Another Christian Fraud

There exists no more compelling document supporting the validity of the Christian religion than the book of Acts. While there are many various criticisms concerning both the gospels and the Pauline Epistles, there seems to be little if any argument as to the authenticity and dating of the fifth book in the New Testament commonly referred to as 'Acts of the Apostles.' It is rarely disputed that this manuscript dates from somewhere between 62 and 90 CE. These dates are rarely disputed. The events that help crytallize this dating is the fact that neither the execution of Paul nor the fall of Jerusalem are mentioned in this work. It would seem that any author chronicling Apostolic events would not have failed to have mentioned these incidents had they been writing when these events occurred. Since it is not presented as an instrument of Church doctrine there is little reason for disagreement. Rather it is presented more as an historical document to support the claims of the Church. However, it must be noted that this is the most heavily redacted and corrupted document in the New Testament. Although it is called Acts of the Apostles, it focuses mainly on Peter and Paul with some attention paid to James, John and Philip, the other apostles are only mentioned briefly. The names listed correspond to those in Luke and show why Marcion considered the Gospel according to Luke as the original gospel preached by Paul.

So, how can I say that this composition does not validate the Christian doctrine. First, we have to understand just what Acts is and who wrote it. The author of Acts had to have followed Paul around religiously in order to have recorded his every move. The Christians claim that it was written by Luke, but there is no indication that is the case. According to Damis, Demas of the epistles, who wrote the memoirs of Apollonius stretching from 34 to 80 CE, these memoirs were mutilated by the Greek followers of Prometheus who were in strong opposition of Apollonius' teachings about the Indian Christos. If we compare the lives of both Paul and Apollonius we find some very strong parallels. Both were born c 2 CE. Paul supposedly in Tarsus and Apollonius in Tyana. Apollonius left home at 14 to study philosophy at Tarsus, in particular that of Pythagoras. At approximately the same age it is claimed by Christians that Paul went to Jerusalem to study with Gamiliel. However, his reliance on Greek translations for his work rather than the Hebrew original documents reveal that this was not the case.

As we reveal in our Paul narrative, he was not baptized by miraculous means on the road to Damascus as he claimed, in the early 30s. The year for his conversion was actually c 27 CE, or while Jesus would still have been very much alive. Paul was likely baptized by John in the Jordan much like the Apollos from the epistles who we are told only became an evangelist c 54 CE, but claims to have known the baptism of John. This means he too must have been baptized in the late 20s as John the Baptist was beheaded by Herod c 29 CE. Paul then visits Jerusalem 3 years later where he meets Peter and Jesus' brother James. According to most Christian timelines Paul then retires to his home in Tarsus from c 36-40 CE. This retirement coincides exactly with Apollonius' visit to Taxila India, 36-38 CE, where he receives the original 9 epistles. Damis did not accompany him on this trip. Once again, we have a lull in Paul's evangelical schedule during the years 46-49 when he is purported to have stayed with Barnabas in Antioch. This corresponds with Apollonius' second visit to Farther India, c 45-50 CE, where he receives the 4 documents written about the seasons of life of the Christ of the Tamil people. Paul was imprisoned in Judea c 58-60 CE by Roman Procurator Felix and later freed by his successor Festus. Apollonius could easily have shared the same cell with Paul as he too was arrested c 58 CE by Roman Procurator Felix who decided to detain him and leave his fate in the hands of his successor Festus. It becomes all too obvious that these two individuals are one in the same person.

The following is a synopsis of Apollonius according to the Philostratus biography. Philostratus' life of the first century mystic from Tyana was written at the request of the empress Julia Domna. It portrays a man with supernatural powers, a Pythagorean who predicts the future, cures the sick, raises the dead, and himself prevails over death, ascending to heaven and later appearing to disciples to prove his immortality. Now Paul also claimed to have performed miracles.

"Then all the multitude kept silence, and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul, declaring what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them."-Acts 15:12 KJV

"And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul:"-Acts 19:11 KJV

Here are just a few more parallels between Paul and Apollonius: Apollonius Planted 'Churches' In Asia Minor, just like Paul. Like Paul, he travelled With A Man Named Titus. He Was Associated With A Man Named Demetrius, just like Paul. He Was associated With a man named Stephanus, and He had a scribe named Demas (Damis), just like Paul. He fought wild beasts at Ephesus, just like Paul. He escaped prison by a supposed miracle, just like Paul. And he founded a religious Community At Corinth, just like Paul. And he was shipwrecked just like Paul.

Paul's original name Saul is the Anglican version of Sol meaning Sun. Apollos was the Sun God of the Greeks and Romans. This is also further proof that Paul was a Gnostic and was not talking about a real live resurrected savior named Jesus Christ. For him the 'Sun of God' was spelled with a 'U' and not and 'O.'

After Apollonius' return from his first trip to India, according to the Jewish Encyclopedia, he dies, but he is remembered for having done pretty much nothing in his lifetime. After his return, he adopts a new approach, leaving the Essene and forming an order of Nazarites at Nazarita in Southern Israel. He is successful selling his new Indian doctrine of Christos to some in the Jewish baptizing sects who are already familiar with the religious doctrines of Mithra, but when he tries to sell it to members of the Pharisee, he is rebuked. So, he takes his new religious ideas to the Romans, who had already been planning to create a new Jewish like religion for the Empire. He then spends much time evangelizing in towns and cities like Ephesus, Antioch, Alexandria, Thessalonia and Corinth. Paul even mentions Apollos as a rival evangelist who is preaching a supposedly different doctrine much as he claims Peter was. This must have been during the 40s, for as Josephus states and Acts confirms Peter meets his demise during this decade, only returning for a cameo endorsement of Paul's approach of taking the new religion to the Gentiles.

