That the Biblical character Joshua and the Egyptian Pharaoh, Tutankhamun, are both referred to as the Son of Nun, is the first of many pieces of theology-shaking evidence drawn from the pages of Egyptian and Jewish history, the Talmud and The Bible which collectively point towards Jesus and Tutankhamun being one and the same person. But they lived 1,600 years apart; how could that possibly be? This study examines the evidence in these ancient texts of the link between two of the most famous people in history.
In his book, "Out of Egypt - The Roots of Christianity Revealed", British Egyptologist, lecturer, researcher and author, Ahmed Osman, a born in Cairo made a bombshell claim that Tutankhamun was, in fact, Jesus Christ. Seeing him as the innocent young man who actually held the key to peace, but who died at the hands of those he trusted at a tender age, Osman is convinced he was the original Jesus and puts up a very strong argument. He sees Jesus also as the Teacher of Righteousness of the Essenes’ Dead Sea Scrolls, who was also killed, and is usually identified as Jeshu ben Pandira. Ben means “son of”, and Pandira is not a Hebrew word, but an ancient Egyptian royal title, as Pa-ntr-ra, or Pa-neter-ra, Son of Ra, one of the titles of Akhenaten, his father. So Jesus, Jeshu ben Pandira and Tutankhamun are idetified by Osman as being one and the same.
The names Joshua (Ye-ho-shua in Hebrew) and Jesus (Ye-shua in its short form), have the same meaning which is: "Yahweh (the Lord) is salvation." In the Greek translation of the Old Testament made in Alexandria during the 3rd century BC., which is the oldest version of the Old Testament in existence, the text did not indicate Joshua as being the Son of Nun, as our Bibles do; it said Jesus was the son of Nun.
Jesus is also the name given to Joshua the son of Nun in the works of Philo of Alexandria and Flavius Josephus, both Jewish authors of the 1st century AD. Thus, when the Christian Gospels, which were also written in Greek, spoke of Jesus, the reader would most likely have believed it was referring to the Israelite leader who succeeded Moses, since no qualifying text pointing to another more recent Jesus was given. This confusion only appeared from the 16th century onwards, when the Bible was translated into English. Only then was the name 'Joshua' used exclusively for the character in the Old Testament, while 'Jesus' was used exclusively for his New Testament appearance.
Osman states, "Up to the 16th century, when the Old Testament books were translated from the Mesoretic Hebrew text into modern European languages, Jesus was the name of the prophet who succeeded Moses as leader of the Israelites in Egypt. Since the 16th century we started to have two names, Jesus and Joshua, which confused people into the belief that they were two different characters."
Something not commonly known today is that the early Fathers of the Church also accepted that Jesus had appeared, not once, but twice: first in the person of Joshua the son of Nun, who succeeded Moses as the leader of the Israelites in the 14th century BC, and again when, in his second coming and in power and glory, he appeared to the disciples in the 1st century AD.
"Jesus", the Greek form of "Joshua", appeared for the first time in the Greek translation of the Old Testament made in Alexandria during the 3rd century BC. When the Gospels were written, also in Greek, it was understood that Jesus Christ was the same person as the Israelite leader who succeeded Moses.
It is known that many early Christian groups apparently believed Jesus had lived much earlier, and were awaiting his return; the Essenes, and the Apostle Paul for instance. Nothing Paul says about Jesus relates to the Jesus found in the four New Testament Gospels. Paul never quotes him, the principles taught by Jesus are absent from Paul's gospel; Paul expected his second coming to take place during his own lifetime (1 Thess. 4:17), however the gospels, written long after Paul had died, indicated that Jesus had already lived, died and risen again in the form of Jesus of Nazareth at least three years before Paul came onto the scene with his gospel.
As the Children of Israel spent many years in Egypt between the 7 year famine in which Joseph came to their rescue and the time of their departure under Moses, one would expect that the names of the Pharaohs of that era would be named in Bible, and that the Israelite leaders would appear in the history of Egypt. Their names don't but their stories and explots do. Just as the Egyptian Pharaohs were never given names by Old Testament scribes, so the Egyptian records ascribe Egyptian names to the Israelites who entered their society, culture and religion.
The Old Testament tells of Joseph becoming Pharaoh's right-hand man. He was known in Egypt as Yuya, the Vizier who served Ththmosis IV (c.1413-1405 BC) and his son Ahmenhotep III (c.1405-1367 BC). Yuya (Joseph) married Tuya, and they had a son Aye and a daughter Tiye. Ahmenhotep III married Tiye, their son first became Ahmenhotep IV and then Akhenaten.
The stories of Akhenaten and Moses are so similar it is hard to believe they were not one and the same person, given that they lived at the same time, in the same place and played similar roles in the political affairs of their day. Akhenaten was banished from Egypt on account of his worship of the one true God, Aten, in defiance of the priests of Anun. Accompanied by the priests of Aten, who were named Levites, and those who worshipped Aten, He fled to Sinai, taking with him the royal sceptre in the form of a brass serpent, symbol of Pharaonic authority.
Moses played a similar role, and in his challenge to Pharaoh, the power and athority of the one true God, Yahweh, was at the centre of the confrontation. Moses left Egypt accompanied by the priests of Yahweh, who were of the tribe of Levi, along with those who worshipped Yahweh. He, too, had a brass serpent, a symbol of Yahweh's authority. It was at Mount Sinai that he later received the Ten Commandments - which bear a close resemblance to the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
Back in Egypt, Akhenaten's son Tutankhaten succeeded him as the Pharaoh Tutankhamun, just as Joshua succeeded Moses as the leader of the Israelites in the Biblical record. After he ascended to the throne, Tutankhamun named himself the 'Son of Nun', Nun being the most ancient God of the Egyptians who, in a parallel to the Genesis 1 story, is said to have been the creator of all life. That name is written in hieroglyphics in his tomb. Thus, by naming himself the 'Son of Nun', Tutankhaten is in fact declaring himself to be the 'son of God'.
There is no record of what happened to Akhenaten. Some scholars believe he may have returned to Eygyt in order to regain his throne, and if he did it appears he was unsuccessful, as all record of his later years appear to have been wiped from recorded history. Much the same can be said of Moses - he never achieved his goal of leading his people into the Promised Land. There is no record of his funeral, no mourning his death by the Children of Israel - just a brief footnote in the book of Genesis - "... Moses died, and God buried Him." Just as Akhenaten was instantly forgotten when Tutankhamun took his place, so Moses was forgotten when Joshua/Jesus took his place.
The early Church Father Origen, the outstanding theologian of the third century AD, commented on Exodus 17:9 where Joshua is first mentioned with Moses: 'Up to this point nowhere has there occurred mention of the blessed man Jesus. Here first the brilliance of this name shone forth.' That the English word "Christ" comes from the Greek "Kristos" is well known; that the letters KRST appear on numerous Egyptian mummy coffins that have been discovered in the last 100 years, including Pharaoh Tutankhamun's, is not.
It is from this word that the Greek "Kristos" had its origins. In Greek, when the vowels are filled in, it reads Karast or Krist, signifying Christ, meaning "the anointed" in both languages. It is the equivalent of the Hebrew and Aramaic Mesheh (Messiah). In ancient Aramaic texts, it is used only to describe Jesus or Egyptian Pharaohs. This word Mesheh is derived from the Egyptian MeSHeH which, as a verb, describes the annointing process. This gives us cause to investigate the spiritual concept of the Messiah from an Egyptian viewpoint. The Coronation ceremony of a Pharaoh included, among other things, anointing him with the fat of the crocodile, "Messeh" being the word for crocodile in ancient Egyptian.
The image of two crocodiles formed the title of the king that were given to him at the time of his Coronation. The Biblical word Messiah originates from this ancient Egyptian ritual of anointing the Pharaoh. This process prepared him for both his earthly and eternal destiny. Important for our study is the fact that the 18th Dynasty in Egypt gave the world just four Amarna Kings or Hebrew Pharaohs who were "anointed" Messiah Pharaohs - Akhenaten (the Biblical Moses); Semenkhkare; Tutankhamun (the Biblical Joshua-Jesus) and Aye, who was responsible for killing Pinhas, the man who appears to have either murdered Tutankamun, or had a major role to play in his death.
