The Four Gospels

Matthew First

We expect different accounts of the same event to revolve around the same points. The account of the tornado devastating the small Kansas town bears a family resemblance in Yahoo News, Reuters, AP, and whatever other news source we consult. The accounts are similar because they describe the same events and even query the same witnesses.

We would not expect to see same events recounted in the very same words, however. In that case, we would suspect borrowing. This is the case with the synoptic gospels, whose accounts of the same events are sometimes so very similar as to suggest copying. Who copied whom? In the early church, they said Matthew was first:

There are two great advantages that follow from counting Matthew first. One is that it follows the independent testimony of history. The other is parsimony. If Mark goes first, as modern Bible scholars believe, then an otherwise unknown document known as 'Q' is required to account for the material Matthew and Luke have in common. William of Ockham's razor requires us to slash away all unnecessary entities. 'Q' is an unnecessary entity, since counting Matthew first eliminates the need for it. That doesn't mean you can't make money selling it, to those suckers willing to shell out cash for a non-existent book.

The function of the popular conjecture of Mark's priority is to discredit the other gospels, which, it is alleged, are copied from him, but with free and unwarranted additions and subtractions:

"In contemporary studies of the way the gospels came into being, scholars are all but unanimous today in asserting that Mark was written first and that both Matthew and Luke incorporated Mark into their narratives. The problem for the excessive claim of a divine origin for the scriptures then comes when we discover that both Matthew and Luke changed Mark, expanded Mark and even omitted portions of Mark. That is not exactly the way one treats something identified as the 'Word of God,' or even something thought to be inspired by God." (John Shelby Spong, The Sins of Scripture, p. 22).

Mark is the shortest gospel, so 'expanded' it must be. One can certainly understand why someone like Bishop Spong is attracted to this conjecture, because his agenda is to discredit the Bible: "I had to come to the place where I recognized that the Bible itself was often the enemy." (John Shelby Spong, The Sins of Scripture, p. 11). It is far less obvious why people who think the Bible is God-breathed also find this speculative, fact-free construct appealing. Parsimony requires its abandonment.

62 A.D.

Writers often provide a clue as to when they are writing. Luke gives, not a subtle, easily-missed hint, but a giant road-block preventing further progress. Here is the end of Acts, which continues on from the end of the Gospel of Luke:

"And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him,preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him." (Acts 28:30-31).

He leaves Paul in prison, awaiting a hearing and a verdict. Luke drops not so much as a hint of the verdict; to this day people wonder whether Paul was acquitted, and went on to Spain, or whether he was condemned and executed at that time, or whether there was some other outcome. If the verdict had not yet been handed down, this would be understandable; otherwise, not.

"Other explanations, that Acts was left unfinished...are recourses of desperation. [...] From the internal evidence of the two books we should therefore conclude...that Acts was completed in 62 or soon after, with the Gospel of Luke some time earlier." (John A. T. Robinson, 'Redating the New Testament, pp. 90-92)

Moreover, the Theophilus to whom the work is addressed might be a Roman prosecutor or other court official. This would explain the very favorable treatment Acts accords to the Roman authorities. The Roman empire had two faces. Like the Greeks, the Romans imagined they were civilizing the peoples they conquered. They were proud of their law, not completely without reason. But there was another face, a demon face, that peeked out for example when the Romans conquered Spain, butchering people who had surrendered, butchering their own allies. This hideous demon face, which Paul, a Roman citizen, may not have seen in its full horror, was all too evident after 64 A.D. when Rome burned and the Christians were blamed.

Luke had in front of him a variety of sources when he sat down to compose his gospel:

"Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed." (Luke 1:1-4).

These already existing gospels must have included Matthew, if not Mark also. Thus 62 A.D. provides a natural end-point for the composition of the synoptic gospels.

Timid Atheists

What the atheists are demanding may sound reasonable at first, but just wait and see how extravagant it gets. Bart Ehrman believes Jesus is making real, live predictions; indeed he believes he has detected predictions which experience has falsified. There is a prophecy which the gospel writers, who follow it up with a description of the event called the Transfiguration, evidently understood of that event, though Dr. Ehrman prefers to believe it is a prediction of the second coming.

Notice, Dr. Ehrman will allow Jesus to make a false prediction...but he will not allow Him to make a true one! This is like saying to someone guessing at the outcome of a coin toss, 'every time you are wrong I will score it to your account, but every time you are right I will accuse you of cheating.' In the end, even the wild guesser must be right some of the time! If you do nothing but guess 'heads' every time, you will be right 50% of the time.

