Can I believe in the first three Gospels

Listen, you must remember that when Yehoshua was walking on earth and dwelling among us, as

well as his apostles, and also John the baptist (before being beheaded), the people did not have a collection of letters and books called the "New Testament." Rather, at that time, they had to seek into the Tanach to see if something were true or not.. For the Jewish canon had already had been around for about 165 years by the time Yehoshua came on the scene. The proof of this is the Septuagint. (The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures, circa 150-300BC.) We see Yehoshua approving of this canon, because he commanded his followers to obey the words of the Pharisees, which sit in Moses' seat (Matt 23). Thus, if we see Yehoshua trusting in the Septuagint, we should to.

As far as trusting in the gospels, if something does not inline itself up with the written text of the Torah and the Tanach in whole, then it is not worthy to believe. For in the Tanach, you have commandments, stories, songs, riddles, insights, the path to holiness, and prophecies about the messiah when he comes on the scene, his life, death, resurrection, glorification and reign, as well as other prophecies.

Keep a few things in mind, you must put yourself in that time, regardless of your modern surroundings. Therefore, understand you do not have the writings of the gospels, nor any other writing that came right after Jesus left. So when a prophet came on the scene, he proved himself to be one by giving a sign after telling some great thing, even if it was simply the established law. This sign was the surety factor in whether or not the message came from heaven, or just from the "prophet's" own mind. Therefore, if a man simply rebuked people with the Torah, as John the baptist apparently did, yet did not have a sign yet, he was simply a righteous man. John, however, gave the greatest sign of them all in my opinion, more than Moses, even though he never performed a miracle, (as Moses constantly did). If you have not picked up what I am saying so far, the sign that he gave was: "You people have waited hundreds of years for the promised prophet and messiah, yet he has not come. Yet, in order for you to believe I am a prophet of Yehowah, he will come during my watch. In fact, I myself will baptize him." Thus, if the people were not slow in understanding, all they had to do was wait, because the things he predicted were not like some of the things that Daniel predicted that would be fulfilled hundreds, if not thousands of years later. Rather, the things John predicted would transpire within the next few months. Thus, the sign of John came to pass, the messiah, who John knew not, came walking in his midst and John baptized him. When he did so, what appeared was like a dove descending from the heavens and resting on Yehoshua, then John knew this was he. Thus, through the prophet, he was introduced to the world, though maybe subtly and not with trumpets.

When this sign came to pass (or any sign of any prophet came to pass), all the people were required by Yehowah to obey every word that came out of the prophet's mouth, because it was just proven with that sign that he uttered the words of HaShem.

Jesus was the same way, in order to prove that he was the messiah. His sign, however. was greater than all the signs of what the previous prophets gave and foretold. This sign was not necessarily just his miracles, but that he mentioned, "This will be the sign I give you, in order for you to believe, and know for sure that I am the promised one: I will live my life in such a way, that I will be accused of blasphemy eventually, and so be put to death, yet after three days I will live again and do so forever after that."

Do you see then what I mean? Until the sign comes to pass, if the man simply is rebuking and teaching people he is simply a righteous and holy man, but that does not mean he is a prophet, not until it comes to pass, for then he is proven to be a prophet. Now if such a man were to give a sign in the name of the Lord, and that sign did not come to pass, you must put him to death, because he would be a false prophet, and you are not allowed to speak for the Lord without him giving you the words to speak. Usually, however, if a man is predicting something, the people will soon find out whether or not he is a prophet because he is telling the people to do something new. 'New,' could actually be old, though, yet it is different from what is presently going on.

I will show you what I mean:

Let us look at a story in the Tanach to see what I mean. Let me start off by telling you a few things first. After the death of King Solomon, the kingdom was divided because of the sin of Solomon (thus the sign of a particular prophet came to pass here). This kingdom was then divided into two kingdoms, the Northern Kingdom, known as the Kingdom of Israel, and the Southern Kingdom, known as the Kingdom of Judea. Well, regardless of this division the people still had to go to Judah, to Jerusalem, year after year to celebrate the festivals. The Northern king was afraid that if the people were to do that, then their hearts would be toward Judah, instead of his own kingdom. Thus, the king made places of worship for the people in Israel to go to. That is to worship idols and images. Thus, when the Lord saw this, He sent a prophet to rebuke them because He desired for them to repent. Now, understand that the prophet himself could have torn down these worship centers, but that would have cost him his life and would have resulted in nothing. For the king would have just rebuilt these evil places, thus the prophet was telling them to convert and follow the Torah as before. If they would have done so, they would just tear down their own evil worship centers. The king of the Northern Kingdom was Jeroboam.

Here is the story, 1 Kings 12-13:

So you see, this prophet was not telling them anything new to obey, just that he was personally sent from Yehowah to rebuke Jeroboam. To say that he needed to tear down the evil things, keep the Torah and stop being greedy in regards to not wanting the people to go down into Judah to celebrate the festivals.

Moving on:

There is another note you must keep in mind when it comes to the point when Jesus entered into heaven again. That is many people were trying to chronicle the life and accounts of Jesus, not just 4 folks. For this is what the author of 'Luke' says in Luke 1:1,

"Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things

that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed

down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and

servants of the word."

