did jesus really exist ?- asks hayim ben yehoshua

8/9/2019 Did Jesus Really Exist ?- asks Hayim ben Yehoshua

1/121

Did Jesus really exist?

REFUTING MISSIONARIES:

By

Hayyim ben Yehoshua


2/121

Disclaimer: This document for informational purposesonly. Keep saltshaker handy and use many grains. Do not e-mail. Noone will debate you.

Hayim Yehoshuas essay on whetherthere did exist a historical

personality Jesus, is a probe intothe very sources upon which thisCult had drawn its fundamentals-Jeudaism and its Scriptures.

It seems he is prompted intoasking this question not only

because the missionaries hadprovoked him by their evangelicalfundamentalism and literalism, asa Jew- leave alone the unspeakabledone over the ages by their kindto his fellow men over the long

history of the Christian Churches,but more by a direct first handfamiliarity with the Gospelsliterature and Biblical scriptureswhich are after all the Holy Books


3/121

of the Jew written in hislanguages- Hebrew and Aramaic,and not that of the Greek and

Latin of the usurpers ofChristianity.

Thus his humorous disclaimer,belies a meticulous study ofelements in this question,startling in its relevance anddemanding an adequate refutationother than the old tricks ofChurch scholarships based onpresumptions of infallibility andclaims to Uniqueness.

It cannot be easily brushed aside.

We are indeed compelled toconclude more in agreement withhis thesis when he asks thisdisconcerting and direct question-

Did Jesus Really Exist?

-Aronites notes


4/121

PART 1: THE MYTH OF THEHISTORICAL JESUS

Much concern has beenexpressed in the Jewish mediaregarding the activity of "Jewsfor Jesus" and other missionary

organizations who go out of theirway to convert Jews toChristianity. Unfortunately, manyJews are ill-equipped to dealwith Christian missionaries andtheir arguments. Hopefully thisarticle will contribute toremedying this situation.

When countering Christianmissionaries it is important


5/121

to base one's arguments on correctfacts. Arguments based onincorrect facts can easily

backfire and end up strengtheningthearguments of the missionaries.

It is rather unfortunate thatmany well meaning JewishStudies teachers have unwittinglyaided missionaries by teachingJewish pupils incorrectinformation about the origins ofChristianity. I can recall beingtaught the following storyabout Jesus at the Jewish day

school which I attended:

"Jesus was a famous firstcentury rabbi whose

Hebrew name was Rabbi Yehoshua.His father was a carpenter

named Joseph and his mother'sname was Mary. Mary became

pregnant before she marriedJoseph. Jesus was born in a

stable in Bethlehem during aRoman census. Jesus grew up


6/121

in Nazareth and became alearned rabbi. He travelled all

over Israel preaching that

people should love one another.Some people thought that he was

the Messiah and he did notdeny this which made the other

rabbis very angry. Hecaused so much controversy that

the Roman governor PontiusPilate had him crucified. He

was buried in a tomb andlater his body was found to be

missing since it hadprobably been stolen by his

disciples."

A few years after being taughtthis seemingly innocentstory, I became interested in theorigins of Christianity anddecided to do some further readingon the "famous RabbiYehoshua." Much to my dismay, Idiscovered that there was nohistorical evidence of this RabbiYehoshua. The claim that


7/121

Jesus was a rabbi named Yehoshuaand the claim that his body wasprobably stolen both turned out to

be pure conjecture. The restof the story was nothing more thana watered down version of thestory which Christians believe aspart of the Christian religionbut which is not supported by anylegitimate historical source.There was absolutely no historicalevidence that Jesus, Josephor Mary ever existed, let alonethat Joseph was a carpenter orthat Jesus was born in Bethlehemand lived in Nazareth.

Despite the lack of evidencefor Jesus's existence manyJews have made the tragic mistakeof assuming that the NewTestament story is largely correctand have tried to refuteChristianity by attempting torationalize the various miraclesthat allegedly occured duringJesus's life and after his death.


8/121

Numerous books have been writtenwhich take this approach toChristianity. This approach

however is hopelessly flawed andisin fact dangerous since itencourages belief in the NewTestament.

When the Israelites wereconfronted with the worship ofBaal they did not blindly acceptthe ancient West Semitic mythsas history. When the Maccabeeswere confronted with Greekreligion they did not blindly

accept Greek mythology as history.Why do so many modern Jews blindlyaccept Christian mythology?The answer to this question seemsto be that many Christians donot know themselves where thedistinction between establishedhistory and Christian belief liesand they have passed theirconfusion on to the Jewishcommunity. Browsing through the


9/121

religion section of a localbookshop, I recently came across abook which claimed to be an

objective biography of Jesus. Itturned out to be nothing more thana summary of the usual NewTestament story. It even includedclaims that Jesus's miracleshad been witnessed but thatrational explanations for themmightexist. Many history books writtenby Christians take a similarapproach. Some Christian authorswill suggest that perhaps themiracles are not completely

historical but they neverthelessfollow the general New Testamentstory. The idea that there wasa real historical Jesus has thusbecome entrenched in Christiansociety and Jews living in theChristian world have come toblindly accept this belief becausethey have never seen itseriously challenged.


10/121


11/121

Jesus.

When confronted by a Christian

missionary, one shouldimmediately point out that *thevery existence of Jesus has notbeen proven*. When missionariesargue they usually appeal toemotions rather than to reason andthey will attempt to make youfeel embarrassed about denying thehistoricity of Jesus. Theusual response is something like_"Isn't denying the existenceof Jesus just as silly as denyingthe existence of Julius Caesar

or Queen Elizabeth?"_. A popularvariation of this responseused especially against Jews is_"Isn't denying the existence ofJesus like denying theHolocaust?"_ One should then pointoutthat there are ample historicalsources confirming the existenceof Julius Caesar, Queen Elizabethor whoever else is named,


12/121

while there is no correspondingevidence for Jesus.

To be perfectly thorough youshould take time to do someresearch on the historicalpersonalities mentioned by themissionaries and present hardevidence of their existence. Atthe same time you should challengethe missionaries to providesimilar evidence of Jesus'sexistence. You should point outthat although the existence ofJulius Caesar or Queen Elizabethetc, is accepted worldwide, the

same is not true of Jesus. Inthe Far East where the majorreligions are Buddhism, Shintoism,Taoism and Confucism, Jesus isconsidered to be just anothercharacter in Western religiousmythology, on a par with Thor,Zeus and Osiris. Most Hindus donot believe in Jesus, but thosewho do consider him to be one ofthe many avatars of the Hindu


13/121

god Vishnu. Muslims certainlybelieve in Jesus but they rejectthe New Testament story and

consider him to be a prophet whoannounced the coming of Muhammed.They explicitly deny that hewas ever crucified.

To sum up, there is no storyof Jesus which is uniformlyaccepted worldwide. It is thisfact which puts Jesus on adifferent level to establishedhistorical personalities. If themissionaries use the "Holocaustreply," you should point out

that the Holocaust is well-documented and that there arenumerous eyewitness reports. Itshould be pointed out that mostof the people who deny theHolocaust have turned out to beantisemitic hate-mongers withfraudulent credentials. On theother hand, millions of honestpeople in Asia, who make up the


14/121

majority of the world'spopulation, have failed to beconvinced

by the Christian story of Jesussince there is no compellingevidence for its authenticity.The missionaries will insistthat the story of Jesus is a well-established fact and willargue that there is "plenty ofevidence supporting it"_. Oneshould then insist on seeing thisevidence and refuse to listenany further until they produce it.

If Jesus was not an historical

person, where did thewhole New Testament story comefrom in the first place? TheHebrew name for Christians hasalways been _Notzrim_. This nameis derived from the Hebrew word_neitzer_ which means a shoot orsprout - an obvious Messianicsymbol. There were already peoplecalled Notzrim at the time ofRabbi Yehoshua ben Perachyah (c.


15/121

100 B.C.E.). Although modernChristians claim that Christianityonly started in the first century

C.E., it is clear that thefirst century Christians in Israelconsidered themselves to be acontinuation of the Notzrimovement which had been inexistencefor about 150 years. One of thethe most notorious Notzrim wasYeishu ben Pandeira, also known asYeishu ha-Notzri. Talmudicscholars have always maintainedthat the story of Jesus beganwith Yeishu. The Hebrew name for

Jesus has always been Yeishuand the Hebrew for "Jesus theNazarene" has always been "Yeishuha-Notzri." (The name Yeishu is ashortened form of the nameYeishua, not Yehoshua.) It isimportant to note that Yeishuha-Notzri is not an historicalJesus since modern Christianitydenies any connection betweenJesus and Yeishu and moreover,


16/121

parts of the Jesus myth are basedon other historical peoplebesides Yeishu.

We know very little aboutYeishu ha-Notzri. All modernworks that mention him are basedon information taken from theTosefta and the Baraitas -writings made at the same time astheMishna but not contained in it.Because the historicalinformation concerning Yeishu isso damaging to Christianity,most Christian authors (and even

some Jewish ones) have tried todiscredit this information andhave invented many ingeniousarguments to explain it away.Many of their arguments are basedon misunderstandings andmisquotations of the Baraitas andinorder to get an accurate pictureof Yeishu one should ignoreChristian authors and examine theBaraitas directly.


