THEY HID THE FOUR GOSPELS

If we could be sure that the four New Testament gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were censored or largely censored during the first few decades of their appearance we reduce the already weak evidence for the claims the Church makes for the existence and life and significance Jesus Christ considerably. And we can be sure. There is absolutely no evidence that anybody who would have been able to refute the gospels had access to them and there is plenty of evidence that the gospels were kept out of their clutches. Most Christian argumentation in favour of Jesus Christ being a good man and a miracle worker comes from the idea that the gospels were public and well known and weren’t debunked by people who thought otherwise. They say for example that if the claims about Jesus in St John’s gospel were false this would have been shouted from the rooftops and his gospel would have been forgotten. The New Testament gives no indication that the gospels were well-known or publicised. There is proof that they were not. It is 100% certain that there is no evidence that any part of the gospels that could show that Jesus lived in Israel in the time and way the gospels say.

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WHO KNEW NO GOSPELS

If the Gospels existed or were unavailable in the first century, the historian Josephus would have used them for research and quoted them. He wrote a lot about the time period Jesus lived in and spoke of John the Baptist and Pilate and King Herod. But he didn’t even mention Jesus or Christians though a Christian insertion says he did. The early Christians must have been a secret and obscure cult. If they had gospels for the world to read, nobody was interested. Or perhaps their gospels were deliberately hidden. Or perhaps it was the major "historical" parts of them that were hidden. It is likely that if the Christians were not afraid of people looking at their gospels they would have sent them to writers like Josephus to get them advertised by getting quotations from them published.

A very short piece about Jesus that sounds suspiciously like a creed was inserted into the works of the first century Jewish historian Josephus. If Josephus had really mentioned Jesus Christ he would have stated that we must turn to the gospels for further information when he wrote so little. Any decent historian would and Josephus was a clever one. If he really believed that the man Jesus was the most important man who ever lived he would certainly have recommended the gospels when he wrote so briefly about Jesus. If he wrote about Jesus and did not mention the gospels then these books might not have existed as far as he was concerned.

Pliny said that Christ was honoured as a god. If he had known the Gospels he would not have said this. The New Testament is monotheistic.

The Governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor, Pliny the Younger (62-113 AD), sent his letter to Trajan, the Emperor, in 110 to seek advice on how to stop the spread of the Christian religion which was stealing sheep from his pagan religion for he was puzzled why it was succeeding. The gospels would have been a significant cause of faith if they had existed. If the Christians had had them they would have used them to develop faith in themselves and even more so in the converts for faith cannot be had without evidence. So Pliny would have burnt the gospels instead of being puzzled. His looking for advice shows that the Christians had no evidence to make converts with meaning that they had no gospels or any scriptures maybe apart from the Old Testament. “Though we have no copy of the letter dating prior to the sixteenth century, we know that that copy was drawn from a manuscript of the sixth century that is without significant Christian interpolations. The letter is therefore of “genuine character”” (page 40, The Jesus Event).

Pliny said nothing about the history of Jesus at all. He said that the Christians were just harmless but depraved in superstition meaning that they believed without evidence and therefore without gospels.

Tacitus, his friend, however apparently said that Jesus who he names only as Christ suffered death under the reign of Tiberias by order of Pilate. He doesn’t even say if it was a crucifixion – which he would have done for he spoke revilingly of the Christian faith and was trying to convince his readers it was bad news. Crucifixion was considered a disgrace and a proof that Christ was a charlatan and a criminal who opposed Rome. So we don’t know if it was Jesus or how he died but we can be more sure than not that this Christ was NOT the gospel Jesus. Some would say who else could it be? It could be that Balaam in the Talmud who was a Messiah who was hanged on the eve of the Passover. It could be anybody that died who was supposed to have royal blood. Some messianic sects believed that if their founder was killed, her would return from the dead one day - perhaps in several years time. One might argue that there were loads of Christs and since the reliable Tacitus says the Christians were misanthropes and bad news that it was not the sect of Jesus. The Church was first called Christian at Antioch about 50AD and the term means follower of the Messiah. But it stands to reason that many messianic groups surrounding other figures would have called themselves that among other names. It is just like every Christian Church calls itself the Church of Christ but it does not mean they are the same group. The early Church claimed that many Christian groups were too far away in doctrine from them to be really Christians and accused them of inventing a new Jesus.

Philo Judaeus of Alexandria who was born in 15BC, was into studying and writing most prolifically about religious trends in Judaism. He was into tolerance and had an ecumenical outlook. So, why didn’t he discuss the value in the gospels? The bulk of the gospel teaching was taken straight from the Great Jewish teachers. It was not original to Jesus. Philo distanced himself from fanaticism which some say was the reason he ignored Christianity. But he went into the Essenes in depth. He could still and would have looked at the teaching of Jesus especially if Jesus was not a fanatic as the gospels imply.

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BARUCH

The Book of Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah which it contains are definitely forgeries written long after the people whose names they bear were dead.

The Book of Baruch certainly claims to contain, if not be, God’s Word for it contains prophecy spoken in God’s name. This makes it unique among the Apocrypha.

Baruch is possibly the work of a forger who was reflecting on what was going on with God’s people in the time of Jeremiah. Or it was a forgery written in New Testament times that was trying to link events from these times with events in the time of Jeremiah. In other words, it looked at the needs of the New Testament times through the tinted glasses of Jeremiah's time. It is most likely that it is a New Testament forgery for it would not have been written except when history was repeating itself. That is when the calamities of the holy land that happened in the days of Jeremiah appeared to be happening again in 70AD for the book had to have been written to console people. The work was to edify the Jews and disguise what it had to say as if it was spoken to Jeremiah’s generation.

Baruch chapter 5 tells Jerusalem to stop mourning and being miserable and to put on the glory of God forever. She will be named forever as the place of holy people. This is clearly meant for Jerusalem of 70AD. Nobody who knew that Jerusalem went off the rails several times after Jeremiah would create or even preserve such a prophecy. The preservation of a book of false prophecy could only have been down to the illogical Christians who raved all sorts of nonsense. The Jews would have destroyed the book.

In Evidence that Demands a Verdict Vol 1 (page 34) we read that Baruch was written about 100 AD and was probably trying to interpret the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. It sees clues that the book was urging the Jews to submit to the Roman emperor and forget about fighting for that is God’s concern (4:25).

The book denies the validity of the prophets who spoke of the awful apostasy of Jerusalem. So it denies that Jesus who said that Daniel was a real prophet and predicted the apostasy was really the Son of God.

The book says that the Law of Moses is everlasting and valid for as long as says that all who reject it will die and warns that acceptance of Gentiles is heresy (4:1-4). This is what a person who knew of the Christian Church would write. Jesus and the apostles accepted Gentiles.

He complains that Israel was worshipping other gods. Jesus and the Holy Spirit, no doubt.

The Letter of Jeremiah says that if anything bad happens to an idol or god that proves it was not a god. Jesus whether man or myth did not save himself from the cross so is that what he is getting at? He was the only serious problem the Jews of the time had with idolatry.

The silence of the work on the historical Jesus implies that he did not exist. It could have said something like, “The man that died at your hands has not saved you”.

Roman Catholicism sees Baruch as true scripture. That the Church has no power to divine true scripture is obvious from the fact that Baruch should be in the New Testament but altering the New Testament list is unthinkable even for Catholics. At the end of the day, Baruch is just a forgery. Rome says it was just a man writing in the name of Baruch in the first century who had no intention of forging but was just using a device to show he was in Baruch’s tradition. There is no evidence that the man didn’t mean to forge. When you put your name to a book and try to copy somebody else’s style and take their identity you are a forger. End of story.

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DIDACHE

The Didache, otherwise known as the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, is older than the Gospels. Scholars agree that the work is probably the product of the oral tradition that finally resulted in the formation of the gospels for it is so simple. It is probably Syrian in origin and from the late first century (page 14, the Lion Concise Book of Christian Thought).

The Didache gives the words of Jesus similar to the Gospels but different enough to indicate that its author knew nothing about these works. Anyway, it is significant that it does not attribute these words to Jesus.

The Didache claims to be the teaching of the apostles which implies that it is giving the teaching of these men about Jesus. Since Jesus was regarded as infallible it is unthinkable that the author would not have stated what sayings came from Jesus.

Section Two of the Didache is a Church manual. It gives the words for baptism as, “In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit”, but does not agree with Matthew’s text which adds, “I baptise you”. The words have to be said right to administer a valid baptism and the Didache leaves out an important part if it really belonged in them in the first place. The Gospels were not available to the author of the Didache. This formula is simpler and therefore probably earlier than Matthew.

The Didache commands baptism in cold running water if it is available. This command is not in the New Testament. It suggests that the author did not hear of the Gospels which describe the mode of water baptism.

The Eucharist it prescribes says nothing about the, “This is my body,” stuff that the New Testament has. It is simply a thanksgiving coupled with prayers for unity. The manual prescribes, “Begin with the chalice” (9). The gospel Jesus started with the bread. Then the manual gives the ritual refuting those who say that the Eucharist words of Jesus were said before this ritual, which it calls the “eucharistic prayer,” was given. Eucharist means thanksgiving. Now the Eucharist words of Jesus are about giving thanks, “This is my body being sacrificed for you. Do this in memory of me,” and since this writer tells us to begin using the thanksgiving prayer as he says it is clear that the simple ceremony he gives is all there is to the Eucharist in his opinion. The Didache insists that people must be free from sin when they eat the Eucharist for it is a sacrifice. This may mean that it is the offering to God of the Church which suffers for him. Whoever wrote the Didache did not know of the gospels which recommend a different Eucharist ceremony. Whoever heard of an elementary Church manual that would omit the Eucharistic words having known of them?

The Didache speaks of broken bread being used at the Eucharist. That it is never called the body of Christ disproves the Catholic claim that the early Church always believed that it was the body of Christ. The Didache calls it bread which it would not do unless that is all it is for if the bread is Jesus then that is too important a doctrine to be left out of a elementary lesson on the faith. The bread might have been broken before the ceremony so the Christian view that it was broken during an unmentioned part of the ceremony is just fantasy. At the last supper Jesus gave thanks first before he used the bread and wine. In the Didache Eucharist, God is thanked first for the wine and then the broken bread which would have been done before the this is my body or blood bit had this bit been used for that is logical. You don’t thank God for the bread after you say the this is my body over it. So clearly the Didache is giving the whole Eucharist rite as it knows it.

The way the book is written and never mentions the apostles being alive and that readers can go to them for further information suggests that they were either dead or had vanished. You might feel that it could mean that the apostles wrote it but there is no reason to think that. Its author would have told the readers to be sure that the apostles approved of his book if they had still been going around preaching. The gospel of Mark (the earliest gospel), at least, could have been out by the time the Didache appeared so the silence of the Didache concerning gospels proves that Mark was hidden.

It is unthinkable that in a Church that tended to apostasy after the departure of the apostles for the next world, like the New Testament records, that teachings like the inspiration of the New Testament and the rite of the Eucharist would have been left out. The Didache contains very basic teaching and its author would not leave out other basic teachings unless they were unknown or rejected.

