The Steele Hypothesis: The Gospel of Moses Became the Gospel of Jesus Christ Written by a Buddhist Monk
The landscape in Palestine in the first century before the Christian era was dotted with cloisters of zealous Jews attempting to perfect Israel for the soon to occur arrival of the Messiah. Among these camps were the Qumran community, the disciples gathered to John the Baptist, and those who followed a fellow named Jacob, who gave us the Book of James in the New Testament. Each of these many encampments formed around its own teacher of righteousness.
Much overlooked in this milieu are the many evangelistic hierophants who also plied the region, each preaching his own version of salvation, be it Gnostic, Egyptian, Greek, Persian or Buddhist. At least one of these missionaries was an Indian Buddhist, perhaps one sent out by the mechanism for world evangelization set up by the Indian Emperor Ashoka, who about 265 BCE "renounced armed conquest and adopted a policy of conquest by dharma" (right life). This Indian missionary spent years traveling from India to Persia and Babylon and on through the Assyrian region down to Palestine and Egypt. He became well versed in the myths and wisdom of the various religions he encountered, and probably learned both Greek and Aramaic. I can only imagine the interesting and enlightening discussions he must have had among his fellow philosophers in their community in Egypt as they investigated the scriptures and the wisdom teachings in the world, and the head-butting he must have endured among the literalist scribes and Pharisees of Judea.
I doubt this Indian, who gave us the book we ascribe to Mark, was a coward, and I am not surprised to find him in Judea and Galilee trying to explain to the Jews what the books of Moses meant. It must have been hard for him to argue against their falsified texts, which deceptively envision a dualistic world in which God is separate and divided from us, and which portray a linear history of God's actions among us. But at least "Mark" found a like-minded Jew in Jacob, or "James," who understood that God is in us. James, as we call Jacob, also butted heads with the Jewish authorities. He riled against their corruption, their hypocrisy, and especially their dualistic world view.
James, you understand, was an anonymous Jew. Although his name might really have been Jacob, he, like so many other of the shepherds who studied the scriptures day and night to feed their flocks the right message of Moses, discovered that "Esau" and "Jacob" in Genesis are OUR outward, physical bodies and inner, spiritual man; i.e., that they are two facets of each human. The shepherds realized that 'Joseph' in 'Egypt' is God's preparation for each individual to find his salvation in this world, and the desire for that salvation is 'Miriam' ('Mary,' the sister of 'Moses' [who is the germ of the Gospel of salvation]), which desire becomes the mother of 'Joshua', God's salvation, that inner man in us who takes us into the Promised Land. One reason they insist that the New Testament was originally penned in Greek is to stop us from studying the Aramaic, which would readily reveal to us that the big 'brother' of Jacob, our inner man, is the 'Milta,' the Manifestation of God. We have the same Father!
Well, the Jews finally had enough of James and dumped him headlong from the stairs of the Temple, killing him. How was an Indian Buddhist foreigner like Mark going to reach a people like this with dharma? Mark invented "the Gospel of Jesus Christ," which is the message of Moses and the prophets. It posits that the Milta, the Manifestation of God, lives in our inner man, somewhere back in our imagination, and that our imagination is the Imagination of God, the intelligence that is power. By it he speaks to us, teaches us, guides us through our development into his likeness, and heals us:
"And a leper came and fell at his feet, and he prayed and said to him, 'If you wish, you can heal me.' Eashoa (Jesus, i.e., the eternal "Milta"/Manifestation of God, the Life-giving, Living Branch) was merciful to him, and extended his hand and touched him and said, 'I do wish it, be cleansed.' And within the hour, the leprosy left him" (Mark 1: 40-42, Victor Alexander's translation from the ancient Aramaic, parenthesis mine containing Alexander's notes).
Mark might not have known James, but the idea of 'Jesus' did become bandied about the camps enough to drive a young Pharisee named Paul nuts. An outsider to the inner circles, he thought 'Jesus' was a historical person who had come and gone. Even after his conversion, it took him quite awhile to figure out that it all happens INTERNALLY. The Manifestation is here. We call it Life. Life is the intelligence that is power being you and I. It comes from and is a really big guy, a nice guy, Dad.
I know the above is hypothetical, exaggerated and speculative, but it is what I think. I have not documented where I have gotten all these ideas. I will mention Christian Lindtner's Theory of the Buddhist sources for the Gospel of Mark (Jesus' doing everything "immediately" is explained by a second-language error, meaning to say in Sanskrit, "then"). Gerald Massey's explanation of the myths of Egypt as source for the Gospel of Moses has been significant. Advaita Vedanta (through Bebe Griffiths), and the ancient Aramaic concept of 'Milta' (through Victor Alexander, v-a.com/bible), substantiate my view. And not least, of course, are the teachings of Rabbi David A. Cooper, Abdullah and Neville Goddard.
