Laura's Book "From Paul to Mark" is out!!!! ... And in French too

[Cleopatre VII]

Looks good to me. Thank you.

I am very happy. However, since my Amazon account is new, I haven't bought anything other than your book yet, and I need to spend at least $ 50 to write a review. And hence I will deal with this matter in the coming days.

 

[Palinurus]

I'm still reading and encountered a very minor spelling flaw at kindle location 15821, at the start of the paragraph entitled Dio Crysostom and Mark where it states:

In ancient times, at the best of times, the people who could compose a literary or philosophical work of any superior quality were highly educated, exceptional and rare – less that one percent of the population.

It should of course read than.

 

[iamthatis]

Before reading this book, I had the fundamental problem: when 4D STS throughout our history have been deceiving people with massive shows of power in their religious revelations, such as Fatima or Joseph Smith of the Mormons, how can we accept that Paul's revelations were not by 4D STS? Why would Paul be the special exception? Wouldn't it be wiser to regard the source of Paul's revelations as 4D STS?

After finishing the book, I see my problem was my assumptions. It turns out, we don't know what Paul's revelations were, so my assumption that Paul had received shows of power revelations was wrong.

But then, there were other problems.

The first is that Paul's appears to have made a mistake in violating free will by the use of deception. Paul pretended to be someone else, pretended to be like his Jewish audience, only to try to convert them to his religion. I think it was a mistake of Paul to have anything to do with Judaism and the Jerusalem church, and I think it was a mistake to make a connection from Jewish Adam to Christ and Yahweh to Christ.

p.265


p.395


I think what Paul did was teaching a radical new understanding of religion, but using the vessel of an existing religion, which in Paul's case was Judaism. Paul's Judaism was totally opposite of the Jerusalem Judaism. It was Judaism in brand name only, but clearly anyone could see it was not Judaism when the Law no longer applied.

Mark appears to have made a mistake in creating fictional Jesus in the place of Paul. It can be argued that Jesus was not deception because Jesus might have been code word for Paul that Paul's followers recognized, but nonetheless fake Jesus and the fake life of Jesus quickly outgrew and concealed the historical facts and Paul's true teachings.

Instead of Paul overtaking and converting Judaism/Jewish Christianity by deception within the Jewish ranks, Paul's Christianity was overtaken from within through the Gospels by supporters of Judaism/Jewish Christianity. The Gospel of Mark opened the door to the hijackers such as Matthew to take Mark's Jesus and make him teach the opposite of what Paul taught, eg Torah not abolished and Law to be obeyed. Thus, the defeated Judaism was resurrected in the form of post-Paul Christianity.

Was this a case of live by the sword, die by the sword? Paul and Mark tried to use Judaism/Jewish Christianity and fake Jesus as the groundwork or framework for the new religion of Pauline Christianity, but 4D STS turned the table and used fake Jesus to legitimize Judaism/Jewish Christianity and subjugate Paul's teaching. It appears the use of deception or codenames was not without consequence.

Keeping information between the lines was a mistake (or the redactors coverup was complete). It would have been better that the information was stated plainly in light. For the information between the lines was kept in a sort of darkness to outsiders, and over the time darkness would grow to eclipse the information completely.

Perhaps Paul's Christianity didn't even last 100 years. Might there have been a different outcome if Paul and Mark had not engaged in deception, had not tried to incorporate Judaism or Jewish elements, or had not created a fictitious Jesus character?

Might this be a warning to us now, not to follow Paul's tactic of using a preexisting religion to introduce new ideas (ideas new to the current generation)?

There are obviously advantages to using an existing religion to seek converts, so it is understandable why Paul did it. We might be faced with the same dilemma as Paul. People today can accept Paul, at least a lot more readily than people can accept anything to do with the Cassiopaeans. There are some of Paul's teachings that align with what the Cassiopaens have said. So it might seem easier to present Cassiopaean ideas as a new understanding/interpretation of Paul as to piggyback on the thousand year old household name of Christianity. Paul seemed to do the same thing by piggybacking on Judaism. I think it is a mistake.

Perhaps this potential issue is solved, by sincerely representing Paul's teachings, as Laura has done in this book, and not adding anything else that cannot be attributed directly to Paul. Anything else would then need to be taught as something separate than Paul's Christianity, however complementary it might be.

