markdroberts: guest bloggers

Summary of the Evidence for Jesus Outside of the Gospels

This post is the last part of a chapter on historical sources for Jesus outside of the gospels. Much of this chapter is an upgraded version of what I had done in my earlier series. If you're interested, check here. Basically, I do an overview of the Roman, Jewish, and non-gospel New Testament evidence for Jesus. Here are my conclusions:

Comparing the gospels to what we know of first-century history and geography suggests that they are historically accurate. They do not place Jesus in some make believe world filled with make believe people. Rather, the gospels locate Jesus sensibly in the midst of the Palestine in the first century A.D. This shows that they generally reliable, though it doesn't prove that their portraits of Jesus were accurate, of course.

If we didn't have the biblical gospels, we wouldn't know much about the historical Jesus. From the later, non-canonical gospels we'd be able to glean a few facts, but not nearly as much as we get from the New Testament gospels. They remain our chief sources of information about Jesus, for good reason.

However, if we had to piece together the data about Jesus from sources outside of the gospels, from Roman writers, from Josephus, and from Paul and the other New Testament writers, we'd come up with a little. We'd have Jesus, a Jew from Judea, who for some reason got in trouble with Pontius Pilate, and was crucified. We'd also know that something amazing happened after his death because his followers actually multiplied dramatically. For some reason, they believed that Jesus was the Christ, the Jewish Messiah, even though he had done a most "unmessianic" thing in getting himself crucified. This picture of Jesus is sketchy, to be sure, but it focuses on the most important aspects of the Christian gospel: the death of Jesus and the "amazing thing" that happened afterwards.

Miracles and Scholarly Skepticism

What follows is the last portion of a chapter on miracles and the gospels.

I've said that if you're a theist, then you can entertain the possibility that the gospels accurately portray the miracles of Jesus as they really happened. But if you're not a theist, if you don’t believe that there is a God who is active in human affairs and who can, as he wishes, do things contrary to the usual process of nature, then you have an insurmountable problem with the gospels. Sure, you can account for some of Jesus's so-called miracles by pointing to psychosomatic influence. But, at the end of the day, you're stuck with gospels that narrate events which you don't believe could have happened.

I'm not offended by the scholar who says, "I don't believe in God, and therefore I don't believe in the possibility of miracles, and therefore I don’t believe the gospel accounts are true." In good Humean fashion, this scholar has chosen to believe that something else must account for the miracle stories in the gospels other than the possibility that Jesus actually did such wonders. Of course I disagree with this scholar's presuppositions and conclusions. But I respect them as reasonable and forthright, given an atheistic presupposition.

I'm much less happy with scholars who don't acknowledge the impact of their functional atheism on their scholarship. They may be agnostics in theory, but they do scholarship with the assumption that God isn't miraculously involved in human affairs. During the last thirty years I've spent hundreds of hours reading scholarly works on Jesus that assume the gospels are full of pious fictions. Yet few authors admit openly that their bias against the trustworthiness of the gospels is fundamentally based on their faith that miracles don't happen, and therefore the gospels must be substantially fictional.

Many of these functionally atheistic scholars aren't intending to be deceptive. They operate in an academic culture where such atheism is simply assumed. It doesn't need to be debated or defended. So, for example, when many scholars evaluate the passages in the gospels where Jesus predicts his death, they naturally and without argument assume that these predictions reflect the creative work of the early church. Why? Because prophecy is out of the picture. It doesn't happen, or if it does, it doesn't belong in historical scholarship.

My plea isn't for all New Testament scholars to become theists, though I wouldn't mind if this were to happen, of course. Rather, I'd simply ask for more honesty and self-awareness on the part of all scholars. If you accept the possibility of miracles and therefore see the gospels as historically accurate, fess up. If you deny the possibility of miracles, and therefore necessarily deny on the basis of your a priori assumption that the gospel accounts could be truthful, say so. Let's all confess our faith more openly.

