Gospels

[Per] Jesus and the Gospels. This is neither an objective historical genre, nor pure fiction (as a genre), but a shady concoction of theology deemed to be rooted in a historical tradition built up from cognitive dissonance, hope, faith, and communal/tribal identity. But most of all, it is evangelising propaganda designed to persuade. And it is often genius. The thought that went into the Gospels and the way in which they pull off certain themes and tropes from, say, the Hebrew Bible can at times be brilliant. The gospels are books/collections of writings/scribblings on looseleaf that "document" the birth, life, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus of Nazareth. Most Christians only know of the four canonical gospels: those ascribed to Matthew, to Mark, to Luke, and to John. Of these 4, the first 3 are known as the synoptic gospels — they say basically the same thing with different territorial twists thrown in — while John and the myriad Apocryphal gospels can read quite differently.

Many Christians regard the four canonical gospels as a particularly important grouping among the books of New Testament section of the Christian Bible.

The Modern English word "gospel" comes from the Olde Englishe gōd-spell (gōd [ GOOD ] + spell [ MESSAGE ]) - a literal translation of the Greek word εὐαγγέλιον or euangelion (eu [ GOOD ] + angelion [ MESSAGE ]). Latin-speakers transmogrified the Greek word euangelion into the Latinised evangelion, from which we get the words "evangelical" and "evangelism"; the alleged authors of the canonical gospels have therefore become known in Christian folklore and in Christian theology as "the four evangelists".

Canonical gospels
There is no agreement on what is the earliest canonical gospel or how they came into being though there are four main schools of thought


 * Marcan priority (Mark first) has four main sub-theories with Two‑source Marcan priority being the most popular
 * Matthaean priority (Matthew first) has two main sub-theories
 * Lucan priority (Luke first) has a version that suggest that Marcion's Evangelikon (c. 145 CE) was the first written Gospel and the versions we have are derived from it.
 * No Gospel has Multi‑source, Proto‑gospel, and Independence theories.

All of the canonical gospels were originally written in Greek, even though Jesus spoke Aramaic. Moreover, other than what are claimed to be paraphrasing, no meaningful quoting of our canonical gospels occurred until Irenaeus' Against Heresies c. 180 CE, and our first fully intact copy with a definitive (i.e. not dated palaeographically) date is the Codex Sinaiticus at 330-360 CE.

Since Paleographic dating as it currently exists is unable "to construct a 95% confidence interval for NT manuscripts without allowing a century for an assigned date" none of the fragments of the canonical Gospels nor non canonal works like Egerton Papyrus 2 can be said definitively predate Against Heresies c. 180 CE. So the best that can be said is that the canonal Gospels existed in some form no later than 145 CE. Anything before that date is pure speculation.

The of the Gospel of Mark—and its embellished variants Matthew, Luke, John—with Old Testament scripture has been recognized by scholars such as, who writes, "Since around 1970 an alternative explanation of the New Testament and related texts has been emerging. Researchers are recognizing precise ways in which New Testament texts are explained as depending not on oral tradition but on older literature, especially older scripture." Neil Godfrey writes, Following overview of the way the Jewish Scriptures were written I tend to see the Gospel of Mark as yet one more story in the same tradition as other (OT) biblical narratives.

[...]

The same story of being lost, then called, then obeying, then falling away, then punishment, then restoration is told over and over. Each story warns the “new Israel” not to fall into the errors of the “old Israel”.

The Gospel of Mark (and its [embellished] variants, Matthew, John, Luke) continue that same tradition of literature and theology. . . . The same story of the displacement of the natural order or privileged generation in favour of the younger and chosen is repeated in the Exodus (the old generation must die and the new enter the land of promise), in the stories of the prophets and their promises for a new generation, in the selection of the younger/initially disposessed over the older, right through to the New Testament.

The motifs for new beginnings are also repeated — the splitting of the waters at the initial creation is repeated again with the renewal after the Flood, and then again in the Exodus and Red Sea crossing, and then the crossing of Jordan as those waters also divided, then with Elijah and Elisha at the Jordan, then again at the baptism of Jesus.

The stories are retold, recycled, in their different mutations, and they are re-written for new generations who may have come through some crisis or are desirous of a new start as a “new” people of God who are now learning the lessons of the old generation, both in their real experience and in the stories themselves.

Synoptic gospels
Of the four canonical gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke share similar stories, similar descriptions of events, and even exact phrases from time to time. John remains the odd man out, sharing little material at all with the other three.

