[the dark one] alive, kicking and sentient [3]

Your guess is as good as mine about how we got here, why G-d doesn’t step in and so on and that’s all we have – guesses, for the simple reason that our mental equipment can’t comprehend other dimensions. However, a man can speculate and this is my motion of how it might be.

The following is a diatribe from Chapter 25 of the last book, just as things are getting nasty and everyone’s killing one another. Our gallant band are holed up under a hill, everyone asks why it is so and this is one explanation:


‘Why not?’ asked Hugh. ‘Why do we have to go all gobbledegook about it? Why can’t the real scenario be quite mundane, quite easily explained in another dimension, although we can’t conceptualize it ourselves?’

‘I feel another Jensen rant getting close.’

‘You want to hear one?’

‘Go on,’ Sam groaned.

Hugh grinned. ‘Who is G-d?’

‘The Big Boss of the Sky,’ grinned Sam.

‘Let me put a scenario to you all or rather a series of questions. From all the destruction we’re seeing out there, what’s the purpose of the enemy?’

‘To destroy the world,’ said Genevieve.

‘And mankind in particular. OK, what has been the purpose of every government in the late 00 years?’

‘To enslave us,’ said Emma.

‘And to remove free will and substitute coercion. That’s what Genie’s and Sophie’s mind control were all about – to control them, to eliminate their free will. The enemy hates free will. OK, who have been the sworn enemies of the state since the dawn of states themselves?’

‘The philosophers, the free thinkers,’ supplied Jean-Claude.

‘Especially any philosophy in which people adhere to an ethereal deity, an afterlife and moral rules, therefore caring little for the powerful controlling tools of the enemy – money, power, status and sex.

Here’s a scenario.

Imagine that the science fiction books and films actually mirror the truth – there really are parallel universes, there are other dimensions, there are other worlds, wormholes, time warps and so on.

Imagine if, in many of these or even almost all of them, there is no linear time, no direction, north, south, east, west, no up and no down. There simply ‘is’.

In one sector of this ‘is’, an Ascended Master discovers the secret of how to harness, create and destroy the lifeforce of the cosmos. He immediately constructs booby traps around the secret to prevent others from having it because, even among his team colleagues, power without intellect is a dangerous thing, like a child driving a car.

He knows that the whole secret to this lifeforce is free will. Now comes his tour de force. He creates bite sized chunks of this force, calls it ‘soul’ and He holds the patent – he can insert it or remove it at will and no one else can.

One of his team who fancies himself as a rival of our AM doesn’t like this at all and insists the AM share the secret with all of them, meaning him, of course.

Nothing doing.

What’s worse, the AM now has it in His head to create a race of super-beings with this ‘soul’ inserted in each unit. This is more like it, the light bearer thinks, until he discovers that the AM plans to create a special universe to house his experiment, complete with a world with water, air and life supporting things like animals.

The final insult is that the AM is going to put this soul into millions of little clones of himself, meaning Man but with one twist – each is going to have unique features, both physically and in character. Each man will be a little god in himself.

‘Are you crazy?’ complains the light bearer. ‘Man will evolve and discover the secret of life himself. Give the power to someone more worthy, angels like us.’

‘Don’t worry,’ smiles the AM. ‘Man won’t be able to. I’m not going to equip him with our time and space coordinates. We use polar axes, he’ll use Cartesian. He’ll have limited perception, although his ego might lead him to think he understands more.’

‘No, no, a thousand times no, you’re threatening the whole of life as we know it,’ cries the light bearer. ‘You can’t go about giving this horrible little Man the power of good and evil.’

The light bearer promptly starts a war in this sector of the other dimension where they reside. For convenience, let’s call it ‘heaven’.

The AM, meanwhile, puts His plan into action, Adam and Eve are created and a really choice garden plot is set aside for them.

‘Stuff this,’ says the light bearer and heads through a portal to snuff out Man before he gets up and running. But he doesn’t succeed, goes back through the portal to heaven and causes so much trouble that he and his henchmen are thrown out.

They zip through the portal and land on earth.

Now, being much larger than Man, these giants wander around, copulating with every female they can stick their things into and try to inject the gene pool with their own DNA, thereby creating a race of ‘kings’ who will rule the earth in perpetuity.

Now they set about destroying Man’s belief in his maker and substituting opposite values for every good one Man holds. So, instead of barter, there is money, instead of vaginal sex, there is anal and so on. Everything black is painted white and vice versa.

Everything is done wrongly.

The light bearer goes completely off his rocker and through his ‘kings’, introduces more or less endless warfare and slaughter, each king begetting a new ‘king’ and so on.

One of the AM’s good colleagues says, ‘Listen, Boss, do you think this is such a good idea? The light bearer’s causing mayhem in your little pet world.’

‘Can’t do anything about it,’ replies the AM. ‘I encoded free will into Man.’

‘Oh come off it,’ says Michael. ‘You have the power to create and destroy.’

‘No, I gave it away; I put it into my children instead.’

‘You mean you can’t alter anything?’

‘I can in a macro-way, floods, getting Hitler to halt at the channel etc. but individually, no, not unless that individual has his spiritual receiver turned on.’

‘Meaning?’

‘He has to believe in me. Once he does that, then I have influence. As long as he keeps his belief circuits switched off, I can’t do anything.’

Michael is frustrated beyond endurance. ‘You won’t stop that devastation out there?’

‘Not won’t, Michael - I can’t. I programmed the power into Man himself, to pass to his children at the point of conception and birth.’

‘Look,’ said Michael, ‘that silly sod the light bearer is holding rituals down there where everyone’s praying to him and they kill some child or other and drink its blood so that the power is passed to them at the moment of birth or death.’

‘Yes, forlorn exercise and he’ll get his for doing that to my creation.’

‘He might eventually get his but meanwhile, what about those poor men, women and children? They’re suffering.’

‘I can only help them if they have their belief circuits switched on.’

‘Well, make them switch them on.’

‘That’s not free will. Without free will, Man disintegrates as a life form. It’s programmed in. You can’t have it both ways. Either he’s free or he’s not. It’s a fait accompli.’

‘Well, what about the people with their belief circuits switched on? They’re down there and suffering too.’

‘Yep, they’re being beamed up to the orbs soon.’

‘Why not beam up all human beings?’

‘I would.’

‘Well?’

‘The onboard beamer can only connect with someone with his belief circuit switched on. Look, Mick, I gave Man enough warning, didn’t I? I sent down a piece of me to walk around and tell people that he who believes will be saved. What more can I do?’

‘Most people don’t believe John 3:16.’

‘That’s unfortunate. If they switched on their belief circuits, they’d be beamed up.’

‘But that’s murder, genocide.’

‘Yes.’

‘So save them.’

‘I am saving them. I’ve sent through the portal three billion orbs to take every man, woman and child out of the horror. All they have to do to be beamed up is -’

‘Don’t tell me – to switch on their belief circuits.’

‘Right. I promised I’d come, I’m there, I’m waiting for them to switch them on.’

‘And if they don’t?’

‘The portal has a time limit and when it closes, the orbs must return here with however many they’ve got on board.’

Hugh turned to the other five and said, ‘That’s all, folks.’ He sat down and Emma gave him a drink.

There was silence all round.

Conundrum

Conundrum

Read the following sentence and count the number F's. Count them ONLY ONCE. DO NOT go back and check.

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS.




ANSWER:

There are six F's in total Most people only find 3! If you got all six go to the top of the class!

Found on my packet of cigarette papers.

I must admit I could only find 3, and started to post this pointing out that they must have made a mistake when after several re-readings I still could only find 3. Then I found a 4th...then a 5th...and finally the 6th!

Of all things! (Geddit?)

[christianity] is fair discussion possible [1]

DISCLAIMER 12.04.12: This series is now old, as you can see from the date. It fitted the context of the time, which was focussed on the early or late dating of the gospels but new material has come my way since then which puts many points better. Also, to have titled it "Christianity" was not as accurate as titling it "The Gospels" perhaps. It's in the process of being rewritten and recollated, to get it into a less rambling form. Once that's done, I'll take excerpts from it for a post at Orphans. I'm giving myself a week for this. For any who've come over from the Atheist article at Orphans, this here is therefore not the series of posts I'm putting forward and relying on to back me.

..........................................

You can call this saccharine sweet but it's still an endangered species.

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Method

To answer Sonus’s article on Satan, the approach I’m taking is to first establish the historicity and dating of the Gospels, then to deal with the historicity of Jesus, thus leading to the question of the existence of G-d, which then defines Satan as an altogether different personage to that which Sonus contends.

The article on Satan himself, answering Sonus, follows this series and will be posted next week.

To start the ball rolling, this is not a bad article by Shandon L. Guthrie on various aspects of the resurrection but I include it here only as an illustration of methodology:

Naturalism

The first presupposition that needs to be jettisoned is the view of naturalism (or anti-supernaturalism). Naturalism supposes that the only events that can occur in history are purely physical, natural ones. Of course this precludes even the possibility of any supernatural events in the history of the universe. Once someone's mind is exclusive to explanations that posit natural elements then a Resurrection of any sort is barred a priori. Naturalism is a self-contained rejection of the supernatural.

Hume

First, Hume argues that our "firm and unalterable experience" militates against the reality of miracles. Any claim of miraculous intervention, therefore, must be matched with our uniform experience and weighed appropriately. Therefore, any miracle claim will be disconfirmed by our "firm and unalterable experience" on the matter.

Hume's second argument deals with the factual improbability of miracles. That even though the principle is sufficient to render miracles impossible, it is in fact true that miracles have never occurred in human history because any natural explanation outweighs a supernatural one. Thus anyone examining the historical evidence surrounding a miracle claim will conclude that something else must be the better explanation.

Hume's first argument has been recognized to be a classic case of petitio principii (begging the question) because Hume begins by assuming that our "firm and unalterable experience" already excludes a history of miracles. It is only when he assumes that our uniform experience does not involve the miraculous can he conclude that miracles never occurred. But surely this is putting the cart before the horse.

Secondly, one can disavow Hume's approach even if we suppose that he means to suggest that an improbability yields a disconfirming conclusion. There are no good reasons to suppose that because an event is improbable that it is, therefore, impossible. If one were to argue for the improbability of an event then such evidence would have to include that event as the best explanation of the surrounding facts.

So one must now ask, With respect to what is the notion of miracles improbable? If anyone is to confidently conclude a high improbability of a miraculous claim then the arguer owes it to the Christian to supply the backdrop of the improbability.

Antony Flew

Contemporary attackers of the claims to the miraculous suggest a new twist to the Humean problem. Instead of dealing with probabilities based on historical observation they surmise an analogy between the present state of affairs with that of history. This is to say that the regularities of today's events must be consistent with the regularities of history.

For example, there are no observations of mermaids in today's world and none seem physically possible. Thus, one ought not to think that a mermaid may have been observed by a 19th century seagoing captain simply because no confirmations of mermaids subsist. Captains probably mistook manatees for mermaids.

The only difference between Antony Flew and Hume, in this respect, is that uniform experience consists of only one's current experiential data. Flew posits a similar construction that bases its assessment of miracle claims on the general experience of the modern man.

Flew calls this the "critical history" approach. He contends that no good historian can adequately do good history unless claims that contradict contemporary experience are disposed of. Presumably no contemporary experience involves the miraculous.

The issue that has to be dealt with is whether or not Flew's methodology is true given the historical analogy to contemporary events. By way of evaluation, I think there are several problems with Flew's defense.

First, analogical arguments are probabilistic in that they do not claim identity but merely claim verisimilitude. For example, laboratory testing on mice may give analogous effects to human responses but the fact remains that mice are not human beings. Analogies, in this respect, serve to conclude the probability of a hypothesis based upon relevant similarities.

So, even if we can agree with Flew that an analogy is warranted (as I believe it is) then the analogy serves to undergird the relevant factors of today with those of history.

Now the question becomes, "What relevance do contemporary events have with miraculous events of history?" The Christian could appropriately deny the connection while pleading for the uniqueness of historical, miraculous events.

Secondly, it appears that Flew is special pleading. Miraculous events are generally not repeated events and are very much unlike standard events as we see both in history and today. Why should non-unique events be disqualified by the analogy of today if an event, by definition, is infrequent?

In this respect, Flew's argument appears to take on a Humean flavor by making a special methodology already suited for the non-believer in miracles. But this is precisely what is at issue.

Thirdly, Flew believes (like Hume) that miracles are impossible events in principle. But as with Hume, this is question-begging.

Fourthly, if Flew were correct then there would be no historiographical fecundity. Something is said to be fecund if it opens the doors to further investigation in additional areas. Flew's analysis certainly precludes this sort of methodology and does not open the door to any unique investigations.

Fifthly, Flew's analysis is a resurgence of the late German theologian Ernst Troeltsch who advocated a similar "principle of analogy" which appears to badly falsify historical claims of the miraculous.

The problem with a Flew/Troeltsch historiography is that it fails to affirm an analogy and, at best, can only disconfirm the non-analogous.

So, in order for analogy to be properly viewed with respect to history it must explain, for example, how the Resurrection appearances are analogous to, say, mass hallucinations. It does no good to suggest that a miraculous claim of history is non-analogous to a current event because it may very well be a unique and unprecedented occurrence.

Historical explanations are not employed by repeating experiments for the desired observable outcome (since in most cases the historical context is unrepeatable).

Instead, historians seek to explain a historical event by the surrounding context in which it had taken place.

This evinces a slightly different approach. Instead of seeking circumstances by which a historical hypothesis can be put to the test, the historian, like the geologist and archaeologist, investigates the surrounding context of the event.

As The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy correctly summarizes, we see that the historian is primarily concerned with two governing factors:

1. the temporal progression of large-scale human events and actions, primarily but not exclusively in the past

2. the discipline or inquiry in which knowledge of the human past is acquired or sought.

A debate on the Resurrection between William Lane Craig and German New Testament critic Gerd Ludëmann threw light on the method of discovery.

The objective of the debate was to assess the New Testament for reasons to either accept or reject the Resurrection of Jesus as a historical event.

As the debate came to an end, Dr. Craig made an interesting analysis that there are two roads that lead to the same affirmation about the reality of Jesus' Resurrection:

The historical road and the personal road. The former is the pursuit of the historical information on Jesus in an effort to evaluate the material for the Resurrection hypothesis (which is what the debate hammered out and what this essay has concentrated on). The latter is not only a road to finding the authentic Jesus of the New Testament but an existential path to finding the meaning to our lives.

[christianity] is fair discussion possible [2]

You can call this saccharine sweet but it's still an endangered species.

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Historicity and dating of the Gospels

Below are a number of articles dealing with this issue. Rather than collating them, I present them as is:

Most academic historians believe that such texts are valuable historical sources, but that their meaning depends on a variety of factors. Historians generally assume that the Gospels, like other historical sources (for example, the works of Josephus), were written by human beings.

Some argue that a text with a clearly identified author (for example, the Gospel of Luke) was written by someone else, or by several authors, or by an author drawing on several sources.

A close reading of the Gospels suggests to historians that most people addressed Jesus as lord as a sign of respect for a miracle-worker (especially in Mark and Matthew) or as a teacher (especially in Luke). [Wiki]

Destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. , Luke and Acts

None of the gospels mention the destruction of the Jewish temple in 70 A.D. This is significant because Jesus had prophesied concerning the temple when He said "As for these things which you are looking at, the days will come in which there will not be left one stone upon another which will not be torn down," (Luke 21:5, see also Matt. 24:1; Mark 13:1).

This prophecy was fulfilled in 70 A.D. when the Romans sacked Jerusalem and burned the temple. The gold in the temple melted down between the stone walls and the Romans took the walls apart, stone by stone, to get the gold. Such an obvious fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy most likely would have been recorded as such by the gospel writers who were fond of mentioning fulfillment of prophecy if they had been written after 70 A.D. Also, if the gospels were fabrications of mythical events then anything to bolster the Messianic claims -- such as the destruction of the temple as Jesus said -- would surely have been included. But, it was not included suggesting that the gospels (at least Matthew, Mark, and Luke) were written before 70 A.D.

Similarly, this argument is important when we consider the dating of the book of Acts which was written after the gospel of Luke by Luke himself. Acts is a history of the Christian church right after Jesus' ascension. Acts also fails to mention the incredibly significant events of 70 A.D. which would have been extremely relevant and prophetically important and garnered inclusion into Acts had it occurred before Acts was written.

Remember, Acts is a book of history concerning the Christians and the Jews. The fact that the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple is not recorded is very strong evidence that Acts was written before A.D. 70. If we add to this the fact that acts does not include the accounts of "Nero's persecution of the Christians in A.D. 64 or the deaths of James (A.D. 62), Paul (A.D. 64), and Peter (A.D. 65),"1 and we have further evidence that it was written early.

If we look at Acts 1:1-2 it says, "The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2 until the day when He was taken up, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen." Most scholars affirm that Acts was written by Luke and that Theophilus (Grk. "lover of God") "may have been Luke’s patron who financed the writing of Luke and Acts."2 This means that the gospel of Luke was written before Acts.

"At the earliest, Acts cannot have been written prior to the latest firm chronological marker recorded in the book—Festus’s appointment as procurator (24:27), which, on the basis of independent sources, appears to have occurred between A.D. 55 and 59."3

"It is increasingly admitted that the Logia [Q] was very early, before 50 A.D., and Mark likewise if Luke wrote the Acts while Paul was still alive. Luke's Gospel comes (Acts 1:1) before the Acts. The date of Acts is still in dispute, but the early date (about A.D. 63) is gaining support constantly."4

For clarity, Q is supposedly one of the source documents used by both Matthew and Luke in writing their gospels. If Q actually existed then that would push the first writings of Christ's words and deeds back even further lessening the available time for myth to creep in and adding to the validity and accuracy of the gospel accounts. If what is said of Acts is true, this would mean that Luke was written at least before A.D. 63 and possibly before 55 - 59 since Acts is the second in the series of writings by Luke. This means that the gospel of Luke was written within 30 years of Jesus' death.

Matthew

The early church unanimously held that the gospel of Matthew was the first written gospel and was penned by the apostle of the same name (Matt. 10:2). Lately, the priority of Matthew as the first written gospel has come under suspicion with Mark being considered by many to be the first written gospel. The debate is far from over.

The historian Papias mentions that the gospel of Matthew was originally in Aramaic or Hebrew and attributes the gospel to Matthew the apostle.5

"Irenaeus (ca. a.d. 180) continued Papias’s views about Matthew and Mark and added his belief that Luke, the follower of Paul, put down in a book the gospel preached by that apostle, and that John, the Beloved Disciple, published his Gospel while residing in Asia. By the time of Irenaeus, Acts was also linked with Luke, the companion of Paul."6

This would mean that if Matthew did write in Aramaic originally, that he may have used Mark as a map, adding and clarifying certain events as he remembered them. But, this is not known for sure.

The earliest quotation of Matthew is found in Ignatius who died around 115 A.D. Therefore, Matthew was in circulation well before Ignatius came on the scene. The various dates most widely held as possible writing dates of the Gospel are between A.D. 40 - 140. But Ignatius died around 115 A.D. and he quoted Matthew. Therefore Matthew had to be written before he died. Nevertheless, it is generally believed that Matthew was written before A.D. 70 and as early as A.D. 50.

Mark

Mark was not an eyewitness to the events of Jesus' life. He was a disciple of Peter and undoubtedly it was Peter who informed Mark of the life of Christ and guided him in writing the Gospel known by his name. "Papias claimed that Mark, the Evangelist, who had never heard Christ, was the interpreter of Peter, and that he carefully gave an account of everything he remembered from the preaching of Peter."7 Generally, Mark is said to be the earliest gospel with an authorship of between A.D. 55 to A.D. 70.

Luke

Luke was not an eyewitness of the life of Christ. He was a companion of Paul who also was not an eyewitness of Christ's life. But, both had ample opportunity to meet the disciples who knew Christ and learn the facts not only from them, but from others in the area. Some might consider this damaging to the validity of the gospel, but quite the contrary. Luke was a gentile convert to Christianity who was interested in the facts. He obviously had interviewed the eyewitnesses and written the Gospel account as well as Acts.

"The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2 until the day when He was taken up, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen. 3 To these He also presented Himself alive, after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days, and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God," (Acts 1:1-3).

Notice how Luke speaks of "them," of those who had personal encounters with Christ. Luke is simply recounting the events from the disciples. Since Luke agrees with Matthew, Mark, and John and since there is no contradictory information coming from any of the disciples stating that Luke was inaccurate, and since Luke has proven to be a very accurate historian, we can conclude that Luke's account is very accurate.

As far as dating the gospel goes, Luke was written before the book of Acts and Acts does not mention "Nero's persecution of the Christians in A.D. 64 or the deaths of James (A.D. 62), Paul (A.D. 64), and Peter (A.D. 65)."8 Therefore, we can conclude that Luke was written before A.D. 62. "Luke's Gospel comes (Acts 1:1) before the Acts. The date of Acts is still in dispute, but the early date (about A.D. 63) is gaining support constantly."

John

The writer of the gospel of John was obviously an eyewitness of the events of Christ's life since he speaks from a perspective of having been there during many of the events of Jesus' ministry and displays a good knowledge of Israeli geography and customs.

The John Rylands papyrus fragment 52 of John's gospel dated in the year 135 contains portions of John 18, verses 31-33,37-38. This fragment was found in Egypt and a considerable amount of time is needed for the circulation of the gospel before it reached Egypt. It is the last of the gospels and appears to have been written in the 80's to 90's.