17/121

The skimpy information

contained in the Baraitas is as

follows: Rabbi Yehoshua benPerachyah once repelled Yeishuwithboth hands. People believed thatYeishu was a sorcerer and theyconsidered him to be a person whohad led the Jews astray. As aresult of charges brought againsthim (the details of which arenot known, but which probablyinvolved high treason) Yeishu wasstoned and his body hung up on theeve of Passover. Before this

he was paraded around for fortydays with a herald going infront of him announcing that hewould be stoned and calling forpeople to come forward to pleadfor him. Nothing was broughtforward in his favour however.Yeishu had five disciples:Mattai, Naqai, Neitzer, Buni, andTodah.


18/121

In the Tosefta and theBaraitas, Yeishu's father isnamed Pandeira or Panteiri. These

are Hebrew-Aramaic forms of aGreek name. In Hebrew the thirdconsonant of the name iswritten either with a dalet or atet. Comparison with otherGreek words transliterated intoHebrew shows that the originalGreek must have had a delta as itsthird consonant and so theonly possibilty for the father'sGreek name is Panderos. SinceGreek names were common among Jewsduring Hashmonean times it is

not necessary to assume that hewas Greek, as some authors havedone.

The connection between Yeishuand Jesus is corroboratedby the the fact that Mattai andTodah, the names of two ofYeishu's disciples, are theoriginal Hebrew forms of Matthewand


19/121

Thaddaeus, the names of two ofJesus's disciples in Christianmythology.

The early Christians were alsoaware of the name "benPandeira" for Jesus. The paganphilosopher Celsus, who wasfamous for his arguments againstChristianity, claimed in 178C.E. that he had heard from a Jewthat Jesus's mother, Mary,had been divorced by her husband,a carpenter, after it had beenproved that she was an adultress.She wandered about in shame

and bore Jesus in secret. Hisreal father was a soldier namedPantheras. According to theChristian writer Epiphanius (c.320 - 403 C.E.), the Christianapologist Origen (c.185 - 254C.E.) had claimed that "Panther"was the nickname for Jacob thefather of Joseph, the stepfatherof Jesus. It should be notedthat Origen's claim is not basedon any historical information.


20/121

It is purely a conjecture aimed atexplaining away the Pantherasstory of Celsus. That story is

also not historical. The claimthat the name of Jesus's motherwas Mary and the claim that herhusband was a carpenter is takendirectly from Christian belief.The claim that Jesus's real fatherwas named Pantheras is basedon an incorrect attempt atreconstructing the original formofPandeira. This incorrectreconstruction was probablyinfluenced

by the fact that the namePantheras was found among Romansoldiers.

Why did people believe thatJesus's mother was namedMary and her husband named Joseph?Why did non-Christians accuseMary of being an adultress whileChristians believed she was avirgin? To answer these questionsone must examine some of the


21/121

legends surrounding Yeishu. Wecannot hope to obtain theabsolute truth concerning the

origins of the Jesus myth but wecan show that reasonablealternatives exist to blindlyacceptingthe New Testament.

The name Joseph for Jesus'sstepfather is easy toexplain. The Notzri movement wasparticulary popular with theSamaritan Jews. While thePharisees were waiting for aMessiah

who would be a descendant ofDavid, the Samaritans wanted aMessiah who would restore thenorthern kingdom of Israel. TheSamaritans emphasized theirpartial descent from the tribes ofEphraim and Manasseh, who weredescended from the Joseph of theTorah. The Samaritans consideredthemselves to be "Bnei Yoseph"i.e. "sons of Joseph," and sincethey believed that Jesus had


22/121

been their Messiah, they wouldhave assumed that he was a "sonof Joseph." The Greek speaking

population, who had littleknowledge of Hebrew and trueJewish traditions could haveeasilymisunderstood this term andassumed that Joseph was the actualname of Jesus's father. Thisconjecture is corroborated by thefact that according to the _Gospelof Matthew_, Joseph's fatheris named Jacob, just like theTorah Joseph. Later, otherChristians, who followed the idea

that the Messiah was to bedescended from David, tried totrace Joseph back to David. Theycame up with two contradictorygenealogies for him, one recordedin _Matthew _ and the other in_Luke_. When the idea that Marywas a virgin developed, themythical Joseph was relegated totheposition of simply being herhusband and the stepfather of


23/121

Jesus.

To understand where the Mary

story came from we have toturn to another historicalcharacter who contributed to theJesus myth, namely ben Stada. Allthe information we have onben Stada again comes from theTosefta and the Baraitas. Thereis even less information about himthan about Yeishu: Somepeople believed that he hadbrought spells out of Egypt in acutin his flesh, others thought that

he was a madman. He was abeguiler and was caught by themethod of concealed witnesses.He was stoned in Lod.

In the Tosefta, ben Stada iscalled ben Sotera or benSitera. Sotera seems to be theHebrew-Aramaic form of the Greekname Soteros. The forms "Sitera"and "Stada" seem have arisen


24/121

as misreadings and spellingmistakes (yod replacing vav anddalet replacing reish).

Since there was so littleinformation concerning benStada, many conjectures arose asto who he was. It is knownfrom the Gemara that he wasconfused with Yeishu. Thisprobablyresulted from the fact that bothwere executed for treasonousteachings and were associated withsorcery. People who confusedben Stada with Yeishu had to

explain why he was also called benPandeira. Since the name "Stada"resembles the Aramaicexpression "stat da," meaning "shewent astray" it was thoughtthat "Stada" referred to themother of Yeishu and that she wasan adultress. Consequently,people began to think that Yeishuwas the illegitimate son ofPandeira. These ideas are in fact


25/121

mentioned in the Gemara and areprobably much older. Since benStada lived in Roman times and the

name Pandeira resembled thename Pantheras found among Romansoldiers, it was assumed thatPandeira had been a Roman soldierstationed in Israel. Thiscertainly explains the storymentioned by Celsus.

The Tosefta mentions a famouscase of a woman namedMiriam bat Bilgah marrying a Romansoldier. The idea thatYeishu had been born to a Jewish

woman who had had an affairwith a Roman soldier probablyresulted in Yeishu's mother beingconfused with this Miriam. Thename "Miriam" is of course theoriginal form of the name "Mary."It is in fact known from theGemara that some of the people whoconfused Yeishu with benStada believed that Yeishu'smother was "Miriam the women'shairdresser."


26/121

The story that Mary (Miriam)

the mother of Jesus was an

adultress was certainly notacceptable to the earlyChristians.The virgin birth story wasprobably invented to clear Mary'sname. The early Christians didnot suck this story out of theirthumbs. Virgin birth stories werefarely common in pagan myths.The following mythologicalcharacters were all believed to behave been born to divinelyimpregnated virgins: Romulus and

Remus, Perseus, Zoroaster,Mithras, Osiris-Aion, Agdistis,Attis, Tammuz, Adonis, Korybas,Dionysus. The pagan belief inunions between gods and women,regardless of whether they werevirgins or not, is even morecommon. Many characters in paganmythology were believed to be sonsof divine fathers and humanfemales. The Christian beliefthat Jesus was the son of G-d


27/121

born to a virgin, is typical ofGreco-Roman superstition. TheJewish philosopher, Philo of

Alexandria (c. 30 B.C.E - 45C.E.),warned against the widespreadsuperstitious belief in unionsbetween male gods and humanfemales which returned women to astate of virginity.

The god Tammuz, worshipped bypagans in northern Israel,was said to have been born to thevirgin Myrrha. The name"Myrrha" superficially resembles

"Mary/Miriam" and it ispossible that this particularvirgin birth story influenced theMary story more than the others.Like Jesus, Tammuz was alwayscalled Adon, meaning "Lord." (Thecharacter Adonis in Greekmythology is based on Tammuz.) Aswe will see later, theconnection between Jesus andTammuz goes much further thanthis.


28/121

The idea that Mary had been an

adultress never

completely disappeared inChristian mythology. Instead, thecharacter of Mary was split intotwo: Mary the mother of Jesus,believed to be a virgin, and MaryMagdalene, believed to be awoman of ill repute. The ideathat the character of MaryMagdalene is also derived fromMiriam the mythical mother ofYeishu, is corroborated by thefact that the strange name"Magdalene" clearly resembles the

Aramaic term "mgadla nshaya"meaning "womens' hairdresser." Asmentioned before, there was abelief that Yeishu's mother was"Miriam the women'shairdresser." Because theChristians did not know what thename"Magdalene" meant, they laterconjectured that it meant that shehad come from a place calledMagdala on the west of Lake


29/121

Kinneret. The idea of the twoMarys fitted in well with thepagan way of thinking. The image

of Jesus being followed by thetwo Marys is strongly reminiscentof Dionysus being followed byDemeter and Persephone.

