How Jesus was Betrayed

by Lewis Loflin

Introduction: Protestant Christians will say over and over that the Bible is the "inerrant word of God" then claims that is all we need to know God. That sounds fine but isn't what they really mean. The Bible is a book of contradictions written by various converts' decades after Jesus' death and fought over for about another 350 years. Only when a Roman emperor by coercion and sword did they get an official agreement. But the question remains: if the Bible is the "inerrant" word of God than why all the disagreement and use of terror? The answer is it isn't and we will look at why.

Early History

The following is the correct history of the Bible from www.catholic.com,

The books of the New Testament were composed decades after Christ ascended into heaven, and it took centuries for there to be general agreement among Christians as to which books comprised the New Testament.
You've never even seen the autographs (originals) of the 27 books in the New Testament. Nobody today has. The earliest copies of those books we possess are centuries older that the originals. Like it or not, you have to take the say-so of the Catholic Church that in fact those copies are accurate as well as her decision that those 27 books are the inspired canonical New Testament Scriptures. You do accept her testimony as trustworthy, or else your Protestant Bible would not have those 27 books. See what I mean?" (SNIP) The fact is, the Holy Spirit guided the Catholic Church to recognize and determine the canon of the New and Old Testaments in the year 382 at the Council of Rome, under Pope Damascus I. This decision was ratified again at the councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397 and 419). You, my friend, (Protestants) accept exactly the same books of the New Testament that Pope Damasus decreed were canonical and no others.

If one thinks that's fun, catch this from the Encarta Multimedia Encyclopedia on Original Sin,

Original Sin, in Christian theology, the universal sinfulness of the human race, traditionally ascribed to the first sin committed by Adam. Theologians advocating original sin argue that the concept is strongly implied by the apostle Paul, the apostle John, and even by Jesus himself. Late Jewish apocalyptic writings attribute the world's corruption to a prehistoric fall of Satan, the temptation of Adam and Eve, and the resulting disorder, disobedience, and pain of human history.
Saint Augustine appealed to the Pauline-apocalyptic understanding of the forgiveness of sin, but he also included the notion that sin is transmitted from generation to generation by the act of procreation. He took this idea from 2nd-century theologian Tertullian, who actually coined the phrase original sin. Medieval theologians retained the idea of original sin, and it was asserted by 16th-century Protestant reformers, primarily Martin Luther and John Calvin. Liberal Protestant theologians later developed an optimistic view of human nature incompatible with the idea of original sin.

I have an electronic version of the KJV Bible with word search and guess what isn't listed anywhere? The term "original sin" isn't even in the Bible. To make matters worse Ezekiel 18 tells us "only the sinner will die," "the son is not responsible for the sins of the father", etc. I never bought into "original sin" because the whole concept is absurd and my instinct was right. Now I find out that it isn't Biblical, is the "man made" doctrine of Catholic Fathers Tertullian and Augustine, then it directly contradicts God/Ezekiel in the Bible. I'm not responsible for Adam and God does not hold us responsible for the sins of our ancestors even if the Adam story was true.

"Anyone who can worship a trinity and insist that his religion is a monotheism can believe anything." -- Robert A. Heinlein

I believe in one God, and no more... This is known as monotheism, a belief in one supreme God. This includes not only Deists but also Unitarians and Jews. It once included most early Christians (Arians) but not modern Christians. That's right; regardless of their claims Christians who follow the Nicene Creed are pagan. (See Nicaea and the truth about the Trinity. There is no Biblical support for the pagan Trinity, as we shall see below. The word "Trinity" like "Original Sin" doesn't exist in the Bible at all.

There was actually four major Christianities, not one and it would help to learn something of them all.

Jewish Christianity (Ebionites) was a sect of Judaism and this is the church Jesus founded.
Pauline Christianity is what we have today and has little resemblance to anything Jesus taught.

In college we were required to read The Confessions by Saint Augustine and I never realized that this disturbed and unhappy man would be the biggest single influence in Western Christianity. Yet his name keeps coming up again and again and was the basis of both Calvin's beliefs and the driving force behind Protestantism. Most of what came down in the Nicene Creed, etc is the opinion of the church fathers, is illogical, and wasn't followed by most Christians during that time. It's about time we attempt to remove the politics and myth and try to find something of the early Christians and what they stood for.

I will use the following,

The Student Bible, NIV version

The New American Bible (Catholic and I'll call it NAB)

A History of Christianity by Owen Chadwick.

