THE TWELVE or “FAITH IN A FICTION”

THE TWELVE or “FAITH IN A FICTION”

John Stone

There are several flaws of ”inspiration” that need to be discussed relating to the apostles.

Matthew, who was one of them, surely ought to know his own name, and how he came to be numbered among the chosen Twelve. There are conflicting accounts given by him, by Luke and John as to the “calling”―or volunteering―of Andrew, Peter, James and John.

As for himself, Matthew says modestly:

“And as Jesus passed forth from thence [where be had healed the man with the palsy], he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom; and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him” (Matthew 9:9)

But Mark tells us that:

“as [Jesus] passed by [after the healing], he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus sitting at the receipt of custom,” and called him (Mark 2:14).

And Luke (5:27) corroborates Mark, as usual contradicting Matthew, even as to his own name.

This little tangle does not end here: Matthew gives a list of the twelve apostles; among the others he lists “Matthew the publican”; two Simons, one surnamed Peter, the other the Canaanite (the whole race of Canaanites having been exterminated by Joshua); two Jameses, the son of Alphieus, and the son of Zebedee; and one “Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus” (Matthew 10:2-4). Luke omits Lebbaeus, and substitutes a second “Judas, the brother of James,” besides Judas Iscariot (Matthew 6:16). So we do not really know who composed the Twelve.

As for James, his identity is very confused, as is also that of the second Judas. Matthew (13:55) and Mark (6:3) say that both James and Judas were sons of the Virgin Mary and brothers of Jesus; and Paul affirms that James was “the Lord's brother” (Galatians 1:19). But later both Matthew (27:56) and Mark (15:40) contradict themselves and say that this James was the son of some other Mary. If James and Jesus were sons of the Virgin Mary, their father was of course Joseph the carpenter; but Matthew (10:3) and Mark (3:18) say that James and Judas were the sons of Alphaeus. If they were the sons of Alphaeus, they were brothers of Matthew, alias Levi, the publican; for Mark declares (2:14) that Levi was the son of Alphaeus. Judas, according to Luke (6:16), was “the brother of James”; the Revised Version says: “Judas, the son of James.” James is not once mentioned in the gospel of his brother John.

Again, Matthew and John, as we have seen, represent the Twelve picked up, one, two, or four at a time, at various times and places. However, Mark and Luke say that they were all chosen together at one and the same time, from a large number of disciples:

Jesus “went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer. And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples: and of them he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles” (Luke 6:12-13; Mark 3:13-14);

and then follows the list of names we have just seen to differ from the other two lists. So the whole matter of the apostles is left a puzzle, except in one point, the questionable character of these sainted gospel propagandists.

And to think that some people place their eternal lives in the belief of such crap―not because they have studied it out for themselves, but that they labor under a feel-good theology coupled with threats, from the pulpit, of eternal damnation! Unfortunately Christians put their lives and the lives of their families in the grasp of blind faith―faith in a fiction called the New Testament.

As P.T. Barnum is alleged to have said: “There is a sucker born every minute, and two to take him!”

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