by Matthew Kruebbe
Does the New Testament faithfully report the words of Jesus?
To be honest, no one actually knows for certain what the historical Jesus said or did, assuming a historical Jesus did exist. Why do we not know what Jesus really said?
... Why not?! ... Think about it. Take some time.
If you have something important to say to someone you care deeply about, what do you do?
Well, if at all possible, when you truly care, if you truly love them, you deliver the message in person, right? Face to face, to everyone you love deeply, whenever face to face communication is possible.
When you want a message to a loved one to be accurate and to reflect your words and thoughts precisely, do you give the message yourself, directly, in person, or via video or FaceTime, or do you send other people to deliver your message? Do you send people unknown to the beloved person with whom you desire to communicate? Would you send them with conflicting written documents that do not even bear your own signature upon them?
IF Christian theological claims had been true and Jesus really had been a divine incarnation, or the "Son of God," and really had been powerful enough to rise from the dead, and IF he honestly wished to save humanity and to reveal Yahweh or God and Yahweh's/God's plan, he could have simply revealed himself to all people on the planet simultaneously and made sure everyone understood.
... Actually a real, personal God could communicate with all people directly, with perfect clarity, even without an incarnation. So either there is no real, personal God who desires to communicate with the whole world in a clear and indubitable manner, or else he is incapable of it, which would call into question the title "God."
IFJesus rose from the dead, but faced limitations on his powers for some undisclosed reason, such that he could not reveal himself to all people personally and simultaneously, at least he could have stayed around on earth, loved everyone (like he allegedly desired/desires to do), taught everyone all of the most important truths from his own mouth, while alive and resurrected, while on earth, so that everyone could see, hear, learn, and know for themselves. Makes sense, right? Why not stay?
IF that was too difficult, IF Jesus faced more severe limitations on his alleged divinity, IF he rrreally needed hastily to get back up to the sky realm for some undisclosed reason, and IF his divine power did not include the ability to duplicate himself or to be in more than one place at the same time, then the very least he could have done would have been to write a high-quality book for us all, and maybe even inscribe everything in durable stone or marble so that all earthlings could see and have access to it. But IF stone and marble were too expensive for Yahweh/God/Jesus, as long as he could at least read and write, then the least he could have done would have been to write a book of his own, so we could all have it. What do we have instead? Lots of secrecy, lots of politics, multiple factions vying for control, a set of four late, anonymous (names were added later), contradictory gospels, with no surviving originals, a whole bunch of other gospels and literature that did not get chosen for inclusion in the bible, and no clear leadership, but a bunch of people with varying ideas and opinions, fighting over what to say, what rules to follow, which versions of which stories to include in a bible and which to leave out, etc.
IF there was a historical Jesus and IF he could read and write, and IF he really wanted to reveal truth and himself and Yahweh/God to the Jews and to the world, one would reasonably think he would have written something himself!
Preliminary Tentative Conclusions:
It appears that no God or other supernatural power loves humanity enough or has given enough thought or consideration to the matter to do us all the small favor of communicating directly with us all or establishing an inerrant holy book for us to read.
If there was a historical Jesus behind later myths and legends, he probably could not read and write.
Why not? ... Think about it. ... Take lots of time to think it through.
This is actually a very important question. Sadly, somehow people do not seem to think about this. I want to take some time to talk this through, flesh it out.
IF you truly love someone, how do you show it?
Do you ever try to spend time with that beloved individual in person?
If good parents love their children, how do they show it?
Do they spend time with their children in person, face to face, hard in hand, heart to heart, embracing them, showing abundant physical and emotional affection to them, playing and laughing with them, teaching them as best they can, being patient with them, providing for them, doing their best for them day in and day out, for years / decades, until the children are mature? And even then, don't good parents still visit with their children in person? Isn't loving one's children a matter of life-time devotion? Even parents who send their children to boarding school still visit their children once in a while or bring them home once in a while, if possible. IF a parent chose never to spend time with a child in person, face to face, and never to communicate clearly to the child, ever, what would that say about the parent? Honestly.
Imagine this: A father loves his children deeply, and he raises them for many years, but then he gets captured and murdered by violent men. So sad for his poor children, right? What IF the good, loving dad could come back from the dead and live forever?! What if he DOES come back from the dead?! Will he show himself alive to his children? ... Think carefully now: Will he show himself alive to ALL of the children he loves, or only some of them? ...
A good and loving father, if he were able to come back from the dead and live forever, would show himself alive to all his children.
Now, would he show himself alive in person, or would he hire some random poor, uneducated people from the countryside to deliver a message to his kids saying he was alive?
A good, loving father, IF he were able to come back from the dead and live forever, would certainly show himself alive to all of his beloved children, in person.
Also, would the resurrected dad who loved his children and had conquered death spend lots of time with his children and stay on earth to see them regularly, or would he see them for only a few days, appearing and disappearing at random moments, doing some magic tricks, but then go up in the sky promising to return "soon," but then never see them again, letting a few thousand years go by?
A good, loving father, IF he were truly able to come back from the dead and live forever, would certainly show himself alive to ALL of his children, in person, and would stick around on earth to spend time with his children, and would not go away for the rest of the children's lives. IF he did go away, to enjoy himself, he would come back regularly to visit. And he would not make a secret of it, as if there were some kind of shame in a father spending time with his children.
Any human, who is being honest, knows that good parents, IF they could come back from the dead, would return to their children to continue being good parents, spending time with their children regularly, checking up on them, keeping in contact, and making sure everything went well for the children. If the parents' powers were unlimited, they could communicate with the children regularly, watch over all their children, and make sure everything goes well, ensuring a wonderful future for them. If the resurrected parents' powers were limited and they were somehow constrained merely to send a message, would they not write the message themselves?!
WHAT IF someone told you that a loving father died tragically by gunfire, and that after his death, some time later, all of his children were spending a few days together at their family home, and at breakfast on morning, one of the children suddenly came downstairs and told the others the following:
"Hey, guys, you're not going to believe this, but dad is alive! ... "
"John, that's not funny."
"For real! He appeared to me last night, ... or some time early this morning. I'm not sure what time it was."
"John, that's not funny, bud. You were dreaming, man. I'm so sorry. I know you love Dad. I do too, man. But Dad's gone, brother."
No, it was not a dream! Dad came back from the dead, and he visited me! Actually he visited me multiple times last night. Yeah.
"John, I'm so sorry. Sometimes when people go through tragedy, especially a violent tragedy, they can think they see or hear things. They can have really vivid dreams, even hear voices, hallucinations."
"But it was not just a hallucination or a dream. Dad really came to see me. We had a whole conversation."
"John, people can dream whole conversations too, man. What makes you think it was not a dream?"
"Dad proved to me that he was still alive! He even showed me the scars from where he got shot and everything! And he gave me a message for you guys. He said to tell you he loves you so much."
"John, seriously you have to snap out of this. Just think for a second, ok? We were all here last night, buddy. All of us. We all love Dad too, right? And Dad loved us al, right? So IF Dad were really alive, don't you think, I mean don't you know he would visit all of us, not just you? See what I mean, brother. You're not making sense this morning. You had a vivid dream, and you need to wake up."
"No, for real. I am awake. It was not a dream or a hallucination. Look, Dad even gave me a message for you guys." [Hands siblings a small, folded up sheet of paper.]
Brother #1: [unfolding paper] "John, this is messy, and it is definitely not Dad's handwriting. Hey wait, this is your handwriting, bro. Plus Dad always spoke Spanish. This is in English! Dude, this is not funny, and you need to stop playing around. It's inappropriate."
"Well, yeah. I wrote it down for dad, and I put it in English instead of Spanish. But he is alive. He's really alive."
Sister #1: [giving eye signals to brother #1] "John, it's ok. So Dad's alive? Where is Dad now? Take me to him."
"Well, ... I can't. He left."
Sister #1: "What do you mean, he left? Where would he go? Thank about what you're saying, John. Okay?"
"I don't know. He went up into the sky until I could not see him through the clouds. ... But actually, oh, also, Dad is God now. He has divine powers."
