The Case for Christ, Part 2: The eyewitness evidence.
In part 1 of my review of the book The Case for Christ, I laid out my writing plan to cover the foundational arguments of the Christian faith presented in the book.
In today’s article, we will begin to inquire into the reliability of the four gospels through the eyewitnesses. Eyewitnesses are crucial, especially in the context of the law. If the gospels can be trusted we will be able to truly begin scrutinizing them later down the road.
In order to find out if the Gospels are reliable, author Lee Strobel met up and conducted the first interview with New Testament scholar Craig L. Blomberg.
About the scholar.
Craig Blomberg is widely considered to be one of America’s foremost authorities on the biographies of Jesus. He received his doctorate in New Testament from Aberdeen University in Scotland. He later served as a senior research fellow at Tyndale House at Cambridge University in England, where he was part of an elite group of international scholars that produced a series of acclaimed works on Jesus. For the last decades, he has been a professor of New Testament at the highly respected Denver Seminary.
Blomberg’s books include The Historical Reliability of the Gospels; Jesus and the Gospels; Interpreting the Parables; How Wide the Divide?; and commentaries on the gospel of Matthew and 1 Corinthians. He also helped edit volume six of Gospel Perspectives, which deals at length with the miracles of Jesus, and he coauthored Introduction to Biblical Interpretation. He contributed chapters on the historicity of the gospels to the book Reasonable Faith and the award-winning Jesus under Fire. His memberships include the Society for the Study of the New Testament, Society of Biblical Literature, and the Institute for Biblical Research.
The interview
The reliability of authorship
Strobel begins by asking if it’s possible to be an intelligent, critically thinking person and still believe that the four gospels were written by the people whose names have been attached to them? Blomberg replies with a confident “Yes!”. He notes that we have to acknowledge that strictly speaking, the gospels are anonymous. However, the uniform testimony of the early church was that Matthew (also known as Levi), the tax collector, was the author of the first gospel. John Mark, a companion of Peter, was the author of the gospel of his name. Luke for his part, wrote both the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles.
Strobel eloquently asks how uniform the belief that they were the authors was? Blomberg replies that for the three Gospels, there is simply no dispute among scholars, it is a certainty.
Excusing his skepticism, Strobel inquires if there would be any motive for someone to lie by claiming these people wrote the gospel, when in fact they haven’t. Blomberg answers that there probably wouldn’t be a plausible motive for someone to lie. He supports this argument by saying that one has to take into account that Mark and Luke weren’t even among the twelve disciples. Matthew was among them, but as a former tax collector, he would have been despised as much as Judas, who betrayed Jesus!
To further support his point, Blomberg shows the example of later ‘fancy’ apocryphal gospels attributed to famous characters like Philip, Peter, Mary and James. The conclusion is that due to their low popularity, the gospel authors, namely Mattew, Mark and Luke, couldn’t have gotten away with it unless they were the true authors.
Strobel now points to an obvious hole in Bloomberg’s narrative: what about the gospel of John?
Blomberg concedes that he is the exception. There is in fact some dispute about its authorship. It isn’t the name. It is virtually certain that the author was named John, the question is which John-the apostle or a different John?
This confusion comes from Papias, a Christian writer writing in about A.D. 125, who interchanges in his work the name of John the apostle and John the elder, not specifying if he’s talking of one person from two different perspectives or of two different people. Granted this exception, affirms Blomberg, the rest of the early testimony is unanimous on John the apostle, son of Zebedee, as the author of the gospel.
Still not convinced, Strobel asks Blomberg if he seriously believes himself that John the apostle is the author of the gospel. Blomberg mentions that even though some verses seem to have been concluded by an editor, the substantial majority of the material goes back to the apostle. In any event, Blomberg stresses, the gospel is obviously based on eyewitness material, like the other three gospels.
Going into specifics.
Strobel, not ready to move on to the next point, wants to further test Blomberg’s expertise. He asks Blomberg what specific evidence do we have that Mark, Matthew and Luke are the authors of the gospels?
Responding, Blomberg refers again to Papias, who in A.D. 125, specifically affirmed that Mark had carefully and accurately recorded Peter’s eyewitness observations. Papias goes as far as attesting that Mark ‘made no mistake’ and didn’t include ‘any false statement’. The second source is from Irenaeus, in about A.D. 180 who confirms traditional authorship. The following passage is attributed to Irenaeus.
Matthew published his own Gospel among the Hebrews in their own tongue, when Peter and Paul were preaching the Gospel in Rome and founding the church there. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself handed down to us in writing the substance of Peter’s preaching. Luke, the follower of Paul, set down in a book the Gospel preached by his teacher. Then John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned on his breast, himself produced his Gospel while he was living at Ephesus in Asia.
Strobel wants to clarify the situation: “If we can have confidence that the gospels were written by the disciples Matthew and John, by Mark, the companion of the disciple Peter, and by Luke, the historian, companion of Paul, and sort of a first-century journalist, we can be assured that the events they record are based on either direct or indirect eyewitness testimony.”
“Exactly” replies Blomberg.
Ancient versus modern biographies.
Continuing the investigation, Strobel wants to understand what kind of literary genre the gospels represent, as one can easily notice they differ from most biographies. Strobel notes that while most biographies nowadays dive into the details of the important character in question, Mark, for example, doesn’t talk about Jesus’ birth or his early adult years. Instead, Mark solely writes about a three-year period, spending half the gospel writing about the events leading and culminating in Jesus’ last week.
Unphased, Blomberg explains that there are two good reasons for this.
The first one, the literary, is that this was the way how people wrote biographies in the ancient world. They didn’t feel the need or have the sense to equally divide the periods of an individual’s life. They didn’t write it chronologically and they didn’t quote people verbatim. As long as the essence of what was being said is preserved, they considered their work done. Blomberg continues by explaining that biographers always recorded history because it was useful. They would therefore dwell on at length on the exemplary portions of an individual’s life.
The second reason is theological. Basically, states Blomberg, for Chrisitians, no matter how wonderful Jesus’ life and teachings, they are meaningless if it weren’t historically factual that Christ died, was raised from the dead, and provided salvation through the forgiveness of sins. This is why, considering ancient literature and the significance of the Crucifixion, Mark’s gospel makes perfect sense when it dedicates so much of the information leading to the event.
The mystery of Q.
Strobel mentions that among the four gospels, scholars often refer to Q, (Quelle in German) meaning “source”. Traditionally, it has been assumed that because of the resemblances in language, Matthew and Luke copied from Mark’s gospel to write their own. Q would have been a separate, independent document containing Jesus’ sayings or teachings, kind of how Muslims have hadiths. Blomberg explains that the theory is that Q could have been a summary of Jesus’ most important statements, like a modern ‘best-of’ album.
Strobel pertinently asks what happens if we would isolate all the material from Q. Blomberg replies that we would get a similar account of Jesus claiming to be divine as in the Gospels, but less the miracles, as ancient sources like Q focused primarily on sayings. Sure enough, even if Q was such a thing that Matthew and Luke copied from, there would still be an indication of Jesus’s miraculous ministry in Q, as stated from Luke 7:18–23 and Matthew 11:2–6. In these passages, John the Baptist sent his messengers to ask Jesus if he really was the Christ, the Messiah they were waiting for. Jesus replied in essence, ‘Tell him to consider my miracles. Tell him what you’ve seen: the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the poor have good news preached to them.’
Strobel, still probing, raises the following question. Why would Matthew, who was an eyewitness to Jesus, incorporate part of a gospel written by Mark, who everyone agrees was not an eyewitness? Extremely good question. Blomberg retorts that the only way this makes sense is that Mark was basing his account on the recollections of the eyewitness Peter, who was among the select few to be in Jesus’ inner circle.
Strobel immediately makes sense of this by his experience as a journalist. One time, he recalls, fellow reporters of his cornered a famous public figure to get a statement. Strobel was far among the crowd, and although he could hear the statement of the public figure, he still went later to pay a visit to a fellow journalist that was closer to make sure he got everything right.
In the same way, it would make sense for Matthew, the eyewitness, in his quest for accuracy, to rely on Peter’s version of events as transmitted through Mark.
The unique perspective of John
At this point, Strobel was pretty satisfied with the answers from the synoptic gospels, which shared a similar outline and interrelationship. He had to turn his attention to John’s gospel to see if the obvious differences with the synoptic gospels account for important contradictions. Blomberg grants John’s gospel is “more different than similar” to the synoptics. For example, only a few stories that appear in the synoptics are included in John. There is no mention of the temptation of Jesus, his transfiguration, and the institution of the Lord’s supper. On top of that, John employs a totally different linguistic style. In John, Jesus speaks in long sermons and makes more blatant claims; being one with the Father; God himself; the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Blomberg explains that for many years the most common assumption to explain John’s differences was that he knew what Mark, Matthew and Luke wrote, so he found no need to repeat it. More recently however, New Testament scholars assume John is mainly an independent witness from the other three, which could justify “not only different choices of material but also the different perspectives on Jesus”.
Jesus’s most audacious claim
Strobel observes that there are theological rarities in John. Blomberg once again grants this point, but argues that they wouldn’t count as contradictions, as for every major distinctive in John, it is possible to find parallel stories in Mark, Matthew and Luke.
