Plagiarism in the New Testament (Part 1)
The commencement of our discussion of New Testament plagiarisms will begin with the story of Christ’s temptations in the wilderness at the hand of “the devil.” It turns out that this storyline is by no means unique to Christ’s alleged biography in the gospels. Several aspects of this story were borrowed from Buddhist sources, specifically the temptation regarding the devil promising to give Christ the kingdoms of the earth if he would worship him. From theologian Moncure D. Conway, in his book The Sacred Anthology: A Book of Ethnical Scriptures, we read: “The Grand Being [Buddha] applied himself to practice asceticism of the extremest nature. He ceased to eat [fasted] and held his breath....Then it was that the royal Mara [for all practical purposes, the devil] sought occasion to tempt him. Pretending compassion, he said: ‘Beware, O Grand Being, your state is pitiable to look on; you are attenuated beyond measure,...you are practicing this mortification in vain; I can see that you will not live through it....Lord, that art capable of such vast endurance, go not forth to adopt a religious life, but return to thy kingdom, and in seven days thou shalt become the Emperor of the World, riding over the four great continents.’” To this, the Grand Being, Buddha, replied: “Take heed, O Mara; I also know that in seven days I might gain universal empire, but I desire not such possessions. I know that the pursuit of religion is better than the empire of the world. You, thinking only of evil lusts, would force me to leave all beings without guidance into your power. Avaunt! Get thou away from me!” Is this not reminiscent of Christ’s wilderness ordeal? But do understand that Buddhism preceded Christianity by at least five centuries. Thus we are not dealing with Buddhism copying from Christianity.
Stepping back to the beginning of Christ’s storyline, we find that his conception and birth have an uncanny resemblance to those of Buddha. In both cases, the mother was a paragon of virtue, had a vision, and, without sexual relations, became pregnant with an extraordinary child. Each baby was delivered while the mother was on a journey, and these births were both announced by angels, as the stories go. After the birth of Buddha, a hermit sage, who had heard the celebrations of angels, was told by them that the infant would sit on the throne of enlightenment. In the Christian story, the angels appeared and told shepherds that a child was born who is Christ the Lord. And Christ is said to have later sat at the right hand of the throne of God. Both narratives also stress that holy people came to pay homage to the “heaven-sent” newborn infants. Here are still more striking parallels between these two guru figures:
- Both are said to have walked on water (Jatakas 190; Matthew 14).
- Buddha fed 500 people by miraculously multiplying the available food. Similarly, the Gospel writers recorded that Jesus fed 5,000 people in the selfsame manner (Jatakas 78; Mark 14).
- They were both tempted a total of three times by the devil / Mara.
- Their deaths were supposedly marked by large-scale natural phenomena.
- Buddha was about 30 years old when he began his “ministry,” as was the case with Jesus.
- Jesus fasted for 40 days, whereas Buddha fasted “seven times seven” nights and days (49). But that number, “seven times seven,” should catch our attention, because the amount of times that Jesus told Peter to forgive those who wronged him was “seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:22).
- A band of disciples accompanied Buddha, and so it was with Christ.
- Just like Christ, Buddha traveled from place to place and preached to large gatherings.
- The mission statement of Buddha was “to establish the kingdom of righteousness.” And was that not also broadly the summation of Christ’s mission?
- Salvation was promised to all by Buddha, and he commanded his disciples to preach his doctrine in all places and to all men. The parallel with Christ here is too obvious to require elaboration.
- Christ’s overall philosophy mimicked that of Buddha, who taught his disciples not to kill, steal, lie, commit adultery, or use strong drink.
- Both Buddha and Christ foretold their own deaths.
- Each of them refused a drink twice at the time of their deaths.
- Buddha died between two trees, while Christ died between two crosses.
- These two “holy men” had both promised their last convert that “today you will be in paradise.”
- Death occurred for both of them during a “great darkness.”
- In 1 Corinthians 15:6 we read: “After that [Christ’s resurrection], he [Christ] was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain [alive] unto this present [day], but some are fallen asleep [dead].” Although Buddha was not stated to have risen from the dead, we still find a striking parallel with what happened after his death. Buddhist tradition states that shortly after his passing, five hundred of his Arhats and disciples met in council at Rajagaha for the purpose of recalling to mind the truths they had heard directly from him, during the forty-five years of his teachings. As a curious point of interest, the Coptic New Testament text actually identifies the 500 that saw Christ after his resurrection as “Indian Brahmans.” There is still another parallel in Buddha’s story with the resurrection of Christ. We are told that the dead Buddha was cremated, and that the smoke of his corpse rose and dispersed through the air to anoint his followers with his essence. Thus, in a loose sense he is believed to have risen to life after death. And this smoke that anointed his followers finds a parallel in the New Testament with the Holy Spirit, which disseminated out and “anointed” every believer.
- We also find a parallel between Buddha and Christ in a Buddhist play that dates from the second to the first century BC, known as Samghabhedavastu (Mahâparinirvâna sûtra), which closely corresponds with the tale of Christ’s crucifixion. In this story, Gautama was wrongfully condemned to die on the cross for murdering the courtesan Bhadra. Gautama was impaled on a cross, and his mentor Krishna Dvapayana visited him and entered into a long dialogue, at the end of which Gautama died at the place of skulls, after engendering two offspring—the progenitors of the Ikshavaku Dynasty. So, Buddha died at the “place of skulls.” Recall that Christ was crucified at Golgotha, the “place of the skull.”
Numerous other events in Christ’s life, as described in the gospels, precisely parallel those in the life of
Buddha to such an extent that they cannot be written off as mere coincidences. But the parallels go way
beyond similarities in the life narratives of these two individuals. They also extend into the realm of their anecdotal sayings:
In Matthew 7:3 Jesus said: “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest
not the beam that is in thine own eye?”
In the Dhammapada Buddha wrote: “The faults of others are more easily seen than one’s own, but
seeing one’s own failings is difficult.”
Christ said that he who chooses him as Lord must take up the cross, deny oneself, and follow him. He also
said that his yoke was easy and his burden light
Buddha said: “He who wishes to follow me must know himself and bear my yoke.”
The Mûlasarvâstivâdavinaya begins with a long genealogical list of kings. This is combined with a list of the last seven Buddhas, to give three periods of “fourteen generations,” with a grand total of 42—an identical format to the genealogy of Christ given in the gospel of Matthew.
Christ said to love our fellow man and to do good to those who persecute us.
Buddha stated: “Hostility is never conquered by hostility in this world; hostility is conquered by love.
That is the eternal law.”
