Act 5:1 [KJV] “But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession,
And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles’ feet.
But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan fil ed thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?
While it remained, was it not thine own? And after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.
And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things.
And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him.
And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in.
And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so
much? And she said, Yea, for so much.
Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out.
Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband.
And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things.”
…
1 – a crime
This passage has the hallmark of a staged act to instil fear in those who discard reason for faith and superstition.
Here we have a typical example of rushing fanaticism that, unfortunately, has resurged periodical y throughout the history of Christendom.
Luke, the writer of Acts, is guilty of stirring up the superstitious emotions of fanatics and lunatics with one aberrant case of religious fervour and folklore in the primitive church.
Scofield, commenting on the passage, which starts at 4:32, is alarmed with the text and hurries to tamper with it by rearranging its meaning.
He comments that it was voluntary giving in time of persecution, and was restricted to the Jerusalem church. Yes, but what about the incongruence in the story? Why not point out the absurdity of such a narrative? Why, because Scofield, as other commentators, is blind to logic and resolves all biblical absurdities using the tool of tampering with the text and context. The story is not an example of “voluntary giving”, no sir. Peter would ridicule the idea.
This story is one of the most absurd ones in the entire Bible – to prove it is man made - and, once again, puts Peter as an example of a malformed character. Also, Luke is writing so quickly that he doesn’t have time to observe his own inconsistency between verses 4:34 and 164
4:37, where he speaks of “many” who sold land and houses, but then gives the example of only one. I think Luke never read his script twice.
The apocryphal quality of Acts “of Luke” is quite visible in the story of that unfortunate couple in chapter 5.
Here is a recent convert, a few days a “Christian”, who had already been brainwashed to sell his most important asset, his property, and
“bring the money to the church”. Have we heard this “appeal” before somewhere? Where is any commandment in the entire Bible canon to sell houses and land and give the entire value to “the church” or to an
“apostle”? Nowhere.
Nevertheless, throughout the entire history of the church, the proselytes or adherents have had the disgrace of falling victims of
“scripture twisters” who teach that money is vital for the progress of the church. It is not and never was. Everybody should be aware that Malachi 3:8-10 is dishonestly used as a powerful weapon to threaten the innocent victim to surrender cash to support the ministry. Of course, it is a massive robbery of naive fatalities, but when done in the name of a
“spiritual cause” [read crooks], anybody can be assaulted.
”Churches” do take the scriptures and adapt them to their budget programmes. The technique is learned as part of the training curriculum.
We were told once that the story appears to be nonsensical today, but in the apostolic times made absolute sense to those first converts. Wel , I would have to go back in time to find out. Pastors have a “persuasive”
way of teaching their “religious fantasies”, no doubt. A case like that today would turn into a major criminal investigation.
There we have a man and wife full of virgin zeal for their new religion, ready to sell their “possession” [KJV] and give part of the profit to Peter.
There was nothing wrong with the gesture, only praise. It didn’t matter whether other “converts” gave all the money to the first Pope: there was never any instruction to force anybody to surrender the gross of the transaction.
What about all the other “converts” who did not have houses or fields 165
to sell but only a few goods? Did they sell their clothes, shoes, umbrel as and stereos?
So, Ananias told his wife: “Look, honey, we had already planned to sell the property and move to the coast. The doctor told us that with our heart problems we’d better move to the coastal area to be by the sea. So, I think it would be a godly deed to give a part of our profit to the apostles’
cause, our tithe; what do you think?”
Of course, the wife agreed: “It is fine with me. The property is big and the sale will give us enough to share with our brethren and still be able to buy a small cottage by the sea.”
Oh, no, Peter – the first Pope – will not let you.
Innocently, the couple went out and sold their assets. They agreed with the estate agent to find a cozy little place by “the Gaza Strip”. They went to the bank and deposited the cash, except “a certain part” [v. 2]
that they “laid at the apostles’ feet”.
That was the mistake.
You cannot fool Peter. He had his mafia “informers” who told him about “the deal”. He was very temperamental and didn’t tolerate
“cheaters”.
Look careful y at Peter’s reaction.
“Ananias! Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?!
Why did you keep back part of the price of the land?!”
Ananias got the shock of his life. That didn’t help his heart condition.
He thought to himself: “What is this fucktard talking about?” He was going to tell Peter that it was none of his business what he did with money, but he remembered that no one speaks like that to a Pope and escapes a severe reprimand.
“Satan filled my heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?!… What is ‘the Holy Spirit’ you’re talking about? I never heard of it? I felt nothing like that ...
I, I thought I …”
But Peter was a rough fisherman, and would not waste time reasoning the attributes of logic. Besides, he had already forgotten the way he 166
denied Jesus a few weeks back. Wasn’t it Satan that filled Peter’s heart with words of denial and with cursing [Matthew 26:69-74]? Didn’t Peter have time to repent and go out and cry in remorse for his betrayal?
Didn’t the Holy Spirit give him a second chance? Did anybody rush to him and accuse him of being a two-faced hypocrite, a shit apostle? Was he struck dead for denying the Master three times? What was worse: his denial or Ananias tithe offering?
Ask the preachers to preach you a sermon on that conundrum.
Ananias was shocked with the way Peter attacked him. “How come Popes speak like that!”, he thought to himself. But Ananias could not detect in Peter’s eyes the flashings of hatred that would characterize the conduct of all his perpetual successors in the coming ages.
Look at verse four and all the hypocritical explanation “the first Pope”
offered as the thrust of his accusation.
“Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.” Oh, yes, he was already a ferocious, malignant Pope.
Ananias was severely humiliated with those stinging words in front of the congregation, the first inquisition. He lied to nobody. God knew he didn’t. It was only Peter’s papal side revealing itself. Ananias’ heart was weak and the shocking confrontation would take its toll on him. He felt a terrible pain in his chest and fell down to the ground looking dead.
Peter’s papacy’s first victim.
It would later in the centuries compute millions of them.
But perhaps Ananias wasn’t even dead, because in the space of an hour his body was wrapped up and carried out for burial. Who knows if the burial was rushed out to instead cover up a crime and avoid an investigation by the authorities? Some say he was poisoned.
Three hours later the wife arrives at the gathering worried that the husband hadn’t yet come home. He had left so happy, with the money in his pocket and joy in his heart. The apostles were busy counting the
“offering”.
Peter in a typical inquisitorial fashion did not bother to tell the wife 167
that he was very sorry for what had happened. He was not in the least worried with the death of one of his “sheep”, he still had the other ninety nine. Abruptly, in true papal fashion and arrogance, asked Sapphira:
“Tell me whether you sold the land for so much?” The woman was very apprehensive with Peter’s abruptness. She was looking for her husband and couldn’t see him in the “congregation”. Natural y, she said: “Yes, we sold the land for that much, but it is none of your business, Peter. Why must I tell you my affairs? Where is my husband?”
“Never mind your husband! You agreed together to tempt the Holy Spirit of the Lord, and you are going to suffer the same fate he met!”
Peter’s papacy’s second victim.
It would later in the centuries compute into the millions!
This story, if it were true, but of course it is not, would disqualify Peter as a Christian, but a cruel, insensitive bastard. Why didn’t he bother to tell the wife what happened to her husband? Where is Peter’s love and charity in such a dramatic situation? Did the Holy Spirit tell him to be rude, impolite and evil? Why was Ananias buried so quickly without consulting the family? What sort of primitive instincts were available in the first church? Why the violence?
This story makes Christianity a terrible farce, a dangerously virulent and violent religion, and is enough to discredit the entire Bible for its absurdity.
It is important to remember that “Luke” never witnessed this irrational event. He got it from some weird fanatic who added some incongruent detailing, and Luke just swallowed it without thinking.
This story is now sacred canon, and if you question its “inspiration”, you will be labelled an arrogant heretic, or a troublemaker. Popes killed people for that.
The wife died also in strange circumstances and was immediately buried without any family member being contacted. There is nothing in the text to tell the reader that it was the Holy Spirit that struck the unfortunate couple. The story ends on a tragic cultist note. Verse 11
168
says, “Great fear came upon all in the church”.
Cults thrive on fear, as said before.
But we are not blind to see that the fear was not the result of blasphemy against doctrine or against God. It was fear of men. See verse 13.
Soon, this fear of men was used to agitate passions, and the Christian faith bore for centuries the bitter fruits of brutal fanaticism.
“Great fear” started in Jerusalem with the death of two innocent contributors, and went out to other parts of the world for the next two thousand years with much worse crimes.
Christianity will end, according to the Bible, in a colossal battle where more millions will perish. Jesus came not to bring peace, but the sword!
See it? Great fear in Jerusalem, great fear in Rome, great fear at Armageddon, great fear at the final judgement, great fear in Hel .
Religion is like that, keep a distance.
If you ask why this account is part of a Bible, the answer has to be to prove its apocryphal nature. If the story were true and the book inspired scripture, we would have to conclude that God is more offended with lack of honesty in money matters than in betraying and denying Jesus, like Judas and Peter. The story of Ananias and Sapphira, checked from any angle, is the reflection of cultic passions running wild with the apostles and their first converts. It is apocryphal, like many other accounts in the Bible. That makes the Bible an apocryphal book, too.
2 – Important to know
It is important to inquire as to the real meaning of this grotesque story in the Book of Acts of the Apostles. The problem here is one of greed.
Christianity has had that thorn in its flesh from the very beginning.
Ananias and Sapphira’s incident is definitely apocryphal, but it is included in the “Acts of the Apostles” for a purpose. If we could believe the story, but we cannot, it would reveal the ugly side of a religion that starts with a bang by attacking its adherents on the basis of money. The victim did not “offend” the “Holy Spirit” on any fundamental doctrine, 169
or any article of faith in the sect.
Peter had been informed that Ananias had sold his property for so much. He was counting on that money and already “budgeting” for it.
He had learned the technique from Judas Iscariot who had been the treasurer for the twelve. By the way, if your church follows the same
“Iscariotic” principle, you now know where it came from.
Now, when Ananias arrived with ten percent, Peter was faced with a serious problem and had to set out an example of “obedience” to the rule and not allow one church member to violate the consensus. He imagined that if Ananias were allowed to give only a small part of his sale, the tithe the law prescribed, the rest of the donors would probably require a refund of the total they had already offered.
We need to notice that the first church was not going to admit a religious structure where the “Pope” would not be in total control of the material and spiritual life of his adherents. Remember, the “Pope” had been given two Keys, Two Swords, and a Chair to control the secular and spiritual lives of the entire world – read it in Matthew 16. “Peter”
the first Pope was from then on the most vicious individual on earth, wanting to control the entire human race, even having a Holy Roman Empire to oppress an entire continent for a thousand years. He started his idolatrous emporium by “worshiping” money, but later found that
“veneration” of icons would give the same result. Furthermore, the set up now being structured was to become a major political party to mobilize the masses against the Roman Empire to recover what had been stolen. Money by the ton was desperately needed. Popes have always wanted to be in charge of the political affairs of the entire globe, don’t forget it.
That was Peter and his associates’ hidden agenda. He had probably witnessed what happened to Jesus on the cross and how he escaped death and was “resurrected” “three” days later with the help of the Essenes’ doctors. He had been at the sepulcher and seen Jesus alive outside, or had seen the Essene leaders who told him to keep his big mouth shut. That is all possible; in view of the fact that he was ready 170
to commit the crime of disposing of Ananias who innocently but stupidly wanted to take part in the new political movement of the so-called “Christians”. Isn’t it true that “Christianity” has always had the propensity to embroil itself in politics and produce violence? However, Peter was by nature “Satan”, a betrayer and a blasphemer, according to the gospels. He thought of the many adherents already around him giving all the money they had and ready to go forth with the “preaching”
and support of his “ministry”.
Now you think: if the Book of Acts starts with such a false account, will you believe the rest of it? To override such a conundrum, the story is never understood in its proper context, but tampered with and converted into a “spiritual” lesson on “stewardship”, “obedience”,
“lucrative investments”, “cheating”, etc.
Ananias was unexpectedly an obstacle to the plan. It implied that suddenly the “church budget” would run on a deficit. Peter was not stupid, but a sagacious and astute Jew. He realized that the situation required stringent measures.
The “Holy Spirit” had nothing to do with the killing of that couple.
Where in the entire Bible do we have an example of that nature to support the bizarre story? Why would God kill a man and wife for not depositing all the money at the feet of a liar, a thief, and a blasphemer?
Peter had to do something drastic to salvage the situation; otherwise, the example of “a cheerful giver”, like Paul enunciated in 2 Corinthians 9:7, giving with joy “according as he purposeth in his heart” would disrupt his future plans for a revolt against the Emperor.
Now, I imagine that Peter, in true papal fashion, found a way of calling the “Mafia” or his “Jesuits” and killed Ananias and wife; in the text they are the young bodyguards.
You need to read the account careful y again to see that no family member of the poor victim was summoned to take care of the funeral arrangements. Surely, the family of the murdered would not bury them immediately, without calling the authorities to come and investigate the occurrence. You see, there were probably twelve apostles at the scene of 171
the crime, making them all guilty. Wasn’t it later that all of them paid with their lives for that – it is tragic that later they were called saints.
Instead, the crime was quickly covered up, but how it was done is not “canonical scripture”. Peter was setting up the example of how to eliminate any opposition to his “Global Christianity” domination using religious rigging. Of course, the writer of Acts, “Luke” – actual y, nobody knows who wrote it – never witnessed this story, but was stupid enough to write it down and include it in his bestseller. Luke is also guilty of introducing an apocryphal story that would later serve as an example for assaulting, robbing and expropriating properties that never belonged to any “Pope”, i.e. the Inquisition.
This story is, therefore, included in the Bible canon to serve as a warning to avoid “Popes” and their sinister schemes. Yet, it is told in such a way as to imply that Ananias and his wife had committed an unforgiving sin by retaining money that belonged to them. Now, if Christianity was launched with two innocent citizens being lynched for not giving a full offering, why do we still believe it as God’s plan for humanity? Would God not know, right at the time Ananias was being murdered, that it would not be long before the whole farcical “ministry”
of Peter would fall to the ground and Paul would adopt another “giving principle”, this time also “inspired” by the same “Holy Spirit” that struck the unfortunate couple? Surely, God knew that the initial zeal to give Peter all the profit would soon fall by the wayside. In the future, Popes would simply take, steal, the money without asking. Why then kill two innocent adherents? Wel , don’t ask the famous “Bible commentators” to explain it to you: they can embroil you in the rambling network of their religious jargon to explain that you are the problem in questioning the apocryphal content of their Bibles.
Maybe one day we will discover why the Popes wanted to keep the Bible only for themselves, and were not inclined to allow its access to everybody. With a sinister story like that involving the “first Pope”, why not keep the source of religious violence away from the inquisitive inspectors? Do you wonder why the original twelve apostles were not the team commissioned to launch the “infrastructures” of Christianity, 172
but a foreigner – Paul – was the choice? You could think it had to do with Peter’s brutal temperament and raging inclination to attack those who disagreed with him.
3 – What Happened to the Money?
“…and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles’ feet.” Acts 5:2
To me, the [apocryphal] story conveyed in Acts 5:1-11 is one of the most fascinating in the Bible. As I said before, and will not retract, this story is fictional and apocryphal, but we cannot lose track of another important aspect besides that all-important one. That is, that the scheme here demonstrated soon failed in the “primitive” church, and was replaced by what Paul later taught in 2 Corinthians 9, give with joy and whatever you find appropriate, and also forget about the dreaded Tithe. “… he which soweth bountiful y shall reap also bountiful y.” Paul does not issue the slightest threat about giving money or kind. We could admire Paul for that – if it hadn’t been for his dreaded anathemas, and a few other obsessions, maybe he would have been not a nasty apostle.
