The Epistles & The Revelations

The Epistle to the Hebrews, the Second Epistle of Peter, the Second and the Third Epistles of John, the Epistle of Jacob, the Epistle of Jude and several verses of the First Epistle of John are wrongly attributed to the apostles. These books were generally supposed to be doubtful up until 363 AD and continue to be considered false and unacceptable to the majority of Christian writers up until this day. The verses of the first Epistle of John have been omitted in Syrian versions.

The Arabian churches have rejected the second Epistle of Peter Epistles of John, the Epistle of Jude, and the Revelation. Similarly the churches of Syria have rejected them from the beginning of their history.

Horne says in the second volume of his commentary (1822) on pages 206 and 207: “The following Epistles and verses have not been included in the Syrian version and the same was the case with Arabian churches; the second Epistle of Peter, the Epistle of Jude, both the epistles of John, the Revelation, the verses from 2-11 of chapter 8 in the gospel of John, and chapter 5 verse 7 of the first Epistle of John. The translator of the Syrian version omitted these verses because he did not believe them to be genuine. Ward confirms this in this book (1841) on page 37: “Rogers, a great scholar of the Protestant faith has mentioned the name of a number of Protestant scholars who declared the following books as false and excluded them from the holy scriptures: the Epistles to the Hebrews, the Epistle of Jacob, the second and the third Epistles of John, and the Revelation.”

Dr Bliss, a learned scholar of the Protestant faith stated: “All the books up until the period of Eusebius are found acceptable,: and he insists on the point that: “The Epistle of Jacob, the second Epistle of Peter and the second and third Epistles of John are not the writing of the Apostles. The Epistles of the Hebrews remained rejected for along period, similarly the Syrian church did not acknowledge the second Epistle of Peter, the second and third Epistles of John, the Epistle to Jude and Revelation.”

Lardner said in vol. 4 of his commentary on page 175: “Cyrillus and the Church of Jerusalem did not acknowledge the book of Revelation in their period. Apart from this, the name of this book does not even occur in the list of Canonical books which he wrote.”

On page 323 of the same volume he further said : “Revelation was not the part of the Syrian version. Barhebroeus and Jacob did not include this book for comments in their commentary. Abedjessu omitted the second Epistle of peter, the second and the third Epistles of John, the Epistle of Jude and the Revelation from his list. All other Syrian have the same opinion about these books”.

The Catholic Herald (1844) contains the following statement on page 206 of vol. 7: “Rose has written on page 161 of his book that many Protestant scholar consider the book of Revelation non-believable. Professor Ewald has produced powerful arguments to prove that the Gospel of John and the Epistles of John and the Revelations of John cannot be the writings of the same person.’

Eusebius makes the following statement in chapter 25 of vol. 7 of his history: Dionysius says that some ancient writers excluded the book of Revelation from the Holy Scriptures and have completely refuted it. He said that this book is meaningless and a great example of ignorance. Any association of this book with John or with a righteous man or with any Christian is wrong. In fact, this with book was attributed to John by a heretic Cerinthus. I wish I had the powers of excluding it from the Holy Scriptures. As far as my own opinion is concerned, I believe it to be from someone who was inspired. But what I cannot easily believe is that the writer was any of the apostles, or that he was the son of Zebedee or brother of Jacob.”

On the contrary the idiom of the text and style strongly indicate that the writer cannot have been the Apostle John who is mentioned in the Book of Acts because his presence in Asia Minor is not known. This John is totally a different man who is an Asian. There are two graves in the city of Ephesus, both bearing the inscription of John . The contents and the style of this book indicate that John, the Evangelist, is not the writer of this book. Since the text of the Gospel and the Epistles is as refined as the style of the Greeks. Contrary to this the book of Revelation contains a text very different in style from the Greeks, full of uncommon expressions.

Besides this the Evangelists have a common practice in that they do not disclose their names in the Gospels nor in the Epistles, but describe themselves in the first person or in the third person, which writer of this book has mentioned his own name. In the revelation of Jesus in chapter 1 he says: “The revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto him to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified id by his Angel unto his servant John.” He also writes in chapter 4: “John to the seven churches which are in Asia.” In chapter 9 he says: “I, John, who am your brother, and companion in tribulation and in this kingdom, and patience of Jesus Christ.” Again in 22:8 he says: “I John saw this things and heard them.”

He mentions his name in all the above verses contrary to the general practice of the Evangelists. The explanation that the writer has disclosed his name against his normal practice in order to introduce himself cannot be acceptable because if this had been his object he would have used specific words to gether with his name defining his intention. Fore example, he could have written John, the sun of Zebedee or brother of James. He only uses some general words like “your brother”, companion in patience etc., which do not serve the purpose of his introduction.

Eusebius also says in chapter 3 of vol. 3 of his book: “The first Epistle of Peter is genuine, but his second Epistle should never be included in the Holy scripture. Fourteen Epistles of Paul are, how ever, read. The Epistle to the Hebrews has been excluded by some people.”

He further elaborates in chapter 25 of the same book: “It has been a point of debate whether the Epistles to James, and Jude, the second He epistle of Peter, and the Epistles of John I and II were written by the Evangelists or some other writers of the same names. It should be understood that the Acts of Paul, the Revelation of Peter, the Epistle of Barnabas and the book entitled, “The Institution of the Disciples” are rejected books and this can be proved. The Revelation should also be included in this list.”

