History of Bible - Misquoting Jesus

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Misquoting Jesus: Scribes Who Altered Scriptures and Readers Who May Never Know


April 25, 2007

Standford University's Office of Religious Life

Heyns Lecture Series presents World-renowned Bible scholar and author Dr. Bart D. Ehrman

History of Bible By Bart Ehrman Professor of Religious Studies of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Scholars Seeking To Correct 'Mistakes' In The Bible (VIDEO)


Video: http://embed.5min.com/517143291


JERUSALEM -- A dull-looking chart projected on the wall of a university office in Jerusalem displayed a revelation that would startle many readers of the Old Testament: the sacred text that people revered in the past was not the same one we study today.

An ancient version of one book has an extra phrase. Another appears to have been revised to retroactively insert a prophecy after the events happened.

Scholars in this out-of-the-way corner of the Hebrew University campus have been quietly at work for 53 years on one of the most ambitious projects attempted in biblical studies – publishing the authoritative edition of the Old Testament, also known as the Hebrew Bible, and tracking every single evolution of the text over centuries and millennia.

And it has evolved, despite deeply held beliefs to the contrary.

For many Jews and Christians, religion dictates that the words of the Bible in the original Hebrew are divine, unaltered and unalterable. For Orthodox Jews, the accuracy is considered so inviolable that if a synagogue's Torah scroll is found to have a minute error in a single letter, the entire scroll is unusable.

But the ongoing work of the academic detectives of the Bible Project, as their undertaking is known, shows that this text at the root of Judaism, Christianity and Islam was somewhat fluid for long periods of its history, and that its transmission through the ages was messier and more human than most of us imagine.

The project's scholars have been at work on their critical edition of the Hebrew Bible, a version intended mainly for the use of other scholars, since 1958.

"What we're doing here must be of interest for anyone interested in the Bible," said Michael Segal, the scholar who heads the project.

The sheer volume of information makes the Bible Project's version "the most comprehensive critical edition of the Hebrew Bible in existence at the present time," said David Marcus, a Bible scholar at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, who is not involved with the project.

But Segal and his colleagues toil in relative anonymity. Their undertaking is nearly unknown outside a circle of Bible experts numbering several hundred people at most, and a visitor asking directions to the Bible Project's office on the university campus will find that many members of the university's own staff have never heard of it.

This is an endeavor so meticulous, its pace so disconnected from that of the world outside, that in more than five decades of work the scholars have published a grand total of three of the Hebrew Bible's 24 books. (Christians count the same books differently, for a total of 39.) A fourth is due out during the upcoming academic year.

If the pace is maintained, the final product will be complete a little over 200 years from now. This is both a point of pride and a matter of some mild self-deprecation around the office.

Bible Project scholars have spent years combing through manuscripts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, Greek translations on papyrus from Egypt, a printed Bible from 1525 Venice, parchment books in handwritten Hebrew, the Samaritan Torah, and scrolls in Aramaic and Latin. The last member of the original team died last year at age 90.

The scholars note where the text we have now differs from older versions – differences that are evidence of the inevitable textual hiccups, scribal errors and other human fingerprints that became part of the Bible as it was passed on, orally and in writing.

A Microsoft Excel chart projected on one wall on a recent Sunday showed variations in a single phrase from the Book of Malachi, a prophet.

The verse in question, from the text we know today, makes reference to "those who swear falsely." The scholars have found that in quotes from rabbinic writings around the 5th century A.D., the phrase was longer: "those who swear falsely in my name."

In another example, this one from the Book of Deuteronomy, a passage referring to commandments given by God "to you" once read "to us," a significant change in meaning.
Other differences are more striking.

The Book of Jeremiah is now one-seventh longer than the one that appears in some of the 2,000-year-old manuscripts known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Some verses, including ones containing a prophecy about the seizure and return of Temple implements by Babylonian soldiers, appear to have been added after the events happened.

