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Upon this Rock... The Founding of Mendacianity
Were it not for lies and forgeries, there would be no Christian religion. In fact, falsehood is so fundamental to this faith that it might better have been called Mendacianity. It should not be too surprising therefore - unless one is a Roman Catholic Christian - to learn that the biblical passage purported to record the founding of the Roman Catholic Church is a forgery. Even if he once existed as a historical figure, Jesus most certainly never uttered the words attributed to him in Matt. 16:18-19: “And I say unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” That these verses are an interpolation - an insertion forged by someone after the composition of the main text of the gospel that came to be attributed to an uncertain “Matthew” [3] - can be demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt. Much of the demonstration involves argumentation from silence that is very convincing.
First we have the silence of the entire remainder of the New Testament. Nowhere else - not even in the epistles traditionally attributed to Peter himself - do we find notice of Peter being the foundation of the Christian Church and the keeper of the keys of the gates of heaven. Secondly, we have the silence of the oldest church fathers. Not until around the year 211, in his tract “The Scorpion’s Sting,” do we have Tertullian, a Father of the Latin Church, alluding to the “fact” that “the Lord left to Peter and through him to the Church, the keys of it [heaven].” [4] The earlier church fathers know nothing of this fundamental doctrine. Certainly, if this passage had existed in their bibles, the earlier fathers would have made use of it for their political gain.
Let us look more closely into the testimony of silence to be found in the gospels. In Matthew the Thou-art-Peter passage intrudes into the story copied from Mark about Jesus asking his disciples “Whom do men say that I am?” (See sidebar comparing the texts of the so-called “Synoptic Gospels,” the three genetically related New Testament books.) It is generally agreed by scholars free of dogmatic bias that “Mark” is the source from which “Luke” and “Matthew” derived the Greek text for the core of their narratives - minus, of course, the stuff about the birth of Jesus and his supposed postresurrection carryings-on. “Mark” knows nothing of the Thou-art-Peter business.
The silence of “Mark” is especially noisy when one considers the church tradition that holds that Mark was Peter’s assistant - the man who wrote down Peter’s reminiscences! Is it conceivable that Peter would not have told his secretary of so important an honor? Is it conceivable that “Mark” could have forgotten such important information if Peter did tell him about it?
The muteness of Mark becomes downright raucous when one notices that the culmination of his story about reincarnation speculation deals not with the bestowal of an honor upon Peter, but with the execration of him: “Get thee behind me, Satan!” Not only is there no Thou-art-Peter to be found in Matthew’s model and source, there is no room for such a thing. [5] No author would be so schizophrenic as to compose a single passage with such total contradiction as “Thou art Peter” followed in two breaths by “Thou art Satan.” But an interpolator would not be as conscious of such a thing. His only concern would be to get what he needs put into the sacred text. He also would not be likely to remove much of what he finds in a sacred text - although examples of that can be found. (The deletion of Mark’s “Get thee behind me, Satan” in Luke’s parallel passage is not really a counterexample, since Luke is not also interpolating something into the text; he simply leaves out an embarrassing passage.) Thus, after the interpolation of the Thou-art-Peter passage into Matthew’s gospel, the gospel became the schizophrenic document we know and puzzle over today. Matt. 16:23 still has Mark’s “Get thee behind me, Satan”! It is almost a rule of biblical criticism that when one finds contradictions in a text, multiple authors or interpolators are to be inferred.
Turning to “Luke’s version,” we find that he too, like Mark his model, has no knowledge of the Thou-art-Peter episode. We have already noted that Luke dropped out the Satanic passage found in his source. Clearly, this omission is evidence of a pro-Peter bias. Is it plausible that an author so positively disposed toward Peter would have passed up the opportunity further to improve the latter’s image - if even a shred of evidence existed for him to use? As reported in Matthew, the Thou-art-Peter episode took place in the presence of all the disciples and has the character of a mandate that all of them should obey. If the declaration had in fact been made, from that time on all the other disciples or apostles would perforce have known and honored the special place of Peter in the scheme of Christian protohistory. But no one - absolutely no one - other than the clerical interpolator of Matthew has ever heard of this Petrine honor. Positively disposed to Peter as Luke was, he could not have omitted mention of the honor if he had ever heard of it. Clearly he never heard of it. His never having heard of it could be due either to his incompetence and unreliability as an evangelist or to the fact that the episode is fictional. Bible-believers can decide which option to choose.
