The Mechanic and Mark’s Gospel: It’s a Therapeutae Theology Thing
Having as a Christian Pentecostal learned at least a little bit of the Jewish mystical-esoteric interpretation of the Bible and something of its ancient sources, I have to consider the possibility that the Christian Lindtner Theory is correct, that the author of the Book of Mark was an Indian Buddhist missionary to the Palestine area who interpreted and translated Sanskrit Buddhist texts in light of the Gospel According to Moses, and that his 'Jesus' was modeled upon the person of Gautama--Buddha.
Of course, anyone who has believed on Jesus, who has been saved and filled with the Holy Spirit is going to believe the Gospel just as it is written: Another Gospel? No thank you. It does not occur to that person that Moses' Gospel was said on this level, with Buddha as an example, so that the Jews could understand it. It worked really great late in the Season of Grace (from the destruction of the first temple in Jerusalem to the destruction of the second) and the Anointing appeared among the believing Jews. That was because regardless of the model, the mechanism works. The mechanism working is evidence of the reality believed upon BEHIND the model.
Unfortunately, the model--whichever model is used--causes confusion because people associate it with the evidence bearing mechanics. By 'mechanics' I mean such as the mechanics of physics: the mechanics of the forces of nature; the apple falls because of the mechanics of gravity. Newton supposedly read between the lines and saw gravity behind the falling. Mark came to see God behind Buddha, and that we are bright, shiny apples.
Most people do not know that God has been working on our consciousness for many ages, that Christ was known about from at least the time of Moses. Gautama certainly knew about the Christ nature as the principle of God's manifestation, and the ancient Gnostics understood this knowledge. Few Westerners know that Emperor Ashoka of India set up institutions to evangelize the world for Buddhism, nor that Greek Egyptian mystics and philosophers had an enclave near Alexandria, Egypt, which had healers among them called Therapeutae, "Sons of the Elder" in the Indian Pali language. No one knows who the Elder was: Ashoka, Gautama, or the Noah of Biblical fame, the original Buddha.
I consider the original 1st century Christianity to be refined Buddhist Judaism. Mark came initially preaching Buddhism, but found Buddha in 600 BC to be but an expression of the mechanism Moses wrote about still 600 years earlier. "Oh," he thinks, "It is not Buddha but the mechanism, the Source of the mechanism, doing these things. The question is: Are there such mechanics as causative imagining, prayer, and manifestation, in reality? Because if there are . . .
I am not trying to corrupt your Christian or Jewish faith. I am trying to correct it, to enlarge it to include the wider view of what was happening two and three thousand years ago. Mark learned much in the years of his trip from India, through Persia, Syria, and Israel, down to the enclave at Alexandria. Probably, he was there as a Therapeut with the Jewish and Gnostic mystics, and he learned the deep meanings of the Jewish Scriptures from them. Why didn't the Jews understand them? he might have asked himself. Moses was talking about imagination and the goodness of God, and they were talking about political parties and war. But some had withdrawn to make their paths smooth for God.
That many were getting right in the Season of Grace was perfect for Mark's reconciliation of Gautama's teaching with the Gospel of Moses, a refined Buddhism. So from Egypt came God's Son, the PRINCIPLE of His manifestation talking to the numb CONSCIOUSNESS that is supposed to be doing it: "Wake up!" What do you do with a sleeping limb? You shake it and tell it to wake up, maybe rub it until it comes back to life. Why should Mark's illustration be any different?
"If man would only look upon the world as a world of appearance, behind which the reality of imagining lay, he would find the truth" (Neville, "Feel After Him). And the truth Mark found was a hungry God, a God hungry for the manifestation of Its love.
Excuse me while I ramble :
A troubling thing for western minds is the Buddhist doctrine that there is no God, only ourselves, which is really weird in that they've got Buddha as an invisible spirit answering prayers on this side of Nirvana. May I propose that Gautama meant that there is no OTHER God but the Ineffable who is manifesting in, as, and through us and everything else. This world experience is the facilitation of manifestation, and the inner man's experience is the real deal of God's manifestation.
