_____________________
_____________________
1 N. Perrin, Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 39. Such an approach was dominant for the most part in the work of the Jesus Seminar.
2 See R. H. Stein, Studying the Synoptic Gospels: Origin and Interpretation, rev. ed (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 195–221.
3 Scriptures quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).
4 Orthodox Christianity through the centuries has always maintained that the Bible was written by those “moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet 1:21) and as a result that the Bible is “inspired by God” (2 Tim 3:16). Those who believe this are thus predisposed to accept the authenticity of what is found in the Gospels and the rest of the Bible. The present essay does not deal with this, however, for it surveys the use of various criteria to establish the authenticity of various gospel traditions on the basis of arguments acceptable to both conservative and critical scholars.
5 The idea that the Gospel writers were simply “accommodating” spiritual truths into the mythical mind-set of their readers by making up fictional miracles is almost universally rejected today. Even radical NT scholars generally agree that the Gospel writers believed that what they were reporting was true.
6 By “authentic” is meant that a saying or act of Jesus described in the Gospels goes back to the historical Jesus. With respect to sayings of Jesus, some scholars have sought to demonstrate that they are translations of Jesus' actual words, i.e., Jesus' ipsissima verba (the exact/very words of Jesus) or His ipsissima vox (not actually a direct translation of the Aramaic sayings but a close paraphrase of Jesus' very voice). With respect to a Gospel account involving an action or miracle of Jesus, “authentic” means that the Gospel account reflects accurately what really took place, i.e., a leper was miraculously healed, a blind man came to see, a dead person was actually restored to life, etc.
7 For a helpful bibliography, see the notes of J. P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, vol. 1 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 185–95, esp. note 7.
8 If one accepts the far-less-accepted theory that Luke used Matthew and that Mark used both Matthew and Luke, the multiple sources would be: Matthew, “L,” John, Paul, and GT. Since almost all of Mark (97 percent) is found in Matthew, there is essentially no “Mark” source in this view. There are, of course, other even less accepted explanations of how Matthew, Mark, and Luke are related.
9 J. Jeremias, New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus, trans. John Bowden (New York: Scribner's, 1971), 9–14.
10 Meier, A Marginal Jew, 169.
11 Compare the Protevangelium of James!
12 It is interesting to note the exegetical gymnastics that some scholars go through in order to deny that the Son of God was ignorant of the time of the parousia because they believe that as God He had to be omniscient. Such scholars would never have created Mark 13:32 and attributed this to Jesus!
13 Meier, A Marginal Jew, 344, points out that this saying also satisfies the following criterion of dissimilarity.
14 See J. Breech, The Silence of Jesus: The Authentic Voice of the Historical Man (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 22–26.
15 “The Problem of the Historical Jesus,” in Essays on New Testament Themes, trans. W. J. Montague (Naperville, IL: Alec. R. Allenson, 1964), 37.
16 Compare how the struggle over the question of whether Gentile converts had to be circumcised (Acts 15:1) did not lead the early church to create a teaching of Jesus concerning this and place it upon His lips.
17 The appearance of this title in 2 Esdras/4 Ezra 13 is not an exception, for this work is generally dated ca. AD 90, and the appearance of the title in Enoch 35–71 is most probably due to a later Christian editor.
18 It should be noted that the favorite titles of Acts-Revelation to describe Jesus are “Christ” and “Lord,” whereas Jesus' favorite self-designation in the Gospels was “Son of Man.” This suggests that the early church did not tend to insert its favorite Christological titles upon the lips of Jesus in the Gospels and that the title “Son of Man” was faithfully retained in the Jesus tradition because it stemmed from Jesus Himself.
19 C. A. Evans, “Authenticity Criteria in Life of Jesus Research,” Christian Scholar's Review 19 (1989): 11–12.
20 H. E. W. Turner, History and the Gospels: A Sketch of Historical Method and Its Application to the Gospels (London: A. R. Mowbray, 1963), 77–78.
21 Cf. Bariōna (translated as “Son of Jonah”) in Matt 16:17.
22 D. G. A. Calvert, “An Examination of the Criteria for Distinguishing the Authentic Words of Jesus,” New Testament Studies 18 (1972): 219.
23 M. Bloch, The Historian's Craft, trans. J. R. Strayer (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953), 61.
24 K. R. Snodgrass, “Parable” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, ed. J. B Green, S. McKnight (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1992), 594.
25 Jeremias, New Testament Theology, 14–20.
26 Ibid., 9–14.
27 Some other criteria of authenticity that have been suggested are the Criterion of Double Similarity and the Criterion of Modification by Jewish Christianity. With regard to the former, N. T. Wright argues that “when something can be seen to be credible (though perhaps deeply subversive) within first-century Judaism, and credible as the implied starting-point (though not the exact replica) of something in later Christianity, there is a strong possibility of our being in touch with the genuine history of Jesus.” Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 132. With regard to the latter criterion, the “Matthean exception clause” (“except on the ground of unchastity” [Matt 5:32]; “except for unchastity” [Matt 19:9]),” which were added to the “Q” (Luke 16:18) and Markan versions (Mark 10:11–12; cf. also 1 Cor 7:10–11), is often given as evidence for the originality of the “Q” and Markan version of the saying.
28 Cf. Perrin, Rediscovering, 43, who defines this criterion “material from the earliest strata of the tradition may be accepted as authentic if it can be shown to cohere with material established as authentic by means of the criteria of dissimilarity.”
29 See R. H. Stein, The Method and Message of Jesus' Teachings, rev. ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 8ff.
30 E. P. Sanders, The Tendencies of the Synoptic Tradition (Cambridge: University Press, 1969).
31 Cf. Sanders (ibid., 272) who states “dogmatic statements that a certain characteristic proves a certain passage to be earlier than another are never justified” (his italics).
32 This is clear in the classical confessions of the Christian Church. “The Bible evidences itself to be God's Word by the heavenliness of its doctrine, the unity of its parts, its power to convert sinners and to edify saints; but the Spirit of God only, bearing witness by and with the Scriptures in our hearts, is able fully to persuade us that the Bible is the Word of God” (The Baptist Catechism, answer to question 5). Similarly, only the Spirit of God, working through various arguments such as the criteria for authenticity can move a person from believing in the probability of the authenticity of a Gospel tradition to being convinced of its certainty.