Response to Mr. Philip Ochieng
DIALOGUE BETWEEN MR PHILIP OCHIENG AND MR REUBEN KIGAME
Below is a summary of an article that appeared in the Daily Nation in April, 2001 and which caused a big stir in the nation. As far as we know, several people responded to Mr Ochieng but he dismissed them and their arguments, declaring that they were simply "shouting" at him and not "arguing" reasonably. It is until he received Mr Kigame’s article below via email that he went quiet on this line of attack. We share this as a Ministry to encourage a commitment to the bold defense of our faith in public and to request you to stand with and support the activities of Word of Truth Ministries, an organization committed to the proclamation and defense of what we believe and why we believe it. We pray that the Lord will also use the discussion below to root you deeper in the Christian faith. If you have never made the commitment to follow Jesus, we hope, too, that you will consider His claims and put your faith in Him.
HOLY, THIS, BUT IRRELEVANT TO THE ARGUMENT
By Philip Ochieng, Sunday Nation, April 29, 2001
- All the main church claims were not at all original. The virgin birth on December 25th, the death on Easter Friday, the resurrection three days later, the ascension into heaven to judge mankind – all these were borrowed without bating an eyelid from Egyptian, Sumerian, Babylonian, Persian, Syrian, Indian, Phrygian, Greek and Roman paganism. Christianity triumphed over this paganism only by ingesting and inverting them.
- Whenever Rome has been accused of plagiarism, its answer has been pure sophistry. It was the devil working backwards to cause these paganisms to imitate the Christ centuries and millenia before his birth!
- There is no independent evidence of Jesus in Palestine 2000 years ago. There is only the evidence of the gospels. But they were not written by eyewitnesses. The author of the earliest Christian literature, Paul in his epistles, never met Jesus.
- The gospels are insolubly self-contradictory. To serve one purpose, Matthew, for instance, tells us through a long genealogy that Jesus was a descendant of David through Joseph, and therefore, a human being. To serve quite a different purpose, he tells us that Jesus was God incarnate. The gospels also contradict one another. All high priests of the church know, though they are characterstically silent about it, that the first of these gospels, Mark, was totally silent on the virgin birth, the crucifixion, the resurrection and he ascension, and the last chapters of the modern version contain these dogmas only because they were added by Rome many centuries later.
- The Vatican itself knows that, in similar vein, the gospels, Acts and the epistles contain numerous inventions, additions, excisions and other forms of editorial tampering to suit purely secular political interests as soon as Constantine decided to adopt Christianity as an instrument of rule. Many of the dogmas which have come down to us cannot even be found in the New Testament itself. The doctrines of papal infallibility and Mary’s immaculate conception, for instance, were introduced only the 19th century.
- Neither the Old nor the New Testament claims that these books were inspired by God, a claim which even libels God. For God, by definition, cannot possibly be responsible for such ludicrous decrees, contradictions and falsifications.
- Everybody with any casual historical knowledge knows the origin of the statement, that every word in the Bible is God’s. It was introduced into the body of the dogmas only in 325 a.d. in the Council of Nicea in which Constantine bullied every participant to rubberstamp his new-fungled christology.
True,. For these twistings of the original essene doctrine are all attested in history books. They cannot be refuted by any juggled sacerdotal phrases.
“If anybody has evidence to the contrary, let them set it out. The Sunday Nation has room even for you … Heed Mwalimu Nyerere, “Argue, don’t shout!”
EMAIL:
CHRISTIANITY, A HARD LOOK AT THE FACTS
By Reuben Kigame, Word of Truth Ministries, Nairobi.
A friend of mine read to me your article titled “holy, this, but irrelevant to the argument” appearing in the Sunday Nation of April 29 for the reason that I am visually handicapped. I mention this because I have never had the privilege of having to read anything as soon as it breaks in the press. Therefore, although I almost feel like a late-comer in the discussion regarding your article, I felt the urge to respond to a number of issues you brought to the attention of the public. My underpinning assumption is that both you and I will, at least, for honesty’s sake, lay aside our religious prejudices regarding the issues you have raised and take a hard look at the facts. Although in the first part of your article you yourself succumbed to a great deal of “shouting” quite contrary to the appeal you raised in the last line attributed to Mr Nyerere, thereby clearly spelling out your religious inclination, we shall rest this for the sake of space and in order to concentrate on the task at hand, that is, providing a response to your arguments.
