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Eusebius's Dirty Work

Besides Constantine, perhaps no single person had a greater hand in creating Christianity than Eusebius, who mutilated the New Testament books and works of the earlier Christian founders in a number of ways, including by allegedly inserting the newly coined phrase "Jesus Christ," as well as interpolating other instances of the single titles of "Jesus" or "Christ."

The question is, then, whether or not there are any genuine autographs prior to the fourth century that contain the phrase "Jesus Christ" or "Christ Jesus." In fact, in the canonical gospels, the word Jesus appears hundreds of times and the word Christ dozens, but the phrase Jesus Christ only five times altogether, twice in the first chapter of Matthew, once in the first verse of Mark and twice in John. A favorite trick used to interpolate the newly created name "Jesus Christ" was to tack it on at the beginning or end of a book or chapter, as was done in the gospels. In this way, if the interpolation was discovered by comparison with older versions (which were generally destroyed after copying) or writings in which the book had been quoted, it could be justified as a "copyist's note" to clarify the text. It must be remembered that there were no printing or copying machines, and all such reproduction was done by hand, such that few copies were ever made of many manuscripts. Thus, it would not be difficult to change text without discovery or censure, particularly if one had the full weight of Rome behind one's endeavor to squash dissension or whistle-blowers.

In addition, the Epistle of James makes no mention of any aspect of Christ's "life" or sayings and only mentions him by name at the beginning of chapters 1 and 2. This text is older than the canonical "history" or narrative and was written, for the most part, by an Egyptian Gnostic.

One example of how language was changed and interpolated to create references to "our Lord Jesus Christ" where there originally were none is found in the First Epistle of Clement, allegedly an early Christian text, but no doubt worked over by later forgers. In this epistle we find the following phrase: "This is the way, beloved, in which we may find our Savior, even Jesus Christ the high-priest of all our offerings . . ." In the footnote we discover that "our Savior" evidently was originally rendered, "That which has the power to save US,"33 an abstract concept, rather than a person.

The Epistle of Barnabas

The Epistle of Barnabas provides several examples of the mythmaking obfuscation of texts. In the Latin version of Barnabas, for instance, we find the obligatory "our Lord Jesus Christ" interpolated at the beginning, yet in the Codex Sinaiticus, there is no such phrase. In this epistle, references to "Jesus" are in reality to "Joshua," the northern Israelite solar hero, also called the "Son of God." The verse in Barnabas regarding the Lord "delivering up" his body "to sanctify us by the remission of our sins; which is effected by the sprinkling of His blood," reflects the old sacred king drama, as performed by followers of Joshua in Palestine. In Christian scriptures, it was always a challenge to determine whether to translate "Joshua" as "Joshua" or "Jesus," and the identification between the two characters is clear, particularly in this epistle. For example, the following passage in the Codex Sinaiticus version is translated thus:

Again, what has that other prophet, Moses, to say to them? Look, this is what the Lord God says: Enter into the good land which the Lord vowed he would give to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob . . . What it is, in fact, saying is, "Put your hopes in that Joshua who shall be shown to you in mortal guise."34

The Latin version is translated thus:

Moses also in like manner speaketh to them; Behold thus saith the Lord God; Enter ye into the good land of which the Lord hath sworn to Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob .... It is as if it had been said, Put your trust in Jesus, who shall be manifested to you in the flesh.35