back to contents

RELIGION

CREATOR OR CREATED

THE OLD TESTAMENT

SCENARIO 1

GENESIS CHAPTER 1 VERSES 1 TO 5

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was a vast waste, darkness covered the deep, and the spirit of God hovered over the surface of the water. God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light; and God saw the light was good, and he separated light from darkness. He called the light day, and the darkness night. So evening came and morning came; it was the first day."

That first day saw the creation of the heavens to "separate water from water." Day two saw God gathering the water into one place to allow dry land to appear, he called the dry land earth, and the gathering of water he called sea. On the land he created "growing things", plants that bear seed, trees that bear fruit and each he gave its own kind of seed.

Day three saw the creation of the stars to act as signs for festivals, seasons and years and to give the earth light, the two main "lights" he created to give light during the day and the night.

The fourth day was the day God filled the seas with fish and the skies with birds which he told to go forth and multiply.

Day five saw the rest of the animal kingdom created, the cattle, creeping things, wild animals and most important of all he created humans in his own image. He also told these creatures to be fruitful and increase. He told the animals that he had provided fruit and plants and trees for their food.

On day six God brought an end to his creations and on the seventh day he rested and blessed the day calling it holy.

Because God had sent no rain the plants and trees failed to grow, so, taking dust from the dry earth God created a human being and "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, so that he became a living creature." Once he had done this he then created a garden in the east and put man there. The garden he called Eden, and in the middle of it he planted the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Man's duties were to till the garden so that the trees and plants would grow. He was told that he could eat from any of the trees in Eden but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for if he were to eat the fruit of this tree he would be doomed to die.

God felt that man should not be alone and ordered the animals to the garden of Eden where man named them all. Once they were named, still no suitable mate had been found for man so God made him sleep deeply and removed one of his ribs from which he created woman and then he brought her to meet man and neither of them felt any shame at their nakedness.

The serpent God had made was the most cunning of all the animals, and it said to woman that it would be OK for her to eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, as she would not die but she would then be like God himself and know both good and evil. Woman picked fruit from the tree and ate it, she then went to man and gave some to him which he also ate. As the serpent had told woman, their eyes were opened and they suddenly felt great shame at their nakedness so they made loin cloths out of fig leaves for them both to wear. God visited the garden where man hid from him due to his nakedness, God said to him "How do you know you are naked?" and man told him that woman had made him eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and woman told God that it was the serpent who had told her to eat from the tree.

God was angry with the serpent and told him; "On your belly you will crawl, and dust you will eat all the days of your life. I shall put enmity between you and the woman, between your brood and her. They will strike at your head and you will strike at their heel."

He then said to the woman; "I shall give you great labour in child bearing; with labour you will bear children. You will desire your husband but he will be your master."

He then said to man; "On your account the earth will be cursed. You will get your food from it only by labour all the days of your life; it will yield thorns and thistles for you. You will eat of the produce of the field, and only by the sweat of your brow will you win your bread until you return to the earth; for from it you were taken. Dust you are, to dust you will return."

Man named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all living beings. God made them clothes from skins and banished man from the garden to prevent him also eating from the tree of life and living forever. Man lay with Eve and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. She said "With the help of the Lord I have brought into being a male child."

SCENARIO 2

THE BIG BANG

The Big Bang theory was first developed by Georges-Henri Lemaitre, a Belgian priest, between 1927 and 1933, but it wasn't until 1964 that the theory became popular enough to be considered as the most likely explanation for the creation of the universe when two American Radio Astronomers discovered what they thought to be the afterglow of an ancient event of cataclysmic proportions. The afterglow was a “hum“ of radiation with a temperature of 3 Kelvin (just 3 degrees above absolute zero), this is known as cosmic background radiation, and it gives us a picture of the universe as it was 300,000 years after the Big Bang.

The theory was reinforced when scientists discovered that the universe is expanding, this they discovered by looking at galaxies and specifically the waves that we receive from them on earth being stretched when they arrive. This is known as the “Doppler effect” after the man who first discovered it, Austrian physicist Christian Doppler. A simple example is that of an ambulance with its siren blaring. When the ambulance is coming towards us the sound waves are slightly compressed as they reach our ear, and they sound slightly different to the way that they sound when the same ambulance is going away from us as now the sound waves are slightly stretched. Two Belgian scientists proposed that if this expansion was taken back to its origins then all the matter in the universe must have at one time been in a single point, so at the very beginning of time there was a single, very dense point that was caused to explode, probably between ten and twenty billion years ago judging by the rate at which the universe is expanding.

At the very beginning of time there was nothing at all, not even the laws of physics. At 10-43 seconds is the period known as “Grand Unification” (G.U.T.) and during this time the weak, the strong and the electromagnetic forces are unified into one indistinguishable force, and possibly there was an extremely rapid and accelerating expansion of the universe which is referred to as The Cosmic Inflation. This inflation made the universe very large and flat but with slight imperfections in the form of ripples.

At 10-34 seconds the temperature has risen to 10 Kelvin and the strong force now became distinct from the weak and the electromagnetic forces. The universe was only made up of Quarks, electrons and various other particles and the rapid expansion has now stopped under the force of gravity.

By the time the universe is 10-10 seconds old the temperature has risen to 1015 Kelvin and the weak forces have now separated from the electromagnetic forces. There is also an excess of matter over anti-matter at a ratio of a billion to one, and Quarks are now merging to form protons and neutrons, and particles now have substance.

We have now reached a full second after the beginning of time, and the temperature of the universe is 1010 Kelvin. Neutrinos decouple and then the electrons and positrons annihilate, which leaves residual electrons, but mainly left behind is the cosmic background radiation we are able to detect today.

Three minutes have now gone by and the temperature is 109 Kelvin. Protons and neutrons are now able to join to form nuclei because the energy which they produce is now greater than the cosmic background radiation. Some of these nuclei are light nuclei, Deuterium (1 proton and 1neutron) and Lithium (3 protons and 4 neutrons), but around 75% of these nuclei are Hydrogen and the other 25% are Helium. Other elements are only found in minute proportions.

Leaping now to 300,000 years after the Big Bang the temperature is around 3,000 Kelvin. Matter and the cosmic background radiation decouple as electrons bind with nuclei to make neutral atoms.

Leaping again, the universe is now 1 billion years old with a temperature of 18 Kelvin and the earlier ripples and imperfections have now formed into quasars, stars and protogalaxies. In the interior of the stars the burning of hydrogen and helium nuclei produces heavier nuclei such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and iron and stellar winds scatter these nuclei as do supernova explosions which make new stars, planets and most important of all, life.

At 15 billion years old the temperature is 3 Kelvin and we have seen the last of the radical changes in the universe, atoms have been joining together to form molecules which in turn form very complex matter such as solids and liquids.

Both of these scenarios have certain problems and flaws, the main one and probably the most difficult to explain, and the most complex to grasp mentally is what existed before the creation of the universe, either before the big bang or the works of God? What existed, if anything, is an almost impossible question for the human mind to comprehend. The concept of nothing. The existence of a vacuum which even nature itself abhors. Another main problem with both scenarios is just what made the transition from nothing to a universe begin? What sparked off this massive step that saw the birth of what we now call the universe and why? If it was indeed God, then who and what is God?

The bible begins "In the beginning God..." but it doesn't tell us about God, what he or she is, where he came from or why he saw fit to create a universe, or indeed the bigger question of how he did it. Once the earth was created, God created man from the dust, a minor task compared to some of his other work. Man was to tend the plants and trees for God but he needed a mate, which God created from one of his ribs. In this scenario all of the first living creatures were created at the same time and man was one of the first creatures to inhabit the planet.

With the big bang we still have the same problem of what existed before the moment that the creation of the universe began and what triggered it off. If the big bang was the cause of the existence of the universe then the chances of the planets and stars existing at all are extremely remote, let alone the chances of life being sustained on these planets. Once the universe actually exists, by whatever means, the main difference between the two scenarios is that with God, man was one of the forefathers of the world sent to till the land whereas with the big bang man was a relative latecomer and was just a part of the evolutionary process, though we do in fact till the land it is not out of duty but out of necessity to survive.

In the creation story there is no room for creatures such as the dinosaurs because we know that man and dinosaur did not exist simultaneously, and that they were separated by millions of years, let alone six days, and this is perhaps the best evidence against the God theory, though its supporters would come back with the argument against evolution, and the fact that man is the end result of an evolutionary process which begins with the most basic single cell life forms.

The basic thrust of the evolutionary process is that the first life on earth was a bacterium eater of some kind, and almost by accident the elements combined to construct these life forms, but what exactly triggered this change from basic matter to living tissue is still not fully understood, though scientists can break the chemical bonds of certain molecules and cause a rearrangement of the atoms into amino acids and nucleotides which make up living organisms using electricity. It is thought that lightening strikes could have done this in the dawn of time, but the mixture of these elements must be exactly in the right proportions for them to be called life.

The elements oxygen, nitrogen, carbon and hydrogen are just the basic ingredients required, and without any one of these there could be no life at all. The average human body of a ten stone man, to name but a few, is made up of enough lime to whitewash a small shed, ten gallons of water, enough fat to make seven bars of soap, enough sulphur to make a packet of sulphur tablets, enough iron to make a two inch nail, enough phosphorous to make two thousand two hundred matches, enough magnesium for a dose of salts and enough carbon to make nine thousandpencils.

Aside from these ingredients there must also be the right atmospheric conditions, temperature and moisture for example, and this is one of the arguments that the church uses, that such a finely balanced combination must be no accident and must therefore be the work of a supreme being, a “creator.”

There have been many pretenders to the throne of explaining evolution, Henri Bergson, Leonardo Da Vinci and Sir Edwin Lankester, but most important of all Charles Darwin. Others such as Sir Isaac Newton only managed to confuse the issue by putting the date of the Creation at 4004BC.

In the dawn of time, the majority of the earth was covered by water, and it is thought that the first life forms were present in the seas, some of these single cell life forms still exist today and amoebas are thought to be the oldest species of life on earth. Some of the early life forms evolved into plants most probably forms of underwater sponges and corals which attached themselves to rocks, while others evolved into microbes and plankton which used the seas currents to float around looking for food and in turn they developed into larger creatures such as worms which could now, to a small extent control their movements. Some of these worms evolved into huge predators up to forty feet long, while others took to living inside shells, and they were ancestors of today's molluscs. These molluscs became the most predominant life form in the seas and filled the ocean floors, so if other creatures wanted to eat and survive there was only one place that evolution could take them, dry land. It is thought that some of these molluscs, rather than having a solid shell, had a shell that was multi jointed, much in the same way as that of the scorpion or the armadillo, and they were known as the “Trylobites.”

Just how these trylobites of 500 million years ago, and other creatures of the same era, made the break for dry land, going from water to air breathing, is a mystery, but there would have been no definite fixed line whereby we could distinguish between them living in water and living on dry land as it would have taken them millions of years. They would first live in the way that something like crabs do today, spending part of their time on land but needing to return to the water at regular intervals, though these intervals would become further and further apart as time passed. Another example of this transition from water to land is the lungfish which is still alive and well today, some of which can survive out of water for up to 4 years.

Whilst these creatures were learning to adapt to life on land, other changes were occurring in the water they were leaving behind. The sea was now full of giant sea serpents up to nine feet in length, and the gristle in their bodies was slowly evolving onto bone, and the vertebrates were born. Some fish still survive today without a true backbone, but what the spine enabled fish to do was to develop strong muscles and fins with which to guide themselves and control their movements far better.

Some of these fish, now with paired limbs in the shape of fins, also made the break for dry land and in time the fins became webbed feet and then legs with digits and claws, some of them laying their eggs in the water but living on land. The opposite is however true of the giant turtles today who come out of the water to lay their eggs in sandy beaches and then return to the sea. This was now the birth of the reptiles which would “rule” the world for many, many years, taking eventually the immense forms of the large lizards, Dinosaurs (terrible lizards), some of which would stay on four legs while others would use their forelimbs less and less for walking and become true bipeds with their small forelimbs for eating, like the Tyrannasaurs which was a ferocious predator. As the land began to fill with more and more dinosaurs, both herbivores and carnivores, the smaller dinosaurs began to evolve more and more fearsome forms of defending themselves, such as huge horns both on their heads and along their spines, and the fight for survival on the ground became as fierce as that in the water.

So with the seas full and now the land conquered, all that remained was the air. Some fish had been trying to take to the air, and the flying fish of today still have yet to be able to fly for any great distance, but while flying was something of a hobby for the fish it was an obsession with the lizards. Pterodactyls, like modern day birds, had their heads positioned at right angles to their necks and also like some of the preceding bipeds from which they evolved. Their wings were not what we would call true wings today, but were more like a fine membrane which ran along their sides from the ankles up to the hands. There is debate as to whether the cumbersome creatures would climb to the cliff tops and throw themselves off and glide through the air, or whether they had the strength and the body structure to flap their wings and achieve a controlled take off from flat ground, no mean feat as the larger of the Pteradons had wing spans measuring up to 25 feet.

As time moved on and the era of the dinosaurs was drawing to a close, a climatic change was taking place and it was becoming colder. The response to this change was Archopteryx or “ancient winged” animal which was one of, if not, the first to “wear” feathers and is a direct ancestor of modern day birds. This meant that it was not only able to survive the colder temperatures but could fly at much higher altitudes than the other airborne creatures, enabling it to lay its eggs out of their reach which was essential to its long term survival, and the actual design of birds has changed very little since these early days of feathered flight. The Archopteryx was added to the short list of creatures who had found a form in which they could survive for millions of years, defeating changes in both climate and their predators. Bearing in mind that over the course of history there have been as many as six mass extinctions, with anything up to 76% of all life being wiped out, it is survivors such as Archopteryx which have had a huge influence on life as we know it today, and the many and varied forms that that takes.

The response of the land based animals, rather than to develop feathers, was to develop hair or fur, and as they relied on egg stealing to provide their food, this helped to put pay to the reptiles as well as the drop in climate which was better suited to these new warm blooded mammals, though one creature in particular who would come through these difficult times, like the Archopteryx, remaining relatively unchanged, was the crocodilian family, made up of Crocodiles, Alligators, Caymans and Gharials.

The mammals were smaller in stature than the dinosaurs and in turn had a larger brain in relation to their body size making them far more intelligent than for example the brontosaurus which had a tiny brain, and who would take up to two seconds to realise that he had an injury at the base of his tail, so far was it from his brain. The mammals which now dominated the planet bear a marked resemblance to the animals we know today, though they were often smaller, such as horses, elephants and deer, though subtle refinements were of course made to adapt to the changing face of the earth. The woolly mammoth for example had tusks far larger than that of elephants we see today. Just as some of the reptiles had evolved into bipeds so too did a branch of the mammals and became known as primates and it is from this group that homo-sapiens originate. The problem is though, that where we have fossilised evidence of other evolutionary phases, we have none of this phase from primate to man and this is known as “The Missing Link.”

Throughout man's evolution we can see evidence that he used to stand with a rounded back, had longer arms and that the skull was more elongated with a very prominent brow, and we can see that we have evolved into a being that walks more and more upright and appears less and less apelike. Though it has decreased in size and possibly still is doing, we still have at the base of the spine, a coccyx, or tail bone which primates, and possibly primitive man, would have used to aid him in balancing.

Thus goes the basis of evolution from the first inklings of life in the “primeval soup” to modern day man. Whether or not this process was truly due to evolution or natural selection is a much debated point and is one which was deeply investigated by Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882). He was however preceded by Jean Baptiste Lamarck (1744 - 1829) whose book “Zoological Philosophy” was published in the year of Darwin's birth, and looked at the relationship between animals and the world they lived in.

