The Gospels: Are They Historical?

How much can we really know about the historical Jesus? The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have shaped Christianity for nearly 2,000 years, but they were written decades after the events they describe. So how should we treat them as historical sources? Tristan Hughes is joined by Professor Helen Bond to examine where the Gospels came from, who wrote them and how closely they reflect the world of first-century Judea. Were they based on eyewitness testimony and earlier traditions? And what do their stories reveal about the life of Jesus of Nazareth? MORE The Pharisees Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-ancients/id1520403988?i=1000771852085 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/6nZ3fgqAK3lhP5JvcKwi1W?si=OPfE11c5RYygdt9SpTDoOw Rise of Christianity Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-ancients/id1520403988?i=1000741677752 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/4NnGAEK0qteEbNPD1bITm1?si=YENIxrDZTNOkb3XpkzaHAw Presented by Tristan Hughes. Editor is Matthew Wilson. The producers are Joseph Knight and McKenna Fernandez. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds The Ancients is a History Hit podcast. History Hit is part of Little Dot Studios, a Certified B Corp™ The Ancients is now on YouTube! Watch HERE https://www.youtube.com/@TheAncientsPodcast Want even MORE Ancients? Sign up to History Hit for early access ad-free, plus exclusive subscriber-only episodes. PLUS with a History Hit subscription you can watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Tristan Hughes?

  Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Teutoburg Forest? What secrets lie buried in prehistoric Ireland? Or what made Alexander truly great? With a subscription to History Hit, you can explore our ancient past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week, covering everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.

• 0:39Tristan Hughes?

  He turned water into wine, fed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish, calmed a raging storm with the sound of his voice. These stories, these miracles of Jesus of Nazareth are famous around the world. But how do we know about them? The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John give us the four most famous accounts of his life. But were they written by eyewitnesses? How much did their authors know about the events they describe? And can we really use the Gospels to reconstruct the life of the historical Jesus? I'm Tristan Hughes, welcome to The Ancients. And today I'm once again joined by friend of the show, Professor Helen Bond,

• 1:24Tristan Hughes?

  to ask a question that has shaped Christianity for centuries. Are the Gospels historical? Let's get into it. Helen, it is great to have you back on the show and great to have you here in our studio.

• 1:38Speaker 01

  Thank you. Yeah, it's great to see you again and I'm loving the studio.

• 1:41Tristan Hughes?

  I know, for our first time doing it in person when it's not been in Edinburgh.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:45Tristan Hughes?

  We did Pontius Pilate all those years ago now, didn't we?

• 1:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right.

• 1:48Tristan Hughes?

  And now we are covering still the New Testament story. But the Gospels themselves, the four Gospels, is it fair to say that the question of their historicity, it's one of the most charged parts of, well, Christian theology of the study of early Christianity?

• 2:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, it really polarises people. Everybody has an idea on how historical they think the Gospels are. So, yeah, and they're very, you know, forthright in their views.

• 2:17Tristan Hughes?

  But regardless, they're really interesting sources, even though that there are so many, you know, different opinions out there. And I guess we should say at the beginning, we'll agree disagreeably or disagree agreeably, right? I guess with all the different theories there are out there.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course. I mean, you have to be respectful of people's views. But as an academic and a historian, you know, I, what's interesting to me is to put them alongside other ancient texts.

• 2:39Tristan Hughes?

  That's the thing.

• 2:40Speaker 01

  And to look at, you know, how they sort of fare in that, in that sort of company.

• 2:45Tristan Hughes?

  And can archaeology help us as well? Or is it more looking at the, as you say, the non-canonical four Gospels on the side?

• 2:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's really a question of sort of comparing them with other similar texts and seeing what, what they're doing, you know, what this kind of text, particularly a biographical kind of text is, is really trying to do.

• 3:02Tristan Hughes?

  And so when we mention a gospel, what do we mean by a gospel? What do they talk about?

• 3:07Speaker 01

  Well, they're basically a book about Jesus. So gospel is not an ancient genre. It's what we tend nowadays to call a book about Jesus. In fact, probably quite early on, people started to call the Gospels as we know them, the four Gospels in the New Testament. They probably started to call them Gospels quite early. So, so this is, it's not particularly a new genre. It's basically a biography.

• 3:31Tristan Hughes?

  I was going to say, is it a biography?

• 3:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so. Yeah. It's a Jewish version of a biography. But, but yeah, so, so they are, when we talk nowadays about a gospel, we really mean a book about Jesus.

• 3:44Tristan Hughes?

  And should we also mention at the start that they're books about Jesus, biographies of Jesus? And we do think, I mean, there is large scholarly consensus that there was a real figure called Jesus of Nazareth.

• 3:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you know, you're always hearing people on the internet, the mythicists saying, oh, there's not much evidence. But Jesus was a peasant. I mean, you wouldn't expect a huge amount to be written about him anyway. It's actually quite incredible that we have the Letters of Paul written 15, 20 years after Jesus's death. Even the earliest gospel is about 40 years after. So I think for all, there's some recent polls said that 40% of, of people in the UK doubted that Jesus actually existed. But I think really that they're all wrong. There's good, good evidence that Jesus did exist.

• 4:32Tristan Hughes?

  So because you've got the gospel evidence, but you also have, as you mentioned, you mentioned there the Letters of Paul. And do we have several other sources?

• 4:38Speaker 01

  We have Josephus, a Jewish historian who's writing in the 90s. He has some evidence about Jesus and also Tacitus, early 2nd, early 2nd century. So, yeah, you know, I think this is all really quite early evidence for somebody of, of Jesus's lowly status.

• 4:56Tristan Hughes?

  And so we have four Gospels. And what are these four Gospels?

• 5:01Speaker 01

  Well, there's Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the order that they come in the New Testament. So we have to be clear though, that these are the canonical Gospels. These are in the New Testament. There's actually loads and loads of Gospels. You know, once Christians started writing these lives of Jesus, they were well away. And there's a whole load of non-canonical Gospels. Some of them perfectly fine, you know, perfectly orthodox. Some of them are slightly dubious and, and they, they continue to be written into the 4th, 5th, 6th century. So there's actually loads and loads of, of Gospels. And people can read them nowadays in what's called the New Testament Apocrypha, which has them all sort of gathered together.

• 5:40Tristan Hughes?

  So these are the so-called apocryphal Gospels. That I say, today we see them as non-canonical because they're not the big four.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  Because they're not in the canon.

• 5:47Tristan Hughes?

  But before the Council of Nicaea and times of that, you know, in, there are many Christian communities across the Mediterranean world that they wouldn't have had Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They might have had Thomas, James.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  Gospel of Peter was quite popular as far as we know. But, but we do know that these four do seem to have sort of got a, a certain status already by the 2nd century. So Irenaeus talks about the fourfold Gospels. So already, they seem to be the earliest ones as far as we know. And they seem to have been the ones that are most popular within the, the early churches. So even though there might be other groups that, that favour the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Peter or whatever it is, these four do seem to be common to most Christ believers in the, in the early centuries.

• 6:34Tristan Hughes?

