Why didn't the disciples write anything about Jesus?

First, Jesus' entire ministry lasted one year (according to John) and three years (according to Mark, Matthew, and Luke).

the Christian debate revolves around the issue of biblical inaccuracy.

Stanton poses this compelling question: "Was the eventual decision to accept Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John correct?  Today it is generally agreed that neither Matthew nor John was written by an apostle.  And Mark and Luke may not have been associates of the apostles."

let’s take a close look and see if we should believe it.  If it is true,  

Gospels.

Jesus Christ himself did not write his life story. He left no writings behind him and no eyewitness accounts have survived. The Gosp els began to be written 40 years after Jesus' ministry.

  Jesus did not write the Gospel;     Declare the message orally


 


  Knowing that the language that Jesus spoke was Aramaic and not Greek,


   And so were his disciples.


  Thus, all traditional encyclopedias agree that Jesus, the disciples, and the Jews in general spoke Aramaic.   Aramaic was the dominant language generally spoken in the first century.

  Jews were discouraged, even forbidden, from speaking Greek.


  They rejected the Greek language, and were discouraged from learning the language of the pagan nations surrounding them.


  Therefore, if Jesus, a devout Jew, and the disciples, illiterate men, were discouraged from speaking Greek and avoided learning and using Greek, how could the New Testament be written in a language they neither spoke nor understood well?

 Cleomarsantos said...


   


    When I began reading the Bible, several contradictions emerged.    Why don't readers pay attention to this?

   It is better to know the truth of things than to close your eyes

   The truth hurts, but knowing it is better than living a lie.

   Some people are surprised to learn that Jesus did not write any part of the Bible.

   No Bible scholar in the world would say that the Bible was written by Jesus himself.

   No one who wrote the Gospels said that what I write is a revelation from God.

   The Gospels are not eyewitness accounts;    None of the Gospel writers claimed to be an eyewitness.

   We will note that every Gospel begins with the introduction “According to.....” such as “The Gospel according to Saint Matthew,” “The Gospel according to Saint Luke,” “The Gospel according to Saint Mark,” “The Gospel according to Saint John.”  The obvious conclusion for the average man on the street is that these people are known to be the authors of the books attributed to them.  This, however is not the case.  Why? Because not one of the vaunted four thousand copies existent carries it’s author’s signature.  It has just been assumed that they were the authors.  Recent discoveries, however, refute this belief.

   Modern scholars agree that the Gospels do not date back to the time of Jesus Christ.    Most of them date back to the period between 70 and 120 AD.    Years after Jesus' ministry.

          Historical critics considered that there was such a great distance between the writing of the Gospels and the life of Jesus that an entire generation of eyewitnesses had disappeared.

  Jesus' first disciples were fishermen from Galilee, who could not read or write.

When were the Gospels and Epistles written?

None of the originally anonymous authors of the Gospels were eyewitnesses of the events they wrote about. These four names were introduced later and, like the chapter titles, are not part of the Gospel texts.

All of the evangelists are anonymous authors and did not know Jesus. They knew the Greek language.

The Gospels were written between 70 and 120 years after Jesus' ministry.

Paul is believed to have been the first to write about Jesus, 57 or 58 years after Jesus' ministry.

While Paul of Tarsus, the man who could rightfully be considered the true founder of Christianity,

Even the epistles attributed to Paul were not written by him.  After years of research, Catholics and Protestants alike agree that of the thirteen epistles attributed to Paul only seven are genuinely his.  They are: Romans, 1, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philipians, Philemon, and 1 Thessalonians.

So which books were forged?

 Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, 1 and 2 Peter, and Jude—a whopping nine of the twenty-seven New Testament books and epistles—are to one degree or another suspect. Many of the remaining books were authored anonymously.  Incredibly enough, even the gospel authors are unknown.

“The author of the Book of Hebrews is unknown.  Martin Luther suggested that Apollos was the author... Tertullian said that Hebrews was a letter of Barnabas... Adolf Harnack and J. Rendel Harris speculated that it was written by Priscilla (or Prisca).  William Ramsey suggested that it was done by Philip.  However, the traditional position is that the Apostle Paul wrote Hebrews... Eusebius believed that Paul wrote it, but Origen was not positive of Pauline authorship.”

