The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidences of His Existence

by John E. Remsburg

The contents of these books refute the claim that they were written by the Evangelists named. They narrate events and contain doctrinal teachings which belong to a later age. Matthew ascribes to Christ the following language: “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church” ([xvi, 18]). This Gospel is a Roman Catholic Gospel, and was written after the beginning of the establishment of this hierarchy to uphold the supremacy of the Petrine Church of Rome. Of this Gospel Dr. Davidson says: “The author, indeed, must ever remain unknown” (Introduction to New Testament, p. 72).

The Gospel of Luke is addressed to Theophilus. Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, who is believed to be the person addressed, flourished in the latter half of the second century.

Dr. Schleiermacher, one of Germany’s greatest theologians, after a critical analysis of Luke, concludes that it is merely a compilation, made up of thirty-three preexisting manuscripts. Bishop Thirlwall’s Schleiermacher says: “He [Luke] is from beginning to end no more than the compiler and arranger of documents which he found in existence” (p. 313).

The basis of this Gospel is generally believed to be the Gospel of Marcion, a Pauline compilation, made about the middle of the second century. Concerning this Gospel, the Rev. S. Baring-Gould, in his “Lost and Hostile Gospels,” says: “The arrangement is so similar that we are forced to the conclusion that it was either used by St. Luke or that it was his original composition. If he used it then his right to the title of author of the Third Gospel falls to the ground, as what he added was of small amount.”

Mark, according to Renan, is the oldest of the Gospels; but Mark, according to Strauss, was written after the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were written. He says: “It is evidently a compilation, whether made from memory or otherwise, from the first and third Gospels” (Leben Jesu, p. 51). Judge Waite, in his “History of Christianity,” says that all but twenty-four verses of this Gospel have their parallels in Matthew and Luke. Davidson declares it to be an anonymous work. “The author,” he says, “is unknown.”

Omitting the last twelve verses of Mark, which all Christian critics pronounce spurious, the book contains no mention of the two great miracles which mark the limits of Christ’s earthly career, his miraculous birth and his ascension.

Concerning the first three Gospels, the “Encyclopedia Britannica” says: “It is certain that the Synoptic Gospels took their present form only by degrees.” Of these books Dr. Westcott says: “Their substance is evidently much older than their form.” Professor Robertson Smith pronounces them “unapostolic digests of the second century.”

The internal evidence against the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel is conclusive. The Apostle John did not write it. John, the apostle, was a Jew; the author of the Fourth Gospel was not a Jew. John was born at Bethsaida; the author of the Fourth Gospel did not know where Bethsaida was located. John was an uneducated fisherman; the author of this Gospel was an accomplished scholar. Some of the most important events in the life of Jesus, the Synoptics declare, were witnessed by John; the author of this knows nothing of these events. The Apostle John witnessed the crucifixion; the author of this Gospel did not. The Apostles, including John, believed Jesus to be a man; the author of the Fourth Gospel believed him to be a god.

Regarding the authorship of the Fourth Gospel, Dr. Davidson says: “The Johannine authorship has receded before the tide of modern criticism, and though this tide is arbitrary at times, it is here irresistible” (Canon of the Bible, p. 127).

That the authenticity of the Four Gospels cannot be maintained is conceded by every impartial critic. The author of “Supernatural Religion,” in one of the most profound and exhaustive works on this subject ever written, expresses the result of his labors in the following words: “After having exhausted the literature and the testimony bearing on the point, we have not found a single distinct trace of any of those Gospels during the first century and a half after the death of Jesus” (Supernatural Religion, Vol. II, p. 248).