Are the Gospels Accounts Reliable If Written by Eyewitnesses 60 Years Afterwards?

Quite often in the writings or debates of atheists a particular motif will occur. Using a debate as the illustration, a Christian will have stated that the resurrection of Jesus was viewed by witnesses. The reply commonly returned is, “The gospels were not written by witnesses. The accounts in the gospels were not written until 60 or more years after the events. There is no way they can be used as evidence.”

If a retort is given to the atheist, it is typically one in which textual criticism is used.[i] There are two difficulties with textual criticism: 1) it is not understood by the majority of listeners and 2) it does not prove that the “original text” is true or false, extrapolated from false witnesses, a compilation of history and imagination, etc. The best that textual criticism can do is to substantiate WHAT was written.

Other replies to the atheist are logical ones. 1) If Jesus were still dead, why wasn’t His body produced? That would have silenced all the critics. 2) If the disciples knew Jesus was still dead, why would they willingly spread a lie and then suffer prison and death? Though I am a Christian who believes in the physical resurrection of Jesus, I do not find those two replies to be compelling. The problem with logical rebuttals is that they can be refuted by logical rebuttal.

In regard to the first one of producing the body, why couldn’t the soldiers have been bribed more by the Pharisees, taken the body out of the tomb, and buried it in an unknown location or tossed it in geenna (the Jerusalem trash dump)? The tomb would have been empty and there would have been no way to produce the body.

In regard to the second one of dying for a lie, what if the disciples did not believe it was a lie? Let’s say the guards disposed of the body as in the previous paragraphs. No one knows of this except the guards. They would have believed it and have died for what they believed was the truth.[ii]

Logical arguments have a use in hypotheticals, but it seems to me that these arguments “win” only because the listeners aren’t clever enough to give a counter-argument. The lack of a counter-arguments does not mean that the hypothetical is true. Another approach is needed.

The texts are reliable in the sense that they are genuine per textual criticism. The question now is whether the accounts are true or false or doubtful. What would make them more likely to be true is if they were written by eyewitnesses.

There are two immediate rejections of the report of eyewitnesses by atheists: 1) eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable as court testimony has proven as well as scientific experiments, and 2) even if the gospels were written by eyewitnesses, 60 years had passed; they would not be reliable because of fading memory.

Let’s consider the unreliability of the eyewitnesses. This is probably the strongest objection by the atheists. I would like to submit for consideration that there are two types of eyewitnesses: accidental and deliberate.

An accidental eyewitness is a person who encounters an incident without any forethought, preparation, or emotional involvement. A deliberate eyewitness is a person who encounters an incident with forethought and/or preparation and/or emotional involvement. Let’s consider a legal illustration, then a social one, and then an individual one.

Assume you have been selected for jury duty. The case involves a person who was robbed in an alley, severely beaten, and witnessed by three people at various times during the incident. There is only one deliberate witness, the mugger. He had probably planned on robbing someone in an alley, perhaps the very person he did beat. Most likely he was “pumped up” to do the mugging. If he were put on the witness and stand and did not lie, his account would be precise and exact. In contrast, the accidental witnesses will not be so. There will be some confusion because they were not expecting to experience the mugging or to witness it. They were not mentally prepared for it. If someone were watching from a window above, saw the mugger approach the victim, anticipate what was going to happen, his account would be much different than the others.

Naturally a response might be, “Are you saying that muggers and robbers remember everyone they hurt?” Probably not, but I suspect they remember the first one very well. There is something about a dramatic event occurring the first time. For instance (excuse the touch of vulgarity here), most people can remember their first sexual encounter, even if it were 60 years earlier. Most can remember their first girlfriend or boyfriend. Most can remember their first job. A “rite of passage” or a deliberate, original, emotional event seals and reinforces the memory much more so that an accidental one.

Continuing from the last paragraph, let’s consider a non-criminal event … like a wedding. Who remembers a wedding the best: the official, the wedding party, the guests, or the bride and groom? All of these are witnesses. All of them made plans and deliberate decisions to attend. Assuming this is a first marriage and they have remained married and all the witnesses are still alive, whose account would you be likely to believe if the wedding were recounted by someone fifty years later? Do you automatically say, “You must be kidding! That was 50 years ago, 50 years! Memories fade, eyewitnesses are known for getting facts confused. Whatever is said here is suspect and cannot be counted upon factually whatsoever.” If a reader is struggling over this, then that proves there are absolute skeptics and solipsism does exist; and this paragraph has been for the remainder of 99.99% of humanity.

