Supporting the Claim: “The New Testament is a Fraudulent Document”

In this cursory overview, I shall support the claim “The New Testament is a fraudulent document.” First, please note that it is the general consensus of New Testament scholars that there are no original manuscripts of the books of the New Testament; all we have are copies of copies which are sometimes centuries after the original books were written. Secondly, there is no doubt that these manuscripts are not exact copies of the original as the copies of the same book differ from each other and thus the scholar will have to decide what in his opinion is the most likely to be nearest to the intended meaning of the original. Thirdly, to the degree possible the Roman Catholics destroyed all books except for the 27 which made it into the canon; this includes the original source books of the gospels, the saying books which recorded the words of Jesus. Fourthly, it needs to be noted that the translational problems from going from Greek to English are impossible to bridge in any direct way since the grammar must be “inverted” in order for the saying in Greek to make sense in English. Fifthly, there are many well-known examples of forgeries into the earliest manuscripts such as Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53 to John 8:11.

From the above five points, anyone who says the Bible is the “Word of God” is sadly but surely mistaken.  The real question is: “To what degree have the 27 books which make up the New Testament been tampered with?”

Scholars have long noted the contradictions between the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. In addition to differing accounts to what during Jesus’ trial, crucifixion, and resurrection among the gospels, we have a differing theology between the first three gospels, the synoptic gospels and John. The reader who wishes an excellent overview of the above claims may access the New Testament scholar, Bart D. Erhman, latest text, How Jesus Became God (HarperOne 2014) or his college course of the same name from “The Great Courses” Company.

Please note that scholars are of the consensus view that about half of books in the New Testament which are attributed to Paul were written by others using his name. So I don’t know how one could accept the books such as I Timothy, II Timothy, Titus, and so forth as being inspired by God if the original understanding was these books were written by “Paul, an apostle, chosen by Jesus Christ” when they were written by other anonymous writers.

As far as the book of Revelation, in my view, this text has no historical grounding in fact. It appears to be a series of delusional images strung together. As far as what any of it means, no one knows.

Readers who are interested in a scholarly overview of the origins of Christianity might like to obtain the text, Trajectories Through Early Christianity, by James M. Robinson and Helmut Koester (Fortress Press, 1971). Please note in 367 A.D. Athanasisu of Alexandria required that all documents which were not part of the official canon to be destroyed. Until the Gospel of Thomas along with other original source materials were found in 1945, there were no original documents other the Roman-Catholic approved texts which could be read.

Once the Roman Catholics became the official church by order of the Roman Emperor Constantine, Christianity fell into complete darkness. All the original documents destroyed. Challenge to the Catholics was met by being burned to the stake. Wars, such as the Crusades, were fought on behalf of the Church.

Even as protests which arose in response to the corruptions in the Roman Catholic Church no one, not even Martin Luther, challenged the authenticity of the 27 books of the New Testament which were written or approved by the Catholics! This is the case since the protestors, the Protestants, assumed the 27 books were the “Holy Bible.” For some reason no one, not even the great Isaac Newton, thought to challenge whether the books were in fact “Holy.” Only in the past few years, with the trove of original documents, the Nag Hammadi Library, found in 1945 was there any concrete grounds to challenge the authenticity of the books of the New Testament. Today, research is clear: The New Testament is a fraudulent document if by “fraud” one means these books are inspired by God when they, like the Book of Mormon, were written and/or approved by man.

In my view, we have two paths which can be taken towards Christianity: 1) Admit that it is a religion based upon fraudulent documents and give it up as a lost cause, or 2) Accept the reality of Jesus’ resurrection and go back to the original documents such as the books of the Gospel of Thomas and Q and try to find out what Jesus’ original message is. I concur with the non-Christians that Christianity is a dead religion and needs to either go to the dustbin of history or start over beginning with a careful examination of the original source material.