Moving on, we now come upon some captivating parallels that exist between parables related by Christ and Buddha:
- Christ’s parable of the Sower in Matthew 13 is in line with a similar story related by Buddha in Samyutta 42—“The Sower.” At the end of this Buddhist parable, the following explanation is given of it, which so very closely matches the explanation given by Christ for his sower parable: “The Blessed One said: ‘Faith is the seed I sow: good works are the rain that fertilizes it; wisdom and modesty are the plough; my mind is the guiding-rein; I lay hold of the handle of the law; earnestness is the goad I use, and exertion is my draught-ox. This ploughing is ploughed to destroy the weeds of illusion. The harvest it yields is the immortal fruits of Nirvana, and thus all sorrow ends.’”
- The Prodigal Son parable that Christ related in Luke 15 is a close match with a story told by Buddha, “The Lost Son,” as recorded in the Lotus Sutra. It depicts a young son who leaves home for distant lands, which makes the father distraught. Years later, looking for work, the son happens upon his now-rich father, but does not recognize him. The father hires him, not telling his son who he is until years later, on his deathbed, when he informs him of his inheritance.
- Christ’s Widow’s Mite parable in Mark 12 lines up with a similar one that Buddha elucidated in the work called Kalpanamanditika. It tells of a poor woman who offered some priests two copper coins that she had found—all the money that she had in her possession. Just then, as the parable goes: “The superior of the priests, a saint who could read the hearts of men, disregarding the rich gifts of others and beholding the deep faith dwelling in the heart of this poor widow, and wishing the priesthood to esteem rightly her religious merit, burst forth with full voice in a canto. He raised his right hand and said, ‘Reverend priests attend!’ and then he went on: ‘The poor coppers of this widow to all purpose are more worth than all the treasures of the oceans and the wealth of the broad earth. As an act of pure devotion she has done a pious deed; she has attained salvation, being free from selfish greed.’” Is this not the message of Christ’s parable of the Widow’s Mite? Indeed, these stories are one and the same.
Digging further into ancient Greek lore, we learn that Hera, the goddess wife of Zeus, resented Zeus’ affair with Semele, as well as the product of that relationship, Dionysus. Thus, to protect Dionysus from Hera, Zeus hid him away from her in Nysa, a mythical city proclaimed to be in or near Egypt. This resembles the story of the infant Jesus being hidden away in Egypt to protect him from Herod the Great, who purportedly wanted him dead.
Dionysus, like Christ, was a traveling teacher and he was alleged to be the god of wine. This too is similar to Christ, who put a heavy emphasis on wine, both in the ceremonial “Lord’s Supper” and the “miracle” of turning water into wine at the Cana wedding feast. Parallel to this, temples that were erected to Dionysus were said to contain vessels of water that tasted like wine on festival days. And when the followers of Dionysus partook of wine ceremonially, it was believed to be a means of having communion with that deity. Incidentally, Dionysus’ followers also ate bread ceremoniously.
In “The Bacchae,” a play written by Euripides in the fifth century BC, we find that Dionysus “gave the pain-removing delight of wine equally to the wealthy man and to the lesser man.” Here we see that Dionysus, like Christ, was reputed to be concerned about the poor and the rich alike. But this passage also again reminds us of the importance Dionysus attached to wine. And with all this focus on wine in the cult of Dionysus, take note of what we read in John 2:11, the context being that of Jesus turning the water into wine at the Cana wedding feast: “Jesus performed this first miracle in Cana in Galilee; there he revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.” The disciples believed in Jesus because of a miracle based on wine? This is as Hellenistic as it can get.
Within the same play just mentioned, we see that Dionysus was arrested for claiming to be divine, and was consequently interrogated by King Pentheus, similar to what is claimed to have happened to Christ at the hand of the Jewish leaders of his day.
When Paul seemingly converted to Christianity (more on this later), he said that the voice of Christ spoke to him on the road to Damascus, saying: “Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” - Acts 26:14. Likewise, in the same play cited a moment ago, Dionysus says to King Pentheus: “Do not kick against the goads, a mortal against a god.”
Before an initiate (or “convert”) could be fully inducted into the Dionysian mysteries, he or she had to partake in a ceremonial washing, the equivalent of baptism in Christianity. Dionysus, said the ancient Greeks, gave the gift of bread to mankind, whereas Jesus referred to himself as the “bread of life,” and we are also told that Jesus fed a large multitude by multiplying loaves of bread and some fish. Do not forget, too, about the bread that he told his disciples to eat in remembrance of himself, when observing the Communion meal.
At the end of his ministry, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey while people waved palm branches at him in the streets. Likewise, Dionysus, says Greek lore, rode on donkeys during his processions, while people waved ivy branches and grape vines before him. At the end of Dionysus’ mission, he is alleged to have ascended heavenward to be with his father Zeus, as was the case with Christ who “ascended” to be with his father after completing his earthly mission.
Christ shared much in common with deities from other pre-Christian world religions, some examples of which we shall now investigate.
The Babylonian fertility god Tammuz, also referred to as the “god of new life,” had a mother goddess named Semiramis (later called Ishtar). Every year, Tammuz was believed to die, passing away from the earth to the gloomy subterranean world, or “hell,” but then later came back to life. The seasonal cycle became connected with his supposed annual death and resurrection. His birth, or rebirth, was made possible by his mother being sprinkled with “the water of life” (semen), which allowed him to emerge from the underworld (i.e. rise from the dead). Thus the Hebrew Passover and the Christian Easter are but echoes of the ancient Tammuz resurrection festival—a time to celebrate new life. In this regard, Jerome, an early Christian writer, penned these revealing words: “This Bethlehem which is now ours, and is the most august spot on earth, was foreshadowed by a grove of Tammuz.”
The titles assigned to Tammuz are also quite telling. He was known, amongst other things, as a “healer,” “faithful son,” and “suffering savior.” You should now be able to see where Jesus himself got such titles from.
Another Babylonian deity that the storyline of Christ was borrowed from was Bel. This god, like Christ, was taken prisoner, tried in the Hall of Justice, smitten, led away to a hill (Christ was taken to Golgotha Hill), and was accompanied by two malefactors, one of which was released. After Bel was taken to the hill, the city below broke out in a tumult (in the story of Christ, the veil in the temple was rent, there was an earthquake, great darkness, and the graves opened up). Bel’s clothes were carried away, whereas Christ’s robe was divided up among the soldiers. Next we are told of weeping women appearing at the gate of Bel’s burial place. And finally, as the story goes, Bel was brought back to life.