Lamarck claimed that the environment was instrumental in moulding the form of an organism, and that small changes would occur that would be passed onto further generations which would in turn alter slightly and pass these further changes on to their offspring. To make his point he used the example of the giraffe and looked at fossils of its ancestors which had relatively short necks. He said that as competition for food at ground level became more fierce they developed over generations a longer neck by constantly stretching it in their strive for food, and in turn their offspring would develop slightly longer necks still in an effort to reach the food at higher levels and thus avoid the competition, this process was known as “The Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics” and so the environment could therefore influence the appearance of the animals living in it.

Half a century later, in 1859, the monumental book “The Origin Of The Species” was published. Written by Charles Darwin it offered an alternative explanation for the adaptation of animals to their environment which was contrary to his first beliefs. Darwin wrote to a friend in 1844, "At last gleams of light have come, and I am almost convinced (quite contrary to the opinion that I had started with) that species are not immutable."

Darwin noticed that even in one species of animal there are subtle differences between individual animals, and that these subtle different differences are random. If one of these differences was that one of the short necked giraffes had a slightly longer neck than its fellow rivals for food, this would enable it to reach the higher leaves that the others could not. It would therefore have an advantage and a far greater chance of survival, and as these differences are inherited, it would leave behind it more offspring with the same slightly longer neck that would survive while the other shorter necked giraffes would be competing for food at the lower levels and eventually die out. This was referred to as “Survival Of The Fittest” or “Darwinism” and the main difference between Lamarck's theory and Darwin's is that, in Darwinism, the environment does not affect the appearance of the animals in it but the process is “Natural Selection” as nature selects those best suited for survival.

At the time that “Origin of the Species” was published these were very controversial revelations, and for many years afterward remained so, but later discoveries in science such as heredity laws and genes have shown that Lamarck was wrong and Darwin right.

Darwin's basic theory was in three parts:

1. Random Variations - Whatever their cause, were occurring and were hereditary among members of the same species.
2. Struggle For Survival - Nature provides more offspring than can possibly survive, and the differences between them give some advantages for existence both between members of the same species and between different species in the same environment.
3. Survival Of The Fittest - Those animals with advantages will live longer and create more offspring; and the natural selection of animals with this same inherited advantage, eliminating those without, and, over time transforming the species, thus subtle variance's accumulate and create major changes.

It was not until 1871 that Darwin applied his theories to man. What Darwinism did was explain the evolutionary process without the need for a “designer or architect” though there is a huge misconception that this was Darwin's personal view when it was not, he felt that God was still ultimately responsible.

The seeds had been sewn though, and for many people the theory and existence of God were now redundant. Pre Darwin opinion was that the world was static, that the universe was fixed and that creation had finished with man at the pinnacle, but under dispute post Darwin, as well as the creation of the individual species of animal we know today, so was the very origin of man himself, who now appeared to be just a part of the evolutionary chain and not the tiller of the land that God had created in his own image.

This exercise is not merely an attempt to rubbish the book of Genesis but an exercise to show that the bible is not factual in detail but only in essence, and that many of its revelations are symbolic only and represent the romantic, poetic musing's of the author. We also have to allow for the fact that it was only translated into English relatively recently, and there are many examples of purposeful or accidental translation errors.

The fact that man was preceded on earth by the animals is evident in both scenarios, though we know that this period was far longer than a matter of days, but was in fact more like millions of years, and though the bible author is clearly factually incorrect he shows an acute ability to interpret history and uses the existence of his own God to account for the inexplicable beginning of creation.

Neither scenario can explain with any certainty just what existed before the beginning of the universe, or what kick started the process into beginning.

The fact that the universe is still expanding, and the various ages of of the bodies within it match up to one time when they came into being and at the same point would suggest that the big bang theory is the true one though this isn't a fully accepted theory and is disputed by many who highlight its faults, it is however the most likely explanation put forward to date.

So once we have life in existence on the planet earth how do we explain the theory of evolution in relation to that life? Was it Lamarck who was correct in his assumptions that evolution through the generations took place due to alterations caused by the environment in which they lived, or was it Charles Darwin with his theory of survival of the fittest, that nature selected only the best adapted creatures to survive and the rest to die out?

The Bible’s explanation for the multiplication of man on the planet is certainly unsatisfactory, as the offspring of Adam and Eve were Cain and Abel, the latter of course being murdered by his brother. The first mention we get of any woman other than Eve is when Cain's wife is mentioned in the Land of Nod with no account of how she came to be there or who else was there. Though having said that, the theory of evolution also falls down on the point of man's origins as we can find no trace of the missing link which still remains a mystery today, but surely man can not have simply been created as even the most ancient picture drawings we see of Adam and Eve feature them with a navel, showing that they were “born.”

The Bible's author explains that the serpent was apparently the epitome of evil and that God was responsible for it having to crawl on its belly as a punishment for the temptation of Eve. Was the snake possibly seen by the author as an evil creature and he accounted for it in this way, did it account for many deaths in the author's lifetime or does he just not like the look of them? Woman is also punished for Eve's indiscretion and is given the task of child birth for eternity, there is no doubt that in the author's lifetime child birth was an extremely dangerous procedure and would have accounted for many deaths of both the child and the mother. God also punishes man for being tempted by Eve and is forced to till the land in order to survive, all of these “punishments” are factually true but are accounted for in a way we will come to recognise from the author, and the way he uses the struggle of good against evil in his writings. Perhaps he sees his fellow man as a disappointment, and if there were a creator he would understandably be disappointed in his creations and the ways in which they behave towards one another and would duly punish them to teach them the ways of good and evil and the path that they must follow through life, though the creator would surely know, as we do today, that this method of correction does not work and our prison system is a testimony to that fact.”

NOAH AND THE GREAT FLOOD

By the chain of events that followed the creation, God had become disappointed in man and his evil ways, both in the way in which he treated his fellow creatures and the way in which he treated his home. He was so angry that he decided he would wipe his evil creations off the face of the earth. Noah however was a good and righteous man in the eyes of God and God told him of his plans to put an end to the human race and the earth with it. He told Noah to build an ark of cypress ribs covered with reeds and pitch. It was to measure 300 cubits by 50 cubits by 30 cubits high and have a door on one side with three floors inside. Noah was then to take with him on the ark his wife, his three sons Shem, Ham and Japheth and their three wives, and two of every kind of animal alive on the earth, a male and a female, with enough food for them all to eat. God gave him seven days to gather all the materials he needed and to build the ark and fill it up with the animals.

When they were all on board the ark, God closed the door behind them and then brought the rains which would flood the earth, rains that would last for 40 days and 40 nights until all the earth was covered with water, even the mountains were submerged to a depth of 15 cubits and all the living creatures on the earth perished, apart from those on board the ark.

After 150 days of flood God caused the wind to blow and the waters to subside, and then on the seventh day of the seventh month the ark had come to rest atop Mount Ararat. After the first day of the tenth month the mountain tops were visible sticking out of the water. Noah took a raven and released it, it continued to fly around the skies until the earth was dry. He also released a dove which tried to find a place to land but couldn't because the earth was still covered in water. Seven days later Noah again released the dove and that evening it returned to the ark carrying in its beak an olive leaf which it had plucked from a tree, so Noah now knew the waters had fully subsided and he waited a further seven days before releasing the dove again though this time it did not return. God told Noah to come out of the ark with his wife, their sons and their wives and all the animals so that they could go forth and be fruitful.

Noah built an altar to the lord and God said that he shall never again kill all the creatures as he had just done, "As long as the earth lasts, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, they will never cease." God told Noah that all the animals would fear man, and would become food for him, but he must never eat flesh which still has its life in it. He said I am making my covenant with you and your descendants and every living creature, never again shall all living creatures be destroyed by flood, and he gave Noah a sign of his covenant: "My bow I set in the clouds to be a sign of the covenant between myself and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth, the rainbow will appear in the clouds."

He told Noah that whenever the rainbow appears he would be reminded of the covenant with the living creatures of the earth, and so Noah and his descendents multiplied and began to fill the earth, some of the descendents travelled east to the land of Shinar and they came to a plain where they decided to make bricks and build a tower whose top would reach to heaven and then they could make a name for themselves. God saw what they were trying to do and said "Here they are, one people with a single language, and now they have started to do this; from now on nothing they have a mind to do will be beyond their reach. Come let us go down and confuse their language, so that they will not understand what they say to one another." That is why the tower is known as the Tower of Babel because God made a babble of the language and scattered the man all over the world.

Is this really the way it happened? To believe this would surely be just a little too far fetched, that it could rain for so long that all the earth is covered in water including the mountains, though we do know from history that around 4,000 BC the Persian Gulf was inundated and the city states that existed there were wiped out in the deluge. Could a craft made out of wood really support two of every kind of animal on the earth and all of Noah's family, not to mention enough food to last them for the ten months or more that they were on board?

Again, in Noah's time, we have the story of the Tower of Babel where men tried to build a tower of bricks in their city tall enough to reach up to heaven, and as a result of their actions God became angry and scattered his people all over the world and made them speak in many different tongues so they couldn't understand each other. So one minute everybody was speaking the same language, and the next everybody had their own. The language barriers nowadays are roughly defined by the borders of the particular countries, so if this were true then all those people in the same land would be able to communicate with those in his country but not those from outside it.

We have seen that the bible is full of symbolism but in essence is based on truth, could the earth really have seen rain for so long that it was completely submerged? Surely there isn't enough water on, around or under the earth for this to have happened, so we must now try to read between the lines for the truth behind the story of Noah. Obviously the basis of the story is in a disaster of some kind, and through history there have been numerous occasions when civilisations have been wiped out by flood waters, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, not to mention the several mass extinctions of prehistory.

We can look back into the dim and distant past for accounts of disasters such as the dark cloud which rushed toward the earth and shrivelled the land with flames and returned "all human life back to its clay" which is recorded in the Babylonian “Epic of Gilgamesh” which is itself 4,000 years old but tells of events much earlier.

The Aboriginees of western Brazil recall an event which saw the sky lit up with lightning and the deafening roar of thunder before heaven burst sending about fragments which killed everything and everybody, "nothing that had life was left upon the earth."

One theory is that disasters such as these are caused by meteors or the earth passing through a comet's tail, but there are also disasters with more obvious causes such as the volcanic eruption that destroyed Pompeii or the explosion of Krakatoa in 1883 whose resultant tidal wave drowned 36,380 people on the Indonesian islands.

Volcanic eruptions under the sea also cause tidal waves which can reach over 200 feet in height, thus containing an enormous volume of water, like the one that hit Kamchatka in the east of Russia in 1737 at a height of 210 feet.

Great floods have been recorded in the lowlands of China and Bengal, and it is believed that the Mediteranean was once a huge green valley that was swept away by the Atlantic Ocean in a sudden rush. Sometime between 5400 and 4200 BC a great flood submerged completely some 40,000 square miles of the Euphrates valley and Sir Leonard Woolley found traces of evidence to support this in 1929, and it is this flood which is believed to be the one referred to in the biblical account of Noah. Of course, when the bible talks of the earth being covered, it is referring to the known earth of the time, which is a very different thing. Also, there is a huge time span between the events portrayed in the bible and its time of writing, allowing for generations of dramatization and enhancement of details.

We know of the authors philosophy of man's quest and struggle between good and evil, and it appears that he has once again used the world as he sees it through his own eyes, and giving his own “poetic” views on what he sees, not only in his account of the great flood, but also in his account for man's many languages, again calling it a punishment for man sent from God, after all, what other explanations would primitive man have for such events than God?

The physical impossibility of building a wooden boat to house a male and a female of every species of animal, Noah and his wife, his three sons and their wives and enough food for all of them to eat while the world is flooded is quite clear, so this part of the story is obviously an act of pure fiction. We see here the use of the term 40 days and 40 nights to mean a long period of time (we will see it again), and further symbolism is used in the releasing of the two birds, a raven (often associated with evil) and a dove (the bird of peace), yet more evidence of the battle between good and evil, and it can surely be no coincidence that it is the raven who doesn't return and the dove that returns to tell Noah that the end of the flood is apparent.

The author shows an uncanny ability in the use of these symbols and must surely be as gifted, if not more so, as those we now consider to be “classic” authors, such as the likes of Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Keats. There is clearly true feeling in his words, as though he is himself worried about the destiny of the human race. Not only is the punishment of man by God for his wrong doing toward his fellow man and his environment significant in biblical times, but it is equally significant today, and the author must have considered Noah to be a good, true and honest man to be worthy of saving, or could actually he be a fictional character, a symbolic “good man” created by the author to suit his purposes?

The same could be said of other biblical figures seen as representatives of man's better nature, and another such man was Moses, to whom a greater part of the bible is dedicated, possibly because he not only symbolised the fight for good against evil but was also the saviour of a persecuted race of people, the Isrealites.

MOSES: MURDERER TO MESSENGER

THE EXODUS

The Isrealites were a large race who were growing in strength and numbers all the time which displeased the new King of Egypt, and he said to his people that they "must take steps to ensure that they increase no further." The king appointed men to "oppress them with forced labour" and thus sprang the cities of Pithom and Rameses with this Isrealite slave labour, and the demands of the Egyptians would become greater and greater as the slaves were badly mistreated.

Despite the King's regime, the Isrealite race continued to increase in size and he decided to take further action and instructed the Hebrew midwives that attended Hebrew births to kill the child if it was a boy, but the God fearing women did not do as the king had asked. When the king asked them why they had not done as he had asked they told him that they had not been disobedient but that the Hebrew women, unlike Egyptian women, would often give birth before the arrival of the midwife. The king then decided to order all Egyptians that all new born Hebrew boys were to be thrown into the Nile, but girls were to be allowed to live. Even after the death of the king the Isrealites were still a persecuted race and what they needed was somebody to help them, and that somebody was Moses.

Moses was born to a descendent of Levi and his wife, a Levite woman, who kept him hidden for three months until she could no longer hide him, so she constructed a basket of rushes sealed with pitch and tar and placed the baby inside it then placed it in the rushes on the bank of the Nile. The pharaoh's daughter and ladies in waiting came down to the river and spotted the baby and one of the slaves was sent to retrieve him.

The baby's sister who had been watching, walked over to the Pharaoh's daughter and asked her if she should fetch a Hebrew midwife. She was told to do so and went to tell the baby's mother who was told by the Pharaoh's daughter that she would pay her if she would raise the child for her and she accepted. When Moses was old enough he was taken to the Pharaoh's daughter who then adopted him and called him Moses.

When Moses was grown up he was watching some of the Isrealite slaves at work when he saw one of them struck by an Egyptian, when nobody was looking he went and struck the Egyptian down and then hid the body in the sand. The next day he saw two slaves arguing and went to try and restore order. They asked him who had put him in charge and if he would also strike one of them down. Knowing that he had been found out he was greatly concerned, and even more so when the pharaoh found out and ordered him to be put to death so he quickly left and soon settled in Midian.

One day while out walking Moses saw the seven daughters of a priest drawing water from a well and they were being driven away by a group of shepherds so he went to their aid. When their father asked what had happened they told him that an Egyptian had helped them to water the sheep and he insisted that they invite him to eat with them. Moses agreed and accepted the invitation and in turn was offered the priest's daughter Zipporah's hand in marriage. The two were married and Zipporah bore Moses a son and they called him Gershom, because "I have become an alien in a foreign land."

