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

Chapter 469: 455

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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.

455

What effect had the Holy Ghost upon them?

Acts: They “began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (ii, 4).

Concerning this “gift” Greg says: “Ignorance and folly too often became the arbiters of wisdom—and the ravings of delirium were listened to as the words of inspiration, and of God. If Jesus could have returned to earth thirty years after his death, and sat in the midst of an assembly of his followers, who were listening in hushed and wondering prostration of mind to a speaker in the ‘unknown tongue,’ how would he have wept over the humiliating and disappointing spectacle! how would he have grieved to think that the incoherent jargon of delirium or hysteria should be mistaken for the promptings of his Father’s spirit!” (Creed of Christendom, p. 250.)