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THE GOSPELS
If you read Luke 1:2 – 3, you will learn, as I did
that Luke (who was not one of the 12 disciples and
never met Jesus) said that he himself was not an
eyewitness to Jesus’ walk on earth, and the
knowledge he gathered was from eyewitnesses,
and not as words inspired by God.8
Incidentally, why does every “Gospel” begin with the
introduction ACCORDING TO. Why “according
to?” The reason for this is because not a single one
of the gospels carries its original author’s
autograph! Even the internal evidence. of Matthew
9:9 proves that Matthew was not the author of the
first Gospel which bears his name:
“And as Jesus passed forth thence, HE (Jesus)
saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the
receipt of custom: and HE (Jesus) saith unto
HIM (Matthew), follow ME (Jesus). And HE
(Matthew) arose, and followed HIM (Jesus).”
Without any stretch of the imagination, one can
see that the HE’s and the HIM’s of the above
narration do not refer to Jesus or Matthew as its
author, but a third person writing what he saw or
heard – a hearsay account, JO and not words
inspired by God.
It is worth noting, and well known throughout the
religious world, that the choice of the present four
“gospels” of the New Testament (Matthew, Mark,
Luke and John) were imposed in the Council of
Nicea 325 C.E. for political purposes under the
auspices of the pagan Emperor Constantine,5 and
not by Jesus.
Constantine’s mind had not been enlightened
either by study or by inspiration. He was a pagan,
a tyrant and criminal who murdered his son, his
wife and thousands of innocent individuals
because of his lust for political power. Constantine
ratified other decisions in the Nicene creed such as
the decision to call Christ “the Son of God, only
begotten of the Father.”lJ
Literally, hundreds of gospels and religious
writings were hidden from the people. Some of
those writings were written by Jesus’ disciples,
and many of them were eyewitnesses to Jesus’
actions. The Nicea Council decided to destroy all
gospels written in Hebrew which resulted in the
burning of nearly three hundred accounts. 13
If these writings were not more authentic than the four
present gospels, they were of equal authenticity.
Some of them are still available such as the
Gospel of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hennas
which agree with the Quran.5 The Gospel of
Barnabas, until now, is the only eyewitness
account of the life and mission of Jesus. 13
Even today, the whole of the Protestant world,
Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists and
other sects and denominations condemn the
Roman Catholic version of the Bible because it
contains seven “extra” books. The Protestants
have bravely expunged seven whole books from
their “Word of God.” A few of the outcasts are the
Books of Judith, Tobias, Baruch and Esther. 10
Concerning Jesus’ teachings of the Gospel
(Injeel), the Gospel writers frequently mentioned
Jesus preaching the Gospel: Matthew 9:35, Mark
8:35 and Luke 20:1. The word “gospel” is
recurrently used in the Bible. However, in the New
Testament Greek edition, the word evangelion is
used in place of the word gospel, which is
translated to mean good news. 14
My question was:
What Gospel did Jesus preach? Of the 27 books of
the New Testament, only a small fraction can be
accepted as the words of Jesus, 10 and only 4 of the
27 books are known to be attributed as the Gospel
of Jesus. Paul supposedly wrote the remaining 23.
Muslims do believe that Jesus was given God’s
“Good News.” However, they do not recognize the
present four Gospels as the utterances of Jesus. 14
The earliest Gospel is that of Mark’s which was
written about 60-75 A.D. Mark was the son of
Barnabas’s sister.
Matthew was a tax collector, ~
minor official who did not travel around with
Jesus. Luke’s Gospel was written much later, and
in fact, drawn from the same sources as Mark’s
and Matthew’s. Luke was Paul’s physician, and
like Paul, never met Jesus. By the way, did you
know that the names Mark and Luke were not
included in the 12 appointed disciples of Jesus as
mentioned in Matthew 10:2-4?
Now the names of the twelve apostles are these; The
first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his
brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his
brother; Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and
Matthew the publican; James the son of Alphaeus, and
Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus; Simon the
Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.
John’s Gospel is from a different source, and was
written in about 100 A.D. 7 He (John) should not be
confused with John, the disciple, who was
beheaded by Agrippa I in the year 44 CE long
before this gospel was written.
It should be known that for two centuries it was hotly debated whether
the Gospel of John should be accepted as a reliable
account of the life of Jesus, and whether it should
be included in the scriptures.
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