Unreliability of the quadruple Gospels and Its consequences from Allama Tabatabai’s point of view

Unreliability of the quadruple Gospels and Its consequences from Allama Tabatabai’s point of view:

The quadruple Gospel from Allama Tabatabai’s point of view:

Gospel of Matthew:

This is the oldest Gospel and according to some Christians, it was published in 38 AD. Some others have also said that it was between, 50 to 60 AD. So Christians have acknowledged that, this Gospel (which is older than the rest of the Gospels) has been written after the death of Jesus Christ. In this regard our evidence is the book “Qamus al-Kitab al-Muqaddas” by Mr. Hawks and the chapter which is about “Matthew”. The researchers from the ancient times have argued that this book was originally written in Hebrew and then it was translated into Greek and other languages. Moreover, the original version of this book which was written in Hebrew is not available now because it has been lost. As a result, what has been left of its translation is anonymous and it is not clear who the translator was. Our proof in this regard is the book “mizan al haq”. However, the author of the book “Qamus al-Kitab al-Muqaddas” has dubitably admitted it.

Gospel of Mark:

Mark was the student of Saint Peter but he was not of the Apostles. However, it’s been stated that he had written his Gospel by the order of Saint Peter and he himself did not believe that Jesus was God. Hence, some of them have stated that: Mark has written his Gospel for the nomads and the villagers and that’s why he has introduced Jesus Christ as the messenger of God and a missionary for the Sharia (Islamic law) of God and this issue has also been mentioned in the book “Qamus al-Kitab al-Muqaddas”. Accordingly it is said that: on the basis of the frequent statements of the ancients, Mark has written his Gospel in Romance language and then he has published it after the death of Saint Peter and Bulus. Since Mark has apparently written his Gospel for the tribes and the villagers and not for the urbanites especially for the Romans, it is not that reliable, (Dear reader, pay attention to this statement) and anyhow, Mark wrote his Gospel in 61 AD which is sixty one years after the birth of Jesus Christ.

Gospel of Luke:

Luke was not one of the Apostles and he had never seen Jesus. Luke became Christian by the suggestion of Bulus. Bulus had previously been a Jewish and had fanatically had enmity toward Christians. He did use to bother and harass the believers in Jesus Christ and preached against them. But suddenly he was totally changed. He claimed that when he had fainted he had seen Jesus who had touched him and said: Why do you harass my followers? At that very moment he converted to Christianity and Jesus made him responsible for the missionary work and gave people the glad tidings of his Gospels. The founder of the present Christianity is such a person. He has laid the foundations of the present Christianity <1> he has based his teachings on the fact that merely believing in Jesus Christ will be enough for being saved and there is no need for the action. He has also regarded eating of carrion and pork as Halaal (lawful or permitted) for the Christians and prohibited circumcision and many of the Torah’s commands. Although the reason for the existence of the Bible was nothing but to acknowledge the previous divine book (scripture) which was Torah, it declared only a few Haraam cases (unlawful or forbidden) as Halal. In brief Jesus came to improve the weakened Torah’s Sharia and to return again those who have gone astray from the truth to it but his goal was not to invalidate acting according to Torah and also was not to consider prosperity as merely having faith without doing any action. Luke wrote his Gospel after the Gospel of Mark which it was after the death of Saint Peter and Bulus. A group of people have also affirmed that Gospel of Luke like the rest of the Gospels have not been received through the revelation, as the statements at the beginning of this Gospel imply so. There, it has been mentioned that: O dear Savfili, since many people accused the stories of the book that we ourselves are aware of them and also we have received our news from those who have witnessed to the events and have served the religion of God, therefore I decided to write a book in this regard because (for each story, I have a narration from the ancients). Consequently this statement clearly indicates that the Gospel of Luke includes his own ideas and it’s not been received through the revelation. This concept has also been narrated in the epistle of revelation by Mr. kadle. Jerome has stated that some of the ancients have doubts regarding the first two chapters of the Gospel of Luke. The reason is that these two chapters do not exist in the Gospel of the Marcionists. On page 95 of his book, Eckharn has also stated with certainty that: pages 43 to 47 of chapter 22 of the Gospel of Luke has been attached to it. Again on page 61 of his book, Eckharn has stated that: miracles which have been mentioned in the Gospel of Luke are combinations of true and false stories and the author has mixed up the truth with lies in order to utilize the poetic exaggeration while relating the story. However, the problem is that, nowadays it is very difficult to distinguish truth from lies. In this regard Mr. Kelly Mayseth has stated that: considering their different versions, Gospel of Matthew and Gospel of Mark are different from each other, however when the contents of these two Gospels are the same, they are preferable to Gospel of Luke.

