Jesus Lied - He Was Only Human: Debunking the New Testament (16 page)
Read Jesus Lied - He Was Only Human: Debunking the New Testament Online
Authors: CJ Werleman
Peace at last in the shade, deep in your own grave. There was no going to heaven or hell in the passages of the Old Testament (as in Jewish tradition you die and you’re dead… pretty sensible, right?). But then Jesus comes along and says,
“Wait a minute. No, that’s all wrong. If you don’t believe what I have to say then you’re suffering has only just begun at the moment of death.”
It’s an utterly repugnant and morally despicable doctrine for anyone to preach. ‘Do what I say or else!’ This was the cornerstone of Jesus’ ministry. The promise that the rapture would come and divide the good, defined as followers, from the bad, defined as doubters, in the respective celestial destinations of heaven and hell. The reasons for my distaste for Jesus far from ends here, for everything he said or did which was nice or good, he said or did 10 things to the bloody contrary! He even says as much himself:
“
Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” (Luke 12:50-53 NIV)
This is directly at odds with the Old Testament’s overarching commandment to honor thy parents. It is also of more concern that it resembles the creeds of personality cults that demand abandonment of one’s family, so as to give oneself totally to the subservience of the leader.
Please don’t think these are obscure passages, because they are most certainly not. One such passage in Luke really portrays Jesus as a megalomaniac monster; when Jesus commands a man to follow him and the man agrees but requests that he have time to prepare a funeral for his deceased father, whom he still mourned for. Jesus replied curtly:
“
Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:60 NIV)
Similarly, another man accepted Jesus’ invitation to follow him but the man pleaded, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family.” Jesus, again, grunted forth:
“
No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:62)
As you can plainly see, there is no evidence of Jesus representing even an ethical model for good family values. While Jesus was fond of endorsing the Old Testament commandment to ‘Honor thy father and thy mother’, he in fact treated his mother terribly on more than a few occasions.
Jesus, age 12, gave his mother a verbal dressing-down for having the nerve to look for him at the Temple
. “How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I had to be in my Father’s house?”
Mind you, this was after he had been missing for three days.
Then on another occasion, his mother and brothers came to see him give one of his sermons. One of Jesus’ disciples spotted his family in the crowd, and interrupted Jesus
, “My Lord your mother and brothers are here, and they want to speak to you.”
To which Jesus replied,
“
Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:48-50 NIV)
Seems Jesus didn’t quite honor his mother’s immaculate conception nearly as much as the Vatican does. Somewhat comically, Mark suggests that Jesus’ family thought he was but a raving mad man:
“
Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.” (Mark 3:20-21 NIV)
This passage yet a further example of a point made earlier, that despite God foretelling Mary, according to Luke, that she would bear his child, everything Jesus says or does comes as a complete surprise to her. In my opinion, this is further evidence that because Matthew and Luke copied their accounts from Mark, their inclusion of the virgin birth story forced them to maintain a supporting storyline.
“
But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and kill them in front of me.” (Luke 19:27 NIV)
This was Jesus talking to his disciples, directing them to take action against those Jewish citizens that denied Jesus was king. It also echoes Matthews’ account of Jesus, saying:
“
He who is not with me is against me”
Here’s a better idea, Jesus, why don’t you try being a little more convincing in your claim that you are indeed king, or Messiah, so that we are not left with 38,000 denominations of Christianity, and hundreds of religious faiths that cover the globe? Isn’t this of sounder mind than just killing those that fall short of being convinced?
Of course, in retrospection, we know the answer to this: crusades, inquisition, witch trials, Hitler’s Nazis “doing the work of the creator”, Stalin being endorsed by the Russian Orthodox Church. Throughout recorded history, we have many examples of ‘faithful’ people taking up Jesus’ charge and putting those who would not capitulate, to the sword… or gun… or a-bomb,
The problem of contradiction remains the same, however, as Jesus, in Luke’s passage, condemns his enemies to death, but then Matthew quotes Jesus as having said:
“
You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor
and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:43-44 NIV)
Do we love them or do we kill our enemies, bi-polar-Jesus? The New Testament leaves us with no discernible conclusion, yet again.
Ultimately, the ministry of Jesus provides 21
st
century man with no further illumination of the human condition than what any other book from antiquity could or can provide.
Jesus told us to ‘love our enemies’ but how is this practical? How are we to love Islamo-fascists who will not rest until we infidels have been converted, conquered, or liberated of our heads? Sure, it’s a ‘nice’ thing to say but even Jesus couldn’t follow his own advice, regularly referring to his doubters as
“brood of vipers”, “hypocrites”
or worse, imparting the threat of fiery damnation for eternity. Furthermore, what advice from Jesus’ teachings can we take from the Gospels that could help mankind deal with the complicated social problems that face our world today, such as racial, ethnic, and sexual discrimination; slavery; managing the environment; the death penalty; slavery; economic justice; human cloning, and ethical governing standards? There is nothing… well, that’s not true, we could just take Jesus’ advice and kill everything that doesn’t capitulate to ‘our way’.
