[This was an opening article together with other ‘who are we’ and ‘what is sinai.6000’ posts at the inception of this website in year 2012.
Reposting it every year places us back to that time when we decided to share the individual faith journey of our very small circle of awakened God-seekers who never stopped seeking the One True God . That God we found finally, back on the mountain of Revelation, Sinai . . . where the Torah has given to Israel with Gentiles among them. We relate to that generation of Gentiles.—-Admin1.]
For God-seekers/Truth-seekers, life is a pilgrimage.
We journey through each phase of our earthly life, choosing pathways we think will lead us to our destination . . . only to face that fork on the road that gives us pause. Those who don’t wish to stray from ‘the familiar’ continue on the same convenient and comfortable pathway; after all, they have been convinced that the map they’ve depended on has been reliable. Few dare to stray into the unknown, unbeaten path.
Thankfully, many of us did and have been blessed for doing so, for in checking what was on the “other pathway” that diverged from the road widely traveled—the beaten path—we learned, we matured, we became progressively more discerning; best of all, we got biblically educated!
Some of us have spent almost a lifetime journeying toward that “Sacred Place” where we expect to meet the ONE TRUE GOD. On that journey, we made a thoughtful decision every time we faced a fork on the road. That fork showed up not once, not twice, but thrice on this pilgrimage.
Some of us started out as children inheriting the religious choices of our parents, baptized in the Roman Catholic Church; then, discontented with mere tradition, ritual, and unquestioned dogma, we turned to seeking God in what we were told contained His complete revelation—The Christian Bible.
So we ended up in one of the “protestant” sects or turned to one of the many evangelical fellowships where we listened to preachings from “The Word of God”, except much of that preaching/teaching focused only on the newer testament. Many of us organized into weekly bible study groups and got involved in churches/fellowships.
While comfortable and content in following that map provided by The Christian Bible, later in the journey, we faced yet another fork on the road. This time, the alternative led us to a closer look into the neglected part of the Christian Bible —the so-called “Old” Testament. Messianic Theology introduced us to the Hebraic roots of our Christian Faith.
Well and good, most of us felt we had finally arrived . . . only to encounter one more fork on the road . . . one that challenged us not only to venture more deeply into the foundational Hebrew Scriptures on which the supposedly newer testament was based but also to question the very foundations of our Christian heritage. It is this latter investigation that shook up the very core of our God-search, for we discovered that what we had unquestioningly accepted as God-given Truth turned out to be man-made doctrine hatched in mere councils of men within the first three centuries of millennium 4 in the Biblical reckoning of time, though in the Gregorian calendar, it would be the first thousand years after the supposed birth of Christianity’s Savior — Jesus Christ.
Jesus of Nazareth, Yeshua–like any Jew in his time —was raised and educated in the Hebrew Scriptures, lived Torah, worshipped the God of Israel. Other than that, there isn’t much written in historical records about this man; much of what we know about him comes from “New” Testament books.
We who have awakened to the consistent message of the Hebrew Scriptures about the self-revelation of the God on Sinai have followed Jesus out of Christianity into his faith in Israel’s God, whose self-revealed Name is YHWH. The faith of Jesus is not the same as faith in Jesus. With all due respect, this is where we now depart from our former Christ-centered colleagues, friends, teachers, and pastors. Contrary to misunderstandings about our faith, we are not joining Judaism; we are gentiles drawn to the God of Abraham, Moses, Israel, and Jesus of history. Our former co-travellers on this journey [committed and dedicated Christ-worshippers] who are befuddled at our turnabout from a whole belief system we had embraced all our lives, have understandably reacted in various ways—ranging from pity that we’ve lost our salvation, to active resistance by warning others and labeling us “apostates”, “bastards” and “antichrists”. Such negative reactions hardly threaten our resolve to continue on this last and final lap of our pilgrimage. This pathway has led us back to the place of Divine Revelation:
geographically, that place is Mount Sinai;
historically, that time is recorded in Exodus . .
literarily, that “place” is the repository of the True Revelation—the Hebrew Scriptures, the TNK, but specifically the TORAH.
The journey’s length depends on the God-seeker . . . for the True Revelator had given His directions as early as that historical point in time to Moses and the mixed multitude. That Revelation has been accessible to all mankind for 6 millennia now, but it has taken each one of us almost a lifetime to get to it. Why?
That is a question each one must answer for himself.
There is nothing to lose in pursuing this path. We all have already known the other side; all our lives have been spent on studying its theological/scriptural/doctrinal implications and conclusions. All we can say at this point is — none of us regret ever returning to the original Way. We wish we had discovered this Way so much earlier so that we could have worshipped, served, and made known the One True God in the spring instead of the autumn of our lives. It is not too late for the youth among us; we trust they will carry on our legacy.
[First posted February 2, 2014; reposted February 15 and June 27, 2015—Admin1]
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This topic has been written about and rehashed millions of times, but it is surely a relevant discussion point no matter how often, or how much it has been written about.
Image from www.quotesfrenzy.com
Each day we face challenges and difficulties, big and small, and it is good to be reminded that GOD is INDEED near us, that He IS a personal GOD, even if there are moments that we ask ourselves, “Where is GOD in all these?”
We all go through pain, suffering, difficulties, grief, in the cycles of our lives. During these times, we often ask ourselves “WHY GOD?” Yet, during moments when we are feeling at peace with everyone and everything in the world, when we are in comfort and pleasure, we do not question and just enjoy them. We sometimes even forget to be truly grateful to the Source of these good tidings. But GOD, from whom ALL BLESSINGS flow, is there in good times and in bad.
It is easy to see Him in our lives when we are rolling in the good times. However, when we are at the lowest points in our lives, when there seems to be no hope and light, when everything seems to go wrong, and our pleas and prayers seem to be going nowhere, it is then that we question if GOD is indeed with us.
I read an article in aish.com entitled “ Questioning GOD” written by Riva Pomerantz which had this catching by-line:
I don’t want to live in the question anymore.
I want to live in the answer.
Don’t we often go through that? We want so hard to hear from GOD, to have our prayers answered, to see His hand in the midst of our difficulties. Yet so often, in our daily lives, His ways are hidden and that is when we cry out in anguish, “Why GOD?” There are so many philosophical, theological, even practical answers to this oft-repeated question as we are going through times of difficulty and adversity, when justice fails, when yatzer hara [the evil inclination] seems to flourish and abound.
Image from www.momentumlife.tv
I know I may not have the right answers, nor can I say I know the right answers. All I know is that even in the most difficult of times, even when it is the hardest to do, I just continue to trust, to pray, to believe that GOD is in ALL the details of my life. He is a personal GOD to me, He may sometimes be silent, and times when He does intercede and answers my prayers in amazing and unexpected ways. I also know that I can only learn to be in His perfect will for me and my life as I study, read and learn from His Torah.
In his video “Getting Personal with GOD”, Rabbi Yaakov Salomon says that he heard someone say that she never plans for anything because ultimately, it is all up to GOD. Rabbi Salomon answers it this way:
“When we pray to GOD we should pray as if EVERYTHING depended on Him; but when we LIVE we must live as if it all depends on us.”
We have to live our lives creating a balance between leaving everything to God, and doing things simply on our own; we should understand that even if our lives, and its details, are in God’s hand, we still have to DO everything possible for ourselves.
