The Death of Tradition

By Steven S. Jones

An analysis of the events surrounding the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and their influence on Church theology particularly the influence on Vatican II. The book asks whether there was a covert agenda by examining actual historical accounts and quotes by those involved.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steven S. Jones
• Release date: Oct 17, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393157311

Book preview

Introduction

The religion most practiced by millennials is none

Religion, to the modern world, is merely an ideology. As an ideology it is generally seen as something personal that has no broader cultural authority, not over the individual, not over the world. At most spirituality is just a boutique belief system one accessorizes to fit your own personal tastes. Therefore, people tend to create their religion out of anything they like, collecting comic books, going to the movies, social causes, praying to trees, what ever ‘belief’ that most moves them. The public is convinced traditional religion has nothing to offer, that it professes no truth compelling enough to have any real consequences.

Today the idea of a binding universal belief system seems absurd. And how could there be? Aside from the mathematical equation like 2+2=4 almost everything else is in dispute. Challenge someone to name just one moral absolute might very well get you into a fight.

Yet, this was not always the case. Prior to the 1960s there was a sense of universal truth. In fact it was this very sense of moral imperative that inspired thousands to willingly sacrifice their lives in the defeat of Nazi Germany. Now however, Christianity, the very core of this inspiration is near the brink of collapse. Those Christianities that have survived are often just modern ideologies dressed up with Christian trappings. Without a common moral principle to guide it, society has only seen more crime, despair, and conflict. As often as not, crime reduction when it does occur is a result of legalizing what once was illegal. Income disparity is higher now than ever before as is waste of resources. One man’s truth has become another man’s lie.

We can find this problem in how modern society defines the word ‘belief.’ While we ask children today if they believe in Santa Claus or magic spells or the like, this is not the proper use of the term. To believe once meant a sincere assent to what is known to be true. Indeed, it was only such a truth that was worthy of belief… or of a religion. To be ‘universally true’ was the original meaning of the word ‘catholic.’

Traditional Christianity for all practical purposes ended somewhere in the 1960s. It believed in real things, events that you could have actually witnessed had you been there. It believed in a Man that you could have seen, spoken with, even embraced. It also believed in absolutes, in limits, in uncompromisable principles. Let me name one:

Two opposing sides of a contradiction cannot both be true at the same time.

This is a very important insight. In fact, understanding this will be critical to understanding the book that follows. It is with this principle that truth is separated from fiction, orthodoxy from heresy. To hold otherwise is what Jesus referred to as hypocrisy. To hold otherwise is what Persian mystics called the Two-Fold Truth. It is over this the war of reality is waged. It is the disregarding of this principle that has led to the fracturing of Christianity and Western society.

At one time the above statement was considered an absolute truth. It was the basis of what was once called the science of truth. Before the 1960s few people would have doubted it, yet within just a few decades it became foolishness.

An entire generation of people didn’t just sit down, ponder this all, and decide truth had had its day. Certainly, one can explain some of this by progress or societal drift, but how does one explain the grand shift in morality and principles that seemingly happened over night. Everyone did not all just get together and say, ‘There is no truth, what can we do to make the world more skeptical?’ Almost overnight what was once a sophomoric philosophical musing became a universal slogan for a modern world. Something must have triggered this, it could not have been accidental.

Was this merely the triumph of science over faith? Or belief becoming obsolete? Not necessarily. Often the truths of modern science are more bizarre, less believable than anything an ancient mind would have concocted, yet people generally have little trouble accepting them. For example many millennials have no problem believing in superheroes, time travel, teleporting, and warp speed even though they are known physical impossibilities. New Age beliefs are often based on things far more bizarre than anything Christ had done.

The sad truth is that the unlikelihood of miracles, then, is not the barrier to belief. The barrier is the implications of truth, that if truth were real it might have consequences, particularly moral consequences. So, modern Christianity looked to a new direction, a more popular one. One that owed less to real belief and more to personal fulfillment, things unconstrained by truth and more appropriate to a modern society.

---

It was once thought that Christian Tradition had been more or less accurately passed down from the beginning. It was this doctrine that defined the religion if not all of western society. Today, it is these same doctrines that have become rather cumbersome.

Somewhere around the 1960s the public became convinced that Christian tradition was wrong, that it had not been passed down accurately. Somewhere around the 1960s people became convinced that the ‘authentic’ ancient Church actually was in line with our modern aspirations of self-fulfillment and social causes. They pondered, what if there were tangible evidence that Christianity had actually been hi-jacked by politicians and that the true Church was just waiting to be rediscovered?

