Fanaticism in the First Christians
There are thousands of cults with wacky doctrines. The People’s
The primitive Christian Church was characterised by a gross fanaticism. Fanaticism is related to hysteria and
hysteria is very very contagious among people in a
crowd or those who feel the world is against them – the early Church invited
persecution and ranted about Satan to induce paranoia in its victims.
Rarely did any believer in the early Church ever say that the miracles of
Jesus’ rival gods like Apollonius or Simon Magus were faked but they attributed
them to the Devil. They weren’t
difficult to persuade to believe in miracles (The Problem of Competing
Claims by Richard Carrier on www). Eusebius
believed that the miracles of Apollonius were real but demonic even though the
followers of Apollonius saw nothing evil in them. Even today Christians say that Jesus’
miracles are true for he never used them to attract attention to himself. Then what did he do them for? He could have done them secretly and
discreetly so that nobody would know a miracle had happened. When Jesus did miracles even though he told
the recipients not to tell anyone knowing that they would it is clear he did
want to attract attention.
Members of the Church were asked to become Christians and did and the
apostles, who founded the Church and included Paul, went about preaching even though the risk of attack and inviting
persecution was high enough to make it guaranteed. They were not secretive at least for some of
the time.
Members had to hand over all their possessions to the apostles who
controlled them and gave them out and Acts is keen to stress that they were
distributed fairly. Communism is a mark
of a dangerous and loopy cult. And the
Christian cult wanted anybody who kept anything back dead as is clear from the Ananias and Sapphira
incident. Peter killed them, allegedly
with magic, and this terrified the Church.
Fear is THE most important ingredient of religious exploitation. And then there was the doctrine of
everlasting condemnation to Hades. If
Jesus existed he said a lot about it for he says more about it than Heaven. Fear was used on Simon Magus to make him
regret asking the apostles to sell him the power of the Holy Spirit. Christians say that Simon believed the
apostles would not give him the gift if he merely asked for it and so he
thought a bribe would be in order. No
outsider would join in when the Church all gathered at Solomon’s porch in the
The Christian religion did not originate because of an undeniable
resurrection of Jesus that convinced the people as Christians would have you
believe. Festus who had access to the
records of Pilate his predecessor’s dealings with Jesus and King Agrippa did
not believe Jesus rose were not told to go to the records but were virtually
asked to believe in it because Paul had a vision that could have been brought
on by the sun! Paul said that all the
prophets said that Jesus would rise.
That was untrue and all Jews would have known it. He even singled out Moses – showing that he
was being emphasised – as saying Jesus would rise (Acts 27:23). Agrippa would have known that that was a lie
and Paul knew. Paul had to try his luck
for there was no evidence. It was not
history that produced Christianity. It
was the instilling of fear all the way.
And signs and wonders were a big thing in the Church. Charismatic groups find it easy to do fake
miracles and claim to know things about members nobody told them. It is very powerful to get the people sucked
in deeper.
Paul went about collecting money and arranging weekly collections for the
aid of the Church in
Felix, the Roman Governor, had a lot of meetings with Paul for he wanted
Paul to try and bribe him (Acts 24:26).
Such a bribe would need to be very very
substantial considering Felix would have been very wealthy to start with. The context says that Felix was frightened by
Paul’s teaching. He did not want Paul to
steal the money when he was scared that Paul was more moral than he was. He wanted Paul to give him Paul’s OWN
money. Stealing was bad in his view and
bribery was acceptable. Paul must have
made a lot of money out of gospelling.
Paul had food on a ship and let the crew of two hundred and seventy-six
starve for a fortnight. Finally, he
shared it with them (Acts 27). Paul
blessed bread. There was wheat on the
ship for making it with so Paul had maids and cooks. He must have hired the ship when he was able
to keep the crew from knowing that they did not need to starve for they would
have taken the wheat. This slip by the
writer of Acts betrays just how lucrative religion had been for Paul. It says a lot too about his selfish and
devious nature. A lot of the wheat was
thrown off the ship after to make it lighter.
