Are the New Testament Gospels Reliable?

Volume 3 of 3

by Rev. Dr. Mark D. Roberts

Note: You may download this resource at no cost, for personal use or for use in a Christian ministry, as long as you are not publishing it for sale. All I ask is that you give credit where credit is due. For all other uses, please contact me at mark@markdroberts.com. Thank you.

For a printer-friendly version of this series, click here: Volume 1; Volume 2; Volume 3

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My Various Writings on Jesus

The Birth of Jesus: Hype or History?

Was Jesus Divine? The Early Christian Understanding

Why Did Jesus Have to Die?

Was Jesus Married? A Careful Look at the Real Evidence

What Was the Message of Jesus?

How Can We Know Anything about the Real Jesus?

What Languages Did Jesus Speak and Why Does It Matter?

Recovering the Scandal of the Cross?

The Passion of the Christ: An In-Depth Review

Unmasking the Jesus Seminar

Book -- Jesus Revealed: Know Him Better to Love Him Better

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Do Historical Sources from the Era of the Gospels Support their Reliability? Section A
Part 21 of series: Are the New Testament Gospels Reliable?
Posted for Monday, October 24, 2005

Do historical sources from the era of the gospels support their reliability? This question can be broken down into a couple of sub-questions:

When the gospels refer to people or places that can be identified from other sources, do these sources confirm what we read in the gospels?

Do non-Christian writers from the time in which the gospels were written support the gospels' portrayal of Jesus?

Before I respond to these questions, I must first say that there is not a lot of evidence to go on here. For one thing, the biblical gospels refer to only a few people who are mentioned in extra-biblical sources, though we have more to go on when it comes to geography. Moreover, secular historians writing within a century of Jesus's death show only the tiniest interest in Jesus. This shouldn't be surprising, of course, because from the perspective of Roman historian writing at this time, Jesus was an insignificant blip on the screen, nothing more. He only became interesting to secular historians and critics as the Christian movement grew in size and influence. Nevertheless, where the biblical gospels do overlap with secular history, the net result is a positive one for the gospels.

When the gospels refer to people or places that can be identified from other sources, do these sources confirm what we read in the gospels?

Yes, this is certainly true when it comes to the prominent historical landmarks of Jesus's day. When the gospels identify major leaders, for example, they get the facts right. Jesus was born while Augustus was indeed the Roman emperor (Luke 2:10), and Jesus began His ministry during the reign of Tiberius (Luke 3:1). Furthermore, the gospels rightly identify the various Herods who impacted Jesus's life and ministry (for example, Matthew 2:1-22; 14:1-5).

The geography of the gospels is clearly that of first-century Palestine, not some first-century Narnia. Once again, the evangelists put the major landmarks in the right places. When they place Capernaum by the Sea of Galilee, for example, this is correct. Certain geographical references in the gospels, however, can seem perplexing, though these can usually be accounted for by a combination of careful exegesis, up-to-date archeology, and an open mind.

For example, Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell the story of Jesus casting out demons from a man and into a herd of pigs which then rush into the Sea of Galilee and drown (Matthew 8:28-34; Mark 5:1-20; Luke 8:26-39). Mark and Luke place this event in the country of the Gerasenes, while Matthew describes it as taking place in the land of the Gadarenes. Not only does this seem to be a contradiction among the gospels, but the ancient towns we know as Gadara and Gerasa were not close enough to the Sea of Galilee for the event to have taken place nearby. Gadara was about 5 miles from the Sea of Galilee, whereas Gerasa was about 30 miles away. Among the various options available for interpreters are the following:
		The Sea of Galilee, looking north from Tiberius. Copyright © HolyLandPhotos.

1. The evangelists were speaking of the region near Gadara and/or Gerasa, not the towns themselves. We all do this at times. If I meet someone from another state, I'll often say that I live in Orange County, California. Or if, for example, I meet someone from another country, I might say that I live in Los Angeles, even though I really live 50 miles away. In truth, I often say that I live near Disneyland, which almost everybody has heard of. In fact I live 12 miles away, though Disneyland is in Anaheim, which is three cities removed from Irvine. So when people ask where I live, I choose from a variety of answers: Irvine, Orange County, Los Angeles, near Disneyland. All of these are true in a sense.

2. The event happened in another town known as Khersa, which was on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and which in Greek would have been spelled in the same was as Gerasa.

