The Book of Elxai: What was the Early Church hiding??

reply to post by Akragon


what a superb quality thread. I heard a story very similar to this around 35 yrs ago at school from a Science teacher, a Dr of science and published author on military related subjects and also a Jewish German subject by birth, I hated Religious education Big-Time! as we were forced to sing religious songs every day in Assembly's etc.. However the Dr explained to me, Never listen to, or believe ANY Religious rhetoric until you've educated yrself into as many Salacious Hidden issues/secrets as possible, Regardless of the Religious Sects involved! Insisting I Study, Stay focused/level headed and objective!
'Wow!' How different this tiny Lil'World seemed as I saw it with a completely New Set of Wrap round shades, I Repositioned the Rose Tinted ones where they belong! .................. "The Bin!"
If yr going to Chase this Rabbit down the hole it would be Extremely interesting to see just how cohesive the story remains whilst trying to persuade the Vatican to help you unravel the threads of this extremely believable and provable cause.
Good Luck in yr v.own Indiana Jones riddle of a massive game changing factuality for the Test of time and History!
It'd be great if you were to keep us informed of any shenanigans from the Church and its security/army/intelligence community.

Keep Smiling & Good Luck on yr Mystery Quest.
FunkyGTC (Aka. Exo Politic)

That's true the word Stay... Seek Truth About Yourself... That's only done here on earth... You were called here as Enoch was called here...

The word Call... Christians Abba Lights Life...
The word Light... Love Is Gods Highest Teachings...

These teachings must be revealed by the Holy Ghost... Sophia

Originally posted by Akragon
reply to post by Blue Shift

 

IF this book was a piece of crap as you stated, it wouldn't have been quoted by anyone... The text wouldn't have held any importance in any religious establishment anywhere, and it simply would have disapeared

oh really, then tell me how the teachings of Hubbard continue to this day?

Originally posted by karen61560
So one would wonder why a jewish book of any age would be mentioning Jesus when theJews are still waiting for their mesiah and do not recognize Jesus as special in any way. Going out on a limb here and saying these two books never existed.

• Jesus' first followers were Jewish.

He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel."
- The Gospel of Matthew, 15:24

Jewish Christians / Judeo Christians

Jewish Christians, also Judeo-Christians, were the original members of the Jewish reform movement that later became Christianity.

• Jesus observed Mosaic Law in a non-superficial way based upon Wisdom, Love, and Altruism.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished."
- The Gospel of Matthew, 5:17-18

According to the Bible, Jesus said that he did not come to destroy or abolish Mosaic Law, he only came to fulfill.

Additionally, Jesus said that the Law shall remain until all has been fulfilled. Christians are still waiting for the battle of Armageddon, the resurrection of the dead, and the judgement of mankind. Clearly, all has not yet been fulfilled, which means Mosaic Law is to remain.



• One can follow Judaism and also believe in Jesus.

Messianic Judaism



Peace

(edited for space)

Originally posted by LittleByLittle
reply to post by Celt1

 

Nice post

. From my point of view: Do not follow only follow the teachings that have been created from description of the source. Go to the source and find out yourself. You have to seek to find in this game of hide and seek, and if you give up the seeking early without all your big questions unanswered then you will never find greater understanding and physical proof. Happy seeking.

Kings of Leon Radio Active

(video embed removed for space)

When road is carved up yonder
I hope you see me there
It's in the water, it's where you came from
It's in the water, it's where you came from

I apologize - truly; I'm not typically a nitpicky person but the opening line of those lyrics are incorrect in a way that I can't overlook (in your typed version as well as in the printed words of the video) and it's annoying the dickens out of me mostly because of the deep and fond memories I have of my Mamaw singing the song as she prepared meals or did chores. Correctly, it's "When the ROLL is CALLED up yonder." "Roll" as in those recorded in the Book of Life. It's from an old hymn you can find here.

The song in the video is interesting, but it is important to get it correct. And, again, I really do apologize as it is not my intention to come across as a member of the self-appointed spelling/grammar/context 'police.'

Apologies, too, to the OP, for my post being off topic.

reply to post by Akragon

Books are not destroyed without a reason... perhaps it was heretical...

The people who were under orders to destroy documents were not skilled to evaluate them for heresy but destroyed anything they could get their hands on that were written in "Hebrew" whether they could tell exactly if it was in Hebrew or not.

reply to post by charles1952


As usual Charles, you're doing a fine job of ensuring that the information is not distorted by the agenda of the person who presents only half the story.

