FICTION
CAMP OF THE SAINTS by Jean Raspail [W/N]: a chilling apocolyptic novel
of the Third World overrunning the developed nations. Raspail pens a
doomsday scenario of a West, so rotted-out from within by the "Multi-Cultural"
mongers, it can't defend itself from the "peaceful" invasion by hordes of
humanoid vermin from the sewers of Calcutta. A few dedicated Frenchmen prepare
for a "Thermopylae" on the Riviera, only to be attacked by their own country!
THE PORTAGE TO SAN CRISTOBAL OF A.H. by George Steiner. [OP] This 1979
novel by the preeminent Jewish man of letters deals with Israeli fanatics finding the 90-year-old Hitler alive in the jungles of Paraguay and their
determination to bring him out to stand trial. The jungle, however, proves more
than they can cope with. As their chances of getting out seem increasingly unlikely, they elect to hold the trial there, with the Indian guide as judge. Hitler conducts his own defense ... and is "acquitted"! (I plan to post Chapter 17, the Defense, in HTML ... but neither website nor Rome were
built in a day.)
FREE BOOKS ON LINE
FREE BOOKS: OVER 9,000 ON LINE [http://www.cs.cmu.edu/books.html]
If there are works which you feel should be added to this list, feel free to
suggest them via e-mail. (A scan of the cover would be most welcome.)
Go back!
These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, "Go
not unto the way of the Gentiles [= pagans, i.e. Greeks &
Romans]...but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
[Matt. X:5-6]
The Passover Plot was written in the 1970s by a Jewish M.D.
named Hugh Shoenfield. Working entirely from Xian sources,
Schoenfield purports that the "crucifixion" was an staged by
Jesus, Judas, Joseph of Arimathaea, and Pilate. As evidence,
Schoenfield cites the following:
1. Jesus was a strictly Jewish personality - this
shown from the example of Matthew cited.
2. The pacifistic preaching meshed with Roman interests -
It had been necessary to depose the prior tetrarch. Herod Agrippa
was being educated in Rome to rule in accord with Roman policy.
Pilate was an inter rex.
3. The elements Jesus scorned were the ones troubling Rome
- the scribes and Pharisees were the source of the Zealots, etc.
4. Judea was rife with talk about "The Messiah." - a
pacifistic, "not of this world" Messiah is the type Rome wanted;
not a "liberator," as the Jews envisioned (and still do).
5. The effect of the leader of this pacifisic sect seen crucified, then
"returning," would greatly enhance its standing among Jews - as Matt. X:5-6 shows,
they were supposed to be the only recipients of the "good news"- which would also be in
the best interest of Rome.
NOW, ABOUT PERSONALITIES:
In the first place, "Jesus of Nazareth," implying a boyhood home is totally in error, as
there was no town by that name in Galilee at that time. The confusion stems from two
Greek words Nazarenos and Nazoraios. The first would mean "someone from Nazareth," the
second seems to be a Greek corruption of Nazirite. Nazoraios is used in Matt., Luke, John &
Acts. What's a "Nazirite"? Among the ancient Hebrews, a "Nazarite" was an especially holy
person, with paranormal abilities, credited to possessing "the Spirit of the Lord." Sampson is a
prime example of a Nazirite. Then there were the Essenes, about whom a great deal more
has been learned since the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls. A great deal of Essene doctrine found
its way into the "good news," indicating that if Jesus was not an actual member of this "drop-out" sect, he was quite familiar with it. Furthermore, one sees a panoply of actions done by Jesus
solely with the intent of satisfying some utterance, principally from Isaiah.
