God Hates You, Hate Him Back: Making Sense of The Bible (37 page)
Read God Hates You, Hate Him Back: Making Sense of The Bible Online
Authors: CJ Werleman
The story of John the Baptist, preparing the way for the now adult Jesus, is the first time, the four Gospels write with any matching consensus. In the years before Jesus’ arrival on the scene, there was John, who baptized Jews in shallows of the Sea of Galilee so that they could repent for their sins. The story of this ordinary man’s life is brought to color so his bio could match the Old Testament messianic prophecy of Isaiah (40:3):
“
A voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord make straight paths for him’.” (Matthew 3:3 NIV)
Mark describes John the Baptist’s appearance as:
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John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist and he ate locusts and wild honey.” (Mark 1:6 NIV)
Where Luke takes a flight of fancy from his three contemporaries is that he claims John the Baptist to be a relative of Jesus, claiming his mother Elisabeth to be a relative of Mary and, like Mary, God played a part in getting her pregnant. Although he doesn’t go as far to mention the words ‘virgin birth’. Luke writes of the birth of John the Baptist that whilst he was still a baby:
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Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue was loosed and he began to speak, praising God. The neighbors were all filled with awe and throughout the hill country or Judea people were talking about all these things.” (Luke 1:64-65 NIV)
Hmm, a talking baby! Maybe John Travolta’s film,
Look Who’s Talking
, was biblical commentary. Weird!
The Gospels reunite their testimony in evangelizing the celebrity of this man, claiming that people travelled from the farthest corners of the Mid East region to be dunked under water by this man. Further, judging by scripture, it seems likely that rumors spread throughout the region that John the Baptist was himself the Messiah. Thus causing the Pharisees, the vestiges of Jewish political power at the time, to enquire of this man:
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Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” (John 1:25 NIV)
To which John replied that he was sent by God to prepare the way for Jesus, before adding modestly:
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After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” (Mark 1:7-8 NIV)
Of Christian relevance, it is John the Baptist that introduces the Biblical reader to the concept of atonement. A truly wicked concept, in that one can be forgiven for all past moral crimes inflicted upon others, whether that be murder, rape or theft, by merely saying sorry to a mythical sky-God, whilst simultaneously having your head slammed into the water by a pious prick. What of the victims of your crimes? What of personal accountability and the pursuit of social justice? As such the concepts of atonement and redemption are counter-intuitive to establishing a healthy functioning society.
It is also worth noting that John the Baptist also introduces us to the myth of eternal punishment. Till now, your suffering ended at the tip of the sword, or by God turning you into a pile of salt at the click of his fingers. You died, game over! John, however, implies that continued suffering post-death for the non-baptized and unrepentant awaits. A truly evil idea that Jesus, it will soon be revealed, campaigns on as one of his religiously political platforms. But for now John the Baptist suggests that the following eternal punishment beckons:
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The axe is ready at the root of the trees and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into eternal fire. I baptize you with water for repentance.” (Matthew 3:10-11 NIV)
Matthew’s, Mark’s and Luke’s respective stories concur, in the most part, but their stories of Jesus’ baptism conflict with John’s who has his own unique account. Matthew and Mark write that Jesus sought John the Baptist to be baptized in the River Jordan. At the moment that Jesus resurfaced whilst held in John’s arms both write:
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As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lightning upon him and a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased’.” (Matthew 3:16-17 NIV)
Luke’s story differs only slightly as he writes that the heavens began to open as soon as Jesus began praying, but the voice from God and the dove and lightning description remain consistent between the two. Whereas John provides the following testimony:
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I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit’.” (John 1:33 NIV)
Whilst Mathew, Mark and Luke claim that Jesus and John the Baptist were involved in a discussion as to who should baptize who before the actual baptism took place, John claims that he did not recognize him as Jesus until after the baptism.