  Do you think it's interesting that Peter didn't make it into the, into the canonical four? Almost because you think of the first Pope of Rome and, you know, you are my rock and then so much.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it is, I'm sure we'll come on to the question of who wrote the Gospels. But it is strange that none of them are attributed to Peter. I mean, you do get the stories that Mark is the interpreter of Peter and there's that sort of link with Peter there. But, but no, nobody ever says, apart from the Gospel of Peter, that that is probably 2nd century and it's clearly derivative from the others.

• 7:06Tristan Hughes?

  Well, shall we introduce these figures one by one? And of the four, there are two who are disciples of Jesus.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  Well, they're attributed. So Matthew and John are attributed to, at, at least people with the same name as two of Jesus's disciples. Most scholars think that the, the Gospels circulated anonymously at first. And then they got the names added. So, you know, what are we to make of these? Are these just random names? They're names of, of apostles. Is that, you know, why they got these names? Or are they, I mean, these are also quite common names. Matthias.

• 7:45Tristan Hughes?

  There's a lot of Johns on there, yeah.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  Exactly. So, you know, are these particularly gospel, are these the names of disciples? And clearly two of them, Mark and Luke, are not the names of disciples, though they are also linked with figures in the New Testament.

• 8:01Tristan Hughes?

  So, I mean, that's, we need that caveat straight away. But if, if we mention Matthew, who do people normally believe Matthew is? Even if he's not actually the author of this gospel, who is this figure of Matthew?

• 8:12Speaker 01

  The traditional answer is that he's Matthew the tax collector, who's one of Jesus's disciples. So an eyewitness of events.

• 8:19Tristan Hughes?

  And John?

• 8:20Speaker 01

  John is John, son of Zebedee. Sometimes linked with the beloved disciple in John's Gospel.

• 8:26Tristan Hughes?

  He's at the foot of the cross, isn't he?

• 8:27Speaker 01

  At the foot of the cross, yes. And the one who sort of always gets it, you know, in comparison to Peter, who often doesn't get it. John is always just that little bit more savvy than the others.

• 8:37Tristan Hughes?

  And then we have Mark.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, Mark is traditionally linked to John Mark, who is associated with a sort of a Christian safe house in Jerusalem. He's also mentioned in the first letter of Peter, and the author there says, my son Mark. I mean, it's very tenuous, but the idea is that Peter has a particularly close connection with Mark, and Mark is the interpreter of Peter, whatever exactly that means. And according to Papias, who's a second century church father, he says that Mark wrote down everything that Peter remembered. So again, I think what these authors are trying to do in the second century, particularly in the fight against heretics,

• 9:24Speaker 01

  is to give these gospels the stamp of authenticity. They're saying, okay, Mark may not have been an eyewitness himself, but he knew Peter and he's writing down very carefully, though not in order, he says, everything that Peter remembered. So, you know, that means that this is a trustworthy gospel.

• 9:45Tristan Hughes?

  So, and that's, we mentioned Peter not being there earlier, but actually, if you're looking at it then through that lens, it's Mark through the words of Peter. So you actually have Peter in the four canonical.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Exactly. Peter's just really the scribe. Yeah.

• 9:57Tristan Hughes?

  And fourth, but certainly not least, Luke. Yes.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. So Luke is traditionally said to be the travelling companion of Paul in Acts, because obviously Luke has a two-volume work, whereas the others are just gospels. Luke has the Gospel and Acts, which traces sort of early Christian history on to the 60s or so. And so the idea there is that Luke is somebody who knows Paul very well.

• 10:23Tristan Hughes?

  So those are the four. And the subject matter, you said, Lucy, you know, it's, as an overview, it's the life of Jesus. But do they all?

• 10:30Speaker 01

  And death, particularly the death and resurrection.

• 10:32Tristan Hughes?

  The death and resurrection. But do they all include kind of the classic parts of Jesus's story? What do we know about the style in which these are written?

• 10:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, they don't all include the same materials. So only two, for example, have birth stories. Only Matthew and Luke have birth stories. Only John's gospel opens with that grand prologue, you know, in the beginning was the word, and he traces things from before creation. Mark's gospel doesn't have any resurrection stories, all the others do. So there's a lot of overlap, a lot of similarity. In fact, in some cases, there's word-for-word overlap. But it's, generally speaking, they all have their own slant.

• 11:17Tristan Hughes?

  So you have all lens of the kind of the scale, then. You can see parts where they are completely similar, almost word-for-word. But also, if you explore certain times, there are times where you have the same story but disagree on certain details, and some times where they have completely different.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  Completely different. Exactly. They have the whole range of the spectrum. And I mean, I think this is one of the really fascinating things about it. And this is one of the things that got me into studying this in the first place. It's called the synoptic problem, and it's trying to work out the literary relationships between the gospels.

• 11:44Tristan Hughes?

  Gosh. And how much they might have been in, I guess, competition with each other, trying to outdo one another, or trying to support one another?

• 11:53Speaker 01

  That is a really interesting question. And what, you know, so if, for example, Matthew uses Mark, as most people think. In fact, Matthew sort of uses the whole of Mark, he adds extra bits to it. So then what is he trying to do? Is he eating up Mark? Does he expect Mark's, you know, does Mark still have value if Matthew has used it all up?

• 12:15Tristan Hughes?

  This is version two, almost.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. Is it a competitive thing? Or is it supplementing? Is it complementing? And as you move on, particularly by the time you get to John, if there's three already, what does John think he's doing? You know, is he just adding another voice? Is he replacing? It's a fascinating question, I think, what they think they're doing.

• 12:37Tristan Hughes?

  Well, let's delve more into that kind of chronological order. So which of the four do we think comes first?

• 12:42Speaker 01

  Almost certainly Mark.

• 12:43Tristan Hughes?

  Mark, okay. And how long after the life of Jesus is he writing?

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Well, I think current sort of dating of Mark puts him after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE. So maybe early 70s. So that gives us about 40 years between the death of Jesus and Mark. So a couple of generations, really.

• 13:04Tristan Hughes?

  And the fact that, so the fact that the earliest one is written only kind of 40 years after the crucifixion event. In regards to kind of biographies of ancient figures, that's pretty close to the events themselves, right? You would still probably have had at least one or two eyewitnesses.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  Exactly. It's not that long. You know, we tend to think, oh, 40 years. But yeah, there might still have been people who remembered Jesus, people who were still telling their stories, people who could verify these accounts. So, yeah, it's not, I mean, it's not the next day, but it's not bad. And like you say, there's plenty of biographies written about characters from much, much more distant periods than our own gospels.

• 13:42Tristan Hughes?

  I always think of like in Nicolaus and Tabaskus, with like the assassination of Julius Caesar being the closest one, and then the rest are always much later than that. And so we have Mark first, and then who follows? You said Matthew. So Matthew comes not long afterwards, sadly.

• 13:56Speaker 01

  Yes. I mean, people tend to put Matthew next. I mean, we don't know for sure, but Matthew may be about the 80s, something like that. Matthew is using Mark and adds extra material himself. And then probably we get Luke. Luke could be any time 90s, around about 100, maybe, possibly quite a bit later. And then John from about the same time, maybe a little bit later. Again, John could easily be into the second century.

