There is a vast difference between knowledge of the Bible and knowledge. A
person may know all there is in the Bible, and not know but little. In
fact, so much of the Bible is either pure fiction or doubtful history that
one is not sure when he has got hold of what is reliable. Probably no
person whose name appears in the Bible is less a historical figure than
Jesus. As we see him in either gospel he is more the product of the artist
than the work of the biographer. He is less a human being than the
character of a drama.
Had Jesus been pictured as a man, who was born as men are born, who worked
as men worked, who lived and died as men live and die, then there would be
less divergence in the views entertained respecting him. To-day, the Jesus
of Galilee is looked upon as either a God or a tramp; a divine Savior or
an impostor; the perfect man or a lunatic.
The reason of this is that the gospels are found, as it were, photographs
of all those characters labelled Jesus. A person with no fixed idea of
what Jesus was, whether human or divine, whether a Christ or a madman,
would be unable, after reading the gospels to come to any intelligent
conclusion as to what he was. He certainly could not accept the statements
of the authors and regard Jesus as a man.
We fail to understand how anyone can read the New Testament story of Jesus
and not regard him as a myth. No being ever lived on earth and performed
the miracles recorded in the gospels. That is just as sure as the light of
the stars. Miracles are not evidence of divinity, but of falsehood. Where
we read that a man was raised from the dead we know that somebody has
written what is not true. How human beings, who are possessed of ordinary
intelligence, can accept the accounts of miraculous events in the four
gospels as records of actual facts surpasses our comprehension.
Those persons who see in the words of Jesus evidence of _his_ divine
character, see in such words, when in the mouth of any other person, proof
of insanity.
There are contradictory ideas of Jesus contained in the gospels. He is
spoken of as a man, as a Christ, as a son of God, and as God himself. Now,
he could not have been all these. Which was he? Was he God? Was he the son
of God? Was he the Christ or King of the Jews? Was he the son of Mary and
Joseph? Was he a man? Or was he neither?
Our opinion is that Jesus is a myth, that no such being as is painted in
the New Testament ever lived. This seems to be the only rational idea of
Jesus.