What are the freemasons?

Thank you Dinosaur.

Rather than try to find 'secret' kabbalistic or esoteric meanings or 'Zodiac signs' in such blatant alterations, I would first look to historical causes and contexts.
This is one of those pretty much open and shut cases which aligns naturally and quite closely with exactly what we know of the history and experience of the people who made the text.

There are many parallel/conflated passages in the Old Testament, and the myth that the 'Jewish scribes' were somehow more accurate than their Christian counterparts in the New Testament is one of the biggest frauds in biblical hermeneutics.

What we find is that Jewish scribes were as slappy-happy and irrational as Christian editors, if not more so, in their shockingly free handling of the allegedly 'sacred' Tanakh (& Torah).

 

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Einstuck: Do not sell the ancient scribes short. They were the first (at least the earliest known) users of redundant data to check/verify the accuracy of their work.

When making a new copy of the Torah, they are guided by a count of letters which is included with each copy. For each book (perhaps for each for each chapter?), they know how many Alef's, how many bet's, how many tet's, how many chet's, et cetera. It is analogous to the parity bits used by modern computers.

I do not know if they used this scheme for other books of the bible. They were more gung ho about the Torah (Pentateuch or first five books) than they are about the other books.

There was an article in the past few years about the recent discovery of a very old document containing one of the books of the Old Testament (Isaiah, I think). It was compared with a modern version and discovered to have only a few very trivial differences, indicating that those scribes made hardly any errors from one copy to the next over periods of 500 or more years.

The two versions you described are recent compared to some of the older parts of the Old Testament. Your two stories were known (I think) to have originated in different eras. Some of the older twice told tales are from an era when oral traditions were made into written versions. In that earlier era, it is my understanding that there was disagreement about which oral version should be included. The result was the inclusion of both versions.

One of the most fascinating twice told tales relates to the creation of the first woman. Early in Genesis it is specified that on the 6th day god created man and woman. Later, Adam is described as the only creature without a mate. Eve is created from part of him (a rib in most English translations) while he is asleep. The two stories are different enough to give rise to various legends about Lilith, Adams’s first wife or mate, with Eve being his second.

 

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Yes it is. But those techniques were not practised until long after the Christian Era.
The manuscripts at Qumran show that even with books like Isaiah, which had their contents pretty much fixed by 200 B.C. two manuscripts could differ in over 5000 places in ways that affect the sense of the text.

The two Isaiah manuscripts Q1IsaA and Q1IsaB could easily be mistaken for different rescensions, were it not for the fact they are found together in the same location and strata. And neither bears a close resemblance to the 'Massoretic' text, except in the overall structure and general editing of the book.

 

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Einstuck: I was not referring to the following types of interpretations of the Old Testament.

While there are some Jewish scholars who look for encrypted data or weird riddle-like interpretations, there are also scholars who try to find some reason for variations in the same story.

 

the 'Lilith' traditions are incredibly late in this transmission line, there being only a few vague references in the Babylonian Talmud (200 A.D. compiled/final text). The most part of the Lilith references are found in late Jewish and Christian Gnostic texts from the Christian era.

By the way, the 2nd chapter of Genesis has nothing to do with the story of creation, or the first chapter. That is only its literary dressing. It is a parable about the Exodus.

 

I am pleased to see an intelligent discussion, so excuse me for interrupting.
It seemed only fair that, haveing exposed others by name, that I should expose myself also by name.

I found a Freemasonry web page which opens with paintings and the claim that Jesus was a freemason. Of course they deny him as Christ or God. After all, his step-dad was a carpenter. I suppose this is how they lure in the above mentioned christian leaders and the many christians who become members and join the religion of the damned.

I personally have nothing against the builders, they will rule the world and will destroy it if they are able. As I've said before. The literal cornerstone which was placed in Washington DC was a freemasonry stone, and the city was designed as a freemason symbol. Find the stone which the builders rejected and that is the keystone. Christ is the stone which the builders rejected. It is documented in his 2000 year old words. What a coincidence.

As for posession of spirits, I have found that I cannot cast out spirits but I can put them to rest, to be sorted out at the appropriate time.

God, like man, had need of self revelation. He put forth all parts of himself in creation of gods and realms and innumerable beings. He created time in order to allow evaluation of these parts. He sealed the defective to be destroyed and burned and the good gods and their beings to be gathered back unto himself. Mankind was written off with its creator, the freemason God, Satan, who created man, earth, evil spirits and all of the defective physical, visible realm. Christ came in order to sort through the evil and find some good and try and make some defective into good by giving man opportunity and knowledge of the possibility.

