It is said that nothing is ever affirmed by one group of radical biblical scholars that is not at the same time denied by others. Yet behind this well publicised scenario there is a quiet revolution going on among less radical scholars that is leading back to a more confident view of the New Testament manuscripts.

‘The painting of Christ shatters in slow motion. The camera captures the shattered face as it falls away towards the floor to the sound of morbid music. The commentator's asserts that "the traditional image of Jesus as taught the church has been shattered."

You're viewing JESUS: THE EVIDENCE a million dollar T.V. series from London Weekend Television (SBS Television). This "search for the historical Jesus" claims the latest scholarship has blown the New Testament apart. The traditional Jesus we know never existed. According to the series, all we have is a collection of "myths and legends" about a Jewish holy man of the first century A.D. The real Jesus, at best, taught parables, did some successful healings, and was finally executed by means of crucifixion.

The T.V. promotions surrounding the series warned the public that the series would come as a "profound shock" to traditional Christians. And a shock it was. But not so much to traditional Christians as to scholars and historians. "Thoroughly misleading" said Professor Cranfield of Durham University.
"Both one sided and frankly overwhelmingly biased" complained lawyer.professor Sir Norman Anderson. "So one sided... as to be distortion of-the evidence" stated Professor F.F. Bruce of Manchester University, "Ludicrous" cited Catholic reviewer Father Han Wi jngaards, who found some parts so crude that he held his side laughing. That's an impressive reaction. Religious-programs don't usually get people so excited. What does Jesus: The Evidence say that arouses such hostility as to foster newspaper headlines, angry articles, letters to the editor, and even an occasional protest march and petition to parliament.

Scholarly Research
There's certainly an air of academic respectability about the series. Experts are brought before the camera to tell of "intriguing new evidence" Each is said to have made "special studies" of the subject.
But that didn't prevent some weird and rather unacademic views being presented. Like Professor George Wells' argument that Jesus was a figment of the apostle Paul's imagination - a myth that was fleshed out later by the four Gospel writers.
And for those who like way out scenarios we have Dr Morton Smith standing in a Middle East desert talking about a fragment of a secret gospel which he has found. It was written he claims, in the second century A.D. and shows that Jesus was involved in hypnotic and occult rituals, which linked baptism with homosexual practices.
Dramatic claims, and they look impressive on the small screen. It's worth knowing however that scholars have almost unanimously rejected them. And it's not hard to see why. Dr Smith's fragment doesn't actually mention homosexuality. It doesn't even mention baptism. It may have been from a previously unknown gospel but we're never likely to know. The one and only copy is written on the blank end pages of a seventeenth century book in what appears to be eighteenth century handwriting.

Dr Morton Smith's claims are critiqued in the respected theological journal The Expository Times (Vol. 86, 1974-75, P.130-132), which points out that Clement's letter concerning the Gospel of Mark, to which Smith looks in support of his notion, has not yet been established as being from Mark’s gospel. And, as has been further pointed out by Professor F.F. Bruce of Manchester University, even if it could be"' associated with Clement there would be no real cause for celebration" for Clement showed himself to be easily hoodwinked.A further flaw in the series is Morton Smith's reference to the miracles of Jesus and their association with hypnotism, hallucinations and magical practices, uses a fourth century A.D. Jewish text on magical practices, and subjectively reads it back into the first century situation with no real Justification. This is roughly equivalent to relating the mystical rites of the Klu Klux Clan back into the religious rites of a 17th century monastery.

