Crucifixion of Jesus or The Holy Rape of Jessica?

The Christian faith is founded upon these well-known and established bases:

Inheritance of Adam's sin by all mankind.
Crucifixion and the blood-shedding of Jesus because of Adam's sin as an Atonement for humanity.
After examination and investigation of the Christians' Scripture, the reader will notice that it conveys something different from these two bases and reveal a serious secret and a hidden fact. With a little pondering, we will notice that the basis of Christian faith is the statement:

"Adam had committed a sin."

If this statement is established, we will find the next statement:

"Sons of Adam inherited the original sin from their father."

If this second statement is true, we can formulate several statements until we reach the final statement, upon which the Christian creed is founded:

"Jesus was crucified as an Atonement for humans' sin."

It is agreed upon among intelligent people that results follow the reasons that caused them in correctness and error; if the reasons are valid, the results are therefore correct — if the reasons are not, then the results are therefore erroneous. This rule has nothing to do with Islam, Christianity or anything else because it is purely an intellectual rule that is generally agreed upon by all.

If we want to implement this rule on the Christian creed, we should first ask about the correctness of the first statement upon whom the Christianity is based, namely that "Adam has committed a sin." In order to be fair with Christians and in order for our research to gain their acceptance, we will depend in judging this statement on the Bible they use in deriving their beliefs.

Let us begin by posing the following question:

Who committed the original sin, was it Adam or Eve?

The Christians believe the answer to be Adam. However, if we confer the Bible, we will find that this is an erroneous statement and that Adam is innocent. Here are the evidences:

The First Proof:

Genesis, 3:1-6 - "Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden. And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat."

From this text, we learn that Eve was the one who committed the sin and with her Adam and all humanity fell. She committed the sin and was the reason for sinfulness of the entire human race including Adam. Adam is innocent from what they attribute to him for he did not disobey the Command of God.

The Second Proof:

The lesson we learnt from the above text is further fortified by the New Testament in the hands of Christians today:

1 Timothy 2:14 - "And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression."

The Third Proof:

The sacrificed Saviour should be a woman, not a man. So God should incarnate in the form of a woman, not a man, and her name would be Jessica, not Jesus. Since Christians believe that the Atonement must be with the most precious thing the Saviour has, therefore the Lord incarnated in a Woman must therefore sacrifice the most precious thing that a virgin woman possess — her honour….
The sin of Adam was never mentioned by the Messiah in any of the Gospels, this therefore confirms our argument that the Messiah has nothing to do with Adam's sin.

Observations:

All these proofs expose some important facts, which are as follows:

Firstly, evidence reveals that Adam is innocent from guilt and sin for he did not disobey and that he is not responsible for the original sin; Eve is.

Secondly, Christians believe that the original sin which the human race has inherited from the first sinner requires an Atonement.

Therefore, if we conclude from the above arguments that Eve is the originator of the first sin and that Adam is merely a victim of Eve's temptation and not the first sinner, then it is more logical for the Atonement to be in accordance with the following scenario:

The sacrificed Saviour should be a woman, not a man. So God should incarnate in the form of a woman, not a man, and her name would be Jessica, not Jesus, in order for her to make an Atonement for the sin of Eve who was the first to be deceived as proven by the Bible itself.

Since Christians believe that the Atonement must be with the most precious thing the Saviour has, therefore the Lord incarnated in a Woman must therefore sacrifice the most precious thing that a virgin woman possess — her honour. It is well-known that the honour of a pious woman is more precious to her than even her own life. So, the more logical scenario — according to Christian standards –would be for God to allow a group of Jews to forcefully deflower her as an Atonement for Eve's original sin and to hence remove the inherited temptation.

Therefore the forceful blood-shedding of the hymen of a sinless, honourable and pious Lady Jessica would represent the cruel blood-shedding of a crucifixion sacrifice used as an atonement for sin. And the Jewish gang-rape of the Goddess-incarnate, Lady Jessica - instead of the crucifixion of an innocent Jesus - would be the more logical consequence as offered by the Bible itself because of Eve's "original sin" who was the first human being to disobey God. The shame that would be ascribed to her and her followers, not to mention the abuse, suffering and mental agony that she would later undergo because of her forceful deflowering at the hands of a group of Jewish men, would be the most supreme sacrifice for the Atonement of the human race from Eve's sin that could never be removed except with the blood of Lady Jessica's hymen.

