How Man Created Satan

Myths and fables are all we seem to have passed down from us in the early centuries after Yeshua lived. But what is a myth if not the hopes and aspirations of a people manifested into a physical form which beckons to all to relinquish their doubts, abandon their cynicism and embrace a belief beyond normal human comprehension. And in many of our religious belief systems that is all we possess, a myth that has grown into a reality. Let me take the time to tell you about one such myth which manifested in Persia and grew well beyond the borders of that land. Some of you may recognize it, others actually believe in it, yet the majority will not even know of its origins and would have come to believe that its roots in our society were otherwise. As a Karaite I am free of it but you may not be so lucky as most have come to call it Christian but as you will soon see, it was anything but.

A Gift From Persia

The Persian Magi, the spiritual leaders of Zoroastrianism studied the universe endlessly, contemplating its contradictions, catastrophes and endless sufferings. They found it hard to believe that the truth lay in the Judaic writings that all these events were the manifestations of a singular God. That the Almighty, the Creator of the Universe, He who called himself the Loving God and the Wrathful God could be the perpetrator of history’s greatest disasters. In order to reconcile their belief in an Almighty God they found there could only be one solution; a second Kingdom. Where God reigned in a Kingdom of light and beauty from above in the heavens, another being ruled from the pits, a Kingdom of darkness and evil. The primal God above and a second entity that ruled the universe from below and the two were eternally set in opposition. And in this second kingdom, Satan ruled and the demons were born from its depths.

Desiring more than what rested beneath his hand, Satan invaded the Kingdom of Light and the war began in earnest between the two opposing forces, the Light and the Darkness. To beat back the armies of Satan, God created primal man but Satan’s forces began to overcome the armies of this lesser being and God was forced to rescue Man lest he be lost to Satan. But even after being rescued, Man had suffered grievously, several particles of his original Light gifted by God now replaced by five elements of the Dark. And thus man was set on a path that if he was to return to the Light, return to God, he must overcome the Darkness that now dwells within in an everlasting eternal struggle.

The first of these men to live, a combined existence of both light and dark particles was named Adam. Because of what Satan had done, Adam and his offspring were to be forever born in original sin. There was a woman named Eve, and because she was only created to be Adam’s companion she possessed less particles of light and therefore was more susceptible to the darkness. But God loved his creation of man and throughout the history of mankind would send his heavenly spirits in the form of prophets to guide and correct the corruption that now resided within man’s soul.


The Manichaean Universe

As strange as it may sound, what you have just read was not Christian. The beliefs were neither developed by Christian theologists nor were they practiced by the early Christians. In truth, the concept of two kingdoms in perpetual battle were so foreign to the early Christians that it was rejected wholeheartedly but Christianity had never faced a threat before like Mani, with his charisma, his gift to speak and his determination that exceeded that of any Church leader. Mani was born around 215 AD to a wealthy Persian family. He spent his early years travelling throughout the Persian Empire and into India where he encountered Buddhism. In his later years he headed west into the Eastern Provinces of the Roman Empire where he preached the religion that incorporated his original Zoroastrianism and all the beliefs he had acquired during his travels. He immediately had universal appeal, providing to the people that had always been familiar with Gods at war from their earlier Greek and Roman pantheon beliefs an easy bridge between their present Christian instruction and the religion of their past. Mani listed the prophets that they should believe in; Adam, Noah, Abraham, Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus, Paul and himself whom he saw as the greatest of them all. In case you haven’t noticed, there is one prophet of significance missing from Mani’s list that being Moses. Moses represented everything contrary to what he was teaching to his new followers. To believe in Moses meant believing that all things good and bad did come from the one God of the Universe. To read Moses instruction meant that there was no such thing as Satan and his demons ruling from a secondary kingdom. To follow Moses meant that all men were born with free will to be either good or evil and were not tainted from birth. To Mani, he saw no hope in attracting the Jews to his new religion so he focused only on the susceptibility of the Christians knowing that they thirsted for a link to their old world of paganism.