Consider a personal event, a solitary one. There are many incidents from the past. My memory has never faded or adjusted on any of them. I remember an incident when I was four years old. Not a detail has faded. I was in the car behind the car that hit and killed my brother right in front of our house. I can vividly describe certain details. Why do I remember that one so well, but I fail to remember thousands of others?

I had not planned on seeing this incident. Though I was in the backseat, I was alerted to what was happening by the screams. Evidently my mother and her parents foresaw what was going to happen, for, when I looked the car had just hit him and was going to the berm of the road. There was an emotional atmosphere that reinforced for me what happened. I do not doubt that there would have been minor details that would have differed. The same would have been true of the driver of the other car. I would have missed things, possibly even jumbled them up; yet, those my images have not changed over 60 years. Without question, I witnessed the death of my brother with my family behind the car that hit him. It was not a dream, an illusion, a story told me that I have internalized.

There is one more incident that I wish to pass on. A few years ago while a minister I was sitting in a bench swing in the backyard of an elderly man. He told me a story when he was a young boy, @1930. He had sat in that same back yard and had talked with a veteran of the Civil War, who was 80-90 years old at that time. Though I knew that theoretically it was possible to talk with someone who had talked to someone who had talked to someone and only 30 people would be needed to get to Jesus, this was my first significant experience of such a backward step into history.

Oddly, I don’t even remember the details of what were said to me. I was more overwhelmed with the event. If I had taken notes, I would have an eyewitness report of an eyewitness report. The events repeated by the veteran would have been unquestioned in my mind as authentic. The impression of man I was visiting was indeed a sense of wonder too. He too marveled that he spoke to someone in that great conflict.

I am well aware that critics will still say, “That cannot be relied upon.” But such a criticism is too broad; it includes too much. It simply is not probable when we consider the impact of our memories which are based on deliberate and emotionally meaningful events. If I were to ask one of these older critics, “You don’t remember your first girlfriend, your first kiss, your first act of sex, your first job, your first marriage” and his reply was, “Of course not, and neither does anyone else. If they say they do, they are mistaken,” then I would not believe ANYTHING this critic would say.

To recap: a deliberate witness will remember correctly more details. An accidental witness will confuse details. Depending on the emotional intensity and uniqueness of the incident, details (not all, but significant ones) can be recalled decades after the fact. Let’s take this to the gospel accounts.

What were the disciples witnessing? If they were seeing miracles, these would have faded in memory? Such stupendous, mind-boggling events were confused? Even the critics know they can’t pull that off. So, the gospel writers made it up instead. They weren’t eyewitnesses at all. They were writers who made it all up later.[iii]

Even the skeptics agree that miracles as described were not routine events. They also agree that with the disciples being directly participants (deliberate witnesses), then their memories would be more reliable. To participate in a miracle such as the feeding of the 5000 would not be jumbled or confused in the same way as one who watched a car run a stop sign. The disciples had to get the people to sit in groups of fifty, distribute the baskets of food, and regather them at the end. There were thousands of people, the smell of fish, people calling out, “Over here,” and on and on.

There are events that are so significant that the memory loses them at death and not any time before. Do we believe, when we read the accounts of the gospels, that the three years with Jesus were routine, merely a job adjustment, a mix of new ideas?

What does 60 minutes, 60 days, 60 months, or 60 years have to do with such staggering events in which one participated? Of course no one (except Jesus) would remember EVERYTHING, but they would remember what shook them up emotionally. The gospels writers are not unique here.

Critics have scathed the gospel writers for differing accounts. The best illustration of this are the events following the resurrection. The only way they can be put into any sort of chronological order is by making assumptions. The actual testimony is confusing in places.

