THE ACCURACY OF THE GOSPELS
On examination of passages arising in the four Gospels,
it can be seen that the narrative is composed to suit
the theological viewpoint of the evangelist. When
comparing a narrative with its parallel in
another Gospel, or when a narrative only appears in
one Gospel, it becomes obvious that the
evangelists had their own beliefs and attitudes,
and these sometimes become obvious. It is clear that
the authors of the Gospels shaped, remoulded, selected
and adapted the material available to them to suit
their purpose. From this it can be seen that the
evangelists selected and adapted the material
available to them, so they could write with a special
purpose and objective in mind.
Matt's author, using Mark as a source, wanted to show
Jesus' mission was to the Jews, as their own messiah,
but the author of Luke, also using Mark as a source,
wanted to picture Jesus in a way that his
Hellenistic readers would understand and relate to.
The author of John, possibly using Mark or a Ur-
Markus, as a source, or the source of Mark for some
of his information, wrote from a highly individual
viewpoint and in this Gospel, the writer's
personal interpretation and authorship becomes most
apparent.
Before the resurrection in Matt however, Jesus is
shown as being solely for the Jews; Jesus is pictured
as the Jewish messiah, the descendent of Abraham
and the Son of David; his life fulfilled the OT
prophesies and expectations. On occasions the OT texts
are wrestled from their context and used very
artificially in Matt. Whilst pro-Jewish, the author
writes against certain Jewish groups which he felt
particular hostility towards. In Luke, Jesus is the
saviour of the world - to Jew, Samaritan and Gentile.
Luke's author makes it clear that from the very
beginning, not only Israel, but the world was
blessed by Jesus' appearance on earth. (2:l4,32). In
Luke, Jesus' coming was vital in world history and
history, both past and present had to be shaped around
the years of Jesus' life on earth. Jesus' coming
in Luke influences history as is shown by Jesus'
comment in Luke l6:l6 that the law and prophets were
only 'until John'. From this point a new phase in
history begins.
Luke's author was clearly sympathetic to the poor
and outcast; he includes material that teaches this
and which is only found in Luke, eg. the woes against
the wealthy (6:24,25), the story of Lazarus and the
Rich man (Luke l6); there is one case where Luke is
detailing the same material as Matt, but a clear
change is made to uphold his view towards the poor -
"Blessed are the poor in spirit....Blessed are
those who hunger and thirst for righteousness..." (Matt
5:3,6) but in Luke this is "Blessed are you
poor....Blessed are you that hunger now..."
(6:20,21).
Here, as can be clearly seen, the evangelist has
deliberately changed the wording to suit either his
spiritual theology (Matt) or his social theology
(Luke). In Luke there is the call by Jesus to care for
the outcast with the promise of reward for doing this
(l4:12-l4), and there is also Jesus' teaching that the
despised classes (in this case a tax collector) were
more sincere and pleasing to God than the so-called
religious teachers (l8:l0-l4).
It has been argued that the Gospels contain 'pillar
passages', ie. statements that conflicted with early
church theology and belief which created problems for
the early church, but despite this, the fact that these
were included shows that the evangelists faithfully
recorded these and that they wrote a reliable account
of Jesus' life. One such passage is Mark 3:21 where it
is stated that Jesus' family went out to 'seize him'
because of the accusations of insanity. At first
sight this does appear that the author has included
something that puts Jesus' family in a bad light
and it certainly clashes with the church's belief
that Jesus' family later became members of the church
(eg. Acts l:l4) and were later held in high esteem.
However, some commentators believe this is not
necessarily connected with mental instability, and
furthermore, the author may have had in mind the
'prophesy' of Isa 53:3 that the servant would be
despised and rejected of men; indeed Jesus does remind
the disciples that he would suffer contempt (9:l2).
In Mark there is the statement that Jesus could not
work miracles because of unbelief (6:5) and indeed
Matt (l3:58) modifies this, and Luke omits it
altogether, but this is not necessarily a passage
that reduces Jesus' stature; Mark repeatedly
emphasises the need to believe in Jesus for his power
to be able to manifest itself - eg. Mark 5:34,
l0:52.