But if man was born into a world of evil, a sinner from birth, Mani knew that he also had to provide a reward that mankind could strive for. He taught his followers if they learned and studied the prophets, strove against the evil within their souls, then if they were successful they would set the light free and would ascend to God. But if a man could not perform the purification within his lifetime then he would be sent back to live again until such time that he could release the light. And once all of mankind had succeeded in releasing the light then there would be the final apocalypse which would destroy the material universe and banish the Kingdom of Satan forever.

Something Familiar

Mani divided his followers into five levels. The first three levels were known as the Sons of Meekness. They were the Teachers, the Perfecti and the Electi. And only they would inherit the privilege of ascending to God after a single lifetime. The next level were the Administrators known as the Sons of Knowledge, comprising bishops and priests. The last level was known as the Sons of Understanding and they were the presbyters. The Sons of Meekness had additional restrictions, in that they had to be vegetarians, not engage in marriage or procreation as they had to remain pure if they were to ascend to God. The Sons of Knowledge did not have to endure the same restrictions. They had to follow several commandments including the forbidding of lying, adultery, murder, sloth, and doubt, along with keeping a certain number of fast days. As one can see, there are several parallels to the layering within the Manichean church to the establishment of the Catholic Church.

By the fourth century there already was a singular head, a Pope of the Manichean church. Many of the Marcionites that I had described in an earlier article adopted the Manichean beliefs and in fact by the end of the third century almost all of the Marcionite churches became Manichean. The appeal of the Manichean church exceeding anything witnessed before. It’s popularity amongst the aristocrats of the Roman Empire was immediate as it provided an easy transition from their pagan hierarchy to this new one, a far easier task than adopting the more man-centered concept of Mosaic law. One of the most notable personages to adopt the Manichean religion was St. Augustine who was actually one of the administrators in this church. Eventually St. Augustine left the Manichean church accusing it of teaching a falsehood of rival worlds of Light and Darkness in perpetual battle and that God was at constant war with Satan. In his new position within the Catholic Church he railed against these misguided beliefs enforcing the Mosaic belief that God was the only power in the universe and man was responsible for his own sinful ways, having nothing to do with an external power that forced him to commit wrong doings. How ironic that in spite of St. Augustine’s condemnation of Manichaeism in order to preserve the initial Judaic beliefs of the church, his protestations were eventually washed away in the tide as the Church raced to adopt Manichean beliefs.

The Ultimate Absurdity

By the fifth century, the Manichean belief system began to dominate the beliefs of Christians from all persuasions. So much so that the Catholic Church could see very little difference between their followers and those that claimed to be Manichaean. The primary difference was that the Manichaeans had their own Pope, their own elders, bishops, priests and lay clergy; a massive organization that bore no allegiance or recognition of the Church in Rome. How ironic that the Roman and Byzantine Churches would pronounce an edict condemning all Manichaeans to death, accusing them of heresy even though there existed by this time very little difference by this time between the beliefs of the two church systems. The decision was one of politics, of power, of greed and once again Christianity had been diverted from its true course without its followers having the slightest indication that the practices and beliefs that they now professed had nothing to do with the initial teachings of Yeshua whom they swore to follow. They had all become Manichaeans but they did not know it!

