I am including links to two versions of Part I of my essay Against the Lie, as well as two versions of a section taken from Part II of that same essay entitled “The Relationship Between the New Testament Figures of Mary, the Disciple Whom Jesus Loved, and Mary Magdalene.”   The first version of each document has most of the footnotes removed, and the second has all of the original footnotes still in it.  I recommend starting with the first version, since the main text can be difficult to read in the version with all of the footnotes retained.  Then, if, after reading the first version, you’re still interested in reading more about my ideas on this and related subject matter, you can go on to read through all of the footnotes in the second version.

Against the Lie (Part I)

Shortened version  (98 pages):   Word    PDF
Full version  (175 pages):   Word    PDF

Mary, “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” and Mary Magdalene

Shortened version  (9 pages):   Word    PDF
Full version  (20 pages):   Word    PDF

Please do not make any assumption that the material contained in the footnotes in the “full version” or “long version” of each document is any less important than the material contained in the main text of each document.  Those footnotes are generally more difficult to read—partly because of their small print and their length; but also because of the fact that, as I indicated above, they interrupt the main text so frequently and aggressively that it is easy to lose track of what I was discussing in the main text; and also because the flow of the discussion in the footnotes themselves can sometimes be quite tangential, and less linear and progressive.  That is why I recommend that you postpone trying to read them until after you have already read the “lightly footnoted” version at least once; and I also recommend that you take them (even) more slowly when you do read them.

However, even the material in the main text—and I especially have Part I of the Against the Lie essay in mind here—cannot easily be presented in a linear manner, and there is really no way to start discussing any one idea without, to some extent anyway, being forced to presuppose a familiarity on the reader’s part with some other idea; and for that reason I feel quite strongly that people will benefit from a rereading of the main text.  At the same time, one of the primary purposes of the footnotes is to call attention to connections between ideas and Bible passages found at certain points in the main text, and ideas and Bible passages found at both earlier and later points in the main text—as well as in other footnotes—thereby indicating the inherent “non-linearity” of the material with which I am dealing.

To a certain extent, some of the longer footnotes in Chapter 4 (the chapter involving Bible interpretation) admittedly have the quality of “data dumps,” in which I am merely trying to get information out to people so that they will be able to take it and find new ways in which to re-assemble it—and perhaps also to see new connections to make with other information and ideas—so that they can then present to others some of the information contained in the footnotes in improved and more reader-friendly ways.

But if you are willing to follow along with me (and to bear with me), I feel quite confident that eventually you will start to see many seemingly unrelated elements in the Bible—and also in my overall theory and proposed strategy that I discuss on this website—“linking up” and “reflecting light” back upon and supporting one another, and revealing their mutual interrelations.  You will gradually begin to notice that certain themes keep appearing over and over again; and the same themes that appear in the Bible also play important roles in my overall theory and proposed strategy involving the creation of “truth groups” and “non-esoteric religious communities” (i.e., “practical philosophical communities”).  I believe that the concerns of the authors of the Bible were in many cases my own concerns; I am just being more explicit, conscious, and “prosaic” in my discussion of them.