We might say that Paul also saw things "through a glass darkly" to some extent - did he not? As we all do?

I think I understand your qualms about his use of deception. But it does seem to err on the side of black-and-white thinking about free will and deception. Between Good and Evil is a third force - context, as @Jefferson mentioned above.

Giving only to those who ask, and only what they ask, no more... perhaps Paul was attuned to this, and as such gave his listeners certain information in quite a specific way.

How do you know what Paul's audience was truly asking for? And how do you know that Paul was not giving what was being truly asked? I don't think this holds water. Especially so, given that the C's have hinted that Paul only gave 'the milk' in his letters, but gave 'the meat' in person.

Who knows if we even have the whole glass of milk, either? And we can only infer what the meat may have been, with the help of dudes like Ashworth.

The C's could also be accused of using deception by not giving the whole banana up front, and are therefore STS. But that claim would be made in ignorance of how esoteric Knowledge transmission actually occurs - as a step-by-step gradual process of building receivership capacity. It's a process composed of hints, frustration, the pain of true learning, the adventure of the Quest, tailored to a specific point in world-time, and referencing a specific cultural context, and the Soul's learning cycle. There would be no hero's journey without the restraint or withholding of information by the Teacher, whether that Teacher be Paul, the C's, or the DCM. There would be no inner friction that ignites the fire of the Will if everything was given so easily.

The session below touches on these themes directly:

(L) Okay, now we had a post that was posted in response to the July 12, 2014 session which I’ve been thinking about. Anyway, here is the question and answer from that session that elicited the comment on the forum:


(L) And then HumbertoLVX on our forum wrote:

HumbertoLVX said:
That's a bit of a red flag. Why couldn't have the C's just said, "You are not ready to receive the truth", or something similar like they have before, instead of espousing disinformation?

Regardless, I appreciate the honesty. It's a good reminder that the Cs have never been a source of necessarily accurate information, but instead rather a source of inspiration for research.

Thank you all for the great candid and inspiring work!


-----

(L) So, my question is: He asks why couldn't the C's have just said, "'You are not ready to receive the truth', or something similar like they have before, instead of espousing disinformation?" So, can you comment?

A: First of all, there was no "disinformation." The character known by the moniker "Jesus" is a composite of numerous myths as well as based on the life of a real historical person and still another.

Q: (L) What do you mean, "and still another"?

A: Another person who made less historical impact. One must also consider the story segments taken from other literature of the time. Secondly, what would you have done if we had told you either all of such details or that "Jesus" did not exist?

Q: (L) You're asking me?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) I would have terminated the project because at the time, I was quite convinced that any spirit that couldn't or wouldn’t acknowledge Jesus was demonic. That was a pretty common “test” in New Age land at the time. I would have stopped communicating with the C's altogether.

A: Yes.

Q: (L) That was...

(Pierre) So there was no choice.

(L) That was how convinced I was at the time.

(Pierre) So they couldn't be straightforward.

A: Suppose you are communicating from a realm of light, knowledge and truth into a realm of darkness, ignorance and lies? Next assume that you really want the recipient to come to the truth.

Q: (Pierre) Yeah, so, what would you do?

A: How can darkness receive light? You must utilize conceptual themes and the material you have to work with. The veils that must be penetrated consist of assumptions, beliefs, and programs of strong emotions.

Q: (Perceval) No easy task!

A: The veil can only be penetrated by sowing conceptual seeds which include notable conflicts of information. Such seeds falling on the fertile ground of a pure desire for truth will sprout and drive the actions that lead to penetrating the veil. Most people "can't stand the truth."

Q: (L) But why didn't you just say, "You're not ready to receive the truth"?

A: Would that have piqued your curiosity?

Q: (L) No, it wouldn't have piqued my curiosity. It would have just suggested to me that you guys didn't know anything.

A: Exactly!

Q: (Perceval) Yeah, it's very difficult. Even just theoretically you can imagine trying to navigate anybody's assumptions and emotional programs and trying to convey truth through all of that. How would you go about it without treading on any sore spots...

(Mr. Scott) But we do know it.

(Perceval) To some extent, but I mean...

(Mr. Scott) I mean, to just write something on SOTT that reveals the truth, and people react to it. And that's just at a very basic level.

