Tony Bushby’s ‘The Bible Fraud’
Chapter One
What was the church trying to hide?
In 1415, the Church of Rome took an extraordinary step to destroy all knowledge of two Second Century Jewish books that it said contained “the true name of Jesus Christ”. The Antipope Benedict XIII firstly singled out for condemnation a secret Latin treatise called “Mar Yesu” and then issued instructions to destroy all copies of the Book of Elxai. No editions of these writings now publicly exist, but church archives recorded that they were once in popular circulation and known to the early presbyters. Knowledge of these writings survived from quotations made by Bishop Hippolytus of Rome (176-236) and St. Epiphanius of Salamis (315-403) along with references in some early editions of the Talmud of Palestine and Babylonia. The rabbinic fraternity once held the destroyed manuscripts with great reverence for they were comprehensive original records reporting the “Life of Rabbi Jesus”.
Later, in a similar manner, Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503) ordered all copies of the Talmud destroyed. The Council of the Inquisition required as many Jewish writings as possible to burn with the Spanish Grand Inquisitor, Tomas de Torquemada (1420-98), responsible for the elimination of 6000 volumes at Salamanca. In 1550, Cardinal Caraffa, the Inquisitor-General procured a Bull from the Pope repealing all previous permission for priests to read the Talmud which he said contained “hostile stories about Jesus Christ”. Bursting forth with fury at the head of his minions, he seized every copy he could find in Rome and burnt them. Solomon Romano (1554) also burnt many thousands of Hebrew scrolls and in 1559, every Hebrew book in the city of Prague was confiscated. The mass destruction of Jewish books included hundreds of copies of the Old Testament and caused the irretrievable loss of many original hand-written documents. The oldest text of the Old Testament that survived, before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, was said to be the Bodleian Codex (Oxford), which was dated to circa 1100AD. In an attempt by the church to remove damaging rabbinic information about Jesus Christ from the face of the earth, the Inquisition burnt 12,000 volumes of the Talmud. However, many copies survived and today provide opposing traditions about the person called Jesus Christ.
In the mass destruction of Jewish writings, the church overlooked two particular British documents that also recorded “the true name of Jesus Christ”. They survive to this day in the British Museum and are called the “Chronicles” and the “Myvyean Manuscript”, treasured ancient documents with a very early origin. Supporting evidence was also found on early First Century gold, silver and bronze coins discovered at the site of an ancient mint at Camulodunum (Colchester) in Britain. “Thus the testimony of the Briton coins establishes clearly and positively the historicity of the traditional ancient “Chronicles” as authentic historical records” (The Phoenician Origin of Britons, Scots and Anglo-Saxons; L. A. Waddell, 1924, Pg. 393).
The evidence is compelling, and additional supporting clues are found on a mysterious headstone in Germany, in Vatican art treasures, and in a series of coded sentences in the Shakespearean Plays. Further concealed information was left in the form of specially created statues commissioned by a Catholic priest and positioned in a small hilltop church in Southern France. Coded ciphers were also secreted into the first English-language printings of the Bible and a combination of all clues provides interlocking information and presents a new insight into the origin of Christianity.
Secret ciphers in the New Testament
It was the “wisest fool in Christendom” (Henry the Fourth; also, W. McElwee; Declaratio Pro Iure Regio 1615; also Sully), King James I (1566-1625), who “authorized” the translation and publication of the first Protestant version of the Bible into English. He came to the English throne in 1603 and quickly became unpopular because of “his disgusting personal habits and his unsavoury character” (James 1; Charles Williams, circa 1640). He pretended to be a scholar in theology and philosophy, but his learning was shallow and superficial. He wallowed in filth, moral and physical, but was endowed with a share of cunning that his associates called, “a kind of crooked wisdom” (Proceedings in Parliament, Mar. 17th 1621).
For his new edition of the Bible he issued a set of personal “Rules” the translators were to follow and ordered revisions to proceed, although he never contributed a farthing to its cost. Work began early in 1607 and took a committee of 47 men (some records say 54, others say 50) two years and nine months to rewrite the Bible and make ready for the press. Each man received 30 shillings per week for his contribution. Upon its completion in 1609, a remarkable event occurred; the translators handed over the reviser’s manuscripts of what is now called the King James Bible to King James for his final personal approval. “It was self-evident that James was not competent to check their work and edit it, so he passed the manuscripts on to the greatest genius of all time … Sir Francis Bacon” (Bacon and the Rosicrucians; W.F.C. Wigston).
Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was a man of many talents, a lawyer, linguist and composer. He mastered every subject he undertook; mathematics, geometry, music, poetry, painting, astronomy, classical drama and poetry, philosophy, history, theology and architecture. He was a man of many aims and purposes, the father of modern science, remodeler of modern law, patron of modern democracy, and possibly the reviver of Freemasonry. His life and works are extensively documented, and his intellectual accomplishments widely recognized, particularly in academic circles. At the age of 16, he was sent to Paris “direct from the Queens Hand” and there studied Egyptian, Arabian, Indian and Greek philosophy with particular attention given to the Ancient Mysteries and their Ritual Rites. He personally recorded that while in Paris he created a secret cipher system that could be inserted into a document without arousing suspicion. While living in Europe, Francis Bacon was initiated into the mysterious Order of the Knights Templars and learnt a very special secret. Before he returned to London, he travelled to France, Italy, Germany and Spain and at the age of 20 completely devoted himself to the study of law. From his understanding of the secret information he had learned during his initiation into the Knights Templar, he conceived the idea of reactivating various Secret Societies and in 1580 founded the secret Rosicrosse Literary Society in Gray’s Inn. Later in the same year, he founded the Lodge of Free and Accepted or Speculative Masons, also at Gray’s Inn.
On June 25th 1607, Sir Francis Bacon was appointed Solicitor-General and Chief Advisor to the Crown. He had presented new ideas to the Government for the Reformation of the church and was officially instructed to commence restructuring the Bible. Research in the Records Office of the British Museum revealed original documents still exist which referred to important proceedings associated with Sir Francis Bacon’s involvement with the editing of both the Old and New Testaments. They revealed that he personally selected and paid the revisers of the New Testament who completed their task under the instructions of Bacon’s long-time friend, Dr. Andrews.
The first English language manuscripts of the Bible remained in Bacon’s possession for nearly a year. During that time,
“…he hammered the various styles of the translators into the unity, rhythm, and music of Shakespearean prose, wrote the Prefaces and created the whole scheme of the Authorized Version”.
(The Martyrdom of Francis Bacon; Alfred Dodd, Pg. 141; undated, but circa 1940)
He also encoded secret information into both the Old and New Testaments. An ancient document recorded that the true history of early Christianity was known to the initiates of the Order of the Knights Templar, having originally being….
“… imparted to Hugh de Payens by the Grand-Pontiff of the Order of the Temple (of the Nazarene sect), one named Theocletes, after which it was learned by some Knights in Palestine”.
(Resuscitatio or, “Bringing into Publick Light, Several Pieces hitherto Sleeping”; Dr. William Rawley, 1657)
Regarding the months of editing work applied to the Bible by Bacon, his biographer, William T. Smedley, confirmed the extent of the editing:-
“It will eventually be proved that the whole structure of the Authorised Bible was Francis Bacon’s. He was an ardent student not only of the Bible, but also of early manuscripts. St. Augustine, St Jerome, and writers of theological works, were studied by him with industry”.
(“The Mystery of Francis Bacon”; circa 1910, Pg. 128)
At the completion of the editing, Sir Francis Bacon and King James 1 had a series of meetings to finalise editorial matters associated with the new Bible. It was at this time that King James ordered a “Dedication to the King” to be drawn up and included in the opening pages. He also wanted the phrase “Appointed to be read in the Churches” to appear on the title page. This was an announcement clarifying that King James had personally given the church “Special Command” for this particular version of the Bible to be used in preference to the vast array of Greek and Latin Vulgate Bibles current at the time. His reason was personal, as King James had previously instructed the revisers to “defend the position of the king” in their restructuring of the texts. This was seen as an attempt to distance the Protestant Bible from the Catholic version. The Protestant versions of the Bible are thinner by seven books than the Catholic version and the variant churches have never agreed on a uniform Bible. In their translation of 1 Peter 2:13 the revisors changed the phrase “the emperor, as supreme” to “the king, as supreme”. Because King James’ Bible was written to support the authority of a king, the later church often referred to it as the one from “authority”, and it later came to be presented as if officially “authorized”. In subsequent revisions, the word “authorized” found its way onto the title page and later still came to be printed on the cover, giving King James’ new Bible a false sense of authenticity.
