Christianity’s fraudulent legacy – M. Paulkovich

 

Jesus saves ...or else!

The cult of Christianity has an incalculable amount of blood on its hands. And the Jesus tale seems to have been nothing more than oral legend, with plenty of hoax and fraud perpetrated along the ages. – Michael Paulkovich

Most historians hold the position I had once harbored as true, being a Bible skeptic but not a Christ mythicist. I had maintained that the Jesus person probably existed, having fantastic and impossible stories later foisted upon his earthly life, passed by oral tradition then recorded many decades after Jesus lived.

After exhaustive research for my first book, I began to perceive both the brilliance and darkness from history. I discovered that many early Christian fathers believed with all pious sincerity their savior never came to earth—or when he did, it was Star-Trekian style, beamed down pre-haloed and fully-grown, sans transvaginal egress. Moreover I expose many other startling bombshells in my book No Meek Messiah: Christianity’s Lies, Laws, and Legacy.

I embarked upon one exercise to revive research into Jesus-era writers who should have recorded Christ tales, but did not. John Remsburg enumerated forty-one “silent” historians in his book The Christ (1909). I dedicated months of research to augment Remsburg’s list, finally tripling his count. In No Meek Messiah I provide a list of 126 writers who should have recorded something of Jesus, with exhaustive references.

Perhaps the most bewildering “silent one” is the mythical super-savior himself, Jesus the Son of God ostensibly sent on a suicide mission to save us from the childish notion of “Adam’s Transgression” as we learn from Romans 5:14. The Jesus character is a phantom of a wisp of a personage who never wrote anything. So, add one more: 127.

The Jesus character is a phantom 

Jesus is lauded as a wise teacher, savior, and a perfect being. Yet Jesus believed in Noah’s Ark (Mt. 24:37, and Lk. 17:27), Adam and Eve and their son Abel (Lk. 3:38 and Lk. 11:51), Jonah living in a fish or whale (Mt. 12:40), and Lot’s wife turning into salt (Lk. 17:31-32). Jesus believed “devils” caused illness, and even bought into the OT notion (Jn. 3:14) that a magical pole proffered by the OT (Num. 21:9) could cure snake bites merely by gazing upon it.

Was Jesus smarter than a fifth grader?

Apollonius of Tyana

But perhaps no man is more fascinating than Apollonius Tyaneus, saintly first century adventurer and noble paladin. Apollonius was a magic-man of divine birth who cured the sick and blind, cleansed entire cities of plague, foretold the future and fed the masses. He was worshipped as a god, and son of god. Despite such nonsense claims, Apollonius was a real man recorded by reliable sources.

As Jesus ostensibly performed miracles of global expanse (e.g. Mt. 27), his words going “unto the ends of the whole world” (Rom. 10), one would expect virtually every literate person on earth to record those events during his time. A Jesus contemporary such as Apollonius should have done so, as well as those who wrote of Apollonius. Such is not the case. In Philostratus’ third century chronicle, Vita Apollonii, there is no hint of Jesus. Nor in the works of other Apollonius epistolarians and scriveners: Emperor Titus, Cassius Dio, Maximus, Moeragenes, Lucian, Soterichus Oasites, Euphrates, Marcus Aurelius, or Damis of Hierapolis. It seems none of these writers from first to third century ever heard of Jesus, global miracles and alleged worldwide fame be damned.

Another bewildering author is Philo of Alexandria. He spent his first century life in the Levant, even traversing Jesus-land. Philo chronicled Jesus contemporaries—Bassus, Pilate, Tiberius, Sejanus, Caligula—yet knew nothing of the storied prophet and rabble-rouser enveloped in glory and astral marvels. Historian Josephus published Jewish War ca. 95. He had lived in Japhia, one mile from Nazareth—yet Josephus seems to have been unaware of both Nazareth and Jesus. (I devoted a chapter to his interpolated works, pp. 191-198.) You may encounter Christian apologists claiming that Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Suetonius, Phlegon, Thallus, Mara bar-Serapion, or Lucian wrote of Jesus contemporary to the time. In No Meek Messiah I thoroughly debunk such notions.

The Bible venerates the artist formerly known as Saul of Tarsus, an “apostle” essentially oblivious to his heavenly saviour. Paul is unaware of the virgin mother, and ignorant of Jesus’ nativity, parentage, life events, ministry, miracles, apostles, betrayal, trial and harrowing passion. Paul knows neither where nor when Jesus lived, and considers the crucifixion metaphorical (Gal. 2:19-20). Unlike the absurd Gospels, Paul never indicates Jesus had been to earth. And the “five hundred witnesses” claim (1 Cor. 15) is a well-known forgery.

