are the christian gospels historically reliable this is such an important question for faith and
for our knowledge and understanding of one of the most important individuals in human history and so
we need to turn to a guide who is truly an expert in the new testament and the historical jesus
and i tend to share with you the research of professor bart ehrmann
who is the distinguished professor of religious studies at the university of north carolina
chapel hill he's author of more than 20 books and is recognized as a master explainer of the issues
to do with the gospels and the new testament he has written this book uh how jesus became god
the exaltation of a jewish preacher from galilee and um there's so much amazing information here
that i i might take several videos to explain many different aspects of this uh subject that
he explores but in this video i just want to talk about the problems with the gospels
uh so what i want to important point i want to make here is that i happen to know that what
by ehrman says in this chapter is totally mainstream if you study the subjects at any
mainstream university be at oxford or cambridge or edinburgh in britain or yale or harvard or
whatever united states you will find very similar things being taught by the leading scholars of
the day he is not a maverick this is not marginal or eccentric this is totally mainstream academic
scholarship now it doesn't mean you should accept it uncritically of course we must think these
things through for ourselves but nevertheless we're dealing with someone who is has a reputation
for explaining in a very accessible way uh the often obscure subject of new testament scholarship
so when we look at the problems with the gospels by ermine says this what we want he says
if we want historically reliable accounts are sources that can be traced back to jesus's own
time we want ancient sources so to use the islamic language we want isn't ads we want to know where
this information came from who passed it to whom did they do they exist are they reliable
characters and we want to know that there is a traceable narration that goes from a to b to c
he says we do of course have ancient sources but they are not as ancient as we would like
our very first christian author is the apostle paul who was writing 20 to 30 years after jesus's
death a number of paul's letters are included in the new testament other christian authors
may have been writing earlier than paul but none of their work survives the problems with paul are
that he didn't actually know jesus personally and he doesn't tell us very much about jesus teaching
activities or experiences i sometimes give my students an assignment to read through all of
paul's writings and list everything paul indicates jesus said and did
my students are surprised to find that they don't even need a three by five card
to list them paul by the way never says that jesus declared himself to be divine
our next earlier sources of information about the historical jesus of course are the gospels of the
new testament as it turns out these are our best sources they are best not because they happen to
be in the new testament but because they are also the earliest narratives of jesus life to survive
even though they are the best sources available to us they really are not as good as we might hope
this is for several reasons to begin with they are not written by eyewitnesses now this
when one first comes across this idea uh in scholars it's quite shocking what do you mean
matthew is not written by the apostle matthew of course he was or john of course it was written by
the apostle john and so on and it's quite a shock to uh maybe it was to me some time ago to learn
actually the historians do not think that they are written by eyewitnesses and by ehrman explains
why we call these books matthew mark luke and john because they are named after two of jesus's
earthly disciples matthew the tax collector and john the baptist and john the beloved disciple
and two of the close companions of other apostles mark the secretary of peter and luke the traveling
companion of paul but in fact the books were written anonymously the authors never identify
themselves and they circulated for decades before anyone claimed they were written by these people
the first certain attribution of these books to these authors is a century after they were
produced and bartomen doesn't mention but the earliest records we have are people like irenaeus
at the end of the second century who has the gospel according to matthew gospel according to
mark and this is the end of the second century not in the first half of the first century
there are good reasons for thinking that none of these attributions is right for one thing
the followers of jesus as we learn from the new testament itself were uneducated lower class
aramaic speaking jews from palestine in other words they were peasants in the sociological sense
they were uneducated lower class aramaic speaking jews from palestine remember
these books are not written by people like that their authors were highly educated greek speaking
christians of a later generation they probably wrote after jesus disciples had all or almost
all died they were writing in different parts of the world in a different language at a later time
there's not much mystery about why later christians would want to claim that the
authors were in fact companions of jesus or at least connected with the apostles that claim
proved much provided much needed authority for these accounts for people wanting to know what
jesus was really like scholars typically date the new testament gospels to the latter part
of the first century almost everyone would agree that jesus died sometime around 30 a.d
mark was the first gospel to be written probably around 65 to 70 a.d matthew and luke were written
about 15 to 20 years after that say 80-85 a.d john was written last around 95 a.d what is significant
is the amount of is the huge gap involved the very first surviving account of jesus life was written
35 to 40 years after his death our last canonical gospel was written 60 to 65 years after his death