Conclusions

The ultimate result of this objective research is that the holy rape of the Goddess-Incarnate Lady Jessica, instead of the violent crucifixion of Jesus, peace be upon him, would be the symbol which Christians should adopt and present before humanity. We do not believe any sane person would believe in this ugly creed based upon the principles held by the Christians themselves.

And the last of our prayers is: Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds.

Jesus' Miracles were not unique in the Bible

Let us look at the following verses from the Bible that refute the uniqueness of Jesus' Miracles:

Bringing the dead back to life:

"Then he cried out to the LORD , "O LORD my God, have you brought tragedy also upon this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?" Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried to the LORD , "O LORD my God, let this boy's life return to him!" The LORD heard Elijah's cry, and the boy's life returned to him, and he lived. Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said, "Look, your son is alive!" (From the NIV Bible, 1 Kings 17:20-23)"

"But the child's mother said, "As surely as the LORD lives and as you live, I will not leave you." So he got up and followed her. Gehazi went on ahead and laid the staff on the boy's face, but there was no sound or response. So Gehazi went back to meet Elisha and told him, "The boy has not awakened." When Elisha reached the house, there was the boy lying dead on his couch. He went in, shut the door on the two of them and prayed to the LORD. Then he got on the bed and lay upon the boy, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands. As he stretched himself out upon him, the boy's body grew warm. Elisha turned away and walked back and forth in the room and then got on the bed and stretched out upon him once more. The boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes. Elisha summoned Gehazi and said, "Call the Shunammite." And he did. When she came, he said, "Take your son." (From the NIV Bible, 2 Kings 4:30-36)"

Jesus' dead body never caused for any dead to come back to life, but Elisha's did:

"Elisha died and was buried. Now Moabite raiders used to enter the country every spring. Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man's body into Elisha's tomb. When the body touched Elisha's bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet. Hazael king of Aram oppressed Israel throughout the reign of Jehoahaz. (From the NIV Bible, 2 Kings 13:20-22)"

Creating life:

Jesus only restored life, but never actually created one from scratch. Moses, however, did create a live snake from a wooden stick:

"Then the LORD said to him, "What is that in your hand?" "A staff," he replied. The LORD said, "Throw it on the ground." Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. Then the LORD said to him, "Reach out your hand and take it by the tail." So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. (From the NIV Bible, Exodus 4:2-4)"

Curing the blind:

"When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. "Oh, my lord, what shall we do?" the servant asked. "Don't be afraid," the prophet answered. "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them." And Elisha prayed, "O LORD , open his eyes so he may see." Then the LORD opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. As the enemy came down toward him, Elisha prayed to the LORD , "Strike these people with blindness." So he struck them with blindness, as Elisha had asked. Elisha told them, "This is not the road and this is not the city. Follow me, and I will lead you to the man you are looking for." And he led them to Samaria. After they entered the city, Elisha said, "LORD , open the eyes of these men so they can see." Then the LORD opened their eyes and they looked, and there they were, inside Samaria. When the king of Israel saw them, he asked Elisha, "Shall I kill them, my father? Shall I kill them?" "Do not kill them," he answered. "Would you kill men you have captured with your own sword or bow? Set food and water before them so that they may eat and drink and then go back to their master." So he prepared a great feast for them, and after they had finished eating and drinking, he sent them away, and they returned to their master. So the bands from Aram stopped raiding Israel's territory. Some time later, Ben-Hadad king of Aram mobilized his entire army and marched up and laid siege to Samaria. (From the NIV Bible, 2 Kings 6:15-24)"

Healing leprosy:

"Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, "Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed." But Naaman went away angry and said, "I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than any of the waters of Israel? Couldn't I wash in them and be cleansed?" So he turned and went off in a rage. Naaman's servants went to him and said, "My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, 'Wash and be cleansed'!" So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy. (From the NIV Bible, 2 Kings 5:10-14)"

Feeding hundreds with few loafs of bread:

"A man came from Baal Shalishah, bringing the man of God twenty loaves of barley bread baked from the first ripe grain, along with some heads of new grain. "Give it to the people to eat," Elisha said. "How can I set this before a hundred men?" his servant asked. But Elisha answered, "Give it to the people to eat. For this is what the LORD says: 'They will eat and have some left over.' " Then he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the LORD. (From the NIV Bible, 2 Kings 4:42-44)"

So as we clearly see from the above verses, Jesus' Miracles were not unique. Therefore, they can never be used to prove that he is the Creator of the Universe.

Is Jesus Responsible for Our sins?

Humans are born without (original sin of man) according to the Bible:

(Deuteronomy 24:16): "The father shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin."

(Jeremiah 31:30), "But every one shall die for own iniquity..."

(Ezekiel 18:20) "The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him."

So Adam and Eve were responsible for their own sins.

Even in the New Testament:

(Matthew 19:14): "But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.

(I Corinthians 3:8)"Now he that planteth and he that waterth are one; and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour"

(Matthew 7:1,2)"Judge not, that ye be not Judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again"

The Truth about Jesus

The Truth about Jesus
Dr. Maneh al-Johani

Points to be considered (Islam vs Christianity) From The Truth about Jesus

After reading this presentation (untyped section before this one) a believing Christian might say 'This is what the Muslims, whom we always considered as heathens or infidels, say about Jesus'. But the point of view which the Qur'aan presents deserves serious consideration, to say the least, by those who are really concerned about God, faith and even Christianity itself for the following reasons:

1. The Qur'aan is the last version of God's revelation and what it says is the ultimate truth. This might not mean much for those who do not believe in the Qur'aan as such. However, the history of the Qur'aan, modern textual criticism and scientific research of the content of this scripture leave no doubt about the truth it contains. The frequently made statements that the Qur'aan is the word of Muhammad who copied his information from Jewish and Christian sources is made by people who do not know the history of the world, the Qur'aan or Muhammad. The first Arabic translation of the Bible appeared two centuries AFTER Muhammad's mission. If we add to this Muhammad's illiteracy and the scarcity of religious books in any language outside churches and temples in the sixth century we can understand the absurdity of these allegations.

2. The oneness and universality of God's message requires that people accept all the messengers of God. Rejecting one of them amounts to rejecting them all. The Jews reject Jesus' mission and Muhammad's mission; the Christian reject Muhammad's mission; whereas the Muslims accept them all, but reject incorrect historical interpretations and human elements in these missions.

3. Because of the Qur'aan, Muslims love and respect Jesus as they love and respect the Prophet Muhammad. Moreover, the Qur'aan reports some of Jesus' miracles which are not reported in the present gospel. For example, the Qur'aan tells us that Jesus spoke in the cradle and was able to tell people what they ate or treasured in their houses, to mention a few.

4. It is common knowledge that the divinity of Jesus was introduced by Saint Paul and his followers and was established on the dead bodies of millions of Christians through history which evoked the Castillo's well known remark, 'To burn a man is not to prove a doctrine'.

5. The choice of the present four gospels was imposed in the conference of Nicea 325 CE under the auspices of the pagan Emperor Constantine for political purposes. Literally hundreds of gospels and religious writings were considered apocrypha i.e. books of doubtful authenticity. Some of those books were written by Jesus' disciples. If they were not more authentic than the four gospels they were of equal authenticity. Some of them still are available such as the GOSPEL OF BARNABAS and the SHEPHERD OF HERMAS which agree with the Qur'aan.

6. The Unitarian concept and the humanness of Jesus is not only held by Muslims but also by Jews and by some early groups of Christianity such as the EBIONITES, the CERINTHIANS, the BASILIDIANS, the CAPOCRATIANS and the HYPISISTARIANS to name several early sects. The Arians, Paulicians and Goths also accepted Jesus as a Prophet of God. Even in the modern age there are churches in Asia, in Africa, the Unitarian church, and Jehovah Witnesses who do not worship Jesus as God.

7. Most serious studies of the Bible have shown that it contains a large portion of additions which neither Jesus nor the writers of the gospels said. The church, as Heinz Zahrnt said, 'PUT WORDS INTO THE MOUTH OF JESUS WHICH HE NEVER SPOKE AND ATTRIBUTED ACTIONS TO HIM WHICH HE NEVER PERFORMED'. Those conclusions were arrived at by some members of the church. However, they are kept secret or available only to the specialists. One of those who has shown that most of what the church says about Jesus is Rudolf Augestein in his book JESUS SON OF MAN (published in Germany in 1972 and translated into English in 1977).

8. The problem with present Christianity is the personality of Jesus which is completely misunderstood. Jesus's nature, mission and claimed death are resurrection, are all challenged by studies in the field. One of those is a book entitles, THE MYTH OF GOD INCARNATE which appeared in 1977 (edited by John Hick) and written by seven theologian scholars in England. Their conclusion is that Jesus was 'A MAN APPROVED BY GOD, FOR SPECIAL ROLE WITHIN THE DIVINE PURPOSE, AND. THE LATER CONCEPTION OF HIM AS GOD INCARNATE IS A MYTHOLOGICAL OR POETIC WAY OF EXPRESSING HIS SIGNIFICANCE FOR US'. The best George Carey could say in his attempt to refute the findings of those theologian is that unless one takes Jesus as God incarnate one wont be able to understand Jesus's mission or explain its impact on people. This definitely is a very weak argument because all great Prophets such as Abraham, Moses and Muhammad have had tremendous impact on people and none of them claimed that he was God or a son of God.

9. The concept of the Trinity is not, of course, available even in the present Bible. There are statements which negate it such as 'The Lord our God is one Lord (Matthew 12:29) and many others

10. It is worth noting that Jesus never claims divinity even in the present text of the Bible. The expression 'SON OF GOD' cannot be said to have come from Jesus himself. Hasting in the DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE says, 'WHETHER Jesus USED IT OF HIMSELF IS DOUBTFUL'. In my reading of the Bible, I found only two instances in John Chapter5 and 11 where Jesus uses 'son of God' to refer to himself. Other instances were used by others. Even those are very limited. However, even if the title 'son of God' was used by Jesus himself one should remember the following points:

(A) As a biblical scholar said, 'Semitic language would never have been allowed literal sense even though such an expression would be interpreted literally in the Hellenistic word of Jesus followers'

(B) The New Testament Greek words used for 'SON' are PIAS and PAIDA, which means 'servant' or 'son in the sense of servant', are translated as 'son' in reference to Jesus and 'servant' in reference to others in some translations of the Bible (Mufassir, p15)

© The title 'son of man' which is a self designation of Jesus and occurs 81 times in the gospels is the clearest description and emphasis by Jesus on his humanity. The classical interpretation given to this title is that it is used to emphasize the human side of Jesus. Now the question which suggests itself is: Do contemporary Christians emphasize this aspect of Jesus?

THE POPE CONTRADICTS THE BIBLE

The traditional Biblical account of Jesus' crucifixion is that he was arrested and crucified by the orders and plans of the chief priest and Jewish elders. This account was denied in the 1960's by the highest Catholic Christian authority, the Pope. He issued a statement in which he said the Jews had nothing to do with Jesus' crucifixion. This definitely does contradict the Biblical account. You might say: This is a political decree. This agrees with what Muslims are saying: the church had introduced many elements into Christianity and was influences by many factors which made its view of Christianity not only changeable but, by and large, contradict the early forms of Christianity.

EVIDENCES FOR THE QUR'AANIC ACCOUNT

This implicit assumption is one of the causes of hesitation and unwillingness of many people to accept the Qur'aanic view of Jesus. This is in spite of the fact that this point of view is supported by:

(A) The early history of Christianity which continued for three decades after Jesus's disappearance as a sect within Judaism.

