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Authenticity of the Bible
by Brother A. D. AJIJOLA (Bar
at Law)
Christianity is a matter of history. It follows that its truth depends on the accuracy with which the inspired words of its founder have been recorded and on the textual purity of its Scripture. If the message which was revealed by God to the founder of a religion has not reached us exactly as it was delivered, but has been misreported and altered, then to that extent that religion may be regarded as having deviated from the truth. In this section we shall see how far the inspired words and revelations of Jesus and other prophets of the Bible have been faithfully recorded and preserved in the Gospel.
The first criterion then by which we can measure the usefulness of a book is freedom from external interference. A revealed Book is superior to a man-made book because we can assume that the former will not lead us into error. God is the prime source of guidance. In a Book revealed by Him therefore, we may expect to find only light and truth, no darkness or error. If our conception of God does not imply such a trust in what He reveals then tht conception has no value. If communication from God also can err, then what ground have we for holding Divine teachings superior to human teaching? Belief in a Book entails belief that, that book is free from error. It is possible, however, that a book originally revealed by God may come to suffer from human interference. If the contents of a book have suffered addition and subtractions at human hands then that book can no longer serve as a guide.
Every age gives rise to new sciences in the light of which even book which professes to teach anything is exposed to new criticism. The value of a book is either more securely established or it becomes more doubtful than ever by scientific test.
No Christian can deny that there is much controversy as to the authenticity of the Bible and no Christian authority has produced the original Gospels. There is no evidence that the New Testament was written in the presence of Jesus. There was sufficient evidence that the original Gospels were destroyed and after that the people wrote down the Gospels from their memory and there is no evidence to show that the Gospels were committed to memory that reproduction should be relied upon.
The humble writer believes that the Gospels as it is today, is the sole work of Saint Paul and not Jesus, this leads to the question: “ Is Modern Christianity the Christianity of Jesus or is it Paulism ?“
Saint Paul openly admitted that the Gospel which he was preaching was his own making and not that of Jesus, when he says:
“ I have planted the apples, but God gave the increase” (1 Corinthians 3:6)
Moreover, the doctrine of resurrection on which many Christian scholars’ belief hangs, is the sole work of Saint Paul as there is nothing in the teachings of Jesus himself on this issue. St. Paul admitted that he invented this mystery when he said:
“ Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my Gospel” (11 Timothy 2:8)
Character of the Gospel
For our knowledge pf the teaching and mission of Jesus Christ we depend on the Gospels. There are four Gospels included in the Bible – the Gospels according to Mathew, Mark, Luke and John. The first three are called “ Synoptic Gospels”, because they proceed on the basis of the same document and have much in common. The Gospel of John is very different from these. The divinity and pre-existence of Jesus are affirmed in this Gospel alone. In the opening lines the writer of this Gospel makes the claim that the Logos, which was God who created the Worlds had become incarnate in Jesus. The Gospels of John was written in Greek at or near Ephesus between the year 110 and 115 of the Christian era by some unknown writer. No independent scholar now regards it as the work of John, the son of Zebedee. The modern Biblical scholars have questioned, not only the views of the author, but also the genuineness of the words pyt6 by him in the mouth of Jesus. This is what C.J. Cadoux , who was Mackennal Professor of Church History at Oxford , writes in his “ Life of Jesus” :
“ The speeches in the Fourth Gospel (even apart from the early messianic claim) area so different from those in the Synoptic and so like the comments of the Fourth Evangelist himself, that both cannot be equally reliable as records of what Jesus said. Literary veracity in ancient times did not forbid, as it does now, the assignment of fictitious speeches to historical characters” (P.16)
Canonical Gospel do not faithfully present the inspired
message or Gospels of Jesus. We
must bear the following facts in mind:
1. that no written copy was made of the inspired saying of Jesus in his life-time ;
2. that the earliest records of the sayings of Jesus, which were made some time after the passing away of Jesus, have all been irretrievably lost ;
3. that in the Gospels, which were written between 70 and 115 C.E on the basis of some of these lost documents, the material contained in them was handled rather freely; the Gospel-writers feeling no hesitation in changing it for what they considered to be the greater Glory of Christ or to bring it in line with the views of their respective sects :
4. that none of the Evangelists had known Jesus or hears him speaking (it has been proved by modern critics that the Gospels according to Mathew and John are not the works of the Apostles whose name they bear) ;
5. that they were composed to propagate the points of view of the different factions and that they were chosen from many others which represented different factions:
6. that the Gospels were written in Greek , whereas the language spoken by Jesus was Aramaic;
7. that for at least a century after they were written they had no canonical authority and could be and were actually changed by the copyists of the different sects to sects their own purpose;
8. that the earliest extant manuscripts of the Gospels –Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus and Codex Alexandrinus – belong to the fourth and fifth centuries – that it is ,more than three centuries after the Gospels were first written
9. that there are considerable differences among the various extant manuscripts ; and
10. that the Gospels taken as a whole are full of contradictions and inconsistencies.
