The Problem with the Gospels

[Eilonnwy]

A while ago I commented that lack of scientific evidence was not my only reason for becoming an atheist, but problems with Religion and the Bible. Rjh4 asked me about these, and I gave a brief response, promising to do a more detailed response on at least one aspect, since there are so many to address. I've decided to address the Gospels since there has not, to my knowledge, been a thread dedicated to just the Gospels, and I personally find it a fascinating subject of study. Note: I'm not a Bible Scholar, but I have done my own personal study on the topic. I also plan to source Wikipedia, simply because of its ease of use. I did not glean all my knowledge of the subject from Wikipedia. BTW, this is not a debate of any kind, so everyone, please feel free to chime in!

This post is going to most likely be long, so I'll forgive any TLRs. I'm also writing this from the top of my head, so forgive me if the argument isn't as cohesive as it could be if it was a well thought out essay.

What I was Taught: Since the question does include how I came to atheism through other religious problems, not just lack of scientific evidence, I should briefly mention my Catholic upbringing. As a Catholic you are taught that the gospels were written by Jesus's own apostles. I distinctly remember a teacher doing a time line and saying, "So John was really really old, he was blessed with longevity." To a child this makes sense, but if you consider the typical life expectancy at the time and the difficulty of remembering details from a year ago, never mind a life time ago...things start to get really sketchy. I was never encouraged to read the Bible. All Bible knowledge came from religion class where specific sections were chosen, or in church, once again, where specific sections are chosen. Many Bible stories I'm familiar with...well when I read them now I'm shocked at some of the context that I was completely unaware of. Suffice to say, my later inability to accept that the authors of the Gospels were likely to be eye-witnesses, given the length of time between their authorship and Jesus's supposed Death and Resurrection...that was a chink in the armor and the rest came crumbling down.

Markan Priority: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John....wait...no...Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. So Mark was the first Gospel writer, estimated to have written his Gospel around 70 C.E. This seems like a minor issue, but it becomes a very important problem when you consider the synoptic Gospels. In attempts to harmonize the Gospel accounts of the Bible, it is often claimed that you simply have 4 witnesses giving their version of what they saw. The details might be different, but the major event itself is still the same. This explanation seems nice at first but is laughable when you begin to take a closer look. In truth, the Gospels themselves show an evolution from Jesus a man, to Jesus a God. Each Gospel has it's own agenda and purpose to promote their version of what they think Christianity to be. So let's take a closer look at the Synoptic Problem.

Synoptic Problem: The Synoptic problem refers to the Gospels Mark, Matthew, and Luke and how they are interconnected. (John is vastly different from all of them) In essence, Mark was first and Luke and Matthew used Mark as a source (completely destroying the notion that the gospel writers were eye-witness accounts) and possibly the Q gospel. The Gospel of Mark is written in simplistic Greek and is a very bare bones account (It doesn't even include Jesus's birth!), meanwhile Matthew and Luke includes better Greek more events and changes events in Mark to conform to the viewpoint they want to espouse. For instance, the Gospel of Luke specifically promotes the idea that the Jews are responsible for Jesus's death. This concept is not present in Mark or Matthew. This is not a difference in "Witness accounts" but a specific change meant to promote antisemitism. Hell, they can't even get the Lord's Prayer right! Each Gospel cites a different version. Another difference is the final words of Jesus on the cross. They are different in each Gospel except Matthew and Luke, and at first that does not seem like a big issue unless you consider the context.

Sayings of Jesus on the Cross

1. Father forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34).
2. Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise (Luke 23:43).
3. Woman, behold your son: behold your mother (John 19:26-27).
4. Eli Eli lama sabachthani? ("My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?", Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34).
5. I thirst (John 19:28).
6. It is finished (John 19:30).
7. Father, into your hands I commit my spirit (Luke 23:46).

Mark's account is in harmony with the picture of Jesus as a suffering man. It's also consistent with the Garden of Gesthemane, where Jesus pleads for his life. The quote "Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani" is also taken from a Psalm in the Old Testament.

Luke's version is consistent with Luke's message that Jesus is for everyone, not just Jews, and he is a confident prophet. It is also consistent with the scene in Gesthemane, where Jesus only pleads once and also adds if God is willing.

In John, Jesus is not crying or suffering, just thirsty and dies when he's good and ready. In Gethsemane, he doesn't plead it all. He sets up a hypothetical and says it's ridiculous to try to get out of it. It's a systematic portrayal of being God himself.

Another difference that cannot be written off as eye-witness variations, or each Gospel writer taking information from the same source is the Messianic Secret. I find this concept very intriguing, for many reasons.

Messianic Secret: In the Gospel of Mark we see that Jesus attempts to keep his identity secret. An example of this often subtle difference is in Jesus's baptism between Mark and Matthew.

(Source of Bible Quotes: http://www.biblegateway.com )

9 At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."

16 As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."

Notice the difference between what God says. "You are my son" and "This is my son". One is a conversation directly to Jesus and the other is to the crowd. This is consistent with the Messianic Secret, which is prevalent throughout Mark. Jesus was a secret messiah, not announced to even his apostles in some cases. Example:

35That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, "Let us go over to the other side." 36Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?"

