The Ancients - The Gospels: Are They Historical?

Episode Date: September 27, 2026

How much can we really know about the historical Jesus? The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have shaped Christianity for nearly 2,000 years, but they were written decades after the events they describe. So how should we treat them as historical sources?Tristan Hughes is joined by Professor Helen Bond to examine where the Gospels came from, who wrote them and how closely they reflect the world of first-century Judea. Were they based on eyewitness testimony and earlier traditions? And what do their stories reveal about the life of Jesus of Nazareth?MOREThe PhariseesListen on AppleListen on SpotifyRise of ChristianityListen on AppleListen on SpotifyPresented by Tristan Hughes. Editor is Matthew Wilson. The producers are Joseph Knight and McKenna Fernandez. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music courtesy of Epidemic SoundsThe Ancients is a History Hit podcast.History Hit is part of Little Dot Studios, a Certified B Corp™The Ancients is now on YouTube! Watch HEREWant even MORE Ancients? Sign up to History Hit for early access ad-free, plus exclusive subscriber-only episodes. PLUS with a History Hit subscription you can watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe. He turned water into wine, fed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish, calmed a raging storm with the sound of his voice. These stories, these miracles of Jesus of Nazareth, are famous around the world. But how do we know about them? The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John give us the four most famous accounts of his life. But were they written by eyewitnesses? How much did their authors know about the events they describe

and can we really use the Gospels to reconstruct the life of the historical Jesus? I'm Tristan Hughes, welcome to the ancients, and today I'm once again joined by friend of the show Professor Helen Bond to ask a question that has shaped Christianity for centuries. Are the Gospels historical? Let's get into it. Helen, it is great to have you back on the show and great to have you here in our studio. Thank you. Yeah, it's great to see you again and I'm loving the studio.

Oh, I know. For our first time doing it in person when it's not been in Edinburgh. That's true. We did Pontius Pilate all those years ago now, haven't we? Yeah, that's right. And now we are covering still the New Testament story. But the Gospels themselves, the four Gospels, and is it fair to say that the question of their historicity, it's one of the most charged parts of Christian theology of the study of early Christianity? Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, it really polarises people. Everybody has an idea on how historical they think the Gospels are.

So, yeah, and they're very, you know, forthright in their views. But regardless, they're really interesting sources, even though that there are so many, you know, different opinions out there. And I guess we should say at the beginning, we'll agree disagreeably or disagree agreeably, right, I guess of all the different theories there are out there. Yeah, of course. I mean, you have to be respectful of people's views, but as an academic and a historian,

you know, I, what's interesting to me is to put them alongside other ancient texts. That's the thing. And to look at, you know, how they sort of fare in that, in that sort of company. And can archaeology help us as well?

Or is it more looking at the, as you say, the non-canonical four gospels on the side? Yeah, I think it's really a question in sort of comparing them with other similar texts and seeing what they're doing, you know,

what this kind of text, particularly a biographical kind of text, is really trying to do. And so when we mention a gospel, what do we mean by a gospel? What do they talk about? Well, they're basically a book about Jesus. So gospel is not an ancient genre. It's what we tend nowadays to call a book about Jesus. In fact, it probably quite early on people started to call the Gospels as we know them, the four Gospels in the New Testament. they probably started to call them Gospels quite early. So it's not particularly a new genre. It's basically a biography. I was going to say, is it a biography?

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. It's a Jewish version of a biography. But yeah, so they are, when we talk nowadays about a gospel, we really mean a book about Jesus. And should we also mention at the start that there are books about Jesus, the biographies of Jesus. And we do think, I mean, there is large scholarly consensus that there was a real figure called Jesus of Nazareth.

Yeah, I mean, you know, you're always hearing people on the internet, the mythicists saying, oh, there's not much evidence. But Jesus was a peasant. I mean, you wouldn't expect a huge amount to be written about him anyway. It's actually quite incredible that we have the letters of Paul written 15, 20 years after Jesus' death. Even the earliest gospel is about 40 years after. So I think for all, there's some recent polls said that 40% of people in the UK doubted that Jesus actually existed.

