BY Dr: Zeinb Abd Al-Aziz

Translated by Magdy Abd AL-Shafy

Among the most caustic comments and critiques that the history of Christianity suffers from is the loss of its ancient genuine codices and sources, nothing, unfortunately, was kept but that which is filled with human tampering, these were formally included in the four Gospels and books and heritages of the early patriarchs, nothing other than these could be deemed scientifically authorized sources. We will elaborate on this point through studying the major ancient Jewish historians in the different successive eras of Christianity.

The Jewish Historians

Philo of Alexandria(13-20BC-54AD)

He was a skilled philosopher, born during the regime of Herodit the first, and was well acquainted and informed of the Jews. He authored fifty seven books among which is the ( The age of Pilate), in this book, if he had wished to include something about Jesus , we would have found a lot but he had not mentioned Jesus at all.

He was among the major highly cultured elite and the most celebrated of his age, he is well known for his subjective honesty and he had never ignored any incident whether big or small , important or unimportant concerning what he was writing about- and that was his way when he wrote about the various religious denominations of his time.

So the question is , if he was like this , why didn’t he mention any thing about Jesus and his apostles especially when we know, as formal sources states, his fame was widespread and even went beyond the Syrian borders . The news about Jesus was widespread to the extent that they brought him all the ill to cure them, Philo even gave blind eyes to the thousands who adhered to Jesus, there was no mention about those whom he fed  by increasing the bread the fish…He, also, did not mention anything about his crucifixion, nor did he mention his rise from among the dead nor did he mention anything about the dead who came back to life and went around the city..these all are very momentous  incidents that should have been deserved to be mentioned by a colossal punctilious historian like Philo, who had never been silent over any incident , be small or big.

It is well-known that he was such a brave man that he travelled to Rome to meet the emperor to argue for the Jews who fell victims to the bloody  persecution in Alexandria (39), he was received with warm welcome though his demands were declined.

Upon his return to Alexandria, he went on writing that he, strangely enough, did not mention Jesus nor the Christian denomination that lived in Alex among which is Abollonuis Altwany ,who is to said to have been as important and weighty as Jesus.

He was a student to Plato, who laid the theory of the Logos or whatsoever theologically known as “ The word”. So much was written about this theory and about God’s relation with  the world with all its imperfects. He, then, made the word independent entity that created everything because, as he claimed, contain all the Divine attributes and that all the creatures had stemmed from him and he, too, stemmed from God- a concept that far like the beginning of the Gospel of John “1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (1:1)

The concept of the “Word” was known in philosophy and he added nothing but the concept of incarnation that was a approved in the second century .

Moreover, the Italian priest Legoy Katchiloly , who left priesthood, comments on this point saying “ Philon was among the Essenes , notwithstanding he did not mention anything about Jesus and the Christians and even excluded them entirely from the annals of the period between (50-60)Ad, he even was keen on a certain Logos that will come in spiritual form , so he rejected the idea of the second incarnated advent of Jesus.(p:109)

  Flavius Joseph(37-100AD)

He was born in 73Ad in a Jewish rich family and was appointed a governor in what is now known as Galilee in the beginning of 66-revolution, he led the war against the Roman, he was captured by Flavius Vespasian . To save his life , he turned to work for the side of the Romans and provided them with intelligence on the ongoing war, this helped him to gain the Roman nationality and with this he remained one of the most important historian of the age.

• (c. 75) War of the Jews, or The Jewish War, or Jewish Wars, or History of the Jewish War (commonly abbreviated JW, BJ or War)
• (date unknown) Josephus's Discourse to the Greeks concerning Hades (spurious; adaptation of "Against Plato, on the Cause of the Universe" by Hippolytus of Rome)
• (c. 94) Antiquities of the Jews, or Jewish Antiquities, or Antiquities of the Jews/Jewish Archeology (frequently abbreviated AJ, AotJ or Ant. or Antiq.)
• (c. 97) Flavius Josephus Against Apion, or Against Apion, or Contra Apionem, or Against the Greeks, on the antiquity of the Jewish people (usually abbreviated CA)
• (c. 99) The Life of Flavius Josephus, or Autobiography of Flavius Josephus (abbreviated Life or Vita)