(Ark) It's like when you talk to a child. If you say, "You are not ready to receive the truth". I mean... [laughter]

(L) The only time they ever refused me was when it was something that would be dangerous to me.

(Perceval) Right, and they told you.

(L) And they told me they couldn't tell me.

(Perceval) But if they would have told you that you were not ready, that would have just provoked you, and you wouldn't have let it go. Especially around Jesus, if you're not ready to know the truth about it. Ya know, like, "About Jesus?! I wanna know the truth right now! You better fess up!"

(L) Well, I tell you, some of their answers about some of the alien questions where they couldn't tell me something right then, that actually made me turn away from it right then. It was like, "Nyah nyah-nyah nyah-nyah!" like little kids. So, I just decided that path wasn't the right one. I just continued research along certain other lines. And that's when, as I said, I came to the idea that the whole "alien reality" is a paranormal reality. Yes, it does have a very physical manifestation, but that manifestation is through people. It's through human beings. Yes, they can manifest visually in our world and a few other things. And if they break down in our world, artifacts remain – or so we are told... From the paranormal side, there are ectoplasmic things or something similar that can be left in our world. There are things that can be transported from one dimension to another, from past to future, or so we are told and I’ve seen some evidence. There ARE all those kinds of things. But primarily, the alleged alien reality interacts with our world as a paranormal phenomenon. That means that we need to look more carefully at what happens to people and with people.

(Pierre) Just about the way the C's addressed how to deliver to truth and how far to go... It reminded me. You know when we had those EE classes, we often encountered people who had a genuine interest. They wanted to know, at least to some extent. During those conversations, all the time, you're testing to see how far you could go, how much you can say, like about psychopathology, and so on. You could deliver a lot about many topics. But, by going slowly and testing, you can see, "Well, here, I can say some more, but there, I cannot go!" You don't dump it all on a person because there is a genuine interest, and this person might be open to something, but only gradually... There are many things about our reality that are totally shocking to the average person.

(L) And you know if you go too far, you'll turn them off completely! You'll actually give energy to their rejection of what you're saying.

(Pierre) Yeah!

(Chu) But it also speaks to how the Cs would be you in the future, too. Another person when they're told, "No, you're not ready to know," they would focus ONLY on that. "Well, what do you mean I'm not ready! Tell me all about it!" That would be a source of disinformation, because it would be asking for a lie just because that person thinks they have the whole banana. But you didn't, because they knew...

(L) It was like dropping breadcrumbs through the forest.

(Perceval) I think it was even more crucial in your case, because like on SOTT, I can say, "Here's the full truth, and if you don't like it, go take a walk!" That kind of thing... But the C's weren't in a position where they could do that with you. They had to be extremely careful not to provoke that reaction in you since you were on a pre-destined mission between yourself in the future and yourself now.

(L) Yeah, and I have a pretty stubborn streak...

(Perceval) You might have dissed the whole thing! There's much more risk here. It's a much more weighty issue as they just indicated: transmitting truth and light into a realm of lies and darkness.

(L) And it seems that the truth is that there are a number of people who fit into the Jesus puzzle... The information they gave was true about a couple of aspects of the Jesus character.

(Perceval) And they kept in mind what you could receive and not receive...

(L) And then they dropped those hints... "Children with Roman women." That just drove me crazy! That was such a hint!

(Andromeda) It was one of those seeds.

(L) Yeah, and it just grew and grew and grew in me. That was one of the reasons why I went into the whole Roman history thing and now have found pretty much all of the clues that demonstrate that everything the Cs said about Jesus then, and now, is true.

(Perceval) That's why people like this HumbertoLVX guy, they're into from the point of view of "Just give me the answers." They don't even know what they can or cannot perceive themselves.

(L) It's a complete misunderstanding of, or an inability, to comprehend the true nature of STS and STO.

(Pierre) And it's also very black and white thinking. There's a saying going like that, that if you were delivered the whole truth about the universe right now, you would just blow like a fuse.

(L) This is true. You have to build the vessel.

(Pierre) Yeah, and grow it

 

[Aeneas]

Anyway, it might be a bit of a slog in some places, but stay tuned and alert for the fun parts. There's just something about biblical studies that brings out the sarcasm in me sometimes and I get pretty snarky here and there. I edited out SOME of the snark, but believe me, I left enough for a few LOLs.

