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“The Early Texts Like many of the great teachers, Jesus never wrote a book. We therefore lack direct access to his words and so must consider the accounts of others to fill us in on what he was like. Historians would love to have multiple contemporary records of Jesus’s life yet that is unrealistic for the period. Even a locally important figure such as Pontius Pilate is only mentioned a few times by contemporary writers, and only a single partial inscription naming him has been found by archaeologists. For a peripatetic teacher such as Jesus to receive even that level of attention would be remarkable. The earliest sources which give an account of Jesus come from the New Testament. Most scholars date the letters of St Paul to the 50s CE, just two decades after the death of Jesus. Unfortunately the Pauline Epistles are written not with an eye to describing the historical Jesus, but to help settle theological debates within churches. From the references that are made to the life of Jesus we can glean such facts as Jesus was born, he taught, and he was crucified. He makes references to Jesus’s brothers and describes how he met one of the brothers, James, in Jerusalem (described as a cousin or step-brother in some orthodoxes). Paul also knew of and had met some of ‘the twelve’ – the close followers of Jesus. Paul, who never met Jesus while he was alive, at least had access to eyewitnesses. By far the longest accounts of Jesus’s life in the New Testament are the gospels. Despite the names traditionally attached to them (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) the texts are actually anonymous. The dates of their composition are generally agreed as being between 66-70 CE for Mark and 90-110 CE for John. It is unlikely that the authors ever met Jesus but they may well have had access to reports from people who did. The gospel of Luke tells us: “Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you.” It would be tempting to take the gospels then as the authoritative and accurate chronicles of the life of Jesus. While it is easy to talk about the gospels as one collection they offer a diverse set of viewpoints and often differ in their chronicling of the life of Jesus. The common nativity story known to us from many nursery school Christmas plays appears nowhere in any one gospel, but is constructed from aspects in Matthew and Luke. Where the gospels do include the same details they often disagree with each other, such as with the date of the Last Supper. Worse for historians is when the gospels do not agree with facts from other sources. The gospel of Luke has Joseph and Mary travelling from Nazareth to Bethlehem to take part in an empire-wide census ordered by the Emperor Augustus, under the governorship of Quirinius, while Herod the Great was king. There is no other record of a census of the whole Roman world taking place at one time, and certainly none that would require people to return to far away towns because their ancestors lived there. The main problem with Luke’s account though is that Quirinius was governor of Syria from 6CE, and Herod the Great had died in 4BCE. It would be impossible for Luke’s account to be accurate. Whatever the literary and moral qualities of the gospels, they must be viewed as historical artefacts and not history.” --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/antonio-myers4/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/antonio-myers4/support