The Bible:

Word of God or Word of Man

By ASK Joomaal

PREFACE
The manuscript of this book was ready in 1965, but due to delays and other circumstances, it did not see the light
of publication.

A part of this book, however, – THE RIDDLE OF THE TRINITY AND THE “SONSHIP” OF CHRIST – was
published in 1965. It met with immediate success. Thousands of copies were printed and distributed all over
South Africa, East and West Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania and Ghana. The demand was unceasing and with
the clamour for more of these booklets growing, Pakistan (Karachi) published another 50,000 copies for local
and African distribution.

The booklet was translated into the Swahili language in May 1967, and published by Malik Sirajuddin and Sons,
Lahore, Pakistan.

The commotion created by it in the South African Church circles may be gauged by a bold headline in the
“Transvaler”, a morning Afrikaans daily based in Johannesburg, which said: “HIERDIE MOHAMMEDAAN
SLAAN `N SEER HOU” – (This Mohammedan Strikes a Painful Blow).

It is to be hoped that the whole book will now enjoy the same success and wide readership as its predecessor – an
integral part of it – did.

A.S.K. JOOMMAL
Johannesburg.
November, 1975.[FrontPage HTML Markup Component]

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

PREFACE TO THE THIRD IMPRESSION (2000)

After the first two impressions (1976 and 1991) were completely sold out, the thirst for knowledge among the
seekers of truth remained unquenched. The demand for more and more of this book grew beyond expectation.

Sponsorship for publication is always a difficult thing to come by. This fact kept its
reprinting on ice. However, one stalwart Muslim, KHALID MAHMOOD ZAMAN, with
a verve and enthusiasm unmatched by any young man of comparable age, came forward,
travelling from LEEDS (England) to LAHORE (Pakistan) in order to finance and oversee
the reprinting of THE BIBLE: WORD OF GOD OR WORD OF MAN?

The Tolu-e-Islam Trust undertook the publication and distribution, for which I am profoundly indebted
to them.
To KHALID MAHMOOD ZAMAN I say: May Allah (SWT) reward you abundantly for
your indefatigable efforts in His Path.

A.S.K. JOOMMAL
LENASIA, South Africa.
March 2000
FOREWORD

One of the most widespread and yet least challenged fallacies is the notion that
the history of the development of civilisation shows that that there has been a continuous
general advance from the prehistoric times up to the present day; a concept that is no
doubt reinforced by the explosive growth of our technology during the last fifty or sixty
years.

However, this is a completely mistaken assumption; not only has civilisation

occasionally remained virtually static for centuries at a time, but it has often reversed
itself, losing knowledge and skills it had so laboriously acquired. For instance, that the
Earth is spherical in shape and spins on its axis in space was known to educated people
more than 400 years B.C., yet hardly a thousand years later the accepted opinion among
learned men was that it is flat! Also, it is quite common for archaeologists to find that
advanced cultures have been superseded by relatively inferior social organisations and
levels of technology.

The truly outstanding, most notable characteristics of the history of civilisation is

that its progress has been so wildly erratic. There is nothing steady about it. An added
complication is that while it might be advancing in one respect, it might at the same time
be standing still or even retrogressing in another.

In the field of religious teaching where over-piousness, excessive zeal, personal

ambition and the credulity of the public at large are some of the many active factors
involved, the well-known process of accretion is always at work. An original teaching
tends to become so encrusted with accretionary matter such as pious embroidery of the
truth “for the greater glory of God”, deliberate additions and omissions, falsifications,
paraphrasing at the expense of meaning, mistranslations and so forth that little or nothing
of it remains visible.

To dislodge the accretions so that the original gems of truth are revealed is no
easy task. Not only does it call for intensive, painstaking research and study, but also for
great patience, perseverance, determination, motivation and sheer mental stamina.

Above all, it demands nothing less than the highest grade of moral fibre and
personal courage; many men have paid with their lives for much less than Mr. Joommal
dares to do in this book.

Mr. A.S.K. Joommal, the prolific journalist so well-known to the newspaper

reading public in this country as a defender of Islam against malicious slander and as an
exponent of Islamic teachings, is one of South Africa’s handful of original, creative
thinkers. He is the author of “The Path of Islam” and many articles about Islam.

He is a firm believer in the great religious truths revealed to mankind through the
agency of the long line of Prophets whom God had sent to this world through the ages; a
series of Messengers that ended with the Holy Prophet Muhammad, the last and as such
the Seal of the Prophets.

Mr. Joommal realises that the most urgent need of these times is to arrive at a true
understanding of the Revealed Words of God. Such an understanding calls for the
ruthless and uncompromising removal of the accretions of centuries, accretions that
obscure the truth in the various writings which were eventually assembled into what we
know as the Bible - whether in the King James version or any of the others. He believes
that the Bible still contains the Revealed Words of God, but that man’s tampering so
distorted and beclouded them that a New Revelation became necessary.

This New Revelation, which supports and confirms some of the truths still found
in the Bible, is the Holy Quran. Not one word, letter or punctuation mark in the Quran
has ever been or will ever be changed. It is still exactly as the Angel Gabriel conveyed it
from God to the Holy Prophet Muhammad, who then recited it for his followers to write
down as he himself was illiterate.

For careful, thoughtful and rational study, I commend this book to those for whom
Faith follows the light of Reason. As for those for whom Reason is merely the
handmaiden of Faith, this book will not benefit them because, having closed minds, they
are beyond all human help.

May God guide you.

ABDUR-RAHMAAN P. WRIGHT
Johannesburg.
January, 1976.
 Home INTRODUCTION
There was a time when the Word of God, as revealed to Jesus Christ, was recorded on the
shoulder-blades of animals, on stone slabs, on the parchment and papyri, by those who
were nearest and dearest to Christ. Whatever the master preached was faithfully written
down by the scribes who followed his teachings and believed in him. Every single word,
therefore, that Christ uttered, was the revealed Word of God, for as we learn from Christ
himself: “I can of mine ownself do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgement is just:
because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath SENT me. If I
bear witness of MYSELF, my witness is NOT TRUE.” (John, 5:30-31). The sublime
truths that he taught, the noble philosophy of life that he brought for the lost sheep of the
house of Israel, the goodly ethical codes of conduct that he exhorted his people to follow,
were all part of a new dispensation that Providence deemed to promulgate after the
Mosaic Law was altered and adulterated by its adherents.

A collection of every single word, commandment, permission, prohibition, censure and

other teachings of the Master, faithfully reproduced in its pristine purity in the original
Aramaic language which he spoke, would no doubt comprise the True Word of God, or
the Bible. The Great Question is: Is THISBible in existence? The answer is clearly NO,
as every Bible scholar knows.

What is the present Bible, then? – you may ask. Is it not the Word of God? The answer is:
What used to be the Word of God has been so adulterated by human hands that the Word
of God is hardly distinguishable from the word of man. In some places we do still find a
glimmer of the truth that Jesus taught – the gems of divine wisdom that he uttered for the
good of his people – but these are few and far between in the jungles of interpolations
and contradictions with which the Bible is dense.

The purpose of this book is not to antagonize the reader – Christian or non-Christian –
against the Bible. The Bible is regarded as the holy book by millions of Christians, and
no matter what is said in this book, believers will continue to believe in what they
believe, or what they have been taught to believe.

I have expended my efforts in order to reach the MIND of the reader. The
mind THINKS, the heart BELIEVES. If belief is arrived at withoutTHINKING, it is
blind. But, if we arrive at belief through the God-endowed process
of THINKING and REASONING, then no one can shake or destroy that belief.

The fact that today thousands of Christians are leaving Christianity and are accepting
another faith, is proof that this religion is not as firm and solid as it is claimed. Any
ideology or faith that is based on the tenuous foundation of blind belief cannot last, and
sooner or later its adherents will begin to wonder in their minds and leave it for a more
solid and rational persuasion.
Christianity, as we all know, is founded on BLIND BELIEF where rational thinking
plays no part whatever. “Believe, and you will be saved”, is a cry we always hear. St.
Paul had made it absolutely clear when

he wrote: “For we walk by faith, not by sight.”

(2 Corinthians, 5:7).

If out of ten people that read this book, three or four begin to THINK and inquire into
their belief, and question the religion into which they were born, then this humble
endeavour of mine would have been worth-while.
 Part I
The Bible in General

Home A Brief History of the Bible

by A.S.K Joommal

A hundred years ago, Dean Burgon thundered from the pulpit of St. Mary’s,
Oxford: “ The Bible is none other than the voice of Him that sitteth on the throne. Every
book of it, every chapter of it, every verse of it, every syllable of it, every letter of it, is
the direct utterance of the Most High…faultless, unerring, supreme."

The majority of Protestant Christians of that time thought of the Bible as he did. A
much smaller proportion still thinks so. Although an extravagant claim is put forward by
Bible Societies and other fanatics that the Bible is the most-read book in the world, the
contrary is true. Very few people read it, and fewer still study it, even though they may
attend church where portions of it are read out to them in an often dull, sing-song voice
that holds very little meaning to them. To the ordinary reader or hearer, the chapters and
verses of the Bible seem to be a sacred fetish of words.

In fact the ignorance and bigotry of fanatics who may have considerable knowledge of its
contents but are usually unconversant with questions of textual or historical criticism, the
task of the sober student is hard indeed.

Christian apologists, however, do not claim anymore that “every syllable” is “the
utterance of the Most High”. A distinction is made between revelation and inspiration.
Dean Burgon’s description of the Bible obliterates this distinction. In spite, however, of
the clear negation in Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Providentissimus Deus (1893), of the
possibility of error on the part of the inspired writers, the apologists have argued that
errors may occur in the sacred text, though such errors are not put forward as statements
of truth.

St. Jerome was the author of the Vulgate* which he produced between 383 and
420 A.D. with the encouragement of Pope Damasus. His work was necessitated by the
corrupt state into which the old Latin version (dating from the late second or the early
third century) had long since fallen. In the course of time Jerome’s translation itself
became corrupt. Alcuin reformed the text under the great Emperor Charlemagne (742-
814), but “even the Monastery of St Martin de Tours, from which Alcuin, as Abbot, had
directed this reform, was pouring forth a stream of corrupt texts within a few years of his
death!”**

The standard Bible produced by the University of Paris in the 13th Century was
based on a corrupt text, and so high an authority on the subject as the Dominican Father
Denifle says that this proceeding “gave up the Bible to mere caprice”. Nearly all printed
editions based themselves on the texts of this standard Bible, which is the foundation of
that to which the modern Catholic is pledged by the decree of Pope Clement VIII, issued
in 1592. Sixtus V*** published a version of the Vulgate in 1590, which “by the fullness
of apostolic power” he ordered to be received by all the faithful as “true, lawful,
authentic, and unquestioned, in all public and private discussion, reading, preaching, and
explanations”. To alter this version in the slightest degree entailed “the indignation of
God and of the blessed Apostle Peter and Paul”, as well as the penalty of the greater
excommunication. The text of the version issued by Sixtus V was so “authentic” that it
had to be corrected in more that two thousand places and re – issued, with these
corrections, by Clement VIII only two years later.

The Authorized Version (1611) which so many treat as though it were the actual
Word of God, comes at the end of a long series of English Bibles which begins with
Wycliffe’s translation of the Vulgate in the 14th Century. The Old Testament was
composed in Hebrew, with the exception of parts of the Books of Ezra and Daniel, and
Jeremiah X, 11 (a marginal note interlude in the text) which were written in Aramaic,
while the New Testament was composed in Greek – not the Greek of Homer, Aeschylus,
or Plato – but the Koine (“common”) tongue which was spoken all over the Eastern
Mediterranean region in the days of the Roman Empire. Hebrew is a much more
defective language than Greek, and this may account for the fact that in many places the
text of the Old Testament is corrupt and in others so confused that the translation is near
guesswork. Professors W.O.E. Oesterley and T.H. Robinson write: “There is no book in
the Old Testament which has suffered more from corruption than Hosea. There is hardly a
single verse of which the reader can be sure that it has not been more or less altered……
A large part of the text, as it stands, its meaningless, though sense can often be obtained
by very silent changes."**** Other books of the Old Testament exhibit textual
corruptions, some in greater and others in smaller measure. In short what are known as
Epistles, or letters, were written and to these, at a later date, names were given. These are
also included in the New Testament. The books of the New Testament are not historical
documents. No one knows who wrote them; nobody has reported ever having seen the
original documents, and nobody knows when they were written. Various estimates
have been made as to the dates of their origin, but nothing is known for certain.

* Vulgate: Latin version of the Bible most widely used in the West.

** The Roman Catholic Church and the Bible (Mediaeval Studies No. 14,
p. 20, p. 19 by G.G. Coulton).

*** Sixtus V was Pope from 1585 to 1590. He was born in Italy in 1521, named Felice
Peretti, and was successor of Gregory XIII.

**** An Introduction to the Books of the Old Testament, p. 354.

 Home The Old and New Testaments
by A.S.K Joommal

The Old Testament

The Old Testament was written some two thousand years before the invention of printing.
It was written it Hebrew, a language composed entirely of consonants, without any points
or marks indicating or standing for vowels, so that anything like accuracy was
impossible. This could be tested if we write an English sentence leaving out the vowels. It
would take far more inspiration to read than to write a book with consonants alone.

The books comprising the Old Testament were not divided into chapters or verses, and no
system of punctuation was known. Furthermore there was no dictionary of the Hebrew
language and thus the accurate meaning of the words could not be preserved.

The Old Testament was printed for the first time in 1488. Until this date it existed in
manuscripts and was thus constantly exposed to erasures and additions. It is admitted by
the most learned men in the Hebrew language, that the present English version of the Old
Testament contains at least one hundred thousand errors!

It is not known for certain who in fact wrote any of the books of the Old Testament. For
instance, it is now generally conceded that Moses was not the author of the Pentateuch.
Other books, not in existence now, are referred to in the Old Testament as of equal
authority, such as the books of Jasher, Nathan, Ahijah, Iddo, Jehu, and sayings of the
Seers.

Christians themselves are in disagreement as to what books are inspired. The Catholics
claim as inspired the books of Macabees, Tobit, Esdras, etc. Others doubt the inspiration
of Ecclesiastes, Esther and the Song of Solomon. The latter two books do not mention the
name of God, nor is reference made to any supreme being, nor to any religious duty.
These omissions lay the books open to doubts regarding their divine teachings.

The fact that language is continually changing, that words are constantly dying and others
being born; that the same word has a variety of meanings during its life, shows how hard
it is to preserve the original ideas that might have been expressed in the scriptures for
thousands of years without dictionaries, without the art of printing, and without the light
of contemporaneous literature.

The manuscripts of the Old Testament were not alike, and the Greek version differed
from the Hebrew, and there was no absolutely received text of the Old Testament until
after the commencement of the Christian era. Marks and points to denote vowels were
invented in the 7th century after Christ. Whether these vowels were put in the proper
places or not is still an open question.

The Alexandrian version, or what is known as the Septuagint, translated by seventy

learned Jews, assisted by “miraculous power” about two hundred years before Christ,
could not have been, it is said, translated from the Hebrew text that we now have. The
difference can only be accounted for by supposing that they had a different Hebrew text.
The early Christian churches adopted the Septuagint and were satisfied for a time. But so
many errors were found and so many were scanning every word in search of something
to sustain their peculiar view, that several new versions appeared, all somewhat different
from the Hebrew manuscripts from the Septuagint, and from each other. All these
versions were in Greek.

The first Latin Bible originated in Africa, but no one has ever found out which Latin
manuscript was the original. Many were produced, and all differed from each other.
These Latin versions were compared with each other and with the Hebrew, and a new
Latin version was made in the fifth century, but the old Latin versions held their own for
about four hundred years, and no one yet knows which were right. Besides these, there
were Egyptian, Ethiopian, and several others, all differing from each other as well as
from all others in the world.

It was not until the 14th century that the Bible was translated into German, and not until
the 15th century that Bibles were printed in the principal languages of Europe. Of these
Bibles there were several kinds – Luther’s, the Dort, King James’s, Genevan, French,
besides the Danish and Swedish. Most of these differed from each other, and gave rise to
infinite disputes and crimes without number. The earliest fragment of the Bible in the
“Saxon” language known to exist was written some time in the 7th century. The first Bible
was printed in England in 1538. In 1560 the first English Bible was printed that was
divided into verses. Under Henry VIII, the Bible was revised; again under Queen
Elizabeth, and once again under King James. The last was published in 1611, and is the
one now in general use.

The New Testament.

There are in existence manuscripts of the Armenian, Syriac, Coptic, Latin and other
versions. Until recently the Vatican Codex (in Rome) and the Sinaitic Codex (formerly in
Leningrad, except a few leaves in Leipzig, and now in the British Museum) were the
oldest known manuscripts; they go back to the early 4th century. Next to them in antiquity
are the Alexandrian Codex (in the British Museum), the Codex Ephraemi (in Paris), and
the Codex Bezae (in Cambridge); the first two of these date from the 5th century, and the
third from the 6th century. The Codex Bezae presents a number of peculiarities, and has
readings not found in any other Greek manuscript, including the story of the man whom
Jesus found working on the Sabbath.

When the Authorized Version was drawn up by James I’s conference of learned
theologians at Hampton Court in 1611, only quite late manuscripts were available to them
for translation. The Hampton Court divines followed the Textus Receptus (“Received
Text”) which had been prepared by Erasmus of Rotterdam after extensive manuscript
collation in the previous century. The Vatican Codex lay unknown to English scholars in
the Papal Library. The Alexandrian Codex did not become accessible to scholars of
Western Europe before the reign of Charles I, to whom it was presented by Cyril Lucaris,
Patriarch of Constantinople. It was not until the 19th century that Tischendorf discovered
the Sinaitic Codex. Eminent scholars, mostly members of the Church of England,
consulted these and other valuable manuscripts and were responsible for the Revised
Version (1881-1885), a version that has never been popular and provoked charges of
sacrilege and blasphemy. A comparison of the two versions shows that the New
Testament, as we have it, contains many interpolations as well as alterations of the
original text affecting Christian dogma, sayings of Jesus and episodes of his life. The text
about the Three Witnesses* (the Comma Johanneum = “Johannine Section” 1 John v, 7),
a famous proof text of the dogma of Trinity, is omitted from the Revised Version. No
Greek manuscript earlier than 15th century possesses it; the Greek and the African Fathers
knew nothing of it, nor did Jerome, the author of the Vulgate. The earliest to quote it was
a Western theologian, Priscillian (late 4th century), the first Christian to suffer death at the
hands of Christian rulers for his heretical beliefs. The Revisers did not venture to omit
Mark xvi, 9-20, but drew attention in a note to its dubious authenticity. This passage is
absent from the Sinaitic Codex, from the Old Syriac, from nine of the older Armenian
manuscripts, and also from the Codex Vercellensis – the oldest Latin manuscript.

Other manuscripts have a shorter and quite different ending for Mark. Stylistic and
other variations from the rest of this Gospel here betray themselves.

The impressive story of the woman taken in adultery, which now forms part of
John viii, is also queried by the Revisers. Most Greek manuscripts omit it, while some
place it at the end of the Fourth Gospel, and others after Luke xxi, 38; it certainly fits
badly in its present context.

To sum up: the Bible consists, apart from the Apocrypha (which is accepted by some and
rejected by others), of sixty-six books by various authors. The authorship of these books
is disputed. There is no agreement between Catholics and Protestants as to what
constitutes Biblical Canon; as to what books may be accepted as canonical.

The Catholic version includes some of the apocryphal books, but not all. Generally
speaking, Protestants reject all apocryphal books as non-canonical though they may read
and study them. In its sixth Article, the Church of England says of the apocryphal books
that “the church doth read them for example of the life and instruction of manners but yet
doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine.”

The term “apocrypha” is generally applied to certain books of the Old Testament
supposed to have been written between Malachi and Matthew.

A well-known authority on the sources of the Bible, Dr. J. Patterson Smyth, B. D., LL. D,
writes in his book “HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE” as follows: “Now let us remember
clearly that as we look into that old Record Chest of nearly 1800 years ago, we have
before us all the sources from which we get our Bible. And remember further that these
writings were of course manuscripts i.e. written by the hand, and that copies when
needed, had each to be written out, letter by letter, at a great expense of time and trouble,
and unfortunately, I must add, very often too at some expense of the original correctness.
However careful the scribe might be, it was almost impossible in copying a long and
difficult manuscript, to prevent the occurrence of errors. Sometimes he would mistake
one letter for another, sometimes, if having the manuscript read to him, he would
confound two words of similar sounds – sometimes after writing in the last word of a
line, on looking up again his eye would catch the same word at the end of the next line,
and he would go on from that, omitting the whole line between. Remarks and
explanations, too, written in the margin might sometimes in transcribing get inserted in
the text. In these and various other ways errors might creep into the copy of his
manuscript. These errors would be repeated by the men that afterward copied from this,
who would also sometimes add other errors of his own. So that it is evident, as copies
increased, the errors would be likely to increase with them.” (Pages 10-11).

“Therefore we are able to detect faults even in our almost perfect Authorized Version –
mistakes here and there which scholars have known of for some time past; verses where
the rendering needed to be improved, and in a few instances passages whose right to
stand in the Bible at all was very doubtful. In such cases I need hardly say that no
amount of sentiment about our grand old Bible should prevent our making the corrections
required.” (Pages 17-18)

In connection with the Codex Bezae the same author says:

“It is in many ways a curious and interesting document. It shows part of a very old Greek
and a very old Latin Bible which always do not exactly correspond. It shows traces of the
work of several correctors, some of them very ancient. One can see how the original
scribe, whenever he made a slip, washed it out with a sponge, and how he corrected with
a pen nearly empty of ink. Later correctors scraped out with a knife what seemed to them
incorrect, and so have in some places spoiled the manuscript. But the most curious
thing is the daring interpolations in the text, most of which are entirely unsupported by
other manuscripts. Most of them are probably worthless but yet it is not improbable that
some of them may contain lost sayings and deeds of our Lord, such as St. John refers to
in chapter 21:25.” (Page 31).

The above quotations from the book of a Christian scholar are adequate testimony to our
contention that with so many revisions of the text, the Word of God has become the word
of man!

* God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost.
 Home Interpolations in the Bible
by A.S.K. Joommal

The Bible, as we said earlier, was once upon a time the Word of God. As centuries rolled
on, human hands wrought havoc with the purity and authenticity of the divine Word.
Passages were expunged from and added to the Holy Writ. The present Bible, therefore,
can never by any stretch of imagination be called “the inspired Word of God.” Christians
may blindly and belligerently maintain that this book is “the inspired Word of God”; this,
of course, would be no more than pious loyalty. But we can never attribute divine
authorship to this book knowing the facts of its history, the interpolations, the
discrepancies, and the innumerable other faults it contains. Loyalty to the book is blind,
but a common sense appraisal of it is not. Faith demands total allegiance to the Bible –
with its faults, absurdities, everything. Reason on the other hand, is loath to accept
matters that constitute an insult to the human intelligence.

The Authorized Version differs from the Revised Version, and the Revised Version, again,
differs from its one edition to the other. What need has the Word of God to go through so
many versions? Were these different versions also inspired? Our Reason says that
the true Word of God should have remained unaltered, uncorrupted, unrevised,
EXACTLY as it was revealed to Christ. Christ could not have performed a greater
miracle than to have seen to it that his teachings (as revealed to him by God Almighty)
remained completely intact down the centuries – even to the extent of a comma or a full
stop. This would indeed have been a miracle, and the world would have gladly bowed to,
and believed in, the ineluctable Truth of this Book. But alas, the Christians themselves
deprived the world of what would have been a standing miracle, by manipulating the
Word of God.

Some of the most important interpolations and changes in the “inspired Word of God” are
given hereunder. (Were these interpolations also inspired?)

Authorized Version says: “He that believeth in him is not condemned.” (John, 3:18).

The New English Bible says: “The man who puts his faith in him does not come
under judgement.”

Try to find verse 21 of Chapter 17 of St. Matthew in the Revised Version. It is not there.
Verse No. 21 has been taken out! It used to read thus: “But this kind never comes out
except by prayer and fasting.”

We used to read in Isaiah 7:14: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son.” The
Revised Version has expunged the word “virgin” and replaced it with “young woman.”
The passage now reads: “Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son.”
Readers will no doubt appreciate the difference this change had made to the passage
which has a great bearing on the beliefs of Christians.

Verse 47 of Chapter 12 in St Matthew’s Gospel has now been removed. It reads: “Then
one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak
with thee.” The Revised Version gives verse 46 and then 48, but leaves out verse 47.

John 21: 24-25: In the opinion of Rev. Dummelow, the great commentator of the Bible,
these two verses, viz. 24 and 25 are really doubtful, and they “may have been added by
the Ephesian elders who first put the Gospel into circulation after the death of the
Apostle, and who wished to testify to its genuineness and trustworthiness.”

Luke 24:51: This is an interpolation and is admitted by all scholars of the Bible. Rev.
Dummelow comments upon it as follows: “A few ancient authorities omit these words. If
they are omitted, it is possible to regard this event, not as the ascension, but as a
miraculous disappearance of Jesus at the end of the interview begun in verse 36.”

In Peake’s Commentary we read a similar view: “The words ‘and was carried up into
heaven’ are omitted in some of the best MSS…. and have probably crept in from Acts
1:9.”

Divorced women in Christianity have been having a very hard time. This is due to the
fact that the Bible says: “And I say unto you whosoever shall put away his wife, except it
be for fornication, and shall marry another, commiteth adultery: and whoso marrieth her
which is put away doth commit adultery.” (Matthew, 19:9).

But this verse has been shortened to read: “And I say to you whoever divorces his wife,
except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery.” (Revised Standard
Version).

This means that the ban on the marriage of divorced women has now been lifted!

John 7:53 and 8:1-11, that is, the last verse of the 7th chapter with its continuation in the
first eleven verses of the 8th chapter which relate the story of an adulteress, is an
interpolation. This is admitted universally. The commentary of Dummelow says as
follows: “The woman taken in adultery – all modern critics agree that this section (7:53 –
8:1–11) is no original part of the fourth Gospel. It is not the author’s style; it breaks the
sequence of our Lord’s discourses, and is omitted by most of the ancient authorities.”

In Peake’s commentary, we read the following: “The well-known story of the woman
taken in adultery has no claim to be regarded as part of the original text of this….. It is
supported by no early Patristic evidence. The evidence proves it to be an interpolation
of a ‘western’ character.”

Dr. Weymouth’s “New Testament in Modern English” marks this section as an

interpolation. “The Twentieth Century New Testament” has excised it and placed it in
such a place as indicates clearly that it has no connection with John. A footnote in “The
Complete Bible in Modern English” reads as follows: “The narrative of the sinful woman
(7:53 – 8:1-11) is rejected by the most competent authorities as a spurious
interpolation.”

Verse 29 of Chapter 28 of the Acts of Apostles has been removed from the Revised
Version. In the Authorized Version it reads: “And when he had said these words, the Jews
departed, and had great reasoning among themselves.”

A part of verse 6, the whole of verse 7, and a part of verse 8 of Chapter 24 of the Acts of
Apostles have been removed from the Revised Version. The words which have been
removed are: “And would have judged according to our law. But the chief captain Lysias
came upon us, and with great violence took him away out of our hands, commanding his
accusers to come unto thee.”

Verse 53 of Chapter 7 of St. John’s Gospel has been expunged.

The first eleven verses of Chapter 8 of St. John’s Gospel have been expunged from the
Bible. Chapter 8 now begins with verse No. 12.

