Truth Will Set You Free

The advent of printing in the 15th Century allowed common usage of the Bible, establishing its authority as the sole record of ancient history without competition from other sources for over 4 centuries. It was only in the 19th Century that we rediscovered how to understand ancient cuneiform and hieroglyphic texts from the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilisations. Gradually, translations of ancient original texts dating back up to 5000 years, far earlier than any fragments of the Old Testament, revealed the muddled record of history contained in the Bible. This is hardly surprising as Hebrew writing emerged only to 1000BC, when adopting the Phoenician alphabet. Perhaps surprisingly, even texts from the Monarchical period (1000BC to 597BC) generally appear to have been written, or at least heavily redacted, hundreds of years after the events recorded. Indeed, the bulk of the Old Testament scripture uses language and references clearly dating authorship to the time of the Exile (597BC to 538BC) or later. When the priests in Babylon tried to craft the national foundation story from ancient oral traditions, they only had a hazy understanding of history and lacked any method of verification. In the Bible, the Exodus follows slavery under the Egyptians, but research for this book points to an Expulsion, followed later, by slavery under Egyptian rule.

Christianity is built upon our understanding of Jesus role and teaching. This book seeks to prise away the many barnacles that have encrusted Christian beliefs so that the purity and simplicity of Jesus message can be appreciated. Many aspects of Christian belief have been invented-some for marketing purposes others for political ambitions. The virgin birth, the nativity story and the detailed genealogies of Jesus are clearly fabricated. Evidence points to a special sign concerning Jesus birth which convinced many He was a messiah-but it was not a star or comet which miraculously got suspended in geosynchronous earth orbit! Jesus original followers, called Nazarenes by contemporaries, founded the first Church, in Jerusalem. Under the leadership of James, Jesus brother, this church blossomed eastwards across what today are Syria, Iraq and India; and westwards across North Africa and up the Atlantic coast along north-west Iberia, southern France and the British Isles. Jesus teaching was embellished by Paul, who was repeatedly challenged by the leaders of Jesus' church for inventing new doctrines. AD325 saw Pauline (Mark II) Christianity merged with Roman worship of Sol Invictus (Akkadian: Shamash)-changing the Sabbath to the day of the Sun, moving Christ's birthday from mid-September to the annual festival of Sol Invictus and, under the new Trinity concept, even deifying Constantine as messiah and god elect. As Pontifex Maximus, Constantine became senior to the Bishop of Rome.

Does the church teach Jesus message accurately? If not, how can we find what Jesus originally taught? Tough questions, to which careful research provides revealing answers. Many know of terrible excesses committed by the Church using quasi military forces to carry out numerous purges over many centuries. Estimates of those professing to be Christian, tortured to death, burned at the stake or literally torn to pieces range from 30,000 to 300,000 under the Spanish Inquisition alone. Empowered by adoption as the state religion of the Roman Empire, religious dogma was enshrined in law-so disputing dogma attracted legal penalty. The law gave the Church full control over individual lives, dissent threatened this and triggered decisive action. Strenuous efforts were made to stamp out views deemed heretical-anyone believing such ideas and any texts containing such ideas were ruthlessly destroyed. The destruction of early Christian texts was indiscriminate-the earliest New Testament we have, the Codex Vaticanus dates from c325, some fragments of individual books have survived dating back as far as 150. The oldest surviving manuscripts have sections with controversial verses removed to obliterate original beliefs. We do know that there was a thriving range of commentary and dozens of gospels used by the early churches-but, we only have their titles and some phrases quoted in the writings of early church fathers. Why were heretical ideas stamped out with such fanatical zeal-what inconvenient truths were being hidden? The Church continued inventing dogma until some insiders rebelled, triggering the Reformation. The pathway to Truth lies in understanding the heresies and finding which link back to Jesus teaching as shown by the few ancient texts recovered in the past century.