39He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

40He said to his disciples, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?"

41They were terrified and asked each other, "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!"

Why is this so important? It further shows the biases and severe differences between the Gospels, which once again shows the lack of cohesiveness so commonly argued. This also brings me to Marcion, A fascinating figure in Early Christianity. Why fascinating? Well he was a big part of why the early church had to canonize certain Gospel accounts to keep their version of Christianity.

Marcion of Sinope: Marcion believed that Jesus was the son of a new God, not the Jewish God Yahweh. He viewed the Jewish God as merely a creator demiurge. He supported this idea that the Apostles were idiots and didn't realize who Jesus was. He supported the Gospel of Mark because it supported his view. He believe Paul was the only apostle who understood the message of salvation. I'll quote Wikipedia here:

Marcion was the first well-known heretic in the history of the early church. His alternative interpretation of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ helped to create the idea that certain theologies should be sanctioned as orthodox while others should be condemned as heresy. As a reaction to the Marcionite church's popularity, the orthodox church attempted to prescribe a set of beliefs that should be catholic (used here to mean 'universal'). The Marcionite heresy can thus be seen as a catalyst for the development of the unified, catholic and Judaism-derived form of Christianity that dominated political and social life in Europe until the Enlightenment.

The church that Marcion founded had expanded throughout the known world within his lifetime, and was a serious rival to the Catholic Church. Its adherents were strong enough in their convictions to have the church retain its expansive power for more than a century. It survived Christian controversy, and imperial disapproval, for several centuries more.[10]

Marcion was the first Christian leader to propose and delineate a canon (a list of officially sanctioned religious works). In so doing, he established a particular way of looking at religious texts that persists in Christian thought today. After Marcion, Christians began to divide texts into those that aligned well with the 'measuring stick' ('canon' is the Greek translation of this phrase) of accepted theological thought, and those that promoted heresy. This essential dualism played a major role in finalizing the structure of the collection of works called the Bible. The initial impetus for the orthodox Christian project of canonization flowed from opposition to the 'false canonization' of Marcion.

The fact that there were arguments about which gospels should be canonized, different views on who Jesus was, movements and so forth, goes to show the complete lack of unification between early Christians and their writings.

Conclusion: So I have only touched the surface of many underlining issues in the Gospels. We can see that the Gospels were not "Independant Witnesses" as many people would like to claim, but a different account that promotes a certain bias. The gospels were not eye-witnesses, Matthew and Luke clearly copied and changed certain stories in Mark (Which, once again, is far from consistent with the "independent Witness" theory.) There were even major disagreements in who Jesus was, and I haven't even touched the Jesus Myth Theory....well now I did. But only just a tiny bit. Furthermore, there are even known forgeries in the Gospel. For instance, there's the story of the adulterous woman in John, a forgery, or how about Mark 16's ending, it was added on. Without the forgery it would just end with just an empty tomb. Considering that Matthew and Luke were written after Mark, this severely damages the "resurrection" story for me. How can Mark ignore such an important aspect of Christianity and be an eye-witness?

Add all these problems together, with many more that I haven't discussed, and you come up with 4 messy conflicting versions of who Jesus was and what he did. Hardly evidence for the death and resurrection of a man nearly 2 centuries ago, which is arguably the single most important aspect of Christianity. And with the evidence of Jesus's life and resurrection in such disrepair, (Let us not forget there are is no contemporary evidence for the existence of Jesus) Christianity, in my mind, is not shown to be true, and this is one of the many reasons I do not believe in Jesus, and I am an atheist today.

Blarg, I'm done. Forgive any typos or grammar mistakes, please!

[Violet]

You may have only touched on these things... and you could have added more to the Messanic Secret especially... but I think it was a decent read (well worth one's time). (also, there was no glaring grammar mistakes [to the effect of making it unreadable])

[Eilonnwy]

You may have only touched on these things... and you could have added more to the Messanic Secret especially...

Which was why I included wiki links in case people wanted more details on what I generally brushed over. I didn't want to just copy pasta arguments, but express them in my own words, unfortunately I don't have the time to make this a more detailed and cohesive essay.

but I think it was a decent read (well worth ones' time). (also, there was no glaring grammar mistakes [to the effect of making it unreadable])

Thank you. I'm glad you like it.

Edit: I fixed a sentence in the Synoptic Problem where I said it refered to Mark, Matthew, and John. I meant Luke.

[Craveman]

Nice post Eilonnwy!

[AngelaRachnid]

Very nice post (how do you do the kudos thingy, and thanks to the people for mine),

When is the next installment ? and will you point out that no one really knows who wrote those gospels and the names were added buy christians much later than they were written to add "credibility" as they had none?

A

[rjh4 is back]

Thanks for the post. I have not had a chance to analyze it carefully but did have one question. You appear to assume Markian priority as the correct view. However, in the wiki cite it also says that Matthean priority was the prevalent view for 1700 years or so. Are you merely taking as current thinking and, therefore, dismiss the possibility of Matthean priority? (Just wondering and I have no idea whether or not it would actually affect anything else you wrote.)

[Eilonnwy]

Thanks for the post. I have not had a chance to analyze it carefully but did have one question. You appear to assume Markian priority as the correct view. However, in the wiki cite it also says that Matthean priority was the prevalent view for 1700 years or so. Are you merely taking as current thinking and, therefore, dismiss the possibility of Matthean priority? (Just wondering and I have no idea whether or not it would actually affect anything else you wrote.)

I recognize the controversy over Markan Priority, however I think the evidence strongly supports Markan priority, and yes it is the currently established historical view. I would also add, that just because the religious thinking that Matthew wrote the first Gospel is not evidence in any way that Matthean priority is true. (That's argumentum ad populum.) Besides, it was argued for many centuries that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, but we know that's just demonstrably false. So past established religious canon on the subject does not mean anything, the evidence does.

[chatpilot]

Good post Eilonnwy but I would like to add some basic things you left out. The gospel of Mark is believed to have made its appearance in about 70 AD and is considered by most scholars to be the earliest work of the synoptic gospels. This date is believed to be correct since Mark mentions the destruction of the temple and is believed to have been written after the event occurred making that biblical citing non prophetic. Mark is believed to have received his information from an hypothetical document called the Q document which no copies of it are extant today. Matthew and Luke are believed to have utilized Mark as a source for their documents and possibly portions of the Q document (german for quell = source).

Another important fact is that the synoptic gospels were first presented as anonymous documents and the names that were attributed to them were not added on till about the mid 2nd century. One reason for this is that in order for a document to make it into the canon it had to be written by an apostle or a direct disciple of an apostle. It was common practice to attribute names of prominent people to classical works in order to give them authority. This is called pseudepigrapha as cited in wikipedia as well:

Pseudepigrapha are falsely attributed works, texts whose claimed authorship is unfounded; a work, simply, "whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past."

Not to mention that Mark being the earliest gospel ca 70 AD would place it about 35 to 40 years removed from the alleged crucifixion of Christ. Regarding the last words of Christ it is impossible that the apostles could have heard them since the bible says the following:
Matthew 26:56
56. But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled. This and some of the other issues I raise confirm that the gospels are not first hand accounts of the life and times of Jesus Christ.

[Eilonnwy]

Very nice post (how do you do the kudos thingy, and thanks to the people for mine),

When is the next installment ? and will you point out that no one really knows who wrote those gospels and the names were added buy christians much later than they were written to add "credibility" as they had none?

A

The little thumbs up at the bottom of each post.

I'm not planning a next installment, but I encourage people to expand on this or argue points they don't agree with (As rjh4 will undoubtedly do). So if you want to address something, please feel free. The fact that the Gospel authorship is unknown, and the names attributed later by the Catholic Church is a good point. I meant to include it, but I forgot it my hurry to incorporate many Gospel problems.

---

Chatpilot, excellent point. As I said, I was only touching the surface of the problems with the Gospels, and I also wrote the post at work, and had to do it as fast as possible while on break.

But yeah, I believe I did mention that Mark was written circa 70 C.E. (Common Era, for those who might be unfamiliar with it, it's the non-religious way of measuring years.) I didn't really go in to too many details about how this separation of about 35-40 years causes problems with the eye-witness aspect of having them since it's been addressed previously in discussions.

The Gospels definitely read as fiction. There are many scenes attributed to Jesus alone, and how could this be an eye-witness account if the Apostles weren't even there? That doesn't work with the idea that they are eye-witness accounts. If it's eye-witness, you would only write about what you saw, not what happened when you weren't there.

[chatpilot]

I also agree with you about how accurate memories can be after 35 or 40 years removed from the alleged events. It's like the Pentateuch being written by Moses where he even records his own death lol. Actually the Pentateuch is believed to have been written by at least 4 different authors :

They generally accept the "Documentary Hypothesis" which asserts that the Pentateuch was written by a group of four authors, from various locations in Palestine, over a period of centuries. 8 Each wrote with the goal of promoting his/her own religious views:

* J: a writer who used JHWH as the "unpronounceable name of God." It is often translated as Jehovah.
* E: a writer who used Elohim as the divine name.
* D: the author of the book of Deuteronomy.
* P: a writer who added material of major interest to the priesthood.

Finally, a fifth individual was involved :

* R: a redactor who shaped the contributions of J, E, P and D together into the present Pentateuch.
more information on this can be found here:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_tora.htm
Although I have read books on the matter.

Back to the gospels, many of the qoutes attributed to Christ are directly taken from the O.T. The New Testament tends to borrow alot from the Old. When I was a Christian I believed that this was attributed to the O.T. being the prophecy and the N.T. being the fulfillment of the Old. This explanation is no longer a viable option.