Readers of biblical scholarship, whether the academic or the popular variety, must be keenly aware of the philosophical presuppositions of the scholars. If a scholar approaches the gospels from a non-theistic perspective, then you will know in advance much of what that person will assume about the gospels. You can expect a high level of skepticism because that's what's demanded when the scholar's worldview confronts the data of the gospels.

I'm convinced that the presence of miracle stories do not undermine the historical reliability of the gospels for one who is a theist. If you are an atheist, either philosophical or functional, then the miracles in the gospels do in fact discount the possibility that these writings are historically reliable. Yes, you might find historical reminiscences among the supernatural legends. But your philosophical presuppositions require that many of the gospel stories, including the all-important resurrection narratives, are pious fiction or mythologized theology, nothing more.

If the Gospels are Theology, Can They Be History?

Part of what follows appeared in my earlier series on the gospels. In the chapter from which this post is an excerpt, I've explained that the gospels are, no doubt, theologically motivated and focused. But some scholars believe this means they can't also be history. As you'll see, I don't agree.

Truthful History Motivated by Theology

Sometimes I find it odd that certain scholars have so much trouble seeing how history and theology are intertwined, and how one with a theological agenda can, in fact, labor faithfully to pass on reliable history. This is hard for me to fathom because, frankly, I am motivated all the time by a theological passion that calls me to be a faithful historian.

Virtually every weekend I preach a sermon in the four worship services at Irvine Presbyterian Church. I freely admit that my sermons reflect my theological agenda. I want my congregants to grow in their faith. And, at the same time, I'm seek to encourage non-Christian folk to put their faith in Christ. So I have a clear, open, and passionate theological agenda. No question about it. Agenda-less preaching would be drivel.

My agenda leads me to tell stories because I believe stories communicate powerfully in today's world. Most of my stories concern events that really happened, either in my own life or in the lives of people I know, though sometimes I use items that have appeared in the news or other sources. When I tell a true story, I make every effort to get the crucial facts right. This also reflects my "agenda," because I believe that my congregation will trust me if I am a reliable historian. Moreover, my theology tells me that truth matters.

My commitment to telling the truth means that when I hear some wonderful story from a friend or from the Internet, I work hard to verify its truthfulness before I use it in a sermon. Sometimes the most heart-rending stories turn out to be fictitious. A notable example is the tale of little Teddy Stallard (or Stoddard), the disadvantaged student who became a success because of the love of a teacher, Miss Thompson. This saga has been used in hundreds of sermons, often by pastors who talk as if they know Teddy personally. But, alas, Teddy is a fictional character, made up in a short story by Elizabeth Ballard.

My Agenda-Driven Story

My theological agenda also motivates me to be truthful when I'm telling a story from my own life. Here's an example of a story I've used in a sermon:

When I was a sophomore in college, I wanted to share my Christian faith with others. But, as an introverted person, I wasn't likely to walk up to a stranger or even a friend and get into a conversation about God. So I decided to pray and ask the Lord to help me.

One brisk Saturday evening in October, I decided to go down to Harvard Square and see if I could share my faith with somebody. The Square was filled with students from all over the Boston area, and it seemed a likely place for God to drop a seeker into my lap. I prayed earnestly for God to guide me to someone with whom I could talk openly about Christianity. "Lord," I prayed, "you know I'm pretty shy about this. So it would be great if you'd work a little miracle here, and find me somebody with whom I could share. And if you could make it obvious, that would be really helpful." With this prayer in my heart, I set off for the Square.

I wandered around for a while, wondering where "my person" was. "Lord," I kept on praying, "please bring me somebody who wants to learn about you." Still nothing happened. After a half hour or so I began to feel both discouraged and silly.

Just then, two young women approached me. "We're going to a party at Dunster House," they explained, "but we don't know how to get there. Could you help us?"

"Sure," I said. "Glad to." Meanwhile I thought to myself, "This is great. Not only has God brought these people into my life so I can talk to them about my faith, but they happen to be two attractive women. God you've outdone yourself this time!" Dunster House was about a ten-minute walk from Harvard Square, so I figured this would be plenty of time to engage these women in a conversation about God.

