The Gospels vs. Claims of Fabrication

Welcome! Today we begin a three-week series that is something significantly different from our usual Sunday morning. Normally we have a message that is either based on a particular passage of Scripture (sometimes our series take us through a book of the Bible), or a topical message that looks at a variety of passages from the Bible to see what it has to say about a given topic. Although these two types of messages have differences, they are the same in that the Bible is what we go to in order to learn.  

Personally, I trust the Bible. I love the Bible. I have been a Christian for close to 25 years, and over that time, my respect for the Bible as a source of wisdom, as being a trustworthy account of history, as being a tool God uses to personally speak to my life, has only grown year after year after year. In contrast, my respect for the world as a source of these things has fallen continually. In addition, my respect for myself, apart from the wisdom I have gained from the Bible, has also only become less and less over time. This has not happened because I have become increasingly brainwashed, or because I am losing my mind; it has happened because the Bible has proven itself again and again to me. Things I thought might have been wrong in the Bible have turned out be because I misunderstood what the Bible was saying or because I was led astray by other sources, Christian and otherwise. 


The purpose for this series is to try to impart some of this to all of you. As you know, in our modern technological society it is possible to use lots of things without really understanding the first thing about them. Many people drive a car without any real idea about how the engine or other major components work; very few people could start from a blank sheet of paper and explain correctly all the major systems in a car and how they work together. Well, the purpose of this series is to – how show we say it? – open the hood of the Bible, especially the gospels, the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and poke around in there and see what’s going on.

Why focus on the gospels?

1.      The gospels are “ground zero” for all of Christianity. It is in the gospels that we are presented Jesus, His life, His teachings, His miracles, His death and resurrection; the entire Christian message hinges on these things being true. If they are not true, I’m not sure what we have left; the Apostle Paul once said,

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. –I Cor. 15:17-19

2.      From the gospels it is clear that Jesus believed that the Old Testament was true. If the gospels are true accounts, then we can “extrapolate backwards” to accept the truth of the Old Testament as well.

3.      If the gospels are true, then the faith we see revealed in the New Testament letters is based on truth, and we should also treat these accounts true and trustworthy, taking to heart their instructions and seeking to live in the way they say to live.

Today I really want to focus in on claims that the gospels are fabrications, in whole or in part. Such belief is common in our culture and various versions are espoused by some of the most vocal atheists and ultra-liberal theologians. Here are some examples:

 “The gospels are not reliable accounts of what happened in the history of the real world. All were written long after the death of Jesus, and also after the epistles of Paul, which mention almost none of the alleged facts of Jesus’ life.” – Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion

“Nobody knows who the four evangelists were, but they almost certainly never met Jesus personally.” – Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion

“Some books, such as the gospels, … had been written anonymously, only later to be ascribed to certain authors who probably did not write them (apostles and friends of the apostles).” – Bart Ehrman (Prof. of Religious Studies at UNC Chapel Hill), in Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know About Them)

Popular culture often echoes these views. From Dan Brown’s book The da Vinci Code, the fictional historian Sir Leigh Teabing tells a naïve Sophie,

“The Bible is a product of man, my dear, not of God. The Bible did not fall magically from the clouds. Man created it as a historical record of tumultuous times, and it has evolved through countless translations, additions, and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of the book.” – The da Vinci Code, Dan Brown

When were the gospels written?

Certainly the dates of when the gospels were written are relevant to the question of the reliability of the New Testament gospels. If these books were written centuries after Jesus’ death, they would not be as trustworthy. Furthermore, there are other so-called “gospels,” non-canonical works such as the Gospel of Mary Magdalene and the Gospel of Philip, both used as inspiration for the fictional work The da Vinci Code; if these were written at the same time as the New Testament gospels, who’s to say which are more reliable?

Well, we have early translations of the New Testament gospels, as well as letters from early Christians that can help us date the New Testament gospels. We can date these items using scientific dating techniques, and in the case of the letters, we can also use other historical evidence in the content of the letters to date them further. The letters also talk directly about the authorship of the gospels, and this gives us further evidence. Finally, the gospels themselves (if presumed reliable) give further clues.