3. Geographical imprecision wasn't unusual in history writing of the first-century A.D., and shouldn't be counted against the overall reliability of the evangelists.

When it comes to historical personages, the gospels get the main characters right. But, as in the case of Gadara/Gerasa, you'll find similar confusion regarding Quirinius, who was ruling during the time of the census that brought Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem (Luke 2:1-2). Luke refers to a census "taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria" (v. 2). Given the fact that King Herod the Great was reigning when Jesus was born, this census must have taken place around 6 B.C., since Herod died in 4 B.C. (Yes, our calendar is wrong by about 6 years.) But secular sources date Quirinius' term of office to 6-9 A.D., or about 10-15 years after the birth of Jesus. Some scholars have seen this as evidence of Luke's inaccuracy as a historian. Yet close attention to the grammar of Luke's claim in verse 2 and to the long career of Quirinius allows for several ways to view Luke as historically accurate. (I don't have time to get into the various theories right now.)

I don't mean to suggest that it wouldn't be nicer if Luke had named as governor of Syria the Roman who actually held that office in 6 B.C. It would be. But if you have done much study of ancient history, you know that apparent confusions like this are frustratingly common. So the tendency of some scholars to rush to judgment against Luke is unwarranted, both in this case and in others like it. When I was in graduate school, some (but not all) of my professors would summarily reject an evangelist's accuracy by saying things like, "Luke is wrong here about Quirinius' governorship" or "Mark has obviously confused the location of Gerasa." Arguments in defense of the gospel writers' accuracy were either not considered or were glibly rejected as a remnant of naïve fundamentalism. This seemed ironic to me, since these same professors often spent hours in class teasing nuanced meanings out of ancient texts. They were experts at this sort of painstaking exegesis, truly. Yet when it came to the possible historicity of the gospels, nuance and thoughtful exegesis was often rejected in favor of what could only be called fundamentalist-like literalism: "Luke says it. It's wrong. And that settles it."

I believe that if we work hard on understanding what the gospel writers really meant, and if we allow for the inherent imprecision of ancient records, and if we judge the gospels by the standards of their own time, then the overlap of the gospels with secular history works to their favor. When the biblical gospels speak of people or places, they get all the major items correct, as well as most of the minor ones. There are some places in which the gospels seem at first to be less than accurate, but none of these is terribly significant for the author's main purpose, and all of these cases can be interpreted in ways that uphold the historical precision of the evangelists.

Tomorrow I'll address the question of whether secular references to Jesus confirm or undermine what we find in the gospels.

Do Historical Sources from the Era of the Gospels Support their Reliability? Section B
Part 22 of series: Are the New Testament Gospels Reliable?
Posted for Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Yesterday I began considering the relationship of the New Testament gospels to secular historical sources. I showed that when the gospels refer to people or places that are found in these sources, the gospels get the major facts right. Today I want to respond to a related question:

Do non-Christian writers from the time in which the gospels were written support the gospels' portrayal of Jesus?

As I mentioned yesterday, there is little about Jesus in non-Christian sources within a century of His death. From the perspective of Roman history, Jesus just wasn't all that important until at least a century later, when His followers began stirring things up across  the Roman Empire.

Today's post will summarize findings from a 6-part series I did called: How Can We Know Anything About the Real Jesus? If you're looking for a more detailed conversation, please check out that series.

Roman Sources

A Letter from Pliny to Trajan

Around 112 A.D. a Roman governor named Pliny wrote to the Emperor Trajan asking about how to deal with troublesome Christians. In this letter he mentioned that the Christians "sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god" (Letters, 10.96).

Suetonius: Life of Claudius Around 110 A.D. the Roman historian Suetonius appeared to mention Jesus in a passage that reads: "Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he [Claudius] expelled them from Rome." (Claudius, 25.4). From a Roman perspective, Christians were unruly Jews, being stirred up by one called Chrestus (a version of Christ). Tacitus: Annals In 109 A.D. the Roman historian Tacitus mentioned Christ in a discussion of how the the Emperor Nero had treated Christians after the terrible Roman fire in 64 A.D. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. (Ann. 15.44)
		Bust of the Roman Emperor Claudius (from the Vatican Museum)

Jewish Sources

Jesus is mentioned several times in the Jewish Talmud, but these passages were written down several centuries after Jesus's death. The one early, non-Christian Jewish source of information about Jesus is the historian Josephus.

