so many oxen would have displayed. Now the history of every supposed miraculous power that has ever appeared is always that it creates excitement in the neighborhood. People will go a long ways and spend all of their means to be healed of a malady. These people had collected at this pool probably at a considerable expense to themselves, and they were undoubtedly anxious to be restored to their health. If Jesus had ever went among them and healed one, he would have raised a loud clamor amongst the rest. They would have followed him all over Jerusalem. They would have hounded him like a pack of beggars. It is an improbable feature to the story that he should have healed but one of them and left the rest in their misery. In many places in the synoptic Gospels, it is said that Jesus healed all with whom he came in contact. He turned no man away. The story is not consistently told, and its inconsistency reflects upon its credibility. Another improbable feature to it is what is contained in verse 16: “And for this cause did the Jews persecute Jesus, because he did these things on the sabbath." Such a flimsy explanation as this as to the cause of the Jews' hatred of Jesus is ridiculous. Men tremble before divine power; they do not become angry at it. This feature of the account is prominent in that of the raising of Lazarus. John says, "The chief priests therefore and the Pharisees gathered a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many signs. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him." And again: "But the chief priests took counsel that they might put Lazarus also to death; because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away and believed on Jesus.' What! Lazarus? who had seen death once and was alive again? There is an absurdity to these statements so supreme that the account of which they form a part becomes the idlest of silly tales, not on a par even with Esop's fables, for those fables have a moral attached, this one has not. He who could stand over a grave and shout, "Lazarus, come forth," and be obeyed, was a God beyond a question. And that man never walked on this planet who would not have fallen prostrate in fear and trembling before him. Men of high degree, even kings, would have kissed his feet. He who could call a man out of his grave was mightier, ten thousand times, than he who had said in the dim distant past, "In it thou shalt do no work." The account of the healing of the man with the withered hand in the synoptic Gospels, page xviii, is like these in John in this particular. In this account we read as follows: "And he looked round about on them all, and said unto him, Stretch forth thy hand. And he did so: and his hand was restored. But they were filled with madness; and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus." That story is a fable, and its fabulous character is branded upon its face. The man whose voice the forces of nature obeyed would have commanded more than respect. was lord and master of the sabbath, and there was not a man in that synagogue would have questioned it. The story is absurd as told. He who could have performed such wonderful miracles could have made new laws concerning the observance of the sabbath, and they would have been obeyed. He The truth is they made Jesus out a miracle worker, and he was crucified; and the most plausible reason they could offer for an explanation was that he healed on the sabbath day. But the shallowness of the reason is good evidence that either the accounts of the miracles are fables, or that the story of the crucifixion is false. At They tell us that Jesus cast devils out of men, that these devils knew him and talked with him, that at one time they requested him to permit them to go into a herd of swine feeding near by, and he permitted them. other times he talked with them, and when they would cry out at him that he was the son of God, he rebuked them, and suffered them not to speak, lest they should make him known. Now in those days when a man was crazy they thought he had a devil. And these accounts of the casting out of devils are pitfalls into which the Gospel writers unconsciously fell. Not many years ago it was believed that barnacles turned into geese. A certain man wrote that he had himself witnessed the transformation. He told what was not true, for it is known that barnacles do not turn into geese. So it was with the devils. A certain man wrote that he had seen devils who could talk sent from a man into a herd of swine. What shall be said of that man's veracity? It is known beyond a question that devils do not dwell in men. Insanity is now known to be a disease as truly as small-pox or consumption. Books have been written upon the subject of demoniacal possession. It is not necessary to say more here. The first twenty verses of the fifth chapter of Mark cast a doubt over the truthfulness of every miracle related in the Bible. There is another feature to many of the miracles related in the synoptic Gospels weighing against their authenticity. It is said that Jesus healed this or that person and that the people "were amazed," or "were astonished," or "wondered." Now if one should read in one of our modern daily papers that a certain very rich man had stood upon the curbstone of one of the principal streets of New York or Chicago and had thrown nickels and dimes about upon the pavement, there would be nothing in the story itself to cause doubt as to its truthfulness. But supposing that it should read, in addition to the above, that the bootblacks and the newsboys had stood on the sidewalks and wondered. Such a phrase would detract from the probability of the tale, because it would show that it had been told by one who was either not truthful or not conversant with facts, Everybody knows that the boys would have been wild in their scrambles for the money, and that a truthful account of such an incident, instead of saying that the newsboys were "filled with amazement," would have said something