ESSENES IN CYBERSPACE
The Great Purge


Why is it that very little or nothing is known about the ESSENES?

Introduction

Some people ask if the ESSENES were really the keepers of the light of truth who walks the earth to spread the teaching of the brotherhood of all, how is it that they were not known or even mention by the bible?

The discovery of what is known as the Dead Sea Scrools by the Bedouins early in the spring of 1947 led to discovery of a group of people who make the caves where the scrolls where discovered a part of their community.

THe writings of Philo (who lived between 20B.C. and 60 A.D.) Pliny (who lived from about 23 A.D. to 79 A.D.) and Josephus (who was born in Jerusalem about 37 A.D.) began to shed light on who the occupants might have been.

When the Jews and Christians came to hate each other due largely to the charge by the Gentile Christians that the Jews were 'Christ-killers,' both sides turned on the ESSENES and eliminated the Essene religious literature from their canonical scriptures as far as possible or prevented its inclusion. The Jews would not let Enoch and similar apocalyptical books be included in their canon because they were too Christian and had been quoted frequently by Christians in support of their new doctrines, and the Christians in turn rejected Enoch later as too Jewish.

The Christians ban the Essenian literature because their leaders had considerable difficulty promoting acceptance of their doctrines due to the competing body of Essenian literature that by then had been popular for more than 500 years. For instance, in 381 A.D., the Council of Constantinople adopted the idea of Incarnation, Virgin Birth and Resurrection among the principal dogmas but many of them were based on Essenic beliefs and ideas that Jesus and His disciples had taught thus presbyters and bishops had a hard time in promoting the new doctrines.

Thus, the church and its orthodox scholars and clergy prefer to keep the Essenes lost, because their recognition is an extreme danger to the faith.

The orthodox Jewish rabbis and scholars refuse to accept the pre-Christian date of the scrolls, agreed upon by other Jewish and the great majority of Gentile scholars after its substantiation by all scientific tests - archaeological, paleographic, numismatic, and carbon-14 radiation because to them the Masoreitic text of the Torah is inviolable. To ask them to doubt the Masoretic text and to accept corrections from older manuscripts that agree with the Septuagint, according to Francis Potter, is to invite scorn.

He said that:"They consider the Alexandrian Septuagint text a blasphemous perversion of the Word of God, full of Christian interpolations, ignorant if not malicious."

But the eight Enochian manuscripts recovered from Qumram were in Aramaic, and dating before the time of Jesus, so were the manuscripts of the books expunged by the early theologian from the canon to prevent the tracing of Christian dictrines to the Essenes and the Essenic traditions in the last centure the era before Jesus.

The manipulation of New Testament writings to hide their derivation from sources outside Christianity had been suspected by scholars before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrools. One of them, Dr. R.H. Charles, canon of Westminster Abbey, brushed aside possible charges of heresy and wrote in 1914 that the last two centuries were the most fruitful in religious life and thought in the history of Israel. Canon Charles was refuting the claim of orthodox scholars and clergy that the last 200 years before the Christian era were "centuries of silence". He believed that they were hiding something. Canon Charles wrote that no New Testament scholar could understand the New testament as the culmination of the past apart from the literature of the last two centuries B.C. nor could the Jew explain how Talmudic Judaism came to possess its higher conceptions of the future life unless he studied this literature as the sequel of the Old Testament.

Forgeries in the Bible

Both Luke and the writer of Matthew knew there was no voice from heaven. They knew Mark was Quoting from Psalm 2:7 "thou art my Son; today I have begotten thee. " It was a favorite quotation in New Testament times and quoted vervatim in Acts 13:33 and Hebrews 1:5 and 5:5. The different reading in our bibles today look harmless but few know that it is the foundation of one of the most vulnerable doctrines of the Christian Chuch-the Holy Spirit. Early Christian theologians tampered with the reading when they were removing evidence of the origens of Christianity and abandoning the Adoptionist theory that God merely adopted Jesus through the visitation of the Holy Spirit at his baptism and embracing the dogma of the Virgin Birth, a more acceptable theory to the Gentiles, who were more familiar with it in other religion as proof of deity. And pushing out the Adoptionist theory, the early Christian theologians established the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity.