[This was first posted April 6, 2012 when we had just started this website and the Core Community contributed articles regarding our individual pilgrimage to seeking God, usually in religions. This one is by BAN@S6K. When we finally got out of religion, our collective mindset was that our individual search for God was a journey that took a lifetime, since some of us shifted to our final pathway to YHWH, the Revelator on Sinai, in the autumn of our lives; some in the winter of their earth-years.
Other posts under JOURNEYS, if you care to check them out:
My life of faith in the LORD is a journey. God leads me to a path when I am ready to walk on it.
My journey began as a young girl in my school where the nuns taught me that the sole reason for life is to glorify God and to be happy with HIM forever in the next. To achieve this, it meant to obey God and to obey all the commandments of the Church. This I did to the utmost.
Many years later, as a young married woman, I became a “born again Christian”. In my enthusiasm to serve the LORD, I took another step. I enrolled in a Christian seminary where I got my Masters Degree in Church Studies. Studying the Word of God, a question in my mind would always crop up: ”Why did Jesus have to die for my sins?” And always the answer was: Jesus is the only way of salvation, God has provided for us to take. As taught by my professors, the New Testament attests to this, backed by Old Testament prophecies. This answer, though it did not satisfy me, kept me quiet.
Then, another path opened up for me. A missionary friend and teacher introduced me to a more thorough study of the Old Testament scriptures, emphasizing that the scriptures should be studied with a Hebrew mindset because the Hebrew Scriptures were given to the Jews, for the Jews, and written by Jews, as inspired by the Spirit of God. This, I realized, was true so that I embraced the Hebrew Scriptures with all of my mind, heart, and soul. The Hebrew Scriptures contain all the Truths that YAHWEH our God, has revealed for mankind to know and to follow.
The Word of God says,
“You will seek me and find me,
when you search for me with all of your heart.”
In my search for Truth and in my desire to know more about the GOD I worship, the LORD allowed me to take another journey. Confined for seven weeks on my bed, with only the Bible, books and the internet for companions, the LORD, through His Spirit led me to the Truth: that there is only ONE TRUE GOD, the GOD of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as He revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Why I now do not acknowledge Jesus as my savior and Lord is because of knowing this truth. I believe, trust, and submit myself to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I will know Him and follow Him through how He has revealed Himself in the Tanach. I am thankful that my faith in Him is justified by knowledge in the veracity and witness of His revealed Word throughout the ages. This faith gives me the subjective trust that gives me eyes to see and a heart to believe that YAHWEH guides me in believing that what He says in the Tanach is true.
What about eternal consequences? I will claim Psalm 51, specially verses 16-17:
“For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it.
You do not delight in burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken spirit and a contrite heart, These, O God, You will not despise.”
I believe these words were true then and is still true now. And if true that Jesus points everyone to the Father, then He would be most happy that I go to the Father, for I believe He would never compete with the Father, if he is a true son.
So, this is where I am now. My full devotion is to the One True God, of both Jews and Gentiles. I am and will always be a God-fearer.
[It has become traditional for Sinaites to add variation to our Sabbath celebration by singing our liturgy every other Shabbat. As we have repeatedly explained, our worship music foundation comes from our Christian roots and so we merely borrow the music but revise the lyrics according to our Sinaite creed. We are indebted to Christian hymnodists for their beautiful tunes that ever reverberate in our musical memory. If you are familiar with these tunes, sing them; if not, recite them. Understandably, if you’re familiar with the original lyrics, the change is at first uncomfortable, but we agree with Hymnodists that one of the best ways to teach is through the hymns we sing. Shabbat shalom to all!—Admin1.]
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KINDLE THE SABBATH LIGHTS
Image from myjewishlearning.com
Blessed are You,
O YHWH our God,
King of the universe,
Who commanded us to set aside the Sabbath day,
to rest from our daily routine,
from our six days of work.
As we kindle our Sabbath lights,
we bless You back for blessing us with vision to see through the darkness that spread with the setting of Your magnificent sun from our horizon,
with hearts and minds that understand the need for Your Light to illumine our pathway through our life’s journey.
Your Torah is a light unto our path,
that brightens the way
that leads to our understanding of You
and who You are,
and how we are to relate to You,
and to ‘the other’, our neighbor, our fellowmen.
Blessed are You,
O YHWH, our God,
The Source of all LIGHT in our lives.
[Medley of Christian tunes, revised lyrics]
1a) Be still and know YAHUWAH is GOD (3X).
1b) YAHUWAH’s the LORD that healeth Thee (3X).
1c) In Thee Lord YAHUWAH, I put my trust (3X).
2. YHWH [YAHWEH] we love You we worship and adore You,
Glorify Your Name in all the earth,
glorify Your Name, glorify Your Name,
Magnify Your Name in all the earth.
3. We worship and adore You,
bowing down before You,
Songs and praises ringing, all our voices singing:
If the “New” Testament [NT] is merely a continuation, a fulfillment of the “Old” Testament [OT], then how did the NT church veer so far away from the original which is claimed as its foundation, so much so the ‘old’ was appended to their ‘new’ because . . . well, presumably, without an “old” there could not be a “new”?
Of course, there could be a “new” all on its own, since ‘newness’ suggests not only —
that there might have been an ‘old’
but that there is an entirely ‘new’ that did not exist before.
And if you really analyze the “New” Testament, if you remove the references to the “old”, it could actually stand by itself because its whole belief system is different from its claimed foundations. It proposes—
a new way of salvation,
a new savior,
a new configuration of God,
a new (or different) sabbath day of the week,
and so many more ‘news’!
In fact the ‘good news’ or ‘gospel’ is about a new way to approach God—
which does away with the old,
which requires —-
—no more obeying commandments (the Torah) because believers are under “grace” and not “law”;
—simply place your faith and trust in new reconfigured God
—the more prominent Person being a God-man supported by 2 other occasionally remembered and addressed Deities;
—and the “new” religion born in the 4th century actually was . . . a new religion.
So why even make claims NT is a continuation of an OT?
Such a veering away is explained and justified on the basis of Jeremiah 31:31, that a “new covenant” would replace the old and original covenant with Israel. But what is this “new covenant” about and with whom is it being renewed?
If one simply goes by the plain text of the NT Prooftext located in the OT Jeremiah 31:31,where is it written that a new covenant will be made with whom?
a ‘new nation’ or
‘a new people’ or
a ‘new religion’
or a ‘new church’
or a ‘new belief system’?
“The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.
The plain text is clear, the new covenant is between YHWH (who instigated the “old” covenant with Israel and the ‘mixed multitude’ on Sinai), and with whom is it being renewed?
with the House of Israel
and the House of Judah
Oh, pardon an oversight, the original wording does not say “renewed” which is the Messianic interpretation.
In sum, if one reads Jeremiah 31:31 without the “Christian baggage” (reinterpretation on the basis of NT scripture), those oft-unnoticed words don’t just disappear from sight; mental blindness resulting from ‘brainwashing’ sometimes leads to visual blindness.
A mind taught and trained to read specific verses a certain way, in sync with dogmatic belief, will keep reading it the same way and no other way.
When the NT claims that christians are —
“not under the Law but under grace”,
the rationale is that the Law was given to Moses and Israel, all that is passé, obsolete.