But I think really they're all wrong. There's good, good evidence that Jesus did exist. It's because you've got the gospel evidence, but you also have, as you mentioned there, the letters of Paul. And do we have several other sources? We have Josephus, the Jewish historian, who's writing in the 90s. He has some evidence about Jesus and also Tacitus, early 2nd century.

So, yeah, you know, I think this is all really quite early evidence for somebody of Jesus's lowly status. And so we have four Gospels, and what are these four Gospels? Well, there's Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the order that they come in the New Testament. So we have to be clear, though, that these are the canonical Gospels. These are in the New Testament. There's actually loads and loads of Gospels. You know, once Christians started writing these lives of Jesus, they were well away.

And there's a whole load of non-canonical Gospels. some of them perfectly fine, you know, perfectly orthodox. Some of them are slightly dubious and they continue to be written into the 4th, 6th century. So there's actually loads and loads of Gospels. And people can read them nowadays in what's called the New Testament Apocrypha, which has them all sort of gathered together. So these are the so-called Apocryphal Gospels. Today we see them as non-canonical because they're not the big fore.

Because they're not in the canon. But before the Council of Nicaea in times of that, there are, many Christian communities across the Mediterranean world that they wouldn't have had Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They might have had Thomas, James. Gospel of Peter was quite popular as far as we know. But we do know that these four do seem to have sort of got a certain status already by the second century. So Ironius talks about the fourth old gospel. So already, they seem to be the earliest ones as far as we know. and they seem to have been the ones that are most popular within the early churches. So even though there might be other groups that favour the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Peter or whatever it is,

these four do seem to be common to most Christ believers in the early centuries. Do you think it's interesting that Peter didn't make it into the canonical four almost? Because you think of the First Pope of Rome and you are my rock and then so much. Yeah, I mean, it is, I'm sure we'll come on to the question of who wrote the Gospels, but it is strange that none of them are attributed to Peter. I mean, you do get the stories that Mark is the interpreter of Peter, and there's that sort of link with Peter there. But no, nobody ever says, apart from the Gospel of Peter,

that is probably second century, and it's clearly derivative from the others. Well, shall we introduce these figures one by one? And of the four, there are two who are disciples of Jesus. Well, they're attributed. So Matthew and John are attributed to at least people with the same name as two of Jesus' disciples. Most scholars think that the Gospels circulated anonymously at first, and then they got the names added. So, you know, what are we to make of these? Are these just random names?

The names of apostles, is that, you know, why they got these names? Or are they, I mean, these are also quite common names, Matthias, Johan. There's a lot of John's, aren't there? Exactly. So, you know, are these particularly gospel, are these the names of disciples? And clearly two of them, Mark and Luke, are not the names of disciples, though they are also linked with figures in the New Testament. So, I mean, we need that caveat straight away. But if we mention Matthew, who do people normally believe Matthew is?

Even if he's not actually the author of this gospel, who is this figure of Matthew? The traditional answer is that he's Matthew, the tax collector, who's one. of Jesus' disciples. So an eyewitness of events. And John? John is John's son of Zebedee, sometimes linked with the beloved disciple in John's Gospel. Is it the foot of the cross? At the foot of the cross, yes, and the one who sort of always gets it, you know, in comparison to Peter, who often doesn't get it, John is always just that little bit more savvy than the others. And then we have Mark. Yeah, Mark is traditionally linked to John Mark, who is associated. with a sort of a Christian safe house in Jerusalem.

He's also mentioned in the first letter of Peter. The author there says, my son, Mark. I mean, it's very tenuous, but the idea is that Peter has a particularly close connection with Mark, and Mark is the interpreter of Peter, whatever exactly that means. And according to Papias, who's a second century church father, he says that Mark wrote down everything that Peter remembers. So again, I think what these authors are trying to do in the second century, particularly in the fight against heretics, is to give these Gospels sort of the stamp of authenticity. They're saying, okay, Mark may not have been an eyewitness himself, but he knew Peter and he's writing down very carefully, though not in order, he says, everything that Peter remembered.

