The Crucifixion Hoax

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐱𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐇𝐨𝐚𝐱

Mohamad Mostafa Nassar

Twitter@NassarMohamadMR

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐱𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐇𝐨𝐚𝐱 – 𝐂𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐱𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐫 𝐂𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐢 𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧? 𝐒𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐤𝐡 𝐀𝐡𝐦𝐞𝐝 𝐃𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐚𝐭

𝐂𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐱𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐫 𝐂𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐢 𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧? 𝐒𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐤𝐡 𝐀𝐡𝐦𝐞𝐝 𝐃𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐚𝐭

Jesus was teaching his disciples in the outer court of the Temple and one of them said unto him: Master, it is said by the priests that without shedding of blood there is no remission. Can then the blood offering of the law take away sin?

And Jesus answered: No blood offering, of beast or bird, or man, can take away sin, for how can the conscience be purged from sin by the shedding of innocent blood? Nay, it will increase the condemnation. (Gospel of the Nazarenes, Lection 33, verses 1-2)

Christianity is based on the Mystery Religions of the ancient world. The doctrines of the ‘trinity’ and ‘incarnation’ were borrowed from the pagans. In fact, the whole religion was fabricated after the departure of Jesus. This article will prove just that.

The legendary stories of ‘man-god’ saviors dying for the sins of their people (and rising three days later) were quite common! Christianity plagiarized the stories and foisted them upon Jesus (pbuh). The scholar Tom Harper writes:

“The divine teacher is called, is tested by the “adversary”, gathers disciples, heals the sick, preaches the Good News about God’s kingdom, finally runs afoul of his bitter enemies, suffers, dies, and is resurrected after three days. This is the total pattern of the sun god in all the ancient dramas”. (The Pagan Christ, p. 145)

A very important part of the pagan faiths was the belief in a god who was young and handsome and was supposed to have died or mutilated himself for the sake of mankind. (A.D. Ajijola , The Myth of the Cross)

The dogma of the Incarnation was taken into Christianity, like many other Christian doctrines, from paganism. In pre-Christian mythologies, we often read of the hero being regarded as a God. The Hindus of India even today worship their ancient heroes, Rama and Krishna, as incarnations of Vishnu, the second person of the Hindu Trinity.

Islam has liberated its followers from the bondage of such superstitions by rejecting the dogma of the Incarnation.

(Islam and Christianity, Mrs. Ulfat Aziz-Us-Samad, International Islamic Federation of Student Organizations, pp.38)

It seems that Jesus was actually the Sun of God, and not the ‘Son of God’, yet both of these titles are pagan, ascribed to Jesus after his departure. No wonder the early Christians of Egypt were accused of sun worship. Jesus rejected the title ‘Son of God’ (Luke 4:41) and that is why the Holy Quran rejects the sonship of Jesus, because it’s entirely pagan.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐇𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐬𝐚𝐲𝐬:

I heard the Prophet saying, “Do not exaggerate in praising me as the Christians praised the son of Mary, for I am only a Slave. So, call me the Slave of Allah and His Apostle.”

Narrated ‘Umar.

Bukhari, Muhammad, “Sahih Bukhari”, Kitab Bhavan, New Delhi, India, 1987, translated by M. Khan, Volume 4, Book 55, Number 654.

Nevertheless, he (Jesus) apparently expected this cataclysmic event to occur very soon – in fact, during the lifetime of some of his followers” For Christ’s Sake, pp.37.

At first, the Christian community expected an imminent return of Christ. We are told that during the first century AD, the Christian community looked forward to the imminent return of Christ in glory and the establishment of the Kingdom.

This hope carried on in the second century. When the second coming failed to occur, the church organized itself as a permanent institution under the leadership of its bishops. (What did Jesus Really Say? Misha’al Ibn Abdullah Al-Kadhi)

The second Thessalonians was forged in Paul’s name shortly after his death or during the late stages of his imprisonment in Rome. Scholars believe it was written to offset the disappointment and unrest then rising in the Christian community resulting from the unfulfilled promise of an imminent second coming (2 Thes. 2:1-8).

(Eddy, Patricia G., Who Tampered with the Bible? p. 184)

𝐆𝐨𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐬𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐚𝐡.

Now I know that the LORD saves his anointed;
he answers him from his holy heaven
with the saving power of his right hand. (Psalms 20:6)

Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; (Hebrews 5:7)

Psalms 20:6 refers to Jesus; God did save him with the power of His right hand. Jesus emphasized the power of God, His right hand. A purely figurative expression:

Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. (Matthew 26:64)

𝐉𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐬 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐡𝐢𝐦:

Then the devil leaveth him, and behold, angels came and ministered unto him. (Matthew 4:11)

The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; (Matthew 13:41)

And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. (Luke 22:43)

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐆𝐨𝐝

“Do not touch my anointed ones;
do my prophets no harm.” (1Chronicles 16:22)

O LORD God do not reject your anointed one.
Remember the great love promised to David your servant. (2Chronicles 6:42)

Great deliverance giveth he to his king; and sheweth mercy to his anointed, to David, and to his seed for evermore.

The LORD [is] their strength, and he [is] the saving strength of his anointed.

(Psalms 28:8)

Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed.

(Psalms 84:9)

The Greek word ‘Christ’ means the ‘anointed one’. Jesus was anointed, so therefore he was saved from crucifixion.

The Gospels describe how Jesus wept immensely to be saved from death. The crucifixion was the most humiliating form of execution, used for political reasons, and not religious purposes.

The Pilate washed his hands (Matthew 27:24) signifying the innocence of Rome, and the blame is foisted upon the Jews (Acts 3:15, 1Thessolonians 2:15) but the Holy Quran exonerates the Jews (4:157) the historical truth that Jesus was not crucified.

𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐲 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐬 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐉𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐝. 𝐉𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐬 𝐥𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐣𝐨𝐲:

Wherefore he did not himself suffer death, but Simon, a certain man of Cyrene, being compelled, bore the cross in his stead; so that this latter being transfigured by him, that he might be thought to be Jesus, was crucified, through ignorance and error, while Jesus himself received the form of Simon, and, standing by, laughed at them.

