Prophet Jesus was a son of Israel. When his mother Mary, who was a sinless virgin, gave birth to him by the will of Allah, the Jews declared this birth illegitimate and attempted to kill Jesus and his mother. Jesus became a prophet at the age of 30 and Allah revealed the Bible to him. At the age of 33, Allah raised Jesus up to Himself. So his prophecy lasted for just three years. Prophet Jesus preached the religion of Allah in secrecy because of the hostility of the Jews. He had very few believers, including the twelve disciples, known as hawariyun, in his three years of prophecy. Prophet Jesus spread the word of Allah under very difficult conditions. He educated his twelve disciples, who assisted him in preaching. They spiritually reached the highest ranks through private conversations with Prophet Jesus. After Allah had raised Jesus up, the disciples began to spread Christianity, the only religion of Allah at that time, in secrecy, by going to different parts of the world. However, while Prophet Jesus knew the Bible completely, the disciples only knew some parts of it. None of them could memorize all of it. Moreover, when they went to different parts of the world, they did not have the Bible, the source book of what they were preaching, with them. The disciples were preaching Christianity to people, usually meeting with them in secret, dark cellars, because of the oppression of the Roman Empire. The disciples, who were admirers of Prophet Jesus, spoke of their memories of him, as well as reciting parts of the Bible and giving advice to people. Those who had been with the disciples and could read and write began to record what they had heard, but not in an organized form; this eventually came to be known as the Bible, or New Testament. Since each of these people had a different understanding and ability to write, some versions of the New Testament, which were different from others or inconsistent, began to emerge. This trend continued for some time. The succeeding adherents attempted to rewrite the so-called new Bibles, quoting first the manuscripts from which were written on dried leathers, but again, not in an organized order. Thus, hundreds of new books, inconsistent with each other and containing a multitude of stories and legends, became widespread, known as Bibles. The Christians were perplexed. On the one hand, they had a cruel enemy, the Roman Empire breathing down their necks, while on the other hand, they had different and contradictory books all known as divine books; add to this the monks who claimed that only their versions were the original Bible and we can understand the situation better. In 330 AD shocking news was heard throughout the Roman Empire. Constantine the Great had converted to Christianity. The people could not believe what they heard. The sole ruler of a great empire, the merciless enemy of Christianity, had become a believer. The news was true. First, the persecution of the Christians came to a halt and then Christianity was declared as the imperial state religion of the Roman Empire. Yet, the confusion of different Bibles still continued. The Christians believe that Constantine the Great was the only man who could solve this problem, because he was the sole ruler of his time, and had built a great city on seven hills with impassable great walls around it known as Constantinople. Constantine the Great convoked the First Council of Nicea in 325 and invited more than 300 priests. The priests, coming from different parts of the Roman Empire, were to resolve the disagreements between hundreds of different gospels and to approve one text as being the true Bible, while discarding the others. This was the goal of Constantine, yet it was too late; Prophet Jesus had been taken up to Heaven 292 years before and the disciples had also passed away many years ago. Many things had happened since that time, many generations had passed and numerous books called the Bible had emerged. There was another situation of which Constantine the Great was not aware. Until he had become sole ruler, the Christians had been persecuted and every type of religious activity had been strictly forbidden. There had been no religious institutes in which priests or monks could be educated. Those priests that were invited to the First Council of Nicea were not registered or educated. They had had no formal religious education. They were untrained people who defended their own gospels as the word of God. The outcome of the Council was clear before it even began. Discussions would take place and every priest would defend his own Gospel, but then what? Of course, the gospel or the gospels of those priests that were backed by Constantine the Great would be approved and the disagreements would be resolved. Constantine initiated an error that would have repercussions until the Day of Judgment. But he had no other choice. His attempt was a historical gamble. Unfortunately, this gamble did not pay off, and everybody lost. After long discussions, the gospels backed by Constantine; that is, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, were approved as being the true Bible. To these were added “The Acts of Apostles”, which, it was claimed, had been written by Luke and some epistles written by others. It was also decided that any other texts were to be destroyed. Yet, there was no unanimous decision. Those who opposed the decision were threatened. For instance, Arius, who was against the decision, was threatened with excommunication and then death. Even though he fled to Egypt this did not help him to survive and he was killed. Constantines iron fist could not stop the confusion of the gospels and it did not satisfy the conscience of the Christians themselves. After Constantines death, the confusion of gospels arose again and another council was held in Laodicea in 364 AD. This council made some changes, announcing them to the public, but it did not solve the problem. In 397, the Council of Carthage was held for the same purpose. If a book is a divine book, not even a comma can be changed. Nevertheless, the changes made to the New Testament continued at different times in councils held in Istanbul, Izmir, Aydin, Ephesus, and Chalcedon. Let me state an explanation that springs from my heart: While trying to explain historical facts regarding the writing of the New Testament, I became very worried and distressed about Prophet Jesus and the True Bible. Constantine the Great came to mind. When he converted to Christianity, he was faced with the fact that there were hundreds of gospels that were inconsistent and contradictory with one another. Probably, he was more worried than me and soon invited the priests to resolve this problem. He could lessen the number of the gospels to four, yet he could not end the confusion. He was not able to do so. Christian believers who cannot answer the question of Why are there four gospels? try to cover the truth that there is more than one New Testament and they deny that the Council of Nicea occurred. I advise them to read the beginning of Luke: Luke: 1.1: O Theophilus, forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a narration of the things that have been accomplished among us, Yes, according to Luke, many began to narrate. What about the others that Luke did not know of? “The Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics’ (Vol. 2, p. 582) says: “Jesus neither left a scripture nor gave any order to his disciples to write anything down.” There is no evidence that Matthew, Mark, Luke or John were the authors of their gospels. The original language of the New Testament is Hebrew. Hebrew scripts of these four gospels still cannot be found. Nor are the identities of the translators into Latin and Greek known.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 22:32:41 +0000
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