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Was
Jesus just a myth?
The Gospels as history - date of authorship According to
the Christian church, the four Gospels were written by the apostles
and/or those under the direction of the apostles of Jesus. That
means that they were written under direction of eyewitnesses of the
actual events. Also, none of the gospels mention the destruction
of the Jewish temple in 70 A.D. This is significant because
Jesus had prophesied concerning the temple when He said "As for these things which you are
looking at, the days will come in which there will not be left one stone
upon another which will not be torn down," (Luke
21:5, see
also
Matt. 24:1;
Mark 13:1). If the gospels
had been written after that date and if they were fabrications, then
surely they would have contained the account of the fall of Jerusalem
and the destruction of the temple which are known historical facts.
Yet, Matthew, Mark, and Luke contain no such information. Luke
was written before Acts (Acts 1:14). The book of Acts, a
history of the Christian church, which doesn't mention the fall of
Jerusalem either, nor does it record the deaths of Paul, James, and
Peter which all happened in the early 60's. This means that Acts
was written at least by A.D. 62 and Luke was written before that.
Therefore, the time between the events and the writings is around 30
years. This further means that the eyewitnesses were around who
could have corrected any statements written in the gospels. Yet,
we have absolutely no corrective or contradictory writings from that
time, from anyone, denying the accounts of the gospels. For more
information on this please see
When were the gospels
written and by whom? The Gospels as history - historical content The gospels do not have the sense of myth. If anything, they are written as eyewitness accounts. Consider the first four verses of the gospel of Luke which clearly states that it is a researched document.
This is not how myths are made. This is how you uncover evidence and record it. Luke examined the witnesses, interviewed them, and checked out the facts. In Luke 2:1-2, we have historically verifiable information: "Now it came about in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. 2This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria." Also, see Luke 3:1-2, "Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, 2in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness." We clearly see numerous historical statements that have been verified through archaeology. This is precise record keeping, not extravagant additions. In fact, "Sir William Ramsey has shown that in making reference to 32 countries, 54 cities, and 9 islands he made no mistakes!" 1 Sir William Ramsey (1851-1939) was a classical scholar and archaeologist. He taught at Oxford England, Aberdeen. He authored several scholarly books dealing with archaeology and had a major influence upon it as a science.Nevertheless, there are many verifiable things found in the gospel accounts.
There are many many more citations verified by archaeology that demonstrate the accuracy of the gospels. When they mention events dealing with rulers, places, events like a census, who was governor, etc., they are all accurate historically. The Gospels as history - accuracy of transmission A very
important issue is whether or not the Gospels have been accurately
transmitted from the original writings down to the copies that we have
today. Yes, they have been accurately transmitted to us. The
truth is that the New Testament documents are 99.5% textually pure.
This means that only 1/2 of 1% of all the documents, of all the copies
in existence has any question about the text. If this is
compared to any other ancient writing, the New Testament comes out way
ahead. See
Manuscript
evidence for superior
*For a
larger, more complete chart please see
Manuscript
evidence for superior Miscellaneous Information Noted Oxford expert on literature and myths, C. S. Lewis, said, "I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this [the Gospels]."2Regarding the gospel of Mark. "A date before a.d. 50 leaves no time for mythological embellishment of the records. They would have to be accepted as historical."3 "New Testament books appeared within the lifetime of eyewitnesses and contemporaries. Luke was written by about 60, only twenty-seven years after Jesus’ death, before Acts in 60–62 (see Hemer, all). First Corinthians was written by 55–56, only twenty-two or twenty-three years after Jesus’ death (cf. 1 Cor. 15:6-8). Even radical New Testament scholar John A. T. Robinson dates basic Gospel records between 40 and 60...there is no time or way for a legend to develop while the eyewitnesses were still alive to refute the story."4 Conclusion
There is no reason to doubt the reality of Jesus as a historic
figure. The gospel accounts are four different accounts from four
different people. They were penned by
either eyewitnesses or under the direction of the eyewitnesses. These
same gospels were distributed throughout the region very quickly and we
have no account anywhere on any of the contemporaries attempting to
refute any of the facts written in them -- including those accounts
dealing with the miracles of Jesus.
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