Category Archives: prophecy

And now, the Conclusion

Posted on by
5

It’s a game you can play all day.

  • First, choose a story – any story – from the gospels.
  • Look for all the metaphors in the story.
  • Note its allegorical elements.
  • Find either the myth from Jewish scripture and/or the part of Paul’s fantasy that the story is based on.
  • Read the story in light of these insights.

Once you’ve done this a few times – which you can, literally, till Kingdom come – you’ll realise that all the stories in the gospels are literary inventions. Stories that are replete with metaphor, reliant on earlier mythical sources and that read like allegory would be considered, in any other context, to be fiction.

And what will you conclude from this?

That just because the stories are from the gospels doesn’t grant them a free pass. Stories that fulfil all the criteria of fiction, as the gospel stories do, are elsewhere considered to be fiction: think Romulus, the non-canonical gospels, King Arthur, the Book of Mormon, the Chronicles of Narnia. So why not here?

That calling the stories ‘pericopes’, in an attempt to elevate their status, merely disguises the fact they are just stories.

You’d acknowledge that History, as in the recording of past events, is not written as allegory. It doesn’t depend on metaphor and symbolism to reveal hidden meanings. Historians reject or are highly sceptical of any accounts that depend on such literary techniques. They usually conclude these are not history, whatever else they might be.

You could, I suppose, try arguing that history in ancient times wasn’t the discipline it is now and did indeed incorporate elements from fiction. But you’d be wrong. Historical accounts of the first century have survived and do not confuse historical fact, however interpreted, with fiction. Writing that relies on allegory and hidden meanings is not considered to be history. You would then have to concede that the gospel narratives do not qualify as history. You would then be in agreement with the majority of scholars who think this.

Then you’d ask, why? Why, if Jesus was such an incredible guy, did so much have to be made up about him? You could, I guess, argue that an itinerant first-century preacher successfully manipulated events so that he fulfilled ‘prophecy’, complied, at least in Mark, with Paul’s (future) teaching and managed to make himself some sort of living breathing metaphor. Or you could conclude, applying Occam’s razor, that the stories are simply made up. And if you did, you’d be agreeing with Mark when he reveals that ‘everything is in parables’ (Mark 4:11).

You’d then ask yourself: if the miracles, the healings, the profundities, hyperbole, nativity tales, angels, demons, zombies, the transfiguration and much else besides are all fiction, then why not too the resurrection? Is it one of only a few episodes in the gospels – the crucifixion is often cited as another – that isn’t fiction? Is it the one of only a few stories that’s factual and true? The empty tomb, the angels, the sightings by Mary, the disciples and Thomas, the fish breakfast, the ascension: are these historical when everything else is not? You’d have to ask on what criteria you were salvaging this particular story as historical when all that precedes it patently is not.

Then you’d have to start wondering if there really was a Jesus. The versions of him who appear in the gospels are constructs, characters created from metaphor, Old Testament stories and the teaching of the early Christian cult. If there really was a man who trailed around Palestine with an apocalyptic message, he is long gone. Indeed, he had vanished by the time the stories about him that we know as the gospels came to be written.

Scripture Explained

Posted on by
Reply

In truth, when the Lord said, ‘love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,’ he meant by taking his gospel to them and speaking the truth unto them in love. This, after all, is the highest form of love: sharing the Good News of Jesus. For surely there is no way we can really love someone who opposes us. Therefore this cannot be what the saviour meant when he commanded us to love our enemies. Evidently, he made use of hyperbole to encourage us in our daily journey with him by making salvation known to those whose sin will only lead them unto Hell. There comes a point nonetheless when we must recognise that there are many enemies who will not accept the Word. These we must oppose, denigrate and condemn as the Holy Spirit directs. Does not scripture itself expect as much?   

When the saviour declared that we can’t serve God and money, he again spoke metaphorically. He did not mean the wealthy cannot enter the Kingdom of God. No, what he refers to is priorities. It is perfectly possible to be wealthy and a follower of Jesus so long as we put Jesus first. Where in the world would we be if we had to give away our money and possessions?

When the saviour commanded us to sell all we have to provide for the poor, he did not mean in this world which stands already condemned. Rather, he speaks in metaphor and refers to the emptying of our very selves to better follow him.

