The Historical Reliability of the New Testament

[DeistPaladin]

OK, trying this again and may the internet gods be kinder to me this time. 

Having failed to teach Randy in some basic lessons in how logic works, I'm now going to cross-examine the witnesses. Everyone get out your Bibles, Occam's Razors and a full Haz-mat suit because this is going to be bloody. 

You are about to enter the courtroom of Judge History.
The places are real.
The people are...
The people are...
Oh, just get into the court already!





Mark: First of the Witnesses, Sort of
We'll start with Mark since his was the first Gospel that was penned. His chapter 13 mentions the destruction of the temple so most Bible scholars date it to around 70 CE. He's not exactly what you'd call an eye-witness, since he was a companion of Paul, who in turn saw Jesus in a vision. However, the New Oxford Annotated Bible says he "drew from a rich variety of oral traditions" which is a nice, flowery way of saying he heard a bunch of stuff from a bunch of places. 

Mostly, his Gospel is based on the preaching of Peter. However, since Peter was not present during parts of the Gospel, by the very admission of the Gospel itself (for example, when Peter was with the servants while Jesus was being questioned by the high priests), he must have gotten his information elsewhere. Actually, we don't even know for certain who wrote the Gospel of Mark in the first place but it is attributed to him "by tradition" though even the New Oxford Bible admits there is "little evidence to support this claim". 

Holy scriptures of the era were prone to "interpolation" and "pseudo-epigraphy" and we do know of at least one significant and uncontested alteration to the Gospel of Mark. The original version of chapter 16 was ended at verse 8, where some guy in white told the visiting ladies "he is risen" and the women all run away afraid. A later edition added 12 verses to the Gospel to make a more satisfying ending. Considering this is the story of the resurrection of Jesus, a rather important point in the tale, one wonders why the author didn't get that account right the first time.

So, to review, Mark is:

• Of dubious authorship
  
• based on a hearsay account
  
• mixed with unknown sources of hearsay
  
• written down 4 decades after the events
  
• with at least one significant alteration
  

And he's the first witness on the scene, your honor. Next witness...

Matthew: Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire
Seriously, you'd think the original editors of the Bible would have had more sense than to put the testimony of such an transparently sleazy liar into the official version. I'm not saying that theologians are typically people of integrity but, as professional con artists, one would expect them to favor bringing those with more guile into their team. Give Christianity it's due, it's mostly a slick package constructed with minimal material that one must dig into before exposing all the faux history and fraud. This Gospel sticks out a bit. 





Based on the nature of the Gospel, the target audience were Jews. The book is filled with references to the Old Testament and alleged prophecies that Jesus fulfilled. Small wonder that so many Jews remained unconvinced since anyone familiar at all with the OT can immediately spot where the so-called "prophecies" were either fabricated or blatantly distorted. We're only two chapters into Matthew before we encounter three whoppers.

1. "Virgin Shall Conceive": This is a reference to Isaiah chapter 7. Now toss out the whole Bethula/Almah debate as a concession to the Christians, the entire chapter is clearly neither a prophecy concerning the messiah nor a reference to anything but the time of Isaiah. Specifically, Isaiah chapter 7 is about the coming war with Syria and Isaiah's assurances that the invaders would not prevail for a young maiden (presented at that time) has conceived and will bear a son, and this shall be a sign that "God (is) with us". By the way, the great prophet Isaiah turned out to be wrong and the Syrians totally prevailed. 
   
2. "Out of Egypt": This was a reference to Exodus, not the future messiah. 
   
3. "Rachael Weeping": The slaughter of the innocents, an atrocity not found in history but is found in the story of Moses, which in turn was lifted from the story of Sargon, was supposedly a fulfillment of a prophecy of Jeremiah. However, the verse in question were about the Babylonian captivity. 
   

It goes on and on like this, culminating in the cursory, two verse description of the "Attack of the Zombie Saints", where Matthew glibly asserts that the saints of old rose from the graves and were seen by many. 

As Thomas Paine quipped, had the saints such as Moses or Abraham actually risen from the dead to testify to the living, not a single unconverted soul should have been left in all of Jerusalem. 

I believe this "witness" has been thoroughly discredited and should be held on charges of perjury. Next witness, your honor...

Luke: Fan Fic Writer Pretends to be a Historian
Like Matthew, Luke tries to elaborate on Mark, fleshing out a story of Jesus' birth and a bit of his childhood. He also gives us a number of milestones to offer more of a historical setting. Many Christian apologists such as Josh McDowell, praise the "incredible accuracy" of Luke as a historian. 

Evidently, McDowell read a different Gospel then the rest of us did.

Like Mark, Luke is a companion of Paul and not an "eye witness". He admits in his opening of his Gospel that he has stitched together the different accounts he has heard, acting as if he were a historian. The problem is his history doesn't exactly fit with the history we know.

He places the conception of Jesus during the time of Herod the Great, who died in 4 BCE. 

Luke 1:5 There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth. ...
1:24 And after those days his wife Elisabeth conceived, and hid herself five months, saying, ...

1:26 And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,
1:27 To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary....

1:41 And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:

1:42 And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.

And Mary carries Jesus in her womb until she must travel to Bethlehem due to a highly contrived plot device featuring an unlikely Roman requirement that everyone return to their home town for a census. Rome didn't gain control of Judea and perform this census (which in reality would have been a simple property owner count) until 6 CE, when Quirinius (Cyrenius) came to be governor of Syria.

Luke 2:1 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.
2:2 (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)
2:3 And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.
2:4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David
2:5 To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

So either the "great historian" Luke goofed up his knowledge of dates or perhaps a 10 year pregnancy is the norm for sons of gods? Well, maybe demigods take longer to bake in the oven. 

This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as historical problems go but that's a good start for now. I don't want to go on too long for fear of losing this post like I did the last one. 

Too bad Luke didn't consult with Matthew when both were writing their fan fics of Mark's story, else they might have gotten their elaborations straight. But you know how it is with a story that has multiple authors. Continuity gaffes creep in, don't they? Such was the case with Jesus' genealogy. Matthew features 28 generations, Luke 43, neither have many shared names, both contradict the genealogy found in First Chronicles. 

Both of them also have a different solution for how to make Jesus from Nazareth and yet be born in the City of David. Matthew has Jesus born to a family that lived in Bethlehem, had to flee to Egypt, was unable to return home because of Herod Archelaus and so moved north to settle in Nazareth. Luke has a family that lived in Nazareth, had to go to Bethlehem for an unlikely census where Mary gave birth and then they returned to Nazareth. But hey, the Devil's in the details. 

John: The Non-Synoptic Gospel
Christians call the first three Gospels "Synoptic", meaning "similar", in a tacit admission that John's Gospel sits oddly alongside of them. 





Really, where do I begin in the daunting task of detailing just how badly this Gospel is a complete rewrite of the entire story, featuring a completely new character? Is it really even necessary?

For now, let's just say that John's Gospel is clearly written at a much later date. "The Jews", not the pharisees, not the high priests, not the scribes but THE JEWS are a separate and hostile sect. Jesus, instead of being a separate being with a subordinate will to his father, inferior knowledge to his father and spoke of and to his father in 2nd and 3rd person while the booming voice from on high did likewise, John's Jesus was one with his father. Jesus didn't need to be baptized by John the Baptist nor did he require John the Baptist to get out of the way. Jesus opened up a rival baptism franchise and beat John the Baptist as his own game while JtB cheered him on. What a guy! Jesus didn't start his ministry in a backwater town and made his way to Jerusalem but rather kicked it off in the temple of Jerusalem! 

Non synoptic indeed.

Reliable eye-witness accounts my ass.