PROOF Church Timelines

Question 1

CARD #1 REFORMATION

[MN: I have to read these online. They are dozens of pages on every flashcard.]

The Reformation

AP European History: Unit 2.1

HistorySage.com

I. The Protestant Reformation

A. Causes of the Reformation notes

1. Crises of the 14^th and 15^th centuries hurt the prestige of the clergy (see Unit 1.1 notes) a. Babylonian Captivity, 14^th century
   
   1. Great Schism: 1377-1417
   2. Conciliar Movement to reform the church and give a church council more power than the pope was rejected by several popes in the 15 and 16 century
2. Corruption in the Catholic Church a. simony: sale of church offices

 For example, in 1487 the pope sold 24 offices  Reformers were outraged that unqualified people would become bishops or cardinals.

1. pluralism: an official holding more than one office at a time
2. absenteeism: an official not participating in benefices but receiving payment and privileges
3. sale of indulgences: people paying money to the Church to absolve their sins or sins of their loved ones (see John Tetzel below)
4. nepotism: favoring family members in the appointment of Church offices
   
   • Two popes (Leo X and Clement VII) were sons of Florentine Medici rulers
   • Pope Paul III made two of his grandsons cardinals
   • f. Moral decline of the papacy
   • Pope Alexander VI (r. 1492-1503) had numerous affairs and children out of wedlock . 20% of all priests in the diocese of Trent kept concubines during the early 16^<u>th</u> century

g.

• Clerical ignorance: many priests were virtually illiterate
• Some abused their power such as trading sexual favors for the absolution of sins during confession.

Critics of the Church:

1. emphasized a personal relationship with God as primary
   
   1. John Wyclif (1329-1384), England
      
      • Stated that the Bible was the sole authority
      • Foreshadowed Martin Luther’s views in the early 16^th century
      • Stressed personal communion with God.
      • Diminished the importance of sacraments.
      • Translated the Bible into English
2. John Calvin (see below) was influenced by humanism, especially the writings of Erasmus
3. After Martin Luther’s reformation, humanists

turned many monasteries into schools

Printing press facilitated the spread of humanism

II. Martin Luther (1483-1546)

1. Background
   
   1. Augustinian monk; taught at the University of Wittenberg in Saxony
   2. Johann Tetzel was authorized by Pope Leo X to sell indulgences
      
      1. Indulgences were payments that would reduce a person’s punishment in Purgatory, or perhaps the pain of a loved one who had already died.
      2. Tetzel: “As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.”
      3. The pope was looking for additional revenues to pay for the building of St. Peter’s cathedral in Rome.
      4. Tetzel’s selling of indulgences had become egregious
2. 95 Theses, Oct 31, 1517
   
   1. Luther criticized the selling of indulgences but went further than others before him by questioning the scriptural authority of the pope to grant indulgences.
3. The printing press facilitated the spread of Luther’s work with astonishing speed
4. Luther challenges Church authority
5. In 1518, Luther defied the pope by refusing to stop his crusade.
   
   1. He was protected by Elector Frederick III (“the Wise”) of Saxony
6. At this point, Luther did not seek to create a new church but rather to reform the Catholic Church
7. Luther took part in a debate with Johann Eck (one of the great Catholic theologians) at Leipzig in 1519

Luther denied both the infallibility of the pope and the infallibility of a general council

1. Luther claimed that the Church had erred when it executed John Hus for heresy.
2. This was the point of no return for Luther.
3. In 1520, Luther published his theology of reform in three separate works
   
   1. Salvation could be achieved through faith alone
      
      • Rejected “good works” as the means to salvation but believed that “good works” followed faith.
   2. The Bible was the sole authority
   3. Only two sacraments—baptism and communion— were valid
      
      • Rejected transubstantiation (wine and bread in the Eucharist transform into the actual blood and body of Christ)
4. The church consisted of a “priesthood of all believers”; not a hierarchical structure
   
   • Christians were not subject to the pope’s interpretation of the Bible.
   • The Bible contained all that was needed for a person to lead a Christian life—a church hierarchy of bishops and priests, therefore, was unnecessary.
5. Again, criticized sale of indulgences and simony
6. Encouraged German princes to reform the Church in their states.
7. Rejected Catholic monastic tenets of poverty, chastity and obedience.
8. Luther was thus excommunicated by Pope Leo X in 1520

 Luther threw the papal bull that excommunicated him into a fire.

6. Diet of Worms (1521)
7. Tribunal of the Holy Roman Empire with power to

outlaw and sentence execution through stake burning

• Charles V had promised before his election as Holy Roman Emperor that he would not allow anyone in his empire to be excommunicated unless there was a fair trial.
• Charles demanded that Luther recant his writings
• Luther refused:
  
  • “Here I stand, I can do no other”
• Edict of Worms: Luther outlawed as a heretic by the HRE
• Luther was kidnapped by agents of Frederick III and taken to his castle where he was protected

and continued to write

Answer 1

23, Luther translated the Bible into the vernacular, profoundly influencing the development of the modern German language.

 Served to democratize religion as any literate German now had access to Scripture.

The Political Battle over Lutheranism in Germany

III.