There are several passages in the Talmud which are believed by some scholars to be references to a Jesus ben Pandira. The name used in the Talmud is "Yeshu", the Aramaic vocalisation (although not spelling) of the Hebrew name Yeshua. Some scholars believe that the Jesus of the New Testament might be based in part on Jesus ben Pandira, as their are distinct similarities in their stories.
Jesus ben Pandira was the son of a woman called Stada (alias Miriam/Mary) and of Panthera, a Roman soldier. He lived from the year 120 to 70 BC, and was a pupil of Rabbi Jehoshua-ben-Perahiah, his grand uncle, with whom, during the persecution of the Jews by the Maccabean king, Alexander Jannæus (King of the Jews in 106 B.C.), he fled to Alexandria, where he was initiated into the Egyptian mysteries or magic. Upon his return to Palestine, he was charged with blasphemy, heresy and sorcery by the religious leaders of his day, who potrayed him to Jannæus as a political threat. He was tried, sentenced to death, and hung on the tree of infamy (forerunner of the Roman cross) outside the city of Lüd or Lydda on the eve of a Passover. Ben Pandira might be the Essene “Teacher of Righteousness”; the Essene suffering, benevolent teacher.
Of interest in this study is that the word Pandira is a Hebrew form of an ancient Egyptian royal term, 'Pa-ntr-ra (pronounced Pa-neter-ra). All Egyptian kings and Pharaohs since 3000 B.C.E. had the title "Pa-neter-ra" which means the "Son of Ra" or "Son of God". This is the same term applied to Jesus. The term "Ben Pandira" by which this Jesus is referred to in the Talmud, written after 200 C.E., means that this person is both the "Son or Ra" ("Son of God") and an Egyptian Pharaoh. Is it a coincidence that the title "son of Ra" was found engraved on Tutankhamun's stele which was found in the Karnak Temple in 1905?
If the Biblical Joshua/Jesus were Tutankhamun, then we should expect to find similarities between Tutankhamun's wife and the Mary Magdalene of the New Testament who is portrayed as having a close relationship with the New Testament Jesus. There are in fact numerous similarities between Ankhsenpa-aten, Tutankhamun's queen, and Mary Magdalene. First of all, the name "Mary" meant "beloved" in ancient Egypt. It was not a person's name in Egypt, but used as a term of endearment of a man towards his wife. The name appears in Tutankhamun's tomb.
Alabaster ointment jars, just like the ones described that Mary used to anoint the New Testament Jesus were found in the Tutankhamun tomb. His wife is shown anointing him with perfume, on the back of his throne, exactly as the Biblical Gospels described Mary Magdalene anointing Jesus. In Tutankhamun's tomb couple are shown together in several scenes, always in a relaxed, romantic pose. In looking at these scenes one cannot help but sense her love for Tutankhamun as being similar to Mary Magdalene's love for Jesus.
As Tutankhamun's wife and queen, Ankhsenpa-aten was the only person who could attend his funerary rites and witness the priests proclaim his 'resurrection' to the next life. The announcement of the resurrection of the New Testament Jesus was likewise heralded by a Mary, the "beloved" in the New Testament, who is the first to see the Risen Christ. She waited at his temporary burial place, after his death; she was the first one to whom Jesus spoke after his resurrection.
The term "Magdalene" has been explained as belonging to or from the city of Magdala, perhaps an unidentified location thought to be on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, since no place of that name has been found. The Hebrew word migdol means "a tower". There was a city named Migdol in Egypt located on Horus Road, leading from Egypt to Gaza. Ezekiel 29:10 mentions it: "... the tower (migdol) of Syene (in the Eastern Delta) even unto the border of Ethiopia". Egyptian records indicate Ankhsenpa-aten was raised there. She arrived at Akhetaten at the Royal Court of Akhenaten and Nefertiti as a gift from her father to Akhenaten at the age of eight.
A book by Richard Cassaro entitled The Deeper Truth, declares that the "historical Jesus story" in the New Testament finds its origin with the Osiris-Horus myths of Egypt personified in the lives of the Pharaohs; in particular the Pharaoh Tutankhamun. According to this myth, The pharaohs of Egypt traced their lineage to the god Horus. Horus was the son of Osiris and Isis, two of the nine primeval gods of the Egyptian Ennead.
Egyptian Pharaohs were believed to have been deity, being conceived spiritually by the reigning Pharaoh, who was a God, like his father. This method of reproduction was described as being a virgin birth as no human male was believed to be involved in the pregnancy. Each Pharaoh was claimed to be the next generation in the Osiris-Horus line, which, of course, included Tutankhamun. Being of the Osiris-Horus line, they were looked upon and refered to as sons of God.
Osiris was not only the redeemer and merciful judge of the dead in the afterlife, but also the underworld agency that granted all life, including sprouting vegetation and the fertile flooding of the Nile River. The Kings of Egypt were associated with Osiris in death - as Osiris rose from the dead on the third day after the winter solstice (December 25), so they would, in union with him, inherit eternal life. Horus was said to have been conceived by the sexless goddess, Isis-Meri, by resurrecting her dead husband Osiris. Horus was born in a cave, his birth being heralded by the Morning Star, Sirius.
Ancient Egyptians paraded a manger and child representing Horus through the streets at the time of the winter solstice (typically December 22), his stated date of birth. Angels announced his birth; three solar deities visited him and brought gifts after seeing the star Sirius. The God Herut tried to have the child Horus murdered, but a God warned his mother: "Come, thou goddess Isis, hide thyself with thy child." Similarly, in the New Testament narrative, King Herod sought to have the child Jesus murdered, so he and his mother were warned to God into hiding – they went to Egypt.
Horus was brought up by Isis and his earthly father, Seb. At the age of 12, Horus came of age with a special ritual. At a similar age, Jesus ‘came of age’ when he was found in deep theological discussions with the temple priests at Jerusalem.
At the age of 30, Horus was baptised in the River Eridanus by Anup the Baptiser. At the age of 30, Jesus was baptized in the River Jordan by John the Baptist. Anup was subsequently beheaded. John was subsequently beheaded. Horus was then taken from the desert of Amenta up a high mountain by his arch-rival Sut but triumphed over his temptations. He then "stilled the sea by his power", raised Osirus, his dead father, from the grave among many deeds before being crucified between two thieves. After death, he descended into Hell before being resurrected after three days. He then left earth to join the other Gods. These events are all paralleled in the life of Jesus according to the gospel records.
Tutankhamun's life and death was seen by the people of Egypt as fulfillment of the myth of Horus. Tutankhamun's short reign was devoted to bringing physical and spritual peace and harmony to Egypt by the promotion of tolerance one towards the other, he was perceived as having died so young and before him time as a direct result of him defending that cause. His life was seen as a fulfillment of the Horus myth, as the writings of the Essenes and the oral traditions of the Children of Israel that found their way into the Talmud attest. In the same way and for the same reasons, the Christian church sees Jesus as the fulfillment of the promised messiah of the Old Testament.
Whether the myth of Horus originated as a prophecy to identify his "anointed one", or whether it was coincidence that Tutankhamun's life and death mirrored that of Horus is not known. But one thing we can say with complete assurance: the stories of Horus, Tutankhamun and Jesus are remarkably similar.
It is extremely likely that the Messiah, of which the Old Testament prophets spoke, was the same Messiah the Egyptians spoke of, since the two peoples lived side by side in Egypt, at the same time in history and used the same Egyptian word ‘messiah’ to describe their "anointed one". The Messiah the Egyptians referred to was Pharaoh Tutankhamun. If the Messiah of the Bible and the Messiah of Egypt are one and the same, then Tutankhamun should fit all descriptions of the messiah in the Bible. So now let us look at a few scriptures about the Messiah, God's anointed one, and see if it does.
Jesus: Matthew 1:1, "Jesus Christ, the son of (King) David".