The Trial of Jesus: Toldoth Jeshua

You're probably wondering what am I talking about this time. Well, it's pretty simple. I'm going to talk about another book I happen to have in my collection. You guessed it, it's called “Toldoth Jeshua". But what's it mean. Translated, it means the Generations of Jesus. Odd title you'd think since according to the New Testament, Jesus didn't have any generations to speak of. But this book that was written in about the 14th century and based on material from the second century had a lot of interesting things to say. I came into possession of this document after I wrote and published Caiaphas Letters, so its quite amazing that it confirms many of the statements I make as fact in my book.
One of the most serious libels made against the Jews was the blame for killing Jesus. Pope John Paul II fortunately condemned this libel and expunged it from the Roman Catholic teachings, and this should be appreciated, but it was long in coming and over the last two thousand years the number of Jews that died because of this libel was astronomical, especially when one considers it as a premise to the Nazi holocaust.
Now this may sound a little controversial coming from me but what if I was to say that it wasn’t really all the Church’s fault for fostering this belief in the first place? What if I was to say that the great sages of Judaism in the second century,the Tannim or these Rabbis of reverence that put together the Talmud were responsible for the libel themselves! That in an effort to show the world how strict they were as enforcers of God’s will, they were willing to spread a lie that either because their brains were too addled with age, or as a Karaite I beleive they were only interested in hearing the sounds of their own voices and were more than too happy to tell everyone a lie.”
What most people don't realize is that these so called paragons of virtue and Judaism actually wrote a section into the Talmud concerning their role in Jesus’ death! Let me tell you quickly what it said:
“It is taught that for all others liable for the death penalty, except for the enticer to idolatry, we do not hide witnesses. They light a lamp for him in the inner chamber and place a witness in the outer chamber so that they can see and hear him while he cannot see or hear them. One says to him,” Tell me again what you said to me in private.” If the prisoner repents, then good, but if he says, ‘This is our obligation and what we must do,’ then he is to be brought into the courtroom and stoned. And then they hung him on the eve of Passover.”
If you're trying to follow the connection let me explain that these Rabbis were trying to recall a very special meeting of the Sanhedrin that happened a couple of hundred years earlier. I'll point out some of their controversial comments. It was a night meeting, hence the need for the lamp. The courts of the Sanhedrin were held in buildings that relied on natural light, therefore it was prohibited to meet at night unless it was an emergency. In this case it obviously was one. But they got it wrong. The witnesses placed outside were there to come in and defend the accused. They already had their numbers to make up the tribunal inside. They were the judges, not the witnesses. As we know from the stories about that night, Jesus's witness refused to enter into the chamber and three times Peter denied not knowing him. Without his second witness, (it took two to prove you innocent of the charges), Jesus was condemned. Now the rabbis in this particular paragraph never refer to Jesus, only to an idolator, so the question should be how do I know they’re not talking about another case? Because they refer back in the Toldoth Jeshua to this section of the Talmud as being the trial of Ben Stada. Now I probably have you completely confused. It would have been more correct to refer to what is a Ben Stada in order to understand their play on words. The Rabbis loved to do that back then. They thought they were quite funny. They did it with the next messiah too, Simon Bar Kochba. As soon as he lost the war, they referred to him as Simon Bar Kosiba, or ’the son of lies’. Somehow they forgot that it was one of their own that proclaimed him as the messiah in the first place. So they did the same thing to Jesus as well. He would have been referred to as Jesus Ha Stadlan. The intercessor by his followers. Because that’s what he did. He was the intercessor for people to reach God. Remember that he said everyone seeking God must come through him.
So, now that you have an appreciation for their sense of humor, these rabbis don’t refer to him as an intercessor for God but instead call him Ben Stota or Stada in an alternate dialect; the ‘son of absolute utter nonsense’ or as we would say today, the son of bullshit.”
Also remember that in the Talmud is says that he was taken out and stoned and then hung from a tree on the eve of Passover.”
There are three important things you should notice right there. Firstly, if he was stoned to death, why were they bothering to hang him on a crucifix? Couldn’t kill him twice. And then secondly there’s the matter that the Roman authorities only let the Sanhedrin stone people, they didn’t have the authority to crucify a prisoner. And lastly, notice how it was the eve of the Passover. Just as I described it in Caiaphas Letters. The Gospels all say the crucifixion happened on the Passover. So this passage from the Talmud is in harmony with what I've written.
In another passage of Toldoth Jeshua it is written: ‘On the eve of the Passover they hung Yeshu and the crier went forth for forty days beforehand declaring that Yeshu is to be stoned for practicing witchcraft, for enticing and leading Israel astray. Anyone who knows something to clear him should come forth and exonerate him. But no one came forward in his defense and they hung him on the eve of Passover. Yeshu was different because he was close to government.’ So now you have the Toldoth Jeshua in harmony with that passage from the Talmud and both confirming it was the eve of the Passvoer and that this individual was named Jeshua or Jesus.
Once again the Toldoth Jehsua is providing some interesting aspects that other than in Caiaphas Letters, no one else has ever mentioned. For almost a month and a half there’s this attempt to try and create a case so that he can’t be touched. The emphasis in Toldoth Jeshua was they they tried to prove him innocent asking people to come forward to clear and exonerate him. Very different from the condemning version in the Talmud. But when it came to the night of the trial, those that were supposed to exonerate him never came through. In other words, Peter didn’t do his part of the plan. The writer of the Toldoth Jeshua tries to explain this special treatment of trying to save him was due to the fact that he was close to government. Well, they might as well have said because he was related to the High Priest because the only Jewish government at the time was the High Priest, and to be close was another way of implying a familial relationship. It also says that he was being helped by the High Priest at the time who just happened to be Caiaphas. Again this confirms the High Priest family connection I described in Caiaphas Letters.

