Summary:
• Modern translations of the Holy Bible show that the New Testament was altered, identifying differences between medieval copies and older manuscripts discovered more recently. Some differences were copying mistakes, but others were deliberate edits made over many centuries.
• The oldest full New Testament, the Codex Sinaiticus, reveals that several verses in the English-language King James Bible were not in the original text.
• Early Christians had only limited written information about Jesus. Later Christian writers had to choose, edit, or interpret a variety of sayings and stories attributed to him.
• The four main Gospels misquote older scriptures and sometimes disagree with each other on key events.
• The original Gospel of Mark ended abruptly, but later Christians added new endings to make it more complete. Numerous other changes were made to all four Gospels.
• Some letters attributed to the Apostle Paul could be forgeries or heavily altered. For example, Paul praised many Christian women, and therefore some misogynistic lines in his letters may have been added by others.
• Early Christians disagreed about how Jewish the new Christian religion should be. Ancient Christian documents like the Didache show an early Christian focus on behavior more than on specific beliefs, unlike today. The Didache never mentions Jesus’ crucifixion or the idea that Jesus died for the sins of humankind. This difference exemplified how diverse early Christianity was.
Yes, there is definitely evidence that the New Testament was altered—and you can confirm this fact with a modern translation of the Holy Bible. The ancient originals of the New Testament have not survived, but some ancient copies have. A few copies were available in medieval Europe, more than a thousand years after the death of Jesus, and those were translated. Those medieval translations are now several centuries old. In modern times, especially in the twentieth century, some even older ancient copies were discovered. By comparing the earliest copies to the medieval translations, numerous alterations of the text were revealed. Modern translations of the New Testament now rely on the earliest copies. Typically, those modern translations include some footnotes (referencing messages at the bottom of the page) that explain where major alterations were found in later copies.
Many alterations were honest mistakes. There were no printing presses in ancient times. Every document had to be copied by hand, and sometimes a scribe made a mistake. However, some alterations were deliberate changes. This fact may surprise some Christians learning this for the first time, but scholars who study the history of the Holy Bible have known about this for a long time. The New Testament came into existence only gradually, across several centuries and many generations of believers. Even in ancient times, numerous Christian scholars questioned the authenticity of some of the books and other documents that became the New Testament, already suspecting the existence of forgeries. Those suspicions continue today.
The oldest complete copy of the New Testament is believed to be the Codex Sinaiticus, which dates back to the fourth century Anno Domino (A.D.), which is also known as the Common Era (C.E.). The Codex Sinaiticus was kept in an obscure monastery in Egypt’s Sinai desert for more than 1,600 years. Not until the nineteenth century did outsiders discover its existence. Until then, most Christians were reading the medieval translations, such as the King James Bible in English and the Luther Bible in German. Those old translations still sound beautiful today, but they were not based on the oldest copies such as the Codex Sinaiticus. Here are some verses in the King James Bible that are not in the original text:
- “Howbeit this kind goeth not out by prayer and fasting.” (Matthew 17:21.)
- “For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.” (Matthew 18:11.)
- “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.” (Matthew 23:14.)
- “And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors.’” (Mark 15:28.)
- “Get thee behind me, Satan.” (Luke 4:8.)
- “Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.” (Luke 17:36.)
- “…waiting for the moving of the water. For an Angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.” (John 5:3-4.)
One of the reasons why alterations were made is because the earliest records were already somewhat unreliable. After Jesus was crucified, almost nothing about his life was written for several decades. Many of his original followers expected the Second Coming of Christ to happen in their lifetimes, and so perhaps they thought that writing a biography of the man was not necessary.
About 20 years after the crucifixion, the Apostle Paul began to write letters promoting faith in Jesus Christ. (Later, some of Paul’s letters were included in the New Testament.) Paul had become an apostle, a disciple, after he experienced a mystical vision of Jesus, but Paul never met Jesus in the flesh, and Paul’s letters say very little about the life of Jesus. Perhaps Paul did not have enough information to write a biography of Jesus, or perhaps Paul did not want to spend much time writing one because he expected the Second Coming very soon. The New Testament also contains letters from authors called James, Peter, John, and Jude. They may have known Jesus in person, but their letters say very little about his life. Their letters, like Paul’s, emphasize how Christians should behave.
Perhaps about 30 years after the crucifixion, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John began to be written, and more decades passed before all four gospels were fully complete. Many scholars estimate they were written between the years 60 and 130 C.E. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called synoptic gospels because they contain similar stories and, in some portions, their wording is almost identical. Many scholars theorize that the synoptic gospels are based on older source material, which those scholars call Q, the first letter in the German word Quelle, which means “source.” That older source material may have included the Gospel of Thomas, a gospel not included in the New Testament but uses language similar to the synoptic gospels. In December 1945, an ancient copy of Thomas was discovered, along with other ancient writings, near a town in Egypt called Nag Hammadi.
The Gospel of Thomas exemplifies the difficulties of using written records to compose a biography of Jesus. Thomas consists of a list of 114 sayings attributed to Jesus but without any narrative, context, or explanations, only the sayings. And some of those sayings are quite strange, such as number 105: “Jesus said, ‘He who knows the father and the mother will be called the son of a harlot.’” (The word harlot usually means prostitute.) If Jesus did say that, he probably had a good reason to, but readers of Thomas can only guess why.
Imagine that you are a literate Christian living some decades after the crucifixion and you want to write a short biography of Jesus. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John do not exist yet, but the sources available to you might include the Gospel of Thomas or something like it. How would you write a short biography of Jesus? Would you include every saying in Thomas, without exception, or would you choose only particular sayings whose meaning is easy to guess? Would you include any explanations? Who will explain those sayings? You? Why you? Would you include stories? From which sources? Would you include rumors? A rumor might involve a wonderful story about faith, but a rumor is also hearsay. And everything you choose to include is information that you cannot be certain is factual.