He discovered a system that put Peter’s one to shame. Paul never killed any materialistic member of his churches, as far as his biography in the NT goes. Paul, I assume, would pray for the money, and give the carnal members time to grow spiritual y and understand that giving ungrudgingly was a godly principle.
Now imagine Peter coming to Paul’s churches [for a revival weekend]
and observing the new system at work. Would he not repent of killing two carnal members of his Jerusalem Church [later transferred to Rome]? Do we hear in the NT anything about Peter regretting the killing and repenting of the crime? No, we hear nothing like that. Peter had denied his Lord three times, and had had time allocated to him to go out and weep in remorse, another stupid tale in the Bible. His denial with coarse expletives in front of some ladies was a bigger offence than Ananias’ offering default. Imagine Peter asking Paul if the new scheme was working.
”Yes, Highest Pontiff, it works just fine. We have enough cash and goods in our storerooms to distribute among the poor, because we teach 173
our members to give joyously and ungrudgingly. It works beautiful y, I tell you, Holy Father.”
“Wel , in my church, we rule by fear! It will be like that for the next two thousand years! We demonstrated the principle by killing two carnal members who retained part of their money and arrived in the church only with a little more than the tithe of a property sale.”
“You kil ed them?!!”
“Oh, yes. Two was enough, I tell you! Should you see the cascading effect caused in the number of members we got? In a little more than a month, we got three thousand new members! It works, my friend.
People just rushed to my church with all the money they had, and we became very rich very quickly; some called it prosperity theology. Some enemies called us ‘Charismatics’, but we threatened them with reprisals if they didn’t shut up.”
“Oh, my goodness, Holy Vicar of Christ, did you real y kill two innocent carnal members?!”
“Wel , we had to quickly change the story and bury the two victims very quickly before the authorities came to investigate, and we made it look like it was God who killed them. We learned the arrangement from the Pharisees in Matthew 28:15, you see. You know, even the authorities were in great fear of us, and closed the case without much ado. Luckily for us, I should add. We had to do it. Unfortunately, after a while, people discovered the truth and left the church in droves, and the rest are now keeping their houses, but we have a plan B, which will grant us a bright future. We just need to relocate our headquarters to Rome”.
This scheme invented by the apostles to run the initial assault on the purses of all their religious victims caused the death of two members.
Any religion that starts by killing members is criminal.
Surely, the account can be read, under the orders of our pastors, with our brain turned off to conform to the denomination’s Manual or Catechism. That is, read the entire story, yes, but understand nothing until the bishop explains it to you. Do not try to be clever with 174
irresponsible questions, like asking what happened to the money. They will not allow troublemakers in their midst.
Your pastor will get aggravated and even offended for asking him something he never thought about, or something he never learned in training. He will tell you that the money was not the issue. The issue, he will declare, was disobedience, bad stewardship. But you are intelligent, and besides, you do not agree that your pastor has the authority to tell you to switch off your brain. You will point out to him that there is no other example of that nature in the entire Bible to defend that the Holy Ghost kil s church members for defaulting on the offering, even if they lie to the pastor. You will explain that the scheme soon failed, and Peter’s system was never again in history used as a godly system to support the poor in any church throughout two thousand years of history. The evil scheme failed disastrously. You will tell your pastor that Peter’s crime could have been avoided if he was a character with enough tolerance in his heart, but he was a liar and a thief.
Yes, why didn’t Peter tell his bodyguards, the “young men” who surrounded him, to keep Ananias out of the perimeter where they were collecting the money? Why didn’t Peter order the man out of his church for infidelity in money matters, instead of killing him? Why didn’t Peter tell the young men to tear up Ananias’ membership card and call him a backslidden or apostate, even a traitor or something worse, like it is common today, instead of accusing the innocent couple of lying to the Holy Ghost and then have to hide two corpses? Let him go and look for a liberal church, where pastors are not Popes.
The entire story is a disgrace for the church. It denigrates Peter’s character beyond recovery. The issue was the offering, very clear in the passage. Real money was at the feet of Peter. What happened to it?
See if you understand the story from a point of view where logic and brainpower is allowed to operate.
At what point in the story did Peter realize that Ananias was cheating on the money?
Acts 4:34-35 says “for as many as were possessors of lands or houses 175
sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles’ feet.” There is no rule here that if you sold a house the entire cash amount should be given to the apostles. Just the act of selling a house is very suspicious. Who is going to sell a house and go sleep in the streets? Either they had another house, or they were brainwashed and indoctrinated to go and live with other people or the apostles, a stupid and very unwise thing to do. It looks like the matter was entirely voluntary, doesn’t it?
The next episode of this macabre drama is Ananias appearing in the scene and leaving it without saying one single word. Why didn’t he speak? Because that was the method Peter wanted to implement for the future: you can be eliminated without permission to present your reasons for the “crime”. This religious philosophy was later technical y named Holy Inquisition. Millions were slaughtered for lesser crimes.
Peter saw Ananias arriving with a bag of money. Somebody told him that the man had sold the property, and the apostle was expecting more than what Ananias dropped at his feet. According to the OT tithing system, Ananias could give more than the tithe to the Synagogue, but Peter required all the money. Ananias was not at fault in the light of the teaching he received all his life. He acted correctly by keeping part of the money from the sale. It was his money and his property, and Peter had nothing to do with it. Ananias was murdered for keeping part of his cash. God would not kill a new convert, a carnal member of a religious sect just being born again on the grounds of retaining money.
I say that today it should be the exception to give money to organized churches; the rule being to keep it all away from them, which squanders it in perks and privilege for its directors. I always say, practice charity yourself; avoid those who want to do it for you. Most churches are rich conglomerates and waste their funds in real estate and property, money stolen from those they should help; it is the grossest crime the churches do these days when the collection is dedicated to God’s work and then is wasted in peripherals. I maintain that we are blessed by not giving money to groups that are rich and lying about money; it’s a criminal landscape, in my humble opinion.
176
In the past, I wrote many articles exposing the tithing system as total y corrupted in today’s churches, without the slightest support in the NT.
Churches that preach tithing are robbing their members and should not be supported with cash.
What happened to the cash?
The next scene is so dramatic and cruel. It looks like Ananias fell on top of his offering. I imagine that the “young men” who picked up the dead body also kicked the “cursed” money away, perhaps into the gutter.
Who would want cursed cash and pray over it for the furtherance of God’s kingdom? Did Peter keep it to pay for the two funerals, or did he give it to the poor? Cruel isn’t it, if the poor benefited from Ananias’
death. The story would then be called “Two corpses and money for the unfortunate”. Wasn’t the money kicked into the gutter? Superstition was rampant in that fearful set up. Nobody would have enough guts to steal some of that bloody money and thank God for it. So, it was kicked out of the place, it’s plausible. It is possible that some tramp, waiting outside for some help, saw the money being kicked, picked it up, gave thanks to God, went to the next roadhouse and bought himself the biggest hamburger they made. He had just prayed for help, because he was very hungry – God works in mysterious ways, he heard in a sermon.
“… and great fear came on all them that heard these things.”, Acts 5:5.
You see, due to superstition acquired from many sermons on fear, we do not read the text careful y. The passage clearly says that great fear came on all them that heard the story. Those with great fear did not see the event, only heard about it. That is the way cults are shaped and eventual y prosper. The author of Acts also heard it from eyewitnesses, didn’t he? Part of Acts is based on the “famous” eyewitnesses that told its sequence to “Luke”. When “eyewitnesses” are involved in the “Inspired Scriptures”, we have enough brains to ask whether the eyewitnesses were the inspired part or whether it was the writer.
The story in Acts 5:1-11 was heard from eyewitnesses.
If you build theology from that stuff, you can commit a grave error. Ask Popes or Charismatic leaders. Ask Baptists or Methodists; 177
ask Lutherans or Anglicans; all a conscription of infamous private interpretors of hearsay, stories others told them. They go to war for that.
We never hear Ananias speak, and the whole saga is passed on to others by tittle-tattle and rumour. They tell a story where the most important part is omitted. In this case, where is the money Ananias dropped at Peter’s feet? Do you see how the story is told? Ananias fell down to the ground and gave up the ghost. But, before the story continues with the “young men” picking up the body and burying it quickly, the narrative is interrupted to add an important clause, that is, that great fear came upon all those who heard the story. That was the narrator’s chief assignment. He was in a hurry to tell everybody that fear was the thrust of the story. Who is not clever enough not to see this?
Again in verse 11 we are reminded about that great fear that came upon all those who heard the story: “And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things.” The dreaded fear came, this time upon all [in] the church. Plus everybody who heard of the death of those two unfortunate victims of money greed.
But we insist: what happened to the money? Wel , do not ask any pastor, for they will not answer anything intelligent or important, and will take the opportunity to rebuke you for the audacity of asking a most natural question. You will leave humiliated. They are trained in the “godly art” of instilling fear on adherents who dare to question the sacred Scriptures. Yet, they do it all the time themselves. Just ask, for instance, anything about “Baptism”, whether it is by immersion or sprinkling. The way scripture is twisted and contorted to prove either case is an il ustration of the double standards they live from.
The scene we see in the account of the killing of Ananias and his wife is Peter growing in stature head and shoulders plus two extra meters above all the superstitious dwarfs that surrounded him. The money disappeared without a trace.
… … …
178
More about ananias and saPPhira Acts 5:1-11 - Part two
If Jesus ever said that God commands us to forgive our enemies and brothers at least seventy times seven, why is it that God does not forgive us all our sins without much ado? Being a Super Almighty he could do it mightily without any problem, since problems do not exist in the Almighty’s universe. It is stated in 1 Timothy 2:4 that “God will have all men to be saved” , no need for any “but this, but that” impediment.
I’m assuming that God does not have enemies, since nobody in his creation can attack him and dislodge him from his throne. It seems implied in the words of Jesus that God the Father appreciates forgiveness and wants it constantly flowing from his human creatures, who, unfortunately, are inclined to hurt each other due to the unfavourable conditions they live in, which God created, as it goes.
Therefore, we assume that it is a real pleasure for God to see us forgiving our adversaries as he quietly forgives all where he rules. Being a super Almighty, he would have planned the project in such a way that he would never need to be aggravated, angry or wrathful.
If that is true, why does the Bible also establish that God is ready
to strike strong on his so-called “enemies” and destroy them with his wrath? What is God’s problem that he wants revenge all the time and is very reluctant to forgive even once? Can God not foresee that those he will in the future destroy are now innocent babies, easy to eliminate without causing much human suffering? Is God in control of everything? What is the pleasure of allowing his human enemies to grow into adulthood and then “destroy” them after they have done their evil? It wasn’t necessary to allow them to do evil, if the idea was to save a few [many] other humans from being hurt. How can man be allowed to be an enemy of God that he later wishes to destroy? What “theology”
will be able to explain such a conundrum, without interfering with what it cal s “God’s Holy Character”? Does “wrath” mean justice? Do we humans copy God’s ways?
We sin and have to forgive each other because our living conditions allow it to happen. It is apparent that God designed the circumstances or the background for our incongruent behaviour. Give us better living conditions and we will certainly improve. I’m not asking this from a religious point of view, but it does puzzle the mind of every thinking human; I seem to have that humbling courage.
We humans had no part whatsoever in the designing of the universe we live in. If there was a drawing accident in the beginning, or the calculations were tampered with, then it is not our fault that we give bad fruit, and how could we fix up the problem? We arrive here already condemned to die, and it is apparent in the Bible that we are guilty of something that we don’t know until later in life. The comparison is then that if we were all living in better or ideal conditions to develop our character without pain and condemnation we would be like the angels or even better. We are without a doubt victims of the environmental conditions in which we live our short human existence, and those conditions, told and repeated by preachers, were definitely created by God and improved by man. Just think how long it took us to invent Electricity, without any direct help from the “gods”. The OT says that God created good and evil and he distributes it according to his sovereign wil , Isa 45:7. Why does God want to hurt us? What fruit 180
could he expect from that combination? We arrive here innocent, but soon will have to be part of the general guilt without knowing why.
Therefore, it seems that we are not guilty of anything. God has to forgive us with the forgiving that he wants us to practice, if “theology”
is to make sense. Religion can throw lots of dogmas and anathemas at us, but the end is always nigh and inescapable. Actual y, theology doesn’t explain anything of importance to improve our human pain, let’s be realistic. Religion does destroy intelligence, commonsense, and independent thinking.
We are losers from the very beginning; we are designed to be losers, in the context of death. Other religions invented some dogmatic contraptions to try to explain our predicament, like “reincarnation” and other scraps of our sick and desperately frightened mind. Let us face it: as soon as we realize that we were born already condemned to die, fear will take over our being. And yet, even that fear is a genetic imprint in our cel s, inherited from many generations of ancestors fighting the terrible conditions of this existence. We are not genuine in any respect: we are carbon copies of our parents who suffered many generations of misfortunes; it is so tragic. What can we do, real y, to overcome our inbuilt weaknesses? Nothing, unless we are genetical y recreated and moved to better living conditions, perhaps eternal, some hope.
Two thousand years of evangelism have not removed that fear we inherited from our ancestors. It will never happen, unless we depart to better conditions, or “heaven”. But look at the fruit Christianity can produce: it promises in the end a major military confrontation where millions of humans will be slaughtered to end this tragic existence on earth. Then, final y, a millennium of a thousand years of peace and prosperity will come. Why wouldn’t it come before so much tragedy?
Where is God’s forgiveness? Can you find any reasonable answer? You can not. Nobody can.
The earth is not the ideal environment to develop a holy and godly character; we all know that. Yet, it seems that we are to blame for our shortcomings. God designed the playground where we would have to spend a few painful years, without asking us anything. Nevertheless, we 181
are suddenly here in this hostile setting where it is impossible to be a saint or an angel.
2 – It’s not inspired Scripture
The classic example of how wrathful God is to strike against his enemies is the sad and tragic case of Ananias and Sapphira, Acts 5:1-11.
Not to forget the cases in the OT where entire populations were brutal y slaughtered to have their land confiscated and robbed in the name of Jehovah, while there was much free land everywhere for everybody. But that is a matter for another day.
Let me say it again that the story misrepresents the holy character of what in the Bible is called the true God Almighty, if that exists; I don’t think so until proven wrong. We thought that the real Almighty would not be like that “god” represented in the story: one that strikes a newly born-again child of God with death, no less, for a small matter relating to money. Wel , Peter never heard of 1 Timothy 6:10, so we have to forgive him seventy times seven, even if he killed two innocent born-again Jews. The Bible, being a book with no possible divine design, but man made – like all books are – tries to represent the many facets and emanations of God Almighty, but it fails dismal y in all aspects.
The victims were not God’s enemies, real y, but just two recently
“born-again” Jewish Christians – at the time the name was a derogatory one – with their carnal nature still attached to their new salvation, as it were. I’m just reading the story literal y as it is presented in the passage.
It portrays a strange deity with not much representation in the rest of the NT. Were they enemies of the Holy Ghost? Of course not. Did they lie to the Holy Ghost? Not at al . The passage, as it stands, does not allow the victims to say anything. Only the liar Peter is allowed to talk. God is going to use one of the most carnal disciples to execute the uncalled for death of two church members – because of the love of money, which is the root of all evil, as the say goes. They were instantly killed for defaulting on the offering.
I would never want to belong to such a church, or give money to such a criminal leadership. A church that quickly gets three thousand 182
members from the fear created by killing two innocent members is a cult. Check the Pope’s dangerous cult and its bloody history, or Jim Jones of People’s Temple. Do you know that the Church in Jerusalem was eventual y destroyed and disappeared after the massive slaughter in 70 CE? Do you know that more than three thousand people were crucified in that city? Do you know that the Jews would never in two thousand years accept Christianity? That tel s you something. You do not start a church-of-good-news by killing the first two members for money for the poor.