When the saviour said we must take up our crosses to follow him even unto death, he likewise spake metaphorically. He loves each according to that which he is able to bear and seeks to bless those who loves him. He speaks here therefore of our dedication to him. He encourages us to ‘die’ to our selves so that we might allow him to transform us into new creations worthy of himself.

When the Scriptures says we become new creations, it does not mean literally nor that it will happen in the twinkling of an eye. No, rather it refers to our being a ‘work in progress’. The Lord of miracle and all creation does not wish to impose on our free will by transforming us instantly. Instead, he seeks to test and purify us in a long almost imperceptible process. Only in heaven will we attain perfection.

When the saviour promised that the End of the Age was nigh for those who stood before him, he did not mean it was nigh for those who stood before him. No, for this was a secret message, a mystery, for those who would worship him in what would be, for those who stood before him, the distant future. What he meant was that when the time was right, when diverse conditions had been met – some of which would only be made known after our Lord’s time on Earth – the Son of Man would descend from the heavens to inaugurate the final judgement and the Kingdom of God.

When the scriptures declare that the Kingdom of God is intended for here on Earth, it speaks only metaphorically, for God promises those who have been saved by the power of Jesus’s blood that they will live forever with him in Heaven itself. This is a mystery known only to those who exegete the Bible correctly and ignore the plain and literal meaning of what it says.

So this, brethren, is how to deal with scripture. You need only apply one simple rule as you read it: if it appears to make demands of you, it is not actually doing so. It is either metaphor, hyperbole or both and must not be taken literally. On the other hand, when scripture is not making demands of you, everything, however unlikely it seems, is real, true and factual.

He who has ears, let him hear.

Ramifications

Posted on by
2

I started writing this blog as a way of working out just what it was I’d believed prior to my realisation there was no God. While this ‘revelation’ caused the whole Christian edifice to collapse, I still had a lot of conditioning to deal with. I had been taught over the years that, like every other human being, I was worthless without God/Jesus. I needed first to regain some self-worth.

I had hang-ups too about how I spent my time and money. The cult had assured me that God was obsessively interested in how I used both. Did my use of my time and money further his kingdom? Was I using my time wisely? Tithing? Giving my money to alleviate suffering? I knew buying CDs and comic books didn’t really fit the bill, but I sinfully persisted in spending my hard-earned cash on them, when I had any to spare after taking care of my family and giving to the church and charity. Then the guilt! How could I be so thoughtless, so selfish? I had let God down badly (specially if I’d bought some of the devil’s music.)

The guilt was self-induced of course. I think I have a personality type that is prone to feeling guilty – it’s been the predominant emotion of my life – but the Christianity I encountered exacerbated it. I still struggle with guilt, not over any great ‘sin’ but in terms of how much I help others and whether my use of my money is self-indulgent and wasteful.

Despite now having no truck with the idea of sin (which is a worthless religious concept) I do sometimes catch myself worrying that I’ll be made to suffer in the next life (which doesn’t exist either) for who I am and my ‘lifestyle’ in this world. Completely irrational, I know, but the conditioning runs deep. It hasn’t been fully rooted out yet.

On the plus side, I can now see the Bible for what it is: a collection of stories, those in the so-called New Testament designed, as they declare quite openly, to promote the beliefs of the ancient Jesus-cult.

I realised that in an ocean of myth, legend and invention I had been taught to regard the gospels as an island of historical fact. Yet two of them are prefaced with patent fantasy – the incompatible nativity stories – and conclude with equally incompatible resurrection and ascension narratives. Yet I was expected to trust that everything in between these make-believe beginnings and endings – the miracles, the visions, the speeches, the fulfilled prophecy, the false promises and unlikely new prophecies – were all somehow factual and true.

No longer gullible, I came to see this as a preposterous expectation. Sandwiched between fantasy and illusion the gospels are all myth and legend. It’s pointless to argue, as apologists do – and quite a few sceptical scholars too – that we can discern the real Jesus among the invention:

that we can make something worth considering out of the discrepant resurrection appearances;

that because one or two historical figures are written into the story it must therefore be historical throughout;

that we can sift the factual wheat from the metaphorical chaff;

that there is a kernel to the tales that can be teased out from the fantastical accretions;

that contradictions can be explained (away) and by sleight of hand made compatible;

that somehow believing all of this fantasy material can ensure eternal life.

