The venerable Bede tells us that King Lucius converted to Christianity in around 180AD. A good 1200+ years before the Bible was widely distributed.
Venerable Bede reports in his History of the English Church and People that in 156AD, during the reign of Roman emperor Marcus Antoninus, a British king named Lucius wrote to Pope Eleutherus in Rome requesting instruction in the Christian faith.
Before Lucius however there was another King in another part of the world who became a Christian in Jesus’ lifetime.
Traditionally, Abgar V (13-50AD) is considered the first Christian ruler in history. He was the King of Osroene . Thus, the appearance of Christianity in the Mesopotamian region was probably closely related to the activity of the apostles.
Several ancient Christian apocryphal traditions are associated with Abgar’s name, the most famous of which is the correspondence between Abgar and Jesus. There are no original letters preserved.
The spectacular way in which the message of Christ spread across the world 100’s of years prior to the introduction of a Bible speaks volumes about the prominence of Jesus’s narrative. The Bible is irrelevant.
Hey Bible Worshippers! Since the Bible did not exist at this time, and not for another 200 years, what were they learning about Jesus exactly that re-assures us they were Christians?
Welcome to a site that explores the crisis of human identity. Christ (Eternal Representation of individual/God) versus Bible (Dubious temporal representations of individual/God)
Across the globe we have conflicting expressions of God based on descriptions that come from a multitude of obscure testimonies..
A common perception through the ages has been that only the literate elite, the crafters of law, qualify to be priests of authority/God. Another common perception is that only the descendants of a priestly Abraham or a King belong to God, the rest are kafir ‘outside the rule of belief of both Jew and Muslim’. It is a perception carried by many types of egotistical monsters occupying powerful posts in States today who award themselves with an array of titles that suggest heavenly proximity, superiority of religious rank and a God-given right to rule over others, wearing esoteric symbols with dark ‘spiritual meanings’.
Along comes Jesus Christ and attacks this imagined superiority of rank. No wonder he was hated, and still is, by those who make meaning out of images they create for themselves that promote their identity above others based on a relationship with the divine. Jesus trashed these man-made images of identity and superiority when he said, ‘No-one comes to God except through me’. By saying ‘me’, he meant the son of man, a servant of all. An equal. When one explores who the ‘me’ is in the story and how ‘God’ was portrayed by those around him as ‘me’ and ‘God’, the all powerful ‘us’, it becomes clear why he also said the door is narrow that leads to eternal life.
The roots of human identity, and therefore human purpose, is based entirely on fantasy, an imagined reality. People imagine they are great, superior, a cut above the rest, either as individuals, or as a class, or as a nation. This arrogance of status puts into perpetual motion the revolving doors of economic conflict, of social exclusion, of transitory human value and of epic blood baths.
Here’s an example of this human hubris, this wretched arrogance, written by a doyen of the British Establishment. Cecil Rhodes
