The learned scholar Norton wrote a book on the truth of the Bible,
which was printed in Boston in 1837, He said in his preface to the book:
Eichhorn observed in his book that, in the first days of the
Christianity, there was a short book consisting of various accounts of
Jesus’ life. It is quite possible to say that this was
the original Evangel. Most probably this was written for those
followers who could not listen to the sayings of Jesus and could not see
him with their own eyes. This Evangel was a model. The accounts of Jesus
written there were not in chronological order.
It must be noted that this script was different from the present
gospels in many respects. The present gospels are by no means the model
represented by the one discussed above. The present gospels were written
under very difficult circumstances and contain some accounts of Jesus
which were not present in the original script. There is evidence to
suggest that this original script was the main source of all the gospels
which appeared in the first two centuries after the death of Jesus. It
also served as the basis for the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke which
later on became more popular than the others. Though these three gospels
also contained additions and omissions, they were later on supplemented
with the missing events by other people to make them complete. The other
gospels, which contained various accounts of Jesus occurring after his
prophethood, such as the Gospel of Marcion and the Gospel of Tatian were
abandoned. They also added many other accounts, accounts of Jesus’ birth and also accounts of his youth and reaching
maturity and other things. This fact is evident from the gospel called the
Memoirs from which Justin quoted in his book. The same is understood from
the gospel of Corinth.
The portions of these gospels which are still available, if
compared with each other, clearly show that the addition of these accounts
has been quite gradua1, for example, the heavenly voice which was
heard originally spoke in these words:
Thou
art my son, 1 have begotten thee this day.
As has been quoted by Justinian in two places. Clement also
reproduced this sentence from a Gospel of unknown identity in these words:
Thou art my beloved son, I have begotten thee this day.
The
present gospels, however, have this sentence in these words:
Thou art my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.
The
Ebonite Gospel combined the two statements together thus:
Thou art my beloved son, I am pleased unto thee, thou art begotten
this day
This
was stated by Epiphanius.
Christian history, through gradual additions and innumerable
manipulations, has totally lost its
original form and is now a mixture of unidentifiable ingredients. Any one
curious enough can easily satisfy his curiosity by reading an account of
Jesus’ baptism that has been collected together from
several gospels.
This gradual mixture of contra-factual events with original
scripture has so terribly deformed the authenticity of the gospels that
they no longer retain their original divine character. The more they were
translated from one language to another, the more they lost their original
shape and form.
Releasing this situation, the Church came to their aid towards the
end of the second century or at the beginning of the third century AD and tried to save the true and the original Evangel
and to convey, as far as possible, the truth to the future generations.
They, therefore selected the four present gospels out of many gospels that
were current in that period, because these four scripts seemed more
comprehensible than any of the others.
There is no sign of the existence of the gospels of Matthew, Mark
and Luke before the end of the second century or the beginning of
the third century AD, The first man to speak of these gospels in
history was Irenaeus in 200 AD who also advanced some arguments concerning
the number of the gospels.
Then in 216 AD Clement of Alexandria made a painstaking efforts to
prove that these four gospels were inspired and, therefore, should be
acknowledged as the source of Christian faith. The result of this is that,
towards the end of the second century and the beginning of third, the
Church made serious efforts to get these four gospels acknowledged, in
spite of the fact that they did not deserve acknowledgement since they are
clearly not genuine in all respects. The Church also tried hard to
convince people to discard all other existing gospels.
Had the Church devoted this serious effort to purifying the
original script found by the early preachers, it would have been a great
contribution towards the future generations. But perhaps it was not
possible for the Church to do so since none of the existing gospels was
free from additions and alterations, and there was no way of
distinguishing the right from the wrong. Eichhorn further said in the
footnotes to his book:
Many early theologians had doubts about several parts of these
gospels, but they were not able to put forward any corrections to them.
He
also said:
In our
times, printing facilities have made it impossible for people to distort
and manipulate the text of a certain book. Before the invention of
printing the conditions differed from those of today. It was possible for the owner of a certain version to
insert distortions and additions into the book, which then became the
source for all subsequent copies, leaving no means for them to ascertain
which parts of the book were from the author and which had been added or
changed. Subsequently these corrupted copies became common among the
people.
You will find that many saints and theologians complained that the
copiers and the owners of the copies of these hooks distorted the texts
shortly after they were written. The script of Dionysius was distorted
even before it was circulated. You also find that there were complaints of
impurities being inserted into the books by the followers of Satan who
were said to have excluded certain things and included certain others on
their own account. In the view of these witnesses it is clear that the
Holy Scriptures did not remain safe and intact. This in spite of the fact
that it was quite difficult for the people of that period to distort the
texts as the authors of that period used to issue heavy curses and make
sworn oaths in order to discourage people from daring to make changes in
them.