Brother #1: "What? John, did you take something last night? Look at me, dude. Let me see your eyes."
Sister #1: "Danny, don't say that. Don't be mean. What if it's true?"
Brother #2: "Liz, I'm sorry, but John is clearly not in his right mind. Look at his eyes. Plus, just think about it for a second. Nothing John is saying is realistic in the slightest. For one thing, people don't come back from the dead. But even if they did, IF Dad were alive, really alive, clearly he would find us all, talk to us all, not just John. Right? We are all just as easy for Dad to find and talk to as John is. We are all right here in this same house. If Dad were alive, he would be here right now, with us all, not just in John's imagination, drug-induced state, or sleep-deprived state. Where else would he be? And if Dad became a God, ... Oh my gosh, how can you even ...? ... Clearly if Dad could conquer death and gain magical powers, he would show himself to ALL of us, not just to John, right? Duhh. And why we he go up in the sky? What's in the sky? Clouds? The moon? Stars billions of light years away. And even if he did go up in the sky, he would come back to see us. If he can fly in the sky, then he can fly back down! Why doesn't he come back down to see the rest of us, huh? Seriously? It does not make any sense at all, not even the smallest part of a little bit! Clearly John is out of it, and he either needs sleep, or to let the drugs wear off, or we need to get him help, or all of the above. ... John, what did you eat yesterday?"
John: "Nothing, bro. I've been fasting for so many days, going without food in Dad's honor. And look, now he rewarded me. I even had to do battle with demons, and some angels of light came and helped me through it."
Brother #2 shakes his head.
Sister #1: [To brother #2] "But what if dad really is alive, somehow, like a ghost, but ... maybe John is ...
John: "It wasn't a ghost. I'm telling you he was here. He had his real body."
Sister #1: [Still taking to brother #2] "But what if dad really is alive, somehow, and really sent a message to John, but John is simply confused from the experience? What if Dad really did somehow visit John and communicate with John and give him some kind of message for us."
Brother #2: "Sis, you can't be serious! Here, look at the note. This is not Dad's handwriting. You recognize that, right? I mean, John even admitted he wrote it himself. Plus it's in English, for crying out loud. You know Dad's English wasn't that good. John wrote this, not Dad. And even IF Dad were somehow really alive, he would visit us too. Come on. It makes no sense. Plus, if Dad had a message to give us, he would give it to all of us, not just to John, right? And if he wanted to write a note, he would write us a note himself, in the language he always spoke, ... IF he were really still alive. Am I right? [Looking also at Brother #1] Am I right? It makes zero sense."
John: "But he is alive! He is God! ... Actually, he was always God, we just didn't realize it."
Brother #2: [to Liz and Brother #1] "And see, he already keeps changing and adding to his story! He's clearly on something or having a mental breakdown. What did he just say, he hasn't eaten in who knows how many days? Do you know what that does to a person's brain? A grieving person's brain?"
Brother #3: "What does the note say, Liz?"
Liz reads the note, squinting because the handwriting is messy and a bit hard to read, and with some things scratched out and written over: "Dad is alive. He just came back to see me. Well actually, he appeared in a different form at first, and I didn't recognize him. But then he came back again later, and I recognized it was really him. And he could walk through walls! And then he came back again later, and he showed me his scars from the bullets to prove it was really him. And he said to give you this message: "Hi, children. I love you so much. I have conquered death. Death has no power over me now, or over any of us. I have joined God and become more powerful than you can imagine, and I have shown myself to John just now several times, and I have given him this message for you. I have to go now, but you must believe John. In fact, I will tell you the truth. The truth is, God has been super angry for a long time, and you were all ugly in God's sight because of sin. But I volunteered to get shot by God so he could take his wrath out on me instead. I did it for all of you. So IF you do believe John and just trust me, that I have conquered death, and IF you will devote the rest of your lives to worshiping me in my divine form, writing songs about me, listening to what John tells you about me, following John's guidance, and telling all people you know -- the whole world -- that your Dad has conquered death and has come back from the grave, and has gone to build a special house for everyone in the sky realm, then I will give you all a very special prize later, and after you die, one day I will come back down to earth and bring your dead bodies back to life too, and I will give you kids the authority to rule over the earth, and also there will be a new earth, yes, and a new sky realm, and you can also come to the sky realm and live with me forever. But if you do not believe me, and you do not believe John, to whom I entrusted this sacred truth, then you will receive nothing, no prize, and you will not get to see me or live with me in the sky realm. So put your faith in me and this special message I am giving John. Go tell everyone. Oh, and I am coming back very soon, so act fast. Follow John. He speaks for me, and his words are true. Love, your Dad."
Brother #3: This is &^%$ing insane. John, look at me. It's your brother, man. You have to snap out of it buddy. If Dad came back from the dead and has divine powers, why is he not here now with all of us? Think about it. Why wouldn't dad come back and see the rest of us?"
"Well, I don't know. He said he would come back again soon. You see the message. And he wants me to run the household, and truly the entire world, until he comes back. And he wants you all to listen to me and help me bring the whole world to this truth."
[Shaking their heads] "That does not make any sense, John. You need help, and we will make sure you get the help you need, okay?"
Brother #2: "John, if Dad had a message for the world, I am certain he could give the message himself, brother." [Turning aside to the other siblings] "Also, did you notice how earlier John said dad came in his physical body, but now he is saying dad can walk through walls? And first he wasn't even sure if it was dad. Then dad showed him bullet holes?! Like somebody who is God and can conquer death can't even fix his own bullet holes? ... And now John wants to lead the family and the whole world like some kind of freaking cult prophet. We need to take him to the hospital or call a psychiatrist ASAP. What do you think?
Brother #3: "Yeah, I'll do it. I'll call."
Liz: "In the mean time, just humor him. Don't argue anymore, ok? Promise me. You'll only upset him even more."
So, what do you think of John and his alleged message from his Dad?
What if some people came to your door and told you this really happened?
What if they told you they even had 4 copies of John's note, but in a 3rd language, and with some discrepancies in the texts?
What if, later on, the stories grew even further, and there were 4 whole novellas produced about the story of John's Dad and the beautiful things he taught while he was alive? What if nobody was saying such things while John's dad was actually living? What if the stories said John's Dad used to heal the sick, cast out demons, preach to big crowds, sometimes up to 5,000 people, performing miracles, calming storms, making food multiply to feed 4,000 people with only 7 pieces of bread, or 5 butter rolls and 2 pieces of sashimi? What if you looked for newspaper or media reports from the time John's dad lived, but none of them recorded ANY of those things at all, not even a single one? [That's the case with everything Jesus allegedly spoke and did. Not a single contemporary author wrote even a single story, a single sentence, a single word about the man John claims was actually God in the flesh.]
Would you believe it John's story?
If not, then you should not be a Christian.
Conclusions:
It is utterly nonsensical to claim that a personal God truly, deeply loved the entire world so much that he went through the trouble of looking at all the females on earth just to find a single 14-year-old Jewish girl, in a remote, small town, to impregnate with himself, so that he could thus become a human in order to reveal his truth to the world, ... but he (irrationally, mysteriously) chose not to appear to everyone (because that might fulfill the mission in a straightforward and honest way that made sense), but only to appear to a relatively small number of illiterate, superstitious people in one small part of the world, and then he kept his identity secret for his entire life (what?!), but when he was older set aside 1-3 years to preach, teach, perform magic tricks and heal people, and then he got killed -- on purpose -- so that he could be a sacrificial offering to himself to satisfy his need for bloodshed and his desire to kill humans for being so disappointing (as he made them), and then he came back to life in his human bodily form, ... but he only showed himself alive to a few people, either for a day or 2, or even up to 40 days according to one account, and then -- for an unexplained reason -- he was unable or unwilling to stay around on earth, or to show himself to everyone, to teach the world his truth in his own words or to show the world the deep love he said he felt for "everyone," but he had to go up into the sky to live, so he entrusted a few people with his message to give to all mankind, promising special rewards to anyone who would believe the stories without actual clear, solid evidence. And the message allegedly survives in only 4 documents, which were originally anonymous. None of the documents are written in the language Jesus most likely would have spoken, the common Aramaic language of the Galilee region where he supposedly lived. No one wrote anything about him during his lifetime, even though several decades after his death, people started claiming he was the incarnation of the God who created all things. And the 4 documents do not agree on the details of what happened. And two of the documents are actually just an altered copy of the first one, but with some changes made and some extra stories added. This is a completely absurd set-up, but this is Christianity.