I am enjoying it immensely and have noticed the snarky comments which only adds spice to the book. Currently only at page 208 as I like to look things up.

To all the eagle-eyed typo finders, just wanted to say thank you! Unfortunately, dealing with typos is like playing a game of whack-a-mole. They keep popping up even when you thought you found the last of them.

But we will be updating the files to fix them. And if you happen to find more, just let us know, and we can fix them in the next update.

I found a possible mistake on page 207.
It says:

He also admitted poor people …” Then 18.2.4: “About
this time died Phraates, king of the Parthians, by the treachery of Phraataces his son …” Then
follows a long description of the events, including accusing the son of incest with his mother,
who had been a concubine gift from no less than Julius Caesar!583

where the footnote says:

583 Another point in favor of the early date of these events, since Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC

In looking up Phraates IV on wiki it appears that it was Augustus who gifted the concubine:

Along with the prince, Octavian (now known as Augustus) gave Phraates IV an Italian slave-girl named Musa, who quickly became queen and a favourite of Phraates IV, giving birth to Phraataces (Phraates V). Seeking to secure the throne for her son, Musa convinced Phraates IV to send his four first-born sons (Vonones, Phraates, Seraspandes and Rhodaspes) to Rome in order to prevent conflict over his succession. In 2 BC, Musa had Phraates IV poisoned and made herself along with Phraates V the co-rulers of the empire.

It also seems to be more likely as if Caesar had given Phraates the concubine in his last year of living, 44BC, it would have been 7 years before Phraates came to power if we use the official chronology. Phraates reign was from 37-2BC.

 

[hlat]

We might say that Paul also saw things "through a glass darkly" to some extent - did he not? As we all do?

I think I understand your qualms about his use of deception. But it does seem to err on the side of black-and-white thinking about free will and deception. Between Good and Evil is a third force - context, as @Jefferson mentioned above.

Giving only to those who ask, and only what they ask, no more... perhaps Paul was attuned to this, and as such gave his listeners certain information in quite a specific way.

How do you know what Paul's audience was truly asking for? And how do you know that Paul was not giving what was being truly asked? I don't think this holds water. Especially so, given that the C's have hinted that Paul only gave 'the milk' in his letters, but gave 'the meat' in person.

Who knows if we even have the whole glass of milk, either? And we can only infer what the meat may have been, with the help of dudes like Ashworth.

The C's could also be accused of using deception by not giving the whole banana up front, and are therefore STS. But that claim would be made in ignorance of how esoteric Knowledge transmission actually occurs - as a step-by-step gradual process of building receivership capacity. It's a process composed of hints, frustration, the pain of true learning, the adventure of the Quest, tailored to a specific point in world-time, and referencing a specific cultural context, and the Soul's learning cycle. There would be no hero's journey without the restraint or withholding of information by the Teacher, whether that Teacher be Paul, the C's, or the DCM. There would be no inner friction that ignites the fire of the Will if everything was given so easily.

The session below touches on these themes directly:

Good show. So free will (in terms of respecting a person's belief in lies) is even more important than factual truth, in the context of bringing the person out of the darkness (belief in lies) into the light.

I guess I'm afraid of a Santa Claus moment. When those kids believed in Santa Claus all their lives, only to learn Santa Claus is not real and to feel betrayed for being lied to all that time.

 

[iamthatis]

Good show. So free will (in terms of respecting a person's belief in lies) is even more important than factual truth, in the context of bringing the person out of the darkness (belief in lies) into the light.

I guess I'm afraid of a Santa Claus moment. When those kids believed in Santa Claus all their lives, only to learn Santa Claus is not real and to feel betrayed for being lied to all that time.

I know how you feel. I remember taking a course in Greco-Roman Mythology in university. Even though I wasn't an avid NT reader, going to Church and my Children's Bible figured largely in my upbringing. I remember my mythology Prof, by way of explaining the significance of mythology as a field of study, saying that the Biblical Jesus was most likely a composite mythological creation. And then he proceeded to walk through the various tales that could have served as templates. It was one of those totally awesome, incredibly challenging times in my life where everything I thought was solid suddenly turned to jello.

I felt so sick and betrayed while reading about Josephus! Just to think of all the thousands and thousands of innocent people who were killed because of this lie - ugh! It was like I was in the jello all over again. But in way deeper this time, given Laura's emphasis on what these lies have done to humanity throughout the Secret History series. It's been a read that has definitely brought up physical and emotional sensations for sure.