So, you know, that means that this is a trustworthy gospel. And we mentioned Peter not being there earlier, but actually, if you're looking at it then through that lens, it's Mark through the words of Peter. So you actually have Peter in the four canonical gospel. Exactly. Peter's just really the scribe. Yeah. And fourth, but certainly not least, Luke. Yeah. So Luke is traditionally said to be the travelling companion of Paul in Acts. Because obviously Luke has a two-volume work, whereas the others are just Gospels. Luke has the gospel and acts which traces sort of early Christian history onto the 60s or so. And so the idea there is that Luke is somebody who knows Paul very well. So those are the four. And the subject matter, you said loose, as an overview, it's the life of Jesus.

And death, particularly the death and resurrection. Yes. But do they all include kind of the classic parts of Jesus' story? What do we know about the style in which these are written? Yeah, they don't all include the same materials. So only two, for example, have birth stories. Only Matthew and Luke have birth stories. Only John's Gospel opens with that grand prologue, you know,

in the beginning was the word, and he traces things from before creation. Mark's Gospel doesn't have any resurrection stories. All the others do. So there's a lot of overlap, a lot of similarity. In fact, in some cases there's word for word overlap, but it's generally speaking, they all have their own slant. You have all lens of the scale then. You can see parts where they are completely similar, almost word for word. But also if you explore certain times, there are times where you have the same story but disagree on certain details.

And sometimes where they have completely different. Exactly. They have the whole range of the spectrum. And I mean, I think this is one of the really fascinating things about it. And this is one of the things that got me into studying this. the first place, it's called the synoptic problem and it's trying to work out the literary relationships between the Gospels. And how much may they might have been in, I guess, competition with each other, trying to outdo one another or trying to support one another?

That is a really interesting question. And what, you know, so if, for example, Matthew uses Mark, as most people think, in fact, Matthew sort of uses the whole of Mark, he adds extra bits to it. So then what is he trying to do? Is he, you? eating up Mark? Does he expect Mark still have value if Matthew has used it all up? Is it version two almost? Exactly. Exactly. Is it a competitive thing or is it supplementing? Is it complimenting? And as you move on, particularly by the time you get to John, if there's three already, what does John think he's doing? You know, is he just adding another voice? Is he replacing? It's a fascinating question, I think, what they think they're doing. Well, let's get it's

delve more into that kind of chronological order. So which of the fall do we think comes first? Almost certainly Mark. Mark, okay. And how long after the life of Jesus is he writing? Well, I think current sort of dating of Mark puts him after the fall of Jerusalem in 70C. So maybe early 70s. So that gives us about 40 years between the death of Jesus and Mark. So a couple of generations really. And the fact that the first one is written only kind of 40 years after the the crucifixion event. In regards to kind of biographies of ancient figures, that's pretty close to the events themselves, right? You would still probably have had at least one or two eyewitnesses. Exactly. It's not that long. We tend to think, oh, 40 years. But yeah, there might still have been

people who remembered Jesus, people who are still telling their stories, people who could verify these accounts. So, yeah, it's not, I mean, it's not the next day, but it's not bad. And like you say, there's plenty of biographies written about characters from much, much more distant periods than our own Gospels. I always think of her like Nicolaus and Tabascus with like the assassination of Julius Caesar being the closest one and then the rest are always much later than that. And so we have Mark first and then who follows, you said Matthew. So Matthew comes not long afterwards. Yes. I mean people tend to put Matthew next.

I mean, we don't know for sure. But Matthew may be about the 80s, something like that. Matthew is using Mark and adds extra material himself. And then probably we get Luke. Luke could be anytime 90s, around about 100 maybe, possibly quite a bit later. And then John, from about the same time, maybe a little bit later. Again, John could easily be into the second century. And let's delve into the first of those three.

Because why are Mark, Matthew and Luke often linked very? closely together? They're sort of known as a group as the synoptic gospels and that's from a Greek word synopsis meaning, you know, looked at together, seen side by side. And the reason for that is that they are very, very similar. Sometimes they are, they have verbal similarities. And these verbal similarities can stretch for several sentences. So, and stories are in the same order as well. So, so there's obviously some kind of literary dependency. And what people think nowadays is that Mark wrote first and then Matthew and Luke both used Mark in the composition of their own gospel. And what are some of these stories that almost are word for word in these three accounts? Oh, I mean, lots of them,

lots and lots of them. So, I mean, the story of the man with the withered hand in the synagogue, for example. I mean, another one is the entrance into Jerusalem. Again, if you put the story, side by side and look at them, you see long, long sort of lists. This is something I get students to do, you know, underline the words that are the same in all of this. And even when they're not the same, they're similar. So, you know, I say to them, well, if two students handed these in or three students handed these in as an essay, what would you think? And they also say, oh, there's been copying, copying going on here. So I think it is fairly clear. If you do look at them, in this sort of, you know, side by side, you can see there is some literary link between them.

