Do the Gospels contain the real teaching of Jesus Christ?
Sceptics claim that the Gospels were written late and have little connection to the life and teaching of Jesus. The evidence disagrees.
The evidence of the Gospels is that we have accurate reports from people who knew what Jesus had said or done. Here is some of that evidence.
● The date of the Gospels: The Gospels were written within 40 years of the crucifixion. This means that many of the witnesses to the original events would still be alive when they were written. In particular many of the original disciples of Jesus, and many of the Priests and Pharisees who opposed him would be alive and would be able to notice any discrepancies between the Gospel accounts and the reality that they would remember.
• When the Gospels were written
● Correspondence with known facts: The Gospels contain descriptions of places, people and customs which can be tested against archaeology and ancient literature. The correspondence between the two is remarkably good, even in small details. In 66AD a war began between the Jewish nations in Palestine and the Romans. This war caused a complete change to the area, with cities razed to the ground, the population deported and the customs and manner of life of the area completely disrupted. It would have been almost impossible to reconstruct the detail of the Gospels once the Jewish War was over.
● Language detail: Jesus would have spoken Aramaic for at least part of the time; the region of Lower Galilee was effectively bilingual in Aramaic and Greek. The Gospels were written in Greek but contain a few words of Aramaic and many more indications which indicate that some of the sayings of Jesus were originally pronounced in Aramaic or Hebrew. It would have been difficult for anyone in a Greek church to invent this kind of language.
● The individual style of Jesus: When one looks at the words of Jesus one finds characteristics in them which were not common in the ancient world. Jesus often begins his sentences with the word “Amen”; the usual style would be to put this at the end of a statement. Jesus often delivers his teaching using poetic forms which are absent in such things as the speeches of Acts, the letters, or the writings of early church fathers, and do not appear in literature outside the Bible. Jesus uses a large number of parables or parable-like sayings; nothing like them appears in other writings of the time, inside or outside the church.
Taken together, this evidence indicates that not only do we have accurate records of the actions of Jesus, but also of the words of Jesus. We can be assured that the Gospels provide us with an accurate picture of Jesus, his actions and his teaching.
This video is produced by the Gospel Online project which is arranged and supported by the Christadelphian community in the United Kingdom.
For further discussion of the date, see this video:
For more information visit: https://www.gospelonline.co.uk/
Online course on the basics of the Gospel:
https://www.gospelonline.co.uk/online-course-introduction