It was kinda like a life-preserver moment when Tacitus showed up with some credibility and stability. I was surprised to observe how relieved I was! I've found a new appreciation for real historians and true history with this book.

We live in a very uncertain time - an understatement at best. Without books like this, and hard-working historians like Laura, it would be impossible for me to know the past so fully. And without that, I would have no clue where I am in the present - I'd be lost in the midst of lies upon lies upon lies. But now, it's possible to See (as best as I can) into the past, and also what is happening now in the present. And with that, there is also the the glimpse of a possible future. One that makes my life worth living.

So there's something going on here that looks like 'the healing of this Timeline'. In that sense, to me, this is a book of great Love.

Edit: spelling

 

[Palinurus]

Today, I found a rather amusing typo in footnote #1229 where it states:

Marcion is missing most of Luke’s first four chapters along with several subsequent verses and periscopes.

This should have been pericopes without the additional 's' , I presume.

I take this opportunity to alert the redactors to the fact that in most footnotes the displayed link to footnotes ("Go to footnotes") - notably the ones in large font - are NOT active, at least in my Kindle version of the text. You cannot go to footnotes directly from those links for whatever reason.

 

[Michael B-C]

When are mere words ever enough!? Yet here goes, with an opening salvo of grateful ‘thank-you, thank-you, thank-you’s’ to Laura’ for resurrecting a long submerged part of our collective (and my personal) sanity.

This miracle of a book is by default a deeply taxing read - and not merely because of its enormous breadth and scope. Despite Laura’s natural talent for keeping the reader perpetually alive to the humanity of her distinctive in-person style, the exacting method of her comparative analysis – inching forwards, backwards, sideways, wherever necessary, never once allowing anything to escape her eagle eye or be taken on face value - so demands your absolute attention page after page, that ducking out from the extent of the ask would often be easier than going forwards (in particular during the middle third where a bewildering plethora of sources are so meticulously compared and contrasted). For long periods you have to give over your complete trust that where this all takes you will be fully worth the investment of so much taxing time and effort. You have to learn to love the strenuous archaeology just as much as she clearly does. You have to accept that some days on the dig you’ll come back to your lonely bivouac seemingly worse off than you did the day before. But in the end, you just have to persevere as she does, go the distance as she does, keep cleaning your tools as she does, give yourself over and just go again – the very least you can do - for this epic investigation is so methodically constructed it ensures that embracing the journey itself is utterly integral to one’s safe arrival at its final destination.

And what a destination. I for one am still reeling inside at all the implications. This book is masterful heart surgery, a life saver that could one day assist in the imperative repair and restoration (dare I say Renaissance?) of our crumbling civilization. I kid you not. Whether Laura finds the will or need to further pursue the implications of her conclusions, or this work inspires others to further liberate the threads she has so meticulously unstitched from the Gordian Knot she received, (with a whole sea of possibilities suggesting themselves where next to take this quest), only Laura and time will decree. But base camp has been firmly set (and some!); the rest is about heeding the enormity of the challenge, and accepting no retreat - especially with regard to grasping just how every step on the way has been so deliberately submerged, twisted, disguised, that only the kind of mind and method that Laura brings can possibly hope to avoid becoming lost in all the briars and traps, on purpose laid to make the taker mad.

To say this is a must read is the giant of all understatements. Yes it’s highly academic, (no amateur here – a master-mistress historian at work), but beyond the strictures of all hat rigor lies the joy of ultimate objective – delivery from imprisonment of the light of truth, brought up to the dawn of a new day when it seemed darkness and ignorance was all we had left. Above all else, this delivers a road map to a gospel of true hope. And by God, don’t we need that!

Of course, nothing I can say comes even close to doing Laura justice; merely a labored attempt to express something of the gratitude and implication that one journeyman reader now senses having closed the last page. Yet I make no apology; I simply suspect it’s that important.

