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Thread ID: 7381 | Posts: 5 | Started: 2003-06-15

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Avalanche [OP]

2003-06-15 20:23 | User Profile

From The Templar Revelation Secret Guardians of the True Identify of Christ by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince

I’ve scanned in a few bits... I give not necessarily the actual page where it begins (there may be one or two sentences on the previous or following page, but the main page number of the excerpt. I’ve also not included the actual reference, but have left the reference numbers in the text.

======= Page 235 So it is clear that the Baptist and the Magdalene -- the one who baptized Jesus and the other who was the first witness to the whole point of Christianity, the Resurrection -- are united by the fact that the Gospel writers were, to say the least, uncomfortable about them. But is it possible to discover why, and to reconstruct their true roles and re-establish their original significance?

The main problem is that the books of the New Testament are a very unreliable source of information. Like all ancient texts they have, of course, been subject to a relentless process of editing, selection, translation and interpretation. Over the centuries parts have been added to the original works that are sometimes unimportant, but on occasion highly significant. For example, in the First Epistle of John, the sentence ‘For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one’ is known to have been added later15. Then again, the story of ‘the woman taken in adultery’ appears only in John’s Gospel -- and its earliest known versions do not contain this episode16. It is a matter of great debate whether or not it is authentic.

A major example of the confusion that is due to the vagaries of translation is that of the common misconception that Jesus was a humble carpenter. The word used in the original Aramaic was naggar, which can mean either a worker in wood or a scholar or learned man17. In the context, the latter makes the most sense, for there is no other hint anywhere else that Jesus was any kind of a craftsman -- and his learning caused special comment from those who heard him: the word naggar is only used when the people are specifically discussing his erudition18. Yet the idea that Jesus was a carpenter is now just as indelibly written into the Christian story as the ‘fact’ that he was born on 25 December.

The dates at which the canonical Gospels were written have been the subject of great debate and controversy. As A.N. Wilson writes: > ** One of the most curious features of New Testament scholarship is the fact that, though learned men have pored over documents for centuries, they have never managed to establish beyond doubt such simple questions as where the Gospels were written, or when they were written, still less, by whom they were written.19** The earliest surviving complete manuscripts are from the fourth century, but they are clearly copies of older texts. So scholars have had to try to establish their provenance by analysing the language of the surviving Gospel fragments. Although the question has not been conclusively resolved, the current consensus is that Mark’s Gospel is the earliest, having been written perhaps as early as 70 CE. It is also agreed that Matthew and Luke were based largely on Mark and therefore must have been composed later, although they do incorporate material from other sources. John’s Gospel is thought to be the last to have been written – somewhere between 90 and 120 CE.20 ======= page 237 John’s Gospel is by any standards, very strange. It has long bewildered even the most erudite of scholars because of its confusing messages: in fact, its tone -- which is unmistakable -- is flatly contradicted by the facts it is careful to set before the reader. Because of the detailed information it gives, John’s Gospel is recognized as the most valuable historically, and yet it is also regarded as the most distant in time from Jesus’ life. It shows more precise knowledge about Jewish religious practices, yet it is the least Jewish, and most Hellenistic, in outlook. It is by far the most hostile to the Jews -- its diatribes against them reveal real hatred -- yet makes it clearer than the other Gospels that it was the Romans, not the Jews, who were responsible for the execution of Jesus. And it is also the most strident in its marginalization of John the Baptist, devoting many words to his apparent inferiority and completely ignoring the Baptist’s subsequent fate -- yet, unlike the Synoptic Gospels, it tells us that Jesus recruited. his first disciples from John’s group and that the followers of both leaders continued to be rivals, thereby revealing that John was important in his own right.

This evident confusion, however, is easily explained by the many sources that were used in order to compile John’s Gospel -- including its eye-witness account of Jesus’ mission. And as we will see, some of these sources are particularly revealing.

Many modem Christians believe that the New Testament was somehow divinely inspired. However, the facts argue against this: it was only in 325 CE that the Council of Nicaea met to debate which out of many books would be included in what was to become the New Testament. There is no doubt that the men present at the Council brought to the task their own prejudices and agendas, of which we are still reaping the sorry harvest. Eventually the Council established that only four Gospels would be included in the New Testament and rejected forever over fifty other books with more or less equal claim to be considered authentic23.

