Christianity Considered 1

Christianity Considered 1 (Part 4)

What about the Bible?

In the last blog we suggested the biographies of the life of Jesus of Nazareth were reliable because they were written either by eye-witnesses or by those who received their information first hand from eye-witnesses. But that still leaves us with another question. Were the followers of Jesus themselves deceived ?

Were the disciples of Jesus subject to a deception?

This question has to be faced. If the biographies were, in fact, eye-witness accounts, were the writers themselves, subject to a deception? Were they gullible? Had they been deluded into believing Jesus was someone special? After all, it was 2,000 years ago, and isn’t commonly believed that people of that era were illiterate and uneducated? History presents a somewhat different picture.

Some 300 years before the birth of Christ, an order was given for the building of a great library in Alexandria. This world renowned library became a driving force for learning. Other libraries followed and education was highly valued. In the wake of this fresh impetus for learning, philosophical schools were set up by Plato and Aristotle, and their philosophies spread throughout the empire. It is no surprise that education was highly prized in Jesus’ day, especially among the Jews. Paul who wrote a substantial part of the New Testament was highly educated in three cultures, Roman, Greek and Jewish. The scholar F. F. Bruce, wrote of Paul: “I have learnt to regard Paul as the greatest man who ever wrote in Greek. If anyone should call him the greatest writer of all time, I would not dispute that claim.”

Luke, whom we have already met, was an educated Greek. Professor E. M. Blaiklock, who was a lecturer in the classics of Greece and Rome, and who had studied in that field for forty years, said: “Luke is a consummate historian, to be ranked in his own right with the great writers of the Greeks.” Matthew, writer of the first gospel, was a civil servant, an employee in the custom and excise department of the government of Rome. He kept records, calculated taxes and collected money. Even a cursory reading of the New Testament will demonstrate that the people who testified to the facts of the life of Jesus were neither fools nor gullible. This leads us to ask a further question.

Were the followers of Jesus deceivers ?

If the followers of Jesus were not deceived, could it be that they themselves were deceivers? Did they engage in a conspiracy to raise Jesus to a figure of legend? The answer must be an emphatic ‘No!’ Everything we know about them marks them out as honest men. And besides, all were persecuted for their faith, and most were martyred. It is highly unlikely that they would die for a lie. And considering the numbers involved, at least one would have broken ranks and recanted. But none did!

The absence of fictitious material

In support of the belief that the writers of the life of Christ were neither deceivers nor deceived, it could be asserted that there is a distinct lack of fanciful material in the New Testament record. What is commonly called "myth", i.e. fable or legend, is conspicuous by its absence. Many who work in the field of ancient literature have commented on this. Archibald Rutledge wrote: “For more than 30 years it was my chief business in life to study and try to teach literature. To anyone earnestly so engaged there naturally comes a certain ability to distinguish the genuine from the spurious, the authentic from the invented. Every time I read the Gospels I am pressed more deeply with the conviction that the narratives concerning Christ do not belong to the realms of fancy, tradition or folklore…The incidents are such that they could never have been invented; and their effect on the world for 2,000 years has been such as no inventions could have produced. These stories possess that patent transparent validity that belongs only to truth.”

C. S. Lewis, who was professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at the University of Cambridge, wrote of his conversion to Christianity in his autobiography, ‘Surprised by Joy’: “I was by now too experienced in literary criticism to regard the Gospels as myths. They had not the mythical taste...nothing else in all literature was just like this … And no person was like the Person it depicted; as real, as recognisable, through all the depths of time, as Plato's Socrates or Boswell's Johnson, yet also numinous, lit by a light from beyond the world, a god. But if a god—we are no longer polytheists—then not a god, but God. Here and here only in all time the myth must have become fact; the Word, flesh; God, Man.”

Christianity Considered 1. (Part 3)

What about the Bible?

In the last blog we raised the question, 'are the biographies of Jesus reliable' and considered John's gospel, which contained the record of an eye-witness. This time we will examine Luke's biography, who obtained his material from those personally involved with Jesus.

The biography written by Luke

It is widely accepted that Luke was an educated Greek, and a doctor by profession. He wrote two books; the first giving a history of the life of Jesus of Nazareth from His birth to His death and resurrection; the second describes many of the events experienced by the early church during the first thirty years of its existence. The two books together, his gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, account for some forty percent of the New Testament. The value of his contribution to the canon of Scripture cannot be over-estimated.

Luke, begins his gospel, by claiming that because of the information and knowledge that he had at his fingertips, (as a result of contacts and relationships), he was well suited to write a biography of the Messiah. He said, “Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed.” (Luke 1:1-4)

Luke's record as an historian

Since Luke’s contribution to the New Testament is substantially that of an historian, we can narrow our question a little further. In this specialist field what is his reputation? The answer is, that his ability as an historian has been amply documented. There are numerous instances where he refers to rulers and historical events in his two books. These can be, and have been, tested from other sources. Invariably they have been found to be accurate. Examples include:

(i) a reference to Philippian rulers as ‘praetors’,
(ii) his choice of the word ‘proconsul’ as the title for Gallio in Corinth (Acts 18.12),
(iii) his describing of Publius as ‘the leading man of the island’ in Malta (Acts 28.7), and
(iv) his use of ‘politarchs’ to denote the civil authorities of Thessalonica. (Acts 17.8)

He gets no less than fifteen Roman governor titles right. His accuracy extends in other directions also. For example, the description of his sea voyage with Paul to Rome, and their shipwreck on Malta, in Acts 27, has been called "one of the most instructive documents for the knowledge of ancient seamanship" that we possess (Holtzmann).

Sir William Ramsay, Professor of Classical Art and Architecture at Oxford University, an eminent archaeologist and holder of numerous doctorates said, the account of the voyage as a whole is commonly accepted by critics as the most trustworthy part of Acts”.

The distinguished Roman historian A. N. Sherwin-White said of Acts: “Any attempt to reject its basic historicity, even in matters of detail, must now appear absurd.” The historical accuracy demonstrated in the Acts of the Apostles has been widely accepted, but the question remains, can we be as confident about his record of the life of Jesus? F. F. Bruce, a highly respected Classical and New Testament scholar, can answer this query for us. “A man whose accuracy can be demonstrated in matters where we are able to test it is likely to be accurate even where the means for testing him are not available. Accuracy is a habit of mind...Luke's record entitles him to be regarded as a writer of habitual accuracy.” In other words, Luke’s biography of Jesus can be trusted.