  With all this superfluous quantity about the Jewish antiquities which recounts events between the time of Genesis to the time of the war between the Roman and the Jews(66)AD, we find only small paragraph that says “³ Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

 If this passage were genuine , it would be decisive and conclusive, the consensus of scientists converge on the fact that this is just a distortive addition that was later interpolated because it did not occur in the oldest copy of “ The Antiquities of the Jews” owned by Aourgeen  in the beginning of the thirteenth century in which he assured that Joseph refused to believe in Jesus. It is well-known that he was so adherently sticking to Judaism and this is clear in his autobiography and that book that he authored against Apion.

The priest Gelieh, the librarian of Saint Genfeif library and the translator of his works(1756), says the contradictions and the distortions are so glaringly palpable, I should confess that his writings  were changed and modified with the result that most of the parts contradict each other,   

 Roger Peytrignet affirms that the Christians preempted his works after he joined the Romans and they distorted them so that they could fit their whims ( Jesus-Myth or Historical person, P.29)   

 Alfarek and Koushou in their book “ The problem of Jesus and the origin of Christianity “affirm the impossibility that he wrote that passage because if he had said it , he would surely have been Christian and it is known that he was Pharisien Jew and that is palpable .  

There is a consensus of writers that this addition was intentionally interpolated and ,moreover, this passage lacks harmony with the whole of the context as he was speaking about the afflictions that his citizens had undergone during the regime of Pelate and that, he says, if this passage is deleted the flow of the speech will go harmoniously.

Andre Vautier, in his book the Myth of Jesus , says that Josephus wrote a number of translations about the war of the Jews , the Aramaic and the Greek translation, The Greek translation dates back to 79Ad and it doesn’t have any reference in the first part and also from part NO.300 to part No.700 the context flows so smoothly and harmoniously and the wording and phrasing is so perfect while the second part that relates and recounts the events that are coincident with the period in which Jesus lived is badly phrased and worded and even the contents lacks consistency and harmony, this is a definitive evidence that this part suffered tampering by the Christian scripts.

We should not forget, he says, that the priests, at that time, were the persons who could read and write and that the parts that talk about Jesus and John the baptizer were expurgated  from the copy that made out from the Greek copy.

So , Andre Vautier, affirms emphatically that the book of “ The war of the Jews” and the eighteenth part in the book of the “ Ancient Antiquities of the Jews” which records events concerning the first century AD includes clear unquestionable evidence to changes and interpolations and to the interpolated pages and the deleted ones.

In the third chapter in his book, Andre Vautier, says that the preface of” The Jews wars was against the Romans” includes an outline of the material of the book. Now the book, if we go through it, swerve swiftly from the regime of Augustus to the year 12^th  of Neironregime ,i.e, there is a period of sixty year lost, it is the period of the activities of Jesus  and Johan the Baptizer.

It is crystal-clear for the reader that a man so scrupulous and meticulous like Josephus can’t have been reticent on this juncture of the human history, it is a period that included historical consequential events. The honest scholar will surely berate the church that since the very beginning it based its policy on cheating, tampering, interpolation and distortion.

 So Loegy Katxhyoly says: The church has distorted the passages in the works of Josephus and concocted or made up Roman conflagration and blamed it on Neiron just to make the Essense martyrs Christians martyrs , they made up patent lies that a big volume can’t hold. These lies that no sooner are detected by the reader than they promptly backfired and recoiled over the fakers.

It suffices us to refer to the multitude of distortions that Eusebius made  to wrestle with the rarity of the historical Christian sources in the Holy Book, he was defamed by the historians as the counterfeiter .

 Also Guy Fau says in his book the Myth of Jesus that the passages about Jesus first appeared in the fourth century in the works of Euseus and it hadn’t been found yet in the book” the Hebrew antiquities in the age of Aourgene(185-254)

L. Cascioli: La Fable du Christ, Viterbo, 2001

Fau, G.: Le christianisme sans Jésus, France-Quercy, 1995

Peytrignet, R.: Jésus-Christ, Mythe ou personnage historique, Reflexion, 2002

Vautier, A.: Le secret de Jésus,