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The Words of Jesus?

 

In Response to a Question:

 

Posted 1/30/2008 3:50 PM by sonnetjoy – “Embedded throughout this post is language which suggests you do not believe that the words of Jesus are in the NT. (“One ancient writer depicts Jesus as saying,” and “Guess what else Jesus supposedly said” for example.) Have you written a post that addresses that? If so, could you point me to it?”

 

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It is true that I am forced to question whether the New Testament always faithfully reports the words of Jesus.  I have tried to type up a short explanation (but it's not so short).

 

It is important to admit that to be honest, I know of no one who actually knows what the historical Jesus said or did, assuming he did exist.   The following may partially explain this:

 

   1. Jesus left no writings of his own.

 

   2. Nothing extant was written about him during his lifetime. 

 

   3. No surviving contemporary historical or political documents recorded his existence, much less anything about him.

 

   4. For 20 years after his alleged death, no one wrote any surviving account of his life, words, or deeds.  That is despite the fact that people were writing about all kinds of things at that time in history.

 

   5. The earliest non-Christian sources to mention Jesus appear long after his alleged death (over 50 years for Josephus and 86 years for Tacitus).  They do not consider him to be anything good or to have been resurrected from the dead.  Josephus will be dealt with below in the section on fraudulent Christian textual modifications.

The Roman historian Tacitus wrote in his Annals (c. 116 CE) about 1st century events, but he certainly had nothing positive to say about Christianity.  The information he gives about “Christus” is not based on government documents or witnesses to any events; rather, he appears simply to follow general Christian claims of the time:

“Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.”  (15.44)

 

   6. The earliest Christian sources, written presumably 50-60 CE (over 20 years after Jesus’ death), are some letters ascribed to Paul, a man who did not even know or claim to know Jesus when he was alive.  The letters of Paul contain almost no biographical information about Jesus.  In fact, the death and resurrection of the messiah seem to be almost all that Paul cares about, for theological reasons.  I should note, too, that not all letters attributed to Paul by tradition are currently believed by Biblical scholars to have actually been written by Paul.  Christians were in the habit of inventing literature for their movement.  Some pseudepigraphic literature made it into the New Testament (like the “Pastoral Epistles”: 1, 2 Timothy and Titus) whereas other pseudepigraphic literature did not (like some pretended correspondence between the Apostle Paul and the philosopher Seneca).  More below.

 

   7. When Christian writings do appear, they are well over 20 years after Jesus’ death, and they come from various communities that believed often quite different things about Jesus.

 

   8. The Gospel of Thomas (not in the New Testament) may have been written before or after the Mark, Matthew, and Luke.  Scholars differ in their opinions.  It is a collection of sayings, some of which may have been said by a historical Jesus.

 

   9. The first biblical gospel known to exist, attributed to Mark, was not written until c.69-75 CE, over 40 years after the death of Jesus.  It shows knowledge of the Jewish war and the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, with the author even inserting an editorial comment, “Let the reader understand” (13:14), when putting events of the war into the mouth of Jesus as alleged prophesies (a relatively common thing for ancient writers to do in support of their cause).  The writer was not a witness of the events, nor did he claim to be.  The original ending either stopped at 16:8 or was removed on purpose.  A different anonymous Christian author added 16:9-20.  There is no suggestion that Jesus was born of a virgin, and not so many teachings of Jesus are mentioned.

