Is the Quran the Word of God? – Just the Opposite
One of the reasons any a rational human being would disavow the Quran as a divinely revealed text from God is that, notwithstanding the many passages that speak of goodness and clemency, there are also verses calling for violence, presenting Muhammad as a military figure as opposed to a prophet. This is unlike the violence recorded in the Old Testament, which is limited to historical events and allegorical interpretation. In order to show that the Quran is not the revealed word of God, it is necessary to see why they hold it as such. The Quran, which literally means “the recitation,” is the sacred text and the primary guide for all Muslims. They believe that it contains the literal word of God, which was gradually revealed by Allah to the Prophet Muhammad over a twenty-three-year period (609–632 AD); the latter being the primary reason Muslims believe the Quran is from God (Allah).
Muhammad, according to Quranic teaching, was prophesied in the Holy Bible (both the Old and New Testaments) to bring forth Allah’s final revelation: “Remember when Isa [Jesus], son of Maryam, said, “O children of Israel, I am a messenger of Allah sent towards you, confirming the Torah that is (sent down) before me, and giving you the good news of a messenger who will come after me, whose name will be Ahmad [most praised — the root from Muhammad: ḥ-m-d].” (Sura 61, 6) Muslims often refer to the Gospel of John (15, 26-27) to sustain this: “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father; the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father; he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.” Muslims’ association of the “Advocate” to Muhammad is both ludicrous and shortsighted since Muhammad cannot proceed form the Father. As explained by Christian writer Jonathan McLatchie, in a post A Simple Reason Why the Quran Cannot be the Word of God, Jesus here is speaking to his Apostles; their bearing testimony is directly linked to the coming of the Advocate, i.e., the Holy Spirit, and thus the fulfillment of this promise must be found in them to whom the promise was made — not Muhammad. If Jesus’s promise would have referred to Muhammad, that fact that it was then fulfilled six centuries later, everything said by our Lord to the Apostles would not be relevant to them.
Muslims also believe that Allah promised to guard the holy book from any possible alterations, revisions, deletions, or redactions. Therefore, while they may disagree about the meaning and importance of the revelation, there is a broad consensus on the integrity and infallibility of the text: “Do they not contemplate the Quran? Had it been from other than Allah, they would surely have found much discrepancy therein.” — Sura 4, 82
In the Christian Bible, to make a comparison, the human writer of the sacred text writes under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, which in essence makes him a coauthor with God. This is evident by some of the titles in both Testaments: the Book of Job, the Gospel according to Mark, the Epistle of James, and so on. In Islam, however, the Quran is not coauthored by anyone; rather, it is munzal, which has always been present with Allah and descended unto Muhammad; it is a literal transcript of Allah’s words: We revealed it on the Night of Power [al-Qadar = glory]. Ah, what will convey unto you what the Night of Power is! The Night of Power is better than a thousand months. The angels and the Spirit descended therein, by the permission of their Lord, with all decrees.—Sura 97, 1–4
Every single word, every single letter in the Quran, remains exactly as it was made known from Allah to Muhammad down to our present day. The Quran is Allah’s unchangeable and eternal expression. Therefore, because Muslims hold that the Quran was sent down by Allah, there is not the slightest possibility for any critical or historical interpretation, not even for those elements that are indisputably related to the traditions of a specific historical period and culture. At the same time, it is difficult to take the Quran as a historical book, in part because the Prophet’s attributed sayings were collected by several of his companions—scribes who were responsible for recording the revelations shortly after his death. Since these codices were first memorized before they were penned down, there were naturally not free of discrepancies. As a result, around, 653 AD, the Caliph Uthman destroyed the Quranic copies extant during his time and commissioned a standard and universal version (also known as Uthman’s Codex), which is generally considered the archetype of the Quran known today:
So Uthman sent a message to Hafsa saying, “Send us the manuscripts of the Quran so that we may compile the Quranic materials in perfect copies and return the manuscripts to you.” Hafsa sent it to Uthman. Uthman then ordered Zaid Ibn Thabit, Abdullah bin Azubair, Said bin Al-As and Abdur Rahman bin Harith bin Hisham to rewrite the manuscripts in perfect copies.… Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Quranic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt.—Sahih al-Bukhari, Book 61, hadith 510
Another challenge to the accuracy of the Quran is that there is a troubling snippet of information in that Muhammad himself, despite being the person who had direct access to Allah’s revelation, admitted to forgetting some of the narrations: ‘A’isha reported that the Apostle of Allah listened to the recitation of the Quran by a man in the mosque. Thereupon he said: “May Allah have mercy upon him; be reminded me of the verse which I had been made to forget.”—Sahih Muslim, Book 4, hadith 1721
According to tradition, one person, the Prophet’s scribe, Zaid Ibn Thabit, had to memorize the entire Quran before apprehensively taking on the task of compiling the Islamic sacred book. In reality, he had to locate the Quranic data and gather it from parchments, scapula, leafstalks of date palms, and from the recollections of men. If he did not memorize the entire work, as is evident, he therefore had to rely on someone else who could recite it to him, which means that there were variants of it. Not to mention, Uthman acknowledged that there would be contradictions in his codex based on the original dialect of the Quran: Uthman said to the three Qurayshi men, “In case you disagree with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the Quran, then write it in the dialect of Quraysh, the Quran was revealed in their tongue.”—Sahih al-Bukhari, Book 61, hadith 510
As a Christian I believe the Holy Bible is God’s, specifically the fullness of His revelation in the Gospels in Jesus Christ. The fact that Muhammad is not God’s final messenger, unlike Muslims who claim his coming had been revealed in Sacred Scripture, should be enough to show that the Quran is not a divinely revealed book. If it is not, the flawed and defective verses of the Quran, in addition to the ordering killing, pillaging, etc., should.
N. B. This piece was originally posted on https://thegreatarchitect.blog on April 9, 2019.
Mario Alexis Portella is Author of Islam: Religion of Peace? – The Violation of Natural Rights and Western Cover-Up.
Book is available on Amazon:
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/islam-mario-alexis-portella/1129630361?ean=9781973635550
WestBow Press: https://www.westbowpress.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-001168034
NONE OF THE THREE RELIGIONS OF THE DESERT ARE FROM ANY god.
Not just the team commandments…..NOTHING OF the Bible IS FROM ANY god. ENTIRE BIBLE IS MERELY PLAGIARISM OF PRE-JUDAIC AND CONTEMPORARY RELIGIONS OF THE REGION.
