In this
essay, I use the text, Forgery and Counter
Forgery: The Use of Literary Deceit In Early Christian Polemics (Oxford
University Press, 2013), by Bart D. Ehrman. See: Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit ... - Amazon.com. Note that this scholarly text represents
the consensus view of New Testament
scholarship.
1. The
New Testament is a collection of 27 books written or approve by the Roman
Catholics. By forgery I mean: a) To falsely use someone’s name as the source of
a document, b) To put words on the lips of Jesus which he did not say. The New
Testament is filled with hundreds of forgeries; this short essay will give the
reader a taste of a few of them. These examples are representative of the
whole.
2. A
common forgery is what scholars call redactions.
This is when an author inserts phrases which were not part of the original
manuscript or when they invent sayings. A typical example of this kind of
forgery is to compare saying 8 in the Gospel
of Thomas with a parallel passage in Matthew. In saying 8 we have the parable of the wise
fisherman who keeps the one big catch and throws all the smaller fish back to
the sea. Jesus concludes the parable by saying: “He threw all the little fish
back into the sea and with no difficulty choose the larger fish. Whoever has
ears to hear should hear!” In contrast, in Matthew
we read: “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a net which was thrown in
the sea and gathered fish of every kind; when it was full, men drew it ashore
and sat down and sorted the good into the vessels but threw away the bad. So it
will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil
from the righteous, and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will
weep and gnash their teeth” (Matthew 13: 47-50). Scholars are in agreement that the Roman
Catholics added the conclusion to this parable, “men will weep and gnash their
teeth” as Jesus, being a Jew, knew
nothing about an afterlife.
3. In
Thomas, the parable of the fisherman is given as
part of his wisdom teachings while the Roman Catholics use the parable to claim
the bad fish would be punished in the afterlife. The Jewish understanding of
the afterlife is one of nonexistence: “Remember that thou hast made me out of clay;
and thou will turn me into dust again” (Job 10: 9). While some sects of Judaism
believe in the resurrection of the dead, this only applies to Jews; non-Jews or
gentiles have the worth of dogs and thus when they die that’s the end of them
as they will be turned into dust.
4. A
similar kind of forgery to redaction is when whole passages are invented. Here
I will give two examples:
a) Mark
16: 9-20. This 12 verses were added to the end of the book of Mark as the earliest manuscripts do not
have these verses. See: Bart Ehrman - Mark 16:9-20 is fake - YouTube
b) John
7:53-8:11. This narrative which ends with Jesus saying “He who has not sinned
cast the first stone” is an invention as it is not in the earliest manuscripts.
See: James White: The woman caught in adultery story in John 7:53-8:11 is ...
5. Some
forgeries are placed in the passage to make a theological point. An example of
this is I John 5: 7, 8 which concludes: “These are three witnesses, the Spirit, the water, and the
blood; and these three agree.” This forgery was apparently inserted by later
scribes as a proof text for the trinity. See: Was 1 John 5:7 Added To The Bible - Comma Johanneum - Trinity truth.
6. Complete
forgeries are when entire books are written under a false name. This happened
to many of the letters which are attributed to Paul. Three books which are
obvious forgeries are the “Pastoral Letters” : I Timothy, II Timothy,
and Titus. Scholars are of the
consensus view that these three books are forgeries since they contain rules
for the churches which assume an advanced structure which did not exist until
at least a century after Paul’s death.
See: Pastoral epistles - Wikipedia.
7. Most of the rest of the books of the New
Testament are suspected of being forgeries as the writing style is that of
highly educated Greek scholars while the claimed authors in most cases were
either illiterate or semi-literate. For example, few scholars believe that Peter, a
semi-literate fisherman who spoke Aramaic, wrote I Peter and II Peter.
Note that these two books are written at a high level of sophistication with
the use of various rhetorical devices which only a scholar would be able to
produce. See: First Epistle of Peter - Wikipedia and Authorship of the Petrine epistles - Wikipedia.
8. Conclusion: The New Testament is a collection of 27 books which were
approved or written by the Roman Catholics for reading in the churches. Nearly
all these books either contain forgeries or are complete forgeries themselves.
The follower of Jesus has only one text which contain the original words of
Jesus in Aramaic: The Gospel of Thomas.
The best scholarly text to support this claim is Stephen Patterson’s text, The Lost Way: How Two Forgotten Gospels are Rewriting the Story of Christian Origins. See: The Lost Way: How Two Forgotten Gospels Are ... - Amazon.com
No comments:
Post a Comment