He was the first to realize the consequences of living within an interconnected spiritual/social network and used that insight to argue against the idea that the end times rule of God would come in with a violent apocalypse.
(July 9, 2022) The following mathematically derived teachings of Jesus show he was using Pagan emotion network attunement (Logos, Yoga, Awen) concepts to argue against the whole idea of a violent end-times apocalypse. Having witness during his childhood the Roman reconquest of Galilee, he knew the conquest model was just plain wrong. Here, the mathematics of decision theory is used to extract twenty-one authentic Jesus’ teachings in four main themes.
Mathematics was applied to this historical problem because earlier non-mathematical attempts have failed to produce consistent results. The main themes revealed by this procedure are:
Jesus would have been exposed to this ancient magical tradition while he lived at Capernaum which became a customs stop on the new Mesopotamia to Egypt trade route established by Herod the Great by his building of the harbor at Caesarea Maritima. Paper with all the details online at: https://www.academia.edu/79886608/Twenty_One_Authentic_Jesus_Sayings_Extracted_by_Mathematical_Decision_Theory
(March 15, 2024) Palmyra (modern Syrian city of Tadmor) used to be an important link in the trading network known as the silk connecting east and west. It became a part of the Roman empire between 0 and 100 CE but it was treated as an autonomous province. A branch of this trade into Egypt was siphoned off from Tyre when Herod the Great built the port town of Caesarea Maritima. This new trade route passed through the new custom's town of Capernaum where Jesus lived. Jesus would have been exposed to the magical practices promoted by the Palmyra temple.
See the text translations in this section here.
No complete works of Heraclitus exist today yet his work is the earliest evidence of the eastern idea of yoga as an attunable emotional/spiritual network moving west. All we have are quotes found in later texts such as:
(Heraclitus, quoted in Hippolytus, Refutation of all Heresies 9.9.1.3-4) It is wise for those who listen not to me but to the Logos to agree that in Logos everything is one. (F10 in Waterfield, 2000)(November 26, 2023) While Druid culture had a unidirectional network for the life class of powers since ancient times it did not have any kind of network for the motion class of powers until the Greek Philosopher Heraclitus adopted the Eastern idea of Yoga for the west. His attuned spiritual network concept eventually made it into Celtic culture as Awen where it was picked up by modern Druidry as the spiritual source of inspiration. "Logos" is from the Akkadian word LaGu meaning "attunement." Awen is from the Akkadian word A'u and Awu (Ayin letter slurs to /w/) meaning "emotion/motion powers" According to these concepts people should attune to the surrounding emotion/motion powers.
The Greek philosopher Heraclitus introduced his concept of Logos into Greek and Druid cultures within 30 years after the Persians conquered his home city of Ephesus in 522 BCE. At that time he would have been exposed to Persian magi culture. The best translation for Logos is "spiritual harmonies."
Roman era Stoics believed that an attuned spiritual network consisting of spiritual harmonies (logos) was one of the three characteristics of Divine mind along with nous (reasoning as the chaining together of facts) and ettistnun (knowledge of the facts). The dualist but still Stoic author Epictetus (c.50 – c.135 CE) and Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (121-180 CE) write these:
(Epictetus Discourses 2.8) God brings benefit but the good also brings benefit. I would seem therefore, that is where the true nature of God is to be found. There too will be that of the good. Then what is the nature of God? Flesh, in no way whatever. Land, in no way. Fame, in no way. He is nous (reasoning), ettistnun (knowledge), and logos. (Hard 2014)The Bible incorrectly translates logos as “word” or “message.” The author of the Gospel of John uses "word" for Logos below:
(John 1:1) In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God (Theos), and the Logos was God (Theos). The Apostle Paul also used “logos” in 1 Corinthians 12:7-11 Here Christian translators again translate it incorrectly as "message." They deliberately do translation fraud (translating it differently in different places) so they can put their own theological spin on the original text.
