Wednesday, 03 June 2009

• Why The Gospels Are Reliable: A response to GodlessLiberal

  EDIT and Disclaimer - Any responses involving vulgarity will result in an automatic ban for the poster.  This is a response post, but not in any way an insult nor an attack.  I disagree with Godlessliberal, and am posting this as an Apology of the faith.  I will not respond past this post, nor at length to any non-private messages. 
  
  1) Anonymous authorship. Genuine authors of Jesus' day usually stated who they were, as with Paul's genuine works. None of the Gospel writers identified themselves. It was not until 180 AD that names were finally assigned to all four Gospel authors.
  
  Technically speaking, authorship doesn't actually matter.  Tradition had that these were written either by Apostles (The Gospels of Matthew and John), or by a follower of the apostles (Mark), or by a person who later came into contact with the apostles, and themselves became Christians (Luke).  However, authorship was not viewed in the same way as today, and so to expect that the person would copyright, publish, and make exceptional care that their name was on it simply was not something that would happen - they were not writing for fame or for money, as is primarily the case today.
        There is some evidence that it was written by these authors, and frankly, very little authorship that it was not written by these authors.  The only argument that can be mustered to that effect tends to fall either under the lines that "they didn't because the language or references are too late" - however they never claim a certain date of authorship - or that they will state that they didn't because there aren't original documents.  However, especially given the fact that this was a religion that was heavily persecuted for several hundred years, the lack of original documents is entirely unsurprising, in addition to the fact that this is a religion that was born 1,970 years ago, approximately - it's not that hard to imagine that many of the original documents simply would have not survived.
       Regardless, whoever wrote them, wrote them, and the actual source doesn't make them wrong (that's an argument ad hominem, and is a basic logical fallacy).
  
  2) According to the majority of Biblical scholars, the earliest Gospel (Mark) was composed at least 40 years after the death of Christ. Urban legends are known to arise in a matter of days. Forty plus years is plenty of time for serious myth-making to occur. (The best evidences for the timing of "Mark's" writings comes from Irinaeus's Against Heresies, and Mark 13's reference to the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE.)
       
         This argument is basically speculation.  Yes, there may be some sort of urban legend involved in the Jesus story, however, now that you have that hypothesis, prove it.  However, after 40 years, especially given the Jewish culture that this religion incubated in, it is very likely that there was not a problematic change in the story.  This is a group of people who would ceremonially burn any mis-spelling of the name of God, not some sloppy haphazard group of undergrads half paying attention as they took notes. 
        Further, the idea that the entirety of the gospel of mark was written at that time is equally unlikely.  It is far more likely that it was written in bits and pieces and remembered and retold - and put down on paper towards the ends of the lives of the generations of people who would simply have known the stories, so that the story would not be lost.
          The amazing part of the gospels is that we see the beginning of literate society with them, clashing with an illiterate society.  In the past, these stories would have been continually told and retold, but with the gospels, the primary method of sharing became written stories, that were then taught in narrative form (but not memorized so often) among the Christian people.  It was a radical change, and the importance of accurate copying of documents increased exponentially because of this cultural shift. 
          However, let us not forget how serious these people took these writings.  They were very literally dying in substantial numbers for the teachings that they contained.  The idea that they would edit them and add to them, changing the message of God, is at least a little ludicrous and a-historical.
  
  3) The Gospels were all written in a language foreign to the one spoken by Jesus and his disciples, indicating that they were not written by disciples. Furthermore, the disciples were mostly illiterate fishermen, not Greek scholars. Estimates for literacy rates in that area and that time are around 10%, and fishermen would have no need to know how to read and write, especially not in a language not commonly in use in their area.
  
        Koine greek would not have been considered foreign to the Jews at the time of Jesus.  In point of fact, this is literally several hundred years after the Jewish people had translated the Septuagint (LXX) into greek, because greek was a more common language among the diaspora (The jews who didn't live in the holy lands.) This is also after several hundred years of various occupations and revolts against Greek and Roman military conquests.  So, the idea that they did not know Koine is silly; it was about as foreign as spanish in El Paso.
         Further, it should be noted that only 2 of the authors would even BE from the original group of 12 apostles - John and Matthew.  John, it is widely believed, was composed last, while the apostle John was in exile on the isle of Patmos, sometime around 90 AD.  So, after Jesus died (30 ad, approx), that would give John at least 60 years to learn greek.  I posit that it is entirely possible to learn to read and write in a period of 60 years.
         In addition, Matthew was a tax collector - that means he was a paid roman official, who had to keep detailed records of the money he collected, and keep in regular correspondence with the officials Roman appointed to his region.  He was also probably fairly wealthy.  So, the idea that he could not read or write is really quite ludicrous.
         Luke, the author of the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts of the Apostles was a doctor, an educated man who regularly would have been taking care of patients, and would also have been somewhere above the poor-fishermen laborers that it is  asserted that the apostles were (only some of them were fishermen, however).  So, the idea that Luke, an educated doctor, could write, is also entirely plausible.
         The final gospel, historically attributed to Mark, and usually argued to be the earliest of the gospels (I contest this argument - in my research and opinion, i hold that Matthew is the earliest Gospel), but, regardless, Mark is probably the man whom peter converted, that later became a regular helper of paul (Paul specifically requests his help in 2 Timothy 4:11) and companion of the apostles.  Perhaps his usefulness would have been his literacy?  Regardless, there is no compelling evidence that Mark could not write, and at least one volume attributed to him.
           At this point, i would just like to point out the absolute insanity of arguing that a book written by someone could not have been written by them because they were illiterate without ANY actual evidence that the people were illiterate, other than vague estimated statistics.
  
  
  4) The Gospels were written around the same time as numerous apocryphal works on Christ. It is reasonable to assume that whatever motivated the apocryphal writers to compose fictitious works on Christ also motivated the Gospel writers to do likewise. If Gospel A is obviously wrong, why do we assume that Gospel B is obviously right?
  
          Why is it not equally logical to assume that some of the people were telling the truth, and others were lying for various reasons?  This argument is purely speculative, and has no evidence to support it.  However, I will interject - Which particular apocryphal gospel are you speaking about here- the Gospel of the Cross?  The Gospel of Thomas?  The Gospel of Mary?  The Gospel of Peter?  The objections to each of them are different, but basically, I can boil them down.
  1)They were actually written later than the other gospels.  For instance, the Gospel of Thomas was written in the 4th century by Gnostics in africa.
  2)They have teachings that are radically inconsistent with the other gospels, including the other apocryphal gospels (the gospel of the Cross has a talking cross - a radical departure from the story of the other gospels)
  3)The early church largely held that these gospels were written apocryphally, and was aware of it - they knew that Peter didnt write the gospel of peter, or that mary didn't write the gospel of mary, and so they did not treat them seriously, except to see there existence as a need to begin the discussion of an official church canon
  
  5) The Gospels contradict each other on numerous occasions. For example, Luke and Matthew present different birth dates, genealogies, and post birth events; John depicts a different day and time for the crucifixion than the others; post resurrection details vary between all four, etc.
  
         Matthew and Luke do not present different birth dates.  They both take place during the reign of King Herod (Matthew 2:1, Luke 1:5).  Syria, ruled by Quirinius (Luke 2:2) was a different division of the holy lands, so it is not talking about a new ruler.  They simply record different events without a direct quoting of chronology (which is a more modern conceit, and not something that they would have written about in detail anyways).
          John 19 states that
  "It was the day of Preparation of Passover Week, about the sixth hour.
        "Here is your king," Pilate said to the Jews.
  ¹⁵But they shouted, "Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!"
        "Shall I crucify your king?" Pilate asked.
        "We have no king but Caesar," the chief priests answered.
  ¹⁶Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.
  
  Luke chapter chapter 23 states that the crucifixion drama took place  "⁴⁴It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour,"
  
  Mark Chapter 15 states that the crucifixion drama took place "³³At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour."
  
  Matthew 27 states that the crucifixion drama took place around "⁴⁵From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land."
  
  Now, given that the swatch was not invented for another one thousand nine-hundred and forty nine years, I think that this is a reasonably close recollection of the time of day for a group of people who weren't chronologically minded, and who didn't have clocks easily available.
  
  As to post resurrection details - none of them actually conflict.  The authors just picked different stories to share.
  
