The average person’s familiarity with scriptural texts (of any western style by-the-book faith system) is selective at best, and typical seekers are content to surrender the tricky situations of otherworldly powers to those representatives who claim to be blessed for interpretation. That leaves the range of “spiritual” control open for swarms of heaven’s self-promoted ambassadors who happily provide the detours around the many “revealed” messages which ordinary persons could often find to bristle with inconsistencies and contradictions. In other words, what we are led to believe as holy truth depends upon the perspective that is brought to bear by those self-promoted interpreters.
Judaic and Christian texts, as an example, tend to revolve around a longed-for coming of corrective influence by some anticipated messiah–i.e. a deliverer or liberator or savior. The Hebrew meaning of mashiah (messiah) is “the anointed,” which suggests that a qualification for being a messiah is that the person first has to be anointed (consecrated) by some heavenly certified person and thus made ready to take up the obligation of guidance. By some interpretations the act of being baptized has been erroneously regarded as virtually carrying the same significance, but baptism is the symbolic washing away of “original sin” so a soul may start with a clean slate, so to speak. An anointed one, on the other hand, was deemed to have been chosen, elevated and supposedly instilled with blessings to fulfill God’s higher purpose. The Old Testament kings Saul, David and Solomon were said to have been anointed, for example.
Unlike baptism, an anointing was a selective ceremony reserved to signify some alleged God-selected life purpose, such as royalty or dignitary or messiah. The esteem that was placed upon the anointed one was signified with the use of very expensive oil made available for the ceremony. It is this expense–the high cost–which clouds the depiction of Jesus’ anointing. In other words, it was a cosmetic luxury, particularly of the Near East and Greek cultures where it had been the highlight in a ceremony establishing kingship. The practice, however, was condemned in the OT book of Amos (6:6). In the Gospel texts Mark, Matthew and John, each gives a different version of where, when and by whom the anointing of Jesus occurred. All agree on one odd thing, however; that it was a woman who anointed Jesus. That is because in those prehistory Creation-cosmology lessons feminine qualities symbolized energy-substance out of which matter then evolves. According to John that anointing episode occurred only after Jesus had allegedly raised the dead man, Lazarus, who had “lain in the grave four days already,”
The name Lazarus appears only three times in New Testament texts; once in Luke 16 as a leper who was healed by Jesus, and twice in John 11 and 12 in regard to an alleged miracle of raising up the dead man. The name Lazarus is claimed to be abridged from the Hebrew name Eleazar, which is said to mean “God had helped.” Strangely it is only in John that the reinvigorating from the dead of the man Lazarus of Bethany is addressed, an alleged miracle which is suggestive of far greater power and consequence than any of the miracles presented in the book of Mark, Matthew or Luke. The plot purpose of Lazarus in John is to serve as a kind of prelude to Jesus’ own greater miraculous resurrection that was to come. As noted in a previous web-post, the characters of Lazarus and his sisters in John’s account have a peculiarly close relationship to a far older Egyptian story concerning a man name El-Azar-us and his two sisters named Meri and Merti who happened to live in a village called Bethanu. The Egyptian name of the village meant “house of god,” referring to the Egyptian god Anu. The god Anu happened to have been honored in the even older Sumerian culture and was known as the “first among the gods.” The Egyptian version also exposes where the Hebrew word beth, meaning “house” originated (and was re-interpreted as Bethany and Bethlehem in Gospels).
It should be recalled that the Genesis plotline leaned heavily on the prehistory Creation lessons which were once illustrated with groups of stars (constellations). That connection is guardedly apparent in John’s account in the seeming indifference of Jesus upon hearing of Lazarus being “sick unto death” and saying, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God…” Then in John 11-17 it is averred that Lazarus had “…lain in the grave for four days already.” Only in understanding the ancient lessons concerning the pre-physical energies which involve as Creation do these story elements hold any rationality. In prehistory cultures it had been explained that the first four phases of primal energy involvement are to be passed over to congeal as matter; this was often likened to a grave or a tomb. The reason for that metaphor was because the primordial energy conditions hold only the potential for purposeful existence which must be raised into life by the Life Principle. The “four days”(as in the “days” timeframe of Creation) of Lazarus’ alleged entombment are therefore in reference to the four earliest energy dimensions–or pre-physical stages–of primal energy involvement. The mid-stage of energy involvement between the primary energy dimensions and first visible energy-forms was known in those ancient teachings as Devolution.
Verse 16 of John 11 then affirmed this meaning, saying, “Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto disciples, Let us go, that we may die with him.” This bizarre suggestion has long puzzled Gospel scholars. The name Didymus, the which not the who of the quoted verse, refers to the constellation Gemini (the Twins) with which was once taught the ancient lessons of Creation energies which were equated in those lessons to mental matter, and was taught with constellation Gemini. In zodiac depictions Gemini is said to govern the shoulders, arms and hands: Thomas, remember, had to see the two scarred hands of the resurrected Jesus to be sure he truly was Jesus.
Metaphorically, these four prototypal stages within the elementary energy planes must figuratively die (or be passed over) in order to involve as defined matter. Note also that near the conclusion of John’s version of the crucifixion events that the grave of Jesus was described as: “It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.” (John 11:38) In those prehistory Creation-cosmology lessons upon which John’s version was based the void (quantum energy source) out of which Creation takes place was commonly allegorized as a cave. The stone which is said to be laid upon the cave symbolized the taking on of the involving primal energies as Dense Matter form, which is to say it is a reference to this energy plane where each of us becomes conscious of self as biological matter-life.
This example serves to indicate how all faith systems have been woven from threads of very ancient science-based teachings which had once offered genuine technical understanding of the energy principles which involve as Creation. Unfortunately those threads of true wisdom tended to be intentionally and systematically tangled and recast into contorted assertions. As an example of how extreme “faith” merchants chose to rework ancient wisdom as “holy word” consider the alleged Lazarus incident mentioned here–it is something of a stretch. A tradition in the Roman Catholic Church has it that the resurrected Lazarus, who had been dead for four days, later became first bishop of Marseille. And from such tangled threads of ancient wisdom has been woven the fabric known as holy truth.