about the commotion that would have taken place amongst them. And so it is with the stories about Jesus. If he had ever raised sick men from their beds and restored them to health, there would not have been a sick man within a thousand miles of Jerusalem, who could possibly have raised the means, who would not have hastened in all speed to have received the blessing of health. There would have been a pilgrimage to that country to astonish the world. They would have come from Rome, from Africa, from India, from everywhere. They would have fought one another for the privilege of getting near him. If Jesus had ever healed lepers, he would have heen compelled to have wiped the plague of leprosy from off the face of the earth. And some writer of ancient history would have mentioned it. Instead, the histories of the time, even the biographies of the very men with whom Jesus came in contact are silent concerning any such events, which would have been, if true, the greatest events of the age. What is more, they do not even mention the name of Jesus. He created so little stir in and around Jerusalem that there is no reference to him in any history of the time, except in an interpolated passage of about a dozen lines in Josephus. He was no more important a personage in the eyes of historians than the two thieves crucified with him. There is still another feature to the accounts of the miracles in the Gospels casting a suspicion upon their truthfulness. No names are given, either of men or of places. Those who were healed are almost invariably referred to in some such terms as "one" or "a certain man," and the miracles were generally performed in some such locality as "in a certain place." There are only four names mentioned in all of the accounts of the miracles in the synoptic Gospels: Peter's wife's mother, Jairus, Blind Bartimæus, and Mary Magdalene; and if the accounts be true, he must have healed at the very least several hundred people. Further than this, where were they all in the hour of his trial and condemnation? Was there not one of them to speak for him before Pilate? The widow of Nain? nor her son? nor Jairus? nor his daughter? nor any of his neighbors, or friends? nor Lazarus? nor one of the blind, or lame, or deaf, or dumb? nor the man who had been sick with the palsy? nor any of his ardent friends who had borne him to Jesus?—was there not one? Was there not one of the five thousand, who had followed him into the wilderness so far that they had famished for bread, to testify for him to the governor who seemed to be his friend? Where was the leper, the one of the ten? Where was the centurion, the king's officer, who had soldiers at his command? Surely his position was such that he might have went to Pilate without fear. Was there not one of the many hundreds whom he healed 'so poor to do him reverence' enough to come, if not to Pilate, at least to the cross or the tomb. And when one comes to think of the many thousands of people who must have known all about how good he was, it does not seem possible that the accounts of the miracles, and the story of the Crucifixion with all these people absent, could have been penned by the same hand. There is too wide an abyss of inconsistency between them. Then too the relation which the three synoptic Gospels bear to each other, tending to show that they had a common origin, weighs against the reliability of the information which they contain, for it shows that they passed through the hands of copyists who altered them and added to them at their will. And the first portions of the books to suffer under such a conclusion is the account of the Resurrection at their ends, and the first two chapters of Matthew, and the first two of Luke. With these gone the miracles, the parables, the Sermon on the Mount, Luke 9:51-18:14, etc., must soon follow, and too those passages containing references to Jesus' disciples, leaving little else remaining than the story of the Crucifixion, his disputes and arguments with the Pharisees and the chief priests, and the prophecy of his second coming. And, lastly, the mixing up of the accounts in Matthew of the healing of the man sick of the palsy and of the healing of the centurian's servant; the suspicious resemblance of the account of the healing of the man with the withered hand to that of the healing of the dropsical man; the repetition in Matthew and Mark of the account of the feeding of the multitude; the repetition in Matthew of the account of the healing of the two blind men; the frequent interlacing of the language at the end of one account with that at the beginning of another, resulting in such passages as many of those pointed out in sections G and H, and in such as s and u on page xxvi; the remarkable relationship and parallelism existing between some of the passages on pages 8 and 9, notably between those marked C and F;these all go to show that the Gospel stories were put forward by men who knew nothing of the truth or falsity of that which they gave out for fact. They were as ignorant of what Jesus had ever said and done as it was possible for men to have been. And more than one passage set in italics in this book, especially in the full round italics, has the appearance of having been inserted into the copy of an older account by men who were not actuated by so high or noble an impulse as ignorance. It is strange indeed if that book is an inspired book which has so many absurdities and inconsistencies in it. Christian commentators say there is nothing in the Bible conflicting with a man's reason. There is! There is not only a little, but much. The author's aim has been to point out reasons for believing that the first three or four books of the New Testament could not have been written as they are by men who had personal knowledge of Jesus, or by men who obtained their information from those who had. He believes that the world would be better off with a knowledge of the truth than in the belief in that which is false. |