Qumran, the stony and chalky hiding place for the Dead Sea Scrolls lies twelve miles from Bethlehem. The scroll writers, coeval and abutting the holiest of hamlets one jaunty jog eastward never heard of Jesus. Dr. Jodi Magness wrote, “Contrary to claims made by a few scholars, no copies of the New Testament (or precursors to it) are represented among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Christianity was still wet behind its primitive and mythical ears in the second century, and Christian father Marcion of Pontus in 144 CE denied any virgin birth or childhood for Christ—Jesus’ infant circumcision (Lk. 2:21) was thus a lie, as well as the crucifixion! Marcion claimed Luke was corrupted, and his saviour self-spawned in omnipresence, a spirit without a body (see Dungan, 43). Reading the works of second century Christian father Athenagoras, one never encounters the word Jesus (or Ἰησοῦς or Ἰησοῦν, as he would have written)—Athenagoras was thus unacquainted with the name of his saviour it would seem. Athenagoras was another pious early Christian, unaware of Jesus (see also Barnard, 56).

The original booklet given the name “Mark” ended at 16:8, later forgers adding the fanciful resurrection tale (see Ehrman, 48). The booklet “John” in chapter 21 also describes post-death Jesus tales, another well-known and well-documented forgery (see Encyclopedia Biblica, vol. 2, 2543). Millions should have heard of the Jesus “crucifixion” with its astral enchantments: zombie armies and meteorological marvels (Mt. 27) recorded not by any historian, but only in the dubitable scriptures scribbled decades later by superstitious yokels. The Jesus saga is further deflated by the reality of Nazareth, having no settlement until after the 70 CE war—suspiciously around the time the Gospels were concocted, as René Salm demonstrates in his book. I also include in my book similarities of Jesus to earlier God-sons, too striking to disregard. The Oxford Classical Dictionary and Catholic Encyclopedia, as well as many others, corroborate. Quite a few son-of-gods myths existed before the Jesus tales, with startling similarities, usually of virgin mothers, magical births and resurrection: Sandan, Mithra, Horus, Attis, Buddha, Dionysus, Krishna, Hercules, Isiris, Orpheus, Adonis, Prometheus, etc.

The one true religion

If you encounter a Christian defending her faith purely based on its popularity, you would do well to inform her that Christianity was a very minor cult in the fourth century, while “pagan” religions, especially Mithraism, were much more popular in the Empire—and the Jesus cult would have faded into oblivion if not for an imperial decree.

From No Meek Messiah: It is 391 CE now as Roman Emperor Theodosius elevates Jesus (posthumously) to divinity, declaring Christianity the only “legitimate” religion of the world, under penalty of death. The ancient myth is rendered law. This decision by Theodosius is possibly the worst ever made in human history: what followed were century after century of torture and murder in the name of this false, faked, folkloric “prophesied saviour” of fictional virgin mother. Within a year after the decree by Theodosius, crazed Christian monks of Nitria destroy the majestic Alexandrian Library largely because philosophy and science are taught there—not the Bible. In Alexandria these are times of the highest of intellectual pursuits, all quashed by superstitious and ignorant Christians of the most godly and murderous variety: they had the “Holy Bible” on their side.

Emperor Theodosius I could have had no idea how much harm this blunder would cause humanity over the centuries that followed. Christianity was made the only legal cult of the empire, and for the next 1500 years, good Christians would murder all non-Christians they could find by the tens of millions.

Frauds and forgeries

Along the centuries the Church has sought to gain power and wealth, and No Meek Messiah exposes their many scams and deceits and obfuscations in detail including:

  • Abgar Forgeries (4th century)
  • Apostolic Canons (400 CE)
  • Hypatia the Witch (415 CE)
  • Symmachian Forgeries (6th century)
  • St. Peter Forgery (ca. 751)
  • False “Donation of Constantine” (8th century)
  • False Decretals (8th century)
  • Extermination of the Cathar “witches” (13th century)
  • Murder of the Stedinger “devils” (1233)
  • The Manifest Destiny decree (1845) and eradication of Native Americans
  • Invention of the “Immaculate Conception” (1854)
  • The Lateran Treaty (1929)

St. Paul overseeing the burning of books at Ephesus.

The good that Jesus brought

Early Christians believed all necessary knowledge was in the Bible and thus closed down schools, burned books, forbade teaching philosophy and destroyed libraries. The Jesus person portrayed in the Bible taught that “devils” and “sin” cause illness, and thus for some 1700 years good Christians ignored science and medicine to perform exorcisms on the ill.

The Bible decrees “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” (Ex. 22:18, with support from Dt. 18:10-12, Lev. 20:27, 2 Chr. 33:6, Micah. 5:12, and 1 Sam. 28:3). In the New Testament, Paul in Galatians 5:19-21 joins the anti-witchcraft credo. But let’s face it: Paul claims to be a devoted Hebrew, full of credulity and misogyny. Paul will “suffer not a woman to teach” and thus along the centuries women have been second-class citizens, especially within the Church. These juvenile and immoral Bible edicts are not left in the past.

