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Five Gospel Forgeries

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posted on Apr, 9 2005 @ 04:14 PM
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On another board, someone brought up a book called "The Archko Volume" and claimed it had letters written DURING the lifetime of Jesus and immediately afterwards, and they were about Jesus. I'm fairly well read and fairly well versed in the "no documents or writers contemporary to Jesus mention him" discussion, and had to admit that I'd never heard of the Archko Volume. I looked it up (and found something that cited a great section of it), and while I couldn't refute it, I felt it sounded ... wrong.

The moderator of that section of that board knew a bit more about them and pointed me to the work of Edgar J Goodspeed, a scholar, who wrote about FIVE such frauds (in order to warn others about these false documents.)
www.tertullian.org...

The purpose of them, of course, was to convert the unbelievers and the writers saw nothing wrong in producing these new documents. Unquestioning believers took these as true, and some of the unsuspicious brought them into their sects. Apparently the Jehovah's Witnesses published a number of them and some of the Mormons took them as gospel.

Goodspeed discusses (politely, of course) the errors that mark these as complete frauds.

It's an interesting read; if you have time only to read sections, read the Archko section: www.tertullian.org...

So here's a true conspiracy; to pass off as religious truth something that someone made up completely.



posted on Apr, 9 2005 @ 04:32 PM
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Well, I never heard of this five Gospels before, I know is the theory of missing bible books but not that this could be it.

Now I will agree that not other contemporary writer of the time when Jesus was living has ever written about him.

I also wonder how reliable the second testament as been the truth life of jesus is fact how much is not.

By now we will never know.



posted on Apr, 9 2005 @ 05:09 PM
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Marg,

The five gospels are the four gospels--Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John-- and the Gospel of Thomas.

It is also a volume [report] done the Jesus Seminar, Robert W. Funk, and Roy W. Hoover, which analyzed [skeptically, though this is debatable] the authenticity of the 1,500+ sayings attributed to Jesus in the five gospels [Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Thomas].
The Five Gospels





seekerof

[edit on 9-4-2005 by Seekerof]



posted on Apr, 9 2005 @ 05:34 PM
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(g) Guys, THESE gospels are not the ones in the Bible, but they are claimed to be "lost Gospels." There are, indeed, a lot of "lost Gospels" that show up and there's a lot of apocrypha that did not make it into the Bible.

These were proclaimed (by the forgers) to be authentic letters of Pontius Pilate and to be authentic gospels (including one letter purportedly written by Jesus, which is actually... a chain letter (you know; make six copies and pass this along before next week otherwise your teeth will fall out and your dog will leave you to go sing country western songs with Willie Nelson.)



posted on Apr, 9 2005 @ 05:56 PM
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I heard, this is kinda unrelated, that the Gospel of Mary Magdelene was originally going to be cannonized, but they decided that it would cause the church to lose credibilty and decided to throw it out. However, it is rumored that this gospel is actually the Gospel of John. Would be very interesting indeed. I will take a look at what you have to say.



posted on Apr, 9 2005 @ 06:01 PM
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I think Seekerof got confused I am talking about the five Gospel that are Forgeries.

And is also a fact about the writers of the time not mentioning Jesus.

Occurs I am not bible follower and I am not believer of the divinity of the Christ and the super natural birth.

I have to clarify that. I am very much intrigue on the historical Jesus and that is what I will like to learn more and I would love to see some new lights of who he really was, without the virginal birth.



posted on Apr, 9 2005 @ 06:11 PM
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as posted by Marg
I think Seekerof got confused I am talking about the five Gospel that are Forgeries.


Hehehehe.....erm, no, you might want to hit the link for the Five Gospels and you will see that the findings of the Jesus Seminar pretty much concluded that the five gospels are fake/forgeries/incorrect, etc.



as posted by Byrd
(g) Guys, THESE gospels are not the ones in the Bible, but they are claimed to be "lost Gospels." There are, indeed, a lot of "lost Gospels" that show up and there's a lot of apocrypha that did not make it into the Bible.

These were proclaimed (by the forgers) to be authentic letters of Pontius Pilate and to be authentic gospels (including one letter purportedly written by Jesus, which is actually... a chain letter (you know; make six copies and pass this along before next week otherwise your teeth will fall out and your dog will leave you to go sing country western songs with Willie Nelson.)

Thanks for the clarification, Byrd.
I'm looking into this as we speak.

So is Marg......





seekerof

[edit on 9-4-2005 by Seekerof]



posted on Apr, 9 2005 @ 07:05 PM
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Hmmm....seems that what you have mentioned Bryd appears to be valid, thus far.
Apparently, the Confessions of Pontius Pilate, also called "The Archko Volume," is discussed and refuted as a forgery in Goodspeed's book, Modern Apocrypha, Famous "Biblical" Hoaxes.