The writer of Matthew, writing for the Gentiles in Antioch in the mid-80s A.D., improved on Mark, even Editorialized on it, but he did not question the truth about the voice from heaven at the baptism of Jesus. Luke, a doctor who became a skilled historian, wrote his Gospel and its second part, the Acts of the Apostles, in Caesaria between 83 and 90 A.D.. He could not stand Mark's poor handling of the Greek language, and he recast most of Mark's sentences for better reading. But Luke too, did not question the voice from heaven at the baptism of Jesus.

But the doctrine of the Holy Trinity has no ancient scriptural or traditional authority backing it. The only proof text stating this belief in the union of three persons in one God-Father, Son , and the Holy Ghost- was I John 5:7, For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit and these three are one." But these verse was a forgery. It was recognized as a deliberate interpolation by the English revisers of 1881, by Moffatt, Goodspeed and by the editors of the 1952 Revised Standard Version and they all eliminated it. Despite the discovery of the forgery, the King James and the Rheims (Catholic) still carry the spurious verse. The Confraternity (Episcopal Catholic) version also retains it but has a footnote admitting that the verse, "According to the evidence of the manuscripts and the majority of commentators, 7 should not be included, but the "The Holy See reserves to itself the right to pass finally on the origin of the present reading."

But the Holy See would never cause the abolition of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, no matter how spurious they are. For the abolition of these doctrines would lead to the collapse of others, such as the Divinity of Jesus, on which the Christian faith rests. It would be suicide for the Christian Church.

It was for the establishment of a new faith supported by holy scriptures that the early theologians had to tamper with ancient Hebrew writings. They also expurgated the work of the Church Fathers (the term used for major Christian writers up to about 600A.D.)of traces of the true beginnings of Christianity to make the life and teachings of Jesus the foundation of the new faith. The product of their effort was the New Testament.

In the early ceturies of the Christian era, Jesus was regarded only as a teacher and the Christian movement was known only as the Church of Christ the Lord. When a "scheme of salvation" emerged, roots on the promise of Jesus the teacher to his disciples of a kingdom come. But by the end of the 4th century this kingdom come had not come and this generation of the disciples of Jesus had long since passed away. The scheme of salvation turned to mythology, woven around the personality of Jesus. In A.D. the Council ofNicaea elected Jesus Christ and in A.D. 381 the Council ofConstantinople affirmed his oneness in Being with God. From the mythology rosebody of doctrine with the Incarnation, Virgin Birth, Resurrection.ranssubstantiation among the principal dogmas. All of them appeared in apostolic wriyings , of course but many of them were based on Essenic beliefs and ideas that Jesus and his disciples had adopted.

But the doctrine of the Holy Trinity has no ancient scriptural or traditional authority bvacking it. The only proof text stating this belief in the union of three persons in one God-Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost was I John 5:7, "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit and these three are one." But this verse was a forgery. It was recognized as a deliberate interpolation by the English revisers of 18881, by Moffatt, Goodspeed and by the editors of the 1952 Reviesd Standard Version and they all eliminated it.. Despite the discovery of the forgery, the King james and the Rheims (Catholic) versions stlii carry the doubtful verse. According to the evidence of the many manuscripts and the majority of commentators, 7 should not be included, But "The Holy See reserves to itself the right to pass finally on the origen of the present reading."

