Irenaeus
World History Archive/Alamy
To some people, the idea that there can be developments in a religion would seem to go against the idea that Christianity was ‘revealed’ in the first century. Surely this means that what needed to be taught was done then and it is up to followers to keep to these laws and teachings.
However, this is certainly not the case. One of the most hackneyed clichés must be ‘What would Jesus do?’ This seems to be used at any time when there is a difficult moral decision to be made. It makes some sense as Christians accept that Jesus was the Son of God and, as part of the Trinity, actually God. Therefore, the question ‘What would God do?’ might be seen as having some merit. Nevertheless, the only real answer to this question is ‘how can we know?’
Christianity has not passed through 2,000 years like a seamless robe. In the past, a popular examination question was ‘If Jesus was to enter a church today would he recognise any aspect of the service taking place?’ The answer to this is almost certainly that he would not, probably not even the Eucharist.
People might say that they have the Bible and that this is all they need along with their faith. However, if we look at this claim in more detail it makes very little sense.
The Old Testament: Christians number the Old Testament books at 39, while Judaism (for which it forms the Tenakh) numbers the books as 24. This is because Judaism considers Samuel, Kings and Chronicles to form one book each, groups the 12 minor prophets into one book, and regards Ezra and Nehemiah as a single book. The books are also in a different order, concluding with Chronicles and the hope of a return to Jerusalem when the Messiah comes. On the other hand, the Christian Old Testament ends with the prophet Malachi, the end times and the coming of the Messiah. This then leads into the New Testament and Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus.
What makes things confusing is that the Roman Catholic Church uses a Bible which contains 1 & 2 Maccabees, while the Orthodox Church also has 3 & 4 Maccabees. The Roman Catholic Church also has Tobit and Judith and longer versions of the books of Esther and Daniel. The Protestant Church regards these extra books and chapters as apocryphal, meaning that people are not sure whether they are authentic revealed scripture. It was not until 8 April 1546 that the Council of Trent agreed on the canon of Old Testament scripture which exists today.
In relation to the Old Testament: those books included in the Septuagint and Vulgate versions, which were not originally written in Hebrew and not counted as genuine by the Jews, and which, at the Reformation, were excluded from the Sacred Canon by the Protestant party, as having no well-grounded claim to inspired authorship.
The New Testament Apocrypha contains books disputed for various reasons.
Unfortunately, when we come to the New Testament, a similar problem arises. The New Testament consist of 27 books: the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, 21 letters or epistles and the Revelation of St John – the Apocalypse. This canon is agreed upon by the Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches but, for example, the churches of the Orthodox Tewahedo tradition also recognise an additional eight books.
The present generally accepted canon was agreed at the 1546 Council of Trent. However, when we look at the Apocryphal New Testament there are at least 28 other gospels, 10 epistles, 15 books of Acts and 7 books of the Apocalypse as well as many other texts. Unless it is attributed to the work of the Holy Spirit, it is difficult to see how the present 27 books were chosen out of over 80 texts.
The Council of Trent was held between 1545 and 1563 in Trento (Trent) and Bologna, northern Italy, and was one of the Roman Catholic Church’s most important ecumenical councils, having been prompted by the Protestant Reformation.
There were moves to introduce some of the disputed texts into the canon: these include 1 & 2 Clement, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache, 3 Corinthians and the Epistle of Barnabas, but the canon still stands as it did following the Council of Trent and the work of Irenaeus, who largely compiled it. So, the Bible might be considered less final and complete than it generally is.
Irenaeus originated from Smyrna in Asia Minor. He was a Christian preacher and later became the bishop of Lyon, France. He died in the year 200.
As to biblical accuracy, there are also many questions to be answered. It is generally accepted that the Pauline Epistles were written down by the second century. Mark, the earliest of the four canonical Gospels, seems to date after CE 70 as it appears to relate to the conquest of Jerusalem in that year. Although it seems likely that the three synoptic Gospels date from the first century, many scholars place John in the second century, before CE 150.
There are various theories of the sources of the Gospels too complex to look at here, but it is widely accepted that Luke and Matthew share a common source, known as Q (quelle; German: source). Attempts to reconstruct this lost text suggest that it contained passages such as the Devil’s three temptations of Jesus, the Beatitudes, the Lord’s Prayer and many individual sayings. Many of these sayings are found in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) and the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:17–49).
Irenaeus
World History Archive/Alamy
There are also a significant number of differences in the Gospels, which of necessity raise the question of their accuracy, especially taking into account the fact that their earliest form was almost certainly an oral tradition. Some of the most significant are listed ahead.
The Infancy narratives appear in only Luke and Matthew. The genealogies with which they begin were probably bought from professional scribes in the Temple.
