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Jehovah Unmasked
Jehovah Unmasked
Jehovah Unmasked
Nathaniel J. Merritt
August 2004
INTRODUCTION:
This book is not merely an impersonal investigation into the Bible. It is, in fact, an account of my own inward
journey from the darkness of fundamentalism to the Light of Gnosis. My experience of spiritual darkness began
when I became involved in the Jehovah’s Witnesses sect at the age of fifteen, and remained involved, off and on, for
over four years. Never has there been a more disturbed, Orwellian, mentally and spiritually oppressed group of
people on this planet. Their teachings and their practices destroyed my inner life. The JW’s shunned me early in my
nineteenth year of life because belief in their insane god drove me to the brink of insanity. As I write this, I am fifty
years old. It has been thirty-one years since I was disfellowshipped, and I am glad for every moment of freedom that
I have enjoyed since then.
However, after being shunned by the Witnesses, I became involved in mainstream Christianity via the “Jesus
Movement” which began in the late sixties. It was a time when many hippies and other young people were turning
off to drugs and “turning on to Jesus”. I was among them. I was “born again” shortly before my twentieth birthday.
Though the Witnesses are incredibly negative, at least they do not teach that unbelievers will be roasted for eternity
in a hell of fire. However, Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Evangelical, Fundamentalist, and Pentecostal Christians
do teach such a hideous, evil doctrine. After fifteen years as a mainstream Christian, I abandoned the Bible and
Christianity as absurd and insulting to my intellectual and spiritual sensitivities. I embraced Buddhism because of
its’ calm clear rationality.
I had been meditating since the age of twenty, so meditation was not new to me when I became a Buddhist.
However, Buddhism deepened and strengthened my practice, and for twelve years I remained a devout Buddhist. I
even became a Buddhist priest in the Hongaku Jodo sect of Shin Buddhism. During this entire time I felt something
was missing, and I felt alienated from my own culture and from my ancestors. (I am a descendent of Saint John
Thwing on my mother’s side of the family) Yet, I knew too much about the Bible and Christian history to ever
become a mainstream Christian again.
I was also growing disillusioned with Buddhism because of its teaching of “Anatman”, which means we have no self,
no spirit, no soul, but are merely biological machines composed of five “skandas” nothing more. Such a view is
contrary to my own spiritual experiences. Ever since I was a small boy I have had encounters with the spirits of my
deceased family members. As a Jehovah’s Witness and mainstream Christian, I had explained these encounters away
as “demonic activity”, and as a Buddhist they simply didn’t fit. Then I had a profound out of body experience that
convinced me we do in fact have a spirit that survives bodily death, and I knew deep inside that my experiences were
real.
My meditation experience also led me to the deep conviction that many “levels” of divinity exist, as well as many
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levels of existence. The conviction also began to grow in me that the universe is fundamentally flawed, and that a
malevolent intelligence or intelligences lurk behind the flawed nature of the cosmos. I began to realize that God is
not to be found in nature (except in a highly diffuse, diluted way), but beyond nature, and deep within my own being.
Unknown to myself, I was fast becoming a Gnostic. When many of these realizations came to full bloom within me,
it was then that a highly intelligent Gnostic friend further guided me in my understanding. The interpretation of the
Bible you find here then fell into place and poured forth from my inner self. Before long I realized I am in fact a
Gnostic Christian.
I am now at Home, spiritually, though I remain a pilgrim and stranger in this world. (Hebrews 11:13)
I invite the reader to not only consider my words here, but to reconsider your own spiritual heritage, if you come
from a Christian background and have become disaffected due to the negative views of God you have imbibed.
There is no reason to jettison your culture and embrace foreign religions to find spiritual Reality. Gnostic
Christianity is the inward, esoteric, mystical spirituality that so many Westerners are searching for in Far Eastern
religions. You can find spiritual Reality in the midst of Christianity. You can become yourself a Christ, for that was
and is the original intent and purpose of Christianity. “The disciple is not above his Teacher: but everyone when he is
perfected shall be as his Teacher.” (Luke 6:40 American Standard Version of 1901) It is my hope that this little
book will help start you on that Journey.
In this book you will be given the most important Key to understanding the Bible. Your reaction will either
be stunned acceptance (and your eyes will be opened), or you will reject what has been laid bare before you. The
choice is yours. The Key is in your hands. Proceed. You will never view the Bible in the same way again. Blessings
divine to you. –Nathaniel J. Merritt
Chapter One- ONE GOD OR MANY?
Does the Bible really teach there is only one God? Or does it teach that many gods exist? Did Almighty God really
create this material world? Or did another, lesser god, create this material world?
These are important questions, because the God of Whom Jesus Christ spoke is a gentle, loving Heavenly Father.
Yet, the universe is overflowing with evil, cruelty, agony and death. How can one reconcile the reality of evil,
cruelty, agony and death with the theory of a loving Heavenly Father? For, as countless thinkers have pointed out:
If God is all-powerful, then God is not all good.
If God is all good, then God is not all-powerful.
************
Either God wants to eliminate evil but is not powerful enough
...or...