When I think of like copying of like one source from slightly later, like redoing a source from earlier, I might think of like an epitome or something like that. But then, you know, there are clear differences between the two at the same time. Is the amount of similarity, the fact that it is almost in cases word for word, is that quite strange in its own way for, you know, these gospel writers to actually be making something so, so similar? Yeah, I think so. I think it's really unusual in the ancient world. I mean, you know, all ancient authors use sources and I mean, they're encouraged to do that, you know, the whole sort of imitation thing. You sort of write and rewrite stuff that's that's out there already. So that's sort of normal practice. But this sort of, it's almost like a scribal activity. You know, you're writing. you're writing out whole sentences and then you're adding bits and pieces. And one of the things about the changes is that when you look at all the changes together, you can see certain sort of

interests, whether they're theological interests or social interests or whatever it is. And Matthew always changes Mark in a particular way. Luke always changes Mark in a particular way. So you can almost see them sort of working with these texts and changing them so that they're, you can almost see them sort of working with these texts and changing them so that they fit into their own particular interests. So how does Matthew change Mark and then how does Luke change Mark? Well, Matthew is very interested in Jewish scriptures, scriptural fulfillment. So he will often change Mark so that it's more obvious

that he might quote something from the scriptures. He might change something so that it's more obvious that there is a scriptural passage there, that it's been fulfilled. Luke is a better writer altogether. He's a better writer of Greek. So he does make Mark's Greek better, but he's very interested in the poor and the marginalised,

so he will add extra bits that kind of bring in these groups. And also there's less, Mark is very keen on sort of the imminent end of all things. You know, the kingdom of God is about to break into human life. Yeah, this apocalyptic Jesus. whereas Luke tends to sort of tone that down a bit. So again, if you sort of look at all of these, sometimes very, very minor changes, but altogether you can sort of build up a picture of, yeah, this is what Luke is particularly interested in.

This is what Matthew is. Whoever Luke was or whoever Matthew was and who they represent those names. Absolutely. But yeah, short-term. And you see, but you mentioned even once in a while you do see disagreements between the two or omissions between, you mentioned the birth story, the virgin birth, Bethlehem, the inn, the stable. Is that only in one of the accounts?

That is only, that's only in Luke. That's only in Luke. And the Magi and King Herod, only in Matthews. So, yeah, they have very, very different birth stories. And John has this sort of prologue that starts in sort of prehist. So they all choose to sort of situate their stories in slightly different ways. And Mark just starts straight away with John the Baptist and River Jordan. We'll get more into John the Baptist in the bit.

In that sense, Mark is always seen as the earliest, and then Luke and Matthew evidently no Mark and copying out quite a lot of Mark. But what is this amazing, really interesting debate among scholars about whether there was a source for themselves as well, a source for Mark, an earlier source dating even closer to the time of Jesus? Q. Q. Yes.

Sounds like something from out of James Bond, but it's called Q because that's the German word for Kvela. You know, Q is just the abbreviation for that. So just to add to the complexity, sometimes Matthew, Mark and Luke are identical across all three. Sometimes, though, Matthew and Luke are identical, but in a passage that's not in Mark. So then the question is, where have these passages come from? Now, one way of looking at that is just to say, well, Mark wrote first, then Matthew, and then Luke had both texts. And that accounts for all these things. You know, sometimes they're the same.