For since he was an incorporeal power, and the Nous (mind) of the unborn father, he transfigured himself as he pleased, and thus ascended to him who had sent him, deriding them, inasmuch as he could not be laid hold of, and was invisible to all.

Those, then, who know these things have been freed from the principalities who formed the world; so that it is not incumbent on us to confess him who was crucified, but him who came in the form of a man, and was thought to be crucified, and was called Jesus, and was sent by the Father.

(The Church Father Iranaeus, Against Heresies, Chapter XXIV.-Doctrines of Saturninus and Basilides)

Notice how Iranaeus says “through ignorance and error” the Jews misapprehended, and crucified the wrong person. Amazingly, the Holy Quran harmonizes this account, stating that they follow error, conjecture, and ignorance:

That they said (in boast), “We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah”; – but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not: (Al-Quran 4:157)

The 1945 discovery of Gnostic texts at Nag Hammadi, Egypt unearthed a book called The Second Treatise of the Great Seth, where Jesus states:

I did not succumb to them as they had planned. But I was not afflicted at all. Those who were there punished me. And I did not die in reality but in appearance, lest I be put to shame by them because these are my kinsfolk. I removed the shame from me, and I did not become fainthearted in the face of what happened to me at their hands.

I was about to succumb to fear, and I suffered according to their sight and thought, in order that they may never find any word to speak about them.

For my death, which they think happened, (happened) to them in their error and blindness, since they nailed their man unto their death. For their Ennoias did not see me, for they were deaf and blind. But in doing these things, they condemn themselves. Yes, they saw me; they punished me.

It was another, their father, who drank the gall and the vinegar; it was not I. They struck me with the reed; it was another, Simon, who bore the cross on his shoulder. It was another upon Whom they placed the crown of thorns. But I was rejoicing in the height over all the wealth of the archons and the offspring of their error, of their empty glory. And I was laughing at their ignorance. (The Treatise of the Great Seth)

“There are also several historical sources other than the Bible and the Qur’an which confirm that many of the early Christians did not believe that Jesus died on the cross…The Cerinthians and later the Basilidians, for example, who were among the first of the early Christian communities, denied that Jesus was crucified…

The Carpocratians, another early Christian sect, believed that it was not Jesus who was crucified, but another in his place”.

(Jesus Prophet of Islam, Muhammad Ataur-Raheem, Ahmed Thompson, 1996 (revised edition. p47)

“… Plotinus, who lived in the fourth century, tells us that he had read a book called The Journeys of the Apostles which related the acts of Peter, John, Andrew, Thomas and Paul. Among other things, it stated that Jesus was not crucified, but another in his place, and therefore, he laughed at those who believed that they had crucified him”.

(ibid, Jesus Prophet of Islam, 1991 edition. P. 37)

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐉𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐬’ 𝐀𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐱𝐢𝐨𝐧

The four Gospels contradict each other; the story of the crucifixion is told differently in each Gospel. Logically, all four Gospels cannot be simultaneously true. Hence, the crucifixion is not historical, or the sources would be rather consistent if they were reliable. The attempt to “harmonize” the accounts is impossible because the contradictions are so vast.

“Actually, the fact that we have four gospels lies at the very heart of our problem. Because we read particular parables or sayings or stories in several different versions, we can’t miss the disagreements between them.”

(“Who is Jesus” by John Dominic Crossan, p. 3-4)

“The Christians have dozens of different versions, rather than one universally agreed view, regarding the crucifixion of the Messiah. This in itself is an eloquent testimony that the Christians were doubtful about the actual event. Some of them held the view that the one who was crucified was someone other than Jesus and that Jesus himself in fact remained standing somewhere nearby, laughing at their folly…

Had the truth been fully known and well-established so many divergent views could not have gained currency”. (Towards Understanding the Quran, Vol 2, Sayyid Abul Ala Mawdudi, p. 108)

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 ‘𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭.’

To what purpose [is] the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of the goats. (Isaiah 1:11)

Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. (Psalms 40:6)

For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give [it]: thou delightest not in burnt offering. (Psalms 51:16)]

“I am come to end the sacrifices and feasts of blood, and if ye cease not offering and eating of flesh and blood, the wrath of God shall not cease from you, even as it came to your fathers in the wilderness, who lusted for flesh, and they ate to their content, and were filled with rottenness, and the plague consumed them.” (Jesus Christ, The Gospel of the Nazarenes)

And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this [is] the first commandment.

And the second [is] like, [namely] this, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he:

And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love [his] neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. (Mark 12:30-33)

To do justice and judgment [is] more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice. (Proverbs 21:3)

But go ye and learn what [that] meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. (Matthew 9:13)

Jesus will have mercy and not sacrifice; he was not crucified for the ‘sins of the world’, but rather he was sent to put sinners to repentance. He came to preach the discarded teachings of the Torah (Matthew 5:17-20) he came to preach the Gospel (Matthew 4:23) he was Prophet and Messenger (Matthew 21:11) not the pagan ‘crucified Christ’ the Church upholds today.

Jesus made it clear that salvation is not attained through blood sacrifice, but simply keeping the commandments of God.