(1 Corinthians 12:7-11, NIV) 7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. 8 To one there is given through the Spirit a message (logos) of wisdom, to another a message (logos) of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, 10 to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.
Jesus teaching
(July 9, 2022) The main problem with historical Jesus research has been its completely subjective nature. Authors tend to have some mental model of Jesus then all sayings which fit that model are authentic and all others are not. Some previous quality non-quantitative attempts were:
Then summarizing the subjective nature of previous non-quantitative research is:
(July 9, 2022) Historical information can be treated as signals traveling through time. So, think of each source document as a noisy communication channel transmitting information from the past. Each channel has a certain probability of correctly transmitting a valid signal.
The source documents with their probabilities of validity are listed below from earliest to latest. The numbers in parenthesis are confidence level percentages which indicate what percentage of the teachings from that source are expected to be valid, that is, which actually go back to the time of Jesus. The closer a source is to the time of Jesus the more valid it tends to be. These validity probability numbers come from the declining exponential curve shown in figure 2:
A perfectly valid signal is one having a 100% confidence level and none of these sources meets that level by itself. This means that in order for a Jesus teaching to valid it has to be found in two or more sources. If the sources confidence levels exceeds 100% then the teaching is considered to be valid, that is, it goes back to the time of Jesus.
(Continue reading)
In the military, stealthy radio communication methods use spread spectrum techniques because they use several low powered signal transmissions which are spread out over many different radio frequency channels. Individually, each real signal is hidden in the noise but if the receiver knows when and where to look for the real signals then they can be extracted using methods analogous to those used to extract the real Jesus teachings.
For most of its short history, signal engineering was a rather specialized field existing mostly in radar engineering. Signal engineering also comes under the heading of “decision theory” and a good conceptual introduction can be found in the book by Peterson (2009).
In signal engineering, a true signal is different from a valid signal which has met the 100% confidence threshold requirement. A true signal is what is put into the communication channel. A valid detected signal may or may not be true. For example, a perfectly valid but still false signal may have been placed onto the channel by a foe using electronic warfare techniques. Generally valid signals are assumed to be true unless other tests indicate falsity. The same reasoning holds true for historical signals. A valid signal is one which meets the threshold requirement of going back to the time of Jesus. It is assumed to be true unless other tests show it is false. These other tests are “audience relevance” and “coherency of thought.”
The source weigh curve shown in the figure assigns weighting values to each Jesus signal source based upon their date of composition. All curves need three points for their definition.
One point is 32 CE with a validity of 1.0. This is the death date of Jesus which is justified in section ?. All teaching signals dated to when Jesus was alive are defined as authentic with a validity number of 1.0. (yet some few could be false from deliberate lies).
The second point is 150 CE with a validity of 0.0. Teaching signals dated after the death of Jesus have a decreasing probability of validity. The time when all teaching signals are invalid with would be when all possible eye-witnesses are dead along with the people with whom they talked. This would take about 120 years (60 + 60) or 150 BCE. This is confirmed by the apocryphal "Gospel According to the Hebrews" which was written about that time and which all scholars believe is a complete fabrication.
The third (actually 3rd, 4th, 5th) point is found using an iterative optimization process to find the validity of the sources which are associated with the known false saying “take up your cross” discussed in section 1.2 below. By assigning a validity of 1.0 to this teaching the validities of its sources can be determined if we assumed the shape of the curve is a declining exponential.
We can determine the shape of the curve based upon how information is propagated from person to person. Each person is like a link in a chain and each person has a certain probability of correctly passing along a short piece information to the next person. As an example of saying transmission, assume each person in the chain has a 0.9 probability of passing on some piece of information accurately. This person tells another person so the probability of this second person passing on this same piece of information drops to 0.81 (0.9 x 0.9 = 0.81). For a third person the probability drops to 0.729 (0.9 x 0.9 x 0.9) and so on. This sort of repeating procedure produces a declining exponential function. The exponential function is found in all sorts of phenomena which grow or decay at a rate proportional to its value at any given point.