The Didache warns that it is an awesome crime to subject a prophet to verifications and it shall not be pardoned. This contradicts the gospel Jesus’ willingness to give evidence for his claims and the apostolic approval for trying prophets out. It could be a hint that the resurrection of Jesus might be believed in by faith and not by evidence at all. The Didache, however, states that any prophet who leads an unholy life is to be condemned as a fraud. This naïve work should be acknowledging that there can be wolves dressed as sheep. Jesus did that in Matthew (7:15) but then the author never read this book for he never heard of it. You cannot say it might mean he did know it and despised it for this command he rejected was just commonsense and he would have agreed with it if he had known of it.

The Didache promises that if you love your enemy then you will have nobody to be an enemy to you. This contradicts the Beatitudes which say that the loving are those who are hated the most. And the life of Christ proves that if he was perfect then love was the torture and death of him. The Didache seems to be saying either that Jesus was not sinless or not crucified. This would explain why it was not centred on the person of Jesus but on his doctrine.

The Didache appropriates to itself the title, “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles”, and claims to be divinely inspired. This is saying that Judas Iscariot, who the four gospels see as a traitor and a fake, was a true prophet betraying the fact that the early Church did not know what the Gospels said about him for the Didache says that real prophets are invariably good men.

Though I reject the notion that the New Testament says that Jesus did away with the Old Testament food laws, the Didache says that the laws are still in force and this proves that it did not know of Jesus’ teaching or the gospels. Jesus said that he made all foods clean in the context of condemning the Jewish habit of condemning too many foods. It was only the man-made food laws he was opposed to and not to the biblical ones. Most in the early Church made the mistake of thinking he made all food on earth clean over reading the gospels and it is telling that the Didache did not make the same error. The Didache was early and the Gospels were non-existent or secret. Their traditions did not exist.

The book says we must reprove one another without anger. Nobody had heard then that Jesus was very sarcastic and insulting to the Jewish leaders. There were no public gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

The Didache is good evidence that the Jesus of the gospels never existed. It shows that the apostles were not as centred on Jesus as the New Testament says but on his teaching. If he did not exist or if he was obscure they could not afford to be. The only thing the book is interested in about Jesus is his visible return on the clouds of Heaven after the world is led astray by a false son of God who does seemingly holy miracles. There is no evidence that the book makes mistakes so it is denying that Jesus did miracles because why do them when they are not evidence of holiness? The Didache says that the truth is its own verification which is why it condemns trying out prophets which by implication condemns looking for miracles from them. If the return of Jesus is all that matters as this book infers by saying nothing else about Jesus apart from his being a good teacher and servant of God then the Jesus of the past does not matter and the Jesus of the past could only matter if he was known. The Didache believes that Jesus existed but hints that there is no reason to believe that for he was an enigma.

The Didache tells Christians to do whatever they are told and read in the Gospel of our Lord. The Didache has two sections, the first section is the Two Ways which explains how we are to be saved and be good Christians and the second is A Church Manual. The Church Manual is the section that tells us to read the Gospel of our Lord. The first section of the book or the first book if you prefer is about the way of life so this may be the Gospel of our Lord. Internal evidence shows that the book cannot mean anything like a New Testament gospel. It means the first part of the Didache for at the end of that part it says that it is the teaching of God and nobody is allowed to change it so it claims to be inspired by God. The whole Didache is like it is written for morons so it could not mean another book.

By the way, the Didache is better and wiser and saner than the New Testament. Christians should burn the New Testament and make it the new New Testament. There were books which some included in the Bible, like the Book of Tobit which Catholics added to the Bible. These are writings next in importance to the Bible. The Didache was one such book, according to Athanasius. Clement of Alexandria and Origen subscribed to the sentiment of the Church at Alexandria that this book was as much inspired scripture as the New Testament (page 194, The Canon of Scripture). The book purports to be the teaching of the apostles so it claims to be inspired for the apostles were regarded as inspired and even the gospels never claim to embody apostolic doctrine so this book is superior to them. Yes they say they are about the apostles but that is not the same thing for only the apostles can speak for the apostles while the gospels are at best interpretations. And it says that the false Son of God will mislead the world and names no source. This is telling us that it foretells the future by God’s power. It understands itself to be scripture.

The early writings all show that the generation that studied them did not have our gospels because it was that generation that reverenced them and kept them and did not edit them to make them fit any gospels. Thus, nobody can argue that the books just reflect the deviations of the authors and that we can infer nothing about the Church’s doctrine at that time.

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DIOGNETUS

The Epistle of Diognetus gives an often astute but blistering attack on Judaism which proves that, at the very least, its creator never knew about the Gospels. The practices of the Jews which he calls superstitions were the practices of Jesus Christ. He condemned their beliefs about unclean food as nonsensical certainly knowing that God endorsed these beliefs in the Old Testament but not knowing that Jesus considered the Old Testament to be inspired scripture. The fact that the Epistle to Diognetus does not quote the Gospels adds weight to this assertion that they were kept under wraps.

The Epistle consists of an open letter to Diognetus, a toff who had been conducting an investigation into Christianity (1). The research did not involve the gospels for the Epistle never uses them. Nobody knew of any gospels or cared about them in those days. Not caring about them is startling and shows that the Christians themselves did not believe in them.

The author wrote of the Jews, “As for their scrupulousness about meats, and their superstitions about the Sabbath, and their much-vaunted circumcision, and their pretentious festivals and new-moon observances - all of them too nonsensical to be worth discussing – I hardly think you need instruction from me” (page 144, Early Christian Writings). The author did not know or believe that Jesus really supported the Law before his death. Jesus kept all the feasts and the early Church was Jewish for years after his death. The author says he knew the apostles and there is no reason to doubt that assertion. That would mean that the apostles never sanctioned anything like the Jesus story as it appears in the gospels.

The epistle speaks of “the faith of the Gospels” (11). The Gospels could be anything even short books on the principal stories or details about Jesus but were more probably records of his teaching. The tradition of saying that a person preaches the gospel even when that person does not employ the New Testament is an old one. It appears in the epistles of the New Testament.

The Epistle states that Jesus was plain in all the revelations he gave his apostles (11). This suggests that the mysterious and ambiguous and oblique Gospel of John is a fake and was probably unknown and also rejects the vague revelations in the synoptic gospels.

The author says that the flesh hates the soul for it wants to practice self-indulgence and the soul opposes that. Nevertheless, the soul loves the body though it leads to sin (6). This blames the body for everything. The soul should wish that the body would die or something instead of loving it so that it would be free. This implies that Jesus was not God incarnate for he had a body. It implies that Jesus didn’t rise again in his human body and if he rose his resurrection was more spiritual than anything.

Above all, the author said that his doctrine is nothing strange or new (11). It was current then in the Church of his time.

Diognetus is dated to the second century because of its genre. But it could still be older. Its author says he was the apostles’ pupil once (11) but don’t Christians today say that they are pupils of Jesus? But maybe he did learn at the feet of the apostles for he talks as if he got it first-hand. The letter dates itself as coming between 70 and 120 AD assuming the author was born in 50AD. The earliest date given for it by scholars is 120 AD on account of a seeming influence from a work called The Preaching of Peter but there is no evidence that the Preaching did not appear long before that in some form. Clement of Alexandria and Diognetus have some similarities which compel some to date the letter to 200 AD or before. Again that could have happened if Diognetus had been written a century before. It is interesting that there are affinities between the work’s declaration in 10 that God loves all and gave his son for them so that all who love him might be taken to Heaven and John 3:16. But they are different enough to be coincidence or something that was quoted from a very popular early hymn. A Christian who never heard of John 3:16 would easily say that God loved everybody so much that he gave his Son to save the world. It is longer than John so did the author of John simplify it? Maybe he did for he says that God’s proof of love was giving his son while Diognetus chooses our existence to demonstrate this. He says that God loved us because he made us and that he sent his son to us but does not link the loving to the sending of the son. If Diognetus had been plagiarising John he would not have changed the example for John’s was best.

All I want to say is that the letter probably was written in the early years of the second century when the Preaching of Peter began to take shape for you would expect that to happen about that time the way things get put together and evolve into books. The gospels were still unknown and hidden at that time.

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BARNABAS KNOWS OF NO FOUR GOSPELS

The Epistle of Barnabas was written before 70 AD, because the author revealed awareness of the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, and perhaps as late as 200 AD. It could have been written when all four gospels were published but when it contradicts them on every major point this is unlikely. And perhaps more so when it never mentions them. It is certain that Barnabas shows that the early Church did not have anything like the Jesus of the gospels and did not regard the gospels as truly the word of God. Barnabas speaks for that Church and it agreed when it held his book in such esteem that it is still with us today. The book was written in the first century because it is determined to extricate the Church from its Judaism by preventing the Old Testament Law from being taken seriously.

Barnabas is an extraordinary and eccentric work that claims that the Old Testament is not literally true but is an allegory of Christian teaching and salvation history. Barnabas pretends that it is all Christian.

Barnabas seems to quote Mark 2:17 when he says that Jesus came to call sinners not saints. That may just be a coincidence.

Barnabas seems to cite John 3:14,15 when he wrote that man could not look to Jesus to be saved unless Jesus took flesh. He wondered how it could “have been possible for men ever to ‘look on Him and be saved’” if Jesus had never taken flesh. This is not a reference to John which seems to be quoted but to some book that says then when the Saviour comes men will look on him and be saved. God does not save a person just for looking at Jesus but for looking at him with the eyes of faith. That is what Jesus meant in John for looking at his physical body means nothing. But in Barnabas physically seeing Jesus is necessary. Either Jesus was alive in or after 70 AD or he could be physically seen in visions which would have to be induced perhaps by magic mushrooms or starvation coupled with meditation. Barnabas knew from the Old Testament that bodiless beings could appear. Barnabas knew that Jesus could still be seen even if he had no body. He could be like a ghost. So when Barnabas says that Jesus needed a body to be seen he is just lying unless it is the view that Jesus was not a vision but a symbol that he is attacking. Barnabas wants to shut up heretics who said that Jesus was a spiritual or mental force and not a person. The heretics were denying that Jesus could be seen – they denied then that Jesus existed and were saying that he was only honoured as a myth. Many of these heretics were Gnostics. Gnosticism tended to see the story of Jesus as myths, untrue happenings which have a message for us. They must have seen Jesus as a symbol of liberation and not a person or real power of any kind. Barnabas is telling us that there were people who claimed to be Christians who denied the historical existence of Jesus in his day. And there must have been a lot when he had to start on them in a book about Old Testament interpretation and on ethics which was more than a serious digression.

Barnabas seems to quote Matthew 20:16 as scripture (14). There Jesus said that many are called but not many chosen. But this could have been a saying among Christians that made its way into the gospels. Many religions have used this expression. If Barnabas was likely to quote from the Gospels deliberately he would have revealed his source so he did not know where the saying came from if the gospels had been available.

There is no evidence from Barnabas that the gospels were public and it might indicate that bits of them existed or were known but vaguely as nobody was given free access to the gospels.

Had he known of them he would have used a few clear quotes from them for it must have been obvious to him that he needed evidence that the Old Testament was an allegory. He would not have contradicted Jesus’ level-headed interpretation of the Old Testament if he had encountered the Gospels or any traditions allegedly based on them. Jesus took the Old Testament literally where it was meant to be. Jesus told the Jews to obey the teaching of the scribes and the Pharisees in Matthew 23 and they took him literally for what other way could they have taken him?

