Do You Know If Jesus Actually Said These Things?

This is from the gospels, but it's John the Baptist. He is quoting Isaiah and describing his own role in Jesus' nascent preaching career.

These are the words of the ancient physician Hippocrates. They're still good advice today.

This quote is very well-known. Jesus is speaking to Simon Peter, one of his first disciples, the fisherman who would become a great apostle.

This is where we get the popular expression "the blind leading the blind." Jesus was warning his followers not to set themselves up as spiritual leaders before they themselves were learned and were set right with God.

Hey, Jesus invented Boolean logic! Here, he was speaking to his disciple John, who told Jesus that he'd tried to stop a man casting out demons in Jesus' name, "because he does not follow with us." That's when Jesus said "Whoever is not against you is for you," a phrase that's with us to this day.

This was said by Thomas Aquinas, a Catholic saint who was both priest and philosopher during his life. The quote would suggest that he did not believe that evil served a purpose in the universe -- but it's impossible to go into the whole range of this deep thinker's beliefs here.

This line was used in the wildly popular musical, Godspell, which made it rhyme. "If the salt has lost its savor/It ain't got much in its favor."

These are the words of Soren Kierkegaard, a philosopher so morose some people called him, like Hamlet, "the melancholy Dane." Fun fact: Kierkegaard used to take his morning coffee thus -- he'd fill a coffee cup with sugar to *above the rim* and then pour coffee in to make a kind of thick coffee slurry. How anyone can feel low after drinking coffee like that is beyond us!

The speaker here is Abraham. It's easy to imagine Jesus saying, 'I am a stranger and an alien residing among you,' but he never asked for land for a burying place. Instead, he was buried in a borrowed tomb, the one belonging to Joseph of Arimathea.

This, again, is Paul, the apostle called on the road to Damascus. It has special meaning when you remember that Paul was briefly blinded by his encounter with God.

Jesus himself is the "bridegroom" in this metaphor. He is explaining why his disciples do not fast, but instead eat and drink.

This is Jesus quoting the prophet Isaiah (see Isaiah 56:7). It is Jesus, however, who adds the "den of thieves" part.

Jesus says this to Peter, who was so zealous to defend him in the Garden of Gethsemane. Peter does, in fact, deny knowing Christ three times before dawn on the morning of Jesus's trial.

This is Noah speaking, after his youngest son went into his tent and he saw him lying naked while passed out drunk. The youngest son is called "Ham" elsewhere, but "Canaan" here, which is also the name of Ham's son. Did Noah intend the curse to start with Canaan, or was it really Canaan who showed this disrespect? Bible scholars have several theories about the meaning here.

These were Jesus' words to the "good thief," the man who was crucified alongside him, and who believed in Jesus's divinity. The other thief mocked Jesus instead, asking him if he were the Messiah, why didn't he save himself.

This one is from the apostle Paul, or Saint Paul, depending on your denomination. There are probably more than a few people who attribute this verse to Jesus, but it's from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians).

In John chapter 12, Jesus quotes the prophet Zechariah (Zech 9:9). He is talking about his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, which Jesus made on a donkey colt, fulfilling the prophecy.

This is a quote from Psalm 58, written by King David. The couplet form is a tipoff; many of the Psalms and Proverbs have this parallel structure.

This is from William Shakespeare's "Two Gentlemen of Verona." If you thought right away it sounded too dramatic for Jesus, consider the similarity to Christ's lament for Jerusalem: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! ... How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings." (Matt. 23:37)

This is, in fact, Satan disguised as the serpent, tempting Eve. He tells her that she will know the difference between good and evil if she eats from the tree in the center of the garden ... and we all know what happens next.

This famous phrase comes from John Donne's "Meditations." It gave Ernest Hemingway the title of one of his more famous books, "For Whom the Bell Tolls."

This is the answer a demon-possessed man gave to Jesus, who has just asked his name -- or, in a sense, the name of the demon who possesses him. "My name is Legion" indicates that many demons are infesting the man. Jesus then drives them into a herd of pigs, who run off a cliff and drown.

We're assuming the child has asked for something to eat, in which case a snake would be a poor substitute for a fish. But we can't help but think, if the child wanted an exotic pet, a snake would be a great choice!

You might have recognized this as being part of the 23rd Psalm. It was written by King David, and is the most famous of his Psalms.

This is King Solomon's line, from the story of the two women who claimed the same baby as their son. Solomon ordered the son cut in two, and the real mother quickly told Solomon to give the baby to the other woman instead. 1 Kings 3 says, "All Israel ... stood in awe of the king, because they perceived that the wisdom of God was in him."

This is God speaking to Jacob in Genesis. Since most Christian denominations say that Jesus and God are one, a "yes" answer would be acceptable here. But the historical, human Jesus had not been born yet. We'll leave it to you to wrestle with the ramifications ...

When a man asks Jesus to tell his brother to share an inheritance with him, Jesus declines, saying he is not a judge or arbitrator. He then preaches a memorable sermon on the folly of pursuing earthly wealth and goods.

In older translations, Jesus says, "Turn the other cheek." It's where we get the popular metaphor for nonviolence and forgiveness.

This verse is problematic for literal Bible believers, as Jesus clearly seems to be identifying himself as separate from God, and even as a flawed human. We'll leave to it to the theologians to wrestle with what it really means, though.

These words come from the last chapter of Luke. Jesus has returned to the disciples and is proving to them that he is real. He further eats a fish in their presence, which goes to show that he has an earthly body, which needs food -- he's not some kind of ghost.

This couplet of praise is attributed to Miriam, Moses's sister, though Exodus tells us "Moses and the Israelites" sang it as well. They are celebrating the Red Sea drowning the pursuing Egyptians as the Israelites escape slavery.

This is one of the more famous quotes from John Milton's "Paradise Lost." "Darkness visible" is one of those beautiful paradoxes that Milton does so well.

While Jesus liked to speak in parables, and the parables often involved plants, this isn't one of them. This is Juliet on her balcony in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet."

This is from the Declaration of Independence. Believe it or not, there are people who confuse quotes from the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution with the Bible.

This comic quote -- at least, we trust he knew it was funny -- is from St. Augustine. Jesus himself was celibate, unless you subscribe to "Da Vinci Code" theories about Mary Magdalene being his secret wife.