Theme 3: Heal by Connecting with the Divine Powers

(July 9, 2022) 1 Corinthians 9:14, Mark 6:7,12-13, Q (Matthew 10:7-8, Luke 9:2, 10:4 -12), Thomas 14: Validity = 1.57 [Copied from Mark: Matthew 10:1, Luke 9:1-Luke 9:3-6)

Josephus, the Jewish historian of the era, confirms that Jesus had the reputation as a miraculous healer:​

The Greek words for healing attributed to Jesus and the disciples are iama and therapeuo. Iama  means "to heal by making whole" while therapeuo means "to nurse" or "to physically cure." If therapeuo is combined with the psychological healing phrase about driving out demons then sentence has the same healing range as iama.  

Unfortunately, Christian Bible translators do not make such a distinction and assign the word “healing” to both iama and therapeuo so the reader has no way of knowing which word is really being used. Here is an example of how Paul uses iama:

Healing requires a connection with the divine powers but this key concept has been suppressed by a translation error involving the word “gospel.”  As an example, consider this sentence from Paul which is one of the sources for this teaching:

Here the root word aggello is incorrectly assigned two different words “preach” and “gospel.” Word change-outs like this indicate a biased and sloppy translation. Proper ancient word meanings are found by examining how they are used in all sentences. If the ancients used one word, then so should we. The best English word to use for aggello covering all its uses is “divine contact.” The Greek word aggelion is personified by its variant spelling of angelion which is translated in the Bible as "angel." In this case it could also be translated as divine-connector which is more descriptive of an angel’s function.

The word anggello (angelion) is used with the following two prefixes:

1.  eu means “good” in Greek.
2.  kat, kata means “bring down” in Greek as in some dream or influence from the divine powers coming down to earth

The word aggelion with its /n/ ending is plural so its translation as singular “gospel” is obviously wrong. The word “gospel” in English came from the word "godspel" which first appears in the margins as a translation clarification for native English speakers in an 11th century English Greek New Testament. The copyist wrote his clarification using words from three different languages in the margin:

When translated properly into English the sentence is: 

Euuangelium (Greek word), that is, good divine-connector (Latin words), is a substitute (Old English word).

The word “godspel” in this sentence comes from the Old English word gespelia meaning "substitute.” In time this was shortened to “spelled” which was used when a worker "spelled" another and which in time became the phrase “rest a spell.” 

The word “spell” has a complex history having other meanings deriving from other similar sounding source words. One source word comes from Old Norse spjalla via Old English spellian and it means “speech” including a magical speech. Another meaning comes from Old French espelir which means “explaining” things such as describing a word letter by letter. This French meaning replaced the old English meaning around 1400 BCE. (Online Etymological Dictionary).  

The Latin word nuntium which the copyist indicated was a substitute word also means “divine connection.” An official of the Catholic church who speaks for the Pope is a "papal nuncio."  The Pope was thought of as God’s divine connection on earth and his envoys were therefore also divine connectors.   

Other possible meanings for godspel have been suggested by many in the past which involve treating it as a compound word. These are “good spell” and “God spell” but those are not verbs and do not result in a sentence.

References

(July 9, 2022) Mark 11:22-23, Q (Matthew 17:20,  Luke 17:6, Thomas 48, Thomas 106: Validity = 1.25  [Copied from Mark: Matthew 21:21]

Hard to know if this teaching was aimed at Jesus’ disciples or the patients. Placebo healing requires the patients have confidence in the healer at a deep emotional conditioning level. The Greek noun for "confidence" is pistis while its verb is peitho. Christian translations incorrectly translate it into English as the word “faith.” Confidence is not faith because it is not something which can be gained by willful belief. Like all conditioned habits it is only established by repeated successful observations enhanced by reason, peer pressure and statements from “authoritative” sources.

In this teaching Jesus is giving a hyperbolic example about the importance of confidence in healing. Whether Jesus really thought confidence could move mountains or he was using hyperbole to make a point is unknown (but the teaching was remembered!) 