As to his lavish notions that Jesus was a magician whose miracles were . simply produced by hypnotic suggestion and hallucination, such notions create far more problems than they attempt to solve.
Andre Kole the world renowned stage illusionist dismisses such notions as highly improbable.' Kole, a specialist in legerdemain, was invited in 1973 by Time Magazine to investigate psychic healers. He has helped to expose and debunk the sleight-of-hand tricks of such dealers. In his recent book, From Illusion to Reality (Heres Life Publishers) Kole observes that Jesus? miracles are not of the category of deception. Notes Kole,

“If Jesus simply been a magician, performing miracles He did would have required two or three semi trucks full of equipment plus numerous assistants." Jesus: The Evidence for the most part graciously avoids accepting Dr Smith's ideas. But we can't help wondering why it bothered even to mention them, particularly when less radical and more objectively based scholarship barely gets a look in. Dr Smith's ideas hardly represent an example of "rigorous scholarship" of a level the series purports to represent.
But even more strange is the undue attention paid to the event in early church history - the Council of Nicea. in A.D. 325. The series claims that the emperor of the day, Constantine, put pressure on this first ever world Council of Christians to transform Jesus the man into Jesus the Son of God. The real Jesus we are told was likely a humble Jew and a gifted healer who learned how to use hypnosis.

The stuff on the Council of Nicea is all useful and interesting but it's irrelevant. The issue of what to make of Jesus Christ does not hinge on that event but on the New Testament records themselves, which, because of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and on early fragments of John's gospel, even the more critical scholars now concede they were around much earlier, A.D. 90-100.

Dr Vernes' contributions to this late attempt to convert Jesus-the-man into Jesus-the-God also deserves comment. Vernes is no doubt a distinguished scholar who writes as a liberal Jew about Jesus. While his contributions, along with other Jewish scholars, provide added insight which is most welcome they are not above criticism. Dr Donald Hagners' book The Jewish Reclamation of Jesus (Zondervan) has listed a number of flaws in Dr Vernes 'conclusions. Among which is his refusal to acknowledge the historical status and early dating of the New Testament, and, in particular, his total disregard of the data in the New Testament manuscripts concerning Christ's self perceptions.

To be fair much of the series deals with more thoughtful material. The ideas, themselves are’nt new they've been debated for the last hundred years or so. But most of the authorities referred to in the programme have, as producer/director David Rolfe admits, come from a school that has been branded ''radical". Less radical scholars and historians have considered the series of dubious value because of these highly subjective evaluations, and the ‘selective’ way the material is presented in the series.

Other Gospels
Jesus: The Evidence makes much of 'other gospels', having informed us that the New Testament gospels are included amongst fourteen others. Other gospels do exist in the same sense that alternative counterparts of the American Constitution exist. However the Americans are only too aware, and protective of their particular Constitution and the early church was most aware, and protective, of their particular gospels

It has always been known that other gospels were written in the second century. The best known of these is the writings of sects known collectively as "Gnostics". Believers who had developed their own variations of Christianity, which like the radical scholarship of today, placed them in conflict with the early church of Asia Minor, founded by the apostles or their recognized contemporaries. We possess scraps of these writings and further fragments are occasionally found by archaeologists.

But Dr John Drane of Stirling University is very critical of the way these are used in the series. "Having rejected the New Testament picture of Jesus and the life of the early church", he notes, "they confidently put in its place an image based on nothing more than a rag-bag of literary odds and ends found in the backs of old library books and culled from the rubbish heaps of antiquity." The series sacrifices the more soundly based manuscripts of the New Testament by giving undue credibility and emphasis to others of a much inferior status.
A noted specialist on Gnosticism is Professor Edwin Yamauchi, Professor of History at Miama University, who specialises in New Eastern, Persian, Greek and Roman history. He is' critical of the undue emphasis placed on the gnostic gospels by the series, and points out that "Smith has drawn the most unwarranted conclusions from what is obviously another apocryphal gospel".

The New Testament Manuscripts.

The tests for historical manuscripts is set out by C Sanders in his
Introduction to Research in English Literary History, and relates the evaluation of historical manuscripts from an Internal, External evidence perspective, together with the Bibliographical test' which focus on the number of manuscripts, the dates of the records and the aspects relating to their transmission.
In all these areas the New Testament documents have remarkable manuscript authority, particularly in relation to all other classical manuscripts of antiquity.

Homers Iliad, which is the best of these, has approximately 643 extant copies.With the earliest being
fully 500 years removed from the events. Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars, written in 50 B.C., has only ten manuscripts, the earliest of which is 900 years removed from the period. In contrast the New Testament has an almost embarrassing wealth of manuscripts - an incredible 5000. Unlike other 'gospels' and other works of antiquity their transmission can be traced back to the early church. The entire New Testament could be recompiled from the writings of the early church fathers, from quotations. 'The best and earliest copies of the New Testament go as far back as the third century, while portions and fragments go back even earlier.