Modern Apocrypha, Famous "Biblical" Hoaxes by Edgar J. Goodspeed (The Beacon Press, Boston, 1956) the Library of Congress catalog card number is 56-10075

--snip--

Chapter Four of the book, "The Report of Pilate", deals with the Archko Volume.


Apparently, the forger is known and idenified as:


In 1879 a Boonville, Missouri minister, the Rev. W.D.Mahan, published a pamphlet entitled A Correct Transcript of Pilate's Court. In 1884, after the apparent successful distribution and wide spread popularity of the report, Mahan issued a new volume that contained an expanded version of this report along with eleven other such works, under the title, The Archaeological and the Historical Writings of the Sanhedrin and Talmuds of the Jews, Translated from the Ancient Parchments and Scrolls at Constantinople and the Vatican at Rome.

This volume has been reprinted many times under various titles, most often as The Archko Volume or Archko Library.

Mahan accompanied his original report with an account of how he came into possession of the work. In short, he says he obtained the copy through the help of a German scholar, Henry C. Whydaman, from Father Peter Freelinhusen, the chief guardian of the Vatican. Father Freelinhusen provided the Latin text for 35 darics. Whydaman's brother-in-law, C.C. Vantberger of New York, translated the volume. Mahan even includes a letter from Father Freelinhusen to Whydaman that certifies the accuracy and authenticity of the book.

Needless to say, the Vatican does not admit to having any book of this kind nor is there any record in the annals of the Vatican library of any such person as Father Peter Freelinhusen.

The Archko Volume was produced after the Rev. Mahan supposedly traveled to Rome and Constantinople to study the original sources for the life of Jesus. He was assisted by two great, but otherwise unknown scholars, Dr. Twyman of England and Dr. McIntosh of Scotland.


In doing his research on this, Goodspeed verifies his findings through the use of various documentations.
What I found striking was this mention:


General Lew Wallace, the author of Ben Hur, was the American minister to Turkey in 1883. According to Wallace, No one connected with the American legation in Constantinople had any knowledge of a visit by Mahan, nor did any American missionaries at the time, neither did Zia Bey, who was in charge of the library of the mosque of St. Sophia, know of any Mahan or of any of the manuscripts that Mahan professed to have seen there.

Dr. Goodspeed does a great job of documenting many of the absurdities and errors in this "Volume". The most incredible and glaring of these is in the manuscript called "Eli's Story of the Magi". It appears that several pages of this story were copied verbatim from Ben Hur. One striking detail is the use of the word anuman. Eli's story reads, "Egypt is satisfied with her crocodiles and anuman, holding them in equal honor." Page 272 of _Ben Hur_ has some lines that read:

"Egypt was satisfied with her crocodiles and anubis, the Persians were yet devoted to Ormuzd and Ahriman, holding them in equal honor ..."

The anuman word arose because a line was skipped when copying this sentence.


And then goes on to mention:


The Archko is Rev. Mahan's fabrication.

The work presented in the early pamphlet, however, predates the Rev. Mahan. There was an earlier pamphlet published in Boston, 1842, under the title, Pontius Pilate's Account of the Condemnation of Jesus Christ, and his own Mental Sufferings. This was supposedly extracted from an Old Latin manuscript recently found at Vienna. According to Dr. Goodspeed, this earlier pamphlet carries no notice of an author or publisher. This earlier Boston tract is substantially the same as the Rev. Mahan's document. It also appears to be the antecedent of another modern apocryphal work called The Confession of Pontius Pilate.

Goodspeed says that nothing is known about where this Boston pamphlet came from, but he does analyze the contents sufficiently well to show that it is historically improbable.

The Archko Volume: Article by Answers In Action (AIA)

This [below linked] link mentions the alleged hand-written letters by Jesus:


As concerns the "letters from Jesus's own hand," no scholar of any worth, Christian or otherwise, has ever considered these "letters" to be "genuine." Like most Christian writings and artifacts, these "letters" are forgeries. The Catholic Encyclopedia truthfully asserts that the legendary event purported in the most infamous of these "letters," i.e., that to "King Abgar," is an "imaginary occurrence," and states concerning the spurious letter from Christ:

The text is borrowed in two places from that of the Gospel, which of itself is sufficient to disprove the authenticity of the letter. Moreover, the quotations are made not from the Gospels proper, but from the famous concordance of Tatian, compiled in the second century, and known as the "Diatessaron," thus fixing the date of the legend as approximately the middle of the third century.

The Catholic Encyclopedia also says of this "letter":

Its legendary environment and the fact that the Church at large did not hand down the pretended epistle from Our Lord as a sacred document is conclusive against it.


