Refuting HelpMenderstandTheBible.org (Part 1 of 5)
By Thomas Verenna
General Article Introduction
I often ignore apologists all together. I just do not have the time to put up with the incredible ignorance, the delusion of authority, and the hyperbole in general that is inherent in every apologetic response to criticism. It's just so boring. But when I came across this website, I felt a response was appropriate. Especially considering the website's name is helpmeunderstandthebible.org. It was just too appropriate. I didn't read the title as if the website was going to help me; rather, I saw the title as a call for help. After all, who needs more help at understanding the Bible then apologists?
The introduction to the article on historical reliability states that "Skeptics have criticized the Gospels, the first four books of the New Testament, as being legendary in nature rather than historical." The article then sets out, per the author Patrick Zukeran, to prove the opposite is true. This refutation (perhaps the better word for it is 'lesson') will touch on every issue put forth by this website in the order that Zukeran uses.
Part 1: Are the Gospels historically reliable?
Zukeran starts this section off with a challenge (apparently to himself), where he writes that the first step to prove the historical reliability of the Gospel accounts historically is to "account for the differences among the four Gospels." He lists all four, ascribing to each one their own special mission. Mark, the gentile speaker, Luke the historical biographer, Matthew the Jewish interpreter, and John the brooding boyhood pal of Jesus. No wonder they're different! How silly of us historians and New Testament scholars for not seeing this earlier. They were all writing from completely different perspectives for different audiences! And if you critical scholars out there were too daft to figure it out, Zukeran was goodly enough to provide us all with an example.
"Imagine if four people wrote a biography on your life: your son, your father, a co-worker, and a good friend. They would each focus on different aspects of your life and write from a unique perspective. One would be writing about you as a parent, another as a child growing up, one as a professional, and one as a peer. Each may include different stories or see the same event from a different angle, but their differences would not mean they are in error. When we put all four accounts together, we would get a richer picture of your life and character. That is what is taking place in the Gospels."
Ah ha! Now I understand! Luke is Jesus' father, Matthew is Jesus' son, Mark worked with Jesus in his carpentry business and John was just Jesus' childhood pal who grew up with him in Nazareth. Of course! It's so simple I should kick myself for not seeing it sooner. After all, Zukeran is correct when he says that "If they were identical, we would suspect the writers of collaboration with one another." That just makes sense. After all, asking four biographers, even ancient biographers, to get at least one fact about Jesus' life correct is just too suspicious. They would have clearly been collaborators. And just because Zukeran assumes they all knew each other and they saw the same things doesn't imply at all that they had to speak to each other about them. And certainly after Jesus' death and resurrection, they clearly stopped communicating with each other all together. In fact, according to Zukeran's logic, the four evangelists would have to have parted ways (around the same time), settled in four different locations around the known world, to write four completely separate accounts of Jesus' life for one common goal (although it would have to mean that each author didn't know or expect that the other three were doing the same) – which according to Zukeran, that goal was to give us a fuller and richer perspective about Jesus. But this isn't a suspicious incident at all! And this is far more reasonable then four authors, from four different regions, at four separate times, using earlier Gospels to create new ones. Only those pesky Gnostic heretics did that!
Unless, of course, Zukeran admits that they did discuss issues as they saw them, or that these evangelists (assuming as Zukeran does that they were witnesses to Jesus' life) continued to communicate with each other after Jesus died and resurrected. But this would put holes in his theory and his analogy. After all, a father and brother documenting your life would probably still talk to each other. It wouldn't be as if they never sat down together and said, "Yeah, so I'm thinking about writing a book about Patrick." Of course they would, especially if you resurrected in front of them. And chances are you would want to collaborate with those who also saw it just so that nobody else thought you were a complete nutter.
Of course there are severe problems with this whole argument anyway. We're not talking about four Gospels that "focus on different aspects" of Jesus' life. We're talking about four gospels written in different styles focusing on the same aspects. Zukeran has clearly confused the style of writing with the contents of the individual Gospel accounts. (It won't be the first time Zukeran gets confused, but more on that later.) Additionally, the four evangelists were not writing from four different perspectives, rather each evangelist (according to Zukeran they are all first hand eyewitnesses) was claiming to be a disciple of Jesus. Perhaps the only disciple that may have the different perspective is Peter, simply because according to the Gospels, he saw things separately from the others at times. But Peter never wrote a Gospel (and none of the canonical Gospels bears his name), ergo all four Gospel authors hold the same position. So in essence it would be like four of your brothers writing four biographies about your life. It would not be, as Zukeran pretends, a friend, or a father, or a brother, or a co-worker (all who would have had different experiences with you separate from the other three). All of the evangelists claim to have the same relationship with Jesus and all were present for the same things.