The King James Bible is considered by many today to be the “original” Bible and therefore “genuine” and all later revisions simply counterfeits forged by “higher critics”. Others think the King James Bible is “authentic” and “authorized” and presents the original words of the authors as translated into English from the “original” Greek text. However, the “original” Greek text was not written until around the mid-Fourth Century and was a revised edition of writings compiled decades earlier in Aramaic and Hebrew. Those earlier documents no longer exist (Ency. Brit.; 9th
Ed.; Vol. 10; Pg. 814; see also Papias; Eccl. Hist.) and the Bibles we have today are five linguistic removes from the first Bibles written. What was written in the “original originals” is quite unknown. It is important to remember that the words, “authorized” and “original” as applied to the Bible do not mean “genuine”, “authentic” or “true”.
Sir Francis Bacon was a master of concealing secret information in his writings and his methods can be found in the Bible. Bacon took delight to hide his works, to the end they might be found out. It was a time of severe repression and of harsh government, and free speech was impossible. Able men could only dissemble and speak in allegory. “If they had expressed their opinions openly they would have been sent to the Tower and the Block” (The Rise of English Culture; Edwin Johnson, Preface). The most famous of all literal cryptograms was the famous bilateral cipher described by Bacon in his “De Augmentis Scientiarum”. Sir Francis originated the system while still a young man residing in Paris and this particular cipher required the use of two styles of typeface, one an ordinary face and the other especially designed. The differences between the two fonts are in many cases so minute that it requires a powerful magnifying glass to detect them. Originally, the cipher messages were concealed only in italicised words, sentences or paragraphs, because the italic letters, being more ornate than the Roman letters, offered greater opportunity for concealing the slight but necessary variations. Sometimes the letters vary a little in size; at other times in thickness or in their ornamental flourishes.
Alphabets secretly adjusted were not entirely satisfactory, however, for although they rendered unintelligible the true nature of the writings, their very presence disclosed the fact of concealed information. Through patience or persecution, the keys to those alphabets were eventually acquired and the contents of the documents revealed to the unworthy. This was not good enough and necessitated employment of more subtle methods of concealing divine truths. The result was the appearance of cryptic systems of writing designed to conceal the presence of both the message and the cryptogram. Thus having devised a method of transmitting their secrets to posterity, Sir Francis Bacon and others like him encouraged the circulation of certain documents specially prepared through incorporating into them ciphers containing the deepest secrets of religion, mysticism and philosophy. Thus, medieval Masons and Rosicrucians disseminated their secrets throughout the World without evoking suspicion, since volumes containing these cryptograms could be subject to scrutiny without revealing the presence of the hidden message.
During the Middle Ages scores of members of secret political or religious organizations published books containing ciphers. Secret writings became a fad; every European court had its own diplomatic cipher, and the intelligentsia vied with one another in devising curious and complicated cryptograms. The literature of the 15th, 16th and 17th Centuries was permeated with ciphers,
few of which have ever been decoded. Many liberal churchmen, it was interesting to note, used cryptograms, fearing excommunication or a worse fate should their researches be suspected. Had they failed to conceal their discoveries under complicated cipher, they faced the possibility of persecution as heretics. Some of the ciphers are so intricate that they may forever baffle attempts at their decipherment. In those susceptible of a solution, sometimes the “a”s and “b”s have to be exchanged; at other times the concealed message was written backwards; again only every other letter is counted; and so on.
Any picture or drawing with other than its obvious meaning may be considered a pictorial cryptogram. Instances of strange pictorial ciphers abound in Masonic and Rosicrucian art. In addition to the simple pictorial cipher, there is the more technical form in which, for example, words or letters are concealed by the number of stones in a wall, by ripples on the surface of water, or by the length and order of lines used in shading. The shape, height or proportion of a building, the folds on a person’s garment, were all used to conceal definite figures or characters which could be exchanged for letters or words by a person acquainted with the code. The key necessary for their decipherment sometimes accompanies pictorial cryptograms. A figure may point towards the starting point of the cipher or carry in its hand some implement disclosing the system of measurement used. There are also frequent instances in which the cryptographer purposely distorted or improperly clothed some figure in his drawing by placing the hat on backwards, the sword on the wrong side, of the shield on the wrong arm, or by employing some similar artifice. The much-discussed sixth finger on the Pope’s hand in Raphael’s “Sistine Madonna” and the sixth toe on Joseph’s foot in the “Marriage of the Virgin” by the same artist are cunningly concealed cryptograms.