One day while Moses was tending his father in law's sheep he came to Horeb, the mountain of God, and there he saw a burning bush, but curiously the fire wasn't destroying the bush. From the bush God spoke to Moses and told him that he had witnessed the awful suffering of the Isrealites in Egypt and told Moses that he should go to the Pharaoh and ask him to free the slaves so that he can then bring them to this mountain and worship God at this place.

Moses was doubtful that the Hebrews would believe him when he said that he had been sent by God, so God told him to place his hand inside his cloak and when he withdrew it he saw it was white with disease. God now told him to place it inside his cloak again and this time when he withdrew it he saw it was back to normal. God said that if they are still not convinced that I have sent you then take some water from the Nile and pour it onto the dry land where it will turn to blood.

Moses now returned to Midian where again he heard the voice of God who told him that all those who had wanted to kill him were now themselves dead, so he took his wife and children with him on a donkey and the staff of God in his hand and made his way to Egypt.

During the journey Moses met Aaron and told him of all that had occurred and they both travelled to Egypt and called together the elders of the Isrealites. When they had seen the powers God had bestowed upon Moses they believed that he was indeed telling them the truth and that God had truly sent him to save them from their persecution by the Egyptians. However, the Pharaoh did not believe Moses and by way of punishment he ordered that the straw with which the slaves made bricks would no longer be fetched for them but they must fetch it themselves, yet they were still to make as many bricks as before. When they failed to do so the Hebrew foremen would be flogged and the slaves felt that Moses was to blame for the worsening predicament they now found themselves in. Moses then went to speak to God and asked him why he had heaped yet more trouble on his people and God told him that "Now you shall see what I shall do to the Pharaoh. He will be forced to let the Hebrews go." and again he told Moses to go and lead the Isrealites out of Egypt.

Moses and Aaron then visited the Pharaoh and when he refused again to free the slaves, Aaron then threw his staff down on the ground and it turned into a serpent. The Pharaoh called for his sorcerers and magicians who performed the same trick but their serpents were swallowed up by Aaron's, yet still the Pharaoh was obstinate.

Many times the lord sent Moses to ask for the release of the Isrealites but each time they were refused and Moses would use the power of God to bring many terrible plagues upon Egypt and its people, yet not affecting the Isrealites. These many plagues included turning the Nile and all its waters into blood, a plague of frogs that covered the land, a plague of flies, the striking down of all Egyptian flocks and livestock, a fine dust which settled over Egypt and caused festering boils on the skin of its people and a great hail storm that killed all the livestock that were left outside, but still the Pharaoh refused to co-operate with Moses and release his slaves.

Moses told him that the Lord could strike him down dead at any moment but he wanted the Pharaoh and his people to see the power of the Lord so that he could tell his children and grand children of the power of God, but still the Pharaoh refused to let the slaves go free and Aaron and Moses warned him that more plagues would follow until he did so.

The next plague was a swarm of locusts that covered the land, filled the houses and destroyed the crops, then came three days of continual darkness over Egypt. The Pharaoh then said to Moses that the people may go free but their livestock must remain behind but this offer was not accepted by Moses and he said that all must be free to leave. He was again summoned by God who told him that following the next plague the Hebrews would be free to leave, but they would be driven out by force by the Pharaoh, and when the Pharaoh yet again refused to free the slaves, despite Moses' warning of another plague, Egypt was ravaged by a plague which caused the first born male child from the Pharaoh himself down to the cattle of his slaves would die. The Isrealites were to mark their front door with blood and the Lord would pass by their house without affecting them but would strike at all others. The lord also made the Egyptians well disposed to the Hebrews and they were to ask them for their gold, silver and clothing which the Egyptians then gave them wilfully.

At midnight the Lord did indeed strike the first born of all those whose door was not marked by blood, and the next morning the Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and told them that all were free to leave Egypt, and when they did go they took with them all the gold, silver and clothing they had taken from the Egyptian people.

THE PARTING OF THE RED SEA

God acted as a guide for the Isrealites to follow in the form of a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night so that they could travel both day and night. He did not however lead them to “The Promised Land” of Canaan, their intended destination by the shortest route, but led them through the wilderness so that none would turn back to Egypt if confronted by war.

God again spoke to Moses and told him to camp between Migdol and the sea to the East of Baal-Zephon, he said that the Pharaoh would then think that the Isrealite exodus were in trouble in the wilderness and he would pursue them so that God would be able to win glory for himself at the Pharaoh's expense. In the meantime the Pharaoh was regretting releasing the slaves and along with his armies he set off in pursuit of them.

The Isrealites in the camp saw that the Pharaoh's forces were almost upon them, and God spoke to Moses and told him to hold high his staff over the sea and the waters would divide enabling him to pass through on the dry ground.

The pillar of cloud then moved to the rear of the Isrealites and separated them from the Egyptians, and it then brought the darkness early and Moses held high his staff. God sent a strong east wind which lasted all night long and parted the sea allowing the Isrealites to cross, and when they had all reached the other side Moses held his hands out over the sea and in the early morning the waters came crashing back together sweeping away the Pharaoh and all his armies. The Isrealites saw the bodies of the Egyptians on the shore and put their faith in the power of God and his servant Moses.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

Three months after the exodus from Egypt, the Isrealites led by Moses had reached the wilderness of Sinai where they set up camp in the shadow of the mountain. Moses went to the top of the mountain to speak to God who told him that they must listen to him and keep his covenant and then they would become his "special possession," his holy nation. He told Moses that in three days time he would come down Mount Sinai and speak to his people, but all must be ready for him with washed clothes and they must not go near a woman, nor must they try to reach God by climbing or even touching the mountain for any who did, including the priests, would be put to death, but nobody must touch them, they must be stoned to death or shot.

On the third day Mount Sinai was rocked by peals of thunder and bolts of lightning and the mountain was enveloped in smoke as a loud trumpet blew. Moses brought the people forward to meet their God.

God spoke to Moses and told him to bring Aaron with him to the top of the mountain and he told Moses that he must tell the Isrealites that he was the God who had brought them all from Egypt where they had been used as slaves by the Egyptians. He told him of ten rules that they must live by in order to remain close to their God, and that he must tell them what God had said and not let God speak to them for they were afraid. Moses told them that they should not be afraid for God was only testing them so that their fear of him would stay with them to keep them from straying from the true path in sin. Moses walked into the cloud that covered Mount Sinai where God was and he told Moses of his ten commandments:

• You shall worship only me and no other Gods.
• You must not carve idols to worship of gold or silver, and altars must be made from earth and not hewn stones.
• You must not take the Lord's name in vain.
• You must keep the Sabbath day sacred.
• Honour your father and mother.
• You shall not commit murder.
• You shall not commit adultery.
• You shall not steal.
• You shall not lie.
• You shall not covet.

God said to Moses that he should once again climb the mountain and he would give him two stone tablets on which he had carved the ten commandments, (when Moses climbed the mountain it was again covered in a large cloud and Moses remained on Mount Sinai for forty days and forty nights).

One of the main characters in the Old Testament must be Moses, the bible tells us that he was born a Jew but raised an Egyptian after being found in the bulrushes. However he came to be raised an Egyptian he never forgot his background, and the Jewish historian Josephus tells us that as a child in the Egyptian Palace he would throw the Egyptian crown to the floor, a sure sign that he longed to be with his fellow people and held no respect for those who raised and named him, even to the point of murder when he witnessed a slave being struck by an Egyptian for which he had to flee.

He was fortunate in finding a wife and employment as a shepherd, so what would cause him to risk losing everything in returning to Egypt to free the enslaved Isrealites. We are told that he did it because God had asked him to go, but even with God's help Moses' new task would still have seemed like an impossibility, to meet the Pharaoh and ask him to release his slaves. Could Moses have been returning to Egypt for some other reason and events would turn out that he would be able to free his fellow people. Could it have been the wish of his wife to go to Egypt to find a new and more prosperous life for their young family, and Moses found himself unable to tell her of his true reason for leaving Egypt years earlier?

It was true that the Pharaoh of the time, Rameses II, was becoming concerned about the increasing numbers of Isrealites, and especially because they outnumbered his own armies but merely lacked strong leadership. His orders to the midwives to kill the male children and his orders that the slaves should produce the same number of bricks as before, even though they now had to collect their own straw could have been an attempt to help cut their numbers when they failed to do so, and in people's eyes he wouldn't then be seen to be simply slaughtering them but punishing them for their laziness. He could have done this either before or after a visit from Moses and not necessarily as a result of a such a visit.

So what about the plagues that befell Egypt? The mists of time would probably cloud the details about just how many plagues there were and what form they might have taken, but the possibility of Egypt being swept with plagues doesn't necessarily have to have a religious cause, but may have a natural, physical cause.

There has been much debate about the matter of the plagues and the most likely explanation is that they were caused by volcanic action further up the Nile in Ethiopia, from which ash and lava could cause the Nile to change to a reddish "blood" colour further down stream. The poisoned, dirty Nile water would cause the wildlife to leave the water and take to the land, and the unhygienic conditions resulting from this would cause anthrax among the cattle which would devastate the herds, and the anthrax could also spread to the human population causing the festering boils on the skin. The many bodies lying around the streets and in the stagnant water would bring the swarms of flies and maggots described in other plagues. The debris described as the hailstorm that "beat down every growing thing and shattered every tree." could be a genuine hailstorm which can strike Egypt in the month of January when the weather is changeable. January can also bring about a “Khamsin” or sandstorm, and these are not considered unusual if they block out the sunlight for several days. The strong winds which bring the sand can also bring swarms of locust into Egypt from Sudan and Ethiopia where they cause devastation regularly.

The confusion caused by these “plagues” would have given the Hebrews faith in their new found leader and would have made the Pharaoh fearful of him, and so, in around 1300 BC, Moses led the Isrealites out of Egypt with the angry forces of the Egyptians close behind them.

The ensuing chase led them through day and night over unfamiliar territory to a dead end in the shape of the sea, though it wasn't, as is widely believed, the Red Sea, but as the Hebrew words tell us, what they called the Reed Sea, Sea of Reeds or Sea of Marshes, which is a body of water that lay between Egypt and Palestine known as “The Bitter Lakes” before it was swallowed up by the Suez Canal.

We are told that an east wind blew all night and that the waters were driven back. If this was either near the top of the lake or a shallow passage across it, then we can see how the Isrealites could walk across, and when the waters flooded back they “swallowed up” the pursuing Egyptians who may possibly have been held up by their chariots and horses as they struggled to keep their footing and sank into the sand.

Another possibility that has been put forward is that the bed of the lake rose above the surface due to volcanic action, and then sank back down again taking the Egyptian armies with it and the ensuing tidal wave swept away those lucky enough to still be alive. This theory isn't however as far fetched as it sounds as it has also been known to occur in Naples in 1538. Yet another possibility is that as the Isrealites made their way to Sinai they could have passed close to Per Rameses which is an area of lagoons and swamps, so on foot with meagre possessions the Isrealites could pass through quite easily, but the armies of Egypt with their horses and chariots would have sunk into the mud.

So Moses and the Isrealites continued their journey with their faith in Moses by now reaching awesome heights, and despite the chaos and rebellion within the ranks of their own people, their faith was enough to hold them together as they made their way across the Sinai Peninsula.

All the time they struggled to find enough food and water to stay alive and began to regret leaving the “comforts” of Egypt. By this time they had transformed from being a group of slaves freed and on their merry way to a new life in the promised land God had given to them, to an unruly mob beginning to fear for their lives which were in the hands of Moses who had held them together by his will power and their faith in him and his God. He was also able to provide them with water by breaking through the thin crust of limestone rock to the water beneath, a trick he had learned when he had spent time in the wilderness after fleeing from Egypt after killing the Egyptian, so they realised that they stood a far better chance of survival by staying with Moses as their guide.

Eventually though, the strain became too much for them and Moses soon realised that his guidance alone wasn't enough, and that he needed once again to show them that they must stay with God, and they must once again become a close knit race abiding by the same set of rules, by God's rules. So Moses finally knew that he had to find a way to pull them back together, and the focal point of the exodus from Egypt becomes the laying down of God's law, so he went to the top of the mountain to carve the ten commandments into the stone tablets and was gone for “forty days and forty nights.”

The commandments themselves are all fairly obvious ones, murder, theft, lies and adultery are obvious crimes, and false idols and taking the Lord's name in vain are clearly aimed at keeping the focus of the people's attention on the God that Moses wanted them to follow. The symbolism and meaning behind the ten commandments could be said to be as relevant today as it ever was, to respect one another's property and rights and to worship the only one true God. We can see between the lines, the message that even if we feel we are ready or are forced to leave the straight and narrow, then believing in and keeping to the ten commandments will ensure that we will return to, and stick to honest ways.

Once again though we can see that the basis of the story is perhaps factually correct but is romanticised by the author and possibly the ones he heard it from, and it is used to represent a struggle between good and evil. Whatever caused the seas to separate, it is uncanny that it should happen at such a convenient time for the pursued Isrealites, and closed again on their pursuers. Perhaps the most credible explanation for the parting of the waters is volcanic action, a perfectly natural process, and one that has been seen to occur elsewhere in similar ways, and also it is the most probable cause for the plagues not long before.

In the 1950s, Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky's book “Worlds in Collision” argued that the earth had nearly collided with other heavenly bodies twice in the last 4,000 years, and that the earth passing through the tail of a comet could also explain the supposed appearance of God as a pillar of cloud during daylight hours and a pillar of fire at night. The pillar is clearly moving as the Isrealites were actually following it until it then moved into a position behind them, and they thought that it was to protect them from the Pharaoh and his army.

We can see in Moses the key figure that the bible author wishes us to see, perhaps the most significant in the Old Testament, truly a man among men. He was perhaps misguided in his belief that he was hearing the words of God, unless of course this is the creation of the author merely seeking to explain Moses' resilience which he truly did possess to even attempt to free an entire race from persecution especially when his own life was so delicately in the balance.

Moses though, considered himself to be merely a man who had been chosen to do a particular job rather than seeing himself as anything more important than a humble and ordinary man able to help his fellow Hebrews. It seems somehow fitting that such a man should be recorded in history as a martyr, a man who died taking his people to the promised land, what we now know as Israel. It is perhaps ironic that Moses died on top of Mount Nebo, a place from which he would be able to see the land that he had fought so hard to reach, and there within sight of his goal he died. His job though, had been done, the Isrealites had been led to the land gifted to them by God, and now they must continue the work that Moses had begun. They chose their new leader as Joshua, and he gladly took on the job as Moses had done before him, and his conquest of Canaan is described in the book of the bible that bears his name. The time is now around 1250 BC.

THE NEW TESTAMENT

JESUS: MAN, MYTH OR MESSIAH?

BIRTH TO BAPTISM

Though the four gospels that tell of Jesus' life differ both in detail and the parts of his life that they cover, they are all in essence the same story, and we will look at all four to get a general idea of Jesus' life and some of the things he did and is remembered for.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW CHAPTER 1, VERSE 18;

“This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph; Before their marriage she found she was going to have a child through the Holy Spirit." On hearing that Mary was pregnant, Joseph, a man of principle, decided to have the marriage contract quietly set aside when he was visited by an angel of the lord in a dream and told that Mary was pregnant by the holy spirit and he shouldn't be afraid to take her home to be his wife. The angel also told him that the child would be a son and he was to be named Jesus "For he will save the people from their sins."

