Below is Chapter 3 of my book, “Disbelief”.
THE SON OF GOD
The New Testament of the Holy Bible is the alleged story of the life of Jesus of Nazareth and his ministry, his crucifixion and resurrection, the spreading of his message by his apostles and disciples after his death, and apocalyptic prophecy which describes, among other things, Jesus’ anticipated return to earth at the prophesized End of Days.
The New Testament is depicted by Christians as a continuation of the Old Testament story, in the sense that the Old Testament allegedly foretold of a coming Messiah (or, savior of God’s Chosen People, the Jews). The first four books, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, are called the Gospels, in which ostensible first-hand observers describe the life and ministry of Jesus and include his verbatim quotes on various topics. In the Gospels, Jesus of Nazareth is depicted as the long-awaited Messiah of the Hebrews and is declared to be the Son of God. Two of the books, Matthew and Luke, go to great lengths to establish the fact that Jesus is a blood descendent of historical David, King of Israel. If true, this would fulfill Hebrew prophecy that foretold of a Messiah coming to restore the Kingdom to its previous glory.
The Pageant in Palestine
The “Jesus Story” begins with an Immaculate Conception (i.e. a virgin is impregnated by the Holy Spirit of God), the baby Jesus is born, and a star hovers over the birthplace in Bethlehem to guide three Magi (wise men) from afar to witness the newborn “King of the Jews”. Herod the Great, who was supposedly the reigning King of Israel at the time, heard about the Holy birth and, in a move to protect his sovereignty, ordered the massacre of all children under the age of two in Bethlehem and vicinity. Luckily, Jesus’ father, Joseph, was warned in a dream, and the family was able to successfully flee to Egypt to avoid Herod’s wrath… thus allegedly fulfilling another Hebrew Messianic prophecy.
Very little of Jesus’ life is retold regarding his early years growing up in the town of Nazareth where his father Joseph was a carpenter. The story picks up steam when Jesus is baptized in the Jordan River at around age 30. Doing the honors was John the Baptist, who had long been preaching of a coming Son of God. According to the Gospel of Mark, Jesus saw the heavens part and heard God say to him, “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”. John the Baptist then declared Jesus to be the “Lamb of God”.
Jesus’ actual religious ministry, as a faith healer and rabbi (teacher) in Galilee and later in Jerusalem, only lasted a year or so, according to Scripture. He generally taught about the Kingdom of God, morality and prayer, exorcised demons, miraculously healed the sick, spoke in parables and aphorisms, and championed the poor and oppressed. He also spoke about himself and his divine role, saying that those who believed in him would not die but have everlasting life (i.e. in Heaven). At the height of his brief ministry, Jesus is said to have attracted huge crowds, numbering in the thousands, to hear his sermons. During his ministry, Jesus called some his fellow Jewish acquaintances to be his Twelve Apostles (i.e. close disciples, or followers, who were to provide leadership to his ministry). Much of Jesus teachings were standard-issue Jewish dogma, particularly regarding morality and following the spirit and letter of the law, both spiritual (Hebrew) and temporal (Roman). However, Jesus did take issue with some of the politics and practices associated with the Temple in Jerusalem, and also made the startling claim that he was the Son of God, thereby generating disfavor among the Hebrew elders in Jerusalem (the Pharisees and the ruling council, the Sanhedrin).
The final chapter in Jesus’ short ministry began when he and his followers visited Jerusalem during the Passover festival. A large crowd came to meet him there, loudly proclaiming him as “King of Israel”. Jesus then proceeded to create a disturbance at the Temple by overturning the tables of the moneychangers who set up shop there. According to the Gospel of John, Jesus also raised Lazarus from the dead on the Sabbath, which further annoyed the Jewish leadership. All of this seemed to be the plan of Jesus, which he then revealed to his disciples at a Last Supper feast: he would be put on trial, condemned, and killed, but would return in the form of the Holy Spirit, thereby fulfilling prophecy by suffering, dying, and rising from the dead. Sure enough, Jesus was later arrested, “tried” by the Sanhedrin, and turned over to Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor in Judea, for execution. Jesus was then crucified along with two thieves, and his cross stated that he was being executed for aspiring to be King of the Jews.
The Gospels then report that Jesus later arose from the dead (the Resurrection) and appeared to his disciples, proving to them that he survived the crucifixion and was indeed the Messiah who would soon return and institute his Kingdom on earth. After these appearances, Jesus ascended to Heaven (the Ascension) to sit at God’s right hand. This ends the New Testament story of Jesus’ brief life and earthly achievements.
Carrying Forth the Message
In the fifth book of the New Testament (Acts), the acts of the apostles are documented as they began to carry Jesus’ message out from Jerusalem into the surrounding countryside and then toward the corners of the known world. It is about this time that a Hebrew man, Saul (later known as Paul) becomes a follower of the “Jesus movement”, having been converted to the cause by means of a divine revelation from Jesus himself. Paul then becomes the self-appointed thirteenth Apostle and begins to take a leadership role in the expanding ministry and developing the faith. In the beginning, the ministry was focused on spreading Jesus’ ideas among the followers’ fellow Hebrew countrymen, but eventually the good news was imparted to Gentiles (non-Jews) as well. At about this time the Jesus followers were beginning to be known as Christians, based on the concept that Jesus was the Christ (Greek for “the anointed one”, referring to the Hebrew concept of the “Messiah”).
The book of Acts chronicles not only the adventures of the Christian apostles and disciples who spread the message, but also some of the internal debate among the followers regarding the Jewishness, so to speak, of the Christian message. All of the Apostles were Hebrews (as had been Christ himself), and still adhered to “the Law” of the Torah. But, the numerous and very onerous restrictions of Hebrew law, including circumcision and dietary requirements, were off-putting to potential Christian converts. So, the leadership came up with a compromise that allowed for Gentile conversions to Christianity without obligating these individuals to adhere 100% to Jewish law. While this expanded the effective reach of the new Christian ministry, it also resulted in persecution of the Christian missionaries by observant Jews, who felt that the apostolic leadership was betraying its own religion. To its credit, however, the decision of the Apostles (known afterward as the Apostolic Decree) ultimately enabled Christianity to become a universal religion, available to all people.
The book of Acts is followed by a number of “epistles”, which are formal letters to a person, a group, or a church by Christian leaders of the time. Within the Epistles, the authors discuss the message of Jesus, expand on the developing Christian theology, and relate to incidents and discussion within the Christian evangelical community. The Apostle Paul, the only Apostle who never met Jesus, is credited with writing seven of the thirteen Epistles, fleshing out the emerging Christian theology and establishing himself as the most influential Apostle.
The final book of the New Testament is the Revelation (of Apostle John). It is a very complicated and cryptic compilation of two visions that describe a time of great tribulation on earth, the battle of Armageddon, the return of Jesus (the “second coming”), his thousand-year reign of peace, the Last Judgment, the end of the world as we know it, and the creation of a new heaven on earth in Jerusalem. It is, in a nutshell, the logical completion of the Hebrew Bible story: the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy concerning the Messiah and His restoration of the Kingdom of Israel. It also represents the “payday” of sorts for the Christian faithful, who will be rewarded by God for their loyalty with eternal life in Heaven. It is the original Happy Ending.
Who Wrote These Stories?
Christian church tradition has it that the Apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote the Gospels, providing ostensible eye-witness accounts of Jesus’ life and the verbatim transcripts of his sermons and off-the-cuff remarks to his followers and people he met during his brief ministry.