13. Verse 16 of Chapter 7 of Mark’s Gospel has been removed.

14.The most important change in Luke’s Gospel is the removal of the words “And was
carried up into heaven” from verse 51 of the last chapter. Thus the two references to this
ascension of Jesus to the heaven which were to be found in the Gospels have been
removed leaving behind no other traces of the ascension in these four books.

15.Verses 44 and 46 of Chapter 9 of St. Mark’s Gospel have been eliminated.

16. Verse 22 of Chapter 3 of St. Luke ends thus: “Thou art my beloved Son; in
thee I am well pleased.” But in the footnote of the Revised Standard Version we are told
that other ancient authorities read, “Today I have begotten thee” in place of “With thee I
am well pleased.”

17. Mark 16 : 9 - 20 is an interpolation. Rev. Dummelow says in his

Commentary: “Internal evidence points definitely to the conclusion that the last
twelve verses are not by St. Mark. When at the close of the apostolic age an attempt
was made (probably in Rome) to collect the authentic memorials of the Apostles and their
companions, a copy of the neglected second Gospel was not easily found. The one that
was actually discovered and was used to multiply copies, had lost its last leaf, and so
a fitting termination (the present appendix) was added by another hand.”

The unanimous verdict given in the New Testaments of Dr. Weymouth, Dr. Moffat, Ferrar
Fenton, and in the Twentieth Century New Testament, is thatMark 16:9-20 is an
addition.
Only seventeen instances of additions to and excisions from the chapters and verses of
the Bible are given here. These examples can be multiplied. The question that any
intelligent person will ask is this: “What right did any human have to meddle with God’s
Word?” Now that the accretions, interpolations and expunctions of the Bible are a fait
accompli, the reader may further ask: “Where do we draw the line between the Word of
God and the Word of Man?” The answer is that regardless of how pure a text may have
been originally, it has no more claim to purity when extraneous matter creeps in.

Does it befit a rational human being to continue to cling to a belief even after having
learnt and understood the errors of such belief?

The reason why man has been endowed with an intellect is that he should use this faculty
to discriminate between right and wrong, between what is true and what is false. If man
does not make use of this God-given power, then the position of man is no better than
that of the animal. The difference between man and animal is that man has the capacity
to REASON, to THINK. An animal cannot reason. It behaves by instinct. REASON it is
that distinguishes man from the animal.

Even FAITH may be arrived at through a process of reasoning. Faith need not be blind. If
we insist – and are, in some perverted fashion, proud of the fact – that we adhere to our
creed BLINDLY, then this insistence does not do much credit to our intelligence. To be
blind means not being able to see; to have one’s whole world enveloped in darkness. It is
a blind man that gropes and does not know his way about. Only those who have eyes to
see, can enjoy the colour and beauty of their surroundings. This is the essential difference
between those who adhere blindly to their creed and refuse to see the light of reason, and
those whose “eyes of reason” are wide open and can judge truth from falsehood.

St Paul made matters worse for Christianity when he proclaimed: “For we walk by faith,
not by sight.”

(2 Corinthians, 5:7).

No doubt it is difficult to abandon one’s deep-rooted convictions by merely reading a

book such as this one. “It is easier to burn down your house,” it has been said, “than to
get rid of your prejudices.” You might say that the writer of this book is an “unbeliever”,
an “infidel”, or any other epithet you may choose to throw at him. This does not solve the
problem. It does not answer the question. The fact remains that the Bible contains all
those interpolations. How are we going to get around this uncomfortable truth? We
cannot evade the issue by saying that the enemies of Christianity have concocted these
contradictions and interpolations in order to weaken the faith of Christians. This would be
whistling in the dark, because learned scholars and renowned authorities such as Rev.
Dummelow, Peake, Fenton and others have, by their research and scholarship, given the
lie to the fondly cherished belief that the Bible is the “inspired Word of God”!

You, the reader, may have been brought up in the Christian faith. That what you know,
you have been taught by priests. You have been told to read only certain parts of the Bible
that do not arouse your suspicion or critical inquiry. You go thorough life with the
complacent belief that whatever your district parson tells you is the truth. You go once a
week to church, open up certain chapters of the Bible, read it reverently, listen to the
clergyman’s dissertation upon it, and at the end of it, with tightly closed eyes and palms
pressed together, you pray on bended knees to God the Father (or is it God the Son? – I
shall never know to whom!) to give you your daily bread and not to lead you into
temptation (as if God does!), and then come away home with the comfortable thought
that you have done your religious duty, pacified the Almighty, and everything is all right
with the world.

The point is that God is not that easily pacified. We have changed His Word. We have
polluted, corrupted, adulterated His Divine Book and still have the nerve to call it “the
inspired Word of God”! Will God forgive such travesty of words?

We cannot alter our beliefs overnight because these were taught to us from childhood
days. But we can, at least, start thinking! The power of THINKING is a blessing from
God. If it is exercised in order to amend our convictions and place things in their correct
perspective, then we may least believe that God would be pleased with us for our mental
efforts.

You are not asked to cast off your beliefs and religion like a snake casts off its skin. All
that is asked is that you read these pages seriously, thoughtfully, with a view to arriving at
the truth. THINKING is the stepping-stone and the road to TRUE faith. Read the
instances and the examples given from the Bible and reason with yourself whether God
Almighty is capable of acting, behaving and commanding in the manner in which He is
presented in the Bible. If your common sense revolts against all that you read in the
quotations from the Holy Book, then at least you may be sure that your power of
reasoning has not deserted you. It needs a bit of cultivation before it can blossom forth
fully. When this happens, you will then be on the road to a trueappreciation of the Bible.
 Home Contradictions in the Bible
by A.S.K. Joommal

The striking phrase “menschliches-all-zu-menschliches” (“human-all-too-human”) of the

celebrated German philosopher and man of letters, Friedrich Nietzsche, was coined by
him to describe human morality, which has generally been held to be the product of
divine norms revealed infallibly to the human conscience. We may justifiably use it as
descriptive of the Bible. The Bible, as I have already mentioned, is a religious literature
which is the work of diverse minds. If it is true that God inspired all they wrote, we shall
be forced to believe that He was also the author of all their follies and failings. As even
wilful fraud betrays itself in parts of this literature, God is confessed, on the theory of
plenary inspiration, to have been a great deceiver of many generations in many parts of
the world!

Time and time again we are told by clergymen, lay preachers and others interested
in the Bible that this book is the very Word of God, it is inspired, it is holy, and as such it
contains no contradictions whatsoever. This insistence that the Bible has NO
contradictions is so emphatic that one begins to suspect that the Bible exponents have
something to hide – the contradictions! Those that are brave enough to point out these
discrepancies are shouted down. Writers who expose these in their books, are branded
with all sorts of unpleasant epithets. No one dare say that the Word of God contains any
disharmonies. The contradictions, church fathers maintain, exist in our own minds. They
are a result of an inadequate understanding of the Holy Writ. Those who criticise the
Bible are egged by the Devil, they say. The Bible is the pure, unadulterated, unalloyed
Word of God and everybody must accept it as such. Those who deny this fact are godless
people and collaborators with Satan.

This is indeed a dogmatic, unflinching allegiance to the Bible, and one would hate
to disturb the calm, serene waters in the lake of their beliefs by violently throwing a
boulder of naked exposure in it. All, however, may not be right in the state of their
beliefs, but a façade of dutiful devotion has to be presented to the public at large.

An ordained priest may be conversant with all that is wrong in the Bible but his
vocation forbids him to acknowledge these wrongs. His mind may rebel against accepting
what is so obviously wrong, but he has trained his heart to feel resigned and not to create
any flutter that may have an adverse effect upon his stomach. Where one’s livelihood is
concerned, where feeding the stomach is concerned, one has to sacrifice both truth and
principles. How truly someone had said: “It is necessary to the happiness of man that he
be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing or in disbelieving;
it consists in professing to believe what he does NOT believe.”

That the Bible is replete with discrepancies is an incontrovertible FACT! The

church fathers who maintain that there are no contradictions in the Holy Book are
adopting an ostrich-like attitude. Their insistence that the Bible is free from discrepancies
will certainly not detract from the truth that the Bible does contain them. A fact is a fact,
and it is there for all to see. No amount of theological quibbling and equivocation will
succeed in suppressing the truth that the Bible has so many glaring, palpaply conflicting
statements. It will make any reasonable man wonder how this book ever came to be
called “the Word of God”! Is God capable of saying one thing and immediately
contradicting Himself in the next sentence? Such failing can only be human. It
can never be Divine. Divinity is absolutely Perfect. Hence with the acceptance of the fact
that the Bible contains all kinds of shortcomings, errors and inaccuracies, the contention
that it is the “inspired Word of God” falls to pieces. It is indisputable that whatever God
inspires cannot be wrong. If it is wrong - as shall be proved presently – then it is not God-
inspired. If it is not God-inspired but composed by mere mortals, then no credence can
ever be placed in a book as to its divinity. We may then only accept the Bible as a faulty,
inaccurate conglomeration of pseudo-historical and religious records that various
chroniclers have collated under the illusion of divine inspiration.

Robert G. Ingersoll, a renowned Bible scholar, says in his book, “Lectures and
Essays”: “If the Bible is inspired, then it should be a book that no man – no number of
men – could produce. It should contain the perfection of philosophy. It should perfectly
accord with every fact in nature. There should be no mistakes in astronomy, geology, or
as to any subject or science. Its morality should be the highest, the purest. Its laws and
regulations for the control of conduct should be just, wise, perfect, and perfectly adapted
to the accomplishment of the ends desired. It should contain nothing calculated to make
man cruel, revengeful, vindictive or infamous. It should be filled with intelligence,
justice, purity, honesty, mercy, and the spirit of liberty. It should be opposed to strife and
war, to slavery and lust, to ignorance, credulity and superstition. It should develop the
brain and civilise the heart. It should satisfy the heart and brain of the best and wisest. It
should be true. Does the Bible satisfy this standard?”

In the following pages an attempt is made to show the reader by means of various
quotations from this “inspired Word of God” that far, far from satisfying the standard of
purity, morality, truth, goodness, etc., enumerated above by Ingersoll, the Bible contains
accounts, events and commands that positively create a revulsion in us and offend our
sense of decency. It contains pornographic imagery that revolts the mind and sickens the
heart. Of course all this passes under Holy title of the “inspired Word of God”, and it is
accepted by all and sundry. The reverend gentlemen of the church will tell us that there
are mystical significances attached to these verses that are seemingly obscene; that they
are used metaphorically and that we have to possess profound scholarship in order to
appreciate the true interpretation of such verses. In other words if my stomach aches, then
I will have to be a doctor to know that there is a pain in my tummy! No man who is not a
doctor dare say that the sharp sensation in his stomach is a pain. How could he ever
know?!

Whatever interpretations one may place upon these Biblical verses, with whatever
flowery language one may clothe their import, the fact remains that one cannot conceal
the truth. One cannot pretend that the glaringly contradictory verses have a mystical
significance. Sooner or later one will have to take out one’s head from the sand and face
reality!

We give below only a few interesting, tangible examples of contradictions.

Limitation of space precludes the possibility of listing every single contradiction from
Genesis to Revelations. This may yet come from some able pen.

If you can, with the help of your nearest clergyman, explain away these
discrepancies thus salving your heart, then you have scored a temporary and dubious
victory over your mind. But you may rest assured that the mind does not accept defeat
easily. It is the function of the mind to THINK, and think it shall! The ultimate victory
belongs to the MIND and not to the heart. Prepare yourself, then, to receive shock after
shock from this electrifying “Word of God.”

1. The story of the Flood, related in Genesis 6-9, is composed of two narratives
whose differences of matter and style betray two authors. These have been blended by an
editor who has slightly vetted them. According to one of these authors, God commanded
Noah to bring into his ark “And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort …they
shall be male and female.” (Gen. 6, 19). The second author tells us that Noah was
commanded to preserve from the Flood “of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by
sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his
female. Of the fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female.” (Gen. 7:2-3)

Here is a palpable contradiction. The object of Noah’s selection of birds and

animals was “to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.” (Gen. 7:3). The writer
who makes God command Noah to choose ceremonially clean animals in groups of
fourteen, seven of each sex, tells us of a sacrifice from these by Noah upon Mount Ararat,
after the waters of the Flood had disappeared. No sacrifice formed part of the narrative of
the other writer, and so pairs of males and females of all species sufficed to replenish the
world’s fauna.

2. After David’s fight with Goliath, Saul is reported to have said to his chief captain
Abner: “Enquire thou whose son the stripling (David) is.” (1 Samuel, 17:56). Yet for
some time David had served as Saul’s armour-bearer and harpist (1 Samuel, 16:18-23).
Thus Saul could not have been ignorant as to who was David’s father. In fact Saul had
been expressly told who this man was. (1 Samuel, 16:18-19)

3. (2 Chronicles, 36:9): Jehoiachin, the penultimate King of Jerusalem, “was

EIGHT yeas old when he began to reign” in Jerusalem.

(2 Kings, 24:8): Jehoiachin, the penultimate King of Jerusalem, “was

EIGHTEEN years old when he began to reign” in Jerusalem.

Was Jehoiachin EIGHT or EIGHTEEN years of age when he began to reign?

4. (2 Chronicles, 22:2): “FORTY AND TWO years old was Ahaziah when he
began to reign.”

(2 Kings, 8:26). “TWO AND TWENTY years old was Ahaziah when he began to
reign.”

5. The Book of Kings expressly states that before the reign of Hezekiah, even those
Jewish monarchs whose heart was “perfect with the Lord” did not remove the “high
places” where an irregular cult was practised. (1 Kings, 15:14; 22:43)

The Chronicler who is a much later historian, could not believe that such pious
persons could so flagrantly have disobeyed the Law of Moses. So he flatly denies their
guilt. (2 Chronicles, 14:3; 17:6)

“But the high places were NOT removed.” (1 Kings, 15:14)

“Nevertheless the high places were NOT taken away.” (1 Kings, 22:43)

Contradiction of above:

“For he took away the altars of the strange gods, and the high places.” (2 Chron.
14:3)

“Moreover he took away the high places.” (2 Chron. 17:6)

Were the high places taken away or NOT taken away? Take your choice!

6. God dwells in Light: “Dwelling in the LIGHT which no man can approach
unto.” (1 Timothy, 6:16)

God dwells in Darkness;

a). “The Lord said that He would dwell in the thick DARKNESS.” (1 Kings, 8:12)

b). He made DARKNESS His secret place.” (Psalms, 18:11)

7. God is seen and heard:

a). “And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt SEE my back parts.” (Exodus
33:23)

b). “And the Lord spake unto Moses FACE TO FACE, as a man speaketh unto his
friend.” (Exodus, 33:11)

c). “And the Lord called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said,
I HEARD thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid”. (Gen. 3:9-10).
 d). “For I have SEEN God face to face, and my life is preserved.” (Gen. 32:30)

e). “In the year that King Uzziah died, I SAW also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high
and lifted up.” (Isaiah, 6:1)

God cannot be seen and heard:

a). “NO man hath seen God at any time.” (John. 1:18)

b). “Ye hath NEITHER heard his voice at any time, NOR seen his shape.” (John,
5:37)

c). “And he said, Thou canst NOT see my face; for there shall be NO man see me,
and live.” (Exodus 33:20)

d). “Whom NO man hath seen, NOR can see.”

(1 Timothy, 6:16)

8. God is All-Powerful:

a). “Behold I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is there anything too hard for
me?… There is nothing too hard for thee.” (Jeremiah, 32:27,17)

b). “With God all things are possible.” (Matthew, 19:26)

God is not All-Powerful:

“And the Lord was with Judah, and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain;
but he could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.”
(Judges, 1:19)

9. God is Not the Author of Evil:

a). “The law of the Lord is perfect … The statutes of the Lord are right … The
commandment of the Lord is pure.” (Psalms, 19:7-8)

b). “God is not the author of confusion.”

(1 Corinthians, 14:33)

c). “A God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.” (Deut. 32:4)

d). “For God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man.” (James. 1
:13)
 God is the Author of Evil:

a). “Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments
whereby they should not live.” (Ezekiel, 20:25)

b). “Out of the mouth of the Most High proceedeth not evil and good?”
(Lamentations, 3:38).

c). “Thus saith the Lord, Behold I frame evil against you and devise a device against
you.” (Jer. 18:11)

d). “Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?” (Amos, 3:6)

10. God is to be found by those who seek Him:

a). “Everyone that asketh, receiveth, and he that seeketh, findeth.” (Matthew, 7:8)

b). “Those that seek me early shall find me.” (Prov. 8:17)

God is Not to be found by those who seek Him:

a). “Then shall they call upon me but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but
shall not find me.” (Prov. 1:28)

b). “And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you; yea,
when ye make many prayers I will not hear.” (Isaiah, 1:15)

c). “They cried, but there was none to save them; even unto the Lord, but He
answered them not.” (Psalms, 18:41)

11. God is Peaceful:

a). “The God of peace.” (Romans, 15:33)

b). “God is not the author of confusion, but of peace.” (1 Corinthians, 14:33)

God is Warlike:

a). “The Lord is a man of War.” (Ex. 15:3)

b). “The Lord of Hosts is his name.” (Isaiah, 51:15)

12. God is Kind, Merciful, and Good:

a). “The Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy.” (James, 5:11)
b). “For he doth not afflict willingly, or grieve the children of men.” (Lamentations,
3:33)

c). “For His mercy endureth for ever.” (1 Chron. 16:34)

d). “The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works.” (Ps.
145:9)

e). “God is love.” (1 John, 4:16)

God is Cruel, Merciless, Destructive and Ferocious:

a). “I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them.” (Jer. 13:14)

b). “And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver
thee, thine eye shall have no pity upon them.” (Deut. 7:16)

c). “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare
them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and
ass.” (1 Sam., 15:3)

d). “The Lord thy God is a consuming fire.” (Deut. 4:24)

e). “The Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them, … and they died.”
(Joshua, 10:11)

Two facets of the Lord emerge from the above quotations. If He is a God of love, pity and
mercy, then He cannot be at the same time a God that commands men to slay “infant and
suckling.” We can believe that for certain sins men and women deserved to be slain. But
what possible sins or crimes could infants and sucklings have perpetrated that they
incurred the Lord’s wrath? Where was God’s tender mercy, His pity, goodness and
kindness when He ordered that infants and sucklings should be murdered? What ARE we
to believe?

13. God commands, approves of, and delights in burnt offerings and sacrifices:

a). “Thou shalt offer every day a bullock for a sin offering for atonement.” (Exodus,
29:36)

b). “…And ye shall afflict your souls and offer an offering made by fire unto the
Lord.” (Lev. 23:27)

c). “And thou shalt burn the whole ram upon the altar; … it is a sweet savour; an
offering made by fire unto the Lord.” (Ex. 29:18)
d). “And the priest shall burn all on the altar to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made
by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord.” (Lev. 1:9)

God disapproves of, and has no pleasure in, burnt offerings and sacrifices:

a). “For I spake not unto your fathers nor commanded them in the day that I brought
them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices.” (Jer., 7:22)

b). “Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me.”
(Jer. 6:20)

c). “Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Offer unto God
thanksgiving, and pay the vows unto the Most High.” (Ps. 50:13-14)

d). “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord. I
am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts, and I delight not in the
blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats . … Bring no more vain oblations; incense
is an abomination unto me;…”(Isaiah, 1:11-13)

14. God Cannot Lie:

a). “God is not a man that he should lie.” (Num. 23:19)

b). “It was impossible for God to lie.” (Heb. 6:18)

God lies, He sends forth lying spirits to deceive:

a). “Ah, Lord God! Surely thou hast greatly deceived this people.” (Jer. 4:10)

b). “For this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a
lie.”

(2 Thessalonians, 2:11)

c). “Now, therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these
thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee.” (1 Kings, 22:23)

d). “And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I, the Lord, have
deceived that prophet.” (Ezek. 14:9)

15. There is but One God:

a). “The Lord our God is ONE Lord.” (Deut, 6:4).

b). “There is NONE other God but ONE.”

 (1 Cor. 8:4)

There is a Plurality of Gods:

a). “For there are THREE that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the
Holy Ghost.” (1 John. 5:7)

b). “And the Lord appeared unto him (Abraham) in the plains of Mamre ….. And he
lift up his eyes and looked, and 1o, THREE men stood by him; and when he saw them he
ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground, and said, My
Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy
servant.” (Gen. 1-3)

16. The Making of Images Forbidden:

“Thou shalt NOT make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything
that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath.” (Exodus, 20:4)

The Making of Images Commanded:

“Thou shalt make two cherubims of gold ….. And the cherubims shall stretch
forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall
look one to another.” (Ex. 25:18,20)

17. Good Works to be seen of men:

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good
works.” (Matthew, 5:16)

Good Works not to be seen of men:

“Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them.” (Matthew,
6:1)

18. Jesus told his followers not to fear being killed:

“Be not afraid of them that kill the body.” (Luke, 12:4)

Jesus himself avoided the Jews for fear of being killed:

“After these things Jesus walked in Galilee; for he would not walk in Jewry,
because the Jews sought to kill him.” (John, 7:1)

19. Circumcision Instituted:

 “This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed
after thee: Every man child among you shall be circumcised.” (Gen. 17:10)

Circumcision Condemned:

“Behold, I, Paul, say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you
nothing.” (Galatians, 5:2)

20. The Sabbath instituted because God Rested on the Seventh Day:

“For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is,
and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed
it.” (Exod. 20:11)

The Sabbath Instituted for a very Different Reason:

“And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord
thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm;
therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day.” (Deuteronomy,
5:15)

21. Marriage Approved and Sanctioned:

a). “And the Lord said, it is not good that the man should be alone: I will make him
an helpmeet for him.” (Genesis, 2:18)

b). “For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his
wife.” (Matthew, 19:5)

c). “Marriage is honourable in all.” (Hebrews, 13:4)

Marriage Disapproved:

“It is good for a man not to touch a woman. ……. For I (Paul) would that all men
were even as I myself …. It is good for them if they abide even as I.” (1 Corinth. 7:1,7,8)

22. A man may marry his brother’s widow:

“If brethren dwell, together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of
the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go in unto
her, and take her to him to wife.” (Deut. 25:5)

A man may not marry his brother’s widow:

“If a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing: ….. they shall be
childless.” (Lev. 20:21)
23. Hatred of Kindred Enjoined:

“If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and
children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my
disciple.” (Luke, 14:26)

Hatred of Kindred Forbidden:

a). “Honour thy father and mother.” (Eph. 6:2)

b). “Husbands, love your wives …. For no man ever yet hated his own
flesh.” (Eph. 5:25,29)

c). “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer”. (1 John, 3:15)

24. Intoxicating Drinks Recommended:

a). “Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be
of heavy hearts. Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no
more.” (Prov. 31:6,7)

b). “And thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, for
oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink.” (Deut. 14:26)

Intoxicating Drinks Discountenanced:

a). “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is
not wise.” (Prov. 20:1)

b). “Look not thou upon the wine when it is red; when it giveth his colour in the cup
…. At the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder.” (Prov. 23: 31,32)

25. The Father of Joseph, Mary’s husband, was Jacob:

“And Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born
Jesus.” (Matthew, 1:16)

The Father of Joseph, Mary’s husband, was Heli:

“Being … the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli.” (Luke, 3:23)

26. The Father of Salah was Arphaxad:

“And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years and begat Salah.” (Gen. 11:12)

The Father of Salah was Cainan:

 “…. Which was the son of Salah, which was the son of Cainan, which was the
son of Arphaxad.” (Luke, 3:35, 36)

27. Judas Returned the Pieces of Silver:

“Then Judas …. brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and
elders.” (Matt. 27:3)

Judas did not return the Pieces of Silver:

“Now, this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity.” (Acts, 1:18)

28. Judas Hanged Himself:

“And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and
hanged himself.” (Matt. 27:5)

Judas did not hang himself, but died another way:

“And falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed
out.” (Acts, 1:18)

29. Keturah was Abraham’s Wife:

“Then again Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah.” (Gen. 25:1)

Keturah was Abraham’s Concubine:

“The sons of Keturah, Abraham’s concubine”. (1 Chron. 1:32)

30. Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, being eighteen
years younger than his father:

“ Thirty and two years old was he (Jehoram) when he began to reign; and he
reigned eight years in Jerusalem ……. And Ahaziah his son reigned in his stead … Two
and twenty years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign.”

(2 Kings, 8:17, 24, 26)

Ahaziah was forty-two years old when he began to reign, being two years
older than his father:

“Thirty and two years old was he (Jehoram) when he began to reign, and he
reigned in Jerusalem eight years ….. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah his
youngest son, king in his stead …. Forty and two years old was Ahaziah, when he began
to reign.” (2 Chron. 21:20; 22:1,2)
31. Michal had no child:

“Therefore Michal, the daughter of Saul, had no child unto the day of her
death.” (2 Samuel, 6:23)

Michal had five children:

“The five sons of Michal, the daughter of Saul.” (2 Samuel, 21:8)

32. Christ is equal with God:

a). “I and my father are one.” (John, 10:30)

b). “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.”
(Philippians, 2:6)

Christ is not equal with God:

a). “My father is greater than I.” (John, 14:28)

b). “Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my
father only.” (Matt. 24:36)

33. Christ judged men:

“The father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son … As
I hear, I judge.” (John, 5:22,30)

Christ judged no man:

a). “I judge no man.” (John, 8:15)

b). “If any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not; for I came not to
judge the world, but to save the world.” (John, 12:47)

34. The Law was Superseded by the Christian Dispensation:

a). “The law and the prophets were until John; since that time the kingdom of God is
preached.” (Luke, 16:16)

b). “Having abolished in the flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments
contained in ordinances.” (Eph. 2:15)

c). “But now we are delivered from the law.” (Rom. 7:6)

The Law was not Superseded by the Christian Dispensation:

 “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to
destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one
tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall
break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the
least in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 5:17-19)

35. Children are punished for the sins of their parents:

a). “I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon
the children.” (Exod. 20:5)

b). “Because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the
Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die.” (2 Sam. 12:14)

Children are not punished for the sins of their parents:

a). “The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father.” (Ezek. 18:20)

b). “Neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers.” (Deut. 24:16)

36. Man is justified by faith alone:

a). “By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified.” (Rom. 3:20)

b). “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith
of Jesus Christ.” (Gal. 2:16)

c). “The just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith.” (Gal. 3:11-12)

Man is not justified by faith alone:

a). “Was not Abraham our father justified by works?….

“Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.” (James,
2:21,24)

b). “The doers of the law shall be justified.” (Rom. 2:13)

37. St. Matthew relates a tale (27:9-10) about the betrayal for thirty pieces of silver.
He cites as his authority the prophet Jeremiah. But it is unfortunate that the Holy Ghost
which inspired him to true knowledge (2 Peter, 1:21), let him down badly, because
Matthew misquoted. It was not Jeremiah who uttered the words in question, but
Zechariah (11:12,13)

38. Matthew (2:11) writes that Jesus was born in a HOUSE. Luke (2:7) says that
Jesus was born in a STABLE.
39. In Mark (6:8) it is noted that Jesus asked his disciples to take with them a staff,
but Matthew (10:10) and Luke (9:3) contradict Mark, for they write that Jesus asked them
NOT to take a staff.

40. Matthew (27:52,53) claims that when Jesus died, a number of dead people
climbed out of their graves and made their way to the holy city (Jerusalem). But we read
in the book of Job that once a man dies, he never comes back to life again. “So he that
goeth down to the grave shall come up no more. He shall return no more to his house.”
(Job, 7:9-10). “If a man die, shall he live again?” (Job, 14:14)

41. Luke (3:23) says Jesus was about 30 years old shortly before he died. John (8:57)
says that Jesus was close to 50 before his death.