Joseph did as the angel had told him and took Mary home to be his wife and they refrained from intercourse until the boy was born and given the name Jesus. Jesus was born at Bethlehem, Judaea during the reign of Herod, and shortly after the birth astrologers arrived in Jerusalem asking the whereabouts of the new born King of the Jews as they had seen the rising of "his" star in the east and had come to pay homage to him.

King Herod and the rest of Jerusalem were perturbed to hear of this and Herod sent for his chief priests and asked them where the Messiah was to be born, they told him that it was in Bethlehem and Herod then sent secretly for the astrologers. They came to see him as they were asked and he asked them about the star that had guided them and at what time it had risen. He told them to go to Bethlehem and find the infant so that he too could go and pay homage to him. Once again they saw the star and it now guided them to Bethlehem where it stopped above the house where the child lay. They paid homage to him and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh then returned home by a different route as they had been warned in dreams not to go back and see Herod.

Joseph was again visited in a dream by an angel who told him to take his family and escape to Egypt where he was to stay until he was told otherwise as Herod would look for the child to kill him. Again Joseph took heed of his dreams and remained hidden with his family until after Herod's death.

Before his death however, Herod realised the trickery of the astrologers and ordered that every male child under the age of two in Bethlehem and the surrounding area should be killed in order to put an end to the Messiah.

For a third time Joseph was visited by an angel and this time he was told that those who had threatened the boy's life were now dead and he should go to Israel. Again he took the advice of the angel, but on the way there he was disturbed to hear that Herod had been succeeded by his son Archelaus and again he was visited in a dream. He now changed course for Galilee and settled with his family in Nazereth.

This is Matthew's account of the birth of Jesus and the events surrounding it, the gospel of Mark however makes its first mention of Jesus when he encounters John the Baptist at the bank of the river Jordan, as does John, but Luke does give an account of the birth although it is different from that of Matthew.

In his gospel Luke says that the one visited by the angel was Mary, and that the angel said to her "Greetings, most favoured one! The Lord is with you." She was told that God had been gracious to her and she was soon to give birth to a son and name him Jesus. Jesus would be great, the son of the most high king over Israel for ever and his reign will never end. Mary told the angel that she was still a virgin and was told that the holy spirit would come upon her and so the child would be the son of God, Mary told the angel that she was "the Lord's servant" and the angel left. Soon after the visit Mary hurried away to a town in the uplands of Judah where Elizabeth (the expectant mother of John the Baptist) was, and stayed there for three months before coming back home.

In the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus a census was to be taken, so everybody returned to their own town to be registered and Joseph went to the city of David known as Bethlehem, accompanying him were Mary and their unborn child. While they were in Bethlehem Mary gave birth, but because there was no room at the inn Mary was forced to wrap the infant in swaddling clothes and lay him in a manger.

In the same district there were shepherds minding their flocks for the night and they were visited by an angel of God who told them that they were not to be afraid as he had brought them good news of the birth of the Messiah, they would find him wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger in the town of Bethlehem. The shepherds decided to go straight to Bethlehem and find the baby which they did, and when they told everybody present what the angel had told them they were all astonished. As is tradition with Jewish babies the child was circumcised at eight days old and was soon taken to Jerusalem to meet a man named Simeon who had been told by an angel that he would not die until he had seen the Lord's Messiah. Despite the warning Simeon embraced Jesus and praised God. Joseph and Mary were taken aback by the reaction of this man to their son and they were told by Simeon that Jesus would be a sign that would be rejected and that many people in Israel would "stand or fall" because of him. They then returned to Nazareth after everything the law of God required had been done and Jesus grew to be big, strong and very wise.

Every year Joseph and Mary made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover festival, but in Jesus' twelfth year when Passover had finished they set out for home with many friends and relations not knowing that they had left their son behind in Jerusalem. They were a day out of Jerusalem before they realised that he was not among the group with them so they returned to look for him.

It took them three days to find him and when they did he was sitting in the temple with the teachers to whom he was listening and asking questions. All those who heard him were amazed at his obvious intelligence and the way in which he was able to hold such conversations with these men by far his senior. Mary asked him why he had treated them this way and he said "Why did you search for me? Did you not know that I was bound to be in my father's house?" but they did not understand and returned to Nazereth in Galilee.

Though the two accounts differ in many ways they also share many similarities, and both follow the same basic outline and can quite conceivably be based on a true event, we have seen with the Old Testament that the author uses such true events to his own ends and that vein continues in the New Testament though the authors are of course different.

If we take the main points of both accounts we are left with what has evolved to be known as "the Christmas Story." It begins with either Mary, Joseph, or possibly both, being visited by an angel of the Lord and told that they are to have a son by immaculate conception and that he was to be named Jesus. Though they weren't married they were betrothed, and possibly Mary did go to Elizabeth's house for three months, and for some reason, most probably a census, they travelled to Bethlehem where they had trouble in finding accommodation due to the rush of people for census so they were forced to stay in a stable, and Jesus was born and lain in a manger.

The visitors to the stable are commonly referred to as “wise men” but the bible refers to them as either astrologers following a star or shepherds visited by an angel and told to seek the new born Messiah, probably a few days after his birth. Whichever is the true version it is likely that they would have taken gifts for him and paid homage to him. Born a Jew he would be circumcised at eight days old.

When Herod heard about the commotion he ordered the infant to be found, and also all the male children under two years of age to be killed in order to flush out the Messiah, and so Mary and Joseph left Bethlehem and made their way to Nazereth where they settled to raise their son.

When Jesus was twelve he accompanied his parents on the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Passover, but among the crowd after the festival they left without him and were forced to go back and look for him. When they found him he was in the temple engrossed in deep conversation with the elders and seemed surprised that it had taken them so long to find him. They all returned to Nazereth where Jesus continued to grow in both mind and body.

BAPTISM TO TEMPTATION

The son of Zechariah and Elizabeth, whom Mary had visited, was John the Baptist, and John was only six months older than Jesus , his parents were also visited by angels of God. John was to be an important figure in the life of Jesus and a good friend to him, they met at the river Jordan in the fifteenth year of the Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was Governor of Judaea and Herod was Tetrarch of Galilee where Jesus went to be baptised by John who was astounded by the request and felt that he was the one who ought to be baptised by Jesus. He did however agree to perform the baptism and when he had done so the heavens opened and the spirit of God descended and John was told "This is my beloved son, in whom I take delight." The spirit then led the newly baptised Jesus into the wilderness where he would be tempted by the devil.

Jesus spent forty days and forty nights without food before the devil approached him and told him to turn some stones into bread to eat, Jesus said that man was not to live on bread alone but on every word from God's mouth. He then led Jesus to the holy city and to the parapet of the highest temple telling him to throw himself off and let the angels of God fly down to save him. Jesus told him that he should not put the Lord to the test.

Next the devil took him to the mountain top and told him that all he could see would be his if only he would throw himself to the floor and pay homage to him, Jesus told him to get out of his way as he should pay homage to the lord God and him alone. Then the devil left him alone and the Lord's angels came down to tend to his needs.

THE DISCIPLES

When John had been arrested, Jesus returned to Galilee and began to spread the gospel and his fame grew as he taught in the synagogues, amazing his elders with his extensive knowledge. One day he was walking by the sea of Galilee when he saw two brothers called Simon and Andrew who were fishing, he called to them and told them that if they were to go with him he would make them "fishers of men." As they walked he came across two more brothers, James and John, who were in a boat with their father Zebedee mending their nets, he called to them also and they left their father in the boat and followed Jesus.

His fame spread throughout all of Syria and he continued to preach in the synagogues and heal the sick, including Simon's mother in law, who came from far and wide to be healed of many diseases. The crowds who came to hear his sermons began to grow so large that he had asked his friends to get a boat so that he could escape the crowds as they clambered around him to see and hear him, and he took them up a mountain to pick his followers and then from there he could preach to the enormous crowd below. When he came down from the mountain his disciples followed him to the boat and they all climbed aboard before setting out across the lake while Jesus fell asleep.

As they sailed across, a great storm rose until the waves were washing over the sides of the boat, and this made the disciples so fearful that they woke Jesus who said to them "Why are you such cowards?" with so little faith. He stood and calmed the wind and waves which amazed them so much that they said what sort of man is this that the wind and sea obey him?

PARABLES AND MIRACLES

When they reached the other side of the lake at Gerasenes, a man possessed by an unclean spirit came toward him from the tombs where he had made his home. Chains had failed to hold the man and other men were helpless against him. He threw himself down at Jesus' feet and Jesus drove the demons from him, he asked the man's name and he said "My name is legion." The demons begged him not to banish them from the town altogether but to let them go among a nearby herd of pigs, and when they did the pigs ran into the lake and were drowned. The people came to see what Jesus had done and they were afraid when they saw the former madman clothed and sane and asked him to leave, so he and his disciples returned to the other side of the lake where Jesus continued to heal the people who were brought to him, they included a paralysed man, a girl thought to be dead and even a girl who was suffering from haemorrhages without even touching her. He told her that her faith would be enough and she would be healed. He went around many towns preaching in the synagogues and spreading God's word, and he felt that the crowds were like sheep without a shepherd and he told the disciples that "The crop is heavy, but the labourers too few; you must ask the owner to send labourers to bring in the harvest."

He called his twelve disciples together and gave them the authority to cure people themselves and to drive out their demons, and so the twelve were drawn together, Simon, Andrew, James, John, Thaddaeus, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James, Simon and Judas. Jesus sent them forth and told them not to take the road to gentle lands but to go to the lost sheep of Israel and proclaim the message that the kingdom of heaven is upon you, heal the sick and drive out demons, they received without cost so they should give without charge, to receive you is to receive me and to receive me is to receive the one who sent me. When he had instructed his disciples he sent them forth and he himself went to teach in the neighbouring towns.

Jesus would give his preachings in the form of easy to understand stories known as parables, the best known perhaps being the sewing of the seed. Some of the seed fell on stony ground with little soil, some fell on the footpath and was eaten up by birds, some grew among thistles which choked them as they grew and some fell on good soil and grew well. This, Jesus said, meant that the seed which fell on the path is the one that hears the word but doesn't understand it and is the evil which carries away what has been sown in his heart. The seed that fell on stony ground is the person that hears the word and accepts it at once but it doesn't last for long before he loses his faith. The seed that falls among the thistles is the one that hears the word but his worldly cares and false glamour choke it. The seed that falls on good soil is the one that hears the word, understands it, accepts it and keeps it.

Once, while at a wedding, Jesus, his mother and his disciples were present as guests, and in the course of the wedding the wine ran out. When Mary told her son he replied that it was no concern of his as his hour had not yet come, and she told the servants to do whatever Jesus asked. Nearby stood six stone jars which were used by the Jews for rites of purification and each of them contained twenty or thirty gallons of water. Jesus told the servants to fill them with water which they did, he then told them to draw some of it off and take it for the master of the feast to taste, and when he did he tasted wine, not knowing from where it had come. The master then raised his cup and said to the gathering "Everyone else serves the best wine first, but you have saved the best until now." Jesus' time had now come and he had performed a miracle.

After the death of John the Baptist, Jesus was once again confronted with a large crowd and again he healed those who were sick, and as the day drew on the disciples approached him and told him that as they were in a very remote spot and night was falling they must send somebody to a farm or village to buy some food. Jesus told them that there was no need for anyone to leave as they had food already. The disciples looked at the meagre offerings they had and it came to only five loaves and two fish, so Jesus took these and looked to heaven saying a blessing then broke the bread and gave it to his disciples who gave them to his people who all ate and were all satisfied. When they had finished eating, what was left over was enough to fill twelve baskets, the crowd was made up of five thousand men, not counting women and children.

After all had eaten, Jesus sent his disciples across the sea to Capernaum but Jesus was not with them in the boat as he had gone up the hillside to be alone. As the boat crossed the water and night fell the wind started to blow and the disciples looked out over the lake and saw Jesus walking toward them across the surface of the water, thinking it was a ghost they cried out in terror but Jesus said to them "Take heart ! It is I; do not be afraid." Peter called to him and said "Lord, if it is you, tell me to come to you over the water."

"Come." Jesus said, and Peter walked over the water to where Jesus stood. Peter became frightened because of the rough water and began to sink, shouting to Jesus to save him. Jesus reached out and took his arm saying "Why did you hesitate? How little faith you have." Then they climbed into the boat and the twelve fell down at his feet and said "You must be the son of God."

Jesus was asked to visit the home of an official who had told him that his daughter had just died, and he asked Jesus if he could lay his hands on her, so he and the disciples went to see the dead girl. When they arrived at the house they saw flute players and people mourning, Jesus told them to go away because the girl was not dead but just sleeping and they laughed at him. He went into the room where the girl lay and held her hand, upon which she got up and everybody was amazed and the word of this healing soon spread. This isn't the only time that Jesus raised somebody from the dead, but another occasion was still more fantastic than this instance as the man he resurrected this time was four days in the grave.

Jesus arrived at Bethany, the home town of Lazarus, less than two miles from Jerusalem and so many Jews were present to console his sister Martha. Martha said to Jesus, "Lord if you had been here my brother would not have died." Jesus told her that he would rise again, as whoever had faith in him shall live, even though he dies.

Jesus went to the tomb which was a cave with a stone placed against it and said to Martha "Take away the stone." but Martha said that as he had been there for four days there would be a stench to which Jesus replied "Did I not tell you that if you have faith you will see the glory of the Lord?" They moved the stone and Jesus looked up to heaven and thanked his father for hearing and said "I know you always hear, but I've spoken so all present will know that it was you who sent me." He raised his voice and said "Lazarus, come out." and the dead man walked out of the tomb, wrapped in bandages and with a cloth over his face.

THE ROAD TO JERUSALEM

Jesus set out for Jerusalem with his disciples, and on the way he told them that the son of man would be given to the chief priests and scribes who will condemn him to death and hand him over to the gentiles who will mock him, flog him and crucify him, but on the third day he will be resurrected. As they neared the city of Jerusalem Jesus stopped at Bethphage at the mount of olives and sent two of the disciples into the nearby village where he told them they would find a donkey tethered with her foal beside her and they were to bring them to him. If they were questioned they were to say that the master needs them. They did as he asked and laid their cloaks over the donkey, then Jesus mounted and rode on a carpet of cloaks that people had laid out on the road. Some cut down branches to lay down in front of him as he rode into Jerusalem where people rejoiced at his arrival. He rode to the temple where he found that people were carrying out their business, buying and selling and he immediately turned over the tables of the money changers and the seats of the pigeon dealers and said to them all "My house shall be called the house of prayer; but you are making it a bandits cave." When they had left the temple Jesus began healing the sick who were brought to him and they began singing his praises. The chief priests and scribes asked Jesus if he had noticed how everybody treated him and praised his name.

Jesus spent that night in Bethany and returned to Jerusalem the next morning and, as he made his way back he was feeling hungry and saw a fig tree by the roadside but it bore no fruit, only leaves. He said to the tree "May you never bear fruit again" and immediately the tree withered away to the amazement of the disciples who asked him how he had done such a thing, to which he replied "If only you have faith and have no doubts, you will do what has been done to the fig tree," and if they truly believed then they could even cause a mountain to lift up and crash into the sea just by telling it to do so.

