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My experience as a Pastor has taught me that most Christians never read their Bibles close enough; or that is the way it seems to me. In so doing many never spot many things that others see when reading the same passages. These "tunnel-visioned" people of faith, when reinforced with false and misleading messages from the pulpit and when confronted with such absurdities from the texts which pass them by in their own reading of these religious texts in the Christian Bible, react quickly to pronounce that such a one who points out these textual lunacies as one who has a "demon" or categorizes such a one as one destined to split Hell wide open. I hope that is not the case with you for what we see next is this article is totally absurd and a mockery of our intelligence let alone any presumed Jewish Messiah of Israel (false or not).
Mat 21:5 Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.
Mat 21:7 And brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him (Jesus) thereon.
Answer for yourself: How many animals did Jesus supposedly ride at one time?
Answer for yourself: Are you aware that the riding of the ass into "Jerusalem," "City of Peace," or the "Holy City," occurs in Egyptian mythology at least two thousand years prior to the Christian era? Did this New Testament Jesus really ride into Jerusalem? Did this New Testament Jesus actually have a "triumphant entry" into Jerusalem like we are led to believe? Or could this account be nothing more than an Astronomical event witnessed yearly in the sky as the Sun moves through the Heavens and the Zodiac, in particular the path of the Sun trough the constellation of Cancer? Well lets see.
Answer for yourself: What is the significance of the "ass" in Egyptian religion?
Now if you have been a follower of Bet Emet Ministries you have see
that down through history has been a
conflict between light and darkness
which was personified in all the world's religions. This eternal struggle
of light vs. darkness was personified by Egypt in the
battle of Horus and Set. Set
we will see was personified in the form of the ass. The ass is the totem
animal of Set, who rides it into the "City of Peace" in triumph.
Answer for yourself: Why is Set, an Egyptian god, ridding into Jerusalem?
It is shocking for the Christian to realize the truths that Archeology is bringing us today. Let us begin with the knowledge that Palestine was Egyptian land and that the Pharaohs has a "summer house" of sorts in Jerusalem. This explains why Moses went there. This explains why Pharaoh/King David got into trouble there with Bathsheba. When you discover that the Patriarchs of the Bible, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Solomon, etc., are actually Pharaohs with their identities changed by Ezra to mask the Egyptian heritage of the returning "black skinned" Jewish captives from Persia (Persia was at war at that time with Egypt, the "kinfolk" of these captives) then this seems more natural. Boy is there a lot to learn; or should I say relearn from the false traditions passed down through history which has blinded us today from "truth".
We have already seen Set as the personified darkness which battles eternally the light of the Sun who is likewise personified by Horus. Commenting on the idea of a person riding two donkeys at one time Gerald Massey, famed Egyptologist, reiterates the astrological meaning of this whole episode:
Neither god nor man can actually ride on the ass and her foal at the same time. Such a proceeding must be figurative; one that could not be humanly fulfilled in fact. We have seen how it was fulfilled in the mythos and rendered in the planisphere. The ass and its colt are described in the Book of Genesis as belonging to the Shiloh [king] who binds them to the vine . . . The vine to which the ass and foal were tethered is portrayed in the decans of the constellation Virgo, the ass and colt being stationed in those of Leo; the two asses in the sign of Cancer (Gerald Massey, The Historical Jesus Or The Mythical Christ, p. 121). Massey tells us that we find similar symbolisms in the constellations and are not historical-literal. We need to keep studying and not stop here.
Answer for yourself: Could this reference to "2 asses" being ridden at once have anything to do with Astronomical phenomena and not a historical or "literal" story?
