HOT...More sensational Bible discoveries unknown to most Churchmen.  Good-news!  Fundamentalism is demolished and the Bible is rescued from Fundamentalism! 

     Much the same can be said about the New Testament.   If we look to see what each gospel writer stood for, we can see how each differed from the others and it becomes rather obvious why, what his purpose is in telling a different story.   In each of the gospels, there is always some traces of the original Jesus.   He is Messiah because he has the heritage to be King and he conducts a campaign to become King by popular acclaim. The job is open.   Herod the Great died in 4 B.C. and since that time Palestine had not had a king.   During this time none of the disciples or the population saw him as miracle worker or sin forgiver.  Only after the presumed resurrection do the writers transform him into "the Christ of faith".   But each gospel writer makes a different "Christ" than the others. Indications of the original Jesus remain in each of the four gospels, but each of these versions are now overlaid with theoretical second-thoughts of a later generation influenced by Paul.   All are variations of Paul's Christ. But each radiates out from the real Jesus differently from the other versions of Paul's "Christ". Because each writer has a quite different and contradictory purpose than the other three.  Let's look now at signs of the development from the original Christ to the other one:

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    At the very instant disciples first began to think there had been a resurrection, there began to be myriad problems about divinity.  Most, maybe all, of these puzzles are, in embryo form, embodied in Peter's (or anyone's) confession: "Thou art the Christ."  It was an electrifying powder-keg concept for those times whether divinity had been among us and what that signified for the immediate present and future.  It seemed to answer profound and urgent needs both personal and social.  But, as early as the very first written records, already churchmen were having big trouble, as we'll see, getting their story straight.  As early as Mark*, all of them were at best getting the story second-hand from non-eyewitnesses. The gospel of Matthew is placed first in the New Testament because in early times it was believed that some form of Matthew had circulated earliest.  However,

(1) Acts 12:12 has a John Mark whose mother was a leading Christian to whose house Peter goes when he gets out of prison. John Mark goes with Barnabus and Saul (Paul) on an expedition to Antioch, but not as an equal.  And remains with them through Cyprus, departing company at Perga.  On a second trip, Paul refuses Mark's company and this causes Barnabus to also leave, taking Mark with him back to Cyprus. (Acts 15:37)
(2) The Mark of the Pauline epistles is a cousin to Barnabus (Col. 4:10) and there is a Mark who is a fellow-worker and comfort to Paul (Col. 4:11 & Ph. 24). Had Mark #1 above and Paul reconcilled?  The church at Colosse was unsure if they want to receive Mark #2 proposed visit (Col. 4:10).
(3)  Then Peter (I Pet. 5:13 speaks of a Mark as his "son" and being with Peter at "Babylon".  (In Roman times there was a fortress town called Babylon at a place where the Nile turned and river traffic could be controlled.  It is now a suburb of Cairo).  Is this Mark actually Peter's son, or is Peter speaking metaphorically?

    Are all of these Marks the same person?  Churchmen have usually asumed they are. Here, we'll regard that assumption as quite doubtful and open to question. Paul, it is here believed, had been having an unwavering quarrel of many years duration with Peter over doctrine and which of them had the supreme rank.  It's hard to see how the same Mark could be shuttlling back and forth and on good terms with both.  But if these three Marks are not the same person, then we actually don't know which, if any, is the first author of the Gospel of Mark!   But no one doubts he was the secretary or interpreter of Peter.

    The writings of Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, in Phyrgia about 120 A.D. are lost except for a few quotations spared by Eusibus, who destroyed the rest of writings by Papius.  Eusebius was appointed by Constantine to be the official historian of the early church.  Papius had personally known both Apostle John and presbyter John (the presumed writer of the Apocalypse, also called Revelation).  And also had known other elders who had known other apostles. Papius, writing about 120 A.D. must surely have known all four of

our present day cannonical gospels, especially John and Mark.  But Papias valued the oral tradition, still extant then, far more than any written accounts, including our four present N. T. gospels. Papias would ask the elders, "What did Andrew say", "What did Thomas say" and so on.  Did Papias know who wrote our gospels and therefore rejected them, preferring the oral tradition he knew?

Papias is quoted:  "And the elder said this also:
       Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately all that
    he remembered of the things said or done by the Lord, but not however in order.
    For neither did he hear the Lord, nor did he follow Him, but afterwards, as I said,
    attended Peter, who adapted his teachings to the needs (of his hearers), but not
    as though he were drawing up a connected account of the Lord's oracles.  So
    then, Mark made no mistake in thus writing down some things just as he
    remembered them; for he made it his one care to omit nothing he had heard and
    to make no false statement therein."

      Papias also mentioned a book of "logia" (sayings) written in Hebrew by a Matthew (often assumed to be but not known to be Apostle Matthew.  " And each one had to interpret as he could" says Papias. (That is: nearly all spoke Aramaic or Greek, but not Hebrew).   So then, would Jesus, wanting his doctrines to have wide circulation, actually make these sayings in Hebrew, a language which few people knew?  Or were these translations?

    Eusibius, who valued Constantine's newly cannonized gospels which Papias rated as less reliable than oral tradition,  did not rate Papias very high, saying, "Clearly he (Papias) was very weak of intellect".  And Eusibus believed Papias was strongly influenced by Presbyter John so as to give a pronounced Apocalyptic content to his message.  Which Eusebius believed to be very harmful to the Church now that Rome accepted the Church.   So, the writings of Papias are gone, and with Papias the oral tradition is gone too. Eusebius also mentioned Hegesippus, of about 180 A.D. who travelled to the various churches, collecting undistorted traditions of apostolic preaching in a huge book.  This too is lost. (or was also scrapped?)   Eusebius also resisted Ebionite doctrine, already since the second century declared heretical by the Western church.  And it is exceedinly curious that Eusebius does not mention Avalon.   Constantine was British and could not help knowing all about Avalon.  All church councils were to always acknowledge that Britain had the earliest state church and Avalon was the earliest in Britain.  Founded in the year 36 by Joseph of Arimathaea and eleven companions, all of whom were original disciples of Jesus.  So that Avalon could claim to be as much as Jerusalem, the original church.

    Eusebius would have to be very well indeed aware of the British church, since he, Eusebius, had been appointed by Constantine, himself British, both to sit beside

Constantine at the Nicene council: and to write the official Roman state version of early church history.  And who was also to write"The Life Of Constantine".   Appointed by Constantine, whose army of British Christians had allowed him to become sole emperor.  One would think that therefore Avalon would have quite a lot to contribute to tradition and should even produce a written gospel.  But it was also the site of the largest and most imporant Druid university.  And Druids did not want their history to be written.  Instead, bards with fantastic memories were intrusted with the task.  Their traditions are now mostly lost.  Some remain.  The British church was born fighting.  The kingdom of Aviragus had already long been at war with Rome, before Joseph of Arimathaea arrived to found his church.  And never was conquered by Rome.  Constantine was from York, the northern capitol of Britain.  And probably hostile to Avalon's gospel.

    The Church of Rome to the present time still values oral, i.e. church "tradition" (the Pope's authority), over written scripture. But this is not the same tradition Papias used.

    Eusebius also mentions Origin, of about 225 A.D., who had acquired some original writings, then extant among the Jews, in actual Hebrew character.  Origin published in parallel columns 7 versions of Psalms, three more versions than previously known, showing that present texts are not necessarily infallibly correct. Most of Origin's work is lost.

    A number of Apocrypal works are extant, usually marketed as lost books of the Bible, though never lost, just never canonized by Protestants. They are mostly very unreliable, but sometimes have seemingly reliable parts. Several Gnostic gospels also, usually claiming apostolic authors but obviously fake, have been unearthed.  It's known that Gnostics were writing gospels about the same time the church began to create written records.  Some gospel parts may be deliberateattempts to repudiate Gnostic doctrine.  Such as, "the Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us" and Jesus eating and drinking and suffering.  And Thomas placing his finger in the wound. Docetists would never say such.  Constantine's bishops, in their zeal to blot out all traces of Gnostic literature, undoubtedly also eliminated the books of rival Christian sects such as the Ebionites.  The Vatican library is said to yet have thousands of manuscripts never read.  By the time of Ignatius of Antioch, the oral tradition was no more, anf leading bishops were publishing lists of writings acceptable to them as N.T. scripture.  For the most part, they are the same ones conized today.  But N. African Gnostics may have known or believed something important. Their portraits of Christ show no halo, indicating they maybe did not think Jesus to be divine?

   So, let's get back to Mark, who was Peter's "interpreter".  Does this mean Peter preached in Aramaic and Mark had to put it into Greek because already Greek speaking people were much in the majority in the churches?  Probably.  The epistle First Peter is written in very good Greek, but this could be a translatlon.  Rome would like it for Peter to have been in Rome and have it presumed that Mark wrote there.  I have a great deal of trouble with that.  Mark became bishop of Alexandria, and Clement of Alexandria, about 200 A.D. has it that Mark wrote from Alexandria (not Rome) after Peter's death (which according to Gaius writing in the year 200, took place in Nero's reign 54-68 A.D.)  Ignatius thought Mark wrote after Peter's death.  Eusebius relies on Gaius and Dionysius of Corinth as his authorities that Peter had been in Rome which many authorities doubt. It's also indirectly inferred from something Clement of Rome wrote aabout 94 A.D.   Jerome, about 400 A.D. had Peter leaving Rome about 44 A.D., the year of Claudius' persecution.  Roman tradition only, has it that Linus was consecrated first bishop of Rome by Peter.  That Linus was first bishop is unquestioned, but that he was appointed by Peter is open to serious doubt.  Winchester, (once capitol of Britain) claims Peter founded a church there, and a stone was unearthed there saying, "The place of Peter the Apostle".  It apparently was an inscription ordered by King Lucias, grandson of Aviragus, to signify Peter had founded that church.  A letter still in existence, from Pope Vitalian to Britsh King Oswy, 656 A.D. indicates the remains of Peter and Paul were moved to Canterbury and reintered there.  I however note, that all but one of these (Clement of Rome ca. 94 A.D. 50 years after Peter's date)) write a long time, usually centuries, after Peter's alleged visit. and write also from a most biased interest.  Most importantly, Peter left no known impact at Rome during his alleged visit, though several other contemporaries whose names are known did.  Peter makes no mention of Paul and Paul does not mention of Peter, though he does mention many other Romans by name.  The above reference by Gaius is, to me, especially suspect, since Gaius says there was, in Rome, a statue to Peter.  But it's known there was a statue honoring the other Simon, Simon Magus, and this statue has been recovered from the Tiber river.  Not until Origin, (about 225) are we told that Peter, at his request, was crucified upside down.  I'm strongly inclined to think Peter was probably never in Rome, except perhaps for his execution.  The Chartres cathedral claims Peter as patron saint, saying he preached in the Druidic grotto there.

    But all agree Mark got information from Peter.  Who was Peter's interpreter when

Mark wasn't there? Basilides, a major Gnostic, claimed he had been interpreter for Peter. Valentinus of Rome, another major Gnostic, claimed he had been instructed by Thedas, a disciple of Paul.

    Since Mark and Matthew share a lot of material, there is the dimmest chance that an earlier version of Mark used, as a reference, an earlier version of Matthew . But there seems little reason to doubt that the late version of Mark we now have in it's complete form, is earlier that the final version of Matthew.   And that Matthew borrows much more from Mark than Mark does from Matthew, if any.

It could very well be that the Mark Papias speakes of (as not writing in chronological order) is not our Mark, whose narrative seems generally in good order, often saying "after 6 days", or "after 4 days" and so on.  Most analysts think there had to have been a proto-Mark, later revised to become our present text.  This deduction is mostly derived from indications proto-Mark was written before the fall of Jerusalem, and the present revised text after the fall of Jerusalem.  But our Mark shows a surprising lack of knowledge of the geography of Palestine. For example: he has Jesus going from Tyre and Sidon to Galilee (7:31). But I'm told there was no such road then and still is none to the present.  Another: (5:1) about the country of the Gadarenes.  Which is not adjacent to the sea of Galilee, but some 30 miles away.  But our Mark has a good fund of information about Peter.  Many passages either mention Peter as present or Peter's presence can be inferred.  And these same passages, usually about miracles of Jesus and mentioning peoples names and places, are the very ones that seem to have once had an eyewitness.  Mark's dependence on Peter shows very big.  But, as we'll see, it can hardly be Peter's Christ which Mark portrays.

      Mark so very much echoes Peter that Mark's gospel as a whole is Peter's (alleged) confession, "Thou art the Christ".  The whole unit is simply an enlarged version of "Peter's Confession". Here, we'll develop the contention that "Peter's Confession" as given in Mark is a literary construction to support post-resurrection theology. And never happened historically.  While alive, Apostle Peter could never have allowed such things to be said about him.

    As we'll see, scattered throughout, are definate inconsistencies. Question: Had the ideas of Peter himself so rapidly evolved in the period of one troubled-times generation? Or do such differences reflect contrary points of view among the later congregation?  I'm assuming that since Mark became bishop of Alexandria, that this writing was the faith that was then known at Alexandria's church.  We can't think that Jesus himself was so illogical.

But I think we shouldn't blame Peter or Mark. The saints of the time simply didn't know how to assess Jesus.  The churchmen of those times did not have some of the vital information we now have.  The theological disputes already generating were to rage on for centuries--indeed until our own times. Fueled by the same lack of information now finally available.