Gospel of John:

Many Christians have stated that John was the son of Zebedee who had been a hunter and one of the twelve disciples of Jesus that were called the Apostles. He was the one whom Jesus was very fond of him among his Apostles. It has also been stated that: since “shyrintus” and “Abinus” who were two of his disciples believed that Jesus was not more than a human and their reason was that he did not exist before his mother, in 96 AD some Asian bishops along with some other people gathered around John and asked him to write a Gospel for them. They asked him to write about the issues which others have not mentioned in their Gospels and to introduce Jesus somehow implicitly and unambiguously and finally John could not reject their request. Although in the history of translations and languages to which these Gospels have been written, these words are different, some have stated that: it was written in 65 AD, some believed that it was in 96 AD and some others said that it was in 98 AD. A group of them have stated that: The Gospel has not been written by John, the disciple of Jesus Christ at all. Some others have also stated that: the author of this Gospel was a clergy of Alexandrian school. According to a narration from the book, Qisas this issue has also been referred in the book “Qamus al-Kitab al-Muqaddas” and in the chapter which is about “John”. Some other people believe that John is not the author of this Gospel and other papers but some Christians in the second century AD, have written it and falsely attributed it to John in order to deceive people. Some others believe that the Gospel of John originally included twenty chapters and after his death “Affas” church has added the chapter of twenty one to the Gospel.

Unreliability of the quadruple Gospels in terms of authenticity:

What was mentioned was all about these four Gospels and if you intend to make sure of the narrators, it has to be mentioned that all of the documents regarding these Gospels are limited to the following seven people: 1-Mathew 2-Mark 3-Luke 4-John 5-Saint Peter 6-Bulus 7-Judas. All Christians have trust in the first four Gospels. These four Gospels are themselves based on the oldest Gospel, which is the Gospel of Matthew. It has to be mentioned that the original version of the Gospel of Matthew has been missed and the translator of the current Gospel of Matthew is anonymous. It is not clear whether or not; the translation of the current Gospel of Matthew is based on the original version. Also the document, to which the author has trusted, is not clear. The author’s beliefs and his religious trainings are not clear; hence it is not certain whether he believed in the deity of Messiah or his “prophecy”. In the current Gospel there is a story that accordingly, among the children of Israel, a man was appeared who claimed that: He was Jesus, the son of Joseph, the carpenter and he had come to invite people to Allah (God) and he was the son of God. He claimed that he was born as a human being without having any father and his father had sent him to save people from their sins by his sacrifice. He also claimed that: he had healed those who were born blind, the lepers and the insane. He was an exorcist, who could also bring the dead to life and he had had twelve disciples, one of whom was Matthew who had a Gospel by which God had given them the blessings and sent them in order to invite people to Christianity and etc.

So, this is the brief events happened around the world, from east to west regarding the invitation to Christianity. As you observed, all of these statements are limited to single news, however their source is unclear and it is not certain who this person was and what the name of this person was and etc.

The consequences of unreliability of Christian books (scripture):

The unreliability of the Christian books (scripture) has given rise to denial of the existence of Jesus Christ. This uncertainty from the outset has caused that some liberal European scholars claim that Jesus, the son of Mary was indeed an imaginary person. They claim that this person has been created in the people’s minds by religious propagators In order to provoke people against or in favor of the governments. Incidentally, this concept has been proved along with a superstition which is completely similar to the story of Jesus and it was about "Krishna". The ancient Indian idol worshipers claimed that Krishna was the son of God and he has been revealed from the unseen world and he has condemned himself to atonement in order to save people from their sins. He also sacrificed himself for the sins of people and in order to save them from the divine retribution of their sins. It is exactly like what Christians say about Messiah (to the letter). It also caused that a group of scholars state that there had been two people by the name of Messiah in the history: one of them was crucified and the other was the one who was not crucified and the time distance between these two Messiahs is over five centuries. Today’s date is 1956 AD and the Gregorian calendar which is supposed to start from the birth date of Jesus Christ has no correspondence with the advent of any of these two Messiahs. Because that Messiah who was not crucified, was two hundred and fifty years ahead of it, and he lived about sixty years. However, the second Messiah who was crucified emerged more than two hundred and ninety years after the beginning of the Gregorian calendar. He lived thirty three years. <1> I hope to mention an important part of this book in interpretation of the last verses of Surah An-Nisa. Certainly, at the moment what is significant is to prove that the beginning of the Gregorian calendar of Christians is not according to a correct date and it has undergone some false changes (as Christians themselves have acknowledged it). Additionally, as it was mentioned, Christians themselves have acknowledged that there is no correspondence between their Gregorian calendar and the birth of Messiah and historically it is a considerable and controversial issue.