¹⁶Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”

¹⁷“Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.” (Matthew 19:16-17)

Jesus never said, “salvation comes through my blood”, he simply told the man that salvation comes through obeying the commandments. The crucifixion is not even mentioned or alluded to. The Old Testament says:

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep his commandments: for this [is] the whole [duty] of man. (Ecclesiastes 12:13)

Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. (Genesis 26:5)

𝐓𝐡𝐞 ‘𝐀𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭’ 𝐝𝐨𝐜𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐦

The Bible rejects the doctrine of ‘atonement’. We are responsible for our own sins:

The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin. (Deuteronomy 24:16)

The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. (Ezekiel 18:20)

But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge. (Jeremiah 31:30)

Give them according to their deeds, and according to the wickedness of their endeavors: give them after the work of their hands; render to them their desert. (Psalms 28:4)

According to [their] deeds, accordingly, he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies; to the islands, he will repay recompense. (Isaiah 59:18)

For many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of them also: and I will recompense them according to their deeds, and according to the works of their own hands. (Jeremiah 25:14)

For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. (Matthew 16:27)

⁷ Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
       with ten thousand rivers of oil?
       Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
       the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

⁸ He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:7-8)

The doctrine of ‘atonement’ does not make sense. The Church has turned Jesus into something very disgusting. The early Jewish Christians never believed in such doctrines like the ‘blood atonement’. The Bible teaches that ‘human sacrifice’ is wrong, a strictly pagan ritual, not a Jewish practice.

“God sacrificed his own son in place of humans who needed to be punished for their own sins might make some Christians love Jesus but is an obscene picture of God. It is almost heavenly child abuse and may infect our imagination at more earthly levels as well. I do not want to express my faith through a theology that pictures God demanding blood sacrifices in order to be reconciled to us.”

(John Dominic Crossan, who is Jesus? p. 145-146)

Perhaps I am lacking in piety or some basic instinct, but I know I am not alone in finding the idea of Jesus’ death as atonement for the sins of all humanity on one level bewildering and on the other morally repugnant. Jesus never to my knowledge said anything to indicate that forgiveness from God could only be granted after or because of the cross. (For Christ’s Sake Oxford University Press, Toronto, 1986 pg. 75, Tom Harper

This doctrine is blasphemy against the justice of God. It is highly unjust, inhuman, and ungodly, to sacrifice the life of an innocent man, for washing off the sins of sinners. God Almighty is never unjust even in least degree, how this injustice and unkindness can ever be attributed to Him? God Almighty is Absolute and Merciful enough to forgive the sins, even without sacrifices. (Dr. Roshan Enam, Follow Jesus, or Follow Paul? p. 52)

This dogma is not only a denial of the mercy of God but also of His justice. To demand the price of blood in order to forgive the sins of men is to show a complete lack of mercy, and to punish a man who is not guilty for the sins of others… We fail to see how the suffering and death of one man can wipe out the sins of others. It sounds something like the physician breaking his own head to cure the headache of his patients. The idea of substitutionary or vicarious sacrifice is illogical, meaningless, and unjust.

(Mrs. Ulfat Aziz- Us- Samad, Islam and Christianity, International Islamic Federation of Student Organization, pp. 50-51)

The unreliability of the gospels appears to be admitted by the Church itself. The metaphysics of Christianity today is not even based on what is in the gospels. The established church is founded on the doctrine of original sin, of atonement and redemption, of the divinity of Jesus, the divinity of the Holy Ghost, and of the Trinity.

None of these doctrines are to be found within the gospels. They were not taught by Jesus. They were the fruits of Paul’s innovations and the influence of Greek culture and philosophy. (Muhammad Ataur- Raheem, Jesus Prophet of Islam, 1992 edition, p. 196)

“… the idea that shedding of blood is necessary to appease the wrath of God has come into Christianity from the primitive man’s image of God as an all-powerful demon. We see no connection at all between sin and blood.

What is necessary to wash away sin is not blood, but repentance, remorse persistent struggle against evil inclinations, development of greater sympathy for mankind and determination to carry out the Will of God as revealed to us through the prophets”. (IBID, Mrs. Ulfat Aziz-Us-Samad, p. 51)

“We can no longer accept the appalling theological doctrine that for some mystic reason a propitiatory sacrifice was necessary. It outrages either our conception of God as Almighty or else our conception of Him as All-Loving. The famous Dr. Cruden believed that for the purpose of this sacrifice ‘Christ suffered dreadful pains inflicted by God’,

and this, of course, is a standpoint which nauseates the modern mind, and which may well be termed a hideous doctrine, not unconnected with the sadistic tendencies of primitive human nature. Actually, it is of pagan origin, being, indeed, perhaps the most obvious relic of heathendom in the Faith”. (Arthur Weigall, The Paganism in Our Christianity)

‘My long-time view about Christianity is that it represents an amalgam of two seemingly immiscible parts–the religion of Jesus and the religion of Paul. Thomas Jefferson attempted to excise the Pauline parts of the New Testament. There wasn’t much left when he was done, but it was an inspiring document.’ (Christianity Betrayed (2 Volume Set)Letter to Ken Schei,)

“The church`s God son who is supposed to have been born of the substance of God from the beginning of eternity is nowhere mentioned in the scriptures nor the God son who would be the second person of the trinity descended from heaven and become flesh this is only human invention and superstition as such should be discarded.” (Francis David by W.C Gannett)

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐔𝐧𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞!

The four Gospels are anonymous, and they were composed decades after the departure of Jesus. The early Church Fathers fail to mention them; they fail to address the miraculous events recorded in the Gospels. They never allude to the existence of the four Gospels. Non-Christian and Jewish historians never mention the Gospel events, or the resurrection of Jesus!

Philo Judaeus, the Jewish philosopher, who lived during the mid-1^st century, does not mention the ‘darkness’ or the ‘earthquake’ which allegedly occurred when Christ was crucified (Matthew 27:45, 28:2)

Lloyd Graham writes:

“… We have here a good example of the credulity of Western man. For two thousand years he has been reading about this convulsion and “darkness over all the earth” without ever questioning it or demanding proof of it. Yet had it happened, would not some of those able historians have recorded it? Why did they not?” (Deceptions & Myths of the Bible, Lloyd Graham p. 349)

“I wish all fundamentalists would take special note that while these quite public, literally stupendous events are alleged to have taken place, not a single other contemporary source can be found to corroborate or confirm them — even though this was at a time and in a place where capable observers, recorders of remarkable happenings, historians, and others were in no way lacking. There is not a smidgeon of a trace of historicity to be found”. (Tom Harper, The Pagan Christ, p. 149)

The non-Christian historians fail to mention the resurrection to prove that it was a HOAX. Surely, if the resurrection of Jesus occurred, the writer Philo Judaeus (50 C.E.) and others would have recorded it.

