The Gospels as Eye Witness Accounts

A defense of Christianity as "true" requires only two steps. The historicity of the earliest versions of the New Testament must be verifiable so we can be confident that we are reading what the original authors intended. Second, there must be extra-biblical evidence to support the views. The Bible merely saying that it is "true" is not evidence of anything except that it wasn't written by idiots. No one wishing to be believed starts out by describing their work as a piece of fiction.

Christians and opponents go to great lengths to either defend or attack the reliability of the Bible as it has developed into its modern form. There are nearly 25,000 versions (whole or in part) that have survived, all with differences. Some are minor; some more significant. It is estimated that of the known copies of the New Testament that have survived more than 200,000 variations exist. These variations, though, are not relevant to the truth of the work itself. Only the earliest, Greek versions need be true. The quality of the subsequently changes and translated versions is certainly relevant to Christians themselves, but not really to the reliability of the Bible at its core. Presumably, though, Christians do want to be reading an accurate account of the New Testament. Since scholars can look at the earliest Greek versions all subsequent editions need not be considered.

It is well recognized that the first three Gospels of the New Testament (Matthew, Mark and Luke) tell basically the same story and are referred to by scholars as "synoptic" which in Greek means roughly "a common view." There are a number of reasons why the three are so similar. The Bible scholars explanation is that the author of the first written, Mark, was available to the authors of Matthew and Luke; or that all three are based on an additional, undiscovered source known as a "q" source. The believer's explanation is that the three Gospels were inspired by the same Holy Spirit and thus tell the same story because it is true.

The real issue is not with the similarities of the three Gospels, but with their differences. Luke begins his Gospel stating that he is going to set the record straight, which implies that other versions may not be true accounts. This puts a serious crimp in the inspired by the Holy Spirit view and requires a considerable amount of dancing by Bible literalists to reconcile all the inconsistencies.

Looking at the overall story, and putting aside the individual dissimilarities, the obvious goal is to portray Jesus as the divine incarnated However; in making their case the Gospels actually weaken the entire argument for the validity of the New Testament story. According to the Gospels (especially John), Jesus was a walking, talking miracle-maker. The witnesses to his miracles number in the tens of thousands. It appears that on different occasions Jesus fed multitudes of people with almost nothing to begin with. The numbers reported in Matthew total approximately 9000 in two accounts not including women and children. Not only were they all fed with a couple of loaves of bread and a few fish, but they also witnessed amazing feats of healing. One of the multitudes was so devoted to Jesus that they spent three days with him without eating or drinking, yet no one tells the story. Not a single account from any one of these thousands of people is found. There isn't even a second hand account of any of the miracles or even a references to the existence of any of these accounts. The New Testament goes to great lengths to detail the divine and miraculous events of Jesus' life and the witnesses to these events number in the tens of thousands. The first time anyone records one of these events is 40 years later and he was not even an eye witness. The improbability of this is staggering.

Even using a very modest estimate of literacy at about 5%, and excluding the women and children witnesses, more than 500 people would have had the ability to record something, anything. At the very least they could have told someone who was literate.

When Jesus entered Jerusalem just prior to the final events of his life it is reported he was greeted by a multitude waving palm fronds. Ancient cities were not open as they are today. They were walled and guarded. Anyone that entered a city followed by a multitude would surely have been noticed by the authorities guarding the entrance, whether that authority be Roman or Jewish. Passover was always a time when the authorities were most on edge and Jerusalem was a well known hotbed. Yet when it came time to identify this imminent threat to the Roman government, a traitor was required to sell him out and identify the culprit.

The more miraculous Jesus' life is described, the more likely it would be to find confirmation for this life. That absolutely none exists says more about the validity of the New Testament than any claim made from within the writings themselves.

In addition to the absence of records of the miracles, there is no account of an empire-wide census nor an account of the killing of all children under the age of two. These were certainly important enough events that something should have come down in history to verify them. While it is generally a rule that the absence of evidence does not mean an event did not occur; in this case this absence is striking. The Jesus described in John's Gospel should have had all of Judea following him. He was a miracle worker and his miracles were viewed by everyone. Jesus was not just bending spoons. He was raising the dead, healing the crippled, and feeding multitudes. This alone should have made him the most recognized person in all Israel yet he gathered no more than a dozen or so followers.

This seems to be a problem recognized by early Christians. There are only three non-Christian first century sources that make any reference to Christ or Christians. Two are from Roman sources that merely comment on the Christians. The third is from the first century Jewish historian Josephus who makes one passing note and then makes a startling revelation that Jesus existed, was likely divine, was the messiah, was killed and rose from the dead. This statement, the famous Testimonium Flavianum should put an end to this entire discussion. However; much of the testimony, and all of the powerfully supportive rhetoric was almost certainly added in by a later Christian trying to "punch up" the evidence. That this Christian (suspicion has fallen largely on early church historian Eusebius of Caesarea) found it necessary to alter the text says a lot about Christianity. Christians themselves seemed concerned about the lack of corroborative evidence so they needed to make it up.