ANOINTED UNTRUTHS WHEN JESUS LIES ABOUT HIS MAIN CLAIM THAT HE WAS MESSIAH

 
The gospels say that Jesus ministered for a long time without going public on his doctrine that he was the Messiah or Christ. When Peter told him that he believed him to be the Christ the Son of God in front of other apostles, Jesus swore them all to secrecy (Mark 8:27-30).

Jesus denied that the Messiah would be the son of David for David called him Lord (Mark 12:35-37). Christians say he only rejected the notion that the Messiah would be only the son of David - he would also be David's Lord. But in fact the Jews did believe Messiah would be both son of David and ruler of David. David lived before the Messiah but in his poetry he calls him Lord. It is just his way of saying Messiah will be better than he. The text says the Messiah will be Lord. If Jesus is talking about the Messiah, then he denies the Jewish requirement that the Messiah must descend from David. Jesus was not the Messiah nor did he claim to be and he did not understand Messiah correctly. The gospel of Matthew and the gospel of Luke try to trace Jesus' descent from David and so contradict Jesus himself!

About the time Jesus was allegedly born, the Messiah claimant Athronges was brutally slain by the Romans in Israel simply for claiming to be king. Like Jesus he had a menial job. He posed no bloodline threat. There was no evidence of Royal blood in him. He claimed it seems to be more of a religious Messiah than anything else.

Pilate nailed a Samaritan to a cross for making Messiah claims with no political content.

To claim to be the Messiah was a sure and rapid way to get killed. Tiberias had commanded that if anybody did that they were to be killed on the spot (page 59, The Resurrection Factor). The Romans had control over the Holy Land and anyone who tried to threaten that power and who willingly or unwillingly disturbed the ultra-fragile peace was put to death. The Messiah means anointed one or king. It is a political title and Jesus had no need for it. If he claimed to be the Messiah he would have been killed. And also, the Romans would have killed him if he hadn’t in case he was hiding his claim to be the Messiah. They would have laughed at him if he really said he was not a political king (John 18:36) for he still had no need to claim to be the Messiah.

Jesus by claiming to herald the kingdom of God and admitting to keeping secrets about it would have been hewn down for it by the Roman authorities in the spot. Secrets about the kingdom of God in a culture that seen it about political governance with theocratic overtones was going to attract immediate attention.

John the Baptist, Jesus’ precursor, did no miracles but merely preached a horrifying message of divine wrath and the more benign baptism of repentance and yet he was suspected by all of the people who had some contact with him of being the Messiah (Luke 3:15). Imagine what they would have thought of Jesus who was a more likely candidate in every way! They would have been proclaiming him the Messiah with utter certainty whether he welcomed it or not. The Gospels say they actually did that (John 7:41,42).

It would have been natural for Jesus who was, according to the gospellers, such an extremely good mixer to have been bombarded day by day with the question, “Are you the Messiah?” He could deny it, affirm it or say nothing. But silence would give consent so he must have said he wasn’t. The term Messiah denotes a warlike king who will save Israel from its enemies – most Jews believed that he would be an ordinary warrior king while a handful thought that he would come on the clouds of Heaven to fight (page 17, Christ and Violence). The seemingly peaceable biblical Jesus did not need to be the Messiah or to be called the Messiah. God should not have forced him to lie for nothing by making him the Christ and then sending him into an age in which he needed to do what he could to cover it up.

Jesus could have claimed to be God’s Son without bringing any messianic claims into it. The Messiah didn’t have to be holy or the Son of God. If good he wouldn’t have believed himself to be or claimed to be the Messiah for that would only lead to lying. His lying apostles may have turned him into one when he wasn’t around to speak for himself. Or maybe it was Jesus who was doing the lying and introduced them to doing it for him.

If Jesus could be the Messiah or think he was and go around for three years, then he did a good job of hiding anything that seemed to suggest that he thought himself to be the Messiah. He must have been a good liar, or an obscure prophet or myth. But whatever Jesus was historically, it is of great importance to us that the biblical Jesus is presented as a Jesus who had to have lied about not being God’s anointed king.

Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey to fulfil an ancient prophecy that told Jerusalem that its king would do this. This would have shown people that he was after political power for the prophecy would not have said Jerusalem would get its king if it meant a spiritual king ruling a non-political kingdom. Jesus planned the entry not caring about the fact that Rome would fear a rebellion and slaughter the people. It looked like a takeover bid!

There is no hint of Jesus meaning a spiritual non-political king by Messiah until near his death in John 18:36 when he said that his kingdom was not one of this world. (But even then it could be a spiritual kingdom that needs political power and clout.) Therefore, nobody can say the Romans ignored him because he was a spiritual kind of king. If he had claimed to be the Messiah he would have been questioned long before that. He would not have been secretive if it was okay to claim to be a king of souls. A spiritual king commands authority over people’s consciences and so is far more of a threat than a political one and spiritual and political cannot be separated. The Bible says Jesus taught with authority and not like the scribes and the Pharisees. In other words, they reasoned from the Law what people are to do and told them why. Jesus gave no whys or hows but just told them what to do. This is a sanction for the authoritarianism that has riddled Christianity from the start.
 
