by Joey Lawsin
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| Photograph by JC |
History tells us that the major prominent ancient religious groups that surface to limelight are Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism and Islam. Each one embraces its own bible and worships its own god. Catholics and Christians use the King James Version as their bible. Buddhism uses Tripitaka, Islam the Koran, Taoism the Tao-Te-Ching and Judaism the Torah. Catholics name their God Yahweh, Islam as Allah and Judaism as Elohim. While, Taoism, Buddhism and Hinduism adore a large numbers of male and female Gods. Yu-huang, Buddha and Khrisna are one of these great gods of Taoism, Buddhism and Hinduism respectively.
From all these major religious organizations, Catholicism rose to power and outsmarted all of them including minor groups like the Gnostic, Jewish and Pauline denominations. With its immense power, political strategies and vast followers, the church achieved a worldwide recognition. Spreading out like fire from every corner of the world, the Roman Catholic Church became the dominant religious group. The pope was the sole authority believed chosen by God through Simon Peter to preach the gospel and build the true church upon a rock. Thus, New age churches and christians groups claiming affiliation with the catholic church were never authorized to preach the gospel and never allowed to establish any church or congregation without the blessings of the pope. These false faith groups or denominations don't even possess the marks of the Catholics or four seals - One, Holy, Universal, Apostolic - that authenticate them as the true church.
The Catholic Church proclaims itself as holy because it was sanctified by a Divine God through a dream. It is universal because it spreads widely even to remote villages all over the world. It is apostolic because the founder of this movement was Jesus called Christ. Although there are different orders within the congregation, the church declares itself as One body. There are no other church that can claim that they are Holy, One, Apostolic and Universal except the Roman Catholic Church.
The founding fathers of the new roman church those days called themselves as Catholics. They were not Christians, as most Jesus Christ followers called themselves nowadays, but practitioners of Mitraism. Christianity at those times was viewed as a reform faction of Judaism -- a revolutionary movement against the existing religion of the Romans. Even Jesus, who was a jew, was also considered as a rebel. However, these days, Catholics and Christians are usually being interchanged. Both are actually two different religious groups. Catholicism is NOT a branch of Christianity. This is a big misconception. Christians are totally different from Catholics. Christian utilizes this tactic of association to Catholicism to convince recruits decisively to become member of their fake church. Even to this day, members of RCC still identify themselves as Catholics and not christians.
Eastern Orthodox and Protestant Reformation, which were once catholics, don't even identify themselves as christians too. Both churches might have separated, revolted and established their own religions could not withstand some of the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC). . If these two radical churches were not in agreement with the original gospel, therefore they were spreading the wrong gospel. The biblical teachings, which were obviously tainted or “contaminated” now, are no longer the original words of their god.
Similarly, this scenario happened to Jesus Christ as well when he revolted and denounced his judaism faith. He followed the same footsteps of disagreement by challenging the various churches at his time. Not contented with his judaism beliefs, he gathered his own people, preached his own beliefs about his god and doctrines, and eventually established his own personal faith group. Looking back to the history of his time, his group was known to his enemies as Nazarenes or Galileans.
In addition, the early followers of christ were mostly jewish. Even Jesus and his apostles were judeans. They adored the jewish God, practiced jewish traditions, subscribed to the jewish bible and followed judaism. Eventually, these early messianists grew and separated apart from judaism. Take note that three hundred years after the death of Christ, the word Christianity was not even known yet. At that time, the Jesus Movement were called by the jews as nazarenes or messianists. However, when the new testament was added to the old testament, the word christian was also added in the bible. Eventually, the first Jewish converts called their new group as the Jewish Christians while the christian romans called themselves as Catholics and the christian reformers called their group as Protestants.
Aside from these three major ancient christians movements, new religious groups were formed likewise: the gnostic christians, pauline christians, orthodox christian, ebionites christians, and the muslim christians to name a few. Each group became known as "traditors" (a word synonymous to traitors). They were Christians who betrayed other Christians groups just like religious denominations with different personal and political interests betraying each other nowadays. From the early religious division to this new age, more and more christians groups and congregations are proliferating, spreading like mushrooms and carrying adulterated doctrines and traditions. Today these organized groups are classfied as denominations.