As for the rest of the New Testament books, they simply had to be rid of the pesky Enoch, Jude, or whover it was that wrote that epistle between Three John and the Revelation, suffered the most, for quoting the Book of Enoch as revealing the word of God. Only one chapter was left to us after the censors cut out the dispute between Michael the Archaengel and Satan over the body of Moses, an account from the pseudepigraphic book "Assumption of Moses." But the censors left an evidence of their difficulty in exorcising Enoch - verses 14 and 15 "It was of these also that Enoch in the 7th generation from Adam prophesied sayuing, "Behold, the Lord came with his holy myriads, to execute judgements on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness." Which prophet could they have named to replacer Enoch in the time before the Patriarchs?

The censors could not excise the "Holy Spirit of Truth," though it was from the Manyual of Discipline of the Essenes, because the Church had already appropriated it to give a textual foundation to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. They left the Sermon of the Mount untouched maybe because they could not Quite place the provenance of the verses, for they were not from a single Enochan book but from several, including Jubilees and the Psalms of Solomon, and perhaps even the censors themselves were beguiled by the beauty of the words. Later censors would also leave these beautiful words intact.

The Epistle of Barnabas did not make it to the canon because the writer named Enoch as his source, but the censorsoverlooked the name Hermas in going through the Epistle of Paul to the Romans. It appears at 16:14, a clue to the beloved story of the Sheperd of Hermas, one fourth of which was in Barnabas, and to the identity of the writer of the Barnabas epistle, who the Alexandrian theologian Origen believed was the Hermas Paul mentioned as a member of the church in A.D. 58. The Sheperrd of Hermas was apocalyptic and together with the Barnabas epistle and the Psalms of Solomon, was incuded in one of the most ancient and complete manuscripts of the Bible, the 4th century Codex Sinaiticus.

Jerome completed the Latin Vulgate in 405 A.D. and it became the official Bible of the Christendom for more than a thousand years. By the time he finished it, the Book of Enoch had become lost. But Jerome ant Hilary andAugustine - were poor cwensors and shortsighted. Not only that they come to believe the mythodology they wove around Jesus, they did not foresee the future and modern scholarship.. They did a poor job on First Peter 3:18:20. In KIng James version, it reads:For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: By which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which sometime were disobedient when once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few that is eight souls were saved by water." It is a puzzling section, and it is much clearer in the Revised Standard Version which has Christ "being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison..."

It is the origin of the Nicene Creed phrase "He descended into Hell."

But Francis Potter discovered, "Moffat's translation from the Greek of the 19th verse is, 'It was in the Spirit that Enoch also went and preached to the imprisoned spirits...' Goodspeed translation, also from the original Greek, is alive in the spirit. In it Enoch went and preached even to those spirits who were in prison."

Enoch is the preacher mentioned in the original Greek, but the Reading was doctored to make the preacher Jesus, probably by Augustine, who quarreled with Tertulian of Carthage, the first Christian theologian to write in Latin; over the Enochian Inspiration for First Peter 3:18-20. Enoch in the book ascribed to him by the Essenes, preached to the disobedient spirits.The spirits who were in prison "in the days of Noah" were "the fallen angels," the sons of God" who came down from heaven and mated with the fair "daughters of men." For that sin God imprisoned them, condemning them to hang in chains till Judgement Day. This was a favorite legend among the Essenes, repeated and referred to many times in the Onochian literature and their books, Jubilee, The New Testament of Reuben, and the Testament of Naphtali. It was also a beloved legend among the early Christians and its inspirations for First Peter 3:18-20 was affirmed by Tertulian but denied by Augustine. Apparently Augustine won for we have now Jesus as the preacher to the imprisoned spirits.

