Among Catholics and atheists, is easy to exchange convinced assertions: “The gospels are 100% God’s holy Word and every bit is historically accurate!” or “The gospels are fairy tales!” However there is a discipline called “Biblical scholarship” in which scholars do some very interesting work determining just which parts of the gospels they think are reliable and which they think are not. Their conclusions are, of course, debated. That’s what scholars do. Their work is fascinating and it is worth taking some time to look at just a smidgen of their methodology and conclusions.

Bible scholars are most interested in trying to determine whether the original gospels record eyewitness accounts, and whether those original versions have been transmitted accurately. To do this scholars consider several factors: 1) authorship and date of composition, 2) intention and genre, 3) gospel sources and oral tradition, 4) textual criticism, 5) historical authenticity of specific sayings and narrative events.

One of the difficult aspects for modern people to understand is just what kind of document the gospels are. Everyone can admit that they are not written as purely historical documents, but neither are they simply fabulous fables, myths, or fairy tales. In continuity with the Old Testament, and consistent with their Jewish origins, we have documents which are presented as history and have plenty of historically verifiable details, but which also have supernatural and otherworldly elements to them. Thus:

"The genre of the gospels is essential in understanding the intentions of the authors regarding the historical value of the texts. New Testament scholar Graham Stanton states that 'the gospels are now widely considered to be a sub-set of the broad ancient literary genre of biographies.' Charles H. Talbert agrees that the gospels should be grouped with the Graeco-Roman biographies, but adds that such biographies included an element of mythology, and that the synoptic gospels also included elements of mythology. E.P. Sanders states that 'these Gospels were written with the intention of glorifying Jesus and are not strictly biographical in nature.' Ingrid Maisch and Anton Vögtle writing for Karl Rahner in his encyclopedia of theological terms indicate that that the gospels were written primarily as theological, not historical items. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis notes that 'we must conclude, then, that the genre of the Gospel is not that of pure ‘history’; but neither is it that of myth, fairy tale, or legend. In fact, ‘gospel’ constitutes a genre all its own, a surprising novelty in the literature of the ancient world.'"

Historians therefore allow for the fact that these are essentially historical documents with what they call “mythological” elements woven into them. Whether the miracles or “the mythological elements” happened as the gospels report is open to debate. Believers accept the possibility of the miraculous. Non-believers do not. In each case the bias will affect the conclusion, however it must be said that one who believes miracles are possible is immediately more open-minded than one who rules that they are impossible. The believer is open therefore to more possibilities than the non-believer who, a priori, rules miracles out entirely.

What many people miss, because of a secular or a scientific bias (or both), is that this sort of story is common to humanity everywhere. The supernatural or “mythological” is woven into the lives and stories of many individuals, families, and cultures. Whether it is a near death experience, or a paranormal experience of some kind, or a more ordinary faith experience, people re-tell the remarkable things which have happened to them in ordinary life. Aunt Sally tells how she was healed at the summer camp revival meeting by Jesus Christ himself or Cousin Jimmy tells how he was miraculously preserved from falling headlong into a pot of acid by his guardian angel.

One does not have to accept that Aunt Sally was miraculously healed by Jesus to accept that she really did go to the revival meeting led by Pastor Billy Bob at the Hosannah Camp Meeting in Houndstooth, North Carolina on August third and that she went in feeling sick and came out feeling better. One does not have to accept the miraculous element of the story to acknowledge that Cousin Jimmy really did almost fall into a pot of acid, and that two workmates saw it happen at Florsheim Fertilizer Plant in Boondock Missouri on January 27 at 3:00 in the afternoon. In other words, it is reasonable to attempt to sift out what is verifiable and provable from a reported story which, by its nature, is subjective and perceived as supernatural and therefore not verifiable with ordinary means of enquiry.

This is what scholars quite sensibly do when confronted with the gospel accounts. The scholarship on the questions of authorship, date, sources, and genre is a scholarly industry in itself, but the topic for this post is the various tools used to help determine whether particular sayings or events from the recorded gospel accounts are authentic.

