Hi
“I am Judas the Didymus of Jesus, also called Thomas.”
Around circa 4 BCE in a place called Bethlehem if we are to believe the Christian scripture, a boy child was born early on the morning of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (birthday of the Sun God Sol Invictus) 25th of December(?). Two minutes later, a second boy child was born to the same young girl no more than 13-year of age; her name was Miriam (Mary). It was an extraordinary time of the year for the citizens of the Roman Empire, as it combined the festive period with the Saturnalia (Roman God Saturn) and the Winter Solstice (Pagan) festivals.
Miriam’s betrothed to an 80 +-year-old carpenter named Joseph. Some sources say Joseph was the father; Christian sources believe they were (or at least one was) fathered by God and Miriam was seen as a perpetual virgin. However, Jewish and Pagan sources say that the father was a young Roman soldier by the name of Panthera/Pantera (Panther).
Miriam named her firstborn Yehoshua and the second son she named Judas Thomas (Thomas being Semitic for Twin).
From the earliest times, even before the term, Christianity was coined. When the followers of Jesus known as the “Nazarenes” or “Ebionites” and the gentiles taking the name “The Way.” Rumours abounded that Jesus had a twin brother. In 1945 archaeologist in Upper Egypt rediscovered a lost Gnostic library, commonly known as the Nag Hammadi Library, after the place of discovery. There they found several manuscripts relating to being the work of the apostles. It was the Gospel of Thomas (40-140 CE), that rekindled the Jesus twin theory—which was no longer a rumour—but a fact.
The Roman Church’s despicable eradication of all traces of Thomas the Twin of Jesus.
Thomas we know travelled to India and created the See of Thomas aka Mar Thoma, founded in Kerala, India in 52 CE. A Syriac Orthodox Church which is part of the Eastern Oriental Orthodox Church claiming its antiquity before that of Alexandria the See of Mark c. 60 CE, and certainly long before Rome became the See of Peter in the 3rd century. The See of Mar Thoma like all other churches such as the Celtic, Waldensians, Cathars or Albergencians, which did not follow Rome were decimated or classed as iconoclastic and heretical.
(The Catholic Church missionaries in 16th century India eliminate the documentation of the Mar Thoma Church which they considered to be a heretical brand of Christianity. In doing so, they destroyed irreplaceable information about the spread of the gospel in the Far East….T. Deering Manning (1996), Eye Witnesses of His Majesty, pp. 201/2, Xulon press USA.
Although the present-day Roman papacy denies any wrongdoing on their part on the Mar Thoma affair. Claiming it was the overzealous Archbishop Aleixo de Jesu de Menezes (1559–1617) of the Portuguese Church who acted alone on the destruction of Mar Thoma manuscripts. Yet it was Rome that sent the Portuguese Church to India under the Padroado (patronage) which was an arrangement by the Holy See and the Kingdom of Portugal. It was affirmed by a series of concordats, by which the Vatican delegated to the kings of Portugal the administration of the local Churches.
Aleixo de Menezes, under the authority of the Goa Inquisition and the Council of Trent, continued the Latinisation of the St. Thomas Christians started by the Portuguese in the early 16th century. The result of his Synod of Diamper was unfortunate. The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) says: The only case in which an ancient Eastern rite has been wilfully Romanised is that of the Malabar Christians [aka Mar Thoma Christians], where it was not Roman authority but the misguided zeal of Alexius de Menezes, Archbishop of Goa, and his Portuguese advisers at the Synod of Diamper (1599) which spoiled the old Malabar Rite.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13064b.htm The emphasis [ ] are mine.
The Goa Inquisition was a colonial-era Portuguese institution established by the Roman Catholic Holy Office between the 16th- and 19th-century to stop and punish heresy against Christianity in Asia. The institution persecuted Hindus, Muslims, Bene Israels, New Christians and the Judaizing Nasranis by the colonial era Portuguese government and Jesuit clergy in Portuguese India. The Roman Church is so hasty to blame others for their own infractions when all can see that the evidence points straight to them!)
What the Catholic Church was doing was poaching/stealing the adherents from Eastern rites church and Romanising them as converts to Catholicism.
We know Thomas as the doubter, however. There is another version of Jesus and Thomas, according to Dr Robert Greg Cavin who holds a Master’s in theology from Fuller and PhD from U.C. Irvine. Calvin wrote:
Over two thousand years ago, a Jewish carpenter found himself on the short end of the stick with both the Jewish teaching elite and the Roman government. He was put to death by crucifixion, and then placed in a tomb. His followers were crushed and fearful that the same thing would happen to them, and so for the next few days, they did their best to stay out of the way of anyone who might link them with their now dead rabbi.
However, something happened that changed everything.
Without warning, the Jewish carpenter’s unknown twin brother appeared on the scene, stole and then disposed of his dead sibling’s body. With the tomb now empty, the twin claimed to be his dead brother resurrected from the dead. So convincing was the twin that he was able to win over his dead brother’s disciples and even some others who thought his brother was a fake. These individuals immediately began to publicly proclaim that their teacher had been raised from the dead by God and started a religious movement that continues to this day.
http://blogs.christianpost.com/confident-christian/jesus-twin-brother-and-the-truth-about-easter-20923/ retrieved 01/09/2018 or
https://www.blogos.org/compellingtruth/Jesus-truth-easter.php
Bit of Winter Solstice history!
My ancient nations earliest religion was Druidism and at this time of the mid-Winter Solstice the Chief Druid would climb an Oak tree with his golden sickle and cut down the mistletoe for the young men and young ladies of the Celtic-Gauls. This ritual was recorded by Pliny (AD 24-79) in his Natural History (16.95).
The early Christian church banned the use of mistletoe because of its association with Druids. Bloody Christians spoil everything!
It has always and still is a custom in parts of Cymru/Wales for the single male member of families to go to the local woods/forest to pick the mistletoe and hang it up. At the same time as collecting the mistletoe, the young men would collect a piece of hardwood and carve it into a Welsh love spool ready for Pagan Valentine’s day. https://www.welsh-lovespoons.co.uk/ or http://www.welsh-love-spoons.co.uk/history
Additional information
Hebrew: תְּאוֹם; Aramaic: Tauma; Syriac: Toma (Thomas); Greek: Didymus; Arabic: tau’am, etc.all mean twin.
John’s gospel might seem to use redundant names for “Thomas Didymus” which means twin-twin. 24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus[a]), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. [John 20:24 NIV]
Have your say? Didymus Judas Thomas has been known throughout Christian history. However, not much is said about him from the pulpit. Ardent followers have to read the scripture or the works of past and present scholars to glean information. Is this a snub by the Christian Church hierarchy or is Thomas an embarrassment—if one of the twins is divine, then surely the other is too?
Jero Jones
Article URL : https://breakingnewsandreligion.online/discuss/