According to Jewish sources, the Messiah will be born of human parents and possess normal physical attributes like other people. He will not be a demi-god, nor will he possess supernatural qualities. In fact, an individual is alive in every generation with the capacity to step into the role of the Messiah. (see Maimonides - Laws of Kings 11:3)

The Messiah must be descended on his father's side from King David (see Genesis 49:10 and Isaiah 11:1). According to the Christian claim that Jesus was the product of a virgin birth, he had no father—and thus could not have possibly fulfilled the messianic requirement of being descended on his father's side from King David!

Roman Catholics believe that God came down to earth in human form, as Jesus said: "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30).

Maimonides devotes most of the "Guide for the Perplexed" to the fundamental idea that God is incorporeal, meaning that He assumes no physical form. God is Eternal, above time. He is Infinite, beyond space. He cannot be born, and cannot die. Saying that God assumes human form makes God small, diminishing both His unity and His divinity. As the Torah says: "God is not a mortal" (Numbers 23:19).

The Catholic idea of Trinity breaks God into three separate beings: The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost (Matthew 28:19).

Contrast this to the Shema, the basis of Jewish belief: "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is ONE" (Deut. 6:4). Jews declare the Shema every day, while writing it on doorposts (Mezuzah), and binding it to the hand and head (Tefillin). This statement of God’s One-ness is the first words a Jewish child is taught to say, and the last words uttered before a Jew dies.

In Jewish law, worship of a three-part god is considered idolatry—one of the three cardinal sins that a Jew should rather give up his life than transgress. This explains why during the Inquisitions and throughout history, Jews gave up their lives rather than convert.

From this, we can reach the conclusion:
1) Jesus was either human, or
2) Jesus was a false prophet, or
3) It was made up.

This is further reinforced by the following:

The Messiah will lead the Jewish people to full Torah observance. The Torah states that all mitzvot (commandments) remain binding forever, and anyone coming to change the Torah is immediately identified as a false prophet. (Deut. 13:1-4)

Throughout the New Testament, Jesus contradicts the Torah and states that its commandments are no longer applicable. (see John 1:45 and 9:16, Acts 3:22 and 7:37) For example, John 9:14 records that Jesus made a paste in violation of Shabbat, which caused the Pharisees to say (verse 16), "He does not observe Shabbat!"

Whereupon we can follow up with the fact that Jewish belief is based solely on national revelation:

Of the 15,000 religions in human history, only Judaism bases its belief on national revelation—i.e. God speaking to the entire nation. If God is going to start a religion, it makes sense He’ll tell everyone, not just one person.

Throughout history, thousands of religions have been started by individuals, attempting to convince people that he or she is God’s true prophet. But personal revelation is an extremely weak basis for a religion because one can never know if it is indeed true. Since others did not hear God speak to this person, they have to take his word for it. Even if the individual claiming personal revelation performs miracles, there is still no verification that he is a genuine prophet. Miracles do not prove anything. All they show—assuming they are genuine—is that he has certain powers. It has nothing to do with his claim of prophecy.

Judaism, unique among all of the world’s major religions, does not rely on "claims of miracles" as the basis for its religion. In fact, the Bible says that God sometimes grants the power of "miracles" to charlatans, in order to test Jewish loyalty to the Torah (Deut. 13:4).

Maimonides states (Foundations of Torah, ch. 8):
The Jews did not believe in Moses, our teacher, because of the miracles he performed. Whenever anyone’s belief is based on seeing miracles, he has lingering doubts, because it is possible the miracles were performed through magic or sorcery. All of the miracles performed by Moses in the desert were because they were necessary, and not as proof of his prophecy.

What then was the basis of [Jewish] belief? The Revelation at Mount Sinai, which we saw with our own eyes and heard with our own ears, not dependent on the testimony of others… as it says, "Face to face, God spoke with you…" The Torah also states: "God did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us—who are all here alive today." (Deut. 5:3)

Judaism is not miracles. It is the personal eyewitness experience of every man, woman and child, standing at Mount Sinai 3,300 years ago.

With that said, if we are to assume the original religion (Judaism) were true, then the subsequent branch off from it (Christianity) cannot be true due to it not fulfilling the requirements stated in said original religion.

...which leads me to a Lawrence Krauss quote:

"Most people want to believe in believing. . .
most people of faith in our society naturally pick and choose from the doctrine things they find absolutely ridiculous and throw out; and the question is, and the Pope would say that's not palatable - and I would tend to agree with the Pope. I think if you can't believe some of the stuff and need to throw it out, then just forget the whole thing."

