Christ's Ventriloquist

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Christs Ventriloquist:

How St. Paul Engineered the Hoax that Shaped Our World

by Eric Zuesse

Foreword

This is the first-ever legal/forensic analysis

of the evidence regarding how Christianity started.

By legal/forensic is meant, simply put,

the methodology which is employed in courts of

law in a democracy. A court presents to the jury

not (as scholars are accustomed to doing via huge

bibliographies and numerous footnotes) the

largest quantity of evidence regarding a particular

matter, but instead the highest quality of evidence regarding any specific

question. For example, DNA evidence trumps witness testimony, and thats why

many people have been released from death rows after the advent of DNA testing.

Similarly, the exclusionary rule is employed so as to winnow out evidentiary gold

from evidentiary chaff, to avoid contaminating jurors judgment by less reliable

evidence which prejudices rather than informs judgments.

The difference between legal/forensic methods and other methods is the

difference between history and myth. When innocent convicts were released from

prisons after DNA analysis, the mythological accounts of the crimes for which




they had been convicted were publicly revealed to have been myth and not

history. In cases where DNA evidence identified whom the true perpetrator of the

crime was, the myth became replaced by a new account of the crime an account

which offered, for the first time, a history and not a myth about that crime. This

is how important legal/forensic methods are: for the sake of history as opposed to

myth, its simply essential to employ only the best evidence, to apply the

exclusionary rule, and to adhere strictly to all other aspects of legal/forensic

methodology.

Pauls letter to the Galatians is widely considered by scholars to be the best

evidence regarding early Christianity. Not only is it accepted as direct witness

testimony to the events it describes (which, for example, the Gospels were

formerly widely thought to be, but no longer are: theyre second- or third-hand

accounts at most, just hearsay), but, as The Oxford Companion to the Bible stated

in 1993, None of the letters bearing Pauls name is so indubitably his as

Galatians. Galatians is, indeed, the criterion by which the authenticity of other

letters ascribed to him is gauged.*

Thus, a legal/forensic analysis of Christianitys origin will be based upon

that document, the best evidence. Under its first-ever legal/forensic analysis,

Galatians will, indeed, reveal how, when, where, why, and by whom, Christianity

started.

* [The footnote is not included in these samples.].




Summary

Jesus of Nazareth started a new sect in Judaism. He was then crucified by

the Romans in approximately the year 30. The Romans crucified him because he

claimed to be the King of the Jews. The Romans crucified everyone who made

that claim (there were others who made this same claim). All of these men were

crucified because the Romans had appointed solely the Herodian family to that

kingly position. For anyone else to claim this title was automatically viewed as

being and it actually was sedition against Rome. This is why Jesus was

crucified by the Romans, for sedition.

Shortly before Jesuss crucifixion, he appointed his brother James to head

the young sect. (The myth in the Gospels says that Jesus appointed Peter; but

thats a lie, and this work explains why the myth was written in that way.) Within

approximately three years of Jesuss crucifixion, Paul joined the sect. Then, three

years after his joining, Paul traveled from his office in Antioch to Jerusalem, in

order to meet Jesuss disciples, and to receive missionary training specifically

from Peter, who was the sects chief missionary selling this sect to non-Jews.

Peter had had only modest success converting Gentiles to join this Jewish sect,

but Paul became the star missionary or salesman to the Gentiles. In fact, Paul

brought in such a great number of new members, so that soon most of the sects

members were actually Gentiles who had been converted by Paul.




However, this soaring number of new members who hadnt been born as

Jews created a problem for the members who had been so born: These new Jews

werent circumcised. Judaism had started, according to the Jewish legend, at

Genesis 17:12-14, with God telling Abraham: Circumcision will be your signature

on our agreement [Gods agreement with the Jews], a physical sign that our

agreement is eternal. In Genesis 17:14, God said: No man who is uncircumcised

will be one of my people. Gods agreement was thus only with circumcised men;

no uncircumcised man would be one of Gods People. Then, in Genesis 17:19, God

made clear that this would never change; he said: This agreement will extend

through all future generations. Abraham complied, and thus the Jewish

covenant began, according to the Jewish legend.

So, the question is: were these new men, whom Paul had brought in,

actually Jews? Not according to the commandment which started the faith: they

certainly werent. Circumcision was Judaisms signature commandment; a man

didnt even qualify to be a Jew unless he had first signed the agreement by

becoming circumcised, and Pauls men had not signed. This was in black and

white, in Genesis. It was undeniable.