None of these things can be done, any more than they can with the legendary tales of Romulus, Buddha and King Arthur. Legends, are legends are legends. Stories are stories are stories.

Would I have been happier never to have been a Christian, never to have committed my life to Jesus? Almost certainly. But we are all where we are. Christianity and I have a history. It’s probably left me scarred, and perhaps you too. At least I escaped it to live my life as I needed to, even if I am still working my way through its legacy.

God and the Domino Effect

Posted on by
6

Once free of belief in God, everything that follows collapses.

No God means –

   No divinely inspired scripture, no sin, no salvation, no need of salvation, no repentance or divine forgiveness (and no need of these things either), no grace.

   No supernatural, no heaven or hell, no Satan, angels or demons, no Holy Spirit, no effective prayer, no miracles, no judgement, no eternal life.

  No Son of God, no God Incarnate, no prophecy, no atonement, and, most significantly, no resurrection. 

According to the Bible, God resurrected Jesus (Romans 6:4; Galatians 1:1; Acts 2:22 etc). Therefore, no God = no resurrection.

So, where did all these ideas that, once God ceases to exist, fall like dominoes? Answer: the only place ideas ever come from: the human mind. Everything ever associated with gods, and with YHWH (Old and New versions) is entirely human invention. This is the only logical, rational conclusion.

  Paul’s vision of what he took to be the Risen Christ and his consequent theology: the product of a tortured imagination.

  The resurrection appearances supposedly experienced by Cephas and others: within their own heads (grief-induced hallucinations, dreams, trances, emotional agitation). Or: an emotional response to some natural phenomenon such as bright lights.

  The stories of Jesus that these visions inspired: invented by creative writers imaginatively applying ‘prophecy’ imagined by earlier writers.

  If he existed, Jesus’ Messiah complex: worked up entirely within his own religion-soaked brain.

  His conclusion that the end of the age was nigh and that he would be king of the new order (assuming he really did think this): the result of wishful thinking, all in his imagination.

Subsequent additions to the Christian experience: the Trinity, guesswork about the Messiah’s delayed return, the panoply of saints, heresy, blasphemy, ‘God’s standards’, the inerrancy of scripture, apologetics and, coming full circle, conversion experiences. All creations of the human imagination and emotions.

With no actual God, this is the only viable explanation of the phenomenon that is religion. Human beings did it.

 

After the Gospels

Posted on by
2

None of the New Testament documents written prior to AD70 – those by Paul – contain any of the sayings, miracles or activities attributed to the Earthly Jesus in the later gospels. They don’t reflect anything of the oral tradition, first proposed in the 18th century. Those same gospels don’t reflect much of it either; the only ‘good news’ passed on by word of mouth was of a transcendent celestial Godman seen in visions. There is no evidence of any other. The later gospels incorporate the visions experienced by Cephas and others in their resurrection stories.

What then of the letters and books written after the appearance of the gospels? Do they reference, quote or base their teaching on the pre-crucifixion aspects of the Earthly Jesus of the gospels? Or do they, like Paul, concentrate solely on demonstrating the heavenly Jesus is the Messiah on the basis of what can be found in Jewish scriptures? You’d think that, with the gospels in circulation by then, that It’d be the former. But you’d be wrong.

Let’s make a quick survey of New Testament books post AD70. I’m taking their composition to be those listed here.

Hebrews (composed anywhere between 60 and 115 by unknown author[s])

Hebrews describes the Messiah as a heavenly high priest. Everything the writers ascribe to him is taken not from the gospels, nor an oral tradition on which the gospels are supposedly based, but from ancient Jewish writing; what we know as the Old Testament. Every single reference is from this source. Read the book for yourself and take note of the footnotes. Like gospel Jesus, Jesus the High Priest is constructed from snippets lifted from the Old Testament.

Revelation (composed anywhere between 70-110)

In Revelation, warrior Jesus has a lot to say, most of it quotations from the Old Testament. None of it is derived from the gospels nor the oral tradition on which the gospels are supposedly based. John’s ‘revelation’ is a fantasy constructed around ancient ‘prophecy’. Again, read the book for yourself and take note of the footnotes. Like gospel-Jesus, Jesus the Great Warrior is constructed from snippets lifted from the Old Testament.