Also, here's a much longer bit you can get into if you're just really passionate about this:

The biggest problem with disregarding the Old Testament for the New Testament is that the New Testament was written by the human followers of another human (albeit whom is considered divine, which is just another problem all together). The Old Testament was prescribed directly by God himself.

Now when we get into this point, we have to ask ourselves... If God is truly all knowing, then why make the old laws to begin with, if they were just going to be done away with a few thousand years later anyways? (This also becomes a problem when the original text states that the Old Testament is to remain binding forever and anyone who states that it no longer is, is a false prophet. (Deut. 13:1-4))

The problem with forfeiting the relevancy of the Old Testament, is that it is still around. Most Christians still have their male children circumcised, and Christian children around the world still memorize the Ten Commandments. It would seem that the practice of the old testament law is still alive and well among Christianity today.

Another silly problem is the blue laws that exist within many of the US states today. Laws such as when stores may open, or if they're even allowed to open at all, on Sundays. The entire law is rooted back to the Commandment "honor the sabbath day and keep it holy." But, that entire concept is a direct contradiction. The laws all concern Sunday, which is not the sabbath day, on the basis that the Old Testament no longer applies and the day of rest is now supposed to be the first rather than the seventh day of the week. I do believe that's why US calendars start the week on Sunday rather than Monday, like most of the logically reasonable world.

But anyways, getting back to my original point... Christians are supposedly disregarding the Old Testament because Jesus was supposedly the Messiah and they were now no longer required to uphold the laws of the old testament.

When we go beyond the issue of the whole human thing that I mentioned earlier, my biggest problem is that Christianity itself is simply branched off of Judaism, and if we ascribe to Judaism, then Jesus does not qualify as the Messiah. In fact, it's very clear due to various things that he should be considered a false prophet (see 2-C below):

What exactly is the Messiah?
The word “Messiah” is an English rendering of the Hebrew word “Mashiach”, which means “Anointed.” It usually refers to a person initiated into God’s service by being anointed with oil. (Exodus 29:7, I Kings 1:39, II Kings 9:3)

Since every King and High Priest was anointed with oil, each may be referred to as “an anointed one” (a Mashiach or a Messiah). For example: “God forbid that I [David] should stretch out my hand against the Lord’s Messiah [Saul]...” (I Samuel 26:11. Cf. II Samuel 23:1, Isaiah 45:1, Psalms 20:6)

Where does the Jewish concept of Messiah come from? One of the central themes of Biblical prophecy is the promise of a future age of perfection characterized by universal peace and recognition of God. (Isaiah 2:1-4; Zephaniah 3:9; Hosea 2:20-22; Amos 9:13-15; Isaiah 32:15-18, 60:15-18; Micah 4:1-4; Zechariah 8:23, 14:9; Jeremiah 31:33-34)

Many of these prophetic passages speak of a descendant of King David who will rule Israel during the age of perfection. (Isaiah 11:1-9; Jeremiah 23:5-6, 30:7-10, 33:14-16; Ezekiel 34:11-31, 37:21-28; Hosea 3:4-5)

Since every King is a Messiah, by convention, we refer to this future anointed king as The Messiah. The above is the only description in the Bible of a Davidic descendant who is to come in the future. We will recognize the Messiah by seeing who the King of Israel is at the time of complete universal perfection.

1) JESUS DID NOT FULFILL THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES
What is the Messiah supposed to accomplish? The Bible says that he will:

A. Build the Third Temple (Ezekiel 37:26-28).

B. Gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6).

C. Usher in an era of world peace, and end all hatred, oppression, suffering and disease. As it says: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall man learn war anymore." (Isaiah 2:4)

D. Spread universal knowledge of the God of Israel, which will unite humanity as one. As it says: "God will be King over all the world—on that day, God will be One and His Name will be One" (Zechariah 14:9).

The historical fact is that Jesus fulfilled none of these messianic prophecies.

Christians counter that Jesus will fulfill these in the Second Coming, but Jewish sources show that the Messiah will fulfill the prophecies outright, and no concept of a second coming exists.