    An example of development of change of thought over time: The several stages of thought about the Kingdom-Of-God being announced by the good-news. As the WHEN moved from one extreme to the other, the WHAT KIND IS IT also had to change to a like degree.  Notice: (1) At the very beginning with John Baptist and Jesus (Mark 1:15) the Kingdom-Of-God is "at hand".  Imminent. One gets the idea that some cosmic appearance or change is to occur almost immediately.  An alternate related meaning could be that the Kingdom is already present but they don't know it when they see it.  Luke has both these two thoughts: Luke 18:11 "They supposed that the Kingdom was to appear immediately" versus Luke 17:21 "The Kingdom-Of-God is within (or among) you".  There could be the same idea expressed differently here or it could be there are two entirely opposite concepts here.  It also could be there is a shift of meaning from one concept to the other.  but both are NOW concepts--either soon now, or now already.  Here, we'll take it that the Luke 17:21 point is self-evident, and this stage of thought well accomodates the concept that Jesus was a born king, and responding to the widely perceived need for political and economic revolution, might very well be planning and installing just such an "On earth as it is in heaven" kingdom just at that time.  And it is the contention of this theology of economic ethics, that this is the historical Jesus.  In plain view all the time.  And that all other gospel accounts and philosophies should conform to this original, but do not.  I suspect also this now kind of Messiah was the predominate thing Peter originally had in mind when, and if, he made his confession.  Jesus was Messiah because he was becoming King.  But when the resurrection seemed real, and as the years rolled on and Greeks came to far out-number Hebrew churchmen, a completely different, opposite, concept emerged by stages.  And it's this later view, not the original, that we see predominating in the final version of Mark's writing.  More later.
(2) A possible trace of postponement of the Kingdom shows in Matt.10:23 "You will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son Of Man will have come".   Jesus would have said such to the disciples he sent out two-by-two to announce a new king was comming. And he would take over the temple before they finished their two-by-two task. But it is a saying a later generation could twist to mean: Son-Of-Man was to make a supernatural cosmic appearance soon but not yet.  Also, importantly, to post-resurrection churchmen, Jesus does not seem to fully be Son-Of-Man until such a cosmic event takes place, yet to come.  This second stage of thought seems to be something especially belonging to the period of time after the 70 A.D. destruction of Jerusalem.  It fits their

needs.  Hopes for the stage one concept of a right then practical king were dashed by the collapse of their world when Jerusalem went down.  So they postpone the Kingdom somewhat.
(3) A further postponement appears in Mark 9:1 "There are some standing here who will not taste of death before they see the Kingdom-Of-God."  Almost the same but still further off: Mark 13:30 "This generation will not pass away till all these things be done."   Again the real Jesus could have said something like this to mean he was about to take over control of the temple.  But later churchmen needed a different meaning--a cosmic intervention something. This expectation was to get a rude shock when the last person who had known Jesus died.
(4) Then immediately after the stage three concept, Mark has him saying, "no man knows the day or the hour".   So now it could be put off indefinately.  The idea that the Kingdom was something that could and should be quickly achieved by the action of the disciples and taking over the temple, is gone.  Now, the kingdom is to be an Apocalyptic something sometime. It's a complete reversal of Kingdom expectations. And of Messiah types.

    Mark's gospel is just an expanded version of what Mark (and Alexandria) wanted Peter's confession to have been.  The big trouble, I think, is that we're being given Paul's confession instead of Peter's!  That is: they've switched Messiahs on us. We're mostly being shown Paul's hypothetical "Christ", not really the historical Jesus (who was still alive in Kashmir!)  Just as Kingdom theory moved from one extreme to the other, so also the Messiah concept underwent the same extreme change.  Mark does have a narrative naming people and places with attached events.  But Mark's main concern is to make Jesus seem to be a divine-figure. (Something no one at the time recognized!)   So we see that in our-Mark, the doctrinal concerns are greater than the concern for historical accuracy. It's more nearly theological speculation than history.  At times the weakness shows through.  Examples later.

    Mark seems to me to be more than a little arrogant in confessing his divine-figure "Christ".   He flaunts miracle, miracle, miracle at us, climaxing with the "resurrection".  It's as though he struts and crows, "I've completly trumped you, so take that, and now you have to believe what I want you to".  With me, it just doesn't work, and he should have stuck with the correct Jesus.  Here's multiple reasons why:

    At verse 1:4 Mark has the Baptist preaching the baptism of repentance (not water) for remission of sin, and another will baptize better with the Holy Ghost.  Well this is more than a postponement of the Kingdom-Of-God....Our-Mark has already switched to

something else.  In the generation since Jesus preached, the Kingdom-Of-God on earth as it is in heaven  now, practical economics messianism, has dropped out and been replaced by forgiveness-of-sins.  It seems inconsistant that in the next verse 1:5, Jesus takes over the Baptist's start and the time is (already) fulfilled and at hand....but since the Kingdom is at hand, repent (not rejoice).  This is the doctrine of Paul, not the good-news of the historic Jesus who intends to take over the temple and have a new economic program going.  Again at 2:5 we find Mark's Jesus forgiving sin instead of ushuring in a new social order.  Another inconsistancy: At 1:22 this "Christ" speaks, note, as one of the scribes who have to have an Old Testament verse in order to have authority.  Instead this "He" has his own (divine-figure) authority.  It's so because he says it's so.  But already Mark is being inconsistant because at verse 1:2 the divine-figure cannot just app;ear on his own but has to be propped up with an Old Testament verse!  And will repeatedly continue to need more of the same kind of prop-up.  According to Mark, a divine person can't be divine just because he's divine--it takes on O.T. verse to authenticate his divinity.  Another inconsistancy: Scribes are wrong and ridiculous if they rely on O.T. in this way, but it's the thing to do if Mark does it!

    Mark's divine-figure's authority extends to the miracles of casting out deamons; curing leprosy and blindness; over-ruling Sabbeth law; reviving the nearly dead; stilling a storm; walking on water; being transfigured and twice being identified by a voice from a cloud as "My beloved Son"; and to top it off, there's a resurrection.  But at the same time Jesus only calls himself Son Of Man (--not Son Of God), and repeatedly forbids disciples to tell anyone, see 1:25; 1:34; 1:44; 3:12; 5:43; 7:36.  Except for the big contradiction at 5:9 where the man is told to tell, and he does publish it in Decapolis (ten cities).  And how about repeatedly doing alleged miracles with crowds watching and then wanting it to not be publically known!   Wouldn't a divine-figure know that wouldn't work?  But we do occassionally see the real Jesus still there: (as when he tells his disciples, "Don't call me Christ" Mark 9:9 and Matt.16:20).  What's this!  A revelation that doesn't want to be revealed?  a Word that does not speak?

    So it takes a lot of "miracle" to supposedly make Mark's Christ a divine-figure.  but it was far from convincing everyone at the time as we can especially tell from the crucifixion.  There must have been a large percent of the spectators who did not believe anything

miraculous was taking place.  And at Mark 3:22, Mark has to explain his divine-figure is not Beelzebub.  Eventually, we'll show that all the alleged miracles could be explained by natural causes, and also a real Messiah wouldn't need them.  They don't have anything to do with the kind of messianism that takes over the temple.   But Paul's "Christ" who doesn't take over the temple, who only can forgive sins, needs magic and magic O.T. verses to prop him up.  No miracles were reported of the real Jesus while he was in Britain, Persia and India.

    Mark does not use any material from the Q document which is that content common to Matthew and Luke but not found in Mark.  And which Q material contains the Sermon-On-The-Mount.  If Mark has a version of the Sermon-On-The-Mount, I would take it to be chapter seven, where it is mostly about the legalisms of eating and is bracketed by the feeding of 5,000 and again of 4,000--which seems like two versions of the same story.   While there are no miracles in the Sermon as reported by Matthew and Luke, does Mark's miracle story seem to offer an Apocalyptic Kingdom soon to offer free bread?  While it's true that righteousness can and does work many marvelous changes by natural forces, with Mark's "miracles" we have an authority comnmanding nature to be unnatural.  It's the wrong kind of Christ and the wrong kind of Kingdom.  It's make-believe.  The Gospel According To John, like Mark, also wants a divine-figure Christ to feed the 5,000.  But then, having fed them John then has Jesus refuse to be that kind of magic-loaves-of-bread king all the time. It's the wrong kind of king and wrong kind of Kingdom.  John 6:3-15 also makes the feeding of the 5,000 to be a passover story (in contradiction to John's Last Supper, John 13) with the added feature of having the "Bread", like the alleged law of Moses, being issued from a mountain-top.  So all three of these doctrinally related mountain-Sermon stories, are obvious literary devices in which concern for the hidden doctrinal point very much out-weighs concern for historical accuracy.  And each gospel sees a very different Christ from the others.     But one of the most astonishing things about Mark's gospel has to do with what he doesn't say!  It's that he dares depart so completely from the political reality of the time, and to give no mention and only the barest hint of what's really going on politically!  There is no hint or suggestion that anyone at all has any complaint about Rome.  But we know from the history by Josephus, there had been generations of turmoil and insurrections,

every one of which rebellions had envisioned an installation of a kingdom of God.  But, there is no angry, revolt ready public in sight in Mark...but the 66-70 war of Jerusalem against Rome shows they're there.  Moreover, during the war, within the walls, there rages a three way civil war besides. And one of the first things one of the three factions did was to burn the archives so as to, Jubilee-like, cancel bank debts and to free all the slaves.  And in Mark also, isn't it the real Jesus who takes over the temple?   The seat of government.  Which the armed mob in thir 66-70 anarchy are never able to do!  So how does Mark think he can get by with not even mentioning the social and political situation in which the gospel events were taking place?  He doesn't tell us what he's up to, but we can make some pretty good guesses.  Especially if he's writing to revise proto-Mark just after the 66-70 A.D. fall of Jerusalem.  And it's the fall of Jerusalem that makes the revision seem necessary to him.  He seems to want to say nothing that might up-set the Romans. To eliminate all signs of the previous pre-war hostility and resentment against Romans.  Armed rebellion had been tried and didn't work--not even for "chosen" people!   Could it be therefore that in Marks's final account, Jesus' take-over of the temple should be watered down to something nearly meaningless?   And his Messiah should even more, change now and become, as Paul the Roman, wished, only as a divine-figure concerned only about sin and forgiveness or maybe also possible Apocalypse sometime?    It's almost as though our Mark doesn't even like the real Jesus Christ and wants to make a better one!  But it should be obvious to us now as we are entering the 21st century, that Mark's Apocalypse didn't happen and isn't going to.  And that the only Kingdom we get is what we care enough about to put together ourselves.   We can have it when we want it.  If we don't have it, it's because we wanted other things.  About Apocalypse: either the real Jesus is wrong, or Mark is wrong.  we here, say the real Jesus was correct, Jews would soon bring destruction on themselves.  And Mark blew it.

    So then, if only we read it right and do our own thinking, Mark can still tell us what we need to know--what is the right kind of Messiah and Kingdom.  Not the one Mark is trying sell us, but the other one, who is still there if we look.  So then, Mark is a good gospel with an exceedingly precious record.   Here he is, the real Jesus:

    Jesus actually did it and controlled the temple three days, no small feat. The temple was a huge institution  with thousands of employees.  And there was a Roman soldier guard force of 500 to 800 plus a 20,000 soldier temple guard controlled by the priests.  They

didn't dare arrest Jesus by day.  At festival time the temple would daily be thronged by multitudes of pilgrims from every nation, giving Jesus massive popular approval.   And though Jesus never gathered an army, still there were armies out there, and probably sympathetic.  Many thousands of Zealots; and 4,000 Daggermen and remnants of former rebellions; and innumerable would-be guerrillas.  At night it was easy to arrest him as he made no resistance.  Recent world news has shown government after government toppled by popular demand.  It's a powerful political force.  Jesus has done his part.  The rest is up to us.

    The Gospel according To Mark has two very opposite type Christs.  The same two are still in Matthew, but with some important differences. One is "divine" but not the same as Mark's divine-figure. The real Jesus is always the same in all four gospels.  Right away, at the first verse, Matthew sets out to show Jesus is born to be king.  Mark had not needed or wanted a king. Mark wanted to get along wlith the Romans and having a king isn't the best way, he thinks, to do that.  So Mark doesn't get around to having Jesus be king until near the end of his gospel, at 15:9-26, at which point he can't avoid the subject. But he has only the Romans say it.  In contrast, Matthew and Luke put kingship right up front at the beginning with genealogies (which could be checked out) showing Jesus to be descendant of the kings.  Our Mark, instead, is discarding the historical Jesus and instead is creating a divine-figure "Christ".  The two types are rather mutually incompatible.  If one is right, you don't need the other one.  At no point in Mark's story until the very end, does the fact Jesus is king play any part in the action.  And even at the crucifixion, where it gets the barest mention, it has little or no part.  Mark wants to create a different kind of Messiah from the true Jesus.  Some shallow analysts have been disturbed that the genealogies of Matthew and Luke have differing numbers of names and that Matthew divides his list into groups of 14 except one of these groups has only 13.  But neither Jews nor Romans ever doubted Jesus was king.  As late as Hadrian, Romans still diligently sought to locate every relative of Jesus.  The two devastating wars of 66-70 and 132-135 had well taught Rome it might be more than a little important.