1. Spread of Lutheranism
   
   1. Many German states in the north turned to Lutheranism a. Many German princes were politically motivated: they could now escape the authority of the Catholic Church and confiscate church lands for the state’s benefit.

b. The southern part of Germany largely remained

Catholic

1. Denmark and Sweden became Lutheran states as__well 3. Lutheranism did not spread much beyond northern Germany and Scandinavia.
2. Peasants’ War (1524-1525) or German Peasants

Revolt (especially, the Swabian Peasant uprising)

1. Twelve Articles, 1525: peasants demanded end of__serfdom and tithes, and other practices of feudalism__that oppressed the peasantry (e.g. hunting rights)

 Many of these peasants were inspired by Luther

b. Luther may have sympathized with some of the complaints of the peasants, but he was disgusted with the violence of the peasant movement. He admonished German princes to violently stamp out the revolt
1. As many as 100,000 peasants died during the__uprising  Both Catholic and Lutheran forces took part in squashing the revolt.
1. Puritans in England

• Pressured Elizabeth I for more reforms but were largely kept at bay.
• Later established colonies in America in a region that came to be known as New England: e.g. Massachusetts, Connecticut
• Victorious in the English Civil War (1642-49)

V. The English Reformation

1. William Tyndale, a humanist, translated the Bible__into English in 1526  Became the basis for the King James version

(early 1600s).

 Tyndale was hunted down and executed in 1536 after thousands of English Bibles had made their way to England (only Latin or Greek translations were allowed).

 Tyndale had also refused to recognize Henry VIII’s__leadership of the Anglican Church.

Henry VIII (r.1509-1547): 2^nd of the Tudor monarchs

1. Had earlier been a conservative Catholic and was critical of Lutheranism and reform
2. a. Had supported Catholicism and the Pope: Defense of Seven Sacraments criticized Luther’s views
3. b. The pope awarded Henry with the title “Defender of the Faith”
4. c. Since the 14^th century, the English Catholic Church already had a significant degree of autonomy
5.  Kings had the power to appoint bishops (something France did not gain until 1516 with the Concordat of Bologna))
6. Henry sought an annulment from his wife, Catherineof Aragon, because she could not conceive a son
7. Only one daughter, Mary, had survived out of five childbirths 2. Having a son was necessary to preserve the strength of the Tudor dynasty.
8. He was also enamored with his mistress, Anne

Boleyn

C. The Church of England: Henry breaks away from the

Catholic Church

1. Thomas Cranmer replaced Wolsey and convinced__Henry in 1533 that he could divorce Catherine by__breaking away from Rome.

 Henry and Anne secretly married in 1533 (she was already 6 months pregnant with Elizabeth)

1. Henry broke away from the Catholic Church and__formed the Church of England (Anglican Church)
2. a. The Act of Supremacy (1534) made the king__officially the head of the Church
3. b. Catholic lands (about 25% of all land in England)__were confiscated  Doubled royal revenues which helped build up the military.

 Nobles, especially in the South, purchased large tracts of land; some enclosures resulted c. Monasteries were closed down

d. Act of Succession (1534): All the king’s subjects had to take an oath of loyalty to the king as head of the Anglican Church  Henry ordered the execution of Thomas More for refusing to take the oath.

1. 1536, popular opposition in the North to Henry’s reformation led to the Pilgrimage of Grace, a huge multi-class rebellion; the largest in English history
2. In total, Henry had six wives during his reign.
   
   1. Anne Boleyn was executed in 1536, ostensibly for having had an affair.
3. Henry’s third wife, Jane Seymore, had a son,

Edward, who succeeded Henry upon his death in

1547

7. 1539, Statute of the Six Articles

 Anglican Church maintained most of the Catholic doctrines (e.g. the 7 sacraments, celibacy for clergy, and transubstantiation) despite its independence from Rome

D. Edward VI (r.1547-1553) 1. Ten-years-old when he became king. Those who governed on his behalf were strongly Protestant.

2. England moved towards Protestantism during his__reign by adopting Calvinism
   a. New practices Clergy could marry
3. Iconic images removed from churches Communion by the laity was expanded
   b. New doctrines
4. Salvation by faith alone
5. Denial of transubstantiation
6. Only two sacraments: baptism and communion 3. Edward’s premature death in 1553 led to a religious struggle among Protestants and Catholics. King Edward was only 16 when he died!

E. Mary Tudor (r.1553-1558) tried to reimpose

Queen BLOODY Mary only reigned 5 years, but put to death hundreds!

Catholicism

1. Daughter of Henry and Catherine of Aragon
2. Had earlier married Philip II, future heir to the Spanish throne
3. Mary rescinded reformation legislation of Henry’s and

Edward’s reign

4. Marian exiles: Protestants fled England fearing persecution.

5. 300 people executed including bishops and Archbishop Cranmer; her opponents called her “Bloody Mary”

F. Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603) – the “Virgin Queen”

1. Daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn a. Catholics saw her as an “illegitimate” child and thus rejected her legitimacy regarding the throne
   b. She held strongly Protestant views
2. Effectively oversaw the development of Protestantism in England
   1. Politique: she was a practical politician who carefully navigated a middle ground between Anglicanism and Protestantism
   2. Puritans (Calvinists) sought to reform the church 3. “Elizabethan Settlement”: Elizabeth and Parliament required conformity to the Church of England but people were, in effect, allowed to worship Protestantism and Catholicism privately
   3. Anglican Church largely resembled Lutheranism

Catholic practices.