So, any early Christian who attempted to write a short biography of Jesus would already be editing and modifying what future Christians would read about Jesus. In the first few centuries after the crucifixion, Christians knew that their written sources of information were less than perfect and perhaps not reliable. Every document was written by hand and copied by hand, not always accurately. If a document has a mix of good information and errors, would you fix the errors? Would you re-write it? And what is an error? Is a misspelled word an error? What about a sentence that is unclear due to bad grammar? What about an idea that does not make religious sense? For example: “He who knows the father and the mother will be called the son of a harlot.” According to the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus said that. Would you include that? Or delete it? Or change it?
The source (or maybe sources) that we now call Q may have included words and phrases that future writers would have trouble with. For example, somebody once asked Jesus which commandment from God is the greatest. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all include that story. According to Matthew 22:37, Jesus answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” That is a beautiful answer—but not exactly what the Bible’s Book of Deuteronomy 6:5 says: “Love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.” In Matthew, the last word of Jesus’ answer is mind, but in Deuteronomy the last word of the actual commandment is strength. Whoever wrote the Gospel of Matthew did not notice the difference.
Whoever wrote the Gospel of Mark did notice the difference—and tried to fix the problem. In Mark 12:30, Jesus answers: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” Notice that the words mind and strength are both included. In Mark, Jesus states the commandment but also adds to it. The answer is not exactly what Deuteronomy says and therefore, like in Matthew, Jesus misquotes Deuteronomy.
Whoever wrote the Gospel of Luke wanted to include the word mind but did not want Jesus misquoting Deuteronomy. So, in Luke (10:26-28), Deuteronomy is misquoted by somebody else. A man asks Jesus, which are the greatest commandments? Instead of answering the man, Jesus asks him a couple of questions:
“What is written in the Law?” he [Jesus] replied. “How do you read it?”
He answered: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
Consequently, Matthew, Mark, and Luke provide three different versions of the same story. That is a problem which the scribes could have fixed by altering all three gospels to be consistent, but they did not. All three gospels were beloved by early Christians, and so the New Testament includes all three versions, despite the fact that in two versions Jesus misquotes the Book of Deuteronomy. So, either Jesus made a mistake or Jesus was misquoted, perhaps by the unknown author of the source we call Q. How would you resolve this problem?
In a story in the Gospel of John, a crowd of angry men shows Jesus a terrified woman they say was caught in the act of adultery. They say the ancient law of Moses requires that she be punished by being stoned to death. They demand to know if Jesus agrees. Instead of answering, Jesus bends down and uses his finger to write something on the ground. (The Gospel never reveals what Jesus wrote. Perhaps it was a list of common sins.) Again, the crowd demands his answer. Jesus tells them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” His answer causes them to realize that they are all guilty of sins. Feeling ashamed, they gradually walk away. Jesus turns to the woman and asks, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She replies, “No one, sir.” Jesus tells her, “Then neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin.” (John 8:3-11.)
It is one of the most famous stories told about Jesus. But in the earliest copies of the Gospel of John that we have, this story does not exist. It was added at least 100 years after the original John was written, perhaps two or three centuries later. Until then, the story probably existed in the oral tradition, heard by early Christians who re-told the story from memory, again and again. Another possible source is a lost gospel called the Gospel of the Hebrews. (We know the title but have only fragments of the text.) Eventually, somebody decided to preserve the story by inserting it into John. The story itself may not have happened, although it likely did happen because it includes Jesus writing something but we never learn what he wrote. If somebody invented the story, why include the writing aspect which is never explained and not necessary for the point of the story? If the story is based on fact, then the mystery of what Jesus wrote becomes an inseparable part of the story and, therefore, people would probably include it when re-telling the story. The story is both beautiful and instructive, but its insertion into John did change the original gospel. Was this a good change or a bad change? The Gospel of John got an additional story.
The Gospel of Mark got a new ending. Mark reports that Jesus was crucified and died and that his body was buried in a tomb that was then sealed by a large boulder. Days later, three women—a disciple named Mary Magdalene and two others—went to the tomb to “anoint Jesus’ body” with spices. While walking, they asked themselves, who will roll away the boulder sealing the tomb? But when they arrived, the boulder was already rolled away. “As they entered the tomb,” says Mark, “they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he said. ‘You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, he is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” (Christian tradition says the man in a white rope was an angel delivering instructions from God.) What did the women do? Mark says: “Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.” (Mark 16:5-8.)
The end. The original Gospel of Mark ended there, according to the earliest copies we have. Nothing follows. Does that ending disappoint you? Later—about two centuries later, sometime in the 300s C.E.—copies of Mark began to show additional language. One new ending was very short, declaring that “they” (the women) eventually did report to Peter what they had seen; and later Jesus himself appeared to his male disciples and ordered them to spread his message of “eternal salvation” to all people. The end. Or maybe not—because a longer new ending also began to appear. In the longer version, the risen Jesus first appears to Mary Magdalene, who later tells the male disciples but they don’t believe her. After that, two of the male disciples, while outside walking, see Jesus “in a different form.” They tell the other disciples but are not believed either. Eventually, Jesus appears to all of them together and scolds them for not believing the earlier reports of his resurrection. He says people who are baptized and believe will be saved, but those who do not will be “condemned.” Jesus later rises into the heavens, and his male disciples disperse to spread his message throughout the world. (Mark 16:9-20.) Today, many modern Bibles include a note to readers that says Mark 16:9-20 does not appear in the earliest copies of Mark that we have.
Why did the original Gospel of Mark end by portraying the first female Christians as disobedient and unreliable? We may never know for certain, but we do know that for at least 300 years after the crucifixion of Jesus, Christianity was not a single religion. Instead, there were numerous Christian faiths, called sects. They had different doctrines, in many cases different scriptures, and they disagreed over their ideas about Jesus and his teachings. There was probably more variety in ancient Christianity than in today’s Christianity. (Some of those ancient scriptures that did not get into the New Testament were discovered in 1945 in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, hidden with the Gospel of Thomas.) Among the disagreements those ancient Christian sects argued about was the role of women. Should Christian women be allowed to teach Christianity? Should they be allowed to become church leaders? Or should they be completely silent in religious services and always subordinate to their husbands? An extreme prejudice against women is called misogyny, a prejudice that was common in ancient times. Perhaps the author of the original Mark wanted to weaken any religious argument that women should be treated as equal to men.
The Gospels do not portray Jesus as a misogynist. In several stories, Jesus defended individual women whenever they were criticized by men. Jesus also had women disciples, including Mary Magdalene, who with other women disciples helped to support his group with personal funds (Luke 8:1-3). Even a gospel was named after her, the Gospel of Mary. Only one ancient copy of it has been found, with several pages missing, but the surviving fragment says that Jesus, after his crucifixion, appeared to Mary in a dream and answered her questions about sin, mystical visions, and other topics. Mary later tells the male disciples about her dream because Peter asks her to, but most of them do not believe her, including Peter, because they cannot believe that Jesus would teach her, a woman, about anything complicated before he would teach the men. Mary begins crying, deeply hurt that the men seem to be accusing her of telling lies about Jesus and that she only imagined the complicated teachings Jesus revealed in her dream. But then another male disciple, Levi, criticizes Peter for treating Mary like an enemy. “But if the Savior made her worthy,” Levi continues, “who are you to reject her? Surely the Savior knows her very well. That is why he loved her more than us.” Levi’s criticism seems to work. The Gospel of Mary concludes with the disciples going out to preach the good news of Jesus. We do not know who authored the Gospel of Mary, but it suggests that Christians were disagreeing over the role of women since the earliest days of Christianity.
Before the gospels were written, the Apostle Paul wrote letters of guidance to some of the earliest Christian communities. Those letters, now called the Letters of Paul or the Epistles of Paul, are considered less important than the gospels but still important. And like the gospels, they were altered. Some could be forgeries. Forgeries were easy to produce in ancient times since every document had to be copied by hand. Somebody could write a document and then claim a famous person wrote it, a claim which could give the document more authority. Paul was a famous person among Christians. In the New Testament, the epistle called Second Thessalonians includes this remark: “I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand, which is the distinguishing mark in all my letters. This is how I write.” (Second Thessalonians 3:17.) That remark suggests Paul knew that other people were forging his letters. Ironically, some scholars today suspect that Second Thessalonians could be a forgery, or at least altered. Those scholars likewise suspect that the epistles called First Timothy, Second Timothy, and Titus, were forged, or at least altered, because those epistles contain information about Christian churches that Paul could not have known about at that point in history. The epistle called Hebrews was almost certainly not written by Paul. The author of Hebrews never claims to be Paul, and its grammar, tone, and style are very different from Paul’s.
In his letters, Paul praised several Christian women by name. (Romans 16:1-13, Philemon 2, Philippians 4:2-3, First Corinthians 16:19, Second Timothy 4:19.) In his Letter to the Romans, Paul praised a Christian couple named Priscilla and Aquila. (Paul named the woman first and then her husband, instead of the husband first, which was the usual practice.) The couple had, he wrote, “risked their necks” to save Paul’s life (Romans 16:3-4). In that same letter, Paul calls a woman named Junia an “apostle”—a remarkably exalted title for a woman. Paul calls a third woman, named Phoebe, a “deacon”—and sent her as his emissary, delivering his letter by hand from Greece to Rome, a journey across land and sea that could be perilous, especially for a woman (Romans 16:1-2). In Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, he wrote, “there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:27-28.)
Yet, misogynist remarks can found in Paul’s letters. For example: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.” (First Timothy 2:12. See also Ephesians 5:22-24, Colossians 3:18-19, First Corinthians 11:3-16 and 14:34-35, and Titus 2:3-5.) But such misogynist remarks are strangely inconsistent with the praise Paul expressed towards individual women. For that reason, many scholars today suspect the misogynist remarks were added by somebody other than Paul.
Another ancient controversy was how Jewish the new Christian faith should be. Most Jews were not Christians, but most of the early Christians were. Jewish Christians obeyed Jewish law and practices and were indistinguishable from other Jews except in one way: they believed that Jesus was the promised Messiah foretold by the Jewish scriptures. They called themselves Nazarenes, meaning followers of Jesus of Nazareth. Most of them lived in communities in and around the city of Jerusalem in Judea. Meanwhile, Christian missionaries, most famously Paul, left Judea to travel throughout the Roman Empire—and they increasingly persuaded non-Jews, called Gentiles, to become Christians. Those converts did not become Jewish. Many Jewish Christians firmly believed that new Christian converts should also convert to Judaism and follow Jewish practices as Christians. Others, especially Paul, disagreed.
Probably within the first century, Christian communities began circulating a document called the Didache. Spelled in Greek as διδαχή and pronounced DIH-dah-kay, the word means “instruction” or “teaching.” The full title of the Didache is The Lord’s Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations. The Didache was probably composed by Jewish Christians, although it was written not in Hebrew or Aramaic but in koine Greek, a common language of the Roman Empire at that time. Only fifteen paragraphs long, the Didache is one of the best summaries of the moral teachings of Jesus ever written, and certainly one of the oldest. Whoever its authors were, they probably knew that as more and more Gentiles converted to Christianity, those new Christians would never become Jews, and so the Didache teaches how to be a devout Christian without becoming entirely Jewish. The Didache strongly implies that how a Christian behaves is far more important than what a Christian believes, unlike today when many Christian churches emphasize beliefs.
The Didache begins: “There are two ways, one of life and one of death, but a great difference between the two ways.” The way of life is not easy. “First, you shall love God who made you; second, love your neighbor as yourself, and do not do to another what you would not want done to you. …Bless those who curse you, and pray for your enemies, and fast for those who persecute you. …But love those who hate you, and you shall not have an enemy. Abstain from fleshly and worldly lusts. If someone strikes your right cheek, turn to him the other also… You shall not covet the things of your neighbor, you shall not swear, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not speak evil, you shall bear no grudge.”