The Origin of Satan by Elaine Pagels. She is a professor of religion who has taught at Harvard, Columbia, and Bernard, etc.

Constantine's Sword, the Church and the Jews by James Carroll a Catholic scholar who even met the Pope.

The Sacred Chain, The History of the Jews by Norman Cantor. He is a professor of history at New York University.

Western Civilization by Marvin Perry.

Many Questions

The first question that come to mind is why was almost the entire history of Israel from 500 BC to the first century deleted? What about the Greeks, Persians, Babylonians and others who intermingled with the Jews and influenced them? What was their influence? Why is the fact that Persia was friendly with the Jews (until Islam) and influenced them both during and after the Return ignored? (Ezekiel/Daniel are full of Persian/Babylonian symbolism and were written at time of the Captivity.) While NAB covers a little of this, it's totally ignored in the NIV and KJV versions.

While it is true the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament) does date from around 250 BC, referring to this alone is a total distortion of the facts. Without the references to these missing events we get a totally wrong idea of events at this time. Explain to me why Calvin/Luther removed the following from the Old Testament, Tobit (written 2nd century and refers to the Exile), 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees (covers 175-134 BC includes confrontations with the Greeks), Song of Songs, Wisdom, Sirach, and Baruch (Exile again).

See Zoroastrianism and the Bible
Babylon, Persia, and Judaism

By removing these and a little twisting in interpretation we get the "faith alone" doctrine of the Protestants. The words "faith alone" doesn't even appear in the Bible (Paul hints at it but the Paul problem will come later) and is a direct contradiction of Jesus' teachings. Unlike "Trinity" and "Original Sin" (contradicts Deut 24:16, Ezekiel 18) that appear nowhere in Scripture, at least "faith alone" does appear in one place. Quoting Jesus' brother James (2:24) "a person is justified by works ... not faith alone." (Also Mt 12:37, 16:27, 19:17, Luke 10:26 (Luke contradicted himself in Acts 16:30), John 5:29 (John contradicts himself in 3:18) and 1 Pet 1:17) A Greek wrote John about 90 AD. The Roman Citizen Paul (he never met Jesus) invented "by faith." He contradicts himself in Romans 2:13, 2:16, and 2 Corinthians 5:10, 11:13. These are just a few of many contradictions. See Salvation.

Shocking as it may be to most Christians, Jesus wasn't the founder of Christianity, and the Apostle Paul was. And to make matters worse, most Christian doctrines such as claims of divinity, Original Sin, and the Trinity rely not only on Paul but also heavily on John, a Greek. Jesus was a Jew and taught Judaism. The books that reflect those teachings are the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and I have to include James.

Gospel of John

Question, "In Matthew 10:2, the disciples are called. One is named John. This is the same John who in turn taught Polycarp. This is no breach in historic fact nor is it a biased view. This is the real disciple John. Also, the Gospel of Mark was written within 25 years of Jesus' life on earth."

While I'm sure Christians believe this, according to most historians and NAB, it is in fact wrong. Here is a quote, word for word from page 51 A History of Christianity by Owen Chadwick,

"The First Christians were Galilean Fishermen and a tax collector; they followed a carpenter. They were not the sorts who could frame their faith in a large view of science. They were surprised when educated Jews such as Paul discovered that they had the truth of faith for the world. (Note this) The John who wrote the fourth Gospel had a good education, as did the strange and learned unknown who wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews. Paul's companion Luke was a physician, but in those early days of medicine that did not necessarily mean that he was highly educated...."

This is proof that the author of John was not one of the actual apostles and never met Jesus. Every author I cited accept NIV said the same thing. The writings of this John whoever he is are worthless in my book and worse are anti-Semitic. John put all the blame for the death of Jesus on the Jews, not the Romans! The Gospel of Mark was first written around 70 AD, Matthew/Luke were written around 80-90 AD, John 90-100 AD, likely 100 AD or later. It is a historical fact that the 4th century church under Constantine chose what they felt was "fact" and burned everything else, killed anyone who disagreed for heresy, etc. What was in those thousands of burned documents?

Sons of God and John

As far as "son/sons of god," this includes Satan/others (Job 1:6, Genesis 6:2, John 1:2) and Adam (Luke 3:38), etc. Jesus never claimed to be God (Except in John, Messiah under Judaism meant a political/religious leader like David) and prayed to the Father, not Himself. The term "only begotten son" only appears in John and the only gospel references to "Original Sin" also appear in John. The reality is that the Book of John is the Christian religion.

