Why will you never find a letter written by Jesus?

it's a question that Christian churches

and denominations of all stripes

would rather you didn't think about

much less ask out loud it's a question that theologians

and biblical scholars

have struggled to answer for millennia

and none with any success

how is it that a man who thousands of books

billions of words

and millions of letters have been written about

could himself

have not written down a single word or letter

and why is there only a single

church in the world that has the answer

now granted it's no ordinary church

it's best known for its namesake

compiling the first Christian Bible in 1

44 a d

it's known for having the oldest

inscription in the world

bearing the name of Jesus Christ

carved into its stone archway in 318

it's known for growing larger than even the Roman

Catholic Church at one point

and it's known for curating the original epistles

and gospel of Paul the Apostle

and after today

it will also be known as the only church

in the world that can tell us

why Jesus

never wrote down a single word or letter

more about that church later

as regular listeners of the show know

I'm not one for drama or histrionics

but the theological implications of the story

and the actual answer to the question are

simply put tectonic

welcome to the official podcast of the Marcionite

Church where we explore pre-nicene Christian theology

the first Bible of 144 and help

you understand

the deadly difference between an alien deity

named Yahweh and god

our father as revealed only by Jesus

learn more at marcionitechurch.org

now your host Presbyter Darren Kelama

anyway

the crux of the story centers around an actual fact

that fact being that Jesus didn't write anything down

now there's a small verse that talks about him

leaning down and writing something in the dirt

casually as Jews were arguing around him

about an adulterous woman

and I'll even go a step further

and say that it's likely

based on a confusion in translation

that

he wasn't even really writing anything in the dirt

in a disinterested manner

he was probably just doodling or drawing

and by the way

the instrument used for writing at that time

was called a reed pen basically

a reed cut and shaped in the form of a pen

with the cut end dipped in ink

and the paper was pressed papyrus

an example of what I'm talking about

can be found on the FBN show logo

and I'll uh have an image of that for the

a video a portion of the episode

anyway that's a reed pen

so not only do I agree

I'm willing to stipulate that there is no instance

anywhere in the modern Bible of Jesus writing anything

don't ask me how but somehow

these intellectual heavyweights decided that

that means Jesus didn't exist

because he didn't write anything down

that's the premise for their conclusion

make of it what you will

but let's back the truck up a little bit

Jesus not writing anything down

is actually pretty interesting

and almost never discussed

we know he could read

we know he was teaching in the synagogues

and we know he could speak

and being the son of god come on

we know he could write but for some reason

he chose not to it was a deliberate choice not to

in fact

he never told anyone else to write down what he said

he never turned to one of his apostles and said hey

write this down

not even when they asked him how to pray to God

and he taught them the Lord's Prayer

he didn't he didn't write it down

he didn't even tell them to write it down

in fact he was kind of secretive about things

for example when he was casting out demons

they would proclaim you're the son of god

and he would rebuke and silence them

he didn't want anyone hearing that

and sometimes after performing a miracle

he would say go and tell no one

so here's the son of god on earth for years

known and viewed by thousands

performing miracles raising the dead

giving and teaching people a new

world changing message of redemption

salvation and freedom and nobody writes any of it down

Jesus doesn't write down a single word

nor is he even said to have written down a single word

by anybody but it gets worse

you're supposed to believe that

the son of god would leave it up to four people

to chronicle from fuzzy memory

what he said and did years after the fact

and that they somehow remembered every word in nuance

so much so

that what they wrote down is called the word of god

now I have bad news

two of those people Mark and Luke

weren't even apostles

Luke even says he was getting his information

second and third hand in fact

Mark and Luke never even met Jesus

did you know that ask any priest or pastor

and they'll tell you the same thing

now try remembering something from a few days ago

or a week or a month ago now

recall and write down verbatim

an entire conversation you had with a stranger

30 years ago now

ask that stranger to recall a conversation

he had with someone else 30 years ago

that's how convoluted it gets

when you create

stories from second and third hand information

as Luke admits to doing

in the first paragraph of his gospel

nowhere in any Bible

does Jesus tell his apostles to write anything down

nowhere in any Bible do the apostles say

and simple logic tells us that they would say this Lord

shouldn't we write this down

keep a record of your great miracles and teachings

and now they've been with Jesus for years

in close proximity eating

traveling sleeping

you don't think one of them

just asked about writing something down

you really don't think the subject came up

these Jews are waving around Torah's

the written word on scrolls

waving them around every five minutes

as they debated Jesus you don't think it would cross

the mind of one of the apostles

even once to start writing things down

or ask Jesus why he isn't writing anything down now

actually I'm sure they did

I'm sure it happened probably more than once

and just as Jesus rebuked devils

for saying that he was the son of God

and silenced them he probably also rebuked the apostles

and ordered no writing no speaking of

and no writing of his power and miracles

and by the way

I have every confidence that Jesus knew his message

his written word would be altered

edited and perverted by the Jews and the Judaizers

he had no illusions about these Jews

