Person of Interest

The Dissemination Fallout

Eyewitness Accounts – Not Mythologies

“We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.””  2 Peter 1:16-17 (NIV)

Exculpatory evidence:

Evidence that tends to excuse, justify or absolve the defendant in any given case.

• This kind of evidence may give other possibilities, or point to other possible candidates, but it does not eliminate the strongest suspect from being the most likely person of interest.

In a similar way, if the evidence for the existence and nature of Jesus remains strong, alternative descriptions (like the non-canonical accounts or so-called “missing gospels”) don’t eliminate Jesus of Nazareth as the correct person of interest.

Objections

1. The story about Jesus was changed over time.
2. Early Christians eliminated competing accounts of Jesus. (Why aren’t non-canonical accounts about Jesus considered equally authoritative?)
3. There isn’t enough ancient, non-Christian information about Jesus.

Quick answers to the objections

1. If we trace the story of Jesus through the earliest centuries, comparing the writings of Christians to one another, one thing is certain in the accounts of Jesus life:

• His life story is consistent
• His miracles and teaching are consistent
• His nature and his claims are consistent
• The gospel accounts are consistently reiterated, regardless of century or region

Authentication

Even if we did not have any of the early manuscripts from the various text families and locations could we reconstruct the autographs from other sources?   YES!!!

Lectionaries

• We have 2,135 lectionaries from the early Church leaders that have readings from the New Testament
• These lectionaries have been catalogued and preserved over time
• This practice of reading passages of Scripture (lectionaries) from the New Testament books—began in the sixth century
• If there had been any forgeries or changes to the New Testament writings all of these would have had to be changed as well

Early Church Fathers’ Letters

• There are 86,000 quotes from the early Church Fathers
• There are 36,000 quotations from the New Testament books found in writing before the council of Nicaea in A.D. 325
• Even the deniers of the faith quoted from the New Testament books never realizing they were helping to verify authenticity in the future!
• Overall there are estimated to be over one million quotes from early Christians directly from the New Testament—the same books we read today!

The Testimony of the Fathers

“Besides textual evidence derived from New Testament Greek manuscripts and from early versions, the textual critic has available the numerous scriptural quotations included in the commentaries, sermons, and other treatises written by the early Church fathers. Indeed, so extensive are these citations that if all other sources for our knowledge of the text of the New Testament were destroyed, they would be sufficient alone for the reconstruction of practically the entire New Testament.”  – Bruce Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, 126

2. The non-canonical accounts are disqualified, more than any other reason, because:

• They are not eyewitness accounts
• They falsely took the names of the apostles and/or disciples of Jesus
• They are written and dated late (2nd century and beyond)
• They were written outside of the region of Jesus’ life and ministry
• Because they were late and/or written outside eyewitness regions, fact checking abilities could not be done

Skeptics claim there were books left out of the Bible

• There are no inspired books that were left out otherwise it would not be Christianity!
• Classic Christianity is based on the teachings of the 66 books of the Christian Bible
• Other books that skeptics have said were “left out” teach something completely different than what we get in our Bible!
• What are some of those other books? …Apocryphal Literature and Gnostic Writings

The Apocrypha: (means hidden or doubtful)

• The Catholic Bible today contains eleven of these books in their deuterocanonical (secondary canon) section between the Old and New Testament.
• These books do contain some valuable historical information useful in understanding the intertestamental period (c. 250-60 BC), but have never been considered inspired writings.
• They were included in the Latin Vulgate (AD 382) in part to defend some of the teachings of the Catholic Church (such as purgatory).