Next, let us consider this Joseph of Arimathaea. Supposedly, he was a very rich Jew and
a member of the Sanhedrin. (Said Joseph is also a "saint" in the Eastern church, but not
in the West.) This Joseph goes to Pilate and asks for "the body" of Jesus, that it might be buried
in his tomb. Nothing strange there; however, one is reading an English translation from the
Greek. In the original Greek, the word used is soma. In Greek, soma does indeed
mean "body"; however it refers to a living body (psycho-somatic, etc.). The word
for a dead body is nekros (necr-opolis, etc.) We're told this tomb is built
into the side of a hill. These were exceedingly disorderly times in the Levant. Rome's
land-bridge between Syria and Egypt was of critical import. It was commonplace for
those high-up on the social ladder to build tombs with escape hatches, that if the need
arose they could "die," be entombed - then safely re-emerge, dig up a cash hoard, and go off
somewhere to live under an assumed name. Pilate was no fool! Certainly he would have
suspected that Joseph's tomb had a "back door"; however, he orders a great stone placed across
the opening, and posts a guard - to mollify the Sanhedrin, which he loathed - outside!
Knowing that a "back door" was a virtual certainty, why didn't Pilate make provision for it.
One plausible answer is that he was in on The Passover Plot
Let's now look at Pontius Pilatus. It's generally agreed the Pilate came from a high
Equestrian family and was appointed Procurator of Judea by Tiberius's subaltern, Sejanus. Judea
was was being administered as a Roman province, pending the coming of age of Herod Agrippa,
who was being educated at Roman expense to administer the tetrarchy in accord with Rome's
wishes. Sejanus didn't like the Jews, but Tiberius disliked wars. They were expensive. Tiberius
didn't like spending money. Period! In 31 c.e., the machinations of Sejanus were discovered and
the old Goat on Capri embarked on a major purge. Pilate managed to escape the decimation
nearly everyone advanced by Sejanus. Perhaps because Sejanus was reportedly displeased with
his administration (too accommodating to the Jews), or perhaps because he had warded
off uprisings. In any event, at the time of the Fateful Passover, one can see that Pilate would have
welcomed pacifism and stoic acceptance of Roman rule becoming pandemic in
Judea. He had everything to gain and nothing to lose by active participation in The
Passover Plot.
This brings us to the final character, Judas Iscariot. According to Xian lore, Judas had
been witness to all the miraculous doings of Jesus. At the Last Supper, Jesus tells him that he
knows Judas will betray him. Wouldn't that type of prescience strike awe into
anybody? Judas knows that Jesus has a myriad of paranormal powers, far outdoing
Sampson possessed, has been told that Jesus knows he will betray him - and does so! It
makes no sense at all ... unless Judas was privy to The Passover Plot. If, indeed, it
existed, the actions of everyone become readily understandable.
Schoenfield draws the reader's attention to some very salient facts. The time Jesus spent
on the cross - and remember all of this is taken from othodox Xian sources - was three
hours! The Romans used crucifixion as an exemplary form of execution: the victim was on
the cross for days and suffered ex-CRUC-iatingly. Dr. Schoenfield shows how the typically depicted Crucifixion would have been anatomically impossible: body weight would have drug the hands right through the nails. (The normal method was to tie the victim's arms to the crossbeam; also a small perch was provided. (The Romans wanted it to last! Death was due to asphyxiation, when the chest muscles gave out.)
Decriers of Schoenfeld's thesis point out that Jesus was exhausted after
his Great Fast. (Of course he'd had ample to eat and drink afterwards. Xian
sources indicate a facile intellect at the interrogation; he also had ample strength to send the money-changers's tables flying.) Then they call attention
to the scouraging; however, if it was a plot, no scouraging would have taken
place; and the Crown of Thorns, while colorful, would not have debillitating.)
Schoenfeld also examined the two types of spears used by the Romans: the pilum and the hasta. Both had "fish-hook" points, which made them
very hard to remove. He concludes that if the soldier administered a wound with
his spear, if must have been a glancing-type and not an impalement, which would
have required surgery to get his spear out. The location is also important, as a wound even a few inches deep on the side would not encounter any major arteries or organs. It would be totally superficial.
The "vinegar" proffered to alleviate thirst is very important, as the ancients possessed numerous drugs that would induce necrosis, giving every
indication the person was dead, when he was merely drugged. (One should recall
such a drug is used in Romeo and Juliet.)
