Lies in Jesus’ Passion Story

FOREWORD

The passion stories in the four gospels are the stories about Jesus’ sufferings and his death by crucifixion. These tales are universally assumed to contain the oldest strata of information about Jesus. But the fact of the matter is that though they are assumed to be the most trustworthy parts of the gospels they are in fact full of legend and impossibility. 
 
WHAT THE GOSPELS SAY
 
According to the gospels, Jesus was betrayed by his disciple Judas Iscariot. He took the Jewish police to a garden where he knew Jesus was with his disciples. There he betrayed Jesus with a kiss and Jesus was arrested and tried before Annas and Caiaphas who were Jewish leaders. False witnesses appeared to try and help the jury find Jesus guilty of blasphemy so that he could be put to death but they made idiots of themselves. He was tried before King Herod and finally Pontius Pilate the Roman Procurator who reluctantly sentenced Jesus to death by crucifixion as the Jews clamoured for him to do so. The gospels made up a crazy story about a custom that allowed the people to choose a murderer, Barabbas, to be released instead of Jesus and at Passover time too the holiest time of the year for Jews! The vast majority of scholars and thinkers and rational people see the story is full of practical and legal contradictions and absurdities. The Historical Evidence for Jesus, G A Wells, Prometheus Books, New York, 1988 page 174 mentions how Rome giving the Church religious freedom in the fifties AD indicates that the gospels are lying that Jesus was crucified due to Roman and or Jewish hostility to him. It is reasonable to assume that because the Romans found no evidence that this Messiah or king was a real man but only a vision that they tolerated the faith. The followers of men who were proclaimed Messiah or lawful king of Israel were not tolerated.  

 

THE SIGN

 

Matthew 27:24 maintains when that Pilate put a sign on the cross of Jesus saying, “The King of the Jews”. All he had to do was write, “This man said, ‘I am the King of the Jews’”. The Jews asked him to write that. And yet he wouldn’t do it. Now, would Pilate kill Jesus to pacify the Jews as the gospels say when he did a thing like that? He was provoking the Jews and asking them to riot. It would be worse than the Police Force of Northern Ireland putting up a Union Jack in a Catholic area during the Twelfth of July. Yet the gospels say that he had Jesus crucified to keep the peace and even released Barabbas, a killer who was beloved to the Jews, in the process. For Pilate to call Jesus a king was to insult the Emperor. It was so unnecessary. Of course, there was no sign because there was no cross to put it on because the Lord Jesus was as unreal as a character in a fairy-story.
 
PETER IN THE COURTYARD

 

Peter allegedly let Jesus down three times when he denied knowing him. So the gospels say.

 

Peter was heating himself by the fire in the courtyard of the building where Jesus was being tried by the High Priest. A maid said she knew that Peter had been with Jesus and was his friend. He denied this “before them all” and when he went he went to the porch the same thing happened with another maid (Matthew 26). Peter was afraid for his life and would have fled once the first woman recognised him especially when she said it in front of a group of people. Peter was not afraid after all when he even let sat with the others at a fire instead of staying in the corner or going away when the Jesus topic came up which would suggest that Jesus was not being tried at all. Peter risked his life for lies didn’t he for he went around with Jesus and risked his life for him and now he showed he believed he was wrong for he could not stand by Jesus any more? Peter even denied knowing Jesus under oath though he knew fine well those listening to him knew he was a liar. The penalty for doing that was death for blasphemy.

 

Peter was deceitful in the extreme and this was the man who was supposedly chosen as the prince of the apostles (according to Roman Catholic fantasy) and the chief witness to Jesus. Then the Christians tell us that this central figure among the apostles, who according to legend, shed his own blood to prove that his testimony to the resurrection was sincere and expect us to be impressed! He risked his life by attacking Malchus who was only an innocent slave and despite the fact that the mob could have hacked him to pieces. The man was a looney and you can be a looney with regard to your own life and be sane in everything else so don’t answer me back that he was too sane to be mad – all lunatics are a mixture of both.

So far so bad.
 
THE SCOURGING AT THE PILLAR LIE
 
The Bible says Pilate had Jesus scourged at the pillar and after Jesus was mocked as a king and crowned with thorns he then tried to get out of having to crucify him. If Jesus was dressed in his own clothes to bear the cross to Golgotha as the gospels say, they would have been ruined by the blood and by the tearing that took place by the falling and carrying. Then the soldiers would not have been casting lots for his robes at the cross after they crucified him. They were going to tear the robe to give one another a piece and decided not to. Is that believable? The gospels are clearly lying. The robe refutes the scourging and the scourging refutes the robe. Believing neither is best. He must have been dressed in an expensive robe when the men wanted it. Jesus could not have been expecting to be arrested and tried and killed if he was in his best clothes though the gospel says he was expecting it and had even foreseen it like a prophet!

 

CONCLUSION

The gospels tell little else but lies when it comes to the arrest, trial and nailing of Jesus Christ. They cannot be trusted then when they say when Jesus was nailed for they alone do that and they certainly cannot be trusted when they say Jesus appeared alive after he died on the cross.  The evidence for the passion of Jesus is presented well in the gospels but the resurrection evidence is shamelessly not as good.  For example, Matthew just gives the resurrection a few lines and there are no big names involved such as Pilate or Caiaphas. But that is not to say the passion evidence is convincing!

WORKS CONSULTED

 

Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible, John W Haley, Whitaker House, Pennsylvania, undated
Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Vol 1, Josh McDowell, Alpha Scripture Press Foundation, Bucks, 1995
Handbook of Christian Apologetics, Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli, Monarch, East Sussex, 1995
In Defence of the Faith, Dave Hunt, Harvest House, Eugene, Oregon, 1996
In Search of Certainty, John Guest Regal Books, Ventura, California, 1983
Jesus and Early Christianity in the Gospels, Daniel J Grolin, George Ronald, Oxford, 2002
Jesus and the Four Gospels, John Drane, Lion Books, Herts, 1984
Jesus Lived in India, Holger Kersten, Element, Dorset, 1994
Jesus the Evidence, Ian Wilson Pan, London 1985
The Bible Fact or Fantasy? John Drane, Lion Books, Oxford, 1989
The Encyclopaedia of Bible Difficulties, Gleason W Archer, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1982
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh & Henry Lincoln, Corgi, London, 1982
The Jesus Conspiracy, Holger Kersten and Elmar R Gruber, Element, Dorset, 1995
The Messianic Legacy, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh & Henry Lincoln, Corgi, London, 1987
The Metaphor of God Incarnate, John Hick, SCM Press Ltd, London, 1993
The Passover Plot, Hugh Schonfield, Element Books, Dorset, 1996
The Resurrection Factor, Josh McDowell, Alpha Scripture Press Foundation, Bucks, 1993
The Resurrection of Jesus, Pinchas Lapide, SPCK, London, 1984
The Truth of Christianity, WH Turton, Wells Gardner, Darton & Co Ltd, London, 1905
The Turin Shroud is Genuine, Rodney Hoare, Souvenir Press, London, 1998HoarHo
The Unauthorised Version, Robin Lane Fox, Penguin, Middlesex, 1992
The Vatican Papers, Nino Lo Bello, New English Library, Sevenoaks, Kent, 1982
The Virginal Conception and Bodily Resurrection of Jesus Raymond E Brown Paulist Press, New York, 1973
The Womb and the Tomb, Hugh Montefiore, Fount – HarperCollins, London, 1992
Verdict on the Empty Tomb, Val Grieve, Falcon, London, 1976
Who Moved the Stone? Frank Morison, OM Publishing Cumbria, 1997
Why People believe Weird Things, Michael Shermer, Freeman, New York, 1997

 

BIBLE VERSION USED
The Amplified Bible