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No. VI.
To
the Rev. Mr. Miller.
Dear Sir:
Your last letter to me (Occident, Elul, 5610) was
not written with the same kindness and calmness
which you generally display in your writings and in
your conversation. You were evidently out of all
patience, and treated me as an infidel, who believes
not in a future reward or punishment. My good
friend, I advise you to read
the third section of my
sermon, which the Editor of the Occident was kind
enough to publish in his Ab number of 5610, and then
I wish to call your attention to an article of mine
which is named
“Future Reward and Punishment,” and
signed W. (Occident, Iyar 5609, p. 86), which will
be a sufficient answer to you, and I hope to
everybody on that very subject. I believe, because I
am convinced by integral <<510>>evidence, in the
immortality of the soul, and in a future punishment
and reward; and this is all sufficient for me.
As
regards your answer to my objections against the
canonical books of the New Testament, I must confess
that I am not satisfied, and I could advance a
great deal on the subject; but I prefer to make you
acquainted with all the objections I have against
Christianity, and if you have the kindness to defend
your faith against all my objections, I will at last
reflect on the whole and give you my replies as well
as I can.
The Editor of
the Occident will doubtlessly be kind enough to
insert my letters on this subject, and if it should
happen that your replies should be excluded from the
Jewish press, which I have no reason to fear, and
you publish them in any other paper and send them to
me, due attention shall be paid to them.
I
will to-day continue my objections with noticing
some of the many contradictions which overfill the
books of the New Testament.
Matthew i. and Luke iii. know of the genealogy of
their hero Matthew i. 1, states, “The book of the
generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the
son of Abraham,” finishing with “And Jacob begat
Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born.
Luke iii. 23, states, “And Jesus himself began to be
about thirty years of age, being the son of Joseph,
which was the son of Heli.” The intention of the
biographers, as it seems, was to prove that Jesus
was the rightful Messiah, since be was a descendant
of David through Joseph his father.*
But who can believe that even those who professed to
know that Jesus was a son of David, knew also that
he was no son of David, but of some person whom Mary
asserted to be the so-called Holy Ghost; as in
Matthew i. 18: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was in
this wise. When, as his mother Mary was espoused to
Joseph, before they came together she was found with
child by the Holy Ghost.” Luke i. tells nearly the
same story; but the other evangelists, apostles, and
fathers, say nothing of this romantic affair, nor
does Mary, Jesus, or his friends ever mention this
great wonder, of which I think they had more reason
to be ashamed than proud.
<<511>>
Matthew enumerates between Abraham and Jesus
forty-one names, including the former and the
latter, in contradiction to his own statement, ch.
i. 11, where he counts three times fourteen
generations from Abraham to Jesus; it is a pity that
he did not consider that 3x14=42, but not 41. Luke
mentions fifty-six names between Abraham and Jesus,
and mostly other names. According to Matthew,
Joseph’s father was Jacob, and Matthan his
grandfather; but Luke asserts that Heli was Joseph’s
father, and Matthat his grandfather. It is really a
pity, that Matthew and Luke, who lived a few years
after Christ, were so misinformed about the family
of their hero. It must induce any one, who has less
faith than my friend Miller, to suppose that these
things were written many centuries after Christ by
uninformed authors. We will say here nothing about
the obscure names which Luke chose to cover his
ignorance on the subject, nor shall we say anything
about such names, as Melchi, Esli, Nagge, Maath,
&c., which were never customary among the Jews,
because we have to say a great deal besides this.
If
we farther compare Luke i. with Matthew i.,
respecting the conception of Mary, we have another
fair specimen of direct contradiction. Luke says,
then an angel came to Mary to foretell to her the
will and the intention of the Holy Ghost; but,
according to Matthew i. 18, this was not the case.
According to Luke, the angel appeared to Mary; and,
according to Matthew, he appeared to Joseph. Matthew
makes the angel appear to Joseph in a dream, but
Luke does so to Mary in her waking condition. Luke
lets the angel appear before the conception in order
to convey to Mary the heavenly tidings; but Matthew
lets him come to Joseph after the conception, in
order to allay the misgivings of a suspicious
husband; but the other evangelists, apostles, and
fathers, know nothing of the whole story.