From No Meek Messiah: Remember the witch hunts? Long ago and far away, past atrocities forgotten? So perhaps we should forgive and forget. Around the world, the Christian Bible is still used to accuse people, usually children, of “witchcraft” and to punish them. Refer to The Guardian, Sunday, 9 December 2007, “Child ‘witches’ in Africa”; Huffington Post, October 18, 2009, “African Children Denounced As ‘Witches’ By Christian Pastors”; and The Guardian, Friday 31 December 2010, “Why are ‘witches’ still being burned alive in Ghana?” The scripture normally cited regarding witches is Exodus 22:18, and there are many more. In Ghana, a study found that “accused witches were physically brutalised, tortured, neglected, and in two cases, murdered.” In Kinshasa, Congo, “80% of the 20,000 street children … are said to have been accused of being witches.” Even to this day the Bible’s proclamations against witches are still considered valid by many Christians. In places like Indonesia, Tanzania, the Congo and Ghana superstitious fundamental Christians actively pursue and execute witches, including murdering child “sorcerers.” In Malawi, accused witches are routinely jailed.

Christians are typically kept ignorant of certain evil and immoral words placed into the mouth of this mythical mystery-man:

“If any man come to me, and HATE NOT his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” – Luke 14:26.

Jesus is actually portrayed as a pitiful man in desperate need of praise:

“He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” – Matt. 10:37.

Not only does Jesus never advise against slavery, but he recommends savage whipping of disobedient slaves:

“And that servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.” – Luke 12:47.

Jesus has nothing against stealing, as he instructs his apostles to pinch a horse and a donkey from their rightful owner:

“And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage, unto the Mount of Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples, Saying unto them, Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring them unto me. And if any man say ought unto you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them; and straightway he will send them.” – Matt. 21:1-3.

Gentle and meek and mythical

I personally know several Christians who accept evolution as scientific fact. Okay, they kind of ignore the Old Testament, but I asked one born again Christian about the genealogy of Jesus and she was only aware of another one in Luke.

From No Meek Messiah: Christianity absolutely depends on mythical “Adam.” Without Adam, Eve, and a talking snake, Jesus’ mission is moot and pointless and void. Christians are generally oblivious of this because they have been shown a genealogy in Matthew (which only goes back to “Abraham”), and are rarely if ever exposed to Luke’s disparate and childlike version—which if true would negate all of evolution and in fact most known history and science. According to the anonymous author of Luke, a mere seventy-five generations separate “Adam”—and the beginning of the universe—from the birth of Jesus some 2,000 years ago.

This “meek” messiah boasted he was “greater than Solomon” (Mt. 12:42), saying he “came not to send peace, but a sword” (Mt. 10:34), and  (Lk. 12:49). Jesus desperately needs your praise (Mt. 10:37), and advises you to beat your slaves.

Yahweh / Jehovah

This Jesus character speaks highly of father Yahweh‘s genocidal tantrums in Matthew 11:20-24. Jesus is referring to the book of Joshua where his father declares he will wipe out all people of Sidon: “All the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon unto Misrephoth-maim, and all the Sidonians, them will I drive out from before the children of Israel”.

You may have heard Christians claim that the only “god hates fags” verbiage comes from the Old Testament (Lev. 18:22), but both Paul (in Rom. 1:26-27) and Jesus speak out against it, as the J-man praises the ruin of Gaytown, Canaan: “But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.” – Luke 17:29.

Onward Christian soldiers

Christianity has a violent “holy book” as its authority, granting followers supremacy over the entire earth (e.g. Gen. 1:28) which they used to justify land grabs, genocide and holy conflicts. The following wars were perpetrated by Christians in the name of their saviour:

  1. War against the Donatists, 317 CE
  2. Roman-Persian War of 441 CE
  3. Roman-Persian War of 572-591 CE
  4. Charlemagne’s War against the Saxons, 8th century
  5. Spanish Christian-Muslim War of 912-928
  6. Spanish Christian-Muslim War of 977-997
  7. Spanish Christian-Muslim War of 1001-1031
  8. First Crusade, 1096
  9. Jerusalem Massacre, 1099
  10. Second Crusade, 1145-1149
  11. Spanish Christian-Muslim War, 1172-1212
  12. Third Crusade, 1189 CE
  13. War against the Livonians, 1198-1212
  14. Wars against the Curonians and Semigallians, 1201-90
  15. Fourth Crusade, 1202-04
  16. Wars against Saaremaa, 1206-61
  17. War against the Estonians, 1208-1224
  18. War against the Latgallians and Selonians, 1208-1224
  19. Children’s Crusade, 1212
  20. Fifth Crusade, 1213
  21. Sixth Crusade, 1228 War against the Livonians, 1198-1212
  22. Spanish Christian-Muslim War, 1230-1248
  23. Seventh Crusade, 1248
  24. Eighth Crusade, 1270
  25. Ninth Crusade, 1271-1272
  26. The Inquisitions
  27. War against the Cathars, 1209-1229 and onward
  28. War against the Stedingers of Friesland, 1233
  29. Spanish Christian-Muslim War, 1481-1492
  30. Four Years War of 1521-26
  31. Count’s War of 1534-36
  32. Schmalkaldic War, 1546
  33. Anglo-Scottish War of 1559-1560
  34. First War of Religion,1562
  35. Second War of Religion, 1567-68
  36. Third War of Religion, 1568-70
  37. Fourth War of Religion, 1572-73
  38. Fifth War of Religion, 1574-76
  39. Sixth War of Religion, 1576-77
  40. Seventh War of Religion, 1579-80
  41. Eighth War of Religion, 1585-98
  42. War of the Three Henrys, 1588
  43. Ninth War of Religion, 1589—1598
  44. Ottoman-Habsburg wars, 15th to 16th century
  45. War against the German Farmers (“peasants”), 16th Century
  46. The French Wars of Religion, 16th Century
  47. Shimabara Revolt, 1637
  48. Covenanters’ Rebellion of 1666
  49. Covenanters’ Rebellion of 1679
  50. Covenanters’ Rebellion of 1685
  51. The Thirty Years War, 17th Century
  52. The Irish rebellion of 1641
  53. Spanish Christian extermination of South American natives
  54. Manifest Destiny
  55. War of the Sonderbund, 1847
  56. Crimean War, 1853-1856
  57. Tukulor-French War, 1854-1864
  58. Taiping Rebellion, 1851 and 1864
  59. Serbo-Turkish War, 1876-78
  60. Russo-Turkish War, 1877-1878
  61. Russian Revolution killing of the Jews, late 19th century
  62. First Sudanese Civil War, 1955-1972
  63. Nigerian Civil War, 1967
  64. Lebanese Civil War, 1975
  65. Sabra and Shatila massacre, 1982
  66. Second Sudanese Civil War, 1983
  67. Yelwa Massacre, 2004
  68. Bosnian War