Now the existence of a Jesus of Nazareth is not really questioned any longer, and neither is the reality of the crucifixion. Even Wikipedia (which is not a “real” reference but whose very nature prevents positions from being taken to one extreme or another) states, as of 8/24/2013: Jesus' crucifixion is described in all four Canonical gospels, attested to by other ancient sources, and is firmly established as an historical event confirmed by non-Christian sources. It goes on to give five references, some of which are quite “liberal,” one even produced by the ultra-“reconstructionist” group called The Jesus Seminar. As for the date of the crucifixion, multiple original sources attest to the governorship of Pontius Pilate as ruling from 26-36 AD, and so the crucifixion must have taken place within these dates, almost certainly within the latter half of these dates. We’ll use 33 AD as a number for this talk, as a lot of people believe it was most likely on this date, and because it is in the middle of the 30-36 AD range.

Now if we use all the clues from the gospels, other letters, both with regards to dating and content, experts (Christian and otherwise) generally agree that John was written between 65 and 90 AD, Matthew was written between 37 and 80 AD, Luke was written between 50 and 80 AD, and Mark was written between 50 and 70 AD. Note that even if we use the latest dates, we are talking about a gap on the order of 37 to 57 years, depending on which gospel you are referring to.

To get a better feel for these numbers, I want you to consider modern events. We are in 2013. In the early 1970s in America we had a crisis at our fuel pumps; there was instability in the Middle East (what else is new?) but for various reasons it led to price controls and gas rationing in America. You could only buy gas on even or odd days, depending on your license plate number. Now I was pretty young when this happened (less than 10 years old), but I remember it clearly. I remember my parents planning ahead to get gas and waiting in extremely long lines to get gas. I remember being driven around and seeing the long lines. It was a huge inconvenience. If someone were to come along and claim it never happened, I would strongly disagree with them; I was there. Yes, I could find photographs and so on in this modern era, but that wouldn’t make a difference as I was an eyewitness. Note that we are talking about an event from 40 years ago.

Now my family was Jewish, and when my father was a child, he and his parents fled as a family from Germany to come to America in 1937. My father remembers some things personally of the persecution against Jews in Germany; for example, his father (my grandfather) was briefly put in jail for no real reason (other than being Jewish) shortly before they fled. But my father also talked quite a bit with my grandfather about what was going on with extended family members, friends, other Jewish members of the community, and he has told me some of these stories. My grandfather died before I was born, but through the testimony of my father, I am absolutely certain that these things all happened. If someone were to come along and claim it never happened, I would just as strongly disagree with them as I would about the gas rationing. Although I wasn’t personally there, people I trust completely, such as my own father, were there. Here we are talking about an event from 77 years ago. Again, for the gospels, we are talking about a worst-case gap of 37 to 57 years. With these dates, eyewitnesses were still around (as were children whose parents were eyewitnesses). Christianity would not have spread and the gospels would not have been believed if they were some kind of elaborate hoax. And that doesn’t even take into account the fact that many experienced severe persecution for their faith, even death; people chose to die rather than say that they did not believe the gospels.

Furthermore, if we take additional clues from the content of the gospels themselves and also use clues from the other New Testament letters, we can readily come up with the earliest dates. I don’t have time to go into this in detail, but I’ll mention two arguments along these lines. The first one has to do with Acts, the “part 2” of Luke (the books of Luke and Acts describe themselves in this way). Acts ends without any mention of Paul’s death, even though there is prophetic prediction of Paul’s death. If Paul had died before the book was written, it certainly would have explained how it came about (and confirmed the prophecies). To me this makes it extremely likely Acts was written before Paul’s death which most experts think occurred close to 66 AD. This would mean that Acts was written before this, and therefore Luke was written even earlier. A second argument has to do with the fall of the Temple in 70 AD. This was a huge, terrible, cataclysmic event for the Jewish people. The gospels do not mention this event at all, but instead refer to places and locations that were destroyed when the Temple fell. In some cases, they specifically use present tense to describe these places. They also mention how Jesus said “destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up” – there is extreme irony that the actual Temple did fall, and it is inconceivable that the gospels would not mention this if it had already happened.  Thus it is likely that the gospels were written prior to 70 AD. If the last gospel was written in 69 AD, that reduces the gap between Christ’s death and resurrection and the writing of the gospels to at most 36 years. Again, the gas crisis occurred 40 years ago.