• 14:25Tristan Hughes?

  And let's delve into the first of those three, because why are Mark, Matthew, and Luke often linked very closely together?

• 14:35Speaker 01

  They're sort of known as a group as the synoptic gospels. And that's from a Greek word, synopsis, meaning, you know, looked at together, seen side by side. And the reason for that is that they are very, very similar. Sometimes they are, they have verbal similarities. And these verbal similarities can stretch for several sentences. So, and stories are in the same order as well. So there's obviously some kind of literary dependency. And what people think nowadays is that Mark wrote first, and then Matthew and Luke both used Mark in the composition of their own gospel.

• 15:16Tristan Hughes?

  And what are some of these stories that almost are word-for-word in these three accounts?

• 15:20Speaker 01

  Oh, I mean, lots of them, lots and lots of them. So, I mean, the story of the man with the withered hand in the synagogue, for example. I mean, another one is the entrance into Jerusalem. Again, if you put the stories side by side and look at them, you see long, long sort of lists. This is something I get students to do, you know, underline the words that are the same in all of this. And even when they're not the same, they're similar. So, you know, I say to them, well, if two students handed these in, or three students handed these in as an essay, what would you think? And they all say, oh, there's been copying, copying going on here. So I think it is fairly clear, if you do look at them

• 16:03Speaker 01

  in this sort of, you know, side by side, you can see there is some literary link between them.

• 16:09Tristan Hughes?

  When I think of like copying, of like one source from slightly later, like redoing a source from earlier, I might think of like an epitome or something like that. But then, you know, there are clear differences between the two at the same time. Is the amount of similarity, the fact that it is almost in cases word-for-word, is that quite strange in its own, in its own way for, you know, these gospel writers to actually be making something so, so similar?

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so. I think it's really unusual in the ancient world. I mean, you know, all ancient authors use sources. And, I mean, they're encouraged to do that, you know, the whole sort of imitation thing. You sort of write and rewrite stuff that's out there already. So that's, that's sort of normal practice. But this sort of, it's almost like a scribal activity. You know, you're writing, you're writing out whole sentences, and then you're adding bits and pieces. And one of the things about the changes is that when you look at all the changes together, you can see certain sort of interests, whether they're theological interests, or social interests, or whatever it is. And Matthew always changes Mark in a particular way. Luke always changes Mark in a particular

• 17:21Speaker 01

  way. So there, you could almost see them sort of working with these texts and changing them so that they fit into their own particular interests.

• 17:30Tristan Hughes?

  So how does Matthew change Mark? And then how does Luke change Mark?

• 17:33Speaker 01

  Well, Matthew is very interested in Jewish scriptures, scriptural fulfillment. So he will often change Mark so that it's more obvious that he might quote something from the scriptures, he might change something so that it's more obvious that there is a scriptural passage there, that it's been fulfilled. Luke tends, Luke is a better writer altogether. He's a better writer of Greek. So he does make Mark's Greek better. But he's very interested in the poor and the marginalized. So he will add extra bits that kind of bring in these groups. And also, there's less, Mark is very keen on sort of

• 18:15Speaker 01

  the imminent end of all things, you know, that the kingdom of God is about to break into human life. Yeah, this apocalyptic Jesus. Whereas Luke tends to sort of tone that down a bit. So, so again, if you sort of look at all of these, sometimes very, very minor changes, but all together, you can sort of build up a picture of, yeah, this is what Luke is particularly interested in. This is what Matthew is interested in.

• 18:41Tristan Hughes?

  Whoever Luke was, or whoever Matthew was.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, we just call them those names. But, yeah, short term.

• 18:47Tristan Hughes?

  And you see, but you mentioned, even once in a while, you do see disagreements between the two, or omissions between, you mentioned the birth story, the virgin birth, Bethlehem, the in the stable. Was that only in one of the accounts?

• 18:58Speaker 01

  That is only, that's only in Luke.

• 19:00Tristan Hughes?

  That's only in Luke.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the Magi and King Herod, only in Matthew. So, yeah, they have very, very different birth stories. And John has this sort of prologue that starts in sort of prehistory. So they all choose to sort of situate their stories in slightly different ways. And Mark just starts straight away with John the Baptist and the river Jordan.

• 19:24Tristan Hughes?

  We'll get more into John the Baptist in a bit.

• 19:29Tristan Hughes?

  In that sense, Mark is always seen as the earliest and then kind of Luke and Matthew evidently know Mark and copying out quite lots of Mark. But what is this amazing, really interesting debate amongst scholars about whether there was a source for themselves like as well, a source for Mark, an earlier source dating even closer to the time of Jesus?

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Q.

• 19:52Tristan Hughes?

  Q.

• 19:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:54Tristan Hughes?

  The question.

• 19:54Speaker 01

  Sounds like something from out of James Bond, but it's called Q because that's the German word for Kvela. So, you know, Q is just the abbreviation for that. So just to add to the complexity, sometimes Matthew, Mark and Luke are identical across all three. Sometimes though, Matthew and Luke are identical, but in a passage that's not in Mark. So then the question is, where have these passages come from? Now, one way of looking at that is just to say, well, Mark wrote first, then Matthew, and then Luke had both texts and that accounts for all these things. You know, sometimes they're the same, sometimes Matthew

• 20:37Speaker 01

  and Luke are the same. But another view is that in addition to Mark, Matthew and Luke had this source that's now no longer extant called Q, which was largely sort of sayings of Jesus. And they both use, so they're both writing completely independently, they're both using Mark, and they're both using this source Q. And so that again, explains why sometimes they follow the structure of Mark, but they also follow Q, which is why they have some material in common. And it's also in the same order, which is why people think it's a written document rather than just oral sources.

• 21:20Tristan Hughes?

  And what are the examples of this? What are the ones that are in Matthew and Luke?

• 21:23Speaker 01

  Well, so the temptation stories, for example. I mean, if you look in Mark, he just says Jesus was in the wilderness forty days.

• 21:30Tristan Hughes?

  This is the wilderness, okay.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, Jesus goes to the wilderness. Mark just says he was tempted by Satan and then he came back. Matthew and Luke, though, have sort of very convoluted stories about Satan takes him up to the highest pinnacle of the temple and says, throw yourself down and, you know, see whether God will come and save you. And Satan says, you know, make the stones into bread. And, you know, three very sort of distinct temptation stories. And they're very similar in both works, which suggests that, you know, again, they're from a written source. And much of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew's Gospel is from the Q source.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  It's also in Luke, but Luke has what's called the Sermon on the Plain. He sort of, I know, you've got a mountain in one.

• 22:22Tristan Hughes?

  And he's the Sermon on the River next to something like that, right?

• 22:25Speaker 01

  He sort of, he pulls it apart a little bit, but still, the material is largely in the same order and it's largely the same, which makes people think this is from a written source.

• 22:36Tristan Hughes?

  So what do you think? Q or no Q?