Interestingly enough, the constellation of Cancer was also associated with the term "the Asses' Crib" or "the Asses' Manger." The reason for this association is that in the constellation of Cancer there are two stars named "the Asses". More on them in a minute. Let us not forget what we are learning on this website; namely, that the "Jesus Story" is the personified story of the path of the Sun through the Zodiac and in keeping with the Sun passing through the constellation Cancer it was said by the Ancient that as the Sun moved through the House of Cancer that it rode these two stars in Cancer which were named "asses." In particular these two stars are Asellus Borealis (Northern Ass) and Asellus Australis (Southern Ass). Most ancient sources agree on these asses being placed in the sky by the Greek god of wine and ecstasy, Dionysus (a type of Greek "Osiris" and a prototype for the New Testament "Jesus Story"). However, there are several different variations as to what these asses were and why Dionysus placed them in the constellation of Cancer. One version is that Dionysus, Hephaestus, and the satyrs (see Sagittarius) were riding into battle against the "giants." They were riding into this battle on the backs of donkeys. The "giants" who could not yet see the oncoming entourage, could hear the braying of the donkeys in the distance. For some odd reason, the sound of the donkeys' braying terrified the "giants" and they fled the scene. I suppose this means that these donkeys were able to make asses out of the "giants." By way of honoring of this achievement, Dionysus arranged for thetwo donkeys to be placed in sky as two stars. What we have here is an Astronomical myth explaining a literal Astronomical phenomena which is observed by the naked eye. This is the "key" to the story about Jesus.
But our focus is not the later Greek retelling of prior Egyptian solar and lunar observations but Egypt itself as the origin for all such later "Bible Stories". Set, Horns's "twin," is sometimes represented as an assheaded god, crucified and wounded in the side.
Answer for yourself: Does this not sound rather similar to Jesus' crucifixion?
Let
us look at Set for just a second. Set (Seth, Setekh, Sut, Sutekh, Suty)
was one of ancient Egypt's
earliest representations of god;
a god from whom came at times chaos, confusion, storms, wind, the desert
and invasion from foreign lands. In the Osiris legends, he was a contender
to the throne of Osiris and rival to Horus, but a companion to the sun god
Ra. Originally worshiped as a representation of god and as an ambivalent
aspect of the Creator, during the Third Intermediate Period the people
vilified him and turned him into a god of evil. Depicted as a man with the
head of a 'Sut animal' (or a 'Typhonian animal' because of the Greek
identification with Typhon...personified
evil), or as a full 'Set animal' the god is
unrecognizable as any one particular animal today. He
was also identified with other animals, such as the donkey (ass),
hippopotamus, and the pig, which were often abhorred by the Egyptians.
These animals were sacred to him. Set
became associated with the donkey sometime in the Middle kingdom
(2040-1991 B.C.) Set
had the head of an unknown animal, which was sometimes an ass.
Set's followers took the form of these animals, as well as crocodiles,
scorpions, turtles and other 'evil' or dangerous creatures. Some fish were
sacred to Set, too - the Nile carp, the Oxyrynchus or the Phagrus fish -
because they were thought to have eaten the phallus of Osiris after Set
chopped him to pieces. The 'Set animal' has long, squared ears and a long,
down-turned snout, a canine-like body with an erect forked tail. He may
have been a composite animal that was part aardvark (the aardvark that the
ancient Egyptians would have seen was the nocturnal Orycteropus
aethiopicus which was between 1.2-1.8 meters long and almost 1 meter tall,
and was generally a reddish color because of the thin hair, allowing the
skin to show through), part canine (perhaps the salawa, a desert dwelling
creature) or even a camel or an okapi. The sign for his name, from the
Middle Kingdom hieratic onwards, tended to replace the sign for 'donkey'
and 'giraffe', so he was possibly linked to the giraffe, as well.
He was also believed to
have white skin and red hair, with the Egyptians comparing his hair to the
pelt of a donkey. The zodiacal
sign of Cancer (which the sun enters on midsummers day) was, at one time
was represented as two donkeys feeding at a manger (the beehive cluster).
Edward Topsell writes of asses: "They
are not coupled in the spring aequinoctium like mares and other beasts,
but in the summer solstice
by reason of their cold natures". The
Astronomical link here is not to be overlooked. It should also be
remembered that Christ, like Dionysus, rode a donkey.
