Godless (42 page)
The motives of the NIV and LB translators are made clear in the preface to each book. The NIV, translated by a team of evangelical scholars (instigated by the National Association of Evangelicals), is introduced with these words: “We offer this version of the bible to him in whose name and for whose glory it has been made. We pray that it will lead many into a better understanding of the Holy Scriptures and a fuller knowledge of Jesus Christ the incarnate Word, of whom the Scriptures so faithfully testify.” If there is a contradiction in the New Testament, then it could not “faithfully testify” anything. The NIV team was extremely selective in choosing its scholars: “[T]he translators were united in their commitment to the authority and infallibility of the bible as God’s Word in written form. They believe that it contains the divine answer to the deepest needs of humanity, that it sheds light on our path in a dark world, and that it sets forth the way to our eternal well-being.” This is not the agenda of a team of objective scholars. This is evangelism. If there is a contradiction in the bible, the NIV translators, who were confessedly committed
a priori
to infallibility, could never see it! (Some skeptics might be tempted to use the phrase, “There is none so blind as he who will not see.” I would never stoop to such
ad hominem
tactics.)
a priori
to infallibility, could never see it! (Some skeptics might be tempted to use the phrase, “There is none so blind as he who will not see.” I would never stoop to such
ad hominem
tactics.)
The Living Bible does not claim to be a strict translation. It is a paraphrase by Dr. Kenneth Taylor, who admits in his preface: “[W]hen the Greek or Hebrew is not clear, then the theology of the translator is his guide, along with his sense of logic... The theological lodestar in this book has been a rigid evangelical position.”
The theology of the translator is his guide.
In Acts 9:7 there is no lack of clarity:
phones
is “voice.” But if your “theology” dictates that the bible must contain no errors, then a perfectly simple translation that results in a contradiction becomes “unclear,” and you have to resort to sleight of hand to repair the damage to your theology.
The theology of the translator is his guide.
In Acts 9:7 there is no lack of clarity:
phones
is “voice.” But if your “theology” dictates that the bible must contain no errors, then a perfectly simple translation that results in a contradiction becomes “unclear,” and you have to resort to sleight of hand to repair the damage to your theology.
What if an atheistic or skeptical organization were to translate the bible, putting together a team of staunch materialists, systematically excluding conservative or evangelical scholars, announcing a “rigid skeptical position,” claiming to be “united in our commitment to the fallibility of the bible,” and advertising the “hope that this translation will lead many astray from faith into a solid doubt of the reliability of Scriptures?” The evangelicals would scream! So would real scholars. Such prejudice clearly would taint the objectivity of the process.
One of the most popular evangelical verses is Revelation 3:20 (I used this often in my own evangelism), where Jesus is quoted as saying: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice (
phones
), and open the door, I will come into him.” The genitive case is used here, as it is in Act 9:7, yet the NIV uses “voice” and the LB says “hears me calling.” Neither uses “knocking” or “sound.” These evangelical translators are not consistent. They only invoke the
ad hoc
(and faulty) genitive-case argument where it suits their inerrancy agenda.
phones
), and open the door, I will come into him.” The genitive case is used here, as it is in Act 9:7, yet the NIV uses “voice” and the LB says “hears me calling.” Neither uses “knocking” or “sound.” These evangelical translators are not consistent. They only invoke the
ad hoc
(and faulty) genitive-case argument where it suits their inerrancy agenda.
Let’s face it. Acts 9:7 and Acts 22:9 are contradictory. Writers make mistakes. In their confessed missionary zeal, the translators of the NIV and the Living Bible and other evangelical apologists have dishonestly tampered with the meaning of scripture, using a phony argument (a
phone
argument!) in order to deceive the readers and disguise an embarrassing discrepancy in their so-called “holy book.”
phone
argument!) in order to deceive the readers and disguise an embarrassing discrepancy in their so-called “holy book.”
Chapter Fifteen
Did Jesus Exist?
In all the years I was a Christian minister, I never preached a sermon about the evidence for a historic Jesus. There was no need for such a sermon. I stood before many congregations and associated with many ministers, evangelists and pastors, and not one of us ever spoke about the possibility that Jesus was a legend or that his story is more myth than history. We had heard, of course, that there were academic skeptics, but we dismissed them as a tiny fringe of quacks and atheists.
