A Stunning, yet Obvious Source for the Biography of Jesus Christ

How can we, beyond the non-biblical references about Jesus, know more about the biography of Jesus Christ?
The most detailed historical records we have about the life of Jesus Christ are in four gospels of the New Testament.

"Wait a minute," you might say, "aren't the Christian writings biased, and therefore shouldn't we disqualify them?"

In a word, no.

No agenda here

Mainstream historians, who, once again, have little or no agenda is proving the veracity of Jesus' claims, simply take into account the fact that these writers did believe Jesus' claims about Himself, just as they take into account the bias of other writers against the claims of Jesus in other non-biblical writings. (Such as in the Talmud.)

While most Christians are used to thinking about the Bible, or even the New Testament as a single source, the truth is that mainstream historians consider it as having many sources within it. The 37 books within the New Testament were initially circulated among the church independantly of one another.

In addition, the four gospel writers used well-researched sources outside of themselves, sometimes quoting them word for word.

For example,

The gospel of Mark is treated as a separate source from say John. Historians agree that John used a resource called the "Signs Source," which was a collection of the miraculous things Jesus did.

Likewise, we consider Matthew to have relied upon Mark's gospel for some of his information, as well as a separate unidentified source called 'Q' (which stands for quelle the german word for 'source.')

Paul probably knew nothing about the gospel of Mark, and did include some early creeds from others sources within his writings.

Luke admits this kind of thing right up front in his gospel when he says

"Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus; so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught. (Luke 1:1-4)

What Luke Says

There are several important things worth noting from Luke's prelude alone:

So What?

Why is it important to identify multiple sources within the New Testament?

For one, historians use a rule called the criterion of multiple attestation. It means that the more people who say something indepedently from one another about an event (such as we have in the multiple sources of the New Testament,) the more likely we have an accurate report of what happened.

We have so many sources both within and outside of the New Testament about the biography of Jesus Christ that most historians, Christian or not,

affirm the central facts of what happened in and around the life of Jesus

and

all mainstream historians consider the gospels historical documents that can be used to investigate the history of actual events about the life of Jesus

Judgement Call

Now, once again, the historians may not say that, for example, he was a miracle worker, but there is an almost universal acceptance that Jesus did do some amazing things. What the source of those amazing things is, to be frank, a philosphical and personal question of belief.

Further criterion that make historians believe the accuracy of the historical reports about the biography of Jesus Christ include...

...the criterion of embarassment, which says that if there are accounts that would embarass the intent of the writer, and yet they are still included, means that they likely didn't make their story up.

For example, Peter's denial of Christ, or that fact that a woman was the first eyewitness of the resurrected Christ (a woman's testimony would not have been considered reliable in court. Shameful, yes, but this is how the culture viewed women at the time. So I guess Christianity isn't anti-woman after all...)

Another example would be Peter's denial of Christ, or the early disciples being clueless about the first appearances of Jesus. So this criterion says, if you're making something up, you don't likely include things that would discredit you. You would only include them if you were telling the truth!

...the criterion of dissimilarity, which says that if a source brings something new to the table, and cannot easily be traced, say, to another religous document, it is probably an accurate accounting of what happened, which is exactly what we have with the gospel accounts.

Check These Resources Out

For further reading on the historical nature of the gospels I would highly recommend The Historical Reliability of the Gospels by Craig Blomberg

Check out the main motif of the life of Jesus, the Kingdom of Heaven

Or back to our All Things Jesus page