And man became a living soul.

 

1 Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us,

2 Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word;

3 It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus,

4 That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.

As you may see, these are not my words. They are the opening of the Gospel According to Luke. According, not the original autograph. Oral tradition, pasted down from generation to generation with some writings, notes and statements from eyewitnesses who were most likely advanced in age and not elevated in the Jewish hierarchy prevailing at the time. So, whomever “Luke” was, he felt compelled to take quill in hand at great risk to compile what he believed to be an accurate composite of the actions of Jesus of Nazareth to clarify these things as far as he could understand.

 

His Greek, which is the language used in the New Testament, was different from Mark, Matthew, and John. John being more of a steeped Greek. Bear in mind you must judge the authorship of the Book of Luke with the same jaundiced eye and the understanding that the writer, whomever that may be, had almost certainly been cognizant of the previous two “gospels,” John supposedly being written around 90 AD, that eventually won the Nicea Olympics as well as other gospels and bits and pieces of writing or hand me down oral traditions which probably the very reason “Luke” took it upon himself to write his commentary in the first place.

 

Matthew was supposed to be the tax collector that Jesus took as a disciple. I’ve come across a theory about the choice of Matthew to be included in Christ’s band of merry men. If he were a tax collector that meant he most likely worked for the Romans who were very big on tax collecting, crucifixions, things like that. That would imply that he was literate, so rare in 30 AD, and most likely capable of some shorthand to record records on the fly. Imagine fishermen returning from work and the IRS is like RIGHT THERE, quill in hand. “Peter! I see you! One hundred fish!”

 

There was a scrap of papyrus found by an amateur archaeologist in Luxor Egypt with some words on it. Now by scrap I mean postage stamp size scrap, but the words were seemingly in line with the Book of Matthew. How this was arrived at from a couple words is beyond me but several very educated rock chippers looked at it and said, “Yep! That’s right out of the Bible all right!” Then, as luck would have it the prize scrap was carbon dated and behold it was from the early first century. Maybe even from Matthew’s very hand. Now rewind here. Jew, tax collector, accountant, scribe, can write while men hide fish. Who better to sit at the bottom of that hill as Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount and record the words accurately? Matthew was far closer to the gospel sporting his name than some kid who took off naked when the Po Po came calling.

 

There is an idea that the writer blamed for the Gospel of Mark was that guy. Furthermore, it’s alluded that the very room that was used for the Last Supper was an upper room at his mother’s house, and that Jesus had much respect for her. He obviously followed the group to Gethsemane and was there when the cops showed up. However, he may have been raised in East Jerusalem because:

51 And there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young men laid hold on him:

52 And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.

Do the math: Nice threads, hanging out with a happening guy, split when the law barged in.

 

Now here’s the sneaky part. If, and that’s a big if, this is the Mark ascribed to, and he really did write some of the Gospel of Mark he most certainly wouldn’t be signing his name to it! It’s one thing to pick up your cross and follow Jesus, it’s totally another to get nailed up. And he already proved he’d split under pressure.

 

13 Now when Paul and his company loosed from Paphos they came to Perga in Pamphylia: and John departing from them returned to Jerusalem.

John in this passage is John Mark and apparently had kept his ways of getting while the getting’s good.

In his supposed gospel there seems to be an afterthought almost as if some scribe looked at it and realized that it wasn’t quite finished so added:

46 And he bought fine linen, and took him down, and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulchre.

47 And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses beheld where he was laid.

And this hodgepodge, written by a completely unreliable man is inspired? Yeah right! And I’m gonna be the next president of the Mormon Church.

So why is this gospel so important? Because there is a lost mysterious writing that those who study such matters refer to as the “Q” document. It seems whoEVER “Mark” was he got hold of this thing, plagiarized the hell out of it, not “hell” per sae since that’s one of the benchmarks of the Christian faith right up there with talking snakes and donkeys, and Matthew and Luke read it and borrowed extensively from its inspiration. John departed somewhat but he concentrated on act three of the story of Jesus. Enter Constantine the Immutable! Rome was coming apart at the seams by the fourth century. There were many reasons. Sloth, gluttony, lust, pride, greed, wrath, and envy. Is there anything I missed? Constantine found himself at a crossroads. He had to pull this thing together or Rome was out of business. It ran out of gas in 476 anyway but you gotta try, you know. So, he’s standing there, looking up at the sky and he has this vision. I’m not passing judgment. In my years of Jim Beam I’ve seen some things too. Anyway, he saw a cross with the motto, “In this sign you will win.” He was facing a fight with Maxentius and apparently it wasn’t written in stars (please excuse the pun) who was gonna take the belt.

 

Don’t let it ever be said that Constantine wasn’t clever. He pulled all the eagles and replaced them with crosses.

