In Search of theTruth

Jesus said: "It was to speak of the truth that I was born

and came to the world.

Who believes in the truth hears my voice "

"What is the truth " ? - asked Pilatos

Jesus did not answer...

The dictionaries define truth as being "a conformity with accuracy " or as " the faithful representation of some thing that belongs to nature "

For us, the truth is "the expression of something that does exist or has existed" or "something that can be demonstrated and proven".

I offer this book

To all those who, through the centuries, were sacrificed for defending the truth

Acknowledgment

To Dr. Júlio Rocha do Amaral, for having written the chapter " The Origins of the New Testament " and to those people that gave us wise advises and collaborated in the arduous revision work, but wish to remain in anonymity. Blame for any eventual flaw cannot be attributed to them. They are exclusive fruits of our stubbornness.

Foreword

It is probable that the publication of this book provokes doubts and controversies. Not only for its doctrinaire content, but also, and perhaps mainly, for the accusations that we threw against those that use religion as an instrument to obtain power or to enrich illicitly. It is possible that we receive some expressions of support, but, almost certainly, countless manifestations of revolt or displeasure will appear.

Some criticisms will come from sincere persons, both Catholics and Protestants, who are convicted that the Bible is a perfect work, that everything out of it is not theologically correct and that any restriction to that book constitutes acts of disrespect or heresy. Although disagreeing,we respected them, because they are honest and honorable. But many will come from people afraid that a new doctrine will hurt, in some way, their personal earnings. We refer, especially, to the leaders of the denominated Pentecostal or renewed churches, Many of the ‘bishops ' and ‘pastors ' of these churches will call us sinners, heretics, children of the devil, and will roar that, for what we preach, we are condemned to the fires of hell.

Hypocrites, you know what the truth is ! Jesus warned against false prophets and pseudo ‘curators'. And that is exactly what you are. Your criticism and accusations result from fear.Fear that a new doctrine, for the example of honesty of its praxis, may expose your false messages, destroy your prosperous businesses and collapse the castles of treasures you have built from people’s faith. Yes, because there is an universe of ‘bishops ', ‘pastors’, ‘presbyters’ and ‘deacons' that use God and the Bible, to convert credulous individuals into legions of fanatic followers and to obtain high sums of money, from the collection of tithes, solicitation of offers, sale of books, ribbons, shirts, key chains, etc, and from other sources, like tourist programming and even car rent. However, all the obtained profit does not go, as it should, to the institution, but to their pockets. They promote campaigns to "snatch" souls and money. In churches, in the streets, in stadiums, through the media... everywhere. Their motto is "to convert in order to make money".

Even some followers of the Protestant credo feel bad about the evil smell of this corruption. A sincere Presbyterian told us, recently, the following sentence: "If they are ‘starting’ a new church at every corner, then it must really be a good deal ".

Besides, many of those ‘churches’ lack any theological knowledge .The Pentecostal branch keeps fragmenting. Everywhere, new religious congregations, with the most varied denominations are being formed. Each one with its own interpretation of the Bible and its own liturgy.

As for the honest Christians, be they Catholics or Protestants, we will always be ready to dialogue with them, in order to discuss our doctrine.

But as far as the "wheeler-dealers of faith" are concerned, we shall always denounce them, wherever and whenever the opportunity appears to do so. Because they should not be at the pulpit, but in jail, which is the appropriate place for thieves and con men.

Do you remember the famous Caio Fábio, that ‘wonderful' preacher, who looked like the prototype of correction and devotion, and that showed his true face, when he started to negotiate with the organized crime and to sell " falsified dossier "?

Oliver Marti

Prologue

In order to be well accepted and successful, must a religion be surrounded by myths and superstitions?

Do mysticism and fiction exert a more powerful effect on the human mind than truth and reality?

Are we so much in need of fantasies that, to sustain them, we must cope, permanently, with abstratction and illusion?

Does humanity need the supernatural, in order to have faith and to believe in the existence of a superior being called God?

Superstitions and myths accompany man since his origins. According to the historian Henry Thomas, the idea that the world is saturated of spirits, started as consequence of the ignorance of our most distant ancestors regarding the meaning of dreams. They dreamed of relatives and friends that had died and imagined that their spirits had come to visit them during the night.