When they reached Jerusalem again, Jesus returned to the temple and began preaching which caused the chief priests and elders of the nation to ask him who had given him the authority to preach in the way he did, to which Jesus replied with a question of his own and, if they could answer it then he would answer theirs. He asked them "The baptism of John: Was it from God or from men?" They began to argue among themselves and eventually answered him that they didn't know, so Jesus told them that he would not tell them by what authority he acted. He began to speak to them in parable and ask them what the parables meant but they answered wrongly and realised that Jesus was getting at them so they became angry with him but wouldn't arrest him through fear that the crowd would react against them, so they went away and devised a plot by which to trap Jesus in argument and sent some of their followers and some of Herod's men to him. They said to him "We know you are a sincere man; you teach in all sincerity the way of life that God requires, courting no man's favour, whoever he may be. Give us your ruling on this: Are we or are we not permitted to pay taxes to the Roman Emperor? " Jesus knew that they were trying to trap him and asked them why they were doing it, he asked them to show him the coin they used to pay their tax and they gave him a silver piece. Jesus asked them whose head was on the coin and they replied Caesar's, Jesus told them to pay to Caesar what belonged to Caesar, and pay to God what belongs to God. They left him alone but many others tried similar ways to catch him out but Jesus always came out on top and left his would be tormentors humbled until they decided that it was hopeless to continue trying.

Jesus then told the crowds who followed him and his disciples to do whatever the elders told them but not to follow their practise as they say one thing but do another. He continued to brand them as hypocrites who would shift their burdens to others rather than lift a finger themselves and he pondered how they could escape being condemned to hell. He said he would send prophets and wise men who would teach them, some of the teachers would be killed and crucified, others would be flogged in synagogues, and the guilt of the spilt blood of innocents would be borne by everybody of this generation, and he referred to the city of Jerusalem as the city that murders prophets and stones messengers.

Jesus and his disciples left the temple and Jerusalem and again returned to Mount Olive where Jesus had things to tell them. He said that the temple would be torn down so that not one brick remained atop another, and they must take care that nobody misleads them as there would be many false prophets who would try to do just that as the people would resent their allegiance to him, but those who persevere through this time will be saved. He told them to take a lesson from the fig tree, as when the shoots appear and break into leaf it is a sign that the end is nigh, heaven and earth will pass away but my words will never pass away.

THE LAST SUPPER

Jesus told the disciples that he had to warn them, and that in two days time it would be Passover and the son of man would be handed over to be crucified, and, even as he was telling them this, a plot was being hatched by the chief priests and scribes who had met at the home of the high priest Caiaphas where they schemed ways to capture Jesus and put him to death. Their main concern was that the seizure would not take place until after the Passover festival for fear of retribution by the people.

One of the disciples, Judas Iscariot, went to see the chief priests and asked them what they would give him to betray Jesus to them, to which they replied thirty silver pieces and gave them to him, and so Judas began to search for an opportunity to betray Jesus.

The disciples asked Jesus where he would like them to prepare the Passover for him, and he told them that they must go to the house of a certain man in the city and they prepared the Passover feast for him there. During the meal Jesus told them that one of the twelve would betray him, they all exclaimed "Surely you do not mean me Lord?" and Jesus replied that the son of man is going the way that was appointed him by the scriptures, but for the traitor it would be better if he had never been born. Jesus took the bread and broke it saying "Take this and eat it, this is my body" and he took a cup which he first blessed then said "Drink from it, all of you. For this is my blood."

After the Passover they returned to Mount Olive where Jesus told them that they would all lose faith in him that night as it was written, but Peter stepped forward and said he would never disown him and the others agreed, but Jesus told Peter that before the morning cock had crowed three times, he would disown him three times.

They then came to a place called Gethsemane and he told them to sit here for a while as he went to pray, he took with him Peter, James and John and told them to wait and stay awake until he returned and he went to pray. When he did return he saw that the three were asleep and he woke them and asked them if they could not stay awake for one hour? He told them that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. For a second time he went away to pray and on his return found them again to be asleep, this time he didn't wake them and went away for a third time to pray. This time when he returned he roused them and told them that the betrayal was upon them.

ARREST AND TRIAL

Before Jesus could finish speaking, Judas approached with a large crowd who were armed with swords and cudgels, Judas said to them "The one I kiss is your man; seize him!" upon which he walked to Jesus and said "Hail Rabbi!" and kissed him, the crowd then came forward and seized him. The disciples ran and left him as he was led away to the house of Caiapha where the chief priests and scribes awaited his arrival. They were followed by Peter who sat in the crowd to see what would happen.

They tried in vain to find a charge against Jesus that would carry the penalty of death until one man stepped forward and alleged that Jesus had told him he could pull down the temple and rebuild it within three days, Jesus made no reply and the high priest asked him if he were the Messiah, the son of God, to which Jesus replied The words are yours" but he added "From now on you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of the almighty. "The high priest leapt to his feet and said that Jesus had committed blasphemy and all those present found him guilty and said that he should die. Peter got up to leave and was recognised by a girl who told him that he had been with Jesus the Galilean, which Peter denied, and walked to the courtyard gates where another girl recognised him and said that he had been with Jesus of Nazareth, which again Peter denied. Later, Peter was again recognised by people who told him that he must be one of them as his accent gave him away, and for a third time Peter denied it and said "I do not know the man" as he said these words a cock crowed and he was reminded of the words Jesus had said to him that evening. Peter went away and wept bitterly.

PONTIUS PILATE

When morning came Jesus was bound and led away to the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate and, on seeing that Jesus had been condemned to death, Judas Iscariot was racked with remorse and gave his thirty silver pieces back to the chief priest and said that he had sinned by bringing an innocent man to his death. He was told that it was his problem and not theirs so he threw down the silver on the temple floor and left on the verge of breaking point and went immediately to hang himself. The priests couldn't put the money back into the temple funds as it was blood money so they used it to buy a burial place for foreigners which became known as blood acre.

When Jesus appeared before Pilate he was asked if he was the king of the Jews to which he replied "The words are yours" and he had the charges read to him but made no reply. Pilate asked him if he had heard all the evidence against him and again Jesus refused to answer and Pilate was left with no option but to tell the priests that he could find no charge against Jesus but it was customary at festival season for the Governor to release a prisoner chosen by the people. He had a man in custody called Jesus Barabbas and he called to the crowd "Which would you like me to release to you - Jesus Barabbas or Jesus called Messiah?" as he knew that the priests and scribes had plotted against the Messiah, but they continued their plot by influencing the crowd and soon all were calling for the release of Jesus Barabbas. Pilate asked them what was to become of the Messiah and the crowd shouted "Crucify him! Crucify him!"

Pilate still doubted the validity of the charges against Jesus and became worried as his wife had had a dream the previous night and sent a message to him telling him to have nothing to do with the innocent man. Pilate asked the crowd what harm the Messiah had done and they again yelled "Crucify him! Crucify him!" so Pilate took some water and washed his hands and said to the crowd "My hands are clean of this man's blood, see to that yourselves" to which the crowd replied "His blood be on us and on our children." Pilate now had no option but to release Barabbas and have Jesus flogged before handing him over to be crucified. The soldiers then took him into Pilate's residence, the Preatorium, stripped him and dressed him in a scarlet cloak.

THE CRUCIFIXION

They made a crown of thorns for Jesus and placed it on his head. They put a stick in his right hand then fell to the floor in front of him and taunted him by saying "Hail, King of the Jews!" They spat on him and beat him with the stick, then when they had finished they stripped him of the cloak and put his own clothes back on him and led him out to be crucified.

They saw a man from Cyrene named Simon, and he carried Jesus' cross to a place called Golgotha (Place of the skull) where he was offered a drink of wine that was drugged with gall and after he had tasted it he refused to drink further, then he was fastened to the cross and hung up with two other criminals, one on either side of him. Lots were drawn for his clothes and Jesus said "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." It was nine in the morning.

A sign was made by Pilate which read "Jesus of Nazareth. The king of the Jews." and it was placed above his head as was traditional at crucifixions. The Jewish chief priest told Pilate that he should not have written it as such but should have written "He claimed to be the King of the Jews." but Pilate turned to him and said "What I have written, I have written."

Jesus was taunted by the priests and one of the criminals on either side of him, they said to him that if he were truly the Messiah he would save himself. The other criminal said to him that the two of them were there for their misdeeds, but you are innocent, he asked Jesus a question, he said "Jesus, remember me when you come to your throne." and Jesus replied "Truly I tell you: Today you will be with me in paradise."

At midday, a darkness descended on the land and stayed until 3 in the afternoon and Jesus asked "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He said that he was thirsty, so a sponge soaked in the drugged wine and fastened to a hyssop was held up to him while he drank. After he had done so he said "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit" at which point the curtains of the temple were torn in two from top to bottom, and the Centurion standing nearby who witnessed this said that this man was innocent and must have been a son of God. It was now evening and the day before the Sabbath, and the Jews became concerned that the bodies shouldn't remain on the crosses so they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and a Centurion broke the legs of the two murderers, but when he came to Jesus they saw that he was already dead and they didn't need to break his legs, but one of the Centurions thrust his sword into Jesus' side which brought forth a flow of blood and water.

A good, wealthy and upright man named Joseph who had come from Arimathaea went to Pilate and asked his permission to cut down the body of Jesus and bury it, to which Pilate agreed, so Joseph cut down the body and wrapped it in clean linen then laid it in his own unused tomb which was a cave he had cut out of the rock, and he then rolled a stone across the opening. Joseph had been watched by three women who had followed Jesus from Galilee, Mary of Magdala, Joanna and Mary, the mother of James. They saw where Jesus’ body had been lain and went home to prepare perfumes, spices and ointments for his body, but they had to rest on the Sabbath day and couldn't return to the tomb until the first day of the next week.

THE RESURRECTION

It was early in the morning, just after sunrise, when the women returned to the tomb and they were thinking about who could roll the stone away for them when they saw that it had already been done. They entered the tomb and saw a man there dressed in white who said to them that he knew they had come looking for Jesus of Nazareth and told them "Why search among the dead for one who is alive?" as he had risen from the dead and was making his way to Galilee. He told the women that they must tell Peter and the other disciples of this, so they left the tomb and were so afraid that they said nothing to anybody but Peter and the disciples who didn't believe them.

As the women were walking through the country to Emmaus, Jesus approached them but they didn't recognise him. He asked them what they were talking about and they asked him if he hadn't heard of the events of the past few days in Jerusalem. He walked with them to the village and stayed with them at their request, and as they sat down to eat Jesus took the bread and said the blessing then broke it and offered it to them upon which they recognised him, but as soon as they did he disappeared from sight. The women then returned to Jerusalem where they found the disciples together and they told them what had happened. As they were doing so, Jesus appeared in the room and asked them why they had not believed those who had seen him, and he showed them his hands and feet, which bore the marks of the crucifixion, so all knew that it was indeed the Messiah.

Jesus again appeared to the disciples while they were fishing in the sea of Tiberias though they didn't know it was him. They had fished all night and not caught a single fish so Jesus told them to cast their nets over the starboard side which they did, and when they were unable to haul the net back on board they saw that the reason was because it was so full of fish, and again they knew that it was Jesus. They towed the net ashore and found that it contained 153 big fish and they sat down to eat a meal of bread and fish, broken and handed out by Jesus. After they had eaten, Jesus returned to Mount Olive for the night and then returned to the temple the next morning where he began teaching the crowd gathered there. The chief priests and scribes entered the temple with a woman accused of committing adultery and they told Jesus that Moses had said such women should be stoned to death, they asked him what he would do with her, again hoping to catch him out. Once again Jesus knew what they were trying to do and said "Let whichever of you is free from sin throw the first stone at her." and he bent down to write on the floor with his finger. When he looked up again he saw that all had left, the eldest first, and he was now alone with the woman. He said to her "Where are they? Has no-one condemned you?"
She said to him, "None sir."
Jesus replied, "Neither do I condemn you. Go do not sin again."

So it was that Jesus had fulfilled his prophecy of returning from the dead, and he told his disciples that they must go forth and continue to preach the gospel, baptise and heal the sick, and he led them as far as Bethany then was taken up into the kingdom of heaven to be seated at the right hand of God, his father in a cloud that took him into the sky. As they watched him go they were visited by two robed men in white who told them "This Jesus who has been taken from you up to heaven will come in the same way as you have seen him go."

The beginning of another chapter in history heralds the beginning of the New Testament and the gospel according to Matthew, gospel being an old Anglo-Saxon word meaning God story or Good story, so the author Matthew is telling us the good news about the birth of Jesus. Indeed the four gospel writers were concerned so much with the good news that we get no mention of Jesus' actual birth date, appearance, his opinions or his time of death, not exactly the work of a writer detailing somebody's life story but rather somebody in awe of the greatness of the man.

In the chapters of Mark, almost half of the sixteen are taken up by the chain of events leading up to Jesus' death and resurrection, and clearly the authors are aware that they are not chronicling the life of any ordinary man but of a unique man. There are several marked differences between the four gospels, some just possibly down to the interpretation of the different authors, though some are clearly set apart by factual differences. Some of the facts we do know is that Jesus was born before 4BC when Herod the Great died. Herod had adopted the Jewish religion though he wasn't a Jew by birth, so his allegiances were to Rome but his sympathies were Greek, and by the end of his reign he was known to be quite mad and could quite easily have issued orders, such as the slaying of all the children in Bethlehem under two years old. After his death, the Jews wanted the Emperor Augustus to take the country under direct Roman supervision but he decided to divide the territory among Herod the Great's three sons. The son in charge of Judaea was a tyrant like his father and the land fell victim to riots and rebellion for ten years until Augustus placed Judaea under the control of a Roman procurator whose superior was the Governor of Syria and then Augustus himself.

The fifth procurator of Judaea was none other than Pontius Pilate who took up office in 26 AD and was still in office at Jesus' trial. Another son of Herod the Great was Herod Antipas who was the ruler of Galilee, and he is the Herod who appears throughout the gospels during Jesus' life and who was almost obsessed with getting rid of him, Jesus even had a nickname for Antipas and referred to him as "that fox." Herod Antipas had also been behind the death of John the Baptist who had condemned him for his bigamous marriage to Herodias. It is ironic that Pontius Pilate, though apparently reluctant to condemn Jesus to death, was also a tyrannical ruler who ruled with repression and overstepped the mark so far that he was later tried in Rome for massacring civilians without sufficient cause and was banished to Gaul.

So it was that Jesus was present in a land and time that saw great political and social unrest as the Jewish people rebelled against Roman rule and an increasingly suppressing regime, so it comes as no surprise that so many suffered from “demons” within, and general mental and physical ailments. In time the Roam procurators allowed for the Jewish high priests to effectively rule the state but still be answerable to them. The "high priests" mentioned in the gospels are Annas, who reigned from 6 AD to 15 AD, and his son in law Caiaphas who ruled from 18 AD to 36 AD, and below their authority were the Sanhedrin who are referred to in the bible as "chief priests."

Local disputes were settled locally, and any that couldn't be were referred to the Sanhedrin, the equivalent of a high court in all but capital offences, such as the ones that Jesus stood accused of, so the stage was almost perfectly set, both politically and religiously, for a new Messiah who would deliver the world from both the evil tyrants and the evil of man. John the Baptist, himself a religious icon, was so enamoured of Jesus that he saw himself as unworthy of fastening Jesus' sandals, but the difference between the teachings of the two men was that John, and other preachers of the time, spoke of the wrath of God and scared people into accepting him to save themselves from their evil deeds but Jesus spoke of the love of God and his rewarding of good deeds by ordinary men. Despite these differences, John was still more than a friend to Jesus, he was also an inspiration, and their meeting at the river Jordan was due to Jesus' wish to hear the preachings of the baptist whose reputation went before him, and so he journeyed from Nazareth in Galilee to the river Jordan to do just that, and he was so inspired when he did that he himself was moved to begin delivering such preachings.

