The Reliability of the Gospels

Here is a paper that I jsut finished on the reliability of the Gospels. I know that this is a hot subject in our culture today. I wrote this paper for a rather conservative/orthodox professor. The page numbers come ouf of a book called The Reliability of the Gospel Tradition by Birger Gerhardsson. It might be a little boring but I thought that some might enjoy. (PS Don't let me know of any errors because I will not have time to correct them!)

An important question stands before us. Are the Gospels reliable? So much of our understanding of Jesus and what it means to follow him falls on this question. If the Gospel of Mark was not written until the approximate year A.D. 70, then there was approximately a 40-year period in which the stories of Jesus had the potential to shift, the imaginations of writers had time to develop, while their memories had time to be shifted. Basically, there was a forty year period in which humans may have “gotten in the way” of Truth before it was written down. American and Western cultural reason would lead us to believe that the story would have undoubtedly changed within those forty years and that the reliability of the Gospel tradition would have been marred by humans. Yet orthodoxy tells us that the Gospels are reliable, and if the Gospels are reliable, then reliability must have been maintained the forty years after Easter and before Mark’s writing. The way that stories were maintained in the time and setting of our Savior was through the oral tradition. It was a rich and well developed tradition that had been mastered by many within the Jewish context. With all of this in mind, the richness of this oral tradition was effective in maintaining Truth and accomplished the imperative task of preserving the reliability of the Gospels between the times of Easter and the written Gospel of Mark.
Most skeptics of the reliability of the Gospel tradition would argue that the oral tradition simply was not a completely effective method for transmitting stories. A portion of this argument would include the idea that many people outside of the close circle of Jesus could have inserted traditions into the Gospel tradition. This then leads skeptics to contend that the disciples of Jesus did not have authentic authority to be bearers of tradition. (39) This is simply not true. Too many assumptions and leaps in logic occur to assert this skepticism. The disciples of Jesus walked, ate, healed, lived, and loved with Jesus over a three year period in which Jesus himself gave them the authority that they needed to become part of, and remember the story of Christ on earth. The remaining portions of this paper will address the prior thesis and therefore refute this common skeptical arrangement.
The method that was used to sustain the Gospels as reliable was not a construct of the time of the followers of Jesus. Students had been approaching rabbis for centuries to learn torah. With the learning of torah came the learning of the oral tradition. The rabbi, who became a spiritual father figure of the students, and the flock made up a pseudo-family unit. (page 8) They were continuously together, learning and living the torah. Students learned both by listening to the rabbi and by observing the rabbi and his deeds. Students lived and longed to be just like the rabbi. At the time of Jesus, the torah was still orally being handed down in this fashion. (page 9) Massive amounts of text were learned, discussed and memorized on a daily basis through the leading of the rabbi. There were very distinct methods that were intentionally used that allowed the text to be well absorbed. Text memorization occurred via repetition, didactic and poetic devices such as rhythm and alliteration, assonance and recitation. (page 11) An interesting and important point to remember when contemplating oral tradition in that writing was commonly used as an aid for memorizing texts. (Modern culture seems to have completely reversed this process by using the oral as a way of servicing the written.) The oral tradition was the way of the expansion of the meta-narrative for hundreds of years prior to Jesus. This powerful tradition was well developed and central in maintaining the story of God and God’s people when Christ came to earth.
We can be certain that the people that surrounded Jesus were familiar with this storied tradition. Mark writes in his seventh chapter that the Jews and the Pharisees hold to the tradition of the elders. Matthew also quotes the Pharisees in his fifteenth chapter as asking Jesus, “Why do your disciples break the traditions of the elders?” (page 14) The tradition of the elders is the same tradition that we now speak of in the passing of the oral tradition. The disciples wrote of this tradition in their version of the life of Jesus. Thus, it would have been natural for them to continue with this natural tradition after Easter, until they eventually wrote down the Gospels. These are just two of many examples of the writers of the Gospels affirming the use of the oral tradition within the context of Christ’s time on earth.
The actual oral tradition of the story of Jesus may have started at his birth. While we can only speculate that the childhood of Jesus was unusually unique and powerful, it seems to make sense that stories about this prodigy child had would have appeared. The stories would have been spread through his family and probably consisted in a free form of oral tradition. (page 123) This free form of oral tradition was probably not authoritative within the context the grand oral tradition. Thus, the Gospels do not include much of the childhood of Jesus and this leads to belief that the proper oral tradition of Jesus probably did not actually begin until Jesus began his public ministry. A specific time that may be appropriate for the mark of the beginning of the oral tradition is when Jesus began to speak and gain followers through his teaching and his works. (page 123) It is intriguing to ponder that Jesus himself never wrote. (page 135) The only historical records that we have in Jesus writing was in the sand, and we do not even know what he wrote in that moment. Thus, it is reasonable to appeal that Jesus was an advocate for the oral tradition. This makes sense, as it seems that the way that he spoke and taught was purposeful for the action of memorization and for the passing of the oral tradition.
The disciples grasped the idea of the oral tradition as they followed Jesus in his life. They remembered. While Jesus often seemed frustrated at the disciples for not remembering, like in Matthew 16:9, the Gospels are full of stories of Jesus encouraging the disciples to remember and the disciples remembering. Peter remembered that Jesus had told him about the rooster. He also remembered the withering fig tree. And who could forget that extraordinary moment when the disciples remembered? They remembered that their rabbi told them that he needed to be handed into the sins of men and that he would be crucified and that he would then rise again. This theme of remembering was then essential for the eventual writing of the text and is not solely layered all over the Gospels, but all over the entirety of the Bible. It was also essential that the disciples remembered within community. The disciples were a cohort of sorts. They remembered with one another and used a system of checking and balancing in the remembering of their rabbi. With this community came a sort of organic unity in remembering. (page 131) During the thirty or forty years after Jesus’ death and the writing of the Gospels, it is also probable that written aids were accumulated. As written earlier, while the oral tradition was primary for transmitting stories written aids did exist to aid the oral. This oral tradition was well documented and with the aids of community and writing, we can be confident in the reliability of the Gospels.
Especially within the context of the post-modern culture that we live within today, skepticism is high. History is often questioned and certainty has taken the backseat to a blurry sense of dubious blather. In many ways, the church should be thankful for this time, but in the case of the defense of the reliability of the Gospels, the church needs to stand firm. Skeptics will contend that the Gospels lost their reliability over the forty years between Easter and the written Gospel of Mark. However, there was well developed and well maintained tradition that the disciples were enveloped within. We can be certain of this tradition and use it to refute skepticism. If we are to lose the certainty of the oral tradition, a slippery slope may follow. This slippery slope would eventually include our loss of the authority and reliability of not only the Gospels, but of the entire Biblical text. The oral tradition that captured and held the reliability of the Gospels was a well developed, and well maintained tool for passing story. The reliability of the story was preserved and this preservation has been central in people teaming up with God to further his Kingdom on earth for centuries. Thus, it is now our job to remember and to pass on this remembering to the next generation.