In one place in his Jewish Antiquities Josephus mentioned Jesus indirectly. His focus was on the killing of James, who was identified as "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ" (Ant. 20.9.1). In this context Josephus had no need to say more about Jesus himself.

The other passage where Josephus mentioned Jesus is disputed because it comes to us only by way of medieval Christian sources, and these sources appear to have doctored the original text. Josephus was in the process of describing Jewish conditions under Pontius Pilate when he wrote something like:

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day. (Ant. 18.3.3, italics added)

Scholars debate which portions of this description are original to Josephus, and which were added later. The portions I have italicized reflect Josephus's concerns and language, and may well have come from his pen.

Addendum: Other Jewish Sources

You may have noticed in that, in describing Josephus's writings, I used the awkward phrase: "the one early, non-Christian Jewish source of information about Jesus is the historian Josephus." This wasn't just convoluted style, but an important reminder that we actually have several early, Jewish testimonies about Jesus outside of the gospels. These come from the writers of other New Testament documents, most of whom were Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah. We'd call them Christians, but they would have thought of themselves as Jews.

The writers of the New Testament, with the exception of Luke, were not attempting to write anything like history. But occasionally in their writings they refer to Jesus in ways that help to fill in the historical blanks. Perhaps the best illustration comes from 1 Corinthians 15, a passage I referred to earlier in this series. It reads:

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. (1 Corinthians 15:3-5)

Paul wrote this in the early 50's A.D., referring to oral traditions he had received earlier. So we have in this passage historical information that comes from within 10-15 years of Jesus's death. You'll notice that there isn't anything here about Jesus's life. The tradition focuses on that which was believed by the early Christians to be most important for salvation: His death, burial, and resurrection.

Clearly this information is not coming from neutral observers. It was formulated by early Christians who believed that Jesus was the Christ (Messiah), and who believed that He was the Savior. So this passage doesn't help answer the question of non-Christian sources for Jesus. But it does reveal some of the earliest purportedly historical information about Jesus, information that is external to the New Testament gospels.

Notice, as I have mentioned previously with respect to the gospel writers, that the historical traditions about Jesus were shaped according to the early Christian theological perspective. Jesus died "for our sins in accordance with the scriptures." Similarly, he was raised "in according with the scriptures." These are theological statements, to be sure. But, contrary to the assumptions of some scholars, the fact that they are theological does not rule out the possibility that they are also statements based upon what really happened. In fact, this passage from Paul illustrates why history mattered so much to the early Christians. They believed that what actually happened to Jesus, His death and resurrection, was the locus of God's salvation. If Jesus had not actually been crucified and raised, then, as Paul said a few verses later in 1 Corinthians, "then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain" (1 Corinthians 15:14).

In this post and the last one I've considered the relationship of the gospels to more or less contemporaneous historical sources. In my next post I'll look at how archeology impacts our estimation of the reliability of the gospels.

Does Archeology Support the Reliability of the Gospels? Section A
Part 23 of series: Are the New Testament Gospels Reliable?
Posted for Thursday, October 27, 2005

Does archeology support the reliability of the gospels? The basic answer is: yes. The continuing search for ancient artifacts, documents, locations, and inscriptions has, for the most part, confirmed the accuracy of the New Testament gospels. In some cases, I'll supply an example below, archeology has helped to solve some of the perplexing riddles of New Testament interpretation.

Perhaps the best (and most interesting) way for me to illustrate the relevance of archeology to the gospels is to include several pictures and comment upon them. This is a tiny sample of what's available, but it does help to show how archeology aids our understanding of the gospels and supports our confidence in their reliability.