Of important note is the lack of mention of the destruction of the Jewish temple in 70 A.D. But this is understandable since John was not focusing on historical events. Instead, he focused on the theological aspect of the person of Christ and listed His miracles and words that affirmed Christ's deity.
____________
1. McDowell, Josh, A Ready Defense, Thomas Nelson Publishers; Nashville, Tenn., 1993, p. 80.
2. Walvoord, John F., and Zuck, Roy B., The Bible Knowledge Commentary, (Wheaton, Illinois: Scripture Press Publications, Inc.) 1983, 1985.
3. Mays, James Luther, Ph.D., Editor, Harper’s Bible Commentary, (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc.) 1988.
4. Robertson, A.T., A Harmony of the Gospels, Harper & Row; New York` 1950. pp. 255-256.
5. Douglas, J. D., Comfort, Philip W. & Mitchell, Donald, Editors, Who’s Who in Christian History, Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.; 1992.
6. Achtemeier, Paul J., Th.D., Harper’s Bible Dictionary, (San Francisco: Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc.; 1985
7. Douglas, J. D., Comfort, Philip W. & Mitchell, Donald, Editors, Who’s Who in Christian History, (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.; 1992.
8. McDowell, Josh, A Ready Defense, Thomas Nelson Publishers; Nashville, Tenn., 1993, p. 80.
9. Robertson, A.T., A Harmony of the Gospels, Harper & Row; New York` 1950. pp. 255-256.

Dating the Gospels

Reverend George H. Duggan, S.M., is a New Zealander. After earning his S.T.D. at the Angelicum in Rome, he taught philosophy for fifteen years at the Marist seminary, Greenmeadows, and then was rector in turn of a university hall of residence and the Marist tertianship. He is now living in retirement at St. Patrick's College, Silverstream. He is the author of Evolution and Philosophy (1949), Hans Kung and Reunion (1964), Teilhardism and the Faith (1968), and Beyond Reasonable Doubt (1987). His last article in HPR appeared in October 1992. He writes:

D. F. Strauss (1808-1874), in his Life of Jesus, (published in 1835-6), anticipated Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976) in holding that the Gospels, although they contain some historical facts, were mainly mythology and were written late in the 2nd century. Similarly F. C. Baur (1792-1860), an Hegelian rationalist, held that the Gospels were written between 130 and 170.

But Strauss, in the words of Giuseppe Ricciotti, "honestly confessed that his theory would collapse if the Gospels were composed during the first century."

If they were so early, there would not be enough time for the myths to develop. Moreover, it is plain that, the nearer a document is to the facts it narrates, the more likely it is that it will be factually accurate, just as an entry in a diary is more likely to be accurate than memoirs written forty or fifty years afterwards. John A. T. Robinson was therefore justified when he ended his book Redating the New Testament with the words: "Dates remain disturbingly fundamental data."

The current dating of the four Gospels, accepted by the biblical establishment, which includes scholars of every persuasion, is: Mark 65-70; Matthew and Luke in the 80s; John in the 90s. These dates are repeated by the columnists who write in our Catholic newspapers and the experts who draw up the curricula for religious education in our Catholic schools.

For much of this late dating there is little real evidence.

This point was made by C. H. Dodd, arguably the greatest English-speaking biblical scholar of the century. In a letter that serves as an appendix to Robinson's book Redating the New Testament, Dodd wrote: "I should agree with you that much of the late dating is quite arbitrary, even wanton, the offspring not of any argument that can be presented, but rather of the critic's prejudice that, if he appears to assent to the traditional position of the early church, he will be thought no better than a stick-in-the-mud."

Many years earlier the same point was made by C. C. Torrey, professor of Semitic Languages at Yale from 1900 to 1932. He wrote: "I challenged my NT colleagues to designate one passage from any one of the four Gospels giving clear evidence of a date later than 50 A.D. . . . The challenge was not met, nor will it be, for there is no such passage."

In 1976, the eminent New Testament scholar, John A. T. Robinson, "put a cat among the pigeons" with his book Redating the New Testament, published by SCM Press. He maintained that there are no real grounds for putting any of the NT books later than 70 A.D.

His main argument is that there is no clear reference in any of them to the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple which occurred on September 26th of that year. This cataclysmic event brought to an end the sacrificial worship that was the center of the Jewish religion and it should have merited a mention in the NT books if they were written afterwards.

In particular, one would have expected to find a reference to the event in the Epistle to the Hebrews, for it would have greatly strengthened the author's argument that the Temple worship was now obsolete.

Robinson dated the composition of Matthew from 40 to 60, using dots to indicate the traditions behind the text, dashes to indicate a first draft, and a continuous line to indicate writing and rewriting. Similarly, he dated Mark from 45 to 60, Luke from 55 to 62, and John from 40 to 65.

Robinson's book was the first comprehensive treatment of the dating of the NT books since Harnack's Chronologie des altchristlichen Litteratur, published in 1897. It is a genuine work of scholarship by a man thoroughly versed in the NT text and the literature bearing on it.

But it was not welcomed by the biblical establishment, and it was not refuted, but ignored. "German New Testament scholars," Carsten Thiede has written, "all but ignored Redating the New Testament, and not until 1986, ten years later, did Robinson's work appear in Germany, when a Catholic and an Evangelical publishing house joined forces to have it translated and put into print."

In 1987, the Franciscan Herald Press published The Birth of the Synoptics by Jean Carmignac, a scholar who for some years was a member of the team working on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He tells us he would have preferred "Twenty Years of Work on the Formation of the Synoptic Gospels" as a title for the book, but the publishers ruled this out as too long.

Carmignac is sure that Matthew and Mark were originally written in Hebrew. This would not have been the classical Hebrew of the Old Testament, nor that of the Mishnah (c. 200 A.D.) but an intermediate form of the language, such as the Qumran sectaries were using in the 1st century A.D.

Papias, the Bishop of Hierapolis in Asia Minor, who died about 130 A.D., tells us that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, and Carmignac has made a good case for holding that the same is true of Mark. He found that this compelled him to put the composition of these Gospels much earlier than the dates proposed by the biblical establishment.

He writes: "I increasingly came to realize the consequences of my work . . . . The latest dates that can be admitted for Mark (and the Collection of Discourses) is 50, and around 55 for the Completed Mark; around 55-60 for Matthew; between 58 and 60 for Luke. But the earliest dates are clearly more probable: Mark around 42; Completed Mark around 45; (Hebrew) Matthew around 50; (Greek) Luke a little after 50."

On page 87 he sets out the provisional results (some certain, some probable, others possible) of his twenty years' research and remarks that his conclusions almost square with those of J. W. Wenham.

In 1992, Hodder and Stoughton published Redating Matthew, Mark and Luke by John Wenham, the author of a well-known grammar of New Testament Greek. Born in 1913, he is an Anglican scholar who has spent his life in academic and pastoral work. He tells us that his attention was drawn to the Synoptic Problem in 1937, when he read Dom John Chapman's book Matthew, Mark and Luke. He has been grappling with the problem ever since and in this book he offers his solution of the problem; but his main concern is the dates of the Synoptics.

Wenham's book received high praise from Michael Green, the editor of the series I Believe, which includes works by such well-known scholars as I. Howard Marsall and the late George Eldon Ladd. The book, Green writes, "is full of careful research, respect for evidence, brilliant inspiration and fearless judgement. It is a book no New Testament scholar will be able to neglect."

Green may be too optimistic. Wenham will probably get the same treatment as Robinson: not a detailed refutation, but dismissed as not worthy of serious consideration.

Wenham puts the first draft of Matthew before 42. For twelve years (30-42) the Apostles had remained in Jerusalem, constituting, in words of the Swedish scholar B. Gerhardsson, a kind of Christian Sanhedrin, hoping to win over the Jewish people to faith in Christ. Matthew's Gospel, written in Hebrew, would have had an apologetic purpose, endeavoring to convince the Jews, by citing various Old Testament texts, that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of David and the long-awaited Messiah.

The persecution of the Church in 42 by Herod Agrippa I, in which the Apostle James suffered martyrdom, put an end to those hopes. Peter, miraculously freed from prison, went, we are told "to another place" (Acts 12:17). There are grounds for thinking that this "other place" was Rome, where there was a big Jewish community and where he would be out of the reach of Herod Agrippa. There, using Matthew's text, and amplifying it with personal reminiscences, he preached the gospel. When Agrippa died in 44, Peter was able to return to Palestine. After his departure from Rome, Mark produced the first draft of his Gospel, based on Peter's preaching.

Luke was in Philippi from 49 to 55, and it was during this time that he produced the first draft of his Gospel, beginning with our present chapter 3, which records the preaching of John the Baptist.10 It was to this Gospel, Origen explained, that St. Paul was referring when, writing to the Corinthians in 56, he described Luke as "the brother whose fame in the gospel has gone through all the churches" (2 Cor. 8:18).

We know that Luke was in Palestine when Paul was in custody in Caesarea (58-59). He would have been able to move round Galilee, interviewing people who had known the Holy Family, and probably making the acquaintance of a draft in the Hebrew of the Infancy Narrative, and so gathering material for the first two chapters of the present Gospel. In the finished text he introduced this and the rest of the Gospel with the prologue in which he assures Theophilus that he intends to write history.

There are no grounds for putting Luke's Gospel in the early 80s as R. F. Karris does,11 or, with Joseph Fitzmyer, placing it as "not earlier than 80-85."

The date of Luke's Gospel is closely connected with that of Acts, its companion volume, for if Acts is early, then Luke will be earlier still. In 1896, Harnack put Acts between 79 and 93, but by 1911 he had come to the conclusion that "it is the highest degree probable" that Acts is to be dated before 62. If Luke does not mention the outcome of the trial of Paul, it is, Harnack argued, because he did not know, for when Luke wrote, the trial had not yet taken place.

C. J. Hemer, in his magisterial work, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History, which was published posthumously in 1989, gives fifteen general indications, of varying weight but cumulative in their force, which point to a date before 70. Indeed, many of these point to a date before 65, the year in which the Neroian persecution of the Church began.

In 1996, Weidenfeld and Nicholson published The Jesus Papyrus by Carsten Peter Thiede and Matthew d'Ancona. Thiede is Director of the Institute for Basic Epistemological Research in Paderborn, Germany, and a member of the International Papyrological Association. Matthew d'Ancona is a journalist and Deputy Editor of the Daily Telegraph, a London newspaper.

The book is about several papyrus fragments, and in particular three found in Luxor, Egypt, which contain passages from the Gospel of St. Matthew, and one found in Qumran, which contains twenty letters from the Gospel of St. Mark.

The three Luxor fragments-the Jesus papyrus-came into the possession of the Reverend Charles Huleatt, the Anglican chaplain in that city, who sent them in 1901 to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he had graduated in 1888. They did not attract scholarly attention until 1953, when Colin H. Roberts examined them. He dated them as belonging to the late 2nd century. Then in 1994, they came to the notice of C. P. Thiede, who suspected that they might be much older than Roberts thought. Examining them with a confocal laser scanning microscope, and comparing them with the script in a document dated July 24, 66, he came to the conclusion that the fragments should be dated as belonging to the middle of the first century.

The Qumran fragment is small-3.3 cm x 2.3 cm-an area that is slightly larger than a postage stamp. It contains twenty letters, on five lines, ten of the letters being damaged. It is fragment no. 5 from Cave 7 and it is designated 7Q5. A similar fragment from the same Cave-7Q2-has one more letter-twenty-one as against twenty, on five lines. The identification of this fragment as Baruch (or the Letter of Jeremiah) 6:43-44 has never been disputed.

