The Last Adam

nivtricLeave a comment

Adam is the Son of God (Luke 3:38) and Jesus the Firstborn of all Creation (Colossians 1:15). Was Jesus Adam reincarnated? And was Adam born? Firstborn means you are the family heir, so the Firstborn of All Creation means you inherited the world. That is the standard interpretation with which most scholars would likely agree. The Christian doctrine states that Jesus already existed with God before creation and thus was not Adam. That is not what the words say, nor is it what Jesus’ inner circle believed. Existence before creation is not the same as being born. And Adam was the Son of God. When Paul was busy writing Colossians, he was also working on Christian theology, and his thoughts were still in a state of flux. And so, there may be more to it than theologians can explain.

Theologians regurgitate a century-old, pre-chewed menu of previous generations of theologians. Do theologians ever come up with something new rather than yet another insight on a hair-splitting detail? Do they discuss the simulation argument? No! They occupy themselves with century-old controversies. Why would Jesus sacrifice himself for Adam’s transgression? It makes more sense if Jesus believed he was Adam, who had to redeem himself. That was an idea Paul entertained for a while, for Jesus thought he was Adam. Only that generated serious theological problems. How could the perfect sinless Jesus also be the sinner Adam? And so, his mind ground on. Eventually, Christians came to believe that Jesus existed before creation, as laid out in the Gospel of John.

Don’t blame theologians for not being sufficiently imaginative. You could easily go astray. That ireful cloud that led the Israelites out of Egypt in a 2,500-year-old Jewish fairy tale was Eve from an even older Iraqi fairy tale, who gave birth to Adam, which the surviving Jewish version of the Iraqi fairy tale doesn’t mention. And by the way, that cloud from the fairy tale was Judge Deborah, the first historical person in the Bible. She started the Jewish nation by slaying Israel’s enemies and claiming that a magical cloud named Yahweh did it. She later married Jesus as Mary Magdalene and Muhammad as Khadijah bint Khuwaylid. You can’t guess it unless God gives you the clue that unlocks the mystery.

The message of Jesus being Adam still features in Christian doctrine as a remnant of an original belief. Jesus is the New Adam, and his birth mother is the New Eve, which implies that Jesus married his mother in a previous life. And precisely that was the original message of Christianity. Paul compares Jesus to Adam. In Romans, he writes, ‘Just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.’ (Romans 5:19)

Paul didn’t blame Eve for the Fall. Later writers posing themselves as Paul cast the blame on Eve. But Paul, a god-fearing individual who still knew the truth, wasn’t that daring. In 1 Corinthians, Paul noted, ‘As in Adam all die, so in Christ, all will be made alive.’ Jesus thus became the redeemer for Adam’s Fall. Paul called Jesus the Last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45). Jesus being Adam’s reincarnation was an early Christian belief until the narrative changed to Christ’s existence before creation. And so, you only find the comparison in Paul’s letters, the earliest surviving documents of Christianity.

The Quran underpins the idea that Jesus is Adam. You have to read between the lines. Jesus was like Adam in the way he was created (Quran 3:59), and the Quran supports the Christian claim that Jesus was born of a virgin (Quran 3:47, 19:16-22). Hence, they are both ‘born of a virgin.’ Not really, of course, but people believed it. And several Quran verses state that God ordered the angels to prostrate before Adam (Quran 2:34, 7:11, 15:28-29, 17:61, 18:50, 20:116, 38:71-74). The Quran mentions it seven times, making it appear significant. And seven times, Jesus says ‘I am’ in the Gospel of John, stressing his supposed divinity.

The Epistle to the Hebrews claims that God made Jesus, the firstborn, into the world, superior to the angels and made the angels worship him (Hebrews 1:1-7). And if the Quran is a message from God, the presumed guy in the sky, who possesses superpowers but is not Superman, and also not a man, then Jesus could be Adam. The Quran also claims Jesus will return (Quran 43:61). If he were Adam, God’s firstborn, who had already returned once, he could. Otherwise, it all gets even odder than it already is.

Latest revision: 16 August 2025

Mohammed receiving his first revelation from the angel Gabriel

Religious Experiences and Miracles

nivtricLeave a comment

The Jewish people still exist after 2,500 years, while they have not had a homeland for most of the time. That is a remarkable feat. Then Christianity replaced the existing religions in the Roman Empire in one of history’s strangest twists. Somehow, the message of personal salvation through Christ caught on. In the third century, Manichaeism emerged as a new religion. It taught that there was a struggle between the good spiritual world of light and the evil material world of darkness. The prophet Mani, who grew up in a Jewish-Christian Gnostic sect, claimed to have received revelations meant for the entire world, which were to replace all existing religions. It instantly became a spectacular success, spread everywhere in the known world, and could have overtaken Christianity, but it didn’t. A pivotal, and possibly decisive, moment was the conversion of Emperor Constantine to Christianity in 312 AD. He made Christianity the favoured religion in the Roman Empire.

A few centuries later, a small band of Arab warriors established an empire that stretched from the Atlantic to India, spreading the new religion of Islam, in an even stranger and more rapid historical development. Is it a realistic scenario that the supposedly illiterate camel driver Muhammad became a crafty statesman after seeing an angel telling him he came to deliver messages from the God of the Christians and the Jews? After Muhammad’s death, his followers went on to defeat the Byzantine and Persian empires. At the same time, Manichaeism made a one-way trip into the dustbin of history, while in the third century, it appeared to be on the verge of becoming the world’s leading religion. So, why did Mani fail and why did Muhammad succeed? Historians can explain it, but it is an account of what happened rather than an explanation. The question remains, could it occur without someone pulling the strings?

So much can happen, and what happens now has once been extremely improbable. Your reading this text here and now seems highly unlikely a few decades ago. Think of all the things you could have done instead. Or you could have been dead. Yet, you wouldn’t consider your reading this text a miracle. Proselytising religions like Christianity and Islam have a built-in inclination to grow. That may not be the ultimate answer. Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship the same deity. Our universe could be a simulation, and someone could have planned it. But who is to say it couldn’t have happened otherwise?

When Islam arrived on the scene, Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians in the area already believed in an all-powerful creator. Muhammad had met them on his travels, so he was familiar with these religions. Before that, Christianity had faced an uphill struggle. While the Roman state suppressed this religion, pagans left their gods behind and accepted the Christian God as the only true God. And they did so in large numbers.

That begs for an explanation, even though the conversion of Romans to Christianity was a gradual process that took centuries. The Romans occasionally half-heartedly persecuted Christians and executed a few thousand of them over the centuries, not for being a Christian but for not paying their respects to the Roman gods. Despite that, the number of Christians increased 2-3% per year between 30 AD and 400 AD. Each Christian may have converted just one or two persons on average. Over time, exponential growth enabled Christianity to grow from about 100 followers in 30 AD to 30 million by 400 AD.

Such a gradual and steady growth over centuries was somewhat unique for a religion, and so was the blitz conquest of Islam later on. Most people in the Roman Empire, and everywhere else for that matter, lived miserable lives. The promise of an eternal blissful afterlife may have been too tempting for those poor, wretched souls to resist. However, the most often cited reason for conversions was stories about the miracles Christians performed.2 Only in the Middle Ages did the sword become the most compelling Christian argument as Christianity spread further and became integral to European politics. That was not the case in the Roman Empire, so miracles and stories about them were crucial.

An early miracle was Jesus’ appearance to a few followers after his crucifixion. The New Testament mentions miracles that the disciples allegedly performed. These accounts may be exaggerated, but the theme of miracles remains a consistent one in Christianity to this day. The Roman Catholic Church has a rich folklore surrounding relics that are believed to possess magical properties because they are said to have been touched by Jesus. The most famous relics are the Crown of Thorns in Paris, the mysterious Holy Grail, the chalice from which Jesus is said to have drunk, and the Shroud of Turin, a piece of linen cloth with a supposed image of Jesus’ face.

Many of the miracles attributed to these relics are unverifiable or can have other causes, such as luck, but a few cannot be easily explained away. The Roman Catholic Church keeps a record of them. On message boards, people tell stories about prayers heard and miraculous healings. Many of these stories may result from chance or other causes, such as a misdiagnosis or someone seeking attention by lying, but that is not always the case.