The Gemara contains aninteresting legend concerningYeishu which attempts to elucidatethe Beraita which says thatRabbi Yehoshua ben Perachyahrepelled Yeishu with both hands.The legend claims that when theHashmonean king Yannai was

killing the Pharisees, RabbiYehoshua and Yeishu fled to Egypt.When returning they came upon aninn. The Aramaic word"aksanya" means both "inn" or"innkeeper." Rabbi Yehoshuaremarked how beautiful the"aksanya" was (meaning the inn).Yeishu (meaning the innkeeper)replied that her eyes were toonarrow. Rabbi Yehoshua was veryangry with Yeishu and


30/121

excommunicated him. Yeishu askedmany times for forgivenessbut Rabbi Yehoshua would not

forgive him. Once when RabbiYehoshua was reciting the Shema,Yeishu came up to him. He madea sign to him that he should wait.Yeishu misunderstood andthought that he was being rejectedagain. He mocked RabbiYehoshua by setting up a brick andworshipping it. RabbiYehoshua told him to repent but herefused to, saying that hehad learned from him that anyonewho sins and causes many to

sin, is not given the opportunityto repent.

The above story, up to theevents at the inn, closelyresembles another legend in whichthe protagonist is not RabbiYehoshua but his disciple Yehudaben Tabbai. In this legend,Yeishu is not named. One may thusquestion whether Yeishu


31/121

really went to Egypt or not. Itis possible that Yeishu wasconfused with some other disciple

of either Rabbi Yehoshua orRabbi Yehuda. The confusion mighthave resulted from the factthat Yeishu was confused with benStada who had returned fromEgypt. On the other hand, Yeishumight have really fled to Egyptand returned, and this in turncould have contributed to theconfusion between Yeishu and benStada. Whatever the case, thebelief that Yeishu fled to Egyptto escape being killed by a

cruel king, appears to be theorigin of the Christian beliefthat Jesus and his family fled toEgypt to escape King Herod.

Since the early Christiansbelieved that Jesus had livedin Roman times it is natural thatthey would have confused theevil king who wanted to kill Jesuswith Herod, since there were


32/121

no other suitable evil kingsduring the Roman period. Yeishuwas an adult at the time that the

rabbis fled from Yannai; whydid the Christians believe thatJesus and his family had fled toEgypt when Jesus was an infant?Why did the Christians believethat Herod had ordered all babyboys born in Bethlehem to bekilled, when there is nohistorical evidence of this? Toanswerthese questions we again have tolook at pagan mythology.

The theme of a divine or semi-divine child who is fearedby an evil king is very common inpagan mythology. The usualstory is that the evil kingreceives a prophecy that a certainchild will be born who will usurpthe throne. In some storiesthe child is born to a virgin andusually he is son of a god.The mother of the child tries tohide him. The king usually


33/121

orders the slaying of all babieswho might be the propheciedking. Examples of myths which

follow this plot are the birthstories of Romulus and Remus,Perseus, Krishna, Zeus, andOedipus. Although Torahliteralists will not like to admitit,the story of Moses's birth alsoresembles these myths (some ofwhich claim that the mother putthe child in a basket and placedhim in a river). There wereprobably several such storiescirculating in the Levant which

have been lost. The Christianmyth of the slaughter of theinnocents by Herod is simply aChristain version of this theme.The plot was so well knownthat one Midrashic scholar couldnot resist using it for anapocryphal account of Abraham'sbirth.

The early Christians believedthat the Messiah was to be


34/121

born in Bethlehem. This belief isbased on a misunderstandingof Micah _ 5.2 which simply names

Bethlehem as the town wherethe Davidic lineage began. Sincethe early Christians believedthat Jesus was the Messiah, theyautomatically believed that hewas born in Bethlehem. But whydid the Christians believe thathe lived in Nazareth? The answeris quite simple. The earlyGreek speaking Christians did notknow what the word "Nazarene"meant. The earliest Greek form ofthis word is "Nazoraios,"

which is derived from "Natzoriya,"the Aramaic equivalent of theHebrew "Notzri." (Recall that"Yeishu ha-Notzri" is theoriginal Hebrew for "Jesus theNazarene.") The early Christiansconjectured that "Nazarene" meanta person from Nazareth and soit was assumed that Jesus lived inNazareth. Even today,Christians blithely confuse theHebrew words "Notzri" (_


35/121

Nazarene_, _Christian_),"Natzrati" _Nazarethite_) and"nazir"

(_nazarite_), all of which havecompletely different meanings.

The information in the Talmud(which contains theBaraitas and the Gemara),concerning Yeishu and ben Stada,is sodamaging to Christianity thatChristians have always takendrastic measures against it. Whenthe Christians firstdiscovered the information they

immediately tried to wipe it outby censoring the Talmud. TheBasle edition of the Talmud (c.1578 - 1580) had all the passagesrelating to Yeishu and benStada deleted by the Christians.Even today, editions of theTalmud used by Christian scholarslack these passages!

During the first few decadesof this century, fierce


36/121

academic battles raged betweenatheist and Christian scholarsover the true origins of

Christianity. The Christians wereforced to face up to the Talmudicevidence. They could nolonger ignore it and so theydecided to attack it instead.Theyclaimed that the Talmudic Yeishuwas a distortion of the"historical Jesus." They claimedthat the name "Pandeira" wassimply a Hebrew attempt atpronouncing the Greek word forvirgin

- "parthenos." Although there isa superficial resemblencebetween the words, one should notethat in order for "Pandeira"to be derived from "parthenos,"the "n" and "r" have to beinterchanged. However, the Jewsdid not suffer from any speechimpediment which would cause thisto happen! The Christianresponse is that possibly the Jewspurposefully altered the word


37/121

"parthenos" to either the name"Pantheras" (found in Celsus'sstory) or to "pantheros" meaning a

panther, and "Pandeira" isderived from the deliberatelyaltered word. This argument alsofails since the third consonent ofboth the altered andunaltered "parthenos" is theta.This letter is alwaystransliterated by the Hebrewletter tav, whose pronunciationduring classical times mostclosely resembled that of theGreekletter. However, the name

"Pandeira" is never spelled with atav but with either a dalet or atet which show that theoriginal Greek form had a delta asits third consonant, not atheta. The Christian argument canalso be turned on its head:maybe the Christians deliberatelyaltered "Pantheras" to"parthenos" when they invented thevirgin birth story. It


38/121

should also be noted that theresemblence between "Pantheras"(or "pantheros") and "parthenos"

is actually much less whenwritten in Greek since in theoriginal Greek spelling theirsecond vowels are completelydifferent.

The Christians also did notaccept that Mary Magdalenewas connected to Miriam thealleged mother of Yeishu in theTalmud. They argued that the name"Magdalene" does mean aperson from Magdala and that the

Jews evented "Miriam the womenshairdresser _mgadla nshaya_)"either to mock the Christians, orout of their own misunderstandingof the name "Magdalene." Thisargument is also false. Firstly,it ignores Greek grammar: thecorrect Greek for "of Magdala" is"Magdales" and the correctGreek for a person from Magdala is"Magdalaios." The original


39/121

Greek root of "Magdalene" is"Magdalen-" with a conspicuous "n"showing that the word has nothing

to do with Magdala. Secondly,Magdala only got its name afterthe Gospels were written.Before that it was called Magadanor Dalmanutha. (Although"Magadan" has an "n," it lacks an"l" and so it cannot be thederivation of "Magdalene.") Infact, the ruins of this area wererenamed Magdala by the Christiancommunity because they believedthat Mary Magdalene had come fromthere.

The Christians also claimedthat the word "Notzri" meansa person from Nazareth. This isof course false since theoriginal Hebrew for Nazareth is"Natzrat" and a person fromNazareth is a "Natzrati." Thename "Notzri" lacks the lettertav from "Natzrat" as so it cannotbe derived from it. The


40/121

Christians argue that perhaps theAramaic name for Nazareth was"Natzarah" or "Natzirah" (like the

modern Arabic name) whichexplains the missing tav in"Notzri." This is also nonsensesince the Aramaic word for aperson from Nazareth would then be"Natzaratiya" or "Natziratiya"(with a tav since the feminineending "-ah" would become "-at-"when the suffix "-iya" isadded), and besides, the Aramaicform would not be used inHebrew. The Christians also cameup with various other

arguments which can be dismissedsince they confuse the Hebrewwords "Notzri" and "nazir" orignore the fact that "Notzri" isthe earliest form of the word"Nazarene."

To sum up, all the Christianarguments were based onimpossible phonetic changes andgrammatical forms, and were


41/121

consequently dismissed. Moreover,although the legends in theGemara cannot be taken as fact,

the evidence in the Baraitas andTosefta concerning Yeishu can betraced back directly toYehoshua ben Perachyah, Shimon benShetach and Yehuda ben Tabbaiand their disciples who werecontemporaries of Yeishu, whiletheevidence in the Baraitas andTosefta concerning ben Stada canbetraced to Rabbi Eliezer benHyrcanus and his disciples who

wereben Stada's contempories.Consequently the evidence can beregarded as historically accurate.Therefore modern Christiansno longer attack the Talmud butinstead deny any connectionbetween Jesus and Yeishu or benStada. They dismiss thesimilarities as pure coincidence.However, one must still be


42/121

aware of the false attacks on theTalmud since many Christianbooks still mention them and they

can and do resurface from timeto time.

