Historic Reliability of the Gospels

Are the Gospels Reliable History? A Response to Bart Ehrman

Bart Ehrman is a Biblical scholar with the University of North Carolina and author of several bestselling books dismissing the Gospels as reliable history, rather better described as folk tales: written to the needs of a 1^st Century Christian faith community not according to accurate history. He adheres to the ideas of Form critics, who believe the Gospels are composed of vignettes, stories or what is termed pericopes. These pericopes were passed down through the generations and altered to suit the needs of the faith community.  Thus they give a poor account of history.  He will also maintain that the Gospels were not written by apostles, implying the authors had a tenuous connection at best with the real events of Jesus life.

Mr. Ehrman belies his prejudices by pushing the idea that the Gnostic gospels, equally worthy to be included in the Bible canon, were excluded in the book Lost Scriptures: Books that didn’t make it into New Testament.  Of course there is much to support that the Gnostic gospels like the recently discovered Gospel of Judas were 2^nd century or later Gnostic concoctions. The inclusion within a Biblical canon would have violated apostolic parameters; that is writings needed to conform to the modes of thinking of the 1^st century Christianity, a Jewish sect initially and be composed within the first century. Neither of these criteria were met. The world view of the Gospel of Judas is decidedly opposed to that of the accepted Gospels. Jesus is described in a Docetist way; the corporeal body of Jesus was an illusion and his crucifixion simply a sham. The real Truth about Jesus was given to only a select few in this case just to Judas. Docetism satisfies the worldview of the Greeks, who saw the created earth as something of a mistake, created by the demi-urge. The demi-urge was a lower god than the Divine One, the unchanging deity self- contained spirit who had no need to create. True holiness and sanctity needed to be completely otherworldly and spiritual.  This earthly existence was something to escape. Ehrman insists that by something of akin to a conspiracy proto-Orthodoxy kept the books from being included, as they should be.

Mr. Ehrman skepticism even goes to extant to ponder the existence of Jesus Christ. Mr. Ehrman decides the question in favor of His existence; thankfully, in his book Did Jesus Exist?  I can say I was quite relieved that now with Mr. Ehrman’s imprimatur I can rest in the thought there was at least somebody in the 1^st Century Judea that went by the name of Jesus.  Wow, I was worried there for a while. Mohammed, Buddha, and Zoroaster among others would fail the same historical scrutiny. There is far more contemporary evidence for the existence of Jesus than the aforementioned religious notables. And there are others outside the early Christian Faith community who confirm the existence of Jesus such as the Jewish Historian, Josephus and Roman historian Tacitus.

But I’m off point already. The question is the reliability of the Gospels. Mr. Ehrman is a proponent of the Form Criticism school as I said. Form criticism was introduced in the 1920’s by Rudolf Bultmann, a German Lutheran theologian. From the time of Jesus’s ministry it is said, tales arose and were disseminated much like the distorted messages created in the game of telephone (sometimes called the game of whispers) whereby the original message is completely lost by the time it reaches the person who originated the message. Such as “the bird flew the coup” becomes “Bill feeds a fool” or some silly such thing. It is proposed that the Gospels were produced by a religious community for their own purposes and can’t be regarded as accurate history. These corruptions are said to have easily happened since the faith communities were isolated spread across the Mediterranean basin.   The language, Greek, of the New Testament was not the language of Jesus and the first disciples, Aramaic. The writers of the Gospels were remote from the original sources, it’s said.

As evidence of the absence of complete historical veracity, they indicate ostensible irreconcilable differences in the Gospel accounts such as the different accounts in how Judas met his death. Was it by hanging or falling off a cliff and having his insides burst open, reported in Acts?  Or when did Jesus cleanse the Temple? The Gospel accounts vary. The Gospels Mark and Matthew say at the beginning of His ministry but Mark says Monday and Matthew Sunday. John records it at the end of His ministry. Granted, these seeming contradictions were known from the beginning of the Early Church. And they have been harmonized within the tradition. The first harmonized Gospel was in the 2^nd Century. The Early Church was cognizant of the seeming contradictions and worked to reconcile them and had reason to keep all four Gospels.

