Category Archives: Gospels

The historical reliability of the Gospels

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Of course, for some kinds of literature, historical reliability is irrelevant.  Who cares about the factuality of a fairy story, a piece of science fiction, or even an anecdote about some famous person?  But when we read other kinds of material, including newspaper reports, biographies, and works of history, we have a right to ask, “Did this really happen?”

We certainly ought to ask this question of the four Gospels.  For the Christian faith is not, in the first instance, a call to a certain way of life. …

The Kingdom of God in Matthew’s Gospel

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Matthew’s Gospel contains rich teaching on the kingdom of God, with thirty-two sayings peculiar to himself.

Mt 3:2 – John preaches repentance in view of the nearness of the kingdom of heaven.

Mt 4:17 – from the time of John’s arrest onwards, the same message is found on the lips of Jesus.

In Mt 4:23; 9:35 this message is linked with Jesus’ ministry of healing.  In Mt 10:5-8 Jesus commissions the Twelve with the same message and ministry.…

One language, two religions

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It was J. Gresham Machen, in Christianity and Liberalism, who commented that thorough-going theological liberalism is actually a different religion from orthodox Christianity.  It is, in fact, a different kind of religion.

This observation was borne out in a recent discussion on Premier Christian Radio’s Unbelievable? show between Ben Witherington III and Stephen Thornton.  Ben is an evangelical biblical scholar, Stephen a retired URC minister of liberal persuasion.

The topic under consideration was the narratives of Jesus’ birth as recorded in Matthew and Luke. …

Demons, ghosts, and Jesus

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For those who accept the metaphysical reality of daimons (I’m using a straight transliteration of the Greek, in order to place at a bit of distance the baggage that tends to accompany the word ‘demons’) the conventional idea is that they belong to an order of created, malevolent, non-corporeal beings.

The popular conception a ghost is that it is the spirit of a dead human being.

Peter Bolt has provided solid documentary evidence to show that for many people living at the time of Jesus, ‘daimon’ would have been virtually synonymous with ‘ghost’.…

Imagining the Kingdom

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‘Imagining the Kingdom: Mission and Theology in Early Christianity’: This is the title of Tom Wright’s inaugural lecture at St Mary’s College, University of St Andrews 26th October 2011.

Here is the full text of that lecture.

It is something of a tour de force, and I’m going to attempt to sketch out the main steps of the first part of Wright’s argument.

The four Gospels are remarkable documents, and we should not allow their familiarity, or the existence of purported rivals (such as the ‘Gospel of Thomas’ or the hypothetical ‘Q’) to blind us to ‘their remarkable blend of page-turning narrative, vivid portraiture (especially of their central figure), historical verisimilitude and sophisticated theology.’…

The Gospel miracles

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For many people, the miracle-stories of the Gospels present the chief difficulty in the way of accepting those writings as historically reliable.

Since these miracle-stories are related by authors who can be shown on other grounds to be trustworthy, then they are worthy at least of serious attention by historians.

The Gospels do not ask us to belief in ridiculous miracles; they are precisely the kinds of work that might be expected from such a person as Jesus is represented to be.…

Oral tradition and the Gospels

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Craig Blomberg has written extensively on the historical reliability of the Gospels.  In the relevant article in the Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, he identifies a number of factors that support the probability that the Gospels faithfully preserve the oral traditions on which they are based.

1. Jesus was perceived by his followers as one who proclaimed God’s Word in a way which demanded careful retelling.

2. Over ninety percent of his teachings has poetic elements which would have made them easy to memorize.

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Seven Synoptic ‘Problems’

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Writing on the Historical Reliability of the Gospels in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (IVP), Craig Blomberg discusses seven areas of apparent disagreement between the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke).  For each, Blomberg indicates how the apparent difficulty might be resolved:-

(1) The theologies of the Evangelists may seem to conflict. Mark portrays the disciples as without understanding following Jesus’ walking on the water (Mk 6:52); Matthew has them worship him as the Son of God (Mt 14:33).…

Jesus and the Eyewitnesses

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New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham appeared recently on Premier Radio’s ‘Unbelievable’ show.  He discussed his book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses with fellow New Testament scholar James Crossley.

Here are a few notes on some of the arguments presented by Bauckham:-

His book sets out new arguments in favour of the ‘traditional’ view of the authorship and historicity of the four Gospels, and, in particular, that they present reliable eyewitness testimony of the life and ministry of Jesus.…

Are the Gospels reliable?

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Some time ago, Mark Roberts posted a fine series on this subject.  This has since been turned into a book published by Crossway.  Mark’s work is in the tradition of F.F. Bruce’s The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable and also has affinities with Craig Blomberg’s Historical Reliability of the Gospels.

You can listen to an interview with Mark on this subject here.  And here are the links to his very helpful series:-

Volume 1

Part 1

Are the New Testament Gospels Reliable?

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