This is precisely what modern scholars saw in an ancient version of Christianity called Gnosticism. To them Gnosticism was precisely this, a doctrine-less ideology whose only goal was self-realization. Certainly, it had no ulterior motives. Or did it?

It was two mid-twentieth century archaeological finds that facilitated this view. One was at Qumran and became known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. The other was in Egypt and became known as the Nag Hammadi Library. Combined, it was these two finds that seemed to produce the exact evidence the modern world needed.

But where were these lesser-known texts hiding for the last two thousand years? Why hadn’t orthodox Church fathers referred to them in their writings? Perhaps, they thought, they were censored by the male dominated Church to keep women from power.

It is not uncommon for dubious evidence to be purposely exploited to promote a pre-defined agenda. Indeed, there are those who insist today that any research that doesn’t promote a leftist agenda is inherently racist. In his book Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way author Philip Jenkins points out that modern feminist theology has its roots in Gnosticism. They see Gnosticism as a counter to the historical male dominated Church. Not understanding the science of truth they find it inconceivable that a religion could be based on it. Therefore, they thought, Christianity must have been just another form of political activism. Their new reinterpreted Christ became an ancient Che Guevara, a political radical pushing a Marxist freedom politic. Seeing that many Gnostic texts have strong feminine components led them to the conclusion Christianity authentically was a Gnostic cult. After the 1960s this became sort of a new orthodoxy. The result was modern seminarians were never taught the true philosophical basis of Christianity. It was considered too dogmatic.

---

The main purpose of this book will be to question this agenda. I intend to show that the modern shift in theology was spurred by the exploitation of evidence, the Dead Sea Scrolls. Many early Scroll scholars and interpreters were pre-loaded with a Gnostic bias from the start, and it was they who won the day. They fudged the evidence because they believed they were righting a wrong, that Christian orthodoxy was misogynist and the basis of the Holocaust. Further, there was an emerging Christian hierarchy who were seeking a radical shift in theology. The end of World War II provided the perfect opportunity to enact this switch. The fatigue of war combined with the Church’s desire to stay relevant meant scholars saw more than was there. Therefore a metaphysical coup was enacted, all the while being disguised from the laity. Yet, this shift showed up in everything from hymnals, to attire, to architecture, even catechisms. Often books referring to the ‘old way’ were censored, discarded, or just allowed to disappear through attrition.

To them, the Dead Sea Scrolls were just this, evidence of a pre-Christian sect that redefined authentic Christianity. The Scrolls seemed to validate a more Jewish Christianity, one more consistent with our emerging social values, and less based on Greek philosophical liabilities like truth. The discovery legitimized a new Church based solely upon love, not unpopular rigid doctrines. Perhaps the Scrolls even proved the Catholic Church really did suppress its true history all along. To them, the future of the Church was uncovered in the caves of Qumran.

An example is the acclaimed Dead Sea Scroll scholar John Allegro. Allegro claimed the Scrolls proved early Christianity was a drug cult, and this ‘truth’ was purposely suppressed by the Catholic Church (The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross). The theory was clearly crackpot, yet, due to his official connection with the Scrolls and the sensationalism of modern society, it got much unwarranted attention. The episode served as a model for reformers to come.

By now the story of the Dead Sea Scrolls has become boiler plate. But like the modern news media, often the ‘facts’ that are most publicized are not necessarily the ones that are the most true. Likewise with the Dead Sea Scrolls. The theories that received the most press were the ones that most fit the 60s spirit of the times. There is a substantial amount of contrary evidence that seldom gets attention.

The more I examined the evidence the more I became convinced that the tremendous societal shift of the 60s had been at least partially planned, a conspiracy of sorts. This ‘hoax’ has little to do with the actual authenticity of the Scrolls. It has everything to do with using the Scrolls to validate a false Gnostic rendition of Christianity, a rendition that made its way right to the Vatican. It exploits a mystical interpretation that is demonstrably false, and of the wrong century. This theology still infects Christianity today.

Jenkins also shows the dubious basis of modern Dead Sea Scroll research and the exploitation of that research for financial gain by publishers and trendy authors. As he acknowledges, the Dead Sea Scrolls lay at the center of a very real controversy… and a very profitable industry.

---

The Dead Sea Scrolls have been commonly proclaimed the most important archaeological find of the twentieth century, if not of all time. They have been studied by hundreds if not thousands of scholars all insisting on scientific objectivity. They are lauded as representing the pinnacle of religious research. It is commonly acknowledged that these texts influenced the Council of Vatican II on which pivoted the future of Christianity.