[It is perfectly clear and has been demonstrated, as you will see if you explore scholarly research or the essays on this website, that the Christian gospels contain falsehoods, historical inaccuracies, contradictions, the numbers of myth (3, 7, 12, 40), and stories that sound like the myths and religious propaganda of the Jewish culture they came from and the Greco-Roman culture they so strongly opposed and wished to rival. So the gospels are not trustworthy, but we shall see more on this topic later. But stil, ... ]
Since no Jesus wrote anything down in his own words or stayed around on earth to teach people, and since only a few accounts of his life exist, in a different language (Greek), written anonymously, but later having authors' names added, then those accounts are almost the only thing we have to go on, if we want to try to understand what -- out of all the reported sayings -- such a character might really have said, IF such a character really existed.
Yes, it's really that bad. ... even worse if you get into the fine details.
Why not? ...
Think about it.
What historical circumstances could possibly create a situation in which NO literate person heard or knew of Jesus during his own lifetime, or no literate person heard or knew anything that seemed important enough to write about it?
IF there was not a real historical Jesus, but the entire character was made up as a symbolic character for a messianic cult or a set of symbolic stories for a messianic cult that was hoping for a resurrection of an independent Israel, and those symbols and stories kept growing over time, and then evolved when the revolutionary hopes failed, then it makes sense that nobody wrote about Jesus during his lifetime.
IF there was a historical Jesus, then it could still make sense, ... IF in reality he was simply a poor, uneducated, hyper-religious man from the region of Galilee who developed delusions of grandeur, thinking he was the Jewish god Yahweh's appointed messiah king, and that he would fulfill various rumored prophecies he had heard about growing up.
IF Jesus really healed the sick almost everywhere he went, and IF he really drove out demons almost everywhere he went, and IF he really multiplied 7 bits of food to feed thousands of people, and IF great crowds of people followed him as the gospels claim, such that he could hardly avoid the crowds, and IF he really calmed storms, walked on water, raised a man from the dead, appeared on a mountain with Moses and Elijah, and had all of those reported arguments with Pharisees and Sadducees, and IF the sky really suddenly went dark for 3 hours when he died, and IF he really showed himself alive shortly after his death, THEN it does NOT make sense that NO ONE AT ALL thought it was important enough to write any of it down during his lifetime or even immediately after his death! Even his enemies?!
There are zero surviving contemporary historical, political, religious, or other documents that mention Jesus, record even a single detail regarding Jesus' life, record a single teaching of his, or imply or verify even the mere existence of a Jesus of Nazareth or a Jesus son of Joseph (Yeshua bar Yehosef), from the possible times of his alleged birth to the possible times of his alleged death.
Christians do not even know what would normally be simple details about an important person's life, the kinds of details one would expect they should know, like what year Jesus was born or what year Jesus died, or what day of the week it was when Jesus died, assuming that he did indeed exist. Why would even the Christians themselves have no knowledge of what year Jesus was born and what year he died?
Greeks, Romans, Jews, and other cultures of the 1st century BCE did write about contemporary events. So why did no one write anything about Jesus during his lifetime?
There IS evidence of people named Jesus, however. Interestingly, according to Dr. Amos Kloner, an Israeli archaeologist and professor at Bar-Ilan University, the name Jesus (Yeshua) has been found 71 times in Judaean burial caves from around that time period.
Ed Pilkington and Rory McCarthy. "Is this really the last resting place of Jesus, Mary Magdalene - and their son?" The Guardian, London, Feb 27, 2007. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/feb/27/religion.israel
So apparently the name Jesus (Yeshua = "Yahweh is salvation") was quite popular at the time.
The Christian gospels (written decades after any death of a historical Jesus would have happened) claim that Jewish / Hebrew scribes were often present during Jesus' public appearances. However, there is no indication that any real scribes ever saw Jesus, knew Jesus, or witnessed anything special that impressed them enough to write about it, whether in favor of Jesus or disapproving of Jesus, or even being aware that an important figure named Jesus, son of Joseph, or Jesus of Nazareth existed.
Moreover, Christians were so embarrassed by the lack of evidence for the historicity of their alleged savior, that these Christians actually invented evidence in order to convince people by way of deceit. Dr. Robert Price put it as follows:
"The overwhelming lack of commentary about Jesus in the historical sources of his supposed time has troubled Christian scholars from the very beginning. As early as the second century, this lack of acknowledgment was noticed. Indeed, it was not long before forgeries attesting to the existence of Jesus were produced. Other such evidences were either intentionally manufactured or inadvertently created through the eye of the beholder. There are several false attestations to Jesus that are of note, among these are the: Letters of Pilate, Letter from Herod Antipas, Letter of Agbar, Letters of Caiaphas, and Testimony of Thallus and Phlegon. All of these supposed evidences from the time of Jesus are universally accepted by scholars today as fraudulent or corrupted, so I won’t bother delving into them in detail."
-- Price, R.G. Deciphering the Gospels: Proves Jesus Never Existed (p. 228-229). Lulu Publishing Services. Kindle Edition. 2018.
It is important to realize that influential Christians were more than willing to make up stories and pretend they were written by other people. This characteristic of the Christian Church is yet further evidence regarding the unreliability of claims made by the Church.
I mean, Christians even forged a letter that was supposedly from the Roman Procurator Pontius Pilate, who allegedly executed Jesus, to the Roman Senate. The letter ostensibly reported details regarding Jesus' crucifixion. The Church intended for people to see this as proof of Christianity's claims, to make the stories more realistic. Today, we know the opposite is true. Christians were clearly willing to lie, make up stories, and fabricate "evidence." In fact, once a person studies the gospels well, applying critical thinking, one discovers that many stories -- if not most or all stories -- in even the canonical gospels themselves are just more examples of fabrications by Christians. You will see later that Christians also forged a famous passage about Jesus that they deliberately inserted it into a book written by the ancient Jewish historian Josephus, The Jewish War, in order to create the appearance that there was historical evidence of Jesus, when in reality there was no decent evidence at all.
What kinds of possible scenarios could realistically explain this lack of information about Jesus during his own lifetime?
If Jesus was just a poor and relatively insignificant man from Galilee who unrealistically hoped he could become Yahweh's messiah-king of an independent Israel, and he only gathered a relatively small circle of illiterate followers, and he was betrayed and crucified before anyone really knew much about him, then the lack of mention of his existence by contemporaries does make sense.
If Jesus was a made-up character symbolic of the messianic hope, and was only eventually historicized, with the stories growing over time, then this scenario does make sense. In this case, it is not surprising that no contemporaries of any historical Jesus mention his existence.
If Jesus was really the kind of person the gospels describe, the lack of documentation of his life does not make sense, because literate people would want to write about such an charismatic character during his lifetime, either that he was amazing or else that he was deluded. Instead we get neither: no one talking about an amazing preacher named Jesus, and no one complaining about a major figure named Jesus, deluding masses of people.
If Jesus was an incarnation of a deeply loving God who wanted to save the whole world and teach everyone the truth, establishing personal relationships with people, then it makes zero sense that his life was so unremarkable that no one wrote anything at all about him during his entire lifetime, at least nothing that survives. The facts certainly do NOT lend themselves to the notion that Jesus was really the "Son of God" who could do miracles and wanted to teach his loving truth to the entire world. In fact, the facts make that claim look absurd in the extreme.
Why not? How could that possibly be? Think deeply about it.
Re: Christian claims: Could a truly loving God really become a human, miraculously and deliberately in order to save humanity, to reveal himself to humanity, and to teach everyone the truth, yet not even convince a single writer to think anything was so important as to write about the "Son of God's" words or deeds either during his alleged lifetime or even for two entire decades or more after his alleged death and resurrection?
