The first
verse of the Gospel of John in the World
English Bible says, "In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God." (1). It is a powerful verse, but there is something missing from
Christian theology, and that something missing is of cardinal
importance.
If the 'Word' is God, and by all accounts the 'Word' in the verse above
is Yeshua himself — Yeshua is
the Aramaic version of the name which is Yeshu in Hebrew and Jesus in Greek —, then why bother
with reading
the rest of the Bible? If Yeshua is God, and I'm aware of only one
Christian sect that does not believe that is the literal truth, then
his words alone would more than suffice, and one could read Yeshua's
very words in red in special editions of the Bible. Actually, one
wouldn't even need the full Bible to read all of Yeshua's words,
because
they are all contained within the 27 books of the New Testament, so
even a New Testament with Yeshua's words in red would be more than
sufficient. After all, if Yeshua is the Word, and the Word is God, then
what else do we need to read?
While that is what the great majority of Christians believe, they don't
behave in a way that truly suggests that Yeshua is the Word, or even
the
Final Word of God. Christians really believe that the entire Bible is
holier than Yeshua, or holier than God, and behave accordingly.
Besides the 27 books of the New Testament, the entire Bible includes
another 39 Old Testament books according to the Protestant canon. The
Catholic canon then adds another 7 books to the list — Tobit, Judith,
First and Second Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach, and Baruch —, as well as
parts of books — Esther 10:4-16:24, and Daniel 3:24-90; 13:1-14:42 —
which were available in the Septuagint in Yeshua's time, but which are
not found in the Jewish canon today. Some bright scholars have very
good reasons to call the Gospel of Thomas a Fifth Gospel — fifth after
the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John —, while others have
equally valid reasons to consider the Gospel of the Nazarenes a Sixth
Gospel, but no standard edition of the Bible has included any of
these
books of New Testament apocrypha so far.
From careful observation, it would appear that Christians don't really
believe that Yeshua is the Word of God! They may say Yeshua is the Word
of God, but in fact they idolise the 66- or 73-book Bible far above
him. As idolaters worshiped golden calves, Christians today really
worship the book of books that is the Bible, and/or the Pope.
This belief carries negative theological and non-theological
consequences. If Yeshua is not the Final Word of God, then any Pope's
words in theory, any Minister's interpretation, any Bible version one
deems kosher, could in fact supersede Yeshua in divinity. This, in the
end, could actually cause the denial of the Salvation the majority of
Christians seek when Yeshua finally reappears. Since Yeshua is in fact the Way, and no one can
come to God except through Yeshua (John 14:6),
Christians are then no better off than the Jews, since the former
failed to acknowledge the First Coming, while the latter could very
well fail to acknowledge the even more fundamental Second Coming.
The non-theological consequences of the Christian sola scriptura dogma
are no less destructive. If Yeshua alone is not the Final Word of God,
then this only reinforces the need for more Bible printing, the need to
cut down more and more trees in order to continue what is essentially
the dogma of the Industrial Revolution, and other
environmentally-destructive practices of that age. Prior to the
Gutenberg press, in fact, the sola
scriptura dogma would have been at
the very least impractical. This fact also seems to suggest that
without the printing press God would be either impossible, or extremely
difficult to reach. Even the non-theological consequences of the sola
scriptura dogma could make Christians no better off than anyone
else,
since the book of Revelation even seems to suggest that the 'destroyers
of the earth' shall they themselves be one day destroyed (Revelation
11:18).
If Christianity prior to the Protestant Reformation had the defect of
depending too much on less than infallible Papal authority, after the
Reformation it became dependent more on Industrial Age methods of mass
printing than on Yeshua.
Cesidianism is a new religion, and it seeks truths that are less Papal
and medieval, less manufactured and industrial, and more genuinely
eternal and about Yeshua. Cesidianism depends more on reason than
faith,
more on mathematics and geometry than on scripture. In a way,
Cesidianism has more in common with science than it does with religion.
In other ways, Cesidianism is actually superior to even the best
science of today, because science cannot save mankind, while
Cesidianism has already begun to.
To a Cesidian, Yeshua was, is, and shall be the Word of God. The
Bible,
on the other hand, was, is, and shall be never more than just a bunch
of words. To a Cesidian, Yeshua is the divine Living Bible, while the
paperback or hardcover Bible is just a book, and probably not the
smartest or greatest book that was ever written.
References and Notes