Preface
The four Gospels are the foundation which the various churches have established their faith upon, and at the same time, are considered one of the most important problems that faced the churches during its long history, in addition to the problems already existing in the four Gospels, whether about the attributes of Jesus and the attributes of his father and the Holy Spirit, or the contradiction with the attributes of the Lord, the only true God the Creator of heavens and earth that mentioned in the Old Testament, or the inconsistencies and differences between the stories which they have mentioned, both in the historical events, or in the same stories themselves; from the genealogy of Jesus to the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem riding on a donkey and colt, his trial, crucifixion, resurrection, and finally his appearance to the disciples, which led to the occurrence of all schisms among the churches, as is well known to all.
As well as, the four Gospels are anonymous, and they have been written after a long period of the time of the ascension of Jesus to the heaven, and there are many theories and sayings to set this period; this means that the disciples were not preaching by the four Gospels!
Also they have not been written by the order of Jesus, as is the case with the Pentateuch; which are if they have not been written by Moses himself, as many researchers and scholars say, yet there are several texts that recommend the children of Israel to write it and keep it.
Moreover, we do not have the original manuscripts of the four Gospels, and the existing manuscripts contain a lot of errors and differences between them, both in the language or in the texts, i.e., there are some paragraphs in some manuscripts which are lost in the other manuscripts, such as the epilogue of the Gospel of Mark, (16 : 9 - 20), etc., or having some paragraphs in some manuscripts indicating to the explanation and interpretation of other paragraphs, while they had been written in other manuscripts as original paragraphs, etc.
For this, the churches have not been seeking to translate the Gospels to the local languages that are spoken by the Peoples, even the Coptic Orthodox Church, until now, does not allow to translate the Gospels to the Arabic language that is spoken by the Copts.
Furthermore, the Catholic church has killed dozens of people on charges of translation the Gospels and interpretation them, because they did not agree with its faith, and Will Durant had mentioned in his book The Story of Civilization that the church had killed twenty men and women in one day on this charge, as well as the Catholic Church had burned the bones of John Wycliffe after forty years of his death because he had translated the Gospels to the English language, because they could not kill him when was still alive!
Despite all these precautions of the churches, yet they were unable to stop the human mind for seeking the freedom of thinking and discussing all issues, including the characteristics of Jesus and his divinity, or the Gospels themselves, and the history tells us about dozens of the fathers of the church who were believing in what the churches said about the divine attributes of Jesus, yet they did not accept what the churches say about the Gospels and the New Testament of words and laws, as what Eusebius Pamphilius mentioned in his book Church History, died in 340 AD, as well as the Syriac Church has a New Testament, which is called The Peshitta i.e., the simple version, which does not include Peter II and III, and John III, and the Revelation and the Epistle of Jude.
And then Martin Luther has removed seven books from the Old Testament; the Book of Tobit, Judith, the sequel Book of Esther, The Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the sequel Book of Daniel and the Maccabees I and II, and he has relied upon the Old Testament, which is rolling among the Jews, i.e., Hebrew Version, and had removed the Acts of the Apostles and the Revelation and James, but he backed down on this later.
And after the end of the Church control in Europe, and the occupation of Constantinople and the communication between the East and the West later, which has already led to discover dozens of manuscripts, that have not been seen or read before; the talk started again about the sources of the Gospels and their reality and their credibility and their reliability, for this several theories have arisen in the past three centuries, and hundreds of scholars and researchers who are searching in the Gospels as a book, away from being sacred and protected by the churches from criticism, and one of the most famous scholar in this time is Professor Bart Ehrman, and the most famous theories are the theory of "two-source hypothesis" and the Q theory, from German: Quelle, meaning "source" and the theory of interdependence (sometimes known as utilization).
The following are the most important Gospels which recently discovered:
1 - Gospel of Peter, its manuscript goes back to the second century, and was discovered in Egypt in 1887 in Akhmim, begins with the trial of Jesus and ends with his appearance to the disciples at Lake Tiberias.
2 - Gospel of Truth, which goes back to the second century, was discovered in Egypt in Nag Hammadi, and talks about the crucifixion of Jesus and declaring the truth of Jesus' father on the cross.
3 - Gospel of Marcion also called the Gospel of the Lord, talks about the trial and crucifixion of Jesus as it is written in the four Gospels.
4 - The Wisdom of Jesus Christ or The Sophia of Jesus Christ, was discovered in Egypt in Nag Hammadi, it talks about Jesus after his resurrection from the tomb.