 

  10. “Matthew” comes later (80-90 CE), and “Luke” after that (90-100).  Neither was written by anyone who knew Jesus, and both rely on other sources.  Each one uses Mark to create a framework, but each one changes certain elements in a unique way.  Each invents a genealogy and a birth narrative for Jesus, but they differ on both counts.  [Luke’s genealogy even says that there were only 77 generations of humans from God to Jesus through Adam!! – a natural-but-false belief for someone who read Jewish scripture.]  Each adds many teachings of Jesus derived from a common unnamed source, called “Q” by historians.  By comparing Matthew and Luke, one can determine the subject matter of the Q source material, but it also becomes obvious that the authors are changing things, expanding their sources, and imagining what might have been said.  Matthew adds a "sermon on the mount"; Luke doesn't have it, but gives similar teachings in a "sermon on the plain."  Even more striking than the different fabricated genealogies and virgin birth stories is the fact that Matthew’s gospel puts Jesus’ resurrection appearances in Galilee, while Luke emphatically puts all post-resurrection events in Jerusalem (see Acts also).  The two are more than 100 miles apart!  Mark, the appendage to Mark (16:9-20), Matthew, and Luke have serious discrepancies about events of the resurrection [see my paper at  http://www.geocities.com/investigatingchristianity/ResurrectionDiscrep.html].  The original Mark placed resurrection appearances in Galilee (16:7), but whoever wrote 16:9-20 seems to have used something closer to the Lukan version.

 

  11. “John” came last, being written and rewritten from 96 CE onward (over 66 years after Jesus’ death).  It claims to have been inspired by writings from “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” who may have died before the writing of the extant book (John 21:20-24).  It is radically different.

·      In the synoptic gospels (Mt, Mk, Lk), Jesus first goes to Jerusalem during the last week of his life, “passion week;” John, however, has Jesus visit Jerusalem earlier and more frequently.

·      The synoptic gospels do not have John’s seventh sign-miracle, the resurrection of Lazarus (John 11).

·      The synoptics do not have John’s extended “Farewell Discourse” (13-17).

·      In John, Jesus’ ministry lasts 3 or more years, while it only lasts for one year in the others.

·      In all three synoptic gospels the cleansing of the Jerusalem temple occurs just after Jesus’ triumphal entry into the city.  Mark even depicts Jesus’ behavior as the reason for the plot to kill him.  In the synoptics, Jesus dies within a week.  In John, Jesus cleanses the temple on his very first visit to Jerusalem, two years earlier.

·      The last supper is on a different day.  In John, the last supper is “before Passover” (13:1), and the crucifixion and burial occur on the day leading up to Passover, which itself was a Sabbath day (19:31).  In contrast, the synoptic gospels put the last supper on the first evening of Passover, a Thursday, and the crucifixion and burial are after the first evening of Passover.

·      John has none of the following:  the temptation of Jesus, the transfiguration, the institution of the Lord’s supper, examples of Jesus casting out demons, the "sermon on the mount," the "Lord’s prayer," narrative parables.

·      Jesus is God in John.  John begins by asserting that Jesus always existed, as the “logos” of God who became flesh.  John’s gospel portrays Jesus as God.  It contains several “I am” statements echoing Yahweh’s statement to Moses in Exodus 3:14.  It even has Thomas say to Jesus, “My lord and my God” (20:28).  John 14:9 depicts Jesus as saying, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father."  Yet other Christian writers within the New Testament did not equate Jesus with God.  e.g. “God ... whom no one has seen or can see” (1 Tim 6:15-16).  By the time of John’s gospel, Jesus has evolved into an all-knowing character, whereas he seemed more human in earlier gospels. In Mark 13:32, Jesus is not omniscient, and says, "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”  Matthew 24:36 says the same, in some manuscripts, but unknown Christians took the phrase "nor the Son" out of their manuscripts, attempting to change the text because it conflicted with their doctrine.   

 

  12. One may observe an evolution of beliefs about Jesus if one closely compares Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John.  A good study tool for Christians and non-Christians is Burton H. Throckmorton’s Gospel Parallels, which sets accounts side-by-side, so that it is easier to compare and contrast the different gospels.  Some easier-to-spot differences:  In Mark, there is no virgin birth and Jesus seems more human; Matthew and Luke reflect communities that have added (different) genealogies and birth narratives; John depicts a pre-existent Jesus who is God.  One could examine how the different gospels treat Jesus’ baptism by John and the heavenly voice: small details change over time, increasing the authority of Jesus.  The omniscience of Jesus was already mentioned above.  There are too many examples to get more specific here.  Careful study reveals that the writers created or shaped sayings/stories in ways the reflect the experience of the community in which each gospel was written.