1 Peter (70-100) and 2 Peter (125-150)

You’d think the letters purportedly written by the disciple Peter (or Cephas), the man who, according to the gospels spent three years with Jesus, would be full of his teaching, the mysteries he explained only to his closest followers, reports of his miracles or any of his other activities. But no. The best he can do across the two letters (written by two different people, decades apart, neither of them Peter the disciple) is this:

For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. He received honour and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain (2 Peter 1: 16).

Remarkably, this fake Peter recalls an event which never happened: when Jesus glowed like a lightbulb as two long-dead prophets beamed down from Heaven. It is, however, finally a reference to a gospel story. But then, doesn’t the author disparage ‘cleverly devised stories’ in this same passage? What else could he be referring to if not the gospels? We find a similar warning in 1 Timothy (and again in Titus 3: 9):

…command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer or to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. Such things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God’s work – which is by faith (1 Timothy 1: 4, written by a fraud pretending to be Paul).

These New Testament writers, even when they seem aware of gospel myths and their endless genealogies don’t approve of them. Perhaps that is why they prefer to ignore them, deriving proof of the Messiah from ancient Jewish scriptures instead. Every other reference to Jesus in the Peter epistles is from the Old Testament. How strange for someone pretending to know the man in the flesh.

We could go on to look at other books of the New Testament – for example, that written by ‘James’, supposedly Jesus’ brother – but this post is already too long. Rest assured if we did, we would see the same thing: none of the information about Jesus is derived from the gospels or the oral tradition on which the gospels are said by apologists to be based. There was no oral tradition, apart from stories of visions. The gospels are literary recreations – allegories – of those visions. They were not well received by the other writers of the New Testament who either ignore or disparage them. All that mattered to these early cultists were ‘revelations’ directly from the Lord and the Old Testament ‘prophecies’ that validated them.

No God and the Domino Effect

Posted on by
81

This a response to Don Camp’s comment on my post The Evil of Christianity, in which he tries to isolate ‘the crux’ of our disagreement about the Faith.

You start, Don, from the assumption that there is a God. I, on the other hand, have considered the evidence and concluded that in all probability there isn’t one. Certainly not the Christian God. There may be a god out there somewhere that has no interest in human beings and their affairs, though I doubt it. As far as we humans are concerned such a deity is as good as non-existent, being entirely hypothetical. If it is out there, it certainly won’t be offended at my saying so.

Once I realised some years ago that a personal God did not exist a number of other things followed (or rather, collapsed):

No God means no Son of God or God Incarnate, no Saviour or Christ.

No God means no resurrection (which Paul makes clear was a work of God).

No God means no Holy Spirit.

No Holy Spirit means no regeneration of individuals to become new creations in God (you only have to look at Christians today to see this is the case.)

No God means no grand Salvation plan.

No God means no Heaven, no Final Judgement, no Kingdom of Heaven of Earth, no Eternal Life.

No God means the universe can’t have been created by him.

No God means no manipulation of evolution, no intervention in human history and no prophecy of things to come.

No God means that the world would be just as we find it: messy, beautiful, dangerous, turbulent, indifferent.

No God means prophecy is man-made and comes to pass at no greater rate than chance allows (i.e. practically zero.)

No God means conversations with ‘him’, revelations from him and visions of him are all imagined, generated by and within the human brain, which works in mysterious ways.

No God means no God-given morality. Morality is, as you say, culturally determined and so may and does change over time. (You can see this in the Bible itself where morality supposedly handed down by God for all time evolves throughout the Old Testament and into the new.)

No God means there is neither Sin nor Righteousness. These are religious concepts. The whole spectrum of human behaviour, from destructive to altruistic, is demonstrated by believers and non-believers alike.

No God means assertions like ‘the issue turns on what I perceive as good for me versus what God declares is good for me’ are illusory. What is good for you is what you have worked out, even if you think God had a hand in it. A supernatural being who doesn’t exist cannot be responsible for your well-being, though your church and the bible undoubtedly contributed to your conditioning.