The censors also savaged Luke's Acts of the Apostles but they overlooked a clue to the Essenic character of the earliest Christian churches. Unlike the Christian churches of the third and fourth centuries the earliest Christian churches functioned like branches of the Community of the New Covenant in Qumram. Luke, who went with Paul on all his journeys through Asia and Europe, had observed the Christians following Essenic practices and recorded these practices in the Acts, actually a history of the earliest Chistian churches. The censors deleted and changed the references in the Essenes in the Acts, but forgetting in their incompetence, the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch in Chapter 8. On his way to Gaza Philip fell in with the eunuch and preached Jesus as they went. When they came to a "certain water" perhaps a pool, the eunuch asked Philip to baptize him. Philip agreed and baptized the eunuch. Baptizing conveerts anywhere water was found an Essenian practice

Later theologians tinkered with the story of Philip and the eunuch to insert a formula for baptism that would be used by the churches over the next century-confession of faith in Jesus. They inserted verse 37 into the conversation between Philip and the eunuch in Chapter. And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart thou mayest. And he answered and said , I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God," The eunuch could not have made such a statement during the Apostolic Age-Jesus did not become known as the Christ until 325 A.D.. Besides Jesus never claimed to be the "Son of God"; he always referred to himself as the "Son of Man, in true Essenic humanitarian tradition.

THe forgery appears in the King James Version, but the editors of the American Standard Revised, and the new Revised Standard Version omitted it. They recognized the verse as a forgery because it did not appear in the four oldest Greek manuscripts, the fourth century Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, and the fifth century Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Ephraemi. The forged verse also appears in the 1582 Rheims Version, the official Roman Catholic New Testament comparable to the King James Version of the Protestants. But the latest Catholic New Testament, the 1941 Confraternity Revision of the 1970 Chalooner-Rheims Version, puts the forged verse in brackets, with the footnote, omitted in the best Greek and Vulgate manuscripts and by other authorities.

Since the translations of the Dead Sea Scrolls, scholars have been working quietly on Acts, restoring omissions and deleting later theologians insertions.

Modern scholars also detected a change in style and nuances in Mark's Gospel after 18:8, making most modern New Testament scholars agree that what follows after verse 8 is improved by later hand. Verses 1 to have Mary Magdalene, Mary the Mother of James and Salome finding the tomb of Jesus empty and being told by a young man dressed in white that Jesus has risen and to tell his disciples that he will go before them to Galilee. Frightened, the women fled and told no one of what they had seen and heard.

It was the resurrection but the women did not see the risen Jesus. But there must be text proof of the Risen Christ! The later writer added verses 9 -20 to establish proof of the Resurrection appearances and the ascencion of Jesus, Luke and the writer of Matthew had been had. The addition of the Markan endingvalidated the Resurrection appearances and the ascension in their own Gospel.

And who was it that gave the gospel according to John an epilogue (Chapter 1)? the original text clearly ends at 20:31, but the style of the epilogue betrays it as the work of a later hand. The later writer gave himself away in the second part of verse 24: "and we know that his testimony is true." "His" is the author, believed to be John the Disciple, but who is "we"?

John's nonsypnoptic Gospel; written in Ephesus at the beginning of the second century proved to be the toughest for the censors to purge of Essenisms, for John himself, like Jesus may have been an Essene, or strongly influenced by the Essenic teachings of Jesus. His Gospel particularly the beautiful first chapter, is replete with Essenian phrases and symbols, and expunging them all from the text was simply impossible for the censors. And so in John we have such magnificient Essenic phrases as "In him was life, and the life was the light of men" and "the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." But the censors' work is evident in the long speeches of Jesus, which could only have come from long theological development rather than from the historical Jesus. In the high priestly prayer (Chapter 17), for example, Jesus says at verse 3, "And this is eternal life, that they may know thee; the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent." Jesus could not have talked about himself in the third person and in theological terms that did not emerge until the latter part of the first century.

In Luke 3:21-22,a rewriting of Mark 1:10-11, it is stated: Now then when all the people were baptized, when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form, as a dove, and a voice came from heaven, "thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased." Matthew also cites the same event in the Jordan River at 3:16-17 in better way than Mark's. Both Luke and the writer of Matthew, working 15 to 20 years later than Mark, rewrote and used much of the Markan narrative, although they knew that their predecessor, like themselves was not a witness to the events in the life of Jesus. The writer of Mark, said to be John Mark, the young interpreter of Peter, worked in the 60s A.D., more than 30 years after the crucifixion. He was only preserving the teachings of Peter.