The NT goes so far as calling that “Law” the “Mosaic Law,” as though Moses was the “Law-Maker” or the “Law-Giver” when in fact he was simply the recipient of the TORAH of YHWH and the transmittor of it to the Israelites, a mediator, if you will.
And yet, with such casual and careless use or misuse of words, or possibly intentional misapplication of terms, unthinking readers of the bible (if they even seriously read and study and understand the Old Testament) swallow the line:
‘Old’ for Jew,
‘New’ for Christian.
And so with the replacements, everything falls in place, according to New Testament re-orientation and re-interpretation (misinterpretation, actually) of its claimed “foundation”, the Hebrew scriptures known as the TNK (Tanach, Tanakh) .
“Replacement theology” is a phrase not commonly known among non-Bible reading Christians who merely follow the dictates of their Church and trust their religious leaders (priests and pastors).
We Sinaites as former Christians were among the ignorant who never heard of “replacement theology” which remained unquestioned, perhaps because it was not widely known, or because no one within Christianity questioned and challenged it.
Not until the Messianic movement arising from within Christianity were bible students, such as we Sinaites, made aware of the many shifts that Christianity made from the original teachings of TORAH.
Such as what?
The Sabbath is one of those shifts. Bible students read as early as Genesis that the Creator Himself rested on the 7th day, when the creation of the world and man was completed on day 6. Sabbath is a testimonial, a memorial to the Creator God, as vs. 25 says,
“for today is a Sabbath to YHWH.”
To add to the fact that Sabbath precedes the giving of the TORAH on Sinai, the national God of Israel who disclosed His Name as YHWH, teaches the Israelites a valuable Sabbath lesson in this chapter, linking it this time to His gracious provision of manna to feed the multitudes in the wilderness.
“God told Moses that food would fall from the sky
but also that this food would be the basis
of a test of faith for the Children of Israel”
(Arthur Kurzweil, Torah for Dummies).
How so? Why would food be a test of faith?
As this chapter explains the details for the daily gathering of food provisions, the Israelites had to have faith, to borrow a Christian phrase “live by faith” that there would be provisions for tomorrow, and the next day, and the next . . . that they would be totally reliant upon the Provider of their needs on a daily basis; that means they would not have to worry about scrambling for their portion, for there would be enough for every individual, nor scrounge around to look for it, for it would be visible to gather every day.
“I will rain bread from heaven for you,” . . . .
Ah, Divine Providence!
What people have ever experienced such grace from a loving God?
[Note: This is an unfinished article . . . but posted for now. . . since it has enough to “chew on” for the time being, till the author determines if it is complete as is.]
Well, in the country where we, Sinaites, are based, there is a religious phenomenon that recurs at this time every year. This is the procession in heart of old Manila where devotees of the statue of Jesus the Nazarene is paraded at the heart of old Manila; check out these articles:
QUIAPO FIESTA 2020: Feast of the Black Nazarene Traslacion …
This blog article covers the Feast of the Black Nazarene 2020 Schedule of Activities, Traslacion Procession Route, Important Safety Reminders and more! The image of the Black Nazarene or Hesus Nazareno is one of the most revered in the Philippines. It is the image of a miraculous dark-skinned and
Catholic News Agency PHILIPPINES — Devotees of the Black Nazarene crowded outside the church of Manila’s old Quiapo district on the last day of the year to mark the start of an annual feast that usually attracts millions of people. An estimated 64,000 crowd joined the thanksgiving procession for the Black Nazarene midnight of Dec. 31.
https://outoftownblog.com/feast-of-the-black-nazarene-2020-procession-route-traffic…Manila, Philippines — The Feast of the Black Nazarene is a yearly event that is greatly anticipated by devotees. It has been believed that if you have a wish that you want to have granted, you will need to participate in the procession for it to come true, and there have been numerous stories…
So, this is a good introduction to the topic of this post; here is the original introduction when it was first posted in 2012:
In the interest of resource sharing, we are featuring only Chapter 1 of this book; again, enough to whet your appetite to get a copy for your library, if you want to learn more. While the discoveries of the authors of this book led them to shed their Christian faith, it did not lead them to the same path we, Sinaites, have rediscovered. Where it did lead them, you have to find out for yourself. Reformatting and color-coding ours.]
The complete title of this book is :
The Jesus Mysteries: Was the “Original Jesus” a Pagan God?
Authors: Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy
It has an interesting dedication:
This book is dedicated to the Christ in you.
Source: downloadable as an ebook from amazon.com.
Contents
Chapter 1 The Unthinkable Thought
Chapter 2 The Pagan Mysteries
Chapter 3 The Diabolical Mimicry
Chapter 4 Perfected Platonism
Chapter 5 The Gnostics
Chapter 6 The Jesus Code
Chapter 7 The Missing Man
Chapter 8 Was Paul a Gnostic?
Chapter 9 The Jewish Mysteries
Chapter 10 The Jesus Myth
Chapter 11 An Imitation Church
Chapter 12 The Greatest Story Ever Told
Notes
Bibliography
Who’s Who
Index
Copyright Page
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Chapter 1 The Unthinkable Thought
Jesus said,
“It is to those who are worthy of my Mysteries
that I tell my Mysteries.”
The Gospel of Thomas
On the site where the Vatican now stands, there once stood a Pagan temple. Here Pagan priests observed sacred ceremonies, which early Christians found so disturbing that they tried to erase all evidence of them ever having been practiced. What were these shocking Pagan rites? Gruesome sacrifices or obscene orgies perhaps? This is what we have been led to believe. But the truth is far stranger than this fiction.
Where today the gathered faithful revere their Lord Jesus Christ, the ancients worshipped another godman who, like Jesus, had been miraculously born on December 25 before three shepherds.
In this ancient sanctuary Pagan congregations once glorified a Pagan redeemer who, like Jesus, was said to have ascended to heaven and to have promised to come again at the end of time to judge the quick and the dead.
On the same spot where the Pope celebrates the Catholic mass, Pagan priests also celebrated a symbolic meal of bread and wine in memory of their savior who, just like Jesus, had declared:
He who will not eat of my body and drink of my blood,
so that he will be made one with me and I with him,
the same shall not know salvation.
When we began to uncover such extraordinary similarities between the story of Jesus and Pagan myth, we were stunned. We had been brought up in a culture which portrays Paganism and Christianity as entirely antagonistic religious perspective. How could such astonishing resemblances be explained? We were intrigued and began to search farther.
The more we looked, the more resemblances we found. To account for the wealth of evidence we were unearthing we felt compelled to completely review our understanding of the relationship between Paganism and Christianity, to question beliefs that we previously regarded as unquestionable and to imagine possibilities that at first seemed impossible. Some readers will find our conclusions shocking and others heretical, but for us they are merely the simplest and most obvious way of accounting for the evidence we have amassed.
We have become convinced that the story of Jesus is not the biography of a historical Messiah, but a myth based on perennial Pagan stories. Christianity was not a new and unique revelation but actually a Jewish adaptation of the ancient Pagan Mystery religion. This is what we have called The Mysteries Thesis.
It may sound far-fetched at first, just as it did initially to us. There is, after all, a great deal of unsubstantiated nonsense written about the “real” Jesus, so any revolutionary theory should be approached with a healthy dose of skepticism. But although this book makes extraordinary claims, it is not just entertaining fantasy or sensational speculation. It is firmly based upon the available historical sources and the latest scholarly research.
