The trial of Jesus in the New Testament did not happen

The trial of Jesus, as described in the Christian bible, could never have happened. Roman law and Jewish law -- and historical information that has come to us from sources outside the Christian bible including Philo and Josephus (37 CE to 100 CE) re-enforces the fact that the story of Jesus' "trial" by Jews is total fiction. There is an excellent article on this topic, with references, at "The Rejection of Pascal's Wager."

Let us begin.

There were multiple Sanhedrins in the 1st century of the common era. 'Sanhedrin' (the word) is derived from the Greek 'Synhedrion' -- so the body didn't come to be called by that name until later, but the courts were the same.

Courts (בית דין / Beit Din / houses of judgment) are comprised of three judges. This court system is still in place today. No Jewish court exists with only one judge (as in American courts). There is no jury system of lay persons, cases are adjudicated and tried by judges (rabbis).

The next level of court was the "minor Sanhedrin." Cities had "minor Sanhedrins." These courts were comprised of 23 judges. (Mishna, Sanhedrin, 1:4a). Ergo the court system was somewhat similar to the American system of courts, appellate courts and a supreme court. The minor Sanhedrins did indeed have the ability to pass the death penalty. The number (23) is derived from Bambidar (Numbers) 35:24-25 as discussed in the Rambam's Mishna Torah: "What is the source which teaches that capital cases may be judged only by a court of 23? Although this is a matter conveyed by the Oral Tradition, there is an allusion to it in the Torah. Numbers 35:24-25 states: "And the congregation shall judge... and the congregation shall save...." Implied is that there must be the possibility of a congregation judging - and condemning him to death - and a congregation saving - and seeking his acquittal. Now a congregation is no less than ten. Thus there are at least 20 judges. We add three judges so that there not be an equally balanced court and to allow the possibility of "following after the inclination of the majority."

A death penalty could be appealed to the "supreme court" of the land -- the "Great Sanhedrin."

The Great Sanhedrin was the supreme court of the land, the court which met in the Temple in the Chamber of Hewn / Carved Stone. It was comprised of priests, scribes and judges -- normally 71 judges. This number is taken from Bambidar (Numbers) 11:16. The true Hebrew name would be Beit Din HaGadol (The Great Court) but it came to be called Sanhedrin in the 2nd Temple period. Different name -- same concept. Link.

The Sanhedrin never met at night --- they met from 9 - 4. (Mark 14:17 says it was night, 39-41 they were sleeping. Sanhedrin 35a-b in the Talmud explains that the Sanhedrin never met at night). The Sanhedrin (a combination of the Congress and Supreme Court) only met in the Temple, never at someone's home as described in the Christian bible. (Mark 14:53, they took Jesus to the high priest). The Sanhedrin rarely passed the death sentence and when they did the method was stoning -- crucifixion is Roman not Jewish (Mark 15:15, 15:25, ). Stoning was carried out is detailed in the Mishna 6:4, Treatise Sanhedrin describes סְקִילָה s'kilah (usually translated as “stoning" but it was not people hurling stones at a person. Rather, a person was placed into a pit. סְקִילָה / s'kilah / stoning is described in the Mishna, Sanhedrin 6:4. “The stoning area's height was that of two men. One of the witnesses pushes him on his loins. If he is turned on his heart, they turn him [over,] on his loins. If he dies from this, [the court] has discharged [its obligation]. If not, the second [witness] picks up the stone and puts it on his heart. If he dies from this, [the court] has discharged [its obligation]. If not, he is pelted with stones by all of Israel, as it says, (Deuteronomy 17:7) "The hand of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people."

In plain English – a man is thrown into a pit. The fall may kill him. If it does not he is turned over so that his chest is facing “up” and a heavy rock is placed on his chest to kill him quickly (either by the weight of it crushing him or suffocating him). The idea of throwing rocks at someone so they die a painful death is NOT part of the process – thus the way Acts describes it is incorrect. When a death sentence was passed a minimum of 24 hours was given before it was carried out -- this was to give time for witnesses to come forth on behalf of the condemned. (Mark 14:64, Mishna Sanhedrin 4:1 "In capital cases they come to a final decision for acquittal on the same day, but on the following day for conviction. [Therefore they do not judge [capital cases] either on the eve of the Shabbat or on the eve of a festival].").