Yet despite the fact that people were writing, reading, copying, and discussing all kinds of histories, literature, plays, music, mathematics, geographies, biographies, etc. at that time in history, it is indeed the case that NO ONE at all bothered to write an account of the life, words, or deeds of Jesus, the alleged "Son of God" incarnate, the alleged savior of the whole world, at least not any account that was deemed -- even by the Christian religion itself! -- important enough to copy or ensure its survival. Not only did no historical Jesus write any account himself, but no one at all wrote an account for over 20 years. Hardly conceivable, IF Christian claims were true.
If Julius Caesar could write an account of his Gallic Wars, "Commentarii de Bello Gallico," between 58 and 50 BCE, why could a historical Jesus not write an account of anything whatsoever?
Would a real, loving, universal God care more about preserving the words of a Roman general like Julius Caesar for posterity than the words of his own alleged Son, his own alleged messiah/Christ, his own alleged incarnation?!
If Pliny the Younger could write an account of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE, having witness the eruption himself, and having lost his famous uncle during an attempted rescue operation, why could a historical Jesus not write about what were allegedly the most important words and deeds ever delivered to humanity?
Could a loving God of the whole universe really care more about ensuring the survival of an account of a volcanic eruption than an account of the life and teachings of his own Son?!
Literate persons throughout the Greco-Roman world could write letters to friends, family, other loved ones, colleagues, etc. So why could a historical Jesus not write any letters?
Could a loving God of the whole universe really care more about ensuring the survival of ancient individuals' personal letters than an account of the life and teachings of his own miraculous world-saving Son?!
What could explain a situation in which no one would write an account of the life and words of Jesus until over 20 years or over 40 years after his death?
Option 1: Maybe there was no historical Jesus.
Maybe he started off as a symbolic myth created by a messianic (Greek "Christ") cult, whose members considered themselves the "body of Christ" (i.e. the body of the living messiah), and who were trying to inspire hope, revolutionary sentiment, and trying to build an empire-wide support network for the Jewish god Yahweh and their messianic movement. Maybe the group started in Galilee. Maybe the simple original myth -- about a messiah named Jesus / Yeshua / Joshua / "Yahweh saves" / "Yahweh is salvation," who represented the messianic hope and was destroyed by the Romans, but came back to life, went to heaven, and would come again to rule the nations -- continued to grow over time, as various groups cleverly added bits and pieces to it from the Hebrew scriptures, and eventually from Roman imperial cult too, as a way of rivaling Roman symbols.
The revolutionary hopes were crushed with the failure of the Jewish War and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Maybe some messianic cult members still persisted in hope for an imminent messianic come-back, a return of revolutionary fervor even after destruction, a "Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven" movement, to borrow the symbol used in the supposed "prophecies" attributed to Daniel back around 160 BCE, the symbol used so often in the gospels, a symbol that would be understood as revolutionary for well-educated, thoroughly indoctrinated Jews. Maybe at first they still put out their inspiring story about how the "Son of Man" would soon return in the clouds. All of the insiders would know what that really meant: revolution. However, Jerusalem, the original center of Jewish messianism (the center of of Torah-observing, Mosaic-law-following Jewish Christianity), had been crushed, destroyed, and Gentile converts had come numerically to dominate the network, changing both the demographics and the kinds of things being thought, spoken, done. Roman power still persisted, and whole decades continued to pass with no real, obvious political successes, and the "Son of Man coming in the clouds soon" climax never happened, yet the movement proved surprisingly VERY successful at winning over Gentiles into the network, especially people disaffected with the Roman empire, like the poor, the uneducated, slaves, minorities, etc., and even some wealthy Jews and wealthy foreigners who sympathized with the Jews, even some sympathetic members of Roman aristocratic families. Some groups began to adjust their expectations. Some began to play the long game, giving up hope that the Messiah's/Christ's return would be soon, but maintaining a teaching that it could happen at any time. Maybe they realized that they were winning so much support throughout the empire, that they should continue this movement. Maybe newer converts were taking the story literally, and the leaders in the know allowed it to happen because it was proving so popular, helping to grow the network, and generating revenue. The now numerically-Gentile-dominated network was still funneling money to revolutionary causes through leadership, upper-level initiates.
There was even enough strength to fund and support a second major Jewish revolt, the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132-135 CE), also known as the Second Jewish-Roman War. Simon "Bar Kokhba" was remored to be descended from king David. The greatest rabbi of the time, Akiva ben Yosef ("Son of Joseph), called Simon the messiah ("Christ" in Greek) and gave him the title Bar Kokhba / ben Koseba (“Son of the Star” in Aramaic), a messianic allusion. Note also that Christian groups (messianic groups) had claimed that Jesus, the Messiah, was also "the bright and morning star."
2 Peter 1.18-19: "18. And we ourselves heard this voice from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain. 19. We also have the word of the prophets as confirmed beyond doubt. And you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts."
Revelation 2.25-29: [allegedly Jesus giving a message to the church in Thyatira; see 2.18, "These are the words of the Son of God."] "25. ... Hold on to what you have until I come. 26. To the one who is victorious and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations — 27. that one ‘will rule them with an iron scepter and will dash them to pieces like pottery’ —just as I have received authority from my Father. 28. I will also give that one the morning star. 29. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches."
Revelation 22.16: "I, Jesus, have sent My angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the bright Morning Star."
This is no mere accident or coincidence. Why did they use the same symbolism? Because the "morning star," actually the planet Venus, is also the evening star. It appears in the dark evening as the brightest light in the night sky, other than the moon. Then it dies / disappears from sight. Then it eventually reappears, but early in the morning, just before sunrise, as the "bright Morning Star." In other words, the Morning Star is a symbol of resurrection! The resurrection of what? Jewish messianic hope, their hope for independence, for political power, for throwing off Roman rule, for the Yahweh cult to rule the nations.
Matthew 2.1-3: "1. After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, 2. asking, “Where is the One who has been born King of the Jews? We saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him.” 3. When King Herod heard this, he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him."
That birth story of the messiah / "Christ" was not literally true, but conservative Jews well versed in revolutionary thought and symbols would have recognized the association of the star with revolution, kingship.
However, the Roman Empire proved too strong once again for Jewish attempts at revolution. The Romans under Emperor Hadrian crushed the Bar Kokhba / Son of the Morning Star revolt. Moreover, this time the Roman Emperor Hadrian enacted more severe policies against the Jews of Judea to suppress their identity and their will to resist. For example, he changed the name of the province from Judea to Syria Palaestina, erasing Jewish connections to the name of the land. Hadrian also imposed restrictions on Jews, banning them from practicing circumcision and from observing the Sabbath. Third, since this was the second major rebellion, and since even the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE had not been enough to prevent another massive uprising, this time Hadrian even prohibited Jews from living in Jerusalem at all.
By this time, the empire wide messianic cult already contained more Gentiles than ethnic Jews. Is it any surprise at all that Christianity basically became a new religion, less and less Jewish as time went on? And with the ban on circumcision and Sabbath observance, is it any wonder that the most growth was seen in the messianic groups wanting to make it easier for Gentiles to join, by limiting the requirements regarding the Mosaic law, allowing members to be uncircumcised, and changing observance from Sabbath day to Sunday, the day of the rising Sun, the day of hope.
Hopes for "the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven" (revolution) in their lifetime, in that generation, were now reinterpreted., especially for those Gentile believers who were taking all of the stories literally. Verses were added to authoritative writings and new writings were created (and attributed to Apostles who would have been long dead) to suggest that no one actually knows when it will happen.
2 Peter 3.8-9: "With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 9. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."
The Church had even provided Jesus and Yahweh with a good excuse for inaction on behalf of the Jews and humanity: Yahweh was simply giving the Church more time for sinners to repent and join the Church and be saved from Yahweh's coming wrath, when he finally restores Israel and creates a new sky/heaven and a new land/earth.
Option #2: There was a historical Jesus, but his real actions were so insignificant that no one bothered to write an account of his life and words, and/or at least there was no one literate (and able to afford a pen and paper) who was aware of words and deeds worth writing about.
