Note what he commanded : "Take two fine goats that look alike and offer them up. Let the priest take one of them as a whole burnt offering for sins." What should they do with the other? "The other one," he said, "is accursed." Note how the type of Jesus is revealed : "And all of you spit upon it and pierce it, and then tie scarlet wool around its head and send it out that way into the wilderness." [...] What does this mean? Pay attention : "The first goat is for the altar, and the other is accursed." Notice that the accursed one is crowned, because then they will see him on that day wearing a scarlet robe that goes down to his feet, and they shall say, "Isn't this the one we rejected and pierced and spat upon? Truly this is the same one who claimed then to be the Son of God. How alike he is to Him!" This is why the goats had to be fine goats that look similar to each other, so that when they see him coming then, they'll be amazed by the goat's likeness. Recognize in this the type of Jesus who was to suffer."
- The Epistle of Barnabas 7:6-11

Traditionally ascribed to the companion of Saint Paul, the Epistle of Barnabas was written sometime between 70 AD - 135 AD. Its claims that all the commandments, rituals, and practices of the Old Testament should be interpreted allegorically were highly regarded in the early church. The work was even deemed canonical in some circles, being accepted as divinely inspired scripture by Jerome, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen. It was even included among the books of the New Testament in the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Hierosolymitanus .

In the passage above, this early Christian work directly associates Jesus with the two goats of the Yom Kippur ceremony, and then suggests something very interesting indeed. It declares that one of the two goats of the Yom Kippur ceremony is traditionally tortured (spit upon and 'goaded', or 'pierced with reeds') before it is set free, while the other goat is not tortured but instead put to death 'whole'. Declaring this ancient Jewish ritual to reflect Christ's own crucifixion and death strongly suggests that, just as so many ancient heresies insisted, one Jesus was beaten and tortured, but quite another Jesus was hung upon the cross.

The Basilidians, a second century Christian sect, believed that Jesus' image was transferred to another who was crucified in His place. This idea apparently still held currency four centuries later, for it wound up being incorporated into Mohammed's teachings as well. Islamic culture still maintains today that another man took Jesus' place on the cross, someone with the same physical appearance:

Who Was the Scapegoat?

If there indeed were two Jesuses on stage alongside Pilate, and both ended up being saddled with the same guilt, but one was murdered while the other was set free, what happened to the one who got away? Is there any way for us to figure out who this might have been? Who was the scapegoat who presumably also received humanity's sins, but had to carry them in life instead of death?

In the ancient Yom Kippur ritual, the scapegoat was allowed to just disappear into the wilderness. Similarly, some would say, Barabbas also disappeared from the pages of history. But did he really? If Barabbas was a scapegoat who was set free while still carrying the crushing burden of guilt placed upon him, could he have realistically escaped into historical obscurity? Matthew identified him as a well-known public figure even before Jesus' crucifixion; could he have possibly disappeared from public life after having played such a major role in the foundational event of the Christian church?

What do we know about this mysterious Jesus Barabbas, who, if all the Yom Kippur parallels are not pure coincidences, apparently could have effectively substituted for Christ on the cross? We probably don't even know his real name, since the name 'Jesus' (which means "God Saves") was frequently adopted by would-be Jewish messiahs in the first century. We do, however, know that Barabbas was apparently presented as a perfect twin to Jesus, since he was seen fit to fill the predetermined role of the Yom Kippur scapegoat. And if these Yom Kippur parallels point true, then we also know that when he left the scene, the man called Barabbas was symbolically carrying a huge burden of guilt on his shoulders.

Jesus Had A Twin Brother?

Does any figure of the early church fulfill that description? Yes -- Judas -- the legendary betrayer of Jesus, the only person besides Jesus who was originally portrayed as holding any guilt after the events of Christ's passion were completed. Even though Jesus had theoretically assumed all the sins of humanity on his shoulders with His crucifixion, Judas seems to be a glaring exception to that rule, portrayed as doomed from the earliest days of the church.⁽⁴⁾ If anyone in Christian history ever shouldered a greater burden of guilt than Jesus took on, it was Judas. Like the scapegoat of Yom Kippur, he walked away from that event carrying far more guilt than before it started.