By way of comparison, the “false” gospels were written in the 2^nd or even 3^rd centuries AD. The only possible exception is the Gospel of Thomas, which a few scholars believe was written late in the 1^st century AD; most believe it too was written in the 2^nd century. Think about it: an extra century or two makes a huge difference in reliability! I doubt any of you have heard stories from a grandfather or even great grandfather who personally served in the Civil War. It’s a lot easier to make stuff up once you get past the time frame when there are still eyewitnesses or children of eyewitnesses.

What age are our copies of the gospels?

The original gospels were most likely written on scrolls of papyrus, a thick paper-like material produced from the material inside the stems of a papyrus plant, cyperus papyrus. This plant once grew plentifully along the riverbanks of Egypt. Papyrus is fairly quickly destroyed by humidity, as molds can destroy the material. In ultra-dry conditions (in careful storage in deserts in Egypt, for example), it can last an extremely long time, but in areas like Israel and Greece, without air conditioning it is unlikely to last more than 100, or, rarely, 200 years. We do not have any “original” gospel scrolls in papyrus, but we do have some extremely old fragments (found in Egypt). Parchment (made from sheepskin or goatskin or calfskin), was also used. Parchment is scraped and dried under tension, but not tanned (a process that changes the skin chemically), and as a result it also is very vulnerable to decay in the presence of any humidity.

Ancient people would preserve the information contained in their scrolls through careful copying. This was done with both secular and religious texts. Scribes were trained in how to do this so that errors, although possible, were extremely rare. Given that errors are possible, a fair question is whether the books we call the gospels look anything like what the original authors wrote.

The answer is absolutely! How do we know this? Well, there are over 2000 Greek manuscripts of the gospels plus many more copies of early translations into languages such as Latin. By the way, compared with other ancient writings, this is an unbelievably large number of ancient documents we have to look at. For many other famous classical works, we have at most a handful of early documents. For the gospels, the earliest such fragment we have is called P52, which has been dated to around 125 AD. The Gospel of John has been dated to around 90 AD, so this copy is only about 35 years older than the original manuscript. The P52 fragment is heavily damaged, but what we have lines up perfectly with John 18:31-33. Another example is P66, the Bodmer Papyrus, which dates from around 200 AD; the front page contains John 1:1-13 and its pages together comprise most of the book of John. In fact, many of the gospel manuscripts are extremely old – fragments from the 100s and nearly complete manuscripts from the 200s. Once we reach the 300s and 400s we see many complete manuscripts.

By way of comparison, the earliest manuscripts we have of Herodotus, a 5^th century BC Greek historian, Plato, a 4^th century BC Greek philosopher, and Josephus, a 1^st century AD  Jewish historian, are more than 1000 years older than when they were first written, and there are a tiny fraction of the number of these manuscripts that there are of the New Testament. Furthermore, nobody questions their reliability!

How similar are these many fragments and complete manuscripts of the gospels? Extremely similar! Less than 3% of verses have any uncertainty at all; that is, 97% are rock solid. Of the 3%, the vast majority are extremely minor variations that are trivial in nature (spelling variations, tense endings, etc.) In the gospels, the only significant variation is the very ending of Mark, Mark 16:9-20, which is missing from the earliest manuscripts. This includes the passage about picking up snakes and not getting bitten, and the part about drinking poison and not being hurt. Unless you plan to pick up deadly snakes and drink poison, the uncertainty of these verses should not really affect you.

What outside evidence is there for authentic authorship of the gospels?

Tertullian of Carthage around 207 AD wrote that the Gospels were written by Matthew and John, who were apostles, and Luke and Mark, who were ‘apostolic men.’ He also wrote that they bore their names of their authors from antiquity, and that the ancient churches (ancient to Tertullian) vouch for them and no others. He also wrote that Mark’s gospel is the record of Peter’s preaching. I find this an extremely interesting detail.