A relatively unknown contrivance occurred in the thirteenth century when Pope Innocent III ordered a genocidal attack against the entire region of Languedoc France. The pope depicted the Cathars as witches; of being cannibals; desecrating the cross; and having “sexual orgies.”

Yet malefic sounds of sibilance emanated only from the Vatican, and not from its contrived enemies living peaceably in France with their pure and righteous ways. The Church murdered over a million innocent Cathars over the period of 35 years—men, women, children. Christian forces wiped them from the face of the planet. At the height of the siege, Christian forces were burning hundreds at the stake at a time. The Christian colossus exterminated them, then annexed much of Languedoc—some for the Church, some from northern French nobles. The extravagant Palais de la Berbie (construction began in 1228) and the Catholic fortress-cathedral Sainte Cécile (began 1282) are just two examples that remain to this day.

The Silent Historians

Conclusion

When I consider those 126 writers, all of whom should have heard of Jesus but did not, and Paul and Marcion and Athenagoras and Matthew with a tetralogy of opposing Christs, the silence from Qumran and Nazareth and Bethlehem, conflicting Bible stories, and so many other mysteries and omissions, I must conclude this “Jesus Christ” is a mythical character. “Jesus of Nazareth” was nothing more than urban (or desert) legend, likely an agglomeration of several evangelic and deluded rabbis who might have existed.

The “Jesus mythicist” position is regarded by Christians as a fringe group. But after my research I tend to side with Remsburg—and Frank Zindler, John M. Allegro, Thomas Paine, Godfrey Higgins, Robert M. Price, Charles Bradlaugh, Gerald Massey, Joseph McCabe, Abner Kneeland, Alvin Boyd Kuhn, Harold Leidner, Peter Jensen, Salomon Reinach, Samuel Lublinski, Charles-François Dupuis, Rudolf Steck, Arthur Drews, Prosper Alfaric, Georges Ory, Tom Harpur, Michael Martin, John Mackinnon Robertson, Alvar Ellegård, David Fitzgerald, Richard Carrier, René Salm, Timothy Freke, Peter Gandy, Barbara Walker, Thomas Brodie, Earl Doherty, Bruno Bauer and others—heretics and iconoclasts and freethinking dunces all, according to “mainstream” Bible scholars.

If all this evidence and non-evidence including 126 silent writers cannot convince, I’ll wager we will uncover much more. Yet this is but a tiny tip of the mythical Jesus iceberg: nothing adds up for the fable of the Christ. In the Conclusion of No Meek Messiah I summarise the madcap cult of Jesus worship that has plagued the world for centuries. It should be clear to even the most devout and inculcated reader that it is all up for Christianity, and in fact has been so for centuries. Its roots and foundation and rituals are borrowed from ancient cults: there is nothing magical or “God-inspired” about them. The “virgin birth prophecy” as well as the immaculate conception claims are fakeries, the former due to an erroneous translation of the Tanakh, the latter a nineteenth century Catholic apologetic contrivance, a desperate retrofitting.

Jesus was no perfect man, no meek or wise messiah: in fact his philosophies were and are largely immoral, often violent, as well as shallow and irrational. There have been many proposed sons of god, and this Jesus person is no more valid or profound than his priestly precursors. In fact, his contemporary Apollonius was unquestionably the superior logician and philosopher.

Christianity was a very minor and inconsequential cult founded late in the first century and then—while still quite minor—forced upon all the people of the Empire, and all rival kingdoms in the fourth century and beyond, as enforceable law with papal sanction. Christianity has caused more terror and torture and murder than any similar phenomenon. With its tyrannical preachments and directives for sightless and mindless obedience, the Bible is a violent and utterly useless volume, full of lies and immoral edicts and invented histories, no matter which of the many “versions” you may choose to read—including Thomas Jefferson’s radical if gallant abridgement.

