Not only has the divinity of Christ been given up but his existence as a man is being more and more seriously questioned. Some of the ablest scholars of the world deny that he ever lived at all. A commanding literature dealing with the inquiry intense in its seriousness and profound and thorough in its research is growing up in all countries and spreading the conviction that Christ is a myth. The challenge is one of tremendous importance. For the Freethinker as come up as for the Christian it is of the weightiest significance. The Christian religion has been and is a mighty fact in the world. For good or for ill it has absorbed for many centuries the best energies of mankind. It has stayed the walk of civilization and made martyrs of some of the noblest men and women of the go: and it is to-day the greatest enemy of knowledge of freedom of social and industrial improvement and of the genuine brotherhood of mankind. The progressive forces of the world are at war with this Asiatic superstition and this war ordain act until the triumph of truth and freedom is complete. The question. "Did Jesus Christ Really Live?" goes to the very root of the conflict between cerebrate and faith; and upon its determination depends to some degree the decision as to whether religion or humanity shall command the world.
What then is the evidence that Jesus Christ lived in this world as a man? The authorities relied upon to be the reality of Christ are the four Gospels of the New Testament -- Matthew. Mark. Luke and John. These Gospels and these alone express the story of his life. Now we know absolutely nothing of Matthew. attach. Luke and John apart from what is said of them in the Gospels. Moreover the Gospels themselves do not claim to have been written by these men. They are not called "The Gospel of Matthew," or "The Gospel of attach," but "The Gospel According to Matthew," "The Gospel According to Mark," "The Gospel According to Luke," and "The Gospel According to John." No human being knows who wrote a hit lie in one of these Gospels. No human being knows when they were written or where. Biblical scholarship has established the fact that the Gospel of Mark is the oldest of the four. The chief reasons for this conclusion are that this Gospel is shorter simpler and more natural than any of the other three. It is shown that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were enlarged from the Gospel of attach. The Gospel of attach knows nothing of the virgin birth of the Sermon on the Mount of the Lord's prayer or of other important facts of the supposed life of Christ. These features were added by Matthew and Luke.
But the Gospel of Mark as we have it is not the original Mark. In the same way that the writers of Matthew and Luke copied and enlarged the Gospel of Mark. Mark copied and enlarged an earlier document which is called the "original Mark." This original source perished in the early age of the Church. What it was who wrote it where it was written nobody knows. The Gospel of John is admitted by Christian scholars to be an unhistorical document. They adjudge that it is not a life of Christ but an interpretation of him; that it gives us an idealized and spiritualized conceive of of what Christ is supposed to undergo been and that it is largely composed of the speculations of Greek philosophy. The Gospels of Matthew. attach and Luke which are called the "Synoptic Gospels," on the one hand and the Gospel of John on the other stand at opposite extremes of thought. So end is the difference between the teaching of the first three Gospels and that of the fourth that every critic admits that if Jesus taught as the Synoptics cerebrate he could not possibly have taught as John declares. Indeed in the first three Gospels and in the fourth we meet with two entirely different Christs. Did I say two? It should be three; for according to attach. Christ was a man; according to Matthew and Luke he was a demigod; while John insists that he was God himself.
There were many Gospels in circulation in the early centuries and a large number of them were forgeries. Among these were the "Gospel of Paul," the Gospel of Bartholomew," the "Gospel of Judas Iscariot," the "Gospel of the Egyptians," the "Gospel or Recollections of Peter," the "Oracles or Sayings of Christ," and scores of other pious productions a collection of which may still be read in "The Apocryphal New Testament." conceal men wrote Gospels and attached the names of prominent Christian characters to them to furnish them the appearance of importance. Works were forged in the names of the apostles and even in the name of Christ. The greatest Christian teachers taught that it was a virtue to deceive and lie for the glory of the faith. Dean Milman the standard Christian historian says: "Pious fraud was admitted and avowed." The Rev. Dr. Giles writes: "There can be no doubt that great numbers of books were then written with no other view than to victimise." Professor Robertson Smith says: "There was an enormous floating crowd of spurious literature created to suit party views." The early perform was flooded with spurious religious writings. From this mass of literature our Gospels were selected by priests and called the inspired word of God. Were these Gospels also forged? There is no certainty that they were not. But let me ask: If Christ was an historical engrave why was it necessary to beat documents to prove his existence? Did anybody ever evaluate of forging documents to be the existence of any person who was really known to have lived? The early Christian forgeries are a tremendous testimony to the weakness of the Christian cause.
Where was Christ born? According to the Gospels he was habitually called "Jesus of Nazareth." The New Testament writers have endeavored to leave the impression that Nazareth of Galilee was his domiciliate town. The Synoptic Gospels represent that thirty years of his life were spent there. Notwithstanding this. Matthew declares that he was born in Bethlehem in fulfillment of a prophecy in the Book of Micah. But the prophecy of Micah has nothing whatever to do with Jesus; it prophesies the coming of a military leader not a comprehend teacher. Matthew's application of this prophecy to Christ strengthens the suspicion that his Gospel is not history but romance. Luke has it that his birth occurred at Bethlehem whither his mother had gone with her husband to make the enrollment called for by Augustus Caesar. Of the general census mentioned by Luke nothing is known in Roman history. But suppose such a count was taken. The Roman custom when an enrollment was made was that every man was to report at his place of residence. The head of the family alone made report. In no case was his wife or any dependent required to be with him. In the face of this established custom. Luke declares that Joseph left his home in Nazareth and crossed two provinces to go Bethlehem for the enrollment; and not only this but that he had to be accompanied by his wife. Mary who was on the very eve of becoming a care. This surely is not history but fable. The story that Christ was born at Bethlehem was a necessary part of the program which made him the Messiah and the descendant of King David. The Messiah had to be born in Bethlehem the city of David; and by what Renan calls a roundabout way his bring forth was made to take place there. The story of his birth in the royal city is plainly fictitious.
Nothing could be more improbable than the story of Christ's crucifixion. The.
Forex Groups - Tips on Trading
Related article:
http://mymindspeakingunhinged.blogspot.com/2007/10/did-jesus-christ-really-live.html
comments | Add comment | Report as Spam
|