The year the Bible Project began, 1958, was the year a priceless Hebrew Bible manuscript arrived in Jerusalem after it was smuggled out of Aleppo, Syria, by a Jewish cheese merchant who hid it in his washing machine. This was the 1,100-year-old Aleppo Codex, considered the oldest and most accurate version of the complete biblical text in Hebrew.

The Bible Project's version of the core text – the one to which the others are compared – is based on this manuscript. Other critical editions of the Bible, such as one currently being prepared in Stuttgart, Germany, are based on a slightly newer manuscript held in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Considering that the nature of their work would be considered controversial, if not offensive, by many religious people, it is perhaps surprising that most of the project's scholars are themselves Orthodox Jews.


"A believing Jew claims that the source of the Bible is prophecy," said the project's bearded academic secretary, Rafael Zer. "But as soon as the words are given to human beings – with God's agreement, and at his initiative – the holiness of the biblical text remains, even if mistakes are made when the text is passed on."


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_925813.html

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'Gospel of Jesus's Wife' Looks More and More Like a Fake


The "Gospel of Jesus's Wife," a papyrus written in Coptic and containing text that refers to Jesus being married, is looking more and more like it is not authentic, research is revealing.

A growing number of scholars have denounced the business card-sized papyrus as a fake, with recent op-eds appearing in The Wall Street Journal and on CNN. Meanwhile, Harvard University, which announced the papyrus' discovery, has fallen silent on the artifact, not responding to requests for comment on new developments suggesting the find is a forgery.

The discovery of the Gospel of Jesus's Wife was first announced by Karen King, of Harvard University, in September 2012. Its owner, who reportedly gave the papyrus to King, has insisted on remaining anonymous, and King has not disclosed the person's identity. [Read Translation of Gospel of Jesus's Wife Papyrus]

The fragment contains the translated line, "Jesus said to them, 'My wife …'" and also refers to a "Mary," possibly Mary Magdalene. If authentic, the papyrus suggests some people in ancient times believed that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married.

At the time of the discovery, King tentatively dated the papyrus to the fourth century A.D., saying it may be a copy of a gospel written in the second century in Greek. Recent radiocarbon dating suggests that the papyrus may date to between the sixth and ninth centuries A.D.

Live Science investigation

Documents provided by the anonymous owner published in an essay by King recently in Harvard Theological Review say that the Gospel of Jesus's Wife was purchased from Hans-Ulrich Laukamp in 1999 and he, in turn, obtained it in Potsdam, in what was East Germany, in 1963.



A blond-haired Jesus Christ with the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene. Screen print from a children's …

A Live Science investigation published last week revealed that Laukamp was co-owner of ACMB-American Corporation for Milling and Boreworks in Venice, Florida. The man listed as representative of Laukamp's estate in Sarasota County, Florida, Rene Ernest, said that Laukamp didn't own this papyrus, didn't collect antiquities, didn't have an interest in old things and was living in West Berlin in 1963 — as such, Laukamp couldn't have reached Potsdam across the Berlin Wall to purchase this papyrus. Laukamp died in 2002.

Axel Herzsprung, who was another co-owner of ACMB-American Corporation for Milling and Boreworks, also said Laukamp didn't own this papyrus and didn't collect antiquities.

Additionally, since the investigation was published, Live Science has been in contact with an agency in Berlin that issues permits for the exportation of antiquities. Representatives of that agency said they could find no record that a papyrus like this had been exported from their office. It's possible that the Gospel of Jesus's Wife papyrus was exported from elsewhere in Germany or from the European Union.

More evidence appears

Just recently, Christian Askeland, a research associate with the Institut für Septuaginta-und biblische Textforschung in Wuppertal Germany, revealed new information that casts further doubt on the papyrus' authenticity. His work is set to be published in the journal Tyndale Bulletin and is currently posted on a blog.

Askeland analyzed a second papyrus that, according to documents published in the Harvard Theological Review, was also purchased by the anonymous owner from Laukamp. It was presented to Harvard as a papyrus believed to be genuine.