However, virtually all modern-day biblical scholars agree that none of the Gospels were written by Apostles or by anyone who was either an actual disciple of Jesus or even an eyewitness to his ministry. Most scholars feel that the Gospel authors, whoever they were, finished their work in the 65-150 A.D. timeframe. Their educated guess is that the earliest of the Gospels (scholars agree it was Mark) was finished no earlier than 30 years, and the last (John) was completed almost 70 to 120 years, after Jesus’ death. Some scholars argue for later dates, perhaps as much as fifty years later.
The Apostle Paul, who we’ve previously noted never met Jesus, composed the earliest known records mentioning the name “Jesus Christ” in 49-60 A.D. An interesting aspect of Paul’s writing is the fact that he abstained from mentioning any of the astounding miracles supposedly accomplished by Jesus, in human form, while the Gospel writers, developing their stories many decades later, have vivid memories of many of his fantastic achievements. One would think that Paul would be well aware of Jesus’ reputation from his fellow Apostles and would be proud of the man who effortlessly walked on water, cured lepers, changed water into wine, raised the dead, and fed 5,000 people with two barley loaves and two fishes. Instead, in Romans 10:9, Paul informs his audience of the necessity in believing that God raised Jesus from the dead if they want to be saved. This is especially curious, because, if one is to believe the Gospels, there were hundreds of witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection (in fact, Paul puts the number at 500 in 1 Corinthians 15:6). One would think that belief would not be necessary if the Resurrection was a known, historical fact at the time. Another intriguing aspect of Paul’s writings is the common reference to Jesus as an earthly spiritual presence instead of a formerly living individual. It is almost as if the author actually knew very little about Jesus’ life. Or, if “Jesus Christ” never actually took human form.
The Apostle Paul is traditionally credited by Christians with having composed as many as fourteen books of the New Testament. However, biblical scholars believe that he actually wrote at least seven of them himself, while the others bear evidence of after-the-fact editing by persons unknown as late as the second century A.D. The early Christian church was known for its own redaction (altering) of future biblical works so as to firm-up important theological dogma. The four canonical (officially endorsed by the Church) Gospels, as previously noted, were written decades after Paul’s epistles. They were not the only Gospels (i.e. writings that describe the life of Jesus) considered for inclusion in the Bible. Historians and archaeologists have uncovered evidence of an additional 56 gospels that were produced during the first few centuries of the Christian movement. Many differ strikingly from the canonized Gospel stories, which share many common alleged incidents, miracles, and speeches.
None of the gospels, including the canonized ones, are originals. Biblical scholarship reveals that the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John gospel stories were originally untitled and were quoted anonymously in the first half of the second century (100-150 A.D.), but the names by which they are currently known suddenly appear around 180 A.D. Church tradition holds that the stories were orally passed down from first-hand observers, all of whom would have conveniently died out many decades before the stories began to be circulated. The opportunity for embellishment of the truth, as the stories were passed down, generation to generation, is obvious.
Also, when the stories were put to paper (parchment), then hand copied, and re-copied numerous times, there were untold opportunities for honest error or minor modifications for political purposes. And, then, when the stories were translated, additional opportunities for change occurred. In conclusion, it is highly doubtful that original eye-witness accounts of Jesus’ life, if there are any, survive in any recognizable form within the officially-approved Gospels.
Although early Christian clergy treated Matthew as the original gospel story, virtually all biblical scholars agree that Mark was the original gospel story and was used as a source for the gospels of Matthew and Luke. The three Gospels are called the synoptic gospels because they share similar incidents, teachings, and even some identical language. The Matthew and Luke stories contain additional shared material that scholars believe came from another source, postulated as the “Q Document”. No physical evidence of the document has ever been found; however, it is obvious that some common source was used for the sayings of Jesus. Whether the originator of the Mark story, or the author of the Q Document, was actually a first-hand observer of Jesus’ ministry, no one knows. The actual words of Jesus could have been devised by a talented scribe or a group of writers decades after the fact to flesh out the developing mythology.
The Christian tradition is that the words of Jesus in the Gospels are his verbatim quotes; in fact, most Bibles highlight Jesus’ sayings in red ink or italicized print, so that readers will recognize “the Word of God”. As a matter of fact, many Christian faithful consider everything in the New Testament gospel stories to be one hundred percent factual; i.e. “the Gospel truth”.
However, consider the following example: Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7:27) is an outdoor oration consisting of over 2,000 words. Bible readers are expected to accept, on faith, that someone in the crowd, without benefit of a pencil and scratch pad, stenographer skill, or tape recorder or the like, had the presence of mind to memorize every word that Jesus spoke that day. And, then, that person successfully passed down the verbatim speech to others orally (oral tradition), who then accurately passed it to others, etc., until it was finally put to parchment decades later. And, now, among the faithful, this sermon, and every other formal and casual utterance of the Lord in the Gospels, is considered “scripture”, i.e. the exact words that came from the Savior’s lips.
Of course, no original parchment of any Sermon on the Mount speech has ever been found. Whether there ever was one, or whether “Matthew” and/or the author of the Q Document, ever set eyes upon it is unknown. What is not so amazing is that the finished product (that is, the well-crafted speech that has come down to us through the Bible) is so polished and magnificent. It is almost as if a team of professional Christian speechwriters had decades to work on it. And, it is apparent that they did.
Incidently, the earliest known fragment of the “Matthew” gospel story has been dated at around 65 A.D., or about thirty years after Jesus’ famous Sermon. One can only imagine how many drafts of the story were discarded until the final version was circulated over one hundred years later.
Disagreements Galore
Like Jews who believe that the Old Testament was divinely inspired, Christians generally consider the New Testament to be “God’s Word”. In fact, some fundamentalist denominations believe that every word in the Bible, in both Old and New Testaments, is divinely inspired: “God said it, and I believe it!” The Catholic Church doesn’t go that far, but certainly bases its theology on the overall biblical storyline, selective utilization of Hebrew prophecy, and the message imparted by Jesus and further developed by the Apostle Paul in the New Testament. But, as in the Old Testament, there are many conflicting ideas and statements in the New Testament that lessen the overall credibility of the document.
The canonical Gospels, which supposedly bear witness to Jesus’ actual life, disagree on many aspects, including his birth, ministry, death, and resurrection. According to “Matthew”, Jacob was Joseph’s father, there were twenty-eight generations from David to Jesus, the Angel of the Lord spoke to Joseph, and after the birth of Jesus the family fled to Egypt. On the contrary, “Luke” says that Heli was Joseph’s father, there were forty-three generations from David to Jesus, the Angel of the Lord spoke to Mary, and after the birth of Jesus the family stayed in Jerusalem for forty days, then returned to Nazareth without ever going to Egypt. One would think that there would be one true birth story, not two. Interestingly, the Gospel of Mark, which is known to be the earliest of the Jesus stories and the basis of the other tales, makes no mention of any of this. It is apparent, therefore, that the authors of Matthew and Luke, writing decades after “Mark”, tacked on the Davidic descension and virgin birth stories for theological purposes. In other words, to make the “Jesus story’ the logical continuation of the Old Testament yarn.
Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist was certainly a milestone event in his life. John went so far as to declare Jesus the “Lamb of God” and declare that he was in fact the “Son of God”. Word must have spread quickly. Certainly a few people were aware of Jesus’ actual whereabouts after this declaration. However, discrepancies exist as to where Jesus was hanging out. Matthew 4:1-11 records that Jesus immediately went up into the wilderness, where for forty days and nights he fasted and was tempted by the Devil. In fact, the Devil supposedly took Jesus to “an exceeding high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world”. Surprisingly, the Gospel of John completely disagrees with the purported aftermath of Jesus’ baptism. According to “John”, for the next two days Jesus was busy recruiting disciples Simon Peter, Andrew, Phillip, and Nathaniel (John 1:40-51). And, on the third day Jesus attended a marriage in Cana, Galilee, at which he famously turned six pitchers of water into wine for the guests (John 2:1-8). Now, even Jesus couldn’t have been in two places at once… or, could he?
Again, the story of how Peter was chosen to be an Apostle is different in three of the Gospels. Mark 1:16-18 says that fishermen Simon (Peter) and Andrew were casting nets into the sea when Jesus happened by and invited them to come with him and said “I will make you fishers of men”. Luke 5:2-11 describes a different version of the fishing story, wherein Jesus instructs hard-luck fisherman Simon to return to the lake and cast his nets in a particular place, whereupon he and his partners in another boat were overwhelmed by such a large catch that it almost sank the two boats. Simon and his partners, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were recruited as Apostles on the spot. No mention is made of Simon’s brother, Andrew. In yet another version of Simon Peter’s recruitment, John 1:35-42, Andrew hears John talking about Jesus, fetches his brother, Simon, and they go to meet Jesus, who is apparently at his home (“abode”). Jesus apparently takes a liking to Simon and says that he shall be called Cephas, which means stone. No mention is made of brother Andrew becoming an Apostle or even having been spoken to by Jesus.
Later in Jesus’ ministry he delivers his most famous sermon. In Matthew 5:1, he delivers it on a “mount”. On the other hand, Luke 6:17-49 describes this monumental occasion as having occurred on a plain, not on a hill or mountaintop. Amazingly, the authors of Mark and John and the Apostle Paul, in his epistles, seem to be totally unfamiliar with either sermon, which was the longest oration recorded in the New Testament and one in which Jesus touched on all of the important themes of his ministry. It was Jesus’ “valedictorian” speech, as it were, and there seems to be great disagreement on where and, even, if the speech ever occurred.
As we have seen, Jesus nicknamed Apostle Peter “Cephas”, meaning the Rock that he would build his church on. Peter was a headliner in Jesus’ inner circle, but shortly before the crucifixion, Jesus told Peter that he would disavow any knowledge of Jesus on three occasions, i.e. “before the rooster crows” (in Matthew, Luke and John). Interestingly, the identities of the people interrogating Peter over his relationship with Jesus differ among the four Gospels. In Matthew, the subjects were a damsel, another maid, and the crowd. In Mark, the subjects were a maid, the same maid again, and the crowd. In Luke, the subjects were a maid, a man, and another man. And, in John, the subjects were a damsel, the crowd, and a servant of the high priest. One would think that the final editors of the New Testament, having perhaps a century to get it right, would be able to harmonize what actually happened on that fateful day.
Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve Apostles, has been characterized forevermore as the villain of the Jesus story. According to the New Testament story, Judas betrayed Jesus to the authorities when they came looking for the troublemaker. In exchange, he received the infamous bribe of “thirty pieces of silver” to do the dirty deed.
According to Matthew 27:5, Judas had such remorse over the incident that he “cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hung himself.” Following this, the temple priests took the money and purchased a potter’s field, thus fulfilling the prophecy of someone named Jeremy. (Author’s note: Many times in the chronicles of Jesus’ life, the New Testament authors go to great lengths to make sure that the reader knows that the story is fulfilling prophecy… usually having to do with the long-awaited Messiah.) Interestingly, in the Acts of the Apostles, a completely different version of Judas’ death is told: “Now this man (Judas) purchased a field with the reward of his iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all of his bowels gushed out. And it was known unto all the dwellers at Jerusalem; insomuch as that field is called… the field of blood.” (Acts 1:17-20)
Obviously, there is a big difference between purposely hanging oneself and accidentally falling down and disemboweling oneself. Certainly, it couldn’t have happened both ways. The book of Matthew is a Gospel, supposedly a first-hand account of Jesus’ life. On the other hand, the authorship of Acts, while unknown, was attributed by the early Church fathers to Luke, a physician who was an adherent of Apostle Paul. Whose story should we believe?
On the way to his crucifixion, Jesus carried his own heavy cross, according to John 19:17. This is contrary to the testimony of three other Gospel writers (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), who claim that Simon of Cyrene carried it. Then, once Jesus was nailed to the cross, a sign was placed above the cross. Once again, there are multiple eye-witness versions: Matthew 27:37 “This is Jesus King of the Jews”; Mark 15:26:“The King of the Jews”; Luke 23:38: “This is the King of the Jews”; and, John 19:18: “Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews”.
Similarly, these not-so-sharp eyewitnesses had different recollections of Jesus’ last words. In Matthew and Mark, Jesus is quoted: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”; in Luke, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.”; and, in John, Jesus’ final utterance is simply, “It is finished.” Again, there is sufficient variance in the accounts to question if the eyewitnesses were attending the same crucifixion. After all, two thieves were also crucified that day alongside Jesus. Crucifixions were common back then. Perhaps the remembered quotes were from one of the other victims.
The bible story then says that Jesus’ body was taken down from the cross and placed in a tomb. There is conflicting testimony as to what happened next. Matthew 28:1 reports that the first visitors to the tomb were Mary Magdalene and the other Mary (i.e. that makes two Mary’s). In Mark 16:1 we learn that there were both Marys and Salome (i.e. three initial visitors). Luke 23:55-24:10 has a different spin: there were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of Jesus, and “other women” (i.e. at least five visitors). And, finally, in John 20:1, we learn that Mary Magdalene went to the tomb, noticed the stone rolled aside, ran to get Peter and “that other disciple”, who actually entered the tomb. Obviously, no one proofread these Gospels, because there cannot be four completely different versions of this same incident.
Continuing on, the story gets more confusing, as the visitors, whoever they were, found the tomb empty of Jesus’ body. Matthew 28:8 says the visitors ran to tell the disciples, Mark 16:8 says that the visitors said nothing to anyone, Luke 24:9 says they told the eleven apostles and “all the rest”, and, finally, John 20:10-11 reports that Peter and the unnamed disciple returned home, while Mary Magdalene remained outside the tomb, weeping. Logically, since these testimonies are so different, either one of these versions is correct, and the others false, or, perhaps, all of them are ficticious.
The final act of the biblical Jesus story is, of course, Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. This is the proof that he was divine, and that his own prophetic words were fulfilled. The Resurrection is a major event in the New Testament, and it would seem critical that the Gospels agree on how it went down. But, not so. In Matthew 28:1-18, the first to see the arisen Christ was Mary Magdalene, and the “other” Mary, and then the eleven (apostles). Mark 16:9-14 reports that it was Mary Magdalene, then “two others:, then the eleven apostles. Luke 24:1536 remembers it differently: It was Cleopas and another person, then Simon (Peter?), and then the eleven apostles. Not so, says John 20:14-21:1, it was Mary Magdalene, then the apostles without Thomas (i.e. “doubting Thomas”), and then the disciples with Thomas. Amazingly, there is one more version of the Resurrection, as the Apostle Paul reports in 1 Corinthians 15:5-8: it was Cephas (Peter), then the twelve apostles, and then by 500 plus “brethren” (probably, the followers or general disciples of Jesus).