The bettors at the race track predict the outcome of a future event. One better says, 'I predict the horse in Lane 1 will finish first,' another says, 'I predict the horse in Lane 2 will finish first.' Let us say there are ten horses in ten lanes. Is it really possible all the bettors' predictions will fall short of fulfillment? Unless the horses stumble out of the gate and trip over each other, and not a one crosses the finish line, then somebody must have picked the winning horse. To look at that bettor collecting his winnings and say, 'He can only have picked that horse ex eventu. How, after all, can a man know the future?' is not sophistication but cluelessness. But this is what the atheists are demanding. They will have all successful predictions to be ex eventu, after the fact.

What the atheists are demanding is, in fact, statistically impossible. If you stand in front of a building and say, 'I say, this building will come down!' what are the odds your prediction will pan out? Nearly 100%...given enough patience. Those buildings which survive any great length of time, even in a ruined condition like the Parthenon, are the exception, not the rule. People who think it takes a miracle for a building to come down do not understand how fire insurance rates are set. Most constructions of man end up level with the ground, sooner or later. If those structures stand in a war zone, so much the shorter is their expected life span.

Theists believe that genuine prophecy is possible. One cannot expect the atheists will share this belief. But the atheists must, in the end, live under the laws of statistics, which cannot allow all predictions to be wrong. Unless the Sibyl or TV psychic confines herself to predicting impossible events, then some of her predictions must be verified. That Jesus did predict the downfall of the temple is shown in Matthew 16:14:

"When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets." (Matthew 16:13-14).

These people have a procedural rule called the 'Criterion of Dissimilarity,' which is more of an act of vandalism than a rule, a monkey wrench thrown into the machine. What this rubric requires is that a report about Jesus which is unlike what His followers say about Him is deemed true. No Christian has ever believed that Jesus is Jeremiah redivivus; Christians understand Him to be much more than Jeremiah. What were the people thinking who thought that Jesus was Jeremiah redivivus? Well, what did Jeremiah prophesy? The destruction of the temple:

"But go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the LORD, and I spake unto you, rising up early and speaking, but ye heard not; and I called you, but ye answered not; therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by my name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh." (Jeremiah 7:12-14).

All the atheists need to rectify this situation according to their lights is the principle of 'selection bias.' Josephus records many Messianic aspirants who led their disciples out into the wilderness to see signs and wonders. The only signs and wonders most of these people ever saw were the Roman troops slashing their necks and draining their life-blood. These Messianic claimants went in for rosy scenarios. They assured their followers the Romans would drop like flies, God would work miracles and preserve His temple forever. One can understand why this approach was popular; people like to hear good news. But suppose someone zigged while the others zagged. Suppose one of these Messianic claimants prophesied doom and gloom, not easy victory. To say both predictions: the rosy scenario and doom and gloom, must both have failed, is the same as to say all the bettors on the horse race must have lost their money. Something's got to happen after all, either sunshine or rain. Once the event was clear, who would have continued to copy the books written by followers of the false Messiahs, those whose predictions were falsified by events? Yet people would have been struck by the success of the discordant doom and gloom prediction.

This is selection bias, and it's all the atheists need to hold on to their position. They are so terrified of supernaturalism that, to chase it out, they must surrender common sense as well. One wonders why they are so insecure in their own belief system that they feel they must claim the holder of the winning ticket on the horse race can only have placed his bet after the race was over. No doubt atheist science will soon discover no one ever purchases a winning lottery ticket, the winning tickets are all forged after the event: who, after all, could possibly know the numbers before they are announced?

I Am Legend

The atheists want it understood that, while we really have no idea who wrote the four gospels, we are quite certain it cannot have been any apostles or associates of the apostles, as reported by contemporary witnesses. One wonders what ever happened to the apostles, that they were not around to answer the many questions Christians in the burgeoning churches surely would have had. Christians nowadays sing,

"More about Jesus let me learn,
More of His holy will discern;
Spirit of God, my teacher be,
Showing the things of Christ to me.

"More, more about Jesus,
More, more about Jesus;
More of His saving fullness see,
More of His love who died for me." (More About Jesus, Eliza E. Hewitt)

Didn't they used to sing that then? Didn't they want to know more about Jesus? Wouldn't they have been eager to meet an apostle, or read the writings of one? So what had happened?

There is a vogue nowadays in zombie movies, like 'I Am Legend.' These movies presuppose there has been a dreadful epidemic that has devastated the human race, leaving only a few surviving zombies lurching around. These movies I could very well do without. I propose this must have been what happened in first century Palestine. A zombie epidemic claimed all the apostles and their immediate associates, before these people could answer the questions and meet the needs of the growing churches around the world. What else could it have been?