While we hope to have made it accessible to the general reader, we have also included copious notes giving sources, references, and greater detail for those who wish to analyze our arguments more thoroughly.
Although still radical and challenging today, many of the ideas we explore are actually far from new. As long ago as the Renaissance, mystics and scholars saw the origins of Christianity in the ancient Egyptian religion. Visionary scholars at the turn of the nineteenth century also made comparable conjectures to our own. In recent decades, modern academics have repeatedly pointed toward the possibilities we consider. Yet few have dared to boldly state the obvious conclusion that we have drawn. Why? Because to do so is taboo.
For 2,000 years the West has been dominated by the idea that Christianity is sacred and unique while Paganism is primitive and the work of the Devil. To even consider that they could be parts of the same tradition has been simply unthinkable. Therefore, although the true origins of Christianity have been obvious all along, few have been able to see them, because to do so requires a radical break with the conditioning of our culture.
Our contribution has been to dare to think the unthinkable and to present our conclusions in a popular book rather than some dry academic tome. This is certainly not the last word on this complex subject, but we hope it may be a significant call for a complete reappraisal of the origins of Christianity.
The Pagan Mysteries
In Greek tragedies the chorus reveals the fate of the protagonists before the play begins. Sometimes it is easier to understand the journey if one is already aware of the destination and the terrain to be covered. Before diving deeper into detail, therefore, we would like to retrace our process of discovery and so provide a brief overview of the book.
We had shared an obsession with world mysticism all our lives which recently had led us to explore spirituality in the ancient world. Popular understanding inevitably lags a long way behind the cutting edge of scholarly research and, like most people, we initially had an inaccurate and outdated view of Paganism. We had been taught to imagine a primitive superstition, which indulged in idol worship and bloody sacrifice, and dry philosophers wearing togas stumbling blindly toward what we today call science. We were familiar with various Greek myths, which showed the partisan and capricious nature of the Olympian gods and goddesses. All in all, Paganism seemed primitive and fundamentally alien. After many years of study, however, our understanding has been transformed.
Pagan spirituality was actually the sophisticated product of a highly developed culture. The state religions, such as Greek worship of the Olympian gods, were little more than outer pomp and ceremony. The real spirituality of the people expressed itself through the vibrant and mystical “Mystery religions.” At first underground and heretical movements, these Mysteries spread and flourished throughout the ancient Mediterranean, inspiring the greatest minds of the Pagan world, who regarded them as the very source of civilization.
Each Mystery tradition had exoteric Outer Mysteries, consisting of myths, which were common knowledge, and rituals, which were open to anyone who wanted to participate. There were also esoteric Inner Mysteries, which were a sacred secret known only to those who had undergone a powerful process of initiation. Initiates of the Inner Mysteries had the mystical meaning of the rituals and myths of the Outer Mysteries revealed to them, a process that brought about personal transformation and spiritual enlightenment.
The philosophers of the ancient world were spiritual masters of the Inner mysteries. They were mystics and miracle-workers, more comparable to Hindu gurus than dusty academics. the great Greek philosopher Pythagoras, for example, is remembered today for his mathematical theorem, but few people picture him as he actually was—a flamboyant sage, who was believed to be able to miraculously still the winds and raise the dead.
At the heart of the mysteries were myths concerning a dying and resurrecting godman, who was known by many names. In Egypt he was Osiris, in Greece Dionysius, in Asia Minor Attis, in Syria Adonis, in Italy Bacchus, in Persia Mithras. Fundamentally all these godmen are the same mythical being. As was the practice from as early as the third century BCE, in this book we will use the combined name Osiris-Dionysus to denote his universal and composite nature, and his particular names when referring to a specific Mystery tradition.
From the fifth century BCE philosophers such as Xenophanes and Empedocles had ridiculed taking the stories of the gods and goddesses literally. They viewed them as allegories of human spiritual experience. The myths of Osiris-Dionysus should not be understood as just intriguing tales, therefore, but as a symbolic language, which encodes the mystical teachings of the Inner Mysteries. Because of this, although the details were developed and adapted over time by different cultures, the myth of Osiris-Dionysus has remained essentially the same.
The various myths of the different godmen of the Mysteries share what the great mythologist Joseph Campbell called “the same anatomy.” Just as every human is physically unique yet it is possible to talk of the general anatomy of the human body, so with these different myths it is possible to see both their uniqueness and fundamental sameness. A helpful comparison may be the relationship between Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Bernstein’s West Side Story. One is a sixteenth-century English tragedy about wealthy Italian families, while the other is a twentieth-century American musical about street gangs. On the face of it they look very different, yet they are essentially the same story. Similarly, the tales told about the godmen of the Pagan Mysteries are essentially the same, although they take different forms.
The more we studied the various versions of the myth of Osiris-Dionysus, the more it became obvious that the story of Jesus had all the characteristics of this perennial tale. Event by event, we found we were able to construct Jesus’ supposed biography from mythic motifs previously relating to Osiris-Dionysus:
Osiris-Dionysus is God made flesh, the savior and “Son of God.”
His father is God and his mother is a mortal virgin.
He is born in a cave or humble cowshed on December 25 before three shepherds.
He offers his followers the chance to be born again through the rites of baptism.
He miraculously turns water into wine at a marriage ceremony.
He rides triumphantly into town on a donkey while people wave palm leaves to honor him.
He dies at Eastertime as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.
After his death he descends to hell, then on the third day he rises from the dead and ascends to heaven in glory.
His followers await his return as the judge during the Last Days.
His death and resurrection are celebrated by a ritual meal of bread and wine, which symbolize his body and blood.
These are just some of the motifs shared between the tales of Osiris-Dionysus and the biography of Jesus. Why are these remarkable similarities not common knowledge? Because, as we were to discover later, the early Roman Church did everything in its power to prevent us perceiving them. It systematically destroyed Pagan sacred literature in a brutal program of eradicating the Mysteries—a task it performed so completely that today Paganism is regarded as a “dead” religion.
Although surprising to us now, to writers of the first few centuries CE these similarities between the new Christian religion and the ancient Mysteries were extremely obvious. Pagan critics of Christianity, such as the satirist Celsus, complained that this recent religion was nothing more than a pale reflection of their own ancient teachings. Early “Church fathers,” such as Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Irenaeus, were understandably disturbed and resorted to the desperate claim that these similarities were the result of diabolical mimicry. Using one of the most absurd arguments ever advanced, they accused the Devil of “plagiarism by anticipation,” of deviously copying the true story of Jesus before it had actually happened in an attempt to mislead the gullible! These Church fathers struck us as no less devious than the Devil they hoped to incriminate.
Other Christian commentators have claimed that the myths of the Mysteries were like “pre-echoes” of the literal coming of Jesus, somewhat like premonitions or prophecies. this is a more generous version of the diabolical mimicry theory, but seemed no less ridiculous to us. There was nothing other than cultural prejudice to make us see the Jesus story as the literal culmination of its many mythical precursors. Viewed impartially, it appeared to be just another version of the same basic story.