Maybe a historical Jesus existed and was even delusional enough to think he would be the messiah-king of Israel, the adopted son of Yahweh (as all anointed Israelite kings were called in ritual). Maybe his relatively insignificant cult following even had plans for revolt and for his kingdom, but he was betrayed and crucified by the Romans for sedition. Maybe some of his grieving followers refused to give up hope in the "soon coming kingdom" their former leader had spoken of. Maybe one or more of them had a personal epiphany, coming to believe that wherever the is still hope and faith in Yahweh and his messiah/ Christ, Christ still lives. So Christ/messiah is born again, resurrected from the dead in the form of his faithful followers, those willing to devote their entire lives to the cause of messiah, those willing even to give their very lives for the cause. But Jesus' small circle of followers did not really have any divine power; they were mere ordinary humans with desperate lives, dreaming big, hyper-religious nationalistic dreams for their country. Maybe the group even knew what the Romans claimed about their ancestor Aeneas, their first king Romulus, Julius Caesar, and Augustus Caesar: that after they died, they did not remain dead, but rose up into heaven as gods. Maybe they hated the Romans, hated Roman religious claims, and thought they could make rival claims, stories, and symbols of their own, incorporating ideas from their own scriptures at the same time, claims that would inspire Yahweh-worshiping Jewish messianic revolutionaries everywhere. So they began to spread the word that the Romans crucified the messiah, and that the messiah rose from the dead, appeared to the chosen ones, and would soon be coming back, within their lifetimes, to establish the kingdom of Yahweh on earth. "Repent, for the kingdom is near." Maybe they eventually developed aspirations to create an empire-wide network based on this starting point. Over time, various portions of Hebrew scriptures were selected and molded into a story to symbolize these messianic hopes and claim that these hopes were the fulfillment of all the law and the prophets from the past. And the rest is history.
Either Option #1 or Option #2 is realistically possible.
What is not possible is that the gospels are actual history when interpreted at face value.
The earliest non-Christian sources to mention Jesus appear long after his alleged death (over 50 years for Josephus and 86 years for Tacitus). They do not consider him to be anything truly good or divine or to have been resurrected from the dead.
Josephus will be dealt with below in the section on fraudulent Christian textual modifications.
The Roman historian Tacitus wrote in his Annals (c. 116 CE) about 1st century events, but he certainly had nothing positive to say about Christianity. The information he gives about “Christus” is not based on government documents or witnesses to any events; rather, he appears simply to follow general Christian claims of the time, but to reject them as absurd:
“Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.” (15.44)
The earliest Christian sources, written presumably around 50-60 CE (over 20 years after Jesus’ death), are some letters ascribed to Paul, a man who did not even know personally, or claim to know personally, a historical Jesus when a historical Jesus was actually alive. The letters of Paul contain almost no biographical information about Jesus. In fact, the death and resurrection of the messiah seem to be almost all that Paul cares about, for theological reasons. Why? Because the resurrection of messianic hope and the creation of an empire-wide network of Yahweh-worshiping, pro-messianic supporters of the Jewish cause was the real goal.
I should note, too, that not all letters attributed to Paul by tradition are currently believed by Biblical scholars to have actually been written by Paul. Christians were in the habit of inventing literature for their movement. At least some pseudepigraphic literature made it into the New Testament (like the “Pastoral Epistles”: 1, 2 Timothy and Titus) whereas other pseudepigraphic literature did not (e.g. some pretended correspondence between the Apostle Paul and the philosopher Seneca). More below. Some scholars more boldly question whether any of the Pauline corpus was actually written by the Apostle Paul. They question whether all of the epistles might have been written later. However, that is not the majority view at this time.
... as you will see.
Theoretically, it may have been written before or after the gospels attributed to Mark, Matthew, and Luke. Scholars differ in their opinions. It is a collection of sayings, some of which may theoretically have been spoken by a historical Jesus.
The gospel of Mark shows knowledge of the Jewish War and the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, with the author even inserting an editorial comment, “Let the reader understand” (13:14), when putting events of the war into the mouth of Jesus as alleged prophecies (a relatively common thing for ancient writers to do in support of their cause). The writer was not a witness of the events of Jesus' life, nor did he even claim to be. Not only are the later traditions attributing authorship to Mark (a supposed disciple of Peter) unreliable, the very traditions themselves deny that the writer was a witness of Jesus' life. The Greek text of Mark is both cruder in style and less developed theologically than the other gospels. Mark contains no suggestion that Jesus was born of a virgin, and it does not contain very many teachings of Jesus, who in Mark is more of an exorcist and faith-healer who believed he was living in the last days (see Mark itself, and my paper Imminent Eschatology, or Ehrman's book Jesus: Apocalyptic prophet of the New Millennium, 2001). The original ending of Mark either stopped at 16:8 (and contained no resurrection appearance stories) or was removed on purpose. A different anonymous Christian author added 16:9-20 at a later time. For more information, see The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, by Bart D. Ehrman of UNC Chapel Hill (2011) or From Jesus to Christianity : How Four Generations of Visionaries & Storytellers Created the New Testament and Christian Faith, by L. Michael White, University of Texas professor (2004).
Neither was written by anyone who knew Jesus, and both rely on other sources. Each one uses Mark heavily. 55% of Matthew and 42% of Luke came from Mark. 94% of Mark appears in Matthew. [See visual.] Whole passages of Mark are quoted verbatim or nearly verbatim by Matthew and Luke. However, even more interesting is the fact that each author changes Mark's story in subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways, making it suit a newer theological agenda more to their liking. The authors of Matthew and Luke change Mark's Greek wording on occasion simply to make the style sound better, but each does so in a different way. They also change it for theological reasons, often to create an even grander image of Jesus.
For example, in Mark, Jesus is baptized by John, who is baptizing people for the remission of sins. The writer of Mark apparently had no qualms about this scenario. However, if Jesus were being baptized for the remission of sins, it would imply that he had once been a normal sinful human in need of repentance. But the author of Matthew, who has created a virgin-born savior who was God’s son from birth, and who does not think Jesus would have needed to be baptized for forgiveness, adds more material to the story he borrowed from “Mark,” having John the Baptist protest:
But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented. (Mt 3.14-15)
The writer of Matthew has thus removed what was to him a potentially embarrassing scenario where Jesus seems not necessarily a sinless person from birth. He invents words and puts them in a character’s mouth to create an improved image of a Jesus who explicitly had no need for baptism.
Another example. In Mk 1.11, when Jesus is baptized a voice from heaven speaks to him, saying "You are my beloved son; with you I am well pleased." God informs Jesus of his son ship on that day, echoing a royal psalm. In Matthew's gospel, however, the author created a Jesus who was born of a virgin and was already considered God's son from birth. Furthermore, Matthew wants Jesus to be all-knowing, or pretty close to it. So the author changes what the voice says and the addressee of the voice! In Mt 3.17, the voice addresses not Jesus (as if he needed to find out that he was God's son), but the crowd, saying, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."