The Sanhedrin had lost the ability to pass the death sentence a few years before and by 30 CE were not meeting in the Chamber of Hewn Stone (the only place they COULD pass a sentence of death). (Mark 15:13, Talmud, Shabbat 15a tells us that this ability was lost 40 years before the destruction of the Temple (28 CE). When a capital case was tried by the Sanhedrin a judge would be appointed to investigate evidence pointing to the defendant's guilt and judges to find his innocence. If a defendant was found guilty by unanimous decision the defendant was not executed.

The Sanhedrin never met on Shabbat or any holy day -- or even on the day BEFORE. Misnah (Sanhedrin 4:1) and the Rambam / Maimonides (Hilkot Sanhedrin 11:2). (Mark 14:12, it was Passover, the Festival of Unleavened Bread).The Christian bible says that the high priest headed up the trial. The high priest never headed the Sanhedrin -- that role fell to Nasi (president) and the Av Beit Din (head of the Sanhedrin) -- both of whom were rabbis. The Christian bible doesn't mention either one. (Mark 14:53, 14:60). These pairs are all listed in the "Ethics of the Fathers" (Pirkei Avot). Gamaliel (who is mentioned in the Christian bible in Acts 5 is not mentioned at all in relation to Jesus' trial). He was the Nasi of the Sanhedrin at the time. . .

The Talmud records nothing of a court that existed like the one in the Christian bible -- and the Talmud is a law book, describing legal processes in Judaism. (Hilkhot Sanhedrin, 1. 1, 3, 7). There were local courts -- consisting of 3 judges on the lowest level, to 23 judges for courts that would hear death penalty cases, to the Great Sanhedrin which was a combination of a congress / supreme court and normally consisted of 71 judges. To pass the death penalty was really hard -- you had to have two eye witnesses to the crime who could not be associated with the person accused. . . More than one death penalty in 70 years and the court was called a "bloody Sanhedrin). . .

All the "particulars" of the mock trial, those who supposedly tried Jesus, etc. don't fit with Jewish law or historically known facts. The whole thing is fiction.

The real Sanhedrin (the Jewish court, not the Roman puppet court) had lost its power to pass the death penalty twice over. The Romans withdrew this right. According to Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews 17:13) around the year 6 CE, Herod Archelaus, was dethroned and banished to Vienna. He was replaced, not by a Jewish king, but by a Roman Procurator named Caponius. The legal power of the Sanhedrin was then immediately restricted. When Archelaus was banished the Sanhedrin lost the ability to try death penalty cases -- that power was given to the puppet Roman procurator. See Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 20:19.

From the Jewish perspective, the Chamber of Hewn Stones had been destroyed inside the Temple prior to Jesus' supposed death. Also supposedly from the Talmud (the Talmudic quote at the end of the paragraph is found in the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin, Chapter 4, fol,37): “When the members of the Sanhedrin found themselves deprived of their right over life and death, a general consternation took possession of them; they covered their heads with ashes, and their bodies with sackcloth, exclaiming: ‘Woe unto us, for the scepter has departed from Judah, and the Messiah has not come’ ” (M. M. Lemann, "Jesus Before the Sanhedrin," translated by Julius Magath).

The Roman Sanhedrin was a puppet court put into place by the Romans. ROMAN Sanhedrins -- not to be confused with the real Sanhedrin. Solomon Zeitlin in his book The Rise and Fall of the Judean State "Any disturbance was a peril to the Judean (Roman) authorities, who could maintain their status only if complete tranquility prevailed."

The high priest in particular - then Caiaphas - was really a servant, or lackey of Rome, appointed by the legate or procurator to ensure local control of malcontents. His sensitivity to the Galilean preacher is not difficult to imagine. Nor is Pilate's...

