Historical Jesus - Lesson 4

Dr. Mark Strauss
Historical Jesus
nt315-04
Were the Gospel Writers Biased?
Lesson Transcript

Welcome back to our study of the historical Jesus. A common accusation against the historicity of the gospels is the beliefs of the gospel writers biased and distorted their perspective. So were the gospel writers biased? Were they essentially propagandists rather than historians? Several key figures in the history of Jesus scholarship promoted the claim that the gospels were more fiction than fact. One of these was David Friedrich Strauss. In 1835, at only 27 years old, Strauss published a book called The Life of Jesus Critically Examined. The work, shocked the academic community, and Strauss got fired from his teaching position at the University of Tubingen.

In the book, Strauss rejected the claim of 19th century rationalists like Heinrich Paulis that we talked about before, claims that Jesus's miracles were historical events that had been naively misperceived by those present. He argued instead that the miracle stories were myths and legends that had developed over the course of time. This was possible. He argued because the gospels were not written by eyewitnesses or apostles, but by later Christians far removed from the events. The significant impact that Strauss had was to cast doubt on the historical veracity of the gospel tradition as a whole. Should these books even be treated as historical narrative or were they essentially fiction? Perhaps the most influential scholar who argued that the gospel should not be viewed as motivated primarily by historical concerns, was William Wrede. In 1901, Wrede published a groundbreaking book called The Messianic Secret. Prior to this, both scholars, including liberals, considered Mark's gospel to be an early and generally reliable account of Jesus's ministry.

Wrede encountered that from the start, Mark had theological rather than historical motivations. According to Wrede, when we examine the earliest traditions about Jesus, there's little evidence that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah. Wrede concluded that the historical Jesus had no expectations or illusions that he was the Messiah. After the crucifixion, however, when Jesus followers came to believe that he was in fact the Messiah, the church had to deal with the un-messianic nature of this gospel tradition. According to Wrede, they did so by creating the motif of the Messianic secret.

In Mark's gospel, for example, Jesus repeatedly silences demons. He insists to those He heals, that they keep quiet about the miracle, and he warns His disciples to tell no one that He is the Messiah. Rad concluded that Mark used this motif to explain away Jesus's essentially un-messianic life. The significant of Wrede' work was that the gospels were increasingly viewed not as historical narrative, but as apologetically motivated propaganda intended to promote a particular theological perspective. Now, Wrede's conclusions have been challenged on many fronts. Most obviously, as you read Mark's gospel, it's clear that the Messianic secret is no secret at all. Those people Jesus tells to be quiet often go out and proclaim to everybody what has happened to them. This is more a popularity motif. Jesus is so amazing no one can shut up about Him rather than a secrecy motif. This defeats the purpose that Wrede claimed. Nevertheless, the idea that he promoted that the gospels are primarily theological rather than historical came to be more and more accepted by gospel critics.

So let's seek to respond to this challenge. Were the gospel writers theologically biased? If we mean by biased holding strong convictions, then the answer is certainly yes. Ultimately, there is no such thing as an unbiased historian because everyone has a worldview and a belief system through which they view reality. Whether that worldview is theistic, atheistic, or agnostic. The gospel writers passionately believed that Jesus was the Messiah and they sought to convince others of this, but did that distort their message? Consider this analogy. If an American wrote a history of the United States, would that history necessarily be unreliable and distorted or more pointedly?

Some of the most detailed and documented accounts of the Nazi Holocaust have been written by Jews. Does this fact render their accounts unreliable? On the contrary, those who are most passionate about telling their story are often the most meticulous about getting it right. To claim the Gospels cannot be historical because they're written by Christians is absurd. The important question is not whether the gospel writers were biased, but whether they were reliable historians. So were the gospel writers good historians? The gospel writer who most stresses his historical intentions is of course, Luke, listen to how he begins his gospel in Luke 1:1-4.

He says, "Many have undertaken to drop an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us. Just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you most excellent theopolis, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught." Notice the piling up of historical terms in this statement. Eyewitnesses, carefully investigated, orderly account, the certainty of the things you've been taught. Luke clearly claims to research well and to be writing accurate history. Some critics respond that these claims have little value since history writing in a modern sense was unknown in the ancient world, but this is not really true. For example, the second century BC Hellenistic historian Polybius criticizes other historians for including fictional accounts in their histories and cause on them to simply record what really happened and what was really said.

Well, this statement confirms that some ancient historians were better than others. It also shows that intelligent readers distinguished between fact and fiction. It's not so different from today when careful readers must discern between accurate news and tabloid journalism. Luke's reliability as a historian must be judged from his own writing, not from overly generalized statements about ancient history writing. So was Luke a good historian? Colin Hemer in his book The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History. It was published in 1989. He concluded a detailed literary archeological and inscriptional analysis of the many persons names and places mentioned in the Book of Acts. He found Luke to be a remarkably careful and meticulous historian. Particularly striking is Luke's attention to historical detail, providing names of cities and titles of government officials that are accurate for both time and place. This is especially significance in such names were often obscure and changed frequently.

