"Brotherhood of Haramatheo"?

Not sure if this is in the right spot.

To start with, my grandfather is a devout Catholic. He moved to Israel in 1990, because he decided he would best spend the rest of his life in "the Holy Land." Well, sometimes my Uncle Jeff manages to book a flight and goes to visit Grandpa. Grandpa always sends me some little present from his collection (he's sort of superstitious, and collects all these things that he thinks are holy and stuff, like last year when he sent me some wood that was allegedly on Noah's Ark).

The last time my Uncle Jeff came back with a present was in April. I thought it would be another little relic, but it was just this big book that I guess Grandpa had compiled. He sent me a note too, that was basically just telling me that it was "time I knew." Naturally I was sort of curious, so I read the book.

It started off sort of boring, but eventually it got interesting. After the introduction (Grandpa wrote a big intro about some research he'd been doing or something -- I didn't really pay attention), there were these two little things he had typed out. The first was titled "Yeshu the Nazarene to the Elders of Palestine", and the second was "The Testimony of Don Juan."

I guessed from the title "Yeshu the Nazarene" that it had something to do with Jesus. It did. Allegedly it was the copy of this letter Jesus had written to the Pharisees, talking about how everything was going according to plan. It was pretty blasphemous, really: first it said that he and the Pharisees had some deal going on where they were pretending to hate eachother.

It had the usual conspiratorial crap about how Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and she was pregnant. Then "Jesus" said that the Crucifixion was planned so that "future generations will think me the mashiach; for I am the last of the seed of David My Father. They know not that I am not come from heaven to save them, but that from the seed of my wife Miriam of Bethany will surely come the anointed son of David, as Isaih [sic] wrote."

Then he commisions his brother "Joseph Haramatheo the Just" (apparently a mistake, since I can only find mentions in the Bible of a St. Joseph of Arimathea and St. James the Just) to protect his descendants. Then the first writing ends.

The next one, by Don Juan, claims to be much more recent -- the 1500s. Don calls himself "a disciple of Santa Pedro de Arimathea" (of Arimathea). He asserts that Santa Pedro is a Spanish descendant of Jesus. Then he says that "Arimathea" is not a place name but a corruption of the Hebrew words "ha-Rama-Theo" (of the Divine One), and that it is a title given to all Jesus's relatives.

Don says that, apparently, "Joseph the Just"'s descendants backed out on protecting Jesus's bloodline and that now Santa Pedro has founded "the Brotherhood of Haramatheo" to protect his family. Then that document ends.

The rest of the book (I haven't read it all, but I'm almost on page 100) is written as my Papaw's notes, and is allegedly an account of this "Brotherhood"'s history. He says that the Brotherhood is comprised entirely of the descendants of Don Juan and Don Jesus (another follower of Santa Pedro??), and he apparently makes a point that they're all Jewish.

Any thoughts on this? I thought it was some kind of joke at first, but now I'm really curious. Has anybody heard of this "Haramatheo" before? It's almost like a compendium of every conspiracy theory I've ever heard. You've got a secret society, a Jesus bloodline, some powerful Jews.... Any ideas?

[edit on 1-7-2010 by TruthOverload]

I hate to be that guy but could you take some pictures of the book you're talking about? Just to a) add a little creedence to your post, and b) because if you're being honest it sounds interesting, and something I'm sure a lot of people would like to see.

i agree, pictures would be nice.

Yes. Pictures would indeed add credence to your story/book; and if your book has any validity so as to the truth, well it could really rock some person's beliefs.....

reply to post by DarkPassenger


Alright, I've got some scans. Now I just have to figure out how to upload media onto ATS. Should only be a minute.

So the concept is basically a reworded version of the Da Vinci Code, with the edition of the pharisees conspiracy.

As I understand it, the book was written by your grandfather. Does he say where his sources came from? Is this a book published elsewhere or as a sort of manuscript?

reply to post by DarkPassenger


Alright, here we go. Here's the scan to the first two parts, "Yeshu the Nazarene to the Elders of Palestine" and "The Testimony of Don Juan."






[edit on 1-7-2010 by TruthOverload]

reply to post by Wolf321

So the concept is basically a reworded version of the Da Vinci Code, with the edition of the pharisees conspiracy.

Yeah. It's basically some standard Jesus Bloodline Theory stuff. I'm not usually into that kind of thing but this particular encounter with it is sort of involved with me personally.

As I understand it, the book was written by your grandfather. Does he say where his sources came from? Is this a book published elsewhere or as a sort of manuscript?

My Grandpa doesn't seem to cite any sources that I can find, but it keeps referring to some research and the first two pages -- the ones allegedly written by Jesus and Don Juan -- say that he translated them "from the originals", which were given to him by "Johnathan Hagar", though I have no idea who that is. As far as I know, this is the only copy of the book, though he might have a second one, considering he seems to have been working on it for a while.