It is so anti-gospel. It goes entirely against the love of God it tries to preach, his mercy and forgiveness. That example is a terrible black spot in the entire Bible. Many intelligent people avoid the Bible for similar cases. Nobody dares preach the gospel with that passage, unless the story is completely turned around, re-interpreted to mean something different; wel , preachers in your suburb are trained to do that for you.
Nevertheless, most preachers have the guts to declare that, yes, God killed the couple, and the episode is absolutely genuine. There hasn’t been one single preacher in history, I would assume, that has defended the two poor victims. I think that the story is a fabrication, but having been regarded as Scripture for being included in Acts, most preachers are simply scared to debate the matter, yet they adapt it to their
“theology”. “Churches” tell us to shut down our powers of reason, logic and intelligence when this passage is called canonical.
We now know, via scientific textual research, that the book of Acts was possibly not even written by Luke, and there was a so-called chapter 29, telling of Paul’s trips to Spain and England, including some weird miracles he performed. We know that Acts had a difficult time trying to make it in the NT canon, one of the reasons being this incongruent episode. That means that, yes, the book was never under any spiritual inspiration of God, but was like many others in the NT
just grouped together with the rest to form what the Popes would one day tell the scribes to write on the front cover “The Holy Bible”, when they would have enough support for their stupid, dangerous dogmas.
Luke seems to be an honest broker when he says that he got all his 183
material secondhand, from “eyewitnesses”, Luke 1:2. How can you define
“inspiration” that way? You cannot; only “cheap theologians” can. Ask Luke if he received anything via the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, ask him. No, he did not; he got it all via “eyewitnesses”, isn’t that clear enough? I think it is.
By the time the bishops of Rome consolidated the “sacred canon”
they had to sift the “word of God” from among more than fifty gospels in circulation, and many more Epistles, Acts and Apocalypses. Chapter 29 was “removed” from Acts for being considered not inspired. By that rule, we can see that “inspiration” was “managed” by those who tampered with anything they didn’t like. There are parts of John, Mark and throughout the NT that were removed for some reason. Even entire books were, at some stage, regarded apocryphal; ask Luther and Calvin.
They had to do it due to the incredible confusion that reigned across the church.
John, if it was him, only wrote his gospel 60 years after Pentecost, because the church was in a terrible apostasy, and he was going to attempt to revive it. He failed. The way he started his gospel, with the
“Logos” concept, gave rise to one of the most traumatic times in the already troubled church. That platonic “Logos” concept caused the death of many Arians in the fourth century. Constantine was the first
“born-again Christian” to use the sword to resolve the “Logos” problem: the Homoiousios and/or homoousios debate. He also failed to finish the
“Arians”, as we still have them today distributing their “Watchtower”
magazines around the world, a real menace.
Let us not forget that John tel s us of many false prophets gone out from the church into the world to preach all the false gospels that would never stop until today, 1 John 4:1. That’s the reality from those very early days, and the word many means exactly that; it doesn’t mean just a few. Should he see it today, my goodness! The church was in a mess sixty short years after Pentecost and never recovered to this very day.
Killing people in a Christian context would never stop for the next two thousand years; it has been a criminal enterprise for that long.
184
Say, as an objective example the Charismatics, like the Catholics and other groups are all Bible users, but they “use” only what they need for their idiosyncratic dogmas. That’s the way it is.
The question of sacred inspiration is then a myth. It is a myth for the simple fact that there is no scriptural evidence inside the scriptures capable of establishing that God was busy inspiring the so-called originals. Second Timothy 3:16 is very badly interpreted by the common preacher – I debate that verse in one of my early books, not going to do it here. When the word “originals” is mentioned, a new assortment of problems is created. So, let us for now leave that can of worm closed.
The story of these two victims of a dangerous cult – Ananias and wife Sapphira – is the most horrible example of how wrathful this “Holy Ghost” of “Pope Peter One” is when it comes to forgiving seventy times seven. Now, see if you find one preacher in the entire world that can defend that unfortunate couple. You will not find one single man of God capable of taking the story and call it something horrible without a speck of truth. It is an episode very contrary to the norms of forgiveness taught in other parts of the Scriptures, and entirely anti-gospel. It is apocryphal nonsense, invented by ignorant and superstitious people and turned into religious folklore without a hint of genuineness. Had the story been true, Peter would have to be disqualified as an apostle of the gospel of love. I just cannot imagine the damage to the Bible that passage has done throughout the centuries.
We will have to disconnect our god-given natural senses of intelligence, logic and reason to be able to swallow what the church teaches about the story. The church teaches that the couple did not deserve forgiveness, because they lied to the Holy Ghost on the issue of money. Yet, take Peter, the one who, six weeks earlier, three times denied Jesus with cursing, swearing and expletives, but was granted time to go and repent in remorse and recover. Why were Ananias and his wife not given the same “tolerance”, or a second chance, until their carnal nature had been refined? Even the Devil in the Garden of Eden had a second chance, and is still around now disturbing God’s work. Because the story can only be regarded as terribly nonsensical, apocryphal; a genuine 185
fabrication, a hoax, fake. Yet, you would have preachers with enough guts, dishonesty, and moral blindness, to go out and preach about God’s grace, love and mercy and use this as a reliable il ustration. That would be a low IQ and a small brain, so typical among those “men of God” .
3 – Crimes from this story
You don’t preach the gospel with a passage like that, I insist. But if it is Scripture, at what time in the born-again child of God’s life is the story relevant? As I see it, never. But when you read it, it introduces that horrible fear of offending the Holy Ghost, even with your offering.
Come on! That’s why I say, the story was manufactured, and was unhealthily included in the “biography” of Peter – a liar and a thief, a coward and a dishonest saint himself, except anointed to do evil: having the “Keys” to do “whatsoever” he chose to bind and loose in heaven and on earth, check Matthew 16.
It is a terrible story from whatever angle we look at it. One of the parts that makes it redundant to me is the conspicuous absence of any word from the accused, condemned and executed. That’s not the gospel from any side you care to look; no, it is not the gospel. But I also know that arguments and additional emotional material can quickly be gathered from the apocryphal stock to complement the story and change its image. I know so very well what a preacher is capable of, when it comes to adding stuff from his own imagination to embellish this horrible account. You must not support such individuals with your money, bottom line.
If a person is going to be accused of a capital crime or sin, it is extremely important to hear the accused say something. The Bible is not a good book for accuracy.
The Popes took this situation with the unfortunate Ananias and wife and literal y accused, condemned and executed many innocent people without granting them a word of defense. That’s religion. I say, there must be a higher level of spiritual reality better than this inferior one where humans kill one another for the collection of dogmas they protect with crime. Paul wrote in 1 Thes 5:21 - Prove all things; hold fast that 186
which is good. It was an important thought he wanted his readers to remember. Did he practice that? Did he prove all things? No, he did not, for much of what he wrote was arbitrary bigotry. Is that sentence canonical scripture? No. But it carries a strong message to remember.
So, yes, let us prove everything and hold fast what elevates us above the dangers of religion and its many crimes.
The writer who included the Ananias and Sapphira story in Acts is guilty of many more crimes in the centuries when evil children disguised as “Popes” followed Peter’s disgraceful example in this abysmal story and tortured and killed those who said something against the official religion. A person lies to the Holy Spirit and is consequently killed. Is that the gospel, seventy times seven forgiveness? Popes and priests made themselves the infallible authority to declare who was guilty of offending the Holy Spirit, based on this horror in Acts 5. That is not the gospel of love – such a fantasy never existed.
We hear Peter, who was a liar himself, telling us that the couple lied.
Nice gospel, real y, Peter! That part of the story is missing; the guilty verdict is passed and two corpses are the result, very quickly buried to hide the evidence. This is stuff from the occult, if you ask me, and it is not the gospel of Jesus Christ, what was understood to be love, grace and forgiveness; dishonest preachers try to embellish it with adornments of their irresponsible fantasies, and nobody with brains should support them with money.
On the other hand, we have heard in the Scriptures that Jesus at one stage promised the sword, not peace, Matthew 10:34. We also heard of two disciples being ready to burn down a vil age with all its inhabitants, because they rejected their preaching, Luke 9. And if we consider that they were walking to Jerusalem to worship Jehovah, isn’t that a terrible image for the gospel of love and the coming kingdom of God? But the explanation we hear about that is something else. We cannot read the Bible as it stands.
What to do with Jesus’ projecting hatred towards the family if one wanted to follow him, Luke 14? Fortunately, John, 60 years after 187
Pentecost, overruled that when he wrote that if you Christians hate your brothers you are liars and murderers. At the time, there was much strife and hatred among the converts, like today, all divided one against another.
Sure, we will change the script and adapt the reading to a spiritual lesson and convert the horrors of negative teaching into a palatable sermon. I’ve heard it al , yes I have. Pastors and priests look after the Bible for personal gain, because without an infallible and inerrant book they are stuck and cannot earn a living.
So, if one sheep has more brains and dares to infer an unorthodox point of view, condemnation is swift to come and brotherhood is broken. You are trained to do just that. I know that so wel , after 40 years of partisan friendship with churches and their set of dogmas.
The Bible is just a book with some moral value, but not a holy book with some divine aura. I know that this qualification will upset you to anger and desperation. In the past, people could be killed for such aggravations. The Bible is not infallible on anything, just choreographed with a little of average morality or ethical content, relatively important.
I believe now that there isn’t one man on earth that believes the entire Bible as the Infallible Book of God. There are many parts that are interpreted, rearranged, simplified, discarded, ignored, and many that do not make sense. But commonly one hears the average Christians saying that yes they believe the entire Bible, etc., ad nauseam.
They are lying to themselves. They are only following their religious instinct to defend a collection of doctrinal jargon. But, please, do not confront them on this matter, because they will insult you. It is part of their training in defending the Bible: attack those who discover our weaknesses. Nobody believes the entire Bible without changing something.
No man has the divine attribute of infallibility to declare anything infallible. They do it sometimes only based on their vanity, presumption, and religious arrogance. What man can declare anything infallible? That is the core of the argument. When we advance such divine quality in a 188
mere book, we do it based not on any infallible attribute or quality we have, but on fear, which is the core of ruling a religion. Religion runs on fear, not on love. Love never fails, is the slogan, and Christianity prospers on propagating a lot of dogmatic fear.
Jesus insisted that the sin against the Holy Ghost would not be forgiven, but he was not absolutely clear as to what that was. Jesus was an Essene following a political y charged agenda, some say. So, it is later discovered that lying to the Holy Ghost in money matters was it! That’s the only case in the entire Bible and history. How’s that for accuracy?
In my estimation, it is much more a sin against the Holy Ghost what Peter did by denying Jesus three times with three series of explosive expletives in the presence of some ladies; a bad character later elevated to sainthood for Catholics to kiss. Judas comes second in that list. It is even more aggravating than what Simon the sorcerer did, wanting the power of the Holy Ghost for his own use and profit, Acts 8. Isn’t that a clear case for another kill? Money was to be part of the deal. Those guilty men had a chance to say something in their respective accounts, but not the murdered couple.
That’s why I maintain the story is spurious injection in Acts.
Somebody is terribly guilty of infiltrating occult stuff in the book. The story is terribly offensive and certainly it was concocted by a sick mind with an evil purpose. Money matters have helped many Christians leave the church for good. Greed preaching, in other words. Not love, charity or compassion. Go see how Peter reacts to a reprimand about taking illicit money from a rich and pervert woman, Chryse, in the apocryphal
“Acts of Peter” , chapter 30. Please, don’t tell me that all those apocryphal stories do not have some true evidence of the character it wants to portray.
However, say something against it in a closed forum or within the restricted space of a church and you are immediately disqualified as a Bible teacher and you are accused of tampering with it. Yet, much tampering is going on regularly from pulpits across the entire world.
The story of Ananias is a terrible forgery. Say something like that and 189
you will be attacked; you will have turned into a renegade and backslid, reprobate, relapsed sinner, and you are lost on your way to hel . That’s religion. Millions of Christians never read any Bible and never heard of such nasty story of two innocent born-again Christians killed because of half an offering.
4 – Reformation against Sola Scriptura I had to “soften” my previous concept of Bible inerrancy and infallibility when I discovered that all those many that opposed it could be right after al . The “Sola Scriptura” shout of the Reformation centuries ago will have to improve to “Less Bible”.
The seeds of that revolution are currently being sown in Christian institutions of higher learning, like universities. Here in South Africa, we have the Reformed Churches already calling for such a
“Reformation”. People like Dr. Ruckman will be ignored and forgotten, maybe even ridiculed. Their view of “Bible infallibility” will be total y discredited, regardless of how much noise their proponents will make. Ruckman’s ferocious attacks on universities that teach “Higher Criticism” have done no real damage. The generation that has preached
“Infallibility and Inerrancy of the Scriptures” or even the “Originals”
is moving on and leaving the “fighting ground”. I had to understand that “Higher Criticism” was not to destroy the Bible, but to expose all the hidden secrets that made Christianity a violent religion. In my first book, I have more than two hundred pages on that stuff.
I want now to distance myself from such a “position”, and that is because I have read all I could and the main question was never answered. Is the Bible real y an infallible Book? Is it real y inerrant? The answer is negative in both cases.
To determine whether the Book has those attributes, a man would have to be infallible and inerrant himself. However, we know that any conclusion a man arrives at is always one according to his fallible human point of view. Therefore, he cannot declare the Bible with those divine attributes.
The Popes, in order to deceive their victims, declared themselves 190
infallible when they speak or write “Ex-cathedra”. A complete absurdity, only possible under cultic fervour. It is a monstrous lie, and unforgivable arrogance. They did it to declare 1 Timothy 6:10 the absolutely infallible truth. It’s a lie. Anything a man can declare in any sphere of knowledge is always fallible and subjected to change: much more on spiritual matters where he has no sure ground to walk.
Men produced the Bible, other men gave it its aura, and other men abused it. And Bible fanatics quote it and call it the Word of God; they quote men and call them God; that’s how bad this has gotten to.
Then, if we have settled that important question – is the Bible inerrant
– with an important answer – no, it is not – what then to do with the Book? Wel , we read it and learn what we can. And some students even love it. We study it and discover its weaknesses. We try to understand its subjectivity. We apply to it our reason and logic, and we debate it within what is philosophical and objective, but, please, without hurting anybody. Then we move on to a new, higher level of spiritual understanding, where the current fighting has no room and space, otherwise we’re back to square one and will never grow out of it. We discover that the Bible, because of its intrinsic weaknesses, was severely abused to create evil, while good was left behind.
An inattentive victim converts to Christ, but then is placed at the door of a denomination where he can only enter and take part in activities
– and eventual y become also a brainwashed leader – if he is ready and ready to conform to the set of doctrines defended in that setup.
Those many men who dedicate their time and life researching the Bible and its origin cannot all be wrong when they discover that inspiration is a myth. Textual critics are sometimes right, let us admit.
Those who discovered the different authors of the NT books cannot all be wrong, like they can be right on the different dates for those writings.
Preservation is a myth. There never were any “Originals” kept for posterity. So, nothing can be accurately checked. It’s God that lost some important documents, but some say he later in the centuries managed to recover some to get back some divine dignity, a travesty.
191
The churches polarize their members to believe certain clauses that allow them to continue with their groups. Yet, many churches close down for cheating their adherents, many times on money. If you grow intellectual y and argue with them, you are always wrong and eventual y have to leave. Churches are not forums for intellectuality, for intelligence, for objective logic. Bible inspiration and preservation is only emotional religiosity and is protected by an elaborate collection of technical jargon. It does not always stand to reasonable scrutiny. The story of Ananias and wife Sapphira is just one very sad case where the Bible “Inspiration” is protected with unreasonable fear. The story is false, but if it is, Scripture must be true.
5 – A different view
Studying the Bible is a difficult proposition and exercise. If we start from the line where people warn us that it is a divine and Holy Book, we are not going to question the book for fear of doing or saying something offensive regarding its writer. You see, we are stuck right at the outset.
