There has been a quiet controversy brewing within the modern Church for many decades now, perhaps even the past few centuries. But only recently has the controversy been bubbling more and more to the surface within the Information Age. The Church tries to ignore it; even deny it when confronted. But unfortunately, historical facts are very stubborn little rascals that mainstream Christianity no longer has the luxury of ignoring.
What’s the controversy?
The issue is that there is more than one “Jesus” being presented within the pages of the Church’s Bible.
One is the “historical” Jewish Jesus. And the other is the “traditional” Pagan (ie. Gentile) Jesus.
And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know which version of Jesus is the more authentic one.
Traditional vs. Historical
To understand how and why the early Church adopted a version of Jesus that wasn’t historically accurate, we need to forget what we know about the traditional Jesus the Church inaccurately taught us and return to the era in which Jesus and the Apostles and then later Church grew out of.
First, let us remind ourselves of who Jesus historically was: A Jew. A rabbi (teacher). Someone who taught within the Jewish Temple and other Jewish synagogues.
Yes, the Church plays lip service to the fact that Jesus was in fact Jewish, but then that is where Jesus’ Jewishness ends. As far as the Gentile (Pagan) Church is concerned, the “Jewish” label is all the pedigree Jesus is allowed to have.
As Christians, we are NEVER taught what it actually MEANS to BE Jewish. It is an aspect of Jesus and the Apostles that is hidden from us—on purpose. The Jewish Jesus is NEVER actually allowed to BE Jewish within the Pagan, Gentile-centric Church or its Bible for that matter. Ever.
Why?
Because the Church is NOT particularly Jewish. In fact, the Church is very UN-Jewish, as much as possible.
The reasons for this are many and varied, but suffice to say this thinly veiled anti-Semitism (anti-Jewish sentiment) is rooted in the early Church’s highly-charged political culture of Rome. (The below article, Jesus Was Vegetarian?, offers some insight into the differences between Jewish and Pagan [Roman/Gentile] Christians.)
The Pagan Christians vs. The Jewish Christians
Because of their many uprisings within the Roman Empire, the Jewish state was not well-liked within the empire, and decidedly within the city of Rome itself. In fact, Jews were quite hated. Period. Rome’s anti-Semitic culture is a well-known historical fact.
It doesn’t take too much logic to see that a “Jewish” messiah was not going to be very well received within anti-Jewish Rome.
As such, the Church’s earliest adherents, dare I say, leaders, embarked on a bold plan to remove Jesus’ “Jewishness” from the faith taught by Jesus and his Apostles. They in essence created a “Pagan” (“Gentile”) version of Jesus that was more palatable and “sold” well with the citizens of Rome.
Marcion, a 2nd century Christian (whom the Church disavowed as a “heretic” for what will become obvious reasons in a moment) is credited with creating the very first Christian Bible canon; what we today call the “Marcion Canon”. Marcion’s Bible contained only the Gospel of Luke, heavily redacted to remove Jesus’ Jewishness, and a number of Paul’s epistles. And nothing more.
Within Marcion’s Bible, Jesus looked very, well, Roman. Pagan. Gentile. Just like the citizens of Rome were.
What the Catholic Church doesn’t want you to know is that Marcion’s church exploded with popularity within Rome. Not only was his anti-Jewish version of Jesus popular, but many scholars also point to the fact that Marcion’s followers well exceeded those of the Catholic Church during the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Even after Constantine’s take-over of Christianity as the official state religion, Marcionites were still flourishing well into the 4th century.
The fact was, a non-Jewish Jesus sold very well in Rome. So well, in fact, that the Catholic Church itself would also adopt a rather Marcionist version of Jesus to sell its own Bibles and “gospel” to its Christian following.
These churches in Rome were in effect “paganizing” Jesus with their Gentile (non-Jewish) culture.
By the 3rd century, there was a myriad of various Christian “denominations” populated throughout Rome. The Catholics in Rome demonized all of them but themselves as “heretics”, but that didn’t change the fact that huge swaths of Christian believers did not agree with what the Catholic denomination was doing to the Jewish messiah—which was teaching a false version of him.
Christians were simply doing what Jesus and Apostles did, which was to worship on the Jewish worship days; keeping Jewish feast days; and other “Jewish” things Rome culturally hated. Roman Catholic Christians called these other Christians “Judaizers”. It was meant to be derogatory. A slur.
Pagan Christianity
Unfortunately, it was the Catholics who gained the emperor’s favor. Now sanctioned and armed with the power of Constantine’s State, the Catholic Church was done with so-called “Judaizing” Christians! Using the power of the State, the Catholic Church in no uncertain terms literally took over all things Christian. It made broad changes to how Christians would worship, which Bible they would use, and what they would believe or not believe.
Was this take-over of Christianity the will of God? Hardly. Paganizing the teachings of Jesus was NOT the will of GOD. Far from it. In other words, GOD was not protecting the Church from a lying leadership. That should be self-evident if the Reformation means anything to us.