Candidly, it is the confusion in non-essential details that lends evidence that these men did write the stories. In a criminal issue, it is important to distinguish and know for a certainty if a man or a woman stabbed another person or if the killer was 5’1” versus 6’1.” But, if 60 years after an event, a person writes there was one angel in the tomb of Jesus and another writes that there were two angels in the tomb, are we truly in some hopeless muddle?[iv] Of course, we aren’t.

In sharp, distinct contrast to this would be the investigation of 12 witnesses, and they agreed in every detail! What is the first suspicion? This is a cover-up, and they have rehearsed their stories to tell the police. The issue isn’t fading memory, for that happens to everyone. The issue isn’t conflicting testimony, for that occurs with everyone. The issue is what was unanimous and how deliberate, significant, and emotionally charged were the events.

What is the conclusion of this essay? What is the “So what?”

The charge that the gospels cannot be used as reliable evidence because they were written 40-60 years after the events described is bogus and exaggerated. Eyewitnesses are extremely reliable if there were deliberate participation, emotional significance, and unanimity with other eyewitnesses of the same event. Anyone of the three factors would be sufficient, and in regard to the miracles and resurrection all three are involved.

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[i] Textual criticism is the science of comparing manuscripts in order to determine what was originally written. Using a simple illustration, consider this metaphor: “He was happier than a hot dog about to dive into a pool of mustard.” I doubt that you’ve seen that phrase before since I made it up. Assume six months from now you read that phrase in a book. The author of that book is not VL Vawter. You will probably assume one of three positions: 1) I originated the phrase, and the author copied from me; 2) the author originated the phrase, and I copied from him; 3) both of us copied from someone else. (Yes, of course, both of us could have been original, but the possibility of that is so remote. Using Occam’s razor, let’s not multiply unnecessary contingencies.) Until the printing press, books were copied by hand. It is very easy to skip lines, copy lines out of order, glance and write an incorrect word, etc. The gospels, when compared, are filled with examples like this. Textual criticism attempts to sort this out and refine the texts to the original text.

[ii] This simply creates new problems. How are all the post-resurrection appearances explained? What about the 500 witnesses that Paul mentions? Then there is that nasty “mass hallucination” of the ascension.

[iii] Whether the gospel writers lied is a different subject that their having unreliable memories. This essay is focused on the memory issue. The issue of lying, non-witnesses being the gospel writers will be discussed in a different essay.

[iv] Could one angel have been there at one time, and two at another? Could one writer have been impressed with the one talking, whereas another writer simply noticed both of them? Reasonable assumptions can be made to explain what happened in reference to the muddle. Furthermore, what if one simply forgot the second angel. He saw it, but 60 years later he couldn’t remember it. Is he to be discounted? Of course not, the body of Jesus (the agreed up detail) was still gone. Agreed upon details in old memory recounts are far more important than non-agreed upon ones. I’ve been to 50th wedding anniversaries before. I always ask the couple about their wedding day. There will be minor disagreements: “We had two witnesses … No, there were three … The cake was two layer … The cake was three layer.” As a listener I cannot be sure which it was. Now, what is agreed upon? They were married!!! What was the most important event of the day: the layers of the cake or the ceremony itself? Even in a criminal case, the investigators are frustrated over conflicting evidence, but they jump for joy over unanimous testimony. Conflicting testimony does not mean a crime has not been committed.

Burn, Baby, Burn

The Christian doctrine of hell has always been difficult to accept. The idea of people burning in a lake of fire forever is beyond understanding, imagination, and … frankly … mercy and love. If God created man, empowered or endued him with all that he has, then why punish him unendingly with torment and anguish for not believing in the gospel?

If justice has any meaning to us at all, then there comes a point where “enough is enough.” Yes, I have heard many times the rejoinder, “But God’s ways are not our ways. We cannot understand His justice.” If it is true we cannot understand His justice, then why do we ever discuss it or pretend to discuss it. Many times I hear (and think myself), “I thank the Lord for His justice.” Well, if I don’t know what that is, that I’m talking nonsense. I might as well say, “I thank the Lord for His quitish … or His tinbough … or His holtzing.” What are those words in italics? I don’t have the slightest idea because I just created them myself.