The Gospels are unreliable because they were written very late; decades after the 12 apostles were martyred. Read the quotations below:

“The gospels are all priestly forgeries over a century after their pretended dates.”

(Joseph Wheless, The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold, Acharya S)

The books [canonical gospels] are not heard of till 150 A.D., that is, till Jesus had been dead nearly a hundred and twenty years. No writer before 150 A.D. makes the slightest mention of them.” (Bronson, C. Keeler, A Short History of the Bible)

“The Four Gospels were unknown to the early Christian Fathers. Justin Martyr, the most eminent of the early Fathers, wrote about the middle of the second century. His writings in proof of the divinity of Christ demanded the use of these Gospels had they existed in his time.

He makes more than 300 quotations from the books of the Old Testament and nearly one hundred from the Apocryphal books of the New Testament: but none from the four Gospels. (The Book Your Church Doesn’t Want You to Read, Tim C. Leedom)

“Not a single Gospel was written down at the time of Jesus, they were all written long after his earthly mission had come to an end” (Maurice Bucaille, The Bible, the Quran, and Science p. 127),

“Each of the four canonical Gospels is religious proclamation in the form of a largely fictional narrative. Christians have never been reluctant to write fiction about Jesus, and we must remember that our four canonical Gospels are only the cream of a large and varied literature” (Rendal Helms, Gospel Fictions p.11)

The earliest documents of the New Testament are the epistles of Paul, allegedly written in 55-64 C.E. There is no evidence that Paul had written 1 and 2 Timothy.

The first thing we need to force into our minds is that when Paul wrote these words, there were no such things as written Gospels. This means that the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection so familiar to us, as told by these Gospel writers, were by and large unknown to Paul and to Paul’s readers(Resurrection: Myth or Reality? p. 48)

What does this mean? The resurrection accounts in the four Gospels contradict the testimony of Paul. Hence, Paul contradicts the Gospels on a simple event that is supposed to be the foundation of the Christian religion. We have five conflicting versions of the resurrection in the New Testament.

If Paul is the first writer, then he must be relaying the earliest tradition, yet the Gospels, written many decades later, record an entirely different story. This certainly proves that the resurrection was fabricated in the oral tradition, because there’s not a single reference to the resurrection by historians like Philo Judaeus, and the testimony of Josephus is wholly agreed to be a forgery.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐡-𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭:

There is no reference to Jesus’ death as crucifixion in the pre-Markan Jesus material

(Mack Burton, Who Wrote the New Testament, The Making of the Christian Myth, p. 87)

Since the Gospel of Mark was written very late, the crucifixion story did not exist before its composition. Scholars’ conjecture that Mark was written after the Jewish War (66-70 C.E.) yet this assertion based on the tradition of Papias is wholly unreliable. The Church historian Eusebius of Caesarea (died. 340 CE) said that Papias is untrustworthy, a man of limited knowledge.

The epistles of Paul do not record the crucifixion story, the Q gospel falls into the same category of silence, and the Didache. We have no choice to believe that the crucifixion story was invented by the oral traditions.

The scholar Rendal Helms describes the unreliability of ‘oral tradition.’

This literature was oral before it was written and began with the memories of those who knew Jesus personally…

But oral tradition is by definition unstable, notoriously open to mythical, legendary, and fictional embellishment (Gospel Fictions Randal Helms, p. 12)

The oral tradition circulated amongst the early followers of Jesus, who knew him personally. Paul, the corrupter of the Gospel, had never met Jesus. He failed to derive any traditions from the apostles; instead, Paul hibernated in Arabia for three years, fabricating his own “traditions” about Jesus. The alleged ‘darkness’ and ‘earthquake’, and Matthew’s ‘rising of the saints’ (Matthew 27:52) were probably Gospel embellishments. No historian refers to them.

The Gospel of Mark was the first to document the “passion” narrative:

“Mark was the first author to attach the passion narratives in written form to the story of the life of Jesus of Nazareth” (Rendal Helms, p. 57)

The writer of Mark was dictating false information relayed to him by oral tradition. He was the first writer to mention the “passion” story. Paul never appealed to the sayings of Jesus, so how can he possibly record any crucifixion? He did not.

Paul did not know anything about Jesus and his teachings. The stories recorded in the four Gospels are never related by him, or even alluded to. Paul did not know the fictional ‘empty tomb’ story. He recorded a spiritual resurrection whereas the Gospels say it was ‘physical’.

The ultra-conservatives keep insisting on a “physical” resurrection of Jesus. Paul, whose work pre-dates the first Gospel, insists on the exact opposite. His fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians could not possibly be clearer. I invite you to reread that passage for yourself. This passage is almost pure Platonism. Paul knows only a spiritual resurrection.

(Tom Harper, The Pagan Christ, p. 174)

𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐱𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐲𝐞𝐭 𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬!

“The author of Mark, the earliest of the narrative gospels, was not an eyewitness: he is reporting information conveyed to him by a third person or persons, who themselves were quite possibly not eye-witnesses” (Robert Walter Funk, The Jesus Seminar: The Acts of Jesus, p. 4)

Moreover, the Gospels are anonymous documents, totally unreliable. None of them originate from eyewitness sources.