For example, John makes explicit claims of Jesus being God, which some think is due to him writing later than the others and exaggerating things. One, however, doesn’t have to look too far to find the allegations of Jesus’ deity in the synoptics. Matthew 14:22–33 and Mark 6:45–52 recount the story of the disciples being afraid after seeing Jesus walk on water.
Most Bible translations recount Jesus replying with ‘Fear not, it is I.’ while the actual Greek literally says ‘Fear not, I am’. These words, the ‘I am’, are identical to Jesus taking the divine name in John 8:58 and God revealing himself to Moses in Exodus 3:14.
Here Strobel asks for more examples. Blomberg is happy to grant his request and asks us to redirect our attention to Jesus’ most common name for himself in the synoptics: the Son of Man. But wait a minute, interrupts Strobel, as he pulls out the book A History of God by former nun Karen Armstrong, doesn’t it seem like the term ‘Son of Man’ simply shows the frailty of the human condition? Wouldn’t that prove that Jesus, by using it, accepts that he is just a human that would one day suffer and die, which just implies that it’s not really a name a divine being would take?
Blomberg, a little annoyed, replies that contrary to popular belief, the term ‘Son of Man’ that Jesus uses is a direct allusion to Daniel 7:13–14 from the Old Testament.
In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.
As Blomberg shut down his bible, he affirms that what Jesus is doing by applying the name to himself, is that he is approaching “God himself in his heavenly throne and is given universal authority and dominion”.
William Lane Craig, points out a similar argument in a later interview.
The Son of Man was a divine figure in the Old Testament book of Daniel who would come at the end of the world to judge mankind and rule forever. Thus, the claim to be the Son of Man would be in effect a claim to divinity.
From this point on, Blomberg continues by saying that in addition to associating with the term, Jesus claims to forgive sins in the synoptics, something only God can do. Jesus famously says, ‘Whoever acknowledges me, I will acknowledge before my Father in heaven.’ Therefore, Final judgment is based on one’s reaction to whom, exactly? A mere human being? That would be a ridiculous claim, argues Blomberg, who concludes that Final judgement is based on one’s reaction to Jesus as God.
The gospels’ theological agenda.
Strobel restarts the conversation by asking the following question. Doesn’t John, as an author of the last gospel (chronologically) write with a theological bent, making his material biased and less historically reliable?
Blomberg counters that it wouldn’t necessarily be the case. For example, Matthew, Mark and Luke each want to highlight different aspects.
Luke, the theologian of the poor and of social concern; Matthew, the theologian trying to understand the relationship of Christianity and Judaism; Mark, who shows Jesus as the suffering servant.
Strobel feels like Blomberg doesn’t address his point, so he asks again if these theological inclinations can cast doubt on their willingness to truthfully report what has happened? Would their theological agenda make them “color and twist the history they recorded” ?
Blomberg grants his point and says that it sure has to be a possibility, just like how we would consider any other ideological document. Our mistake, however, he claims, lies in the fact that we assume misrepresentation for ideological ends to always be the case. Blomberg adds to his earlier point that in the ancient world the idea of writing objective history merely to record events was “unheard of”. Nobody, during that time, wrote history if there wasn’t a reason to learn from it.
Strobel retorts that it would indeed make everything suspect.
Again, Blomberg grants his point, but stresses that if we can reconstruct “reasonably accurate history” from other ancient sources, we should be able to do the same with the gospel, albeit too “ideological”.
Blomberg counters with a modern parallel. For example, he says, some people (usually for anti-Semitic purposes) downplay the historical reality of the Holocaust. But who has created museums, written books, preserved artifacts and documented eyewitness testimony regarding the event? Jewish scholars! Indeed, they had an ideological purpose, to ensure that such horror never happens again, but can we accuse them of being unfaithful and nonobjective in their reporting of history? Absolutely not.
Likewise, Blomberg closes the argument by pointing out that Christianity has done the same thing by developing careful historical work to support the claim that God uniquely entered space and time in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
Hot news from history
Strobel continues by stating that the gospels being rooted in direct or indirect eyewitness testimony is very different from claiming that it was accurately preserved until being written down years later. This is a huge point, he argues, as he pulls out a passage from the previous A History of God.
We know very little about Jesus. The first full-length account of his life was St. Mark’s gospel, which was not written until about the year 70, some forty years after his death. By that time, historical facts had been overlaid with mythical elements which expressed the meaning Jesus had acquired for his followers. It is this meaning that St. Mark primarily conveys rather than a reliable straightforward portrayal.
Expanding on the passage, Strobel raises the problem of some scholars who claim that the gospels were written so much later down the line that the record was distorted, which would account for Jesus turning from a wise teacher into the Son of God.
Blomberg, using on his expertise, proposed two issues with the argument.
