Neither Jesus nor his Disciples

PAID TITHE!

          "My house shall be called the house of prayer: but you have made it a den of thieves."

       Jesus could and did say things like these about the "Laws of Moses" including tithing and the sacrificial system of the Jews of his day because neither he nor his disciples paid tithe nor sacrificed animals in Herod's temple in Jerusalem.    Jesus was an Essene and his disciples were all Essenes.   He was the Essene "Messiah" between 29 AD and 33 AD, the year he was crucified on the 20th of March, a Friday.    Josephus records that the Essenes had their own system of sacrifices, and were not allowed in the temple.   After Jesus rose from the dead and  he was seen in Jerusalem on the third day (a Monday) his brother James became the Essene Messiah and under James the Essenes paid no tithe either.    The tithe was used for the support of priests and Levites in the Jewish temple, and since neither Jesus nor his disciples supported Herod's temple, nor the priests and Levites who worked there, none of them paid tithe.  Two of Jesus' disciples, Matthew and Judas Iscariot, handled money, and indeed Matthew handled tithe money, but the Essenes made a joke of both these disciples monetary involvement.   More about this later.

       Josephus wrote (Antiq. 18:1:5 (19) "--and when they send what they have dedicated into the temple, they do not offer sacrifices, because they have more pure lustrations of their own; on which account they are excluded from the common court of the temple, but offer their sacrifices themselves; ---" The phrase "what they have dedicated" here does not refer to "tithe" but to a payment in lieu of the "Temple Tax" which I will also get into later on this page.

      Josephus on Jesus (Antiq. 18:3:3 (63) " Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works -- a teacher of such men who recieve the truth with pleasure.  He drew over to him many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles.  He was [the] Christ. [Messiah].  (64) and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principle men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again on the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.'"  (Written about 100 AD)

    Because the vast majority of ministers and evangelists today choose to ignore the Essenes, in spite of the discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran and nearby in the 1940s and 1950s, and the more recent piecing together and translation of most of these scrolls into English by Geza Vermes and others, I will come over onto their turf and prove to my readers that Jesus and his disciples were not tithe-payers using materials that are readily available and that these ministers and evangelists do agree are valid.

Malachi's "Storehouse"

      Malachi 3:10 "Bring ye all the tithes into the STOREHOUSE, that I may have meat in MINE HOUSE, ---" Malachi is here referring to one place, not many.   The Jews could and did institute a policy of tithing to support one institution, that of their holy temple, which was in one place, Jerusalem.   They then wrote page after page of rhetoric in the Bible against anyone who tried to collect money for, and get people to worship at, any other place than this temple at Jerusalem.

      Modern religious money-raisers may try to convince you that their particular project or church is the "storehouse" that Malachi was referring to, but this is a distortion of Malachi's purpose in writing this, and is basically an untruth, a lie.   Assuming that Malachi was inspired to write this by God, which is at best a questionable assumption, changing it's meaning to include your particular project or church is a far more questionable assumption, bordering on downright fraud.  These people would be labeled as con men (confidence men) in any other "business" besides religion.   In our current computer and email age it's akin to duplicating a bank's web page and e-mailing you a query supposedly from your bank asking you for information that allows someone else beside your bank access to your money.

       Specifically, they would like to make you believe that Jesus, a non tithe-payer, wants you to pay tithe to a religion or cult or project that he may or may not approve of, based on a promise made in God's name by an old testament "Messenger" (Malachi) whose name may not really be his name.   And whose prophetic credentials are not available for you to examine.   And whose agenda is obvious to any minister and evangelist reading these words.   To raise money for the temple of his day, the "first temple" freshly rebuilt by his contemporaries Ezra and Nehemiah.    That's the STOREHOUSE referred to in Malachi 3:10.

