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

Chapter 495: 480

Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

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.

480

What did Jesus’ neighbors say regarding his paternity?

Matthew: They said, “Is not this the carpenter’s [Joseph’s] son?” (xiii, 55.)

Luke: “They said, Is not this Joseph’s son?” (iv, 22.)

John: “They said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph?” (vi, 42.)

The Rev. Dr. Crapsey, of the Episcopal church, in his work on “Religion and Politics” (p. 289), makes this significant admission regarding the divine origin of Jesus: “The fact of his miraculous birth was unknown to himself, unknown to his mother, and unknown to the whole Christian community of the first generations.”

Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Adams, wrote: “The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter” (Jefferson Works, vol. iv, p. 365, Randolph’s ed.).