“There is hardly any record of his code of behavior. The books in the New Testament do not even contain eyewitness accounts of his sayings and actions. They were written by people who derived their knowledge second-hand. These records are not comprehensive. Everything which Jesus said and did which has not been recorded has been lost forever”. (Muhammad Ataur-Raheem, Jesus Prophet of Islam, 1992 edition, p. 195)

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐳𝐞𝐝

There are many parallels between the Gospels and the Scriptures of ancient religions. Scholars have collected hundreds of similarities between Christ and the Hindu god Krishna, and the ‘man-god’ saviors of the Mystery Religions. We shall give a few samples below:

𝐊𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐧𝐚 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐁𝐡𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐯𝐚𝐝-𝐆𝐢𝐭𝐚

“I am the goal of life, the LORD and support of all, the inner witness, the abode of all. I am the only refuge, the ONE true friend; I am the beginning, the staying, and the end of creation; I am the womb and the eternal seed. I am heat; I give and withhold the rain. I am immortality and I am death; I am what is and what is not” [Bhagavad Gita 9:18-19]

𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐳𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐓𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐉𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐬’ 𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡:

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning, and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. (Revelations 1:8)

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning, and the end, the first and the last. (Revelations 22:13)

Another passage is borrowed from the scriptures of Buddhism. The Buddha walked upon the water:

He walks upon the water without parting it, as if on solid ground. ANGUTTARA NIKAYA 3.60 …”

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐮𝐝𝐝𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐦𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐥𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐳𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐆𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐥𝐬:

And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. (Mark 14:25, John 6:19)

The sayings of Jesus were plagiarized from the Jewish teacher Hillel, and many other Pharisee rabbis.

“Most of his [Jesus’] teachings, most of the words ascribed to him, conform to the tenets of Pharisaic thinking. Indeed, some of his most famous pronouncements are paraphrases, even on occasion almost direct quotations, from Hillel.”
(Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, The Messianic Legacy, p. 60)

“With the possible exception of the saying about forgiving one’s enemies (and even this is disputed), there is absolutely nothing in the sermon in Matthew, chapters 5 to 7 — paralleled by Luke’s Sermon on the Plain – that cannot be found in the Jewish sources.”.

(Tom Harper, The Pagan Christ, p. 139)

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐇𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐥 𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐝:

What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man: this is the whole law, the rest is commentary. (Talmud, SHABAT 31a)

𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐯𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬:

“Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.” – Udana-Varga 5:18, Buddhism

“What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.” Analects of Confucius 15:24, Confucianism

Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.” – Doctrine of the Mean 13.3, Confucianism.

“Do not do to others what would anger you if done to you by others.” – Socrates.

“This is the sum of duty: Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you.” – Mahabharata 5:1517, Hinduism.

This famous saying was borrowed and put into Jesus’ mouth.

“In everything do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 7:12)

The sayings of Jesus (called the Logia) were plagiarized completely, as the scholar Tom Harper emphasizes:

“There is plenty of evidence to show that these sayings were not first uttered by Jesus or invented afterward by his followers. Many of them were pre-existent, prehistoric, and therefore pre-Christian. They were collections of Egyptian, Hebrew, and Gnostic sayings”. (Tom Harper, The Pagan Christ, p. 140)

𝐓𝐨𝐦 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐞𝐬:

There is a huge amount of evidence that the core of the spiritual tradition handed down from the earliest times was incorporated into collections of the most outstanding and vital utterances spoken by the Christos figure in the cryptic dramas and rituals of the past. These collations of “sacred utterances of the divine Son of humans” were circulated, in secret, all over the ancient world under the name the Logia, or “sayings of the Lord”.

Having thoroughly weighed the research, I now believe they were the root documents from which the canonical Gospels were extracted. Then, to cover deterioration and suit the various emerging communities of Christians, they were amended, interpolated, and edited by many scribes. I am convinced that this explanation is as near to being the truth of the source, origin, and nature of the Christian Gospels as can be determined. (ibid, pp. 140-141)

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧:

Christianity is based on the falsehood of Jesus’ crucifixion which never took place but was rather invented during the oral tradition.

Paul asserts that Jesus was crucified, yet he fails to mention any details about this event which would later be recorded in the gospels.

The Gospels are based on hearsay and not historical data based on a chain of transmission. For example, the Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is reliable because we can verify its authenticity by its chain of transmission! Also, we know the reporter’s name whereas the writers of the four Gospels are anonymous.

Aisha, the wife of the Prophet, reported over 1,000 hadiths to us alone. She was a great scholar of Hadith and the Quran, but the Gospels are unknown, unreliable, and untrustworthy accounts that cannot even stand in the Court of Law.

The laws which exist in the “Christian” countries of the West, the laws governing birth and death, the formation and dissolution of marriage, the rights over property within and outside marriage or in the event of divorce or death, adoption and guardianship, commerce, and industry, are not to be found in the gospels.

They are not the laws that have been revealed to man by God. They are the fruits of deductive knowledge.

They are either inherited from the Roman system of law or are based on the common practice of people over a long period of time, or are statutes erected and amended in accordance with the democratic method, which is the bequest of the ancient Greeks.

No one in today’s courts of law can refer to the gospels as binding authority in his dealings with another man, and have it accepted. (Muhammad Ataur-Raheem, Jesus Prophet of Islam, 1992 edition, p. 205)

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐢𝐭𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟:

“There is no reference to Jesus’ death as a crucifixion in the pre-Markan Jesus material.”

(Mack Burton, Who Wrote the New Testament? The Making of the Christian Myth, p. 87)

The gospels Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called “synoptic” because they share a common source; they all depend on the ‘Q’ gospel to derive information about Jesus, based on oral traditions.

Scholars assert that Q was a sayings gospel, containing the earliest strata of the most “authentic” words of Jesus, but it does not exist today. There is no physical evidence for Q, and the Church fathers never alluded to Q.

http://www.answers.com/topic/q-document

Q is very similar to the Gospel of Thomas, discovered in 1945 at Nag Hammadi Egypt, containing 114 sayings of Jesus originally translated from Greek.

But few Christians are aware that Thomas belongs to the Gnostic sect, who regarded the story of Jesus as purely allegorical.

The Literalist Christians followed Paul, a man who never met Jesus. During the centuries of persecution, burning of books, and assassination of characters, the Gnostics were defeated:

These can be broadly categorized into two different schools. On the one hand, there were those we will call Literalists because what defines them is that they take the Jesus story as a literal account of historical events. It was this school of Christianity that was adopted by the Roman Empire in the fourth century CE, becoming Roman Catholicism and all its subsequent offshoots. On the other hand, however, there were also radically different Christians known as Gnostics.