 Book of Common Prayer was instituted in 1559 c. Catholicism remained, especially among the gentry, but could not be practiced openly.

1. Services were given in English.
2. Monasteries were not re-established.
3. Clergy was allowed to marry.
4. Everyone was required to attend church services of the Anglican Church (fined if absent)
5. 1563, Thirty-Nine Articles: defined the creed of

Anglican Church

1. Sought to place Mary Stuart (Queen of Scots) on the throne.
2. To remove the threat, Elizabeth agreed to the__execution of Mary in 1587 6. Elizabeth’s long and successful reign place her among the greatest European rulers in European history.

VI. Impact of the Reformation on Women

A. Protestant women

1. Luther believed that a woman’s occupation was in the__home taking care of the family 2. Calvin believed in the subjugation of women to preserve moral order.
2. Protestant churches had greater official control over marriage than did the Catholic church a. Suppressed common law marriages (which had been very common in Catholic countries) b. Catholic governments followed the Protestant example
3. Marriage became more companionate, emphasizing the love relationship between man and wife.
   
   1. Martin Luther and his wife, Katherina von Bora were good examples of this view.
   2. Luther: sex was an act to be enjoyed by a husband and wife; not just an act of procreation
4. Increased emphasis on teaching people to read the Bible resulted in an increase in women’s literacy. a. Mothers were often expected to teach their children
   
   1. Schools for girls were developed
   2. Philip Melanchthon became an important figure in education for girls in the Protestant German states.
5. Protestant women, however, lost opportunities in__church service that many Catholic women pursued

(e.g. becoming nuns).

1. Women gradually lost rights to manage their own__property or to make legal transactions in their own__name.

B. Catholic women: [MN: Start of Nuns]

1. Women continued to enjoy opportunities in the Church through religious orders

Angela Merici (1474-1540)

1. Founded the Ursuline Order of Nuns in the__1530s to provide education and religious training.  Approved as a religious community by Paul III in 1544.

Question 2

CARD #2 REFORMATION

3. Teresa de Avila (1515-1582) a. Major Spanish leader of the reform movement for__monasteries and convents.
4. Preached an individual could have a direct relationship with God through prayer and contemplation

B. Council of Trent (3 sessions 1545-1563): established

Catholic dogma for the next four centuries

1. Equal validity of Scripture, Church traditions, and__writings of Church fathers
2. Salvation by both “good works” and faith
3. All 7 sacraments valid; transubstantiation reaffirmed
4. Monasticism, celibacy of clergy, and purgatory__reaffirmed
5. Approved the Index of Forbidden Books

Books that supported Protestantism or that were

a. overly critical of the Church (e.g. Erasmus) were banned from Catholic countries.
b. Anyone possessing books listed in the Index could be punished severely.
6. Church reforms: abuses in sale of indulgences__curtailed, sale of church offices curtailed, bishops__given greater control over clergy, seminaries__established to train priests

C. New Religious Orders

1. Jesuits (Society of Jesus) founded in 1540 a. Ignatious Loyala (1491-1556): founder  Jesuits were organized in military fashion

• Spiritual Exercises: Loyola’s guidebook that was used to train Jesuits b. 3 goals:
• reform the church through education
• spread the Gospel to pagan peoples
• fight Protestantism c. Beginning in 1542, the Jesuits oversaw both theSpanish and Italian Inquisitions (Sacred

Congregation of the Holy Office)

• Spain: persecution of “Moriscos” (Christian Moors) & Christian Jews who were suspected of backsliding to their original faiths
• Italy: Pope Paul IV issued a papal bull accusing Jews of killing Christ and ordering that Jews be placed in ghettos in the Papal States mn: UNBELIEVABLE!
• The persecution of Jews throughout Europe
• MN: This is where the stage is set for Hitler and the death camps.

Answer 2

1. The Catholic Reformation thus succeeded in bringing southern Germany and eastern Europe back to Catholicism
2. Index of Forbidden Books was strongly enforced

• Heresy was effectively ended in the Papal
  1. Jesuit schools became among the finest in all of Europe.

D. Baroque Art as part of the Catholic Reformation

1. Began in Catholic Reformation countries to teach in a concrete and emotional way and demonstrate the glory and power of the Catholic Church
   
   1. Encouraged by the papacy and the Jesuits
2. Prominent in France, Flanders, Austria, southern Germany and Poland
3. Spread later to Protestant countries such as the Netherlands and northern Germany and England
4. Sought to overwhelm the viewer: Emphasized grandeur, emotion, movement, spaciousness and unity surrounding a certain theme
5. Architecture and sculpture
   
   1. Baroque architecture reflected the image and power of absolute monarchs and the Catholic church
   2. Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) personified baroque architecture and sculpture
      
      • Colonnade for piazza in front of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome was his greatest architectural achievement.
      • He sculpted St. Peter’s Baldachin, the incredible canopy over the high altar of St.Peter’s Cathedral

• His altarpiece sculpture, The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, evokes tremendous emotion
• His statue of David shows movement and emotion