But was Judas an identical twin of Jesus? If he was the same Judas as the author of the Gospel of Thomas and the Book of Thomas, he might have been. The author of those works, whose name actually was Judas, was specifically identified as "Didymos Judas Thomas", or in other words, "Twin Judas Twin". In his Book of Thomas, he was described not only as Jesus' "brother",⁽⁵⁾ but indeed as his "twin and true companion".⁽⁶⁾ And in the Acts of Thomas, Judas Thomas is depicted as not merely being Jesus' twin brother, but indeed His identical twin, looking so like him that the two could easily be mistaken for one another :

"And he saw the Lord Jesus in the likeness of the apostle Judas Thomas, who shortly before had blessed them and departed from them, conversing with the bride, and he said to him, 'Didn't you go out before them all? How can you be here now?' But the Lord said to him, 'I am not Judas who is also Thomas, I am his brother.'"
- The Acts of Thomas

If this is the same Judas who wrote the Biblical Book of Jude, he may well have been Jesus' biological brother, since Jude 1 identifies Judas as the brother of James the Just, and James was Jesus' brother.⁽⁷⁾ Indeed, both the Gospels of Matthew and Mark explicitly declare that Jesus had four brothers -- Joseph, Simon, James, and Jude.

As it turns out, a number of elements in the Book of Jude would also seem to support the hypothesis that Judas Thomas taught the binary soul doctrine. In Jude 10, for instance, he complains that many in the early church were ignorantly condemning teachings they didn't understand; this, of course, is the very argument gnostics were leveling against the orthodox in those earliest days. In Jude 6, he mysteriously mentions angels who fled their homes and betrayed their responsibilities, an apt metaphor for conscious spirits who abandon their unconscious souls at the end of each life. Jude reports that those angels were condemned to remain bound in darkness until Judgment Day, which again is metaphorically consistent with the BSD's teaching that the conscious spirit's penalty for that act of betrayal was to remain bound in the darkness of memory loss until Judgment Day. And in Jude 4, 8, 11, & 12, he repeatedly criticizes these same individuals for practices that misinterpreted key tenets of theology. Most probably, given the text, they had been using the gnostic tradition of 'Sacred Marriage' as an excuse for licentious sex. Jude didn't criticize them for subscribing to that gnostic theology itself, but merely for adapting it to their own immoral purposes. It is particularly interesting that Jude condemns these faithless Christians as "twice dead" in the text, which would seem to be a clear reference to the second death that figures so prominently in the binary soul doctrine. Declaring them to be both fruitless and uprooted, his terminology reminds the student of the BSD that the sinner has no roots, (recollection of his own past), nor can he hope to see his own fruit (subsequent incarnations).

The scapegoat of the Yom Kippur ceremony traditionally wandered far away from the site of the ceremony, and in much the same way, Judas Thomas also wandered far away from Jerusalem after Jesus' crucifixion, eventually winding up, according to legend, in India. Curiously, early Christian legends from eastern Syria identify this figure as the twin brother of Jesus, celebrating him as one of the foremost of the Twelve Disciples. If Judas Thomas indeed was both the infamous Barabbas and the even more infamous betrayer Judas, this would explain why he felt he had to flee his native land after Jesus' crucifixion. But most importantly, it would also explain why the Gospel of Thomas contains such unique insights found in no other Christian scripture. As Jesus' perfect twin and alter ego who could have just as easily assumed the mantle of Crucified Savior, Judas Thomas would have possessed insights into Christianity's mysteries unequaled by any other apostle. If any of Christ's followers were to fully grasp His teachings, no one would be a more likely candidate than His own twin brother. If Jesus and Thomas were perfect equals, then even though Jesus Himself never left any written teachings while He was alive, the Gospel of Thomas would present the very same teachings as if He had, containing the very same perspective, insights, and depth of understanding. It would truly be unique among all Christian scriptures, as indeed it appears to be. It would be scripture authentically written by the very Jesus who stood before Pilate. Well, one of them, anyway.

If Judas was Jesus' twin brother, and they bilaterally agreed to take on the burden of humanity's guilt, this would also explain Judas' apparent betrayal of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. If they were twins, only one conclusion can be reached : they must have been partners, and the whole arrest scene was mutually planned out in advance. After all, as endless Biblical students have noted down through the millennia, Jesus needed someone to betray Him in order for His planned sacrificial crucifixion to take place as scheduled. Without Judas' willing collusion, Jesus' entire plan to save the human race would have hinged not only precariously, but also rather distastefully, on the sinfulness of one man. Paradoxically, if that uninformed Judas had been too good, Jesus could never have saved anyone. Such a plan, of course, casts Jesus as one willing to benefit from the misfortune of others. If He intentionally took advantage of the failings of Judas, that would not only diminish the glory of any salvation He might have thus wrought, but might itself negate it, as it would itself be a sin (counting on the worst in people) on Jesus' soul, thus disqualifying Him from being a pure sacrifice.