God is powerful enough to eliminate evil but does not want to do so.
In other words, an all-good God would not make a universe brimming with evil, pain, violence, suffering and misery.
An all-powerful God might do so, but such a God would not be all good. Mainstream Christians have danced around
this issue for two thousand years but none of them have given a satisfactory answer to the Problem of Evil. Their
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"answers" have taken the form of mental gymnastics, verbal contortions, special pleading, misdirection, "smoke and
mirrors."
However, there is a very ancient and wise solution to this dilemma. The earliest Christians held this Key, this
solution, and immediately realized and adopted it because of their unshakable Knowing (Greek: Gnosis, pronounced
Know-sis) of an all-good Heavenly Father. The early Christians who held this Key were called Gnostics, which
means Knowers. The Catholic church later rejected this Key of Gnosis. When the Catholic church finally had the
power of the Roman Empire behind it through the Emperor Constantine, those who held this Key were ruthlessly
hunted down, persecuted, and forced to conform to the Catholic Church or die. Their scriptures were seized and
burned, and only the writings that the Catholic church selected and approved became officially "scripture" through
councils held by the Catholic church.
It is important to understand how and from what source the New Testament acquired it's present form and "authority"
so we can appreciate how important the Key is to understanding the contents of the New Testament. So, we will take
a few moments to trace the development of the New Testament "canon", or official list of books.
Chapter Two- THE NEW TESTAMENT MUTATES AND EVOLVES
The fact that the Catholic church in both its Roman and Byzantine halves selected by vote which books would
become the New Testament, will come as a shock to many Protestant, Evangelical, and Fundamentalist Christians.
Most give no thought as to who said the New Testament books are the right books, or who said right books were not
excluded. All mainstream Christians of the western world, whether Protestant, Evangelical, Fundamentalist,
Pentecostal or Charismatic, share the same canon of New Testament books selected and approved by the Catholic
church. They use the Catholic New Testament whether they are Catholic or not. (I am not referring to the Latin
Vulgate, but to the canon of the New
Testament itself) The New Testament did not drop out of the sky. Most evangelicals and fundamentalists know that,
but they act as though the Bible did drop out of the sky. Nor did the New Testament canon (official list of books) pop
into existence in an historical vacuum. Bible-believing fundamentalists, though, are willfully ignorant of the
historically verifiable process by which the canon was selected. Nor was the canon determined by spiritual osmosis,
although most fundamentalists have a vague unspoken notion that this is how the New Testament books were
selected. Finally, the Bible does not have a divinely inspired table of contents, though evangelicals and
fundamentalists unthinkingly take it for granted that it does.
The truth of the matter is that the New Testament books were selected over a period of many hundreds of years.
During that time the Catholic church held a number of councils in both the Eastern and Western halves of the Empire
to decide, by vote, which of the dozens of gospels and epistles available to the church hierarchy would be approved
as scripture. There was very little agreement among Christians and their leaders for many hundreds of years as to
which books should and should not be accepted as scripture.
For example, the following books were long disputed: Hebrews, James, Philippians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2
Peter, Jude, the Gospel of John, 2 and 3 John, and Revelation. (The Gospel and Epistles of John were disputed
because they were too Gnostic for many Catholics, Revelation because it was too weird) In fact, during the first four
hundred years of Christianity every book now contained in the New Testament was branded as a forgery or heretical
at one time or another by the Christian church!
In addition, a vast number of other books were accepted as divinely inspired that were later rejected by the Catholic
councils. A mere handful of these are: the seven Letters of Bishop Ignatius, the First and Second Epistles of Clement
to the Romans, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Teaching of the Twelve (the Didache), the
Epistle of Polycarp, the Acts of Paul, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of the Hebrews, the
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Gospel of Matthias, the Acts of Andrew, Paul's First Epistle to the Colossians, Paul's Epistle to the Laodiceans, and
many others. For a more detailed discussion of the formation of the current New Testament canon, go online to:
Many of the books mentioned above, that were once accepted as divinely inspired, are still in existence. Others have
disappeared completely, and are only known by historical references to them. Penguin Books publishes an excellent
paperback edition of a number of these books, titled Early Christian Writings.
The first official church council that was held to settle the question of the contents of the New Testament was the
Catholic Council of Laodicea (located in Asia Minor) in 363 AD. Those who attended this council consisted of
about thirty bishops. Their official Catholic pronouncement decreed that henceforth "No private psalms or any non-
canonical books shall be read in the Catholic Church, but only canonical books of the Old and New Testaments." The
books they list are the same as the current New Testament, except they do not include the book of Revelation.
However, the decision of this council was not universally accepted by the Catholic church or any other Christian
group, and the disputed books continued to be disputed. There continued to be official Catholic church councils held
to decide this issue, such as the Trullian Council in 692 AD. There continued to be Catholic councils trying to settle
this dispute in both Western and Eastern halves of the Empire, for centuries. The canon of the New Testament wasn't
finally settled until the Council of Florence in 1443 AD! At the Council of Florence, Paul’s Epistle to the
Laodiceans was removed from the New Testament, and the book of Hebrews took its place, among other decisions.