• 22:38Speaker 01

  Well, I have to say, I've, a lot of these things, it's what you were taught, isn't it? So I was taught Q and I've had no reason particularly to relinquish Q, but I am starting to wobble on Q. I've found a few places where I'm starting to think maybe Luke does just know Matthew, that would make some sense. But I think scholarship is largely half and half on this. It used to be the case that nearly everyone was a Q believer. Now, I think, I think, you know, it's more, it's more sort of polarised.

• 23:12Tristan Hughes?

  So if there's no Q, the line of thinking being that, let's say, the temptation stories, the added detail is almost added later.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  No, the detail then, in that case, Mark wrote first, Matthew uses Mark, he adds in material.

• 23:26Tristan Hughes?

  And then adding this extra bit.

• 23:27Speaker 01

  Yes, we don't know where he's got those from. And then Luke is using both Mark and Matthew.

• 23:36Tristan Hughes?

  And could it be that some of the information that we have in the Gospels was passed down to the likes of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and then John through oral tradition, as we see with so many other stories, I mean, Homer's Iliad passed down for so many centuries, that there are parts of the story that were, you know, written down in the Gospels, passed down from people, from eyewitnesses, you know, and that word of mouth continued for one generation or two.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  I think that's possible, but I think you have to be a little bit cautious with that because an old fashioned idea was that the Gospel writers were just simply editors and compilers. So basically what they did was they sort of, you know, they went around, found a few Christians, got their stories and just wrote them down in any old order. And that was very much the sort of the, the general accepted view of the Gospels in the early 20th century. Since then, people have really begun to realise that these are, these are really good literary texts. They may not be written in the most elegant Greek, but, you know, they're competent biographies. They, they, they're written by people who

• 24:42Speaker 01

  have a good level of Greek education. They can use nice little literary tropes. They are, you know, they are literary endeavours. So I'm sure that certainly Mark and probably the other Gospels too, would have tried to, you know, to find out information about Jesus. Some of it would have been written down, some of it would have been oral. And I'm sure that's, that's what happened. But at the same time, they are writing a literary text and so they're going to be selective, they're going to shape their materials so that it fits in with what they want to say. So I think that the slight nervousness I have about saying, you know, there's oral traditions here, is that it sounds as though

• 25:23Speaker 01

  you've necessarily got that link back with, with Jesus. And I'm not sure the oral traditions will give you that. You don't necessarily know that they're going all the way back to Jesus. And you don't actually know how much the Gospel writers have, have shaped them in the telling.

• 25:39Tristan Hughes?

  Interesting. And when they're, you know, when they're making the Gospels, these, these figures, so are they all writing in Greek? Was it Aramaic? Or you mentioned Greek?

• 25:46Speaker 01

  They're all written in Greek. Yes. Yes. And there's no reason to think that they were written in, you know, we don't think there's a sort of Aramaic original. They're, they're all written in Greek. So, so you've already got that process of translation from Jesus, who would have spoken Aramaic, to the Gospels being written in Greek.

• 26:03Tristan Hughes?

  And inevitably being spread far and wide very, very quickly, right? If we think that Matthew and Luke are using Mark not only a decade or so, maybe a few decades after, after Mark, and then you get John as well. Evidently, they're being then recopied and recopied and spread across Christian communities in the Eastern Mediterranean.

• 26:19Speaker 01

  That's right. I mean, again, we don't know exactly where these Gospels were written, but, but if only we did. But the sort of best guess is that they probably come from urban environments in the Eastern Mediterranean. And, and yes, like you say, they're spreading very quickly.

• 26:37Tristan Hughes?

  And then we get to John. So this is a, this is a conversation in its own right, isn't it, Helen? Because he is very different in his tone and style.

• 26:50Speaker 01

  Yes. And I mean, even, even the portrait of Jesus that you have in John's Gospel is very different. You have this, this opening prologue that puts in there at the beginning of creation, in the beginning was the word and the word was God. So, you know, you get this divine figure in, in John's Gospel. He sort of comes down to earth and he's often been described as God striding over the earth. There's, there's no doubt that Jesus is, is something different. He's sort of a godlike figure. He, he talks of himself, the Son and the Father are one, he says. And he has these long dialogues and it's a, it's a very different kind of flavour in John's Gospel to the other three.

• 27:34Tristan Hughes?

  And how are those long dialogues different? What, what, what do you think is the purpose with the longer dialogues? Which, does it put more speeches in the mouth of Jesus?

• 27:41Speaker 01

  Yes, many more speeches. In the synoptic Gospels, Jesus speaks in fairly short, sort of pithy ways. You know, you'll, you'll get a sort of a little, a little sentence here or you don't really get long sermons. I suppose the Sermon on the Mount is sort of one of the few that you do get that's quite long. And the apocalyptic material, Mark, chapter 13. But largely, they're sort of little sayings. In John's Gospel, though, you get these long dialogues that sort of spiral round and round and round. He picks up words and he sort of works with them and then he picks up another word. And it's, it's also very difficult to know when the voice of Jesus stops and the voice of the narrator starts. So people

• 28:26Speaker 01

  who are translating these and trying to put in sort of inverted commas for when the voice of Jesus stops, actually find it really difficult because the narrator sounds exactly the same as Jesus. So it could almost all be from the voice of Jesus.

• 28:42Tristan Hughes?

  And do we think the purpose of it is, is to convey a particular message? Is there more kind of, I can't, is this the word parabolic? I guess, is it fair to say? I don't know if that's the right way to say it, but in John, because of the longer speeches that are attributed to Jesus?

• 28:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's a different, the, the, the sort of the divinity of Jesus is much more obvious there. And the whole point, I mean, for, for, for John, Jesus's death is a sort of a triumph. He talks about it as being lifted up on the cross. And he, John only has seven, seven miracles, unlike the many, many miracles that you get in the others. And one of those is the resurrection at the end. So the miracles are all signs that point to Jesus's glory that finally you're going to see when he's on the cross. So it's this sort of inverted idea that, you know, death is triumph. So it's, yeah, it's, it's heavily

• 29:37Speaker 01

  theological throughout. And there's always, there's always something else happening, you know, double layers. And, and actually, the Greek is very, very simple in John, but, but the thought is intensely complex.

• 29:51Tristan Hughes?

  Gosh, that's the interesting part, is actually studying the words themselves and the style of the wording compared to the earlier three Gospels.

• 29:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:57Tristan Hughes?

  And why has, for so long, have many people always kind of put John to one side compared to the other three? And then almost, yeah, put him in his own little box almost?

• 30:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I think from very early times, it's been realised that there's something slightly different about John. And in the very early period, people used to say that the other Gospels had captured the sort of the physical side and John had written the spiritual side of things. So, you know, people realised that, that, that it, they were very different in some ways. Mark, for example, just has one trip to Jerusalem. John has three at least, and some other differences like that. So the explanation early on was that John was more spiritual. Then in the 20th century, people started to say that maybe John was completely independent

• 30:52Speaker 01

  of the others and didn't know them at all. And this then becomes interesting in terms of questions of history, because if John is completely separate, areas where John and the others are in agreement are obviously more likely to be historical.

• 31:09Tristan Hughes?

  Historical, that's more the historical part.