If Jesus' whole plan to effect the salvation of humanity rested on an assumption that Judas could be dependably relied on to use his free will to do evil, then Jesus' plan would indeed have rested on a foundation of faith -- not faith in God, but faith in Judas' evilness. If the whole plan's success pivoted on Judas being evil enough, then Jesus would have ultimately depended on evil, rather than good, to achieve His ends. Such a Jesus would indeed have been a man of faith, but one with more faith in the power of evil than good.

On the other hand, if Judas was a willing participant in the scheme, and voluntarily agreed to become the most hated man in history in order to help Jesus save humanity, his willingness to also sacrifice himself for the greater good would make Jesus' success just that much more glorious.

Were Jesus and Judas secretly working together to redeem humanity? In Gethsemane, Jesus called Judas his hetairos.⁽⁸⁾ Usually translated 'friend', this word can also indicate a state of partnership or comradeship. And Jesus needed a very special friend indeed to help Him with this mission. At the last supper, Jesus appears to collude with Judas; not only does He not attempt to dissuade Judas from the action they both know he is about to perform, but Jesus actually urges Him to go ahead with it.⁽⁹⁾ Even though the Gospels of Matthew and John both insist that Jesus openly identified Judas as His betrayer in front of all the other disciples at the Last Supper, no one there raised a finger to stop him.⁽¹⁰⁾ Instead, as Judas leaves to hand over his Master to the authorities, Jesus implies to the rest of His followers that Judas was about to perform a special, necessary, and even Godly service, so that the "Son of Man may be glorified and God glorified in him". If there had been no Judas to identify Jesus in the dark of night, the authorities would have been forced to arrest Him in public, which might well have sparked mass riots. Instead of a single notable sacrifice that history would remember for millennia, our children would grow up reading about mass casualties occurring that day. Or more likely, since Jesus' followers would have been the ones most likely to die in those riots, history would never have recorded the birth of Christianity at all. Thus, despite all the derision the millennia have heaped up against Judas, the simple fact is that Jesus never would have been able to accomplish what He needed to do without having a brave partner who was willing to also take on an impossibly heavy burden of derision and guilt. Judas was, indeed, humanity's scapegoat. For 2000 years, the figure we have come to know as Judas has been an object of unique human condemnation. To knowingly accept such an onerous burden, his willingness to take on guilt had to equal Jesus' own willingness to do so. Just like the two doomed goats of the Atonement Day sacrifice, both had to be equally willing to accept a burden of unimaginable guilt for their plan to succeed.⁽¹¹⁾

Judas Priest

Judaic tradition has long entertained the hypothesis that there would be two separate but equal facets to the Messiah, one priestly and one kingly. For millennia, however, Jews have disagreed over whether these two facets would both exist in the same man, or if there would actually be two separate Messiahs, a priestly one and a kingly one. The Dead Sea Scrolls prove that at least one major element of Jewish society fully expected two such Messiahs to emerge side by side. Contemporaries of Jesus and Judas, the society of devout Jews known as Essenes were convinced that the coming of those two Messiahs was immanent, virtually right on their doorstep. Christianity's spin on this ancient hypothesis, of course, was that when Christ appeared on Earth the first time, it was as the priestly Messiah, and when He returns in His Second Coming, it will be as the kingly Messiah.

Perhaps the mystical Essenes who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls were right after all, and both Messiahs did arrive on schedule in 1^st century Palestine. If Judas and Jesus were operating together in a secret partnership, perhaps they split these Messianic roles between them. It does seem that Judas was a priest, since, when he went to the Temple to argue Jesus' innocence before the priests, the Bible testifies that he entered the "naos", the Holy Place of the sanctuary of the Temple, to speak to them.⁽¹²⁾ Only priests were allowed to enter that inner portion of the Temple. If Judas was allowed to enter the inner Temple, he must have been a priest.