On the walk down to Dunster, I kept bringing up subjects that I felt sure would lead to a conversation about God. "I'm majoring in philosophy," I said, "Are you interested in philosophy?" They weren't. "Sometimes I wonder why we're here on this earth? Do you every think about this?" They didn't. Basically, they wanted to party at Dunster House, not reflect on the meaning of life with their overly earnest tour guide. For ten minutes I tried everything I could think of to get the women to talk about God. Nothing doing. Of the thousands of students in Cambridge that night, they were the least interested in God.

When we got to Dunster House (pictured to the right), I walked them to the door. They thanked me and left. I felt like a complete idiot. "Okay, God," I prayed, "I get the point. You've probably had a good chuckle over my silliness. Well, that's enough. I'm going home. This was a stupid idea." I left the entrance to Dunster House and headed back to my dorm.

Just then I passed a student I recognized as being a friend of a friend. He said "Hi" so I returned the greeting as we went off in opposite directions. All of a sudden he stopped, turned around, and called to me, "Hey, are you Mark Roberts?"

"Yes," I said, surprised that he knew my name.

"Well, I'm Matt. I'm a friend of your roommate Bob."

"Oh, yeah. Hello, Matt," I said.

"I've been wanting to talk to you," Matt said.

"Me?" I asked incredulously. "Why me?"

"Because I hear you're a Christian. I need to talk to you about God."

And so began a conversation that lasted well into the night. That conversation turned into a weekly Bible study, as Matt and I looked into the gospels to find out about Jesus. When we finished, Matt wasn't ready to give his life to Christ. But he was closer than he had been on that strange night when we met on the walk outside of Dunster House. End of story.

To the best of my 49-year-old memory, I have faithfully related the essence of this story: my desire to share my faith and my prayer for divine help; my meeting with the two women; our Dunster House destination; my "chance" meeting with Mike and his words to me. When I used this story in a sermon, my theological "agenda" motivated me to get the basic facts right. But it also helped me shape the telling of the story, choosing which facts were important and which were not. I did not, for example, say anything about how the women I escorted were dressed (in preppy sweaters) or where they went to school (Wellesley College), because these tidbits didn't contribute to the point of the story.

Now, I must confess, I did include a few "facts" that I'm not completely sure of. I said this happened "on a brisk Saturday evening in October." In truth, I don't remember if it was a Friday or a Saturday, and I'm not sure if it was in October or November. It was quite cool, this I remember, and I'm positive it was in the fall.

I also supplied a fair amount of dialogue in this story. Honestly, I don't remember the exact words (ipsissima verba) with which I prayed, or the exact questions I asked the women as I escorted them to Dunster House. I've truly captured the basic sense of those conversations (ipsissima vox), but most of the words have long since escaped my memory. On the contrary, what Matt said to me is burned into my memory. I can still hear him say, "I need to talk to you about God." This was, as you can imagine, one of the most surprising and wonderful things I had ever heard. It was like a dream come true, as God answered my prayer so specifically and obviously.

Oh, I should add that "Matt" is not the name of the student I ran into outside of Dunster. I remember his real name, but when I tell stories like this, I often change names to protect the confidentiality of the person(s) involved. In this particular case I could have safely used "Matt's" real name, of course, but usually I need to be careful. My congregation understands that I change names sometimes.

In conclusion, did my theological agenda lead me to tell this story in a sermon? Yes. Did my agenda help me choose what to include and what to exclude from this story? Yes. Did my agenda preclude me from being a good historian? Decidedly not. I'm quite certain that this event happened in more or less the way I've narrated it (with the exceptions I've mentioned above). In fact, my agenda as a preacher motivated me to tell this story, to tell it in a certain way, and to make sure that the essential elements were absolutely truthful. My theology led me to be a trustworthy historian.

If you were to discover that, in fact, my story of the miraculous encounter with Matt was just a nice little piece of religious fiction, then the power of the story would vanish. After all, what makes it so compelling is the fact that, after I had prayed to share my faith with someone, a virtual stranger said to me, "I need to talk with you about God." This is either a fabrication, an incredible coincidence, or a miracle of God. I vote for miracle.

Differences Among the Gospels . . . Old News!