‘ These forgotten Christians were later persecuted out of existence by the Literalist Roman Church with such thoroughness that until recently we knew little about them except through the writings of their detractors. Only a handful of original Gnostic texts survived, none of which were published before the nineteenth century.

(Timothy Freke, The Jesus Mysteries: Was the “Original Jesus” a Pagan God? p. 7)

The Gnostics denied the resurrection of Jesus, saying that he never possessed a physical body, but it was a “phantom body” on the cross.

𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩, 𝐏𝐚𝐮𝐥 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐆𝐧𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜:

Many Gnostic groups claimed Paul as their founding father and Gnostics calling themselves “Paulicians” continued to flourish, despite persistent persecution from the Roman Church, until the end of the tenth century. Paul wrote his letters to churches in seven cities, which are known to have been centers of Gnostic Christianity during the second century.

These Christian communities were led by the Gnostic sage Marcion, for whom Paul was the only true apostle. One thing is for sure: if Paul really were as anti-Gnostic as the Literalists claim, then it is astounding how many Gnostic texts quote him or is actually attributed to him. The followers of Marcion even had a gospel, which they claimed was written by Paul. (ibid, p. 160)

The ultra-conservatives keep insisting on a “physical” resurrection of Jesus. Paul, whose work pre-dates the first Gospel, insists on the exact opposite.

His fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians could not possibly be clearer. I invite you to reread that passage for yourself. This passage is almost pure Platonism. Paul knows only a spiritual resurrection. (Tom Harper, The Pagan Christ, p. 174)

The Gnostic plan of salvation was radically different from the Literalists. The Literalists today are insisting that salvation is attained through the “blood of Christ”, yet the “blood of Christ” has failed to solve mankind’s problems.

Perhaps I am lacking in piety or some basic instinct, but I know I am not alone in finding the idea of Jesus’ death as atonement for the sins of all humanity on one level bewildering and on the other morally repugnant. Jesus never to my knowledge said anything to indicate that forgiveness from God could only be granted after or because of the cross. For Christ’s SakeOxford University Press, Toronto, 1986 pg. 75, Tom Harper

“God sacrificed his own son in place of humans who needed to be punished for their own sins might make some Christians love Jesus but is an obscene picture of God. It is almost heavenly child abuse and may infect out imagination at more earthly levels as well. I do not want to express my faith through a theology that pictures God demanding blood sacrifices in order to be reconciled to us.” (John Dominic Crossan, who is Jesus, p. 145-146)

This doctrine (atonement) is blasphemy against the justice of God. It is highly unjust, inhuman, and ungodly, to sacrifice the life of an innocent man, for washing off the sins of sinners. God Almighty is never unjust even to the least degree, how this injustice and unkindness can ever be attributed to Him? God Almighty is Absolute and Merciful enough to forgive the sins, even without sacrifices. (Dr. Roshan Enam, Follow Jesus, or Follow Paul? p. 52)

𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐟 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐆𝐧𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧:

The Jesus story is a perennial myth with the power to impart the saving Gnosis, which can transform each one of us into a Christ, not merely a history of events that happened to someone else 2,000 years ago. (The Jesus Mysteries, p. 13)

Jesus died only for the Jews!

The Bible refers to Israel as the “sheep” (Ps. 100:3, Mic. 2:12, Matt. 10:6-7, 15:24) and the Gentiles are usually called “goats” (Matt. 24:32-33).

𝐉𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐬 𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐉𝐞𝐰𝐬:

All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. (Matthew 25:32-33)

“I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep… even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.” (Matthew 10:11, 15)

More Evidence! The evolution of ‘many’

The Gospels of Matthew and Mark repeat the word “many”.

Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:28, Mark 10:45)

For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. (Matthew 26:28, Mark 14:24)

John is the last gospel, dating from 100 CE, and there was a sudden change from the words “for many” to “the world”.

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29)

He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:2)

And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. (Luke 24:47)

Where is the concept Jesus died “for the sins of mankind” in Matthew and Mark? There is no statement because it simply does not exist; the Gentiles are excluded from the “redemption of Christ”.

𝐃𝐢𝐝 𝐒𝐚𝐭𝐚𝐧 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐬?

Yes! Satan took the sins of mankind, not Jesus!

"It was seen, also, that while the sin offering pointed to Christ as a sacrifice, and the high priest represents Christ as a mediator, the scapegoat typified SATAN, the author of sin, UPON WHOM THE SINS OF THE TRULY PENITENT WILL FINALLY BE PLACED". – (Ellen G.H. White, The Great Controversy, p. 422)

"As the priest, in removing the sins from the sanctuary, confessed them upon

the head of the scapegoat, so CHRIST WILL PLACE ALL THESE SINS UPON SATAN, the originator and instigator of sin". – (ibid, p. 485) emphasis added

𝐉𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐬 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡!

The Gospels were not written from a historical perspective, they were written to enhance the Gospel story.

Jesus never prophesied his own crucifixion, rather these sayings were put into his mouth, and it was okay to fabricate these verses according to the culture. There were no “copyright laws” back then; it was permissible to borrow from others without asking!

“The concept of plagiarism was unknown in the ancient world. Authors freely copied from predecessors without acknowledgment. Sages became the repository of free-floating proverbs and witticisms. For the first Christians, Jesus was a legendary sage: it was proper to attribute the world’s wisdom to him.

The proverb in Mark 2:17, for example, is attested in secular sources (Plutarch and Diogenes for example) …in the parallel to the Markan passage, Matthew adds a sentence taken from the prophet Hosea (Matt 9:13).” [“The Five Gospels.” Translations of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.]