Many parts of the Jesus storyare not based on Yeishu orben Stada. Most Christiandenominations claim that Jesus wasborn on 25 December. Originallythe eastern Christains believedthat he was born on 6 January.The Armenian Christians stillfollow this early belief whilemost Christians consider it to be

the date of the visit of the Magi.As pointed out already,Jesus was probably confused withTammuz born of the virginMyrrha. We know that in Romantimes, the gods Tammuz, Aion andOsiris were identified. Osiris-Aion was said to be born of thevirgin Isis on the 6 January andthis explains the earlier datefor Christmas. Isis was sometimesrepresented as a sacred cow


43/121

and her temple as a stable whichis probably the origin of theChristian belief that Jesus was

born in a stable. Although somemight find this claim to befarfetched, it is known as a factthat certain early Christian sectsidentified Jesus and Osirisin their writings. The date of 25December for Christmas wasoriginally the pagan birthday ofthe sun god, whose day of theweek is still known as *Sun*_day.The halo of light which isusually shown surrounding the faceof Jesus and Christian

saints, is another concept takenfrom the sun god.

The theme of temptation by adevil-like creature wasalso found in pagan mythology. Inparticular the story ofJesus's temptation by Satanresembles the temptation of Osirisby the devil-god Set in Egyptianmythology.


44/121

We have already hinted thatthere was also a connectionbetween Jesus and the pagan god

Dionysus. Like Dionysus, theinfant Jesus was wrapped inswaddling clothes and placed in amanger; like Dionysus, Jesus couldturn water into wine; likeDionysus, Jesus rode on an ass andfed a multitude in thewilderness; like Dionysus, Jesussuffered and was mocked. Someearly Christians claimed thatJesus had in fact been born, notin a stable, but in a cave - justlike Dionysus.

Where did the story that Jesuswas crucified come from?It appears to have resulted from anumber of sources. Firstlythere were three historicalcharacters during the Roman periodwho people thought were Messiahsand who were crucified by theRomans, namely. Yehuda of Galilee(6 C.E.), Theudas (44 C.E.)


45/121

and Benjamin the Egyptian (60C.E.). Since these three peoplewere all thought to be the

Messiah, they were naturallyconfusedwith Yeishu and ben Stada. Yehudaof Galilee had preached inGalilee and had collected manyfollowers before being crucifiedby the Romans. The story ofJesus's ministry in Galileeappearsto be based on the life of Yehudaof Galilee. This story andthe belief that Jesus lived inNazareth in Galilee, reinforced

each other. The belief that someof Jesus's disciples werekilled in c. 44 C.E. by Agrippaappears to be based the fate ofTheudas's disciples. Since benStada had come from Egypt it isnatural that he would have beenconfused with Benjamin theEgyptian. They were probably alsocontempories. Even somemodern authors have suggested thatthey were the same person,


46/121

although this is not possiblesince the stories of their deathsare completely different. In the

New Testament book of _Acts_,which uses Josephus's book _Jewish Antiquities_ (93 - 94 C.E.)as a reference, it is made clearthat the author consideredJesus, Yehuda of Galilee, Theudasand Benjamin the Egyptian, tobe four different people.However, by that time it was toolateto undo the confusions which hadalready taken place before theNew Testament was written, and the

idea of Jesus's crucifixionhad become an integral part of themyth.

Secondly, the idea arose thatJesus had been executed onthe eve of Passover. This beliefis apparently based onYeishu's execution. Passoveroccurs at the time of the Vernal


47/121

Equinox, an event consideredimportant by astrologers duringthe

Roman Empire. The astrologersthought of this time as the timeof the crossing of twoastrological celestial circles,and thisevent was symbolized by a cross.Thus there was a belief thatJesus had died on "the cross."The misunderstanding of thisterm by those who were notinitiated into the astrologicalcults, was another factorcontributing to the belief that

Jesuswas crucified. In one of theearliest Christian documents (the_Teaching of the Twelve Apostles_)there is no mention of Jesusbeing crucified yet the sign of across in the sky is used torepresent Jesus's coming. Itshould be noted that the centre ofastrological superstition in theRoman Empire was the city of


48/121

Tarsus in Asia Minor - the placewhere the legendary missionaryPaul came from. The idea that a

special star had heralded thebirth of Jesus, and that a solareclipse occured at his death,is typical of Tarsian astrologicalsuperstition.

The third factor contributingto the crucifixion storyis again pagan mythology. Thetheme of a divine or semi-divinebeing sacrificed against a tree,pole or cross, and then beingresurrected, is very common in

pagan mythology. It was found inthe mythologies of all westerncivilizations stretching from asfar west as Ireland and as fareast as India. In particular itis found in the mythologies ofOsiris and Attis, both of whomwere often identified with Tammuz.Osiris landed up with hisarms stretched out on a tree likeJesus on the cross. This tree


49/121

was sometimes shown as a pole withoutstretched arms - the sameshape as the Christian cross. In

the worship of Serapis (acomposite of Osiris and Apis) thecross was a religious symbol.Indeed, the Christian "Latincross" symbol seems to be baseddirectly on the cross symbol ofOsiris and Serapis. The Romansnever used this traditionalChristian cross for crucifixions,they used crosses shaped eitherlike an X or a T. Thehieroglyph of a cross on a hillwas associated with Osiris.

This heiroglyph stood for the"Good One," in Greek "Chrestos," aname applied to Osiris and otherpagan gods. The confusion ofthis name with "Christos (=Messiah, Christ)" strengthened theconfusion between Jesus and thepagan gods.

At the Vernal Equinox, pagansin northern Israel would


50/121

celebrate the death andresurrection of the virgin bornTammuz-Osiris. In Asia Minor

(where the earliest Christianchurches were established) asimilar celebration was held forthe virgin born Attis. Attis wasshown as dying against a tree,being buried in a cave and thenbeing resurrected on the thirdday. We thus see where theChristian story of Jesus'sresurrection comes from. In theworship of Baal, it wasbelieved that Baal cheated Mavet(the god of death) at the time

of the Vernal Equinox. Hepretended to be dead but laterappeared alive. He accomplishedthis ruse by giving his onlyson as a sacrifice.

The occurence of Passover atthe same time of year asthe pagan "Easter" festivals isnot coincidental. Many of thePessach customs were designed asJewish alternatives to pagan


51/121

customs. The pagans believed thatwhen their nature god (suchas Tammuz, Osiris or Attis) died

and was resurrected, his lifewent into the plants used by manas food. The matza made fromthe spring harvest was his newbody and the wine from the grapeswas his new blood. In Judaism,matza, was not used to representthe body of a god but the poorman's bread which the Jews atebefore leaving Egypt. The pagansused the paschal sacrifice torepresent the sacrifice of a godor his only son, but Judaism

used it to represent the mealeaten before leaving Egypt.Instead of telling stories aboutBaal sacrificing his first bornson to Mavet, the Jews told how_mal'ach ha-mavet_ (the angel ofdeath) slew the first born sons ofthe Egyptians. The pagansate eggs to represent theresurrection and rebirth of theirnature god, but the egg on theseder plate represents the


52/121

rebirth of the Jewish peopleescaping captivity in Egypt. Whenthe early Christians noticed the

similarities between Pessachcustoms and pagan customs, theycame full circle and convertedthe Pessach customs back to theirold pagan interpretations.The seder became the last supperof Jesus, similar to the lastsupper of Osiris commemorated atthe Vernal Equinox. The matzaand wine once again became thebody and blood of a false god,this time Jesus. Easter eggs areagain eaten to commemorate the

resurrection of a "god" and alsothe "rebirth" obtained byaccepting his sacrifice on thecross.

The Last Supper myth isparticularly interesting. Asmentioned, the basic idea of lastsupper occuring at the VernalEquinox comes from the story ofthe last supper of Osiris. In


53/121

the Christian story, Jesus ispresent with twelve apostles.Where did the story of the twelve

apostles come from? It appearsthat in its earliest version, thestory was understood to be anallegory. The first time thattwelve apostles are mentioned isin the document known as the_Teaching of the Twelve Apostles_.This document apparentlyoriginated as a sectarian Jewishdocument written in the firstcentury C.E., but it was adoptedby Christians who altered itsubstantially and added Christian

ideas to it. In the earliestversions it is clear that the"twelve apostles" are the twelvesons of Jacob representing thetwelve tribes of Israel. TheChristians later considered the"twelve apostles" to beallegorical disciples of Jesus.

In Egyptian mythology, Osiriswas betrayed at his last


54/121

supper by the evil god Set, whomthe Greeks identified withTyphon. This seems to be the

origin of the idea that Jesus'sbetrayer was present at his lastsupper. The idea that thisbetrayer was named "Judas" goesback to the time when the twelveapostles were still understood tobe the sons of Jacob. Theidea of Judas (= Judah, Yehuda)betraying Jesus (the "son" ofJoseph) is strongly reminiscent ofthe story of the Torah Josephbeing betrayed by his brotherswith Yehuda as the ringleader.

This allegory would have beenparticulary appealing to theSamaritan Notzrim who consideredthemselves to be sons of Josephbetrayed by mainstream Jews(represented by Judas/Yehuda).