The most notable is a scrap of ancient papyrus found in Egypt. It's part of the Gospel of John (which emphasises Christ's divinity) and has been carefully dated by experts to between 100-125 A.D. The fragment was found in a little provincial town along the Nile, which suggests to scholars that the Gospel of John would have been in broad circulation by this time. And considering the distant location of this small provincial town from Asia Minor and Jerusalem itself, experts justifiably conclude that the Gospel of John would have been written much earlier, within the life span of the apostles and fledgling church.

Of further significance to scholars is the New Testament's absolute silence on any event immediately preceding, or following, the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in A.D.70, and the failure of the Book of Acts to mention the significant matter of the Apostle Paul's death, particularly when it deals principally with his activities.' As the book of Acts is agreed to be an extension of Luke's gospel and as Luke's gospel quotes from Mark's, it is becoming increasingly evident-that what we have in the New Testament is, in terms of manuscript authority, transmission, and early dating, unique.
As has been pointed out by noted scholar barrister and theologian Dr John Warwick Montgomery, "So sound is the historicity and authenticity of the New Testament manuscripts that to reject them one is forced by the same premise to reject all other classical literature of antiquity.”

Eyewitness Accounts.

Yet, in spite of this decisive fact it seems of little consequence to the scriptwriters of Jesus: The Evidence, who push on regardless. "There is no doubt”, says David Rolfe, "that the Gospels were written late". Had Rolfe bothered to properly check be would have discovered that there is very great doubt about the late dating of the New Testament manuscripts, even among his own colleagues.

Noted Cambridge critic, John A.T. Robinson, long regarded as one of England's more distinguished
New Testament critics, and himself one the radical school, now concedes in his widely accepted work, Redating the New Testament (Westminster ) and the popular paperback Can We Trust the New Testament, that all the gospels and Pauline Epistles should be dated before A.D.65, within the life span of the disciples and other eyewitnesses, and prior to the destruction of the Jewish Commonwealth in A.D. 70. (Time March 21, 1977)

Robinson is merely echoing the long standing deductions of less radical scholars and archaeclogists, including Sir Norman Anderson, Sir William Ramsay,William F. Albright and Sir Frederick
G. Kenyon, formerly Director and principal Librarian of the British Museum; who emphasises that: "In no other case is the interval of time between the composition of the book and the date or the earliest extant manuscripts as short as in that of the New Testament. The books of the New Testament were written in the latter part of the first century.”

Assumptions concerning the late of the New Testament is the principal weakness of the series, along with its rationalistic presuppositions against the supernatural, and its assumptions that the Evangelists and early Church were more interested in theology than in history.

Yet the disciples of Christ and the fledgling church had every possible motive to review carefully the grounds of their faith. Not only because of the extreme persecutions endured - which among other atrocities included execution by crucifixion and being used as human torches to light Nero's gardens - but principally because, in such a climate, it would be most difficult to propagate a resurrection faith when there was any number of hostile witnesses present who would be only too eager to inform you, and your listeners, that this 'resurrection faith' was not supported by a resurrection event.

It would be still more difficult to understand why the disciples and the fledgling church would voluntarily choose to suffer poverty, hardship, rejection, persecution and eventual martyrdom for publicly declaring a message that they themselves knew to be a fabrication, and a lie. People usually fabricate a lie to gain some advantage or benefit. Not to secure their own persecution and martyrdom.
Moreover, even a superficial reading of the New Testament records readilyreveals that the writers go
to great length to impress upon their audience that the events surrounding the birth of Christianity "did not happen in a corner" (Acts), but on the center stage of secular history, involving key governmental
and religious leaders.
As affirmed by the Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Vol. 1 &2 p105, MacMillan) Christianity, “differs from what is usually identified as philosophical systems by its essential relation to and dependence on particular historical events and experiences. As noted, “At the primary level Christian literature affirms a number of both publicly verifiable historical facts and “religious events,” or facts of faith”.’ And, “By means of these Christianity has defined itself in distinction from all other religions". It is this specific element that accounts for the rapid rise of Christianity, and its key status among world religions for over two millennium.