In 1972 Fr. José O'Callaghan, S.J., a Spanish papyrologist, declared that the words on 7Q5 were from the Gospel of St. Mark: 6:52-53. This identification was widely questioned, but many papyrologists rallied to his support, and there are good reasons for thinking that O'Callaghan was right. Thiede writes: "In 1994, the last word on this particular identification seemed to have been uttered by one of the great papyrologists of our time, Orsolina Montevecchi, Honorary President of the International Papyrological Association. She summarized the results in a single unequivocal sentence: 'I do not think there can be any doubt about the identification of 7Q5.'"14 This implies that St. Marks' Gospel was in being some time before the monastery at Qumran was destroyed by the Romans in 68.

Those who object that texts of the Gospels could not have reached such out of the way places as Luxor or Qumran as early as the 60s of the first century do not realize how efficient the means of communication were in the Empire at that time. Luxor was even then a famous tourist attraction, and, with favorable winds a letter from Rome could reach Alexandria in three days-at least as quickly as an airmail letter in 1996. Nor was Qumran far from Jerusalem, and we know that the monks took a lively interest in the religious and intellectual movements of the time.

New Testament scholars dealing with the Synoptic Gospels will obviously have to take more notice of the findings of the papyrologists than they have so far been prepared to do, however painful it may be to discard received opinions.

When was St. John's Gospel written?

That John, the son of Zebedee, and one of the Apostles, wrote the Gospel that bears his name, was established long ago, on the basis of external and internal evidence, by B. F. Westcott and M. J. Lagrange, O.P., and their view, though not universally accepted, has not really been shaken.

St. Irenaeus, writing in 180, tells us that John lived until the reign of the Emperor Trajan, which began in 98. From this some have inferred that John wrote his Gospel in the 90s. But this inference is obviously fallacious. The majority of modern scholars do indeed date the Gospel in the 90s, but a growing number put it earlier, and Robinson mentions seventeen, including P. Gardner-Smith, R. M. Grant and Leon Morris, who favor a date before 70. To them we could add Klaus Berger, of Heidelberg, who puts it in 66. Robinson decisively refutes the arguments brought forward by Raymond Brown and others to establish a later date, viz. the manner of referring to "the Jews," and the reference to excommunication in chapter 9. He adds: "There is nothing in the Gospel that suggests or presupposes that the Temple is already destroyed or that Jerusalem is in ruins-signs of which calamity are inescapably present in any Jewish or Christian literature that can with any certainty be dated to the period 70-100."

Robinson also points out that John, when describing the cure of the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda, tells us that this pool "is surrounded by five porticos, or covered colonnades" (5:2). Since these porticos were destroyed in 70, John's use of the present tense-"is"-seems to imply that the porticos were still in being when he wrote. "Too much weight," he admits, "must not be put on this-though it is the only present tense in the context; and elsewhere (4:6; 11:18; 18:1; 19:41), John assimilates his topographical descriptions to the tense of the narrative."

This article will have served its purpose if it has encouraged the reader to consider seriously the evidence for an early date for the Gospels, refusing to be overawed by such statements as that "the majority of modern biblical scholars hold" or that "there is now a consensus among modern biblical scholars" that the Gospels are to be dated from 65 to 90 A.D.

The account I have given of the writing of the Synoptic Gospels is categorical in style, but it is presented only as a likely scenario. However, it would seem to be more likely than one based on the assumption that among the Jews, a literate people, it was thirty years or more before anyone wrote a connected account of the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth.

"I do not wish," C. S. Lewis once said to a group of divinity students, "to reduce the skeptical element in your minds. I am only suggesting that it need not be reserved exclusively for the New Testament and the Creeds. Try doubting something else." This something else, I suggest could include the widely accepted view that the Gospels were written late.

It will be easier to do this if the reader is acquainted with the judgment of the eminent jurist, Sir Norman Anderson, who describes himself as "an academic from another discipline who has browsed widely in the writings of contemporary theologians and biblical scholars." At times, he is, he tells us, "astonished by the way in which they handle their evidence, by the presuppositions and a priori convictions with which some of them clearly (and even, on occasion, on their own admission) approach the documents concerned, and by the positively staggering assurance with which they make categorical pronouncements on points which are, on any showing, open to question, and on which equally competent colleagues take a diametrically opposite view."

1 The traditional dating is given in the Douay-Rheims-Challoner version in its introductions to the Gospels: Matthew about 36; Mark about 40; Luke about 54; John about 93. 2 Ricciotti, The Life of Christ (E.T. Alba I. Zizzamia), Bruce, Milwaukee, 1944, p. 186. 3 Redating the New Testament, SCM Press, London, 1976, p. 358. 4 Thus in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Geoffrey Chapman, London, 1989, D. J. Harrington puts Mark before 70; B. T. Viviani, O.P., puts Matthew between 80 and 90; R. J. Karris, O.F.M., puts Luke 80-85; Pheme Perkins puts John in the 90s. 5 Redating the New Testament, p. 360. 6 Quoted in J. Wenham, Redating Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Hodder and Stoughton, London, p. 299 note 2. 7 C. P. Thiede and M. d'Ancona, The Jesus Papyrus, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1996, p. 45. 8 J. Carmignac, The Birth of the Synoptics, (E. T. Michael J. Wrenn)

Franciscan Herald Press, Chicago, 1987, pp. 6, 61. 9 Ibid., p. 99 note 29. 10 Robinson suggests that this may be the case, op. cit. p. 282 note 142. 11 R. J. Karris, in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, p. 670. 12 Richard Dillon and Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J., in The Jerome Biblical Commentary, Prentice-Hall International, London, 1968, Vol. 2, p. 165. 13 J. Wenham, op. cit., pp. 225-226. 14 C. P. Thiede and M. d'Ancona, op. cit., p. 56. 15 Robinson, op. cit., pp. 272-285. 16 Ibid., p. 275. 17 Ibid., p. 278. 18 "Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism" in Christian Reflections, Geoffrey Bles, London, 1967, p. 164. 19A Lawyer Among Theologians, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1973, p. 15.

The Gospels

Concerning the provenance of Matthew's writing of his Gospel, there is very little to acknowledge. But perhaps it is likely that Matthew wrote somewhere in Syria, for those who think that Matthew's geography discloses any significance. New Testament scholars D. A. Carson, Douglas Moo, and Leon Morris declare that "we cannot be certain of the geographic provenance of this gospel. Syria is perhaps the most likely suggestion, but nothing of importance hangs on the decision."

Some external sources from the early Church Fathers suggest this line of reasoning, including Irenaeus, Tertullian, Papias, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen (the latter two are seen in the writings of Eusebius). Their writings make an association between Mark and the Apostle Peter such that their testimony ought not to be rejected unless there are some defeaters to that view.

If some early Christians desired to bolster the Resurrection account they would have spruced it up with well-known authors and would have used the "bigger" names such as Peter, Thomas, Barnabas, and so forth. In fact, the first two centuries of Christianity indicate that this is precisely what occurred. The so-called Gospel of Peter, the Nag Hammadi texts, and other apocryphal gospels were produced to enhance the Christian message. This makes the unlikely names of Matthew, Mark, and Luke a credible factor in sustaining their authorship.

For example, the 1961 finding of an inscription of the name "Pilate" delegates specific extra-biblical confirmation for the Gospel accounts of the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate, who sentenced Jesus to his death. Also, the discovery of an ossuary containing the remains of a man who had been crucified with nails in his ankles seems to verify such execution techniques during Jesus' time.

In addition, the 1992 discovery of the bones of Caiaphas, the Jewish High Priest during the time of Jesus, silenced skeptical queries about Caiaphas' existence. The close similarities of the events depicted between biographies and historical literature and the Synoptics demonstrate that a general continuity and reliability are to be seen. Given the genre of the literature, the Synoptics ought to serve as historical sources.

The destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem was predicted not only by Jesus but also by other learned Jews of the time. There are 3 fragments in the Talmud which refer to something terrible happening "40 years before the destruction of the Temple", which is said to have had various consequences, one of them being that the "sacrifices lost their efficacy".

Johanan Ben Zakkai, a friend of Nicodemus, cried out when the Temple gates once opened of their own accord, "O Temple, Temple . . . I know that thou shallt be destroyed!" He was referring by this to Zech. 11:1, "Open your doors, O Lebanon, so that fire may devour your cedars!" 'Lebanon', according to the Rabbis, is a cryptic name for the Temple, because its root letters form the word 'whiten': the Temple therefore "whitens" the nation's sins.

The clearest prophecy of the destruction of the Temple is of course the 9th chapter of Daniel, referred to in passing by the Jewish historian Josephus, who also recorded the remarkable fact of the Temple's east gate opening of its own accord during the night.

The strongest proof that the destruction of the Temple was considered possible is in Josephus' Jewish Wars: During the Feast of Tabernacles "four years before the Jewish revolt", when "the city was still flourishing and in perfect peace", a certain Jesus, the son of Ananus began to proclaim strange tidings, crying out with great volume: "A voice cries out against Jerusalem, against the Temple of God, against the whole nation!"

He continued night and day "in all the streets and alleys of the city", and even though both Jewish and Roman officials scourged him until his bones were laid bare, "he shed no tear nor did he rebuke his torturers". He kept this up for "seven years and five months, right up to the siege of the city". Finally, to his cry of "Woe to thee, Jerusalem!" he added the words "Woe, woe to myself also!". Soon after the seige commenced, Josephus tells us, he was killed by a stone from a Roman ballista.

Doctor Bo Reicke writes in one of his studies that "it is nothing short of jingoistic and uncritical dogma to claim in New Testament criticism that the gospels must have been written after the Jewish revolt [AD 66-70], simply because they contain prophecies of the destruction of the second Temple which could only have been inserted at a later date".

In addition

Clement of Rome was a Christian bishop who wrote to the Corinthian church, basically asking them why they were not obeying what Paul wrote 50 years earlier. Clement's letter was written in 97/98 A.D.

This one is hard to dismiss.

[christianity] is fair discussion possible [3]

You can call this saccharine sweet but it's still an endangered species.

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Non biblical sources on the historicity of Jesus


Pilate

The following is a reprinting of a letter from Pontius Pilate to Tiberius Caesar describing the physical appearance of Jesus. Copies are in the Congressional Library in Washington, D.C.

To Tiberius Caesar

A young man appeared in Galilee preaching with humble unction, a new law in the Name of the God that had sent Him. At first I was apprehensive that His design was to stir up the people against the Romans, but my fears were soon dispelled. Jesus of Nazareth spoke rather as a friend of the Romans than of the Jews.

One day I observed in the midst of a group of people a young man who was leaning against a tree, calmly addressing the multitude. I was told it was Jesus. This I could easily have suspected so great was the difference between Him and those who were listening to Him. His golden colored hair and beard gave to his appearance a celestial aspect. He appeared to be about 30 years of age. Never have I seen a sweeter or more serene countenance.