The same also happened with the history of Jesus, otherwise Celsius
would have not felt it necessary to point out the changes and distortures
that had been made by the Christians in their texts. That is how some
sentences regarding certain accounts of Jesus, which were scattered in
several gospels, came to be combined together in a single gospel. For
examp1e, the Ebionite Gospel gives a complete account of the baptism of
Jesus which has been compiled from things found scattered in all of the
first three gospels and in the memoirs from which, according to
Epiphanius,
Justin quoted.
In another place
Eichhorn said:
Manipulations in the sacred texts, in the form of additions and
omissions and the replacement of a word by its synonym, by those who
lacked the necessary scholastic aptitude, is historically
traceable right from the time of the appearance of the gospels. This is
not surprising since, from the beginning of the history of the
Christianity, it has been a common habit of writers to make changes
according to their own whims, particularly in the sermons of Jesus and the
accounts of events in his life which were preserved by them. This
procedure, initiated in the first era of Christian history, continued to
be followed by the people of later centuries. 1n the second century AD,
this habitual distortion in the texts had become so commonly known
to the people that even the opponents of the Christian faith were
aware of it. Celsus, as noted above, raised objections against the
Christians that, they had changed their texts more than three or four
times, and these changes were not of a superficial nature but done in such
a manner that the subjects and meanings of the gospels were altogether
changed. Clement also pointed out that at the end of the second century AD
there were some people who used to tamper with the texts
of the gospels. He has specified that the sentence, ”For
theirs is the kingdom of heaven” was changed in some versions to, ”they
shall be perfect.” Some others even made it read: ”They
shall attain a place where they shall see no trouble.”
Norton, having quoted the above statement by Eichhorn said:
No one thinks that Eichhorn is alone in this opinion, because no
other book is as popular in Germany as the book of Eichhorn, and it is
considered to be in accordance with the opinions of most of the modem
writers with regard to the gospels, and the same applies to matters which
cast doubt upon the truth of the gospels.
Since Norton is known as an advocate of the gospels, having quoted
the above statements of Eichhorn, he refutes them all in favour of the
gospels, but, as will be evident to any reader of his hook, his arguments
are not convincing. In spite of all this, he had to admit openly that the
following seven portions of the New
Testament are definitely not from those who are considered to be their
authors, and had been added later.
1.
He says on page 53 of his book that the first two chapters of
Matthew were not written by him.
2.
On page 63
he says that the event of Judas Iscariotcontained
in Matt. 27:3-10 is certainly a false statement and was added later on.
3.
Similarly
he declared that verses 52 and 53 of chapter 27 of Matthew are a later
addition.
4.
It appears on page 70 that verses 9-20 of chapter 16 of Mark are a
later invention.
5.
On page 89 he says that verses 43 and 44 of chapter 22 of Luke are
a later addition.
6.
On page 84 he points out that verses 3, and 4 of chapter 5 of the
Gospel of John, are a later addition, That is from, "Waiting for the
moving of the water...” to, ”...was
made whole of whatsoever disease he had.”
7.
On page 88 he specifies that verses 24 and 25 of chapter 21 of the
Gospel of John are certainly later additions.
Further
on page 610 he says:
The
miraculous events described by Luke have been mixed with traditional
untruths and poetic exaggeration by the scribes. But it is very difficult
in this age to separate the truth from falsifications. Any statement
containing traditional untruths and poetic exaggeration is obviously very
far from being an inspiration.
We may be allowed to draw the following four conclusions from the
above statement of Eichhorn which has also been favoured by other German
scholars.
1.
The original Evangel has become extinct from the world.
2.
The present gospels are a mixture of true and false descriptions.
3.
The text of these gospels has been distorted and changed by the
people of different times. Celsus tried hard to inform the world that the
Christians had changed their texts three or four times or more, to the
extent that they had actually changed the subject matter of these texts.
4.
The present gospels did not show any signs of existence before the
end of the second century and the beginning of the third century AD.
Scholars
such as Leclerc, Koppe, Michael, Lessing, Niemeyer and Manson agree with
regard to our first conclusion, because they have all said that perhaps
Matthew, Mark and Luke might have had the same copy in the Hebrew language
of a document containing and account of the life of Christ. Matthew
borrowed most of the contents of
that script while Mark and Luke did not use as much of it as he
did. Home also stated this in
his commentary printed in 1822 AD,
but he does not seem to agree with their
option, which, However, does not make any difference as far as our point
of view is concerned.
This refers
to a description
of raising the dead saints from the graves after the death of
Jesus.
These verses contain the description of the resurrection of Jesus
which contains a number of errors.
"This
refers to the visit of Jesus to the Mount of Olives a
night
before his crucifixion. It reads, ”And
there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And
being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it
were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”
(Luke 22;43 and 44) Home, however has
confirmed the correctness of
this verse and has opposed the opinion which advocates excluding it
from the
books. We
have discussed this verse in detail later in the book.
1.These
verses contain greatly exaggerated number of people and animals healed
by Jesus.
Vol.
4. Page. 295.