 Sometimes scholars talk as if recognition of the differences among the gospels is a recent discovery. They can think they've discovered some new secret that has the power to undermine Christian confidence in Scripture. But, in fact, this is not a secret at all. Differences among the gospels have been recognized for as long as Christians have been reading these documents synoptically, well back into the second century A.D.

Sometime around 180 A.D. Ireneaus wrote his treatise Against Heresies, Here Irenaeus not only referred to the four New Testament gospels as authoritative, but also attested to their distinctiveness. In a rather lengthy passage, he used the four living creatures in Revelation 4:5-11 -- lion, ox, human, eagle -- as symbols for the gospels, noting how the symbols capture unique qualities of each gospel:

It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. . . . For the cherubim, too, were four-faced, and their faces were images of the dispensation of the Son of God. For, [as the Scripture] says, "The first living creature was like a lion," symbolizing His effectual working, His leadership, and royal power; the second [living creature] was like a calf, signifying [His] sacrificial and sacerdotal order; but "the third had, as it were, the face as of a man,"-an evident description of His advent as a human being; "the fourth was like a flying eagle," pointing out the gift of the Spirit hovering with His wings over the Church. And therefore the Gospels are in accord with these things, among which Christ Jesus is seated. For that according to John relates His original, effectual, and glorious generation from the Father, thus declaring, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Also, "all things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made." For this reason, too, is that Gospel full of all confidence, for such is His person. But that according to Luke, taking up [His] priestly character, commenced with Zacharias the priest offering sacrifice to God. For now was made ready the fatted calf, about to be immolated for the finding again of the younger son. Matthew, again, relates His generation as a man, saying, "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham; " and also, "The birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise." This, then, is the Gospel of His humanity; for which reason it is, too, that [the character of] a humble and meek man is kept up through the whole Gospel. Mark, on the other hand, commences with [a reference to] the prophetical spirit coming down from on high to men, saying, "The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in Esaias the prophet,"-pointing to the winged aspect of the Gospel; and on this account he made a compendious and cursory narrative, for such is the prophetical character. (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3.11.8)

Irenaeus exemplifies the fact that Christians have recognized from the earliest times that the four biblical gospels are distinctive. Rather than disguising this fact with a single harmony, as attempted by Tatian with his Diatessaron, they celebrated the differences as part of God's revelation.

Letting the Gospels Be Messy

It's also worth noting that the second-century Christians didn't "clean up" the four gospels. It's true that some of the scribes did harmonize divergent texts, so there would be fewer differences among the gospels. But, by and large, the church kept the original texts intact, even though this meant preserving some of the very elements that could be labeled as "contradictions." This fact suggests two implications.

First, it confirms the judgment that people in the Hellenistic world didn't expect historical or biographical works to get every word exactly right. Second-century believers could accept Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as authoritative accounts of Jesus's life, even though there are acknowledged variations among them.

Second, the fact that the church did not prefer a single harmonized gospel, but instead kept the four distinct ones, suggests that the early Christians did indeed seek to preserve accurately the written accounts of Jesus's life, even though they were aware of the differences among these accounts. To put it differently, there was no conspiracy in the early church to clean up the gospels. The truth needed to be protected and preserved, even if it was messy.

I'm aware that what I've just said flows upstream in some rivers of biblical scholarship. It's not uncommon to hear scholars argue that the gospels are primarily theological documents, and therefore were not meant to be historically accurate in the first place. Theology and history, it seems, are incompatible. In the next chapter I'll take up this issue. If it turns out that the motivations of the evangelists were more theological than academic, if they were promoting a religious agenda more than writing history for antiquarian reasons, does this discount the reliability of the gospels?

Jesus and Half Dome: Four Revealing Pictures

Of course for this approach to succeed, one needs to grant that the pictures of Jesus in the New Testament gospels aren't precise photographs so much as inspired paintings. If you've spent much time looking at paintings, you know that many are not "literal" in the photographic sense. Yet a great painting can capture a slice of reality that eludes the photographer. It can convey mood, feeling, and insight. And it can be profoundly "true" without being literalistic.

