Are the Gospels credible?

1 • What if the Gospels were a hoax?

The term “Christian,” from its origin to the present day, has undergone an unprecedented semantic shift.

Today (more or less), its definition is as follows:

Now.

Although I believe that this definition can easily be applied to 99 out of 100 “parish attendees”…

…it is true that Christians are often the subject of ridicule… of pitying glances… of phrases like:

• “How can you believe all the nonsense written in the Gospel?”
• “So, you’re not telling me you believe in the miracles of Jesus, are you?”
• “But in 2021, can one be so naive?”
• “Good grief, what a flock of sheep…”

I have often felt the weight of these objections on my shoulders, especially when, at the end of high school, I began to examine the foundations of my faith and read the books of the then Pope Benedict…

…but let’s focus on some of these criticisms.

For example: is it possible that the Gospels were carefully crafted?

That Christianity is based on a bunch of artificially invented fables?

That the faith of the Church rests on the “greatest hoax” in history? (or if not “the greatest,” at least “big enough” to divide our timeline between everything that happened “before” the birth of this Galilean Carpenter and everything that happened “after”?)

2 • If it’s a hoax, they could have come up with a better one!

Most of the objections I’ve heard against the Gospel often lacked significant historical-philological depth:

But let’s go in order…

Those who claim that the Gospels were invented are forced to admit that something like this happened:

• It all started with twelve semi-literate fishermen in a remote province of the Roman Empire.
• In their culture, the strictest monotheism prevailed: not only was God unique (unlike the Roman pantheon), but also supremely high, unnamable, transcendent… and in this context, they would have invented a God who has a Son (cf. Mt 3:17), who is coeternal with the Father (cf. Jn 17:5), and was begotten through the Holy Spirit (cf. Mt 1:18), the Holy Spirit who also “seems to have” the same nature as God (cf. Mt 28:19).
• In an environment where many Jewish sects were expecting a political messiah and a liberator from Roman oppression, they would have invented a suffering messiah mistreated by the community, based on a passage from the prophet Isaiah that is revolting to read (cf. Is 53:1-5).
• Not satisphied with putting together this fantasy, they would then have gone around spreading it throughout Europe… witnessing absurdities like the resurrection of the dead, at which the Greeks – rightly – had a good laugh (see Acts 17:32).

What can I say?

It’s not easy to invent something that is the exact opposite of what your culture and neighboring peoples consider reasonable…

…if I had to invent a religion, I wouldn’t have gone to such lengths:

• Wrong product
• Inappropriate target
• Confused brand identity

…before inventing such absurdity, I would have done some market research…

3 • It’s so absurd that perhaps it’s plausible…

If you are looking for an objective demonstration of the truth of what is written in the Gospels… sorry, you’ve come to the wrong blog 🙃

However, if you try to read the four Gospels with a minimum of intellectual honesty, you may find some elements that – okay – do not scientifically prove the truth of what is narrated… but attest to its plausibility.

I mention two, by way of example.

3.1 • The criterion of discontinuity

The criterion of discontinuity (or “originality” or “unlikeness”) is this:

Here are a few silly examples of elements not attributable to thementioned contexts:

• God assuming a human nature (an unthinkable idea in a Jewish environment).
• God dying on the cross (something that, in fact, Paul of Tarsus defines as “to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishnes,” 1 Corinthians 1:23).
• Jesus having an embarrassingly close (almost blasphemous) relationship with God, going so far as to call Him “Abba” (an intimate Aramaic term – could be rendered as “daddy” or “papa”).
• Jesus’ preference for sinners (something that indeed drew criticism from scribes and Pharisees).

…if Jewish fishermen had to invent a religion, they probably wouldn’t have gone to such lengths.

3.2 • The criterion of embarrassment

Here’s the criterion of embarrassment, simply put:

Let me explain better: if the Gospels were carefully crafted, what reason would the disciples have had to invent:

• The baptism of the Lord: in this account, Jesus lines up with other sinners to receive baptism from John the Baptist (cf. Mt 3:13-15)… but if the disciples wanted to present Jesus as the “Son of God,” why invent an apparently ambiguous and controversial episode?
• Situations where the disciples don’t understand Jesus’ teachings, and he has to explain them again – sometimes a little annoyed by their foolishness (cf. Mk 4:13; Mt 15:15-17; Mt 16:11).
• Moments when the disciples appear incredulous or frightened by the signs Jesus performs (cf. Mt 16:9; Lk 24:37; Lk 24:39; Mk 9:6).
• Peter denying Jesus during the trial leading to his death sentence (Mt 26:69-70).
• James and John seeking preferential treatment from Jesus (cf. Mk 10:37).