Tutankhamun was the grandson of Pharaoh Tuthmoses III, whose life story mirrors that of the Biblical King David. Egyptian genealogies indicate that Tuthmoses III had only five male heirs who ascended the throne before his dynasty ceased; they were Amenhotep III (Solomon), Akhenaten (Moses), Tutankhamun (Joshua/Jesus), Semenkhkare (Akhenaton's brother and succeeding Pharaoh) who died shortly before the coronation of Tutankhamun, and Aye (Joseph of Aramathea?), the son of Yuya (Joseph) and Akhenaten's maternal uncle. The original Greek text of Matthew 1:1 does not use the word "son" that translates as "of the lineage of" that is found elsewhere in the New Testament; the word he uses refers either to immediate family, or in the case of a king, his Dynasty. Tutankhamun was Tuthmoses III's great grandson and the last in King Tuthmoses III's dynasty (Egypt's 18th Dynasty).
Samuel 7:13-14 affirms the same point: "I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son". The Talmudic Rabbis relate: "Jesus the Nazarene who practiced magic in Egypt" (b.Sanh.,107b). The Talmudic Rabbis also relate: "... It seems that the king is crucified" (T.Sanh. 9:7); "Jesus was hanged" (b. Sanh., 106b); "They hanged him on the eve of the Passover" (b. Sanh., 43a). These were written centuries before the 1st Century Jesus was born.
The writer of the Gospel of Luke relates to the reader that this Jesus he was writing about was a king. Luke 1:32-33 32: "He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: 33 And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end." (KJV). If our identification of Tutankhamun as the original "historical Joshua/Jesus" and prototype for the later "historical Joshua/Jesus" of the New Testament is correct, then should we not expect that the writers of the New Testament would depict the New Testament Jesus as a king as well? We should and that is exactly what we find.
A stela of Tutankhamun at Karnak includes the official work order: "Now His Majesty appeared as king at a time when the temples of the neteru from Elephantine as far as the Delta marshes had fallen into ruin, and their shrines become neglected. They had turned into mounds overgrown [with] weeds, and it seemed that their sanctuaries had never existed." Tutankhamun was horrified at what the temples had become and ordered that they be cleaned up. This reminds us of the complaint that Jesus is said to have made about the conditions of the temple at Jerusalem (John 2:14-16 14): "And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables; And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise." (KJV).
Revelation 11:8: "And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified." This verse seems to be saying that Jesus was crucified in Egypt. To verify this, I have re-checked the original text for any translation errors and this is a more accurate translation - "And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which is symbolised spiritually by Sodom, and also Egypt, the place where our Lord was crucified."
As the book of Revelation was written in symbols, could Sodom and Egypt just be symbols? No. The writer states that Sodom and Egypt are spiritual symbols of the place where the two witnesses died, that is, the realities of Sodom and Egypt are symbolic representations of the state of this place. This does not alter the fact that the writer says that Jesus died in Egypt.
Revelation 3: 14: "And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things said the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God". This is a direct reference to the collective gods of Egypt who went under the name, "the Amen". Not only are they not mentioned anywhere else in the Bible, Jewish and Christian theology both teach we should serve the one true God, not a multiplicity of Gods. Why, then, would one of the letters to the seven churches quote a message to that church spoken by foreign gods?
This is definitely a reference to the very same gods of Egypt that the Old testament denounces (Joshua 24:14; Exodus 12:12; Jeremiah 43:12-13) - those gods were always referred to in Egyptian religious texts as "the faithful and true witnesses" to mankind's journey through life. Each living Pharaoh was believed to be a god living in human form on earth, their line having been created by the Amen in the beginning of time, as this verse attests.
Isaiah 19:25: "In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the middle of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord. 20. And it shall be for a sign and for a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt: for they shall cry to the Lord because of the oppressors, and he shall send them a saviour, and a great one, and he shall deliver them. 21 And the Lord shall be known to Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know the Lord in that day, and shall do sacrifice and oblation; yes, they shall vow a vow to the Lord, and perform it. 22. And the Lord shall smite Egypt: he shall smite and heal it: and they shall return even to the Lord, and he shall be entreated of them, and shall heal them."
Isaiah 7: 14: "Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, "God with us." Matthew 1:23 repeats this, however there is no record of the 1st century Jesus ever having been referred to by the name Emmanuel. But the word 'Amunuel' does appear on Tutankhamun's tomb. It means 'Amun My God': U = my; El = God in Egyptian. It is very close to the Herbrew word, Emanuel, meaning 'God with Us'. The name "Tutankhamun" is derived from the hieroglyphs which translate as Tut-ankh-amun meaning the "Living Image of Amun (God).
Isaiah 7: 16: "For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that you abhor shall be forsaken of both her kings." This is a continuation of the previous prophecy that "a virgin shall be with child ..." This bears no relevance to the New Testament Jesus, however it does describe Tutankhamun. Before he reached adulthood (the time a child was deemed as responsible for their own actions in ancient Egypt), the land of Egypt had turned on both her kings - Akhenaten (the Biblical Moses) and Tutankhamun (the Biblical Joshua-Jesus) and stripped them of their positions as Pharaohs. God would have abhored Egypt for their worship of a multiplicity of false Gods.
The thirty chapters of the Teaching of Amenemope (Amenhotep III) contain many wisdom texts that were later to appear in the Old Testament's Book of Proverbs. Numerous verbal parallels occur between this Egyptian text and the books of Psalms and Proverbs, such as the opening lines of the first chapter: "Give your ears, listen to the words which are spoken, give your mind to interpreting them. It is profitable to put them in your heart."
The word Khnum, in Egyptian, means molder. Khnum is usually shown as a ram-headed deity working at his potter's wheel, fashioning men and all living creatures out of clay. A passage from an Egyptian creation legend by Khnum follows: "The mud of the Nile, heated to excess by the Sun, fermented and generated, without seeds, the races of men and animals." Passages of the Bible leave no doubt about the belief in the concept of the Divine Potter. Genesis, 2:7 mentions the same type of substance and describes the same process used by Khnum to make man: "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." The well-known Ancient Egyptian illustration showing Khnum, the Divine Potter, at his potter's wheel, fashioning men from clay, was echoed thousands of years later in Isaiah, 64:8: "Yet, O Lord, thou art our Father; we are the clay, and thou art our potter; we are all the work of thy hand."
John's Gospel begins, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The Egyptian 'Book of the Coming Forth by Day' (commonly known as the Book of the Dead), the oldest written text in the world, contains a strikingly parallel passage, "I am the Eternal, I am Ra ... I am that which created the Word ... I am the Word ..."
In the three religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, whenever the faithful pray, regardless of language, they always end their prayer by saying Amen. It is claimed that Amen means 'let it be' or 'so be it', but their is no historical reference or documentation that supports this. Amen has no linguistic translation, because it is a name and not a word. - Amen (spelt variously as Amum, Amon, Ammon) is the name of the ancient Egyptian god of the sun and air. His name means "the hidden one," "invisible," "mysterious of form," and unlike most other Egyptian gods, he was considered Lord of All who encompassed every aspect of creation. His name forms the last part of the name Tutankhamun.
The Children of Israel learned about Amen during their sojourn in Egypt, which might explain why they – and Christians – close their prayers with the name of an ancient Egyptian god. As a child, I was tought to finished my prayers by saying, "in Jesus' name, amen". Was I in fact saying, "in Jesus' name, Tutankhamun"?
In the tomb of Tutankhamun there is a unique scene, not found in any other Egyptian burial, representing what appears to be the Trinity of Christ. The profound significance of the wall painting was realised in November 1997 by Ahmed Osman. He was privileged to have a private visit to the tomb. He recalls, "As I stood alone, gazing at the painting of the burial chamber on the north wall, I realized for the first time that I was looking at the strongest pictorial evidence linking Tutankhamun and Christ. The painting is divided into three separate scenes. The first scene on the right shows Aye, already crowned as the king's successor, but nevertheless officiating as a priest dressed in the leopard skin, performing the ritual of "the opening of the mouth" for resuscitation of the dead Tutankhamun, who is shown as a risen Osiris. The middle scene shows Tutankhamun entering the heavenly realm of the gods and being welcomed there by the sky goddess Nut.