He begins by saying that standard scholarly dating, even of the most liberal form, puts Mark in the 70’s, Matthew and Luke in the 80’s and John in the 90’s. That is still in the lifetimes of various eyewitnesses of the life of Jesus, even hostiles ones who would have served as correctors to false teachings. Blomberg argues, that these dates aren’t late by historical standards.
He supports this claim by the first biographies of Alexander the Great, which were written by Arrian and Plutarch more than 400 years after Alexander’s death in 323 B.C. Yet history considers them reliable. Sure, Blomberg adds, there was some legendary material that was added, but it was only in the centuries after the two writers.
This means that for the first 500 years, Alexander’s story has been kept pretty much intact. It was only in the following 500 years that legends became to emerge.
What this means for the Bible is that the gospels being written sixty or thirty years after Jesus’ death is negligible by historical standards.
Strobel concedes the point but wants to know more of why Blomberg believes the gospels date even earlier.
Blomberg points us to the book of Acts, written by Luke. Acts ends unfinished. Paul, the central figure of the book is under arrest in Rome. The book abruptly ends, and we don’t find out what happened to Paul, likely because the book was written before Paul was put to death. This would mean that Acts couldn’t be dated later than A.D. 62. Blomberg adds that from here we can move backward to find out the rest.
Since Acts is the second of a two-part work, we know the first part — the gospel of Luke — must have been written earlier than that. And since Luke incorporates parts of the gospel of Mark, that means Mark is even earlier.
“If you allow maybe a year for each of those, you end up with Mark written no later than about A.D. 60, maybe even the late 50s. If Jesus was put to death in A.D. 30 or 33, we’re talking about a maximum gap of thirty years or so.”
Compared to Alexander the Great, that’s like a newsflash thinks Strobel to himself!
Going back to the beginning
Strobel hooked to probing Blomberg, continues by asking how early can we date the beliefs in Jesus’ atonement, resurrection and unique association with God.
Strobel begins by mentioning that the New Testament books are not in chronological order. Again, we have to go backward. The gospels were written after almost all of Paul’s letters, whose ministry began in the late 40s.
To find earlier information, we go to Paul’s epistles and see which sources he used. What we see is that Paul incorporated creeds, confessions of faith, or hymns from the earliest Christian church. These go as back as the early days of the church after the Resurrection. Blomberg mentions the following.
“The most famous creeds include Philippians 2:6–11, which talks about Jesus being ‘in very nature God,’ and Colossians 1:15–20, which describes him as being ‘the image of the invisible God,’ who created all things and through whom all things are reconciled with God ‘by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.’
Continuing his train of thought, Blomberg concedes that while significant in explaining the earliest Christians’ convictions about Jesus, the most relevant creed in terms of the historical Jesus is 1 Corinthians 15. This is where Paul uses specific language to indicate he was passing along this oral tradition.
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
Therefore, according to Blomberg, if the Crucifixion was as early as A.D. 30, Paul’s conversion was about 32. In Damascus, Paul met with a Christian named Ananias and some other disciples. His first meeting with the apostles in Jerusalem would have been about A.D. 35. At some point there, Paul was given this creed, which had already been formulated and was being used in the early church.
To this, Blomberg concludes that we have the key facts about Jesus’ death for our sins, plus a detailed list of those to whom he appeared in resurrected form — all dating back to within two to five years of the events.
This would mean that it would be virtually impossible for mythological twists to have appeared in the Gospel. Were not talking about more than half a decade down the road, but of Christian belief in the Resurrection, though not yet written down, dated to within two years of that very event.
“This is enormously significant,” Blomberg wraps up. Now we’re not comparing thirty to sixty years with the five hundred years that’s acceptable for similar data — we’re talking about two!”
At this point, Strobel admits he couldn’t deny the importance of that evidence.
It certainly seemed to take the wind out of the charge that the Resurrection — which is cited by Christians as the crowning confirmation of Jesus’ divinity — was merely a mythological concept that developed over long periods of time as legends corrupted the eyewitness accounts of Christ’s life. For me, this struck especially close to home — as a skeptic, that was one of my biggest objections to Christianity.
Closing questions to reflect upon.
These are questions found at the end of the chapter to help you process what you’ve just read. I would love to hear your thoughts about these in the comments section!
- How have your opinions been influenced by someone’s eyewitness account of an event? What are some factors you routinely use to evaluate whether someone’s story is honest and accurate? How do you think the gospels would stand up to that kind of scrutiny?
2. Do you believe that the gospels can have a theological agenda while at the same time being trustworthy in what they report? Why or why not? Do you find Blomberg’s Holocaust analogy helpful in thinking through this issue?
3. How and why does Blomberg’s description of the early information about Jesus affect your opinion about the reliability of the gospels?