What did the voice really say? ... Quit assuming there ever was one! The story was fiction to begin with. These writers could say whatever they wanted. No one would have been able to verify any of it. Even the writer of Mark was inventing. Where did he get his idea? He got it from Psalm 2 (a royal coronation psalm: "You are my son; today I have become your father") and from the old concept of the Jewish king being the adopted son of YHWH (2Sam 7.14; 1Chron 28.6; Ps 2; Ps 89.20-51; compare Acts 13.33). For the writer of Mark, this was a claim to messianic status, and Jesus gained that status at his baptism, at which point the writer depicts him as receiving YHWH's spirit/ anointing. In Jewish tradition and scripture, the phrase/concept of a "son of YHWH" had been used but had never been thought to refer to a virgin birth. Sometimes writers referred to the nation of Israel as YHWH's "son" (Ex. 4.22-23; Jer. 31.9; Hosea 11.1-3). More importantly, as part of Judean/ Israelite kingship ideology, the king of Judah/Israel was considered to be the son of the national god YHWH by adoption (2Sam 7.14; 1Chron 28.6; Ps 2; Ps 89.20-51). For example, Solomon was called YHWH's son, even though he was said to be David's son by Bathsheba and no one thought he was virgin-born (2Sam 7.14; 1Chron 28.6). The Jews were by no means unique in holding this concept, which was already ancient by their time. In general ancient Middle Eastern kingship ideology, the ruler was considered the son of the national god, and kings claimed that god(s) had granted them eternal kingdoms. Israel adopted the same ideology, and the king was considered the son of YHWH with the promise of an eternal kingdom. Compare Egyptian, Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Hellenistic, and Roman claims (Aeneas, Romulus, Caesar, Augustus; divinity and prophesied eternal empire), as well as those of Asian cultures, like Japan. Alexander the Great and Augustus Caesar are good examples for comparison, although in both of these cases stories circulated about a God being their true father, not merely their adoptive father (Zeus fathering Alexander; Apollo fathering Augustus). In addition to this, Greco-Roman religion and literature was replete with stories of either virgin or divine births of heroes, demigods, and gods. If the phrase "son of god" were used much in early Christian evangelization of the Greco-Roman world (and it seems that it was), then it is no surprise that these people or those influenced by their culture might interpret the phrase to mean much more than it had meant previously in Jewish tradition, and that additional stories could soon follow, stories on par with those of Perseus, Alexander, and Augustus.
If you were to proceed patiently with a thorough examination of all the gospel stories, you would see so many ways in which Matthew and Luke alter Mark's story to make Jesus look even better than he did before. It will then be quite obvious to you what was really going on. The legends were growing, on purpose.
The writers of Matthew and Luke both invent a genealogy and a birth narrative for Jesus, but they differ on both counts. See my paper: The Fictitious Birth Narratives of Jesus. Luke’s genealogy even says that there were only 77 generations of humans from God to Jesus through Adam!! – a false belief, but natural for someone who read Jewish scripture, which teaches that God created Adam only about 4100 years BC. The birth narratives disagree on the home town of Joseph and Mary (Bethlehem in Matthew; Nazareth in Luke), and on the sequence and purposes behind Joseph's and Mary's actions. Aside from the birth narratives, each gospel adds many teachings of Jesus derived from a common unnamed source, called “Q” by historians. By comparing Matthew and Luke, one can determine the subject matter of the Q source material, but it also becomes obvious that the authors are changing things, expanding their sources, and imagining what might have been said. Matthew adds a "sermon on the mount"; Luke does not have it, but gives similar teachings in a "sermon on the plain." Even more striking than the different fabricated genealogies and virgin birth stories and the adjusted "teachings" of Jesus is the fact that Matthew’s gospel puts Jesus’ resurrection appearances in Galilee, while Luke emphatically puts all post-resurrection events in Jerusalem (see Acts also). The two are more than 100 miles apart! Mark, the appendage to Mark (16:9-20), Matthew, and Luke have serious discrepancies about events of the resurrection [see my paper, The Resurrection: Discrepancies and Evaluation]. The original Mark alluded to resurrection appearances in Galilee (16:7), but whoever wrote 16:9-20 seems to have used something closer to the Lukan version.
It claims to have been inspired by writings from “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” who seems to have died before the writing of the extant book (John 21:20-24). It is radically different from the synoptic gospels:
In the synoptic gospels (Mt, Mk, Lk), Jesus first goes to Jerusalem during the last week of his life, “passion week.” John, however, has Jesus visit Jerusalem earlier and more frequently.
The synoptic gospels do not have John’s seventh sign-miracle, the resurrection of Lazarus (John 11).
The synoptics do not have John’s extended “Farewell Discourse” (13-17).
In John, Jesus’ ministry lasts 3 or more years, while it only lasts for one year in the others.
In all three synoptic gospels the cleansing of the Jerusalem temple occurs just after Jesus’ triumphal entry into the city. Mark even depicts Jesus’ behavior as the reason for the plot to kill him. In the synoptics, Jesus dies within a week of the temple cleansing. In John, Jesus cleanses the temple on his very first visit to Jerusalem, two years earlier.
The last supper is on a different day of the Jewish month, as is the crucifixion. In John, the last supper is “before Passover” (13:1), and the crucifixion and burial occur on the day leading up to Passover, which itself was a Sabbath day (John 19:31, 42). In contrast, the synoptic gospels put the last supper on the first evening of Passover (Mark 14.12-17), a Thursday, and the crucifixion and burial are after the first evening of Passover, on Passover day itself. // Let me put this same information another way. The synoptic gospels and John disagree on the date/time of the last supper and the crucifixion. In John, the last supper is NOT a Passover meal, because the Passover has not yet arrived, and Jesus will actually be crucified on the day leading up to Passover evening. In John, the last supper is just a normal meal (not a holiday), and Jesus talks a lot and washes the disciples' feet (John 13.1-2). In John 19, Jesus is crucified and dies in the afternoon on 14 Nisan, during the sacrifice of Passover Lambs, before the Passover meal (John 19.31, 42). In Mark 14.12-16, as well as Matthew and Luke which copy so much of Mark, the disciples are just preparing for the Last Supper at that time, a Passover meal with Jesus, and Jesus is not crucified until 15 Nisan, the day after the Passover meal, from 9 AM ("the third hour") to 3 PM ("the ninth hour") with an imaginary 3 hours of world darkness in between. So John has Jesus being crucified at a time when the synoptics have Jesus eating a last supper Passover meal with his disciples. Which is correct, if any?
There is nice symbolism in both stories. In John, Jesus is crucified right when the Passover lambs are being slaughtered, which is nice symbolism for the storyteller, making Jesus out to be such a Passover lamb thematically, the "lamb of God" (John 1.29, 36; a phrase not used in the other gospels). There is nice, but different, symbolism in the synoptics, too, with the darkened sky, echoing other ancient myths in which the sky goes dark at the death of the hero (cf. stories of the deaths of Romulus and Julius Caesar -- https://sites.google.com/site/investigatingchristianity/home/caesar-and-christ). This dark sky story, perhaps first fabricated by the author of Mark, further helps the Christian myth to echo the solar myth, in which the sun dies and is reborn every year, easter coinciding with the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. If the sun dies, how can there be light? Otherwise conceived, nature is seen as being in harmony with human actions. When the hero, who is like the sun in his splendor, dies, then the sun cannot shine in its full brightness, but mourns along with all creation. For other mythological parallels with Jesus' death/resurrection, see the section on the number 3 on my Biblical Numerology page -- https://sites.google.com/site/investigatingchristianity/home/numerology.
This is one of the reasons Christians don't even know what year in history Jesus supposedly died, because the Passover/ 15 Nisan in the Jewish lunar calendar fell on a Thursday evening/ Friday in AD 27 (a synoptic gospel scenario), but it fell on a Friday evening/ Saturday in AD 30 and AD 33 (closer to a Johannine scenario). Which, if any, is actual history? Who knows? If the Christian god were real and active, then presumably they could ask him which was the correct date/time, and he could let us all know.
John has none of the following: the temptation of Jesus, the transfiguration, the institution of the Lord’s supper, examples of Jesus casting out demons, the "sermon on the mount," the "Lord’s prayer," narrative parables.
Jesus is God in John. John begins by asserting that Jesus always existed, as the “logos” of God who became flesh. John’s gospel portrays Jesus as God. It contains several “I am” statements echoing Yahweh’s statement to Moses in Exodus 3:14. It even has Thomas say to Jesus, “My lord and my God” (20:28). John 14:9 depicts Jesus as saying, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." Yet other Christian writers within the New Testament did not equate Jesus with God. e.g. “God ... whom no one has seen or can see” (1 Tim 6:15-16). By the time of John’s gospel, Jesus has evolved into an all-knowing character, whereas he seemed more human in earlier gospels. In Mark 13:32, Jesus is not omniscient, and says, "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Matthew 24:36 says the same, in some manuscripts, but unknown Christians took the phrase "nor the Son" out of their manuscripts, attempting to change the text because it conflicted with their doctrine.