" In the four Gospels, therefore, the main documents to which we must refer to if we area to fill-out at all that bare sketch which we can put together from other sources, we find material of widely -differing quality as regards credibility. So far-fetching is the element of uncertainty that is tempting to 'down tools' at once, and to declare that task helpless"
" The historical inconsistencies and improbabilities in parts of the Gospel from some of the arguments advanced in favour of the Christ myth theory. There are, however, entirely outweighed- as we have shown-by other considerations. Still, the discrepancies and uncertainties that remain are serious-and consequently many moderns, who have no doubt whatever of Jesus' real existence, regard as hopeless any attempt to dissolve our the historically-true from the legendry or mythical matter which the Gospels contain, and to reconstruct the story of Jesus' mission out of the more historical residue"
Many other eminent Christian Scholars have commented on the authenticity of the Bible. The Rev. E. Griffith Jones B. A. ,D. D., Principal of the united College, Bradford says in his article, " The Bible-Its Meaning and Aim" contributed to the commentary on the Bible edited by Arthur. S. Peake, M. A., D. D :
" Secondly, the Bible as we have it is a much edited body of Literature, and the various editors have treated their earlier sources with considerable freedom : nor have they always been very skilful in their treatment"
The Bible differs from one version to another, we refer to the Revised Standard Version published in America under the auspices of some of the greatest scholars of the Bible. It is indeed a worthless attempt to purge the Bible of all the dross that had crept in to it. It has thrown our the word, 'Virgin' proof of the prophesy which has always formed a part of the 'conclusive' proof of the divinity of Jesus, it has now substituted the word ' young'.
Mr. C. J. Cadoux was Mackennal Professor of Church History at Oxford and one of his outstanding books, is ' The Life of Jesus' , who I have already referred to , also repudiates the Christian belief of the virgin birth. He says in his ' The Life of Jesus' :
" Towards he end of the second century A.D. it came to be wisely believed by Christians that at that time of his birth, his mother was still a virgin, who bore him by the miraculous intervention of God. The view, however, though dear to many modern Christians for its doctrinal value, is unlikely to be true in point of fact"
Let us now see how the present Gospels are estimated as to their origin, chronology, differences, authorship, language contents etc. I start with the Structure of the Synoptic Gospels. The following chart can throw some light as to how it is thought that they ware originated.
From the above chart, it is evident that none of the three authors used written tradition and have depended upon hearsay only. After dealing with the Synoptic Gospels now let us study another chart about the text of the New Testament.
For any future reference let us also have the probable chronological order of the books of the New Testament:
"About A.D."
30 ------------------------- The Crucifixion
50 ------------------------- First Epistle of Paul
62 ------------------------- Last Epistle of Paul
65-70---------------------- Marks's Gospel
70 ? ----------------------- Epistle to the Hebrews
80 ------------------------- Luke's Gospel
85-90---------------------- Mathew's Gospel
90 ------------------------- Acts
90-100 ------------------- John's Gospel and First Epistle
95-100-------------------- Revelation
100 ? --------------------- 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus.
James 1 and 11 Peter , 11 and 111 John and Jude are all so uncertain that we cannot place them in the preceding table. even approximately. (" The Early Church and the New Testament". Irene Allen, 1953, pp2-3)
It is clear from the preceding chronological order of the books of the New Testament that the first record ever made was in 50 A.D. i.e., 20 years after the crucifixion. Now how can it be possible to remember the events correctly after so many years particularly when the ministry of Jesus was very short, i.e., one to three years.
