Smoodock's Blog

If Matthew was written first, vis-à-vis before Mark’s written narrative, does this mean it is eyewitness testimony, and what about the other Gospel narratives? Are they eyewitness testimonies? With so much of modern scholarship’s understanding of the ancient texts being copies of one another, how could they be eyewitness testimonies, if at least two are copies of Mark? If the scholars are correct, Mark comes first and Matthew copied Mark, and Luke copied Matthew and Mark.

Ninety percent of Mark can be found in Matthew and Luke. If this is true, how can anyone claim the three represent the testimonies of eyewitnesses to the sayings and works of Jesus. Finally, if Matthew is an Apostle, does it make sense that he, an eyewitness, would need to copy Mark, who is neither an Apostle nor an eyewitness? What can be said of these things, and does reasonable evidence exist that shows Matthew and the other three Gospels are, indeed, eyewitness accounts to the life and sayings of Jesus, our Lord and Savior?

First, as far as accuracy is concerned, it would seem to me, the fact that modern scholarship’s conclusion that the Synoptic Gospels are so alike that they must be copies of one another, shows the authors of the Gospel narratives were keen on accuracy. In other words, the fact that they are alike implies, they had a mutual goal to be accurate. Modern scholarship believes their likeness to one another is due their being copies of one another, but this avoids the point. It makes no difference how we explain their likeness to one another, the fact that they are alike implies the authors valued accuracy above being innovative, vis-à-vis one author didn’t try to improve on the narrative he is presumed to have copied. The second author, if we must identify him as such, didn’t try to make Jesus into a better Lord and Savior. In fact, the similar wording between the Synoptics is so close that it excels Josephus’ practice of accurately quoting the scriptures! In other words, the authors of the Gospels valued the accuracy of what Jesus said and did more than Josephus did in making certain he quoted scripture exactly.

Moreover, it is not only accuracy that is important for the Gospels to be taken seriously. How does one know they are truthful records? Simply saying they are or saying one or two copied accurately from the first that was written, doesn’t make any of them true. It simply means all are alike. If the first was false, then all are false! Therefore, we need to ask: what else can be said to make it more certain that the four Gospel narratives are true accounts of the life and sayings of Jesus of Nazareth? If they are ancient biographies, and that is the genre in which they are written, then it would be of the greatest value, if they were eyewitness accounts of Jesus’s life and sayings. At the end of his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus refers to his next work, Life, in which he gives an account of his own life.[1] It is the same genre, remember, in which the Gospels were written:

And now it will not be perhaps an invidious thing, if I treat briefly of my own family, and of the actions of my own life, while there are still living such as can either prove what I say to be false, or can attest that it is true; with which accounts I shall put an end to these Antiquities, which are contained in twenty books, and sixty thousand verses. (emphasis mine)[2]

Notice that it was highly valued, when writing a biography, that there were living witnesses that could testify to the truth of what was written or falsify its contents. Therefore, if someone or a group of people wished to change the current worldview of the world, it would probably be necessary for the author of the biography to be a living witness or living witnesses, if more than one biography was to be written. Nevertheless, modern skeptics, like Bart Ehrman, claim that the Gospel narratives are not eyewitness testimonies, but legends that grew with the telling. However, this doesn’t ring true, in so far as their great similarity is concerned or as far as it being desirable to write the biography in a time, when other witnesses, whether friendly or unfriendly, could testify of its veracity. If they were legends that grew with the telling, one wouldn’t expect them to be so much alike, and neither could anyone verify their truthfulness (cp. 1Corinthians 15:1-6).

Finally, Professor Richard Bauckham[3] makes a point, about the many anonymous characters mentioned in the Gospel narratives. He claims that identifying some of these seemingly insignificant characters leads to the Gospel’s probably being eyewitness testimonies. For example, there are at least 34 anonymous figures in the Gospel of Mark. Jesus heals an unnamed leper in Mark 1:40-42. He heals a paralytic in chapter two, a man with a withered hand in chapter three, a demoniac and a woman with an issue of blood in chapter 5. Each one of them is anonymous. So, when we come to naming some of them, like Jarius, a ruler of a synagogue (Mark 5:22), Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46) and Simon of Cyrene, and his two sons Alexander and Rufus (Mark 15:21), we have to ask why they are named. It certainly isn’t important to Mark’s Gospel that they are named, because Mark leaves 34 people in his narrative unnamed without disturbing his purpose or accuracy of the story. Dr. Bauckham claims that the very presence of the named unimportant characters in the text is best explained, if the Gospels are eyewitness accounts.[4]

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[1] Josephus, the first century AD Jewish historian, wrote Life, his own autobiography, after he wrote Antiquities of the Jews.

[2] See Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 20.11.3 (266).

[3] Richard Bauckham (born 22 September 1946) is an English Anglican scholar in theology, historical theology and New Testament studies, specializing in New Testament Christology and the Gospel of John. He is a senior scholar at Ridley Hall, Cambridge.

[4] Understood from the YouTube presentation: Evidence That the Gospels Are Based on Eyewitness Testimony.