First, you argued that all the main claims of the church were not at all original but borrowings from pagan traditions. You added that Christianity triumphed over such traditions only by ingesting and inverting such paganism.
I wish to argue here that, if by originality you mean that which nobody else has come up with before, then I find it a slim point of reference in determining the truth value of any claim. Here, I mean that if something is true because Mr Ochieng came up with it before Mr Kigame did, we would have a very weak argument to deal with.
So, whether or not the Egyptians, Babylonians, Sumerians, Indians or Greeks had virgin births, resurrections, ascensions etc is, to me, not a point of contention – and neither am I saying that they did – the question is, do the claims of such societies and traditions fit the real facts of history? Your very reference to these traditions as pagan half decides the discussion, but we will not rest the case at that either.
That Christianity has no affinity or interest in the ingestion and custom-fitting of pagan doctrines is seen in its blatant condemnation of such paganism throughout the pages of its holy writ. Even attempts to de-Hellenise the biblical narratives as authors like Okot P’Bitek have tried, immediately become irrelevant in the face of a faith that pre-dates and dissociates itself from Hellenism. If the Pentateuch were, say, an ingestion of ancient Babylonian myths as certain schools of thought insist, one would need to justify why it stands in sharp contradiction with the polytheism of the Gilgamesh Epic.
If the dying and rising myths of the gods of Egypt are what you view as the predecessor of the crucifixion and resurrection accounts of the Gospels, then you would need to show their historicity and then justify your preference for myth in the face of New Testament events read in the context of living and documented history.
Here, I found your position a little reductionist, preferring chronological comparison to historical facts. For this reason, whether or not Christians decide to pause and celebrate the virgin birth in December or June is not the point. Let them do it whenever they will, but what we should debate is whether or not two descendants of David’s truly journeyed to an earthly city called Bethlehem at the time of the census during the reign of real Roman rulers over Palestine. Only a dishonest person would read the following passage in Luke 2:1-2 as non historical: “About this time Caesar Augustus, the Roman Emperor, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the nation. (This census was taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.).”
Notice that the passage that follows indicates that everyone was required to return to his ancestral home for this registration.
This leads me to your claim that there is no independent evidence of Jesus in Palestine 2000 years ago except that of the Gospels. You dismiss the Gospel sources for the reason that they were not written by eyewitnesses of the events they record. For a moment I wondered if you raised the argument after investigating the historical accounts and found them devoid of independent information, or if you just did not like what you found among the Roman and Jewish historians. I wondered too if the confession of the eyewitnesses themselves mean anything to you. For instance, the apostle Peter writes: “We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty …We ourselves heard this (transfiguration) voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.” (2 Peter 1:16-18).
And what about John the Disciple when he writes, “ That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched – this we proclaim concerning the Word (Logos) of life!” (1 John 1:1) Besides, how could one ignore the confession of a historian/medical doctor like St Luke, when he writes: “Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.” (Luke 1:1-4)
If the New Testament documents are unreliable for information about Jesus and the events of the time of Christ, then we have no hope for any reliable knowledge of any ancient documentation for the reason that the manuscripts of the New Testament alone outnumber those of any piece of ancient writing in circulation today.
Archaeology has given more proof of the New Testament events than of all the other works of antiquity put together. If there is cause to suppose that the writings of the Evangelists were partisan, this would involve a significant but false implication that witnesses cannot be relied upon if they are close to the events or the person about whom they give testimony. This is like saying that the survivors of the Jewish Holocaust are not reliable because they were close to the events they describe to the world. The fact that they were close to the event puts them in a better position of reliability than all the scholars of these facts trying to write about the event years later.
The matter is simple. The New Testament writers were eyewitnesses and they should not be disqualified for having been close to the events they relate. There is also a big problem in your attempt as a scholar to redirect attention on discussing Jesus to the secular sources in order to neglect the eyewitness accounts of the events. It is like saying in a court room case that evidence from those that were not eyewitnesses is preferable to that of actual eyewitnesses. I find this absurd.
Nevertheless, since the nature of your challenge was that facts be tabled, then I wish to share a few references about Jesus Christ from a selection of secular sources to prove that it was a little careless for you to suggest that there are only the Gospels to relay this information and that there are no independent sources which mention Jesus in Palestine about 2000 years ago.