There are different scholarly means used to analyze the text. The first tool scholars use is called ‘criterion of dissimilarity’. This says if something Jesus did or said clashed with the Jewish religion of his day (and therefore the religion of the first Christians) then it is more likely to be authentic. There are many examples of this. Indeed the whole gospel story can be seen as subversive to the existing Jewish religion. However, some specific examples would be Jesus talking alone to the woman at the well in Samaria, or the story of the Good Samaritan, or Jesus and his disciples breaking the Sabbath rules, or Jesus sharing the hospitality of sinners, or standing the Ten Commandments on their head with his Sermon on the Mount.

Second, the ‘criterion of embarrassment’ says that if a saying or event was embarrassing to the memory of Jesus or the apostles it is more likely to be authentic. So Jesus losing his temper, clearing out the temple ,or calling a woman a ‘dog’ are all examples. The apostles being proud, vain, and doubting is another. So the story of Jesus being baptized by John would be authentic because it shows Jesus to be subordinate to John. Other examples include the supposed illegitimacy of Jesus’ birth and the most obvious—his execution as a criminal.

Third, the ‘criterion of multiple attestation’ says that “when two or more independent sources present similar or consistent accounts, it is more likely that the accounts are accurate reports of events or that they are reporting a tradition which pre-dates the sources themselves.” This is often used to note that the four gospels attest to most of the same events, but that Paul’s epistles often attest to these events as well, as do the writings of the early church, and to a limited degree non-Christian ancient writings.

Fourth, the ‘criterion of cultural and historical congruency’ says that a source is less credible if the account contradicts known historical facts, or if it conflicts with cultural practices common in the period in question. Conversely, if the account matches up with the other known facts it is more likely to be authentic. So the gospel stories are evaluated to see if they match with the known historical facts, the geography, archeological findings, cultural customs, and details etc.

It should be noted that the results of these methods of textual analysis are not always unanimously in favor of the historicity of the gospels. However, the results are significantly satisfactory for professional historians and Biblical scholars working together to show that the gospels are, for the most part, historically reliable documents.

One of the aspects of this analysis most often overlooked is the cross-referencing between the epistles of St. Paul and the gospels. Scholars are virtually unanimous in recognizing most of the Pauline epistles to be written before his death, which occured during the Neronian persecutions in the year 65. While not personally an eyewitness of Jesus’ ministry, the Book of Acts shows that he knew the other apostles and indeed went to them for instruction and validation of his ministry. Most importantly, Paul's epistles are not written as gospels with the intention to glorify Jesus and make converts. They are letters to the early Christian communities scattered around the Roman Empire. They are therefore very accurate reflections of the people in those early communities and are accurate records of the beliefs of those early communities.

In his epistles, Paul quotes early Christian creeds that obviously pre-date his own writing. Scholars believe these creeds date to within a few years of Jesus’ death and developed in the early Christian communities. These texts are therefore an important and unique source for the study of early Christianity. For example, 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 reads:  “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” The language formulations are different from Paul’s own and he is therefore quoting a mini-creed that is even earlier than his own writings, making it pre-65 AD. The antiquity of the creed has been located by many Biblical scholars to less than a decade after Jesus’ death, originating from the Jerusalem apostolic community.

Concerning this creed, New Testament scholar Hans Von Campenhausen says, “This account meets all the demands of historical reliability that could possibly be made of such a text,” and  A. M. Hunter writes, “The passage therefore preserves uniquely early and verifiable testimony. It meets every reasonable demand of historical reliability.”

This is just one of about half a dozen early creeds embedded in the writings of Paul. Here are some others:

• 1 John 4:2: “This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.”
• Romans 1:3: “Regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.”
• 1 Timothy 3:16: “He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory.”

Why does this matter? What these early Christian creeds show is that the so-called mythological elements of the gospels (angels, resurrection, ascension into heaven, Son of God) were not later additions and accretions to the tradition, but were part of the beliefs about Jesus from the very earliest days, beliefs that the gospels attest to, Paul affirms, and Christians today still hold.
 
