May 16, 2004

 

Luke 1:1-4             Note:  “handed on” “eyewitnesses” “investigated everything carefully” 

John 20:30-31        Purpose: “have life in his name”

John 21:24-25        Note: this book comes from the disciple – either himself or someone writing down his testimony

I John 1:1-4           (p. 211)  heard, seen, touched

 

Are the Gospels reliable?  Are they accurate?  Are they trustworthy?  They certainly claim to be.

 

Luke says wants us to know the Truth – the Truth about Christ.

He wants us to know the Truth “about which you have been instructed.”

He researched carefully including eyewitness testimony, so that we might know the truth.

He wants us to know that it’s true.

 

John wants us to have “life in Christ’s name” – new life, abundant life, life from above, life from God within, through the Spirit.  He also wants us to know that it’s true – “this is the disciple who wrote these things down and testifies to them.  And we know that his testimony is true.”

 

In I John, John wants us to share in his fellowship with God and make his joy overflow to us by believing.  He says, these teaching about Jesus are not hearsay.  He says, “I’m only telling you what I heard and saw.”  He too wants us to know that it’s true.

 

The Gospels have come under attack in recent years.  We talked last week about Dan Brown’s book, The Da Vinci Code, a wonderfully written and thoroughly entertaining book.  Yet this systematically sets out to undermine the reliability & authority of the scriptures.

 

A few years ago there was also a group of college religion professors – those his teach comparative religion courses in secular settings tend to only look at the scriptures in a critical, disbelieving manner.  These professors called themselves The Jesus Seminar, and at their meetings they voted on which passages they thought Jesus actually said and which ones the church made up.  In other generations they would have called that blasphemous.

 

When I read Luke I & see Luke’s desire to tell us the truth, and I read John 21 and see that the account is based on a disciple’s testimony, I’m compelled to believe them, and to trust what they wrote.  Someone said to me, “It would take more of a leap of faith to believe the critics and to believe Dan Brown’s theories.”  Sometimes the skeptics take bigger leaps of faith than believers!

 

Another challenge to the faith in recent years has been what are called the Gnostic Gospels – other so-called gospels because they use the word gospel in the title.  But they were written much later than our 4 gospels.  And they are very different.

 

The Gospel of Thomas contains 114 sayings attributed to Jesus.

 

My favorite professor in seminary, Dr. Bruce Metzger translated the Gospel of Thomas into English.  He is very familiar with its content and believes that it did not make it into the New Testament for obvious reasons.  It was written in 140 AD (50 –100 years after the gospels).

 

It did not have a connection to an Apostle – Apostolic Authority.  It contains pantheism – the notion that God is not a distinct personality or being, but just part of nature.  This is contrary to Old and New Testament teaching.  The Gospel of Thomas also ends with these words: “Let Mary go away from us, because women are not worthy of life.”  Jesus is also quoted as saying, “Lo, I shall lead her in order to make her a male, so that she too may become a living spirit, resembling you males.”  As Dr. Metzger says, “This is certainly not the Jesus we know from the four canonical gospels.”

 

Lee Strobel in The Case for Christ: “The Gospel of Thomas excluded itself! It did not harmonize with other testimony about Jesus that early Christians accepted as trustworthy.”

 

How the Gospels Came to Be

 

Jesus’ Teaching Methods

          Picturesque speech – spec & log in eye

          Puns – Petros & Petra, Peter & Rock

          Proverbs – “Judge not, lest you too be judged”

          Poetry – Luke 6:27-28, Mark 8:35, Luke 17:26

          Parables – the most striking feature of his teaching

 

All of the above would assist the disciples in remembering his teachings, especially when you consider that Jesus repeated himself on a number of occasions.  Repetition promotes retention.

 

The Jesus Tradition

- that which was “handed down” and “spread “into all the world”

 

          Ancient disciples memorized their rabbi’s teaching

          Disciples had to fully understand their rabbi’s teaching

          Accurate transmission was the standard

          Written material (since lost) existed before the Gospels were written

          Stories & teachings were preserved for their relevance in the Early Church

          Stories & teachings were used as Early Church sermon material

 

The Gospels

John and Matthew were eyewitnesses.  John 21:24

Mark records Peter’s account.