Illiterate Authors

One of the world's perennial best-sellers, the Koran, was written by an illiterate man, Mohammed ibn Abdallah:

"Who shall follow the Apostle, the unlettered Prophet -- whom they shall find described with them in the Law and Evangel." (Koran, Sura 7:157)

Another popular illiterate author was Sojourner Truth, a freed slave and anti-slavery activist. Illiterate authors depend upon the assistance of others. One Mohammed ibn Abdallah's transcriptionists played a dirty trick on him, introducing changes into the text, just to see if 'the unlettered prophet' noticed when the words were read back. He didn't, and presumably some foreign material still remains in the Koran.

Were any of the New Testament authors illiterate? Some thought so:

"Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned ['agrammatos'] and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus." (Acts 4:13).

This word, 'agrammatos,' means 'unlettered' and was used, for example, when an illiterate person required the assistance of an agent in signing a contract:

"agrammatos... is of constant occurrence in the formula used by one person signing a deed or letter on behalf of another who cannot write..." (Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan).

But the ancients often called each other 'illiterate' when they were not so in the strict sense, as Seneca confirms: "Some things, on account of their similarity, are included under the same designation, although they do not really deserve it. Thus we speak of a silver or golden box; thus we call a man illiterate, although he may not be utterly ignorant, but only not acquainted with the higher branches of literature; thus, seeing a badly-dressed ragged man we say that we have seen a naked man." (Seneca, On Benefits, Book V, Chapter XIII).

In this they were like modern Americans. Google 'George W. Bush illiterate' and see how many hits you get. It is not likely a technically illiterate person could have gained admission to Harvard Business School, even with family friends looking out for him. These writers who said that George W. Bush was illiterate were incensed, I would imagine, at the unspeakable things that happened when President George W. Bush was left alone in a room with his mother tongue. I'm not sure when the lexicographers started to believe they could rescue humanity from the charge of 'contumely,' but sometimes they try too hard. The English word 'illiterate' means 'cannot read or write.' Its use of George W. Bush is tendentious and exaggerated. The fair-minded reader must wonder if the same is true of the accusation that Peter and John were 'agrammatos.'

One very articulate Christian author who was quite sure 'unlettered' means 'unlettered' is John Chrysostom:

But the question must remain open. Matthew, whose duties as a tax-collector involved record-keeping, must have been literate. John's connections in priestly circles suggest the same. However, if Peter was literate, one must wonder why Mark wrote 'his' gospel:

"Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia." (Irenaeus, 'Against Heresies,' Book 3, Chapter 1).

Paul was well educated. That James and Jude were literate is suggested by the example of their more famous brother, and also their mother. The Lord was literate:

"And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor..." (Luke 4:16-18)

Perhaps He was home-schooled (John 7:15). That Mary was literate is suggested by the literary quality of her song. Modern writers low-ball ancient literacy, well below what the evidence will support, and even more scandalously in the case of women. These 'Bible scholars' fear lest anyone imagine the four gospels are early and authentic, they must hold down the ancient literacy rate, far below what any ancient writer actually reports. This leads to two tracks; writers in other fields naively take the evidence for what it says:

"Jews and Chinese have a particularly strong tradition of respect for scholarship, with Jews said to have achieved complete adult male literacy — the better to read the Talmud — some 1,700 years before any other group. ('Rising Above I.Q.,' By Nicholas D. Kristof, Published: June 6, 2009, New York Times online.)

...and what, exactly, is the argument against taking the evidence for what it says?

Difficulties

There are certain textual difficulties in certain of the gospels; for example, the ending of Mark is variable and may have been missing in some copies. There are conclusions which do, and do not, follow from these perplexities. Several possible explanations come to mind: Clement of Alexandria reports, in Alexandria, a public 'gospel of Mark' and an esoteric one, with additional material. The text Clement saw seems to have been apocryphal; but perhaps there were some in Alexandria who thought Christianity should follow the model of a mystery sect, with the ending: resurrection — available only to the baptized. In these esoteric religions, only the initiated knew 'how it all turned out,' though the public likely had a pretty good idea. Mark's gospel emphasizes the 'Messianic secret,' and may have struck some readers as tending in this direction, leading them to take the next step of restricting access to the ending to the 'illuminated,' i.e., baptized. A 'public' gospel circulating alongside the full version would explain the problem with the ending.

Another possibility is that the comments about drinking poison, handling snakes, etc., caused a similar problem in antiquity to what happens today in Appalachia, where some people interpret these comments to mean, 'you should handle snakes, you should drink poison.' Though there is no such command in the text, and making this promise into a command requires putting God to the test, elsewhere made unlawful, it may be that some thought the only way around this problem was to suppress the text. To conclude that: there are difficulties with the text, therefore Mark, Peter's interpreter, did not pen this gospel, is a non sequitur.

Who Wrote the Gospels?

The modern tendency is to ignore all ancient evidence in favor of conjecture and surmise: