Cold Case Christianity: Are the Gospels of Jesus Historically Reliable?
I've shared in previous posts some of the reasons we can trust that the New Testament we have today is accurate to the originals, despite our not having the originals themselves. However, we still need to address whether these documents are reliable as historical records. After all, why should we care if our existing copies accurately reflect the originals if the originals were just mythological tales, fictional embellishments, or stories of lies and deceit?
Cold case detective J. Warner Wallace spent his career solving some of the most challenging crimes that had never been solved. There was no DNA to test, no taped-off crime scene to investigate, and there were usually no living witnesses to interview. Any available evidence had been collected decades earlier, and most of the time all that was left was written documentation of what people said they saw.
At age 35, after more than a decade of very successful detective work for the Los Angeles Police Department, Detective Wallace read the eye witness accounts of another cold case, that of the death and proclaimed resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth 2000 years earlier. What he found shocked him: These accounts were exactly what he would expect to read from authentic, reliable, eyewitnesses of a true, historical event. But what made them so authentic?
First of all, the witnesses agreed on the important, big picture events, but they reported distinctive details on peripheral issues. This is exactly what detectives see when witnesses have not collaborated to invent or align their stories but are simply sharing what they saw. Each witness picks up on different details that reflect their own interests, experiences, and vantage point, yet the overall account is the same.
Second, these documents were written early enough that if the authors were lying or even exaggerating what happened, they would have been exposed as liars. Most of the documents were written in the 50s and 60s, using sources from the 30s to report on events which themselves occurred in the 30s. This doesn't allow nearly enough time for all the witnesses who could have corrected lies or exaggerations to have died. This is especially powerful considering the authors made detailed claims regarding events that occurred in specific locations, at specific times, involving over thirty verified, historical individuals (e.g. Pontius Pilate, Caiaphas, Ananias, Herod Antipas, etc.), and which could have been discredited by simply asking any of the hundreds of witnesses who were said to have been there.
As an illustration, imagine you and several friends concoct some fantastic, history-altering, eternally-significant story about events that you claim occurred in your hometown just three years earlier. You start spreading word of these unbelievable events by sharing short, easily-memorized statements of what happened. In these statements, you name eyewitnesses and you claim that nearly 500 others from that town would be willing to testify to the accuracy of your story.
About thirty years later, you decide to document and publish a written record of these events for future generations. In your writings, you make specific references to known locations in your town where these events supposedly occurred, you implicate actual government and religious leaders in the events, you include the names of at least twelve witnesses who were known to have lived there during that time, and you invite readers to ask the nearly 500 witnesses who are still alive for confirmation of your claims. If you were making all of this up, don't you think you would be exposed as a fraud?
Now imagine that you and your named witnesses were repeatedly bullied and threatened with the loss of everything you valued for the sake of your claims: your job, your reputation, your children, your wealth, your friends, your security, and even your lives. Don't you think at least one of you, if not all of you, would come forward with the truth, especially as you saw these threats turn into realities? This is a third reason why the New Testament documents are reliable. Its authors were willing to lose everything for what they claimed to have seen, including their very lives. They had no reason to lie, and every reason to recant, and yet they risked everything to make their message known. Several of them were, in fact, martyred for their testimony.
Fourth, the gospels support one another by unintentionally filling in gaps of information left in one another’s accounts. For example, in his record of the calling of the first disciples, Matthew seems to suggest that Jesus saw some fishermen by the Sea of Galilee and said, “Follow me,” and they dropped everything to follow him. This certainly raises a lot of questions. Did the fishermen know Jesus beforehand? What reason did they have to trust him? Why would they suddenly drop everything and follow Jesus? Clearly something is being omitted here.
When we get to the same account as recorded by Luke, our questions are answered. Luke reveals that the men had worked hard all night and had caught nothing, but when Jesus told them to try again, they caught so many fish that their nets broke and their boat began to sink. These men decided to follow Jesus not on a whim, but on the basis of the things he had taught and the miracle he had performed.
This example of Luke filling in gaps left by Matthew in the calling of the first disciples is just one of over forty cases of unintentional support identified by J.J. Blunt in 1847, and one of dozens observed by J. Warner Wallace when he first began reading the Bible as a cold-case detective.
Fifth, the Gospel writers included dozens of embarrassing details about the disciples, about Jesus himself, and about the events they record, which severely compromised their reputations and credibility. For example, the disciples come across as a group of faithless, fearful, untrustworthy fools who shouldn’t be relied upon to deliver mail for the post office, much less the message of the coming of the Savior of the world (Matthew 14:28-30; Mark 14:43-50; Luke 18:31-34).
The Gospels also record large numbers of people walking away from Jesus after they heard his message, including many who knew him best. His own family thought he was out of his mind (Mark 3:20-21); he was rejected in his own hometown of Nazareth (Mark 6:1-6); “many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him” after he taught the crowds the way to everlasting life (John 6:66); and he was even betrayed and handed over to the authorities by one of his hand-picked twelve disciples (John 18:1-5).
Regarding the resurrection, it was women who first discovered Jesus’s empty tomb and saw him alive. Women couldn’t even testify in court because they were considered unreliable in that culture, and yet they were to be trusted with the pinnacle event for salvation and hope for the world?! The only reason to have placed women at the scene is if they were actually there.
Sixth, the accounts contain numerous difficult teachings that logically should have been smoothed over if the writers had felt the freedom to alter the accounts. Why didn’t they have Jesus give unequivocal statements about controversial issues such as women’s roles, circumcision, and the expectations for Gentile Christians? Why did they keep statements that caused more confusion than clarity, such as Jesus’s declaration that he didn’t know the time of his return, and that the Father was greater than he? Why didn’t they “adjust” Jesus’s most challenging mandates, such as the commands to never lust after a woman, to leave everything to follow him, and to be perfect like God the Father, so that people would be more receptive of his message?
For all of these reasons, and many more, the Gospel accounts are exactly what experts look for in authentic, reliable, eyewitness testimony. The Gospels demonstrate big picture consistency with divergent peripheral details, early authorship, circumstances unsuitable for creating and maintaining a massive cover-up, unintentional support for one another, embarrassing details, and difficult teachings. These are just a few of the many factors which contributed to J. Warner Wallace’s expert analysis that the oldest accounts of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection are reliable, historical documents that record genuine, eyewitness testimony of real, first-century events. And these are just a few reasons why we can trust them as well.
For more, check out J. Warner Wallace’s invaluable website and his excellent book, Cold Case Christianity, as well as his brand new book (with video series and workbook), Person of Interest.