No God means individuals must work out their own meaning and purpose. Some do, some don’t, as you observe, Don. This is as true of believers as it is for non-believers. Many atheists have managed it, or not, without having it imposed by religion. And despite what you say, Christianity is a religion. It is the epitome of religion.

No God means none of the Abrahamic religions are true and therefore Christianity and its ‘holy’ book, being based on an invalid premise, must be false. Most of the posts on this here blog are about demonstrating this fact.

No God means all gods are man-made, not all gods except one.

The crux of the matter is you believe in God while I see how unlikely it is that there is one. I’d agree with you if I could, Don, but then we’d both be wrong.

An Anonymous Author Writes…

Posted on by
1

A little while ago I came across a group of enthusiasts who met locally to celebrate the chap who’d founded their group a few decades back. I paid them a few visits to see what they were about and when they learnt I was capable of stringing a few sentences together, asked if I would write a short biography of their Founder. Being an obliging sort, I said I would, not realising the challenges that lay ahead.

For a start, none of them had actually known the guy. He’d died soon after the group had started and none of the current membership had ever met him. Worse, they weren’t even sure what his real name was. Some said ‘Josh’, some ‘Jess’ and others ‘Manny’. They thought a guy who had known him was still alive, but couldn’t remember his name either. ‘Rocky’, they said, or maybe ‘Tiny’.

All the same, I’d said I’d have a go at the biography and didn’t want to disappoint them so I set about searching the Web. I soon discovered that both ‘Rocky’ and ‘Tiny’ had passed away, about the same time six or so years earlier. There was nothing online about any Rocky but there was quite a bit about Tiny. Or rather by him. He’d left a whole series of posts, mostly about he’d been contacted by the founder from beyond the grave. He said over and over that he could prove it really was the Founder he was channelling because, apparently, it said so in some old stories. He quoted these all over the place.

All weird stuff, but all I had to go on.

So I set to. I tried to make as much sense as I could of Tiny’s writing. I made stories out of his rambling, imagining what the Founder must’ve been like from the things Tiny claimed he’d told him. Like Tiny, I used old stories to fill out the narrative and included loads of metaphor. People love finding hidden meanings in things. I stopped short though at having the Founder come back from the dead at the end, not even metaphorically. Tiny insisted he had done but no-one in their right minds would believe it.

In the end, I thought I’d made a good job of it. The guys in the group thought so too. They were so pleased they suggested I publish it on Amazon, which I did. To my surprise, it started selling really well and got some very good reviews (and only a couple of poor ones.) To my annoyance, though, it wasn’t not long before a bunch of opportunists took to writing novellas about the Founder themselves, and (the nerve of it) lifting whole chunks of my story and ‘correcting the errors’! Errors? How could there be errors in something I’d made up? They even used my technique, lifted from Tiny, of borrowing bits from older books and making them fit their version. Their ‘Founder’ turned out to be different from mine, though not, I’m convinced, anywhere near as good.

I’ve decided I was going to retire from this writing lark. It’s too competitive and there are too many plagiarists around. Let them get on with their inferior sequels. Everybody will remember I was the first, and the best. Won’t they?

Announcement

Posted on by
35

The story so far…

While he used to argue vociferously that the gospels are history – remember they must be history because Pilate and Herod are in them? – our resident apologist has backed away from this position. He says now they’re not history as such but are only ‘like’ history, which means they’re ‘historical but not written as histories’, whatever this means. He derides the likes of Ehrman and Tabor for their inability to recognise this (newly invented) fact. These no-nothings make a category error when they confuse the gospels with history.

I suspect Don wants to reclassify the gospels because he recognises they make rather poor history. It’s safer to pretend they’re designed to be something else, something that doesn’t require external evidence to verify it: ‘announcement’, for example.

This, however, merely sidesteps the question of where the gospel writers got their information from. Don has previously argued that the gospels are based on eye-witness reports, Peter’s dictation to Mark and a reliable oral tradition. But conjecture like this is only necessary if the gospels are history. If they’re not, but are ‘announcement’ instead, then their sources need  be neither historically reliable nor demonstrable.