The opposite, the way of death, involves a long list of evils: “murders, adultery, lust, fornication, thefts, idolatries, magic arts, witchcrafts, rape, false witness, hypocrisy, double-heartedness, deceit, haughtiness, depravity, self-will, greediness, filthy talking, jealousy, over-confidence, loftiness, boastfulness; persecutors of the good, hating truth, loving a lie,…loving vanities, pursuing revenge, not pitying a poor man, not laboring for the afflicted…”
The Didache includes the Lord’s Prayer and tells Christians to pray it three times a day. But the Didache never mentions the crucifixion of Jesus. And it never mentions any idea that Jesus died for the sins of humanity, or died to redeem anyone from sin. Not until its fourteenth paragraph does the Didache use the word sacrifice. It says that Christians, during religious services, must confess their “transgressions” (sins) before giving thanks to God. That personal confession is considered a sacrifice. If a Christian is not reconciled to another Christian and both of them are attending the same religious service, that sacrifice (that confession) is considered “profaned” and therefore not pure, warns the Didache. A religious confession may not sound like much of a sacrifice, but that is how the Didache uses the word sacrifice, a word not used anywhere else in the document. The crucifixion of Jesus is not called a sacrifice because the crucifixion is never mentioned.
The Didache says baptisms in water should be done while voicing this blessing: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” That is the only reference in the Didache to what Christians today call the Trinity, the idea of “God in Three Persons.” The idea of the Trinity did not exist when the Didache was composed and did not exist for another two centuries. The Didache calls Jesus “the Lord”—but it never calls God “the Lord” and it never treats Jesus as equal to God. The Didache treats Jesus as a king, but God is far greater than a king. The Didache instructs, “You shall hate all hypocrisy and everything which is not pleasing to the Lord,”—because whatever would not please “the Lord” Jesus would not please God either. The Didache calls Jesus a “Servant” of God, and it likewise calls the ancient King David (who lived many centuries before Jesus) a “Servant” of God. Beware of false prophets, warns the Didache, because “not everyone who speaks in the Spirit is a prophet; but only if he holds the ways of the Lord. Therefore, from their ways shall the false prophet be known. …If he asks for money, he is a false prophet.”
The Didache ends with a prophecy of the Second Coming of Christ, but does not specify exactly when. “Watch for your life’s sake. Let not your lamps be quenched, nor your loins unloosed; but be ready for you know not the hour in which our Lord will come.” The Didache warns that “in the last days, false prophets and corrupters shall be multiplied…” Its last line reads: “Then shall the world see the Lord coming upon the clouds of heaven.”
Compared to what many of today’s Christians believe about the death of Jesus, no mention in the Didache about his death may seem strange. But the Didache was simply an instruction about how a devout Christian should behave, not about what doctrine to believe. For that reason, the Didache could probably fit into almost any of the many Christian sects that existed in ancient times.
The Didache became so popular that many early Christians wanted it included in the emerging New Testament. It was not, and one reason why is because nobody knew for certain who authored it. Its full title implies that the Twelve Apostles were somehow involved, but none of them are named. As the centuries passed and the number of Gentile Christians increased, perhaps many Gentiles considered the Didache to be overly Jewish. Devout Jews who did not convert to Christianity continued to obey hundreds of Old Testament laws, including dietary laws about which foods Jews should and should not eat. Gentile Christians respected the Ten Commandments but otherwise ignored most of the Old Testament laws because, those Gentiles said, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ had replaced the covenant God had with believers. To them, belief in Jesus Christ mattered more than obeying a multitude of old laws and rules. The Didache is full of rules, and therefore it seems more Jewish than Gentile.
(Imagine if the New Testament did include the Didache. Devout Christians today would be praying the Lord’s Prayer three times a day instead once on Sunday in church. Imagine what other behaviors devout Christians would be practicing in obedience to what the Didache teaches.)
During the lifetime of Jesus, the Roman government in Judea treated any hint of resistance as punishable by death. If a man was preaching a message that attracted many followers and it could be considered political, the Roman government considered that man a threat. Jesus was such a man. Jesus did not advocate resisting the Romans, but when he was in Jerusalem during the last days of his life, some powerful people considered him a trouble-maker. Jesus was in Jerusalem during Passover, the annual Jewish festival that celebrates the escape of Jews from oppression in Egypt centuries earlier. Every Passover celebration terrified the Roman occupiers because they feared that the mass enthusiasm might morph into a Jewish uprising. The Romans were especially suspicious of any popular Jew in Jerusalem during Passover. Jesus was such a man. His behavior, teachings, and popularity all made him a target. Sooner or later, the Roman Empire would almost certainly kill him, whether or not the Jewish Temple leaders had supported him.
The point is that the Jews did not kill Jesus, the Roman government killed Jesus. The Jewish method of execution was stoning. The Roman method of execution was crucifixion. Jesus was crucified. Above his head on the cross the Romans placed a sign: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” Temple leaders objected to the title of king, but the purpose of the Roman sign was to warn onlookers that if you spread a message that the Empire considers a threat, as this man Jesus did, the penalty is crucifixion. The Roman government killed Jesus for reasons of politics. Calling him a “king” (not the Messiah) emphasized that this man had politically challenged Roman power in Judea. The trials and execution of Jesus all occurred within a day or two. Not complicit in his death were the vast majority of Jews, whether in Jerusalem or anywhere else, because most of them knew nothing about it and had no way of knowing. Regardless, most Jews in the Roman Empire were powerless.
The Gospels portray the High Priest of the Jewish Temple, a man named Caiaphas, as complicit in the demise of Jesus. If that is true, we do not know why and have only theories. As High Priest, Caiaphas represented the elite of the Jewish religious establishment. Perhaps he felt insulted and threatened by this upstart named Jesus, a mere craftsman from the countryside who somehow attracted some popularity. Perhaps Caiaphas worried that the Romans, seeing the popularity of Jesus, would find an excuse to massacre a large number of Jews in Jerusalem as a precaution against an uprising. Or perhaps Caiaphas was doing what he thought the Romans wanted him to do: find potential trouble-makers in Jerusalem before the Romans did. Years later, a Jewish historian named Josephus recorded that Caiaphas was appointed to his job by the Romans. Yes, the Romans made Caiaphas the High Priest of the Jewish Temple after they removed his predecessor. Since Caiaphas owed his job to the Romans, he had a vested interest in supporting them.
