A new Christian paradigm

In 1945 and 1947 two groups of documents appeared as if waiting for the appropriate time to be discovered. These were Nag Hammadi Books, old codices bound in golden brown leather found in upper Egypt, and The Dead Sea Scrolls, ranging from 50,000 individual fragments to a scroll eight meters long in caves near the ruins of Qumran near the Dead Sea.

The rest of the world was celebrating the end of World War II. Tuesday 8 May 1945 was 'Victory in Europe' (VE) Day and on 15 August, victory in Japan (VJ) Day. On August 6 with the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, we had entered a world of atomic bombs that could bring total annihilation to the world.

How would the world react to this new world that could blow itself up? How would the Church react to these documents that now threatened it very existence? If ever there was a paradigm change it was then! But the status quo fought back. Atomic bombs would be turned into peace energy sources. Wars can be fought on a smaller scale with everyone promising not to use the bomb. "Bomb those you have the bomb" is the new war cry. Meanwhile, the Nag Hammadi library would be marginalized by calling it "gnostic." Since the scholars have managed to expand on Gnosticism ad infinitum, we are left with the feeling that we cannot even "know thyself". The control over the Dead Sea Scrolls was subtler. Delay and control over the material worked well while the scholars declared that all the writings that might relate to Jesus referred "beyond a doubt" to the Hasmonean Dynasty that preceded Herod the Great and the birth of Jesus. Also the attacks on those who dared to say that, perhaps the writings had a relationship to Christianity were quite effective. It was similar to when John Lennon said, "the Beatles were having a bigger influence on young people than Jesus", which then hit the headlines as "Beatles bigger than God."

But the new Christian paradigm is slowly coming into the world consciousness. Perhaps it was waiting for the dawning of the Age of Aquarius (d--n that always seems gets postponed! (I was a 60's baby boomer hippie.)

Just when the Church thought they had the people blind-sighted with Gnosticism, two books in the Nag Hammadi Library: the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Philip began to come to public attention. You might ask why it is that these Gospels, which contain the sayings of Jesus, are not in our New Testament? Well, just winners and losers. Since these Gospels presented Jesus in a human light and religion as an individual quest, not dependent on a centralized Church, they lose: they are heretics. The Church thought they burned them all, but thank God they failed, the truth is out: "the companion of the [Saviour was ] Mary Magdalene. [He loved] her more than [all] the disciples [and used to] kiss her [often] on her [mouth]."(Philip 63 32-36)

Meanwhile the Dead Sea Scrolls were languishing under an exasperatingly slow process of publication to the world as they could not be made public until finished. (half a century of time!) However, the Christian-like ones are now beginning to get attention. It may be impressive to see the 24 ft. long and 11 in. high Isaiah scroll, but it is often the fragments that contain the zingers. By delaying, it was possible to construct feasible explanations for the texts that seemed suspiciously Christian and, also, the public would lose interest. Like the use of the word “gnostic” with the Nag Hammadi Books, the scholars hid the material behind a totally absurd premise that all the works pre-dated the birth of Jesus. By planting this view it was easy to ignore carbon dating information and script analysis, which could be shown to be at the time of Jesus. "Its pesher concerns the house of Absalom (James, Jesus' younger brother) and the men of their congregation who were reduced to silence by the reproof of the Teacher of Righteousness (John the Baptist) and did not help him against the Man of the Lie (Jesus) who rejected the Law in the midst of the congregation (Day of Atonement)." 1QpHab 5 10-12

Whether the Church or the comfortably tenured scholars like it or not the Nag Hammadi “gnostic” gospels and the Dead Sea Scrolls have forever changed the landscape. The success of the ‘DaVinci Code’ has shown this. Blind sight may have worked in the past, but a new "Star of Bethlehem" is rising and it will bring the end of the old ways of religious hypocrisy and paradigm paralysis. It is about time, for we will soon be as gods by commanding the forces of life, having decoded the genome, and by commanding the forces of matter using the Hadron Collider, playing with particles that can create black holes. God, do we need a paradigm! How about one that proclaims the importance of "doing unto others as we would have them do unto us"! Oh, did you think we already had that! Right, you mean those religions: Christianity and Islam, which were based on love. Think again: Inquisition, Anti-Semitism, Racism, Slavery, Child Abuse, Female Abuse, Torture, Murder, Genocide, War, etc. We-Christians certainly need a new paradigm of showing love to our fellow human beings and so do all religions (and yes the Israelis, too).

