What limits do the Gospels have as a historical source?

Answer 1

The gospels are unique documents, they are not stories based on facts, they are not academic historical documents, they are recounts of personal experiences of several members of a community, they are written to help people to the conversion of faith, for which it is evident the intention and the bias of the writings, is a truthful record of historical facts

Answer 2

The Gospels were written by followers of Jesus and not contemporary historians, so they may include theological interpretations and biases. They were written several decades after the events they describe, making them susceptible to inaccuracies from oral tradition and memory. Additionally, the Gospels were written with specific audiences in mind, shaping the information presented.

Answer 3

A:It has frequently been said that the existence of four different gospels, two of them believed to be written by eyewitnesses, is much better evidence than just one gospel. Even the differences among the gospels is seen as evidence for their historicity, just as four witnesses to an accident may give slightly different versions of events. However, these strengths become weaknesses when we know the real history of the gospels.

The four New Testament gospels were actually anonymous until later in the second century, when the Church Fathers attempted to determine who probably wrote each of them and so attributed the gospels to the apostles, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. In spite of the best efforts of the early Church Fathers, modern New Testament scholars say we do not know who really wrote the gospels. Scholars do say that the gospels could not have been written by eyewitnesses to the events described, meaning that at best we do not have a first-hand account of what happened in the life of Jesus.

By the second century, the Church Fathers had also come to realise from parallel readings in the Greek language, that there was a literary dependency among the synoptic gospels. They assumed that Matthew's Gospel was written first and that both Markand Luke were written as copies from it. However, modern scholars have demonstrated that Mark was the first gospel to be written, and that Matthew and Luke were based on what the authors learnt from Mark, with additional material taken from the hypothetical sayings document now known as the 'Q' document. John's Gospel, in turn, was loosely based on Luke. Far from four independent accounts of the life of Jesus, we really only have one, which was copied, elaborated on and added to, by anonymous authors.

Scholars date Mark's Gospel to approximately 70 CE, which is an entire generation after the traditional time of the mission of Jesus. But it is the only independent report we have of the life of Jesus. As a historical text, this gospel can only be as good as its sources, of which little is known - Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament) says that Mark seems to depend on traditions (and perhaps already shaped sources) received in Greek. Dennis R. MacDonald (The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark) demonstrates many parallels between Mark's Gospel, on the one hand, and the Odyssey and the Iliad in the other, and makes a surprisingly solid case for the first gospel to have been written around Homer's epics.

Events in the life of a person, even someone like Jesus, do not occur in an elegant pattern nor at precise time intervals. Mark's Gospel is based on a chiastic structure (a circular sequence in which an opening set of events is contrasted with another set of events that mirrors the first), and contains a further chiatic structure for the last 24 hours in the life of Jesus.

The major structure requires events to occur throughout the mission of Jesus according to an elegant pattern, summarised by:

• The opening set begins with John explaining the coming of Jesus, followed by the baptism and the voice of God from heaven, and ends with Jesus predicting his death.
• The contrasting structure begins with the Transfiguration of Jesus and the voice of God from heaven, and ends with the crucifixion, followed by the young man explaining the departure of Jesus.

The last 24 hours of the life of Jesus is broken up into eight segments, each of exactly three hours, with the opening set beginning on the evening of the Last Supper and ending with the trial before the high priest and other senior priests and elders. The second set begins with the trial before Pontius Pilate and ends on the evening of the crucifixion.

To summarise, the major shortcomings of the gospels as historical texts are:

• The fact that we do no know who actually wrote them;
• None of the gospels provides an eyewitness account of the life of Jesus
• They were all written long after the time of Jesus
• Three of the gospels (Matthew, Luke and John) were based on the original gospel, Mark, so that we do not have independent accounts verifying each other.
• The three dependent gospels contain elaborations and additions to the account im Mark.
• We know nothing of Mark's sources, but there is good evidence that the Gospel was influenced by Homer's epics.
• The elegant and artificial structure of Mark's Gospel confirms that it was not based on a literal prior account of the life of Jesus.

Answer 4

im not sure

Answer 5

Hours