Is the Gospel of Mark the most reliable Gospel in terms of historical accuracy?

Answer 1

Christians and those who regard The Bible as accurate cannot win. If all Gospel accounts agreed to the letter then critics would shout 'collusion!!'. If they disagree on minor points then they are 'unreliable' or they 'speak volumes about the concern for historical accuracy'.

The fact is that there are minor discrepancies, and this means that they are all the more reliable as independent accounts.

Just before Christmas 2009, I was the first on the scene of a rather tragic fatal road accident. I gave my statement to the police and thought that an end of it. However, a few days later I was contacted by them again to clarify matters as there were 'discrepancies' in the other statements and the officer wanted to go over things with me again to get a clearer picture. After this exercise, a clear picture of what had happened emerged that satisfied all witness statements ans the evidence of the road accident investigation crew who had been at the scene.

In a similar way the Gospels were all written independently over many years. Mark's gospel is traditionally believed to be the earliest with Matthew and Luke following. Both of these authors used a large amount from mark's gospel, plus a collection of sayings of Jesus from a now lost source (called 'Q' from the German 'Quelle' = 'source) plus a large amount of their own, original material. John's gospel, written later, has little content in common with the other three and, like Mark, was once believed to have been written entirely independently. However, unlike the witnesses of the tragic accident, no consultation took place to iron out any discrepancies - the Gospel writers did not have that luxury.

What amazes me is that, rather than having "irreconcilable differences among the gospels at almost every point" which is clearly a biassed and ascerbic (and incorrect) view, they actually agree to a remarkable accuracy. Yes, there are minor inconsistencies (IS John the Baptist's death date reallyimportant in the scheme of things?) but they all relate, in essence, the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. They all tell of his divinity, his miracles, his teaching, his following, his claim to be God incarnate, his authority, his death and his resurrection, his return. Without inconsistency. At all. More to the point, Paul's letters, independently written probably a decade before the Gospels, corroborate the gospel accounts to the letter when it comes to the important stuff of his his divinity, his miracles, his teaching, his following, his claim to be God incarnate, his authority, his death and his resurrection, his return - AND our salvation as a result.

Answer 2

Another answer from our community:

Absolutely. The Gospels give an amazingly accurate geographical picture, down to minute details. There are hundreds of particular details which could be given. For example, the Sea of Galilee is described accurately in that it was indeed small enough to be crossed regularly and it was used for fishing and it did and does produce sudden 'wind-storms' etc.

Of course some details mentioned in the Gospels are unknown to us today. This says nothing about the accuracy of the accounts since it just means that the Gospel writers knew some detail which we don't now know.

Answer 3

Another answer from our community

No other ancient documents - nor any official documents since - have been examined, criticised, studied, analysed and verified more than the four gospels in the New Testament. Most historians with and degree of eminence regard the documents as historical. Thus their content can be deemed reliable, true and trustworthy. However, the writers did have their own agendas and wrote with some bias:- Matthew was a Jewish tax collector a,d a disciple of Jesus and therefore an eyewitness to events, trained and skilled in Roman shorthand, who wrote the stories of Jesus for the Jewish population. Therefore in Matthew we find large chunks of what Jesus said (were these copied down in shorthand as he said them?), we find long lists of Jesus' ancestors proving that he was a descendent of David and other evidence to persuade the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah. Mark was probably John Mark, a follower of Christ, and a friend of Paul and Barnabas who accompanied them on missionary journeys (in the book of Acts), who wrote his gospel in a hurry probably during the time of the Christian persecution under Nero. Reading it you get the impression that Mark desperately wants to get the information down before he too is captured and martyred. It is full of 'ands' - He did this and then this happened and then this, and immediately this then happened, and, and...". mark is the shortest gospel and was used by Matthew and Luke as a framework for when they wrote their own accounts. Luke was a doctor, and was the only gospel writer never to have met Jesus, but was a friend of Paul and likely to have interviewed peter and Jesus' mother Mary. A non-Jew, he was commissioned by Theophilus to write a systematic account of all that had happened - for non-Jews. His two books (his gospel and Acts) are full of specific details - much of which are only now being verified by Archaeology. Luke was interested in Jesus' healings ( as a doctor) and in placing his life in context (by including eg his birth stories). John was written by the disciple closest to Jesus and is on a different level from the other gospels, being much more spiritual and profound. He made it clear why he wrote his account... "...so that you too may believe". John was the only disciple not to desert Jesus at the crucifixion, and was one of the first (along with Peter) to discover the empty tomb. Therefore, despite the gospels being written with specific audiences or aims in mind, they agree remarkably although they were written at different times and places totaslly independently. The analysis of these documents, using scientific techniques such as textual criticism, lead us to assert that these ancient documents are not only reliable, but are far more teustworthy than almost any other ancient document - or documents that have been written far later for that matter.

Answer 4

In order to establish the reliability of the four New Testament gospels, we first of all need to look at their sources and who their authors were. Unless the authors were personally witnesses to the events described, the gospels are unlikely to be more reliable than their principal sources.

The gospels do not tell us who their authors were, and distinguished New Testament scholars such as Raymond E. Brown tell us that they were only assigned to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John later in the second century CE.

Mark is widely believed to have been written around 70 CE, so its author is unlikely to have been an eyewitness to any of the events described, or even to have known an eyewitness.

Scholars have clearly established that Matthew's Gospel and Luke's Gospel used Mark's Gospel as their principal source on the life of Jesus. Whenever they both agree with Mark, the Greek wording is almost identical to that used in Mark. Recent scholarship, particularly that by Elaine Pagels, now shows that John's Gospel used Luke as its principal source, although some material also came direct from Mark.

On the dating of Matthew, Brown says, "Probably the best argument for a post-70 date is the dependence of Matthew on Mark, a Gospel commonly dated to the 68-73 period." He points out that two passages (27:8; 28:15) describe items in the Matthean passion narrative that are remembered "to this day", using an OT phrase to explain placenames from long ago (Gen2 6:33; II Sam 6:8). Such a description would be very inappropriate if Matthew was written only two or three decades afterwards. His summary on the dating of Matthew, "All this makes AD 80-90 the most plausible dating; but the arguments are not precise, and so at least a decade in either direction must be allowed."

It is almost universally accepted that Matthew and Luke also used a sayings document now known as the 'Q' document. Whenever they agree on sayings they attribute to Jesus, but which are not found in Mark, the Greek text is almost identical in both gospels, but the location, context and time when Jesus spoke is completely different from one to the other. On that basis alone, much of the material added by Matthew and Luke was a literary invention, and there is no strong reason to accept the reliability of sayings taken from the 'Q' document.

Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament) says, "Luke's infancy narrative is not only massively different from Matt's, but also in details is virtually irreconcilable with it ..." On Matthew's nativity story, Brown says that In chapter 2, Joseph is shaped in the image of the patriarch Joseph, another son of Jacob/Israel, because both interpret dreams and save the family by going to Egypt. The Moses story comes into the picture when the wicked ruler (pharaoh, Herod) tries to slay all the male children, only to have one (Moses, Jesus) escape and become the saviour of his people. The magi contribute to the Moses parallelism, for in Jewish legends of Jesus' time the pharaoh received information from wise men. Clearly, Father Brown is telling us that Matthew's infancy account is not really historical.

Luke's infancy narrative relies on a supposed census at the time of the birth of Jesus. Brown tells us there never was a census of the whole Empire underAugustus (but a number of local censuses) and the census of Judea (not of Galilee) under Quirinius, the governor of Syria, took place in 6-7 CE, probably at least ten years too late for the birth of Jesus. He says, "The best explanation is that, although Luke likes to set his Christian drama in the context of well-known events from antiquity, sometimes he does so inaccurately."

Brown also says, "Luke's account of the death of Judas in Acts 1:18-19 is scarcely reconcilable with that in Matthew 27:3-10." Once again, one or both of these accounts lacks historicity.