A recurring theme is the appearance of the Virgin Mary and other miracles related to her. Thousands of people have seen her. She appeared several times in Venezuela. She revealed herself to Maria Esperanza Medrano de Bianchini in 1976, who received exceptional powers. She could tell the future, levitate, and heal the sick. In Egypt, Mary appeared at a Coptic Church between 1983 and 1986. Muslims have also seen her there. There have been many more Virgin Mary appearances. The most notable sequence occurred in Portugal at Fatima between 13 May and 13 October 1917.

The grand finale was on 13 October 1917, when the Sun reportedly spun wildly and tumbled down to Earth, radiating in indescribably beautiful colours, before stopping and returning to its normal position. Some 40,000 attendants witnessed Mary’s performance. They had gathered because three shepherd children had prophesied that the Virgin Mary would perform a miracle on that date and location. Faking this was hard to do, considering the technology available in 1917. A lack of holographic equipment would have made the effort challenging, not to mention changing the location of the Sun, which is a large ball many times larger than Earth, thus making it difficult to move around. And somehow, the Sun only moved in Fatima, which can only happen in virtual reality.

Jesus also appeared a few times, but less frequently than the Virgin Mary. An intriguing account comes from Kenneth Logie, a preacher of the Pentecostal Holiness Church in Oakland, California, in the 1950s. In April 1954, Logie was preaching at an evening service. During the sermon, the church door opened. Jesus came walking in, smiling to the left and the right. He walked right through the pulpit. Then he placed his hand on Logie’s shoulder. Jesus spoke to him in a foreign tongue. Fifty people witnessed the event. Five years later, a woman in that same church suddenly disappeared. Jesus took her place. He wore sandals and a shiny white robe. He had nail marks on his hands, which were dripping with oil. After several minutes, Jesus disappeared, and the woman reappeared. Two hundred people have seen it. It was on film as Logie had installed film equipment, because strange things were happening.3 Such events can convince people that the message of Christianity, even though it may seem highly peculiar, is correct, as Zeus and Thor failed to show up and perform some tricks.

Mary and Christ are part of a folklore where genuine experiences mix with mental cases seeking attention or con artists profiting at the public’s expense. Usually, there are no 40,000 witnesses, verifiable evidence, or camera footage of what occurred. The Vatican is troubled by self-proclaimed seers, fortune-tellers, prophets, and messengers who believe they have a special bond with the Virgin Mary or possess weeping Madonna statues, which they may or may not have prepared to weep. These people could be delusional, crave attention or, like the televangelists in the United States, be after your money. That is not always the case. If you have a religious experience, don’t suffer from mental conditions impairing your judgment, and can’t think of naturalist explanations, you should believe what you see. To quote Shakespeare’s Hamlet, ‘There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ In virtual reality, it can happen. Yet, these appearances are not proof that Jesus and his mother still live. God can make you believe anything.

Latest revision: 2 June 2026

Feature image: Mohammad receiving his first revelation from the angel Gabriel. Miniature illustration on vellum from the book Jami’ al-Tawarikh, by Rashid al-Din, published in Tabriz, Persia, 1307 AD. Public Domain.

1. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Yuval Noah Harari (2014). Harvil Secker.
2. The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World. Bart Ehrman. Simon & Schuster (2018).
3. How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher From Galilee. Bart Ehrman. HarperCollins Publishers (2015).

Diocletian's Aqueduct in Split, Croatia

The Great Collapse

nivtricLeave a comment

Lessons of history

Societies and even entire civilisations have collapsed in the past. That the same might happen to us is a scary prospect. The definition of collapse is an involuntary, uncontrolled simplification of an organisation. That organisation can be a civilisation. Perhaps you get the word ‘collapse,’ but not its definition. The definition highlights the process ‘simplification,’ whether those affected chose for it, in this case ‘involuntary,’ so not, the degree to which the process is controlled, in this case ‘uncontrolled,’ so not, and the affected component, ‘an organisation,’ which can be a civilisation, making it a helpful definition for engineers to work with. Typically, collapse brings with it a breakdown of order.

Engineers solve problems other people create. A solution begins with looking at the phenomenon in a particular way, thus in terms of processes, affected components and degree of control. We can aim for a voluntary, controlled simplification of the organisation. Voluntary is perhaps a bit too rosy a term, but at least we can try to manage the process so that it becomes somewhat more ‘controlled,’ and begins to look more like a graceful decline. That requires order to be maintained. The problem is solvable if everyone cooperates, but that requires a fairy tale we all believe in, so a new religion. And there you have the outline of the solution.

Environmental depletion or overstretching has caused most past collapses. It happened when people were using more resources than their environment could sustainably provide. That is also the case today, so we are heading towards a collapse. History can teach us what awaits us and how we can manage our problems, but today’s situation differs from the past due to technological innovation, leading to a widespread belief that technology will solve our problems. That probably is a fatal mistake. Instead of letting technology drive our destiny, it should support our goals. Theories about collapse are speculative. While the experts debate, time is running out, and it is time to act.

The fall of the Western Roman Empire is the most well-known example of collapse. In the second century AD, diseases reduced the Roman population, eroding the empire’s tax base. The Western Roman Empire had a long border to defend and faced rebellions, so emperors became increasingly desperate for revenue to finance the military. Over time, taxes, currency debasement, and measures to ward off invasions became intolerable for Roman citizens, and the Western Roman Empire broke down. Most were better off with a simpler life under the rule of the Barbarians.1

The population of Rome declined from 1,000,000 around 500 AD, many of whom lived on welfare, to less than 50,000 around 600 AD, a drop of 95%. Today, more than half the world’s population lives in cities, whereas it was about 20% in the Roman Empire. A collapse today could lead to mass relocations. Cities do not provide much that we truly need. We don’t know the future, but economics drives migration. When people can’t make a living in cities, they move out. Whether that will happen remains to be seen. It may require fewer resources and less energy to keep most city dwellers where they are now.

The Western Roman Empire was underpopulated, and taxes had become a burden. Its collapse was a relief for most. Other collapses were more disastrous because they had different causes. In fact, the collapse of the Western Roman Empire was an outlier. The Mayan civilisation collapsed because the Mayans reached the limits of their environment. State planning and control had increased the efficiency of food production and distribution. It allowed the Mayans to feed more people who would otherwise have starved. Measures to increase food production had pushed their environment to the breaking point, making it increasingly difficult to keep up agricultural output.1

As a result, the Mayan states reverted to warfare to plunder each other’s crops, making it even harder to maintain agricultural output. The Maya weakened due to malnutrition and warfare, and their states collapsed. In the short term, the peasants were better off as they didn’t pay taxes to support the state. In the long run, with irrigation works and granaries abandoned and defences neglected, agricultural output collapsed, and the population dropped by 90%.1 Most collapses resemble those of the Mayans more than the Romans, so they are generally unfavourable to those who live through them. So, what will happen if our civilisation collapses? You can think of:

  • Money becomes worthless, and many products become unavailable.
  • Governments cease to function, and government services shut down.
  • Businesses go bankrupt. We don’t need Netflix, nail salons, and call centres.
  • There is more violence and crime, and simpler justice systems.
  • Electricity from the grid becomes intermittent, and the Internet disappears.
  • International trade will drop. We will use more local products.
  • Manual labour will replace machines.
  • We may crowd together in heated rooms when it is cold.
  • There may be gang warfare, or religion takes over the role of providing order.
  • And above all, billions of people might die.

If the collapse is uncontrolled and worldwide, and there is a breakdown of order, billions of people could die. That is why we should dread collapse. Had the Mayans not waged wars but cooperated peacefully to use resources more efficiently and reduce population, their civilisation might have declined gracefully and survived. That was unthinkable given the intense competition among the Mayan states and the absence of contraceptives.

Causes of collapse

Populations grow until their environment can’t support them, or until the environment changes so it can support fewer people. Usually, it led to fewer food surpluses to save for harvest failures, and more harvest failures. Eventually, the population would succumb to disease, an invasion by neighbouring tribes, or civil war. A crucial difference with today is that in the past, there was no technological change. In recent centuries, innovations, most notably our improved ability to acquire energy, have outpaced the forces driving collapse, enabling humankind to grow far beyond previous limits. It can make the coming collapse, in terms of numbers, worse than previous ones. If only 10% of the world’s population were to die, that would be nearly a billion people. And it could be 90%. Modern technology can help us simplify in a more controlled way while allowing us to live more agreeable lives.