Other doubtful and controversial issues about the Gospels of Christians:

In addition to what was discussed up to now, there are some other issues that make people suspicious of Christians’ Gospels. For instance, it is said that during the first two centuries there had been other Gospels. In this regard some people have counted them as one hundred-plus Gospels that only four of them are well-known. What is obvious is that church banned all of them except these four Gospels that were discussed about. Therefore, these four Gospels were legalized by the church in order to be a correspondence between these Gospels and the teachings of the church. In this regard “Celsus” the 2nd century philosopher, has criticized the Christians in his book “al Khitab al Haqiqa”. He believed that Christians had distorted the Gospels and then they had removed their earlier statements. In 384 AD “Pope Damasius” ordered to make a new translation in Latin of the Old and New Testament. He intended to legalize it in all churches around the world because at that time, Theodosius who was the emperor had fed up with the arguments around the contents of different Gospels. Finally this translation which was called “Falkena” was finished. It was a translation of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The organizer of these four Gospels had stated that: after we contrasted a few versions which were related to the ancients Greek, we organized it in such a way. It means removing what is recognized as contrary to the meaning after examining the texts and leaving the others as it was already before. Then this translation was approved by the “Tridentity” assembly in 1546 however, after the eleven centuries it was discredited by “Pope Sixtus V” in 1590. Then he ordered make another version of the Bible. Once again “Clement VIII” discredited this version and ordered to make another modified version of the Bible which is now available for the Catholic people. One of the versions of the Bible which was collected was the Gospel of Barnabas that a copy of it was discovered a few years ago and was translated into Arabic and Persian. All stories of this Gospel regarding Jesus Christ conform to Quranic stories. This Gospel was discovered in Italian manuscript and Dr. Khalil Saadat translated it into Egyptian and then "Sardar Kabuli" who was a great scholar rendered it into Persian. It is so strange that also the version of Gospel which has been narrated by the non-Jewish people has not mention anything about what Bible has attributed to invitation of Messiah, including some details about what some Christian believe that Jesus is the son of God and he sacrificed himself to save people from their sins. “Hendrik Willem van Loon” the famous American historian in his book which is about the human history mentions about a book and a letter which “Aesculapius Cultellus” the Roman physician wrote in 62 AD to his brother “Gladius Ensa” who was a military man and served in the Roman army in Palestine. In his letter he wrote that: when I was in Rome I went to treat a patient whose name was Bulus and I was impressed by his words. He invited me to Christianity and explained some stories about Jesus Christ and his invitation. But I was not in contact with him and I did not see him anymore but after a while when I intended to find him, I heard that he had been murdered in “Avsti”. Now that you are in Palestine I ask you to inform me of this Israeli prophet about whom Bulus has talked and I have gained some information from him as well.

