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LETS START BY TESTING YOUR CURRENT KNOWLEDGE?
The religious faith of the western world, Christianity, consists substantially of a synthesis of religious beliefs and doctrines which had their origin in many lands and among various peoples and which were combined and proclaimed in what we may call the New Testament, specifically those documents known as the Gospels along with the Pauline Epistles. Needless to say this is not common knowledge and few practicing and devout Christians are aware of the inherent paganism they practice. The creeds, disciplines, and dogmas on which almost all the churches of Europe and the Americas and many of those in Asia are based purport to derive their authority from this New Testament document; and all these multifarious denominations and non-denominations proclaim that theirs is the religion established by Jesus, whom they revere as the Christ.
For more than fifteen years I have been fascinated by the thought that the principal concepts of the Christian faith, which have played so crucial a role in occidental life, might be traced to their ultimate sources. Some six or seven years ago, leisure for such an elaborate project became possible: scores of modern and old books were purchased and hundreds of articles in encyclopedias were first read by way of orientation; but, since discernment and knowledge is to be had only by a minute study of the sources, this soon became an industry that consumed me day after day. More than seven years were consumed in the intensive study of ancient Egyptian, Persian, Brahmana, Gaina, Buddhist, Judaistic, Essene, and Christian literature.
What you will discover if you embark on such a study is that important elements from various ancient cultures converged and literally we find a synthesis of religious beliefs, first, in the Pythagorean thiasot and then in the Essene Order, whence the Christian Gospel emerged, which, in turn, proceeded to penetrate the emotions and to achieve dominion over the Graeco-Roman world.
The Essenes, lately the object of so much attention, play a central role in our drama. They were an extraordinary group of Jewish communist-celibates who, in their formative stage about 170 B. C., absorbed the metaphysics and the eschatology of the Zoroastrians, and then, some sixty-five years later, by becoming Pythagoreans, incorporated into their system much of the discipline and soteriology of the mystery-cults of Greece and Asia Minor. Upon all this, they engrafted a Christology which combined a Persian with a Messianic Judaic concept, which, in a period of crisis, they personalized in their martyred Teacher of Righteousness, whom they expected to return upon the clouds about 35-30 B. C., accompanied by myriads of angels to conduct the Last Judgment. It is our conclusion at Bet Emet Ministries that Jesus was strongly Essenic in his religious beliefs and who, convinced that he was himself the incarnate Christ destined to redeem and judge mankind, left the Essenic Order for the purpose of creating a mass-movement and revealing these "secret doctrines" to the masses in preparation of the expected imminent appearing of the Kingdom of God.
The certainty finally emerges that Christianity was a highly composite doctrine which combined many of the age-old religious concepts first developed by Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, Buddhists, and Greeks, as well as by Jews, Phrygians, Syrians, and other inhabitants of Asia Minor. Christianity was congenitally related to all of these; and when any of them accepted Christianity, they were simply recovering what was, at least in part, originally their own. This explains why Christianity became such a success and world-wide religion in such a short time.
Mature Essenism taught the following concepts which is known today as the Essene-Christian Faith:
One thing is for certain; you cannot assume anything in Biblical studies. Our study will show you a rather clever and unique religious synthesis of ideas taken from Egypt, Babylon, India, Assyria, Greece, Asia Minor, Persia, as well as Judaism. To complicate matters these proto-Essenes, in Alexandria, Egypt, in 200 B.C.E., mistranslated on purpose the Jewish Scriptures by writing their "pagan theologies" into the texts and passing the finished product off to the Greek-speaking Jews of the world as a "translation of the Jewish Scriptures." Nothing could be further from the truth, but these Greek-Jews could not read Hebrew; who was to know any different?
This document was to establish what was to be later called the Essene-Christian faith, which is also the religion of the occident and the Western world. Instead of being a unique revelation such tenants as described above are nothing more than a synthesis of major doctrines contained in the religions of the Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, Buddhists, Greeks, Phrygians, Syrians, and other inhabitants of Asia Minor.
This gospel of Christianity consists primarily of four basic elements: soteriology, eschatology, ethics, and the Messianic concept. And first in this series of articles we will consider the sources of its soteriology, that is to say, its doctrine concerning the incarnate godman who dies for humanity and whose body and blood must be consumed sacramentally so that the Elect may become divine and immortal. The trail leads us first to the Nile, where civilization and organized religion began in the dim reaches of the prehistoric past. Our objective is to understand the forces which have created our ideologies and theologies within Christianity.
