The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown (36 page)

Although the criteria of authenticity represent a bias against the reliability of the Gospels that does not generally characterize historians' treatment of other ancient records, these criteria can serve to establish the historical reliability of a large percentage of the material in the Gospels if they are fairly and consistently applied. Unless one imposes a dual function on the criteria in which they authenticate some material and invalidate all other material, the large percentage of material authenticated by the criteria strongly implies the general historical reliability of the Gospels.

More simply put, if the authors of the four Gospels preserved accurate history in the large percentage of material established by the criteria of authenticity, scholars are justified in assuming that the evangelists preserved accurate history in the other material in their Gospels.

What is more, these criteria of authenticity establish the historical reliability of the Gospels' accounts of Jesus' supernatural activity including exorcisms, miracles, and his own resurrection.
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Thus these criteria demand a fresh appraisal of the philosophical commitments that provided the original incentive for skeptical treatments of the Gospels.

The Transmission of Gospel Traditions

The study of the Gospels during much of the twentieth century was dominated by an approach called form criticism. Form criticism involved three basic steps: (1) classifying the form of the Gospel materials as parable, miracle story, proverb, and such; (2) assigning the form to the context in the life of the early church in which it was probably used; and (3) tracing the history of the oral transmission of each form until it was written down.
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As a part of the third step, form critics developed detailed laws that described how early oral traditions about Jesus were adapted as they were passed down. Form critics generally assumed that by the time the oral traditions were written down they had become a mixture of both history and legend. Claims about Jesus became increasingly exaggerated each time stories about him were passed on until Jesus evolved from a fairly ordinary man into a miracle-working deity.

Although form criticism has been largely abandoned in recent NT scholarship, some assumptions associated with the method are still widely (and uncritically) accepted. Most important of these is the assumption that accounts of Jesus' words and deeds were significantly altered and embellished during a lengthy period of oral transmission before the accounts were preserved in writing.
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Bauckham summarized the three major types of oral transmission that have been proposed for Gospel traditions: (1) informal uncontrolled (Bultmann); (2) informal controlled (Bailey, followed by Dunn); and (3) formal controlled (the Scandinavian school; Gerhardsson, following Riesenfeld).
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By way of overall critique, the informal uncontrolled model insufficiently recognizes the presence of eyewitnesses throughout the transmission period, which safeguarded the control of accuracy. The informal controlled model uses a questionable model of transmission, that is, the way oral material is transmitted in rural settings, while early Christianity was significantly transmitted in large urban centers. The formal controlled model asserts that Jesus' followers memorized large portions of his teaching or took written notes during his ministry, so it is often judged as too rigid and inadequately supported by the evidence. The following specific points of critique may be noted.

First, recent research has demonstrated that accounts transmitted orally in first-century Palestine were much more stable than many form critics believed. K. Bailey and J. Dunn have recently argued that the stories about Jesus would have been transmitted in a process
best described as informal controlled oral tradition.
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Those who transmitted the traditions sought to preserve faithfully the key features of the tradition that expressed the meaning and Significance of that tradition, especially when stories or teachings were important for a community's identity. To this R. Bauckham added the important insight that the major tradition-controlling element in the case of Gospel tradition was the presence of the original eyewitnesses throughout the transmission process.
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Second, compelling evidence suggests that the Synoptic Gospels were written between 20 to 30 years after Jesus' death. At this early date numerous eyewitnesses of Jesus' ministry would have been available to serve as sources of traditions about Jesus and to correct the tradition as necessary. The time between the witnessed events and the penning of the Gospels is simply not long enough to accommodate the drastic evolution of the oral tradition that is often suggested. The more widely accepted dates of composition for the Synoptic Gospels (late 50s to mid-80s) allow only slightly more time for the adaptation of the accounts but not enough to explain the rather drastic differences between original forms of the tradition and the forms preserved in the Gospels that many scholars suppose. Abundant NT evidence demonstrates that the early church respected the authority of eyewitnesses over the tradition and sought to preserve accurate testimony about Jesus that was based on eyewitness accounts. Luke's preface (Luke 1:1–4), Paul's appeals (1 Cor 15:1–8), and the qualifications of the apostles (Acts 1:21–22) are but a few of the numerous indications of the importance of eyewitness testimony for the early church.

Third, the supposition that the Gospels contain highly evolved accounts of Jesus' ministry ignores significant evidence suggesting that the early church was correct in its claim that the four Gospels were based on eyewitness testimony. Luke's preface explicitly claims that his Gospel was based on the recollections of eyewitnesses (Luke 1:2;
autoptai
). Papias claimed that Mark's Gospel preserved the reminiscences of Jesus' ministry by Simon Peter.
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Papias, who may have written as early as the year 110, based his testimony on tradition received from a certain Aristion and a “John the Elder,” both of whom were personal disciples of Jesus.
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Moreover, internal features of the book confirm Mark's reliance on Peter as his primary source. Papias's claim that the apostle Matthew wrote the Gospel that bears his name is consistent with the details of the Gospel itself. Finally, the Gospel of John explicitly claims to have been written by an eyewitness (John 21:24). Although no discussion of the authorship of the Fourth Gospel by Papias has survived, Bauckham has convincingly argued that the discussion of the Gospel of John in the Muratorian Canon
(late second century) borrowed heavily from Papias.
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Thus the claim that the Gospel of John was written by a disciple which is preserved in the Muratorian Canon that probably dates to the late second century can actually be traced back to Papias around the year 110. Ascription of this Gospel to an eyewitness was also confirmed by Polycrates (c. 130–196) and Irenaeus (c. 130–200) in the late second century.