Moving on to ancient Egypt, the story of Horus followed a similar pattern. He, too, was born of a virgin (Isis) on December 25. His birth was accompanied by a star in the east (in this case, Sirius), his birth was announced by an angel to Isis, and he was adored by three solar deities and some shepherds. Furthermore, he had a “foster father,” Seb (phonetically similar to Joseph). The infant Horus was carried out of Egypt to escape the wrath of Seth. This escape was made possible because of a warning given by the god Thoth, who told Isis: “Come, thou goddess Isis, hide thyself with thy child.” By the age of 12, Horus was a prodigal child teacher, and by the age of 30 he received the equivalent of baptism by the hand of Anup. At this time he began his earthly “ministry.” Not long thereafter, Anup, the equivalent of John the Baptist, was beheaded. Horus then traveled about with twelve faithful followers, working miracles such as healing the sick, feeding bread to a multitude, walking on water, and raising a man, El-Azar-us, from the dead. (Do recognize the phonetic similarity between the name El-Azar-us and Lazarus, whom Jesus “raised from the dead.”) Additionally, Horus, like Christ, was known as “the truth,” “the light,” “god’s [Osiris’] anointed son,” “the good shepherd,” “the lamb of god,” and “the heir.” He was also associated with a lion and a fish, just like Christ. Another one of his labels was “krst,” meaning “anointed.” Krst is the origin of the Greek word “Christos,” or Christ. And finally, Horus was killed after being betrayed, but was later resurrected from the dead after three days. All of this is recorded in the Egyptian “Book of the Dead.” Yet Christians want us to believe that the story of Christ is unique, original, and divinely-orchestrated.
Curiously, Horus’ mother, Isis, like many other goddesses from the ancient world, was often depicted in Egyptian art with baby Horus in her arms. In other ancient cultures, her equivalent was sometimes portrayed with radiating sunbeams or a solar halo behind her head, and wearing a crown of twelve stars while standing on a crescent moon. With all of this in mind, notice what the apostle John claimed to have been shown in a vision: “A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.” - Revelation 12:1. Now why would such “pagan” imagery be showing up in a “vision from God”? Be sure to understand that the woman in this vision was used as a symbol to represent something “godly”—the pure, chaste bride of Christ (the church).
Osiris, the father of Horus, shared many commonalities with his son, and thus with Christ. He himself was also called a “son of god,” having been the offspring of the earth god Geb. In this respect, our attention now turns to some intriguing comments made by Egyptologist E. A. Wallis Budge, in his book The Gods of the Egyptians: “The Egyptians of every period in which they are known to us believed that Osiris was of divine origin, that he suffered death and mutilation at the hands of the powers of evil, that after a great struggle with these powers he rose again, that he became henceforth the king of the underworld and judge of the dead, and that because he had conquered death the righteous also might conquer death….In Osiris the Christian Egyptians found the prototype of Christ, and in the pictures and statues of Isis suckling her son Horus, they perceived the prototypes of the Virgin Mary and her child.” Further along this stream of thought, Dr. Alvin Boyd Kuhn, a scholar of comparative religion, made this astute observation about the parallels between Christ and the Egyptian gods Horus and Osiris, in his book Who is this King of Glory?—A Critical Study of the Christos-Messiah Tradition: “We are faced with the inescapable realization that if Jesus had been able to read the documents of old Egypt, he would have been amazed to find his own biography already substantially written some four or five thousand years previously.” More than likely, however, Christ’s life, as laid out in the gospels, was largely fabricated by the gospel authors and later editors so as to reflect age-old traditions, in much the same way that Greek mythology copied from Egyptian mythology, which in turn copied from Babylonian mythology, and so on.
Even early Christian writers acknowledged that the story of Christ bears a striking resemblance to the legends of pagan deities that long preceded the Christian era. Ponder what Justin Martyr wrote, who lived from 100 to 165 AD: “When we say that Jesus Christ was produced without sexual union, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended to heaven, we propound nothing new or different from what you [pagans] believe regarding those whom you call the sons of Jupiter….And if we even affirm that He was born of a virgin, accept this in common with what you accept of Perseus. And in that we say that He made whole the lame, the paralytic, and those born blind, we seem to say what is very similar to the deeds said to have been done by Aesculapius.” Justin also wrote: “For when they say that Dionysus arose again and ascended to heaven, is it not evidence the devil has imitated the prophecy?” This last statement is quite a common response from Christians even today. They blame “the devil” for the parallels, when clearly it is simply a matter of plagiarism on the part of the gospel authors and editors.
Not only were early Christians aware of these parallels, but so were pagans in the early centuries of the Christian era. It is most enlightening to contemplate the forthcoming relevant remarks made by one such pagan, Celsus, who wrote them in the late second century (which were recorded in the early third century by the Christian writer Origen Adamantius, in his work called Against Celsus): “Are these distinctive happenings [events in Christ’s life] unique to the Christians—and if so, how are they unique? Or are ours to be accounted myths and theirs believed? In truth, there is nothing at all unusual about what Christians believe.” Can you contend with his conclusions? Does his logic not reverberate with you?
We could go on to cite other examples of pagan deities whom Christ’s life story parallels, but the case of plagiarism here has already been adequately made.
Literary borrowings in the New Testament did not always fail to include due credit. The apostle Paul, for instance, acknowledged his use of a Greek poet in Acts 17:28, although he neglected to mention him by name: “In Him [God] we live and move and have our being; as even some of your [Greek] poets have said, ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’” Here Paul was quoting Aratus (circa 310 to 240 BC), who wrote: “Let us begin with Zeus, whom we mortals never leave unspoken. For every street, every marketplace is full of Zeus. Even the sea and the harbor are full of this deity. Everywhere everyone is indebted to Zeus, for we are indeed his offspring.” The real concern here, for Bible believers, is that Paul was citing a “pagan” source, in reference to a “pagan” deity, and then applying that quote to the god of the Bible. Aratus was talking about Zeus, not Yahweh. But Paul was acting as though there was no difference—that “Yahweh” and “Zeus” were two different names for the same god. Christians try to brush this off, but this is no trifling matter.
On a somewhat related note, Paul said in Acts 20:35: “…Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” Not only did Christ never voice this statement, but it actually originated with a “pagan,” Epicurus. Why was Paul quoting from this guy at all, let alone attributing a comment he made to Christ? This tells us that Paul was not being “divinely inspired” when he made this remark that wound up in “sacred scripture.” It also tells us that he was not very familiar with Christ’s sayings or teachings, but was instead well acquainted with the sayings and teachings of pagan Greeks. You will surely be interested to know that Paul, in all of his writings in the New Testament, almost never quoted anything from Christ. This last-cited passage is one of those rare exceptions to this rule, and yet Christ never even made this statement he ascribed to him. What we have here is an explosive problem.
Speaking of quotes from Christ, we will now move on to a consideration of another type of New Testament plagiarism—one involving Christ himself plagiarizing (or at least the gospel authors putting plagiaristic words in his mouth). We have already looked at one such example, where Christ, without giving due credit, quoted from the apocryphal book of 2 Esdras. But there are quite a few other examples like this in the gospels.