Of course, Paul wasn’t an Apostle at that time, was not in Jerusalem, and couldn’t really testify accurately as to what happened. (In fact, Paul never met Jesus while He was alive, and allegedly only experienced the Holy Spirit in a vision while on the road to Damascus one day.) For example, Paul notes that the “twelve” apostles witnessed the arisen Jesus. However, there were only eleven apostles at that time, because Judas had either hung or disemboweled himself, and his replacement Matthias wasn’t selected by Jesus’ followers until after Jesus’ Ascension to Heaven (Acts 1). So, it is obvious that Paul’s recollection of Jesus’ post-Resurrection appearances was at least secondhand; i.e. that someone else passed the faulty tale along to him, and possibly that person had the story handed off to him, as well. Remember, again, that the Apostle Paul’s writings are the oldest in the New Testament, pre-dating the Gospel accounts by, in some cases, many decades. Thus, it would seem that if any of these accounts are in error, it would likely be the ones that were written much later than Paul’s; i.e. the canonized Gospel accounts. This begs the questions: Who wrote these stories, when, and are they fact-based whatsoever?
Of course, the possibility exists that all of these conflicting accounts are simply different versions of a mythical series of events, similar to the tall tales of the Old Testament. This is not to say that the person of Jesus never existed. Rather, it is possible that his Christian biographers over many generations may have developed a very detailed and comprehensive mythology to enhance his provenance and, therefore, underscore the importance of his (or more likely, their) theological message.
Something of this sort would be consistent with the legends developed around Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, and other cultures’ god systems of antiquity. According to The Mystical Jesus by Patrick Campbell, Osiris, Hercules, Mithra, Hermes, Prometheus, and Perseus were all pre-Christian gods who (a) had gods for fathers; (b) virgins for mothers; (c) had their births announced by stars; (d) got born on the solstice around December 25th; (e) had tyrants who tried to kill them in their infancy; (f) met violent deaths; (g) rose from the dead; (h) nearly all got worshipped by “wise men”, and (i) had endured a forty-day fast. Do these incidents sound familiar? Yes, these are the very same things that allegedly happened to Jesus Christ.
In antiquity, god mythology was totally believed by the faithful. Today, the old god myths are treated as absolute works of fiction… to some degree because modern cultures have adopted new theologies, each with its own, possibly borrowed, “new and improved” mythology.
The Historicity of Jesus
Detailed recordkeeping documented actual historical events for thousands of years before Jesus allegedly walked the earth.
Phonetic writing was developed independently in four civilizations of the world, namely Sumeria, Egypt, China and Mesoamerica. The earliest writing may have taken place in Sumeria (located in modern Iraq) as early as 3,500 years before Christ. As these civilizations matured, there developed comprehensive systems of recordkeeping regarding business, government, astronomy, religion and other important matters of the day.
The early Egyptians recorded hieroglyphical accounts of military campaigns, floods, droughts, crop yields, and political initiatives. Another example of historical recordkeeping is the so-called Amarna Letters. This archive of diplomatic correspondence, which was written in Akkadian cuneiform (a Mesopotamian writing system) on clay tablets, dates from the reign of Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten circa 1,340 B.C.
Another well known historical document of antiquity is called the Canon of Kings. Sometimes referred to as Ptolomey’s Canon (named after the astronomer Claudius Ptolomey), it is a dated king’s list used by ancient astronomers to date astronomical phenomena. The Canon is considered by modern historians to be extremely accurate, chronicling the rulers of the Middle East, in continuous succession, from King Nabonassar of Babylon in 747 B.C., to Persian King Cyrus the Great, to Macedonian King Alexander the Great, to the Ptolemic pharaohs of Egypt, and all the way up to Roman Emperor Aelius Antonius in 160 A.D.
During all of these thousands of years in the Middle East, records of all types were being kept of actual events by a developing class of professional scribes and historians. Probably the most famous was a Greek named Herodotus of Halicarnassus who lived in the 5th century B.C. Known as the Father of History in Western culture, he was the first to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy, and arrange them in a vivid and well-constructed narrative. Many Greeks and, then, Romans followed in the footsteps of Herodotus, recording important historic, cultural, and political events of the day within the known world.
Like the supposed founders of virtually every religion, Jesus Christ left no personal writings of any kind, nor any trace of his existence. Indeed, his supposed direct ascension into heaven precludes the possibility of there even being any bodily evidence to his existence, if that story were to be believed. No writing, graffiti, or evidence of any kind has ever been found from the period in which he supposedly lived that establishes the existence of Jesus. Another telling fact: the alleged sites of Jesus’ birth, crucifixion, and ascension to Heaven were not venerated (i.e. publicly celebrated as holy by his followers) until at least three hundred years after he allegedly roamed the earth. There was not even one plaque put in place saying that “From this tomb, Jesus Christ rose from the dead!”, or “The Son of God ascended to Heaven from this very spot!”
Make-Believe History
The New Testament, although purporting to relate the true events in the life of Jesus Christ, does not qualify as a bona fide historical document. For one thing, no one knows who wrote the “historical” narratives that are the Gospels, whether any of the stories were based on first-hand observation, or whether any of the purported witnesses or authors even lived in the time of Jesus. There is simply no unbiased correlating historical or archaeological evidence to back up the biblical Jesus story. Because of this problem, Christians are asked by church authorities to believe these stories as an “article of faith”. In other words, if you want to go to Heaven, you must not question these incredible tales or, more importantly, the guys who are telling them to you. You must, like you do when you go into a movie theatre, suspend disbelief.
Secondly, many of the events noted in the Bible do not square with actual historical or archaeological evidence relating to that time period. For example, the Gospel of Matthew says that Jesus was born during the reign of King Herod, circa 4 B.C. Matthew also asserts that the King ordered the killing of all children under the age of two in the Bethlehem vicinity in order to rid himself of the newborn Savior (the incident is the so-called “Slaughter of the Innocents”). Such an atrocity would have been devastating news to families in the region, which they and their relatives would never forget or forgive. However, actual historians of that time and place, such as Philo and Flavius Josephus, do not record such an atrocity.
Matthew says that Joseph and Mary hustled the baby Jesus off to Egypt while King Herod was killing the infants. Curiously, the Gospel of Luke places the nativity story ten years later, in 6 A.D., during the reign of Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus. Luke’s version has the pregnant Mary and husband Joseph traveling from their home in the city of Nazareth to Bethlehem to register in the Census of Quirinius. They never make the sojourn to Egypt, and Luke is silent about King Herod’s murderous rampage. So, one of these accounts, either Matthew’s or Luke’s is in error, casting doubt on the veracity of other “actual” events in their version of Jesus’ life.
What is also interesting about the Census of Quirinius is that it actually happened, but not the way it is portrayed in the Gospel of Luke. Quirinius was a governor of Syria during the reign of King Herod, and the census that Quirinius took was accomplished in 6 A.D., some 9 or 10 years after the death of Herod. Compounding these discrepancies is the fact that no census in history was conducted where descendants were required to relocate to their ancestors’ homes to be counted; it would defeat the purpose of a census, which is counting the number of people who live in a locality.
