God Hates You, Hate Him Back: Making Sense of The Bible (43 page)

The Gospels write that Pilate repeated his findings that he believed Jesus to have done nothing that deserved death but the crowd called out, “Release Barabbas!” Pilate again stated that he didn’t believe Jesus’ crime befit any further punishment, but the crowd yelled, “Crucify Jesus”. But who was this Barabbas character? Mark and Luke claim that he was guilty of murder, whereas John writes that he was a thief.

This entire piece of Biblical fiction is just as comedic as that portrayed by the movie ‘
Life of Brian
’, where Michael Palin portrays Pilate with a speech impediment lisp that makes it difficult for him to pronounce the letter ‘R’. Standing on a balcony above the crowd below Palin asks which prisoner they would like to see set free. The crowd mocking their ruler’s speech impediment demand that Roderick be released. Palin replies, “Ok as you will. Welease Wodderick,” which only caused the mob to break out into further hysterics.

As in the movie and, as in the scripture, Pilate the populist caved to their demands and Jesus’ fate was sealed.

Jesus was then flogged to near death and handed over to Roman centurions to be nailed to the cross. The Bible’s portrayal of this grotesque blood lustful execution is no less graphic than that depicted in Mel Gibson’s grotesque and self-indulgent movie, ‘
Passion of the Christ’
.

Once in the hands of the Roman centurions, they continued to beat him, spit on him and, in mockery of his self-acclaimed “King of the Jews” title, they twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head; the barbs piercing the skin of his face, head and neck. Then they led him away to be crucified.

In Roman times, crucifixion was reserved only for the most heinous of villains due to its inhumane and prolonged period of suffering prior to inevitable death. Jesus was laid down on the wooden cross, 6 inch nails hammered through his palms and feet into the timber beneath. The cross rose vertically with the force of gravity slowly tearing at the flesh. Above Jesus’ head was a placard that read:

Matthew and Mark claim that Jesus was crucified with two robbers, on either side of him. This is a historical flaw too, as the Romans did not crucify robbers. This execution method was reserved only for insurgents against the Roman state and rebellious slaves.

Passers-by hurled abuse at Jesus, spat at him and mocked him with taunts such as, “If you really are the Son of God, come down from the cross and save yourself.” Much in the same way the chief priests shouted at him:

John writes that standing near the cross were the ‘three Mary’s. Mary his mother, Mary his aunt and Mary Magdalene. Jesus seeing his mother there cried:

Again, this is a fallacy that defies historical fact, that being that the Roman Centurions did not allow anyone near the crucifixion fields, certainly not family and friends who might facilitate an escape for the condemned.

It is then written that between the morning hours of 6am to 9am an eerie darkness fell over the land. Day had become night. At approximately nine am, Jesus cried out in a loud voice:

Hey, far be it for me to ridicule Jesus for this obvious last minute crisis of faith at a time of immense agony and suffering. I think I would have shouted, “Fuck you God, thirty two years of total subservient obedience and this is what I get?” But that’s me! Nevertheless, this was Jesus throwing a huge cloud of doubt regarding his belief in his mythical father. Which seems hard to comprehend given that the Gospels repeatedly claim that Jesus had predicted his death on a number of occasions and that this was all part of God’s divine plan. “Why have you forsaken me?” suggests to me at least, that not all were reading from the same script. But then again a reread of Psalm 22 of the Old Testament suggests indeed the Gospels were on the same page with the plagiarism of identical wording:

Jesus cried out once more damning his God, the final effort exhausting his fight to live and there on the cross he passed away. His final words according to Luke were:

Whereas John writes Jesus’ final words to be:

What the scripture says next is complete bullshit, but I will recite it anyway:

Matthew, taking another flight of fancy with the claim that dead people rose to life. Not only is this incredible claim not corroborated by the other Gospels, but there is nothing recorded anywhere outside of this passage in any document to claim such a nature defying event took place

Later that evening, Jesus’ was removed from the cross, his corpse covered in a clean linen cloth and placed in a tomb that had been cut out of rock. A large stone was rolled in front of the tomb’s entrance. The following day, the Pharisees approached Pilate to express their concern that Jesus’ followers will attempt to remove his from the tomb so as to deceptively prove that he had risen from the dead, thus fulfilling his prophecy:

Pilate acknowledged their concern and appointed two centurions to guard the entrance.