In my four years of religious study at Azusa Pacific College, I took many bible classes—an entire course about the book of Romans, another very useful class about Hebrew wisdom literature, and so on—but I was offered only one course in Christian apologetics. It was called “Christian Evidences” and I found it to be the least useful of all my studies. Not that it was a bad class, but it seemed so unnecessary. It provided an answer to a question nobody was asking. Since I preferred evangelism to academics, I found the information mildly interesting and somewhat confirming (though my faith did not need such confirmation), and mainly irrelevant. The class did not delve deeply into the ancient documents. We recited the roster of early historians and read some of the church fathers, and then promptly forgot them all. I figured that Christian scholars had already done the homework and that our faith rested on a firm historical foundation, and that if I ever needed to look it up I could turn to some book somewhere for the facts. I just never needed to look it up.
But when I became a freethinker, I did decide to look it up and was very surprised at what I found—or more precisely, at what I didn’t find. I am now convinced that the Jesus story is a combination of myth and legend, mixed with a little bit of real history unrelated to Jesus. Here’s what I found out:
1. There is no external historical confirmation for the New Testament stories.
2. The New Testament stories are internally contradictory.
3. There are natural explanations for the origin of the Jesus legend.
4. The miracle reports make the story unhistorical.
The Jesus of history is not the Jesus of the New Testament. A number of scholars
21
and writers, known informally as “mythicists,” insist that Jesus did not exist at all. Others think there might have existed a self-proclaimed messiah figure named Yeshua (there were many others) on whom the New Testament story was loosely based. But even so, the latter group considers the exaggerated, miracle-working, resurrecting Jesus caricature in the Gospels to be a legend, a literary character produced by a later generation of believers. The legend position amounts to the same thing as myth to most believers, who worship only the Jesus of the Gospels. The Gospels, written many decades after the fact, are a blend of fact and fantasy—historical fiction—and although the proportions of the blend may differ from scholar to scholar, no credible historians take them at 100 percent face value.
21
and writers, known informally as “mythicists,” insist that Jesus did not exist at all. Others think there might have existed a self-proclaimed messiah figure named Yeshua (there were many others) on whom the New Testament story was loosely based. But even so, the latter group considers the exaggerated, miracle-working, resurrecting Jesus caricature in the Gospels to be a legend, a literary character produced by a later generation of believers. The legend position amounts to the same thing as myth to most believers, who worship only the Jesus of the Gospels. The Gospels, written many decades after the fact, are a blend of fact and fantasy—historical fiction—and although the proportions of the blend may differ from scholar to scholar, no credible historians take them at 100 percent face value.
Whether myth or legend, the life of Jesus is not corroborated. Not a single word about Jesus appears outside of the New Testament in the entire first century, even though many writers documented firsthand the early Roman Empire in great detail, including careful accounts of the time and place where Jesus supposedly taught.
Many Christian writers do claim, however, that there is overwhelming historical testimony for Jesus. At face value, the number of evidences does appear to be ample. Looking outside of the New Testament, many texts in apologetics will include a long list of names and documents that claim to confirm the story of Jesus: Josephus, Suetonius, Pliny, Tacitus, Thallus, Mara Bar-Serapion, Lucian, Phlegon, Tertullian, Justin Martyr, Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp, Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus, Origen, Cyprian and others. If you simply rattle off this list, you might be forgiven for saying, “Wow, that settles it!”
But then, if you ask a few questions you quickly realize that most of these names can be taken off the list. And if you scratch beneath the surface, they all have to be discarded. Some of these names are church fathers writing in the second to fourth centuries and are therefore too late to be considered reliable for first-century confirmation. Being church leaders, their objectivity is also questionable. These facts were not important to me as an evangelist nor would they raise any red flags in the minds of the average believer reading the average book of Christian “proofs.”
The list does, however, include some nonbelievers—Jewish and Roman writers who were likely not biased towards Christianity—so it would appear that there can be little question about the historical confirmation of Jesus. Still, it is rarely if ever pointed out that none of these reports dates from the time of Jesus or even the following generation. Jesus supposedly lived sometime between 4 B.C.E. and 30 C.E., but there is not a single contemporary historical mention of Jesus, not by Romans or by Jews, not by believers or by unbelievers, not during his entire lifetime. The earliest candidate for extrabiblical confirmation, one small paragraph in Josephus, dates to the mid 90s C.E., which is more than 60 years after Jesus supposedly died. Even this turns out to be bogus. The lack of contemporary corroboration does not disprove his existence, of course, but it certainly casts great doubt on the historicity of a man who supposedly had a great impact on the world. Someone should have noticed.
The early years of the Roman Republic is one of most historically documented times in history. One of the writers alive during the time of Jesus was Philo-Judaeus (sometimes known as Philo of Alexandria). John E. Remsburg, in
The Christ,
writes:
The Christ,
writes:
“Philo was born before the beginning of the Christian era, and lived until long after the reputed death of Christ. He wrote an account of the Jews covering the entire time that Christ is said to have existed on earth. He was living in or near Jerusalem when Christ’s miraculous birth and the Herodian massacre occurred. He was there when Christ made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He was there when the crucifixion with its attendant earthquake, supernatural darkness and resurrection of the dead took place—when Christ himself rose from the dead and in the presence of many witnesses ascended into heaven. These marvelous events which must have filled the world with amazement, had they really occurred, were unknown to him. It was Philo who developed the doctrine of the Logos, or Word, and although this Word incarnate dwelt in that very land and in the presence of multitudes revealed himself and demonstrated his divine powers, Philo saw it not.”
Philo might be considered the investigative reporter of his day. He was there on location during the early first century, talking with people who should have remembered or at least heard the stories, observing, taking notes, documenting. He reported nothing about Jesus.
There was also a historian named Justus of Tiberius who was a native of Galilee, the homeland of Jesus. He wrote a history covering the time when Christ supposedly lived. This history is now lost, but a ninth-century Christian scholar named Photius had read it and wrote: “He [Justus] makes not the least mention of the appearance of Christ, of what things happened to him, or of the wonderful works that he did.”
22
Notice that Photius made the assumption that Justus overlooked Jesus when it is also possible that there was nothing there to overlook in the first place.
22
Notice that Photius made the assumption that Justus overlooked Jesus when it is also possible that there was nothing there to overlook in the first place.
My Dad’s birthday present to me when I turned 19 was a copy of the complete works of Flavius Josephus. When it comes to hard evidence from outside the bible, this is the most common piece of historical documentation offered by Christian apologists. Outside of the New Testament, Josephus presents the only possible confirmation of the Jesus story from the first century.
At first glance, Josephus appears to be the answer to the Christian apologist’s dreams. He was a messianic Jew, not a Christian, so he could not be accused of bias. He did not spend a lot of time or space on his report of Jesus, showing that he was merely reporting facts, not spouting propaganda like the Gospel writers. Although he was born in 37 C.E. and could not have been a contemporary of Jesus, he lived close enough to the time to be considered a valuable second-hand source. Josephus was a highly respected and much-quoted Roman historian. He died sometime after the year 100. His two major tomes were
The Antiquities of the Jews
and
The Wars of the Jews.
The Antiquities of the Jews
and
The Wars of the Jews.
Antiquities
was written sometime after the year 90 C.E. It begins, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” and arduously parallels the Old Testament up to the time when Josephus is able to add equally tedious historical details of Jewish life during the early Roman period. In Book 18, Chapter 3, this paragraph is encountered (Whiston’s translation):
was written sometime after the year 90 C.E. It begins, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” and arduously parallels the Old Testament up to the time when Josephus is able to add equally tedious historical details of Jewish life during the early Roman period. In Book 18, Chapter 3, this paragraph is encountered (Whiston’s translation):
“Now, there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works—a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”
This truly appears to give historical confirmation for the existence of Jesus. But is it authentic? Most scholars, including most fundamentalist scholars, admit that at least some parts of this paragraph cannot be authentic. Many are convinced that the entire paragraph is a forgery, an interpolation inserted by Christians at a later time. There are at least seven reasons for this:
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