Solomon's Invisible Temple

      It's not for lack of looking that modern Israeli archaeologists have not been able to find even one artifact that they can positively and with reasonable certainty identify as something from Solomon's original temple, described in great detail in the Bible.  The giant stones that form the border of the platform on which this and later temples were said to have been built are indeed there, and have been identified, but some of these stones are much too large to have been moved to their present position by methods extant in David's day, so some thoughtful scholars such as Zechariah Sitchin assume that this platform, known to king David as "the threshing floor of  Araunah the Jebusite" (2 Samuel 24:18-25) was there in great antiquity.  And may have been there when Melchizidek was king of Salem (Jerusalem) in the days of Ibru.um (Abraham).

      Very recently scholars and archaologists have determined that there were no schools in Israel capable of teaching reading and writing until the Persians acquired Israel and Judea as one of their territories, making 700 BC  the time when many of these things we are reading in the Bible were written.  The current assumption is that once the Jews had scribes that could read and write, they borrowed freely from Persian and Babylonian stories to embellish their former history, making the histories of the grand empires of David and Solomon much greater than they actually were.   Solomon may have built something more to worship in other than the tent described in 1 Chronicles 15:1;16:1, but whatever that something may have been, it's gone now.   But a king named Josiah is said to have repaired and improved it about 624 AD.  A time when there were indeed Babylonian and Persian educated scribes in Israel and Judea to write about these repairs and improvements.

Found! The Lost Book of the Law!

     2 Kings 22:1 "Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign and he reigned thirty and one years in Jerusalem-- 3 And it came to pass in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, that the king sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam the scribe, to the house of the Lord, saying  4  Go up to Hilkiah the high priest, that he may sum up the silver which is brought into the house of the Lord, which the keepers of the door have gathered from the people---"

     2 Kings 22:8 "And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found  the book of the law in the house of the Lord.  And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it."

     According to these latest archeological findings about no scribal class before 700 BC, this fits right in with their theories.   Books and scrolls do no good unless there is someone who can read them, and tell other people who perhaps can't read and write what these books and scrolls say.    Well, they told King Josiah what they were reading in this supposedly lost and then found book (supposedly the Book of Deuteronomy according to many scholars) and he authorized the first Passover celebration (the most basic Jewish feast day) that had been celebrated in many decades.

     2 Kings 23:21 "And the king commanded all the people, saying, Keep the passover unto the Lord your God, as it is written in the book of this covenant.  22 Surely there was not holden such a passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in the days of the kings of Israel,  nor of the kings of Judah.  23 But in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, wherein this passover was holden to the Lord in Jerusalem."

The Sad Fate of Josiah's Sons

     What happened later to "good" King Josiah?  Did God pour out on him a "blessing, that there shall not be room enough to recieve it?" (Malachi 3:10 last part).   Not exactly!  It seems Josiah paid too much attention to the book his scribes had found, and inadvisedly went up to a battle to watch God slay some Egyptians, as God had in olden times, and discovered what the real world is like.

      2 Kings 23:29 "In his days Pharaoh-nechoh king of Egypt went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates: and king Josiah went against him; and he slew him at Megiddo, when he had seen him.  30 And his servants carried him in a chariot dead from Migiddo, and brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own sepulchre.  And the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and anointed him, and made him king in his father's stead."

      Josiah's son Jehoahaz  only reigned three months before Pharaoh-nechoh deposed him and put Eliakim his brother in his place and exacted a tax of a hundred talents of silver and one talent of gold on Judea.  The king, whose name Pharaoh changed to Jehoikim exacted the tax on all the people to give to Pharaoh, and reigned 11 years.

     Then Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made Jehoikim an offer he couldn't refuse, and he served Nebuchadnezzar for three years and then rebelled.  About this time all the nations surrounding Judah made raids into that country --- the Chaldees, the Syrians,  the Moabites, and the Ammonites (2 Kings 24:2).  Jehoakim died and his son Jehoichin took his place."

     It's now 599 BC, and Nebuchadnezzer decided to take over Judah entirely and put an end to temple worship as it then existed. Which wasn't that much of a deal because both Josiah's sons and grandson "did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord."  Nebuchadnezzar carried off the treasures of God's house, and made Mattaniah king, changing his name to Zedekiah.   Eleven years  later (588 BC) when Zedekiak rebelled, Nebuchanezzar burned Jerusalem and the temple.  (Now I know the Book of Daniel leads us to believe that Nebuchad- nezzar was not all that bad a guy, but that's another story for another time!)