The Synagogue in Capernaum The gospels (for example, Mark 1:21) state (or imply) that Jesus taught in a synagogue in the town of Capernaum along the northwest short of the Sea of Galilee. The ruins of an ancient synagogue can be found in Capernaum, but it dates from the 4th century A.D. Yet beneath this synagogue archeologists uncovered the remains of a still earlier synagogue, one that can be dated to the first-century. In the picture to the right, the foundation of the oldest synagogue looks like rectangular, black stone under the existing ruins. (Photo Copyright © www.BiblePlaces.com.)
The Pilate Inscription In 1961, in Caesarea Maritima, where Pontius Pilate lived, an inscription was found which, among other things, confirms not only the rule of Pilate in Judea, but also his preference for the title "Prefect." The picture to the right shows the inscription. In the lower picture I've enhanced the text so you can see it more clearly. The Latin reads: Tiberium . . . [Pont]ius Pilatus [Praef]ectus Iudaeae, or Pontius Pilate Prefect of Judea.
Bones of a Crucified Man Because most crucified people were crudely buried, or perhaps left for animals to devour, we don't have much archeological evidence of crucifixion in Judea, though nobody doubts that thousands of Jews were crucified by the Romans. In 1968, however, an ossuary (box filled with bones) was found in a cave at Giv'at ha-Mivtar in Jerusalem. This box contained the bones of a crucified man. The bones, with a nail still in place in the heels, have allowed scholars to learn more about the specific techniques of crucifixion employed by the Romans.
The "Tribute Penny" All three synoptic gospels record an incident in which Jewish leaders set a trap for Jesus by asking Him whether the Jews ought to pay taxes to the emperor or not. Jesus asked them to show Him a coin, after which He said to give to God the things that are God's and to Caesar the things that are Caesar's. It's likely that the coin in this story was like the one pictured to the right. The inscription around the head of Tiberius reads in Latin: TI CAESAR DIVI AUG F AUGUSTUS = Augustus Tiberius Caesar Son of the Divine Augustus. That the coin referred to by Jesus accorded divinity to Augustus makes the story from the gospels more ironic.
The Cliff at El Kursi In an earlier post I discussed the issues concerning the location of Jesus's casting out demons from a man into a herd of pigs, which then ran down a cliff into the Sea of Galilee. The gospels refer to the location of this event as in the country of the Gerasenes or Gadarenes. Yet Gerasa and Gadara are far from the Sea of Galilee. Recent investigations have focused on another town, known today as El Kursi. It was called Gergesa or Khersa in ancient times, which would have been spelled like Gerasa in Greek. An ancient church had been built in El Kursi on top of a site that was considered sacred because Jesus had done something important there. Archeologists found evidence of an ancient graveyard nearby (where the demonized man could have been living). Moreover, there is a steep cliff at El Kursi, down which the herd of pigs could have run. Though the jury is still out on this one, it looks as if the event depicted in the gospels happened, not at Gerasa or Gadara, but El Kursi. The evangelists referred, not to the city itself, but to the region in which it was found. (Note regarding the lower picture: It's unlikely that the barbed wire fence and powerline were there when Jesus visited.)

Conclusion

While these five archeological examples don't prove anything specific about Jesus, they certainly show that the gospel records fit what we know from archeology about the world in which Jesus ministered. In this sense they confirm the reliability of the gospels.

But, you may be wondering, haven't I left out the archeological discoveries that are arguably most relevant to the study of the gospels and, in fact, most controversial? What about the Dead Sea Scrolls? What about the gospels discovered at Nag Hammadi? Don't the documents from these two sites undermine the reliability of the biblical gospels? Do these questions I'll turn in my next post.

Does Archeology Support the Reliability of the Gospels? Section B
Part 24 of series: Are the New Testament Gospels Reliable?
Posted for Friday, October 28, 2005

In my last post I showed how archeology supports the general reliability of the gospels. But I did not address two  major archeological finds which, it has been claimed, actually undermine the historicity of the biblical gospels. Perhaps the most popular proponent of this view is Sir Leigh Teabing, the fictional scholar in Dan Brown's novel, The Da Vinci Code. Here's what Teabing says about the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library:

"Fortunately for historians," Teabing said, "some of the gospels that Constantine attempted to eradicate managed to survive. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the 1950s hidden in a cave near Qumran in the Judean desert. And, of course, the Coptic Scrolls in 1945 at Hag Hammadi. In addition to telling the true Grail story, these documents speak of Christ's ministry in very human terms. Of course, the Vatican, in keeping with their tradition of misinformation, tried very hard to suppress the release of these scrolls. And why wouldn't they? The scrolls highlight glaring historical discrepancies and fabrications, clearly confirming that the modern Bible was compiled and edited by men who possessed a political agenda – to promote the divinity of the man Jesus Christ and use His influence to solidify their own power base." (p. 234)

Well that certainly lays down the gauntlet, doesn't it? So, is Teabing right? Do the scrolls found at the Dead Sea (actually, contra Teabing, in eleven caves beginning in 1947) and at Nag Hammadi (actually, they were codices, not scrolls) in Egypt in fact contain gospels that survived Constantine's purge? And do these gospels tell "the true Grail story"? And do they "speak of Christ's ministry in very human terms"? And do they "highlight glaring historical discrepancies and fabrications? And do they "clearly [confirm] that the modern Bible was compiled and edited by men who possessed a political agenda – to promote the divinity of the man Jesus Christ and use His influence to solidify their own power base"?