Why write in pesher?

It is certainly logical to think that the New Testament writers would use some sort pesher language, as they would have been familiar with this method as used in the sectarian writings of the Dead Sea Scrolls where Old Testament verse is quoted followed by "And the pesher is". The pesher of Habakkuk illustrated at the top of this document is an example of this. There are already many obvious pesher references to Old Testament verse in the New Testament (these are referenced in detailed Bibles), thus the New Testament writers are already saying "And the pesher is". Matthew 2:14,15 reads, "And he (Joseph) rose and took the child and his mother by night, and departed to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, 'Out of Egypt have I called my son.'" (Hosea 11:1 reads, "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.") Thus the author of Matthew is doing exactly what the sectarian Dead Sea Scroll writers did namely quoting Hosea 11:1 and saying "the pesher is" Matthew 2:14,15. Note also that the author was not averse to manipulating locations, thus the Wilderness of Mird became Egypt. The Dead Sea Scroll writers did exactly this also.

The question is whether the New Testament writers actually wanted to take this a step further and create a "pesher within a pesher" such as what Jesus referred to in Mark 4:11 or as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3:1,2. The obvious advantage to such a format is the ability to hide certain events and people so as to protect them from being "thrown to the lions" or crucified. Another reason is that, now this new Church was building its own writings that would supercede the Old Testament, it therefore ought to also contain a pesher such as they believed the Old Testament had. The greatest example of this is, of course, Revelation, which has been constantly quoted to support theories on the end of the world. And then, of course, there is overriding principle of all religions and that is to obscure certain details so as to give the religious leaders superiority over the followers. This mystery is what keeps followers because they are never sure whether they have seen everything and thus they will never reach the point in Peggy Lee's song, "Is that all there is?" Those already at the top may think that, but they are too rich and comfortable to care.

In fact, many instances of a "pesher within a pesher" can be found in the New Testament provided that one does not take the New Testament as the literal words of God. (Of course, since the New Testament was written in Greek, the English translation could never be the words of God, unless God translated them.) In the next two sections it will be proved that Qumran on the Dead Sea is Jerusalem and that many of the places that Jesus visited regularly were substitute towns for the real ones. "Egypt" can then be understood by the fact that the Therapeuts had their spiritual retreats in caves in the wilderness near Qumran. Since their center is Egypt, this "Egypt" is their Jerusalem (Qumran). Clearly these caves offered a good hiding place for Mary and Joseph as they did for Zealots through the wars with Rome. The Therapeuts had a close association with the Jewish-Essenes at Qumran.

The important question is whether the pesher of the New Testament is defined by strict rules according to Dr. Barbara Thiering's "pesher technique" or whether it has a looser structure. (This will be discussed in the Inductive Reasoning: "SRLR Disputed" later on.) I am advocating for a looser structure and I have defined this as the Pesher of Christ™. This looser structure can be revealed by having an open mind and using "Inductive Reasoning" (defined in the Footnotes) by means of the following sources:

On this site, I hope to show that the early Christian Church did not suddenly become invented by Jesus (or invented by God through him), but came about from the collective consciousness (inspiration of God - if you like). The Christian Church was the result of a new paradigm that was meant to bring both Jews and Gentiles together with a New and Old Testament. So it was with the Koran, which was a new paradigm from the collective consciousness transmitted to Mohammed (by the angel Gabriel). It was meant to include Old and New Testament values with its emphasis being on the power of people joined in common prayer directed to a higher power (Allah) rather than to leaders and dogma.

