Most mainstream scholars1 affirm the historical nature of the gospel accounts as representing the words and acts of the historical Jesus. The late Bruce M. Metzger2, a Princeton New Testament scholar and expert in textual analysis, supported the essential reliability of the Gospels stating:
"There were in fact several circumstances that tended to prevent the free invention of gospel traditions. One was the presence of the original eyewitnesses (Luke 1:2), who would have acted as a check upon wholesale distortion of Jesus' words and works. Another was the rabbinical method of teaching which Jesus seems at times to have employed when impressing his message upon the memory of his disciples, thus guaranteeing a high degree of fidelity in its transmission."
"It is not, however, merely by such a priori considerations that one is assured of the essential fidelity with which the gospel traditions of Jesus' teaching were passed on to the next generation. A consideration of the actual state of the evidence will lead one to the conclusion that there was no large-scale introduction of extraneous materials into the Gospels. The fact, for instance, that certain of Jesus parables were recast in the retelling so as to deal more directly with new problems in the development of the church, so far from supporting the opinion of some form critics that the early Christian communities invented a large part of the contents of the Gospels, points rather to the tenacity with which the church retained the words of Jesus and merely re-adapted them to meet new situations. Furthermore, the total absence of parables in the teaching of all the apostles, as reported in the book of Acts and the 21 letters of the New Testament, indicates that, so far from there being the creation of the early church, the gospel parables reflect the authentic teaching method and message of Jesus."3
The twelve apostles saw themselves as eyewitnesses of all Jesus did and said. In addition, to qualify as an apostle, an individual had to also have been an eyewitness of the risen Christ. The Apostle Peter, when preaching to his fellow Jews in Jerusalem in the days immediately following Jesus' death and resurrection stated,
"They [the Roman authorities at the behest of the Sanhedrin] put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead." (Acts 10:39‐41)
Noted pastor and Christian apologist, Tim Keller emphasizes that belief in the resurrection and the traditions underlying the Gospels came into being very quickly after Christ's death. There was not a long period during which the tradition could be embellished with all sorts of creative or imaginary additions.
"The canonical gospels were written at the very most forty to sixty years after Jesus' death. Paul's letters, written just fifteen to twenty-five years after the death of Jesus, provide an outline of all the events of Jesus' life found in the gospels---His miracles, claims, crucifixion, and resurrection. This means that the Biblical accounts of Jesus' life were circulating within the lifetimes of hundreds who had been present at the events of his ministry. The gospel author, Luke claims that he got his account of Jesus' life from eyewitnesses who were still alive. (Luke 1:1‐4)."4
Richard Bauckham, professor of New Testament studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland states the following in his book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses:
"The Gospel texts are much closer to the form in which the eyewitnesses told their stories or passed on their traditions than is commonly envisioned 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. In the case of one of the Gospels, that of John, I conclude, very unfashionably, that an eyewitness wrote it."5
Bauckham differentiates between oral history and oral tradition. Oral history concerns "events that occurred during the lifetime of the informants." A great value was placed on the direct testimony of individuals who knew eyewitnesses to Jesus' life and teaching (the Apostles and other disciples who were leaders and teachers in the early Christian community for decades following Jesus earthly life) and could pass on their teaching and oral history. The Gospels were based on this type of oral history rather than on a collective oral tradition.6
Bauckham also points to the high level of communication among the churches in the Mediterranean world of the first and early second centuries. This communication had the effect of maintaining the accurate preservation of the apostolic traditions concerning Jesus' life and teaching.
"In view of the general mobility of the early Christian leaders we can easily suppose that some of the Elders had traveled. Melito, Bishop of Sardis and a contemporary of Polycrates [Bishop of Ephesus], visited Jerusalem; it is even more likely that Jewish Christian leaders in the province of Asia before 70 (CE) would have gone on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and met the remaining disciples of Jesus in the Jerusalem church."7
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1Some readers will be familiar with a group of Biblical scholars referred to as the Jesus Seminar, which was widely covered in the media. These scholars concluded that very little content in the Gospels can be attributed to the historical Jesus. However, they are regarded by many in the scholarly community as radicals who are philosophically committed to a naturalistic worldview coupled with a high degree of skepticism concerning the historical Jesus. Their conclusions have been regarded as unwarranted by many more mainstream scholars.
2It is interesting to note that Dr. Metzger was the former mentor and teacher of Bart Erhman, the controversial New Testament scholar and author of Misquoting Jesus, who has gained notoriety for abandoning his earlier Christian faith and casting doubt on the reliability of the Gospels based on variants in the text.
3Bruce Metzger, The New Testament: Its Background, Growth, and Content, Abington Press, Nashville and New York, 1965, p 87.
4Keller, Timothy, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, Riverhead Books, 2008, p. 104.
5Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, Eerdmans, 2006, p. 6
6Ibid. pp. 32 -33.
7Ibid.
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