What we learn from these discrepancies is that Jesus could not have been born during the reign of King Herod, and therefore Herod sent no Magi (following the Bethlehem Star) to observe the baby Jesus in the manger, there was no massacre of innocent children, nor the need for Joseph to take his family to Egypt. These are obviously, then, mythological additions to Mark’s original Jesus story by Matthew and Luke to spice up the tale.
Later in the Jesus story, the same Luke also reports a particular astronomical event that would have caught the attention of anyone interested in the “heavens”. According to Luke 23:44-45, on the day of the crucifixion, there occurred “about the sixth hour, and there was darkness all over the earth until the ninth hour, and the sun was darkened.” Incredibly, not a single mention of such a three-hour ecliptic event got recorded by any astronomer or astrologer, anywhere in the world, including famous regional historians Pliny the Elder and Seneca, who both recorded solar eclipses from other dates. That’s unusual because solar eclipses last a matter of minutes, not hours. Any astronomer who observed such a lengthy eclipse would never forget it.
Amazingly, not a single person in the world alive on that fateful day recorded the actual Crucifixion of the Son of God, either. It wasn’t until 30 years had gone by that someone considered the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to be…important enough to be written about? Or, perhaps, someone decided to conjure up an unbelievable tale.
As mentioned in the previous paragraph, Philo of Alexandria was a well-known historian who failed to note Jesus’ existence when he was supposedly alive. Philo, a prolific Jewish writer who lived from 20 B.C. to 50 A.D. (encompassing the entire supposed lifespan of Jesus Christ), wrote extensively about the political and theological movements throughout the Mediterranean, and his philosophical/theological views foreshadowed aspects of Christian theology. Almost all of Philo’s works are preserved, and he provided the only contemporary account of Pontius Pilate in all of ancient literature. He wrote about political conflicts between the Jews and Pontius Pilate in Judea. Yet, Philo never once wrote anything about Jesus. Not one mention of this Messianic figure, a faith-healer with a following of thousands, a man who had caused so much trouble with the Jewish establishment that Pilate had to condemn him to death, and a man who had then cheated death and ascended to Heaven. Philo wrote about all manner of Jewish matters in ancient Palestine but, unbelievably, the Jesus Christ story was not newsworthy to this esteemed historian? How can that be, you ask? Most likely it’s because the Jesus story is a myth.
Lastly, some of the Gospel incidents “reported” as fact are obviously of a mythological nature, reflecting on the theological motivation of the authors. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke go to great lengths in describing the supposed lineage of Jesus in an effort to make him appear a blood relative of famous King David, (thereby fulfilling Hebrew messianic prophecy). Luke, in fact, traces Jesus lineage through male ancestors all the way back to Adam, the mythical first man on earth (Luke 3:23-38)! Matthew traces Jesus’ supposed lineage all the way back to the patriarch Abraham. Both accounts follow the supposed male ancestry of Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father. However, with regard to the conception of Jesus, the same Gospels make it abundantly clear that the Holy Ghost, not her husband Joseph, “went into” the virgin Mary, impregnating the virgin woman. Therefore, either the fulfillment of messianic prophecy is a myth (because Jesus is no descendent of King David), or the Immaculate Conception is a myth and Jesus could have been the Messiah. Or, most likely, both are myths.
In another birth story, the Gospel of Luke mentions the fact that Jesus was conceived when his mother Mary’s friend Elizabeth was six-months pregnant with her son-to-be (John the Baptist). When Mary came to tell Elizabeth the wonderful news, Elizabeth’s unborn son “jumped for joy” in her womb. (Luke 1:40-41) Obviously, the authors of the Gospel Luke, writing decades after Jesus’ death, couldn’t have witnessed this incident, nor could pregnant Elizabeth have determined why her unborn child “jumped”. This story sounds suspiciously like a conveniently manufactured myth.
Later, during Jesus’ crucifixion ordeal, Matthew testifies that a large earthquake occurred which was so strong that it opened graves “and many bodies of the saints which slept arose”. Matthew goes on to mention matter-of-factly that, after the Resurrection, these arisen saints “went into the holy city, and appeared to many.”(Matthew 27:51-54) Understandably, not a single contemporary person living in Palestine at that time, or any Temple scribe, or any of the historians documenting events of the time, made mention of the destructive earthquake or of well-known dead people wandering the streets of Jerusalem. It was as if famous people got crucified every day and rose from the dead, accompanied by legions of other now-enervated corpses. Apparently, it wasn’t even considered newsworthy in Palestine. Or, almost certainly, these events never happened at all.
Suspicious Inconsistencies
One of the more important and dramatic episodes in the Jesus Story is, of course, his trial, conviction, and crucifixion. It represents, metaphorically, the rejection of Jesus’ ministry by the Jews, a message which has been used by Christians ever since to justify their “new covenant with God” and anti-semitic attitudes, as well. But, did these events really occur as described, or at all?
What is very suspicious about the trial of Jesus is that it defies the historical character of the Sanhedrin (the Jewish body of judges) and their own well-known rules of conduct, as well as Jewish tradition. The synoptic Gospels have Jesus crucified on the day of Passover, which is considered one of the holiest of Jewish holidays, and is considered a time of forgiveness and celebration. That the Jewish authorities would have held a public execution of someone (a rabbi?) at this time is unfathomable. Not only this, but the arrest and (very short) trial of Jesus supposedly took place at night on Passover eve. That the Sanhedrin would have assembled in the middle of the night on Passover eve to pass a quick judgment on anyone defies reason, coupled with the fact that the Jesus Story has members of the Sanhedrin slapping and spitting on the defendant. This would be comparable to our own Supreme Court members acting in this savage way; it just wouldn’t happen.
Not only is the story not logical or believable, it defies the traditions of the Sanhedrin. The rules of the Sanhedrin court that were in effect at the time, according to the Jewish Mishnah (rabinnic history of judicial cases), were as follows: 1) No criminal session was allowed at night; 2) No Sanhedrin trial could be heard at any place other than in the Temple precincts; 3) No capital crime could be tried in a one-day sitting; 4) No criminal trial could be held on the eve of a Sabbath or festival; 5) No one could be found guilty on his own confession; 6) No blasphemy charge could be sustained unless the accused pronounced the name of God in front of witnesses; and, 7) The Sanhedrin were allowed to execute people on their own and did not need the Romans to do so for them. The supposed trial of Jesus Christ violated all of these rules. So, the story of Jesus’ arrest and execution seems quite implausible at the outset, but when one considers the symbolism of the story it becomes apparent that this basis of the New Testament story is theological, not historical.
How Credible Is This?
So, did the Jesus Christ that we have all read about really exist? Or, have we been subjected to an overblown mythology of a man whose promising life was cut short, greatly disappointing his admirers?
The Gospels portray Jesus as a faith healer known far and wide, not only by a great multitude of followers but by the great priests, the Roman governor Pilate, and Herod, who claims that he had heard “of the fame of Jesus” (Matthew 14:1) It was reported that “there followed Him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan.” (Matthew 4:25) Luke 12:1 testifies that some of the gatherings grew so large that an “innumerable multitude of people…trode on one another”. It was also reported that there grew “a fame abroad of him: and great multitudes came together to hear…” (Luke 5:15) The persecution of Jesus in Jerusalem drew so much attention that all the chief priests and scribes, including the high priest Caiaphas, not only knew about him but determined that he should be executed. (Matthew 21:15-23, 26:3, Luke 19:47, 23:13)
So, here we have an allegedly famous prophet and healer, with great multitudes of people following him, calling him the “Son of God” and the “Messiah”, who was known to the greatest Jewish high priests and the Roman authorities of the area, and, yet… not one person recorded his existence during his lifetime? How could that be?