The New American Bible (NAB) calls John "quite different in character" from the synoptic gospels. (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) Seems John the Baptist was born from the intervention of God (like Isaac) from aging parents. All the of this "seven signs" business that fundamentalists love to watch for appear in detail for the first time. Yet NAB said, "analysis makes it difficult to accept John as it now stands (that John) was written by one person." "Chapter 21 seems to have been added...(different styles of Greek)...some inconsistencies...Scholars have proposed various rearrangements...inconsistencies were probably produced by subsequent editing...materials were added to a shorter original."

"Other difficulties (for) eyewitness authorship...in its present form...(are) its highly developed theology..." As to authorship, "Although tradition identifies this person as John the son of Zebedee, most modern scholars find that the evidence does not support this." and also to quote, "(We have) the explicit emphasis on His divinity." Only in John 14:6 does Jesus say "No one comes through the Father except through me." In 14:7, "if you know me, you will know my father." Only here did Jesus ever claim to be God.

Why isn't something this critical only found here? Why not the historical narrative of Luke? Now we have more problems. After reading Mark/Luke and the end of John Jesus clearly said, "this generation...all these things (will) have taken place." (Mark 13:30, and Luke 21:32) while the Book of Revelation clearly referred to the 1st century Roman Empire, the last sections also seemed to drag things off into some vague future. John proclaims "seven signs," etc. that just never seems to happen. . That was written 1900 years ago or was it?

The Book of Revelation, written by John of Patmos (again a convert, John the Elder?) was a failed first century prophecy and may have referred to Nero or other tyrants. There were arguments by the church fathers to exclude it; they decided include it in the end. It has no value at all and is a rehash of Zoroastrianism. (You can look up Zoroastrianism in any dictionary.)

The author of Luke was a Syrian from Antioch and a friend/convert of Paul. Luke/Acts were written by Luke as an attempt at a historical narrative of the events surrounding Jesus. He never met Jesus but may have met those who did. Luke/Acts were a single work and viewed Jesus from Paul's perspective.

Paul never met Jesus but only "heard a voice" (Acts 9:4) and proclaimed Jesus as a savior-God. Rejected by the Apostle James (Acts 21:15) Paul is the real founder of Christianity as we have it today. Paul preached salvation by faith while Jesus preached salvation by works. This was the first split that produced hundreds of churches and sects meeting in homes, synagogues, abandoned pagan temples, etc. In Matthew Jesus seemed to be well received in the synagogues but by the end of Luke the split between Paul/James is apparent and bitter but not hatred. Luke was written around 80-89 AD as was Matthew. Mark was written about 70 AD during the time the Temple was destroyed by the Romans. The destruction of the Temple prophecies was already a past event.

For some odd reason Luke's Acts of the Apostles gets split into two parts and this alien Book of John gets inserted. More highly developed and starting what became formal Christianity, it contradicts and inserts things not present in the synoptic gospels, even in the historical narrative of Luke.

The real purpose of John was to demonize Jews, blaming then for the crucifixion committed by the Romans. A lot of people were converting to Judaism and refused to follow pagan elements introduced into Christianity. NAB for example refers to the two men that were murdered with Jesus as "revolutionaries." Jesus and his followers were rebels (remember when they tried to arrest Jesus his followers, Peter, etc were armed and cut off ears, etc) and opposed both Rome and their puppets the Temple Fundamentalists. (Sadducees) Jesus was a Pharisee (as were most Jews in Palestine) and clearly opposed the Sadducees/Romans. We couldn't have a rebel Jew against Rome as the center of the Roman Catholic Church, could we? I think John was inserted/altered at Nicaea around 325 or later.

Jesus never referred to what became the Ten Commandments (under Judaism there are 7-9 or so with many subsections) Jesus clearly said, "don't kill...no adultery...don't steal...don't bear false witness...honor parents...love your neighbor... give to the poor." (Matthew 19:18) Is Jesus right or not? The fact was one didn't even have to be Jewish, just act in a moral and just manner. This wasn't what Constantine and the Church wanted to deal with.

Instead of putting the teachings of Jesus into practice, the Church began a reign of terror throughout the Roman world. This was to continue down through the centuries to Protestant Reformers such as John Calvin. In the name of Jesus Christ, millions of Jews, pagans, and heretic Christians were murdered.