The question one has to answer is why, if as in the Toldoth Jeshua there is recorded a definite attempt by the officials in Judea to save Jesus, and this book was based on original documentation from much earlier times, why would a group of supposedly educated men, paragons of virtue write such a stupid and inaccurate thing in the Talmud that actually suggests the Sanhedrin wanted to kill Jesus. The answer is simple; they couldn’t stop themselves. The whole idea behind the Talmud was to write as much down as they could remember because there was no central stores or archives left following the destruction of the Temple. Then they would analyze and embellish what they had written. But in a lot of the cases, this embellishment was merely the addition of hearsay and innuendo. Their memories of events may have been poor, but their imaginations certainly were not. They were in overdrive. They didn’t even try to be accurate. By the time the Talmud was being written, Christianity was already becoming the new power and Jews were already being persecuted by this new religion. So why not tell a very disparaging story and gloat about the death of the Christian messiah. Human nature has remained a constant throughout history. And this was one way of saying, “in your face, buddy! Stupid, yes, but then these supposedly intelligent men never thought the Talmud would be read by anyone that wasn't Jewish.
In their minds they were disproving the claims of Christianity by saying they were responsible for the death of Jesus. After all, how could he be the son of God, or for that matter, even the messiah, if they could kill him? So this invented story of theirs became our own undoing. We suffered because they gloated. But worst of all, they gloated over an entirely false and ludicrous story that they created for their own personal egos.”
Now one might point out that as a Karaite, I have no fondness for the Rabbis of old, I certainly don't give any credence to the Talmud and therefore I view them in a negative light. True, I admit it. We suffered for two thousand years because of their misguided beliefs. Had they only stayed to the facts, I think they would have found that most educated people would have understood what occurred in the framework of the time and circumstances. I'm not naive and saying that the early Church would not have pursued its policy of deicide if they hadn’t written the inaccurate story of Jesus into the Talmud but I don’t believe the persecutions would have been conducted as vehemently as they were. What you have in the Gospels is the story of Caiaphas sending Jesus to Antipas, and then to Pilate. Pilate pronounced sentence and Roman soldiers performed the execution. You actually have evidence of the Jewish authorities abdicating their responsibility and handing it over to these other powers. Therefore the role of the Jewish authorities is minimalized.
When you read about the confrontation between the Maharal, Rabbi Judah Loew, and the Nasi, Yakov Kahana in Shadows of Trinity, you are seeing the two worlds of Karaism and Judaism clash. The former regarding the Talmud as the work of foolish men and the latter that deemed themselves worthy of interpreting Gods words, convinced that there were hidden meanings, detailed instructions, and numerous restrictions behind every word. But as the above story has pointed out, words can be very dangerous when they used improperly. Less would have definitely been better!