CLEARING THE PATH

The dating of the Gospels is an extremely important subject.  With any ancient document it is very important to know the period of time between when an event or events occurred and when  the event(s) were documented.  The greater the period of time between the two, the more likely legendary or mythical elements can creep into the story.  So here we will look at the evidence in regard to the Gospels.

The Gospels consist of the first four books of the New Testament and give four accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus.  The New Testament accounts of Jesus began to be circulated within the lifetimes of all those alive at the time of His life.  These people could certainly could have denied the accuracy of the accounts at the time and stamped out this movement had the events not been true. 

In advocating their case for the gospel, the apostles had appealed (even when confronting their most severe opponents) to common knowledge concerning Jesus.  They not only said, “Look, we saw this”; or “We heard that”; but in addition they turned the tables around and right in front of critics said, “You also know about these things…You saw them; you yourselves know about it.”  

Originally, there were not four Gospels, only the one gospel or good news about Jesus Christ.  As the four Gospel accounts came to be seen as distinctively authoritative, Christians still recognized only one gospel, stated by four separate evangelists.

The culture into which Jesus was born did use literary documents, but it was primarily an oral-tradition-based culture.  To learn by heart and recite were the two normal operations for the transmission of a text.  That may seem difficult to us today, but remember, they didn’t have TV or video games dumbing them down back then. In Jesus’ time, to learn by heart and recite were the two normal operations for the transmission of a text.  

We must imagine that the gospel immediately after the crucifixion and resurrection was treated in the same fashion.  What the apostles stored up in their memory, they taught infallibly to their own disciples, who in turn would repeat it to their hearts.  The dissemination of material about Jesus was not haphazardly entrusted to unknowledgeable Christians who could distort the message.  When a successor was needed for Judas Iscariot, the one qualification accepted by the apostles was that the successor be an eyewitness of the entire ministry of Jesus. (1)

The disciples followed the practice of their Jewish communities in choosing special people, comparable in many respects to the rabbis, to be responsible for preserving and passing along the “holy” tradition.  The task consumed enough time that these people devoted full time “to prayer and to the ministry of the word” (2) 

For hundreds of years the Jews were able to preserve volumes of oral tradition.  It must be assumed that every one of the eyewitnesses to Jesus’ life had a least some of the childhood training as the Hebrew scribes. So it would certainly not make sense to believe that they would have allowed error to creep into the words of Jesus, which they obviously knew the incredible importance of preserving accurately. 

The formative period has been designated as that period of time between the crucifixion and the writing of the Gospels.  Critics have assumed that the New Testament Scriptures were not written until late in the second century A.D.  However, by the end of the nineteenth century, archaeological discoveries had confirmed the accuracy of the New Testament manuscripts and closed the gap between the crucifixion and the writing of the Gospels.  

Discoveries of early papyri manuscripts bridged the gap between the time of Christ and existing manuscripts from a later date. In 1955, Dr. William F. Albright, recognized as one of the world’s outstanding biblical archaeologists, wrote:

 We can already say emphatically that there is no longer any solid basis for dating any book of the New Testament after circa A.D. 80, two full generations before the date between 130 and 150 given by the more radical New Testament critics of today. (3) 

Eight years later he stated in an interview that the completion date for all the books in the New Testament was “probably sometime between circa A.D. 50 and A.D.75."(4)  That is between 17 and 42 years after the crucifixion.

Dr. John A. T. Robinson, lecturer at Trinity College in Cambridge, has been one of England’s more distinguished critics of the New Testament.  Robinson accepted the consensus typified by German criticism that the New Testament was written many years after the time of Christ.  But, as “little more than a theological joke,” he decided to investigate the arguments of this late dating of the New Testament books.

The results stunned him.  He said that owing to scholarly “sloth,” the “tyranny of unexamined assumptions” and “almost willful blindness” by previous authors, much of the past reasoning was untenable.  He concluded that the New Testament is the work of the apostles themselves or of contemporaries who worked with them and that all the New Testament books, including John, had to have been written before A.D. 64.  Robinson challenged his colleagues to try to prove him wrong, but none could. (5) 

With the arrival of Robinson’s Redating the New Testament (1976) which pays great attention to historical evidence, the date has been pushed back to as early as circa A.D. 40 for a possible first draft of Matthew.  There is, then, strong evidence that the formative period was no more than seventeen to twenty years in length. It may even have been as little as seven to ten years for an Aramaic or Hebrew version of Matthew, spoken of by Papias, who was an early church leader in the first half of the 2nd century A.D.  Such a short period of time between the events and the earliest writings is, according to Albright:

…too slight to permit any appreciable corruption of the essential center and even of the specific wording of the sayings of Jesus. (6)

This conclusion is corroborated by several pieces of converging evidence.  

• First, it is evident that the Book of Acts was written in approximately A.D. 62.  
• It does not mention the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, an event which would have been impossible to omit since Jerusalem is central to much of the Book of Acts.  
• Nothing is mentioned of Nero’s persecution of A.D. 64.  
• The book ends with Paul in Rome under the confinement of Nero.  
• Neither does Acts mention the martyrdoms of three central figures of the book: James (A.D. 62), Paul (A.D. 64), and Peter (A.D. 64).  
• Yet Acts does record the deaths of Stephen and James, the brother of John.  
• So Acts must have been completed no later than A.D. 62.