1. Baroque painting (see also Unit 3.1)
   
   1. Characteristics
      
      • Stressed broad areas of light and shadow rather than on linear arrangements of the High Renaissance.
      • Color was an important element as it appealed to the senses and more true to nature.
      • Not concerned with clarity of detail as with overall dynamic effect.
      • Designed to give a spontaneous personal experience.
   2. Caravaggio (1571-1610), Roman painter
      
      • Perhaps the first important painter of the

Baroque era

• Depicted highly emotional scenes
• Used sharp contrasts of light and dark to create drama (tenebrism)
• Criticized by some for using ordinary people as models for his depictions of Biblical scenes c. Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Flemish painter  Worked much for the Hapsburg court in Brussels (the capital of the Spanish

VIII. Results of the Reformation

1. The unity of Western Christianity was shattered.

 Northern Europe (Scandinavia, England, much of Germany, parts of France, Switzerland, & Scotland) adopted Protestantism.

1. Religious enthusiasm was rekindled – similar enthusiasm not seen since far back into the Middle Ages.
2. Abuses in the RCC remedied: simony, pluralism, immoral or badly educated clergy were considerably remedied by the 17^th century.
3. Religious wars broke out in Europe for well over a century.

Bibliography:

Principle Sources:

McKay, John P., Hill, Bennett D., & Buckler, John, A History of Western Society, AP Edition, 8^th Ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006

Merriman, John, A History of Modern Europe: From the Renaissance to the Present, 2^nd ed., New York: W. W. Norton, 2004

Palmer, R. R., Colton, Joel, Kramer, Lloyed A History of Europe in the Modern World, 11^th ed., New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013

Question 3

CARD #1 TIMELINE OF CHRISTIANITY

MN: How we got to here, explains modern religon.

TIMELINE BEGINS HERE:

ANCIENT: Life has been on the planet for billions of years. Man has been on the planet 3 million years, but only recently developed language and recording of history in the last 10,000 years. Before that, man didn’t have a clue as to what happened before he appeared until modern day sciences of Geology and Paleoanthropologists.

The earliest record of man is the ancient Egyptians. Egyptians give us our very first record of God. They worshiped the Sun, so naturally they figured the Sun was a God. Then they actually started the first religion with a God called Horus. Horus was the son of Isis, and considered the God of the Sun. Horus would put out a bright light in the sky every morning. Then his enemy, named “Set” would battle with Horus to remove the light from the sky. This is why today we call the Sun, the Sun in reference to Horus, the son of Isis, and today when the sun goes out of the sky we call it sunset, in reference to “Set” winning the battle and removing the light from the sky.

The Egyptians invented the supernatural with this belief. They also believed their leader, Pharaoh, to be a god as well. They could not allow the great leader to die and be gone forever, so they invented the “Soul”, what we call today the “Psyche”, “Spirit” or “Ego”.

Egyptians preserved the body by making it a mummy, and built a pyramid as a tomb for Pharaoh and all his servants and treasures. To create the mummy they removed his brain and most organs except the heart. They thought the heart is his soul. They filled the body cavity with salt to preserve it. Sal is the latin word for salt. This was how the word “Salvation” was invented. Preserving the body to be used again in the next life. They inscribed the inner walls of the tomb with instructions for the leader when he came back from the dead, so he could learn everything again. A large part of the inscriptions were known as the “Book of the dead”. This book contained many stories, mostly myths and good principles for the Pharaoh to learn. Later in history, the Old Testament would evolve from selected stories taken from the inside walls of the tombs. Much of what is in the Old Testament is rewritten stories from the Book of the dead and the walls of the ancient pyramids.

Later in history, it became unbearable to lose a loved one to death, so the construct of the soul gained traction in common people believing they would have an “after life”, just like the Pharaohs of Egypt. The construct of the soul was massively broadcasted and popularized by Pythagoras (570 - 495 BCE), who also was a brilliant mathematician who gave us the Pythagoras Theorem. Pythagoras believed a person could be reincarnated into another human, an animal, or a vegetable. The psychological term for this in modern day language is “Metempsychosis”.

The introduction of the soul was introduced to the Bible and Christianity with the release of the New Testament, about 400 AD. Before that it never existed in the Old Testament.

Also during the ancient of days, the studies of astrology became extremely popular as a religion. There was also astronomy, but the kings of the land wanted to know the future, so they enlisted seers to prepare charts and actually believed these fakers and paid them well. Much of modern religion started with astrology and the signs of the zodiac. The zodiac was a powerful religion to the ancient man. Many attributes of the Zodiac are incorporated into Christianity and the Bible. Most notably the number twelve is replete throughout the Bible. This is from the twelve signs of the Zodiac. For example the twelve tribes of Israel. The Twelve Disciples. Many other ancient religions used the number twelve. Most of the Bible is a rewrite of ancient folklore that was spread and massively exaggerated for a more powerful effect through the centuries.

4004 BCE: is the date of creation of the universe set by Archbishop James Ussher, 1581-1656, Ireland. [It was official]

940 BCE: Christmas is started and observed in Scandinavia. (It is not called Christmas until Emperor Constantine names it Christmas in CE 323, over a thousand years later.) In the Norse country the celebration was known as “Yule” (Think Yule tide, Yule Log) and celebrated around December 21st of each year. The Norse Sun God was “Mithra”. Fathers and sons would drag the largest log they could find to the village and set it on fire. The log would warm the people and sparks from the fire were believed to represent the new birth of sheep and pigs in the new year.