Because some passages were included in the Gospels and
these may have embarrassed the church does not
necessarily lead to the conclusion that the
evangelists recorded an accurate historical account of
Jesus' life; this is particularly so in view of the
situation in the early church which was not uniform
and was very fluid.
The principal motive of each evangelist in producing a
'Gospel' was for the preaching of the early church;
the Gospels were not intended to be for general and
public circulation and reading. It is clear that they
did write as theologians and not historians and
therefore they cannot be viewed as trustworthy
(ie. reliable and accurate) historians.
In John, hostility against Judaism reaches a peak; by
the end of the first century, Christianity was no
longer deemed to be just a schism in Judaism.
By this time there was an official cursing of the
Christians ('Minim') in the synagogues. The Gospel of
John therefore coincides with the mutual feeling
between the Jews and early Christians at the time
of being written. In John, the Jews are pictured
as slow, dull-witted, aggressive and hypocritical,
deviating from the original faith. They are prepared
to murder (l2:l0-ll) and are pictured as ignorant of
God's word (5:38-40), without God's love (5:42),
accused by Moses (5:45), potential murderers (8:40),
children of the devil who was a murderer and liar
(8:44) and they are even reported as making several
attempts to kill Jesus (8:59, l0:31). The author puts
words into their mouths which could not have been
spoken; the statement of 'We have no king but Caesar'
by the chief priests (l9:l5) would have been a
denial of all Jewish theology and history apart from
the fact that a Jewish leader making this statement
would soon encounter the fury of the nationalist
Zealots. The author comes very close to preventing
Jesus from being a Jew himself when he writes of Jesus
speaking to the Jews of 'your father Abraham' (8:56),
'your law' (l0:34). He continues his polemic in having
the Jews even asking for leg-breaking after Jesus had
died (l9:31) which results in Pilate instructing this
even though it conflicts with Mark which describes
Pilate as being unaware of Jesus' death (l5:44-45).
John also writes about the expulsion of Christians
from the synagogues and the possibility of
executions (9:22, l6:2), which did not exist in the
time that Jesus supposedly lived, but did exist in the
closing years of the first century when the Gospel was
written (ie. the official cursing of the 'Minim'
inserted into the synagogue service under
Rabbi Gamaliel, ca. 85 CE).
Another indication that the evangelists have composed
stories about Jesus without historical foundation is
their interpretation of what they considered to be
Old Testament 'prophesies'. Because the author of
John understood the Hebrew parallelism of Psa
22:l8 as two completely separate actions, he has the
soldiers carrying out two separate actions
(l9:23-24). The other evangelists who did not
misunderstand this, only have one action in the
disposal of Jesus' clothes (Matt 27:35, Mark l5:24,
Luke 23:34). In the same way, the author of Matt
misunderstood the parallelism of Zech 9:9 and had two
animals involved in Jesus' entry into Jerusalem
(21:2-7) when in fact there is only one animal being
spoken about. The other evangelists do not make this
mistake and therefore only have one animal - Mark
l:2-7, Luke l9:30-35, John l2:l4-l6.
These examples show that the evangelists, rather
than being historians, were only interested in the
theology of what they were writing about. In these two
cases they have deliberately introduced details to
'agree' what they felt to be an OT prophecy. One
commentator admits that the whole of Jesus' trial is
based on O.T. prophesy; therefore rather than the
Christian statement that the life of Jesus
'fulfilled' O.T. prophesies (although in reality few
are actual 'prophesies'), the very reverse is true -
Jesus' earthly life was built up on these
'prophesies'.
John gives the picture of the Logos in full control of
every situation with his power being considerably
greater than the Synoptics, eg. whilst the
Synoptics record resurrections of people who had only
just died (eg. Matt 9:l8), Jesus resurrects a man who
had been dead for four days (ll:l7), the blind man
healed was not like the man who had once seen in the
Synoptics (Mark 8:24), but had been blind from birth
(9:l), Jesus carries his own cross (l9:l7) and does
need not this to be carried for him as in the
Synoptics (eg. Matt 27:32). Again, the theological
view of John's author completely overshadows any desire
to present a historical account; his account is to show
that Jesus was the Son of God and historical facts
are not relevant. In the same way, the author of
Matt is keen to show that Jesus was the Jewish
Messiah, while the authors of Luke and Mark are more
concerned with portraying a Jesus who would be
acceptable to Gentiles.