This papyrus, said to be from ancient times, says that Jesus had a wife. Its discovery was announced …

This second papyrus, which has writing on two sides, includes text from the Gospel of John — and is a fake, writes Askeland, its lines being copied from a papyrus published in 1924. In addition, the researcher notes this papyrus has similar handwriting and ink to the Gospel of Jesus's Wife, making it likely that the Jesus's wife papyrus is also fake. [Proof of Jesus Christ? 7 Pieces of Evidence Debated]

This second papyrus, which was carbon dated to between the seventh and ninth centuries A.D., is very similar to a Gospel of John papyrus, written and published by Egyptologist Sir Herbert Thompson in 1924, Askeland noted. In fact, the line breaks (the places where the text begins) are identical to those from Thompson's text. This is illustrated in an image of one side of the papyrus alongside Thompson’s 1924 text posted by Mark Goodacre of Duke University on his blog and republished on Live Science.

"Seventeen of 17 line breaks are the same. This defies coincidence," writes Askeland.

The John fragment is written in a dialect of Coptic called Lycopolitan, which had died out by the seventh century A.D., which would seem to confirm the fragment's inauthenticity, Askeland said.

Tests carried out by James Yardley and Alexis Hagadorn of Columbia University found that the ink from the Gospel of Jesus's Wife and the John fragment are similar but not quite the same. The handwriting style, however, from the John fragment is similar to that of the Gospel of Jesus's Wife, Askeland noted.

Given the similar handwriting and ink, and the identical owner, Askeland, and a large number of other scholars who have written online about Askeland's finds, argue that the Gospel of Jesus's Wife is likely also fake.

View gallery

The John papyrus fragment (right) comes from the same anonymous owner as the Gospel of Jesus's wife

Live Science contacted two Egyptologists who have examined the Gospel of Jesus's Wife firsthand to get their opinions. Malcolm Choat, of Macquarie University, who published an analysis of the writing of the Gospel of Jesus's Wife recently in Harvard Theological Review, says that he needs time to investigate Askeland's findings before he can comment. Similarly, Roger Bagnall, the director of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University (the Gospel of Jesus's Wife was examined there at one point) said that he needs time to analyze Askeland's findings and those of other scholars before he can comment.

Hans-Ulrich Laukamp – Superman?

If Laukamp did own both the Gospel of Jesus's Wife and the John papyrus, as the documents from the anonymous owner indicate, then this makes him an even more interesting and daring man.

He would have had to cross the Berlin Wall in 1963, at the height of the Cold War, to obtain the Jesus' wife papyrus from Potsdam (and if caught, he would have to explain to East German police that the Jesus' wife papyrus was just an ancient manuscript and not a coded message). He also would, at some point, have obtained a fake Coptic papyrus of the Gospel of John that had very similar handwriting and ink to the Jesus' wife papyrus.

He then would have hidden his collecting habits from Ernest (his estate representative in Sarasota County, Florida) and Axel Herzsprung, his closest business partner.

The two Egyptologists who can verify any part of this story, Gerhard Fecht and Peter Munro, died in 2006 and 2009, respectively. Additionally, Laukamp didn't have any children and doesn't appear to have any relatives still alive. And if the papyrus was exported from Berlin at some point, antiquities officials there have no record of it.

Can you win the lottery twice?

Biblical scholars have made numerous comments arguing that the Gospel of Jesus's Wife is a fake. [See Photos of the Gospel of Judas]

"If the Gospel of Jesus's Wife fragment is genuine, this already involves a pile-on of unusual and suspicious features that amounts to us having won the lottery," writes James Davila, a professor at the University of St. Andrews, on his blog. "Now another manuscript from the same cache written in the same hand again presents us with another pile-on of similarly suspicious features. At what point do we stop claiming another lottery win and just accept that the whole thing is a forgery?"