Zoroastrianism is an ancient religion that originated in Iran (Persia), and dates to long before the time of Christ. Its god was / is known as Ahura Mazda, or Ormuzd. Anyway, here are some quotes from the Zoroastrian holy book, known as the Zend Avesta, along with accompanying loosely-plagiarized citations of them from Christ:
“Those who obey the word of God will be free from all defects and [made] immortal.” - Zend Avesta
“If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.” - Matthew 19:17.
“God exercises his rule in the world through the works prompted by the Divine Spirit, who is working in
man and nature.” - Zend Avesta
“But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” - John 16:13.
“All men live solely through the bounty of God.” - Zend Avesta.
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you
will wear….Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your
heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” - Matthew 6:25, 26.
“The soul of the pure will hereafter enjoy everlasting life; that of the wicked will have to undergo
everlasting punishment.” - Zend Avesta.
“The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they
that have done good, unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of
damnation.” - John 5:28, 29.
“And these [the wicked] shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.” -
Matthew 25:46.
Note: The Old Testament also plagiarized the Zend Avesta. One example is found in Ecclesiastes 12:13: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind.” This was stolen, almost wordfor-word, from this next Zend Avesta quote: “The principal duty of man in this life is to obey the word and commandments of God.”
The Encyclopedia Britannica has this to say about the parallels between Christianity and Zoroastrianism: “Like John the Baptist and the Apostles of Jesus, Zoroaster also believed...that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. Through the whole of the Gathas (the Psalms of Zoroaster) runs the pious hope that the end of the present world is not far off.…Ormuzd will summon together all his powers for a final struggle and break the power of evil forever.…Thereupon Ortmuzd will hold a judicium universale upon all mankind and judge strictly according to justice, punish the wicked, and assign to the good the hoped-for reward. Satan will be cast, along with all those who have been delivered over to him, to suffer the pains of hell, into the abyss, where he will thenceforward lie powerless. Forthwith begins the one undivided kingdom of God in heaven and on earth.”
Jesus also plagiarized ancient Egyptian sources, on a grander scale and in a more word-for-word fashion:
- Jesus said: “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” - Luke 17:21. An ancient Egyptian proverb, long predating the time of Christ, likewise stated: “The kingdom of heaven is within you; and whosoever shall know himself shall find it.” - Ancient Egypt, the Light of the World, Gerald Massey.
- Christ talked about the way to destruction being broad, and how the path to eternal life is narrow. Similarly, an Egyptian proverb recorded on stone at Luxor states: “The way of knowledge is narrow.”
- “Seek, and ye shall find” is a phrase assigned to Christ in Matthew 7:7. Correspondingly, a Luxor proverb states: “Seek peacefully, you will find.”
- In John 14:13 Jesus said: “And I will do whatever you [the disciples] ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” Christ was further quoted in Matthew 28:20 as saying: “I will be with you always, even unto the end of the world.” These concepts were lifted right out of the Greek-translated Egyptian magical text known as PGM I.54 (where PGM stands for Papyri Graecae Magicae), which states: “For he [the evoked deity] will respond concisely to whatever you wish. You, then, make him swear with this [specified] oath that he will remain inseparable from you…”
- John 14:23, 26 cites Jesus as saying: “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them....But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” Jesus borrowed these general concepts from Egyptian magical texts as well, several of which promise that the evoked deity: “…will tell you all things clearly and will be a companion, eating with you and sleeping with you.”
- “I am the son of god.” - John 10:36. “I am the son.” - PGM IV.535. “I am the son of the living god.” - DMP XX.33 (DMP stands for Demotic Magical Papyrus).
- “I am…the one come down from heaven” - John 6:51. “I am the one come down from heaven.” - PGM IV.1018.
- “I am…the truth.” - John 14:6. “I am the truth.” - PGM V.148.
- “I and the father are one.” - John 10:30. “You [Father] are in me and I in you.” - John 17:21. “I am you [Hermes] and you are me [says the magic practitioner].” - PGM VII.50. “I am your [Hermes’] image.” - PGM VIII.37.
- “None knows the son but the father, and none knows the father but the son.” - Matthew 11:27. “I know you, Hermes, and you, me.” - PGM VIII.49.
- “No one has seen the father…” - John 6:46. “I am the god whom no one sees.” - PGM XII.230.
- “Thy will be done.” - Matthew 6:10. “Thy will be done.” - PGM XII.189.
- “Father,…glorify your son that your son may glorify you….I have glorified you on earth, completing the task you gave me….I have revealed your name to the men you gave me….Keep them by your name….When I was with them, I guarded them by your name…and I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one….I have revealed to them…your name, that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them.” - John 17. “Glorify me as I have glorified the name of your son Horus.” - PGM VII.504. “Tat, Tat, Tat…come…and reveal thyself to this boy here today…for I will glorify thee in heaven before Phre [a solar deity], I will glorify thee before the moon, I will glorify thee on earth….I am he whom… you gave the knowledge of your greatest name, which I shall keep holy, communicating it to none save your fellow initiates in your holy rites.” - PGM XII.92.
- “I will give you the keys of the kingdom…” - Matthew 16:19. “I [again, the practitioner of magic] am the keeper of the keys of the three-cornered paradise of the earth, the kingdom.” - PGM, III.541.
- “You shall see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man.” - John 1:51. “Open to me heaven, o mother of the gods. Let me see the back of Phre descending and ascending….For I am Geb, heir of the gods.” - DMP X.23.
- “I have come to cast fire on the earth.” - Luke 12:49. “I cast fury on you of the great gods of Egypt. [gods] fill your hands with flames and fire…cast it on the heart of [so and so].” - DMP.
- “…so that they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding.” - Mark 4:12. “…afflict their intelligence, their mind, their senses, so that they may not understand what they do; pluck out their eyes that they may not see.” - Egyptian magical text DT.242.
- Hitopadesa, in Hinduism, around 3,200 BC, taught: “One should always treat others as they themselves wish to be treated.”
- Leviticus 19:18, in the Old Testament, states: “Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
- The Zoroastrian Shast-na-shayast, 13:29, from about 600 BC, states: “Whatever is disagreeable to yourself, do not do unto others.”
- From a Buddhist document, Udanavarga, 5:18, dating to about 560 BC, we get this proclamation: “Hurt not others with that which pains yourself.”
- Confucius’ Analects, 15:23, from 557 BC, says: “What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.”
- Isocrates, circa 375 BC, stated: “Do not do to others what would anger you if done to you by others.”
- The Hindu Mahabharata, dating to around 2,000 BC, declares: “This is the sum of all true righteousness: deal with others as thou wouldest thyself be dealt by. Do nothing to thy neighbor which thou wouldest not have him do to thee hereafter.”