We have no record of the Jewish and Roman trials of Jesus other than what the Gospels say, which were written decades after his death. They say that the charges Caiaphas made against Jesus included claiming to be the Messiah. That charge is very strange because no Jewish law prohibits anybody from claiming to be the Messiah. (If such a law existed, the real Messiah could never announce that he had arrived.) On the other hand, the expected Messiah was not supposed to be divine. If any Jew claimed to be divine, that claim would cause outrage—and the man could be stoned to death for blasphemy. Blasphemy was a religious crime. The execution of Jews by Jews was probably rare during the time of Jesus, but Jews didn’t need a Roman trial to justify executing a Jew for blasphemy. Was Jesus so popular that Caiaphas wanted the Romans to get blamed for executing him? Perhaps, and the Gospels imply this.
The Gospels portray the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, as somewhat reluctant to condemn Jesus. Maybe. Other ancient sources portray Pilate as a harsh, violently brutal governor, and so today’s scholars question whether Pilate was really so reluctant. Pilate may have wanted to avoid judging a dispute between Jews, and so when he learned that Jesus was from Galilee, Pilate sent Jesus and his accusers to the Jewish ruler of Galilee, Herod Antipas, who happened to be in Jerusalem that day. Herod Antipas had heard of Jesus and was curious about him, but soon mocked and insulted Jesus and sent him back to Pilate. (Luke 23:8-12.) Herod Antipas, a Jewish ruler, had the power to condemn and execute Jesus—but chose not to.
Back to Pilate. The Gospel of Matthew says that Pilate wanted to release Jesus using a Roman custom for Passover in which a local crowd was asked to choose between two prisoners offered by the Roman governor. However, historians today cannot find any record of such a custom, and it would contradict how the Romans usually ruled Judea, which was brutally. The story says that Pilate told a local crowd to choose between either Jesus or a notorious murderer named Barabbas. (Pilate expected the crowd to choose Jesus.) We do not know who was in that crowd, but Matthew 27:20 says the Chief Priests persuaded the crowd to choose Barabbas. In Luke 23:16-23, Pilate contradicts the other Gospels because he never offers the crowd any choice: he simply declares that he will release Jesus—but then, without explanation, the crowd demands that Barabbas be released instead. All four Gospels say the crowd became so angry that Pilate feared provoking a riot if he didn’t submit. That risk is why this custom probably did not exist: if it did exist, it would risk provoking a riot whenever it was used, a risk the Romans wanted to avoid. Pilate is portrayed as so frustrated that he orders the crucifixion of Jesus and then publicly washes his hands in disgust, telling the crowd that they, not him, are responsible for shedding the blood of Jesus.
In response, Matthew 27:25 reads: “All the people answered, ‘His blood is on us and on our children!’”
That remark, coming from any crowd, sounds bizarre. For an entire crowd to say it—supposedly in unison, without rehearsal—is absurd. (If you wanted a man to be executed, you are not likely to say, “His blood is on me—and on my children!” If you did, would you say it with pride?) In later centuries, future Christians would cite Matthew 27:25, despite its absurdity, to justify the abuse and persecution of Jews. Despite what Pilate supposedly said, the Roman government actually had a strong incentive to execute Jesus—immediately. Jesus had already attracted followers and, if he were released, he might attract more. Even a peaceful religious movement could become a form of political opposition, and the Romans in Judea did not want a popular opponent.
If the story of Pilate’s defense of Jesus was invented, as many scholars now suspect, then why was it invented? Perhaps the Gospels were written or altered to make the Roman government appear less at fault for condemning Jesus than it really was. The story of Pontius Pilate portrays the Romans as almost victims, manipulated by Jews who rejected Jesus, and so the story implies that Christians were not really enemies of the Roman Empire. Whenever the Roman government did persecute Christians and treated them like traitors, Christians would have had this story to offer in their own defense.
Whatever the reason, this hateful portrayal of Jews marked the beginning of an ugly Christian bigotry against Jews that lasted approximately 2,000 years. In ancient times not all Christians were prejudiced against Jews, but many were. Three additional factors encouraged that bigotry, however inadvertently. First, the Roman Empire contained many more Gentiles than Jews. To gain converts from the biggest possible audience, the Gospels and the Didache were written in koine Greek, not in Hebrew or Aramaic. Many people who spoke Greek as a first or second language treated Greek philosophy as superior to all other philosophies. Ideas from Greek philosophy increasingly influenced Christian theology, but were often contrary to Jewish theology. As a result, Christianity became much less Jewish.
Second, throughout the Roman Empire, Jews were a minority except in Judea and in some small communities scattered around the Mediterranean Sea. Unlike Christianity, Judaism as a religion did not actively seek new converts. As a result, most Gentiles, including most Gentile Christians, had little contact with Jews and therefore little opportunity to learn about Judaism from actual Jews and discover what Jews were really like. Stereotypes, including evil stereotypes about Jews, can be easy to believe when a person doesn’t know any better.
Third, many early Christians were very simple people. Some were wealthy and well educated, but the typical Gentile Christian was poor, downtrodden, largely powerless, possibly a slave, and could not read or write. They were not idiots, but they had very little knowledge of Jews or Judaism other than what they were told, typically by other non-Jews.
(One wonders what Jews at that time thought of this new religious group of Gentiles who called themselves Christians, devoted to a dead Jewish preacher they insisted was the Messiah, but they knew almost nothing about Judaism.)
In the New Testament, the Book of Acts, also titled The Acts of the Apostles, is located after the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Many scholars believe that the author of the Book of Acts also authored the Gospel of Luke, although we do not know his name. (Maybe he was named Luke, or maybe not.) Those scholars theorize that the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts were originally one document, which scholars call Luke-Acts. That document was a history of early Christianity, the first half about Jesus, the second half about some of his disciples (apostles) after the crucifixion. Later on, somebody (probably not the author) split the document into two. The newly separate Gospel of Luke was placed before the Gospel of John, and the Book of Acts was placed after John.