(July 9, 2022) Mark 3:28-29, Q (Matthew 12:32, Luke 12:10, Thomas 44: Validity = 1.02   [Copied from Mark Matthew 12:31

In order to use the spiritual powers involved home energy a person must first unblock any emotional/spiritual channels conflicting with those powers. This involves identifying those conflicting emotions such as envy, fear, blame, and anger and then letting them go (releasing) them. 

Apparently one of the most common emotional problems addressed by Jesus was people blaming others for their own issues, specifically blaming the Divine powers/spirits for their failures in spiritual energy work. Jesus had to remind them that many possible reasons existed for this failure but that a person should not get angry and start blaming others. They had to release and let go of negative emotions. 

The Greek word meaning "release" used in this teaching is aphesis. It is defined in the standard Liddell, Scot, Jones Ancient Greek Lexicon as follows:

Yet Christian translators incorrectly translate it as the word "forgiven":

The word “forgiven” is not used.  Instead, Jesus used the more magical “emotional-release.” Forgiving someone first requires blaming someone and Jesus did not promote playing the blame game.

(July 9, 2022) Mark 6:1-6, John 4:43-45, Thomas 31: Validity = 0.85

Jesus and his disciples were healers of body and soul. At the minimum they were counselors with their promotion of divine home energy and placebo effect healers for the body. Lacking modern medicine, this was really some of the best doctoring most ancients had. The placebo effect should not be assumed to be an effect only of the material realm. How its works remains unknown.

Yet this healing did not always work and this evidence was deliberately suppressed by Matthew and Luke because it shows that Jesus was not the all-powerful apocalyptic Messiah they wanted him to be be.

This teaching is good evidence that the healing of Jesus was mostly based upon the placebo effect. The Gospel of Mark clearly states the healing failure was due to a lack of confidence (pistis) on the part of the those being healed. In contrast to Mark, Thomas has Jesus being unwilling, instead of being unable, to do miracles in his hometown.

The placebo effect was the most effective healing method the ancients had. The word “placebo” means “I shall please” and it derives from the Latin verb placere meaning “to please.” Due to the effectiveness of placebos all new medical drugs are tested against placebos as a test of material effectiveness. Only if a new drug is statistically better than the placebo effect is it considered to be “effective” in a material sense although the placebo effect is often quite effective in its own right.

A now classic example of the placebo effect is its effect on the irritable bowel syndrome. Drug studies involving the drug Alosetron showed that 51% of patients treated with Alosetron had adequate relief as compared to 38% of patients treated with placebo (Kaptchuk and all 2010). A 38% success rate is still very significant. The drug only added another 13% to patient relief meaning that the placebo effect was the main healing mechanism.

Another study involving Alosetron in the same paper (Kaptchuk and all 2010) shows that placebo pills will even work if a doctor tells a patient to take pills which are labeled “placebo” and told they “are like sugar pills.” This is clear evidence that deep emotional conditioning about the effectiveness of pills is at work here and not the strength of a willful belief.

The final study in the same Alosetron paper (Kaptchuk and all 2010a) lasted three weeks and involved 80 people (70% of them women). It studied the effects of a caring healing environment on irritable bowel symptoms, 59% reported adequate symptom relief after taking placebo pills within a caring environment compared to 35% who did not take any pills yet who experienced the same caring environment. (Kaptchuk and all 2010b). This result of placebo in a caring environment is slightly better than the tests with the approved medicine Alosetron!  

Consequently, placebo healing works best in loving, stress reducing environment. This is because those environments tend to inhibit the triggering of emotionally negative responses and this allows expectations to work with maximum effectiveness. Specifically, the type of support required for maximum placebo healing is listed below (Brody & Brody 2000, page 84):

1. The individual is listened to and receives an explanation for the illness that makes sense.
2. The individual feels care and concern being expressed by the healer and others in the environment.
3. The individual feels an enhanced sense of mastery or control over the illness or its symptoms.