The obvious explanation is that as early Christianity became the dominant power in the previously Pagan world, popular motifs from Pagan mythology became grafted onto the biography of Jesus. This is a possibility that is even put forward by many Christian theologians. The virgin birth, for example, is often regarded as an extraneous later addition that should not be understood literally. Such motifs were “borrowed” from Paganism in the same way that Pagan festivals were adopted as Christian saints’ days. This theory is common among those who go looking for the “real” Jesus hidden under the weight of accumulated mythological debris.
Attractive as it appears at first, to us this explanation seemed inadequate. We had collated such a comprehensive body of similarities that there remained hardly any significant elements in the biography of Jesus that we did not find prefigured by the Mysteries. On top of this, we discovered that even Jesus’ teachings were not original, but had been anticipated by the Pagan sages! If there was a “real” Jesus somewhere underneath all this, we would have to acknowledge that we could know absolutely nothing about him, for all that remained for us was later Pagan accretions! Such a position seemed absurd. Surely there was a more elegant solution to this conundrum?
The Gnostics
While we were puzzling over these discoveries, we began to question the received picture of the early Church and have a look at the evidence for ourselves. We discovered that far from being the united congregation of saints and martyrs that traditional history would have us believe, the early Christian community was actually made up of a whole spectrum of different groups. These can be broadly categorized into two different schools. On the one hand there were those we will call Literalists, because what defines them is that they take the Jesus story as a literal account of historical events. It was this school of Christianity that was adopted by the Roman Empire in the fourth century CE, becoming Roman Catholicism and all its subsequent offshoots. On the other hand however, there were also radically different Christians known as Gnostics.
These forgotten Christians were later persecuted out of existence by the Literalist Roman Church with such thoroughness that until recently we knew little about them except through the writings of their detractors. Only a handful of original Gnostic texts survived, none of which were published before the nineteenth century. This situation changed dramatically, however, with a remarkable discovery in 1945, when an Arab peasant stumbled upon a whole library of Gnostic gospels hidden in a cave near Nag Hammadi in Egypt. This gave scholars access to many texts which were in wide circulation among early Christians, but which were deliberately excluded from the canon of the New Testament—gospels attributed to Thomas and Phillip, texts recoding the acts of Peter and the 12 disciples, apocalypses attributed to Paul and James, and so on.
It seemed to us extraordinary that a whole library of early Christian documents could be discovered, containing what purport to be the teachings of Christ and his disciples, and yet so few modern followers of Jesus should even know of their existence. Why hasn’t every Christian rushed out to read these newly discovered words of the Master? What keeps them confined to the small number of gospels selected for inclusion in the New Testament? It seems that even though 2,000 years have passed since the Gnostics were purged, during which time the Roman Church has split into Protestantism and thousands of other alternative groups, the Gnostics are still not regarded as a legitimate voice of Christianity.
Those who do explore the Gnostic gospels discover a form of Christianity quite alien to the religion with which they are familiar. We found ourselves studying strange esoteric tracts with titles such as Hypotasis of the Archons and The Thought of Norea. It felt as if we were in an episode of Star Trek —and in a way we were. The Gnostics truly were “psychonauts” who boldly explored the final frontiers of inner space, searching for the origins and meaning of life. These people were mystics and creative free-thinkers. It was obvious to us why they were so hated by the bishops of the Literalist Church heirarchy.
To Literalists, the Gnostics were dangerous heretics. In volumes of anti-Gnostic works—an unintentional testimony to the power and influence of Gnosticism within early Christianity—they painted them as Christians who had “gone native.” They claimed they had become contaminated by the Paganism that surrounded them and had abandoned the purity of the true faith. The Gnostics, on the other hand, saw themselves as the authentic Christian tradition and the orthodox bishops as an “imitation church.” They claimed to know the secret Inner Mysteries of Christianity, which Literalists did not possess.
As we explored the beliefs and practices of the Gnostics we became convinced that the Literalists had at least been right about one thing: the Gnostics were little different from Pagans. Like the philosophers of the Pagan Mysteries, they believed in reincarnation, honored the goddess Sophia, and were immersed in the mystical Greek philosophy of Plato. Gnostics means “Knowers,” a name they acquired because, like the initiates of the Pagan Mysteries, they believed that their secret teachings had the power to impart Gnosis—direct experiential “Knowledge of God.” Just as the goal of the Christian initiate was to become a Christ.
What particularly struck us was that the Gnostics were not concerned with the historical Jesus. They viewed the Jesus story in the same way that the Pagan philosophers viewed the myths of Osiris-Dionysus—as an allegory that encoded secret mystical teachings. This insight crystallized for us a remarkable possibility. Perhaps the explanation for the similarities between Pagan myths and the biography of Jesus had been staring us in the face the whole time, but we had been so caught up with traditional ways of thinking that we had been unable to see it.
The Jesus Mysteries Thesis
The traditional version of history bequeathed to us by the authorities of the Roman Church is that Christianity developed from the teachings of a Jewish Messiah and that Gnosticism was a later deviation. What would happen, we wondered, if the picture were reversed and Gnosticism viewed as the authentic Christianity, just as the Gnostics themselves claimed? Could it be that orthodox Christianity was a later deviation from Gnosticism and that Gnosticism was a synthesis of Judaism and the Pagan Mystery religion? This was the beginning of the Jesus Mysteries Thesis.
Boldly stated, the picture that emerged for us was as follows. We knew that most ancient Mediterranean cultures had adopted the ancient Mysteries, adapting them to their own national tastes and creating their own version of the myth of the dying and resurrecting godman. Perhaps some of the Jews had, likewise, adopted the Pagan Mysteries and created their own version of the Mysteries, which we now know as Gnosticism. Perhaps initiates of the Jewish Mysteries had adapted the potent symbolism of the Osiris-Dionysus myths into a myth of their own, the hero of which was the Jewish dying and resurrecting godman Jesus.
If this was so, then the Jesus story was not a biography at all but a consciously crafted vehicle for encoded spiritual teachings created by Jewish Gnostics. As in the Pagan Mysteries, initiation into the Inner Mysteries would reveal the myth’s allegorical meaning. Perhaps those uninitiated into the Inner Mysteries had mistakenly come to regard the Jesus myth as historical fact and in this way Literalist Christianity had been created. Perhaps the Inner Mysteries of Christianity, which the Gnostics taught but which the Literalists denied existed, revealed that the Jesus story was not a factual account of God’s one and only visit to planet Earth, but a mystical teaching story designed to help each one of us become a Christ.
The Jesus story does have all the hallmarks of a myth, so could it be that that is exactly what it is? After all, no one has read the newly discovered Gnostic gospels and taken their fantastic stories as literally true; they are readily seen as myths. It is only familiarity and cultural prejudice that prevent us from seeing the New Testament gospels in the same light. If those gospels had also been lost to us and only recently discovered, who would read these tales for the first time and believe they were historical accounts of a man born of a virgin, who had walked on water and returned from the dead? Why should we consider the stories of Osiris, Dionysus, Adonis, Attis, Mithras, and the other Pagan Mystery saviors as fables, yet come across essentially the same story told in a Jewish context and believe it to be the biography of a carpenter from Bethlehem?