Consider the fact that Philo Judaeus, the greatest Jewish-Hellenistic philosopher and historian of the time, lived in the area of Jerusalem during the alleged life of Jesus. He wrote detailed accounts of Jewish events that occurred in the surrounding area. Jesus, a Jew, was allegedly preaching to “multitudes” of Philo’s Jewish countrymen, performing miracles, and being hailed as the Messiah. Yet, not once, in all of his volumes of writings, does Philo mention Jesus “the Christ”. Nor is any mention of Jesus found in the writings of other contemporary historians (i.e. alive in Jesus’ time), like Seneca and Pliny the Elder. If such a well-known Jesus existed, wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that his fame would have reached these contemporary historians? Yet, not one Jewish, Greek or Roman writer, even those who lived in the Middle East, much less anywhere else on earth, ever mentioned his name during his lifetime.
It is as if…Jesus never existed, or if he did, his legacy has been shamelessly exaggerated.
For a man who was evidently known far and wide by “multitudes” of citizens, officials, and priests, and certainly made no effort to fly under the radar, it is odd that one of Jesus’s apostles, Judas Iscariot, was needed to “betray” Jesus to officials, to say, “That’s him!” Particularly, since Jesus supposedly foretold his own execution, which was itself foretold, supposedly, in the Old Testament. The only possible motive for a “betrayal” incident, in which a well-known blasphemer is fingered, is for the story to fulfill an Old Testament prophecy.
And, then, as mentioned previously, the Gospels differed on how, exactly, the prophecy was fulfilled!
Did Anyone Really Know This Guy?
As previously noted, the first historical mention of “Jesus Christ” is in the Pauline letters, which were written as early as perhaps thirty years after Jesus’ supposed death. The Epistles do not contain any information about the life of Jesus. On the other hand, the supposed eyewitness accounts and obvious myths that comprise the biblical life story of Jesus were composed by anonymous authors in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries. These accounts were then re-worked, edited, and enhanced untold times into the 3rd century by writers influenced by the emerging Christian church. Since there are no original manuscripts of the Gospels, it is unknown if any of the supposedly truthful information about Jesus is uncontaminated.
What one can glean from the Biblical historical record is that a self-appointed Apostle Paul was preaching a “Jesus Christ” theology in the Middle East in the mid- to later-1st century. We know this because of the Pauline correspondence, much of which has been assumed to be historical and real. Paul’s epistles are historic evidence that the followers of a “Jesus Christ” theology (later designated Christians) were alive and actively spreading the Jesus message in the mid- to late- 1st century. This theology has come to be associated with the Jesus Christ story that was later popularized in the Gospel stories.
Whether or not there was an actual Jesus Christ person who spawned the theology, it is impossible to determine. If there was, he probably wasn’t famous throughout the land, at least under the name of Jesus (of Nazareth), because there is no credible historical mention of his birth, ministry in Galilee, his trial by the Sanhedrin, or his crucifixion by Roman authorities. And, it is highly unlikely that his Resurrection and Ascension to Heaven, supposedly witnessed by many, would not have been noticed and written about by his contemporaries. After all, how often do humans arise from the dead, be observed by 500 people, and ascend into heaven? So, it should be obvious to anyone that a large quantity of mythology has been layered onto the story of the actual Jesus, if there was one.
Prior to the adoption of Catholicism by the Roman Empire in the 4th century (i.e. 300 years later), there were many different beliefs about Jesus Christ. The Catholics held a specific view of Jesus Christ as a real, live, historical person, who was both God, the only son of God, and a fully human being. During the first three centuries of Christian belief, however, this was not the case. There were many different groups of Christians early on, and they had differing views about the “Jesus Christ” character, including some who thought that he had not existed “in the flesh”. Some of the Christian sects and beliefs include:
Marcionism – Christ was a purely spiritual entity
Nestorianism – Jesus and Christ were two different entities
Docetism – Jesus appeared physical, but he was really incorporeal
Apollinarism – Jesus had a human body and human soul, but a divine mind
Arianism – Jesus was the son of God, not God himself
Catholicism – Jesus was fully human and fully divine, both God and the son of God
Some of the non-Catholic groups, which are often lumped together under the name “Gnostics”, also used some of the Gospels in their teachings, and some of them even had different versions of some of the Gospels and different versions of the letters of Paul, in addition to other writings that they considered holy. The Catholics, in fact, were a late-developing group, that came along after some of the Gnostic groups. Scholars don’t have much information from these different groups in their own words; instead, what survives are comments on these groups made by Catholics and other opponents of their views.
The logical question is, “If Jesus Christ had been a man on earth and led a life like the one portrayed in the Gospels, then how could there be such a wide variety of beliefs about who and what Jesus Christ was?”
Somebody Save Us!
The entire Holy Bible, Old and New Testaments alike, is replete with prophecies. One estimate has it that twenty percent of the entire document is prophetic in nature, i.e. concerned with the prediction of future events or the fulfillment of such predictions. In the Old Testament, the children of Israel are engaged in a seemingly endless succession of battles to secure their “Promised Land”. Prophets (i.e. “holy men” who claim to have spoken to God) appear regularly throughout the narrative to predict the outcome of military battles, to warn of God’s wrath if his children don’t heed his advice, and to promise better times ahead if the Children of Israel will follow God’s plan for them. The most important event that is foretold by Hebrew prophets is the coming of a Messiah (a Hebrew term meaning “anointed one”, typically used to describe Jewish priests, prophets, and kings).
In order to understand the Messiah concept, one must know a bit about the history of the Jewish people. If the Old Testament chronology is to be believed, God’s Chosen People finally achieved a united Kingdom of Israel in approximately 1,000 B.C. under King Saul. He was succeeded by his son, King David, who reigned for about thirty years and is perhaps the most revered man in late Jewish antiquity. He is also the first Jewish leader mentioned in the Old Testament who can be historically documented as having actually lived. King David’s successor, his son Solomon, reputedly built the First Temple (“The Temple”) on the Temple Mount in the old city of Jerusalem. According to classical Jewish belief, the Temple acts as the figurative “footstool” of God’s presence in the physical world. It was the center of ancient Judaism, and supposedly housed the Ark of the Covenant (i.e. the holy container of the Ten Commandments), although the Ark was never on public display.
The First Temple stood for about four hundred years until it was destroyed by the very real Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 B.C., during a period where the Jews were systematically deported from their “homeland” to Babylon. This displacement caused great upheaval and despair among the Jewish people, causing them to begin to hope for a special “annointed one” (a messiah) who would bring them home.
Several written prophecies were seemingly fulfilled when Persian King Cyrus the Great overthrew the Babylonians in 538 B.C. and gave permission to the Jews to return to their native lands. Approximately 40,000 of them did return. The so-called Babylonian Captivity and subsequent return to Israel were seen as one of the pivotal events between God and “his people”. Just as they had been subjected to slavery by the Egyptians, and then saved by God, the Israelites had once again been punished by the Babylonians, and then saved again. The Second Temple was authorized to be built by King Cyrus, and the new structure stood on the Temple Mount for five hundred years.
