Ancient World Review

The Christian War Against Paganism - Part One

The West has been Christian for so long that we've forgotten that Christianity is a fundamentally alien religion, a Near Eastern mystery cult that was imposed on the pagans of Europe through a long, violent process of political repression, mass conversion and what can only be described as a war of cultural genocide.

This war--a fanatical attack on classical polytheism--went on for centuries and transformed the Western mind through a long process of attrition as generation after generation of former pagans grew up under the sign of the cross. The barbarians became Christians, the past was forgotten and Christian morals and mythology spread through the culture to such an extent that a majority of Americans still identify themselves as Catholic or Protestant. The church as it exists today is just a pale reflection of the vigorous, militant religion that existed centuries ago, but where did that religion come from and how was it imposed on the West?

The Christian War Against Paganism - Part Two

As the classical world collapsed, Christianity followed the armies everywhere and the church became a secular power in its own right. Emperors and barbarians alike converted to Christianity for political reasons since the majority of the subject populations in their new territorities were Christians of one type or another (there were dozens of different sects within Christianity, later to be called heresies and violently suppressed). These secular rulers got baptized, then went on with their raping, pillaging and plundering with the full blessings of the church. There was no contradiction in this, however. The primitive Christianity of small, scattered congregations living a communal existence of peaceful brotherhood had turned into a wealthy, bloodthirsty monster.

"Face of Jesus" Discovered In "Ancient Books!"

Here's a piece of truly brainless journalistic BS for you. Following up on a recent story about a collection of (supposed) early Christian books which may or may not have been found in a Jordan cave several years ago (more on this possible scam here), the Daily Mail is now speculating that a picture in one of those books may show the actual face of Jesus!!!  Isn't that amazing!!!!

"The image is eerily familiar: a bearded young man with flowing curly hair. After lying for nearly 2,000 years hidden in a cave in the Holy Land, the fine detail is difficult to determine. But in a certain light it is not difficult to interpret the marks around the figure’s brow as a crown of thorns." (Source)

"In a certain light." Right, right, right. The Daily Mail seems to go in for this kind of thing. For instance, here's a story they released describing how the face of Jesus was discovered in Google Earth "as seen from the heavens." But my favorite is this one about how the face of Jesus was seen in somebody's baby scan. The happy couple apparently named their kid Joshua as a result. I'll give you odds he turns out to be a serial killer.

Early Christian Books Discovered In Jordan Cave?

A collection of miniature lead books are being described as the biggest recent discovery in Christian history--if they're for real--but the story of how they were discovered is kind of murky and it's hard to tell if this is an authentic find or just another scam.

"This ancient collection of 70 tiny books, their lead pages bound with wire, could unlock some of the secrets of the earliest days of Christianity," according to the Daily Mail. "Academics are divided as to their authenticity but say that if verified, they could prove as pivotal as the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947."

The Sacred Mushroom And The Cross

Nice promotional video by Gnostic Media for the 40th anniversary edition of John Allegro's The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, which argues that Christianity has its roots in a very ancient Near Eastern fertility cult which worshipped the hallucinogenic amanita muscaria mushroom. (See the article Jesus Cult Conspiracy Theories on this site for an overview of alternate theories about the origins of Christianity, including a brief review of the book). Allegro is a little hard to understand in this video, but he says, among other things, that Jesus, if he existed, had nothing to do with the Christos cult, which had been around for a very long time and had been forced to go underground, eventually finding its subterranean expression in the Christian religion. Allegro's theory is controversial, to say the least, but you have to wonder what all those mushrooms are doing in Christian art.

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Pope Says Shroud Of Turin Authentic

"Dismissing skeptics on Sunday when he visited the Shroud of Turin, Pope Benedict XVI said the burial cloth was none other than the same robe that once 'wrapped the remains' of Jesus Christ. ("Pope Benedict Says Shroud of Turn Authentic Burial Robe of Jesus," Christian Science Monitor)

Now, the Shroud of Turin is a priceless Catholic relic, so it's not very surprising that the Pope says it's for real, but I'd really like to know how he came to this conclusion. Maybe he explains his reasoning in the story--I was too lazy to read the whole thing--but I seriously doubt it. After all, what could he possibly say?

No one knows what Jesus looked like--assuming he actually existed--so how can anyone say that the image on the Shroud is actually Jesus? Does the Pope have a photograph of Jesus stashed in the Vatican archives? Does he have a description written by a contemporary? This isn't a matter of faith, but of evidence. If you believe that Jesus was the Son of God, does that mean you automatically know what Jesus looked like?

