FINAL WARNING: The Curtain Falls
a retelling of God’s providing for Moses’ people as they wondered in
the wilderness; the story of Jesus walking on the water, was a
misunderstanding of the Greek preposition which could mean ‘on’ or
‘alongside of’; and the ascension of Jesus was taken from the story of
Elijah being taken up into Heaven.The earliest Gospel was considered to be Mark, which was compiled
between 66-74 in Rome, and was believed to address a Greco-Roman
readership, and if he wanted it to survive, he could not make it appear
as though the Romans were responsible for the death of Jesus. It
actually ends without the disciples’ assertion that Jesus rose from the
dead, and only says that the women were told that He had risen. Mark
never mentions whether He was ever seen after the crucifixion.In 1958, in a monastery near Jerusalem, Professor Morton Smith of
Columbia University, discovered a letter that contained a missing
fragment of the Gospel of Mark, which through the years had been
suppressed by Bishop Clement of Alexandria, who was informed that a
gnostic sect known as the Carpocratians were interpreting various
passages in the Gospel of Mark for their own purposes, which did not
coincide with Church doctrine. The passage was part of the story
about Lazarus being raised from the dead, and hinted that he wasn’t
actually dead. Along with the exclusion, there was also an addition,
because the original manuscript ended with the death and burial of
Christ, and the discovery of an empty tomb. Yet, the version that exists
today, includes the Resurrection, which was added in the 2nd century,
making the last twelve verses of Mark fraudulent. However, research
by Ivan Panin (outlined in a booklet called The Last Twelve Verses of
Mark), utilizing analysis of numeric design, has done a lot to reaffirm
its authenticity.The gospels of Luke and Matthew used Mark as a source for their
writings. Luke (who also wrote the Book of Acts) dates to about 80,
and was composed for a Roman official at Caesarea, and therefore was
not anti-Roman. While Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus only goes back
to Abraham, Luke’s goes back to Adam. Where Mark mentions only an
empty tomb, in Luke, the women actually go in and see for themselves
that it is empty. They encounter not one, but two angelic beings. Luke
goes more into depth regarding the subsequent physical appearances
of Jesus.