(B) The practise of many Christian sects and scholars throughout the history of Christianity

© The findings of many Biblical scholars and scientific research which was applied to the Bible

(D) The instinct of many people (some of whom think they are Christians) who believe in the One God, but can't accept Jesus as God or the Son of God.

It is worth nothing that the main differences between the Qur'aanic account and what modern research and scholars have found is that the Qur'aan said what it says now about Jesus and his mission fourteen centuries ago and never changed its stand.

REASONS HOLDING PEOPLE FROM ISLAM

Some of the reasons which might account for the rejection of the Qur'aan is account include:

(A) The time honoured bias against Islam which was partly the product of the Crusades and partly of the Arab Israeli conflict in the Middle East

(B) Confusion. Man people although they do not accept Christianity, do not know where the truth is

© Social pressure and Academic reputation. Many people were afraid to accept Islam because they felt they would be mocked, alienated from their relatives and peers if they openly criticised Christianity and accepted Islam. At the academic level, especially among orientalists, if one writes favourably about Islam and the Qur'aan nobody will review his work, quote from it or even consider it a scholarly work. He would have been destroyed professionally. The Washington Post (January 5th 1978) reported that university of Richmond Professor, Dr Robert Alley lost the chairmanship of the Department of Religion there because he holds the view that Jesus never claimed to be the Son of God. After considerable research into newly found ancient documents, Dr Alley concluded:

"The (Bible) passages where Jesus talks about the son of God are later additions...what the church said about him. Such a claim of deity for himself would not have been consistent with his entire lifestyle as we can reconstruct. For the first three decades after Jesus' death Christianity continued as a sect within Judaism. The first three decades of its existence of the church were within the synagogue. That would have been beyond belief if they (the followers) had boldly proclaimed the deity of Jesus"

THE BIBLE THROUGH TIME

The Text of the Old Testament

There are a number of places where the original text is uncertain and the editor or translator simply has to be guided by what is most likely. (my emphasis)
In principle, however, the Hebrew text carries most weight than the Greek, since the Greek editors took a good many liberties in translation. (my emphasis)

The Formation of the Old Testament
The history of how the 'canon' (collection of acknowledged books) of the Old Testament came to be formed is also difficult to establish because of lack of information. But there is enough to show what the Old Testament contained during the period immediately before the Christian era. And this goes a long way towards establishing what Jesus and the apostles would have regarded as Scriptures. (my emphasis)

The Text of the New Testament
When we turn to the New Testament text we are confronted with such a mass of evidence that the problem is to find some basic principle of editing. We possess thousands of manuscripts: a striking contrast to the very few extant manuscripts of classical Greek authors. Not only are there thousands of Greek manuscripts; there are also a great many manuscripts of translations into Latin, Syriac, Egyptian and other languages. We also have New Testament quotations in the writings of the early church fathers. But this evidence must be used with caution, since they are not all noted for their accuracy.* (my emphasis)

The Writing of the Bible
The authorship of the Old Testament books is traditionally attributed to great leaders of the Jewish past, among them Moses, Samuel, David, Solomon and various Prophets. However, modern scholarship has concluded that many of the books are late compilations of early traditions and writing. (my emphasis)

The books of the New Testament were written during the century after Jesus' death. They were probably written in Greek, although it is possible that one or two books were first written in Aramaic and later translated into Greek. They are traditionally considered to have been written by the apostles and disciples of Jesus. Certain scholars, however, have questioned the apostolic authorship of several. (my emphasis)

All original manuscripts of the Old Testament are at present lost. We possess only late copies in Hebrew or in various ancient versions. The Hebrew texts are the product of generations of scribes and are sometimes quite altered and corrupted. (my emphasis)

The twenty-seven (27) books of the New Testament are a selection from a much larger body of early Christian writings. They represent the attempt of the Christian Church to settle on the writings that most fully present the Christian message: the fulfillment and renewal of God's promises in the person of Jesus Christ. (my emphasis)

The Council of Trent (1545-1563). This council of the Roman Catholic Church defined the biblical canon, affirming the inclusion of the biblical books that the Prostestants call the Apocrypha and asserted the equal importance of the Bible and tradition. (my emphasis)**

* Eerdman's Handbook to the Bible. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1977.
** Collier's Encyclopedia. Volume 4, MacMillan Educational Corporation, New York. P.F. Collier, Inc. London & New York, 1976.