I'm tempted to save us all a lot of time and answer all of these questions with a simple No. The Da Vinci Code, after all, is a work of fiction. And Teabing's "history" of early Christianity is also mostly fictional. The problem is that this information is presented in the novel as if it were the recognized historical truth which sets the backdrop for the fictional aspects of The Da Vinci Code. And many readers, unfamiliar with the actual history of early Christianity, have taken Brown/Teabing's view as if it were in fact true. Of course they've been led to this conclusion by the first page of The Da Vinci Code, which reads: "FACT: . . . All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate." (p. 1). So we must deal with the question of whether or not what Teabing says about the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) and the Nag Hammadi Library (NHL) is, in fact, accurate, as Dan Brown claims.

Before I speak directly about the DSS and the books found at Nag Hammadi, I want to add a personal word. I spent a large amount of my time in graduate school studying the DSS and the NHL. One of my professors was on the original translation team for the DSS, and two of my professors were involved in the translation of the NHL. In one seminar I was required to read some of the unpublished DSS from photographs taken of the original scrolls, which if nothing else gave me lots of respect for those who did this for a living. I don't claim to be an expert on the DSS or on the NHL, but I'm quite familiar with these documents, and I have spent a lot of time interacting with those who are experts in this material.

Do the Dead Sea Scrolls Undermine the Reliability of the Gospels? No. In fact they support it. First of all, the DSS are Jewish sectarian documents (including substantial portions of the Hebrew Bible) that do not mention Jesus or early Christianity. Yes, I'm aware that a few so-called scholars see Jesus secretly encoded into the DSS, but their theories haven't persuaded any serious scholars of the scrolls or of early Christianity. So one might be tempted to say that the DSS are irrelevant to the question of the gospels' reliability. But this would be a mistake. What the DSS reveal in great detail is the life and thought of a group of Jews more or less contemporaneous with Jesus and early Christianity. Whether Jesus Himself had contact with some of these people is debatable, though many scholars believe they influenced John the Baptist, who then influenced Jesus. Yet even if a connection this obvious didn't exist, the DSS help us to understand the Jewish world in which Jesus operated. They illustrate the variety of messianic expectations in the time of Jesus. And they show how Jesus's teaching fits within the Jewish world of first-century Palestine. Let me cite one example. Before the discovery of the DSS, it was common in some scholarly quarters to view the teaching of Jesus in the Gospel of John as thoroughly Hellenistic, and therefore unlikely to have come from Jesus Himself. But when the DSS were discovered, many of the supposedly Greek aspects of Jesus's teaching in John, like the contrast between darkness and light, were seen to be thoroughly at home in the Judaism of Jesus's own day. Hence, He could certainly have used dark vs. light imagery in His teaching. In this case, and there are many like it, the DSS confirm the reliability of the New Testament gospels in their portrayal of Jesus.
		In the middle of the picture above you see two black openings in the cliff. These are the entrances to Cave 4, one of the eleven caves near Qumran (by the Dead Sea) where ancient Jewish scrolls were found. (Picture thanks to Holy Land Photos). The picture below is a part of a scroll found in Cave 4. It's called "The Rule of the Community." Notice the scraps of the scroll beneath the larger piece. These were not found like this, of course, but were placed there by scholars who pored over thousands of scraps for decades. Imagine taking twenty large jigsaw puzzles, dumping all the pieces in one large pile, mixing them up, and then throwing out half of the pieces and all the boxes that show what the puzzles represent. Then try to put the pieces where they belong. This would be child's play compared to what the scroll scholars had to do.

