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The fact is that the early Christians had absolutely no knowledge as to when Christ was born. The Encyclopaedia Britannica says: "Christians count one hundred and thirty-three contrary opinions of different authorities concerning the year the Messiah appeared on earth." Think of it -- one hundred and thirty-three different years, each one of which is held to be the year in which Christ came into the world. What magnificent certainty!

I doubt this claim is true, that the Encyclopedia Britannica said any such thing.  While the exact year is unknown, it's universally agreed to be between 5 B.C. and 1 A.D, with 4 B.C. being most commonly accepted.

Towards the close of the eighteenth century, Antonmaria Lupi, a learned Jesuit, wrote a work to show that the nativity of Christ has been assigned to every month in the year, at one time or another.

Yes, it's true that we don't know when Jesus was born. But if we're going to call this evidence that He never existed, then let's apply this argument consistently and say that Julius Caesar, Aristotle, and Christopher Columbus never existed, since we don't know their birth dates, either.

Where was Christ born? According to the Gospels, he was habitually called "Jesus of Nazareth." The New Testament writers have endeavored to leave the impression that Nazareth of Galilee was his home town. The Synoptic Gospels represent that thirty years of his life were spent there. Notwithstanding this, Matthew declares that he was born in Bethlehem in fulfillment of a prophecy in the Book of Micah.

Saying you were raised in one place doesn't mean you weren't born in another.  If it does, I must not exist, since I was born in Wisconsin but raised in Michigan.

But the prophecy of Micah has nothing whatever to do with Jesus; it prophesies the coming of a military leader, not a divine teacher. Matthew's application of this prophecy to Christ strengthens the suspicion that his Gospel is not history, but romance.

False.  Jesus was the only one who ever could be claimed to have fulfilled the Micah prophecy.

Luke has it that his birth occurred at Bethlehem, whither his mother had gone with her husband, to make the enrollment called for by Augustus Caesar. Of the general census mentioned by Luke, nothing is known in Roman history. But suppose such a census was taken. The Roman custom, when an enrollment was made, was that every man was to report at his place of residence. The head of the family alone made report. In no case was his wife, or any dependent, required to be with him. In the face of this established custom, Luke declares that Joseph left his home in Nazareth and crossed two provinces to go Bethlehem for the enrollment; and not only this, but that he had to be accompanied by his wife, Mary, who was on the very eve of becoming a mother. This surely is not history, but fable.

No one is saying Mary "had" to go with him. But is it unreasonable to suppose she would have gone instead of staying by herself? What woman would rather be alone than with her husband when she gave birth?

The story that Christ was born at Bethlehem was a necessary part of the program which made him the Messiah, and the descendant of King David. The Messiah had to be born in Bethlehem, the city of David; and by what Renan calls a roundabout way, his birth was made to take place there. The story of his birth in the royal city is plainly fictitious.

It could only be called "plainly fictitious" if it were impossible for Jesus to be born in Bethlehem.  Why would this be impossible?

His home was Nazareth. He was called "Jesus of Nazareth"; and there he is said to have lived until the closing years of his life. Now comes the question -- Was there a city of Nazareth in that age? The Encyclopaedia Biblica, a work written by theologians, the greatest biblical reference work in the English language, says: "We cannot perhaps venture to assert positively that there was a city of Nazareth in Jesus' time." No certainty that there was a city of Nazareth!

It must be an old copy. We now know that Nazareth was occupied since the 7th century B.C. and even experienced a ‘refounding' in the 2nd century B.C.

Not only are the supposed facts of the life of Christ imaginary, but the city of his birth and youth and manhood existed, so far as we know, only on the map of mythology. What amazing evidence to prove the reality of a Divine man! Absolute ignorance as to his ancestry; nothing whatever known of the time of his birth, and even the existence of the city where he is said to have been born, a matter of grave question!

Only one of those, the time of His birth, is unknown.  But even if all of these were true, it's the same with many historical figures. Let's just be consistent and dismiss them all, shall we?

After his birth, Christ, as it were, vanishes out of existence, and with the exception of a single incident recorded in Luke, we hear absolutely nothing of him until he has reached the age of thirty years.

