Searching for the truth

In any detective work, potential leads come to light which are then followed. They can be statements which may or may not be factual, physical evidence, and motives—most importantly, cui bono, that is, who benefits? Even probabilities, opinions and circumstances that help construct the “picture puzzle” are followed. If a piece seems to fit, it is placed in the picture where it remains unless it proves to be false. Leads can be followed sequentially down a thread, as in verifying statements, or analyzed in parallel, as in relating details to each other. Whenever a thread is followed down, we begin with the whole and work down toward the parts. If the parts are absent or contradict the whole, then the truthfulness of the whole becomes suspicious. During an investigation, if a "Person of Interest" cannot give a detailed account of his activities, or if the details he provides do not support his statement, he becomes a suspect because the parts do not constitute the whole. This is the primary tool to detect a lie. A truthful person can provide reasonable details of a truthful event and repeat them many times because he remembers the experience. A liar, on the other hand, will find it more and more difficult to fabricate coherent details to support a lie as demand for precision increases. He will be unable to repeat them on subsequent interviews because he must either re-fabricate them or recall his previous fabrications. Either way, at some point the volume of fabricated details will exceed his mental capacity. And when that happens, his story either changes of falls apart completely. What the interviewer looks for is the difference between the impact a real experience has on a reasonable person's memory and that of a fabrication. This skill can be compared to assembling a picture puzzle by noting the picture on the box, but turning the pieces over to hide their markings, and following the designer's instructions to fit the pieces together. Pieces that do not fit anywhere are rejected as false and any holes are left empty. The puzzle is then turned over and its image is compared with the picture on the box. If the images do not match, then the designer's statement regarding the picture on the box is false.

Whenever we think parallel, we relate the parts to each other in the hope of generating a pattern. In this case, we have no idea what the finished puzzle will look like—there is no picture on the box. This time we lay the pieces with their markings up, and try to fit them together by simultaneously matching both their shapes and markings. A piece is fitted into place even if it is blank, that is, not painted. When the puzzle is finished, an image will, hopefully, emerge. Blank pieces are then provisionally drawn by completing its neighborhood's pattern. These provisionally marked pieces (hypotheses) then become objects of further research to validate our assumptions about their markings.

Such assumptions, however, will be false if the neighborhood itself is false. For example, false beliefs regarding the people history calls Ethiopians lead to the false assumption that they are natives of today's Ethiopia. They are not. History, geography and poetry (Herodotos, Pliny, Strabo, Eschyl, Homer, Pindar), identify the Ethiopians (Aithiops) as Scythians who dwell in East and Central Asia and Europe. Hesiod places them in the Halys river region (today's Turkey), while legends attributed to Homer call Ethiopians “people who dwell in the Far East and the Far West” (from Greece). The so-called Essenes are also believed to be Aithiops. Scythians bring civilization to many parts of the world, including the Cataracts of the Nile, but that does not make them natives of (today's) Ethiopia. Similarly, Scythians of Iberia (Caucasus region) bring civilization to the Iberian Peninsula (today's Spain and Portugal). However, unlike the Ethiopians, who derive their name from their Scythian benefactors, today's Spaniards do not call themselves Iberians (save a political minority, the Basque-Scythians).

When dealing with religious and political “picture puzzles,” the researcher must overcome an additional challenge. He must sort through vast amounts of pieces deliberately repainted to hide the truth and to mislead him. The skilled liar will incorporate huge quantities of verifiable but irrelevant facts in his story to make it seem truthful. For example, if a salesman at the front door says he was so impressed by the quality of his product that he bought the company, it does not mean he is not the owner. However, if he knew that the company manufactured low-grade products, then his claim is, in substance, a lie. Similarly, Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code is a hoax packaged in verifiable facts to create an appearance of truth by association. In such cases, the design on repainted pieces will have to be first identified as false, and then wiped clean before a pattern can be extended onto them.