Wheless (p. 182) sums up the argument from silence in a moderately amusing fashion:
“Luke” was not present when this monumental pronouncement of the “Rock and Keys” was allegedly made; Peter may have forgotten to tell him of it, or “Luke” may have forgotten that Peter told him. And Peter may have forgotten to tell of it and of his peerless “primacy” to his own “companion” and “interpreter” Mark, or Mark may have forgotten that Peter told him, and thus have failed to record so momentous an event. But John, the “Beloved disciple” was right there, with Matthew, himself, one of the speakers and hearers in the historic colloquy, - and John totally ignores it. The silence of all three discredits and repudiates it. Moreover, and most significantly, Peter himself, in his two alleged Epistles, has not a word of his tremendous dignity and importance conferred on him by his Master; never once does he describe himself in the pride of priestly humility, “Peter, Servant of the servants of God,” or “Prince of Apostles” or even “Bishop of the church which sojourns at Rome,” or any such to distinguish himself from the common herd of peasant apostles. Peter must have been very modest, even more so than his “Successors.”
Furthermore, the official “Acts of the Apostles” never once notes this divinely commissioned “primacy” of Peter; and every other book of the New Testament utterly ignores it. Paul is said to have written a sententious “Epistle to the Romans,” and to have written two or three Epistles from Rome, where Peter is supposed to have been, enthroned as divine Vicar of God and Head of the Church Universal; and yet never a word of this tremendous fact; Paul did not know it, or ignores it. The “Epistles of Paul,” fourteen of them, and the “Acts,” are replete with defiances of Paul to Peter, - “I withstood him to his face”; and in all the disputes between them, over matters of the faith and the fortunes of the new “Church,” not a single one of the Apostles rises in his place and suggests that Peter is Prince and Primate, and that Peter’s view of the matters was ex-cathedra the voice of God, and he, having spoken, the matter was settled. Paul, in all his Epistles, never gives a suspicion that he had ever heard, even from Peter, of the latter’s superior authority.
Thus, the admitted principal, if not only “proof” which the Church urges for its Divine and “Petrine” foundation is found to be - like every other Church muniment and credential, a clerical forgery, a priestly imposture.
Punning in Aramaic or Greek?
Not all readers of Matthew’s gospel realize that the Thou-art-Peter passage involves a pun in the Greek language. The Greek word for rock is petros. Petros is also the Greek proper name Peter. So Jesus is made to say - as though Greek were the language he spoke - “You are a rock, and on this rock I shall build my church.” In colloquial English, Jesus might have said, “Rocky, you’re the stone with which I’ll build my church.”
Probably even fewer readers realize that this Greek pun in Matthew is related to an Aramaic non-pun in “John’s” gospel:
John 1:42 And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone.
Significantly, in the Johanine version there is no expansion of the word-play into a full-blown pun commemorating the founding of a church. Also, in John, the Cephas anecdote comes at the very beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, when he is still collecting a retinue of disciples. In the synoptic gospels, however, the pericope about “Who do men say that I am?” is placed quite far along in his career. Of course, Jesus might have nicknamed Simon “Rocky” twice: in Aramaic early in his career and in Greek later on!
In Mark, Simon receives the nickname Peter at the time the disciples are collected, but the opportunity to pun on the name and establish him Prince of Disciples/Apostles is ignored. In Luke, Peter receives his nickname at the time of commissioning of the apostles, but he is already referred to without comment as Simon Peter a chapter earlier. Surely, the occasion of commissioning his apostles would have been an excellent occasion upon which to make a pun about rocks for building churches. But no: only silence.