…what sense would there be in inventing all these things? Why show my difficulty in believing in Jesus, in His signs, in His words… if then I have to come and announce these things to you, inviting you to believe, when I myself was initially distrustful, skeptical, inconsistent?

4 • The Miracles of Jesus

Miracles are certainly the element that most stands out in the Gospels…

…if they hadn’t been described, there probably wouldn’t have been all this fuss about the credibility of the Gospels.

In fact, many scholars believe that these accounts are “symbolic,” that they are an “invention” of the disciples, a “posthumous reinterpretation” of events “with the eyes of faith,” with a “theological perspective“…

What can I say? I respect all people…

If the miracles had been written by the disciples “allegorically,” what reason would they have to attribute these words to Jesus:

Apart from the fact that the Gospels are filled with miracles and stories attesting to the thaumaturgical abilities of Jesus (there are around forty passages describing these events), not considering them leads to mutilating the profile of Jesus.

Moreover, the Gospels are not the only text where these “marvellous signs” attributed to the Galilean Carpenter are mentioned.

Some opponents of Christianity offer a quite curious testimony.

4.1 • Celsus and the “magical powers” of Jesus

In his work “Against Celsus,” the ancient Greek theologian and philosopher Origen (185-254) describes the arguments of his opponent, the Neoplatonic philosopher Celsus, who fiercely attacked Christians and their beliefs.

Celsus, speaking of Mary and Jesus, said:

Celsus, in refuting the Christian faith, does not deny the miracles of Jesus; he simply believes that the Galilean Carpenter obtained his “powers” in Egypt.

4.2 • The Babylonian Talmud and Jesus “practicing magic”

On the other hand, here is what we read in the Babylonian Talmud, a Jewish text compiled between the 3rd and 4th centuries:

Even this Jewish text does not deny the miracles of Jesus but rather attributes them to magic (which in Jewish culture, along with necromancy, divination, and other forms of “esotericism,” was considered a practice of demonic origin).

5 • The Resurrection of Jesus

The prevailing opinion on the resurrection of Jesus is as follows:

These visions would have been caused by the emotional impact that Jesus’ personality had on these individuals. The disciples, upon finding the empty tomb, would have subjectively reinterpreted the event of the stolen corpse, and in their delusions, they would have then spread the news of the resurrection of their teacher.

Now.

The spontaneous question arises: Is discovering an empty tomb (as commendable as the owner of said tomb may be) a sufficient reason to trigger “faith in the resurrection” of the disappeared corpse?

Is it possible that the theft of the remains of a dead man unleashes such a culturally, historically, and religiously disruptive event as Christianity?

Is it plausible that the disappearance of a body causes a coherent and comprehensive reinterpretation of the entire faith of the Jewish people?

…

Before seeking an answer to this question, let’s see what the apostles responded to the women who, upon returning from the empty tomb, were the first to announce the resurrection of Jesus:

Something like:

To the madness of the resurrection, they didn’t even believe themselves!

The same scenario occurred when ten of the apostles, having seen the risen Jesus, tried to recount the event to Thomas, who was not present at the moment of the Master’s appearance:

What made these skeptics, unbelievers to the core, change their minds?

The five senses: seeing, touching, experiencing in a concrete and objective way the reality of the body of the risen Jesus:

In short, to summarize:

• They didn’t believe in the resurrection either!
• Only an objective experience made them change their minds…
• …and they were so transparent to recount in the Gospels their skepticism, their distrust, and their disbelief!

Can one be more honest (with oneself and with others)?

Conclusion

Reading books here and there, I have noted that, most of the time, the greatest detractors of the credibility of the Gospels (starting from the signs performed by Jesus and ending with his resurrection) are not so much the activist atheists or the “enemies” of the Church… but rather, exegetes, biblical scholars, and theologians adrift who have lost the compass of faith.

In 1995, the American writer Walter Hooper (formerly an Anglican minister who converted to Catholicism in 1988) – secretary and biographer of Clive Staples Lewis – bitterly commented that:

Without venturing into bold judgments towards the exegetes mentioned by Hooper (who, in any case, wouldn’t mind a few years of “spiritual retreat” in the dungeons of the Inquisition 🥸), personally, I side with Franco Nembrini – an Italian teacher, essayist, and pedagogue – who said a few years ago:

… and the author of Peter’s letter agrees:

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(Winter 2020-2021)