But was he the priestly Messiah? Or just a sinner? Like Barabbas, Judas' role in Jesus' crucifixion is also portrayed very unfavorably in the Bible. He is said to have betrayed Jesus for a paltry payment of 30 pieces of silver, which probably amounted to no more than a few hundred dollars US. Such a small payout was obviously not the motive for his actions, especially since, as the treasurer for the apostles, he must have had regular access to far larger sums. And the stated reason why the authorities needed Judas in the first place doesn't really hold water either. The Jewish religious leaders, it is said, figured they had to arrest Jesus at night, away from all the massive crowds who followed Him everywhere during the day. All those followers, it was feared, would riot if they saw Jesus getting arrested, so they had to catch Him at night, and needed someone to lead them to Him. But if Jesus really had all these crowds of faithful followers, then where were they when Pilate asked the crowds to decide between Jesus and Barabbas? These two stories just don't match up; either Jesus had those crowds in His hip pocket or He didn't. Either the Judas story is bogus, or the Barabbas story is.

Perhaps both are. We already know that the Orthodox Church changed the original text of the Barabbas story. The question is, was the original report of Judas' role in this drama also rewritten? If church authorities saw fit to adulterate the original report they received about Jesus Bar Abbas, there is no telling what else they might have done, and where their treacherous revisions of the Holy Bible ultimately ended. Obviously, in order to intentionally erase such an intriguing and mysterious element as Barabbas' first name, these biblical editors must have felt that their own agendas were more important than the integrity of the revealed scriptures they were entrusted to protect and preserve.⁽¹³⁾

There is, in fact, compelling evidence that the biblical reports concerning Judas were changed after the fact, just as those of Barabbas were, since in its present form the Bible describes two mutually exclusive versions of Judas' death. In Matthew 27:5, we read that Judas "went away and hanged himself", but in Acts 1:18 we read instead that "Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out."⁽¹⁴⁾ In Matthew, the priests buy the "Field of Blood" after Judas' death, but in Acts, Judas buys it himself before he dies, and somehow they both buy it with the same reward money Judas reportedly received from betraying Jesus. Obvious editorial inconsistencies such as this have done incalculable harm to claims of biblical inerrancy over the millennia. Just as they rewrote the original report about Barabbas, so too they apparently also altered the original data about Judas as well. Why? Why would they resort to fabricating reports of Judas' death? The question answers itself -- because, very early on in the nascent church, when all the original apostles were still alive, someone in authority apparently wanted the public to believe that Judas was dead. Why so? Perhaps because that was the only way this particular scapegoat could hope to walk away.

Could Judas, Thomas, and Barabbas have all been one and the same person? Such an identification could have been hidden by the early Church's widespread use of nicknames. Both Thomas and Barabbas, after all, were nicknames, not true names. In fact, all the major figure in the early church, including Peter, James, John, Thomas, Lazarus, Barabbas, and Judas had nicknames. Simon was christened 'Peter', which in today's vernacular would be like calling him 'Rocky'. James and John were 'sons of thunder'. Judas was 'the twin'. Jesus Barabbas was 'son of the father'. Lazarus was 'the Osiris', 'the one raised from the dead'. And finally, we have the mysterious, little-mentioned 12^th apostle whose name variously appears in the Bible as Jude, Judas, Thaddaeus, or even Lebbaeus.⁽¹⁵⁾ The simple fact that the canon can't even agree on this disciple's name raises nagging questions about his true identity. Even so, the Bible comes very close to directly identifying Judas as Barabbas in Acts. When a doctrinal crisis occurred, the original apostles had to send a delegation from Jerusalem to Antioch to clarify church teachings, a prominent church leader named 'Judas Barsabbas' was chosen :

"Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to choose some of their own men and send them to Antioch.... They chose Judas (called Barsabbas) and Silas, two men who were leaders among the brethren."
- Acts 15:22

This peculiar nickname, Bar Sabbas, doesn't seem to mean anything in Aramaic. 'Bar' means 'son of', but 'Sabbas' is no known Aramaic personal name or family name. Barsabbas is, however, so close to Barabbas that the simplest stroke of a pen could have transformed the one into the other. If so, this passage might have originally read "They chose Judas, the one said to be Barabbas". Choosing Jesus' brother for this mission would have made sense. The first doctrinal dispute in the original church had just arisen and had to be decisively addressed. The original Apostles were still living in Jerusalem at that time, and would have wanted to man their delegation to Antioch with figures of such undisputed position and authority that the Antiocheans would have had no ground to challenge their teachings. They not only would have wanted to send one of the original Twelve, but indeed the most prominent Apostle they had available. If Jesus had a twin brother who had stood beside Him on that stage with Pilate, no other figure could have possibly held greater clout in the early church. Of course, if the original church had viewed Judas as a traitor, he would not have been honored. But at least one second century sect, the Cainites, taught that Judas was not evil at all, but a great hero who deserved honor instead of condemnation.