Barnabas did not know that Jesus enjoyed the company of sinners and sent his apostles among them for he banned people from having any contact with bad people. “Shun the company of those who walk in the Way of Death” (19). Some would say he was right for these are completely bad people (20) but who could possibly commit all the sins listed and be totally dangerous? And even if they were completely bad Jesus still said we have to be nice to such. Christians say that this warning is against bad example and only forbids dealings with others that lead you into temptation. If it did it would say so instead of giving the impression it means avoid sinners who revel in their iniquity.

Chapter 7 sees the goat as the symbol of Jesus though Jesus called sinners goats and the saints sheep. He indicated that he himself was the Lamb of God. This suggests that Barnabas did not have the gospels.

Barnabas says in chapter 17 that he has not left out any teaching that has any bearing on our salvation. Yet he never said that the teaching and authority of the Twelve apostles some of which was allegedly in the form of the gospels was necessary for salvation. His Jesus sent apostles all right (5) but they could have been anybody. Barnabas said that they were the lowest ruffians which was not true of nearly all of them as far as the gospels are concerned. This implies that Barnabas did not acknowledge our twelve apostles and Paul. All these kept the Law after Jesus died so he would not have meant them for he believed that it was heresy to take the Law literally like they did. Barnabas never said when Jesus lived or what Jesus said about allegorical interpretations of the Bible. Several important gospel teachings are missing so Barnabas is denying that they have any bearing on our salvation – he is denying the gospels whether he knows it or not. Barnabas certainly denies the Christian claim that the twelve apostles were basically reliable witnesses, he calls them the lowest ruffians.

Barnabas instructed us to love our neighbour more than ourselves (chapter 19). But Jesus said we must love our neighbour as ourselves. This teaching is a denial of Jesus’ miracles for if others are to be loved more then Jesus could not have encouraged the sick to come to him for healing. Instead they should have not bothered in case they were annoying Jesus and getting in the way of somebody in a worse state getting treated by Jesus.

Barnabas tells us to work with our hands to earn redemption from our sins (chapter 19, not far from end). Earning salvation is ridiculous for we cannot deserve forgiveness and cannot do enough to be saved. We never really do what matters most.

In Barnabas 12, he quotes the Second Book of Esdras as speaking of Jesus’ future death on the cross. Jesus did not use the Apocrypha which this book comes from as God’s word at all so there is another proof that Barnabas did not acknowledge the gospel version of events. If he knew the gospels he would have used the sources they used to declare that Jesus had been crucified.

Barnabas said that Moses named Joshua Jesus to make him a type of Jesus. Joshua and Jesus are the same name. But Joshua who murdered and destroyed and pillaged and who failed to die tragically or rise from the dead or do miracles or give good original teaching or be sinless was the worst choice imaginable as a type for Jesus. But that does not mean Barnabas was wrong about the typology being Moses’ motive. Joshua being named for Jesus implies Joshua was the most suitable picture of Jesus. Barnabas must have believed that Jesus was not much better than Joshua though Barnabas certainly would have condoned Jesus’ evil. Barnabas wrote that Joshua was called Jesus because it allows all the people to perceive “how the Father reveals to us every detail that bears upon His Son”. There you have it! This is a hint that the gospels are totally wrong in how they see Jesus as a person. The gospels then did not exist in the day of Barnabas or were hidden or were known to be packs of lies.

Barnabas quoted from the Old Testament but altered it to back up his claims. He was not aware that Jesus had promised that not a word of scripture would pass away. Barnabas inserted a reference to the Son of God in Exodus 17. He makes it say that the Son of God will wipe out the people of Amalek in the last days. The last days refers not to the last few days of the world but to the period in which salvation has been offered and which will end when the Son comes back. It is the last period and could be thousands of years in length. Amalek was wiped out in Old Testament times after having received crushing blows from the Israelites. So the historical Jesus is being placed in Old Testament times instead of the first century. This is a total dismissal of the gospel. Barnabas even quoted Exodus 20:8 as the Decalogue and then said that it says something in another place that is not in our Bible at all. He invented Bible verses to prove his points. To me that would suggest a date of 70 AD for the letter which was expecting Judaism and its Bible to come to an end leaving the author feeling free to lie.

When Barnabas claims that many Old Testament stories were myths or parables he would have to have the same opinion towards the New had he known of it. He would have been afraid of people taking this view and he would have clearly eliminated the New Testament from this treatment if he had believed in and/or known of it.

Barnabas felt that Jesus was an evil man who had come to be a good one. His Jesus planned to make people sin more (5,14). This contradicts the New Testament which says that Jesus was the best of men if not absolutely morally perfect.

Barnabas says that water baptism forgives sins or confers pardon which is against the gospel and calls it the fountain of life (chapter 11).

Barnabas denies that Jesus was the Son of David and says he was the Lord of David. This is similar to where in the gospels Jesus says something similar. The wording differs in such a way that it could be a coincidence. David said, "The Lord said to my Lord" in a psalm that was always taken to be messianic. In reference to it, Jesus asked if the Son of Man is David’s Lord how can he be his Son? Barnabas says we must notice how David calls him Lord and not son. But he doesn't indicate anything other than that he deduced this independently of the gospels.

There is no way a book like Barnabas that says the ordinances of the Torah were never meant to be kept (pages 239-288, The Apostolic Fathers) but were codes for spiritual teachings could agree with the New Testament which says the apostles did keep the Law. The records say that the apostles kept it after the resurrection for a long time.

Lightfoot felt that Barnabas was written in Alexandria. The scholars there, Origen and Clement, studied it implying that it did originate there because books are more likely to circulate and be taken seriously where they were written. Jews who wanted to turn the Law into something allegorical taught there. Alexandria was a liberal place and the mecca of heretics and sect makers so if the four gospels were not there in Barnabas’ time, Christians need to ask themselves a lot of worrisome questions. And they were not there. Barnabas couldn’t get anything like them anywhere for he was able to get other obscure books for his epistle shows the influence of other early writings on it. Shouldn’t that tell how obscure the gospels were, did they exist at all?

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ROMAN CHURCH WITH NO GOSPELS

We are going to study the First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. It seems that it was written in 96 AD. In Early Christian Writings page 21, we read that whoever wrote it “knows 1 Peter, Hebrews and the tradition that lies behind the Synoptic Gospels. All that is missing is the Johannine tradition.” The traditions that became the gospel of John were absent. The Second Epistle of Clement is universally dismissed as a forgery. The Clement who wrote the real epistle is listed as St Clement 1 in Catholic lists of popes and he is called Clement of Rome.

The First Epistle is really a homily not an epistle and it is not from Clement personally. It is a letter from the Church of Rome to the Church of Corinth which means that if it implies that the gospels were secret then we have a Church that was in the dark since Christ died.

Clement uses the Old Testament a lot to defend Christian teaching and quotes Jesus just twice which implies that it was the best he could do and that there were no Christian scriptures (page 147, The Unauthorized Version). He tries to prove the possibility of the general resurrection and instead of using the testimony of the Gospels to the resurrection of Jesus he uses the weakest sort of arguments to do it. He gives the myth of the phoenix coming back to life and the way things die and grow again on earth as evidence. If Clement had even one gospel he would not have done this. Clement quotes Jesus saying that it is better for a man to be drowned than for him to corrupt the chosen (46). Clement gets it mixed up with Jesus’ declaration that Judas would have been better off if he had never been born. Also, Jesus said a man is better drowned if he leads a child astray. He said nothing similar about his chosen. He said child and he did not say his chosen. He said child so Clement has it wrong. To mislead the chosen is not as bad as misleading a child for a child knows no better. Clement prefixes it with a command to the people as if he is inventing the rule himself so it is not a command from Jesus. If anything, it inspired the gospels! You don’t tell people to recall a quotation from a book and use your own memory to repeat that quotation. Christians want us to believe that Clement did. You go to the book to get it right first. The quotes do not prove that the gospels existed but only that some of the legends in them were doing the rounds. The mix-up proves that Clement did not know the Gospels and could not know them – not even Mark which was supposedly written in Rome years earlier.

The Church had nothing to fear from telling the words of Jesus – it was the history that it had to be ashamed of. And so its not having the teachings shows that the Jesus story was still at its conception process. It wasn’t even an embryo yet.

Clement is surprised that a woman, Judith, who beheaded Holofernes when he had drunk himself unconscious, could be so brave (55). Does that look like something that a man who knew how brave Mary was in agreeing to be the mother of Jesus though it would get her classed as an adulteress would write? Here we have a leader of the Church who never touched a gospel scroll. He would have read it over and over again if it had until much of it stuck in his mind. He had to with his rank and for there was an ever-present danger of the Church being suppressed by hostile Rome.

Clement comfortingly taught that it is never too late to repent (7). He was unaware that the Gospels warned that there is no forgiveness in earth or in the world to come for the person who insults the Holy Spirit and that was spoken to people who had a long time to live. If he had known this he would have put it down as an exception for he wouldn’t have been writing his letter if the people it would reach were all experts in religion and knew that he didn’t literally mean that all sins would be pardoned. The sin of Christians cursing Christ and calling him an evil fraud for an easy life was big in those days too and Clement was concerned for their souls and never mentioned the duty of bearing witness to Jesus whatever the consequences.

If Clement knew the gospels which said that the Old Testament was perfectly preserved and always would be he would not have perverted an Old Testament verse to show that Jesus’ return was imminent like he did at the end of chapter 23. Even after the alteration the verse is still ambiguous. Incidentally, Clement could never have been a pope when he expected the return so soon. What would be the point of being head of the Church and organising the Church so that you have yourself at the top and good organisation to help you run the Church if Jesus is going to come any minute?

Clement never heard that Jesus banned altering the Old Testament. We know that because Clement changed Isaiah 60:17 to make it talk about bishops and deacons. See the end of chapter 42. It is no wonder Catholics believe that this liar was a pope for he lies like one.

Clement does quote the material that was worked into the Gospels but it is clear that he knew little about the material and nothing about the gospels. A leading Churchman not having an inkling of the gospels! It can only mean that they were still confined to a small and select and secretive band of readers or perhaps forgotten about in some cave. Because he could not depend on any allegedly historical gospels he had to settle for using threats to win believers and he wrote that what he and his helpers were writing to the people of Corinth was written by the Holy Spirit and great danger will befall those who do not obey the instructions of the epistle. (The Catholic claim that this is evidence of papal infallibility for they think that Clement was a pope is just an assumption though it is presented in Question 48 of the ever dishonest apologetic, Radio Replies, Vol 3 and it even contradicts the fact that Clement wrote we and not I). All Christians believe that what they preach is the word of God even if the Bible is in the strict sense the word of God for they believe their teaching is a paraphrase and elaboration of the Bible.

Speaking of the Jewish sacrifices the Epistle says, “The sacrifices made every day, the peace-offerings, the sin-offerings and trespass-offerings are not just offered anywhere, brethren, but on the altar that is before the Temple” (41). Whoever wrote this didn’t know that sacrifice had ended with the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in 70 AD. It is explained by scholars that Clement is not saying that these rites are still going on but is just referring to the sacrificial regulations which were still in force among the Jews though they could not be kept. But the author would have written that they are meant to be offered not that they are being offered. The Church of Rome did not know that there wre gospels saying that Jesus foresaw that the Temple would be totally destroyed which happened in 70AD. They had no gospels to read this prophecy in.