 
Originally posted at Standing on My Head. Used with permission.
(Image credit: Wikimedia)

January 11, 49 B.C. is one of the most famous dates in the history of ancient Rome, even of the ancient world. On that date Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon River, committing himself and his followers to civil war. Few, if any, historians doubt that the event happened. On the other hand, numerous skeptics claim that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are myth and have no basis in historical fact. Yet, as historian Paul Merkley pointed out two decades ago in his article, "The Gospels as Historical Testimony," far less historical evidence exists for the crossing of the Rubicon than does for the events depicted in the Gospels:
 

"There are no firsthand testimonies to Caesar’s having crossed the Rubicon (wherever it was). Caesar himself makes no mention in his memoirs of crossing any river. Four historians belonging to the next two or three generations do mention a Rubicon River, and claim that Caesar crossed it. They are: Velleius Paterculus (c.19 B.C.–c.A.D. 30); Plutarch (c.A.D. 46–120); Suetonius (75–160); and Appian (second century). All of these evidently depended on the one published eyewitness account, that of Asinius Pollio (76 B.C.–c. A.D. 4)—which account has disappeared without a trace. No manuscript copies for any of these secondary sources is to be found earlier than several hundred years after their composition." (The Evangelical Quarterly 58, 319-336)

 
Merkley observed that those skeptics who either scoff at the historical reliability of the Gospels or reject them outright as "myth" do so without much, if any, regard for the nature of history in general and the contents of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in particular.

The Distinctive Sign

 
So, are the four Gospels "myth"? Can they be trusted as historical records? If Christianity is about "having faith," do such questions really matter? The latter question is, I hope, easy to answer: Yes, it obviously matters very much if the narratives and discourses recorded by the four evangelists are about real people and historical events. Pope Benedict XVI, in his book Jesus of Nazareth, offers this succinct explanation:
 

"For it is of the very essence of biblical faith to be about real historical events. It does not tell stories symbolizing suprahistorical truths, but is based on history, history that took place here on this earth. The factum historum (historical fact) is not an interchangeable symbolic cipher for biblical faith, but the foundation on which it stands: Et incarnates est —when we say these words, we acknowledge God’s actual entry into real history." (Jesus of Nazareth, xv)

 
Christianity, more than any other religion, is rooted in history and makes strong—even shocking—claims about historical events, most notably that God became man and dwelt among us. Of course, some Christians of a less-than-orthodox persuasion are content to discard large chunks of the Gospels as unnecessary (or even "offensive") or to interpret as "mythological" or "metaphorical" nearly each and every event and belief described therein. But such is not the belief of the Catholic Church (or of the Eastern Orthodox churches and most conservative Protestants). As the Catechism of the Catholic Church flatly states: "Belief in the true Incarnation of the Son of God is the distinctive sign of Christian faith" (CCC 463).

It is, ultimately, this distinctive sign—the conviction that Jesus of Nazareth was and is truly God and man—that is the focal point of attacks on the historical credibility of the Gospels and the New Testament. Over the past few centuries many historians and theologians have sought to uncover the "historical Jesus" and to peel away the many layers of what they believed were legend and theological accretion. Many abandoned hope that any historical (never mind theological) fact could be extracted from the Gospels.

A Work of Fiction

 
There were many complex reasons for this state of affairs, one of them being the Enlightenment-era doctrine that purely scientific, objective history could not only be found, but was necessary. Empirical data became for many scholars—men such as Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, and René Descartes—the key to all scholarship, including the study of history. It became the accepted wisdom that supernatural or miraculous elements could not be considered scientific and truly historical and that they had to be rejected. Anything outside the realm of empirical data was liable to be labeled "myth" and "legend."