Also, evergreens were cut and brought into town (think Christmas tree) to give people hope that since it was still alive in the cold dark winter that the people could have faith they would also survive the nasty winter and have life again. (Remember it stays dark for months up there)

The Yule log would burn for about 12 days. (ergo, the 12 days of Christmas) This time was very festive since many cattle were killed for meat to feed people throughout the harsh Winter. [MN: The Norse people could not afford to feed the cattle throughout the harsh long winter, so they had these great festivals and celebrations of the Solstice, because they had to use up the meat anyway.]

Back in Rome, around 497 BCE, the Romans celebrated the feast of the “Winter solstice” This was Christmas being celebrated 5 centuries before the birth of Jesus. Remember that it was celebrated about 940 BCE in Scandinavia for the Sun God Norse. In Rome it was celebrated for the synthesized God, Sol Invictus to give faith that a new warm year would come again, or be “Born Again” with warm days to grow food once again. This celebration was at the temple of Saturnalia in Rome. Part of the celebration was gift exchange as a custom.

Later in 323 CE, on his own whim, the birth of Jesus was established by Constantine to be on December 25th, just like dozens of other popular Gods who also were conceived by virgins.

600 BCE: In 1986, archaeologists found the earliest known text of the Bible, dated to about 600 BCE. Because Jews and Muslims don’t consider the birth of Christ to be a defining moment in history, many scholars prefer the term BCE to BC. Stands for “Before the common era”. This period of 600 BCE is where God really has his beginning. All the Genesis, Exodus etc. stories were back filled at this time of (Israel’s) captivity in Babylon.] [MN: Israel absorbed the religions and customs of their captors many times. This is because they were captives an astonishing 15 times!]

Pre 500 BCE: Gnostics wrote over 100 Gospels, bios of Jesus, and the Book of Revelations. Most of the gospels were destroyed by the Roman government and the Catholic Church in later decades. Some books were in the scriptures then taken out later, such as the book of Revelations.

These Gospels were written based on mythical Gods, but were repurposed with making new Gods and saviors. These writings were written with the understanding they were all fictional, and none of it true. However, the literal Gnostics crowbarred the firm beliefs that everything was true. You died and go to hell or heaven with a purgatory waiting room.

The problem was different factions were in disagreement if these were truth or fiction . The Gnostics believed they were myths while the literal Gnostics (later renamed the Catholic Church) believed they were all true.

In the 5th century BCE, philosophers such as Xenophanes and Empedocles ridiculed taking the stories of the Gods literally. They viewed them as allegories of human spiritual experience.

All of these fictional Gods were merged with familiar Gods from different lands. They they gave this God a new name, just for their civilization. This is called Synthesizing a God. It was universally popular.

For example: In Egypt he was Osiris, in Greece, Dionysus. In Asia minor, he was Attis. In Syria he was Adonis, In Italy he was Bacchus, In persia he was Mithras. In the Roman Empire he was Jesus. Jesus shares miracles, quotations and characteristics of many of the most popular Gods.Mainly Apollo, Adonis, Dionysus and Krishna.

405 BCE: The popular play, “Bacchae” [BAK Key] goes viral. Bacchae and the modern “passion play of Jesus Christ” is almost word for word what we consider the story of Jesus, the betrayal, the judgment, the crucifixion.

The Bacchae was popular until about 150 CE.

2 BCE: The Essenes religion begins. It ends when Jesus is three years old. Much of the New Testament and the Gospels that were later written/edited were clearly copied from the Essenes Religion.

0 CE:** This is the date historically assigned as the birth of Jesus in the Bible. **In no secular type of newspaper, journal or scroll is Jesus even mentioned in the first and second century. [MN: Now isn’t that odd. Here the greatest news story of the world happens, but not a word of legitimate press.]

NOTE: History and science both say there was never a year zero.

The different themes of salvation from the synoptic gospels:

65 CE: Gospel of Mark is written. Salvation theme is Death of Jesus paid the price.

70 CE: Gospel of Matthew is written. Mainly copied from Mark. Salvation theme is Keeping the Jewish Law.

80 CE: Gospel of Luke is written. Mainly copied from Mark. Salvation theme is forgiveness that comes from repentance.

95 CE: Gospel of John is written. Salvation theme is faith that Jesus is the “I am” God of Moses and you must be born again. This is the start of Christianity. Before this the religion was completely Jewish Apocalyptic. As the Christian religion evolved, the charter members of the religion were now outcast and referred to as Heretics. Later Jewish Pogroms started to wipe out the Jewish populations of the earth, and culminated with Hitler’s final solution. [MN: So the faithful Jews held their religion over 4,000 years but suddenly the world thinks God changed his mind and made a new religion, Christianity.]

150 CE: Jewish Apocalypticism comes into existence. Centuries later, Jesus in three of the synoptic gospels is viewed as an Apocalyptic Rabbi. In the oldest copies of autographs Jesus was preaching the end of the world and to repent now before God comes to Earth to establish his kingdom. Jesus believed this. Mark 13:30 “This generation will not pass away before all these things take place.”