Leo Depuydt, of Brown University, sent an email to several journalists and scholars saying that King should retract her findings. "When is this papyrological pantomime, this Keystone Coptic, this academic farce, this philological burlesque finally going to stop?" asked Depuydt in the email.

Harvard silent

King has remained silent on the new evidence. Calls made by Live Science to Harvard Divinity School's media relations office were not returned. Calls made directly to King's phone were also not returned. The reasons for the silence are unclear; there are unconfirmed reports that divisions have emerged within the Harvard Divinity faculty over the authenticity of the papyrus.

A spokesperson for the Smithsonian Channel said that they are still planning to premiere their documentary on the Gospel of Jesus's Wife on Monday evening.


http://news.yahoo.com/gospel-jesuss-...113900114.html

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1500 Year Old Bible Claims Jesus Christ Was Not Crucified – Vatican In Awe


Discovered and kept secret in the year 2000, the book contains the Gospel of Barnabas – a disciple of Christ – which shows that Jesus was not crucified, nor was he the son of God, but a Prophet. The book also calls Apostle Paul “The Impostor”. The book also claims that Jesus ascended to heaven alive, and that Judas Iscariot was crucified in his place.


A report by The National Turk says that the Bible was seized from a gang of smugglers in a Mediterranean-area operation. The report states the gang was charged with smuggling antiquities, illegal excavations, and the possession of explosives. The books itself is valued as high as 40 Million Turkish Liras (approx. 28 mil. Dollars). Man, where is the Thieves Guild, when you need them?
Authenticity

According to reports, experts and religious authorities in Tehram insist that the book is original. The book itself is written with gold lettering, onto loosely-tied leather in Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ.


The text maintains a vision similar to Islam, contradicting the New Testament’s teachings of Christianity.

Jesus also foresees the coming of the Prophet Muhammad, who would found Islam 700 years later.


It is believed that, during the Council of Nicea, the Catholic Church hand-picked the gospels that form the Bible as we know it today; omitting the Gospel of Barnabas (among many others) in favor of the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Many biblical texts have begun to surface over time, including those of the Dead Sea and Gnostic Gospels; but this book especially, seems to worry the Vatican.

The Catholic Church wants in

What does this mean to Christian-derived religions and their followers? Quite a tight spot. The Vatican has asked Turkish authorities to let them examine the contents of the book within the Church. Now that the book has been found, will they come to accept it and its evidence? Will they deny it altogether? Call it a “Muslim lie”, as did the “Truth” Magazine, in 2000?


To many, this book is a beacon of hope, that believers soon realize that the object of their adoration is arbitrary; and that all text, especially religious text, is subject to interpretation.


What does this mean to atheists/agnostics/secular thinkers? Is the text real? Fake? Does it matter? Hopefully, this news inspires the religious to ask questions, instead of pointing fingers or believing anything blindly.


Please, don’t go poking fun or tossing around the “I told you so!”. The biggest danger of faith is when people believe what they want to believe, defending against any and all evidence; especially when that evidence revolutionizes their foundation from the ground up. And the biggest culprit to that danger is the ego trap: rejecting/criticizing others, for being unlike you.


For centuries, the “defense” of blind faith has driven nations to war, violence, discrimination, slavery and to become the society of automatons that we are today; and for just as long, it has been justified with lies. If you know better, act like it.


http://higherperspective.com/2014/05...ZDD3vz03TRA.99



Comments:

The fact of the matter is that Paul was the enemy of Jesus (peace be upon him) and since he couldn't kill the Prophet of Allah, decided to pretend to be a convert and corrupt the teachings from within. Christian trinity is a concept introduced by Paul and Christianity is known more as Paul's religion than Jeuss (a.s.). Barnabas and his followers didn't agree with this man and his corruption so following the teachings of Jesus (a.s) they went towards east to wait for the next prophet to come. When Muhammad (pbuh) came, all those Christians converted to Islam.