We had both been raised as Christians and were surprised to find that, despite years of open-minded spiritual exploration, it still felt somehow dangerous to even dare think such thoughts. Early indoctrination reaches very deep. We were in effect saying that Jesus was a Pagan god and that Christianity was a heretical product of Paganism! It seemed outrageous. Yet this theory explained the similarities between the stories of Osiris-Dionysus and Jesus Christ in a simple and elegant way. They are parts of one developing mythos.
The Jesus Mysteries Thesis answered many puzzling questions, yet it also opened up new dilemmas. Isn’t there indisputable historical evidence for the existence of Jesus the man? And how could Gnosticism be the original Christianity when St. Paul, the earliest Christian we know about, is so vociferously anti-Gnostic? And is it really credible that such an insular and anti-Pagan people as the Jews could have adopted the Pagan Mysteries? And how could it have happened that a consciously created myth came to be believed as history? And if Gnosticism represents genuine Christianity, why was it Literalist Christianity that came to dominate the world as the most influential religion of all time? All of these difficult questions would have to be satisfactorily answered before we could wholeheartedly accept such a radical theory as the Jesus Mysteries Thesis.
The Great Cover-Up
Our new account of the origins of Christianity only seemed improbable because it contradicted the received view. As we pushed farther with our research, the traditional picture began to unravel completely all around us. We found ourselves embroiled in a world of schism and power struggles, or forged documents and false identities, of letters that had been edited and added to, and of the wholesale destruction of historical evidence. We focused forensically on the few facts we could be confident of, as if we were detectives on the verge of cracking a sensational “whodunit,” or perhaps more accurately as if we were uncovering an ancient and unacknowledged miscarriage of justice. For, time and again, when we critically examined what genuine evidence remained, we found that the history of Christianity bequeathed to us by the Roman Church was a gross distortion of the truth. It was becoming increasingly obvious that we had been deliberately deceived, that the Gnostics were indeed the original Christians, and that their anarchic mysticism had been hijacked by an authoritarian institution which had created from it a dogmatic religion—and then brutally enforced the greatest cover-up in history.
One of the major players in this cover-up operation was a character called Eusebius who, at the beginning of the fourth century, compiled from legends, fabrications, and his own imagination the only early history of Christianity that still exists today. All subsequent histories have been forced to base themselves on Eusebius’ dubious claims, because there has been little information to draw on. All those with a different perspective on Christianity were branded as heretics and eradicated. In this falsehoods compiled in the fourth century have come down to us as established facts.
Eusebius was employed by the Roman Emperor Constantine, who made Christianity the state religion of the Empire and gave Literalist Christianity the power it needed to begin the final eradication of Paganism and Gnosticism. Constantine wanted “one God, one religion” to consolidate his claim of “one Empire, one Emperor.” He oversaw the creation of the Nicene Creed—the article of faith repeated in churches to this day—and Christians who refused to assent to this creed were banished from the Empire or otherwise silenced.
This “Christian Emperor then returned home from Nicaea and had his wife suffocated and his son murdered. He deliberately remained unbaptized until his deathbed so that he could continue his atrocities and still receive forgiveness of sins and a guaranteed place in heaven by being baptized at the last moment. Although he had his “spin doctor” Eusebius compose a suitably obsequious biography for him, he was actually a monster—just like many Roman Emperors before him. Is it really at all surprising that a “history” of the origins of Christianity created by an employee in the service of a Roman tyrant should turnout to be a pack of lies?
Elaine Pagels, one of the foremost academic authorities on early Christianity, writes:
It is the winners who write history—their way. No wonder, then, that the traditional accounts of the origins of Christianity first defined the terms (naming themselves “orthodox” and their opponents “heretics”); then they proceeded to demonstrate—at least to their own satisfactions—their triumph was historically inevitable, or, in religious terms, “guided by the Holy Spirit.” But the discoveries [of the Gnostic gospels] at Nag Hammadi reopen fundamental questions.
History is indeed written by the victors. The creation of an appropriate history has always been part of the arsenal of political manipulation. The Roman Church created a history of the triumph of Literalist Christianity in much the same partisan way that, two millennia later, Hollywood created tales of “cowboys and Indians” to relate “how the West was won” not “how the West was lost.” History is not simply related, it is created. Ideally, the motivation is to explain historical evidence and come to an accurate understanding of how the present has been created by the past. All too often, however, it is simply to glorify and justify the status quo. Such histories conceal as much as they reveal. To dare to question a received history is not easy. It is difficult to believe that something that you have been told is true from childhood could actually be a product of falsification and fantasy. It must have been hard for those Russians brought up on tales of kindly “Uncle Joe” Stalin to accept that he was actually responsible for the deaths of millions. It must have strained credibility when opposing his regime claimed that he had in fact murdered many of the heroes of the Russian revolution. It must have seemed ridiculous when they asserted that he had even had the images of his rivals removed from photographs and completely fabricated historical events. Yet all these things are true.
It is easy to believe that something must be true because everyone else believes it. But the truth only comes to light by daring to question the unquestionable, by doubting notions which are so commonly believed that they are taken for granted. The Jesus Mysteries Thesis is the product of such an openness of mind. When it first occurred to us, it seemed absurd and impossible. Now it seems obvious and ordinary. The Vatican has constructed upon the site of an ancient Pagan sanctuary because the new is always built upon the old. In the same way Christianity itself has as its foundations the Pagan spirituality that preceded it. What is more plausible than to posit the gradual evolution of spiritual ideas, with Christianity emerging from the ancient Pagan Mysteries in a seamless historical continuum? It is only because the conventional history has been so widely believed for so long that this idea could be seen as heretical and shocking.
Recovering Mystical Christianity
As the final pieces of the puzzle were falling into place, we came across a small picture tucked away in the appendices of an old academic book. It was a drawing of a third-century CE amulet. We have used it as the cover of this book. It shows a crucified figure which most people would immediately recognize as Jesus. Yet the Greek words name the figure Orpheus Bacchus, one of the pseudonyms of Osiris-Dionysus. To the author of the book in which we found the picture, this amulet was an anomaly. Who could it have possibly belonged to? Was it a crucified Pagan deity or some sort of Gnostic synthesis of Paganism and Christianity? Either way it was deeply puzzling. For us, however, this amulet was perfectly understandable. It was an unexpected confirmation of the Jesus Mysteries Thesis. The image could be that of either Jesus or Osiris-Dionysus. To the initiated, these were both names for essentially the same figure.
The “chance” discovery of this amulet made us feel as though the universe itself was encouraging to us to make our findings public. In different ways the Jesus Mysteries Thesis has been proposed by mystics and scholars for centuries, but has always ended up being ignored. It now felt like an idea whose moment has come. We did, however, have misgivings about writing this book. We knew that it would inevitably upset certain Christians, something that we had no desire to do. Certainly it has been hard to be constantly surrounded by lies and injustices without experiencing a certain amount of outrage at the negative misrepresentation of the Gnostics, and to have become aware of the great riches of Pagan culture without feeling grief that they were so wantonly destroyed. Yet we do not have some sort of anti-Christian agenda. Far from it.
Those who have read our other works know that our interest is not in further division, but in acknowledging the unity that lies at the heart of all spiritual traditions—and this present book is no exception. Early Literalist Christians mistakenly believed that the Jesus story was different from other stories of Osiris-Dionysus because Jesus alone had been a historical rather than a mythical figure. This has left Christians feeling that their faith is in opposition to all others, which it is not. We hope that by understanding its true origins in the ongoing evolution of a universal human spirituality, Christianity may be able to free itself from this self-imposed isolation.