The writer of Matthew, writing for the Gentiles in Antioch in the mid-80s A.D., improved on Mark, even Editorialized on it, but he did not question the truth about the voice from heaven at the baptism of Jesus. Luke, a doctor who became a skilled historian, wrote his Gospel and its second part, the Acts of the Apostles, in Caesaria between 83 and 90 A.D.. He could not stand Mark's poor handling of the Greek language, and he recast most of Mark's sentences for better reading. But Luke too, did not question the voice from heaven at the baptism of Jesus.

Suppression of Essenes Literature

The Christians ban the Essenian literature because their leaders had considerable difficulty promoting acceptance of their doctrines due to the competing body of Essenian literature that by then had been popular for more than 500 years. For instance, in 381 A.D., the Council of Constantinople adopted the idea of Incarnation, Virgin Birth and Resurrection among the principal dogmas but many of them were based on Essenic beliefs and ideas that Jesus and His disciples had taught thus presbyters and bishops had a hard time in promoting the new doctrines.

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Background of Mother and Child Veneration

Genesis Chapter 6 through 9 in the Bible, described how God destroyed the earth with a great flood because the people became so evil. God found only one man that He could trust, and that is Noah.

God made Noah build an ark so when the flood hit, Noah, his wife, his three sons:Ham, Shem, Japheth and their wives , and their animals were safely inside. They were the only survivors

After the flood, Noah died and the people started spreading across the earth. Shem, one of Noah's sons stood for God.Shem lived through the flood, he saw God's awful judgement and would not put up with sin.

Time continued to pass until Cush came along ... He was Noah's grandson. Cush married Semiramis, the most beautiful woman on earth who became the queen of Babylon. No woman was more evil than her. (See "The Two Babylons" by Alexander Hislop published by LoizeauxBrothers, New Jesey).

Cush and Semiramis had a son whom they named Nimrod. He was just as evil as his mother.When he grew up he married his mother. Satan used Nimrod and his mother to set up his occult religion called "Baal Worship"(See Judges 2:13).This Satanic religion began in secret with the most terrible of occult practices, the sacrificing of babies (See II Chronicles 33:6).

When Shem, who was Nimrod's great uncle discovered what Nimrod was doing, he illed Nimrod for his crimes against God.

Shem cut Nimrod's body into piesces and sent them to different cities as a warning to others involved with the occult.

But Semiramis was crafty. She brainwash the people into believing Nimrod was a God they should love, instead of remembering him as a monster.

Satan worship went underground. But there was aprice to pay in joining it. They had to tell her priests everything they ever did wrong. It was called the confessional. After telling all, the people were scared to death that the priest might expose them. This way, Semiramis controlled them with an iron fist.

Semiramis gave the word that Nimrod was now a God, the Sun God, "Baal". The people believed it! Then she became "The Queen of Heaven." She won the hearts of the people.

Soon, statues appeared of Semiramis holding her husband/son Nimrod... The Sun God. She was successful, Nimrod was not only venerated but Baal Worship spread (See I Kings Chapter 18).

In Egypt, Semiramis was called Isis, the Queen of Heaven. Her husband /son Osiris, most frequently called Horus, was the Sun God. (See Bunsen's "Egypt" printed in London 1848 Vol 1 p. 438).

The religion spread worldwide. In China, she was called Shing Moo (Holy Mother of China), in Ancient Phoenicia, she was called Ashtoreth, In Asia Minor, she was known as Diana and in Rome, she was known as Venus.

Adoption of Mother and Child Veneration by the Church

When persecutions of the Christine had stopped, the Roman empire was ready to fall apart. But the Caesars were intelligent enough to figure that if they lost their armies, they could continue to rule the people by becoming religious leaders.