This is speculation, but John has a lot of odd things. When writing down and comparing details on the resurrection stories, I expected to find inconsistencies (11 or 12 apostles, who/what was in the tomb, numbers of women who went there, etc.) First of all nobody saw any resurrection, always an empty tomb. It takes days to die of crucifixion (Jesus only three hours but at different conflicting times.) Besides being pure agony, crucifixion kills by slowly destroying the ability to breath. That takes much longer than three hours. Only in John are legs broken, this spear in the side business, and the wine gushing out doesn't sound right either. Even Pilot was "amazed" (Mark 15:44 and note this was the first gospel written.) and turned the body over to Joseph of Arimathea. This fits the first three gospels but only in John was Jesus speared it seems to prove that Jesus really did die in three hours. There were plenty of questions on this.

Was there something in the wine? Why would anyone give a condemned man wine during an execution? In fact most of John reads like Essene literature. Jesus' relative John the Baptist may have been an Essene and that's where Jesus got his references to the end times.

Jesus may have been alive when removed from the cross or perhaps died later. At the end of John we have this curious saying, Talking to Peter and referring to the disciple Jesus loved, "What if I want him to live/remain until I come?" Jesus had either already been resurrected according to the other gospels and expected to return in their lifetime, or had survived, was going to die, then come came back in their lifetime. NAB makes the following Comment; "The death of the apostolic generation caused problems." then went and made half-baked excuses.

If Luke was the historical narrative than why are most of the events in John never mentioned but Luke basically agrees with Matthew/Mark? John didn't exist when Luke was written, and is the real core of the Christian religion. Without John and Book of the Revelation, there would be no Christianity, just an odd sect of Judaism and a cult founded by Paul. That is all Christianity should have been.

The writer of John could not have known Jesus, was not an Apostle, end of story. I do not accept hearsay or any "Holy Spirit" that guided the selection of what went into the Bible in the 4th century. Some alternate Gospels did survive the 4th century and were found in the 1940's in Egypt (perhaps the oldest Christian community) that has survived intact. They have thrown Orthodox Christianity for a scare, as has findings from the Dead Sea Scrolls (Gospel of Thomas, etc.)

In fact Perry, others said one primary reason for the spread of Christianity was "the ability of Christianity to assimilate elements of Greek philosophy (Platonism) and even from the mystery religions (risen savior-god, virgin birth, baptism, December 25/Mithra, Easter/Mithra, etc.) It became relatively easy to win converts." (P 161) It should also be noted that Constantine worshiped the sun god and seemed confused between that and the Son of God.

These extracts from Christianity in Egypt are a good example: Many of the concepts of Christianity were already familiar to the Egyptians from their ancient religion, such as the death and resurrection of a god, the idea of the judgment of souls and a paradoxical afterlife for the faithful...Constantine became more and more involved in the workings of Christianity...(in regards to the Arian Heresy)...it was clear that he wanted Christianity to be united and harmonious. Instead of putting the teachings of Jesus into practice, The Church began a reign of terror throughout the Roman world. This was to continue down through the centuries to Protestant Reformers such asJohn Calvin. In the name of Christ, Jews, pagans, and heretics were treated with contempt, hunted down, and murdered.

See Christianity in Egypt
Christian Anti-Semitism
Christian guilt towards Jews

After the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 AD the Jewish Christian Church was severely weakened. Why the anti-Semitism in John and why such violent attacks in Matthew? Paul's writings predate the Gospels by decades, and there was a bitter split between Paul and Jesus' actual Apostles (Acts) because his pagan ideas were not Jewish at all. That bitterness is reflected in Matthew while John was an outright excuse for Constantine and his cohorts to get rid of Jews. The refusal of the Jews to accept this pagan philosophy led the Jewish patriarch, Gamaliel II to exclude these Christians who added this stuff from entering the synagogues. Thus the bitter attacks in Matthew/John written around 89 AD and later edited in the 4th century.

Apostle Paul

Paul never met Jesus but his writings and ideas are the core of what Constantine and friends chose to become Christianity. Paul was an educated Greek Jew intimately familiar with both Greek philosophy and Judaism. On the road to Damascus (Luke) he had some kind of stroke (epilepsy?) then claimed some vision and thus became a convert to Jesus. Late Jewish apocalyptic writings had attributed all the problems in the world to the "fall" or the Adam myth. (Somewhat like the Pandora's Box myth.) Paul combined this with the popular pagan notion of a risen savior god, Jesus' alleged resurrection, and Original Sin. Rejected by most Jews, he would seek out Gentile converts to his new faith.