Pilate was vicious to the people and hostile to their religion. He was cunning and treacherous. Due to his provocations, Judea was on the brink of rebellion. The leaders of the people and High Priest Caiaphas, knowing his cunning and treachery, were fearful that if anything should happen Pilate would hold them responsible and wreak vengeance on the entire people.

William Nichols wrote: Christian Antisemitism, A History of Hate. (He is a former Anglican minister, and founder of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of British Columbia). "Following the Jewish scholar Paul Winter in his influential book, The trial of Jesus, Vermes concluded that if indeed such a trial as the Gospels describe took place, the Sanhedrin achieved the considerable feat of breaking just about every rule in the book on a single occasion." (Vermes, Jesus the Jew p36).

One of the most relevant of these rules prohibits holding a capital trial by night or on a festival. We are asked by the synoptic writers to believe that Jesus was arraigned before the full Sanhedrin on the evening of the Passover celebration. Given the especial sacredness for Jews of the first night of Passover, such a claim alone will strain the credulity of anyone who has ever thought about its implications...

The historicity of the affair is more than suspect. Paul knows nothing of it and the accounts in the first two Gospels are both conflicting and highly tendentious.

From anything we know from other sources about the character and conduct of Pilate, the accounts in all four Gospels of his inadequate attempts to defend Jesus against a Jewish mob howling for blood are so improbable as to border on the ludicrous. Pilate was eventually relieved of his post for brutality in his administration excessive even in Roman eyes. (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 17:85-89) It is not easily conceivable that this administrator, who did not shrink from massacres, would have gone through scruples of conscience on whether it was legitimate, in view of the nobility of Jesus' character, to yield to Jewish demands for the crucifixion of one individual.

Matthew adds an even more devastating but no less improbable touch when he has the crowd shout, "His blood be on us and our children", words that have been used down through the centuries to justify many a pogrom and persecution...

The upshot of the Gospel accounts is to divert attention from a solid historical fact, nevertheless unmistakably present even in their own accounts, that Jesus was condemned in a Roman court on a Roman charge, and put to death by a method of execution only used by the Romans. So successful is this diversion of attention that to this day countless Christians believe that the Jews killed Christ.

No one today blames the Italian people, the putative descendants of the Romans for what their ancestors did in crucifying Jesus. The supposed guilt of the Jews has echoed down history, justifying innumerable massacres..

The Exodus in the Quran: A Response to a Reddit Reviewer

by quranandbibleblog

The Exodus in the Quran: A Response to a Reddit Reviewer

Originally posted on the Quran and Bible Blog

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْم

“Thus do We relate to thee some stories of what happened before: for We have sent thee a Message from Our own Presence.”

 - The Quran, Surah Taha, 20:99

            This article is a response to a recent review that was posted on Reddit of the three-part series “The Exodus from Egypt”.[1] As stated in the “About the Blog” page, I welcome constructive criticism and an opportunity to learn more. It is frankly refreshing to read an objective response from someone who does not have an axe to grind and who is not blinded by anti-Islamic bigotry. The reviewer makes some fair arguments, but I feel that they can be refuted.

            The reviewer comments that I made “some decent points” but he/she does criticize the “apologetic perspective of the blog and how it differs from academic scholarship”. This is a fair point, and of course, I have never claimed that the blog can serve as a substitute for “academic scholarship”, nor have I tried to hide the purpose of the blog, which is to provide the Islamic perspective on such issues.

            The reviewer then remarked that:

“…historians generally regard early primary sources as more informative than much later secondary sources.”

Of course, this is true. Sources from the time of an event would generally be considered more reliable than secondary sources that were not directly linked to the event. With regards to the Exodus, we do not have any primary sources. The Bible is the earliest source, but as the reviewer pointed out, it is not a primary source, having been compiled into its final form about 1000 years before the Quran was revealed, which would mean that it was compiled almost 800 years after the events of the Exodus.

            The reviewer then stated that:

“[t]he biblical narratives in the Pentateuchal history are over a thousand years older than the Quran, which itself is a derivative work of not only the Hebrew Bible but also Jewish-Christian midrash.”