They didn't understand that their own minds evoked, while they dreamed, the memory of those relatives and friends. No spirit visit us during our sleep. We make them temporarily "alive" in our memory. But during the vigil state, man should think, act and have faith, according to logic and reason. That God granted us when He endowed mankind with thought, conscience, intelligence and spirituality.

It is important to have faith, it is important to believe. But there is no reason for faith to be blind and related only to the mythological. It is possible, very possible indeed, to have faith and to believe in a truth, in a reality. In somebody who, as a human being like us, taught humans how they should proceed to shelter those who are cold, to feed those who are hungry and to bring hope to those who suffer.

Jesus did all those things, without being a divinity (which is God's exclusive privilege). A supposed divinity was attributed to him by his disciples' devotion and imagination. And was, later, transformed into a dogma by the apostle Paul.

Jesus did all this as a human, although a very special one, saturated of love and of a high degree of spirituality. That God, our common Father, granted him, so that he, the Nazarene, should become an example for mankind.

Is was in his human condition, alive, that Jesus performed cures and taught us the greatest lesson of love, ever registered in the history of theology. After his death, never more the Nazarene sent us a single message. Jesus, now elevated to the condition of Christ, has silenced. As silent remain all those that are dead.

Since the beginning of the fourth century, due to idolatry to mysticism, to the distorted theology of Paul and to Emperor Constantine' s political interests, the Church imposed us one thousand and seven hundred years of allure: by making us adore an abstract Christ, instead of a real Jesus. Paul created Christianity. Perhaps the time has arrived to expose the myth and create Jesuism.

Introduction

The Jewish-Christian Bible is, possibly, the most consulted book in the history of mankind. Nevertheless, for many centuries, the truthfulness of its entirety has been questioned by academics, historians and even by theologians devoted to study, in depth, its content. A lot of things got lost, a lot of things were modified and a lot of things has been added.

The Old Testament, in the authorized Bibles, is the Hebraic text that Jewish specialists only concluded in the centuries VII and VIII a.D.! In regard to the New Testament, only in 325 a. D., at the Council of Nicea, was it accepted, in its whole, by Christian authors.

The Gospels were written in Greek, while Jesus spoke Aramaic. And his words, transmitted from mouth to mouth, until the four Gospels appeared, dozens of years after his death, can hardly represent what was really said by Jesus.

At the Nicea council, the leaders of the Church confirmed the four traditional Gospels, with possible last minute alterations, dictated by Emperor Constantine who, for reasons that in due time will be discussed, imposed Paul's conception of Christianity. In this way, it is difficult to accept that the final texts of those Gospels were inspired by the Holy Ghost. Certainly, in the revision process, human factors prevailed. God did not participate on the decision.

Many scholars question that Matthew wrote the Gospel that carries his name. At least, its Greek version. There are rumors about the existence of a previous one, in Hebrew or in Aramaic. That one, yes, was possibly written by him. But, certainly, Peter 's Epistles were not written by Peter. As there are strong evidences that the Epistles to Timothy, Titus and the Hebrews were not written by Paul.

There are so many contradictions in the Gospels that it is difficult to distinguish the real from the imaginary. According to the historian Robin Lane Fox, author of the book " Bible - Truth and Fiction ", the sentence in Timothy's Second Epistle (the one used by fundamentalists to anchor a literal vision of the biblical narratives : "every scripture is inspired by God..."), was not even written by whom the bible mentions as being its author!

In spite of all that and with due reservations, we adopted the Jewish-Christian Bible as the initial referential in the elaboration of the present book.

We would not dare to suggest that a single word in none of the so-called Sacred Books of any religion be changed. Whatever is written in their texts, whether right or wrong, real or mythical, mean concepts that persist for centuries and are inherent to the prevalent ideas of the times they were delineated. Any revision to adequate the theological principles of each Book with today’s scientific knowledge is an exclusive task for the current leaders of the involved religions. However, as far as theology is concerned, the tendency is to maintain what is traditional, even at the expenses of the truth. It is almost impossible to imagine, for instance, a congregation of Catholic cardinals or of Jewish rabbis, deciding to alter the chronological sequence of the events as described in the Genesis.

But, as apologists of the truth, we intended to write a text that would compatibilize today’s scientific knowledge - that God allowed us to acchive (since, as a principle, nothing happens without his consent) - with many descriptions of the scriptures. A text that, by pointing out unquestionable controversies and probable fictions, may become, without compromising good sense and reason, a guide of mental, spiritual and comportamental orientation for humanity, at the dawning of this third millennium of the Christian era.