However, the decisions of the Council of Florence were only binding on the Western half of the Catholic church,
because the Eastern (Byzantine) half had separated in 1054 AD. To this day, the various Eastern Catholic churches
(the Eastern Orthodox Catholic church, the Coptics, the Ethiopians, the Armenians and Syrians) all have different
New Testaments than the Roman church, and from each other. For example, the Orthodox Catholic church refuses to
use the book of Revelation in any of its services, the Armenian NT contains the book of Third Corinthians, the Syrian
Orthodox NT lacks 2 and 3 John, 2 Peter, Jude and Revelation, and the Coptic NT includes First and Second
Clement. The Ethiopian Orthodox NT contains four books found nowhere else; the Sinodos, the Octateuch, the
Didascalia, and the Book of the Covenant! For more information read: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/
Or obtain the following books to explore the formation of the New Testament canon further: Introduction to the New
Testament, by Everett Harrison, published in 1971. Also, The Early Versions of the New Testament, by Bruce
Metzger, published in 1977.
The fact that the New Testament owes it's current canon of books to the decisions of the Catholic church should
cause all non-Catholic Christians to reconsider their unthinking blind acceptance of the books of the New Testament.
Especially since the current crop of New Testament books were edited and altered by the Catholic church. Writing in
the third century, Origen laments the fact that the manuscripts of the New Testament continued to be altered even in
his day. “It is an obvious fact today that there is much diversity among the manuscripts, due to either the carelessness
of the scribes, or the perverse audacity of some people in correcting the texts. Or again due to the fact that there are
those who add and delete as they please, setting themselves up as correctors.” (De Principii section three and
Commentary on Matthew)
Also, Eusebius, a fourth century church historian, quotes a second century ‘church father’, who wrote
shortly after the death of the apostle John: "Wherefore, they have no fear to lay hands on the divine
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Scriptures under pretence of correcting them. As for their denying their guilt, the thing is impossible, since
the copies were written in their own hand, and they did not receive the Scriptures in this condition from
their teachers, nor can they show the originals from which they made their copies" (Eusebius,
Ecclesiastical History, LCS, Vol. 1, pp. 522-524) In fact, of the well over 5,000 handwritten manuscripts of the
New Testament in existence, no two read exactly alike! Therefore, all Christians should seriously investigate books
rejected by the Catholic church such as the Nag Hammadi Library, for they contain a very different view of God than
the Catholic New Testament.
To sum up, we see that the commonly held belief that the Christian church had a single, uniform, New Testament
right from the start is an utter fiction. It took many centuries for the New Testament books to be decided upon, and
this was done by Catholic church councils in both Rome and Byzantium. Dissenting Christians with dissenting views
were squashed, as were their dissenting scriptures. However, even today, there is no single uniform New Testament,
for the New Testaments of the Middle Eastern forms of Christianity are diverse. Which of the many “New
Testaments” will you decide upon?
Chapter Three- THE SPIRITUAL NEW TESTAMENT
Fortunately, many of the ancient scriptures of the earliest Christians, the Gnostic Christians, came to light by accident
in 1945 in Nag (pronounced Naj) Hammadi, Egypt. Hence, these Scriptures are called the Nag Hammadi Library.
The Nag Hammadi Library forms a second, wiser, more spiritual New Testament than the Catholic New Testament
that all mainstream Christians currently use. For an excellent introduction to the Gnostic canon of Scripture, obtain
and read The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels, published by Vintage Press. Or, you can read the entire Nag
Hammadi library online at
The solution to the problem of evil which the Scriptures of the Gnostic (Knowing) Christians explain, and which the
Catholic church violently rejected, is simply this: The spiritual realms were made by our Heavenly Father, the all-
good and loving Father of whom Jesus spoke. This material universe is the creation of a lesser god, a very distant
descendant of the Absolute God. This lesser god was unable or unwilling to create a universe free of suffering and
death. The True God, however, has been active through the Holy Spirit and various divinities such as Wisdom
(Sophia), Life (Zoe) and Grace (Charis), to bring us a direct Knowing of the Divine. This activity culminated in Jesus
Christ. Let us now examine the Biblical evidence for the existence of many gods.
Chapter Four- THE FABLE OF JEWISH MONOTHEISM
Often we are told that the world owes belief in one God to the Jewish people. That is nonsense. The Jewish religion
was henotheistic, and even polytheistic, during most of its history. Let’s examine the false claim of “Jewish
Monotheism” by looking at the Jew’s own scriptures.
The singular form of the Hebrew word for God is el. The plural form is elohim (and sometimes eloah), that literally
mean gods, or even more accurately, “mighty ones”. Also, whenever you see LORD or GOD in all capitals in the Old
Testament, the original Hebrew is Jehovah/Yahweh, and it occurs well over six thousand times. The name Jehovah is
normally covered up by LORD and GOD because of a Jewish superstition that regards the name as too sacred to
pronounce. This superstition was carried over into Christianity. However, Jehovah was simply considered the Chief
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