Two articles
appear below:
1 History…Rewritten Dean R. Dowling
2 History Preserved Anonymous
HISTORY
DESTROYED,
CREATED AND REWRITTEN
Dean R. Dowling
(Investigator 111, 2006 November)
The present day
Da Vinci Code film might be inaccurate on some points but it does raise the
basic question was Jesus married and
to Mary Magdalene?
John 2:1–11
writes there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee (near Nazareth?) when Jesus
converted 6 jars of water each holding on average 25 gallons into 60 extra
dozen bottles of claret. Some wedding.
Bishop Shelby
Spong in his "Born of a Woman" pages
190ff shows there are clues left in the tampered texts which indicate it was
Jesus’ marriage to Mary Magdalene.
Roman Emperor
Constantine in 325 A.D. ordered the Council of Nicaea of about 300 bishops to
stop the warring factions of Christians fighting over the nature and divinity
of Jesus. ("The Jesus Scroll" Donovan
Joyce, Ferret Books. page 23 ff)
One faction the
logos, regarded Jesus as Divine, but subordinate to the Father. Another
faction, Adoptionism, regarded Jesus born of a man, but was adopted and raised
to divine God level at Baptism (Mark 1:9) and this was the principal feast of
the early Church. Another tolerant faction, the Gnostics, even had women as
priests.
The Gnostics’ writings were
destroyed in 367 A.D. under the orders of the Bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius,
but were rediscovered in 1945, stored in ancient jars at Nag Hammadi in
They have also discovered the ancient
papyrus remnants of the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, The Gospel of
Mary (Magdelene), the Gospel of Judas. Other factions were Arianism,
Anpollinarianism, Monophysitism, Nestorian, Sabellian, Paulicians, Modalists.”
(Pears Cyclopaedia)
But the winning
faction at
The Bishops'
vote at
Since political
power was now absolute, the losing factions were later declared heretical and
were given the usual loving Christian treatment for heretics. (Lv 24:16; Mark
16:16; Dt. 13:13) — burning alive at the wheel or stake, unless they gave other
heretics names (dobbing in) and hence were “shown the mercy of God” by first
being killed before burning, "Deus Caritas Est" "God is Love" Pope Benedict
XVI, 2006???
The
15th – 18th century woodcuts and engravings of the
torture methods are shown in Arthur Frederick Ide’s book "Unzipped—the Popes Bare All" pages 140 ff. Page 154
"the
reproductive organs of both male and female were the first objects of torture —
while men were, in the mercy of God, strangled or otherwise killed, women were
fried alive. The most bestial pain producing tortures were uniformly reserved
for the female usually after sodomising and raping."
People
who say this all occurred a long time ago conveniently forget that the
Resurrection occurred even further back in time
The deep
psychological need to believe in religious fairy tales, spirits, Gods or a God
is historically universal, contrary
to reason and evidence, and is so utterly depressing and is not helped by
Professor Richard Dawkins saying that all religious belief is a form of
insanity.
HISTORY PRESERVED
Response to Dean Dowling (#111)
Anonymous
(Investigator
117, 2007 November)
JESUS NOT MARRIED
There is no
statement in the Bible that Jesus married Mary Magdalene at the
Mr
Dowling
claims that the marriage of Jesus and Mary is not mentioned because of
"tampered text". This can't be taken seriously, however, without
consulting the
pre-tampered text, but Mr Dowling cannot refer us to it.
To uncover "tampered text" is the work of the "textual critics". Their job is to compare
thousands of ancient biblical manuscripts and, where variations occur, work out
the original. This topic — how reliably modern Bibles reflect the 1st
century writings — was debated in Investigator
96-99 and summarized in #107.
Consulting the
textual critics is the scientific approach. We cannot reasonably ignore them in
the
By consulting the "Various Readings" of textual critics in the Englishman's Greek Concordance of the New Testament I checked for
variations in the
According to
John 2, Jesus was "invited" (2:2) to the marriage feast which wouldn't be the
case if he was the groom because then he'd do the inviting! Nor was Mary
Magdalene present since she joined Jesus' ministry some time later. Jesus
converting of water to wine at the feast was "the first of his signs" (2:11) whereas Mary M was healed of "seven
devils" (Luke 8:1-2), itself a noteworthy sign, after the "first …sign". Note
also that after the party Jesus left with his mother, not with his wife! (2:12)
WINNING FACTION TAMPERING?
Dowling also
claimed that after the Council of Nicaea "new authorised versions were written
to incorporate the theology of the authoritarian winning
Consider the
doctrine of the Trinity, which became orthodox doctrine at
When arguing
against that doctrine, Unitarians often use standard Bible translations
including the King James Bible. For Unitarians to be able to do this means that
any "tampering" was minimal.
1 John 5:7 in
the King James Bible, however, is an actual case of tampering. It's a
pro-Trinity text someone mischievously added to the Scriptures. This particular
tampering, however, is not known from subjective "clues" but from the textual
critics. Therefore modern Bible translations leave it out.
The original
Bible writers for the Old Testament were all Israelites. (Romans 3:2) The New
Testament writers were Apostles (all of whom were Israelites) and their
companions in ministry. Luke 1:2 speaks of "those who from the beginning were
eye-witnesses and ministers of the word". Since Apostles and other eyewitnesses
had ordinary life-spans this implied a limited period to complete the New Testament.
Jude seems the final official
document since Jude suggests, by using the past tense, that the Apostles were
deceased. (Verse 17)
Subsequent
writings — Gnostics in the 2nd century and all the way to the 20th
century — are therefore not part of the Bible.
Dowling's
article moved on to "loving Christians" who tortured and burned people at the
stake.
The Apostle
Peter wrote:
But false
prophets also arose among the people,
just as there will be false
teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies…and because
of them the way of the truth will be reviled. (2 Peter 2:1-3)
The New
Testament repeatedly warns that "false prophets" would come and distort the
Christian message. Jesus even predicted that his genuine followers and the
false would be indistinguishable and finally require the "angels" to sort them
out. (Matthew 13:24ff)
People can,
however, make approximate identification: Followers of Christ avoid the sins
listed in Revelation 21:8 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. Also Jesus said: "By this
everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one
another." (John 13:35)
Clearly any "loving Christians" who "tortured and burned" others over religious
disagreement were not "loving Christians".
Finally Dowling
mentioned the "deep psychological need to believe". However, there is also a
deep psychological need to rebel:
Evil people
seek only rebellion… (Proverbs 17:11)
But this people
has a stubborn and rebellious heart. (Jeremiah 5:23)
It's possible
to have a "psychological need to believe" and yet still be correct in one's
beliefs and, likewise, it's possible to have a "need to rebel" and yet
correctly evaluate what one rebels against. Being influenced by a "need", if
indeed that is occurring, does not rule out accuracy.
Whether or not
the Bible is accurate is determined by testing it point by point, anything
testable, by consulting scientific research. In my c.100 articles in Investigator I've done this and proved
the Bible incredibly reliable.
REFERENCE:
Wigram, G. W. Englisman’s Greek Concordance of the New
Testament, Ninth Edition, Samuel Bagster & Sons, London