Quoting Sandra S. Williams, Judaic Studies Program University of Central Florida:

Paul became known not only as the Apostle of the Gentiles, but also among his fellow Jews as the "Apostate of the Law." "He had opened the door to the Gentiles without requiring from them obedience to the law, and they in turn had introduced into the new religion all their abominations - deification of Christ, the cult of the Virgin Mary harking back to the great pagan goddesses, the setting up of images in Churches, which was an open infringement of the second Commandment, and so on...

The books in the New Testament connected with Paul include: Acts, Romans, First and Second Epistle to the Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and Hebrews.

See The Apostle Paul
Paul: the Father of Sexism and Anti-Semitism?

Why is it never mentioned that most of the Jews lived outside Israel while the majority inside the country had little or no contact with Jerusalem? (Carroll and Cantor) The prophets of the "Old Testament" spoke against social injustice and one who would end that, not some savior-god of pagan mythology. Other facts not mentioned are that Jews gained converts among pagans and many early Christians and Jews associated with each other. Christians also attended synagogues, etc. The Church when it came into political power outlawed this association to maintain steel-fisted church control over Christians. The Christianity of the first two centuries wasn't what we ended up with in the 4th century.

Why is the fact never brought up that most of the Jews and non-Jews alike hated not only the cruel, repressive Romans and their puppets such as Herod, the Temple fundamentalists in Jerusalem, etc? Pilot would go out of his way to do anything his captive subjects didn't want him to do. Jesus' enemies were the Romans and their surrogates. The Galilee was a mixture of people where Hebrew was no longer even spoken by most, mainly Aramaic and Greek. We should also note that this region was under external domination for most of its history even after the Return under the Persians, thus more open to outside influences.

Palestine during the time of Jesus and his followers was a very diverse culture. Jesus and his followers would have had at least some exposure to the teachings of the Greek philosophers, the Greek Mystery Religions, Roman religions and Egyptian religious beliefs. Also Judaism, since the Babylonian Exile, was greatly influence by Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism taught a belief that existence was a battle between Light and Dark, which would eventually end with the victory of Light over darkness. A more detailed discussion of this topic can be found in Gregory Riley's "One Jesus, Many Christs" (1997) Harper San Francisco.

Jesus was referring to the massive changes in Judaism in the missing 500 years left out of Scripture. This included a much more humane interpretation of "The Law" and doing away with the savagery of the so-called "Old Testament." (There was no Old Testament in Jesus' time.) Jesus' enemies were the Romans and their Temple allies wanting to protect Temple power and control over the people. Those who demand we use this "literal" interpretation of the Old Testament for a moral code today are no better than the Roman puppets the Temple Fundamentalists. This was apparent when the Apostle Paul tried to destroy Jesus' followers in the service of his fellow Romans and their puppets the Temple Fundamentalists. Christian Fundamentalists would copy the Temple Fundamentalists. Jesus was a Jew, taught a sect of Judaism, and never founded what we call Christianity today. The anti-Semitism that led to the murders of millions of beloved fellow Jews was a political ploy waged by the church to wipe the only witnesses left to what really went on in those times.

Credible Evidence? Obey Who?

Another person said, "upon credible evidence and fact. Luke's historic accounts have been confirmed many times over."

Confirmed by whom? To quote my NIV study Bible, "Luke probably did not know Jesus personally..." In my book if he was not there or knew Him in the flesh, forget it. Hearsay doesn't cut it either without other reasonable evidence to back it up. What is this "historical proof?" History for the last two centuries has utilized science, reason, and open debate. We go by the physical evidence and reason out a conclusion, not religious revelations. Yet any time someone comes to a conclusion that refutes revelation, the term "liberal" is thrown up to confuse the issue or discredit the writer. I've done my best to avoid "liberals," have stuck with those who do profess a belief in God, and came to the same conclusions. To quote again the Catholic Church, The earliest copies of those books we possess are centuries older than the originals. Like it or not, you have to take the say-so of the Catholic Church that in fact those copies are accurate... That constitutes historical nothing and I don't have to take anyone's' "say-so."

Asked by another writer if I read Peter, yes I did. 1 Peter 13 etc goes into a whole litany of obey the rulers who are put there by God, slaves obey masters, wives husbands, etc. Is this supposed to be the Peter that Jesus spoke to at charge at the end of John? Do you think for one moment Jesus or Peter would tell Christians to obey Nero or other assorted pagan Roman tyrants? If they actually had to obey the pagan tyrants WHY DID THEY NOT WORSHIP THE ROMAN IDOLS AS THEY WERE TOLD TO DO? (Paul wrote much the same "obey" business in Romans or so they claim.) Like the writer of John, we have another convert who never met Jesus or the Gospel was altered in the 4th century to assure loyalty to the new Christian religion/emperor of Rome.