The best example is the name of the god El (Elyon) of babble came directly from the pagan Ugaritic religion. Tablets from Canaanite region has revealed this.
EL was the proper name of the chief of gods of Ugarite religion. Linguists propose that this word EL meant strength. EL, the chief Ugarite god had many divine sons. He lived on a celestial mountain having a magical tree and lived underneath a tent on this mountain. Rivers used to flow from this tree on the mountain.
There are many clues that the Hebrew Israelites borrowed many of these themes from Ugarit religion. Judaism was originally polytheistic and later evolved into a monotheistic religion, combining different gods into one god.
The following biblical verse clearly says that none of the Jews even knew the name of Yahweh before Moses revealed the name to the Jews.
Exodus 6
3 and~I~will~be~SEE(Verb) (וָאֵרָא / wa’ey’ra) TO (אֶל / el) Avraham (אַבְרָהָם / av’ra’ham) TO (אֶל / el) Yits’hhaq (יִצְחָק / yits’hhaq) and~TO (וְאֶל / wê’el) Ya’aqov (יַעֲקֹב / ya’a’qov) in~MIGHTY.ONE (בְּאֵל / bê’eyl) Shaddai (שַׁדָּי / sha’dai) and~TITLE~me (וּשְׁמִי / ush’mi) YHWH (יְהוָה / YHWH) NOT (לֹא / lo) I~did~be~KNOW(Verb) (נוֹדַעְתִּי / no’da’ti) to~~them(m) (לָהֶם / la’hem) [259]
and I appeared to Avraham, to Yits’hhaq, and to Ya’aqov with the mighty one of Shaddai, and my title is YHWH, I was not known to them,
Observe two things here.
1. The name YHWH was never known to anybody, before Moses.
2. Observe that the translation says Yahweh appeared with el-sha’dai.
It does NOT say YHWH is El-Shaddai. All translations miss the important word “with” = “be” in Hebrew.
Why does the verse say “with El-Sha’dai”? This is polytheism. Deuteronomy 32:8-9 as well says that to the sons of god Elyon (Dead Sea scrolls and septuagint versions), was distributed many nations and Israel was given to YHWH….why? Again, it is clear that earlier version of this religion considered a chief god leading a council of gods, who are sons of this leader god. This is reflected in the Bible. Later interpolations and editing of bible by scribes (Masoteric text) changed and started stressing both these names are of same god.
How do we know this? Present research from Ugaritic scripts and tablets reveal this truth. Ugaritic script precedes Hebrew script by few centuries. Ugaritic tablets show a god named El/Elyon leading a council of gods and had 70 sons and he distributed nations among them. This god Elyon also lives in a cosmic mountain under a tent, just like the Bible god Elyon also appeared to Moses in mount of Sinai and asked to build a tent around the ark of covenant. There are many other similarities of poems and imagery (strong like a bull etc.) in Ugarit and bible all over. This is published by scholars like Mark S Smith.
Another example is the practice of “Cherem” (burning everything in enemies city including humans beings and animals as offering to some god) in the Bible. Even the verses describing “cherem” in bible parallel the The Moabite Mesha Stele (pagan Moabite religious practice). All these clearly show that the Bible has just plagiarized what the pagan canaanites have believed and modified them.
NOW CRUSTIAN IDIOTS WILL START TU-QUOQUO and ad-hominem nonsense here…..
A claim by many Muslims is that no one can produce something as beautiful as the Quran in the way the words are arranged and thus it can only be of God. This claim should be answered.
First, all someone has to do is examine some of the great works of literature to fine much written beauty. Such as the Greek epic poet Homer with his Iliad and Odyssey and then Virgil who produced the Aeneid has beauty. Even one of the non-Bible books in the Apocrypha called The Song of Three Children is also very beautiful. Thus just because someone sees a work that is written in great beauty doesn’t mean it’s inspired by God.
Second, the scholar Edward Gibbon wrote after an examination of the Quran that it is an “incoherent jumble of fable and precept and declamation which seldom excites a sentiment or an idea, sometimes craws in the dust and is sometimes lost in the clouds…” The writer Thomas Carlyle wrote the Quran is “A wearisome jumble, crude, incondite [with] endless iterations [and] long-windedness…” Likewise, the philosopher David Hume was NOT favorably impressed after reading the Quran.
[Source of the three scholars mentioned – Secrets of The Koran: Revealing Insight Into Islam’s Holy Book .56,66, by Don Richardson]
Furthermore, the following should be taken into consideration. Of course the Muslim who reads the Quran will see great beauty in the way the words are arranged. This is, in part, because of the power of suggestion after being told so many times that the Quran is so beautifully written. That’s an old brainwashing method, repeating and being told that same thing again and again. Since he or she is always being told the same lie will end up believing that lie. In addition to that, the Imams try to discourage their people from reading other works, such as the Bible, so then they don’t have much or anything to compare or contrast the Quran with. Of course there are some Muslim’s that do read other works, but they are exceptions and they read other things only after they were already brainwashed by the Imams. In short, the Muslims can’t read the Quran objectively because their Imams have programmed them to have a strong bias towards it.
Since the very foundation of and for Islam is the Quran ,this leads to very important question: “Is the Quran the Word of God or is it a fabrication of a man. Thus, is the Quran the truth or a fiction and a hoax ?” The answer is clearly given on pages 145 through 157 in THE ISLAMIC INVASION by Robert Morey in which he wrote a section on the Quran with its self-contradictions. Just two of the many he cited are the following “The Quran differs on whether a day is a thousand years or fifty thousand years in God’s sight’ and “Who was first to believe? Abraham or Moses [Sura 6:14 versus 7:143]? The above is inconsistent and illogical. Further, Morey wrote about “The fact that Judaism and Christianity broke up into different sects was used in the Quran to prove that they are not of God [Suras 30:20-32. 42:13, 14]. Yet Islam has broken up into many warring sects and therefore cannot be true if the Quran is right.” Moreover, Morey in his book shows many more contradictions and absurdities in the Quran, there are and how Muhammad incorporated extra Biblical and Jewish folklore along with pre-Islamic Arabian myth and parts of Zoroastrian and Hindu stories into the Quran. Furthermore, the Muslims claim that “the Quran is the direct, literal word of God unmodified in any way by the Prophet who uttered them at the bidding of God.” Nevertheless, in the book UNVEILING ISLAM by Ergun Mehmet Caner and Eethi Caner has shown that the Quran was modified in the following account on pages 45. “Muhammad felt the need to improve on the words of Allah, since he changed Allah’s wisdom for his own on several occasions. A hadith tells of the nonchalant emendations of Muhammad:’ On a number of occasions he [a scribe] had, with the Prophet’s consent changed the closing words of verses. For example, when the prophet had said ‘God is mighty and wise ‘ Adbollah b. Abi Sarh suggested writing down ‘Knowing and wise’ and the Prophet answered that there was no objection. Having observed a succession of changes of this type, Adbollah renounced Islam on the grounds that revelations, if from God could not be changed at the prompting of a scribe such as himself. After his apostasy he went to Mecca and joined the Qorayshites.’ Other writers reveal that later Muhammad and his people did go war with the Qorayshites and he personally killed Abdollah. Obviously Abdollah knew too much and Muhammad wanted Abdollah’s knowledge to die with him.” In conclusion, the Quran is not only a fiction, it’s also a hoax.