In Glenn Miller’s pathetic attempt to prove that Clement knew the gospels and the rest of the New Testament we find no evidence that Clement knew of the historical claims of the gospels. Read his web page, Were the Apostolic Fathers unable to Distinguish Between Authentic and Unauthentic Books? It even goes as far as to say that the words of Clement ready unto do every good work which match Titus 3:1 as if this could not have been coincidence. Why would Clement trawl through scrolls to get a phrase like that when he could have put in his own words? Since scrolls were laborious to search through Clement would have had a notebook with his favourite quotations in it. But since many of his Old Testament quotes are inaccurate as are many of the New Testament ones it looks as if the letter was not really written by Clement at all for the notebook absence shows us that it could not have been Clement but it was somebody with very limited resources while a Church leader would have had more.

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WHY WE MUST EXPECT PARALLELS

We cannot be surprised if we find wordings and stories similar to the gospels in entirely independent sources.

The parable of the Prodigal Son appeared in the Deuteronomy Rabbah 2:24, a commentary on the Law.

Hillel taught that we must treat others as we like them to treat us which fulfils the Law and Prophets (Shabbath 31a) which is almost to what Jesus said years later.

As Karen Armstrong noted in The First Christian (page 30), “The more we read of the rabbis, the more we see that Jesus’ teaching is for the most part well within the rabbinic traditions and not strikingly original. Like the Pharisees, he is insistent that ‘Charity and deeds of loving kindness are equal to all the mitzvot in the Torah’ (Tosefta Peah 4:19).

There is even a quote that seems to be from John 6 that has been found that says that unless one does not partake of my flesh and drink my blood so as to be one with me he will not be saved but which is actually from the Mithriac communion rite.

Jesus’ teaching was stolen from other people. This Christian habit of borrowing and plagiarism explains a lot and prevents us from using seeming Gospel quotes in books to predate the gospels to these books. It makes it a bit more likely that Jesus was totally invented too. It is hard to see how the crowds could have been spellbound by Jesus, who taught differently from the scribes and Pharisees, as the gospel says when he only served up what was on the menu for the previous hundred years. They are keen to make him seem original because they claim he is the revelation of God and God would not come to reveal hackneyed old hat and aphorisms and would not be so trite.

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THE SHEPHERD OF HERMAS

The Shepherd of Hermas is a tip of tiresome mystical drivel that was considered to be scripture by many in the early Church. In the Eastern Church, it was widely regarded as scripture in the 2^nd and 3^rd centuries. The Muratorian Canon used by the Church of Rome about 200 AD which was the earliest canon of the Church permitted the Shepherd of Hermas to be used in private worship. In 367 AD, because of Athanasius, the entire Eastern Church allowed converts to try and get spiritual guidance from that heretical drivel.

The Shepherd seems to have been written by a brother of Pope Pius 1 who reigned from about 140 AD to 155 AD. It was written in this time. The Muratorian Canon says so though The Shepherd itself claims to have been written earlier than that in the time of Clement of Rome. The work could be first century for it seems to have been formed in the womb of a very primitive Church.

Some place the authorship in the time of Pope Zephryinus (197-217 AD) (see New Age Bible Versions, page 564) but that is too late. The book could only have gained its popularity in a Church that did not have official gospels for it conflicts with them at every major point and many minor ones.

Gore tells us that the writer was stupid (page 496, The Reconstruction of Belief) and careless (page 525). The writer seems to have denied the full humanity of Jesus (page 525). The reason he seemed to have been stupid was the silliness of the doctrines and the receptiveness towards paganism. That does not make him stupid. He was writing for a stupid Church.

Hermas said he was taken away into Arcadia. Arcadia was the place where the pagan god, Pan, lived. Hermas believed that the pagans were divinely inspired when he did not refer to Heaven instead. This contradicts the gospels.

There is a raunchy bit where the writer enjoyed the embraces and kisses and stayed overnight with a lady in his vision. Jesus forbade sexy thoughts and visions. And so did the hypocritical Hermas.

The book says that the apostles and the bishops and the teachers and deacons agree with one another (Vision 2). He approves of them which tells us a lot about what tradition was saying about the apostles at that time. If this is true, then the gospels were written by heretics and forgers intent on perverting the true faith as exemplified in Hermas.

Hermas says you can tell a true prophet of God by the fact that the prophet is tranquil (Vision 5). This is wrong for Jesus and Moses endured a lot of stress. Remember Jonah. The book is denying the validity of these prophets at least at certain times and is certainly saying that the gospels are lying about Jesus or that there are no gospels. Jesus often got angry, tired and nearly died of fright before his crucifixion. The existence of this Jesus was denied in the early Church which is the same as rejecting the gospels.

The book claims that Hermas received a revelation from God telling him “that for post-baptismal sin there was indeed forgiveness, but for one such sin only – no more” (Vision 2:2). This is a serious departure from the practice and teaching of Jesus Christ. Jesus pardoned Zaccheaus who committed countless sins. Hermas fantasised about a married woman and wondered if he could get pardoned for this sin. His answer shows great hypocrisy for even if he never committed that sin again there were plenty of others to choose from. Baptism would only be lawful on your deathbed which conflicts with the urgency of the message to repent and get saved delivered by Jesus. Jesus declared the Holy Spirit to be in his apostles indicating that they had the same status as baptised persons assuming baptism gives the Holy Spirit as tradition says. But he forgave their many sins after this time.

Hermas wrote, “Put off grief from thyself, for it is the sister of doubt and all ill-temper…Dost thou not understand that grief is the most evil of all the spirits, and most to be dreaded by the servants of God, and more than all spirits it destroys man and obliterates the Holy Spirit?” (741). Nobody could believe any of this. One is entitled to grieve when God does evil for a purpose for that purpose may not do you much good. Grief does not bring doubt but could be caused by faith. Jesus grieved on the cross. When you only get one chance for post-baptismal sin there is plenty to despair about. It is not grief that is to be fought – it is fear. Jesus did suggest that fear was bad so again Hermas rejects Jesus.

It says that Jesus was adviser to God which denies that Jesus Christ claimed to be the only Son of a perfect God. A God who needs an adviser is not all knowing or perfect. The adviser would be better than he. Jesus always speaks of himself as inferior to God in the New Testament. The Bible Jesus follows a pattern of acting inferior to God at all times so this doctrine denies much of the New Testament. Even if Jesus was God the Son he could not advise the Father for the Father is unbegotten while the Son and the Spirit proceed from him.

It supports the nonsensical notion of water baptism having the power to save.

It numbers the apostles at 40 contradicting the gospels twelve.

It asserts that black skin is a sign of unrepentant badness and of being under the spell of evil spirits.

Jesus had a purse in common with the apostles yet the Shepherd says, “They that are rich in this world, unless their riches be cut away, cannot become useful” (page 572). So you have to give up material things to be useful as a Christian.

It says that there is nothing easier than keeping the commandments of God to earn salvation which is an exaggeration that the New Testament would have had no time for. Paul said that we needed somebody to keep the Law for us because we could not keep it ourselves.

Hermas never looks on Jesus as a historical person (page 46, Jesus, One Hundred Years Before Christ). He never uses the name of Jesus or calls him Christ but speaks of a spiritual force with some personal aspects for he calls the Son of God the Law. Hermas never speaks of events in the life of Jesus implying that the public Church had no more than some collections of Jesus’ sayings. Hermas gives twelve new commandments that bring salvation if obeyed – the Bible says salvation is by grace alone without obedience – and obedience to the gospels is not one of them. This is an unthinkable omission for one that knows and respects the gospels. By implication, it says that Jesus had no provable historical existence and known life for us to emulate.

The work reflects the fact that the Church may have plotted to keep people ignorant of the details concerning Jesus in the gospels. The popularity of Hermas testified to the scheming obscurantism of the Church. It hated the gospel Jesus whether it knew of him or not.

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PAPIAS

Papias, the Bishop of Hierapolis, who reigned when Hadrian was emperor of Rome which was from 117-138 AD is usually assumed to have given the first unmistakeable evidences that the gospels existed. We do not know what Papias wrote about the gospels for his work is lost. He wrote about gospels all right but there is no reason to believe that he knew our gospels and what Irenaeus and Eusebius have preserved of his writings proves that he did not. Eusebius has saved the important and relevant parts for us. Eusebius read Papias' book and was unimpressed except with some of it, “He was a very stupid man if you judge him by his books” (History of the Church, 3:15). It could be that this judgment was down to Eusebius not liking some things that Papias wrote but that does not make everything worthless or mean that Eusebius a notorious liar and forger was right. Eusebius records some of the information given by Papias which he would not have done had he thought it to be unreliable and perhaps he used Papias when he knew from other sources that Papias was right. If Papias was dumb he would not have been bishop. One must remember that Christians have frequently charged anybody who was intelligent enough to see through their nonsensical theology with stupidity. If Papias had been a heretic then he was automatically categorised as stupid.

Some will argue that Papias proves when the gospels existed. Read what FF Bruce wrote about him. He wrote that Papias “preferred oral tradition to written records. ‘I did not suppose,’ said Papias, ‘that what I could get from the books would help me so much as what I could get from a living a abiding voice’” (page 119). In 125 AD, Papias said that he preferred oral tradition to books for it informed better. There could be no clearer indication that he did not have the complete gospels for they would be preferred to every other source by anyone claiming to be Christian. Who could deny that books are better and more reliable than oral stories? Only those who can’t find any coherent and credible books! What the apostles wrote was more important than what the Church taught for the apostles being commissioned by Christ to teach his message were more reliable. Papias is evidence that the Church had no gospels written by the apostles.

“In the absence of an adequate context for these words (quoted by Eusebius from a long-lost work of Papias), it is uncertain what Papias meant by ‘the books’ (ta biblia). He knew of at least two gospel writings, but when a Christian of his time spoke of ‘the books’, he usually meant the Old Testament. It is in any case a good thing that, by Papias’ time, written accounts of the deeds and works of Jesus were available, for if the surviving fragments of Papias’s work give any guidance here, the oral tradition which he was able to gather amounted to little more than the last scrapings of the barrel” (page 119, The Canon of Scripture).

Bruce also wrote, “How many gospel writings Papias knew is uncertain” (ibid, page 124).

Papias speaks of a gospel written by Mark. But he complains that this gospel was dreadfully disorganised. It cannot be the Gospel of Mark that we have now he means, for it has been put together with sufficient skill.

Papias declared that Mark was written by a man who followed Peter, who took great care to leave nothing out that Peter taught him about the life of Jesus. But when the Mark Gospel says so little it is clear that the apostle did not want to reveal much. Or, more likely, that Papias is lying about the Peter-Mark connection for Peter would have told Mark more than that. Or that the Gospel of Mark he had, was not our Gospel of Mark which must be a forgery. Peter would have revealed more and Papias had no reason to lie. We are compelled to accept the final possibility. It is very very probable. Papias prefers oral tradition so he must have thought Mark didn’t do much of a job.