    So then, since we have every reason to think Jesus would think he was divinely chosen to be born a legitimate claimant to the throne, then naturally a right-then Kingdom-Of-God

was in order, and should be installed.  He had a job to do.  This, I say, was the historical Jesus.  A practical messiah to correct real and present severe social and economic problems. He was working on correcting the religion, but not primarily just that alone.  It wasn't a new religion. Prophets had proclaimed the essentials beforehand.  But it was very different from the religion the Jews in control then practiced, and still do.  To all appearances, he was also setting up preliminary organization for the new government.  There could be no such thing as separation of church and state.  The religion and the state were the same thing.  Twelve apostles.  Don't they somehow represent the twelve tribes?  And another inner 70 (Luke 10:1), isn't this the equivalent of the Sanhedren 70?  Then he took over the temple, the seat of the government, but the temple representing also much more than just that.  Joel Carmichael, in his book: Birth Of Christianity, on p. 41 says,

     "It (the temple) was a public market place and also a great treasury.  like other shrines
      of the Hellenistic world of the time, it amounted to a national bank.
            There was an immense accumulation of precious metal as well as great sums of
       coins and vast deposits made by individual creditors--by widows and orphans as well
       as by the very rich.  Nor were these deposits merely hoarded; the money was
       constantly being reinvested.  Together with the rest of the Hellenistic world, the Jews
       had inherited from Babylon, the whole system of bills of exchange, bonds, and
       personal checks.   The vast wealth of theTemple was constantly being deployed in
       money transfers all over the known world,"

So that by his temple take-over, there could have been economic shudders and tremors world-wide!  It was no small accomplishment.  It got people's attention.

    And then there were the sacrifices.  Besides the two million or so of the population of Palestine, at festival time another million might show up. Requiring vast numbers of sacrificial creatures, and slaughtering by 20,000 priests, and immense amounts of wood for the fires.  Jesus, echoing Isaiah 56:7, called the temple a house of prayer (not a house of sacrifice ritual).  Did this, and the chasing off of the animals, mean that if Jesus remained in control, the huge monopoly business of sacrifices was finished?  (see Jeremiah 7:10-11 and 22)  Probably, almost certainly.  Lots of big shots would see great threat to their wealth and positions.  But there's much more.  If Jeremiah 7:22 is correct that God did not speak to those Hebrews of the Exodus from Egypt, and never commanded either the sacrifices or burnt offerings, then neither was there any requirement for either a human

or a divine-figure to become an ideal or final sacrifice to replace sacrifices God never wanted in the first place!  It's in the temple take-over versus the alleged temple sacrifice "Christ" that we most vividly see the oppositeness of the two Christs.

    I say, what we know of the real Jesus consists of his being of the king-line and his endeavor to become king in fact; what we can tell from the Shroud of Turin; his travels (which mostly are not recorded in the N.T.); his sayings when we can be sure they are really his; his manner of dealing with people; the temple event and consequent crucifixion plus reports he was seen alive after the crucifixion. Quite a lot.

    But with the divine-figure Christ, the alleged resurrection becomes the paramont point and almost the only necessary historical connection.  Not so with the historical Jesus, where the "resurrection" is unneeded and instead the temple event is the most central ,most important, and most meaningful thing.  The temple event becomes the climax and culmination of his mission.  Some will suppose he failed, since there was a crucifixion. He did not fail entirely. That was a success, a big one.

    The other, the divine-figure "Christ", needs resurrection and not much more.  Except it helps this theoretical figure if there is a lot of miracle happening to show he really is supernatural (superman?). But those present at the time who witnessed the alleged miracles didn't then get convinced by them that Jesus was divine.  Had they been, they couldn't have been surprised by the "resurrection", but instead would be fully expecting it,  knowing a divine-figure was immortal and incapable of dying.   But, being incapable of death, he would also be incapable of dying for someone else's sin.  Yet with the utmost inconsistancy, this alleged sacrifice for sin cancelation is the great why they want to postulate a divine-figure!  Had the disciples known before the crucifixion ( as in "Peter's Confession"), Jesus to be divine, they could have been saying, "It won't work.  It can't be done.  He'll be right back".  They might even, like Elijah, have laughed and laughed to see the adversaries attempting an unfeasible task.  None of this took place, so neither side believed or even suspected divinity at the time.  After the crucifixion, Peter at first refused to believe Jesus had been seen alive. (So much for "Peter's Confession"!  Peter himself didn't count on it!)  Only after Jesus is seen alive after the crucifixion, do they go back over the story, retouching it with miracle, miracle, to supposedly convince us there had been divine-figure all along.  If you don't have miracle, miracle, miracle, the divinity allegation just won't sell.  but Matthew's 7:21-23 Sermon-On-The-Mount has an altogether opposite opinion about miracle-working, and has Jesus say to the miracle

workers, "I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity".
    "Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven;
    but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
    Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and
    in thy name have cast out devils?  and in thy name have done many wonderful works?
    And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work
    iniquity".
Especially notice the "in thy NAME" part, which we have previously pointed out to be a characteristic of VooDoo black-magic.  Now, are we going to have Jesus saying miracle workers are workers of iniquity, but then make Jesus to be the supreme miracle worker and thus to be the great evil one?  Mark, at 3:22 has to argue Jesus is not Beelzebub!

   Matthew reproduces 95% of Mark, but still, in places, has a very different Christ!

    As the gospel of Mark now stands, Mark's main thing is not only to create a divine-figure, but also a divine-figure for cancellation of sins so as to have an eternal life in the here-after sky.  This is really the whole thing about Mark.  This feature starts out our Mark's story at 2:5-12 and the story is concluded with it.  Alas, it just didn't, and couldn't possibly work.  Not beginning or end.  It just doesn't add up right. So much so, one wonders what made Mark think he could get by with it. Here's Mark's muddle:
 
     Starting off at Mark 2:5-12, Mark has the divine-figure forgive sin just to show the divine figure has the authority to forgive sin.  The passage reads as though the incident starts from just a sympathetic remark to an invalid, much the way people these days say, "Have a good day".  Those days, lots of people would think, if he was invalid, then this was a punishment for sin.  So if his sins get forgiven, then maybe he'd get well.  But critics made something else out of it.   Instantly they see it doesn't prove the man's sins are forgiven just because Jesus says, "Thy sins be forgiven thee".  To say that, someone needs authority. So now, the divine-figure is on the spot.  In order to prove the divine-figure does have the authority to forgive sins, the divine-figure has the invalid get up and walk.   If being lame was punishment for sin, and now he walks, then the sin must have been erased.  So goes Mark's logic.  Mark's logic fails these days because nearly everyone would know there was other cause for the lameness, and if anyone can get him walking, it still doesn't follow that his sins got forgiven--he just better medical treatment!

    But how could Mark be thinking he could say this?  His own logic doesn't permit it.  According to sacrifice theory, isn't the divine-figure supposed to die first to purchase the other person's freedom?  And why die?  The invalid only got crippled as punishment.  So the sacrifice victim is paying a greater penalty than the crook got.  But all this is also impossible, since an immortal figure can't die. And also, it's impossible that moral blame or credit could be transferred from one person to another no matter what happens. And to meet Torah requirements, isn't the sacrifice supposed to become a burnt offering?  So the whole thing just doesn't add up right at either end.

    At Mark 10:18, we see the historic Jesus saying, "Why call me good?  There is none good but God.  If the real Jesus says this, it fits.  But if the divine-figure "Christ" is saying it, it doesn't make sense. If he is God, then why isn't he good?  Again at Mark 10:40 he doesn't have the authority to say who would sit behind him in glory.  Why not,  if he is divine-figure enough to forgive sin?  But this passage seems to be the real Jesus denying he has divinity status.  Since we do sometimes still find the real Jesus still within, then for all it's faults, Mark is still, in places, an invaluable historic record!

    Mark 9:24 has apostles disputing who would be greatest.  It turned out that none of the twelve apostles inherited the leadership.  That post was assumed by James the Just, a brother of Jesus, who would also have a claim to the throne.  Jesus, as King, briefly took over the temple.  James was to succeed as claimant the throne.  Although a few days earlier, James had been a cynical non-believer (Jn.7:1-5). Still it was James, not any original apostle, who took over as new leader of the movement, and reigned there, after a fashion, for 32 years.  It is certainly most surprising that Mark should mention this relativel minor tiff between apostles, but say nothing at all about the outcome, about which details he must surely known all about!  Such silence seems to indicate disapproval of how the issue historically turned out.  It echos Paul's rivalry with James the Just.  It also may indicate Mark's ambition for Alexandria (and himself) to surpass Jerusalem as the number one Christian church.

    One of the most glaring of all the many New Testament contradictions is Mark 16:7 having the disciples go to Galilee to see the risen Jesus (notice the special reference to Peter) versus Luke 24:49, in which disciples are to remain in Jerusalem. It is impossible to remain in Jerusalem and go to Galilee.  Here Luke is boldly contradicting the apostolic church with its Galilean leadership, in order to get "authority" for his Pentecost story

to appear in Acts chapter two.  (Which, among other things is also another form of "Peter's Confession")  Could this Pentecost thing have originally been an expectation that Zech.14:4 was about to take place?--but it never did.  Anyhow the main core of disciples were soon to be mintaining a permanent gathering in Jerusalem.   After all, James was the heir to the title and the capitol-temple-building was at Jerusalem.  Mary drops out completely. Very probably, she was not the mother of James the Just, brother of Jesus.  James was said to be an elder foster-brother, from an earlier marriage of Joseph, the father.  James, so far as we know, was never called King James.  Jesus, they said, still lived (and was expected back).  That would make James more of a regent.  According to Josephus, James wore a high-priest's miter, not a crown. So already we see some very significant departure from the values of the historic Jesus.  But the opponents of Jesus very well indeed knew Jesus had been a legitimate contender to be king, so it has to be they also knew this to be true of James.  It's very strange that none of the four gospels nor Acts brings this out.  It's as though they're intentionally avoiding the subject!   But it was very big and ilmportant.   James continued to hold court, after a fashion, there daily in the temple, for 32 years, for what was rapidly becoming an empire of Christians. Very possibly on a world-wide count they might already far outnumber the Jews.  If not yet, then undoubtedly soon.  Jesus had already occupied the temple once. What if masses of Christian pilgrims showed up at another festival and took over the temple again!

    It must have galled the enemies, to the maximum extent.  What protected James all that time?  Wasn't it the same public opinion force that had protected Jesus for three days on his temple take-over?   Reinforced by the knowledge they had gone too far by crucifying Jesus, and the reaction had made things worse for them, not better.

    Jesus, like Isaiah 56:7 called the temple a house of prayer, and for 32 years James prayed there daily.  So much so that his knees became as hard as a camel's.  But in the house-of-prayer concept we have another hard contradiction.  Notice: (II) Isaiah 66:3 denounces sacrifices saying:
    "He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man: he that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a
    dog's neck; he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine's blood; he that burneth
    incense, as if he blessed an idol.  Yes, they have chosen their own ways (not God's), and
    their soul delighteth in their abominations (sacrifices).

But the same 56:7 verse cited first above, that calls the temple a house of prayer for all people, has it, in the same verse, that the smoke from the burnt offerings is the prayer from the house of prayer.  Which smoke, (he says) pleases God!

    But for three decades they didn't dare arrest James.  Historians variously estimate that from one out of ten to one out of seven of the persons subject to Rome was a Jew.  They knew it was dangerous to arrest James, but on the other hand, the church was growing so rapidly they couldn't not arrest him.  When they did finally did finally dare, and killed James, this brought on the 66-70 war in which the temple was destroyed.    Early Christians were persecuted and executed for a different but related reason: they just wouldn't take an oath of loyalty to Caesar.

    Did Jesus lose because of the crucifixion? It was just because Jews learned they went too far when they crucified Jesus that allowed Jesus' successor to reign in his stead for decades and the church to become empire sized. Jesus didn't lose!  Still Jesus didn't specifically appoint James to be successor, so was James some sort of usurptor?
Most of the apostles seem to have left and did not keep in touch. Were they loyal to Jesus but not to this James who seems never to have been a part of the first inner circle? (John 7:5)  When Paul first visited the Jerusalem church only apostles Peter and John were there, though James the Just is now also called apostle.   But neither Peter's epistle nor the Gospl of John take any notice of James!   What's going on?  James could very well have a considerably different ideal than that of the historic Jesus.   Jesus seems to have constantly rejcted the notion of a divine-figure.  But James died saying Jesus was in the heavens and about to come again (Apocalyptic style).   Actually Jesus was still alive in Kashmir and had no intention of returning.  So James' church's Messiah had gone from one type to the extreme opposite type.   While proto-Mark is writing just before the Jerusalem war, and our-Mark is writing just after, neither one gives any mention of the post-resurrection Jerusalem  church!  Is there an Alexandria versus Jerusalem church rivalry going on here?  Of the three synoptic gospels, only Luke (in Acts), mentions the original church, and then only barely.  And then only to support Pauline doctrine and positions in opposition to the Jerusalem church's stand.  And later, Papias prefers oral tradition from apostles rather than our four gospel accounts.  Already a lot of disunity is showing.

    James the Just, brother to Jesus, was not one of the original twelve apostles.   Among the original twelve were: James and John, who were brothers of each other and also

cousins to Jesus.  But James the Just was a different person from Apostle James who was put to death by Herod Agrippa (Acts 12:2). And also different from Apostle James the Less.  But very early James the Just was also being called Apostle (Gal.1:19).   The  word apostle really means missionary.  That is, the word apostle is a combination of two Greek words, apo meaning out-from, and stello, a verb meaning to send.  So apostles were persons who were sent out. They weren't supposed to hang around.  But James the Just stayed bravely at his post. He already was where he was supposed to be, so he would think.  And came to be called apostle.  In his case the defination of apostle was changed to mean one who had authority.  He faced very grave danger every day of his tenure.

    There is a problem if there ever were really twelve apostles. The lists of names in the three synoptic gospels versus the list in Acts agree only on eight names.  John lists only half.  Very strange that even the gospel writers did not know who the apostles had been. But then the same writers didn't really know the historic Jesus either and made him to be something he was not.   At first, most Christians were of at least nominal Jewish background and the community type church seems to be a Kingdom-on-earth-now program with James the Just king apparent.  Greeks just didn't see it that way at all.

