Vol.8 No.1

Did Eyewitnesses Write the Gospels?

The search for the historical Jesus continues among higher critics of the Bible, who evaluate biblical manuscripts using the same literary standards as they would evaluate Shakespeare, or any other writer. The thirty judges from the Jesus Seminar have already thrown out the testimonies of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John on the Nativity, the Resurrection, the Sermon on the Mount, and other aspects of the gospel account. Recently they added Judas’ betrayal to the list.

The self-appointed Seminar is editing a book summarizing the group’s three-year historical analysis which they believe exposes the Gospel stories of Jesus as inauthentic. The accounts, they allege, were not written by first century eyewitnesses, but by second or third century Christians trying to lend credence to their belief system. By inference, Christians’ picture of Christ may be radically misguided.

Despite this nefarious work, another biblical scholar is presenting evidence to show that St. Matthew could have been an eyewitness of Jesus’ life.  Carsten Peter Thiede, a German Papyrologist, believes the Magdalen Papyruses are actually the oldest extant fragments of the New Testament, dating from about A.D. 70. He presents two interesting details about the manuscripts to support his views. First, the style of handwriting on the manuscript was not used after the first century. Second, the manuscript is in a format that he believes he can prove was not in use after the first century.

In three places on the manuscript the name of Jesus is written as KS, an abbreviation of the Greek work Kyrios, or Lord. Thiebe contends that this shorthand is proof that early Christians considered Jesus a sacred name, much the way devout Jews emphasized the holiness of Jehovah or YHWH. Thus the divinity of Jesus, he argues, was not a second century doctrine, but a first century doctrine. He writes, “If the Gospels are more authentic than we thought, then perhaps the gap between the Jesus of history and the Christ of Faith is not as great as academics have claimed. . . .” Thiede believes time will prove that all four gospels were written in the first century. Time, April 8, 1996.

LG comments:  There is no power in a gospel that is merely legendary or mythological. The Apostle Peter wrote: “For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. . . .We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts” (2 Peter 1:16, 19).