The Temple Rebuilt

      The temple was rebuilt according to the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, and those priests and Levites who worked in it assured some income from tithes and offerings partly due to the curses and promises recorded in Malachi chapter three, but by the time of the Maccabees the new temple had been desecrated on the orders of the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes.    After defeating Antiochus in a long series of battles recorded in 1 and 2  Maccabees, but missing in our current King James' Bibles, the Jews regained control of their country and their temple, freshly dedicating this temple (now called the "Second Temple") to Jehovah.

       Herod the Great became king around 44 BC, and decided to expand and improve this temple to be the showpiece of Judea and of his reign.   He turned down an even grander proposed renovation plan proposed by the Essenes, so they withdrew their support and held their own celebrations and feast days independent of those held at Herod's temple 14 miles away from the Qumran monastery.

The Temple Tax

      Instead of "Tithe" pegged at 10% of a person's increase, usually accessed on produce grown on one's farm, or sheep in one's pasture, Jews in the time of Herod and later were expected to pay a "Temple Tax" of 1/2 shekel of silver per year.    To most people this was a much heavier "tax" than the earlier tithe had been, because it was a fixed amount, and not adjusted for the poverty or wealth of the person paying this amount .    It saved a lot of work for the priests and Levites who collected this tax, however, because they had your name on a list if you were allowed into the temple, and could check off your name when they received the half shekel coin.  

      Besides the "Tax", which must be paid with a coin that did not have Caesar's image on it, it might be more convenient to buy your sacrificial lamb in the temple courtyard, another opportunity for a profit for the priests and Levites. This was the business of the money- changers of the temple that Jesus condemned when he overthrew the tables of the money-changers of the temple.   And said, loud enough for everyone to hear---"My house shall be called the house of prayer: but you have made it a den of thieves." --(Actually, "Gospel Pesher" information encoded in these episodes shows Jesus did this at a money-changing table at Qumran, not at Jerusalem, which is why he was not lynched for doing this).  Wherever and whenever Jesus did this is not so important as is the principle that he disapproved of such dishonest and devious practices, so take heed, you would be "followers of Jesus" today.   He may still be casting a wary glance at what you are doing, and the consequences may not be pleasant in your near future!

Matthew the "Publican"

       New Testament readers of Matthew are not told in so many words that Matthew was not a detested "Tax Collector" for the hated Romans but was instead a Levite of the famed Annas family of first-century Jerusalem.  But then, it's not that hard to figure out, to anyone using their heads for anything besides a hat-rack and depository for politically correct information spoon-fed you from the modern pulpits of preachers intent on keeping your tithes being deposited regularly in those envelopes in front of you in the church pews. "Matthew" in some texts is clearly "Levi" in other texts.    Levi was the son of Jacob from whom the Levites were descended.    Moses and Aaron were both Levites according to the Bible and the Levites were the ones entitled to be supported by the tithes.    So we can assume quite accurately that Matthew was a Levite entitled to be supported by tithe, and in the system in use at Herod's temple, one of those people who checked your name against a list and checked off your name when you gave him the half-shekel.

     Matthew-Levi, the apostle,  is never called a "fishermen" for a very good reason. He was an educated man, an accomplished author, and very well acquainted with Essene customs and beliefs, which he very success fully promotes in chapters 5-7 of his gospel, the part we call " The Sermon on the Mount".  Those parts of these chapters that seem harsh to us, are indeed so stringent because they accurately represent Essene views on such subjects as lust, adultery, divorce, having more than one wife, and among other things, owning excessive property and "laying up treasure" on earth, instead of giving it to the Essenes.    Matthew's Beatitudes utilize a lot of Essene nicknames "The Poor", "The Righteous", "The Peacemakers", etc. to convey the message that the Essenes are the "Sons of Light" while everyone else are "Sons of Darkness." 