𝐍𝐨𝐰 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐪𝐮𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬:

“…The Gospels, however, were religious dramas used for worship and as a form of evangelism. They were meant not to impart history but to buttress and convey belief. The editor of John’s Gospel (the least historical of them all) boldly and honestly states his aims in the text itself when he says, “But these things are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah”. The goal is to establish the faithful and to create new converts, not to create an authentic biography. (Tom Harper, The Pagan Christ, p. 126)

As a Christian literary genre, a gospel is a brief, popular writing in the language of the common people that probably arose outside Palestine in Gentile regions. Its purpose was as propaganda for the early Christian movement. Gospels contain reminiscences of Jesus and his ministry; but their use was to be evangelistic, and their interest was religious, not strictly historical, or biographical in the modern sense of those terms.

The aim of gospels, as John 20:31 asserts, is to evoke and strengthen faith in Jesus the Christ: “these are written as that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name”. Certainly, the center of a gospel is Jesus of Nazareth, but its primary concern is not facts about him but faith in him.

The gospels were written by people more interested in a living Lord present in their midst than in Jesus the historical man from Nazareth. Many scholars now hold that much of what is placed on the lips of Jesus in the Gospels was put there by Gospel writers (just as the writers of Hellenistic history placed speeches on the lips of famous persons).

It is really the understanding that Gospels are faith documents that has led to what is called the “quest for the historical Jesus”. (Bonnie Thurston, Women in the New Testament, p. 63)

The New Testament contains unreliable surmises…Let me cite one fairly typical and significant example, from the opening page of the first chapter of Norman Perrin’s important and influential book, Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus. Perrin gives his reasons why teaching ascribed to Jesus is likely to be rather a teaching that stems from the early Church, not from Jesus himself.

I quote the first three reasons, “The early Church made no attempt to distinguish between the words the earthly Jesus had spoken and those spoken by the risen Lord through a prophet in the community…”

“The early Church absolutely and completely identified the risen Lord of her experience with the earthly Jesus of Nazareth…” “Further, the gospel form was created to serve the purposes of the early Church, but historical reminiscence was not one of those purposes”. (John C. Meagher, The Five Gospels, 1989, p. 9)

Jesus could not have foreseen his rejection, death, and resurrection, as the idea of a suffering, dying, and rising Messiah or son of Man was unknown to Judaism. (Israel Knohl, The Messiah before Jesus, The Suffering Servant of the Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 2)

Only 16% of all events whereby Jesus was the principal actor are historically accurate and only 18% of the Jesus sayings—primarily parables and aphorisms- are historically accurate http://www.westarinstitute.org/Jesus_Seminar/jesus_seminar.html

Some of the events in the early mission of Jesus] were not strictly true but were added to the story of Jesus by the early Christians to express their faith in him as a Messiah.” [London Daily Mail, page 12, 15/July/1984]

“The number of deliberate alterations made in the interests of doctrine is difficult to assess.” [Bruce M. Metzger’s “The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration”, 1964]

It is clear that Jesus never foretold his death, he tells false prophecies, misquotes the Old Testament, and contradicts himself, so how can the Gospels be accurate?

We are only touching the surface; they contain Historical Errors, and other discrepancies.

“Eighty-two percent of the words ascribed to Jesus in the gospels were not actually spoken by him.”

“Biblical scholars and theologians alike have learned to distinguish the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith. It has been a painful lesson for both the church and scholarship. The distinction between the two figures is the difference between a historical person who lived in a particular time and place…and a figure who has been assigned a mythical role, in which he descends from heaven to rescue humankind and, of course, eventually returns there.” (The Five Gospels, pp. 3-5)

Jesus Christ was sent by God to preach the Gospel and Torah to the Children of Israel. He was a Prophet and Messenger of God who claimed no divinity. He was transformed into God after his departure at the Council of Nicea, the pagan Emperor Constantine made the decree, yet Jesus said, “The Father is greater than I” (John 14:28) and “I can do nothing of my own authority” (John 5:30)

The “Christians” corrupted the teachings of Jesus after his disappearance; they replaced the Gospel of Jesus with the corrupted Gospel of Paul. Christianity today is indeed the Gospel of Paul, the corrupter of the Gospel of Jesus!

What is the significance for our faith and for our religious life, the fact that the Gospel of Paul is different from the Gospel of Jesus?

The attitude which Paul himself takes up toward the Gospel of Jesus is that he does not repeat it in the words of Jesus and does not appeal to its authority…. The fateful thing is that the Greek, the Catholic, and the Protestant theologies all contain the Gospel of Paul in a form which does not continue the Gospel of Jesus but displaces it.”

(Albert Schweitzer, The Quest for the Historical Jesus)

“Christianity began as a cult with almost wholly Pagan origins and motivations in the first century, “and by the fourth it had utterly turned its back on Paganism and repudiated every hint of. . . connection with it, loading it with contempt from that day to this.”

(The Pagan Christ, Tom Harper, pp. 51)

“The worship of suffering gods was to be found on all sides, and the belief in the torture of the victims in the rites of human sacrifice for the redemption from sin was very general. The gods Osiris, Attis,

Adonis, Dionysos, Herakles, Prometheus, and others, had all suffered for mankind; and thus, the Servant of Yahweh was also conceived as having to be wounded for’ men’s transgressions. But as I say, this conception had passed into the background in the days of Jesus.”

(The Paganism in Our Christiantiy, Arthur Weigall, 1928, p106)

The Christian doctrine of Atonement was greatly colored by the influence of the mystery religions, especially Mithraism.

(What is Christianity, by Yousuf Saleem, pp.87)

The false tendencies, born of centuries of deviations, ignorance, and malpractice, now took another form. Though they accepted their Prophets during their lives and practiced their teachings, after their deaths they introduced their own distorted ideas into their religions.

They adopted novel methods of worshipping God; some even took to the worship of their Prophets. They made the Prophets the incarnations of God or the sons of God; some associated their Prophets with God in His Divinity.