For example, in Acts 13:7 Luke accurately identifies Sergius Paulus as the [foreign language 00:08:29], meaning the proconsul of Cyprus, and in Acts 28:7, he correctly caused Publius the [foreign language 00:08:35] of Malta. Literally something like the number one guy of Malta. City officials are correctly called [foreign language 00:08:45] Acts 16:20, [foreign language 00:08:48] Acts 17:6 and [foreign language 00:08:50] Acts 19:31. These are all historically accurate designations. This would be like someone accurately identifying American law enforcement officials like police, sheriffs, marshals, bailiffs, and state troopers. We would expect someone who knew the meaning of these titles to have some firsthand knowledge of American life. If Luke was accurate with these kinds of details in Acts, we could expect him to be equally careful in recording gospel events and dialogue.

A close examination of Luke's writings demonstrate that not only is Luke an author of historical detail, but he also has a keen sense of what is called the zeitgeist or the spirit of the times about what he writes. In Luke 3:2 for example, Luke identifies both Annas and Caiaphas as high priests in Israel. Now, this is not technically correct since Israel had only one high priest at a time. Yet Luke knows that while Caiaphas was the official high priest appointed by the Romans, his father-in-law Annas, the previous high priest was the real power of the priesthood. Luke understands not only the official terms and titles, but also the political intrigue behind the scenes.

If Luke proves himself to be a generally reliable historian, this has broader implications for how we view his writings. One of these implications relates to the question of the burden of proof. On whom does the burden of proof lie the one making a historical claim or those challenging that author's claims? Critics of the gospels often assume that a saying or an action is inauthentic unless proven otherwise. The burden of the proof they say is on those who claim authenticity. But if an author like Luke proves to be generally reliable, the burden of proof should shift in their favor. On passages where there is simply not enough evidence to make a decision the inclination should be to trust those who are elsewhere trustworthy.

Let's turn next. However, to the transmission of the gospel tradition. Even if we decide that Luke himself was a good historian, we have to ask whether the traditions and stories that he received from others were trustworthy. Is there evidence that the gospel tradition was passed down accurately from the time of Jesus to the writing of the gospels? Let me give you five brief points that would suggest a generally reliable transmission of the gospel tradition. First is the importance of eyewitness testimony. As we've noted, critical scholars today often claim that the gospels were not written by eyewitnesses, but by second or third generation Christians far removed from the historical Jesus.

But this claim runs counter to the evidence which indicates that the apostles were the primary guardians and transmitters of the Jesus story. We just noted how Luke claims that the material for his gospel was passed on to him by those who were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word in Luke 1. Throughout the book of Acts, the apostles are identified as the key teachers in the early church. See Acts 2:42, Acts 6@2 and 4. What were they teaching? Well, no doubt, the stories and sayings of Jesus throughout the New Testament and the testimony of eyewitnesses is highly esteemed.

John 19:35 in John 21:24 speak of the reliable testimony of the disciple whom Jesus loved because he was present at these events. In Acts 1:21 and 22, a replacement for Judas chosen from among those who were eyewitnesses of Jesus' whole ministry. In 1 Corinthians 15:6, Paul speaks of the reality of the resurrection on the basis of eyewitness testimony by more than 500 people. In passages like 1 Peter 5:1, 2 Peter 1:16, 1 John 1:3, these authors claim the veracity of what they are saying because they themselves saw these things. The early church was clearly interested in eyewitness testimony, not just the words of later prophets.

A second point indicating a reliable gospel transmission is the church's willingness to preserve difficult or embarrassing passages. We've mentioned this earlier as a criterion of authenticity. We noted, for example, the time Jesus tried to heal a blind man, but at first only partially succeeded it seemed, Mark 8:22-25, and in Mark 13:32, Jesus admitted that He doesn't know the day or the hour of His return. That's embarrassing. It seems unlikely that the church would've created stories that attribute apparent failure or ignorance to Jesus.

Jesus sometimes acts or speaks harshly. He curses a fig tree because it has no fruit, and it dies. Mark 11:13-14. That's not very nice. Similarly, in Luke 14:26, Jesus says that "Unless you hate father and mother, wife and child, brothers and sisters, you cannot be His disciple." If stories and sayings were constantly being created and modified as critics contend, why not simply eliminate or rewrite those that present such difficulties?

This is evidence that the church valued reproducing accurately the words and deeds of Jesus no matter how difficult or embarrassing. A third point closely related to this is the absence of discussion on key issues in the later church. Just as there is no evidence that the church deleted embarrassing passages from the tradition, there is also no evidence that the early church added passages to help its cause. If the church was constantly creating stories of Jesus to meet its present needs, why are there no sayings of Jesus for issues that were burning concerns in the early church? There is nothing, for example, on whether Gentiles need to be circumcised to be saved, or whether Christians could eat food that have been sacrificed to idols or the nature and function of the charismatic gifts.

Why not just create stories in which Jesus answers these concerns? A fourth point closely related to this is the distinction made between the words of Jesus and that of Christian prophets. Rudolph Boltman and others argued that the early church freely created words and deeds of Jesus because the Christ of faith was still speaking through his prophets and through the apostles. But there is little evidence that the sayings of Christian prophets were confused with the sayings of Jesus. For example, in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul repeatedly distinguishes between the words Jesus said during his public ministry and Paul's own inspired teaching related to marriage and divorce. These points together suggest the general reliability of the gospel tradition. The church seems to have taken care to accurately pass down the words and deeds of Jesus. But what about claims of historical errors or contradictions found in the gospels? In our next session, we'll talk about some of these alleged contradictions.