I am firmly of the opinion that the book mentioned in the OP was destroyed because it contained false teaching regarding the Lord, and any attempt to portray the action as anything else is simply a wilful attempt to ignore the facts. The well known teachings of the Lord can be verified by personal experience if a person seeks in faith through prayer and a humble heart.

The matter of the Scripture comprising the modern Bible, and whether it is properly representative of the original message, is kind of a moot point, in that what is there is sufficient for the purpose of leading a person into relationship with Christ, and to aid the proper development of a right attitude before God and Man.

The deeper you are prepared to go in the relationship, the greater will be your discernment of what is holy, and what is deception. God is merciful, gracious & kind, He gently leads a person into a knowledge and experience of the highest Truth. There is no need to get wrapped up in magic and sophistry - simple faith and trust, with a commitment to love others, is all that is required. Once God revealed Himself to a person, that person cannot help but be filled with wondrous awe, gratitude & love.

The Bible has been preserved by the hand of Providence; the lost books and the most conflicting of apocrypha are ignored because they are either misguided or deliberately deceptive (heretical).

Some books among the apocrypha are almost certainly equal in value to the standard books in the Bible, such as the Gospel of Thomas. Others are deliberately designed to subvert the Truth about Christ, such as the (blatantly false) 'gospel of Barnabus'.

Originally posted by Celt1
"What does it mean that God is our Abba Father?"

While most people, at least those who do not irrationally deny the existence of God, would claim that all are “children of God,” the Bible reveals quite a different truth. We are all His creations and under His authority and Lordship and will all be judged by Him, but being a child of God and having the right to truly call Him “Abba Father” is something that only born-again Christians are able to do (John 1:12-13).

Understanding that not all people are children of God and that becoming a child of God only happens when you are adopted by God through faith in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:26) is important for understanding how and why God deals with people differently. If we are born again (John 1:12, 3:1-8), we have been adopted into the family of God, redeemed from the curse of sin and are “joint-heirs with Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:17; also Galatians 4:7). Part of that new relationship is that God now deals with us differently, which includes His chastisement when we sin (Hebrews 12:3-11). Because of that new relationship, Christians may sin, but they cannot be comfortable or content living a life of habitual, ongoing sin. If people are living a life enslaved to sin and are comfortable in that sin and without the chastisement of God upon them, then we know they are “illegitimate and not sons” (Hebrews 12:8). In other words, they are unbelievers.

The misguided but popular concept that all people are children of God and can truthfully call Him “Abba Father” is simply not true. Just as children do not choose to be adopted or choose who will adopt them, neither do Christians choose to become children of God. Instead, God chooses them. He predestines them “to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will” (Ephesians 1:5), having been chosen by God from “before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4).... It is life-changing to understand the full force of what it means to be able to call the one true God our “Daddy” and what it means to be joint-heirs with Christ.

What if everything you believe is wrong?

What you have written here is what I would call the orthodox teaching of the Bible. However, I do have a problem with it. It is my firm conviction that if God is our Father, that makes all men brothers. Now, I am full aware that my statement is not in line with the orthodox teaching of the Bible (for the reason you stated), however I do not claim to be an orthodox Christian. You see, while I hear and respect your Bible-based point-of-view, I still do not accept it. If there is a Divine in the Universe, must we come to understand this Divine only through the Bible? If so, then we must also adhere to the orthodox teaching of the Bible, right? Here is the problem: that kind of "faith" is dogmatic. It places faith within a structure, and such faith is mere belief... that is to say what starts out being dynamic becomes crystallized and static. Such belief is no longer faith, but rather becomes judgmental, and often deceptively self-righteous. This is the kind of "faith" the Pharsees had when they put Jesus to death.

This idea that only the elect (only the "choose few") can rightful call the Divine their Abba (or Father) is wrong. The simple fact is anyone can view God as their Father, and they do not need the structure of church or orthodox dogma to do so. This exclusivity teaching of the Christian church has echos of Jewish idea that they were the "chosen few" and everyone else is rejected by God. This is a cultish idea and it is the cause of much harm to persons of faith (because it converts faith into belief). If you teach members of your church this idea, you may be helping raise some out of chaos and into structure (and thus seeing many positive effects), however, you run the risk of becoming a cult (where you in effect say: "leave this group and you are leaving God"). Having seen this up-close and personal, I know what I'm talking about.