During the 17th year of Pauls employment with the sect, 14 years after his

first visit to Jerusalem, Pauls congregations included so many members that

James called Paul back again to Jerusalem. In Galatians 2:2, Paul said that what

was at stake in this Jerusalem conference would be the success or failure of all of

his missionary work up to that time.




If circumcision were to be imposed upon his men, Paul would lose almost

all of them, and the reason for this was quite simple:

Anesthesia didnt yet exist, and therefore any medical operation was a

living terror. This is why virtually the only operations which occurred that

werent absolutely necessary were the circumcisions of male Jewish infants on

their eighth day, in accord with Genesis 17:11. Those infants didnt even choose it;

this was something that their parents did to them. Pauls converts, by contrast,

were grown men. They would have been terrified to be subjected to that

requirement. Most would have refused.

Furthermore, antibiotics also didnt yet exist; the death-rate from any

operation was therefore very high, from infections. When death occurred to an

infant, it was no major concern, because infants possessed no property and thus

no power. But adult males possessed all the property, and so all the power in

society, and thus Paul knew that he would lose his lifes success if he demanded

that his men become circumcised.

James knew that if he demanded that Pauls men become circumcised,

then hed lose most of his members; and so James, too, didnt want to do that.

Furthermore, Jesuss disciples were poor people; they were Jerusalem Jews, who

had been defeated by Rome, and almost all of the rich people were associated

with the Roman regime, and they were Gentiles. Pauls congregations were thus

contributing money to the upkeep of these poor Jews in Jerusalem. James didnt

want this assistance to stop.




Paul wrote in Galatians 2:10 that at the conclusion of the conference

James required only that this money keep coming. Paul seemed, at first, to have

had his way.

But then, only shortly after Paul returned to Antioch, Peter came, and,

later that same day, other agents from James also came, and they told Paul that

James had changed his mind, and that all of Pauls men would have to be

circumcised, after all. According to Pauls account in Galatians 2:14-21, Paul

responded to this demand by saying that the covenant was at an end as a result of

Jesuss crucifixion, and that a person is viewed favorably by God only by means

of possessing Christ-faith, never by following Gods laws which are set forth in the

covenant in the Torah [the first five books of the Bible]. In other words, Paul

said that the agreement that God had with the Jews was now replaced by Pauls

gospel of Christ, in which faith that Jesus was the Messiah is all that God

requires, in order for a man to become one of Gods People and so go to heaven

instead of to hell after death. Paul said, in Galatians 2:21, If a person is put right

with God by adhering to the covenant, then the Messiah died for nothing!

That was the first time this doctrine, the Christian doctrine of salvation by

faith instead of by obedience to Gods commandments, had been stated

anywhere. Paul was virtually forced into it, by circumstances, or else he would fail

in life; his entire 17 years as the sects best salesman would have gone down the

drain, if he had required his men to go under the knife. In Philippians 3:1-2, he

said to his men, As Ive said before, I am concerned about your safety, because




those evil people, those dogs, who insist upon cutting the body, are wrong, and

(Philippians 3:8) the entire covenant is garbage, which the Messiahs death has

made superfluous.

Paul knew that discarding circumcision meant discarding the covenant to

which it signed. But he couldnt afford to tell his men that he was rejecting the

covenant on account of rejecting the circumcision law and that he wasnt really,

as Paul claimed, rejecting the circumcision law on account of rejecting the

covenant.

Galatians 2:11-21 presents an embarrassed and nervous Paul recounting

to the Galatians the event which had actually started Christianity (as noted, he

couldnt afford to admit to them that this occasion was its start); and, in this

account, Peter simply lacked the stomach to inform Paul of the bad news from

James. Peter instead sat down to dinner at Pauls headquarters, with Pauls

uncircumcised followers. Then, Jamess backup team suddenly arrived, and saw

that Peter was dining with Pauls uncircumcised men, not telling Paul that they

needed to become circumcised before they could be authentic followers of Jesus.

Peter backed away from the table and seconded Jamess demand. This

precipitated the blow-up, which caused Paul to assert 2:16-21, Christianity.

Paul, in Galatians, didnt mention that James had changed his mind and

had decided that Genesis 17:14 needed to be imposed after all in order for Pauls

men to continue being members of the Jesus sect of Jews. Paul simply couldnt

bring himself to admit this, because if his Galatian readers were to be informed




that the sects leader, James, now demanded circumcision, then those Galatians

would be made conscious that by their staying in Pauls congregations theyd no

longer be members of the Jesus sect, and theyd then have abandoned both James

and Paul. Theyd have abandoned the Jesus sect on account of refusing to go

under the knife in an era without anesthesia and antibiotics; and theyd have

abandoned Pauls congregations because theyd know that Pauls congregations

were in violation of Jesus, and werent even Jewish at all; theyd have known that

this was really just a hoax.