Why would Peter have been afraid to relay the story of Jesus raising the widow’s son from the dead, for example? Did it happen at all? This is missing from Mark. What about the Lazarus resurrection miracle that only the John Gospel reports?

Some say that, "If Papias is lying about anything then he must be lying about the gospel really being the Gospel of Mark. We know he would not have lied about Peter telling Mark everything."

Papias could have had a long Mark so our short Mark is a fake. Papias said that the sloppy order in the gospel was down to Mark taking things down as Peter preached. Then why did Peter not help him edit the work? Peter obviously did not care for the gospel and did not believe that it was inspired or should be written and written well. Thus, it is a heresy to depend on anything that could have been written by Mark who must have known of Peter’s feelings and written a gospel supporting apostolic authority in defiance of that authority. Mark is written for non-Jews but Peter was the apostle to the Jews.

Papias mentions a gospel according to Matthew which he says was composed in Hebrew. But our gospel of Matthew holds clues that show it was first written in Greek.

Another embarrassing fact is that he called Matthew the Sayings of the Lord. This is most likely to mean that he had a book with some of the Lord’s teachings in it minus the deeds and the teachings that could only be understood in the light of the deeds. It is nonsense to try and explain this away by saying that Papias had a full gospel and called it the Sayings because he was writing a commentary on the sayings in it. The book would already have been titled.

Papias did not know Luke or Acts because he said that Judas Iscariot died when his body swelled up and was run over by a wagon contradicting Acts. He asserted that this information originated with the apostles (page 124, Handbook to the Controversy with Rome, Volume 1).

So there is no evidence that Papias knew of our gospels. Papias knew that books were more use to Christians than oral tradition so why did he say he preferred the oral tradition as scarce and dodgy as it was? He must have been seriously dissatisfied with the gospels that were around. Tradition, as bad as it was, would have been better. The writings must have been definitively debunked or corrupted and were ludicrous even to his dull mind. We are dependent on Eusebius (260-339AD) for information on Papias and he obviously did not want to tell too much about him! He did not want to show that Papias undermined the New Testament but still he let that slip. He reasoned that bad information to defend the antiquity of the gospels was better than none.

Papias lived in Phrygia not that far from Ephesus and Antioch and Loadicea which had good enough connections with Palestine by ship and trade. These areas were thoroughly evangelised with a well-organised Church that had once been the recipient of the pastoral care of Paul himself. Phrygia was where the western portion of Turkey is today. There is every reason to believe that he would not have been so ignorant as not to know of the gospels we have if they had been in use. There simply were no real gospels for him.

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THE EVIDENCE OF MARCION

There was a heretic active in the Second Century who said that the followers of Jesus were apostate and following an incompetent God who is really just an angel with high ideas about himself. His name was Marcion. He held that only Paul among the apostles had preserved the true message of Jesus which was that the entire Old Testament was nonsense and knew the real God not the angel the Jews mistook for a God. Marcion taught that only the writings of Paul and the gospel, similar to Luke but with much omitted was the word of God. He produced the first list of sacred books for what he believed to be the true religion of Jesus. For him, Jesus was an apparition that came down from Heaven to reveal the true God. Marcion was stigmatised an excommunicated heretic in 144 AD by the Church in Rome.

Marcion gave strong indications that no Christian books were taken seriously by anybody in his day and were not considered to be worth taking seriously. It could be that the gospels and Acts were still top secret.

It is believed that Marcion knew the Gospels. He was out to devise a canon of scripture. Instead of contemplating a study of all the gospels about, Marcion refused to consider any book that accepted the revelation of God to the Jews or that had any Jewish teaching in it. He believed that only one gospel could be considered to be true. This gospel was an edited version of Luke or something like it. It is not certain that it really was Luke’s and Marcion never said it was Luke’s (page 137, The Canon of Scripture). I believe that it was not Luke’s Gospel for Mark would have been a better choice for a person who wants to deny that Jesus was a Jew and believed in the Old Testament as fully the word of God and came straight out of Heaven fully grown and who never had anything to do with John the Baptist. There is not much mutilating to do and it can be avoided by reinterpreting and saying that the parts of the Old Testament it uses as prophecies were from the real God and stolen by the daft God who wrote the Old Testament. But with our Luke, Marcion would have had to start at Luke 3:1 and then go on to Luke 4:31. This means rejecting too much. If Marcion used Luke then it must have been already missing a lot of the stuff that he would not accept.

It is unsurprising that we cannot be sure the gospel book was Luke’s for we have to depend on data from over fifty years later from mad Tertullian who feverishly hated Marcionism (same page) that it was indeed Luke’s.

Marcion’s Gospel probably had a prayer for the Holy Spirit to descend and make us clean in the Lord’s Prayer instead of thy kingdom come. It was not an alteration by him for lots of approved authorities used the same reading (page 138, The Canon of Scripture). For example, Gregory of Nyssa. Marcion considered himself to be an editor and not a ghost-writer. There are some anomalies about his gospel text that cannot be explained except as statements and omissions in the text that he used (page 138, The Canon of Scripture) meaning that he did not have Luke’s gospel. Marcion knew that cutting out lumps of text was one thing but alteration was a different thing and could and would get him discredited altogether. Marcion’s followers altered his Gospel and his writings to the degree that we cannot know if he did the altering or not so it seems probable that they did the altering. It is easier to do all this interfering when a sect has been started than when it is trying to get off the ground. Things need to be stable in the early years. The sect would have been well established by the time Luke came out and its Gospel could have been used to write Luke. It could have been that when the sect was tampering with its gospel book that it amalgamated elements from Luke with it.

Marcion called his Gospel, the Gospel, and perhaps implicitly denied or simply didn’t affirm it was Luke’s work in doing so. Some authorities hold that he thought Paul wrote the gospel in its original state (page 40, The Early Church).

The idea that the Gospel was a mutilation of Luke’s was rejected by critics in the 1800’s (according to the same dictionary and page). Marcion stressed salvation by faith like Paul did and Jesus saved us chiefly by his teaching and was hostile to Judaism. John’s gospel with its Jesus who seems barely human and who teaches a lot would have been a better choice for him than Luke’s gospel or anything similar. There would be less changing to do. It did not exist when he did not go after it. Marcion needed a gospel like John’s that was mystical and emphasised mystical experiences to append credibility to his version of Christianity.

Marcion’s Gospel had several places where it was a shortened version of what was in Luke. The trouble is that most of these changes make no sense for the phrases omitted did Marcion’s system of belief no harm. For example, the reference to power going out of Jesus and healing was dropped from Luke 6:19. Luke 7:36 saying Jesus went into a Pharisees’ house was left out. The story of the woman washing Jesus’ feet with her tears and anointing them was unnecessarily just cut down to essentials. Luke 8::23-24 and 8:43-45 were summarised. The word eternal before life was left out of Luke 10:25 though Marcion believed in eternal life. Even more telling is that Marcion in his edition of the Gospel had it that Jesus said he would be put to death but dropped the reference to the Jews having done it in Luke 9:22 and also in Luke 24:7 though he was a notorious anti-Semitist. These things prove that Marcion did not alter Luke’s gospel but edited a gospel that was like Luke’s but was not Luke’s. He may have had the forerunner of Luke’s gospel. The early Church was then freely making changes to the gospels. Marcion was honest for he retained bits where Jesus referred to himself as Son of Man though Marcion believed that Jesus was not a real man but a vision. He left the bits where Jesus said he would suffer and die unchanged. Please research this further in The Gospel of Marcion and the Gospel of Luke Compared. This webpage says that since Marcion’s version is the simplest it preceded Luke. Christians object that this is wrong for a book might just be shortened but there is other evidence that Marcion may not have been shortening but just editing an existing gospel. There is no reason to hold that he hacked lumps off St Luke’s gospel.

When Marcion was able to admit that Jesus was Son of Man and died on the cross despite being a vision he could have left the infancy narratives in Luke but he dropped them so whatever he had it was not Luke. He dropped the baptism by John and everything even though there was no reason to believe that the baptism as Luke tells it was Jewish or favoured Judaism. Also if Marcion had had Luke all he had to do was leave out anything that indicated approval for the Jewish God allowing suffering or commanding punishment which were the two things Marcion did not like about him. Marcion did approve of this God a lot and believed that he was a fair God but he believed there was a higher God and unlike the Jewish God this God had no interest in punishing people and was pure love and detested suffering. This other God of sweetness and light was the one Marcion said Christians should serve. Whatever gospel Marcion had denied most of what the present gospels say about Jesus. If he had had Luke he would have left it untouched as much as possible to enhance his own credibility. But he was sincere and it was the producers of Luke who were the fakes.

In our New Testament, we have the gospel of Luke and then there is another book claiming to be a sequel by the same author as Luke. Marcion never mentioned the Acts of the Apostles and his followers rejected it when it became available. Had Marcion possessed the Gospel of Luke he would have had its sequel too. Marcion would have refuted the Lucan authorship of Acts had he known of it for it was the major threat to his doctrinal system if his gospel was Luke’s. It accepted the twelve apostles that Marcion wrote off as apostates and portrayed his hero, Paul, whose gospel he claimed to restore as accepting them. A man who went to the trouble of writing a book to show how the Old Testament contradicted Paul and Jesus would not have omitted to devote more strength to handle a bigger threat. He would not have shot himself in the foot by using Luke’s Gospel when the Acts were so unpalatable to him unless the Acts of the Apostles was still unknown.

Marcion was convinced that the Gospel he had was not written by Luke or anybody other than Paul himself (page 40, The Early Church). The four Gospels did not exist in those days.

Marcion “became the first person to draw up an exclusive canonical list of Biblical books, which excluded all the Old Testament and large parts of the New, grounded on the basic assumption that the twelve apostles had not possessed the insight to comprehend the true meaning of Jesus” (page 40, The Early Church). The epistles of Paul were part of his canon although Marcion emended them feeling that they had been altered by false followers of Jesus. However, whatever book he used the Pastoral Epistles and Hebrews were absent from it indicating that they were known forgeries in Paul’s name (The Canon of Scripture, page 131). I would add that it could mean that they were forged later or hidden at that time. Marcion’s flesh-hating brand of Christianity flourished and is certainly to be taken as evidence that the New Testament had been hidden and interfered with.

The fact that the Church had no canon and that Marcion beat it to one shows that the Church was not interested in sacred writings except the Old Testament and regarded gospels and such just as interesting but not significant. The Church, according to some, could still have had a secret canon of books. I reject this. A Church cannot have a secret canon. Even if it did it kept it quiet because the books were not completed yet.

The early Church was in such turmoil that it would have been a miracle if it had no canon so that the Church could be revived and invigorated in better circumstances. There were no scriptures it could turn to and that were not laughed at and thought to be too silly to bother refuting. It was in a helpless situation as far as scriptures were concerned.

The Church says that the apostles died for the message of the gospels so the gospels are true. What about the followers of Marcion who came along not too long after Paul died saying that Paul taught nothing of what the Church leadership was saying he taught? They refused to marry for the sake of the gospel, living martyrdom, and were often bloodily martyred and they were more numerous than the apostles and yet we are told their martyrdom does not bid us take their message seriously! Why were the thousands of people who knew Paul and heard him preach not able to refute them but instead converting to them?