Even though the above essay was posted before, it should now be added that the last statement of the above that “the Quran is not only a fiction, it’s also a hoax.” To put this in a Biblical way. As in from the Bible, it may be truly explained that the Quran is a deceptive work of “the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.” Ephesians 14:12.. [N.I.V.]
This message is for screen-name A.H._the_Indian_Dalit_Christian for the comment(s) on April 14, 2019 at 9:16 pm
“…for Christianism being inherently the junk of past 2000 years!”
Christianism has always been a junk and Christianism will always be so.
The historic crimes against humanity committed by world’s Christians shall ask every drop of blood from every living Christians on earth!
“It is not worse than Hinduism.”
Sanatana Dharma is like a loving mother who nurtures her babies from bringing them on earth to sustain them until her last moment.
Sanatana Dharma says that, life comes from God (Goddess) and God (Goddess) is manifested in both living and non-living objects in the universe.
Therefore, Sanatana Dharma says that, God (Goddess) can be realized by an individual within his/her lifetime on earth.
Judaism, Christianism and Islam have nothing in them other than falsehoods after falsehoods, other than debauchery after debauchery, other than killing after killing, other than rape after rape, other than looting after looting non-believers’ everything.
“What had Hindu India to offer the past 2000 years: NOTHING, only poverty and backwardness,…”
Indian is now world’s 6th largest economy!
‘”Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India (1000-1800)” is a book written by Prof. K.S. Lal published in 1973 CE.
The book assesses the demographics of India between 1000 CE and 1500 CE.
On the basis of the available historical evidence, Prof. K.S. Lal concluded that the population of Indian subcontinent in 1000 was about 200 million and in 1500 was about 170 million.
Prof. K.S. Lal says, however, that “any study of the population of the pre-census times can be based only on estimates, and estimates by their very nature tend to be tentative.”
Prof. K.S. Lal estimates that about 60 to 80 million people died in India between 1000 CE and 1525 CE as a result of the Islamic invasion of Indian subcontinent.
Prof. K.S. Lal concluded that about 2 million people died during Mahmud of Ghazni’s invasions of India alone(pp. 211–217).’
So, if Mother India offered only poverty and backwardness — as you say — poverty and backwardness are exclusively due to Islamic and Christian rule.
Yes, Mother India has poor Dalit and Mother India also has many rich Ambanies.
If you are a poor Indian Dalit Christian, please move to Pakistan or Saudi Arabia or Great Britain or America.
WHY are you poor Indian Dalit Christians still remaining in poverty-stricken and utterly “Backward” Mother India?
Shouldn’t you all poor Indian Dalit Christians move to Pakistan or Saudi Arabia or Great Britain or America or Australia?
“…while the (Christian) West progressed in science and technology for the benefit of mankind.”
No, Christian WEST progressed after the Renaissance when European Christians started to reject Christian falsehoods.
If you believe in fictitious one and only jealous God of Christian and Jewish Bible or if you believe in fictitious Islamic “Allah” invented by Muhammad the Arabian, SCIENCE will remain far, far away from you.
‘From WILLIAM EDELEN
The Contrary Minister (2002)
“For the understanding of religions… a complete understanding of myth is mandatory.” — Mircia Eliade.
[…] When Professor Alfred North Whitehead was the chair of philosophy at Harvard University, he made this observation:
“Christian theology has been the greatest disaster in the history of the human race.”
Was Professor Alfred North Whitehead correct?
A BRIEF REVIEW:
391 A.D.: Christians burn down one of the greatest libraries in the world in Alexandria. Over 700,000 scrolls were destroyed.
500 to 1000 A.D.: The church takes over and brings with it the cancer of the Dark Ages, destroying almost everything that defined civilization. The Christian church all but wiped out education, technology, science, medicine, history, art and commerce. During this period the church amassed enormous wealth.
1099 A.D.: Christian Crusaders take Jerusalem and massacre Jews and Muslims. In the streets were piles of heads, hands and feet. Millions were killed as a result of the Crusades.
1208 A.D.: Pope Innocent orders a crusade against the French Cathars. Over 100,000 were killed by Atnaud’s men at Beziers.
1231 A.D.: Pope Grebgory IX establishes the Christian Inquisition. Inquisitors were given license to explore every means of horror and cruelty. Victims were rubbed with lard or grease and slowly roasted alive. Ovens built to kill people, made famous by Nazi Germans, were first used in the Christian Inquisition of Eastern Europe.
Adolf Hitler, by the way, said he admired Christian Martin Luther more than any other German, because Christian Martin Luther despised the Jews.
Gruesome tortures used on hundreds of thousands of non-Christians in the Christian Inquisition were so repugnant and horrible that I cannot even describe them to you.
The Christian Inquisition spread as far as India.
1377 A.D.: The Pope’s army descended on the Italian town of Cessna. For three days and nights beginning on February 3, the slaughter continued. The squares were filled with blood.
Women were violently raped, a ransom was placed on children, and priceless works of art were destroyed.
Over 5,000 people were butchered.
1497 A.D.: The Christian Church began an enormous burning in Florence. The works of Latin and Italian poets, illuminated manuscripts, women’s ornaments, musical instruments and paintings were all burned.
1500 A.D.: The Witch-Hunts are going full speed ahead. Members of the Christian clergy proudly report how many were killed. The Lutheran prelate Benedict Carpazov bragged that he had killed over 20,000 devil worshippers.
Historians estimate more than 9 million people were executed after 1484, mostly women.
This was as brutal as anything that happened in the Nazi’s 20th-century Holocaust.
