Charles Bradlaugh

“ Tischendorf, "does not, strictly speaking, rest on the moral teaching of Jesus;" "it rests on his person only." "If we are in error in believing in the person of Christ as taught in the Gospels, then the Church herself is in error, and must be given up as a deception." "All the world knows that our Gospels are nothing else than biographies of Christ." "We have no other source of information with respect to the life of Jesus." ”

“ Theophilus seems, so far as it is possible to judge, to have occupied himself not with a connected history of Jesus, or a continuous discourse as to his doctrines, but rather with mystical and allegorical elucidations of occasional passages, which ended, like many pious commentaries on the Old or New Testament, in leaving the point dealt with a little less clear with the Theophillian commentary than without it. Dr. Tischendorf says that Theodoret and Eusebius speak of Tatian in the same way—that is, as though he had, like his Syrian contemporary, composed a harmony of the four Gospels. ”

“ As according to the Christian theory, Joseph was not the father of Jesus, it is not unfair to ask how it can be credible that Jesus's genealogy could be traced to David in any fashion through Joseph?
So far from Mary being clearly of the tribe of Judah (to which the genealogy relates) her cousinship to Elisabeth would make her rather appear to belong to the tribe of Levi.
To discuss the credibility of the miraculous conception and birth would be to insult the human understanding. The mythologies of Greece, Italy, and India, give many precedents of sons of Gods miraculously born. ”

“ That the devils and God should hold converse together, although not without parallel in the book of Job, is inconsistent with the theory of an infinitely good Deity; that the devils should address Jesus as son of the most high God, and beg to be allowed to enter a herd of swine, is at least ludicrous; yet all this helps to make up the narrative on which Dr. Tischendorf relies. That Jesus being God should pray to his Father that "the cup might pass" from him is so incredible that even the faithful ask us to regard it as mystery. ”

“ Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings."
But in this, as indeed in most other cases of inaccurate quotation, the very words are omitted which would show its utter inapplicability to Jesus. Even in those which are given, the agreement is not complete. Jesus was not called Emmanuel. ”

“ God betrayed by a divinely-appointed traitor; God the immortal dying, and in the agony of the death-throes—stronger than the strong man's will—crying with almost the last effort of his dying breath, that he being God, is God forsaken! ”

“ That an angel from heaven could strengthen Jesus, the almighty God, is equally mysterious. That where Jesus had so prominently preached to thousands, the priests should need any one like Judas to betray the founder of Christianity with a kiss, is absurd ”

“ Supposing, despite the monstrosity of such a supposition, an actual Devil—and this involves the dilemma that the Devil must either be God-created, or God's co-eternal rival; the first supposition being inconsistent with God's goodness, and the second being inconsistent with his power; but supposing such a Devil, is it credible that the Devil should tempt the Almighty maker of the universe with "all these will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me?" ”

“ According to Matthew, there can be no doubt that immediately after the baptism Jesus went into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil. And we are to believe that Jesus was tempted of the Devil and fasting in the wilderness, and at the same time feasting at marriage in Cana of Galilee? Is it possible to believe that Jesus actually did fast forty days and forty nights? If Jesus did not fast in his capacity as man, in what capacity did he fast? And if Jesus fasted, being God, the fast would be a mockery ”

“ After the wise men had left Jesus, an angel warned Joseph to flee with him and Mary into Egypt, and Joseph did fly, and remained there with the young child and his mother until the death of Herod; and this, it is alleged, was done to fulfil a prophecy. On referring to Hosea xi., 1, we find the words have no reference whatever to Jesus, and that, therefore, either the tale of the flight is invented as a fulfilment of the prophecy, or the prophecy manufactured to support the tale of the flight. The Jesus of Luke never went into Egypt at all in his childhood. ”

“ So that, according to the Religious Tract Society and its advocate, if the credibility of the Gospel biography be successfully impugned, then the foundations of Christianity are destroyed.
It becomes, therefore, of the highest importance to show that the biography of Jesus, as given in the four Gospels, is absolutely incredible and self-contradictory.
It is alleged in the Society's preface that all the objections of infidelity have been hitherto unavailing. ”

“ From John, we learn that Andrew was originally a disciple of John the Baptist, and that when Andrew first saw Jesus, Peter was not present, but Andrew went and found Peter who, if fishing, must have been angling on land, telling him "we have found the Messiah," and that Andrew then brought Peter to Jesus, who said, "Thou art Simon, the son of Jonas; thou shalt be called Cephas." There is no mention in John of the sons of Zebedee being a little further on, or of any fishing in the sea of Galilee. This call is clearly on land. ”

“ If the testimony of the Ignatian Epistles is reliable, then it vouches that in that early age there were actually Christians who denied the death of Jesus. A statement as to Mary in cap. nineteen of the Epistle to the Ephesians is not to be found in any portion of the Gospels. In his Epistle to the Trallians, Ignatius, attacking those who denied the real existence of Jesus, would have surely been glad to quote the evidence of eye witnesses like Matthew and John, if such evidence had existed in his day. ”

“ Luke speaks of Jesus being, "as was supposed, the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli." When Luke says Joseph, the son of Heli, did he mean Mary, the daughter of Heli? Does the Gospel say one thing and mean another? because if that argument is worth anything, then in every case where a man has a theory which disagrees with the text, he may say the text means something else. ”

“ Blemishes and imperfections there are in the noble translation which we have been called upon to revise; blemishes and imperfections will assuredly be found in our own revision;... we cannot forget how often we have failed in expressing some finer shade of meaning which we recognised in the original, how often idiom has stood in the way of a perfect rendering, and how often the attempt to preserve a familiar form of words, or even a familiar cadence, has only added another perplexity to those which have already beset us. ”

