On a number of occasions in the New testament believers are commanded to believe in the NAME of Jesus Christ - as if there is something special about his NAME.

There is.

In Greek his name is IESOUS CHRISTOS - which rearranges to:

OSIRIS SET CHOUS

Chous means "grave".

Almost everybody, including most atheists, dismiss this as "of no significance".

But:

The Greek name of St Peter:

SIMWN PETROS

...rearranges to:

MORTWS PENIS

Mortuus penis is Latin for "dead penis".

Have I got your interest?

If one follows this path of inquiry one is led to the conclusion that Christianity began as a cult, probably started by a single individual who interpolated into pre-existing religious texts (that made no mention of Jesus Christ) the INVENTED characters Jesus Christ, Simon Peter ... and others.

My studies have convinced me that ALL references to Jesus Christ and Christianity in Romans are interpolations. That the story of Jesus in Mark orginally described a man (possibly not called Jesus) who was NOT depicted as a "supernatural" being ... someone altered the story and turned the central character into Jesus Christ and added other "supporting" characters.

Naaah. We have enough trouble here with eccentric (not to mention the many standard) quibbles over what means what in the long, long Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition. Besides, we're not into necrophilia.

I think you're Schrodinger's Cat in disguise. I'll wait to see if you're alive or dead.

Well, I have gone through Romans and removed all references to Jesus & Christianity - and ended up with a bog-standard Jewish religious text that comes across much more coherent than what we have today. If one marks the Christian interpolations then reads the body of the text in a "normal voice", switching into a "religious fanatic voice" for the Christian bits one gets a distinct sense that the text has obviously been deliberately and calculatedly altered. One can see numerous instances where the sense of the original has been lost or distorted by the Christian additions.

NC , what happened to Newton's kitten ? Remember he cut a hole in the door, just for you, and when there was a kitten he cut another, smaller, hole alongside it for the kitten to come in and out too. I assume you can shed some (white)light on the story.

So - Jesus' name anagrams to Osiris Set "grave", and Simon Peter's anagrams to "dead penis" - so what?

Well, Osiris, God of the Underworld (the grave, the afterlife - a good god) was killed and chopped into pieces by Set, his evil brother, and the bits were spread around Egypt. Isis, Osiris' wife collected all the bits, reassembled him - with exception of his penis. Then she breathed him back to life. Now - despite Osiris not having the necessary organ Isis managed to get pregnant and gave birth to Horus - who was a "resurrection" of the ancient Egyptian creator God, also called Horus (usually called Horus the Elder to distinguish him from Horus, son of Osiris and Isis).

Now, St Peter was the founder of the Catholic Church. St Peter is the missing penis which fathered the "latest version" of Horus, the supreme God.

Something like that ...

Hmmm... Sounds like Newton's Cat is talking about a WANTON SECT. You'd think he (or she?) WAS CONTENT, or at least CANNOT STEW about it. Incidentally, the title chosen for this topic (The NAME Jesus Christ) anagrams to JEERS THIN MUSTACHES -- no doubt a mystical message concerning God's opinions about facial hair. Anagrams can be so very enlightening.

Well, I have to admit that I'm not sold. Do you have any reasons other than the two anagrams to believe this to be the case?

I suppose one could say that either the guy who started Christianity deliberately arranged for the names of his main characters to be anagrams - or godidit - just to confuse us.

Naah! It's just a coincidence!

Back in the early 90s in the UK we had a Conservative (Tory) government minister called Virginia Bottomley. The Sun newspaper published an anagram of her name:

Virginia Bottomley = I'm an evil tory bigot