• 31:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then nowadays, there's been a bit of a move back from that. You know, it just seems unlikely. If Matthew and Luke know Mark, how likely is it that John is writing somewhere and doesn't know the other ones at all? And actually, for all their differences, when you look at John and the others, there are also some big similarities. Apart from the prologue, they all start basically with John the Baptist. They, John also gives about half of the gospel to the telling of Jesus's death, in the same way that Mark devotes about half of the gospel to Jesus's death.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  They all have the entry into Jerusalem, they have some shared stories. In fact, John's gospel has the feeding of the 5,000 directly followed by Jesus walking on the water, exactly the same as you have in the synoptic gospels. So when you look at the similarities like that, it becomes a little bit difficult to say he doesn't know the others.

• 32:19Tristan Hughes?

  That miracle, that part of Jesus's story, the feeding of the 5,000, I mentioned it before as well. I am intrigued by, you know, of all the stories of Jesus, you know, that's the one that is in all four, you know, for all the differences between John and Mark, and we'll get into some of the different stories. But I am always struck by the fact that that really well-known one, you know, is visible in all four.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  And that's one of the most important stories in first century Judaism as well, because it obviously sort of reflects the story of Moses in the wilderness, when, you know, the Israelites are wandering in the wilderness after they've come out of Egypt, and God sends them manna in the wilderness. So this is what they're eating in the wilderness. And there's all sorts of links with that story in the gospels. And that story of God's provision for his people in the wilderness was thought of as being the greatest miracle amongst first century Jews. So I think it's no accident that that particular story is picked up by all four gospel writers.

• 33:21Speaker 01

  You know, this is Jesus as a second Moses, and Moses had to ask God for the manna, whereas Jesus himself is providing for the people. So it very much paints Jesus as a second Moses.

• 33:36Tristan Hughes?

  We'll continue this interview in a moment, right after these adverts.

• 33:42Tristan Hughes?

  Hi there. Just before we return to the episode, I wanted to pop in here to tell you about the History Hit subscription and give you a taste of the exclusive content that our subscribers get. Now, as a History Hit subscriber, you have access to hundreds of brand new documentaries with a new release every week, from Dan Snow exploring Maya ruins to my documentary on Petra and the Nabateans. There's an app where you can search for any time period, people or presenter, there is something for everyone. You also get, as part of the subscription, early access to all of our podcasts with no ads. Now, on the ancients, we really value our listeners. Without you, doing this podcast would not be possible.

• 34:26Tristan Hughes?

  So we also release an exclusive subscriber-only episode every two weeks. And our most recent installment, published last Friday, was with our guest for this very episode, the wonderful Helen Bond. Together, we delve into the origins of her interest in biblical history, and Helen reveals some enticing tidbits from the real history of Jesus of Nazareth. Did you know, for example, that Jesus's female disciples may have been bankrolling his whole Galilean operation? Just how much influence did these women have? Here's Helen explaining more. And going back to the women who knew Jesus, I mean, you've also researched extensively

• 35:08Tristan Hughes?

  with Joan Taylor, who we've also had on the podcast, great friend on the show, about the female disciples of Jesus. Firstly, what a title, The Female Disciples of Jesus. But what was it like unpicking the lives of these figures that are often overlooked? And what was it like unpacking, let's say, Mary Magdalene's story or Salome's story?

• 35:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I mean, the difficulty with some of them is we know so little, but you know, we'll have a little tiny fragment. We'll hear from the gospel writers that these women were travelling around Galilee with Jesus. And in Luke's gospel, he says that these women are sort of basically bankrolling the operation. He tells us that, and then he moves on, and you think, well, tell us more, you know, what's happening? Why are these women following? Where are they sleeping at night? How are they helping from their own resources? What are they doing? And so just being imaginative and trying to think through these things was really interesting. I mean, hopefully, there's more than just imagination, and it's sort of informed imagination based on what we know of the first century period and the social context of all of that.

• 36:12Tristan Hughes?

  There are subscriber episodes every fortnight and access to hundreds of original documentaries. That's historyhit.com/subscribe, or click the link in the show notes. That's historyhit.com/subscribe.

• 36:33Tristan Hughes?

  Are you looking for the perfect podcasts to hunker down with during the longer, colder, darker nights?

• 36:39Speaker 02

  Well, look no further than the award-winning After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal with me, Maddie Pelling.

• 36:46Tristan Hughes?

  And me, Anthony Delaney. We are historians and love all things gloomy and macabre.

• 36:51Speaker 02

  From Tudor executioners and ancient Egyptian death rituals to witch trials and folklore feel transported back in time on After Dark. Out every Monday and Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 37:03Tristan Hughes?

  And guess what? We're also now on YouTube. After Dark, a podcast from History Hit.

• 37:23Tristan Hughes?

  And so from what you were saying before, like, it was once believed, as you say, that Mark did not know Luke, Matthew, or in particular, did not know that John didn't know Mark. And so the old argument being that because they also include, let's use for instance, the story of the feeding of the 5,000, because both Mark and John used that story, but evident that they believed John didn't know of Mark, then that was evidence for that event actually happening almost, that added credence to the historicity. So that was the old argument, was it?

• 37:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the old argument, if John is completely independent of the other two, areas where they overlap suggest that they're both dependent on earlier tradition. Now, that may not necessarily go back to Jesus, but it's earlier, and you're sort of pushing things back. And the way that people got over those similarities between the two texts, in two texts that supposedly don't know each other, is to say that they are oral, pieces of oral tradition that are floating about. And so, so yeah, the idea, it then becomes easier, or at least possible, to sort of

• 38:36Speaker 01

  say, well, places where they are similar do suggest that it's some sort of shared tradition, and this may well go back to an earlier stage and may well be historical. So it's interesting from a historical angle. Of course, as soon as you start saying, John is simply picking up on the others, that just collapses.

• 38:57Tristan Hughes?

  Well, I'm going to ask you now, do you think John actually did know of the writings of Mark and then Matthew and Luke?

• 39:03Speaker 01

  I'm absolutely convinced that he, I certainly think that he knows Mark, yep. And all the work I've done ever since my PhD was sort of comparative stuff across all four gospels. And in every case, I always thought, John is, John is sort of finding a new angle on Mark. There's something in Mark that John is bringing out and developing. So although I was taught that John didn't know the others, I never believed it. So I always thought that John knew Mark. Nowadays, there's been quite a lot of new work on whether he knew Luke and Matthew. Luke, I think, is fairly clear. Matthew is the one that's not entirely.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  Not not quite so obvious because so many times Matthew is the same as Mark and it's difficult to know if he's getting it from Mark or Matthew. But but I think enough has been written recently to convince me that probably John knew all all three.

• 40:03Tristan Hughes?

  Well, let's explore some parts of John's Gospel because it is very interesting. And you did mention that that prelude, that prologue that is in John. So what is this? You think it takes us back into prehistory? This is great for the ancients podcast. I love that.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  Yes, well, right at the beginning, you know, the the whole sort of the first phrase in the beginning is taking you back to Genesis because that's the way that Genesis starts. And and the way that books were known in certainly amongst Jews is is by the first sort of word, you know, so in the beginning, we call it Genesis, which again is, you know, from the Greek meaning in the beginning. So so straight away, a hearer is transported to the world of Genesis, and we're hearing a creation story. But this time it includes Jesus, you know, in the beginning was the word and the word was God, the word was with God, the word was God. And so Jesus is part of this creative process right from the start.