This is a strange remark given his earlier comment that primary sources are preferred by historians, but the Bible is not a primary source as he even admitted.

            As for the claim that the Quran is “a derivative work of” the Bible and Jewish-Christian midrash, this may be the secular opinion to explain the similarities between the Quran and those sources, but Muslims would argue that the Quran simply confirms the stories of the previous prophets that it regards as true, while rejecting the rest.

            In response to my comment that the Quran provides a more coherent version of the events of the Exodus, the reviewer attempted to brush it off. He/she stated that:

“…this is what is expected in a later derivative work that interprets earlier sources, just as a gospel harmony smooths contradictions between older, primary sources (the four canonical gospels)…”

First, notice the contradiction between this comment and the earlier one about “primary sources”. The reviewer admitted that the “canonical gospels” were contradictory, and so, a “harmony” was written to “smooth” out the contradictions. But this would show that primary sources are not always reliable (note that the gospels are not “primary” sources anyway, since we don’t know who the authors even were). So, the absence of a primary source for the Exodus, while unfortunate, is not necessarily a major issue.

            Second, it is a cop-out to say that the Quran simply “smoothed out the contradictions” of the Biblical version of the Exodus and that is why the Quranic account is more coherent than the Biblical one. First, why were there such obvious contradictions in the Biblical account and why weren’t they “smoothed out”? Second, while such obvious contradictions could certainly be removed in a later work, what about the historical errors? A later source would only be expected to correct the historical errors if the author was somehow knowledgeable about the true historical context of the story. For example, how would the author of the Quran have known not to use the Egyptian term “pharaoh” for the king of Egypt in the times of Abraham or Joseph (while it uses the term when referring to the king in Moses’ time), since that term was not used by the Egyptians for the king until the New Kingdom period?[2]

            As a second example, why did the author of the Quran refer to the Israelites during the Exodus as a “small band”, whereas the Bible claims that there were 600,000 men (which would mean around 2 million people total)? The Bible even claims that the main reason for the beginning of the oppression of the Israelites in Egypt was because their population had grown out of control.[3] What motive would the Quran’s author have had to change this part of the story?

            A third example is the Quran’s failure to repeat the Biblical anachronism in Exodus 13:17-18. This passage states that the Israelites did not leave Egypt through “the road through the Philistine country”. However, the Philistines did not occupy Canaan and the surrounding areas until much later. It seems that every time the Biblical account made a historical error or anachronism, the Quran did not repeat it. This seems strange for a work that is simply brushed off as “a derivative work”. The author of the Quran seemed to be more knowledgeable than a 7^th-century Arab should have been.

            The next critique from the reviewer was in regard to the identification of the Pharaoh of the Exodus. In Part III of the Exodus series, I had concluded that the best candidate for the Pharaoh was Ramesses II.[4] One of the main reasons was that the Quran identifies a king who ruled for a long period of time. However, the reviewer criticized this identification, while stating:

“…no discussion however on how the mummy of Ramesses II is that of an old man who suffered from crippling arthritis and not of a chariot-capable warrior who died from drowning.”

This is a fair criticism. CT scans of the mummy of Ramesses II have shown several conditions associated with advanced old age. As Zahi Hawass and Sahar Saleem state:

“[t]he marked attrition of the dental arc, spine, and joints (especially hips and shoulders) all indicate geriatric diseases found in individuals over seventy years of age. The suggested age of death coincides with the historically known age of about eighty-seven to ninety-two years.”[5]

They also state that:

“Ramesses II was probably crippled with arthritis and walked with a hunched back for at least several years of his life. He also suffered from painfully poor dental health. However, there were no definite CT findings to suggest the cause of death.”[6]

So, if Ramesses II was an extremely old man at the time of the Exodus, it seems strange that he was the one who led his army in pursuit of the runaway Israelites. This may be a legitimate crack in the identification of Ramesses with the Pharaoh of the Exodus.