We are told that the Bible is a sacred Book even before we start reading it: we are already with some “important” knowledge that is going to guide us in the future “studying”. The book is holy and we should not attempt to say anything that might put it in doubt, or infer it is a man made product.
When, later, one has the courage to present a different view of what is standard in interpretation, and has the guts to diverge and offer a debate, even if only subjective or theoretical, that person is then or becomes the target of the attacks for having the audacity of offering a new view. That aggressive posture is cultic. I have witnessed that for a long time, and it reveals to me a very disturbing characteristic Christians are endowed with at a young age in their attachment and affiliation. That is, they are ready to immediately attack a brother who they seem to see backsliding for the “sin” of offering a new perspective of a certain passage. They are no longer interested in analysing the passage or calmly offering some comment, but on the contrary are ready to attack the character or experience of that person. It is cultish to create a lot of verbal aggression, backbiting, intolerance.
192
The story of Ananias and Sapphira is very strange and has the hallmark of a fictitious story to scare the readers. I have had trouble with that passage ever since I read it the first time many years ago. It struck me that I was reading about something that changed the God of love in the gospel into a God of unnecessary wrath for a minor sin.
Definitely, I consider this passage absolutely spurious and nonsensical.
Therefore, when I argue about it, I realize that it is a passage that serves only to denigrate God’s holy character, and should not be in the NT. It is not a passage that teaches anything of gospel but of fear and money greed. The victims are just killed for a stupid motive: money! I reckon that Ananias could have had a heart attack, or was pushed hard by the bodyguards and fell and was killed, or something else very dishonouring for Peter. But again, let me remind myself that the episode did not happen; it is fiction. Also, Peter ordered the quick burial of Ananias without consulting any family member, that is as soon as he realized that the man was untimely dead, he rushed out to hide the facts, to cover up a crime.
That’s the way I see this ugly story. The author didn’t bother to give more detail, but by supplying the time that the wife took to come looking for her husband gave the story away; it’s fake, a hoax, dishonesty. No where in the world, decent men and much less born-again Christians take a body of a recent convert and rush out to bury it without consulting any family member or even the authorities. The writer of this offensive fantasy was not even coherent with himself.
Today, such a story would be quickly considered the best possible evidence to discover a crime. The author of this ugly scene was so naïve with the details that it gives it away in a few lines. What is more distressing is that we are told that it was God’s inspiration that brought the episode in the Bible. My goodness, what are we capable of doing with our mind?
As I’ve said, I’ve heard sermons on “stewardship” using this horrendous crime as a good example to give money to the church.
Pastors use this terrible account to infuse the same fear that Peter wanted for his church. That’s tragic indeed. And off the church went, 193
preaching God’s love using an episode where two innocent “born-again”
Christians are killed for keeping some money away from the apostle.
Please, folks, how barbaric and insulting! If they were not yet “born-again” Jews, much less reason for killing them in the name of the Holy Ghost.
The explanation offered, that “they had all things common”, Acts 4:34, is not reason to kill two who didn’t agree with the scheme. The right procedure would be to reject them as “members” of the enterprise, not kill them. Besides, the plan soon failed, I assume, because of cheaters.
No family member was summoned to take care of the body, not even his wife, poor victim! Why not wait for the wife to come and deliver the body for burial to her? Why kill two people for the minor “sin” of one man? This story is not gospel, we all agree; it is not. It is a false text introduced in the book of Acts to scare people to help Peter become the first Pope. The gospel for the Jews starts then on a false premise.
Of course, we are aware of the implications for Inerrancy and Infal ibility of the Bible, two extremely exaggerated attributes of this violent book. Modern textual research has worked hard to discredit the concept of Inerrancy and Infallibility in the Bible as a whole. But because students are indoctrinated from early times after conversion to believe a particular position, and never admit any suspicion on any text, students are terribly polarized and fight for it.
Ananias is not talking in the episode. Consequently, we have no way to know what he said. In order to accuse him of some heinous crime deserving death, we need his testimony. What we have is Peter’s words, a big liar himself, accusing the poor man, and then his wife and him are killed. Nice Christianity of killers; killing people in a religious context was and is always criminal.
The problem of forgiveness in the Bible is very subjective, and even philosophical. We have God telling us to forgive our enemies seventy times seven, but God does not do that, at least the God of the OT
and His emanations in the form of the tribal God of the Jews, namely Jehovah, with some very cruel discharges. It is logical, as I said before, 194
to assume that God takes great pleasure in seeing us forgiving as much as we can. As a matter of fact, we are instructed to always forgive, even though it is impossible, but a means to have peace around us in this troubled world. Now, is God in the Bible telling us a story with two sides? If God in the Bible is so compassionate and loving, wanting us to always forgive, what example do we have in the act of killing a couple of recent converts, “born-again” Christians, for money? Wasn’t there any other way God could help them understand their grievous error of keeping part of the money?
Great fear was its result, and the Christian church has forever been ruled by men that promote that fear.
Some argue that fear contributed to the salvation of many people in Jerusalem. That’s stupid; Acts is fabrication and ridiculous tales. Not too many years later, Paul would introduce a different means to collect money for the poor and for the rich administrators of the cult. You must never – as a solid principle – take Act as a real story; save yourself from the ridiculous. In this new method, nobody would be killed for defaulting on the offering. Peter’s crimes contributed to the rejection of his gospel by his compatriots, the Jews of those days, and he never recovered from it. They rejected the NT attached to their Torah and Tanakh, as they rejected Jesus-of-Nazareth as their Christ.
Paul gives different instructions regarding money, where there is no possible cheating or lying to any holy ghost, or divine killings. Truth is, had Peter been allowed to rule the cult he started in Jerusalem for the coming centuries, and been called Pope, he would have killed many more. He didn’t, but his perpetual successors did it for him, the criminals.
6 – Strange factors
Let us still dwell a bit longer on the story of Ananias and Sapphira.
This horror story has many imponderables, but let us consider at least seven strong ones that can be used to identify its apocryphal marks.
One: There is a Levite selling land in Acts 4:36-37. The apostle Peter was launching a new dispensation for the Jews; the gospel per se was 195
not yet running, neither anybody at that point knew what its future would be like. Paul is the apostle who later introduced the so-called real gospel that would go out into the Gentile world, etc., something he himself fabricated in his religiously affected mind. The Levite, as a Jew, was not allowed to have land. Did he have the land in Cyprus or near Jerusalem? It seems that the Law of Moses had been “amended” to allow those Levites to purchase and sell land like any other Israelite. Why, presumably, among the so many examples of people who were selling land and houses, the case mentioned had to be this peculiar one of a Levite? Where are all the other believers who sold their properties? Acts only mentions this Levite.
The Bible is always short on detail. Yet, if we are allowed to reason about the episode, what happens when everybody is selling land and houses and there is no more a place to sleep and shelter from the weather? Where did all those who sold their houses go to live, if not to other believers’ houses, those who did not sell theirs? It is not true then that every believer sold their houses and gave the money to Peter.
The story is fictitious, a dishonest tale. Did Peter sell his house, or did he keep it to shelter all those stupid believers who sold theirs? That’s another thing I want to know. You do not sell your house to help the poor and become also one. We know that Peter was married, but we know nothing about his wife, and the rest - most probably Peter is a fictional character in this false choreography. It seems that his wife preferred to keep her house than sell it and give the money to “Peter”.
There is no angle in this horror story from where you can detect the slightest inference of a gospel of love. Those who sold their houses in the fanatical excitement of the occasion would soon realize the need to repurchase it at a higher cost, or go buy another one using Peter’s credit.
Where do you raise a Christian family, if you sold your house to give the money to the homeless so that they could go and buy a house to raise their families?
Help the poor? Help them in what way? You sell your house and then go sleep in a tent with the homeless you helped? This story is stupid, but made to be inspired scripture.
196
Two: Ananias was a Jew, still observing the tithing system of the Old Testament. The old system had not yet been abrogated. As far as we know, the Law of Moses is still in force in Israel today, albeit a modified version thereof. Hence, he sold the possession and brought to Peter’s feet what was more than the obligatory tithe. There was nothing wrong in what he did. If others gave more or all to Peter, Ananias had nothing to do with that. There had not been any legislation issued to obligate a Jew to sell a house and give all the cash to an apostle. The whole thing was voluntary. You kill a church member that volunteers to help others?
Cults kill because cults are criminal.
Before the precepts of the Law, Ananias did not commit any offence.
He was as generous as the others, for the simple fact of giving more than the prescribed tithe, although Peter did not represent the Law or anything besides his “Keys to bind and loose” whatsoever he wished on earth and in heaven, the worst delegation ever created by a christ.
That privilege did not include a clause to kil , but his successors added it to the “Keys and Chair” ! If Jesus gave the “Keys” to Peter for him to do “whatsoever” , including kill two charitable believers, that was an outrageous and grave mistake! In fact, the cult that Peter “chaired” as the first Pope of a collection of 260 continued for centuries killing more innocent people. Peter metamorphosed into the worst religious criminal of all time.
Three: Peter accused Ananias of cheating on the offering, and lying to the Holy Ghost. But we have no word from Ananias to defend himself of the accusation, neither from the holy ghost accusing him. The main witness is missing. Two were necessary to condemn an Israelite to death by stoning.
Isn’t it true in the Bible that the Holy Ghost can speak? At least, we needed to hear Ananias saying something. This story is not focused on Ananias or the Holy Ghost, no, sir, although he is the victim: the main actor in the farce is Peter, a blasphemer himself, a thief and a liar.
Peter had been a liar a few weeks earlier, and now he is speaking for the Holy Ghost? If Peter had been a liar at such an important occasion, he had been a liar all his life in big and small things. Two innocent 197
believers, albeit carnal, are going to be killed in the name of the Holy Ghost and Peter the cheater, crook, deceiver, and Satan is going to be the infallible authority? Think about it. I do not believe that the episode ever happened though, like most of the stuff in the NT. I also do not believe that Luke would write such a terribly disturbing incident and include it in the acts of the apostles. This was a crime; not acts of godly men.
Where is the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, and faith? Wel , the tree was poisonous, and the fruit toxic; it would be so from then on.
Ananias was a good man, but naive not to detect an impostor, a charlatan, and he lost his life. If God had a holy character, there would be no need to eliminate anybody for anything in the coming gospel of good news. Ananias was not allowed to say a word in self-defense before being summarily eliminated from the group. If he knew beforehand that Peter killed people for defaulting on the full offering, he would have at least tried to save his life and run away from the dangerous cult. He was so happy to give what he had purposed in his heart, 2 Cor 9:7, though so naïve, but “Peter’s Project” had an agenda to carry out where all or nothing was the inflexible demand. What a disastrous way to start the preaching of the gospel of love, real y. We do not have all the elements necessary in the story to accuse Ananias and exonerate Peter. The scene was one of a crime being committed in the effort of creating fear in the assembly. So much so, that great fear is mentioned at the end of the traumatizing episode, Acts 5:11.
Four: Ananias dies and is quickly buried. This is a point of crucial importance to understand the story as an apocryphal fable, inserted in the Book of Acts. Why did Peter, the great icon of the Christian Faith, allow the poor victim to be buried before any family member is contacted? What sort of religious character was this Peter to do the most despicable, uncharitable deed by disposing of the corpse before telling Ananias’ wife what happened? Where is the gospel in this procedure?
You see, Peter was not the only one taking part in this horrible story, but all the other elements in the “council” were as guilty. Not one stood up and argued with Peter to allow the wife or family members to come, 198
and do the funeral. What a horrible way to start the preaching of a new dispensation where love and grace was to have the most visible prominence, as it is declared in the previous verses: Acts 4:33 – “And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all.” This verse is a lie. You call killing two innocent believers an il ustration of great grace? It is no wonder that one less violent method soon superseded Peter’s system of collecting money for the needy. It’s a creepy story with nothing inspiring, nothing godly; it’s false.
Five: the wife arrives three hours later and is not told anything of what happened to her husband, but is also eliminated. Two hideous crimes for money: it was the mafia! I will believe this story when two things happen: one, that I hear Ananias say something in self-defense; two, that I hear the Holy Ghost speak to justify the killing. Since that will never happen, the only option left is to discredit the story as a ridiculous fable, fabrication, superstition, error in the Scriptures, false testimony about the apostles, interfering with the text, and apocryphal insertion by a writer with ulterior motives, where the Holy Spirit is blasphemed; to say the least.
Six: great fear came upon the church. Natural y. Killing two adherents of a new sect for reasons of money is certainly going to create great fear among the superstitious; never joy, love, tolerance and a relaxing atmosphere. Religion is not to relax anybody: it is to aggravate intelligence, wisdom and brain growth. Many who heard the story would prefer to distance themselves from such a crude cult. They knew that cults kil . But there was no church at that time. Not in the modern sense. It was a fanatical gathering of Jews persuaded to join a group of new covenant believers because of a much publicized miracle, Acts 3, who would soon disband, disperse, and forget about Peter’s Project, which eventual y failed.
Seven: the system that killed the two victims soon disappeared from circulation. Paul gives different instructions to the church regarding the offering, 2 Corinthians 9:6-11. It is important to realize that Ananias and his beloved wife were murdered because of an offering system that 199
was irrational y rushed, randomly created and quickly discontinued.
Generosity is a biblical concept, obviously not always, that leads people to care for the unfortunate, although God is the one who ultimately gives riches to the rich, as the tale goes. If that generosity, though, ends up creating a defective system whereby its adherents are in danger of suffering the ultimate penalty, better that such generosity never rose to see the light of the day.
Ananias and wife were murdered in front of the “Prince” of the apostles, whatever angle you look at the story – he was a charlatan, not any prince, the impostor. They were not killed by God or by the Holy Ghost. The writer of this farce used the offering to blaspheme the gospel of peace and create an ugly spot of dangerous fanaticism in the Bible.
For all that, the story was a successful attempt to infiltrate spurious and fanatical tales and fables inside what we think is an honest account of other stories. Who is guilty of including this piece of apocryphal crap in Acts? Yet, because it is there, Christians who abide by Fundamentalism’s narrow view are forever stuck in the predicament of having to absorb it as sacred Scripture. It is an agonizing position, where the faculty of reason is to be shut down when such a passage is read.
Fundamentalists are stuck with this story and will have to defend it because they stubbornly insist and force themselves to believe that the entire Bible is to be infallible, inerrant, and pure Scripture. If the Fundamentalist is awakened to see the story as abhorrent scripture, he becomes an enemy of that faith system. That happened to me. Christian friends not only deserted me because I say the story is apocryphal, but went ahead and accused me of apostasy. That means that Christian friendship is always dependent upon dogmatic belief. We are friends of those who believe the same collection of stories. How sad that Fundamentalism can disrupt friendship and turn friends into enemies.
Peter did not have much love in his heart. In a short while, he healed a lame man and killed two believers. Peter was the apostle who had denied Jesus a few weeks earlier with cursing and expletives; probably, the others would have done likewise. They all abandoned the Master in his hour of need, and not one was there to help him carry the cross; 200
a stranger was forced to do it. Peter was a man, at least in this horror story, with a crude form of vindictive religious zeal: a clear example of the highest level of hypocrisy. We must never forget that Peter’s money system did not survive the first few weeks of his preaching. Imagine five thousand believers selling their houses and properties and go to sleep in the streets, or in Peter’s mansion. The writer in Acts is speaking in the past tense, inferring that the system soon lost its impact, thank God for that. Imagine the greed that before long took over the administrators, while those who sold houses realized that if all the Christians did that, they would have to purchase tents. What a stupid system, to sell houses, and give the money to the poor. Brainless, if you ask me.
Soon complaints about crooks in the system would disrupt it. As the system would grow in size, the administrative side of it would need a specialized team of estate agents and financing experts to organize the business and the distribution of the money. It would quickly grow to a chartered Charity Organization, “Peter’s Project”, using thirty or forty percent of the take to cover the running expenses. Where was all that money kept? Imagine everybody selling property to support the poor in the church. We can see why the system col apsed very quickly. It was not a divine method of helping the poor: it was a sinister scheme to help a bunch of lazy apostles and their clones to earn a living with little effort.
That’s the way I see it, if the story is to be interpreted as true scripture.
You do not start an offering method by killing two of the first volunteers. What you create is great fear, verse 11, in the assembly of superstitious members. However, that fear will disrupt the system and will destroy it. The new members added to the “church” came under the stress of that religious fear that would plague the church for the next two thousand years, and is still strong today. Popes and Fundamentalists make efficient use of it every Sunday morning across the globe. As I said before, it is fear all the way to the bank. Ask Popes, Fundamentalists, Charismatics, and all sorts of cults. There is not one innocent example in the list. They will follow “Peter’s Project” one way or another, killing character, intelligence, and wisdom.
Yet, the most tragic part of this abhorrent story is that a 201
fundamentalist will fight to keep it as sacred Scripture. If it is Scripture does not worry me anymore. What I see in fundamentalists is their propensity to lose their brain and calm in the attempt to defend the passage. The main point for the fundamentalist is to explain the story in such a way as to make it sound that God inspired it, planted it in the NT and it is then important and necessary Scripture. For goodness sake, the story has no application whatsoever to the present church, unless it could one day be again activated and used as a “godly” example of how to deal with offering defaulters. The passage is a repugnant description of an offering system that produced two corpses, and created fear in the so-called primitive “church” where the apostles were full of grace. Yes, it was very primitive, indeed.
Fundamentalists will not reason anything in the story that does not conform to their predetermined assumptions. If you ask them what happened to the money Ananias dropped at Peter’s feet, they go on a brain spasm and their theological system is completely dysfunctional, disrupted, and blocked by fear of suggesting anything that is not standard. If you dare ask a fundamentalist about what happened to the money Ananias gave to Peter, they will answer that the issue was lying to the Holy Ghost. Yes, it was not, but what happened to that substantial amount of money? Did Peter kill two members of his cult and still kept the money? You know the circular reasoning: “No, Peter did not kill them; it was the Holy Ghost!” Yes, idiots, but the question is what happened to the money! All fundamentalists have pathological fear of their church ministers, when asked to consider another option about the real intention in the story. It is shortsightedness of the worst type.
The brain of a fundamentalist does not develop with age, but it tends to shrink and final y reach the smallest size where it col apses and no longer functions. Fundamentalists will support this passage in Acts as inspired Scripture until the sun will freeze, even though they cannot explain its spiritual application for the church. Wel , there is none: it is not inspired scripture. It is stuck in chapter 5 to discredit the entire Bible’s verbal or plenary inspiration, so-called.
One such rabid fundamentalist was fighting with me over this horror 202
story, insisting that the passage is as infallible scripture as the law that Jesus defended. He attempted to base his defense on Matthew 5:18
(For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfil ed.) I told him Jesus is speaking about the Law, not about Ananias and Sapphira. Do you think he would sense his flippant obsession? He was infected with a contagious virus he got from his church minister, which affected his brain cel s. This fundamentalist is the typical example of stupidity aflame concerning what they understand as scripture. I told him that Jesus was referring to the Law, and never to what would be written later as the Acts of the Apostles. Do you think he understood what I said?
He was one more depressing case of a victim of Fundamentalism and its foolish quirking. Another one of the same guild warned me that I was going beyond reason. That was him reasoning with his brain, telling me that I could not use mine. His reasoning was claustrophobic: fear of thinking for himself.
The story of Ananias and Sapphira has no spiritual application.
There is nothing we can learn from it. The day Ananias and wife went to hear the greatest evangelist come to town, they signed their death sentence. That’s religious evangelism, when money is the issue. Yet, that rabid fundamentalist was adamant that the passage is scripture and is necessary in the Bible. Yes, charismatic charlatans do well with the murder of that innocent couple. He is one of those embarrassing Christians who worship a book, or venerate its name. I said before that there is nothing in the Bible telling us to believe everything in it.
The book is not even necessary for salvation. Millions of Christians never saw the Bible. You do not have to believe the Bible to be saved or continue in salvation, or whatever. It is simply a holy book with a violent story, uninspired; because where there is violence there is no divine inspiration. It is not a great book, albeit with some cheap morals by arrogant moralists. It includes horror stories like the one we are observing. It would be better to remove it from Acts, or consider it apocryphal, since it is of no use for the church, if the leader is an honest man, a very rare situation. If you hear a pastor preaching a sermon using 203
this apocryphal passage, you can rest assured that the man is a rabid impostor defending his easy and parasitic living. Where can you use this in scriptural preaching? Charismatic charlatans use it to force their blind adherents to give lots of money for fear of lying to the Holy Ghost.
That is criminal. It is robbery. They say that the unpardonable sin is lying to the Holy Ghost in money matters. Wel , in that they are correct, since the only example of the Holy Ghost killing somebody without forgiving or mercy is the case of Ananias and his poor wife. There is no other example of unpardonable sin in the entire Bible. Charismatic preachers will lie to and cheat their blind adherents.
But the rabid fundamentalist will fight to defend Acts 5:1-11 as important Scripture like the rest of the NT. We know why the extremist will stand by that position. He is a Christian brainwashed to believe nonsense. He is a victim of subliminal subjectivity. He will see all the discrepancy in the story, but fear will shut down his brain and will not say a word that might infer disrespect towards the Scriptures, etc.
Fundamentalism is a brain disease. It attacks the brain cel s and will shorten its operating lifespan in religious matters. Fundamentalists are hoodwinking casualties. They believe the five fundamentals and will go to war to defend them, when they would be better off using the full power of their brains to reason their Faith. Christian fundamentalists are also dangerous individuals, for their propensity to assassinate the character of other Christians who do not follow the fundamentals. There are real dangers in Fundamentalism, but the worst is the self-inflicting brain-obtuseness. Fundamentalists will create enmity among the brethren simply because of stories like this one in Acts. Fundamentalists will throw anathemas and curses at anybody who does not follow their circular logic. Fundamentalism is a brain-shrinking conviction.
7 – the Law Dispensation
In the OT Law dispensation, to accuse an Israelite of a crime punishable with death required at least two witnesses to be accepted.
Defaulting on the tithe was not a capital crime. By the time Malachi wrote his famous chapter 3, and gave afresh instructions about the blessings of tithing, most Israelites were not practicing it as a ceremonial 204
or social obligation, according to Leviticus 30. How many of those Israelites were cheating the system? How many were not even giving anything to support the Temple and the Levites? How many were killed for lying, cheating, disobeying and simply rejecting the tithing ordinances? It was not a capital crime. Read that famous chapter again together with all the instructions in Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
In Acts 5:1-11 we have a major contradiction and inconsistency within the Bible. It was not a capital crime to cheat on the tithing, and even if it were, the culprit would have to be taken before a proper court to be judged where at least two witnesses would need to be present with clear and incontrovertible evidence, Deut 17:6. In a case of culpability, the offender would be stoned to death. Acts 5:1-11 violates all the procedures of the Law and consequently denigrates God’s holy character. The only two witnesses against Ananias are the writer of the story and Peter.
Regarding the writer, his detailing of the account is very flawed and inconsistent. He is not writing from the Law’s point of view of violating important precept. There is no Law included in the narrative. If the writer was Luke, presumably a well-educated man, he wrote the story in a most appalling fashion, lacking important detail to substantiate a case of capital punishment. Luke would have clearly disqualified himself as a concise and careful writer, something he said he would strive for, Luke 1:3. Immediately, we can throw away the story as a false passage, maliciously inserted in Acts to blame the Holy Ghost for two crimes that could not happen within the OT Law or within the NT grace dispensation. The story is malicious and a great blasphemy against the OT Law, against Christ’s commandments of forgiveness and against the gospel in general. The writer is then a false witness.
The other one needed to pass the death sentence to a man whose alleged crime was cheating, lying and defaulting on his voluntary act of charity toward the poor is none other than the apostle who had been forgiven for a much worse sin of denying his Lord and Saviour – three times – after swearing that he would never do it, Luke 22:33. His name: 205
Peter, the famous “first Pope” with the set of “Keys” of all authority to do
“whatsoever” he desired and decided, Matthew 16:19 – more apocryphal and false material. This is the “second” witness, and at the same time the judge, that appears in the story against one of his proselytes, and is the only witness speaking to the “criminal”.
In the way the story is portrayed, Peter is again guilty of rushing his big mouth to speak about things that are going to land him in big trouble. He is portrayed as making the Holy Ghost guilty of disregarding the entire Law order of the OT by killing two innocent people, until proven guilty, on grounds of something not evil enough to deserve the full judgement and wrath of God’s Law. You see, those two witnesses are in the end the ones who blaspheme against the Holy Ghost and against the entire Law of the OT, under which they were still living as Israelites.
Killing a man on the basis of defaulting on the offering was a crime in the OT, punishable with death by stoning. Before the Law of Moses, then, Ananias did not commit an offence deserving the death penalty, nor would the Holy Ghost take part in it, contradicting and overruling Moses’ entire Law model. There was no punishment for defaulting on any offering. Is then Acts 5:1-11 sacred, inspired and Holy Scripture, deserving its place in the divine Oracle?
It can only be classified as spurious, false, God-offending, apocryphal tale, and a horror story, denigrating God’s holy character, ultimately some occultic and weird excess of a fanatical mind. But the saddest of it all is the intolerant fundamentalist insisting that the passage is Holy Scripture. I left that crowd of obtuse comrades after almost 40 years of intellectual molestation in their circle. They almost destroyed my brain, but I survived.
Now, do we have witnesses to the real crime of killing a man and his wife on the grounds of offering money? Peter is to be the first culprit and consequently he is the first to know what real y happened. We do not know if it was him who told Luke the weird story. If he did, he lied again, and blamed God the Holy Ghost of the so-called Trinity for a crime that he, Peter, did. If the apostle took part in the crime, his conscience tormented him for the rest of his life, or otherwise he 206
was a callous and insensitive individual unable to feel any remorse or conscience for the death of innocent people. He had the famous
“Keys” , remember, to do “whatsoever” he wished. His descendants in the famous Roman Catholic Cult, for the next two thousand years of religious molestation, would be even more remorseless and vindictive, and would kill millions of innocent humans - also for money, real estate, wealth. “Peter” was the first murderer, but not the last. He had already attempted to kill a man, but missed on his ear, Matthew 26:51. Killing innocent people to launch a fearful cult is criminal. Peter was, in fact, rejected in the rest of the NT as far as the privilege of launching the gospel “unto the uttermost part of the earth”, Acts 1:8. He wrote his first short epistle and the second carries his name but he didn’t pen it. We’re also not sure about the first.
The other witnesses in the crime were Peter’s bul y bodyguards, Acts 5:6, called “youngsters”, who carried Ananias’ body to the shallow grave, burying him in a hurry. I think those youngster bullies took active part in the murder. Maybe some of them knocked Ananias unconscious when he tried to recover the money and leave the dangerous company, and thinking he was dead went quickly to bury him alive. The way the story is told leaves that an open possibility.
But then we have the fundamentalists coming in their raging droves, teeth grinding in extreme anger, trying with threats to cover up the crime, in order to preserve the passage as inspired scripture; a criminal conscription of rabid intolerants. Those “young men” saw everything, but are not allowed to say a word in the story. Surely, they said something, possibly expletives, curses, foul language they knew Peter would like. Was it not inspired “Word of God” ? Not at al . How many were those “young men”? Four, you say, to carry the unconscious body?
It took them less than three hours to find some linen, some spades, go somewhere behind a hil , dig a shallow hole, throw the body in, cover it quickly with stones, disguise and camouflage the site, go return the hardware, wash their hands, like Pilate, and go back to tell Peter that “the job” was done. They arrived in time to see chapter two of the
“thriller”.
207
Here comes Ananias’ wife worried that the husband had not returned from his charitable trip. She had seen him for the last time happily leaving to give Peter part of the money from the sale of his “possession”.
Peter is portrayed here as a most uncharitable character, with a most vicious personality, real y demonic in inconsideration toward a scared and worried lady. He is going to kill the woman too, because he didn’t want witnesses to the crime he did against her husband. But he needs an alibi for the transgression. He asks the scared Sapphira if the land was sold for so much. She innocently agrees with him. The only time we hear the victims speak anything is when Sapphira answers, “Yea, for so much”. Imagine that she said, “No, we didn’t. Besides, Peter, it is none of your business, is it?” The next “clip” is Peter turning to the woman, blasting all his fanatical and hateful bigotry, and accusing her of “tempting” the Spirit of God. He knew his script wel , the murderer.
When he informs that the husband is already dead and buried, she col apses and expires in front of the “Prince of the Apostles”.
Sure, who would not faint in the presence of such an almighty man, holding firmly the famous “keys” and opulently sitting in the “chair”, with the power to do “whatsoever”, to bind and loose in heaven and on earth, and to collect all the money to “help” the poor?
This was a charitable Peter, full of great grace, Acts 4:33: think about the next ones who came to perpetuate the hierarchy and collect the cash.
You know, for a lady to faint in front of such a potent man is not a big deal. Peter did not try to save her: he did not want it. His question was ful y loaded with stinging venom to cause maximum impact. Maybe Sapphira wanted to tell “His Holiness” that the transaction had nothing to do with him; it was none of his business. The husband only wanted to help the poor with some spare cash, after giving the tithe to the synagogue. But Peter was full of demons right there, his eyes bloodshot with anger, and killing the lady was the only option available. Nobody speaks back at a Pope with power to do whatsoever and escapes with their life. Did this second crime have witnesses too? Yes, the inquisition was already there before the “constitution” was drawn up: the same bullies, mafia, who saw the killing and burial of Ananias. Peter rushes 208
them out again to throw the wife in the same hole; she could still be alive. No decent burial, no family contact, no authorities summoned, no ceremonial, no congregational singing, no speeches, no wax candles, flowers, nothing. Except that Peter kept Ananias’ cash, the criminal son-of-a-bitch!
Christian fundamentalists will swear that this is inspired scripture: a biblical account with profound spiritual lessons on stewardship, a passage worthy of many inspired sermons on money.
Only possible if you are a spiritual paraplegic, one laments.
… … …
209
bible’s Most danGerous verse Matthew 16:19
Without a doubt that is the verse in question. There, we hear Jesus pronouncing the most distressing and disconcerting command that there is in the entire universe.
Matthew 16:19 – “And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” KJV.
This is a verse where Christ delegates his spiritual authority to a mere human being, as carnal as Peter was, the same one he next cal s Satan, and soon would lie with expletives that he did not know Jesus, Mark 14:71. The very first time Peter wanted to bind something on earth
– Jesus going to Jerusalem to suffer, immediately after delivering the powerful keys to a deluded and liar fisherman – right there Jesus refused to accept him as having any authority on the future of the kingdom of Heaven.
It’s a stupid story, but read on. The “Kingdom of Heaven” in Peter’s hands turned out to be a vicious “Church”, answerable to crime,
violence, war and an idolatrous industry of icons. Matthew 16:22 –
“Then Peter took Him and began to rebuke Him, saying, God be gracious to You, Lord! This shall never be to You. “But He turned and said to Peter, Go, Satan! You are an offence to Me, for you do not savour the things that are of God, but those that are of men.” , MKJV.