And are these four Gospels just "different perspectives?" No, and Zukeran is rather arrogant to assume his readers are that stupid not to recognize the slight-of-hand he just pulled. Zukeran would have us believe that these differences are minor, as if John just left out something that Mark thought to put in, or that Luke was thorough enough to name everyone present at a certain event while Mark generalized with a plural noun. Zukeran wishes that the errors and inconsistencies between the four Gospels were so minor and trivial. Of course, anybody reading the Gospels can recognize the difference between a contradiction and an oversight. The fig tree is an example that comes to mind almost immediately.
In Matthew, Jesus has just finished cleansing the temple after a very triumphal entry into Jerusalem and he was already running away to Bethany to escape the guards who were looking to kill him. He sleeps the night there and awakens the next day to head back into the city (apparently the guards had changed shift and didn't pass along the message) and decides he is hungry along the way back. Luckily for him, fig trees were abundant. Unlucky for the fig tree, it was out of season. Jesus is so infuriated that he had called but the tree had not answered, he curses the tree and it withers "at once." (Matt. 21:19) The disciples all marvel and even ask each other "How did the fig tree wither at once?" (Matt. 21:20) With a little teaching that follows, this ends Matthew's fig tree story.
In Mark, Jesus only makes it into the city before realizing he must leave again. (The triumphal entry must have taken hours out of the day.) So, off to Bethany he goes to spend the night because it was "already late" (Mark 11:11), as apparently the money changers were no longer at the temple with tables for Jesus to throw over. And as before, on their way to Jerusalem, Jesus became hungry; he had to build up his strength for all the table-throwing and scolding later on, it seems. He approaches the fig tree, out of season, and curses the fig tree. All of his disciples heard this curse. (Mark 11:14) After a long day of cleansing the temple, throwing over tables, they again departed from the city to escape the plotting priests and scribes. The next morning the disciples saw the fig tree withered away. (Mark 11:20)
Luke, that crazy historical biographer, seems to have completely forgotten this event as it is described in the other two accounts. To Luke, there was never an incident with a fig tree at all; rather it was a parable all along. (Luke 13:6-9) In fact, the parable is told far from Jerusalem in Galilee, a full six chapters before the Triumphal Entry in Luke. More interesting is that Luke doesn't seem to recall ever stopping by Bethany during his stay in Jerusalem with Jesus. It isn't until the Ascension that Luke, the biographer, seems to recall Bethany from his travels.
John is not only clueless of the withering of the fig tree, but he doesn't even recall the parable! Instead, John remembers Jesus calling Nathanael from under a fig tree (John 1:43-48), but beyond that, he is completely ignorant of any cursing, withering, fig tree incident! But I thought I read in Matthew that all the disciples marveled? Mark suggests that all the disciples saw the fig tree withered the next day. Something isn't adding up here!
This seems to be more than an oversight and this is just one of the many contradictions that could be brought to light. Yet, according to the evangelists, they were all disciples, who saw the same things, and recount that every one of them saw the same things within their own text! (It doesn't say, for instance, that "Only a few marveled" or "Most of the disciples saw the tree withered"—the evangelists went out of their way to use absolute words like "all" or "every" so it was clear to the reader that there was not one person who missed the event) Yet clearly there are four different stories, very separate, and all unique. This is a clear example of authorial intent at play, not memory recall.
So is Zukeran correct when he writes that "the four Gospels give us a complementary, not a contradictory, account?" Not in the least. What we have are in fact four contradictory accounts which complement the single theological issue: That issue being that God will call for you whenever it suits him, out of season or not, so be prepared to "bear fruit" and answer his call. The fact that this theological issue is presented in four different ways is only evidence that each Gospel author changed the narrative in a manner that better suited them—not, as Zukeran claims, because they represent a core historical event. But even on the off-chance that it were a historical event, Zukeran would have to decide just which event was the most historical tradition, something that is not only impossible to determine but irrelevant. It is irrelevant because he would then have to cope with the fact that three out of the four Gospels got the story wrong on purpose, out of incompetence, or because they just didn't know about it. Then Zukeran would be faced with an even more frustrating question. If this event is so skewed and altered, how can he be so sure that the rest of it isn't as well? He may comfort himself in the fiction that this is the only contradiction between the four evangelists, but where does that leave his whole theory that the Gospels do not give contradictory accounts?
Are the Gospels historically reliable? Absolutely not. Can it be shown that they contradict each other? Absolutely. So much for proving the reliability of the Gospels! What's next? Oh right! It's the dating of the New Testament writings. This one should be entertaining! More to come later.