The way that the gospels present the life of Jesus is as a series of episodes and encounters in his life, and we are told nothing of his own thoughts, just his words and deeds, and clearly the authors are writing just what they knew or were told.

Right from the start the story of Jesus, as represented in the bible, is on shaky ground with the notion of an immaculate conception, a physical impossibility, and the parents themselves, Joseph and Mary were not exceptional people in any way, tradition telling us that Joseph was a carpenter.

We are told that Joseph and Mary were betrothed but not married, and of course adultery was punishable by stoning, so for arguments sake we might assume that the child was fathered by Joseph, but illegitimacy would have been an almost equally serious crime and so they couldn't openly admit to pre-nuptual sex and came up with the story of an angel impregnating her with a child. Matthew tells us that Joseph set aside the marriage contract until he was visited by an angel and it is also it interesting that shortly after finding herself pregnant Mary left for Judah to stay with the expectant mother of John the Baptist for three months, could this have been to avoid her fellow townspeople from knowing that she was pregnant, or was it to nurse her friend through her pregnancy up to the birth of her son, who werare told was three months older than Jesus? Whatever the truth, as soon as Mary returned to Joseph, they both left for Bethlehem to register themselves in the census, so it is likely that nobody in their town ever saw her pregnant, and so they found themselves in Bethlehem with Mary's labour imminent.

Christian tradition holds that the birth of Christ took place in the year 0 on December 25th but we know that this is not the case as there was actually no year 0. The calendar actually goes straight from the year 1BC to the year 1 AD, and besides it must have been earlier than this, in fact before 4 BC. We know that in 7 BC the planets Jupiter and Saturn were in conjunction and would have produced a bright light in the sky, could this have been the star we have come to know as a part of the Christmas story? Could it have attracted astrologers who came to investigate? Or is it the author using the part of the Old Testament in Genesis that tells us that God created stars to act as signs for festivals? The three men are also described as shepherds, and as the Jews had been waiting for years for a Messiah, could they have heard about the birth of the son of David and left for the traditional home of David to look for him rather than being visited by an angel?

The story has become romanticised over the years and so details become glamorised, especially with the relationship with Christmas, but it is interesting that the virgin birth appears nowhere outside the opening chapters of Matthew and Luke, and in fact in the early years of the church, belief in the immaculate conception wasn't a necessary part of Christianity.

The infant was praised by those who visited him in the manger and he became an overnight celebrity in Bethlehem, which angered the demented Herod who ordered all the infants under two to be killed, so the happy family escaped to Egypt and the relative safety there before settling in Nazareth, and we next see Jesus at the age of twelve in Jerusalem, doing what young children do best, asking questions. The next account that we get of Jesus after this is his meeting with John the Baptist thirty years later, so, did the so called Messiah not realise that he was the son of God, the King of the Jews? Did he not achieve any great goals until the age of forty or more? If so why did he tell Mary and Joseph that they should have known he would be in his father's house, if he did say such a thing? It is clear from reading the four gospels that the authors see the first significant event of Jesus' life not to be the virgin birth or his first trip to Jerusalem for Passover but his meeting with John the Baptist and indeed this is where both Mark and John begin their gospels, making no mention of Jesus' early life which he spent in Nazareth, a quiet village in the hills of Galilee.

Jesus therefore was a country man at heart who, as far as we know, didn't visit the city until he had turned twelve. The assumption is made that Joseph died around this time, and as Jesus was the eldest child he would have inherited any business of his father's, and so for thirty years he lived the life of a lowly village carpenter in the heart of the hills where he would have experienced men and women at their most simple, unassuming level. He would have learnt their ways and spent long hours alone where he could spend his time thinking and asking himself deep and meaningful questions, bread and butter to a man who enjoys his own company, and it gave him much time to think about the world he lived in and the people he shared it with and their religious and spiritual problems of the time.

Jesus had an extensive knowledge of the Old Testament and understood the troubles his fellow men were experiencing, so when he heard of a preacher drawing large crowds at the banks of the river Jordan, he had to go and see what all the fuss was about. Something must have happened to him during his years in Nazareth that made him feel that he was something special, something more than just a carpenter, did he know that he had certain gifts, gifts that nobody else in his village had? Something must have given him reason to leave the only life he had ever known, his home and his job to go and hear the words of a preacher, and when he did hear John preach he was so moved by it that he felt compelled to take it up himself and display the gifts that had been bestowed upon him, possibly gifts given to him by the God that John was talking about, with similar opinions to those that Jesus himself held.

When he was baptised by John he felt that it was his duty to go forward and teach the word of God, but what would make him think he was the son of God? Had many told him that he was a virgin birth? Had he, clearly a wise man, been doubting it all his life and now finally believed it after hearing the sermon given by John, or did he simply have an inflated opinion of himself? It is possible that Mary told Jesus, but probably nobody else in Nazareth, as they had possibly settled in such a remote place to be able to put their indiscretions behind them. So, now in emotional turmoil at realising his new vocation in life and believing himself to be the son of God, he needed time alone to collect his thoughts, and used to spending such times alone he went out into the wilderness to decide his future for a biblical length of time, forty days and forty nights.

The time Jesus spent in the wilderness was taken up by him deciding which path to take and what direction his life was to follow. so he had many choices to make about what he was to do, whether or not to throw himself from the temple so to speak, and only when he had made these decisions to take the path he felt was right, and not necessarily the one he would be expected to take, or the one others would want him to take. Finally he returned to civilisation in Galilee, the land he knew so well and began his life's work spreading the word of God in a novel way compared to those that had gone before him, and so his teachings of the kingdom of God were taken as good news.

One typical day in Jesus' life is described in the chapters of Mark, where Jesus was preaching on the Sabbath day in Capernaum and his audience were grateful for the change of tack from the usual sermon, including one man not of sound mind, to whom Jesus' words meant so much and struck a chord so deep that his mind became clear, and all felt that through Jesus they had witnessed the healing power of God. Afterward Jesus and his four new disciples went to the home of Peter for a meal, but when they arrived there they found that his mother was bedridden with a high fever which was lifted by Jesus' touch, and she was then able to get out of bed and continue with her chores. Word soon spread and as the evening fell on the Sabbath, many people then came to Peter's house to be healed of both physical and mental ailments. Once Jesus had risen early on the following day he went away, again by himself, to find space for thought and time to reflect over what must have been one of the most important days of his life, and one which confirmed to him that he was what he thought he was, and during his time in the wilderness what he had decided to be, and that he possessed the powers that went with the "job" and over the ensuing years of his life, he would come to use them many times.

As he healed more and more people his fame spread far and wide, and the crowds that came to him grew larger and larger until they were too big to fit into a house or even a synagogue and he was forced to preach from a boat while the crowd stood around him on the shore. The feelings of Herod at that time who had already put pay to the preacher John the Baptist were certainly not favourable, and the fact that Jesus was able to attract a crowd probably larger than Herod himself wouldn't have helped matters any, and Jesus eventually left Galilee, though not only to escape a confrontation with Herod but also possibly for a more important reason. Jesus may possibly have felt that people were now only coming to him to be healed and not to hear what he had to say, and that people perhaps felt he would one day join them and lead them in a rebellion against the Romans, which he of course had no intention of doing. Jesus was careful never to use the word Messiah to describe himself and he also encouraged others not to do so as it would be another reason for Herod to be greatly angered by him.

When Jesus left Galilee he was possibly a very disappointed man because his plans had gone wrong, people had been following him for the wrong reasons, and he made the decision to recruit the assistance of a few faithful followers, his twelve disciples, to help him start again on the right road. The choosing of the number twelve was no accident and it signified that he was striving for a new Israel whose twelve tribes were the "traditional embodiment of the people of God" and he took them away from Galilee in order to teach them on a more personal basis, away from the milling throngs he had in the past had to contend with.

So we have a gifted man with the powers to heal both mental and physical ailments, where we have psychiatrists and spiritual healers today, in Jesus' time illnesses, both of the mind and of the body, were thought to be caused by demon possession, and many of the healing stories feature such demons. Even in the modern, thinking world, primitive peoples such as Aboriginal tribes still hold this fear, and if such a person were to be told that his demons were being banished then he would be well, and by the same token if he were to be told that he were about to die within the next seven days then he would in turn be dead one week later, simply because his mind is telling him that this will be so. This is called a “psychosomatic” process and demonstrates the power of the mind over the body and shows that in the case of psychic healers, it is the victim who actually cures themselves by their faith in the healer rather than the actions of the healer directly curing them. We can see evidence that Jesus knew this in the aftermath of the events at Gerasenes when he told a girl that he didn't need to touch to heal her as her faith in him would be enough and she would be cured. It is for this reason that spiritual healers are more commonly, and more fittingly known as faith healers, and so once Jesus had cured one person, others would already have faith in him and his powers and so, to some extent, making it easier for him the more he did it.

So Jesus was to begin his work again, and he did it in such a way that all could understand him and he would use a little example in the form of a story known as a parable, the meanings behind the parables were on the basic theme that God would reward the good and disregard those that chose not to live as he would wish. Jesus would use everyday stories to get this message across, perhaps the most famous being the sower of the seed, the prodigal son and the good samaritan, but his preaching to crowds was now taking up a lot less of his time than his teaching of the twelve disciples in quiet places, where just the thirteen of them were present, and he tended to choose mountain tops for these meetings, away from disturbances. The disciples were convinced that Jesus was who he said he was when they witnessed the miracles that he performed, turning water into wine, feeding the 5,000, banishing a man's demons to a herd of swine, calming the storm on the lake and resurrecting people.

We can read between the lines of the four gospels and see that the authors are clearly in awe of the man they hail as the Messiah, and the gospels were written soon after Jesus lifetime, possibly with the help of the disciples. We have also seen many times the use of symbolism in the bible right from the book of Genesis with the creation, through the Old Testament and into the New Testament, so do we take the miracles at face value as actual fact or do we look at them in the same light as we looked at the creation, Noah's ark and Moses?

The truth is that Jesus refused to perform to order to satisfy people's curiosity or to make them believe in him, in fact his miracles are all in context with the story and seem to fit in with the telling of the gospels, as though they were nothing special to Jesus but merely part of the story, not factual miracles but miracles with a far deeper meaning, a hidden truth.

The changing of the 120 gallons of water into fine red wine could be interpreted to mean the rich wine of Jesus' gospel replacing the plain water of Judaism of which everybody had had their fill. The feeding of the 5,000 was an unnecessary miracle in that all those present could easily have gone home to eat rather than staying where they were to eat with Jesus, and it could mean nothing more than a crowd of people attending one of Jesus' sermons and then eating a meal with him out in the open before returning home.

In the Old Testament we saw accounts of people such as Moses controlling the elements and we see it again in the New Testament when Jesus walked on the lake and calmed the storm with his words. Where the parting of the Red Sea was probably caused by some natural phenomenon, then likewise the calming of the storm could also have a natural cause but is more likely to represent Jesus possessing a power similar to God's over the elements as is Jesus walking on water and banishing the man's demons to the herd of swine. Jesus' act of making the fig tree wither would appear to be an error on the author's part because in another chapter we see that one of Jesus' parables is about a fruitless fig tree being representative of the fruitlessness of the people of Israel so there is an apparent mix up between something Jesus said and something Jesus did.

The resurrections that Jesus performed on three separate occasions could also have symbolic meanings, that Jesus represents a new life for people reborn into his world, or they could perhaps be factual in essence, especially in the case of the recently dead girl, because the definition of death in Jesus' time was far different to that we know today. A lack of breathing would once have been taken as death, as would a lack of heartbeat, both of which can be restarted nowadays and are done everyday in hospitals all over the world as a matter of relative routine. The common definition of death we have today is the cessation of activity in the brain, but even this is a point of contention in the cases of people in comas being kept alive by machinery which circulates their blood and pumps their lungs full of air.

When Jesus raised Lazarus from the grave, he emerged from the tomb wrapped in bandages with a cloth over his face, so could it have been somebody else in his place concealing their true identity?

Jesus' final “mission” in life seemed to be to go to Jerusalem, where he knew the hardened Jews were, and the essence of his life's work was to come to a head, and in one of his lessons to the disciples he seemed to have foreseen his own capture, flogging, death and resurrection. He also later predicted his betrayal by Judas at the last supper, and so they made their way to Jerusalem, arriving there at the time of the Passover, the second time that we know Jesus was in Jerusalem for the festival. It would seem that Jesus chose the Passover to go to Jerusalem as he knew it would be filled with many many Jews who made the pilgrimage annually, and he would have had a huge audience to preach to. We now refer to this time in his life as Holy Week, and it occurred probably around 29 AD. The bible chapters which cover holy week are more detailed than any other in his life story, as though it was apparent that this time was far more important than most. These chapters also appear to have been written earlier than the others because they are so much more literal and contain less symbolism than the rest so the truth is easier to decipher.

When Jesus entered the temple he saw people trading and carrying out their business there so he overturned their tables and threw them out, he said that this was the house of God and not the place for business. This angered the authorities even more than his arrival in Jerusalem had done and they plotted how they could arrest him without incurring the wrath of the Jewish pilgrims and the people of Jerusalem. During the day Jesus was in the temple surrounded by his followers and at night he spent his time in one of the villages outside the city so this was the perfect place for them to arrest him, and when one of the twelve offered to betray him they had the perfect opportunity to get their man. Just why Judas Iscariot should have betrayed Jesus at all is a mystery as the amount of money he was paid was a pittance, could he have become disillusioned with Jesus and had a change of heart? Surely if this were the case then he needn't have betrayed Jesus but just left his inner circle, or did he do it to test Jesus, to see if he would use his powers to defeat his would be arresters? Did Jesus really foresee the betrayal or did he hear talk of it around the temple, possibly being warned by some sympathiser, or could he just sense a difference in the behaviour of Judas toward him? However he came to find out about it, he decided to hold one final evening together with his disciples, the last supper, at the end of which he broke the bread of his body and shared the wine of his blood, and these actions were taken into the early church's traditions and continue to be performed today as holy communion.

By this time Jesus is resigned to his death, even before he has been arrested and tried, he obviously senses the resentment felt for him by the chief priests and scribes and knows he will not receive a fair trial, and so he prepares himself for his final act, his greatest act, that of a martyr, willing to give his life, not only for his beliefs but also so that God's word will live on and that others will be saved by his act. He had resigned himself to it and yet he was still fearful of it and didn't want it, in the garden of Gethsemane he threw himself to the ground and begged for his life but his cries went in vain and he finally accepted his fate "Father, not my will but thy will be done." and he is arrested by his former friend and disciple Judas.

Jesus' trial was a hasty affair, rushed by the authorities who wanted to get both the trial and the crucifixion over with before the festival of Passover began on the Friday evening, the matter wasn't helped by Jesus who refused to answer the charges rather than cooperate and admit his guilt, though he did admit to being the Messiah when asked the question directly, and this was taken to be an admittal of guilt and he was duly condemned to death by his Jewish peers, but he must also be found guilty by the Roman authorities in the Praetorium where Pontius Pilate was presiding. Pilate was in a potentially dangerous position, he was in Jerusalem for the duration of the Passover to quell possible trouble from any politically minded Jewish pilgrims and he would have been unenthusiastic about interfering with Jewish religious arguments, made worse because this particular case involved the death sentence, but he was also out of favour with the Roman authorities and wouldn't have wanted to anger the Jewish leaders and cause unrest in his community. He didn't think that the charges against Jesus were sound and he had his doubts about the motives of the Jewish leaders for whom he held no great love, but he was in such a position that he had no choice but to find Jesus guilty, as one of the charges was against Rome itself and Pilate couldn't risk angering his superiors by not committing him.