The historical Pilate was more a monster than a man but the gospels say he was anxious to get out of being forced by the Jews to execute Jesus Christ because he thought that Jesus was innocent. He would have killed Jesus without a second thought and the gospel is whitewashing him. Jesus might have made him behave out of character but that is unlikely. The mystery is not why Pilate wanted to save Jesus but why he didn't have him at least brought in for questioning long before. However, we know from Pilate's character and Roman law, Jesus would have been cut down early in his ministry as a suspected Messiah or claimant to the throne.
 
The gospels claim that Jesus claimed to be political king or Messiah and also spiritual king. In other words, his claim to be Messiah was more dangerous than that made by any other claimant. None of them claimed to be a spiritual authority as well as a political one. Rome knew the Jewish religion as a religion justified violence under certain circumstances and that the scriptures endorsed violence. The reality is that Jesus' own Bible was the Old Testament and there is nothing in the Old Testament about loving enemies and non-violence - instead it demands that God's enemies such as fortune-tellers be put to death and commands genocide of pagans. Jesus claimed to be a prophet Messiah - he would have been seen as another in the long line of blooddrinking prophets.
 
If Jesus claimed to be a spiritual king as the gospel of John says, he thus claimed to have more right to obedience than Caesar or Pilate so Pilate would have lost everything mainly his head for standing between Jesus and Jesus’ death. Caesar commanded by law that his rivals must be slain and if before they had a chance to cause trouble all the better. Jesus called himself the Messiah which meant a political king. If Pilate was willing to die for Jesus then he would have made it look like he had Jesus killed. The Gospels were lying when they said that Pilate publicly admitted he wanted to let Jesus go for he would have kept that to himself.
 
In reality, Jesus never claimed to be Messiah and that was a lie put out after he allegedly died. Whether he claimed to be Messiah or not he was still a liar.
 
A Jesus who tells lies about his place with God cannot be trusted at all. He would just as easily try to convince the gullible that he was the Son of God or even, perish the thought, God himself.

The gospel of Mark and Matthew presents Jesus as being secretive about miracles and his claim to be the Christ or Messiah. It is entirely possible that the early Church for some reason thought that he secretly rose from the dead too.
 
CONCLUSION
 
Christians offer us a Jesus who is untrustworthy to be our God. It is a religion of deceit. The deceit must stop.
 
BOOKS CONSULTED
 
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Veritas. Dublin, 1995
Christ and Violence, Ronald J Sider, Herald Press, Scottdale, Ontario, 1979
Miracles in Dispute, Ernst and Marie-Luise Keller, SCM Press Ltd, London, 1969
Moral Philosophy, Joseph Rickaby SJ, Stoneyhurst Philosophy Series, Longmans, Green and Co, London, 1912
Objections to Christian Belief, DM Mackinnon, HA Williams, AR Vidler and JS Bezzant, Constable, London, 1963
Putting Away Childish Things, Uta Ranke-Heinemann, HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1994
Reason and Belief, Bland Blanschard, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, London, 1974
Robert Schuller, Satellite Saint or High Flying Heretic, Cecil Andrews, Take Heed Publications, Belfast
The Hard Sayings of Jesus, FF Bruce Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1983
The Resurrection Factor, Josh McDowell, Alpha Scripture Press Foundation, Bucks, 1993
The Truth of Christianity, WH Turton, Wells Gardner, Darton & Co Ltd, London, 1905
Why I am Not a Christian, Bertrand Russell, Touchstone Books, Simon and Schuster, New York, undated
 
WEB

Final Response by Steven Carr to Dr Wilkinson
www.bowness.demon.co.uk/wilkin6.htm

Science in the Bible? Dr M Magee
www.askwhy.co.uk/truth/440BibleScience.html

Why It’s a Load of Old Cobblers, Adrian Barnett
www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/atheism/noahs_ark.html
Exposes the utter absurdity of the Noah’s Ark story in the Bible

Steven Carr, Critique of Josh McDowells Non_Messianic Prophecies This Site cannot be overly recommended. It is superb.
www.infidels.org/library/modern/steven_carr/non-messianic.html

New Testament Contradictions, Paul Carlson
www.infidels.org/library/modern/paul_carlson/nt_contradictions.html

Rabbits do not chew their cud, Alleged Bible Contradictions
http://unhindered.com/apolo/contradictions/index.html

The Bible as History Flunks New Archaeological Tests
www.10.nytimes.com/library/arts/072900david-bible.html

Biblical Errancy by Dennis McKinsey
http://members.aol.com/ckbloomfld/bepart31.html
This is one of McKinsey’s online magazines. The magazine is excellent for it gives the fundies the chance to respond and carefully exposes their twisted reasoning.