This story ends with a dead Christian so it's not to be taken lightly.
I'll start with a brief rundown of the history of the bible. Most Christian scholars will agree with everything I say - which is not surprising since I collected my information from those very same Christian scholars. Of course my language is a bit more robust than the language used by the scholars. (They talk about "late additions"; I talk about forgeries. They talk about "conjectural emendations"; I talk about lying Christians.) Anyway, back to the history lesson:
(1) Jesus died in about 30 AD
(2) His apostles left not one word about their Messiah. Not one word.
(3) Neither did any of the other first Christians. Not a word from any of them.
(4) It wasn't until twenty years after Jesus was dead that Paul arrived on the scene and started preaching about the Messiah - but he didn't have much of a story to tell. No sayings of Jesus; no parables; no stories about the birth of Jesus; no stories about his family; no miracles; no healings; nothing at all like that. Among the few things Paul knew (or thought he knew) about Jesus is that he died, rose again, went to heaven, and promised to return. That's about it, not much else.
(5) Twenty years later (circa 70 AD) Mark wrote his gospel. Like Paul, he knew practically nothing about the life of Jesus. For example he says nothing about the birth of Jesus; never mentions Bethlehem; never mentions Joseph as the earthly father of Jesus; and mentions Mary the mother of Jesus only once!
(6) Mark also has very little to say about the resurrection of Jesus. He says that some women went to the tomb at sunrise on Sunday morning and found that it was already open with a young man sitting inside it. That young man told them Jesus had already ascended into heaven and the women ran away. As we are told in Mark 16:8, "Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid." And that's where Mark's story ended.
(7) Ten years later (circa 80 AD) Matthew copied most of Mark's gospel. By that time, though, Christians were starting to ask some serious questions about Jesus: Who was he? Where did he come from? What happened to him after he died? And Matthew decided to answer those questions - by telling lies. He invented all sorts of rubbish about Bethlehem, wise men, shepherds, angels, and even claimed that the holy family had to hide in Egypt for several years because Herod was killing all the Jewish babies. None of those stories were true. Matthew made them up.
(8) Matthew also made up some stories about the post resurrection appearances of Jesus. Whereas Mark said the women found the empty tomb and ran away, Matthew has Jesus chasing after those women and asking them to tell the apostles to go to Galilee where he will speak to them in person before he ascends into heaven.
(9) Ten years after Matthew (circa 90 AD) the gospel of Luke was written. Like Matthew before him, Luke copied most of Mark's gospel and he also invented a birth story for Jesus - but it was completely different from the story told in Matthew's gospel. For example there was no trip to Egypt after Jesus was born. According to Luke the holy family went to Jerusalem where Jesus was circumcised when he was eight days old, and then they went straight back to Nazareth.
(10) And I guess you won't be surprised to learn that Luke also made up his own stories about the post resurrection appearances of Jesus; stories that were completely different to the ones made up by Matthew. According to Luke, Jesus appeared to two disciples on the road to Emmaus, then to Simon, then to the eleven apostles and to some other people as well. Bullshit piled on top of bullshit.
(11) Then, about a hundred years later, some Christian liars decided it wasn't right that the other gospels had so much to say about the post resurrection appearances of Jesus while Mark said nothing at all - so they added another twelve verses to the end of Mark's gospel. Those additional verses claimed that Jesus was first seen by by Mary Magdalene; then by two disciples, and then the eleven apostles.
(12) But the forgers weren't satisfied with just telling lies about Jesus appearing to the apostles; they decided to add a bit of oogedy-boogedy stuff as well. They made the nonsensical claim that true Christians could pick up snakes and drink poison without being harmed: "They will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all." (Mark 16:18)
(13) Those twelve verses were so obviously forgeries that many Christians of the period refused to accept them. For example, the codex Sinaiticus and codex Vaticanus were both written in the third century and neither of them included verses 9 to 20. Even the modern bibles that contain the twelve forged verses will often include a footnote reminding Christians that they are of dubious origin.
And that was the situation when George Hensley appeared at the Dolly Pond Church of God in Birchwood, Tennessee in 1910. He was an uneducated, drunken Christian who went on to be married four times yet never held a steady job and once got arrested for making moonshine during the prohibition era. He was the guy who started the snake handling churches in America where Christians tested their faith in Jesus by following the words in Mark 16:18. He was the guy who said that Christians should pick up poisonous rattlesnakes and hope to Christ they didn't get bitten - and people listened to the silly bastard!
(12) But the forgers weren't satisfied with just telling lies about Jesus appearing to the apostles; they decided to add a bit of oogedy-boogedy stuff as well. They made the nonsensical claim that true Christians could pick up snakes and drink poison without being harmed: "They will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all." (Mark 16:18)
(13) Those twelve verses were so obviously forgeries that many Christians of the period refused to accept them. For example, the codex Sinaiticus and codex Vaticanus were both written in the third century and neither of them included verses 9 to 20. Even the modern bibles that contain the twelve forged verses will often include a footnote reminding Christians that they are of dubious origin.
And that was the situation when George Hensley appeared at the Dolly Pond Church of God in Birchwood, Tennessee in 1910. He was an uneducated, drunken Christian who went on to be married four times yet never held a steady job and once got arrested for making moonshine during the prohibition era. He was the guy who started the snake handling churches in America where Christians tested their faith in Jesus by following the words in Mark 16:18. He was the guy who said that Christians should pick up poisonous rattlesnakes and hope to Christ they didn't get bitten - and people listened to the silly bastard!
And now the latest news:
John David Brock, 60, died after a snake bit him in the left arm and he refused medical treatment, according to the Bell County Sheriff's Office. Brock was handling a snake during a church service at Mossy Simpson Pentecostal Church in Jenson.
A church member says Brock was bitten by a rattlesnake. Brock refused medical treatment and went to his brother's house where he died four hours later. Bell County Coroner Jay Steele was called to the residence and pronounced Brock dead.
http://www.wkyt.com/home/headlines/
If only he had known a bit more about the history of the bible, he would have known that Jesus never told anyone to pick up snakes for any reason whatsoever. The story was invented by a Christian con-man more than a hundred years after Jesus was dead and popularized nearly 2,000 years later by a ratbag alchoholic who couldn't tell his arse from his elbow. John Brock didn't die for Christian truth, he died for a Christian lie.
[Almost poetically, John Brock was born in 1955; the same
year that George Hensley died...in church...from snake bite!]