"It was the ultimate scene on the left of the north wall, however, that aroused my wonder. Here I saw three different representations of Tutankhamun linked as one person. On the left of the scene stood Tutankhamun as the risen Osiris, with a second Tutankhamun facing him as the ruling king, Horus. Behind him is a third Tutankhamun depicted as his Ka (Holy Spirit). The most remarkable feature of this scene is the fact that the risen Osiris, although shown in the conventional mummified form with his hands folded across his chest, is reaching out to touch Horus, as is his kA. Thus we have Tutankhamun as father, son and spirit - the same relationship that we find in the Christian Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - finally established as orthodox belief after much acrimonious debate during the first four centuries of the Christian era."
Some scholars in ancient history have surmised that Jesus/Joshua/Tutankhamun may have been tortured and hanged by the wicked priest Panhesy or Phineas at the foot of Mount Sinai on the eve of the Passover, probably in 1352 BC. Egyptian records show his body would have been claimed by Aye, who led Pharoah's army, and buried by Aye.
The memory of such an event, together with the tradition of Jesus the Teacher and the expectation of his Second Coming, was preserved by three Israelite sects: the ascetic, contemplative Theraputae (identified as the first Christians by Eusebius); the Essenes, who were Judaeo-Christians (i.e. followers of Jesus, the Teacher of Righteousness) and whose Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947; and the Gnostics, who were Gentile Christians and whose library at Nag Hammadi was discovered in 1945. These Messianic sects survived for many centuries until the start of the Christian era.
According to the New Testament, Jesus (who is never referred to as Joshua in English translations) is supposed to have lived, suffered and died in the 1st century AD. Scholarly research, both biblical and historical, coupled with the accumulation of archaeological evidence, can find no reliable indication of Joshua/Jesus during this period who fits the full life, death and resurrection story of the Gospels. It was a time of fervent spiritual expectations, particularly on the part of the Essenes and the Gnostics. The cornerstone of their belief was put forward by the Israelite prophet Isaiah writing in the 6th century BC. He wrote in the past tense that a divinely appointed 'Saviour' (the 'Suffering Servant') had lived and was sacrificed in the cause of mankind's spiritual salvation and the securing of life after death. Isaiah, a prophet and historian of The Essenes, wrote of a Messiah who had already come, and was in fact was describing in the past tense, events that took place some 600 years earlier, followed by future events.
What remains of the Essenes' library - The Dead Sea Scrolls - date from 200BC. They speak of the coming of the Messiah in the past tense, and make it abundantly clear that they were followers of Jesus. How could they be followers of someone who was not yet born, or be awaiting the return of someone who hadn't even come the first time? The name 'Essenes' derives from 'Essa', the Arabic name for Jesus which is used in the Koran. When the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, among them was an unusually rare copper scroll that details the palace, the temple and treasures of Pharaoh Akhenaten (Moses). It even bore Akhenaten's name. Such an important, confidential Egyptian document would not have fallen into their hands accidentally. It was either stolen or it came into their possession via Akhenaten himself. Whilst the copper scroll has no direct bearing on our quest, it is further evidence as to where the Essenes were looking for the second coming of the Messiah - and it wasn't to Jerusalem or Bethlehem.
The Gnostics held many beliefs in common with the Essenes. Their library, found at Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt in 1945, contains previously unknown gospels, including the Gospel of Thomas which predates all the books of the New Testament and includes more than 100 sayings attributed to Jesus. Many of these Gnostic texts are specifically Christian: the Gnostics were seekers after self-knowledge which they interpreted as knowledge of God, for they regarded the self as being part of the divine nature, and salvation, the release of man's spirit from the imprisonment of the body They took Joshua to be, as the Old Testament has it, the Joshua/Jesus. Gnostic sects were common at the time of the apostle Paul (he refers to their beliefs in his letters) and had spread far and wide from Egypt by the end of the 1st century BC, including to Rome.
We have the evidence of a pre-1st century AD Jesus in Isaiah, who is much quoted in the Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The book of Joshua (thought by some to be largely to be a work of fiction) calls Joshua/Jesus 'the son of Nun', and indicates him as a contemporary of and successor to Moses. The word 'Nun' means 'fish', one of the earliest symbols of Christianity. Paul vividly acknowledges the historical (Old Testament) Jesus, and the rabbinical Talmud does the same.
The argument for an earlier Joshua/Jesus is reinforced by the fact that the events recounted and the dates implied in the four gospels are mutually contradictory: the only point at which they agree is that Jesus lived and died some time between 27 BC and AD 37 - a timespan of 64 years. The three Roman historians of the time, Philo Judaeus (himself a considerable student of the Old Testament) and Justus of Tiberius, while recording clear evidence of John the Baptist's mission and death, make no mention whatsoever of Jesus. A copy of Flavius Josephus does in fact make mention of him, but the reference is to a wise man who spoke prophetically, with no reference to a virgin birth, death by crucifixion and claimed resurrection.
What is abundantly clear from writings earlier than the Gospels is that Jesus was an anointed king of royal descent (the son of David and son of God), that he suffered for his people, and was executed. This accurately describes the short life of Tutankhamun.
The two early churches of Peter and Paul are thought to have emerged from two ancient sects; the Essenes of Qumran and the Gnostics of Egypt.
Two major archaeological discoveries have been made following the end of World War II, which have completely changed our understanding of these two churches and their beliefs:
In 1945 the Coptic library of Nag Hammadi was found in Upper Egypt, which included Christian gospels not known before. The most important of these is the Gospel of Thomas, including sayings of Jesus, which could be dated earlier than the four Gospels of the New Testament. This Library belonged to a Gnostic Christian sect, which is the same as the early Egyptian Gentile Church. Although most of the 53 texts of Nag Hammdi are Christian writings, none of them mentions Jesus as belonging to the city of Nazareth, born in Bethlehem, entering Jerusalem, or crucified on the orders of Pontius Pilate.
Though not stated, they speak in a manner that infers he was from an earlier time. If the dating of some of thse documents is accurate, then this too confirms they were written before the 1st century. In 1947 a Hebrew library was found in Kherbet Qumran, east of the top end of the Dead Sea. It included copies of the Old Testament books as well as sectarian writings. These texts were written between the 2nd century BC. and the mid-1st century AD. This library belonged to the Jewish-Christian sect of the Essenes. These Essenian documents spoke of their Teacher of Righteousness as having already been killed and whose return they were expecting; no mention of Jesus is found in their writings, as being a contemporary character living in the same land of Palestine.
The Essenes do not talk of their Teacher as belonging to Nazareth, born in Bethlehem, entering Jerusalem, or being crucified on the orders of Pontius Pilate. In his New Testament letters, Paul appears to agree with the Essenes and Gnostics in not identifying the Jesus he is writing about as not coming from Nazareth, being born in Bethlehem, entering Jerusalem, or crucified on the orders of Pontius Pilate. Paul writings indicate a belief that Christ appeared, not once, but twice; once in a historical form and the other, in a 'second coming', in a spiritual form.
The early Fathers such as Origen who wrote the history of the Church stated that Jesus had appeared twice: first in the person of Joshua the son of Nun, who succeeded Moses as the leader of the Israelites, in the 14th century BC. This was regarded by them as Christ's pre-existence. Second when the Glory of Christ appeared to his disciples, during the first half of the 1st century AD, commencing at the Day of Pentecost. This they regarded as Christ's historical appearance. The writing of these Church Fathers indicate that they took the first appearance - as Jesus/Joshua as the Israelite leader who succeeded Moses - to be spiritual. A nuimber of scholars today, such as Ahmed Osman who has studied the writing on tomb of Tutankhamun in great detail, argues that the first should be taken as the historical appearance and the second as the spiritual.