Some scholars have noted Luke's apparent dependence on the work of the Jewish historian, Josephus, while noting that he frequently misunderstands or misuses material from that source. This sourcing is most apparent in Acts of the Apostles, but is also apparent in the gospel. Brown shows that Luke eliminates or changes passages in Mark unfavourable to those whose subsequent career makes them worthy of respect, and is more reverential about Jesus, avoiding passages that might make him seem emotional, harsh or weak.

John's Gospel differs significantly from the other three. Origen, in defending John's Gospel, said "Although he does not always tell the truth literally, he always tells it spiritually" (Origen, Commentary on John). There is not a lot more that needs to be said on this gospel.

All the gospels differ irreconcilably in their treatment of the trial, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Only one could be truly accurate, and very likely none is. Moreover, the earliest manuscripts of Mark do not contain any reference to the resurrection of Jesus, ending at verse 16:8.

So, the historicity of the gospels depends on the historicity of Mark' Gospel. According to Brown, Mark seems to depend on traditions (and perhaps already shaped sources) received in Greek - in other words, not the testimony of an apostle such as Peter. He says that parallels have been detected between Mark and Paul's letter to the Romans. To my eyes, the eucharist in Mark 14:22-24 may also be based on 1 Corinthians. So, there is some possibility that 'Mark' shaped part of his gospel account on the names and events more generally described in the epistles, which had already been written and circulated in the Christian community. According to the gospel, John the Baptist died shortly after Jesus began his ministry, which would place his death about 29 or 30 CE. However, the Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, seems to place his death much later, at about 36 CE. And the apparent geographic errors in Mark are quite well known. No contemporary source, from the time attributed to Jesus, ever mentioned him or the wondrous events described in the gospel.

Some recent scholars, such as Macdonald (The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark), believe that much of the detail in Mark was really inspired by Homer's Odyssey and the Iliad. Without the benefit of faith, there is no strong reason to believe that much of Mark's Gospel is historical. So, we can not really say whether or not there was a historical Jesus of Nazareth, nor how many of the events described in Mark's Gospel are historical.

The Gospels are entirely reliable, as they were written within the lifetime of eyewitnesses, were often verified by extra-biblical writings, and were not countered by hostile witnesses of the day.

Answer 5

Opinion:

Mark is equal in historical accuracy with the other Gospels as all are entirely reliable as various eyewitness accounts or based upon eyewitness accounts. There are no inaccuracies as those that are sometimes raised as inaccuracies are simply different ways of expressing the same story to different audiences and with different emphasis and themes. In addition, most Christians believe the accounts to be inspired by God thus ensuring accuracy.

Answer 6

No other ancient documents have been examined, criticised, studied and analysed more than the four gospels in the New Testament, and with good reason. The outcome of this close examination is that the gospels can at best be regarded as true in parts or, at worst, entirely creations of the evangelists who wrote them.

One suitably eminent historian, Ian Wilson (Jesus: The Evidence) says it can come as quite a shock to discover that no-one can even be sure who wrote the gospels. Despite the versions printed in our Bibles long having borne the names Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, these names are mere attributions, and even as such are rather less reliable than attributions given to unsigned works of art.

If there are serious contradictions among the four accounts, as in fact there are, then logically only one gospel could be true. Or none. Speaking of discrepancies in the resurrection accounts, Archbishop Peter Carnley wrote:
"The presence of discrepancies might be a sign of historicity if we had four clearly independent but slightly different versions of the story, if only for the reason that four witnesses are better than one. But, of course, it is now impossible to argue that what we have in the four gospel accounts of the empty tomb are four contemporaneous but independent accounts of the one event. Modern redactional studies of the traditions account for the discrepancies as literary developments at the hand of later redactors of what was originally one report of the empty tomb...
There is no suggestion that the tomb was discovered by different witnesses on four different occasions, so it is in fact impossible to argue that the discrepancies were introduced by different witnesses of the one event; rather, they can be explained as four different redactions for apologetic and kerygmatic reasons of a single story originating from one source."
This brings us to the discovery that Mark's Gospel was the original New Testament on which the others were directly or indirectly based. As the original gospel, only Mark's Gospel could be a true record, with differences between it and the other gospels resulting from elaborations or errors in the other accounts. However, Mark's Gospel has been shown to contain many geographical, cultural and historical errors. The kindest comment on the origin of Mark's Gospel comes from Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament), who says that Mark seems to depend on traditions (and perhaps already shaped sources) received in Greek.