The DSS are extraordinarily important for the understanding of Jesus and early Christianity – truly a monumental find. Yet I'm not aware of anything in the DSS that undermines either the reliability of the gospels or orthodox Christianity. This means, by the way, that nothing in the DSS relates to the fictional claims of Leigh Teabing. There are no gospels among the DSS. No Grail story. No historical discrepancies. And nothing in the DSS speaks of Jesus Christ. Insofar as they help us to understand His world, however, they reinforce our confidence in the reliability of the gospels.

In my next post I'll address the NHL and its relevance to our understanding of the biblical gospels.

Does Archeology Support the Reliability of the Gospels? Section C
Part 25 of series: Are the New Testament Gospels Reliable?
Posted for Monday, October 31, 2005

This is the third post in which I've considered the implications of archeology for our estimation of the reliability of the New Testament gospels. Last time I launched the conversation by quoting a passage from Dan Brown's novel, The Da Vinci Code. Here, once again, is the passage:

"Fortunately for historians," Teabing said, "some of the gospels that Constantine attempted to eradicate managed to survive. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the 1950s hidden in a cave near Qumran in the Judean desert. And, of course, the Coptic Scrolls in 1945 at Hag Hammadi. In addition to telling the true Grail story, these documents speak of Christ's ministry in very human terms. Of course, the Vatican, in keeping with their tradition of misinformation, tried very hard to suppress the release of these scrolls. And why wouldn't they? The scrolls highlight glaring historical discrepancies and fabrications, clearly confirming that the modern Bible was compiled and edited by men who possessed a political agenda – to promote the divinity of the man Jesus Christ and use His influence to solidify their own power base." (p. 234)

In my last post I considered the relevance of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the New Testament gospels. Though they have much to tell us about the world in which Jesus lived, the Dead Sea Scrolls contain no gospels, and no information about Jesus. Thus, though they are relevant to the study of early Christianity, they do none of the things claimed by Teabing/Brown.

So what about the documents (codices or books, not scrolls) from the Nag Hammadi library (NHL)? Do these "speak of Christ's ministry in very human terms"? Do they "highlight glaring historical discrepancies and fabrications"? Do they clearly confirm "that the modern Bible was complied and edited by men who possessed a political agenda"? In sum, do the documents from Nag Hammadi undermine our confidence in the reliability of the New Testament gospels?

Do the Nag Hammadi Codices Undermine the Reliability of the New Testament Gospels?

Unlike in the case of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Dan Brown's fictional Leigh Teabing has a chance at being correct when he talks about the NHL. The codices from Nag Hammadi in Egypt do contain a number of "gospels," and these do contain a picture of Jesus which, for the most part, diverges from what we find in the New Testament. (In some ways, the Gospel of Thomas, the most important of the NHL gospels for the study of Jesus, actually supports the New Testament gospels, though its picture of Jesus is quite different from their's in some ways.)

According to the Brown/Teabing thesis, the NHL documents tell "the true Grail story" and "speak of Christ's ministry in very human terms." In fact they have virtually nothing to say about "the true Grail story" as it's presented in The DaVinci Code. The claim that the gospels from the NHL reveal Jesus's secret marriage to Mary Magdalene depends on a misinterpretation of two passages from the library, passages that constitute less than one-tenth of one percent of the whole NHL. For an in-depth analysis of the documents themselves, see my series: Was Jesus Married?
		A picture of the Nag Hammadi codices, discovered in 1945.

Moreover, if you were to spend an hour or so perusing the NHL, you'd might be surprised by the picture of Jesus you found. Far from presenting a more human Jesus, as claimed by Teabing/Brown, the Nag Hammadi documents actually portray a much less human Jesus than the one we find in the New Testament gospels. The Nag Hammadi Jesus comes across as a very odd, other-worldly revealer, hardly the fully human being we find in the New Testament. This makes perfect sense, of course, since the NHL was collected by a group of Gnostics, who denied the value of the flesh and looked for a non-fleshly "spiritual" revealer/redeemer. They didn't value the human Jesus, but rather than spiritual, non-physical "Christ" or "Savior."

Here are a few passages from some of the gospels of the NHL. These illustrate the kind of Jesus found there:

From the Gospel of Truth:

The gospel of truth is a joy for those who have received from the Father of truth the gift of knowing him, through the power of the Word that came forth from the pleroma – the one who is in the thought and mind of the Father, that is, the one who is addressed as the Savior, (that) begin the name of the work he is to perform for the redemption of those who were ignorant of the Father, while the name [of] the gospel is the proclamation of hope, being discover for those who search for him. (Gospel of Truth, I 16:31-17:4).