Fast-forward to our day. The results of this approach are all around us, both in the scholarly and popular realm. Not long ago, a young filmmaker named Brian Flemming produced a documentary titled "The God Who Wasn’t There". Its purpose, he explained in an interview, is to demonstrate that the "biblical Jesus" is a myth. Asked to summarize the evidence for this stance, Flemming explained:
 

"It’s more a matter of demonstrating a positive than a negative, and the positive is that early Christians appeared not to have believed in a historical Jesus. If the very first Christians appear to believe in a mythical Christ, and only later did "historical" details get added bit by bit, that is not consistent with the real man actually existing...I would say that he is a myth in the same way that many other characters people believed actually existed. Like William Tell is most likely a myth, according to many folklorists and many historians. Of course, [Jesus] is a very important myth. I think that he was invented a long time ago, and those stories have been passed on as if they are true." (David Ian Miller, "Finding My Religion," www.sfgate.com)

 
Here "myth" is synonymous with "fiction" or even "falsehood," reflecting the Enlightenment-era bias against anything bearing even trace amounts of the supernatural. "All I’m saying," remarked Flemming, "is that [Jesus] doesn’t exist, and it would be a healthy thing for Christians to look at the Bible as a work of fiction from which they can take inspiration rather than, you know, the authoritative word of God."

"Serious Unicorns"

 
Thus the Gospels, according to skeptics such as Flemming, are compilations of "nice stories" or "silly tales," just like stories about unicorns and the Easter Bunny. Some skeptics mock Christians for holding fearfully onto childish tales while the truly mature people go about the business of making the world a better place. "Meanwhile, we should devote as much time to studying serious theology," stated well-known atheist Richard Dawkins in column in The Independent (Dec. 23, 1998), "as we devote to studying serious fairies and serious unicorns." Fellow atheist Daniel Dennett, in his book Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, wrote:
 

"The kindly God who lovingly fashioned each and every one of us and sprinkled the sky with shining stars for our delight—that God is, like Santa Claus, a myth of childhood, not anything [that] a sane, undeluded adult could literally believe in. That God must either be turned into a symbol for something less concrete or abandoned altogether." (18)

Smarter than Thou

 
Such rhetoric rests both on the assumption that the Gospels are fanciful myth and that the authors of the New Testament (and their readers) were clueless about the difference between historical events and fictional stories. There seems to be an overbearing sense of chronological snobbery at work: We are smarter than people who lived 2,000 years ago. Yet the Second Epistle of Peter demonstrates a clear understanding of the difference between myth and verified historical events: "For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty" (2 Pet. 1:16). The opening verses of Luke’s Gospel indicate that the author undertook the task of writing about real people and events:
 

"Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed." (Luke 1:1-4)

 
And the fourth Gospel concludes with similar remarks:
 

"This is the disciple who is bearing witness to these things, and who has written these things; and we know that his testimony is true. But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written." (John 21:24-25)

 
These quotations do not, of course, prove the historicity of the New Testament. Rather, they suggest that the authors, far from being knuckle-dragging simpletons, set about to write works depicting real people and events—especially since they believed the narratives they recounted had meaning only if they really did occur. As such, their historical content should be judged not against tales of unicorns and Easter bunnies, but against other first-century works of history and historical narrative.

What Is a Gospel?

 
The word gospel comes from the Greek word euangelion, meaning "good news" and refers to the message of Christian belief in the person of Jesus Christ. There has been much scholarly debate about the genre of "gospel" and how it might relate to other forms of writings found in first-century Palestine and the larger ancient world. Obviously, they do contain biographical details, and some scholars have argued in recent years that the gospels are as biographical in nature as anything in the ancient Greco-Roman world.

"The majority of recent specialized studies," writes Evangelical biblical scholar Craig L. Blomberg in Making Sense of the New Testament, "has recognized that the closest parallels are found among the comparatively trustworthy histories and biographies of writers like the Jewish historian Josephus, and the Greek historians Herodotus and Thucydides" (28). In his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Catholic theologian and biblical scholar Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis writes:
 

"We must conclude, then, that the genre of the Gospel is not that of pure "history"; but neither is it that of myth, fairy tale, or legend. In fact, euangelion constitutes a genre all its own, a surprising novelty in the literature of the ancient world. Matthew does not seek to be "objective" in a scientific or legal sense. He is writing as one whose life has been drastically changed by the encounter with Jesus of Nazareth. Hence, he is proposing to his listeners an objective reality of history, but offered as kerygma, that is, as a proclamation that bears personal witness to the radical difference that reality has already made in his life." (Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word, Vol. II: Meditations on the Gospel According to St. Matthew, 44)

 
Many early Christian authors, such as Justin Martyr, referred to the Gospels as memoirs of the apostles. Blomberg has used the descriptive "theological biographies," which captures well the supernatural and human elements found within them.