Nothing defective will be returned to the one who has evaluated that part of himself and found it lacking. Can it be put in more simple terms?

 

I am pleased to see an intelligent discussion, so excuse me for interrupting.

No problem, intelligent discussion will again continue notwithstanding.

 

There may very well be a case for the idea that Freemasons have in fact tampered with the bible. That would explain much.

They certainly use the bible's quirks to their own advantage when propagandizing.

However, I tend to the opinion that they are latecomers on the scene.

You will be interested to know that there is a modern Freemasonic conspiracy in progress right now. Having set up the mysterious "Lockmann Foundation" they have quietly gone about buying up the copyrights of all the crappy modern translations of the New Testament based upon the corrupt Westcott-Hort Greek Text.

I am not making that up. It disturbed me when I first noticed them doing it.

Right now, I think they have managed to gain control over the ASV, the NASV, the RV, the GoodNewsforModernMan, the Living bible, the NIV, the Amplified Bible, and the Farrar/Fenton translation!

If you look in your New Testaments published after about 1985, you'll see their copyright notice, in "competing" New Testaments....shades of the Dark Hand of Sauron...

Soon you will not be allowed to quote a modern translation of the bible without the stamp of approval of the Red Eye of the Tower of Morder, or the White Hand of Saruman.

 

Try googling 'Lockmann Foundation', if you are having trouble with the basic facts.

 

Not at all. I have met many masons. My grandfather and father were masons.
I have a few dozen lodge books right here, and two masonic rings, as well as
a trunk full of regalia. I know most of the classic inter-club passwords,
and the secret initiation rituals and handshakes etc.
I have read several hundred books and articles on the masons, while researching
their history for a book.

There is no need to disparage books or the web.
They are both quite useful for research, and far more powerful
tools than the libraries of the sixties.
As always, good research requires as scientific a method as possible,
an experienced judicial evaluation skill, plenty of time and money,
and a clearly defined and modest purpose.

Books and the internet are the tools of the 21st century.

 

Do you think we charge footsoldiers with guilty knowledge of the contents of the secret meetings between Churchill, Hitler, and Stalin?
Ask a war vet if he conspired to extend the war until 6,000,000 Russians were dead.

 

Yes, and that shouldn't be surprising, since the majority of Freemasons are American. We don't want to place our expectations too high.
But calling the simple gang-behaviour of favouritism and greed a 'conspiracy' is probably stretching it. We should really just say "assholes".

 

So, If Jesus were a freemason, then all of the apostles were freemasons. Why were they not crucified on a square or a compass rather than a post or a cross?

 

becauuuse, softlad, God was using them to make another world in the region of cygnexis 33021 delta. didne you KNOOOOW?

 

*************
M*W: Good point, witlessjudgejudy! I've always had a similar question. What makes the 'cross' so iconic just because some believe Jezeus hanged there? Crucifixion was found not only in Roman culture but in Jewish, Persian, and Egyptian cultures as well. See below:

"Crucifixion is an ancient method of execution, where the victim was tied or nailed to a large wooden cross (Latin: crux) and left to hang there until dead. It was a fairly common form of execution from the 6th century BC, especially among the Persians, Egyptians, Carthaginians, and Romans, until c. 313 AD, when Christianity became the dominant faith in Rome. Crucifixion has gained notoriety in Christianity as a method believed by Christians to have been used by the Romans to put Jesus to death, and the cross or the crucifix has become the main Christian symbol."

http://www.toshare.info/en/Patibulum.htm

Should I wear a burning stake around my neck to remind me and others what the Inquisition did to nine million of my sisters? Should Jews wear an incinerator around their necks to remind themselves and others what the Holocaust did to them? Should Muslims wear armor and lances around their necks to remind them and their fellow Muslims what the Crusades did to them? Should the victims of clergy abuse wear penises around their necks as a constant reminder of what Roman Catholic pedophile priests did to them? Should Native Americans wear bullets around their necks to remind them what America has done to them?

Just asking?

~ Medicine*Woman

 

MW, most of your latter-mentioned cultures do indeed wear iconic symbols - the Jews of a Star of David, North American natives of feathers, stones or other symbolic items (my wife being one, I should know). As for the Crusades, I think you may have a strange worldview - the Crusades were essentially a defensive military reaction to islamic aggression.

Why should we raise objections to the use of the cross by Christians?

Geoff