What is blood? What requirements were there in Jewish traditions for a blood sacrifice? What does it mean that Christ’s blood was shed? Where did this blood go? What did Joseph of Arimathea collect in the Grail? How does this affect us today? To begin this study, we’ll go to Leviticus 16 where we read …
Last blog, we looked at the meaning of the inscription INRI that Pontius Pilate wrote on a plaque and had placed on the cross above the head of Jesus. Who was this governor of Judea? To answer this, we should review an apocryphal book entitled the Acts of Pilate. Here is a letter from Pilate to …
Something that most historians miss is the role that the Ancient Mysteries had in the ease of the spread of Christianity. After the event of Whitsun, some of the disciples and those with them began missions to spread Christianity. Where did they go? They went to the Mystery Centers throughout the world. There the initiates …
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Normally I hate to quote so much but this time it is important to set the scene as described in Matthew chapter 27: “And when they had bound Him, they led Him away and delivered Him to Pontius Pilate, the governor. … And Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked Him, saying, “Art …
In a conversation today, the Goddess Ishtar was mentioned. Her rites, it was suggested, may be a possible forerunner to the Easter bunny and egg festival. I looked up Ishtar and found this interesting passage in Wikipedia: (keep in mind Ishtar is an immortal, Gilgamesh is a hero but a mortal). Ishtar in the Epic of …
MacMillan Dictionary defines Mystery as something that you are not able to understand or explain. Another definition is information about a subject or activity that only some people are allowed to know. If we go back to 500 BCE and especially if we go further back, the Mysteries played a vital role in all cultures everywhere in …
The Greek Mysteries are the most visible to historians but all cultures had their own Mystery Center(s). Well known are many the leaders of Greek Mystery Centers such as Pythagoras and Heraclitus. And well known are the mystery centers Cabeiri on the islands of Lemnos, and Eleusis in west Attica, about 12 miles from Athens. …
The Temple in Jerusalem during the time of Jesus was no longer Solomon’s Temple. and it was no longer the Second Temple built by Zerubbabel after The Captivity in Babylon. An inspiration from the arch-angel Michael (known then as Marduk in those Persian times) had moved Cyrus the Great to free the Jews to return to their …
A complex person and emperor of Rome, Julian’s biographers have described him as “a man of unusually complex character: he was ‘the military commander, the theosophist, the social reformer, and the man of letters’. He was the last non-Christian ruler of the Roman Empire, and it was his desire to bring the Empire back to its …
Is mind a product of brain and body? Does consciousness arise magically out of matter? Are embryo cells individually intelligent, knowing what to do? Like these questions above, the study of Embryology gives us some wonderful leading questions to this subject of consciousness. Here are some more: What were we actually doing when we were …