Blomberg, Craig. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1987. Bruce, F F The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960. France, R. I The Evidence for Jesus. Downers Grove. Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1986.
Do the Biographies of Jesus Stand Up to Scrutiny?
Sixteen-year-old Michael McCullough's words were so faint that jurors couldn't hear them above the soft puffing sound of the mechanical respirator that was keeping him alive. A lip-reader had to hunch over Michael's bed, discern what he was saying, and repeat his testimony to the makeshift courtroom. Paralyzed from the neck down by a bullet that severed his spinal cord, Michael was too frail to be transported to the courthouse for the trial of the two youths accused of attacking him. Instead the judge, jury, defendants, lawyers, reporters, and spectators crowded into Michael's hospital room, which was declared a temporary branch of Cook County Circuit Court. Under questioning by prosecutors, Michael recalled how he left his apartment at a Chicago housing project with two dollars in his pocket. He said he was accosted in a stairway by the two defendants, who intentionally shot him in the face as they tried to steal his money. His story was backed up by two other youths who had watched in horror as the assault took place. The defendants never denied the shooting; instead they claimed that the gun accidentally discharged while they were waving it around. Defense attorneys knew that the only way they could get their clients off with a reduced sentence was if they could succeed in undermining the testimony that the shooting was a vicious and premeditated act of violence. They did their best to cast doubt on the eyewitness accounts. They questioned the witnesses' ability to view what happened, but they failed to make any inroads. They tried to exploit inconsistencies in the stories, but the accounts harmonized on the central points. They demanded more corroboration, but clearly no more was needed. They raised hints about character, but the victim and witnesses were law-abiding youths with no criminal record. They hoped to show a bias against the defendants, but they couldn't find one. They questioned whether one witness, a nine-year-old boy named Keith, was old enough to understand what it meant to tell the truth under oath, but it was obvious to everyone that he did. With defense attorneys unable to shake the credibility of the victim and the prosecution witnesses, the two defendants were convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to fifty years in the penitentiary. Eighteen days later Michael died.
Defense attorneys have a challenging job: to raise questions, to generate doubts, to probe the soft and vulnerable spots of a witness's story. They do this by subjecting the testimony to a variety of tests. The idea is that honest and accurate testimony will withstand scrutiny, while false, exaggerated, or misleading testimony will be exposed. In Michael's case justice prevailed because the jurors could tell that the witnesses and victim were sincerely and precisely recounting what they had experienced. Now let's return to our investigation of the historical evidence concerning Jesus. The time had come to subject Dr. Blomberg's testimony to tests that would either reveal its weaknesses or underscore its strength. Many of these would be the same tests that had been used by defense attorneys in Michael's case so many years earlier. "There are eight different tests I'd like to ask you about," I said to Blomberg as we sat down after our fifteen- minute break. Blomberg picked up a fresh cup of steaming black coffee and leaned back. I wasn't sure, but it seemed he was looking forward to the challenge. "Go ahead," he said.
This test seeks to determine whether it was the stated or implied intention of the writers to accurately preserve history. "Were these first-century writers even interested in recording what actually happened?" I asked. Blomberg nodded. "Yes, they were," he said. "You can see that at the beginning of the gospel of Luke, which reads very much like prefaces to other generally trusted historical and biographical works of antiquity." Picking up his Bible, Blomberg read the opening of Luke's gospel. Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. "As you can see," Blomberg continued, "Luke is clearly saying he intended to write accurately about the things he investigated and found to be well-supported by witnesses." "What about the other gospels?" I asked. "They don't start with similar declarations; does that mean their writers didn't have the same intentions?" "It's true that Mark and Matthew don't have this kind of explicit statement," came Blomberg's reply. "However, they are close to Luke in terms of genre, and it seems reasonable that Luke's historical intent would closely mirror theirs." "And John?" I asked. "The only other statement of purpose in the gospels comes in John 20:31: '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.'" "That," I objected, "sounds more like a theological statement than a historical one." "I'll grant you that," Blomberg replied. "But if you're going to be convinced enough to believe, the theology has to flow from accurate history. Besides, there's an important piece of implicit evidence that can't be overlooked. Consider the way the gospels are written-in a sober and responsible fashion, with accurate incidental details, with obvious care and exactitude. You don't find the outlandish flourishes and blatant mythologizing that you see in a lot of other ancient writings. "What does all that add up to?" he asked. Then he answered his own question: "It seems quite apparent that the goal of the gospel writers was to attempt to record what had actually occurred."
