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Christs Ventriloquist:
How St. Paul Engineered the Hoax that Shaped Our World

by Eric Zuesse

For ewor d
This is the first-ever legal/forensic analysis
of the evidence regarding how Christianity started.
By legal/forensic is meant, simply put,
the methodology which is employed in courts of
law in a democracy. A court presents to the jury
not (as scholars are accustomed to doing via huge
bibliographies and numerous footnotes) the
largest quantity of evidence regarding a particular
matter, but instead the highest quality of evidence regarding any specific
question. For example, DNA evidence trumps witness testimony, and thats why
many people have been released from death rows after the advent of DNA testing.
Similarly, the exclusionary rule is employed so as to winnow out evidentiary gold
from evidentiary chaff, to avoid contaminating jurors judgment by less reliable
evidence which prejudices rather than informs judgments.
The difference between legal/forensic methods and other methods is the
difference between history and myth. When innocent convicts were released from
prisons after DNA analysis, the mythological accounts of the crimes for which

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they had been convicted were publicly revealed to have been myth and not
history. In cases where DNA evidence identified whom the true perpetrator of the
crime was, the myth became replaced by a new account of the crime an account
which offered, for the first time, a history and not a myth about that crime. This
is how important legal/forensic methods are: for the sake of history as opposed to
myth, its simply essential to employ only the best evidence, to apply the
exclusionary rule, and to adhere strictly to all other aspects of legal/forensic
methodology.
Pauls letter to the Galatians is widely considered by scholars to be the best
evidence regarding early Christianity. Not only is it accepted as direct witness
testimony to the events it describes (which, for example, the Gospels were
formerly widely thought to be, but no longer are: theyre second- or third-hand
accounts at most, just hearsay), but, as The Oxford Companion to the Bible stated
in 1993, None of the letters bearing Pauls name is so indubitably his as
Galatians. Galatians is, indeed, the criterion by which the authenticity of other
letters ascribed to him is gauged.
*

Thus, a legal/forensic analysis of Christianitys origin will be based upon
that document, the best evidence. Under its first-ever legal/forensic analysis,
Galatians will, indeed, reveal how, when, where, why, and by whom, Christianity
started.

*
[The footnote is not included in these samples.].

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Summar y

Jesus of Nazareth started a new sect in Judaism. He was then crucified by
the Romans in approximately the year 30. The Romans crucified him because he
claimed to be the King of the Jews. The Romans crucified everyone who made
that claim (there were others who made this same claim). All of these men were
crucified because the Romans had appointed solely the Herodian family to that
kingly position. For anyone else to claim this title was automatically viewed as
being and it actually was sedition against Rome. This is why Jesus was
crucified by the Romans, for sedition.
Shortly before Jesuss crucifixion, he appointed his brother James to head
the young sect. (The myth in the Gospels says that Jesus appointed Peter; but
thats a lie, and this work explains why the myth was written in that way.) Within
approximately three years of Jesuss crucifixion, Paul joined the sect. Then, three
years after his joining, Paul traveled from his office in Antioch to Jerusalem, in
order to meet Jesuss disciples, and to receive missionary training specifically
from Peter, who was the sects chief missionary selling this sect to non-Jews.
Peter had had only modest success converting Gentiles to join this Jewish sect,
but Paul became the star missionary or salesman to the Gentiles. In fact, Paul
brought in such a great number of new members, so that soon most of the sects
members were actually Gentiles who had been converted by Paul.

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However, this soaring number of new members who hadnt been born as
Jews created a problem for the members who had been so born: These new Jews
werent circumcised. Judaism had started, according to the Jewish legend, at
Genesis 17:12-14, with God telling Abraham: Circumcision will be your signature
on our agreement [Gods agreement with the Jews], a physical sign that our
agreement is eternal. In Genesis 17:14, God said: No man who is uncircumcised
will be one of my people. Gods agreement was thus only with circumcised men;
no uncircumcised man would be one of Gods People. Then, in Genesis 17:19, God
made clear that this would never change; he said: This agreement will extend
through all future generations. Abraham complied, and thus the Jewish
covenant began, according to the Jewish legend.
So, the question is: were these new men, whom Paul had brought in,
actually Jews? Not according to the commandment which started the faith: they
certainly werent. Circumcision was Judaisms signature commandment; a man
didnt even qualify to be a Jew unless he had first signed the agreement by
becoming circumcised, and Pauls men had not signed. This was in black and
white, in Genesis. It was undeniable.
During the 17th year of Pauls employment with the sect, 14 years after his
first visit to Jerusalem, Pauls congregations included so many members that
James called Paul back again to Jerusalem. In Galatians 2:2, Paul said that what
was at stake in this Jerusalem conference would be the success or failure of all of
his missionary work up to that time.

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If circumcision were to be imposed upon his men, Paul would lose almost
all of them, and the reason for this was quite simple:
Anesthesia didnt yet exist, and therefore any medical operation was a
living terror. This is why virtually the only operations which occurred that
werent absolutely necessary were the circumcisions of male Jewish infants on
their eighth day, in accord with Genesis 17:11. Those infants didnt even choose it;
this was something that their parents did to them. Pauls converts, by contrast,
were grown men. They would have been terrified to be subjected to that
requirement. Most would have refused.
Furthermore, antibiotics also didnt yet exist; the death-rate from any
operation was therefore very high, from infections. When death occurred to an
infant, it was no major concern, because infants possessed no property and thus
no power. But adult males possessed all the property, and so all the power in
society, and thus Paul knew that he would lose his lifes success if he demanded
that his men become circumcised.
James knew that if he demanded that Pauls men become circumcised,
then hed lose most of his members; and so James, too, didnt want to do that.
Furthermore, Jesuss disciples were poor people; they were Jerusalem Jews, who
had been defeated by Rome, and almost all of the rich people were associated
with the Roman regime, and they were Gentiles. Pauls congregations were thus
contributing money to the upkeep of these poor Jews in Jerusalem. James didnt
want this assistance to stop.

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Paul wrote in Galatians 2:10 that at the conclusion of the conference
James required only that this money keep coming. Paul seemed, at first, to have
had his way.
But then, only shortly after Paul returned to Antioch, Peter came, and,
later that same day, other agents from James also came, and they told Paul that
James had changed his mind, and that all of Pauls men would have to be
circumcised, after all. According to Pauls account in Galatians 2:14-21, Paul
responded to this demand by saying that the covenant was at an end as a result of
Jesuss crucifixion, and that a person is viewed favorably by God only by means
of possessing Christ-faith, never by following Gods laws which are set forth in the
covenant in the Torah [the first five books of the Bible]. In other words, Paul
said that the agreement that God had with the Jews was now replaced by Pauls
gospel of Christ, in which faith that Jesus was the Messiah is all that God
requires, in order for a man to become one of Gods People and so go to heaven
instead of to hell after death. Paul said, in Galatians 2:21, If a person is put right
with God by adhering to the covenant, then the Messiah died for nothing!
That was the first time this doctrine, the Christian doctrine of salvation by
faith instead of by obedience to Gods commandments, had been stated
anywhere. Paul was virtually forced into it, by circumstances, or else he would fail
in life; his entire 17 years as the sects best salesman would have gone down the
drain, if he had required his men to go under the knife. In Philippians 3:1-2, he
said to his men, As Ive said before, I am concerned about your safety, because

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those evil people, those dogs, who insist upon cutting the body, are wrong, and
(Philippians 3:8) the entire covenant is garbage, which the Messiahs death has
made superfluous.
Paul knew that discarding circumcision meant discarding the covenant to
which it signed. But he couldnt afford to tell his men that he was rejecting the
covenant on account of rejecting the circumcision law and that he wasnt really,
as Paul claimed, rejecting the circumcision law on account of rejecting the
covenant.
Galatians 2:11-21 presents an embarrassed and nervous Paul recounting
to the Galatians the event which had actually started Christianity (as noted, he
couldnt afford to admit to them that this occasion was its start); and, in this
account, Peter simply lacked the stomach to inform Paul of the bad news from
James. Peter instead sat down to dinner at Pauls headquarters, with Pauls
uncircumcised followers. Then, Jamess backup team suddenly arrived, and saw
that Peter was dining with Pauls uncircumcised men, not telling Paul that they
needed to become circumcised before they could be authentic followers of Jesus.
Peter backed away from the table and seconded Jamess demand. This
precipitated the blow-up, which caused Paul to assert 2:16-21, Christianity.
Paul, in Galatians, didnt mention that James had changed his mind and
had decided that Genesis 17:14 needed to be imposed after all in order for Pauls
men to continue being members of the Jesus sect of Jews. Paul simply couldnt
bring himself to admit this, because if his Galatian readers were to be informed

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that the sects leader, James, now demanded circumcision, then those Galatians
would be made conscious that by their staying in Pauls congregations theyd no
longer be members of the Jesus sect, and theyd then have abandoned both James
and Paul. Theyd have abandoned the Jesus sect on account of refusing to go
under the knife in an era without anesthesia and antibiotics; and theyd have
abandoned Pauls congregations because theyd know that Pauls congregations
were in violation of Jesus, and werent even Jewish at all; theyd have known that
this was really just a hoax.
Paul and James were now locked in the equivalent of a bad marriage
which couldnt be ended. Divorce was too painful for either to carry out. If James
were to announce publicly that Pauls men were no longer his followers, then
Jamess poverty-stricken group in Jerusalem would no longer continue to receive
the financial contributions coming in from Pauls far better-off Gentile
congregations throughout the rest of the Roman Empire. Jamess desperate
followers were now financially too dependent upon the far larger number of
Pauls followers. Thus, James remained quiet about his change-of-mind. And
Paul, for his part, continued telling his followers to contribute to the group in
Jerusalem, because Paul needed the at-least-tacit acceptance of Jamess group to
continue for a long enough time for Pauls new faith to be able to go out
ultimately publicly on its own, as an entirely new religion, abandoning its Jewish
status.

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Jamess group faded away. But Pauls blossomed and thrived. One reason
why Pauls group grew was that Paul was telling people that they dont need to go
under the knife in order to win an eternity in heaven; just Christ-faith will do it.
Another reason was that in Romans 13:1-7 and elsewhere, Paul and his followers
told their followers that the laws which they should adhere to werent the ones
from Judaisms God, but instead the ones which the Roman Emperor of the time
was imposing. Romans 13:1-7 and other passages made Romes Emperors, in
effect, Gods agents upon Earth, imposing Gods will, and legislating on Gods
behalf, so that, as Romans 13:5 put it, You must obey the Emperor not just
because, as Gods agent, hell punish you for violating the law, but also as a
matter of conscience. This teaching by Paul and his followers was enormously
helpful to the Emperors; thus, they ultimately imposed Christianity throughout
their realm.
When its understood that the four canonical Gospel accounts of Christ
were written not by Jesuss followers but by Pauls, both the truths and the lies in
the New Testament become fully explained, and make 100% sense. Even the NTs
internal contradictions now make sense.
Paul, in his own account in Galatians 2, had been faced with an
extraordinarily painful choice: either he would follow his instructions from James
and demand that his thousands of men become circumcised, or else he and his
congregations would leave the sect and go off into the future as an entirely new
religion, which renounces the covenant and Gods commandments, and thus is

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traitorous to Jesus. The first path would have led to Pauls oblivion, because few
of his men would have been willing to risk their lives in order to stay with him.
Paul took the second path. This led to his starting a new religion, custom-tailored
to become the worlds largest because it placed heaven on sale, and also because
it created for the Roman Emperors a new universal or Catholic religion to
replace the old parochial and merely local Roman gods.
Already before Pauls time, the Emperors had been struggling with the
inadequacies of their old religion: their gods provided no moral authority for the
laws the Emperors dictated; and these gods were also purely local tribal Roman
deities, who possessed no authority outside of Rome anyway. Pauls solution to
these problems was the only way to make the Emperors subjects not just in
Rome but elsewhere, throughout the Empire follow the Emperors commands
as if those commands came from God. And so the Emperors ultimately adopted
it.
However, in order for Paul and his followers who wrote the Gospels to win
support from the Emperors, a way also had to be found to explain Jesuss
crucifixion by the Roman authorities. (No Roman Emperor would endorse a
religion which worshipped a man who was acknowledged to have been executed
by one of the Emperors own predecessors.) Paul and his followers came up with
a solution to that problem, too: The Jews (despite their having been conquered by
the Romans) allegedly forced the Roman authorities to crucify Jesus for
blasphemy against Jewish Law. This lie freed the Roman Emperors from any

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Deicide charge, that they had killed God. Without this lie, Paul and his people
would have stood no chance whatsoever of ultimately winning over the
Emperors.
Thus, securing his support from both the mass base and the Imperial elite,
Paul emerged to become the most powerful person in history, the creator of the
worlds largest religion, just as he hoped. Paul said, in 1 Corinthians 9:24-25,
Run lifes race so as to win the prize. For him, winning was everything. Every
athlete in training submits to strict discipline in order to win a prize that will not
last; we, however, do it to win a prize that will last forever. And so he did: his
prize has already lasted 2,000 years.
This history of the origins of Christianity is documented with full details in
the following, in which the people who created the hoax wrote and displayed not
only their hoax, but also under the first-ever legal/forensic analysis of their
writings how and why they did it. Without necessarily assuming their
testimony to be honest, but rather cross-examining them by placing their
writings under a legal/forensic logical microscope which exposes both their
explicit and their implied statements, and which distinguishes between the two
levels of assertion, this history becomes revealed with stunning clarity, as we
shall see.