Which then goes on to mention:


As Wells says in The Historical Evidence for Jesus:

About 1200, Constantinople was so crammed with relics that one may speak of a veritable industry with its own factories. Blinzler (a Catholic New Testament scholar) lists, as examples, letters in Jesus' own hand, the gold brought to the baby Jesus by the wise men, the twelve baskets of bread collected after the miraculous feeding of the 5000, the throne of David, the trumpets of Jericho, the axe with which Noah made the Ark, and so on . . .

And Wheless says in Forgery in Christianity:

[T]hat "very dishonest writer," Bishop Eusebius, in the fourth century . . . forged the Letters between Abgar and Jesus, falsely declaring that he had found the original documents in the official archives, whence he had copied and translated them into his Ecclesiastical History . . . If the Gospel tales were true, why should God need pious lies to give them credit? Lies and forgeries are only needed to bolster up falsehood: "Nothing stands in need of lying but a lie." But Jesus Christ must needs be propagated by lies upon lies; and what better proof of his actuality than to exhibit letters written by him in his own handwriting? The "Little Liars of the Lord" were equal to the forgery of the signature of their God - false letters in his name, as above cited from that exhaustive mine of clerical falsities, the Catholic Encyclopedia.

No, a myth doesn't write letters. Forgers do.

Reply by Acharya S





seekerof



posted on Apr, 9 2005 @ 09:13 PM
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Originally posted by Byrd
The purpose of them, of course, was to convert the unbelievers and the writers saw nothing wrong in producing these new documents. Unquestioning believers took these as true, and some of the unsuspicious brought them into their sects. Apparently the Jehovah's Witnesses published a number of them and some of the Mormons took them as gospel.


Could you provide some details as to what the Mormons allegedly used from the Archko documents? I had never heard of these documents until seeing this thread. According to your link, Byrd, this document was written in 1879 by Mahan, which is 49 years after the founding of the Mormon church. Both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, the first two leaders of the Mormon church, were dead by then, and the majority of Mormons were living in Utah. Regardless of whether or not you believe the Mormon claims, I don't see how anything from these documents could have gotten into their religion. Being a Mormon myself, I am naturally interested by the statement that Archko falsehoods made their way into Mormonism.



posted on Apr, 10 2005 @ 12:53 PM
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Just to note, tertullian.org is a great site, Mr. Pearse is a very nice guy too who is honestly interseted in that sort of work.

It should also be noted that its a real great reference site, because there aren't very many copies of these kinds of works on the rest of the internet.



posted on Apr, 11 2005 @ 12:59 AM
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Originally posted by marg6043
I think Seekerof got confused I am talking about the five Gospel that are Forgeries.

And is also a fact about the writers of the time not mentioning Jesus.

Occurs I am not bible follower and I am not believer of the divinity of the Christ and the super natural birth.

I have to clarify that. I am very much intrigue on the historical Jesus and that is what I will like to learn more and I would love to see some new lights of who he really was, without the virginal birth.


Anyone can read and memorize things, I know people who can recite the Bible chapter and verse out of KJV, but they don't know what they are saying.

IF, AND ONLY IF;
You are secure in your doctorine.
You can read material in full, as one would read a novel in its entirity.
You can keep an open mind about what you are reading without passing judgement.

THEN AND ONLY THEN:
Again I Caution You, you should stop reading Now.

You may be interested in reading the Gnostic Texts, I found them to be rather enlightening. Some may seem a little uncharistic, however when you know the why's and wherefores it does jibe.

Start Here:
Nag Hammadi Library

I should mention that there are close to 50 texts available to read, the majority are about Christ, although there are a few from earlier. (Eg. Seth)



posted on Apr, 11 2005 @ 10:17 AM
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Wow Byrd great post I will be spending the next few days here it seems ....wow I like the information and look forward to poking at it to see if it deflates or not many thanks for the find.......if i may could you u2u the source board to me for further back ground..

I know its not common to place infro from one board to another, but since you have done research maybe a side line direction to the board wouldnt be out of line ...and I would be willing not to divulge the board info.




Ps no fair i cant even wats you for this...dang mods dont get to have any fun.

[edit on 11/4/2005 by drbryankkruta]



posted on Apr, 12 2005 @ 07:14 AM
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The problem when this type of documents comes out into the public eye, not matter how much they are debunked, some people already take them as been the truth.

If people would take the time to research and put one and one together, we will not have some many threads in here calling all kind of prophecies to be the real ones.

One thing is to read something to see as to what extend its spread, and another one when someone swears on their butt that what they said is real and everybody else is wrong.

I am very glad you brought up this thread, for the amount of responses compare to prophecies threads you can tell that people still fill more attracted to what "what may happen" rather than real facts when it comes to the religion big scams from time to time, including prophecies.