Jared Diamond identifies five factors that contributed to past collapses: changes in climate, hostile neighbours, the loss of trading partners, environmental problems, and society’s response to these challenges. The underlying cause is often overpopulation or environmental overstretching.2 Increased efficiency in resource extraction methods, such as agriculture and mining, allowed more people to survive, worsening the eventual collapse. That applies to most collapses, including those of the Mayans, but not of the Romans. The Roman Empire suffered from underpopulation and might have survived with a larger population.

Joseph Tainter argues that in both cases, the costs of organising in a state exceeded the benefits. The Western Roman Empire was underpopulated, so the Romans couldn’t afford the taxes required to defend their long border. The Mayan states organised agricultural production and were initially successful. However, at some point, additional state interference failed to deliver more crops or better management of surpluses and deficits. Overpopulation or overstretching the environment puts a premium on organising, but it postpones the inevitable and worsens the collapse. Had the Mayans not organised themselves into states, they would have had less food, fewer people would have survived, and there would have been no collapse.

Our predicament looks more like that of the Mayans than the Romans. Competition between states and corporations for resources may intensify, making the collapse more brutal. Simpler lifestyles and having fewer children are the way out. We would be better off cooperating globally to curb consumption and population growth. That hasn’t happened so far, because it is a collective action problem. Most of us aren’t willing to contribute to the common goal when others don’t, so few people do. And governments compete to boost their economies and populations. Ending the competition between states is paramount because power, in the form of a prosperous economy, population and military, requires resources and energy. If one state pursues power or wealth in this way, others follow.

In times of decline, even the best leaders look bad as they can only make things less lamentable than they otherwise would have been. As we notice deterioration but don’t experience the alternative, anger and frustration can take over, and people will look for scapegoats and strong leaders, resulting in political instability, a breakdown of order, civil war and mob rule. Managing and turning the decline into a more graceful simplification is the best option, but that requires realism, commitment and discipline. Five centuries of economic expansion have fostered the widespread belief that growth will continue forever. We have learned to think of progress as becoming wealthier. Yet there isn’t enough to make that kind of progress, and it may require replacing humans with artificial intelligence.

Organising to solve problems

TTainter sees societal collapse as an economic calculation. Societies and civilisations collapse when the cost of their institutions exceeds the benefits they provide. If soil is depleted due to overuse, measures to improve crop yields or manage surpluses and deficits become increasingly expensive and yield lower returns. The Mayans didn’t make these calculations by keeping ledgers of incomes and expenses. At some point, their measures became ineffective, and they starved. The economic view can help us make the most of it by making a cost-benefit analysis of our activities. That can be painful because it forces us to make harsh choices. A simpler life means accepting things as they are, and helping each other rather than depending on solutions from complex organisations.

Due to pressures of competition, we optimise our systems to the current or an expected situation. If the environment changes in an unanticipated fashion, these systems become maladapted and may even suddenly collapse. And the steering parameters of our systems might prioritise profit or convenience over survival, so that we may suddenly find ourselves inept and helpless when they fail. People from simple societies, who have not specialised under optimising pressures from competition and have lived with few comforts, face better prospects in the event of a collapse of civilisation. That is also why the decline of a civilisation is accompanied by fear and anger. We fear that things will go wrong and are angry that no one fixes these issues. The problem is that we can at best turn the collapse into a managed decline. That begins with accepting that a decline is unavoidable and that we can only make the best of it.

We organise ourselves into organisations, such as states and corporations, to solve problems. We have the police to solve a security problem. There are streaming services that can help with boredom. And we have hospitals to deal with medical problems. Complex organisations, such as states or corporations, entail costs and benefits. When you solve a problem, you often get a bigger one in return, thus one that is more costly to handle. If you prevent famine by building granaries, more people survive, but you end up with even more hungry people. When societies are simple, expenses are low, while the benefits of solutions can be substantial. A simple doctor’s post in the jungle might lengthen the life of local tribespeople by as much as twenty years. As the level of organisation increases, the costs of additional complexity rise while the benefits decline.

As we cure easy-to-treat diseases, people grow older and get harder-to-treat diseases. If our medical knowledge increases, we can cure some of these diseases with expensive treatments, and people will die of even harder-to-treat diseases. Medical costs explode with only marginal gains in life expectancy. Replacing the doctor’s post in the jungle with a hospital might cost five times as much and add only three years to the tribespeople’s lives. Perhaps five tribes together could afford the hospital. In complex societies, tasks require occupational specialisation, information processing and management. There are benefits to complex organisations, but they usually come with scale and technological complexity. Specialised physicians can do better jobs with more advanced equipment.

Since the Industrial Revolution, our technological prowess and energy consumption have expanded dramatically. Abundant fossil fuels, innovations and increases in scale reduced the cost of organisation. The benefits outweigh the expenses more than before, allowing us to specialise further. In the past, over 90% of the people worked in agriculture, tilling the land. Now machines do that work, freeing up labour for other, less essential, purposes. The same happened in the production of goods and services. Technological development further increased these benefits. Computers use far less energy than they did forty years ago for the same amount of computing power and memory. That made more uses feasible, so we use far more energy for information technology than we did forty years ago.

It is the curse of innovation and efficiency improvements. As technology becomes more efficient and cheaper, we use it for more purposes, which, in turn, leads us to consume more resources and energy rather than less. And so, efficiency improvements and innovation increase resource and energy consumption as long as resources and energy are abundant. Once resources and energy supplies dwindle, much of what we do now loses its purpose. When that happens, efficiency improvements and innovation can help us do more with the same resources and energy, so we can have better lives than most people have had for most of history. And you can be happy if you have enough.

Diminishing returns: an example

Life expectancy in the UK rose from forty to eighty years between 1860 and 2020. As life expectancy rises, the costs of new complex treatments increase while their effect on life expectancy decreases. These costs become a burden, and the British healthcare system is in trouble. British healthcare is relatively efficient. Comparing the United States with one of the poorest Latin American countries, Cuba, demonstrates the law of diminishing returns even better. The facts are truly shocking. Cuba is a miserable place. Essentials are hard to come by. Homes are crumbling. The electricity fails. The country can barely feed its people. Today, Cuba is on the verge of collapse caused by economic mismanagement.

Cuba only has bare-bones healthcare, while the United States spends more on healthcare than any other nation. Yet life expectancy in the United States and Cuba had been roughly the same for decades.3 Only in recent years has the United States carved out a slight lead. How can it be? Cuban healthcare is simple but more evenly distributed, while Cubans don’t have unhealthy lifestyles marked by stress and fast food. U.S. healthcare is burdened with litigation and vampire capital. Pharmaceutical corporations sell expensive and unnecessary treatments, insurers don’t give coverage to increase shareholder profits, and medical professionals enjoy privileges they don’t have in other countries. Finally, and most importantly, healthcare is not available to everyone.

Wealthy people in the US live fifteen years longer than poor people. That is not only due to access to healthcare. Lifestyle affects life expectancy as well. Obesity, homicides, opioid overdoses, gang violence, stress, suicides, road accidents, and infant deaths come into the picture. But infant mortality among black children in the US is twice as high as that of white children. Poor Americans have much shorter lifespans than Cubans. Some believe American healthcare fails because it is not a free market. And that belief stands at the cradle of the failure. Other advanced economies spend 30 to 50% as much as the US on healthcare while achieving an additional 4 years of life expectancy. In those countries, healthcare is mostly public, like in Cuba.

Americans use drugs, eat fast food and drink sodas unavailable in Cuba. Cubans are poor, so it isn’t profitable for drug cartels to sell them opioids, cigarette manufacturers to sell them cigarettes, and fast food chains to sell them burgers. The death toll from drugs, fast food and sodas in the United States exceeds that of famines in Cuba. Overconsumption can be as deadly as underconsumption. Americans experience more stress than Cubans because they need to be competitive in a market economy that is constantly innovating and improving efficiency. Many Americans have two or three jobs. Cubans don’t work so hard, and Cuba is falling apart while Americans die of heart disease and drug abuse.

As a result of all that, Americans are equally fit as Cubans. And Cubans on the brink of starvation are healthier than poor Americans living off fast food. And so, life expectancy isn’t a good measure of overall well-being. Over a million Cubans have fled their country. Still, US private healthcare is extraordinarily inefficient and ineffective compared to Cuban state healthcare. Americans sense something is wrong with their healthcare system. It is a total disgrace. Only public healthcare generates no profit for the interest groups and billionaires that pay US politicians and think tanks, so that solution remains out of sight.