The point of the Therapeutae and Moses was that we are God and the Law is ours. We are the Spirit, but we are asleep as Adam in our dream (he never was wakened in the story, you know). The disciples are our sleeping minds. We need to get on with the progression to a wakeful state by the PRACTICE of humility and imagination.
While Mark may have presented Buddha as Jesus Christ, he knew there was no man who had become God or a god -- there is only the Ineffable and Its nature. Those who wake up and believe become as He, because they are Him. So what to do? Wake up, believe, and imagine lovingly within the Golden rule. I wonder if we oughtn't have imagination practice clubs or something like that.
Some of the many books which have informed my view :
Garnier, J. 1909. The Worship of the Dead, or the Origin and Nature of Pagan Idolatry and Its Bearing Upon the Early History of Egypt and Babylonia. London: Chapman and Hall (but please buy a reprint by Kessinger Publishing on Amazon).
Massey, Gerald. 1907. Ancient Egypt: the Light of the World. London: T. Fisher Unwin.
David A. Cooper. 1997. God is a Verb: Kabbalah and the Practice of Mystical Judaism. New York: Riverhead Books.
Thompson, Thomas L. 1999. The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel. New York: Basic Books.
Freke, Timothy, and Gandy, Peter. 1999. The Jesus Mysteries: Was the Original Jesus a Pagan God? New York; Three Rivers Press.
Freke, Timothy, and Gandy, Peter. 2001. Jesus and the Lost Goddess: the Secret Teachings of the Original Christians. New York; Three Rivers Press.
Douglas-Klotz, Neil. 1999. The Hidden Gospel: Decoding the Spiritual Message of the Aramaic Jesus. Wheaton, IL: Quest Books.
Rehnborg, C. F. 1955. Jesus and the New Age of Faith. Buena Park, CA: C. F. Rehnborg Literary Foundation.
Of course, everything by Neville Goddard, all of which can be found for free on the World Wide Web.
Exodus and Genesis, especially, translated from the Ancient Aramaic by Victor N. Alexander (v-a.com/bible/), (http://v-a.com/bible/supporters). Vic cannot translate if we do not buy his translations. I find jewels of insights in all his works, things that put me right on my knees. Even if he disagrees with my theology, he has THE translation that supports mine! In my opinion, purchasing the books is worth every penny. I noticed that searching v-a.com/bible on Bing brought up all his New Testament translations and audio work. Please check him out.
Of course, anyone who has believed on Jesus, who has been saved and filled with the Holy Spirit is going to believe the Gospel just as it is written: Another Gospel? No thank you. It does not occur to that person that Moses' Gospel was said on this level, with Buddha as an example, so that the Jews could understand it. It worked really great late in the Season of Grace (from the destruction of the first temple in Jerusalem to the destruction of the second) and the Anointing appeared among the believing Jews. That was because regardless of the model, the mechanism works. The mechanism working is evidence of the reality believed upon BEHIND the model.
Unfortunately, the model--whichever model is used--causes confusion because people associate it with the evidence bearing mechanics. By 'mechanics' I mean such as the mechanics of physics: the mechanics of the forces of nature; the apple falls because of the mechanics of gravity. Newton supposedly read between the lines and saw gravity behind the falling. Mark came to see God behind Buddha, and that we are bright, shiny apples.
Most people do not know that God has been working on our consciousness for many ages, that Christ was known about from at least the time of Moses. Gautama certainly knew about the Christ nature as the principle of God's manifestation, and the ancient Gnostics understood this knowledge. Few Westerners know that Emperor Ashoka of India set up institutions to evangelize the world for Buddhism, nor that Greek Egyptian mystics and philosophers had an enclave near Alexandria, Egypt, which had healers among them called Therapeutae, "Sons of the Elder" in the Indian Pali language. No one knows who the Elder was: Ashoka, Gautama, or the Noah of Biblical fame, the original Buddha.
I consider the original 1st century Christianity to be refined Buddhist Judaism. Mark came initially preaching Buddhism, but found Buddha in 600 BC to be but an expression of the mechanism Moses wrote about still 600 years earlier. "Oh," he thinks, "It is not Buddha but the mechanism, the Source of the mechanism, doing these things. The question is: Are there such mechanics as causative imagining, prayer, and manifestation, in reality? Because if there are . . .