Archaeology

Confidence in the New Testament record has been furthered by archaeological
Investigations. A wide range of inscriptional and epigraphic data has served to confirm the Bible is of primary source value. Leading archaeologists, such as
Nelson Glueck and W.F. Albright, have insisted that the Biblical record has been shown to be dependable in so many details. Thus there has been a growing tendency to query or reject the assumptions of radical critics.

A classic example of this was with Sir William M. Ramsay (1851-1930). He began his career by accepting the views of radical scholarship. It was
His conviction that much of the New Testament record was late and unreliable.
However after many years of extensive exploration and excavation he rejected such Sceptical views. In his many books he documented how the Biblical record
was authentic. He showed that the author of Luke-Acts, even in the most minute
and trivial details – such as descriptions of cities, titles of Roman officials, etc - was exceedingly accurate. Ramsay concluded that Luke was a first-rate and trustworthy historian. This high view is still maintained in current archaeological scholarship.

Apparent Discrepancies.

Throughout the series we are even reminded of the apparent contradictions in the Gospel records.
Yet Christians have long been spared the migrains seemingly suffered by the critics. Literally volumes have been written from secular and sacred sources to show that these apparent contradictions are more imagined than real. Recent among these is the Encyclopaedia of Biblical Difficulties by noted theologian and Harvard Law School graduate Dr Gleeson Archer.

Singled out for particular criticism are the events surrounding the discovery of the empty tomb. Yet even Ian Wilson, one of the chief researchers for the series, and author of the book that accompanied it, senses the authentic ring of the reports. And readily admits that "in their own way the garblings and inconsistencies have the same quality as the memories of witnesses after a road accident which are personal and often highly confused versions of the same story."

Indeed, noted legal scholar Simon Greenleaf, whose classic volumes on Evidence were for many years the standard texts of Harvard Law School and other prominent legal institutions, has likewise observed that these discrepancies are more apparent than real. In his evaluative analysis of the gospel records, The Testimony of the Evangelists, Greenleaf notes that the records have all the essential elements of a genuine legal testimony.

Greenleaf points out that it is a common characteristic of brief summarising legal testimonies and
historical reports - which present individual perspectives of an event - to find what appears to be apparent contradictions, but which a more comprehensive report would have reconciled.

Representative of this is the Gospel accounts of the inscription on the cross. Mark’s Gospel indicates that it read “The King of the Jews”, Matthew, “This is King of the Jews”, and John, “Jesus of Nazareth the king of the Jews.” Had the fourth Gospel not been preserved this would have been paraded by critics as a further contradiction. However, in this instance Luke’s Gospel is there to inform us that there were three inscriptions over the cross – written in Latin, Hebrew and Greek. Luke, with the historians eye, was careful to record the three inscriptions.

Such apparent contradictions in historical accounts are not uncommon. Apparent contradictions appeared in reports surrounding the proclamation of the Declaration of Independence from the balcony of the old State House in Boston on the morning of July 18 1776. Many accounts asserted that this proclamation was made by William Greenleaf the High Sheriff of Suffold Count: While many more declared that it was Colonel Thomas Crofts But research has disclosed that Greenleaf having a voice first read the Declaration sentence by sentence to Colonel craft, who beside him repeated the statements in a loud voice to those assembled. Further historical examples of this are the 'contradictory' reports of the execution of Lord Strafford, and the narratives of the Royal Family of France, in regard to their flight from Paris to Varennes in 1792. Yet no one would suggest that these happenings did not occur. As the Gospel writers were not initially present at the tomb they would have independently selected elements from the women's more comprehensive eye witness testimony, as the accounts themselves preclude collusion.

What the series subjectively assumes, and what the gospels do not specifically support or suggest, is that the Gospel writers all reported on identical segments of the women's testimony. Such is not true of independent legal testimony, historical reports, media reporting, or of every day life and conversation. And neither is the series.