Managing excess

Excessive production and consumption create problems we think we must manage. That requires specialisms, laws, controls, and the like, and it becomes increasingly costly. We blame governments for taking away our freedoms when they impose limits. Still, most regulations address valid concerns. Complexity and specialisation, and that includes regulations, suffer from diminishing marginal returns. They all seem to make sense, but if you add more, the costs increase while the benefits decline. Consider the issues of food production and pollution control. Tainter used the figures of the Limits to Growth. Growing world food production by 34% between 1951 and 1966 required increasing tractor expenditures by 63%, fertiliser expenditures by 146%, and pesticide expenditures by 300%. We now deal with soil degradation, which can endanger our future food supply.1

Pollution reduction shows a similar pattern. Removing all organic waste from a sugar processing plant costs 100 times as much as removing 30% of it. Reducing sulphur dioxide in the air of a US city by 48% instead of 5% or particulates by 69% instead of 22% raises the cost of pollution reduction by 520 times. These figures from the 1960s are outdated, but the nature of the problem hasn’t changed. Allocating more resources to R&D can provide temporary respite from diminishing returns, but R&D also has diminishing returns.1 We invent increasingly useless products, and economic growth comes from successfully marketing them. We might increase output while containing pollution, but it can become prohibitively expensive. Terminating the production can be cheaper.

Like the Mayans, we have stretched our environment to its limits. When we simplify our lives, we depend more on our family and community and less on markets and states. We can do without automobiles, set up reliable public transport at a fraction of the cost, and save millions of lives. Without traffic congestion, public transport can be faster. We use local products where possible. And we need fewer specialists, thus elites, to run our lives. When we do it well, we can be better off than we would have been otherwise. The 80/20 rule states that 20% of the causes have 80% of the effects. So, 20% of our resources and energy consumption could cause 80% of our well-being.

People in wealthy countries, on average, live at 30 to 50 times the subsistence level. In other words, they could survive on 2-3% of what they consume now. They could live agreeable lives with 25%, which is ten times as much as nearly everyone had before the twentieth century. Giving up 75% seems extreme, but if everyone lived like people in wealthy countries, we would need four Earths, which is impossible, so 75% of the people would have to die. It is only reasonable. Those who use more steal from poor people or future generations, and even murder them by doing so. The same goes for those who have many children. Switching to a circular economy powered by renewable energy reduces the need for austerity.

Latest revision: 19 May 2026

Featured image: Diocletian’s Aqueduct in Split, Croatia, built around 300 AD. User: SchiDD. Wikimedia Commons.

1. The Collapse of Complex Societies. Joseph Tainter (1988). Cambridge University Press.
2. Collapse: How societies choose to fail or survive. Jared Diamond (2005). Viking Press.
3. Americans Can Now Expect to Live Three Years Less than Cubans. Rob Minto. Newsweek (2022).

one ring to rule them all

Multiculturalism

nivtricLeave a comment

An astounding success

For those who think that multiculturalism is a failure because large numbers of immigrants arrive in their country, of whom a significant number have trouble adapting and end up on welfare, not to mention those who cause trouble and commit crimes, the truth may be a surprise. Multiculturalism has been one of the most epic successes in human history. Yet, it is all about the time horizon. You don’t observe that trend over decades. Centuries may not even suffice. Yet if you think in millennia, then the trend becomes obvious. It didn’t happen all peacefully. There have been quite a few casualties along the road. They were the roadkill on the way to unity. That is only because humans are such a violent species, which makes unity an absolute necessity, no matter the fatalities. Otherwise, we will fight until we are all dead. And so, there is no alternative. It is unity or death.

As far as the supposed failure of multiculturalism goes, I wouldn’t have known about it had I not had access to the news and social media. Where I live, people from different ethnic groups mingle and live together peacefully, a bit like a multicultural fairy tale. I suspect a setup by the Great Planner to show me that it can be that way, as our belief in fairy tales can make them come true. There may be more of these places, but they hardly attract attention. Social media is filled with stories about crimes, violence and sexual abuse. It seems that every incident involving minorities that comes in the news gets copied on multiple feeds and sometimes multiple times. Still, the place I live in looks like how the world could be, and should be.

In Europe, you are far more likely to die in a car accident than from violent crime. The fear of the fascists concerns not today, but the future. There are reasons to worry. It can go wrong, as it has many times before. And we live today. The greater trend in history is not our concern. Worse yet, we might end up as roadkill on the road to unity, or our children could. Our genes wish to survive and multiply, and if necessary, at the expense of world peace. Still, overall, multiculturalism has been a tremendous success. Successful empires allowed people from various cultures to coexist peacefully under a single government. These were multicultural states. As long as the state is stronger than the identities of the people living in it, those people will gradually develop a common identity.

Cultures don’t change overnight, so for an empire to achieve political stability, it allowed subjugated peoples to retain their customs and religions as long as they didn’t threaten the political and social order. Multiculturalism was a tool of the ruler, so figuratively, the One Ring to Rule Them All, as in The Lord of the Rings. One of the first successful multicultural emperors was Cyrus the Great, who ruled around 550 BC and respected various faiths and traditions in his empire. He helped the Jews return to their homeland and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. Today, the Jews are still thankful that God sent them that leader.

The Romans were also tolerant people. Conquered peoples could keep their gods, languages, and customs as long as they respected Roman authorities and paid tribute to Roman gods and godlike emperors, which only troublemakers like the Jews and Christians refused to do because of their uncompromising belief systems that allowed worship of only one Creator. Paying Roman taxes was not a problem for them, but venerating Roman emperors and gods was. The Jews fought to the death in two major uprisings, hoping that God would come to their rescue, but the Christians eventually succeeded in taking over the Roman Empire. It shows that uncompromising belief systems are the primary obstacle to unity, and that we can have permanent peace only under a single belief system.

Lasting achievement of empires

If the empire lasted long enough, the nations in it integrated into a common culture. The Roman Empire is an example. Conquered peoples could keep their gods, languages and customs as long as they respected the Roman authorities. Greek culture spread in the east, and Roman culture in the west. Several later Roman emperors came from the provinces such as France, Africa or Arabia. After the empire collapsed, the conquered peoples, like the Gauls, didn’t reappear as independent nations,1 despite the brave resistance of that one village where Asterix and Obelix lived.

The Chinese standardised their writing with pictures, allowing people who spoke different languages to read one another’s writing. The Chinese could read each other’s books while not understanding one another in conversation. China was a vast empire, and there were no mass media, so developing a common spoken language was unthinkable. The writing helped China form a national identity that has lasted for over 2,000 years. In Europe, Latin, the language of the Roman Empire, remained the written language, but the phonetic script proved to have a fatal design flaw. Hardly anyone spoke Latin, so the language couldn’t unify Europe. The Russian, Turkish and Austrian empires failed to form a lasting common identity, so they collapsed after World War I.

Sharing a language is not enough, as the Bosnian civil war exemplifies. For over 500 years, Roman Catholics, Muslims, and Orthodox Christians lived relatively peacefully together in three successive multicultural states: the Ottoman Empire, the Austrian Habsburg Empire, and Yugoslavia. That was until the 1990s, when identity politics turned them into Croats, Bosnian Muslims and Serbs, and they began murdering each other in a frenzy. Religion became the divisive factor, as they shared an ethnicity, history, culture and language. The Soviet Union was another multicultural empire. Still, it didn’t last, and it failed to wipe out the national identities. After it collapsed, there have been several nationalist wars in the former Soviet Union.

Multicultural empires, such as the Roman Empire, allowed for gradual assimilation. It led towards greater unity. The Chinese standardised pictographic script played a similar role. In these cases, multiculturalism was a transitional phase towards unity. Over time, the number of cultures in the world declined as smaller groups merged into larger ones. There have been temporary reversions as empires collapsed. Still, the long-term trend is clear. The world gradually became more integrated. Today, the world is closely interconnected so that a global culture may emerge and existing cultures may become folklore.

