Do the Gospels describe historical persons?

Answer 1

Jesus Christ, the Gospels' central person was historical. Read the Answers.com answer on 'how do you know Jesus existed' to see the overwhelming documentation on his life.

Next comes Paul, and we have a great deal of evidence supporting his historical existence, including many letters that were written to churches across the Roman Empire, plus archaological evidence of the churches themselves, and including early Christian documentation in the catacombs in Rome itself.

Of the '12 disciples', there are no doubts that these too were historical. After the resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit, these disciples are believed to have spread across the then-known world to spread the gospel message. Peter went to Rome to found the Christian Church there, Thomas founded the Church in India, Philip in Africa ad so on. Jameswent to Spain and is buried there. The evidence is from the Churches themselves, and the archaeological remains that still exist in many of these places.

Of the '72' - the 'outer circle' of disiiples whom Jesus sent out to prepare the way for his missions, we are uncertain of their authenticity as we do not know their names. However, tradition holds that John Mark was one of them - and we know that John Mark accompanied Paul on his missionary journeys - and his remains are believed to be buried in the basilica in Venice.

John the Baptist was known to have existed by Paul and Luke, although, there is absolutely no reliable evidence to suggest that he died later than the gospels attest. The daughter of Herod and Herodias, who danced and caused the death of John, is not mentioned in scripture, but in other sources she is identified as Salome - just one of thousands of cases where secular material corroborates scripture.

Of the women, Mary Magdalene's fate is uncertain, but the early Church from the first century, regarded her as an historical person.

Of the ruling classes, Herod and Pilate are regarded as historical because there is much evidence outside scripture attesting to their existence. Similarly, both Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were regarded as very real people by the early Church - who could trace their own teaching back just a generation or so to the apostles themselves. Arimathea, far fom being 'fictional' has always been identified with the town of Ramleh where David came to Samuel (1 Samuelchapter 19), and to suggest otherwise is misleading.

Regarding lesser characters like Lazarus, again there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the Lazarus of Luke's Gospel should be identified with the Lazarus of Bethany, just as James the apostle and brother of John is not the same person as James the brother of Jesus, or John the apostle is not John the Baptist. There were many fictional characters spoken about by Jesus in his parables - a Lazarus (who we are told is a beggar who begged by the gate of the Temple), the Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan and so on. But Lazarus, whom Jesus rose from the dead, the brother of Mary and Martha, is undoubtedly a real character. The early Church regarded him as real, and his raising from death was one of the watershed moments which instigated the plot of the Jewish ruling council against Jesus.

Finally, there are many minor characters like Luke, Lydia, Philemon, Timothy, Silas, Barnabas and so on who are regarded as real people by, for example, Paul and others. Therefore, it is beyond belief that an already established historical character in Paul should write about these as living, historical characters with whom he walked and talked, if they were fiction.

Answer 2

We can be reasonable certain that James, John and Peter were historical people, because Paul reports meeting them. On the same basis, Barnabas and others mentioned by Paul were no doubt real people. And for the same reason, we can also be sure that there was a "twelve", although Peter does not seem to have been a member of Paul's "twelve" and it was still intact at the time of the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:5) - in other words there is no hint that one of the twelve had betrayed Jesus or hanged himself. However, Paul gives us no information about the names of those who formed the "twelve". 1 Corinthians 15:7 suggests that the "twelve" was a separate group to the "apostles", or at least that if the apostles included the "twelve", the apostles were a much larger group.

King Herod and Pontius Pilate are well-attested historical people. From the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus, John the Baptist seems to have been a historical person, although he must have died somewhat later than the gospel account states and in different circumstances.

Other people mentioned in the gospels seem somewhat unlikely to have been historical. For example, ifJoseph of Arimathea was real, we should expect to find a town or village of Arimathea in close proximity to Jerusalem. However, the best efforts of biblical archaeologists have never found a hint of this town, and those who insist on the literal reading of the scriptures are left to speculate on where Arimathea could have been. In Greek, the language of the gospels, Arimathea could actually mean "best disciple town" and could symbolise that only Joseph stuck by Jesus, while the other disciples deserted Jesus after his arrest and even denied knowing him.

When John, alone of the gospels, tells us that Jesus raised Lazarus, brother of Mary and Martha, from the dead, there are good reasons to doubt whether Lazarus really existed. Scholars recognise that John's Gospel was inspired by Luke's Gospel, although some material was taken direct from Mark's Gospel. Luke and John are the only gospels that ever mention Lazarus, Mary or Martha, but Luke does so in a parable, in which Jesus only talks of the hypothetical resurrection of Lazarus.

There are parallels between Mark's Gospel and Paul's epistles, and scholars now know that Matthew and Luke copied everything they knew about the life and mission of Jesus from Mark. It is a reasonable conjecture that the author of Mark's Gospel took key people and events from the epistles and developed an entire gospel story around them, adding fictional people to complete his story.