(July 9, 2022) This false teaching is important for defining the validity curve of section 1.1. It is the only teaching signal of Jesus which is valid meaning it goes back to near his lifetime but which has to be false because it lacks audience relevance. If Jesus had actually said this his audience would not know what he was talking about. The symbol of the cross only became relevant after Jesus was crucified.
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This historical signal extraction methodology has a time uncertainty of about plus or minus 3 years because that in the average uncertainty in dating its sources. Consequently, this teaching must have originated within 3 years after Jesus was crucified. An early persecution of the Jesus’s followers is attested in Paul's letters:
(Galatians 1:13-14, NIV, Paul speaking) For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. 14 I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.
(July 9, 2022) A significant problem is determining the authentic teaching of Jesus is whether Jesus really used the word "kingdom" in the phrases “Kingdom of Heaven” (Basileia Ouranos in Greek) as recorded in Matthew, or “Kingdom of God” (Basileia Theos in Greek) as recorded in the other gospels.
The grammar of ancient (not modern) Greek is actually more similar to that of Akkadian word role grammar instead of with later developing and more complex Latin case grammar into which it has been forced by moderns. Akkadian and Ancient Greek use word endings on the roots of words to to indicate a word’s role or function in a sentence. For example, the root of basileia is basil which means “govern.” The ancient Greek noun role endings are:
Noun Gender Endings (which come after noun role endings)
Words without role endings but with gender endings are adjectives.
Consequently, the word basileus is a masculine governing actor and so it means “king, ruler or governor.” The word basilica is a feminine place so it means “home of governance” and was a place where courts and other official government duties were performed in ancient times. The word basileia then is a feminine governing power which means “home energy.”
The second word in the phrase mistranslated as “Kingdom of Heaven” is ouranos which is also translated in English as uranus and it means “sky-bound” or “divine” or “heavenly” as a masculine adjective. “Sky” or the “heavens” was an epithet for the higher divine powers because they were located in the sky. According to the earliest Greek text describing their gods by Hesiod (500 BCE), Uranus was the son and husband of Gaia (Earth), with whom he fathered the first generation of Titans.
The second word in the phrase “mistranslated as “Kingdom of God” is “theos” which means “divine” as an adjective. Consequently, the two phrases are actually identical if translated as “divine home-energy.”
Mature mustard tree
(July 9, 2022) Mark 4:30-32, Q (Matthew 13:31-32, Luke 13:18-19), Thomas 20: Validity = 1.02
Jesus taught that the Divine home energy was already here but unseen by the spiritually blind because so few people really followed the path of God. The statue prophecy in Daniel chapter 2 had already been fulfilled. The Divine-home-energy indicating God’s presence was still small like a mustard seed but it would grow if more people would align themselves with the will of God and not be seduced by haters, blind rule followers, and power seekers.
In the statue prophecy, the Daniel interprets the dream of the Persian king. This dream describes a statue made of four metals representing four earthly empires and how after the fall of the Hellenistic fourth empire an eternal kingdom of God will be established. These four kingdoms were the Mesopotamian (Babylon/Assyria - Gold), the Medes (silver), the Persians (Bronze), and the Hellenistic (Iron and clay) which was divided against itself because after the death of Alexander it was divided between his top generals.
If this prophecy was true then the apocalyptic Kingdom of God should be here but it was nowhere to be seen. So where was it? Hence the general expectation that the apocalypse was due any day …. but Jesus had a different idea.
(July 9, 2022) Mark 4:21-23, Q (Matthew 5:14-16, Luke 8:16-17), Luke 11:33-36, Thomas 5, Thomas 6, Thomas 33; Validity = 1.02
(July 9, 2022) Mark 4:21-23, Q (Matthew 10:26-27, Luke 12:2-3, Thomas (first part in 5 and second part in 33); Validity = 1.02
People could not see any evidence that God’s energy had arrived. Thus, Jesus had to teach a skeptical audience that divine home-energy would become apparent as more people became aligned with God. Lamp and light have a double meaning in Jewish tradition as evidenced by these sentences in Proverbs and Psalms in which the light of instruction from God’s lamp is the way to life:
(Proverbs 6:23, NIV) For this command is a lamp, this teaching is a light, and correction and instruction are the way to life,
(July 9, 2022) 1 Thessalonians 5:1-5, Mark 3:25-27, Q (Matthew 24:42-44, Luke 12:39-40), John 10:1-5, Thomas 35: Validity = 1.84. [Copied from Mark so not counted: Matthew 12:29, Luke 11:21-22]
God’s energy could not be like another Roman empire based upon coercion and fear. Therefore, it had to grow slowly otherwise humans trapped by their own culture would instinctively react against it in a blind antagonistic fear. God’s way in not the human way. Divine home energy had to come silently yet deliberately like a thief in the night.
The apocalyptic idea entered Jewish culture from the Zoroastrian Persian Achaemenid Empire after the Persians conquered the Babylonian Empire and ended the Jewish exile in 539 BCE. An early manifestation of this new ideology was the book of Daniel with its statue prophecy of verses 2:31-45. This prophecy implied that the apocalyptic Kingdom of God would arrive after the fall of all the Hellenistic empires. The last Hellenistic kingdom to fall was the Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty of Queen Cleopatra when she and Roman General Marc Antony were defeated by the future Roman emperor Octavian Caesar in 30 BCE.
Like many other anti-apocalyptic teachings from Jesus, the original meaning of this was lost on the apocalyptic Christians so they spun it in many different ways trying to make sense of it. For example, Paul thinks this teaching means no one really knows the exact day when the Day of Judgment will occur. Mark interprets this teaching as indicating that Satan is internally divided and thus his power will not last much longer allowing him to be tied up and robbed. The Q source takes a view similar to Paul in that no one knows when the apocalyptic Son of Man will arrive. Only Thomas seems to preserve some sense of the original meaning. Consequently, this teaching was orphaned because it made no sense when everyone thought that Jesus would arrive again in a sudden violent apocalypse bringing in the empire of God.
(July 9, 2022) Mark 13:19-21, Q (Matthew 24:26-27, Luke 17:22-24), Luke 17:20-21, Thomas 3, Thomas 113. Validity = 1.55. [Copied from Mark so not used: Matthew 24:22-25]
(July 9, 2022) Mark 8:11-13, Q (Matthew 12:38-41, Luke 11:29-30), Luke 11:14-16, Validity = 1.09. [Copied from Mark so not used: Matthew 16:1-4]
Many Jews during the time of Jesus expected the arrival of an apocalyptic kingdom any day and many saw signs of the imminent arrival everywhere (Look, Look, Look!). Jesus was telling them no such signs exist. This fascination with the end times has continued to this day among both Christians (who supposedly read their Bible) and non-Christians.
The earliest gospel of Mark properly wraps this teaching within a slow growing dive home-energy context which was the story about "feeding the multitude." Here people Jesus shared their food with strangers in a miraculous act of love.
In contrast, the Q (Matthew, Luke) source places this teaching within an apocalyptic context by stating that the only sign will be the sign of Jonah in a reference to the apocalyptic resurrection of Jesus who like Jonah came back to life after three days (Jonah after three days in the belly of a whale). The author of Matthew liked this explanation so much that he even added it to the end of his Mark copied passage. That this passage was copied from Mark is also indicated by how both passages end with Jesus leaving the crowd.
(July 9, 2022) 2 Corinthians 9:5-7, Mark 4:24-25, Q (Matthew 25:28-29, Luke 19:24-26), Thomas 41: Validity = 1.59. (Copied from Mark: Matthew 13:11-12, Luke 8:18)
The Law of Return, which is also called Law of Attraction is a manifestation of emotional propagation through a group. Non-verbal emotional signals move through a group and eventually circle around back to the source. Thus those who love get more love while those who hate get more hate. This has the evolutionary purpose of group coordination in social mammals. Yawning is a classic example of this sort of emotional propagation as it tends to go around a group telling the group that now is the time to rest.
Emotional propagation even at the subconscious, non-verbal level has been found in human societies (Christakis and Fowler 2009). The best model to describe its properties is that of a bi-directional network. Their assumption is that emotional propagation relies on physical signals. However, Jesus and ancient philosophers assumed that emotions were also propagated via spiritual means.
The Law of Return within a bi-directional network seems to have been first stated by Zoroaster who lived around 850 BCE and whose ideas became part of the official religion of the Persian Achaemenid empire. He stated that his good thoughts increase God’s kingdom (Yasna 31, verse 6). Previous to Zoroaster the ancient idea of a network was unidirectional similar to that of a river delta. Such a network was thought to distribute the divinely generated, life-triggering fertility fluids to the earth. The fertility fluids were manifested directly as rain, sun light, and sun heat.
(July 9, 2022) Mark 11:24, Q (Matthew 7:7-8, Luke 11:9-19), John 14:13-14, John 15:5-8, John 16:22-24, Thomas 92, Thomas 94: Validity = 1.94. (Copied from Mark so not used in validity calculation: Matthew 21:22)
This is a statement of the law of attraction. Put some focused feelings out on the spiritual/emotional network and related things will tend to come back at you.
The emphasis here is on focus. If these feelings are too unfocused the result is a lot of random reactions. An example of an unfocused feeling is asking for happiness. A wise poem which originally appeared anonymously in several newspapers in 1848 (O’Tool 2014) puts it well:
Happiness is like a butterfly.The more you chase it, the more it eludes you.But if you turn your attention to other things,It comes and sits softly on your shoulder(Continue Reading)
To find happiness start small with specific, short term desires and go from there.
This teaching of Jesus is another one which has been orphaned because it did not make sense within an apocalyptic framework. Consequently, each gospel added their own spin. The gospel of Mark associates this with the power of prayer. Q associates it with the process of “seeking.” John associates it with the power of the apocalyptic “Son of Man” from the book of Daniel in the Hebrew Scriptures, while both of Thomas’ entries associate it with the process of “seeking,” just like Q.
(July 9, 2022) Mark 4:24, Matthew 7:1-2, Luke 6:37-38: Validity = 0.79
This is another statement of the law of attraction/return. Open emotional channels are bi-directional as evidenced by emotional propagation studies. The word measure here means the instrument used to make the measurement. In this case it refers to a person's mental framework or paradigm. So, if you are a fearful person you will see a lot of things which scare you. If you assume people are rude in general you will see a lot of rude people. If you hate some leader, institution, or race then you will connect every bad event to them.
(July 9, 2022) 1 Thessalonians 4:9-10, Galatians 5:22-23, 1 Corinthians 14:1, Q (Matthew 5:43-47, Luke 6:27-32): Validity = 2.1
Love is the human connective emotion and the main one for building up the spiritual network (Logos).
Love is a small and easily missed thread in the Hebrew Scriptures among all the legal codes but it is a concept which Jesus put front and center in his teachings. Here are the love passages not mentioned elsewhere in this section:
(Proverbs 3:3-4, NIV) 3 Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. 4 Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man.
A news headline on the famous feud between the Hatfields and McCoys in the Appalachian hillbilly country of Kentucky.
(July 9, 2022) 1 Thessalonians 5:15, Q (Matthew 5:38-42, Luke 6:27-31): Validity = 0.99
Humans have a tendency to escalate slight wrongs into feuds and revenge. This pollutes the spiritual/emotional network
(July 9, 2022) Mark 12:28-31, Matthew 19:17-19, Thomas 25: Validity = 0.92 (Copied from Mark so not used: Matthew 22:36-40, Luke 10:25-27)
This teaching was pulled from the law book of Leviticus in the Hebrew Scriptures. It is not as broad as the first teaching of "Love others" because it is mainly focused on fellow citizens and the nation of Israel. Yet it must have been a popular statement which Jesus likely repeated.