Yet, little of the story of the Scrolls is entirely truthful. How could it be? There are major conflicts in the accounts of key sources. The provenance is horrible. Many of the people had deep ties to suspicious interests, both religious and political. In fact, the entire episode could be a poster child of academic abuse, subterfuge, and misrepresentation.

Over the course of this book the reader will be introduced to several documented abuses and misuses of this research. The reader will be introduced to an untrustworthy Orthodox Bishop, a known marketer of ancient texts. As the original custodian of key Scrolls he not only broke the chain of evidential custody, but also got one Scroll mixed up with another when he removed it from the country. Also we will meet a key translator who not only was a clandestine Israeli intelligence officer, but has a known record of misrepresenting archaeological evidence. We will find a Jewish mystic who actually helped pen the key Vatican II document redefining Catholic theology, yet clearly states his ulterior motives. We will meet the lead Scroll researcher who literally went insane over a discrepancy and was driven from the academic community. Then there are the British spies who not only had connections to the British Royal Family, but the Israeli underground, all the while working for the Soviet Union. We will also meet a Jewish aristocrat who was instrumental to establishing the state of Israel, but also owned one of the largest collections of ancient manuscripts known… even one that had a suspicious likeness to a key Scroll. Perhaps worst of all we will find Marxists at many of the key spots without whom none of this would have been possible. While invoking known Christian heresies, they enacted a theological shift intended to bury authentic Christianity for all time. Yet, our main focus will be on the French historian Jules Isaac. He believed that it was Christian dogma that had led to the Holocaust. His evidence earned him an audience with the Pope.

Many questions will be raised, most will be based on how well these conjectures have held up over time.

How is it a known falsifier of archaeological evidence has not been held in suspicion over his connection to a key Scroll that changed Christian theology? Why were these same amateur archaeologists working in Palestine as clandestine military agents at least a decade before the Scrolls were found? (chapter 6, Setting the Stage)

Why would the Church abandon a two thousand year old theology and replace it with one that seemingly proved ancient Christianity was Marxist right at the height of the Cold War? (chapter 7, Conflicting Accounts)

How is it that almost the very hour the UN needed proof to make a territorial claim on Palestine the Scrolls show up and are claimed authentic? Before that all the experts said the Scrolls were worthless. How is it the top expert of the day who said the Scrolls are a hoax was disregarded, yet a rank amateur authenticated them? (chapter 8, A Second Account)

Why is the Book of Esther, a text pivotal to Jewish-Christian relations, missing from the Dead Sea Scrolls? Has the true story been purposely hidden? Is it because the text can pinpoint who killed Christ? (chapter 9, The Truth No One Could Admit)

No where do the Dead Sea Scrolls use the word ‘Essene,’ why then is their cult so labeled? The only period witness to give a geographic location of the Essenes points to an entirely different location than the one claimed. How can we definitively know who is right? How can we know the Essenes were connected to the terrorist assassins? (chapter 10, Two Ignored Facts)

Why was fourth century AD history made to appear to be of the first century BC? Was Christ a copycat? How is it that the Essenes are publicized as a peaceful ‘New Age’ sect when there is proof that many were terrorists and assassins? (chapter 11, From Nothing, Nothing Comes)

What is the true provenance of modern theology? How is it a once Christian heresy is now ‘conveniently’ re-packaged and vindicated by the Scrolls? What is their relation to the ‘other’ Dead Sea Scroll? (chapters 12, 13, & 14, Points of Contention, The Other Dead Sea Scrolls, The New Gospel of the Second Plato)

Was there a Modernist conspiracy to take over the Church going back to the early twentieth century? What is the Marxist connection to all of this? (chapter 15, Formulating the Plan)

What does this all have to do with the CIA, the Nazis, and the Council of Vatican II? It is well known Christ was most critical of the Pharisees, so why is the postmodern Church appealing to Pharisaic dogma, the Talmud, to vindicate itself? How is it Nostra Aetate, a key document of Vatican II, is co-authored by a political radical whose stated goal is to subliminally identify Christians with Nazis? (chapter 16, On the Doorsteps of a Revolution)

What were the suspicious circumstance surrounding the election of the new Pope? What happened to traditional Christian theology? (chapter 17, When it Was Dark)

What is the significant impact on today’s millennial culture and why does it matter? What is the connection of Essene theology to Hitler’s Nazi folk religion? (chapter 18, An Unexpected Conclusion)

Time and time again we will find a concerted effort to bend the truth to fit a peculiar agenda. The goal can only be to undermine traditional theology with the intent of replacing it with something once considered a heresy. The evidence is actually overwhelming. Were these people blinded by their ideology or was there a conspiracy of sorts? They were hired to separate truth from myth, the result was the creation a new mythos for the modern socialist era.

