The first thing to stress is that if we want to know about any figure from the past, we need to have sources of information. This may seem obvious enough, but for some reason, when it comes to Jesus, people seem to think that they simply know who he was, what he said, or what he did — almost as if they gained this knowledge by osmosis from the environment. In fact, however, anything you know about Jesus, or think you know, has come to you from a source—either someone has told you, or you have read what someone has written. But where did these people get their information, what makes them authorities, and why should you think they are right?

Every story about Jesus (or any other historical figure) either is historically accurate (something he really said or did) or is made up, or is a combination of the two. And the only way to know whether a detail from Jesus’s life is historically accurate is to investigate our sources of information. The sources available to you, me, and your Sunday school teacher are all the same.

Stories about Jesus have circulated by word of mouth and in writing since he lived and died. Obviously, stories that began to be told last year for the first time were made up. So too the stories that first began to circulate a hundred years ago. What we want, if we want historically reliable accounts, are sources that can be traced back to Jesus’s own time. We want ancient sources.

We do, of course, have ancient sources, but they are not as ancient as we would like. Our very first Christian author is the Apostie Paul, who was writing twenty to thirty years after Jesus’s death. A number of Paul’s letters are included in the New Testament. Other Christian authors may have been writing earlier than Paul, but none of their works survive. The problems with Paul are that he didn’t actually know Jesus personally and that he doesn’t tell us very much about Jesus’s teachings, activities, or experiences. Try this assignment: read through all of Paul’s writings and list everything Paul indicates Jesus said and did. You will be surprised to find that you don’t even need a three-by-five card to list them — whereas his works constitutes the largest portion of the new testament (this is not the bone of contention BTW)

Our next earliest sources of information about the historical Jesus are the Gospels of the New Testament. As it turns out, these are our best sources. They are best not because they happen to be in the New Testament, but because they are also the earliest narratives of Jesus’s life to survive. But even though they are the best sources available to us, they really are not as good as we might hope. This is for several reasons.

To begin with, they are not written by eyewitnesses. We call these books Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John because they are named after two of Jesus’s earthly disciples, Matthew the tax collector and John the beloved disciple, and two of the close companions of other apostless, Mark the secretary of Peter and Luke the traveling companion of Paul. But in fact the books were written anonymously—the authors never identify themselves—and they circulated for decades before anyone claimed they were written by these people. The first certain attribution of these books to these authors is a century after they were produced. There are good reasons for thinking that none of these attributions is right. Lor one thing, the followers of Jesus, as we learn from the New Testament itself, were uneducated lower-class Aramaic speaking Jews from Palestine. These books are not written by people that. Their authors were highly educated, Greek-speaking Christians of a later generation. They probably wrote after Jesus’s disciples had all, or almost all, died. They were writing in different parts of the world, in a different language, and at a later time. There’s not much mystery about why later Christians would want to claim that the authors were in fact companions of Jesus, or at least connected with apostles: that claim provided much needed authority for these accounts for people wanting to know what Jesus was really like,

Scholars typically date the New Testament Gospels to the latter part of the first century. Most everyone would agree that Jesus died sometime around 30 ce. Mark was the first Gospel to be written, probably around 65-70 ce; Matthew and Luke were written about fifteen to twenty years after that, say, 80-85 ce; and John was written last, around 90-95 ce. What is significant here is the time gap involved. The very first surviving account of Jesus’s life was written thirty-five to forty years after his death. Our latest canonical Gospel was written sixty to sixty-five years after his death. That’s obviously a lot of time.

If the authors were not eyewitnesses and were not from Palestine and did not even speak the same language as Jesus, where did they get their information?

Rilwayne001:

If the authors were not eyewitnesses and were not from Palestine and did not even speak the same language as Jesus, where did they get their information?

Here again, there is not a lot of disagreement among critical scholars. After Jesus died, his followers came to believe he was raised from the dead, and they saw it as their mission to convert people to the belief that the death and resurrection of Jesus were the death and resurrection of God’s messiah and that by believing in his death and resurrection a person could have eternal life. The early Christian “witnesses” to Jesus had to persuade people that Jesus really was the messiah from God, and to do that they had to tell stories about him. So they did. They told stories about what happened at the end of his life—the crucifixion, the empty tomb, his appearances to his followers alive afterward. They also told stories of his life before those final events— what he taught, the miracles he performed, the controversies he had with Jewish leaders, his arrest and trial, and so on.

These stories circulated. Anyone who converted to become a follower of Jesus could and did tell the stories. A convert would tell his wife; if she converted, she would tell her neighbor; if she converted, she would tell her husband; if he converted, he would tell his business partner; if he converted, he would take a business trip to another city and tell his business associate; if be converted, he would tell his wife; if she converted, she would tell her neighbor and on and on. Telling stories was the only way to communicate in the days before mass communication, national media coverage, and even significant levels of literacy (at this time only about 10 percent of the population could read and write, so most communication was oral).

But who, then, was telling the stories about Iesus? Just the apostles? It can’t have been just the apostles. Just the people whom the apostles authorized? No way. Just people who checked their facts to make sure they didn’t change any of the stories but only recounted events that really happened and as they happened? How could they do that? The stories were being told by word of mouth, year after year, decade after decade, among lots of people in different parts of the world, in different languages, and there was no way to control what one person said to the next about jesus’s words and deeds. Everyone knows what happens to stories that circulate this way. Details get changed, episodes get invented, events get exaggerated, impressive accounts get made even more impressive, and so on.

Eventually, an author heard the stories in his church— say it was “Mark” in the city of Rome. And he wrote his account. And ten or fifteen years later another author in another city read Mark’s account and decided to write his own, based partially on Mark but partially on the stories he had heard in his own community. And the Gospels started coming into existence.

Those are the Gospels we now have. Scholars for three hundred years and more have studied them in minute detail, and one of the assured results of this intensive investigation is the certainty that the Gospels have numerous discrepancies, contradictions, and historical problems. Why would that be? It would be better to ask, “How could that not be?” of course, the Gospels contain nonhistorical information and stories.

4evergod1

Mtcheew. Ridiculous Ridiculousness. I never knew I was your headache on NL.

If your thread is meant to convince and convert me to Islam then you should know you have the wrong target as I am too entrenched in Jesus to be moved.

Take your thread to the Islamic section and enjoy because its dead on arrival here.

Dont mention me again pls.

4everGod1:
Mtcheew. Ridiculous Ridiculousness. I never knew I was your headache on NL.

If your thread is meant to convince and convert me to Islam then you should know you have the wrong target as I am too entrenched in Jesus to be moved.

Take your thread to the Islamic section and enjoy because its dead on arrival here.

Dont mention me again pls.

You don't have to cowardly run away like this

My objective is not to convince and convert you to Islam, rather to make you see the discrepancies and the ingenuity of the faith you often try to force down our throats or isn't that what you are doing on Nairaland?

According to: 1  Peter  3:15:  "always  be  prepared  to  make  a  defense  to  anyone  who asks  you  to  give  an  account  of  the  hope  that  is  in  you"

Now where is your defense?

FriendChoice:


My last comment here on this:. Dont spoil his thread. Open a thread. You yourself knows that am up to the task of attending to Your questions. Simple open new thread and mentioned Me and the Op. Otherwise forever keep silent. You will not see my reply again.

We all know its going to be a waste of time opening such thread cos it will be moved to the Islamic section, at the speed of light, where I won't be able to comment on it unless I swear an oath that denounces my own God.

LifestyleTonite:
When we open threads that show the blatant hypocrisy, terrorist and women enslavement nature of Islam, your people quickly move it to the islamic section thereby suppressing the truth and preventing us from commenting further.

Open up your own section for fair play to exist. Till then, no one will attend to your topic even if you quote the entire Bible.

Okay

LifestyleTonite:
As you can see, my posts on this thread that critical questions the clear bias islamists enjoy in the section have all been blocked.

Can you now see that it will be silly if any Christian answers your questions?

Your post were hidden because you were derailing which is against Nairaland rule 1.

Now, kindly stay on topic.

LifestyleTonite:
Derailing or speaking the obvious truth?

I was ban last week and they claimed I insulted the Islamic prophet when I didn't. I checked the entire nairaland to see if there was any such rule but found none. When I checked carefully, I realised that the thread where such took place was a thread in the religion section asking pertinent and expository questions about islam. When the questions were unbearable for its adherents, the thread was moved to the Islamic only section which found my post insulting thereby banning me. I believe others were banned too.

Is that fair?

I'm really sorry about that.

Now, please face the topic.

LifestyleTonite:
Derailing or speaking the obvious truth?

I was ban last week and they claimed I insulted the Islamic prophet when I didn't. I checked the entire nairaland to see if there was any such rule but found none. When I checked carefully, I realised that the thread where such took place was a thread in the religion section asking pertinent and expository questions about islam. When the questions were unbearable for its adherents, the thread was moved to the Islamic only section which found my post insulting thereby banning me. I believe others were banned too.

Is that fair?

Sorry sir. It's not the fault of the Op. So answer his questions.

Rilwayne001:


I'm really sorry about that.

Now, please face the topic.

I really want to address your post but I wont.

I can only do that if you open a thread to call for the removal of the oath that prevents non-muslims from commenting on islamic threads.

Till then...

Rilwayne001:


I'm really sorry about that.

Now, please face the topic.

Please what exactly is the point? Are you questioning the existence of Jesus?

TomHagen:
Please what exactly is the point? Are you questioning the existence of Jesus?

I'm not questioning the existence of Jesus rather I'm questioning the accounts in the gospels attributed to him.

Really, this thread is just a precursor to the main thread and it's really disheartening that 4evergod1 ran away from this. That won't stop me from opening the main thread though.

^^^^^

4everGod1:


Dont mention me again pls.

Still waiting for you

What did scholars say about the Crucifixion ?

Richirich713:
What did scholars say about the Crucifixion ?

We haven't started the fiction surrounding the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus yet, what we are concerned about here are the problems with the gospels.

Where's my friend alBHAGDADI? I know annunaki2 and parisbookaddict are blockheads and so i won't bother call them.

Rilwayne001:


We haven't started the fiction surrounding the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus yet, what we are concerned about here are the problems with the gospels.

Where's my friend alBHAGDADI? I know annunaki2 and parisbookaddict are blockheads and so i won't bother call them.

is that part two?