[edit on 12-4-2005 by marg6043]



posted on Apr, 12 2005 @ 10:28 AM
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I did find online the full text of one of these forgeries; the Aquarian Gospel:

www.sacred-texts.com...

I know that over in Ancient Civilizations we've discussed the "Jesus in India" legend, and in fact the Aquarian Gospel may be the original source for this story:
www.sacred-texts.com...
(note Goodspeed's analysis of the flaws of this one: www.tertullian.org... )

Of even greater interest is this paper, "Jesus of the Cults."
www.cesnur.org...
The whole thing is really worth the time to read it, but you might want to skip down to his main point (called "Jesus of the cults") about halfway down, which talks about the Gnostic revivalism. This was during the Romantic Movement in Europe (which affects philosophy and the arts and to some extent even science), so the concept of Jesus studying ALL the world's religions of his time truly "clicked." The uncovering of a gospel showing that Jesus visited India wasn't far-fetched to them -- there WERE some genuine finds of ancient texts. But this age also saw the rise of something that impacted these texts even more -- this was the rise of spiritualism.

People were talking to spirits and entities during that time, and almost everyone (including some famous skeptics) took this as the complete truth and never questioned anything that the spirits revealed. Using techniques that we call "Channeling", a number of "lost texts of Jesus" and gospels and other "historical documents" (including ones about Atlantis. I've seen some of them, and they're Pretty Darn Awful) were produced. Even Edgar Cayce did a "Channeled Life of Jesus" (I forget what it was called, but it was pretty awful, too.)

Anyway... interesting read, there. Have a peek at it, I think you'll enjoy it.



posted on Apr, 12 2005 @ 11:30 AM
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Interesting links, it just enforce my opinions that the same way people have been tampering with the true Jesus, so the bible scholars did the same when compiling the new testament.

I always feel that the worst mistake the church ever made what to make Jesus into a divine being of heavenly origins.

To keep it real the lie has to be fed constantly and the Church will never find any rest.

The more I read the more I see where the deceiving is coming from. I bet many went through a lot of trouble to hide the truth.

Is interesting to read all this information worst when you can barely distinguish the lies from the truth, because it has become so entangle.

Interesting neverless.



posted on Apr, 12 2005 @ 11:43 AM
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Originally posted by marg6043
I always feel that the worst mistake the church ever made what to make Jesus into a divine being of heavenly origins.


How do we explain the words of the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 7:14 when he prophicies that He will be called Immanuel? ("God with us") How do we explain Psalm 110:1? Even if you leave out the New Testament, there's plenty of evidence that the Messiah is God. Read Micah 5:2 and tell me you can't see that Jesus was God Eternal.

But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times



posted on Apr, 12 2005 @ 12:02 PM
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Is like everything dbates, when prophecies are fore told, but they don't come to fruition, they are made, we humans are very good at making sure that if it doesn't happen we will make it happen.

Remember the bible was a book inspired by "God" with the human point of view of how things were supposed to be and supposed to happen.

Occurs I am not disproving the bible any more that I am telling you is real. This is just a conspiracy theory after all.

If you are faithful nothing I said or anybody said will take away your believes and vice versa.



posted on Apr, 12 2005 @ 04:57 PM
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Originally posted by dbates

Originally posted by marg6043
I always feel that the worst mistake the church ever made what to make Jesus into a divine being of heavenly origins.


How do we explain the words of the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 7:14 when he prophicies that He will be called Immanuel? ("God with us") How do we explain Psalm 110:1? Even if you leave out the New Testament, there's plenty of evidence that the Messiah is God. Read Micah 5:2 and tell me you can't see that Jesus was God Eternal.

But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times

Actually, that should be debated on another thread. But I should point out that these, like the gospel forgeries, are relatively modern in origin. So folks were coming back after the fact, taking verses out of context from the chapters and books, and declaring them prophecy.

This is called (in literature) "recontextualizing" and really deserves another thread because of its complexity.

Y'all are free to start that thread. I'll hop in.



posted on Apr, 12 2005 @ 05:59 PM
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Thanks much still going over the source material but made note of the new information so far some of this has a speechless factor like how did someone come up with this and some raise questions even though I havent completed analysis to say the least I hope to be able to correspond with others here and maybe the original authors cause this is something cool I never heard of.



posted on Apr, 12 2005 @ 07:26 PM
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Wouldn't it be interesting if the Legend of Christ's Divinity came from Pagans that were Absorbed into the Church - i.e. Christ really = Hercules, Mars (Horus), Dionysus, Osiris, Krishna & so on! These were later grafted onto Jesus - which worked out because he was really such a LIBERAL Rabbi - full of Controversial Teachings - be accepting of Women & Different Races & Religions - Love each other & stuff (While still being Essentially Jewish) - isn't that what Christianity really is after all?




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