The Historical Evidence

 
Those supernatural elements—especially the miracles of Jesus and his claims to divinity—are, as we’ve noted, why skeptics call the Gospels "myth" while remaining unruffled about anything written about Julius Caesar and the Rubicon by Velleius Paterculus, Plutarch, Suetonius, and Appian. Yes, Suetonius did write in his account (Lives of the Twelve Caesars) about "an apparition of superhuman size and beauty...sitting on the river bank, playing a reed pipe" who persuaded Caesar to cross the river, but it has not seemed to undermine the belief that Caesar did indeed cross the Rubicon on January 11, 49 B.C. But, for the sake of argument, let’s set aside the theological claims found in the New Testament and take a brief look at the sort of data a historian might examine in gauging the reliability and accuracy of an ancient manuscript.

First, there is the sheer number of ancient copies of the New Testament. There are close to 5,700 full or partial Greek New Testament manuscripts in existence. Most of these date from between the second to 16th century, with the oldest, known as Papyrus 52 (which contains John 18), dating from around A.D. 100–150. By comparison, the average work by a classical author—such as Tacitus (c. A.D. 56–c. 120), Pliny the Younger (A.D. 61–113), Livy (59 B.C.–A.D. 17), and Thucydides (460–395 B.C.)—has about 20 extant manuscripts, the earliest copy usually several centuries later than the original. For example, the earliest copy of works by the prominent Roman historian Suetonius (A.D. 75–130) date to A.D. 950—over 800 years after the original manuscripts had been written.

In addition to the thousands of Greek manuscripts, there are an additional 10,000 Latin manuscripts, and thousands of additional manuscripts in Syriac, Aramaic, and Coptic, for a total of about 24,000 full or partial manuscripts of the New Testament. And then there are the estimated one million quotes from the New Testament in the writings of the Church Fathers (A.D. 150–1300). Obviously, the more manuscripts that are available, the better scholars are able to assess accurately what the original manuscripts contained and to correct errors that may exist in various copies.

When Were They Written?

 
Closely related is the matter of dating. While debate continues as to the exact dating of the Gospels, few biblical scholars believe that any of the four works were written after the end of the first century. "Liberal New Testament scholars today," writes Blomberg, "tend to put Mark a few years one side or the other of A.D. 70, Matthew and Luke–Acts sometime in the 80s, and John in the 90s" (Making Sense of the New Testament, 25). Meanwhile, many conservative scholars date the synoptic Gospels (and Acts) in the 60s and John in the 90s. That means, simply, that there exist four accounts of key events in Jesus’ life written within 30 to 60 years after his Crucifixion—and this within a culture that placed a strong emphasis on the role and place of an accurate oral tradition. Anyone who denies that Jesus existed or who claims that the Gospels are filled with historical errors or fabrications will, in good conscience, have to explain why they don’t make the same assessment about the historical works of Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, Julius Caesar, Livy, Josephus, Tacitus, and other classical authors.

Secondly, historical details are found in the Gospels and the other books of the New Testament. These include numerous mentions of secular rulers and leaders (Caesar Augustus, Pontius Pilate, Herod, Felix, Archelaus, Agrippa, Gallio), as well as Jewish leaders (Caiaphas, Ananias)—the sort of names unlikely to be used inaccurately or even to show up in a "myth." Anglican scholar Paul Barnett, in Is the New Testament Reliable?, provides several pages’ worth of intersections between biblical and non-biblical sources regarding historical events and persons. "Christian sources contribute, on an equal footing with non-Christian sources," he observes, "pieces of information that form part of the fabric of known history. In matters of historical detail, the Christian writers are as valuable to the historian as the non-Christian" (167).

