Jesus Lied - He Was Only Human: Debunking the New Testament (19 page)

One of the more curious incidents that are alleged to have taken place during the arrest of Jesus is the revelation of his ideology regarding the use of swords and violence.

Matthew writes that one of Jesus’ disciples withdrew his sword as the Jewish priests stepped forward to arrest Jesus. The unnamed disciple strikes the ear of the servant to the high priest. Jesus, in an effort to quell any sudden explosion of violence, says to his disciples:

If Jesus is so against sword use and violence then why did he give the following command to his disciples?

Well, which Gospel is right? If both are, Jesus is a hypocrite. If Luke is wrong then we can dismiss his Gospel as unreliable. Maybe we need a third party mediator? Now let’s see, are there any other passages within the New Testament that refer to the use of a ‘sword’?

Shit! Now Matthew is contradicting himself with his earlier
“die by the sword”
remark. You should be able to now see the god-awful way with which the New Testament is hacked together, right?

With Jesus led away by the Jewish priests to face trial, Peter is all-alone in a courtyard when he is approached by a servant girl. The girl enquires,
“You were also with that Nazarene, Jesus?”
Peter denies her allegation,
“I don’t know or understand what you are talking about.”
Then moments later, he runs his ass out of there. In this instance it’s Mark, Luke, and John that are unison. Matthew, however, says that he denied being or knowing Jesus to
“them all”
which is ultimately counter-intuitive considering that the courtyard was empty
.

Mark says that the servant girl followed Peter out of the entrance until she found him just ‘standing around’; she then says to a group of nearby strangers,
“this fellow is one of them”.
Peter denies it again. But what of Matthew, Luke, and John’s respective accounts, who does Peter deny knowing Jesus to?

Even within this miniscule narrative of the New Testament, the inconsistencies leap out of the page.

To whom did Peter deny Jesus on the third and final interrogation?

Matthew and Mark say that it was to a group of men. Luke claims that it was a single, unidentified man, and John says it was to a servant. It seems the stories don’t even tie together at the top, unfortunately so for Christians.

Furthermore, how many times did the cock crow, as foretold by Jesus in the moments leading to his arrest?

Luke and John make no mention of the cock. I will resist the opportunity to make the obvious joke, although I really don’t want to . So. Very. Much.

According to Matthew, Judas was riddled with guilt and remorse for fingering (not double-entendre) Jesus. The forlorn Judas decided to return the thirty silver coins paid to him by the Priests, for his part in Jesus’ arrest.

Matthew then once again makes a major historical blunder and writes that this event fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremiah:

Only one big problem, silver coins as currency had gone out of circulation at least three hundred years before the time of Jesus. In fact, minted coins bearing the insignia of the Roman Emperor of the time were used and would have been provided as payment. Weighted currencies such as silver were used at the time of Jeremiah, but Matthew’s lack of investigative journalism skills illustrates the fictitious nature of this story yet again. The final act of Judas has him throwing a piece of rope over a tree and hanging himself.

But the book of Acts completely contradicts this suicide story, and shows God once again to be an unforgiving murderous thug. The passage reads:

Did he hang himself or did his abdomen spontaneously perforate and his intestines fly out after inexplicable and unprecedented ‘Hand of God surgery’?

For me the bigger question is why then, if he was remorseful and repentant of his actions, as Matthew had illustrated, did God end his life in such a grotesquely violent manner? The early Christians were eager to characterize God as a more loving, forgiving father figure in the New Testament, but they really did a number on themselves with this example of conflicting narrative. This is sheer unforgiving brutality. Nothing less. And for a person who did nothing more than played the part he was pre-ordained to perform… so much for free will, right? So much for being rewarded for doing ‘God’s Work’, eh?

Matthew and Luke duplicate the words of Mark in their respective accounts. The important part of this passage, however, is the fact that the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the slaughter of the sacrificial lamb, takes place the day prior to the Passover. So when did Jesus and his disciples dine together? The answer is in this passage:

Hence, the Last Supper would have been an evening meal, the same day, as the day prior to the Passover, right? Wrong! In Jewish Orthodoxy 2,000 years ago, which is still tradition today, they measure a new day beginning at sunset, and finishing at dusk. Therefore, the last supper, by means of being an evening meal, was actually the first day of the Passover.