Constantine was the son of a Roman Emperor. After his father died, he felt he was the rightful heir to the throne ...so he took his army and marched against Rome.Constantine was a smart politician. He figure out a plan how he could gain the support of both the Christians and the pagans (the worshippers of Baal). Constantine worshipped Sol (theSun God and he already had the backing of the pagans (fr.Constantine, by Ramsay MacMullen p. 112)

At the stone Milvian Bridge at the Tiber river on October 28th, 312 A.D., his enemy, maxentius, with his army stood between Constantine and the Throne.

Constantine and his troops were vastly outnumbered... and then it happened (so says tradition)Tradition tells us Constantine and his troops saw the sign of the cross in the sky. If the God of Christians would help him win this important battle. Constantine would become a Christian.

Constantine carefully described the cross and ordered it placed on the shields of his soldiers...Constantine won the battle!.. He marched into Rome and shook the world by saying "I am a Christian!" (See "Constantine" by Ramsay Mac Mullen, published by the Dial Press. Crosscurrents in World History Series, New York, 1969, page 72)

His troops conquered the city and Constantine took over the government in 312 A.D.. Then in 313 A.D. Constantine issued a decree of tolerance (Edict of Milan, See Religious Encyclopedia p. 477 Schaff-Herzog, published by Baker Book House 1967 ) giving total religious freedom... at last the heat was off the followers of Christ.



Constantine sprinkled his troops in baptism. In 325 he set up the "Council of Nicaea" and presided as "Summus Pontifex"( the official title of a pope). Thus historically speaking Constantine was the first pope but as time went on, the Christians got almost everyone to believe that it was really the Apostle Peter who was the first pope. Peter could never been a pope. Mark 1:30 in the bible tells us Peter was married. He never went in Rome. The apostle Paul told us in Galatians 2:8 that God chose Peter to go to circumcised (the Jews) and Paul to the Gentiles (anyone not a Jew)Paul wrote letters to the Christines in Rome and Never once *said anything about Peter being there. (See Paul's salutations in Romans chapter 16.

In the city of Antioch, in Syria, where they were first called Christians, copies of the scriptures were being made. From Antioch, the Christians sent missionaries down into Egypt to teach the people living in Alexandria, the second largest city in the world at that time.The city of Alexandria was the devils' territory. Egypt, the land of Isis, the Queen of Heaven and Hours, the Sun God at that time was the seat of Baal worship (See Acts 11:26, Acts 13:1-4)

Alexandria was also the home of some of the worlds greatest minds. These men were very proud of their great wisdom. They called themselves "Gnostics"( Newman, Church History, Vol 1) These brains in Alexandria formed a school of religion and philosophy( See Colosians 2:8). It became center of Christian Learning and Culture. However these men did'nt believe the bible was the word of God. When they got hold of bible manuscripts they started making changes.

A great student, Origen (184 A.D. - 254 A.D.) greatly altered the scriptures when he became head of this school. He did not believed that Jesus(Yauhusua) is a God so he deleted this verse out of the scriptures.

Constantine (who secretly worshipped the Sun God (see "Constantine," published by Ramsay Mac Mullen p. 112) ordered a man named Eusebios, the bishop of Caesarea to make him 50 bibles. Eusebios was not a real Christine so he used the corrupted manuscripts of Egypt to make his bibles for the Roman Catholic Church.

The Roman Catholic Church slowly grew in power. Out of the 50 bibles made up by Eusebios came the latin Vulgate. The Latin Vulgate bible written by Jerome, became the official bible for the Roman Catholiccs...All others were outlawed. Some of the Christian beleivers (called Waldesians) had copies of the manuscripts from Antiochs... they had to hide up in the Alps for protection. Rome would not put up with competition so when they caught one of them, they burned him to death.

The Christines who died in the arenas of Rome or lived underground in the catacombs would have been shocked to see what had become the faith.

Great changes were taking place, the pagans were allowed to bring their statues and idols of Semiramis (The Queen of Heaven) and Nimrod (Baal, the Sun God) into the Church. The names were changed to Virgin mary, "Queen of Heaven" and Little Jesus. Baal worship started by Semiramis and Nimrod, had successfully moved into the Roman catholic Institution.