The god with the head of an ass is the image of the Demiurge Ialdabaôth, the “god of the Jews”…It is upon certain monuments of Egypt that we find the most ancient proofs of the attribution of a donkey’s head to a god, who was to become progressively identified with the god of the Jews. This originated from the Asiatic god Sutekh, whom the Egyptians assimilated to one of their greatest gods; Seth, the adversary of Osiris. They represented Seth also…with a human body and an ass’s head. Afterwards…Seth was definitely regarded by the Egyptians…as the father of the legendary heroes Hierosolymus and Judaeus—that is, as an ancestor of the Jews! It was therefore not without precedent that, in the first centuries of our era, the detractors of the Christians and the Jews, and some of our Gnostics also, vulgarized…a tradition that the god of the Jews had an ass’s head: thence also the carving on the Palatine (of the third cent.) which represents a worshipper before a crucified figure with a donkey’s head, with the ironical legend “Alexamenos worships God.”
Barbara Walker elaborates on the twin-god myth:
Thus, Set and Horns were remnants of a primitive sacred-king cult, which the later Jews adopted due to their intimate associations with Egypt. The story of the rival gods appeared in the Bible as Seth's (as Cain supplanting of the sacrificed shepherd Abel, evidently the same "Good Shepherd" as Osiris-Horns [Genesis 4:25]). Their rivalry was resolved in Egypt by having the pharaoh unite both gods in himself...Similarly, the Jewish God uniting both Father and Son was sometimes an ass-headed man crucified on a tree. This was one of the earliest representations of the Messiah's crucifixion. Some said Christ was the same as the Jewish ass-god lao, identified with Set (Barbara Walker, The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, p.68).
Tertullian, an early Church Father, gives us an interesting picture of the Pagan impression of Christianity, as well as an acknowledgment of the Pagan reverence of the cross and cruciform or crucifix. This pious Christian writer must also address the allegation that Christians worship the sun, thus admitting that non-Christians perceived the solar orb to be the object of Christian worship, an assertion, therefore, that has existed essentially from the beginning of the Christian era and that has been made countless times since. Furthermore, Tertullian raises the issue of Christians being accused of worshipping an ass, not as blasphemous a notion as it may appear, since the ass-headed god was popular in Egypt as Set or Seth. Indeed, in the "quarters of the imperial pages" of Rome, there is an image of a crucified ass-headed god.
Onolatry
(ass-worship) was attributed by Roman writers to the Jews and later to the
Christians. The famous caricature of the Palatine represents a Christian
worshiping a crucified figure with the head of an ass.
As the Catholic Encyclopedia points out, in images Christ was not represented as crucified until the 6th-7th centuries ce. The Catholic Encyclopedia further says ("Ecclesiastical Art"): But though with the triumph of Constantine the outline of the "chrisme" (chi-rho), or the Greek monogram of Christ, was universally held in honor and introduced into all Christian monuments and even into the coinage, the crucifix as a Christian emblem was as yet practically unknown.
And Massey further elucidates:
In the pictures of the underworld, the ass-headed god is portrayed as bearer of the sun. . . In the Greek shape of the mythos, Hephaistos ascends to the heavens, or to heaven, at the instigation of Dionysus, and is depicted as returning thither riding on an ass. . . . The wine-god intoxicated him and led him heavenwards; in which condition we have the Hebrew Shiloh, who was to come binding his ass to the vine, with his eyes red with wine; his garments being drenched in the blood of the grape, and he as obviously drunk as Hephaistos...(Gerald Massey, The Historical Jesus Or The Mythical Christ, p. 123-127).
