Weekend Economists Pull the Easter Rabbit Out of the Hat April 18-20, 2014 [View all]

[Demeter]

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http://www.amazon.com/CHRISTS-VENTRILOQUISTS-Event-Created-Christianity-ebook/dp/B007Q1H4EG

How Christianity Was Created by Jesus's Enemies

http://www.viewzone.com/ventriloquest.html



RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:

This is the first work to apply to the interpretation of classical documents the methodology which courts of law in a democracy apply when reconstructing a sequence of events on the basis of documentary evidence referring to them. Among the principles employed here, which haven't previously been used by historians, are:

(1) For any alleged historical reconstruction, cite only the best (the most reliable) evidence (and exclude the rest under the best-evidence rule);

(2) Things that a cited document necessarily implies, rather than explicitly asserts, have higher evidentiary value (credibility) than any explicit assertions; and,

(3) Each explicit assertion cited in evidence must be questioned not just as to its accuracy, but also as to its honesty-of-intent. These three principles have never been applied to the documents concerning earliest Christianity. Applying them produces a radically new understanding of how Christianity began.

FINDINGS:

This first-ever legal/forensic exegesis of Paul's letter to the Galatians, and associated legal/forensic analysis of the four canonical Gospels, finds that Christianity started in or around the year 49 CE in Antioch (present-day Antakya, Turkey) as a direct consequence of a personal conflict which had arisen, during the prior 14 years, between Paul and the leader of this (at that time) Jewish sect, which Jesus had begun prior to his crucifixion at around the year 30 by the Romans for sedition.

The sect's leader was not Peter, such as Paul's followers who wrote the Gospels said, but was instead Jesus's brother James. Peter was and remained a follower of James, and he died (as did the rest of the sect) as a member of this Jewish sect, not as a Christian -- not as a member of the group which Paul started on this occasion. Jesus's sect soon itself expired.

What's known today as Christianity started with Paul, and was then developed by his followers, who wrote the canonical Gospels and the rest of the New Testament. The religion of the New Testament actually has nothing to do with the person of the historical Jesus: The NT was written and assembled to fulfill Paul's Roman agenda, not Jesus's Jewish one. This is shown to explain the entire Christian myth.

The conflict between Paul and James has to do with the circumcision-commandment, Genesis 17:14, which is Judaism's signature-commandment, by which a person signs God's contract in blood and becomes eligible to be a member of God's People.

Paul doesn't want to enforce it, because neither anesthesia nor antibiotics yet exist in this ancient era, and so any medical operation is an excruciating horror for these adult men, and frightening also because all operations have a high fatality rate from infections. James knows that if Genesis 17:14 is to be enforced upon Paul's men, then most of them will simply abandon Jesus's sect and will abandon Judaism altogether.

But finally in the year 49 or 50, right after the council in Jerusalem (which Paul refers to in Galatians 2:1-10), James does try to enforce it, and Paul calls James's bluff and refuses to comply. This is the moment when Paul first announces Christianity: the occasion Paul describes approximately four years later in Galatians 2:16-21.

The event that created Christianity is referred to in carefully veiled language in Galatians 2:11-21: James here changes his mind and decides that Genesis 17:14 will have to be enforced after all, and he sends Peter to Paul in Antioch to order him to have all his men circumcised. James also sends a back-up team to check up on Peter (who is very reluctant to do this), and to make sure that Peter does what he is told.

But when the back-up team arrives and sees Peter instead dining with Paul's uncircumcised men, Peter is startled and embarrassed to be seen dining with these non-members, and so he backs away from the table. At this moment, Paul responds to Peter by announcing, for the first time ever, Christianity, which is the doctrine that Paul states in Galatians 2:16-21.

Although Paul says that he's rejecting the circumcision-commandment because he rejects the entire covenant, he is actually rejecting the entire covenant because he rejects the circumcision-commandment. This is the only way Paul can keep his men with him; he simply can't admit to them that they are not Jews. So, from now on, he needs to be very careful about how he words things. Only gradually do his men come to recognize that they aren't Jews. Paul prepares them for this by telling them how horrible strict Jews are, such as he does in Galatians 1:13-14, 1 Thessalonians 2:3-16, and Philippians 3:2-8.

James is now trapped by circumstances: If he publicly announces that Paul's men are no longer members of Jesus's sect, then James will lose the vast majority of his sect's members, since Paul had converted them.

Furthermore, Paul's followers are Gentiles in a Gentile world ruled by Gentile Rome, during the time when Rome is at war against the Jews in Jerusalem. Jerusalem's Jews are a poor and defeated people. James is relying on the financial contributions coming in from Paul's many Gentile congregations, to support the Jesus sect. James therefore needs to remain silent about Paul's coup d'etat.

The "Jesus" who is described in the Gospel-accounts is written later, by Paul's followers, not by James's, and is written so as to add narrative flesh to the bones of Paul's agenda -- the agenda exposed in Galatians and in the other six authentic letters from Paul -- the earliest-written of all Christian documents...

I DO NOT KNOW WHY I AM THE LAST PERSON IN THE WORLD TO LEARN ABOUT THIS SEMINAL WORK...BUT IT IS ASTONISHING! IT EXPLAINS SO MUCH! I'M GOING TO HAVE TO BUY A BOOK!

DO YOU KNOW HOW SELDOM I BUY A BOOK THESE DAYS?