Over 99.9 percent of Christians are unaware of the numerous books left out of the New Testament, including the Gospels of Mary Magdalene, of Philip, and of Barnabas. In its embryonic stages, Christianity was a chaotic movement, with different sects declaring each other heretics, which led to periodic bloody confrontations. Emperor Constantine of Rome, a brutal and bloodthirsty misanthrope, was instrumental to the crystallisation of Christianity by changing profoundly the course of its history.
Indeed, Constantine influenced the selection of books that ultimately became the New Testament. During Constantine’s reign, the major dispute among Christian apologists was whether Jesus was God. Whereas followers of a priest named Arius asserted that Jesus was not God, that God created him. However, Bishop Alexander affirmed the divinity of Jesus by claiming that he had existed throughout all eternity. Constantine was irked by the unnecessary turmoil generated by a minor theological storm in a teacup.
Therefore, as a proactive measure to prevent escalation that might disrupt peace and unity in his empire, he convened, in 325 A.D., the Council of Nicaea. Bishops and leaders of different Christian sects were invited. The amorphous group of attendees included the educated and illiterates, hermits and zealots. M. Biagent, R. Leigh and H. Lincoln report, in their illuminating work, The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail, that the Council established the date for Easter. Rules were formulated which codified the powers of Bishops, thereby making possible the concentration of power in the hands of ecclesiastical authorities. Most crucial of all, the Council of Nicaea decided by vote, 218 against 2, that Jesus was God, not a mortal prophet.
Some Christian apologetics claim that Emperor Constantine did all this because he was genuinely converted to the fledgling faith called Christianity.But there is evidence that even before his purported conversion, he was an initiate of the cult of Sol Invictus, or the Invincible Sun, and acted as its chief priest throughout his life. For political expediency, not piety, Constantine introduced unchristian practices into Christianity, which modified and facilitated the spread of the latter. Four years before the Council of Nicaea met, he decreed that the sacred day, “venerable day of the sun,” Sunday, must be observed as a day of rest. Previously, Christians had adopted Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, as sacred. For the cult of Sol Invictus, the most important day in a year is December 25, the birth (or rebirth) of the sun, which is now the canonical Christmas. Until the fourth century A.D., Jesus’ birthday had been celebrated on January 6. From the foregoing, it is clear that the most important components of orthodox Christianity are thoroughly soaked in paganism which was rampant in the defunct Holy Roman Empire.
Now, to the plausible phenomenology of the personage named Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospels. At the outset, we must accept the honest admission of scholars such as George Brandes, Joachim Kahl, Alfred Reynolds and others that, based on historical sources, we know extremely little about Jesus. Believers who dogmatically assert the historicity of the New Testament, particularly the four Gospels, are simply naive and pathetically ignorant. The New Testament, as it exists presently, is essentially a product of 4th century editors and writers who are custodians of the emerging Christian orthodoxy with vested interests to protect.
Reconstructing a historical Jesus from the Gospel narratives and very scanty direct evidence of his existence has been a tantalising challenge for researchers. But, according to Prof. J.D. Tabor, Joseph, to whom the already pregnant Mary (Miriam or Maria) was betrothed, could not have been the biological father of Jesus. Tabor mentions the historical possibility that Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera, a Roman soldier, perhaps a Jew from the North of Galilee, was Jesus’ biological father. No one knows precisely what became of Pantera. There are indications that Jesus had four half-brothers and at least two half-sisters, may be not from Joseph (who probably died childless) but from Clophas, Joseph’s brother. Jesus was raised in a very humble background. Some New Testament scholars have challenged the widespread idea that Jesus was a carpenter because his father was one. Prof. Tabor used the Greek word, tekton, which means a builder, labourer or stoneworker to describe Jesus’ vocation. In addition, a tekton was like a day labourer who had no land and worked on whatever was available without any security or guarantees. Echoes of the lowly origin of Jesus was reflected in the Gospels’ stories about him buttressing his teachings with allusions to daily labourers that either worked in vineyards or did menial job in construction sites.
Jesus was baptised in line with Jewish tradition, a ritual meant to indicate purification and religious devotion. The New Testament is silent about the life of Jesus from around his twelfth year to the time he was baptised, which occurred at the beginning of his ministry. Meanwhile, although there is no consensus among New Testament historians on the so-called lost years of Jesus, some Oriental traditions state that Issa or Jesus left his family at the age of thirteen, when an Israelite should take a wife. He travelled with some merchants to Sind so that “he might perfect himself in the divine word and study the laws of the Great Buddha.” Jesus became an itinerant religious teacher in Jewish lands. He selected twelve disciples to accompany him, comprising mostly the uneducated who were engaged in menial trades.
From the outset, Jesus restricted his preaching to the Israelites (Matt. 10: 5-6; 15: 24, 18:17). He claimed that he did not come to abolish the Mosaic or Jewish law but to fulfil it. Jesus preached some ideas and lived in a manner that deviated from orthodox Judaism. For instance, he abandoned the Jewish reluctance to eat, drink and keep company with sinners and publicans who were considered unclean by the faithful. He paid little attention to ritual, ceremonies and outward display of religious piety.
Jesus discouraged public worship, ostentatious fasting and almsgiving. Probably, he disliked institutionalised religion, preferring that believers should seek the kingdom of heaven that is within them (Luke 17:21). Scholars are agreed that the accounts of Jesus’ trial before Pontius Pilate in the Gospels are not historically credible. They are the products of a later Christian theological tradition that sought to ingratiate Roman authorities by putting the blame for Jesus’ painful death on the obduracy of the Jews so that the new religion can survive in a hostile environment. Although no one knows the true details of the trials, it is highly probable that Jesus was condemned to death as a rebel and pretender to the Jewish throne. He was put to death by crucifixion, one of the most shameful forms of execution and the most popular way the Roman government dealt with political offenders.
Christian bigots can insult those who question the veracity of the Gospels as much as they please. But as an attentive student of critical thinking, I must work within the parameters of a scientific world outlook. A woman cannot get pregnant, let alone produce a male child, unless her egg is fertilised by a y chromosome-bearing sperm from a male.
Thus, Jesus had a human father. Aside from cases of human error, clinically dead persons do not rise; therefore, the idea that Jesus resurrected after three days in a tomb is out of the question. Ghulam Ahmad, founder of the Islamic sect, Ahmadiyya, in his book, Jesus in India, argued that Jesus recovered from his ordeal during the crucifixion and went to India in search of the “lost tribes of Israel,” where he eventually died at a ripe old age with his grave located in Srinagar, Kashmir.
But Prof. Tabor reports that Ahmad’s theory is not backed by reliable historical sources. To sum up: scholars who devoted themselves to New Testament research, not ignorant and knuckle-headed bigots ready to pounce and abuse those that do not share their antiquated superstitious views about Jesus, accept that the Gospels are overwhelmingly theological documents, not veridical historical accounts of actual events. No one knows who wrote them, and the names they bear were invented by the writers who compiled them to project a religious worldview. Until Christians realise this, and deemphasise those aspects that are too mythological to be objectively true, Christianity would continue to be weighed down by repugnant and arrogant self-indulgent irrationality. Concluded.
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