Text by Bob Shell, Copyright 2024
.
Oklahoma, You’re Not Ok
.
I just learned that the government of Oklahoma has mandated the teaching of the Bible in public schools.
My first question: Which Bible? There are many different translations, some of which differ substantially from others. It is well known among biblical scholars that the King James Version (KJV) contains many mistakes and mistranslations. Just one example, Jesus (Yeshua) was said to have stated that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.
Actually, the word mistranslated as camel really means a hawser, a thick rope. The correct translation makes a lot more sense.
In 324 AD, the counsel of Nicea was held by church elders to determine which of the many gospels were to be included in the official New Testament. Many books that were just as valid as those chosen were excluded, books such as The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Mary, The Gospel of Judas, and many others were excluded for purely political reasons having nothing to do with religion.
The Jesus who appears in The Gospel of Thomas speaks not of sin and salvation, but of illusion and enlightenment. Instead of coming to save us from sin, he comes as a guide who opens access to spiritual understanding. Once the disciple attains enlightenment, Jesus no longer serves as a spiritual master; the two have become equal — even identical.
“Jesus said, ‘I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become drunk from the bubbling spring which I have measured out … He who will drink from my mouth will become as I am: I myself shall become he, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him.'” — The Gospel of Thomas.
He is practically Buddhist in his philosophy. Of course, the teachings of the Buddha had reached the community of Hellenized Jews living in Palestine where Jesus lived long before Jesus, and he seems to have been exposed to Eastern thought early in his life.
I have used the name ‘Jesus’ here for convenience, although his actual Aramaic name was Yeshua. Elsewhere in the Bible that name is translated as Joshua. Jesus is what the Romans called him, because their alphabet had no Y letter and replaced it with J, and in Latin most proper names end in us. So Yeshua was transliterated into Jesus.
Jesus was also familiar with the Cabalah. The prayer usually translated as “For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever, amen,” is actually the Cabalistic Cross: “Ateh Malkuth, veh Geburah,veh Gedula, le olam, amen,” in Aramaic. It refers to the sephira on the Cabalistic Tree of Life. A better translation is: “Unto you, the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, unto the Aeons, it is finished.”
It is well-known that the supposed last words of Jesus on the cross: “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabach thenai,” are not Aramaic or Hebrew, or even Latin or Greek. Colonel James Churchward, an expert on the Mayan language, said they were Mayan. They mean, “I am fading, I am fading, darkness covers my face.”
For what it’s worth, the Mormons have always believed that Jesus voyaged to the New World and preached to the native population. Perhaps that’s true. Many people were crossing the Atlantic Ocean in those times.
We know as well that many biblical tales are simply retelling of much older stories from the Sumerians, such as the story of Noah’s flood. That was borrowed completely from The Epic of Gilgamesh, written centuries earlier.
The dying and resurrected god is a common thread in many mythologies. Osiris of Egypt is one example.
The Bible, Old Testament and New, is, quite simply, a collection of myths mixed with a bit of history, many of its stories regurgitated from older civilizations. Anyone believing otherwise is a fool. The texts contradict themselves over and over, although less so in the Old Testament, some of which appears to be accurate history.
But a far more important question than which Bible is whether other sacred books like the Quran, Torah, Hindu scriptures, Buddhist scriptures, Jain scriptures, Norse Eddas, etc., etc. will also be taught in Oklahoma schools and given the equal time and credence they deserve.
I believe it would be appropriate to teach the Bible in public schools in the context of a course in comparative religions or one in comparative mythology. But teaching it as fact is criminal.
Biblical literalists simply do not understand what they are talking about. It can’t all be true.
Legitimate biblical scholars have concluded that Mark is the oldest gospel, written around 60 – 80 AD, and that the other three synoptic gospels were based on it and a lost scripture they’ve called Q. That’s from the German word Quelle, which means ‘Source.’ Why German? Because the scholars who did the research are German. Much important biblical scholarship has only been published in German.
I went into all of this and much more in my 2019 book COSMIC DANCE.
The founders of the United States recognized the dangers of an establishment religion like those they’d seen back in England and Europe. They wisely incorporated separation of church and state in our constitution. Oklahoma would seek to overturn that important principle of our country.
I am reasonably certain that courts will rule that Oklahoma’s idea is unconstitutional, but with the current Supreme Court nothing is certain.