(July 9, 2022) Mark 9:49-50, Q (Matthew 5:13-6, Luke 14:35-35): Validity = 0.79
Once the emotional/spiritual network has been polluted with hate it propagates around and it is hard to eliminate it. It becomes like dirt in salt. If salt gets dirty and loses its saltiness, how can it become pure again?
(July 9, 2022) 1 Corinthians 9:14, Mark 6:7,12-13, Q (Matthew 10:7-8, Luke 9:2, 10:4 -12), Thomas 14: Validity = 1.57 [Copied from Mark: Matthew 10:1, Luke 9:1-Luke 9:3-6)
Josephus, the Jewish historian of the era, confirms that Jesus had the reputation as a miraculous healer:
(Josephus, Antiquities, Book 18, chapter 3, paragraph 3 with possible Christian additions eliminated by Meier, 1991) Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, for he was a doer of wonderful works. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross those that loved him at the first did not forsake him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.(Continue reading)
The Greek words for healing attributed to Jesus and the disciples are iama and therapeuo. Iama means "to heal by making whole" while therapeuo means "to nurse" or "to physically cure." If therapeuo is combined with the psychological healing phrase about driving out demons then sentence has the same healing range as iama.
Unfortunately, Christian Bible translators do not make such a distinction and assign the word “healing” to both iama and therapeuo so the reader has no way of knowing which word is really being used. Here is an example of how Paul uses iama:
(1 Corinthians 12:28, NIV) And God has placed in the church first of all apostles (apostolos), second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of iama, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues.Healing requires a connection with the divine powers but this key concept has been suppressed by a translation error involving the word “gospel.” As an example, consider this sentence from Paul which is one of the sources for this teaching:
(1 Corinthians 9:14, NIV) In the same way, the Lord (Jesus) has commanded that those who preach (kat-aggello) should receive their living from the gospel (eu-aggelion).Here the root word aggello is incorrectly assigned two different words “preach” and “gospel.” Word change-outs like this indicate a biased and sloppy translation. Proper ancient word meanings are found by examining how they are used in all sentences. If the ancients used one word, then so should we. The best English word to use for aggello covering all its uses is “divine contact.” The Greek word aggelion is personified by its variant spelling of angelion which is translated in the Bible as "angel." In this case it could also be translated as divine-connector which is more descriptive of an angel’s function.
The word anggello (angelion) is used with the following two prefixes:
The word aggelion with its /n/ ending is plural so its translation as singular “gospel” is obviously wrong. The word “gospel” in English came from the word "godspel" which first appears in the margins as a translation clarification for native English speakers in an 11th century English Greek New Testament. The copyist wrote his clarification using words from three different languages in the margin:
Euuangelium id ist, bonum nuntium, godspel (from Logemen 1893).When translated properly into English the sentence is:
Euuangelium (Greek word), that is, good divine-connector (Latin words), is a substitute (Old English word).
The word “godspel” in this sentence comes from the Old English word gespelia meaning "substitute.” In time this was shortened to “spelled” which was used when a worker "spelled" another and which in time became the phrase “rest a spell.”
The word “spell” has a complex history having other meanings deriving from other similar sounding source words. One source word comes from Old Norse spjalla via Old English spellian and it means “speech” including a magical speech. Another meaning comes from Old French espelir which means “explaining” things such as describing a word letter by letter. This French meaning replaced the old English meaning around 1400 BCE. (Online Etymological Dictionary).
The Latin word nuntium which the copyist indicated was a substitute word also means “divine connection.” An official of the Catholic church who speaks for the Pope is a "papal nuncio." The Pope was thought of as God’s divine connection on earth and his envoys were therefore also divine connectors.
Other possible meanings for godspel have been suggested by many in the past which involve treating it as a compound word. These are “good spell” and “God spell” but those are not verbs and do not result in a sentence.