" The length of Jesus' ministry has always been the subject of debate. The major problem is raised by the chronology of the Gospel of John, which refers to two and probably three, successive Passover festivals in Jerusalem during Jesus' ministry ...... Mark, followed by Mathew and Luke, on the other hand, includes only one journey to Jerusalem, one Passover, and leaves the impression of a short ministry of about a year" ("The Living World of the New Testament", Howard Clark kee and F. W. Young, 1960, p 93 )
The author of the " The Early Church and the New Testament" after giving a comparative statement showing the characteristics of the three Gospels (Synoptic Gospel) and the difference between them writes:
" In passion Narrative, Mathew gives details which are peculiar to himself, and these are follows:
Christ's word to Judas in Gethsemane
Juda's suicide
Pilate's wife's dream
Pilate washing his hands
The cry pf the multitude " His blood be upon us and upon our children"
The opening of the graves and the resurrection of the saints.
The sealing of the tomb
These details, with these exception of the First, are all far more characteristic of hearsay than of the evidence of an eye witness. Christ's word to Judas probably does come from a reliable source and may well represent a genuine tradition not known to Mark or Luke . The remainder more probably illustrate the first beginning of Christian legend. These additions thus point to a comparatively late date for the Gospel and also do the last verses of the last chapter which contain the command to 'make disciples of all nations' and to baptise 'in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost'. These contain reference to the practices of the Church rather than a literal report of the words of Jesus. Baptism in the primitive Church, as we can see from Paul's letters, was into the Name of Jesus only'. (The Early Church and New Testament, pp 160, 161,162 )
Now let us see what reasons are given for corruption in the New Testament and how it occurred:
' The scribe may alter a text to agree with his theology. This is a very rare form of corruption, but was definitely employed by Marcion, a heretic. Thus from the very early times there was a very great variety of different readings of the text in existence. Early in the fourth century a certain scholar named Lucian carefully compared different readings of the New Testament with which he was acquainted and produced a revised form of the text ...... This is also referred to as Byzantine Text'. (The Origin and Transmission of the New Testament by L. D.. Twilley B. D, 1957, pp 44- 45 )
Another writer says:
" We must guard also against the assumption that the New Testament as we have it today is in precisely the form in which it was originally written ......... Possibly some small roll of papyrus of uncertain or unknown authorship, seemingly too valuable to lose, may have been inserted into the work of some author recognised and known. In other words, probably no single book in the New testament of today is precisely as it was when it left the hands of its original writer. Now must we fail to remember that the definite and final form of the New Testament was not concluded and put into circulation as a book until more than three centuries after its first portions were written by St. Paul" (The Bible and its Common Reader by Mary Ellen Chase,1958, pp 280-281)
Another writer says:
" We cannot too often remind ourselves that the Gospels were circulated in manuscript : editorial insertions and additions were easy : those which commended themselves gave credit to manuscript which served as the originals of future copies : and it must never be forgotten that, though earlier fragments have been found, none of our existing manuscripts of the New Testament goes back beyond the fourth century of our era" (The Rise of Christianity by Earnest William Barns, Bishop of Birmingham, 1948, p 122 )
The author of " The Early Church and the New Testament" while discussing Johannine literature on pages 198-200 and comparing some of the books of the New Testament says:
" John's version of the resurrection Appearance is certainly distinctive, since even the opening verses are different from Mark's (remember that nothing in Mark beyond 16:8 can be treated as part of the original Gospel ). Since we must discount the end of Mark, and with it Mathew, there remain a few verses in Mark, Luke's Gospel, the Acts and Paul's letters with which a comparison may be made .... " (The Early Church and the New Testament, pp 198-209 )
This means that the last verses of Mark's and Mathew's Gospels are additions since they are now discarded. Now here is something about the original language of the Gospel according to Mathew:
" Mathew' says Ireneus, 'wrote his Gospel in Hebrew language in the midst of the Jews'. Papias says the same : 'Mathew set down in order the words of the Lord in a Hebrew dialect'. It is generally agreed today that the earliest version of St. Mathew's Gospel Gospel was written in Aramaic and in less connected form. This earliest Gospel, this 'setting down in order the words of the Lord' as old bishop put in, was circulated zealously among the Christian community and each one, as Papias adds: 'translated it in to the best of his ability'. The time came when the church wished to codify these translations and thus we have the official Greek version made very probably by the author himself. This version would be enlarged and completed, since by this time two other Gospels Mark and Luke, had appeared." (Jesus In His Time by Henry Daniel translated from the French by R. W. Miller,1956, pp 40 )
As regards the author of the Gospels, in the same book Early Church and the New Testament '. It is written while mentioning the chronology of the various books :
The Gospel according to St. John is later than either Mark or Luke, but it was probably written not very long after Mathew. (The author is unknown to us, just like Mathew) " .(The Early Church and the New Testament)
The authors (H Clark Kee and F. W. Young ) of the book " The Living World of the New Testament", on page 67-68, also write about the doubtfulness of the fourth Gospel and some other books:
" Among the late writings of the New Testament are several others (the epistles of Peter and James) that were also written under the names of the earliest leaders of the Church: yet their style and content make it clear that they were written at a later date. The three letters of John have traditionally been ascribed to the disciple John, but there is considerable doubt as to whether the John associated with these writings was the apostle John, a disciple of the Apostle, of simply a leader in the Church of Asia Minor by the name John. Even the Gospel of John does not identify its author although it gives a prominent place to the disciple whom Jesus loved', who may or may not have been the John the apostle' ....... The claims of Jesus to Messiahship which usually only implied or indirectly stated in the first three Gospels, are boldly proclaimed in the fourth gospel. It is clear, then, that the Gospel that bears the name of John is more concerned with the significance of Jesus for Christian Faith than with what Jesus did nor said" (The Living Word of the New Testament, pp 67-68)
As regards Mark, E. W. Barnes (The Rise of Christianity , pp. 108-109 ) writes:
"Who was Mark? We do not know : he can hardly have been the cousin of Barnabas.........Stories told by Peter were used, possibly after they had filtered through the recollection of several persons, one after another ..... We area thus left with the conclusion that the author of Mark was a Christian : and inasmuch as Aramaic appears to have been his mother tongue, a Jew "
Now lets us see what the Christian writers say about the various vital contents of the Christian faith :
" Bultmann now sees the whole problems as contained within the use by the New Testament authors of a completely mythical cosmology. Not only the accounts of supernormal events, such as the Virgin Birth, the Miracles, the Resurrection, and the Ascension, but the entire Biblical outlook, conditioned (so it is claimed) by Jewish Apocalyptic and Gnostic ideas of redemption, represent a mythological view of the universe which has passed away and which must be replaced by a new world view before the Gospel becomes meaningful to the scientific age. We area no longer to ask, is this historically true? or , can this statement be accepted at its face value? Instead, we are to recognize that the New Testament writers, being children of their own age, employed modes of expression and theological concepts which have ceased to be valid, and whose acceptance by the modern world can only result in a kind of schizophrenia" (The Spiritual Crisis of the Scientific Age by G. D. Yarnold , 1956, pp79-80 )
In the end let us see how far the discovery of Dead Sea Scrolls have affected Christianity. The book The Scrolls and the New Testament , 1957 edited by Kristel Stendahi is worth mentioning here. On page 1and 2 we read:
" Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that it is the very problem to which this volume addresses itself- the Scrolls and the New Testament which has been the catalyst responsible for the wide interest in the Qumran discoveries. It is as a potential threat to Christianity, its claim and its doctrines that the Scrolls have caught the imagination of layman and clergy ......... But the success of his book (Edmond Wilsons' book The Scrolls from the Dead Sea) was due not only to his skill to tell the story but also to his intimation that these Scrolls had drastic ramifications for Christianity- that the rise of Christianity should, at last , be generally understood as an episode of human history rather than propagated as dogma and divine revelation/ " (The Scrolls and the New Testament by Kristel Stendahl, pp1-2)
Source : "The Myth of the Cross "
(ICRA)