• 40:57Speaker 01

  And it brings in traditions of wisdom and proverbs and all kinds of other sort of Hebrew Bible elements, you know, people who are used to hearing these scriptures are their ears are pinging with all of these resonances. And so what John is doing is rewriting the history of the world, but putting Jesus in it. And so for him, Jesus is preexistent. Jesus was there at the beginning. So he comes, he sort of clothes himself as a human, he comes and he has his ministry, and then he goes back up to to God at the end. So it's a very different picture to the one that we get in the synoptics where where he's just, you know, well, certainly in Mark's Gospel, he's, he's just a bloke.

• 41:42Tristan Hughes?

  But you could argue it's a more popular way of writing at the time, I guess, with the the time of John, if he's including this preamble compared to the others, I guess once, as we'll delve into other kind of differences in the story, maybe it's also a reflection of the world that this figure of John was living in when he was writing this, well, this Gospel.

• 41:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I, and I think John's sort of, you know, immense creative abilities that in Matthew also wants to link Jesus with the Jewish scriptures, but he tends to do it in a more clunky way. He'll just say, this was to fulfill the scripture, and then he quotes the scripture. Whereas John does quote some scriptures, but more often he'll just kind of tell the story so that you hear the scriptures through it. So it's a it's a more creative way of dealing with it, I think.

• 42:31Tristan Hughes?

  Well, let's explore some of the past. I mean, I mentioned we should talk a bit more about John the Baptist as our chat goes on. And you say how it begins with John the Baptist. So doesn't seem to be much difference there. But there is an interesting difference in how he's portrayed in John compared to Matthew, Mark and Luke, if I'm not mistaken.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 42:48Tristan Hughes?

  Which is an interesting contrast. So what is this contrast?

• 42:50Speaker 01

  So in the synoptic gospels, John is is portrayed as a kind of Elijah figure. So there was an idea in Jewish thought that Elijah would come first before the Messiah.

• 43:00Tristan Hughes?

  And he's the chariots of fireman, isn't he?

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's the guy who goes up because and and that's the whole point. Elijah is this great prophet from from ancient times, sort of, you know, eighth century BCE, something like that. And he doesn't die, he goes up to heaven. And the idea is that he's still waiting in heaven, he's going to come back at the end times, and he's going to come back and he's going to restore everything before the Messiah comes, or at least before, you know, God comes to inaugurate the end times. And so in in Mark's Gospel, which is then followed by Matthew and Luke, John the Baptist is presented as as Elijah. He's wearing the clothes of Elijah, he's got this sort of camel hair clothing, and he's got a leather belt.

• 43:42Tristan Hughes?

  With honey and all that, isn't it?

• 43:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, the wild locusts, he's having a great time out in the wilderness. So he's this sort of Bedouin figure who's sort of, you know, reminding people of Elijah and and and he has great success with the people. And it's only once he's finished, when he's arrested, that Jesus then embarks on his own ministry. So Elijah comes first, he restores all things as he's supposed to do in the book of Malachi, and then Jesus starts. In John's Gospel, though, Jesus, John the Baptist is not Elijah. John the Baptist's role is

• 44:20Speaker 01

  as a witness to Jesus. So in John's Gospel, you have a sort of a ministry that that continues. So Jesus goes to John the Baptist, he gets baptized, even though that's not really described very clearly in John. But then the two men are sort of continuing side by side, and John the Baptist takes several opportunities to say, you know, behold, the Lamb of God, behold, the Lamb of God, and keeps telling people who he is. And so his his purpose in John's Gospel is really to be a witness to Jesus. So it's just a different use of John the Baptist.

• 44:57Tristan Hughes?

  And do you think, I mean, I just want to use that example to kind of further what I was saying before, that is this a reflection of almost developing thoughts of theological, philosophical, early Christian thoughts about, you know, these parts of Jesus's story, let's say, from the time of Mark now to the time of John, there's been a development of thinking, at least in some Christian, early Christian communities, that John the Baptist is not meant to be Elijah, stuff like that.

• 45:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, I think certainly there's been a sort of a downplaying of that apocalyptic sense that the end is nigh. I mean, it's still very clear in Mark's Gospel, but it it gets less and less. And by the time you get to to John, John actually doesn't say much about sort of apocalyptic ideas. For John, you can have eternal life now if you believe in Jesus. So it's very much a kind of a playing down of all of that. So the idea of seeing John the Baptist as Elijah and sort of pointing to the end of time wouldn't really fit for him. So instead, he has him as a witness. And another thing that that

• 46:03Speaker 01

  John has is a sort of a law court motif all the way through. So he has several characters in the Gospels bearing witness to Jesus. And John the Baptist is just sort of one of the first of this, the idea of sort of a trial, I suppose, the whole, the whole of the Gospel in some ways is a trial. And and sort of that that fits in then with his with his use of John the Baptist.

• 46:25Tristan Hughes?

  And so different types of miracles as well that are performed, and and the amount of people who are watching them as well. Lazarus is a big example.

• 46:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, that's right. And and that's very different, too, because in in the synoptic Gospels, the thing that leads to Jesus's death is the incident in the temple. Jesus goes into the temple, he knocks over the the the tables of the money changers and the the people selling the dares. And he says, my, my father's house should be a house of prayer. And and then the chief priests get really worked up and decide, you know, oh, we better, we better arrest him. There's in John's Gospel, though, the incident in the temple is right in the very beginning, and it's not the thing that leads to Jesus's death. But the thing that leads to his death, ironically, is his offer of life to Lazarus. So he raises Lazarus from the dead. And it's that that the chief priests then decide,

• 47:17Speaker 01

  you know, we're gonna, we're gonna kill him.

• 47:19Tristan Hughes?

  Did Jesus raise any other people to life in the other Gospels?

• 47:22Speaker 01

  He does, yes.

• 47:23Tristan Hughes?

  So there's not a Lazarus figure in the other ones, but that but.

• 47:25Speaker 01

  Well, interestingly, there is a Lazarus figure. There's a there's a parable in Luke's Gospel of a poor man called Lazarus and a rich man. And the poor man Lazarus is at the the rich man's gate, and they both die, they go to, well, they die, and then they go to the next world. Lazarus is in the bosom of Abraham, and he's having a great time in the afterlife. The the rich man, though, is in this terrible sort of hell like place of flames and torture. And he says, and he realizes that, you know, it's because he's been rich and he's not cared about the poor. And so he says to to Abraham, can can you

• 48:07Speaker 01

  send Lazarus back to back to the earth to warn my brothers? And Abraham says, no, no, they get one chance, you know, and I'm not going to send Lazarus back. So it's interesting, I think, that and and one of the reasons why I think probably John does know Luke is that he, I'm fairly certain, he takes that parable and dramatizes it into the raising of Lazarus, so that, you know, Lazarus does come back in John's Gospel. And this is the greatest miracle that that Jesus performs.

• 48:40Tristan Hughes?