This is what I think really happened

Jesus/Joshua did live and preach the word of God as a Jew in the context of the Judaism of his day. He never claimed to be God that was added by the Apostle Paul, who never met Jesus in the flesh, just claimed visions in Acts. This messiah business in Judaism referred to one who was to free the Jewish people from foreign tyranny, bring justice, love, world peace, etc.

Jesus' followers included both Jews and gentiles who lived there together. (Remember the Samaritan's?) He was influenced by his cousin John the Baptist, believed in demons, faith healing etc like everybody else did. Was Jesus some kind of socialist-style pacifist? No, Jesus would have fought for His beliefs. Most of His teachings are found in Judaism, the Talmud, etc.

For some reason He went to Jerusalem, confronted of the Roman puppets the Temple Fundamentalists, got turned over to the Romans, got killed for the same reasons as thousands of others as a troublemaker. His teachings can be gotten from the first three Gospels minus pagan insertions such as the Virgin Birth and the anti-Semitism inserted by later converts such as John after the Pauline cult was booted out, etc. I reject the entire Book of John as fraud. (Also add back in the Books removed from the Bible by Calvin.)

John and Paul are sadly are the only Apostles most Christians fundamentalists want to hear about. When I bring up Jesus' ethical teachings many go into denial. It enables them (they think) to get a cheap easy ride to "salvation" by avoiding the moral teachings of Jesus, and evading Jewish customs. To make the "absurd" believable meant the destruction of both Jews and those Christians that knew better. This anti-Semitism in the end was the primary cause behind the Holocaust. Jesus clearly preached ethics and personal conduct, not "faith alone."

Paul came along about 3-5 years later, came up with this savior-god original sin business, had a bitter falling out with James, head of the Church Jesus founded. Paul's writings make up most of the New Testament because Constantine/others would adapt his ideas as compatible with their attempt to bind together a crumbling Roman Empire.

The Book of Revelation, written by John of Patmos (again a convert) is a failed first century prophesy and may have referred to Nero or other tyrants. There were arguments by the church fathers to exclude it; they decided include it in the end. It has no value at all and is a rehash of Zoroastrianism.

Constantine used Christianity for his own reasons, convened Nicaea around 325 to get a more uniform version he and the Church could control. (There were hundreds of Christian groups meeting in homes, synagogues, etc.) Pagans were forced to convert or were murdered. Women, who once played a major part in the church in spreading the Gospel, would be reduced to their former Mithra/Roman role as silent property of their husbands. No longer would Christians, pagans, and Jews allowed social contact nor would Christians ever be allowed to use synagogues or private homes for worship. Most Jews, some Christians resisted this terror; Christian dissenters were branded heretics and killed (Gnostics, Jewish Christians, Arians, etc) while Jews who made up 10% of the Empire were stripped of their rights, murdered, etc.

They altered Scripture, burned, and selected what they wanted to produce what became the Bible. By their own admission there are no originals just the word of people who never acted Christian in any manner.

The Jesus of the poor, the slave, women, and the Christian heroes who went to their deaths for the Gospels would all be betrayed by those nihilists bent only on worldly power and the hatred of the happiness of others. Constantine, Augustine, Calvin, Falwell, Robertson, etc would betray them. They are the true followers of the Antichrist. They would create mountains of ashes as millions of books, manuscripts, and lives went up in flames. All science and reason would be rejected as well. Jesus never wanted this! Jesus clearly said, "My Kingdom is not of this world..." Christians would occupy a vast Christian prison just as the people of Iran occupy a vast Islamic prison today.

Finally what I find amusing is the claim that America is founded on the Christian religion. Most fundamentalists will tell you that laws are made by God (their version) and not man. Yet our Freedom Documents open with "We the people..." The Bible clearly said to obey those God appointed above you (divine right of kings?) When the Colonies revolted, this in fact went against Scripture. Thus the Founding Fathers wanted justice and freedom, the true message of Jesus buried in the pagan garbage and 4th century politics of the Bible. They disobeyed "the Word of God" to build America. I'm glad they did.

Finally to my Christian friends I say this: I don't care what you believe, what I believe is not important. Whatever Jesus stood for wasn't what the traitors made Him out to be. Get back to the Jesus of the first three centuries and try to learn what that means. Or you can just take their "say-so" for it.