In making its deep changes to Christianity, the Church would totally eschew the 7th day Jewish Shabbat that Jesus and the Apostles actually observed, and instead adopt the much more popular pagan Roman worship day, Dies Solis (Sun’s Day). The Church would create a new Christianized Sabbath, “The Lord’s Day”, that would be observed on the 1st day of the week.
Note that the 4th Commandment requires the followers of GOD to observe the 7th Day as a Sabbath rest day.
Blow-off the Commandments much? I’m sure that was GOD’s will!
Many Christians over the centuries have realized the abrupt disconnect the change in the day of worship represented, and as such we have come up with some rather astonishing excuses for not observing the 4th Commandment, like: “Jesus is my sabbath rest,” forgetting that Jesus kept the 7th day Shabbat. It’s a vacuous, meaningless quip. You may as well say that “Jesus is my job,” while stealing money from your neighbor. Like God is going to forgive you for deliberately stealing.
But this is why the Church must hide the real Jesus from you. They don’t want you knowing what the real Jesus and Apostles actually DID.
The Church would also do away with Christians observing the Passover, which up until this time, many Christians continued to observe all over the Roman Empire because that is what the real Jesus and his Apostles did.
Instead, the Church would observe its own version of the Passover, called “Easter”, another takeover and remake of the Roman fertility festivals. Easter was kind of a new thing, one that commemorated the resurrection of its version of Jesus rather than putting up with, well, whatever rituals might have taken place during any of the typical fertility festivals. The Church wasn’t quite so successful in this since Easter still harbors fertility elements, like eggs, bunnies, and chicks; all things that represented the old fertility celebrations.
What colored eggs, bunnies, and chicks have to do with a resurrection is a bit of a stretch. But I guess somethings just don’t make sense until you know the background.
Another festival the pagan Church took over was Rome’s Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, the “Birthday of the Invincible Sun” (god), celebrated on December 25th just after the Winter Solstice when the days began getting longer. No, instead of the birthday of various pagan gods, the Church would create something called “Christmas” and assign this day to the birth of Jesus. It wasn’t really the birthday of Jesus, but that was the bogus lying tradition the Church created.
“We don’t know when Jesus was really born, Keith!”
Not true. From the Gospels we note that Jesus would have been born about 6 months after his cousin John (the Baptist). This places Jesus’ birth somewhere around the Feast of Trumpets in the fall. But the Church doesn’t want you know anything “Jewish” about Jesus, so they just say, “We don’t know when Jesus was really born.” It’s a half-truth. We do know, approximately. We just don’t want YOU knowing, because Jesus has now been assigned the pagan birthday shared by the Roman sun god and other pagan gods.
Jesus Has Left the Church
By the end of the 3rd century, it is safe to say that the real historical Jesus was no longer IN the Christian Church.
The real Jesus had left the building.
Some say the historical Jesus was NEVER IN the Roman Catholic Church to begin with, and to that, I wholeheartedly agree.
The “Jesus” that remained bore almost no resemblance to the true Jesus and true Apostles; what they taught; and who they were as Jewish men of GOD.
What we have been spoon-fed by the Church is a NEW Jesus, a different kind of Jesus, a manufactured one that resonates with our Pagan (Gentile) culture. A Christian culture, by the way, that is so far removed from anything Jewish that if the real Jesus ever did show up, none of us would recognized him or his teachings. What the Church is really preaching is …
Paul’s Jesus
What more and more Christians are beginning to realize is that the Bible created and assembled by the Roman Catholic Church wasn’t so much trying to preach the Gospel as taught by a Jewish Jesus and the Apostles, but a new Gospel, a very Pagan gospel, preached by the very pagan Paul of Tarsus.
“Wait, Keith, Paul was Jewish.”
By birth. Not by culture. Paul was what historians refer to as a Hellenized Jew, someone who was of Jewish ancestry and knew of Jewish culture, but was really more culturally Greek, or in Paul’s case Greco-Roman. Paul was a Roman citizen.
In fact Paul was so Hellenized that he could easily present himself to Gentile (Pagan) audiences who would accept him and not be offended by his Jewish heritage.
Within his writings, Paul presents himself as being the “Apostle to the Gentiles”. Unfortunately, what the Church also covers up, is that Paul didn’t have the official authority to preach anything in the name of Jesus or the Apostles from the Jerusalem Church (Synagogue)!
Wait, WHAT?!
You read that correctly. The bogus history of tradition that the Church preaches is that Paul was best buddies with the Apostles. But that is a lie. The historical fact of the matter was (as opposed to the tradition the Church makes up), Paul and the Apostles were bitter rivals; and there are numerous extant (surviving) historical documents to back this up.
“But Keith! Acts of the Apostles is—”
—a lying writ. Your Church is lying to you about the origin and authenticity of Acts of the Apostles being a factual document. The book was written by Luke, Paul’s buddy and traveling companion. Luke was a Pagan, a Gentile. So how did a non-Jewish book end up in what should be a Judaic tome?