If the book of Acts was written by Luke in A.D. 62, then the Gospel of Luke must be dated earlier, probably in the late 50s.  The early church fathers affirm that Matthew wrote his account first.  Many modern critics say Mark wrote his first.  In either case almost everyone agrees that they both wrote before Luke, which puts their dates of composition no later than the late 50s.  This is less than 30 years after Jesus’ death.

A.N. Sherwin-White was a great classical historian from Oxford University, who meticulously examined the rate at which legend accrued in the ancient world. He concluded that it historically requires at least two full generations for legend to develop and to wipe out a solid core of historical truth.  

According to William Lane Craig:

The time span necessary for significant accrual of legend concerning the events of the gospels would place us in the second century AD, just the time in fact when the legendary apocryphal gospels were born. These are the legendary accounts sought by the critics. (7)

There was simply nowhere near enough time for mythology to thoroughly corrupt the historical record of Jesus, especially in the midst of eyewitnesses who still had personal knowledge of him. When German theologian Julius Műller in 1944 challenged anyone to find a single example of legend developing that fast anywhere in history, the response from the scholars of his day—and to the present time—was resounding silence.(8)

Historically speaking, the news of his empty tomb, the eyewitness accounts of his post-Resurrection appearances, and the conviction that he was indeed God’s unique Son emerged virtually instantaneously.  A good case can be made for saying that Christian belief in the Resurrection, though not yet written down, can be dated to within two years of that very event !!  

In Paul’s epistles, he incorporated some creeds, confessions of faith, or hymns from the earliest Christian church.  The most famous creeds include Philippians 2:6-11 and Colossians 1:15-20.  But perhaps the most important in terms of the historical Jesus is 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul uses technical language to indicate he was passing along this oral tradition in relatively fixed form.    

If the Crucifixion was as early as AD 30, Paul’s conversion was then about A.D. 32.  Immediately Paul was ushered into Damascus, where he met with a Christian named Ananias and some other disciples.  His first meeting with the apostles in Jerusalem would have been about AD 35.  At some point during those few years Paul was given this creed, which had already been formulated and was being used in the early church. 

In 1 Corinthians 15 this creed spells out the key facts about Jesus' death for our sins, plus a list of those he appeared to in resurrected form:  

"...Peter, and then to the Twelve.  After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living..."  (1 Cor 15:5-6 NIV)

Though not written down yet, this all can be dated back to within 2-5 years of the events themselves !!

In the first few chapters of the Book of Acts, Luke apparently preserved material from very early sources.  Scholars have discovered that the language used in these early speeches about Jesus is quite different from that used at the time when the book was compiled in its final form. (9)  This evidence certainly points back to a time immediately after the resurrection event.

The nature of Christian thought before the writing of the New Testament consisted of these early Christian creeds which were later written in the books of the New Testament.  These creeds were communicated verbally years before they were written and hence they preserve some of the earliest reports concerning Jesus. Therefore, in a real sense, the creeds preserve pre-New Testament material, and are our earliest sources for the life of Jesus.

These creeds, and later the written gospels attesting to Jesus’ teachings, miracles, and resurrection, were circulated very shortly after the crucifixion and within the lifetimes of Jesus’ contemporaries and critics.  As stated, the 1 Corinthians 15 creed, affirming Jesus’ death for our sins and listing his post-Resurrection appearances to named eyewitnesses, was already being recited by Christians as soon as twenty-four months after the Crucifixion.  

Critics certainly would have set the record straight at the time if there had been embellishment or falsehood.  Had there been witnesses at the time saying “I was there and that never happened,“ then surely Christianity would never have taken hold and exploded as it did. 

We have seen from the page on the Reliability of the Bible that the New Testament documents themselves can be considered more authentic than any other document of antiquity.  In his book, The Case for Christ, Lee Strobel explores how reliable the actual witnesses and writers were in accurately recording and preserving the history of the events.(10).  In his discussion with New Testament scholar Dr Craig Blomberg, he elucidated 8 different tests to the testimonial accuracy  the New Testament writers. The Gospels pass all of these tests with flying colors.  I'll highlight his findings below.

1. The Intention Test:                                                                                                   Was the stated or implied intention of the writers to accurately preserve history?  The answer is an emphatic yes. Luke has been called a historian of the highest order.  He is clearly saying he intended to write accurately about the things he investigated and found them to be well-supported by witnesses. Mark and Matthew don’t have the same kind of explicit statements as Luke, however, they are close to Luke in terms of genre, and it seems reasonable that their historical intent would closely mirror Luke’s.  John 20:31 states: “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”  Clearly his intention was to be accurate.             
2. The Ability Test:                                                                                                           Even if the writers intended to reliably record history, were they able to do so?  Was the material well preserved for the 20-30 years before being written down in the gospels?   At that time in history, books, which were actually scrolls of papyrus, were rare.  Therefore education, learning, worship and teaching in the religious community were all done by word of mouth.  Rabbis became famous for having the      entire Old Testament committed to memory.  This was an oral culture in which there was great emphasis placed on memorization.  So it would have  been well within the capability of Jesus’ disciples to have committed much more to memory than appears in all four gospels put together, and to have passed it along accurately. 
3. The Character Test:                                                                                                       Was it in the character of these writers to be truthful?  Was there any evidence of dishonesty or immorality that might taint their ability or willingness to transmit history accurately?    We simply do not have any reasonable evidence to suggest they were anything but people of great integrity.  They were willing to live out their      beliefs even to the point of ten of the eleven remaining disciples being put to grisly deaths.  In terms of honesty, in terms of truthfulness, in terms of virtue and morality, these people had a track record that should be envied.
4. The Consistency Test:                                                                                                  Here is a test that skeptics often charge the gospels with failing.  They state the gospels hopelessly contradict each other, and have irreconcilable discrepancies. According to Dr Blomberg, one of the foremost authorities and author of The Historical Reliability of the Gospels(11), the gospels are extremely consistent with each other by ancient standards, which are the only standards by which it’s fair to judge them.  If the gospels had been identical to each other, this would have raised charges that the authors had conspired with each other, and would have invalidated them as independent witnesses.                                                           Simon Greenleaf of Harvard Law School, one of history’s most important legal figures and the author of an influential treatise on evidence, commenting on the consistency of the gospels, stated: “There is enough of a discrepancy to show that there could have been no previous concert among them; and at the same time such substantial agreement as to show that they all were independent narrators for the same great transaction.”(12)   German historian Hans Stier has concurred that agreement over basic data and divergence of details suggest credibility, because fabricated accounts tend to be fully consistent and harmonized.  Bang !
5. The Bias Test:                                                                                                                  Did the gospel writers had any biases that would have colored their work? Obviously, these people loved Jesus and were his devoted followers.  However, they had nothing to gain by embellishing their accounts except criticism, ostracism and      martyrdom.  They certainly had nothing to gain financially.  They proclaimed what they saw, even when it meant suffering and death.
6. The Cover-up Test:                                                                                                      When people testify about events they saw, they will often try to protect themselves or others by conveniently forgetting to mention details that are embarrassing or hard to explain.  Did the disciples do this?                                                                There are definitely events that could have been left out !!  For example, Mark 6:5 says that Jesus could do few miracles in Nazareth because the people there had little faith, which seems to limit Jesus’ power.  Jesus said in Mark 13:32 that he didn’t      know the day or the hour of his return, which seems to limit his omniscience.  Theology hasn’t had a problem with these statements, because Paul himself, in Philippians 2:5-8, talks about God, in Christ, voluntarily and consciously limiting the independent exercise of his divine attributes.  On the cross Jesus cried out, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’  It would have been in the self-interest of the writers to omit that because it raises too many questions for those lacking understanding (Jesus was actually referencing Psalm 22, in which several prophecies concerning him were literally fulfilled !!).                                          Certainly, there is plenty of embarrassing material about the disciples.  Mark’s perspective of Peter is pretty consistently unflattering.  The disciples repeatedly misunderstood Jesus.  A lot of the time they look like a bunch of self-serving, self-seeking, dull-witted people.  The point is if they didn’t feel free to leave out stuff when it would have been convenient and helpful to do so, is it really plausible to believe that they outright added and fabricated material with no historical basis?
7. The Corroboration Test:                                                                                              When the gospels mention people, places and events, do they check out to be correct in cases in which they can be otherwise independently verified?  As we have seen in the Archaeology page, within the last hundred years or so archaeology has repeatedly unearthed discovery after discovery that have confirmed specific references in the Gospels.  Names, places and events have been verified over and over again, and  none have been disproved.
8. The Adverse Witness Test:                                                                                              This test asks the question, were others present who would have contradicted or corrected the Gospels if they had been distorted or false?  In other words, do we see examples of contemporaries of Jesus complaining that the Gospel accounts were just plain wrong?  Obviously, many people had reasons for wanting to discredit this movement and would have done so if they could have.  In later Jewish      writings, Jesus is called a sorcerer who led Israel astray—which acknowledges that he really did work marvelous wonders, although those writers dispute the source of his power.  This would have been a perfect opportunity to say something like,      "The Christians will tell you he worked miracles, but we’re here to tell you he didn’t." Yet that’s the one thing we never see his opponents saying.                              

The Christian movement could not have taken root in Jerusalem—the very area where Jesus had done much of his ministry, had been crucified, buried, and resurrected—if people who knew him were aware that the disciples were exaggerating or distorting the things that he did.  At the time Christianity was a very vulnerable and fragile movement that was being subjected to persecution.  If critics could have attacked it at its heart and shown falsehoods or distortions they certainly would have !!

So it becomes clear by all of these lines of evidence, that the Gospel accounts can confidently be considered accurate, reliable, historical accounts.