On Miracles

Another significant weakness of the series Jesus: The Evidence is its rationalistic presuppositions against the supernatural, and the recorded miracles of Christ. Yet on the basis of the New Testament records and other early non-Christian and Jewish sources, the series did' concede to Jesus possessing certain "healing" or "hypnotic" -powers.

Attempts by radical scholarship to separate New Testament events from the supernatural elements has however proved both speculative and futile. Even with the use of computer analysis, the results have often been contradictory and heavily reliant upon-the presuppositions of the programmer.
An example of this is the computer analysis undertaken by Morton and, MacGregor'. Using the' premise that the New Testament books of Romans and Galatians were written by Paul, they undertook a 'word analysis' to determine the authorship of the other Pauline Epistles. -Their results suggested that these others were a product of multiple authorship.-.

Their own book however was subjected to this same analysis at Harvard University with the result that no less than five people had supposedly authored their own book. As observed by noted Oxford philosopher and one time atheist C.S. Lewis, it is not a matter of whether or not one believes in miracles but rather at what point one believes miracles occur. Having ridiculed and rejected all accounts of the miraculous in the Biblical narratives, the rationalists skeptics, and radical scholars subtly and stealthy substituted their own miraculous notions - at selective points.

In disregarding the Biblical accounts of the resurrection of Christ, of God raising an existing previously living body from death, these same 'rationalists' assert that dead dumb lifeless matter transformed itself into living conscious intelligent breathing human beings. It's called the theory of evolution.

They affirm that chaos transformed itself into order; that life came from non-life; that dead dumb matter one day in and of itself started talking. that consciousness came from non-consciousness; that reason came from non-reason; that intelligence came from non-intelligence; that altruism came from truism; that morality came from non-morality; that the personal came from the impersonal. Believing that you can get something out at the end that wasn't put in at the beginning. All these 'natural' miracles supposedly occurred without a miracle worker, which is really miraculous. As pointed out by Christian Apologist, Dr Steve Kumar, "If the radical scholars and skeptics can believe all this they should have no trouble with the resurrection."

The Real Jesus

The historical Christ of early Palestine is not the Christ of Jesus: The Evidence. He is not the Christ of radical liberalism, liberation theology or of the cults of eastern mysticism. It is the Christ of the New Testament manuscripts, which in the words of noted archaeologist Sir Frederick Kenyon may be regarded, both in terms of authenticity and general integrity, as ''finally established".

David Rolfe, Ian Wilson and others asociated with the series could have well benefited from the words of one time atheist and Oxford scholar C.S. Lewis, who well predicted their radical assumptions.

Says Lewis, "I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him. ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.’ That is one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg... or else he would be the Devil in Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about Him being a great
human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

Lewis has put the issue sharply in focus. The people who appear in Jesus: The Evidence are mostly careful honest scholars. They know that no human could have done what Jesus is said to have done in the New Testament records. So they've tried hard to explain away the records. Yet in doing so they have misconstrued the facts and the material, and adopted even more speculative notions, having rejected manuscripts that have been authenticated by less radical scholars to a very high degree.

It is in these manuscripts that the apostle Paul discloses that in Christ "dwells all the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form". It is here that doubting Thomas, the first skeptic, declares of Jesus,"My Lord and my God." And it is for this reason that Pliny, a contemporary of the time, in writing to the Emperor Trajan discloses that the early Christians "Sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ as to a God."

Yet for all this, Jesus: The Evidence and similar material generated by radical theologians and scholars have found a wide reception. They have a ready appeal to a secular age raised and nurtured on the absolute principle that there are no absolutes, on the certain notion that there is no religious certainty, and on the ultimate truth that there is no ultimate truth - and that's the truth.

Compiled and written by John Heininger, Director, Facts Of Faith

John Heininger, co-author Christianity for Skeptics. For further information contact Facts of Faith: Ph. 041 727 7439 Address: P.O. Box 945 Tweed Heads NSW 2485. (E-mail John)