There are so many verifiable forgeries, inconsistencies and outright contradictions in the New Testament, that we know about, it causes one to wonder how many other lies that we don’t know about, just believed and taken for granted that they are solid truths, when they may be nothing of the sort. The Jews, though they had their differences, are made out to be the bad guys and the Romans are almost made to seem like the good guys. All throughout history the Jews are persecuted and seen as the ones who crucified and rejected the savior of the world, Jesus.
As the saying goes, “history is written by the winners” — and the winners are not always truth-tellers.
Pilate, as the story goes, didn’t believe that Jesus had committed any crime worthy of execution. It seems that he didn’t even believe that Jesus was a king. From Pilate’s point of view, Jesus was being accused of leading an insurrection and for setting himself up to be a king. These are crimes that Jesus’ enemies knew the Romans would execute him for — at least this is what the authors lead us to believe. According to the story, written by Greek authors, Pilate gave in to the pressures of Jesus’ Jewish enemies, “washed his hands” of the execution of the innocent man, and placed the blame for Jesus’ death on the Jews. Additionally, they supposedly said, let his blood be upon us and upon our children.
An Alternative Story
According to the Koran, Jesus wasn’t even crucified but it was someone else who died in his place who looked like him. The Muslims revered Jesus as a righteous man and a prophet sent from God, among other things. According to some, this was written in their holy book because he had been seen in their country after his supposed crucifixion. If this is the case, then there were a lot of forged stories in the Gospels and the book of Acts, which might explain many of the inconsistencies, including the fact that the last chapter of Mark was nearly a complete forgery, written decades or maybe ever centuries after it was originally written.
There are stories of Jesus traveling to distant countries, being married and having children, dying a natural death and being buried in a tomb marked with the name he was called in that country. It is said that Jesus even preached in other countries, and churches were set up in his name. In fact, there are even people who claim to be descendants of Jesus.
These stories lead to the possibility that Jesus may have actually survived the execution of the Romans instead of being raised from the dead; he may have fled to another country instead of ascending to heaven; was married, had children and died as any other normal human, and was buried. What makes the stories in the Gospels any truer than what is written in the Koran or stories told and passed down by many who claim to have had eye witness accounts of Jesus and his life? After all, there are so many known forgeries, inconsistencies, and contradictions in the Gospels, who’s to say that there aren’t many more?
Would Leaders of the Early Church have Died for a Lie?
Christian apologetics use the defense that since Jesus’ followers were persecuted and died for their faith that this is proof in itself that Jesus died, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven — since they wouldn’t have died for a lie. The problem with this logic is that the Jews at that time were constantly rebelling against the Roman occupation and the Romans were always having to put down their attempts at expelling the Romans from their country. They may have died trying to win their independence from Rome.
Another problem with this view is that Christianity was growing in Rome and the early church was constantly at odds with Pauline Christianity because of doctrines and traditions that Paul and his followers had infused into Jesus’ teachings and radically changed much of the way of life Jesus put in motion.
What the early church saw as lies, changes to their belief system and the Roman occupation would surely have been enough to cause them to want to risk their lives and even die for.
The Gospels that were written much earlier than the gospels that the Greeks wrote, were confiscated and destroyed by the Roman Christian church, or left out of the canonized bible of authorized writings by the Church — if not lost or destroyed. The original Hebrew gospels written by Jesus’ own followers were the only gospels the early church accepted. These writings that they used exclusively were largely lost, destroyed or hidden in order that the Pauline church and Paul’s gospels could become the dominant scriptures of the new Christian church initiated by Paul. It is extremely likely that the Roman Christian church knew there was information in these earliest Gospels, written in Aramaic, that exposed things in the new canonical version that the churchmen at Rome wanted hidden or destroyed. The original Truth as taught to the early believers by Jesus, was more than enough for them to die for.
Though we likely will never know in this life the real Truth about if Jesus really died and God raised him from the dead and whether he ascended to heaven — or if he really survived it all, traveled to distant lands; was married, had offspring and died a natural death, there is enough information to compare from both sides of the issue to get a fairly close idea of what may have actually happened. Moreover, Science is constantly discovering more data that is changing our views of history.
The Consequences
One thing is for sure, the stories that have been told about Jesus by the Greek writers are inconsistent, contradictory and full of forgeries. The New Testament is far from inerrant and so difficult to understand that it must be interpreted by men with degrees and credentials. These theologians, teachers and churchmen can never agree on most interpretations and many interpretations are very convoluted and contradictory. It’s impossible for an ordinary seeker of truth to decide who has the correct interpretations or even if the interpretations are correct at all! Further yet, it is unclear if much of the writings in the Gospels of the New Testament were ever even part of the original manuscripts from the very beginning.
And now, more and more people are beginning to question which is the correct Christian religion, or if there even is one. As people grow intellectually and spiritually they are beginning to wake up to the fact that much that has been written is little more than forgeries and outright lies, stories fabricated to control and manipulate the masses and to cover up the true agendas and acts of the past. Christianity is constantly losing membership as more and more people are seeing through the falsehoods of past religions and are searching for something more authentic to fill the void that religion has left them with.
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