The Way, The Truth, and The Lies: How the Gospels Mislead Christians About Jesus' True Message

INTRODUCTION

Christianity today comes with a lot of rules. A lot of must-do’s. A lot of laws. Yet one of the first assurances we received from Jesus as He began His ministry on Earth was that He had come to free us from the Law. He assured us that our Father in Heaven was a loving God who wanted only to be closer to us and to draw us closer to Him. So why then has modern-day Christianity become such a series of absolutes? You’ve heard these, haven’t you? You won’t get to Heaven if you don’t go to church, you get divorced, have used drugs, drink . . . You can’t minister to others if you’ve been divorced . . . Your reward in Heaven depends upon your good works on Earth. And on and on. How did we get to this place? Did Jesus really say those things? Those are the first questions—and the first contradictions—I encountered when I sat down to write this book. As a young child my mother introduced me to Christianity in the early 1970s. It was by virtue of the early Jesus movement that came out of the ‘60s and ‘70s that I came into Protestant Christianity. My mother had been raised Roman Catholic, and then converted during those turbulent times, taking my two younger brothers and me with her into the new revival. The movement soured me, though, and as I saw more and more hypocrisy in the church, I became more and more turned off by organized religion. By the 1980s I had declared myself an Agnostic, then Atheist. By the early ‘90s I rejected all schools of religious thought as foolish: NO God existed for me.

As a young child my mother introduced me to Christianity in the early 1970s. It was by virtue of the early Jesus movement that came out of the ‘60s and ‘70s that I came into Protestant Christianity. My mother had been raised Roman Catholic, and then converted during those turbulent times, taking my two younger brothers and me with her into the new revival. The movement soured me, though, and as I saw more and more hypocrisy in the church, I became more and more turned off by organized religion. By the 1980s I had declared myself an Agnostic, then Atheist. By the early ‘90s I rejected all schools of religious thought as foolish: NO God existed for me.

Then in 1995, after an argument with my brother over the Bible, he challenged me to read the book cover to cover; as I did I had an intellectual reawakening to the fact that God exists . . . and began the journey back through the maze of Christianity. Only five months into my renewed walk with the Lord, I was crippled with Multiple Sclerosis and my faith met its biggest challenge yet.

While I have never questioned why God chose to give me this cross to bear, it was a staggering blow to a then-30-year-old man with a five-year-old daughter and a young wife at home. With time and hard work, I was able to recover my walking abilities. I studied the Bible daily, and in 1997, felt God’s call on my life to lead others to Christ. I began my education through Berean University of the Assembly of God to become an ordained Minister. Imagine my surprise in learning halfway through my studies that I would never be allowed to pastor in the Assembly of God churches because I had been divorced and remarried as a young man.

Though Christ had washed my sins clean, the church considered me not redeemed, and thus not worthy of pastoral service. In a meeting with one of the Assembly of God directors in 1997, I was told that not only was I not worthy of service in their denomination, but that he felt that I was not worthy of service in God’s church at all. This he based on my past life prior to my salvation through Christ. This was a church leader whom I looked up to and respected, who stood and looked me in the eye and told me that I was not worthy to serve in his district. Undaunted, I completed my ministerial certification, licensing, and ordination studies through Berean University of the Assemblies of God—which denied me ordination even after completing all required schooling. So I was ordained through the non-denominational Universal Life Church, then completed further courses of study and earned Doctor of Divinity and Doctor of Biblical Studies degrees from Universal Life Church.

Through this process one thing struck me as I studied the Scriptures and pored over the ancient text: the glaring contradictions between the different translations of the canonical writings and the original texts that the books were translated from. The Way, the Truth, and the Lies is a journey into Christ’s ministry, His teachings, and what happened to His words in the 2000-plus years since He walked on this Earth. I uncover the contradictions, the conflicts, and the fabrications . . . then go one step further and ask the question: Why?

Every word you will read comes from the Holy Bible itself. Book by book we will look into the Gospels of the New Testament and contrast them against Christ’s own teachings. Did Jesus really give us the unending rules we labor under? Did He really condemn entire races of nonbelievers to hell? Did Jesus really want the rights of women suppressed? If not, how did these contradictions become so central to our Christian teachings and heritage? Could it be that inaccuracies exist? Could it be that early church leaders had their own agendas and biases to elaborate on key passages? Could it be that God’s basic message of love and acceptance was just too simple . . . and that historical realities necessitated creating steps to complicate it?

In Bible College they teach you that if the Bible appears to contradict itself and you cannot reconcile that contradiction, you must take it on faith that it is accurate. After reading The Way, the Truth, and the Lies, I hope that you will be compelled—as I was—to reject this directive and embark on your own study of God’s word. For years I have accepted the existence of God on faith. I freely accept the redeeming life of Jesus on faith. But I simply cannot believe the Bible is totally accurate, God-breathed. Its contradictions are too egregious . . . and history’s motives too numerous to believe otherwise.

