Three Questions by a Christian and their Answers — Page 57
57 of. Much like the accounts of a money-lender, which reveal their hidden secrets through obvious discrepancies and er- rors, the mischief which the four Gospels ventured to conceal is also revealing itself. It is for this reason that seri- ous misgivings have been born in the minds of discerning people * in Europe and America. They would much prefer to undue eulogy found way into the Gospels. Although the Christians freely admit that the Gospel writers have added these things on their own, I believe that these additions were made gradually. Cunning fabri- cators, who came later, have had ample opportunity. Whole fabricated books, which found fame as revealed books, were written and circulated by Christians and Jews in the very early days. And by virtue of such forgery, not one, but a number of Gospels gained currency. Christians themselves admit that some Gospels were fabricated after Jesus as , among which is the Gospel of Barnabas, but this is only what the Chris- tians say. I say that since there are serious differences between those Gospels and the four books of the current New Testament—so much so, that the Gospel of Barnabas denies that Jesus as was ever crucified, and is even opposed to the doctrine of the Trinity, and does not recognize the divinity and sonship of Jesus as , and, in categorical terms, gives the glad- tiding of the coming of the Holy Prophet sa —why should we accept the Christians’ unsubstantiated claim that only the Gospels to which they have given currency are true, and all those opposed to them are false. Moreover, when forgery has been so widespread among the Christians that some masters of the art wrote complete books on their own and spread them among the people, and did not let any doubt fall upon their integrity, why then should it have been difficult for them to alter and tamper with any other book? Again, when it has been admitted that these Gospels were not written in the time of Jesus as , and that the four Gospels came into existence some sixty or seventy years—more or less, in view of the diverse narratives—after Jesus’ as death, this casts even greater doubt upon them, for, we cannot say with any degree of cer- tainty that the disciples lived that long, or their faculties had remained Contd…