1572 A.D.: On St. Bartholomew’s day more than 10,000 Protestants are slaughtered in France. Wrote Pope Gregory XIII: “We rejoice that you have relieved the world of those wretched heretics.”
TODAY:
George W. Bush, when he was President: “I don’t consider atheists to be citizens of America.”
Randall Terry, of Operation Rescue, the anti-abortion fanatics: “It’s us against them. It is the God-fearing people against the Pagans of the United States.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that “Christian theology has been, and is, a disease of the intellect.”
In 1995 A.D., Pope John Paul II sent a letter to his cardinals. He wrote: “How can one remain silent about the many forms of violence perpetrated in the name of the Christian church, wars of religion, tribunals of the Inquisition and all other forms of violations of the rights of human beings?”
Pope John Paul II does not have enough days left in his life to say, “For my part, I am sorry” to all of the millions and millions of human beings slaughtered by the Christian Church, to all new discoveries of truth slaughtered by the church, or to a legacy that has promoted sexism, racism, the desecration of the natural environment and the intolerance of other world spiritual traditions from Buddhism to the American Indian.
The United Church of Canada put their apology to the Indians in these loving and tender words: “Long before our people journeyed to this land, your people were here, and your understanding of the Mystery that surrounds us all was deep, and rich, and to be treasured. We did not listen to you. We were closed to the value of your spirituality. We tried to make you like us. We destroyed your vision. As a result the image of the Creator in us is twisted and blurred and we are not what we were meant to be. We ask you to forgive us.”
One of my Anthropology professors at the University of Colorado would spend an entire week documenting the horrendous damage done to people around the world by Christian missionaries.
There is no word for religion in any American Indian language. They had no need for artificial, man-made, religion.
Their every moment of every day was lived as an expression of the spiritual and sacred dimensions of existence.
It was a living mythology always pointing toward the Mystery, rather than an artificially retained mythology that exists only to support the institution, the Christian church.
Prof. Joseph Campbell often made this point in his lectures.
Jean Baptiste De Bienville, upon meeting the Nez Perce for the first time, wrote these words in his diary: “Their honesty is immaculate and their purity of purpose most remarkable. They are more like a nation of saints… than ‘savages.’”
Let us remember the spiritual legacy of the American Indian.’
If the Koran is the word of God then it shows the presumed creator of calculus and quantum physics to be surprisingly poor at basic arithmetic, as shown here by Ali Sina:
http://alisina.org/?p=252
@Found the Truth
Dear only :”jjjjjjj” is true God. He was incarnation of God. If you do not believe in :”jjjjjjj” you will not get heaven and gate of heaven will not be opened for you. :”jjjjjjj” will put you in hell. Believe in me. Belief, belief, belief, belief is way to heaven. :”jjjjjjj” is very popular in my society.
Please don’t piss on me and say “It’s raining!”
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Did Jesus Actually Exist?
By Steve Benson
I would like to start with the acknowledgment that there are those
who, in the name of history, claim that Jesus was, in fact, a real
person.
For instance, pro-Christian apologist and author, Ian Wilson, claims
in his book, Jesus: The Evidence, that “had Jesus been a mere
fabrication by early Christians, we should surely expect those Jews
hostile to Christianity to have produced a malicious rumor to this
effect. From the fact that they concentrated instead on smearing his
legitimacy, we may deduce that they had no grounds whatever for
doubting his historical evidence.”
Wilson further argues that, based on accounts from other early Jewish
sources (including historian Josephus), “Jesus did indeed exist.”
(Wilson, pp. 62, 64-65)
The historical evidence contradicting Wilson’s assertions are many and
compelling.
PROBLEMS WITH CLAIMS FOR JESUS’S HISTORICITY
Even Christian apologist Ian Wilson Wilson admits that “it has to be
acknowledged that hard facts concerning Jesus and his life are
remarkably hard to come by.”
Wilson concedes, for instance, that:
— the apostle Paul, by his own admission, never knew the person Jesus
but, instead, based his entire faith on a vision apostle Paul claimed came to
him about Jesus’s resurrection;
— the Gospels do not provide any physical description of Jesus;
— the year of Jesus’s birth is unknown and, based on available
evidence, indeterminable;
— there is no historical validation of King Herod’s supposed slaughter
of Jewish children at the time of Jesus’s alleged birth;
— Jesus’s ancestry is illogically tied back to Jewish King David through
Jesus’s supposed Jewish father Joseph;
— the author of Matthew was clearly not Jewish, as evidenced by his
mistranslation of Isaiah’s prophecy of the Messiah’s virgin-birth;
— the overall credibility of the Matthew and Luke nativity stories are
seriously in doubt;
— there is no reliable evidence for the alleged crucifixion of Jesus;
— the writings of Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus
concerning the alleged historicity of Jesus are neither clear or
specific;
— the observations of the Roman governor of Bithynia, Pliny the
Younger, do not provide reliable evidence of Jesus’s actual existence;
and even
— the writings of the Jewish historian Flavious Josephus on the allegedly
historic Jesus have undeniably been adulterated by others with a
pro-Christian spin. (Wilson, pp. 51, 54-56, 58-60)
On the question of whether Jesus of the Christian Gospels really
existed, the record offers an array of formidable realities.
Below is an examination of some of the basic evidence against the
claim that the man-God of the New Testament known as “Jesus Christ”
actually ever lived.
THE “HISTORICAL” JESUS: A CREATION OF LATE-COMING CHRISTIAN WRITERS
Former evangelical minister Dan Barker points out in his book, Losing
Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist, “[T]here is not a single
contemporary historical mention of Jesus, not by the Romans nor by the
Jews, not by believers nor by unbelievers, not during his entire
lifetime. This does not disprove his existence, but it certainly casts
great
doubt on the historicity of a man who was supposedly widely known to
have made a great impact on the world. Someone should have noticed.”
(Barker, p. 360)
Noted religious historian and professor of German at Birkbeck College
in London, G.A. Wells, observes in his book, The Historical Evidence
of Jesus, that if one places early Christian documents in
chronological order, it becomes evident that “only from approximately
90 A.D. did Christians regard Jesus as a teacher, miracle-worker and a
near contemporary, crucified under Roman prefect Pontius Pilate.”