The first steps in identifying falsely marked pieces are disambiguation of terms and verification of claims. Disinformation, the propagation of information know to be false, often relies on deliberate misuse of terms to create confusion and fraud. Though the Bible and historical literature is replete with deliberately misused terms and false claims, two examples should suffice to expose disinformation at work: identity theft and translation fraud. The word Izrael is a Sumerian compound word: Iz-Ra-El: Iz, L (Labat) 296: divine spirit; Ra, L.381, 293: light, brilliance, purity; El, L.13, 564: clean, purification, heaven, elevated to God's regard. It means a people who, in the Sumerian culture, believed these attributes applied to them. These Turanian people, originally from the Caucasus region (a geographic reference used to define a race, “Caucasian”), have no racial or cultural ties with the Semitic tribes (also a term used to define a race of humanity, distinct from others) who infiltrated Mesopotamia and Canaan thousands of years later. Therefore, under no circumstances can Semites, Hebrews or Jews be identified as this ancient Turanian people (Sir Leonard Woolley: A Forgotten Kingdom, Pelikan Books, 1958). In Judaism and Judeo-Christianity, the word Israel first appears as the name Jacob, Abraham's supposed grandson, appropriates before entering Egypt, and later gives his sons when he appoints them heads of the biblical Twelve Tribes of Israel (2nd millennium BC—according to students of these religions):

"And God said unto him, 'Thy name is Jacob: thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name:' and he called his name Israel" (Genesis 35:10).

Pragmatic history often confirms or negates any cause-effect relationships between co-occurring events. Common sense suggests that Hebrew tribes took on this alias to pass themselves off as Sumerians to gain entry into Egypt. Later, the word Israel competes with Zion and Judea for the name of the new Jewish state. However, outside religious literature and political fabrications, nowhere are the Izrael people identified as Semites, Hebrews or Jews. Further, the constant wars between the Izrael and Semitic (Hebrew, Jewish) peoples confirms the disassociation between these two racially and culturally different people.

The history of the Jewry is replete with acts of identity theft. Sargon appropriates the Turanian Agade (Akkad) name for his family's brief (130 year) rule. When the priest-kings of Semitic Babylon invent their new god, Ea, they appropriate the identifying symbol of the Sumerians' Innana (four wedges) to identify themselves. They also appropriate the bird symbol of the Sumerians' Queen of Heaven and rename it Sippora. We know of a (non-Semitic) Hurrian in Haran, Abram, who much later (18th century BC) inexplicably becomes the biblical Semite, Abraham. Hebrews of Upper Egypt (retroactively) appropriate the Aithiop name (a subculture of the Scythian, Kus people [5500 BC]), remove the word Kus (Cush) from scriptures and replace it with the word Ethiopian (e.g., King James Bible), and begin calling themselves Ethiopian Jews, founders of a Semitic Ethiopian culture. In the Bible, the Hebrew Jacob's supposed son, Joseph, impersonates “King Tut's” (Tudonk-a-mén, from Baráth) 14th century BC Chaldean administrator magus (Maya). Rabbi Saul, Judeo-Christianity's Saint Paul, appropriates Simon the Canaanite's calling and passes himself off as Jesus' apostle. Judeo-Christianity appropriates the name of the Egyptian sun-god, Chrestos, and changes it to Christos, the Greek word for the Jews' messiah who later becomes its “Christ.” In the Holy Roman Empire, Jews begin calling themselves Ashkenazim, the name of a Turanian people with whom they have nothing in common. During the Early Modern Period, Jews resort to a logical fallacy to pass themselves off as the ancient people of Mesopotamia. They begin to identify themselves with the diagram the Sumerians used to relate the Heavenly Trinity of Light to its earthly counterpart, a geometric figure the Jews saw in Babylon and later rename Star of David. They then point to Sumerian artifacts that depict this diagram as “proof” of their claim. And so we could continue. The Caucasian Ut-nap-ishtim becomes the 950-year-old Noah, ancestor of Semites; Mary and Jesus become Jews; the Hun (Celtic) Cross becomes the Christian Cross, and so on.

