– Of material convictions and Kosmic schemes
IN OUR age we time travel through books, but for the wider masses mainly through the American expansion of cinematics, misused from its inception by the talented but bigoted filmmakers D.W Griffith and Frank E. Woods with the racist movie ‘Birth of a Nation’ in 1915.

Our time-travel through the cinema has taken us on voyages into Biblical times; has influenced our perceptions about how populations looked, how they felt and dressed and the social environment they lived, loved and died in. Without questioning further, clinically, we believe and conceive those films to be records of worlds we are religiously related to through faith and the moral dramas that do interpret life, that explore human frailties, weaknesses, capacity for hypocrisy, against heroic strengths, wisdom, morality and integrity.

Dramas that explore the dualities of humanity in a specific model. Kept out of our consciousness is the reality that movies represent huge investments, contracts and expectations of profit at the end of it all. The pleasing of the audience is foremost. Most religious paintings, children books and films were produced in an age of strict racist directives, to the point that when I was in school, Miss Barry, a very attractive teacher asked us upon returning to school after an Easter Holiday, aware that most of us had seen the ‘Ten Commandments’ and ‘The greatest story ever told’- that the class tell her on which continent these events happened. Yours truly stood up and said that it all occurred in Europe. Nobody laughed nor did the backbench heckle ’yuh wrong’ because the class thought that I was right, and were dumbfounded when she said ‘Africa’.

What we thought of Africa was ‘Tarzan’ ‘Zulu’ and those King Solomon’s mines movies, not Pyramids or the ‘Jesus’ story.
History tells us that the Romans were not the conscientious good citizen colonisers of the movies. The Roman Legionnaire was like any battle-hardened human, more mentally damaged than the modern combat man or woman, because most of his killing was done up, close and personal. Plus the wholesale slaughter of populations were mandatory at times, and every army in his day was promised in the immediate aftermath of the battle, the women of the conquered as the declared spoils of war, until the puppet leader is put in place and the system for economic colonisation constructed for the benefit of the empire as it was with Rome, Khemet, Persia, Kush or any of the major powers in the ancient and not so long ago modern world.

In the day of Jesus, the lands of his fathers were a Roman colony with Hebrew religious groups like the Essenes, and non-religious resistant groups like the Zealots and Sicarii, they did test Rome with initial victories but were wiped out by Roman retaliation. This occurred after the passing of Jesus ‘The Christ’. Judas was born into this world around the time of Jesus and was more concerned with the nationalism of the day and the prospects of lifting the yoke of Rome rather than with the moral and social reforms of the Christ. There also existed a term in Khemet [Egypt] ‘Maa Kheru’ translated as he who speaks the truth into being, or “made true the voice”. Maa is the male term of Maat the Goddess and lawgiver of Khemet, and the authority of the Maa Kheru is linked to the resurrected God Ausar [Osiris].

From the text that narrates the life of Jesus of Nazareth, his quest lay with the moral uplifting of the populace of his land. His strong liberal teachings brought him into dispute with the compromises of the Pharisees and Sadducees, who ignored certain misgivings as a balance for survival, not needing to test the Roman capacity for total war, and in compromising they themselves had sunk to the level of looking after their own interests as a privileged group, corrupt and indifferent to the rights and sufferings of their people.
The greatest impetus of nationalism for the Hebrews then was the mystical promise of ‘The Messiah’ who would liberate them from all oppression.

The Christ had in his teachings and healings possibly convinced Judas Iscariot that he possessed qualities that could be more useful to a revolution than addressing the moral consciousness of the masses. Judas [John, 12-6] was the custodian of finances for Christ and his disciples. He protested the purchase of expensive ointment by Mary (Miriam) who then massaged the feet of Jesus, and its fragrance pervaded the air ‘The Christ’ was in the presence of Lazarus who the Christ had previously raised from the dead. Luke 22: 36 ‘The Christ’ is narrated to have later said near the time of his betrayal “But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it and likewise his script: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garments and buy one.” A path he then rejected.

The betrayal of Judas is significant. It was not done with ranting and accusations, but gently with a kiss. There was no mystery in the scriptures of the potential of Judas for betrayal, yet he was allowed to play his part, material convictions, yes, in the scheme of things beyond his comprehension, and then again, unlike Delilah, Judas demonstrated that it was not for the 30 pieces of silver he had done his treacherous act, he committed the ignoble self-judgement of his day, that of suicide by hanging.

Judas had nothing to fear from his population, there were numerous weak and loud souls bribed by the Pharisees to denounce The Christ, so to indulge in lawlessness, as long as the Priests and the merchants were happy, Judas and kind were safe. Or was it that he felt that the strange powers that The Christ possessed would be used to free himself and destroy Romans, Pharisees and Sadducees in one revolutionary purge, fulfilling the mystical manifestation of the divine messiah?

Divine intervention did occur, the principles of the Christ teachings have brought its troubling, man-corrupted and still inspiring narratives of its age into ours, to reason with and be illuminated by its metaphors and truths relevant across time. ‘The greatest story ever told’? Perhaps, but in all honesty, its guidelines are profound, its parables culturally familiar, an incredible textbook even for the most stubborn of us. There is a verse that will make a significant difference.