Jesus Lied - He Was Only Human: Debunking the New Testament (6 page)
Read Jesus Lied - He Was Only Human: Debunking the New Testament Online
Authors: CJ Werleman
The single most important debate put before the Council, however, became known as the Arian controversy. How contentious was this so-called controversy? Let’s just say had resolution not been reached, Constantine would have tossed Christianity into the too hard basket, and we’d most likely today know as much about this religion as we do about Rastafarianism. And no, just because you own Bob Marley’s Greatest Hits, smoke ganja, and wear a tea cozy on your head, does not make you a Rasta, mon.
The controversy began as a small argument between a bishop by the name Alexander and a priest known as Arius. It was Arius the shit-stirrer that first proposed the idea that if the Father (God) begat the Son (Jesus), Jesus must have had a beginning. In other words, there had to have been a time when Jesus was not, and that his substance was from nothing like the rest of creation. Arius had his argument well grounded in scripture, citing examples where Jesus had said specifically that the Father was greater than he. Arius wrote a letter to Bishop Alexander that read:
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God was the only begotten, the only eternal, the only one without beginning, the only true, the only one who has immortality, the only wise, the only good, the only potentate.”
Arius pointed to many passages from the Bible to back his claim that Jesus and God were not one and the same, including the following verse from Proverbs that describes the divine wisdom:
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Through him all things came to be, not one thing had its being but through him.”
The fact that Jesus never once called himself God, outside of the I’m as high as a kite gospel of John, and repeatedly referred to God as his “Father” implied the distinction, and thus Arius argued what would appeared to be a no-brainer. But the theological powers at be thought otherwise, and ultimately the end of this story illustrates just how arbitrarily man made this religion, as is the case of all religions, truly is.
It was Arius theological assertion that the heavenly afterlife had been made possible for mankind because Jesus had paved the way for us. He was a man that lived a perfect life; he obeyed all of God’s laws; and his death and resurrection erased our supposed debt of sin. If we followed in Jesus’ footsteps then the afterlife was made possible for us too. This is the way Arius interpreted the scriptures.
But the Bishop of Alexander, and his assistant Athanasius had a more pessimistic view of mankind’s ability for good. According to both men, salvation is made impossible if only Jesus were a man of flesh, and not God himself. In other words, only he who created the world had the ability or right to save it.
The Council of Nicaea, however, condemned the views of Arius, and in doing so published its creed proclaiming that the “Son” was “one in being with the Father” by use of the Greek word “homoousius”.
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We believe in God, the Father Almighty,
maker of all things, visible and invisible,
and in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the Son of God,
the only begotten of the Father,
that is, of the substance (ousia) of the Father,
God from God,
light from light,
true God from true God,
begotten not made,
of one substance (homoousian) with the Father,
through whom all things are made,
those things that are in heaven and
those things that are on earth,
who for us men and for our salvation
came down and was made man,
suffered,
rose again on the third day, ascended into heaven
and will come
to judge the living and the dead.
And we believe in the Holy Spirit.”
More than three hundred bishops, from all parts of the Empire, attended the Nicea Council. These men were the early ‘street-fighters’ for Christianity. They were often threatened with abduction or death because of what many outsiders viewed as a radical faith. This persecution molded the founding fathers into dogged, determined and ambitious builders of the fledgling religion. Thus they were extremely sensitive to non-conforming beliefs or views that, they feared, could roadblock or divert their naïve and idealistic objectives.
This Arian controversy had the potential to derail the regime before it started, and this is why the defining of Jesus and God as one and the same or as different entities - was agenda item number one for the Council.
Item number two - the hotly debated question of what day to celebrate the resurrection.
Eventually, all but seventeen of the three hundred Bishops signed the creed that included the wording “homoousias”, meaning that God and the Son were one and the same. But the seventeen that sided with Arius threatened to drag this inside bickering and politicking out into the cobbled streets of Rome, which would have certainly put an end to the burgeoning faith. Analogically, they say there are three things you never want to see created before your very eyes: laws, sausages, and religions.
The Emperor Constantine was greatly agitated by the boorish and semantic controversy, so he sent a letter to Arius and Alexander in an attempt to persuade he and the ‘gang of seventeen’ to get their shit together and lay aside their differences. He wrote:
“
This contention has not arisen respecting any important command of the law, nor has any new opinion been introduced with regard to the worship of God; but you both entertain the same sentiments, so that you may join in one communion. It is thought to be not only indecorous, but altogether unlawful, that so numerous a people of God should be governed and directed at your pleasure, while you are thus emulously contending with each other, and quarrelling about small and very trifling matters.”
It’s odd that the Emperor would regard the identity or character of Christ as a “trifling matter”, then again, Constantine was obviously using Christianity to his own political needs. This much is clear. Nevertheless, Constantine’s words were adequate and ultimately reassured Arius enough to soften his objection, and the doctrine of the Trinity became the fairy-tale bullshit orthodoxy that we all know and love today.
The father, the son, and the Holy Spirit were now one and the same. This non-Biblical referenced doctrine created by the Church caused at least one Rabbi, David Kimhi, to laugh like a Bavarian whore, high on nitrous oxide, when he quipped:
“
Therefore, with reference to this God whom you call Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that part which you call Father must be prior to that which you call Son, for if they were always coexistent, they would have to be called twin brothers.”
