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ABOUT
THE NEW TESTAMENT GOSPELS
(Received from the Lord through
Jakob Lorber, on March 18, 1864)
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1) The Lord: "You ought to
know that the evangelist Matthew was accepted by Me when I met him as a
publican (tax-collector) on My journey to Kis, where he worked in the service
of Rome in a half-way station between Capernaum and Kiss. Because of this
acceptance, people reproached Me, saying that I have dealings with publicans
and sinners.
2) "Since this Matthew was an excellent penman and did not want to
leave Me, he was accepted by Me as a scribe to relate only the facts, whilst My
John had to record the Word, that is, what I taught. Sometimes Matthew
wrote down for himself more spiritual parts of My sermons and then asked John
to correct them; Matthew had a good memory for physical things, but a
weak one for My spiritual teachings.
3) "As long as he traveled with Me, he knew only little of My family
relationships, and what he did know was told to him on occasion by James, Simon
and John; yet he did not write it down on the spot, but only few years
after My resurrection; when he was elected an apostle in Judas Iscariot's
place. Having composed his gospel correctly, Matthew, the
apostle-evangelist, took it along on his journey to the south-easterly regions
of Asia.
4) Thereafter, five different gospel-writers appeared, named
Matthew, in Jerusalem, Galilee, Samaria, Tyre and Sidon. The one in
Sidon undisputedly was the most acceptable of the five. At the great
church-council of Nicaea, the other four were declared apocryphical and
rejected, since they differed very much...even among each other. The one
offside was considered as possibly genuine, though also this is, in part,
apocryphical in spite of the fact that the writer took all possible pains to
represent the report as accurately as possible.
5) "In reality he wrote fourteen gospels, not just one,
always in accordance with what pretending eye-witnesses ad disclosed to him.
On the basis of these fourteen, he wrote a fifteenth, which, according tithe
judgment of many experts, was the truest and most important one. This
pseudo-Matthew, whose real name was L'Rabbas, is the author of our present
gospel of Matthew. The original genuine one can still be found in great
collection of books and manuscripts of every kind, in an important city of the
far north-eastern mountains of India, which is perhaps the largest and richest
on earth since the library of Alexandria burned down. It consists of
several million books and manuscripts, which are unfortunately - not accessible
to anyone but the high priests, who are under the authority of the
uppermost one of Brahma. Only the Burmese have a genuine but
greatly shortened copy.
6) "You would also like to know what became of the Apostle Matthew
in those countries of India. He had been supported there quite well, but
was not permitted to extend his teachings to others outside of the priesthood.
In his old age, guided by My Spirit, he found an opportunity to escape
into Burma, where he taught the Burmese all wisdom. For them he wrote
the aforementioned, brief gospel. In some of the better traditions,
Matthew is still called 'the Apostle of India.'
7) "From this information you can now easily understand the nature
of our biblical gospel of Matthew. Likewise, you will better comprehend
what is said in the 13th chapter, where it reads in verses 55-56: 'Is not
this the son of the carpenter Joseph? Is not his mother called Mary?
And are not his brothers James and Joses, Simon, Jude and John?
And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all his
wisdom?' To appreciate this correctly, one must know what is mentioned
in the gospel of John, namely, that I once came to Nazareth and taught
there in the synagogue, working many signs. Whenever my disciples
and apostles began to criticize Me, I said: 'No prophet is to rise from
Galilee', or in other words, a prophet is nowhere less appreciated than in his
father-land. Then I left Nazareth, never to return.
8) "As regards My so-called 'brothers and sisters', they were
Joseph's children from his first marriage, not the children of Mary, whose
only child I was. The 'sisters' were not even daughters of Joseph’s, but
his poor relatives; they were called thus because they lived
according to the will of both Joseph and Mary. Three of these
brothers traveled with Me, namely, James, Simon and John. Two stayed
home to continue Joseph's business, and cared for Mary until I gave her over to
John's care.
9) You will find the same seeming contradictions in the Gospel of Luke.
This evangelist wrote also the Acts, 50 years after Me. His
gospel is a compendium of what he found out through an eager investigation
about Me and the apostles. He sent all his writings to Theophilus in
Athens, who then wrote a gospel from Luke's gospel, enriching it withal number
of additions, thereby injecting into it a number of incorrectness’s,
especially in a literal sense, out of which then grew all kinds of
contradictions, as for instance with reference to My highly tyrannical function
in the so-called 'last judgment', which is not at all in agreement with the
only still most correct, brief gospel of John; yet, spiritually it admits
an illumination, about which, together with other things, we shall learn in the
next Word. Let this suffice for today. Amen.