The above are just a handful of examples taken at random and show very clearly
the kind of confusion that exists in the Bible. What possible faith can any thinking,
rational being have in a book that is riddled through and through with anachronisms,
inaccuracies of facts and figures, inconsistencies of narrations and open insults to
intelligence? Yet we accept this book as the “inspired Word of God” and continue to
revere it with all its mixture of blasphemies and obscenities, its lascivious accounts of
men’s prurient natures; its lusty, perverted, libidinous stories of debauchery: all this is
still being passed off as the “divine word”. The diction of the Bible in some places is
horrifying. NO self-respecting parent will allow his growing daughter to read this book.

A great number of pages in the Bible not only deserve the censor’s censure, but
his scissors!
 Home Bible Obscenities
by A.S.K. Joommal

If the Bible just called a spade a spade, and condemned sexual sins outright, then no one
can possibly have grounds to criticise it. The real indictment against the Bible, at least
much of the Old Testament, is that its normal tone is coarse and barbaric.

The Hebrew word for a woman simply refers to the sexual interest a man has in
her. In early times, according to the Bible, a Hebrew woman was only a piece of property,
a vent for man’s lust and a mechanism for child–bearing. Daughters were at the disposal
of their farthers; any man who received the paternal sanction, which generally had to be
paid for, could sexually enjoy them.

This comes out very clearly in the disgusting story of Lot and the men of
Sodom. Heavenly beings ("Sons of Elohim") visit the nephew of Abraham, while low
fellows from the Sodomite mob besiege his house and demand the handing over of his
guests for homosexual purposes. As a considerate host, Lot offers these lecherous beasts
the opportunity of raping his virgin daughters. "Behold now, I have two daughters which
have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is
good in your eyes, only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the
shadow of my roof." (Genesis, 19:8.)

It is unthinkable that any self-respecting father, let alone a Prophet of God as

Lot was, could shamelessly request a man or a number of men to have access to his
daughters. This is a vile fabrication that casts a terrible aspersion on the unimpeachable
character of a Prophet of God!

A kindred story, even more revolting, is told in Judges, chapter 19. A Levite and
his concubine are entertained by her father at Gibeah, in the territory of the tribe of
Benjamin. A mob of Benjaminites assaults the house and threatens the Levite with their
bestialities. So the father offers his daughter for their enjoyment. In the words of the New
English Bible, (Judges, 19:16-30): "While they were enjoying themselves, some of the
worst scoundrels in the town surrounded the house, hurling themselves against the door
and shouting to the old man who owned the house, 'Bring out the man who has gone into
your house, for us to have INTERCOURSE with him.' The owner of the house went
outside to them and said 'No, my friends, do nothing so wicked. This man is my guest;
Do not commit this outrage. Here is my daughter, a virgin; Let me bring her out to you.
RAPE her and do to her what you please; but you shall not commit such an outrage
against this man.' But the man refused to listen to him, so the Levite took hold of his
concubine and thrust her outside for them." A night of indiscriminate raping kills the poor
woman. The Levite, finding her corpse at the door of the house next morning, is now
enraged, having saved his own anus at the concubine’s expense. He therefore cuts her
into twelve pieces and sends them round "into all the coasts of Israel" as a signal for war
against the Benjaminites.
 There are several other obscene anecdotes in the Old Testament of which we
may instance Ham's mockery of the intoxicated Noah (Genesis. 9:20-27), and the incest
of Lot’s daughters with their father after they had fuddled him with wine (Genesis. 19:
30-38). Both these stories are malignant myths. Ham is named "the father of Canaan",
that is, of the people of the land the Beni-Israel conquered. The myth of the outraged
Noah is meant to justify the enslavement of the Canaanites by the Hebrews. The other
myth is a terrible libel on the Moabites and the Ammonites, peoples near in kinship to the
Beni-Isreal and cordially detested by them. "The near in blood, the nearer bloody."

The Hebrews were fond of symbolising Israel as an unfaithful wife who went
"a-whoring after other gods". The details of sexual infidelity are expatiated upon in the
boldest manner. Ezekiel is the worst offender. His lustful imagery of the two courtesans
Aholah (Samaria) and Aholibah (Jerusalem) is quoted here:

"The word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, there were two women, the
daughters of one mother: and they committed whoredoms in Egypt; they committed
whoredoms in their youth: there were their breasts pressed, and there they bruised the
teats of their virginity. And the names of them were Aholah the elder, and Aholibah her
sister: and they were mine, and they bear sons and daughters." (Ezekiel, 23:1-4).

This is hardly the sort of description that would elevate one spiritually and
transfer one to the realms of divine proximity. Yet we are told that "every single word" of
the Bible is God-inspired!

Something akin to madness must have stamped the writers of Ezekiel and
Isaiah. What motivated them to write certain verses in the manner they did, is a mystery.
This may provide a good field of research for a scholar interested in the psychological
and mental make-up of Hebrew writers of old who wrote the various books of the Old
Testament.

We read in Isaiah that his God had told him to walk in the public gaze with his
"buttocks uncovered".

"..........At the same time spake the Lord by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, Go and loose
the sackcloth from off thy lions, and put off thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so,
walking naked and barefoot...so shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians
prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with
their buttocks uncovered to the shame of Egypt." (Isaiah, 20:2-4).

Ezekiel had received a divine order to bake his cake with human excrement.
When he protests his innocence, the Lord relents and tells him to bake his cake with cow
dung.

"And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of
man, in their sight...Then said I, Ah Lord God! behold, my soul hath not been
polluted:...Then he said unto me, Lo, I have given thee cow’s dung for man’s dung, and
thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith." (Ezekiel, 4:12-15).

After reading these verses, it is difficult to imagine that the Biblical God is a
decent, holy, pure, kind, merciful, loving Being. If he gives commands to butcher infants
and sucklings, if he orders his Prophets to walk naked in public streets and to bake their
cakes in human excreta, then we would be forgiven if we say that we have no respect for
such a God. The truth of the matter, however, is that the Bible has been so terribly
distorted, twisted and altered that even the Holy personality of God Almighty did not
escape the busy hands and filthy minds of interpolators. Truth has been stretched to
snapping point. Fertile minds produced fabrications based on some actual incident; a true
theme provided pivot for a concocted hash - and all this has been passed down to
posterity as the "pure, unadulterated Word of God". A great travesty of words can hardly
be imagined!

A correspondent signing himself as CHUTZPAH, wrote as follows in the

Johannesburg daily newspaper, The Star, of 8th December, 1964:

"Sir - With all manner of books being banned for the smallest indiscretions, it would
surely be consistent with moral policy for the Publications Control Board to ban the
Bible.

The Hebrew scripture features too much violence and is far too frank with
sexual matters. A single chapter for example, deals unashamedly with the incestuous
escapade of a prostitute and with coitus interruptus.

The Christian scriptures make accusation against Jews, ranging from Christ's
murder to consorting with the devil.

Since these passages are hardly calculated to foster inter-racial peace and
understanding and since the Hebrew scripture can contaminate the innocent minds of
young people, it would surely be in the public interest to order all copies of the Bible
withdrawn from circulation."
 Home Bible Atrocities
by A.S.K. Joommal

In the Old Testament we repeatedly find that hideous cruelty is given divine sanction. The
utter annihilation of all the inhabitants of Canaan by the Beni-Israel was commanded by
Moses in the name of God. The command was to slaughter all males but the Beni-Israel
were to keep the women for their own use. (Deut 20:13:15)

Among the lessons ordered to be read in Anglican churches are two chapters from
the Book of Kings (2 Kings, 9 and 10). In them we learn that Elisha, the prophet, sent one
of his subordinates to Ramoth-gilead to anoint as King of Israel a ruffianly captain
named Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat. This gangster, nothing loath, hurried off at once to
Jezreel where Joram, the reigning monarch, was residing, and murdered him and his
guest, Ahaziah, King of Judah, as they were riding in their chariots. Jehu then visited
Jezebel, the Queen Mother, and ordered the eunuchs to throw her out of a window of her
palace. The street dogs afterwards devoured her corpse. The next feat of this hero was to
have the seventy sons of Ahab put to death and their heads brought to him in baskets.
Then he proceeded to slaughter the rest of Ahab’s kinsmen and the brothers of Ahaziah.
His crowning achievement was the massacre of all the worshippers of the Phoenician
Baal residing in the kingdom of Samaria, having first deceived them by a very gross lie.
God told him that he had done right in his eyes, and that because of this his descendants
until the fourth generation should sit on the throne of Israel (2 Kings 10:30). The Prophet
Hosea thought differently from the author of Kings. He represents Yahweh (God) as
saying: “I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu.” (Hosea, 1:4.) Which
of these two Biblical writers was really the mouthpiece of God: the author of the Book of
Kings or Hosea? Both of them could not have been inspired in this respect!

The so-called Law of Moses, which is now known to be highly composite and
took many centuries to grow, contains many kindly and sensible enactments, but has also
brutal and barbaric features. Let us consider one example here. In Numbers, Chapter 5, a
strange rite is exacted from a woman whom her jealous husband suspects of infidelity. A
magical test is applied. The husband must bring his wife to the priest, who takes an
earthen vessel containing holy water. Dust from the floor of the Tabernacle is then put
into the water. The woman’s hair is loosened, and “a meal offering of jealousy” is placed
in her hand. Having sworn her innocence, the woman is made to drink “the water of
bitterness”, after the priest has pronounced a curse, written it down in a book, and washed
it off somehow into the holy water.

Should the woman be guilty, her belly will swell and her thighs rot away. There
was no similar test for the infidelity of a husband.

That there are bad laws in the Pentateuch the Fundamentalist is precluded from
denying by his professed loyalty to the letter of the Bible, for Ezekiel represents God as
saying that he gave the Bani-Israel “statutes that were not good, and judgements whereby
they should not live.” (Ezekiel, 20:25)

A number of psalms breathe the cruellest hatred towards personal enemies. The
sufferings of individuals of both sexes and all ages are gloated on. Let us take Psalm 109,
for example. The ferocious poet craves the vengeance of God on innocent and guilty
alike:

“Set thou a wicked man over him:

And let Satan stand at his right hand.

When he shall be judged, let him be condemned;

And let his prayer become sin.

Let his day be few;

And let another take his office.

Let his children be fatherless,

And his wife a widow.

Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg:

Let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.

Let the extortioner catch all that he hath;

And let the stranger spoil his labour.

Let there be none to extend mercy unto him:

Neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children.”

(Psalms, 109: 6-12)

If God inspired the writer of these diabolical words, who inspired Jesus when he said
“Blessed are the merciful, For they shall obtain mercy.” (Matt 5:7)? Did the author of
Psalm 109 obtain mercy from the heavenly Father Jesus preached? Or did he go into the
outer darkness where there is “wailing and gnashing of teeth”? Let the Christian
Fundamentalists explain how they solve the dilemma.

Take again the pathetic poem (Psalms 137), which has many elements of beauty,
beginning: “By the river of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept.” The sadistic
hatred of the last verse largely spoils what has gone before.
“Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.” (Psalms
137:9.)

Fancy a Christian congregation singing this to the accompaniment of a magnificent

organ!

The New Testament is generally more humane in its ethics than the Old. Yet it is the New
Testament that teaches, in unmistakable language, the loathsome and paralyzing doctrine
of eternal torture, physical and mental, for sinners and unbelievers. The God of the
Revelation is a far worse being than the God of the Pentateuch, and the ferocious gloating
of its Christian author over the smoke that arises out of the fiery pit, where the enemies of
his faith suffer “unto the aeons of the aeons”, is echoed in the works of the early Christian
fathers (Tertullian is a notorious example), and in those of the Catholic saints and
theologians of the Middle Ages.

Thomas Aquinas writes:

“Nothing should be denied the blessed that belongs to the perfection of their beatitude…
Wherefore in order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them and
that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, they are allowed to see perfectly
the suffering of the damned.”
 Home
Bible Prophecies Falsified by Historical
Events
by A.S.K. Joommal

In the Bible we find prophecies that have been falsified by history. Isaiah foretold the

drying up of all the water of Egypt and the consequent destruction of all meadows and

sown land, whose existence depends on the periodic overflow of the Nile.

“And the waters of the Nile will be dried up, and the river will be parched and dry; and its
canals will become foul, and the branches of Egypt’s Nile will diminish and dry up, reeds
and rushes will rot away. There will be bare places by the Nile, on the brink of the Nile,
and all that is sown by the Nile will dry up, be driven away, and be no more.” (Isaiah,
19:5-7) (Revised Standard Version).

None of these predictions have been fulfilled or seem likely to be fulfilled. To

relegate their fulfilment to a remote future stultifies the prophet’s warning, since it was
against the Egypt of his age that he and his people had a grievance.

Jeremiah prophesied that Jehoiakim will have none to sit on the throne of David,
but he was succeeded by his son Jehoiachin. (Jer. 36:30; 2 Kings, 24:6).
Ezekiel prophesied the utter destruction of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar, King of

Babylon.

“With the hoofs of his horses he will trample all your streets; he will slay your people
with the sword; and your mighty pillars will fall to the ground. They will make a spoil of
your riches and a prey of your merchandise ………

And I will stop the music of your songs, and the sound of your lyres shall be heard no
more. I will make you a bare rock; you shall be a place for the spreading of nets; you
shall never be rebuilt; for I the LORD have spoken, says the Lord GOD.” (Ezekiel, 26:
11-14).

Nebuchadnezzar did not destroy Tyre. This feat was reserved for Alexander the
Great, 240 years after the time of Nebuchadnezzar, and despite the prophet,
Tyre was rebuilt. And to-day it is inhabited by thousands of people.

Again and again it is prophesied in the New Testament that Jesus will shortly
return in the clouds from heaven, where he is now sitting at the right hand of God, in
order to raise the dead, judge the world, and set up his kingdom on a renovated earth.
Jesus said:
a). “This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.” (Matt. 24:34)
b). “There be some of them standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see
the Son of man coming in his kingdom.” (Matt. 16:28)
In the Epistles of Paul and other New Testament propagandists we find the same
confidence:

a). “The time is short.” (1 Cor. 7:29)

b). “In these last days.” (Heb. 1:2)

c). “….but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the
sacrifice of himself.” (Heb. 9:26)

d). “For yet a little while, And he that shall come will come, and will not
tarry.” (Heb. 10:37)
e). “… who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was

manifest in these last times for you.” (1 Peter, 1:20)

f). “But the end of all things is at hand.” (1 Peter, 4:7)

g). “…. behold, the judge standeth before the door.” (James, 5:9)

The opening words of the Revelation run thus:

“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants
things which must shortly come to pass ….” (Rev. 1:1)

Almost the last verse of this book gives the following assurance:

“He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come,
Lord Jesus.” (Rev. 22:20).

The “shortly” of the first of these texts and the “quickly” of the second, both have

the force of “very soon.”

The first generation of Christians died without the world changing its normal
course, and, though hope of a speedy advent of Christ was slow to wane, men began to
complain by about the middle of the second century, that “all things continue as they
were from the beginning of the creation.” (2 Peter, 3:4).
 The author of the Second Epistle of Peter is a literary forger, writing probably
more than a hundred years after Jesus, who wants to be taken for the leader of the
Twelve. His quibble that one day must be understood as a thousand years for the divine
point of view, so that the promise of an imminent event means that millennia may first
elapse, is too ridiculous to be discussed!
Bible adherents are requested to consider the following text in the light of the

many Biblical prophecies that subsequent events have falsified:

“When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to
pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it
presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.” (Deuteronomy, 18:22).
 Home
A Thinking Man's Reasons for
Doubting the Inspiration of the Bible
by A.S.K. Joommal

In Bible lessons we are taught that the Book of books is nothing but a God-
inspired document. From pulpits the preachers have drummed it in our ears that the Holy
Writ’s authenticity is beyond doubt and that every single sentence and every single word
MUST be accepted as the pure Word of God.

Of course we would very much like to believe all this, but for one thing:
REASON. The Almighty has distinguished man above the other creations of His by
endowing him with reason. Man has been described as a rational being by philosophers.
To place credulity above rationality is naïve. If the brain is not put to its proper function -
that of THINKING, as the Almighty has intended – then one might as a well lead an
animal or vegetable life. We have no right to call ourselves thinking, rational beings if in
matters of faith (which is the most important aspect of human life) we divorce our
intelligence and swallow every line of the Bible without investigating its veracity.

Faith is a necessary thing, and it is an integral part of man’s life on earth, but we
must first know and understand in what our faith is vested. If the object of our faith has
been exposed by scholarly research to be fallible, man-made, spurious and fabricated, and
if our pet religious beliefs derived from this object have been exploded by analysis, then
we must re-examine, re-assess our whole religious outlook and re-orientate ourselves
spiritually in the light of what is true and what is false.

It is healthy to exercise one’s mind sometimes in life. Such an opportunity should

never be missed! We give below a number of reasons which any normally intelligent and
thinking person may advance for not placing his faith in, and credence on, the alleged
genuineness of the Bible as “the Word of God.”

1. In the Old Testament we find several contradictory laws about the same thing, and
contradictory accounts of the same occurrences. In the twentieth chapter of
Exodus we find the first account of the giving of the Ten Commandments. In the
34th chapter another account is given. These two accounts could never have been
written by the same person. Read these two accounts and you will be forced to
admit that one of them cannot be true. So there are two histories of the creation, of
the flood, and of the manner in which Saul became king.

2. It is now admitted by Bible scholars that Genesis must have been written by at
least two persons, and the parts written by each can be separated. When separated,
they are found to contradict each other in many important particulars.
3. It taxes our credulity to read that God really wrestled with Jacob and put his thigh
out of joint, and that for that reason the Jews refused to “eat the sinew that
shrank”, as recounted in the 32nd chapter of Genesis.

4. One can scarcely be blamed for hesitating to believe that God met Moses at an
hotel and tried to kill him: that afterwards He made this same Moses a god to
Pharaoh and gave him his brother Aaron for a prophet. (Exodus, 4:24 ; 7:1)

5. Is there a Christian missionary who could resist being amused if in any heathen
country he had seen the following command of God carried out?: “And thou shalt
take the other ram; and Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of
the ram. Then shalt thou kill the ram and take of his blood and put it upon the tip
of the right ear of Aaron, and upon the tip of the right ear of his sons, and upon
the thumb of their right hand, and upon the great toe of their right foot.” (Exodus,
29:19-20)

6. How can one ever believe that God threatened to destroy the Jews, but was

dissuaded from taking this step by Moses who told him that the Egyptians might

mock him!? “And the Lord repented of the evil which He thought to do unto His

people.” (Exodus, 32:14). In other words, Moses was much more sensible than

God because he showed Him the error of His plan!

7. How does one reconcile the following two verses in Exodus?:

In verse 11 of chapter 33 we read: “And the Lord spake unto Moses FACE TO
FACE, AS A MAN SPEAKETH UNTO HIS FRIEND.”

In the same chapter, nine verses later, it is written: “And He (God) said, Thou
CANST NOT SEE MY FACE: for there shall NO MAN SEE ME, AND LIVE.”
(33:20) Is God responsible for this inconsistency, or is this patent contradiction
the “inspired” work of the writer of Exodus?

8. Why should God object to a man wearing a garment made of wool and linen?
Why should He care whether a man rounded the corners of his beard? (Leviticus,
19:19,27). Why should God prevent a man from offering the sacred bread merely
because he had a flat nose, or was lame, or had a broken foot, or was a dwarf?
(Leviticus, 21:18-20). If He objected to such people, why did He create them in
the first place?

9. No man in his right sense would ever accept that the ashes of a red heifer (burnt) are a purification for sin; that God gave cities
into the hands of the Jews because they solemnly agreed to murder all the inhabitants; that God became enraged and induced
 snakes to bite His chosen people; that God told Balaam to go with the princes of Moab, and then became angry because he did
go; that an ass saw an angel and conversed with a man. (Numbers, chapters 19-22)

10. It is an insult to the human intelligence when we are asked to believe that a spear

thrust through the “belly” of a woman ever stayed a plague. (Numbers, 25:8); that

God ever commanded a man to kill his wife, his brother, his son, his daughter, or

his bosom friend if they differed from him on matters of religion (Deuteronomy,

13:6-10); or that God was mistaken about hares chewing the cud (Deut. 14:7); or

that He objected to the people raising horses (Deut. 17:16); or that He

commanded widows to spit in the faces of their brothers-in-law (Deut. 25:9); or

that He even threatened to give anybody the itch (Deut. 28:27).

11. Can any sane man believe that seven priests could blow seven rams’ horns loud
enough to throw down the walls of a city?; or that God, after Achan had confessed
that he had secreted a garment and a wedge of gold, became good-natured as soon
as Achan and his sons and daughters, his oxen, asses and his sheep, had been
stoned to death and their bodies burned? Must we believe that God sanctioned and
commanded all the cruelties and horrors described in the Old Testament; that He
waged the most relentless and heartless wars; that He declared mercy a crime, that
to spare life was to excite His wrath; that He smiled when maidens were violated,
laughed when mothers were ripped open with a sword, and shouted with joy when
babes were butchered in their mothers arms? Read the infamous book of Joshua
and then worship the God who inspired it – if you can! (Joshua, 6:4-20; 7:18-26;
6:4-13; 7:25; Deuteronomy, 20:13-14; 8:20-24; 20:15-17; 7:2; 7:16; 1 Samuel,
15:23; Jeremiah, 13:14; Ezekiel, 9:6; Judges, 21:10-24; Hosea, 13:16; Exodus,
13:15-16).

12. Is it not taxing the intelligence too much when we are asked to have faith in a God who had the power to stop the sun and
the moon for Joshua, but could not defeat an army that had iron chariots? (Judges, 1:19)

13. Do you really believe that men who lap water like a dog make the best soldiers?
(Judges, 7:5). Do you think that a man could hold a lamp in his left hand, a
trumpet in his right hand, blow his trumpet, shout “the sword of the Lord and of
Gideon”, and break pitchers at the same time? (Judges, 7:20)

14. Who will believe that the Phillistines took back the Ark with a present of five gold
mice, and that thereupon God relented? (1 Samuel, 6:4). Is it possible that God
killed fifty thousand men for looking into a box? (1 Samuel, 6:19)
15. Must we believe, in order to be good and tender fathers and mothers, that because
some “little children” mocked at an old man with a bald head, God – the same
God who said, “Suffer little children to come unto me” – sent two she-bears out of
the wood and tore forty-two of these babes? Think of the mothers that watched
and waited for their children. Think of the wailing when their mangled bodies
were found and brought back and pressed to the breasts of the weeping mothers!
Would you call the God of the Bible a God of Mercy and Love? (2 Kings, 2:23-
24)

16. How can one believe that a prophet, by lying on a dead body, could make it
sneeze seven times; or that being dipped seven times in the Jordan could cure the
leprosy? (2 Kings, Chapters 4-5)
17. Would a merciful God curse children, and the children’s children yet unborn, with leprosy for a father’s fault? (2 Kings,
5:27)

18. Is it possible to make iron float in water? Is it believable that when a corpse
touched another corpse, it came to life? (2 Kings, 6:6; 13:21)

19. Can you believe that Pekah slew one hundred and twenty thousand men
in ONE day? (2 Chronicles, 28:6)

20. Does anyone believe that Zerah, the Ethiopian, invaded Palestine with a million
men?

(2 Chronicles, 14:9). Did God ever secretly bury a man and allowed the corpse to
write an account of the funeral? (Deuteronomy. Chapter 34). Did God really tell
someone that “Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her”?
(Deuteronomy, 28:30)
 Part II
An Examination of the Fundamental Doctrines of Christianity

Home The Doctrine of Atonement

by A.S.K. Joommal

Christians say that the Lord Almighty has a Son – His “only begotten Son.” This
Son was conceived by Mary through the “Holy Ghost”, and was born in the form of a
human child. The Son, i.e. Jesus Christ, was reared as other human children, and when he
grew older, he preached the Word of God and performed miracles. His activities met with
great opposition from the Jews who persecuted him and finally succeeded in getting him
crucified. The Son of God thus died and descended into Hell, remaining there for three
days. At the end of these three days he rose from the dead, ascended into Heaven, and is
now sitting at the right hand of God. Jesus was innocent, but he sacrificed his life for the
sake of mankind in order to atone for their sins. No man will now be punished for his sins
if he faithfully believes that Jesus shed his blood for him.

This, in brief, is the definition of the doctrine of atonement.

Christians believe that every human child is born with the taint of the Original
Sin. The Original Sin, of course, was committed by Adam and Eve when, in disobedience
to the Lord, they ate the fruit of the Tree of knowledge. In punishment for this sin they
were expelled from paradise and God, in His Justice, ordained that every single child
born from the time of Adam until the end of the world, will inherit this Sin of Adam and
Eve. It was for this reason that the Son of God was not conceived by Mary through the
seed of man, but through the agency of the Holy Ghost so that he may not inherit the sin
of Adam like the rest of Adam’s progeny.

Since man is born sinful and the consequence of sin is punishment in hell, it is
necessary that a Christian should sincerely believe in Atonement. God, in His infinite
mercy, wants to see that man is saved from being punished for his sins. But God is also
Just and His Justice demands that man must be punished. How could these two attributes
of God – Justice and Mercy – be reconciled? This problem was solved by the Son of God
who willingly offered himself for punishment on behalf of the entire humanity. This offer
was accepted by God. The punishment for the sins of the whole of mankind was a heavy
one, but the person who bore this punishment was no less than the Son of God himself! A
little chastisement on the Son of God, therefore, was taken as remission for the sins of all
men together.

The doctrine of Atonement is the most important pillar in the whole superstructure
of Christianity. Knock down this pillar, and the edifice is razed to the ground. In the
course of this dissertation it will be shown how untenable and tenuous this doctrine is.
This massive pillar can be knocked down with a feather!
 An examination of this doctrinal belief in the light of reason and sound common
sense will expose its absurdity and hollowness. One can be sure that even after reading
and understanding the logic of the reasons given here and not being able to refute them,
“believing” Christians will continue to believe as before without the slightest ripple of
thought in their minds. But those Christians whose conscience and soul are not totally
shackled by dogmatism and the fear of being called heretics or being excommunicated,
would certainly exercise the God-given freedom of reasoning, logical analysis,
examination, scrutiny, THINKING. If they exercise the slightest THINKING, their
conscience will revolt against the senseless doctrines to which they have been saying Yes
and Amen ever since they have been taught to believe in these pillars of faith blindly.

(1) An analogy would best illustrate the ridiculous nature of the Doctrine of

Atonement. An earthly landowner, having sustained wrongs committed by his

tenants, offers to forgo his right to recovery for the damage with full forgiveness

and remission of all penalties if his son, his only son and heir, would give his life

and die the death of a felon in satisfaction of his claim. Or: a number of people

arrested for serious crimes against the State are arraigned before the King who, in

his great justice and mercy, tells them that he would grant them an absolute

pardon if his only heir to the throne – the Crown Prince – would take the burden

and responsibility of their crimes and submit himself to an ignominious death.