    Palestine of 32 A.D. much needed an historical Jesus practical Messiah.   As time went on, Greeks became the big majority and they had never needed the Jerusalem temple or a Jewish king.   They had never seen or heard the historic Jesus.  They didn't know the Torah or have problems with it.  So it was even easier for Greeks to accept a presumed (and superficial) divine-figure Christ so nearly exactly like the dying-and-rising pagan gods they had always known. Which gods also were to be the judge of the dead at the end of the world.  To become converted to this type of Christianity, all most of them would have to do was paste a new label on their old paganism.  It's stilll so in those churches of today where the wrong "Christ" is preached!

    By the time our-Mark writes, nearly all the people who ever had seen or heard Jesus were dead: the temple was no more; Eastern churches were scattered and in peril; and the big majority of Christians were Greeks and their churches still well organized.  The problems the real Jesus had been dealing with didn't exist for the Greeks.  They wanted a different gospel and a different "Christ".

    So when our-Mark who probably never had seen or heard Jesus; and possibly never knew Peter; and who probably was himself Greek; began to write--he wanted a divine-figure Christ.  He had to overlay this new "gospel" on top of the previous memories, so that at times, underneath Mark's overlaying material, we can still glimpse the real Jesus.

    Very early, as early as the first belief in resurrection and as early as the alleged "Peter's Confession" the divine-figure Christ had appeared.  But the "Peter's Confession" given in Mark is exceedingly inconsistant with the unbelief shown by Peter and apostles just after the "resurrection!   Any "Peter's Confession" had to come after what they thought was a resurrection rather than at the time Mark chronicles it at Mark 9:2-8.  And it was more Mark's confession that it was Peter's.  At any rate, scripture itself makes us know Mark's voice-from-the-cloud (Mark 9:7) need not be taken at face value. Because John 12:28-29 has people at probably the same occasion saying it wasn't a voice, only thunder.  And at John 5:37 indicating no one ever at any time has heard God's voice. Flatly contradicting Mark and "Peter's Confession".   By the time our-Mark writes, Peter's alleged confession has essentially become Paul's confession.  That is they've switched Messiah's on us.  And there was almost no one who had known the real Jesus left alive to object.  More and more, the historic Jesus would be lost sight of and discarded.

    But Mark was not only writing what was then the faith as known at Alexandria, he was putting out what was supposed to be the one and only gospel for all churches and churchmen everywhere. Q was the only competing gospel that had yet appeared.   In fact the other canonical gospels seem to have been produced just for the purpose of correcting (or rather contradicting) Mark's version.   For example: Mark's gospel was not even close to being adequate to deal with the problems they of Jerusalem were having with Jews and their alleged Moses authorilty-figure. The Jerusalem church, where James the Just was in charge, badly needed a New-Moses who could out-authority the alleged Old-Moses.  And nothing less would do.  Mark's gospel would have to be rewritten.  To get it right.  And to include Q.  But, to Mark, Q was repugnant.   Q had a real Jesus!

    This reinforces my thinking there must have been a Proto-Mark and also a Proto-Matthew, because it seems to me the Jerusalem church would be needing their answer to Moses before the Jerusalem, war, so their reaction to a version of Mark would come before 64 A.D.  But our-Mark seems to be writing after 70 A.D. and if still not aware of Jerusalem's New-Moses rewrite of Proto-Mark, then deliberately ignoring it.

        It would seem he'd have to be aware of the existence of near-by Jerusalem's revision of Alexandria's gospel so he must be finding unacceptable to him an earlier version of the gospel of Matthew=Proto-Matthew.  But after 70 A.D. he could ignore the New-Moses problem.  Jerusalem Jews and their New-Moses problem were no more.  If our-Mark is writing mostly to Greeks of the empire, not trying to evangelize the remnants of the original church, then our-Mark didn't need a New-Moses because Greeks had never had trouble with Old-Moses.   Former Jerusalem had a different problem than the problem he had.  But it wasn't over with for everyone.   So our post-war Matthew came out, still with a New-Moses "Christ".

    But, in a way Mark won.  The other synoptics were to be heavily dependent on Mark, and the other Christs would also be predominately divine-figures with only glimpses of the historic Jesus to be seen.  From Mark's gospel onwards, it's to be primarily the Alexandrian church's Christ that would be universally preached.

     If Mark's gospel is Peter's confession that Jesus is a divine-figure, then Matthew's gospel is Peter's confession that Jesus is a New-Moses.  But we'll still have two Christs. Jesus still takes over the temple.  And "Peter's Confession" in both Mark and Matthew is mainly a literary device to lend authority to the author's doctrinal point.

    We had to ask, who is our-Mark?  Now  we'll ask, who is our-Matthew?   It couldn't possibly be Apostle Matthew. The church-at-large believed something by Apostle Matthew had circulated first.  And Papias had mentioned there had once been a logia (sayings) written in Hebrew by someone named Matthew, who very possibly could be Apostle Matthew.  This theoretical and no longer extant logia document is now called M.  It is not known of what it consisted, but there are two main theories.  One guess, is that M and another hypotheical document called Q, about which we'll talk more later, are one and the same.  I much prefer another other guess, that M was a collection of Kingdom-Of-God parables now included in Matthew's gospel;.  But the gospel as a whole could not possibly be by Apostle Matthew, because our-Matthew reproduces 95% of Mark, usually in the same words and in the same order of narrative.   Showing he had to copy from Mark's book because he didn't himself know the events first-hand.  But he dares to write an improved version of Mark, showing it is doctrinal concern that is uppermost in his purpose, not history.  Mark pretty much governs the basic story.  Matthew only rearranges the order of Mark's material when he wants to group material by subject rather than by time sequence.

    Very, very early the memory of Apostle Matthew was so dim it was at the vanishing point.  There had been a tax collector who seems never to have collected from Jesus.  The gospel of Matthew is more concerned about money than the other gospels, hinting at a tas collector connection?  Notice opposite type concerns when: at Matt. 25:1-13 "wise maidens" refuse to share their oil, versus the Matt. 5:42 instructions to "Give to him who begs from you. and do not refuse him who would borrow from you."  It is unknown why he would be called both Matthew and Levi, and what if anything, that signifies.  To me, he is much overshadowed by the other tax collector, Zachaeus, whom I believe was the primary source for the gospel of John.  If it was Apostle Matthew who preserved for us the Kingdom parables of M (some of this is questioned later, since so many parables are about apocalypse, I your host here, believe all apocalyptic parables are non-authentic fakes of the post-Jerusalem period) then does he stand for the historical Jesus?  In contrast wilh the Gospel of John, (inspired by Zachaeus) whose Christ is almost exclusively divine-figure pronouncements?  Anyhow, we would expect Zachaeus to take quite an interest in his former employee, Apostle Matthew.   Yet they don't seem to have kept in touch with one another.  It seems none of the apostles kept in touch with any other, as such, nor permanently with James the Just's church either, and memories of them are mostly just as dim.  Except for Peter who (possibly) dictates a general epistle.  Still, we have some slight possible (tax collector) link between the gospel of Matthew and the very different gospel of John.   More later.

     Papias must have thought he had good reason for preferring the oral tradition he knew, over the four gospels we now have, which Papias must surely also have known.  When Papias tells us of the "logia" we now refer to as M, does this indicate Papias approves of the Gospel Of Matthew?   I would think not.  Papias does not seem to know that M is now possibly part of Matthew.   Papias does not seem to have had a copy of M, and can only give a one word description, logia, of the contents.  He only knew there had been sucb a writing.  The best guess is that it was a collection of parables.  Parables have been thought by some to be the form of expression most resistant to alteration--the most nearly reliable words of the historic Jesus.  But for undisclosed reasons Papias does not equate the gospel of Matthew with the oral tradition he knew.

    At Rome. a contemporary of Papias: Marcion of about 100-140 A.D. was composing the first canon.  Which canon accepted only parts of Luke and Acts--thus rejecting Mark, Matthew and John, along with the entire Old Testament.  This was only 50 years or so

after these gospels were written. Marcion rejected fear as a force God would use to compel obediance.  Marcion could not accept the vengeful, terrorizing Old Testament God as a proper kind of God, so he also does not like New Testament gospels to have this same God.  Unlike our-Mark and our-Matthew, and the E, P, and D writers of the Old Testament, Marcion does not rewrite the four gospels to "get them right".  He discards all but parts of Luke and Acts. It's said that had Marcion prevailed in limiting the canon to Pauline type writings, the historical Jesus would have disappeared completely.  He nearly disappeared anyway since Pauline doctrine flooded the four canonical gospels, and to make the real Jesus disappear was just what Paul was trying to do!

    Eusebius tells of someone named Pantaeus finding in India, in the second century, a copy of Matthew in Aramaic.  Epiphanius says an Aramaic gospel of Matthew existed in his day, possessed by a branch of the Ebionites.   Jerome noted the Nazarenes had an original copy of Matthew in Hebrew which he translated into Greek.  Irenaeus (ca.200 A.D.) says Matthew wrote first while Peter was yet in Rome.  But the gospel of Matthew we have now has been composed by someone working entirely from manuscripts wrltten in Greek.  The Matthew we now have is not a translation from an Aramaic or Hebrew original.  Aramaic copies have to be translations from a Greek original.  Matthew has the least indications of having been written by an eyewitness.  He works only by assembling pieces from manuscripts written by others.  But there must be some unclear connection with Apostle Matthew, since there is no rival claimant.  These things make me think our-Matthew was someone in close touch with the needs of the Jerusalem church, which by that time had removed, but not himself an Ebionite.  I would think Caesarea a likely center.  This Matthew closely follows Mark's order of narrative except when he wants to group material by subject rather than by chronological succession.  So there is a section on miracles; another on parables; one on being missionaries; aned then there is the great collection of sayings taken from Q, which material we call The-Sermon-On-The-Mount. Our-Matthew is a superlative writer and teacher in his own right.   This gospel may also be the product of a group of scholars working as a team.  Especially with the inclusion of Q, there is much return to the historical Jesus who had walked among them, who had not yet been entrely replaced by Paul's "Christ".

    This time, in the gospel of Matthew, Jesus has a childhood and is of royal descent.    neither Paul nor Mark had need for Jesus to grow up.  They want a divine-figure to

stand apart from humanity.  Neither Paul nor Mark needed or even wanted Jesus to be of earthly royalty who might meddle in social needs.  A divine-figure is more nearly a lofty ruler of the cosmos.  But this time, in Matthew, Jesus in the wilderness rejects the temptation to rule all the nations (Matt.4:8 vs. Mark 1:13).   notice also the contradiction between Matt. 4:8, where Jesus refuses universal rule, versus Matt. 28:18 where he accepts it.  Why the change of character?  They are not the same Jesus--they are contrasting products of differing theologies and therefore different writers.  Paul and Mark do not need for Jesus to be an ordinary type king.  But in Jerusalem; in Matthew's gospel;and especially in James the Just's temple based church, it's of the highest importance for Jesus to be of royal descent in the claim to the throne.  Jesus becomes a New-Moses, but the first Moses was a man.  The final Mark, writing from Alexandria, and after James is dead and the temple gone, and now intending to replace Jerusalem as the dominant church, very much needs a different type Christ--one much like Paul's variety.

   In Matthew, the sometimes human-figure Jesus stands out better.  Jesus asks questions in order to get information.  he expresses surprise.  he deals with children, fishermen, birth and marriage, work, journeys, and robbery.  He is disappointed when a fig tree bears no fruit and also when disciples desert or fail him.  He thirsts and eats and bleeds. And he meets Jew scholars on their own terms, consistantly defeating them completely on matters concerning morals and of Torah legalities.  Jesus, on all occassions tops the Moses who depends on divinely dispensed aid, with self-evident wisdom that needs no divine-figure.  Apparently this isn't enough for the Jerusalem church which needs an authoritative New-Moses figure to out-do Old-Moses.  See how they compare:

    Jesus is named after Joshua but there is considerable duplication of roles played by
         Moses and Joshua.  In the Torah, as it now stands, Joshua succeeds Moses and
         completes his task.  But historically Joshua may have been the earlier nation
         founding figure.
    Moses gives 10 commandments, Jesus the Sermon-On-The-Mount, and is the Sermon
         and has 10 Beatitudes.
    Moses leads the 12 tribes.  Jesus has 12 Apostles.  The nation has a Sanhedren 70.
         Jesus has a 70.
    Moses dispenses plagues. Jesus scatters blessings.
    Moses parts the sea.  Jesus passes over the sea during a storm, calms the storm.
    Moses throws down a golden calf.  Jesus cleanses the temple (bank gold).
    Moses knows the divine and (they claim) writes.  Jesus is the Word, the divine.
    Moses finds Manna.  Jesus is the Bread.
    Moses leads to the brink of a new land of deliverance.  Jesus brings a condition of
         deliverance. The nation is at the brink of better social and economic conditions.
         Both are Messiahs.
    Moses confronts Pharoh.  Jesus confronts Old-Moses.
    Moses and Jesus are both transfigured.  Both are trancendentally transported.
    Moses brings an Old Testament.  Jesus brings a New Promice, new Identity.
    Moses and Joshua have military conquest.  Jesus overcomes evil with good.
    Moses, at every step, needs miracle aid.  Jesus is the Miracle.