Consider, for example, the four paintings pictured above. You probably recognize these as different representations of Half Dome, the mammoth granite monolith that dwarfs the eastern end of Yosemite Valley in California. A couple of the paintings are more literal; a couple more suggestive. None looks exactly like a photograph. Yet it would be wrong to criticize the painters because their art wasn't photographic enough.

If you saw only one of these paintings of Half Dome, you'd have an idea what it really looks like. In fact, if you had never seen it before, either in person or in pictures, and you went to Yosemite Valley, from one painting alone you'd be able to identify Half Dome. Yet if you had seen all four paintings, you'd have an even better idea of what Half Dome really looks like in all of its subtlety and variety.

So it is with Jesus and the gospels. If you had access to only one of the four, you'd have a trustworthy picture of Jesus. It wouldn't be as detailed or as literal as a photograph. But you could trust it to reveal the truth about Jesus. With four gospels, you're able to see different things in Jesus and to know with greater accuracy what he was really like.

Features Common to All Four Gospels

I'll have more to say about the differences among the gospels later in this book. For now I want to focus on something that is often overlooked by scholars, but is generally acknowledged by careful readers who have lots of common sense: the striking similarities between the pictures of Jesus found in the New Testament gospels.

Here is a list of some of the details about Jesus's life and ministry that are found in all four gospels, yes, including John:

• Jesus was a Jewish man.
• Jesus ministered during the time when Pontius Pilate was prefect of Judea (around A.D. 27 to A.D. 37).
• Jesus had a close connection with John the Baptist, and his ministry superceded that of John.
• John the Baptist was involved with the descent of the Spirit on Jesus.
• Jesus's ministry took place in Galilee, especially early in his ministry
• Jesus's ministry concluded in Jerusalem.
• Jesus gathered disciples around him. (This is important, because Jewish teachers in the time of Jesus didn't recruit their own students, but rather the students came to them.)
• The brothers, Andrew and Simon (Peter), were among Jesus's first disciples.
• The followers of Jesus referred to him as "rabbi."
• Jesus taught women, and they were included among the larger group of his followers. (This, by the way, sets Jesus apart from other Jewish teachers of his day.)
• Jesus taught in Jewish synagogues.
• Jesus was popular with the masses.
• At times, however, Jesus left the crowds to be alone.
• Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God (in Matthew, more commonly the "kingdom of heaven").
• Jesus called people to believe in God and in God's saving activity.
• The ministry of Jesus involved conflict with supernatural evil powers, including Satan and demons.
• Jesus used the cryptic title "Son of Man" in reference to Himself and in order to explain His mission. (Jesus's fondness for and use of this title was very unusual in his day, and was not picked up by the early church.)
• Jesus saw his mission as the Son of Man as leading to his death. (This was unprecedented in Judaism. Even among Jesus's followers it was both unexpected and unwelcome.)
• Jesus, though apparently understanding himself to be Israel's promised Messiah, was curiously circumspect about this identification. (This is striking, given the early and widespread confession of Christians that Jesus was the Messiah.)
• Jesus did various sorts of miracles, including healings and nature miracles.
• One of Jesus's miracles involved the multiplication of food so that thousands could eat when they were hungry.
• Jesus even raised the dead.
• The miracles of Jesus were understood as signs of God's power that pointed to truth beyond the miracle itself.
• Jesus was misunderstood by almost everybody, including his own disciples.
• Jewish opponents of Jesus accused him of being empowered by supernatural evil.
• Jesus experienced conflict with many Jewish leaders, especially the Pharisees and ultimately the temple-centered leadership in Jerusalem.
• Jesus spoke and acted in ways that undermined the temple in Jerusalem.
• Jesus spoke and acted in ways that implied He had a unique connection with God.
• Jesus referred to God as Father, thus claiming unusual intimacy with God.
• Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem, at the time of Passover, under the authority of Pontius Pilate, and with the cooperation of some Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. (There are quite a few more details concerning the death of Jesus that are shared by all four gospels.)
• Most of Jesus's followers either abandoned him or denied him during his crucifixion.
• Jesus was raised from the dead on the first day of the week.