"If God is our Father, then all men are brothers."

I would like you to consider the above statement anew and afresh.... let go of your dogma for a second, drop your Biblical theology for just a minute.... forget what is orthodox for a brief moment in time, and simply allow those words to settle on your mind and heart.... how different does the world become in the moment?

Now add this thought: "The Holy Spirit dwells inside every man."

This is real faith and it is beyond theology and beyond the structure of orthodox beliefs.
This is the faith of a mystic (i.e., some one who knows the same fire that dwelt in Jesus also live in the them).

Honestly, this evidence is not strong enough to firmly conclude that this book ever existed in the first place. We have one source, who lived a century or more after most of the books involving Jesus were written. Plus, if it were real, the author apparently did not have a personal relationship with Jesus. I would much rather trust the numerous sources who confirm one another, sources of information from people who were around Jesus for his entire ministry.

And although the church councils that made the decision as to what the Bible would contain, such as the council of NIcea commissioned by Constantine, have been accused of covering something up, I must disagree. Examining the available written sources about those events leads me to believe that the canon was methodically thought out, and when sources disagreed, the scholars went with whom they felt to be more reliable. There were many academic and historical factors, among others, that went into making the decisions regarding which books were to be included in the Bible.

And we are talking about one book that may or may not have existed. That is nothing considering that many people wrote books in the name of other people for various reasons, and we know that many were frauds. Determining the authenticity of writings can be fairly easy at times. Many books were dismissed because they were written well after the time that the events took place, and were written by people who had no direct relationship to any of the first Christian church figures. The furthest removed writer in the Bible would be Luke, who did not personally witness anything, but rather he was a physician who took the time to interview the many figures who were still alive at the time. And some of the apostles were still alive and were interviewed.

My point is that even if such a book existed, it is highly suspect from the perspective of authenticity. Just because someone writes something does not mean it is true. And despite the beliefs of some, the Christian Bible was not just thrown together out of writings that could have been faked. Any writing that was suspected of being dishonest in any respect was stricken from inclusion. Many brilliant scholars have analyzed this problem over two millennia, so today we are relatively certain of what is authentic and what is not; although there will never be 100% accuracy in this knowledge. And none of those crazy conspiracy theories regarding Jesus hold any water at all.

And this is not coming from just someone who is a Christian, but this would be said by those who are most familiar with the Bible, the academics of our time whose job it is to study and know these things.

I am not a scholar by any stretch of the imagination but I have noted that most people recognize the early church as being the Catholic organization. My understanding is that the early church is actually the Jerusalem church whose first bishopric was James the Just. The Jerusalem church was entirely Hebrew liturgy and later in its history it embraced the Greek Hellenist as congregationalists. This first Christian church of Jerusalem was the result of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit (G-d) on the day of Pentecost following the death of Christ Jesus.

This Christian church thrived for well over forty years and its history is well documented for about 135 years. The Jerusalem Church was decimated by the Romans and the Christian Jews slaughtered by the score along with destruction of sacred literature. Of course there was no canonized new testament at this time because they had the Apostles and their disciples teaching and preaching as the first Christians.

For years I have heard the claims of the Roman Church as being the first Christian cult to ever have existed but that claim is totally false. As well as Peter being the first pope of Christianity, he was preaching and edifying Jesus in the Jerusalem church long before he was claimed to have established the Roman church. And if he did establish the Roman church he would have been the first Jewish pope in Christian history as well as Hebrew liturgy. I find the claim of the Catholic organization to be untrue and repulsive to any sense of fact.

I have no quarrel with organized religion and do not subscribe to any organized denomination but only question what is presented by organized religions. The facts simply do no not match the claims. There are many historic accounts by various historians who overrule the claims of those who should want you to believe that Christianity evolved into the controlled organization which exists today. That is not true by any means.

James the Just held Bishopric till 63 AD when he was also murdered by the Pharisees of Jerusalem. His cousin Simeon son of Clopas succeeded the Bishopric duties of the Christian Church till Rome sacked the entire city in 70 AD and murdered the Jews by the thousands. It was then that the entire congregation fled Jerusalem to Pella which was one of the Decapolis cities and rural ares of Gilead and Bashan.

