Part Four: The Truth Revealed - What Jesus Really Taught

Does the church teach Jesus message accurately? If not, how can we find what Jesus originally taught? Tough questions, to which careful research provides revealing answers.

Many know of terrible excesses committed by the Church using quasi military forces to carry out numerous purges over many centuries. Estimates of those professing to be Christian, tortured to death, burned at the stake or literally torn to pieces range from 30,000 to 300,000 under the Spanish Inquisition alone. Empowered by adoption as the state religion of the Roman Empire, religious dogma was enshrined in law - so disputing dogma attracted legal penalty. The law gave the Church full control over individual lives, dissent threatened this and triggered decisive action. Strenuous efforts were made to stamp out views deemed heretical - anyone believing such ideas and any texts containing such ideas were ruthlessly destroyed.

The destruction of early Christian texts was indiscriminate - the earliest New Testament we have, the Codex Vaticanus dates from c325, some fragments of individual books have survived dating back as far as 150. The oldest surviving manuscripts have sections with controversial verses removed to obliterate original beliefs. We do know that there was a thriving range of commentary and dozens of gospels used by the early churches - but, we only have their titles and some phrases quoted in the writings of early church fathers. Why were heretical ideas stamped out with such fanatical zeal - what inconvenient truths were being hidden?

The Church continued inventing dogma until some insiders rebelled, triggering the Reformation. The pathway to Truth lies in understanding the heresies and finding which link back to Jesus teaching as shown by the few ancient texts recovered in the past century.

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Glyn was fascinated by ancient history from an early age - how civilization developed, how life on earth developed, how our planet was terraformed and how the universe evolved. During a career working mainly in senior financial roles for large multinationals, the combined impact of dealing with corporate correspondence and keeping abreast of professional material precluded any opportunity to read for pleasure. Upon retirement in 2013, Glyn was able to immerse himself in the disciplines that beckoned - astronomy, archaeology and ancient history. To his astonishment and delight, our knowledge of these subjects has been utterly transformed over the period of his working life.Glyn has an unusual outlook on life, from a childhood awareness of immortality his quest has been to understand. Brought up as a Christian, he found the biblical record challenging to believe. Glyn has frequent dialogue with many religious friends but none are able to provide credible explanations for his many questions. More fundamental Christians seem to view 'science' as an adversary, unaware that religion originated as science and politics - early priests were astronomers and civil servants. Protestants widely proclaim their belief in the bible as being God's Word without knowing or questioning why for most of the Christian era, the church prohibited laity from reading it. Study of the bible reveals numerous factual errors and inconsistencies. Surely, if one adopts the bible as the foundation of one's belief in eternity and personal salvation - it needs to be a lot more reliable. Furthermore, theologians and biblical academics are fully aware of many changes to the texts made to reinforce dubious aspects of dogma - yet no priest or pastor would ever share their knowledge with their congregation. So, Glyn set about finding the Truth, what was Jesus original teaching? Glyn found his journey of discovery incredibly uplifting. Reassuringly, despite the selective screening of books included in the New Testament and the extensive editing of those which were admitted - echos of the original truth may be found in many places. This quest led not only to the discovery of Jesus original teaching but the need for substantial revision to the conventional view of ancient history and our earliest civilizations. A hugely rewarding result that the author wishes to share with others - hence this series of little books.This the author was moved to write and share his findings. As was said "Seek and ye shall find."