RHETORIC & PROPAGANDA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

RHETORIC & PROPAGANDA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT(08/05/00)

Before I start to illustrate the examples of rhetoric and propagandathat are contained within the New Testament, I’d like to say a fewwords about just how amazing it is to my mind that someone has notworked on this before in a widely public work. And the same goesfor the listing of correlations between the works of Flavius Josephusand the New Testament. These two areas to me would seem the mostobvious to even the most ordinary person, with even the a veryminimal level of background knowledge about this subject.

Never did I think that I would have to do so much of the basicground-breaking work myself… but so much seems to have escapedthe attention of so many for so long. I hope that these areas will nolonger be taken for granted or taken lightly and that they may betaught and taken as the examples that they are.

I realize that most persons at this point in time have no background inancient history, let alone a good working knowledge of the true historyof those times and so, what may be found by those persons are ratherlimited. But as for the things stated above, those should have beenfound even by those of the Old Classical Scholarship - at least to somedegree.

And as for myself, what is foremost in my mind about this is what wefind in the New Testament that is aimed towards the Jews. We mustmust never forget just how much knowledge that the authors of theNew Testament possessed. They were keenly aware of just what andhow much they could say in the NT about any certain thing withoutgiving away what they were doing.
And so, instead of saying (in the NT) that "the Jews were the enemiesof all Romans and Christians" outright in the NT, they merely‘indicated’ that with various statements that were aimed against theJews. The reason that they did not want to state this clearly and in aforthright fashion in the NT is because that would be (leave) evidencethat would too strongly show the purpose of the statements themselves.

What they resolved to do then was to make ‘indicating’ statementsagainst the Jews in the NT so that those could be expounded uponorally (vocally) in churches and other meeting places (such as militarycamps), without leaving too much WRITTEN evidence as to the truepurpose of those "antisemetic" statements. They were not put there fora benign or arbitrary reason, they actually served a critical purpose.

Before we go too far in this article, we should make sure that we firstunderstand just what ‘rhetoric’ is as well as ‘propaganda’, so that wecan appreciate our ability to identify it and so that we will not fall victimsof it ourselves in the future. Too many times we’ll find others usingand even use the word ‘rhetoric’ ourselves to mean simply somethingthat we do not understand or generically even to statements made byothers that merely ‘appear’ to us to have been fabricated. That is notwhat rhetoric truly is. Rhetoric is an expressly devised statement thatwas meant by the designer of that piece of rhetoric to achieve a desiredeffect upon those who hear, read and/or use that statement - it is theencapsulation of an idea or ideology that may be wholly or in part untrueor non-real, but which is meant to appear ‘real’ and valid. Rhetoric isalso found in the form of "questions", and this is most effective rhetoricbecause the hearer or reader of it is left to ‘ponder’ the statement andthe ‘answer’ is almost always a foregone conclusion because of theparticular words used in the question. The average person is taken invery easily by rhetoric simply because they are uneducated to it.

Webster’s dictionary gives a luke-warm definition of rhetoric and sopersons reading that definition never know the full and true meaningof what it really is. The dictionary says; "the art of effective andpersuasive use of language." It should say something more like this; "the creative use of words, phrases, questions and other statementsused for the express purpose of deception." I realize that some personstoday do use rhetoric and propaganda in political areas as a means toachieve some ‘good’ goals. However, they should not HAVE to. Thereason that this may become necessary is because THAT rhetoric isused to ‘counter’ what has already been or is being used by the otherside. And so, until we are ALL able to automatically ‘see’ andunderstand rhetoric and propaganda, we will be subject to it and themasses will be taken in by it. That is why rhetoric and propagandashould be an essential that is taught in our public schools. Instead, wesee the opposite - we see the attempts to bring into schools rhetoricwhich was designed to "dumb them down" (i.e., the bible & prayer).

Webster’s now defines "propaganda" as, "the systematic widespreadpromotion of a particular doctrine or idea." Or "material distributed towin people over to a particular doctrine." Again, another less-than-correct definition. "Propaganda" used to be truly and correctly definedas "the systematic promotion of HARMFUL and/or UNTRUE doctrines,ideas, or material." Or as a definition for the HARMFUL and/orUNTRUE material itself. Those who control the meaning of words,as those who may control and CHANGE the meaning of words in ourdictionaries - control the perception of those words by the masses. Eventhis, is a tool that is used to control the minds of the masses. Surely notEVERYTHING being promoted can be defined as "propaganda"!!!
Now, for a few examples of rhetoric & propaganda in the New Testament.
(1) Antisemetism in the New Testament. Some of this is overt and fairlyobvious, while some is very well hidden. There was a major war goingon when the New Testament was being written. Although there arerhetorical devices related to this war in the NT, a good deal of it ispropaganda.

