I have noticed in my experiences that, in modern times, there has been some argument over the validity of some of the so-called “lost books of the Bible.” The most recent of such books is the Gospel of Judas, discovered in Egypt. It tells us that Judas did not in fact betray Jesus but was instructed by Jesus himself to turn him into the Romans.
I won’t bore you with all the details of what the book says as you can look it up online as easily as I can.
A thought occurred to me in reading about this controversy, “What if I were to write my own book in the Bible telling my experiences?” Since there is already a John in there, my book will be “The Gospel of Phifer.” My story will probably be very different from that which they portray in the existing books of the Bible. It will be the tell-all book that reveals the secrets of the Bible that they didn’t want you to know.
Before going on, I must assure you that I am in no way trying to prove that the Christian faith is a lie, I myself am a practicing Lutheran. I am simply saying that there is room for doubt that some of the things Jesus was said to have done may not have happened the way they are told.
The reason most people believe in God and the whole story of Jesus Christ is because they knew how to scare people into believing their existence. This can be proven in two ways: death and lack of understanding. I’ll elaborate for those that don’t believe me. If you read the Bible, there is a lot of punishment and killing going on, a prime example being the story of Noah and his ark. Since God is angry with his people, he decides to wipe out all but two of everything and start over. I think I’d be convinced that a higher power existed if it rained for 40 days and 40 nights unexplainably, wouldn’t you? There are too many other stories of people being killed as proof of God for me to name, but feel free to read about it sometime if you don’t believe me.
Similarly, Jesus was said to be the son of God because he was supposedly able to walk on water, heal the unwell, as well as many other miracles. Any of these supposed miracles could have been simple acts as far as we in modern times are concerned. Recently a news article was published stating findings from Florida State University that suitable conditions existed during the time of Jesus Christ for a layer of ice to form over bodies of water. If this is indeed true, then one of the most well-known accomplishments of our savior may not be so great after all.
My next argument in the possible exaggeration of Jesus’ abilities has to do with him turning water into wine. In the second book of John, there is a story of a wedding which Jesus attended. They ran out of wine partway through, so the mother notified Jesus of the problem. It goes on to say that he had six twenty-gallon stone jars filled with water and that when the waiters served the water drawn from the jars, it was wine. Now as a college student who sees the effects of alcohol on the average person at a party, I have a hard time with this account.
I’ll apply this story to college life, and you can be the judge. You’re at a party where everyone has been drinking for awhile and partway through, they run out of beer. You tell your buddy the bad news and he tells you he’ll take care of it, he just needs a few empty kegs. “Magically,” your buddy has filled the kegs, and everyone is happy again. My point here is that if this was a group of heavy drinkers at the wedding in the Bible story, that we really can’t trust the testimony of anyone that was present.
The observations I have made here today are not meant to make disbelievers of you. I just wish for people to not always take a story that was written over 2,000 years ago and has been interpreted into multiple languages from its original form at face value. To those that do simply take the stories of the Bible as truth without first thinking about them, I have a question for you: If a jaguar were to walk into the Vaughn Center lobby and immediately began killing people, would you bow down and start to worship it as well?