I am not trying to corrupt your Christian or Jewish faith. I am trying to correct it, to enlarge it to include the wider view of what was happening two and three thousand years ago. Mark learned much in the years of his trip from India, through Persia, Syria, and Israel, down to the enclave at Alexandria. Probably, he was there as a Therapeut with the Jewish and Gnostic mystics, and he learned the deep meanings of the Jewish Scriptures from them. Why didn't the Jews understand them? he might have asked himself. Moses was talking about imagination and the goodness of God, and they were talking about political parties and war. But some had withdrawn to make their paths smooth for God.
That many were getting right in the Season of Grace was perfect for Mark's reconciliation of Gautama's teaching with the Gospel of Moses, a refined Buddhism. So from Egypt came God's Son, the PRINCIPLE of His manifestation talking to the numb CONSCIOUSNESS that is supposed to be doing it: "Wake up!" What do you do with a sleeping limb? You shake it and tell it to wake up, maybe rub it until it comes back to life. Why should Mark's illustration be any different?
"If man would only look upon the world as a world of appearance, behind which the reality of imagining lay, he would find the truth" (Neville, "Feel After Him). And the truth Mark found was a hungry God, a God hungry for the manifestation of Its love.
Excuse me while I ramble :
A troubling thing for western minds is the Buddhist doctrine that there is no God, only ourselves, which is really weird in that they've got Buddha as an invisible spirit answering prayers on this side of Nirvana. May I propose that Gautama meant that there is no OTHER God but the Ineffable who is manifesting in, as, and through us and everything else. This world experience is the facilitation of manifestation, and the inner man's experience is the real deal of God's manifestation.
The point of the Therapeutae and Moses was that we are God and the Law is ours. We are the Spirit, but we are asleep as Adam in our dream (he never was wakened in the story, you know). The disciples are our sleeping minds. We need to get on with the progression to a wakeful state by the PRACTICE of humility and imagination.
While Mark may have presented Buddha as Jesus Christ, he knew there was no man who had become God or a god -- there is only the Ineffable and Its nature. Those who wake up and believe become as He, because they are Him. So what to do? Wake up, believe, and imagine lovingly within the Golden rule. I wonder if we oughtn't have imagination practice clubs or something like that.
Some of the many books which have informed my view :
Garnier, J. 1909. The Worship of the Dead, or the Origin and Nature of Pagan Idolatry and Its Bearing Upon the Early History of Egypt and Babylonia. London: Chapman and Hall (but please buy a reprint by Kessinger Publishing on Amazon).
Massey, Gerald. 1907. Ancient Egypt: the Light of the World. London: T. Fisher Unwin.
David A. Cooper. 1997. God is a Verb: Kabbalah and the Practice of Mystical Judaism. New York: Riverhead Books.
Thompson, Thomas L. 1999. The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel. New York: Basic Books.
Freke, Timothy, and Gandy, Peter. 1999. The Jesus Mysteries: Was the Original Jesus a Pagan God? New York; Three Rivers Press.
Freke, Timothy, and Gandy, Peter. 2001. Jesus and the Lost Goddess: the Secret Teachings of the Original Christians. New York; Three Rivers Press.
Douglas-Klotz, Neil. 1999. The Hidden Gospel: Decoding the Spiritual Message of the Aramaic Jesus. Wheaton, IL: Quest Books.
Rehnborg, C. F. 1955. Jesus and the New Age of Faith. Buena Park, CA: C. F. Rehnborg Literary Foundation.
Of course, everything by Neville Goddard, all of which can be found for free on the World Wide Web.
Exodus and Genesis, especially, translated from the Ancient Aramaic by Victor N. Alexander (v-a.com/bible/), (http://v-a.com/bible/supporters). Vic cannot translate if we do not buy his translations. I find jewels of insights in all his works, things that put me right on my knees. Even if he disagrees with my theology, he has THE translation that supports mine! In my opinion, purchasing the books is worth every penny. I noticed that searching v-a.com/bible on Bing brought up all his New Testament translations and audio work. Please check him out.
posted by Daniel C. Branham-Steele at
1:14 AM
1 Comments:
Thank you, Marlon.
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Daniel C. Branham-Steele, at 4:56 PM
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