To return to the Essenes and the Gnostics: both were secret sects because their Messianic beliefs were at variance with those of the Jews who continued - and still continue - to await the First Coming of their Saviour. John the Baptist 'the man sent from God', was the first Essene to come out into the open. His mission was to bring the baptism of repentance to the Jews as a symbol of forgiveness, and in the light of Essene belief he can only have been preparing the way for the Second Coming. The movement that he started - the baptism of repentance together with the promise of eternal life - became so popular that Herod Antipas had John the Baptist executed lest he should become a rallying point for Jewish dissidence. What the New Testament Says
Church history outside of that recorded in the books of the New Testament indicates that a major rift occurred in the 1st century Christian church which is the strongest evidence we have outside of The Bible that such a person did exist; their disagreement revolved around the very subject of this study - the true identity of Jesus. Evidence of the rift appears between the lines throughout the New Testament - the Epistle of Jude was written by a leader of the Jerusalem church as a warning against the teachings of Paul; 2 Timothy and Titus contain some of Paul's warning against the teachings of "those of the circumcision" [Titus 1:10], which was used by Paul to identify the Jerusalem church; he refers to his own teachings as "my gospel" [2 Tim. 2:8], and theirs as "the gospel of the circumcision" [Gal.2:7-12]
The Jerusalem church, whose numbers included Jesus' family members such as James the Just, the brother of Jesus, appear to have denied his virgin birth, arguing that he was of their family and therefore they should know whether or not he had a virgin birth or not. By denying his virgin birth, as well as him dying as a sacrifice for the sins of others, (no mention was made of this whe they spoke of his death on the Day of Pentecost, Acts Ch.2), they were identifying the 1st Century Jesus as only a prophet sent by God, albiet a very important one, whose very life and teachings had earned him the right to be seen as the Son of God, just as Abraham's faith 'had been accounted unto him as righteousness'.
They did not believe it necessary to stop following the Jewish law because they saw Jesus, as he himself had said, as fulfilling it rather than replacing it. They argued rightly (as the four Gospels attest) that Jesus never claimed to be the Son of God, or the Messiah, or that he was God's sacrificial lamb. The writers of the Gospel made these claims, but Jesus himself never did. The non-Jerusalem church, known as the Gentile Church, which looked to the apostle Paul as its head, believed that Jesus was the Messiah, having come to establish his kingdom, and was about to return to complete the task by overthrowing the Roman occupation of Jerusalem.
That didn't happen so they changed their story somewhat after the fall of Jerusalem in 67AD, arguing that it was a spiritual kingdom and not an earthly physical kingdom that Christ had established. It was this post-67AD Gentile church that produced the four Gospels, presumably to document their beliefs and show - by referencing Old Testament prophets - that they had got it right and the Jerusalem church was wrong. The Jerusalem church, which had seen Jesus' main reason for returning as being to overthrow the Romans, was left with egg on its face when the Romans attacked and Jesus never came back to intervene on the Jews' behalf, as it had said he would.
The Jerusalem church died out soon after. Ahmed Osman is one of many who have tried to verify the historical accuracy of the story of Jesus as told in the four Gospels, but with little success. Even such a simple thing as identifying the date of his birth has proved impossible. "Only two of the four gospel authors, Matthew and Luke, refer to the birth of Jesus, but their accounts do not agree," he points out. Matthew's account of the conventional Christmas story in Bethlehem places it "in the days of Herod the king", as the King James version puts it. "This means that Jesus was born before 4 BC, the date of Herod's death," Osman stresses.
Luke's version contradicts both Matthew's and Luke's own earlier account of Jesus' birth because it states a census for taxation purposes. "We know from Roman sources that this event could not have taken place before 6AD, the year in which Quirinius, the biblical Cyrenius, was appointed governor of Syria and Judaea became a Roman province." The only Census that took place around the time was in 6AD in consequence to Judea becoming a Roman province in that year."The purpose of the census in 6AD, attested from other non-biblical sources, was to assess the amount of tribute that the new province of Judaea would have to pay. On the basis of known historical fact all we can be certain about concerning the figure presented to us in the gospels as Jesus is that he lived and died between 27AD, when the Roman Senate appointed Octavian as Emperor Augustus, and 37AD, the year of the death of Augustus's successor, Tiberius."
Peter and James the Just were head of a Judaeo-Christian church in Jerusalem. They taught that only circumcised Jews who kept the Mosaic law could benefit from the New Covenant's promise of an afterlife, and that the Christian Church gave Peter the honour of being the rock upon which the church was built. (Many centuries earlier, it was the ancient Egyptians who had enjoined the practice of circumcision upon the Israelites).
At about the same time, Paul, himself a Jew, records he received his call to serve the Lord. His letter to the Galatians makes it clear that he did not go 'up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me [i.e. Peter's Judaeo-Christian church]; but I went into Arabia....' And he later specifies precisely where he went - Mount Sinai, where he spent a period of three years' initiation into the mystery of the Lord. Mount Sinai was the locality of a colony of Gnostics - Paul's writings show he came away from Mount Sinai believing what the Gnostics believed about Joshua/Jesus, which is the essence of what we now read in his letters.
On his return, Paul joined with Barnabas, the head of a flourishing Gentile church at Antioch, and eventually became its head. Thus arose the clash between Paul and the Jerusalem apostles that was at first resolved by compromise: Peter was recognised as the apostle of the Jews, and Paul as the messenger of the Gentiles. The Jerusalem church never referred to Paul as an apostle, perhaps because he claimed to have seen Jesus in a vision. Paul makes it clear that his 'meeting' was not with the physical being of the risen Christ, but the result of a spiritual encounter: 'I conferred not with flesh and blood' (1 Corinthians, 15:8).
In the teaching of Paul we find no reference to Jesus being born in Bethlehem, growing up in Nazareth, being crucified under Pontius Pilate, or being seen physically by any of the Apostles. Though he was supposed to have been alive when Jesus walked the streets of Jerusalem, Paul never once made reference to Jesus's three years of ministry in his writings. Never does he quote the teaching of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament gospels. It was as if the Jesus who Paul had his encounter with on the road to Damascus and the Jesus who Peter, James and John spent three years as his disciples were two totally different people.
Paul’s gospel in fact followed the Gnostic concept of Jesus, the Redeemer: 'Our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this evil world'(Galatians, 1:3-4). Neither the Essenes nor Peter interpreted the resurrection of Jesus as an act of redemption for mankind. An analysis of Paul's writings shows he had a different Gospel from that of Peter and the Jerusalem Church. He was the first to regard Christ as the redeemer and the son of God, and to give a different meaning to baptism - a spiritual baptism upon confession of the resurrected Christ, rather than John's baptism for the remission of sin.
So it was that, to qualify Peter as their head and founder, the late 1st century Church was faced with the task of both rewriting and suppressing history in order to establish its doctrine and the life, suffering and death of Jesus in the 1st century AD. The Gnostic library and the teaching of Paul himself omit many tenets of what was to become orthodox Christian belief - the virgin birth was not seen as a physical birth from a human mother, but as the feminine-inspired spiritual emanation with which God the Father imbued the Saviour; no mention was made of the crucifixion of Jesus at the time of the Roman Empire; the resurrection was understood to be spiritual, physical - and is to be understood spiritually, literally; the Church maintained their own secret sources for the apostolic tradition.
After his third missionary voyage, Paul was threatened with death at the hands of the Jews on account of these doctrinal differences. He appealed to Caesar, and after two years' imprisonment in Rome met his death between AD.64 and 68 – a victim of Nero's persecution of the Christians. Shortly afterwards, in the aftermath of a Jewish revolt in AD.70, the Roman general Pompey sacked and destroyed Jerusalem and its temple, and all Jews including the Essenes were forced to leave the city.
Peter and his Judaeo-Christian branch of the church vanished without trace. In the years that followed the four canonical Gospels appeared. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John accepted that John the Baptist's followers had witnessed the appearance of Jesus, and declared Joshua to be a 'pre-existence' of Jesus. This denial of the Jesus of the Old Testament was essential if they were to place the life, suffering and death of Jesus in the Roman era, including the virgin birth at Bethlehem, his childhood in Nazareth, his crucifixion under Pontius Pilate, and his resurrection and subsequent physical appearance to the Jerusalem apostles. They drew on the Old Testament for the basis of his teaching, probably in combination with those of a wise man and prophet of the early 1st Century on whose life the Jesus of their Gospels was modelled. The Gospels, therefore, appear now to many as being more theological than historical works.