Could Jesus have known, as others did, about Pilate's precarious position and not so much foreseen his death but known that there was no other choice that Pilate, his ultimate judge, could make. Pilate tried to pass the buck and claimed that Jesus came under Herod's jurisdiction, but Herod held no trial but demanded that Jesus perform a miracle for him, and when he refused he was handed back to Pilate once again who had one final chance at freeing Jesus as it was customary for the Romans to free a criminal of the people's choosing at the festival of Passover. Pilate proposed that this should be Jesus but there was another choice, Jesus Barabbas, a man due for execution for crimes against Rome, the perfect man for the Jewish chief priests and scribes to have released, and they used their authority to influence the crowd and persuade them that this was the right man to call for, and not Jesus the Messiah. Pilate was now left with no choice but to condemn Jesus to death and so he was duly beaten to within inches of his life and then forced to carry his cross, as was traditionally a part of crucifixion, but after his savage beating he was unable to do so and a bystander was made to carry it for him.

So, on the Friday at 9 am Jesus was nailed up on his cross, and he refused a drink of drugged wine which was offered to him by the wealthy women who would usually attend crucifixions and offer the drink to help deaden the pain for the condemned men. Crucifixion victims were not hung very high but just above the ground where Jesus would have to bear the taunts of the crowds, and they could hear his plea for forgiveness from those who had condemned him, his cry that God had forsaken him. Jesus died at 3 pm much quicker than expected, as most crucifixion victims would take days to die.

As the Passover approached, the people were anxious to take down the bodies, and the legs of the men beside him were broken, but as Jesus already appeared dead, one of the soldiers stuck a sword into his side to make sure, and his body was allowed to be taken away by a secret sympathiser of Jesus. It was then wrapped in linen and placed in a cave tomb and then the traditional cart wheel stone was rolled into place along its groove across the opening, apparently watched by the women who went away over the Sabbath to prepare ointments for his body.

Meanwhile, the disciples were left in dismay at the loss of their “leader” and didn't know where to turn, their Messiah had been arrested, beaten and crucified and they were left alone. The precise events of the time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday aren't clear, and the gospels give greatly differing accounts, understandable with such a momentous event as the apparent resurrection of the Messiah, but what is clear is that on Good Friday the tomb was closed and on Easter Sunday the tomb was open and the body gone. Soon afterward Jesus appeared several times to various people, though not en masse, he seemed to choose his time and place carefully appearing only to a select few, just enough to convince the disciples that he had risen from the dead, and they now realised that they once again had a life's work ahead of them and they were apparently both overjoyed and enthusiastic about it.

Could Jesus not have been dead, but recovered in the tomb from drugged wine or a state of coma or unconsciousness? More sinisterly, could the disciples have taken his body and made up the story of the resurrection to make people believe them, and listen to them all the more when they began their own quest to spread his word then they would seem more credible if their leader had risen from the dead than if he had died at the hands of his tormentors? Could his body have been removed by the authorities so that if the disciples had begun to preach about the resurrection of the Messiah then all they would have to do would be to produce the body and thus completely discredit them and prevent the work Jesus began from being continued by his followers. How do we explain the accounts where Jesus wasn't recognised by some of those who saw him until he performed an act typical of him such as the breaking of the bread? Was he somehow different in appearance after his ordeal? Was he just looking gaunt because he had been so close to death or was he not resurrected in body, but merely in spirit, a ghost performing the act of breaking the bread in death as he had done in life?

Whatever the truth behind the resurrection, it formed the basis of early Christianity, if the resurrection hadn't been such a vital part of the new faith then it would merely have been one of the many branches of the Jewish faith swallowed up over time as a short lived cult, but instead the resurrection set it apart and Christians believed that God had spared his son the torment of his life ending at the hands of the envious and malicious Jewish church leaders.

If Jesus did exist, it is likely that he was a most gifted individual borne, not out of immaculate conception, but out of some indiscretion on the part of Mary and Joseph who wished not to be victimised and made outcasts by a society both unwilling and incapable of accepting the birth of a child out of wedlock. The time that the young Jesus spent in the village of Nazareth, almost alone, was perhaps the most significant and influential part of his life, and would prove to be the time that he realised that he was blessed with certain gifts that were not possessed by his fellow men, and he was only misguided in thinking that these gifts were bestowed upon him by God, the man he had been told was his father. He wasn't the only “Messiah” around at the time, in fact it seems that every soap box had someone willing to stand upon it and preach. Jesus merely represented a different and more refreshing approach, one full of reward and hope for all who chose to take the right path to God.

As well as being one of many preachers he is not the only man to posses the powers of healing, which formed a crucial, though later regretted, part of his work. He was a self-taught man and clearly very intelligent which enabled him, even as a young boy, to hold fluent and meaningful conversations with “wise men” by far his senior. This command of the language endeared him to those willing to listen and he clearly impressed his twelve disciples so much that they would devote their lives to him and his teachings, which even the least educated audience could follow due to the simplicity of the parable form they took.

The miracle of turning water into wine, is most likely an analogy used by the author, and in the gospels Jesus does not directly have contact with the containers but tells the servants what to do to convert it into wine, it is an example of Jesus telling man how to find the rich wine of God's word, and the other miracles are examples of symbolism used by the authors to covey a message as we have seen many times in the chapters of the bible, and we also see the muddled confusion in the telling of the tale of the fig tree.

So with his first mission unsuccessful, or rather misunderstood, Jesus knew he had to go to Jerusalem where his real work lay ahead of him, and he also knew that he would be unwelcome, and possibly victimised and persecuted, and, rather than foreseeing his death, it was more a matter of common sense realising that trouble lay ahead. Once there he got what he expected, the chief priests and scribes trying to trap him and think of a way to arrest him, but he was equal to them and outsmarted them until he was betrayed by Judas Iscariot, probably hearing about it rather than foreseeing it, and once he was destined to be taken into custody he knew that he would be condemned to death, and despite the efforts of Pontius Pilate to spare him he was doomed and had resigned himself to the fact.

Once he had been beaten to within death's grasp he was too weak to carry his cross and had it carried for him, and accepting the drink of drugged wine he was nailed to the cross where he begged for forgiveness for his captors, asking why God had forsaken him and he slipped away, not to death but close to it, and his body was taken down early before the Passover and placed in the tomb where he regained consciousness, rolled away the stone and returned to his disciples and told them to continue his work after he was gone. Possibly he felt that he had been through enough already, only to be deserted on the cross and left to die. He was most likely extremely disillusioned with the events of the recent days and wished to be alone again, free to return to the life he had known before in his own quiet little village of Nazareth, before the world to him became a place of hard and unrewarding work, and his disciples followed his wishes, preaching as he had asked. Christianity was born.

This new religion would centre around the life of a lowly, illegitimate village carpenter with certain gifts that he misunderstood the origin of, and millions of people the world over would come to live their lives by his rules, give their hearts and minds to him, and devote themselves to him completely, some taking vows of silence and celibacy in order that they could become closer to their Lord and to concentrate on carrying on his work long after he and his disciples had departed the earth.

FAITH AND ITS POWER

There is no doubt that people’s belief in the existence of a God, and their faith in that God, is of a great help to them and that mentally and spiritually they find it very rewarding and reassuring. For example good things which may occur in their everyday lives they will say that it is their God looking after them or that their prayers are being answered. The actual act of praying itself, talking to your God, is a good form of therapy where you feel that you are sharing your problems and troubles with somebody else which is the basis behind psychotherapy and the way to good mental health, and of course there are no expensive bills. Whether or not there is a God to listen to you, you will feel a lot better if you have a faith and, as we know, if the mind is well then so can the body be, a problem aired is a problem shared, and a problem shared is a problem halved.

The fact that praying is of a great comfort to a great many people is beyond doubt, and many words of support can be found in the bible which can be put to good use in people's everyday lives as well as the benefits which come from simply talking to God. Here are just some examples of those words of comfort and also lessons in how to live our lives and how to treat our fellow man.

Psalms Book 1, Chapter 7, Verse 17
I shall praise the Lord for his righteousness and sing to the name of the Lord most high

Psalms, Book 1, Chapter 8, Verse 9
Lord our sovereign, how glorious is your name throughout the world.

Psalms Book 1, Chapter 9, Verses 2 and 3
I shall rejoice and exult in you, the most high; I shall sing praise to your name because my enemies turn back; at your presence they fall headlong and perish.

Psalms Book 1, Chapter 13, Verses 5 and 6
As for me, I trust in your unfailing love; my heart will rejoice when I am brought to safety. I shall sing to the Lord, for he has granted all my desire.

Psalms Book 1, Chapter 18, Verse 3
I shall call to the Lord to whom all praise is due; then I shall be made safe from myenemies.

Psalms Book 1, Chapter 19, Verse 7
The law of the Lord is perfect and revives the soul. The Lord's instruction never fails; it makes the simple wise.

Psalms Book 1, Chapter 19, Verse 14
May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my mind be acceptable to you, Lord my rock and my redeemer.

Psalms Book 1, Chapter 29, Verse 11
The Lord will give strength to his people; the Lord will bless his people with peace.

Psalms Book 1, Chapter 34, Verse 17
When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and sets them free from all their troubles.

Psalms Book 2, Chapter 63, Verse 3
Your unfailing love is better than life; therefore I shall sing your praises.

Psalms Book 3, Chapter 83, Verse 4
Happy are those who dwell in your house; they never cease to praise you!

Psalms Book 3, Chapter 86, Verse 17
Give me a sign of your favour; let those who hate me see it and be abashed; for you, Lord, have been my help and comfort.

Psalms Book 4, Chapter 94, Verses 17, 18 and 19
Had the Lord not been my helper, I should soon have dwelt in the silent grave. If I said that my foot was slipping, your love, Lord, continued to hold me up. When anxious thoughts filled my heart, your comfort brought me joy.

Psalms Book 5, Chapter 116, Verses 1 and 2
I love the Lord, for he has heard me and listened to my prayer; he has given me a hearing and all my days I shall cry to him.

Psalms Book 5, Chapter 150, Verse 6 (the final verse)
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord ! Praise the Lord.


We can also take advice from the book of proverbs which holds many examples of the way in which we are to live, mostly they are common sense and some are similar to proverbs we use today.

Proverbs, Chapter 10, Verse 4
Idle hands make for penury; diligent hands make for riches.

Proverbs, Chapter 10, Verse 14
The wise store up knowledge; when a fool speaks, ruin is imminent.

Proverbs, Chapter 12, Verse 1
He who loves correction loves knowledge; he who hates reproof is stupid.

Proverbs, Chapter 13, Verse 20
Walk with the wise and learn wisdom; mix with the stupid and come to harm.

Proverbs, Chapter 14, Verse 16
One who is wise is cautious and avoids trouble, but one who is stupid is reckless and falls headlong.

Proverbs, Chapter 19, Verse 18
Chastise your son while their is hope for him; only be careful not to flog him to death.

Proverbs, Chapter 20, Verse 4
The lazy man who does not plough in Autumn looks for a crop at harvest and gets nothing.

Proverbs, Chapter 20, Verse 7
If someone leads a good and upright life, happy are his children after him!

Proverbs, Chapter 22, Verse 6
Start a child on the right road, and even in old age he will not leave it.


We have seen that the bible is symbolic and also that it contains many words of comfort and wisdom by which we can lead our lives, yet we know that it is not entirely factual but is based on fact, no doubt Samson did fall in love with Delilah, Moses did lead the exodus from Egypt and died as a martyr, David did fight Goliath and win against the odds and Solomon was visited by the Queen of Sheba, but is there any proof of the existence of God within it? There is certainly no absolute proof here as the bible is after all just a book written many years ago and over many years, but as there can be no proof in the bible, is there proof elsewhere of the existence of God? This imponderable question has proved to be the life's work of many a great philosopher.

There are three main arguments for the existence of God. “The Beginning Argument” or the “Kalam Cosmological Argument” (Kalam is Arabic for speech) says that God exists because the universe had a beginning, so something must have caused this beginning to occur. To say that something exists is to say that it has a cause or that it was caused, nothing exists without a cause and the philosopher Aquinas said that everyone understands this to be God, though of course this on its own is not a proof of the existence of God.

The “Argument From Contingency” goes as follows; if we use the example set by Brian Davies O.P.; he says that Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon, but this didn't necessarily have to be the case, it could have been anybody and not necessarily Neil Armstrong, so therefore it was contingent.

If somebody should say that it had been Ronald Reagan they would be wrong but they wouldn't be contradicting themselves, it could have been true, whereas if they said that some circles are square this could not be true. If we bear this in mind then we can say that everything around is contingent, so it is possible to conceive them as not existing. There is no reason why any of them exist, but because they do there must be a reason for it outside of them. So we must consider something which is not contingent, that is, something which has a reason for existing within itself, and this must be God. According to the argument from contingency, since the universe is contingent there must be something whose non existence would be impossible, as is the square circle.

The “First Cause Argument” seeks an answer for the existence of something such as trees, we could ask: How come trees exist? If we look at one particular tree we could ask how come it is there? If we were to answer this question we would look at the tree from which it came and this would give us our answer, but what if we were to ask how come there are trees at all? We could answer this in terms of the conditions present on the earth which aids the development of trees.

We could move on from this and ask how come these conditions exist? We could ask more and more questions until eventually we would come to the question: How come the universe exists at all?

Supporters of the first cause argument suggest that any legitimate question must have an answer, so there must be an answer for there being a universe. Following on from this it must be that God is an “incomprehensible” being, and if he is the reason behind the existence of the universe then he must be something that we cannot recognise as being an inhabitant of the universe, so God is "outside the order of beings" as we conceive them.

Just why should we suppose that there is anything which all things depend upon for their existence? This is the argument against the first cause theory. There may exist something that is simply there and cannot be looked into in the same way as trees for example. By the same token people will say that we cannot say that trees simply exist, so why should we say the same of the universe?

None of these, or any other theories are very convincing that there is a God of any kind, no creator, no “Lord“ we simply make our own luck, and the fate of both the world and of mankind lies in our own hands. However, if people want to hold a belief in God, as it must have many personal benefits for them, at what point does it become so serious that it approaches, and passes, the point of being dangerous as in the case of the many cults that surface even today.

We have mainly looked at Christianity in this chapter, but 99% of religions around the world centre around a supreme being, a God, though they have their own name for their God, Allah, Buddha etc. but as well as religions with huge followings such as Hindu, Islam, Christianity or Buddhism, there are many smaller religions which we know as cults or sects, and these have consistently received bad press and in many cases with good reason, such as those led by the Reverend Jimmy Jones or David Koresh.

Jimmy Jones fooled many people, nobody suspected that they were looking at, or shaking hands with, a very dangerous, yet calculating man, whose control over his “flock” was total. For those of us outside a cult it is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine just how somebody can become so central in somebody else's life, and not just one person but a whole group or community of people. So what was it that Jimmy Jones had which stood him apart from other people?

Jones was an average student at school but would show an enormous enthusiasm for bible studies, and while his fellow students spent their spare time on the sports field he would stand on the doorstep of his family's run-down home and preach to passers-by. At age 18, in 1949, he took a part-time job to support himself through religious studies at Indiana University, and he also married a nurse called Marceline Baldwin. The following year, although not yet an ordained minister, he became a pastor at a church in Indianapolis and helped to run its racially integrated youth centre, but this caused him to suffer abuse at the hands of the loocal racial bigots, one of whom was his father, and even the more conservative church members protested about his plans to welcome black worshippers into the church.