This was would not have been so serious if Paul had let them eat the
bread for the fortnight. This was the
man who told others to stop worrying about money and take it easy for the end
was near! (1 Corinthians 7). He was a complete and utter fraud and the
apostles were no better when they made him one of their own. Well the New Testament says they did so it is
doing the accusing here for I think Paul caused a split in the early Church and
the apostles hated him
The early Church was based on fanaticism and the apostles who founded it were con-men.
BOOKS CONSULTED
ALLEGED DISCREPANCIES OF THE BIBLE, John W Haley,
BIBLICAL EXEGESIS AND CHURCH DOCTRINE, Raymond E Brown, Paulist Press,
CHRIST AND PROTEST, Harry Tennant, Christadelphian
Publishing Office,
CHRISTIANITY FOR THE TOUGH-MINDED, Editor John Warwick
IN DEFENCE OF THE FAITH, Dave Hunt, Harvest House,
JESUS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY IN THE GOSPELS, Daniel J Grolin, George Ronald, Oxford, 2002
JESUS AND THE FOUR GOSPELS, John Drane, Lion
Books, Herts, 1984
JESUS HYPOTHESES, V Messori,
IT AIN’T NECESSARILY SO,
INVESTIGATING THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLICAL PAST, Matthew Sturgis, Headline Books,
NEW AGE BIBLE VERSIONS, GA Riplinger,
Bible & Literature Foundation,
THE BIBLE, THE BIOGRAPHY, Karen Armstrong, Atlantic Books, London, 2007
THE BIBLE UNEARTHED,
THE CASE FOR CHRIST, Lee Strobel, HarperCollins
and
THE HOLY BIBLE NEW AMERICAN VERSION, Confraternity of Christian Doctrine,
THE JESUS EVENT, Martin R Tripole SJ, Alba House,
THEOLOGICAL DICTIONARY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. Kittel
Gerhard and Friedrich Gerhard, Eerdman’s Publishing Co,
THE PASSOVER PLOT, Hugh Schonfield, Element
Books,
THE UNAUTHORISED VERSION. Robin Lane Fox, Penguin, Middlesex, 1992
THE VIRGINAL CONCEPTION AND BODILY RESURRECTION OF JESUS, Raymond E
Brown, Paulist Press,
THE WWW
www.truthbeknown.com/historicaljc.htm
The “Historical” Jesus, Acharya
S
The “Finding of the Law”
www.infidels.org/library/modern/paul_carlson/nt_contradictions.html
New Testament Contradictions, Paul Carlson
www.mindspring.com/~bab5/BIB/lessons.htm
Something’s Fishy: Deception, Secrecy and the Gospel
www.freethought-web.org/ctrl/archive/billings_bd.html
Biblical Discrepancies
www.askwhy.co.uk/awstruth/ChristianCase.html
The Case for Christianity Examined
www.bowness.demon.co.uk/wilkin6.htm
Final Response by Steven Carr to Dr Wilkinson, Can We Believe in Miracles
in a Scientific Universe?
This points out how the miracles of Simon Magus and Apollonius of Tyana which the Christians took for granted as authentic but
ascribed them to demons and the pagan miracles for which reliable first hand
testimony exists are rejected by Christians who believe in the gospel ones on
less evidence.
www.bowness.demon.co.uk/mirc1.htm
Miracles and the
Book of Mormon by Steven Carr. This
argues that the Christians complain about Joseph Smith having copied and
plagiarised miracle stories in the Bible to fill out the Book of Mormon while
the gospellers did the same and stole Old Testament miracle stories and applied
them to Jesus. For example the story of
Jesus raising the daughter of Jairus is really just
the story of Elisha raising a widow’s son to life
from the Second Book of Kings. Even a
lot of the wording is a perfect match with the Greek version of the Old
Testament story. Carr notes how
Christians reject many pagan miracle stories as frauds while accepting the
miracles of Jesus on as little or even less evidence.
http://members.aol.com/ckbloomfld/bepart31.html
Biblical Errancy, January 1987, by Dennis
McKinsey
www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/indef/4c.html
The Problem of Competing Claims by Richard Carrier
Wednesday, 16
January 2008