- Epictetus, around 100 AD, likewise stated: “What thou avoidest suffering thyself, seek not to impose on others.”
John 6:53 has Jesus saying: “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.” This is almost a verbatim quote from a Mithraic text, where Zarathustra speaks to his pupils, saying: “He who will not eat of my body and drink of my blood, so that he will be made one with me and I with him, the same shall not know salvation…”
In Matthew 3:17 Yahweh is depicted as voicing these words to Christ, right after he was baptized: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” This phrase was unblushingly borrowed, with near precision, from the ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, in which the goddess Nut is depicted as proclaiming to her son Osiris (in the person of the pharaoh): “The king is my eldest son who split open my womb; He is my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
Matthew 5:28 thusly quotes Jesus: “…whosoever looketh on a woman, to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” This is a somewhat indirect borrowing from The Testament of Benjamin 8:2: “He that hath a pure mind in love looketh not after a woman with a view of fornication; for he hath no defilement in his heart, because the Spirit of God resteth upon him.”
Jesus, in a parable, made this comment in Matthew 12:45: “Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other sprits more wicked than himself…” The concept of seven evil spirits here appears to have been extracted from The Testament of Reuben 2:1: “And now hear me, my children, what things I saw concerning the seven spirits of deceit…” Incidentally, Revelation 5:6 also talks about “seven spirits”: “And I beheld, and, see, in the middle of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the middle of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.” Strangely enough, in Ephesians 4:4 Paul says that there is only one Spirit: “There is one body and one Spirit…”
This next quote from Christ was not original to him either: “Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.” - Matthew 18:15. This was stolen from The Testament of Gad 6:3, 7: “Love ye one another from the heart; and if a man sin against thee, speak peaceably to him, and in thy soul hold not guile; and if he repent and confess, forgive him. But if he be shameless and persisteth in his wrong-doing, even so forgive him from the heart, and leave to God the avenging.”
Jesus summed up the two greatest commandments in this way, as found in Matthew 22:37-39: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God will all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” This concept came from The Testament of Dan 5:3: “Love the Lord through all your life, and one another with a true heart.”
Here is another saying that Christians naively believe to be unique to Christ: “For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.” - Matthew 25:35, 36. The Testament of Joseph 1:5, 6 was the source for this quote: “I was sold into slavery, and the Lord of all made me free; I was taken into captivity, and his strong hand succored me; I was beset with hunger, and the Lord himself nourished me; I was alone, and God comforted me; I was sick, and the Lord visited me; I was in prison, and my God showed favor unto me; in bonds, and he released me.”
Our next endeavor is to evaluate the plagiarism behind the stories of Christ’s alleged miracles. We will begin by looking at comparisons between miracles affixed to both Christ and Buddha. Already we have seen many parallels between these two characters, so it should come as no surprise to find their alleged miracles mirroring each other.
Buddha pretentiously had performed great miracles for the good of mankind, and the legends concerning him are full of the most extravagant claims. In fact, it was the publicized miracles of Buddha that facilitated the popularization of the Buddhist religion. Not only Buddha, but his disciples are also credited with having performed many wonders, as was the stated case with Christ’s disciples. In the Lalita Vistara, Buddha is called the “Great Physician” who is able to dull all human pain. At his appearance, as the story goes, the sick were healed, the deaf could hear, the blind could see, and the poor were relieved. He visited the sick man, Su-ta, and healed his soul along with his body. At Vaisali, a cholera-like epidemic was depopulating the kingdom, due to an accumulation of festering corpses. But once Buddha was summoned, he caused a strong rain to fall that carried away the dead bodies and cured everyone. This sounds like Jesus, who not only was famed to have healed the sick, blind, and deaf, but to have exercised power over the weather, able to calm storms.
On one occasion, a Buddhist monk named Gaudhara was afflicted with a disease so loathsome that none of his brother monks could go near him. The “Great Physician,” however, was not to be deterred; he washed the poor old man and attended to his maladies. Likewise, Jesus was assumed to have performed miracles of this very nature, such as healing people with leprosy, while he himself was not affected by any of their contagions.
Another story relates an incident where one of Buddha’s disciples had his feet hacked off by an unjust king, and yet this presented no challenge for the great Buddha’s healing powers. So much does this sound like the “miracle” Jesus carried out when he restored a severed ear of a slave of the high priest in the Garden of Gethsemane, after Peter took his sword to it.
Still another “miracle” of Buddha involved certain skeptical villagers near Sravasti, whom Buddha enticed into converting by showing them a man walking across the deep and rapid river without immersing his feet, which was said to be a demonstration of his power. This recalls, as should be a given, the “miracle” of Jesus walking on water.
Earlier we talked briefly about Zoroastrianism. The original founder of this ancient Persian religion, Zoroaster, is alleged to have performed miracles in order to confirm his divine mission. And as you may recall, this was the case with Jesus, at least on some occasions. One was when John the Baptist expressed doubts from his prison cell about Christ being the messiah, at which time Christ sent a message of confirmation back to John that he truly was the messiah, predicated on all of his alleged miracles that he was performing (see again Matthew 11:2-5).
Claims of “divine healing” in ancient times were pretty much the norm throughout every culture. Even secular writers were often inclined to believe and report on them. Take, for example, what Diodorus, a first century BC Greek historian, wrote: “Those who go to consult in dreams the goddess Isis recover perfect health. Many whose cure has been despaired of by physicians have by this means been saved, and others who have long been deprived of sight, or of some other part of the body, by taking refuge, so to speak, in the arms of the goddess, have been restored to the enjoyment of their faculties.” Christians today read such reports with scorn, usually asserting that these stories were simply made up. At the same time, though, from the other side of their mouth they will insist that the biblical accounts of miracles are not to be questioned. What a sickening double standard.
Esculapius was believed in the ancient world to have been another great performer of miracles. The Greeks claimed that he not only cured the sick of the most malignant diseases, but that he even raised the dead. According to his legacy, miracles continued to occur many years after his death, through faith in his name. Patients were conveyed to the temple of Esculapius, and there they were cured of their various diseases. Marinus, a scholar of the philosopher Proclus, related one seemingly remarkable healing at the hand of this deified wizard. He wrote: “Asclipigenia, a young maiden who had lived with her parents, was seized with a grievous distemper, incurable by the physicians. All help from the physicians failing, the father applied to the philosopher, earnestly entreating him to pray for his daughter. Proclus, full of faith, went to the temple of Esculapius, intending to pray for the sick young woman to the god, for the city [Athens] was at that time blessed in him, and still enjoyed the undemolished temple of The Savior, but while he was praying, a sudden change appeared in the damsel, and she immediately became convalescent, for the Saviour, Esculapius, as being God, easily healed her.” Do note how Esculapius was here referred to as both “Savior” and “God.” And did you also pick up on how casually this healing was reported? It was talked about as though it was an established fact. And so it was with many other records of miracles in ancient times, including those in the Bible.