The first officially authentic Essene scriptures were published shortly after an Arab goatherd, following one of his animals, stumbled into a cave near the Dead Sea, where a treasure-trove of ancient documents was found, several of which were virtually intact. By a strange succession of fortunate incidents, these were quickly published, and thus made available to the world.
This set off one of the most intensive archeological hunts in history; scholars and scientists hastened to the Judaean desert in search of additional Scrolls. In this, they were signally successful: remnants, large and small, of hundreds of Essene scriptures were recovered, all of which had been secreted in sealed jars about 69 A.D. Material was found in at least five caves, of which that in Cave 4 alone constituted a corpus of original Essene scripture sufficient, should it be translated and published, to fill two volumes the size of the King James version of the Bible.
Then, however, strange things began to occur. Up until just a few years ago, no portion of this treasure, deposited in the Jordanian Museum in Jerusalem, has been published, or even made available to scholars. Of the 8 men, appointed to collate, arrange, publish, and translate these documents, 4 were Roman Catholics; and only John Marco Allegro, the English researcher, was without denominational affiliation. When he quickly translated and published the Copper Scroll and the few fragments entrusted to him; and then when he declared that the Essene Teacher of Righteousness, executed by the Jewish priests about 70-68 B.C., may have been crucified, he was denied all further access to the Scroll material.
As year after year passed away without the appearance of any more Essene scripture, although from time to time elaborate promises were made that they would soon be available, many began to question the reasons for the delay and the concealment. Since then, ample time has elapsed for the preparation and publication of all Essene material. But not one line of the hundreds of pages found in the caves has been released until stolen and made public just a couple of years ago.
Although additional Essene scriptures failed to appear, there was a plethora of books and articles dealing with the cult and its Scrolls during the years following 1950. Dozens of books and hundreds of articles, expressing every conceivable point of view, have appeared. It is probable that a complete bibliography of all material printed in this field might comprise somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 titles.
During the Six-Day War of 1967, the Jewish forces overran Jerusalem and captured the Jordanian Museum. To the best of our knowledge, nothing has been published concerning the fate or the whereabouts of the Essene Scrolls up until just a couple of years ago.
Answer for yourself: Why not?
These scrolls are the most precious concentration of ancient literature ever discovered in modern times. No outsider, of course, knew the contents of these documents; but it seems difficult to doubt that there was a constructive conspiracy to conceal them and to prevent their publication forever. All discussion concerning these "unreleased" Scrolls seems to have been silenced up until just a couple of years ago.
Placed in caves almost 2000 years ago, and not discovered until 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls provide a unique insight into Jewish and Christian origins. They have held a fascination over academics, religious leaders, and they lay public alike for the last forty-five years. From 1952, when a team of scholars was appointed and Cave 4 at Qumran was discovered they have been under the control of an elite and secretive clique. Finally, in the autumn of 1991, this monopoly of "secrecy" was effectively broken when the Huntington Library in California announced it would allow public access to its collection of Dead Sea Scrolls photographs. This was soon followed by the publication of a Facsimile Edition by the Biblical Archaeology Society in Washington.
The motive for this concealment, we believe, is not far to seek. Although the evidence linking pristine Christianity to the Dead Sea Covenanters is already very substantial, there are still men of stature who deny the existence of such a relationship.
Answer for yourself: Who, then, is so desperately bent on concealing the Essene scriptures?
The vested interests of those religious communities are therefore at stake; they did not for the longest time, allow the publication of authentic materials which reduce their influence and credibility and, more importantly, cause a decline in their wealth and income.
But the day has come when the Essene Scrolls have come to light.
Since most people read only what reinforces the persuasions they have already accepted, we realize that few indeed among those already committed to some creed will be motivated to read about these documents. Edwin Franden Dakin once remarked that the greatest miracle in the world is the capacity of humanity to believe without evidence. Most people are nurtured by their delusions. However, true education or enlightenment cannot exist except among those who follow St. Paul's dictum to try all things and in the end retain the good.
In this study and forthcoming articles on this web-site, therefore, we seek the truth of Christianity and its composite religious parts by examining each religions assimilated into Christianity and their own sacred scriptures.
Answer for yourself: How can divine infallibility be claimed in Christianity for "revelations" which bear every earmark of forgery or folk-myth which has been handed down from sun-myths and paganism for thousands of years and which can be shown to be the backbone of Essene religious thought?
The following articles provide the facts you need to see and understand in order to make an intelligent decision of the matter; for after all, after all the data is consumed and the smoke clears, we are commanded to worship the Father in Spirit and Truth! Have we?