Identity politics

Today, identity politics and individualism have changed multiculturalism. Every individual, including minorities, needs recognition and their feelings acknowledged. And so, rather than peaceful coexistence and acceptance of the social order, modern multiculturalism is about respecting and accommodating other cultures. That promotes conflict rather than unity, as identity politics involves flags, marches, pride and hatred. And uncompromising belief systems stand in the way. Jews have long lived in Christian and Islamic countries as a minority group. It led to multicultural tensions as they strictly kept to their religion and culture, and eventually to the Holocaust, giving us a 2,000-year body of evidence that non-assimilation and clinging to separate fairy tales cause never-ending trouble.

Jews and Christians kept fighting over their myths, like whether or not Yahweh had a son named Jesus. In the Roman Empire, and also in China, such uncompromising beliefs didn’t stand in the way of unity. In uncompromising belief systems, even small differences can be problematic. Protestants and Catholics have fought several bloody religious wars despite largely agreeing on the nature of Jesus and his relationship to God. So, if people in Europe think that it is better not to have Muslims around, despite Muslims, like Christians, believing that Jesus will return, they have good reasons, because Muslims, like Jews, don’t believe that God has a son. That seemingly insignificant disagreement has produced millions of fatalities in the past and may do so once again.

Borders are arbitrary. They will crumble under the pressure of competition, or civilisation will break down. The extreme nationalists are right. They have already lost, unless they are willing to wage a race war. That is going to be shitty, and it is not going to solve anything, for two white Christian Slavic nations are fighting a bloody nationalist war. Both are desperately looking for foreigners to fight that war for them, not to mention the lazy Americans and Western Europeans who do not wish to bring in their harvests. Nation-states and businesses need immigrants to remain ahead of the competition. It has to end, and the world needs to become a more agreeable place for everyone. Yet, humans are religious creatures, so that requires a wonderful fairy tale that unites us all.

Us and them

Us and them
And after all, we’re only ordinary men
Me and you

Pink Floyd, Us and Them

We divide humanity between ‘us’ and ‘them’. We are good people with superb beliefs and a superior civilisation. In contrast, the others are the inferior ones with dodgy habits who act oddly, look different, have funny accents, wear peculiar outfits, and believe in strange fairy tales you can’t take seriously, like the one about Jesus dying for our sins, and that by believing that, we will be saved and play the harp in heaven forever instead of being fried eternally in Satan’s ovens. We differ in skin colour, religion, sexual preferences, political views, and other qualities. Even when you think you are open-minded, you may hate those inferior, narrow-minded bigots and racists who are not like you.

Welcome to human nature. We are xenophobic creatures. Evolution did that to us. Fear of the unknown protects us from harm, such as poisonous foods or the cannibalistic tribe next door. It can be a powerful emotion. Human violence has long been one of the top causes of death among humans until states grew tyrannical and began to repress our violent human nature, thereby reducing murders by over 99%. Trusting strangers was dangerous indeed, and it is still risky, so it is something adventurous people would do. Living in peace with others and trusting them also brings tremendous benefits, enabling us to overcome these feelings and roll the dice of fortune.

Discrimination doesn’t always come from xenophobia. We are social animals who cooperate in groups. It requires a shared understanding of our rules and methods for handling various situations. A shared culture can make the group achieve optimal efficiency in this competitive world. Otherwise, there can be confusion, discomfort and conflict. You want to bow your head to Mecca when going gets tough? In critical situations, we depend on each other, so we must understand and trust each other. It is why sports teams in competitions train and work on team spirit. The atmosphere in teams can differ, depending on who is in them. That is culture.

Culture has wider implications. Imagine you like to barbecue in a neighbourhood where militant animal rights activists live. In that case, you should be careful not to end up on the barbecue yourself. And so, we prefer the company of like-minded individuals. Those who do not fit in can tell personal stories about bullying, physical violence and exclusion. It is a wider phenomenon than racism. Many societies have anti-discrimination laws saying things like that discrimination on the grounds of religion, political opinion, race, sex, disability, sexual orientation or on other grounds is not permitted. So, you can’t barbecue a person for loving meat. That would be discrimination.

The world is interconnected

In September 2023, a flood killed over 10,000 people in Libya. Climate change may have contributed to this disaster. And so did the overthrow of the Libyan regime with the help of NATO in 2011. During the ensuing civil war, critical infrastructure, such as dams, became neglected. No one in the NATO countries voted for the military intervention, nor did most people in Europe support immigration from non-Western countries. Is someone to blame? In the case of Libya, the ultimate cause could be you and me driving cars, thereby generating oil demand. Oil played a major role in the wars in the Middle East, as oil revenues gave the dictator Moammar al-Khadaffi the funds to sponsor terrorism, making the West eager to take him out. It also motivated the United States to invade Iraq, even though the country had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Everything in the world is interconnected.

What we do has consequences for other people far away. Had it not been that might makes right, and had there been true justice instead, and had we all had the right to self-defence, those who see their harvests fail due to climate change would have the right to kill those who drive their fossil-fuel-powered vehicles towards their bullshit jobs in marketing and information technology, wasting energy and resources in the suicidal rat race that is going to terminate humanity. So, if these suicide terrorists are going to die anyhow, then why not pre-emptively kill them to let the rest of us survive? Sadly, the one with the biggest gun is always right, and that is usually the one who wastes the most energy and resources and murders the most people. Yet, if we are to have a future, this arrangement can’t continue. We need a new social contract for humanity.

Cultural progress

Cultural exchange goes in multiple directions. We use Arabic numerals, pray to a Jewish deity, eat a dish of Native American potatoes, and listen to Jazz inspired by African rhythms. Maybe we think that rap music sucks, but the Chinese, the Muslims, the Native Americans and Africans were also not particularly thrilled by the cultural enrichment that the West has brought them. Cultural exchange is an ongoing process, and cultures change as they respond to their environment, including other cultures. And culture is not tied to ethnicity, but to life experiences. And new cultures can emerge. In the United States, a cultural divide has emerged between urban and rural populations. You now have two Americas, a liberal-socialist and a conservative-fascist one. And there is a distinction between organised society and gang life. And that affects cultures as well.

Adaptation takes time and sacrifice. The small town where I grew up had a sizeable Ambonese community. The Ambonese were soldiers who fought for the Dutch in Indonesia, and when Indonesia became independent, they had to leave their homes and settle in a country on the other side of the world with their families, where they were initially treated poorly. The Dutch also had to put up with them and their troubles, which included violent incidents. The Ambonese could not return, so the Dutch and the Ambonese were stuck with each other. The people of Nijverdal have never chosen for their presence, but have accepted the burden for decades. Most people didn’t suffer, only those who happened to be the subject of the violent incidents. The troubles gradually diminished.

If your culture is dominant, you enjoy advantages you may not realise that you have. Societies in Western Europe and the United States may be multicultural, but Western culture is dominant. Having that dominant culture is a privilege. If you aren’t from that dominant culture, you are at a disadvantage. The damage your cultural group inflicts on the dominant culture can lead to the repression of your group, while the damage the dominant culture does to your group may go unpunished. It is how history has always worked, so you might call it a law. Discrimination is not the decisive factor in an ethnic group’s success. Culture is more important, and the strength of their community. In the United States, blacks do relatively poorly, while Jews do well. If we are equal before the law, privilege is less critical than upbringing and community.

If you are not from the dominant culture, you may be equal before the law but not equal in reality. You may not get a fair chance, or your attitude could be the cause, or it may be both. When I was forced to leave the dormitory, I had never had a fair chance, but I wouldn’t have fit in anyway, so that chance would have been wasted on me. I came from a different culture than the prevailing culture in the dormitory. And being autistic, I was also unaware of the harm my conduct caused, so that came to me as a total surprise. Cultural differences divide us and blind us to the harm we do to others. Yet, as we are barreling towards the apocalypse, there are no excuses left.

Replacing the dominant culture in the West with another existing culture is problematic. Part of Western culture is a quest for absolute truth, so it spawned science and ideologies. And Western culture socially progressed towards God’s vision of Paradise with the help of Hegelian dialectic. Many countries have anti-discrimination laws, but that in itself doesn’t create an agreeable society. South Africa has progressive laws, but it is also one of the most dangerous places on Earth. Something is missing. These progressive values originated in Europe, in bourgeois societies. In South Africa, there has never been a black bourgeois society. If we are to survive, we must progress further by detailing what the future requires of us and making that the foundation of the future world society. The truth will be brutal for all of us, for few are fit to enter God’s kingdom.