While the Jesus Mysteries Thesis clearly rewrites history, we do not see it as undermining the Christian faith, but as suggesting that Christianity is in fact richer than we previously imagined. The Jesus story is a perennial myth with the power to impart the saving Gnosis, which can transform each one of us into a Christ, not merely a history of events that happened to someone else 2,000 years ago. Belief in the Jesus story was originally the first step in Christian spirituality—the Outer Mysteries. Its significance was to be explained by an enlightened teacher when the seeker was spiritually ripe. these Inner Mysteries imparted a mystical Knowledge of God beyond mere belief in dogmas. Although many inspired Christian mystics throughout history have intuitively seen through to this deeper symbolic level of understanding, as a culture we have inherited only the Outer Mysteries of Christianity. We have kept the form, but lost the inner meaning. Our hope is that this book can play some small part in reclaiming the true mystical Christian inheritance.
My child, do not forget My Torah, and let your heart guard My commandments,for they add to you length of days and years of life and peace. Kindness and truth will not forsake you. Bind them upon your neck; inscribe them on the tablet of your heart, and you will find favor and goodly wisdom in the eyes of God and man.
Trust in YHWH with all your heart and do not rely upon your own understanding. In all your ways know Him, and He will smooth your paths.Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear YHWH and turn away from evil. It will be health to your navel and marrow to your bones. Honor YHWH with your wealth, and with the first of all your produce, then your storehouses will be filled with plenty and the wine of your vats will burst forth. My child, do not despise YHWH’s discipline, and do not despise His reproof, for HaShem admonishes the one He loves, and like a father He mollifies the child. Praiseworthy is a person who has found wisdom, a person who can derive understanding [from it], for its commerce is better than the commerce of silver, and its produce [is better] than fine gold. It is more precious than pearls, and all your desires cannot compare to it. Length of days is at its right; and its left, wealth and honor. Its ways are ways of pleasantness and all its pathways are peace.
Image from www.jewishgiftplace.com
It is a tree of life to those who grasp it, and its supporters are praiseworthy.[AST]
One interesting interpretation of the tree of life focuses not so much on the tree itself but on the angelic “cherubim” that guard it in the garden of Eden. There are only two places in the Tanach where the cherubim appear: the first time is in Genesis 3:23 when Adam and Eve were being directed with flaming swords away from the tree.
So HaShem God banished him from the Garden of Eden, to work the soil from which he was taken. And having driven out the man, He stationed at the east of the Garden of Eden the Cherubim and the flame of the ever-turning sword, to guard the way to the Tree of LIfe. [AST]
Imagine two symbolic trees at the center of the garden of Eden. Partaking of the tree of life is connected with living forever, while partaking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is accompanied with the warning “you shall surely die.” So the choice is for life, or for death.
The first couple are exposed to both trees, are given two choices, but a prohibition is attached to only one tree. How ironic it is that Eve, followed by Adam, chose to partake of the prohibited tree with the death sentence so that true to the warning, both suffer the consequence of their choice: exile from the garden, curses specific to the woman, man, and the serpent, and a time limit to their physical life on earth.
Now, if the story ended there, we would have a 3-chapter Bible with a magnificent beginning and a tragic and sad ending. Thankfully, the story continues . . . .
The next appearance of the cherubim is in Exodus 37, when instructions are given to Moses for the construction of the Tabernacle:
vs 7 He made two Cherubs of gold — hammered out did he make them –from the two ends of the Cover: one Cherub from the end of one side and one Cherub from the end of the other; from the Cover did he make the Cherubs, from two ends. The Cherubs were with wings spread upward sheltering the Cover with their wings, with their faces toward one another; toward the Cover were the faces of the Cherubs. [AST]
The ark of the covenant with the mercy seat in the wider context of the Tabernacle in the Wilderness is connected with the Presence of YHWH among His chosen people. But that is not all; Moses is instructed to keep some items in the ark or the chest:
Deuteronomy 31:24-26
So it was that when Moses finished writing the words of this Torah onto a book, until their conclusion: Moses commanded the Levites, the bearers of the Ark of the Covenant of HaShem, saying, “Take this book of the Torah and place it at the side of the Ark of the Covenant of HaShem, your God, and it shall be there for you as a witness.
We are supposed to make the connection:
the cherubim guard the tree of life in the garden;
the cherubim are part of the design in the Ark;
the Torah is placed in the Ark of the Covenant;
Proverbs 3 calls the Torah the tree of life.
In the final speech of Moses before the 2nd generation Israelites who were about to enter the promised land, he reiterates all of YHWH’s commandments and urges his people to ‘choose life’.
Deuteronomy 31:15-16, 19-20
See—I have placed before you today the life and the good, and the death and the evil, that which I command you today, to love HaShem, our God, to walk in His ways, to observe His commandments, His decrees, and His ordinances; then you will live and you will multiply, and HaShem, your God, will bless you in the Land to which you come, to possess it. . . . I call heaven and earth today to bear witness against you: I have placed life and death before you, blessing and curse; and you shall choose life, so that you will live,you and your offspring ––to love HaShem your God, to listen to His voice and to cleave to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days, to dwell upon the land that HaShem swore to your forefathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.
Now what does it mean for a living breathing being to ‘choose life’? None of us who were born ever chose life; we were simply part of the natural reproduction process, we are the consequence of our parents’ choices. They chose life for us. So now that we are alive, how are we to choose life again? What is Moses saying?
“LIGHTS OF LIFE” – Image from mtofolives.ning.com
It must be a life connected with the Source of Life, YHWH, the life He prescribes where? In His Torah! A life of obedience to YHWH’s commandments is blessed while living on this earth, in our lifetime . . . but is that all? The context here does not go any further; it doesn’t have to, we just trust that this life on this earth is not the end for those who love and obey the Eternal God.
Choose life, partake of the tree of life—YHWH’s TORAH.
[If you haven’t yet entered “The Sabbath World”, this is as good a start as any. It has been called “a sanctuary in time” by Abraham Joshua Heschel and rightly so. It is a dimension in time that the Lord of the Sabbath, YHWH, the Creator Himself set apart to rest from His creative work and, as Revelator on Sinai, enshrined into the 4th of His 10 Declarations etched on tablets of stone.Who are we to ignore this sacred appointed time with the Master of the universe who has commanded that we rest from our labors, delight in His day, be joyful with family and friends, or even spend alone in a different way from the way we spend the other six days of our daily routine?
To this day there is confusion about which day is the Sabbath day. Why? Who changed it from the original 7th, as in Saturday? For the answer, simply go to any history book or google it. Now, as to HOW does one observe the Sabbath? Different religions have different traditions. The Jews have through the centuries developed their characteristic ways — it is family-oriented on erev (sundown Friday) and synagogue-centered on the Sabbath day. The basics are: YHWH, rest, joy, Torah.
Our little Sinaite community has settled into a Sabbath fellowship during which we initially incorporated some traditions of the Jewish Sabbath in our celebration. Then, just two months before the end of 2013, we added structured prayers and hymns before our meal and Torah study. We have shared each ‘liturgy’ on this website, and we hope that you visitors are benefitting from it in some way. For those who are exposed to our Sabbath liturgy for the first time, we reiterate that for the “musical” liturgy, we simply rewrite the lyrics of Christian hymn music we have grown accustomed to for all the decades we were Christ-centered Church-goers.