The context to that “whatsoever” delivery is contradictory and thus not acceptable. Peter is rebuked for trying to save Jesus’ life in the way he understood it. Peter would not allow his best friend to die without attempting to save him with the powerful “Keys” in his hand. Failed, first time. Natural y, in that context, Peter’s reaction is understandable, trying to dissuade his friend Jesus – whom he cal s Lord – from wanting to sacrifice his life at the hands of those he was supposed to defeat as the Messiah. But the disciple was a carnal follower all his life, prone to discharges of temperamental wrath – see 2 Peter 2; “damnable heresies, even denying the Lord” applied squarely to him.
Jesus, demonstrating that he didn’t like to be contradicted, portrayed in the story as an immature christ, insulted Peter with abysmal impoliteness calling him Satan. There is always a form of violence in religion; not even the Jesus portrayed in the scene escaped the process. Peter was a liar, and later, taking advantage of his nasty temperament associated with the power the “Keys” delegated to him, approved the violent method to create the most vicious “Church” that the world would have to suffer for the next 20 centuries.
How could Jesus hand over power to a carnal “Christian” and expect him to create a godly “Church”? Satan was in the heart of the first “pope”
immediately after being awarded amazing power to control whatever he could in “The Church”. It is terribly important to understand where the popes come from: their first “father” was Satan. This cannot be spiritualized, can it. Didn’t Jesus know the terrible mistake he was making? That passage of scripture has to be spurious content, absolutely not inspired; it cannot be sacred text.
Since it is men who decide what is and what isn’t “inspired” in the Bible, anybody can do it. Try to prove this wrong if you can. It’s not only 212
the popes of religion in general that have the intellectual insight and the spiritual ability to resolve what is true scripture.
If Jesus were any real son of God he would not promote the negative gospel of curses and religious dictators, especial y after promoting the Golden Rule: do good for reciprocity, Luke 6:31. Jesus could have never affirmed that he came not to bring peace but a sword, Matthew 10:34, for that instrument of brutal crime was already here: he did not need to come, therefore. But do you see the contradiction and the imponderable with what the angels sang upon Jesus’ arrival on earth: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men, Luke 2:14. Not a sword, please. Paraphrased to modern language: I come to bring an automatic rifle. The papacy is, indeed, founded on a carnal man, “the rock” – according to popes, you understand – immediately identified as having Satan in his heart, or being Satan himself.
Do you know how much blood has been shed because of that verse?
Millions of innocent victims have paid with their lives for “arguing” with
“Peter” about who is the “rock”, and who has the “keys”. Maybe Jesus was the “Rock” and had the “Keys” to create a blessed and godly society without religion, but “Peter” would one day have much power to disrupt the lives of so many. How do you resolve this intricate mystery?
I say that it was very irresponsible of the author of “Matthew” to invent such a diabolical religion, with the “keys” and the power to do whatsoever with them on earth and in heaven. To save the world from so much future trouble, the passage should have been arranged in a way so as not to lead anybody to confusion.
Please, scratch those three verses from your Bible; they cannot be genuine. I maintain that the gospels are forever short on detail, as if the writers didn’t know that one day we would be told to believe in the encumbrance called “Verbal Inspiration”, invented at the end of the nineteenth century, which would split brethren, and hurt fellowship.
Indeed, only Satan could have forged that piece of Scripture and turned it into sacred canon. I know how angry some can get with my statement, but how do you overcome the irrationality of the passage?
213
Please, tell us; do not hide behind the “curtain” of religious fear. That absolute power was delivered to a fanatical and superstitious man who had no idea about a future plan of salvation, where a human victim had to be sacrificial y slaughtered to satisfy the wrath of God against humanity. That was Peter, when he received the “Keys” with which in the near future to attack and kil , Matthew 26:51; Acts 5:1-11. A religion that to defend an article of faith picks up weapons to kill the adversary is criminal. “Peter” and his famous “Keys” did the crime.
Is Jesus responsible for all that violence across the last twenty centuries? One innocent child killed in the crossfire of religious brutality anywhere in history translates religion into decadent wickedness. We have all the reason to believe that Jesus could never delegate his power to open and close whatsoever in heaven and on earth to a man who would go throughout the centuries hurting the antagonist or the conscientious objector.
The passage is atrociously apocryphal, and no religion should ever be built on diabolical demands such as that one. If Jesus was the son of a loving God, how could he not foresee the disastrous consequences of delivering such an awful power to men?
That “Jesus” in the story cannot be the real one, if he ever existed. Yet, thinking that Peter had now such authority in his hands, why would he not use it to unfasten the pain and suffering of his kinsmen, and rescue all of them into Heaven? Why would a terrible cult come out of that power to demand obedience to all its fictional dogmas, and even require pay for forgiveness of sins in order to avoid Hell?
Where did the well-directed power of the “Keys” go to produce good results in the world? Never, we all know, did those “Keys” produce anything glorious, godly and blessing for society. On the contrary, the “Keys” were used to shut down the door of intellectual progress, together with the scientific endeavours to create a better world for al , without superstition, idolatry and brain-shrinking philosophies through religion.
Those “Keys” helped to develop a creed where millions of innocent 214
victims paid with their lives for challenging its satanic power. “Peter”
became the most monstrous of all examples of what a disastrous day in history it was when he received the “Keys” to do whatsoever with them.
They developed into a ferocious machine to run a religion based on exploiting the superstitions itself created, and earn an easy and parasitical living for millions of useless individuals for many centuries.
With that religious machine, people were taught to pay in cash for the remission of sins, and not anymore by the grace of the Saviour and his gospel of forgiveness – “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do” , Luke 23:34.
2 – Calling a friend Satan
The passage in Matthew 16:13-20 is paralleled in Mark 8:27-30 and Luke 9:18-21, with one very important difference. In Matthew we find an addition of three long verses, where Jesus instal s Peter as the “Rock”
and gives him the “Keys” of the kingdom of heaven with extraordinary power to bind and loose whatsoever on earth and in heaven – goodness gracious me!
It is very clear to any conscientious student of the Scriptures that those three verses were added on to the original story to make a strong point in favour of the future hierarchy of bishops and popes in the coming Roman cult. Jesus could have never pronounced such weird words.
He could not; and it is easy to see why. You need to read careful y the account in the three synoptic gospels to realize that the event would be too important to omit by two of the inspired holy writers.
While we know that Luke and Mark were not disciples, so maybe we can excuse them for not including such a tremendous declaration, we do know that John was present among the disciples, yet he does not recall such an event in his gospel. It was not important for John to witness the momentous occasion, when solemnly Jesus delivered to Peter all the power to bind and loosen whatever he would find necessary to build the Church upon himself, the Rock.
That is enough proof that Matthew was written towards the end of the second century, when the bishops of Rome were involved in 215
“theological” skirmishes with the ones in the Asiatic churches. The narrative in Matthew carries a massive contradiction that by itself overturns and destroys the entire concept. It is simply unacceptable that Jesus would sternly rebuke him in anger after being so benevolent and altruist. Peter had just been delivered all possible power he could harness to fasten and unfasten on earth and in heaven whatsoever he found necessary – the means justify the ends, sort of policy.
I know how naively and ignorantly church leaders of today attempt a
“spiritual” angle for the forgery – go and see comments by Gil , Scofield, Clarke, Matthew Henry, Robertson and others to observe the simplistic and obtuse discernment those gentlemen had; do not trust Bible commentators that ask you to believe them; they are like Peter.
Some say Jesus rebuked not the first powerful “pope” in history for trying to bind something on earth, but Satan inside him. Oh! How is it that Peter, being so highly assigned with the power to truss and untruss whatsoever, was already possessed by Satan, right at the moment he is going to exercise the power to bind whatsoever he wanted?
In this first sample, it was none other than Jesus telling Peter that he would be crucified in Jerusalem to save Peter and other Jews. Did Jesus not endow Peter with absolute power to bind, or change, or forbid anything he wanted on earth? Yes, Jesus did. But as soon as Peter manifests a desire to exercise the power to restrain Jesus from going to Jerusalem, the Master cal s him the worst name he could call a friend: Satan!
Peter had immediately installed the very first Church Council right there, made up of 12 members, where he was the Head of the One Flock, against the Lord that gave him the power to change the plans. Such a ridiculous story, don’t you think so? Church Councils would in the future be the source of much crime to hurt anybody opposing the Church’s advancement to be a Holy Empire.
It became fashion, among the fundamentalists, to label with the expletive “Satan” anybody that would challenge the absolute inerrancy of the “verbal y inspired” Scriptures.
216
What was Satan doing inside Peter’s heart at that solemn hour? What was Satan doing in Peter’s heart at that most spiritual, sacred and grave moment in the history of the “One True Church” to come, and the inauguration of her first Pope? Oh, my goodness me! Here we had a man just empowered with unlimited “Ex Cathedra” authority and going to exercise it with gusto, when he is immediately denounced as not following a godly route but Satan’s one.
Wel , to all who can read between the lines, that was the very first clear sign of what was going to come in the next twenty centuries of popery: religious carnage, trouble in the world, and delaying intellectual evolution, permanently handicapped amidst a perennial setting of superstition and idolatry.
That “Jesus” of the story – invented and added to Matthew more than a hundred years after the real Jesus left, if he ever lived – committed two serious and damnable errors right there, which cost the lives of millions of innocent victims across the centuries of religious crime by the popes.
He delivered the “Keys” to a liar, a swindler and a coward – all this proved in the gospels – who right away desired to shut down the entire project of God to save the Jews and in the future to redeem humanity; and next, Jesus did not remove the “Keys” from the beast, after the first bad fruit it bore. If this venture was the sole responsibility of the Jesus portrayed in the episode, he failed not to recall the “Keys”, before they caused so much evil on earth. Insert this disastrous moment in the context of Matthew 18:18 and John 20:23, where Jesus bestows ALL the disciples with the power to bind and loose, minus the keys, and you will see clearly how the popes distorted for their own advantage what could be a simple moral truth.
Revelation 17 is clear in identifying the dangerous Roman cult initiated by “Peter”, as the cruelest of all religions on earth. But it was that “Jesus” who surrendered the “Keys” to that future agglomeration of spiritual terrorists. Millions died victimized by those “Keys” whether you suffer moral pain about it or not. Various popes harnessed an army of mercenaries to fight for them, paid with the offering money collected on Sundays and/or from selling fake indulgences, candles, idols, relics, 217
and protect the “Empire of the Keys” from other cults. Some popes went several times to Jerusalem – the city of peace – trying to recover it for their “Jesus”. Millions of victims perished in those “godly” excursions only possible because “Peter” had the “Secret Code”. After several attempts to help God reclaim the land, the project failed and was abandoned, or postponed for a time when dynamite would be available.
Today, the Bible commentators expect a nuclear war – Armageddon
– to finish the job, converting the entire area into a poisonous land of killing radiation, for God has no better way to resolve forty centuries of religious problems.
There is a parallel between Matthew 16:17-19 and Revelation 17:1- 5, where power to tie and untie whatever resulted in a history of violence and brutality for many centuries, at the blood-dripping hands of “the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth.”
Peter knew the power he possessed when he asked Jesus in Acts 1:6 if the kingdom was coming soon. Since Jesus did not answer the important question, “Peter” and his “Keys” have been trying to build the kingdom ever since by brute force when necessary – through “The One Indivisible Church”. Imagine if Jesus told Peter the truth: that the Kingdom of Heaven would not come for at least the next twenty centuries – and there would be a nuclear war in Armageddon to settle the old account, and only then the Millennium; and another one right at the end of a thousand years of peace and prosperity, roasting and incinerating two billion soldiers with fire from heaven. Oh, the innocent victims we all are of religious fear: the satanic gospel of popes and priests.
“Peter’s gospel” is neither peaceful nor prosperous. Scofield and other Bible translators and commentators add a heading on verses 17 to 19
saying that it was Jesus mentioning for the first time the word “church”.
But, obviously, the scholar knew that Matthew had not been written by the apostle of that name, but more than a century later, when the church was already ful y active, and much troubled. He, Scofield, saw clearly the insertion of those three apocryphal verses in Matthew to establish a coming dangerous doctrine, but he was a religious coward like Peter.
218
The truth is that Jesus never said such words to his escort, otherwise such an important imposition would have no doubt been mentioned by the other two synoptic gospels or at least by John. It is all a great conspiracy of minds designing the future domination of religion by an elite of destructive vermin.
Imagine that all the popery is based on a terrible lie, implanted in the NT by an anonymous intruder, writing on behalf of the bishops of Rome at the end of the second century, hiding behind the name of an apostle dead a hundred years earlier. You can call it “Verbal Inspiration” by delegation.
That “Jesus” who handed over his power to a mere ephemeral liar and coward also declared that the gates of hell would not prevail against the church. Oh, wel , that was a major blunder, for hel , untranslatable Hades, prevailed very strongly against the church, by using brute force to suffocate any real evangelistic effort to escape its brutal grip. If we consider that throughout this age most of the humans evangelised did not accept the gospel, but only a mere one percent or less was saved, that has to be a major failure for the church.
3 – Bankrupt policy
Fascinating is also the approach of those who try to point out errors in the tense of the verbs for “binding” and “loosing”, as if that was the major problem in the passage. Various Bible versions try to fix the difficulty in order to remove the amazing power Jesus endowed Peter with, whether things were already bound and loosened in heaven before they were on earth, etc. It is a bankrupt policy, adopted by the Bible translators, to avoid the real issue. It’s a major conspiracy, to shift the emphasis to a minor problem, so typical of those who want to pass for erudite Bible experts.
But the problem is that the three verses were not possibly told by the real Jesus, if we have any regard for the context, and if we are bold enough in our “rabid Fundamentalism” to observe that Mark and Luke did not include that in their story. How could we imagine that Jesus would say such incredibly outrageous words and the other two 219
“inspired” gospels would not pen them?
Luke grants his readers that he is going to accurately report the most important events in the life of Jesus, Luke 1:1-3, but in the relevant passage does not tell the most important detail: Peter being inaugurated as the Head of the Flock, with powerful rights to do whatsoever for the good of his elite of useless and sinister comrades, that is. That tel s a great deal of how false Matthew 16:17-19 is. What about John, I say again, who would be present at such an auspicious gathering? Who cares about the tense of the verb. The matter is infinitely more important than to “scholarly” debate Koine Greek.
The addition to the passage identifies another “Jesus” in the NT.
We can find at least three different teachers with the name “Jesus”.
Which one is the real Son of God? That is the major problem of the New Testament. The answer is in studying, 2 Timothy 2:15, KJV, Bible History and Textual Criticism – even if that converts you into an agnostic Christian, or even an atheist - most atheists know the Bible better than most Christians; it is it studying that ruins faith and believing in ridiculous fantasies.
I was telling an opponent that such a discipline is there in the open medium to be studied, Bible History. Many have done that exercise and arrived at the most distressing conclusion, that the NT is a man made book, nothing else; if you are a rabid Fundamentalist you may also be an intellectual y blind fanatic. Obviously, if you are stuck in any form of a hermetical y closed “prejudice”, defending the “inerrancy”
and “infallibility” of the Sacred Oracle, you will stand up to condemn anybody who is liberal enough to study to show himself intelligent and wise. In understanding be men, advised Paul, 1 Cor 14:20.
There are facts that point out the NT as an assorted agglomeration of “books” produced by many people in the first two centuries of the Christian era. No so-called book in the NT was produced under strict inspiration. That is so overwhelmingly true that to oppose it is enough proof of brain obtuseness in the church, particularly in the tightly confined version of “Fundamentalism”, victimising intelligent people to 220
shut down their brain, and only believe what rabid instructors thrust upon those naive victims.
How could you defend “Verbal Inspiration” of the entire NT if there is, for starters, no proof whatsoever of any apostle ever writing anything?
Was God caught unawares later, to discover that out of hundreds of
“inspired” manuscripts, nothing had, in fact, been properly organized as pure documents? Do you try to resolve the big problem by deflecting it to the list of minor issues?
