An Honest Debate.com

In responding to a recent post I became involved in a discussion of Luke’s competence as an historian. Luke competence is important for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that he produced more of the New Testament than any other single author. Speaking personally, I have always been impressed with Luke because I sense a kindred spirit in him. But I am taking the time to defend him here because his accuracy has become an issue in the debate over my recent posts on the resurrection.

The great American jurist, Simon Greenleaf, has demonstrated that Luke, and the other canonical gospels, could be admitted as evidence in a legal proceeding under the ancient document rule. But certain hostile documents have survived too. These Jewish and Roman sources concede the empty tomb and missing body, but they offer an alternate theory; that the apostles stole the body. These sources could also be admitted as evidence under the ancient document rule.

One of our posters offered an alternate explanation. He has asserted that the disciples changed their story. He accuses them of doing this even though no ancient source has made this charge. Nor is there any documentary evidence that would refute the claim that the tomb was empty and the body missing. But since a reader has made this argument I think I should respond to it.

The explanation he suggests is actually just a reworking of a theory first proposed by certain German Rationalistic theologians in the 19th century. They claimed that the story of the resurrection was a later addition to the original story of Christ.  They based this claim, in part, on their theory that the gospels were produced in the second century. Given this, and their rationalistic assumptions, the idea of legendary embellishment made sense.  But as documentary evidence continued to accumulate, it became undeniable that most of the New Testament was produced by no later than 85 A.D. It should also be noted that 85 A.D. is the oldest possible date for most of the New Testament, and we now know that the majority of the books of New Testament were produced before 70 A.D.  This chronology pretty much destroyed the theory that the New Testament accounts of the life of Christ were legendary, since the events they record were as recent to readers of the gospels as the election of Ronald Reagan is to us. There were just too many people around who remembered the facts to get away with legendary embellishments.

Tom Anderson, the former President of the California Trial Lawyers Association and co-author of the Basic Advocacy Manual of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, explains:

“Let’s assume that Christ did not rise from the dead. Let’s assume that the written accounts of his appearance to hundreds of people are false. I want to post a question; with an event so well publicized, don’t you think that it’s reasonable that one historian, one eyewitness, one antagonist would record for all time that he had seen Christ’s body, ‘Listen, I saw the tomb. It was not empty.’ ‘Look, I was there , Christ did not rise from the dead.’ ‘As a matter of fact, I saw Christ’s body.’ The silence of history is deafening when it comes to testimony against the resurrection.”

Nevertheless, our reader and his friends are recycling the “legend theory” in a most extraordinary way. They are claiming that the legendary elements former critics spread over more than a century, were somehow added to the original gospel message in just over two decades; and no one noticed!

How believable is this explanation?  My conclusion is that it is absurd to suggest the apostles could have changed their story in time allotted by this theory without someone picking up on it and challenging them for it.  This would particularly be true in Jerusalem, where the gospel was first proclaimed and where it continued to be published until shortly before the destruction of the city in 70 A.D. If the story had been changed, surely we would find some record of someone saying that the Christians had changed their story. Surely someone as hostile to the gospel as the fierce second century critic, Celsus, would not have missed an opportunity make the charge. But we find no such record, we find no such charge.

But since this theory, at least as our reader stated it, is based on the assumption that Luke-Acts is a harbinger of the changing story, the credibility of Luke is obviously something that I need to address in order to defend the thesis I have set forth in my previous posts on the resurrection.

I note that Luke begins his gospel by explaining why he wrote it. He tells us that he had written sources, because many others had written accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus before him. We probably have two of those other accounts in Matthew and Mark, unfortunately, the others have not survived.

Luke also mentions the testimony of “eyewitnesses and servants of the word [who] have handed them down to us.” We know that Luke was in Judea for a three year period while Paul was imprisoned in Caesaria; so there was an extended period of time during which he would have had the opportunity to depose witnesses.

Let’s consider the testimony of some of those witnesses. As we dissect his gospel we notice that Luke, uniquely, paid special attention to the testimony of woman. This was highly unusual. Luke was writing at a time when the testimony of a woman was considered inherently unreliable. I mention this, because Luke’s treatment of the testimony of women is a strong argument for his reliability as a historian. Including the testimony of women, particularly in connection with the resurrection, would do nothing but weaken his case. So why include it if you are trying to persuade people to accept a “new gospel?” It doesn’t make sense. The only cogent reason for including their stories would be a determination of Luke to tell the story “as it really was.”

It is also relevant to mention the access Luke’s association with Paul gave him to the apostles and other witnesses, and to documents and official records that have long since perished. What modern historian would not envy access to Luke’s sources? Surely, no modern critic can claim better sources. This being the case, one would hope that these critics would be a little more modest in their claims and theories, but I digress.

Another thing that strikes the reader of Luke’s introduction to his gospel is the fact that he did not just accept the stories he heard on face value. Instead he says he “investigated everything carefully from the beginning,” and that the knowledge he gained from his investigation qualified him to compose an accurate account in consecutive order of “the things that have happened among us.” That Luke was indeed well known for this very thing, even before his extended stay in Judea, is confirmed by the fact that Paul refers to him as, “the brother whose fame in the things of the gospels has spread though all the churches” ( II Corinthians 8:18).

The accuracy of Luke’s reporting is also confirmed by the way in which the “testable details” of his account has been independently verified. There is also evidence that Luke was meticulously careful about getting his facts right in the “testable detail contained in the sequel to his gospel, the Book of Acts.

This does not mean that Luke’s accuracy has never been challenged. The opposite is the case. As the Catholic Encyclopedia, explains; “It was the fashion, during the nineteenth century, with German rationalists and their imitators, to ridicule the ‘blunders’ of Luke, but that is all being rapidly changed by the recent progress of archaeological research.”

The story of the conversion of one of these critics is instructive. The great archaeologist, Sir William Ramsay, was once one of those who ridiculed the “blunders” of Luke. He was educated in the theories of the German Historical Schools of the 19^th century who taught – foolishly in retrospect — that the New Testament was produced in the second century.

Ramsey was so convinced this was correct that he became an archaeologist and went to Asia Minor on a mission; to find the evidence to refute Luke. His plan went poorly. Not only was he unable to refute Luke, the results of his work caused him to switch sides and reverse his entire view of the Bible. After years of study, this is what he had to say about Luke:

“Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy, he is possessed of the true historic sense…in short, this author should be placed along with the greatest of historian”

Quite a turnabout.