Williams Can We Trust the Gospels?

1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4335-5298-4
Verlag: Crossway
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 160 Seiten

Is there evidence to believe the Gospels? The Gospels-Matthew, Mark, Luke, John-are four accounts of Jesus's life and teachings while on earth. But should we accept them as historically accurate? What evidence is there that the recorded events actually happened? Presenting a case for the historical reliability of the Gospels, New Testament scholar Peter Williams examines evidence from non-Christian sources, assesses how accurately the four biblical accounts reflect the cultural context of their day, compares different accounts of the same events, and looks at how these texts were handed down throughout the centuries. Everyone from the skeptic to the scholar will find powerful arguments in favor of trusting the Gospels as trustworthy accounts of Jesus's earthly life.

Peter J. Williams (PhD, University of Cambridge) is the principal of Tyndale House, Cambridge, the chair of the International Greek New Testament Project, and a member of the ESV Translation Oversight Committee. He is the author of Can We Trust the Gospels? and Early Syriac Translation Technique and the Textual Criticism of the Greek Gospels.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Williams, Peter J.

Leseproben

2

What Are the Four Gospels?

In the previous chapter we considered some basic information about Christianity from non-Christian sources: it began with a man called Jesus Christ in Judaea, who was executed by the Romans some time between AD 26 and AD 36. After his death his followers spread and, within decades, could be found in different parts of the Roman Empire. The same story is also told in Christian texts.

To get further into our investigation, we need to consider those Christian sources. It might be tempting to dismiss them as biased, but, as mentioned earlier, the mere fact that a writer wants to prove something does not make the writer unreliable. In what follows, the names Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John refer to the Gospels, not their alleged authors, unless the context makes it obvious that I am talking about a person.

It is widely agreed that the four Gospels are the earliest extended accounts of Jesus’s life and teaching. Some scholars have claimed that the Gospel of Thomas, which was certainly not written by Jesus’s disciple Thomas, should also be accepted as an important independent early source about Jesus, but it is probably dependent on the New Testament writings.1 Bart Ehrman, widely known as an ex-Christian and a skeptic of Christianity, puts it this way:

As we will see in a moment, the oldest and best sources we have for knowing about the life of Jesus . . . are the four Gospels of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This is not simply the view of Christian historians who have a high opinion of the New Testament and its historical worth; it is the view of all serious historians of antiquity of every kind, from committed evangelical Christians to hardcore atheists.2

The four Gospels were not chosen as a result of political power, but rather they became accepted by early Christians as the best sources for information about Jesus’s life without any central authority pressuring others to accept them. Already by the late second century and early third century, the four Gospels were a recognized group, as we see from the following facts.

The Chester Beatty Library in Dublin houses a manuscript called Papyrus 45, which contains the four Gospels and the book of Acts. This manuscript was produced in southern Egypt, probably in the first half of the third century.3

Going back a little further, we find that Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon in France, writing around the year AD 185, said that God gave the gospel in fourfold form, referring to the four Gospels.

Even earlier than this, perhaps around the year 173, a man called Tatian had made a single chronologically ordered retelling of the story of Jesus based on the four Gospels. This work, which became known as the Diatessaron, was most probably produced in Syria. Though it does not survive today, it is believed to have influenced many harmonies of the Gospels in the Middle Ages.

Thus, by the early third century, evidence from France, southern Egypt, and Syria all shows that the four Gospels were held to be a special collection that belonged together.4 In other words, these four books were treated together as the best source for information about Jesus long before any central city, group, or individual in Christianity possessed enough power to impose the collection on other people. It is most natural to suppose that the credentials of the four books themselves are why they were so widely accepted.

Four Is a Lot

It is rarely appreciated that for us to have four Gospels about Jesus is remarkable. That is an abundance of material to have about any individual of that period. In fact, even though Jesus was on the periphery of the Roman Empire, we have as many early sources about his life and teaching as we have about activities and conversations of Tiberius, emperor during Jesus’s public activities. The life of Tiberius (reigned AD 14–37) and the life of Jesus are recorded in four main sources each, as shown in tables 2.1 and 2.2.5

Table 2.1. Main sources about Emperor Tiberius

Author and Work

Words

Earliest Copy

Date Written

Language

Velleius Paterculus, Roman History 2.94–131

6,489

16th century

AD 30

Latin

Tacitus, Annals 1–6

48,200

9th century

after AD 110*

Latin

Suetonius, Tiberius

9,310

9th century

after AD 120

Latin

Cassius Dio, Roman History 57–58

14,293

9th century

after AD 200

Greek

* I have used an earlier date here for the Annals than in table 1.1 since our table here is of minimal dates, not of probable dates. It is also possible that Tacitus was working on the early books of the Annals considerably before the final publication.

Table 2.2. Main sources about Jesus*

Gospel

Words

Earliest Complete Copy

Earliest Incomplete Copy

Language

Matthew

18,347

4th century

2nd/3rd century

Greek

Mark

11,103

4th century

3rd century

Greek

Luke

19,463

4th century

3rd century

Greek

John

15,445

4th century

2nd century

Greek

* Word statistics are based on The Greek New Testament, Produced at Tyndale House, Cambridge (Wheaton, IL: Crossway; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), omitting Mark 16:9–20.

Apart from Velleius Paterculus, who was contemporary with Tiberius, all the sources about Tiberius came eighty or more years after the events they narrate. The earliest copies came much later, and the works have far less manuscript attestation than do the Gospels. As we will see below, almost certainly the Gospels are much closer to the activities of Jesus than eighty years.

In two particular areas the records about Tiberius might seem superior. The first is that Velleius Paterculus wrote as a contemporary. However, Paterculus was a propagandist for Tiberius, composing flattery, perhaps under the patronage of...