What a contrast between Him and His bearers with their black beards and tawny complexions! Unwilling to interrupt Him by my presence, I continued my walk but signified to my secretary to join the group and listen. Later, my secretary reported that never had he seen in the works of all the philosophers anything that compared to the teachings of Jesus. He told me that Jesus was neither seditious nor rebellious, so we extended to Him our protection. He was at liberty to act, to speak, to assemble and to address the people. This unlimited freedom provoked the Jews -- not the poor but the rich and powerful.

Later, I wrote to Jesus requesting an interview with Him at the Praetorium. He came. When the Nazarene made His appearance I was having my morning walk and as I faced Him my feet seemed fastened with an iron hand to the marble pavement and I trembled in every limb as a guilty culprit, though he was calm. For some time I stood admiring this extraordinary Man. There was nothing in Him that was repelling, nor in His character, yet I felt awed in His presence. I told Him that there was a magnetic simplicity about Him and His personality that elevated Him far above the philosophers and teachers of His day.

Now, Noble Sovereign, these are the facts concerning Jesus of Nazareth and I have taken the time to write you in detail concerning these matters. I say that such a man who could convert water into win, change death into life, disease into health; calm the stormy seas, is not guilty of any criminal offense and as others have said, we must agree -- truly this is the Son of God! Your most obedient servant, Pontius Pilate.

[Also in E. Raymond Capt, 'The Resurrection Tomb', available from Artisan Sales.]

Mara Bar-Serapion

This was a Syrian who wrote a letter to his son, Serapion, sometime after 73 A.D. He encourages him to emulate the wise men of history who died for what they believed in, such as Socrates, Pythagoras, and the wise King the Jews executed. The document is in the British Museum, and F.F. Bruce mentions this in The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable.

Publius Lentrelus

He was a resident of Judea in the reign of Tiberius Caesar. It first appeared in the writings of Saint Anselm of Canterbury, 11th century:

There lives at this time in Judea a man of singular virtue whose name is Jesus Christ, whom the barbarians esteem as a prophet, but his followers love and adore him as the offspring of the immortal God. He calls back the dead from the graves and heals all sorts of diseases with a word or touch. He is a tall man, well-shaped, and of an amiable and reverend aspect; his hair of a color that can hardly be matched, falling into graceful curls, waving about and very agreeable crouching upon his shoulders, parted on the crown of the head, running as a stream to the front after fashion of the Nazarites.

His forehead high, large and imposing; his cheeks without spot or wrinkle, beautiful with a lovely red; his nose and mouth formed with exquisite symmetry; his beard, and of a color suitable to his hair, reaching below his chin and parted in the middle like a fork; his eyes bright blue, clear and serene.

Look innocent, dignified, manly and mature. In proportion of body most perfect, and captivating; his arms and hands delectable to behold. He rebukes with majesty, councils with mildness, His whole address whether in word or deed, being eloquent and grave. No man has seen him laugh, yet his manners are exceedingly pleasant, but he has wept frequently in the presence of men. He is temperate, modest and wise. A man for his extraordinary beauty and perfection, surpassing the children of men in every sense.

[Also in E. Raymond Capt, 'The Resurrection Tomb', available from Artisan Sales.]

JH - I admit that this one's a bit iffy.

Josephus

Pharisee and Jewish historian. Writing about Ananias, a high priest mentioned in the Book of Acts in the Bible, Josephus, the most significant Jewish historian of the period wrote:

"He convened a meeting of the Sanhedrin and brought before them a man named James, the brother of Jesus, who was called the Christ, and certain others. He accused them of having transgressed the law and delivered them up to be stoned." (Josephus, The Antiquities 20.200)

Testimonium Flavianum

Most scholars who have reviewed the writings of Josephus generally conclude that he makes genuine references to Jesus albeit the Testimonium Flavianum contains elements of Christian embellishment.

It’s a pity that the lily had to be gilded in this way because the original would have been sufficient to establish historicity and it is hardly necessary to expect Josephus to lend credence to claims of divinity.

At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was a doer of amazing deeds, a teacher of persons who receive truth with pleasure. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah.

And when Pilate condemned him to the cross, the leading men among us having accused him, those who loved him from the first did not cease to do so. For he appeared to them the third day alive again, the divine prophets having spoken these things and a myriad of other marvels concerning him. And to the present the tribe of Christians, named after this person, has not disappeared.

Miami University Professor of history, Edwin M. Yamauchi, lists five main reasons why scholars on Josephus believe the Testimonium Flavianum is an authentic reference to Jesus:

1. Jesus is called "a wise man." Though the phrase is complimentary, it is less than one would expect from Christians.

2. "For he was one who wrought surprising feats" ["For he was a doer of amazing deeds"]. This is not necessarily a statement that could only have come from a Christian.

3. "He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks" is simply an observation.

4. "Those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him," conforms to Josephus' characteristic style.

5. "And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared." Most scholars would agree that the word phylon "tribe," is not a typically Christian expression.

It has also been noted by Yamauchi that a tenth century Melkite bishop of Hierapolis, named Agapius, inscribed an Arabic translation of Josephus' Testimonium Flavianum that seems to possess differences with the Greek version which may divulge the original passage. The Israeli scholar, S. Pines, observes approximately four of these differences:

1. Josephus expresses the mere humanity of Jesus.

2. Josephus refers only to Jesus' good conduct and virtue.

3. Josephus refers to the appearance of Jesus after three days as merely a "report."

4. Josephus has the qualifier "perhaps" immediately preceding "he was the Messiah."

The second reference of Jesus by Josephus is found in Antiquities 20.9.1 S200-201 where there is a more evanescent mentioning of Jesus:

He (Ananus) convened the council of judges and brought before it the brother of Jesus-the one called "Christ"-whose name was James, and certain others, accusing them of transgressing the law he delivered them up for stoning. But those of the city considered to be the most fair-minded and strict concerning the laws were offended at this and sent to the king secretly urging him to order Ananus to take such actions no longer.

The phrase "the one called 'Christ'" seems to imply an earlier reference.

Josephus discusses here the stoning of James which is not an element in any of the New Testament writings. In the New Testament, James is still alive at the time Acts concludes. This would imply that Josephus was not borrowing from Christian sources but, rather, secular sources independent of the New Testament.

Josephus refers to James as "the brother of Jesus" whereas Christians have generally referred to James as "the brother of the Lord."

The following did not quote Josephus but said that Josephus openly called Him the Christ:

Sozomen’s Ecclesiastical History book 1 chapter 1 (440 A.D.)
Cassiodorus in the Three-Part History e Sozomeno (510 A.D.)
Chronicles of Alexandria p.514,526,527,584,586 (640 A.D.)
Johan. Malela Chronicles book 10 (c.850 A.D.)
Photius Codex book 48 I Codex 238, Codex 33 (c.860 A.D.)
Glycus Annal. P.234 (c.1120 A.D.)

New Testament scholar R.T. France says the following:

"Virtually all scholars are agreed that the received text is a Christian rewriting, but most are prepared to accept that in the original text a brief account of Jesus, perhaps in a less complimentary vein, stood at this point /2/. Josephus' passing mention of 'Jesus, the so-called Messiah' in Antiquities XX.200 is hard to explain without some previous notice of this Jesus, especially since Josephus elsewhere makes no reference to Christianity, nor even uses the term Christos of any other figure.

Pliny the Younger, or Plinius Secundus

He was the nephew of Pliny the Elder (a known encyclopedist). As Governor of Bithynia in northwestern Turkey around 112 A.D., he writes to emperor Trajan about his advisement on the treatment of Christians:

I have never been present at an examination of Christians. Consequently, I do not know the nature of the extent of the punishments usually meted out to them, nor the grounds for starting an investigation and how far it should be pressed . . .

I have asked them if they are Christians, and if they admit it, I repeat the question a second and third time, with a warning of the punishment awaiting them. If they persist, I order them to be led away for execution; for, whatever the nature of their admission, I am convinced that their stubbornness and unshakeable obstinacy ought not to go unpunished . . . They also declared that the sum total of their guilt or error amounted to no more than this: they had met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses alternately amongst themselves in honour of Christ as if to a god, and also to bind themselves by oath, not for any criminal purpose, but to abstain from theft, robbery, and adultery, . . . This made me decide it was all the more necessary to extract the truth by torture from two slave-women, whom they call deaconesses. I found nothing but a degenerate sort of cult carried to extravagant lengths. [Pliny the Younger, Letters 10.96]

If Christians assented to their Messiah "as if to a god" and honored his memorial via worship songs, then it seems that a manifested Christology about Jesus existed.

Tacitus

Roman historian born around 52 - 55 A.D., was the son-in-law of the former Governor of Britain, Julius Agricola. Having expressed hatred for Christians and Jews, he makes an interesting observation about Nero's persecution of the Christians. In A.D. 115, he wrote:

But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and a most mischievous superstition thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty: then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. [Annals 15.44]

Tacitus refers here to the ravishing fire of 64 A.D. and the Christians' blame for it. Three elements of note:

1. Christians were named after Christ ("Christus, from whom the name had its origin").

2. Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius ("Christus … suffered … during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of … Pontius Pilate").

3. Christianity spread from Judea to Rome en masse ("… broke out not only in Judea … but even in Rome … an immense multitude was convicted").

Lucian of Samosata, (also called Lucian the Greek)

Second century satirist, wrote about Christ,

"…the man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world….Furthermore, their first lawgiver persuaded them that they were all brothers one of another after they have transgressed once for all by denying the Greek gods and by worshipping that crucified sophist himself and living under his laws." [The Passing Peregrinus -also called The Death of Peregrine 11-13, quoted from Evidence That Demands a Verdict vol. 1 p.82.]

Phlegon

He was a Greek writer from Caria and freed slave of the Emperor Hadrian. He wrote soon after 137 A.D. that in the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad [33 A.D.] there was "the greatest eclipse of the sun" and that "it became night in the sixth hour of the day [12:00 noon] so that star even appeared in the heavens. There was a great earthquake in Bithynia, and many things were overturned in Nicea."

Suetonius

Roman living from approximately 70 A.D. to 160 A.D., wrote in Vita Claudius (25.4) of the tumult in the Jewish-Roman community:

Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome.

Suetonius mentions the persecution of Christians in his Vita Nero (16.11-13):

Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition.

Philosophers and thinkers

Kant testifies to His ideal perfection; Hegel sees in Him the union of the human and the Divine; Spinoza speaks of Him as the truest symbol of heavenly wisdom; the beauty and grandeur of His life overawe Voltaire; Napoleon I, at St. Helena, felt convinced that "Between him [Jesus] and whoever else in the world there is no possible term of comparison" (Montholon, "Récit de la Captivité de l'Empereur Napoléon").

Rousseau testifies: "If the life and death of Socrates are those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a god"; Strauss acknowledges: "He is the highest object we can possibly imagine with respect to religion, the being without whose presence in the mind perfect piety is impossible"; to Renan "The Christ of the Gospels is the most beautiful incarnation of God in the most beautiful of forms. His beauty is eternal; his reign will never end"; John Stuart Mill spoke of Jesus as "a man charged with a special, express, and unique commission from God to lead mankind to truth and virtue".

Two more snippets

Athanasius said in the Incarnation 25:3, that it is only on the cross that a man dies with his hands spread out.

Hardly conclusive but take it for what it is.

Also, Roman graffiti was found on Palatine Hill ridiculing Christians. It shows a cross with arms outstretched according to The Archaeology of the New Testament (Blaiklock) p.99.

[christianity] is fair discussion possible [4]

You can call this saccharine sweet but it's still an endangered species.

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From other faiths

Other religions have varying perspectives on Jesus. He is regarded as a prophet by Muslims, as a false Messiah by Judaism and Mandaeanism, as a manifestation of God by the Baha'i, a manifestation of Maitreya by some Buddhists, as an avatar by some Hindus, as the savior and bringer of gnosis by various Gnostic sects and as a guru by many New Ageists.

According to the Talmud, Jesus was a false Messiah, who practiced magic and deceived the people. He was called a sorcerer.

First article

Those early followers of Christ who wrote the Gospel of Q seem to have been unaware of the resurrection of Jesus. The event was not included in their writings.

Gnostics believe that prior to the crucifixion, Jesus swapped bodies with "with an innocent bystander named Simon" This is described in one of their sacred texts, "The Acts of John". It was written about 50 CE; it was widely followed by Christian groups in the early years of the Christian church and is revered by Gnostic Christians today.

The document was suppressed by the Church in the 8th century CE. In the Acts, the disciple John flees from the scene of the execution and is amazed to meet Christ on the top of a mountain overlooking the scene.

The author wrote:

"...we were like men amazed or fast asleep, and we fled this way and that. And so I saw him suffer, and did not wait by his suffering, but fled...and wept at what had come to pass. And when he was hung upon the cross...there came a darkness over the whole earth. And my Lord stood in the middle of the cave and gave light to it and said, 'John, for the people below in Jerusalem I am being crucified and pierced with lances and reeds and given vinegar and gall to drink. But to you I am speaking...I put into your mind to come up to this mountain so that you may hear what a disciple should learn from his teacher and a man from God."

Another Gnostic text, The Gospel of Mary described how Mary Magdelene became the first Christian pastor in history. She delivering a passionate sermon to the demoralized disciples of Jesus. The gospel describes how this raised their spirits and inspired them to evangelize the known world.

Followers of the ancient Doceitism heresy believed that Christ was not housed in a human body. He was a phantasm, specter or ghost which merely looked human. Today we might use the term hologram. Thus he was not crucified, did not die and was not resurrected.

The Jews

This is from the correspondence by Steve Schwartz, a Jew, with a rabbi, in 1980.

# According to the 70 rabbis who worked on the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, the Hebrew word "almah" (Isaiah 7:14) is translated "parthenos" meaning virgin.* Why do the rabbis today say it means "young woman"?

Are they simply trying to dispose of the argument for the virgin birth of Christ?

# I'm sure you know the meaning of the two words "yachid" and "echad" forone. Why is the word "echad" (meaning a composite oneness) used to describe God in the Shema while Moses Maimonides uses "yachid" (meaning absolute oneness) in his Thirteen Articles of Faith?

Is Maimonides trying to dispose of Old Testament evidence in support of the triunity of God?

# Why are the 52nd and 54th chapters of Isaiah read aloud every year in the synagogue, but the Isaiah 53 is never read? This chapter seems to describe the life, trial, death and resurrection of Jesus. Is this why the chapter is skipped over?

Furthermore, if the suffering Servant of this chapter is "Israel" as the rabbis today claim, how can the servant die as a substitute for the sins of Isaiah's people - Israel? That would mean that Israel is dying as asubstitute for the sins of Israel...which doesn't make much sense.

# Whose death is described by David in the 22nd Psalm? Also, how could David describe death by crucifixion when that manner of capital punishment was unknown at the time? I know that Christian believe this psalm predicts the sufferings and death of Jesus.

# The Old Testament (particularly Leviticus) testifies that there is no atonement without blood, sacrificed on the altar. Where do we get the idea that our sins are forgiven by going without food or water for a 24-hour period? It seems to me that God is pretty specific...and He never lifted His requirement for the atoning blood.

It seems to me that today we have a Day of Atonement...but no atonement.

# Finally, the Old Testament says that the Messiah would be a descendant of Abraham through Isaac through Jacob through Judah, of the house of David, that he would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14) in the town of Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), that he would be preceded by a forerunner (Malachi 3:1), and it even predicts that he would arrive before the destruction of the Temple - which occurred in the year 70 C.E. (Daniel 9:24-26).

Furthermore, the Messiah would be a prophet like Moses (Deuteronomy 18:18-19), rejected by his own people (Isaiah 53:3), betrayed by a friend (Psalm 41:9), sold for thirty pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12), smitten, spat upon and mocked (Psalm 22:7-8), crucified (Psalm 22), but would be raised from the dead in three days (Psalm 16:10, Jonah 1:17).

There are more than 300 prophecies in the Old Testament which all find their fulfillment in one particular man...and you know which man I'm speaking about. Now, who do you say the prophets are speaking about?

# Who is Jesus of Nazareth? I know you don't think that he is God, and that's certainly what I believed; but who, then, is he? If he is not God, then he must be either a lunatic (who really believed he was the Messiah) or a liar who was despicable enough to draw people away from God.

From the staggering things he said about himself, it doesn't seem possible to dismiss him simply as a good or wise man. My final question is, Who is Jesus Christ: lunatic, liar or Lord?

Incidentally, I happen to believe-like the great Jewish philosophers and theologians-that the Old Testament is the actual Word of God, so I hope you'll use Moses and the prophets as your authority.

# You say the Hebrew word "almah" is recognized by 99% of Biblical scholars as meaning young woman. I don't know where you got your information, but I could list here scores of Jewish and Gentile scholars who believe the word "almah" is properly translated "virgin."

And you can't deny, Rabbi, that the 70 top Jewish scholars who translated the Old Testament from Hebrew to Greek all thought that "almah" means virgin, since they used the Greek word "parthenos"-virgin.

Furthermore, I find that the word "almah" is used just seven times in the Old Testament and each time it refers to what can only be a virgin. So when you say "almah" is mistranslated, you are disagreeing with traditional Jewish thought.

One more thing before leaving this area. Looking ahead to chapter 9, verse 6 of the same book, one finds a description of this special child:

"For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on his shoulders; and his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace."

A child will be born who will be called "Mighty God"? Jewish commentators did not dispute the Messianic nature of this prophecy until modern times. As proof, let me cite the paraphrase of this passage given in Targum Jonathan:

"And there was called His name from of old, Wonderful, counselor, Mighty God, He who lives for ever, the messiah in whose days peace shall increase." (Targum of Isaiah)

Rabbi, I agree with you that you shouldn't read something into the Biblical story that isn't there. However, I think it is just as dangerous to delete things that are there.

# Now to your statement that the words "yachid" and "echad" mean the same thing. I have studied this intensively, and I have found that they definitely do not mean the same thing. "Yachid" is used in the Bible when an absolute, indivisible one is intended; this is the word Moses Maimonides used to describe God in his second Principle of Faith. On the other hand, "echad" is used in the Bible for a compound, divisible unity, as, for example, when God says in Genesis 2:24, "And they (husband and wife) shall be one (echad) flesh."

In your letter, you say that "yachid" was simply the Medieval Hebrew meaning the same thing as the Biblical Hebrew word "echad." This doesn't hold true, however, because Moses used both words in the Torah, so we see they were used concurrently. The only conclusion I can reach is that Maimonides was trying to cover up important Biblical evidence for the tri-unity of God by calling Him an absolute one (yachid).

The Biblical use of the word "echad," however, is by no means the only evidence that establishes the fact of the tri-unity of God. Beginning in Genesis, we find that a common name given to God is Elohim, a plural word. Why didn't Moses use the singular form, El? Also, many times we come across the use of plural pronouns for God as in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'LetUs make man in Our image, according to Our likeness...'"

Even the sacred Jewish book, the Zohar, testifies to the truth of the trinity in its comment on the Shema: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one, " (Deuteronomy 6:4).

"Why is there need of mentioning the name of God three times in this verse? The first Jehovah is the Father above. The second is the stem of Jesse, the Messiah Who is to come from the family of Jesse through David. And the third one is the way which is below (meaning the Holy Spirit who shows us the way) and these three are one."

# I'm afraid my research doesn't bear out your answer that the "Suffering Servant" section is read in the synagogue.

According to the Jewish calendar of Haftorah readings, the 53rd chapter of Isaiah is not read. In point of fact, the Haftorah reading for Shofetim includes chapters 51 and 52 while the Haftorah reading for Noah, Sephardi ritual and Ki Tetze begins at the 54th chapter. Isaiah 53 is blatantly skipped over.

I think it is important to note that Rashi (11th century) was the first one to suggest that the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53 represents Israel. Until then, the Suffering Servant was almost universally understood by the Jews as referring to the Messiah. By no means does Rashi's interpretation represent the traditional Jewish interpretation.

Here are a few references to back me up:

Rabbi Moshe Kohen Ibn Crispin (14th century) states that those who for controversial reasons apply the prophecy of the Suffering Servant to Israel find it impossible to understand the true meaning of this prophecy, "having forsaken the knowledge of our teachers, and inclined after the stubbornness of their own opinions."

Their misinterpretation, he declares, "distorts the passage from its natural meaning," for "it was given of God as a description of the Messiah, whereby, when any should claim to be the Messiah, to judge by the resemblance or nonresemblance to it whether he were the Messiah or no."

He also said, "I'm pleased to interpret the passage in accordance with the teaching of our rabbis, of the King Messiah...and adhere to the literal sense. Thus, I shall be free from forced and far-fetched interpretations of which others are guilty."

Rabbi Elijah de Vidas (16th century) said: "Since the Messiah bears our iniquities, which produce the effect of his being bruised, it follows that whoso will not admit that the Messiah thus suffers for our iniquities must endure and suffer for them himself."

Rabbi Moshe el Sheikh, chief Rabbi of Safed, stated: "Our Rabbis with one voice accept and affirm the opinion that the prophet is speaking of the King Messiah, and we shall ourselves also adhere to the same view."

Isaac Abrabanel, a bitter opponent of Christianity, made the following statement about Isaiah 53: "Jonathan ben Uzziel interprets it in the Targum of the future Messiah; and this is also the opinion of our learned men in the majority of their Midrashim."

The original Messianic interpretation of Isaiah 53 survives to this day. It is preserved in Jewish liturgy for the Day of Atonement in the Musaf prayer:

"We are shrunk up in our misery even until now! Our rock hath not come to us; Messiah, our righteousness, hath turned from us; we are in terror, and there is none to justify us! Our iniquities and the yoke of our transgressions he will bear, for he was wounded for our transgressions; he will carry our sins upon his shoulder that we may find forgiveness for our iniquities, and by his stripes we are healed. O eternal One, the time is come to make a new creation, from the vault of heaven bring him up..."

Thus, it is obvious from the above prayer that the Jews of that era (8th century) believed that the Messiah had already come and were praying that He may come a second time.

Rabbi, I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that the Talmud, the Zohar, the Midrashim, and the Jewish Prayer Book all support the view that Isaiah 53 refers to the Messiah, not the people of Israel.

The modern Jewish answer can't be taken seriously by either the scholar or the casual reader. According to the Scripture passage in question, the Servant is described as "righteous," as "sinless," as a willing sufferer, and actually dying.

Not one of these statements can be applied to the Jewish people, as any unbiased person would be willing to admit.

# Moving right along, we come to Psalm 22. You say the psalm doesn't mention crucifixion. Of course it doesn't! How could David use the word "crucifixion" when this manner of capital punishment was unknown to the Jews of his time?

But the psalm does say, "They pierced my hands and my feet" (Psalm 22:16). Sure sounds like crucifixion to me. In fact, the Midrashim (called the Pesiqta Rabbati) applies this psalm to the sufferings of the Messiah, so once again we find that traditional Jewish thought and modernistic Jewish thought are at odds with one another.

You're quite right in saying that David wasn't crucified; it was David's descendant, the Messiah, who was crucified-David predicts the manner of the Messiah's death in this psalm. Jesus even quoted the first verse of this psalm from the cross.

# Now we move into the heart of our discussion-the need for a blood sacrifice to atone for our sins. You agree with me when you say, "The Bible does say that sacrifices are necessary." But then you say that the Talmud replaces sacrifices with prayer, good deeds and charity. While there are many fine and beautiful statements in the Talmud, I have to call a halt when the Talmud (a commentary written by men) starts contradicting the Bible. The Bible says:

"For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for our souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement" (Leviticus 17:11).

Who gives anyone the authority to say, "You don't have to obey that rule anymore. You can simply fast and do good deeds." Wherever you look in the Old Testament, you find His people offering blood sacrifices to become acceptable in God's sight.

The Hebrews had to apply the blood of a slain lamb to the doorposts of their homes if they wanted their firstborn to survive. As God put it, "When I see the blood, I will pass over you" (Exodus 12:13).

Much of the Torah-almost the entire book of Leviticus-is devoted to the subject of blood sacrifices.

Let's turn to the article on atonement given in The Jewish Encyclopedia:

"...the blood, which to the ancients was the life-power of the soul, forms the essential part of the sacrificial Atonement. This is the interpretation given by all Jewish commentators, ancient and modern, on the passage... The life of the victim was offered... as a typical ransom of 'life by life'; the blood sprinkled by the priest upon the altar serving as the means of a renewal of man's covenant of life with God... The cessation of sacrifice, in consequence of the destruction of the Temple, came, therefore, as a shock to the people... It was then that Johanan b. Zakkai. declared works of benevolence to have atoning powers as great as those of sacrifice. This view, however, did not solve satisfactorily for all the problem of sin... Hence, a large number of Jews accepted the Christian faith in the Atonement by the blood shed for many for the remission of sins.'" (Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler)

The "Christian faith" mentioned above is actually the faith to which I adhere. May I suggest you read a book called Christianity Is Jewish by Edith Schaeffer (Tyndale House) for additional light on the subject. Hebrew Christians base their atonement with God on the Biblical basis of "blood atonement sacrificially provided." Modern Jewish thought bases atonement on the Talmud, the word of man.

# You say that Jesus did not do what the Messiah was supposed to do and for this reason the Jews do not accept Him as the Messiah. I disagree. The Bible says the Messiah would come first as a Suffering Servant, that He would die for the sins of His people, that He would be raised from the dead on the third day, and that He would return as a conquering King who would rule forever.

Multitudes of first-century Jews accepted Jesus as the Messiah; some estimates say that millions of Jews accepted Him. Others, however, desired and expected the Messiah to immediately set up His eternal Kingdom, directly in conflict with Scriptures that said the Messiah must first die.

Jesus did exactly what the Old Testament Scriptures predicted. What more could be asked of Him? Isaiah (chapter 53) and Daniel (chapter 9) both predict the death of Messiah and His resurrection. And Zechariah tells us something very interesting about the Messiah's return:

"And I (God) will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him, like the bitter weeping over a firstborn" (Zechariah 12:10).

In other words, someday the Jewish people will be confronted by the Messiah "whom they have pierced" and will suddenly realize how wrong they have been to reject Him. This is the true Day of Atonement, when all of Israel will repent and turn to the Messiah.

Before you tell me I'm reading something into this passage that isn't there -that it isn't speaking of the Messiah-let me just quote from two respected and authoritative Jewish sources.

Commenting on this passage first is Rabbi Abraham ben Ezra (12th century):

"All the heathen shall look to me to see what I shall do to those who pierced Messiah, the son of Joseph." Next is a rather lengthy quote from Rabbi Moshe el Sheikh, chief rabbi of Safed:

"I will do yet a third thing, and that is, that 'they shall look unto me,' for they shall lift up their eyes unto me in perfect repentance, when they see Him whom they pierced, that is Messiah, the Son of Joseph; for our Rabbis, of blessed memory, have said that He will take upon Himself all the guilt of Israel, and shall then be slain in the war to make an atonement in such manner that it shall be accounted as if Israel had pierced Him, for on account of their sin He has died; and, therefore, in order that it may be reckoned to them as a perfect atonement, they will repent and look to the blessed One, saying, that there is none beside Him to forgive those that mourn on account of Him who died for their sin: this is the meaning of 'They shall look upon me.'"

You tell me "it would be easy for me to pull verses from any book after I have a belief in a certain man as Messiah." I'd like to challenge you to do just that. A Mr. Fred J. Meldau has offered a $1,000 reward to anyone who can "produce any Christ, living or dead (other than Jesus of Nazareth) who can fulfill even half of the predictions concerning Messiah."

Looking at the Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament, we find that hundreds of prophecies were all fulfilled in the life of one individual- Jesus of Nazareth. Speaking of eight key prophecies, Peter Stoner, a mathematician, points out, "We find that the chance that any man might have lived down to the present time and fulfilled eight of the prophecies is one in 100,000,000,000,000,000" (Science Speaks, Moody Press). And the probability of any one man fulfilling all of these hundreds of prophecies is a number too large to write down.

To conclude this section, let me just add one more thing. You say that Jesus "came and died." But you make no mention of His resurrection. You may deny it really happened, but the resurrection is the best-attested event in history. Many books have been written on the subject, and it's much too deep to go into at this time. But let me quote former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brewer:

"The existing evidence of Christ's resurrection is satisfactory to me. I have not examined it from the legal standpoint, but Greenleaf has done so, and he is the highest authority on evidence cited in our courts."

I am enclosing a copy of Simon Greenleaf's evidence for your edification(available free-of-charge from Book Fellowship International, P.O. Box 164, No. Syracuse, NY 13212). May I also suggest you read Who Moved the Stone? (Zondervan Press) by Frank Morrison. It's particularly interesting, because it was written by a man who started to write a book disproving the reality of the resurrection. By the time he was finished, he was a believer!

# You seem to be unwilling to take a stand on whether Jesus was Lord, liar or lunatic, preferring to describe him as a "wonderful man." Does such a description fit a person who claimed to be equal with God, who forgave sins but said he had no sins of his own, who predicted his own death and resurrection?

No, I still maintain that your "wonderful man" option is implausible.

You tell me that "the four gospel writers had never met" Jesus and that "they all came much later." This is not true. Listen to the testimony of William F. Albright, who is considered to be the world's foremost Biblical archaeologist:

"We can already say emphatically that there is no longer any solid basis for dating any book of the New Testament after about A.D. 80, two full generations before the date between 130-150 given by the more radical New Testament critics of today. In my opinion, every book of the New Testament was written by a baptized Jew between the forties and the eighties of the first century A.D."

Since the New Testament was completed so soon after the events it describes, the one element necessary to the creation of myths-time-was not available.

In effect, what you're saying is that the Gospel writers "made up" the Gospel accounts and that they bear little resemblance to what really happened and what Jesus really said. Considering the fact that most of the apostles and early Christians laid down their lives rather than their faith, your contention lacks credibility.

Could you imagine Mark Twain and all of his associates submitting to torture and death to prove that Huckleberry Finn really existed? Some of the top psychologists and experts in legal evidence have said that this just couldn't happen, and they have become believers on this very basis.

People might lay down their lives for a lie in which they sincerely believe, but they don't for a lie of their own invention.

You suggested that I read a couple of books by Samuel Sandmel. I have already read his We Jews and Jesus and believe he is quite honest when he admits, "I must be straightforward in saying that my approach is partisan; it is Jewish and not neutral."

All in all, I would say that Sandmel presents a very unbiblical account of which I disapprove. Please keep in mind that when I started investigating the claims of Hebrew-Christianity, I, too, was very biased on the Jewish side. I read Hugh Schonfield's book, The Passover Plot, and a number of other books by Jewish authors. After studying both sides, I cam to the inescapable conclusion that the modernistic Jewish approach to the Scriptures is dishonest.

While I didn't want to believe the Christian side, the Old Testament evidence was all in their favor.

Now may I suggest you read a few books that will explain the Hebrew-Christian position better than I can. In addition to the books previously mentioned, read:

* Judaism and Christianity, Are They the Same? by David Bronstein (O'Neil, Oliver, MacKenzie, Inc.)
* Jesus, the Jew's Jew by Zola Levitt (Creation House).
* Jesus Was a Jew by Arnold Fruchtenbaum (Broadman Press).
* The Bible, the Supernatural and the Jews by McCandlish Phillips (Bethany Fellowship).
* Hebrew Christianity: Its Theology, History and Philosophy by Arnold Fruchtenbaum (Baker Books).
* The Messianic Hope by Arthur W. Kac, M.D. (Baker Books).
* The Chosen People Question Box II by Dr. Henry Heydt (American Board of Missions to the Jews).
* The Prophet Isaiah by Victor Buksbazen (Spearhead Press).
* Where in the World Are the Jews Today? by James and Marti Hefley (Victor Books).
* A Hebrew Christian Looks at Isaiah 53 by Sanford Mills (American Board of Missions to the Jews).

I consider myself a better Jew than before, because now I am a Jew in the Biblical sense of the word. As you know, Abraham became "righteous in God's sight" when he believed God. He wasn't circumcised until later, and the Mosaic law came much later still, so neither of these things made him righteous. Now that I too believe God, I know that I am "righteous in God's sight" and that I am a complete Jew.

My final question to you is, do you believe Moses?

From Deuteronomy 18:18-19:

"I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you (Moses), and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And it shall come about that whoever will not listen to My words which he shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him."

The following chart reveals the way this "Suffering Servant" passage - from Isaiah 52:13 through Isaiah 53:12 - is omitted.



So we see that the Haftorah readings heard in the synagogue conclude at the very verse which begins the controversial "Suffering Servant" passage. and the readings pick up just after the 53rd chapter of Isaiah.