Sometimes Matthew and Luke are the same. But another view is that in addition to Mark, Matthew and Luke had this source that's now no longer extant called Q, which was largely sort of sayings of Jesus and they both use, so they're both writing completely independently. They're both using Mark and they're both using this source Q. And so that again explains why sometimes they follow the structure of Mark but they also follow Q which is why they have some material in common and it's also in the same order,

which is why people think it's a written document rather than just oral sources. And what are the examples of this? What are the ones that are in Matthew? Well, so the temptation stories, for example. I mean, if you look in Mark, he just says Jesus was in the wilderness, 40 days. Yeah, Jesus goes to the wilderness. Mark just says he was tempted by Satan, and then he came back. Matthew and Luke, though, have sort of very convoluted stories about Satan takes him up to the highest pinnacle of the temple and says, throw yourself down and, you know, see whether God will come and save you. And Satan says, you know, make the stones into bread and, you know,

three very sort of distinct temptation stories. And they're very similar in both works, which suggests that, you know, again, they're from a written source. And much of the Sermon on the Mounts in Matthew's Gospel is from the Q source. It's also in Luke, but Luke has what's called the sermon on the plane. I know, you've got a mountain in one. He's your sermon on the river next. He sort of, he pulls it apart a little bit.

But still, the material is largely in the same order, and it's largely the same, which makes people think this is from a written source. So what do you think? Q or no Q? Well, I have to say, a lot of these things, it's what you were taught, isn't it? so I was taught Q and I've had no reason particularly to relinquish Q but I am starting to wobble on Q. I've found a few places where I'm starting to think maybe maybe Luke does just know Matthew that would make some sense but I think scholarship is largely half and half on this and it used to be the case that nearly everyone was a Q believer now I think I think you know it's

it's more it's more sort of polarised so if there is no Q, the line of thinking being that, let's say, the temptation stories, the added detail is almost added later. And then the detail then, in that case, Mark wrote first. Matthew uses Mark. He adds in this extra bit. Yes. We don't know where he's got those from.

And then Luke is using both Mark and Matthew. And could it be that some of the information that we have in the Gospels was passed down to the likes of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and then John, through oral tradition, as we see with so many other stories, I mean, Homer's Iliad passed down for so many centuries, that there are parts the story that were, you know, written down in the Gospels, you know, passed down from people, from eyewitnesses, you know, and that word and mouth continued for one generation or two. I think that's possible, but I think you have to be a little bit cautious with that, because an old-fashioned idea was that the gospel writers were just simply editors and compilers.

So basically what they did was they sort of, you know, they went around, found a few Christians, got their stories, and just wrote them down in any old order. And that was very much the sort of the general accepted view of the gospels in the early 20th century. Since then, people have really begun to realize that these are really good literary texts. They may not be written in the most elegant Greek, but, you know, they're competent biographies. They're written by people who have a good level of Greek education. They can use nice little literary tropes. They are, you know, they are literary endeavors. So I'm sure that certainly Mark and probably the other Gospels too would have tried to, you know, to find out information about Jesus.

Some of it would have been written down. Some of it would have been oral. I'm sure that's what happened. But at the same time, they are writing a literary text, and so they're going to be selective, they're going to shape their materials so that it fits in with what they want to say. So I think that the slight nervousness I have about saying, you know, there's oral traditions here, is that it sounds as though you've necessarily got that link back with Jesus. And I'm not sure that oral traditions will give you that.

You don't necessarily know that they're going all the way. back to Jesus and you don't actually know how much the gospel writers have have shaped them in the telling. Interesting. And when they're, you know, when they're making the gospels, these, these figures, are they all writing in Greek or was it Aramaic? Or you mentioned Greek? They're all written in Greek. Yes. And there's no reason to think that they were written in, you know, we don't think there's a sort of an Aramaic original. They're all written in Greek. So, so you've already got that process of translation from Jesus who would have spoken Aramaic to the Gospels being written in And then evidently being spread far and wide very, very quickly, right?

If we think then Matthew and Luke are using Mark not only a decade or so, maybe a few decades after Mark, and then you get John as well. Evidently, they're being then recopied and recopied and spread across Christian communities in the Eastern Mediterranean. That's right. I mean, again, we don't know exactly where these Gospels were written, but if only we did. But the sort of best guess is that they probably come from urban environments in the Eastern Mediterranean. And yes, like you say, they're spreading very quickly. And then we get to John. So this is a conversation in its own right, isn't it, Helen?