If the accounts are ‘announcement’ rather than history then where does their ahistorical, announced information come from? Fortunately, Mark gives us a clue:

To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that “‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven’” (Mark 4:11-12, referencing and misquoting Isaiah 6:9)

In fact, the gospels’ ‘announcement’ is conveyed by a story constructed from supposed prophecies from Jewish scripture and the immediate concerns of the early cult communities, expressed in metaphors of the gospel writers’ making. All of the internal evidence supports this conclusion. In fact, the source of the gospels’ material is the same as Paul’s and that of other writers in the New Testament. Here’s how the great, self-appointed apostle puts it: 

My gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ [is] according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret for long ages, but now is made visible through the prophetic scriptures and is made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, for the obedience of faith. (Romans 16:25-26)

Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. (1 Cor 15:3-8)

Compare this with:

Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. (Gospel Jesus in Luke 14:21)

He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. (Gospel Jesus in Luke 24:25-27)

He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. (Gospel Jesus in Luke 24: 25-27)

(Paul) reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah,” he said. (Fictional Paul in Acts 17:2-3)

The revelation of the Messiah and the secrets and mysteries revealed to Paul and the other apostles are ‘explained and proved’ in their entirety by ancient scripture. But, these scriptures in and of themselves do not prophesy the kind of Messiah the early apostles envisaged. Rather, the scriptures are retrospectively pressed into service to match the revelations of the Messiah that Paul and the others experienced.

This is Don’s ‘announcement’: secrets and mysteries founded not on history but on revelation expressed through metaphor and the misapplication of scripture.

Christmas Quiz!

Posted on by
1

See how you do in this year’s Christmas Quiz. Most of the questions are related to subjects we’ve discussed during the year.

  1. Which of the events listed are literary realisations of so-called prophecies from Jewish scripture?

a) The virgin conception and birth

b) Bethlehem as Jesus’ birth place

c) Herod’s massacre of the Innocents

d) The ‘Holy Family’s’ flight into Egypt 

  1. Which of the events listed are metaphorical?

a) God’s insemination of Mary with Holy Semen

b) Pregnant Mary visiting Elizabeth, herself pregnant with the child she’d christen ‘John The Baptist’ (sarcasm, for those who can’t tell)

c) The visit of the shepherds with their symbolic gifts

d) The visit of the magi with their symbolic gifts

  1. Which of the events listed are sentimental and/or dramatic invention on the part of the gospel writers?

a) The archangel Gabriel visiting Mary

b) Joseph’s dream convincing him Mary hadn’t been sleeping around behind his back

c) The no room at the inn scenario

d) Jesus being laid in a manger

  1. Which of the events listed are historical fact?

a) The Roman census that entailed pregnant women trailing off to their husband’s ancestral home

b) The angelic host appearing unto shepherds

c) The Star of Bethlehem hovering over Jesus’ place of birth / home

d) Jesus’ birth occur during the reign of Herod the Great (died 4 BCE) and while Quirinius was governor of Syria (appointed 6 CE)

         5. What do the answers to questions 1-4 tell us about the rest of the      gospel stories?

a) They’re equally fanciful

b) They’re all metaphorical

c) They’re invented, largely based on ancient Jewish scripture

d) There’s nothing historical about them either

        6. What do the answers to questions 1-5 tell us about those who believe these stories to be factual and true?

a) They’re gullible

b) They’ve switched off their critical faculties

c) They believe whatever they’re told

d) They feel compelled to argue that all of the fanciful stories about Jesus are true

 

Answers:

  1. Which of the events listed are literary realisations of so-called prophecies from Jewish scripture?

All of them are based on what Matthew found in Jewish scripture and shoe-horned into his Jesus fantasy.

  1. Which of the events listed are metaphorical?

All of them. You don’t think such blatantly symbolic events really happened, do you?

  1. Which of the events listed are sentimental and/or dramatic invention on the part of the gospel writers?

Oh come on, what else could they be?

  1. Which of the events listed are historical fact?

None of them.

  1. What do the answers to questions 1-4 tell us about the rest of the gospel stories?

They tell us the gospel writers – Matthew and Luke as far as the Christmas stories are concerned – were more than happy to invent stuff for metaphorical purposes and to make it look like prophecy was being fulfilled when it wasn’t. If they were prepared to do this for the Nativity them why not for all of their other stories, the resurrection included?

  1. What do the answers to questions 1-5 tell us about those who believe these stories to be factual and true?

Yup, they’re all of those things. And they won’t be happy till they’ve inflicted their damn fool views on you too.

