Book of Revelation, the Anti-Gospel

Comedienne Harold Camping of recent cancelled Rapture fame is being called a false prophet by many other fundamentalist preachers. Of course their condemnation does not have the same amount of venom they spewed toward Rob Bell. Their condemnation has more of hidden admiration. Something like “Hot damn! Why didn’t I think of that one first?" Or “Hell I could have pocketed part of the 100 million same as dear old Harold supposedly spent on the PR campaign and retired.” Etc.

Indeed, the lack of prosecution for fraud on dear old Harold is evidence of the timidity that now shows when up against the new reality of the powerful and moneyed lunatic classes of church and Wall Street. Money makes right. It is the new secular might. Whatever.

Let me go back to my favorite theme and that is that the Book of Revelation does not belong in the NT; that it is a Greek play styled narrative to promote the new Christianity thing. As such, with its awful injectures (yes, it’s a new word - urban) to die a horrible death here and in the hereafter if you do not join the Christian thingy. Sounds more like a Roman Army recruitment spiel “Join the army mate or get crucified.” (no joke).

As such, and amidst the absolute chaos and tailspin of these last days of Christianity, and perhaps civilization as well, let me once again label this poor piece of doped up writing that Harold Camping is getting his jollies with at age 89.

The Book of Revelation is not so much the anti-Christ as it is the Anti-Gospel.

If you start off with Love your Neighbor in Matthew, Mark, Luke and end up with Damn you Infidels and the violent End of the World shit for your neighbors, then it is reasonable to assume that this ending chapter of the user manual for the Christian church says a great deal about the insanity of the species when it comes to the category of religion.





When were the Gospels written / 120 -140 A.D./C.E. ?

Following my own timeline thing and in my personal quest of a better truth of the founding and evolution of the Christian faith, I am saying, I am believing that the four Gospels were assembled somewhere between 120 and 140 A.D. of the common western era.

I say this in my own Jesus seminar styled search. I say assembled above which a little is bit different than written. I believe that the sayings of Jesus in a Gospel of Thomas like format got expanded into metaphoric descriptive fashion.

As in Jesus, if he said this, he probably said it to a crowd and or to a select few. The elusive “Q” document of nineteenth century Christian scholarly fame was no doubt a bunch of quotes on the back of a lot of envelopes from possible eyewitnesses to the event of that great moral teacher’s life.


Of course they did not have envelopes back then but I think you get the idea and image from what I just said.


The other thing that makes me think that the three synoptic gospels were written between 120 and 140 A.D/C.E. is the fact that Jesus is still Jewish in them. He is folksy and short in speaking style.


Going back to my own blog

Trajan’s demonization of the Jews

and the Kitos genocidal Roman war against the Jews and Semites of North Africa and the Middle East, I see the dividing line between the Jews and Christians in real form if not in written form about this time.


In fact while reading about that holocaust, that it started in Cyrene, present day Libya, North Africa, I went on to see that the first three Gospels mention a Simon of Cyrene, a tourist and or refugee of sorts in Jerusalem on the first Good Friday.

To refresh your memory here are those Simon of Cyrene quotes from the first still Jewish Christian gospels.

“And they compelled a passer-by, Simon of Cyrene who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross.” (Mark 15:2).


“And as they led him away, they seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the cross to carry behind Jesus.” (Luke 23:26).


“As they went out, they came upon a man of Cyrene, Simon by name; this man they compelled to carry his cross.” (Matthew 27:32).

Researching the Internet for this common thread/reference to Simon of Cyrene led me to this interesting article and quotation.
 
Gospel Mysteries – Gospel of John

Similarly, many of the stories found in the other gospels, but not in John, probably came from sources known only to their authors. Thus, the use of different sources can easily account for many of the differences between John and the other gospels.


But that explanation doesn't work very well for some differences, especially the difference in how Jesus is depicted. The first three gospels portray him as a teacher, healer, and prophet whose main concerns are the problems of society and the need for people to live more virtuously. In these gospels he shows great compassion for poor, oppressed, and outcast people, and he heals many disabled and demon-possessed individuals. When he teaches, he talks in simple language, draws images from everyday life, and uses parables to make his points.


But the gospel of John depicts him quite differently. In this gospel he talks in a different style, and often uses words and ideas not found in the other gospels. Instead of making short penetrating statements about how people should live, he gives long speeches about why he came to earth and why people must accept him as their savior. He rarely uses parables, and he doesn't cure any cases of demonic possession.

Putting the above quote aside for a few moments, I had already decided that this reference to Simon of Cyrene in the three gospels had some real significance and was possibly in fact a little bit of propaganda and or proselytizing of early Christians toward the surviving Jews of the Kitos War 115-117 C.E..


That is, you have an executed Jesus, you have a crucified Jesus, why not build on it as a recruiting tool to many Jews who survived the recent genocide and show empathy in the way of death. No doubt there were thousands of Jews crucified along the Roman roads that connected North Africa to Jerusalem and onto Syria and Turkey (Asia Minor) after the Kitos War.


Now getting back to the recent quote above, the whole article was quite interesting. From that article I get the sense that the original three gospels are written in a Jesus is a common man mode with simple parables and messages. That the original Christians were survivors of the Great Jewish Revolt 66-70 C.E. and living in rural areas all over the Middle East.


That the reference of Simon of Cyrene sharing a cross with Jesus occurs in Mark and is copied into Matthew and Luke. By this I see that Simon of Cyrene was not haphazardly added to already written gospels but was part of original text. As such, I speculate that the first three synoptic gospels are assembled/written in post 117 A.D. after the Kitos War.


That the scattered communities across the middle east and in perhaps Rome as well were living off legend, oral tradition and the Letters of Paul and were coming together, in a still recruiting from the original Jewish cult thing, and turning into a new sect different than the original Judaism.


In fact I think that the historian Suetonius’ quote of fellow historian Tacitus in the persecution specifically of “Chrestiani” is a retroactive cut and paste job of history. That after the Kitos War, the more sophisticated Jewish Christians in Rome were doing a sudden Public Relations blitz and press release thing to say that their history as Christians (sans the Jewish in Jewish Christian thing) went back many decades before the recent unpleasantness in the African and Middle East provinces.


That to say you were persecuted by a hated dictator like Nero was a positive and not a negative in the early propaganda of the church. That and you were retroactively and consciously separating yourselves from the traditional Judaism thing.


In a way, while a rural populist thing is going on outside of Rome, the urbane, sophisticated Roman Christians came up with an Urban Gospel in the form of John. That these changes within the same movement occurred simultaneously or close to it.


In fact, I see the rural country bumpkin preacher of Jesus transformed into this polished Gnostic like god (small g) in the Gospel of John. The Gospel of John I see as the urban guide to the new Christian cult for the largely Gentile only city dwellers from the Mid East, through Greece and into Rome. This, especially after the final Jewish war by Hadrian 132-135 blew all Jews into definitive and seemingly eternal Diaspora.


I find it incredible that I cannot find much on the last two of these three Jewish wars, that they don’t get much mention on the Internet. It is possible that Jewish scholars have not yet put history from books onto the Net. It is also possible that Judaism prefers to forget the whole matter. That the only much quoted writings of the history of the Jews is from Jewish/Roman writer Josephus Flavius and centering on the destruction of Herod’s greatly altered/remodeled Second Temple is enough to address that period in religious/political history.


In any case, my studies and research continue. I hope in the very least that this crazy theory of mine makes some sense and will in time make more sense as bloated, vested Christian theologians die off and the true spirit of Jesus in the early real Christian church evolves back to not a local pagan level but to a truly first and global belief system.