IGNORANCE AND ARROGANCE

Authorities – religious or scientific – are not reknown for their humility. On the contrary, they are often arrogant and find it difficult to admit that they don’t understand certain ideas. Hans Christian Anderson’s story of the Emperor’s Suit explains very well how intellectuals can fool themselves. When the emperor’s tailor says that he has made a suit for the emperor from a special material that only intelligent people can see, all praise its beauty although the tailor hadn’t used any fabric at all. It is therefore a child that points out that the emperor walks around naked.

Wisdom requires humility. To be able to discover the answer to certain mysteries, we first have to recognize that there are mysteries; that there are things that we do not yet understand. Ignorance and arrogance often together. People who can’t accept there are ideas that they do not immediately understand either ignore them, consider that they make no sense, or give them an unsatisfactory explanation (by creating a dogma or an axioma).

The fact that Saint Matthew and Saint Luke offer different genealogies for Jesus baffles Bible scholars. Sceptics and cynics claim it proves the New Testament makes no sense. Theologians try to give these genealogies sense by claiming that one traces Jesus’ ancestors through his mother’s side and the other through his father’s side, but that is not what they say. Furthermore, how do they explain that both genealogies offer different names for the father of Joseph, Mary’s husband?

A lot of people immediately assume that one or even both genealogies are false. Only the careful reader who is aware that because of extramarital relations some lineages are real and others are supposed (the husband of our mother is not necessarily our father) realizes that the Bible recognizes this fact. Saint Matthew offers Jesus’ real lineage, because he bases it on the ‘father begot son’ principle (but he ends with, “Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary who gave birth to Jesus”), Saint Luke offers Jesus’ supposed lineage, because he starts it with, “Jesus was believed to be the son of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of…”  Saint Luke not only points out that people believed Joseph was Jesus’ father, but also that they believed Heli was Joseph’s father and that explains why both genealogies offer a different father for Joseph.

DO ONLY PROFESSORS USE THEIR BRAIN?

Not only professors, but whoever has an inquisitive mind, and dedicates himself to research, can make interesting discoveries. People who are self-taught, like myself, find it however extremely difficult to broadcast their conclusions. People trust authorities, but distrust those who are self-taught. It is, of course, much easier to recognize someone as an authority and accept his ideas, than having to reflect upon ideas oneself or having to figure out whether the ideas of someone who is self-taught make sense or not.

Since people idolize authority – a scholar, a religious leader, etc. – I would like to point out that Albert Einstein, an authority, said, “Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.“ and “Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquiere it.” He also said, “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”

When I came across Albert Einstein’s quotes, a bit more than a year ago, I felt like I finally found someone who understood me. I am passionately curious and question authority. Therefore, instead of simply rejecting an idea that makes little sense – Jesus’ virgin birth –, like sceptics and cynics do, I have studied where Christianity got that idea from and thus discovered that it has its origin in a misinterpretation of an enigma in the Gospel of Saint Matthew.

Jesus said, “The truth will set you free”. That makes sense because the belief in a falacy – the idea that Jesus was born of a virgin, for instance – is really the belief in the authority that defends that falacy, which makes one recognize that authority as a master and oneself as a slave.

TWO TYPES OF IGNORANCE

People who ignore something are not stupid. Einstein said, “We are all ignorant, but not all ignorant of the same things’. What is stupid, is to ignore information deliberately.

When one reads the first lines of the New Testament, it is easy to ignore that the four women – Rahab, Ruth, Batsheba and Tamar – that Saint Matthew mentions in the genealogy of Jesus all had extramarital relations. Not everybody who reads Saint Matthew is of course familiar with the stories of the Old Testament. When one is however aware of this, it is stupid to ignore that Saint Matthew found it important to point out that four of Jesus’ ancestors had relations with adulterous women.

When one reads the first chapter of the New Testament, it is easy to ignore that it holds an enigma. Not everybody who reads at the end of the genealogy of Jesus: “there are fourteen generations from Abraham to David, from David to the deportation to Babylon and from the deportation to Babylon to Jesus Christ” makes a list of these names and divides them in three columns of 14 generations, thus discovering that the traditional way for doing so (Abraham/David, David/Josiah, and Jechoniah/Jesus is inconsistent, since in the second column it repeats David, but does not do the same with Josiah in the third column. When one however knows this, it is stupid to ignore that the consistent way for dividing the genealogies – Abraham/David, David/Josiah/ and Josiah/Joseph+Jesus –means that Jacob first begot Joseph and later, when Joseph grew up, had Jesus from Joseph’s wife (Mary). And when also is aware of the fact that Judah, a direct ancestor of Jesus, had Perez from his daughter-in-law Tamar, one has to be real stupid to ignore that Saint Matthew tells us that Mary had Jesus from her father-in-law.

When one reads the New Testament, it is easy to ignore that Jesus never said he was born of a virgin; that two of the official gospels – Saint Mark and Saint John – do not refer to Jesus’ virgin birth; that Saint Paul, who supposedly wrote half of the books that compose the New Testament, does not mention this and even contradicts it by pointing out that Jesus was a descendant of David ‘according to the flesh’ (Rm1:3); and that the two official gospels – Saint Matthew and Saint Luke – that do mention there is a mystery regarding Jesus’ birth, offer different genealogies for Jesus. When one is however aware of this, it is stupid not to wonder where the idea of Jesus’ virgin birth really comes from.