However, the story of thetwelve apostles lost itsoriginal allegoricalinterpretation and the Christiansbegan to


55/121

think that the "twelve apostles"were twelve real people whofollowed Jesus. The Christians

attempted to find names forthese twelve apostles. Matthewand Thaddaeus were based onMattai and Todah, two of Yeishu'sdisciples. One or both of theapostles named Jacobus (James) ispossibly based on Jacob ofKfar Sekanya, an early Christianknown to Rabbi Eliezer benHyrcanus, but this is just aguess. As we have seen, thecharacter of Judas is mostly basedon the Judah of the Torah but

there might also be a connectionwith Yeishu's contemporary,Yehuda ben Tabbai the disciple ofRabbi Yehoshua ben Perachyah.As already mentioned, the idea ofthe betrayer at the lastsupper is derived from themythology of Osiris who wasbetrayedby Set-Typhon. Set-Typhon had redhair and this is probably the


56/121

origin of the claim that Judas hadred hair. This idea has ledto the Christian stereotypical

portrayel of Jews as having redhair, despite the fact that inreality, red hair is far morecommon among Aryans than amongJews.

Judas is often given thenickname "Iscariot." In someplaces where English NewTestaments have "Iscariot," theGreektext actually has "apo Kariotou"which means "from Karyot."

Karyot was the name of a town inIsrael, probably the modernsite known in Arabic as Karyatein.We thus see that the nameIscariot is derived from theHebrew "ish Karyot" meaning "manfrom Karyot." This is in fact theaccepted modern Christianunderstanding of the name.However, in the past, theChristians


57/121

misunderstood this name andlegends arose that Judas was fromthe town of _Sychar_, that he was

a member of the extremistparty known as the _Sicarii_ andthat he was from the tribe of_Issacher_. The most interestingmisunderstanding of the nameis its early confusion with theword _scortea_ meaning a leathermoney bag. This led to the NewTestament myth that Judascarried such a bag, which in turnled to the belief that he wasthe treasurer of the apostles.

The apostle Peter appears tobe a largely fictitiouscharacter. According to Christianmythology, Jesus chose him tobe the "keeper of the keys to thekingdom of heaven." This isclearly based on the Egyptianpagan deity, Petra, who was thedoor-keeper of heaven and theafterlife ruled over by Osiris.We must also doubt the story ofLuke "the good healer" who was


58/121

supposed to be a friend of Paul.The original Greek for "Luke"is "Lykos" which was another name

for Apollo, the god ofhealing.

John the Baptist is largelybased on an historicalperson who practised ritualimmersion in water as a physicalsymbol for repentence. He did notperform Christian stylesacramental baptisms to cleansepeople's souls - such an ideawas totally foreign to Judaism.He was put to death by Herod

Antipas who feared that he wasabout to start a rebellion.John's name in Greek was "Ioannes"and in Latin "Johannes."Although these names were usuallyused for the Hebrew nameYochanan, it is unlikely that thiswas John's actual Hebrewname. "Ioannes" closely resembles"Oannes" the Greek name forthe pagan god Ea. Oannes was the"God of the House of Water."


59/121

Sacramental baptism for magicallycleansing souls, was apractice which apparently

originated in the worship ofOannes.The most likely explanation ofJohn's name and its connectionwith Oannes is that John probablybore the nickname "Oannes"since he practised baptism whichhe had adapted from the worshipof Oannes. The name "Oannes" waslater confused with "Ioannes."(In fact, the New Testament legendconcerning John provides aclue that his real name might have

been Zacharia.) It is knownfrom Josephus's writings that thehistorical John rejected thepagan "soul-cleansing"interpretation of baptism. TheChristians, however, returned tothis original paganinterpretation.

The god Oannes was associatedwith the constellation


60/121

Capricorn. Both Oannes and theconstellation Capricorn wereassociated with water. (The

constellation is supposed todepicta mythical sea-creature with thebody of a fish and theforeparts of a goat.) We havealready seen that Jesus was giventhe same birthday as the sun god(25 December), when the sun isin the constellation of Capricorn.The pagans thought of thisperiod as one where the sun god isimmersed in the waters ofOannes and emerges reborn. (The

Winter Solstice, when daysstart getting longer, occurs near25 December.) Thisastrological myth is apparentlythe origin of the story thatJesus was baptised by John. Itprobably started as anallegorical astrological story,but it appears that the godOannes later became confused withthe historical personnicknamed Oannes (John).


61/121

The belief that Jesus had met

John contributed to the

belief that Jesus's ministry andcrucifixion occured whenPontius Pilate was procurator ofJudaea. It should be notedthat most dates for Jesus quotedby Christians are completelynonsense. Jesus was partly basedon Yeishu and ben Stada whoprobably lived more than a centuryapart. He was also based onthe three false Messiahs, Yehuda,Theudas and Benjamin, who werecrucified by the Romans at various

different times. Anotherfact that contributed to confuseddating of Jesus was that Jacobof Kfar Sekanya and probably otherNotzrim as well, usedexpressions like "thus was Itaught by Yeishu ha-Notzri," eventhough he had not been taught byYeishu in person. We know fromthe Gemara that Jacob's statementled Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus


62/121

to incorrectly conclude that Jacobwas a disciple of Yeishu.This suggests that there were

rabbis who were unaware of thefact that Yeishu had lived inHashmonean times. Even afterChristians placed Jesus in thefirst century C.E., confusioncontinued among non-Christians.There was a contempory of RabbiAkiva named Pappus ben Yehuda whoused to lock up his unfaithfulwife. We know from the Gemarathat some people who confusedYeishu and ben Stada, confused thewife of Pappus with Miriam

the unfaithful mother of Yeishu.This would place Yeishu morethan two centuries after heactually lived!

The New Testament storyconfuses so many historicalperiods that there is no way ofreconciling it with history.The traditional year of Jesus'sbirth is 1 C.E. Jesus was


63/121

supposed to be not more than twoyears old when Herod orderedthe slaughter of the innocents.

However, Herod died before 12April 4 B.C.E. This has led someChristians to redate the birthof Jesus in 6 - 4 B.C.E. However,Jesus was also supposed havebeen born during the census ofQuirinius. This census tookplace after Archelaus was deposedin 6 C.E., ten years afterHerod's death. Jesus was supposedto have been baptised by Johnsoon after John had startedbaptising and preaching in the

fifteenth year of the reign ofTiberias i.e. 28 - 29 C.E., whenPontius Pilate was governer ofJudaea i.e. 26 - 36 C.E.According to the New Testament,this also happened when Lysaniaswas tetrarch of Abilene and Annasand Caiaphas were highpriests. But Lysanias ruledAbilene from c. 40 B.C.E until hewas executed in 36 B.C.E by MarkAntony, about 60 years before


64/121

the date for Tiberias and about 30years before the supposedbirth of Jesus! Also, there were

never two joint high priests,in particular, Annas was not ajoint high priest with Caiaphas.Annas was removed from the officeof high priest in 15 C.Eafter holding office for some nineyears. Caiaphas only becamehigh priest in c. 18 C.E, aboutthree years after Annas. (Heheld this office for abouteighteen years, so his dates areconsistent with Tiberias andPontius Pilate, but not with Annas

or Lysanias.) Although the book of_Acts_ presents Yehuda ofGalilee, Theudas and Jesus asthree different people, itincorrectly places Theudas(crucified 44 C.E.) before Yehudawhoit correctly mentions as beingcrucified during the census (6C.E.). Many of thesechronological absurdities seem tobe based


65/121

on misreadings andmisunderstandings of Josephus'sbook _Jewish

Antiquities _which was used asreference by the author of _Luke_and _Acts_.

The story of Jesus's trial isalso highly suspicious.It clearly tries to placate theRomans while defaming the Jews.The historical Pontius Pilate wasarrogant and despotic. Hehated the Jews and never delegatedany authority to them.However, in Christian mythology,

he is portrayed as a concernedruler who distanced himself fromthe accusations against Jesusand who was coerced into obeyingthe demands of the Jews.According to Christian mythology,every Passover, the Jews wouldask Pilate to free any onecriminal they chose. This is ofcourse a blatant lie. Jews neverhad a custom of freeing guilty


66/121

criminals at Passover or any othertime of the year. Accordingthe myth, Pilate gave the Jews the

choice of freeing Jesus theChrist or a murderer named JesusBarabbas. The Jews are allegedto have enthusiastically chosenJesus Barabbas. This story is avicious antisemitic lie, one ofmany such lies found in the NewTestament (largely written byantisemites). What isparticularly disgusting about thisrubbish story is that it isapparently a distortion of anearlier story which claimed that

the Jews demanded that JesusChrist be set free. The name"Barabbas" is simply the Greekform of the Aramaic "bar Abba"which means "son of the Father."Thus "Jesus Barabbas"originally meant "Jesus the son ofthe Father," in other words,the usual Christian Jesus. Whenthe earlier story claimed thatthe Jews wanted Jesus Barabbas tobe set free it was referring


67/121

to the usual Jesus. Somebodydistorted the story by claimingthat Jesus Barabbas was a

different person to Jesus Christandthis fooled the Roman and GreekChristians who did not know themeaning of the name "Barabbas."

Lastly, the claim that theresurrected Jesus appeared tohis disciples is also based onpagan superstition. In Romanmythology, the virgin born Romulusappeared to his friend on theroad before he was taken up to

heaven. (The theme of beingtaken up to heaven is found inscores of pagan myths and legendsand even in Jewish stories.) Itwas claimed that Apollonius ofTyana had also appeared to hisdisciples after having beenresurrected. It is interesting tonote that the historicalApollonius was born more or lessat the same time as the


68/121

mythical Jesus was supposed tohave been born. In legendspeople claimed that he had

performed many miracles which wereidentical to those also ascribedto Jesus, such as exorcisms ofdemons and the raising to life ofa dead girl.