Paul and James were now locked in the equivalent of a bad marriage

which couldnt be ended. Divorce was too painful for either to carry out. If James

were to announce publicly that Pauls men were no longer his followers, then

Jamess poverty-stricken group in Jerusalem would no longer continue to receive

the financial contributions coming in from Pauls far better-off Gentile

congregations throughout the rest of the Roman Empire. Jamess desperate

followers were now financially too dependent upon the far larger number of

Pauls followers. Thus, James remained quiet about his change-of-mind. And

Paul, for his part, continued telling his followers to contribute to the group in

Jerusalem, because Paul needed the at-least-tacit acceptance of Jamess group to

continue for a long enough time for Pauls new faith to be able to go out

ultimately publicly on its own, as an entirely new religion, abandoning its Jewish

status.




Jamess group faded away. But Pauls blossomed and thrived. One reason

why Pauls group grew was that Paul was telling people that they dont need to go

under the knife in order to win an eternity in heaven; just Christ-faith will do it.

Another reason was that in Romans 13:1-7 and elsewhere, Paul and his followers

told their followers that the laws which they should adhere to werent the ones

from Judaisms God, but instead the ones which the Roman Emperor of the time

was imposing. Romans 13:1-7 and other passages made Romes Emperors, in

effect, Gods agents upon Earth, imposing Gods will, and legislating on Gods

behalf, so that, as Romans 13:5 put it, You must obey the Emperor not just

because, as Gods agent, hell punish you for violating the law, but also as a

matter of conscience. This teaching by Paul and his followers was enormously

helpful to the Emperors; thus, they ultimately imposed Christianity throughout

their realm.

When its understood that the four canonical Gospel accounts of Christ

were written not by Jesuss followers but by Pauls, both the truths and the lies in

the New Testament become fully explained, and make 100% sense. Even the NTs

internal contradictions now make sense.

Paul, in his own account in Galatians 2, had been faced with an

extraordinarily painful choice: either he would follow his instructions from James

and demand that his thousands of men become circumcised, or else he and his

congregations would leave the sect and go off into the future as an entirely new

religion, which renounces the covenant and Gods commandments, and thus is




traitorous to Jesus. The first path would have led to Pauls oblivion, because few

of his men would have been willing to risk their lives in order to stay with him.

Paul took the second path. This led to his starting a new religion, custom-tailored

to become the worlds largest because it placed heaven on sale, and also because

it created for the Roman Emperors a new universal or Catholic religion to

replace the old parochial and merely local Roman gods.

Already before Pauls time, the Emperors had been struggling with the

inadequacies of their old religion: their gods provided no moral authority for the

laws the Emperors dictated; and these gods were also purely local tribal Roman

deities, who possessed no authority outside of Rome anyway. Pauls solution to

these problems was the only way to make the Emperors subjects not just in

Rome but elsewhere, throughout the Empire follow the Emperors commands

as if those commands came from God. And so the Emperors ultimately adopted

it.

However, in order for Paul and his followers who wrote the Gospels to win

support from the Emperors, a way also had to be found to explain Jesuss

crucifixion by the Roman authorities. (No Roman Emperor would endorse a

religion which worshipped a man who was acknowledged to have been executed

by one of the Emperors own predecessors.) Paul and his followers came up with

a solution to that problem, too: The Jews (despite their having been conquered by

the Romans) allegedly forced the Roman authorities to crucify Jesus for

blasphemy against Jewish Law. This lie freed the Roman Emperors from any




Deicide charge, that they had killed God. Without this lie, Paul and his people

would have stood no chance whatsoever of ultimately winning over the

Emperors.

Thus, securing his support from both the mass base and the Imperial elite,

Paul emerged to become the most powerful person in history, the creator of the

worlds largest religion, just as he hoped. Paul said, in 1 Corinthians 9:24-25,

Run lifes race so as to win the prize. For him, winning was everything. Every

athlete in training submits to strict discipline in order to win a prize that will not

last; we, however, do it to win a prize that will last forever. And so he did: his

prize has already lasted 2,000 years.

This history of the origins of Christianity is documented with full details in

the following, in which the people who created the hoax wrote and displayed not

only their hoax, but also under the first-ever legal/forensic analysis of their

writings how and why they did it. Without necessarily assuming their

testimony to be honest, but rather cross-examining them by placing their

writings under a legal/forensic logical microscope which exposes both their

explicit and their implied statements, and which distinguishes between the two

levels of assertion, this history becomes revealed with stunning clarity, as we

shall see.

Documents

Christ's Ventriloquist