As noted, Sut/Set was also the biblical Seth, son of Adam, or Atum, the primordial being. Like the Egyptian Set, the biblical Seth is the "enemy of the Egyptian gods." He is also the progenitor of the Hebrew people. In fact, Massey relates that the Jews were "Suttites" or Sethians "from the very beginning, and Sut was worshipped by the Christians in Rome" (Ibid.). Set was thus revered in ancient Palestine, which is in fact named after him, "Pales" being his Roman name. Regarding this ass-headed twin, Doresse explains:
It is upon certain monuments of Egypt that we find the most ancient proofs of the attribution of a donkey's head to a god, who was to become progressively identified with the god of the Jews. This originated from the Asiatic god Sutekh, whom the Egyptians assimilated to one of their own greatest gods: Seth, the adversary of Osiris. They represent Seth also, after the period of the Persian invasions, with a human body and an ass's head. Afterwards, this god Seth was definitely regarded by the Egyptians. . . as the father of the legendary heroes Hierosolymus and Judaeus-that is, as the ancestor of the Jews! (Jean Doresse, The Secret Book of the Egyptian Gnostics, p. 42).
So what we see is that this "ass-headed god" is depicted as being crucified and receiving a wound in his side just like Jesus. And mind you this whole idea of "crucifying a god" came originally from Egypt.
First we need to determine the time of the year when Jesus is recorded to have entered into the Holy City.
Answer for yourself: When was it? It was passover and most know it was in the Spring at the Passover season.
Jerusalem is the Summer Solstice, the Apex, the highest point of the Sun's (Father's) travels. Let us remember that the Sun (Father) crossed the vernal equinox (tracking upward across the equator toward Spring). The Gospels instruct us that Jesus (personified as the Sun) enters Jerusalem riding upon two asses. This refers, as alluded to above, to two prominent stars which the Sun rides (crosses) within the constellation of Cancer (at the sign of the summer solstice). The stars are named Asellus Borealis (Northern Ass) and Asellus Australis (Southern Ass). The astronomical analogy states: Jerusalem is the Summer solstice, the Apex, the highest point in the Sun's travels. Ever since the Sun crossed the vernal equinox, its focus has been on Jerusalem allegorically as it rises to its zenith or apex in the sky at the Summer solstice. The Christ entering Jerusalem riding upon two asses refers to two prominent stars which the Sun rides (crosses) within the constellation of Cancer as it travels through the Zodiac when its path is at the sign of the summer solstice.
Answer for yourself: Is that why the writer of the gospel of Matthew has his Jesus riding on TWO asses and not one like most people? Is this story just an Astronomical allegory and not truly historical?
Both Luke (19:29-35) and John (12:12-16) also mentioned that in his entry to Jerusalem, Jesus sat on a young donkey. The sitting on the donkey fulfils an Old Testament prophecy about the manner of how the messiah will enter the holy city:
Zechariah 9:9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass.
One not familiar with the Hebrew language when reading the passage of Zechariah above may be slightly confused by the last two lines; for it seems to imply that the king is riding on two animals: the donkey and its colt. However that is only an example of Hebrew poetical parallelisms that involve the repetition of the same idea in different words-mainly for metrical or rhythmical purposes. This basic fact, however, seems to escape the author of Matthew.
Answer for yourself: Is this total disregard for the Hebrew language and how it works a strong indication that not only did not Matthew, Levi, the tax collector not write this book but one who is totally unfamiliar with the Hebrew language which means we have a Gentile writing this book.
Given below is Matthew's version of the first part of the triumphal entry. Notice he changes the "singular" to the "plural" not understanding the Hebrew language. If this was a Jewish writer then he need to start the first grade over.
Matthew 21:1-7 As they approached Jerusalem...Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, "Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away." This took place to fulfil what was spoken through the prophet: Say to the daughter of Zion, "See your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey." The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them.
The writer of the Gospel of Matthew had obviously read the passage in Zechariah to mean that the messiah will be riding on two donkeys. He had actually made Jesus sit on the two animals at the same time! Note that the last sentence, Jesus sat on them, is not just an oversight on Matthew's part, for he had deliberately altered the whole episode to include two animals (the donkey and its colt). I have underlined the portion where Matthew had changed the singular in Mark to the plural when referring to the animals.