Certainly we do not understand fully what any attribute of God is, but we have to understand enough to be able to discuss it, respond to it, and praise God for it. When God’s characteristics are read in the Bible, we relate to them to some degree. We have to, or the Bible is meaningless! Our understanding of anything is limited by our background, experiences, presuppositions, etc. When I read of God’s love, of course I may have a different understanding than a child, an unbeliever, a young believer, a more mature believer. But we do not have opposite understandings.

Justice (the legal term) and fairness (the common term) are words that we understand from a very young age. Equity is the underlying property of justice. “Each gets his turn … all treated alike … what is good for the goose is good for the gander.” All of us have heard young children arguing with others, “You cheater … It’s my turn … I shared with you; now you share with me.” If you believe in innate ideas, then you’d say that equity was built into humans.

Most of us do not need to be taught to recoil from the horrors of injustice. A woman is brutally raped, and the thug cuts out her eyes so she can’t identify him. Children are horribly mistreated by cruel parents. Millions of people are purposely starved to death or savagely murdered because they are different. Do we need to be “taught” to recoil in anger or shock? If anything, people need to be taught to be indifferent so they will perpetrate such monstrosity.

I maintain that as the human race we do understand justice precisely because we understand equity. The Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” is nothing more than an expression of equity. It is true that when we think of a Hitler or a Stalin or a Mao or a Pol Pot we might think hell is where they need to be. But those are the exceptions. The overwhelming majority of those in hell, according to Christian doctrine, will be anyone from the age of accountability (as young as 7-12 years old) and upward who have not believed that Jesus is God’s son and died for their sins. When you go to work the vast majority of those who you see driving on the road, walking on the sidewalks, working and playing in life … most of them will be damned to everlasting punishment. Even if the person has not heard the gospel nor had the opportunity to hear the gospel, then they will be doomed to this endless torment and torture. Think of all the people in your extended family and circle of acquaintance, how many do you believe truly deserve to be tortured forever?

The scenarios can easily be imagined, one after another. A young girl, 12 years old, is killed in a car wreck. (Perhaps she lives in Iraq and happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when a suicide bomber killed her and dozens of others.) Typically speaking, what’s the worst she could have done? Lie to her parents? Steal some bills from their wallets? Cheat on a test? Make fun of someone? She had been to church but it did not teach the gospel. Well, the just thing to do then is to have her tortured forever, right? Perhaps you say yes to that. If so, the rest of this essay will be of no interest to you. I suspect most readers will be bothered by that. Ok, she can suffer a little until she realizes what she has done. But to suffer forever and forever and forever???

Is the answer to this last scenario no more than, “We do not understand God’s justice”? If there is one thing we do understand about justice is fair punishment for the act. The Bible is filled with commands and illustrations of this. Tedious details are listed in the Old Testament to define equity. Sharia law may allow a person’s hand to be cut off for a minor offence or an adulterous woman to be beheaded at halftime during a soccer game, but we know that is excess. I don’t need a Muslim telling me that the Koran teaches that “We do not understand Allah’s justice.” It is not just, period. In fact, it is monstrous.

If we don’t have some idea of what is just and what is not in God’s eyes, then why let illustrations bother us? What’s it matter? We don’t know what justice is anyway. C’mon on. Though we may not know all, we know enough. And as our understanding grows, our idea of justice does not reverse itself into something that is the opposite of equity.

Assuming what I have written is true, then how do we reconcile our understanding of the Biblical doctrine of hell with the idea of justice and mercy?

The two most common replies are 1) hell does not exist or 2) hell is annihilation (eternal sleep). Though hell is not mentioned that much in Scripture, it is mentioned; and the only proponent of it is Jesus Himself. Due to the teaching of Jesus, it is difficult to believe that the Scriptures do not teach that there is a real place called hell and a conscious experience in a place called hell. When I have read explanations of #1 or #2, it seems the driving force is the repugnance of the idea of hell; the idea of eternal torment and torture are difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile with a loving God or with the idea of justice, i.e., equity and fair punishment.

The literature and art of the Middle Ages are replete with scenes and images of frightening proportion. Dante’s Inferno has forever colored the images of hell with red and black horror for the Western mind. Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment has also encouraged images of great fear and repulsion. Even those who have never read the poem or seen the painting may have witnessed similar scenes in movies such as What Dreams May Come or Constantine, the last based on the Hellblazer comic book, or others like them. Torture and eternal torment are common motifs.

Years ago I was talking to a fellow worker in the Navy. As I was sharing Christ, he stopped me and said, “Here’s my problem. Let’s pretend someone has really wronged me. So I tie him to a rack and peel off a small piece of skin. Enough to make him scream in terrible pain. The next day I return and peel off just a little more, not much, just a one-inch or two-inch strip. If I do this right, I can keep him in this torture and torment for years. You would think me a monster for doing this; yet, with God, this torture would last forever. And you praise Him for such justice and fairness. I could never believe in such a cruel God.” The only thought that crossed my mind at that time was, “We don’t understand God’s justice,” but I kept it to myself. It didn’t seem the right answer then, and it doesn’t 40 years later.

As I have struggled over this issue, the thought finally came to me, “Perhaps the images are wrong.” When Jesus referred to the word translated “hell,” the Greek term that is used is geenna (γεέννα), he was referring to the trash pile outside of Jerusalem. The punishment was not the trash dump itself, but something like the trash dump.

Analogies can provoke different responses from different people. Also, analogies are not to be understood in every aspect. For instance, if I say, “He’s angry as a bear,” what do you see? Eyes? Teeth? Claws? Or do you simply see a general raging? On the other hand, if I say, “His hair is a mess like an angry bear,” what now? More than likely it will be hair standing on end with anger, but the emphasis is on the hair. When I told my son years ago that he and I would go buy rabbit ears, he giggled for two days. He saw literal fuzzy ears (probably Bugs Bunny’s); I saw only the V-shape.

What about the analogy of geenna? I doubt that the general image of a trash dump or the image of being tossed into a trash dump is much different today than back then. The initial reaction is repulsion, powerful and strong distaste, terrible to all the senses. We recoil at terrible smells and filth. The one image I do not carry over (nor do I believe the general reader does when he thinks of a trash dump) is a large, constant fire. It is true there will be smolderings here and there (spontaneous combustion), but there is no unending conflagration.

However (and this has been overlooked in the geenna metaphor), the creatures that live in the dump do not seem to be repulsed. In contrast, they seem quite at home: maggots, carrion birds, dogs, cats, other wild animals. I have travelled to very poor countries, and there are people who live in dumps. They don’t know any different. I’m repulsed, but they don’t seem to be. If taken out and given a chance to live elsewhere, perhaps they’ll never go back. Yet we are aware of stories of people being taken out of their miserable world, and they return to it. The person living inside the dump may or may not be repulsed; for sure the people on the outside looking in are repulsed. The creatures on the inside looking out may be fine. They may avoid undue displeasure (such as a fire here and there), but they are not repulsed.

Consider now the punishment issue. I’m aware of verses that discuss punishment, but I cannot reconcile those as literal when I consider the death of Jesus on the cross. For years I have been told that Jesus died for my sins and the punishment of my sins. I believe that. It does seem the Bible teaches that. If he died for my sins, then why would I be punished? Punished for what?

Of course I’m familiar with the Reformed doctrine that Jesus only died for the saved. If I believed that doctrine, then the unbeliever would be punished for his sins since they haven’t been paid for. The only problem the Reformed view has is the reconciling hell with justice. Naturally there are the replies of God’s sovereignty, His holiness, and man’s wickedness is unable to obey God’s justice. My difficulty with this is fallen creatures are still in God’s image and are not void of it altogether. There may be things that a fallen creature cannot do or will not do, but that is not the same thing as fallen man recognizing what is right and then choosing not to do it (or being inherently unable to do it). Indeed Romans makes it clear that man is without excuse because he does understand right and wrong.

Since I do not subscribe to the Reformed view of the extent of the death of Jesus, my problem is why are people sent to hell IF the sins have been paid for? Those who hold the non-Reformed view of the extent of Christ’s death typically will still say people will be sent to hell for their sins. That is so puzzling to me and unacceptable because if Jesus indeed died for the sins of the world, then why would any sin be punished by God twice? Double jeopardy is understood as being unjust. The death of Christ is actually double jeopardy on steroids … eternal steroids. Once a person has paid the penalty for his crime, then being sent to prison again for the same crime is unthinkable. Jesus paid the penalty, or, if you please, did the time.

I return to the problem: if Jesus died for sins, for the penalty of sins, then why are unbelievers sent to hell? The problem returns again, not to the reality of hell or a final judgment, but to the imagery of the final judgment and hell.

The only imagery that is being allowed is that of a guilty victim before a judge awaiting punishment, in other words, a courtroom judge; however, there is also the imagery of a judge in a sporting event. A judge (or umpire or referee, but still a “decider”) determines who is allowed to play in an event or who officially wins an event. Such judge imagery exists in Scripture.

Scripture does use racing as an event that is judged. The judges determined who has won the gold, silver, or bronze. The losers are not punished for losing, but ever loser does have a decision after a race. Does he want to continue to race or not?

There is only issue separating people from the Lord; it is not whether they have won prizes in their races. The only obstacle is whether they want to be with the Lord or not. As the Bible says, “It is by grace, not by works.” After death the entrance to heaven is not paved by our racing trophies. The only questions are (using the racing motif), “Will you run for the Lord … Can Jesus be the coach … Will you run just to please Him?”

When those questions are answered, the Lord will decide whether the person means it or not. The earnestness of their voice, the sincerity of the looks … these are meaningless. The purpose and intent of the heart are the key, and the Lord knows precisely what that is. He will know if people are saying what others want to hear, if they are trying to manipulate circumstances, if they will commit themselves.

The choice after life is not “Do you want heaven or hell?” That is nonsense. The choice is, “Do you want the Lord or not?” The ultimate issue of this life as well as the next one is not whether we want nice things, but whether we want the Lord. Every atheist I personal know wants nicer things, but … none wants the Lord. To offer heaven or hell as the ultimate choice is to offer a false choice and will bring confusion. In current conservative Christianity, receiving Christ seems to be little more than a “get-out-of-jail” card or a means of becoming happier.

If people have spent their lives rejecting the Lord as their coach in the race of life, there is no reason to believe they will mysteriously and magically make a 180° turn after they die. Attitudes and committed beliefs are not whimsically or effortlessly overturned. They are sterner stuff than diamonds. Their souls will no more want the Lord after being released from the body than when housed within. Death affects the location of the soul, not the beliefs of the soul.

Their “seeing the Lord as He truly is” is meaningless. They will see the Lord as they think He is, as they believe He is. Unless we believe the Lord alters a soul’s beliefs after death (if so, why not change unbelieving attitudes into believing ones), then an unbeliever cannot see the Lord as He really is. They will interpret it differently: “I’m having hallucinations … I’m dreaming … Someone’s doing something to me.” (If the soul does see God as He is, then why should we assume unbelieving human souls will respond any differently than unbelieving spirits, i.e., fallen angels or demons, “We know who you are; leave us alone!”)

Wait, doesn’t the Bible say “every knee will bow and confess Jesus as Lord”? Yes, those who have resurrected bodies will have knees to bow with. There is no Biblical evidence that unbelievers receive a resurrected body, and that is the only body that can continue to live. All other bodies are destined to die.

If “every knee” is figurative, then it will come down to interpretation again. All of us have heard the phrase, “The boss tried to fire me, but I quit instead.” When those after death do not want to be with the Lord, then the only place He won’t be is … hell. If conversations occur in hell, then one soul might transmit to another, “God says He’s the judge and He sent me here, but I really chose. Who’d want to be with Him and all those goofy believers, with their silly songs, praises, and goody-two-shoes nonsense? I’d rather be in this pit any day.” Those who hate the Lord in this life will hate Him in the next.

Do I believe hell exists? Of course. Do I believe it will be miserable? Of course. Do I believe it is a place of eternal torture and punishment for sin? Absolutely not. Why? I do not believe people are sent there as punishment? No, when they reject the Lord, they have chosen to go there for it is the only place left. In any situation in life, if two choices are offered, then the rejection of one is automatically the acceptance of the other.

Christ died for the sins of the world. They are no longer an issue … for heaven … or for hell.