2) JESUS DID NOT EMBODY THE PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS OF MESSIAH

A. MESSIAH AS PROPHET
Jesus was not a prophet. Prophecy can only exist in Israel when the land is inhabited by a majority of world Jewry. During the time of Ezra (circa 300 BCE), when the majority of Jews refused to move from Babylon to Israel, prophecy ended upon the death of the last prophets—Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.

Jesus appeared on the scene approximately 350 years after prophecy had ended.

B. DESCENDENT OF DAVID
According to Jewish sources, the Messiah will be born of human parents and possess normal physical attributes like other people. He will not be a demi-god, nor will he possess supernatural qualities.

The Messiah must be descended on his father's side from King David (see Genesis 49:10 and Isaiah 11:1). According to the Christian claim that Jesus was the product of a virgin birth, he had no father—and thus could not have possibly fulfilled the messianic requirement of being descended on his father's side from King David!

C. TORAH OBSERVANCE
The Messiah will lead the Jewish people to full Torah observance. The Torah states that all mitzvot (commandments) remain binding forever, and anyone coming to change the Torah is immediately identified as a false prophet. (Deut. 13:1-4)

Throughout the New Testament, Jesus contradicts the Torah and states that its commandments are no longer applicable. (see John 1:45 and 9:16, Acts 3:22 and 7:37)  For example, John 9:14 records that Jesus made a paste in violation of Shabbat, which caused the Pharisees to say (verse 16), "He does not observe Shabbat!"

3) MISTRANSLATED VERSES "REFERRING" TO JESUS
Biblical verses can only be understood by studying the original Hebrew text—which reveals many discrepancies in the Christian translation.

A. VIRGIN BIRTH
The Christian idea of a virgin birth is derived from the verse in Isaiah 7:14 describing an "alma" as giving birth. The word "alma" has always meant a young woman, but Christian theologians came centuries later and translated it as "virgin." This accords Jesus’ birth with the first century pagan idea of mortals being impregnated by gods.

B. CRUCIFIXION
The verse in Psalms 22:17 reads: "Like a lion, they are at my hands and feet." The Hebrew word ki-ari (like a lion) is grammatically similar to the word "gouged." Thus Christianity reads the verse as a reference to crucifixion: "They pierced my hands and feet."

C. SUFFERING SERVANT
Christianity claims that Isaiah chapter 53 refers to Jesus, as the "suffering servant."

In actuality, Isaiah 53 directly follows the theme of chapter 52, describing the exile and redemption of the Jewish people. The prophecies are written in the singular form because the Jews ("Israel") are regarded as one unit. The Torah is filled with examples of the Jewish nation referred to with a singular pronoun.

Ironically, Isaiah's prophecies of persecution refer in part to the 11th century when Jews were tortured and killed by Crusaders who acted in the name of Jesus.

From where did these mistranslations stem? St. Gregory, 4th century Bishop of Nazianzus, wrote: "A little jargon is all that is necessary to impose on the people. The less they comprehend, the more they admire."

4) JEWISH BELIEF IS BASED SOLELY ON NATIONAL REVELATION
Of the 15,000 religions in human history, only Judaism bases its belief on national revelation—i.e. God speaking to the entire nation. If God is going to start a religion, it makes sense He’ll tell everyone, not just one person.

Throughout history, thousands of religions have been started by individuals, attempting to convince people that he or she is God’s true prophet. But personal revelation is an extremely weak basis for a religion because one can never know if it is indeed true. Since others did not hear God speak to this person, they have to take his word for it. Even if the individual claiming personal revelation performs miracles, there is still no verification that he is a genuine prophet. Miracles do not prove anything. All they show—assuming they are genuine—is that he has certain powers. It has nothing to do with his claim of prophecy.

Judaism, unique among all of the world’s major religions, does not rely on "claims of miracles" as the basis for its religion. In fact, the Bible says that God sometimes grants the power of "miracles" to charlatans, in order to test Jewish loyalty to the Torah (Deut. 13:4).

Maimonides states (Foundations of Torah, ch. 8):
[SIZE="1"]    The Jews did not believe in Moses, our teacher, because of the miracles he performed. Whenever anyone’s belief is based on seeing miracles, he has lingering doubts, because it is possible the miracles were performed through magic or sorcery. All of the miracles performed by Moses in the desert were because they were necessary, and not as proof of his prophecy.

    What then was the basis of [Jewish] belief? The Revelation at Mount Sinai, which we saw with our own eyes and heard with our own ears, not dependent on the testimony of others… as it says, "Face to face, God spoke with you…" The Torah also states: "God did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us—who are all here alive today." (Deut. 5:3)[/SIZE]

Judaism is not miracles. It is the personal eyewitness experience of every man, woman and child, standing at Mount Sinai 3,300 years ago.

5) CHRISTIANITY CONTRADICTS JEWISH THEOLOGY
The following theological points apply primarily to the Roman Catholic Church, the largest Christian denomination.

A. GOD AS THREE?
The Catholic idea of Trinity breaks God into three separate beings: The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost (Matthew 28:19).

Contrast this to the Shema, the basis of Jewish belief: "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is ONE" (Deut. 6:4). Jews declare the Shema every day, while writing it on doorposts (Mezuzah), and binding it to the hand and head (Tefillin). This statement of God’s One-ness is the first words a Jewish child is taught to say, and the last words uttered before a Jew dies.

In Jewish law, worship of a three-part god is considered idolatry—one of the three cardinal sins that a Jew should rather give up his life than transgress. This explains why during the Inquisitions and throughout history, Jews gave up their lives rather than convert.

B. MAN AS GOD?
Roman Catholics believe that God came down to earth in human form, as Jesus said: "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30).

Maimonides devotes most of the "Guide for the Perplexed" to the fundamental idea that God is incorporeal, meaning that He assumes no physical form. God is Eternal, above time. He is Infinite, beyond space. He cannot be born, and cannot die. Saying that God assumes human form makes God small, diminishing both His unity and His divinity. As the Torah says: "God is not a mortal" (Numbers 23:19).

Judaism says that the Messiah will be born of human parents, and possess normal physical attributes like other people. He will not be a demi-god, and will not possess supernatural qualities. In fact, an individual is alive in every generation with the capacity to step into the role of the Messiah. (see Maimonides - Laws of Kings 11:3)

C. INTERMEDIARY FOR PRAYER?
The Catholic belief is that prayer must be directed through an intermediary—i.e. confessing one’s sins to a priest. Jesus himself is an intermediary, as Jesus said: "No man cometh unto the Father but by me."

In Judaism, prayer is a totally private matter, between each individual and God. As the Bible says: "God is near to all who call unto Him" (Psalms 145:18). Further, the Ten Commandments state: "You shall have no other gods BEFORE ME," meaning that it is forbidden to set up a mediator between God and man. (see Maimonides - Laws of Idolatry ch. 1)

D. INVOLVEMENT IN THE PHYSICAL WORLD
Catholic doctrine often treats the physical world as an evil to be avoided. Mary, the holiest woman, is portrayed as a virgin. Priests and nuns are celibate. And monasteries are in remote, secluded locations.

By contrast, Judaism believes that God created the physical world not to frustrate us, but for our pleasure. Jewish spirituality comes through grappling with the mundane world in a way that uplifts and elevates. Sex in the proper context is one of the holiest acts we can perform.

The Talmud says if a person has the opportunity to taste a new fruit and refuses to do so, he will have to account for that in the World to Come. Jewish rabbinical schools teach how to live amidst the bustle of commercial activity. Jews don’t retreat from life, we elevate it.

6) JEWS AND GENTILES
Judaism does not demand that everyone convert to the religion. The Torah of Moses is a truth for all humanity, whether Jewish or not. King Solomon asked God to heed the prayers of non-Jews who come to the Holy Temple (Kings I 8:41-43). The prophet Isaiah refers to the Temple as a "House for all nations."

The Temple service during Sukkot featured 70 bull offerings, corresponding to the 70 nations of the world. The Talmud says that if the Romans would have realized how much benefit they were getting from the Temple, they’d never have destroyed it.

Jews have never actively sought converts to Judaism because the Torah prescribes a righteous path for gentiles to follow, known as the "Seven Laws of Noah." Maimonides explains that any human being who faithfully observes these basic moral laws earns a proper place in heaven.

7) BRINGING THE MESSIAH
Maimonides states that the popularity of Christianity (and Islam) is part of God’s plan to spread the ideals of Torah throughout the world. This moves society closer to a perfected state of morality and toward a greater understanding of God. All this is in preparation for the Messianic age.

Indeed, the world is in desperate need of Messianic redemption. War and pollution threaten our planet; ego and confusion erode family life. To the extent we are aware of the problems of society, is the extent we will yearn for redemption. As the Talmud says, one of the first questions a Jew is asked on Judgment Day is: "Did you yearn for the arrival of the Messiah?"

How can we hasten the coming of the Messiah? The best way is to love all humanity generously, to keep the mitzvot of the Torah (as best we can), and to encourage others to do so as well.

Despite the gloom, the world does seem headed toward redemption. One apparent sign is that the Jewish people have returned to the Land of Israel and made it bloom again. Additionally, a major movement is afoot of young Jews returning to Torah tradition.

The Messiah can come at any moment, and it all depends on our actions. God is ready when we are. For as King David says: "Redemption will come today—if you hearken to His voice."

-----------

The chief-god Kronos did not have the foresight and lost control of his creation. So, Zeus son of the chief-god had to visit the realm of Hades to conquer his enemies to atone for his father’s failure.
   • a. Jesus son of a chief-god, where that chief-god also lost control of his creation so that Jesus had to be sacrificed to atone for the failure of his dad to have proper planning but instead creating laws that doomed humankind?
   • b. Why Jesus like Zeus, too had to visit realm of Hades to defeat his enemies?
   • c. Don’t you find the eerie similarity mortifying to your belief in Jesus? Why is your chief-god so powerless and would make such a huge blunder of creating laws that condemn humankind?
   • d. Your chief-god is not the Almighty Allah that I read from the original Hebrew of the Bible (and some Aramaic in 5 chapters of the book of Daniel). BTW, the Aramaic chapters of the Bible address Almighty as [Allah/אלה].

In the original Hebrew of the Bible, there is not a single person with the personal name of “Satan”, but in your Christian theology there is.
    • a. Don’t you realise that there was a benign Persian deity who sounded like “satan”?
    • b. Didn’t you realise that Christianity ironically did not fluorish in Iranian territories until Islam defeated the Zoroastrians, because Zoroastrians had realised that Jesus was character invented by the Romans as yet another vector against Iranian interests?
    • c. Don’t you know that the Persians were competing against the Helenists for political, cultural and military influence? Don’t you see that the Hellenistic translators in their hellenistic patriotism had co-opted a benign Persian god as the super-supreme evil and hence retrofitted that Super-supremo satan into their corrupted translation of the Hebrew of the Bible?
    • d. Aren’t you even able to see that?

There is no concept of hades when you read the original Hebrew of the Bible. None. Zero.
    • a. If you understood Arabic or Hebrew, even a little, you would know that [Sh-AL/שאל] means question or ask.
    • b. And if you did read in Hebrew, king Saul’s name [ShA-UL/שאול] is a passive participial that means “asked” - perhaps his mother had prayed for and asked for a son.
    • c. And if you understood the grammatical implication the other passive declension [ShE-OL/שאול] means unknown or mystery. So that the psalmist expressed his fear of descending into the mysterious unknown where/when he will never again see people he is familiar with.
    • d. Don’t you know the sea of fire is a Persian mythology? You didn’t know that? In combination of the eruption of volcanoes, where the destruction was perceived as even swallowing up hades.
    • e. Don’t you know that the original Hebrew in Daniel says that some of those who slept in the earth shall awaken to eternal life, while others will be despised in eternal shame (without arising). Your Christian bibles can translate however they want, to force-align with the declarations made by your mythical Jesus.
    • f. Your Christian translations have fraudulently retrofitted the concept of Hades into the Hebrew of the Bible.

In Genesis chapter 2, God rests from His [MLAKheT/מלאכת] on the 7th/fulfillment day.
    • a. [MLAKheT/מלאכת] is a verbal-noun of [MLAKh/מלאך]
    • b. [LAKh/לאך] = a task or commission. So, [MLAKh/מלאך] is the participative hifil-derivative of participating in a task or commission. Jonah was not asked in the storm by his shipmates “What is your work?” He was was asked “What is your MLAKheT/מלאכת? What is your objective or task?”
    • c. English translations translate [MLAKh/מלאך] as “angel” due to the Greek translation “anggelos”. But didn’t you know that “anggelos” are the horse-mounted messenger demigods in Greek and Persian mythologies?
    • d. Why did your Hellenistic translators not use more appropriate Greek word to translate “tasked or commissioned person” but instead chose to remind themselves of the paganistic beings “anggelos”?
    • e. In the original Hebrew of the Bible - there are no “angels”, but commissioned persons.
    • f. In Genesis, God Almighty ceased from His objective/task. You do not realise the enigma of that biblical statement because the original language of your Bible is English, and frequently the English of a 16th/17th century English literary sheikh, inherited from corrupt Hellenistic translations. That is why Jewish Qabalah realise that humankind takes over the continuance of the creation of the Universe.

