Jesus Lied - He Was Only Human: Debunking the New Testament (21 page)

Pilate hands Jesus off to the Roman soldiers whereby he is mocked, kicked, and spat upon according to all but John, and we will come to his testimony in a moment. The soldiers place a scarlet robe on Jesus and then
“twist together a crown of thorns and set it on his head”
. They then give him a wooden staff and kneel before him in mock praise and laughter,
“Hail, king of the Jews!”
before he is led away to be crucified. But now we come to contradictory accounts of who carries the cross to the crucifixion grounds for Jesus. The Synoptic Gospels all say the same thing:

Whereas John writes,
“The Romans took charge of Jesus, who carried his own cross.”

In what we have covered up to this point of New Testament analysis, we can be certain in our judgment that John’s gospel is completely contradictory to almost every single other account of Jesus’ life. Whoever he was, we can be sure that he was a nasty, anti-Semite author with a desperate anxiety to prove his belief that Jesus was God, in the wake of Jesus’ then (100 AD) proven false promise to return.

Once at the killing grounds, just outside of the city, the soldiers laid Jesus on the cross. What was the inscription written above Jesus’ head, on the crucifix?

You may again accuse me of being a tad nit-picky in jumping on these differences, but I vigorously defend that accusation. You may have had a point if we were talking about a conversation that took place and a third party was narrating it, but we’re talking about a physical inscription, and the Gospels can’t even agree on these few select words.

Jesus is then hoisted vertically already nailed to the timber; passer-bys and the robbers crucified on either side begin to mock and hurl insults at him, such as
“He saved others but he can’t save himself. Let him come down from the cross then we will believe in him.”
All of these taunts are somewhat uninventive and lack any form of comedic timing, for my liking anyway. I mean c’mon, with Jesus’ arms outstretched on the cross, I would have asked,
“Jesus show me how much you love me”
, or
“You can turn water into wine, but how about turning this rain into not being crucified?”
These jokes doing anything for you? No. Ok, let’s move forward.

This is a further historical embarrassment for the writers of the Gospels, as it is common knowledge that the Romans did not crucify common criminals such as thieves. This brutally inhumane execution method was reserved only for acts of treason against the State or disobedient slaves. It appears John was aware of this, as he doesn’t mention the two men as being thieves; this is obviously his attempt to correct the error of the Synoptic Gospels.

What is it that the alleged men say to Jesus shortly after He his hoisted onto the cross?

This another historical fallacy exposed. John writes that:

According to John, Jesus is near enough to have a conversation with his mother, but we know for certain that women were strictly forbidden to enter the crucifixion fields. Matthew and Mark appear to be aware of this Roman policy, however, as they comment that the woman watched on from “afar”.

At approximately 9pm, Jesus offered his last dying words before taking his final breath. His last words were, depending on which Gospel you are reading:

Personally, I would have thought Jesus’ last words, shortly after being nailed to the cross, would have been, “Jesus on a stick, this fucking hurts. Can’t breathe. Goodbye!”

We will come to the irreconcilable theological differences of these words very soon (are you excited?), but for now we will continue with the narrative themes.

Well, according to John, what immediately followed the time of death is the bodies had to be removed, as the following day was the Sabbath. As was the custom, the Jews had a pact with the Romans that no Jewish bodies were to be left out in the open on the holiest day of the week. Therefore, Jesus body was removed, but to ensure he was dead they pierced his side with a spear and a dancing alien came out and entertained the amassed crowds. No, not really, but it would have been a whole lot more exciting if one did!

Nonetheless, if it’s excitement you want then you can’t go past Matthew’s stand alone narrative; As Jesus cried his final words,
“Father why have you forsaken me?”
an amazing chain of events were set in motion:

As a Christian, this is probably not what you are told about the Jesus story, but also as a Christian, it’s in the infallible Bible, so it is what you must believe. At the moment of Christ’s passing an earthquake struck Jerusalem, an earthquake not recorded anywhere in history (or through retrospective geological analysis), and that dead people walked out of their graves and reunited themselves with their long line of descendents. Yes, zombies!

The advent of resurrected people leaving their tombs is again, another miraculous event that is completely unsupported by historical account. One would think that such an utterly incredible and literally miraculous incidence would at least warrant a small headline in some scroll or papyrus, somewhere. Not even Matthew’s fellow Gospels seem too bothered to even comment on the sight of zombies returning for one last pint at their local nearby tavern… and brains; tasty, tasty brains!