THE BIBLE: VERSIONS AND TRANSLATIONS AND DATES

Translations:

Aramic (original spoken language of Jesus)
Hebrew/ Greek (written)
Latin-Vulgate (Translated by Jerome, 400 A.D.)

Versions:
1384 Wycliff
1526 Tyndale
1535 Coverdale
1537 Matthew
1539 Great Bible
1568 Geneva Bible
1568 Bishop's Bible
1582 Rheims, New Testament
1609 Douai, Old Testament
1611 Authorized / King James Version
1903 R.T. Weymouth, The New Testament in Modern Speech
1913 James Moffatt, A New Translation of the Bible
1917 The Holy Scripture
1927 E.T. Goodspeed, The Complete Bible: An American Translation
1944 Ronald Knox, The Holy Bible
1946 The Revised Standard Version (The Common Bible)
1950 The New World Testament
1955 H.J. Schonfield, The Authentic New Testament
1958 J.B. Phillips, New Testament in Modern English
1958 The Amplified Bible
1959 The Holy Bible: The Berkely Version in Modern English
1961 The New English Bible
1966 The Jerusalem Bible
1966 Today's English Version
1970 New American Bible
1971 New American Standard Bible
1971 Kenneth Taylor, The Living Bible
1973 New International Version

Biblical Criticism

The word "criticism" is often taken by the public to imply negative judgment. Hence "biblical criticism" is often taken to mean negative judgment against the Bible. Yet it is not necessary to gather this meaning from the use of the word "criticism." When the various types of biblical criticism are considered carefully it becomes clear that biblical criticism helps us to arrive at a clearer understanding of the meaning and relevance of the Bible.

Scholars use the word "criticism" in a slightly different sense than that which is implied in common use. By this word scholars do not mean negative judgment but simply judgment or discernment. The task of the biblical critic, then, is not to find fault with the Bible but to understand it more fully. We will now examine how the various types of biblical criticism adds to our knowledge of the Bible.

The Penguin Dictionary of Religions lists eight types of biblical criticism.1 Each type helps us to appreciate the true worth of the Bible. The first mentioned type is textual criticism. The purpose of this endeavor is to determine as much as possible what text left the pens of the inspired authors. Over time scribal errors are bound to result from even the best human attempts to produce hand-written copies of the Bible over the centuries. Today we have thousands of manuscripts of both the Old and New Testaments from which to reconstruct what must reasonably have been the ancestor from which these texts descended. Since the desire of every Bible believer is presumably to hold on to the one text which God condescended to reveal to us, it is difficult to see why textual criticism should not prove to be of positive benefit.

The second type is source criticism. We understand that the inspired authors were inescapably products of their environments. There exists no reason for excluding the possibility that in composing their works they drew upon existing sources and documents. The author of the third Gospel explicitly makes known in his introduction that he did so exactly draw upon other works (Luke 1:1-4). This type of criticism helps us to understand our existing documents by isolating within them as far as possible the traces remaining of the sources from which they drew. Thus we are better able to understand Genesis, for example, when we come to realize that the book was composed from three main sources. Otherwise much of Genesis would be puzzling if not incomprehensible. The sources are combined in such a fashion that our resulting document which appears in the form of a continuous narrative is actually riddled with repetitions which on occasion contradict each other. Hence the creation of the heavens and the earth is described twice in Genesis chapters 1 and 2. Whereas in chapter 1 we learnt that the man was the last item of God’s creating, we learn from chapter 2 that animals were created after the man. Without the help of source criticism here we would be at a loss to understand how a single sane author could have written such a book. Now we can appreciate that our present Genesis is a result of careful scholarly work that went into combining, retaining, and editing existing documents.