If
we compare Matthew ii. with Luke ii. respecting the
birth of Jesus, we meet with the most ridiculous
contradictions. According to Matthew, Mary resided
in Beth-Lechem; but, according to Luke, she came
there accidentally. According to Matthew, it is a
star which told the magicians of the East that the
King of the Jews had been born; and this star guided
them to Jeru<<512>>salem, whither they brought the
tidings of his birth, and whence they were further
guided to the very house over which the star stood
still, and in which they found the glorious child,
which they worshipped and enriched with precious
gifts;* but, according to Luke, angels appeared to
some shepherds, and brought them the good news, upon
which they came and worshipped the child, praised
God, and went off; but in Jerusalem they were so
ignorant of his birth, that a prophetess was
necessary to distinguish him when brought to
Jerusalem.
According to Matthew, Herod, fearing the new-born
Messiah, gave orders to kill all the new-born babes,
wherefore Joseph fled with his family to Egypt,
whence he only then returned to Galilee, after he
had been visited by several angels; but, according
to Luke, the boy was circumcised, and went with his
mother, after forty days, to Jerusalem, where only
an old man and an old woman knew something about
him, but nobody else had any knowledge of, or wished
to injure him in the least. “And when they had
performed all things according to the law of the
Lord, they returned unto Galilee, to their own city
Nazareth” (Luke ii. 39); but the other evangelists
say nothing of his miraculous birth.
John the Baptist is everywhere represented as the
herald of the Messiah; and, according to John i.,
the Baptist knew Jesus so soon as he saw him among
the people, acknowledging him to be the Christ, the
Son of God, the Lamb of God, &c. According to
Matthew, iii. 14, John knew Jesus to be the very
Messiah, whom he had heralded to the world; but,
according to Matthew xi. 2, 3, and Luke vii. 18, 19,
John knew nothing of Jesus until the former was in
prison. “And John, calling unto him two of his
disciples, sent them to Jesus, saying, Art thou he
that should come, or look we for another?” This
contradiction shows plainly enough that, not as
some suppose, John <<513>>to have been a hired
impostor, but that the evangelists took hold of a
half-historical character to support their
unhistorical Jesus; but they could have done it much
better, to avoid the suspicion of the unbeliever.
According to John i. 2, Jesus remained three days
with John, then he went to Galilee to the marriage
at Cana, where he turned water into wine; Matthew,
Mark , and Luke, do not
allude to this marriage, nor to the marvellous
creation of wine; but they represent him as being,
during forty days, tempted by the devil, after which
Luke and Matthew send him to Nazareth, an Mark
represents him as going to Capernaum. But it is
certain, that he could not be at the same time in
Cana while he was in the wilderness with the prince
of darkness, nor could he go at the same time to
Cana, Nazareth, and Capernaum. These contradictions
lead me to think, that the evangelists knew nothing
about the childhood and baptism of John and Jesus,
and of the acquaintance subsisting between them, and
whatever they wrote about these points is the
fabulous tradition gathered from the people; and we
can easily estimate how much this is worth.
There is no chronology whatever in the canonical
gospels, wherefore they are, in this point, beneath
criticism; but, in a geographical respect, they
contradict each other most strangely. Matthew, Mark,
and Luke repeatedly contradict each other in the
geographical line on which Jesus traveled; but
orthodox Christians have, after a good deal of
trouble, and with the help of a great deal of
guess-work, settled the difficulties, and state that
Jesus, after his returning from John on his last
journey to Jerusalem, never came far over the
boundaries of North Palestine, but always travelled
on the eastern and western shores of the sea of
Galilee, and on the upper Jordan, in the tetrarchies
of Herodus Antipas and Philip, without ever
penetrating into the interior of Samaria, not to
mention into Judea, which was under Roman
administration, in which assertion they say the
first three evangelists agree. But according to John
ii. 1, 12, 13; iii. 22; iv. 1 43; v. 1; vi. 1, 17,
59; vii. 1, 2, 10, 21; x. 22,13; 22; iv. 1, 43;
40; xi. 1, 54,
Jesus was, before his last visit, four times at
Jerusalem, where he always preached and taught; and
he tra<<514>>veled a long time in Judea and Samaria,
where he performed great miracles. It seems to be
evident enough, that the evangelists knew no more
about the journeys of Jesus than what they could
learn from popular tales, in which there is
generally very little truth and much of
contradiction.
I
must conclude for the present; in the next number of
the Occident I shall continue to write on the
contradictions in the New Testament. I beg you, my
dear friend, to keep calm in your answers; I dislike
excitement. Defend your faith, but do not offend
others.
Your friend,
ISAAC M. WISE, D.D. |
