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Gospel Truth?

John 21: 20 – 25

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 07 May, 2006

TWO MUSLIM girls where I work were discussing Easter — how should they participate when they believe that Jesus is an important prophet, but don’t believe in the resurrection?

I remarked on their difficulty, and one of them referred me to a Muslim website comparing Muslim and Christian beliefs.

The underlying assumption of that site was that the Gospels are unreliable, that they have been corrupted, and that they do not represent the gospel preached by early Christians.

That writer would have agreed with a lot in in Dan Brown’s book, The Da Vinci Code. Brown believes that the gospels are unreliable.

Brown states that the Emperor Constantine established the New Testament canon, suppressed eighty alternative gospels and altered the four we have today. He quotes from the so–called Gospel of Philip that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were husband and wife. He does not accept today’s New Testament.

Before we can tackle Dan Brown, we need to know if the Bible’s four gospels can be taken seriously.

Today we will look at

• external evidences,

• the texts.

• the dating of the gospels.

External evidence

If we didn’t have the gospels, we wouldn’t know a lot about Jesus.

He himself apparently never wrote anything enduring. He was not a major world figure, and is rarely mentioned.

While we can fnd external confirmation that the gospels were written by people who knew first century Judea well, Jesus barely appears.

Pliny mentions him in a letter to Emperor Trajan in about 112AD and Tacitus, writing around the same time, mentions that Christians were followers of Christ, who had been executed by Pontius Pilate. But we do’t know if they were reporting hearsay or Roman records.

Some fairly late Jewish writings mention Jesus, but they are mainly anti–Christian propaganda and only confirm that he existed.

Some versions of Josephus’ histories mention Jesus, but there is ongoing debate about what was actually written by Josephus, and what was inserted later.

There is some archaeological evidence that John’s gospel was written by someone who knew the locations where the events in Jesus’ life take place. For example, John mentions the five covered colonnades at the Pool at Bethesda. These were destroyed when the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD, but modern archaeology shows that they did, in fact, exist.

The external evidence suggests that Jesus existed and was executed; it shows that the gospel writers were familiar with the settings where the events occurred. But we have no other independent verification.

The Texts

So, if we want to find out anything about Jesus, our sources are the gospels. From an historical point of view, it is good to have four different accounts. Even though they have a lot in common, the differences add to their authenticity.

But, sadly, there are no first century manuscripts. The earliest fragment is a few lines from John’s gospel from around 125AD.

After that, we begin finding more and more fragments, but the first reasonably complete New Testament books are from around 350AD.

Other ancient writers have far less support, so why do people argue against the gospels? Tacitus, Julius Caesar, Herodotus — we don’t get copies of their works until 800 or 900 years after they died. And everyone says, “How wonderful! These historic works have been preserved!”

But, with the gospels, where the earliest complete copies date from around 300 years after the event, people say, “That’s not reliable!”

You all know that the earliest manuscripts were hand–copied. Some were done by professional scribes to keep in a church or library; many were copied down as someone read the Bible passage in a church service. That was how people got their own Bible.

So there are errors in the manuscripts.

Some are simple and meaningless errors, like spelling mistakes. But we don’t know everything about first century Greek. A spelling mistake could really be a word we haven’t seen before, so scholars still notice it.

Sometimes it was mishearing, like if a scribe misheard the tense of a verb.

Have you ever confused, ”he says” with ”he said”? It often barely affects the meaning.

In Greek one easy mistake is to confuse a simple past tense like, “he said“ with the past continuous tense, “he was saying”. Some Greek verb forms are very easily confused.

Of course there are many differences between different manuscripts, but most are very, very minor.

Sometimes a scribe leaves a word out, or copies the same word twice. Sometimes, they will even jump to a new line several down from where they were working, or repeat an entire sentence, or even quote a similar passage from another gospel from memory instead of copying what was in front of them.

Mostly it is easy to see what has happened.

In fact, there are only two major sections of the gospels which are very doubtful.

One is the story in John 8 about the woman taken in adultery. It does not appear in the earliest manuscripts, and it does not even always appear in John’s gospel.

The other is the final 11 verses of Mark’s gospel, which are a brief account of the resurrection appearances, Jesus’ charge to the disciples to preach the gospel, and his ascension into heaven and the early spread of the gospel.

Both are consistent with the gospels, but an historian can’t rely on them. The story about the woman taken in adultery: isn’t that the way Jesus would have handled such a situation? But that doesn’t prove its authenticity. Those extra verses in Mark fit with other things we read about Jesus, but did Mark write it?

What I want you to know, though, is something unique to the Bible as a religious book.

Copies of the Quran have nothing like this. The Book of Mormon doesn’t do it. Only the Bible does.

Every student who passes through a regular Theological College and studies Greek receives a copy of the Greek text used for modern Bible translations.

It has footnotes. The majority of footnotes show variant readings from the standard text, and tell which manuscripts contain them.

Even most Bible translations list the main variant readings as well, but without the detail.

Bible scholarship does not seek to hide difficulties. It knows that all manuscripts contain differences. When there are literally thousands of manuscripts and fragments, the amazing thing is that they hang together so well. The variations don’t affect any significant Biblical teaching. And any person with some skill in the ancient languages is free to go back to the original texts and question what should be included or omitted.

Jesus claimed to be the truth, and said that the truth will set us free.

If that is so, there is nothing more important than to get at the truth about Jesus.

To conceal an uncomfortable fact because it troubles our faith is a denial of Jesus, and a distortion of Christian faith.

So we must always consider the difficulties and understand what our faith is really about.

The dates

Finally, let’s consider the dates of the gospels. A century ago, only fundamentalists and some historians claimed that the gospels were written soon after the events they record. The top theological scholars all said that the gospels were not eye–witness accounts, but merely reported what the church thought in the second century.

Here’s why. Scholars stumbled at prophecies of the destruction of the JerusalemTemple, which happened in AD 70, when the Romans destroyed the central rallying point of Jewish nationalists.

But the gospels say that Jesus foretold this event in around 28 or 29 AD, over 40 years before it happened.

How could that happen? People don’t really foretell future events, not that far ahead!

Did the early Christians make this up after the event, to prove Jesus was a prophet?

Matthew’s gospel contains these words,

^{MATT 24:1} Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. ² “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”

They wanted to know when this would happen. Jesus warned of false Christs and false teachers, of wars and uprisings and eathquakes and famines. He goes on to warn them,

^{MATT 24:15} “So when you see standing in the holy place `the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel -— let the reader understand -— ¹⁶ then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. ¹⁷ Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house.

Interestingly, the early Christians expected this disaster, and many fled when the Romans persecuted the Jews in 70 AD and again in 135 AD. But did Jesus actually tell them to flee?

These theologians said, ”The gospels can’t have been written earlier than 70AD, and could be as late as 120AD, except, maybe, for Mark.”

Evangelical scholars have stuck up for early dates for the gospels. But there’s a kind of snobbery that says that you can’t be Evangelical and scholarly.

Then Bishop John A.T. Robinson came on the scene. His early writings caused world–wide furore, and were widely condemned as liberal and heretical. So he was no Evangelical.

Robinson believed that the New Testament was written years after the events. But, as a kind of joke, he studied the New Testament to see if he could make a case for an early date for perhaps one of the books.

He didn’t expect that he would succeed.

However, as he studied, he concluded that there is nothing in any New Testament book which requires it to have been written after the destruction of the Temple.

How did he reach this conclusion?

There were several reasons. For example, Paul, writing before 60AD, speaks of his companion, Luke, in a way which may imply that Luke had already written his gospel. Paul, who died before 70AD clearly knew parts of the gospel accounts, though no one knows exactly which gospels he knew.

But Bishop Robinson’s main reason has to do with the destruction of the Temple — the very thing that caused scholars so much heartburn a century earlier.

There’s no debate that the early Christians believed that, when Jesus died on the cross, he superseded and ended the entire Jewish sacrificial system.

The writer to the Hebrews says,

^{HEB 7:21b} “The Lord has sworn

and will not change his mind:

`You are a priest forever.’ “

²² Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant.

²³ Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; ²⁴ but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. ²⁵ Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.

If the gospel writers wanted to prove that Jesus’ death was effective, all they needed to do was point to the destruction of the Temple. God himself, by the hands of the Romans, had brought the sacrifices to a complete end. Yet not one of them says this had actually occurred; nor did any of them link Jesus’ prophecy of the destruction with his sacrificial death on the cross.

The gospel writers missed their best chance. And the most logical reason is that the Temple still existed when they were writing! That makes for early dates for the gospel, and confirms Jesus as a genuine prophet.

If we can push the gospels back to before 70AD, and assuming that Mark is the earliest, we get a scheme like,

• Mark — 45 AD

• Matthew & Luke — 50 – 55 AD

• John — 65 AD

These dates are well within living memory of Jesus.

Additionally, Matthew and Luke used another document, usually called Q, which was already circulating before they wrote their accounts.

One 2nd Century Christian historian, Papias, knew the Apostle John, and said that Mark based his gospel on the preaching of St Peter.

Don’t uncritically accept a late date for the gospels. The evidence points towards far earlier dates than we once thought.

Conclusions

We might not have a lot of external evidence for Jesus. But the gospels are unlikely to be such late documents as was once thought, and they show evidence of containing even earlier material. This fact raises serious questions about Dan Brown‘s theories.

Historians very rarely cast doubt on the Gospels as primary sources of information about Jesus. So why should we? Because some German theologian can’t believe that true prophecy occurs? That’s pretty ridiculous, really!

Luke talks about his researches. He says:

^{LUKE 1:1} Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, ² just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. ³ Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, ⁴ so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

In addition, why didn’t people attack the basic facts of the gospel as it was preached or written in those early days? People certainly claimed that Jesus hadn’t risen again, but no one said he had never existed, no one said that he wasn’t crucified. The early Christian preachers kept saying, ”You yourselves know about these things!”

We can still read the writings of heretics like Marcion, or of the gnostic, Valentius, or of the pagan opponent, Celsus. Theology students read what they said. So where are the writings which say, ”Jesus never existed”? Who wrote, ”Your account of him is wrong.”?

You can rely on the gospels. You might disagree with how people interpret them — that’s what historians do. But don’t make the mistake of dismissing them as primary historical sources.

The Biblical Scholar, J.B. Phillips, translated the gospels and concluded that they had what he described as, “The Ring of Truth.”

The Greek scholar, Dr E.V Rieu, was not a believer, and translated the gospels as historic documents alone. As he translated them, he became a believer in the historical Jesus and finished his life as a man of faith.

Dan Brown may have piqued your curiosity about the gospels, but he is not a reliable historical source. Read the gospels and find out about Jesus for yourself!

© Peter R. Green 2006. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)