The Virgin Birth appears with these narratives. However, it may well be an error or deliberate change in the translation. The writer of Matthew’s Gospel was working in Greek and was quoting the Book of Isaiah, which was written in Hebrew:
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.
(Isaiah 7:14)
Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel.
(Matthew 1:23)
The Hebrew word used in Isaiah was עלמה ‘alma¯h, which means ‘young woman or a girl past puberty’. When, in the second century, the Hebrew was translated into the Greek Septuagint, the closest translation would have been neania (neania), ‘young woman’, but instead it was translated as παρθένος (parthenos), a ‘virgin’.
As the Roman Catholic Church teaches the Perpetual Virginity of Mary this could be seen as an issue.
Erasmus in his Paraphrase of Matthew (The First Tome or Volume of the Paraphrase of Erasmus Upon the New Testament) acknowledges that the translation has changed the meaning of the quotation from Isaiah and says that although ‘no one would think that we would tolerate anyone’ who did not accept the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary, he did point out that the doctrine could not be proved from the Scriptures.
Known as Erasmus or Erasmus of Rotterdam, he was a Dutch/Netherlandish Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, social critic, teacher and theologian.
He has been called ‘the crowning glory of the Christian humanists’. Erasmus rejected Luther’s emphasis on faith alone and remained a member of the Roman Catholic Church all his life. He also held to the Catholic doctrine of free will. His middle road (‘Via Media’) approach disappointed and angered scholars in both the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant movement. Erasmus died suddenly in Basel in 1536 while preparing to return to Brabant and was buried in Basel Minster, the former cathedral of the city.
Also, if Mary was indeed a virgin all her life it raises issues about Jesus’ brothers and sisters. These appear as the following:
Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?
(Mark 6:3a)
Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?
(Matthew 13:55)
So his brothers said to him, ‘Leave here and go to Judea so that your disciples also may see the works you are doing; for no one who wants to be widely known acts in secret. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.’ (For not even his brothers believed in him.)
(John 7:3–5)
All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.
(Acts 1:14)
Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a believing wife as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?
(1 Corinthians 9:5)
The usual explanation given is that ‘brothers’ means ‘cousins’ in this context because there are examples of usage in that form in the Old Testament, but these references seem too specific for that.
In the Gospel of Luke it says,
In the days of King Herod of Judea … In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child.
(Luke 1:5, 2:1–5)
The issues here are several: Herod ruled from 37 BCE to 4 BCE. In CE 6 Publius Sulpicius Quirinius was appointed Imperial Legate (governor) of the province of Roman Syria. In the same year Judea was declared a Roman province, and Quirinius was tasked to carry out a census of the new territory for tax purposes. The new territory was one of the three portions into which the kingdom of Herod the Great had been divided on his death in 4 bce. In this division, Galilee remained autonomous. There was no census of the entire empire under Augustus and no Roman census required people to travel from their own homes to those of distant ancestors. Anyway, the census of Judea would not have affected Joseph and his family as they lived in Galilee. So it seems that Luke got this part of the infancy narrative very wrong.
A different but similar problem arises if we compare the infancy narratives in Luke and Matthew.
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.
(Luke 1:26–27)
After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb… . When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.
(Luke 2:21, 39–40)
Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’ … When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.’ Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He will be called a Nazorean.’
(Matthew 2:13–15, 19–23)
It is very difficult to rationalise these accounts in any way. According to Luke, Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth before Jesus was born. Matthew has them moving there when they came back from Egypt.
Luke has the family returning to Nazareth after Jesus’ circumcision. Matthew has an unspecified length of time which they spent in Egypt and again we have the problem of when Herod died.
Herod Archelaus (23 BCE – c. CE 18) was ethnarch (a king who ruled over half of the land of his father) Herod the Great. This included Samaria and Judea. He ruled for nine years (c. 4 BCE to CE 6), and was removed by Emperor Augustus when Judaea province was formed under direct Roman rule, at the time of the Census of Quirinius.
The feeding of the 5,000 is the only miracle (apart from the resurrection) which is recorded in all four canonical Gospels: Matthew 14:13–21, Mark 6:31–44, Luke 9:10–17 and John 6:5–15. This involves two fish and five loaves. The feeding of the 4,000 appears only in Matthew 15:32–16:10 and Mark 8:1–9 and involves a few fish and seven loaves.
The only real difference in the two events is that in Mark 6 the baskets used for collecting the food which remained were 12 κοφινους (hand baskets), but in Mark 6 there were seven σπυριδας. This, of course, loses the symbolism of the 12 baskets representing the Twelve Tribes of Israel.
It would seem, therefore, that this is a variant duplet introduced by mistake and copied from Mark by the writer of Matthew.