When I think of a piece of propaganda in the New Testament that alsoserves the purpose of a rhetorical device, I think of where the NewTestament tries to make the case that IT was/is a fulfillment of a itsown prophesy. The Gospels make it that the [war] destruction ofJerusalem and the Temple were a fulfillment of THEM, rather thanthat they were written as a part of the war! How do we know thatthis is the case? Because THEY (the Gospels) were written AFTERTHE FACT and so could not have contained predictions about whatwould happen, because they had already happened.

This is a piece of propaganda produced specifically for the purposeof giving the Roman soldiers, Christian believers and others who madeup the masses in the Roman empire the illusion that being on the sideof Rome against the Jews (in the war) was something that ‘God’ bothwanted and demonstrated to them.

The author of the Gospel of John makes the Jews say in his "Gospel";"This man is performing many signs. If we leave him alone like thisthe whole populace will believe in him. Then the Romans will comeand sweep away our temple and our nation." (John 11:47-48)
The Gospel of John is known to have been written at a much laterdate than when this occurred. The Temple was destroyed in the year70 CE. The Gospel of John was written circa 105 CE accoring toAbelard Reuchlin.

(2) The making of more Christians. Using the line in Genesis aboutgoing forth and being ‘fruitful’ is has been used for hundreds of yearsto get Christians to produce more Christians, and is still used in a veryeffective way still today (most especially by the Catholic Church). So, just by having babies and/or big families, more Christians are producedfrom existing Christians. Secondly, they are commanded as a part ofthe ‘requirement’ of being a Christian to proselytize and ‘convert’others. This is an example of rhetorical devices in the Bible and the NewTestament specifically to achieve goals that were thought essential bythe authors of the bible to ensure that Christianity ‘grew’. Never do yousee an ‘honest’ and straight forward statement in the bible. It is allmade very slick and ‘asks’ all of the right things from believers in orderto reach its OWN goals. Remember, it was a family of the world’sgreatest con artists who were creating the bible. They were not justthinking of things in their own time, but of the future of their ownfamily being able to make a good living off of believers. To do thiseffectively, they knew that they would need to ensure that more andmore Christians were being created. By the same token, the moreChristians there were within a populace, the easier the populace wouldbe to control and manipulate on a political level.

(3) Tithes and bequests. This is one of the big differences that camewith the invention of Christianity. Though this existed previously in theform of ‘sacrifice’, that was not enough for them. So, a whole newsystem was developed. One where instead of the offering of produce andpieces of livestock and the occasional clay pot. Those would be replacedby cold hard cash. So, the ‘sacrifice’ was changed to ‘tithe’. And evena percent, a fixed amount was arrived at by comparing the tithingamount to the amount given in taxes. And the idea of bequests werepushed orally by the priests. This meant that not only would the churchreceive money on a regular basis, but that they would be most likely toreceive real property and the accumulation of wealth acquired duringthe lifetime of their ‘faithful’. Again, this was and still IS a con game! And we need to expose this fact to everyone that we know so that it canone day END.
Do you want to know about a rhetorical device that was put into theNew Testament in order to get persons to both donate heavily to thechurch and to get persons to make bequests to the church? Here it is; "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle that it is fora rich man to enter into the kingdom of god (i.e., "heaven")." This bitof rhetoric was put in three separate places in the New Testament tomake sure that it would NOT be missed. It is in Mark 10:25, Matt. 19:24,Luke 18:25. This rhetoric was placed into the New Testament so thatpersons would sign a bequest and therefore technically be "poor" whenthey died, that way, they could go to ‘heaven’. What a scam! The wholeof the New Testament is one long con designed to manipulate personsto the fullest!

(4) Rhetoric in general. The rhetoric of the book of Acts is one examplethat has been noted by scholars. The "Acts of the Apostles", was a wholebook with a specific rhetorical purpose - to give the illusion thatChristianity was ALREADY known (and accepted) by the massesthroughout the Roman empire. The purpose of this illusion was to createword of mouth advertising of the religion as a controversial issue amongthe masses. (See "The Bible as Literature: The New Testament," byBuckner B. Trawich, 1968, pg. 69).

