Man's Search For Spirituality - E Christopher Reyes (jenna bush book club .TXT) 📗

of the conditions, inclinations, and fortunes of men and women, from the various lines and characters which nature has imprinted in the hands, and which are almost as various as the hands that have them.” ~The Benham Book of Palmistry by Wm. G. Benham [for palmistry in the Bible refer to: Job 37:7]
“Aristotle distinguished three kinds of souls or immaterial principles: a vegetative soul (for functions of a plant-nature), an animal (non- intelligent) soul, and a human or intelligent soul. This idea was taken over (with scores of others) from the Moors of Spain who followed Aristotle, by the schoolmen of the Middle Ages, and it is still taught in Catholic philosophy. For instance, stories of the growth of a corpse's beard or nails, after the soul has departed, are explained by saying that the ‘vegetative soul’ still lingers and can promote these ‘Plant-like’ growths!’” ~From J. McCabe, Rationalist Encyclopedia.
“Lay myrrh upon thy head; clothe thyself in fine linen, Anointing thyself with the truly marvelous things of God. Adorn thyself; make thyself as fair as thou canst; And let thy heart sink not. Follow thy heart and thy joy. As long as thou livest upon earth: Trouble not thy heart until the day of mourning come upon thee. With joyous countenance keep a day of festival, and rest not in it; For no one takes his goods with him; Yea, no one returns that is gone hence. ~From: The Egyptian Book of the Dead, as translated by E. A. Wallis Budge. Cf. Ecclesiastes.
Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men, although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.
BC 370-Eudoxus of Cnidus postulates that the earth is round. The Church will overlook this fact during the “Dark Ages” due to its inability to explain it. Superstitions still prevail, even within the passageways of this great institution. If this were so, would common sense dictate to you that the people on the other side would fall off? It is the superstitions of the priesthood that dictate what reality is.
BC 370-328-The Greek Doctor, Theophrastos describes a hypnotic and aphrodisiac plant, Mandragora officinarum, as part of the ingredients for a love potion [also described in Genesis] The mandrake also has sinister implications as it is said to resemble the human genitalia. The mandrake contains alkaloids scopolamine and hyoscyamine, ingredients used in medieval witches’ liniments.
A favorite pupil of Aristotle, Theophrastus, while traveling with Alexander the Great in Babylon describes the citron fruit [etrog] that cannot be eaten. However, in the 2nd century Greek physician Galen is writing recipes for this fruit [more about this fruit later]
BC 356-323-Alexander the Great is taught by Aristotle, Plato’s famous pupil. Alexander of Macedonia, Alexander the Great, in AD 332, defeats the Persians and the Greeks. Cross culturalization begins in the Jews adapting Macedonian and Greek ways and the Macedonians worshipping Yahweh [Iao] next to Zeus and Dionysus. After plundering Persia of its gold in 334 B.C.E., Alexander the Great buried huge portions of his great treasure along the route home to lighten the burden of his soldiers. Gold, being extremely heavy, is twice as heavy as the same-sized bar made of lead, is difficult to transport.
“Alexander the Great demanded a formal act of deification from the Greek states. At Sparta the motion ran: ‘If Alexander wishes to be called a god, agreed.’” ~From: The Wit of the Greeks and Romans, Compiled and Newly Translated by John Ferguson, Leslie Frewin: London, 1968.
A great library is set up in Egypt and named after Alexander. Many Jews, upon hearing of this vast library, send their learned scribes, who were well versed in Greek, and many of their ancient scrolls that had been prepared by Esdras [Ezra] the Priest. Jasher had compiled one of the scrolls [Book of Jasher] The Mysteries of the Egyptian Hierophants survives in the chambers of learning. Gnosticism, Judaism, Cabala, Zohar, and Talmud all co-existed in an atmosphere of enhancement of all cultures, faiths, and religions.
There is strong reason to believe that the Apocryphal Books may have originated from the Alexandrian Library that was destroyed by the early Christians who sought to destroy the books associating their faith with the faith of the Egyptians or other ancient pagans [Book of Enoch, Gospel of Thomas and the Second Book of Esdras]. “It [Book of Enoch] had left its imprint on the New Testament and the works of the early Fathers... Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, and even Saint Augustine suppose the work to be a genuine one of the patriarch... The work is a compilation, and its component parts were written in Palestine by Jews of the orthodox school... In the latter part of the 2nd century before Christ.” ~See Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. i, 602. passim; Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. v, 220-224.
“The first of that most mischievous of all institutions—universities, was the University of Alexandria, in Egypt; where lazy monks and wily fanatics first found the benefit of clubbing together, to keep the privileges and advantages of learning to themselves, and concocting holy mysteries and inspired legends, to be dealt out as the craft should need, for the perpetuation of ignorance and superstition, and consequently of the ascendency of jugglers and jesuits, holy hypocrites, and reverend rogues, among men.. All the most valued manuscripts of the Christian scriptures are Codices Alexandrini. They very first Bishops of whom we have any account, were bishops of Alexandria. Scarcely one of the more eminent fathers of the Christian church is there, who had not been educated and trained in the arts of priestly fraud, in the University of Alexandria,—that great sewer of the congregated feculencies of fanaticism.” ~ From: The Diegesis Being A Discovery of the Origin, Evidences, and Early History of Christianity, Never yet Before or Elsewhere so Fully and Faithfully set Forth, By the Rev. Robert Taylor [1784 - 1844], Founder of the Christian Evidence Society and of the Society of Universal Benevolence; reprint: Kessinger, n.d. (1829).
