JOHN WARWICK MONTGOMERY does it again

[Steven Carr]

He has a letter in the London Times today

Sir, “Aristotle as he really looked”, you report (photograph, Oct 25), of a newly discovered bust that “dates from . . . about 400 years after Aristotle lived”.

And the sceptics still have a problem with the New Testament gospels although their full texts are available in two 4th-century codices (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) and the gap between those and the death and Resurrection of Christ is amply filled with papyrus fragments as early as the end of the 1st century.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,175-2425106,00.html

Responses please to letters@thetimes.co.uk

My letter to the Times

Dear Sir,
Professor Monthomery writes in the letters page that the full texts of the New Testament are available in two 4th century codices, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus.

This is simply not true.

Vaticanus has lost the text from Hebrews 9 onwards. Among other changes , it does not have Luke 22:43-44 'And being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down upon the ground'. It is also missing Luke 22:34 'Father forgive them for they know not what they do.'


Both Sinaiticus and Vaticanus say in Matthew 27:49 that Jesus was pierced by a spear before he died, contradicting John's Gospels where Jesus is pierced after he died.

The very evidence Professor Montgomery cites is proof of how unreliable the text is.

No wonder Christianity canot be defended as historically reliable.

[Joan of Bark]

Good response, Steven. It should also be pointed out that we skeptics also base our doubts on gospel contradictions.

[Malachi151]

The validity of the gospels as history has nothing to do with ANY dates. It wouldn't matter if they were written in 33 CE, they are obviously mythical and pull of of their information from Old Testament scriptures.

My letter:

Editor,

Professor Montgomery, in his reaction to the finding of a bust of Aristotle 400 years older that the man, insinuated that the validity of the gospels as history has something to do with when they were written. It does not. It would not matter of the gospels were written in 33 CE, in fact that would only make the existence of Jesus more suspect, because the validity of the gospels as history is challenged by the fact that they contradict one another, they are clearly based on other Hebrew texts, not observation, and they contain many fantastic statements, typical of Greek and Roman mythology of the time. Its not when they were written that is the problem, its their content.

Thank you

[The Evil One]

Erm... shouldn't the point be that the bust of Aristotle, if it really does date from 400 years after he died, cannot be assumed to be an accurate likeness?