So how true is Mark? Fortunately we now have a way of answering this question. A parallel structure has been revealed in the gospel, which would only be possible if the gospel is substantially or entirely untrue. A parallel structure is a literary sequence in which an opening set of events is contrasted with another, parallel set of events that mirrors the first. The purpose of a parallel structure is to link, by association, the two events of each pair in the minds of the readers, in order to create emphasis or develop a theme that would otherwise not be apparent. This can be seen in the following summary of the framework structure of Mark:

A . John explains the coming of Jesus (Mark 1:1-8)

B .The baptism of Jesus (1:9)

C . The voice of God from heaven, "Thou art my beloved son" (1:11)

D . The forty days in the wilderness as an allusion to Elijah and Moses (1:13)

E . The people were astonished at what Jesus taught (1:22)

F . Jesus casts out an unclean spirit (1:23-26)

G . Pharisees took counsel with the Herodians how they might destroy Jesus (3:6)

H . Demons, whenever they see Jesus, fall down and say that he is the Son of God.

-- Jesus commands that they tell no one of this (3:11-12)

I .. Jesus calls the 12 disciples (3:13-19)

J .. Jesus rejects his own family: he has a new family, his followers (3:31-35)

K . Jesus rebukes the wind (4:36-41)

L . The demoniac, wearing no clothes (5:15), cries out that Jesus not torment him and Jesus sends out the demons (5:1-20)

M . Jesus comes into his own country (6:1)
-- Where he was brought up

N . The people misunderstand Jesus and he can do no mighty work (6:2-6)

O . Jesus sends out the disciples and curses those who will not receive them (6:7-11)
-- in sending the disciples with authority and expecting all to receive them, Jesus is asserting his own authority

P . Herod thinks that Jesus is John the Baptist risen from the dead (6:14)

Q . Herodias and her daughter conspire to kill John the Baptist (6:16-29)

R . Feeding the thousands, and related miracles and discourses (6:33-8:21)

S . Who do people say that I am (8:27)

T . Peter affirms faith in Jesus as the Christ (8:29)

U . Whosoever shall be ashamed of me: of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed (8:38)

V . The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and scribes (8:31a)

W . Be killed and after three days rise again (8:31b)

X . Prophecy of second coming (9:1)- Jesus tells the disciples that some of them would not taste death until they saw the kingdom of God coming with power.

B' .The Transfiguration of Jesus (9:2-3)

C' .The voice of God from heaven, "This is my beloved son" (9:7)

D' . Jesus talks to Elijah and Moses then to the disciples about Elijah (9:4-13)

E' .A great multitude was amazed at Jesus (9:15)

F' .Jesus cast out a dumb spirit (9:17-27)

G' .They shall kill the Son of man and he shall rise on the third day (9:31)

H' .Jesus clarifies his divine status, saying that he is not God: "Why call me good? There is none good but God" (10:18)

I' . Peter says the disciples have left all and followed Jesus (10:28)

J' . Those who have left their family for Jesus have a new family: all Jesus' followers (10:29-30)

K'. Jesus rebukes the 'sons of thunder', James and John (10:35-45 - cf 3:17)

L' .Blind Bartimaeus cries out for mercy and casts off his clothes, then Jesus heals him (10:46-52)

M' .Jesus comes into Jerusalem (11:1-10)
-- Where he will die

N' .Jesus misunderstands the fig tree that can provide no fruit (11:13-14)

O' .Jesus casts out them that sold and bought in the Temple and curses them for making the Temple a den of thieves (11:15-17)
-- Jesus is asserting his authority

P' .Jesus asks whether the baptism of John is from heaven or of men, and the priests, scribes and elders can not answer (11:30-33)

Q' .Parable of husbandmen who conspire to kill the vineyard owner's son (12:1-9)

X' .Prophecy of second coming (chapter 13)

-- on clouds of glory, within the lifetimes of some of those to whom he was speaking

R' .The Last Supper (14:17-25)

