The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidences of His Existence

Chapter 381: 368

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About This Book

A skeptical, systematic critique argues that the Christ of the New Testament is a constructed myth rather than a reliably attested historical person. It assesses the silence of contemporary writers, the anonymous and late character of the gospels, and the contradictions within infancy narratives, ministry accounts, crucifixion, and resurrection reports. The author evaluates the moral portrait and teachings attributed to the figure and traces parallels with older pagan religions and divinities as possible sources of the myth. The conclusion asserts that supernatural claims lack sufficient historical support and that veneration rests on literary and theological fabrication rather than firm documentary evidence.

368

Was Christ’s suffering foretold by the prophets?

Peter: “But those things, which God before had showed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled” (Acts iii, 18).

God had not showed by the mouth of all his prophets, nor by the mouth of even one of his prophets, that Christ should suffer. The prophets know nothing of a suffering Messiah. There is not a text in the Old Testament referring to such a Messiah. The passages relating to suffering cited by the Evangelists and applied to Christ have no reference whatever to a Messiah. The Encyclopedia Britannica says: “That the Jews in the time of Christ believed in a suffering and atoning Messiah is, to say the least, unproved and highly improbable.”