The Anti-Gospel of Jesus Christ

by Miko Bartek

The evidence for Paul’s impact on Christian belief and practice is acknowledged in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. A catechism is a teaching. The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains thousands of individual teachings on various aspects of Christian faith. I want to show you what the church has to say about the origins of the myth of salvation.

I found six teachings that addressed this topic directly. The most important of them is catechism #402.

All men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as St. Paul affirms. ‘By one man’s disobedience many [that is, all men] were made sinners.’: Sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned….’ The Apostle contrasts the universality of sin and death with the universality of salvation in Christ. ‘Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men.’ | (Catechism of the Catholic Church #402)

As you can see in this catechism here, the church attributes its understanding of the myth to Paul. And they quote Paul three times from his letter to the Romans.

“By one man’s sin many were made sinners.” | Romans 5:19

“Sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned….” | Romans 5:12

“Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men” | Romans 5:18

The church is tying the meaning of salvation to Paul, and not to Jesus. These three quotes form our understanding of what salvation means. Our problems started with Adam and his disobedience to God. Adam’s sin is the reason that death exists in this world. Once Adam sinned, the fate of humanity was sealed. We were doomed. We would all die. But the death of Jesus atones for Adam’s sin, defeating death in the process.

Early Christians believed that death did not exist until Adam ‘sinned,’ after God had warned him that eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would lead to death.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” | Genesis 2:15-17

To me, this is another glaring piece of evidence that we are dealing with myth. The god of the Bible made learning and acquiring knowledge of good and evil a sin! It is as if this god feels threatened by human beings with moral awareness. And so god threatens death to Adam if he eats from a tree that would give him moral awareness.

Given that Adam could not have known right from wrong until he actually ate from the forbidden tree, is it a sin that he did so? And if the god of the Old Testament (gOT) did not want Adam to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, why did gOT put the tree in the middle of the garden that gOT had created for Adam and Eve?

The absurdities attributed to God in the Old Testament are clues that the story of redemption by Christ is myth. But so is the strange belief that death was not a part of God’s plan. That Adam somehow brought about death in this world by disobeying God, before Adam could have known right from wrong.

I have been studying this world since birth. I am convinced that death is a part of God’s divine plan. I am convinced that there is no salvation from death. I am convinced that Paul and the other early Christians were wrong. We were always doomed to die. It is the way of life. There is no waking from death through Christ.