The figure of Jude Thaddaeus is only mentioned five times in the gospels. But if, as the story in Acts suggests, the early church held Jude in such great esteem, then why does he have such a minor role in the rest of the Bible? In addition to Acts, Christian tradition also grants Jude unique status, saying that after the resurrection, he was the one who retrieved Christ's burial cloth, which many believe to be the Shroud of Turin. Of course, if Jude had been Jesus' twin, it would make sense for him to have claimed possession of his brother's shroud.

Two Halves Made One

Thousands of years ago, cultures all around the globe once taught the same catechism -- that the whole universe reflected an original primordial duality, a divine whole comprised of two equal-but-opposite elements dancing together in perfect unison. Such a Divine Dyad is even reflected in the two most frequently used names for 'God' in the Old Testament : Yahweh translates into "he she", and Elohim is a composite of the feminine plural of god (Eloh) and the masculine plural of god (Im). Everything in our universe, BSD cultures once believed, reflected the United Dyad from which they arose, everything being comprised of two equal-but-opposite elements that reflected the qualities of the Dyad's divine halves. Certainly the human mind follows that same rule, being comprised of one half that is dominant and right out in the open, and another half that is recessive and hidden.

If the ancient world's doctrine of such a divine duality is correct, the nature of the Messiah would have to follow that same binary pattern. Just as the human mind has two halves, even though we tend to only be aware of one of them, so too there would have been two Messiahs, even though we were only aware of one of them at the time. And just as we tend to reject, deny, ignore, and all too often even demonize the contents of our own unconscious minds, we probably would have done the same thing to that other Messiah, the one who, just like our unconscious minds, was also hidden and demonized : Judas Thomas, the other Jesus. The other half of the Son of God.

Could there have truly been two Christs? Amazingly, this seems to have genuinely been an open question in the minds of a great many people in the earliest years of the faith, and the idea even seemed to be supported by certain passages in the Old Testament. The Hebrew Prophet Zechariah, for instance, specifically prophesied the coming of two Messiahs :

"I see, and behold, a lampstand all of gold, with a bowl on the top of it, and seven lamps on it, with seven lips on each of the lamps which are on the top of it. And there are two olive trees by it, one on the right of the bowl and the other on its left."
- Zechariah 4:2-3

In his vision, Zechariah saw the Jewish menorah with an olive branch on either side of the candlestick. When he asked what the two olive branches were supposed to mean, he was told "These are the two Messiahs who stand beside the Lord of the whole earth." (Zechariah 4:14) Those two olive branches, then, represented two Christs. This depiction of Zechariah's two Messiahs is even found on the state seal of Israel!

It is well known that many Gnostics originally believed there had been two Christs, one of whom was a being of pure spirit, while the other had a normal body of flesh. Of course, after the crucifixion, that would indeed have been the case if one of them had been crucified and the other allowed to escape. One would have been in spirit, while the other would have still been alive. And despite the Orthodox Church's campaign to exterminate gnosticism, this idea about two Messiahs does not seem to have quickly faded over time, but instead tenuously persisted even in the face of violent opposition. In fact, almost 500 years after Jesus' crucifixion, Constantinople Patriarch Macedonius II felt the need to inform Emperor Anastasius that he rejected the teaching that there had been two Sons or two Christs. Even that, however, didn't fully resolve the controversy, since the church found it necessary to refute the same idea all over again 43 years later at the Second Council of Constantinople. What could have triggered such a statement? To the student of the BSD, it can mean only one thing: powerful cultural voices were still questioning, even at that late date, whether there may have originally been more than one Messiah. Although the voices of the Gnostics had been driven underground, they were apparently still being heard.

