1959-09-12 — Page 8

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THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1859.*.

ARE THE GOSPELS REALLY TRUE PART FOUR

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• 2.BRISTOL AVENUE 444 KOWLOON.(Frestul Maurma Haret),

JUST outside Nazareth a small

Arab boy had spat with copious accuracy at our car's Jewish wind- screen. The town itself was filled with his fellow-nationals, but in the cool of approaching evening it was still a place which invited you to stop, quite apart from ita associa. tions.

The view across the valley was beautiful, the Franciscan church and chapels were tasteful. But I found no- thing on the site to recall the Holy Family,

Even our obliging guide did not venture to point out the original carpen- ter's shop. All that remained was n cave-cellar in the grey rock, with no traces of the trade plied there.

It struck me that thin was as it should be. The Founder of Christianity in not, after all, portrayed in the Gospels

doing carpentry. His life as a manual worker is bare-

ly mentioned. He is a classless figure..

:

upsets

the critics

Nazareth, the village of Christ's boyhood. Today,

19 centuries later, the same kind of people' squot on the same dusty carth and haggle over the price of merchandise. This is the scene of the fourth instalment of the China Mail investigator's Holy Land despatches.

by GEOFFREY

ASHE

much of the writing attributed to Luke was not really his.

He ended by owning his belief, ---- that the Gospel and Acts were genuine and that Luke Was reliable. More than rollable, rold Sir William: He was one of

all, a rival of Tacitua

What mattered to un carly And whether they were or not, the finest anciant historians of

they were written when eye- Thucydides,

Ged

Dr Albert Schweitzer, 100,

A few yards down the Christian was the group of eye-

witnesses and Inspired teachers. wlinesses were still alive and street I came face to face The Apostles who had known available; when the records of with another world power, the Lord, their followers, and the young Church ware Intact; after long probing .of the and

Peler, when no major heretic bad yet evidence, has declared that contrasting ideal. helpers and friends R

Mark, Luke, and stirred up confusion. Over a shop front was the John, Paul, sign:

WORKERS' BANK.

For in the home town of Jesus. the Communist Party dominates local affairs.

others like them.

These were the authorities, the guardians of a well-kept tradi-

tion..

No Proof? ·

can

we

know more about Jesus--in a

factual, historical sense than about almost any other figure of the first century,

It is now held generally that Mark was written not later than A.D. 88; Matthew and Luke nut Jater than E5; John noi later There is no real gop at all. than 109.

no toơm for the growth of There is, of course, other lived, the Apostles were de

falsification. So long as they evidence besides that papyrus, Quotations

to under-

from the Gospels sperately careful that the sacied Let us look at the men who

Identifted In other tradition should be kept pure. wrote the

Who have been Gospels. Nazareth is 01:1 Arab

How reliable was books which are known to be were they? centre antexcd by the this

Aporiolic tradition they carly, so that the Gospels them The Last Act fornelis during their war of drow on? And above all aclves must be even earlier. Independence: It clings to when did they write?

Complete manuscript coples When we turn to the last act: the side of a steep hill.

exlat going back much further of the drama, as it is played The last question is, in a way, Higher up than the older the most important of all. The in lime than the oldest copies out in Jerusalem, that Integrity.

ancient books, of theirs can almost be felt. quarters is a brash Jewish date of the Gospels is the key of most other housing development, built, stone of the arch. If they are and there is no trace at any

On their own showing, it not the work of first-century stage of serious tampering. say the Arabs, to 'overawe authors, but of forgers many

scams, they folled. The Codex Sinaiticus in the stand what was happening, and them. Communism thrives years later, then no amount of British Museum, which cost the ignominiously deserted their by exploiting auch feelings, incidental support make Government £100,000, carries us Master. It they had ever alter

them look trustworthy, because

back a long way. Yet other the story, от allowed anydise: from Parallela are drawn they are too remote

the texts carry us back further still, else to do so, the result would; events and fundamentally bogus. centuries further, sometimes between the

cicar across surely have been more credit- the Dark Ages Into the late sun able to them. I conclude that Communist Party and the Realising this, the critics of

shine of the Roman Empire they did not alter it, ' and' that i Church. Those who draw Christianity In E great and altonys the story is the the Gospels pars it on unim- them seldom have any grandparents' day concentrated

palred inside knowledge of either. They stressed that we had no their are on the date problemi But one real likeness is original manuscripts, and gaid worth pausing over, because there was no proof that first- it helps to clear away a very century originals ever existed. Common misunderstanding about the Gospels and the as if they had carried their begin with, gives us the words New Testament,

point, and the Gospels had of an Apostle, one of the closest really been exposed as fabrica- to Jesus of the Twelve. We could hardly ask for more. However, we get more. The next gure who needs

looking at la A surprising one--Peter.