By the end of the first century AD, the centre of Christian activity had shifted to Rome after the destruction of Jerusalem. The teachings of Jesus, be that Joshua/Jesus or the 1st Century Jesus, now held little relevance. Clement, Bishop of Rome (c.AD.90-100) argued that church leaders - bishops, priests and deacons - were delegated by God as 'rulers on earth' and that in order to be saved the laity should submit to them. Other branches of the church increasingly followed Rome's example, and by the end of the 2nd century, a unified church began to emerge.
Like the Essenes, the Gnostics, who throughout their history had never adopted a priestly hierarchy as they believed God never instigated one, refused to submit to the Roman church leaders and condemned as heretics. The earlier Jerusalem compromise that Peter would be apostle to the Jews and Paul apostle to the Gentiles was overthrown. Although the Gentile church, and therefore the church in Rome, had been founded on Paul's teaching, and Paul had derived his belief and inspiration from the Gnostics, the new Roman hierarchy claimed that the line of apostolic succession derived from Peter and the Jerusalem Judaeo-Christian church, as they had adopted their 'version' of Jesus, in that he lived in the 1st century, and not at some previous time as Paul taught.
Realising that Paul confessed never seeing the risen Christ in a physical form, and that the Jerusalem Church could not constitute a challenge since it had disappeared following the destruction of the Temple in AD. 70, they chose Peter as the primary apostle. The Roman bishops argued that Peter received an authority from the physically risen Christ to head the Church. Peter in turn was said to have gone to Rome and handed his authority to its bishops. The Church of Rome needed authority to place itself as the head of all other churches. Paul became diminished and extravagant claims were made to enhance the importance of Peter - Peter was the first person to encounter the resurrected Christ (even though the earliest gospel written said it was actually Mary), Christ had named Peter as his successor. Peter was said to have visited Rome and lived there for 25 years before his martyrdom at the hands of Nero; Babylon, the source of Peter's first epistle, was 'a code name for Rome'.
None of these claims had any substance whatsoever, but by the 3rd century AD, tradition had it that Peter was buried on the Vatican Hill, which thus became the seat of the Popes. This rewriting of history was continued in the Acts of the Apostles, which first surfaced between AD.170 and 180 at the hands of Early Church Father Bishop Irenaeus. The Book of Acts contradicts Paul's autobiographical record - no mention is made of his years in 'Arabia', his conversion linked him with the Jerusalem church as the source of his faith (the road to Damascus); his baptism was at the hands of the Judaeo-Christian Ananaias; he preached Christ in the synagogues (i.e. he preached what he had learned from the Judaeo-Christians), which his epistles clearly indicate he did not, rather, ministering in homes.
Scholars tell us that the city of Nazareth was not even exiting in the first century when Jesus was supposed to have lived.
Among the terms by which the Qumran community of the Essenes referred to themselves was "Keepers of the Covenant", which appears in the original Hebrew as "Nozreiha-Brit". From this term derives the word "Nozrim", one of the earliest Hebrew designations for the sect subsequently known as "Christians". The modern Arabic word for Christians, "Nasrani", derives from the same source. So, too, does the word "Nazorean" or "Nazarene", which, of course, was the name by which the "early Christians" referred to themselves in both the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. Hebrew Jews to this day use the term Nazarene for Christians.
Contrary to the assumptions of later tradition, it has nothing whatever to do with Jesus' alleged upbringing in Nazareth, which, the evidence (or lack of it) suggests, did not even exist at the time. Indeed, it seems to have been the very perplexity of early commentators encountering the unfamiliar term "Nazorean" that led them to conclude Jesus' family came from Nazareth, which by then had appeared on the map. In other words the city was not known to exist when Jesus is said to be a child and lived there! (Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, The Dead Sea Scroll Deception, p. 174).
This whole confusion occurs because the writers of the New Testament were unfamiliar with not only the geography of Israel and the lack of any current city named "Nazareth" in the first century but were equally ignorant of the sect of Jews called the "Nazarenes". The word "Nazarene", instead of meaning the location of a city in first century Israel, in reality signifies a religious sect and not a geographical location.
The Nazarenes were one of many Gnostic sects which Rome persecuted and forged and altered tragically their "first New Testament"; thereby making the "Christ within" an assumed "historical Christ" that was supposed to have lived in the first century. The mystical resurrection of the Logos/Messiah/Christ/Karast within all mankind that was taught by the Nazarenes was reinterpreted by Rome to be an "historical Christ" contemporary with the first century when all Jewish prophecy according to Daniel chapter 9 (seventy weeks) was to find its fulfillment no later than 70 C.E. The only problem is that Israel was found wanting by God and their hoped for Messiah in the spirit and anointing of Tutankhamun, the Egyptian Messiah and spiritual "Son of God" did not appear; instead they received judgement from God for violating His commandments.
Because the Gnostics remained resolutely opposed to the division of the church into clergy and laity, the bishops determined to define what they regarded as the true faith. The Creed was the result; anyone who held alternative beliefs was regarded as a heretic. The orthodox Christianity that emerged around the middle of the 2nd century AD was a result of conflict between the bishops and Gnostic teachers. When, in the 4th century AD, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, the bishops, now empowered by the state, declared possession of heretical books a criminal offence, and ordered them to be seized and destroyed. It was then that the Gnostics at Nag Hammadi saved their library by burying it in a cliff, a precaution which on its discovery some fifteen centuries later has allowed further evidence of where the true roots of Christianity lie - not in Judaea but in Egypt - to come to light.
So the Roman church, the church of the bishops, buttressed the mythical Jesus of the Gospels with the strength of dogmatic belief; reinvented Paul to sever him from the Gnostic tradition and gave to Peter the keys of the kingdom; suppressed, at the hands of the Roman bishop of Alexandria, the cult of Serapis, (the worship of various Hellenistic gods such as Zeus, Hades and Dionysos), burning its temple and the contents of its library; and persecuted as heretics all those who continued to worship according to the Essene and Gnostic traditions.
The suppression and defacement of Ancient Egypt's records and monuments by the Early Church is only paralleled by the fever of excitement that has attended the discovery and often trans-shipment of Egyptian artifacts in modern times coupled with the cracking of the hieroglyphic code. Tens of thousands of Londoners swarmed beside the Thames and on its bridges to witness the raising of 'Cleopatra's Needle' on the embankment. Huge excitement and interest greeted Tutankhamun when he was ‘resurrected’ by Howard Carter in 1935, and the post-war exhibitions of the spectacular tomb findings attracted millions of visitors.
One might almost call them worshippers as they gazed at the funerary mask of the boy king and sacrificial victim. Little did those early visitors know that the secrets contained in Tutankhamun's tomb, when examined closely, would expose the cover-up perpetuated by the Roman Catholic Church that appears to have hidden the true identity of Joshua/Jesus for 1,800 years.
Akhenaten, king of Egypt (1378-1361 BC.), was the first monotheistic ruler in history, who abolished the worship of the different gods of Ancient Egypt and introduced a deity with no image - Aten, the biblical Adonai - to be the sole God for all people. Akhenaten's activities identify him as being the same person as Moses of the Bible.
Akhenaten was overthrown by a military coup when he used the army to force the new religion on his people, and was replaced by Tutankhamun in 1361 BC. Akhenaten left Egypt and took with him a large following, including the temple priests of Aten who, according to both Egyptian history and Biblical writings, were known as Levites. Recognizing that ordinary people need a physical object for their worship. Tutankhamun allowed the ancient deities to be worshiped again, but only as mediators between the people and Aten. Pa-Nehesy, the high priest of the exiled Akhenaten (he is referred to as Phinhas in the Bible), regarded this behaviour of Tutanakamun as heresy, and is believed to have killed him. Acording to the Jewish Talmud, the behaviour of Joshua/Jesus was regarded as heresy, and Phinhas killed him in accordance with Mosaic law.
In the time of Tutankhamun, Egyptians believed that, as Tutankhamun was both God and man, and as he was killed for a sin that he did not commit, he attained in his death a triumph over death. This permitted ordinary people to hope for eternal spiritual life, without need for mummification, by believing in Tutankhamun and following his teachings and lifestyle. The Essenes and Gnostics believed for the self same reasons, that through the death of Joshua/Jesus, it became possible for ordinary people to hope for eternal spiritual life. All they need is to confess in the resurrection of Christ and go through a ritual that included baptism by water, which is essentially the gospel John the Baptist preached.