Mark, almost certainly the first Gospel, includes a
number of errors which not only show that the author
was not an eyewitness to the events he so vividly
describes (and also, was not based on anyone else's
account who was an eyewitness), but also that details
such as features of the Jewish religion, geography and
chronology were only secondary to his purposes. Mark
(1:2) has a quotation from Malachi 3:l and Isaiah
40:3, but he attributes both to Isaiah
(furthermore he interfered with the poetry by
changing the location of the wilderness), there
is a chronological error in naming Abiathar as the
high priest (2:26), Herod is called a king when he
was in fact a tetrach and this is followed by an
error about Philip's wife (6:l4,l7), he attributed a
custom of the strict Pharisees to all the Jews (7:3),
his mention of Dalmanutha in 8:10 indicates he was not
very familiar with Palestine, there is a reference by
Jesus to women divorcing their husbands, a custom not
possible in Palestine (l0:12), together with an error
over the timing of the Passover and the Feast of
Unleavened Bread (l4:l,12). On occasions, the author
seems to be confused about Palestinian life.
The errors contained within Mark were 'corrected' by
the authors of Matthew and Luke, and sometimes by
later copyists, particularly when they involved
important theological points. It was the same
situation with each of the four evangelists; each one
had a particular motive, each one had a specific
theological belief and each one had a certain group of
people in mind for whom their Gospel was intended.
On occasions, the reason for relating a story not found
in the other three Gospels, or for making a drastic
change in it is not altogether clear. All four Gospels
have the story of Jesus being anointed by a woman;
Matt (26:6-l3) and Mark (l4:2-ll) have this after
the entry into Jerusalem, but John has this before,
while Luke has it long before the arrival in
Jerusalem during the early ministry (Luke 7:36-50).
Whilst Luke has the woman anointing Jesus' feet as
does John (l2:3), Matt and Mark have the woman
anointing Jesus' head. Other minor differences
occur, eg. Jesus tells Peter of his denials after
leaving the room where the last supper was eaten,
on the way to Gethsemane in Matt (26:30-35) and
Mark (l4:26-31), but in Luke (22:33-34/39) and
John (l3:37-38/l8:l), Jesus tells him before
leaving.
In Luke, Jesus is assaulted before the questioning by
the Sanhedrin and the questioning takes place the
following morning (22:63-71), but in Matt
(26:57-68/27:l) and Mark (l4:53-65/l5:l) the
assault is immediately after the questioning and this
all takes place before the morning. Presumably there
was a reason for the differences which occur in all
four Gospels, but they have been lost in time.
Differences such as these may arise because of the
evangelist wishing to convey a particular point
which is not obvious, or they may simply arise
because of the way the material/tradition was
transmitted and reached the evangelist.
When certain passages are examined, it can be seen what
the evangelist had in mind and furthermore, what he
personally viewed as important. The author of Matt
wanted to show that Jesus' mission was to the
Jews. In l5:21-28, Jesus' objection to healing the
Gentile woman's daughter is much more obvious than in
Mark (in Mark, the only time Jesus is called 'Lord'
is by this woman - 7:28; here Mark has used the story,
which in Matt is anti-Gentile, to show that it was a
Gentile who recognised who Jesus was). Matt also adds
that Jesus said that he had only come 'to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel'. The author of Luke, not
only pro-Gentile, but endeavouring to portray Jesus
as humane, omits the whole story.
Jesus instructed his disciples not to go anywhere
near Gentiles or Samaritans, but to go to 'the lost
sheep of the house of Israel' in Matt l0:5-6, but
Mark does not include this (6:7ff) and nor does Luke
(9:lff). Luke contradicts this by saying that Jesus
wanted to enter Samaria. but was prevented from
doing so by the inhabitants (9:52-53); also in Luke,
Jesus heals a Samaritan (l7:ll-l6), and Jesus'
mission to the Samaritans, which is precluded in
Matt, goes even further in John when Jesus goes into
Samaria and many are converted there (4:4,5,39-42).