False. Luke records His going to Jerusalem as an infant and being blessed by Simeon (the incident Gauvin is referring to), but Matthew also mentions the visit from the wise men and the threat from King Herod (occurring when Jesus was over a year old).

The account of his being found discussing with the doctors in the Temple at Jerusalem when he was but twelve years old, is told by Luke alone. The other Gospels are utterly ignorant of this discussion; and, this single incident excepted, the four Gospels maintain an unbroken silence with regard to thirty years of the life of their hero. What is the meaning of this silence? If the writers of the Gospels knew the facts of the life of Christ, why is it that they tell us absolutely nothing of thirty years of that life?

Because they didn't meet Him until his he was thirty, perhaps?

What historical character can be named whose life for thirty years is an absolute blank to the world?

Many.  Right off the top of my head, I know that we know very little of Pontius Pilate's life before his encounter with Jesus. I know that Aristotle's life prior to meeting Plato is as much a blank as Jesus'. And nothing is known of the Roman Emperor Claudius before his adulthood.  There are many others with similar gulfs in their histories.

If Christ was the incarnation of God, if he was the greatest teacher the world has known, if he came to cave (sic) mankind from everlasting pain -- was there nothing worth remembering in the first thirty years of his existence among men? The fact is that the Evangelists knew nothing of the life of Jesus, before his ministry; and they refrained from inventing a childhood, youth and early manhood for him because it was not necessary to their purpose.

They answer their own question here, and do it very well. The Gospel writers knew very little of Jesus' life before His ministry, since they only got to know Him during His ministry. This very much supports the fact that the Gospel authors, and most of their sources, were people who actually knew Jesus. If He was unknown to them and they were just making stuff up, why wouldn't they have made up details about His early life? The fact that they wrote so little about the times before they got to know Him very much supports the fact that they DID know Him, and weren't making stuff up. This is one of the best arguments for the reliability of the witness of the Gospels!

Luke, however, deviated from the rule of silence long enough to write the Temple incident.

"Rule of silence". I like that!

The story of the discussion with the doctors in the Temple is proved to be mythical by all the circumstances that surround it. The statement that his mother and father left Jerusalem, believing that he was with them; that they went a day's journey before discovering that he was not in their company;

They were traveling with a large family group, not just the three of them. They likely thought Jesus was with another relative.

and that after searching for three days, they found him in the Temple asking and answering questions of the learned Doctors, involves a series of tremendous improbabilities. Add to this the fact that the incident stands alone in Luke, surrounded by a period of silence covering thirty years; add further that none of the other writers have said a word of the child Jesus discussing with the scholars of their nation;

Since none of the authors were witnesses to the event, it's not unusual that only one wrote about it. Luke was the only Gospel author who used Mary (the mother of Jesus) as a source, thus he's the only one who logically would have mentioned it.

and add again the unlikelihood that a child would appear before serious-minded men in the role of an intellectual champion and the fabulous character of the story becomes perfectly clear.

It's only unlikely if we're assuming that Jesus was just a normal child.

The Gospels know nothing of thirty years of Christ's life. What do they know of the last years of that life? How long did the ministry, the public career of Christ, continue? According to Matthew, Mark and Luke, the public life of Christ lasted about a year. If John's Gospel is to be believed, his ministry covered about three years.

Actually, the synoptics give no indication of how long Jesus' ministry lasted. There's nothing in them suggesting it was less than three years.

The Synoptics teach that Christ's public work was confined almost entirely to Galilee, and that he went to Jerusalem only once, not long before his death.

Hardly. None of the synoptics say Jesus was never in Jerusalem before the end of His ministry, and it's inconceivable that a Jewish person at that time would never set foot in Jerusalem for any great length of time. Most made pilgrimages to Jerusalem four times a year. Also, Matthew (in 4:25) talks about Jesus being followed by multitudes from Jerusalem. How would so many from Jerusalem know of Jesus had never set foot there? And Jesus appears to have friends, admirers and contacts in Jerusalem upon arriving there, like Mary and Martha, and Joseph of Arimathea.  And Luke specifically mentions Jesus in Jerusalem at the beginning of His ministry (Luke 4:9)

John is in hopeless disagreement with the other Evangelists as to the scene of Christ's labors. He maintains that most of the public life of Christ was spent in Judea, and that Christ was many times in Jerusalem.

Now, between Galilee and Judea there was the province of Samaria. If all but the last few weeks of Christ's ministry was carried on in his native province of Galilee, it is certain that the greater part of that ministry was not spent in Judea, two provinces away.

Also less than fifty miles away, hardly a great distance.

John tells us that the driving of the money-changers from the Temple occurred at the beginning of Christ's ministry; and nothing is said of any serious consequences following it. But Matthew, Mark and Luke declare that the purification of the Temple took place at the close of his career, and that this act brought upon him the wrath of the priests, who sought to destroy him.

None of the synoptic authors say that this act alone brought the wrath of the priests. It was primarily that Jesus was drawing so many followers that brought their wrath.

Because of these facts, the Encyclopedia Biblica assures us that the order of events in the life of Christ, as given by the Evangelists, is contradictory and untrustworthy; that the chronological framework of the Gospels is worthless; and that the facts "show only too clearly with what lack of concern for historical precision the Evangelists write." In other words, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote, not what they knew, but what they imagined.

If the Encyclopedia Biblica wrote this, it was based on false premises.

Christ is said to have been many times in Jerusalem. It is said that he preached daily in the Temple. He was followed by his twelve disciples, and by multitudes of enthusiastic men and women. On the one hand, the people shouted hosannas in his honor, and on the other, priests engaged him in discussion and sought to take his life. All this shows that he must have been well known to the authorities. Indeed, he must have been one of the best known men in Jerusalem. Why, then, was it necessary for the priests to bribe one of his disciples to betray him? Only an obscure man, whose identity was uncertain, or a man who was in hiding, would need to be betrayed. A man who appeared daily in the streets, who preached daily in the Temple, a man who was continually before the public eye, could have been arrested at any moment. The priests would not have bribed a man to betray a teacher whom everybody knew. If the accounts of Christ's betrayal are true, all the declarations about his public appearances in Jerusalem must be false.

Gauvin needs to think. Had the pharisees arrested Jesus publicly in front of the multitudes of His followers, it would have caused a riot. It was much safer to take him when He was out of the public eye, when He was only among a few friends. Who best to inform them of the best time and method to take Him, but one of His friends?

Nothing could be more improbable than the story of Christ's crucifixion. The civilization of Rome was the highest in the world. The Romans were the greatest lawyers the world had ever known. Their courts were models of order and fairness. A man was not condemned without a trial; he was not handed to the executioner before being found guilty. And yet we are asked to believe that an innocent man was brought before a Roman court, where Pontius Pilate was Judge; that no charge of wrongdoing having been brought against him, the Judge declared that he found him innocent; that the mob shouted, "Crucify him; crucify him!" and that to please the rabble, Pilate commanded that the man who had done no wrong and whom he had found innocent, should be scourged, and then delivered him to the executioners to be crucified! Is it thinkable that the master of a Roman court in the days of Tiberius Caesar, having found a man innocent and declared him so,

Jesus wasn't legally declared innocent. Actually, His silence was taken to be an admission of guilt.

and having made efforts to save his life, tortured him of his own accord, and then handed him over to a howling mob to be nailed to a cross?

Yeah, I'm sure Pilate was mostly concerned with Jesus' well-being, and not his own career.

A Roman court finding a man innocent and then crucifying him? Is that a picture of civilized Rome? Is that the Rome to which the world owes its laws? In reading the story of the Crucifixion, are we reading history or religious fiction? Surely not history.

We know for a fact that Christians were crucified, stoned to death, and fed to lions merely for FOLLOWING Jesus. Yet we're supposed to think the Romans would have treated their leader fairly? Had Jesus been a Roman, He might have been treated somewhat fairly. Being a trouble-making Jew, He never stood a chance.

On the theory that Christ was crucified, how shall we explain the fact that during the first eight centuries of the evolution of Christianity, Christian art represented a lamb, and not a man, as suffering on the cross for the salvation of the world? Neither the paintings in the Catacombs nor the sculptures on Christian tombs pictured a human figure on the cross. Everywhere a lamb was shown as the Christian symbol -- a lamb carrying a cross, a lamb at the foot of a cross, a lamb on a cross. Some figures showed the lamb with a human head, shoulders and arms, holding a cross in his hands -- the lamb of God in process of assuming the human form -- the crucifixion myth becoming realistic. At the close of the eighth century, Pope Hadrian I, confirming the decree of the sixth Synod of Constantinople, commanded that thereafter the figure of a man should take the place of a lamb on the cross. It took Christianity eight hundred years to develop the symbol of its suffering Savior. For eight hundred years, the Christ on the cross was a lamb. But if Christ was actually crucified, why was his place on the cross so long usurped by a lamb? In the light of history and reason, and in view of a lamb on the cross, why should we believe in the Crucifixion?

First of all, the claim is untrue. This site http://www.usask.ca/antiquities/Collection/Death_Judas.html shows an early-5th-century depiction of the crucifixion and Jesus is very much a human. Historian Raymond Brown, in his book "Death Of The Messiah", notes human depictions as early as the 2nd century.

Second of all, what claim is Gauvin trying to make? That because Jesus' crucifixion wasn't displayed artistically until the 9th century, that no one knew of the crucifixion until then? How does Gauvin explain the Gospels mentioning the crucifixion in the 2nd century (as he claims)? Or Paul's mentioning it in the 1st century? It sounds like he's trying to create a claim that he disagrees with just for the sake of argument. Very strange.

On top of that, the supposed command Hadrian gives is kind of true, but phrased misleadingly.  He did forbid the use of symbolic figures for Jesus, but this doesn't mean (as Gauvin suggests) that ALL previously figures for Jesus were symbolic.  Some were, some were not.

And let us ask, if Christ performed the miracles the New Testament describes, if he gave sight to blind men's eyes, if his magic touch brought youthful vigor to the palsied frame, if the putrefying dead at his command returned to life and love again -- why did the people want him crucified? Is it not amazing that a civilized people -- for the Jews of that age were civilized -- were so filled with murderous hate towards a kind and loving man who went about doing good, who preached forgiveness, cleansed the leprous, and raised the dead -- that they could not be appeased until they had crucified the noblest benefactor of mankind?

We see this happening all through history. If a text having a noble benefactor unjustly murdered must be untrue, then he must be consistent and believe that Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi and Martin Luther King were never murdered.

Again I ask -- is this history, or is it fiction?

From the standpoint of the supposed facts, the account of the Crucifixion of Christ is as impossible as is the raising of Lazarus from the standpoint of nature. The simple truth is, that the four Gospels are historically worthless. They abound in contradictions, in the unreasonable, the miraculous and the monstrous. There is not a thing in them that can be depended upon as true, while there is much in them that we certainly know to be false.

The accounts of the virgin birth of Christ, of his feeding five thousand people with five loaves and two fishes, of his cleansing the leprous, of his walking on the water, of his raising the dead, and of his own resurrection after his life had been destroyed, are as untrue as any stories that were ever told in this world. The miraculous element in the Gospels is proof that they were written by men, who did not know how to write history, or who were not particular as to the truth of what they wrote. The miracles of the Gospels were invented by credulity or cunning, and if the miracles were invented, how can we know that the whole history of Christ was not woven of the warp and woof of the imagination?

Oooookay. So since miracles don't happen, the Gospels must be untrue? That's an argument that would only make sense to the small percentage of people who believe miracles are impossible. He's arguing from his own assumptions, not from any logical standpoint.

Dr. Paul W. Schmiedel, Professor of New Testament Exegesis at Zurich, Switzerland, one of the foremost theologians of Europe, tells us in the Encyclopaedia Biblica, that there are only nine passages in the Gospels that we can depend upon as being the sayings of Jesus;

So Gauvin's own source here contradicts his claim that Jesus never existed. If He said anything at all, He had to have been real.

and Professor Arthur Drews, Germany's greatest exponent of the doctrine that Christ is a myth, analyses these passages and shows that there is nothing in them that could not easily have been invented.

Would Drews care to name one book that contains nothing that could be invented?

That these passages are as unhistorical as the rest is also the contention of John M. Robertson, the eminent English scholar, who holds that Jesus never lived.

He also believed that Buddha never lived, which is equally ridiculous.

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