"Scriptures"

Rame.

For a while it looked to many the

tions.

it

Little by little, however, turned out that the point had Communism has its not been carried. The twentieth ["scriptures"--Mu: Lenin, century has been a time of con- and so forth-but essential nuous retreat by the erities.

But the cruelol

WHEN?

ly it is a creed taught and question practised by the Communist can still usefully Party. It is an affair of be asked. As a people, not books.

sien

towards answering 1, con- sider St John, and follow n. strange thread that leads from Gallice ta

In the same way, the early Christian religion was not an abstract dogma dis- tilled from the Bible. It was the way of life taught and practised by the Church, To this extent, it was, liko Communism,

an affair people, not books.

Greener Grass

London.

Manchester.

John, 0 Asher- appears La

man,

the Gospels as fiery

The Words

The last act Of the drama. Sooner or later, one must face south again from Galilee to Jerusalem. From green felds to Old -waters to and kindly

to dusty Testament deserts, scorching hills, to the crowds and clamours of a walled city

What about the quality of

information? John,

NEXT WEEK

The chief of the Apoalies, Peter governed the Church from Antiochi and later from Rome, where he was crucified upside down by Emperor Noro, J11 the course of his travels he acquir- ed an interpreter named Mark, and this Interpreter wrote the Second Gospel. It is almost certainly a collec- tion of stories told by Peter.

The last scones of

of

and impatient, with

the Gospels

a deep personal at-

tachment to Jesus.

ونا

So Mark takes close to the

He lived on fiil nearly AD. 100. very fountainhead, to the chief

which was tense 19 centuries ago and is tense today. There lies the centre of the maze.

-(London Expresa Servlet),

H. K. S. P. C.

Noods financial support for the

sake of poor children

According to tradition, the of the Apostics himself. In Please address communica Fourth Gospel is a collection of effect his Gospel ls St Peter's tions:-Secretary, Hongkong his meditations and remini Gospel. We could hardly hope to Society for the Protection seences dietated in old age and get nearer the source than that of Children. P.O. Box 2502 put together by a friend.

Mark's Gospel is the oldest, and Matthew and Luke соду from it,

It's Enough

This Gospel does differ a good TTOW true it is, that old dent from the others, and does

stone

always being greener on they years it was the trump rard of sceptles. It "could not other side of the fence. have been written by John"

it ods obulously composed arocbout the year 200,"

Here a Britain WC gradually transformb our towns and villages and suburže Into Bliek, American-styto pluces

They were wrong.

0

Luke's case is interesting. Ile was a Gentile doctor and follower of St Paul, and he wrote the Acts. He approaches a Jewish spirit, imitating the methods of the Greek historians, and quoting dates, places, nud names to put his story in s historical sciting.

No Heal Gap

Most convincing of all, per- haps, in the way ho gives his characters their correct Bles

Thus: "In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cačaar, Pontius Pilate being governIOT of Judaca. and Harod being

In the John Rylands Library Inevitable victims of this pro- at Manchester is a

scrap of vesa have been the old-fashioned papyrus dating from the reign Ens street lampe beloved of those of the Emperor Hadrian. per- Um-maker who specialise in haps as early as A.D. 120. On Victorian thrillers (remember it is part of the eighteenth successes like "Gaslight and chapter of the Fourth Gospel. "Fanny by Goslight"), have given way to Ighly This frail shred of matter i tetrarch of Galilee, and fals eißelent. but completely un- enough in flself to upset brother Philip tetrarch Imaginativo concrete monstrosi-jevěry attack on the Gospels Iturdes, and of the region of

tics.

4

They

authenticity.

Trachonitis, and Lywanias" the But it we aro propose to I St John's Gespot was tetrarch of Abliene, Annas and Caiaphas being the high throw our old lampu on to the known and copied so early priests,

It should not Luxe does this kind

-WOB

Americans willing to rescue and actually be his work," cherish them.

of thing, wo can check what he If "John"

written says from other, non-Christian Minera from bround Fot

of the first historians. And he seems to be Worth, Texas, are in the market towards the turn

century then Matthew." always right. He knows when for these reifes which they are "Mark" and "Luke," which are each emperor reigned; he know Creeling in what must bo

terms of office; he highly-inconGICUOLE + -

"Englady" Carlier, were wellten well back governors

in the mma etntury,

refers to political events and local cults and famous bulldings And if they were, then with steady accurney, 'there is no reason why they Sir William Ramsay,

a Jenit- should not have been written ing authorliy... on ho period, by Matthew, MAN, ANG LAIKA,'once pot out to prove thải.

village back home,

Peter Bur

1

Burgoyne

Hongkong.

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