Thoughts on the Bible by Michael Rivero

Sunday, April 13, 2008

We cannot know what the real historical Jesus said and did because the written record has been subject to editing and alteration for 2000 years by church leaders with varying and often conflicting agendas.

It is known that there are numerous translation errors on the path from Aramaic to English. For example, in describing Joseph of Arimathea's request to Pontius Pilate for Jesus' body, the original texts used the word "Soma", a word that describes an unconscious body. Had Jesus been truly dead, the word "Ptoma" would have been more appropriate. In Latin, Jesus' mother is described with the word "Virgo", which simply means a young woman. The proper Latin phrase for a young woman who has not yet engaged in sex would be "Virgo Intacta", but this phrase is NOT used in the early Latin texts that describe Jesus' mother.

Then we have the discovery by Professor Morton Smith of a document written by Bishop Clement of Alexandria which proves that the Book of Mark has been edited, and a portion or the original writings deleted. Bishop Clement's justification for what could be called a sacrilege was that simply because something was the truth was no reason to allow the masses to know it.

Even the selection of the writings used in the New Testament was agenda driven. Originally, Bishop Irenaeus insisted that the New Testament only contain four gospels, on the "logic" that there were four winds and four corners to the Earth. So, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (which were not actually authored by Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John) were chosen to be "The" Bible. at the time, the texts were very different from what you see today. The earliest version of the book of Mark, for example, made no mention of a virgin birth or of a resurrection, but ends with the women at the tomb of Jesus being informed by an angel that Jesus was waiting for them in Galilee. According to this early version of Mark, the women are frightened and run off, never telling anyone what the angel told them (which raises the question of just how the person or persons who wrote that version of Mark found out about the story).

There were far more than just those four gospels at the time. There were actually hundreds of gospels in early Christianity. The vast majority never mention a virgin birth or the crucifixion, but Bishop Irenaeus intentionally chose the four that did to be the official church Bible, making the resurrection the foundation of the commercial Christian church. It was only fifty years later, when the original Mark was used as the source for the books of Matthew and Luke that the passion was added at the end. Then, Mark itself was re-written to being it into conformity with the other "orthodox" gospels.

You need to understand two things about pre-biblical times. The first was that it was not considered wrong to copy stories and ideas from one book to the other. While you and I would think it questionable to take the story of the flood from the Epic of Gilgamesh and re-write it as a story of the author's god, Moses would have had no such compunction. It was perfectly acceptable literary practice to do so in those times. Second, the very earliest of the gospels, Mark, is thought to have been written (in its first version) no less than forty years after the time Jesus supposedly died on the cross. That is forty years without books, magazines, newspapers, libraries, CNN, or the internet; forty years of stories told by word of mouth (a huge game of gossip) then written down and edited by people who never met the real Jesus or anyone who knew him.

And again, commerce and agenda drove the writings. We have all heard the canard that "The Jews' killed Jesus. This is, of course, nonsense. Had the Sanhedrin wanted Jesus dead, he would have been stoned openly and legally. Crucifixion was a specifically Roman punishment, for the specific crime of high treason against the Roman Empire. Rome had annexed Judea in 6AD, partly at the petitions of the Judeans, who preferred direct Roman rule to the continuance of the Herodian dynasty (which was of questionable legitimacy since his title was not an hereditary one). But, old quarrels and resentments combined with new abuses continued to increase hostilities. Revolution threatened the land and would finally break out in 66AD. So, at the time Jesus was alive in Judea, the Romans were constantly on the lookout for revolutionaries, whom they judged to be traitors. In all probability, Pontius Pilate condemned Jesus to crucifixion to prevent a possible uprising by his more violence-prone followers. This would explain the mocking "King of the Jews" placard tradition states was attached to the top of the cross. (Pilate may have gone along with a plot to save Jesus' life if he felt Jesus himself had had little to do with the actual plans for a revolt. So long as the revolt was discouraged, Pilate had what he wanted.)

By the time the Bible was being written, however, the Judean revolt of 66 AD had come and gone. Christianity was being sold to a primarily Roman audience, and one could hardly expect Romans to toss coins into the collection plates of a new religion that blamed Rome for the death of their deity. So, the newly expelled Jews got the blame, Rome was made to look as good as possible in the early church writings, and the new religion was a hit.

It took another 200 years (without benefit of anyone who had actually known the living Jesus) to select and edit the 27 books that comprise the New Testament. (At about the same time, at the Council of Nicea, it was finally VOTED on as to whether Jesus was divine or not.) All other gospels were declared harasies by the church and burned; a crime against history equal to the Christians' burning of the Great Library at Alexandria or the burning of the Rongo-Rongo tablets on Easter Island by Missionaries. But we know the other gospels existed because individuals who correctly understand that book burning is the hallmark of dictators and tyrants hid copies of those gospels at places like Nag Hammadi.

James Cameron used the real events of the Titanic Disaster to tell a story about his fictional characters of Jack Dawson and Rose Dewitt. But while Titanic was real, Jack and Rose are fictional. The Bible, although it contains references to real historical events to create a greater sense of reality, is quite likely also using that sense of reality to tell a fictional story.