Who Was Jesus? Fingerprints of The Christ

297 Pages·2007·28.38 MB·English

by  D.M. Murdock

D M c M u r d o o k
Christ Conspiracy
/Ulthor Of UOO©
i
WHO WAS JESUS?
FINGERPRINTS OF
THE CHRIST
D.M. MURDOCK
Foreword by Dr. Robert M. Price
Stellar House Publishing
www.stellarhousepublishing.com
ALSO BY D.M. MURDOCK a.k.a. ACHARYA S
The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold
Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled
WHO WAS JESUS? FINGERPRINTS OF THE CHRIST
Copyright © 2007 by D.M. Murdock a.k.a. Acharya S
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever—electronic, mechanical, photocopy,
recording, or otherwise—without written permission except
for brief quotations in articles and reviews. For information,
address Stellar House Publishers, LLC,
www.stellarhousepublishing.com
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Murdock, D.M./Acharya S
Who was Jesus? Fingerprints of the Christ.
1. Jesus Christ—Historicity 2. Christianity—Origin
Includes bibliographical references and index
ISBN: 0-9799631-0-9
ISBN 13: 978-0-9799631-0-0
Design and layout by D.M. Murdock
"Dedicated to all the wonderful and inspiring people in life."
Table of Contents
Foreword v
Introduction 1
The Gospel According to Matthew 4
The Nativity of Jesus Christ 4
The Baptism and Temptation 5
The Calling of the Disciples 5
The Sermon on the Mount 6
The Lord's Prayer 7
Healing of the Sick and Casting out Demons 8
The Mission of the Twelve 9
Working on the Sabbath 10
John the Baptist Beheaded 11
Walking on Water 11
The Canaanite Woman 12
Peter the "Rock" 12
The Transfiguration 13
Becoming like Children 13
Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven 14
The Rich Young Man 14
Entry into Jerusalem 15
Driving out the Moneychangers 15
Cursing the Fig Tree 16
Signs of the Times/Second Coming 16
Jesus's Anointment with Oil 17
The Last Supper 17
The Garden of Gethsemane 18
The Betrayal by Judas 18
Christ's Trial 19
The Passion and Crucifixion 19
The Resurrection of the Dead 20
The Empty Tomb 20
Conclusion 21
The Gospel According to Mark 24
Was Mark First? 24
Comparison of Matthew and Mark 25
The Missing Scriptures 27
The Three Synoptics Juxtaposed 30
The Gospel According to Luke 33
Chronological Discrepancies 35
Luke's Tenor 36
viii Who Was Jesus?
Startling Conclusions 37
The Gospel According to John 39
Authentic or Adulterated? 41
Who Killed Jesus? 45
Textual Harmonization 47
Inspired Originals? 50
Scribal Scalliwags 50
Error-Filled Copies 53
Perfect Harmony? 54
Eyewitness Accounts or Compilations? 56
The Gospel Dates 59
Anonymous and Pseudonymous Authors 60
According to Whom? 61
"Back in the Day..." 62
The Lukan Prologue 62
Irenaeus, "Father of the Catholic Canon." 64
Church Father and Bishop Papias 64
Justin Martyr 67
The Rylands Papyrus 68
Late Dating of the Gospels? 70
Jesus Outside of the Bible 84
Titus Flavius Josephus 86
Pliny the Younger 91
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus 93
Publius/Gaius Cornelius Tacitus 94
Thallus, Phlegon and Mara Bar-Serapion, et al 98
The Talmud 102
Gnostic Sources 104
Extrabiblical Christian Sources 105
The Stones are Silent 105
Who are Elijah and Elisha? 114
Joseph, A Type of Jesus 119
Jesus as Fulfillment of Prophecy 123
Questions about the Gospel Story 139
Miracles, Impossibilities and Implausibilities 140
Failed Prophecies 147
Contradictions and Inconsistencies 148
Errors in Time and Place 155
Chronological Problems 162
Translation Errors and Language Problems 167
Illogic and Irrationality 181
Jesus's Character 192
Repellant Deeds, Sayings and Doctrines 198
Table of Contents iii
Apology Accepted? 205
"It Doesn't Matter?" 206
Four Camera Angles 209
Does The Bible Stack Up? 210
What Jesus Felt or Thought 211
Literal or Figurative? 214
History or Propaganda? 216
A Uniquely Divine Birth? 217
Salvation is from the Jews? 220
Son of Joseph? 221
Massacre or Myth? 221
Son of God? 222
The Resurrection of Lazarus? 224
The Naked Youth 236
The "Twelve" 237
The Sacred Meal 239
The Bloody Sweat 240
The Trial and Crucifixion 240
The Sun of Righteousness 244
The Sacred Spear and The Side-Wounding 245
The Empty Tomb Redux 246
The Ascension into Heaven 248
The Sayings of Jesus? 252
Conclusion 255
Fingerprints of the Christ? 256
Terror in the Name of God 261
Vacuous Christianity? 262
Bibliography 266
Index 276
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"The entire area in which the gospel story takes place is
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Foreword
"The men of old, unlike in their simplicity to young
philosophy, deemed that if they heard the truth even
from 'oak or rock,' it was enough for them; whereas
you seem to consider not whether a thing is or is not
true, but who the speaker is and from what country
the tale comes."
Socrates, Plato's Phaedrus
D.M. Murdock, familiarly known to admirers and friends
as "Acharya," the Teacher, depends as much upon conservative
writers, both Catholic and Protestant, this time around as
she did on radical scholars in her first book, The Christ
Conspiracy. I do not mean to suggest an unduly polemical
goal or tone (indeed, she is everywhere moderate and
restrained), but the effect is to take the fight right into the
opposite camp. It can be a friendly debate, and it is good
sport. Without rancor, differences of opinion are quite
instructive. This time, she scrutinizes what might at first
seem unexceptionable observations by evangelical scholars
and apologists (usually the same thing) and Catholic
scholars and encyclopedists, and then goes on to show how
even their reassurances to the flock contain the seeds of