These documents, Wells declares, are striking in their lack of detail,
indicating that the claims of their authors were most likely
influenced “by the Jewish wisdom literature they knew well and by
traditions they must have known concerning actual crucifixions of
living men in Roman Palestine one and two centuries before their
time.” (Wells, pp. 216-217)
Wells concludes that “the Jesus of the earliest documents … [was]
someone about whose life nothing was known, who had certainly not been
a contemporary or near-contemporary of apostle Paul, but who was later
regarded as having lived about A.D. 30 and has having preached in
Galilee before his death in Jerusalem, perhaps because he was
identified with an obscure Galilean preacher of the same name (which
after all was a common one).” (Wells, p. 216)
A blow-by-blow summary of the evidence against historicity claims for
Jesus is offered by Canadian historian and classical scholar Earl
Doherty in his work, Why I Am Not A Christian:
“1. ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ and the Gospel story cannot be found in
Christian writings earlier than the Gospels, the first of which (Mark)
was composed only in the late first century.
2. There is no non-Christian record of Jesus before the second
century. References in Flavius Josephus (end of the first century
A.D.) can be dismissed as later Christian insertions.
3. The early apostles, such as Paul and Hebrews, speak of their Christ
Jesus as a spiritual, heavenly being revealed by God the Father
through scripture, and do not equate him with a recent historical man.
Paul is part of a new ‘salvation’ movement acting on revelation from
the Spirit.
4. Paul and other early writers place the death and resurrection of
their Christ in the supernatural or mythical world, and derive their
information about these events, as well as other features of their
heavenly Christ, from scripture.
5. The ancients viewed the universe as multi-layered: matter below,
spirit above. The higher world was regarded as the superior, genuine
reality, containing spiritual processes and heavenly counterparts to
earthly things. Apostle Paul’s Christ operates within this system!
6. The Pagan ‘mystery cults’ of the period worshiped savior deities
who had performed salvific acts which took place in the supernatural
or mythical world, not on earth or in history. Apostle Paul’s Christ
shares many features with these deities.
7. The prominent philosophical-religious concept of the age was the
intermediary Son, a spiritual channel between the ultimate
transcendent God and humanity. Such intermediary concepts as the Greek
Logos and Jewish Wisdom were models for Paul’s heavenly Christ.
8. All the Gospels derive their basic story of ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ from
one source: whoever wrote the Gospel of Mark. The Acts of the
Apostles, as an account of the beginnings of the Christian apostolic
movement, is a second century piece of myth-making.
9. The Gospels are not historical events, but constructed through a
process of ‘midrash’, a Jewish method of reworking old biblical
passages and tales to reflect new beliefs. The story of Jesus’s trial
and crucifixion is a pastiche of verses from scripture.
10. ‘Q’, a lost sayings collection extracted from Matthew and Luke,
made no reference to a death and resurrection and can be shown to have
had no Jesus at its roots: roots which were ultimately non-Jewish. The
‘Q’ community preached the kingdom of God, and its traditions were
eventually assigned to an invented founder who was linked to the
heavenly Jesus of apostle Paul in the Gospel of Mark.
11. The initial variety of sects and beliefs about a spiritual Christ
shows that the movement began as a multiplicity of largely independent
and spontaneous developments based on the religious trends and
philosophy of the time, not as a response to a single individual.
12. Well into the second century, many Christian documents lack or
reject the notion of a human man as an element of their faith. Only
gradually did the ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ portrayed in the Gospels come to
be accepted as historical.” (Doherty, pp. vii-viii)
LACK OF HISTORICAL EVIDENCE ABOUT JESUS’S LIFE IN EARLY CHRISTIAN WRITINGS
Early Christian writings are noticeably vague about the details of
Jesus’s life. Prof. Wells quotes Gager’s observation: ”We know virtually
nothing of [Jesus’s] parents, siblings, early years (childhood,
adolescence, early adulthood), friends, education, religious training,
profession, or contacts with the broader Graeco-Roman world. We know
neither the date of his birth, not the length of his public ministry
(the modern consensus of two or three years is an educated guess based
largely on the Gospel of John), nor his age at death (Luke 3:23 states
that he was ‘about thirty when he began’). Thus even an optimistic
view of the quest (of the historical Jesus) can envisage no more than
a collection of ‘authentic’ sayings and motifs devoid of context.”
(Wells, p. 217)
Similarly, former evangelical minister-turned-non-Christian Charles
Templeton points to the paucity of evidence concerning Jesus’s life. In
his book, Farewell to God: My reasons for rejecting the Christian
faith, Templeton writes:
“It may come as something as a surprise to the reader to learn that we
know remarkably little about ‘Jesus of Nazareth’.
We don’t know the date of his birth — it was certainly not December 25
in the Year One. Nor do we know for certain where he was born,
although it was in all likelihood in the city of his childhood,
Nazareth — certainly not in a Bethlehem stable. Nor do we know the
exact date of his death, although it would seem to have been around
the year 30 A.D. The great secular historians of that time (Tacitus,
Josephus, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, and others) mention Jesus only
briefly, making passing reference to the fact that he preached in
occupied Roman Palestine and was crucified by the Roman government.”
(Templeton, p. 85)
THE HISTORICAL UNRELIABILITY OF THE CHRISTIAN GOSPELS
As Prof. Wells notes, “The Gospels are widely agreed to have been
written between forty and eighty years after his [Jesus’s] supposed
lifetime by unknown authors who were not personally acquainted with
him. And their miracle stories are nearly all couched in general
terms, with no indication of time or place or details concerning the
person or persons who benefited.” (Wells, p. 206)
Raising further questions about their credibility, many of apostle
Paul’s letters are obvious “fusions” that were “not written as they
now stand.” (Wells, pp. 8-9)
Not only are apostle Paul’s epistles composite stories, they are notoriously
non-factual. Historian Will Durant observes: “Paul created a theology
about the man ‘Jesus’, a man that he did not even know, 50 or more years
after the death of ‘Jesus’, with complete disregard and neglect for even
the sayings that are attributed to ‘Jesus’ in the synoptic Gospels. The
simple teachings attributed to ‘Jesus’ become lost in the metaphysical
fog of apostle Paul’s theology.” (cited in Edelen, Toward the Mystery [Boise,
Idaho: Josylyn & Morris, Inc.], p. 76)
As to the origination period of the New Testament itself, its 27 books
have defied repeated attempts at reliable, universal dating. Those
portions which can be most firmly dated are, as has been noted, the
letters of apostle Paul, which have been determined to have been
penned by 60 A.D. (Wells, p. 10)
In addition, none of the four Gospels represent the “original” texts.