Latest revision: 8 July 2025

Featured image: One Ring to Rule Them All. Xander (2007). Public Domain.

1. A Brief History Of Humankind. Yuval Noah Harari (2014). Harvil Secker.

John the Evangelist from the 6th-century Rabbula Gospels

Gospel of John

nivtricLeave a comment

Strikingly different


The Gospel of John is strikingly distinct from the other Gospels. In Mark, Matthew, and Luke, Jesus appears human, yet enigmatic. In the Gospel of John, he appears godlike. The Gospel of John is later than the other Gospels, and biblical scholars believe that by then, Christians had deified Jesus. There is a problem with this reasoning. Some Christians worshipped Jesus as a godlike creature early on. In the Epistle to the Philippians, Paul cites a poem stating Jesus is in the form of God (Philippians 2:6-11). Scholars believe it is an older poem, dating back to the earliest days of Christianity.1 Maybe. Paul was a creative genius, and he made up much of what he wrote, perhaps nearly everything, but not that early Christians viewed Jesus as godlike.

Other scholars believe that there once was a separate Johannine community in Syria, with the Gospel of John and the letters of John serving as its scriptures. The Johannine writings use the phrase ‘born of God,’ suggesting that God is a Mother. Scholars believe the Odes of Solomon, which include Ode 19, with its feminine attributes of God the Father, relate to the Gospel of John and the Dead Sea Scrolls. The author might have been an Essene convert to the Johannine community.

The Johannine community was distinct from the Jewish Christians, and its writings reflect anti-Jewish sentiments. To Jews, it is blasphemous to say that God is a woman, Jesus is godlike and that they married. To people from the surrounding cultures, such as Greek, Roman and Egyptian, it is not unusual to worship female deities, deify humans and believe that gods mate with humans. To his non-Jewish followers, Christ was godlike, not a human Jewish prophet. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have followed him. What business would they have had with a human Jewish prophet?

At first, most Christians were Jewish. Their religion would not have permitted them to see God as a woman and Christ as a godlike figure. However, Christianity had non-Jewish converts very early on. Educated Hellenistic Jews were often open to innovation due to their contact with surrounding cultures. Around 42 AD, a group of Christians founded a church in Antioch, located in the Roman province of Syria, which was likely also the location of the Johannine community. The Bible mentions the persecution of Christians and the spreading of their message in Antioch among Jews and Greeks (Acts 11:19).

If the Gospel of John belonged to a separate community that opposed Jewish Christianity, it could be more historically accurate and closer to Christ’s original teachings if that community had fewer reasons to alter the message and historical facts. The motivation for modifying their scriptures was to unify the Church. And so, despite it being the most recent, the Gospel of John could be the best-preserved remnant of original Christianity from before Paul profoundly changed it.

The author of the Gospel of John wrote in good Greek and employed a sophisticated theology with seven signs, and Jesus said seven times, ‘I am.’ Scholars believe he has used several sources, including the Gospel of Mark and Luke, as well as documents that no longer exist. The Gospel of John suggests that one of its sources could have been an eyewitness account.

The Gospel of John implies Jesus’ ministry lasted three years, suggesting more historical detail than the other Gospels. The number three has theological significance, as it is the heavenly number, which makes it suspicious. The author may have rearranged the story accordingly. The close relationship between God and Jesus, and Jesus’ belief in himself as eternal, however, has a historical origin. It agrees with Jesus being Adam, the everlasting husband of God, the Alpha and the Omega. It made him both human and godlike, which was the compromise Paul came up with, and the reason why his theology prevailed.

The Gospel of John has undergone several redactions. If one of the sources has used an eyewitness account or the Johannine community didn’t face the theological restrictions of Judaism, the Gospel of John could reveal more and be more historically accurate than the other Gospels or represent the earliest beliefs more accurately, most notably after identifying and eliminating these redactions. John could thus be the most revealing about the nature of the relationship between God and Christ.

Platonic birth

The Gospel of John provides no information about Jesus’ early life. Instead, it gives a creation myth in abstract wording. Why write an alternative creation story? Does Genesis not suffice? Not if Jesus was Adam, and Adam the Son of Eve, who was God and the Mother of All the Living. The following phrases are noteworthy: ‘In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind,’ and ‘He gave the right to become children of God -children born not of natural descent, nor human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.’

Jesus gave us life and the right to become children of God. If he were Adam, he fathered humankind, and because his wife was Eve, we are all children of God if we all descend from Eve and Adam. The Quran says, ‘Truly, the likeness of Jesus, in God’s sight, is as Adam’s likeness, He created him of dust, then said He unto him, ‘Be,’ and he was.” (Quran 3:59) That agrees with Platonism, which was widespread in the Greek-speaking world.

Adam, being the son of Eve, disagrees with the account in the book of Genesis. The scribes who redacted the text that eventually became the Gospel of John devised an obscure formula to mask the issue. It is possible that the initial text provided more details about how precisely Jesus granted us the right to become children of God. Platonic thinking is abstract and about ideas, like us becoming children of God, rather than material facts, like Eve making love to Adam. That was indeed convenient.

And so, under the influence of Platonism, the Word became flesh in the form of Jesus (John 1:14). The phrasing ‘born of God’ suggests that the original author knew God was a Mother. The author affirms this by expounding on that birth. When arguing with Jesus, the Pharisee Nicodemus noted that one cannot enter a second time into one’s mother’s womb to be born again (John 3:4). Nicodemus understood what Jesus meant, which is that Christians are figuratively born of God’s womb and that God is a Mother. Jesus gave it a spiritual meaning in his answer, ‘No one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.’ (John 3:5)

The wedding

There was a wedding in Galilee (John 2:1-10). Jesus was there, as were his mother and his disciples. When the wine was gone, his mother said to Jesus, ‘There is no more wine.’ That wouldn’t have been his concern unless he was the Bridegroom. Then Jesus answered, ‘Woman, why do you involve me? My hour has not yet come.’ It could mean that Jesus was not the Bridegroom and was about to be married too. He called his birth mother ‘woman,’ perhaps because he considered God his Mother. Jesus started doing miracles at this wedding by turning water into wine. Maybe he became Christ through this wedding. Hence, it may have been his wedding after all, and the scribes may have changed the narrative to make it appear that it was not.

Then John comes up with a statement not found in the other Gospels: “A person can receive only what is given them from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said: ‘I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him.’ The Bride belongs to the Bridegroom. The friend who attends the Bridegroom waits and listens for him and is full of joy when he hears the Bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less.” (John 3:27-30) Jesus was the Messiah because he was the Bridegroom in a heavenly marriage. The other Gospels also indicate Jesus was the Bridegroom (Matthew 9:15, Mark 2:19 and Luke 5:34).

I and the Father are one

Jesus called God Father, making himself equal with God, so the Jews wanted to persecute him, the Gospel of John says (John 5:16-18). Jesus made other claims in this vein. If the Gospel of John is a redacted insider account, these assertions may reflect Jesus’ words. If Jesus believed himself to be Adam, he could have said, ‘Before Abraham was born, I was.’ And not, ‘Before Abraham was born, I am.’ (John 8:58). The wording ‘I am’ in this phrase implies the godlike nature of Christ and existence before creation. It refers to God saying to Moses, ‘I Am Who I Am [Who Always Has Been And Will Always Be],’ and, “This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I Am has sent me to you.'” (Exodus 3:14) The wording in John implies that Jesus is God, always existing, the alpha and the omega.

Then comes an intriguing assertion, ‘I and the Father are one.’ (John 10:30) Jesus claimed to be a god, so the Jews wanted to stone him for blasphemy (John 10:33). Perhaps Jesus meant something else. Marriage is a way to become one flesh with another person (Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:4-6). If Jesus had implied he was married to God, it would still have been blasphemy to the Jews. If Mary Magdalene had remained in the background to let Jesus do Her bidding, and Jesus believed himself to be Adam from whom all of humanity descends, Jesus may have said, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Mother except through me.’ (John 14:6)

Jesus’ claims caused conflict among the Jews. On the one hand, he did miracles, but on the other hand, he offended the Jews by making outrageous claims. The Jews lived under Roman rule. The Romans didn’t care about someone claiming to be God’s husband or any other particularity that offended the Jews. For Pilate, it was difficult to bring a charge against Jesus (John 19:4). The way to convict Jesus was by claiming he was a rebel leader. Claiming to be the Son of God could be a claim to kingship over the Jews. And that was the offence for which the Romans convicted him (John 19:19). The Jewish leaders insisted they had a law. According to that law, Jesus must die because he claimed to be the Son of God (John 19:7). That probably refers to blasphemy rather than claiming to be Israel’s king.