Now, I don't want to belabor this point (OK, yes I do), but let's say that someone shows you a photograph of a historical figure like William Quantrill. He's long dead, so you never saw him in the flesh, so how do you know the photograph is actually Quantrill and not some Missouri farmer or even a Hollywood actor dressed up like Quantrill? If you can't authenticate the photograph in some way, you don't.

Authenticating photographs is an issue that concerns everyone from historians to baseball card collectors. There are scientific tests to determine the age of materials. Some photographs are documented. Some can be compared to other existing photographs known to be authentic. And so on.

Radiocarbon tests on the Shroud have been called into question for various technical reasons, but they seem to date the fabric to sometime during the 14th Century, suggesting that the Shroud is just another Medieval forgery. As for supporting documentation and the like, it doesn't exist unless the Vatican's hiding something, which I doubt. If they had legitimate supporting evidence, they would have released it long ago, so the whole issue boils down to this:

Even if the Shroud of Turin isn't some kind of forgery and even if it can be dated to the right historical period, there is NO way to know if it shows the face of Jesus. For all we know, the face on the Shroud could have belonged to a common criminal, some lowlife thief and murderer who was executed for his crimes or died from natural causes. What a laugh it would be if that's what actually happened.

Find Casts Further Doubt On Shroud Of Turin

A burial shroud discovered in "a first century [Jerusalem] cemetery filled with priestly and aristocratic burials" provides further evidence that the Shroud of Turin "did not wrap the body of Christ," according to National Geographic News.

This new shroud, "radiocarbon-dated to between A.D. 1 and 50," is apparently the first burial shroud ever discovered from this period and location, and the bones it contained show evidence that the dead man wrapped in the shroud probably had leprosy--"the earliest known case of the disease." And the weave of the shroud doesn't match that of the Shroud of Turin, which was apparently manufactured at a later date.

Knights Templar Hid The Shroud Of Turin

"Medieval knights hid and secretly venerated The Holy Shroud of Turin for more than 100 years after the Crusades, the Vatican said yesterday in an announcement that appeared to solve the mystery of the relic’s missing years." Source: Times Online.

According to the Vatican, the Knights Templar took care of the Shroud, which supposedly shows the body of Jesus, during the years between the sack of Constantinople in 1204 (during the Fourth Crusade) and the middle of the fourteenth century. Until this announcement, no one knew what had happened to the Shroud during all those years and there was some suspicion that it had fallen into the hands of the heretical Cathars. The Templars couldn't have known about the image of Jesus, however, because it wasn't discovered until centuries later.

"The Shroud, which is kept in the royal chapel of Turin Cathedral, has long been revered as the shroud in which Jesus was buried, although the image only appeared clearly in 1898 when a photographer developed a negative."

Radiocarbon dating in 1988 revealed that the Shroud was a Medieval forgery, but those results have been called into question, apparently because the tests used a section of the Shroud which had been repaired in the Middle Ages. In any case, I have a question. If no one noticed the figure of Jesus on the Shroud until 1898, how did they know it was Jesus? It's not like we have any photographs of him taken when he was supposedly alive.

Movie Review: Kingdom of Heaven

I've got mixed feelings about Ridley Scott's Medieval epic Kingdom of Heaven. On the one hand, it's a great movie and I've probably watched it half a dozen times so far. On the other hand, it seems like just another Hollywood propaganda film loaded with the same old "progressive" drivel we've been hearing for decades now. In this case, the message is pretty simple: organized religion is bad; multiculturalism is good. Luckily, the movie's good enough to make it worth watching despite the propaganda.

Briefly, Kingdom of Heaven tells the story of Balian, a blacksmith in France who joins his crusader father in the Holy Land, seeking forgiveness for murdering a priest and redemption for his wife who committed suicide. Knighted by his dying father, Balian enters the service of Baldwin, the leper king of Jerusalem, and ends up defending the city from a siege by the Muslims under Saladin after Baldwin dies and the Templars start a war under the new king, the evil Guy of Lusignan.

The Real Message In The Bible Code

The Bible contains hidden messages which predict the future, according to The Bible Code by Michael Drosnin. These messages can be deciphered by computer--and only by computer, apparently--and they predict everything from World War II and Hiroshima to the moon landing, Kennedy assassinations and the Oklahoma City bombing, not to mention the Apocalypse, which as usual is just around the corner. In other words, the Bible code was created a thousand years before it could be read and most of its predictions have (conveniently) already taken place, but it still leaves a lot of room for End Times paranoia.