At a stroke the views expressed, either implicitly or explicitly, in the rejected material became synonymous with heresy. (In fact, the word heresy originally just meant choice.) In a sense the same kind of selection process as that which ;as employed by the Council of Nicaea in the fourth century continues to this day. The public at large is not, on the whole, allowed to make up its own mind about the surviving texts. For example, the Gospel of Thomas, the existence of which had been known about for a long time, was only discovered in full when the Nag Hammadi texts were uncovered in 1945. But any rejoicing at its discovery must surely be tempered by recognition of the reason for its acceptance by theologians: it agreed with the existing four Gospels, and that was why it was allowed to pass into the unofficial canon (although the Catholic Church itself pronounced it heretical). Other texts, dating from roughly the same time, were discarded because the religious views in them do not accord with those of the New Testament. These are generally the texts that come from a Gnostic background.

page 241 A highly significant discovery was made in 1958 by Dr Morton Smith (subsequently Professor of Ancient History at Columbia University, New York) in the library of Mar Saba, an isolated and closed community of the Eastern Orthodox Church about a dozen miles from Jerusalem. Smith had first gone to the monastery during the Second World War when, as a student, he was stranded in Palestine. Realizing the potential importance of the documents that had been accrued in that library over the centuries, he went back there in 1958.

His most significant discovery at Mar Saba was of some fragments of a ‘Secret Gospel’ said to have been written by Mark31. What he actually found was a copy of a letter from the second-century Church Father, Clement of Alexandria. The copy dated from, at the earliest, the second half of the seventeenth century, and had been written on the end-papers of a book dating from 1646 (a common practice when very old documents began to deteriorate). However, from analysis of the style -- which contains many of Clement’s known idiosyncracies -- paleographers have established that the original had indeed been written by him. There are also peculiarities in the extracts from this ‘Secret Gospel’ quoted in the letter that makes it probable that they are genuine. (For example, it describes Jesus as becoming angry. Of the canonical Gospels only Mark attributes normal human emotions to Jesus -- the others excised such elements from their accounts, and it is hardly something that the Church Fathers such as Clement would have invented.)

Clement’s letter is a reply to someone called Theodore, who had apparently written to him for advice on how to deal with a heretical sect known as the Carpocratians (after their founder, Carpocrates). This was a Gnostic cult whose practices included sexual rites, which were, predictably, condemned by Clement and the other Church Fathers. The sect’s doctrines were apparently based on an alternative Gospel of Mark. In his letter Clement admitted that this Gospel existed and was authentic -- although he accused the Carpocratians of mis-interpreting and falsifying some of it -- and that it represented a Gospel written by Mark that contained the esoteric teachings of Jesus that were not intended to have been revealed to the average Christian. This ‘Secret Gospel of Mark’ was very similar to the better-known, canonical version, except that it contained at least two passages that had been deliberately excised from it to keep them from the eyes of the ‘uninitiated’.

The discovery is significant for three reasons. First, for the insight it gives into the formative years of the Christian Church, and the methods used by the Church Fathers to establish the canon of Christian dogma. It shows that texts were being edited and censored, and that even works recognized as being of equal value to the canonical Gospels were being withheld from the ordinary worshipers. Moreover, it reveals that even such an august figure as Clement was prepared to lie to prevent such material from becoming more widely known: although he admits to Theodore that Mark’s Secret Gospel does exist, he advises him to deny it to everyone else.

The second significant aspect is that it confirms that the canonical Gospels, and the other books of the New Testament do not give a complete picture of the teachings and motivation of Jesus, and that (as suggested by some reports of his words in the canonical Gospels) there were at least two levels of teaching. One was the exoteric for the ordinary followers, and the other was the esoteric, for the special disciples -- or the true inner circle of initiates.

The third significant point about the discovery of Mark’s Secret Gospel -- and one of particular relevance to our own enquiry -- is the nature of the two passages that Clement quotes in his letter.