After six weeks “Gladius Ensa” wrote a letter to his brother “Aesculapius Cultellus” who was a physician, from the Roman camp in Jerusalem. He wrote that I asked some old men of that city about Jesus Christ but I found out that they were not inclined to answer my question (This story has happened in 62 AD and certainly those from whom he had asked had been old men), until one day I was encountered by an olive seller and asked him: Do you know such a person? He kindly responded and directed me to a person who was called Joseph. He said: this man is one of his (Jesus) disciples and followers and he is quietly aware of the story of Messiah. He would respond you if it makes him no trouble. On that very day I began to look for him and after a few days I found him. He was a very old man and I found out that in ancient times when he was a young man he went fishing to some of these nearby lakes. Although he was quite old, still compos mentis and also he had a good memory. He remembered all the events he had witnessed during his life and during the chaos. He related the story of Jesus to me. He said that: “Tiberius” who was one of the governors of the Roman Caesar ruled in Palestine. The reason why he came to Jerusalem was that there was a chaos in Jerusalem. Therefore “Pontius Pilatus” traveled to Jerusalem to stop the chaos. The story was that a man from Nazareth who was called Ibn Najjar was inciting people to rebel against the government. However, when an investigation was done about Ibn Najjar, it turned out that he was a dignified and wise young person and he had never done an illegal and political action. Finally it was determined that what were stated about him, were merely slanderous allegations by the Jewish people. Since they had animosity towards him, they had reported to “Pontius Pilatus”, the emperor that this young person from Nazareth had stated “whoever rules over the people whether he is from the Greece, Rome or Palestine, if he rules over the them with justice and mercy, with God he will be like a person who has spent his life studying the Book of God and recitation of His verses.” Apparently “Pontius Pilatus” was impressed by this statement and the conspiracy of enemies was foiled. However, on the other hand, the Jews insisted on killing Jesus and his disciples. Therefore they rioted in front of the temple and called for slaughtering them. Thus inevitably he decided that it would be good to arrest this young carpenter and imprison him in order to rescue him from being killed by the people. In spite of all his effort, Pilatus finally did not find out why people were furious with Jesus. Whenever he spoke to the people about him and advised them and asked them the reason of their riot, instead of explaining their reason, they cried and shouted and called him infidel, atheist and traitor. Finally Pilatus‘s efforts were inconclusive and he decided to talk to Jesus himself. Therefore he summoned him, and asked him, “What is your purpose and what religion do you propagate?” Jesus replied: I do not intend to rule over people, nor do I interfere with political affairs. I only intend to encourage people to spirituality for having a spiritual life. My commitment to the spiritual life is more that the physical life and I believe that people should be kind to one another and they must only worship God (Allah). Allah is our Lord, the one who is like the father of all creatures. Pilatus, who was a great scholar and was aware of Stoicism and other philosophers, recognized that there was nothing wrong with the words of Jesus. So once again he decided to rescue this virtuous prophet from the Jews and postpone his Death's Verdict. But the Jews were discontent and disagreed to leave Jesus to himself. Therefore they spread rumors among the people that Pilatus had also been deceived by the nonsense words and lies of Jesus and intended to trait the Caesar. Then they began to prepare an affidavit and petitions and asked Caesar to dismiss him from his position. Since there had already been some other riots and revolutions in Palestine, there were lack of faithful forces at the court of Caesar and therefore, he was unable to stop the chaos as imagined. Therefore, from long time ago, he had ordered to his governors not to behave people in such a way that they had to complain Caesar. Hence he found no alternative except to sacrifice this young person for maintaining public security of people and meeting their demand. However, being so courageous, Jesus welcomed his death with open arms and he was not worried it. Before his death, Jesus forgave all of those who were involved in killing him. Then he was sentenced to death and died on the gallows while people were ridiculing and swearing at him. “Gladius Ensa” wrote at the end of his letter: this is what Joseph explained to me about the story of Jesus the son of Mary and while explaining the story, he was weeping. When I wanted to say goodbye, offered him some gold coins, but he did not accept it. He said: “around here there some people who are poorer than me, give it to them.” I also asked him about your friend, Bulus who was your patient, but he did not know him well and the only thing he said about him was that he was a tentmaker, and finally he left the job and began to propagate the new religion. There is a great difference between the religion of the gracious and merciful God and the religion of (Yahweh) who is worshiped by the Jewish people and we have frequently heard its name from the Jewish scholars.

Apparently Bulus, had firstly traveled to Minor Asia and then to Greece and wherever he had faced the salves and the slave girls he had told them that: “All of you are the children of the Father and the father loves you all, he is kind to you and the prosperity does not belong to a certain class of people, rather it belongs to all people whether rich or poor, provided that the rich behave others like brothers and live with honesty and purity.”

Invitation of Jesus Christ (pbuh) after his death:

Reflecting about the content of this letter, wise people will find out that the invitation of Jesus Christ began after the death of Jesus. It indicates that it was nothing but an invitation of a prophet to a prophecy from God Almighty. In this invitation neither there is anything about the revelation of the Divine Inheritance to the Jews nor is there a word regarding saving the Jews through sacrifice. It is also possible that some of the disciples of Jesus or those who have been attributed to him including Bulus and the followers of his disciples after the Crucifixion of Jesus, have traveled to various part of the world including India, Africa and Rome and etc. and have propagated the invitation of Jesus Christ. But not long after the Crucifixion of Jesus, there happened a disagreement among his disciples regarding the basic principles of teaching including the followings issues: The Divine Inheritance of Messiah, what is said about Jesus that some people state that he is God, adequacy of the having faith to Jesus Christ without requiring to act according to the Sharia of Moses, is the religion of Christianity the genuine religion and whether it rejects the religion of Moses or it is dependent upon the Torah’s Sharia and completes it. From this moment on, the disagreements were begun and different sects were formed and the book, “Acts of the Apostles” and other papers by Bulus whom he wrote in opposition to Christianity referred to this very fact.

Al Mizan translation, vol. 3, pp. 488-495