180 CE: Names of authors assigned to the Gospels in 180 CE. For almost two centuries they had no author name assigned. Ref. P. 296. Godless

As the Centuries marched on, powerful attributes were added to this invisible monotheistic God, like he is everywhere at the same time, and he knows every thought you can think. He can do anything you can possibly think of and he never had a beginning! He is supernatural and all powerful. And he was invented out of thin air by man.

We need something to tell us about God. So over a span of many centuries, the Bible and the Koran came into existence.

The Bible was never a book written about God. The Bible got much of its content of old campfire folk tales, and folk lore. Plagiarizing oral stories and in the case of the Old Testament shamelessly plagiarizing writings from the ancient pyramids of Egypt. Rewriting and changing stories around from the book of the dead. The Bible has mankind’s fingerprints all over it, forcing a general theme of a supernatural being and his chosen people

Answer 3

313 CE: When the Roman Empire ruled most of the world, [313 CE] the Emperor Constantine decided that Christianity would be the only official religion of Rome, and all of Rome’s conquered lands. He did this because he prayed to the Christian God to win an important battle. When he won the battle, even though he had the world’s largest army, he was convinced that Christianity was the correct religion.

Then it became law throughout the Roman Empire to be a Roman Christian. The Romans carried over the ancient myth of a person’s soul continuing after death and living immortal to instill fear and obedience to the Roman government. This was the method the Romans used to control the immense masses of people in their lands. Also the belief in tithing gave the Roman Empire a very lucrative tax base to help support the government and make the Roman rulers rich. The Crusades were a religious excuse to conquer new lands and increase the size and power of the Roman government.

Conquered people had about five seconds to become a Roman Christian or have their head cut off.

After a few generations, the new Roman population accepted religion as fact and did not question anything from the government or the church under penalty of burning at the stake for heresy. These religious beliefs became powerful memes that millions hold dear today. Christianity quickly rose from 10% in the Roman Empire to over 90% in a very short period.

Question 4

CARD #2 TIMELINE OF CHRISTIANITY

400 CE: The introduction of the soul was introduced to the Bible and Christianity with the release of the New Testament, about 400 AD. Before that it never existed in the Old Testament.

400 CE:The New Testament of the Bible comes out. That is right. It took 400 years from the birth of Jesus before the world had the New Testament. Who exactly was Jesus is decided by people living 13 generations [400/30 = 13 generations] after Jesus was born. There was no vote taken on the New Testament as to what it contained. This was determined by the church group who had the most converts. The majority wins Christian dogma for the rest of time. So here you have it. Our Creed and beliefs were decided by the church group with the largest congregation. This is like having a 400 year war and the winner of the war is the undisputed giver of the truth!

Before these determinations came to be made, there were widespread disagreements, and these disputes affected our texts of scripture. Our scriptures were changed during this 400 year deliberation by well-meaning scribes, who intentionally altered their texts in order to make them more amenable to their own theological views, and less amenable to the views of their theological opponents.

Christianity did not come into being instantly as some are lead to believe. It came eventually after centuries of debates, fights, scribes changing the autographs to promote their self-serving interests. Ref: Misquoting Jesus; Professor Bart D. Ehrman

Note: There was always confusion about who God and Jesus were. In 600 BCE the Jewish captives started the Old Testament defining God to be one person instead of many persons. They simply made this decision entirely on their own with no evidence or facts. Later, in the 400 years of deliberations and arguments about who Jesus was, there was even more confusion. Even the Bible is confused. Luke 2:11 States Jesus was BORN the Christ. Acts 10:37-38 states Jesus became the Christ at his baptism. Acts 2:38 states Jesus became the Christ at his resurrection. The Bible is not holy, infallible and perfect like people think. It was written by men caught up in theology. Always remember that Theology has its own agenda, and Theology will make up dogma out of thin air to crowbar in their influence. [MN: What would you think if you were a judge and all the witnesses gave contradicting testimonies? Wouldn’t you think none of them know the truth?]

Christianity and other popular religions became popular by using ideas that worked with people throughout history. Commonly rejected ideas were culled and replaced with proven acceptable ideas for the general masses.

It is just like if you want to make a new boat. You wouldn’t start from scratch. You would built it to resemble what a successful boat looked and acted like. The same thing was done with religion.

Naturally there was not a one fits all religion, so the religions evolved into the general religions we have today from the same origins. Just the names and stories were changed to gain acceptance with the target audience.

Answer 4

700 CE: A great part of this evolution of religions took place after the 700 years of the Dark Ages. In the Dark Ages, almost all books were burned. After the Dark Ages, the world had to rely on the Eastern religions and historic accounts of earth history, because that was all that survived the Dark Ages. This helps explain how the many tens of thousands of religions we have today seem closely related. Everyday, a new religion starts. Many times two religions start each day. The World cannot keep up with them. Just with the Christianity religion, there are now over 41,000 Christian religions and divisions.

Edit date: The King James Version is filled with places in where the translators rendered a Greek text derived from Erasmus’s edition, which was based on a single 12^th century manuscript, [MN: Not the original autographs or their copies either, but a poor manuscript that was completely man manipulated from the 12^th century! This manuscript has over a thousand years of changes that were interpolated and now we use it as a base for our modern day Bible.] Erasmus’s manuscript is one of the worst of the manuscripts that we now have available to us. Ref: Misquoting Jesus.