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Oldest bible found in Palestine confirms Jesus was a servant of God


This is a story that has been hidden for more than 2000 years. It goes right back to the very beginning of Christianity and if true, it will rock everything that Christians believe in. It’s the story of the people that were closest to Jesus, the people who shared his bloodline.


It’s original message was, however, too dangerous for the new religion. The Church official kidnapped the achievements and tried to delete the story.

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8 Things Your Pastor Will Never Tell You About the Bible


9/28/14

This is a guest post written by Richard Hagenston. Hagenston is an ordained United Methodist minister, a former pastor, and the author of Fabricating Faith: How Christianity Became a Religion Jesus Would Have Rejected.




When I was a United Methodist pastor, I learned an unsettling thing from my own experiences and those of some colleagues serving other churches: Many ministers keep secrets about the Bible, lest things they learned in seminary (or otherwise know) hurt church attendance and the Sunday offering.

This put some friends of mine in a terrible quandary, forced to say things from the pulpit that were doctrinally demanded but which they had come to privately question. As for me, I resolved the matter by leaving the pastorate. When I did, I got calls of congratulations from two nearby ministers. One of those calls was especially poignant. He said I was fortunate to have other skills from my previous work experience that I could draw on. But he added that all he had been trained to do was to be a minister and that he felt trapped in the pulpit saying things he no longer believed in order to continue supporting his family.

It’s time our secrets about the Bible came out. It’s time for Christians to know what their pastors won’t tell them.

1) The Apostles of Jesus Seem to Have Known Nothing about a Virgin Birth

The earliest mention of the birth of Jesus to be written is not the nativity stories in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, but verses in Paul’s letter to the Romans. He wrote it after having met with Peter and others who had known in person not only Jesus but also his mother and brothers. Despite learning from them everything they could tell him about Jesus, Paul shows no sign of having heard of a virgin birth. Instead, he wrote that Jesus “was descended from David according to the flesh” and was declared to be the Son of God not through any special birth that Paul mentions but by his resurrection (Romans 1:3-4).

The nativity stories in Matthew and Luke, suggesting that Jesus had a virgin birth in Bethlehem (the birthplace of David), were composed later and even his own apostles showed no indication of knowing anything about it.

2) Jesus Said He Wanted to Offer Nothing to Gentiles

The fact that Christianity has become a religion largely of Gentiles who literally worship Jesus is a huge irony, because in his ministry, Jesus said he intended to offer Gentiles nothing.

Matthew 10:5 shows Jesus giving his disciples firm instructions to “go nowhere among the Gentiles.” It’s true that Chapter 8 of Matthew and Chapter 7 of Luke show Jesus healing the servant of a Roman soldier. However, this happened only after the soldier said he was unworthy of Jesus’ attention.

It’s also possible that Jesus assumed the servant was a Jew, because, as shown in Matthew 15:21-28, when a woman who was indisputably a Gentile asked for healing for her daughter, Jesus initially ignored her. She was so persistent with her pleas that his apostles wanted to silence her. But they didn’t ask Jesus to do that by helping her. Instead, knowing his attitude toward Gentiles, they urged him to send her away. When she finally knelt before Jesus, making it impossible to continue to ignore her, he told her he was sent “only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” He then made clear that he considered her as a Gentile to be no better than a dog, adding that it wasn’t fair for dogs to receive food intended for children. Only when she pointed out that even dogs eat crumbs from their masters’ table did Jesus praise her for her faith and give her the help she wanted.

Further evidence that Jesus had a harsh attitude toward Gentiles comes from the fact that, after his death, resistance from his disciples caused Paul problems in his Gentile conversion efforts (see Galatians 2:11-14). Christianity eventually became a religion of Gentiles not because of any personal outreach to them by Jesus during his lifetime, but because of the work of Paul and the fact that most Jews, whom Jesus was really reaching out to, rejected it.

3) Jesus Tells Everyone Not to Think of Him as God in the First Three Gospels

The Gospel of John shows Jesus saying he is divine — again and again. But nowhere in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, widely acknowledged to have been written before John and thus closer to the events they describe, does Jesus claim to be a deity.