After the Roman rage was over the congregation moved back to Jerusalem and rebuilt the church. Simeon continued to be Bishop of the Christian church till 106 AD and at 120 years of age was crucified by the Romans because he was accused by the pharisees as being from the royal family of David. The Christian church lasted thereafter till 132 to 135 when Jerusalem was sacked again by Hadrian who rebuilt Jerusalem and forbid any Jews to enter the new city called Aeila Capitolina.

From accounts of historians, there were scores of libraries of precious scrolls taken from the first Christian people and burned. Some escaped and were hidden but most were literally destroyed. One very important matter of concern is that the Catholic historians claim that Peter was born in 1 BC to 1 AD and died in AD 67 This was before the Romans sacked Jerusalem in AD 70. Peter was the first Apostle of Christ Jesus, and either heard or saw the murder of James the Just, which was in 35 AD. That would place Peter as a young man of about 35 years of age as well as about three years after the death of his Lord Jesus. Now knowing this murder of James and the persecution of the Christians in Jerusalem, tell me why Peter would set up a Roman church in this atmosphere of of hatred and Roman atrocities?

Peter was the strength of the first Christian church on that day of Pentecost and would not abandon G-d to go to the Greeks. How can we know this?

Gal 2:7 but contrariwise, when they saw that I [Paul] had been intrusted with the gospel of the uncircumcision, even as Peter with the gospel of the circumcision

This is why Peter would not have set up another Church to the heathens and forsaken his own Hebrew Jerusalem church with the true Hebrew liturgy. That would be senseless to any historian without a total mind change in Peter's thinking and there is no concrete evidence to support such an idea.

Through all of what I have seen presented I would have to conclude that if this literature was destroyed, as is stated, then it was destroyed by hatred of the Roman authorities just as the entire Christian church was destroyed and reinvented by the Roman Catholic empire. I believe that the Roman church stole the concept of Christianity from the true Jewish Christians by mass murder and deception.

The thing you must remember is that the Christian faith predates the Bible as it was only constructed after the time of Christ and there were references to reincarnation (maybe that is your conspiracy) that were 'Removed' on the orders of emperor Constantine and his mother Helena, there has been too much nonsensical fantasising since Dan Brown and his book even after he admitted it was a work of fiction there are still people whom treat it (Forgive the pun) as gospel,.

There were many text's that never made it into the bible but though it fragmented there is a church that just may still hold some of them and that is currently in grave danger, the Assyriac Orthodox Church in Syria is the direct descendent of the Hebrew Christian church from the province of Juda and was not originally a member of the conclave of nicenea, most Orthodox churches hold church dogma and cannon as a part of there tradition and the Assyriac is no different, they still hold mass in Arameic which it the language Christ and the apostles spoke.

The catholic church committed many terrible crime's but was itself founded on an act of fraud when the bishop's of Rome forged the Constantine pope's signature on a letter that gave them autonomy and authority over the western empire and tricked the visiting arch bishop into signing it.

You might also look into the independent traditions of the Georgian orthodox church, the Ethiopean Orthodox church and the Coptic orthodox church's to find more information but will probably not find these text's as they may well have been Gnostic text's and Gnostic text's arose hundreds of years after Christ based on the concept of Gnosis (Knowledge) were it was believed in scholars of alchemical and mystical persuasion that the bible could be read to read secret code (Yes we have them today) and actually set about writing text's that mixed the Hermetica and Christian gospels as well as other text's or rather the concepts' held in them into new religious treatise that had nothing to do with Christianity, they also practiced amongst the Zoarastian's of Persia and incorporated that knowledge.

Oh and you are right there are sealed catacombs under the Vatican were not only non canonical Christian text's but also text's from other suppressed religions exist, there was rumoured amongst some occult circle's to be a book made of human skin that could not be read whose text changed each time it was read and could not be burned or torn. The real problem for people whom are not believers is that you don't believe in one so the other can't exist but that is were you may be wrong, what if the evil was real and just wanted to blind you so you were easy pickings away from the herd/flock.

Originally posted by LittleByLittle
reply to post by Celt1

 

I would gladly call both Buddha and Jesus my soul brothers and all the other messengers that have been sent. I do not have the same feelings for Paul because I do not like his views and understanding. If he has evolved further and lost his dualistic ideas that he preaches then fine.