Clement of Alexandria, around 180 AD, wrote that Mark wrote his gospel, by request, from his knowledge of Peter’s preaching at Rome. He also wrote that Matthew and Luke were published first, and were the gospels containing the genealogies. Also he wrote that John’s gospel was the last one to appear and was written at the urging of his friends.

Another person who has written about the gospels is Irenaeus of Lyons. Irenaeus was a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of the apostle John. So there is only one human link between Irenaeus and John! Think about this! Irenaeus spent tons of time talking to the guy who spent tons of time talking to the apostle John. Around 180 AD, Irenaeus wrote that Matthew’s gospel was the first one written and was originally written in the “Hebrew dialect,” that Mark, a disciple of Peter, handed down in his gospel what Peter had preached, that Luke, a companion of Paul, wrote down in a book the gospel preached by Paul, and that John, a disciple of the Lord Jesus himself, published a gospel while living in Ephesus in Asia. Again I find these details fascinating!

Even earlier, at around 170 AD, we have the Muratorian Fragment. The first part of this text is mostly lost, but experts all agree it refers to Matthew and Mark. It goes on to say that Luke, the physician and companion of Paul, wrote his gospel from the reports of others because he had not personally seen Jesus. It also says that John, who was an eyewitness, wrote His gospel after the other three at the urging of some friends.

Another person we can look at is Justin Martyr. Justin’s student, Tatian, produced a harmony of the four gospels, the Diatessaron, which means “through four.” It contains nearly the entire text of the four gospels, leaving out the genealogies. It also contains nothing other than the four gospel accounts. Anyway, around 150 AD, Justin Martyr wrote that the Christians possessed “memoirs” of Jesus, also called “gospels,” that they were written by apostles and by those who were their followers, and that they tell of events such as the visit of the Magi at Jesus’ birth and Jesus’ agony at Gethsemane. 

Can we go any earlier? Yes! Papias, around 125 AD, wrote that Mark, having been the interpreter of Peter, wrote down what Peter had preached accurately, though not necessarily in order. He also wrote that Matthew wrote the “logia” (words) in the Hebrew language.

Did these people all just copy each other in what they wrote about the gospels? This is extremely unlikely because they were not in general connected to each other, and in fact, were spread out throughout the Roman Empire; Tertullian was in Carthage, Clement was in Alexandria, Irenaeus was in France, and Papias was in Asia Minor.

Is there any alternative tradition for the authorship of the gospels? Any claims from early sources that disagree with these multiple collaborating sources we have already described? No! This is very important!

What evidence is there that early peoples read and believed the gospels?

Just as believers today encourage one another with Scripture verses they have read, we find the same in early letters among believers. Polycarp says “Blessed are the poor and those persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20) in a letter dated about 108 AD. This is just one example; we have many more examples of Polycarp quoting Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, Romans, I and II Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, I and II Thessalonians, Hebrews, and I Peter. Polycarp writes within a decade of the death of the Apostle John and, as already explained, was one of John’s disciples.

Ignatius says “In all circumstances be as wise as a serpent and perpetually as harmless as a dove” (Matt. 10:16) in a letter dated about 107 AD. Clement of Rome writes “Remembering the words of the Lord Jesus which He spoke, ‘As you give, so shall it be given unto you.’ With what you measure, it will be measured to you” (Matt. 7:2, Mark 4:24, Luke 6:28) and “Woe to that man! It were better that he were not born than that he should offend one of My elect; it were better that a millstone were hung about him and he were drowned in the sea than that he should offend one of My little ones” (Matthew 8:6, Mark 9:42, Luke 17:2) in a letter written dated about 95 AD.

Justin Martyr wrote around 150 AD the following: “And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together in one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits.” We see that the gospels were read frequently and treated as Scripture, unaltered, in the early church. 

Are there non-Christian sources that back up the gospels?

Absolutely! We have items that back up the major claims of the gospels such as the crucifixion. But we also have many items that back up countless tiny details of the gospels in terms of the setting, the culture, and so on. This latter kind of verification can be even more compelling than the former because they establish the overall historicity and truthfulness and accuracy of the gospels.