 

Well, he won. From there it was roses for him. He even sent his mom to the Middle East to identify artifacts from the life of Jesus and she did such a good job that the Jews are raking in tourist dollars to this very day. But! Had to organize the believers into one cohesive unit. When he got involved, the church was nowhere near the Church it needed to be. He called a council. The Council of Nicaea. Or Nicea, ever however you spell it. They had to come up with a code that you had to subscribe to if you wanted to be part of the “In” crowd which was pretty much everywhere from London to Lisbon. And if you didn’t, well Constantine had a fix for that too. He’d kill ya. And we ain’t talking no lethal injection here. They’d tack you up to a two by four and stand there while you dried out. Later they did away with that and just lobbed off your head.

 

They finally narrowed the Apostolic writing down to four gospels, which kinda means “God Spell” but unless you were one of the special few you couldn’t read them. You had to be read to! But oooops! Gotta have a book of sacred scripture like the Jews. There was a bunch of other things written and a lot of them, just like the gospels were ascribed to highly recognizable individuals. Did these people write these? Probably not. Unless they were oh say, two hundred years old or so, but it sounded good, so what the hell, right? I’d hate to think that some of them might even have been written right there at the Council of Nicaea, but who am I? All but Paul’s letters. There seems to be no doubt, even among nonbelievers as to the authenticity of the Epistles of Paul. I suppose that was because they were letters and I guess the Vatican has the original envelopes with the postmarks. Hey, rumor has it they have the Ark of the Covenant, or is that the Mormons. I forget.

 

Anyway, they ended up with The New Testament. As an added feature they glued it together with the Torah which they called The Old Testament, and you got “The Story of God” combined with “The Story of God – The Sequel, Jesus.”

 

By the time this all transpired the church became The Church with all the trimmings, they pronounced anyone not toeing the company line to be a heretic and while having done away with crucifixion they replaced it with the highly entertaining Burning at the Stake!

 

Note: I didn’t analyze John because is was somewhat different, again, since it is dated from around 90 AD, was it written at Nicea?

 

Let’s understand the spiritual side of man. This is necessary if we are going to understand how all this fits into history, evolution and the components therein. Let’s begin with inspiration. What is inspiration. Does God grab the prophet’s hand and write out what we call scripture? Or does someone have a moment of clarity and think, “Hey! That works!” And does that moment of clarity come from within, or somewhere else.

 

If there is a God, and if He did create man, don’t you think that he might have embedded some of this in our DNA, or used the ability to put it there at the appropriate moment? Unless you are a functioning idiot you simply cannot view a strand of DNA and not see a design. If you don’t, and buy natural selection then you believe that a tornado really can bang a Cadillac out of a junkyard. And ask yourself; Who put the natural in natural selection.

 

And misunderstanding the way the Bible is arranged can be a stumbling block. Atheists point out that there seems to be two creation stories in Genesis. Au Contrairé. One!

 

 

Genesis Chapter 1

1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:

 

Genesis Chapter 2

7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

 

There is much confusion as to the arrangement and continuity of the Bible. Why two creations? Where did Adam’s sons get their wives? Who took Cain in after he killed his brother? This list goes on and on, but let’s just focus on those.

 

Making man in His image. Walks, talks, works, acts fairly decent but then God realized that all the lights were on but nobody was home. A whole world full of people with Reactive Attachment Disorder. No empathy whatsoever. So, God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

One day you were bopping along, singing your song, no cares, no woes, no child support and the next day you are washing dishes.

 

Now, you can believe in a cosmic slap or evolution, it doesn’t matter. Long about six thousand years ago a guy told his significant other that things weren’t working out and they needed to leave that cave and find another. So, Eve packed up and they split. Adam realized that it wasn’t cool to eat their neighbors, and they should treat them like they’d like to be treated instead. They had developed a forebrain. Empathy. Reason. All the above. They had evolved a soul. Something that just may survive the dust they came from, and if they didn’t actually survive at least their ideas, imparted onto their children would and in that way, they would indeed be immortal!

 

If you believe in a great flood that’s cool. I prefer to call it the great flush. An effort to reduce mankind to at least humankind. Different philosophies developed. From The Buddha to Stoicism. All different yet the same as man learned to relate to man.

 

So, where does Jesus fit into this? Time was split by three years of the ministry of one itinerate preacher from a going nowhere town in a going nowhere land. He wove all human understanding together into one pile. And the guys at Nicea tried to confine it to a book. God is bigger than any book, and that’s where the cracks appeared. All the Greek writings, the Torah, Talmud, The Karma Sutra, wrapped up in the words of this man. Have words been added? You bet they have. By men humbled by the few words He left. Can we follow His teachings religiously? No! We still have a trace of that soulless DNA. Call it psychopathy, the Devil, call what you will, you still need that belief in something greater than ourselves because we are not God, but He became one of us, if only for a short time to show us the goal. And he extended us a hand. From a cross.

 

Everyone believes in something. Atheists always say that they don’t need a God to make them a good person. So, if you are a good person then what made you good. What was the standard you ascribe to? And how do you define “bad?”

 

17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.

19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.