Then there are the specifically Jewish details, including references to and descriptions of festivals, religious traditions, farming and fishing equipment, buildings, trades, social structures, and religious hierarchies. As numerous books and articles have shown in recent decades, the beliefs and ideas found in the Gospels accurately reflect a first-century Jewish context. All of this is important in responding to the claim that the Gospels were written by authors who used Greek and Egyptian myths to create a supernatural man-god out of the faint outline of a lowly Jewish carpenter.

Pay Dirt

 
Various modern archaeological discoveries have validated specific details found in the Gospels:

• In 1961 a mosaic from the third century was found in Caesarea Maritima that had the name "Nazareth" in it. This is the first known ancient non-biblical reference to Nazareth.
• Coins with the names of the Herod family have been discovered, including the names of Herod the king, Herod the tetrarch of Galilee (who killed John the Baptist), Herod Agrippa I (who killed James Zebedee), and Herod Agrippa II (before whom Paul testified).
• In 1990 an ossuary was found inscribed with the Aramaic words, "Joseph son of Caiaphas," believed to be a reference to the high priest Caiaphas.
• In June 1961 Italian archaeologists excavating an ancient Roman amphitheatre near Caesarea-on-the-Sea (Maritima) uncovered a limestone block. On its face is an inscription (part of a larger dedication to Tiberius Caesar) that reads: "Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judaea."

Numerous other finds continue to demolish the notion that the Gospels are mythologies filled with fictional names and events.

The External Evidence

 
Third, there are extra-biblical, ancient references to Jesus and early Christianity. Although the number of non-Christian Roman writings from the first half of the first century is quite small (just a few volumes), there are a couple of significant references.

Writing to the Emperor Trajan around A.D. 112, Pliny the Younger reported on the trials of certain Christians arrested by the Romans. He noted that those who are "really Christians" would never curse Christ:
 

"They asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so." (Letters, Book 10, Letter 96)

 
The historian Tacitus, in his Annals —considered by historians to be one the finest works of ancient Roman history—mentioned how the Emperor Nero, following the fire in Rome in A.D. 64, persecuted Christians in order to draw attention away from himself. The passage is noteworthy as an unfriendly source because although Tacitus thought Nero was appalling, he also despised the foreign and, to him, superstitious religion of Christianity:
 

"Hence to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished Christians, who were hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius: but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular." (Annals, 15:44)

 
Robert E. Van Voorst, author of Jesus Outside the New Testament, offers a detailed analysis of scholarly controversies about this passage, and then states, "Of all the Roman authors, Tacitus gives us the most precise information about Christ" (45). This includes Tacitus’s understanding that "Christus"—not Paul or someone else—was the founder of the Christian movement. He notes that Christ was executed under Pilate during the reign of Tiberius, and that Judea was the source of the Christian movement. All of which further confirms the historical reliability of the Gospels.

Conclusion

 
As Pope Benedict XVI noted in his book on Jesus, there is much that is good about historical-critical and other scientific methods of studying Scripture. But these approaches have limits. "Neither the individual books of Holy Scripture nor the Scripture as a whole are simply a piece of literature" (Jesus of Nazareth, xx).

The Gospels are not myths or lies, but truthful accounts of the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
 
 
Originally posted at Catholic Answers. Used with author's permission.
(Image credit: Cross Examined)

EDITOR'S NOTE: This post from Fr. Dwight Longenecker is in response to atheist Bob Seidensticker's post yesterday titled 10 Reasons to Just Say Nay to the Naysayer Hypothesis.

 
Atheist Bob Seidensticker has a quip at the bottom of yesterday's blog post which reads, “If a million people say a foolish thing it is still a foolish thing.” I couldn’t agree more, and we should remember this as we read the rest of his post. His basic argument is this:
 

“Apologists tell us that the gospels were written at a time when many disciples—the eyewitnesses—were still alive. If they heard an inaccurate story, they’d say, “I was there, and that’s not the way it happened!” They’d shut it down. An incorrect version of the story would not have survived.”

 
Bob then goes on to give ten reasons why there were no such naysayers. I’m not going to respond to the reasons one by one. Instead I’ll deal with the basic false assumptions, rooted in some very elementary ignorance of the facts of New Testament scholarship, historical scholarship, and what actually happened. Of course, if false, these assumptions make his conclusions irrelevant.