The Synoptic Gospels present the Last Supper as a Passover meal (Matthew 26:17, Mark 14:1–2, Luke 22:1–15). However, the Gospel of John (John 13:1) says that the Jewish Passover feast was began in the evening a few hours after the death of Jesus. John implies therefore that the Friday of the crucifixion was the day of preparation for the feast (14 Nisan), not the feast itself (15 Nisan).
The four Gospels all contain accounts of the trials of Jesus. In all there were six trials, three before the Jews and three before the Romans. However, only Luke recounts the trial before Herod and John omits the trial by the Sanhedrin. It is difficult to see how these can all have been carried out in one night as it was already late when Jesus and the disciples went to the Mount of Olives.
Judge |
Texts |
Decision |
Place |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
Religious trials by the Jews |
Annas |
Mt 26:57–58; Mk 14:53–54; Lk 22:54–55; Jn 18:12–23 |
Guilty |
House of the High Priest |
Caiaphas |
Mt 26:59–75; Mk 14:55–65; Lk 22:56–65; Jn 18:24 |
Guilty |
House of the High Priest |
|
Sanhedrin |
Mt 27:1, Mk 15:1; Lk 22:66–71 |
Guilty |
Court of the Sanhedrin |
|
Civil trials by the Romans |
Pilate |
Mt 27:2–14; Mk 15:2–5; Lk 23:1–6; Jn 18:28–38 |
Innocent |
Praetorium |
Herod |
Lk 23:7–12 |
Innocent |
Herod visiting Jerusalem |
|
Pilate |
Mt 27:15–26; Mk 15:6–15; Lk 23:13–25; Jn 18:39–19:16 |
Innocent |
Praetorium |
A final note on this is that according to all four canonical Gospels there was a prevailing Passover custom in Jerusalem that allowed or required Pilate, the governor of Judea, to commute one prisoner’s death sentence by popular acclaim, and the ‘crowd’ was offered a choice of whether to have Barabbas or Jesus released from Roman custody. According to the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, and the account in John, the crowd chose Barabbas to be released and Jesus of Nazareth to be crucified.
Barabbas’ name appears as bar-Abbas in the Greek texts of the Gospels. It comes from the Aramaic רב-אבא, Bar-abbâ, meaning ‘son of the father’. Some ancient manuscripts of Matthew 27:16–17 give his full name as ‘Jesus Barabbas’. The early church father Origen (184/185–253/254) was troubled by the fact that copies of the Gospels gave Barabbas’ name as ‘Jesus Barabbas’ and said that ‘Jesus’ must have been added to the name by a heretic. It appears that later scholars removed the name ‘Jesus’ from the text (Warren, ‘Who Changed the Text and Why?).
The custom of releasing prisoners in Jerusalem at Passover is referred to as the Paschal Pardon, but is not recorded in any historical document other than the Gospels.
After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.’
(Matthew 28:1–6)
When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’ When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him.’
(Mark 16:1–6)
(Longer versions of Mark add another 11 verses but suggest that only Mary Magdalene was at the tomb.)
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’ Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles.
(Luke 24:1–10)
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.’ Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes. But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.
(John 20:1–14)
So it remains quite unclear who visited the tomb and what they saw.
John 1:1–14 is a very well-known text and is particularly used at Christmas services. However, a number of scholars have suggested that it is, in fact, a Gnostic text added to the beginning of the Gospel:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
(John 1:1–5)
In Book 1 of Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies) Irenaeus quotes a lengthy Gnostic commentary on this prologue. According to this the Gnostics believed the opening verses revealed the very origin of the Pleroma (the spiritual universe as the abode of God and of the totality of the divine powers and emanations). The commentary also mentions the names of several entities or Aions which came from the Father. In Greek these are: Monogenes (also called Arche), Aletheia, Logos, Zoe, Anthropos and Charis. All of these names appear in the prologue. It just so happens that these very names are also mentioned in the opening verses of John.
Read more: the possible Gnostic influences on the New Testament are explored in The Jesus Mysteries by T. Freke and P. Gandy, Harmony Books; 1st American edition (Aug. 2000).
Compare ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God’ (Matthew 5:9) and ‘Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword” ’ (Matthew 26:52) with
Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.
(Matthew 10:34–36)
and
As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
(Matthew 25:30)
Gnosticism (Greek: γνωστικός gnostikos, ‘having knowledge’. A collection of ancient religions whose adherents kept apart from the material world – which they viewed as created by the demiurge – and embraced the spiritual world. Gnostic ideas are that gnosis (knowledge, enlightenment, salvation, emancipation or ‘oneness with God’) can be reached by practising philanthropy to the point of personal poverty and searching for wisdom by helping others.
So, to what extent can we learn about the person and teachings of Jesus from the New Testament?
This is, as we have seen, a very difficult question to answer. Although if we look at the biblical evidence we see that there are, of course, major agreements on some teaching, there is such diversity that it is hard to attest to what is true and reliable and what is not.
In an attempt to resolve these differences there have been many attempts to produce a gospel which includes everything from the four canonical ones.
Probably the first was the Diatessaron (c. 160–175) by Tatian (www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/diatessaron.html). A sample reading of this shows the complexity of trying to weave together the different accounts.
A more recent attempt can be found in Arthur Moss’ (1971) Jesus: A New Translation of the Four Gospels, Arranged as One, The Citadel Press.
The ‘synoptic problem’ looks at the relationship between the three ‘synoptic’ Gospels: Matthew, Mark and Luke. The question is what source materials the writers had to work with.
There are many similarities between the three books in wording, order, quotations and so forth. Most scholars have seen this as ‘documentary dependence’.
Augustine said that the Gospels were written in the order in which they appear in the New Testament – that is Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.
This view was largely accepted until the late eighteenth century, when in 1776, Johann Jakob Griesbach (1745–1812), a German textual critic, published his Greek Gospel synopsis of Matthew. This did not follow the route of works such as the Diatessaron, which tried to harmonise the Gospels. Instead it placed them side by side.
The similarities between the Gospels
The following figures show the main theories which have been proposed for the documentary dependency of the three Gospels.
If the Bible and teaching of the Church are the evidence for the Christian religion, is there anywhere else we can look?
The most common hypotheses
Deepak Chopra has written that the universe is a ‘reality sandwich’ with three layers: the ‘material’ world, a ‘quantum’ zone of matter and energy, and a ‘virtual’ zone outside of time and space, which is the domain of God, and from which God can direct the other layers. He says that human beings’ brains are ‘hardwired to know God’ and the functions of the human nervous system mirror divine experience. The great influence on his spiritual thinking was Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986), a famous philosopher, speaker and writer.
In 2008 he published The Third Jesus. In this book he suggests that there are three persons of Jesus that the believer needs to understand: Jesus the man, whose words and actions form the foundation of Christian theology, Jesus the Son of God, who represents a specific branch of religion, and the Third Jesus, who is the spiritual guide whose teachings embrace all of humanity.
An American author, public speaker, alternative medicine advocate and a prominent figure in the New Age movement, Chopra has often been accused of preaching pseudoscience but in 2016 he was promoted to full professor at the University of California, San Diego, in its Department of Family Medicine.
Deepak Chopra
ZUMA Press Inc./Alamy
Jesus is in trouble. When people worship him today – or even speak his name – the object of their devotion is unlikely to be who they think he is. A mythical Jesus has grown up over time. He has served to divide people and nations. He has led to destructive wars in the name of religious fantasies. The legacy of love found in the New Testament has been tainted with the worst sort of intolerance and prejudiced that would have appalled Jesus in life. Most troubling of all, his teachings have been hijacked by people who hate in the name of love.
Millions of people worship another Jesus, however, who never existed, who doesn’t even lay claim to the fleeting substance of the first Jesus. This is the Jesus built up over thousands of years by theologians and other scholars … He became the foundation of a religion that has proliferated into some twenty thousand sects. They argue endley over every thread in the garments of a ghost.
Jesus embodied the highest level of enlightenment. He spent his brief adult life describing it, teaching it, and passing it on to future generations.
Jesus intended to save the world by showing others the path to God-consciousness.
We aren’t talking about faith. Conventional faith is the same as belief in the impossible (such as Jesus walking on water), but there is another faith that gives us the ability to reach into the unknown and achieve transformation.
(Chopra, 2008)
Chopra argues that this Third Jesus presents a way in which the world can deal with the issues which trouble it, such as abortion, gay rights, women’s rights and war. He helps people to do this by his examples of courage, love and forgiveness.
Chopra concludes his book by answering the question with which we began: ‘What would Jesus do in my shoes? He would keep walking he path. He would manifest as much courage, truth, sympathy, and love as he actually possessed. He wouldn’t pretend to be what he wasn’t.’
You might think that in this introduction we have savaged the Bible and wronged the Church but in fact we have considered and explained why there have always been developments in Christian thought and why this will continue.
Armstrong, K. 2008. The Bible: The Biography. New York: Atlantic Books.
Armstrong, K. 2011. A History of God. New York: Vintage Books.
Grant, J. 1989. White Women’s Christ and Black Women’s Jesus. New York: OUP.
Maccoby, H. 1998. The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity. London: Barnes & Noble.
Mack, R. 1994. The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q & Christian Origins. New York: HarperOne.
Miles, J. 1996. God: A Biography. New York: Vintage Books.
Pullman, P. 2011. The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. London: Canongate Books.
Wesselow, T. De. 2012. The Sign: The Shroud of Turin and the Secret of the Resurrection. London: Viking.
Wilson, A.N. 2003. Jesus. London: Pimlico.