  Gosh, I could ask about so many other miracles as well, and in which gospels they feature, because I don't know, like, the Good Samaritan, is that Luke? I can't remember.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  That's Luke, yeah.

• 48:48Tristan Hughes?

  That's Luke and many others. But we'll, we'll go on to the next part of our chat, which is going to refresh on the authorship question, the genre, and then whether there are any parts of these Gospels that can be verified, kind of stories from extra Gospel sources. We'll continue this interview in a moment, right after these adverts.

• 49:18Tristan Hughes?

  Are you looking for the perfect podcasts to hunker down with during the longer, colder, darker nights?

• 49:24Speaker 02

  Well, look no further than the award winning After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal with me, Maddie Pelling.

• 49:31Tristan Hughes?

  And me, Anthony Delaney. We are historians and love all things gloomy and macabre.

• 49:36Speaker 02

  From Tudor executioners and ancient Egyptian death rituals to witch trials and folklore, feel transported back in time on After Dark. Out every Monday and Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 49:48Tristan Hughes?

  And guess what? We're also now on YouTube. After Dark, a podcast from History Hit.

• 50:07Tristan Hughes?

  So let's refresh ourselves first of all with the the authorship of these four gospels.

• 50:13Tristan Hughes?

  Do we think there's any chance that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John did write them?

• 50:19Speaker 01

  If you mean by those people, the people in the in the New Testament, the apostles, no, I don't think so. I mean, I think it's perfectly possible that the person who wrote Mark's gospel was called Marcus. You know, it was a common name. Why not? And I think certainly as soon as you've got a couple of gospels, you've got to, you've got to find some way to distinguish between them. And and these names are remarkably consistent in the tradition. But the idea that they relate to people who we know of in the New Testament, I think, is very unlikely.

• 50:55Tristan Hughes?

  Can we say that, you know, the quality of the writing of the style and the way that, you know, these biographies are formed, that although we might not be able to give, you know, particular names to them, we can say these are evidently educated, early Christian figures who are creating the gospel?

• 51:13Speaker 01

  Yes, I don't think they're Galilean fishermen. And also, I mean, by the time you've got Matthew and and now John using Mark's gospel, would eyewitnesses be using another gospel that even tradition doesn't think that Mark himself was a an eyewitness, even if he's using material from Peter? So, yeah, I think it's unlikely. And also, you know, the dates to make it very unlikely that they would have to be extremely old.

• 51:43Tristan Hughes?

  How could John have lived that long?

• 51:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, extremely old, I think.

• 51:48Tristan Hughes?

  And how does now, if we get to this other figure I've got in my notes, Irenaeus?

• 51:52Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 51:53Tristan Hughes?

  How does he come into the story then with the authorship?

• 51:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, so he's a second century, sort of late second century, Christian figure. And and he he sort of doubles down on the traditional namings, really because of the fight against heretics, because other people, other other gospels are appearing. As I said before, a lot of them are perfectly fine, but some of them are, you know, not quite as the bishop would like. I mean, you can't really talk about heresy at this period because it's too early, you know, there's no orthodoxy, there's no heresy.

• 52:27Tristan Hughes?

  As we mentioned earlier, you know, following different gospels, different parts.

• 52:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. There's different, different ideas. It's only sort of when the creeds start to to come into existence that we can talk about orthodoxy, really. But there's certain things that that make Irenaeus sort of happier than others. And and he really sort of doubled down on the on the four gospels. And he he talks about why there should be four gospels. There's there's four, four corners of the earth, four winds. And and he's really responsible for sort of giving these four, these particular four gospels, a higher standing in the early church. And and I do think that it's probably because they're already, you know, he's not inventing this out of nothing. They're already the ones that are most popular.

• 53:14Speaker 01

  But he and and he, I think it's really interesting that, you know, the early church didn't decide they had to just have one or two. You know, they were very happy to have four different perspectives on Jesus. But he's very much the one who sort of said that these are the four.

• 53:31Tristan Hughes?

  So of all the events in Jesus's life, miracles included, are there any parts of the story that we see in the gospels that are also reported in extra gospel literature that can give more historicity to them actually happening?

• 53:50Speaker 01

  Well, if you include Paul, so Paul's letters, so obviously he's still, he's a Christian, but he's not one of the gospels. And and he's obsessed by Jesus's death and resurrection. I mean, those are the things that he talks about most strangely. Paul doesn't say much about the historical Jesus, but he does, he does include a tradition about the Last Supper and the institution of the Eucharist, the bread and the wine, the night before he's arrested. And he has one or two other sayings of Jesus in there. He mentions Jesus's brothers as well, and Peter and James, and, you know, some of the other disciples. So we get some sort of corroboration there from from Paul.

• 54:35Speaker 01

  Otherwise, you've got to wait. I mean, other New Testament texts, of course, mention other things, but otherwise you've got to wait till

• 54:44Speaker 01

  Josephus, the Jewish historian in the 90s, when he has, he has a little paragraph about Jesus, where he says that he was handed over to Pilate by the leading men of the Jews. And and and Jesus was crucified and his followers believed that he'd been resurrected from the dead afterwards. Now, the paragraph as we have it has clearly been edited by Christian scribes because he's got bits in there that that Josephus would never have said. So he, if it was right to call him a man, he has, if, you know, he was the Messiah. And then something about the resurrection being in accordance with the scriptures.

• 55:26Speaker 01

  So, you know, these are things that the Pharisee Josephus would never have said. But most people think that if you take those away, and maybe there was something that the Christian scribes deleted, because this is in a section that talks about trouble in the time of Pilate. And as we have it, there's no particular trouble. So most people nowadays think that something was there, possibly not too far removed from what we have at the moment, that it was more tweaked and perhaps some things omitted. But in any case, that does mean that in the 90s or so, you have a non-Christian Jew mentioning Jesus. And and that's really quite early as well.

• 56:11Tristan Hughes?

  So the trial of Jesus, because the sentencing by Pilate, the crucifixion, that seems pretty beyond doubt that that historically did happen to a figure called Jesus of Nazareth. And what about the baptism by John the Baptist? Is that also quite universally accepted that a historical figure called Jesus was baptized by a man called John the Baptist?

• 56:29Speaker 01

  Well, again, we know about John the Baptist from Josephus, who who actually says more about John the Baptist than he does about Jesus. And he seems to be quite quite favorably disposed to John the Baptist. The interesting thing about the baptism is that although Mark describes it in some detail, the other gospels are a little bit twitchy about it. So Matthew includes a little bit where where John the Baptist says, you know, oh, I shouldn't be baptizing you. You should be baptizing me. And Jesus says, no, just get on with it. And in John, it's it's sort of almost not there. Jesus goes for baptism and then he sort of moves on. You don't actually get told about the baptism as as such.

• 57:14Speaker 01

  So the the implication of all of this is that the early Christians were a bit embarrassed about the fact that Jesus was baptized by John, probably because John's baptism is for the forgiveness of sins. So whereas that didn't bother Mark, clearly, as time goes on, Christians are a little bit worried about the idea that, you know, surely Jesus doesn't have too many sins. And so they they sort of go through the motions of this, but they're a little bit embarrassed by it. And so the idea goes, if if if they could have got away with not saying anything about it, they might have done. And that does suggest perhaps that it's a historical piece that that has just got into, you know, the tradition and and is fairly well established.