Much overlooked in this milieu are the many evangelistic hierophants who also plied the region, each preaching his own version of salvation, be it Gnostic, Egyptian, Greek, Persian or Buddhist. At least one of these missionaries was an Indian Buddhist, perhaps one sent out by the mechanism for world evangelization set up by the Indian Emperor Ashoka, who about 265 BCE "renounced armed conquest and adopted a policy of conquest by dharma" (right life). This Indian missionary spent years traveling from India to Persia and Babylon and on through the Assyrian region down to Palestine and Egypt. He became well versed in the myths and wisdom of the various religions he encountered, and probably learned both Greek and Aramaic. I can only imagine the interesting and enlightening discussions he must have had among his fellow philosophers in their community in Egypt as they investigated the scriptures and the wisdom teachings in the world, and the head-butting he must have endured among the literalist scribes and Pharisees of Judea.
I doubt this Indian, who gave us the book we ascribe to Mark, was a coward, and I am not surprised to find him in Judea and Galilee trying to explain to the Jews what the books of Moses meant. It must have been hard for him to argue against their falsified texts, which deceptively envision a dualistic world in which God is separate and divided from us, and which portray a linear history of God's actions among us. But at least "Mark" found a like-minded Jew in Jacob, or "James," who understood that God is in us. James, as we call Jacob, also butted heads with the Jewish authorities. He riled against their corruption, their hypocrisy, and especially their dualistic world view.
James, you understand, was an anonymous Jew. Although his name might really have been Jacob, he, like so many other of the shepherds who studied the scriptures day and night to feed their flocks the right message of Moses, discovered that "Esau" and "Jacob" in Genesis are OUR outward, physical bodies and inner, spiritual man; i.e., that they are two facets of each human. The shepherds realized that 'Joseph' in 'Egypt' is God's preparation for each individual to find his salvation in this world, and the desire for that salvation is 'Miriam' ('Mary,' the sister of 'Moses' [who is the germ of the Gospel of salvation]), which desire becomes the mother of 'Joshua', God's salvation, that inner man in us who takes us into the Promised Land. One reason they insist that the New Testament was originally penned in Greek is to stop us from studying the Aramaic, which would readily reveal to us that the big 'brother' of Jacob, our inner man, is the 'Milta,' the Manifestation of God. We have the same Father!
Well, the Jews finally had enough of James and dumped him headlong from the stairs of the Temple, killing him. How was an Indian Buddhist foreigner like Mark going to reach a people like this with dharma? Mark invented "the Gospel of Jesus Christ," which is the message of Moses and the prophets. It posits that the Milta, the Manifestation of God, lives in our inner man, somewhere back in our imagination, and that our imagination is the Imagination of God, the intelligence that is power. By it he speaks to us, teaches us, guides us through our development into his likeness, and heals us:
"And a leper came and fell at his feet, and he prayed and said to him, 'If you wish, you can heal me.' Eashoa (Jesus, i.e., the eternal "Milta"/Manifestation of God, the Life-giving, Living Branch) was merciful to him, and extended his hand and touched him and said, 'I do wish it, be cleansed.' And within the hour, the leprosy left him" (Mark 1: 40-42, Victor Alexander's translation from the ancient Aramaic, parenthesis mine containing Alexander's notes).
Mark might not have known James, but the idea of 'Jesus' did become bandied about the camps enough to drive a young Pharisee named Paul nuts. An outsider to the inner circles, he thought 'Jesus' was a historical person who had come and gone. Even after his conversion, it took him quite awhile to figure out that it all happens INTERNALLY. The Manifestation is here. We call it Life. Life is the intelligence that is power being you and I. It comes from and is a really big guy, a nice guy, Dad.
I know the above is hypothetical, exaggerated and speculative, but it is what I think. I have not documented where I have gotten all these ideas. I will mention Christian Lindtner's Theory of the Buddhist sources for the Gospel of Mark (Jesus' doing everything "immediately" is explained by a second-language error, meaning to say in Sanskrit, "then"). Gerald Massey's explanation of the myths of Egypt as source for the Gospel of Moses has been significant. Advaita Vedanta (through Bebe Griffiths), and the ancient Aramaic concept of 'Milta' (through Victor Alexander, v-a.com/bible), substantiate my view. And not least, of course, are the teachings of Rabbi David A. Cooper, Abdullah and Neville Goddard.
posted by Daniel C. Branham-Steele at
2:34 PM
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