It was a sensitive political environment. Religious extremists and messiah claimants stirred up people who hoped to throw out the Romans and restore Israel’s glory. The Christian tradition depicts the Jewish leaders as evil schemers against Jesus, the Son of God. But John gives us an insight into their motives (John 11:47-50),

‘What are we accomplishing?’ they asked. ‘Here is this man performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.’ Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, ‘You know nothing at all! You do not realise that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.’

If Jesus were to stir up sentiments and lead a rebellion, the Roman army would come to crush it and destroy the temple and the Jewish nation. It was reasonable to think so, and not particularly evil to try to prevent it. A few decades later, the Jews rebelled, and their dreaded scenario unfolded, so their fears were justified. In any case, such an insightful detail argues for the historical quality of the text.

Love is a central theme, ‘As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.’ (John 15:9-12) That is an unusual amount of love. If Jesus were God’s husband, you could understand why he said it. That brings us to the loving and intimate relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus. The Gospel of John features the anonymous Beloved Disciple. Rumour has it that it was Mary Magdalene.

The Beloved Disciple

The mysterious Beloved Disciple appears only in the Gospel of John. So, why is John so secretive about the identity of this individual? If the editors had removed the marriage between Mary Magdalene and Jesus, they could have changed Mary Magdalene’s role to that of the Beloved Disciple. To become the Beloved Disciple, Mary Magdalene had to take over Simon Peter’s role, who was Jesus’ favourite disciple. To that aim, the scribes have created this disciple from thin air by extracting this person from Simon Peter. This disciple acts like a shadow of Simon Peter throughout the story, except for the scene at the cross.

Had the Beloved Disciple been Mary Magdalene, that would still have generated questions regarding the nature of the relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus, or it could have raised women to a position of authority that men weren’t particularly keen on giving them. In a later redaction, the scribes turned the Beloved Disciple into an anonymous figure, distinct from Mary Magdalene, and suggested that he was Jesus’ brother. This perspective proves to be illuminating. Look at the following fragment (John 19:25-27),

Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there and the disciple he loved standing nearby, he said to her, ‘Woman, here is your son,’ and to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.

If you take the text at face value, the Beloved Disciple was Jesus’ brother, as Jesus’ mother was also his mother. That is a good enough explanation as to why he took her into his home. It could be an intentional edit to make it appear that way, so that it makes sense for the Beloved Disciple to take Jesus’ mother into his home. And if the text were correct, the author of the text can’t be John, because the text claims that the Beloved Disciple wrote it. The fragment also states that four women were near the cross, suggesting that no men were present at the time. And so, the Beloved Disciple could have been one of these four women.

The most likely candidate would be Mary Magdalene. Jesus could have asked Mary Magdalene to take his birth mother into Her home, so that it was something that really happened rather than a figment resulting from the extraction of the Beloved Disciple from Simon Peter. Like John, Mark and Matthew suggest that only women followers were near the cross (Mark 15:40, Matthew 27:55-56). Luke is less specific and states that all who knew him, including the women (Luke 23:48). This contradicts Mark and Matthew, who report that all the disciples had fled (Mark 14:50, Matthew 26:56). John doesn’t mention the fleeing of the male disciples but also doesn’t note their presence.

A few arguments support this view. First, it is odd not to say ‘mother,’ but rather, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Was someone else Jesus’ mother? Something is off here. Second, it is more likely that Mary Magdalene took Jesus’ birth mother into Her home than a male disciple, unless he was Jesus’ brother. The Gospels mention a group of female disciples travelling with Jesus (Luke 8:1-3). They formed a separate group led by Mary Magdalene, who took care of one another. Third, how could Jesus tell another disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ After all, it was Jesus’ mother. The only explanation is that this disciple was his brother, while nothing else suggests so. Fourth and finally, by all accounts, Simon Peter was Jesus’ favourite Apostle. Jesus called him the rock on which he would build his Church, and gave them the keys of the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 16:18-19) and appointed him as leader (John 21:15-17). Only Peter had fled the crucifixion scene and wasn’t present.

According to Paul, Simon Peter saw the resurrected Jesus first, and then Jesus appeared to the other disciples (1 Corinthians 15:4-6). The repeated reference ‘according to the scriptures’ suggests that Paul invented the creed. That Jesus appeared to Simon Peter first makes sense as Simon Peter was Jesus’ favourite disciple. The Gospel of John tells a different story. It claims that Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw the stone removed from the entrance. She then ran to Simon Peter and the Beloved Disciple and said, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!’ So Peter and the Beloved Disciple went to the tomb. The Beloved Disciple, acting like a shadow of Simon Peter, came there first but didn’t go in. Then Simon Peter arrived and went into the tomb (John 20:1-6).

He saw the strips of linen lying there. Then the Beloved Disciple also went in and saw and believed (John 20:8). The beloved disciple saw and came to faith, but two men were inside. Remarkably, it is not Simon Peter who saw and believed, even though he was the first to go inside. The Beloved Disciple could be a later addition. If so, Simon Peter was the first to see and come to faith. Perhaps, he saw Jesus there alive. That would confirm Paul’s claim. The Beloved Disciple acts as a shadow of Simon Peter once again. The Gospel of John then tells us that Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene first (John 20:11-18). It is impossible to have certainty about what occurred, but there was an effort to achieve unity within the Church. The following steps of editing seem plausible:

  1. God became the Father, but Mary Magdalene and Jesus remained a couple, with evidence of their intimacy. Mary Magdalene told Simon Peter, the disciple Jesus loved, that Jesus had disappeared from the tomb. Simon Peter went in and saw the empty tomb for himself. That may have happened.
  2. The early Church agreed that Jesus rose on the third day, and that Simon Peter had seen him first. So, Simon Peter went in, saw and believed. Perhaps Simon Peter saw Jesus there alive. Failing a suitable cover story at the time, the scribes truncated the Gospel of Mark.
  3. The early Church fabricated a cover story for the resurrection on the third day, and removed the marriage. Mary Magdalene became the Beloved Disciple. Jesus appeared to Her first in a newly added section. Simon Peter then saw something, but not Jesus, as Mary Magdalene saw him first.
  4. Mary Magdalene and the Beloved Disciple became separate individuals. So, Mary Magdalene spoke to Simon Peter and the Beloved Disciple, and both of them went into the tomb. The Beloved Disciple saw something and believed, but Mary Magdalene remained the one who saw Jesus first.

All four gospels hint at Jesus being the bridegroom, so early Jewish and Gentile Christians agreed that Mary Magdalene and Jesus were a couple. If you omit John 20:2-10, John 20:1 together with John 20:11-18 makes a story of its own. That could argue for the insertion of John 20:2-10 into the original text. John 20:11 states that Mary Magdalene was near the tomb, which contradicts the previous lines, and most notably John 20:2. However, the inserted section is John 20:11-31. Mark confirms this.

The original text of Mark finishes with the women going to the empty tomb, where a young man dressed in a white robe tells them that Jesus has risen (Mark 16:1-8). The added section of Mark notes that Jesus appeared first to Mary Magdalene (Mark 16:9). And, according to Paul, Jesus appeared first to Simon Peter. The original story was that Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and found it empty. Jesus’ appearance to Mary Magdalene is a later addition to the text. Matthew says that Jesus appeared to the women first (Matthew 28:10), and Luke tells a different story. Mark and John are the most reliable, so if Matthew and Luke contradict them, it is most likely that Matthew and Luke are in error.

After this episode, Jesus appeared to the disciples (John 20:19-23). Paul tells the same in 1 Corinthians 15, so if this account is accurate, Mary Magdalene set in motion the resurrection beliefs by inviting Simon Peter to the tomb, and if She was God, She knew what he was about to find there. The problem with this narrative is that it neatly aligns with Paul’s view, expressed in his letter, that Jesus rose on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. To Paul, everything must be according to the scriptures, which makes it iffy, most notably because John has two endings, one in John 20 and another in John 21.