A particular pictorial design with dogs, rabbits and archers is found over the address, “To The Christian Reader”, in the 1612 edition of the Authorized Version of the King James Bible. This identical design was also found in the folio edition of Shakespeare. However, it was the 1612 quarto edition of the Authorized Version of the Bible that was of most interest, for on the title-page of the Genealogies are two complex head-piece designs both of which were used by Sir Francis Bacon in previous books he wrote and published in 1593 and 1594. The selection of these designs was not made by chance but was deliberately chosen to create similitude between certain books and mark their connections with each other. Most noticeable was the light and dark capital A’s (A.A) in the lower design which was also used on several Shakespeare quartos and elsewhere. This direct connection between the Bible and the Shakespearean plays has been long overlooked and the knowledge that hidden ciphers appear in both the King James Bible and the Shakespearean plays arrests attention. Those writings contain cryptographically concealed information that was purposely encoded into the actual text and is still there today.
What the Mystery Schools knew about Jesus
Scores of volumes were written to establish that Sir Francis Bacon was the real author of the plays and sonnets popularly ascribed to William Shakespeare. An impartial consideration of these documents cannot but convince the open-minded of the verisimilitude of the theory of Bacon being the author of the Shakespearean plays. Those enthusiasts who for years struggled to identify Sir Francis Bacon as the true “Bard of Avon” might long since have won their case had they emphasized the most important angle. That was, Sir Francis Bacon, the Knights Templar, Masonic and Rosicrucian initiate, wrote into the Shakespearean plays the secret teachings of the Fraternity of the Rose Cross, the “Lost Word” of the Freemason Order, and major clues to unlock the hidden story in the Gospels. A sentimental world, however, dislikes giving up a traditional hero, either to solve a controversy or to right a wrong. Nevertheless, the Bacon/Shakespeare controversy, as its most able advocates realize, involves the most profound aspects of science, religion and ethics; he or she who solves its mystery may yet find therein the key to the supposedly Lost Wisdom of Antiquity.
Abundant proof exists that Sir Francis Bacon was concerned in one way or another in the production or editing of the Shakespearean plays. Sir Francis Bacon’s personal cipher number was 33, indicating that he was a fully initiated Mason. In the “First Part of King Henry the Fourth,” the word “Francis” appeared 33 times on one page. To attain this end, obviously awkward sentences were required, such as: “ANON FRANCIS? No Francis, but tomorrow Francis; or Francis; on Thursday; or indeed Francis when then will; but Francis”. Here we see one example of the concealed use of the mystical number 33 in the Shakespearean Plays.
The Masonic order of degrees was divided into 33 symbolic sections (33º). The number 33 is often used in the Secret Mystery Schools and a variety of opinions exist as to why. The Torah employed the divine name 32 times in the Creation story at the beginning of the Old Testament book of Genesis. Of this, the Cabalists say that through these 32 paths, the soul descends to be clothed in the physical body and the 33rd path is the ultimate return to stand before God’s presence at the end of life on Earth.
Sir Francis became heavily involved in the redevelopment of both Freemason and Rosicrucian Mystery Schools. It was suggested that he created his own secret Society, by the agency of which he carried through his works, but it was difficult to find any concrete evidence that such a Society existed. Books came from his pen at a rate which, when the truth is revealed, will literally “stagger humanity” (The Secret Shake-speare; Alfred Dodd, MCMXLI). He made translations of ancient classics and histories and his “Good Pens” (other writers) wrote books under his direction. He saw them through to the press, and every book published under his direction carried his favourite secret cipher, stylised light and dark capital A’s, side-by-side (A.A).