What this means is that Jesus was arrested, tried, and executed on the same day, the day of the Passover. John, however, does not mention the last supper, as his account has Jesus dead by the time of the Passover meal. In fact, John tells us exactly when it was that Pilate sentenced Jesus:

This is completely at odds with Mark’s account as he has Jesus hanging out with his disciples that day, giving them instructions to prepare for the Passover, before dining with them later that evening. But John has Jesus on this same day standing trial before Pilate.

Bart D Ehrman points out that Christian apologetics have attempted to twist and contort this irreconcilable difference by the use of twisted facts:

As an objective observer might point out, it looks like each successive Gospel was just trying to correct the obvious mistakes of the one preceding it in the timeline. The obvious problem with this, however, is that it created further chronological discrepancies.

The most logical conclusion to these verses is that, Jesus, knowing full well that he was going to be executed the following day, made a decision to do something impulsive. As such, he created a cover story, one in which he asked his followers to propagate. This left him free to do all of those things that he’d always wanted to do before he did. Having studied the life of Jesus so intently, this probably involved feasting on some live children and participating in a gay orgy.

Shortly after his arrest Jesus is brought before the
Sanhedrin
, Jewish court, to face the charge of ‘blasphemy’. After various witnesses are brought forward, with conflicting eyewitness testimonies, the Court finds that they are unable to bring judgment against Jesus.

That is until the frustrated Jewish priests ask Jesus, “Are you the Son of God?” To which Jesus replies,
“I am; and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”
The Court erupts in disbelief; the priests are apparently aghast that he would say such a blasphemous remark.
“What further need do we have of witnesses? You have heard the blasphemy; how does it seem to you?”
He is summoned to death, but because the Court has no real power, and certainly not to enact a death sentence without Roman authorization, he is subsequently brought before the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate.

An 8 year old in Texas wrote this summary of Jesus’ trial:

“But the Democrats and all those guys put Jesus on trial before Pontius the Pilot. Pilot didn’t stick up for Jesus. He just washed his hands instead.”

If you pick up your copy of the Bible and peruse Mark chapter fifteen, you can read aloud the events of Jesus’ trial before the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate in less than a minute. It’s a short, no nonsense, and fairly un-dramatic trial. Pilate asks Jesus if he is the
King of the Jews
, a title that would earn the charge of treason and therefore death. Jesus replies,
“Yes it is as you say.”

The Jewish priests then apparently accuse Jesus of a number of other trumped up charges, and Jesus doesn’t respond to any of them. Pilate is amazed and confused as to why the defendant, Jesus, would elect not to offer even a single word in his own defense. Especially considering the man’s life was in his hands.

Mark writes that it was customary for the Roman Governor, during the Festival of the Passover, to release a Jewish prisoner. Pilate steps out onto the balcony before the crowds, and offers
, “Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?”
The chief priests, however, had put the word out amongst the crowd to request for the release of man named Barabbas, instead. Pilate then asks,
“What shall I do, then, with the one you call the King of the Jews?”
The crowd shouted,
“Crucify him!”
Mark closes off his short account of the trial with the following:

Jesus was then sent away to be flogged, mocked and spat on, before being crucified – a punishment which was set aside for ONLY the most heinous of criminals… certainly not befitting the ‘crimes’ Jesus was accused of. Moreover, fifteen short verses are all Mark has to say about the most famous trial in history. Stunning brevity from the Gospel that preceded his Synoptic contemporaries.

Matthew, copying from Mark, writes almost an identical account, with the only subtle difference being that the former goes the extra stretch to vindicate the Romans of the charge of
Deicide
. Matthew would save that for the Jews. After the crowd has denied the release of Jesus, Pilate says:

This comes right before the verse that would eventually give birth to western anti-Semitism, and lay the roots for atrocities committed against Jews for the almost two thousand years to follow: