What were the last words of Jesus?
The most familiar claim is this...
Yes, it seems odd that the man who is God, and at the same time the Son of God, is crying out for mercy to...his own Father-self. The oddity of that, and the sheer despair (of the man who deliberately set his own execution in motion), probably is why this passage is so familiar (to Christians).
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?" that is to say, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" ...Jesus, when he cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost." - Matthew 27:46,50
As a note for those who may have forgotten: the oldest known Gospels are all written in Greek. Here, they cast Christ speaking Aramaic. Aramaic is the language that came into use after Hebrew disappeared (around the time of Alexander the Great's incursion into the region, ca 300 BCE).
This leaves us with the curiosity about this passage: why do they cast Jesus speaking Aramaic at this moment? And the helpful insertion of the translation of his words into Greek indicates that the "author" may have spoken Aramaic as a second language. Furthermore, he appears to be addressing a Greek speaking audience. For all we know, this was inserted in some later version of the story, as they were trying to recruit Gentiles into the flock. (By "Author" I mean source, the unknown source of this document).
But then we come across two more!
And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, "Father, unto thy hands I commend my spirit:" and having said thus, he gave up the ghost." - Luke 23:46
If the previous passage cast Christ in the light of despair, this casts him as brave, or, in the vernacular of the day, Stoic. In fact, this rendering makes me think they wanted to cast Christ in the light of Socrates, resigned to his fate. If this is an appeal to stoicism, then, just as the helpful translation offered above, this could indicate they were reaching out to Greek converts who not only spoke the language, but also carried certain cultural perspectives, such the story of Socrates' voluntary execution. It even makes me wonder if the story of the crucifixion, which was likely the penalty for participating in the rebellion against Rome (at a time he would have been around 70 years old), of martyrs for the cause of Judaea (to save the Temple from destruction by the Romans), was merely a blending of Jewish Zealotry (resistance fighters) and classic Greek Stoicism, epitomized by Socrates' voluntary execution.
One thing is for certain--It would be crazy to take these accounts literally, even despite the clear contradictions in them. The contradictions just help us recognize they are mere legends. The actual Christian religion of the time was not even based on these writings. It would take hundreds of years for St Jerome to set out on a mission around the known world to gather every known scripture, and do an analysis that took most of his life, before presenting the results to a council of Bishops (Roman Catholic, of course, another fallacy of fundamentalism) before the writings were canonized. So who knows how many legends were flying around in the first century after the massacre of the Jews and the razing of the Temple. One thing is for sure: the writings are very timid toward their brutal overlords.
When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, "It is finished:" and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost." - John 19:30.
For someone who endured this hideous torture, it would seem more plausible that he was unconscious for a while before he died. These words don't require too much of a stretch in that regard. They are also devoid of any clue of catering to the Greeks (assuming my previous analysis is correct).
The other three gospels are called "synoptic" (same view) because they are similar, in the manner of works derived from a common source. John is different. It was probably the last one written. It would seem that the writer of John did not have access to the other materials, or perhaps only pieces of the others. More than likely he would have had the oral tradition of the late first century or early second century to inspire him. Clearly he is not the Apostle. He starts out by describing himself as "the voice that cries out in the wilderness." Howling? Why? About the atrocities of the Romans? He may have been an Essene. These are the Jewish religious sect who exiled themselves from Jerusalem to build an enclave in the desert, near the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. They began quarrying and peddling rock to survive. In the process they created pits into which water infiltrated. These became bathhouses, and they began practicing purification rituals in them. Yet the word "baptism" is Greek. Isn't that odd? One might expect such a community of religiously orthodox ascetics to insist on a Hebrew word, or at least Aramaic, to define a sacred ritual. So already something is amiss. How did John become a Greek rendition of their world view? So this document would seem to have its own circuitous explanation for even coming into existence. Were they afraid to openly declare the causes that impelled them to howl like wolves in the wilderness? The Roman atrocities against Christians was probably in full swing. Who would dare write openly about imperial atrocities? On the other hand:
Once upon a time there was a carpenter....
So, how can Christians decide which is the truth?
By not denying the fundamentalist world view, and the fascination with a particular interpretation of the Bible, for one thing. After all, Christians existed for centuries before the Bible did. So, in a similar vein to what you are saying, we might ask: What's wrong with that picture? How did Christianity become confused with fundamentalism? It's a very late invention, and highly active in the US, long after religious doctrine was supposedly settled. And yet, this movement often defines itself as the counter position to "human modifications to God's religion".
If no one can decide on even the most simplest of things, how then can one hold that the Bible is the literal word of God? Is God really that ADD?
Exactly. This is the fallacy of fundamentalism. It creates itself out of an interpretation, and declares the interpretation to be sacred.