Christian sects are not even agreed on the definition of what exactly is an “inspired” book of God.  The Protestants are taught that there are 66 truly “inspired” books in the Bible, while the Catholics have been taught that there are 73 truly “inspired” books, not to mention the many other sects and their “newer” books, such as the Mormons, etc.  As we shall see shortly, the very first Christians, for many generations, did not follow either the 66 books of the Protestants, nor the 73 books of the Catholics.  

The Gospel of Matthew

The Gospel itself does not mention the name of its author.

Christian scholars themselves acknowledge that Matthew copied his Gospel from the Gospels of Mark and Luke. Mark and Luke were not originally disciples of Christ.

The Gospel of Mark is older than the Gospel of Matthew.

The Gospel of Matthew was written about 80 years after Jesus' ministry.

The Gospel was written in Greek and also used the Gospel of Mark as a model.

The Gospel of Luke

Luke was neither an apostle nor an eyewitness to Jesus’ work.

Here again the Gospel does not mention the name of its author,

There is no reference to Luke as the author in the Gospel or in Acts.

According to the Gospel of Luke and Acts, he was not an eyewitness to Jesus.

Luke explicitly states that he obtained his knowledge of the events described from eyewitnesses (1:1.2). This strongly suggests that he himself was not an eyewitness.

The Gospel of Luke was written some 80 to 90 years after Jesus’ ministry. It was probably in Asia Minor, present-day Turkey.

The Gospel was written in Greek.

- gospel of mark

Mark was not an Apostle nor an eyewitness to Jesus' Ministry,

This gospel also does not mention the name of its author.

Research indicates that Mark's Gospel was written at the time of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, about 70 years after Jesus' work.


He wrote his book in Rome and the Bible was written in Greek.

Mark's gospel begins directly with Jesus' ministry, so Mark does not tell us about Jesus' birth or youth.


At the heart of the Gospel are the stories of Jesus' death and resurrection.


A large part of the Bible is dedicated to Jesus' Passion,


The so-called sorrow.

One of the most devastating discoveries made from the study of this fourth century manuscript was that the Gospel of Mark originally ended at verses 16:8 and not at verse 16:20 as it does today. In other words, the last 12 verses (Mark 16:9 through Mark 16:20) were “injected” by the church into the Bible sometime after the 4th century. Clement of Alexandria and Origen never quoted these verses. Later on, it was also discovered that the said 12 verses, wherein lies the account of “the resurrection of Jesus,” do not appear in codices Syriacus, Vaticanus and Bobiensis. Originally, the “Gospel of Mark” contained no mention of the “resurrection of Jesus” (Mark 16:9-20). At least four hundred years (if not more) after the departure of Jesus, the Church received divine “inspiration” to add the story of the resurrection to the end of this Gospel.

- The Gospel of John

Here again the Gospel does not name its author,

The fourth and final Gospel is the Gospel of John, written about 110 years after Jesus’ ministry. It probably originated in Ephesus, in what is now Turkey.

The fact that "The gospel according to John" was not written by John, the disciple, is not common knowledge among laity.  Nonetheless, Ehrman tells us, "Most scholars today have abandoned these identifications, and recognize that the books were written by otherwise unknown but relatively well-educated Greek-speaking (and writing) Christians during the second half of the first century."

Multiple sources acknowledge there is no evidence, other than questionable testimonies of second-century authors, to suggest that the disciple John was the author of the Gospel of "John."  In addition, Acts 4:13 tells us that John was "unlettered." In other words, he was illiterate.

In the end, we have no evidence any book of the Bible, gospels included, were authored by Jesus’ disciples.

  More than a few scholars consider Paul the main corrupter of Apostolic Christianity and of the teachings of Jesus:

“What Paul proclaimed as ‘Christianity’ was sheer heresy which could not be based on the Jewish or Essene faith, or on the teaching of Rabbi Jesus.  