The time to stop teaching the tall tales and nonsense to children, frightening them with eternal torture administered by God’s minions, has long ago passed. Parents who do so are likely deluded, and most surely are guilty of child abuse of the worst sort….

The cult of Christianity has an incalculable amount of blood on its hands. And the “Jesus” tale seems to have been nothing more than oral legend, with plenty of hoax and fraud perpetrated along the ages. It is my hope that mankind will someday grow up and relegate the Jesus tales to the same stewing pile that contains Zeus and his son Hercules, roiling away in their justifiable status as mere myth. – JNE, 19 July 2014

Thomas Paine Quote

Bibliography

  1. Catholic Encyclopedia, first edition. The Encyclopedia Press, 1907-1913.
  2. Dungan, David L., Constantine’s Bible, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007.
  3. Ehrman, Bart, Jesus, Interrupted, New York: HarperCollins, 2009.
  4. Encyclopedia Biblica: A Critical Dictionary of the Literary, Political and Religious History: The Archeology, Geography and Natural History of the Bible, Edited by Thomas Kelly Cheyne and J. Sutherland Black. 1899.
  5. Magness, Jodi, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002.
  6. Oxford Classical Dictionary. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
  7. Salm, René, The Myth of Nazareth, Parsippany: American Atheist Press, 2008.

Further Reading

  1. Alfaric, Prosper, Jésus a-t-il existé? 1932.
  2. Allegro, John M., The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth, Amherst: Prometheus Books, 1992.
  3. Barnard, Leslie William, Athenagoras: A Study in Second Century Christian Apologetic, Paris: Éditions Beauchesne, 1972.
  4. Bradlaugh, Charles, Who Was Jesus Christ? London: Watts and Co., 1913.
    Brodie, Thomas, Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus: Memoir of a Discovery, Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2012.
  5. Carrier, Richard, Proving History: Bayes’s Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus, Amherst: Prometheus, 2012.
  6. Doherty, Earl, Neither God nor Man, Ottawa: Age of Reason, 2009.
  7. Drews, Arthur, Hat Jesus gelebt? Mainz: 1924.
  8. Dupuis, Charles-François, L’origine de tous les cultes, ou la religion universelle, Paris: 1795.
  9. Ellegård, Alvar, Jesus One Hundred Years Before Christ, New York: Overlook Press, 2002.
  10. Fitzgerald, David, Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed at All, Lulu.com, 2010.
  11. Freke, Timothy, and Gandy, Peter, The Jesus Mysteries: Was the “Original Jesus” a Pagan God? New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999.
  12. Harpur, Tom, The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light, Toronto: Thomas Allen Publishers, 2005.
  13. Higgins, Godfrey, Anacalypsis, A&B Books, 1992.
  14. Jensen, Peter, Moses, Jesus, Paul: Three Variations on the Babylonian Godman Gilgamesh, 1909.
  15. Kneeland, Abner, A Review of the Evidences of Christianity, Boston: Free Enquirer, 1829.
  16. Kuhn, A. B., Who Is This King of Glory? Kessinger Publishing, LLC; Facsimile Ed edition, 1992.
  17. Leidner, Harold, The Fabrication of the Christ Myth, Survey Press, 2000.
  18. Lublinski, Samuel, Die Entstehung des Christentums; Das werdende Dogma vom Leben Jesu, Köln: Eugen Diederichs, 1910.
  19. Martin, Michael, Atheism: A Philosophical Justification, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992.
  20. Massey, Gerald, Ancient Egypt, the Light of the World, Sioux Falls: NuVision, 2009.
  21. McCabe, Joseph, The Myth of the Resurrection and Other Essays, Amherst: Prometheus Books, 1993.
  22. Ory, Georges, Le Christ et Jésus, Paris: Éditions du Pavillon, 1968.
  23. Paine, Thomas, The Age of Reason, Paris: Barrots, 1794.
  24. Price, Robert M., Deconstructing Jesus, Amherst: Prometheus, 2000.
  25. Price, Robert M., The Case Against the Case for Christ, Cranford: American Atheist Press, 2010.
  26. Reinach, Salomon, Orpheus, a History of Religions, New York: Liveright, 1933.
  27. Remsburg, John, The Christ, New York: Truth Seeker, 1909. Reprinted by Prometheus Books, 1994.
  28. Robertson, John M., A Short History of Christianity, London: Watts & Co., 1902.
  29. Steck, Rudolf, Der Galaterbrief nach seiner Echtheit untersucht nebst kritischen Bemerkungen zu den Paulinischen Hauptbriefen, Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1888.
  30. Walker, Barbara, The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, New York: HarperOne, 1983.
  31. Zindler, Frank, The Jesus the Jews Never Knew, Cranford: American Atheist Press, 2003.

» Michael Paulkovich is an aerospace engineer, historical researcher, freelance writer, and a frequent contributor to Free Inquiry and Humanist Perspectives magazines. His book No Meek Messiah was published in 2013 by Spillix.

No Meek Messiah: Christianity's Lies, Laws and Legacy - Michael Paulkovich

The British Empire didn’t end slavery, it reinvented it – Monidipa Bose Dey

Indian indentured labour in Guyana ca. 1920.