The first is an account of the raising of Lazarus, although in this version he is not named, simply being described as a ‘youth’ of Bethany. The account is very similar to that in John’s Gospel, except that in this version there is a follow-up to the actual miracle -- it says that six days afterwards the youth came to Jesus "wearing a linen cloth over his naked body’ and remained with him for a night, during which he was ‘taught... the mystery of the kingdom of God’34. . Rather than a miraculous resurrection, therefore, the raising of Lazarus seems to have been part of some kind of initiatory rite in which the initiate undergoes a symbolic death and rebirth before being given the secret teachings. Such a rite is a common part of many of the mystery religions that were widely practised in the Greek and Roman worlds -- but did it, as some readers may deduce, also include a homosexual initiation?

Morton Smith certainly speculated that this might have been so, judging by the specific allusion to a single cloth covering the youth’s nakedness and the fact that he spent a night alone with his teacher, Jesus. In our opinion, however, this is too modern -- and too glib -- an interpretation, for the mystery schools routinely involved both nudity and long hours’ seclusion with one’s initiator without any sexual activity necessarily having been involved.

The fact that this account is of the raising of Lazarus is also important. As we have seen, this is one of the episodes in John’s Gospel that does not appear in any of the others, and is cited by critics as proving that the Gospel is not authentic. The very fact that it once appeared in at least one of the other Gospels, but was then deliberately removed, supports John’s authenticity, and explains why such significant events were censored from them, as they gave clues to a secret teaching that had been reserved for Jesus’ inner circle.

page 260 Sacred sexuality -- anathema to the Church of Rome -- finds expression in the concept of the sacred marriage and ‘sacred prostitution’, in the ancient Oriental systems of Taoism and Tantrism, and in alchemy.

As Marvin H. Pope says in his exhaustive work on the Song of Songs (1977): > ** The Tantric hymns to the Goddess offer some of the most provocative parallels to the Song of Songs.22 **

And as Peter Redgrove explains in his The Black Goddess (1989), while discussing the sexual arts of Taoism: > ** It is interesting to compare this with Middle-Eastern sexual religious practices, and the image of them which we have inherited. Mari-Ishtar, the Great Whore, anointed her consort Tammuz (with whom Jesus was identified) and thereby made him a Christ. This was in preparation for his descent into the underworld, from which he would return at her bidding. She, or her priestess, was called the Great Whore because this was a sexual rite of horasis, of whole-body orgasm that would take the consort into the visionary knowledgeable continuum. It was a rite of crossing, from which he would return transformed.

In the same way Jesus said that Mary Magdalene anointed him for his burial. Only women could perform these rites in the goddess’ name, and this is why no men attended his tomb, only Mary Magdalene and her women. A chief symbol of the Magdalene in Christian art was the cruse of holy oil -- the external sign of the inner baptism experienced by the Taoist.. .23 **

There is something else that is of great importance about that cruse of oil with which the Magdalene anointed Jesus. As we have seen, the Gospels tell us that it was spikenard -- an unguent that was exceptionally costly. The reason for its high price was that it had to come all the way from India, home of the ancient sexual art of Tantrism. And in the Tantric tradition different perfumes and oils are assigned to specific areas of the body: spikenard was for the hair and feet... [ellipsis sic]

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the sacrificial kings are told: The harlot who anointed you with fragrant oil weeps for you now’, while a similar phrase was used in the mysteries of the dying god Tammuz, whose cult was prevalent in Jerusalem in Jesus’ time24. And significantly the ‘seven devils’ that Jesus allegedly cast out of the Magdalene may be seen as the seven Maskim, Sumero-Akkadian spirits who ruled the sacred seven spheres and who had been born of the goddess Mari.25

In the tradition of the sacred marriage, it was the bride of the sacrificial king -- the High Priestess -- who chose the moment of his death, who attended his burial and whose magic brought him out of the underworld to new life. In most cases, of course, this ‘resurrection’ was purely symbolic, being seen in the new life of springtime -- or, in the case of Osiris, in the annual flooding of the Nile valley that would renew the fertility of the land.

So we may see Mary Magdalene’s anointing for what it was -- both as an announcement that the moment for Jesus’ sacrifice had arrived, and as a ritual setting-apart of the sacred king, by virtue of her own authority as priestess. That this role is diametrically opposed to the one that the Church has traditionally assigned to her should, by now, come as no surprise.