Their beliefs were the same, simply because Joshua/Jesus were one and the same. The Essenes and Gnostics - and the Old Testament prophets, incidentally - believed that this was the "Good News" for which God had elected The Children of Israel to take to the people's of the world, but instead The Children of Israel created a new religion based on laws, rules and regulations in which those in charge of maintaining them could reap personal gain and power. In addition, they modified their history so that the heroes of their Egypt past were now heroes of their new land of adoption, thus supporting their claims of being God's chosen people.
There is plenty of evidence that a 1st Century Jesus existed, and that he was a great teacher who preached a message of peace and hope and the power of embracing truth. Somebody must have written the words credited to Jesus in the four Gospels and there is nothing that remotely points to that person being Tutankhamun. Whoever it was, he was a person in touch with God, because his words not only make sense but also are powerful and work. As Jesus rightly said, by its fruit a tree is known. The fruit of Jesus' teaching, as recorded in the four Gospels, clearly shows that Jesus - whoever he might be - was in touch with God and was speaking life-changing truth.
Can we not simply credit the words he spoke, as recorded in the Gospels as those of a 1st Century Jesus, irrespective of who he was and what he did, and leave it at that? For some people, that is hard, even impossible to do, because it is essential for them to believe that there was a 1st Century Jesus, who lived exactly the way the Gospels say he did. For them, God's law demanded a sinless, sacrificial Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world, therefore Jesus had to be the Messiah, he had to be born of a virgin, he had to live a sinless life, he had to die on a cross and rise again in resurrection life three days later, so as to fulfil that role.
But did God actually require those things, and did Jesus see himself as the sacrificial Lamb of God? Speaking through the prophet Jeremiah, God denied ever having made such a law (For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices. But this is what I commanded them: Obey Me, and I will be your God, and you will be My people).
Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah either, perhaps because he did not believe God had ever promised one for the task of overthrowing the Children of Israel's oppressors. Nor did the 1st Century Jesus see his mission as fulfilling the Mosaic law in the form of a sacrifice by the shedding of blood for the forgivenesss of sins. His stated goal was always to establish His father's spiritual kingdom here on earth. In fact he questioned whether the Mosaic law was actually given by God, referring to those who followed the Mosaic law as being "of their father the Devil" (John 8:44). In Mark 7:6-11, Jesus said of the Pharasees, "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, 'This people honours me with their lips, But their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. For you set aside the commandment of God, and hold tightly to the tradition of men - the washing of pitchers and cups, and you do many other such things." He refers to those Mosaic laws as the commandments of men, as did many of the Old Testament prophets.
Isaiah - the prophet Jesus was quoting - certainly saw them that way. Isaiah 1:11 says, "What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says The Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and calling of convocation (the people together), I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity. Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them."
Again, in Isaiah 66:3, he says: "But he who kills an ox is like one who slays a man; He who sacrifices a lamb is like the one who breaks a dogs neck; He who offers a grain offering is like one who offers swines blood; He who burns incense is like the one who blesses an idol. These people have chosen their own ways and their souls revel in their abominations."
Jeremiah, another Old Testament prophet, didn't mince his words either. Jeremiah 7:21: "Thus says The Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, "... I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices ... " And again in Jeremiah 8: 7: "My people do not know The ordinance of The Lord. How can you say, We are wise, and the law of The Lord is with us? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie."
A similar message is delivered in Micah 6:6: "With what shall I come before The Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will The Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does The Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah quotes Deut. 10:12, 13)."
So what conclusion can we draw from all of this? Firstly, if God never promised to send a Messiah to overthrow Israel's oppressors, then it is irrelevant whether or not the 1st Century Jesus fulfilled the Israelites' Messianic expectations. There was no promise for him to fulfill.
Secondly, if God never told the Children of Israel during their trek through the wilderness that He required the sacrificial shedding of blood for the forgiveness of sins, and that the Mosaic law on such matters was in reality only the 'commandment of men' written by 'the lying pen of the scribes' (no parable Jesus ever told illustrated that God required a sacrifice first before He would or could forgive sins), then whether or not Jesus fulfilled the Mosaic law is irrelevant, since there was no such God-given law for him to fulfill.
That being the case, one must question the need for a virgin birth and a sinless life to ensure the blood sacrifice was without spot or blemish. Please note that I am not saying Jesus wasn't all those things, nor that he did not live a sinless life (which he would need to have done to fulfill the role of the sacrificial lamb of God); my point is that whether he did or didn't comply with the role's requirements would be irrelevant, if God had not created such a role for him to fulfill in the first place.
Remember, Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah, or that his purpose on earth was to be the sacrificial lamb who would take the punishment for the sins of others, so what difference should it make to our faith in God and our belief in what he said if history and archaeological evidence tells a different story?
Appendix I: The Mystery of Akhenaten's tomb
Archaeologists have never given up the hope of one day finding the burial place of Pharaoh Akhenaten, who disappeared in mysterious circumstances, after 17 years on the throne, and was succeeded by his son Tutankhanun. Some archaeologists looked for Akhenaten's tomb far away from the Nile Valley, in the desert of Sinai and western Arabia. Although the king had prepared a tomb for himself in his city of Amarna, his body was not found in it neither did it show any evidence of the king ever being buried there.
The Royal tomb of Akhenaten was desecrated originally in the wave of anti Amarna feeling that followed the king's disappearance from the scene and the subsequent brief reigns of Tutankhamun and Aye. Later, it was further plundered by local inhabitants before it was first discovered officially by the Italian archaeologist Alessandro Barsanti in December 1891. John Pendlebury, the British archaeologist who excavated the royal tomb in 1931, confirmed the absence of evidence of Akhenaten ever been buried in his tomb: there were found parts of Akhenaten's magnificent alabaster canopic chest, with protecting vultures at the corners, together with pieces of the lids capped with the king's head. The head gives evidence of never having been used, for it is quite unstained by the black resinous substance seen in those of Amenhotep II and Tutankhamun.
Akhenaten is the most mysterious and most interesting of all ancient Egyptian pharaohs, because of the revolution in religion and art he created, which resulted in the introduction of the first monotheistic form of worship known in history. Sigmund Freud, in his last book Moses and Monotheism, published in 1939, argued that biblical Moses was an official in the court of Akhenaten, who was an adherent of the Aten religion. After the death of the king, Freud's theory goes, he selected the Israelite tribe living east of the Nile Delta to be his chosen people, took them out of Egypt at the time of the Exodus and passed on to them the tenets of Akhenaten's religion. The son of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye, daughter of his minister Yuya, he married his half sister Nefertiti to gain the right to the throne when his father made him his co-regent as Amenhotep IV.
The religion of ancient Egypt was static and traditional, urging that the gods had given a good order and that it was necessary for man to hold firmly to the order. Since the Egyptian state had always been theocratic, ruled by the gods, according to traditional beliefs, the 18th dynasty kings who controlled the country for about 200 years before Akhenaten (1378-1361), were interlocked with the priesthood. In return for wealth and power, the pharaoh had relinquished his religious authority to the priests. The richest and most powerful of the gods, such as Amun of Thebes or Re of Heliopolis, it was held, dictated the purpose of the state. The king had to apply to the gods for oracles directing his major activities.
Within his first few years as pharaoh, Amenhotep IV had to break away sharply with old traditions. In his fifth year he changed his name into Akhenaten then moved out of Thebes and built his new capital at Tell el-Amarna 200 miles to the north. Here in their new home, Akhenaten, his Queen Nefertiti, and their six daughters lived with their nobles and officials worshipping a new God called Aten. Aten was never represented in human or animal form, his symbol being rays of light extending out of a circle ending in hands that gives life to man and all other creatures. Aten had no image in the hidden sanctuary of a temple but was worshiped out in the open. The king conceived of a single controlling intelligence, behind and above all beings including the gods. Following the death of his father after 11 years of co-regency, Akhenaten set aboutm systematically to abolish the worship of all cults but that of Aten. He and his wife Nefertiti also fostered a naturalistic school of art and literature. The Amarna art was a striking departure from the conventional, symbolic ancient Egyptian form.