4 – The first four popes
In all the material I have read over the years on “Peter the First”, I have never come across this important point: Who was the pope by the year 90 CE when presumably John wrote his gospel and then his First Epistle? Does the old apostle recognise any new pope after “Peter One”
passed away in the sixties? By the year ninety-five – Scofield’s date for One John – there had to be another pope, presumably pope number three or even four. Wel , where was the inconspicuous pope at that time, so that John would have to acknowledge his presence? Where was his “Chair” installed? On the contrary: John is flummoxed and flabbergasted that the “Primitive Church” was in dire straits and terrible apostasy spreading out like tares in the wheat fields with ravenous wolves ravishing the sheep. Many false prophets had left the church and gone out into the world, 1 John 4:1, to preach, teach and spread a large body of heresies.
According to a list of popes, Peter was the first to occupy the famous
“Chair” holding the “Keys” in his dirty, criminal hands. Next came Saint Linus, from 67 to 78. Following was the turn of Saint Anacletus, sitting from 78 to 90. And then, while the apostle John was still alive, came the turn of the famous apostolic “Father”, saint Clement of Rome the First, sitting for 10 years. This is also the famous saint who wrote his letter to the Corinthians only with references to the Old Testament, about the year 97 CE. That is a strong witness against the early appearance of the gospels in the first century.
Be as it may, John’s first epistle is the required evidence that there was 221
no pope in those days. The entire “series” of pontiffs for the first and second centuries is a sick joke and a crude lie of Roman Catholicism.
Lying to and cheating the ignorant adherents has always been the tactic of those gentlemen, supporting their parasitic lifestyle of doing nothing but building their industry of icons, idols, and superstition while pretending honesty, by cheating its innocent proselytes. When they had enough political power, they built an army to attack the intelligent dissenters.
What are then the important points to remember in this clownish saga of “infal ibles” and their “perpetual succession”?
[1] Those three verses – 17, 18 and 19 – are no doubt apocryphal insertion in Matthew 16.
[2] Jesus, assuming he had a holy character, could never speak to Peter anything about “rocks” and “keys”.
[3] Jesus never offered Peter any “Chair” to sit and do nothing for the rest of his useless life but venerate idols and merchandise religious fear.
[4] Peter was never given any power to do whatsoever with the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
[5] The so-called “Kingdom of Heaven” never came in twenty centuries, but instead came a vicious “Indivisible Church” to spread fear and destroy happiness to millions of innocent bystanders.
[6] Satan was already in Peter’s heart when he received the all-powerful “Keys” to do evil for twenty centuries.
[7] John was present at that passage of scripture – minus the three apocryphal verses – but never referred to anything pertaining to Peter being made pope, or bishop, or anything, or ever mentioned pope number two.
The rest of the story is a dishonest device to promote backward religion.
The conclusion is, for the intelligent, unbiased, liberal student, without fear of “divines” or specialists in Bible interpretation, that the pages of the famous book are filled with lies, cheating, hidden secrets, double 222
language to confuse the naive admirer of gods and christs.
The entire project of this holy book is to push lies, and perpetuate a parasitical form of living for those insincere enough to present themselves as holy men, while inside knowing that they are thieves and liars, rabid leaders defending their private agendas to abuse power and dominate by fear.
Religion is a poisonous tree of toxic fruit.
5 – Peter a liar and a thief
The interested student can get hold of the apocryphal stories about the apostles and other leaders of the primitive Christian cult in the first and second centuries.
There are quite a few old stories still extant in libraries across the world. One is the Acts of Peter; others are Acts of Paul and Thecla, the Acts of Peter and Paul, Passion of Peter and Paul, Acts of Peter and the Twelve, Acts of Peter and Andrew, and more crap of that nature. All these stories are embellished with spectacular miracles, discourses, trips, preaching, visions, conflicts with men and demons, absurdities similar to the canonical content in the New Testament.
Peter is said to have been crucified head down to represent his humility and martyrdom - did not want to be crucified in the fashion Jesus was as a sign of great piety.
In all these stories Peter is revealed as a great charlatan, which writers mocked with coarse and ridiculous stories as the church went around sanctifying them for profit.
In the Vercelli Acts, verse 37, Peter asks Agrippa to have him crucified head down, which is then done, and Peter is taken from the number of the living, once and for al , final y.
This apostle Peter had had a troubled life, from the first day his friend Jesus-of-Nazareth called him to be a fisherman of men. In this apocryphal story - and, remember, all the stories about this guy are nonsense - Peter heals his daughter Petrinel a of palsy to prove that he had divine power, and next reverses the miracle, turning the child back 223
to her illness.
In other words, Peter’s miracles were used to prove the legitimacy of his calling to be the first Pope in the Christian Cult.
When one reads these stories, it is obvious that none is real, but coarse fantasies, either to elevate this character to sainthood, or to mock his pretentious holiness. He was an irritating idiot playing important before those who had no brains to see the dangerous Pope he was with the
“Keys” and the “Chair” to do evil for the next twenty centuries.
The intelligent student can see what the gospel-of-good-news did to this character’s brain. He was a criminal, a terrorist, and in the future used exactly that to advance the crimes his church caused throughout history; still going on today.
Looking from any angle, this Peter was an excremental character.
Goodnight.
… … …
[Addendum chapter in the next pages]
224
Verse-by-verse commentary
King James Version [KJV]
4:1 And Adam knew Eve, his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.
This is mythological, poetic language, total y unconnected to any reality, and the entire episode nothing more than a story based on very old myths and fables about how the humans multiplied.
The problem is that the student cannot apply any literal meaning to anything in this story, therefore the space for conjecture, imagination, and mockery is quite open and large.
Here is a couple where the man, Adam, final y makes love to his gorgeous partner or wife, as some versions call her.
Must have been quite a memorable day or evening – maybe a morning, or afternoon, no details supplied.
Was Adam ejaculating for the first time in his life?
Again no details.
Let us establish a very important and conspicuous rule here, about the story and the whole Bible NEVER supplying the student with enough
detail to establish the correct version of events.
The students do not have any direction pointed out to them throughout the saga of interpreting anything in the Bible.
It is all a matter of private interpretations from beginning to end, in some instances with threats, curses and violence.
There were times when the interpreter with better lethal weapons would impose a certain interpretation.
We know from the annals of recorded history how the Roman Cult with its criminal popes committed the most heinous crimes to demand blind acceptance to their private interpretations.
That happened because they earned a parasitic living exploiting superstition – it is so even today.
Now, it says that Adam impregnated his partner Eve; no details, but we basical y know how that happened.
He saw Eve naked bathing in the Euphrates River, and she was a magic figure with incredible curves and firm breasts.
He got excited with hormones boiling, but had never before felt such a strong drive that Yahweh implanted in his genes the day he was formed from the dust of the ground.
It was the most amazing sexual drive a man could have in Eden.
But we know that they were not living in Eden at the time, when making love to Eve would be embarrassing while Jehovah and Lucifer watched.
We need to understand that at this point of Genesis 4 verse 1 those two gods are no longer around, or at least visible.
So, Eve was impregnated according to the rules Jehovah determined and imposed on the pair, since none of them ever read any manual.
Pure virgin instinct for procreation, natural animal behaviour right there.
First in the sequence, visual contact; then excitement, penetration, ejaculation and final y fertilization – in a matter of minutes.
226
Then followed nine month of fetus growth, and one day, after much pain and crying, Cain was born.
Memorable day, since it was the very first time that a child was born from the womb of a woman.
Adam passed the time of nine months looking and being excited, but the Lord told him no don’t; no penetration, go entertain yourself looking after the garden!
But being a disobedient man like he was he didn’t.
He could satisfy himself and his hormones some other way while nobody looked, not even the partner, now worried with some strange movement inside her.
One day she shouted to Adam come quickly, Cain is moving inside my tummy.
And Adam put his hand on Eve’s bel y and he also felt the baby kicking.
He thought that it would be nice to take a photo but cameras were not yet invented, so he forgot about it.
When Cain was born, Eve gave the baby the name Cain, because it was a son from the Lord, she said.
It wasn’t a child from any Lord: it was Adam’s son, according to the first sentence in this first verse of chapter four.
This Lord had nothing to do with Cain; it was Adam’s child, and no Lord was involved in anything about him; later, the same Lord would not intervene when matters turned sour.
So, this first verse of this chapter is a macabre story with no detail, but one child is born quickly in the first act of the epic.
One private interpretation about this first verse is that Eve was impregnated by Nachash, the male Serpent, the very creature that talked to Eve in the garden of Eden about the forbidden fruit.
That fruit was none other than Eve’s sex, vagina, clearly visible to everybody around the garden, that is to Eve, to Adam, to Yahweh, and 227
to the [male] Serpent.
So, the Serpent – later in the Bible called Lucifer, an archangel of Light, and later identified as the Devil, Satan, and the Enemy - was the first sexual encounter of Eve.
Cain would therefore be the son of Serpent, Nachash, the male Archangel that appeared in the Garden.
He seduced Eve sexual y, and penetrated her in pure excitement, while the woman was the most appealing and hormonal – her hormones were floating all over the Garden to attract a male.
Since Adam had been told not to touch and eat the forbidden fruit –
an apple or perhaps a cherry – the man avoided even looking at his partner.
The same was not so with Nachash, who was not interested in stories by Jehovah, his enemy – some say Serpent was a half-brother of Yahweh, or perhaps a cousin, nobody knows, because these details are not important in the story.
The story runs very quickly from act to act and nobody is allowed to stop to investigate, to interpret, or to argue about it. It is sacred scripture to be feared, and not to be closely inspected.
In training, the students of these matters are warned never to doubt that the Bible is inspired scripture, holy, and divine, not to be opposed.
2 And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a til er of the ground.
You know, this is how inspired scripture goes, a story with minimal detail, to sound spiritual and divine.
Just a small sentence, and suddenly the entire church structure must project this as valid information.
The way the previous sentence connects with the second sounds like Abel was the brother of the Lord.
But you never raise these objections in front of the erudite and 228
authorities in interpretation.
It does sound like Abel was the brother of Yahweh the Lord Jehovah.
Nothing is subsequently said about how Abel learned old Hebrew, and spent his teens, and if he learned to play the accordion.
He was born in one sentence and in the next he is already an adult actor keeping sheep.
The story must move the fastest because Abel is born in the second act of the drama and dead in the third. No time for any detail.
Now when you are a victim of religious schools, the Bible is ful y divinely inspired and no detail is necessary to convey a story, especial y one of this magnitude where two sons are born to the first man on earth.
3 And in the process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.
This is a part of the story where drama is introduced without any explanation, as to why would this Lord need an offering.
Nothing is said in the preamble about offering anything to the Lord, what for?
Nothing is explained again, and again the same situation where the student needs to come up with an explanation or a private interpretation.
In training we are instructed that such situations are to be explained by the Bible itself.
Wel , this is hogwash and ridiculous, because nowhere in the entire Bible such a thing is explained, nowhere. This weird Lord required the actors in the Bible to give him some offering but nothing is said about any reason for such a ridiculous act.
What we can speculate is that the Bible was written many years and centuries after Moses introduced the offering system in the Jewish tribes, killing animals, and giving oblations and offerings to appease Jehovah’s wrath and anger, a bloody cruel idol from those primitive 229
tribes ruled by a bloody patriarch, and would do what he told them to do.
So, since it is Moses writing this ugly story in chapter 4, we can interpret the event as him pushing the offering system right from the beginning.
However, let us not be stupid students, but ask why would not Adam offer an offering first?
Adam was – in the choreography of this stupid story – the sinner who committed the so-called Original Sin, and consequently he should have been the first to procure Jehovah’s forgiveness by appeasing his wrath with an offering.
He didn’t.
His first son, Cain – in fact the son of Serpent, or Lucifer, if we have logic to apply here – was going to offer the Lord some produce of the land he cultivated.
What was wrong with that?
Wel , first of all he should have offered it to his real father, Satan, or Serpent, not to Yahweh.
The story is total y contorted and stupid.
Here comes Cain with a basket of vegetables and fruit – he was a vegetarian, maybe a vegan – and natural y wanted to show Yahweh what he managed to produce in a cursed land; cursed by Jehovah himself when in a rage of hatred cursed the planet because of Adam eating an apple.
4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: Here is Moses introducing the violent and bloody ritual of killing animals to please Jehovah, a brutal y violent idol Moses himself fabricated, or concocted in his sick mind.
How did Abel bring this fat offering to the Lord?
230
Where was this Lord situated, was he standing somewhere or sitting on some chair, or walking around the area, or was he flying across the sky?
Nothing is detailed in this ridiculous story sick Moses invented.
What is coarse is the Lord liking and appreciating the fat of the sheep or cows or whatever other animal they were, nothing is detailed or specified, an absurd story like no other; Moses was indeed very sick in his brain, possibly from excessive abuse of hashish cannabis he enjoyd every afternoon, what else!
The KJV says that the Lord had respect for Abel’s offering.
Respect?
What did those weird translators want to say?
The story does not say that animals were slaughtered; it only mentions fat, but nobody knows how that was brought before the Lord.
The story is abysmal y badly presented and the actors miserable amateurs.
5 But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.
Now for Cain’s offering, the Lord said, hey Cain no respect for your offering, and he laughed loudly. Why not, Lord, what’s wrong with my offering? Nothing, was only joking, relax; your brother offered me fat and you offered me cherries, I choose fat, that’s al , go back to your farm and forget about it al . But Cain didn’t like the joke, and instead got very upset e rancorous.
As he walked away from the scene he looked at Abel with an evil eye, ready for revenge.
6 And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? And why is thy countenance fal en?
Now look at this weird Lord and his cheap talk to Cain!
231
Hey, Cain, relax, nothing is real y serious here, go back to your farm, he ordered again.
Next time bring me fat, that’s all; I don’t like cherries.
And the Lord laughed again with a loud cry.
Cain got very aggravated and swore revenge on both Yahweh and Abel.
Miserable Lord, who acted like a child, incapable of appreciating the two different offerings, the idiot.
Could have taken a different attitude and the occasion to be constructive, and create an environment of peace, goodwill and understanding.
But all Gods are firstly evil, and secondly incompetent to fix anything appropriately.
This Jehovah Yahweh Lord was a moron, an imbecile, a troublemaker in the whole Bible; never ever fixed anything wel , but on th contrary always messed up everything where he played the Almighty full of attributes.
Wel , he was nothing like that simply because he was nothing but another anthropomorphic beast some man created in his image and likeness, in this particular case a patriarch addicted to hashish, his name Moses, the guy that should have drowned in the Nile one time, and today we would not read religious crap in the Bible.
7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
If you do well, will your face not be cheerful? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.
NASB
The cynic the Lord was, talking to Cain like insulting him. Hey, Cain, next time bring fat, I repeat, not cherries and watermelons.
232
If you bring me more cherries and more watermelons I will call that a big sin and you will be punished; bring me fat, if you want to be blessed by me, did you hear?
Now both of you return to your farms and forget about it al , relax, don’t worry, it’s not the end of the world, piss off.
First time the term “sin” appears in the Bible, with the basic meaning of disobeying, missing the point, or objective, or goal – in old Hebrew khata, and koine Greek hamartia, both ordinary words, original y having nothing to do with religion or spirituality.
Later, the popes would reform the term to mean give us money to have your sins forgiven!
That word turned into a crime in the hands of those religious criminals.
They slaughtered millions of innocent bystanders who disagreed with them and called the correct title, religious charlatans, criminals, thieves, liars.
Yahweh here gives the popes scope to metamorphose the term sin into a repressive machine to steal, pil age and destroy other people lives.
Yahweh starts here that criminal activity, calling a crime a sin, and later every sin turned into a crime against the popes.
Yahweh will appear at the Last Judgement to answer for this horrible misdemeanour.
Maybe there is no Final Judgement, and Yahweh will be lucky to scape a just sentence to pay for his crimes.