these people were even trying to cut deals with Jesus

as he was dying on the cross

and trying to stain his memory

before the body was even cold

and you wonder why he told them

where I am going you cannot follow

why he told them your father is the devil

why he told them

you do not know God and God does not know you

is this why he didn't write anything

you see

the written word can be made to do lots of tricks

in the hands of a skilled dissembler

or forger or liar

imagine what the children of the supreme liar

Satan is described in John 8:44

John 8:44

could do with a document

alleged to have been written and signed

by Jesus Christ himself

now imagine if Jesus had written several things

about a variety of subjects

now we have different codexes or scrolls out there

one faction of faith claiming they have the first one

or the real one

imagine the killing that would have happened

over documents like that

imagine all the forgeries and editing

kings and emperors

making changes to the words of Jesus

to justify this or that policy or law

and if you questioned it

they would wave the document at you and say

how dare you question the very words of Jesus

written right here take him away and burn him

in fact entire industries

staffed by scholars

would spring up to creatively interpret what Jesus

really meant when he wrote this

or that

it would have been a theological and ecclesiastical

chaos how do I know

because that's exactly what happened to the gospels

let that sink in

and consider that within years of Jesus's resurrection

fake gospels were flying across the known world

with competing factions of Judaizers

all claiming to have the real story of Jesus

fake gospels were the new cottage industry

and the one thing that they all had in common

is that none of them were true

it got so bad that even after the Apostle Paul

who had risked his life

establishing the first Christian churches

he had to send them all letters

warning them about these fake gospels

and the Judaizers promoting them

now let's go ahead and open both the modern

Nicean Bible and the first Bible

and read what Paul said to them

both are the same

quote unquote

I marvel that ye so quickly changed from him

that called you in the Grace

unto a different gospel which is not another

but there be some that trouble you

and would pervert the gospel of Christ

that's from Galatians 1 4 through five

but maybe you were confused about what he said

maybe you didn't understand him

well you know what

Paul's gonna step in and help you focus

here's what he says as we have said before

so now I say again

if anyone preaches any other gospel to you

than what you have received

let him be accursed and of course

we find that in Galatians 1

9 so we can all see it was a huge problem

even the apostles had to get involved

and now

we arrive at the most important part of the episode

where we find out

not only why Jesus never wrote anything down

but also and just as importantly

which gospel Paul was talking about

and it is the answer to both questions

now remember

everyone agrees that Jesus didn't write anything down

and he never told anyone to write anything down

even after his resurrection

when he returned to visit the apostles

no writing so

how did he expect his message to live on

after a generation or two

I mean oral tradition doesn't last

and the message gets changed from person to person

what happens when four people see the exact same thing

and are told to describe it

now tell them to not only describe it

but write down

exactly what was said during the encounter

now tell them to write all this down

years after it happened see what I mean

by the time it's over you'll be lucky

if these four even agree on what country

the event took place in and Jesus

of course knew this would happen

he knew this wouldn't be a reliable way for his message

and teachings to be passed on

and here's where the brilliance

the otherworldly

sheer brilliance of what he did is revealed

instead of writing down the story himself

or telling his apostles to write it down

he was going to make his enemies write it down

these Jews these prideful

arrogant Pharisees that argued with

slapped him around

insulted Jesus before having him crucified

these same ones that he called the children of Satan

were going to bow down before him

they we're going to reject their father Satan

and he was going to make them

tell the story of his miracles

and out of all of them he chose just one to do it

now it couldn't be just any random Jew

he needed a real blue flame Jew

a Pharisee

with impeccable lineage and perfect credentials

a real up and comer

probably in line for the top Pharisee spot in Jerusalem

one that the other Jews in the inner circle look up to

as the lieutenant the capo

the enforcer

he had to be worldly and expert on their laws

down to the tiniest detail and rule

a master debater and multilingual

and have a reputation for fierce persecution

and punishing Christians

a real Jesus hater and a great writer

because

lots and lots of things had been waiting to be written

down and then he just waited until the time was right

god waited

until his selection had been thoroughly trained

under the chief rabbi

the head Pharisee Gamaliel in Jerusalem

waited until he had overseen

the murder of the first Christian martyr

Saint Stephen

waited until he was on his way

leading an army of Pharisees and Jews

to persecute more Christians in Damascus

and then god made his move

searing into this man's memory

into every fiber of his being

all of the words Jesus wanted written down

every jot and tittle the full revelation

not only did he instantly see that his faith

his entire life

steeped in Judaism and the ways of the Pharisee

had been a waste and a fraud

he instantly became a Christian

he wrote down those words given to him by Jesus

and he spent the rest of his life traveling the world

and establishing new Christian churches

changing the lives of millions of people

with that gospel

and the name of that gospel is the gospel of the Lord

and the name of that man is Paul the Apostle

I'm Darren Kelama

reminding you that if your Bible was created after 144

you're reading just another book

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