When the three synoptic gospels are set side by side, academics are able to work out theories on the relationship between the three texts. The most generally accepted relationship is that Mark is the earliest text written, and that both Matthew and Luke had a copy of it when writing. Then there is material that is unique to Mark and Matthew, and Mark and Luke; and material that is unique to Luke and Matthew is sometimes called the Q document.

Possible audiences for the gospels
According to academic research, each of the four canonical gospels as well as extra-biblical gospels (e.g. Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Peter, and Gospel of Mary) were written for different churches and at slightly different times.
 * The Gospel of Mark, generally assumed to be the earliest of the canonical gospels (c 70 CE), remains a Jewish-focused text, with a largely human Jesus, though several puzzling mistakes in relation to Mark's depiction of Jewish customs and teachings may suggest either a very Hellenized Jewish origin or an author who wasn't a Jew himself.
 * The Gospel of Matthew (70-100 CE), generally considered a Jewish apologetic, stressing Jewish law, correcting Mark's aforesaid errors and drawing direct parallels between Jesus and the OT prophets.
 * The Gospel of Luke (80-130 CE) was traditionally attributed to Luke the Physician who was claimed to be a companion of Paul and the gospel was written, along with Acts, for Peter and Paul's church — the church which was to become the dominant player in early Christendom. Considerably less focused on the Jewishness of Jesus than Matthew.
 * The Gospel of John (c 100 CE)

There are no manuscripts going back to these dates nor any reference to actual content of a Gospel until the 130s so there is no proof of the Gospels existing before 130 CE.

Authorship of the canonical gospels
Although Christian tradition assigns the names Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John to the canonical gospels, mainstream New Testament scholars, including some Christian scholars, tend to doubt that they were the actual authors. Unlike other ancient works and even other books in the New Testament, the gospels do not explicitly state who wrote them. On manuscripts of the gospels, later scribes gave them unusual titles like "the Gospel according to so-and-so", thereby distancing them as authors of the works. Out of the texts that we have, Irenaeus (~180-185 CE) was the first church father to explicitly name the gospels when he quoted them. Decades before Irenaeus, church father Papias (c. 60–c. 130 CE) had indicated that Matthew and Mark had written down accounts about Jesus, and that Mark had gotten his information from Peter. However, the surviving text of Papias does not quote Matthew or Mark's works, and his descriptions of Mark and Matthew do not appear to strongly match the texts that we have today. He was also an unreliable source who told tall tales about Judas literally exploding and was described by Eusebius as a man who "seems to have been of very small intelligence."

One apologetical response is that it would have been unlikely for books to be falsely assigned less illustrious authors like Mark the tax collector and Luke the physician of Paul. But many non-canonical texts were also attributed to less well-known figures, such as Philip, Thomas, and Nicodemus.

Non-canonical gospels
There are well over 20 gospels of Jesus Christ. However, the Catholic Church found it necessary to leave certain ones out. The gospel of Mary Magdalene, possibly the most famous Apocrypha for example, depicts her being second to Jesus rather than Peter. It also insinuates that Mary and Jesus were lovers, and forms the basis of alternative interpretations and conspiracies such as in Holy Blood, Holy Grail. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus asserts that the idea of hell is not for an eternity, rather a time that meets the severity of the punishment. A gospel according to Judas (dating to around the 3rd/4th Century AD) was discovered in the 1970s but has only really been studied since the late 90s. This alters the narrative slightly to portray Judas' actions towards the end of Jesus' story not as a betrayal, but as following the instructions of Jesus himself. Considering that it is canonical Christian belief that it was God's plan to have Jesus brutally murdered, this does make some sick and twisted sense.

Some of these non-canonical gospels have been reconstructed in Robert M. Price's The Pre-Nicene New Testament: Fifty-four Formative Texts, Bart Ehrman's Lost Scriptures, and Robert J. Miller's The Complete Gospels.

In Islam
Muslims believe that Jesus (Isa) was a prophet who received a revelation from God, which they call Injil. The dominant view is that the message God gave to Jesus has been lost or distorted through time and the New Testament contains at best only fragments; the original text would have been a revelation to Jesus rather than simply an account of his life, and presumably would have omitted details like Jesus being the son of God which Muslims don't accept. A minority view in Islam is that the message revealed by God to Jesus was indeed that in the New Testament gospels or non-canonical gospels such as the Gospel of Thomas or Gospel of Barnabas. Some people (mainly Christians) claim that the Quran nowhere says that the Christians had a corrupt or incorrect gospel, and therefore we can infer that the New Testament is indeed the word of God. But this seems to put too much faith in both the infallibility and the comprehensiveness of the Quran.