Luke, not an eyewitness, researches his account. Luke 1

The Synoptics (“seeing together”) – Matthew, Mark, Luke

 

                    Matthew                    Q "Unknown Source"

                      Mark                                Luke

 

 

The current theory is that Mark’s Gospel was written first. Matthew & Luke apparently had Mark in front of them when they wrote their gospels because they incorporated much of Mark. Out of the 666 verse of Mark, 600 of them are found in Matthew, 350 are found in Luke.

 

“Q” stands for an “unknown source” that Matthew & Luke apparently had. These 200 verses are found in almost identical form in Matthew and Luke, but not in Mark. They contain some of Jesus’ most famous teachings – the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord’s Prayer, and many of the parables.

 

Are The Gospel Documents Reliable?

 

8 Reasons to say “Yes”

 

The Rabbinical Method of Teaching was thorough and intense.  Jewish Rabbi’s made their disciples memorize their teachings verbatim.  An emphasis was placed on understanding what they had memorized.

 

Eyewitnesses were still alive as the documents were being written and circulated.  They would have strongly objected to false material.

 

The willingness of the disciples to undergo persecution and martyrdom shows their belief in the truthfulness of what they were reporting.

 

The writers of the NT resisted the temptation to change embarrassing statements.  This shows their commitment to accuracy.

 

    Mark 9:1          “some will not pass away before the Kingdom comes in power.”

 

    Matthew 1        This genealogy is not correct.  Someone could have corrected it.

                  

They preserved words they could not begin to understand.  Jesus’ treatment of women & children was not comprehended by the early church, yet they recorded his words.

 

Jesus said we must become like a child.

Paul says don’t be like little children

Ancient culture ignored children as unimportant.

         

They preserved things that at the time of writing were no longer applicable to the early church.

 

Ex. Temple Tax

Ex.  Jesus’ instruction to the disciples not to go to the Samaritans or Gentiles.

 

The writers could have written answers into the mouth of Jesus to problems they were facing in the early church.  But they did not.

 

The Gospel writers could have written some of Paul’s memorable sayings back into the words of Jesus.  But they did not.

 

This handout comes from several lectures given by Dr. Bruce M. Metzger, Professor of New Testament, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Chair of the Committee of Translators for the RSV and NRSV Bibles.

 

Let me close with two things. First a quote from a Swedish scholar named Birger Gerhardsson in his book, The Origins of the Gospel Traditions.

 

“I hope that I have been able to point to reasons for the viewpoint that in the Gospels we hear not only a whisper of the voice of Jesus, but are confronted with faithfully preserved words from the mouth of Jesus and reports which in the end go back to those who were with Jesus during his ministry in Galilee and Jerusalem.”

 

And finally back to Dr. Metzger . . .

 

Lee Strobel interviewed Bruce Metzger for Strobel’s excellent book, The Case for Christ. He writes about the end of the interview this way:

 

As we stood, I thanked Dr. Metzger for his time and expertise.  He smiled warmly and offered to walk me downstairs. I didn’t want to consume any more of his Saturday afternoon, but my curiosity wouldn’t let me leave Princeton without satisfying myself about one remaining issue.

 

“All these decades of scholarship, of study, of writing textbooks, of delving into the minutiae of the New Testament text – what has all this done to your personal faith?” I asked.  “Oh,” he said, sounding happy to discuss the topic, “it has increased the basis of my personal faith to see the firmness with which these materials have come down to us, with a multiplicity of copies, some of which are very, very ancient.”

 

“So,” I started to say, “Scholarship has not diluted your faith – “He jumped in before I could finish my sentence.  “On the contrary,” he stressed, “it has built it. I’ve asked questions all my life, I’ve dug into the text, I’ve studied this thoroughly, and today I know with confidence that my trust in Jesus has been well placed.”

 

He paused while his eyes surveyed my face.  Then he added, for emphasis, “Very well placed.”

 

And that’s the point.