Of all the many gifts she has given us, the most personally impactful has been to finally grasp the why and the how of Caesar. Yes, this landing place has been well prepared before on the forum, but somehow I hadn’t recognized just how fathom deep still lay certain false, sly assumptions in my psyche. I can finally sense just how unconsciously programmed I still was by the contradictory Jesus personality. Attempts in my 20’s to get him off me by abandoning faith and marching away from the wreckage, claiming myself to be at last ‘free’, were always secretly filled with too much remorse and regret to be a true liberation. Stockholm syndrome personified. After all, I’d known him since I can ever remember and he was my closest inner companion, my Lord. But at last I can see how this sandal wearing, passive, hippie Christ was such a clever, clever perversion of the great man himself. All peace on earth and honey-tongued love, whilst all about a war raged on humanity. The turn-the-other-cheek, sit and accept, passivity of his chains. How as a rugby playing, justice fighting, secretly rebellious child, my whole sense of self-worth was so subtly subverted by his dewy eyed, brow-beaten posture.

I think to myself now, imagine the difference if down the ensuing ages the ‘Archons’ and their earthly agents had had to face the retained collective memory of Christ – a son of god – with Caesar’s legendary fire power! A manly giant, a figure that truly knew when it was necessary to wield the sword, when right to heal harm through forgiveness and charity. An implacable master warrior, a supreme tactician, an inspiring leader of men, a heroic figure of courage, grit and steel like fortitude. A man born on high yet who lived and died for the people. A lover, a father, an artist, a scientist, a thinker, a doer. A man who even unto death set the ultimate example to follow. If the greatest man that ever lived – with a real history of real, yet miraculous seeming deeds, (because of course, no matter how much they told us, in our heart of hearts we knew their patchwork magician Christ couldn’t possibly be real!) – had been grown inside us, then each of us in our small and yet valid way might have found more of the metal required to take up our cross and walk! If he could, then we could try to follow, even in pale imitation. But the ‘perfect’, unblinking icon of ten times removed meekness! I’ll give you bloody meekness-and-mild!

So many times as I read, I couldn’t help but think of JFK. Other times Putin. Recognizable humans who have seemingly walked something of the path of Paul’s Christ even in our own times. And of course, Laura herself. But next to no one knows.

That’s one of the blindingly obvious truths that hit home – that we are all meant to be Jesus Christ. That we are all meant to be a ‘son of god’. I may be off but that’s what in part I gleaned from this window into Paul’s message to us all. That this testing ground is merely that – the place where, whatever our place in it may be, we are given the opportunity to remember who we really are, not to waste our years observing others from afar and doing nothing. The power of spirit to overcome the sugared lure of the material realm even unto death. And how many tricks the devil has up his sleeve to make sure we never ever achieve anything close. And one of his best was - and still is - the programme called Jesus of Nazareth.

The cross as a power sign. The cross as our rightful inheritance. The cross as liberty.

‘… and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.’ We can now take that back from John. We can even wrench it from the claws of the CIA and take it up as our stolen birth right.

Thank you Laura for helping us again and again to see there is still a living way towards that re-making.

Now, back to page 1 and I suspect the first of many a re-read. Any meaningful questions will have to wait until I’ve unlearned some more!

 

[Laura]

Yup, Michael, that's pretty close to how I felt about it all. But, my God! the labor it took to get there!

 

[Altair]

Today, I found a rather amusing typo in footnote #1229 where it states:



This should have been pericopes without the additional 's' , I presume.

I take this opportunity to alert the redactors to the fact that in most footnotes the displayed link to footnotes ("Go to footnotes") - notably the ones in large font - are NOT active, at least in my Kindle version of the text. You cannot go to footnotes directly from those links for whatever reason.

I checked several footnotes through the whole book. "Go to footnotes" works as expected. Could you provide a bit more information? For example, a couple of the footnote numbers which don't work for you? Your Kindle model, software version and a photo of the not active link "Go to footnotes" would be of great help as well.

 

[Palinurus]

I'm sorry Altair but I cannot provide any examples anymore because for some unknown reason all links Go to footnotes are now in undercast and work as a charm. My Kindle version is 1.31.1 (60170) for Windows 10 BTW.

Previously, I had footnotes links in large font as well as in small font (undercast) and the ones that didn't work were all in large font. Those do not show up anymore anywhere (randomly sampled today).

The only difference with yesterday is that I'm now working from my laptop whereas yesterday I was working from my desktop computer. Both are fairly new, i.e. slightly more than half a year old.

So, I'm sorry to have made noise.

 

[Palinurus]

Found a few typos again.