Search for the truth must also go beyond discovering identity theft. Both the source of information and the time of identity appropriation must also be noted so that actions can be associated with the right subjects. It is important to note who is speaking: the name's rightful owner, the thief, or a third party? Further, actions themselves also need to be verified. Whereas it is often difficult to spot a fraud committed centuries ago, catching a perpetrator in the act clearly exposes not only the fraud but also the scammer's mode of operation. Today, systematic disinformation campaigns designed to disseminate historical falsifications masquerading as scientific discoveries are sweeping the world, so examples of fraud abound. One such example, however, should suffice. National Geographic's much publicized production, The Gospel of Judas, translated by Rodolphe Kasser, Marvin Meyer, and Gregor Wurst, in collaboration with François Gaudard, is a propaganda masterpiece based on The Gospel of Judas, edited by these same scholars and published in book form, complete with commentary by The National Geographic Society, and financed by billionaire Ted Waitt, member of the Advisory Council of that society. Beyond arguments already presented in other papers that refute the credibility of this production, the following discovery can be safely considered evidence of translation fraud.

April D. DeConick, professor of Biblical Studies at Rice University, reports in the New York Times (December 1, 2007), Gospel Truth, that the National Geographic translation was critically faulty in many substantial respects when it aired its production. Based on a corrected translation, she proves that the document states the opposite of what National Geographic's translators claim. After re-translating the text, she published The Thirteenth Apostle. According to correct translation, the author of the manuscript states that Judas did, in fact, betray Jesus—rather than follow his orders, as Kasser et al claim. Further, the text says that "Judas is not set apart 'for' the holy generation, as the National Geographic translation claims," DeConick asserted: "he is separated 'from' it." The translators dropped a negative from a crucial sentence, an “error,” National Geographic admits, changes the import. "Were they genuine errors or was something more deliberate going on?" DeConick asked in the Op-Ed page of the Times.

It is naïve to think that this production is anything but a deliberately falsified translation of a manuscript that states the opposite of what Kasser, et al claim. Given the credentials of the translators and editors, it is inconceivable that each one of these scholars, in succession, separately and jointly, would not only make such novice mistakes as reading the word “demon” as “spirit” and dropping a critical negative, but all of them dropping the same negative from the same sentence—and nowhere else—from the sentence that just happens to convey the gist of the message, turning the translation into a claim that is the opposite of the original statement. Yet, despite getting caught red-handed, National Geographic continues to propagate claims it admits are false.

These examples show why it is so difficult to see through centuries of disinformation. However, armed with the necessary knowledge and mental discipline, we can recognize the repainted pieces of the puzzle, wipe them clean and redraw them using our knowledge of the era and a healthy dose of common sense. Even if the redrawn pieces remain to be individually validated, the ensemble usually either confirms or negates our hypotheses.

Common sense also dictates that we do not confuse inexplicable with impossible and discard a report just because it defies explanation. Impossibility is a logical (definite) conclusion based on knowledge (proof that excludes possibility), whereas inexplicability is the (indefinite) inability to draw a conclusion for want of knowledge. Our physical world is full of phenomena we can observe but cannot (yet) explain, as evidenced by discoveries of phenomenal functions, from subatomic to astronomical. So even in our physical world, we are often stunned by observations we feel we should be able to explain but cannot (e.g., the source of the Universe). How much more so in the case of phenomena we cannot even observe (e.g., an idea before its birth)? Mary's conception, Lazar's return from the dead, Jesus' resurrection are examples of reported occurrences we cannot explain. We come to terms with this reality by realizing that our inability to explain something reveals not the limits of possibility but rather, the limits of our knowledge. “Inexplicable” reports should be left as “holes” in the composition—perhaps to be filled at a later time. A degree on mental discipline is needed to leave these holes intact, that is, to resist the temptation to force an image though creative thinking (fabricating) or by “closing up” the picture. Even if spotted with empty holes, we will have a general idea of the composition.

So let us put on our gumshoes and examine the relevant political and cultural climates of Jesus' time, his background and historical events to find out who he was, what he taught, and what happened to him and his teaching.