The Apocrypha…

• does not claim to be inspired by God
• was not written by prophets of God (1 Mac. 9:27)
• was not confirmed by supernatural acts of God (Heb. 2:3-4)
• was not accepted by the people of God (Judaism) and they were never included in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament)
• does not always tell the truth of God, for example: On praying for the dead (2 Mac. 12:46); on working for salvation (Tobit 12:9)
• was not accepted by Jesus the Son of God (Lk. 24:27)
• was not accepted by the Apostles (who never quoted it)
• was not accepted by the early Church and was never part of the Protestant New Testament
• was rejected by the great Catholic translator Jerome
• was not written during period of the prophets of God
• contain some absurdities and inconsistencies with the accepted Biblical Canon

Gnostic Literature

• Gnosis means knowledge.
• Gnosticism fosters the conviction that matter is evil and that emancipation (being set free) comes through special knowledge.
• Gnosticism came out of Greek philosophy and held a belief that one could gain “secret knowledge” of God through certain practices.
• Gnostic literature includes ‘secret’ gospels, poems and myths attributing to Jesus’ sayings and beliefs which are very different from the New Testament Gospels.
• There was an attempt to assimilate Gnosticism with early Christianity.
• There are over 300 writings from Gnostic literature in antiquity.

Gnostic gospels

In addition to the same reasons for the Apocrypha, Christians reject these because…

• Gnostic literature, and so called gospels, were written well into the second through forth centuries AD/CE by authors who were not primary eyewitnesses of the events, and who falsely took the names of many of the apostles and disciples (for example, the gospels of Thomas, Phillip and Mary).
• The early Church leaders unanimously rejected them.
• Gnostic writings have no basis in primary evidence, cross-references to other Scripture, or confirmation from the first and second century Churches.
• The dating of the book is the key for recognizing legitimate historical literature, and these are written way too late to be legitimate primary accounts.
• Gnostic literature contains absurdities and inconsistencies with the early beliefs of the apostles and disciples of Jesus.
• Gnostic literature does not reflect a first century Palestinian Jesus but rather an esoteric or Hellenistic Jesus.
• The Gnostic gospels contain false doctrines and heresies (Gnosticism, Ascetisicm, Docetism, Modalism, etc.) that are inconsistent with the doctrinal essentials of classic Christianity.
• The Gnostic heretic Marcion, c. AD 140, was the first to promote these Gnostic writings in the Christian community because he was anti-Jewish and rejected all books written by Jews.
• The books of the Christian Bible today are the same ones used by the earliest disciples of Christ nd therefore any other so called “missing” book would not be part of the classical Christian faith anyway

3. There isn’t enough ancient, non-Christian information about Jesus is an untrue statement:

• There are nearly twice as many non-Christian voices as Christian voices preceding the “Edict of Milan.”
• The ancient sources we have are more reliable (and were written much earlier) than the sources we have for the life of Tiberius Caesar, the emperor of Rome who ruled during the latter part of Jesus’ life (some of these sources report on both men), so if we have enough to have knowledge of about Tiberius, then we have enough to have knowledge about Jesus.

Non-Christian and Hostile Witness Accounts

Non-Christian Ancient Historians:

• Thallus, a Greek historian, writes of the crucifixion and mentions the day that suddenly turned dark.
• Tacitus, a Roman historian, echoes the Gospel account of the death of Christ including the mention of the governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate.
• Josephus, a Jewish historian, writes about the death of Jesus, the martyrdom of James, the martyrdom of John the Baptist, the resurrection three days after the crucifixion, and early Christian communities.
• Suetonius, a Roman historian, mentions the expulsion of Christians from Rome which corresponds with the account in the book of Acts.
• Pliny the Younger, a Roman authority and administrator, writes of the early Christian community in Asia Minor

Hostile witnesses:

• Marcion, a Gnostic heretic, verified the actual New Testament canon by naming the books he did not support!
• The enemies of Christianity—the Jewish and Roman authorities—did not try to deny the claims of Christianity, especially the resurrection, but instead tried to offer other explanations:-Matthew 28:12-15 speaks of the Jewish leaders plotting and paying off the guards to tell people that Jesus’ body was stolen

  -Similar stories are still used today by many orthodox Jews and Muslims

• The confession of faith in Jesus after the resurrection by Jesus’ own half-brothers who, before the resurrection, were hostile to His claim of being the Messiah, and this is especially true for James who became the leader of the early Church and wrote the Epistle of James (and Jude who wrote the Epistle of Jude).
• The conversion of Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee that persecuted the early Christians, who became the Apostle Paul and the author of most of the New Testament Epistles.
• Both James and Paul had nothing to gain and everything to lose (and they did)