Three months or so after he berated Jesus Christ as a non-existent person and pilloried the 27 Books in the New Testament and their authors, Professor Douglas Anele of the Department of Philosophy, University of Lagos, is at it again. This time in a series he began two weeks ago with the headline of “an unbeliever’s interpretation of Easter” and which will continue coming Sunday, he restated his claim that Jesus never graced this world, let alone that he performed the miracles credited to him or that he was tried, crucified, resurrected and ascended into heaven.
The piece is one he is writing mainly to highlight the discrepancies in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John on the arrest, trial, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, as an evidence that the Holy Bible is a useless Book of incredible false stories. To him, this is so because none of the authors of the Books in the New Testament was an eyewitness of the events they wrote about. He claims that the four Books as well as the other 23 in the New Testament were written fifty to hundred years after the events took place. That is after the death of Jesus in 33AD, meaning that he is saying they were written between 83 and 133AD. When all the 27 Books were penned between 49 and late 110 AD, which were sixteen to seventy – seven years after the death of Jesus.
No Christian will disagree with Anele about the differences in the reports on the trial, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Jesus because they are true. Like Anele and many a people, Christian and non-Christian alike, I am also amazed at the conflicting reports on these happenings. They are issues along with others that I intend to take up with the Heavenly Father, after the book I am currently writing on the Popes of the Catholic Church, and write about with the title: The Bible, Almighty God and Me. The Lord in July 2013 lifted the suspension He placed in December 2006 on me, asking Him questions on issues in the Holy Book and about creation.
I am reacting to Anele’s latest profane comments on Jesus Christ and the Holy Bible because I later came to know that he was away in the United States when in December and January I took him and Dr. Femi Aribisala up on their claims that Jesus was born in September or October and not on December 25. So, he may not have read my articles showing that Jesus was truly born on December 25 and that eight of the 27 Books in the New Testament were written by Apostle Peter, Apostle Matthew, James the brother of Jesus and Jude, the brother of James the Just, who one source said was the brother of Jesus and another the sibling of Apostle James.
Thus, how can Professor Anele be correct that the Books were by authors, who did not witness what they wrote about and that none of the 27 Books was written until 50 years after the events happened, that is after the death of Jesus in 33AD, which would mean none of them was penned before 83AD, when Apostles Peter and Paul were executed on the orders of Roman Emperor Nero in 67 or 68 AD, that was 34 or 35 years after the death of Christ.
The two Books by Peter, 1 and 2 Peter were produced in 63 and 64AD. The 13 Books by Paul from Romans to Philemon were written between 49 and 63 AD. Galatians was in 49, 1 and 2 Thessalonians in 50 and 51, 1 Corinthians in 54, Romans and 2 Corinthians in 55AD, Ephesians, Colossians and Philemon in 60 AD, Philippians in 61, 1 Timothy and Titus in 62AD and 2 Timothy in 63AD. Hebrews which is said to have been written by either him or Apollos or Barnabas and the book of Matthew was said to have been written in the 60s or 70 – 110 AD.
To be continued next week Wednesday.
Yoruba/Benin ancestry dispute (5)
I now come with the proofs that the claim of the Oba of Benin, His Royal Majesty Erediauwa, that Oduduwa was the son of Oba Owodo, the last king of the Ogiso Dynasty, named Ekhaladeran, who migrated to Ile – Ife and changed his appellation, was a make-up and make-belief story, and one which does not stand the test of dispassionate and objective analysis. The two books written by Benin – born Chief Jacob U. Egharevba (1893 – 1980) and published in 1953 and the 1970s on the origin of the Binis are my instruments in disproving His Majesty’s account.
The details of the monarch’s story as recounted by Odia Ofeimun in an article on Pages 33, 35 and 36 of the Sunday Vanguard of February 21, 2016 and in – between on Page 34 by High Chief David Edebiri, the Esogban of Benin and second – in – command to Oba Erediauwa, are that Oba Owodo through the witchcraft power of one of his wives had problem having another son after Ekhaladeran, his only male child, and that this caused mass unhappiness in the kingdom. As a result, the oracle was consulted to know the cause of the situation and the person behind the king’s plight, and who was one of his wives, was one of those chosen for the visit to the oracle man.
Divination unmasked the woman as the devil incarnate behind the misfortune of the monarch and the sadness in the kingdom. On the way back to the palace, she was said to have stripped herself half – naked and told the other emissaries, who were all men, that she would start crying and tell people along the way that she was in that state because her male companions attempted to rape her. She told them she would only return to full – clothing if they agreed to tell the king that his son, Ekhaladeran, and not her, was the person the oracle fingered as the culprit for the royal ordeal and the general morose situation in the kingdom. Knowing that the allegation would lead to their execution, the men were said to have agreed to her intimidating bidding.
For continuation next week Wednesday.