Can we trust the Gospels?

01The question

Old books, big claims

It is a fair question. These are ancient books making extraordinary claims. Why should anyone take them seriously?

The Church does not dodge it. It says the four Gospels, “whose historicity she unhesitatingly affirms,” faithfully hand on what Jesus really did and taught.¹

So who were these writers, and how close were they to Jesus? Around AD 180, a bishop in what is now France named them.

02The evidence

A bishop names the four

St Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, wrote around AD 180: “Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church.”⁸

“Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter.” “Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him.”⁸

And John, “the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.”⁸

Look at how ordinary the details are. Who wrote. Whose preaching they recorded. Where they lived. It reads less like legend and more like a family tree.

But how did the story travel from Jesus to the page? The Church describes three stages.

03The process

From a life, to preaching, to the page

<b>First, the life:</b> what Jesus really did and taught, until the day he was taken up to heaven.¹

<b>Then, the preaching:</b> after the Ascension, the apostles told people what he had said and done, now with a fuller understanding.¹

<b>Finally, the writing:</b> the Gospel writers chose some of the many things handed on, summarised or explained others, always telling “the honest truth about Jesus.”¹

Which explains something that puzzles many first-time readers. The four Gospels do not tell every story the same way.

04The objection

Four voices, one Jesus

The writers selected, summarised and explained with the needs of their own churches in mind.¹

So to read them well, you ask what each human author truly wanted to say.⁹ You notice the kind of writing it is, and the customs of speaking and storytelling in their time.¹⁰

Four friends describing the same wedding will not use the same words. That does not mean there was no wedding.

The Catechism also notes that the circumstances of Jesus’ death, handed on by the Gospels, are lit up by other historical sources too.¹¹

And the Gospel writers are open about one more thing. They did not tell us everything.

05The ending

Why they were written

“Many other signs also did Jesus in the sight of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God: and that believing, you may have life in his name.”

Almost nothing is said about Jesus’ hidden years at Nazareth, and much of his public life is left out. What is there was written for one reason: so that you may believe, and have life in his name.¹³

They were written by people who were among the first to believe, and who wanted to share it.¹⁴

John told you exactly why he wrote. The only fair way to test it is to read one.