A third type, form criticism, helps us to detect the way in which the material developed over time through oral transmission until final inclusion in our present documents. Since it is clear that many of our documents were written long after the events they describe, it is reasonable to assert that the oral material must have been somewhat fluid. Gospel material, therefore, would have been given shape by the situations that the early church experienced. Thus when the early church preached the message about Jesus the teaching about him took on various shapes. Conflict stories, for example, developed to explain why the early church is now in conflict with Jewish leaders. The explanation is cast in the form of a conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees. Hence we find that a conflict should mean more for the situation of the early church than for an understanding of Jesus’ life - situation is represented in Mark 7 as already having occurred during Jesus’ ministry. Jesus is said to have there already declared all foods clean, whereas we know from Acts and Paul that the question of clean versus unclean foods was an unanswered question for the early church.

The positive contribution of this type of criticism is that it helps us to retrace the development of the material about Jesus over time. Often we can understand more about a finished work if we can see the process by which it reaches completion. We do not have this advantage with the books of the Bible, since all we have here are the finished documents. Form criticism helps us to retrace what must have been stages of development along the way.

A type of criticism not unrelated to form criticism is tradition criticism. Whereas form criticism provides insight into how teaching material were cast into more or less fixed forms, tradition criticism helps us to understand how the initial stories acquired later changes. Such changes would reflect again the needs of the Christian community arising at a time later than that which gave shape to the initial teaching. To illustrate tradition criticism at work, consider the story of Jesus’ baptism as narrated in the four Gospels. We notice a progressive tendency among the later Gospels to minimize the implications of the fact that John the Baptist baptized Jesus. Mark had simply mentioned the brute fact without caring for the implication that the baptizer had an advantage over Jesus (Mark 1:9-11). Luke, writing later, minimizes mention of the baptizer by using the passive form of the verb to say that Jesus was baptized (Luke 3:21). Matthew has the baptizer declaring Jesus’ superiority (Matthew 3:14). John, writing last, has the baptizer at once raising the banner of Jesus and lowering his own. Jesus becomes greater, the baptizer becomes lesser (John 3:30). This explains why John never clearly asserts that Jesus was baptized. We see that as we go from Mark to John the story of the baptism is reshaped to suit the later needs of the community. Christians may have found the implications of the baptism of Jesus to be at tension with the later claims about Jesus’ divinity. The way to avoid such tension was to modify the tradition. We get a better understanding of what the authors of the Gospels are saying from this insight into the growing tradition. It helps us to see the various stages of early Christian apologetics at work.

Historical criticism is the fifth type to consider here. This area of study raises questions having to do with authorship, date, and place of composition of the documents. Most of the Bible would have little meaning for us unless we knew who wrote what when and where. Often we do not have all of this information, but knowing what information we lack also helps us better than if we had not raised the questions in the first place. Knowing, for example, that Hebrews was not written by Paul now leaves us powerless to determine who wrote it. Yet the knowledge that Paul was not the author reduces our chances of misunderstanding Paul and his message which is to be found in his own letters. We can also understand Hebrews better knowing now that we would be unwise to force-fit its theology into a framework of Pauline teachings.

We turn now to another area: redaction criticism. Having considered already how the tradition originated and developed, we can take our study further to consider how each writer used the tradition to meet his own editorial policy. We can see, for example, that although Matthew and Luke both culled sayings of Jesus from a hypothetical Q Gospel, Matthew alone arranged many of those sayings to form a lengthy speech delivered by Jesus while seated on a mountain (Matthew 5-7). Matthew, it would seem, thought it useful to represent Jesus as the new Moses delivering a new law from a mountain. Matthew has also arranged his Gospel into five sections as if to represent by these something new to match the five books of Moses. We understand better what Matthew is trying to say when we recognise his editorial policy, or, to put it another way, how he redacted the material to form his own Gospel.