The notion that the British Empire abolished slavery across most of the world is, in reality, a myth. What the Empire simply did was quickly devise an alternative means of reintroducing slavery, by terming it as ‘indentured labour’ across its colonies, and that sounded politically correct and socially more acceptable to the white Western world. – Monidipa Bose Dey

A post on X by Elon Musk, stating that “the British Empire was the driving force behind ending the vast majority of global slavery,” brought forth a great deal of outrage from his Indian readers, and rightfully so. Slavery, which was officially abolished in the British colonies on August 28, 1833, with the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act, created severe labour shortages in British-ruled plantation islands, as newly freed former slaves refused to work for the meagre wages offered at the time.

This shortage compelled the British Empire, under pressure from wealthy white planters, to find a politically acceptable alternative for obtaining “unfree labour” from the native populations in British colonies such as India. Consequently, the indentured labour system was introduced, with clauses such as “restrictions on freedom of movement”, penalties for “negligence”, “absence from work” being made into criminal offences.

Thus, indentured labour was nothing but “slavery with a contract”. The notion that the British Empire abolished slavery across most of the world is, in reality, a myth. What the Empire simply did was quickly devise an alternative means of reintroducing slavery, by terming it as “indentured labour” across its colonies, and that sounded politically correct and socially more acceptable to the white Western world.

Owing to the numerous territorial conquests by Britain during this period, the British Empire liberally utilised its colonies as both sources and destinations for indentured labour. The primary destinations for Indian indentured labour were the British colonies of Trinidad, Mauritius, and British Guyana.

A brief overview of the European slave trade in India before the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833

The arrival of Europeans in India during the 17th century introduced a new dimension to the already thriving slave market under Islamic rulers. European powers entered the slave trade in the early 17th century, sourcing war captives from raids and conquests carried out by Arakanese rulers in the Bay of Bengal region. These raids created a systematic network of kidnappings, with countless Bengalis being captured and sold, turning ports such as Arakan, Chittagong, Hooghly, and Tamluk into infamous slave markets.

By the 1620s, the Arakanese were supplying over 1,000 slaves annually to the Dutch market. Not to be outdone, the Portuguese began conducting their own slave raids, targeting settlements along the Ganga belt. However, these activities soon drew the attention of the Mughals. By the mid-17th century, the Dutch were accused of illegally trafficking around 5,000 Bengalis annually to Batavia. Consequently, by the 1660s, the Arakan-Bengal slave trade was brought to a halt.

However, as the Bengal source of slaves dried up, another alternative supply of labour emerged, which provided irregular yet large numbers of more compliant Indian labour from both north and south India for European factories. Famines and wars led to the self-selling or “voluntary” sale of many adults and children, who were desperate to save themselves from starvation. The purchase of slaves of this kind is historically documented in Odisha, Bengal, Thanjavur, Madurai, and Chingleput, and this continued for the next two centuries.

One documented slave purchase took place in 1622, after a prolonged drought (1618–20), when the Dutch bought 1,000 slaves on the Coromandel Coast and sent them to work in Banda and Batavia.

In cases of local wars, entire families were often sold, and between 1658 and 1662, more than 7,000 slaves were bought and sent to Sri Lanka. In the 1670s, a prolonged period of crop failures led to large-scale slave sales from Tuticorin, with slaves being sent to Sri Lanka and Batavia. Indian slaves were also exported to the Dutch colonies in South-East Asia. In the first half of the 17th century, besides the Dutch, Danish, and Portuguese, English traders were also heavily involved in the slave trade, sending Indian slaves from these regions to work on rice and pepper plantations in various foreign destinations. In the latter half of the 17th century, English slave traders also shipped slaves from the port of Madras.

In the 18th century, India saw a rising number of political instabilities, armed conflicts, general financial mismanagement by the ruling classes, and increasing taxes. All these factors combined to create the horrific Bengal famine of 1770, which wiped out almost one-third of the population of Bengal. As the value of money fell, an overall decline in living standards led to an increasing outward flow of labour.

Additionally, as Indian political control over the ports weakened, slave markets began thriving around European colonial settlements. By the second half of the 18th century, French and Dutch colonies were taking in large numbers of Indian slaves, particularly when a series of famines struck eastern India.

In 1785, after a crop failure, many children were put up for sale, and the Collector of Dhaka reported seeing boats “loaded with children of all ages.” A few years later, Lord Cornwallis wrote, “Hardly a man or woman exists in a corner of this populous town [Calcutta] who hath not at least one slave child … most of them were stolen from their parents or bought for perhaps a measure of rice, in times of scarcity.”

Those exported as slaves often included nomadic farmers, poor labouring classes, or aboriginal people known as “Hill Coolies” or “dhangurs”. These people were chosen based on their being young, active, and able-bodied. Most were unaware of where they were being sent, the nature of the work they would undertake, or the length of their journey.