Apparently small, simple phrases were used as rhetoric as in this example;"… full of grace and truth." (John 1:14). Though it is true that theseauthors did indeed leave us works that are "full of (their) "grace"" (sic),and also full of truth regarding history as well, it is only there for thosewho "hath wisdom" and can "see" (determine) it for themselves. And so,there is really an ‘omission’ in this statement that can also be seen as an‘inference’. The whole statement would then be; "… full of grace andtruth FOR THOSE WHO CAN SEE AND UNDERSTAND IT, BUT NOTFOR THOSE WHO CANNOT." And the truth was that very few personscould see and understand what that "grace" and "truth" really was/is. Bythe way, this is also what is meant by the "secret" or "mystery of theGospels". What is meant by ‘grace’ is what the persons who were playing‘god’ were kind enough to leave to us in order to find out that the wholething was indeed a fraud. Because these authors had complete control overALL that they wrote and whatever they chose to leave to us in order forus find out just what they had done - they called this ‘grace’. Their ‘grace’which they most graciously gave to us, when they did not have to. Theywanted to make sure that we understood that. And the "truth" was/is whatwe can render from their writings once we have eliminated the untrue (bydeduction). So, the effect of the example here is the deception of themasses purposefully and deliberately so as to give them the illusion thatthey were indeed receiving something great and good - ‘grace’ and ‘truth’when in fact they were being ‘hustled’. And that, is an example of arhetorical device.
Here is a quick list of some of the ideologies that they used to make thewhole ‘machine’ that they created work:

The idea of a "soul", for the purpose of making people think that they hadsomething of themselves as individuals to ‘save’. That creates the NEEDfor that something to facilitate that - and so, you are given that by way ofthe belief in Jesus.

The idea of Heaven and Hell. Remember, I said that these were thingsthat they ‘used’, not that the creators of Christianity necessarily created. The Christian religion was a ‘refinement’, a largely improved version ofthe older religions. Heaven (or rather the idea of it) existed previously inthe form of ‘the elisian fields’ for Greeks & Romans, and was given othernames elsewhere. And Hell, was previously "Hades". But these were notreal either. The Bible and the New Testament specifically reveals by wayof "disclaimers" that Heaven and Hell do not exist. The New Testamentmakes openly false promises of life after death and so on.

The very idea of Heaven as a place to live in after death is a rhetoricaldevice created for the purpose of convincing people that they have to do and/or believe certain things in life in order to ‘get there’. And withHell as the alternative if you do not… well, that is a pretty persuasiveideology for those who don’t have a clue about any of this.

And then there is the idea of "miracles", that anything can happen inyour favor as long as you ‘believe’. This is also a part of the whole ideaof supernatural things and superstitions to confuse the mind with aswith the idea of angels, ghosts, demons and the devil/satan. You maynotice that Heaven is only offered to those who ‘believe’. That, isrhetoric, because it offers no other choice to persons in order to obtainthe preset ‘goal’ of a life in Heaven. But it does not answer whathappens to those who never knew about Christianity in the first place.

We know of several devices that were used to persuade persons intobelieving that should be mentioned here as well. One of those is thatlong tubes have been found at ancient alters and other religious ruinswere persons behind the altars were talking into the tubes to those whowere there to worship and sacrifice. The tubes made the voice of theperson speaking resound, sounding loud and authoritative; like the voicethat one would imagine a ‘god’ to have. It is obvious that these wereused to deceive persons with. Another example would be where certain"signs" from ‘god’ are referred to. Among these signs are all manner ofnatural occurrences - those same things that we take for granted today;thunder & lightening, earthquakes, erupting volcanoes, shooting stars,lunar and solar eclipses. One of the more powerful of these ‘signs’ werethe eclipses as they would appear to the common person to happenONLY when the high priest said they would; and that was when ‘god’wanted the masses to do what he wanted. And this ‘prediction’ by thepriest that this was going to occur before it actually did, was used as ameans to convince even the most ardent disbeliever that ‘god’ indeedwas giving them a ‘sign’. We know now that the rulers and priests inancient times actually knew when these eclipses would happen beforethey did, and that is because they had been keeping records of them forthousands of years! And we know today too, when these will happen bythe use of this same method - they run in cycles and therefore can be‘predicted’ in advance. Religion is now, and always has been just a bigcon game. The Bible is literary "Snake Oil". And THAT is the truth.

The emotional ‘weight’ of all of these ‘goodies’ that Christianity offersis very hard for the average person to resist… IF, they believe them toactually be TRUE. But they are not. They are there for persuasion only.

