Candy Coated Jesus

By Ken Albertsen

The word 'unveiled' literally means: to take off the veil - to reveal what someone is trying to hide or obscure. The text of Candy Coated Jesus (CCJ) is not a long tome trying to sound scholarly – yet it covers a lot of bases. It takes select passages from the New Testament (NT), verbatum, and decipher them according to the exact words and phrases therein.
The text doesn't change words or skew them into lavishing praise upon Jesus and the other characters mentioned in the NT – as preachers often do from the pulpit (or Bible scholars do in their ponderous books).
CCJ's text also articulates upon related NT topics such as the Revelation chapter ('an embellished psychadelic trip') and The Gospel of Judas – a recently found/translated papyrus, the veracity of which is not challenged by Bible scholars. It indicates that Judas was Jesus' favorite young disciple, rather than the awful boogie man that the Vatican (and others) want us to believe he was.
Thousands of critiques of the Bible have been written, which heap praise on the myths within. This e-book, pulls aside orthodox shrouds to reveal parts of the New Testament which preachers don't want shown. It does so by quoting,NT passages, unabridged, as they were written.
Why a book like this? One reason: right wing Christianity often manifests harm – not just for humans, but for other species and the environment. That may sound like a mouthful of jargon, but read the book, if you dare, and you may come to realize how there are uplifting ways to experience life (and the world) which don't require worship of ancient texts and myth-based belief systems.
Right Wing Christians won't like this book because it doesn't dovetail with their Sunday School images of Jesus. Like Trump fans, too much truth makes them angry and want to lash out. Deists think that Atheism means 'having no profound beliefs.' That's ridiculous. Those who don't embrace a deist belief system - instead find joy and solace in nature. Nature is every bit as awe-inspiring as God. Nature is real, whereas religions are aspects of reality cloaked in man-made myths - which devolve to moral codes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ken Albertsen
• Release date: Sep 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9781879338258

Ken Albertsen

Ken is a .westward-moving guy. Started out in Denmark in 1952, then westward to Washington DC three years later. At age 22, Ken moved westward to northern California where he farmsteaded for 25 years. Then westward again at age age 47 to farmstead in northern Thailand. 20 years hence, and Ken is like whirled peas (world peace) leaving Thailand and landing on his feet, but where? Ken has over a dozen books showcased online - on as many topics, ranging from Tibetan Buddhism (Life Story of Milarepa) to diet (Fasting for Health and Highness), to history (Hong Kong, What if ....?) with a couple of sci-fi stories thrown in for good measure (Robon Take-Over and Mastodons on Mars). Additionally, Ken has written a novel (Lali's Passage), a humorous book (Buddha, Jesus and the Hippie), plus two memoirs. One is his auto-bio from age zero to 22 (C.I.A. Brat) and the most recent was written after serving time in a Thai prison on false charges (1 Pill = 28 Years). Ken will next release his first children's book titled: "Mabalo's Balloon." plus a crossword puzzle book and a dictionary of idioms. Ken has narrated two audio books, the latest: Himalayan Adventures features readings from the diaries of seven great explorers of the Himalayan region, five of whom did their explorations during the 19th century. Adventure1.com.

Book preview

Candy-Covered Jesus

//// The New Testament Unveiled ////

- Select Quotes From The New Testament,

Along With Unvarnished Explanations

Based On Verbatim Words & Phrases -

Adventure1 Publications

ISBN 9781879338258

All rights reserved. Enjoy reading this text and feel free to share it with people close to you, but please do not make it readily available to the general public by copying and/or distributing it – other than a few select passages for review or educational applications.

Chapters

One: Burn the World and Destroy Families

Two: Sell Possessions, With All Proceeds Given To Apostles

Three: Murder is Justified

Four: Jesus Disses John The Baptist

Five: Don't Save Money

Six: Blasphemy Can Never Be Forgiven

Seven: Divorce = Adultery

Eight: Acid Trip

Nine: Most Popular Sales Manual in World History

Ten: Slaves, Obey Your Masters

Eleven: Gospel of Judas

Twelve: Commentary on Gospel of Judas

Thirteen: Religion Plays Catch-up to Science

Forteen: How Much Harm Does Christianity Cause?

Index

Foreword

In the great movie Amadeus, a biography of Mozart, there is a scene where the young composer is speaking with the Austrian King and the King's elder advisors. The authorities are trying to dissuade the young genius from deviating from staid requirements for composing an opera. Mozart flippantly replies, Come on now, be honest! Which one of you wouldn't rather listen to his hairdresser than Hercules? Or Horatio, or Orpheus... people so lofty they sound as if they shit marble.

I am a musician, but no Mozart. Neither do I try to write like Christian scholars,who would have us imagine they shit marble, and their armpits smell as sweet as daisies. I could also be called an iconoclast ('one who attacks widely accepted ideas'). The word stems from two 6th century Greek words; 'eikon' = image, and 'koaein' = to break. I've been called worse.

The word 'unveiled' literally means: to take off the veil - to reveal what someone is trying to hide or obscure. Most commonly, a veil is a cloth device which hides most or all of a person's (usually a woman's) face.

The New Testament is the second of two parts of the Bible. The first part of the Bible is actually the Hebrew Bible. It's essentially the Jews' Tanakh – all of which predates Jesus. The second part of the Bible, The New Testament, deals with Christianity's chief guru, Jesus, plus the people who came into prominence at around that time. It was a male dominated place & time, so it's no surprise that nearly all the prominent players are male.

Some people simply discount the New Testament altogether, claiming it's myth I dispute that. I think Jesus and the others mentioned in the New Testament were real people. The exception is the last chapter, Revelations, which is an embellished acid trip - which will be articulated upon in a later chapter of this text.

