The Clothes have No Emperor!

By Ian Purdie

Disclaimer: Please Do Not Read if you are a person of faith who is easily offended. Ian Purdie, a New Zealand born musician who lived for decades in Australia before moving to Vietnam, is a long time friend of A Sense of Place Magazine and a prolific writer of fantasy novels. This piece is a synopsis of his latest book, The Clothes Have No Emperor.

Unlike the Davos billionaires, we claim true neutrality in attempting to understand the human condition. Much less the spirit realm.

Jesus of Nazareth is one of the most misrepresented people in history. His deification rendered him dehumanised, while his life story was co-opted and completely distorted, first for political control and then for religious domination. This process had nothing to do with the actual, living man who walked this Earth 2,000 years ago. He was the original victim of identity theft and became the focus of claims, so outrageous and extreme, any attempt to rehabilitate him back into the human race requires fresh insights based on new information and an open, rational mind. 

This biography is devoid of sensationalism, miracles or claims of divinity. You can believe or disbelieve it, without having to worry about going to hell. It is based on numerous sources, including the outrageously manipulated Christian Bible, as well as apocryphal scriptures, the Nag Hammadi scrolls and numerous commentaries by recognised religious scholars, historians, archaeologists and accounts from monasteries in India and Tibet.

I begin by drawing a distinction between Yeshua, the name engraved on the ossuary that contained his mortal remains, and Jesus the inauthentic character created by the Romans and portrayed in the Bible. This biography jumps between these two names, depending on whether I am referring to the actual man, Yeshua or what tends towards the concocted, false Biblical portrayal of Jesus.

Some people, based on the fantastic claims made in the Bible, deny that Yeshua even existed at all. They claim that his entire persona and life story are a fabrication. 

I disagree. 

The discovery of Yeshua’s family tomb at a place called Talpiot, near Jerusalem in 1980 is solid physical proof that he, his mother Maria (Mary) and his wife Mariamne (the Biblical Mary Magdalene), as well as three of his brothers, James and Jose – both named in the Bible – and Mathias (Mathew), were real people who lived at the time chronicled in the New Testament. 

This remarkable discovery, its provenance officially established by the Israeli Antiquities Authority, is also proof that Yeshua was a man of ordinary flesh and blood. DNA recovered from the ossuary marked ‘Yeshua bar Yosef’ (Jesus, son of Joseph), in the Talpiot tomb showed him to be, predictably, of Middle Eastern descent.

I am not attempting to normalise one of the greatest figures in world history. Yeshua bar Yosef was clearly an exceptional, charismatic man whose life had a profound effect, not only on his contemporaries, but on billions of people born long after he died. He will always be one of history’s most influential and compelling characters.

One thing remains crystal clear to anybody who reads the Bible from cover to cover; the God of the Old Testament and Yeshua’s concept of God, as portrayed in the New Testament, are not the same. The two Testaments were thrown together in a shot gun wedding that attempts to smooth over their inherent incompatibility. When Yeshua spoke of God, he was not talking about the God of Moses venerated by Judaism and for that reason, to this day, orthodox Jews still reject him and his message.

Yeshua’s teachings were not from the Abrahamic tradition. They were something radically different. 

Rabbi Michael Skobac describes it in the following way; “In terms of major issues of theology and major issues of central Biblical teaching, the Christian Bible is simply not consistent with the Jewish scriptures.”

Records exist at Hemis Monastery, Kashmir in Northern India which document the 18 years of Yeshua’s early life which the Bible fails to mention. During these ‘lost’ years he travelled and studied in India. This explains the difference between what has survived of his actual words and teachings, and the other contrived nonsense presented in the Roman Bible.

The central lie perpetrated by Christianity is that Yeshua died on the cross and was resurrected from the dead. All four synoptic Gospels agree that Yeshua was taken down by his own people after only about six hours nailed to the cross and inhumed inside a hollow tomb. 

This does not constitute a credible cause of death for a healthy 33-year-old man.

Crucifixion is a slow, humiliating form of execution that can take more than a week to extinguish its unfortunate victims. Had he spent days dying slowly in the sun and then been buried six feet underground, there would be no Bible and no Christianity.

The only sane conclusion is that Yeshua survived his crucifixion and spent the rest of his life in hiding from the murderous Romans.

This is an attempt to correct the record and reinstate Yeshua in his rightful historical perspective. It is an attempt to remove the need for faith so that what Yeshua actually contributed to our world can be properly and rationally appreciated.

The Christian Church is a medieval real estate conglomerate and international paedophile ring with its supreme headquarters in Rome, Italy. They have no interest in historical truth and will label this account heresy and blasphemy. They will claim I am going to burn in hell for eternity – despite their assurances that their God loves me – for my small part in attempting to illuminate the historical reality of Yeshua’s life. 

They will stop at nothing to protect their brand. To this end, they submerged European culture in a 1,000-year dark age by denying scientific and philosophical advancement, and insisting that the Earth is flat. They were responsible for historical atrocities like the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition, and have perpetrated a 2,000-year fraud in Jesus’ name. 

The result in the 21^st century is potentially apocalyptic. Modern Christians believe they have a placebo, magic shield protecting them from the consequences of their ignorance, provided they confess their evil deeds on their deathbeds. The idea that we have a loving, cosmic policeman watching over us, who created us as His playthings, and is able to suspend the laws of nature at will, is a childish fantasy. This shallow vision of our collective reality is a threat to our survival discouraging the faithful from accepting responsibility for the mess we are making of our world. 

To accept racist, misogynist, homophobic, Christian dogma is to invite bronze-age superstition to be the foundation of your intellect. It will close down your mind and transform you into a bigoted, compliant, helpless sheep. 

Blind faith in absurdities – virgin birth, resurrection and miracles – is not virtue and is not what Yeshua taught.

The Christian Church has always been a superficial spiritual force, concealing its true nature behind the good deeds and enlightened teachings of the Master Yeshua, who took no part in its founding and whose real legacy it demeaned and corrupted. It denied his family life and even labelled Mariamne, his wife and the mother of his son, Judah – portrayed in the Bible as ‘the beloved disciple’ – a whore. 

If you love Jesus, you should look at this.

OTHER STORIES BY IAN PURDIE IN A SENSE OF PLACE MAGAZINE