 

  13. The early Christians appear to have fabricated stories about Jesus in order to make him appear both to equal and to surpass the characters in Jewish mythology, both in word and deed.  For example, they make him walk on water and appear transfigured on a mountain; this makes him superior to Moses [also, the "sermon on the mount" (in Matthew) giving the new version of the commandments].  Matthew invented a story about Herod killing babies to try to prevent the birth of the coming king/prophet; this is an echo of the Moses story and numerous stories in Mesopotamian, Greek, and Roman culture.  Gospel writers make him fast for 40 days and nights to match Moses and Elijah and even the Israelite sojourn described in the Pentateuch.  They make him raise the dead to match the feats of Elijah and Elisha.  Elijah and Elisha also create abundance from little, a feat topped by the literary Jesus, who feeds 4,000 or 5,000 with a small amount (like 5 loaves and 2 fishes [5+2=7] or with 12 baskets left over [notice the use of special numbers!]).  The whole "3 days and 3 nights in the heart of the earth" thing (Mt 12:40) is symbolism from the Jonah story and more.  For more examples in better detail, see Randel Helms, Gospel Fictions, (1988. Prometheus Books), which gives a short literary analysis.]  The stories also resemble elements of Greek and Roman mythology, which is probably not an accident.  Romulus, the founder of Rome, was the son of God (Mars) and himself became a God and ascended into heaven in a mist or cloud from one of the seven hills of Rome (Livy).  The ancient people, including Jews and Christians, thought god(s) lived in the sky; so such an ascension in a cloud made sense to them, whereas it seems strange to a modern ear.  Also, many Greek and Roman gods, demigods, and heroes were born of virgins.  Early Christianity also bears many resemblances to Greco-Roman mystery religions which promised initiates a blessed afterlife.  There are too many examples of borrowed literary, religious, and mythological features to list them all here.

  14. No people, not even Christians, claim that Jesus appeared to Roman authorities.  One might suppose that a real god who could rise from the dead and wanted the world to know "the truth" and worship him would appear and make himself known to the entire world.  Of course that's not how anything went.  The Christian stories are suspicious, conflicting, and unreliable.  If Saddam Hussein’s body or Elvis's body went missing and some Iraqis/Americans claimed that he had risen from the dead and that they saw him but that he then went into the sky, would you believe them?  Would you believe their stories of what Saddam/Elvis told his close disciples?  How about 40 years or more after the "fact"?

 

  15. It is a demonstrable fact that Christians tampered with Biblical texts as time went on.  One need only purchase a Greek text of the Bible with a critical apparatus in it, showing the textual variations among surviving copies.  For a brief essay with some interesting examples, check out “Which Bible?” by Steven Carr (1997), which is available on-line both at http://www.theskepticalreview.com/tsrmag/976which.html and also on my web page http://www.geocities.com/investigatingchristianity/index.html .  We have proof that variants exist, and although some variants may be accidents, it is a fact that Christians edited/'doctored' their texts.  Who knows how many cases of tampering and 'editing' went unnoticed?  I already gave the example of how Mark 13:32 says Jesus is not omniscient, "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”  And some manuscripts of Matthew 24:36 say the same, but unknown Christians took that phrase "nor the Son" out of other manuscripts, because it conflicted with their doctrine.  They did not succeed in reaching every manuscript! This betrays yet another attempt to change their story, to shape the "facts."