Here is where Acts confirms that the brothers of Jesus Simon (Peter) and James are indeed the same individuals that are mentioned by Josephus. However they differ on how they met their fate. According to Josephus it was at the hands of Tiberius Alexander c 47 CE and according to Acts it was at the hands of Agrippa c 44 CE. The reason for the discrepency seems to be that the Roman Christians wanted to make it seem like an act of religious persecution by the Jewish Agrippa rather than a just fate at the hands of the Jewish Roman Tiberius Alexander, the nephew of Philo of Alexandria. Anyhow Acts has Peter escaping his demise with the aid of an angel only to totally disappear from the narrative until he returns, in the highly suspect Apochryphal Acts of Peter, during the 60s for a cameo crucifixion. The only connection to that time frame is the latter day addition of the name of Emperor Nero. The author, or redactor, exploits the fact that there were 2 Tetrarchs named Agrippa. However, he never refers to this individual as Agrippa II, but does call him Prefect, a term only in fashion through 44 CE rather than the appropriate title of Procurator which would have been is use during the 60s.

Here is another instance that shows that the author of Acts used Josepus as a reference. "At this time (57-58 AD) there came to Jerusalem from Egypt a man who declared that he was a prophet and advised the masses of the common people to go out with him to the mountain called the Mount of Olives,...he wished to demonstrate...that at his command Jerusalem's walls would fall down,...to provide them an entrance into the city. When Felix (the Roman governor) heard of this he ordered his soldiers to take up their arms. Setting out from Jerusalem with a large force of cavalry and infantry, he fell upon the Egyptian and his followers, slaying 400 of them and taking 200 prisoners. The Egyptian himself escaped from the battle and disappeared."--Josephus, "Antiquities" (XX, 169-172).

In Jerusalem in 58 AD, Paul was asked: "Are you not the Egyptian, who before these days stirred up and led out at the Wilderness 4000 men of the Sicarii?"--Acts 21:38. Now, Josepus often spoke of the Sicarii, and he also mentioned false prophets in the desert as well as his sbove mention of the Egyptian, but in Josepus all three are separate issues, they were not related. However, the author of Acts takes all three and does a mashup, perhaps because he was too lazy to deal with all three issues on their own.



Another important method of dating Acts is the use of people who quoted the early Christian scriptures. In this case an extremely important figure is the Christian apologist Justin Martyr. By comparing the quotes from Justin to the scriptures we find that he had used the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Mark, and the Infancy Gospel of James. He never relied on either Luke or Acts. Since Justin was a contemporary of Marcion, but perhaps little younger it is still possible for Marcion to have written the Gospel of Mark before Justin. This is not to say that Mark was totally written by Marcion, but that he used mutilated copies of Apollonius' texts that he found in Antioch to write both the epistles of Paul and his gospels.

There exist 2 early versions of 'Acts of the Apostles.' The first, or Western version, known as the Codex Bezae, and the second, or Alexandrian version, known as Codex Sinaiticus. The Western version for some reason is about 10% longer. The modern concensus is that the shorter Alexandrian version is the original and the the longer Western version includes latter day insertions. According to the testimony of Damis, he parted ways with Apollonius c 80 CE and retired to Alexandria in Egypt where he died. His sister came to Alexandria and brought his writings to Tyana in Cappadocia. About a few decades later, mutilated copies of Damis' memoirs of Apollonius fell into the hands of Lucian and Marcion, the true authors of the Christian scriptures.

Both Marcion and Lucian composed their gospels during the middle of the second century. Since there exists a certain consistency in reporting facts which at times are not based on real events, it is likely that either Lucian used Marcion's texts as his source, or they both relied on a common source. Apollonius retired to the Isle of Patmos c 69 CE where he wrote Revelations. This corresponds nicely with the beheading of Paul c 68 CE as described in Acts of Paul, which was written during the second half of the second century, by the conspirators, to further distance Paul from Apollonius. In all liklihood, it was Lucian who dedicated both his Gospel of Luke and Acts to the then Archbishop of Antioch, Theophilus. Any differences in the itineraries of both individuals can be explained by either the damaged condition of the text or the motivation to hide the fact that Apollonius (Paul) had received his teachings on Christos on his trips to India. Proof that the memoirs of Apollonius by Damis survived can be verified by the third century work 'The Life of Apollonius of Tyana' by Philostratus who claimed that he also used these memoirs to construct his biography. While Philostratus focused mostly on Apollonius' trips to India, Acts focused on his evangelizing around the Mediterranean region.

While Chrisitans have argued that Philostratus wrote his biography of Apollonius to compete with the Christian icon, it must be noted that he was careful to keep Apollonius out of Israel. The question then is, were the memoirs of Damis broken down into 2 separate sections: the first being what appears in Acts and the second what appears in the Philostratus biography. I think that this scenario is highly unlikely. The reason is obvious why the author of Acts omitted Pauls' trips to India, but why did Philostratus eliminate all those sections pertaining to Paul's ministry? I think the answer is that the biography was not written to create a pagan competitor for Jesus, but to further separate Paul from Apollonius.

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