This analogy does not endeavor to use the sorts of lofty phrases one would expect for a reference to the Bible and/or early Christian history. Lord knows (pun intended) there are a plethora of such texts already extant. Instead, this text is written more in line with words/phrases which are more commonly used within early 21st century English language.

If you listen to five hundred Christian preachers interpret the New Testament, you'll hear a plethora of variations. The one common thread is: aggrandizement. Supplemental sentiments, from preachers, will touch upon the greatness of the Christian God, and how infallible Jesus and his disciples were, with the exception of Judas. Invariably, there will be embellishments. For example, recently I heard a preacher quote the NT saying, and all the people were filled with a great respect for him. as he read the closing phrase on a chapter (Acts, verse 5). It so happens, the preacher changed the wording. In the NT at that juncture, it doesn't use the word 'respect,' but rather the word 'fear.' Multiply that misquote by a million, and you get an idea of how preachers and scholars consistently misconstrue the Bible, as they preach to their flocks.

The oldest archaeological evidence of anything written down regarding The New Testament, are a few scraps of papyrus with a smattering of words, dating from about 150 years after the events. More in-depth texts were written a hundred or more years after that. Compare that to modern times. Imagine we live in a time when there are no cameras nor any recording devices other than words written on paper or whatever people dispel by word of mouth. Hold that thought, and apply it to a significant event that takes place in modern times. For example, the death of princess Diana or the tsunami which hit the Indian Ocean in the early part of this century.-

For starters, people telling what happened, even weeks after the event, will have varying recollections of the events. Now imagine how further the stories (of Diana or the tsunami) would get skewed if first written down three hundred years in the future. Add to that, written adjustments and edits would take place throughout the ensuing seventeen centuries. How accurately would stories in the forty first century describe incidents and people who existed 2,020 years prior?. That's a hypothetical window showing a semblance of how biblical stories get to us in the 21st century.

An early sect of Christians were called Gnostics. They were based in Greece and parts of western Anatolia (modern day Turkey). They leaned toward spiritual realms. Gnostics resembled Buddhists in the sense: they focused on psychology of the mind, in contrast to Holy Land Christians who continued to adulate Hebrew icons described in the Old Testament.

A man named Irenaeus came along, about 180 years after Jesus' death, and went on a campaign to wipe out the Gnostic sect of Christianity. He preferred that the small nascent Christian communities adopt the authoritarianism which had seeded in the region which is now Israel. Irenaeus set the groundwork toward the hierarchy of bishops, and later popes.

More than any one person at that time, he honed the New Testament texts down to a semblance of what they are today. During Irenaeus' lifetime, there were around twenty 'gospels' (written stories of what happened during Jesus' lifetime and decades after). Irenaeus took it upon himself to cull all but four stories, and those became the gospels we know as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Some of the other gospels' names are known, such as Gospel of Thomas and Gospel of Mary Magdeline, and so on – But Irenaeus chose to suppress those for all time. It was akin to 'book burning,' There may have also been gospels written by Peter or Paul or who knows who else, ….but we may never know. The Vatican has an extensive library, which may have some of those ancient texts, but it's difficult, if not impossible, for mere mortals to gain access to them. More about that in one of the later chapters of this text.

There is, however, general agreement that there was a Gospel of Judas (yes, ...of Iscariot). It was likely first written in Greek about 200 years after events surrounding Jesus and his interactions with others. The Gospel of Judas was thought to be lost forever (thanks mostly to Irenaeus), but in the late 20th century, a verified papyrus version was unearthed in Egypt. Near the end of this book, there is a chapter devoted to the Gospel of Judas.

The first reliable written version of the Bible was called the Vulgate or Wulgate (pronounced: vul gah tah). It was in Latin and compiled primarily by the scholarly translator Saint Jerome in the late 4th century - nearly 400 years after Jesus' death, and additional hundreds of years after events chronicled in the Hebrew Bible. A further revised & updated version was adopted as the official Bible for the Roman Catholic Church in 1592. Hundreds of revised Bible versions, during the past 1,600 years, are adaptations from that already-centuries-old Latin version.

The analogy herein starts with the premise:'words mean what they actually mean.' That sounds obvious, until a person hears a preacher speak. Then, words get twisted. Embellishments are rife, as are entire scenarios and interpretations - barely hinted at by biblical passages being described.

The New Testament has some strange things in it That begs the question: if Saint Jerome and others decided to keep certain odd things in the Bible text, ....what items did they excise during the editing process? It sure would be interesting to see what fell to the cutting room floor.

Jesus rarely spoke plainly - by saying what he wanted to say in a straightforward manner. Instead, he chose to weave his messages within parables. That's not a bad thing per se, but it sets his sayings up for varying interpretations. For example, if I ask a group of people to interpret the meaning of the children's song; Row Row Row Your Boat, some folks may interpret it as rowing a nice little boat down a lovely stream. Others, hearing the same lyrics, may interpret it as a call to mainline heroin: 'row your boat' (pump the syringe), 'gently down the stream' (bloodstream), ...'life is but a dream' (a drug-induced 'dream').

Christian preachers are unceasingly adept at spinning varied versions of what's written in their guidebook. Part of that skill, is changing or altering words in order to burnish what was written – to make it sound rosier. It's akin to those framed paintings seen in Sunday School rooms, which show a whitish pink skin toned handsome Jesus with shiny light brown hair, bending down to gently interact with cherubim-like, rosy-cheeked children. Indeed, through the centuries from the year 1,000 onward, depictions of Jesus and the saints have been aggrandized to the 10th degree: from painted-on gold-colored halos and the rest. Don't get me wrong, I love to look at paintings by the great European masters. Yet, I'm not fooled into thinking such paintings are not part of the greatest sales campaign in history. If the Jesus and related tales had not happened, they would have to have been invented. More than a few folks believe that they were indeed