The form critics have no interest in reconciling the differences in the Gospels, albeit the contradictions in many cases appear puzzling nonetheless. Basically the story of the life of Jesus, they claim, was completely open to interpretation and the several, largely separate faith communities altered their versions to suit which later became the four Gospels. Further there was no one Orthodox consensus at the time so each of the separate communities could put their spin the Gospels. Most importantly, the Gospels were compiled from these forms, discrete stories, folk tales if you will, related to the life of Jesus aggregated to become the particular Gospel account whether Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. That’s Bart Ehrman’s and the Jesus Seminar’s twist anyway. In other words, the events of life of Jesus Christ were not recorded faithfully, according to them.

It was put forward that stories about Jesus were circulating in the 1^st Century Christian community and Gospel writers, using Apostles names to title the works (pseudepigraphia), complied these separate stories, deemed forms or periscopes,  into the aforementioned literature. The assumption was the stories about Jesus said more to the Early Christian community than the events they were to have relayed. 

This is the real point. The authors of the Gospels claim to write history, based on eyewitness testimony. The Gospels, seeming contradictions or no, were written within the life times of the eyewitnesses of the incarnation of Jesus Christ; that is by A.D. 90. For example St. Paul records that the resurrected Jesus was seen by 500 witnesses, after visiting the 12 Apostles, then James, the brother of Jesus and all the other apostles of Christ (Corinthians 15: 5-7). Again, all of the Gospels were written within a span of time of the eyewitnesses. Luke, the Gospel writer, boldly claims that he is reporting the events as handed down to them by eyewitnesses present from the beginning of Jesus ministry (Luke 1: 1-4). And John in his Gospel claims to be an observer (John 19: 35 and John 21: 24). So the writers of the New Testament make very audacious allegations their purpose. They claim to write history not folk tales.

Since the 1920’s much has been revised in regards to how well oral tradition can be passed down the generations. A.B. Lord in his Singer of Tales relates how massive legendary sagas could be transmitted virtually intact using mnemonics. His main interest was the ancient legends like Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad, Beowulf, and studies of current Serbo-Croatian epic poems.

Jan Vansina in Oral Tradition as History describes how a pre-literate oral society can preserve history through faithful transmission from one generation to another. He discusses how in some societies transmission of oral history is much more than a game of telephone or whispers. Societies designate individuals and are given the grave responsibility to preserve the tradition virtually intact. Pre-literate societies in Africa and other places throughout the world were surveyed. In addition in many cases the audience in these societies could act as an audit, correcting the narrator. In the case of the author, this process took place over many generations, even hundreds of years. On the other hand the Gospel Accounts were transmitted over just one or two generations. Hence a process of faithfully passing extensive memories of the apostles, disciples and followers can easily be envisaged.

 Admittedly, memories can play tricks but the recall of essential dramatic, vivid events can be relied on, psychologists tell us, to allow retention of the fundamental meaning of an event. And as for the Gospels there was no long period of time in which these memories of Jesus’s life could have degraded into folk lore. For one the church was not completely isolated; the early Christian community maintained contacts. St. Paul, in his extensive travels about the Mediterranean world, reports he conferred back with the Apostles in Jerusalem. The Council at Jerusalem reported in Acts sends letters to sister churches, informing them of their decisions regarding the observance of Mosaic Law. The events of the history of the life of Jesus Christ could have been faithfully preserved. For example the Pharisees past down their law from one individual to another, faithfully expecting great efforts of memorization. Other cultures assigned select individuals, who were given ownership of the inheritance and committed to memory and are granted the responsibility to pass it on.

                                                                           ***

There are four accounts of Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon, subsequent to Caesar gained sole control of the Roman Republic in A.D. 49. None agree on all the details. Which river represents the Rubicon is a guess. The Roman historian, Suetonius, wrote a history some 170 years later after the event. According to the view of form critics, I presume we must categorically conclude Caesar didn’t cross the Rubicon. The accounts are too confused and sources too distant from the event. The best explanation in this view would interpret the event was simply a fabrication to buttress the legitimacy of the Empire. Of course history tells us the crossing did occur and no one doubts it.