The Gospel of Luke was also altered. Perhaps the most shocking change involved some of the last words of Jesus as he was crucified on the cross. “Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’” (Luke 23:34.) This is one of the most famous prayers by Jesus—but in the earliest copies of Luke, it does not exist. In later copies, it does exist. It does not appear in the other Gospels. The prayer does fit into what Jesus taught about forgiveness in general, including in Luke 6:37 and 17:3-4, and it symbolizes forgiveness probably better than anything else Jesus is recorded to have said. But if somebody other than Jesus invented it, it is a lie. An alternate theory is that the original Luke did include the prayer but, for some reason, it was removed until it was put back in. Whoever restored the prayer must have known that the original Luke included it, but if this theory is correct, why was the prayer removed and later restored?
Here is some historical context. Within 30 years after the crucifixion, Christians were already living in Rome itself, the capital city of the Empire. Some of them were Jewish Christians but others were non-Jewish (Gentile) Christians. In the year 64 C.E., the entire city of Rome caught fire. The Emperor Nero blamed the fire on local Christians: they were innocent, but blaming them was a convenient excuse because many Romans already disliked them—Christians seemed to be very strange. At that time, the Empire allowed people to worship many different Gods as long as they also worshipped the Roman Gods. Jews were legally exempt from that requirement because their one God was singular, a belief that Jews refused to change. Jewish Christians shared that exemption. But non-Jewish Christians were not Jews. Rome also had numerous forms of entertainment: public festivals, theatrical dramas, chariot races, gladiator fights. Those events were enormously popular—except among Christians. Officially, those events were held to honor Roman Gods: in other words, those events worshipped Gods that Christians refused to worship, so they refused to attend. Furthermore, to many Romans, the Christian ritual of the Eucharist (consuming the “body and blood of Christ”) sounded like cannibalism. And hearing Christian spouses call each other “brother” and “sister” (meaning a “brother or sister in Christ”) sounded like incest.
After Nero ordered that Christians in Rome be tortured to death for public entertainment, faith in Jesus Christ became a religious identity increasingly separate from Judaism. Later, in 66-73 C.E., Jewish nationalists in Judea revolted against Roman rule. In response, the Roman Army crushed the rebellion and destroyed Jerusalem, including the Jewish Temple. Historians call that conflict the First Jewish War, and its deaths may have exceeded 1 million. Jewish Christians in Judea, always a minority, were diminishing in number. Of the other Jews who survived, the destruction of their Temple (only one wall survived) reinforced their belief that Jesus was not the prophesied Messiah. But for most Gentile Christians living far from Judea, the destruction of the Jewish Temple was probably either meaningless or maybe imagined to be God’s revenge against Jews who did not accept Jesus. In the years 115-117 and 132-136 C.E., there were additional uprisings among Jewish communities, in Judea, Cyprus, Egypt, and Libya. Again, Roman forces crushed them, killing hundreds of thousands. For Gentile Christians, those wars were another incentive to avoid being perceived as Jewish.
The Gospel of Luke portrays the crucifixion of Jesus as a gruesome execution performed by the Roman authorities at the urging of the Jewish Temple leaders. When Luke is read without the prayer of Jesus asking God to forgive his murderers, some readers might assume that crucifying Jesus was unforgivable. Perhaps the prayer was restored to Luke—maybe decades later, maybe centuries later—when Christians sought a better relationship with the Roman government. Later, in 380 C.E., Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, which made cooperation between Church and State an official necessity. The Roman authorities became forgiven. But what about Jews? “Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them…”—and “them” means everybody. Forgive everybody. But too many Christians throughout history have not forgiven everybody. Not forgiven Jews. Not forgiven other Christians who represent very different churches, denominations, or sects. Not forgiven anybody very different.
When Nero ordered the mass murder of Christians in Rome in 64-65 C.E., the faith of those early Christians did not include belief in the Trinity or in Original Sin, because those religious concepts did not exist yet. The four Gospels did not exist either. Only some Epistles, mostly from Paul, and maybe the Didache, existed. Today, those early Christians are remembered as martyrs, but what if you didn’t know they were martyrs? Today, too many Christians might criticize the simple faith of those early Christians as somehow unsophisticated, inadequate, or incomplete. Whatever their beliefs were in that ancient time, were they not real Christians and genuine martyrs?
Christianity during its first four centuries was an illegal religion. Christians in those years risked their lives to be Christians and a number became martyrs. Yet, because early Christianity was not a unified religion, its different sects harshly criticized and shunned each other. A sect might expel and shun a member who disagreed with some of that sect’s teachings. The act of expelling a member is called excommunication. If you were a Christian who died for your faith, a Christian sect might not consider you a martyr if you belonged to a different sect.
Some Jewish Christian sects survived well into the fourth century, maybe longer. They included the Nazarenes, the Ebionites (who treated poverty as a blessing), and the Elkesaites, founded by a Jewish Christian named Elkasai in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). Some Gentile Christians were appalled that any Christian would still practice any Jewish rituals.
In Rome, a Gentile Christian named Marcion was so against any Jewish scriptures that he rejected the entire Old Testament, edited the Gospel of Luke to delete any Jewish influences he disliked, and rejected all other Gospels. (He did like the Epistles of Paul.) Marcion also donated an enormous amount of money to a church in Rome where he wanted to promote his beliefs. The church probably explained to him that no matter how much Marcion might dislike Judaism, Jesus was a devout Jew. In the year 144, that church excommunicated Marcion and returned his money. His followers then became a new Christian sect. It lasted for centuries.
Several Christian sects consisted of Gnostic Christians. The word gnostic (pronounced NOSS-tik) comes from the Greek word γνῶσις or gnôsis, which means “knowledge” or “insight.” Many Gnostic Christians believed that the God described by Jesus was totally good and loving, but that the God described in the Old Testament was evil and cruel. The Gnostic explanation is that two different Gods existed, and that the evil God was ruling this world. To escape this world, Gnostic Christians said the only way out is to live your life as morally perfectly as Jesus did because this would remove your addiction to this world. Gnostic sects became quite numerous and some survived into medieval times.