            However, it is possible that the assumption of picturing Ramesses as “a chariot-capable warrior” is just not warranted. Perhaps we are just letting popular imagery influence our assumptions. The fact of the matter is that there is no reason to assume that the Pharaoh had to have led his army while riding a chariot or that he was a young man in his prime. If the Pharaoh was an elderly man as the Quran seems to suggest, he could have just traveled by some other means. There is evidence that the ancient Egyptians used different ways to travel. These included riding animals such as donkeys and horses,[7] as well as carriages and wagons, though as Heidi Kopp observes regarding the latter, there is “no depiction [that] shows them as means of transport for people”.[8]

Figure 1 – Donkeys were used for travelling in ancient Egypt. This depiction is from the 5^th Dynasty period (Source: Heidi Kopp, “Desert travel and transport in ancient Egypt. An overview based on epigraphic, pictorial and archaeological evidence”, in Desert Road Archaeology in Ancient Egypt and Beyond, eds. Frank Forster and Heiko Reimer [Germany: Heinrich-Barth-Institut, 2013], pp. 117).

            A carrying chair, also known as a palanquin, was another possible way to travel.[9] Certainly, chariots would have been more mobile and fast, but if the Pharaoh was not capable of riding on a chariot, he had other means to pursue the Israelites.

Figure 2 – A carrying chair or palanquin from the 6^th Dynasty period (Source: Kopp, op. cit., p. 117)

            Finally, the reviewer suggested that the Quran may not give “more accurate information” but rather that:

“…as a later secondary work, two originally distinct pharaohs were conflated into a single figure for simpler storytelling.”

But as discussed above, this line of argumentation conveniently brushes aside the evidence of the Quran’s undeniable accuracy by denigrating the Quran to the status of “a later secondary work”. This approach is both lazy and unfair. Whether secondary or not, the Quran demonstrates an amazing level of accuracy and coherence which are not found in the Bible. One could also argue that for the sake of “simpler storytelling”, the author of the Quran could have opted to repeat the story as it was popularly known, instead of changing some details.  

---

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/djnclw/ive_been_looking_into_islam_lately_and_came/f48sqkm/

[2] https://quranandbibleblog.wordpress.com/2019/10/04/the-pharaoh-in-genesis-how-the-quran-and-ahadith-correct-the-bible/

[3] This contradicts Exodus 1:15, which states that only 2 midwives were given the task of killing male infants as a form of population control.

[4] https://quranandbibleblog.wordpress.com/2014/12/22/the-exodus-from-egypt-part-iii/

[5] Zahi A. Hawass and Sahar Saleem, Scanning the Pharaohs: CT Imaging of the New Kingdom Royal Mummies, ed. Sue N. Saleem (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2016), p. 161.

[6] Ibid., p. 166.

[7] Heidi Kopp, “Desert travel and transport in ancient Egypt. An overview based on epigraphic, pictorial and archaeological evidence”, in Desert Road Archaeology in Ancient Egypt and Beyond, eds. Frank Forster and Heiko Reimer (Germany: Heinrich-Barth-Institut, 2013), pp. 113-116.

[8] Ibid., p. 113.

[9] Ibid., p. 116.

Eusebius Matthew 28:19

The position in the question, that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is not original to Matthew 28:19 is held today by very few scholars. Those that do point to a quotation from the early church historian Eusebius. In Demonstratio 3.6, he replaces "name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" with "my name."

This is then taken as a direct quote from the copy of Matthew he was using and the conclusion is then reached that the long version of Matthew 28:19 was added later. Also, it is concluded that the short reading was purposefully suppressed.

The originality of the short version of the verse fails in regards to both physical/manuscript evidence and logic.

Manuscript Evidence I: Matthew

Even though critics of trinitarians claim there is a mountain of historical evidence, there actually isn't. Another answer on this site lays out the manuscripts of Matthew. No manuscript of Matthew is known that has the short form of the verse. Even though the critical texts used by scholars lay out all kinds of textual variants throughout the NT, my copy of NA-27 does not list any variants on Matthew 28:19. Even though it lists out variants on 18 and 20, there are none for 19. When looking beyond Greek, all ancient translations have the long reading of Matthew (Latin, Syriac, etc).