And because he is very different in his tone and style. Yes. And I mean, even the portrait of Jesus that you have in John's Gospel is very different. You have this opening prologue that puts him there at the beginning of creation. in the beginning was the word and the word was God. So, you know, you get this divine figure in John's Gospel. He sort of comes down to earth. And he's often been described as God striding over the earth.

There's no doubt that Jesus is something different. He's sort of a godlike figure. He talks of himself. The son and the father are one, he says. And he has these long dialogues. And it's a very, it's a very. different kind of flavor in John's Gospel to the other three. And how are those long dialogues different? What do you think is the purpose with the longer dialogues? Does he put more speeches in the mouth of

Jesus quite? Yes, many more more speeches. In the synoptic gospels, Jesus speaks in fairly short, sort of pithy ways. You'll get a sort of a little sentence here, or you don't really get long sermons. I suppose the sermon on the mount is sort of one of the few. You'll get a little sentence here. You're, you don't really get long sermons. I suppose the sermon on the mount is sort of one of the few that you do get that's quite long and the apocalyptic material Mark chapter 13. But largely there's sort of little sayings in John's gospel though. You get these long dialogues that sort of spiral round and round and round. He picks up words and he sort of works with them and then he picks up another word. And it's also very difficult to know when the voice of Jesus stops and the voice of the narrator starts

So people who are translating these and trying to put in sort of inverted commas for when the voice of Jesus stops, I actually find it really difficult because the narrator sounds exactly the same as Jesus. So it could almost all be from the voice of Jesus. Do we think the purpose of it is to convey particular message? Is there more kind of, is this the word parabilic, I guess is it fair to say? I don't know if that's the right way to say it, but in John, because of the longer speeches that are attributed to Jesus. Yeah, it's a different, the sort of the divinity of Jesus is much more obvious there. And the whole point, I mean, for John, Jesus's death is a sort of a triumph.

He talks about it as being lifted up on the cross. And John only has seven miracles, unlike the many, many miracles that you get in the others. And one of those is the resurrection at the end. So the miracles are all signs that point to Jesus' glory. that finally you're going to see when he's on the cross. So it's this sort of inverted idea that, you know, death is triumph. So it's, yeah, it's heavily theological throughout. And there's always, there's always something else happening, you know, double layers.

And actually the Greek is very, very simple in John. But the thought is intensely complex. That's the interesting part. It's actually studying the words themselves and the style of the words. wording compared to the earlier three Gospels. Yeah. And why has, for so long, have many people always kind of put John to one side compared to the other three and then almost, yeah, put them in his own little box almost?

Yeah. I mean, I think from very early times it's been realised that there's something slightly different about John. And in the very early period, people used to say that the other Gospels had captured the sort of the physical side and John had written. the spiritual side of things. So, you know, people realize that they were very different in some ways. Mark, for example, just has one trip to Jerusalem. John has three at least, and some other differences like that. So the explanation early on was that John was more spiritual. Then in the

20th century, people started to say that maybe John was completely independent of the others and didn't know them at all. This then becomes interesting in terms of questions of history, because if John is completely separate, areas where John and the others are in agreement are obviously more likely to be historical. That's more the historical parts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then nowadays, there's been a bit of a move back from that. You know, it just seems unlikely. If Matthew and Luke no Mark, how likely is it that John is writing somewhere and doesn't know the other ones at all? And actually, for all their differences, when you look at John and the others, there are also some big similarities. Apart from the prologue, they all start basically with John the Baptist.

John also gives about half of the gospel to the telling of Jesus' death in the same way that Mark devotes about half of the gospel to Jesus' death. They all have the entry into Jerusalem. They have some shared stories. In fact, John's Gospel has the feeding of the 5,000 directly followed by Jesus walking on the water exactly the same as you have in the synoptic gospels. So when you look at the similarities like that, it becomes a little bit difficult to say he doesn't know the others. That miracle, that part of Jesus' story, the feeding of the 5,000, I mentioned it before as well. I am intrigued by, you know, of all the stories of Jesus, you know, that's the one that is in all four, you know, for all the differences between John and we'll get into some of the different stories. But I am always struck by the fact that that really well-known one, you know, is visible in all four.