The 1st century Roman historian called Cornelius Tacitus is one of the most accurate and respected of the historians of the time. In Section 15.44 of his “Annals”, Cornelius writes the following about Christ and of Christians. Note the specific historical details he provides: “Consequently, to get rid of the report Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.”
Notice that Tacitus even makes reference to Pilate as one of their procurators, quite in line with the Gospel accounts. Tacitus was not a Christian. Similar citations may be found in Suetonias, Pliny the Younger, Lucian, and even Mara bar Serapion, who, for the sake of space, we will not quote.
It is not only the Roman historians and other general writers who provided independent witness to the historicity of Jesus, His followers and the events surrounding their lives. Even Jewish writings record these in detail, some favourably and others unfavourably. We will here cite Flavius Josephus, the great Jewish scholar and historian of the first rank on the affirmative and the Babylonian Talmud on the critical side. From the “Antiquities” in Section 18.3, Josephus writes: “Now there was about this time Jesus a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats…. He was the Christ… He appeared to them alive again the third day as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him.”
Note that, as a Jewish historian, Josephus would naturally be hostile to the person of Christ; but he stated the facts as plainly and objectively as a good historian would.
In the Talmud we read, “On the eve of Passover, Yeshu was hanged. For fourty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried, ‘He was going forth to be stoned because He has practised sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy. Anyone who can say anything in his favour, let him come forward and plea on his behalf.’ But since nothing was brought forward in his favour, he was hanged on the eve of the Passover!”
You also argued that the Gospel accounts are contradictory, citing Matthew’s presentation of the humanity and deity of Jesus in the same Gospel. If I understand what a contradiction is, I believe it is the presentation of two opposite claims as mutual fact. I am not sure that the opposite of humanity is divinity. I think it is non-humanity, and not all non-human essences are divine. If it was, then what would be the opposite of bestiality?
For this reason I would argue that Matthew would be found to be contradictory in his presentation of the incarnate Christ if he were to say that Jesus was incarnate and not incarnate at the same time. In the same way, to argue that Mark’s exclusion of the account of the virgin birth is evidence that it is not fact is like saying that there are ghosts at Nation Centre because nobody has indicated that there are not.
I also think it is irresponsible journalism to indicate that Mark does not record the crucifixion, resurrection and ascension when he is one of the most detailed reporters of these events. The sections you deem to be in question, in fact, only affect the charge to the disciples and the ascension, and this too, is a strong ground for the Christian faith in indicating where the information is found, not a weakness. (Mark 16:9-20)
As for your statement that neither the Old nor the New Testament claims that the books are inspired, we will only cite the various passages that actually make either explicit or implicit contextual reference, once again, for lack of space: 2 Timonthy 3:16, Matthew 5:18, 2 Peter 1:20, Romans 9:6, Psalm 119, Amos 3:8, Deuteronomy 18:18, to cite but a few. Charging God or His prophets with libel for revelations He Himself has given here cannot even pass for fact let alone scribal piety. The truth of the matter is that the Bible is entirely trustworthy and is validated by a world of archaeological, historical and rational evidence. It cannot be equated with any work of antiquity. It does not even come near them.
A fair amount of detail on the supremacy of the New Testament documents on which the early Evangelists depended is given by several Christian authors and only a sketchy summary may be given here. Catalogued N.T. Greek texts include eighty-eight papyri manuscripts, 274 uncial manuscripts, and 245 uncial lectionaries. Those early uncial manuscript witnesses are extremely valuable in establishing the original text of the New Testament. The other 2795 manuscripts and 1964 lectionaries are minuscule.
This is an astounding number and variety. It is not uncommon for classics from antiquity to survive in only a handful of manuscript copies. According to F.F. Bruce, nine or ten good copies of Julius Caesar’s Gallic War survive, twenty copies of Livy’s Roman History, two copies of Tacitus’ Annals (cited earlier in this response), and eight manuscripts of Thucydides’ History (Bruce, 16). The most documented ancient secular work is Homer’s Iliad, which survives in 643 manuscript copies. Counting Greek copies alone, the New Testament text is preserved in some 5686 partial and complete manuscript portions that were copied by hand from the second (possibly even the first) through the fifteenth centuries (see Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, 2000).
