2.1.15 82% of the words of Jesus not his?:

"The Five Gospels," is a 550 page book containing translations of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It was the result of a six year study by 24 Christian scholars from a number of Western universities. They decided to produce a translation of the Gospels which would be uncolored by the translator's personal faith. It was decided that this translation was to give the reader an honest picture of what Jesus (pbuh) truly said. They scanned the text for the words of Jesus (pbuh), and collect an index of over 1,500 such sayings. They then tested the validity of each of these sayings, one at a time, to see whether Jesus (pbuh) truly said each one. They then produced a fresh translation, color-coded to show authentic Jesuit sayings and those of an unreliable nature. Their conclusion (page 5) was:

"Eighty-two percent of the words ascribed to Jesus in the gospels were not actually spoken by him."

They go on to reveal that:

"biblical scholars and theologians alike have learned to distinguish the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith. It has been a painful lesson for both the church and scholarship. The distinction between the two figures is the difference between a historical person who lived in a particular time and place...and a figure who has been assigned a mythical role, in which he descends from heaven to rescue humankind and, of course, eventually returns there."

Well then, if 82% of the "words of Jesus" found in the Bible were apparently never spoken by him then where did they come from? Some of the sources demonstrated by the authors are:

"The concept of plagiarism was unknown in the ancient world. Authors freely copied from predecessors without acknowledgment. Sages became the repository of free-floating proverbs and witticisms. For the first Christians, Jesus was a legendary sage: it was proper to attribute the world's wisdom to him. The proverb in Mark 2:17, for example, is attested in secular sources (Plutarch and Diogenes for example)...in the parallel to the Markan passage, Matthew adds a sentence taken from the prophet Hosea (Matt 9:13)."

Also:

"Hard sayings are frequently softened in the process of transmission to adapt them to the conditions of daily living...Variations in difficult saying often betray the struggle of the early Christian community to interpret or adapt sayings to its own situations... Matthew's version of the aphorism "The last will be first and the first last"(Matt 20:16) is softened in Mark 10:31 to "MANY of the first will be last, and of the last MANY will be first"."

And probably most revealing:

"Christian conviction eventually overwhelms Jesus: he is made to confess what Christians had come to believe...The contrast between Christian language or viewpoint and the language or viewpoint of Jesus is a very important clue to the real voice of Jesus, the language of Jesus was distinctive, as was his style and perspective."

The above is only a very small sampling of the very large cache of evidence clearly showing the Bible to have been seriously distorted and altered. To this day it is being continuously edited, corrected, and modified. This is not to say that Christians are not good and honest people in search of the truth. Quite the opposite. Among them are some of the most decent and moral people on this earth. The goal of this book is only to show that the Christian faith as it stands today is not the same one preached by Jesus peace be upon him to his followers nineteen hundred years ago. This is exactly what the Qur'an has been asserting for over fourteen hundred years now.

"O People of the Book! Why do you reject the Signs of God, when you [yourselves] bear witness [to their truth] ?. O People of the Book! Why do you clothe Truth with falsehood, and conceal the Truth, while you have knowledge?"

The noble Qur'an, A'al-Umran(3):70-71

"Say: 'O People of the Book! Why do you reject the Signs of God, when God is Himself witness to all you do?' Say: 'O People of the Book! Why do you obstruct those who believe from the path of God, Seeking to make it crooked, while you were yourselves witnesses? But God is not unaware of what you do'"

The noble Qur'an, A'al-Umran(3):98-99

"Truly, the Religion in the Sight of God is Islam (literally: "the submission"). Nor did those who were given the scripture dissent therefrom except after knowledge had come to them, through envy of each other. But whosoever disbelieves in the Signs of God, [then surely,] God is swift in calling to account."

The noble Qur'an, A'al-Umran(3):19

"They are not all alike. Of the People of the Scripture there is a party who stand [for that which is right], they recite the revelations of Allah throughout the night, falling prostrate [before Him]."

The noble Qur'an, A'al-Umran(3):113

"And there are, certainly, among the People of the Book, those who believe in God, and in that which was sent down unto you, and in that which was sent down unto them, humbling themselves before God: They will not sell the Signs of God for a miserable gain! For them is a reward with their Lord, and God is swift to take account."

The noble Qur'an, A'al-Umran(3):199

"O people of the Book! Now has come unto you Our messenger, revealing to you much of what you used to hide in the Book, and passing over much. Indeed, there has come to you from God a light and a plain Scripture"

The noble Qur'an, Al-Maida(5):15

The Gospel of John and the Hellenzation of Jesus

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