28 Dec The Gospels as True Literature
Introduction
The Gospels are true literature composed in the 1st century AD, and if that is factual there would be historical implications of the writing manifest. Therefore, a careful examination will be verified to see if a successful omission of their work is possible to understand the Greco-Roman world. Moreover, if Gospel literature is not of high value than the contextual information inside of the New Testament is unreliable and Christianity is grossly flawed because none of those events can be deemed as realistic. Is there a linearity to history that incorporates the gospels or are the gospels a quasi-form of competing literary histories that do not define ultimate reality? We shall see if the New Testament events fit in a realistic timeline considered genuine or are they mythical embellishments without any kind of archeological or historicalimplications?
By demonstrating the Gospel literature is genuinely true, I will move into their effects of different writers and communities who were greatly affected by them using a cursory historical method. Interestingly, scholars like Erhman acknowledge that the Gospels depict the historical record on the life and times of Jesus who is a real historical figure, and so commonsensically the value of the Gospels as a body of literature provide credibility.[1]
Aramaic in Judea?
Because Jesus was fluent in Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek, it is a reminder that being multilingual was a common factor in the region of Judea. Being multicultural and multiethnic was the norm, but to be multireligious was not the message of the early Christians who were preaching Jesus was uniquely different than all other men, he was the Son of God, in a polytheistic Hellenized world that was rife with idolatry.
Now, what is unique about the language of Aramaic is it is an older language than Hebrew,though they are cognates. Josh Mcdowell writes, “Aramaic has perhaps the longest continuous living history of any language known.”[2]The book of Job was written in Aramaic. To this day, there are Syriac Christians who can speak Aramaic so it is not a language that has died out.[3] It fully exists. Moreover, the significance of Aramaic spoken in Judea is due to the reality that the Jews were acquainted with the language. In many ways Aramaic was the language of the ruled, while Latin was the language of the Roman overlords, and Greek the language of culture and trade. A few examples of Jesus using Aramaic is talitha koum in Mark 5:14, and eloieloi lama sabachtani(My God why have you forsaken me?) in Matthew 27:46.
When diving into the OT, we know the patriarchs spoke Aramaic, Jacob is described as, “A wandering Aramean was my father” in Deuteronomy 26:5. Dr. Benner states, “When you review the ancient Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic lexicon they are the same.”[4]Solomon could speak Aramaic, during the time of Hezekiah they spoke Aramaic, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Don’t speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall” (Isaiah 36:11). Furthermore, the Targums -Aramaic phrases found in the Dead Sea Scrolls date to 2nd century BC.[5] Considering the oldest Syriac Peshitta (Aramaic) manuscript has survived since 464 AD there is conclusive evidence that the Gospels are genuinely true concerning Jesus’s ability to speak Aramaic.
Herod’s Legacy
The Gospels record Jesus lived during the time of the Herod’s. Matthew 2:1 says, “Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king,” If this is an aberration there should be no buildings, monuments, or coins pertaining to rule of the Herod’s. Unfortunately, for skeptics that is not the case. The palace of Herod the Great was discovered in 1838 in Israel. It is known as Herodium and is a biblical landmark in Israel. To witness the palace,visit the Herodyan National Park.[6]
Now, for the Gospels to be truthful, Herod the Great must be a historical figure who existed. If he does not exist than the palace bearing his name is a geographical hoax, and the New Testament is unreliable. Once again, the Gospels must pass historical criticism to be authentically reliable documents in the 1st century. One thing to note, Herod the Great was attributed to being a prolific builder. TheAmphora fragment bears theLatin inscription, “Belonging to Herod king of Judea.”[7]
The Gospels reference a specific year in mind found in John 2:20, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” It was the very temple that Herod commissioned to be rebuilt for the Jews. Josephus called the temple “a snow-covered mountain it was so white.[8] Jesus prophesied about the full destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here on another that will not be thrown down!”(Matthew 13:2). Jesus’s short-term prophecy came to fruition less than forty years later when the temple of Jerusalem was fully destroyed in 70 AD by the forces of general Titus Caesar.[9]No one can deny the destruction of the Jewish temple, the event is heavily attested.
Roman Rule; Greek World
Dr. Michael Licona, the author of The Resurrection of Jesus, states, “There is somewhat of a consensus among contemporary scholars that the Gospels belong to the genre of Greco-Roman biography.”[10] Bart Ehrman is a New Testament scholar who teaches at UNC Chapel Hill, albeit an agnostic writes inhis book Did Jesus Exist,vigorously defends there is a historical Jesus,
I can show why at least one set of skeptical claims about the past history of our civilization is almost certainly wrong, even though these claims are seeping into the popular consciousness at an alarming rate. Jesus existed, and those vocal persons who deny it do so not because they have considered the evidence with the dispassionate eye of the historian, but because they have some other agenda that this denial serves. From a dispassionate point of view, there was a Jesus of Nazareth.[11]
For Licona who is Christian and Ehrman an agnostic to be right, they must be reading the same sources. Ehrman even states, “doubting the reality of Paul as a person would amount to denying virtually everything, we think we know about the Roman world.”[12] Now, the best Roman source for the historicity of Jesus in the New Testament Gospels would be Publius Cornelius Tacitus, a first century Roman historian and politician who is widely considered an exceptional historian. He authored an original work TheAnnalsthat has survived known as M.S., but many question if it could be a forgery, but that is highly unlikely because Tacitus despised the Christians, so why would he write about them?
Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.[13]
Notice how Tacitus connects Christus (Jesus) with Tiberius and Pontius Pilate with the “extreme penalty” known as Roman crucifixion. If Tiberius does not exist Tacitus is lying, and if Pilate is a figment of imagination than the gospels do not agree with a secular Roman historian named Tacitus who wrote his Annalsaround 109 BC after the time of Jesus Christ. The sequence of events lines up. Moreover, in the Gospels there are Greeks who interacted with Jesus. (John 12:20-23). So how Greek is the New Testament? First of all, the best evidence is that it was written in Greek. Second, there are Greek writers quoted in the NT: Epimenides, Menander, Aratus, and Aeschylusare mentioned.[14]Third, there are manuscript copies in Greek. Fourth, there are elements of the New Testament that respond to the writings of Philo of Alexandria who was a contemporary of Jesus, but a Hellenized Jew living in Egypt.[15] In Acts 18, Apollos was aAlexandrian Jew who gained his learning at the library of Alexandria. Last but not least, there is a Greco-Roman amphitheater located in Beth-Shean in Israel.[16] I have personally been to it.
The Archeology of Tiberius and Pilate
The Pilate inscription says, “Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea” offering hard evidence for existence of Pilate, it honors non-other than Tiberius Caesar who is a contemporary of Jesus of Nazareth depicted in the Gospels. The evidence cannot be disregarded because it associates Pilate with Judea. The ancient artefact is stored at the Israel Museum in Israel and was recently discovered in 1961.[17]
Luke 3:1 says, “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee.” The reign of the Roman Emperor Tiberius spans from14 to 37 AD.[18]Pilate was prefect around the time of 26-36 AD. Notice, how the death of Jesus Christ occurs around 33 AD, fitting perfectly between the lives of these two Roman men whom the Gospels refer to.
In 64 AD, Nero blamed the Christians for a fire that took place in Rome. Already the name Christian was being used for people who believed in Christ which demonstrates the Gospels are reliable. It is because of Christ’sRoman crucifixion and miraculous resurrection the Christian message was validated even to the degree Paul and Peter were killed in Rome.
To this day, Peter is venerated as the first Bishop of Rome. That is how far Christianity spread in the Roman world. How would a skeptic eliminate the historicity of the Papacy when it is still exists to this day? Paradoxically, numerous individuals believe Christians are delusional for believing in the Gospel events concerning the death and resurrection of Jesus, but that the linearity of that history continues to win in the competition of divergent past historical realities. Logically speaking, when Constantine a Roman Emperor became a Christian, he issued an edict that the entire Roman world became Christian. Here’s the catch, it is not because Christianity was a powerful nation state, it was not up to that point, it was because it was predicated on a true historical Jesus, who actually did the things that were written about him in the Gospels, and that is why the faith grew to be legitimized around the world. The word Roman was associated with Christian in the years to come because of the Western and Eastern Roman Empire. Evans states, “the story cannot be true of course if it is not coherent.”[19]
Josephus, Paul, and Crucifixion
Was a Jew named Jesus crucified in Jerusalem at the hands of the Romans in the region of Judea? The Garden Tomb is located outside Jerusalem’s city walls near the Damascus Gate, beside Golgotha an Aramaic word that means skull.[20] It is a tourist site for anyone to visit in Israel to validate the burial location of Jesus. John 19:41 says, “Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. So, because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.”
Excavations in the area of Givat HaMivtar, Jerusalem uncovered a heel bone with a spike driven in it, having an engraving of a man named “Yehohanan” in the ossuary found in 1968 – more direct evidence of Roman crucifixion in Judea. Josephus is unquestionably the finest literary source for Roman crucifixion in Judea. He was a contemporary of Paul and an eyewitness to the crucifixion process. If Josephus is lying than all of his work cannot be trusted and interestingly, he has a Roman first name Flavius. The citation is his interaction with none other the destroyer of the temple in Jerusalem – Titus Caesar and his direct reference to Jesus is called the Testimonium Flavianum.
And when I was sent by Titus Caesar with Cerealins, and a thousand horsemen, to a certain village called Thecoa, in order to know whether it were a place fit for a camp, as I came back, I saw many captives crucified, and remembered three of them as my former acquaintance.
At this time there was a wise man called Jesus, and his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. Many people among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. But those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. And the tribe of the Christians, so named after him, has not disappeared to this day.[21]
Conclusion:
To eliminate the Gospels would mean to eliminate the histories of numerous individuals in that period of history. It would also relegate the preaching of the gospel as vain. Josephus, Tacitus, and Suetonius would be liars. Paul was a Roman citizen who stated, “And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith” (I Cor. 15:14). The value of Gospel literature is it populates the mind with authentic information in the Greco-Roman world that cannot be divorced because a modern in the 21st century would like to cancel the genuine historical past, but here we see Jesus’s death spearheads the history of the world as we know it. Because the Bible is the trunk of history, and all other histories are the leaves and branches.
[1] Kostenberger et al, Truth in a Culture of Doubt: Engaging Skeptical Challenges of the Bible, 58.
[2] Mcdowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World, 6.
[3]Ibid., 50.
[4]Benner, The Ancient Hebrew Language and Alphabet: Understanding the Ancient Hebrew Language of the Bible Based on Ancient Hebrew Culture and Thought, 45-86.
[5]Ibid.,7.
[6] Kreiger, “Finding King Herod’s Tomb.”
[7]Graves, The Archaeology of the New Testament: 75 Discoveries that Support the Reliability of the Bible, 68.
[8] Josephus, Jewish War, 5,223).
[9] Mcdowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World, 228.
[10] Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus a New Historiographical Approach, 34.
[11] Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, 7.
[12] Oakes, John. Did Jesus Ever Mention Paul in his Writings? May 1, 2016.
[13] Tacitus. TheAnnals, Book 15
[14] Porter, How We Got the New Testament: Text, Transmission, Translation, 42.
[15] Mcdowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World, 40.
[16] Graves, The Archaeology of the New Testament: 75 Discoveries that Support the Reliability of the Bible, 70.
[17] Ibid., 75.
[18] Shotter, 42.
[19] Evans, The Historical Jesus and the Christ of Faith, 302.
[20] Dickson, Jesus: A Short Life, 56.
[21] Josephus, Antiquities, 18.63.
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