The New Testament Deconstructed

Matthew, Mark and Luke have similar plot lines, and are called the Synoptic Gospels for that reason. John is in a category by itself. The consensus is that Mark was written first, around 50 CE. Matthew and Luke drew heavily from Mark and drew additionally from sources such as Q ( Q is for Quelle) which contained the sayings of Jesus. They also took from a source called the Didache, which is said to be writings by the apostles.

The story briefly is that a holy child is born in Bethlehem who is to be Israel’s savior. His childhood is a blank, except when he’s 13 and stays at the Temple in Jerusalem after Passover to converse with the scholars. Anyone who wants to know more about the childhood of Jesus can read the “Urantia Book.” It is 10 or 15 dollars on amazon.com. Jesus’ father, Joseph was a carpenter and was killed on a construction job in a nearby city. After that, Jesus was very busy helping his mother raise all his younger siblings.

Fast forward and Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. He then starts collecting his disciples. He spends 40 days in the wilderness thinking about his mission. But he wasn’t tempted by the devil. He did meet 2 of his advisors in order to tell them he would be staying longer than planned. Then Jesus collected his disciples and wondered around Galilee, preaching the kingdom of God, healing the sick and casting out demons. When he did these acts on the Sabbath, he was criticized by the Jewish religious leaders. The Pharisees and scribes seemed to follow him around, even annoying him when he was dining at another Pharasee’s house. Tension grew, which is one of the problems that atheists have with the story. Why did such tension grow to such a high point? After all, history tells us that there were other men named Jesus walking around doing the same things our Jesus was doing. Why did he stand out? Was he a deliberate rebel? Anyway, the Jews manipulated Pilate into crucifying Jesus ( and here’s another problem: Jews stoned their criminals, they did not crucify them; the Romans crucified their criminals. So the Jews had Jesus crucified and that was the end of Jesus. I don’t think so. On the morning of the third day, Easter Sunday, Jesus left the tomb and started appearing to people.

The endings of the Gospels are confusing. The disciples are in Jerusalem, they are in Galilee or they are in both places at once. In Matthew Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb and is told to tell the disciples to go to Galilee, which they did. Mark did not write a Resurrection scene, so someone else wrote 3 possible endings. In the second ending, Jesus meets the disciples in Jerusalem and tells them to go out and spead the Gospel of the kingdom of God from east to west. In Luke there are 2 angels in the tomb, which again is open and only containing the folded linens. The women were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and others. They went and told the disciples that the tomb was empty and Jesus had risen, but they didn’t believe the women. Peter did go back to the tomb, however. Jesus, having appeared to many groups, finally appeared to the disciples in the Upper Room. In John the tomb is again open and empty, except for the folded linens. Mary Magdalene is first at the tomb, and she sees two angels, which terrifies her. She starts to rush out and runs into Jesus, who tells her not to touch his clothing ( it is morontia clothing). He sends her to the disciples to tell them he is coming. He finally reaches the Upper Room where the disciples are hiding and shows them his wounds. He bestows upon them the power of the Holy Spirit and says: “Whose sins you have forgiven are forgiven and whose sins you have retained are retained.” (Jn 20:23) John would have been a witness to this scene because he would have been there. The other 3 Gospels are only using hearsay to write this scene.