As with all other regions of the ancient world, the performance of “miracles” in Israel long ago, particularly at the time of Christ, was quite the fad. Jesus was only one of many who toured the countryside, dazzling audiences with their “divine powers.” One such healer that is worthy of note went by the name of Hanina ben Dosa. He was said, amongst other things, to have raised the dead and to have had control over the weather. Interestingly enough, he bore the title of “son of man.” Another healer from this same time and place was Honi the Circle-Drawer, so named because he would draw a circle in the dirt during a drought and proclaim that he would not move from the circle until God made it rain, at which time rain would allegedly immediately fall. Honi also had two grandsons, Hanan the Hidden and Abba Hilqiah, the latter of which had supposedly performed many supernatural feats of his own.
In John chapter 2 we read about the “miracle” of Christ turning water into wine at the Cana wedding feast. Verses 7-10 have this to say: “Jesus said to the servants, ‘Fill the jars with water’; so they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, ‘Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.’ They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, ‘Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.’” Was this really a “miracle,” or was Jesus simply employing an old sleight of hand magician’s trick? You may recall how we talked earlier about Christ having borrowed a lot of his sayings from ancient Egyptian magical texts. Well, this was again what he was doing here with his water-into-wine miracle—borrowing from an Egyptian magical text, which taught him this trick. The text in question was a book called Pneumatika that was written by a contemporary of Christ, Heron of Alexandria. In this book, Heron shared some of the secrets of his magic tricks, one of which was—you guessed it—a “miracle” of turning water into wine. This is what he wrote: “A jar can be made…in such a way that, when wine and water are poured into it, it shall discharge at one time pure water, at another time unmixed wine, and, again, a mixture of the two. We may…pour out wine for some, wine and water for others, and mere water for those whom we wish to jest with.” How can it be denied that Jesus was copying his “miracle” from Heron? Please read the above-cited passage from John 2 again, to see that, with Christ’s magic trick, nobody actually saw the water turn to wine before their eyes. This was no “miracle.”
Notably, the Talmud implies that Jesus really did learn magic in Egypt. It says of him, quoting from Rabbi Eliezer: “...[He] brought magic marks from Egypt in the scratches on his flesh…” The Talmud further states that Jesus “...was to be stoned because he practiced magic and...led Israel astray.” Further along this line, in 2008 the French marine archaeologist Franck Goddio announced the discovery of a first century clay vessel, found offshore from ancient Alexandria, which had the words “by Christ the magician” incised on it. And finally, these pertinent remarks were made by the second century Christian apologist Justin Martyr, in regards to critical eyewitnesses of Christ’s miracles: “But though they saw such works [Christ’s miracles], they asserted it was magical art. For they dared to call [Jesus] a magician, and a deceiver of the people.”
We find still more evidence in the New Testament that Jesus was a magician who stole his magic tricks and tactics from other practitioners of magic. Another good example of this is recorded in Mark 7:33-35: “After he [Jesus] took him [a deaf mute] aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, ‘Ephphatha!’ At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened, and he began to speak plainly.” Here we have the use of two classic magician techniques. One is an affirmation, in this case “Ephphatha,” meaning “Be opened.” Have not all magicians through the ages used “magic words,” or incantations, in their theatrical performances? But the real plagiarism comes with the other tactic Christ employed here—the use of saliva. It turns out that using spit to “heal” was a common practice in the ancient world. We see this in The Flavian Emperors, written by Suetonius: “A certain man from the common people who had lost his sight and likewise another with a crippled leg approached him [Vespasian] together while he was sitting in the front of the tribunal [in Alexandria]. Vespasian would, they had been told, make their eyes better if he spat on them and would heal the leg if he touched it with his heel.”
Here is another New Testament “spit” passage: “They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he spat on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, ‘Do you see anything?’” - Mark 8:22, 23. Why would Jesus have needed to lead this man away, outside the village? Can it be that he did not want too many people to see this “miracle” because they knew that this man was not really blind—that the whole thing was staged, just like the “miracles” of modern televangelists? Nevertheless, look at how we again see the use of spit in this “miracle.” We have classic pagan plagiarism here once more, do we not? But the truth is, if Jesus was genuinely in possession of “divine power” to heal, then why would he even need a prop like spit? What possible function could that have served? John 9:6 similarly states: “When he [Jesus] had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay.” Again, why make mud with spit? Outside the context of a magical prop, there is no explanation for this element to have been included in a “divine miracle,” especially when we realize that this same technique was employed by “pagan” healers.
Incidentally, when the Mark 8 “miracle” we just looked at is read in its full context (Mark 8:22-26), we discover that Jesus failed to fully heal this man the first time. It was only on the second take that the man’s eyesight was fully restored. How ridiculous can you get? Was Jesus’ power inadequate to heal the first time? Was this an exercise in trial and error?
A story of a “miraculous” catch of a large number of fish, wrought through the risen Christ, is found in John 21:1-11. In this “fish story,” the disciples brought up 153 fish in their net. One would first have to wonder who actually undertook counting them all, and why. But here is something far more disturbing: This number—153—is taken from another ancient fish story, this time from ancient Greek lore. In this tale, Pythagoras, a strict vegetarian, bet some fishermen that if he could correctly guess the number of the fish in their nets, they would let them go free. Of course, he got it right—there were 153 of them, just like in the Jesus fish story from 500 years later. One-hundred-fifty-three, as it turns out, was a sacred triangular number to the Pythagoreans. Although the Greek parallel of this Jesus miracle story is not itself about a miracle, per se, we are still dealing with another instance of biblical plagiarism of sorts.
Since we are on the topic of Christ’s miracles, here are some other examples of such wonders ascribed to him that, although they do not necessarily involve plagiarism, nevertheless can still be demonstrated as having been nothing more than sleight of hand tricks, further indicating that Christ was simply an illusionist like so many of his contemporary pagan miracle workers.
Mark’s gospel records what could be called a “negative miracle” performed by Christ, when he cursed the fig tree and it died. We learn about this story specifically from Mark 11:12-14, 20, 21: “The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again.’ And his disciples heard him say it….In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!’” This “miracle” is strange for several reasons. First of all, the impression is given here that Jesus was using his “divine power” to kill this tree simply out of frustration that he was hungry and was not able to get any fruit from it to eat. Not a very good lesson in self control, to say nothing of compassion for living entities. But what is most bizarre of all is the fact that this very passage says there was no fruit on this tree because “it was not the season for figs.” We see, then, that Christ not only cursed this tree out of anger, but he did so for something it had no control over. And would you not expect that he would have known it had no fruit on it from the beginning, since it was not the season for figs? As far as this tree being dead by the next morning, if this story even took place at all, probably what happened is that Christ later doused it with some poison of some kind. But in any case, did not this act of Christ cursing the tree amount to him putting a hex on it, or at least creating the illusion that he was hexing it? Does this not constitute yet another magician’s trick?
