Observations of Heretical Christian Scholars

 

           The Christian sect of the Ebionites belongs to the time of Paul and flourished in the first century. The Ebionites strongly opposed Paul and considered him an apostate. Although they acknowledged the Gospel of Matthew they claimed that the present Gospel, attributed to Matthew by the followers of Paul, is quite different from the original Gospel. They also claimed that the first two chapters of the Gospel did not belong to it. According to them these two chapters and many other verses of this Gospel were later additions. The famous historian Bell said with regard to these people:

        This sect acknowledged only the Pentateuch of the Old Testament and despised the names of David, Solomon, Jeremiah and Hezekiel. They accepted only the Gospel of Matthew from the New Testament but they changed even this Gospel in many places and excluded its first two chapters.

          Similarly the Marcionites were one of the ancient sects of Christianity. They rejected all the books of the Old Testament and denied their being divinely revealed. Likewise they disacknowledged all the books of the New Testament except the Gospel of Luke and the ten epistles of Paul. This gospel, too, was considered by them to he different from the onewe know today. The historian Bell said:

          This sect used to reject all the books of the Old Testament and only accepted the Gospel of Luke from the New Testament and even of this Gospel they used to reject the first two chapters. They also accepted the ten epistles of Paul but rejected many parts that they did not like in these letters.

          Lardner showed in volume 8 of his commentary with regard to alterations made by this sect that they rejected many parts of the Gospel of Luke. The parts of Luke’s Gospel which were distorted or omitted by this sect are the first two chapters, the event of the Christ’s baptism by John, the genealogy of Jesus in chapter 3, the tempting of Jesus by Satan, his entry into the temple, his reading the book of isaiah in chapter 4, verses 30, 31, 32, 49, 50 and 51 of chapter 11, the words “but the sign of Jonas, the prophet,” verses 6, 8 and 20 of chapter 12, verses 1-6 of chapter 13, verses 11-32 of chapter 15, verses 31. 32 and 33 of chapter 18, verses 28-46 of chapter 19, verses 9-18 of chapter 20, verses 8, 21 and 23 of chapter 21, verses 16, 35, 36, 37, 50, 51 of chapter 22, verse 43 of chapter 23, and verses 26 and 28 from chapter 24. The above details were given by Epiphanius. Dr. Mill added that they also omitted verses 38 and 39 of chapter 4. In volume 3 of his commentary Lardner quotes, through Augustine, the words of Faustus, a great scholar of the Manichaeans in the fourth century:

        Faustus says: I totally refute the things that your forefathers have deceitfully added in the New Testament, marring its beauty, because it is an established fact that the New Testament was neither written by Christ nor by his Disciples. The author is an unknown person, who has attributed his work to the Disciples fearing that people would not accept him as an eye-witness of these accounts. Thus he defamed the Disciples by writing books that are full of errors and contradictions.

          It can be said without fear of denial that the above scholar, even though he belongs to a heretical sect, is absolutely correct in his above three claims. We have already reproduced Norton’s opinion regarding the falsity of the Pentateuch and his claim that thc present Gospel of Matthew is not in fact the original book written by him, but only a translation which has itself been altered and distorted.

          The above is enough to have an idea of the views of non-Christian scholars and those of Christians who are considered heretics by the majority of other Christians.