When confronted with Christianmissionaries one shouldpoint out as much information aspossible about the origins ofChristianity and the Jesus myth.You will almost never succeedin convincing them that

Christianity is a false religion.Youwill not be able to prove beyondall doubt that the story ofJesus arose in the way we haveclaimed it has, since most of theevidence is circumstancial.Indeed we cannot be certain aboutthe precise origin of manyparticular points in the story ofJesus. This does not matter.What is important is that you


69/121

yourself realize that logicalalternatives exist to blind beliefin Christian myths and that

reasonable doubt can be cast ontheNew Testament narrative.

REFUTING MISSIONARIES:

PART 2: THE LACK OFHISTORICAL EVIDENCE FOR JESUS

The usual Christian responseto those who question thehistoricity of Jesus is to palmoff various documents as"historical evidence" for theexistence of Jesus. They usuallystart with the canonical gospelsof _Matthew_, _Mark_, _Luke_and _John_. The usual claim isthat these are "_eyeWriwitnessaccounts of the life of Jesus madeby his disciples_." The


70/121

reply to this argument can besummed up in one word -*pseudepigraphic*. This term

refers to works of writing whoseauthors conceal their trueidentities behind the names oflegendary characters from thepast. Pseudepigraphic writingwas particularly popular among theJews during Hashmonean andRoman periods and this style ofwriting was adopted by theearly Christians.

The canonical gospels are notthe only gospels. For

example, there are also gospels of_Mary_, _Peter_, _Thomas_ and_Philip_. These four gospels arerecognized as beingpseudepigraphic by both Christianand non-Christian scholars.They provide no legitimatehistorical information since theywere based on rumours and belief.The existence of theseobviously pseudepigraphic gospelsmakes it quite reasonable to


71/121

suspect that the canonical gospelsmight also bepseudepigraphic. The very fact

that early Christians wrotepseudepigraphic gospels suggeststhat this was in fact the norm.It is thus the missionaries' claimthat the canonical gospelsare *not* pseudepigraphic whichrequires proof.

The _Gospel of Mark_ iswritten in the name of Mark, thedisciple of the mythical Peter.(Peter is largely based on thepagan god Petra, who was door-

keeper of heaven and the afterlifein Egyptian religion.) Even inChristian mythology, Mark was nota disciple of Jesus, but a friendof Paul and Luke. _Mark_ waswritten before _Matthew and _Luke_(c. 100 C.E.) but after thedestruction of the Temple in 70C.E. which it mentions. MostChristians believe it was writtenin c. 75 C.E. This date is


72/121

not based on history but on thebelief that an historical Markwrote the gospel in his old age.

This is not possible since thestyle of language used in _ Mark_shows that it was written(probably in Rome) by a Romanconvert to Christianity whosefirst language was Latin and notGreek, Hebrew or Aramaic.Indeed, since all the othergospels are written in the name oflegendary characters from thepast, _Mark_ was probably writtenlong after any historical Mark (ifthere was one) had died. The

contents of _Mark_ is a collectionof myths and legends puttogether to form a continuousnarrative. There is no evidencethat it was based on any reliablehistorical sources. _Mark wasaltered and edited many times andthe modern version probablydates to about 150 C.E. Clementof Alexandria (c. 150 C.E. -c. 215 C.E.) complained about thealternative versions of this


73/121


74/121

(c. 100 C.E.) since neither seemsto know of the other. It wasaltered and edited until about 150

C.E. The first two chapters,dealing with the virgin birth,were not in the original versionand the Christians in Israel ofJewish descent prefered thisearlier version. For its sourcesit used _Mark_ and acollection of teachings referredto as the _Second Source_ (orthe _Q Document_). The _SecondSource_ has not survived as aseparate document, but its fullcontents are found in _Matthew_

and _Luke_. All the teachingscontained in it can be found inJudaism. The more reasonableteachings can be found inmainstream Judaism, while the lessreasonable ones can be foundin sectarian Judaism. There isnothing in it which wouldrequire us to suppose theexistence of a real historicalJesus.


75/121

Although _ Matthew_ and _Luke_attribute the teachings in it toJesus, the _Epistle of James_

attributes them to James. Thus_Matthew_ provides no historicalevidence for Jesus.

The _Gospel of Luke_ and thebook of _Acts_ (which weretwo parts of a single work) werewritten in the name of theChristian mythological characterLuke the healer (who wasprobably not an historical personbut a Christian adaptation ofthe Greek healer god Lykos). Even

in Christian mythology, Lukewas not a disciple of Jesus but afriend of Paul. _Luke_ and _Acts_ use Josephus's _JewishAntiquities_ as a reference, andsothey could not have been writtenbefore 93 C.E. At this time,any friend of Paul would be eitherdead or well into senility.Indeed, both Christian and non-Christian scholars agree that the


76/121

earliest versions of the two bookswere written by an anonymousChristian in c. 100 C.E and were

altered and edited until c. 150- 175 C.E. Besides Josephus'sbook, _Luke_ and _Acts _also usethe _Gospel of Mark_, and the_Second Source_ as references.Although Josephus is considered tobe more or less reliable, theanonymous author often misread andmisunderstood Josephus andmoreover, none of the informationabout Jesus in _Luke_ and_Acts _ comes from Josephus. Thus_Luke _and _Acts_ is of no

historical value.

The _Gospel of John_ waswritten in the name of theapostle John the brother of James,son of Zebedee. The authorof Luke used as many sources as hecould get hold of but hewasunaware of _John_. Thus _Johncould not have been writtenbefore _Luke (c. 100 C.E.)Consequently _John_ could not have


77/121

been written by the semi-mythicalcharacter John the Apostle whowas supposed to have been killed

by Herod Agrippa shortly beforehis own death in 44 C.E. (Johnthe Apostle is apparently basedon an historical disciple of thefalse Messiah Theudas who wascrucified by the Romans in 44 C.E.and whose disciples weremurdered.) The real author of the_Gospel of John_ was in factan anonymous Christian fromEphesus in Asia Minor. The oldestsurviving fragment of _John_ datesto c. 125 C.E. and so we can

date the gospel to c. 100 - 125C.E. Based on stylisticconsiderations many scholarsnarrow down the date to c. 110 -120 C.E. The earliest version of_John _ did not contain thelast chapter which deals withJesus appearing to his disciples.Like the other gospels, _John_probably only attained itspresent form around 150 - 175 C.E.The author of _John_ used


78/121

_Mark_ sparingly and so onesuspects that he did not trust it.He either had not read _ Matthew_

and _Luke_ or he did not trustthem since he does not use anyinformation from them which wasnot found in _Mark_. Most of_John_ consists of legends withobvious underlying allegoricalinterpretations and one suspectsthat the author never intendedthem to be history. _John _ doesnot contain any information fromreliable historical sources.

Christians will claim that the

_Gospel of John _itselfstates that it is an historicaldocument written by John. Thisclaim is based on the verses _John19.34 - 35 and _John_ 21.20 -24. _John_ 19.34 - 35 does notclaim that the gospel waswritten by John. It claims thatthe events described in theimmediately preceding verses wereaccurately reported by a


79/121

witness. The passage is ambiguousand it is not clear whetherthe witness is supposed to be the

same person as the author.Many scholars are of the opinionthat the ambiguity isdeliberate and that the author of_ John_ is trying to tease hisreaders in this passage as well asin the passages which tellmiraculous stories withallegorical interpretations._John_21.20 - 24 also does not claimthat the author is John. Itclaims that the disciple mentioned

in the passage is the one whowitnessed the events described.It is again notably ambiguousas regards the question of whetherthe disciple is the sameperson as the author. It shouldbe noted that this passage isin the last chapter of _John_which was not part of theoriginalgospel but was added on as anepilogue by an anonymous redactor.


80/121

One should beware the fact thatmany "easy to understand"translations of the New Testament

distort the passages mentionedso as to remove the ambiguityfound in the original Greek.(Ideally one needs to be familiarwith the original Greek textof the New Testament in order toavoid biased and distortedtranslations used byfundamentalist Christians andmissionaries.)