We later find the apostles doing the same thing—placing hexes on people (or at least creating the illusion thereof, in classic magician fashion). One example of this is recorded in Acts 13:6-12, where Paul is shown placing a hex, or curse, on Bar-Jesus, the sorcerer. Here Paul is depicted as saying: “You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? Now the hand of the Lord is against you. You are going to be blind, and for a time you will be unable to see the light of the sun.” Nice guy, that Paul.
Peter was even more cruel than Paul. In Acts 5:1-11 he is pictured placing a curse of his own—a far worse one: “But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles’ feet. But Peter said, ‘Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.’ And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things. And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him. And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. And Peter answered unto her, ‘Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much?’ And she said, ‘Yea, for so much.’ Then Peter said unto her, ‘How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out.’ Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband. And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things.” If this is not black magic, then what, exactly, is black magic? And look at how minor the offense was—simply withholding some cash. This warranted Peter’s alleged death curse? This scene was surely staged to intimidate people into giving all that they had. But regardless, it certainly is not very becoming of one that is filled with “the love of Jesus” to act in such a manner. Where is the spirit of forgiveness here that the gospels say Jesus taught Peter, telling him to forgive seventy times seven? And look at how it says that “great fear came upon all the church.” This is most disturbing, because Paul said that “God has not given us the spirit of fear.” - 2 Timothy 1:7.
Let us now look at a good example of a curse being inflicted in the Old Testament. In 2 Kings 2:23, 24 we find Elisha placing a curse, “in the name of the Lord,” on a group of young boys that made fun of him, calling him “baldy”: “From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. ‘Get out of here, baldy!’ they said. ‘Get out of here, baldy!’ He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.” The implication here is that this curse invoked the power of “the Lord” to send these bears out to maul these young boys, and all for simply name-calling. Not only do we find a magical curse being employed here, but the story itself is not so inspiring either, as this is the very antithesis of the type of response you would expect from a loving god and his faithful follower. Returning to our discussion of Christ’s alleged miracles…
Perhaps the most famous of all Christ’s professed miracles was the raising of Lazarus from the dead. To Christians, this story is one of the most powerful pieces of evidence that Jesus truly was “sent from God.” But first of all, how do we even know that this event took place? Is it because a book that contradicts itself at every turn and constantly plagiarizes pagan sources tells us so? Can we really afford to place so much confidence in such a pathetically unreliable source? But no matter, because this “miracle” is likewise full of holes, as you should have come to expect by now. Christ’s raising of Lazarus is recorded in John chapter 11. In verse 16 we find the disciple Thomas saying something very strange to the other disciples in regards to accompanying Jesus on his visit to the seemingly deathly-ill Lazarus: “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Do Christians ever stop to ponder such statements like this? Was Thomas actually desirous of dying along with Lazarus? How is one to make any sense of this? Actually, we can make sense of it, but it is not something that Bible believers would want to hear.
The death that Thomas was talking about here was not a literal death, but a symbolic, spiritual one, even though the story that followed seems to have involved a literal, physical death of Lazarus. What Thomas meant by his comment in John 11 is that he wanted to join Lazarus in dying a spiritual death so that he could then be “raised” by Christ to live a new spiritual life. The Lazarus resurrection story in the book of John probably never originally carried the inference of a literal death and resurrection. This element was most likely added later on, to give this narrative a more dramatic touch.
It so happens that the original gospel of Mark also once contained an account of the Lazarus resurrection story, which showed with much greater clarity that Lazarus’ death was non-literal. This missing part of Mark’s gospel was discovered in 1958 by Professor Morton Smith of Columbia University. He found it in a monastery near Jerusalem, contained in an ancient letter written by Clement to a certain Theodore. It reads as follows: “And they came into Bethany, and a certain woman [Martha], whose brother [Lazarus] had died, was there. And, coming, she prostrated herself before Jesus and says to him, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me.’ But the disciples rebuked her. And Jesus, being angered, went off with her into the garden where the tomb was, and straightaway a great cry was heard from the tomb [consequently, Lazarus was not really dead]. And going near, Jesus rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb. And straightaway, going in where the youth was, he stretched forth his hand and raised him, seizing his hand. But the youth, looking upon him, loved him and began to beseech him that he might be with him. And going out of the tomb they came into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days, Jesus told him what to do and in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over [his] naked [body]. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the kingdom of God. And thence arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan.” So Lazarus was not dead in the tomb. This whole “miracle” was simply a religious ritual. And as far as the other claims of Christ raising the dead go, well, do you actually want to try to make the case that those recollections are reliable? (More will be said on the Lazarus resurrection story shortly.)
Luke 8:43-46 tells this story of magic trickery on the part of Jesus: “And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. ‘Who touched me?’ Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter said, ‘Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.’ But Jesus said, ‘Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.’” Here we see how Christ wanted the idea to come across that merely touching his garment was enough to effect a miracle. He then augmented this by saying he felt a power—a magical power—going out from him. Does this really sound like a divine being working “the power of God”? No wonder the Dark Ages are filled with stories of healings of people who simply touched a “sacred relic” (and usually a phony relic at that). Passages like this are so spectacularly juvenile. Here is another one along this same line, from the Old Testament: “Elisha died and was buried. Now Moabite raiders used to enter the country every spring. Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man’s body into Elisha’s tomb. When the body touched Elisha’s bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet.” - 2 Kings 13:20, 21. We cannot avoid asking the question: If Elisha’s bones were so magical as to bring other people back to life, why did he himself die in the first place?
Consider still another passage of this same sort, turning back to the New Testament: “God gave Paul the power to do unusual miracles, so that even when handkerchiefs or cloths that had touched his skin were placed on sick people, they were healed of their diseases, and any evil spirits within them came out.” - Acts 19:11, 12. What hocus pocus.
Peter seems to have outdone Paul in the miracle department, at least as far as methodology went. Whereas Paul’s miracles minimally required contact with something he touched, Peter was purportedly capable of healing simply by having his shadow cast upon the sick: “…people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by.” - Acts 5:15.