In fact, all of those first three gospels show Jesus scoldingly saying that he should never be thought of as God. Mark 10:18 depicts Jesus as saying, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.”

Obviously, he took offense at the mere thought that he might be considered to have the same righteousness as God. He is shown making the same point in Luke 18:19 and Matthew 19:17.

4) The Resurrection Appearances in the Gospels Have Irreconcilable Differences

The gospel accounts of the resurrection appearances of Jesus differ substantially, including where the risen Jesus is said to have appeared to his apostles. The gospels of Matthew and Mark place the appearances solely in Galilee. However, Luke, as well as the book of Acts, has Jesus appearing only in and around Jerusalem.

To add to the confusion, the Gospel of John shows Jesus appearing in both Galilee and Jerusalem. The actual appearance of a resurrected Jesus would have been so stunning that it raises the question of why there was not even one record of such an event that made a deep enough impression to be passed down in all the gospels.

5) Jesus Was Against Public Prayer

Those who argue for public prayer in such diverse settings as government meetings and football games don’t seem to know the Bible.

If they did, they would realize that Jesus was very much against it. In Matthew 6:1, he warns against practicing piety before others, saying that those who do will “have no reward from your Father in heaven.” In Matthew 6:6, as a preface to the Lord’s Prayer, he says that to pray one should go into a room, close the door, and pray in secret. In fact, the King James Version of the Bible translates that as going into a closet to pray.

Perhaps even more significant is that in Matthew 6:5 Jesus harshly criticizes those who pray out loud in synagogues, the local worship settings of his day. Based on that, it seems possible, jolting as it may be, that he may have also disapproved of public prayer in churches, much less government meetings.

6) Some Books of the Bible Are Forgeries

My seminary professors mentioned that some books of the Bible, notably some letters attributed to Paul, were probably written by people who lied about who they were to gain Paul’s authority for their own ideas. But they never put it that bluntly. They couldn’t even bring themselves to use the word “forgeries.” Instead, they used “pseudepigrapha,” a fancy word meaning wrongly attributed authorship that tells the truth while in its pompousness also disguises it.

Especially suspect are the so-called pastoral epistles, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. Because these made it into the Bible under Paul’s name, some find reasons to insist that they must be authentic. However, there is wide agreement among many Bible scholars that they differ so much from Paul’s vocabulary, style, and teachings that they could not be by him.

All of this raises the question of how much authority one wishes to give the writings of those who were not truthful even about who they were. For instance, in contrast to the respect that Paul showed toward women, the author of 1 Timothy felt very differently. In 1 Timothy 2:11-15 he says they need to be silent and submissive, and will be saved only “through childbearing.” A similar point that women need to be silent in church appears in an authentic letter of Paul as 1 Corinthians 14:34-35. However, those verses so thoroughly break the flow of the passage in which they appear, and are so contrary to other things Paul writes, that they seem like they’re a later insertion by another person wanting to claim the authority of Paul for his own repressive attitude toward women.

And yet those verses in 1 Timothy and 1 Corinthians, apparently by people pretending to be someone they were not, are used even today to justify limiting the leadership roles of women in some churches.

7) Parts of the Bible Were Intentionally Written to Disagree with Other Parts of the Bible

Not only does the Bible have many contradictions, some of them are clearly intentional.

An Old Testament example is found in Psalm 51. That psalm was written after Babylonia destroyed Jerusalem (and its Temple that had been built by Solomon) and led the city’s inhabitants off to exile. Since the Temple was no longer available for sacrifice, the author of Psalm 51 offers comfort in Verses 16 and 17 by saying God does not even desire sacrifice but only a contrite heart.

But then, in a clearly intentional contradiction, someone who disagreed with that came along and added, immediately afterward, Verses 18 and 19 saying that God would be delighted by sacrifices that would follow a rebuilding of Jerusalem.