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THE GOSPEL OF PETER

The Gospel of Peter dates from the Second Century (page 17, The Newly Recovered Gospel of St Peter). The Bishop of Antioch wrote a bit about it in 180 AD (page 390, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail). The Gospel betrays a fragmented knowledge of the New Testament Gospels which shows that even when the Church began to issue the historical parts of the gospels she still did a lot of censoring.

The author made the mistake of saying that Joseph asked for Jesus’ body to bury him even before Jesus was crowned with thorns contradicting Mark. The author has the absurdity of Joseph asking Pilate and Pilate asking Herod for permission to release the body. The gospel says that Jesus was totally silent on the cross and seemed to be in no pain. And Jesus yelled that his power had deserted him and then died. And the Jews were said to have allowed Joseph to take his dead body and he washed him (proving that the shroud of Turin was not known). The gospel says that Jesus was buried in Joseph’s Garden and that the Jews repented their sin in killing Jesus. The elders of the Jews allegedly went to Pilate for guards at the tomb and they rolled a huge stone across the door of the tomb and on Sunday morning they saw the tomb open by itself after two glowing men came down from Heaven and they saw three men leaving the tomb and the middle man was taller than the other two flanking him and a talking cross followed behind. They went off to Pilate who told them to say nothing. The rest is about Magdalene finding the empty tomb but no visions of Jesus are mentioned and the rest of the text is lost.

The Peter gospel contradicts the four in several matters. The four deny that Jesus was silent on the cross or that he said he lost his power or that he was seen rising.

The Peter gospel incorporates ancient traditions and some contemporary ones. The primitive Church would have believed that Jesus lost his power for it was confused about the unexpected death. The silence on the cross does not mean that Jesus felt no pain but matches the earliest tradition reflected in Mark that Jesus said nothing on the cross. Later writers would have preferred Jesus to say something.

Jesus being seen rising according to the Peter account was a new idea for after the resurrection story would be well-known people would want to know if it was seen happening and would not be content if there were no witnesses. It arose after the four gospels were written for even they did not go that far. Fables get more bizarre in the telling. There was no reason for the author to contradict any New Testament gospel. He wanted it to match them in popularity and so he would have expanded one of them with his own vision.

It is interesting that the closeness of Pilate and Joseph and Joseph owning the crucifixion site mentioned in the gospel would if true, mean that a hoax was likely.

It is interesting that the Peter gospel says that the soldiers said nothing about what happened at the tomb and became sincere believers which would be an earlier tradition than Matthew’s that they said that the disciples stole the body because they were bribed to say it. The bribe is not mentioned in Peter. Peter's tradition is earlier than the Matthew one because it is simpler and more believable for saying nothing does no harm where lies or truth would.

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EVIDENCE OF CENSORSHIP IN JUSTIN

There is evidence that the four New Testament gospels were hidden in the writings of St Justin Martyr. He knew nothing of Acts a book that was never quoted until 177 AD (page 150, 225, The Jesus Mysteries). And our four gospels were certainly unavailable to him for what he has got differs a lot (ibid, page 224). He never mentioned Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (page 224, The Jesus Mysteries). He quotes what may come from the heretical Gospel of Peter on one occasion (page 200, The Canon of Scripture). But Justin did know the four gospels before he died in 165 AD for it was his disciple, the Encratite Tatian who merged the gospels into one heretical and condemned book called the Diatessaron. Tatian might have put in quotes in Justin's books. If so, it is no wonder they differ so from the four gospels and contradict Justin's statements for they were inserted in a hurry. When Justin had a heretic who taught that it was a sin to eat meat or drink wine and discouraged and frequently forbade marriage as a disciple, the gospels must have been censored for they do not sanction such asceticism at all but quite the opposite.

Justin wrote his first apology in around 150 AD. It was addressed to the Roman Emperor. It contains the following evidence.

Astonishingly, Justin argues that reason forbids humanity to follow the traditions of men who did wrong or erred. This contradicts what he said about relying on the apostles to find the true revelation that Jesus gave. The apostles denied that they were sinless or always infallible. Justin evidently could not get his hands on the New Testament gospels. The bits which approve of the apostles must have been later insertions. The real Justin held that reason was supreme not the apostles and believed in direct revelation from Jesus.

Justin or his ghost writer gave lots of quotations from Jesus’ words as they are in the gospels but Christians had nothing to fear from publicising them but plenty to fear from much of the historical material.

Justin told the emperor to read the Acts of Pontius Pilate which recorded the miracles of Jesus. But this book was rejected as rubbish by the Church. When Justin was prejudiced against evil men like Pilate why did he tell the Emperor to read Pilate’s alleged book and not the books of the more holy apostles? Justin must really have been desperate. The gospels were censored.

Justin quoted Psalm 22 saying it was about the nailing of Jesus to the cross and the other things that happened to him at that time and that the Emperor can check this out in the Acts of Pilate. Why not the gospels? Justin gives no hint that this book was considered authoritative by anyone but himself. Nobody would have worried about obscure wacky books in those days to destroy them. The four gospels if they were considered as scripture or close to it would have had to have been hidden for they were official books. They were hidden when Justin had to direct the Emperor to rubbish that nobody else would touch.

It is important that Justin turns to vague Old Testament alleged prophecies that are not prophecies to back up some of the things which he thought were facts about the life of Jesus. Why not turn to the gospels? They were still censored in his day. You don’t use weak arguments instead of strong unless the weak ones are all you have got.

Justin taught that baptism remits sin by magical power and causes a person to be reborn or born into the divine family.

Justin made the mistake of assuming that when Jesus said that “you have to be reborn to get into the kingdom of Heaven”, that anybody who is not born of water and the spirit cannot enter the kingdom of God that water refers to baptism. Jesus is more likely to have meant a birth from water and wind both of which are figures of the Holy Spirit. He could not read the verse in its context for the gospels were hidden. The way Jesus said that the action of the spirit was like the blowing of the wind which is unpredictable shows that he was not thinking of a magical baptism ceremony. Paul wrote in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 12:13) that we all drank from the same Holy Spirit indicating that water was an emblem of the Holy Spirit and was not literal water.

Justin seems to be quoting John 3:5 here but it is different from John so Ellegard is right to say that Justin never cited the Gospel of John (page 183, Jesus – One Hundred Years before Christ). The quote could have come from Justin’s commonsense. Tradition was saying that baptism was rebirth and necessary for Heaven so it was only natural for some to say that Jesus said you must be reborn to enter the Kingdom of Heaven and for Justin to quote this without any of them having John’s Gospel. John has kingdom of God and reborn of water and spirit instead of what Justin has so there are significant differences. If Justin was quoting John then somebody told him some of the things that were in it but he could not get a copy to get the quotation exactly right. If there were loads of heretical gospels about which we would expect Justin had to be very careful and so had the rest of the Church fathers. They had to be very careful to say where their data came from and to use a decent and reliable source.

Justin seemingly quoted Luke 22:19 in the First Apology claiming that it was a quote from an apostle. Either Justin did quote a verbal apostolic tradition or he denied the tradition that Luke, who was not an apostle, wrote the gospel and was saying an apostle wrote it. It is absurd to say that he means that Luke was an apostle in the sense we all are! It is most likely that he meant one of the twelve when there is no evidence for the loose usage in his works. But the quote is skeletal and comes from the last supper and could be from any gospel. More probably it was cited by memory from the liturgy.

Justin held that a man goes to everlasting torture or salvation according to his actions contradicting the New Testament, mainly the Pauline Epistles, which say salvation is without good works from beginning to end. This does not prove he did not know the New Testament for the epistles would hardly have been censored but that he did not believe that it was infallible or reliable. Perhaps he didn't consider the men he would have believed to have been their authors to have been as solid as rocks.

In his First Apology Justin said that the Jews were wrong to think that the person speaking to Moses in the burning bush was God the Father for it was God the Son who did that. But Jesus supported the Jewish belief in Mark 12, Matthew 22 and Luke 20.

In The Truth of Christianity, Turton claims that Justin used the gospels calling them the Memoirs of the Apostles, “Justin gives about sixty quotations from these Memoirs, and they describe precisely those events in the life of Christ recorded in our first three, commonly called the Synoptic Gospels, and with scarcely any addition. Indeed out of all Justin’s references to the events of Christ’s life, whether quotations or not, of which there are over two hundred, only four refer to events not now found in our Gospels. This is remarkable and seems to show that even at this early time our Gospels were the only recognised sources of information” (page 282-3).

But “scarcely any of the quotations are verbally accurate, and it has been urged in consequence that Justin must have been quoting from some Lost Gospel. But this theory is hardly tenable. For Justin sometimes quotes the same passage differently, clearly showing that he was relying on his memory; and that he had not looked up the reference, which in those days of manuscripts, without concordances, must have been a tedious process. Also when quoting the Old Testament, he is almost equally inaccurate” (page 284).

In reply, a professional Christian apologist like Justin who knew the importance of accurate quotations from being a philosopher in which every word or letter counts would have jotted down useful quotations when he found them as he studied the manuscript if he studied one at all. It looks like Justin did find out a lot about what was in the gospels somehow but was not able to read this material for himself and probably got his information from an indiscreet person who read imitation gospels and blew the lid on their contents rather than the four we have now. Whatever his informant read told him that the wise men came from Arabia and that Jesus was born in a cave things which are not in the gospels. Justin was careless with the Old Testament for it needed to be forced to testify to Christ. He declared that Moses made a cross with a snake on it which was why Plato said God placed a god crosswise in the universe. This logic is nonsensical and he went as far as to say Moses inspired the philosophy of the Greeks! Justin was very manipulative. Justin added prophecies of raising the dead and cleansing lepers and making the blind see to Isaiah 35:6 in order that it would appear to be an exact prophecy about Jesus. This suggests that the Christian leaders were using fraud to get converts. Isaiah 57:1 which is not a prophecy of Christ at all but about what is happening in the prophet’s day is made into a prophecy about Christ. A verse from Deuteronomy (30:15,19) was wrested from its context and said to have been spoken to Adam. This was wilful distortion for the Old Testament wasn’t hard to get to. After all it was the Jewish Scripture not just the scripture of the Christians.

About 135AD, a knowledgeable Jew named Trypho escaped from turbulent Palestine and met up with Justin. Justin recorded the debate he had with him in his Dialogue with Trypho who he tried to convert to Christianity. Justin told him that Jesus spoke to Moses from the burning bush even though Jesus himself said it was the Father so that was a deliberate lie or Justin didn’t know what Jesus said. Justin did not have the complete gospels for he quoted what may be Luke 20:35 which was two verses before the one which Jesus said it was God. Justin claimed that Jesus Christ spoke to Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 18 and appeared as a captain to Joshua (Joshua 5). Trypho rightly rejected all these ideas as being useless as evidence. An intelligent man like Justin would use better texts than that – so shall we assume somebody was interfering with his writings? Or perhaps Justin couldn’t do any better. Trypho knew a lot about religion and his country so Justin would have pulled out the four gospels and hit Trypho with their historical evidences for the messianic and prophetic identity of Jesus. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t even quote from Roman records but the dubious Acts of Pilate. Trypho even questioned the existence of Jesus for he said that nobody knew of him. This tells us that the Gospels were hidden if they existed.