(July 9, 2022) Mark 11:22-23, Q (Matthew 17:20, Luke 17:6, Thomas 48, Thomas 106: Validity = 1.25 [Copied from Mark: Matthew 21:21]
Hard to know if this teaching was aimed at Jesus’ disciples or the patients. Placebo healing requires the patients have confidence in the healer at a deep emotional conditioning level. The Greek noun for "confidence" is pistis while its verb is peitho. Christian translations incorrectly translate it into English as the word “faith.” Confidence is not faith because it is not something which can be gained by willful belief. Like all conditioned habits it is only established by repeated successful observations enhanced by reason, peer pressure and statements from “authoritative” sources.
In this teaching Jesus is giving a hyperbolic example about the importance of confidence in healing. Whether Jesus really thought confidence could move mountains or he was using hyperbole to make a point is unknown (but the teaching was remembered!)
(July 9, 2022) Mark 3:28-29, Q (Matthew 12:32, Luke 12:10, Thomas 44: Validity = 1.02 [Copied from Mark Matthew 12:31
In order to use the spiritual powers involved home energy a person must first unblock any emotional/spiritual channels conflicting with those powers. This involves identifying those conflicting emotions such as envy, fear, blame, and anger and then letting them go (releasing) them.
Apparently one of the most common emotional problems addressed by Jesus was people blaming others for their own issues, specifically blaming the Divine powers/spirits for their failures in spiritual energy work. Jesus had to remind them that many possible reasons existed for this failure but that a person should not get angry and start blaming others. They had to release and let go of negative emotions.
The Greek word meaning "release" used in this teaching is aphesis. It is defined in the standard Liddell, Scot, Jones Ancient Greek Lexicon as follows:
aphisis - ἄφεσις, εως, ἡ, (ἀφίημι) letting go, release, b. (of persons) dismissal: (in ritual) releaseYet Christian translators incorrectly translate it the word "forgiven":
"Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven (aphisis)."The word “forgiven” is not used. Instead, Jesus used the more magical “emotional-release.” Forgiving someone first requires blaming someone and Jesus did not promote playing the blame game.
(July 9, 2022) Mark 6:1-6, John 4:43-45, Thomas 31: Validity = 0.85
Jesus and his disciples were healers of body and soul. At the minimum they were counselors with their promotion of divine home energy and placebo effect healers for the body. Lacking modern medicine, this was really some of the best doctoring most ancients had. The placebo effect should not be assumed to be an effect only of the material realm. How its works remains unknown.
Yet this healing did not always work and this evidence was deliberately suppressed by Matthew and Luke because it shows that Jesus was not the all-powerful apocalyptic Messiah they wanted him to be be.
This teaching is good evidence that the healing of Jesus was mostly based upon the placebo effect. The Gospel of Mark clearly states the healing failure was due to a lack of confidence (pistis) on the part of the those being healed. In contrast to Mark, Thomas has Jesus being unwilling, instead of being unable, to do miracles in his hometown.
(Continue reading)
The placebo effect was the most effective healing method the ancients had. The word “placebo” means “I shall please” and it derives from the Latin verb placere meaning “to please.” Due to the effectiveness of placebos all new medical drugs are tested against placebos as a test of material effectiveness. Only if a new drug is statistically better than the placebo effect is it considered to be “effective” in a material sense although the placebo effect is often quite effective in its own right.
A now classic example of the placebo effect is its effect on the irritable bowel syndrome. Drug studies involving the drug Alosetron showed that 51% of patients treated with Alosetron had adequate relief as compared to 38% of patients treated with placebo (Kaptchuk and all 2010). A 38% success rate is still very significant. The drug only added another 13% to patient relief meaning that the placebo effect was the main healing mechanism.
Another study involving Alosetron in the same paper (Kaptchuk and all 2010) shows that placebo pills will even work if a doctor tells a patient to take pills which are labeled “placebo” and told they “are like sugar pills.” This is clear evidence that deep emotional conditioning about the effectiveness of pills is at work here and not the strength of a willful belief.