  6) The first Gospel upon which all others are based (Mark) contains many geographical errors indicating the author was unfamiliar with the area around Judea, and therefore was not an eyewitness to the events he describes. (For example, the "Sea of Galilee is too small to create a storm that could capsize a boat, and the mountain nearby that Jesus sent all the pigs possessed by Legion off of... there are no mountains in the area. In Mark 8:10 Jesus takes a boat to Dalmanutha, a place that there is no record of.)
      
          Mark, of course, was NOT an eye-witness to the events that are told in the gospel of Mark.  Mark, traditionally, has been understood to be the companion of Peter later in life, and was the one to whom peter recalled many stories, which Mark would have then written down. 
          However, to quibble in details....
  The part about the pigs, from Mark 5:13 - "The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned." - There is no mention of a mountain in this verse, although verse 11 does mention that the pigs were eating on a hillside.  So, no issue here, your claim is simply wrong.
         As to the sea of galilee, when the apostles awaken Jesus, he says to them in chapter 4 of Mark "⁴⁰He said to his disciples, "Why are you so afraid?" - in addition - it says that the waves were coming up over the side of the small boat that they were on.  It doesn't take much to swamp a row-boat, especially a 1st century rowboat on a lake.  I can personally attest that a small boat can easily sink on a small lake, and seem very scary while you were out on the water. 
        Does anyone actually buy the argument that "A small boat cannot sink on a lake during a storm"?  The actual logic of that argument - that water cannot swamp a small boat during a storm - is downright ludicrous.  And, of course, the sea of galilee might be too small to form a storm over it, however, the Mediteranian, just a few miles away, is NOT too small to form a storm, which could easily come over the sea of galilee.
        As to Dalmanutha - if it was a small village, or local name, that does not mean it would be widely recorded.  Further, the holy lands have been razed by conquerors many times since then, so if it was simply a small fishing village, it could have easily been destroyed without a single historical note.
  
  7) Some of the most spectacular miracles are only mentioned by one author - miracles such as John's resurrection of Lazarus and Matthew's saints who rose from their graves and strolled through towns. It is inconceivable that such amazing events would be ignored by other Gospel writers if these events had actually occurred, especially when we consider that comparatively trivial passages are often repeated word for word in the synoptics.
       
         Unless they were trying to make different rhetorical points, that is.  The argument that different people could not tell different stories is a specious one.  Why not?  Why is it so hard to believe that they felt that different points of Jesus' teachings were essential to share?  This is a judgment made without any particular insight into the various arguments and target audiences of the Gospel writers. 
  
  
  8) There are no original Gospel documents. The earliest extant copies date to the fourth century, and none of the 5,400 extant manuscripts are the same. It is estimated that the number of variations between manuscripts total between 200,000 and 300,000. Examples of major changes include 1 Cor 5:8, where one manuscript talks of avoiding evil and another of avoiding sexual immorality. Or in Rev 1:5, where the author prays to "the one who released us of our sins" vs "the one who washed us from our sins." I found these examples with about two minutes of research.
     
         Of course there are no original documents - and even if we DID have them, we wouldn't know it.  They didn't print edition numbers on the inner leaf jacket of 1st century scrolls.  However, the variations that you are talking about are minor, and what we see by and large are that the documents are quite similar.  These minor textual differences don't actually affect the overall message of the gospels, they simply are transcription errors, that can often be traced back, document by document, to the original and correct copying.
         In cases where there are minor disagreements that cannot be sorted out, you will find in your Bible a footnote that shows the alternate translation.  However, not a single one of these makes for a major change to the overall gospel message of Jesus. 
         Further, what you actually mean is that "no complete single manuscripts" exist before the 4th century.  There are fragments and quotes that date back to the late 1st century and early 2nd century, such as 7q5, and Justin Martyr's quote "...the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels" in 1 Apology 66, written sometime around 150-160.  So, we can reasonably date them back at least that far. 
  
  9) There is much evidence of tampering and interpolations among the various manuscripts. As an example, the last 12 verses of Mark are not present in the earliest manuscripts, but were added later. The same goes for the story of the woman caught in adultery from John 8 and the celebrated comma Johanneum from 1 John 5.
  
          Even if we pull out these stories, the message of Jesus remains basically unchanged.
  
  10) The Gospels follow the pattern of an evolving myth, with the simplest and barest accounts appearing first (Mark) followed by more elaborate accounts involving birth and resurrection details (as in Matt and Luke).
    
          This doesn't actually provide any meaningful evidence at the gospels being untrue, however, let's point out that it could just as easily be that the early Christian Church further researched (as with luke), and Matthew expanded on the Mark story (though I personally believe Matthew was written first) from his personal experiences, and John later composed his gospel towards the end of his live while in exile so that the many important stories not covered by the other 3 gospels would be available to future generations of Christians. 
  
  11) Prophetic claims throughout the Gospels are based upon mistranslated OT texts (Matt 2:5-6), invented OT texts (Matt 27:3-10), and non-existent OT texts (Matt. 2: 23). On close inspection, none of the claimed prophecies stand up.
  Matthew 2:⁵"In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "for this is what the prophet has written:
   ⁶" 'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
        are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
     for out of you will come a ruler
        who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.
  is a quotation of micah 5:2
  
  "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
         though you are small among the clans ^[a] of Judah,
         out of you will come for me
         one who will be ruler over Israel,
         whose origins ^[b] are from of old,
         from ancient times. ^[c] "
  
  Is not quoted from the Hebrew, which is what we would have in our English bibles, but rather is a quote from the septuagint translation to the greek (and since the book is written in greek, this makes perfect sense).
  Further, translations which basically kept the meaning of a text (such as this clearly does), but which alter the wording slightly, were considered perfectly acceptable in the 1st century Targum translation, meaning this would have been considered perfectly reliable by the Jewish people of the time.|
  
  Matthew 27:3-10 - "
  

   ³When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and the elders. ⁴"I have sinned," he said, "for I have betrayed innocent blood."
        "What is that to us?" they replied. "That's your responsibility."

   ⁵So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.

   ⁶The chief priests picked up the coins and said, "It is against the law to put this into the treasury, since it is blood money." ⁷So they decided to use the money to buy the potter's field as a burial place for foreigners. ⁸That is why it has been called the Field of Blood to this day. ⁹Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: "They took the thirty silver coins, the price set on him by the people of Israel, ¹⁰and they used them to buy the potter's field, as the Lord commanded me."
  
  I am not entirely sure what was meant by "invented text" and how that would differ from "non-existent" texts, but I will say that this is simply an amalgamation of the following, as noted by a footnote in just about any Bible
  Zechariah 11:12-13
  

   ¹² I told them, "If you think it best, give me my pay; but if not, keep it." So they paid me thirty pieces of silver.

   ¹³ And the LORD said to me, "Throw it to the potter"-the handsome price at which they priced me! So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the LORD to the potter.

  
  Jeremiah 19:1-13
  ¹ This is what the LORD says: "Go and buy a clay jar from a potter. Take along some of the elders of the people and of the priests ² and go out to the Valley of Ben Hinnom, near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. There proclaim the words I tell you, ³ and say, 'Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem. This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Listen! I am going to bring a disaster on this place that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle. ⁴ For they have forsaken me and made this a place of foreign gods; they have burned sacrifices in it to gods that neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah ever knew, and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. ⁵ They have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as offerings to Baal—something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind. ⁶ So beware, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when people will no longer call this place Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.

   ⁷ " 'In this place I will ruin ^[a] the plans of Judah and Jerusalem. I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, at the hands of those who seek their lives, and I will give their carcasses as food to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth. ⁸ I will devastate this city and make it an object of scorn; all who pass by will be appalled and will scoff because of all its wounds. ⁹ I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another's flesh during the stress of the siege imposed on them by the enemies who seek their lives.'

   ¹⁰ "Then break the jar while those who go with you are watching, ¹¹ and say to them, 'This is what the LORD Almighty says: I will smash this nation and this city just as this potter's jar is smashed and cannot be repaired. They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room. ¹² This is what I will do to this place and to those who live here, declares the LORD. I will make this city like Topheth. ¹³ The houses in Jerusalem and those of the kings of Judah will be defiled like this place, Topheth—all the houses where they burned incense on the roofs to all the starry hosts and poured out drink offerings to other gods.' "
  
  and Jeremiah 32:6-9
  

   ⁶ Jeremiah said, "The word of the LORD came to me: ⁷ Hanamel son of Shallum your uncle is going to come to you and say, 'Buy my field at Anathoth, because as nearest relative it is your right and duty to buy it.'

   ⁸ "Then, just as the LORD had said, my cousin Hanamel came to me in the courtyard of the guard and said, 'Buy my field at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. Since it is your right to redeem it and possess it, buy it for yourself.'
        "I knew that this was the word of the LORD; ⁹ so I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel and weighed out for him seventeen shekels ^[a] of silver.
  
  The amalgamation of prophecies might seem distant and strange to our way of thinking, however, remember that in those days it was assumed that every single young boy would memorize the entire torah, prophets, and history traditions of israel (basically, most of the Old Testament).  So, to be able to grab and pull various parts together would have been both commonplace, and perfectly acceptable and understandable to a Jewish audience (obviously Jewish audiences wold be the main target whenever quoting Jewish prophets and prophecies).
  
  Matthew 2:23 is "and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: "He will be called a Nazarene."
  
      It is true that there is not a known source for this particular prophecy.  However, even if we discard it, we are still left with Jesus essentially the same, except we cannot say that "He will be called a nazarene" came from the prophets.  This doesn't actually affect the overall message of Jesus in any meaningful way.

  12) Christ is unknown by historians of his day (meaning the first century), who also failed to notice any major events associated with his life, such as Herod killing the innocents, three hours of darkness at the crucifixion, risen saints strolling through towns, a magic star over Bethlehem etc."
  It was not uncommon for major atrocities committed by roman authorities to go unreported: this was not an era of free speech.
  
  However, the Gospels all attest to the existence of Christ, as do the epistles of paul (of which Philippians at the very least is both of undisputed authorship and earlier dating than any of the gospels), the Antiquities of Josephus, and the common acceptance of Jesus as real by later Roman anti-Christians such as Celsus, and early Christian apologists did not ever have to defend the question of whether or not Jesus was real - which, if he was an imaginary person, would have been a popular argument from the very beginning - but it was not.
  
  So, aside from all the historical documents that we have, there are no historical documents about Jesus, it is true.
  
  
  
  13) The Gospel of Mark - the one on which all others are based - is modeled on Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, often following almost identical grammar, story structure and events. It is a well known fact that scribes of Mark's day strove to emulate the works of Homer, and Mark did an exceptionally good job of it. Too good, if the truth be known, since the numerous similarities cannot be explained as mere chance. Evidence for this is presented in a work called The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark, by Dennis McDonald.
  
  Following a literary model does not make the information contained whithin the piece untrue.  For instance, if I were to write a 13 point document refuting the existence of say, the Loch Ness Monster, I would not have to forge all information and create an entirely untrue document to do so.  I could simply follow the given format, and use truthful information to fill it with. 
  
  Further, at best, only 2 of the other 3 gospels are based on Mark.  The Gospel of John is not considered a synoptic based on mark.  So that is simply an untrue statement. 
  
  If you would like to study more about the truthfulness of the Gospels, a few good sources are
  www.rzim.org (they have an excellent podcast)
  
  http://hadavar.org/ - an excellent source for information about OT prophecies in the NT and early Jewish practices.
  
  Stand To Reason - an excellent source for Christian apologetics.
  
  Early Christian Writings - all of the major documents of the early church available free, and with excellent citations and translations
  
  
  and on a final note specifically to my Christian brothers and sisters, and any who might be seeking after God but not have a sure decision yet made -
  The evidence for the gospels is overwhelming.  However, there is a great deal of intellectual sophistry that is commonly published attacking the gospels that systematically misquotes, mistranslates, and misrepresents the claims and teachings of the Scriptures for various polemical ends. 
  
  Don't buy it.  These writings can be attested to by sacrifices and archeology and scholarship.  The more I have learned as a Christian Scholar (working on a terminal degree in my field) the more I have realized that these teachings and documents are complex, beautiful and reliable.
  
  Job 5:8-9
  "But as for me, I would seek God,
           And I would place my cause before God;
        Who does great and unsearchable things,
           Wonders without number."
  

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