Before Jones quit he was attacked by outsiders, and the once frosty church members rallied round him and supported him. It was this support which taught him one of the most important lessons he would ever learn; even people who don't share each other's beliefs can be united if threatened by a common enemy.

Jones eventually bought his own church in a run-down part of Indianapolis with money from his followers and he named it “The People's Temple.” It was here in this black ghetto that Jones began to preach racial equality and integration, and he and his wife adopted seven children, black, white and Asian, and citing his mother's cherokee blood, he called himself "Biracial." Now that he was preaching to a black audience, Jones studied the style and technique of the black preachers who would hold their audience in rapture as they preached in their hellfire and damnation way. One of Jones' particular favourites was Father Divine of Philadelphia who lived a life of luxury, paid for by his trusting and devoted followers who even believed his claim to be able to raise the dead, and Jones felt that it was high time he tested the allegiance of his own flock.

Jones supplied the newspapers with stories of how he and his family stood defiant in the face of racial hatred directed at them, including an incident where a stick of dynamite exploded in their garden. This prompted the Mayor of Indianapolis to appoint Jones to a $3,000 a year job in the city's human rights commission, but more importantly it brought him his congregation's undying devotion. In 1960 "Nuclear War Fever" was running high, and many Americans built backyard fallout shelters, and a tongue in cheek magazine article outlined the ten safest places to live in the event of nuclear war, one of which was Ukiah, California, and another was Belo Horizonte in Brazil. Jones told his members that he had experienced "a personal vision of the nuclear holocaust" and that they should be prepared to follow him to escape any danger - the common enemy - and he told them to be ready to sell their homes and take their savings out of the bank.

At the church’s expense, he and his family travelled to Brazil but were more impressed by the tiny, newly independent country of Guyana where they had stopped over for a few days. Jones told his congregation of Guyana's qualities, but he told them that his vision of the holocaust had receeded for the time being. Flattered by the number of his followers who had already put their homes on the market, he decided that the option of fleeing should be kept open for a future emergency. That emergency was not long in coming.

Jones launched himself into the lucrative faith healing market and his services were spectacular, profitable and fraudulant. He would lay his hands on people who would jump up and say that they were cured, but things began to turn sour when there were claims that he had raised forty people from the dead. These claims aroused the attention of the newspapers and the state board of psychology, and it was now time for the flit to one of the safe havens near Ukiah, California wher the California of the mid 1960s welcomed three hundred religious enthusiasts preaching love and peace with open arms. Here, Jones found that he now only had to convert two possible troublemakers, the press and the civic busybodies.

His success in this task was astonishing as members of his temple were the first to volunteer to help out local charities, and others acted as foster parents to local problem children from orphanages, and Jones himself wooed politicians and dignitaries until he was soon elected as Foreman of the county Grand Jury and Director of Free Legal Aid Services. Jones’ followers had now become totally devoted and he told them that in order for him to bring about his ideal of social justice they must gain further support for him by canvassing in elections and handing over their money to him. With this extra wealth the people's temple, being a well respected, state registered, tax-exempt organisation, Jones was fast becoming what he had hoped to be, and it was high time for the big stage.

Fleeing from the backwoods Jones headed for San Francisco where his following blossomed to seven and a half thousand devoted do-gooders, and the civic respect followed him and his organisation so they were given part of the welfare programme which meant that they had the task of dispensing thousands of free hot meals in their dining hall. What didn't come to light was the fact that among the grateful diners were Jones' own followers who gave him their wages, savings and even their social security payments.

Even bigger things were just around the corner for Jones who was asked a favour by a local political worker. In 1976 Rosalyn Carter, wife of presidential candidate Jimmy, was appearing at an election rally and should the turnout be small, Jones was asked to swell the numbers with his followers, which he duly did, and in return he received a standing ovation for his trouble. The next day his picture appeared in the press with Rosalyn Carter, and when her husband was later elected Jones received an invitation to Washington to attend the inauguration.

It was around this time that things began to go wrong for Jones as, while he seemed to the outside world to be a respectable pillar of the community who donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to starving children in Guyana, defectors from the temple were telling of Jones' long tyrannical lectures about sex. Jones demanded, they said, that happily married couples divorce and remarry partners that he had chosen for them from his inner ring of church elders, and that he also held the right to have sex with any woman or girl in the congregation and would force them to submit to his desires. Jones would make members confess to imagined sins of homosexuality and there were claims that children were beaten on a platform in the temple to "make them show respect." Worse still, young girls were made to take part in boxing matches with bigger opponents who would easily beat them. Other children went into a private room to meet the "blue eyed monster" and sounds of screaming would come from within, along with the cracking noise of an electric cattle prod.

While all this was going on, money continued to pour in to the temple and San Francisco newspapers won large cash prizes through the temple's awards for "outstanding journalistic contributions to peace and public enlightenment" and even the police benefitted from donations to the widows and orphans of officers killed in the line of duty. Such was the pedestal that people put Jones on, and there was a deep sense of disappointment which went all the way to the White House when it began to look as though the Reverand Jimmy Jones may not be all that he seemed to be.

As the bubble began to burst, it was time for Jones to put his escape plan into action, and in 1977 1,000 of his loyal followers went with him to Guyana where he had squirrelled away hundreds of thousands of dollars, enough to buy a lease on 20,000 acres of jungle and swamp near Port Kaituma on the Caribbean coast.

On the site was built a pavillion which would serve as a headquarters and enough dormitories for 1,000 people so that they could start up a "new, just, socialist society" - "Jonestown." Most of the San Francisco politicians who had been taken in by Jones were quietly grateful that a potentially embarassing scandal had decided to remove itself fromn their doorstep, but there was one particularly tenacious congressman who was unwilling to let the scandal rest.

53 Year old Leo Ryan was a politician who had a history of not letting problems go. He had spent time in the solitary confinement cell of Folsom Prison just to see what it was like to be a prisoner, and he had also taught in ghetto schools to experience, and expose, failures in the education system. Ryan was approached by his constituents who told him that they feared for the safety of their loved ones who had discovered the truth about Jones and were being held against their will. Ryan managed to persuade the U.S. State Department to force the Guyanese government to let him visit Jonestown personally. Taking newspaper and television reporters with him he arrived on November 17th, 1978 and found Jones “holding court” in the pavilion. Locked away in a strongroom were 1,000 US passports taken from his followers, and he found armed guards patrolling the perimeter which Jones explained away by saying that they were “To keep away bandits.”

Ryan found most of the people were gaunt and hungry but amazingly they were still fanatically devoted to Jones, and when Ryan addressed them himself, he said “I am sure there are some of you who think this is the best thing that has ever happened to you in your lives,” which was met with shouting and cheering. He continued “But I promise if any of you want to leave you can come with me under my personal guarantee of protection.” And this was met with a silence that left Jones seething. He knew that anyone who left with Ryan would spill the beans as soon as they were free of his grasp, and slowly, a volunteer stepped forward.

Ryan was allowed to stay for the night in Jonestown, but the team of reporters were made to stay 6 miles away in Port Kaituma, and when they arrived there one of them pulled a note out of their pocket which had been secretly thrust into his hand by a member of the congregation. On the note were 4 names and the message “Please, please get us out of here before Jones kills us.”

When they returned to Jonestown the next morning they found Ryan waiting with 20 people who wanted to leave with them, but the plane was too small to carry them all and would have to make a second trip. Ryan bravely agreed to stay behind and wait, and there was a scuffle followed by a cheer because one of Jones’ elders had cut himself while trying to stab Ryan. The reporters grabbed Ryan and pulled him aboard an earth moving truck to make their way to the airfield, and as they arrived and briefed the pilot a tractor appeared through the undergrowth. A volley of shots rang out and Ryan was killed instantly, falling to the floor with his face blown off. A TV reporter, Don Harris, was killed by automatic rifle fire, as was his cameraman who was filming the melee. Another young reporter from the San Francisco Examiner was also killed and to add insult to injury, one of the so called defectors pulled a gun from his shirt and began firing at the pilot amid the confusion.

Back at Jonestown the Reverand continued to preach until the gunmen returned from the airstrip and the looks on their faces told everybody that something had happened there. One of them whispered into Jones’ ear and he then addressed the crowd which had now gathered. He said to them “The Congressman is dead. I don’t know who fired the shot. I don’t know who killed the Congressman. As far as I am concerned I killed him. You understand what I’m saying, I killed him. He had no business coming, I told him not to come.”

This quote is taken from a tape recording which Jones made of that final night in Jonestown, and that tape has now been released by the FBI. The tape recorded Jones’ voice over the next 2 hours during which time over 900 of his followers would die.

They queued up to drink from vats of Kool Aid laced with cyanide, babies having it squirted into their mouth with syringes, and survivors say that Jones had always planned for the children to die first so their parents and grandparents would not run away.

On the tape Jones’ voice can be clearly heard asking the children to hurry and he says to them “If you’re gonna get that medication here, you’ve gotta move.” In the background, crying can be heard coming from both the children and the adults, and to try and make things run a little more smoothly Jones reassures them by telling them “It’s not to be feared, it’s not to be feared, it’s a friend, it’s a friend. Please get us the medication. It’s simple, it’s simple, there’s no convulsions with it, it’s simple.”

Witnesses describe mothers who were reluctant to let their babies go, and Jones’ bodyguards would remove them from their mother’s arms. Some of the children trying to drink the poison were spitting it out and ended up having it forced down their throats. Jones, by this time, was becoming frustrated and he urged “All you’re doing is taking a drink, to take, to go to sleep.”

Though many of the residents of Jonestown took the poison willingly, others did not, and medical examinations showed that many were murdered, held down while it was injected into their bodies, and Jones continued his encouragement as it went on all around him.” I’m the best friend you’ll ever have. You’ll regret it if you don’t die, you’ll regret it.”

The last tape reveals that although Jones was willing, and by this time eager, for his followers to die, he had no intention of joining them. “Death is a million times preferable to 10 more days of this life. If you knew what was ahead of you, you’d be glad to be stepping over tonight. I want to see you go though. They can take me and do whatever they wanna do. I wanna see you go. I don’t wanna see you going through this hell no more.”

At one point Jones’ wife of 30 years, Marceline, tried to stop the killing but, realising that it had gone too far and she stood no chance, she too drank the poison and lay down on her bed to die.

Jones’ view of the whole situation is summed up in his words “We didn’t commit suicide, we committed an act revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world.”

Though Jones still had no intention of joining his followers in death, join them he did, only not by drinking his own poison but by a bullet through the head, fired by an unknown assailant.

When Guyanese troops arrived at Jonestown the next day, they found entire families with their arms locked around each other in a final loving embrace and the bodies seemed to cover every available patch of ground. One of the dead, obviously one who had died willingly, had left a suicide note which was addressed to Jones, and which shows the unswerving devotion that some felt for him. It read: “Dad, I can see no way out. I agree with your decision. Without you the world may not make it to communism. I am more than tired of this wretched, merciless planet and the hell it holds for so many masses of beautiful people. Thank you for the only life I’ve known.”

It was however summed up perfectly by Ryan in his last interview before his death when he stressed the inherent danger in one man controlling people to such a great extent, and he said “Jim Jones talks a lot about love, brotherhood and humanity and his faith and the power of religion but never once did I hear him mention God.”

David Koresh however, went for a different approach, though the end result was ultimately the same. He lived up to the stereotypical cult leader who brainwashed his followers into hanging on his every word, donating all their money to him and even offering their wives and children to mother his own offspring, his own “holy children.” What he didn't tell his followers was that in his own quarters he allowed himself to drink alcohol and watch MTV. This is so in many examples of cult leaders who have an overwhelming control over their followers, so overwhelming that they will leave their homes and families and live in the domain of the leader without realising that they have lost everything for the sake of one man or woman who controls them. Many families who try to rescue their loved ones from these cults face a difficult uphill battle to win them back as their devotion to the cult is so total. The leaders manage to exert such a control by various methods which first came to light during the late 1930s during the Chinese Civil War and were called “hsi nao” (wash brain).

The Chinese used these techniques to make their prisoners fight against their former allies after a “doctrination” period of only a few weeks. The leader will feed his intended on low calorie diets, usually just fruit and vegetables, and make them attend long and intense meetings which combine to make them feel tired and become more susceptible, a proven method is to make them work hard all day and then have the meetings at night with only short breaks for sleep. Cult members are taken away from their families so that every source of information they receive can be controlled by the leader, and means of rewards and punishments are set up to get them to do as they are told.

The cult led by David Koresh went one stage further than most others and his control was so much more than usual that he and his followers ended their lives trying to protect themselves in a shoot out with the F.B.I. in Waco, Texas where they were either shot or burned to death in the fire started by themselves, but not before they had taken the lives of some of the officers trying to rescue them from the clutches of David Koresh.

It is also true that many cults are not dangerous in any way, for example the “Keep Sunday Special Society” may also be considered by some to be a kind of cult or “New Religious Movement” (N.R.M.) as “I.N.F.O.R.M.” (Information Network Focus On Religious Movements) prefers to call them. “I.N.F.O.R.M.” keeps files on many cults and has records of over 2,000 of them, and statistically it is thought that there are over 500 cults with millions of members. It is thought that this is a conservative estimate, and it is also estimated that since the Second World War there has emerged over 400,000 cults world wide.

Though most cults remain on the fringes of religion and are largely unheard of, others grow in stature and to some extent become an accepted part of society. The irony is of course that at one time Christianity itself was one such cult with only a few followers who went forth to spread the word of their own particular God, though of course with far sounder motives than most others, and it is now one of the largest and most widely accepted religions in the modern world. Christianity itself is split into two sides, Catholicism and Church of England or Protestant. The Protestant movement was started, among other reasons, because Henry VIII wanted to divorce and remarry, something which the Catholic church would not allow him to do, and something it still frowns upon today, so the Church of England is a newer religion than Catholicism which proclaims itself to be something which it isn't, in that it does things which the bible tells us not to. For example Roman Catholics pray to Mary and to the saints when the bible tells us to pray only to Jesus, and they do something which all the Christian religions do, they pray to false idols such as statues of Jesus and Mary which of course the ten commandments tell us not to do.

The ceremonies that we see today in churches are largely due to the work of Queen Elizabeth I who oversaw the practises that the Church of England and Catholicism would use, and she tried to strike up a balance between the two. An example of this can be seen in the rite of Holy Communion which is of course symbolic of the body and the blood of Christ, the Church of England says to remember it as just that, whereas Catholicism says that they are actually the body and the blood of Christ.

It could be argued that Catholicism is itself derived from the older religion of Judaism which could itself be the religion of the slave exodus from Egypt, and if Jesus was the originator of the Christian movement, then why was he heralded as the King of the Jews?

There is one thing that many religions both preach of and look forward to, and that is the saving of the world, a world which they proclaim to be increasingly evil, and this will be done by the second coming of the Lord which they say is foretold in the scriptures, specifically in the book of Revelations.

Perhaps though, the whole notion of religion can be summed up by the words of an uncle of mine when he answered the doorbell one day and was greeted by two Jehovah's witnesses standing on his doorstep who asked him if he had heard the great news!
"What great news is that?" he enquired,
"Why the second coming of the Lord of course!" to which he replied, before closing the door,
"Well, that's assuming he came the first time!"

back to top

back to contents