Bowing to pressure from the abolitionists back home in Britain, by the end of the 18th century, the British were forced to start seizing ships carrying slaves, even though their main focus was on the ships of their trading enemies (Dutch and Portuguese); and the Slavery Abolition Act was passed in 1833. However, soon after the 1833 Act was passed, a solution to the labour crisis in colonial plantations arising from the abolishment of slavery was chalked out. Indians were turned into “indentured labourers” by British policymakers and exported to their sugar colonies under the new indenture system.

Where Indian indentured labour went in the Bristish colonies.

After the abolition of slavery

After the abolition of slavery in 1833, plantation owners explored various options for procuring labour, including sourcing workers from Africa, Canada, Europe, and China, but none of these proved viable. These failures turned the Empire’s attention to India as a long-term and reliable source of labour, and in the 19th century, India became the primary supplier of labour to the sugar colonies across the British Empire. As noted by the Royal Commission of Labour in 1892, the “importation of East Indian coolies did much to rescue the sugar industry from bankruptcy.”

The Indian indenture system was entirely state-controlled and involved a written and so-called “voluntary” contract (an “agreement,” also known as Girmitiyas in Fiji), which emigrants signed or provided a thumbprint for before leaving India. While the contract contained certain protective clauses for the workers, there were significant disparities between the rhetoric given in the contract paper and the ground realities on the plantations. There were innumerable reports of fraud and the use of force during the recruitment and transportation of labourers, as well as the appalling conditions under which Indian workers were forced to labour on the plantations.

A look at the indenturing process of labour from India reveals considerable evidence of the harsh treatment meted out to the indentured workers. In Jamaica, an ordinance fixed the wage rates at one shilling per working day (9 hours) for adult males, and 9 pence for women and children; however, the actual wages paid were much lower (around 10 pence for adult males). New labourers were provided with rations free of charge for the first three months, but the cost of the rations was later deducted from their already meagre wages. Wages were so low that the labourers could hardly make any savings, and furthermore, indentured labourers were not allowed to earn extra income. Absence from work was dealt with harshly by most employers. The harsh working conditions faced by the indentured labourers in Jamaica were evident in the high suicide rates among them. Death rates from tuberculosis and malaria were also high. Similar harsh conditions prevailed in Mauritius and Demerara, while in Trinidad, indentured labourers from India faced additional racial biases, being labelled as barbarians, pagans, and so on.

Conclusion

Thus, similar to slavery, the use of indentured labour in colonial plantations remained a process of extracting maximum profits by reducing transportation costs and keeping wages at a bare minimum. Additionally, wages were deducted for taking leave from work or for other work-related negligence, with imprisonment sometimes awarded for such offences. In this way, indentured labour was nothing but slavery with a written contract that claimed the workers had agreed to all the terms and conditions.

The use of indentured labour from colonies like India to serve the British Empire’s trade and financial interests in the 19th and 20th centuries tells a story of uneven power dynamics between the labourers from the colonies and the profits flowing into the ruling country. Supplying indentured labour from India provided additional benefits, enabling maximum profit extraction by employing workers in plantations under near-slave conditions, with little compensation for their extremely hard work and harsh living conditions. – News18, 23 Novemeber 2024

Monidipa Bose Dey is a well-known travel and heritage writer.

Indian indentured labour build the Uganda railroad in ca. 1890.

The word ‘spolia’ hides too many humiliations – Reshmi Dasgupta

Ionic pillar capital embedded in wall of St.Peter's Church, Kalyvia Thorikou, Greece.

For medieval European builders who used temple rubble in their churches, the older Pagan faith was totally snuffed out in the former Roman Empire, so no one was left to protest against the deliberate insult to the ancient Gods. But in India there are many left to seethe about temple ‘spolia’ in mosques. – Reshmi Dasgupta

‘Spolia’ is an interesting word. Taken from Latin, it means “spoils” (of war) but archaeologists and academics use it to describe stones and architectural elements retrieved from older structures and re-used in new constructions, as masonry or decoration, either in the same place or elsewhere. Many of those who use the word prefer it because ‘spolia‘ sounds passive, because most people do not know the real meaning, with its vivid allusions to violence and destruction.

Debris and rubble are the better known words that imply destruction and hence are less used as they give rise to uncomfortable questions. More so when certain sections of them are reused intact, so that their original purpose juxtaposed with their new ‘repurposed’ existence remains clear to those looking at it. Hindu and Jain temple ‘spolia’—pillars—used in the cloisters of the 12th century Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque in New Delhi’s Mehrauli is one such example in India.

Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque
Western wall of Gyanvapi Mosque is that of earlier hindu temple.

Of course, an entire wall of an older structure retained intact in a subsequent construction—one example of which is currently in the news here—cannot be called ‘spolia’ in the classical sense as technically, it is not in bits and pieces. But its impact on those who see it is far sharper than, say, statues of Pagan or forbidden gods embedded in walls or on stairs, of which there are many examples in the areas of the erstwhile Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires.

In this connection, it may be remembered that remains of old statues and columns which were used in later constructions in the Acropolis in Athens have been widely interpreted as a deliberate device to forever remind Athenians about the destruction wrought by Persian emperor Xerxes I in 480 BCE after the battle of Thermopylae. Only certain spolia were used, so as to ensure Athenians resolve to never let it happen again. This is called ‘purposeful memorialisation’.