The Synoptic Gospels do agree on one occurrence shortly after the time of Jesus’ death, however. Well almost, and honestly, isn’t a lightly corroborated version of events what you should expect from a supposedly infallible holy book? Nonetheless, they all seem to agree that the curtain inside the Temple tore in half… and not because it was ancient and a wind was blowing, or the story was made up, skeptics, no, it was because God was pissed!

John draws a blank on this, however. But do the Synoptic Gospels remain harmonized on this event? Unsurprisingly, they are not. What a shame. Matthew says that the curtain is torn
after
Jesus’ death. Mark, likewise, says it occurs after, but then Luke messes it up for everyone:

If not for the brilliant New Testament scholarly analysis of Bart D. Ehrman, I may have missed the philosophical and theological differences between Mark and Luke with respect to the portrayal of the J-Man’s death. In my opinion there is no person more brilliantly adept with fitting all of the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together when it comes to dissecting the Bible. I love you, Bart.

In Mark’s gospel, we are left with Jesus as a somewhat of a dejected figure that suffers so much that in his darkest hour he believes that his God has forsaken him. In the events leading to his death, he is betrayed by his friend Judas; denied three times by one of his nearest and dearest, Peter; berated by the Jewish priests; and then condemned by Pilate. He is kicked, whipped, and mocked by the Roman soldiers; taunted by criminals on the cross; and during this whole ordeal he utters not a single word. At his trial he spoke only three words,
“You say so”.
And yet, as the shadow of death descends upon him he cries,
“Father why have you forsaken me?”
Ehrman rightfully comments on Mark’s gospel, “Jesus dies, in agony unsure of the reason he must die.” He’s gone from a tough hero-like figure to a whining pussy in only a few bloody paragraphs… what a cop out!

If we compare this with Luke’s portrayal, the gulf of ideology between them couldn’t be greater. Jesus is led away for crucifixion, but is not mocked or beaten by the Roman guards. Jesus walks towards the killing fields sure of the reason for his death, as he says to a number of women he sees weeping for him:

By Luke’s account, Jesus sounds like a real ladies man here, and these are most certainly the words of a man at peace with his fate. Shortly thereafter, the Roman’s nail Jesus to the cross, and because he is such a big and tough macho man, doesn’t scream in agony and instead says:

In Luke, Jesus even has a dialogue with his fellow condemned, and reassures them that:

As the inevitable death approaches, Jesus does not feel forsaken but welcomes the next step of the journey;
“Into your arms I commit my spirit.”
As Ehrman comments again;

Further complicating this narrative is Mark’s,
“Father why have you forsaken me?”
, as the final words of Jesus, is contradictory to what Jesus had to say to his disciples at the Last Supper:

THE BIG QUESTION here is; why would he think God had forsaken him, most especially if he knew he had to suffer in such a manner in order to fulfill the purpose he was sent to fulfill?

Maybe he was just human and realized, as death approached, that his life had been wasted on such bullshit futility. Perhaps he recognized he had effectively been manipulated by his ‘father’ in order to inspire belief in his bullshit philosophy. Or, and perhaps more tellingly, as the adrenalin began to subside from his system, perhaps he finally realized that he was, in fact, a flaming big mouth and shouldn’t have actively pissed off so many powerful people.

Jesus was taken down from the cross. His lifeless body wrapped in white linen. His tomb sealed with a boulder. Three days later the tombstone is rolled away and his body is gone.

Jesus dies and ascends to Heaven. The first thing he does is look for his father, as he has never met the man before and is curious to see what he looks like, and whether or not he looked like his mother or father, etc.

He looks high and low but cannot find him. He asks St. Peter “Where is my father?” But St. Peter says he doesn’t know. He asks the archangel Gabriel “Where is my father?” But Gabriel doesn’t know either. He asks John the Baptist “Where is my father?” But John does not know.

So he wanders Heaven, impatiently searching. Suddenly he sees out of the mist an old man coming toward him. The man is very old, with white hair, stooped over a little. “Stop!” Jesus yells. “Who are you?”

“Oh, please help me, I am an old man in search of my son.” Jesus is very curious. Could this be his father?

“Tell me of your son, old man.”