One might point out the Hebrew translation of Matthew known as Shem Tob. While it does not have the long reading, it does not count for several reasons.

1.     It dates from the late 1300s (the medieval period, not antiquity). Far too late to be of any significant textual help.

2.     It doesn't even have the short reading of "baptizing in my name." Instead, Matt 28:19-20 reads "Go and teach them to carry out all the things which I have commanded you forever." It mentions nothing of baptizing at all.

Bart Ehrman, a noted textual critic who is neither a Christian nor a trinitarian (in fact, he describes himself as an agnostic) agrees that the long form of the verse is original. The same blog reproducing Ehrman on this passage has a statement from another New Testament scholar who is also an authority on Eusebius. He notes:

1.     Eusebius' short form (Demonstratio 3.6, 7(bis); 9.11; Hist. Eccl. III.5.2; Psalms 65.6; 67.34; 76.20 (59.9 not the same reading); Isaiah 18.2; 34.16 (v.l.); Theophania 4.16; 5.17; 5.46; 5.49; Oratio 16.8) is the only textual evidence for the short reading

2.     Eusebius tends to abbreviate elsewhere

3.     Eusebius quotes the long form in Contra Marcellum I.1.9; I.1.36; Theologia III. 5.22; EpCaesarea 3 (Socrates, Eccl.Hist 1.8); Psalms 117.1-4; and Theophania 4.8

It is worth noting that Eusebius in Demonstratio Evangelica, one of the places where he is supposed to be quoting the short version of Matthew 28:19, also "quotes" Philippians 2:9. However, the statement is certainly not a quotation:

Eusebius writes is as:

God bestowed on him the name above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee shall bow of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

However, the full text is:

Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;

Eusebius is certainly refering to Phil 2:9f, but his writing of it is not a quotation.

Manuscript Evidence II: Quotation from the Church Fathers

Text critics don't just look at manuscripts of the text. They also examine quotations of passages in early writers. All quotations of Matthew 28:19 that include the "name" formula have the long version and not the short.

·         Didache 7:1 Concerning baptism, you should baptize this way: After first explaining all things, baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in flowing water

·         Tertullain On Baptism paragraph 13 Go, he says, teach the nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.

·         Tertullian Against Praxeas, chapter 2 says, "After His resurrection ..He commands them to baptize into the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost".

·         Gregory Thaumaturgus (205-265 AD) in A Sectional Confession of Faith, XIII

·         Hippolytus (170-236 AD says in Fragments: Part II.-Dogmatical and Historical.--Against the Heresy of One Noetus,

·         Cyprian (200-258AD) in The Seventh Council of Carthage Under Cyprian

·         and others

In total, searching only those Fathers prior to Nicea, I found 24 quotations of Matthew 28:19 using the full formula. There were no quotations amongst these writers with the short version. There were also quotations of the verse where they stopped prior to the list of names (i.e. "he commanded us to teach all nations"). I did not count those. In several of these, the full quote provides the basis for the argument supplied in the rest of the paragraph.

Triune Formulas Elsewhere in the New Testament

Even if Matthew 28:19 as we now know it is an addition, that does not eliminate the other trinitarian formulas present in the New Testament.

·         At the baptism of Jesus, all three persons are present (Matthew 3:16-17; Mark 1:10-11; Luke 3:21-22; John 1:32).

·         2 Corinthians 13:14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you

·         1 Peter 1:2-3a ...who have been chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood: May grace and peace be yours in abundance. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Logical Evidence

A third way in which the longer form can be seen to be original is to simply apply logic to the argument for the shorter as a conspiracy. The argument is that some faction of the Church (obviously representing the majority as this view won):

1.     Wanted the trinity formula in Matthew.

2.     Willfully altered manucsripts of Matthew 28:19.

3.     Sought out and destroyed all manuscripts of Matthew 28:19 containing the short reading.

4.     Then went through the writings of the Ante-Nicean Fathers and altered their quotations of Matthew, destroying all other copies.