These are some of the religious denominations and the timeline of some of the major known churches, their founders, and where and when each one was founded:
Hinduism -- Unknown, 3000 BC, India
Judaism – Abraham, 2085 BC, Middle East
Buddhism – Sidhartha Gautama – 560 BC, India
Taoism – Lao Tzu – 550 BC, China
Roman Catholic – Constantine, 590 AD, Rome
Islam – Mohammed - 610 AD, Saudi Arabia
Orthodox- Michael Cerularius, 1054, Judea
Protestants, Martin Luther, 1517, Germany
Swiss Reformed - Zwingli, 1523, Switzerland
Anglicanism - Henry VIII, 1534, England
Calvinism; Dutch Reformed - Calvin, 1536, Switzerland
Presbyterians – John Knox, 1560, Scotland
Baptists - John Smith, 1605, Holland
Episcopalians - Seabury, 1620
Quakers – George Fox, 1647
Freemasonry – Albert Pike, 1700,Scotland
Shakers - Ann Lee, 1784
Methodists – John Wesley, 1739, England
Unitarians - Lindsay, 1774
Mormons or Latter-day Saints - Joseph Smith, Jr. 1830, USA
Christian Church - Campbell and Stone, 1832
Seventh Day Adventists – Ellen White, 1860, USA
Jehovah's Witnesses – Charles Russell, 1870, USA
Salvation Army - Rev. General William Booth, 1865, England
Christian Science - Mary Baker Eddy, 1879, USA
Unity School of Christianity - Fillmore, 1889
Pentecostals – Charles Parham, 1906, USA
Iglesia – Felix Manalo, 1914, Philippines
Worldwide Church of God - Herbert W. Armstrong, 1934, USA
Unification Church – Sun Myung Moon, 1954, South Korea
Scientology – Ron Hubbard, 1955, USA
Church of Satan – Anton LaVey, 1966, USA
Hare Krishna – Swami Prabhupada, 1968, USA
And, here are the various versions of the bible:
Hebrew Manuscirpt - 500 BC - OT 39 books
Septuagint - 200 BC - Completion of 39 OT + 14 Apocrypa
Greek Manuscript - 100 AD - NT 27 books
Vulgate- 390 AD- Latin manuscript of 39 OT + 27 NT + 14 AP
500 AD - bible translated into 500 languages
Martin Luther's Bible- 1522 - German translation
King James Version (KJV)- 1611 - Most widely used version 66 books
Revised Version (RV) - 1885 - First major revision of KJV
American Standard Version (ASV) - 1901 First american revision of KJV
Revised Standard Version (RSV)- 1952
New American Standard Bible (NASB) - 1971 Modern english translation word for word
New International Version (NIV) - 1973 Modern english translation thought for thought
Jerusalem Bible- 1966 - First version of the Bible commisioned by the Catholic Church
New King James Version (NKJV) - 1982 Modern english version of KJV
New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)- 1990
Remember that the hebrew scripture (old testament) doesn't contain any books of the new testament even to this day. Take note of this line for future reference. And the first use of the word "Christian" in the Bible can only be found in the new testament on Acts 11:26, "And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch." It is found only twice more in Acts 26:28 and 1 Pet. 4:16. All are found in the new testament(NT), the book that was added to the old testament(OT), the Hebrew Scripture.
So who added the NT into the OT?
There were 22 major councils who made the decisions of what and what must not be included in the bible and to some extent correct some of its false teachings and even heresies.
- First Council of Constantinople (381)
- Council of Ephesus (431)
- Council of Chalcedon (451)
- Second Council of Constantinople (553)
- Third Council of Constantinople (680)
- Second Council of Nicaea (787)
- Constantinople Four (869)
- 1st Lateran Council (1123)
- Lateran Two (1139)
- Lateran Three (1179)
- Lateran Four (1215)
- 1st Council of Lyons (1245)
- 2nd Council of Lyons (1274
- Council of Vienne (1311)
- Council of Constance (1414)
- Council of Florence (1431)
- Lateran Five (1512)
- Council of Trent (1545)
- First Vatican Council (1869)
- Council Vatican II (1962)
- Adoptionism
- Albigenses
- Apollinarianism
- Arianism
- Bogomils
- Docetism
- Donatism
- Gnosticism
- Kenosis
- Manicheanism
- Modalism
- Monarchianism
- Monophysitism
- Montanism
- Nestorianism
- Patripassionism
- Pelagianism
- Semi-Pelagianism
- Socinianism
- Subordinationism
- Tritheism
Jesus was believed to be both divine and human. If Jesus is believed to be both, then which one died on the cross? If jesus died for our sins, then which body suffered or carried the sins of man, the divine-form or the human-form? If it is not his divinity, then he could not have suffered at all and therefore has not really cleansed us from our sins. This means that all christians will remain sinners both earthly and heavenly for the rest of their entire lives.
Is your God the True God? Is your Church the True Church? Is your bible the true bible? Have you ever thought that your religion is the religion of the devil in disguise? How will you know? Think about this for a moment and if you are interested to learn, I posted various questions that might be used as a guide in understanding the real truth about the biblical god and the bible! Please click the link below.
" Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep,
but inwardly they are ravening wolves".
About the Author :
Joey Lawsin is the author behind the new school of thought "Originemology". He is a revisionist who wants to change the world by rewriting the textbooks with new concepts that debunk the old scientific, theological, and philosophical ideas of antiquity. He published a book in Physics, created a conscious machine known as Biotronics, and conceived the theory on "The Caveman in the Box". The article is an excerpt from his book "Bible proves God doesn't exist".
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Disclaimer: The author retains the copyright to most of the research materials on this site unless cited otherwise. However, some of the articles are edited on a day to day basis without notice. If you are interested to use any of these works for the purpose of scholarly discussion or study, please first inform the author by email or cite the source as follows: A Journal of a Creative Mind, Joey Lawsin, 1988, USA.