The gospel of John records a LOT of questionable dialogue, dialogue not found in the other gospels. It looks like it was composed by someone in a Christian community writing to encourage and teach the people in his community. It does not seem to be eye-witness testimony of Jesus' actual words.
Here is an example of a passage in John that is practically provably inauthentic. The "born again" passage (John 3) in which Jesus talks to Nicodemus depends upon a pun in the Greek language on the word anothen, which in Greek can mean either "a second time" or "from above." Jesus is depicted as telling Nicodemus, allegedly a leading Jewish rabbi, "Unless you are born anothen, you will not be able to enter the kingdom of God." Jesus means "born from above" / born "from the Spirit," but Nicodemus interprets Jesus to mean "born again," and so he shows surprise and asks how a person could be born "a second time." Nicodemus misinterprets Jesus, who actually meant "from above," and Jesus corrects him, explaining how one needs to be born of the spirit (which comes from above), not from the flesh or by a normal birth alone. IF the conversation had been in Aramaic, the language of any actual historical Jesus and famous rabbi with whom he could have spoken, the pun would not work, since the Aramaic word for "from above" does not have a double meaning "a second time." Nicodemus' response to Jesus makes no sense in Aramaic. The gospels are written in Greek, but Greek was not the language of Jesus or of the mostly illiterate Galileans or the Jewish teachers with whom a rural Galilean preacher might have conversed. [This example I owe to Bart Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 2012, pp. 90-91.]
A good study tool for Christians and non-Christians is Burton H. Throckmorton’s Gospel Parallels, or web sites like this one http://www.utoronto.ca/religion/synopsis/meta-5g.htm, which sets accounts side-by-side, so that it is easier to compare and contrast the different gospels. Some easier-to-spot differences: In Mark, the earliest surviving "biography," there is no virgin birth and Jesus seems more human; Matthew and Luke reflect communities that have added (different) genealogies and birth narratives; John depicts a pre-existent Jesus who is God -- quite a development. One could examine how the different gospels treat Jesus’ baptism by John and the heavenly voice: small details change over time, increasing the authority of Jesus. The evolution of belief in the omniscience of Jesus has already been mentioned above. There are too many examples to get more specific here. Careful study reveals that the writers created or shaped sayings/stories in ways the reflect the experience of the community in which each gospel was written.
For example, they make him walk on water and appear transfigured on a mountain; this makes him superior to Moses, who presided over the parting of the Red Sea and was transfigured on a mountain. See also the "sermon on the mount" (in Matthew), where Jesus is made to give the new version of the commandments in another Mosaic parallel. Matthew also invented a story about Herod killing babies to try to prevent the birth of the coming king/prophet. The story is not historical. No genuine ancient historians recorded it, and even the other gospel writers seem unaware of such a story. Rather, it was invented by the writer of Matthew as an echo of Moses' birth story and numerous stories in Mesopotamian, Greek, Roman, and other cultures (cf. Sargon of Akkad, Cyrus the Great, Perseus, Krishna, Romulus and Remus, etc.). Christian myth-makers had Jesus fast for 40 days and nights to symbolically match Moses and Elijah and even the 40-year Israelite sojourn in the desert described in the Pentateuch. They make him raise the dead to match the feats of Elijah and Elisha (as well as Hercules and Asclepius). Elijah and Elisha also create abundance from little, a feat topped by the literary Jesus, who feeds 4,000 or 5,000 with a small amount (like 5 loaves and 2 fishes [5+2=7] or with 12 baskets left over [notice the use of special numbers!]). The whole "3 days and 3 nights in the heart of the earth" thing (Mt 12:40) is symbolism from the Jonah story and the older Exodus story. For more examples in better detail, see Randel Helms, Gospel Fictions, (1988. Prometheus Books), which gives a short literary analysis.
It is no accident that the stories also relate to astronomy/astrology and resemble elements of ancient mythology. Ancient astrologers marked the 3 day disappearance of the moon in every lunar cycle and the 3 day disappearance of Venus during its "transformation" from the Evening Star to the resurrected Morning Star during the 40-day Venus Retrograde, which occurs every 20 months. Odysseus was in the cave of the cyclops for three days and nights, too. The guard dog of the underworld, whom Hercules retrieved when he went to Hades and back, was said to have 3 heads. Also, when Hercules saved Laomedon's daughter Hesione from the sea monster, he entered the mouth of the monster and hacked at its insides for three days before he emerged again with Athena's help (William Hansen, Ariadne's Thread, 2002, p. 163). In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh and Enkidu killed Humbaba with 3 blows, the dead were shrouded with 3-ply cloth, and the Bull of Heaven, which Gilgamesh and Enkidu slew, snorted 3 times, opening up the earth and causing death which each snort. Ancient mythology from Egypt and Sumer on would fill its stories with 3's, 7's, 12's, 40's, etc., just as the Bible does.
Romulus, the founder of Rome, was also the son of God (Mars), was born of a holy virgin (Rhea Silvia), became a God himself (Quirinus), ascended into heaven at the end of his earthly life, appeared on earth after his 'death' (to Julius Proculus with instructions to convey to the Romans his ascension, his apotheosis, and the future greatness of Rome), and re-ascended (Livy 1.16; Dionysius of Halicarnassus 2.56.1-7, 2.63.3-4; Plutarch Romulus, Numa). Even more recently historical men like Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar were believed by Romans to have ascended to heaven. The ancient people, including Jews and Christians, imagined that god(s) lived in the sky; so such an ascension in a cloud made sense to them, whereas it seems strange to the ear of a modern, educated person. Also, many Greek and Roman gods, demigods, and heroes were born of virgins. Early Christianity also bears many resemblances to Greco-Roman mystery religions which promised initiates a blessed afterlife. Jesus' death and "resurrection" is parallel to the ancient stories of Osiris, Adonis, Attis, Tammuz, Dionysus, Persephone, and others. There are too many examples of borrowed literary, religious, and mythological features to list them all here. If the gods and heroes and even emperors of other nations had performed such feats, how could the creators of a new religion have their hero do anything less? For some very detailed and quite telling comparisons of Christian myth with earlier Roman stories and propaganda, see my paper "Caesar and Christ" -- https://sites.google.com/site/investigatingchristianity/home/caesar-and-christ.
15. No people, not even Christians, claim that Jesus appeared to Roman authorities. One might suppose that a real god who could rise from the dead and wanted the world to know "the truth" and worship him would appear and make himself known to the entire world. Of course that is not how anything went. The Christian stories are suspicious, conflicting, and unreliable. If Saddam Hussein’s body or Elvis's body went missing and some Iraqis/Americans claimed that he had risen from the dead and that they saw him but that he then went into the sky, would you believe them? Would you believe their stories of what Saddam/Elvis told his close disciples? How about 40 years or more after the "fact"? And what if reports contained many discrepancies, as do the gospels? See my paper, The Resurrection: Discrepancies and Evaluation.
16. It is a demonstrable fact that Christians not only fabricated stories, but they tampered with Biblical texts as time went on. One need only purchase a Greek text of the Bible with a critical apparatus in it, showing the textual variations among surviving copies. For a brief essay with some interesting examples, check out “Which Bible?” by Steven Carr (1997), which is available on-line both at http://www.theskepticalreview.com/tsrmag/976which.html and also on my web page. We have proof that variants exist, and although some variants may be accidents, it is a fact that Christians edited/'doctored' their texts. Who knows how many cases of tampering and 'editing' went unnoticed? I already gave the example of how Mark 13:32 says Jesus is not omniscient, "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Some manuscripts of Matthew 24:36 say the same, but unknown Christians took that phrase "nor the Son" out of other manuscripts, because it conflicted with their doctrine. They did not succeed in reaching every manuscript! This betrays yet another attempt to change their story, to shape the "facts." Bart Ehrman's book, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, 2005, is a nice introduction to this topic.