Just for the record let us look at Mark's account:
Mark 11:1 ¶ And when they came nigh to Jerusalem, unto Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount of Olives, he sendeth forth two of his disciples, 2 And saith unto them, Go your way into the village over against you: and as soon as ye be entered into it, ye shall find a colt tied, whereon never man sat; loose him, and bring him. 3 And if any man say unto you, Why do ye this? say ye that the Lord hath need of him; and straightway he will send him hither. Text Comments The triumphal entry. 4 And they went their way, and found the colt tied by the door without in a place where two ways met; and they loose him. 5 And certain of them that stood there said unto them, What do ye, loosing the colt? 6 And they said unto them even as Jesus had commanded: and they let them go. 7 And they brought the colt to Jesus, and cast their garments on him; and he sat upon him.
The writer of the Gospel of Mark has but one ass or donkey where Matthew turns the account into 2 of them.
That Jesus could or would have drawn such attention to himself by ridding or sitting on two animals at the same time is obviously absurd.
Answer for yourself: That being the case, why would Matthew here deliberately alter the Markan account by deliberately replacing a natural account of the triumphal entry for a more absurd one?
The answer to this is simple. Matthew, like most Christians of his era, believed Jesus to be the Christ or the messiah. This belief was fundamental to their outlook. Following this they believed that any Old Testament passages which they interpreted as prophecies of the coming messiah must therefore had to have been fulfilled in Jesus' life. The Old Testament therefore becomes a kind of historical source and "blueprint" for events of the life of Jesus or at lest the pattern for his life as it was later written and appears in 170 A.D. It was simply "assumed" to have taken place. The Jewish Rabbis and sages tell a different story and deny that this New Testament Jesus is their Messiah.
This is all the more ludicrous when you come to learn that the first Gospel quote was in 170 A.D.; indicating that these gospels were not written until late second century. In the case of the triumphal entry, Matthew, a Gentile writer with little or no understanding of the Hebrew language, understands the passage in Zechariah to mean that the messiah will be riding on two donkeys instead of one. He shows by this silly interpretation that he is totally unfamiliar with Hebraic synonymous parallelism let alone Hebrew prophecy and the Hebrew Scriptures. That the writer of the earlier gospel of Mark says otherwise is inconsequential to him. Mark at the moment of Matthew's writing had not yet achieved canonical status. Thus to Matthew, Mark's narrative, of having Jesus just sitting on one animal, must be wrong because the scripture said that there were to be two as he saw it.
This episode will illustrate why a level of skepticism must be applied to any event narrated in the gospels that deliberately and directly fulfilled an Old Testament prophecy. It was more likely that the evangelists, convinced of his belief that Jesus was the messiah, constructed the episodes based solely on the Old Testament prophecies and not on any historical fact. It also shows that the writer of this gospel had either no knowledge that the whole account of a triumphant entry was connected to Astronomical phenomena.