In North Africa, the Adamites were an extremely unusual Christian sect. Judaism does not encourage public nakedness. The Adamites did encourage public nakedness, at least in their religious services. They called it “holy nudism.” They claimed to be as innocent as Adam and Eve once were in the Garden of Eden, and that the Adamite church was a new Eden, a new paradise, with no need for laws because sin did not exist and marriage was unnecessary. The Adamite sect survived for centuries.
The word orthodox comes from the Greek word ὀρθόδοξοςor orthódoxos, which means “straight opinion” or “correct belief.” The word heresy comes from the Greek word αἵρεσις or haíresis, which means “choosing for oneself.” An orthodox believer is someone who believes in every aspect of a religion without exception, because every aspect has the approval of that religion’s highest authority. By contrast, somebody who believes in heresy, a heretic, believes in a religion but disagrees with some aspects of it. For example, a heretic may have very different ideas about what that religion ought to teach.
In the second century, the writings of a Gentile Christian and theologian named Irenaeus of Lyons cited the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John by name. Irenaeus treated all four Gospels as divinely inspired, unlike Marcion who liked only an edited version of Luke. Irenaeus began performing the duties of a bishop in the year 177 after the Roman government executed his predecessor, becoming a martyr. (Consider how committed to his faith Irenaeus had to be.) Irenaeus was angered by people who called themselves Christians but preached ideas that Irenaeus considered contrary to the four Gospels. So, he wrote a five-volume book called, in Latin, Adversus Haereses, or in English, Against Heresies. As an orthodox believer in Catholic Christianity, Irenaeus was especially opposed to the beliefs of Gnostic Christians. Meanwhile, the policy of the Roman government was that all Gnostic Christians and all Catholic Christians were all Christians—and that all Christians were practicing an illegal religion. In the year 202, Irenaeus himself became a Christian martyr, although we do not know exactly how he died.
The Book of Revelation, the last book in the New Testament, nearly did not get included. Revelation—the word is singular, not Revelations, which is plural—is a controversial book because it describes a dream full of symbols and metaphors that can be interpreted in numerous ways. The text is probably unaltered, but readers can alter its meaning in their minds because each reader can interpret it differently. The author wrote it while living on a small Greek island called Patmos. He calls himself John, but scholars do not know if he was also the Apostle John, one of the original disciples and very old by then; and so they call the author John of Patmos. Decades after Nero’s persecution of Christians, the Emperor Domitian ordered another persecution late in the first century. That is when John of Patmos wrote Revelation. His dream is believed to be a prophecy: after a time of terrible tribulation for Christians, the Second Coming of Christ will occur and evil will be vanquished. Whenever Christians suffer persecution, as they did under Domitian, many read the Book of Revelation to give them hope. But is it a prophecy of our future? Or is it a prophecy of events that have already passed? The persecution by Domitian did end, the murdered Christians became martyrs, and many other Christians survived. Was the author talking about that time? More persecutions came. The last persecution was the worst, ordered by the Emperor Diocletian in the year 303. It lasted a decade. But in the year 313, the new Emperor Constantine ended it and made Christianity legal. Much later, in the year 380, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Many Christians believed this fulfilled the Revelation prophecy because the world (or at least the Roman world they knew) had become Christian. The Western Roman Empire later fell, but the Eastern Roman Empire—a Christian empire—lasted for more than 1,000 years.
Or is the Book of Revelation a prophecy of our future, yet to come? Many Christians believe so, many without knowing the history of the book. It was written decades after the crucifixion of Jesus, and even in ancient times numerous Christian theologians questioned whether it deserves to be in the New Testament. Some Christian churches reject it. Revelation portrays Satan as the enemy of God, but the Old Testament portrays Satan as God’s obedient assistant. Satan in the Old Testament is an adversary of human beings, encouraging their selfish desires to tempt them to sin, but Satan always works for God. If the Book of Revelation had not entered the New Testament, Christians today might not imagine Satan as a creature that is much more powerful and disobedient than how the Old Testament portrays him.
Revelation also describes a form of Resurrection that most Christians today strongly disagree with:
that righteous souls do not enter Heaven immediately after death but, instead, remain in their graves with no awareness until the Second Coming of Christ. This belief existed in ancient times when most Christians expected this event to happen very soon. Instead, thousands of years later, most Christians today prefer to believe that, when the body dies, the soul’s afterlife begins immediately. Near-death experiences support that belief. But Revelation may not.
Whatever the answer, the Book of Revelation is still read today. For many Christians, it gives them hope, which is good. For many others, however, reading the book terrifies them. That is bad, and unnecessary, because Revelation was not written to terrify them. It was written to give hope to Christians during a time of tribulation, not to worry them until then. The point is to trust that God is always in charge.
In the fourth century, the New Testament emerged in its complete form. Across the different sects of early Christianity, most Christians agreed that their scriptures should include the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, plus the Book of Acts and the Epistles, and later also the Book of Revelation. Paper did not exist yet, and so every document had to be copied by hand upon parchment or papyrus. Since copying was both exhausting and expensive, ordinary Christians had to decide which documents were more important than others. The less important books were copied less often, resulting in fewer and fewer copies until, eventually, they were almost forgotten.
That is probably what happened to the Didache. Once extremely popular, its availability declined in favor of the Gospels and other books. Gradually, copies of the Didache became scarce. Eventually, only scholars knew that the Didache had ever existed because it was mentioned in early Christian writings, but nobody could find any copies of it. It was lost, and it remained lost for more than 1,500 years. Not until the year 1873 was a rare copy of the Didache discovered.
In the year 313, Christianity was made legal by the Emperor Constantine. Furthermore, he wanted to encourage Christianity throughout his Empire. But the religion was still a multitude of diverse sects. Constantine wanted Christian theology to be consistent. So, in the year 325, he hosted a conference called the Council of Nicaea, located in the city of Nicaea (now Iznik, Turkey), where hundreds of Christian bishops from throughout the Empire could meet, debate, and achieve some consensus on basic Christian theology. Constantine invited some 1,800 Christian bishops to attend, although most chose not to. At that time, travel across the Empire was entirely on foot or by sailing ship—and for most bishops, Nicaea was very far away. Ancient records say only 318 bishops attended, and that official number might be an exaggeration. Most attendees came from the Eastern churches because their distance was shorter than from the Western churches.