Moreover, if the Son is the Father – what of Mary getting pregnant? Is this not an incestuous congregation? The father has sex with the mother in order to conceive the son who is also the father… so technically the son, who is also the father, had sex with his mother… Oedipus, anyone? Freud would have had a field day with this faux family!
In regards to other theological differences, the majority view consensus became orthodoxy, while the rest became heretical scripture that was eventually capped in the ass by the Church.
The definition of what it meant to be a Christian became defined as:
“
I believe in God the Father, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, and in Jesus Christ his Son, born of the Virgin Mary, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. He arose on the third day and ascended into Heaven where he sits at the right hand of God the Father, from whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church (universal), and in life everlasting.”
Christianity as we know it today had begun. God damn it!
In what I hope is not a spoiler alert, we did not wake up with a copy of the New Testament on our doorstep the moment Jesus’ ghostly ass ascended into heaven, even though it was obviously already there, because God was Jesus, apparently. Confused?
Further, Jesus himself wrote not a single word of the New Testament. Not a single poem, much less an op-ed article on why upon reflection killing your daughter for backchat is probably not a great idea.
Christopher Hitchens believes that the best argument against a historical Jesus is the fact that none of his disciples left us with a single record or document regarding Jesus or his teachings. All we have is a whole bunch of campfire stories from people who weren’t born for generations after Jesus’ supposed crucifixion… or cruci-fiction – see what I did there? I digress.
Numerous men with their own theological motives wrote the New Testament. So, who were these men we doth speak of? Who was Paul? Who were the Gospels? Short answer: with the exclusion of Paul, we don’t know. We have no idea as to the identity of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. So, what do we know? Well, we know a lot, and what we do know is hardly complimentary to the Church or the historical legitimacy of the Christian faith.
The New Testament is a collection of writings, twenty seven in total, of which twelve are credited to the authorship of Paul, five to the Gospels (whoever wrote Luke also wrote Acts), and the balance remain open for debate i.e. author unknown.
Further convoluting the problem of authorship, is the fact modern scholars are in unison that a number of the letters credited to Paul were in fact forgeries i.e. written by others claiming to be Paul, in particular, the books of Timothy and Thessalonians.
What often comes as a shock to your Sunday wine and cracker Christian is that neither the Gospels, nor Paul, ever met Jesus the man himself. Moreover, none of the Gospels met the people that met the people that met Jesus. Thus, we have not a single eyewitness record of the life and death of Jesus H Christ. In fact, we have not a single self-written manuscript, birth or death certificate, or even a solitary independent unbiased eyewitness record of the most famous man to have ever graced western civilization.
What did Greek or Roman sources write about Jesus during the periods 1 AD to 100 AD? The answer is a short one: NOTHING! We know more about the Roman Senator Cicero, who lived during the same era, than we do of the acclaimed Son of God. Jesus, in my mind, is much like the comic hero the Phantom – the ghost who walked.
The fact that the Gospels and Paul were not eyewitnesses to Jesus’ life is not an issue in contention. It’s just a simple fact! Moreover, neither the Gospels nor Paul make any claims as to have ever seeing or meeting Jesus. This one little point should trouble any Christian to the point of disbelief as LITERALLY NOTHING IN THE BIBLE CAN BE DIRECTLY, VERIFIABLY, ATTRIBUTED TO JESUS!
In effect, we have only hearsay, which is based upon more hearsay, which is based upon more hearsay still, which is again based on more hearsay. And as we discussed earlier, we know hearsay to be testimony unworthy of consideration in a court of law. The question is, for a believer, is hearsay upon hearsay upon hearsay sufficient enough a foundation for your religious belief?
Dan Barker, a former evangelical minister cum atheist, writes in his book ‘
Losing Faith in Faith’
:
“
There is not a single contemporary historical mention of Jesus, not by Romans or by Jews, not by believers or by unbelievers, not during his entire lifetime. This does not disprove his existence, but it certainly casts great doubt on the historicity of a man who was supposedly widely known to have made a great impact on the world. Someone should have noticed.”
Based on a lack of external evidence, eyewitness testimony, conflicting Gospel accounts, and an absence of independent records – the only thing we know about Jesus, with any degree of certainty is the following:
• He was a Palestinian Jew
• He was raised in Galilee
• He spent most of his life in that immediate area. A rural area, outside of the more ‘sophisticated’ Jerusalem, that practiced a primitive form of Judaism.
• Jewish parents raised him.
• He was circumcised as a Jew.
• He observed all the Jewish holidays, and ceremonies, even the ones like the ‘Festival of The Lights’ that had not been invented for some 150 years after his death… so much for Gospel inerrancy!
• He lived and taught as a pious God-fearing Jew.
Outside of the above points, the remainder, we can be sure, are myths tagged onto his biography decades, and centuries after he had passed. Tales designed to extract religious meaning from Jesus’ life and teachings. We know this by examining the New Testament, in particular the irreconcilable contradictions between the Gospels’ writings, as we will in great detail.