Is it possible to imagine a more illogical, cruel and pernicious arrangement in

settlement of justice?
(2) This doctrine gives mankind licence for the free and unbridled commission of
sins. All one has to do is to have implicit faith in Jesus having given his blood
with which the past and future sins of mankind have been washed clean. This is a
most comfortable, convenient and easy doctrine to follow. It does not require any
hard, rigorous or practical form of worship from the believer. He must merely
believe and have faith, and his salvation is assured.
Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism, said that a believer in atonement
might sin to his fill, for he was sure to be saved. It is this doctrine of Atonement
that is chiefly responsible for the gross immorality and moral degradation in
which the Christian continents of Europe and America are wallowing.
(3) Christians contend that they have no more need to follow the Law because
Jesus fulfilled it by subjecting himself to the yoke of law, and thus relieving them
from its “curse” For example, Jesus had himself circumcised, therefore there is no
 necessity for them to follow this ordinance. If such is the case then we may well
ask why do Christians suffer death since Jesus bore death? Why do they perform
the ritual of baptism since Jesus had himself baptized? Jesus also prayed: why do
Christians then pray? But all these things are thought necessary by them and they
perform them, and they find themselves as subject to death as any other mortal.
This shows Atonement to be a false belief!
(4) It is the order of the world that lesser things are sacrificed for the higher – never

the higher for the lower. On the battlefield are to be found soldiers who fight in

the first ranks. Behind them stand the officers, and behind the officers is the

general who takes a secure place, while the members of the Government are safe

in their homes. The soldier gives his life for the sergeant, the sergeant for the

officer, the officer for the captain, the captain for the colonel, the colonel for the

general, and the general for the commander-in-chief. The Commanding Officer, or

the members of the Government, is/are never sacrificed to save the life of a

private. Similarly, the green, waving corns of the field are sacrificed so that the

cattle may live; the cattle are sacrificed that men may live. Quantities of phenol

are poured down sewerage drains in order to destroy noxious germs so that the

health of human beings may not be affected. But we have never seen human

beings sacrificed for the sake of worms and cattle.

If such is the order of earthly things, how can we believe that the Heavenly God
sacrificed Himself for the sake of insignificant, sinning, puny men who are of no
importance whatsoever compared to Him? Such an idea is totally opposed to common
sense, and is against the laws of nature.

(5) Christians assert on the authority of the Bible that “death is the wages of sin.”
The inference from this is that people, the wages of whose sins have been paid for
by another person, should not die. Jesus has atoned for the sins of his followers by
his death and therefore none of them should be subject to death. But the
Christians are just as much subject to death as other mortals are. This shows that
the so-called Atonement has done the Christians no good, and it is an empty
claim.
(6) It is contended that the justice of God cannot be fulfilled except through the
atonement of Jesus. But the doctrine itself is such that it infringes the very
concept of justice. Jesus was innocent. Is it justice to burden him with the sins of
mankind? It may be argued that Jesus was the master of his own life and that he
gave it willingly. That he gave his life willingly is simply not true, for we read
about him in Matthew 26:39 that “he fell on his face and prayed, saying, O my
Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” There is also that heart-
rending cry which he uttered loudly on the cross: “My God, My God, why hast
Thou forsaken me?” Do these utterances sound as if they came from a man who
gave his lifewillingly?

The doctrine of Atonement presents God in a bad light: as a cruel, merciless God
who could not forgive the sins of men without exacting his “pound of flesh.” This
Shylockian image of the Almighty is the natural corollary of this doctrine.

Reason revolts at the very idea that a Merciful God can punish the innocent Jesus
for the sins of others. Such action is TOTALLY incompatible with His Love and Justice.

(7) The doctrine of Atonement presents Christ also as unjust. Man commits two
kinds of sins: against God and against man. If man sins against God, then
(according to Christians) belief in the atonement of Jesus will save him from
damnation. Man sinned against God, God’s Son bore the punishment, and man
got away scot-free. But what about the man who sins against his fellow human
beings? A steals something from B. This sin of theft is already upon the shoulders
of Christ since A is a believer in Atonement and hence in the happy position of
having all his sins dumped on the head of Christ. But then look at the injustice
perpetrated on B who can neither receive his stolen item back nor can he seek
redress against A. Has Jesus then not acted unjustly towards B by taking A’s sin
on himself?

Thus this doctrine presents both God AND Jesus as unjust!

(8) Christians maintain that sin was brought into this world by Adam and Eve and
that this taint cannot be removed from our soul unless we make ourselves
deserving of salvation by faith in the Atonement of Jesus. According to the Bible,
then, the punishment meted out to Adam for his sin was: “In the sweat of the face
shalt thou eat bread.” (Gen. 3:19) while to women the Lord said: “In sorrow shalt
thou bring forth children.” (Gen. 3:16)
The natural question is: Is there a faithful Christian man, or has there ever been

one, who can claim exemption from this punishment and who can positively assert that

through faith in the Atonement of Jesus, he no longer has to work in order to earn his

living? Likewise is there a single Christian woman who can say that faith in the blood of
Christ has relieved her form the pains of childbirth? Is there a single, living Christian,

man or woman, living in any part of the globe, who can answer these questions in the

affirmative? Our experiences in life clearly falsify this doctrine. Every man has to work

for a living; every woman suffers travail at childbirth. Belief in Atonement has in no way

exempted or relieved them from the punishment which God had stipulated for them.

Atonement, then, is a valueless, imaginary thing. It is merely a theological hocus-pocus

and has no bearing at all on the hard realities of daily life.

(9) When a man first believes in the Atonement of Christ, he has certain sins which he committed in the past and some
which he may commit in the future. If by believing in Atonement his past sins are washed away, then it follows that he should be
exempted from the punishment of his future sins as well. But such is not the case. Take the case of the convert to Christianity
who committed fornication and thus had the seed of punishment (in the form of syphilis) planted in his frame.

Being a believer in Atonement, he should not have been infected with any
venereal disease, and the punishment should immediately be transferred to Jesus who
undertook to bear and pay for the sins of his followers. But what do we see in life? We all
know for a fact that if anyone who breaks God’s commandments and ventures into
forbidden territory, always hurts his own self, his own being and soul. There are special
hospitals for the treatment of venereal disease patients. All these patients who believe in
Atonement should not be in the hospital in the first place because their sin and its
consequence should have been taken on by Christ!

It is thus clear that Atonement cannot save a believer in it from past or future
sins.

(10) A non-Christian steals a sum of money. Having heard that if he places his faith in

Jesus who took upon himself the burden of mankind’s sins, he will be saved, he becomes

a convert to Christianity. Will his conversion and belief in the Atonement of Christ save

him form being punished by the court for the crime of theft? Most certainly not – and it

may be added here that there would not be a more disillusioned person than he!

(11) Further proof that belief in Atonement has not made better human beings out of

Christians lies in the fact that since the birth of Christ until the present day, crimes

of all sorts are prevalent in the Christian countries – more so, perhaps than in any
 non-Christian country in the world. If belief in Atonement removes from one’s

heart the power of doing evil, then the evidence of this is sadly lacking in the

Christian world. Not taking the general public into account – who may not

understand the meaning of Atonement any better (and who can blame them?) – let

us turn our attention to the priests and preachers for a while.

These reverend gentlemen have been properly trained in theological matters.

They know and understand fully the significance of their doctrines. They are the people
who ought to be shining examples to their flocks. But what do we find? We find that
some of the grosser crimes have been committed by these holy men. A book published in
New York called “The Crimes of Preachers”, gives a list of the crimes committed during
the last twenty years by the clergy of two Christian countries – the United States of
America and Canada. The writer of the book says that about nine hundred Christian
priests from these two countries have been convicted by their respective courts for
horrible crimes.

In view of such revelations, how can one ever have faith in the spiritual efficacy

of Atonement?

Startling facts have been divulged both about the Roman Catholic and the
Protestant clergy which bring the moral condition of the Christian countries under the
uncomfortable glare of world spotlight. In order to enable the readers to form an idea of
the shocking immorality of the Christian clergymen, they are asked to peruse the
following factual works:

1. THE CRIMES OF CHRISTIANITY, by J.M. Wheeler and G.W. Foote.

(Published in London in 1887)

2. LIFE BY THE NUN OF KENMARE. INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ROME.

3. LIFE INSIDE THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

These books may be difficult to obtain as they are probably banned. Bitter, naked
truth always hurts badly. Efforts are therefore made to suppress it. But truth has a
marvelous capacity for not remaining hidden for long!
 It is now being honestly admitted by all THINKING Christians that Christianity is

a failure. We do not have to dwell much on this subject as the evidence is there for all

intelligent men to see.

Immorality is the hallmark of Western Christian civilization. Western civilisation

is based on Christianity. One can expect the moral turpitude and the general immorality
that is to be found in the West today, because the very roots of this civilization are to be
found in a faith, one of whose doctrines is Atonement which violates and defies common
sense and reason.

For further cogent reasons as to why Christianity did not and cannot succeed,
readers are recommended to read “WHY IS CHRISTIANTY A FAILURE”, written by a
Churchman. It is published by the Ideal Publishing Union, Ltd., London.

(12) The doctrine of Atonement is founded on an ignorance of the philosophy of

punishment.

The aim and motive for punishing a wrongdoer or sinner is his correction and
reform. How can this purpose be served if a judge, say, punishes his own son for the
crimes committed by the accused before him? Would such a procedure make a better and
reformed person out of the accused, or would it encourage him to further commission of
crimes knowing full well that the judge’s son is waiting to take the blame and punishment
on his own shoulders?

If an innocent person is chastised for wrongs perpetrated by another, this would

constitute a patent violation of the very concept of justice and make a mockery of the idea
of and reason for punishment.
This doctrine is therefore palpably false and totally inconsistent with Divine
attributes.

(13) Justice and mercy are two attributes of God that Christians cannot reconcile.
According to their understanding, justice and mercy are twoopposing – and not
complementary – forces. The demands of God’s justice were satisfied when He
had His “only begotten Son” crucified for the sins of mankind. (what sort of
“justice” this is, may, if at all, be best understood by Christians alone. No sane
person can ever comprehend such a concept of Heavenly “justice”!) If that was
God’s justice, then where was His mercy? If the doctrine of Atonement is to be
believed, then the Deity is represented as being totally devoid of any mercy
whatsoever. It would have been bad enough had God proclaimed that Jesus had
taken the burden of sins on his own shoulders thus exculpating all mankind; but
the act of God in subjecting His “only begotten Son” to a humiliating and
ignominious death can hardly be called mercy!
 Atonement, therefore, stultifies God’s two most powerful traits of Justice and
Mercy and renders one incompatible with the other.

(14) Clergymen shout from pulpits that there is no remission of sins except
through the blood of Jesus. If this were so, then God would not have provided
examples from nature itself: When we consume unwholesome or disagreeable
matter, we are immediately punished for this sin by pains that arise in the
stomach. But as soon as corrective treatment is taken, the pain eases and finally
disappears. In the light of this example, what would you think of the doctor who,
when you go to him for treatment for a pain in your stomach, drinks the medicine
and swallows the tablets himself, or, (following the Crucifixion theory to its
logical conclusion), takes a knife and plunges it in his own stomach, telling you
that in so doing,YOUR stomach-ache shall disappear?

It is obvious, then, that no sane doctor would rip open his own belly or knock his

own brains out as a form of treatment for his patient with a stomach pain or a headache.

Yet the doctrine of Atonement would have us believe that because mankind
suffered from the disease of sins, Jesus Christ’s prescription for its treatment was to give
his own life for men’s misdeeds. A more fatuous doctrine is hardly imaginable!

THE ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT

The Doctrine of Atonement is so absurd and preposterous and offends human

reason so profoundly, that one begins to ask as to how this doctrine came into existence?
Who was the first person who invented this doctrine?

The doctrine is certainly not of divine origin, nor has it been taught by Jesus, as
we fail to see it anywhere in the four gospels.

The answer is that it was Paul whose ingenuity gave birth to this idea of
Atonement. Paul was a Jew who was a bitter enemy of Jesus throughout his (Jesus’s)
ministry. Paul met Christ’s disciples occasionally and had not had the good fortune of
living in their company. He told them one day that Jesus appeared to him in a dream and
that since then he became a believer in Christ.

Paul, however, wrote his own views about the mission of Christ, and these
writings gained a certain amount of currency amongst the Christians of his time.

Although Jesus was not really dead on the cross but only appeared to be so, he
was taken as dead and placed in a sepulchre. Having recovered from his wounds after
they were dressed and taken care of, he left the sepulchre and met his disciples secretly. It
would have been highly dangerous to reveal that he was still alive, since he was formally
tried and sentenced to death by the Roman government. If his identity had been
discovered, he would have been re-arrested and sentenced to death for the second time.
How could his disciples even expose the fact that Christ was not dead but very much
alive?

The Jews, on the other hand, exultantly declared that Jesus died because he was
an accursed man and an impostor. “For he that is hanged is accursed of God”, says
Deuteronomy (21:23). The aim of the Jews in having Jesus crucified was to show that he
was an impostor and thus prove the truth of the Word of God.

The disciples of Jesus did not know what to do or say. They were in a dilemma.
An admission of his death on the cross involved a belief in his having become “accursed
of God”, but a declaration that he was alive was most hazardous, for Jesus might be re-
arrested and hanged again. It was at this juncture that Paul’s ingenuity came into
operation and he devised a clever plan to which the disciples did not object, because it
seemed the only way out of the predicament under the circumstances. Paul advanced the
theory that Jesus had undoubtedly been subjected to an accursed death, but since he
himself was completely innocent having taken on his own shoulders the burden of the
curse for the sins of men, this did not constitute infamy, but was, on the contrary, a very
meritorious act. Thus the Christians now at least had something to say in reply to the
Jews. This theory, however, which was originally formulated as an answer to the Jews,
gradually developed into the Doctrine of Atonement as now preached by the Christian
missionaries.

Present-day Christianity is based mainly on the teachings of Paul. Christians have

often asked the question whether Christianity is the religion of Jesus or of Paul. Only
recently this question had been answered and thoroughly dealt with in a book by Dr.
Arnold Meyer, Professor of Theology at the University of Zurich. This book has been
translated into English and is called “Jesus or Paul?” In this book the Professor proves
conclusively that the divinity (Godhood) of Jesus and the Atonement are dogmas which
owe their origin to Paul. Jesus and his apostles, the Professor says, knew nothing
whatsoever about these doctrines!

Meander says in his “History of the Christian Religion and the Church” that the
doctrine of Atonement as is now believed by the Christian Church was not definitely and
distinctly formulated until the 12th Century, and that “the twelfth century constitutes an
epoch in the history of this doctrine.” (“History of the Christian Religion and the
Church”, Vol. 1 B, p. 497)

We also do not find any mention of Atonement being made in either the Talmud
or the Torah. The learned authors of the Jewish Encyclopaedia – a work comprising 12
big volumes and compiled by more than 400 Jewish scholars – say under the word
“Atonement” that according to the Jewish Law, the elements of Atonement are divine
mercy, repentance, reparation of wrong, prayer, fasting and charity. The custom of
oblation, that is, offering sacrifices, was also very prevalent so that it became a
saying among them: “And without shedding of blood is no remission.” (Hebrews, 9:22).
Paul, who was learned in Jewish religious literature, set this saying before him (see
Hebrews 9:22), and after perverting, distorting and twisting certain sentences of the
Jewish scriptures, created Pauline Christianity (Paulianity) on the supposed atonement
through the blood of Jesus!

THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT REFUTED BY THE BIBLE

ITSELF

Logical arguments, no matter how powerful or irrefutable, analogical examples

cited to prove the absurdity of any particular doctrine, may be extremely convincing, but
a believing Christian will always say that these are all man-made arguments and do not
hold water with him. But what will he say if it is proved from the Bible itself that the
Atonement doctrine is a mere human fabrication without any scriptural basis whatever?
He will maintain that we are enemies of Christianity and are only twisting, distorting and
misinterpreting verses from the Bible in order to prove our point. The trueChristian, they
will say, will remain steadfast in his faith and in his belief, and shall not be moved one
inch form his path of faith nor be convinced by them, because all those who quote from
the Bible in order to disprove Christian dogmas, are instigated by the Devil.

This is the hermetically sealed mind that does not admit any fresh air of reason.
Even an angel would not be able to convince them that what they believe about God is
wrong!

Nevertheless, let us present the scriptural refutations as lucidly as possible.

Whether you accept or reject them, will depend entirely on what kind of mettle you are
made of and whether your mental make-up is such as would acknowledge error or
doggedly perpetuate an erroneous and absurd belief, maintaining and insisting that it is
divinely-inspired. It depends on YOU!

(1) In 2 Chronicles (7:14) we read as follows:

“……….. if my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray,
and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and
will forgive their sin ………..”

In the above quotation, God lays down four conditions for the forgiveness of sins, viz.:

i. The people must humble themselves before God.

ii. They must pray.

iii. They must seek God’s face.

iv. They must turn away from their wicked ways.

Nowhere in the above verse do we find the injunction that in order to seek His
forgiveness, sinners must believe that Jesus gave his blood, and that if one does not do so,
one is damned to eternal perdition. The doctrine of Atonement is thus clearly falsified by
the verses quoted above.

(2) The doctrine of Atonement was never preached by Christ at any time. That it is
an ecclesiastical invention, will become clear from the following:

A rich young ruler approached Jesus and asked him what he must do in order to
gain eternal life. Jesus told him to keep the commandments. The young man then
informed Jesus that he had kept all the commandments “from my youth up: what lack I
yet?” Whereupon Christ suggested to him that “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that
thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven.” (Matthew,
19:21)

From this we infer that belief in Atonement was never a pre-requisite for salvation
or eternal life. If this were so, Jesus would not have hesitated in telling any inquirer that:
“Believe thou with all thy heart that I have come to cleanse the multitude of their sins
with my blood. He that believeth in my Atonement shall have eternal life; and he who
doth not, shall be damned to eternal damnation.”

Surely Jesus could have easily uttered the above words and could have made
Atonement the most important condition for salvation! Why did he not? Why, instead, did
he order his followers to observe the commandments as a means to salvation? He also
said: “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate and broad is the way, that leadeth
to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and
narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” (Matthew, 7: 13-
14)

The narrow and the straight path, then, is the road to salvation. In other words,
leading a righteous life would grant us the passport to the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus says
further: “For I say unto you, That except your RIGHTEOUSNESS shall exceed the
righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of
heaven.” (Matt. 5:20)

The words of Jesus, then, clearly prove that a virtuous, sound, moral, righteous
life is a condition for salvation, and NOT belief in Atonement. In fact Atonement falsifies
Jesus’s teachings. Atonement is thus contrary to Biblical injunctions, and as such is
false, man-made and unworthy of belief and credence.

(3) From Matthew (12:31-32) we learn that there are two kinds of sins: those that
will be forgiven and those that shall not be forgiven. “Wherefore I say unto you, All
manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the
Holy Gost shall not be forgiven unto men ….. neither in this world, neither in the world
to come.”
 If the doctrine of Atonement had been a true doctrine, then Christ would not have
uttered the above words, because belief in Atonement is said to bring about the pardon
of ALL sins alike.

(4) A prophet of God is recorded to have said:

“….. let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him
return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will
abundantly pardon.” (Isaiah, 55:7)

In these lines the prophet Isaiah clearly says that the manner in which man can attain
salvation is to relinquish his evil ways, to forsake wickedness and to return to God. If one
does this then the mercy and pardon of the Lord is sure to follow. NO mention, however,
is made that one must believe in Atonement in order to enjoy the mercy and forgiveness
of God. This shows that the doctrine of Atonement is false.

(5) Christians say that the Gospels contain the actual words of Jesus. If such be
the case, then it must carry greater weight with them than the words of any other prophet
of the Old Testament. Let us now see what are Christ’s words on the subject of
forgiveness of sins. In the sixth chapter of Matthew, Jesus teaches his disciples a prayer in
which, among other things, the following is mentioned: “And forgive us our debts, as we
forgive our debtors.”

Jesus taught in this prayer that we should pardon those that sin against us, as a
result of which God will forgive our sins. He did not teach that for the forgiveness of sins
it was necessary that one should believe in his Atonement, but enunciated clearly that a
particular deed of virtue would lead to the forgiveness of sins by the Almighty. What
follows, clearly falsifies the Doctrine of Atonement, for Jesus says: “For if ye forgive
men their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you: but if ye forgive not men
their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew, 6:14-15). In
these words he most clearly stated that the way to have our sins forgiven is to forgive the
sins of those who trespass against us so that our mercy might draw the mercy of God.

Where does Atonement, then, feature in all this?

(6) When Solomon built a house in the name of the Lord God of Israel, he stood
before the altar of the Lord, spread forth his hands towards heaven in the presence of all
the congregation of Israel, and in the course of a lengthy prayer which he offered, he said:
“Lord God of Israel …. hearken Thou to the supplication of Thy servant, and of Thy
people Israel, when they shall pray toward this place and hear Thou in heaven, Thy
dwelling place; and when Thou hearest, forgive; …. When Thy people Israel …. Shall
turn again to Thee, and confess Thy name and pray, and make supplication unto thee in
this house; then hear Thou in heaven, and forgive the sin of Thy people Israel, and bring
them again unto the land which Thou gavest unto their fathers. When heaven is shut up,
and there is no rain, because they have sinned against Thee; if they pray toward this
place, and turn from their sin, and confess Thy name, then hear Thou in heaven and
forgive the sin of Thy servants …. What prayer and supplication soever be made by any
man or by all Thy people Israel … then hear Thou in heaven Thy dwelling place, and
forgive.” (1 Kings, 8:30-39)

Let us now see what the Lord God says in answer to Solomon’s prayer:

“And the Lord said unto him, I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication, that
thou hast made before me: I have hallowed this house, which thou hast built, to put my
name there for ever; and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually. And if thou
wilt walk before me, as David thy father walked, in integrity of heart, and in uprightness,
…. Then I will establish the throne of thy kingdom upon Israel for ever.” (1 Kings, 9:3-5)

These verses clearly show that God hears and accepts the prayers of His servants.
In order, therefore, to be the recipient of His favours, it is necessary, NOT that one should
believe in Atonement, but that one should walk before God in INTEGRITY and
UPRIGHTNESS. If the doctrine of Atonement was valid, then God would certainly have
informed Solomon who repeatedly prayed for forgiveness, that He had made other
arrangements for forgiveness by having His own “begotten” son crucified! His son will
bear upon himself the sins of all mankind and would be their saviour.

It is obvious that God never informed us of this fact through any prophet of the
Bible, but on the contrary He showed us what we must do in order to secure His
forgiveness and actually forgave sins independently of the Christian doctrine of
Atonement!

(7) When Abimelech, King of Gerar, took Abraham’s wife (Sarah), God appeared to
him in a dream and said: “Restore the man his wife, for he is a prophet, and he shall pray
for thee, and thou shalt live.” (Genesis, 20:7). God plainly says in this verse that the
prayer of a prophet intercedes for us and brings us life. No Atonement of the type taught
by Christians is at all necessary.

(8) In the book of Exodus, we find further Scriptural evidence against the Christian
doctrine of Atonement. The Beni-Israel, seeing that Moses delayed in coming down from
the mount, made themselves a golden calf and worshipped it thus provoking the wrath of
the Almighty. God said to Moses: “Let me alone that I may consume them.” In order to
save his people from the anger of God which threatened them, Moses did two things:

(i) he asked his people to kill with their own hands the perpetrators of the mischief;

(ii) he went to the Lord and said: “Oh, this people have sinned a great sin and have
made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin; and if not, blot me, I pray
thee, out of Thy book which thou hast written.”

Please note that Moses makes two proposals to God for the forgiveness of the sins
of his people: one is that the sins be pardoned, the other that he himself would atone for
their sins – “peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin.” (Exodus, 32:30)
 The second proposal is of particular significance to us here because of the all-
important doctrine of the Atonement of Christ under discussion.

What reply did God give to Moses’s entreaty? The Almighty answered his second
request first when He said: “Whosoever hath sinned against Me, him will I blot out of my
book.” (Exodus, 32:33)

What can be clearer than this? Do we need further arguments to refute

Atonement? In the very pages of the Bible, in the very words of the Lord Almighty
Himself, we read a clear-cut refutation and rejection of the Atonement doctrine. The very
idea of punishing innocent Moses for the guilt of his people is REPUGNANT to God and
revolts against His sense of Justice! Although Moses was willing (more willing than
Christ!) and offered himself for atonement for the sins of his followers, God rejected his
request and clarified to him that each man must pay the penalty of his sin himself. God,
however, accepted Moses’s intercession and did not wreak vengeance on his people as He
had originally intended.

If the people of the world were to be salvaged from the shipwreck of sins, then
God should have told Moses in no uncertain terms that his offer of atonement was
unworthy and unacceptable because His own “begotten” son had taken upon himself this
gargantuan task of atoning for the sins of all generations, past, present and future, and
that if his people desired a remission of their sins, they should believe in His son! But
God Almighty, neither through Moses nor through any other prophet, informed the world
that His own son would suffer punishment on behalf of all people, and that they should
believe in him so that they might be saved.

The Doctrine of Atonement thus stands exposed in all its naked falsehood!

(9) We read in Deuteronomy (9:18-19) what Moses, addressing Israel, says: “And I
fell down before the Lord as at the first, forty days and forty nights: I did neither eat
bread, nor drink water, because of all your sins which ye have sinned, in doing wickedly
in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger. For I was afraid of the anger and hot
displeasure, wherewith the Lord was wroth against you to destroy you. But the Lord
hearkened unto me at that time also.”

Here too the people were saved from being punished for their wrongdoings by the
intercession of a great prophet and NOT through atonement of the kind preached by
Christians.

(10) Further quotations from the Bible are given hereunder to substantiate the fact that
every man and woman is responsible for his or her own actions and no person will bear
the burden of another.

(i) “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.” (Ezekiel, 18:20)

(ii) “But everyone shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour
grape, his teeth shall be set on edge.” (Jeremiah, 31:30)

(iii) “The fathers 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.” (Deuteronomy, 24:16)

“The fathers shall not die for the children, neither shall the children die for the fathers,
but every man shall die for his own sin.” (2 Chronicles, 25:4)

(v) “The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor the children be put to
death for the fathers: but every man shall be put to death for his own sin.” (2 Kings,
14:6)

TEN QUESTIONS ON ATONEMENT

Atonement is said to be the most important teaching of Christianity. It is the

cornerstone of the Christian faith. If this dogma is the foundation on which the edifice of
the Christian Church is constructed, then those who call themselves the followers of
Christ should be absolutely clear in their minds as to what this doctrine connotes. They
should be able to give perfectly sensible and logical answers to any question on this all-
important dogma of the Church. They should be able to convince any doubting Thomas
that this dogma is not a human fabrication but a divinely formulated doctrine that admits
of no faults or loopholes that may be exploited by unbelievers in Christianity.

A minimum of TEN questions, therefore, are posed here to the reverend

gentlemen and elders of all the Christian Churches of the world. The answers must be
lucid, sensible, logical, believable, convincing, and must not be enveloped in any sort of
“divine mystery.” A further point is that the author of this book expects the answers from
the myriad Christian denominations to be uniform and in total agreement with one
another. If there is the slightest difference in form, matter, theological significance or
content of belief, this will be construed as total failure on the part of the Churches
concerned to give a convincing answer and the doctrine would once again stand exposed
– as it always has been to THINKING people – as utterly ridiculous and a pious fraud.
Questions will also be posed at the end of the chapter on TRINITY and “SONSHIP” OF
CHRIST.

Will the Christians be punished in the Hereafter for their sins or not?

If they will be punished – even after believing in Atonement – then was Christ’s sacrifice
in vain or not?
(3) If Christ’s sacrifice was not in vain, then has it given the Christians licence to
commit sins freely?

(4) What exactly has Jesus’s sacrifice done for Christians?

(5) Has the sacrifice created a loathing for sin, or killed the tendency to commit evil,
in those who believe in Christ and partake of his flesh and blood?

(6) If the answer to the above question is “yes”, then how does one account for the
gross immorality and moral depravity prevalent in western countries professing the
Christian faith?

