Can We Trust the Bible?

It is one thing to establish that the Gospels have come down to us as they were written, but can I trust that what they record is true? Is it possible that they are fictional, or partly fictional? Just how much can we trust the material in Jesus’ biographies? The following short article by John Chapman addresses these questions.

Do you believe everything you read?

We are a strange mixture of gullibility and scepticism. If I say to you, “Do you believe everything you read in the newspaper?”, you would probably say, “No’: And I would agree. However, the fact is that we usually do believe it for no other reason than that it is in the paper! We may be more discriminating when it comes to television advertising. We know when the salesman says, “I wouldn’t do this commercial if it were not true”, that there’s a better than even chance he is lying. However, when the newsreader on the box, meticulously groomed, dispensing information probably of unknown origin but in such a cultured authoritative voice, then we will probably think what he says is true.

What makes an historical record accurate anyway? I would want to ask these questions: Was the writer an eyewitness to the event? If not, from where did he get his information? Do we have any verifying histories available from other authors? Were they published in the lifetime of eyewitnesses? How soon after the event were they written? Have they been transmitted accurately? Does the historian have an ‘axe to grind’ or some biased motive? Do his other utterances ring true?

When I submit the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—to these tests, I am satisfied that they do give us a reliable history of Jesus.

Were the Gospel writers eyewitnesses?

The apostles were with Jesus during his entire ministry. Matthew and John’s Gospels are eyewitness accounts. There is an old but unproven tradition that Mark’s Gospel is really the apostle Peter’s account, recorded for him by Mark; Luke tells us that he himself is not an eyewitness but he also tells from where he got his information.

It is clear to any reader of the four Gospels that Matthew, Mark and Luke bear a similarity, although each has his distinctive style and aim. It still remains a matter of debate amongst New Testament scholars as to whether they copied from each other or whether they had access to some earlier documents which are now lost.

The gospel of John, on the other hand, is quite independent. Apart from the death and resurrection of Jesus, he hardly duplicates any of the stories in the other Gospels. It seems as if he did not have access to the other Gospels at the time he wrote his. This means that we have at least two completely independent histories, which makes very valuable evidence. Often a document from antiquity stands alone with no other against which to check it. A good exercise would be to read Luke’s Gospel and then John’s. Then ask yourself, “Is the Jesus as portrayed in one, the same as in the other?”. I am convinced he is, and it has given me much confidence in the Gospels as accurate, first hand, eyewitness accounts.

As you read through Matthew and John you will see the eyewitness touches about them. Matthew 28:17 is a good example. “When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. The piece of information “but some doubted” is an interesting sidelight. It doesn’t do anything for the story or for the ‘cause’. If anything it weakens the case for the resurrection. So why does Matthew insert it? Because he remembered it like that! Notice the eyewitness touch in John 6:10. It is the description of the feeding of the five thousand. “There was plenty of grass in that place, and the men sat down, about five thousand.” No doubt you would remember the lush green of a pleasant spring picnic and comment on it, but would you bother to say so if you hadn’t been there?

Some years ago, a well known author and television script writer, Tony Morphett, became a Christian. Before that, by his own choice, he had been an atheist. A set of circumstances occurred which resulted in his reading the New Testament. He said that he was impressed with the Gospels: “I had spent all my working life writing scripts which were either documentary or fiction. When I came to the Gospels, I recognised that they were not fiction. They were documentary.”

Paul Barnett, former Lecturer in New Testament History at Macquarie University and the University of Sydney, states: “While the Gospels have many distinctive features, they are in broad terms recognisable examples of history writers of their period. It is unhelpful and untrue to regard them merely as religious or theological works. They are also unmistakably historical in character. As historical sources of this period, they are just as valuable to the general historian as Josephus. Except, unlike Josephus, they are focused on one person and for a brief period.”

Luke, on the other hand, tells us that he is not an eyewitness. The introduction to his Gospel shows historical method:

Since many have attempted to put together an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us (just as these things were passed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and guardians of the message), so it seemed good to me as well, having checked everything very carefully from the start, to write something orderly for you. Your Excellency, Theophilus. My aim is that you may know the reliability of the reports you have heard.
(Luke 1:1—4).

It is an interesting introduction written to his patron, Theophilus, of whom we know nothing. But its value lies in several areas. We know that at the time of writing this Gospel, there were many accounts of the sayings and actions of Jesus available. These accounts claimed to have been handed down from eyewitnesses. Luke is anxious that his patron should know “the certainty” about what he had heard. He wants him to be sure, so the most practical way to do that is to go back to square one himself. He has gone back to “eyewitnesses” so that “from the beginning” he might record an “orderly account”.

That is the writer’s stated aim. His historical method is sound and tells us the purpose of his book.

You may be interested to know that some of those other accounts have survived. The early church rejected them as accurate accounts either because they could not establish who the authors were or because they were proven to be forgeries.

But weren’t they all biased?

It has often been said to me that the Gospel writers were all convinced Christians and so they must be biased in their approach. This is partly true. They were thoroughly convinced that Jesus is the unique Son of God. However, the prior question is: What caused them to be convinced? John tells us that he has become convinced about Jesus and he has recorded the reasons so that we can be convinced (John 20:31).

The Gospel writers, unlike many editorial writers, present their case and their personal interest and conviction right from the start and invite us to examine their conclusions. Sometimes they record incidents from the life of Jesus, sometimes they write editorial comments. It is easy to spot the difference. They make no effort to hide it Most people don’t go to the trouble to write a book unless they are really interested in the subject, and interest in the subject leads to greater attention to detail.

One of the characteristics which the Gospel writers claim for Jesus is that he was a person who told the truth and encouraged others to do so. Jesus claimed to be the are embodiment of truth. He taught his disciples to love truth and to prize it highly. To be a disciple of Jesus means to do as Jesus did. Their interest in Jesus was likely to cause them to take greater care to check the facts than to make them up.

There is no doubt that they were convinced and completely absorbed by their subject. This is not the same as saying they must have been exaggerating because they were so convinced. If that were the case, it would mean we would never be able to get accurate information except from disinterested people. And disinterested people can often give us inaccurate accounts due to their lack of interest which causes them not to take care.

Reproduced with Permission from
John Dickson “Simply Christianity” (Matthias Media and John Dickson 2001)
Material by John Chapman taken from A Fresh Start (Matthias Media, 1997)