In this work, Hungarian is often cited as a reference language to convey the meaning of difficult concepts, especially those found in ancient "Sumerian writings." In the English speaking world, the words "Sumer" and "Sumerian" generally refer to the land and the non-Semitic peoples who lived in and around Mesopotamia, between the 6th and 2nd millennia BC, and spoke an agglutinative language. The word "Sumer" derives from the name of the Sa-pir (sun-faced, sun-facing), Szabir people who turn their faces toward the sun and the Heavens to pray. This word is still in use today to identify Árpád's historical Magyars. If the choice of this language suggests nationalistic undertones, then the reader is encouraged to consider the opinions of world-renown linguists and other experts in their fields. An extensive list of scholars agree that, because of its age, precision and kinship with "Sumerian," Hungarian is the language best suited to extract the original concepts embedded in ancient "Sumerian texts." However, to dispel any suspicion of bias, only the learned opinions of foreign experts are quoted here.

• Grover S. Krantz, anthropologist at Washington State University studied the history and origin of the various European languages and published his findings in the book, Geographical Development of European Languages (Peter Lang, 1988). He states, "It is usually stated that the Uralic Magyars moved into Hungary from an eastern source in the 9th century A.D. I find instead that all the other Uralic speakers expanded out of Hungary in the opposite direction, and at a much earlier date" (page 11) ..."Given these objections the actual Uralic-speaking distributions would allow only one alternative explanation - that the family originated in Hungary and spread out in the opposite direction. This poses no serious problem if the time for this origin and dispersion is put at the earliest Neolithic. If this is true it means that Hungarian (Magyar) is actually the oldest in-place language in all of Europe" (page 72).

• Archibald Sayce, Professor of Oriental Studies in Oxford deciphered the first Sumerian text and gave a linguistic analysis of the language. He used comparative linguistics to study different branches of the language. In the course of his research, he examined the relationship of the languages of the entire Turanian language family with the Sumerian language. He found the closest relationship to Sumerian in the Hungarian and Basque languages. He went to Hungary to learn Hungarian, and found it to be "the most useful language to read Sumerian texts."

• Jules Oppert emphasized the relationship of the Sumerian and Hungarian languages.

• Jakob Ludwig Karl Grimm established the rules for sound progression and was the first to write German Grammar. He stated that the Hungarian language is logical, has a perfect structure and surpasses every other language, and recommended Hungarian as the ideal universal language.

• R. Nisbet Bain, a savant with the British Museum was extraordinarily proficient in languages. He described a Hungarian sentence as "A miracle of agglutinative ingenuity."

• Ebersberg, Austrian linguist: "The construction of the Hungarian language is as if it had been created by a task force of linguists striving for conciseness, regularity, harmony and clarity."

• Cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti, Italian, director of the Library of the Vatican, spoke many languages, including Hungarian. He stated (with some cynicism) that "The Hungarians do not even know what cultural treasure their language possesses."

• Sir John Bowring, English traveler and writer visited Hungary and published an anthology in English of the work of Hungarian writers and poets. He remarked that "The Hungarian language goes far back. It developed in a very peculiar manner and its structure reaches back to times when most of the now spoken European languages did not even exist. It is a language which developed steadily and firmly in itself, and in which there are logic and mathematics with the adaptability and malleability of strength and chords. The Englishman should be proud that his language indicates an epic of human history. One can show forth its origin; and all layers can be distinguished in it, which gathered together during contacts with different nations. Whereas the Hungarian language is like a rubble-stone, consisting of only one piece, on which the storms of time left not a scratch. It's not a calendar that adjusts to the changes of the ages. It needs no one, it doesn't borrow, does no huckstering, and doesn't give or take from anyone. This language is the oldest and most glorious monument of national sovereignty and mental independence. What scholars cannot solve, they ignore. In philology it's the same way as in archeology. The floors of the old Egyptian temples, which were made out of only one rock, can't be explained. No one knows where they came from, or from which mountain the wondrous mass was taken; how they were transported and lifted to the top of the temples. The genuineness of the Hungarian language is a phenomenon much more wondrous than this."