Islam, Muslim and Christianity were developed out of Judaism. Yet Judaism says Jesus was a fraud and a false prophet if he even existed at all. Judaism says Jesus did not fulfill what the Old Testament said he would fulfill. His name isn’t even right. The messiah’s name will be Immanuel. Their website categorically rejects his claims to be the messiah.

Anyway, when the Roman Empire ruled most of the world, [313 AD] the Emperor Constantine decided that Christianity would be the only official religion of Rome, and all of Rome’s conquered lands. He did this because he prayed to the Christian God to win an important battle. When he won the battle, even though he had the world’s largest army, he was convinced that Christianity was the correct religion.

Then it became law throughout the Roman Empire to be a Roman Christian. The Romans carried over the ancient myth of a person’s soul continuing after death and living immortal to instill fear and obedience to the Roman government. This was the method the Romans used to control the immense masses of people in their lands. Also the belief in tithing gave the Roman Empire a very lucrative tax base to help support the government and make the Roman rulers rich. The Crusades were a religious excuse to conquer new lands and increase the size and power of the Roman government.

Conquered people had about five seconds to become a Roman Christian or have their head cut off.

After a few generations, the new Roman population accepted religion as fact and did not question anything from the government or the church under penalty of burning at the stake for heresy. These religious beliefs became powerful memes that millions hold dear today. Christianity quickly rose from 10% in the Roman Empire to over 90% in a very short period.

Before Christianity came onboard, there were many Gods. With the rise of the Greek Empire, many Gods were invented to be in charge of the many different responsibilities. These are known as Greek Gods. Such names as Apollo, Ares, Athena, Dionysus, Hades, Hermes, Poseidon and Zeus. There were statues standing everywhere so people could see and pray to these Gods for centuries. Of course, nobody had ever seen a God before. What did they look like? The Greeks followed the lead of the Ancient Egyptian Gods and decided that all Gods would be anthropomorphic, meaning having human form.

Believing in all these special Gods was called polytheism. It was confusing, and later in history mighty man decided all by himself to condense all these Gods into one True God. This is called monotheism.

So what does a monotheistic God look like?

It depends on where you grew up in the world. Some places the God is a Bull. Some places he is a rat. Some places he is a plant. But the most popular idea was that this God is so powerful you cannot see him. He is the unseen, invisible God. The unseen God gained a lot of traction in the world.

As the Centuries marched on, powerful attributes were added to this invisible monotheistic God, like he is everywhere at the same time, and he knows every thought you can think. He can do anything you can possibly think of and he never had a beginning! He is supernatural and all powerful. And he was invented out of thin air by man.

We need something to tell us about God. So over a span of many centuries, the Bible and the Koran came into existence. The Bible was never a major work in progress. The Bible was pieced together from many ancient manuscripts. Not many original manuscripts exist now. Original manuscripts are called autographs. What is written in the Bible according to the Scholar’s Scholar, Bart D. Erhman, is copies of older copies of written down campfire stories. Many of these manuscripts have been heavily edited to preserve the opinions of the powers that be. Many gospels have been in and out of the Bible. Today’s modern Bible excludes at least 24 gospels. This is according to Bart D. Erhman, World’s leading Bible Scholar. Some books like Revelations, have been included in the Bible then excluded and then included once again.

The Bible was never a book written about God. The Bible got much of its content of old campfire folk tales, and folk lore. Plagiarizing oral stories and in the case of the Old Testament shamelessly plagiarizing writings from the ancient pyramids of Egypt. Rewriting and changing stories around from the book of the dead. The Bible has mankind’s fingerprints all over it, forcing a general theme of a supernatural being and his chosen people.

[MN: Almost all of the popular Bible stories are rewrites of earlier pagan religions. Even Jesus. Jesus never said or did anything original, for the most part that wasn’t done previously by another mythical god.]

ZODIAC INSERT HERE THE SIMILAR NUMBERS eg: rained 40 days and 40 nights, fasted 40 days, because this was the time it took the sun to past through one zodiac sign to the next.

Edit date: When the book “The Wizard of Oz” was written, many religious organizations wanted the book banned and not published, because it hit too close to home on the religious experience, follow the yellow brick road, (aka golden path), the Emerald colored glasses, etc.

Question 5

CARD #3 TIMELINE OF CHRISTIANITY

MN: This deck has a lot of modern day religious thinking and the dates when they were magically made doctrine!

Answer 5

1230 CE:** Sale of indulgences begin. Started out modest but got full blown out of proportion in 1517 with Pope Leo X with his passion to build St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. **This was blatant sale of salvation for money! It soon became the major way for Catholic rulers to fund expensive projects such as Crusades and cathedrals. This prompted Martin Luther, a Catholic Monk, to write and nail to the church door his 95 Theses.

1478 CE: Spanish Inquisition Started 1478 and lasted about 325 years. Death tolls are all over the board but most reliable sources average 4,000 deaths.

Circe 1500 CE: Martin Luther nearly struck by a bolt of lightning changes careers from a Lawyer to a Monk.

Circa 1516 CE: The Pope gives the privilege of dispensing indulgences to the Castle Church in Wittenberg granting full remission of all sins.

