The Gospels: Not eyewitness testimony but carefully crafted Greco-Roman biography
The earliest surviving Gospel was written about 40 years after Jesus's death; Matthew and Luke copied large sections of Mark's text but each made their own cuts and additions; what the authors really wanted to answer was not what happened in history, but why this man could be Christ.
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Doubting Jesus's existence isn't actually supported by evidence
A poll shows 40% of Britons doubt whether Jesus actually existed, but Bond points out the chain of evidence is actually quite solid: Paul's letters were written 15 to 20 years after Jesus's death, and the earliest surviving Gospel, Mark, was written only about 40 years later; there are also independent accounts from Jewish historian Josephus (90s CE) and Roman historian Tacitus (early 2nd century CE). For a peasant of humble origins, this density of documentation is not bad at all.
— Helen BondGospel similarities look like student plagiarism
Matthew, Mark, and Luke often have several consecutive sentences that are word-for-word identical, and the story order is the same too. In class, Bond has students line up three passages and mark them off, and students' first reaction on seeing them is always ‘someone copied’. The scholarly consensus now is that Mark was written first, and Matthew and Luke each added and deleted material based on Mark; this kind of wholesale copying was actually quite rare in ancient writing.
— Helen BondMatthew and Luke each rewrote Mark according to their own themes
Looking at Matthew and Luke's changes to Mark together, you can see each one's individual preferences: Matthew was obsessed with matching Jesus's experiences to predictions in Jewish scripture, Luke's Greek is more refined, and he liked to add details about the poor and marginalized, while also quietly softening Mark's sense of urgency about ‘the end times’. These changes look scattered individually, but together they piece together each author's particular concerns.
— Helen BondScholars themselves are wavering on whether to trust the Q source
Matthew and Luke have some passages that are word-for-word identical to each other but don't appear in Mark—for example, the three temptations dialogue in the wilderness and most of the Sermon on the Mount. The traditional explanation is that both used a shared, now-lost collection of sayings, which scholars call Q. But Bond admits she used to believe in Q when teaching, and now she's starting to ‘waver’, suspecting Luke may have simply read Matthew directly; she says the field is currently about evenly split.
— Helen BondFeeding the five thousand is the only miracle in all four Gospels
Among Jesus's miracles, only one—feeding five thousand with five loaves and two fish—appears in all four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Bond argues this is no accident: this story directly echoes the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt, after which God sent manna from heaven in the wilderness, and this was ‘the greatest miracle’ in the minds of first-century Jews. The difference is that Moses had to ask God for it, while Jesus could supply the crowd himself, essentially portraying Jesus as a second Moses.
— Helen BondJohn the Baptist shifted from being Elijah to being a witness
In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, John the Baptist wears a camel-hair garment and eats locusts and wild honey, crafted as the prophet Elijah, whom Jewish tradition said would return before the Messiah's coming. But in the Gospel of John, John the Baptist is no longer Elijah; his role becomes that of a witness repeatedly declaring ‘Behold, the Lamb of God’. Bond sees this reflecting early Christianity's gradual softening of ‘the end times’ apocalyptic rhetoric; by the time of the Gospel of John, it has become ‘whoever believes in Jesus can have eternal life right now’.
— Helen BondThe resurrection of Lazarus may be Luke's parable rewritten as fact
In the Synoptic Gospels, what gets Jesus arrested and killed is his overturning the money-changers' tables in the temple; but in the Gospel of John, the real trigger is Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, which is why the chief priests decide to eliminate him. The name Lazarus actually appears in Luke's Gospel too, in a parable about a rich man and a poor man named Lazarus whose fates are reversed after death. Bond thinks John likely dramatized this parable and rewrote it as the story of Lazarus actually rising from the dead.
— Helen BondThe Gospels answered questions of faith, not historical fact
Bond categorizes the four Gospels as Greco-Roman biographical genre, not as eyewitness-style historical reporting: authors select and edit material to serve their own theological claims, to persuade people that Jesus is the Christ and to model his life. She notes that the ancients didn't have the modern binary of ‘true or false’; they would often write ‘some people say it was like this’ and still go ahead and tell the story. The Gospels may contain historical facts, but the question they really wanted to answer was ‘how could this man be the Son of God’ rather than ‘what actually happened in history’.
— Helen BondIn their own words · checked verbatim
It's actually quite incredible that we have the letters of Paul written 15, 20 years after Jesus's death. Even the earliest Gospel is about 40 years after.
Helen Bond4:07
if two, if two students handed these in or three students handed these in as an essay, what would you think? And they all say, oh, there's been copying, copying going on here.
Helen Bond15:38
You know, this is Jesus as a second Moses. And Moses had to ask God for the manna, whereas Jesus himself is providing for the people. So it very much paints Jesus as a second Moses.
Helen Bond33:21
In John's Gospel, though, John the Baptist is not Elijah. John the Baptist's role is as a witness to Jesus.
Helen Bond44:50
no i don't think so i mean i think it's perfectly possible that the person who wrote mark's gospel was called marcus you know it was a common name
Helen Bond50:00
So the implication of all of this is that the early Christians were a bit embarrassed about the fact that Jesus was baptised by John, probably because John's baptism is for the forgiveness of sins.
Helen Bond56:17
the question they're addressing isn't what exactly can we know about the historical jesus the question they're addressing is how can this man be the christ the son of god
Helen Bond1:02:35
Figures
| Paul's letters written | 15-20 years after Jesus's death | 4:07 |
| Mark (earliest Gospel) written | about 40 years after Jesus's death, approximately early 70s CE | 12:28 |
| British poll: percentage doubting Jesus actually existed | 40% | 4:07 |
| Josephus mentioned Jesus | 90s CE | 4:07 |
| Tacitus mentioned Jesus | early 2nd century CE | 4:07 |
Glossary
- Synoptic Gospels
- The three Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, whose content is highly similar and can be compared side by side.
- Q source
- A hypothetical collection of sayings shared by Matthew and Luke but not appearing in Mark, now lost.
- New Testament Apocrypha
- A collection of other Gospels not included in the canonical New Testament, such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Peter.
How to listen
Readers interested in early Christian textual history and historical Jesus research, or those who want to understand how scholars use textual criticism to compare the Gospels.
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