(7) Jesus paid the full penalty for the original sin, the penalty for which was death to
mankind (Romans, 5:12, 6:23). This being the case, why does God still continue to inflict
the punishment of death on men in spite of the fact that He has taken away their guilt
through Atonement?

(8) According to the Bible, blood is a pollution (Lamentations, 4:14), and a

defilement (Numbers, 35:33). How could the blood of Christ, then, being an unclean
thing, cleanse us of our sins?

(9) The Bible says: “The wicked shall be a ransom for the righteous, and the
transgressor for the upright.” (Proverbs, 21:18). If this is so, then why did the reverse
happen in the case of Christ – the innocent, righteous and upright Jesus being made a
ransom for wicked, transgressing mankind?

(10) Jesus died that he may save ALL. Why did he not save the women as well, for it
is written by Paul: “She shall be saved in CHILDBEARING, if they continue in faith and
charity and holiness with sobriety.” (1 Timothy, 2:15)
 Home The Doctrine of Trinity
by A.S.K. Joommal

As if the Doctrine of Atonement was not enough to bewilder the simple, good
Christians, the Church Councils of earlier centuries of the Christian era burdened them
with a further confusing dogma known as TRINITY. Trinity is one of the fundamental
pillars of Christian belief. Without faith in this doctrine, the Christianity of a Christian is
as incomplete and wanting as a square table with only three legs!

At about the middle of the third century there arose a sect, the Sabellians, which
created a further division in the Church. This sect did not concede divinity to Christ –
regarding him only as a man – but believed that a certain energy proceeding from the
Supreme Father had united itself with the man Jesus thus making him the son of God.
This strange doctrine, regarded by Gibbon as an approach to Unitarianism, was the cause
of serious disorders in the Christian Church and led to the declaration by Origen* in the
early part of the 4th century, of the doctrine of three distinct personalities in the Godhead.
Tritheism, or the belief in three gods, was only a modification of the ancient paganism
suited to the character of the people who had adopted the creed of Christ. Polytheism
(belief in many gods) was ingrained in their nature, and tritheism was a compromise
between the teachings of Jesus and the ancient worship of a number of gods. As time
went on, tritheism became absorbed into the doctrine of trinity.

Christians cannot claim Trinity to be an exclusively Christian belief,

manufactured and patented by God for the followers of Jesus only. We find that in the
Egypt of old, a trinity of gods – Horus, Isis and Osiris – were worshipped by the
Egyptians long, long before the advent of Christianity.

It is also no secret that in the ancient Persian religion of Mithraism, Mithra was
one of the persons of the trinity. Trinity is also to be found in the Hindu religion of India.
The three persons of the Hindu Trinity are Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. The Persians and
Hindus of yore, like the Christians of present-day, believed that their saviour-god died for
the sins of the believers.

The person to whom Christianity owes its belief in Trinity and Incarnation was St.
Basil (330-79) of Cappadocia. It was, however, Theophilus, the Bishop of Antioch, who
was the first to employ the word Trinity or Triad. Trinity means a group or combination
of three individuals or entities, or the state of being three or threefold. In the religious
language of the Christians, Trinity means the union of three persons of the Godhead: God
the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. These three are distinct persons, yet
they are one. In nature and essence all three are one. They are co-equal and
consubstantial, that is, they are made of the same essence. The one is in all three, and the
three are all in one.
 We do not understand this. You, the reader, may not understand it. Our Christian
friends themselves do not understand it. But they maintain that if you believe in the Holy
Trinity, you will be SAVED.

The Trinity is a Holy Mystery. It is the mystery of mysteries. If the doctrine of

Atonement confuses you, the dogma of Trinity confounds you completely. Try as
diligently, as conscientiously and as painstakingly as you may, you simply cannot solve
this arithmetical puzzle. All the multiplication tables we learnt at school prove useless
when it comes to working out the Trinity. By all rules of Mathematics, three times one
equals to three (3 x 1 = 3). But in Christian arithmetic, three times one equals to one! (3 x
1 = 1). Of course you would NEVER be able to work this out because it is a mystery. And
we are told by the priests NOT to use our reason in trying to understand the dogmas of
the Church. So that is the crux of the matter. We are not supposed to use our God-given
power of reasoning in order to understand that which we are asked to believe. Our belief
in these doctrines must be BLIND, UNQUESTIONING, ABSOLUTE! Whoever
questions these beliefs, albeit in all sincerity in order to understand them, is doomed to
eternal damnation.

If the author of this book does not understand this doctrine, it does not matter. If
you, dear reader, do not understand it, it is of no consequence because you are only a
layman; but what about the deeply learned theologians and professors of Christianity who
ought to know better and who, without mincing words, admit total failure in
understanding the mysterious Trinity? Does not one’s common sense tell one that most
certainly there must be something awfully wrong, something terribly illogical, something
unspeakably ridiculous about this doctrine that even those who profess to “understand” it
and who preach it, do not understand it at all? How could they ever understand it, for it
was never divinely revealed, but is merely a man-made theory!

The wisest of the Christian theologians, the great Athanasius himself, had
candidly confessed that whenever he forced his understanding on the question of Trinity,
“his toilsome and unavailing efforts recoiled on themselves; that the more he thought,
the less he comprehended; and the more he wrote, the less capable he was of expressing
his thought."**

The only reference to Trinity in the Bible is to be found in the First Epistle of St.
John, Chapter 5, Verse 7: “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the
Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” This reference is not found in any
Greek manuscript because the Doctrine of Trinity was not part of the Church’s teaching
until it was incorporated into Christianity at the Council of Nicaea, 325 A.C.
Consequently this verse is now omitted from the Revised Version of the Bible which
was published in 1881.

In the Revised Version of the New Testament there is no reference whatsoever to

the Trinity, and the Church has not a scrap of authority for claiming that Jesus is part of
God and that they, together with the Holy Ghost, make up one God. The intelligent (!)
leaders of the Church today know this, but in spite of the fact that they have not a particle
of evidence to justify the preaching of this doctrine, they continue to do so Sunday after
Sunday, making the people think that they have divine authority for this belief.

If the Church elders have any respect for Reason and Truth, they will realize that
this doctrine on which the whole structure of superstition is built, has no theological,
moral or logical justification whatsoever. They will appreciate that Trinity is an ancient
belief that can be traced back thousands of years into the dim and misty past.

To a rational mind, Trinity is an insult to God. It is the kind of blasphemy, I make

bold to say, that God will never forgive. Trinity is a remnant and relic of the
remote PAGAN past. Jesus Christ preached pure, unadulterated monotheism. His simple,
beautiful religion was defiled by his followers who incorporated into it large quantities of
Roman, Greek, Egyptian and other pagan mythology. In scores of places in the Bible we
read how emphatically Christ asserted the unity, the ONENESS of God. This Oneness of
God, of course, was too simple a belief for the early Church fathers who in Bithynia
established the Nicene Creed by dividing ONE God into three, thus complicating matters
for everybody and confounding generation after generation of Christians.

The Holy Ghost, which is the connecting link, is the third person of the Holy
Trinity. What exactly is the function of the Holy Ghost? If God, Christ and the Holy
Ghost are ONE although they are THREE, then where does the function of one end and
of the other two begin? Have these three beings assigned to themselves different tasks
and do they do them collectively as one or severally as three – each in his own area of
activity? The writer of this book maintains that these are questions to which there are NO
answers, and they must forever remain a mystery.

The Church Councils

General Councils of the Church used to be held every fifty or hundred years to
decide on important matters of belief affecting Christianity.

The following is a list of the General Councils recognized by the Roman

Catholics:

1. 1st Nicaea opened 325

2. 1st Constantinople ” 381
3. Ephesus ” 431
4. Chalcedon ” 451
5. 2nd Constantinople ” 553
6. 3rd Constantinople ” 680
7. 2nd Nicaea ” 787
8. 4th Constantinople ” 869
9. 1st Lateran ” 1123
10. 2nd Lateran ” 1139
 11. 3rd Lateran ” 1179
12. 4th Lateran ” 1215
13. 1st Lyons ” 1245
14. 2nd Lyons ” 1274
15. Vienna ” 1311
16. Constance ” 1414
17. Basel and Ferrara-Florence ” 1431, 1438
18. 5th Lateran opened 1512
19. Trent ” 1545
20. Vatican ” 1869

The common purpose of the first eight councils was to determine whether
specific theological novelties were orthodox (i.e. consonant with the Bible faith as
handed down) or heretical (not orthodox). The rest of the councils, all held in Western
Europe, have dealt extensively with church discipline and morals. Two of them, the
Second Council of Lyons and the Council of Ferrara-Florence, were occupied with
abortive reconciliations between East and West.

The ascription of deity to Jesus by the Church is shown in the development of the
Doctrine of Trinity by the General Councils of the Church:

YEAR DECISION
325. General Council of Nicaea stated the Son to
be of the same substance with the Father.
381. General Council of Constantinople confirmed
the Nicaean doctrine but added that the Holy
Ghost was of the same substance as the
Father and the Son, thus developing the
Doctrine of Trinity.
431. General Council of Ephesus affirmed the dual
nature of the Son and confirmed the title of
Theotokos (mother of God) to the Virgin
Mary.
451. General Council of Chalcedon reaffirmed the
dual nature of the Son.
553. Second General Council of Constantinople
affirmed in plainer language the doctrines of
Trinity and the Motherhood of the Virgin
Mary.
680. Third General Council of Constantinople
affirmed that in Christ there were two natural
 wills and two modes of operation, and that
the human will was free.

UNITY OF GOD IN THE BIBLE

As opposed to the Doctrine of Trinity which is man-made, we find the Unity of

God proclaimed in scores of places in the Bible. From the time of Abraham all the
prophets of God, including Moses and Jesus, preached the uncompromising UNITY of
God. But those who inherited the religion of Jesus and established the so-called
“Church”, divided God into three parts thus totally adulterating the simple, beautiful
creed that Jesus preached. The Christianity of to-day bears no resemblance whatsoever to
the pure, monotheistic religion of Jesus. The Christianity preached by modern churches
(which has been aptly designated as “Churchianity”) is as far removed in character,
essence and content from the Religion of Jesus as chalk is from cheese! St. Paul, the
Jewish convert to Christianity, altered this religion to such an extent by his own opinions
and assertions that very little has remained to distinguish Christianity from “Peculiarity.”
The faith, therefore, as practised by present-day Christians, is a strange mixture of
paganism, Paulianity and Churchianity. It has no connection at all with the dispensation
brought by Jesus Christ, the holy PROPHET of God!

To come back to the Unity of God as contained in the Bible: this would best be
illustrated by actual quotations from the holy book of Christians. We find that the Old
Testament lays great emphasis on the expression “ONE God”

1. “I AM THE LORD THY GOD, WHICH HAVE BROUGHT THEE OUT OF

THE LAND OF EGYPT, OUT OF THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE. THOU SHALT
HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME.” (Exodus. 20:1-3)

2. “HEAR O ISRAEL, THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD.” (Deuteronomy,

6:4)

3. “BEFORE ME THERE WAS NO GOD FORMED. NEITHER SHALL BE

AFTER ME.” (Isaiah, 43:10)

4. “I, EVEN I, AM THE LORD; AND BESIDES ME THERE IS NO SAVIOUR.”

(Isaiah, 43:11)

5. “THUS SAITH THE LORD, KING OF ISRAEL. I AM THE FIRST AND I AM

THE LAST; AND BESIDES ME THERE IS NOGOD.” (Isaiah, 44:6)

6. “IS THERE A GOD BESIDE ME? YEA, THERE IS NO GOD; I KNOW NOT
ANY.” (Isaiah, 44:8)
7. “I AM THE LORD, AND THERE IS NONE ELSE; THERE IS NO GOD
BESIDE ME.” (Isaiah, 45:5)

8. “I AM GOD AND THERE IS NONE ELSE; I AM GOD, AND THERE

IS NONE LIKE ME.” (Isaiah, 46:9)

The NEW TESTAMENT is no less emphatic on the indivisibility and absolute

ONENESS of the Lord Almighty. In perfectly clear and lucid terms, Christ testifies to the
unqualified UNITY of God as follows:

1. “And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the ONLY true God, and
Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” (John, 17:3)

Note that Christ here refers to himself as one who is “sent” by the Almighty and
NOT as God or son of God. Christ here is addressing God. If he were God, how could he
address himself?

Christians argue that in their vocabulary ONE God stands for a triune godhead
comprising God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost; that the three are
ONE and one is THREE. But this contention is refuted by the above-quoted verse in
which the Messiah is mentioned asdistinct from the ONLY TRUE GOD. The words
are: “…the only true God AND Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.” Here the expression
“the only true God” is used distinctly separate from the Messiah who is NOT
INCLUDED in it. The “AND” in the above verse clearly separates “the only true God”
from “Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.”

It is quite clear, therefore, that THE ONLY TRUE GOD is distinctly different and
discrete from Christ, and is not in conjunction with him. If Christ were God, he would not
have been mentioned SEPARATELY, which shows that he is NOT a part of the Person of
the ONLY God.

2. “The first of all the Commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is ONE
Lord.” (Mark, 12:29)

3. “And call no man your Father upon the earth: for ONE is your Father, which is
in heaven.” (Matthew, 23:9)

It is interesting to note here that Christ did not say “…For THREE is your Father,
which is in heaven.” Furthermore, he emphasized the fact that call no MAN your Father.
His prophetic vision had indicated to him that after him his followers would deify him
and call him God. Thus, being a mere man and mortal, and being fully aware of his own
human nature, he had forewarned his followers NOT to call any Man (meaning himself)
their Father, stressing the fact that the Father is only ONE, which is in Heaven!

4. “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him ONLY thou shalt serve.”
(Matthew, 4:10)
 If Christ was God and if he were aware of the triune character of his Godhood,
then he would have commanded his followers thus: “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy
God in His three manifestations, and the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost shalt thou
serve.” The reason why Jesus did not say so is too obvious to merit any amplification
here.

5. “Why callest thou me good? There is none good but ONE, that is God.” (Mattew,
19: 16-17)

In spite of all this overwhelming Biblical evidence of the Unity, the ONENESS
of the Lord Almighty, Christians have set Him up into three distinct personalities and still
have the audacity to call Him “One” God – all three of them gathered in one!

To the monotheistic mind, such dogmas that violate the Absolute ONENESS and
Indivisibility of the Lord Almighty, are sheer blasphemy.

The Bible invites our Christian friends to believe in ONE God. But they are
defying the Bible and adhere to what the padres and bishops are asking them to believe.
In other words they have given their bishop’s word priority and honour above the word of
their Bible. It means that they are loyal to their parish priest, but not loyal to God. It
means that the Bible is relegated to a secondary place and the priests’commands have
taken precedence over the commandments of God. Actually, the priests and bishops have
themselves disregarded the commandment of God by believing Him to be THREE gods
in one when God asks them to believe in Him as ONE, SINGLE God. So if the shepherds
themselves have gone astray, who can blame the flock for getting lost beyond recall in a
welter of dogmatic confusion?

What amazes one is that despite all their learning these “Men of God” have failed
dismally to use their God-given gift of reason. And they have forbidden their
congregation also, on pain of eternal damnation, to use their sense of reason. William
Drummond had made a most pregnant remark when he said: “He who will not reason is a
bigot, he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave!”

No slavery is more abject, and no slave is in a more terrible condition than he

whose every single brain-cell is enchained to senseless, incomprehensible dogmas, and
who makes no effort at all to free himself from this slavery, knowing – consciously or
unconsciously perhaps – the utter absurdity of the doctrines he professes to cherish as
true.

TEN QUESTIONS ON TRINITY

(1) Jesus “was crucified through weakness” (2 Corinthians, 13:4). Since a weak God was
unable to bear the burden of all the sinners of the world, he was tied with two other gods
to make him strong. Three gods are stronger than one God. This principle has been
enunciated in the Bible in the following words: “A threefold cord is not quickly broken.”
(Ecclesiastes, 4:12). If such is not the case, then is there any other plausible explanation
of this unity of the gods in the trinity? When Jesus died on the Cross, what happened to
the other two persons of the Trinity? Did they also die with him?

(2) (a) Did God ever claim in the New Testament that he is the first person of the trinity?

(b) Did Jesus ever claim in the New Testament that he is the second person of the
trinity?

(c) Did the Holy Ghost ever make a statement to any of the ecclesiastical gentlemen
that he is the third person of the trinity?

(3) According to Christian theology, God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost are
consubstantial, that is, they are of one and the same substance. Of what substance are the
three persons of the trinity made? If we can establish the substance of one person, we can
establish the substance of the other two, because all three are of the same substance.
Regarding the substance of Jesus, the Bible says the he “was made of the seed of David”
(Romans, 1:3). Therefore, are not the Father and the Holy Ghost of the same substance as
Jesus, i.e. of the seed of David?

(4) Christians assert that Christ is co-equal with the Father. If this is the case, then
how do they explain the following statement of Jesus: “My Father is greater than I”?
(John, 14:28)

(5) Christians also believe that Jesus is co-equal with the Holy Ghost, but Christ
thought otherwise: “And whosoever speaketh a word against the son of Man, it shall be
forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven
him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.” (Matthew, 12:32). Is it not clear
from this that Jesus was decidedly inferior to the Holy Ghost?

(6) According to the Athanasian Creed, “The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of
the Son: neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.” The question is: how
and where is it proceeding from, and at what rate, and to what end?

(7) The Son and the Holy Ghost are not Father, nor the Father and the Holy Ghost
are begotten, nor the Father and the Son are proceeding. Each of them is distinct from
others as day is distinct from night. How, then, can they merge in one body without losing
their separate identity?

(8) If the three persons of the trinity are one, and according to the Athanasian Creed,
“none is afore, or after other: none is greater, or less than another”, then why could not
the order in which the three persons appear, be reversed, that is, the Holy Ghost, the Son,
and the Father as the first, second and third persons of the trinity respectively? Like a
ball, if you turn it upside down, its position will remain the same.

(9) Jesus came “in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Romans, 8:3). How, then, can Jesus
be in the likeness of God or be His Co-Equal if he was in the likeness of sinful flesh?
“Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker?”
(Job, 4:17)

(10) Jesus was circumcised (Luke, 2:21). The missing foreskin indicates that he was
not in the perfect form as when he was born. So how can an imperfect man be equal to a
perfect God?

* ORIGEN: Origenes Admantius (A.C. 185? – 254?) was an Alexandrian writer,

Christian theologian and teacher.
** “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” by Edward Gibbon.
 Home
The Doctrine of the "Sonship" of
Christ
by A.S.K. Joommal

“It should be clearly realized that Jesus did not claim in the Gospels to be the son of God
in a physical sense, such as the narratives of virgin birth suggest, nor did he claim to be
the son of God in a metaphysical sense, such as was required by the Nicence theology. He
claimed to be God’s son in a normal sense, in the sense in which all human beings are
sons of God, as standing in a filial and moral relationship to God and capable of acting on
those moral principles on which God acts.”

The above words may seem to come form a foe of Christianity, an agnostic,
perhaps, or any other non-Christian. But these simple, sensible words were spoken by one
who was very much a Christian, who was an ordained reverend of the Christian Church, a
priest who knew his Christianity better than anyone else. The Rev. H.D.A. Major,
Principal of Ripon Hall, Oxford, spoke the above words at a religious conference
convened at Oxford in 1921.

Dr. Rashdall, Dean of Carlisle, who presided at this conference, further threw a
bombshell on the Christian world when he said that his reading of the Bible did not allow
him to accept Jesus as God. Jesus, said the learned Dean, was MAN in every sense of the
word, and NOT God.

The Arians, a sect of the early Christians, who maintained that God and Jesus
were not the same, and that Jesus was subordinate to God, lost their amendment at the
Council of Nicaea in A.C. 325 - that most decisive event in the history of the Christian
Church. Arius, the leader, was an Alexandrian presbyter of the Church, and, after weeks
of arguing, the anti-divines first carried the day, and then the pro-divines, when ultimately
it was decided by a majority that Jesus was the son of God and the second member of the
Trinity.

To decide this great question, there assembled at Nicaea 2,048 ignorant and
superstitious Christian priests, and also representatives of Paganism. Numerous
resolutions were presented to the Roman Emperor, Constantine the Great, who presided,
but he burned them all without reading them, “lest the contentions of the priests should
become known to anyone”. Out of the puerile assembly grew the Nicene Creed which
officially added Jesus to the Pantheon* of Incarnate slain god-men.

The Creed received royal assent. A royal command was issued that everyone must
believe in it, and that Christianity thus defined was to be the state religion of Rome for
the future. The bishops who opposed it were cast out as heretics. Those who had been on
the winning side were promoted and given places of authority under the holy name of
“orthodox.” Then persecution began, and Christianity entered on its long record of
bloodshed which did not end until some 25,000,000 victims had been slaughtered**.

Thus the imaginative fancies of the doctrine-makers of the Christian Church had
run wild when they busied themselves trying to make God out of a mere man, and calling
him (i.e. Christ) both the son AND the father in the same breath. The Divinity of the
Almighty was assaulted. He was brought down to the level of puny mortals, thus making
it easy to crucify him – because it was impossible to crucify a non-mortal God!

The greatest incursion on man’s reasoning faculty was perpetrated by the

doctrine-makers of Christianity when they asked sane people to believe that Christ was
both the son of God AND also God at one and the same time!

How can a man be his OWN son and his OWN father at one and the same
time? EITHER he is the son OR he is the father. He simplyCANNOT be both the
father AND the son rolled up in the same person. Father and son implies TWO distinct
and separate persons. If Christ is theson, then surely he cannot be the father (God). And if
he is the father (God), then it stands to reason (Not Christian reason!) that he cannot be
his own son.

Christians use the term “begotten” for Christ. They say that he is God’s “begotten
son.” So if he is the “begotten” son, then that makes God the “begetter”, does it not? Thus
if God is the “begetter”, how could he then be the “begotten”? How could the “begetter”
be “begotten”? Yet Christians believe implicitly that Christ IS God. To them, therefore,
the “begotten” IS the “begetter” and vice versa.

Christians base their contention that Christ is the son of God, perhaps on the
belief that his mother, Mary, was a virgin and she had begotten him without the agency of
a father. If this is regarded as a powerful proof of Christ’s “sonship”, then it should apply
with greater force to Adam and Eve, both of whom had neither father nor mother!

If virgin birth is any argument, then there is a person on record in the Bible who
was not only born without parents, but is unique as far as human beings are concerned.
This man is MELCHISEDEC.

“For this Melchisedec …. Which is, KING OF PEACE; WIHTOUT FATHER,

WITHOUT MOTHER, without descent, HAVING NEITHER BEGINNING OF DAYS,
NOR END OF LIFE; but made like unto the Son of God.” (Hebrews, 7:13)

If any person has a better claim to be called God or “son” of God, then that person
is undoubtedly Melchisedec. A slight comparison between Christ and Melchisedec will
immediately show who is the rightful claimant to “sonship” or “Godhood”, and who is by
far the superior of the two:
 Christ is often referred to as the PRINCE of Peace. But Melchisedec is the KING
of Peace. No person with even a minimum of education would ever deny that a prince is
much lower in degree and status than a King.

Christ has “beginning”, for we all know that he was born like any other human
child. But Melchisedec had NO beginning. Likewise, Christians know that Christ’s days
were ended when he was put on the Cross. But Melchisedec has no “end of life”, that is,
he is eternal or ever-living.

Christ had at least a mother, and through her, a descent. But Melchisedec was
“without father, without mother, without descent.”

In all fairness to Melchisedec and Christ, therefore, pray, who of the two is
greater? Who of the two should be called God or “son” of God?

Christians maintain that where Jesus is concerned, the word “BEGOTTEN” is

used, and it is this BEGOTTEN-ness of Christ that distinguishes him above everyone else
and above all the creations of God Almighty. This, however, is no argument because the
word “begotten” is used in the case of David as well, for we read in the Old Testament
that:

“The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; This day have I BEGOTTEN thee.”
(Psalm, 2:7).

The claim of Christians that Jesus is the ONLY “begotten” son of God is thus
proved false by the Bible itself. It is made abundantly clear by the Scriptures that God has
more than one “begotten” son, and that Christ is NOT the only one.

It is thus obvious that words have lost their ordinary meaning with Christians and
have begotten a new complexion! No person can subscribe to such dogmas and still claim
to exercise a hold over his sanity.

It is undeniable that, according to the Bible, Jesus did call himself the “son” of
God. But it is also undeniable that he meant he was God’s son in the same sense
as all human beings are His children. Jesus did not mean that he was God’s son in the
PHYSICAL sense. This filial relationship was decided for Jesus in the Council of Nicaea
in the year 325 A.C. when he (Christ) was declared “consubstantial with the Father” – i.e.
made of the same substance as the Father.

It will be shown later, through quotations form the Bible, that the term “Son of
God” means any and every human being who cares to call himself as such, and on whom
God desires to bestow this appellation.

The term “son of God” is used metaphorically in the Bible and means a beloved
of God, or a righteous person, or simply a human being whom God has created.
 Jesus had, perhaps, a suspicion that his relationship with God might be
misinterpreted. In order, therefore, to dispel all doubts as to his mortality and human
origin, he frequently called himself “Son of Man.”

In the four gospels we find the term “Son of Man” mentioned in 80 (eighty)
different places: 30 times in Matthew; 14 times in Mark; 24 times in Luke, and 12 times
in John. Only twice does Christ refer to himself as the “son of God.” The two passage
concerned are as follows.

1. “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man; no, not the angels which are in
heaven, neither the son, but the Father.” (Mark, 13:32)

2. “And all things are delivered unto me of my Father; and no man knoweth the son,
but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father, save the son, and he to whomsoever
the son will reveal him.” (Matthew, 11:27)

In the first verse Christ acknowledges his ignorance of God’s will. The second
verse is a plain statement of fact: Jesus, being a prophet of God, says that no man can
come to know the Divine revelation until the prophet himself discloses it to him.

The Encyclopaedia Biblica comments upon these two verses, in an article

entitled “Son of God”, as follows:

“We must infer that Jesus had indeed Communion with God, BUT NOTHING BEYOND
IT; but this connection was under such limitations that the attribute of Goodness as well
as absolute knowledge belonged to God, and hence the boundary between the Divine and
human was STRICTLY PRESERVED.”

Christian clergymen are very fond of citing the following passage from Matthew
in order to substantiate that Christ was the Son of God:

“When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying,
Whom do men say that I the son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John
the Baptist; some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them,
But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the
Christ, The Son of the living God.” (Matthew, 16:13-16)

But Mark who is admittedly the first Gospel-writer, has the following on his
record:

“And Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thou art the Christ. And he (Jesus) charged
them that they should tell no man of him.” (Mark, 8:29-30)

Apart from the fact that Simon Peter contradicts himself in this verse in that he
stops at the word “Christ” and does not go further by calling him “son of the living God”
as in the first verse, two questions arise from a comparison of the above two verses:
1. Why did Mark leave out the designation “son of the living God”? Did he not
consider it important enough to include it in his record? The “Son of God” doctrine is one
of the most important pillars of the Christian Church. Matthew mentioned it. How is it
that Mark omitted it completely?

2. If Jesus was indeed the son of God in the sense that the Churchmen want us to
accept him, then why was he desirous of concealing his identity? How can the “son” of
an All-Powerful, Almighty God (who was God himself) be afraid of puny mortals?

The answer to the above two questions is as clear as daylight: the words “the son
of the living God”, are undeniably a later interpolation.

In scriptural usage the term “son of God” is a synonym for “righteous man.” We
read in Mark the following:

“And when the centurion, which stood over against him (Jesus on the cross), saw that he
so cried out, and gave up the ghost, he said, Truly this man was the SON OF GOD.”
(Mark, 15:39)

The same observation is recorded by Luke in the following words:

“Now when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, certainly this
was a RIGHTEOUS MAN.” (Luke, 23:47)

It is therefore abundantly clear that the term “son of God” means “a righteous
man.”

We shall now show that the appellation “son of God” has been used throughout
the Bible as an expression of esteem and affection and on some occasions of a spiritual
nearness of the person referred to as such with God. In the Bible we find that the
Israelites, judges and jurists, Christians, orphans, the prophets, in fact all mankind have
been called “sons of God.”

1. Children of Israel are sons of God:

(a) “And it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are
not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the SONS OF THE LIVING
GOD.” (Hosea, 1:10)

(b) “….there they shall be called the CHILDREN OF THE LIVING

GOD.” (Romans, 9:26)

2. Judges and Jurists are sons of God:

“I have said, we are gods; and all of you are CHILDREN OF THE MOST HIGH.”
(Psalm, 82:6)
3. All Christians and believers are sons of God:

“But as many as received him, to them gave he the power to become the sons of God,
even to them that believe on his name.” (John, 1:12)

4. All orphans are sons of God:

“A father of the fatherless and a judge of the widows, is God in His holy
habitation.” (Pslam, 68:5)

5. Prophets are sons of God:

(a) “…Adam, which was the SON OF GOD.” (Luke, 3:38)

(b) “And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my SON, even
my FIRST-BORN.” (Exodus, 4:22)

(c) God says in praise of David: “He shall cry unto me, Thou art my Father, my
God, and the rock of my salvation. And I will make him my FIRST-BORN, higher than
the kings of the earth.” (Psalm 89:26-27)

(d) Speaking of Solomon, God says: “… and he shall be my SON and I will be his
FATHER; and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel for ever.” (1
Chronicles, 22:10)

6. All men and women are sons/daughters of God:

“And I will receive you, And I will be a Father unto you, And ye shall be my SONS and
DAUGHTERS, saith the Lord Almighty.” (2 Corinthians,6:18)

(b) “Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? Is not He thy
FATHER that hath bought thee?” (Deuteronomy, 32:6)

It would not be out of place to mention here that Jesus did not appropriate God to
himself alone but openly acknowledged His Universal Fatherhood when he told his flock:
“my father and YOUR father”, “my God and YOUR God.” These words prove further
that Christ was NOT God since he referred to a distinctly separate Personality – GOD. If
Jesus was God, he would not have said “MY God and YOUR God”! God would never
refer to Himself as “MY God.” (See John, 20:17)

Christ is also recorded by gospel-writers to have uttered the plaintive, heart-

rending cry of “Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachtani?” (My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken
me?). Can anyone imagine these most human words coming from an Almighty, All-
Powerful God? If Jesus was God, as Christians believe, then this plaintive cry of Christ
means that God had deserted HIMSELF! Christ, being God, was calling upon God (i.e.
himself) to help him in his trouble. But God turned a deaf ear to His own cries. God was
addressing Himself, but decided not to help Himself and was eventually killed by his
enemies. Can any situation be more ridiculous?? God made the law to kill for blasphemy,
then came in human form, and became a victim of His own law!

If the Christian God is so weak, so puny, so destructible, so vulnerable that His

created beings were easily able to arrest Him, degrade Him publicly and finally put Him
on a cross to suffer an ignominious death, then we are afraid that the THINKING
multitude constituting the non-Christian world can have no truck with or confidence in
such a God that is capable of being destroyed as easily as a human being! A god that
could not save himself, how can he “save” others?

If Christians insist on pulling down the Almighty God of the Universe to the
weak, mortal level of a human being thus making a mockery of the Divine, sacred,
transcendental Nature of the Lord Almighty, they are entitled to their beliefs. But they
must not expect those who still have some reasonleft in them, to sacrifice their sanity at
the altar of blind faith and to believe, like them, in a God that was killed by human
beings!

Reason revolts and one’s whole being shudders at the very thought that an Eternal
Being that is far, far removed from the puny reach of any mortal, was made into a human
being for want of a better theological concept of God. Common sense is astounded at the
very idea that identity was established by Christians between a mere man and an
immortal, everlasting God.

God is a unique Being. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He is neither a begetter,
nor is He begotten. He it is Who created the entire universe – and everything that is in it.
He has no favourites – all human beings are His children.

It is unthinkable, and it is the greatest blasphemy to say that Jesus Christ was God
or God’s “begotten son.” (Christians will never know for certain whether Christ was God
or the “son” or God. To console themselves, they say that he was both!) Christians say
that Jesus was God’s son in the PHYSICAL sense, and not in a figurative sense. If this be
the case, then may we ask where is God’s “Wife”? (God forbid!) If the power of human
propagation is attributed to God thus making no distinction between what is human and
what is divine, then we are, ipso facto, legitimately entitled to carry matters to their
logical confusion and ask what has happened to God’s “Wife”?

The doctrine of the “Sonship” of Christ (which was borrowed from pagan sources) is
indeed a “crazy, mixed-up” brainchild of the Church Fathers of yore. It is a terribly confusing
dogma – indeed no less confusing than the other dogmas. If God, in order to save the world,
became man (incarnating Himself in Jesus Christ), then where does the “Sonship” of Christ
come into all this? If God became man, then He is a God-man, that is, He is still the Father,
but in the guise of a man. So where is the son, then? What was Christ BEFORE God decided
to incarnate Himself into him? Was he the Son, or was he the Father? He certainly could not
have been the Father, because there must have been a stage and a state when God the Father
had not infused (confused?) Himself into the body of Christ. After His infusion into Christ,
was Christ still the son, or did he become the Father? Or did he become both? If he became
both, that is, if the essence of Father and Son mingled and an identity was attained, then what
happened to that third element, the Holy Ghost? Or is the Holy Ghost very much of a
disinterested “third” party with no “insurance” whatsoever of infusing himself in the other
two – a mere spectator rather than an actual participant in this inexplicable process of fusion
into confusion?

If Christ was God, then he should have known the present, past and future. Every single
future world event should have been an open book to him. He could thus have saved the
world centuries of wrangling by stating clearly that the way in which he preferred to be
worshipped was Methodism, or Roman Catholicism, or Anglicanism, or Presbyterianism,
or any one of the hundreds of Christian sects we find in the world to-day.

If Jesus was God, the Creator of the Universe, why did he not tell his followers
about the shape and constitution of the Earth and that it is but a speck in immensity? Why
did he also not tell something about Medicine, Geology, Astronomy and the other
sciences and arts? Why did he himself not write what he wished us to believe, and not
leave his words to be tossed about for centuries in a sea of ignorance and superstition, to
be the cause of sects and divisions in his Church? Why did he not say anything in favour
of education or democracy?

Why did he distinctly say that he was NOT God and that there is only ONE God,
when all the time (according to Christians) he was one of the three gods? Why did he
continually refer to himself as a “a human being” which is what “Son of Man” means?
Why did he not explain that the term “Son of God” meant nothing more in the original
Aramaic than “Servant of God”? Why did he never mention the Trinity, if he is one of the
three Christian gods?

WHY? BECAUSE HE WAS A HUMAN BEING AND DID NOT KNOW!

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CHRIST AND GOD

The Archbishop of Uganda, the Rev. Leslie Brown, wrote as follows in his book*

“Whatever else you believe or do not about Jesus, you cannot escape from the fact that he
lived and that he was a man like other men.

“The first three Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, were written to show that the
man Jesus truly came from God and worked miracles and gave teachings in the power of
God. If you read Mark’s Gospel, for example, you will see how he could control the
unseen forces they called evil spirits or demons, how he could heal people in body, bring
back people from the dead, and control the winds and storms of nature. In John’s Gospel
it seems that the writer’s intention is not so much to write a biography or life of Jesus, but
to show clearly how Jesus was truly a man and yet how the things he did and said proved
that he was also God.
 “Christians cannot, therefore, write one book about God and another book about
Jesus because they believe that JESUS HIMSELF WASGOD.”

In the above quotation the learned Archbishop wants us to accept that Christ was
first a man, but that by working some miracles he became God.

It is well-known to every Christian that before crucifixion Jesus performed a

number of miracles, so that according to the above theory he had become God by then. It
is also well-known that in spite of his miraculous powers, he was taken by the Jews
and held captive by them, and eventually hanged on the cross.

The question is: what prevented him from showing his powers of Godhood to
confound his enemies? No hour was more opportune or supreme than that for showing a
miracle, but he showed none!

We shall now briefly examine the powers of Almighty God as described in the
Bible, and compare these powers with those of Christ’s.

GOD JESUS
1. God does not stand in 1. Jesus is recorded in the
need of praying to others, Gospels as having prayed to
but human beings always God: “And he (Jesus) went a
have to pray to Him. It is little further and fell on his
written: “The Lord is nigh face, and PRAYED ….”
unto all them that call (Matthew, 26:39).
upon Him … He will also
hear their cry, and will This shows clearly that Jesus
save them.” (Psalm, 145: was a human being in NEED
18-19; Proverbs, 15:29; of prayer, and that he
John, 9:31). wasNOT God

2. God is ALMIGHTY. 2. Jesus was not Almighty.

Says he:
(2. Corinthians, 6:18).
a) “I can of mine own self

do nothing.”

b) “He was crucified

through weakness.”
 (2 Corinthians, 13:4).

3. God alone has the 3. Jesus confessed his

knowledge of all hidden ignorance of the coming of
things. We are told that the Day of Judgment in the
God ONLY“knowest the following words:
hearts of all the children of
men.” (1 Kings, 8:39). “Of that day and that hour
knoweth no man, no, not the
angels which are in heaven,
NEITHER THE SON, but
the Father.” (Mark, 13:32).
With these words Jesus
admitted that he was NOT
God, thus falsifying the
claim of his followers who
called him God.

4. God alone has 4. Jesus was neither

“immortality”, and He immortal nor everlasting.
alone is “everlasting.” “Christ DIED for the
ungodly.” (Romans, 5:6). If
(1 Timothy, 6:16). Christ was God, it
wasimpossible for him to
have DIED!

5. God alone is the 5. Jesus can never be a

SAVIOUR of all mankind. saviour because he himself
The Bible says: “Many are was in need of saving. He
the afflictions of the had to pray to God Al-
righteous: but the Lord mighty to save him from
delivereth him out of them coming to grief. “Now is my
all.” (Psalm, 34:19). soul troubled, and what shall
I say? Father, SAVE ME
from this hour.” (John,
12:27).
“I, even I, am the Lord;
and beside me there
If Jesus could not save
is NOSaviour.” (Isaiah,
himself from what was
43:11).
coming to him, how could
he, a mere mortal, be
regarded as the Saviour of
 humanity?

6. Almighty God alone is 6. Jesus, in contradistinction to

free from fear of every God, was in mortal fear of
kind. He is the Creator; He the Jews. The Bible says:
gives life and He takes “Jesus therefore walked no
life. All His creatures are more openly among the
dependent upon Him. God, Jews, but went thence unto a
therefore, has no need to country near the wilderness,
be in fear of any of His into a city called Ephraim
created beings. …” (John, 11:54). Jesus also
requested his disciples not to
disclose his identity. “Then
charged he his disciples that
they should tell no man that
he was Jesus the Christ.”
(Matthew, 16:20). This
proves without a shadow of
doubt that Jesus Christ was
only a human being.

7. God is the “only 7. Jesus, a mere man, had

Potentate, the King of no will of his own to impose
kings, Lord of lords … to on anyone. He said:
whom be honour and
power everlasting.” (a) “… to sit on my right
hand, and on my left, is not
(1 Timothy, 6:15-16). God mine to give, but it shall be
is the Master of the earth given to them for whom it is
and heavens and none can prepared of my Father.”
dare to disobey His (Matthew, 20:23).
commandments. All
creation submits to His (b) “And he went a little
Will and He reigns further and fell on his face,
supreme over all. He and prayed, saying, O my
enforces His Will upon all, father, if it be possible, let
but no mortal can impose this cup pass from me,
his will upon Him. nevertheless NOT AS I
WILL, but as Thou wilt.”
(Matthew, 26:39). If Jesus
was God, NOTHING could
have prevented him from
 enforcing his OWN will.

8. “God cannot be tempted 8. Jesus Christ was tempted

with evil, neither tempteth by Satan, not only for one or
He any man.” (James, two days, but for 40 (forty)
1:13). days continuously.

(Luke, 4:1-13).

9. The Lord God “is 9. Jesus refused to be called

GOOD; for His mercy “good.” He said: “Why
endureth for ever.” callest thou me GOOD?
There is none good but one,
(1 Chronicles, 16:34). that is, God.” (Mark, 10:18).

10. Almighty God does 10. Jesus, being only

not sleep or slumber. He is human, used to sleep heavily
forever awake and and people used to awaken
watching over His him. The Bible says: “And
creatures. The Bible says: there arose a great storm of
“He that keepeth thee will wind, and the waves beat
not slumber. Behold, He into the ship, so that it was
that keepeth Israel shall now full. And he (Jesus) was
neither slumber nor sleep.” in the hinder part of the ship,
(Psalm, 121:3-4). ASLEEP on a pillow: and
they awake him, and say
unto him, Master, carest thou
not that we perish?” (Mark,
4:37-38).

11. God cannot be 11. Jesus Christ, it is no

murdered, and one who secret to Christians, was
can be murdered cannot be “SLAIN AND HANGED
God. The Bible says ON A TREE.” (Acts, 5:30).
clearly: “Wilt thou yet say
before him that SLAYETH
thee, I am God? but thou
shalt be a man, and no
God, in the hand of him
that SLAYETH thee.”
(Ezekiel, 28:9).
 The Biblical quotations given above prove CONCLUSIVELY that the divinity
attributed to Christ is false and mythical. If a discerning, discriminating Christian has the
slightest faith in his Bible and a wee bit of respect for sound common sense, he could not
help but reject outright thisman-made dogma of the “Sonship” and “Godhood” of Christ.
The Bible proves this dogma false; one’s reason rebels against the acceptance of such
preposterous notion of a physical, filial relationship of a mere human to the Divine Lord
Almighty; Christ himself had debunked this absurd idea.

Why, then, do the Christians still insist on perpetuating this ridiculous belief?

The answer is simple: THERE IS NO ONE AS BLIND AS ONE WHO

WILL NOT SEE; NO ONE AS DEAF AS ONE WHO WILLNOT HEAR!

TEN QUESTIONS ON THE “SONSHIP” OF CHRIST

1. If it is possible for God to have a “son”, then why is it not possible for Him to
have a grandson also? In this way He will be able to raise generations of he-gods and she-
gods.

2. Why did God create Adam and fill the earth with sins? Could He not easily have
raised His own family of he-gods and she-gods to dwell the earth and swell the heaven?

3. In His first experiment of creating mankind, God was a failure: “And God saw
that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. AND IT REPENTED THE LORD THAT
HE HAD MADE MAN ON THE EARTH, AND IT GRIEVED HIM AT HIS
HEART.” (Genesis, 6:5-6). So the questions are:

(a) Why cannot He be a failure in His second experiment of wiping sin off from the
face of the earth by hanging his only begotten son?

(b) Since the son departed from this earth and is sitting snugly beside his daddy, has
the sin decreased or increased? If the latter is true, then

(c) Has not God failed in His second experiment as well?

4. According to the Bible: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only
begotten son …” (John, 3:16) and “Who gave himself a ransom for all.” (1 Timothy, 2:6).
Thus God had willed and planned to hang Jesus; so why blame the Jews for deicide
(God-killing)?
5. If anyone is guilty of hanging Jesus (in the light of Question 4), then it is God
Almighty Himself. Therefore, has He not broken the Sixth Commandment – “Thou shalt
not kill”?

6. “And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon
thee, AND THE POWER OF THE HIGHEST SHALL OVERSHADOW THEE:
therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”
(Luke 1:35). Thus Mary conceived Jesus as a result of her being OVERSHADOWED by
the Holy Ghost, in the same way as when a man OVERSHADOWS his wife planting his
seed in her womb. In other words, the Holy Ghost had intercourse with Mary. This is also
confirmed by Matthew (1:20): “FOR THAT WHICH IS CONCEIVED IN HER IS OF
THE HOLY GHOST.” The following questions arise:

(a) Is not Jesus the physical son of the Holy Ghost and NOT of God?

(b) Had not the Holy Ghost committed adultery with another man’s wife (Mary was
at that time espoused to Joseph – Luke, 1:27) and thus broken the Seventh
Commandment: “Thou shalt not commit adultery”?

7. According to Matthew 1:20, Mary conceived through the Holy Ghost. So how
was it possible for Mary to give birth to Jesus in FLESH? For “That which is born of the
flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (John, 3:6). Therefore, having
been born of the Spirit, it was necessary for Jesus to appear in spirit and NOT in flesh.
Moreover, “God is a Spirit.” (John, 4:24).

The Bible describes God as “the heaven, and heaven of heavens cannot contain Him.” (2
Chronicles, 2:6).

a). If such be the case, then how was it possible for the womb of Mary to contain
God, assuming that Jesus was God?

b). Was God childless before the birth of Jesus?

9. The title of Mary is “Theotokos”, meaning, “the Mother of God.” The

relationship of Jesus, the Son of God, with the Father of God and the Mother of God is
his sonship. But what was the relationship between the Father of God and the Mother of
God? See diagram below:
If Jesus was the “son” of God, so was Adam (Luke, 3:38). What is the difference between
Adam and Jesus? Adam had a better right to godhood than Jesus because he (Adam) was
born WITHOUT the agency of a woman. As to Jesus, he was born of a woman and,
therefore, according to the Scriptures, he cannot be God: “How then can Man be justified
with God? Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?” (Job, 25:4).

* Pantheon was a famous temple with a circular dome at Rome, built about 27 B.C.,
and dedicated to all the gods.

** “The Rock of Truth” by Arthur Findlay, pp. 65-66.

*** “God as Christians see Him”, pp. 26-27.

 Part III
The Pagan Origin of Christianity

Home
The Affinity Between Christianity and
Paganism
by A.S.K. Joommal

From time immemorial, the sun has presented the same phenomenon everywhere. It has
the same phases that occur on the same date in each country. The same effect is created
by its rise and its decline. The appearance and disappearance of the sun, the period when
its rays are not scorchingly strong, and the time when it is a veritable ball of fire sending
down heat that is unbearable, are all phenomena that must create the same notions in the
minds of men inhabiting the various corners of the globe. Religions, therefore, were the
same everywhere.
At the time of Christ’s advent, there were temples without number that were
dedicated to gods like Apollo or Dionysius among the Greeks, Hercules among the
Romans, Mithra among the Persians, Adonis and Attis in Syria and Phrygia, Osiris, Isis
and Horus in Egypt, Baal and Astarte among the Babylonians and Carthaginians, and so
on.

These deities were all sun-gods.

Edward Carpenter says that of all, or nearly all, of them it was believed that:

1. They were born on or very near Christmas Day.

2. They were born of a Virgin Mother.

3. Their birth took place in a cave or underground chamber.

4. They struggled and toiled for the good of mankind.

5. They were known by such names as Mediator, Healer, Light-Bringer, Saviour and
Deliverer.

6. The Powers of Darkness, however, conquered them.

7. They descended into Hell or the Underworld.

8. They rose again from the dead and became the pioneers of mankind to the
Heavenly World.
9. They founded Communions of Saints and Churches to which disciples were
received by baptism.

10. They were commemorated by Eucharistic meals.

It is very easy to show that all that the Christian church teaches today and that
forms an essential part of Christianity, did NOT come from Jesus. The doctrines that are
declared as “necessary to salvation” were brought into the religion of Jesus by monks and
priests some three hundred years after the time of Christ. These dogmas were not
invented by the clergy, but were ready-made essentials of Paganism, the various
ramifications of which cult spread from Persia to Britain.

Man’s ingenuity and inventiveness strives continually towards attaining a state of

affairs where he could achieve a satisfactory result without too much exertion on his self.
In other words, being the weakest of creations, man has always tried to adopt the line of
least resistance. The pagan mind, too, functioned along this line. The tendency to shrink
from a religion of action, therefore, was present in primitive man. Feeling his own
weakness, he always strove to shift the responsibility on to the shoulders of another –
something he could do, without any strenuous effort on his part, to propitiate the deity
which might have become angered.
The best and the easiest way to placate the angry god was by the offering of
blood. A willing or unwilling victim was readily found and his or her blood was
religiously spilt on the altar. This done, he went home in the secure belief that this action
pleased the unseen being and that its wrath is warded off, until some further misfortune or
affliction overtakes him.
This, then, has been the universal belief and it formed the only code of religious
conduct of the barbarous, uncivilized man. As time passed, the dying victim at the altar
himself came to be looked upon as a deity – God Himself that came on the earth to suffer
for the sins of man. It is thus easy to see that the idea of reconciliation by these barbaric
methods became the characteristic feature of every creed that was professed and practised
in countries round about the birth-place of Jesus at the time of his advent.

One of the most popular cults at that time was MITHRAISM. This creed
originated in Persia and flourished there for about six hundred years. It reached Rome at
about 70 B.C., and spread throughout the Roman Empire, extending even to Great Britain
where remains of Mithraic monuments were found at York, Chester, and other places.

We read in Robertson’s “PAGAN CHRISTS” (p. 338) that Mithra was believed to
be a great Mediator between God and Man. His birth took place in a cave on
December 25th. He was born of a virgin. He travelled far and wide. He had twelve
disciples. He died in the service of humanity. He was buried, but rose again from the
tomb. His resurrection was celebrated with great rejoicing. His great festivals were
the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox – Christmas and Easter. He was called
SAVIOUR, and sometimes figured as a LAMB. People were initiated into his cult
through BAPTISM. Sacramental feasts were held in his remembrance.
 A short account of the pagan “sons of God” will not be out of place here.

BACCHUS, sometimes referred to as Dionysius, was born on the 25th December.

His mother was a virgin called Demeter. The world was enveloped in evil, so the God of
gods was beseeched to redeem mankind. The prayer was accepted by Jupiter who
declared that his son would redeem the world from its misery. He promised
a LIBERATOR to the earth, and Bacchus came as a Saviour. He was called the ONLY
Begotten Son.

Dr. Frazer in his book “The Golden Bough” (Chapter 4, p. 229) records Bacchus
as saying: “It is I who guide you; it is I who protect you, and who save you; I who am the
Alpha and Omega.” Bacchus was also a great traveller and brought the gift of wine to
mankind. This brings to mind the miracle of Christ when he converted water into wine at
the marriage feast.

Attis, the Phrygian god, was born of a virgin named Nana. He was bled to death
at the foot of a pine-tree. His blood renewed the fertility of the earth and thus brought a
new life to humanity. He also rose from the dead. In celebrating his death and
resurrection, his image was fastened to a pine-tree on March 24th, and the day was called
the “Day of Blood”, since on that day the deity was bled to death. The image was then
laid in a tomb with wailing and mourning, but the coming night changed sorrow to
joy. The tomb was found to be empty on the next day, when the festival of the
resurrection was celebrated. These mysteries seem to have included a sacramental meal
and a baptism of blood.

Adonis, the Syrian god, was also born of a virgin. He was killed, and rose again
in the spring. Every year the maidens wept for Adonis(Ezekiel, 8: 14) and then
rejoiced over his resurrection.

Quetzalcoatle, the Mexican Saviour, was born of a virgin, Chimalman, who had
received the message informing her that she was to become the mother of a son without
any association with man, but through a heavenly messenger. Soon after the departure of
the messenger, she conceived and bore a son – QUETZALCOATLE – a word that means
“our beloved Son.” This offspring of the Heavenly Spirit fasted for forty days and was
tempted by Satan. He was also crucified, at which time the sun was darkened and
withheld its light. Prescott says in his book* that his second coming was looked forward
to so eagerly that when Cortez appeared, the Mexicans hailed him as the returning God.

There are also many similar stories of Horus, Osiris, Apollo, Attis and Bel. Thus
the passion story of the Lord of Christianity was almost identical with many previous
stories of similar nature. The passion play of Bel, the Babylonian Sun-God, was in
existence centuries before the birth of Jesus. It was a mystery play acted every year in the
beginning of spring. The main features of the play have been deciphered from some
tablets discovered from Babylonian ruins. The tablets disclose very remarkable facts
which must be disturbing to thousands of honest minds in Christendom.
 The story of Bel and the story of Jesus are one and the same, and this not only
deprives the evangelical records of the claims to be genuine, but it convicts them of
complete plagiarism!

In the list below, sixteen saviour-gods are given – from amongst many – who
were all believed by their followers to have died for the sins of the world, together with
their countries of origin and approximate dates:
(1) Osiris (Egypt) 1700 B.C.
(2) Bel (Babylon) 1200 B.C.
(3) Attis (Phrygia) 1170 B.C.

(4) Thammuz (Syria) 1160 B.C.

(5) Dionysius (Greece) 1100 B.C.

(6) Krishna (India) 1000 B.C.

(7) Hesus (Europe) 834 B.C.

(8) Indra (Tibet) 725 B.C.

(9) Bali (Asia) 725 B.C.

(10) Iao (Nepal) 622 B.C.

(11) Alcestis (Pherae) 600 B.C.

(12) Quetzalcoatle (Mexico) 587 B.C.

(13) Wittoba (Travancore) 552 B.C.

(14) Prometheus (Greece) 547 B.C.
(15) Quirinus (Rome) 506 B.C.
(16) Mithra (Persia) 400 B.C.
 The following* is taken from the January 1922 issue of the QUEST, which
describes the tablets belonging to the cuneiform documents which were discovered by
certain German excavators in the years 1903 and 1904 at Kalah-Shargat, the site of the
ancient city of Assour. They belonged to the library of Ashurbanipal, formed somewhere
about the ninth century.

THE BABYLONIAN THE CHRISTIAN

PASSION PLAY PASSION STORY

Bel is taken prisoner. Jesus is taken prisoner.

Bel is tried in the House Jesus is tried in the House of

on the Mount (the Hall of the High Priest and the Hall
Justice). of Pilate.

Bel is smitten (wounded). Jesus is scourged.

Bel is led away to the Jesus is led away to

Mount. crucifixion on Golgotha.

Together with Bel a Together with Jesus, two

malefactor is led away and malefactors are led away and
put to death. Another, who put to death. Another
is also charged as a (Barabbas) is released to the
malefactor, is let go, thus people, and thus not taken
not taken away with Bel. away with Jesus.

After Bel had gone to the After the death of Jesus, the
Mount, the city breaks out veil in the temple is rent
into tumult, and fighting (Synopt.), the earth quakes,
takes place in it. the rocks are rent asunder,
the graves are opened, and
the dead come forth into the
holy city. (Matthew).
Bel’s clothes are carried Jesus’s robe is divided
away. among the soldiers (Synopt.,
John, cf. Ps. 22 : 18).

A woman wipes away the The lance-thrust in Jesus’s

heart’s blood of Bel side and outflow of water
flowing from a drawn-out and blood (John). Mary
weapon (spear?). Magdalene and two other
women busy themselves with
the (washing, and)
embalming of the body
(Mark, Luke).

Bel goes down into the Jesus, in the grave, in the

Mount away from sun and rock tomb (Synopt.) goes
light, disappears from life, down into the realm of the
and is held fast in the dead (1 Pet. 3 : 19; Matt. 12 :
Mount as in a prison. 40; Acts 2 : 24; Rom. 10 : 7,
“descent into hell” dogma).