1517 CE: Indulgences go wild with Pope Leo X, building the Basilica. You can buy salvation for your friends and family, including your ancestors would be sprung from purgatory and go to heaven.

1517 CE: The Age of Enlightenment begins. Up to this point in history, all educational information including science and history came through the church. The church always possessed all-encompassing wisdom. It was inconceivable that the Bible was missing out on a crucial secret of the universe. Humans discovered that ordinary man can discover and learn new mighty things to improve life on Earth, using his own brain! This used to be unthinkable! People thought God provided any wisdom to be discovered.

1517 CE:Martin Luther, a Catholic Monk, is infuriated with the ridiculous sale of indulgences and writes his 95 Thesis and nails it to the church door on October, 31, 1517. As a result, the Protestant religion is formed. [MN: Interesting that Halloween is same date as Martin Luther’s nailing of his thesis on the church door.]

1517 CE:Protestant religion is formed as a protest against sale of salvation Catholic indulgences.

1527 CE: Holy Roman Emperor Charles V uses Luther’s rebellion as an excuse to attack Rome. 34,000 soldiers attacked Rome and the Vatican in May of 1527. They looted the city, melting down treasures, violating and selling nuns to the brothels, and sacking churches, monasteries and the homes of the wealthy. About 6,000 to 10,000 Romans died and 2/3 of Rome’s buildings were destroyed.

1534 CE: In England, Pope Clement VII refused to annul Henry’’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon. King Henry declares in 1534 that he should be the final authority in religious matters, and in 1536, Henry required every parish to have a copy of the Bible. [MN: Before this time, the holy scriptures were never seen by the common man and hardly anyone ever laid eyes on the Bible. Also the masses were all in Latin, all the common people were kept in ignorance for centuries! This kept the people completely ignorant and they only were allowed to know whatever the Church wanted them to know. This even goes on today with having Parochial schools that only give a biased opinion of information to the students of what is right and wrong.]

1553 1558 CE:Reign of Queen Mary:274 burnings at the stake. This is why she is called“Bloody Mary”. The victims were burned mostly for being Protestant. Also she burned the Catholic people who went to mass that was spoken in English. She believed that the mass had to be in Latin or else you were a heretic.

The number of burnings range up to over 800 by some sources.

1590 CE: Jesuit Joseph Acosta writes book questioning church theology that all the different animals discovered in the new world were brought there by sailors, or walked and swam there from Mt. Ararat. Lions foxes, tigers, wolves, sloths and Kangaroos! Why had all these animals traveled to the other side of Earth and not a single pair remained behind?

1600 CE: Giordano Bruno after seven years in prison was burned alive for his claim that Earth rotated daily and the Sun did not rise and fall daily while it circled the Earth. Thinking the Earth moved was forbidden until 1835!

His friend, Galileo was tortured and imprisioned for believing the Earth was not the “Center” of the universe. After several trips to the moon, the Catholic church officially apologized, 290 years later!

Galileo was forbidden to see family and friends and was placed under house arrest for years.

1600 Church rejected astronomy as heresy but paid astrology writers to write horoscopes for the king

1673 CE:Comets are moved by angels. Father Augustine de Angelis in Rome.

1813 CE:** The Catholic church adopts the belief that the **MAGI (3 Wise men) bring gifts to the child savior. The church called this the “Festival of the Epiphany”. This was 18 centuries after the birth of Christ! This was yet another copy and paste job from the ancient God Mithra. In the Mithraic religion, it was called the very same name. They didn’t even bother to use a different name for it. REF: Joseph Chiapplarone.

1854 CE: Catholic Clergy forbidden to read newspapers and periodicals. Furthermore the church condemned rational thought, freedom of speech and freedom of the press and condemned other religions. Side note: In Middle Ages reading of Bible was forbidden and punished by death. “Queen Mary”.

1897 CE: Congregation of the Index and Pope Leo XIII forbade any further research into the origin of the trinity.

1900 CE: The book “The Wizard of Oz” is published. Many religious groups tried to stop the book from being published because it came too close to their own doctrines of God, salvation and popular beliefs. Especially items like, “Follow the yellow brick road” vs “Follow the road to salvation”. Residents of Emerald city all wore “Green shaded glasses” to be happy in a fantasyland idea. Plus the mighty “Wizard” was just a con man acting like a powerful all knowing God!

December 18, 1995, Time magazine published a feature article on if the Bible was fact or fable. As it turns out, the archeologists spent 25 years searching the desert for any signs of the hundreds of thousands of Hebrew slaves. During that time they did find other evidence from the cave man days, but no evidence at all of Moses even existing, the plagues or the 40 years wandering in the wilderness. These archaeologists also determined that Moses, the Ten Commandments story. The burning bush story most likely did not exist and that they are all made up embellishments to add spice to a fabricated version of what millions cling to today as genuine Bible history. Some groups of the archaeologists officially announced that the Bible is just a Religious book and is not historical fact at all.

Question 6

CARD #4 TIMELINE OF CHRISTIANITY

Pre history note: 325 CE: Hermes 325 BCE, sign of the cross (COPY AND PASTED) adopted by Catholic Church roughly one thousand years after Hermes cross first appears. Hermes cross traced the number 4, for the four ways to the God Zeus.