First at kindle location #16645 just underneath the map:

The closest to Sinope that Paul ever got, as far was we know, was Galatia,

The bolded 'w' is superfluous.

Secondly a case of confusion at kindle location #17354:

What I believe has been added by an editor is in bold italic, and pay particular attention to what I have underlined.

I don't know about the printed version but in the kindle edition the added editor parts are in bold but not in bold italic. So the word 'italic' should be scrapped. However, in previous citations the probable interpolations were in plain italics, so for consistency's sake it should be considered to do that here as well, i.e. replace the boldings with plain italics.

Especially, because Laura writes at location #17373:

The excluded verses in italics must be rejected entirely,

Also, no part of the citation has any underlinings. Therefore the second part of the sentence makes no sense and should be removed.

 

[nicklebleu]

That’s one of the blindingly obvious truths that hit home – that we are all meant to be Jesus Christ. That we are all meant to be a ‘son of god’. I may be off but that’s what in part I gleaned from this window into Paul’s message to us all. That this testing ground is merely that – the place where, whatever our place in it may be, we are given the opportunity to remember who we really are, not to waste our years observing others from afar and doing nothing. The power of spirit to overcome the sugared lure of the material realm even unto death. And how many tricks the devil has up his sleeve to make sure we never ever achieve anything close. And one of his best was - and still is - the programme called Jesus of Nazareth.

Beautifully said, Michael B-C, and exactly one of the conclusions I have recently come to, coming in from another angle, as I haven’t read the book yet. I am currently reading a book about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian, mystic and freedom fighter, who participated in the failed attempt to assassinate Hitler, and who - 3 weeks before the capitulation of the German Third Reich - was executed by the Nazis.

That is basically what Bonhoeffer was trying to tell his contemporaries. I don’t want to go off-topic here, so once I finish the book, maybe I’ll write a review in the book section, because already - only about half in - it has had a bit of a life changing effect.

 

[Chu]

When are mere words ever enough!? Yet here goes, with an opening salvo of grateful ‘thank-you, thank-you, thank-you’s’ to Laura’ for resurrecting a long submerged part of our collective (and my personal) sanity.

This miracle of a book is by default a deeply taxing read - and not merely because of its enormous breadth and scope. Despite Laura’s natural talent for keeping the reader perpetually alive to the humanity of her distinctive in-person style, the exacting method of her comparative analysis – inching forwards, backwards, sideways, wherever necessary, never once allowing anything to escape her eagle eye or be taken on face value - so demands your absolute attention page after page, that ducking out from the extent of the ask would often be easier than going forwards (in particular during the middle third where a bewildering plethora of sources are so meticulously compared and contrasted). For long periods you have to give over your complete trust that where this all takes you will be fully worth the investment of so much taxing time and effort. You have to learn to love the strenuous archaeology just as much as she clearly does. You have to accept that some days on the dig you’ll come back to your lonely bivouac seemingly worse off than you did the day before. But in the end, you just have to persevere as she does, go the distance as she does, keep cleaning your tools as she does, give yourself over and just go again – the very least you can do - for this epic investigation is so methodically constructed it ensures that embracing the journey itself is utterly integral to one’s safe arrival at its final destination.

And what a destination. I for one am still reeling inside at all the implications. This book is masterful heart surgery, a life saver that could one day assist in the imperative repair and restoration (dare I say Renaissance?) of our crumbling civilization. I kid you not. Whether Laura finds the will or need to further pursue the implications of her conclusions, or this work inspires others to further liberate the threads she has so meticulously unstitched from the Gordian Knot she received, (with a whole sea of possibilities suggesting themselves where next to take this quest), only Laura and time will decree. But base camp has been firmly set (and some!); the rest is about heeding the enormity of the challenge, and accepting no retreat - especially with regard to grasping just how every step on the way has been so deliberately submerged, twisted, disguised, that only the kind of mind and method that Laura brings can possibly hope to avoid becoming lost in all the briars and traps, on purpose laid to make the taker mad.

To say this is a must read is the giant of all understatements. Yes it’s highly academic, (no amateur here – a master-mistress historian at work), but beyond the strictures of all hat rigor lies the joy of ultimate objective – delivery from imprisonment of the light of truth, brought up to the dawn of a new day when it seemed darkness and ignorance was all we had left. Above all else, this delivers a road map to a gospel of true hope. And by God, don’t we need that!