• Women were the first witnesses to the evidence of Jesus's resurrection. (This is especially significant, since the testimony of women was not highly regarded in first-century Jewish culture. Nobody would have made up stories with women as witnesses if they wanted them to gain ready acceptance.)

This is certainly an impressive list of similarities shared by all four gospels. It's especially significant because I've included the Gospel of John here, even though it is the most unusual among the biblical gospels. It shows that John shares with the synoptics the same basic narrative. Thus the four biblical testimonies about Jesus are impressively similar at the core. Because Matthew and Luke used Mark, their witnesses aren't independent, but they do corroborate Mark's account. Thus the fact that there are four gospels contributes significantly to our confidence in their historical accuracy.

The Benefit of Multiple Witnesses

On the most obvious level, the fact that we have four early witnesses to the ministry of Jesus increases our confidence that we can know what Jesus actually did and said. This is a matter of common sense.

Several years ago I served on a jury in a criminal case. The defendant was accused of possessing controlled substances (illegal drugs, including cocaine). He, not surprisingly, claimed that he was innocent, that the drugs found in his car were not his, and that he had no idea how they got there. But the prosecution presented several witnesses to contradict this man's story. One of the police officers who arrested him explained how he saw the defendant scurry to hide the drugs when pulled over for a traffic violation. Others bore witnesses to his having full awareness of the drugs in his possession.

When it came time for the jury to deliberate, we reviewed the evidence that had been presented to us. The fact that multiple witnesses testified to the defendant's guilt was persuasive. Without too much effort, we found him guilty as charged.

If we want to know something about Jesus, we're better off with four gospels than if we had only one. And we're better off having the distinct perspectives of the evangelists rather than one blended Diatessaron, even if this gets untidy sometimes.

Our situation is trying to find out about Jesus from multiple sources is similar to that of scholars trying to discover something about the real Socrates. The famous fifth-century Greek philosopher didn't write anything down, or at least none of his writings has survived. Almost everything we know about Socrates comes from three writers: Plato, Xenophon, and Aristophanes. The first two were disciples of Socrates who, after the death of their master, wrote dialogues in which Socrates played a major role. Aristophanes was a comic playwright who, in his drama The Clouds, made Socrates out to be a buffoon. Most scholars consider Plato and Xenophon to be more reliable sources than Aristophanes for information about the historical Socrates, though their tendency to idolize their master may be balanced by Aristophanes's more critical albeit exaggerated picture. Nevertheless, the existence of three perspectives on the life of Socrates allows scholars to determine with greater confidence what he was really like and what he really taught.

In the case of Jesus, we have four different portraits, a situation that puts us in a better position than those who are seeking the real Socrates. Yet we do not have a contrary picture, like that of Aristophanes. To our knowledge, no writer in the first century wrote a satire of Jesus. We have to wait until the second century for open criticism of Jesus. The most famous of these critics was Celsus, who said of Jesus that he "invented his birth from a virgin." Celsus accused Jesus of being

born in a certain Jewish village, of a poor woman of the country, who gained her subsistence by spinning, and who was turned out of doors by her husband, a carpenter by trade, because she was convicted of adultery; that after being driven away by her husband, and wandering about for a time, she disgracefully gave birth to Jesus, an illegitimate child, who having hired himself out as a servant in Egypt on account of his poverty, and having there acquired some miraculous powers, on which the Egyptians greatly pride themselves, returned to his own country, highly elated on account of them, and by means of these proclaimed himself a God. (Celsus is quoted in Origen, Against Celsus, 1.28. The translation is from Alexander Roberts and Jams Donaldson, eds.,  The Ante-Nicene Fathers [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978-1980])

Note: it would be unwise to consider Celsus a reliable, independent witness to Jesus. In Chapter 12 I'll examine in much greater detail the evidence for Jesus outside of the New Testament gospels.