Eusebius also quotes a statement of Origen concerning the Epistle to the Hebrews in chapter 25 of vol. 6 of his book: “It is a popular notion among the people that this Epistle (Hebrews) was written by Clement of Rome (150-220) and some people think that it was written by Luke.”

The Irish missionary Lyon (178) and Hippolitus (220) and Nouclus, the missionary of Rome (251), refused to accept the genuineness of the Epistle to Hebrews. Turtullien, the bishop of Carthage (d. 200) says that this Epistle belongs to Barnabas. Caius, the Presbyter of Rome (d. 251) counted thirteen Epistles of Paul and did not count this Epistle. Cyprien, the bishop of Carthage (248), does not make any mention of this Epistle. The Monophysite churches still refuse to acknowledge the second Epistle of Peter and the second and third Epistles of John.

Scaliger disowns the Epistle to the Hebrews by saying that whoever was the author of this Epistle had wasted his time Eusebius, in chapter 23 of vol. 2 of his book says: “Generally this Epistle is supposed to be false and several ancient writers have mentioned this. Our opinion about the Epistle of Jude is not different but many churches still act according to it.”

The History of the Bible (1850) contains this statement: “Grotius says that this Epistle, that is, the Epistle of Jude was written by Jude Oskolf (Archbishop) the 15 th Oskolf of Jerusalem living in the period of Emperor Hadrian.”?

Eusebius has stated in his history vol.6, chapter 25: “Origen said in vol. 5 of his commentary on the Gospel of John that Paul did not write any thing to the Churches, and if he wrote to any Church it was not more than a few lines.”

According to Origen, all the Epistles which are attributed to Paul, where not written by him.They are hypothetically attributed to him. Perhaps a few lines of Paul might also present in these Epistles. Keeping all this statements in mind, we are led to believe the truth of the following statement made by Festus: “The author of the New Testament is neither Jesus Christ nor his apostles, but a certain man of unknown identity has written them and attributed them to the Evangelists.”

The truth of this statement has been proved beyond doubt. We have already shown earlier in this book that this six Epistles and the book of Revelation were believed in and remained rejected up 363; and they were not acknowledged even by the council of Nicaea in 325. Then in 364 the members of the council of Liodesia acknowledged the six Epistles. The Book of Revelation remained excluded even in this meeting but later on in 397 was acknowledge by the Council of Carthage.

The decision of the two counccil about these cannot be considered as an argument for obvious reasons. Firstly all the councils had acknowledge the Book of Jude. The Council of Liodesia then accepted the ten verses of chapter 10 from the Book of Esther, and the six chapters subsequent to chapter 10. The Song of Solomon, Tobit, Baruch, Ecclesiastes and Maccabees were acknowledged by the council of Carthage, while all the subsequent councils cofirmed the decision of the above three councils.

Now, if the decisions of these councils were founded on authenticated arguments, which they most certainly were not, then the Protestant would have accepted them, but on the other hand, if their decision s were arbitrary, as was in fact the case, it was necessary for the Protestant s to reject all of these books. We are very much surprised to note that they accepted the councils` decision regarding the six Epistles as well as the Book of Revelation but rejected it concerning the other books, especially the book of Judith which had been unanimously acknowledged by the councils. This decision again arbitrary and with out justification.

Their only proffered reasons, does the original versions of these books has been lost, cannot be accepted because Jerome confirmed the fact that he found the original versions of Jude and Tobata in the Chaldean language and the origional book of Ecclesiasticus in Hebrew, and these books have been translated from the original versions. On this basis, the Protestants should at least accept these books and they should in fact reject the Gospel of Matthew since the original of that book was lost.

The statement of Horne, already quoted previously, proves the fact that the ancient Christians were not very particular about looking into the Authenticity of their traditions. They used to accept and write all kinds of mythical and fabulous stories and traditions which were followed and acted upon by the people of subsequent times. In view of this, the most acceptable conclusion is that the scholars of these councils must have heard some of these traditions, which, after having been rejected for centuries, where acknowledged by them without any authentication.

Because the holy scriptures are treated by the Christians in the same way as ordinary books of law and civil administration, they continually changed and altered the texts suit their needs. A few examples of this will be sufficient to establish our claim.

The Greek translation was consistently acknowledged as the authoritative text from the time of the Apostles to the 15th century. The Hebrew versions were believed to have been distorted and the Greek translation was considered the accurate version. Subsequently the position of theses books was altogheter changed. The destroyed version was acknowledged as accurate and accurate one as distorted.

The Book of Daniel in the Greek version was genuine in the eyes of the early scholars, but after Origen declared that it was incorrect, they rejected it and replaced it with the version of Theodotion.

The Epistle of Aristias remained on the least of the Holly Scriptures but in the seventeenth century some objections were raised against it and suddenly it turned into a false document of the eyes of all the Protestant scholars.

The Latin version is believed genuine by all the Catholics, while it is considered distorted and unbelievable by the Protestants.

The small book of Genesis remained genuine and believable up until the 15th century while the same book was declared false and rejected in the 16th century.

The Third Book of Ezra is still acknowledge by the Greek church but has been rejected by both the Catholics and Protestants. Similarly the Song of Solomon was considered genuine a part of he Holly Scriptures and can still be found in the Codex Alexandrine, yet it is now rejected.

The gradual realization of the distortions present in a number of their holy books is bound to lead the Christians, sooner or later, to admit to the truth of the fact that the great part of the Judeo-Christian scriptures have undergone great changes and distortions.

We have shown that the Christians do not possess any authentic records or acceptable arguments for the authenticity of the books of either the Old Testament of The New Testament.