    A  very similar list of comparisons, in which Moses in the O.T. is made to look like Osiris and Horus of Egyptian myths, could be presented.  So that Jesus has been made to look like Moses who has been made to look like Osiris!  Consequently, a matter of the greatest mportance comes up when we see the alleged miracles of Moses, when analysed to have been natural, even commonly occuring events.  Later exaggerated and the entire Exodus story a much embellished literary devise for promoting Ezra's self-serving and sermoning fiction....Would a fully-divine Jesus really want to resemble a fake Moses hoax?  Does it prove Jesus is fully-divine to model him after a mostly fictional character in Ezra's sermon?  Doesn't it make more sense to reassess the probable inaccuracy of Matthew's alleged New-Moses?  All four N.T. gospels were much more interested in making doctrinal points about divine-figure than they were about historical correctness.  I say, they should have stuck with the historical Jesus, who is far superior to the manufactured, non-genuine, hypothetical, divine-figure.  Who is equally as non-factual as the alleged original Moses.  We have non-eyewitnesses wishing for Jesus to keep up with, if not the Jone'es, then at least with Ezra's Moses.   It's a contest for converts at a time and place where the competition is tough and the stakes high. (James' kingdom is up for grabs and the numerical count of Christians is such that it seemed Christians might inherit both the Jewish state and the Roman empire!)   A my Moses is bigger than your Moses shouting match!  We need not grieve.  No miracle was ever needed for either!  Every

genuine truth is just as valid whether it is announced by fully-man or by fully-God.   Only preachers who don't know what they are talking about need for the source to be fully-God.  (In which case they're really into occult black-magic.  In which case we have the blind driving the blind before them.)
   A related point of paramont importance involves what are claimed to be "prophecies".  Each of the four canonical gospels resorts to frequent use of alleged ancient prophecies to validate their divine-figure Christ.  But when analysed one by one, not any of them do so predict Jesus!  All fail!  There is the strange inconsistancy of three (only) gospel writers having Jesus reject every point of Judaism except prophecies allegedly predicting him at an unspecified future time.  Since Jesus severs all other ties to Judaism, including Sabbeth; Torah; non-eating of pork; circumcision; infallibility of Scripture; angry God; and goes from tithing (a tenth) to stewardship (100%), he has cut every other connection...then why the strange inconsistancy of retaining what are assumed to be prophecies that don't hold up to examination anyhow?   Prophecies are anomilies we can dispense with.  Especially since he is replacing Moses, thus rejecting the original Moses as not adequate, then why supposedly rely on alleged prophecies by unreliable Moses?  A fully-divine figure should know better!  Thus prophecies become a wrong guess liability, not an asset!  Moses stories not only do not prove we have a divine-figure Christ, they invalidate the concept. The  Magi and other insilders may have started the movement by believing and working to fulfill alleged prophecies?  No way to tell.  But prophecies were not resorted to as proof of divinity until after the "resurrection" because before that the disciples had not guessed they had a divine-figure Christ.  John Baptist did not refer to O.T. prophecies about to be fulfilled.  He was announcing he, as an insider, knew his royal cousin Jesus would soon begin a campaign to ascend to the throne. "Prophecies" did let the Christians use the Jews' most powerful weapon, their Book, against the Jews themselves. Nevertheless, every one of the alleged propheciles does not fit and all prove nothing and we should discontinue using them. More later. Which is a very good thing indeed.  It is just this severing of connections to Judaism that allows the New Testament to be a new good-news and not just an appendage to the Old.  To put the new wine in the old-Moses wineskin is to lose both (Matt. 9:17).  If the N.T. and O.T. are different cloths, then O.T. "prophecy" patches do not belong. "  "Prophecies" do not and could not refer to the N.T. Messiah!  Jesus came to deliver us from Jews, not to make us Jews.  If N.T. is a different cloth, then Jesus has dearted from all the O.T, including prophecies!  (Not

just jots and tittles. Matt.5:17-18)!  At every point except the Shema verse (Deut.6:5), which verse is contradicted by Deut.10:12) Jesus departs from Judaism, but even here, the Shema is reinterpreted to be like a Good Samaritan. So even the Shema is made to be a carefully crafted maximum insult to the Jew.

   Most of Matthews's material he obtains from Mark.  But when the Markian material is extracted from Matthew, there remains some important material also used by Luke but apparently unknown to, or more likely rejected by, Mark. This material which is common to both Matthew and Luke, is known as the Q document, (from quelle, the German word for source).  There would be the possibility that the original hypothetical document Q also included M, but I much prefer to think M was a separate writilng.  It's said that when Q is translated into Aramaic, it has a natural distinctive verse form characteristic of Aramaic.  Both M and Q, in places, strongly return us to the historical Jesus.   M with parables, Q with the Sermon-On-The-Mount.  Since Jerusalem knew M and Q but Alexandria did not, we can easily see why the Jerusalem church regarded Mark as inadequate.  Which also indicates how far removed from the original events Mark was.  It would seem Peter certainly would know the contents of M and Q.  Which in turn, seriously brings into question, Mark's version of "Peter's Confession" which makes Jesus a divine-figure, versus Matthew's version of "Peter's Confession" which seems to be the Jerusaalem church's way of saying to Paul and Mark that Peter is head apostle, not Paul. Peter couldn't have ever seen Mark's gospel (and "Confession") or it would be called Peter's gospel.  And possibly would be in Aramaic, although the epistle First Peter is written in very good Greek.  Jerusalem's version of "Peter's Confession" makes Jesus to be a New-Moses divine-figure, but with special thanks to M and Q, we much better again see the real Jesus.  Who was unliked by Paul and Mark since they demand instead. a divine-figure.  Q utterly demolishes the miracle working basis for claiming divine-figure status for Jesus.  Notice: Matthew 18:19-20 has Jesus saying, where two or three are gathered in his NAME and two agree on what they should ask, it shall be done for them.  Also, Matt.17:20, obtained from Mark 11:23, makes us think such faith could even remove mountains.  But in great contrast to this, Matthew's version of the Sermon-On-The-Mount which Matthew obtains from the Q writer, at Matt.7:22 has Jesus saying:
    "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy NAME?
     and in thy NAME have cast out devils? and in thy NAME done many wonderful works?
     And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work
     iniquity."

    All four canonical gospels do present Jesus primarily as a divine-figure and all four show the surprising feature of no one at all having any complaint at all about Roman rule.  And the alleged divine-figure Jesus also doesn't seem to object to Roman rule.  If this were truely the case and how the history really was, then this most amazing thing should require quite a lot of explaination indeed.  The explaination seems to relate to the fact that the final versions of each of the gospels appeared after the 70 A.D. destruction of Jerusalem, at which time it was politically most unwise to find fault with Rome.  And the original goals of the first churchmen were gone anyhow.

    But the four gospels (and all others too) must be entirely correct to represent Jesus as a pacifist. Jesus gathered no army.  And the post-70 A.D. people would not see more war as the solution to their problems. They had had enough of war.  Probably the reaction of the original disciples to the crucifixion was panic, thinking Jesus had lost. He didn't lose entirely.  James the Just had his organization and daily was in the temple with a form of reign for the next 32 years.  And the numbers of Christians became such that Constantine, Rome's greatest emperor ever, was forced to bow to them. Pacifists can be politically effective.   I believe Ghandi did more for India than Hitler did for Germany.  Jesus didn't lose.  No one ever has won bigger.  More later.

    But it is very strange indeed, that Matthew has to rely solely on manuscripts to write his gospel while writing from the locality where oral tradition should have been strongest!  Maybe it was there but was deliberately omitted?  Would human-figure tradition discredit the divine-figure Matthew was trying to promote?  Like all the other gospels, the predominate interest in Matthew, is not historical correctness, but instead the doctrinal concern to make Jesus seem to be an authoritative divine-figure.  They can surrender objective history and the real Jesus.  That's where we lose big--not at the crucifixion!

   Doesn't the historical Jesus contradict the alleged divine-figure when he commands

disciples to tell no one he is Christ? (Matt.16:20)   At Mark 12:35-37 Jesus argues the divine figure-is not the son of David.   Contrast Matthew's genealogy in which Jesus is a descendant of David and has to be in order to be king.  Matthew indirectly makes us think there was no oral tradiltion available to him since he uses none. But John 21:25 has it that if the deeds of Jesus were written, the whole world could not contain the books.

    Some of the stories attributed to Jesus just do not make sense and therefore could hardly have been spoken by an infallible divine-figure.  Examples: When Mark's Jesus says (Mark 12:13-17) "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's", this puts forward an undeniably correct principle, but still leaves unanswered the question if it is proper to pay tax.  In Matthew's parable of the unjust master (Matt.20:1-16), the end point (verse 16) is that the first (Jews?) shall be last in the Kingdom, and the last (Israelites or Gentiles?) shall be first.  but it still seems harshly unjust that some do the work and others get the pay.  While it roughly illustrates a case of last becomnung first, it is unconvincing that injustice should have been so commended. And while it's obvious that nature deals some a life of handicaps and few talents, but other get an easy lilfe of ease--still the only explaination here is that the boss is the boss, so that's it.  It is hard to square with "God is Love".  And the story raises more questions than it answers, if any.  Luke's arguement (Luke 11:47) that because the Jews built sepulchre monuments to honor the prophets, this proves they sanctioned their predecessors having killed the prophets, just has no logic. and does not follow, and proves nothing.

    M and Q strongly return us to the real Jesus and there is a wholesome return to sanity when we get back to the real Jesus. We get back to the real world and it feels so GOOD! And we're no longer stuck with proving the unproveable, which wasn't needed anyhow!  It's just that Jesus can stand on his own and still be far better than Moses was.  Jesus is the all-time best advocate of the Kingdom-Of-God and therefore, especially because it includes Q, Matthew is a very fine gospel indeed!

    In the earliest gospel, Q, and to the earliest followers too, Jesus is a teacher only. There are no miracles, no narrative, no apostles, no crucifixion, no resurrection, no divine-figure.

   This time, we know who our writer is. And he tells us why he's writing, (Luke 1-4): Paul is prison about A.D. 54, and his cousin Luke is writing to a Roman official Theophilus, to apparently somehow get Paul acquitted.  This is Luke's main motive, to make Paul look good.   To do that, he needs (1) to make Jesus be a gentle, divine-figure, that does not seem to threaten Roman rule, but also (2) might terrorize someone meddling with the divine-figure's special agent Paul.  Because Paul's gentle divine-figure Jesus, according to Paul, still has an exceedingly fierce and vindicitive Old Testament (not Father type) God, eager to punish any opposition.  For Paul to make himself such an agent of the almighty, Luke first (in Acts 2) runs us through his preposterous Pentecost story alleging that apostles are made to be apostles, not by Jesus, but by some flame from on high anointing them and giving them special powers of speech.  Then we are supposed to equate Paul's alleged burning-bush-like experience with a special Pentecost-like appointment to the high post of apostle.  It won't work and it backfires.   Already we're on guard about what Luke has to say!  His purpose to make Paul look good outweighs all else.   (And one wonders why all 3,000 who got zapped at the alleged Pentecost occassion, which event only Luke and no one else ever mentioned, didn't also become apostles).  At the transfiguration scene, Luke, by omitting "Peter's Confession" as given in Matthew and Mark, shows Paul to be jockying for the positilon of head apostle. (Luke 9:29-36). In Luke-Acts the version of "Peter's Confession" is Peter's Pentecost occassion speech.

    Some scholars believe Luke used Q as his main outline on a first draft and later added 65% of Mark to this.  So Luke, like all the others, is not an eyewitness personally acquainted with the events he portrays:  he works by re-evaluating accounts others have written first.  He doesn't accept what has been said by the others, but wants it put differently.  Could it possibly be that, writing from Caesarea, he did not know Matthew's gospel from near-by Jerusalem?  At least he strangely omits entire passages used by Matthew but not by Mark, and not a single discourse in Matthew is reproduced by Luke.  This despite the fact Luke spent two years in Caesarea, the vicinity where we think Matthew was also produced  (Acts 24:27).  But then, cousin Paul was always at odds wlth the Jerusalem church and there was the never ending rivalry with James the Just to be head apostle, though neither one was of the original twelve.  So, probably Luke doesn't want his writing to be indebted in any way to Matthew, the gospel of near-by Jerusalem.  He'll stick closer to Proto-Mark who sticks close to Paul's divine-figure theology.  The

Gospel of Matthew makes Jesus to be a New-Moses to replace the Old-Moses.  Not so in Luke.  Luke and Paul are not anyways near through with Old-Moses, and so they make their divine-figure Jesus to be unable to stand on his own, but instead is dependent on validation by the Old-Moses.  The Great Pharisee Jew, Paul, isn't going to surrender his Old Testament, and he never accepts the New Testament Christ either. So, Paul creates his own "Christ", but Paul's "Christ" never existed and could not be the answer to anything.  If the Jerusalem church considered Paul to be a genuine apostle, there should have been massive concern and visitation to the near-by Caesarea jail.  Instead, it's more like Jerusalem is glad to be rid of the intolerable nuisance, just as before when they shipped him off to Tarsus to be rid of him. (Acts 9:28-30).

    But since Jerusalem gives Jesus a king-line genealogy and a childhood, and Romans are very well aware Jesus was a king, Luke has to yield part way on this but makes it a different genealogy. Luke makes the infancy scenes of John Baptist and Jesus to be Mini-Pentecost scenes. And has the young child Jesus already confounding the teachers in the temple though Mark and Matthew knew nothing of this.  So, Luke's Jesus gets a childhood but already it's a different person than we'd seen before, and already seems endowed with the super-speech gifts a Pentecost is supposed to grant.   Not now a normal childhood.  In none of the gospel accounts does Jesus himself mention his birth or childhood.  In contrast to Luke and John, Mark has it that it's not until baptism by John Baptist (not at birth) that Jesus (Pentecost-like) is endowed with the "Holy Spirit".

    Paul is extremely upper-class in the Roman world,being related by marriage to both Roman emperor Claudius and British king Caractacus.  So Luke and Paul's "Christ" must not offend Roman rule which Paul likes just fine, and more than a little. So in Luke's gospel, we find a still more excessivly gentle and kind Jesus that the other writers have given us.  And it's this Christ, not the others, who while on the crtoss says, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."  Very strange, no one knew this until now.  The two previous gospels: Mark and Matthew knew nothing of this and indeed contradict it.  And John, writing later, also strangely, still does not know this important detail!

    Q's Sermon does have Jesus say, "Love your enemies". But it's a key point for Paul, in jail, and therefore for Luke, to go easy on Roman soldiers, especially Theophilus!  It's

Paul, in Theophilus' jail, who's in urgent need for forgiveness by Rome--(or at least release from jail!).  Contrast Mark having Jesus in agony on the cross saying, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34) versus the calm Jesus of Luke saying, "Father forgive"--no forsakenness here!  (Could this "Father forgive" also be the murderer Paul's way of saying, "I Paul, forgive me Paul"?).   Luke (and Paul) thus have Jesus forgiveing Jews also.   The gospel of John very pointedly does not forgive Jews.

    Later, Marcion, with headquarters, notice, at Rome, about 120-150 A.D. and also very much in harmony with Paul the Roman, in creating the first canon (approved scrlpture= Bible), rejects not only the entire Old Testament (which Luke and Paul do not reject), but also all the other gospels, and honors only parts of Luke and some of Paul's letters. Marcion likes Luke because Marcion does not want God to be represented as terrorizing people. But Luke would seem to be using God to terrorize Theophilus!  Strange bedfellows!  Paul must have been very much aware of cousin Luke's two year writing project in Paul's behalf, yet Paul is not known to have made any use at all of this gospel, nor of any other either!  Paul's "Christ" does not need any historical connection except "Last Supper" and "resurrection".  Paul does not even like the real Jesus, since Paul is in love with his own artificial creation "Christ".  Paul is converted to Paul. not to Jesus.

    Therefore we have to relate to Luke's version of the gospel with a great deal of caution. There is much that is new and exceptionally valuable, but it's also a very different story in places. the estimate of this essay is that Luke departsd from history as history was, whenever it serves his doctrinal purpose to do so. His intent, instead of historical correctness, is to create the Christ that will get Paul sprung from jail.  Problems: Why does Jesus, while dying on the cross (Luke 23:34), have to instruct God to forgive?  Mark's divine-figure could forgive sin on his own authority so why can't Luke's "Christ" and John's WORD?  Also if these crucifiers need forgiveness, then they must be doing something wrong and know it too.  So, why doesn't God know this wrong is taking place?  And why doesn't God do something to stop it--not just let occur and forgive?  Or, if God doesn't mind if it proceeds, why is it a wrong that needs forgiveness?   But, especially notice: if God does forgive in this instance, this is forgiveness that required no repentance or conversion,--something very, very different from all others, except Paul's!  Since only Luke and no other N.T. gospel or writer mentions this, if correct , most important key

detail, either all the other gospels are seriously flawed to make this omission or Luke makes a major error to have included an untrue saying.  No one else agrees with Luke on this point.  Gospel writer John, who writes later and claims a witness, has Jesus sip vinegar and hyssop, say only, "It is finished" and then die.  If the writer of John writes from Ephasus, a stronghold for Paul, then we would much expect John to know this gospel and to accept this detail from Luke.  But John seems purposely to present a quite different story. Luke forgives Jews and has God too forgive Jews.  John does not forgive Satan's chosen ones, who are not repentant and do know what they are doing.

    In the parable of the vineyard, both Mark and Luke have the "vineyard" being given to others (to non-Jews?) after the son is killed, indicating either Jesus or the early church or both were separating from the Jews. Yet, illogically, at 13:33 Luke has it "that it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem (how about Daniel?) showing that Luke and Paul have not (like the Eastern Christians) cut their ties to the Old Testament's (self) "chosen people".   Paul numbers his kind of flock with the O.T. type because his are not really the New Testament people!

    Luke, in both the Gospel and also in Acts, is very much interested in journeys.  But after two years on location at Caesaria, Luke still does not know the geography of the region: that is, having Jesus while on the way to Jerusalem , first at one mile away Bethany, but next at far away Samaria, while on the way to Jerusalem.

    While Luke appears to be writing in Paul's behalf, it is very noteworthy that Luke's version, in Acts, of Paul's "conversion" and Paul's relations with the apostles, badly does not correspond with Paul's own account, as given in Galatians, of the same things.

    If it's true that Luke used Q, who powerfully returns us to the historically Jesus, as his basic outline, then again we immediately see Luke's devious intent to depart from Q's historical Jesus and instead create a different "Christ".  First, notice the change of scenery.  In Matthew 5:1-2, it's a Sermon-On-The-Mount with Jesus in a Better-Moses mode dispensing better law to the people below.  But in Luke's verson of Q (7:17), Jesus can't be allowed to outdo Moses because Luke's "Christ can't stand on his own but, instead must be validated by Old-Moses!  So, Luke's "Christ" can't, like Moses, speak a Sermon from a mountain top, instead must speak from a plain with the people on the mountain. (Luke's Moses out-ranks Luke's "Christ")   Equally important: Luke also completely alters other parts of Q as in the important example we've already given attention to in Matt.7:22-23 in which miracle workers are pointed out to be workers of iniquity. Luke altogether alters the sense of this passage from anti-miracle to something

that does not recognize Jews to be "chosen people"!  Exceedingly amazing!  Compare Matt.7:22-23 (see p. 98) with Luke 13:26-27 below.
    "Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence and thou hast
     taught in our streets.
     But he shall say, I tell you, I now not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of      iniquity.

     There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, an Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves shut out.

      And they shall come from the east, and the west, and from the north, and the south,       and shall sit down in the kingdom of God."

Luke must have been extremely hard up to have to change this passage in this way because elsewhere he wants Jews to be forgiven!  (But he thinks his western Christians outdo the Jerusalem churchmen!)  But Luke's stategy to defuse Q's denunciation of miracle working fails, because we still have at Luke 11:29, the historical Jesus again repudiating miracles, even the miracles he himself has been alleged to have done:

     "And when the people were gathered thick together, he began to say, this is an evil
     generation: they seek a sign (miracle or prophecy): and there shall no sign be given it,
     but the sign of Jonas.'

But carefully notice: If this "sign of Jonas" refers to an alleged resurrection and the same assumed resurrection turns out to be a mis-understanding of what took place--Then we have the real Jesus saying, (get this) that there is no genuine miracle at all in the New Testament!  And the people (get this too) who desire miracle (including resurrection?) are evil!  This thought is reinforced still more at Luke 16:31 which verse points out that a resurrection would not prove anything.

    Luke also makes a completely different main point of Q's Sermon-On-The-Mount than Matthew's Moses-like Jesus made of the same material:  In Luke it's less like a single Sermon, because the material is divlded, instead of being a single unit as in Matthew.  In this feature, some experts think Luke possibly more closely follows Q's sequence. Not here: Luke just wants to diminish the Sermon! Also, parts of the message have been made completely opposite. Both Matthew and Luke seem to be making Q serve their separate purposes. It would be nice to have the original Q for comparison!

    It's at this special partition point that is of particular interest here.  Because at that spot, Luke has a unique story which we'll take to be the main point in Luke's whole gospel.  At Luke 12:13, a man asks, "Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me".  The reply, at first, seems like a non-answer.  Luke has Jesus suggesting to be like the birds and the flowers. But a homeless, jobless and destitute person can't plant his feet in the ground and grow like a lily. He dosesn't have wings and feathers like the raven, and cannot survive on a diet of wild seeds and insects.  But then Jesus adds, "Seek first the Kingdom-Of-God" and all these other things we need shall be added to us.  And this point is not only the main point of Luke's gospel, but is the main point also of this Theology Of Jubilee Economics treatise!  With Q's main point here in Luke, we here are in the most wholehearted complete agreement!  If enough people seek first the Kingdom-Of-God, the goods will be plentiful enough and properly distributed too. So then, Luke is not out of touch with our Jubilee ideal. More later about Jubilee.

       And after all, our historical Jesus was so masterful and charming a teacher that it doesn't take much to see him as the Son Of God!  In most ways Luke gives us our best portrait of Jesus.  He has pity on the unfortunates; he forgives repentant sinners, tells of the Good Samaritan and the Prodical Son; has reverse Beatitudes with woe to the rich; the wildow's mite; some of the last shall be first and some of the first shall be last; and here in Luke is Zachaeus of whom we'll say more later. Luke is still a wonderful and precious gospel! The historical Jesus and the divine-figure are not conpletely opposite!  They both preach much the same Sermon!

    But Luke has internal contradictions showing it is not an infallible-last-word. For example contrast 12:11 with 12:58.

    Luke 3:8 has it that being a descendant of Abraham confers no special status, yet Luke's Jesus needs to be a son of David!  Rather contradictory and hard on "Prophecy" too!  Luke is a doctor and portrays Jesus as a Great Physician (rather than as a New-Moses), but why only some miracle healings? If he is the divine-figure, why doesn't he divulge the marvelous medicines we now know in this late 20th century?  Mark 1:39 has Jesus effecting cures by simply casting out "demons".  Matthew 4:23 has him healing every disease and every infirmity among the people.  In Mark 5:23, the daughter of a synagogue ruler is at the point of death, but in Matthew 9:18, the daughter has just died.  In Matthew, the New-Moses dispenses multitudes of blessings, in contrast to Old-Moses who administers plagues.  In Luke, Jesus becomes the Great Physician.  In John, he is Life itself.

While Luke must have written about the year 56 and before the Rome Jerusalem war, and must have known a version of Mark then, the Luke we now have is aware of the outcome of the 66-70 war and even possibly the Antiquities of Josephus published in 98 A.D.  If we go with Q's Sermon-On-The-Mount conviction that miracle-workers are workers of iniquity, then Paul's pseudo-Pentecost "Holy Spirit" becomes the un-holy spirit of Paul.  And to the extent Paul's hypothetical "Christ" is anti-real-Jesus, it's also to that extent anti-christ!  It's better to stick with the real Jesus!

    The real, historical Jesus, is pre-Rome-vs.-Jerusalem war.  The other "Christ" is mainly post-Rome-vs.-Jerusalem war. The central purpose of our real Jesus was to take over the temple because the temple was the seat of government and religion (church and state not being separate but the same thing).   The real Jesus would want the temple to endur, not primarily as a temple but as the Kingdom center.  But the post-war "Christ", after the temple has already been demolished, now makes "prophecy" that not one stone shall remain on another. The pre-war Jesus gives his all establishing a right-then real Kingdom with the temple as the centre. If he knew the temple soon would be no more--why bother to claim it for himself?  In contrast, the post-war "Christ" anticipates the present world to soon be annihilated and a temple from heaven to be reinstalled.  So, this post-war "Christ" does always stand for the most profoundly touching tenderness in all particular situations. But in the general, overall picture, Jubilee gets pushed off to the Apocalypse hypothetical future.  The post-war Christ is only interested in a hypothetical forgiveness-of-sin post-world kingdom.  Totally opposite Kingdoms and purposes! The real Jesus was for a practical NOW Jubilee!

    Luke allegedly gives us a Pentecost that is a reverse Tower-Of-Babel story. In the Babel story of Genesis 11:1-9, languages become confused and communication impossible. but in Luke's Pentecost story, every man from foriegn places hears in his own "tongue",--universal communication is restored.  While Luke (and Paul) thus indicate the old Babel has ended, instead, the conflicting points of the various gospels, unable to agree, is stilll very much a babel of voices! The favorite verse (of Fundamentalists), John 3:16 is one of this nearly unintellligible babel. Which we'll now consider in detail:

John 3:16-17 reads thusly:

     "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
      believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
      For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world
      through him might be saved.                 

As it stands, when analysed only a little, it's easily seen to be amazingly loaded with incorrect impossibilities, muddled thinking, and horrible doctrine.  But maybe we can untwist it and have something valuableafter all.  As it stands, it's a version of the ancient pagan doctrine.  It, not very specifically, yet obviously, makes God to be sacrificing his only son, pagan fashion, to appease his own angry (not so loved the world) self, in behalf of an undeserving set of people.  What's wrong with this passage is: this is not the historic Jesus being spoken of, but instead, a "Christ" of Paul's type which never existed or spoke either!  Dispensing doctrine at us.  Notice the many inconsistancies and impossibilities: Well start at the beginning and consider them in the (unmethodical) disorder in which we find them:

    "God so loved"?  If God isn't angry, then why must the Son die to appease God?  While the SON doesn't come to condemn the world, the Son doesn't need to condemn, since all the world is already condemned by the supposedly so loving God.  If God loves so much, how could all be so condemned?  And WHY?  There is some confusing slippage in the logic here.  Is there a "law" that's bigger than the personal God?  Is this hypothetical law more God than God is God?  Who made this law that is more God than God and what is it's name?  Hint: its' name is Ancient Paganism.   "He gave his...Son"?  Is this supposed to mean the Son didn't have anything to say about it or even that the Son was unwilling to have any part in it?  If the Son is unwilling, how is he the Son? Or if the Son is divine, then there is one part of God saying yes and another part saying no!  But if the Son is willing, then the Son has volunteered, so then therefore God did not give the Son--the Son gave himself!  Or did he?  If the Son is divine and immortal, then in the sense of becoming a pagan--like sactrifice, neither God nor the Son could give the Son, since the Son is incapable of death.  Or if capable of death, how is he the Son, coexistant with God from eternity?  Mark's Christ does not seem to volunteer as he cries out "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?"  Does Mark's "Christ" expect Apocalyptic rescue, not death, just then?