One example of “major event reporting” is from the Annals of Tacitus. Tacitus was a Roman senator who wrote histories in the early 100s AD. Here is his main reference to Christianity:

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, . . . An arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, a vast multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind.

Note how much this says: There was a group called Christians, whose name came from someone called Christus, who was executed under Pilate.  The Romans hated them for their “abominations” and Nero had them tortured. The Christian movement began in Judea but spread even to Rome; a “vast multitude” were arrested and convicted.

A second example like this is from the Antiquities of the Jews written by Josephus, a Jewish historian who wrote the Antiquities prior to 100 AD. Here is one quote (taken from an Arabic version which is believed to be unedited or minimally edited compared to other versions):

At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus, and his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon their loyalty to him. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive. Accordingly they believed that he was the Messiah, concerning whom the Prophets have recounted wonders.”

Now here is an example that teaches us about details, focusing on John the Baptist:

Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod’s army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist: for Herod slew him, who was a good man. . . Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion… Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod’s suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death.

Now the gospels (Matt. 14:1-12 and Mark 6:14-29) also describe the execution of John the Baptist, except that they say that the real reason was because of John’s disapproval of Herod’s marriage to his brother’s wife.  Which is right? Well, the Bible has an explanation for why they might know when Josephus does not: Luke 8:1-3 lists people who were traveling with Jesus along with the disciples. One mentioned is Joanna, the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household. Joanna would know, wouldn’t she? She probably knew all of Herod’s “dirty laundry.” So here is a case where the gospels know more than Josephus, and with good reason.

There are literally thousands and thousands of details that can be backed up with outside, non-Christian sources. We will mention more of them in the following two parts of this series. Today, in my remaining time I want to talk about the claim some make that because the gospel accounts have to be made up in part from oral sources, they must be unreliable. Now, I don’t disagree with the statement that the gospel accounts are made up in part from oral sources; the gospels themselves tell us this. In the beginning of Luke, it says, “just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the Lord.” So…

Isn’t a handed-down oral source by definition unreliable?

In response, I am going to quote from Mark Roberts, an expert in these types of questions, a Harvard Ph.D. who is not living in a bubble but is quite aware of the various arguments against the reliability of the Scriptures and can go toe-to-toe with anyone in this area. Here are some of the excellent points he makes about oral sources:

·         The first storytellers were eyewitnesses including those who had followed Jesus closely during his earthly ministry.

·         The sayings and stories of Jesus were passed down in public settings where errors or egregious additions could and would have been corrected.

·         Oral cultures allow for a measure of freedom in the telling and the retelling of stories, but they also guarantee the essential trustworthiness of the transmission process.

·         Some, if not many, of the traditions about Jesus were passed on in forms that made them especially easy to remember and recount accurately.

·         Given what the early Christians believed about Jesus, about His teachings, and His very words, they were highly motivated to pass on oral traditions about him accurately. (On your own, look up these passages: Matt. 7:24, Matt. 28:19-20, Mark 13:31, John 6:63, John 6:67-68, John 14:10, John 14:26, and John 15:7 – each speak about the importance of Jesus’ very words.)

·         The assumption that verbatim transmission is the only way something can be reliable is a product of our culture and is provably wrong by studying oral cultures in the world today.

·         All of this points to reliable oral tradition apart from the Holy Spirit. If the Gospels are true, then the Holy Spirit has also had a powerful role in seeing that the oral traditions were transcribed accurately. But even if you don’t believe this, the other reasons point to the plausibility of reliable oral transmission of the stories and accounts of Jesus.

As we wrap up, I want to remind you with what I said at the beginning – I have found the Bible to be an amazing source of wisdom and insight, so much so that no other book even begins to compare. The Bible has completely changed my life, and as I have studied it year after year, my respect for it has grown and grown. Arguments such as I have shared today helped me to “give it a try,” so to speak, to actually read it through and to ask God to use it to speak into my life. He has done so, again and again and again, for 25 years. I encourage you also to put it to the test in your life, to “taste and see that the Lord is good.”