“ Even English Infidels are quite prepared to admit that the four Gospels may be quite anonymous; and yet, that their anonymous character need be of no weight as an argument against their truth. All that is urged on this head is that the advocates of the Gospel history have sought to endorse and give value to the otherwise unreliable narratives by a pretence that some of the Evangelists, at least, were eyewitnesses of the events they refer to. Dr. Teschendorf says: "The credibility of a writer clearly depends on the interval of time which lies between him and the events which he describes. ”

“ That five thousand persons should be fed with five loaves and two fishes, and that an apparent excess should remain beyond the original stock, is difficult to believe; but that shortly after this—Jesus having to again perform a similar miracle for four thousand persons—his own disciples should ignore his recent feat, and wonder from whence the food was to be derived, is certainly startlingly incredible. ”

“ Teschendorf?
Again, when Joseph and Mary found the child Jesus in the temple, and he says, "Wist ye not that I must be about my father's business?" they do not know what he means, so that either what the angel had said had been of little effect, or the annunciations did not occur at all. Can any reliance be placed on a narrative so contradictory? An angel was specially sent to acquaint a mother that her son about to be born is the Son of God, and yet that mother is astonished when her son says, "Wist ye not I must be about my father's business?" ”

“ The very latest contribution from orthodox sources to the study of the Gospels, as contained in the authorised version, is to be found in the very candid preface to the recently-issued revised version of the New Testament, where the ordinary Bible receives a condemnation of the most sweeping description. Here, on the high authority of the revisers, we are told that, with regard to the Greek text, the translators of the authorised version had for their guides "manuscripts of late date, few in number and used with little critical skill." ”

“ Every ancient nation has had its miracle workers, but modern science has relegated all miracle history to realms of fable, myth, illusion, delusion, or fraud. Can Christian miracles be made the exceptions? ”

“ Tischendorf had the cool audacity to say "there is nothing more damaging to the doubters of the authenticity of St John's Gospel than this testimony of St. Polycarp." Do the Religious Tract Society regard English Infidels as so utterly ignorant that they thus intentionally seek to suggest a falsehood, or are the Council of the Religious Tract Society themselves unable to test the accuracy of the statements put forward on their behalf by the able decipherer of illegible parchments? It is too much to suspect the renowned Dr. ”

“ On the contrary, a presumption in an exactly opposite direction may be fairly raised from the fact that immediately after the Apostolic age the Christian world was flooded with forged testimonies in favor of the biography of Jesus, or in favor of his disciples.
A writer in the Edinburgh Review observes: "To say nothing of such acknowledged forgeries as the Apostolic constitutions and liturgies, and the several spurious Gospels, the question of the genuineness of the alleged remains of the Apostolic fathers, though often overlooked, is very material. ”

“ But even this is not enough; they need, according to their pamphlet, "a new weapon;" they want "to find out the very words the Apostles used." True believers have been in a state of delusion; they were credulous enough to fancy that the authorised version of the Scriptures tolerably faithfully represented God's revelation to humankind. But no, says Dr. Tischendorf, it has been so seriously modified in the copying and re-copying that it ought to be set aside altogether, and a fresh text constructed. ”

“ They allege that "Joseph, who by nature was the son of Jacob, in the account of the law was the son of Heli. For Heli and Jacob were brothers by the same mother, and Heli, who was the elder, dying without issue, Jacob, as the law directed, married his widow; in consequence of such marriage, his son Joseph was reputed in the law the son of Heli." This is pure invention to get over a difficulty—an invention not making the matter one whit more clear. ”

“ Donaldson ("Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. i., p. 3) declares that who the Clement was to whom these writings are ascribed cannot with absolute certainty be determined. Both epistles stand on equal authority; one is rejected by Christians, the other is received. In this epistle while there is a distinct reference to an Epistle by Paul to the Corinthians, there is no mention-by name of the four Gospels, nor do any of the words attributed by Clement to Jesus agree for any complete quotation with anyone of the Gospels as we have them. ”

“ We are left entirely in the dark: in fact, what Dr. Tischendorf calls a "throw back," is if you look at Lardner just the reverse. What does the epistle of Barnabas prove, even if it be genuine? Barnabas quotes, by name, Moses and Daniel, but never Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. Barnabas specifically refers to Deuteronomy and the prophets, but never to either of the four Gospels.
There is an epistle attributed to Clement of Rome, which has been preserved in a single MS. only where it is coupled with another epistle rejected as spurious. Dr. ”

“ To-day insanity is never referable to demoniacal possession, but eighteen hundred years ago the subject of lunacy had not been so patiently investigated as it has been since. That one man could now be tenanted by several devils is a proposition for which the maintainer would in the present generation incur almost universal contempt ”

“ Apparently the new revisers are conscious that they did not receive this divine help in their attempt at revision, for they go on: "We know full well that defects must have their place in a work so long and so arduous as this which has now come to an end. ”

“ This statement of the inability of the Church to judge correctly, tells as much against the whole, as against any one or more of the early Christian writings, and as it may be as fatal to the now received gospels as to those now rejected, it deserves the most careful consideration. According to Dr. Tischendorf, Justin Martyr falls into the category of those of the Church who were "not so critical in distinguishing the true from the false;" for Justin, says Tischendorf, treats the Gospel of St. ”

“ Teschendorf's reckless statements have been effectively dealt with in that masterly work. In the present brief pamphlet there is only the very merest index to matters which in "Supernatural Religion" are exhaustively treated. Part II. of "The Freethinkers' Text-Book," by Mrs Besant, has travelled over the same ground with much care, and has given exact reference to authorities on each point.
The Religious Tract Society, some time since, issued, prefaced with their high commendation, a translation of a pamphlet by Dr. Constantine Tischendorf, entitled "When were our Gospels Written?" ”