serious doubt that Jesus was divine—or even human! Did he
exist at all?
Ms. Murdock spends some time on textual criticism, "Lower
Criticism," which has long served as a "safe" subdiscipline for
sophisticated but conservative Christian scholars. Though
textual criticism takes its starting point from the element of
doubt, many or even most evangelicals see the need for it.
Some of the first text critics were Plymouth Brethren and
conservative Anglicans, and their concern was a natural
extension of their doctrine of the verbal inspiration of the
Bible. If the very words of the text were inspired, then, isn't
it logical to get as close as we can to the authentic text? It
may be tedious, but it is a holy task. How interesting, as
Murdock's quotations suggest, that while wearing the cap of
viii Who Was Jesus?
the text critic, an evangelical scholar stresses the complexity
of the issue, the huge number of textual variants, i.e., errors
of transmission; but when donning the hat of the apologist,
the evangelical minimizes their importance! Oh, don't worry:
most of the errors are unimportant bits of grammatical
inaccuracy or of a wandering eye, the scribe writing what he
expected to be next on the page, not what was actually
there. So the Lower Critic wants to keep himself in business,
but as an apologist, and lest Lower Criticism open the
forbidden door to the Higher Criticism (questions of author-
attribution, historical accuracy, etc.), he maintains that his
labors were basically for nothing, since the New Testament is
close enough to a perfect original. No important theological
point hinges on a textual decision. Oh no? How about the all-
important Trinity doctrine? If only 1 John 5:8b ("For there
are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word,
and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.") had not been
revealed as a cheat smuggled into the text by a pal of
Erasmus, theologians would have firm "proof" of the Trinity.
Perhaps even worse is the fundamentalist retreat to the
"original autographs" (the biblical writings as they came
fresh from the pens of their authors). It is a true pharmakon
such as the French philosopher Jacques Derrida discussed: a
ventured remedy that turns out instead to be a poison.
Benjamin B. Warfield, one of the chief architects of the
modern notion of biblical inerrancy, demanded that, before
one pronounced the Bible to be in error at any point, one
must demonstrate that the original autographs contained the
same text we are reading at that point. And that, as Warfield
knew well, is impossible, the autographs having long since
perished. How did Warfield (and his legions of followers) not
see the terrible implication? Could we not propose that the
Bible is as full of errors as Tom Paine and Colonel Ingersoll
said it was, but then posit that once upon a time there
existed a miraculous error-free Bible? Sure we could, and it
would do us no good at all. That is a case of destroying the
village in order to save it.
Ms. Murdock makes much of the neglected issue of a
scripture the composition of which was ostensibly inspired,
but whose preservation was apparently left to the shifting
winds of fortune. If one were to claim only that the Bible had
Foreword vii
been infallibly inspired, we could not readily verify or falsify
the claim, because the believer could always retreat to the
autographs, or, failing that, he might appeal to an imaginary
vindication in some "Bible Contradictions Seminar" to be
offered one day in heaven. But if one were to claim the
scripture has been infallibly preserved through the many
centuries of copying, well, we can falsify that claim, and it's
been done. So why believe in infallible inspiration either?
Actually, there are "scriptural preservationists," but they are
no better off in practical terms, since all they can claim is
that God has seen to it that the true reading of every line
has survived somewhere in vast manuscript tradition, like a
needle in a haystack. And it is the textual critic's job to find
it. And once you've honed the claim for providential
preservation of inerrant scripture in this peculiar manner,
where do you differ from mainstream text critics? They, too,
hope the true text is back there somewhere. Neither side
claims to have it.
Are the four gospels a quartet of independent witnesses?
Murdock shows what first appears to be, again, non-
controversial: that even Catholics and evangelicals are by
and large disposed to accept source criticism, that Matthew
and Luke used Mark, etc. But they do not seem to realize, as
Murdock does, that this admission is doubly fatal. First, it
means that at least some of the gospels are not based on
eyewitness testimony. Luke and Mark never claim to be.
Matthew and John share names with two characters who
appear in the gospel story, but that does not even hint that
they are supposed to be the disciples Matthew and John. If
Matthew the evangelist were Matthew the eyewitness
disciple, how is it possible he would base his gospel on the
account of Mark, who was not? But if sophisticated
evangelicals understand and accept basic source criticism,
why do they continue to harmonize the gospels with the
rationalization that different witnesses to the same event
may include, exclude, or stress different elements, resulting
in accounts that differ but are all accurate as far as they go?
That analogy is simply impossible once you realize that
source criticism entails redaction criticism: If author A uses
source B yet differs at some point from B, then A has
modified B. They are not independent.