• 57:59Tristan Hughes?

  Are there any other kind of key parts of the Jesus's story that are mentioned in in the gospels? That, you know, if you look at external evidence, you know, people have debated long and hard, you know, that there might be some historic, you know, these, this, something like this might have happened. So Feeding of the Five Thousand, for instance, going back to that, yes, okay, maybe it wasn't, is it two loaves and five fish? No, two fish and five loaves. But it may be something similar that a lot of people were fed with seemingly a little amount of food or something like that.

• 58:33Speaker 01

  I think it's difficult in that particular one. I mean,

• 58:38Tristan Hughes?

  That was just an example, but are there other cases?

• 58:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, there's there's a big debate. I mean, obviously, the miracles are the really difficult thing when it comes to historicity, you know, what happened? And and obviously,

• 58:48Tristan Hughes?

  How can we explain it in a logical sense?

• 58:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. To us, reading these things today, we think, but that doesn't happen. You know, that doesn't square with my idea of of what normally goes on in the universe. But obviously, we're living in the first century in a time where where people do go to the the shrines of Asclepius. They they give their offerings, they they receive a vision from Asclepius. And and people are leaving sort of inscriptions in these shrines to to thank the God for healing them. There are other Jewish holy men who are also said to be able to to heal. So, I mean, this is a world where healing does happen. And whatever we might think about it in the present day, it's not impossible that there are, that there were things that that may, you know, these, these, these sort of.

• 59:35Speaker 01

  Paradoxical events. I mean, Josephus also says that he, Jesus was a worker of amazing deeds. So clearly Jesus has this reputation, whatever we make of it. I mean, there's even stories of Vespasian being able to, you know, heal the, heal somebody's arm and, and give sight to, to somebody.

• 59:57Tristan Hughes?

  Well, this is the thing, and I think of Plutarch as well, with some of his famous lives, that these actual historical figures are given extra extraordinary abilities. It was like, some say they did this.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 1:00:08Tristan Hughes?

  And it becomes reported word of mouth, which leads me to a question about the genre. What type of genre should we perceive the Gospels as? Are they historical reportage, eyewitness accounts? Or is it better to perceive them as the same as kind of Greco-Roman biographies? Like, for instance, Plutarch, Xenophon, Suetonius, and so on?

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  Yep, I would say as Greco-Roman biographies, very much so. Or, I mean, there are Jewish version of it, you know, so you have similar stories in the Hebrew Bible. I mean, there's all kinds of sort of miraculous things happening in the, the Hebrew Bible. But I think largely they are literary sources and, and they have a theological emphasis. They're, they're wanting to convince people that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. They're strengthening people who probably already believe in Jesus. They're strengthening them in their faith. They're offering Jesus as an example because, you know, ancient biography is, has moralistic, a moralistic purpose. And they're, they're offering Jesus as an example to people to,

• 1:01:12Speaker 01

  to model their lives on, to be like Jesus. This refrain, you know, follow me, follow me. It's all about being like Jesus, devoting your life to Jesus. And I think that, that they're shaping the material to, so that it coheres with their, their sort of literary aims. And so I think they may well have some good historical material in there. But the most important thing is that portrait of Jesus that they're wanting to paint.

• 1:01:42Tristan Hughes?

  Well, this is the thing. I mean, the big question I, I had originally was, you know, are the Gospels historical? I guess I could just as much ask, are they meant to be historical?

• 1:01:51Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. I don't think, I mean, and again, it's, it's very much a modern thing, you know, our idea in the sort of post Enlightenment world that unless something happened, it's not true. Now, ancient people didn't have that. I mean, clearly they had a sense of did it happen or did it not? And, I mean, as you said, a lot of biographers will say, well, some say and others say, and you get people who say, well, you know, it's reported, but I don't think so. But still, you know, they're putting those stories in, which is interesting, you know, if they didn't think so, why are they, you know, what's the purpose of retelling some of these sort of miraculous stories? So I, I, I think the Gospels are, they are historical, but they're not designed to be eyewitness. They're

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  not, the question they're addressing isn't, what exactly can we know about the historical Jesus? The question they're addressing is, how can this man be the Christ, the Son of God? And how should I live my life if I want to follow him? And I think that's, that's a subtly different question. They may well be drawing on historical reminiscences. And I'm sure there is historical material there, but it's very difficult to know which bits are historical and which aren't, particularly when you have different slants in different Gospels.

• 1:03:11Tristan Hughes?

  And this is not to say that they don't have value as historical sources, because they still do. They give you insights into life in Judea in the first century and then early Christ, developing early Christian attitudes as well.

• 1:03:21Speaker 01

  Exactly. That, that's another layer of history that they tell us about, you know, how, how at least some Christian communities were changing and adapting their view of Jesus in the late first century.

• 1:03:32Tristan Hughes?

  And Mark versus John, for instance, is a good example of that. And of course, then there are many other books in the New Testament as well that add even more colour to that picture. Helen, this has been absolutely fantastic. Is there anything else you'd like to mention about the Gospels before we completely wrap up?

• 1:03:48Speaker 01

  Oh, well, I think, I think people should have a read of them and just sit down. I think so often people don't, you know, if, if you go to church, you hear bits and pieces.

• 1:03:57Tristan Hughes?

  Good Samaritan is mentioned earlier.

• 1:03:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, or people think that, you know, oh, I, you know, I did some of those years ago in some, in Sunday schools. But if you sit down and read them as ancient documents, I think they are fascinating.

• 1:04:08Tristan Hughes?

  Absolutely. And you have, of course, your brilliant podcast, yourself and another friend of the show, Lloyd Llewellyn Jones.

• 1:04:13Speaker 01

  Lloyd Llewellyn Jones, yes, Biblical Time Machine. Yes, yes, where we discuss everything to do with, well, Hebrew Bible as well. So from creation right up to late antiquity, where we're covering all sorts of stuff.

• 1:04:25Tristan Hughes?

  You absolutely do. And it just goes to me to say, thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the show.

• 1:04:29Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:04:33Tristan Hughes?

  Well, there you go. There was Professor Helen Bond talking all about the historicity of the four Gospels and who these figures were, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I really hope you enjoyed the episode. Now, if you want to learn more about the history of early Christianity, then do go and check out our episodes from earlier this year about the Pharisees and the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire. We'll put links to both of those episodes in the show notes. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Ancients. Please make sure to follow the show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. That really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favour. If you'd also be kind enough to leave us a rating as well, well, we'd really appreciate that. And don't forget, you can also sign

• 1:05:16Tristan Hughes?

  up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week. Sign up at historyhit.com/subscribe. That's all from me. I'll see you in the next episode.

• 1:05:37Speaker 03

  The all new Whoop is here. Now more advanced than ever. Train smarter, sleep deeper, recover faster. Extend your healthy years. Understand your cycle phases. Now 7% smaller with 14 plus days of battery life. So your data never stops and neither do you. Power your best performance with memberships made for every goal. Join Whoop today.