The ‘spoliate colonnades’ of Rome, however, are even more apt in the context of Mehrauli as intact pre-Christian Roman pillars were deliberately re-used in churches. In Spolia Churches of Rome: Recycling Antiquity in the Middle Ages, Maria Fabricius Hansen writes how from the 4th century CE to the 13th century CE, Christians “re-used” columns, pediments and other spolia of ancient (Pagan) Rome prominently in churches. It even became an architectural style.

The assertion of Christianity over the earlier faith prevalent there was implicit in this exercise since the new churches not only used old material but were also eventually built on the very sites of Roman temples. Fortunately for those medieval church builders, the older faith was totally snuffed out in the former Roman Empire, so no one was left to protest against the deliberate insult to their ancient gods. But in India there are many left to seethe about ‘spolia’.

The term ‘purposeful memorialisation’ can be used to describe the use of ‘spolia’ in India too, but the intention was rather different. Although contemporary left-leaning historians have tried hard to find a continuity in terms of violence and destruction in India before and after the advent of Islamic rulers, there is little proof of wilful debasing. There is no evidence of Buddhist ‘spolia’, for example, being deliberately used in Hindu temples to humiliate and disparage.

On the contrary, the great Buddhist university or mahavihara at Nalanda (then in Magadha and now Bihar) was built by the Hindu emperor Kumaragupta in the 5th century and flourished under successive Hindu rulers and non-royal Hindu donors. It was destroyed in the 12th century by ‘Turks’ (almost certainly Bakhtiyar Khilji’s army) corroborated by contemporary accounts of monks. The site of another mahavihara Odantapur that Khilji razed became Bihar Sharif.

Many reused ‘older’ building materials in India without any idea of what the original structures were, of course. Bricks and pillars of the 2nd century BCE Amaravati mahachaitya buried for more than a millennia were reused by a local zamindar Raja Vesireddy Nayudu to build his new capital in the late 18th century. Bricks from the then-undiscovered Harappa were also used by the British as track ballast for the Lahore-Multan railway in the late 19th century.

The Indus-Saraswati civilisation was still unknown when the railway was being built and Amaravati was just a grassy mound of bricks. They both could just as well have belonged to abandoned settlements of relatively recent provenance, that too not of known importance. So, whether knowing the origin of the bricks and ‘spolia’ would have really made a difference in these two cases remains moot. But all use of ‘spolia’ in India has not been that unwitting.

Which explains why there has been a concerted effort to project that destruction of places of worship and use of ‘spolia’ in India predated the Islamic period. One example cited is of the Pallava king Narasimhavarman I’s Brahmin general Paranjothi who took away a Ganesha idol from the Chalukyan capital Vatapi (now Badami in Karnataka) after the defeat of Pulakeshin II in 642 AD and installed it in his village Tiruchenkattankudi in Tiruvarur district of Tamil Nadu. But those who cite it omit the fact that the razing of Vatapi exempted temples.

Not only did Paranjothi install the Ganesha idol with great devotion and respect in his village but there is an inscription by Narasimhavarman I in the Mallikarjuna Temple at Vatapi, proving that destruction of Chalukyan temples—much less raising another structure on the site to rub it in—was not on the agenda. Carrying away idols did not indicate contempt as they were not melted down, unlike those taken from southern temples by Alauddin Khilji’s general Malik Kafur.

Another example given is of Rajadhiraja Chola who defeated the Chalukyas and plundered their capital Kalyani, taking away a large black stone dwarapala. But the inscription on that dwarapala, now installed at the Darasuram Temple in Kumbakonam, attributing its presence there to Rajadhiraja, proves it was not demeaned or destroyed but respectfully given place in another temple. If this could be called ‘spolia’ at all, it had been given a dignified new home.

The actions of warring southern Hindu rulers were a marked contrast to the attitude of the invading Islamic armies from the north, especially the expeditions of Alauddin Khilji’s favourite general Malik Kafur. The many stories of idols hidden to prevent destruction and mutilated stone carvings of figures in the great temples of south India bear witness to the fury and intentions of these invaders, going beyond just plundering their gold, gems, horses and elephants.

This is conveyed in almost fawning detail by the admired 14th century bard Amir Khusrau (who was witness to many of those pillaging wars) in Tarikh-i-Alai. One description goes: “The holy places of the Hindus, which the Malik Kafur dug up from its foundations with the greatest care. … The stone idols called ling, which had existed for a long time and until now, the kick of the horse of Islam hadn’t attempted to break … the Mussalmans destroyed all the idols”.

In most cases though, the ‘spolia’ used by idol-breaking armies are not as evident as, say, at the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque and certainly Gyanvapi. But the question is when (if at all) will India’s historians and intelligentsia take a cue from their counterparts (who have noted the same phenomenon around the Mediterranean) face up to the truth? They need to not only call a spade a spade but also disseminate the real meaning and purpose of ‘spolia’ in history. – FirstPost, 14 August 2023

Reshmi Dasgupta is an editor at the Times of India, New Delhi.

Temple pillars in Santhome Church museum, Mylapore.