As Templeton writes, “The earliest Christian records extant are the
Pauline epistles, and they were written around 50 A.D. It was another
ten years or so before the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
were completed. But the names attached to the gospels are
pseudonyms — none of the authors were among Jesus’ apostles and it is
likely that none of them so much as saw or heard him.”
Moreover, Templeton notes that these accounts “are mutually
contradictory, lack authenticity, and are in large part of the nature
of legends. The stories of Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem, his cleansing
of the Temple, and his arrest, trial, and crucifixion have about them
an aura of reality but, beyond that, the various accounts differ so
radically and at so many points that, with all the good will in the
world, they cannot be reconciled.” (Templeton, pp. 85-86)
In terms of which Gospel begat which Gospel, that of Mark appears to
have been the source for those of Matthew and Luke, based on the
virtual identicalness of many passages. Thus, the latter two Gospels
“are not acceptable as independent testimony.” The Gospel of John
gives indications of reliance on phraseology from the other three
Gospels. (Wells, p. 11)
Not only are the names attached to the synoptic Gospels pseudo in
nature, the authors of the four Gospels remain, as Prof. Wells notes,
virtually anonymous, with the books offering no proof within their
texts of who actually wrote them. Adding to the confusion, present
claims to their authorship were not part of the original documents.
(Wells, p. 11)
The legitimacy of statements in the Gospels attributed to Jesus are
also suspect. For example, teachings supposedly given by Jesus on the
subject of women of Roman Palestine divorcing their husbands lack historical
veracity, since only men were allowed to divorce. (Wells, p. 13)
The Gospel accounts of Jesus’s trial and crucifixion are also replete
with significant historical difficulties. Luke’s account of the trial
is an obvious summary of Mark’s. Mark’s, in turn, is full of imaginary
dialogue and scenes concocted by Christian writers who, believing in
the Messianic mission of Jesus, invented trial scenes and dialogue in
which the Jews condemned Jesus for his status as the Christ. (Wells,
pp. 14-15).
Prof. Keith M. Parsons, in his Why I Am Not a Christian, summarizes
the case against the reliability of the canonical Gospels as follows:
1. The Gospels were written by unknown persons.
“Not only did Jesus himself write nothing, but the attribution of the
Gospels to his disciples did not occur until the late first century
A.D. at the earliest.
‘Matthew: Written by an unknown Jewish Christian of the second
generation, probably a resident of Antioch in Syria.
‘Mark: [There is] confusion in the traditional identification of the
author…
‘Luke: Possibly written by a resident of Antioch and an occasional
companion of the apostle Paul.
‘John: Composed and edited in stages by unknown followers of the
apostle John, probably residents of Ephesus.’“
(cited by Kingsbury, J.D., “Matthew, The Gospel According to,” in
Metzger and Coogan, eds., The Oxford Companion to the Bible [Oxford,
England: Oxford University Press, 1993], pp. 502-506
2. The dates of the Gospels preclude them having been written by eyewitnesses.
“… New Testament scholars agree fairly closely on a rather late
date for the writing of the Gospels … Generations of New Testament
scholarship have produced a very broad consensus that the Gospels from
around 70 A.D. to as late as the early second century A.D.”
3. The Gospels are rooted in unreliable oral traditions.
“Written records of Jesus’s words or ministry were simply not needed
or wanted until the end of the apostolic age with the martyrdom of
Peter and Paul in 64 A.D. The writing of [the] Gospels was a task for
second-generation Christians.
“[T]he word-for-word similarities of the synoptic Gospels are very
unlikely to be due to the verbatim recollection of the original
eyewitness. Oral traditions simply do not form that way. Rather, those
precise parallels are much more likely due to common use of written
sources. Hence, the synoptic Gospels are not independent eyewitness
accounts but textually interdependent syntheses of earlier oral
traditions.”
4. The Gospels are theologically biased with an apologetic agenda.
“'[The Gospels] … can no longer be read as direct accounts of what
happened, but rather as vehicles for proclamation. Such was their
original intention.’”
(cited in Reginald H. Fuller, The Formation of the Resurrection
Narratives [New York, New York: The Macmillan Company,1971] p. 172)
5. The Gospels contain fictional forms.
“The Gospels are clearly not biography in the modern sense…
‘Christians have never been reluctant to write fiction about Jesus,
and we must remember that our four canonical Gospels are only the
cream of a larger and varied literature.’”
(cited in Helms, R., Gospel Fictions [Buffalo, New York: Prometheus
Books, 1988], pp. 11-12)
6. The Gospels are inconsistent with each other.
“A careful study of the four Gospels in comparison with each other
will show that there is little agreement among the Gospel writers as
to the order in which Jesus said and did what is reported of him.
“A striking discrepancy concerns the accounts in the synoptics of
Jesus’s resurrection appearances to his disciples.
“[There is] inconsistency between Matthew’s and Luke’s genealogies [of Jesus].”
7. The Gospels are inconsistent with known facts.
“Luke’s nativity story [is] demonstrably false…
‘… [T]he Roman census would not have affected Nazareth in any
case, as Galilee was not under Roman rule, but had its own ruler, the
‘tetrach’ Herod Antipas, son of King Herod.’”
(cited in Arnheim, M., Is Christianity True? [Buffalo, New York:
Prometheus Books, 1984], pp. 10-11)
8. There is no independent support of Gospel claims.
‘… [P]agan sources do not confirm the resurrection. …[T]here is
good reason to suppose that [a well-known passage from Publius
Cornelius Tacitus] was written nearly ninety years after the alleged
death of Jesus and was based not on historical research, but on
information provided by Christians of the second century.
‘Other Pagan writers such as Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus and Pliny the
Younger provide no support for the Resurrection of Jesus since they
make no mention of it. … Greek historian Thallus, in a work now lost
but referred to by Africanus in the third century A.D., is alleged to
have said that Jesus’s death was accompanied by an earthquake and an
unusual darkness that he, Thallus, according to Africanus, wrongly
attributed to an
eclipse of the Sun. However … it is unclear when Thallus wrote his
history or how reliable Africanus’s account of Thallus is. Some
scholars believe that Thallus wrote as late as the
second century A.D. and consequently could have obtained his ideas
from Christian opinion of his time.’”
(cited in Martin, M., The Case Against Christianity [Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania: Temple University Press, 1991], p. 86)
“’Non-Christian evidence is too late to give any independent support
to the Gospels.