Similarly, many early heresies insisted that Jesus had not truly died on the cross, but that a substitute had died there in His place. Even Islam subscribes to this belief. However, if there had actually been two identical Messiahs, and one died while the other lived, such reports would be instantly explained. At least one early Christian sect not only believed that there had been two Messiahs, but that Judas Thomas himself had been the second Messiah :

"In a fragment from another apocryphal work, Jesus, approaching Simon Peter and Judas Thomas, addresses them 'in the Hebrew language.' There seems to have been some obfuscation, perhaps deliberate, in the translation of the original Coptic text, but what Jesus appears to say is : 'Greetings, my venerable guardian Peter. Greetings, Thomas [Twin], my second Messiah.'" ⁽¹⁶⁾

One question remains unanswered. If Judas Thomas indeed was a second Christ, a scapegoat who 'got away', what happened after that? Did Thomas leave any other legacy that might further flesh out the lost history of Original Christianity? If Thomas was Christ's twin brother Jude, that would explain history's persistent rumors about Christ leaving behind a direct bloodline of descendants. According to the fourth century church historian Eusebius, the Apostle Jude sired a line of descendants called the Desposyni.⁽¹⁷⁾ If Jude and Jesus were identical twin brothers and equal Messiahs, Jude's descendants might have been credited as Jesus' own offspring. However, Judas Thomas did not merely produce a family; he actually produced a whole church of his own. If the Roman Church was founded by Constantine, then the Indian Church was founded by Thomas. Church records hinting that Thomas traveled to the land of the Hindus are fleshed out by Indian traditions, which insist that Thomas emigrated from Palestine to India by boat, taking passage on a trading vessel that sailed down the Red Sea and across the Persian Gulf to arrive at the port of Cranganore on India's southwest coast in 52 AD. Today, some six million Indians call themselves Mar Thoma (Saint Thomas) Christians, proudly claiming to be direct blood descendants of converts baptized by the Apostle.

The Indian church of St. Thomas turned out to be a unique sociological experiment, left alone to evolve in almost perfect isolation from the rest of Christiandom. If their local legends are correct, the seed Thomas planted in the rich spiritual climate of India was left undisturbed for over 1500 years, which seems to have allowed it to preserve many customs, beliefs, and traditions that were edited out of the Orthodox Church. For centuries, the Christians of St. Thomas had women deacons, kept the Jewish Sabbath, and followed a liturgy that included fixed days of fasting and abstinence. In fact, they still used two of the oldest Christian liturgies in existence: the Mass of Addai and Mari, and the Liturgy of St James, which date all the way back to the original church in Jerusalem before its destruction in 70 AD. They even sang in Aramaic, the original language of Christianity.

The Mar Thoma Christians, however, did not merely follow a more primitive form of Christianity; they subscribed to a fundamentally different set of teachings than the Roman church. The Christians of St. Thomas believed wholeheartedly in reincarnation, and they also believed that St. Thomas had been a Messiah or Christ in his own right :

This cult amounted to a kind of St. Thomas religion, and this is attested to by Bishop Jordan, the French Dominican friar who was sent to Quilon by Pope John XXII, in 1330, to convert the Syrians to the Roman creed. Friar Jordan soon had to abandon his Indian flock as incorrigible, and in Marvels Described, writes, "In this India there is a scattered people, one here, another there, who call themselves Christian, but are not so, nor have they baptism, nor do they know anything about the faith: nay, they believe St. Thomas the Great to be Christ."⁽¹⁸⁾

All that changed in the 17th century, when a Portuguese Archbishop named Menezes forced the St. Thomas Christians to abandon their ancient traditions and adopt the teachings and practices of Catholicism instead. All their sacred texts and writings were confiscated and destroyed, and they were forced to embrace alien beliefs and practices, such as Mary being the mother of God, and the use of images and icons. They were even forced to dress in 'Catholic' attire, and forbidden to use Hindu musicians in their services. According to local tradition, thousands who refused to compromise their original faith were labeled "Judaizers" and burned at the stake, while others fled for their lives to other areas of India.

Prior to this outside interference, however, the St. Thomas Christians had been such a remarkably stable church, and one that took such pride in its origins, that it still preserved the original songs, liturgies, and language of its founder. But once the Orthodox Church stepped in, India's church became infected with the same disease afflicting all the rest of the world's churches, and immediately started fracturing apart into smaller and smaller sects. What had successfully remained a single, unified church for over 1500 years was apparently too pure to endure Rome's touch, for it then shattered apart into the Latin Catholic Church, the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, the Jacobite Syrian Church, the Nestorian Church, the Anglican Church, the Marthoma Syrian Church, and the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church.