    "Only begotten Son"  What does this mean?  Elsewhere we've noted other scripture passages indicating God has many sons.  (Q's Sermon has us praying to Our Father).  Why pick on this one Son and not the others?  Or if not the others, how are they sons?   If the other sons are not divine, how did this one get to be?  In John, only once is it "your Father", at all other places it's "My Father".  But if the Son is "begotten" then this contradicts the John 1:1-2 assertion:
     "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
     The same was in the beginning with God.

If he is begotten, how could he be co-eternal?  John 14:28 reads, "My Father is greater than I".  About others being sons also see: Matt. 5:9: peacemakers shall be called sons of God.  In Matt. 5:45: those who love their enemies are sons of God.  In John 1 and 3, believers are "born anew"; "born of the Spirit"; and "born of God".  see also, John 14:20.  Most pagan gods were sons of a higher deity, and some of the gods were lawgivers dispensing law codes to kings who were called sons.  Such was the case in a Sumerian code of Ur-Nammu king of Ur: an Akkadian code of Enlil I, Lipit-Ishtar, "the son of the god Enlil"; and a Sumerian code of Lipit-Ishtar, king of Isin.   All were predecessors of Hammarabi's code.  Hammarabi is pictured on his famous stele as standing before sun-god Samash, the Babylonian god of law and justice.   Nearly all of the 10 commandments of Moses were already on Hammarabi's code.  (law code details furnished by Finegan, Myth and Mystery, Baker Book House, 1989).

   "That whosoever believeth on him"---Believe WHAT?, In what way?  And why should whatever we believe about it make any difference anyway?  Is this supposed to mean God can't prove his point?  That the whole thing is sufficiently doubtful that we honestly may not believe whatever is so?  Believe what?  That God loves?  That God gave?  That there is only one Son?  That the Son is divine?  That believing or not believing makes any difference in the outcome, whatever that is?  Or that any of this has anything to do with eternal life or eternal perishing?  That God is really like that?  It isn't at all clear what is supposed to be believed or why it should make any difference.  Contrast: "By their fruits shall ye know them".

    "Should not perish but have everlasting life"...This looks like a threat and also a command to "believe", whether we believe it or not--or else.   If so, then how does this threat and bullying fit with "God so loved the world"?  Is God really like this?  If it's so

important that we understand whatever, why isn't God God enough to make this simple matter plain so there is no question?  It's just because it doesn't make sense that those who analyse it can't see the logic.  The Son doesn't come to condemn, it says, but if you don't "believe" just so--you do get condemned! (also 3:36). Tricky wording!  Here we have everlasting life proposed, but at John 10:10, instead of everlasting life it's the life more abundant proposed.  They are not necessarily the same thing and can be very different.   Here also in verse 3:19, it's seeing light and coming to the light rather than to darkness that makes the difference, contrary to the "God gave his...Son" pagan-like thought we were starting with!  The pagan-like proposal would be impossible regardless whether God gave the Son or the Son gave himself, just because it is impossible to transfer moral guilt or credit from one person to another.  Even if one person dies for another, the first guilty person still remains guilty.  It doesn't and couldn't work, ever.  God isn't that stupid!  But, it's verse 3:19 that makes it all come out right:

    "This is the condemnation: that light came into the world, and men loved darkness
       rather than light".

This, verse 19 part would make the whole passage senseable.  If you don't know good when you see it, you're in trouble.

     So then, if we find light and Sonship in Jesus just because he both best declared the abundant life and paid the price of giving himself and going all the way with it, this is transforming and redeeming.    It does make a person new and revitalized and attracted toward being in his image. It's just because he best articulated and exemplified the Kingdom-Of-God concept that it's appropriate to call him THE beloved Son, even though God has many sons.  Was it possibly because Jesus was the prophet that best called God Father--his chief contrilbution--that people called Jesus THE Son?  But Jesus taught prayer to OUR Father.  When we pray to Our Father, this we-ness to a degree, becomes God incarnate--a oneness with God:

                                         "Speak to him thou, for he hears.
                                               And spirit with spirit can meet.
                                            Closer is he than breathing,
                                                And nearer than hands and feet".         (Tenneson)

So, it is not acquiring unending existence that makes us "saved".  It's the abundant redeemed life that comes with being emerged in Kingdom-Of-God living now that is a

new creation.  It is completely opposite the escatalogical end-of-the-world idea.  God and the Kingdom are already here now.  And so is the "abundant life" here already.  Believe it!

   However, this acceptable verse 19 doctrine is seriously injured by the shallow legalism of verse 3:18, in which it's not the seeing of the enlightening ideals of Jesus that works the transformation, instead it is a VooDoo-like and pagan-like believing in the NAME that removes condemnation.  The writer of the gospel of John would have done a much better service if he'd just explained the good news in plain language instead of making it all muddled by wrapping it in mysterious Pagan and Gnostic mystic language, themselves so entirely and throughgoingly unacceptable. It's the escape form Paganism and weird Gnosticism and ceremonialism that is the new life.  And the gospel cannot be explained in Pagan and Gnostic terms.   As soon as you try it, you've reverted to ghastly Paganism itself. The John 3:16 verse when properly uncoded via verse 19 could be great.  But as it stands by itself, the whole John 3:16 passage is so contaminated with untruth and muddled impossibility that it must surely have caused a great deal more harm than good.

    Jesus gave himself to aid his people in practical ways now---Yes.   And it was this superior giving of himself that makes him the Son.   But for someone to pagan-like pay a penalty for my depravity, but not remove the depravity by making me a changed person--this is to leave me unsaved.

    Could the BELIEVE doctrine of John 3:16 have evolved from an earlier but different need?  Probably, as Jesus conducted his publicity campaign, he would persuade people to believe in him as a genuine descendant of the king line and a plausible contender for the throne.  And he would in fact become a real contender providing he got enough followers. However, after the crucifixion, disciples had a different need.   Now, their presumably resurrected leader must have been divine.  Now, his first try isn't going to achieve the expected new political and economic order.  So, if he's Messiah, how does he save?  Some will suppose, it must be he saves from sin,--but this cannot be convincingly proven--so they stress: just believe it anyhow. (that is, make-believe it).

     While John's gospel mostly presents Jesus, not as a king having a genealogy, but instead as the WORD, the ruler of the cosmos, still at John 19:20 Jesus is after all crucified as King of the Jews.  (not as the WORD)

    Here, at the crucifixion, reality at last prevails: It was Jesus the King who was the real Jesus!

    If the gospel called John had been written by, or even dictated by Apostle John, then it would contain a lot about the Galiliean ministry.  Instead it mostly is about events in Judea.  And the writer has a very good fund of information about the Judean ministry (of about three years length) of Jesus, unknown to the synoptic writers who have Jesus operating mostly in Galilee only.   And apparently a one year campaign.  But the gospel of John is also mostly more Pauline in doctrine than the synoptics and to a remarkable extent seems to be deliberately bypassing the synoptic gospels which he, and the Jerusalem church also, must surely have known.  Like Paul, the writer gives authority to apostles yet does not derive his doctrine from them.  This bypassing of the Christ of the synoptics is no mere happenstance.  The writer of John intentionally wants to furthur elevate his Christ to be even more so than Paul's "Christ".  In the synoptics, use of the word Kingdom outnumbers the use of the word I.  But "John" uses Kingdom 3 times and the word I, 118 times. Different top values.

    Papias had known the Apostle John and would value the oral traditilon of what the disciples had reported.  But now, the very last oral witness has died and it is because of this, others are hastily writing what they believe is the correct story as they think the last witness would have told it.   Nor are we told the name of the last witness, only that he was that "beloved disciple" present at the Last Supper, who had not been noteworthy before. Until he died, the companions had not seen any need to write a gospel because they expected an end of the world before this last witness would die.  Elsewhere in this volume, we've developed the thought that the "beloved disciple" most lilkely was Zachaeus, contrary to the common usual presumption that the final witness was Apostle John (who never before was called "the beloved").  Papias does not seem to me to think the Gospel of John was the same as the oral tradition he had personally gotten from Apostle John.*  One insignificant difficulty with designating Zachaeus as the "beloved" final witness is the church Zachaeus founded at Roc Amador (in France), believed Zachaeus had died there.  But the gospel of "John" does not say where it was written.  Only somehow, we know not how, the document came to bear the name of John.  And to be associated so strongly with Ephesus that we can safely assume this not only was the faith as honored in that fourth city of the Roman world, but that this gospel was a part of a big city rivalry to make Ephesus the number one Christian center.  Therefore John is extremely unlike the synoptic gospels.  They weren't even trying to borrow from the rival cities.  But it should not be assumed that this is the testimony of Apostle John--we can

*The Muratorian fragment and Polycarp argue differently: See F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents, Eardmans '67.

instead be quite certain that it is not, and indeed likely does not even closely resemble what the Apostle John would have written.  It certainly does not resemble the document called M.  The other churches did not buy it!  Also the writer of the gospel of John, unlike Papias, did not have a good supply of oral tradition from the Apostles, not even of Apostle John who is not especially prominent in the writing, especially if we do not identify Apostle John as the "beloved disciple".  If Zachaeus was the last living witness, then Apostle John was dead considerably before the gospel called John was written.  And was no longer prominent as a witness!  But, modest Zachaeus could possibly have previously obtained much of his material directly from Apostle John!   And regretably, from Paul too!

    Like Paul, the writer of the gospel of John, is overbearing in demanding conformity to his doctrine of "Jesus" as THE WORD, only here we have a fully developed "Christ" of Paul's theology merged with some actual historical involvement, some of which is extremely valuable historical record we had not gotten before.

    In making Jesus to lbe THE WORD, the writer is pulling a little trick on the unwary reader--who may then accept the writing itself as infallible doctrine, thinking that a greater than Moses is speaking here.   But instead, the one speaking is only an otherwise unknown disciple who might not even have known the Apostle John and certainly had not well known Jesus himself.  He is painting a powerful portrait of something he had never seen or personally known.   To say the same thing differently-- his writing is a theoretical theology more than it is history.  All of the gospels have Jesus creating quite a stir in Palestine, but the Dead Sea Scrolls do not mention him.  Josephus mentions him only as an after thought.   In the synoptic gospels, Jesus conducts a campaign in behalf of the Kingdom-Of-God.  By the time of John's THE WORD Christ, it's Jesus himself, not the Kingdom, who has become the focus of worship.  In John, Jesus becomes THE WORD but in Matthew, Jesus is so far from being the WORD that he has to explain the parable of the sower (Matt. 13:3-23). Since a parable is a device to clarify something, if it is itself an obscurity, this parable is hardly the product of THE WORD!

    The more nearly historical Jesus of the synoptic gospels seems to conduct a campaign of one year and then takes over the temple. Not so in John.  In one of the most glaring of Bible contradictions: The more divine "Christ" of John's gospel BEGINS by taking over the temple--and THIS temple-takeover is WHAT the WORD does and IS and SAYS!--then a three year campaign follows. Question: If "Christ" took over the temple at the beginning of his work, why abandon it for three years?  While Matthew and Luke give Jesus a childhood, Mark and John do not mention a childhood for their more divine-figure "Christ".   A childhood would be inconsistant for one who is THE SON or THE WORD from the beginning of time.  While the Jesus of synoptic gospels has hostility with Jews and avoids Judea (see also John 7:11); John's gospel presents an otherwise unknown campaign mostly within Judea,

not reported in the other three gospels.   In important ways, Jesus is not a Jew, as we can see because Jews murderously reject him, and also Jesus denounces Jews as the chosen people of Satan.  Contrast this with Luke having Jesus on the cross saying, "Forgive (chosen ones of Satan?) for they know not what they do"!  It does not seem possible this could be the real Jesus saying this.  But likely it was Paul's influence in cousin Luke, so that it was Paul the Jew, wanting forgiveness for Jews and himself, a Jew.  Only Luke, who was not present, reports this. But gospel writer John, while mostly following Paul on THE WORD ideology has far less use for Jews. In Paul's Gnosticism, Jews still seem to be chosen people.  But not so in John's dualism.  In John's gospel, Jesus could not be a Jew and thus be a chosen one of Satan.  In stressing his just BELIEVE it doctrine, John seems to be placing severe bullying blame on us if we find we do not believe (John).  And the New Testament as a whole seems to go from the doctrine of "chosen people" to the people who choose (to believe).   But in contradiction to this, John also has his "Christ" revert to saying, "You did not choose me, but I chose you" (15:15) and again at 15:19: "I chose you out of the world".  So John is contradictory to itself, and it's back to "chosen people" only it's a different chosen people.  If this is so, that they are "chosen", then why do they have to BELIEVE?  It would seem that the BELIEVING is what makes them to be "chosen"!   So then, this "chosen"doctrine altogether contradicts the BELIEVE doctrine of John 3:16!  There must be more than one doctrinaire writer working here!  More than one source writer!

    In presenting Jesus as THE WORD, the writer of John is specifically contradicting the Old Testament story of Moses getting the 10 commandments and "the law" at Mt. Sinai.  The great and humerous J writer of Genesis and Exodus ( a Yah worshipper of the southern tribe Judah) has it that Moses confers face to face with Yah; the 70 elders see Yah standing on a sapphire pavement, and the entire population stands at the foot of Mt. Sinai and hears Yah thunderously speaking the 10 commandments. But John 5:37 flatly contradicts J, saying:
      "Ye (Jews) have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape."

