ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the twentieth century, a highly renowned American Jewish scholar of early Judaism and Christianity, Kaufmann Kohler (1843–1926), wrote:
Still, there are other criteria by which the Jewish investigator is able to ascertain the origin and authenticity of the gospel stories and trace the various stages of their growth. A careful analysis corroborates the conclusion, assumed to be axiomatic by Jewish scholars, that the older and more genuine the records, written or unwritten, of the doings and teachings of Jesus, the more they betray close kinship with and friendly relations to Jews and Judaism; but that the more remote they are from the time and scene of the activity of Jesus, the more they show of hostility to the Jewish people and of antagonism to the Mosaic Law. The changing attitude and temper of the new sect influenced the records at every stage, and this accounts for the conflicting statements found beside each other in the various gospels and gospel stories. 1