Moorpark, CA, December 2005

Reverend Roy A. Teel Jr., Doctor of Divinity,

Doctor of Biblical Studies

CHAPTER 1

How Did We Get the New Testament?

The Bible as we know it today has been an ever-changing document. For centuries even its origins have been suspect. At the time of Christ, for example, there was no New Testament. Jesus taught from ancient manuscripts of what we now call Old Testament books, as well as from other books of the Jewish tradition. Surprisingly, these other books—commonly referred to as Apocryphal books—were not accepted into the biblical canon we have today.

Jesus most likely spoke and taught in Aramaic, the common language of that time and region. There are no surviving records of Jesus’ teachings in His original language . . . no records of what He taught His disciples or His audiences. Harold Bloom mentions this paradox in his book Where Shall Wisdom Be Found. Bloom notes that no Aramaic writings of Jesus’ words exist to this day and that only a few scattered verses dot the pages of the Bible in His native tongue (p. 262). I ask the same question Bloom does in his book: If you believed that every word being spoken by this man Jesus was from the mouth of God, why would you not have recorded it in His native language? Because, as we will see in this comprehensive study, these men did not see the Jesus they were walking and talking with as God.

At the time of Jesus’ ministry, written records of His life were not kept. We do know that the Jewish scholar Josephus, who wrote extensively about Jewish history, mentions Jesus once in Josephus 3 Section 3:63-64: Josephus mentions the tribe of Christians named after Jesus that numbered about 10,000, and that they were not extinct at the time of his writing.

Then about 40 years after Jesus’ death a follower of Peter’s named Mark penned the first Gospel. At least, the first book written in the Gospel series is widely held by scholars to be Mark’s. It is believed that the writers of Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels copied greatly from Mark’s work in writing their own Gospels.

What did people use to spread the Gospel before the Gospels? Accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry were widely circulated as a series of spoken stories passed down from person to person. His works, miracles, healings, and teachings were merely talked of for close to a generation. It should also be noted that there’s a strange mystery surrounding all of the biblical texts that have been discovered over the last 2000 years: There appear to be no writings whatsoever that can be attributed to the hand of Jesus Himself. Isn’t it curious that Jesus—God in human form (as the church would have us believe)—did not set His own hand to paper to permanently record His teachings for the future of humankind? Jesus was not incapable of writing, nor was He uneducated. Quite the contrary. He was not only a learned rabbi, but God incarnate. He had the skills, knowledge, and wisdom of the ages to His credit. To say that He could not write would be arguing that He was not who He claimed to be. So why does this puzzle exist? If Jesus could have written down His teachings—or did write them down—what happened to them? The Bible, as we know it, doesn’t say. But other books do.

Notable historians of the day such as Josephus wrote of the new movement started by Jesus of Nazareth. Many other books and letters surviving today detail Jesus and His ministry, yet have been widely discredited by the Christian church as not worthy to read—or worse: as heresy and anti-Christian by present-day church standards. These works, such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and the letters of Pontius Pilate and King Herod, are feared by the mainstream Christian church because they tell a very different story than the one we’ve been taught about Jesus and His work. They have been suppressed by the church for close to 2000 years and will more than likely remain relegated to the dusty bookshelves of biblical scholars such as myself—instead of being read by the masses.

What kinds of books would these be?

At the time of Jesus’ ministry, he traveled from place to place teaching and preaching. It’s likely that, while there were no widely kept records, most of his followers probably kept some kind of journal of His works, and memorized His acts and deeds up through His crucifixion and resurrection. None of these journals or memories appears to have survived today.

Even more surprisingly, although Jesus was closely followed for three years by 12 devout disciples, the most influential writer of the New Testament was not even present during Jesus’ ministry. Saul of Tarsus—later to become Paul—was converted after an encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus approximately 12 years after Jesus’ death on the cross.

Saul was by his own admission an unbeliever and persecutor of the new followers of Jesus (see Acts 9:1-9). The movement left behind by Jesus was known as The Way and was at the time a communal way of life. Followers, believing that the end of the world was imminent (much like modern churches propagate), sold all of their worldly goods, and then moved into small groups (much like cults of today). Members of The Way would sell all of their belongings, then place the sales’ profits into community chests to be disbursed amongst all the members, thereby making each equal to one another, and in their own minds working to build a perfect life (see Acts 6:1-7). This kind of thinking today is called socialist or communist, in itself an interesting puzzle.

After his conversion, of course, Saul is not accepted by the leaders of The Way (Acts 9:20-30). Saul then changes his name to Paul and begins to propagate The Way throughout Israel and beyond. The Acts of the Apostles is a record of Paul’s works in a single copy as set out by Luke, his disciple and lifetime friend. Each epistle—letter—written by Paul to the churches and others that is part of the New Testament’s canon is set against the backdrop of Acts.