If there is a Final Judgement, Yahweh together with popes will be condemned to an eternity of isolation beyond the fringes of the Big Bang, and all the sinners martyred by them will forever rejoice and write books about the Final Judgement.
The theological y called Original Sin – as I have explained many times in my books – was committed by Yahweh Jehovah the Lord when he betrayed Adam and Eve, when he didn’t want to warn Adam about the Male Serpent Nachash wondering around the Garden of Eden spying on 233
Eve swimming naked in the Euphrates River.
8 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.
Now here is a very serious act in the story.
Cain was very upset with the mocking he was subjected to by Jehovah the Lord; and he was very cross while walking back to the farm.
Walking by his side was his brother Abel, the second child of Adam and Eve, the parents we don’t hear about again. They are not important in this ugly story.
Very angry, Cain told Abel, hey you son of a bitch, now you are full of yourself because the Lord liked your offering and didn’t like mine, do you feel proud about it?
Abel was not a saint and retorted angrily, you are the son of a bitch, because the Devil is your father the Serpent with whom your mother fornicated, you fucktard, fuck off, leave me alone!
At this point in the drama, blood and death is called upon to create the most dramatic effect.
Cain was physical y stronger, because his real father the Serpent was taller than Adam, and much stronger than him.
To kill Abel was a piece of cake.
Suddenly Cain overtook Abel and held him by his neck.
Abel tried to pushed himself out of that powerful grip kicking in the air and punching Cain in his chest tried to release himself, but he was quickly losing his breath and in three minutes succumbed and died. It was hard for Cain to let his whole muscular power to release from the tension he used to overcome Abel’s attempt to escape, but final y he dropped his brother’s body to the ground and walked away.
Initial y, Cain thought that Abel was only half dead and would recover, but as he walked away he looked back and there the body of his dead brother was stil .
234
He never returned to bury Abel.
Soon ants took over Abel’s body and in a few hours, by the sunset, Abel’s body was rotting away, half eaten by ants and flies.
Cain returned to his farm and his house.
His wife Maligna asked if all had been okay to which Cain murmured I killed my half brother.
The wife shouted you killed your half brother?!
Yes, because the Lord liked his offering and laughed at mine.
The wife cried and in tear asked, Cain and now, what is going to happen to us, what will the Lord do to us, Cain?
Cain said nothing, his heart was still full of hatred against his half brother Abel.
He went to sleep, and had nightmares about his brother coming back to life and trying to murder him with a big knife; cried all night like possessed by the Devil.
9 And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?
Who exactly hard this Lord saying that?
Not Cain, otherwise he would have put it like this “And the Lord asked me”.
Reading without intelligence leads to stupidity in interpretation.
This “And the Lord said to Cain” is enough proof that the story is pure fiction.
Some storyteller concocted the whole absurdity; many students say Moses is the bloody liar in this epic, like in the rest of Genesis.
Now, here we have an Almighty God asking a question, isn’t that the most absurd and pathetic of all questions?
He was playing the cynical hypocrite and the coward, like the storyteller here.
235
Being Almighty and being everywhere he not only knew the answer to his question, but he also saw the discussion and insults between the two brothers, and also witnessed the crime.
Here we have an Almighty God failing again to fix a minor issue –
failed twice in a space of a few days: firstly, he failed when he could not help Adam succumb to some talking serpent, and secondly, failed when he could not prevent the first crime in his holy, inspired book!
Two failures for the price of one as it were; not good for a God.
What then can this incompetent God fix, if you allow us to ask?!
Nothing; never did fix anything in the beginning, except to project his bad temper, his wrath, his incapacity.
Bad, very bad god, terrible results.
A decent God would have found a peaceful way to fix the problem.
Here we see the future tribal God of the Jews confronting a small problem between two brothers, about an insignificant matter Jehovah himself created, unable to fix it when it was minor, small and insignificant.
Jehovah would turn out to be a bloody idol Moses fabricated, with no peaceful solutions for anything.
In fact, it was Jehovah himself that originated this problem, the second time he blames others for his sins. First was when he committed the Original Sin in the Garden of Eden, when he betrayed Adam by not disclosing to the innocent man that his partner was being observed by Jehovah’ enemy, the male Serpent, and did nothing to stop it.
When asked who first saw the Devil in the Garden, him, Jehovah, or Even, he chickened out and didn’t answer Adam.
Jehovah was a bloody coward from the beginning, a very bad God, the worst to that time.
Now, this problem about an offering, could have been resolved nicely if the Lord had better instincts, and better morals.
He could have nicely told Cain and Abel, hey guys, relax, both 236
offerings are cool, and I love you both, thank you for being nice to me, much appreciated.
You see, this is a most ridiculous story Moses invented, and an intelligent student has the freedom to inquire what led this cruel bastard called Moses, the worst terrorist that inhabited the Middle East in those days, to write it in the Bible.
Also, where is the original story to double check it was not tampered with by another sinister hand?
All factors must be presented and all routes must be found to see if this is a genuine story or some superstition some fanatic invented.
10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.
Two lies in the lips of Jehovah, here.
First one, he pretended not to know anything, even so wanting to be called Almighty God.
Second lie, he never heard any blood crying from the ground.
If this “Lord” was Super Almighty, why would he ask such a stupid question?
He was the reason the crime happened, because if he wanted he could have avoid it.
Could have intervened in the scuffle and protect both brother from injury.
What if actual y Abel had killed Cain, not like the tale says?
It could have happened, since both boys were very strong and Abel was the younger.
So, Jehovah is playing ignorant, when he clearly knew what had happened.
One must never trust any God, particularly this Lord one, the anthropomorphic tribal Idol of the Jews, the one Moses created in his image and likeness.
237
There never existed a God like Jehovah or Yahweh, or the Lord.
The Bible is witness to this fact, that this bloody ugly God, called the Lord, never fixed anything without violence.
Violence starts early in Paradise, with the Devil or Serpent deflowering Eve and creating a criminal, Cain, a son of the Devil, the first murderer in the human race.
11 And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand; And now, here comes Jehovah Yahweh the Lord playing offended!
He is going to curse an entire planet for a crime he could have avoided.
Indeed, this planet turned out to be cursed for every living form, and humans.
All would eventual y die, and in the end, this Lord thing was going to promise to incinerate the entire universe to try again with new heavens and again a new geocentric earth like the first.
In the beginning, this Lord looked and saw that all was perfect, very good.
But a few years later he was ashamed of having created the worst crap in the Cosmos.
In the beginning, the gods Elohim – a herd of trainee gods learning how to create matter, who lived eternal y in eternal darkness, before creating light, created for Jehovah a very small geocentric universe, made up of a small planet they called Earth, with other celestial body orbiting it, including the sun and the moon.
That’s what those inferior gods crated.
Now, Jehovah told Moses that it was all beautiful, but four thousand years later told the apostle John that he was going to blow up everything and create a new system.
Bad gods, bad plans.
238
The ground here has a mouth that was opened to receive Abel’s blood, how ridiculous can a story be!
Since that mythological murder, the planet has been infested with murderers, and Yahweh is the worst of them al .
In the biblical context, Yahweh Jehovah Lord killed about six million humans to establish the tribe of Israel in Canaan, the most barbaric tribe of primitive people.
Even today, the same God and the same tribal people are the cause of continuing murders, but they are not the only murders on Earth.
In fact Cain started a prosperous business for those who manufactured weapons, from spades to nuclear bombs.
And Israel is now protected by those destructive weapons created by the American Christians.
So, Yahweh was a miserable loser, not knowing what he was doing by allowing Cain to murder his brother Abel.
Bad God, bad story.
12 When thou til est the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.
Bad Lord, bad plan, when he was the guilty party, was he not!
He was the one that came up with the idea of forming man from the dust of the ground, and now he is cursing the same ground he used, the hunchback god of Eden!
Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,and the man became a living being.
What for, real y, if the same ground is now cursed because of a crime he was guilty of, when he could have avoided it altogether.
Cain killed Abel because this Lord allowed it.
There was a better solution, a better plan, where no violence would take place, no need to kill anybody and curse a planet.
239
Bloody bad Lord and a bloody bad plan.
This coarse Lord had already cursed the planet before, and had also curse Eve.
This Lord was the God of Cursing, no good plans for anything.
No wonder Adam never forgave Yahweh for his betrayal, for allowing Serpent to deflower his partner Eve, and bearing a violent child that Yahweh would use to commit the first crime on Earth.
Cain was the child of Nachash the Serpent, Lucifer, the Devil, the Beast, Yahweh’s Enemy, more powerful that his counterpart.
In the end, Jehovah is going to get holds of Satan, imprison him for a thousand years, but is incapable of keep him away for long, and he will escape and cause more evil all over again in whatever Yahweh is going to make.
This biblical story is total y repugnant and evil from any side.
It is evil this God called Lord created, nobody else!
13 And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear.
Cain said nothing, this is all fiction, a bloody coarse story some hashish-addicted patriarch created, like he also crated another anthropomorphic god made in his image and likeness, this beastly Yahweh.
In fact, I always say that the Original Sin was committed by Moses, who invented this stupid tale!
Who heard Cain saying anything?!
It is a fraudulent story, a hoax, a shit tale.
Now watch Cain playing repentance with crocodile tears – my punishment is greater than my crime. Cynical repentance trying to soften the heart of a cruel beast the God of Jewish tribes.
Too late, man, go to hel , you murderer, criminal, not even Yahweh will escape the Final Judgement where both of you will be punished for 240
this ridiculous tale, get lost.
So, you kill your brother, Yahweh curses everything, and lets you go?
Wasn’t it Moses who decreed an ye for an eye and stoning punishment for murder?
Yahweh didn’t know about it, and let the first murderer to go scot-free to live his life away from th crime scene.
14 Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.
Look at Cain’s hypocrisy and playing victim: had just killed his brother and been condemned by Yahweh the Lord, but no regret or repentance for the evil act.
The law an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is not applied here by Jehovah the creator of that violent law Moses implemented later.
Here we see two cowards and one playing saint, which one is which, can you tell?
Yahweh is playing saint, and Cain playing victim.
He is now worried that he is going to be killed by everyone that recognizes him as the murderer of his brother.
But who are these everyone if the earth was not yet inhabited by anybody except those two brothers?
Here we clearly see that the story is fiction and the notion that there was nobody else on earth a ridiculous fantasy.
Cain is telling Yahweh that there were many people that quickly would know that he murdered his bother.
15 And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.
241
Now this awful “Lord” is going to find a solution for this crime and Cain’s fear of being slaughtered by somebody else.
Of course those who could kill him had to be his brothers, since there is no reference to anybody else living on earth at that time.
How’s that for proof that the Bible is a compendium of lies and blunders?!
And yet, preachers and popes come along their victims and pretend and insinuate that the Bible is scientifical y accurate!
Bunch of liars and thieves, the whole gamut, those bastards!
You give them your money and they lie to you, that’s how immoral and dishonest they are.
Here then comes unjust Yahweh with a threat and curse, the typical situation when he resolves some serious problem.
He tell Cain – not any assembly round him – that whosoever slays Cain, he the Lord will take revenge sevenfold!
This God is a fratricide, a murderer, a cruel bastard, incapable of seeing his own evil nature.
Why protect a criminal like that?
Why not eliminate Cain as well?
Cain was good for nothing, nobody needed him for anything.
Bad God, bad solution.
And here is the worst part of the whole sage, a MARK Yahweh Jehovah the Lord put on Cain!
What mark?!
This is a serious matter, because the mark was one that everybody would immediately recognize, not an inconspicuous mark only for the trained eye or the initiated in the mystery of marks.
What was it?
Some students say that it was Cain’s colour of skin!
Ah, how can that be?
242
Wel , Cain was the child of the Serpent, later in the Bible classified as the Devil, Satan, Archangel Lucifer, Yahweh’s half-brother, cousin or even a superior entity.
Now, in the Bible, the colour black does not represent any virtue.
Satan is represented by DARKNESS, you see.
Cain was given that dark sign, so that everybody that would find him would instantly know this was child of the Devil and would want to kill him immediately.
He was a murderer like his father the Devil, Jesus once told the Pharisees “Your father is the Devil”, the father of darkness, Cain, Hel , and religious hatred, all characteristics Jesus pointed out in that fanatical cult in Israel.
Religion is a poisonous tree of toxic fruit exactly because the Devil is the Father of Religion, which started with Cain.
So, here is Yahweh in this scene playing the protector of cults, of demons, of crime, and elevating a murderer to the status of a saint nobody should kil .
Seven times worse would happen to anybody attempting to eliminate Cain.
Two cosmic entities were protecting a murderer: this “The Lord” and the Devil. That is what the Bible proposes and presents as the truth of Genesis.
16 And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.
And Cain left the crime scene protected by the Lord.
He was happy.
Had killed his adversary, his brother, and was free from competition of matters of an offering to the Lord. Now he is also protected by the Lord with a mark visible to everybody.
Anywhere he went, he had to tell the sam story over and over again: 243
“The Lord gave me this MARK to protect me, and if any harm is done against me, the Lord will avenge me with a punishment seven times more violent!”
And everybody would fear Cain and Yahweh, the two criminal playing godly.
He left and dwelt in a land not too far away from the Garden of Eden, by now abandoned and full of wild plants and poisonous grass, where wild animals, snakes, and danger lurked everywhere, and nobody would even attempt to cross the Euphrates to see.
Nod was the Babylon region, where civilizations started millennia back in time.
Cain went there with his wives, and later in the story he is the king of a civilization established on war and more murder, like it happened to his brother Abel.
Throughout history, civilization came and went, all established on violence, war, and much crime – to this very day.
In a realistic sense we live in Cain’s land, and we are all children of this murderer and evil character.
Nothing has improved moral y across the eras that started many eons ago east of the Garden of Eden.
Same criminal spirit, same life of violence, same evil gods of religion going on forever on this cursed planet.
All started with Yahweh Jehovah the Lord, the culprit of all this evil on Earth.
17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and cal ed the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.
Where Cain would get his wife is not explained.
This has been a bone of contention for generations, when the student wants to know where was this wife from, if not his own sister, children 244
of Adam?
The mystery is easily resolved: the Bible is a compendium of lies for the inattentive student.
Of course humans existed on earth much earlier that the time this
“Creation” story starts.
Before Adam, there were the hominids, then the anthropoids, and later the Homo Erectus.
From this Erectus beast evolved the Homo Sapiens and later the double Sapiens, the intelligent being we are from.
No Adam was necessary for anything, neither Cain ever existed.
Moses was a bloody big liar from his young age, and he invented all this fanfare he called Creation.
He was the evil producer of this coarse story called Genesis.
The next nine verse are pure fabrication with nothing historical y proven, pure fiction, established on old legends, myths, fables and tales.
You believe the Bible at your own peril, and by doing so you block your brain from developing into an intelligent tool very much necessary to escape religion and its poison.
Good night to al .
The End
245
Reads:
9
Pages:
173
Published:
Dec 2024
Drawing on the Old Testament prophets, Jesus, and the apostles, this book addresses the topics sparking debate, misunderstanding, and even heresy. Through a f...
Formats: PDF, Epub, Kindle, TXT
Reads:
2
Pages:
26
Published:
Dec 2024
devotional prayer book for building up your christian faith
Formats: PDF, Epub, Kindle, TXT
Reads:
9
Pages:
150
Published:
Nov 2024
Since the beginning of time GOD (YHVH ) is in the process of creating for HIMSELF an own people, a holy nation born from above (Rev 1:6; 1Pet 2:9-10) in HIS i...
Formats: PDF, Epub, Kindle, TXT
Reads:
22
Pages:
59
Published:
Nov 2024
Throughout the history of man humans have existed and functioned under the delusion that they can and in fact must develop systems for solving the problems, p...
Formats: PDF, Epub, Kindle, TXT