By 1950 the Roman catholic church had raised the Virgin Mary to a Goddess with the power to be co-savior(The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception which claimed Mary was born without original sin 1854) and co-redeemer with Christ(The Dogma of the assumption of mary into Heaven which means she never died, 1950) exactly like Semiramis (See "The Two Babylons" by Hislop, published by Loizeaux Bros., Neptune, N.J., Chapter entitled "The Mother of the Child"

Against bible teaching, the Roman Catholic Institution says this about Mary's Sovereignity, "Mary is Queen of Heaven and Earth. as the most perfect queen conceivable, she must reign in full splendor. This she can do only because she i9s whooly in Heaven, body and soul." (See "Mary in Doctrine" by Father Emil Neubert, S.M., S.T.D., Bruce Publishing Co., Milwaukee, WI, 1954 p. 246)

The Bible forbids the worhip of the Queen of Heaven, in the 7th and 44th chapters of Jeremiah.

The Great Campaign
(Eliminating Any Dangers to the Church)

The Confessionals were again set up like they had in Babylon. The priest had the people under their control again. The word of God was kept from the people. The stronger the Popes became, the deeper the world sank into the Dark Ages.

The church also launched an all out war against the soulwinning Waldenses who came down from the Alps claiming that anybody who simply give their hearts and lives to Jesus by faith was assured by the Bible to go in Heaven because Jesus loved them. Other Groups like the Montanists, Bogomiles, Donatists, Anabaptists, Albigenses, etc. also suffered from this campaign of the Catholic Church to anihllate her enemies.

By now, nothing could stand before the powerful popes and the Roman Catholic Institution even Kings bowed before them. Then to strengthen their power over the people, they invented "the Inquistion" (a questioning with torture until the person confesses to something he didn't do).

The inquisition or Holy Office was one of the most horrible engines of destruction of all times. Around 1200 A.D. Pope Innocent III ordered a priest named Dominic in Spain to form a special group called the Dominican monks, the muscle of the inquistion to destroy all heretics - anyone who did not go along with the Pope or the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. Even the Roman catholics were not safe.

Most of the inquisition was based on Greed. The Pope and the King of Spain made a deal. If they saw a wealthy land owner, they would have someone accuse this man of being a heretic. After the landowner was put to death, King Phillip and the Pope would share his lands and wealth. The victim did not have a chance even if he was a Roman Catholic.. Here's how it was done. About midnight, there would be a visit by the Holy Office.. The victim would be accused of heresy. The man and his family would be taken to the place of questioning. It was areign of terror that spread acropss the Roman catholic World. No one was safe. No one was allowed to know who turned him in. Any charge, real or false, like eating meat on Friday was enough to have a man put to death. The victims were tortured until they admitted being a heretic and after confession they were usually burned to death for their crimes. Then, the the Church and the State shared their property.

The Inquisition also spread to Mexico and latin America. When it almost stopped around 1800, the total victims had reached close to 68 million at the hands of the Roman catholic Institution (See "the Other Side of Rome," by John B. Wilder, published by Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI 49506 p. 153).

According to the Council of Trent, when the Pope speaks "Ex-Cathedra," he speaks as the voice of God. Thus, the Pope represented Heaven on Earth and his voice was considered the voice of God. No one questioned his authority.

In the 1500s Pope Leo X needed money to put up a new building (Basilica) so he sent preachers out (One of them was John Tetzel) to sell indulgences. Any Roman catholic who was guilty of sin or crime, even murder, could buy an indulgence, be set free by the courts, be forgiven and guaranteed entrance into Heaven(See the "Reformation" published by Time, Inc. 1966 pp. 38-39).