So here and now there are Islam extremists persecuting and attempting to exterminate Christians and Jews, just as Christians persecuted and attempted to exterminate Jews and followers of Islam in the past. The failure of these paradigms occurs when the transmitter of the paradigm (Mohammed, Jesus, Moses, or Buddha) becomes more important than the paradigm that was transmitted through them. The true anti-Christ's are those who claim to have direct contact with the original transmitters and then proceed to distort the old paradigms to serve their own egos. However, it is difficult to impose an old paradigm by means of dogma, because the collective consciousness has already discarded it, thus it becomes necessary to enforce it by threats of force.

It is not really possible to explain a new paradigm because the collective consciousness already knows it. A paradigm is very much like a pesher because it cannot be explained in words. What is clear, however, is that the new paradigm that is operating today involves the rejection of the exclusivity of religion. Since I am Christian, I can only express this new paradigm as the Pesher of Christ™, but it applies to all religions: it is the pesher of Mohammed, the pesher of Moses, the pesher of Buddha; it is the meaning behind a collective consciousness that aspires to a higher Self.

Could Qumran be Jerusalem?

Whether one believes that the the Dead Sea Scrolls preceded or ran in parallel with Christianity, it is clear that they contain many of its precepts and even the "Last Supper" ceremony. Clearly, Christianity was influenced by these writings. It is also clear that Qumran was an important place. It is an accepted fact that it was, at one time, an Essene Community that was abandoned after an earthquake. There has been much New Age material that says that Jesus was an Essene perhaps because of the contents of the "Sermon on the Mount", but this fact is more in the area of myth.

The many fragments in Cave 4 and the almost intact Community Rule from Cave 1 appear to express the theology of a Jewish Essene-like sect resident at Qumran that could very well have existed at the time of Jesus. This sect was perhaps not as orthodox as the Essenes, which probably was also by necessity because they also had a zealot war to manage. However, just as the Essenes considered it their Jerusalem in exile when King Herod usurped them, it is quite possible that the Jewish Essene sect carried on this tradition of referring to Qumran as a second Jerusalem, its mirror image. If this was the place that Jesus lived and taught and "died", it might explain why there are no records of him in the history books.

To "walk" with Jesus appears to require a camel and with his disciples a caravan!

Traditional Galilee-Jerusalem

Logical Qumran-Jerusalem

Previously (in the Inductive Reasoning above) it was proposed that there were two Jerusalem's of the New Testament: Jerusalem (singular form) and its mirror image: Qumran (plural form).

shows how the locations of Qumran on the Dead Sea and its neighboring towns of Ain Feshkha, Mazin, and Mird present a much more logical explanation for the seemingly impossible speed that Jesus traveled across the countryside from the traditional locations of Jerusalem, Galilee, the Sea of Galilee, and Cairo.

The Twelve Disciples

It is amazing that after 2000 years, the scholars and the Church have been unable to figure out all twelve apostles. They know Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, and Judas Iscariot. They are confused about James (son of Alphaeus) calling him by the absurd title of James the Less, Lebbaeus (whose surname was Thaddaeus and who also appears as Judas of James), and, of course, they are trying to pretend that Simon (the Zealot/Canaanite) is not the same person as Simon Magus whom Eusebius, "the father of Church History (260-339) quotes from Justin Martyr that Simon is "the original author of heresies" and that "all Samaritans and a few other nations also acknowledge him as their chief deity and worship him." (Does this not sound a little like the way that some Christians venerate Jesus Christ today? As one of the twelve and having a following like that, one might suspect that he could have originally been more important than Jesus! Good thing, Peter and Paul fixed all that.) Also there is the disciple Nathanael in the John Gospel who is nowhere in the list in the other Gospels and the disciple Matthias in Acts who is never heard of again and whom people wish was Paul.

What is the Pesher of Christ™ ?

The major distinction my term the "Pesher of Christ"™ and Dr. Barbara Thiering's "pesher technique" has to do with the issue of the Rules of Last Referent abbreviated RLR. This concept is entirely her own and it has not found much support with Biblical scholars to date. The main criticism of RLR in the scholarly community rests on the circular logic that Jesus, who was supposed to be dead after the crucifixion, invented this technique when he wrote the Gospel of John, which then reveals by means of this technique that he is alive! Although I am the webmaster-publisher of the Pesher Technique, which contains her approved writings, on my nonprofit corporation Infinite SOULutions Foundation site and a student of hers for over four years, I do not believe that her "pesher technique" which relies heavily on RLR is correct.

There is no doubting that Dr. Thiering's work has been groundbreaking. In fact many of her findings have already been "appropriated" by other writers, of which the "DaVinci Code" is the most well known. (I would hope that I would not be labeled as one of these as I will always be grateful for her work in pointing the way and I will strive to use only "Inductive Reasoning".) Although the "DaVinci Code" is purported to be a fictional book, its great popularity came because it spoke to our suspicions that the Church had over-stepped its role as guardian of the faith and had manipulated many principles and teachings of Jesus for its own ends. Even now the church perpetuates the travesty of suppressing females even though it is clear from the New Testament and other sources that Mary Magdalene, Helena, Lydia, and Bernice were clearly at the level of Cardinal and therefore it would, at the least, be correct for the Church to promote females to the level of Cardinal and thus have the right to vote for the next Pope. However, it is not necessary to go overboard and declare that Mary Magdalene is greater than Mother Mary as the Templars did or that she is present in da Vinci's "Last Supper" when clearly it is John, "the disciple that Jesus loved".

I believe that Dr. Thiering's attachment to RLR is unfortunate because there is great consistency in all her findings that in most cases does not rely on RLR. Clearly, Dr. Thiering wishes that RLR would be true because then her findings would be provable "scientifically." This is why she has built the word-for-word peshers of all the important verses in the Gospels, Acts, and Revelation on the Pesher Technique. (Please do not take my word for it, but study it yourself.) However, since there is so much similar knowledge that can be found about Jesus, his disciples, and the early Christian Church, just by having an open mind and good sleuthing ability, it would be a shame if detractors were allowed to use the issue of RLR to dismiss all of Dr. Thiering's findings. It is for this reason that I am building this site to use Inductive Reasoning" to present the new knowledge in a way that cannot be rejected out-of-hand.

The true Gospel of Peter that precedes the Gospel of Mark

The Church tried to suppress the Gospel of Peter which was once the most popular narrative in early Christianity. The Church almost succeeded, but fortunately two parts of it have been discovered: an 8th century text, with other manuscripts, in a monk's grave in the modern Egyptian city of Akhmim (sixty miles north of Nag Hammadi) in 1886 and The Secret Gospel of Mark found in the Mar Saba monastery in 1958 which surely contains another piece of it. In this

it will be shown that these two fragments of the Gospel represent part of the definitive Gospel that precedes all others and tells the truth about how Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead and how he survived the crucifixion and was rescued and not resurrected.

The fragment of the Gospel of Peter begins at the point that Pilate washes his hands and proceeds through the crucifixion up to the point that Jesus goes into a coma by means of a drug, and then his rescue from the tomb: "they saw the heavens opened, and two men descend from thence with great light and approach the tomb; again they see three men coming forth from the tomb, and two of them supporting one, and a cross following them."

The Secret Gospel of Mark tells the story about the Raising of Lazarus, showing that the young man in the cave is already alive. This Inductive Reasoning shows it to the be Simon Magus, the deposed Pope: "Jesus went with her (Mary Magdalene) to the garden where the tomb was and immediately a great sound was heard from the tomb."

By aligning the Four Gospel sections to themselves and with the Gospel of Peter using Inductive Reasoning, an amazing story unfolds.

The Clementines are as Important as Acts

The Clementines which are made up of "The Recognitions of Clement" and "The Clementine Homilies" are a unique religious romance. However, the scholars have told us that they were written long after the early days of Christianity by heretics and thus its content is merely fantasy.