Many persons have been thoroughly indoctrinated into a ‘god way’ ofthinking by exposure to persuasive language, rhetoric and many otherthings that have been ‘woven’ into the very fabric of society. They mayhave no idea of what life would be like without the idea of a god or anyof that whole ideology. But the reality of this is that what reality andtruth without Christianity and religion would offer is: No God, whichalso means no devil or demons, no supernatural, no hell, but still thepossibility of a heaven of our own making. And the elimination of thelargest and longest lasting scam and crime against humanity.

These authors of the New Testament were ‘slick’ and experts in the artof manipulation. And now, how can they manipulate people unless they‘believe’ and believe beyond all else? And so, they worked very hard onthe "faith rhetoric". They did all that they could to ‘blur’ the meaningof and concept of ‘faith’ with other things such as ‘hope’ (1 Cor. 13:13)and also of equating faith with ‘power’ (Acts 6:8), and of making itappear to be a ‘virtue’ to be developed and ‘strengthened’ (Luke 8:48).

They took the trouble of making (giving) and example of a ‘doubter’ inthe form of Thomas (as in ‘doubting Thomas’ in Mark 3:18, Matt. 10:3,Luke 6:15). Persons would be ‘complimented’ on their "great faith" inthe New Testament (Matt. 8:10). Faith was even given as something thatwas semi-logical by explaining what it ‘is’; "Now faith is the substanceof things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). Butthat of course, is just rhetoric. It really makes no sense at all. All it really‘says’ is that air is air. That nothing is still nothing, no matter what youcall it. But it gives the impression to the uninformed reader that ‘faith’is really something, as if it is what you make of it and not an exercise infutility. By the way, that passage is not how is was in the original texts.

Hebrews 11:1, was stated this way originally; "Now faith is of thingshoped for, the assurance of things not seen." The rest was added andchanged by later "interpreters". And, ‘faith’ was a rhetorical deviceused to rally military troops during war; "fight the good fight by faith"(1 Titus 6:12). And for all those who did not go along, they were thenmocked; "O ye of little faith…" (Matt. 6:30, 8:26, 14:31, 16:8 and inLuke 12:28). But about ‘faith’, read on, you will be shown the disclaimerthat shows that they were indeed lying about the truth.

(5) The use of "disclaimers". You may see persons speaking of the many‘contradictions’ that are found in the bible. You may even know of someof those yourself. Most of those ‘contradictions’ are really what we’d calltoday ‘disclaimers’. They put disclaimers into what they wrote so that theycould rightly claim to be telling the "truth". This allowed them to say justabout anything that they wanted to and still allow them to say that it was/is "the truth". This was really just a huge manipulation of language and ofthe readers of their writings. These people were con artists who had theprivilege of being royal and having access to everything that they neededin order to produce and maintain the largest and longest lasting con ever!

By the use of disclaimers, they COULD indeed tell the truth; but in themost deceptive ways! The way that they hide these disclaimers remindsme of the con artists who used to use "fine print" in order to hide thetruth. Anyway, here is the disclaimer about the truth in the books of theNew Testament. Now bear in mind that this is supposed to be Jesusspeaking in the following verses;
"If I bear witness of myself, my witness is NOT true." John 5:31
And then, just a few verses later he says;
"I am one that bears witness of myself." John 8:18
This, is an admission that he is indeed lying. Lying about all thingsthat he was stating! An admission that this was all really a hoax.
And you can’t say that they did not warn you. Because they DID givethis disclaimer as well;
"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, butwho are really ravenous wolves!" Matt. 7:15
"This is Jesus the prophet, of Nazareth of Galilee." Matt. 21:11
They warned you about those in sheep’s clothing, but not about theone in lamb’s clothing (Jesus, the ‘lamb’)! And you can’t blame themeither, because saying "beware of false prophets in LAMB’S clothing"would not be in their own deceptive interest - remember, their main goalwas to DECEIVE the reader. They did make the analogy though andthe "disclaimer" - again, you can’t say that they didn’t warn you! Theyvery effectively said, "Look, now you beware of false prophets… o.k.? Got it? Alright." And then they proceeded to produce the false prophetwith which to deceive you with!

And the reason for saying sheep’s clothing was so that they could putin an allusion to their ancestors by a secret reference to the "goldenfleece" (i.e. a sheep’s fleece/clothing). And why do they say "wolves"?This is because the authors are ROMANS and the royal Romans werethought of as ‘wolves’ because their ancestors Romulus and Remuswere suckled by a she-wolf. So, always remember that the falseprophet that they warn you against IS Jesus! This is a "disclaimer". They set out to deceive and manipulate the readers of the NewTestament before they even started work on it - that was the goal!