It is generally accepted that the seventy
disciples sent out in Luke l0:l was a Gentile mission.
Not only did the authors of Matt and Luke correct the
errors in Mark, and the author of John reinterpret the
oral and written material that was the basis for the
Synoptic Gospel account, they also clearly made
considerable changes to Mark. Although some
corrections and changes are to make the account more
authentic, the principal cause for the changes is
clearly theological. This can be traced in all
four Gospels, from beginning to end.
Matt begins with a genealogy tracing Jesus back to
Abraham through David (l:l-16) - to show Jesus as the
Jewish Messiah, but Luke has this going back to
Adam (3:23-38) to show Jesus' coming was to save all
mankind and not just Israel. This fact is announced
just after the birth in Luke also - 2:28,32. The
author of Mark begins his Gospel very abruptly,
whilst the author of John begins his Gospel by
stating that Jesus was the pre-existent Logos,
and it is this portrayal that runs throughout John.
To the end of the Gospels, the personal theological
belief, manner and motivation of each author still
manifests itself; in Mark the resurrection
narrative ends as abruptly as the Gospel begins;
the resurrection appearances are not detailed possibly
because the whole message of Mark is faith (Mark
16:9-20 is generally acceprted to be a later addition
to avoid the abrupt ending).
In Matt, the last appearance by Jesus to the
disciples is on a mountain; this may be an attempt
to connect Jesus' departure with Moses' (NB. In Matt,
Jesus teaches about the law on a mountain - 5:l,l7-42,
which recalls Moses receiving the law on the
mountain; in the Lukan parallel, Jesus did not
teach on a mountain, but rather 'he came down and
stood on a level place' and this did not relate to
the law - 6:l7-49; this in itself is an example of how
the evangelists adapted material to illustate a
theological point). The author of Matt endeavoured to
show that Jesus did not come to 'end' Judaism, but was
a fulfilment of it. In Luke, Jesus' departure is in the
area of Jerusalem where the disciples are to remain, ie.
where it all began.
In John the emphasis was to instil faith in those who
already believed but felt distanced from Jesus by being
second or third-generation Christians (20:29,31).
What has to be borne in mind is the fact that the
evangelists were not only producing their narratives
from isolated disconnected sayings and stories, many of
which had survived down to their time only through
oral tradition, their narratives were also related to
the Jesus they believed in, pictured through their
own personal experience; their account was also
shaped for the people for whom it was intended. The
Gospels would also reflect the evangelists' own
culture and background. They also had to deal with
factors which had only emerged during their time, eg.
why Jesus had not returned, why Judaism had
rejected its Messiah, how Christianity could be
related to Judaism, how Christianity could show that
Jesus was the one foretold in the Old Testament, and as
the church became distanced from the time that Jesus
supposedly lived, the rising importance of the
disciples/apostles.
The evangelists cannot therefore be viewed as
trustworthy historians as they saw historical
information only as a basis for the 'Good News'
they were attempting to declare. This information only
served as a background for the story they wanted to
tell. As the Gospels are not biographies of Jesus'
life, but rather, compositions for preaching and/or to
satisfy the need of a particular Christian community,
their value as "historical" documents is 'nil'.
The source of Matthew and Luke, although there is
still disagreement over this, appears to have been a
mixture of,
(a)the Q document; in fact the authors of Matthew and
Luke may not have used the same document, ie. due to
difference in time and area, one evangelist may have
seen a different (eg. expanded) Q document; the term
'Q' is also used to denote oral as well as written
tradition, and,
(b)Mark; it appears they most probably used the
canonical Mark, and not an earlier edition, and,
(c)their own sources. Both Gospels mainly follow the
order in Mark.
In the case of Luke, more than one-third is material
not found in Mark, but almost one-third of Mark is
not found in Luke. The non-Markan material is
principally inserted into two places in Luke, ie.