 

  16. The New Testament is full of misinterpretations and out-of-context quotations of the Jewish Scriptures.  Jews knew this all through the Middle Ages, and it was one of the many good reasons why they did not believe in Jesus as their Messiah, but Christians hated the Jews, and Christian scholars were unwilling to look into it honestly until modern times. See my paper, “The Pre-Christian Jewish Concept of the Messiah: Appendix D: New Testament Interpretations of the Old Testament” [http://www.geocities.com/investigatingchristianity/MessianismPreChristian.html - appendixd] for several excellent examples.  Just one abbreviated example is the supposed prophecy of the virgin birth of the Messiah.  Isaiah 7:14-17 actually says in Hebrew, "Behold, the young woman will conceive"; it does NOT say "a virgin will conceive." Hebrew has a word that specifically means "virgin;" it is used in many places in the Bible, but not here. The writer of Matthew was using a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, which used the Greek word parthena and can refer to a virgin, but does not necessarily do so. Virgin births were very common in Greek stories of heroes.   //  But there is much more. The child Isaiah prophesied about was supposed to live in the 700's BCE: "...and before the boy is old enough to know the difference between right and wrong, the land . . . will be laid waste by the king of Assyria" (7:14-17). That happened in 732 and 722-21 BCE. The birth of the child was supposed to be a sign for King Ahaz in the 700's. Thus, there is NO WAY Isaiah was referring to some far off virgin birth of a spiritual messiah. There is no prophecy of a virgin birth of the messiah anywhere in Jewish scripture. Christians usually do not bother to read the rest of that passage in Isaiah. They too often do not bother to read the OT in context or learn Jewish history at all, and that is why they are easy prey for preachers and evangelists (who were once easy prey for others, etc. ad infinitum).  The idea that Jesus fulfilled Jewish prophecy is ridiculous if one studies the prophecies in historical context (see my paper, “The Pre-Christian Jewish Concept of the Messiah”)

 

  17. Other good reasons for rational people to question the reliability of early Christian writers in general:  During the Greco-Roman era, it was relatively common for groups to write stories or "prophecies" or other literature and falsely attribute the writing to a hero, ancestor, prophet, or spiritual leader.  For example, early Christians had a document called the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, a Jewish pseudepigraphon into which they basically inserted a bunch of "prophecies" about Jesus and claimed that the prophecies were made by the 12 sons of Jacob almost 2000 years before Jesus. In other words, it was a fraud.  [And anyway, modern scholars and even plenty of lay people know that the patriarchal stories in Genesis are more myth and legend than history.]

·      Other examples of such pseudipigraphal and/or apocryphal works are the following Jewish and Christian texts: I and II Esdras, Tobit, the Wisdom of Solomon, the Wisdom of Jesus Ben Sirach, Baruch, Letter to Jeremiah, some additions to Daniel (Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon), Prayer of Manasseh, III and IV Maccabees, I and II Enoch (quoted by Jude in the New Testament), Ascension of Isaiah (more Christian "prophesies" of Jesus falsely attributed to Isaiah), II Baruch, Psalms of Solomon, Pseudo-Phocylides, and the Sybilline Oracles.  Daniel itself (in the Old Testament) was circulated in the 2nd century BCE (during Jewish conflicts with Seleucid Syria) and falsely attributed to an old legendary hero to make it appear that the war was prophesied long before.

 

At least in the cases of Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and Ascension of Isaiah, there is proof that early Jews and Christians were in the business of making up stories and attributing them to certain authors. In other words, people were inventing religion. And that's not all.

 

·      I already mentioned the fake literary correspondence between the Apostle Paul and the Roman philosopher Seneca.  Other early Christian writings included the Shepherd of Hermas, the Acts of Paul and Thecla, an Epistle of Barnabas, a Prayer of the Apostle Paul, Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Truth, Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Mary, Gospel of Philip, Apocryphon of John, Gospel of the Egyptians, Acts of Peter and the Twelve, Thunder, Perfect Mind, Letter of Peter to Philip, Testimony of Truth, Eugnostos the Blessed, and many more.