Guards watch Bel Guards are set over the tomb

imprisoned in the of Jesus. (Matthew).
stronghold of the Mount.

A goddess sits with Bel; Mary Magdalene and the

she comes to tend him. other Mary sit before the
tomb. (Matthew, Mark).

They seek for Bel where Women, in particular Mary

he is held fast. In Magdalene, came to the
particular a weeping tomb to seek Jesus where he
woman seeks for him at is behind the door of the
the “Gate of Burial.” tomb. Mary stands weeping
When he is being carried before the empty tomb
away, the same lamented: because they have taken her
“O, my brother! O, my Lord away (John).
brother!”
 Bel is again brought back Jesus’s restoration to life, his
to life (as the sun of rising from the grave (on a
spring); he comes again Sunday morning).
out of the Mount.

His chief feast, the His festival, approximately

Babylonian New Year’s at the spring equinox, is also
festival in March at the celebrated as his triumph
time of the spring equinox, over the powers of
is celebrated also as his darkness (cf.Colossians, 2:
triumph over the powers 15).
of darkness (cf. the
creation hymn “Once
when on high” as the New
Year’s festival hymn).

There is thus no doubt at all that the passion story of the Bible is simply a re-
cast of the story of Bel or Baal.

Being mystified at the identity of their beliefs with pagan ideas, the early Church
Fathers blamed the Devil for creating mischief. Tertullian, a church historian, said: “The
devil, whose business is to prevent the truth, mimics the exact circumstances of the
Divine Sacraments in the Mysteries of Idols.”
Justin Martyr, a church father, says: “... which things the evil spirit has taught to
be done out of memory in the mysteries and ministrations of Mithra…”

Cortez, the explorer of Mexico, also complained that the Devil had positively
taught to the Mexicans the same things which God taught to the Christians.

The Devil has been blamed for many things, but for once a grave injustice has
been done to him in that the Fathers of the Church have accused him of something of
which he is innocent and totally unaware. This is a most convenient way of evading facts
and eluding the truth. The Devil cannot confront the Fathers to defend himself and debate
with them the chronological correctness of their assertion. A brazen anachronism was
thus perpetrated by them. Did paganism borrow from Christianity or did Christianity
plagiarize wholesale from paganism? In the sequence of time: did Christianity come
before paganism, or paganism before Christianity?

The Devil thus provided an easy and convenient target for venting wrath and
abuse resulting from a patent inability to find a plausible explanation, and from
mystification and bewilderment. They would not be reasonable enough, or gentlemen
enough, to admit and acknowledge the fact that Christianity was a mere rehash of pagan
beliefs. This would be a lowering of their dignity. A scapegoat had to be found. And who
could be a better candidate for this honour than old Lucifer himself?!

The wardens of the Church in those days never failed to do two things, until
Christianity fully triumphed over the existing creed. They incorporated, on the one hand,
almost all of the popular pagan cults into their faith; on the other hand they took
particular care to destroy and burn the Pagan records and libraries – amongst them that of
Alexandria some 50 years after the death of Constantine – in order to obliterate the origin
of the faith so alien to that of Jesus.

There were several treatises setting forth the religion of Mithra, but “everyone of
these has been destroyed”, says Robertson in his book, “Pagan Christs” (p. 325), by the
care of the Church, and it is remarkable that even the treatise of Firmicus is mutilated at a
passage (V) where he seems to be accusing Christians of following Mithraic usage. In
this respect, Professor Murray says: “The polemic literature of Christianity is everywhere
triumphant; the books of the Pagans have been DESTROYED.”

* * *

No country in the ancient world was without its virgin-born deity. The Pagans had
their Christ everywhere including India and China.

The learned author of “BIBLE MYTHS” draws clear analogies between Jesus and
Buddha. We must bear in mind that not only does there exist a striking similarity between
the teachings of the two, but some of the parables and precepts that we find in the
Gospels had been given word for word by Buddha, some five hundred
years BEFORE Jesus.

The histories of Buddha and Jesus resemble each other more closely than any
other two characters of antiquity. The following comparison is given by T.W. Doane in
his book, “BIBLE MYTHS”, pages 287-297:

CONSENSUS OF CONSENSUS OF

BUDDHIST BELIEF CHRISTIAN BELIEF

REGARDING BUDDHA REGARDING JESUS

1. Buddha was born of the 1. Jesus was born of the

virgin Maya, who Virgin Mary who conceived
conceived him without him without carnal
carnal intercourse. intercourse.
2. The incarnation of 2. The incarnation of Jesus
Buddha is recorded to is recorded to have been
have been brought about brought about by the descent
by the descent of the of the divine power called
divine power called the the “Holy Ghost” upon the
“Holy Ghost” upon Virgin Virgin Mary.
Maya.

3. When Buddha 3. When Jesus descended

descended from the from his heavenly seat, and
regions of the souls, and entered the body of the
entered the body of the Virgin Mary, her womb
Virgin Maya, her womb assumed the appearance of
assumed the appearance of clear, transparent crystal, in
clear, transparent crystal, which Jesus appeared
in which Buddha appeared beautiful as a flower.
beautiful as a flower.

4. The birth of Buddha 4. The birth of Jesus was

was announced in the announced in the heavens by
heavens by “his star”, which was seen
an asterim which was rising on the horizon. It
seen rising on the horizon. might properly be called the
It is called the “Messianic “Messianic Star”.
Star”.

5. “The son of the Virgin 5. The Son of the Virgin

Maya, on whom, Mary, on whom, according
according to the tradition, to the tradition, the “Holy
the ‘Holy Ghost’ had Ghost” had descended, was
descended, was said to said to have been born on
have been born on Christmas day.
Christmas day.”
6. Demonstrations of 6. Demonstrations of
celestial delight were celestial delight were
manifest at the birth of manifest at the birth of Jesus.
Buddha. The Devas in The angels in heaven and
heaven and earth sang earth sang praises to the
praises to the “Blessed “Blessed One”, saying:
One”, and said: “To-day, “Glory to God in the highest,
Bodhisatwa is born on and on earth peace, goodwill
earth, to give joy and toward men.”
peace to men and Devas,
to shed light in the dark
places, and to give sight to
the blind.”

7. “Buddha was visited by 7. Jesus was visited by wise

wise men who recognized men who recognized in this
in this marvellous infant marvellous infant all the
all the characters of the characters of the divinity,
divinity, and he has and he had scarcely seen the
scarcely seen the day day before he was hailed
before he was hailed God God of Gods.
of God.”

8. The infant Buddha was 8. The infant Jesus was

presented with “costly presented with gifts of gold,
jewels and precious frankincense, and myrrh.
substances.”

9. When Buddha was an 9. When Jesus was an infant

infant, just born, he spoke in his cradle, he spoke to his
to his mother, and said: “I mother, and said: “I am
am the greatest among Jesus, the Son of God.”
men.”

10. Buddha was a 10. Jesus was a “dangerous

“dangerous child.” His life child.” His life was
was threatened by King threatened by King Herod,
Bimbasara, who was who attempted to destroy the
advised to destroy the child, as he was liable to
child, as he was liable to overthrow him.
overthrow him.
11. When sent to school, 11. When sent to school,
the young Buddha Jesus surprised his master,
surprised his masters. Zaccheus, who, turning to
Without having ever Joseph, said: “Thou hast
studied, he completely brought a boy to me to be
worsted all his taught, who is more learned
competitors, not only in than any master.”
writing, but in arithmetic,
mathematics, metaphysics,
astrology, geometry, etc.

12. “When twelve years 12. “And when he

old, the child Buddha is wastwelve years old, they
presented in the temple. brought him to (the temple
He explains and asks at) Jerusalem … While in the
learned questions; he temple among the doctors
excels all those who enter and elders, and learned men
into competition with of Israel, he proposed several
him.” questions of learning, and
also gave them answers.”

13. Buddha entered a 13. “And as Jesus was going

temple, on which occasion in by the ensigns, who
forthwith all the statues carried the standards, the
rose and threw themselves tops of them bowed down
at his feet, in act of and worshipped Jesus.”
worship.

14. When Buddha was 14. When Jesus was about

about to go forth “to adopt “beginning to preach”,
a religious thedevil appeared before
life”, Mara appeared him, to tempt him.
before him, to tempt him.

15. Mara said unto 15. The devil said to Jesus:

Buddha: “Go not forth to “if thou wilt fall down and
adopt a religious life, and worship me, I will give thee
in seven days thou shalt all the kingdoms of the
become an emperor of the world.”
world.”

16. Buddha would not 16. Jesus would not heed the
heed the words of the Evil words of the Evil One, and
One, and said to him: “Get said to him: “Get thee behind
thee away from me.” me, Satan.”

17. After Mara had left 17. After the devil had left
Buddha, “the skies rained Jesus, “angels came and
flowers, and delicious ministered unto him.”
odours pervaded the air.”

18. Buddha fasted for a 18. Jesus fasted for forty

long period. days and nights.

19. On one occasion 19. On one occasion during

towards the end of his life his career on earth, Jesus is
on earth, Gautama Buddha reported to have been
is reported to have been transfigured.
transfigured.

20. “Buddha performed 20. Jesus performed great

great miracles for the good miracles for the good of
of mankind, and the mankind and the legends
legends concerning him concerning him are full of
are full of the greatest the greatest prodigies and
prodigies and wonders.” wonders.

21. When Buddha died 21. When Jesus died and

and was buried, “the was buried, the coverings of
coverings of the body his body were unrolled

unrolled themselves, and from off him, and his tomb

the lid of his coffin was was opened by supernatural
opened by supernatural powers.
power.”

22. Buddha ascended 22. Jesus ascended bodily to

bodily to the celestial the celestial regions, when
regions, when his mission his mission on earth was
on earth was fulfilled. fulfilled.

23. Buddha is to come 23. Jesus is to come upon

upon the earth again in the the earth again in the latter
latter days, his mission days, his mission being to
being to restore the world restore the world to order
to order and happiness. and happiness.

24. Buddha is Alpha and 24. Jesus is Alpha and

Omega, Omega, without beginning or
without beginning or end, end, the Supreme Being, the
“the Supreme Being, the Eternal One.
Eternal One.”

25. Buddha is represented 25. Jesus is represented as

as saying: “Let all the sins the Saviour of mankind, and
that were committed in all sins that are committed in
this world fall on me, that this world may fall on him,
the world may be that the world may be
delivered.” delivered.

26. Buddha came, not to 26. Jesus said: “Think not

destroy, but to fulfil, the that I am come to destroy the
law. He delighted law, or the prophets: I am not
in “representing himself come to destroy but to
as a mere link in a long fulfil.”
chain of enlightened
teachers.”
27. Those who became 27. Those who became
disciples of Buddha were disciples of Jesus were told
told that they must that they must renounce the
“renounce the world”, give world, give up all their
up all their riches, and riches, and avow poverty.
avow poverty.

28. It is recorded in the 28. It is recorded in the

“Sacred Canon” of the “Sacred Canon” of the
Buddhists that the Christians that the multitudes
multitudes “required a required a sign from Jesus
sign” from Buddha “that that they might believe.
they might believe.”

29. Buddha’s aim was to 29. “From that time Jesus

establish a “Religious began to preach, and to say,
Kingdom”, a “Kingdom of Repent: for the Kingdom of
Heaven.” Heaven is at hand.”

30. Buddha said: “Though 30. Jesus said: “Verily I say

the heavens were to fall to unto you … heaven and earth
earth, and the great world shall pass away,

be swallowed up and pass but my words shall not pass

away: Though Mount away.”
Sumera were to crack to
pieces, and the great ocean
be dried up, yet, Ananda,
be assured, the words of
Buddha are true.”

31. Buddha knew the 31. Jesus knew the thoughts

thoughts of others: “By of others. By directing his
directing his mind to the mind to the thoughts of
thoughts of others, he can others, he knew the thoughts
know the thoughts of all of all beings.
beings.”

32. In the SOMADEVA a 32. It is related in the New

story is related of a Testament that Jesus said: “If
Buddhist ascetic whose thy right eye offend thee,
 eye offended him; he pluck it out, and cast it from
therefore plucked it out, thee.”
and cast it away.

33. When Buddha was 33. When Jesus was

about to become an entering Jerusalem, riding on
ascetic, and when riding an ass, his path was strewn
on the horse “Kantako” his with palm branches, thrown
path was strewn with there by the multitude.
flowers, thrown there by
Devas.

The reader may draw his own conclusions (confusions?) from the foregoing as to
how the various circumstances of Jesus’s life came to be so similar to, if no identical
with, that of Buddha’s! Could it have been the Devil again at work? To be fair to both
these religious personalities, would it not be logical to ask who came first in the order of
time? Who borrowed from whom? Did the Buddhists, who existed long, long before the
Christians were born, borrow from Christianity, or is the reverse the truth?

To the impartial mind, the answer is obvious!

* Conquest of Mexico, Vo. 1, p. 60.

** The Sources of Christianity, by Khwaja Kamaluddin.

 Home The "Battling Bishop" of California
by A.S.K. Joommal

Not so long ago (November, 1964), it was reported in the local newspapers that a
certain Right Reverend James A. Pike had provoked heresy charges by his bold, intrepid
assertions with regard to certain fundamental dogmas of the Christian Church.

The Bishop had started this fierce dispute in the Episcopalian Church of America,
which is the equivalent of the Church of England. Critics’ attacks had included an attempt
to “unfrock” him, and he has been called an “angry, middle-aged rebel”. But the dry-
humoured bishop represents “liberal” Christianity to many, the newspaper said.

In sermons, articles and books, he has questioned a number of doctrines believed

fundamental to Christian faith, including the Virgin Birth and the Trinity. In a strong
statement on the “irrelevancy” of the Trinity, the bishop called for an end to “outdated,
incomprehensible and non-essential doctrinal statements, traditions and codes.”

“The fact is,” the bishop said in a sermon prior to the Triennial General
Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in St. Louis, “we are in the middle of the
theological revolution.”

The bishop’s latest book – “A TIME FOR CHRISTIAN CANDOUR” – proposes,

in essence, that the Church strip itself “of excess luggage” that, in the Bishop’s view, no
longer makes Christianity relevant to the world today.

Elaborating on the idea that the Doctrine of the Trinity is something that “man
made up”, Bishop Pike has said: “Our Lord never heard of it. The Apostles knew nothing
of it.”

He ascribes the development of the doctrine of the Holy Ghost to the influence of
Greek thought on early Christian philosophers that is now causing confusion and an
undesirable tendency to tri-theism.

In one of his latest sermons he added: “Many of us feel that it is urgent that we
think and restate the unchanging gospel in terms which are relevant to our day and to the
people we would have hear it; not hesitating to abandon or reinterpret concepts, words,
images and myths developed in past centuries when men were operating under different
world views and different philosophical structures.”

* * *

Bishop Pike is not the first dignitary of a Church who finds the Christian dogmas
repugnant. There have been many others before him who have spoken out fearlessly.
There are many at the moment who are campaigning for a sane and rational approach to
the Christian religion. And there will be many more Church leaders in the future who will
add their voice of protest and objection to doctrines that just do not make any sense.
There will come a time soon when the Church will be forced to rid itself of all accretion
and revert to the Christianity of Christ – which was a pure, simple, unadulterated,
monotheistic faith. There will come a time when Church elders would be compelled by
REASON to have their faith spring-cleaned of all the “spiritual junk” – as one clergyman
called the stories and events in the Bible.

The Rev. J. C. Wansey of Woodford, Essex, was reported in The Star of

Johannesburg on 10/5/63, as saying: “It is essential that our people should be fed with
food convenient for them and not poison. There is so much SPIRITUAL JUNK in the Old
Testament and I do make a plea for a reasonable Christian approach in the passages of
scripture. Some of the Old Testament teaching about God was utterly contradictory to the
Christian faith. The sooner the Church takes a bold new look at what she reads from the
Old Testament, the better.”

Men of understanding find it extremely difficult to swallow all the Church

dogmas dished out to them. Some articulate their inability to comprehend the dogmas,
and are promptly branded as heretics. Others, for fear of the parish priest or for fear of
being looked down upon by the congregation, go on “believing”, but silently suffering
within themselves, knowing that what they are asked to believe is sheer nonsense. A
representative opinion of men of intellect, who exercise the God-given power of
independent thinking is quoted:

“It is incredible to me that God should send His son to die to save man from His wrath; it
is incredible to me that men should be damned for their sins.

“It is still more incredible to me that a God, having decided on such a measure of saving
men from hell or from His own wrath, should not have made the whole way of salvation
plain. The very fact that after nearly two thousand years Christianity should be professed
by only a small proportion of humanity -, that it should have so small an influence on the
practical conduct of that proportion to permit the Great Wars and specially that sects of
believers, each equally sincere, should give quite contrary interpretations of Christ’s
teaching – these very facts are by themselves sufficient to make it almost impossible for
me to believe that Christianity is a divine scheme of salvation. And I find many other
equally great difficulties and incredibilities.

“Personally, I find the intellectual difficulties in the way of acceptance of the dogmas and
doctrines of Christianity insuperable: I think that Christianity, in the strict sense of the
word, i.e. worship and imitation of Christ, is not generally practicable, that today it has a
small and dwindling influence in the Western world.”

(Dr. R.C. Macfie, THE FAITHS AND HERESIES OF A POET AND SCIENTIST. pp.
140-141, p.144.)
 Home Points to Ponder
by A.S.K. Joommal

Questions are already asked at the end of the sections on Atonement, Trinity, and
the “Sonship” of Christ. To a mind capable of thinking, those questions would prove
veritable eye-openers. Below we are merely jotting down points for consideration. It is
good to exercise the mind sometimes, and the following points will, we feel sure, jog the
mind to action and set a train of thoughts. If the reader comes to a rational conclusion
regarding these points, then our effort at formulating these points would have been
worthwhile.

(1) In Deuteronomy we read that a false prophet shall die, even if he performs
miracles. It is the belief of Christians that Jesus died on the cross. Now, judged by the
words of Moses, Jesus does not pass the test of a true prophet. He suffers the accursed
death on the cross. This, according to the Word of God revealed through Moses,
condemns Jesus as a false prophet. To the Christians, this indeed proves a predicament.
Either they acknowledge the authority of Deuteronomy or reject Jesus outright. In either
case our Christian friends face an insurmountable difficulty.

(2) The theory that the Fall of Adam of necessity involved all his progeny, is
unacceptable on logical and Biblical grounds.

Firstly: it is against Divine justice and fairness to account the innocent son as
guilty when He knows that the culprit is the father.

Secondly: it is opposed to the express teachings of the Old Testament. Ezekiel and

Jeremiah both say that God does not punish the son for the sins of the father. An apt

illustration is given to bring out and impress the point: sour grapes eaten by the father

do not set the son’s teeth on edge.

Thirdly: it is against the teaching of the New Testament, for Luke says that both

Zacharias and his wife were righteous in the sight of God, fulfilling all His behests.

Yet both were descended from Adam.

Fourthly: such a teaching is opposed to our everyday experience and observation,

for we often see bad fathers begetting good sons. If the sins of a father penetrate
 into the son, then every drunkard’s son must of necessity be a drunkard, which is
not so.

(3) (a) Christians greatly emphasise the fact that Christ performed miracles.
They say that Jesus was God, therefore he could do all those things. Would
the Christians concede divinity to other prophets if it is proved that these
prophets too worked similar powerful signs – nay, even greater in certain
cases?

Christ’s greatest miracle is said to be the raising of the dead, but we find
that other prophets too worked this wonder. See 2 Kings, 4:35; Ezekiel,
37:10; 1 Kings, 17:22. Even the CORPSE of Elisha raised a dead man to
life (2 Kings, 13:21).

(b) Christ’s second miracle is said to be the healing of the sick. But here too we find the other prophets doing just the same
thing. Elisha cured Naaman of his leprosy (2 Kings, 5:14). Joseph healed his father’s blindness (Genesis, 46:4-30).
(c ) The third miracle of Jesus is said to be his increasing of wine and loaves. Even here we find the prophets abreast of him.
Elijah blessed the barrel of meal and the cruse of oil so that they did not fail in spite of the daily demand on them. (1 Kings,
17:13-16). Elisha blessed the pot of oil so that not a vessel was left empty in the neighbourhood (2 Kings, 4:2-6).

(d) His fourth miracle is said to be his walking on the waters and staying the
storm. But Moses did more. With his rod he struck the waters and parted
them into two so as to leave a dry passage between.

Joshua dried up the waters of Jordan and Elijah parted the waters.

(4) Jesus told his disciples that if they had faith even of the size of a mustard seed,
they would perform works similar to his works or even greater. If, then, his divinity is
based on his miracles, his followers who call themselves Christians, have as much right
as he, in some cases even better, of performing miracles.

(5) Jesus warned his disciples against false prophets who would show such
wondrous signs that they would mislead his disciples.

Now, if a false prophet can work miracles according to Jesus, is it not,

then, time to modify our test of divinity, seeing that the working of miracles is no
sure test?

(6) (a) To say that Jesus is sinless as he is not sprung from the seed of Adam, is
not borne out by the Bible. Satan is not of the Seed of Adam, yet he is
sinful.

The serpent is not of the Seed of Adam, yet the Bible holds it as sinful.
Those devils or evil spirits that Jesus drove miraculously, do not appear to
be of the same origin as man, yet they are called evil and unclean.
 (b) It is a well-known fact that the child inherits many of the habits, tendencies and propensities of his parents. Mary, the
mother of Jesus, was not sinless being of the Seed of Adam. Therefore Jesus must have inherited, acquired and contracted many
of the weaknesses inborn in Mary.
(c) Moreover, if Jesus is not of Adam, why is he called the Son of Man?
(d) If all those who are not of the seed of Adam are sinless, then Jesus cannot enjoy a special, exclusive right to this
attribute that makes him a God. The angels are not descended from Adam, and they are sinless. Again, Melchisedec, King of
Salem, is not sprung from Adam and he is sinless. If sinlessness entitles someone to godhead, then indeed Melchisedec and all
the angels are entitled to it.

(7) The Bible says that Adam was expelled from the Garden of Eden because he
committed a sin. Since his fall involved his progeny as well, it was laid down as a
punishment that man was to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, and that
woman was to give birth to her children with great pain. At the same time our
Christian friends assert that Jesus took upon himself the sins of men and he was
drawn upon the cross to suffer the agony of an expiatory death, thus atoning for
the sins of men.

Well, may a non-Christian ask, where is the effect of that atonement? The
sweat of the brow and the travails of childbirth should have been the exclusive lot
of the non-Christian world, since the fountainhead of these troubles was stopped
for ever in the case of Christians. But our actual experience belies this for the
Christians of the world still sweat, and the Christian women are on a par with
their non-Christian sisters in suffering the pangs of childbirth. What sort of
remission did Jesus, then, earn for those who believe in him if this remission does
not exempt them form toil, sweat and travail? “Thy sins are forgiven” thus sounds
very hollow.

On the other hand if Eve’s sin involved the whole of her sex, then it stands
to reason that not a single woman should escape the “punishment” meted out to
woman in the form of excruciating pains at the time of childbirth. But we find in
life that there are, and there have been, many women who never suffered the
pangs of childbirth because they were barren. This, however, is an invidious
“distinction” which is equally shared by even the Christians.

Moreover, it is common knowledge, and physicians are agreed, that some

women bear children without any antecedent or consequent pain … which proves
conclusively that the travail is not due to the sin of Eve, otherwise none would
have escaped it.

(8) A woman mentioned in Matthew (15:21-26) and Mark (7:24-27) is described to

have approached Jesus in great humility. In accordance with the custom of her
people, she fell at his feet and desired his mercy and his help. But Jesus,
according to the Gospel writer, said: “It is not meet to take the children’s bread,
and to cast it to dogs”. (Matthew, 15:26)

With what longing and expectation this poor woman must have
approached Jesus! And she went not to beg for bread or cloth or for any such
 material things: all she wanted was spiritual guidance. She wanted from him just
what Jesus had come to give. But the Gospel writers say that Jesus not only
refused her his blessings, but insulted her by calling her a “dog”!

If the Gospel account is true, then Jesus had proved with this utterance that he had
nothing to offer to the non-Jewish people as his thoughts were concentrated on the well-
being of the Jewish people only. He preferred to have his feet anointed by a sinning
Jewish woman (Luke, 7:36-38) rather than speak a kind and comforting word to a non-
Jewish woman.

Does a prophet of God use invectives, dishonour and curse those whom he
had come to save? This narrative places a great strain on one’s credence.

(9) Christians vehemently assert that theirs is a universal religion and that Jesus
came to preach the Gospel unto “all nations”. This contention is clearly repudiated by
Jesus in the following words:

(i) “I am NOT sent but unto the LOST SHEEP OF THE HOUSE OF
ISRAEL.” (Matthew, 15:24)

(ii) “It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.” (Matthew, 15:26)

(iii) “Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans
enter ye not: but go rather to the LOST SHEEP OF THE HOUSE OF
ISRAEL.”(Matthew, 10:5-6)

How strange it is that in direct contravention of the commandment

of their Master, the Christians of to-day are trying to spread the Gospel to
those for whom it was never meant and sent!

(10) The attitude of Christians to the law never ceases to perplex and bewilder the
intelligent mind. Jesus Christ was absolutely honest and straightforward when he said
that he had not come to destroy the law but to fulfil it. But how daring and plucky St.
Paul must have been when he defied his Master and declared that: “Christ hath redeemed
us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” (Galatians, 3:13)

On the one hand Jesus is doing his utmost to impress upon his flock that
they must adhere to the law since he himself has come to fulfil it and not to destroy the
law; on the other hand St. Paul takes upon himself the liberty to nullify – with one fell
swoop – what his Master had taught, by pronouncing law to be a curse and fabricating the
story that Christ was made a curse thus redeeming the Christians from the “curse” of the
law.

We do not know to what extent St. Paul had acquired legal training, but his
use of the word “curse” in connection with the law, sounds very much like the
rantings of an anarchist. It seems that St. Paul was keen to create a lawless
 society. Jesus came to fulfil the law and not to destroy it. St. Paul came to destroy
the law and not to fulfil it!

(11) The Bible itself proves that the philosophy of offering the other cheek when
smitten on the one is impracticable. Christ himself, though he exhorted his
followers to give the other cheek, did not practise what he preached, for it is
recorded in John 18:19-23:

“The High Priest then asked Jesus of his disciples, and of his doctrine. Jesus
answered him, I spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue, and in
the temple, whither the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said nothing. Why
askest thou me? ask them which heard me, what I have said unto them: behold,
they know what I said. And when he had thus spoken, one of the officers which
stood by struck Jesus with the palm of his hand, saying, Answerest thou the high
priest so? Jesus answered him, If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil: but
if well,WHY SMITEST THOU ME?”

In accordance with his teaching, Christ should have kept silent and offered
the other cheek also to the officer. But he did not do so. Instead, he protested thus
showing plainly to the world that it is not possible to follow this precept – a
precept which the Master himself couldNOT carry out, although he preached it!

St. Paul, too, did not carry out this command of Jesus, as the following
quotation from Acts 23:1-3 shows:

“And Paul, earnestly beholding the council, said, Men and brethren, I
have lived in all good conscience before God until this day. And the high
priest Ananias commanded them that stood by him to smite him on the
mouth. Then said Paul unto him, GOD SHALL SMITE THEE, THOU
WHITED WALL: for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and
commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law?”

St. Paul protested more or less in the same fashion as his Master had done
when he was smitten by the officer. In this one respect, at least, St. Paul
emulated Jesus … that is, he refused to “give the other cheek”, thus
honouring the precept more in the breach than in the observance
– exactly as Jesus had done!

