The origins of Christianity are hard to trace, or at least pin down to one origin.  There is much evidence for the adoption of Hellenic logic and ideas in the Jewish religion around the last century BCE and the first century CE.  At the same time that Zealots were fighting the Romans to free Israel, the Priests and Scholars of the Jewish religion were adapting Hellenic ideas to their own religion.  Most of these adoptions were taking place outside of Israel, in the large cities such as Alexandria.

    Many debates have occurred between religious scholars on where Christianity first occurred.  One school, called the Alexandria School, believes that the Gospel of Matthew is the earliest known Christian writing describing the life of Joshua the Messiah.  This is the more orthodox of the two schools, because the Gospel of Matthew focuses on Joshua's life, giving it a historical and geographical setting.  It supports the idea that Joshua was a real person, as opposed to a mythical creation.

    In the Gospel of Matthew the setting of the life of Joshua is the lands of Israel.  Written from the point of view of one of his followers, the story gives only a rough skeleton of his life to go along with his teachings.  The audience of the Gospel of Matthew is probably Jewish, given the parallels between Joshua and Moses.  Both are almost killed in a mass murder ordered by the authorities, both spend time in Egypt, both bring a set of teachings to the Jewish people.

    Placing the Gospel in Alexandria is done by the similarities between Joshua and that of the Egyptian god Osiris.  Both are torn into pieces, scattered to the winds.  Both are resurrected and now rule over the lands of the Dead.  The date used by many Christians as the date of Joshua's baptism by John the Baptist is the same as celebrated in Egypt as the Day of Osiris.  One modern day scholar writes,

    "Both the Egyptian and Christian of every period in which they are know to use believed that either Osiris or Christ was of divine origin, that he suffered death and mutilation at the hands of the power of evil, that after great struggle with these powers he rose again, that he became henceforth the king of the underworld and judge of the dead, and that because he had conquered death the righteous might conquer death."

    The communion of bread and wine, one of the few rituals in Christianity, is similar to both the death of Joshua and of Osiris.  Both were torn limb from limb, symbolic of the bread being broken in the communion.  The Egyptian Book of the Dead portrays the decease as eating the gods and being imbued with their powers.  Later in history, the Roman authorities used charges of cannibalism as justification for the persecution of Christians.

    No part of the Gospel of Matthew comes out and says that the Covenant formed by Joshua is to replace the Mosaic Covenant, but there are many hints that such is the truth.  Christian writings after the Gospel of Matthew followed this, rejection any part of Judaism they did not like and justifying it with the New Covenant of Joshua.  The Sermon on the Mount is the main area that defines the New Covenant of Joshua, with some cryptic sayings like "Honour thy fathers and mothers."

    This single commandment, and the position of Joshua as king of the underworld and judge of the dead, was the foundation for the ancestor worship that developed in Christianity as Gentile Romans converted.  In the Roman theology, each man was said to have his genius, and each woman her juno.  Christianity adapted this to each person having a spiritual twin, or pneuma.  After death, the pneuma would go to the underworld where it would go through various trials to finally reach Heaven or Hell.  During the time between Life and its final resting place, the pneuma was said to be in Limbo.

    Praying for past relatives would aid them in reaching Heaven faster.  Memorizing the teachings of Joshua and other Christian theologians would also help, as would baptism and other sacraments.  Much of Christianity focused on what to do in life to make sure that you were taken care of in your afterlife.  The Egyptian Book of the Dead appears to have had a heavy influence on the Book of Revelations.  Supposedly written by the Prophet James the Baptist, is describes his journey in the afterlife that he experienced in a dream.  It and the Gospel of Matthew are central to the Christian faith and its belief in the afterlife.

    While Christianity rejected the strict laws to be followed by Judaism, such as those dealing with animal sacrifices, it did not leave behind the idea that religion was made up of a set of laws to follow.  A small set of sacraments were set down for a Christian to follow to prepare themselves for the afterlife.  They are Baptism, Confirmation, Communion, Penance, Extreme Unction, Holy Orders and Matrimony.  Added to this were the ideas of the afterlife that focused on teachings to help one reach Heaven and pass through the trials of the afterlife.  It is because of this importance of spiritual journeys that the story of Moses, usually in the form of Euripides' Exodus, has been preserved as an important part of the Christian Church while much of the other Jewish writings have not been.

    The Alexandrian School believes that the Gospel of Matthew was written first, a first hand account of the life of Joshua.  The Book of Revelations was written later by the Prophet James the Baptist.  The Gospels of Andrew and Thomas were written based on the Gospel of Matthew and stories about Joshua that they had picked up independently of each other. Each expanded on the Gospel of Matthew and changed the point of view to focus on converted Gentiles. The Gospel of Andrew has Joshua attack the Priests of Judaism more than the Gospel of Matthew, and has Joshua clearly point out that his covenant replaces the Mosaic Covenant.

    The Gospel of Thomas is a conversation between Thomas and the resurrected Joshua about various subjects concerning the spiritual journey of each person.  They start off ignorant of Christianity, like the new born child or the pagan.  Called hylic, they detached from their pneuma.  Once they know of Christianity, and have gone through Baptism, they are part of the Church and begin to awaken.  They are psychic, but are still not one with their pneuma.  At death they would join with their pneuma and become pneumatic.  After facing the trials of the underworld, they would finally become a perfect being and have never ending life.  They were now gnostic, and were one with God.

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