Immediately following his baptism, Jesus was led by Satan into the desert. Satan and Jesus are having a chat, but John doesn’t believe this astonishing relationship worthy of any mention. And Mark only writes of it as a footnote and in just one sentence:
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At once the Spirit sent him out in the desert and he was in the desert for forty days, being tempted by Satan.” (Mark 1:12-13 NIV)
Matthew and Luke add much greater detail to the interaction between Savior and Slayer, with both writing that Satan appeared to Jesus after he had gone forty days without any food. Satan tempting Jesus with the following test:
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If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” (Matthew 4:3 NIV)
Jesus answered, with a quote of Isaiah 40:3:
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Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4 NIV)
Satan then led Jesus to the top of the Temple in Jerusalem and, standing high above the paved stones, Satan asked him to jump off to prove that God would save him from being splattered 100feet below where they stood. This time Satan, proving he too could reference Old Testament scripture, quoted the following passage from Psalm 91:
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He will command his angels concerning you and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” (Matthew 4:6 NIV)
Jesus threw some Old Testament heat back at Satan and replied with a little verse from Deuteronomy 6:16:
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It says: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test’.” (Luke 4:13 NIV)
For Luke, this is the end of the conversation between Jesus and Satan, but Matthew adds that Satan then led Jesus to the top of a very high mountain showing the Son of God all the kingdoms of earth and promising Jesus that all this would be his if he bowed down and worshipped him. Jesus considered the offer for a moment, but replied with another verse from Deuteronomy:
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Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.” (Matthew 4:10 NIV)
While I can understand Jesus using this as a counter to Satan’s offer, it does make worshipping Jesus somewhat problematic now. To whom do I now send my knee-mail?
There is little consistency in regards to the start of Jesus’ ministry between the four gospels, with Luke claiming that Jesus first started preaching in the synagogues of Nazareth, where he was threatened to be thrown off a cliff by the people of his own village because he refused to heal a local man suffering from leprosy:
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All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.” (Luke 4:28-30 NIV)
Remarkably, the other three Gospels mention nothing of Jesus’ own tribe wishing to murder the fledgling preacher, and, in fact, Matthew’s account of the commencement of Jesus’ preaching career, launched after he had learnt of the imprisonment of John the Baptist. It was this news that prompted Jesus to leave Nazareth to reside in a town called Capernaum, in the area of Zebulum and Naphtali, so that he could fulfil what had been written by the prophet Isaiah (9:1-2)
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Land of Zebulum and land of Naphtali the way of the sea, along the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles – the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.” (Matthew 4:15-16 NIV)
Surely, one of the most controversial passages of the New Testament, as they are words from Jesus’ own mouth and as such lay clear that his objective on earth, was not to bring peace but to bring violence. I guess if we take into consideration the 9,000,000 slaughtered during the period of Crusades at the instigation of the Vatican then Jesus’ mission was completed.
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Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth, I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34 NIV)
Well, a sword is certainly far from an olive branch and just so you can be sure that this is not just some obscure passage taken out of context:
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For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.” (Matthew 10:35-36 NIV)
Wow! Am I being a little harsh in labelling these the words of an asshole? If a politician said exactly this he would be chased out of Dodge, and rightfully so. Jesus adopts a similar tone of insecurity-based jealousy as his heavenly father, when he says:
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Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” (Matthew 10:37-38 NIV)
How come Jesus didn’t include an exception clause for young children? What chance does a baby or a young child have in obeying this dictum? A child cannot possibly love a Hebrew evangelist more than his or her own parents. Therefore, this is simply lunacy and ultimately wicked. Furthering the claim that God, in his heart of hearts, indeed hates you.
In my conversations with religious apologists, and non-Christians in particular, it is often asserted something along the lines of, “Oh well, maybe he wasn’t the Son of God, but he was a great or profound moral teacher!” To this oft-made remark, I will allow the late C.S. Lewis to do my bidding, from his book
Mere Christianity
:
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That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is the Son of God: or else a madman and something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you may spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
To be a bona fide Messiah one of the first things you need in place is a fan base and thus Jesus’ initial piece of business was to select some disciples who could help recruit and rally some new supporters. Matthew summarizes this entourage selection process in a neat and tidy two-paragraph verse. Writing that whilst Jesus walked along the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee he came across two brothers, Simon and Andrew, who were enjoying a spot of weekend fishing. The only dialogue we have between Jesus and the two brothers is of Jesus:
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Come, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4:19 NIV)
That’s all it took for Jesus to convince the brothers to put down their rods and nets and follow this long-haired guy who claimed to be from a town they had never heard of, Nazareth.
John writes that the brothers were not on the Sea of Galilee but were in fact, fishing on the banks of the River Jordan more or less at the exact same spot where Jesus had been baptized by John the Baptist. Whilst Luke has a completely different version of the same event, claiming that Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesart, when a crowd of people gathered around him to listen to his preaching. Whilst Jesus was philosophizing about the meaning of life he spotted at the water’s edge two fishing boats, anchored ashore next to two fishermen who were folding their nets. Jesus, somewhat presumptuously, stepped into one of the boats and demanded that one of the fisherman push him out from shore a few yards or so. The fisherman, Simon, agreed to do so and then Jesus took a seat, made himself comfortable and continued preaching from the small vessel to the crowd standing on the shore. Jesus eventually grew tired of jibber-jabbing and demanded that Simon and him go out and catch some fish from the deep water. Simon protested: