Bart Ehrman

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Bible debates, ancient and modern: Why did early church choose only four Gospels?

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Bible debates, ancient and modern: Why did early church choose only four Gospels?

QUESTION:

Why did early Christians choose only four Gospels?

RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

During the formative first centuries of Christian history there were some 40 texts in circulation that could be considered “gospels,” according to one scholar, while another counted as many as 70. Marvin Meyer of Chapman University decided a dozen such non-biblical gospels merited inclusion in an 2005 anthology, while others have proposed different listings.

Early Christians dismissed what they judged to be “apocryphal” texts, meaning of doubtful authenticity, and recognized only the familiar quartet of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as authoritative and eventually included in what became the New Testament. The four did not name the authors, but the substance was deemed to come directly or indirectly from Jesus’ original apostles.

An obvious aspect of such judgments was the dating.

Chronology expert Jack Finegan calculated that Jesus’ crucifixion probably occurred in early April of either A.D. 30 or 33. “The Oxford Bible Commentary” typifies experts’ consensus in listing these dates for the final composition of the Four: Matthew between A.D. 75 and 100. Mark “probably not long after” Jerusalem fell in 70. Luke most likely around 80 to 85. John about 90 to 100.

That means there would have been living eyewitnesses to Jesus to provide or confirm oral or written material incorporated into the Four, rather like historians in 2023 gathering memories about the Dwight Eisenhower presidency through the Ronald Reagan years.

But over the past generation, liberal scholarship has emphasized those “apocryphal” contenders, effectively reducing the exclusive stature of the biblical four. Many decided there wasn’t much of importance to distinguish the traditional four from the others. Elaine Pagels of Princeton University popularized the revisionist mood in “The Gnostic Gospels” (1979). By 2003, the big-selling and rather ridiculous novel “The Da Vinci Code” fictionalized the supposedly arbitrary choice of New Testament books as a power grab.


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Just in time for Easter media and academic discussions: Did Jesus Exist?

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Just in time for Easter media and academic discussions: Did Jesus Exist?

THE QUESTION:

Did Jesus Exist?

THE RELIGION GUY'S ANSWER:

Yes.

It would be the ultimate blow to the Christian religion if Jesus, and with him the entirety of the New Testament, is totally fictional.

However, the strong consensus among historians, including non-Christians and skeptics, is that, yes. Jesus was an actual person of the 1st Century (Anno Domini!!). Yet an Ipsos poll for the Episcopal Church, released last month, showed only 76% of Americans "believe in the historical existence" of Jesus, with 89% of self-identified Christians, 43% for adherents of other religions and 38% among the non-religious.

Among scholars, across the years certain "mythicists" have contended that he never existed.

University of North Carolina Professor Bart Ehrman, author of "Did Jesus Exist?" (2012) and rather skeptical himself, knows of only one such thinker among thousands of scholars with Ph.D. degrees who are working in the New Testament field. He's Robert Price, a onetime Baptist minister, member of the radical "Jesus Seminar," and author of "The Historical Bejeezus" who teaches at Johnnie Coleman Theological Seminary, a "New Thought" school.

Other mythicists have included Frank Zindler, a science educator, Jesus Seminar participant, and an editor with American Atheists. In 1970, Doubleday published an eccentric book by Britain's John M. Allegro, who thought there never was a Jesus and Christianity originated as a drug cult. John Remsburg, a 19th Century superintendent of public instruction for Kansas, backed mythicism by listing 42 ancient authors never wrote about Jesus. (A newsman like The Guy would figure that's what you'd expect with an itinerant teacher executed as a criminal in a backwater of the Roman Empire.)

But Remsburg raised an interesting question. Let's say for the sake of argument we totally exclude the New Testament as evidence (which historians would never do in judging the existence of other figures from ancient times). Do we have any other relevant documentation?


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New Testament texts were handed down across centuries, so are they reliable?

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THE QUESTION:

Can we rely upon New Testament texts that were copied and recopied over centuries?

THE GUY’S ANSWER:

It’s hard to think of any question more central for the Christian faith than that. The Catholic Church’s Second Vatican Council and subsequent catechism proclaim that the New Testament books provide “the ultimate truth of God’s revelation.” The church “unhesitatingly affirms” that they “faithfully hand on” the “honest truth about Jesus” and the history of his words and deeds.

Yet consider this. If people were to be asked what’s their favorite saying of Jesus Christ, many would certainly choose his words while being executed upon the cross: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” Luke 23:34). Equally cherished is his admonition to the mob preparing to stone to death an adulterous woman: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone” (John 8:7).

Careful Bible readers will note that most Bible versions on sale today, including those produced by conservative evangelicals, have footnotes stating in all candor that those two sayings are absent in early and widely recognized Gospel manuscripts in the original Greek language. That does not prove the sayings are not authentic but that it’s possible or likely they weren’t in the two Gospels as originally written.

The familiar King James (Protestant) and Douay-Rheims (Catholic) translations from centuries ago raise no such questions. But today’s Bibles note such findings from modern-day scholarship in the highly technical field of  “textual criticism,” which seeks to get us as close to the original writings as possible. The fact we have around 5,300 surviving manuscripts and fragments, a few of them quite early (vastly more evidence than with other 1st Century writings), means experts must evaluate and choose from many variations.

This situation led to doubts about New Testament credibility from a respected textual critic, Bart Ehrman of the University of North Carolina, in a scholarly work, “The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture” (1993).


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Religion-news story of the year? Caution is wise with alleged biblical bombshells

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The mass media often turn to scriptural stuff as the world’s Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus (on April 1 this year, or one week later for the Orthodox).

This Eastertide a long-brewing story, largely ignored by the media, could be the biggest biblical bombshell since a lad accidentally stumbled upon the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947.

Or not.

Scholars are supposedly prepared to announce an astonishing discovery, a Greek manuscript of the New Testament’s Gospel of Mark written down in the 1st Century A.D. That would mean  Mark -- and implicitly other Gospels –- were compiled when numerous eyewitnesses to Jesus’ life would have been alive, thus buttressing authenticity.   

The Guy recommends caution, since sensational historical claims in recent times have flopped, or were misconstrued, and embarrassed proponents on both the religious right and left. With careful contexting, reporters should attempt to break this news  (see tips below) or at least be prepared to pounce when someone else does.  

The oldest Mark manuscript we currently know came some 150 years later than this. To date, the earliest surviving New Testament text is the celebrated Rylands Papyrus 52 (“P52”), at England’s University of Manchester, found in Egypt in 1920 and identified in 1934. Experts date P52 in the mid-2nd Century and perhaps as early as A.D. 125. This fragment of John 18:31-33, 37-38 confirmed scholars’ prior consensus that John’s Gospel originated in the late 1st Century.

Internet chatter about the Mark text comes mostly from biblical conservatives, who are understandably enthused. The first hint The Religion Guy unearthed was this opaque 2011 tweet from Scott Carroll, a professor at an online Christian school: “For over 100 years the earliest known text of the New Testament has been the so-called John Rylands Papyrus. Not any more. Stay tuned.”  Years later, Carroll said he had seen this actual Mark text two times.


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