(Towards Understanding Islam, Abdul Ala Mawdudi, p.39)

𝐉𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐬 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐢𝐞.

The Jews of Palestine expected the arrival of a Prophet who would overthrow the Roman government and destroy the occupation, not to be crucified by them! Jesus made it clear that the purpose of his mission was to preach the Law and the Gospel (only) to the Children of Israel:

Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” (Mark 1:38)

But he said, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.” (Luke 4:43)

For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost. (Matthew 18:11, KJV only)

For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. (Luke 19:10)

But go ye and learn what [that] meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. (Matthew 9:13)

“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.

For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” (Matthew 5:17-18)

𝐉𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐮𝐧𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐢𝐞:

Jesus escaped crucifixion because he did not want to die, that was not the purpose of his mission, and GOD saved him. According to the Gospels, Jesus was quite unwilling to be crucified, or even stoned:

After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him. (John 7:1)

Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by. (John 8:59)

Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went thence unto a country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there continued with his disciples. (John 11:54)

And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou [wilt].

(Matthew 26:39, Luke 22:42)

Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; (Hebrews 5:7)

Confess [your] faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. (James 5:16)

The Bible teaches that false prophets must die:

The Jews and Romans never crucified Jesus, or else the mission would have failed, the Jews expected the Anointed One to be victorious the way David (the anointed) prevailed over his enemies; he was also betrayed by Ahithophel. Jesus could not have been the Messiah if he were executed. The Bible explicitly teaches that false prophets must die:

And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn [you] away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee. (Deuteronomy 13:5)

But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. (Deuteronomy 18:19)

The crucified Prophet is under God’s curse:

His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged [is] accursed of God;) that thy land be not defiled, which the LORD thy God giveth thee [for] an inheritance. (Deuteronomy 21:23)

𝐀𝐦𝐚𝐳𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐲, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐉𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐧 𝐚 𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐞:

The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. (Acts 5:30)

And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree: (Acts 10:39)

Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed [is] everyone that hangeth on a tree: (Galatians 3:13)

Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. (1 Peter 2:24)

The scholar Arthur Weigall describes that Osiris was crucified upon a tree, like many previous ‘man-gods’, the cross was not unique, its pagan symbol. The Jehovah Witnesses believe that Jesus was crucified upon a ‘stake’. But the ‘tree story’ was indeed plagiarized from the story of Osiris and Isis.

“The Popular and widespread religion of Osiris and Isis exercised considerable influence upon early Christianity, for these two great Egyptian deities, whose worship had passed into Europe were revered in Rome and in several other centers, where Christian communities were growing up.

Osiris and Isis, so runs the legend, were brother and sister and also husband and wife; but Osiris was murdered, his coffined body being thrown into the Nile, and shortly afterwards the widowed and exiled Isis gave birth to a son, Horus.

The coffin, meanwhile, was washed up on the Syrian coast, and became miraculously lodged in the trunk of a tree, so that Osiris, like other sacrificed gods, could be described as having been.’ slain and hanged on a tree.’

(The Paganism in Our Christianity, Arthur Weigall, 1928, p118)

The Destruction of Jerusalem occurred in 70 CE, and copies of the Torah were destroyed by the Romans. The Diocletian persecution (303 CE) is witness to the historical destruction of Jewish and Christian books. The Pauline Church destroyed the Scriptures of the Nazarenes which contained the original sayings of Jesus, because it contradicted the pagan trinity.

The Roman occupation was never destroyed, the Jews dispersed into various parts of the world after the ‘foretold’ Messiah failed to deliver them. The Nazarenes and Ebionites were disappointed when Jesus did not return; the Gospels record Jesus saying he would ‘return’ during the lifetime of his people (Matthew 16:28, Mark 9:1, Luke 9:27, Revelations 22:7, 12, 20) which sadly never happened. The prophecy failed.

How Christians fooled themselves in the eyes of Muslims concerning their beliefs.

Christians said Jesus is God, yet he died because the Jews and Romans killed him on the Cross. How then did Jesus die if he was God? How can a God be killed by the people he created by himself if Jesus died in his capacity as God?

Christians’ said Jesus is Son of God, yet he is also God at the same time. Is he then the son of himself and father of himself at the same time? When the son died on the Cross, the father also died, and when the father died on the Cross, the Son also died together with him, and then the world remained without any God for three days?

Christians said Jesus had a mother named Mary, and yet Jesus is God. Did Jesus as God existed before his biological Mother or did his mother who gave birth to him as God existed before her Son, Jesus?

If Mary existed before Jesus was born by her, then it means that Jesus was not in existence when his mother was alive, and therefore the Christians are telling the world that there was a time when their God named Jesus was not existing.

And if Jesus exists before his mother was born, how then is he the Son of Mary when he pre -existed already? And why did he undergo the process of Embryology right from his mother’s womb up to the time of his circumcision as written in Luke 2 v 21?

Christians said God sent his only begotten Son into the world in order to die for our Sin. Which means God (Jesus) was sending himself (Jesus) to die for the sins he can easily forgive? The first question is, which of the God died between the sender and the one that was sent? If the son died, and the father was alive, then are they still one and the same being?

Christians said Jesus who was God, ascended to heaven in bodily or human body of flesh and bones. Is he then there in heaven as God with this same human body he took from the earth? And is he still God or a human being living in heaven? Is God the Father also existing in human body in heaven?

Let Christians answer us.

Allah Knows Best.

References:

Trinity Refutation

Is Trinity True?

Who was Crucified on the Cross, what for and who for?

Does Zechariah 3:9 and Zechariah 13:7 prophesies that Jesus Christ must die for the sins of humanity?

Top 100 Reasons Jesus Was Never Crucified And Never Killed!!!

Does the Noble Quran (19:33) confirm Jesus’ crucifixion?

If Islam is true, why would Allah fake Jesus’s crucifixion and intentionally deceive people for 600 years only to later reveal this to Prophet Muhammed?

John 10:18 refuted

Did Jesus die for your Sins?