Of course, nothing I can say comes even close to doing Laura justice; merely a labored attempt to express something of the gratitude and implication that one journeyman reader now senses having closed the last page. Yet I make no apology; I simply suspect it’s that important.

Of all the many gifts she has given us, the most personally impactful has been to finally grasp the why and the how of Caesar. Yes, this landing place has been well prepared before on the forum, but somehow I hadn’t recognized just how fathom deep still lay certain false, sly assumptions in my psyche. I can finally sense just how unconsciously programmed I still was by the contradictory Jesus personality. Attempts in my 20’s to get him off me by abandoning faith and marching away from the wreckage, claiming myself to be at last ‘free’, were always secretly filled with too much remorse and regret to be a true liberation. Stockholm syndrome personified. After all, I’d known him since I can ever remember and he was my closest inner companion, my Lord. But at last I can see how this sandal wearing, passive, hippie Christ was such a clever, clever perversion of the great man himself. All peace on earth and honey-tongued love, whilst all about a war raged on humanity. The turn-the-other-cheek, sit and accept, passivity of his chains. How as a rugby playing, justice fighting, secretly rebellious child, my whole sense of self-worth was so subtly subverted by his dewy eyed, brow-beaten posture.

I think to myself now, imagine the difference if down the ensuing ages the ‘Archons’ and their earthly agents had had to face the retained collective memory of Christ – a son of god – with Caesar’s legendary fire power! A manly giant, a figure that truly knew when it was necessary to wield the sword, when right to heal harm through forgiveness and charity. An implacable master warrior, a supreme tactician, an inspiring leader of men, a heroic figure of courage, grit and steel like fortitude. A man born on high yet who lived and died for the people. A lover, a father, an artist, a scientist, a thinker, a doer. A man who even unto death set the ultimate example to follow. If the greatest man that ever lived – with a real history of real, yet miraculous seeming deeds, (because of course, no matter how much they told us, in our heart of hearts we knew their patchwork magician Christ couldn’t possibly be real!) – had been grown inside us, then each of us in our small and yet valid way might have found more of the metal required to take up our cross and walk! If he could, then we could try to follow, even in pale imitation. But the ‘perfect’, unblinking icon of ten times removed meekness! I’ll give you bloody meekness-and-mild!

So many times as I read, I couldn’t help but think of JFK. Other times Putin. Recognizable humans who have seemingly walked something of the path of Paul’s Christ even in our own times. And of course, Laura herself. But next to no one knows.

That’s one of the blindingly obvious truths that hit home – that we are all meant to be Jesus Christ. That we are all meant to be a ‘son of god’. I may be off but that’s what in part I gleaned from this window into Paul’s message to us all. That this testing ground is merely that – the place where, whatever our place in it may be, we are given the opportunity to remember who we really are, not to waste our years observing others from afar and doing nothing. The power of spirit to overcome the sugared lure of the material realm even unto death. And how many tricks the devil has up his sleeve to make sure we never ever achieve anything close. And one of his best was - and still is - the programme called Jesus of Nazareth.

The cross as a power sign. The cross as our rightful inheritance. The cross as liberty.

‘… and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.’ We can now take that back from John. We can even wrench it from the claws of the CIA and take it up as our stolen birth right.

Thank you Laura for helping us again and again to see there is still a living way towards that re-making.

Now, back to page 1 and I suspect the first of many a re-read. Any meaningful questions will have to wait until I’ve unlearned some more!

Indeed, beautifully said, @Michael B-C ! Thank you for that. Yours would also make an awesome review for Amazon, if you don't mind adapting it a bit for the general public (maybe leave out Caesar not to freak people out? )

 

[Approaching Infinity]

Secondly a case of confusion at kindle location #17354:

I don't know about the printed version but in the kindle edition the added editor parts are in bold but not in bold italic. So the word 'italic' should be scrapped. However, in previous citations the probable interpolations were in plain italics, so for consistency's sake it should be considered to do that here as well, i.e. replace the boldings with plain italics.

Especially, because Laura writes at location #17373:


Also, no part of the citation has any underlinings. Therefore the second part of the sentence makes no sense and should be removed.

Thanks, Palinarus. That was a problem with the Kindle (not the print edition). An updated Kindle will be available to download via Amazon in the next few days with this (and other typos) corrected!