Decisions made by the Council of Nicaea transformed Christianity. The Council established the idea of the Trinity—that God is One but also exists in Three Persons: God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Men who had never met Jesus made this decision three centuries after the crucifixion. Judaism never had such an idea and never taught that the Messiah would be divine. A sect called Arianism argued that Jesus is divine but not a deity, godly but not equal to God, because God the Father created Jesus. Arianism argued that if Jesus is now equal to the Father, that is only because the Father gave the Son permission. But the Council declared that God the Father and Jesus the Son are forever equal and always were equal, because both are part of the Trinity. The Council declared Arianism to be heresy.
The Gospels and the many Epistles of John never mention any Trinity. Some verses, especially in the Gospel of John, do suggest that Jesus had a divine nature, but Jesus also treats God as his Father, not as his equal. Centuries later, somebody decided that the Trinity idea needed some support in the New Testament. So, some words were added to the First Epistle of John, one of the few epistles not written by Paul. In the First Epistle of John 5:7-8, the original text says:
7 For there are three that testify:
8 the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and the three are in agreement.
Here is the altered version, quoting the King James Bible for this example:
7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these are one.
8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood; and these three agree in one.
To further encourage Christians to accept the Trinity idea, the Council of Nicaea codified the idea in a public creed, known as the Nicene Creed. It is not part of the New Testament. Nevertheless, in many Christian religious services, worshippers still recite the Nicene Creed, often without knowing its history. Some churches have altered the creed a little, but most of the original is still said.
A century earlier, pagans had persecuted Christians, but now Christians began persecuting pagans. And Christians began persecuting other Christians, such as the Gnostics, calling them heretics. Although some Christian sects outside of the official church survived for a long time, they gradually diminished or were suppressed, along with the great variety of early Christian faiths.
Probably in the early 400s, an idea which vaguely existed since the second century was developed by a Christian theologian named Augustine of Hippo. The idea is that when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, they committed the first sin, the Original Sin. Augustine said this created sin within the descendants of Adam and Eve and, therefore, all humans are born in sin. This idea does not exist in Judaism (despite the Book of Genesis) and it does not exist in the Didache. Other Christian theologians during the time of Augustine disagreed with him. A theologian named Pelagius argued that to claim that God would allow humans to be born in sin is an insult to God. Augustine argued that only faith in Jesus Christ and being baptized can remove a person’s original sin. Augustine also argued that if an infant dies before being baptized, that infant will go to Hell. In 418, Augustine persuaded a Christian Council meeting in Carthage to adopt his opinion. So did the Church. Pelagius was declared a heretic in 431. Today, Eastern Orthodox Christianity does not accept the idea of Original Sin, while other Christian churches vary in their beliefs about it. Many ordinary Christians believe it because they were taught it in their churches. But the Gospels never taught the idea, Jesus never taught it, and it does not exist in the Didache.
In the year 494, Pope Gelasius I wrote a complaint to some bishops in southern Italy. He had heard that, in some Christian churches, women were performing priestly duties at the sacred alter. Characterizing that female behavior as contempt for divine things, Gelasius ordered that only men perform those duties. Today, many scholars suspect that some women in early Christianity did serve as priests and that a few women became bishops. That is what Gelasius was complaining about. (The ancient burial tombs of two women bishops, Cerula and Bitalia, were discovered in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.) The order from Pope Gelasius was obeyed, and Christian women were no longer allowed in priestly roles—a prohibition which lasted for many centuries. But misogyny in the early Church did not end there.
In the year 591, Pope Gregory I declared that Mary Magdalene (mentioned in Luke 8:2) was also Mary of Bethany (mentioned in Luke 10:39) and that she was also an unnamed “sinful woman” whose tears anointed the feet of Jesus (Luke 7:36-50). That “sinful woman” is believed to be a prostitute. However, there is no evidence that all three women were the same, and no evidence that Mary Magdalene was ever a prostitute. (If she was a prostitute, why do the Gospels not say this directly?) But because a Pope said that three different women were the same woman, many Christians believed it. The damage done to the reputation of Mary Magdalene, including that she was supposedly a prostitute, lasted for more than a thousand years. Not until modern times was her reputation restored. In 1969, Pope Paul VI officially canceled the idea that Mary Magdalene was anyone else mentioned in the Gospels or ever a prostitute. In 2016, Pope Francis I heightened her status, calling Mary Magdalene the “Apostle of the Apostles.”
Yes, many books of the New Testament have been altered: the evidence has existed for at least several decades, in some cases for centuries. So, what teachings can a Christian be certain of? Each church may offer its own answer to that question. You may have to decide which answer, or answers, you agree with. Among people who have had a near-death experience (and many say they met Jesus during their NDE), most describe the central importance of unconditional love and forgiveness. This agrees with the core teachings of Jesus. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke say that Jesus was asked which of the commandments are the most important. The Gospels differ in how they tell that story, but their fundamental answer is the same: love God as much as you can, and love your neighbor as yourself. Those two commandments are easy to remember, but obeying them requires a lifetime of practice.
Practicing a lifetime of unconditional love and forgiveness is profoundly difficult, but some Christians want an even greater challenge. If you want to practice a much more difficult Christian faith, then learn and obey the Didache. Before the New Testament existed, the Didache existed. It remains the oldest summary of the teachings of Jesus.
There are Christians who want to live a more traditional religious life, attending the church they know and practicing the traditional religious customs and teachings they know. They may prefer a version of the Bible that was translated in medieval times in Europe, such as the King James Bible or the Luther Bible, instead of a more modern Bible that is actually more accurate to the original ancient texts. Continue to worship God as you prefer but always remember the central importance of unconditional love and forgiveness. If the church you attend, or the beliefs you have, ever violate those commandments or add conditions to them, then you need to reconsider what you are doing and ask why. Jesus preached against hypocrisy and warned against vanity, but he did not preach self-hatred. Are you hating others? Are you hating yourself? Are you refusing to forgive?
Are you missing the point of what Jesus taught?