Answering Objections However, is that what really happened? There's a competing and contradictory scenario that has been promoted by some critics. They have said that early Christians were convinced Jesus was going to be returning during their lifetime to consummate history, so they didn't think it was necessary to preserve any historical records about his life or teachings. After all, why bother if he's going to come and end the world at any moment? "so, " I said, "years later when it became obvious that Jesus wasn't coming back right away, they found they didn't have any accurate historical material to draw on in writing the gospels. Nothing had been captured for historical purposes. Isn't that what really happened?" "There are certainly sects and groups, including religious ones throughout history, for which that argument works, but not with early Christianity," Blomberg replied. "Why not?" I challenged him. "What was so different about Christianity?" "First, I think the premise is a bit overstated. The truth is that the majority of Jesus' teachings presuppose a significant span of time before the end of the world," he said. "But second, even if some of Jesus' followers did think he might come back fairly quickly, remember that Christianity was born out of Judaism. "For eight centuries the Jews lived with the tension between the repeated pronouncements of prophets that the Day of the Lord was at hand and the continuing history of Israel. And still the followers of these prophets recorded, valued, and preserved the words of the prophets. Given that Jesus' followers looked upon him as being even greater than a prophet, it seems very reasonable that they would have done the same thing." While that did seem reasonable, some scholars have also raised a second objection that I wanted to pose to Blomberg. "They say that early Christians frequently believed that the physically departed Jesus was speaking through them with messages, or 'prophecies,' for their church," I said. "Since these prophecies were considered as authoritative as Jesus' own words when he was alive on earth, the early Christians didn't distinguish between these newer sayings and the original words of the historical Jesus. As a result, the gospels blend these two types of material, so we don't really know what goes back to the historical Jesus and what doesn't. That's a troubling charge to a lot of people. How do you respond to that?" "That argument has less historical support than the previous one," he said with a smile. "In fact, within the New Testament itself there is evidence that disproves this hypothesis. "There are occasions when early Christian prophecy is referred to, but it's always distinguished from what the Lord has said. For example, in I Corinthians 7 Paul clearly distinguishes when he has a word from the Lord and when he is quoting the historical Jesus. In the book of Revelation one can clearly distinguish the handful of times in which Jesus directly speaks to this prophet- traditionally assumed to be John the apostle-and when John is recounting his own inspired visions." "And in 1 Corinthians 14, when Paul is discussing the criteria for true prophecy, he talks about the responsibility of the local church to test the prophets. Drawing on his Jewish background, we know that the criteria for true prophecy would have included whether the prediction comes true and whether these new statements cohere with previously revealed words of the Lord. But the strongest argument is what we never find in the gospels. After Jesus' ascension there were a number of controversies that threatened the early church-should believers be circumcised, how should speaking in tongues be regulated, how to keep Jew and Gentile united, what are the appropriate roles for women in ministry, whether believers could divorce non-Christian spouses. These issues could have been conveniently resolved if the early Christians had simply read back into the gospels what Jesus had told them from the world beyond. But this never happened. The continuance of these controversies demonstrates that Christians were interested in distinguishing between what happened during Jesus' lifetime and what was debated later in the churches."
Even if the writers intended to reliably record history, were they able to do so? How can we be sure that the material about Jesus' life and teachings was well preserved for thirty years before it was finally written down in the gospels? I asked Blomberg, "Won't you concede that faulty memories, wishful thinking, and the development of legend would have irreparably contaminated the Jesus tradition prior to the writing of the gospels?" He started his answer by establishing the context. "We have to remember that we're in a foreign land in a distant time and place and in a culture that has not yet invented computers or even the printing press," he replied. "Books-or