5 - Gospel of Philip, was discovered in Egypt in Nag Hammadi, and it talks about the crucifixion of Jesus.
6 - Gospel of James, also known as the Infancy Gospel of James, or the Protoevangelium of James, was discovered in Nag Hammadi, and it talks about the crucifixion of Jesus, and that anyone who does not believe in the crucifixion of Jesus will not be saved!
7 - Gospel of Nicodemus, is divided into two parts; Part I: is known as the "Acts of Pilate"; Part II is called "Christ's Descent into Hell".
8 - Gospel of Thomas, which begins with the following paragraph "And He said, "Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death", then begins to list many words of Jesus which are mostly consistent with the words of the four Gospels.
9 - Gospel of Judas Iscariot, was discovered in Egypt, and published in the United States a few years ago.
One of the most important notes on these manuscripts and other manuscripts is that they all agree to consider Jesus as a god and the son of God, and that he was crucified and died and rose from the dead, which indicates that those authors were believing in Jesus as the churches believe in him, in general.
Hence, I say that the Gospels themselves were the major problem that faced the churches.
For all this, the four Gospels have been discussed and criticized in an attempt to reach the reality of their existence, and their sources, especially that there is no Gospel which was attributed to Jesus directly.
Yet, in spite of all research, studies and efforts of hundreds of scholars and researchers, with my appreciation to them, they could not reach to a clear result of the sources of the Gospels and the true story of Jesus, or in other words, the historical Jesus, and this could be attributed to the fact that the researchers and the scholars have not paid more attention to some important facts including the following facts:
The first fact is the quite lack of knowledge of the sects that have emerged throughout history, which had believed in the Christ as a prophet and did not have any divine attributes, such as the Arians, one of the greatest sects that has followed Arius, which was controlled the most of the world in ancient times, and had seized control of the church of Rome, the church of Constantinople, the church of Alexandria, church of Jerusalem and other cities, and remained until the seventh century. This sect, and the rest of the sects, despite their spread and their strength, the churches were able to hide all or most of their beliefs and their books. Hence, we cannot find the story of Jesus from their point of view, or the reality of their beliefs in Jesus, except what is written about them in the books of the Church’s Fathers!
This ignorance of these sects made scholars and researchers lose the most important sources that can help them to know the true story of Jesus and the approach and the way of writing the four Gospels, and the purpose of writing them.
The second fact is the comparison between the principles of the Gospels and the principles of the Old Testament, because if the principles are similar, it indicates that they are from the same source, otherwise they will be from different sources!
The third fact is the examination of the true meaning of the word or term gospel and its uses in the New Testament, and the purpose of writing the Gospels, because the understanding of the true meaning of any term or title and its uses in a book may lead to knowing and discovering the sources of this book.
The fourth fact is the Gospels authors' relationship with the texts of the Old Testament, and studying the texts that have been cited in the Gospels from the Old Testament, and comparing them with the original texts of the Old Testament, as well as comparing them with what is written in the Gospels about Jesus, both in terms of his life and attributes, and the other figures of the Gospels, or the historical events.
The search for the sources of the Gospels, away from these facts, and considering that the four Gospels as historical books, that recorded the life of Jesus, raised and raises a lot of questions about the credibility and the reality of them.
The existence of dozens of differences and contradictions and errors among them, even in the Synoptic Gospels themselves, as well as with the Gospel of John, from the genealogy of Jesus, the entry into Jerusalem riding on a donkey and a colt or on a colt only, and his last words on the cross, or how he appeared to the disciples, to the epilogues of the Gospels, etc.; make a lot of researchers and scholars question the existence of Jesus himself as a historical person.
As well as, all the attempts to find the sources of the Gospels through the examination of manuscripts themselves and comparing them with each other to reach the original copies of the Gospels; unfortunately, did not lead to the full truth about their sources, and the way of writing them; and this made many researchers and scholars declare that it is impossible to access the original copies of the Gospel, or to the truth of the Christ historically.
Hence, my approach or my way in this book is to examine the Gospels through the previous facts, excluding the first fact, of course, because nothing change about it yet, to solve and clarify the following issues:
1 - Have the Gospels been written through the revelation and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit or not?
2 - What is the relationship between the Gospels authors and the Old Testament, both in the principles and the texts?
3 - Have the Gospels been written according to the historical events that have been seen by eyewitnesses or have been heard through reliable sources or not?
4 - What are the reasons of all the differences and errors and contradictions that were mentioned in the Gospels, both in the versions or the manuscripts?
Nader Isa
No comments:
Post a Comment