When Martin Luther, a young Augustinian Monk in Germany found a bible and read these words. "the just shall live by faith" he realized that it was not the Roman Catholic Church or any religion for that matter that would get him into Heaven but the trust in God through Christ.. His anger was aroused when he saw John Tetzel seeling indulgences enough to wrote a list of 95 arguments against indulgences which he then nailed to the Church door in Wittenberg, Germany, on October 31, 1517.

The people that joined Luther were called Protestants because they protested (objected to) Rome.

The Roman Catholic Church was in great trouble in 1534 (See Encyclopedia Americana Vol 17, 1957, p. 673). Pope Paul III ordered a Spaniard named Ignatius de Loyola to set up the Order of the Jesuits. These were the best minds of Rome. Their job was to stop the spread of Protestantism at all costs. Loyola became the founder and the general of the Jesuits.

The Jesuits secretly engineered the Massacre of St. Bartholomew August 24, 1572 With the help of the Roman catholic Troops and the Dominican monks they killed the unarmed French Huguenots, the Bible belivers in Paris without warning. The Blood ran for a week and the Protestant Movement in France was destroyed. In celebration the Pope ordered the Rosary said in every Roman Catholic Church thanking the Virgin Mary for their victory.

Their next target was England. The Roman catholic struggle to win back England had gone on for years . Jesuits were sent undercover to capture key positions and to translate Origens Alexandrian Manuscripts into an English Bible in 1582. They hit England with Jesuit Bibles, but the English people rejected them.

In 1588 Spain sent her mighty Fleet (The Armada) to capture England, but English guns and Storms at sea destroyed them. England was saved from becoming Roman Catholic. In 1603 James became King of England. He wanted a new bible for the English people so he assembled a group of 48 men that were the greatest scholars the world had ever seen.

They rejected both the Old and New Testaments that Origen worked on back in Egypt.

For the Old Testament, they decided to use the same manuscript that the Jews used...which was called the Massoretic Text.

When the King James Bible was prepared, everything was done in the open. After years of work the masterpiece was finished in 1611.

Around 1875 the popular cry in England was to update some of the words of the King james Bible. The ones pushing this were the friends of Englands Roman catholic cardinal Newman (who was educated by Jesuits)

A new committee was formed, but something unusual was happening. Everything was top secret. They worked on the Old and New Testaments for 20 years. They were not updating the King james Bible at all.. They were changing it by using another manuscript. Within the committee were two members. Hort and wescott from the Church of england, who secretly supported the Roman catholic Church. They really put the pressure on the other committee members.

They convinced the committee that the old texts in the Vatican (originated by Origen in Egypt) were more realiable.

They produced a New English Version of the Old Roman catholic Vulgate Bible.

The Dead Sea Scrolls

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrools exposed the machinations done by different groups to alter the scriptures thus, they did all they can to discredit the authenticity of the scrools.

What is now known as the Dead Sea Scrools were accidentally discovered by a band of Bedouins traveling from Transjordan to Palestine on their way to the markets of Betlehem where they sell their merchandise. One of them discovered a well concealed cave when he decided to scan the area for anything of value while the rest were replenishing their supply of water. Inside the cave, the nomads discovered a number of tightly sealed tall jars among the broken jars . Partly decayed cylindrical objects of disagreable odor turned out to be tightly rolled manuscripts were found inside the said jars.

Some of the fragments would not be identified for some time, they belonged to unknown books. But the eight manuscripts from the fourth cave in Qumram would be eventually identified as the "lost" book of Enoch. The fragments were parts of the Book of Jubilees, the Testament of Levi, a manuscript that would later be called the Zadokite Document and other pseudepigraphic books.

The major Qumram scrools would all be translated and given titles based on their contents. Those in the collection of Metropolitan Samuel and Sukenik would be designated as the Commentary on the Book of habakkuk, The Manual of Discipline, the Thanksgiving Pslam and A Genesis of Apocryphon. The other scrool from the collection of Sukenik would become known as The War of the Sons of Light with the Sons of Darkness, an eschatological work that would give clues to the inspiration for the writing of the New Testament Book of Revelation.