Prologue

I too have made a wee little book, from the same materials, which I call the Philosophy of Jesus. It is a paradigma of his doctrines, made by cutting the texts out of the book, and arranging them on the pages of a blank book, in a certain order of time or subject. A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen. It is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me infidel, and themselves Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what itʼs Author never said nor saw. They have compounded from the heathen mysteries a system beyond the comprehension of man, of which the great reformer of the vicious ethics and deism of the Jews, were he to return on earth, would not recognise one feature. ¹

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson is often invoked as proof the United States was intended to be a secular nation, that Jefferson despised Christianity. Part of this lore is Jefferson’s supposed deism, what many hold to be the basis of the authentic American spirit. Jefferson said, for I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man, ‘tyranny’ often taken to mean ‘the Church.’ Proof of Jefferson’s hostility is his famous Bible. The lore goes that he created it by removing all the phrases he found too fantastic with a pocket knife. It was Jefferson’s act of defiance, where all that remained was what was acceptable to believe. But could it be Jefferson’s intention was something far different?

Jefferson, like Isaac Newton, was one of the greatest minds the world has ever known. That either would be a Christian is unthinkable today, intelligent people aren’t supposed to be religious. Although both men spent much of their life studying the Bible, they did not fit the conventional mold of the typical Christian. Their extraordinary perception allowed them to look far deeper than what satisfied most Christians. What they saw was something quite troubling. As Jefferson said, it was a tyranny.

Allow me to give you an example. You enter a very tall building with the intention of taking an elevator to the top floor. You get in only to meet the elevator operator. Top floor, please. The operator responds, This is a unique elevator. There is no top floor, the elevator does not go up and down. Instead, the building, in fact the entire universe, goes up and down to meet us. Hold on, let me show you. Both you and the elevator operator take the very same ride, yet your experiences are entirely different.

The difference is not one merely of perception, of him seeing the world from a different vantage point. He is asking you to see the very same world, but interpreted through an entirely different set of rules. These are unique rules. While the universe clearly does not move up and down propelled by the little motor that moves the elevator, to him, this is precisely what happens. Yet, how would you prove him wrong? He has already disregarded the very evidence you would need, the universe.

What threatened religion in the early first centuries was a philosophy called Gnosticism. While it has gone through many incarnations, it is now stronger than ever. Gnosticism can be likened to the elevator ride: instead of you going to the world, the world comes to you. Instead of you conforming your ideas to the world, the world is conformed to your ideas. The matter-of-factness of reality or religion becomes irrelevant, it can now be re-interpreted. Reality is just a rhetorical vehicle by which the world comes to you.

Gnosticism was originally a very ancient Christian heresy. By the time of Newton and Jefferson several scholars had begun to rediscover it. Because it only considered reality a metaphor, Gnosticism became a very handy way of reinterpreting religion to avoid criticisms from the emerging fields of science. These new Gnostics thought, if Christianity were converted back into Gnosticism, it would be more acceptable to a modern world. If it could be authenticated as the earliest form of Christianity, even better. But to do this Christian tradition would have to be proved wrong.

Gnosticism began as a philosophical contempt for reality. To it, religion requires no factual content, it is just a cultural story. This made Gnosticism adaptable to any religious system. Unconstrained by reality, it became very powerful. By the time of the Renaissance it was exactly as Jefferson described it, a compounding of heathen mysteries, all feeding off of each other.

Perhaps the most heathen of these mysteries is the concept of the universal ‘World-Soul.’ It is the foundation of the Gnostic system. This is not the world soul as conventionally taught. One must try to grasp all that the concept implies.

Most might think of a simple world soul as sort of a pleasant place where all human conscience unifies. But without a concrete reality to delineate and inspire our thoughts, the individual becomes an illusion. The world soul mutates into the radical World-Soul, an all-in-all where even your own thoughts have no true existence. All becomes ‘other.’ It is not to regard your neighbor as yourself, your neighbor is yourself for he only represents ‘other’ too. Further still, without a reality to conform the mind to, reason itself becomes an extravagance as there is no truth. What begins as a simple Narcissus-like obsession, evolves into the abandonment of ‘soul’ as even a concept. Newton said, He [God] rules all things, not as the world-soul but as the lord of all. And because of his dominion he is called Lord God Pantokrator [Creator of Universal law]. What Jefferson call Platonism, Newton referred to as the world-soul. They are ultimately the same thing.

Philosophically, Gnosticism is an easy explanation for a lot of weighty religious problems. Things like miracles can easily be explained as mere projected memories from the One. Nor is it necessary to explain how we communicate,