Now again this is but a harmless story, but the real harm has been caused by those who littered the New Testament with such fables and who also added many of their pagan religious doctrines to the life of Jesus in the texts you hold sacred. The atrocity is that these anti-Semites of old ascribed such Solar-myths and fables to Jesus when the truth of the matter is that the Jew, nor his faith of Biblical Judaism, could or would ever accept or believe them. Sadly, as non-Jews, mainly Christians, today we have been led through our ignorance, our apathy to study for ourselves, or possessing too much child-like faith to believe anything anyone in a three-piece suit who stands behind a pulpit says. Faith can be gullible at times and surely without any historical facts. Only look at the above example. You, dear one, most likely have fallen prey to lies and superstitions about Jesus and his Astronomical origins. Without a doubt when a Christian is asked "do you want to know the truth" they unanimously resound with a ear-deafening "yes," however, when presented with hard facts and evidence they recoil in disbelief never investigating for themselves if these things they heard be true often out of fear of "discovering" uncomfortable truths. I used to be such a one until when one day I realized my "Swiss-cheese" theology was full of holes and came to realize that God knew I knew it. I was ashamed and that is good for us if it motivates us to seek the truth behind the "Jesus Story". Surely the God of the Universe, who is perfect beyond all understanding, can do a better job in revealing His truth to His people than what we are being being taught in our churches today and from our forged Bibles. Believe me He has and does but it might not be in the places you were taught to seek as children and young adults who never knew to question anything in your birth faith. There was a time in my life that I didn't know I had believed lies and got a Master's degree in religious error. Hard study was my deliverance and it is yours if you accept the challenge. The choice is yours if you truly want to learn of the ONLY truth God has given man and as traditional Christians and followers of the New Testament "Christ" we don't have it. This knowledge today is free for the asking. You only need to read, study, read more, think, pray, repent, and turn to God in truth as you shun the religious lies and deceptions that you have been given by men who profit from such instead of giving the truth that really sets you free. Bet Emet Ministries is such a deliverance to those who are hungry for the truth behind the "Jesus Story" and want to have a personal Exodus from the idolatry that has captured them in this replacement religion.
Commemorative ceremonies of gods like Dionysus, Attis, Osiris, and even the Phoenician god Baal as recorded on a 4,000 year old tablet now in the British Museum, move in virtual symphony with the Passion story of Jesus in the Gospels. Gospel characters and their features mirror astrological symbols and divine pantheons of contemporary cultures; the workings of the heavens (astro-theology) and especially solar myths have uncanny parallels in elements of the "Jesus Story". And so on. One of the things which struck me was when the full impact of seeing the multiple parallels that can be made with features of the Gospel story and its character Jesus of Nazareth really dawned on me and what it meant to the whole of the "Jesus Story". It literally angered me to know that I had been deceived for so long and had supported and propagated such a spreading of lies with my tithe most of my life. It had to stop and it did. I hope you find the courage to act in such defiance of lies and untruth and dedicate your life to hard and productive study to find and cherish the higher Divine Truths and Revelations that lie behind the "Jesus Story" which are only learned by recovering the "gnosis" of the original allegorical and metaphorical understanding of the Ancient Mythos of "the Karast/Christ" of Egypt.
It is time we learn and acknowledge the many parallels with solar and astrological observation and mythology, illustrating the deep interdependence and even a form of unity within the various manifestations which the ancients saw in the universe around them. All these interdependent motifs they incorporated into their allegorical myths, into their written scripture which served to create the past they desired for themselves, in support of a present identity and set of religious truths they wanted to live by. Christianity, unfortunately, worked at divorcing itself from all this rich, unifying heritage by creating a "literalization" of these past Mythical and Mystical understandings of God and His Cosmos while at the same time denying and burying the truth of the Mystical and Mythical teaching of God's (the Egyptian Karast) Christ.
What this story shows us is the strong dependence on Egyptian, Sumerian and Canaanite precedents of so many of our "Jesus Stories". Many of these Ancient myths and legends, sayings and teachings ended up in the New Testament, all of which in turn were outgrowths of even more primitive ideas and practices of earlier phases of Near Eastern prehistory and Astronomy. But we miss this because they are presented to us as if "literal" story only when ironically the reverse is the case. Christianity, in its 'orthodox' strain (or "Literalist," to borrow a term from Freke and Gandy's The Jesus Mysteries), struck out on its own with claims of uniqueness, originality and exclusive historicity, breaking the link to that unified allegorical and mythical ground out of which it sprung. Believers, scholars and critics alike are stuck in this Literalist, historicizing view of the Christ faith, and only when the genuine roots of the movement and its formative mythology are brought back into our consciousness can the modern world decide what to do with it and where we will go from here. If only half of these astrological and mythological symbols in the atmosphere of the time which closely conform to Gospel features were in the minds of the Gospel writers when they fashioned their tale about a "historical Christ", there can be no doubt that such writers were well aware that their work had nothing to do with history. It is we today who don't.