In the New Testament, we see an example in what the gospels say about the message of John the Baptist. The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all depict John the Baptist as saying he was offering a baptism for the forgiveness of sin through repentance alone. But, writing later, the author of the Gospel of John didn’t like that at all. He wanted to say that forgiveness comes only through sacrifice, the blood sacrifice of Jesus himself. So, in contradiction to the other gospels, he says that the message of John the Baptist was to proclaim Jesus as a pending sacrificial Lamb of God.

Contradictions such those in Psalm 51 and what the gospels say about John the Baptist, as well as others that can be found in both the Old and New Testaments, show that much of the Bible is an interplay of human agendas which often conflicted with one another.

8) Apostles Who Had Been Taught by Jesus Himself Insisted that Paul Was Wrong about the Gospel

The Apostle Paul was a man under attack for his beliefs. In Galatians 1:6-9 he complains about those who thought that his gospel was wrong and were causing people to turn away from what he had taught them. Not wanting to give voice to the opposition, he doesn’t mention the issues in dispute. But he was not one to even consider that he may have been at fault, saying in that same Galatians passage that even any “angel from heaven” who dared disagree with him should be damned.

As for the identity of Paul’s opponents, in 2 Corinthians 11:13 he calls them “false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.” But who were they? In 2 Corinthians 11:5 he sarcastically calls them “super-apostles.” In that time, “super-apostles” could have meant only one thing: the original apostles.

This means that apostles who had known, walked with, and been taught by Jesus himself during his lifetime thought Paul was wrong about at least some of what he was teaching.

This leads to a question: Since Paul’s teachings became a basis of today’s Christian faith, would Jesus have approved of the religion that is today proclaimed in his name? Answering that question is the basis of my book Fabricating Faith.
…
I am still a Christian, but I don’t believe we should hide from the facts about our own faith. How many pastors know about these problems, but never mention them in a sermon? How many of them are depriving their congregations of a fuller, deeper understanding of their faith, with all of its complexities? We must be willing to embrace some uncomfortable truths.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendl...out-the-bible/

[islamirama]

How the Bible was Lost

compiled by Rasheed ibn Estes Barbee

Ibn Hazm said; As for the Christians, then there is no dispute among them or from other than them, that none believed in the Messiah (Jesus) while he was on earth except for one hundred and twenty people. And all those that believed in him used to conceal their faith in fear while he was on earth and after he was raised to the heavens. They would invite others to his religion in secret, and no one openly called to his religion. And no one openly practiced his religion, because all those caught doing so were executed.

They remained in this condition, not revealing their religion at all, and they had no safe haven to practice their religion for three hundred years after the Messiah Jesus was raised to the heavens. During this time the Gospel (Injeel) which was revealed by Allah was lost except for a few verses which Allah allowed to remain as an argument and shame against them.

And as we have mentioned; when the Emperor Constantine became Christian, the Christians got the upper hand, and were able to openly practice their religion, and safely assemble in public (Edict of Milan 313 C.E.).

If a religion is like this, then it is impossible to authenticate that which is transmitted with a continuous chain of narrators, because those transmitting must do so in secret while fearing the sword. Thus, they are not able to protect it or prevent it from being distorted (taken from: The difference between the religions and sects).

Shaykh of Islam ibn Taymiyyah said: As for the Gospel which the Christians have in their hands, then it is four Gospels; the Gospels of Mathew, Luke, Mark, and John. And they are in agreement that Luke and Mark did not see the Messiah (Jesus), rather he was seen by Mathew and John. These four accounts which they call the Gospel - and each account is called a Gospel - they were only written by these men after the Messiah (Jesus) was raised to the heavens. Thus, they did not say that this was the word of Allah, nor that the Messiah (Jesus) transmitted it from Allah,; rather they narrated some statements from the Messiah, some of his actions and some of his miracles (taken from: The correct answer for those who altered the religion of Messiah).