Should a person come to recognize that the teachings of Paul and those of Jesus oppose one another, consideration should be given to the question: “If I had to choose between the two, to whom should I give priority -- Jesus or Paul?”

Nowhere in the four gospels did Jesus explicitly state that he would die to save mankind from sin.

For the origin of the doctrine of atonement, one does not go to the teachings of Jesus, but instead to the words of Paul, the true founder of Christianity; in teachings of present Christian terms and practices.

Like many Jews, Paul had no use for the teachings of Jesus, and he himself persecuted the followers of Jesus for their unorthodox beliefs.

Sure enough, the concept of Jesus Christ dying for the sins of humankind is found in the epistles of Paul (e.g., Romans 5:8–11 and 6:8–9), and nowhere else.  Nowhere else?  Not from Jesus?  Not from the disciples?  Is it possible that they neglected the critical details upon which Christian faith rests?

the truth which God revealed about Jesus in His final Book, the Quran, which he revealed to Muhammad.  There is only One God who created one race of human beings and communicated to them one message: submission to the worship of God and God alone and following His instruction – known in Arabic as Islam.  That message was conveyed to the first human beings on this earth, and reaffirmed by all of the prophets of God who came after them throughout all the ages.

Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, performed miracles and invited the Israelites to the same message of submission (Islam) as did all of the prophets who preceded him.  He was not God, nor was he the ‘Son of God’, but was the Messiah, an illustrious prophet of God.  Jesus did not invite people to worship himself; rather, he called them to worship God, Whom he himself worshipped.  He confirmed the laws of the Torah which Prophet Moses taught; he lived by them, and instructed his disciples to follow them to the finest detail, after allowing those things which the Jews made illegal upon themselves.  Before his departure, he informed his followers of the last prophet, Muhammad of Arabia, who would come after him, and instructed them to observe his teachings.

In the generations after Jesus’ departure from this world, his teachings were distorted and he was elevated to the status of God.  Six centuries later, with the coming of Prophet Muhammad, the truth about Jesus Christ was finally retold and preserved eternally in the last book of divine revelation, the Quran.  Furthermore, many of the laws of Moses, which Jesus followed, were revived in their pure and unadulterated form and implemented in the divinely prescribed way of life known as Islam, while many other aspects and injunctions of the laws which had been brought by the earlier prophets were lightened or dropped altogether.

Consequently, the reality of the prophets, their uniform message, and the way of life which they followed, can only be found preserved in the religion of Islam, the only religion prescribed by God for man.  Furthermore, only Muslims today actually follow Jesus and his true teachings.  Their way of life is much more in tune with the way of life Jesus practiced than any of the modern day “Christians.”  Love and respect of Jesus Christ is an article of faith in Islam, and God stressed the importance of belief in Jesus in numerous places in the Quran.

In the Quran, God addresses the Christians about Jesus in the following way:

O People of the Book, do not commit excesses in your religion, and do not say anything about God except the truth: the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, was nothing more than a messenger of God, His word, directed to Mary and a spirit from Him.  So believe in God and His Messengers and do not speak of a ‘Trinity’– stop [this], that is better for you– God is only one God, He is far above having a son, everything in the heavens and earth belongs to Him and He is the best one to trust.  [4:171]

Islam is not just another religion.  It is the same message preached by Moses, Jesus and Abraham.  Islam literally means ‘submission to God’ and it teaches us to have a direct relationship with God.  It reminds us that since God created us, no one should be worshipped except God alone.  It also teaches that God is nothing like a human being or like anything that we can imagine.  The concept of God is summarized in the Quran as:

"Say, He is God, the One.  God, the Absolute.  He does not give birth, nor was He born, and there is nothing like Him." (Quran 112:1-4)

Becoming a Muslim is not turning your back to Jesus.  Rather it’s going back to the original teachings of Jesus and obeying him.

Furthermore, only Muslims today actually follow Jesus and his true teachings.  Their way of life is much more in tune with the way of life Jesus practiced than any of the modern day “Christians.”  Love and respect of Jesus Christ is an article of faith in Islam, and God stressed the importance of belief in Jesus in numerous places in the Quran.