Paul had issues, but he did take on the mission to share the gospel with the non-Jewish world. Whether you believe the Bible or not, a close study will reveal that the "chosen people" were given a purpose, namely to open the way for the Messiah to come into the world... not for the exclusive benefit of Israel (or a select few), but to be a blessing to the whole world. Paul seem to understand this and he never even walked with Jesus in the flash. Oddly, those disciples who had spent three years with their Lord were uncertain how to proceed, indeed they slipped back into this idea that God is our Father, but only if you are chosen... Paul made the argument that one could be adopted... and thus the debate began on how to bring the Gentiles into the church.

Were it not for Paul what would have become of this Jewish cult? One wonders if it would have ever made it beyond the city limits of Jerusalem... according to the Bible, the church leaders (James, Peter, the rest of them) held to the view that a disciple of Jesus must become a Jew before they could be "saved" (i.e, a Christian). Paul may have been dualistic and dogmatic, but were it not for his fire and passion, the believers in this Jewish Messiah would have been confined to obscurity. Having said that, I don't care what Paul's teaching may have been, it hold no authority for me. Like Thomas Jefferson, my New Testament contains only the red letters.

Like you, I only pay attention the actual teaching of Jesus and Buddha (and not to the religious structures that have been built around those teachings). Most people NEED to believe what they believe...they are deeply invested... they work very hard to believe what they believe. Why? Because they need STRUCTURE to stay out of CHAOS... they think obedience and loyalty to 'the system' will keep them safe (because that is what they have been taught to believe.... so they work very hard to uphold that idea). Moreover, they BELIEVE it will grant them the rewards that they have been promised, and so they express fear by attacking those who don't share their view point.

What we often call "religion" is really ecclesiastical control over our faith and our beliefs... religion can be empowering, but when it isn't, we'd do well to understand why... look at the controlling "leaders" and you will see the core issues which every human being deals with... there you will see the so-called "sinful nature" (to use the Christian term) which was broken down by the Buddha into three component parts: 1) greed, 2) hatred, and 3) delusion - drop these and you drop suffering.

In Buddhist teachings, these are called the three poisons, the three unwholesome roots, or the three fires. These metaphors suggest how dangerous these thoughts and emotions can be if they are not understood and transformed. 1) Greed refers to our selfishness, misplaced desire, attachment, and grasping for happiness and satisfaction outside of ourselves. 2) Hatred refers to our anger, our aversion and repulsion toward unpleasant people, circumstances, and even toward our own uncomfortable feelings. 3) Delusion refers to our dullness, bewilderment, and misperception; our wrong views of reality. Arising out of our ignorance, these poisonous states of mind then motivate non-virtuous and unskillful thoughts, speech, and actions, which cause all manner of suffering and unhappiness for ourselves and others.

Greed, hatred, and delusion are deeply embedded in the conditioning of our personalities. Our behavior is habitually influenced and tainted by these three poisons. There can be no doubt, these unwholesome roots are buried deep into our mind. Burning within us as lust, craving, anger, resentment, and misunderstanding, these poisons lay to waste hearts, lives, hopes, and civilizations. The Buddha describes these defilements as bonds, fetters, hindrances, and knots; the actual root cause of and the entire spectrum of human suffering.

The structure of religion does not free us from this suffering, it only seem to do so for a time. It provides a pseudo-faith which is more akin to fanaticism... this is not Christ making all things new, this is just greed, hatred, and delusion putting on a mask of self-righteousness. Real faith is beyond any structured religion, indeed real faith starts with doubt and skepticism... and it leads to mysticism. A Christian mystic is one who is willing to drop all falsehood and all false authority... they practice letting go of greed, hatred and delusion... in so doing they also let go of fear and suffering.

reply to post by FlyInTheOintment

Dear FlyInTheOintment,

(You know, I've never tried to fly in the ointment, it's all I can do to walk in it. Tell me how you manage it.)

Thanks for your kindness, and for letting me know that I agree with somebody out there. I can find no fault with any of your statements. I'm especially grateful for your paragraph begining

The deeper you are prepared to go in the relationship, the greater will be your discernment of what is holy, and what is deception.

The mysticism is, I believe, essential. I don't trust anyone who is entirely materialistic, but I run in panic from any view of God or worship which is.

The only part of your writing which I would like to add to (and it's only a personal addition) is this:

Some books among the apocrypha are almost certainly equal in value to the standard books in the Bible, such as the Gospel of Thomas. Others are deliberately designed to subvert the Truth about Christ, such as the (blatantly false) 'gospel of Barnabus'.