Simon Peter was Jesus’ favourite disciple, and the Beloved Disciple is an extraction of Simon Peter. He enters the story at the Last Supper when he asks Jesus who is about to betray him (John 13:21-25),

After he had said this, Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, ‘Very truly I tell you, one of you is going to betray me.’ His disciples stared at one another, at a loss to know which of them he meant. One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him. Simon Peter motioned to this disciple and said, ‘Ask him which one he means.’ Leaning back against Jesus, he asked him, ‘Lord, who is it?’

Simon Peter was the one who wanted to know. He was the disciple who asked Jesus who was about to betray him. The Gospel of John ends prematurely in Chapter 20. The premature ending comes from an inserted source. The latter part of John 20, starting at John 20:11, is an insertion that elaborates on the resurrection occurring on the third day, which is fiction. The original story and the historical facts probably were that they found the tomb empty, and that Jesus appeared again to Simon Peter and a few other disciples by the Sea of Galilee after some time had passed. Most likely, Jesus appeared only once to Simon Peter and a few other disciples. Simon Peter saw Jesus first, like Paul wrote, but not on the third day.

Jesus’ appearance explained the empty tomb. The logical conclusion, for some Jews at least, from an empty tomb and Jesus appearing again after his death, was an instance of resurrection. The resurrection of the dead was a belief that not all Jews shared. The Sadducees did not, but Jesus probably did (Matthew 22:23-32), so it became a Christian belief as well. Jesus appeared after his death. Otherwise, there would be no Christianity. One can still question what they saw or whether they lied, but few would believe such a miracle if Jesus hadn’t performed miracles before. That it happened on the third day is an invention for theological reasons, undoubtedly conjured up by Paul, so that it would be ‘according to the scriptures,’ which was of the utmost importance to him.

That also explains Mark’s premature ending. The historical facts contradicted the agreed-upon narrative, and there was no cover story yet when the author of Mark held his pen to write his Gospel, as there was none for the virgin birth. That came later. The initial plan was to replace John 21 with the latter part of John 20, but someone bright concluded it was a waste of a good piece of text and added it again at the end, which explains the premature ending in John 20. An abstract of this revised account, thus John 20, became the added conclusion of Mark.

The final chapter of the Gospel of John mentions a rumour amongst believers that the Beloved Disciple would not die. Jesus believed some of his disciples would live to see his return (Mark 8:34-38, 9:1). In John, Jesus said, ‘Very truly I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death.’ Still, the wording is remarkable (John 21:20-23),

Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. (This was the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the Supper and had said, ‘Lord, who is going to betray you?’) When Peter saw him, he asked, ‘Lord, what about him?’ Jesus answered, ‘If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.’ Because of this, the rumour spread among the believers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die; he only said, ‘If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?

The text suggests the rumour was that the Beloved Disciple would not die at all, not merely until Jesus returned. Otherwise, the text would not note it so explicitly. Why might this disciple not die at all? Why only the Beloved Disciple? And why mention the rumour and try to dispel it? And then repeat the explanation twice, as if that required stressing? It seemed something of the utmost importance. And it is part of the original text, so it has a historical origin.

The rumour becomes understandable if Mary Magdalene was God and had become the Beloved Disciple in an earlier redaction. Simon Peter probably discussed Mary Magdalene’s immortality with Jesus. After all, he was Jesus’ favourite disciple. Here again, the Beloved Disciple appears as a shadow of Simon Peter (John 21:20), as he did at the Supper and the entrance to the tomb. The Beloved Disciple allegedly wrote down his testimony (John 21:24), making Simon Peter the most likely source of the eyewitness account. The author of Mark probably used that same eyewitness account.

The validity of the Gospel

The deification of Jesus was an early tradition. If you are God’s husband who lives eternally, you are already godlike, even if you are human. In other words, the Gospel of John might be most historically accurate about the relationship between God and Jesus. Mark can be a good addition to uncover more worldly facts. The start of Mark makes it possible to conclude that Jesus started as a disciple of John the Baptist, which you can’t infer from John. Turning Mary Magdalene into the Beloved Disciple may have coincided with the insertion of the latter part of John 20, which was contrived to detail the resurrection occurring after three days. It is probably the reason why the latter part of Mark has gone missing. It contradicted the resurrection-after-three-days narrative, and it took time to craft a new story. By then, Mark had already been issued.

Historians and biblical scholars doubt the resurrection and the miracles Jesus performed. These miracles contradict the laws of nature, and people make up stories, have incorrect recollections and lie, so most scholars think they never occurred. However, in virtual reality, miracles can happen, casting doubt on that argument. There is evidence of miracles, or events that defy the laws of nature, with multiple credible witnesses. If the Gospel of John is a redacted insider account, it may be more accurate or more revealing than most biblical scholars and historians currently assume. John also circulated within a Gentile tradition outside Jewish and Pauline Christianity, which had fewer problems with the facts. And so, John could be more precise or more telling than the other Gospels, as they aren’t insider accounts and come from a tradition hostile to the idea of God being a woman who married Jesus.

Jesus appeared to some of his disciples after the crucifixion, but not after three days. It is not uncommon for people to see deceased loved ones. The section ‘Ghost Stories’ of the book ‘The Virtual Universe’ contains an account of an incident involving Nina De Santo from New Jersey that is at least as mysterious as Jesus appearing after his death and instructing his disciples. In other words, if De Santo’s story checks out, the Jesus story must be based on facts, as you can’t imagine Christianity beginning without Jesus appearing to some of his followers. That his followers had seen Jesus after he supposedly had died strengthened their beliefs that Jesus was Adam, who lived eternally and was the Son of God. The resurrection of the dead was a belief amongst some Jews at the time, and it seemed the best explanation for what they saw, thus the body disappearing and Jesus appearing, so they labelled the event like so.

Remarkably absent in John is the story of Jesus’ transfiguration. It is present in Mark, Matthew and Luke. If John is more accurate, the transfiguration could be a myth. To Christians, the transfiguration is evidence of Jesus’ divinity. The reason for inventing the transfiguration story may have been to fulfil an earlier prediction by the prophet Malachi.

John also doesn’t mention breaking the bread and sharing the wine during the Last Supper, and it may be more than just an omission. The body and blood of Christ, representing the new covenant, are part of the sacrificial-lamb imagery Paul introduced. Jesus never said, ‘Take it; this is my body,’ nor, ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.’ The Torah requires that the firstborn of the flock and herd be brought as sacrifices (Deuteronomy 12:6, 15:19), and Jesus was God’s firstborn.

The Jewish tradition sees human sacrifice as a grave sin. The Jewish Bible condemns child sacrifice as a barbaric custom (Leviticus 18:21, 24-25; Deuteronomy 18:10), so the reasoning is most peculiar indeed. John is the most outside the Jewish tradition. If it had happened, John would more likely have mentioned it, and the other Gospels would more likely have left it out to avoid offending the Jewish audience.

It also presents a possible explanation for the seven demons Jesus supposedly cast out of Mary Magdalene. Mark mentions it in the later-added section at the end (Mark 16:9), suggesting it was not an original belief. You can also find it in Luke (Luke 8:2). Had a separate Gentile Christian tradition claimed that Mary Magdalene was God, mainstream Pauline scribes might have introduced this peculiarity to stress that She was not.

It is impossible to uncover all the redactions. It appears that there have been at least four rounds of modifications to the text. The final version dates back to approximately 95 AD, reflecting the perspective of that era. After the Romans had destroyed the Jewish temple in 70 AD, Christians realised that Jesus might not return anytime soon. The character of the faith changed accordingly, from expecting Jesus’ return with power and glory to having a personal bond with Jesus that gives access to eternal life. The Gospel of John reflects this change in outlook.

Figuratively speaking

In the Gospel of John, Jesus doesn’t always speak in clear and precise terms. He says, ‘I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.’ (John 16:12-14) Muslims see these words as a prediction of the coming of Muhammad. That is unconvincing.

Chapter 16 of the Gospel of John excels in vagueness. It contains a remark that appears insignificant among the obscurity but might be there for a reason, saying, ‘Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father.’ (John 16:25) Why should Jesus not speak plainly about God? The scribes who modified this gospel may have known what they were doing and realised the truth would come out one day. And that day may finally have arrived.

Latest revision: 8 May 2026

1. How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher. Bart D. Ehrman (2014). HarperCollins Publishers.