You have probably never thought about it quite this way before but the fact is that virtually everything a Christian knows about the life of Jesus of Nazareth is contained in the four Gospels; Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. (You might think that I'm overlooking the Epistles of Paul but if you take the time to do a careful study of his letters you will find hardly a word from Paul about Jesus' life or a quote of anything Jesus said.) So now consider this; tens of thousands of people have claimed they've seen UFOs. Yet very few of us take those claims seriously. Why, then, do we put so much trust in four men who proclaim fantastic miracles on behalf of a man none of them ever met?

As a matter of fact we don't even know who Matthew, Mark, Luke or John were. It is left to Christians to simply assume that they were “Men of God”. Some Christians actually go through life believing that these men were disciples of Jesus. But that's not even close to the truth. The earliest of these authors didn't begin to write his Gospel until after 70 AD. And according to best estimates Jesus was already dead some 40 years by that time.

So here is what we need to consider when we think about the N.T. and the circumstances of its being written. How much of a legend can a man become if his life story circulates for forty years in a population that thrives on oral traditions? How closely will a man's true biography match his written legend after 4 decades of retelling, expansion and exaggeration? You may think that after two thousand years such questions are beyond our knowing. But there are ways.

Actually you can see Jesus' legend grow with your very own eyes if you apply basic forensic techniques to your N. T. studies. I'll give you an example.

The earliest gospel writer was Mark. We know that's the case because it is obvious that both Matthew and Luke used the Gospel of Mark as their main reference or source. That is why they are called the synoptic Gospels. The three not only substantially agree with one another on subject matter they even copied from each other word for word and letter for letter in some places. So this brings up some obvious questions. Why did Matthew and Luke write their own Gospels? And how do those Gospels differ?

You would hope that their intention in writing new Gospels was to add missing details to Jesus' life that Mark had left out. But that is not generally the case. What Matthew and Luke actually did was change some of Marks facts to improve on Jesus' image. In other words they were growing his legend.

Take, for example, Jesus' last words on the cross. Mark says they were, “My God, My God, why hast though forsaken me?” (15:34) Matthew didn't see any problem with these words and copied them straight out of Mark's Gospel letter for letter. Luke, on the other hand, saw these words as a major problem. He could not have the son of God die with those awful words on his lips. They amounted to an outright statement from Jesus himself that he had been abandoned by God in his final moments. Those words would simply have to go. He decided to put words in Jesus' mouth that directly contradicted the idea that God, Jesus' father, had abandoned him on the cross: “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” (23:46)

{We don't know what John used for his source material but he took little if anything directly from Mark and nothing at all from the other two. His last words for Jesus were simply, “It is finished”. (19:30)}

I hope you are beginning to sense that Critical Bible scholarship involves the techniques of scientific methodology, forensics, archeology, anthropology, psychological profiling and a number of other investigative tools that you will become familiar with as we go along. The most important of all these tools is psychological profiling.

That's because the authors of the New Testament have been dead for 19 centuries. There's no denying that. But their thoughts and ideas live on in the words they left behind. We can still know these men. We can see into their minds. We can know what they thought and we can know why they thought it. (i.e., Luke thought the words Mark gave Jesus to speak when he died were unfitting and counterproductive to Jesus' claim of being the son of God.) If we collect enough clues from all the biblical authors some sort of a picture will develop. And it will be a picture you will develop for yourself.

If you want to.

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