A CERTIFIED LETTER SENT TO THE POPE

                                                                                     September 23rd of 2015

Dear Sir,

I am contacting you with a request. I have discovered something surprising about religion (the Bible) and since you are an authority and I am self-taught I would like to ask you to evaluate whether what I've found makes sense or not.

I will be short. I think to be able to demonstrate, in only10 steps, that the dogma of Jesus’ Virgin Birth stems from a misinterpretation of an 'enigma' in the Gospel of Matthew which actually tells us who was Jesus’ father:

1) We can not find in the New Testament (NT) that Jesus ever claimed to have been born of a virgin.

2) Paul, who wrote half of the books of the NT, does not mention Jesus’ Virgin Birth and even contradicts it by saying that Jesus was a descendant of David "according to the flesh" (Rm1 :. 3)

3) Two of the four official gospels – Mark and John – do not mention Jesus’ Virgin Birth and the two gospels that do refer to a mystery regarding Jesus’ birth - Matthew and Luke - offer different genealogies (Mt1: 1-17 /Lk: 23-38).

4) Because of extramarital affairs some lineages are  real and others supposed: the father of a child is not necessarily the mother's partner. The genealogies in the Bible recognize this reality: the real lineages are based on the 'father begot son' principle while the supposed lineages use formulas such as "Cain knew his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to..." or "Jesus was, as was believed, the son of ..."

5) Matthew mentions in his genealogy for Jesus four women - Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba and Tamar - and we find in the Old Testament that all had extramarital affairs. Tamar had Peres from Judah, her father-in-law. (Gn38) This information prepares us for what we will discover about Jesus’ parents.

6) Matthew’s genealogy for Jesus is based on the 'father begat a son' principle, but ends with, "... Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born. So the amount of generations is: 14 from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the Babylonian deportation; and 14 from the Babylonian deportation to Jesus.

7) The traditional division is: Abraham/David, David/Josiah and Jeconiah/Jesus. But when we repeat David in the second column, we must do the same with Josiah in the third column. And since Josiah marks the Babylonian deportation, and there are 14 generations from him to Joseph, the fact that Matthew says there are 14 generations from the Babylonian deportation to Jesus, means that Joseph and Jesus belong to the same generation: Jacob first had Joseph, and later, when this son reached adulthood, he had Jesus from Joseph's wife (his daughter-in-law), just like generations earlier Judah had Peres from his daughter-in-law (Tamar).

8) In case Jesus was the son of Jacob, he was a descendant of David and Matthew's genealogy makes sense: it traces Jesus’ lineage back to David, because the Messiah was supposed to be a descendant of him; it lists 4 adulterous women because Jesus was born from an extramarital relationship; it ends with 'Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born' and invites us to divide the generations in groups of 14 to enable us to discover that Joseph and Jesus were brothers. Besides, Matthew had  a reason for hiding this information: the Jews stoned adulterers to death and did not respect bastard children.

9) This enigma should not surprise us because a) calling the Bible a  'sacred' book originally meant to recognize that it guards secrets (the words 'sacred' and 'secret' have the same origin: they come from the verb 'to segregate'; because b) the word 'religion', which comes from the Latin word 'relegere' and means ‘to re-read’, an also ‘to reunite’ (religare), refers to reading the Bible again and again in order to discover its secrets; and because c), according to an ancient Jewish tradition someone who is enlightened is able to create a mystery that many generations later reveals its secrets and this is the case of the Bible.

10) When the Gospels made their appearance, the Christian authorities were no longer descendants of Jews, who were familiar with books that guard secrets, but instead of pagans, who were familiar with pagan ideas such as, for instance, that of a god who is born of a virgin. And when they read in Matthew: "..María was betrothed to Joseph, but before they came to live together she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit", they assumed that this meant that Mary had Jesus without having a sexual relationship. And when they read, "Now all this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: "Look the virgin is with child and will give birth to a son whom they will call Immanuel, a name which means "God-is-with-us", they believed it confirmed their assumption. Therefore, they thought that Matthew said: "... Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born" and that Luke said, "... Jesus was, believed to be, the son of Joseph" to indicate that he was not the son of Joseph, but of an angel.

Twenty years have passed since I discovered that Matthew says that Jesus was born of a relationship between Mary and her father-in-law. Now it  is time that the world knows of my findings. Therefore, I am asking several authorities to evaluate my hypothesis. I am contacting Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the pope, because the Vatican has the best collection of Sacred Scriptures; Munib A. Younan, President of the Lutheran World Federation, because protestants believe in the sufficiency and authority of the Holy Scriptures; George Soros, because he studied philosophy and philosophers seek the truth, Sebastien Fath, because as a professor of history he has studied religion; and Xosé Luís Vilela Conde, the director of La Voz de Galicia, because newspapers evaluate news and decide what news is published.

In previous attempts to share my findings, someone claimed that one can find in the Bible whatever one wants to find. I consider that one can ignore in the Bible – and in life in general – whatever one wants to ignore. And should someone who ignores certain information deliberately not be called ‘ignorant’ (stupid)?

I would appreciate it if you evaluated my hypothesis as soon as possible. I hope that this Christmas people know the truth and reflect upon all the questions that my discovery entails. The most important questions are, “Who created this enigma?” and “Why does this enigma reveals its secrets now?”

Sincerely,

Bruno Lernout