I know some of you Christians laugh at me asking “original Hebrew?”
    • a. Don’t you realise that the septuagint were translated by Hellenistic Jews who were too interested in projecting their own religion as equivalent in sophistry to Hellenist philosophies and mythologies, thus injecting pagan concepts and beings not found in the original Hebrew?
    • b. Don’t you realise that although your KJV or NIV profess to be based on the Hebrew Masoret, in actual fact uses pagan theology from the septuagint to justify the misalignment from the Hebrew Masoret. So effectively, your KJV and NIV are based on the septuagint.
    • c. The septuagint thereafter was progressively added onto later by non-Jewish but pagan sources.
    • d. Where are the original papyri of the septuagint now?

Perhaps 150 years after the invention of the character Jesus/Yeshua from a collage of actual and mythical personalities, another character Paul was invented by the Roman government.
    • a. Why would the faction of Peter not appoint Paul as one of the Apostles, such that Paul had to appoint himself an apostle? That is because Paul and Pauline epistles were a sequel to the Jesus myth.
    • b. Pauline epistles were a skillfully executed sequel by the Romans (in the spirit of the Star Trek franchise) because they could not modify a story that had already pervaded every nook and corner for nearly 200 years, when the Romans decided to invent a rabbi named Paul who would de-Judaize Christianity.
    • c. It was time for Christianity to become a global religion and had to be cut-off from its invented Jewish origins. So the Romans illuminati decided that the sequel should have Paul appoint himself an Apostle.
    • d. It was a time when the residual Nero-loyalists had dissipated in their resistance and attempted persecution against the Roman new world order. It was time for Jesus to be officially declared the official god of the Roman empire.

There is not a single archaeological evidence of the existence of Jesus/Yeshua.
    • a. It appears that your mythological Jesus, like satan/שטן, is not a single person, but a collection of multiple persons. All merged into one individual by the Romans.
    • b. Every reference to a Jesus is either a scant couple of sentences, or people getting high from 2nd/3rd hand smoke.
    • c. It was a time when the Roman empire was fractured by the excesses and narcissism of Nero, and the Roman military invented Jesus/Yeshua to unify the empire in their coup against Nero.
    • d. It was a time when the Jewish resistance was inspiring secession thro out the Roman empire. That is why the Roman military made Yeshua a Jewish figure, but with all the pagan elements in the Roman empire - to harvest the spirit generated by the Jewish resistance thro out the empire.
    • e. The minister of propaganda in the Roman military was a former rabbinic rebel-leader Joshephus. Josephus had deliberately injected inaccuracies into the gospel he had helped create, so that those who are well-schooled in Torah and Jewish scriptures would immediately recognise the fraud of Christianity.
    • f. To the disappointment of Josephus, his former compatriots refused to join the Roman military in their rebellion against Nero. Therefore, Jews had to be destroyed and accused of having murdered the Roman mythological god Yeshua. So that for millennia thereafter, Jews were persecuted and massacred by Christians without apology.
    • g. Your famed crusades are one of the most evil movements that executed the massacre of Jews.

-------------

Half of New Testament forged, Bible scholar says
By John Blake, CNN

(CNN) - A frail man sits in chains inside a dank, cold prison cell. He has escaped death before but now realizes that his execution is drawing near.

“I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come,” the man –the Apostle Paul - says in the Bible's 2 Timothy. “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith.”

The passage is one of the most dramatic scenes in the New Testament. Paul, the most prolific New Testament author, is saying goodbye from a Roman prison cell before being beheaded. His goodbye veers from loneliness to defiance and, finally, to joy.

There’s one just one problem - Paul didn’t write those words. In fact, virtually half the New Testament was written by impostors taking on the names of apostles like Paul. At least according to Bart D. Ehrman, a renowned biblical scholar, who makes the charges in his new book “Forged.”

“There were a lot of people in the ancient world who thought that lying could serve a greater good,” says Ehrman, an expert on ancient biblical manuscripts.In “Forged,” Ehrman claims that:

* At least 11 of the 27 New Testament books are forgeries.

* The New Testament books attributed to Jesus’ disciples could not have been written by them because they were illiterate.

* Many of the New Testament’s forgeries were manufactured by early Christian leaders trying to settle theological feuds.