"All Truth is God's Truth"

When I was a freshman in college and struggling with my first New Testament class, I wondered if faith and reason simply didn't fit together. I feared that if I wanted to be a confident Christian, I would have to avoid thinking carefully and critically about my faith, especially the Bible. Discovering the differences among the gospels unsettled my confidence in their reliability. I couldn't deny the facts of the gospels; but I couldn't figure out how to reconcile them with what I had previously believed about their trustworthiness. For this reason, and others like it, I entered an extended season of doubting the veracity of the gospels. I described this in more detail in Chapter 1.

In the midst of my intellectual turmoil, John R. W. Stott visited the Harvard campus. A highly respected Christian thinker and expert in the New Testament, Dr. Stott attended an informal dessert gathering hosted by a friend of mine. Here was my chance to talk with someone who might understand my dilemma, I thought. Maybe I can get some help from him?

When another student finished a conversation, I seized my chance. “Dr. Stott,” I said, “I’m taking a New Testament class. Much of what I’m being taught contradicts what I believe about the Bible. I’m beginning to wonder if it’s unwise to study Scripture in an academic way. I’d like to take more classes in New Testament, yet I’m afraid that what I learn will undermine my faith. What should I do?”

“I can understand your conflict and your fear,” Dr. Stott began, “because I’ve felt them myself. Many of the popular theories in New Testament scholarship do challenge orthodox Christianity.”

“But,” he continued, “you don’t have to be afraid. Let me tell you something that will give you confidence as you study: All truth is God’s truth. There isn’t anything true about the Bible that God doesn’t already know. You don’t have to fear that if you dig too deeply you’ll undermine genuine Christian faith. You may indeed discover that some of your beliefs aren’t correct. In fact, I hope you do make this discovery, many times over. That’s what happens when you live under biblical authority. But you never have to be afraid of seeking the genuine truth because all truth is God’s truth.”

This was a watershed moment in my life. On the one hand, it pointed me in the direction of biblical scholarship, a path I have followed for the last 30 years, and which has enabled me to write this book. On the other hand, though Dr. Stott didn't have time to deal with my specific struggles, the fact that he knew what I was going through and had managed to maintain a solid faith in biblical authority encouraged me to keep on seeking the truth about the Bible.

I expect that some readers of my book will be unsettled by part of what I'm saying about the gospels. So far I've questioned whether or not John wrote the fourth gospel and I've noted that Matthew and Mark use slightly different words for God's proclamation when Jesus was baptized. This may be unsettling for some folks, maybe even for you. My encouragement is to keep on pressing for what is true. Don't take my word for it. Don't settle for believing things about the gospels that are not true. And don’t fear that some undiscovered truth out there will overturn your trust in the gospels. John Stott was right: "There isn’t anything true about the Bible that God doesn’t already know." Indeed, "all truth is God's truth."

Before I leave this story, I want to make another point. I have told you about my encounter with Dr. Stott to the very best of my memory. I'm quite sure that I have the main facts correct. It was Dr. Stott with whom I spoke, not C.S. Lewis. The conversation did happen during the spring semester of my freshman year. And Dr. Stott did encourage me to keep on looking for truth. I'm almost positive he said, "All truth is God's truth." (I found out later that Dr. Stott was quoting from the Christian theologian St. Augustine.) But I don't have a tape recording of that conversation. And I didn't rush back to my dorm to write down exactly what Dr. Stott said. In telling this story, I have made up words and put them in Dr. Stott's mouth. Though I'm confident I have his ipsissima vox, I don't have his ipsissima verba, except for "All truth is God's truth." Moreover, I've told this story before in print – in my book Dare to Be True -- using slightly different words. Therefore, what I've done in telling this story is similar in many ways to what Hellenistic historians and biographers – including the evangelists – used to do.

Does my admission surprise you? I doubt it. Though you may not have considered this as you read, I expect you sensed that I was telling the story from memory, using my own words, even as I "quoted" Dr. Stott. You knew from the kind of narrative I was offering that I was not using a tape or transcript. Moreover, now that you have my confession, do you doubt the truthfulness of my story? I doubt this too. You probably believe that, though I may have not gotten every jot and tittle absolutely right, I have related my conversation with Dr. Stott in a trustworthy manner. (At least I hope you believe this! If not, you should probably not bother reading this book, because you must believe I'm not a truthful person in general.)