From the Gospel of Thomas:

Jesus said to [Salome], "I am He who exists from the Undivided. I was given some of the things of My father."

[Salome said,] "I am Your disciple."

[Jesus said to her,] "Therefore I say, if he is undivided, he will be filled with light, but if he is divided, he will be filled with darkness." (Gospel of Thomas 61).

From the Gospel of Philip:

[The Lord said,] "The world came about through a mistake. For he who created it wanted to create it imperishable and immortal. he fell short of attaining his desire. For the world never was imperishable, nor, for that matter, was he who made the world." (Gospel of Philip, 75:2-9)

From the Gospel of Mary (Magdalene):

[Mary said,] "What is hidden from you I will proclaim to you." And she began to speak to them these words: "I," she said, "I saw the Lord in a vision and I said to him, 'Lord, I saw you today in a vision.' He answers and said to me, 'Blessed are you, that you did not waver at the sight of me. For where the mind is, there is the treasure.' I said to him, 'Lord, now does he who sees the vision see it [through] the soul [or] through the spirit?' The Savior answered and said, 'He does not see through the soul nor through the spirit, but the mind . . . .'" (Gospel of Mary 10:7-21).

Lest you think I chose the oddest passages from the NHL, I'd encourage you to check for yourself. If you really want a wild ride, read portions of The Thunder, Perfect Mind or the Trimorphic Protennoia. Then, if you really want to stretch your mind, check out this part of the Gospel of the Egyptians:

Domedon Doxomedon came forth, the aeon of the aeons, and the throne which is in him,  and the powers which surround him, the glories and the incorruptions. The Father of the  great light who came forth from the silence, he is the great Doxomedon-aeon, in which the  thrice-male child rests. And the throne of his glory was established in it, this one on  which his unrevealable name is inscribed, on the tablet [...] one is the word, the Father  of the light of everything, he who came forth from the silence, while he rests in the  silence, he whose name is in an invisible symbol. A hidden, invisible mystery came forth: iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE oooooooooooooooooooooo uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. (Gospel of the Egyptians 43:9-44:9)

So, then, do the NHL gospels "highlight glaring historical discrepancies and fabrications"? Since this post is running rather long, I'll save my answer for tomorrow. Stay tuned . . . .

Does Archeology Support the Reliability of the Gospels? Section D
Part 26 of series: Are the New Testament Gospels Reliable?
Posted for Tuesday, November 1, 2005

In yesterday's post I began examining the relevance of the Nag Hammadi Library (NHL) for our estimation of the reliability of the New Testament gospels. For the sake of argument, I was responding to a claim made by Sir Leigh Teabing, a fictional character in Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code. Here, once again, is the passage:

"Fortunately for historians," Teabing said, "some of the gospels that Constantine attempted to eradicate managed to survive. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the 1950s hidden in a cave near Qumran in the Judean desert. And, of course, the Coptic Scrolls in 1945 at Hag Hammadi. In addition to telling the true Grail story, these documents speak of Christ's ministry in very human terms. Of course, the Vatican, in keeping with their tradition of misinformation, tried very hard to suppress the release of these scrolls. And why wouldn't they? The scrolls highlight glaring historical discrepancies and fabrications, clearly confirming that the modern Bible was compiled and edited by men who possessed a political agenda – to promote the divinity of the man Jesus Christ and use His influence to solidify their own power base." (p. 234)

Question: Do the Nag Hammadi documents (codices, not scrolls) "highlight glaring historical discrepancies and fabrications" when they're compared with the New Testament gospels?

Yes, they do, in a sense. The dominant picture of Jesus in the NHL differs considerably from the dominant picture of Jesus in the New Testament. If one image is historical, then the other isn't. And if one is authentic, then the other is fabricated. The key question is: Which picture of Jesus is most likely to be the historically accurate one? The key answer is: The picture found in the New Testament gospels.