What of slavery? What did Jesus have to say in regards to arguably the biggest blight on western civilization’s experience in the last 2000 years? Nothing! He was absolutely silent on the issue, despite the practice of slavery being widespread throughout the Roman Empire during his time.
Instead, when the subject of slavery did come up, Jesus let it be known, that he believed a
“slave should serve his master”
. Imagine how many lives and how much suffering would have never occurred in America alone had Jesus denounced slavery. At least 618,000 lives wouldn’t have been cut short during the American Civil War alone.
Every teacher has his or her own unique style - some are authoritative, others are collaborative, whereas others still prefer to give direct answers, and some prefer to lead their students along the path to knowledge with well placed clues. The Gospels, however, leave us with the impression that Jesus was completely arbitrary, blatantly impetuous, flighty, and schizophrenic. The difference, of teaching styles, is best illustrated between the contrast of Mark and John’s gospel. Barry Qualls, in his essay,
‘Saint Mark Says They Mustn’t’,
writes:
“
His (Mark’s) Son of God is always in crowds and always seeking an isolated place, always speaking and yet urging silence, always explaining and yet certain his words will not be understood. His family, who enter the text without introduction, are amazed by his denial of them (3:31-35); his friends are certain “he is beside himself” (3:21) and his enemies, not surprisingly, echo these responses and add others. The disciples question, “what manner of man is this” from early on (4:41) and are repeatedly “astonished at his words”, questioning what such use of language signifies.”
This is as good a one-paragraph-summary of the Gospel of Mark as you will ever find. In fact all three of the Synoptic Gospels present Jesus as both evasive and secretive with regards to his identity. Now, if we examine John’s gospel, we find a complete contrast, and the author comes out swinging in the opening verse:
“
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was God in the beginning.” (John 1:1-2 NIV)
There is no mystery with Jesus’ ministry according to John. Jesus is not secretive or evasive, he is completely forthright and therefore teaches in such manner. An illustration of this is in chapter eight of John, whereby Jesus is conversing with the Pharisees:
“
Your Father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it was glad.” The Jews then said to Jesus, “You are not yet fifty years of old, and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” (John 8:56-58 NIV)
This is John portraying a boastful Jesus,
“I am greater than Abraham”
which by default implies him greater than the Jewish hero Moses. In other words,
“Listen here Jews! Stop following Moses, your new Deliverer is here!”
Ultimately, Christians revere Jesus’ teachings not because they’re profoundly extraordinary or uniquely spectacular. Simply, they award His teachings praise and accolades because of their source, Jesus. Moreover, by the very nature that so few people actually read or comprehend the New Testament, His words have been given a certain degree of loftiness. Most significantly, this is counter with the understanding we have of moral principles, insofar as moral behavior should be evaluated on its own, regardless of who might have formulated them.
If you don’t know at least a handful of Jesus alleged miracles then it is doubtful you ever attended a single church sermon or a Sunday school class. I guess everyone in the Western World is familiar with; water into wine; walking on water; raising Lazarus; the feeding of the 5,000; healing a blind man; healing a leper.
These are stories we know verbatim, and stories that Christians accept as sacrosanct. They also prove that the dividing line between theists and atheists is belief in the suspension and circumvention of the laws governing nature.
A religious man is on top of a roof during a great flood. A man comes by in a boat and says “get in, get in!” The religious man replies, “no I have faith in God, he will grant me a miracle.”
Later the water is up to his waist and another boat comes by and the guy tells him to get in again. He responds that he has faith in God and that God will deliver him a miracle. With the water at about chest height, another boat comes to rescue him, but he turns down the offer again cause “God will grant me a miracle.”
With the water at chin height, a helicopter throws down a ladder and they tell him to get in, mumbling with the water in his mouth, he again turns down the request for help for the faith of God. He arrives at the gates of heaven with broken faith and says to Peter, I thought God would grand me a miracle and I have been let down.” St. Peter chuckles and responds, “I don’t know what you’re complaining about, we sent you three boats and a helicopter.”
Did Jesus perform miracles as a means to relieve suffering or were his bag of miraculous magic tricks signs of his divinity? Again, the answer depends on which Gospel you are reading. By sheer volume, of Mark’s 661 verses, approximately 200, or one-third, have Jesus performing various miracles.
The author goes to great literary lengths to present Jesus as a profound humanitarian. He hungers, groans, prays, fears, urges, and several times, grows angry and fatigued. Matthew and Luke, copying from Mark, visibly share this view of Jesus. Therefore, via the Synoptic Gospels we read of incidents where Jesus heals a blind person, a leper, and the demonically possessed. In other words, the viewpoint of the three Synoptic Gospels is that Jesus performed miracles for the sole intention of helping the downtrodden and unfortunate.
There are a dozen or so examples whereby Jesus is asked to perform a miracle to prove he is who he and others claim he is, and responds so with a ferocious outburst. For example, there is a passage in Matthew where some Jewish elders, including the Pharisees ask Jesus:
“
Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you.” (Matthew 12:38 NIV)
Jesus’ replies with great fury:
“
A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” (Matthew 12:39-40 NIV)