I stress this is only personal, but I feel "safe" or "secure" in spending almost all of my time in the Canon. I'm a weak enough Christian that I'm unwilling to give the non-Canonical books much more weight than pious meditations and comments. They speak to some, but my fear keeps me close to the Canonical shore. Of course, it may be quite a reasonable and proper fear.

With respect,
Charles1952

reply to post by Akragon
I respectfully have to disagree with you. I feel this reference refers to the god Moloch and the Philistines practice of sacrificing infants in fire. There are further warnings in the old testament to avoid firewalking.

reply to post by charles1952

I'm a weak enough Christian that I'm unwilling to give the non-Canonical books much more weight than pious meditations and comments.

From what I've seen from you over the years... I believe you are much stronger then you give yourself credit for...

Strength lies within the humble spirit my friend

Originally posted by Seede

James the Just held Bishopric till 63 AD when he was also murdered by the Pharisees of Jerusalem. His cousin Simeon son of Clopas succeeded the Bishopric duties of the Christian Church till Rome sacked the entire city in 70 AD and murdered the Jews by the thousands. It was then that the entire congregation fled Jerusalem to Pella ....

The historical record tells us that James the Just was made "high priest of Israel" but this fact has been suppressed form the official narrative. What this means exactly is unclear, how could a Christain become high priest over all of Israel. The idea seems inconceivable to most people.

One idea is that the Jerusalem Ecclesia patterned itself after the Jewish Sanhedrin. If they did imitate this organizational structure of the Jewish government then the three top leaders were James the Just, the Nasi or "high priest", the Apostle Simon Peter, the sagan or deputy to the high priest and the Apostle John as the Ab Beth-Din or the chief officer of the religious court.

Take a look at this: www.biblesearchers.com...

Because of the discovered in a monastery in Constantinople in 1883 and published by P. Bryennios, the Didache, called the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, gives us insight of the of the Nazarene ecclesias in Asia Minor and Greece. In this land they treated the Hebrew Nazarene Ecclesia of Jerusalem with the same respect of authority that the Jewish synagogues did to the central Jewish Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. Here we see that the Nazarene Sanhedrin was patterned after the Jerusalem Sanhedrin.

Yet was the Nazarene Sanhedrin a cosmetic facade of a bunch of Galileans who were wanna-be aspirants to be real temple leaders of Judaism? Most Christian historians are very quiet on the role of this dynamic and vibrant community of believers in the temple culture of Jerusalem. For what reason?

Is there a reason the Jewish nature of the Hebrew Nazarene Ecclesia has such a minor emphasis and role in the books of the New Testament? Were some of the books of history on the Hebrew Nazarene Ecclesia stolen or hidden so that the history of the Early Christian Church would not reflect its Jewish in nature? ... Is the diminutive role of the Nazarenes in the Book of Acts part of the historical compilation by the Roman Christian Church to affirm a historical history that would affirm the legitimacy of the ascendant Roman Christian Church?

I would argue that there is BIBLICAL evidence that James did not approve of Paul's gospel, and thus Acts 15 is Luke whitewashing the conflict between the two to make their differences appear to be less serious than they actually were. Those who take the Bible as the "inerrant" Word of God don't seem to care about what it may mean that James became high priest... instead they are quick to point to James and Paul in agreement in Acts 15, and they cheerfully reject any and all evidence that suggests James was more of a legalist than the New Testament lets on. It seem to me, one couldn't be more legalistic than to take the office of high priest.

Surely there aren't any errors in the bible, are there?

your really asking why the church would try to control and destroy knowledge?

because they are the first world government powered by faith

Originally posted by Credenceskynyrd

Originally posted by Akragon
reply to post by Blue Shift

 

IF this book was a piece of crap as you stated, it wouldn't have been quoted by anyone... The text wouldn't have held any importance in any religious establishment anywhere, and it simply would have disapeared

oh really, then tell me how the teachings of Hubbard continue to this day?

Give it more than 50 years! Sheesh!

According to the Gnostic Gospel of St. Thomas, Jesus was a hermaphrodite...Vatican tried to destroy that one, too.

Originally posted by Zoyd23
According to the Gnostic Gospel of St. Thomas, Jesus was a hermaphrodite...

Good grief, where do you find THAT in the text?