The equally great E writer, also of Genesis and Exodus (an El worshipper of the 10 northern tribes) gets off a large rivalry joke of his own in repudiating the southerner's claims for Moses.  E is implying, (Exodus 33:18-23) that was not God's face Moses saw. That was God's back-end.  So therefore, since the southerner Moses can't tell which end is the right end and deals with the wrong end, which end was it that rumbled and sprewed 

out the Torah law of the southerners?  Also, when Elijah the great prophet of the 10 northern tribes, (his name means El-is-Yah) wants to consult God, he goes not to Mt. Sinai, in the extreme south of the Sinai peninsula, but instead to Mt. Horeb in the north central region. Whereas Moses had allegedly gotten the southerner's Torah at Mt. Sinai amid much earthquake, fire and great noise, not so Elijah at Horeb. While Elijah is the prophet of fire, he does not find God in the fire, nor in the earthquake, nor in the storm with it's noise.  instead, Elijah covers his head and God speaks with a still small voice. That tells him what he already knew: that he still had 7,000 (Famiies) on his side.  Here we have another repudiation of the O.T. Torah, though subtly put.  What John is also saying is, The Torah was not made tablets of stone, nor parchment and ink, as Jews claim: instead it was made flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1:14).  The enigmatic NAME of Exodus chapter 3, there translated: I AM THAT I AM, has some relationship with the verb to be. The Gospel of John has Jesus assuming the I AM status, saying: I AM: the light of the world; the way, truth, and the life; the bread; the living water; the vine; the door; the resurrection, and thus has Jesus becoming the very I AM name of God.  He not only speaks the Word, he is the WORD. Those who see this, (says John) see God.

      John borrows from the first words of the Vedas, the holy book of the Hindus, and makes Jesus to be THE WORD.  In the Vedas, the WORD is Brama, and Bramha is the WORD.  This word, or similar concept had been developing for a very long time.  Plato had philosophy about the Ideas (which were god-like personal forms); Hebrew wisdom literature had Wisdom become a personal form; the Jewish philosopher Philo made the (Gnostic) feminine Sophia to be Logos-Word, which is much like their Torah and co-eternal with God.  Another strong component is Paul's divine-figure Christ.  But probably the strongest influence of all was the original disciples' certainty they had seen Jesus alive after the crucifixion, and this, to them, had to mean Jesus had been divine all along.  Here, we'll develop an alternate theory that it was just that Jesus had not completely died, and revived due to natural causes.  The WORD concept develops easily from the divine-figure "Christ", whose main originator and prlncipal spokesman was Paul who had never known and didn't think he needed to know the original real Jesus.  Since he, Paul, was building a better one anyway.   The WORD was a doctrine that developed within the church over a period of several decades.  They didn't know this or think this WORD doctrine at first.  even the alleged ("Peter's Confession") voice from the cloud (Matthew 17:5) doesn't indicate it.  But since the real Jesus has been the master spokesman for the Kingdom-Of-God for these two thousand years, then the WORD title

does, in this way only, fit rather appropriately!  So, with that reservation, we'll continue to honor it as correct in this book!  But not in the same way the writer of John uses the term.  Matthew had fashioned a New-Moses, speaking for God, to dispense the better word to us.  John vastly enhances this to make his divine-figure to be the WORD himself, co-eternal with God.  While Matthew makes Jesus to be a New-Moses, and Moses spoke what becomes a Book, John makes Jesus himself to be the New-BOOK, or the Real-BOOK.  The writer of John does not borrow from Matthew, possibly because of this difference?

    Wheras the central feature of Mark and Matthew are their separate versions of "Peter's Confession" (which for each has become a literary device just to preach Paul's divine-Christ).  But in both of these, "Peter's Confession" comes before the transfiguration scene.  Paul's comes with his "burning bush" event.  John enhances "Peter's Confession".  Because, while John makes Jesus to be the WORD and the light of the world, everyone is supposed to see and confess this. In John's gospel, the performance of miracles is the "confession", replacing prior alleged "confessions" of Peter.  But John 5:30 seems to contradict this by having what seems to the real Jesus saying, "I can of my own self do nothing (miraculous).  The alleged voice voice reported at Mark 9:2-8 and Matthew 17:5; in John 12:29 instead, is not the voice of God, it is only thunder.  Further, John 5:37 has it that no one has heard God's voice at any time.  With both Mark and Matthew's "Peter's Confession's" there very soon is confirming miracle voice somewhat as in the Old Testament's Moses on the Mt. Sinai story.   But John replaces this voice by having the WORD Jesus himself be the miracle (and therefore the voice). Both "Thou art the Christ" alleged "Peter's Confessions" (in Mark and Matthews) seem also contradicted by the "do not call me Christ" verses and also by the condemnations of miracle working.  But in Luke, it is not Peter or the people,or even a voice from a cloud, but instead it's Old Testament "prophecies" that do the confessing! (which "prophecies" do not stand up to examination).

    in Luke, Jesus is neither a New-Moses, nor the WORD, he is a prophet. (but Moses seems to be a greater prophet!)   Notice: In Luke 4:24 no prophet is accepted in his own county; (but wasn't Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah and others?)   Again, at Luke 7:16 a great prophet is risen up among them; and also at Luke 13:33 it is impossible for a prophet to perish anywhere but in Jerusalem. (how about Daniel?)  Writer John does use about 20% of Mark and reinforces some of Luke's stories by adding specific details such as the names of people and places.  The story of the woman taken in the act of adultry in which story Jesus says to accusers, "Let him who is without sin, cast the first stone" did not

originally belong where it is now (John 8:3-11) but probably was a loose page that belonged to a very early manuscript of Luks. No existing N.T. manuscript earlier than the 9th century had it, but after that date, all manuscripts include it.  Where it now is, it interupts the sense of what preceeds it, and at it's close, the sense resumes where it had left off.  Also, it's more like the sentimental material in Luke's Good Samaritan and Prodical Son type stories than like the dogmatic discourses of "John".   The date of the writing of John is a much debated problem and still unsettled.  Estimates usually range from 65 A.D. or earlier, to 105 A.D.  That the last known oral witness has just died (John 21:23-24) much argues for a late date, probably 100 A.D. or later.  Already one case of what early churchmen had presumed to be an undoubtable prophesy had proved to be a big misundestanding instead.  The last witness died and still no Apocalypse!  Here is more misunderstanding:

    John 20:9: "For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead" clearly shows the "prophecies" theology was a major new post-resurrection development.  The first followers knew nothing about it!  They had not gotten "prophecy" doctrine from Jesus while he was yet among them.  Judas would not attempt betrayal of known divinity.  Mark 16:11 and Luke 24:11 agree that when disciples were first informed there might be a resurrecstion (be a divine Christ), they refused to believe it.  While Matthew's "Peter's Confession" makes Peter, not Paul to be head apostle, Luke's "prophecies" and pentecostalism contradicts and reverses this, thus favoring Paul.  Also, if Peter's alleged "Confession" actually had been that Jesus was the (divine) Christ, then Peter should not have been later surprised there might be a resurrection.  Showing "Peter's Confession" to be a fabrication by a writer of a much later time, with a doctrine of his own to promote.

    In the synoptics, Jesus does not know (can't predict) till he gets there, that the fig tree is barren with no fruit (had it already been picked?). And though he supposedly has been to the temple numerous times before, the disciples take him for a tour of the temple (Matt.20-11) to show him what it's like.  But, why would a divine-figure not know every detail of the temple supposedly dedicated to himself?  But in John versus the synoptics, Jesus always has a way of knowing from a distance what out of sight has happened or shall come to pass. Example: John 1:43-49.

     In the Q portions of Matthew and Luke, those working miracles or wanting a "sign" are evil people.  But in John, multiple major miracles (signs) succeed one another and in the final verse, the wonders are so many that if all were written, the world itself could not contain all the books.  In John, it's the WORD's own miracles that "confess" he's Christ!  (But these are performed for evil people?  Yet crucifying this wonder worker shows the alleged miracles has not been convincing at the time to the majority of the witnessing spectators.  It would seem that the WORD should be able to sufficiently reveal himself and the genuineness of has miracles that there could be no doubt about his identity.  Or else he isn't such a good WORD!  So if the WORD can't do it, we ordinary mortals may consider it to be a hopeless task!  John's the WORD; Mark's divine-figure; Matthew's New-Moses; and Luke's prophet were not so perceived at the time.  All these roles occur only after the alleged resurrection. Only many years later does Luke's Christ first say, "Father forgive them".  Mark's narrative of miracles has a surprising on and off feature. There is repatedly a major miracle followed by an interval, as in, "after six days", at which time comes another miracle and another interval and so on.  One wonders what goes on in the intervals and why they happen. Mark seems to want to report only miracles.

    John's WORD also seems to need much (questionable) miracle for validation. Example: the Lazarus story illustrates how highly unlikely some, probably all, the alleged miracle stories are.  The Palestinian place name Bethany sounds much like Beth-Anu (the house of the god Anu). The Egyptian (Book of the Dead, I think) El-Azarus story has Horus (a supposedly resurrected god) going to Bethanu to raise his father. The Egyptian story includes two sisters Meri and Merti, with a brother El-Azarus. We know there were in early Christian history, the actual persons named Lazarus, Mary and Martha from Bethany.  Did some later Christian scribe confuse the Egyptian myth with our saints and mistakenly, in John 11:44 report our Lazarus was raised from the dead?  It seems

probable that our Lazarus story is only a Christianized version of an ancient Egyptian myth.  Another most troubling feature is that here it is not Jesus being resurrected after three days; instead it's Lazarus resurrected, complete with the stone sealing the tomb being first removed.  All this seemingly to establish the authority of "Christ to cause resurrection at will and thus the divinity of "Christ".   Versus other gospel stories in which it is the resurrection of Jesus himself that establishes his divinity. But it doesn't work so well.  John 12:16 tells us the Lazareth event was not so perceived at the time and the later doctrine about Christ's alleged divinity and resurrection came first, before the version we now have of whatever Lazarus event, if any occurred.

    One very important part, however seems to not fit with the Egyptian myth-Lazarus story as we now have it, and this misfit piece, the anointing scene of John 12:1,--(admittedly given an interval in John 11:54 before continuing the story)--the Marys part would therefore seem to have some probable historical basis.  About Lazarus: an exceedingly troublesome thing is Matthew and Mark know nothing about it, see: Matt.26:6-13 and Mark 13:3-9 in which there is a Bethany anointing but very surprisingly no Lazarus resurrection! And in Luke 16:19-31 the Lazarus story is only a parable about a hypothetical leper, with no sisters, the moral of which parable is that a resurrection would prove nothing!  And Luke entirely omits the anointing scene. Compare the very different Matt.26:6-7 Simon the leper anointing.  However, Clement of Alexandria (150-215 A.D.) made a couple of quotations from the otherwise unknown Secret Gospel Of Mark which probably was earlier than the present canonical Mark.  One of the quotations has an (note) unnamed woman of Bethany beseech Jesus for mercy but being rebuked by disciples.  But an angry Jesus then goes to the garden containing the tomb and a great cry is heard from within the tomb.  Jesus rolls away the stone, and going in, reaches out his hand and raises the unnamed youth who was the woman's brother.   But, strangely, our-Mark writing from Alexandria, and much in need of miracle, makes no use of this part of the Secret Gospel Of Mark, also known at Alexandria in the second century. For Clement, the earlier version is the best one.  Isn't it remarkable that Alexandria didn't know which Mark wrote their gospel!  A problem with the above version: Why is it the entombed man cries out before he is raised?   Does this indicate he was in the tomb but wasn't dead?  Note also: Any fake Lazaraus "resurrection" scene or other "raising of the dead" acts would be very easy to stage by prearrangement!

    Mary Magdalene, Martha and Lazarus were also of king-line descent and therefore, like the apostles, related to Jesus.   Our assumption here then, is that the anointing

probably was that given a king about to assume official authority.  And that later, when it was apparent they did not get the kingdom first expected, gospel writers revised and reslanted the Lazarus and annointing stories to conform to new theology about being annointed for death.  Our present gospels all indicate most disciples were shocked at the extravagance of Mary's anointing.  but Mary Magdalene was extremely wealthy, owning the villages Magdala and Bethany and a large portion of Jerusalem.  Such a box of pricely ointment would not only seem to her like a trivial expense, but something entirely necessary and appropriate with which to anoint her relative Jesus to be King.  A prior annointing was essential to become king, and Jesus seems to welcome it!  The three synoptic gospel accounts are mostly concerned with the Messianic movement in Galilee.  But in the record called John's gospel we see actual politically and economically prominent personalities of the southern providence, Judah, named: including also the mysterious unnamed disciple who is probably Zachaeus, and Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathaea.  So Jesus was active in both north and south.

    Luke's gospel presents the most compassionate Christ of all and at what is probably Luke's high point, Luke has Jesus on the cross, say, "Father forgive them" (the enemy) which agrees with Q's Sermon at Matthew 5:44: "Love your enemies".  John enhances this further to the level that God is Love.  However in John, the God that is Love does not seem to love the enemy:  Jews are the children of Satan and are repeatedly throughly denounced.  Jesus was hardly an absolute THE WORD revelation!

    In the three synoptic gospels, Jesus takes over the temple at the end of his campaign and is crucified because he did that.  Not so in John.  John has Jesus begin his career by taking over the temple. So John cannot have Jesus crucified for having taken over the temple!  In John, there has to be another reason to crucify.  Guess what:  in John, Jesus gets crucified because he has resurrected Lazarus! (John 19:7)  While our-John thinks that resurrection of Lazarus establishes the divinity of Jesus,. Jews instead think this resurrection--which could easily be staged--makes Jesus eligible for crucifixion.  (Is it because it would indicate black-magic?)   John needs a cosmic ruler more than earthly king, still John puts the temple event first (After all it was the first in importance thing).   But having put the temple-event first, then John has the embarrassing problem of why the crucifixion three years later.  So our-John needs his version of the Lazarus story and also needs it to be just prior to the crucifixion.  But somebody didn't think it through very well because even in the gospel of John, Jesus is still crucified as King, (John 19:19) which obviously conflicts with the idea that he was crucified for having resurrected Lazarus.

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