However, these conspirators, who had so little respect for Scripture that they altered it and were so careful as to destroy every copy of Matthew with the short reading, left intact the so-called original verse in Luke 24:47 (which is not a baptismal formula and is not a parallel to Matthew 28:19)* and all references to Jesus' name baptism in Acts and the Epistles! If this willful alteration is being done in Matthew, why stop there? Why not change Luke 24:47; Acts 2:38; 8:12, 16; 10:48; and 19:5? These five verses in Acts all refer to Jesus' name baptism or being baptized in Jesus' name (once, in the name of our Lord). None of them have textual variants of a trinitarian formula. Logically, if the conspirators made the change once, they would make the change in other places. At the time which this conspiracy is supposed to have taken place (Nicea, AD 325), the de-facto canon had been used and recognized since Iraneus. Matthew, Luke, and Acts were already recognized as Scripture.

*Matthew 28 takes place in Galillee while Luke's is in Jerusalem. Luke contains only statements of repentance and remission of sins while Matthew also speaks of teaching and baptism.

Another failing of this conspiracy is that they missed Eusebius, one of their contemporaries. Eusebius was a trinitarian and a powerful figure in the church. Yet, while they changed all quotations of Matthew 28:19 from the short to long in all the Ante-Nicean Church Fathers, they missed a few places in Eusebius but got his others. How did they manage to get all of the others yet miss some of one of their own?

If this were a conspiracy, it was a rather inept conspiracy as it left intact so many other verses in Scripture while managing to replace all versions of Matthew 28:19 with the new one.

Scholars such as F. C. Conybeare¹ have claimed that the Trinitarian baptismal formula of Matthew 28:19 was not original to the text of Matthew.

Matt 28:19 (NIV)

¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,

In other words, was the phrase in the text "In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" inserted at a later date (say, for example, by the First Nicean Council of AD 325)?

The correct reading of Matthew 28:19 appears to be in Luke 24:47:

Luke 24:47 (NIV)

⁴⁷ and repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

Another question on this site had covered some questions relating to the final portion of the Gospel of Matthew in part, however my question is whether or not there is any historical and textual evidence that the particular text of Matthew 28:19 appeared later?

¹F.C. Conybeare, "The Eusebian Form of the Text of Mt. 28:19," ZNW 2 (1901): 275-88

According to the New Testament Moses is the Antichrist

Jesus was never mentioned by Moses by name, nor did Moses accept Jesus as "Christ the Messiah". Let's go to  1 john 2:22 and use its criteria to identify who is the Antichrist

Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the Antichrist--denying the Father and the Son. (1 John 2:22)

Doesn't this show that Moses of the Bible was the Antichrist for denying Jesus as the Christ. If you disagree please show us where Jesus was called the messiah by name in the Torah. think about it if Moses really did mention Jesus by name or call him the Messiah allegorically, why then don't we find any such explanation of this allegorical saying interpreted by Jewish rabbis in any of their classical writing's throughout history?

there are no early writings from Jewish rabbis regarding Jesus being mentioned by Moses. the Talmud/ Mishna make no mention of Jesus being the Messiah. No orthodox Jew ever made mention of Jesus being the son of God, or said Moses said the son of God will be the Messiah.

Then he said, "When I was with you before, I told you that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms must be fulfilled." (Luke 24:44)

Jesus even said Moses spoke everything about him, so where do we find the explicit mention of Jesus by name in the Torah by Moses or any other Prophets per say?

If Moses was unaware of Jesus, then we can conclude using 1 John 2:22 he was the Antichrist.

Now, there is a way out from this Christians? All they have to do is, admit the Torah they have has been corrupted/altered by those evil rabbis, who took the name of Jesus out. Which probably would make more sense, rather than twisting their text and trying to find a name which isn't in there in the first place.

One wonders if the Jews would accept such absurdity from Christians for admitting their so called saviours name being erased?