S' .Art thou the Christ, Son of God (14:61)

T' .Peter denies Jesus three times (14:66-72a)

U' .And when he thought thereon, Peter wept (14:72b)

V' .The chief priests, elders and scribes delivered Jesus to Pontius Pilate (15:1)

-- Delivering Jesus is a similar concept to rejecting him.
-- Both parts of the pair involve chief priests, elders and scribes

W' .Jesus dies and on the third day rises again (15:37, 16:6)

A' .The young man explains the departure of Jesus(16:6-8)

Answer 7

Assuming that Mark's Gospel really does report the real, historical Jesus, logic says that it should be the most reliable gospel. The authors of Matthew and Luke are known to have relied on it for their knowledge of the life of Jesus, while the author of John seems to have relied on Luke.

The later gospels contain story elaborations and additions that helped spread the gospel, but which are unlikely to have been based on historical facts.

Answer 8

If the gospels were truly accurate, they would tell the same story. Instead, there are irreconcilable differences among the gospels at almost every point. Certainly we could expect of accurate gospels that one would include information that another excluded, or that there could be differences in emphasis, but we should not see contradictions or evidence of timeshifting.

The nativity story in Matthew may or may not be accurate, until we compare it to Luke's Gospel. Matthew says that the home town of Joseph and Mary was Bethlehem, and that the young couple fled to Egypt after the birth of Jesus, returning to Bethlehem after the death of Herod but then turning aside and migrating to Nazareth. Luke says that Nazareth was the home town of Joseph and Mary, and that they returned peacefully to Nazareth just a few weeks after the birth of Jesus. Thus, at least one, and probably both nativity accounts are inaccurate. Luke also places the birth in the time of Herod the Great but also during the census of Quirinius, which took place ten years after the death of Herod.

Similarly, both Matthew and Luke provide a genealogy of Jesus through Joseph and then the male line back to King David. Obviously at least one genealogy must be in error. But they both contradict the Old Testament genealogy so, unless the Old Testament genealogy is inexplicably wrong, then both gospel genealogies are wrong.

The gospels say that John the Baptist was executed early in the mission of Jesus, probably around 29 CE, on the request of Herodias. But the Jewish historian, Josephus, indicates that he was really imprisoned and executed in far-away Macherus in 35 CE, on the orders of Herod Antipas himself.

There are numerous doubtful passages in the gospels around the events of the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. A good one to note is that the synoptic gospels clearly state that Jesus was crucified the day after the Passover feast, while John just as clearly says that Jesus was crucified the day before the Passover feast. The fact that John made this change so that he could portray Jesus as symbolising the paschal lamb speaks volumes about the concern for historical accuracy.
The Cambridge Ancient History (XI The Imperial Peace A.D. 70-192, P261) says, "The Gospel of John is not intended to be read as a biography, it is a mystical and theological interpretation of the life and teachings of Christ. The author draws material from Mark and Luke; doubtless also from independent tradition, neither the extent nor historical value of such tradition would seem great."

Whether or not the gospels are essentially true is another question; here we are dealing with whether they are accurate. Nor are we dealing with 'collusion'. That it is agreed, even by many conservative Christians, that the authors of Matthew and Luke relied on Mark and the hypothetical 'Q' document for their information about the life, mission and sayings of Jesus could be called 'collusion', but that is not the thesis here. Obviously, even with this advantage, the gospels are still shown to be inaccurate.

Answer 9

That is no longer the view of most historians. Because of the gospel accounts and the beliefs of so many, historians do believe Jesus of Nazareth probably existed as a historical person, although they express doubt whether he performed miracles.

John Ashton says in 'History and Theology in New Testament Studies' (The Nature of New Testament Theology,edited by Rowland and Tuckett) that historians (and others) continue to argue with one another whether Jesus was really a homespun Cynic philosopher, a social reformer or an eschatological preacher deeply sympathetic to the Pharasaic culture all around him. He says that not only Jesus’ miracles but also the amazing religious experiences attributed to him in the Gospels, his baptism and transfiguration, are generally dismissed as legendary.

Answer 10

Yes in fact the entire bible is of historical events and true stories.