By this verse, we also see that this "Luke," was not an eyewitness. Therefore, one should put himself in this boat when reading these things, because what 'Luke' wrote was not from the things he saw, but were stories that he learned from others. The gospel of 'John,' however, was written by one that was there and participated with Jesus in the stories told, therefore, what he says is trustworthy. For we see that Matthew was not written by Matthew, because when "Matthew" was called from the tax booth, the author is not talking about himself and he describes that Jesus ate the Passover as his last supper with his disciples, which is not the case. Now, just because the three particular gospels were not written by actual eyewitnesses, does not necessarily mean they should be rendered useless or worthless. Rather, they should always be considered and read with a 'grain of salt', and a high measure of discernment in regards to keeping in line with what the torah teaches.

So, how would a person know what is true or not in these particular gospels? Well, first of all, a righteous man only says righteous things and truthful things. Likewise, a fearing man does not tell lies when making a point, or to get a point across. Keep this is mind then when reading quotes about Jesus, for you should know he will never go against established law and doctrines. Anything contrary to that is false. You have to remember that we are speaking of the messiah here, not a regular man, nor a regular prophet. For the messiah is a prophet that has been prophesied about in which he will never transgress any law, nor teach lies. Thus, what he does is sinless. With that, it is pretty easy to determine what is false in these three gospels. The only thing is, if you are not learned in the Torah at all, nor in the doctrines of Judaism, which most 'believers' are not, you will believe anything that is written, because these things have been around for such a long time.

Even if things were not exactly uttered by Jesus, but are also not contradicting anything of Judaism, thus meaning the prophets, those words can still be taken as truth at least by themselves. For if it was written down in the first place, this is what the people obviously believed at that time, or at least heard at that time. Else, why write it?

I can say, even if you find errors by authors, such as the three gospels portraying Jesus as a sinner in regards to breaking regular bread on Passover, and teaching falsehood, this was most likely done by accident, not maliciously. For we see that the author wants the reader to follow and believe that Jesus is the Messiah. We see that these authors were Gentiles, because if they were Jewish they would know the laws surrounding festivals, as well as the doctrines of the prophets.

So, just remember when you read the three gospels, to place yourself there as if you were to hear someone orally tell you the account of Jesus' life. Remember also, that Matthew, Mark and Luke were Gentiles that did not grow up in the manners of Judaism. Keep in mind also that he would be telling you the story several years after the fact, and/or at least not being an actual eyewitness, and we all know or should know how those stories can be full of errors. One example of this in modern times, in American news, is the story about the storm of 05' called Katrina. When 'Katrina' hit New Orleans as an answer to mine and my wife's prayers- because of all their voodoo and sins- the news reporters were telling all sorts of non-eyewitness atrocities that were alledgedly going on, which never actually occurred, and so they had to apologize for their false reporting later.

Thomas

26 Jeroboam thought to himself, "The kingdom will now likely revert to the

house of David.

27 If these people go up to offer sacrifices at the temple of the LORD in

Jerusalem, they will again give their allegiance to their lord, Rehoboam

king of Judah. They will kill me and return to King Rehoboam."

28 After seeking advice, the king made two golden calves. He said to the

people, "It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your

gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt."

29 One he set up in Bethel, and the other in Dan.

30 And this thing became a sin; the people went even as far as Dan to

worship the one there.

31 Jeroboam built shrines on high places and appointed priests from all

sorts of people, even though they were not Levites.

32 He instituted a festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, like the

festival held in Judah, and offered sacrifices on the altar. This he did in

Bethel, sacrificing to the calves he had made. And at Bethel he also

installed priests at the high places he had made.

33 On the fifteenth day of the eighth month, a month of his own choosing,

he offered sacrifices on the altar he had built at Bethel. So he instituted

the festival for the Israelites and went up to the altar to make offerings.

Chapter 13

1 By the word of the LORD a man of God came from Judah to Bethel, as

Jeroboam was standing by the altar to make an offering.

2 He cried out against the altar by the word of the LORD : "O altar, altar!

This is what the LORD says: 'A son named Josiah will be born to the

house of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places

who now make offerings here, and human bones will be burned on you.' "

3 That same day the man of God gave a sign: "This is the sign the LORD

has declared: The altar will be split apart and the ashes on it will be

poured out."

4 When King Jeroboam heard what the man of God cried out against the

altar at Bethel, he stretched out his hand from the altar and said, "Seize

him!" But the hand he stretched out toward the man shriveled up, so that

he could not pull it back.

5 Also, the altar was split apart and its ashes poured out according to the

sign given by the man of God by the word of the LORD.

6 Then the king said to the man of God, "Intercede with the LORD your

God and pray for me that my hand may be restored." So the man of God

interceded with the LORD, and the king's hand was restored and became

as it was before.

7 The king said to the man of God, "Come home with me and have

something to eat, and I will give you a gift."

8 But the man of God answered the king, "Even if you were to give me half

your possessions, I would not go with you, nor would I eat bread or drink

water here.