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Joseph
Francis Alward
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The Bible presents
contradictory views of Jesus. In one
place it states that Jesus teaches love and forgiveness of one's neighbor, but
in another place it says that Jesus taught with a parable that those who are
the enemies of God (and therefore enemies of Jesus) are to killed!
Decades had already passed by the time
the writer of the Lukan gospel penned his stories about Jesus, and no doubt those
who believed the stories about Jesus coming in the lifetimes of his disciples
were losing faith, for most of the disciples would have been long dead when the
Lukan gospel was written, around 80-100 AD, 50-70 years after Jesus' alleged
crucifixion.
The scare the people into maintaining their faith, even though Jesus hadn't
returned when he said he would, the author apparently manufactured a story
about Jesus telling a parable about the man who was rejected by his people, went
away, returned a king, and had those who earlier had rejected him killed:
[Jesus] went on to tell them a parable, because he
was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to
appear at once. “A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have
himself appointed king and then to return… But his subjects hated him [and said], ‘We don't want this man to be
our king.’ “He was made king, however,
and returned home….[and said] …those enemies of mine who did not want me to be
king over them-bring them here and kill them in front of me." (Luke 19:26-27)
It is not surprising that the
author of this passage believed that Jesus supported the death penalty for
enemies of God, because that was also the view of the holy prophets of
Scripture:
If your very own brother, or your
son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices
you, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods" (gods that neither
you nor your fathers have known, gods of the peoples around you, whether near
or far, from one end of the land to the other), do not yield to him or listen
to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. You must certainly
put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then
the hands of all the people. Stone him to death, because he tried to turn you
away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of
slavery. Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do
such an evil thing again. (Deuteronomy 13:1-11)
How could Jesus on the
one hand be all-forgiving, and on the other hand explain parabolically to his followers
that enemies of God are to be brought before God and killed? What kind of forgiveness is that? The
contradictory nature of these teachings show that the Bible cannot be the word
of a perfect, all-powerful God, for how could the words God be contradictory?