The presence of what amounts to “Thou art Cephas” in the Gospel of John - but the absence of a following “and upon this rock I will build my church” - again constitutes a moderately strong argument from silence. Since tradition holds that this gospel was written by “The Beloved Disciple who leaned on Jesus’ breast,” believers must accept that “John” would have known of Peter’s pre-eminence and would have been reminded of Jesus’ pun (in Aramaic, of course!) when recounting the story of Jesus surnaming Simon as Cephas. Of course, “John” may have harbored a jealous grudge against Peter and carried this grudge over into his “inspired” writing by not revealing to his readers what his lord and master had revealed to him!
Silent words - not just silent letters
The silence of the rest of the Bible and all early Church Fathers regarding the Thou-art-Peter story is amplified - if amplification of silence can be imagined - by the fact that a key word in the passage is an anachronism… something that cannot be found to exist at the time required.
While not quite as fraudulently anachronistic as old photographs of the vaccination scars on the arms of Adam and Eve, Jesus’ alleged use of the word “church” is just as clearly anachronistic and just as certainly fraudulent. Peter would have understood "build a church" about as well as “grill a hotdog.” Ex hypothesi, no churches existed at the time of the Thou-art-Peter event. Worse yet, the very idea of an ecclesiastical organization being founded would have conflicted with everything Peter had been taught - viz., the present age was drawing to a close and the Apocalypse was nigh. Certainly, that would be no time for chartering corporations and setting up off-shore bank accounts!
Just as the narrative context leaves no room for the Thou-art-Peter passage, so too the historical context leaves no room for it. If it be admitted by everyone - as is the case - that churches did not exist at the time in question, how can it be maintained that the absence of the word for church from all the literature of the time is an invalid argument from silence? Is this not evidence of absence of the word from Jesus’ vocabulary, rather than absence of evidence concerning his vocabulary?
The Greek word for church used in this disputed passage is ecclesia - the same word used today in the Roman Catholic mass to denote the multinational corporation headquartered in Rome. Joseph Wheless explains [p. 180] the absence of the meaning “church” for the term ecclesia at the time Jesus is alleged to have been speaking:
“There was nothing like ecclesia known to the Jews; it was a technical Greek term designating the free political assemblies of the Greek republics. This is illustrated by one sentence from the Greek Father Origen, about 245 AD, when the Church had taken over the Greek political term ecclesia to denote its own religious organization. Says Origen, using the word in both its old meaning and in its new Christian adaptation: “For the Church (ecclesia) of God, e.g., which is at Athens; ... Whereas the assembly (ecclesia) of the Athenians,” etc. (Origen, Contra Celsum, iii, 20). The Greek Fathers who, a century later, founded the Church among the pagan Greek-speaking Gentiles, adopted the Greek word ecclesia for their organizations because the word was familiar for popular assemblies, and because the translators of the Septuagint had used ecclesia as the nearest Greek term for the translation of the two Hebrew words qahal and edah used in the Old Testament for the “congregation” or “assembly” of all Israel at the tent of meeting.
These Hebrew words (qahal, edah) had also a more general use, as signifying any sort of gathering or crowd, religious or secular. ...Thus no established and permanent organization of disciples of the Christ is implied by the term ecclesia, even if Jesus could have used the Aramaic equivalent of that Greek term; at most it would have only meant the small group of Jews which might adopt the “Kingdom of heaven” watchword and watchfully wait until the speedy end of the world and the expected quick consummation of the proclaimed Kingdom, - not yet come to be, these 2000 years.
It is quite clear that the Greek word ecclesia was put into the mouth of Jesus by a partisan of the Roman Church - a church which claimed descent from Saint Peter to justify its apostolic legitimacy and now was seeking to justify its political supremacy over the rival churches of Africa and Asia. By elevating Peter vis-à-vis the rest of the apostles, the interpolator elevated the Roman Church at the same time.
The interlocking arguments from silence which we have examined thus make it certain beyond question that Jesus never founded the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, the converse would seem to be the case. As someone writing in The Truth Seeker once said [23 November 1926]: “Jesus Christ did not found the church - he is its Foundling. His parent, the Jewish church, abandoned the child; the Roman church took it in, adopted it, and gave his mother a certificate of good character.”