Finally, we come to breaking of the bones. The bones of the other two
victim were broken, so that shock would expedite the execution. (It had to
be over and done with by the advent of Passover.) Jesus's bones were not
broken: Why Not? How could anyone be so sure that he would die,
without breaking any bones, when it normally took days for one
to die from crucifixion?
"God's hand was determining everything!" the True Believers will rejoin ... but
then how did Pontius Pilate know that? What The Passover Plot
does is to provide totally logical and rational answers for a seemingly
irrational and unlogical sequence of events. For that reason alone, it warrants one's serious consideration.
Go back!
Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy [W] was written during Lord Russell's self-imposed exile in the U.S. during WWII. While covering all major philosophers from Ancient Greece to modern times, it reflects his bias toward "logical" philosophy (Russell was primarily known as a mathematician) as opposed to metaphysics. If one bears this bias in mind, it is an invaluable reference work.
Friedrich Nietzsche [W/N/F] currently enjoys such vogue among intellectuals, that one wonders why Walt Disney has not done a film on Also Sprach Zarathustra. Charlton Heston began "The Giants of Philosophy" series on cassette with Nietzsche. (The series now stands at Thirteen, beginning with Plato and Aristotle, running through Kant, Hume, Hegel, and Nietzsche.) There are more than a dozen websites devoted to Nietzsche. The best are http://www.pitt.edu/~wbcurry/nietzsche.html (compilations and cross-references from all Nietzsche's works on particular subjects: e.g. Christianity, morality, etc.) and the Nietzsche page at the University of Southern California: http://www.usc.edu/~douglast/nietzsche.html Here one can download any and all of Nietzsche works in German or English FOR FREE! (The English versions are the 1905 Complete Works, underwritten by the Jewish physician Dr. Oscar Levy. They suffer from the use of "Biblical English" - "He spaketh unto them as follows:" - which remains in German. The Walter Kaufmann translations are much better, but still in copyright.)
Richard E. Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible? [W] is a delineation of the discovery made in the 19th century by Julius Wellhausen that the Pentatuch [The Torah, or first five books of the Jewish Bible (Xian "Old Testament")] are not the oldest scriptures and
were not written down until after the Babylonian Captivity! (Because of Wellhausen and later research, the renowned rabbi Mordecai Kaplan stunned the Jewish world in 1945 by stating that The Torah was myth, that the Jews were a "Chosen" anything, and that The Great Realtor in the Sky didn't promise anything to anybody! Kaplan maintained that Judaism must be considered a "distinct Culture.") Friedman, by use of alternating fonts, shows how two very different legends were woven together to form The Torah. A MUST READ!
James Bacque's Other Losses and Crimes and Mercies [N] expose the
ghastly record of Western Allied atrocities during and
after WWII. If one goes through the government school system, he's never going to hear about those, but that doesn't mean they didn't happen. Take a look at the photo. It's an official U.S. government
photo showing the massacre of the German POWs at Dachau, after
surrendering to the Americans, without firing a shot. Of the 560 who surrendered, 520 immediately stood against the wall and machine-gunned,
while the U.S. took movies! (Why were 20 spared? Maybe
they weren't over 15.) The bitter irony is that those massacred weren't the
former guards at Dachau. They were the tattered remnants of the "Wikinger
Division," the Nordic volunteer division of the Waffen-SS, which had nothing to do with the concentration camps. The SS-command had pulled
out the "Alte Kaempfer" 24-hours before the Americans got there, replacing
them with the volunteer Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes who made up the "Wikinger
Division." A massace, pure and simple! "The U.S. didn't do things like that!"
Wrong, friend, and there's a U.S. government photo to show that it did -
and worse ... A LOT WORSE! Bacque is a Canadian journalist, who has fearlessly exposed the atrocities of "the Good Guys" in "the Good War"! But
all you'll ever hear is "Holocaust! Holocaust! Ho-ho-holocaust!" That's the reason Bacque's books are so necessary!