A spoof on a ludicrous argument often posed by anti-Mormons
Several times each month, sometimes each week, I get e-mail messages from people who want to prove to me that the “Mormon Jesus” is not the same as the “Christian Jesus.” They bring up lots of nonsense, including the fact that the Book of Mormon tells stories about Jesus that are not found in the Bible. Somehow, they seem not to realize that the Church of England still has hymns in its hymnal that describe Jesus coming to England as a lad with his great-uncle Joseph of Arimathea-none of which, of course, is Biblical. And yet these critics do not claim that members of that church are not “Christians” because they worship a “different Jesus.”
To illustrate how ridiculous some of the arguments are, I have prepared the following piece, in which I illustrate how, following the same kind of logic used by these critics, readers of the gospel of Luke must be considered to believe in a different Jesus.
WARNING: Please note that this is only a spoof and should not be taken as a serious criticism of the Bible, which I accept along with the Book of Mormon as authoritative scripture.
LUKE HAS A DIFFERENT JESUS:
| Luke’s baby Jesus was visited by shepherds (Luke 2:8-20). | The real baby Jesus was visited by the wise men (Matthew 2:1-12). | |
| Luke’s Jesus was circumcised at the age of eight days (Luke 2:21-22). | The real Jesus, being a Christian and not a Jew, was not circumcised. Neither Matthew, Mark, or John mentions Jesus being circumcised. | |
| Luke’s Jesus, at the age of 12, was found speaking to the doctors in the temple (Luke 2:41-51). | The real Jesus did no such thing. Check out the accounts in Matthew, Mark, and John, which say nothing about this fictitious event. | |
| Luke’s Jesus taught his famous sermon on the plain (Luke 6:17-49). | The real Jesus taught his famous sermon on the mount (Matthew 5-7). | |
| Luke’s Jesus, arriving in the country of the Gadarenes, cast devils out of a man into a herd of swine (Luke 8:26-39). | The real Jesus, arriving in the country of the Gergesenes, cast devils out of two men into a herd of swine (Matthew 8:28-34). | |
| Luke’s Jesus healed a blind man at Jericho (Luke 18:35). | The real Jesus healed two blind men at Jericho (Matthew 20:29-34). | |
| Luke’s Jesus was comforted by an angel in the garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:39). | The real Jesus, being God, was comforted in Gethsemane by praying to his Father personna (Matthew 26:36-42; Mark 14:32-36). | |
| Luke’s Jesus raised a widow’s son from the dead at Nain (Luke 7:11-15). | The real Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead at Bethany (John 11:1-44). | |
| Luke’s Jesus was not known to be the Christ by John the Baptist (Luke 7:18-22). | The real Jesus was recognized by John the Baptist to be the Christ at the time of his baptism (Matthew 3:13; John 1:32-36). | |
| Luke’s Jesus celebrated his last supper at Passover (Luke 22:7-15). | The real Jesus celebrated his last supper before Passover (John 13:1; 18:28). | |
| Luke’s Jesus was arrested and taken to the house of the high priest (Luke 22:54). | The real Jesus was arrested and taken to the house of Annas, father-in-law to the high priest Caiaphas (John 18:13). | |
| Luke’s Jesus asked the Father to forgive his crucifiers (Luke 23:34). | The real Jesus uttered no such words (check out Matthew, Mark, and John if you don’t believe me). | |
| Luke’s resurrected Jesus commanded his disciples to not depart from Jerusalem, then ascended to heaven from Bethany on the mount of Olives (Luke 24:49-51). | The real resurrected Jesus commanded his disciples to go into Galilee to meet him there, and it was atop a Galilean mountain that he instructed them to go into all the world, then ascended to heaven (Matthew 28:10, 16-20; Mark 16:15-20). |
I REPEAT: This is a spoof. This is only a spoof. Had this been a serious attempt to discredit the gospel of Luke, it would have been in the same category as attempts to discredit the Book of Mormon.
Let me remind readers of the following statement from the apostle John: “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written” (John 21:25). In view of this, we should be grateful to have the New Testament and the Book of Mormon to tell us at least some of the things that Jesus did and taught.