So how’d you do? Well done to everyone who got full marks. Try to do better next time the rest of you. It really wasn’t hard.

A very merry Christmas to both my readers. See you on the other side.

If the Gospels were History…

Posted on by
97

If the gospels were written by eye-witnesses, we should see the use of the first person singular or plural: ‘I saw this happen’, ‘we heard him say that’ and so on. This would not necessarily mean that the author was present, just as he isn’t in the ‘we’ passages in Acts, but it is what we should reasonably expect if the authors were involved in at least some of the events. There are no such instances in any of the gospels.

We would see gospel authors identifying themselves, at the start of their accounts, for example. We don’t.

We would not see an eye-witness lifting significant amounts of material from someone who wasn’t an eye-witness. Yet Matthew plagiarises Mark, ‘improves’ it and passes it off as his own. This isn’t eye-witness behaviour and it is not how eye-witness testimony works.

We would see the gospel writers cite their sources: Mark would tell us he’s recording Peter’s recollections and that he witnessed Jesus’ trial personally (there’s no evidence he did either, speculation from centuries later notwithstanding.) Luke would tell us which accounts he’s referring to in Luke 1:1-2. While we now know he too plagiarises Mark and quite probably Matthew, he doesn’t admit it. We would know the source of events that took place behind closed doors such as Jesus’ interview with Pilate.

We could expect contemporaneous accounts independent of the gospels, recording the miraculous events they claim occurred; the wandering star, the earthquakes, the hours long eclipse, the healings and controlling of nature, the resurrected zombies, the ripping of the 35 foot temple curtain, the resurrection of an executed criminal. Instead there’s nothing, not even in later works such as those of Josephus (because all of these events are metaphorical).

We should expect Cephas (known as Simon Peter in the later gospels) to have recorded his experiences with Jesus. Yet, when he gets his chance, in the letters he supposedly wrote (1 and 2 Peter), he makes no mention of them at all.

We should expect the Christians prior to Paul to have recorded some of these episodes. Some argue that they did, in a document now called Q, but this precious document was, unbelievably, soon lost or abandoned. Alternatively, they may not have seen the need to write anything down because they believed the world was about to end very soon. Either way – no accounts from them about ‘the history of Jesus’.

We should expect Paul to mention aspects of the Jesus story in his letters. After all, he claims to have persecuted Christians for some time before his conversion and to have met and conversed with Cephas for 15 days. Yet he conveys no details at all. Instead, he claims all he knows of Jesus derives from visions and ‘revelations’ in his head. His account of the bread and wine ritual informs Mark’s story of the Last Supper, not the other way round; it is – Paul says clearly – another ‘revelation’ in his head.

We should expect there to be details about Jesus’ earthly life in other books of the NT. Instead we find only a celestial high priest in Hebrews and a warrior Christ in the supposed visions of Revelation. Nothing historical here.

We should, if the gospels are history, expect them to read like history. History, including that written at a similar time does not include angels, devils and apparitions, magic stars, virgin births, miracles and supernatural healings. Where it does, as in Constantine’s vision of the cross, such elements are seen for what they are: myth, not history.

We would not expect the central figure of the gospels to be constructed almost entirely from parts of older religious writing. This is not a technique used in genuine historical records.

We would not expect to find the level of metaphor and mythic tropes – magic, supernatural characters, returns from the dead – in what is ostensibly an informational text. History does not rely heavily on metaphor and symbolic tropes the way the gospels do. There is no ‘logic of history’ in the Jesus story.

We would expect to see geographical and political details relayed reasonably accurately. Instead, Jesus’ trial arrangements are highly improbable; they do not conform with what is known about Roman trials – and we know a lot, because of the records they kept. Jesus would not have had a personal interview with an indecisive Pilate, who would not have consulted the mob, would not have sent Jesus to the Jewish authorities or Herod and would not have offered to exchange Jesus for Barabbas (there was no ‘tradition’ of exchanging one criminal for another) and so on. From what we know of him, Pilate would have authorised the execution without a qualm, as he did for many other would-be messiahs. The rest – the gospel details – are drama, Jewish scripture brought to life with added metaphor. Fiction, in other words.