that's obviously a lot of time if the authors were not eyewitnesses and were not from palestine
and did not even speak the same language as jesus where did they get their information so back to
the the muslim question of islam you know what is the source how do we know it's reliable here again
there's a there's not a lot of agreement among critical scholars after jesus died his followers
came to believe that he was raised from the dead and they saw it as their mission to convert people
to the belief that the death and resurrection of jesus were the death and resurrection of god's
messiah and that by believing in his death and resurrection a person could have eternal life
the early christian witnesses to jesus had to persuade people that jesus
really was the messiah from god and to do that they had to tell stories about him so they did
they told stories about what happened at the end of his life the crucifixion the empty tomb his
appearances to his followers alive afterwards they also told stories of his life before those final
events what he taught the miracles he performed the controversies he had with the jewish leaders
his arrest and trial and so on these tor stories circulated anyone who converted to
become a follower of jesus could and did tell the stories a neighbor would tell his wife
if she converted she would tell her neighbor if she converted she would tell her husband if he
converted he would tell his business partner if he converted he would take a business trip to
another city and tell his business associate if he converted he would tell his wife if she converted
she would tell her neighbor and on and on telling stories was the only way to communicate in the
days before mass communication national media coverage and even significant levels of literacy
at that time only 10 percent of the population could read and write
so almost all communication was oral who then was telling the stories about jesus
just the apostles it can't just have been the apostles just the people whom the apostles
authorized no way just the people who checked their facts to make sure they didn't change
any of the stories but only recounted events that really happened and as they happened
how could they do that the stories have been told by word of mouth year after year decade after
decade among lots of people in different parts of the world in different languages and there
was no way to control what one person said to the next about jesus's words and deeds everyone knows
what happens to stories that circulate in this way details get changed episodes get invented
events get exaggerated impressive accounts get made even more impressive and so on
eventually an author heard the stories in his church say say it was mark in the city of rome
and he wrote his account and 10 or 15 years later another author in another city read mark's account
and decides to write his own based primarily or partially on mark's account but partially on
the stories he had heard in his own community and the gospels started coming into existence
those are the gospels we now have scholars for 300 years and more have studied them in my new
detail and one of the assured results of this intensive investigation is the certainty that the
gospels have numerous discrepancies contradictions and historical problems why would that be it would
be better to ask how could that not be of course the gospels contain non-historical information and
stories that have been modified and exaggerated and embellished these books do not contain the
words of someone who was sitting at jesus feet taking notes they are nothing like that
they are books that are intending to tell the good news of jesus the word gospel means good news in
greek that is their authors had a vested interest both in what they are telling and then how they
are telling it they wanted to preach jesus they were not trying to give biographical information
that will pass muster among critical historians living two thousand years later who have developed
significantly different standards of writing history or historiography they are writing
for their own day and were trying to convince people about the truth as they saw it about jesus
they were basing their stories on what they had heard and and read what they had read was
based on what the authors of these writings had heard it all goes back to oral tradition
some people today claim that cultures rooted in oral tradition are far more careful to make
certain that traditions that are told and retold are not changed significantly this turns out to
be a modern myth however anthropologists who have studied oral cultures show just the opposite is
the case only literary cultures have a concern for exact replication of the facts as they really are
and this is because in literary cultures it is possible to check the sources to see whether
someone has changed the story in oral cultures it is widely expected that stories will indeed
change they change any time a storyteller is telling a story in a new context new context
require new ways of telling stories thus oral cultures historically have been no pro have seen
no problem with altering accounts as they were told and retold so of course there are
discrepancies embellishments made up stories and historical problems in the gospels and this means
that they cannot be taken at face value as giving us historically accurate accounts for what really
happened does this mean the gospels are useless no it means that we need to have a rigorous
historical methodology to help us examine books that were written for one purpose to proclaim
the good news of jesus to achieve a different purpose to know what jesus really said and did
and that is uh bar ehrman as i say this is totally mainstream that's what you'll learn
about at university if you study this subject academically and if you uh if you want to
study this uh for yourself uh this is the best introductory book the historical figure of jesus
by ep sanders he's america's most distinguished scholar in the field of jesus research
and this is commonly seen as the best go-to uh academic introduction to the historical
figure of jesus ep saunders i'll put a link in the description below for you until next time