The books of Apocrypha of the Old Testament were written between 200 BC and 100 AC. The importance of these books was to explain the history of the Jews and the religious and cultural situation in that era. Christians now acknowledge that the 'Apocrypha of the New Testament' includes several books, letters and translations about false Gospels that are named after people, who never wrote them. These books are not included in the Holy Bible, because they were of less spiritual importance than the books of the New Testament, claiming that they were written by some people who had personal aims or to prove certain viewpoints [But the church does not reveal whose intentions]. The Church knew their malice of intention and refused them completely [Which does not explain why the Christians accept the Books of Moses as Moses most assuredly did not write them either.] “The cult, which he established, outlasted him for at least a century.” ~Lucian, Harmon, iv, 1953, 173.
“Alexander made this dramatic entrance into his homeland after a long period. He was a striking figure, putting on an occasional show of madness and foaming at the mouth. This came easily to him by chewing soapwort, a plant used in dyeing, but others thought the foam an awesome visitation.” “When the city was overcrowded with people who lacked all brains and sense and were not in the least like human beings [those creatures who live on bread], but were indistinguishable from beasts of the field apart from outward appearance, Alexander went into a particular room and sat on a sofa, robed just like a god, and took the Asclepius [snake, Coluber aesculapii? Greek Medicine in Rome, 532, 46] from Pella on his lap [a snake, as I have already said, of considerable size and beauty], coiling it round his neck and letting its long tail pour from his lap and trail in part along the ground. Its head was the only part he kept out of sight, under his armpit [the snake would put up with anything]… The astonishing thing about this episode is the reputation that the oracle [the mouthpiece of the deity (O.E.D.), etc.] attained. Even the emperor Marcus Aurelius [Roman Emperor 161 - 180 (121 - 180)] consulted it. The snake can be seen on coins, and the oracle was actually still in being more than fifty years after Alexander's death.” ~H. Mattingly and E.A. Sydenham The Roman Imperial Coinage Vi Aurelian.
Matthew and John were two of Jesus’ disciples, Mark being a disciple of Peter and Luke being a disciple of Paul. Mark and Luke wrote their testament under the supervision of the two disciples Peter and Paul. Matthew wrote his Gospel to his own people, the Jews, which is evident in the way he focused on clarifying how the prophecies of the Old Testament were allegedly fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
Mark allegedly wrote his Gospel for the Romans, as he had lived among them. He focused on what the Romans considered being their example and concentrated on the alleged greatness and power of Jesus, who the Romans perceived of only as a rabble rouser.
Luke wrote to those who came from a Greek [Hellenized] background, and he focuses on the ‘Will and Heart,’ without which no man should deserve to be human and with which God’s love is allegedly revealed to the world. Many people, therefore, call the Gospel of Luke ‘the Gospel of Mercy.’ John did not write his story until afterwards, when Christianity began to take a foot hold in various pagan cultures by adopting them into their writings. He wrote it in an attempt to clarify some matters and respond  to some heresies that were threatening Christianity [which were actually the peoples who were content with their own paganism and cared not to be obligated to another version of their Paganism]. At the present time there are copies of ‘Greek Gospels’ that date back to the 6th century to the 12th century, when the Church had almost completed its revisions on historical documents, and many of these are blatantly admitted by the Holy Mother the Church as unashamed forgeries. The history of ancient forgery bears this out: it was in fact a common practice to invent a companion or other second-hand witness as an author, to lend greater credibility to fabricated documents, and to create a good basis for excusing charges of omission or chronological error or stylistic inferiority.
The Old Testament could not be changed after the arising of Christianity, because it was already widely known to the non-Jewish world. Alexander the Great founded in 332 before the Common Era (B.C.E.) the magnificent city Alexandria, known for its wisdom and great library. The Jews had there from the beginning a prominent place, and at one point there were living there one million Jews.
So fascinated are the Greeks with the Jewish religion, that the Greeks become the first people to translate the Old Testament Bible into another language when King Ptolemy II, 250 B.C.E., compels 70 Rabbis to translate the Hebrew Bible into Greek [Koine Greek, which is the commonly spoken Greek of the time] [now known as the Septuagint, which means ‘70’ in Greek].
Therefore a Greek translation of the Old Testament ias made for the Jews there, known as the Septuagint, who made this translation, which is not finished until about 250 B.C.E. One copy of the Septuagint is kept in the great library of Alexandria. ~From the works of  Eliyahu Silver & Rabbi Yitschak Goldstein
“To sum up, then, Alexander [King of Macedonia 336-323 B.C.E., 356-323 B.C.E.] united the whole civilized world for the first time under a single head and gave to it a common language and culture. By the natural gifts of his extraordinary personality, he at the same time set before it a perfect