                                                                           ***

I find the dramatic conversion of St. Paul on the road to Damascus highly significant.  Saul, soon to be renamed Paul, a persecutor of the early church, has an otherworldly vision of Jesus Christ. He describes it as being taken up to the 3^rd heaven, whether in the body or out he didn’t know. The 2^nd heaven was the abode of the sun, planet and stars, the 3^rd the dwelling place of God. This is obviously an out of body experience. This most influential conversion in world history is representative of a most fundamental spiritual reality. This experience has been repeated in the Saints many times in the last two millennia. Countless others down through the centuries Jews, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist have had visions of a transcendent Jesus and have been converted. This spiritual reality is really what the New Testament points to. It is not the focus of the New Testament. The history of the Life, Jesus Christ, that incorporates and yet transcends this world, is the focus of the New Testament. So in some way the Holy Scriptures of the Bible are a shadow of this aforementioned reality NOT the reality itself. I say this meaning that exclusive focus on the Holy Scriptures only gives an attenuated view of the truth of the Christianity.  

 Jesus Christ, God incarnate, came into this world to sanctify it. His crucifixion punctuates the idea that this world we experience is significant and real. The material corporeal world has meaning. Nonetheless this very real world is a holding place for a better world, the afterlife. This world is not our own. In modern Eastern lingo, this is without a doubt the lowest astral plane we will inhabit.

                                                                           ***

Let me concede for one instance the Form Critics contention that the Early Christian community needed these otherworldly stories, eventually complied into Gospels to sustain the faith. Accurate history was not a high priority. This is NOT my contention but let’s go with that for a moment. I believe God continued to work through history through His Church. I know that’s a scary proposition considering all the numerous shenanigans the Church committed even up to today with the recent Priest scandals. But nonetheless in that light as in regards to the Early Christian community the essential truth of the events was maintained. The Holy Spirit worked through the Faith Community to arrive at the true meaning of Jesus. (See John 16:13. The Holy Spirit is promised to guide the Church going forward.)

Others, primarily Protestant Reformers, expelled tradition, personified by the apostate Church; that is God’s ability to work through his faith community to harbor His Truth, and instead found refuge in God’s Holy Scripture as the only authority. It is they who have the most difficulty when the Scriptures are called into question. It is largely their only anchor. They no longer have a faith community in which God graced with His Holy Spirit.

                                                                           ***

There are many believers who adhere to the doctrine of inerrancy of the Bible including the New Testament, of course. The Bible is presented as being composed in a process of nearly auto-dictation and correct in every detail. It is my contention that the Bible is inerrant in its spiritual and theological message and accurate according to the essential historical details. It is inspired Holy Scripture but the contradictions present in the New Testament must to be harmonized. Inspiration means the writers were working with the Holy Spirit but not writing under some spell of divine mechanical dictation. Their writing, historically accurate, was composed in the spirit that conformed to the workings of the Holy Spirit within the 1^st Century Christian community.

The Christian Faith community bestows the Holy Scripture but in addition it has bestowed the work of the people within process of worship, that is the liturgy AND in addition the witness of the Saints as well. The Early Church granted apostolic sanction to the Gospels. There are other Gospels that came later that were rejected by the Early Church. Further, the Early Christian community gave us liturgical traditions that are imbued with the ability to empower the participants with God’s grace. The Church, as flawed as it is, was guided by the Holy Spirit down through the centuries (John 16: 13, 14) gives us the testimony of the Saints: many of whom have had the same transcendent experience as St. Paul. This outpouring of the Grace of God, accompanied by continues today.  See above about visions and visionaries.

                                                                           ***

The real objection for the skeptics like Bart Ehrman is the presence of miracles in the Gospels. It’s a valid objection for an historian. In the Gospels we see people are miraculously brought back to life, healed and restored to sanity. We have bread multiplying to feed thousands and water becoming wine and Jesus calming storms and walking on water: a whole host of implausible, fantasy events. This can’t be history, it would be said. Real history is devoid of miracles, the skeptic alleges. Frankly, I admit that granting credence to the miraculous poses a challenge to credibility.  I wouldn’t automatically criticize someone who had questions about these types of implausible occurrences.

Even so, an All Mighty God could and can choose to transgress the ordinary course of nature or even yet seem to use natural processes to effect a miracle. Much impetus to medieval science was given by the desire to detect the presence of miracles in the natural world.  What unearthly power, intelligence, consciousness created the universe out of the singularity, a tiny infinitesimal point? Actually the presence of something called consciousness in the universe is a mystery. For that matter, if someone can actually believe in the multi-verse scenario, an entire universe popping into existence, then I don’t feel too silly admitting to a resurrection here and there, blind given sight, lame ability to walk, et cetera and God coming to earth as man: God’s incarnation through history.