Bauckham has recently demonstrated that the claim that the Gospels preserve eyewitness testimony is confirmed by features within the Gospels. These features include an “
inclusio
of eyewitness testimony” similar to those employed by Lucian and Porphyry in their Greek biographies. This literary device involves the reference to the primary eyewitness source of a given document source by name at the beginning and at the end of that particular piece of writing. The
inclusio
in the Gospel of Mark identifies Peter as Mark's primary witness (Mark 1:16; 16:7). Similar uses of the device acknowledge the importance of Peter's testimony in the Gospels of Luke and John.
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Scholars who assume that a lengthy period of oral transmission of Gospel stories occurred before the Gospels were written typically argue that many of the details of the narratives were secondary additions to the narratives that were added by later storytellers. These new details included the naming of important characters in the narrative.
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But Bauckham used recent statistics on the use of Jewish names in Palestine between 330 BC and AD 200 to demonstrate that the names of the Palestinian Jews in the Gospels and Acts coincide very closely with the names of Palestinian Jews known from ancient Jewish texts and ossuary inscriptions.

At the same time, the names of Palestinian Jews in the Gospels and Acts were quite dissimilar from the names of Jews in the Diaspora during that same period. Bauckham concluded: “In this light it becomes very unlikely that the names in the Gospels are late accretions to the traditions. Outside Palestine the appropriate names simply could not have been chosen. Even within Palestine, it would be very surprising if random accretions of names to this or that tradition would fit the actual pattern of names in the general population.”
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The testimony of the early church regarding the authorship of the Gospels and the internal features of the Gospels led Bauckham to this conclusion:

The Gospel texts are much closer to the form in which the eyewitnesses told their stories or passed on their traditions than is commonly envisaged in current scholarship. This is what gives the Gospels their character as testimony. They embody the testimony of the eyewitnesses, not of course without editing and interpretation, but in a way that is substantially faithful to how the eyewitnesses themselves told it, since the Evangelists
were in more or less direct contact with eyewitnesses, not removed from them by a long process of anonymous transmission of the traditions.
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Both the antiquity of the Gospels and their connections to eyewitnesses strongly affirm the historical reliability of the Gospels.

The Legitimacy of Harmonization

Scholars in the early church—including Tatian (c. 175), Irenaeus (c. 130–200), Origen (c. 185–254), Chrysostom (c. 347–407), and Augustine (354–430)—generally believed that the four Gospels were complementary rather than contradictory accounts. When they discovered apparent discrepancies between one Gospel and another, they sought explanations that would reconcile or harmonize the accounts. They acknowledged differences between the Gospels but generally denied that there were actual disagreements between them.
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Augustine, for example, noted that differences in order between the Gospels did not constitute disagreements since the Gospels should be assumed to be arranged chronologically only in those cases in which the author explicitly mentioned chronological sequencing. He also argued that the Gospels preserve the same sense of Jesus' sayings even when they vary in wording. Finally, Augustine suggested that apparent parallels in the Gospels that had significantly different details might actually record similar events that occurred on separate occasions in Jesus' ministry.
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During the Enlightenment period, scholars increasingly frowned on attempts at harmonization. The Gospels were viewed more and more as mere human literature in which contradictions should be expected. Efforts to reconcile apparent discrepancies between the Gospels were assumed to involve manipulating the evidence in order to force conformity with misguided notions of divine inspiration.

Sometimes well-intentioned scholars have resorted to unreasonable extremes in harmonization,
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but this should not discredit all attempts to harmonize the Gospels. Historians often find apparent discrepancies in various accounts of the same event in ancient sources. They generally explore ways in which the accounts might be reconciled before assuming that one or more of the sources are inaccurate. The apparent discrepancies may simply result from the fragmentary nature of the reports that nonetheless unite to give a more complete picture of the event. At other times the apparent discrepancy results from the historian's own misinterpretation of the data.

Several considerations assist scholars in addressing apparent discrepancies between Gospels accounts.
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The most important of these relates to the nature of the references to Jesus' sayings in the Gospels. The Gospel writers were committed to preserving the original sense or gist of Jesus' sayings but were not confined to reporting these sayings word for word. Variations in the wording of Gospel sayings do not constitute historical errors since the Gospel writers preserved the
ipsissima vox
(exact voice or true sense) even when they did not record the
ipsissima verba
(exact words) of Jesus. The evangelists were free to summarize, abbreviate, paraphrase, or clarify Jesus' words as necessary. Although modern readers expect greater precision in quotations and may be troubled by the freedom exercised in quotations by ancient writers, their disappointment should be alleviated if they consider that many of the quotations of sayings in the Gospels are more along the lines of indirect quotations or paraphrases than verbatim direct quotations. Sometimes modern readers assume that the sayings of Jesus in the Gospels are verbatim quotations because they are placed in quotation marks. But ancient writers did not use literary conventions like quotation marks to distinguish direct and indirect quotations. The quotation marks in English translations are the creation of translators and editors of modern texts.

This text cannot discuss all of the alleged contradictions between the Gospels and the possible means of harmonizing them.
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However, scholars have posed plausible and often persuasive solutions to all of the apparent discrepancies. Comparative analysis of the Gospels strongly supports the historical reliability of the Gospels.

THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE GOSPELS

Scholars often refer to Matthew, Mark, and Luke as the Synoptic Gospels. The term
synoptic
means “to see together, to have the same view or outlook,” so the first three Gospels are “synoptic” because they offer similar presentations of the life and teachings of Jesus. Despite remarkable similarities, differences between these Gospels exist as well. Today scholars generally refer to questions—especially questions about the possible sources the Gospel writers used—regarding this puzzling combination of differences and similarities between these three Gospels as the Synoptic Problem. This terminology is less than ideal, however, in that it seems already to presuppose that there is a “problem” needing to be solved rather than an opportunity to view Jesus from a variety of complementary perspectives that enrich rather than contradict one another.