THE CHRISTIAN STORY OF WHO JESUS IS CAN'T BE TRUSTED

Before finishing my remarks, which will entail the crucifixion, I'm going to give you your story from the standpoint of the skeptic.

You realize we know very little about Jesus, don't you? Matthew, Mark and Luke did not write Matthew, Mark or Luke. We don't know who wrote them; they weren't signed by anyone; there's not even a hint of authorship. They certainly weren't written by any of Jesus's followers who were all illiterate Galileans. They could barely write their names much less write a gospel. No, these are stories that were told and retold and retold and retold until they were compiled half an empire away half a century later. No one went back to Judea to check out the facts. None of the gospels were written in the language of Palestine. There was lots of time for the folklore element and tall tales to take on a life of their own. So we have no eyewitnesses.

Siegfried then questions the Synoptic gospels as well as when and who wrote them, claiming they were late and anonymous, so we have very little to go on when it comes to knowing anything about the true Jesus of history. But why is it so very important to the secularist to separate the Christ of faith from the Jesus of history?

Let's be generous. No one wants to base his or her life on a myth. We want to base our lives on the truth, don't we? We want to see the world as it really is. The Christ of faith is an extraordinary figure - a game changer. And if the game is going to change, we need extraordinary evidence to support the claim - or at least adequate evidence. We want to be sure. But there could be a competing motivation not quite as pure. And what's that? Let's think about this for a moment...

Who needs to be concerned with some dusty, little, country road, first century rabbi? He can't make any claims on us. But the Christ of faith is something wholly different. He's not only the Son of God, He's God the Son. He is this all-powerful, all-knowing Being who can make exorbitant and highly intrusive claims on our lives. To escape this person, the secularist has to show that the Christ of faith is a figment of the Christian's imagination, or he has a big problem. And guess what? He has a big problem. We'll answer the questions he makes about the gospels - who wrote them and when - but first, let me point out that in taking this tact, the secularist ignores an entire body of scripture written before the gospels were disseminated.

James wrote the earliest piece of the New Testament in the late forties. He's emphatic about who Jesus is. His opening remark mentions Jesus in the same breath with God and calling him Lord, as he does opening his second chapter: "Do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism..." This is how Jews address and speak of God. And remember, James grew up with Jesus. They played together, worked together, went to school together. James was never a follower or believer in his big brother... until he saw him resurrected. He then knew full well what the score was, and it changed everything for him. He went on to pastor the first church in Jerusalem for thirty years until he died a martyr's death.

Paul writes his letters to the churches in Galatia and Thessalonica very shortly after James, and they communicate an understanding of Jesus in no uncertain terms. He writes the two letters to the Corinthians in the mid-50s quoting a creed about Christ's death, burial, resurrection and appearances that can be traced back to the events themselves. And Romans, his theological Magnum Opus, was written soon after that at Corinth. So a significant portion of the New Testament had already been written and disseminated before the gospels ever hit the streets, and the picture of Christ is clear and uniform. But back to the Synoptic gospels...

Why does the secularist claim right off the bat that the Synoptics - synoptic simply means common view - must have been written in the 80s or later? Could it be that, in Matthew and Luke, Jesus makes a specific prediction about the destruction of Jerusalem, which happened in 70 AD, and if the gospels were written before that event, it would mean Jesus was supernaturally seeing into the future, and the secularist is just not going to go there?

Siegfried goes on to assert that none of the gospels were written in the original language of the Jews - Aramaic or Hebrew - but how does he know this? The original autographs turned to dust almost two thousand years ago. We don't have the originals. So how does anyone know what language, say, the original copy of Matthew was written in?

He claims the gospels weren't written by those whose names are associated with them, but he offers no evidence or argument for this position. To be fair, Siegfried didn't have time to construct an argument. But, quite frankly, I've never seen a scholar give an argument for the 80s or 90s dates or for why these gospels weren't attributable to the authors claimed. So, I'm going to give one.

One of Polycarp's disciples, (Polycarp had been a disciple of John), Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, in AD180, named for us the four authors:

Thus, the four authors are named by name very early in Church tradition, and by credible testimony.

That Matthew was written to the Jews originally in Hebrew or Aramaic is borne out by the fact that Matthew cites Jewish custom without explanation, quotes the OT profusely showing that Jesus fulfilled prophecy and was the Messiah, and he refuses to use the term God. Instead, it's the Kingdom of Heaven. Jews were very concerned about using God's name in a vain way, so they replaced God with Heaven. The Kingdom of God in Luke or John is instead the Kingdom of Heaven in Matthew.

But Matthew wasn't written by Matthew; Matthew was just one of Jesus's illiterate Galileans. Right?

We know the Romans were brutal opportunists, but they weren't stupid. They weren't going to hire revenue agents that couldn't write their name. Revenue was a big part of keeping the wheels of the empire moving. So they were going to find well-educated, literate locals to do the job. And the social stigma was great; they had to be well compensated. Matthew would have had to be fully conversant in Aramaic and Hebrew. And the common language of the eastern Roman Empire - Koine Greek - and he'd have had at least a working knowledge of his employers' language, which was Latin. In other words, he wasn't stupid. In fact, the case can be made that Matthew was probably the wealthiest and best educated of Jesus's original disciples. So it's highly possible that this gospel to the Jews was written by Matthew. No other name is associated with it when it's cited by the early church fathers.

On the other hand, if this gospel, written to the Jews, wasn't written by Matthew, why in the world would we associate his name with it? The Romans and Greeks couldn't have cared less that Matthew was Levi the tax collector. But the Jews would have seen him as the second most hated man in Jesus's entourage, almost as much of a traitor as Judas. So why put Matthew's name on it if Matthew hadn't written it. That's a marketing faux-pas of the first order. Attach Nathaniel or Bartholomew or Thomas's name, anyone but Matthew... unless perhaps Matthew actually wrote it.¹

And then why name a gospel for Mark? Who was he? A second-tier person, who, early on, was too immature to continue on with Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey; he was homesick and returned to Jerusalem. He then broke up the team before their second missionary trip. He doesn't square things up with Paul until Paul is in prison in the early 60s. So why attribute the gospel to him? They are seen as Peter's memoirs. So why not name it for Peter? Unless, of course, Mark really did write it.

And then who's Luke? Luke is mentioned only three times in the NT, in Colossians, Philemon and Second Timothy. He doesn't use the personal, plural pronoun - we - in Acts until the 16th chapter. He comes on the scene late. Again, wouldn't it have been more astute to name it for someone more famous, known as part of Jesus's inner circle? Nope, it's named for an obscure associate of Paul. Maybe... because he really wrote it? The cool thing is that Luke gives us our best evidence for an early 60s date for at least his gospel. How so?

Luke's second volume, the Acts of the Apostles, ends with Paul comfortably sitting in an apartment in Rome under house arrest, talking to anyone who will listen. And that's where it ends. Why is this so indicative for dating purposes? Because of what scholars call the "conspicuous silences."

The 60s were a catastrophic decade for both the Christian and Jewish communities. In 62, Porcius Festus, the Roman governor who sent Paul to Rome after he appealed to Caesar, dies. It takes Rome two years to replace him. In this political vacuum, the Jewish Sanhedrin seizes the opportunity to arrest, try and execute James, Jesus's half-brother and the first Bishop of Jerusalem, making him a martyr. This is a big loss and big news, but no mention of it in Acts. Then in 64, Nero burns down the center of Rome to make room for more monuments and pins it on the Christian minority, and formal persecution breaks out for the first time against the Christian community. They are fed to the lions, crucified, dipped in wax and lit for Nero's parties. Not a whimper from Acts. During this time, Peter and Paul are both eventually arrested and martyred. This is a double huge loss and double huge news. And still no mention of it in Acts. Then in 66, the first and most major of the three Jewish wars breaks out culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70AD. Again, Acts is silent. The best explanation for this is that Acts had been finished and sent on to Theophilus in the early 60s before any of this happened or became news. And the Gospel of Luke went before that, perhaps before Paul sailed for Rome; Acts was its second volume. And it's reasonable, based on Iraneus's claim, to surmise that the other gospels, written by those whose names they bear, were also going public at or near the same time. The picture we have of Jesus is firsthand and accurate. And you have very sound reasons to believe that the Christ of your faith and the Jesus of history are one and the same.

(Flagpole number 10 - bam!)