Forged Inspirations: The Endings of the Gospel of Mark
The King James Version of the Gospel of Mark contains sixteen chapters - the last one of which contains twenty verses. The last twelve of these are the verses so beloved of snake-handling Holy-Rollers and all-so-proper Christian Scientists alike. These are the verses that promise that true-believers can handle snakes and drink poison with impunity. Here we find the verse guaranteeing that “laying on of hands” will heal the sick - the foundation for the faith-healing industry from Boston to Biloxi.
It is a well-known fact that both snake-handlers and Christian Scientists often die despite their faith in the last twelve verses of Mark. Unfortunately for them, the word has not gotten around sufficiently to make them understand that the verses in question are proven forgeries. Like so many religionists, they have died in vain.
Proof that the ending of Mark is a forgery is obtained from powerful, interlocking arguments from silence. Most convincing is the manuscript evidence - which not even the most die-hard critic of arguments from silence would call “absence of evidence.” There are, you see, ancient manuscripts of the gospels in which Mark’s gospel ends with verse 8 and is followed immediately by Luke. They are silent concerning these important verses. They do not contain them. These are not just any old manuscripts, you understand. These are some of the very oldest in existence - the famous Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, the Sinaitic Syriac Codex, and Codex Bobiensis - all from the fourth century.
What further evidence might one ask for?
Amazingly, there is more silent evidence available. It so happens that these verses are absent also from the most important of the ancient translations of Mark - the fifth and sixth century Armenian, Georgian, and Ethiopic versions. If the ending of Mark were authentic, it should have been in the Greek manuscripts from which these versions were translated. If it had been in their Greek sources, the wholly holy motivated translators would have included it in their translations. Old-World Georgians would be handling snakes right along with their New World namesakes.
In the entire literature that survives from before the middle of the fourth century, there are only two possible allusions to this ending, and both Eusebius (d. 340 CE) and Jerome (d. 420 CE) indicated that the ending was absent from almost all the Greek manuscripts known to them.
At this point, the argument from silence becomes complicated by the presence of manuscripts which contain material different from the traditional KJV ending. I am not certain I can sort out what part of the following is argumentation from silence and what is argumentation of the ordinary bass-voiced, declarative sort. Readers will have to sort it out for themselves.
For a variety of reasons - including the curious grammatical structure of the Greek text of Mark 16:8 - already in fairly early times people seem to have felt that the Gospel of Mark was incomplete. There were, after all, no post-resurrection appearances of Jesus as were to be found in other gospels. And so a number of individuals forged their own endings to Mark - tacking them on after verse 8 without even leaving their initials to warn future readers that what followed was not by “Mark.”
One of these endings [see sidebar] was much shorter than the snakes-and-poison ending ultimately certified as inspired by the Roman Catholic Church and most of its less imperial competitors. Although no patristic source is known that quotes it, it apparently obtained rather wide dispersal - ultimately coming into contact with persons owning manuscripts containing the longer ending. Not unexpectedly, this led to the production of manuscripts such as the eighth-century Codex Regius and Codex Laurensis which contain both endings - printing the short ending immediately after what we know as verse 8 and following it with the longer, standard ending.
But it gets better. The fifth-century Codex Washingtonensis contains our longer ending but inserts the so-called Freer Logion [see sidebar] in between verses 14 and 15!
The clear-cut demonstration - much of it involving argumentation from silence - that an inordinate amount of forgery was going on at the end of the gospel of Mark should make us suspicious of the other end of the gospel as well. It should make us suspicious, I would assert, of every book in the Bible.
The Three Heavenly Witnesses: Unholy forgery of the Holy Trinity
Almost all surviving sects of Christianity are Trinitarian - attempting to conceive of a single god existing as “three persons”: Father, Son (or Word), and Holy Breath (Spirit). This goofy idea was not known to the early Christian authors who produced the so-called Pauline Epistles and the early versions of the gospels, but Trinities were known to the ancient Egyptians and Hindus. Nevertheless, Trinitarian interpolations found their way into several books of the New Testament. [6] In the so-called First Epistle of John, for example the KJV reads:
1 John 5:7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
1 John 5:8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.
The modern New English Bible translation, however, has no Trinitarian wording:
1 John 5:7-8 For there are three witnesses, the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and these three are in agreement.
What ever happened to the Trinity?
The answer is simple: the Trinity didn’t get into Greek manuscripts of 1 John until the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries CE! When Erasmus made his first edition of the Greek New Testament in 1516, he couldn’t find a single Greek manuscript that contained the Trinitarian verse 5:7. Although Latin versions in his day included the verse, he left it out of his first edition because it was unattested in Greek. Of course, this caused a storm of protest, and someone duly produced a Greek manuscript containing it. Although strongly suspecting it to be a forgery, Erasmus included the passage in later editions of his Greek New Testament. From there it passed into the KJV.
To this day, absolutely no Greek manuscript of 1 John older than the fifteenth century has every been found to contain the disputed passage. Absence of evidence, or evidence of absence?
Given such a convincing argument from silence, it hardly is necessary to adduce further evidence. Nevertheless, there is a lot of corroboration. For example, absolutely no ancient Christian author mentions it or comments on it - including authors writing about the doctrine of the Trinity who are known to have been familiar with the first letter of “John.” Surely, had the passage existed at the time, they would have cited it to bolster their arguments. Clement, Bishop of Alexandria, writing around 200 CE, actually cites the letter and gives us a quote:
John says: "For there are three that bear witness, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three are one." [Clem. Alex., Fragment from Cassiodorus, ch. iii, ANF. iii, p. 576]
Even more significant, however, is the fact that Jerome - the translator of the Latin Vulgate, did not know the passage and did not put it into his translation. Only centuries later did the passage find its way into the official Vulgate Latin text - where it was duly approved and certified as being part of the inspired Catholic Bible by the Council of Trent (1545-63). For good measure, The Congregation of the Index, on 13 January 1897, with the approval of Pope Leo XIII, forbade anyone to question the authenticity of the text. Thus, in the Catholic Church at least, the doctrine of the Trinity is an inspired forgery. The silence of ancient manuscripts and the silence of ancient authors make the conclusion ineluctable.
Back to Immanuel and the Fossil Record
It might be a good idea to return to the two arguments from silence with which I began this discussion - arguments I left unresolved as I proceeded to discuss principles to be understood when arguing from silence. These were the assertion that Jesus never was called Immanuel by his mother or family and the assertion that there are no modern species of organisms found in the most ancient sedimentary rocks - as would be required if creationism were true.
Implicit in my initial discussion of the Immanuel question is the fact that nowhere in the entire New Testament except in Matt. 1:23 does the word Immanuel (or its Greek spelling starting with E) occur. The false citation from Isaiah is the only New Testament occurrence of the name. Perforce, there is no mention of anyone ever calling Jesus Immanuel. But how do we know that “Matthew” simply didn’t record the “fact” that Jesus was called Immanuel by his family and others of his time?
The Gospel of Matthew is almost as conclusive for this question as was a Kalamazoo phone book for the proposition concerning the existence of the car-repair shop. (Of course, phone books are of far greater general utility than gospels are.) For you see, its author was obsessed with finding fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies in the supposed life of Jesus. Thomas Paine, in his Age of Reason, Part III, [7] showed how far “Matthew” had to stretch to find such prophecies and how much he had to stretch the prophecies once he found them.
In the case before us, “Matthew” has an angel tell Joseph (in a dream, no less!) that his wife has been impregnated by a ghost and that (verse 1:21) “you shall give him the name Jesus (Savior), for he will save his people from their sins.” In the very next verse we read: “All this happened in order to fulfil what the Lord declared through the prophet.” This is followed by the mistranslation of the Isaiah passage ending with “and he shall be called Emmanuel, a name which means ‘God is with us’.” Within the space of three verses, we have the non sequitur that the Christ child was named Jesus because Isaiah allegedly had predicted he would be called Emmanuel! Had there been one shred of tradition that anyone was calling Jesus Emmanuel instead of Jesus, is it conceivable that this prophecy-fulfillment monomaniac would not have recorded it? The real wonder is that he didn’t make up a fulfillment of this part of the prophecy!