 

And this is only what we know about!  Who knows how much other literature was destroyed.  People at that time were writing a tremendous amount of religious literature and passing it off as authoritative. In summary, NO early Christian writings are truly reliable or verifiably authentic.  So even if we didn’t have all the demonstrable errors and discrepancies that DO exist in the texts of the NT, still Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John could potentially be as “pretended” as many other early Christian writings.  Why are they in the Bible?  Because they were written from what became the "orthodox" viewpoint and were thus kept by the "orthodox" church while other writings were discarded, and because they were not sufficiently exposed to criticism at the time.  When "holy" texts and the power to read are in the hands of only a few people, many of them priests, it is much easier for priests to manipulate the public; and such was the case with Christianity until relatively modern times.

 

·      The Jewish historian Josephus’ writings, Jewish War (80-90 CE) and Antiquities (c. 95 CE), do not support Christian claims.  However, later Christians during or after the 200’s CE did tamper with the text of Josephus’ Antiquities and insert Christian material into it in order to fabricate “historical” support for their claims. The following is called the “Testimonium Flavianum,” from Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3, in the translation of William Whiston:

o     “Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”

 

To people with a thorough knowledge of ancient history, it will be immediately obvious that the passage is a fraud.  It looks practically like a creed from the 3rd or 4th century!  Furthermore, Josephus was Jewish and a Roman sympathizer, and the mass of his writings show beyond a doubt that he was no Christian.  The first person ever to cite the forged passage of Antiquities was the Christian writer Eusebius, writing in about 324 CE.  (Some historians think he probably wrote it himself.)  Before this, NO Christian writer ever suggested that Josephus said such.  The Christian author Origen (c. 185-254) even stated clearly that Josephus “he did not accept Jesus as Christ” (Commentary on Matthew 10.17), directly contradicting the later forged passage, and Origen appears to have no knowledge of the Testimonium Flavianum.  This forgery fits in with the fact that Christians were undeniably in the habit of fabricating literature to support their religion, as is attested by numerous examples, many of which I've listed.

 

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This list is not complete, by any means, but it is a decent starter.  Facts such as these support the conclusion that there is no reliable or uncontroversial access to “the historical Jesus” (again, I am assuming there was one).  Those who attempt to dig behind the Christian propaganda and discover what any historical Jesus may have been like reach conclusions that often differ significantly from scholar to scholar and disturb those who want to believe the stories literally.

 

Given such circumstances surrounding the development of Christianity, and observing that Jesus does not ever appear himself and confirm any of this literature for humanity's sake, I find myself unable to assume the New Testament is necessarily reporting the true words of Jesus.

 

It is hard enough for an average modern human to remember the exact words someone said 45 years ago.  People may get snippits correct, but we usually end up paraphrasing and adding elements.  And this is a problem even with honest sources.  With the Christian sources, the entire set-up looks fishy to me.

 

I readily admit that there may be some true words of a historical Jesus in the New Testament, but in order to be safe and honest, I try to use qualifying terms/phrases, such as “allegedly” or “according to the writer of Matthew, Jesus said ...”  That way I know I am not lying.

 

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If you are new to this information, you may read the references mentioned above, or

 

-- From Jesus to Christianity : How Four Generations of Visionaries & Storytellers Created the New Testament and Christian Faith, by L. Michael White (Dec 1, 2004)

 

-- New Testament Story: An Introduction, by David L. Barr (2001) 

--  Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, by Bart D. Ehrman.  (2007.)

--  Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition?, by Robert M. Price.  (2003.)

  

These men either are or were Christian.  None set out originally to "destroy the faith" or make fabrications.  The books are well documented.  One of these men is a former professor of mine, although I had de-converted from Christianity well before I took his classes.  Another of these authors I met last year at a university lecture.  The first two  of these works are current standard textbooks for New Testament classes in many American universities.  You might also consider taking classes at a non-religious university from a professor.  Religious universities often suppress honest research/dialog and often refuse to hire professors who will not support their particular sectarian religious views – not an good set-up for an “educational” institution.  Sometimes even professors at non-religious universities suppress such information.

 

So many people do not want to offend religious people, do not have the patience to talk about these topics, or are simply unaware of such information.

 

 

 

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