Christ Conspiracy_ The Greatest Story Ever Sold - Acharya S [124]
Among the Semites of Western Asia the king, in a time of national danger, sometimes gave his own son to die as a sacrifice for the people. Thus Philo of Byblus, in his work on the Jews, says: "It was an ancient custom in a crisis of great danger that the ruler of a city or nation should give his beloved son to die for the whole people, as a ransom offered to the avenging demons; and the children thus offered were slain with mystic rites. So Cronus, whom the Phoenicians call Israel, being king of the land and having an only-begotten son called Jeoud (for in the Phoenician tongue Jeoud signifies `only-begotten'), dressed him in royal robes and sacrificed him upon an altar in a time of war, when the country was in great danger from the enemy."7°
Robertson elucidates on Jewish sacrifice:
... hanged men in ancient Jewry were sacrifices to the Sun-god or Rain-god. It may be taken as historically certain that human sacrifice in this aspect was a recognized part of Hebrew religion until the Exile.... Hanging is not to be construed in the narrow sense of death by strangulation. The normal method of "crucifixion" was hanging by the wrists.7i
In the gospels, while plotting Jesus's death, high priest Caiaphas ("rock" or "oppressor") says to the crowd, ". . . it is expedient . . . that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish," a reference to the ritual of scapegoating that demonstrates Christ's was an expiatory and not punitive sacrifice.
The Passion
The scapegoat ritual is also the "Passion" of the sacred king. The Passion of Jesus is well known because it has been acted in plays or on the streets in many nations each year for centuries. The simple fact is that the Passion was also acted out in the same manner long prior to the purported advent of the Christ character, as there have been "Passions" of a number of saviorgods and goddesses. As Dujardin relates:
Other scholars have been impressed by the resemblance between the Passion of Jesus as told in the gospels and the ceremonies of the popular fetes, such as the Sacaea in Babylon, the festival of Kronos in Greece, and the Saturnalia in Italy.... If the stories of the Passions of Dionysus, Attis, Osiris and Demeter are the transpositions of cult dramas, and not actual events, it can hardly be otherwise with the Passion of Jesus.
The following passion is not the story of Jesus but that of Baal or Bel of Babylon/Phoenicia, as revealed on a 4,000-year-old tablet now in the British Museum:
1. Baal is taken prisoner.
2. He is tried in a hall of justice.
3. He is tormented and mocked by a rabble.
4. He is led away to the mount.
5. Baal is taken with two other prisoners, one of whom is released.
6. After he is sacrificed on the mount, the rabble goes on a rampage.
7. His clothes are taken.
8. Baal disappears into a tomb.
9. He is sought after by weeping women.
10. He is resurrected, appearing to his followers after the stone is rolled away from the tomb.72
In addition, it is obvious that a number of the specifics of the Christian passion are lifted from the book of Psalms (22, 69:21), which in turn is based on older traditions, as Psalms in fact represents a reworking of Canaanite/Egyptian sayings. The passion play is in reality a very old device used in many mystery religions. Originally celestial, as noted, it is in no way a historical occurrence, except that it happened thousands of times around the ancient world.
The Passion as related in the gospels is easily revealed to be a play through a number of clues. For example, Jesus is made to pray three times while his disciples are asleep, such that no one is there to hear or see the scene, yet it is recorded. Robertson explains: "On the stage, however, there is no difficulty at all since the prayer would be heard by the audience, like a soliloquy."73 Another clue is the compression in time of the events, as well as their dramatic tone. The whole gospel story purports to