“’Rabbinic references to Jesus are entirely dependent on Christian
claims, as both Christian and Jewish scholars have conceded.’”
(cited in Wells, G.A., Who Was Jesus? [La Salle, Illinois: Open Court,
1989], pl. 20)
9. The Gospels testify to matters beyond belief.
“The Gospels are full of miraculous tales that, in any other context,
would be taken to completely destroy the author’s credibility. What
would we think of an alleged witness who swears that he saw Ms. Smith
commit the murder and then abscond quickly on her broomstick? Why not
regard reports of walking on water or raising the dead in the same
light? Religious people often employ a curious doublethink here that
permits them to treat reverently stories that, encountered anywhere
else, would get very short shrift.” (Parsons, pp. 43-70)
FURTHER LACK OF PAGAN EVIDENCES FOR THE HISTORICITY OF JESUS
A favorite Pagan source cited by Christian believers verifying the
life of a “real” Jesus is that of the Roman historian Publius
Cornelius Tacitus, who wrote that “Christians derive their name and
origin from Christ, who was executed by sentence of the procurator
Pontius Pilate in the reign of Roman emperor Tiberius.”
Ample evidence exists, however, to show that Tacitus was simply
repeating what he had been told by Christian informants.
First, as Prof. Wells demonstrates, Tacitus identified Pontius Pilate
by the rank of procurator, which title was a Roman administrative
office from the second half of the first century A.D.
Next, Tacitus failed to identify Jesus by name, but merely referred to
a person put to death who went by the title of ‘Christ’.
Finally, Tacitus was an opponent of Christianity and therefore would
have been inclined to repeat the Christian view of the day that
Christianity was of recent vintage, given that the Roman government
countenanced only ancient cults. (Wells, pp. 16-17)
Barker observes that even if other Pagan writers had made reliable
reference to Christianity, they did so too late in the game to be
considered first-century witnesses. These include the writings in of
Roman historian Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus in his Twelve Caesars, as
well as the record in 112 A.D. by Pliny the Younger (i.e., Gaius
Plinius Caecilius Secundus, a magistrate of Ancient Rome) — both of
which fail to mention Jesus by name.
Barker notes that also failing to specifically mention Jesus was a
second-century Roman satirist name Lucian who wrote of a “man
crucified in Roman Palestine,” whose death provided the foundation for
the Christian faith. However, Lucian was simply repeating the beliefs
of Christians and not presenting compelling historical evidence.
Barker further mentions the Christian believer’s penchant for invoking
an undated fragment from a personal letter written by a Syrian named
Mara Serapion to his imprisoned son, in which the father mentions that
the Jews had killed their “Wise King”. This purported evidence,
nonetheless, contradicts the New Testament version of Jesus’s death,
in which, of course, the Romans are blamed for his crucifixion. Even
if it is an authentic letter, Barker argues that it most likely refers
to someone else, since the Jews had, in fact, killed other religious
leaders, including The Essenes (i.e., a Jewish sect named “Teacher of
Righteousness”). (Barker, pp. 364-366)
ALLEGED HISTORICAL EVIDENCE FOR THE MAN JESUS IN THE WRITINGS OF JOSEPHUS
In his work (circa 90 A.D.), The Antiquities of the Jews, Flavius
Josephus, a messianic Jew and respected Roman historian, supposedly
wrote:
“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 Hews, 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 love him at the first did not
forsake him, for he appeared to them alive against 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.”
Barker dispenses with the claim that this is the authentic Flavius
Josephus with the following observations:
1. This paragraph about Jesus did not appear until the advent of the
fourth century A.D.
The disputed writing surfaced during the time that Christian
polemicist Bishop Eusebius Pamphili of Caesarea, a close ally of the
Roman emperor Constantine, was helping to fashion what would
eventually become the orthodox version of Christianity. Barker notes
that it was Bishop Eusebius who had argued it was justifiable for
Christians to, in effect, “lie for the Lord” and that it was he who
was the first person known to have cited this alleged Josephus
account. As Barker notes, many Bible experts have concluded, in fact,
that Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea forged the paragraph in question and
then attributed it to first-century Romano-Jewish historian Flavius Josephus.
2. The paragraph in doubt appears completely out of context.
It is dropped into Josephus’s writings after the historian gives an
account of Roman taxation, various Jewish religious sects, Herod’s
municipal building projects, the comings and goings of priests and
procurators, the planning of seditious plots against Pilate, and
Pontius Pilate’s construction of Jerusalem’s water supply using
religious monies, which led to a Jewish protest, followed by pontius
Pilate’s bloody suppression of it. The questionable paragraph then
follows, after which Josephus goes on to speak of “another terrible
misfortune [that] confounded the Jews…” As Barker notes, only a
Christian would
have regarded this as a misfortune for Jews. Flavius Josephus himself was an
orthodox Jew and would not have so described it.
3. Not being a believer in Christianity, Flavius Josephus would also not have
used the language of a Christian convert in referring to Jesus as “the Christ”.
4. Flavius Josephus would also not have used the term “tribe of
Christians,” since Christianity did not achieve organizational status
until the second century A.D.
5. Josephus’s alleged paragraph on Jesus portrays Josephus as having no
other familiarity with the alleged Christian Messiah.
Barker observes that the Roman historian Flavius Josephus thus
simply repeats what Christians would have already known, while adding
virtually nothing to the Gospel accounts. In fact, Josephus’s supposed
brief mention of Jesus is the only reference in all of his expansive
writings to Christianity.
6. The paragraph does not reflect the careful wording of a responsible
historian.
Rather, says Barker, it is written in the fervent language of a
believing Christian and, further, is given with no citation of
predictions from Hebrew prophets who supposedly foretold Jesus’s
advent. (Barker, pp. 362-363)
Other weaknesses in the Gospel tales which undermine claims to their
accounts of an historical Jesus include the following:
NO HISTORICAL EVIDENCE FOR THE VIRGIN BIRTH
Templeton points out that the accounts of Matthew and Luke differ on
fundamental points regarding the birth of Jesus. For example, at the
time Luke says Jesus was being circumcised and Mary was being purified
in Jerusalem, Matthew claims Joseph, Mary and Jesus were in hiding in
Egypt, waiting for King Herod to die.
Additionally, there is nothing in the historical record that mentions
the supposed Herod-ordered slaughter of every male child in Bethlehem.
Concludes Templeton, “It seems likely that the birth in Bethlehem was
inserted into the story at a later date to validate the claims made by
Jesus’s followers that, through Joseph, Jesus stood in a direct line
of
descent from Jewish King David, whose roots were in Bethlehem.”