The final study in the same Alosetron paper (Kaptchuk and all 2010a) lasted three weeks and involved 80 people (70% of them women). It studied the effects of a caring healing environment on irritable bowel symptoms, 59% reported adequate symptom relief after taking placebo pills within a caring environment compared to 35% who did not take any pills yet who experienced the same caring environment. (Kaptchuk and all 2010b). This result of placebo in a caring environment is slightly better than the tests with the approved medicine Alosetron!
Consequently, placebo healing works best in loving, stress reducing environment. This is because those environments tend to inhibit the triggering of emotionally negative responses and this allows expectations to work with maximum effectiveness. Specifically, the type of support required for maximum placebo healing is listed below (Brody & Brody 2000, page 84):
(July 9, 2022) Mark 9:33-37, Mark 10:13-16 (negative version), John 13:20, John 12:44-45, Thomas 46, Thomas 22; Validity = 1.7 (Mark copied in Matthew 10:40-42, Matthew 18:1-5, Luke 9:46-48, Luke 10:16)
This authentic teaching of Jesus comes in independent positive and negative forms with the negative form using the words "not" or "never." The two forms also come with different contextual spins. Yet both forms are associated with the example of a child except in the Gospel of John which does not accept the idea that the developing the sacred space is dependent on human action. In contrast, Thomas only has the children reference because that tradition could not imagine that Jesus would not be welcomed.
(July 9, 2022) Mark 2:21-22, Q (Matthew 6:24, Luke 16:13), Thomas 47; Validity = 1.02
This teaching has thee components which have been clustered together in the sources. These are:
Only Thomas has all three. The other sources have two out of the three. Like many other authentic teachings of Jesus, this teaching became orphaned and could not be understood in the context of apocalyptic Christianity.
The Q source only preserved the teaching about serving two masters because it was spun in such a way so that is could be understood by apocalyptic Christians which is that a person cannot serve both money and God. In contrast, Thomas spins it as a slave who cannot honor each master equally. Because each spin is only attested in one source it is a product of that source's oral tradition and not part of a real Jesus teaching.
(July 9, 2022) Mark 12:38-40, Q (Matthew 23:1-6, Luke 11:42-46), Thomas 39, Thomas 102: Validity = 1.25 (Luke 20:45-47 is copied from Mark)
Jesus warned about the teachers of the law but why he did so is not exactly clear. Most likely he followed the explanation given in Thomas about how they actively opposed the spiritual path based teachings of Jesus in favor of their rule based approach. After Christians became rule based themselves this reasoning no longer made sense so Christians adopted other reasons such as the Pharasees being attention seekers and oppressors of the poor.
This idea of hypocrisy among the Pharisees became a popular one in the New Testament being further developed in Mark and Luke but mostly in Matthew (Mark 7:6, Matthew 6:2, 6:5, 6:16, 15:7, 22:18, 23:13-29, 24:51, Luke 12:56, Luke 13:15). None of these supposed teaching have enough validity to claim that Jesus actually taught them. Also, all these entries except for Matthew chapter 23 have an apocalyptic spin showing that they developed late. Yet even if we did not have this original teaching we could still discern that Jesus said something about the hypocrisy of Pharisees just from these many late developing oral traditions.
(July 9, 2022) Q (Matthew 12:33-37, Luke 6:43-45), Matthew 7:16-20, Thomas 45; Validity = 0.93
If people do not have to follow rules how can one determine a quality person? The answer is that you know people by their fruit which has the following characteristics as described by the Apostle Paul:
(Galatians 5:22 , NIV) But the fruit ( karpos ) of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.Both Matthew sources put an apocalyptic spin to this teaching not not found in the other sources. The Matthew Q source inserts a phrase about the Day of Judgement while Matthew's own oral tradition inserts a phrase about "bad trees" which represent Israel being cut down and thrown into the fire. The judicial murder of Jesus' brother James in 62 C.E. by the Jerusalem temple authorities poisoned this Jerusalem community's relationship with their fellow Jews and forced them into exile. This community's outlook is reflected in Matthew
