[continued from previous message]   
      
   It took Ikhneton some years before his henotheistic worship of Aton   
   metamorphosed into an exclusive monotheism, but still the change came too   
   abruptly for the Egyptian people. After Ikhneton's death, his new religion was   
   quickly rejected in favor of the    
   traditional polytheism. Perhaps, fearing the same consequences, Moses was   
   reluctant to deny categorically the existence of other gods, and so the   
   wording of that first commandment tacitly accepts that other gods do exist,   
   and may, perhaps, even be    
   worshipped by the Jews, but those other gods may never be accorded the same   
   respect as that given to Jehovah. [337] Thus, it is quite clear that the   
   religion established by Moses may well have been derived more from Egyptian   
   sources, particularly    
   Ikhneton, than from the cult founded by Abraham and that this Hebrew religion   
   was somewhat less strictly monotheistic than the religion that Ikhneton   
   ultimately established. Whereas Ikhneton did, indeed, propound what is now   
   customarily accepted by Jews    
   as monotheism, Moses promoted nothing more significant than an ethical   
   monolatry. Jewish monotheism probably took another one thousand years after   
   the time of Moses to evolve and become securely entrenched.   
      
   Christianity – A Popular Religion   
   An historical analysis of the Christian religion reveals much the same sort of   
   evolutionary pattern as we found in Judaism. That is to say, both Judaism and   
   Christianity evolved more as a consequence of sentiments relating to a   
   particular community than    
   from any form of divine revelation, though this definitely does not mean to   
   deny the quite significant contributions made by a few crafty intellectuals,   
   who formulated many of the religious dogmas, and attributed to them the name   
   of God, or God's alleged    
   representatives.   
      
   Regarding Christianity, we should remember that, in the beginning, the sect   
   was little more than a small and considerably fringe group of Jews, who   
   fancied themselves to be the chosen of the Chosen People, the “true Israel”.   
   Similarities between the Dead    
   Sea Scrolls (notably the Thanksgiving Scroll) and Jesus' Sermon on the Mount,   
   as well as much of the theology found in the Gospels (most particularly, John)   
   provide ample evidence that early Christian doctrine really did not extend   
   beyond the outer    
   limits of existing Jewish thought. This point is further substantiated by the   
   later Church's mistaken identification of several non-Biblical Jewish   
   writings, such as the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and The Shepherd of   
   Hermas, as early Christian    
   documents. The fact is that early Christian theology did not diverge much from   
   the mainstream of Jewish teachings. It was, perhaps, a tiny Jewish tributary   
   that would have run dry within a short time, had it not been for the   
   monumental impact of    
   opportunistic geniuses like Paul of Tarsus and, much later, Martin Luther.   
   Thanks largely to Paul, that which had originated as a mere sect within the   
   Semitic clan religion of Judaism became adapted to the psychology of the pagan   
   Roman Empire. Fifteen    
   hundred years later, Martin Luther began the necessary revisions that adapted   
   Christianity to the more materialistic psychology prevalent in the coming age   
   of capitalistic imperialism. He thus paved the way for the worldwide, rapid   
   expansion of    
   Christianity, which took place only within the past three hundred years. [338]   
      
   Little is known of early Christian history. The most ancient available   
   manuscripts of the New Testament date no farther back than the 4th Century   
   A.D.; and, by that time, there had surely been many revisions and redactions   
   made in these writings by the    
   Church fathers, in order to adjust with the outcome of various Christian   
   theological controversies. It is known that early Christianity was founded on   
   two basic points: (1) the Messianic role of Jesus of Nazareth and (2) the   
   permanent validity of the    
   Mosaic law for all people. When the Jews, by and large, rejected the first   
   point, the more pragmatic early Christians largely abandoned the second point.   
   Then, under the growing influence of Paul's “all things to all men”   
   proselytization creed, [339] and    
   after the expulsion of the Jews (including the early Christians) from   
   Jerusalem in 70 A.D. and again in 135 A.D., Christianity evolved into a   
   thoroughly gentile or pagan religion.   
      
   Competing for converts in the Roman Empire with the then-popular mystery cults   
   centering around the worship of Mithra and Isis, 2nd Century Christianity made   
   some truly fantastic adaptations. According to popular belief, Isis suckling   
   her baby Horus was    
   the embodiment of a perfect mother-son relationship. To compete with Isis,   
   Mary was frequently represented as the Madonna cradling the infant Jesus or,   
   later, even the crucified Jesus, as is the theme of the Pieta. [340] Mithra   
   was said to have sprung    
   out of a rock – a sort of virgin birth – on December 25, while shepherds   
   watched and sang his praise. All of a sudden, the new Christian Church   
   declared December 25 as the birthday of Jesus – a remarkable deduction   
   considering there was no scriptural    
   evidence for this date, and the Gospels couldn't even agree on the year in   
   which Jesus was born, much less the month and the day.   
      
   In the same manner, the Sabbath day; which plays such an important role in   
   Jewish theology (“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” is one of the Ten   
   Commandments [341] ), and which also had great significance in many scenes   
   recorded in the Gospels,    
   miraculously moved backward six days to become Sunday, the first day of the   
   week, instead of Saturday, the seventh day. With the shift from Saturday to   
   Sunday, all the Biblical significance of the Sabbath day was lost, but one new   
   advantage had been    
   gained – the Christian Sabbath now coincided with the special day of worship   
   for Mithra.   
      
   Similarly, the blood of the lamb, Jesus, in the Eucharist bears a close   
   resemblance to the blood of the bull in Mithraic worship. The celebration of   
   Epiphany on 6 January (at one time also declared as the birthday of Jesus) was   
   scheduled to supplant an    
   Egyptian festival on the same day. And, of course, the cults and holidays   
   associated with the worship of the various martyrs and saints provided almost   
   unlimited scope to duplicate everything related to all of the tribal gods,   
   goddesses and superstitions.   
    [342] Much of the Christian religious vocabulary (words such as orthodoxy,   
   dogma, ecclesiastic and liturgy) was stolen from the popular mystery cults. In   
   fact, by the 3rd Century A.D., the only major element of Christianity that was   
   not derived from the    
   pagan religions was the portrait of Jesus as a teacher, but this theme was   
   never emphasized.   
      
   For obvious reasons, the Bible was considered too dangerous a book for the   
   ordinary lay Christian adherent to read. According to the clergy, common   
   people were not capable of understanding the Bible and so, by reading it, they   
   might be encouraged to    
   commit heresy. In point of fact, the New Testament was never translated into   
   any local language until the late 14th Century (when John Wycliffe and his   
   followers rendered it into English), nor was it widely circulated among the   
   people until some time    
   after the middle of the 15th Century (when Johann Gutenberg printed the first   
   Bible in Mainz, Germany).   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)