Beginning in the second century B.C., the Jews were again suffering from repression at the hands of their Seleucid and Roman conquerors, and renewed their hope of a military leader (a messiah) who would help reestablish the independent Jewish kingdom. In 66 A.D. there began the Great Jewish Revolt pitting hard-line Jewish rebels (zealots) against the Roman Empire, which had dominion over Palestine at the time. What started as a religious squabble between Greeks and Jews quickly spiraled out of control and Roman legions were called in to quash the rebellion. The civil war was finally ended in 70 A.D. when the Second Temple was ransacked and then totally destroyed by the conquering Roman army, and much of the surviving Jewish population was deported from Israel or sold into slavery. The diaspora (displaced and scattered throughout Europe and Asia) Jews now, more than ever, were desperate for some sign of their Messiah.
The Jesus Christ Construct
At about this moment in history, a Jewish cult was gaining traction in the Middle East. Paul of Tarsus was preaching a messianic theology based on the concept of Jesus Christ, which basically couples the Greek name (Jesus) for the Hebrew name of Joshua or Y’shua, which means “The LORD or Yahweh is Salvation”, with the Greek term (Christ) for the Hebrew word (Messiah) which means “anointed one”. Thus, the conceptual moniker, Jesus Christ, means a holy anointed savior.
Tellingly, the “Apostle” Paul doesn’t include any narrative in his epistles about the life of a Jesus Christ person; his Jesus Christ character is strictly a theological device for understanding salvation that this Savior construct represents. Concurrently with the Jesus Christ cult spreading out among the desperate Jews, the first of the Gospel stories about a real man named Jesus Christ began to be circulated. As previously noted, experts feel that the Gospel of Mark, the earliest of the Gospels and the source of information for the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, was originated around 65 A.D.
And, so, there occurred a harmonic convergence of three imperatives: The Jews desperately needed a Messiah; the Jesus Christ cult needed to convert Jews; and, the Jesus Christ Story needed a literary “hook” to spellbind the reader. Not surprisingly, the subsequent Gospels, via the Jesus Christ pageant, go to great lengths to establish the bona fides of Jesus as the long-awaited Jewish Messiah.
Not a Jewish Messiah
Most Christians today believe that the biblical Messianic prophecies are fulfilled by Christ Jesus, while Jews still await the arrival of the true Messiah. This is paradoxical because Christianity, as it has developed over the millennia, has made a conscious effort to distance itself from the Jews (even to the extent that it originated and has fanned anti-semitism). Christian dogma is also clear that the New Testament is reflective of a “New Covenant” with God that supercedes God’s original covenant with his Chosen People, the Jews. How do the Christians validate this belief? Ironically, they fall back on the Hebrew Old Testament and Hebrew prophets to validate their new religion, which is patently anti-Hebrew. Why would they do that? Hold the thought…
The following are the scriptural requirements in Judaism (i.e. the Old Testament) concerning the Messiah, his actions, and his reign. Jewish sources insist that the real Messiah will fulfill the prophecies outright.
The Sanhedrin will be re-established. (Isaiah 1:26)
Once he is King, leaders of other nations will look to him for guidance. (Isaiah 2:4)
The whole world will worship the One God of Israel. (Isaiah 2:17)
He will be descended from King David. (Isaiah 11:1) via Solomon (1 Chron 22:8-10)
The Messiah will be a man of this world, an observant Jew with “fear of God”. (Isaiah 11:2)
Evil and tyranny will not be able to stand before his leadership. (Isaiah 11:4)
Knowledge of God will fill the world. (Isaiah 11:9)
He will include and attract people from all cultures and nations. (Isaiah 11:10)
All Israelites will be returned to the Land of Israel. (Isaiah 11:12)
Death will be swallowed up forever. There will be no more hunger or illness, and death will cease. (Isaiah 25:8)
All of the dead will rise again. According to the Zohar this will happen forty years after the arrival of the Messiah. (Isaiah 26:19)
The Jewish people will experience eternal joy and gladness. (Isaiah 51:11)
He will be a messenger of peace. (Isaiah 52:7)
Nations will end up recognizing the wrongs they did to Israel. (Isaiah 52:13-53:5)
The peoples of the world will turn to the Jews for spiritual guidance. (Zechariah 8:23)
The ruined cities of Israel will be restored. (Ezekiel 16:55)
Weapons of war will be destroyed. (Ezekiel 39:9)
The Temple will be rebuilt (Ezekiel 40) resuming many of the suspended 613 comandments.
He will rebuild the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. (Micah 4:1)
He will gather the Jewish people from exile and return them to Israel. (Isaiah 11:12, 27:12-13)
He will bring world peace. (Isaiah 2:4, Isaiah 11:6, Micah 4:3)
He will influence the entire world to acknowledge and serve one God. (Isaiah 11:9, 40:5, Zephaniah 3:9)
He will then perfect the entire world to serve God. (Zephaniah 3:9)
He will give you all the worthy desires of your heart. (Psalms 37:4)
He will take the barren land and make it abundant and fruitful. (Isaiah 51:3, Amos 9:13-15, Ezekiel 36:29-30, Isaiah 11:6-9)
Again, these are the Jewish requirements to fulfill the Jewish prophecies regarding the true Jewish Messiah. Twelve of the twenty-five prophecies are applicable specifically to Jews, while the others could be construed to benefit all the people of the world.
Jesus, and many other would-be Messiahs throughout the generations, have come and gone, and none of the above prophecies has been fulfilled, at least according to Hebrew scholars and rabbis.
Amazing Prophecy Fulfillment
Some of the supposed fulfillment of biblical prophecy by Jesus Christ, according to Christians, is actually the result of mistranslation of Hebrew scripture by the Christian biographers (or, most likely, mythographers).
Probably the most famous and significant example involves the supposed conception of Jesus. According to Matthew, the Angel of the Lord advises Joseph that the Holy Ghost has impregnated his virgin wife. Again, we see the familiar preface, “Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet.” Then, Matthew goes on to relate the (Isaiah’s) prophecy, “Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.” Unfortunately, the actual Jewish translation of the Isaiah passage reads, “Behold, the young woman is with child and will bear a son and she will call his name Immanuel.” In this case, the New Testament writers, perhaps to provide more gravitas to the hero Jesus (i.e. like Hercules, Osiris, Hermes, etc.) by making him the son of a god, intentionally altered the Isaiah passage so that it would fit the divine conception thesis. Remember…the Jesus stories were written to attract new converts, primarily Gentiles, who wouldn’t have read or understood the Old Testament. Despite these shenanigans, mother Mary goes ahead and un-fulfills the prophecy when she names her son Jesus, not Immanuel.
While we’re on the subject of mother Mary, the Gospels of Matthew and Mark completely undermine the concept of Jesus as the Jewish Messiah when they relate the fact that Joseph is not the biological father of Jesus. Since ancestral bloodlines in the Old Testament are tracked through the male parent, and Jesus is not a biological descendent of Joseph, then therefore he is not of the House of David. Recall that the Jewish prophet Isaiah specifies that the Messiah will be descended from King David.