Is it possible to trust a biographical or historical writing that offers the ipsissima vox rather than the ipsissima verba? I believe so. Of course this depends on your evaluation of the overall trustworthiness of the writer and the sources at his or her disposal. I've already talked about the sources used by the evangelists and how they contribute to the historicity of the gospels. I'll have much more to say about their general trustworthiness in the rest of this book.

The Literary Freedom of the Hellenistic Biographer or Historian

I'm back to my series on the reliability of the gospels. Once again, these are excerpts from my manuscript that will be published next spring as Can We Trust the Gospels? If you have any comments to share on this and the following posts, I'd be glad to hear them.

Those who do not believe the New Testament gospels provide much reliable historical information about Jesus often point to variations in the wording of sayings as they appear in different gospels, to differences in the order of events between gospels, or similar characteristics that seem inconsistent with the genres of biography and history. For example, when Jesus is baptized by John in the Jordan River, a voice from heaven speaks, but the words differ slightly between Matthew and Mark (Luke agrees with Mark):

• And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matt 3:17)

• And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:11)

This sort of difference delights detractors of the gospels and perplexes the faithful. It would be pretty hard to argue that the voice from heaven said the same sentence twice in slightly different ways (though I expect this argument has been made somewhere). No, it seems more likely that Matthew and Mark used slightly different words for the same vocal event. If Matthew was using Mark, as is likely, then he made a few changes. How could he do this if he is writing biography or history? Do the differences between Matthew and Mark prove that one of the gospels is wrong? Does this mean that either Matthew or Mark was a sloppy historian?

If we evaluate the evangelists in light of contemporary history writing, then we'd have to say that one of them doesn't measure up. We expect historians and biographers to quote their sources with precision. For example, my friend Ronald C. White Jr. wrote a highly acclaimed study of Abraham Lincoln's second Inaugural, Lincoln's Greatest Speech.  If Ron had misquoted Lincoln's words, or paraphrased then and put them in quotation marks, he would have been blasted by critics. In fact, his book would never have been published in such a form.

Yet in the ancient world, before there were transcripts, tape recordings, and podcasts, biographers and historians exercised greater freedom in paraphrasing or slightly altering spoken words for stylistic reasons. A good historian, if he knew that a character had made a speech at a certain time, would get available information about that speech and then write the speech with his own words as if these words had been uttered by the character. Nowadays, a historian who did this would be considered sloppy at best, or even dishonest. (Remember the case of Jayson Blair, not a historian, but a reporter for the New York Times. He disgraced the Times and himself by, among other things, making up quotes that his sources could have side, but didn't in fact say.)

So, assuming for a moment that Matthew used Mark as a source, if we evaluate Matthew according to today's standards, then we'd say he's not completely reliable, even though he mostly agrees with Mark. Yet this sort of anachronistic approach is unhelpful, not to mention unfair to Matthew. For reasons of style or story, Matthew was doing what historians and biographers in his day were expected to do. Nobody would have accused him of falsehood back then. Neither should we.

The proof of this is obvious and, I think, incontrovertible. Both Matthew and Mark were accepted as authoritative in the early church, even though the sayings of Jesus are usually worded differently in Matthew and Mark. The events of the gospels don't always come in exactly the same order, either. The early Christians didn't see these variations as a problem because that's what they were accustomed to in their biographical and historical writings.

It sometimes comes as a shock when Christians discover that the gospels don't present the sayings of Jesus in exactly the same way, or don't give the same details when telling what must obviously be the same story. Skeptics love this sort of thing, and use it to diminish confidence in the gospels. But both scandalized Christians and zealous skeptics must learn to see the gospels in the context of their own time and history.

Moreover, we must remember that the gospels give us what is technically called the ipsissima vox (his own voice) of Jesus rather than the ipsissima verba (his own words). Since it's highly unlikely that Jesus did much teaching in Greek, the autographs of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John do not preserve his original words (except in a few cases). They do, however, authentically capture his voice.