Justin seriously contradicted the gospels when he called Jesus a Second God (Dialogue with Trypho, 58-61). Both he and Trypho never heard of the gospels being strictly monotheistic.

The gospels were hidden in the time of Justin. Further confirmation of this is in the work of St Irenaeus who advanced several doctrines that were not in accord with the gospels which he supported which shows that they had just recently came out of the closet with the result that the Church had not derived a coherent theology from them yet for they hadn’t being known long enough. In Evil and the God of Love you see how Irenaeus had taught the view that God allowed suffering for the sake of discipline and had made Adam and Eve imperfect so that they could sin and grow through it and rejected the traditional view taught in the gospels that they were made perfect and fell from it making us biased towards sin meaning that discipline would be of little use.

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MEMOIRS OF THE APOSTLES?

Justin said in his book for the Emperor that the Memoirs of the Apostles, which are frequently taken to refer to the four gospels, were read publicly in the Churches. “He tells how the compositions of the prophets were read in the weekly meetings of Christians along with the memoirs of the apostles; the memoirs of the apostles indicated the lines along which the prophets’ words were to be understood” (The Canon of Scripture, page 70). The Memoirs must have been incomplete for who is going to write out full books or purchase them when all that is needed are some quotes that fit the Old Testament’s so-called predictions? The early Church did everything in the light of the Old Testament. We are clearly told that only the bits that fitted the prophecies were read. But if it were right to assume that he is saying that the gospels whole and entire were read in public, then this would have been a lie or an altered and inauthentic insertion. All Justin would have had to do was to go to his preacher to get accurate quotations for his writings. The evidence says that even Justin could not get the full and accurate version of the gospels which is a sure sign that they were top secret for the Church. There is no need to believe that these Memoirs contained historical matter.

One must remember that Justin quoted these Memoirs to the Emperor and the Emperor had a body of men who could have checked them out so if Justin had our gospels he had to be more specific as to what gospel the quotation he used was in. Even if Justin's book was not for the Emperor and Justin saying it was for the Emperor was a lie, Justin had to act as if it was. So the Memoirs of the Apostles are just collections of sayings attributed to Jesus. They are not the Gospels. When the Memoirs were lost that means the Church did not think much of them. Justin uses the names of Old Testament authors in his book when he quotes them which proves the Memoirs were not the Gospels. When Justin used a collection like that it tells you that there were no gospels.

Would Justin really call the four gospels the Memoirs of the Apostles without giving a shred of evidence that they came from the apostles in case the Emperor would be sceptical? This indicates that he was lying about them or he could find no evidence for an apostolic origin. It is a serious problem if Justin was really able to write to the Emperor and testify that the Christians used the Memoirs as holy books if not scripture every week when the emperor wanted rid of Christianity. He knew that the Church could be destroyed best by destroying the books. Near the end of the book is a plea for the execution of Christians to be ended. My bet is the Emperor never heard of Justin’s wacky book. Justin was a dishonest person. He said that the Memoirs were composed by the apostles but Luke and Mark were not apostles and Matthew never claimed that it was apostolical and neither did John. This would indicate that he did not have the four gospels at all.

To recap, Justin never refers to the gospels but to what he calls the Memoirs of the Apostles and he quotes these. The Christians say the Memoirs were the gospels. But there is no evidence that this title was used for them by anyone other than Justin so it is most probably a gospel on its own. The Memoirs are too different from the Gospels to be the Gospels. Christians say that Justin was quoting from memory and that was why there was inaccuracy. They say it was too hard to go through scrolls to get the exact wording. This is the excuse they apply to all the Apostolic Fathers none of whom quoted the gospels exactly or gave any clear indication that they were quoting our four gospels at all. But remember this, the likes of Justin must have gone through the scrolls often enough to be able to remember anything like the text so why not when they were writing? Commonsense tells you that these teachers would have went through the scrolls once if they had access to them and taken notes of portions they wanted to remember and use these notes in writing and so the wording would be an exact match for the gospels if they had them.

It is insanity in any case to depend on Justin as evidence for the existence of the gospels in those days for when an apologist as bad and woolly thinking as him was the only one to survive from the earliest period it reflects terribly on the other apologists and on the intellectual climate in the Church. He was the best then. The best apologist might get access to the gospels so even if he knew them that does not mean anybody else did or that he was allowed to tell everything that they contained.

It is certain that the later Church tampered with the Apostolic Fathers’ writings but even now as they are they do not hold out much hope for those who want to find evidence for the existence and publication of the gospels by the time they were written.

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SILVANUS AND THE HIDDEN NT

The Teachings of Silvanus tell us that nobody knew the gospels or knew that they were rubbish if they did. But when the book does not mention gospels at all it is probable that the first option is correct. It does not try to refute them because it does not know of them. Some would say it just states that they are wrong but that is not refuting - refuting is based on evidence. But Silvanus was writing for disciples who accepted his doctrine and their inclination was philosophical and intellectual in tone. That they had the evidence and it was correct is assumed in his work.

The Teachings of Silvanus is a heretical work that was discovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945. There is no real proof that it is Gnostic theology so we dare not dismiss it as Gnostic madness and fantasy.

The author paraphrases some New Testament material. Silvanus is dated to from about the late second century on for its philosophical ideas match some trends at that time and because it centres on Christ as the word or wisdom of God and on his descent into Hell. But all of this can be explained by the author thinking for himself and by the fact that many doctrines are often explained in similar wording when they are descriptive and by the fact that his New Testament had Christ as the word who descended. Silvanus could be older. The Book of Wisdom which predates the gospel could have been the inspiration for this material for its talk about wisdom or the word like it was a person is similar to the thought in Silvanus.

Silvanus dates sometime from the end of the first century to the middle of the second for it shows the gospels were hidden.

The Teachings claim to be inspired by God for they forbid a person to stray from what they lay down.

Jesus Christ is said to be the true light and the true light is reason - Gnostics did not like reason. But I don’t see Silvanus as a Gnostic work at all. It is a Christian work.

Silvanus contradicts Jesus’ command that we should have friends and trust people. He tells us to trust nobody.

He says that man is a part of God (page 385) while Jesus said that man was not God or a bit of him.

Silvanus urged his hearers to despise those who denied the truth while Jesus emphasised that that was a very wrong attitude.

He says, “How many likenesses did Christ take on because of you? Although he was God, he [was found] among men as a man (page 389). This suggests that Jesus Christ had incarnated many many times contrary to the New Testament. This implies that the people he wrote to knew who these incarnations were. Most probably, they were Old Testament figures.

The Bible says that Jesus went to the underworld after he died but the Teachings say it was before (page 389). It says Jesus went to the underworld and released the children of death and then he broke the chains in that world causing its powers to flee so that he was able to die as a ransom for our sins. The demons were stopping him from dying for sinners which means he perished and rose again in the underworld for sinners. The underworld does not mean this world but the world Jesus went to which is called the Abyss meaning something like Hell. Silvanus denies that Jesus lived and suffered and rose on earth like the gospels say.

Silvanus taught that Christ copied the Devil so that “he might destroy him by deceit” (Nag Hammadi Library, page 386). His Christ was a liar. So Silvanus was opposed to the New Testament which says that Christ never lied. If Jesus needed to get down in the dirt and act evil to ruin the Devil then Jesus is not all-powerful and cannot do miracles. Silvanus never attributes miracle power to Jesus. Silvanus would not have denied the miracles unless he was sure they never happened for it would have been to his advantage to say Jesus ruined the Devil by doing miracles.

Silvanus says that God does not need to put any man to the test for he knows what is inside a person already (page 394). This contradicts the gospels where God permits temptation and even Jesus is tormented by the urge to sin. If we are put to the test and God is good then it follows that Silvanus believed that our mind and reason are God and that there is no literal God out there in the cosmos. That is why he is able to say that God lives in every place and yet in no place. Minds are everywhere for conscious beings are and yet in no place for they are spiritual or without parts. If God is everywhere he would be a spirit that is in every place.

The Teachings of Silvanus challenge the spiritual and the historical and the theological veracity of the New Testament. The resurrection or life of Jesus Christ is not even mentioned. Silvanus recommends reason only and that is significant. The theme of the teachings is the way to wisdom so it would not have left anything that guides one to wisdom out unless it was regarded as worthless.

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CELSUS

Celsus was a Greek philosopher who wrote his On the True Doctrine in the sixties or seventies of the second century. He was bitterly opposed to Christianity. His book tells us much about what the cult was like then.

Celsus stated that the Christian groups were extremely secretive and gave no reasons to converts as to why they should accept their faith as true (page 35, 53). This tells us that the gospels could not have circulated well even if these works had been out of the closet. And they were not distributed well when they were not used to convince would-be Christians.

Celsus did not believe in the existence of Jesus for he said that the Christians used stories about him when casting spells and that these were myths. He then stated that the virgin birth and death and return of Jesus from the dead were fables and eccentric beliefs (page 53-4). He also declared that when anybody asked for evidence they were invariably told the simple were the best and the wisdom of the world is evil and to believe without asking questions. Clearly then the Christians themselves were not satisfied with their own evidence.

On page 54, Celsus tells us that everybody has heard the fables of Jesus’ virgin birth, crucifixion and his resurrection and states that Christians would die for these fables. He explains with these in mind that reason should be listened to before any of these are accepted. He said that Christians went after dullards. He had no need to say that unless it was true for it would have suited him better to accuse them of being too intelligent to sincerely believe what they say they believe. This shows that written testimony was not used to propagate the faith. There were no good gospels or commonly accepted ones. It is very important that the crucifixion is put down as a fable though unlike virgin births and resurrections it is possible. Celsus had no need to go that far unless he was sure Jesus never existed. For a critic of Christianity, it was enough to say that the virgin birth and resurrection were fairy-stories.

If Jesus’ death was a fable then why does Celsus say that Jesus’ death proved he was not a god? (page 65). The answer is that Celsus did not believe Jesus died because he believed Jesus never existed but that if Jesus had died on the cross he was not a god. He is refuting the Jesus story and when you do that you can talk as if you accept the story. It is the same as if a Christian who said the God Prometheus was proven not to be a god at all when he had to endure an animal eating his liver. Celsus did not attempt to refute Jesus’ existence in detail for it is better to show cracks in the sect’s doctrine than to try to prove their founder was a fable when all the Jewish and Roman records were destroyed. He is saying that Jesus’ death proved he was not a god if he died. That is what he means.

Celsus said that Jesus had one genealogy (page 64) while there are two in the New Testament. Celsus said that Jesus never did anything good (page 65) which implies that the gospels were censored in his day. Some would say this was spiteful gossip for he ridiculed Jesus for being poor which made Jesus blameworthy (65). But what Celsus meant was that a God should have been able to avoid poverty instead of implying that everybody should be poor by being deliberately poor himself when he became Jesus.

Celsus said that Jesus said he saw the bird at his baptism (page 58). The gospels don’t say that.