This is the critical component of the Christian faith. No resurrection after death, then no Messiah. Whilst one may try and wriggle out of believing in the virgin birth whilst still maintaining faith in Christianity, it is impossible to do so with the resurrection. Like the story of the virgin birth, the story of the resurrection is one of complete contradiction and conflicting narratives. Before we take a look at what the Bible has to say about this, I want to include the narrative from a cartoon I found on the internet at
www.russellsteapot.com
:

Priest: Thanks everyone for participating in this year’s Easter Pageant.

Alright kids we need to rehearse the part where it’s Easter morning and the first visitors arrive at Jesus’ tomb. Now who’s in this scene?

Child 1: I am! Matthew 28:2-5 says an angel came down from heaven to greet them.

Child 2: No, it wasn’t an angel! It was a ‘Young man’, Just look at Mark 16:5!

Child 3: Hello! Luke 24:4 says very clearly it was ‘Two men’.

Child 4: Well according to John 20:1-2 no was there.

Priest: Children, the contradictions don’t matter! What matters is that we unquestioningly accept the magic of the resurrection even within the face of such glaring contradictions within the story.

Child 4: Father, that was the most wonderfully concise summary of Christianity I have ever heard.

Priest: Thank you child. It is blind submission to authority that got me where I am today.

Back to the Bible - here is the preamble by Matthew that leads us to the conflicting narratives:

An angel pushes back the stone guarding the tomb’s entrance, whilst an earthquake is taking place and then casually takes a seat on top of the stone in view of the two women. Matthew then describes the stone wielding angel and the guard’s reaction to seeing such a sight in candid detail:

Why would an angel wear clothes and where would he buy them? Is there a GAP outlet store in heaven?

The angel then said to the women:

This contrasts with Mark who makes no mention of an angel, or the guards at the tomb but only that of a young man dressed in a white robe, who said to the women:

Luke contradicts both Matthew and Mark by writing of the women’s visit to the tomb:

Luke adds that the women were frightened by the sight of these two men, to which the men in lightning rod robes said:

Matthew then continues his account of the angel’s conversation with the women, summarizing the following instructions:

All right then, so who did the women tell of the fact that Jesus’ had been removed? Again, there are conflicting accounts between the Gospels:

We will stick with Matthew’s course of events as he writes with more flavor than the others. Matthew writes that whilst all this was happening, the Guards, who had been put on duty to guard the entrance of the tomb, rushed to the chief priests to inform them that Jesus’ was no longer there. A public relations plan was quickly hatched and the guards were paid a large sum of money to keep their mouths shut and, if asked, they were to say that Jesus’ disciples had come during the middle of the night and stole his corpse away whilst they (guards) were sleeping. Matthew concludes this narrative with a pithy little Jewish jab:

Meanwhile, the two Marys successfully located all eleven disciples and told them of their encounters with the angel and Jesus, remembering that Mark claimed the women told no one. As such, the band of eleven trekked to the top of a mountain outside of Galilee, which is where Jesus had advised them to go. Once there, Jesus appeared to them and said:

Thus, ending the alleged life and times of Jesus Christ on earth.

So, in summary, the man (or myth) that more than a billion people believe is the gatekeeper to the kingdom of heaven and who died for our sins and is the Son of God, is based on what we have reviewed in the Gospels. So, what was so astounding about this character? What did the Son of God really accomplish during his thirty odd year mission? Sure, he allegedly healed a few people here and there who were ‘afflicted by demonic possession’ and then there was the walking on water trick, but how did he benefit mankind? Or, at the very least, how did he benefit the people of his time?