Historical reliability of the Gospels

The historical reliability of the Gospels is evaluated by experts who have not found a complete consensus.

Quotes

• "First, the New Testament Gospels are now viewed as useful, if not essentially reliable, historical sources. Gone is the extreme skepticism that for so many years dominated gospel research. Representative of many is the position of E. P. Sanders and Marcus Borg, who have concluded that it is possible to recover a fairly reliable picture of the historical Jesus."
  • Craig Evans, "Life-of-Jesus Research and the Eclipse of Mythology," Theological Studies 54 (1993) p. 13-14

• "Why then do we call them Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Because sometime in the second century, when proto-orthodox Christians recognized the need for apostolic authorities, they attributed these books to apostles (Matthew and John) and close companions of apostles (Mark, the secretary of Peter; and Luke, the traveling companion of Paul). Most scholars today have abandoned these identifications,11 and recognize that the books were written by otherwise unknown but relatively well-educated Greek-speaking (and writing) Christians during the second half of the first century."
  • Ehrman 2005, p. 235: Ehrman, Bart D. (2005). Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195182491.

• [The Mythical Jesus viewpoint holds] that the Gospels are essentially allegory and fiction.

Doherty, Earl (2009). Jesus: Neither God Nor Man - The Case for a Mythical Jesus. Age of Reason Publications. pp. vii–viii. ISBN 978-0-9689259-2-8. 

• Earl Doherty ap. Ehrman, Bart D. (20 March 2012). "An Introduction to the Mythical View of Jesus". Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. HarperCollins. pp. 12, 347, n. 1. ISBN 978-0-06-208994-6. "In a recent exhaustive elaboration of the position, one of the leading proponents of Jesus mythicism, Earl Doherty, defines the view as follows: ...(Earl Doherty, Jesus: Neither God nor Man: The Case for a mythical Jesus (Ottawa, ON: Age of Reason Publications, 2009), vii-viii.)" 

• Scholars who classify the Gospels as “fiction” generally hold that the Gospel authors were intentionally writing fiction and assumed their work would be read as such. There is no consensus among scholars within this camp as to what exact kind of fiction the Gospels are intended to be. Candidates include ...“legend,” (R. M. Price, The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition? (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2003), 21.)
  • Eddy, Paul Rhodes; Boyd, Gregory A. (1 August 2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Academic. pp. 314-315, n. 23. ISBN 978-0-8010-3114-4. 

• Many scholars find strong parallels between Raglan’s “hero myth” analysis and the Jesus story of the New Testament. [...] Price goes even further when he argues that “every detail of the [Christ] story fits the mythic hero archetype, with nothing left over.” From this Price surmises that it is “arbitrary to assert that there must have been a historical figure lying in back of the myth.”
  • Eddy, Paul Rhodes; Boyd, Gregory A. (1 August 2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Academic. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-8010-3114-4. 

• Robert Price goes so far as to argue that every aspect of the Jesus story found in the Gospels fits the “mythic hero archetype, with nothing left over.” With such a strong correspondence between Jesus and universally acknowledged mythic figures, the suggestion that the Jesus story is rooted in history while the other hero stories are not seems highly implausible to some.
  • Eddy, Paul Rhodes; Boyd, Gregory A. (1 August 2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Academic. pp. 137-138. ISBN 978-0-8010-3114-4. 

• If Jesus performed the feats attributed to him in the Gospels, should we not expect that he would have caught the attention of at least a few pagan writers? Instead, some scholars argue, we find little or no mention of Jesus outside the New Testament. For some—especially the most radical fringe of legendary-Jesus theorists (viz. group 1 [inclusive of Christ myth theorists])—this suggests the miracle-working figure of the Gospels is purely a legend, essentially no different from the mythological savior figures of other ancient mystery religions.
  • Eddy, Paul Rhodes; Boyd, Gregory A. (1 August 2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Academic. p. 32. ISBN 978-0-8010-3114-4. 

• [G. A.] Wells argues that the Gospels contain much that is demonstrably legendary, and they are directed by theological (not historical) purposes.
  • Voorst, Robert Van (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 13. ISBN 978-0-8028-4368-5. 

• [G. A.] Wells explains Jesus as a mythical figure arising from Paul's mysticism, for whom other late first-century Christians had to fabricate a life story [when the Gospels were written].
  • Voorst, Robert Van (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 13. ISBN 978-0-8028-4368-5. 

• [Per G. A. Wells and Earl Doherty] the Gospels later created a historical narrative around Paul’s mythological savior figure and thereby transformed him into a historical person. (G. A. Wells, The Jesus myth (Chicago:Open Court, 1999), esp. 95-111; E. Doherty, The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? (Ottawa: Canadian Humanist Pub., 1999).)
  • Eddy, Paul Rhodes; Boyd, Gregory A. (1 August 2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Academic. p. 106. ISBN 978-0-8010-3114-4. 

• Christ myth theorists argue that Paul views Jesus as a cosmic savior figure, along the lines of a mystery-religion deity, not a historical person in the recent past. They argue that it was only later, when the Gospels were written, that a fictitious historical narrative was imposed on this mythical cosmic savior figure.
  • Eddy, Paul Rhodes; Boyd, Gregory A. (1 August 2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Academic. p. 163. ISBN 978-0-8010-3114-4. 

See also

• biblical criticism
• Christ myth theory
• Historical Jesus