The Matthew gospel says that astrologers came looking for the baby Jesus, the new king, when he was born. They are called the Magi. King Herod heard about the child from them and butchered all the babies in the village where Jesus was born in the hope of killing this new king. Celsus repeats some details of the story of the Magi and the Massacre of the Infants by Herod with intent to murder Jesus for he thought he was a rival king (page 58) as in Matthew’s gospel. He asks if Herod did this why did it work but not the way the way he expected for Jesus survived but still never managed to become a real king? Celsus means that God failed to make Jesus a king so whatever saved Jesus from Herod it was not God. And Herod did win in the end. Jesus was never a proper king at all and certainly not one that God was looking after. It would make no sense for Celsus to say that Jesus should have become king when Herod unsuccessfully tried to prevent this so he means that Jesus was never a proper king at all. The if over Herod having massacred shows that there was no evidence for this event that would have shocked the world and been known if it had really happened.

Celsus wrote that Jesus was secretive and didn't like the public. This fits the early strata of gospel tradition and the hints that Jesus was a lot more obscure than they pretend. This shows Celsus' accuracy. Celsus says that after Jesus was tried and condemned he went into hidingto evade punishment. So Jesus apparently escaped after his trial and condemnation to death and went into hiding and was betrayed not by one disciple, Judas, but at least two but Celsus speaks as if the whole Twelve handed Jesus over (page 61). He wrote, "Would a divine being, a saviour as you call him, and son of the highest God, be betrayed by the very men who had been educated by him and who shared everything with him?" So Celsus does not know of the gospel tradition that only Judas betrayed Jesus. Celsus did not have free access to the gospels at least as we have them. Celsus had no need to exaggerate the number of traitors Jesus had. Why contradict the Church in such a matter? Some scholars would say that Celsus took care to find out the truth for the apostles did betray Jesus. They would take the fact that Jesus was crucified for making a claim to be king and they were his closest supporters and they were allowed to go about freely as proof that they had got their freedom for handing him over.

Celsus reported that Jesus participated in the Jewish animal sacrifices (page 61). And that he abrogated the law, circumcision and the feasts (page 61). None of that is in the gospels.

He knew that nobody really believed in Jesus as an infallible person when he was alive (page 65). Jesus must have been an alcoholic when he greedily drank bad wine on the cross (page 65).

The Christians had one mad woman and maybe another person as witnesses to the resurrection and no more (page 67). This shows Celsus could not access the gospels for he could not confirm how many allegedly saw Jesus. When he was willing to concede that there were other witnesses and admit he was uncertain he was not just pretending that too few people saw the resurrection. He really thought that there were too few of them. If we were anything like modern Christian apologists, we would be saying that he must be depending on imperial records just like they say Tacitus was doing when he mentioned Jesus.

The Christians heavily relied on magic tricks to get followers (page 98). They even performed conjuring tricks with silks and stones. This implies that they had no apologetic books like the gospels with which to persuade people to join.

The Christians had no common rule of faith so Celsus is surprised that they have anything at all in common though they did have a lot of disagreements (page 70).

Celsus said that Jesus could not move the stone of his tomb by himself when he had to send an angel to do it (page 90). Christians say he is misrepresenting the gospels. But would he if people could go to them or their readers and see? Of course not! Celsus was not stupid. Celsus is not misrepresenting for he thinks that the allegedly risen Jesus was inside the tomb and the angel had to come and let him out. Celsus knew that if Jesus had been a supernaturally powered being and raised himself from the dead he could have left the tomb without the angel. Celsus is obliquely saying that Jesus was inferior to the angels though they might have come to help him. He would not have thought that the guards at the tomb saw Jesus so he did not know that the Matthew gospel said that the guards were there when the angel opened the tomb. Jesus would have opened the tomb himself instead of getting an angel to do it especially when there was no need for anybody to open it. The gospels say that the women came to get the tomb opened and when it was open when there was nobody about it would look better if the tomb had been opened by people who couldn’t explain how the body got out for the tomb hadn’t been touched till they opened it. Celsus was right that the angel opening the tomb was absurd.

Celsus made no effort to refute the resurrection which was strange considering that he knew of sorcerers who could resurrect the dead and have them eating and drinking by pure trickery (60). This can only be explained by the Christians not having any details about the resurrection apart from the women’s testimony. Celsus thought that since it was just mad women speaking of the risen Jesus there was no need to delve into the resurrection subject. He denied the apostles claimed to be testators as well. The sorcerers claim to have occult powers so they would have been making it look like they raised the dead with these powers. So resurrections were common in the world in those days.

Celsus says that the Christians who adore one God and adore the man Jesus as divine and as important as God have a book from which he quotes this teaching. The quotation from it is not in the gospels (page 116). It is assumed that Celsus is using a Christian book. But he implies that it is a scripture of the Christians he is quoting. His polemic and condemnation is no use if it is just a book that no or some Christians esteemed as scripture so it was a general scripture for the official Church. Celsus is not quoting a Gnostic scripture relating to heretics because Gnostics did not tend to believe in one God and did not regard the person of Jesus as important. It was his teaching that they concern themselves about.

Celsus is evidence that even then in his day most of the historical material of the gospels was forbidden to the people by the Church. It is no use saying that things like his condemning Christians for having a material God proves that he is inaccurate. The scriptures do have such a God so Christians are teaching that God is matter when they declare the scriptures infallible though they claim to have a spiritual God. The word for spirit is breath and breath is invisible material and the Bible God is breath or spirit and when the Christians read it they pretend it means that God is a real entity but that doesn’t have any parts or matter in it.

If Celsus had some preposterous reasons for rejecting Christianity that has no bearing on his presentation of what Christians believed. And his reasons are good and understandable enough if you assume what he assumed. For example, his argument that Jesus’ death proved he was a fraud is right if the idea of a God of mysterious plots and blood atonement is wrong and he had a right to reject this sinister God. The Jewish Bible, the Old Testament, says that if a statue is a god it will be able to protect itself. Accordingly, Jesus then can’t be a god or the Son of God for he was crucified. The Christian Church's own scripture says that! A person rejecting the Christian ideas, the idea of a God with bizarre plans and the idea that a crucified man can be divine or the son of God and the idea that this blood atones for the sins of the world, is understandable and does not make them stupid.

Celsus says the Christians do not believe in one God but make another God of Jesus. That is true though Christians deny it. There is no evidence of a misrepresentation in Celsus. God comes before Jesus for we can be more sure that God exists than that Jesus was what he claimed to be but the Christians see God through Jesus which is putting Jesus first and making an idol of him. If Jesus were God and could be worshipped as God and not as an idol we should be equally sure of both.

Celsus rejects the idea of bodily resurrection not because he stupidly thinks God cannot remake the body and make it live but because he thinks the idea is disgusting and God does not change nature (page 86). Celsus was a very intelligent man and there is no justice in saying, “Oh, he hated Christians and would say anything about them. Pay no attention to him.” Who would want our bodies back the way they are now at the resurrection?

Whatever gospels existed then were kept largely private or differed a lot from our four if they were not. That shows that whatever went before was hidden or corrupt and cannot be considered as a reliable version of the Jesus story or taken to show that there was a Jesus.

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CONCLUSION

There is no evidence at all that the Gospels were published within one hundred years after Jesus’ demise. Regarding that period it is no wonder that Robin Lane Fox described it as extremely difficult to figure out when the gospels were first quoted (page 124, The Unauthorized Version). There is no evidence that they were published for a long time after the end of the first century. Even if they were published they were not widely known or made important and even the highest people in the Church did not know of them. The words of Jesus were published before the acts of Jesus. Anybody could make up the words but the acts would be more difficult if the person did not exist or if a lot of lies were told about him. But if you make up the teachings first and get people to want to believe in the existence of the man who allegedly taught them it is easier to add in the alleged deeds later. The words differ from the gospels enough to indicate that the gospels were still evolving or were secret. These facts utterly destroy the credibility of Christianity for the secrecy speaks of having something to hide. For all we know, maybe there never was a Jesus.

WRITINGS CONSULTED

Bible Dictionary and Concordance, New American Bible, 1970

Conspiracies and the Cross, Timothy Paul Jones, Front Line, A Strang Company, Florida, 2008

Decoding Mark, John Dart, Trinity Press, Harrisburg, PA, 2003

Early Christian Writings, Translated by Maxwell Staniforth, Penguin, London, 1987

Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Vol 1, Josh McDowell, Alpha, Scripture Press Foundation, Bucks, 1995

Evil and the God of Love, John Hick, Fontana/Fount, Glasgow, 1979

Handbook to the Controversy with Rome, Karl Von Hase, Vols 1& 2, The Religious Tract Society, London, 1906

He Walked Among Us, Josh McDowell and Bill Wilson, Alpha, Cumbria, 2000

Jesus – One Hundred Years Before Christ, Professor Alvar Ellegard, Century, London, 1999

Jesus and the Four Gospels, John Drane, Lion, Herts, 1984

Jesus the Evidence, Ian Wilson, Pan, London, 1985

JR Harmer, The Apostolic Fathers, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker Book House, 1988 (from 1891 Edition published by Macmillan and Co. London)

New Age Bible Versions, GA Riplinger, Bible & Literature Missionary Foundation, Tennessee, 1993

On the True Doctrine, Celsus, Translated by R Joseph Hoffmann, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1987

The Apostolic Fathers, B Lightfoot and JR Harmer, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker Book House, 1988, from 1891 Edition published by Macmillan and Co. London

The Bible Fact or Fantasy, John Drane, Lion, Oxford, 1989

The Canon of Scripture, FF Bruce, Chapter House, Glasgow, 1988

The Early Church, Henry Chadwick Pelican, London, 1987

The Encyclopaedia of Unbelief, Volume 1, Gordon Stein, Editor, Prometheus Books, New York, 1985

The First Christian, Karen Armstrong, Pan Books, London, 1983

The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels, Penguin, London, 1990

The History of Christianity, Lions, Herts, 1982

The History of the Church, Eusebius, Penguin, London, 1989

The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln, Corgi, London, 1982

The Jesus Event, Martin R Tripole SJ, Alba House, New York, 1980

The Jesus Mysteries, Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, Thorsons, London, 1999

The Jesus Papyrus, Carsten Peter Thiede and Matthew D’Ancona, Phoenix, London, 1997

The Lion Concise Book of Christian Thought, Tony Lane, Lion Publishing, Herts, 1984

The Nag Hammadi Library, Edited by J A Robinson, HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1990

The Newly Recovered Gospel of St Peter, J Rendle Harris, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1893

The Original Jesus, Tom Wright, Lion, Oxford, 1996

The Reconstruction of Belief, Charles Gore DD, John Murray, London, 1930

The Secret Gospel, Morton Smith, Aquarian, Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1985

The Strange Case of the Secret Gospel According to Mark by Shawn Eyer Alexandria: The Journal for the Western Cosmological Traditions, Volume 3, 1995

The Unauthorised Version, Robin Lane Fox, Penguin, Middlesex, 1992

THE WWW

WERE THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS UNABLE TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN AUTHENTIC AND UNAUTHENTIC BOOKS? GLENN MILLER

www.christian-thinktank.com/dumdad2.html

THE GOSPEL OF MARCION AND THE GOSPEL OF LUKE COMPARED, CHARLES B WAITE

www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/3827/wait2.htm

THE STRANGE CASE OF THE SECRET GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK, SHAWN EYER

www.globaltown.com/shawn/secmark.html

The “Historical” Jesus by Acharya S

www.truthbeknown.com/historicaljc.htm

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