A further interesting point emerges from the above

quotation. St. Paul objects strongly to being smitten “contrary to the
law”. Yet he is the one to say that the law is a curse and Christ
“redeemed us form the curse of the law”. Since he was redeemed from
observing the law, why, then, does he object to the high priest not
observing the law and his command as being “contrary to the law”? This is
a clear case of St. Paul trying to have his religious cake and eat it too!
(12) “The Lord preserveth all them that love him: but all the wicked will he destroy.”
(Psalm, 145:20). This Biblical quotation confirms the fact that God showed his
mercy to Lot and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah; that God delivered Noah from
the deluge and the wicked perished. Why did God not deliver Jesus also from the
machinations of the wicked Israelites? Why did He not destroy them instead?
 Home Snippets
by A.S.K. Joommal

(1) “I know no book which has been a source of brutality and sadistic conduct, both
public and private, that can compare with the Bible.” (Mr. Reginald Paget, English
M.P., quoted in The Sunday Times, Johannesburg, “Sayings of the Week”, June 28,
1964).

(2) The use of the Bible as a classroom textbook has been condemned by a Christian
psychologist as “a positive impediment to sound religious thinking”. The attack on
religious instruction, particularly in junior schools, came from Dr. Ronald Goldman,
senior education lecturer at Reading University. He told an education conference:
“Biblical authoritarianism is the death of imagination, spirituality and religious insight.
The Bible is now a history book. Its most profound teaching is fiction. Christ was one of
the greatest fiction storytellers – a teacher of life and explorer of it in depth. Children are
taught the Bible fiction story of Jonah and the whale as though it were actually about a
whale swallowing a man. It is really a story about a small nation being swallowed up by a
great empire.” Dr. Goldman appealed to teachers not to create in the children’s minds
“the neurotic image of a watchful, vengeful and punishing God.” (The Star,
Johannesburg, January 6, 1966).

(3) Mr. C. Arthur Smith, a 64-year-old Methodist local preacher who lives at Ebford,
near Exeter, in Devon, has published his own version of the Bible – a version which, he
says, omits “all unnatural and superstitious teaching.” This must be done, Mr. Smith
believes, “if the Church is to make any impact on the modern world.” Mr. Smith
spent 5,000 hours on study and 9,000 hours writing his “Busy Man’s Bible.” He points
out that it is an interpretation, and not a translation from the original Greek. It omits the
Virgin Birth of Christ, the Resurrection, and other beliefs which Mr. Smith claims are
“unnatural, pure superstition, and unscientific”. Mr. Smith said he was concerned because
the church’s directive had been faltering, uncertain, and obscure, especially to young
students of every nationality coming out of universities. He said that, in his view, religion
was something that had to appeal to man’s REASON. If it did not, he could not accept it.
Mr. Smith said: “I believe that I am the child of my mother and my father. There is a third
constituent in my being, and in that sense you and I are sons of God. In that sense, too,
Jesus was a son of God.” This is much more reasonable than the doctrine the church
teaches, based largely on John I: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God.” This referred to wisdom, not to Jesus. The church has
been guilty of placing on these words a meaning that is neither genuine nor true. (The
Star,Johannesburg, January 30, 1963).

(4) No heathen tribe has conceived so grotesque an idea involving as it does the
assumption that man was born with a hereditary stain upon him and that this stain for
which he was not personally responsible was to be atoned for and that the Creator, of all
things, had to sacrifice His only begotten son to neutralise this mysterious curse. (Major
Yeats-Brown, in his book “LIFE OF A BENGAL LANCER.”)

(5) A great Western thinker, Bertrand Russell, unmasks the true nature of
Christianity thus: “In the so-called ages of Faith, when men really did believe in
Christian religion in all its completeness, there was the inquisition with its tortures, there
were millions of unfortunate women burnt as witches and there was every kind of cruelty
practised upon all sorts of people in the name of religion. You find as you look around the
world that every single bit of progress in human feeling, every improvement in the
criminal laws, every step towards the diminution of war, every step towards better
treatment of the coloured races or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that
there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organised Churches …
I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organised in its Churches, has been
and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.” (“WHY I AM NOT
A CHRISTIAN?” p.14).

(6) Another Western scholar, Winwood Reade, observes: “I am firmly persuaded that
whatever is injurious to the intellect is also injurious to moral life and on this conviction I
base my conduct with respect to Christianity. This religion is pernicious to intellect. It
demands that the reason shall be sacrificed upon the altar; it orders civilised men to
believe in the legend of a savage race. It places a hideous image, covered with dirt and
blood, in the Holy of Holies; it rends the sacred veil of Truth in twain. It teaches that the
Creator of the Universe – that sublime, that inscrutable Power – exhibited his back to
Moses, and ordered Hosea to commit adultery and Ezekiel to eat dung. There is no need
to say anything more. Such a religion is blasphemous and foul. Let those admire it who
can. I, for my part, feel it my duty to set free from its chain as many as I
can.” (MARTYRDOM OF MAN, pp. 442-3).

(7) Tel Aviv scholars at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem have called for a
scientific reappraisal of the beginnings of Christianity in the light of the newly-
discovered 1,500-year-old texts of a Judaeo-Christian sect claiming descent from the
Disciples of Jesus himself.

The acquisition of a microfilm copy of the Arabic manuscript was reported

last month by the University. It portrays the first Christians in Jerusalem as synagogue-
goers who regarded Jesus as a prophet but not divine, and who observed Jewish laws to
the letter. The texts also give an account of the Passion which strongly suggests that
another Jew may have been singled out by Judas Iscariot and crucified instead of Jesus.
Two narratives of the Passion included in the manuscript are conflicting. One comes
close to the version in St. John but differs in details. The other, vastly different from the
account in the Gospels, says a group of Jews complained to Herod that Jesus “corrupted
and led astray our brethren.”

Herod assigned auxiliaries to go with them to arrest the man, but none
could identify him. They met Judas, who said he would kiss Jesus’s head and take his
hand so that they should recognise him. There was a crowd in Jerusalem because it was
the third day of Passover. Judas kissed a man’s head, took his hand and then melted into
the crowd. The man was arrested.

Brought before Herod, the prisoner denied that he was Christ (in Arabic,
Christ is Maseeh, which also means Messiah) and trembled with fear. Herod said to the
Jews: “I see you attribute to him sayings that were not his and you wrong him. Is there a
basin of water for me to wash my hands of this man’s blood?”

Pilate learnt that Jesus had been brought to Herod and asked that he be
sent to him for a talk, as he had heard that he was an intelligent man. In his meeting with
Pilate, the prisoner also denied that he was Christ and was too nervous for intelligent
conversation. Pilate accordingly sent him back to Herod saying: “There is no good in this
man,” meaning that no intelligent conversation could be had with him.

Herod sent him to prison for the night and the following day Jews seized
him and tortured him. At the end of the day they whipped him, crucified him and pierced
him with lances so that he should die quickly. To the last the man did not perceive his
crime and died crying: “My God, why did you abandon me? My God, why did you
forsake me?”

Judas later asked the Jews what they had done with the man. On being told
that he had been crucified, he was amazed. They took him to see the body and he
exclaimed: “This man is innocent!” He abused the Jews, threw the money they had given
him into their faces, then went away and strangled himself. (“The Times” News Service,
quoted in The Star, Johannesburg, July 15, 1966).

(8) As time went on, it became evident that the Authorised Version was far from
correct. Consequently a Revised Version was produced, and those responsible for the new
version stated that they had discovered 36,191 mistakes in the old version. We now know
that if a new version were published to-day, the alterations that would have to be made
would be equally striking. The Revised Version should have been the death blow to the
Church’s claim for the infallibility of the Bible, but this was not so, and it has the support
of many foolish people who quote texts to prove their theories. These people read it
without thinking. When they open their Bible, they close their reason, yet, if they will
consult the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BIBLICA, they will find that the article in it dealing
with the Resurrection points out that in the various gospel stories of this event there are
twenty-two contradictions of a most serious character. Why should anyone be asked to
believe in an event recorded in such a way, and why does the Church, on this evidence,
claim Resurrection of Jesus to be the fundamental truth of Christianity? (Arthur Findlay,
“THE ROCK OF TRUTH”).

(9) Of all the old world legends, the death and resurrection of a virgin-born, or in
some way divinely-born, Saviour was the most widespread.(Vivian Phelips, “THE
CHURCHES AND MODERN THOUGHT”).
(10) Much of the teaching attributed to Jesus is considered by many to be peculiar to
him and him only, and it is supposed that he was the first to teach love, gentleness, the
love and fatherhood of God, and all the other virtues. This is quite wrong, though this
false way of regarding his teaching is encouraged by the Church, which claims that he
originated all these injunctions.

Long before the time of Jesus there were teachers who taught everything
that is attributed to him, and there is nothing of value ascribed to him that was not said
before his time. “Return good for evil and overcome anger with love”, and “he that would
cherish me, let him go and cherish his sick comrade”, were sayings attributed to Buddha.
“Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you” was said by Confucius.
“Whenever thou art in doubt as to whether an action is good or bad, abstain from it” was
said by Zoroaster a thousand years before Jesus.

“One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it
be right to do injustice, and it is not right to return an injury or to do any evil to any man,
however much we may have suffered from him” was said by Socrates four hundred and
fifty years before Jesus. “Let us not listen to those who think that we ought to be angry
with our enemies, and who believe this to be great and manly. Nothing is more
praiseworthy, nothing so clearly shows a great and noble soul, as clemency and readiness
to forgive” was said by Cicero seventy years before Jesus. “If a man strike thee and in
striking thee drop his staff, pick it up and hand it to him again” was ascribed to Krishna
centuries before Jesus was born. (Arthur Findlay, “THE ROCK OF TRUTH”).

(11) According to Mackey’s LEXICON OF FREEMASONRY, freemasons taught the

doctrines of the crucifixion, atonement and resurrection long before the Christian
era. (Arthur Findlay, “THE ROCK OF TRUTH”).

(12) In respect both of doctrines and of rites, the cult of Mithra appears to have
presented many points of resemblance to Christianity. Taken all together, the
coincidences of the Christian with the heathen festivals are too close and too numerous to
be accidental. They mark the compromise which the Church in its hour of triumph was
compelled to make with its vanquished and yet still dangerous rivals. (Sir James
Frazer, “THE GOLDEN BOUGH”).

(13) It was not, however, until the year 527 that it was decided when Jesus was born,
and various monks equipped with astrological learning were called in to decide this
important point. Ultimately the Emperor decided that 25th December, the date of the birth
of Mithra, be accepted as the date of the birth of Jesus. Up to the year 680 no thought had
been given to the symbol of Jesus crucified on the cross. Prior to that date veneration was
accorded to the Mithraic symbolic lamb, but from this time onwards it was ordained that
in place of the lamb the figure of a man attached to a cross should be substituted.

(Arthur Findlay, “THE ROCK OF TRUTH”).

(14) Canon Streeter, in his book “THE BUDDHA AND CHRIST” published in 1932,
quotes the following observation of Newman in support of his argument: “A great portion
of what is generally received as Christian truth is in its rudiments, or separate parts, to be
found in heathen philosophies and religions.”

(15) There has never been a religion in the annals of the world with such a bloody
record as Christianity. All the rest, including the traditional fierce fights of the “chosen
people” with their next of kin, the idolatrous tribes of Israel, pale before the murderous
fanaticism of the alleged followers of Christ.(H.P. Blavatsky, “ISIS UNVEILED”).

(16) Hypatia, daughter of Theon the mathematician, was a very learned person. She
was revered by all who knew her for her erudition, noble virtues and character. Her
youth, learning, and influence with Orestes, governor of Alexandria, proved a source of
intense hatred to Cyril, nephew of Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria. This bitter hatred
led him to have her butchered in such a gruesome manner that it defies description.
Historians record that he ordered Peter the Reader to pound her body to a jelly under the
blows of the club, and that thereafter her body was to be cut to pieces and “the flesh
scraped from the bones” with oyster-shells and the rest of her cast into the fire, in the
name of Christ! This same Cyril was later CANONIZED as a Saint by the Church! (H.P.
Blavatsky, “ISIS UNVEILED”).

(17) We beg the reader to bear in mind that it is the same Cyril who was accused and
proved guilty of having sold the gold and silver ornaments of his Church, and spent the
money. He pleaded guilty, but tried to excuse himself on the ground that he had used the
money for the poor, but could not give evidence of it. His duplicity with Arius and his
party is well-known. Thus one of the first Christian saints, and the founder of the Trinity,
appears on the pages of history as a murderer and a thief! (H.P. Blavatsky, “ISIS
UNVEILED”).

(18) If Paganism had been destroyed, it was less through annihilation than through
absorption. Almost all that was Pagan was carried over to survive under a Christian name.
Deprived of demi-gods and heroes, men easily, and half unconsciously, invested a local
martyr (Jesus) with their attributes, and labelled the local statue with his name,
transferring to him the cult and mythology associated with the Pagan deity. Before this
century (Fourth) was over, the martyr-cult was universal, and a beginning had been made
of that interposition of a deified human being between God and man which, on the one
hand, had been the consequence of Arianism, and was on the other the origin of so much
that is typical of medieval piety and practice. Pagan festivals were adopted and re-named,
and Christmas Day, the ancient festival of the sun, was transformed into the birthday of
Jesus. (Rev. James H. Baxter, Professor of Ecclesiastical History at St. Andrew’s
University, in his book “CHRISTIANITY IN THE LIGHT OF MODERN
KNOWLEDGE”).

(19) Protestantism is just as cruel a creed as Roman Catholicism. The two who did as
much as any to promote their acceptance and growth were murderers. Constantine killed
his own kith and kin, and Calvin murdered Servetus because he disagreed with him. All
branches of the Christian church were tyrannical when they had the power, giving no
mercy to anyone. That is the consequence of an “inspired” Church and an “inspired”
book. Whenever men think that they, and they only, have divine authority, cruelty and
intolerance follow. (Arthur Findlay, “THE ROCK OF TRUTH”).

(20) If we step outside the little circle of creed and consider the universe as a whole
balanced by the exquisite adjustment of parts, how all sound logic, how the faintest
glimmering sense of Justice revolts against this Vicarious Atonement. If the criminal
sinned only against himself, and wronged no one but himself; if by sincere repentance he
could cause the obliteration of past events, not only from the memory of man, but also
from that imperishable record, which no deity – not even the Supremest of the Supreme –
can cause to disappear, then this dogma might not be incomprehensible. But to maintain
that one may wrong his fellowman, kill, disturb the equilibrium of society, and the natural
order of things, and then – through cowardice, hope, or compulsion, it matters not – be
forgiven by believing that the spilling of one blood washes out the other blood spilt – this
is preposterous! Can the results of a crime be obliterated even though the crime itself
should be pardoned? (H.P. Blavatsky, “ISIS UNVEILED”).

(21) It is well to know that when Mohammedans were the friends of Science,
Christians were its enemies. How consoling it is to think that the friends of Science, the
men who educated their fellows, are now in hell, and that the men who persecuted and
killed philosophers are now in heaven! Such is the justice of God.

The Christians of the Middle Ages, the men who were filled with the Holy
Ghost, knew all about the worlds beyond the grave, but nothing about the world in which
they lived. They thought the earth was flat, that it was about five thousand years old, and
that the stars were little sparkles made to beautify the night.

The fact is that Christianity was in existence for fifteen hundred years
before there was an astronomer in Christendom. No follower of Christ knew the shape of
the earth.

The earth was demonstrated to be a globe, not by a pope or cardinal, not

by a collection of clergymen, not by the “called” or the “set apart”, but by a sailor.
Magellan left Seville, Spain, on August 10, 1519, sailed west, and kept sailing west, and
the ship reached Seville, the port it left, on September 7, 1522.

The world had been circumnavigated. The earth was known to be round.
There had been a dispute between the Scriptures and a sailor. The fact took the sailor’s
side.

In 1543 Copernicus published his book, ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

THE HEAVENLY BODIES. He had some idea of the vastness of the stars, of the
astronomical spaces, of the insignificance of this world.
 Towards the close of the 16th century, Bruno, one of the greatest men the
world has produced, gave his thoughts to his fellowmen. He taught the plurality of
worlds. He was a Pantheist, an honest man. He was imprisoned for many years, tried,
convicted, and on February 16, 1600, burned in Rome by men filled with the Holy Ghost
– burned on the spot where now his monument rises. Bruno was the noblest, the greatest
of all the martyrs. Yet Christians, followers of Christ, murdered this incomparable man.
These Christians were true to their creed. They believed that faith would be rewarded
with eternal joy, and doubt punished with eternal pain. They were logical. They were
pious and pitiless, devout and devilish, meek and malicious, religious and revengeful,
Christ-like and cruel, loving with their mouths but hating with their hearts.

In 1608 Lippersheim, a Hollander, so arranged lenses that objects were

exaggerated. He invented the telescope. He gave countless worlds to our eyes, and made
us citizens of the Universe.

In 1609, Kepler published his book, MOTIONS OF THE PLANET

MARS. He, too, knew of the attraction of gravitation, and that it acted in proportion to
mass and distance. Kepler announced his Three Laws. He found and mathematically
expressed the relation of distance, mass, and motion. Nothing greater has been
accomplished by the human mind.

Astronomy became a science, and Christianity a superstition.

Then came Newton, Herschel, and Laplace. The astronomy of Joshua and
Elijah faded from the minds of intelligent men, and Jehovah became an ignorant tribal
god.

In 1610, on the night of January 7, Galileo demonstrated the truth of the

Copernican system, and in 1632 published his work on THE SYSTEM OF THE
WORLD. What did the Church do? Galileo was arrested, imprisoned, forced to fall upon
his knees, put his hand on the Bible, and recant. For ten years he was kept in prison – for
ten years, until released by the pity of Death. Then the Church, men filled with the Holy
Ghost, denied his body burial in consecrated ground. It was feared that his dust might
corrupt the bodies of those who had persecuted him! (Robert G. Ingersoll, “LECTURES
AND ESSAYS”).

(22) The Chicago TIMES recently printed the hangman’s record of the first half of the
present year (1877) – a long and ghastly record of murders and hangings. Nearly every
one of these murderers received religious consolation, and many announced that they had
received God’s forgiveness through the blood of Jesus, and were going that day to
Heaven! Their conversion was effected in prison. See how this ledger- balance of
Christian Justice (!) stands: These red-handed murderers, urged on by the demons of lust,
revenge, cupidity, fanaticism, or mere brutal thirst for blood, slew their victims, in most
cases, without giving them time to repent, or call on Jesus to wash them clean with his
blood. They, perhaps, died sinful, and, of course – consistently with theological logic –
met the reward of their greater or lesser offences. But the murderer, overtaken by human
justice, is imprisoned, wept over by sentimentalists, prayed with and at, pronounces the
charmed words of conversion, and goes to the scaffold a redeemed child of Jesus! Except
for the murder, he would not have been prayed with, redeemed, pardoned. Clearly this
man did well to murder, for thus he gained eternal happiness? And how about the victim,
and his or her family, relatives, dependants, social relations – has Justice no recompense
for them? Must they suffer in this world and the next, while he who wronged them sits
beside the “holy thief” of Calvary and is forever blessed? On this question the clergy
keep a prudent silence. (H.P. Blavatsky, “ISIS UNVEILED”).

(23) A woman was tried and convicted before Sir Matthew Hale, one of the great
judges and lawyers of England, for having caused children to vomit crooked pins. She
was also charged with having nursed devils. The learned judge charged the intelligent (!)
jury that there was no doubt as to the existence of witches; that it was established by all
history, and expressly taught by the Bible. The woman was hanged and her body burned.

Sir Thomas More declared that to give up witchcraft was to throw away
the sacred Scriptures. In my judgment, he was right.

John Wesley was a firm believer in ghosts and witches, and insisted upon
it, years after all laws upon the subject had been repealed in England. I beg of you to
remember that John Wesley was the founder of the Methodist Church.

In New England a woman was charged with being a witch, and with
having changed herself into a fox. While in that condition she was attacked and bitten by
some dogs. A committee of three men, by order of the court, examined this woman. They
removed her clothing and searched for “witch spots”, that is to say, spots into which
needles could be thrust without giving her pain. They reported to the court that such spots
were found. She denied, however, that she ever had changed herself into a fox. Upon the
report of the committee she was found guilty and executed. This was done by our Puritan
fathers.

They believed that animals were often taken possession of by devils, and
that the killing of the animals would destroy the devil. They actually tried, convicted and
executed dumb beasts!

At Basle in 1470, a rooster was tried upon the charge of having laid an
egg. Rooster eggs were used only in making witch ointment – this everybody knew. The
rooster was convicted, and with all due solemnity was burned in the public square. So a
hog and six pigs were tried for having killed and partially eaten a child. The hog was
convicted, but the pigs, on account probably of their extreme youth, were acquitted. As
late as 1740, a cow was tried and convicted of being possessed by a devil!

They used to exorcise rats, locusts, snakes and vermin. They used to go
through the alleys, streets, and fields, and warn them to leave within a certain number of
days. In case they disobeyed, they were threatened with pains and penalties.
 For two hundred and fifty years the Church was busy in punishing the
impossible crime of witchcraft; in burning, hanging, and torturing innocent men, women
and children. Protestants were as active as Catholics, and in Geneva five hundred witches
were burned at the stake in a period of three months. About one thousand were executed
in one year in the diocese of Como. At least one hundred thousand victims suffered in
Germany alone, the last execution (in Wurtzburg) taking place as late as 1739. Witches
were burned in Switzerland as late as 1780.

Sir William Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England,

says: “To deny the possibility, nay, actual existence, of witchcraft and sorcery, is at once
flatly to contradict the word of God in various passages both of the Old and New
Testament; and the thing itself is a truth to which every nation in the world hath in its turn
born testimony, either by examples seemingly well attested or by prohibitory laws, which
at least suppose the possibility of a commerce with evil spirits.”

In Brown’s Dictionary of the Bible, published at Edinburgh, Scotland, in

1807, it is said that “A witch is a woman that has dealings with Satan. That such persons
are among men is abundantly plain from Scripture, and that they ought to be put to
death.”

In 1716 a Mrs. Hicks and her daughter, nine years of age, were hanged for
selling their souls to the devil, and raising a storm by pulling off their stockings and
making a lather of soap.

In England it has been estimated that at least thirty thousand were hanged
and burned. The last victim executed in Scotland perished in 1722. “She was innocent old
woman, who had so little idea of her situation as to rejoice at the sight of the fire
which was destined to consume her. She had a daughter, lame of both hands and of feet –
a circumstance attributed to the witch having been used to transform her daughter into a
pony and getting her shod by the devil.”

In 1692 nineteen persons were executed and one pressed to death in

Salem, Massachussetts, for the crime of witchcraft.

In 1836 the populace of Hela, near Dantzic, twice plunged into the sea a
woman reputed to be a sorceress; and as the miserable creature persisted in rising to the
surface, she was pronounced guilty and beaten to death.

Take from the Church the miraculous, the supernatural, the

incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, and the absurd, and
nothing but a vacuum remains. (Robert G. Ingersoll, “LECTURES AND ESSAYS”).

(24) “Anglican” deplores priestly incitement of violent revolution against White

Southern Africa and complains: “Surely all churches should spread love, not hatred and
violence?”
 Now where did he get the curious idea that churches should spread love?
Hasn’t he been reading the history books? Doesn’t he know of the Church Militant, of the
recurrent history of violence within Christendom? Gibbon wrote: “The Christians, in the
course of their intestine dissensions, have inflicted far greater severities on each other
than they had experienced from the zeal of infidels.”

The history of Christendom is hardly more than a recital of violence.

Already in the 2nd century the Pagan philosopher Celsus had observed that what chiefly
characterized Christians was their mutual hatreds. The sword of Constantine ushered in
the triumph of the Church over Paganism.

In 366, when Damasus was elected Bishop of Rome, the election was so
hotly contested that at the end of the day 137 corpses were counted. Charlemagne
convinced the Pagan Saxons of the gentleness of Christianity by having 4,500 beheaded
in one day; the survivors were immediately convinced!

This butcher was canonized on December 28, 1164. During the

13th century massacres of the Albigenses and Waldenses, the notorious command of
Abbot Arnaud is still relevant: “Kill all! the Lord will know His own.”

We need not dwell on the inquisitions and their appalling cruelties. On St.
Bartholomew’s Day, 1572, 10,000 Protestant leaders in France were massacred in one
blood bath which saved France for Catholicism. After the horror Pope Gregory XIII had a
Te Deum sung, struck a gold medal and commemorated the victory of the Church in a
fine (?) work of art.

Almost without exception the priests of Germany enthusiastically

embraced the cause of Hitler, while the Vatican signed a pact with that devil. During the
war, the official executioner at the Jasenovac concentration camp was Franciscan Brother
Miroslav Filipovitch.

And these are simply a few of the highlights of Church history. If

“Anglican” reads further he will find much more.

It is no use quoting pacifist verses from the New Testament as though this
were all of Christianity. Sure enough, there are Gandhi-like sentiments therein, if one
wants to quote selectively.

One can just as selectively quote evidence of violence, and the New
Testament is a massive chronicle of cruelty and violence.

Why all the exhortations to love one another and not to prosecute each
other in the courts if not because of the mutual hatreds which were born together with the
Church? “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring
hither, and slay them before me.” (Luke, 19:27). (Letter in “The Star”, Johannesburg,
15/11/1971, signed “FACTS”).
(25) I saw that Christianity had developed from the cult of a bloodthirsty being, much
more like the Devil than the loving Deity whom I was asked to worship. I saw that the
documents on which Christianity was based were inconsistent. Some statements in the
New Testament must be untrue, so all of them might be. And I saw the immense gaps,
both in theory and practice, which separated the Churches of to-day from those of the
first century. At the same time I learned enough history to see that, as a witness for
Christianity, the Church was much weaker than the Bible. If I could not base my religion
on the documents ascribed to St. Luke or St. Paul, I certainly could not do so on Churches
which had been ruled by Henry VIII or Alexander VI.(Professor J.B.S. Haldane, scientist,
in “WHY I AM A RATIONALIST”).

(26) “Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather
division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two,
and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the
father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother
in law against the daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in
law.” (Luke, 12:51-53. See also Matthew, 10:34-35).

The above verses are an irrefutable proof of the fact that Christianity does
not exercise a unifying, but a powerfully divisive, influence on its adherents. The
following news item confirms this fact:

NAIROBI. A South African Black and a Northern Irish Protestant told the
World Council of Churches (WCC) Assembly here yesterday that the Christian Churches
in their countries had divided the people in many respects rather than to unite them. Dr.
Manas Buthelezi, a leading Black South African theologian, taking part in a debate on
Church unity, told delegates that from missionary days the Christian Churches had
divided Africans: not only dividing them into Christians and non-Christians, but into
English Christians, German Lutherans and African Baptists. He said that for the Blacks
the quest for Church unity is basically a matter of restoring religious integrity to a
community whose religious wholeness was disintegrated by European Christianity.

The Rev. Gordon Gray, a Belfast Presbyterian Minister, said that his
country made a mockery of the Assembly theme, ‘JESUS CHRIST FREES AND
UNITES’, because in Ireland “we have proclaimed to the world a Christ who enslaves
and divides. When the breakdown of our society called urgently for a prophetic word
from the Lord, we discovered that we could not agree on what that word should be. So
Christians have spoken with a divided voice according to our separate traditions or
together mouthed platitudes of peace.” Having been driven to the verge of despair, the
Irish had been taught bitter lessons which Rev. Gray pleaded with delegates to learn
from. (From: “The Natal Mercury”, 28 November, 1975. Durban, South Africa).