      "Gospel Pesher" shows that Matthew-Levi was indeed Matthew Annas, one of a series of High Priests of the Annas family who is recorded in Josephus as serving as High Priest in Herod's temple from 42-43 AD, at which time he took the opportunity to have his gospel printed at the Qumran scriptorium, and circulated near and far.  He was preceded in that high office from 37-41 AD by his brother, Theophilus Annas, the person Luke dedicated both Luke and Acts to in those Bible books. See Luke !:3 and Acts 1:1. Another of the Annas brothers was Jonathan Annas, the Essene high priest at Qumran, one of the Twelve Apostles under the name James or Jacob of Alphaeus. He served as High Priest at Herod's temple for six months in 37 AD, but was deposed as High Priest as "Stephen". This deposing is presented in Acts 6:8 to Acts 7:60 as the "Stoning of Stephen." 

      Matthew-Levi portrays himself as a "Publican", a "Tax Collector", in his gospel as a self-depreciating "joke" because he knew the Essenes would laugh and say, "He's not such a bad guy after all, even though he spent some of his time as one of those "thieves" at Herod's temple."

 Judas Iscariot's Money Bag

     Judas Iscariot, however, the one who really took care of seeing that the Twelve Apostles had something to eat every day, and a roof over their heads, would be the Church Treasurer in our modern churches.  The one who checks our names against a list of church members, and knows which of us pays tithe (the faithful 7 to 13 %) and who are the rest of us are who do not.   The ones risking the "devourer" and our grapes falling off our vines.   And the curse of Jehovah on everything we attempt to do financially.    We might expect for Judas to be complemented by Jesus at least in some of his many sayings, but NO, all we can find is one time when Jesus called Judas his "friend", and that is in a situation in which this can have a totally sarcastic meaning."

      Matthew 26:47 "And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came,  and with him a great multitude  with swords and staves, from the chirf priests and elders of the people.  48 Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I kiss, that same is he: hold him fast.  49  And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, master, and kissed him.

      50 And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art  thou come?  Then came they, and laid hands on Jesus, and took him."

      Until the recent discovery and subsequent translation of a surviving copy of the Gnostic "Gospel of Judas" found in an isolated wilderness cave in Egypt, Judas was almost universally hated by Christians, who considered him to be almost the ultimate villain of the Bible.   Perhaps one step removed from Satan, who supposedly took over Judas' body when he decided to betray Jesus.

      John 13:2 "And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him-- 26 b --And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.  27 And after the sop Satan entered him.  Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly.'

      28 Now no man at the table knew for what intent he spake this to him.  29 For some thought, because Judas had the bag, that Jesus had said unto him,  Buy those things that we have need of against the feast; or, that he should give something to the poor."

      In this short passage, the identification of Judas as "Simon's son" occurs twice, in a manner that suggests that we should know who "Simon" is, and why Judas could be considered Simon's son.   Now it appears obvious in the lengths that Simon Peter went to to find out who it was that Jesus was referring to, that Simon Peter was not that Simon.  In the listing of the Twelve Disciples (Apostles) there is only one other Simon.  In Matthew 10:4 he is Simon the Canaanite.  In Acts 1:13 he is Simon Zelotes.   Throughout the Gospels he has various other names, the most favorable being Lazarus (the friend of Jesus), Zebedee (with his fishing boat), and Simon the Pharisee, Simon the leper, and later in Acts, Simon the Sorcerer or Magician.   But his historical name (Josephus and others) was Simon Magus, possibly the greatest of the Gnostics.

       Judas is a Gnostic in The Gospel of Judas, as was Simon Magus in a lot of other contemporary literature about him.   And now we know one reason Jesus would call Judas a "son of Simon", that Simon being Simon Magus.   But there is another more important reason being hidden here and that is that Simon Magus and Judas had conspired together to put on a Zealot demonstration in Jerusalem many months before Jesus' crucifixion that was the proximate cause of the crucifixion of Jesus, and that both Simon and Judas were crucified at the same time, on Friday March 20, 33 AD, that Jesus was also crucified.   And it was for what Judas and Simon had done, not what Jesus had done, that all three were being crucified.