In order to back up theirclaims that the gospels of _

Mark_ and _Matthew_ were writtenby the "real" apostles Mark andMatthew and that Jesus is anhistorical person, missionariesoften point to the so-called"testimony of Papias." Papias wasthe bishop of Hierapolis(nearEphesus) during the middle of thesecond century C.E. None of hiswritings have survived but theChristian historian Eusebius (c.260 - 339 C.E.) in his book,


81/121

_Ecclesiastical History (writtenc. 311 - 324 C.E.) paraphrasedcertain passages from Papias's

book _ Exposition of the Oraclesof the Lord _(written c. 140 - 160C.E.). In these passages,Papias claimed that he had knownthe daughters of the apostlePhilip and also reported severalstories which he claimed camefrom people named Aristion andJohn the Elder, who had stillbeen alive during his ownlifetime. Eusebius appears tohavethought that Aristion and John the

Elder were disciples ofJesus. Papias claimed that Johnthe Elder had said that Markhad been Peter's interpreter andhad written down accuratelyeverything that Peter had to tellabout Jesus. Papias alsoclaimed that Matthew had compiledall the "oracles" in Hebrewand everyone had interpreted themas best they could. None of


82/121

this, however, provides anylegitimate historical evidence ofJesus nor does it back up the

belief that _Mark_ and _Matthew_were really written by apostlesbearing those names. Papias wasa name dropper and it is by nomeans certain that he was honestwhen he claimed that he had metPhilip's daughters. Even if hehad, this would at most prove thatthe apostle Philip inChristian mythology was based onan historical person. Papiasnever explicitly claimed that hehad met Aristion and John the

Elder. Moreover, just becauseEusebius in the 4th centurybelieved that they were disciplesof Jesus does not mean thatthey were. Nothing at all isknown about who on earth Aristionactually was. He is certainly notone of the disciples in theusual Christian tradition. I haveseen books in which certainfundamentalist Christians claimthat John the Elder was the


83/121

apostle John the son of Zebedeeand that he was still alive whenPapias was young. They also claim

that Papias lived in c. 60 -130 C.E. and that he wrote hisbook in c. 120 C.E. These datesare not based on any legitimateevidence and are completenonsense: Papias was bishop ofHierapolis in c. 150 C.E and asalready mentioned his book waswritten sometime in the period c.140 - 160 C.E. Pushing the datefor Papias back to 60 C.E.still does not place him duringthe lifetime of the apostle John

who according to standardChristian legends was killed in 44C.E. Besides, it is unlikely thatJohn the Elder had anythingto do with John the Apostle.According to Epiphanius (c. 320 -403 C.E.), an early Christiannamed John the Elder had died in117 C.E. We will have more to sayabout him when we discuss thethree epistles named after John.Whatever the case, the stories


84/121

which Papias collected were beingtold at least a decade afterthe gospels and _Acts_ had been

written and reflect unfoundedrumours and superstition about theorigins of these books. Inparticular, the story about Markobtained from John the Elder,is nothing more than a slightelaboration of the legend aboutMark found in _Acts_ and so ittells us nothing about the trueorigins of the _Gospel of Mark_.The story about Matthewwriting the "oracles" is simply arumour, and besides, it does

nothave anything to do with the_Gospel of Matthew _. The term"oracles" can only be understoodas a reference to thecollection of writings known asthe _Oracles of the Lord _ whichis referred to in the title ofPapias's book and which in alllikelyhood is the same thing asthe _Second Source_, not the_Gospel of Matthew_.


85/121

Besides the the canonicalgospels and _Acts ,missionaries also try to use the

various Christian epistles asproof of the Jesus story. Theyclaim that the epistles areletters written by Jesus'sdisciples and followers. However,epistles (from the Greek _ epistolq _e_, meaning message ororder) are books, written in theform of letters (usually fromlegendary characters from thepast), which expound religiousdoctrines and instructions. Thisform of religious writing was

used by the Jews in Greco-Romantimes. (The most famous Jewishepistle is the _Epistle ofJeremiah , which is a lengthycondemnation of idolatry writtenduring the Hellinistic periodin the form of a letter from theprophet Jeremiah to the peopleof Jerusalem just before they wereexiled to Babylon.) As in thecase of the gospels, there areChristian epistles not contained


86/121

in the New Testament which bothChristian and non-Christianscholars agree are pseudepigraphic

and of no historical valuesince they expound beliefs and nothistory. The existence ofpseudepigraphic epistles andindeed the whole concept of anepistle, suggests that epistleswere normally pseudepigraphic.Thus again it is the claims bymissionaries and Christianfundamentalists, that thecanonical epistles are genuineletters, which requires proof.

The _Epistle of Jude_ iswritten in the name of Jude(Judas) the brother of James.According to _Mark _ and_Matthew_, Jesus had brothersnamed Judas and James. Comparisonwith other writings shows that the_Epistle of Jude_ was writtenin c. 130 C.E. and so it isobviously pseudepigraphic. Thereis


87/121

no evidence however that itsauthor used any legitimatehistorical sources as regards

Jesus.

Two of the canonical epistlesare written in the name ofPeter. Since Peter is a mythicalChristian adaptation of theEgyptian pagan deity Petra, theseepistles were certainly notwritten by him. The style andcharacter of the _First Epistleof Peter alone shows that it couldnot have been written earlierthan c. 80 C.E. Even according to

Christian legend, Peter wassupposed to have died followingthe persecutions instigated byNero in c. 64 C.E. and so hecould not have written theepistle. The author of _Luke_ and_Acts_ used all writtensources he could get hold of andtended to use themindiscriminately, however he didnot mention any epistles by


88/121

Peter. This shows that the _FirstEpistle of Peter_ wasprobably written after _Luke_ and

_Acts_ (c. 100 C.E.). Noreferences to Jesus in the _FirstEpistle of Peter _ are takenfrom historical sources butinstead reflect beliefs andsuperstition. The _Second Epistleof Peter_ speaks out againstthe Marcionists and so it musthave been written c. 150 C.E. Itis thus clearly pseudepigraphic.The _Second Epistle ofPeteruses as sources: the story ofJesus's transfiguration found in

_ Mark_, _Matthew_ and _Luke_ ,the _Apocalypse of Peter _andthe _Epistle of Jude_. The non-canonical _ Apocalypse of Peter_(written some time in the firstquarter of the second centuryC.E.) is recognized as being non-historical even byfundamentalist Christians. Thusthe _Second Epistle of Peter _also does not use any legitimatehistorical sources.


89/121

We now turn to the epistles

supposedly written by Paul.

The _First Epistle of Paul toTimothy_ warns against theMarcionist work known as the_Antithesis_. Marcion wasexpelledfrom the Church of Rome in c. 144C.E. and the _First Epistleof Paul to Timothy_ was writtenshortly afterwards. Thus weagain have a clear case ofpseudepigraphy. The _SecondEpistleof Paul to Timothy_ and the

_Epistle of Paul to Titus _ werewritten by the same author anddate to about the same period.These three epistles are known asthe "pastoral epistles." Theten remaining "non-pastoral"epistles written in the name ofPaul, were known to Marcion by c.140 C.E. Some of them werenot written in Paul's name alonebut are in the form of letters


90/121

written by Paul in collaborationwith various friends such asSosthenes, Timothy, and Silas.

The author of _Luke_ and _Acts_,went out of his way to obtain allsources available and tendedto use them indiscriminately, buthe used nothing from thePauline epistles. We can thusconclude that the non-pastoralepistles were written after _Luke_and _Acts_ in the period c.100 - 140 C.E. The non-canonical_First Epistle of Clement tothe Corinthians_ (written c. 125C.E.) uses the _First Epistle

of Paul to the Corinthians_ as asource and so we can narrowdown the date for that epistle toc. 100 - 125 C.E. However,we are left with the conclusionthat that all the Paulineepistles are pseudepigraphic. (Thesemi-mythical Paul wassupposed to have died during thepersecutions instigated by Neroin c. 64 C.E.) Some of the Paulineepistles appear to be have


91/121

been altered and edited numeroustimes before reaching theirmodern forms. As sources they use

each other, _Acts_, thegospels of _Mark_, _Matthew_ and_Luke_ and the _First Epistleof Peter_ . We may thus concludethat they provide nohistorical evidence of Jesus.

The _Epistle to the Hebrews_is a particularlyinteresting epistle since it isnot pseudepigraphic butcompletely anonymous. Its authorneither reveals his own name

nor does he write in the name of aChristian mythologicalcharacter. FundamentalistChristians claim that it isanotherepistle by Paul and in fact callit the _Epistle of Paul to theHebrews . This idea, apparentlydating to the late fourthcentury C.E., is not accepted byall Christians however. As a


92/121

source for its information onJesus it uses material common to_Mark , _Matthew_ and _Luke , but

no legitimate sources. Theauthor of the _First Epistle ofClement _ used it as a sourceand so it must have been writtenbefore that epistle (c. 125C.E.) but after at least the_Gospel of Mark _ (c. 75 - 100C.E.).

The _Epistle of James_ iswritten in the name of aservant of Jesus called James(orJacobus). However, in

Christian mythology there were twoapostles named James andJesus also had a brother namedJames. It is not clear whichJames is intended and there is noagreement among Christiansthemselves. It quotes sayingsfrom the _Second Source _ butunlike _Matthew_ and _Luke _ itdoes not attribute these sayingsto Jesus but presents them assayings of James. It contains an


93/121

important argument against thedoctrine of "salvation throughfaith" expounded in the _Epistle

of Paul to the Romans_. We canthus conclude that it was writtenduring the first half of thesecond century C.E., after_Romans_ but before the time that_Matthew_ and _Luke _ wereaccepted by all Christians. Thusregardless of which James isintended, the _Epistle of James_is pseudepigraphic. It says almostnothing about Jesus and thereis no evidence that the author hadany historical sources for

him.