Another way that the Gospel writers have Jesus fulfilling prophecy is by misinterpreting an Old Testament passage. Matthew 2:17-18 gives the killing of innocents by King Herod as the fulfillment of a prophecy in Jeremiah 31:15-23: “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more.” Actually, the phrase “because her children are no more” refers to the captivity of Rachel’s children. Subsequent verses describe their return to Israel. Again, this alleged prophecy fulfillment was preceded by the confident announcement, “Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet…”. Not only does Jeremiah’s prophecy have nothing to do with the alleged “Slaughter of the Innocents”, but we have previously noted that recorded history doesn’t include mention of any atrocity of that type happening under King Herod. One theory has it that the Christian writers were trying to associate Jesus’ life with the life of the patriarch Moses, who supposedly survived an infanticide ordered by the Pharaoh of Egypt. In the end, it appears that the Gospel of Matthew writers misapplied an Old Testament prophecy to an event that they created out of thin air solely for the purpose of adding stature to their hero. Again, Gentiles reading the make-believe Jesus Story wouldn’t know the difference, so maybe the attitude was “what they don’t know won’t hurt them”.
Expanding on his phony Slaughter of the Innocents tale, Matthew then claims more fulfillment of prophecy when he states, “So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, when he stayed until the death of Herod.” (Matthew 2:14) Matthew is speaking about Joseph, husband of Mary, who was the mother of the child, Jesus. Again, “And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘Out of Egypt I called my son.’” Actually, the prophetic passage is from Hosea 11:1, and has nothing to do with that Joseph (or Jesus). Hosea is quoting God when He says, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” The context of the Hosea passage involves God talking about Ephraim, the son of Joseph (who was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, but rose to become the most powerful man in Egypt after the Pharaoh. Joseph then brought his entire family down from Caanan and settled there in Goshen.) Ephraim was his son, and is counted as the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Ephraim, one of the twelve Israelite tribes. From Ephraim descended Joshua who became the leader of the Israelites after the death of Moses. After returning from Egypt, Joshua led the Israelite tribes in the conquest of Caanan. Matthew’s attempt to somehow link Joseph, Jesus’ stepfather, with the heroic tribe of Ephraim that included the heroes of the Exodus (Moses and Joshua) is bogus. Anyone who has actually read the Bible will recognize the clumsy deception.
Yet another example of convenient misinterpretation of Old Testament prophecy is in Hebrews 1:5, where the Apostle Paul quotes God foretelling His future relationship with Jesus, “I will be his Father, and he will be my Son.” This is a very dishonest ploy by Paul, who was supposedly a Jewish Pharisee and a son of a Pharisee and, therefore, very learned when it came to the Old Testament. The prophecy that the Apostle is referring to comes from II Samuel 7:14, and actually refers to God’s plan for Solomon to build the First Temple. It is Solomon who will be God’s figurative Son, because he will be building a house for (the presence of) God to dwell in. This is not an accidental “misinterpretation” by Paul; it is another clumsy deception, but one which the average Christian reader would not notice because he would want to believe the passage.
Vaticinium Ex Eventu
The early Christians writing the Gospels were familiar with Old Testament prophecy because they were the dispirited Jewish clergy in exile. And, they had the benefit of writing the Jesus legends decades after Jesus’ supposed death. In other words, they had the opportunity to craft the stories in such a way that the hero Jesus was able to fulfill known biblical prophecy. For example, if an Old Testament prophecy had been made that a messianic figure would arrive in Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, then the New Testament Gospel writers could portray Jesus participating in such an event, thereby appearing to fulfill prophecy.
There is an academic term for this, vaticinium ex eventu, or foretelling after the fact. To put it another way, it is postdiction, rather than prediction. In the example cited above, Jesus supposedly arranges for his disciples to secure the donkey for him to ride, but Matthew gives away what was really happening when it is admitted, “All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet).” (Matthew 21:5) In other words, Jesus (or, more likely, his mythographers) staged the event, much like the writers of the movie Forrest Gump blended the activities of their fictional hero into known events, as if Forrest Gump had actually participated in them, affecting a suspension of disbelief in the viewer.
Christian apologists can identify numerous supposed Old Testament prophecies associated with the “coming Messiah” which are supposedly fulfilled by Jesus in the New Testament. The problem with all of these fulfilled prophecies is that every story that describes prophecy fulfillment by Jesus was written well after Jesus’ supposed lifetime by the new “Christian” clergy who had an agenda. The newly-costumed priests were actively proselytizing Jews and Gentiles, i.e. trying to impress new customers. It has already been established that no one knows who wrote these stories, it is unknown whether any of the authors’ work was based on any eyewitness testimony, and a number of the alleged incidents are known to be historically invalid.
Although the after-the-fact “evidence” seems to fulfill some obscure messianic prophecies, the New Testament stories do not fulfill the significant Jewish prophecies, listed earlier in this chapter, which would qualify a contender for the title of “the Messiah”. For example, if the Messiah had really already arrived (in the person of Jesus), the Temple would be re-built, the ruined ancient cities of Israel would be restored, all of the exiled Jews would be returned to Israel, and all nations would be worshipping the One God of Israel. None of these has occurred; therefore, it is reasonable and rational to assume that Jesus was not, and cannot be, the Messiah that was foretold by the great Hebrew prophets.
A New and Improved Savior
It is obvious that the story of Jesus Christ needed to include some provenance, some stature to legitimize the break-away Jewish cult and its “different” message. Jesus could not simply be a fantastic faith-healer with good ideas, because there were many of them wandering Palestine at the time. Jesus also had to be important. Potential converts to his new brand of Judaism had to be outraged that he had been put down in his prime, that his important message had been ignored and quashed by the Authorities. Hence, the Gospel writers felt the imperative to concoct a fantastic pedigree for their hero: he was the Messiah! After-the-fact prophecy fulfillment was obviously a literary tool they used with gusto to “close the deal” with their gullible audience, Jews who wanted to believe, and Gentiles who didn’t know any better.
A Messiah never arrived to save the Jews and fulfill the Old Testament messianic prophecies. The Jewish people, who had been driven out of Palestine and scattered to the four winds first by the Babylonians and then the Romans, never regained their Promised Land and re-constituted their Kingdom of Judea. Not to mention the other unfulfilled prophecies, like “the whole world worshipping the one God of Israel”, “all Israelites will be returned to the land of Israel”, “all of the dead will rise again”, “the Temple will be rebuilt”, etc.
If, as Christians today claim, Jesus’ job here was not to save the Jews but to establish a “new covenant” between believers and God, then…why is the New Testament replete with ties back to the Old Testament? Why wouldn’t the Jesus cult just start with a clean slate, unencumbered by the baggage of the “failed” Hebrew faith?
The answer is that the priests who were peddling the new faith were frustrated Jews. The Hebrew faith, while a minority creed in the Roman Empire, was respected due to its antiquity and moral teachings, and religious tolerance was observed by the Romans of that time. There was no problem with any religion as long as it posed no threat to Roman authority. So, the new religious product (i.e. Christianity) was merchandised as a “new, improved” version of Judaism, thereby benefitting from the gravitas of the established religion, but simultaneously offering lessened membership requirements (i.e. no circumcision or food prohibitions) and heavenly rewards. Once the ball got rolling, the once-Jewish priest authors of the new creed added new bells and whistles to the product to reduce its Jewishness and, thus, improve the Christian sales pitch.
The number one salesman of all-time, if you believe the New Testament, was the so-called, self-appointed Apostle Paul. He was supposedly an ex-Pharisee, a Jewish official. Whether Paul of Tarsus was a real or mythical person, no one knows. But, the ideas that he pitched, as captured in the many letters and epistles ascribed to him in the Bible, pretty much fill out the sales brochure for the developing Catholic Church in the several hundred years following the alleged passing of Jesus Christ.