17. The New Testament is full of misinterpretations and out-of-context quotations of the Jewish Scriptures. Jews knew this all through the Middle Ages, and it was one of the many good reasons why they did not believe in Jesus as their Messiah, but too many Christians hated the Jews, and Christian scholars were unwilling to look into it honestly until modern times. See my paper, “Prophecies of the Messiah: Appendix D: New Testament Interpretations of the Old Testament” for several excellent examples. Just one abbreviated example is the supposed prophecy of the virgin birth of the Messiah. Isaiah 7:14-17 actually says in Hebrew, "Behold, the young woman will conceive"; it does NOT say "a virgin will conceive." Hebrew has a word that specifically means "virgin;" it is used in many places in the Bible, but not here. The writer of Matthew was using a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, which used the Greek word parthena and can refer to a virgin, but does not necessarily do so. Virgin births were very common in Greek stories of heroes. ... But there is much more. The child Isaiah prophesied about was supposed to live in the 700's BCE:
"...and before the boy is old enough to know the difference between right and wrong, the land . . . will be laid waste by the king of Assyria" (Isaiah 7:14-17).
That happened in 732 and 722-21 BCE. The birth of the child was supposed to be a sign for King Ahaz in the 700's. Thus, there is NO WAY Isaiah was referring to some far off virgin birth of a spiritual messiah. There is no prophecy of a virgin birth of the messiah anywhere in Jewish scripture. Christians usually do not bother to read the rest of that passage in Isaiah. They too often do not bother to read the OT in context or learn Jewish history at all, and that is why they are easy prey for preachers and evangelists (who were once easy prey for others, etc. ad infinitum). The idea that Jesus fulfilled Jewish prophecy is ridiculous if one studies the prophecies in historical context. Again, see my paper, “Prophecies of the Messiah," for a thorough review of this topic.
18. Other reasons to question the reliability of early Christian writers in general:
During the Greco-Roman era, it was relatively common for groups to write stories or "prophecies" or other literature and falsely attribute the writing to a hero, ancestor, prophet, or spiritual leader. For example, early Christians had a document called the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, a Jewish pseudepigraphon into which Christians basically inserted a bunch of "prophecies" about Jesus and claimed that the prophecies were made by the 12 sons of Jacob almost 2000 years before Jesus. In other words, it was a fraud. [And anyway, modern scholars and even plenty of lay people know that the patriarchal stories in Genesis are more myth and legend than history. See my paper, Old Testament Chronological and Historical Problems.]
Other examples of such pseudipigraphal and/or apocryphal works are the following Jewish and Christian texts: I and II Esdras, Tobit, the Wisdom of Solomon, the Wisdom of Jesus Ben Sirach, Baruch, Letter to Jeremiah, some additions to Daniel (Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon), Prayer of Manasseh, III and IV Maccabees, I and II Enoch (quoted by Jude in the New Testament), Ascension of Isaiah (more Christian "prophesies" of Jesus falsely attributed to Isaiah), II Baruch, Psalms of Solomon, Pseudo-Phocylides, and the Sybilline Oracles. Daniel itself (in the Old Testament) was circulated in the 2nd century BCE (during Jewish conflicts with Seleucid Syria) and falsely attributed to an old legendary hero to make it appear that the war was prophesied long before.
At the very least, in the cases of Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and Ascension of Isaiah, there is proof that early Jews and Christians were in the business of making up stories and attributing them to certain authors. In other words, people were inventing religion. And that is not all.
I already mentioned the fake literary correspondence between the Apostle Paul and the Roman philosopher Seneca. Other early Christian writings included the Shepherd of Hermas, the Acts of Paul and Thecla, an Epistle of Barnabas, a Prayer of the Apostle Paul, Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Truth, Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Mary, Gospel of Philip, Apocryphon of John, Gospel of the Egyptians, Acts of Peter and the Twelve, Thunder, Perfect Mind, Letter of Peter to Philip, Testimony of Truth, Eugnostos the Blessed, and many more.
And this is only what we know about! Who knows how much other literature was destroyed? People at that time were writing a tremendous amount of religious literature and passing it off as authoritative. In summary, NO early Christian writings are truly reliable or verifiably authentic. So even if we did not have all the demonstrable errors and discrepancies that DO exist in the texts of the NT, still Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John just as likely be fabrications as would the other texts. Why are they in the Bible? Because they were written from what became the "orthodox" viewpoint and were thus kept by the "orthodox" church while other writings were discarded, and because they were not sufficiently exposed to criticism at the time. When "holy" texts and the ability to read are in the hands of only a few people, many of them priests, it is much easier for priests to manipulate the public; and such was the case with Christianity until relatively modern times.
The Jewish historian Josephus’ writings, Jewish War (80-90 CE) and Antiquities (c. 95 CE), do not support Christian claims. However, later Christians during or after the 200’s CE did tamper with the text of Josephus’ Antiquities and insert Christian material into it in order to fabricate “historical” support for their claims. The following is called the “Testimonium Flavianum,” from Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3, in the translation of William Whiston:
“Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”
To people with a thorough knowledge of ancient history, it will be immediately obvious that the passage is a fraud. It looks practically like a creed from the 3rd or 4th century! Furthermore, Josephus was Jewish and a Roman sympathizer, and the mass of his writings show beyond a doubt that he was no Christian. The first person ever to cite the forged passage of Antiquities was the Christian writer Eusebius, writing in about 324 CE. (Some historians think he probably wrote it himself.) Before this, NO Christian writer ever suggested that Josephus said anything resembling this passage. The Christian author Origen (c. 185-254) even stated clearly that Josephus “he did not accept Jesus as Christ” (Commentary on Matthew 10.17), directly refuting the implication of the later forged passage, and Origen appears to have no knowledge of the Testimonium Flavianum. This forgery fits in with the fact that Christians were undeniably in the habit of fabricating literature to support their religion, as is attested by numerous examples, many of which I have listed.
----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----
This list is not complete, by any means, but it is a decent starter. Facts such as these support the conclusion that there is no reliable, uncontroversial access to “the historical Jesus” (again, I am assuming there was one). Those who attempt to dig behind the Christian propaganda and discover what any historical Jesus may have been like reach conclusions that often differ significantly from scholar to scholar and disturb those who want to believe the stories literally.
Given such circumstances surrounding the development of Christianity, and observing that Jesus does not ever appear himself and confirm any of this literature for humanity's sake, I found myself unable to continue assuming that the New Testament is reporting the true words of Jesus.
It is hard enough for an average modern human to remember the exact words someone said 45 years ago. People may get snippets correct, but we usually end up paraphrasing and adding elements. And this is a problem even with honest sources. With the Christian sources, the entire set-up looks fishy to me.
I readily admit that there may be some true words of a historical Jesus in the New Testament, but in order to be safe and honest, I try to use qualifying terms/phrases, such as “allegedly” or “according to the writer of Matthew, Jesus said ...” That way I know I am not lying.
----- -----
If you are new to this information, you may want to read the references mentioned above, or the following:
-- From Jesus to Christianity : How Four Generations of Visionaries & Storytellers Created the New Testament and Christian Faith, by L. Michael White (Dec 1, 2004)
-- New Testament Story: An Introduction, by David L. Barr (2001)
-- Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, by Bart D. Ehrman. (2007.)
-- Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition?, by Robert M. Price. (2003.)
-- Did Jesus Exist: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, by Bart Ehrman. (2012) Ehrman, claiming to explain the position of the majority of modern university scholars of the New Testament in America and Europe, believes that a real Jesus did indeed exist, but that he was quite different from the Jesus people came to believe in, the legendary Jesus of the finished gospels and the Christian religion.
These men either are or once were Christian. None set out originally to "destroy the faith" or make fabrications. The books are well documented. One of these men is a former professor of mine, although I had de-converted from Christianity well before I took his classes. Another of these authors I met at a university lecture at UT Austin. The first two of these works are current standard textbooks for New Testament classes in many American universities. You might also consider taking classes at a non-religious university from a professor. Religious universities often suppress honest research/dialog and often refuse to hire professors who will not support their particular sectarian religious views – not an good set-up for an “educational” institution. Sometimes even professors at non-religious universities suppress such information.
Too many people are afraid of offending religious believers, do not have the patience to talk about these topics, or are simply unaware of such information.
(first written January 30-31, 2008, and edited/updated periodically, last in 2012.)