In our opinion, the Catholic Church never wanted its members to know about the true relationship between Jesus and Mary, which is why the Gnostic Gospels were not included in the New Testament and why most Christians do not even know they exist. The Council of Nicaea, when it rejected the many Gnostic Gospels and voted to include only Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the New Testament, had no divine mandate for this major act of censorship. They acted out of self-preservation, for by that time -- the fourth century -- the power of the Magdalene and her followers was already too widespread for the patriarchy to cope with.

According to that censored material, which was deliberately rejected to prevent the true picture being known, Jesus gave the Magdalene the title of ‘Apostle of the Apostles’ and ‘the Woman Who Knew All’. He said that she would be raised above all the other disciples and rule the forthcoming Kingdom of Light. As we have seen, he also called her ‘Mary Lucifer’ -- ‘Mary the Light-bringer’ -- and it was claimed that he brought Lazarus back from the dead simply out of love for her, there being nothing he would not have done for her, nothing he could refuse her. The Gnostic Gospel of Philip describes how the other disciples disliked her, and how Peter in particular sought to argue about her status with Jesus -- even, rather ingenuously, on one occasion asking him why he preferred her to the other disciples and why was he always kissing her on the mouth! In the Gnostic Gospel of Mary, the Magdalene says that Peter hated her and ‘all the race of women’ and in the Gospel of Thomas, Peter says "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life’ -- a foretaste of the grim battle between the Church of Rome, which was founded by Peter, and the heretical underground that belonged to Mary. (It is constructive to remember that this began as the personal clash of two individuals -- and one of them was Jesus’ consort.)

Ragnar

2003-06-15 20:41 | User Profile

The Templar Revelations is a fun book in a naive sort of way. The authors are constantly going OH MY GAWD and CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS? over stuff most everyone else takes for granted.

Catholic theology has always considered Mags an apostle; it's written right there in the Gospel of Luke. Most of us former Catholics remember it well.

In Luke 24, two shining dudes (angels?) tell the women to remember what Jesus had told them back in Galilee -- that he would be bound and executed by sinful people and rise on the third day.

When did he tell them that?

Flip back to Luke 9 where indeed he tells them about his coming trials and how he will rise again three days later. And it's specifically noted that he was "praying alone" with his disciples. So Luke tells us flat out that Mags one of the inner circle, a disciple and a lady of quite high rank.

The whole book just spends too much time getting excited about the obvious.

Avalanche

2003-06-15 21:00 | User Profile

The authors are constantly going OH MY GAWD and CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS? over stuff most everyone else takes for granted.

Huh, I didn't find that at all.

You only take stuff for granted if you've had some exposure to it! To me, it provided a whole new way to look at the foundation of Christianity. It made sense of a lot of nonsensical stuff that has always caused me a problem in understanding how people can believe all that stuff.. (Well, it didn't exactly HELP with that, but it did give a better explanation of the stuff that was nonsensical...)

Catholic theology has always considered Mags an apostle; it's written right there in the Gospel of Luke. Most of us former Catholics remember it well. But the Church also considers her a prostitute, and the idea that she was, rather, a priestess of a different religion makes a LOT more sense!

The whole book just spends too much time getting excited about the obvious. It's not obvious AT ALL! I bet MOST Christians have no exposure to it!

Ragnar

2003-06-16 01:08 | User Profile

*Originally posted by Avalanche@Jun 15 2003, 21:00 * ** It's not obvious AT ALL! I bet MOST Christians have no exposure to it! **

& the ones who do won't admit it! They read D.H.Lawrence's story The Man Who Died, trust me. But admit it to the folks at home? Nope.

The church's take on "prostitute" is correct -- if you remember that they define their own words. Theodosius I outlawed the old religion ("pagan cults") in A.D. 384, and from that time on Rome referred to pagan priestesses as prostitutes because... because they killed anybody who disagreed.

If what I've read about the Isis religion is correct this is double-odd because that particular branch had no sexual rites anyway.

BTW, I'm about 1/3 into Picknett's latest book Mary Magdalene: Christianity's Hidden Goddess which is a lot less naive.

My guess is she's read a bit of Gerald Massey over the last couple years. :)

Avalanche

2003-06-16 04:22 | User Profile

Our next is The Temple and The Lodge (Baigent and Leigh, again).