In his second point, Bob asserts this:
 

“We imagine a handful of naysayers who know that the Jesus story is only a legend, but that was in the year 30. Now the first gospel is written and it’s roughly forty years later—how many are still alive? Conditions were harsh at that time, and people died young. Many from our little band of naysayers have died or been imprisoned by this point.”

 
It sounds kind of plausible, but this isn’t how it happened. The gospels didn’t suddenly appear in written form after 70 AD in order to be dissected by naysayers. The gospels emerged from the preaching of the apostles which had been going on since the day of Pentecost fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The gospels aren’t some kind of four part historical biography of Jesus written by some smart guy forty years after the event. They are unique documents which emerged from the experience of the apostles and the early Church. Therefore we don’t ask if there were any naysayers around to disprove the gospels from 70 AD onward. We ask whether there were any naysayers around when the gospel was hot and fresh when the apostles were preaching—first in Jerusalem and then around the Empire.

Furthermore, Bob doesn’t understand the true dating of the gospels. He repeats the tired old idea that they must date from after 70 AD. The only reason for this dating is the modernist scholar's assumption that Jesus could not have prophesied the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, which happened in 70 AD. Why? Simply because prophecies of the future are impossible. Why? Because they say so.

In fact, we have another historically verified date which enables us to date the gospels. It is the deaths of Peter and Paul in 65 AD under the persecution of Nero. Their deaths are not recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, which is surprising since the Acts of the Apostles is all about their ministry. Their martyr’s deaths would surely have been recorded if they had taken place.

The Acts of the Apostles is acknowledged by most scholars as a reliable historical record. Furthermore, it is the second volume by the same author—the first volume being the gospel according to Luke. If the Acts of the Apostles dates from before 65 AD, then the Gospel of Luke must be earlier than that. In addition, most scholars argue that Luke was influenced by Mark’s gospel. This means that the earliest gospels were probably written between 50 AD and 65 AD (some scholars place them even earlier.)

All of Bob’s other arguments about the reasons why there were no naysayers after 70 AD are irrelevant for two reasons: firstly the gospels did not just arrive in the bookstores in 70 AD. Secondly, and most importantly, Bob misunderstands the whole naysayer argument. He spends a long time telling us why there were no naysayers, but that’s not the question in the first place.

To pick up on his first point:
 

"Apologists tell us that the gospels were written at a time when many disciples—the eyewitnesses—were still alive."

 
No we don't. We say the gospel stories were told in the apostolic preaching at a time when many eyewitnesses were still alive. Furthermore, we’re saying that there were naysayers, but that their arguments didn’t hold up. Let’s look at the facts: when the gospel was hot and fresh in Jerusalem in the days after the Resurrection there were plenty of people there who knew Jesus, knew what had happened, and were ready to dispute with the disciples. In fact, in the Gospels we discover naysayers. The Jewish leaders said the disciples stole Jesus’ body (Matthew 28:11-15). Other naysayers heartily denied that Jesus was the Son of God. They said Jesus' miracles were produced by the devil. (Notice, though, that they didn't dispute that he did miracles...) In fact the naysayers were so vehement in their naysaying that they persecuted the Christians. Saul—later St. Paul—was one of their number. There were indeed plenty of naysayers in Jerusalem at the time when many witnesses to the events were present.

Our point is not that there were no naysayers but that there were plenty and that they still couldn’t disprove what the apostles were saying. In those early days in Jerusalem, then in Antioch, then in the communities dispersed first by the Jewish persecution, and then by the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, there were plenty of Jews who knew what had happened.

However many didn’t believe the Pharisees’ take on it. They believed the apostles. That’s why the Christian church grew as it did—because the apostolic witness to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ was convincing and life changing.

In the end, an argument trying to explain why there were no naysayers to the gospel is like a conspiracy theorist trying to explain why there are no lunar landing deniers working at NASA. You may come up with ten astounding reasons why there are no lunar landing deniers at NASA, but it might just be because there was a lunar landing and the people at NASA—along with most other people—accept the simple facts of what really happened.
 
 
(Image credit: National Geographic)