6:20-8:3 (the small insertion) and 9:51-l8:l4
(the large insertion) although there is non-Markan
material found in the sections that do repeat Mark
(eg. Luke 3:23-4:l3, 4:l6-30).
In the case of Matthew, half of Matthew is not found in
Mark, whilst over a half of this material is found in
Luke; the remainder appears to be Matthew's author's
own material.
This leads to numerous questions, eg. did the authors
write, but then expand on them when coming across
Mark (Kummel considers this unlikely with Luke due to
the Markan omissions), or whether their special
material was actually found in Q, but because the
other evangelist chose not to use it, this results in
it appearing to be material only available to them.
It is also argued that the special material in some
cases was not written, but oral tradition; some have
gone as far as suggesting that the material found
in only one Gospel, without parallel in another
could even be the author's own thoughts, ie. they
composed stories that they believed would teach the
readers about a subject they considered important, eg.
Luke's story of Lazarus and the Rich Man (Luke l6).
A brief examination of both Matt and Luke will show
that the authors were sympathetic to certain ideas,
and introduced these into their Gospels, either by
simply rephrasing or rearranging the material, or by
using stories that supported their particular
ideas. Matthew's author clearly wished to show that
Jesus' mission was only to the Jews (l0:5,6,
l5:24); in the case of the Canaanite woman
(l5:22-28), Jesus' hostility is far greater in Matt,
than in Mark (7:24-30), but Luke's author chose to
omit this altogether. In Matt the Gentile
mission was really only authorised after the
resurrection (28:l9); it is at this point where the
pro-Jewish line is concluded; after the
crucifixion the Jews are pictured as being particularly
hostile - eg. approaching Pilate to authorise a guard
on the tomb (27:62-66) and the Jews bribing guards
to say the disciples had stolen the body
(28:ll-l5); the historicity of both incidents has
been questioned.
Before the resurrection in Matt however, Jesus is
shown as being solely for the Jews; Jesus is
pictured as the Jewish messiah, the descendent of
Abraham and the Son of David; his life fulfilled the
OT prophesies and expectations. On occasions the OT
texts are wrestled from their context and used very
artificially in Matt. Whilst pro-Jewish, the author
writes against certain Jewish groups which he felt
particular hostility towards. In Luke, Jesus is the
saviour of the world - to Jew, Samaritan and
Gentile. Luke's author makes it clear that from the
very beginning, not only Israel, but the world
was blessed by Jesus' appearance on earth. (2:l4,32).
In Luke, Jesus' coming was vital in world history
and history, both past and present had to be shaped
around the years of Jesus' life on earth. Jesus'
coming in Luke influences history as is shown by
Jesus' comment in Luke l6:l6 that the law and
prophets were only 'until John'. From this point a new
phase in history begins.
Luke's author was clearly sympathetic to the poor
and outcast; he includes material that teaches this
and which is only found in Luke, eg. the woes
against the wealthy (6:24,25), the story of Lazarus
and the Rich man (Luke l6); there is one case where
Luke is detailing the same material as Matt, but a
clear change is made to uphold his view towards the
poor - "Blessed are the poor in spirit....Blessed
are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness..."
(Matt 5:3,6) but in Luke this is "Blessed are you
poor....Blessed are you that hunger now..."
(6:20,21). Here, one of the evangelists has
deliberately changed the wording to suit either his
spiritual theology (Matt) or his social theology
(Luke). In Luke there is the call by Jesus to care for
the outcast with the promise of reward for doing this
(l4:12-l4) and there is also Jesus' teaching that the
despised classes (in this case a tax collector) were
more sincere and pleasing to God than the so-called
religious teachers (l8:l0-l4).
On occasions it is inevitable there would be a clash
between the two evangelists; whilst it would be
possible to argue a certain point that is also argued
in the other Gospel, or perhaps omitted altogether, on
occasions the beliefs of the evangelists do conflict.
Whilst Matt has Jesus telling the disciples to avoid
Gentiles and Samaritan towns, but to go only to the
'lost house of Israel' (l0:5,6), Luke has Jesus
attempting to enter a Samaritan town, but not doing
this only because of Samaritan hostlity due to his
intention to reach Jerusalem (Luke 9:51-53). He
also heals a Samaritan, and Luke's author elevates
the Samaritan by pointing out that he was the only
one who expressed gratitude (Luke l7:ll-l9); there
is also the story, only found in Luke, about the
'good Samaritan' who is also elevated above the
priest and the Levite (l0:30-37).
In contrast to the Jewish-only mission of Matt
l0, not only does Luke omit mention of the
exclusiveness of this mission (9:l-6), but it also
has a second mission which is usually understood as
a mission specifically for the Gentiles in l0:l-l7
(ie. the number of seventy (or seventy two - as
some MSS have) disciples is significant; the Jews
believed this was the number of Gentile nations).
Luke's author stresses the success of the Gentile
mission by having Jesus say that he had seen Satan
cast down when the seventy/seventy-two returned
(l0:l8).
Luke's author also amended the Passion narrative; the
assault upon Jesus is made by the prison guards and
before his appearance before the sanhedrin which
takes place the next morning (22:63-7) unlike
Matt's account of Jesus being beaten at the sanhedrin
hearing which took place at night.
Luke's author rearranged the materal as he saw fit -
eg., Jesus' anointing occurs at in the early stage
(7:36-50) unlike Matt (with whom Mark and John agree)
who detail this in the last days in Jerusalem
(Matt 26:6-l3).
The trial/death of Jesus in the Gospels looks suspect
as although his crime of blasphemy could be
punished on a Feastday, there was no permit to execute
theives on a Feast day, but the Gospels say thieves
were executed with him. Yet more evidence of the
ficticious character of the Gospels. Luke's
author also makes other changes, eg. the statement by
Jesus to the high priest which in Matt 26:64 has
Jesus saying that the high priest would see his return
is amended to remove any likelihood of this in Luke
(Luke 22:69). The cryptic "abomination of desolation"
in Matt (24:l5) is made into Jerusalem's fall in 70
AD, but as Jesus' return was supposed to be
"immediately" after this (Matt 24:29), Luke
introduces a unspecified time-period between the Fall
and the Parousia ("the times of the Gentiles" -
2l:20,24).
Luke takes on the appearance of a travel narrative
(9:51-l9:27), and in this Gospel, the author has the
material in a different order (when compared with
Matt), and he presumably did this where it would
have the most impact and be more appropriate.
Here is an example of redaction where the author
has consciously adapted his material to suit his
theological motive, ie. Jerusalem is the starting
point for not only Jesus, but also the church, ie.
Jesus' presentation in Jerusalem, his boyhood visit
there, his journey there as part of his ministry,
concluding with his crucifixion, resurrection and
ascension in the area with the disciples being
instructed to wait there for the Spirit. It is
because of such endeavours, a conflict is inevitable
between Luke and Matt, ie. the infancy and
the resurrection narratives; where both evangelists had
a free hand (ie. before Jesus' ministry began - Mark
1:1 - and after the visit to the tomb - Mark l6:8 -
the evangelists were no longer obliged to follow
Mark, and at these points the difference becomes the
most noticeable.
There are other factors which arise in Matt and Luke
that show rather than being "historical documents",
ie. authentic reliable accounts of historical events,
they are compositions where the theological purpose
took priority. Matt in not explaining references to
Jewish customs indicates it was written for a
Jewish audience not requiring explanations; he
stresses the importance and validity of the Law and
also uses Jewish expressions alongwith rabbinic
colouring. Luke however is presenting a Gospel to deal
with problems peculiar to his situation; for his
Gentile readers, he improves Mark's Greek.
He also makes changes where necessary, eg. the attitude
of Jesus' family to Jesus, the non-fulfilment of the
promise of an imminent parousia. The author of Luke
and Acts also developed a picture in his writings that
showed Christianity presented no threat to the Romans.
Therefore they are not accurate accounts, but are
purely personal interpretations and presentations of a
new faith.