Gospels as history
The generally unreliable, untrustworthy, and fiction-filled Gospels can occasionally be considered excellent sources of objective and accurate historical information because of their foundational written sources, which do not exist, which contained many fictions if they did, and which cannot now be scrutinised for authorship, age, genre, intent, and so forth. These hypothetical written sources are themselves based on oral traditions, that also cannot be scrutinised, that changed over time, and that may well have been made up whole cloth. Therefore we have conclusive proof that Jesus definitely existed.

As with most religious texts, scholars assume some basic level of reliability on topics like "Who were the players?", "What were the major events?" and "What was the attitude of the community the texts intend to represent?" However there are major issues of reliability per standard historical methodologies. Richard Carrier writes, [W]e discount the Gospels as at all reliable on standard historical methodologies that would produce the same result in every other field: They’re late, post-dating any evident witness known to still be alive;and written in a foreign land and language;by unknown authors of unknown credentials;who cite no sources, and give no indication they had any sources;and never critically engage with their material but only credulously (e.g. they never discuss conflicting accounts or reasons to believe their information, unlike rational historians of the era);and about whose texts we have no reactions, critical or otherwise—whatever people were saying about these Gospels when they came out, we never get to hear, not for many more decades, by which time we see those reacting have no other information to judge them by;all the earliest of which texts just copy their predecessors verbatim and change and add a few things;and which contain in every pericope patent implausibilities or wholly unbelievable stories (from a random guy splitting the heavens and battling the devil and wandering out of the desert and converting disciples to instantly abandon their livelihoods after but a few sentences, to mystically murdering thousands of pigs, miraculously feeding thousands of itinerants, curing the blind, calming storms, and walking on water; from having a guy arguing against Pharisees with arguments that actually were the arguments of the Pharisees, to depicting a trial and execution that violates every law and custom of the time; and beyond);</li>which stories have obvious and rather convenient pedagogical uses in later missionary work;</li>and often emulate and “change up” the prior myths of other historically dubious heroes, like Moses and Elijah;</li>and often contain details that can only have been written a lifetime later (like the Sermon on the Mount, which was composed in Greek after the Jewish War; or prophecies of Jerusalem’s destruction, likewise; or Mark’s emulation of the passion of Jesus ben Ananias or Luke’s confused cooption of The Antiquities of Josephus; and so on).</li>and for none which do we have any prior corroboration.</li></ul> There is no field of history—absolutely none—where such sources as these would be trusted as history at all.

The first reference to the Gospels in a manner we can cross check didn't appear until c180 CE, nearly 150 years after the supposed events and some 50 to 110 years after the Gospels are thought to have been written down. And these are the Gospels that were formally canonized by the First Council of Nicea in 325 CE out of the literally dozens of other Gospels around.

For these reasons, as a primary historical record, the Christian gospels are dubious at best. For one, the gospels themselves are admittedly propagandist: "And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book: but these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have through his name." The writers peppered the gospels with Old Testament references — most details of Jesus' life are Old Testament references.

Richard Carrier wrote on the supposed resurrection:

Conflicts with known history
A major problem with the Gospels and Acts as history is that when they are compared with known historical events or people, they fail spectacularly.

Richard Carrier wrote about some of these issues:

Some other issues that come up are:


 * Herod's Slaughter of the Innocents is not recorded in any other history (or Gospel) &mdash; not even by Josephus, who really didn't like Herod and meticulously catalogued his other misdeeds.
 * claims Jesus was born in the year of a universal tax census, but the first such census did not occur until 74 CE — and it is not in the other gospels.
 * KJV specifically states "And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria." Cyrenius is the Greek name for Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, who came to this position in 6 CE.
 * KJV references a "Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene" but the only Lysanias ruling Abilene that can clearly be identified in secular sources was killed by Mark Antony in 36 BCE.
 * KJV talks about "Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests" but there is a major problem with that: according to Josephus, Annas and Caiaphas were never high priests together. Annas was high priest c 6 CE - c 15 CE while Caiaphas was high priest c 18 - c 36 CE with a priest called Eleazar the son of Ananus between them.
 * The throwing out of the moneychangers in the Court of the Gentiles area (10 acres or over 7.5 American football fields) would have prompted a response as there were guards, both Jewish and Roman, there to prevent just such an action.
 * Jesus preaches in the open so there is no need for Judas' betrayal. A real Roman official would have sent a modest group of soldiers and got the guy as what happened with John the Baptist. In fact, based on what Josephus writes, even this would have been subtle by Pilate's standards which can be summed up as being on par with the Silver Age Incredible Hulk i.e. 'puny people annoy Pilate, Pilate smash'.
 * The Sanhedrin trial account is totally at odds with the records on how that court actually operated in the 1st century.  In fact, a little quirk of the Sanhedrin court was that a unanimous verdict for conviction resulted in acquittal.
 * Pontius Pilate is totally out of character based on other accounts. Josephus relates two accounts where Pilate's solution to mobs causing a disturbance was brutally simple—have Roman soldiers go out and kill them until they dispersed. Moreover, it is never really explained in the Bible why, if Jesus' only crime was blasphemy, Pilate would need to be involved. If Jesus' crime has been sedition, then there would be no reason for Pilate to involve Herod Antipas — or for the Sanhedrin to be involved for that matter.
 * The crucified were left to rot as a warning to others unless there was intervention on the behalf of an important person per The Life of Flavius Josephus (75)
 * Given Jesus' short time on the cross and reports of him being out and about afterwards, certainly the Romans might have wondered if they had been tricked. Never mind that theft of a body was a capital crime. Yet there is nothing in the reports about the Romans acting on either possibility. Carrier describes how the Romans would have handled the situation and it is totally at odds with the account in Acts.
 * Jesus is depicted as hugely popular in the gospels, yet he is unrecorded by non-Biblical historians.

Even some of the surrounding events are at odds with history from other sources to where a form of time shifting and condensing seems to have occurred.


 * Acts has Theudas' death before Judas the Galilean which would put his death before 6 CE; Josephus clearly puts Theudas' death during the time of Fadus or 44 to 46 CE
 * The Gospels talk of robbers but Josephus only talks of them for two time periods: 63 BCE to 6 CE and 48-70 CE.
 * KJV states "And there was one named Barabbas, which lay bound with them that had made insurrection with him, who had committed murder in the insurrection." But Josephus gives no account of an actual insurrection in the time of Pilate.  Instead we are told of two non-violent protests and Pilate's reaction to the Samaritan prophet of 36 CE.  In fact, in what little of Tacitus that covers this time period that was preserved we are told “Under Tiberius all was quiet.”
 * Outside of the questionable Testimonium Flavianum Josephus makes no note of crucifixions of Jews between 4 BCE. and 46 CE
 * The Gospels indicate friction between the Jews and Samaritans in the time of Pilate; Josephus records no such friction until well after Pilate, finally resulting in the Galilean-Samaritan War (48-52 CE).
 * Acts 6:5–8:2 tells of an attack against a man called Stephanos, a very uncommon name in the area. This is identified as Saint Stephen who was killed 34 CE.  The only Stephanos Josephus mentions in his entire work is c. 48 CE and that Stephanos was simply robbed.
 * Josephus does record co-reigning high priests but these are Jonathan, son of Annas, and Ananias, son of Nebedaios at 48-52 CE.

Matthew vs Luke problem
A major issue with using the Gospels is that in terms of time Matthew and Luke do not agree as to when Jesus was born. Matthew specifically puts it 6 to 4 BCE while Luke, with his reference to Quirinius establishes it as being no earlier then 6 CE.

Apologists try to handwave this conflict away with various claims that are not supported by history. Here is the historical reality of the period 6 BC to 6 CE:


 * Publius Sulpicius Quirinius was fighting some two provinces to the east a minimum of 6-3 BCE with him being Duumvir of the area 6-1 BCE. and some say the war goes back as far as to 12 BCE.
 * Publius Quinctilius Varus oversaw the area covered by Herod the Great's kingdom from c. 8 BCE to 4 BCE as documented by Josephus and Sentius Saturninus preceded him 10 BCE - c. 8 BCE.
 * In Antiquities 17:27 Josephus expressly stated "the Judaean kingdom was immune from Roman taxation for as long as Herod lived ... this immunity seems to have remained in force even after Herod's death during the rule of his son Archelaus (4BC - AD6)" Therefore, Luke's taxation census must have occurred after Herod's death, while Matthew requires it to have happened before.
 * While Herod Archelaus' removal as Ethnarch of Judea (where Bethlehem of Judea is) made it subject to Roman taxation, Herod Antipas remained Tetrarch of Galilee (where Nazareth is) clear until 41 CE, making its subjects exempt from the Judean census, so the reason given by Luke for the trip makes no sense.
 * Because ΙΟΥΔΑΙΑΣ could refer to all Palestine or the southern portion of Palestine lying on this side of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, to distinguish it from Samaria, Galilee, Peraea, and Idumaea Luke 1:5's ΗΡΩΔΟΥ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΤΗΣ ΙΟΥΔΑΙΑΣ could refer to either Herod the Great or Herod Archelaus with Luke 2:2 indicating the later Herod.
 * A little-known fact is that in the time period Jesus supposedly lived there was a Bethlehem of Zebulun (around 10 kilometres north-west of Nazareth and 30 kilometres east of Haifa, i.e. in Galilee) and it has been suggested that this is the Bethlehem Jesus really came from.
 * Moreover, a census would not and has never meant ordering a return to the town people were born in, but rather taking records of them where they live at the time. The alternative would be a logistical nightmare in which the roads would be clogged with travelers returning to their home towns throughout all of Judea, making a census-taking far more difficult. This part of the story likely was added so that Joseph (who is said to come from the House of David—i.e. the royal line) would return to Bethlehem so Jesus could be born there, thus fulfilling a supposed old prophecy regarding the Jewish Messiah. However, some translations of Micah 5:2 make it clear that the supposed "Bethlehem" prophecy is in reference to a group of people in Judea, not a town, so there is no prophecy regarding the Jewish Messiah being born in the town of Bethlehem but rather coming from the Bethlehem clan who could have been anywhere in the land that had once been called Judea.
 * Finally Matthew implies that nearly two years had passed since Jesus' family had fled to Egypt when Herod starting killing the children in and around Bethlehem while Luke expressly states they went to temple every year.

Picking other timelines from the Gospels
As pointed out by Robert M. Price, Irenaeus had Jesus crucified under Claudius Caesar (41-54 CE)

The Irenaeus example Price provides is actually far worse than Price presents it. The actual passage in Demonstration (74) is

and this one sentence is so full of historical inaccuracies that it is unbelievable that few have pointed them out.

The key issue is the title "King of the Jews" (ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΤΩΝ ΙΟΥΔΑΙΩΝ in Greek). At best only three Herods held this formal title: Herod the Great, Herod Agrippa I, and Herod Agrippa II When Herod the Great died, his kingdom was broken up between this three sons: Herod Archelaus (Ethnarch of Judaea 4 BCE – 6 CE), Herod Antipas (Tetrarch of Galilee 4 BCE - 41 CE), and "Herod" Philip II (Tetrarch of Batanea 4 BCE – 34 CE). Archelaus was removed 6 CE with Judea governed by Roman prefects until Herod Agrippa I came to power in 41 CE. Furthermore, while some later books have called Herod Agrippa II "king of the Jews", he in truth never ruled over the Judea province.

In any case only one of these Herods ruled Judea during the reign of Claudius Caesar: Herod Agrippa I. Moreover, we know exactly when he had the title "King of the Jews": 42-44 CE. But this is long after Paul's vision, so why did Irenaeus make such a statement? Against Heresies 2:22 shows that Luke 3:23 locked him at Jesus being [about] 30 around 28/29 CE and John 8:56-57 as he states "such language is fittingly applied to one who has already passed the age of forty, without having as yet reached his fiftieth year, yet is not far from this latter period." Even you push Jesus's supposed birth date in Matthew to c6 BCE (Herod the Great killing children two years old and younger), putting Jesus at 34 in c29 CE (there is no year zero), you don't get to the required minimum 46 years of age until 41 CE, which requires the Caesar to be Claudius (41-54 CE) and the Herod "king of the Jews" to be Agrippa I (42-44 CE). The Gospel material Irenaeus was using effectively locked in the time period and he was forced to throw in Pontius Pilate (who if there was a Herod "king of the Jews" in charge would not have been needed) to make everything fit.

Furthermore the old out of claiming Irenaeus was, for some insane reason, referring to Tiberius Claudius Nero (whose name had changed to Tiberius Julius Caesar when he was adopted by Augustus in 4 CE) takes a dirt nap thanks to this passage:

Irenaeus then provides this piece of temporal insanity:

But a Jesus who had been born in 14 CE been 30 in 44 CE requires ignoring Luke 3:1 which clearly states "It was in the fifteenth year of the emperor Tiberius’ reign" (28/29 CE) was when Jesus was about 30 years old. Irenaeus is clearly making theological arguments with history and logic going out the window. The efforts to make statements like this fit history require insane disregard of history to even work. Augustus was originally called Octavian and didn't get the title name Augustus until 27 BCE.