Fortunately, even though the historical records of the St. Thomas Christians were all put to the flame, their cultural legends survived, preserved in the memories of India's six million Christians. Hundreds of traditional songs are still sung about St. Thomas in India today, as well as two ancient full-length ballads which seem to date from the earliest years of Christianity.⁽¹⁹⁾

All this devotion raises a perplexing question : if the St. Thomas Christians were so conscientious about preserving the legacy they received from the Apostle Thomas, then why did they believe in reincarnation when the Catholics showed up in 1599? Was the belief there from the beginning? Did Thomas teach a Christianity to the Indians that incorporated both reincarnation and resurrection? Did he, in other words, teach the binary soul doctrine? It certainly seems that he may have. The Christians of St. Thomas were almost fanatically obsessive about preserving the original contents of their faith when Rome finally caught up with them, but even so, they still believed in a Christianity that included reincarnation. Either that belief originated with Thomas, or, despite their apparent devotion to authenticity, it somehow managed to slip in later.

The Orthodox Church, of course, maintains that Thomas did not teach a reincarnationist Christianity to the Indians, but that they instead allowed their own country's widespread belief in reincarnation to eventually slip in and corrupt Thomas' original teachings. However, this argument does not hold water. If St. Thomas Christianity had not originally included reincarnation, it would have been virtually impossible for it to have found any acceptance in India's strongly pro-reincarnationist culture. A cultural debate over reincarnation would have immediately arisen, especially since Christianity's original message revolved around the concept of providing a way to survive death. This debate would have completely dominated public opinion about and interest in this strange new religion. Since India's primary faiths -- Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism -- were all strongly pro-reincarnationist, Christianity would have been unique, labeled from the first as 'that non-reincarnationist religion'. If Christianity walked in India's front door insisting that reincarnation was a false belief, it would have stood out like a sore thumb, being permanently stamped with that ideological stance in the minds of the people. If, as the Orthodox Church maintains, it then chose to reverse itself on that issue at some later point, the religion would have lost whatever respect it might have otherwise built up for itself in the eyes of the people. It could never have survived a reversal on the one issue it originally became known for in their country, but would have, as the Japanese say, 'lost face'. Yet when the Orthodox Church took over the Indian church in the 17^th century, it found St. Thomas Christians to not only be devoted reincarnationists, but also highly respected in Indian society. The only explanation for this would be if Thomas had preached reincarnation right from the beginning.

If Thomas taught a version of Christianity that included reincarnation, it almost certainly would have been the binary soul doctrine, for no other theology is able to reconcile the multiple conflicts between reincarnation and resurrection. Unfortunately, since Rome consigned the Indian church's ancient scriptures to a fiery holocaust, all physical evidence that might have demonstrated the presence of the BSD in the early Indian church has been lost.

However, Thomas himself may be that evidence. By recognizing the connection between the BSD and Israel's traditional Atonement Day ritual, we noticed that Jesus Christ and Jesus Barabbas seemed to purposefully recreate that same ritual, taking the places of the sacrificial goats themselves. By then recognizing the logical connection between Barabbas, who had to be Jesus' perfect twin in order to be a proper scapegoat in that ritual, and Judas Thomas, who indeed was said to be Jesus' twin brother, we were left asking if the Apostle Thomas had been a second Messiah, perhaps even the second savior predicted by the Old Testament and expected by the Essenes. Was Thomas truly the Atonement Day scapegoat who got away, a second Messiah, a second Son of God? And if so, how would we tell?

The Old Testament is silent on the eventual fate of the scapegoat, reporting only that it was always allowed to wander far away, just as Thomas did. Nonetheless, one cannot help but wonder -- if there had indeed been two Meessiahs standing on that stage beside Pilate, two Jesuses equally ready and willing to take the cross, would they then have both possessed the power to raise from the dead? The Acts of Thomas, an ancient Christian scripture recovered in the 19^th century, seems to feed this suspicion, ending on a very curious and intriguing note, with yet another empty tomb. Just like his more famous twin brother, Thomas met his death with a lance in the side. And when Judas Thomas was finally laid to rest in his own sepulcher in India, it was also later discovered to be empty.⁽²⁰⁾ The text of Acts of Thomas goes on to explain the empty tomb by suggesting that the body was probably robbed by those wishing to use it for magical purposes, but one cannot read this rationalization without being reminded that the very same theory was used by those arguing against Jesus' own resurrection four decades earlier:

"Now it came to pass after a long time that one of the children of Misdaeus the king was smitten by a devil, and no man could cure him, for the devil was exceeding fierce. And Misdaeus the king took thought and sad: I will go and open the sepulchre, and take a bone of the apostle of God and hang it upon my son and he shall be healed. [...] And he went and opened the sepulchre, but found not the apostle there."
- The Acts of Judas Thomas