Bible scholars have long realized this as well …
“… the purposes of the book of Acts is to minimize the conflict between Paul and the leaders of the Jerusalem Church, James and Peter. Peter and Paul, in later Christian tradition, became twin saints, brothers in faith, and the idea that they were historically bitter opponents standing for irreconcilable religious standpoints would have been repudiated with horror.
The work of the author of Acts was well done; he rescued Christianity from the imputation of being the individual creation of Paul, and instead gave it a respectable pedigree, as a doctrine with the authority of the so-called Jerusalem Church, conceived as continuous in spirit with the Pauline Gentile Church of Rome.” —MACOBY, Hyam, (Christian / Jewish / Talmudic scholar) The Mythmaker, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1986 p. 139
You’ve likely never heard of this before. But this is but a fraction of what the Church is hiding from you, me, all of us, that they don’t want anyone knowing.
Paul the Interloper
In his second letter to the Gentile synagogue (church) in Corinth, Paul openly INSULTS the “Super Apostles”. Other versions / translations of the Bible call these the “most eminent Apostles”. In any event, it’s clear that these “Super Apostles” are in fact the guys in Jerusalem who actually walked with Jesus. And it is these same Super Apostles who have shown up and turned the Corinthians against Paul’s teachings—and Paul is ticked off!
Paul goes on to say that these “Super Apostles” preached a different “Jesus”, a different “Gospel” and even a different “spirit” that the one Paul had preached to them. (see: Chapter 11).
Wow.
I know. You’ve never heard this before. You think I’m lying; that I’m making it all up.
I’m not.
I cover this disagreement between Paul the Super Apostles in much more detail in the below upcoming article …
It is all of us who have been lied to by the Church. A Church who does not preach the same “Jesus”, “Gospel”, and “Spirit” the “Super Apostles” indeed preached after the death of Jesus. You are believing a pagan Church who had the audacity to change the day of worship in direct conflict with the Commandment of GOD. It is a Church who doesn’t care what lie nor how big of lie it needs to manufacture.
The Inerrant, Infallible Bible?
The Church gets away with this and other lies, mostly by claiming that it was God who assembled the Bible. “God used the Church to assemble the Bible!”
Hogwash.
Did God tell the Church to lie about it as well?!
But again, this “the Bible is the Word of God” nonsense is just another lie built upon a whole framework of insipid lies that the Church created to keep you and all of us trapped within their web of deceit.
The Bible is without question a product of the period Gentile (Pagan) Catholic Church. NO ONE else assembled it.
What the Church also doesn’t want you to know is that the Books of Peter, books that are supposed support Peter and Paul being best buddies, are complete forgeries.
Within scholastic circles, such forged books are called “pseudepigrapha”, a fancy way of saying a book was written “in the name of” someone else, typically someone famous. But the fancy term doesn’t erase the fact that the book is complete forgery. It was NOT written by the person whose name it bears.
There isn’t a single modern scholar worth their salt who will tell you that the paleographical evidence surrounding the letters of Peter show them to be “authentic”, that is actually written by Peter. In fact, scholars are very sure the letters were written by people in Pau’s rogue group.
But the Church never tells you this about the books of Peter. They treat them as if the Apostle Peter actually wrote them. I suppose GOD told the Church to lie about these books as well?
And the books of Peter are not the only lying writs within the Bible. The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John are also complete forgeries in that the Apostles whose name they bear did not write them. Their authors are completely unknown.
“God would not allow such a thing to happen to His Word, Keith!”
That is the Church talking; not GOD. God NEVER instructed anyone to assemble a Bible. The Church did that on its own and then told you what to believe about its lying tome.
Does this make the Bible worthless? No! But we need to unlearn the man-made tradition that calls the Bible “inerrant” or “wholly inspired”, or equates it as “God’s Word” because it’s factually none of these things.
Yes, there IS inspiration within the pages of the Bible, but we need to be prudent in how or what we discern as being “of GOD” versus what is just man-made hogwash parading as the words of GOD.
Conclusion—Where is Jesus?
Jesus left the Christian Church 2,000 years ago when the Roman Catholic Church attempted to “Paganize”, “Gentilize”, the Jewish Jesus and the Jewish Gospel and Jewish Spirit of GOD that Jesus and the Apostles preached with.
Do I want you to go out and start keeping a 7th-day Shabbat and Passover and Yom Kippur? No. You don’t need to become Jewish to understand that the Church lied to you and all of us about who Jesus really, truthfully was and what Jesus actually preached.
What I am hoping is that you take away from this a new curiosity. What else did the Christian Church lie to me about? What Gospel did Jesus actually preach?
At the end of the day, the Church doesn’t really “believe in” Jesus, at least not the real historical one. The Church manufactured its own version, one that Paul of Tarsus completely made up—or borrowed from, shall we say.
It’s about time all of us got to know who the REAL Jesus was and what he and the Apostles really, truthfully preached as the Gospel.
So now the question begs asking: What “gospel” did the true historical Jesus and Apostles really preach? To answer that we’ll need to dive a little deeper. I have released a 3-part series to answer just that question in Christianity’s Counterfeit Jesus: Part 1.