Although respecting old texts and traditions, we didn't take them as reference, whenever they diverged from historical facts and from the theological basis of our new doctrine. Initially, we thought about denominating our doctrine Neochristianism. But, considering that this word is inherently associated to the word Christ, we realized it would not be proper, since Christ is an abstraction created by Paul. Therefore we decided for a more appropriate denomination : Jesuism. And as for those that might eventually adopt that new doctrine, why not name them Nazarenes ?

Jesuism is a doctrine that intends to keep whatever exists of wisdom and beauty in the Old Testament, as long as it doesn't represent a pact of God with just an ethnic group, but with mankind as a whole. A doctrine that cultivates Jesus' teachings without caring to define whether he was divine or just a person with an extremely high level of spirituality. A doctrine that seeks to adjust knowledge to faith and science to theology. Just as it was idealized by the great Jesuit, philosopher and paleontologist, called Teihard de Chardin. A doctrine that it is concerned with human happiness, not only as a future promise, in the Kingdom of Heavens, but also in the present, here on earth. That is why the emphasis we place in our praxis, characterized by a pertinent and persistent fight for a more fair social justice. And, finally, Jesuism is a doctrine that, above all, searches for the truth, because as Jesus once said: "You shall know the truth and the truth will make you free " (John,8,32). The ideas and principles of Jesuism need to be published in order to be known and, in so being, proliferate.

Thus, this book intends, as its title indicates, to search the truth. However, it is not inadmissible that it may become the bases of a new doctrine.

Although "In Search of the Truth" has for reference the Jewish - Christian Bible, the two books differ in many points. For instance, we do not limit ourselves to describe facts. We insist on trying to explain them, whenever it seems possible. From a thematic point of view, our first disagreement has to do with the sequence of events related to the creation of the world, just as it is described in the Old Testament. There, it is stated that when the Lord ordered "let there be light", our planet was born (Gênesis,1,3), Therefore, according to this description, Earth was the first creation of God in the Cosmos. Only later, He would place the stars in the firmament to illuminate the nights of our planet. (Gênesis,1,16). A vision compatible with what was known when the Book of Genesis was written. A geocentric vision, that considered Earth as the start point and center of the Universe, having appeared before the trillions of galaxies that are dispersed across the immensity of the Cosmos. Exactly the opposite of what we know today, A fact that no one, not even the most orthodox theologian, would dare to contradict.

In fact, when God said: "let there be light", the Big Bang occurred - the instant the Universe was created, the beginnig of time and space. And that is supposed to have happened about 15 billions years ago.. The solar system and, consequently, the Earth, the future cradle of mankind, would only appear much later, around 4.5 billions years ago.

From the Old Testament, we also selected some Psalms and Proverbs and a passage of Eclesiastes. And we left out those books that speak essentially about the history of the Israelis and about the pact between Jove and His "chosen people". Both are discriminatory postures, incompatible with our ideology, which considers that all humans are equal before God.

And also because those histories, real or legendary, are an exclusive patrimony of the children of Israel, but do not link, except through some prophecies, with the messages of our Jesus.

And also because a ‘God' that discriminates, by choosing a particular people as His favorite, it is not our God.

A ‘God’ that says to Noah: " I have decided to eliminate all human beings. I will destroy them as well as the Earth " (Genesis,6,13). This is not our God.

A ‘God' that says to Zechariah: " When somebody wants to do prophecies, his own parents must tell him: ‘you will die because you are saying that your lies are messages from the Eternal Lord! ' And the parents will kill the son with a sword when he is pretending to be a prophet " (Zc,13,3). This cannot be, ever, our God.

A ‘God’ that, dialoguing with Satan', tells him: "Behold, all that Job has is under your power, only do not lay a hand on his person"(Job,1,12). As a consequence, Job, this faithful servant of the Lord, was punished with the loss of everything, including his children. And all this due to a kind of macabte bet with the demon, concerning a strange and weird fidelity test! This, for sure, is not our God.

One last observation: if our way of thinking was expressed at the time of the Nicea Council or during the period the Inquisition astonished the Occident, we would certainly be strong candidates to the bonfire. For much less, Giordano Bruno was burned.

Fortunately, we live in quite different times...