      But I am digressing here from my stated goal of showing you that Jesus was not honoring Judas' position of treasurer, the holder and dispenser of "Tithe" money for the needs of the disciples.   (Actually not tithe money, for the Essenes did not pay tithe).   Actually the "bag man" by itself is far from a complementary term, but we'll let that one go.  He's portrayed as a Scrooge, a skinflint, a person with no heart so far as financial matters go, which is my barber Dan's complaint on a previous page about those church people who try to get more money from him than he can afford to pay.

       John 12:3 "Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment.  4 Then saith one of the disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which  should betray him,  5  Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?

       6 This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein."

    Here we have John "the beloved disciple" perhaps Jesus' very closest friend (and you can take that literally if you wish to), making just as severe a judgment on an Essene money-handler as Jesus had made of the Jewish money-lenders in the temple courtyard!

Thirty Pieces of Silver

   All of these little stories and phrases had double meanings, but there's no good reason to believe that the Essenes did not intend for us to take each of these stories and phrases in the worst possible way, so Judas as a thief in the usual meaning of "thief" will do just as well as what is shown to have happened by the "Pesher" meaning.   Which is that Simon the Zealot and Judas his "son" had taken some of the Essene money that Judas had actual possession of, and spent it on weapons they used, with others, in a Zealot demonstration in Jerusalem.   When people are swinging swords around, someone often gets killed.  In this case one or several Roman soldiers.   The Romans punished such offenses with the crucifixion of those who led out in such demonstrations, in this case Judas and Simon the Zealot as two of the three involved.

      The other participant in this demonstration was Theudas, another Apostle under the name "Thaddaeus" who was also a Zealot.   He shows up at the crucifixion as Barabbas, but was freed on the request of Herod Antipas, his friend.   Pilate accepted a bribe of "thirty pieces of silver" for the release of Theudas-Barabbas.  He allowed his hands to be "baptized" so the Essenes could pay him the money, because Essenes were not allowed to give this much money to non-Essenes.

       In the gospels it is Judas who receives these "thirty pieces of silver" to betray Jesus.  This is almost true, because Judas was given the money to make a deal with Pilate for Judas' own release.  Pilate rejected this deal but accepted it as a bribe for Barabbas' release.  But three must be crucified not just two, so Jesus took the place of Judas- Barabbas.   A little complicated but think about it.   You can get your mind around this if you try.   Jesus as the "King" (the question of Pilate) could be held responsible for everything his three Zealot disciples had done, and since the Essenes refused to pay another bribe, Jesus was crucified.   Using a bit of algebra, Jesus was crucified because of the "thirty pieces of silver" that Judas was paid.

      And Judas kissed Jesus in the story, because the story was still "hot" in those days of Julius Caesar being betrayed with a kiss by his close friend Brutus.   Remember, these stories were "created" not only for us, but also for first century Romans and Greeks!

Judas in Hollywood! 

The Essenes had a Special

"Tithe Deal"

     Ordinary Protestant tithepayers looking for a special deal to get "out from under" that extra 10% out of their paychecks on top of or before their payroll taxes and excise taxes and property taxes (and on and on) should consider the "Tithe Deal" worked out by the Essenes (which included Jesus and all his disciples).   They were considered to be all one family (brothers and sisters with one "father") (read Josephus on the Essenes) so could calculate their "increase" in money or crops over a year's time.  Then they could pay to the Jerusalem temple 10% of that "increase".   This made them all "tithepayers" --- even though each individual Essene was paying only a small fraction of 1% of the benefits each was receiving from the Essene organization (the equivalent of "pay" nowadays.  The Jerusalem Temple was glad to receive this extra money from the Essenes because the Essenes weren't using this temple anyway.   They abhorred the bloody sacrifices made there, and considered the rituals of the non-Essene Jews to be the "traditions of men" not ordered by God, nor acceptable to Him.  (see Matthew 15:9)

     "But in vain they do worship me (and pay tithe to me - God) teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."