Returning to the silence of the early rock record with regard to “everything from fish to Gish,” let us see more clearly how that record is truly evidence of absence rather than absence of evidence, as creationists sometimes claim. It might be argued that almost all of the Precambrian sedimentary rocks are of marine origin and one could not reasonably expect to find human remains in such deposits. Fair enough, we can concede this point. We won’t expect Gish-like remains in marine sediments. But why no fish? From the Devonian period onward, fish fossils are abundant in marine sediments. Why shouldn’t they be in the Precambrian sediments as well? And why is it that there are no modern fish to be found among the abundant fish fossils of the Devonian period? Isn’t there something fishy about this? Of the thousands of species of modern fish, why isn’t even one found in the Devonian - let alone in the Precambrian? Why is it that the absence of modern fish types becomes less marked as later and later rock layers are studied? Why is it that the absence of modern forms changes systematically as one goes from recent sediments to progressively older ones? Why do modern species disappear before the genera to which they belong disappear? Why, as we travel backward in time through the superposed strata, do genera disappear before the families in which they are classified? Families disappear before their orders, orders before their classes, and classes before their phyla.
Finally, proceeding to the group of modern organisms Noah didn’t know he had to preserve in his ark - the flowering plants - we observe that pollen from wind-pollinated species of flowering plants (and gymnosperms as well) is dispersed almost everywhere today. It is simply unbelievable that if flowering plants existed during the Precambrian Era at least a few pollen grains would be found in rock strata from that time. Pollen is the closest thing to an indestructible object nature has produced. Despite the claims of a certain creationist whose laboratory technique was as sloppy as his thinking, no pine pollen - or any kind of pollen - has ever been found in a Precambrian stratum. The absence in these rocks of indestructible, ubiquitously distributed material such as pollen is a very convincing argument from silence that flowering plants have not always existed since Day Three of earth history and that they are not older than the sun and moon as creationist scripture maintains.
Thus, the rock record cries out ¡Evolución, Sí! ¡Creacionismo, No!
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“MARK” (a major source of “Luke” and “Matthew”)
Mark 8:27 And Jesus went out, and his disciples, into the towns of Caesarea Philippi: and by the way he asked his disciples, saying unto them, Whom do men say that I am? 8:28 And they answered, John the Baptist: but some say, Elias; and others, One of the prophets. 8:29 And he saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thou art the Christ. 8:30 And he charged them that they should tell no man of him. 8:31 And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 8:32 And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him. 8:33 But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men. 8:34 And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. 8:35 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it. 8:36 For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? 8:37 Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
“LUKE” (Storyline Derived from “Mark”)
Luke 9:18 And it came to pass, as he was alone praying, his disciples were with him: and he asked them, saying, Whom say the people that I am? 9:19 They answering said, John the Baptist; but some say, Elias; and others say, that one of the old prophets is risen again. 9:20 He said unto them, But whom say ye that I am? Peter answering said, The Christ of God. 9:21 And he straitly charged them, and commanded them to tell no man that thing; 9:22 Saying, The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third day. 9:23 And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. 9:24 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. 9:25 For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?
“MATTHEW” (Storyline Derived from “Mark”)
Matt. 16:13 When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? 16:14 And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. 16:15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? 16:16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Matt. 16:17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. 16:18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 16:19 And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
This conflicts with Matt. 18:18 (Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.) where binding and loosing powers are conferred on all the apostles.
Matt. 16:20 Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ. 16:21 From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. 16:22 Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. 16:23 But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. 16:24 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. 16:25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. 16:26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
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Mark 16:1 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. 16:2 And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun. 16:3 And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? 16:4 And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great. 16:5 And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted. 16:6 And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him. 16:7 But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you. 16:8 And they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said they any thing to any man; for they were afraid.
The Longer Forged Ending Still Considered “Inspired” By Most Churches Yet Today
Mark 16:9 Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. 16:10 And she went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept. 16:11 And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not. 16:12 After that he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country. 16:13 And they went and told it unto the residue: neither believed they them. 16:14 Afterward he appeared unto the eleven [8] as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen. 16:15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. 16:17 And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; 16:18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. 16:19 So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. 16:20 And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.