(Templeton, p. 91)
As to the Christian claim that Jesus was God, born of an unwed Jewish
virgin who conceived through the power of the Holy Ghost, Templeton
bluntly concludes, “If one approaches the New Testament account with
an open mind and unflinching realism, the evidence clearly indicates
that Jesus was an illegitimate child who, when he came to maturity,
resented it and was alienated from his parents and siblings.”
(Templeton, p. 93)
NO HISTORICAL EVIDENCE FOR JESUS’S RESURRECTION
Except for the claims made by anonymous Gospel writers, no evidence
exists that Jesus ever rose from the dead. In fact, Gospel accounts of
the alleged resurrection are, from a realistic point of view,
completely implausible.
If, as Templeton observes, Jesus’s resurrection was accompanied by an
extraordinary earthquake, the wholesale rending of the Temple veil and
a large-group resurrection of the dead witnessed by many, why do these
phenomenal events merit but a single sentence in Matthew — and
virtually no mention in the other Gospels or in contemporary
historical accounts?
Writes an understandably skeptical Templeton: “Let the reader imagine
the scene: The astonished spectators, the gathering crowd, the family
members and friends, weeping and delirious with excitement. Surely
someone would have plied them with questions: ‘What happened as you
died?’ ‘Did you see God?’ ‘What is Heaven like?’ ‘Were you reunited
with our parents and other members of your family?’ Surely the answers
to these and other questions like them would have flashed across Roman
Palestine within hours and been recorded somewhere. But there is not
one word of it in history. The entire resurrection story is not
credible.”
Add to this the fact that the four Gospel accounts of the resurrection
not only differ from one another on many major points but are
irreconcilably at odds with apostle Paul’s account in 1 Corinthians on who
Jesus supposedly appeared to after rising from the dead. (Templeton,
pp. 120-122)
NO HISTORICAL EVIDENCE OF JESUS PERFORMING MIRACLES
Templeton persuasively explains the afflictions suffered by those in
the Gospel accounts, which were supposedly healed by Jesus’s miraculous
powers:
“Most of the illnesses that afflict humans were beyond the
comprehension of the men and women of that day and, of course, beyond
Jesus’s comprehension, too. No one at that point in history had even a
rudimentary understanding of the causes of physiological or
psychological illnesses or of the various other afflictions to which
humankind is subject. Most thought of them as punishments from God or
the machinations of Satan or other evil spirits.
“When, for instance, epilepsy brought on a seizure that caused the
victim to collapse and writhe on the ground as though struggling with
an internal enemy, when food poisoning produced a paroxysm of
vomiting, when a raging fever led to intense shivering and delirium,
or when a migraine attack produced visual aberrations and excruciating
pain, it seemed reasonable in that pre-scientific time to interpret
such phenomena as the work of an evil spirit. And, when the affliction
passed, it was equally reasonable to interpret it as the triumph of a
benign spirit over a malign.
“Many illnesses, then as now, were psychosomatic and could be ‘cured’
when the sufferer’s perception changed. Just as today a placebo
prescribed by a physician in whom the patient has faith can effect an
apparent cure, so, in earlier time, faith in the healer could banish
adverse symptoms. With each success the healer’s reputation would grow
and his powers would, as a consequence, become more efficacious.
“It would appear evident that this is what happened with Jesus…
“It is clear in the text that Jesus was seen by the general populace
as a wonder-worker. The stories of his exploits were before him — by
word of mouth, of course, and thus subject to embellishing — and when
he entered a town the state of heightened expectation would often be
close to mass hysteria. As a consequence, the apparently miraculous
would happen.” (Templeton, pp. 111-112)
Finally, as Barker points outs, a miracle cannot be considered
historical if it is “defined as some kind of violation, suspension,
overriding, or punctuation of natural law. … In order for history
to have any strength at all, it must adhere to a very strict
assumption: that natural law is regular over time.
“Without the assumption of natural regularity, no history can be done.
There would be no criteria for discarding fantastic stories.
Everything that has ever been recorded would have to be taken as
literal truth.
“Therefore, if a miracle did happen, it would pull the rug out from
history. The very basis of the historical method would have to be
discarded. You can have miracles, or you can have history, but you
can’t have both.” (Barker, p. 377)
CONCLUSION: POSSIBLE ORIGINS OF THE JESUS MYTH
Various propositions have been advanced to account for the rise of the
Jesus myth. Barker lists the following as possibilities:
1. It was “patterned from a story in the Jewish Talmudic literature
about the illegitimate son of a woman named Miriam (Mary) and a Roman
soldier named Pandera, sometimes called ‘Joseph Pandera’.”
2. It “grew out of a pre-Christian cult of Joshua,” originating in
tensions between two different Joshua factions.
Interesting in this regard is the fact that “Jesus” is the Greek word
for “Joshua.” As Barker notes, in Mark 9:38, “the disciples of Jesus
saw another man who was casting out devils in the name of Jesus
(Joshua).”
3. It was “simply a fanciful patchwork of pieces borrowed from other
religions.”
Pagan myths are peppered with their own pre-Jesus accounts of Last
Suppers, passion play-outs, crucifixions of Sun Gods, virgin births
and latter-day climatic battles between the forces of good and evil.
4. It followed from “a pre-Christian Jesus cult of gnosticism,” based
on since-discovered ancient writings which declare, “I adjure thee by
the God of the Hebrews, Jesus.”
5. It could have arisen “as the personification of Old Testament
‘wisdom’,” which did not rely on any historical basis for claims of a
pre-existent, literal redeemer.
6. It may have resulted from so-called “self-reflective fiction,”
wherein “literary parallels [are drawn] between Old and New Testament
stories” through the use of “skeletal templates into which the Jews
placed [them].”
In such cases, the tales are similar in not only content, but in
structure, as with stories from the Old and New Testaments involving
storms, the raising of widows’ sons from the dead, and miraculous
episodes of so-called “food multiplication”.
7. It could have found origin in an earlier account of the crucifixion
of a Messiah and Lawgiver figure known amongst The Essenes (i.e., a
Jewish sect named “Teacher of Righteousness”), who was put to death in
88 B.C.
8. It could have been based on a naturalistic explanation that the
resurrection story was essentially historically reliable, “but that
Jesus merely fainted, and was presumed to be dead, coming back to
consciousness later.” (Barker, pp. 372-376)
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