Canonical criticism is the seventh type mentioned in the Penguin Dictionary of Religions. This type has to do with the question of which documents deserve to be included or not in the canon of scripture. This obviously is not a new discipline since the canon is already fixed. Rather, scholars early in Christian history had already recognised the value of at least this type of criticism. The fact of the canon has served, however, to obscure the diversity among the various included documents. Refreshing this discipline may not lead us to revise the canon. But it would give us a chance to evaluate the message of each document understood in its own right. Unless the writers had penned their documents intending them for inclusion within a larger work, the writers could hardly have intended their messages to be understood in the light of someone else’s. Canonical criticism can help us to avoid confusion between what is the message of each individual document and what is the message of the canon taken as a whole.

The last type to consider here is literary criticism. The purpose of this area of study is to uncover what must have been in the mind of the author as he wrote. This type obviously includes all the areas of study already discussed. What is worth mentioning here is the particular attitude adopted in critical studies. The Bible considered as literature is seen to bear the characteristics of other literature. It is thought, then that a careful student should bring to bear all the tools of literary criticism upon the Bible also. The purpose of this endeavor, again, is not to "criticize" the Bible in the negative sense usually understood by the word among laity. The purpose is to understand more fully what the Bible is saying to us.

Now having stressed so much of the benefits of criticism, a word needs to be said about is negative effects. This caution is directly implied from the already mentioned purpose of trying to discover what was in the mind of this or that author at the time of composition. How is this to be known for certain? The various critical methods are hardly scientific. On almost every question scholarly judgment is sharply divided. This alone points to the degree of subjectivity involved in the process. This of course is not to discourage the process. The caution to be expressed, however, is one that should serve to limit the degree of assurance that accompany this or that pronouncement of scholarly judgment. At the end of the day the scholar must feel humbled by the task at hand. A negative effect of this type of study, then, is one which Paul already expressed in the following words: Knowledge puffs up (1 Corinthians 8:1).

Leaving aside this possibility, however, we have seen that biblical criticism cannot simply be brushed aside by serious students who seek a better understanding of the Bible. The various methods of study already described above all serve the purpose of discovering what the inspired authors of the Bible were saying. To understand the relevance of the Bible for today we need to first determine what relevance it had back then when various parts of it originated, developed, and were eventually written down. As the New American Bible puts it, the Bible is both God’s word and man’s. To understand God’s messages in the Bible we have to first understand the words of the men who wrote them.2

Notes

1- John R. Hinnells, The Penguin Dictionary of Religions (US: Penguin 1995) pp 72-73.
2- The New American Bible, St. Joseph Medium Size Edition (US: Catholic Book Publishing, 1985) p. [19]

Two Different Creation stories

A close examination of Genesis chapters 1 and will show that there are in fact two different Creation myths recorded. The first, which begins at Genesis 1:1 and ends at Genesis 2:3, has Creation partitioned into six days, with various classes of beings and objects created on each day. The second story, which begins at Genesis 2:4, does not mention the six days at all, and seems to reverse the order of creation for some species.

In Genesis 1, Man and Woman are created together on the sixth day (1:26-27), following the creation of the animals. In the second story, however, a single man, Adam, is created after the plants and placed in the Garden to dress it. (2:4-8). However, the man was lonely. In order to provide companions for him, the animals are created and brought to Adam (2:18-19). After naming all the animals, a companion is still not found for Adam, so God creates a woman (Eve) out of one of Adam's ribs (2:20-23).

The order of creation, according to Genesis 1, is therefore plants (1:12), Sun, Moon and stars (1:16), sea and air creatures (1:21), land animals (1:25) and humans (1:27). In Genesis 2, the order of creation is plants (2:5), the man Adam (2:7), animals (2:19) and finally the female Eve (2:22).

Another feature that distinguishes the two stories may provide a clue to their origin. In the first story, the Deity is always called by the Hebrew Elohim (usually translated God), while the second story uses the name Yahweh Elohim (translated Lord God in the King James Version). It appears that the first story was written by someone who used only the generic term for God, while the second was written by someone who used God's personal name (Yahweh). This feature is actually repeated a number of times in the Old Testament.