CHAPTER 1 –

The Gospels at test

 

 

 

 

Preconceptions

 

In the foreword, it was mentioned that some researchers challenge the historical accuracy of the Bible. They may think that its stories are untrue, or that they are only religious descriptions that formed gradually and have been shaped over time.

   It is common for " higher criticism" to have one feature: several researchers have beforehand decided what can happen and what cannot happen. They decide – before beginning their research – that nothing supernatural is acceptable. They do not even allow for the possibility:

 

The liberal theologians who appear in the media nowadays do not even try to find out, in the light of historical evidence, whether the Bible's view about the supernatural Jesus is right or not. They start by assuming that it is wrong. That is why they only try to find out how the (in their opinion) mythical picture of Jesus in the Bible was formed. They must somehow explain how an ordinary man, in the minds of his successors, was transformed into the Son of God, who is said to have claimed to be God and work wonders and even rise from the dead.

   The starting point for these researchers is that the Gospels cannot be true! They start from the idea that things like being born from a virgin, miraculous healing and rising from the dead cannot happen and that is why they have to explain why the early successors of Jesus supposed that these things happened. The simple and reasonable explanation that these matters really have happened is not regarded as a plausible “excuse”. (1)

 

As comes to Jesus, some researchers have presented "with certainty" and omnisciently that the special things that happened in Jesus' life, such as being born from a virgin, the resurrection, and others, cannot be true as they do not suit the current "scientific world view".

  In the preface of his famous book The Life of Jesus, D.F. Strauss addresses this issue well. He is perhaps a typical example of the prevailing attitude among many researchers:

 

In brief, we can reject all miracles, prophesies and accounts about angels and demons and also everything that is simply impossible and in conflict with the well-known and universal laws that guide events.

 

Also well-known theologian Adolf von Harnack comments on the same issue:

 

We are completely convinced that everything happening in time and space take place subject to the laws of nature. Any "miracles" that break the order of nature cannot happen. (Adolf von Harnack, What is Christianity?, p. 28-29, New York, Putnam, 1901)

 

The fact that some researchers may say that no miracles or supernatural events can have happened is, however, a very bold and contradictory claim. It is based on their preconceptions and not on what we can really be sure about. Whenever someone makes such claims, the person presenting the claim should have unlimited knowledge of world history. If someone claims, “I know that miracles cannot happen”, it is the same as if he were saying that he knows all the events that took place in the history of the world. This person would need to know everything that has ever taken place, perfectly.

   But what is the truth? Is it not a fact that each of us knows only a tiny part of all that has happened? Thus, if the circle below describes all the events that have occurred in the history of the world, we see that the portion we know is tiny. It is impossible for us to know what is possible based on this tiny area:

Therefore, we must understand that the previous view of researchers is based only on their own preconceptions and on nothing sure and real. They are "children of their time," as anybody else and that is why they believe this:

 

Socrates: That is exactly my question, professor – miracles. I believe that it is an even more important question than any of the ones you discussed in your lecture, albeit it was perfect. Do actual miracles ever take place? And how can we know whether they take place or not? How can we find the truth as comes to this question?

Professor: An extremely good question, Socrates. But in my opinion, my lecture already explained it quite perfectly.

Socrates: Then I must have missed it because I thought that it did not give any answers. In my opinion, your lecture only dealt with the history of opinions between science and religion.

Professor: Quite so, both miracles and supernatural issues. I tried to indicate how belief in miracles always rises in pre-scientific times and disappears in scientific times, such as during our own time. The heart of the matter is, in my opinion, quite simple and apparent.

Socrates: My goodness, I am afraid that you have a real numskull on your hands, professor. Because I really do not understand how – as a result of the fact that many people do not believe in miracles nowadays – it logically comes that miracles have never taken place.

Professor: I do not mean that.

Socrates: Well, good then. I was hoping that I had misunderstood you.

Professor: Why is that?

Socrates: Because that argument would assume that everything in which people do not believe anymore has never existed. An extremely odd supposition, which would mean that we can change the world merely by changing our beliefs, and even change the past.

Professor: Change the past?

Socrates: Yes, if you claim that miracles have never taken place in the past because scientific people in the present age do not believe in them.

Tuomas: Socrates, that is not fair. You make the professor's claim look foolish.

Socrates: My purpose is quite the opposite – to hold him clearly apart from the foolish, not to ensnare him in it. (…) (2)

 

Who can be A witness?

 

It is good to note that if, for example, the resurrection of Jesus or being born from a virgin or other similar things are not held as true, they are not based on sure facts but it is only a philosophical view – a view that is actually related to deism and which denies the visible interference of God in the world both in the past and nowadays.

   But it is good to ask whether it is worth our while to trust in the researchers of today and in their "sure" opinions, or in what eye-witnesses themselves have seen, written, and told. Since several passages in the Bible refer to how people themselves were eye-witnesses and also hearers. In addition to this, Luke told that he tried to study the backgrounds of the issues which were known to be true, i.e., he certainly must have interviewed people about these events (or if there is a better scientific way than eyewitness observations and accurate examinations of issues – which Luke used, for example – researchers should let us know about them):

 

- (2 Peter 1:16) For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

 

 - (John 1:14) And the Word was made flesh, and dwelled among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

 

- (1 John 1:1-3) That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked on, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;

2  (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show to you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested to us;)

3  That which we have seen and heard declare we to you, that you also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.

 

 - (Luke 1:1-4) For as much as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us,

2  Even as they delivered them to us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word;

3  It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you in order, most excellent Theophilus,

4  That you might know the certainty of those things, wherein you have been instructed.

 

In the same way, John and Peter claimed to be speaking the truth:

 

 - (John 19:35) And he that saw it bore record, and his record is true: and he knows that he said true, that you might believe.

 

- (John  21:24) This is the disciple which testifies of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true.

 

 - (2 Peter 1:16) For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

 

So, when we are looking for a scientific approach, we are certainly on more solid ground if we trust in the reports of eyewitnesses, instead of trusting people who live 2,000 years later and who do not have any personal information about the events. Is it not bold and also foolish for someone to claim that he knows more than eyewitnesses?

   Or if someone now claims to know more than they did, would it not be just the same as if a person “with sure facts” rushed to the scene of an accident from 1,000 miles away claiming to have seen everything? We can, therefore, ask how could anybody take us seriously if we were this kind of witnesses?

 

the researchers' jesus   

 

A consequence of researchers' preconceptions, that is what can happen and what cannot, is that they have created their own Jesus. As they have not believed in the Bible as it has been written, they have been forced to give an explanation for how the stories about Jesus came into being.

   Therefore, it is not at all strange that many liberal researchers have searched for "the historic Jesus" or "what Jesus really was like", and have come up with rather conflicting results – results that actually cancel each other out. Some of them have deemed Jesus a political radical, some a seeker of the title of Messiah, some an ordinary faith healer whom there were many, some a religious genius and others a wise teacher who gradually became supernatural in the minds of the successors and changed into the Son of God.

   Based on the previous issues, we can see that the researchers' picture of Jesus need not have anything common with the reality and neither does it get any support from any reliable historical data. On the contrary, the researchers are forced to use the same Gospel material, which is available to others as well, and this material does not support their special views at all. Thus, they – even though they have appeared as unprejudiced and scientific – have been forced to trust their imagination and guess since they do not hold any concrete data in their hands. In addition to this, they have some kind of a condensed version of Christianity – a version that cannot help us with regard to eternity:

 

Socrates: Your religion is Christianity?

Professor: Yes.

Socrates: And your religion speaks about miracles?

Professor: Yes.

Socrates: What are these miracles?

Professor: Incarnation, the expiatory sacrifice of Christ and the resurrection, for example.

Socrates: What do those words mean?

Professor: All right, I understand. Socrates would not have known about these things. All right, this is good practice. They mean that the Almighty God came as a man, died, and rose from the tomb to save us from sin, death, and hell.

Socrates: And in your opinion this is not essential? If that really has happened, if it really has taken place, how can it simply be discarded like an extra piece of clothing? What will be left?

Professor: Timeless truths. How to live. Love.

Socrates: My goodness, everyone already knows them. If your religion is only capable of Great Platitudes, who will be interested in it then? Why be a Christian rather than something else?

Professor: I think that you must take up that question with professor Changing in the comparative religion science lecture.

Socrates: I would have rather wished to talk about it with you, as you claim to be a Christian. I still do not fully understand what it means. (…) (3)