Why do I say this? First of all, the New Testament gospels were written within 30 to 60 years after the death of Jesus. The NHL gospels, with the possible exception of Thomas, were written at least 100 years after Jesus, with some more than 150 years later. Moreover, the only gospel in the NHL that could be construed (however wrongly, I believe) to support the Brown/Teabing view of Jesus as Mary Magdalene's husband was written at least 200 years after Jesus died. So, not only are the New Testament gospels much older than the Nag Hammadi documents, but also, as I have shown earlier in this series, the New Testament gospels utilized earlier written sources and public oral traditions. Thus, in the race for historical reliability, the biblical gospels have lapped the NHL gospels more than once.
		This picture is of a portion of the Nag Hammadi Library. It shows the beginning of the Apocryphon of John, which begins: "The teaching [of the savior] and [the revelation] of the mysteries [and the] things hidden in silence, [all these things which] he taught John, [his] disciple." (II, 1: 1-4)

Furthermore, the picture of Jesus in the NHL bears little resemblance to anything that fits within first-century A.D. Jewish life. Their vision of a Gnostic redeemer reflects the Hellenistic milieu in which the NHL gospels were written. So, any "glaring historical discrepancies and fabrications" will be found, not in the New Testament gospels, but in the gospels of the NHL. Thus the Teabing/Brown thesis is partly right, in that there are "discrepancies and fabrications," but completely wrong in its estimation of which gospels are credible and which are fictional.

I don't mean to suggest, however, that the NHL is not an invaluable find. It allows us to understand Christian Gnosticism with unprecedented insight. But the NHL has little to offer to the quest for the historical Jesus, apart from what might be gleaned from the Gospel of Thomas and a few other passages in the NHL that may be traceable through oral traditions back to Jesus Himself.

In summary, nothing in the Dead Sea Scrolls (as I showed in Part 24) or the Nag Hammadi Library undermines the reliability of the biblical gospels. In fact, the opposite is true. The Dead Sea Scrolls help us understand the world of Jesus, and they illustrate how well the Jesus of the New Testament gospels fits within that world, in contrast to the Jesus of the non-canonical gospels. Comparing the "Jesus" found in the Nag Hammadi Library with the Jesus found in the New Testament underscores the realism of the biblical gospels and their portrayal of a truly human, Jewish Jesus, unlike the other-worldly Redeemer of the Gnostic gospels.

Dan Brown's fictitious Sir Leigh Teabing made one more claim about the New Testament documents. Let me quote once again:

"The scrolls highlight glaring historical discrepancies and fabrications, clearly confirming that the modern Bible was compiled and edited by men who possessed a political agenda – to promote the divinity of the man Jesus Christ and use His influence to solidify their own power base." (p. 234)

Though I've shown that the scrolls (and Nag Hammadi codices) don't highlight anything of the kind, what about the notion that the Bible was "complied and edited by men" with an agenda? Were the New Testament gospels written, edited, preserved, and canonized to promote the divinity of Jesus and thereby to solidify the power base of the orthodox Christian church? I'll begin to address this scenario in my next post.

Do the Gospels Reflect the Political Agenda of the Early Church?
   Section A
Part 27 of the series: Are the New Testament Gospels Reliable?
Posted for Wednesday, November 2, 2005

Several times recently I've used portions of Dan Brown's novel, The Da Vinci Code, as a discussion partner for my examination of the reliability of the New Testament gospels. I have done so, partly because so many readers have taken Brown's fictitious "history" to be genuine, and also because Brown, as an engaging author, has a compelling way of putting the case against the New Testament gospels.

When I finished my last post, I quoted an objection that Brown puts on the lips of Sir Leigh Teabing, a character who "reveals" the truth about Jesus and the gospels. A part of this truth, according to Teabing, is:

"The [Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi documents] highlight glaring historical discrepancies and fabrications, clearly confirming that the modern Bible was compiled and edited by men who possessed a political agenda – to promote the divinity of the man Jesus Christ and use His influence to solidify their own power base." (p. 234)

What is the implication of this for those of us who have learned about Jesus through the biblical gospels? Teabing states bluntly: "What I mean . . . is that almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false." (p. 235).

I've shown in my last two posts that the attempt of Teabing/Brown to use the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library to prove the case against the New Testament gospels is unpersuasive. But it's still possible that the people who edited, and even who wrote, the biblical gospels were guided by an agenda that led them to compromise or even to hide the truth. In fact, we see this very thing happening in early Christianity and its "gospels."

Second-Century Tampering with the Traditions About Jesus

We have ample evidence that early Christians, or at least those who considered themselves to be Christians, tampered with the historical traditions about Jesus to fit their particular agendas. For example, in t