As Dr Norman Geisler has aptly observed, “In addition to the Greek manuscripts there are numerous translations from the Greek, not to mention quotations of the New Testament. Counting major early translations in Syriac, Coptic, Arabic, Latin, and other languages, there are 9000 copies of the New Testament. This makes a total of over 14,000 copies of the New Testament. What is more, if we compile the 36,289 quotations by the early church Fathers of the Second to Fourth Centuries, we can reconstruct the entire New Testament minus 11 verses.” (Ibid.)
One mark of a good manuscript is its age. Generally, the older the copy the closer to the original composition and the fewer copyist errors. Most ancient books survive in manuscripts that were copied about 1000 years after they were composed. It is rare to have, as the Odyssey does, a copy made only 500 years after the original. Most of the New Testament is preserved in manuscripts less than two hundred years from the original (Geisler), some books of the New Testament dating from little over one hundred years after their composition, and one fragment comes within a generation of the first century. The New Testament, by contrast, survives in complete books from a little over 100 years after the New Testament was completed. Fragments are available from only decades later. One fragment, the John Ryland papyri, is dated 117-138.
Many critics reject the identifications arguing that they are too fragmentary for certain identification. O’Callahan, however, is a respected paleographer and he defends his work as consistent with that by which other ancient fragments are identified. Critics have not come up with viable alternate writings from which the fragments could have come without changing the usual procedures.
It is my hope that a fair look at the above facts will compel you, not just to abandon your previous position on the historicity of Christ and Christianity but pursuade you to examine the issues you have previously raised in this column on this subject. Yours faithfully, Reuben Kigame. (P.O. Box 76413, Nairobi)
MR. OCHIENG RESPONSE
—–Original Message—–
From: Philip Ochieng [SMTP:ochieng@nation.co.ke]
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2001 7:34 PM
To: kigame@insightkenya.com
Subject: Re: WOULD YOU CARE TO PUBLISH THIS?
No, none of your arguments convinces me to the contrary. Why should anybody claim that Christ is the historical reality, whereas the "paganisms" were mere myths, when it is clear that it is the Christ myth that has borrowed parthenogenesis, the December 25 Nativity, the death on Easter Friday, the Resurrection and Ascention three days later? Why should these particular dates and events ‹ all associated with Osiris, Attis, Dionysus, Bacchus, Mithras, Indra, Adonis and Zarathustra ‹ be so compelling to the creators of the Christ story unless the creators were concerned simply to create another version of that paganism to achieve a particular momentary aim?
I must, nevetheless, thank you for the cool-headedness with which you have attempted to react to my articles. It is impossible to have any meaningful dialogue on this issue with dyed-in-the-wool Christians because they merely throw at you the very same dogmas you are trying to impugn, and this with extreme insolence and arrogance. I am a retired officer and no longer in charge of deciding what goes into the newspaper. If you want this published, please e-mail it to Bernard Nderitu, managing editor, Sunday Nation, at Bnderitu@Iconnect.co.ke. But I advise that he may not be able to use it in this form because it is far too long. It will stand a better chance of publication if you truncate it drastically to between 500 and 700 words at most. Thnaks and have a nice day
Ochieng
MR. KIGAME RESPONSE
From: Reuben Kigame [kigame@insightkenya.com]
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2001 8:13 PM
To: ‘Philip Ochieng’
Subject: RE: WOULD YOU CARE TO PUBLISH THIS?
Dear Mr Ochieng,
Thank you for your prompt reply.
What you may not know is that I personally detest the same kind of "shouting" you mentioned in your column. I am a Christian myself and for the simple reason that the historicity of Christ compelled me to take His message seriously. After a bit of comparative religious study and a hard look at the claims of Christianity, I came to be convinced that it is the only logical expression of the much-needed answer to man’s fourfold quest: origin, condition, realignment and destiny.
I think that raising the initial question as to the historicity of Christ may be the place to start. I do not think it is right to pronounce Christianity a myth simply by escaping the real question: Was Christ a real historical figure who lived in a particular historical epoch during the reign of historical emperors/kings? I am persuaded that if Christ cannot qualify as a real historical personage with all the available data about him, then I would find it difficult to accept the historicity of any other figure of history before or after him. If, for instance, there are fewer manuscript copies of Tacitus’s Annals than there are for the N.T. and yet we rely heavily on them for information about the Roman era, then what are we really saying? That the Roman emperors are more historically acceptable with all their myths than the documented facts of the N.T. just because it points to religious content?
I wish to begin there before addressing the festivals you render as borrowings.
Thanks again for giving me an ear.
Kigame.