Nevertheless, his attempt to force his new religion on his people met with complete failure, as the army, on whose support the king relied in his confrontation with the priesthood, became restless and there was a danger of mutiny. It was then that Akhenaten disappeared mysteriously from the scene, assumed dead, at the end of his reign in his Year 17, and young Tutankhamun followed him on the throne. There are indications that Akhenaten was forced to abdicate the throne, and was still alive during Tutankhamen's reign, where he lived in exile in Sinai.
Appendix II: The Ascent of Tutankhamun
Recent archaeological evidence indicates that Tutankhamun came to the throne as a result of a military coup. A scene on the wall on the tomb of Maya, the young king's nanny, discovered recently in Saqqara by the French mission, included the five army generals who are believed to have led the coup. In my book Moses Pharaoh of Egypt, published in 1990, I suggested that Akhenaten did not die at the end of his 17 year reign, but was forced to abdicate the throne by an army coup. Pharaoh Akhenaten, one of the 18th dynasty kings who ruled Egypt for 17 years in the mid-14th century BC, abolished the old Egyptian gods in favour of a new monotheistic God, Aten, whose worship the king wanted to force upon his people. Akhenaten relied completely on the army's support in his confrontation with the old priesthood.
Although he never took part in any war, the king is shown, in the vast majority of representations, wearing the Blue Crown or the short Nubian wig, both belonging to his military head-dress, rather than the traditional ceremonial crowns of the Two Lands. Scenes of soldiers and military activity abound in both the private and royal art of Amarna. If we may take the reliefs fromthe tombs of the nobles at face value, then his capital city was virtually an armed camp. Everywhere we see parades and processions of soldiers, infantry and chariotry with their massed standards. There are soldiers under arms standing guard in front of the palaces, the temples and in the watchtowers that bordered the city, scenes of troops, unarmed or equipped with staves, carrying out combat exercises in the presence of the king.
The army, loyal to the throne, carried out the will of the king without questioning. The position of Aye, Akhenaten's maternal uncle, as the commander general of the army, assured its loyalty to the ruling dynasty. Aye held posts among the highest in the infantry and the chariotry, together with Nakht Min, another general related to him. It was the loyalty of the army, controlled by Aye, that kept Akhenaten in power in the uneasy years that followed his coming to the throne as sole ruler in his Year 12 upon the death of his father. By that time Akhenaten had developed his monotheistic ideas to a great extent.
If Aten was the only God, Akhenaten, as his sole son and prophet, could not allow other gods to be worshipped at the same time in his dominion. As a response to his rejection by the Amun priests as a legitimate ruler, he had already snubbed Amun and abolished his name from the walls and inscriptions of temples and tombs. Now he took his ideas to their logical conclusion by abolishing worship of any gods throughout Egypt except Aten. He closed all the temples, except those of Aten, confiscated their lands, dispersed the priests and gave orders that the names of all deities should be expunged from monuments and temple inscriptions throughout the country. Army units were despatched to excise the names of the ancient gods wherever they were found written or carved.
At least two events early in Akhenaten's coregency with his father Amenhotep III indicated strong opposition to his rule. The graffito of Amenhotep III's Year 30 from the pyramid temple of Meidum, which would be Year 3 of Akhenaten, pointed to a rejection by some powerful factions of the king's decision to cause 'the male to sit upon the seat of his father'. Again, the border stela inscription of Amarna shows that, before deciding to leave Thebes and build his new city, Akhenaten had encountered some strong opposition and had been the subject of verbal criticism. Certainly, he would not have left the dynasty's capital without having been forced to do so.
The final confrontation between the throne and the priesthood was postponed simply because, after he departed from Thebes, he had nothing at all to do with the running of the country, which was left to his father, Amenhotep III. Another important factor was the complete reliance of Akhenaten on the armed forces for support. If we may take the reliefs from the tombs of the nobles at face value, then the city was virtually an armed camp. Everywhere we see processions and parades of soldiers, infantry and chariotry with their massed standards. Palaces, temples and the city borders seem to have been constantly guarded.
The persecution of Amun and the other gods, which must have been exceedingly hateful to the majority of the Egyptians, was also hateful to the individual members of the army. This persecution, which entailed the closing of the temples, the despatch of artisans who entered everywhere to hack out his name from inscriptions, the banishment of the clergy, the excommunication of his very name, could not have been carried out without the army's active support. As the army shares the same religious beliefs as the people, it is naturally that the officers would not feel very happy with the job they were doing. Thus a conflict appeared between the army's loyalty to the king and its loyalty to the religious beliefs of the nation. Ultimately the harshness of the persecution must have had a certain reaction upon the soldiers, who themselves, had been raised in the old beliefs.
Archaeological evidence to support this claim came in November 1997, when French archaeologist Dr Alain Zivie announced in Cairo the discovery of a new tomb in Saqqara. In this ancient necropolis of the Royal City of Memphis, ten miles south of Cairo, Zivie uncovered the tomb of Maya wet-nurse of Tutankhamun. The tomb which extends 20 meters inside the mountain was also used, from the beginning of the Macedonian Ptolemic period at the start of the 3rd century BC, for the burial of the sacred mummified cats of Bastet.
When first found, the tomb was almost completely full of mummified cats, placed there more than a thousand years after the original burial. The joint team from the French Archaeological Mission and the Supreme Council for Egyptian Antiquities have excavated two of the three known chambers. On the wall of the first chamber is a scene depicting Maya, protecting the King sitting on her knee. The inscriptions describe her as the Royal nanny who breast-fed the pharaoh's body.
Alongside and to the left of Maya's seat are six officials representing Tutankhamun's Cabinet, two above and four below, each has a different facial characteristics. Although none of the officials is named Dr. Zivie was able to suggest their identities from their appearance and the sign of office they carry. He recognize the two above behind Maya's seat as Aye and Horemheb. The four officials below Zivie identified as Pa-Ramses, Seti, Nakht Min, and Maya. Except for the last one, who is also called Maya the treasurer, the remaining five were all military generals of the Egyptian army, and four of them followed the king on the throne. This is the first time in Egyptian history for the Cabinet to be composed, almost totally, of army generals, which supports my earlier view that Tutankhamun came to the throne as a result of a military coup. These generals could only have gained their positions in the cabinet, and later on the throne, as a result of a military coup.
The new evidence indicates that there must have been a kind of military moved against Akhenaten, led by three army generals: Horemheb, Ramses, and Seti. Aye, the commander of the army, realized he could not crush the rebellion even with the help of General Nakht Min. When his attempt to persuade Akhenaten to allow the return of the old gods failed, he tried to save the royal dynasty by reaching a compromise with the leaders of the rebellion to allow the king to abdicate and be repaced by his son Tutankhamun. Tutankhamun left his father's capital of Amarna for Memphis in his fourth year, when a compromise was reached by means of which all ancient temples were reopened and worship restored. Nevertheless, Aton remained holding its supreme position, at least as far as the new king was concerned.
Aye, brother of Queen Tiye and Akhenaten's mother, is regarded as the military protector of the Amarna kings, and was responsible for the Chariots also during the time of Akhenaten, while general Nakht Min is thought to have been his relative. Akhenaten used the army to destroy the old powerful priesthood and force his new monotheistic religion on his people. But the army, which shared the same old beliefs as the rest of the people, could not support the king to the end.
It appears that Akhenaten faced an army rebellion led by generals Horemheb, Pa-Ramses, and Seti in his 17th year. Aye, supported by General Nakht Min, not being in a position to crush the rebellion, made a deal with them to allow for the abdication of Akhenaten and the appointing of his son, Tutankhamun, as his successor. This would also explain how Aye, when he succeeded Tutankhamun on the throne, disappeared mysteriously together with Nakht Min, after four years, while the three other generals rose to power. When Horemheb followed Aye as king, he appointed both Pa-Ramses and his son Seti as viziers and commanding generals of the army. They in tern succeeded him on the throne as Ramese I, who established the 19th dynasty, and Seti I.
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