Shabbat Shalom to one and all, and have a YHWH-blessed 2020!–Admin1.]
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Image from www.chabad.org
Kindle the Sabbath Lights
O YHWH, LORD of the Sabbath,
As we celebrate new beginnings this new year,
we look back to the beginning of this world You created
and marvel at how Your wisdom and Your Creative design is so perfect
such that everything works in harmony and balance,
that species continue to perpetuate their own kind,
multiplying as You commanded.
We look back to the beginning of earthly time:
how You structured it according to
seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years,
designing seasons for predictable agricultural guidance,
that tillers of the soil might continue to produce food for human sustenance,
that all Your creatures might be fed from the bounties of nature.
You gave humanity the responsibility to tend ‘the garden’
Your world, and care for all its creatures,
and learn to work with the natural order rather than against it.
You thought of everything that would sustain life on earth,
and especially the life of Your ‘crown’ of creation — humankind.
We look to You with heartfelt gratitude,
O Creator of the universe,
for Your divine providence that benefit all living creatures and all humanity,
but specifically for the blessing You have been and continue to be
to all Sabbath-keepers who gather to remember
the first Sabbath that You celebrated
with the first man and woman, representative humanity.
What a joy and delight they must have felt to be in Your Presence,
and yet it is the same joy we feel today,
for blessing comes with simple obedience,
and we presume Your Presence in every gathering of Torah-keepers
who enter Your Sabbath world, Your dimension in time,
Your sanctified holy seventh day.
You, YHWH, You alone,
are the TRUE LORD of the Sabbath.
We acknowledge You, YHWH,
God of Israel, God of the nations,
LORD of lords, KING of kings,
as GOD and LORD of our Sinaite community.
Amen.
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The beginning of wisdom is reverence for God.
[Proverbs 1:7]
“Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom
or the strong man boast of his strength
or the rich man boast of his riches
But let him who boasts boast about this:
that he understands and knows
Me,
that I Am YHWH
Who exercises
kindness, justice and righteousness on earth,
for in these I delight,”
declares the LORD.
(Jeremiah 9:23)
[Original Tune: “O Danny Boy”, revised lyrics]
Image from theconversation.com
1. I do not know why He, our God-Creator,
Whose words brought forth the universe we see,
All worlds in all the heavens, all the space between,
the skies above, the deep abyss, the sea.
Why God would make all humans in His image,
Why He would give free will, the right to choose,
to mortal men, with understanding limited,
Who could resist, defy, reject His Grace, His Will.
2. I do not know why God Who filled the heavens,
With sun and moon and stars to give earth light,
Who parted land and sea, filled each dominion,
with fish and fowl, with creatures big and small.
Why this great God would grant the highest favor,
in vesting man with power and self-will
to make the choice to disobey commandments,
And choose his will against his Maker and his Lord.
3. I do not know how God could love us sinners,
who hear His call, yet choose to go our way,
who turn away from blessings for obedience,
who choose what’s wrong instead of choosing right.
And yet the Source of Love, the Source of all good things,
The Source or Life Himself, our very breath,
All that He asks is turn to Him, repent and change,
And be restored to where we were before we sinned.
4. How can we serve, how can we love a God like this?
so filled with lovingkindness, endless grace,
Who tempers justice with so great a mercy,
Whose love for man, we cannot comprehend.
And yet we have within ourselves the will to turn
toward the path that leads us back to Him,
Repent and love Him, serve Him, please Him, live His Way,
For all He’s given, let us live for Him each day.
Image from teshuvaministries.net
O YHWH our God, we seek Your favor,
Your blessing upon our families —
[name them]
parents, husbands and wives, children, grandchildren, extended kin,
who are with us and those who are far away;
we seek Your providence and protection
and thank You for the blessing they have been to us.
We join Jewry and all gentile Sabbath-keepers in declaring:
“Blessed are You,
YHWH our God
King of the universe,
Creator of the fruit of the vine,
Creator of the bounties of nature that yield food for all creatures,
We thank You specially
for the food we will share at our Sabbath meal,
and for those who prepared it.
We join the Jewish people in saying:
L’Chaim! To life, and to the Giver of Life!
Sabbath Meal
Image from onehandedchef.wordpress.com
Image from www.beitsimcha.com
HAVDALAH
Oh YHWH,
Eternal God of new beginnings:
You have configured earthly time
to signal to time-conscious and time-bound humanity
that there are always opportunities to start over
with a new day, a new week, a new month, a new year;
whatever it is that we need to stop doing and start doing,
whatever it is in our life that we need to set aright,
even if we have taken the wrong direction,
fallen into bad habits, made wrong decisions,
been living unwisely resulting in unhappy and broken relationships,
stressing ourselves to the point it has negatively affected
our physical, mental, and spiritual health—
we can turn our direction around and start over.
You have given us the precious gift of free will
with the sole power to wield it according to our own choice,
so that at any point in our lives,
we could remain where we are, following a self-destructive course
that negatively affects us and those around us,
or,
we could repent of our wrongdoing and turn our course around
toward the right direction to the blessing of ourselves as well as others,
by aligning our will with Your Will.
As time continues to tick nonstop,
marking every second adding up to minutes and hours of each day,
may we ever be conscious that each moment instantly turns into a thing of the past,
and that we need to value the gift of the ‘present’ which is ever fleeting,
that we should not waste any precious moment—
irreplaceable time You give us —
on wasted opportunities we might never recover,
on meaningless and fruitless endeavors
that lead nowhere,
or amount to nothing
and benefit no one;
may we endeavor to spend Your time allotted to each of us
more wisely—
whether time at home or time at work,
time to keep busy and time for rest,
time alone and time with people,
family time and time for friendships,
time to pause and cease from our strivings,
time to welcomeYour Sabbath, the Queen of days,
time to seek You in prayer and in the study of Your Torah,
and simply time to be still and seriously ponder Your instructions for life,
where we have succeeded or failed in applying them.
May we spend more time studying Your Self-Revelation,
for there is no knowledge more important than the knowledge of You,
deeply appreciate Your goodness, loving-kindness and mercy,
reflect on Your Righteousness and Your Justice,
and be grateful for Your willingness to forgive the truly repentant soul.
O YHWH, Giver of second chances,
may we listen to Your Will for all humanity as expressed in Your Torah,
understand what it means to be truly considerate of others
and be ever conscious that we live in community,
thereby endeavor to be less self-centered and self-absorbed.
May we experience being in awe of who You are,
the Eternal and Timeless One, Creator God,
to understand Your acts in history,
be consciously aware of as many of Your attributes
as You have revealed in the Scriptures of Your chosen people,
that we might worship You and You alone
revere Your Name, YHWH,
and love You through our actions, not merely through words,
through obedience to Your revealed Will,
choosing to live Your Life
that we as Gentiles might also be bearers of Your Light,
to follow the mandate given to Israel in illuminating Your Way
so that others might discover the path leading to You
and thereby abandon gods of man’s own making.
In so doing, may it be —
that You will be pleased with the lives we have lived
so that our names will be written in Your Book of Life.
3. When the darkness appears, and the light draws near,