And here, perhaps, we finally find the origin of the ancient report about 'Doubting Thomas' who insisted on physical proof that Jesus had risen from the grave, demanding to touch Jesus' wounds with his own fingers. That one incident condemned Thomas to be forever labeled the 'Apostle of little faith', even though he paradoxically exhibited the greatest faith of all the Apostles in the Lazarus incident, when he was ready to die immediately :

[Jesus] told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him." Then Thomas (called Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."
- The Gospel of John 11:14-16

During the Lazarus incident, Thomas seems to have had complete faith in the power of resurrection, even before he personally witnessed Lazarus' decayed body rising back from the dead. But when Jesus subsequently died and rose from the dead Himself, Lazarus displayed far more personal interest in Jesus' resurrection body than any of the other Apostles did. Was this because he had suddenly and inexplicably lost his previous faith in resurrection, or was this interest a far more private matter, knowing that the day would eventually come when he himself would experience the same miraculous phenomenon his twin brother just went through?

Official Christianity has long criticized Judaism for failing to recognize its long-awaited Messiah when He finally showed up, but the truth of the matter may be more complex than that. If the Jews could miss one Messiah in their midst, they could probably overlook two just as easily. And if a people who had been breathlessly anticipating the immanent arrival of their Messiah for centuries could miss Him when He arrived, then the majority of Christians could probably overlook one as well. We may never know for sure if Thomas was really a second Christ, or if the Gospel of Thomas was truly written by one of Israel's long-awaited Messiahs. But there would be something deliciously appropriate, and perhaps not at all unexpected, in discovering that the Christian salvation that was designed to heal humanity's divided hearts, finally allowing both halves of our beings to again work perfectly together as one, was orchestrated by two Messiahs who worked perfectly together as one Themselves.

1. Several early manuscripts of Matthew, including manuscripts in the Caesarean group of texts, the Sinaitic Palimpsest, the Palestinian Syriac lectionaries and some manuscripts used by Origen in the 3rd century, support the fact that Barabbas' name was originally Jesus Barabbas, and some modern New Testament translations reflect this, such as The New English Bible, The Scholar's Version⁽²⁾

2. The Complete Gospels by Robert J. Miller, ed. Sonoma, Calif.: Polebridge Press, 1992 - ''

3. Although modern translations often use negative words like 'notorious', the Greek word episemos has no inherently negative connotations, and is even related to a word honored in biblical tradition: epistle.

4. Even though he repented before he died.

5. The Book of Thomas 138:19

6. The Book of Thomas 138:7

7. Why did the names Simon, James, and Judas all each appear twice in the list of Christ's Twelve Apostles? Was there a shortage of first names in Palestine during the time of Christ? Or were these records clumsily edited to cover up something?

8. ⁷ Matthew 26:50

9. John 13:18-35

10. Matthew 25:26, John 13:21-28

11. Both men standing on stage alongside Pilate, then, may have been equally prepared to accept the honor of the crucifixion, neither knowing which of the two it would ultimately turn out to be.

12. Matthew 27:3-5

13. The second century writings of Celsus provide a unique portrait of Roman attitudes towards the early Christians. He openly accused the church of compromising the original integrity of the Holy Gospels, editing the text on the fly during debates. He doesn't seem to be making these accusations out of whole cloth, either, because many textual variants have been found in ancient New Testament manuscripts. For example, there are more than seventy variations of the Lord's Prayer in different manuscripts of the Gospel of Luke.

14. The early 2^nd century historian Papias, who Eusebius called "a man learned in all things, and well acquainted with the scriptures", gives yet another version of Judas' death. This tells us that no less than three different versions of Judas' death were circulating at the dawn of the 2^nd century.

15. In Matthew 10:2-4 and Mark 3:16-19, the name Jude does not appear in the list of the Apostles, but rather the name "Thaddaeus". "Judas" is the Greek form for the English "Jude."

16. From The Messianic Legacy, pp. 96-97, quoting a translated passage from a fragment of the Gospel of Bartholomew.

17. Eusebius, History, 3:19

18. Ishwar Sharan, editor. The Myth of Saint Thomas and the Mylapore Shiva Temple. New Delhi: Voice of India, 1991.

19. In addition to this living oral tradition, the theory that Thomas traveled to India also finds support in the third century Acts of Thomas. And like both the Gospel of Thomas and the Book of Thomas, this scripture also insists that Thomas was Jesus's twin and that his true name was Judas.

20. According to Indian tradition, St. Thomas died in 72 AD.