Were Jesus’ disciples ‘illiterate peasants?'

Ehrman’s book, like many of his previous ones, is already generating backlash. Ben Witherington, a New Testament scholar, has written a lengthy online critique of “Forged.”

Witherington calls Ehrman’s book “Gullible Travels, for it reveals over and over again the willingness of people to believe even outrageous things.”

All of the New Testament books, with the exception of 2 Peter, can be traced back to a very small group of literate Christians, some of whom were eyewitnesses to the lives of Jesus and Paul, Witherington says.

“Forged” also underestimates the considerable role scribes played in transcribing documents during the earliest days of Christianity, Witherington  says.

Even if Paul didn’t write the second book of Timothy, he would have dictated it to a scribe for posterity, he says.

“When you have a trusted colleague or co-worker who knows the mind of Paul, there was no problem in antiquity with that trusted co-worker hearing Paul’s last testimony in prison,” he says. “This is not forgery. This is the last will and testament of someone who is dying.”

Ehrman doesn’t confine his critique to Paul’s letters. He challenges the authenticity of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and John. He says that none were written by Jesus' disciplies, citing two reasons.

He says none of the earliest gospels revealed the names of its authors, and that their current names were later added by scribes.

Ehrman also says that two of Jesus’ original disciples, John and Peter, could not have written the books attributed to them in the New Testament because they were illiterate.

“According to Acts 4:13, both Peter and his companion John, also a fisherman, were agrammatoi, a Greek word that literally means ‘unlettered,’ that is, ‘illiterate,’ ’’ he writes.

Will the real Paul stand up?

Ehrman reserves most of his scrutiny for the writings of Paul, which make up the bulk of the New Testament. He says that only about half of the New Testament letters attributed to Paul - 7 of 13 - were actually written by him.

Paul's remaining books are forgeries, Ehrman says. His proof: inconsistencies in the language, choice of words and blatant contradiction in doctrine.

For example, Ehrman says the book of Ephesians doesn’t conform to Paul’s distinctive Greek writing style. He says Paul wrote in short, pointed sentences while Ephesians is full of long Greek sentences (the opening sentence of thanksgiving in Ephesians unfurls a sentence that winds through 12 verses, he says).

“There’s nothing wrong with extremely long sentences in Greek; it just isn’t the way Paul wrote. It’s like Mark Twain and William Faulkner; they both wrote correctly, but you would never mistake the one for the other,” Ehrman writes.

The scholar also points to a famous passage in 1 Corinthians in which Paul is recorded as saying that women should be “silent” in churches and that “if they wish to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home.”

Only three chapters earlier, in the same book, Paul is urging women who pray and prophesy in church to cover their heads with veils, Ehrman says: “If they were allowed to speak in chapter 11, how could they be told not to speak in chapter 14?”

Why people forged

Forgers often did their work because they were trying to settle early church disputes, Ehrman says. The early church was embroiled in conflict - people argued over the treatment of women,  leadership and relations between masters and slaves, he says.

“There was competition among different groups of Christians about what to believe and each of these groups wanted to  have authority to back up their views,” he says. “If you were a nobody, you wouldn’t sign your own name to your treatise. You would sign Peter or John.”

So people claiming to be Peter and John - and all sorts of people who claimed to know Jesus - went into publishing overdrive. Ehrman estimates that there were about 100 forgeries created in the name of Jesus’ inner-circle during the first four centuries of the church.

Witherington concedes that fabrications and forgeries floated around the earliest Christian communities.

But he doesn’t accept the notion that Peter, for example, could not have been literate because he was a fisherman.

“Fisherman had to do business. Guess what? That involves writing, contracts and signed documents,” he said in an interview.

Witherington says people will gravitate toward Ehrman’s work because the media loves sensationalism.

“We live in a Jesus-haunted culture that’s biblically illiterate,” he says. “Almost anything can pass for historical information… A book liked ‘Forged’ can unsettle people who have no third or fourth opinions to draw upon.”

Ehrman, of course, has another point of view.

“Forged” will help people accept something that it took him a long time to accept, says the author, a former fundamentalist who is now an agnostic.

The New Testament wasn’t written by the finger of God, he says - it has human fingerprints all over its pages.

“I’m not saying people should throw it out or it’s not theologically fruitful,” Ehrman says. “I’m saying that by realizing it contains so many forgeries, it shows that it’s a very human book, down to the fact that some authors lied about who they were.”