Coming back to Jesus and his “miracles”… A very strange rendition of a “miracle” of Christ is found in John 9:7: “‘Go,’ he [Jesus] told him [a blind man], ‘wash in the Pool of Siloam.’ So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.” Can you tell what is wrong with this verse? If Jesus had supernatural powers to heal this man, why would he need to tell him to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam to effect this miracle? Are we to believe that the pool itself had magical healing properties? For that is exactly what this verse is saying.
We find out about another “miraculous” pool—the Pool of Bethesda—in John 5:2-4: “Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.” What nonsense. This passage is telling us, not only that this pool had magical healing powers like the Pool of Siloam, but that those powers only worked for the person who was lucky enough, like a lottery winner, to be the first to step therein after an alleged angel stirred up the water. How arbitrary (aside from being dubious). Would a loving god, if he were really interested in healing handicapped people, only do so for one lucky, random individual who happened to be at the right place at the right time? This was nothing more than an old superstition—a wives’ tale. And yet we see that, in John 9:7, Jesus endorsed this very same type of foolishness.
Regarding the concept of magical waters, here is a related passage from the Old Testament: “So he [Naaman] went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.” - 2 Kings 5:14. This verse stands as a further example of old superstitions that carry the seal of approval of “the word of God.
We have been talking quite a bit about magic being pawned off as “miracles” in the New Testament. But this same arrangement, of course, also exists in the Old Testament. One example of “magic water” was just cited from 2 Kings 5:14. But there are several other troubling references of this same nature in the more archaic part of the Old Testament, the Torah. So let us now pause to contemplate some of them.
Numbers 21:8, 9 says: “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.’ So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.” Is this not magic? And is it not also ludicrous nonsense? If “the Lord” was truly interested in saving the Israelites from deadly snake bites, why not just heal them after they prayed to him, or perhaps prevent the snakes from biting them in the first place? And what if a person was blind and thus unable to look at the bronze snake? Was he or she out of luck?
Moses essentially had a magic wand (his staff) through which he parted the Red Sea. He (and his brother Aaron) also used it to counter the magic of the pharaoh’s magicians, by having it turn into a snake that ate the snakes that the pharaoh’s magicians’ rods had magically transformed into (Exodus 7:8-13). Reading this account sounds more like two egotistical magicians battling it out, rather than a true believer in “God” trying to sway a non-believing heathen king. But let us have a look at what transpired when Yahweh first introduced Moses to this “magic wand,” having him test it out for the first time: “And the Lord said unto him [Moses], ‘What is that in thine hand?’ And he said, ‘a rod.’ And he said, ‘Cast it on the ground.’ And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it....And the Lord said unto Moses, ‘Put forth thine hand, and take it by the tail.’ And he put forth his hand, and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand....And the Lord said furthermore unto him, ‘Put now thine hand into thy bosom.’ And he [Moses] put his hand into his bosom: and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous as snow. And he said, ‘Put thine hand into thy bosom again.’ And he put his hand into his bosom again; and plucked it out of his bosom, and, behold, it was turned again as his other flesh.” - Exodus 4:2-6. Was this an exercise of Yahweh trying to impress Moses with his magical powers? All this sounds like is a reading from some witch’s manual on magic. But do not miss the game played by Yahweh on Moses here, having his hand alternate between being leprous and then being made whole again. Could this god not come up with a better, less gruesome way to display his almighty power to Moses, which did not involve temporarily maiming him?
Speaking of leprosy, in Leviticus 14:2-32 Yahweh prescribed a magical cure for this disease: First, get two birds and then kill one of them. Then dip the live bird in the blood of the dead one. After that, sprinkle the blood on the leper seven times, and then let the blood-soaked bird fly away. Next, find a lamb and kill it. Wipe some of its blood on the patient’s right ear, thumb, and big toe. Then sprinkle him seven times with oil and smear some of the oil on his right ear, thumb, and big toe. Repeat. Finally, find another pair of birds. Kill one and dip the live bird in the dead bird’s blood. Rub some blood on the patient’s right ear, thumb, and big toe. Sprinkle the house with blood seven times. And then, presto! the leper is healed. Does this not sound like something out of a wizard’s book of spells? Do bear in mind, though, that these very instructions came directly from Yahweh.
A similar “cure” was given by Yahweh for cleansing a house from mold: “To purify the house he [the officiating priest] is to take two birds and some cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop. He shall kill one of the birds over fresh water in a clay pot. Then he is to take the cedar wood, the hyssop, the scarlet yarn and the live bird, dip them into the blood of the dead bird and the fresh water, and sprinkle the house seven times. He shall purify the house with the bird’s blood, the fresh water, the live bird, the cedar wood, the hyssop and the scarlet yarn. Then he is to release the live bird in the open fields outside the town. In this way he will make atonement for the house, and it will be clean.” - Leviticus 14:49-53.
Yahweh appears to have employed magical powers to keep the clothes and shoes of the Israelites from wearing out over a period of forty years. As Deuteronomy 29:5 puts it: “And I [Yahweh] have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot.” Just think of the money we could save if Yahweh would only work a magic miracle like that for us today.
While traveling through the wilderness with the children of Israel, Moses was told by Yahweh to strike a rock with his “magic wand,” which then spewed forth water for them to drink (see Exodus 17:1-7). Once again, how is this not magic, or witchcraft? Why would the alleged “Almighty” require Moses to strike a rock with a staff to get water?
Here is another ridiculous story that involves Yahweh’s strangely conditional magical powers: “As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning.” - Exodus 17:11. Does this type of conduct strike you as acceptable for an alleged all-loving god? Would such a god really allow people’s lives to be endangered just because an old man grew tired and was not able to hold up his hands any longer? We are actually told of Aaron and Hur coming to Moses’ aid, to help him keep his hands in the air so the Israelites could be victorious in battle (verse 12). But an even bigger problem with this story is the fact that this “loving god” would want, let alone allow, his chosen ones to fight in deadly wars (a topic which we will take up in all of its gory details later on).
With magical stories of Moses like these before us, it is no wonder that many people, down through the centuries, have concluded that he was indeed a magician. As a case in point, in Against Celsus, Origen quoted Celsus as saying, not only that Moses was a magician, but that the ancient Hebrews, as a whole, were addicted to sorcery. In Papyri Magicae Gracae 13, dated to the third or fourth century of the Christian era, Moses is mentioned as having been the author of several magical books and charms. Why should we doubt any of this? In fact, look what King Belshazzar of Babylon is reported to have said about the prophet Daniel: “There is a man in your kingdom who has the spirit of the holy gods in him. In the time of your father he was found to have insight and intelligence and wisdom like that of the gods. King Nebuchadnezzar your father—your father the king, I say—appointed him chief of the magicians, enchanters, astrologers and diviners.” - Daniel 5:11. Daniel was the chief of the magicians, enchanters, astrologers, and diviners? It looks like we have a problem here, Houston.
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