought them out of Egypt. But I did command them to obey me, so that I would be their God and they would be my people. And I told them to live the way I had commanded them, so that things would go well for them.” (Jeremiah 7:22 GNT)

The sacrificial laws were never the ordinances of GOD.

Ever.

“Okay, Keith, wait, hold on just one second. If God never commanded sacrifices, then why did Jesus have to die? And what about the entire book of Hebrews? It tells us all about the sacrifices and how they were inferior to Jesus’ sacrifice! Only Jesus’ atoning blood was able to cleanse Humanity from our sin!”

Stop.

Take a breath.

You keep listening to Paul again and you’re not grasping the Earth-shattering freedom you’ve just been given by GOD and the real Jesus Messiah.

You’ve been lied to. Deeply. You need to unravel the tangled skein of deceit here. You may be a little confused by all of this. That’s fine. It’s natural.

Within your feelings you really, really want Jesus to be your bloody human sacrifice that somehow washes away your inherited sin. It’s what your beloved church has saddled you with thinking. And it makes you feel super special that “God DIED” for you.

I get it.

But that is not what the REAL historical Jesus preached. It is what Paul and the Roman Catholic Church taught all of us; but it was not the Gospel of Jesus the Messiah and the Twelve. It was solely Paul’s pagan gospel.

We need to peel away the layers upon layers of lies and remember where Paul’s (version of) Jesus really came from. And what ungodly spirit was really speaking through Paul.

Blood sacrifice is Pagan.

Period.

Killing something or someone else is not the ordinance or requirement of a truly holy or loving GOD.

We need to rebuild a new foundation of understanding that is more in keeping with who GOD really and truthfully is.

“Repent and Live!” — GOD

Understanding that GOD has not actually required sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins is going to be a wholesale shift in our understandings; for some it’s an Earth-shattering revelation. Many of us won’t want to believe it. It’s because Paul’s Pagan brand of Mithras (ie. Jesus) is just too engrained within us. It’s going to take us a while for this to sink in.

It did with me as well.

That’s fine. Let it simmer. Pray and seek GOD’s leading; seek GOD’s Holy Spirit. This is not my gospel, it’s GOD’s. I’m only the messenger. (Wait, does that make me an “angel”? Hmmm … )

The real POWER of a truly all-powerful god is the ability to forgive without payment, without sacrifice; to forgive through what the later prophets called REPENTANCE.

We can easily glean this from the Gospels. In Mark 1:4–5 we see James’ and Jesus’ cousin, John, proclaiming this:

“John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judea was going out to him, and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.”

Even in Luke 3:3 we see the record of John being called by GOD to preach,

“a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

REPENTANCE.

Not sacrifice.

This is the TRUE Gospel of Jesus, James, Peter, and the Apostles. And this is the true character of a truly loving GOD. One who does not command the death of someone ELSE to appease their anger or pain over something YOU did.

Sin is always an ACTION. Something you DO. Sin is never a state of being. You COMMIT a sin; you are not the sin.

I supposed it could be argued that people who commit a lot of sins are “sinful” people, but at the end of the day, it is only your actions that make you that way, not just because you were born Human.

Conclusion

Now that the curtain has been pulled back; now that we see Paul and his pagan Mithraic Gospel for what it is, it’s time for us to learn the depth of what GOD’s REAL Gospel message is; what the REAL historical Jewish Jesus and Apostles taught under the influence of the REAL Holy Spirit of GOD.

In part 3 of this series we’ll take a detailed dive into the REAL Gospel of Jesus the Messiah …