The double “A.A” was Sir Francis Bacon’s hidden signature cipher for “AthenA”, known in Mythology as Pallas Minerva, Athene or Athena, which meant Virgin. The letters making up PALLAS MINERVA, ATHENE OR ATHENA, VIRGIN numbered 33, and she was the esteemed Goddess of Sir Francis Bacon’s Mystery Schools. The initiates dedicated themselves in her honour and vowed to uphold her ideals.
Athena was the Goddess of Wisdom and usually depicted in art wearing a helmet and holding a spear in her right hand in readiness to strike at a serpent near her feet. She was known as the “Spear-shaker” among the ancient Greeks because when the morning rays of the sun glinted on the spear, the common people where in the habit of saying smilingly; “Athena is shaking her spear again”; hence her name, “Spear-shaker”. She was the Goddess to whom the Rosicrosse Brethren swore allegiance when they were initiated in the Secret Literary Order, the Knights of the Order and Francis Bacon was the head of the Spear-shakers. Side by side with the Rosicrosse arose the Lodge of the Freemasons and the College of the Rosicrucian Fraternity, which persist to this day. Both Orders threateningly “shake spears” at the candidate during the trials of his initiation. “It was Francis Bacon’s secret symbol to represent that he was “The Spear-shaker’s” representative known by the name of Shakespeare. Thus the “Spear-shaker” wrote under the name of Shake-speare and was Sir Francis Bacon” (Bacon and the Rosicrucians; W. F. C. Wigston; Also see, The Mirror of Pallas).
Sir Francis Bacon used the first and last letters of Athena’s name (A.A) as headpieces to subtly mark particular books connected with the Secret Orders of the Rosicrucians and Masons. “In these books Francis Bacon had the opportunity to secrete his personal secrets which he dare not write openly about” (Francis Bacon’s Cipher Signatures; Frank Woodward). There were many different designs of the “A.A” cipher and numerous books that bear the coded signal are connected, including the Authorised Edition of the King James Bible and the Shakespearean Plays.
“One “A” was printed light and the other ”A” dark to indicate that while there was much open and straightforward in the designated book, there was also much in the shadow which could only be discovered by searching” (The Secret Shake-speare; Alfred Dodd, MCMXLI; Also; The Martyrdom of Francis Bacon; also by Alfred Dodd).
Jesus in the Shakespearean Plays
The full name that Francis Bacon constructed to appear on the title pages of his writings was “William Shakespeare”, and was created (maybe) without reference to him of Stratford, who possible bore, or had assigned to him, a somewhat similar name (It seems his real name was originally Shakspur). There was good reason to suspect this was exactly what happened, for Sir Francis Bacon created a superstructure of numbers built up on the exact spelling of the words “William Shakespeare”. Anybody looking closely at Bacon’s clues will see also the year 1623 was specially selected for the issue of the complete volume of the plays, because of the extraordinary relations which the numbers composing it bear to the combined names William Shakespeare and Sir Francis Bacon. Simply put, the total number of the letters of the two names adds up to 33, the Masonic cipher number (WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE; SIR FRANCIS BACON = 33 letters). It was not surprising then, to note that the letters of the year 1623, when written in words, also added up to 33 (SIXTEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY THREE YEARS = 33 letters). The chances of this letter/word/number combination happening by chance, according to mathematical experts, are 4.8 million to one. The intriguing relationship of numbers was also carried through to the year 1561, in which the birth of Francis Bacon was registered and, curiously enough, to 1564 and 1616, the reputed dates of the birth and death of the Stratford man.
The Shakespearean plays and the “authorised” Bible of 1611 contained hidden messages about Jesus, Mary Magdalene and the substance of the Gospel story. Sir Francis knew the secret of Christian origins and concealed his knowledge in both the Shakespeare Folio of 1623 and the New Testament. His secrets are encoded in a system of letters and numbers that reveal to the initiated the presence of concealed information. The secret of the Knights Templar, the Masons and the Rosicrucians was purposely encoded into the texts by Sir Francis, and several of his complex ciphers are decoded in upcoming chapters. With the availability of concealed records, a new interpretation of the Gospels is revealed, and the history of mankind has no counterpart to the strange story that unfolds.
End of extract.
This book is compulsory reading in 6 Universities in the United States and can be found in any self-respecting library around the world.