While some Jewish authorities state that the omission was not purposeful, others see a good deal of significance in the omission. For example, Herbert Loewe - a Reader in Rabbinics at Cambridge University and co-author with Claude Montefiore of A Rabbinic Anthology - had this to say on the subject:

"Quotations from the famous 53rd chapter of Isaiah are rare in the Rabbinic literature. Because of the christological interpretation given to the chapter by Christians, it is omitted from the series of prophetical lessons (HAFTAROT) for the Deuteronomy Sabbaths. The omission is deliberate and striking." (op. Cit. P. 544)

If you'd like to see for yourself if the "Suffering Servant" passage is skipped, you can find the schedule of synagogue readings listed in many Jewish calendars and in Jewish Bibles.

"Almah"

There are hundreds of Jewish and Gentile Bible scholars who believe that the prophet Isaiah was predicting the virgin birth of the Messiah. A list of the Jewish scholars alone would include such names as Dr. Sanford C. Mills, Milton Lindberg, Dr. Arthur W. Kac, Dr. Henry J. Heydt, Dr. Leopold Cohn, Dr. Jacob Gartenhaus and Dr. David L. Cooper. All of these eminent Jewish theologians believe that the Hebrew word "almah" is best translated by the word "virgin."

"Yachid"

The second Principle of Jewish Faith by Moses Maimonides: "I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, blessed be His name, is an absolute one (yachid) and there there is no oneness in any manner like unto His, and that He alone is our God, who was, is and will be." Compare this with the words of the Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4 from the Jewish Scriptures: Hear, O Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one ("echad" - unity consisting of more than one part).

# Talmudic anomalies

In the centuries following the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem (70 CE), the Jewish people began writing two versions of Jewish thought, religious history and commentary. One was written in Palestine and became known as the Jerusalem Talmud. The other was written in Babylon and was known as the Babylonian Talmud.

We read in the Jerusalem Talmud:

"Forty years before the destruction of the Temple, the western light went out, the crimson thread remained crimson, and the lot for the Lord always came up in the left hand. They would close the gates of the Temple by night and get up in the morning and find them wide open" (Jacob Neusner, The Yerushalmi, p.156-157). [the Temple was destroyed in 70 CE]

A similar passage in the Babylonian Talmud states:

"Our rabbis taught: During the last forty years before the destruction of the Temple the lot ['For the Lord'] did not come up in the right hand; nor did the crimson-colored strap become white; nor did the western most light shine; and the doors of the Hekel [Temple] would open by themselves" (Soncino version, Yoma 39b).

What are these passages talking about? Since both Talmuds recount the same information, this indicates the knowledge of these events was accepted by the widespread Jewish community.

The Miracle of the "Lot"

The first of these miracles concerns a random choosing of the "lot" which was cast on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). The lot chosen determined which of two goats would be "for the Lord" and which goat would be the "Azazel" or "scapegoat."

During the two hundred years before 30 CE, when the High Priest picked one of two stones, again this selection was governed by chance, and each year the priest would select a black stone as often as a white stone.

But for forty years in a row, beginning in 30 CE, the High Priest always picked the black stone! The odds against this happening are astronomical (2 to the 40th power). In other words, the chances of this occurring are 1 in approximately 5,479,548,800 or about 5.5 billion to one! By comparison, your chances of winning your local state or municipal-run cash Lottery would be much more favorable!

The lot for Azazel, the black stone, contrary to all the laws of chance, came up 40 times in a row from 30 to 70 AD! This was considered a dire event and signified something had fundamentally changed in this Yom Kippur ritual. This casting of lots is also accompanied by yet another miracle which is described next.

The Miracle of the Red Strip

The second miracle concerns the crimson strip or cloth tied to the Azazel goat. A portion of this red cloth was also removed from the goat and tied to the Temple door. Each year the red cloth on the Temple door turned white as if to signify the atonement of another Yom Kippur was acceptable to the Lord. This annual event happened until 30 CE when the cloth then remained crimson each year to the time of the Temple's destruction. This undoubtedly caused much stir and consternation among the Jews. This traditional practice is linked to Israel confessing its sins and ceremonially placing this nation's sin upon the Azazel goat. The sin was then removed by this goat's death. Sin was represented by the red color of the cloth (the color of blood). But the cloth remained crimson that is, Israel's sins were not being pardoned and "made white."

As God told Israel through Isaiah the prophet:

''Come, let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet [crimson], they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as [white] wool'' (Isaiah 1:18).

The clear indication is that the whole community had lost the Lord's attention in relation to something that occurred in 30 CE. The yearly atonement achieved through the typical Yom Kippur observance was not being realized as expected. Atonement apparently was to be gained in some other way. Who or what would provide the atonement for another year?

Concerning the crimson strip though not mentioned in the Scriptures and long before 30 C.E. during the 40 years Simon the Righteous was High Priest, a crimson thread which was associated with his person always turned white when he entered the Temple's innermost Holy of Holies. The people noticed this.

Also, they noted that "the lot of the LORD" (the white lot) came up for 40 straight years during Simon's priesthood. They noticed that the "lot" picked by the priests after Simon would sometimes be black, and sometimes white, and that the crimson thread would sometimes turn white, and sometimes not.

The Jews came to believe that if the crimson thread turned white, that God approved of the Day of Atonement rituals and that Israel could be assured that God forgave their sins. But after 30 CE, the crimson thread never turned white again for 40 years, till the destruction of the Temple and the cessation of all Temple rituals!

What did the Jewish nation do in 30 CE to merit such a change at Yom Kippur? By some accounts, on April 5, 30 CE (i.e., on the 14th of Nisan, the day of the Passover sacrifice) the Messiah, Yeshua, was cut off from Israel, himself put to death as a sacrifice for sin. To this event there is a transference of the atonement now no longer achieved through the two goats as offered at Yom Kippur. Like an innocent Passover lamb, the Messiah was put to death though no fault was found in Him!

But unlike Temple sacrifices or the Yom Kippur events (as detailed above) where sin is only covered over for a time, the Messianic sacrifice comes with the promise of forgiveness of sins through grace given by God to those who accept a personal relationship with Messiah. This is essentially a one time event for each person's lifetime and not a continual series of annual observances and animal sacrifices. The mechanism providing forgiveness of sin changed in 30 CE.

The Miracle of the Temple Doors

The next miracle, which the Jewish authorities acknowledged, was that the Temple doors swung open every night of their own accord. This too occurred for forty years, beginning in 30 CE The leading Jewish authority of that time, Yohanan ben Zakkai, declared that this was a sign of impending doom, that the Temple itself would be destroyed.

The Jerusalem Talmud states:

"Said Rabban Yohanan Ben Zakkai to the Temple, 'O Temple, why do you frighten us? We know that you will end up destroyed. For it has been said, 'Open your doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour your cedars' " (Zechariah 11:1)' (Sota 6:3).

Yohanan Ben Zakkai was the leader of the Jewish community during the time following the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, when the Jewish government was transferred to Jamnia, some thirty miles west of Jerusalem.

Might the doors have opened to also signify that all may now enter the Temple, even to its innermost holy sections. The evidence supported by the miracles described above suggests the Lord's presence had departed from the Temple. This was no longer just a place for High Priests alone, but the doors swung open for all to enter the Lord's house of worship.

The Miracle of the Temple Menorah

The fourth miracle was that the most important lamp of the seven candle-stick Menorah in the Temple went out, and would not shine. Every night for 40 years (over 12,500 nights in a row) the main lamp of the Temple lampstand (menorah) went out of its own accord no matter what attempts and precautions the priests took to safeguard against this event!

Earnest Martin states:

"In fact, we are told in the Talmud that at dusk the lamps that were unlit in the daytime (the middle four lamps remained unlit, while the two eastern lamps normally stayed lit during the day) were to be re-lit from the flames of the western lamp (which was a lamp that was supposed to stay lit all the time it was like the 'eternal' flame that we see today in some national monuments)...

"This 'western lamp' was to be kept lit at all times. For that reason, the priests kept extra reservoirs of olive oil and other implements in ready supply to make sure that the 'western lamp' (under all circumstances) would stay lit. But what happened in the forty years from the very year Messiah said the physical Temple would be destroyed?

Every night for forty years the western lamp went out, and this in spite of the priests each evening preparing in a special way the western lamp so that it would remain constantly burning all night!" (The Significance of the Year CE 30, Ernest Martin, Research Update, April 1994, p.4).

Again, the odds against the lamp continually going out are astronomical. Something out of the ordinary was going on. The "light" of the Menorah representing contact with God, His Spirit, and His Presence was now removed. This special demonstration occurred starting with the crucifixion of the Messiah!

It should be clear to any reasonable mind that there is no natural way to explain all these four signs connected with the year 30 CE. The only possible explanation has to be supernatural.

After 30 CE, and the death of the Messiah, great trouble and awesome trials began to come upon the Jewish nation. Yeshua Himself foretold it. As He was led away to be crucified, Yeshua warned the women of Jerusalem:

But Jesus, turning to them, said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For indeed the days are coming in which they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, wombs that never bore, and breasts which never nursed!' Then they will begin `to say to the mountains, "Fall on us!" and to the hills, "Cover us!" ' "For if they do these things in the green wood, what will be done in the dry?" (Luke 23:28-31).

When we take an objective look at the events of 30 CE, who can doubt that it was indeed the true year of the crucifixion and resurrection of the true Messiah God sent to Israel? Who can deny that He is the one and only true Messiah? Who else has fulfilled all the prophecies of the Old Testament — including the amazing prophecy of Daniel 9 and the ''70 weeks,'' coming at the very year predicted for the Messiah to appear?

# All of these passages were recognized by the early rabbis as referring to the Messiah:

* Messiah was to be born at Bethlehem: Micah 5:1
* Messiah would be from the tribe of Judah: Genesis 49:10
* Messiah would present himself by riding on an ass: Zechariah 9:9
* Messiah would be tortured to death: Psalm 22
* Messiah would arrive before the destruction of the Second Temple: Daniel 9:24-27
* Messiah's life would match a particular description, including suffering, silence at his arrest and trial, death and burial in a rich man's tomb, and resurrection: Isaiah 52:13-53:12

In the first place, he claimed to be the Messiah.

It must have been quite a hallucination to be seen by vastly different kinds of people at different times of day in many different places. You might be able to fool one person, but can you fool five hundred who saw him at one time? And unlike the pattern of hallucinations, these appearances of the resurrected Jesus stopped as suddenly as they started, forty days after the resurrection took place.

Jewish Talmuds refer to Jesus in a number of places. See Evidence That Demands a Verdict volume 1 p.85-87 for quotes from the Babylonian Talmud, Tol'doth Yeshu, Barailu, The Amoa 'Ulla', Yeb. IV 3, and Baraita. See also Tractate Sanhedrin.

Jewish problems with the Messiah

This applies of course to the classic Christian exegesis, which defined Jesus chiefly, in contradiction to a Strack-Billerbek Judaism, as Torah-critical innovator, with a strong eschatological expectation and much self-confidence, that presented itself as exclusive relationship to the God he called Abba. Against this the Jewish partners in dialogue have emphasized the commitment to Judaism of a Jesus who was faithful to Torah, and they did not hesitate to assign him to Jewish groups (Pharisees12, Zealots13). Newer approaches strive for more flexibility, but the really large conceptions of an inclusive Jesus image are scarce despite an immense literature.