When Paul began to write his epistles to different churches, he did so to give them guidance. It is widely accepted that Paul never meant for any of his letters to end up as Scripture to be paraded as the God-breathed words of life.

So why were the letters used as Scripture? The letters started off as notes of instruction to different churches operating in different locations throughout the Roman Empire. Paul wrote the letters to try to either enlighten the churches on moral or other issues that he felt strongly about, or to thank them for their hard work and assistance in the call of The Way, or both. He also used the letters to chastise the churches for various things, including their failure to help support him and his followers monetarily. No venture in the world can operate without money, and Paul was an evangelist who took up offerings wherever he went to help fund his journeys and promote the cause. These are the very same practices employed by the modern Christian church.

There were literally hundreds of books widely circulated through the early church and accepted as divine and good for instruction, not just Paul’s writings. There are also many of Paul’s letters that never made it into the biblical canon Christians read today. However, after Paul’s martyrdom in Rome, the letters were saved and circulated and, through time and tradition, became a part of the early church’s Scripture collections.

Did Paul talk about Jesus and His actual teachings? Paul taught only what he knew from what he had learned from those who followed Jesus while He walked the Earth. While Paul does mention Jesus in his works, he sheds little light on Jesus’ true teachings. Paul is enforcing a moral code that he himself has laid out as acceptable to God. This code blends Judaism and his own ideas that are shaping the fledgling group called The Way—later to become Christians—with ideas that he gleaned from conversations with Jesus’ followers, and what discernment the Holy Spirit gave him according to church tradition.

How could Paul write with such authority if he did not know Jesus? This is another good question. There are some theologians who believe that Paul may have come across Jesus while He was alive and may have even heard some of His teachings. However, there is no evidence to support this, so we must stick to the facts. The fact is that Paul was a tentmaker and salesman prior to his conversion to The Way. It is safe to say that Paul was the consummate marketeer and knew what he needed to say to sell his ideas. A long study of Acts and the New Testament shows the reality that there is very little spoken of regarding the original 11 apostles who followed Jesus. They fade into obscurity after Paul arrives on the scene. Had Paul not come on the scene when he did, there is a good chance that the religion we call Christianity today would never have gotten off the ground.

The canon of the book we call the Holy Bible has a rich history. As I have previously mentioned, there were many, many books floating around being used by the churches to teach and instruct people in The Way. When Constantine converted to Christianity one of the first things he realized was that there was not one set order of books that the followers of The Way—now called Christians as a slang insult to the movement—had to learn from. He ordered that there be one book so that all Scripture could be united for the church’s sake.

Constantine was a very bright and charismatic leader; he also was a great politician. He knew that Rome was destined to civil war as this new religion began to grow up and become more and more powerful in his kingdom. He also knew that it was going to be a hard sell to get the average pagan Roman to convert over to this new system of thought. The Christian belief system did not have the mix of the pagan religion’s gods and goddesses. This was a great challenge to Constantine as he had to convince his subjects to embrace a one-God system of thought and to accept the Christians’ very strict rules. The pagan beliefs and the Christian beliefs were not closely related.

Constantine had an answer for this problem, however. With great care and work he and his scholars were able to meld pagan symbols and rituals into the new Christian religion. They used spring and winter festivals to their advantage: We now call them Christmas and Easter. Other holidays and rituals and many symbols that we recognize every day as Christian were also absorbed, from the symbol of the fish, which was pagan, to the tri-union symbol that we see on the inside cover of many Bibles and other Christian works representing the trinity. These and many, many other adopted Pagan symbols came into The Way as a direct result of Constantine.

Early in the fourth century an uproar arose within the Christian church about the Godhead, that is, the relationship between the Son and the Father. Arius, a priest in Alexandria, was teaching that there was a time when Jesus didn’t exist; that he was not co-eternal with the Father, and that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were three separate and distinct entities. He was teaching that the Son was subordinate to the Father, and was in fact a creation. The teachings were condemned and Arius was excommunicated in AD 318 by Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria.

Constantine moved to resolve the dispute and called together the first church meeting on the canon of the Bible on May 25, AD 325. This is commonly known as the church’s First Ecumenical Council. Constantine was present for the meeting, and gave the opening statement. In the end the meeting fruited out what is known as the Nicene Creed, which for the most part united the Godhead and set aside some teachings.

The Old Testament as we know it was accepted with little to no controversy by the early church. The books that made up the Hebrew Bible were widely accepted and used in the local synagogues.

However, as we will see, there were many books of the Old Testament that were excluded from the common Christian Bible.

The New Testament was another matter. Clement of Rome mentioned books that he considered to be prophetic in nature and accepted as Scripture. He cited at least eight current New Testament