The Shorter Forged Ending No Longer Believed Inspired By Anyone
And all that they had been commanded they told briefly to those around Peter. Afterward, Jesus himself appeared to them, and from east to west sent through them the sacred and imperishable Proclamation of everlasting salvation. [9]
The Freer Logion Known Only From A Single Greek Manuscript And A Latin Translation By Jerome
They replied, saying, “This age of lawlessness and unbelief is under [or from] Satan, who by means of unclean spirits does not allow the true power of God to be taken hold of. Therefore, show your righteousness now.” They were speaking to Christ, and Christ replied to them, “The extent of the years of the authority of Satan has been fulfilled, but other terrible things approach, even for the sinners for whom I was delivered up to death, that they might turn to the truth and sin no more, in order that they may inherit the spiritual and imperishable glory of righteousness which is in heaven.” [10]
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Notes:
[1] Referring to Duane T. Gish, the superstar creationist debater from the Institute for Creation Research, in Santee, California.
[2] KJV: the King James Version of the Bible, a translation published in 1611. This had been the favorite “inspired version” of Christian fundamentalists until their recent discovery that King James was gay.
[3] Quotation marks are placed around the names of the alleged evangelists because in truth no one knows who wrote any of the books of the New Testament. Almost all of the books are composite works resulting from the activity of several or more authors and editors. The four “canonical gospels” were not attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John until the middle or latter part of the second century CE.)
[4] The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume III. Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian. Reprinted by Wm. B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1980. “Scorpiace” X, p. 643.
[5] The fact that there is no contextual room for the Thou-art-Peter verse raises an interesting question: how could this be considered “absence of evidence”? Does this not make the “argument from silence” compelling? When we find an element in Matthew’s tale that is in conflict with its context and then discover that the source from which Matthew obtained his story is structurally harmonious and lacks the jarring element, is that not a positive confirmation that the element in question is an interpolation? The only stronger evidence we can imagine would be the discovery of an ancient manuscript of Matthew itself in which the passage is missing. Of course, that too, would be an argument from silence - but a very loud one.
In a very fundamental way, the raison d'être of all scriptures is to provide a means for priests to get what they need. Alleged to convey the commands of the gods to the common folk, the scriptures created by the priests are always found to look after the needs of the priests. Thus, the Torah (the first five books of the so-called Old Testament) sees to it that the parasitic priest caste will be well fed and cared for by the worker caste of laymen.
[6] Another forged Trinitarian passage is found among the last five verses added to Matthew: Matt. 28:19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Wheless demonstrates their fraudulence in his Forgery In Christianity, pp. 183-186.
[7] My annotated edition of Paine’s work is available from American Atheist Press. [for more information or to order online, click here.]
[8] Although Mark tells of Judas’ “betrayal,” there is not mention of Judas dying either by suicide or explosion. The tell-tale use of “the eleven” shows the hand of an interpolator familiar with the later tales in Matt. 27:3-10 and Acts 1:16-19.
[9] Translation from C. S. Mann, Mark: A New Translation With Introduction And Commentary, The Anchor Bible, Doubleday & Co., Garden City, 1986, p. 677-678.
[10] Translation from C. S. Mann, Mark: A New Translation With Introduction And Commentary, The Anchor Bible, Doubleday & Co., Garden City, 1986, p. 677-678.
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hen debating creationists, I often like to point out that gaps in the fossil record disprove the biblical creation myths. Since it is a favorite creationist argument against evolution to claim that gaps in the fossil record disprove the idea of one species changing into another over time, using this argument against creationism never fails to get attention. “If all living things were created within five days (as the first creation story in Genesis has it),” I like to point out, “or even all on a single day (as the second version says), then we should find the remains of all modern forms in the oldest rock layers, as well as in all the layers above them. We should be able to find everything from fish to Gish [1] in Precambrian as well as recent rocks. But we don’t. That’s because there were no people when those rocks were formed. Humans are among the latest animal forms to appear on our planet.”