There are three epistles namedafter the apostle John.None of them are in fact writtenin the name of John and wereprobably only ascribed to him sometime after they had beenwritten. The _First Epistle ofJohn_ , like the _Epistle to theHebrews_, is completely anonymous.The idea that it was written


94/121

by John arises from the fact thatit used the _Gospel of John_as a source. The other two

epistles named after John arewritten by a single author whoinstead of writing in the name ofan apostle, chose simply to callhimself "the Elder." The ideathat these two epistles werewritten by John arose from thebeliefs that "the Elder" referredto John the Elder and that hewas the same person as the apostleJohn. In the case of the_Second Epistle of John _ thisbelief was reinforced by the fact

that that epistle also uses the_Gospel of John _as a source.We can thus conclude that thefirst two epistles ascribed toJohn were written after the_Gospel of John_ (c. 110 - 120C.E.). Consequently none of thethree epistles could have beenwritten by the apostle John. Itshould be pointed out that it


95/121

is quite possible that thepseudonym "the Elder" does referto

the person named John the Elder,but if this is so, he iscertainly not the apostle John.The first two John epistles useonly the _ Gospel of John_ as asource for Jesus; they do notuse any legitimate sources. The_Third Epistle of John_ barelymentions "Christ" and there is noevidence that it used anyhistorical sources for him.

Besides the epistles named

after John, the New Testamentalso contains a book known as the_Revelation to John . Thisbook combines two forms ofreligious writing, that of theepistle and that of theapocalypse. (Apocalypses arereligiousworks which are written in theform of revelations about thefuture made by a famous characterfrom the past. These


96/121

revelations usually describeunfortunate events occurring atthe

time of writing and also offersome hope to the reader thatthings will improve.) It is notcertain how much editing the_Revelation to John_ underwent andso it is difficult to date itprecisely. Since it mentions thepersecutions instigated byNero we can say with certaintythat it was not written earlierthan 64 C.E. Thus it cannot havebeen written by the "realJohn." Thefirst few verses form

an introduction which isclearly not intended to be by Johnand which provides a vagueadmission that the book ispseudepigraphic even though theauthor feels that his message isinspired by G-d. The style ofwriting and the references to thepractice of kriobolium(baptism in sheeps blood) suggeststhat the author was one of


97/121

those people of Jewish descent whomixed Judaism with paganpractices. There were many such

"pagan Jews" during Roman timesand it was these people who becomethe first converts toChristianity, established thefirst churches, and who wereprobably also responsible forintroducing pagan myths into thestory of Jesus. (They are alsoremembered for their rediculousbelief that "Adonai _ Tzevaot_"was the same as the pagan god"_Sebazios_ .") The references toJesus in the book are few and

there is no evidence that they arebased on anything but belief.

Besides the epistles acceptedin the New Testament andbesides the epistles which areunanimously recognized as beingof no value (such as the _Epistleof Barnabas_), there are alsoseveral epistles which althoughnot accepted in the New


98/121

Testament, are considered of valueby some Christians. Firstlythere are the epistles named after

Clement. In Christianlegend, Clement was the third insuccession of Peter as bishopof Rome. The _First Epistle ofClement to the Corinthians_ isnot in fact written in the name ofClement but in the name ofthe "Church of God which sojournsin Rome." It refers to apersecution which is generallythought to have occured in 95C.E. under Domitian, and itrefers to the dismissal of the

elders of the Church of Corinth inc. 96 C.E. Christiansbelieve that Clement was bishop ofRome during this time andthis is apparently the reason whythe epistle was later namedafter him. FundamentalistChristians believe that theepistlewas in fact written in c. 96 C.E.This date is not possible


99/121

since the epistle refers tobishops and priests as separategroups; a division which had not

taken place yet. Stylisticconsiderations show that it waswritten in c. 125 C.E. Asreferences it used the _ Epistleto the Hebrews_ and The _FirstEpistle of Paul to theCorinthians_ but no legitimatehistoricalsources. The _Second Epistle ofClement_ is by a differentauthor to the first and waswritten later. We may thusconclude

that it was also not written byClement. (There is no evidencethat either of these epistles werenamed after Clement beforetheir incorporation into thecollection of books known as the_Codex Alexandrinus , in the fifthcentury C.E.) As sources forJesus, the _Second Epistle ofClement _ uses the _Gospel of theEgyptians_, a document which isrejected by even the most


100/121

fundamentalist Christians, andalso the New Testament bookswhich we have shown to be

valueless. Thus again we have nolegitimate evidence of Jesus.

Next we have the epistleswritten in the name ofIgnatius. According to legend,Ignatius was the bishop ofAntioch who was killed underTrajan's rule c. 110 C.E.(Although he is probably based ona real historical person thelegends about hismartyrdom arelargely fictional.) There are

fifteen epistles written in hisname. Of these, eight areunanimously recognized as beingpseudepigraphic and of no valueas regards Jesus. The remainingseven each have two forms, alonger and a shorter. The longerforms are clearly altered andedited versions of the shorterforms. Fundamentalist Christiansclaim that the shorter forms aregenuine letters written by


101/121

Ignatius. The _ Epistle ofIgnatius to the Smyrnaeans_mentions

the threefold ordering of bishops,priests and deacons which hadnot yet taken place by Ignatius'sdeath which occurred no laterthan 117 C.E. and which probablytook place c. 110 C.E. Allseven shorter epistles attackvarious Christian beliefs, nowconsidered heretical, which onlybecame prevalent c. 140 - 150C.E. The shorter _Epistle ofIgnatius to the Romans_ contains aquote from the writings of

Irenaeus, written after 170 C.E.andpublished c. 185 C.E. We can thusconclude that the sevenshorter epistles are alsopseudepigraphic. The shorter_Epistleof Ignatius to the Romans_ wascertainly written after 170 C.E.(In fact, if it was not written byIrenaeus then it was


102/121

probably written after c. 185C.E.) and the other six werewritten no earlier than the period

c. 140 - 150 C.E. if notlater. There are no sources forJesus in the Ignatian epistlesother than the New Testament booksand the writings of Irenaeuswhich only use the New Testament.Thus they contain nolegitimate evidence of Jesus.

There are two more epistleswhich Christians claim aregenuine letters, namely the_Epistle of Polycarp_ and the

_Martyrdom of Polycarp_. TheIgnatian epistles and the epistlesconcerning Polycarp have alwaysbeen closely associated. It isquite possible that they were allwritten by the Christianwriter Irenaeus and his disciples.There certainly was a realhistorical early Christian namedPolycarp. He was bishop of


103/121

Smyrna and was killed by theRomans sometime in the period 155-

165 C.E. When Irenaeus was a boyhe knew Polycarp.Fundamentalist Christians claimthat Polycarp was the discipleof the apostle John. However,even if we accept the legend thatPolycarp lived to the age of 86,he could not have been bornearlier than 67 C.E and thereforecould not have been a discipleof John. (It is possible that hewas a disciple of theenigmatic John the Elder.) Since

Irenaeus had known Polycarpthey also assume that Irenaeus wasin fact his disciple, a claimfor which there is no evidence._The Epistle of Polycarp_ usesmost New Testament books and theIgnatian epistles as referencesbut it uses no legitimate sourcesfor Jesus. Those Christianswho reject the Ignatian epistlesbut believe the _Epistle of


104/121

Polycarp_ is a genuine letter,claim that the references to theIgnatian epistles are a later

interpolation. This idea is basedon personal bias not on anygenuine evidence. Based on theblind belief that this epistle isa genuine letter, someChristians date it to around themiddle of the second centuryC.E. shortly before Polycarp'sdeath. However, the referencesto the Ignatian epistles suggestthat it was in fact writtensome time in the last few decadesof the secondcentury C.E., at

least about a decade afterPolycarp's death if not later.

The _Martyrdom of Polycarp_ iswritten in the name of"the Church of G-d that sojournsin Smyrna." It starts off inthe form of a letter but its mainbody is written in the form ofan ordinary story. It tells thetale of Polycarp's martyrdom.


105/121

Like the _Epistle of Polycarp_, itwas written some time duringthe last few decades of the second

century C.E. Unfortunately,there is no evidence that it usedany reliable sources for itsstory, only rumours and hearsay.The story in fact appears tobe highly fictionalized. Thereferences to Jesus are not takenfrom any reliable source.

We have thus seen that theepistles used by missionariesas "evidence" are just as spuriousas the gospels. Again, the

reader should beware "easy tounderstand" translations of theNew Testament since they call theepistles, "letters," therebyincorrectly implying that they arereally letters written by thepeople after whom they are named.

Now, besides the books of theNew Testament, and besidesthe epistles relating to Clement,Ignatius and Polycarp, there


106/121

is only one more Christianreligious work which Christiansclaim

as historical evidence of Jesus,namely the _Teaching of theTwelve Apostles_ also known as the_Didache_. All other earlyChristian religious works areeither wholly rejected by modernChristians or are least recognizedas not being primary sourcesas regards Jesus. The _ Didache_began as a sectarian Jewishdocument, probably written duringthe period of turmoil in c.70 C.E. Its earliest form

consisted of moral teachings andpredictions of the destruction ofthe current world order. Thisearliest version, which obviouslydid not mention Jesus, wastaken over by Christians whoheavily edited and altered it,adding a story of Jesus and rulesof worship for early Christiancommunities. Scholars estimatethat the earliest Christian


107/121

version of the _Didache_ could nothave been written much laterthan 95 C.E. It probably only

reached its final form around c.120 C.E. It appears to haveserved an isolated Christiancommunity in Syria as a "ChurchOrder" during the period c. 100- 130 C.E. However, there

did jesus really exist ?- asks hayim ben yehoshua

Documents