And that's one of the most important stories in first century Judaism as well, because it obviously sort of reflects the story of Moses in the wilderness. when the Israelites are wandering in the wilderness after they've come out of Egypt, and God sends the manor in the wilderness. So this is what they're eating in the wilderness. And there's all sorts of links with that story in the Gospels. And that story of God's provision for his people in the wilderness was thought of as being the greatest miracle amongst first century Jews. So I think it's no accident that that particular story,

is picked up by all four gospel writers. You know, this is Jesus as a second Moses. And Moses had to ask God for the manner, whereas Jesus himself is providing for the people. So it very much paints Jesus as a second Moses. We'll continue this interview in a moment, right after these adverts. Hi there. Just before we return to the episode,

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ads. Now on the ancients, we really value our listeners. Without you, doing this podcast would not be possible. So, we also release an exclusive subscriber-only episode every two weeks, and our most recent installment published last Friday was with our guest for this very episode, the wonderful Helen Bond. Together, we delve into the origins of her interest in biblical history, and Helen reveals some enticing tidbits from the real history of Jesus of Nazareth. Did you know, for example, that Jesus' female disciples may have been bankrolling his whole Galilean operation? Just how much influence did these women have? Here's Helen explaining more.

And going back to the women who knew Jesus, I mean, you've also researched extensively with Joan Taylor, who we've also had on the podcast, a great friend on the show, about the female disciples of Jesus. Firstly, what a title, the female disciples of Jesus. But what was it like I'm picking the lives of these figures that are often overlooked? And what was it like unpacking, let's say, Mary Magdalene's story or Salomey story? Yeah, well, I mean, the difficulty with some of them is we know so little. But, you know, we'll have a little tiny fragments. We'll hear from the gospel writers that these women were traveling around Galilee with Jesus.

And in Luke's gospel, he says that these women are sort of basically bankrolling the operandi. He tells us that and then he moves on and he thinks, well, tell us more. You know, what's happening? Why are these women following? Where are they sleeping at night? How are they helping from their own resources? What are they doing? And so just being imaginative and trying to think through these things was really interesting. I mean, hopefully there's more than just imagination.

It's sort of informed imagination based on what we know of the first century period and the social context of all of that. their subscriber episodes every fortnight and access to hundreds of original documentaries. That's historyhit.com slash subscribe or click the link in the show notes. That's history hit.com slash subscribe. And so from what you were saying before, like it was once believed, as you say, that Mark did not know Luke, Matthew, in particular, that John didn't know Mark. And so the old argument being that because they also include, let's use for instance,

let's use, for instance, the story of the feeding of the 5000. Because both Mark and John use that story, but they believed John didn't know of Mark, then that was evidence for that event actually happening, almost. That added credits to the historicity. So that was the old argument, was it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the old argument, if John is completely independent of the other two,

areas where they overlap suggest that they're both dependent on, earlier tradition. Now that may not necessarily go back to Jesus, but it's earlier. And you're sort of pushing things back. And the way that people got over those similarities between the two texts, in two texts that supposedly don't know each other, is to say that they are oral, pieces of oral tradition that are floating about. And so, yeah, the idea, it then becomes easier, or at least possible to sort of say, well, places where they are similar do suggest that it's some sort of shared tradition and this may well go back to an earlier stage and may well be historical. So it's interesting from a historical angle. Of course, as soon as you start saying, John is

simply picking up on the others, that just collapses. Well, I'm going to ask you now, do you think John actually did know of the writings of Mark and then Matthew and Luke? I'm absolutely convinced that he, I certainly think that he knows Mark. Yep. All the work I've done ever since my PhD was sort of comparative stuff across all four gospels. And in every case, I always thought John is, John is sort of finding a new angle on Mark. There's something in Mark that John is bringing out and developing. So although I was taught that John didn't know the others, I never believed it. So I always thought that John knew Mark. Nowadays there's been quite a lot of new work on whether he knew Luke and Matthew. Luke, I think, is fairly clear. Matthew is the one that's not entirely,

not quite so obvious because so many times Matthew is the same as Mark, and it's difficult to know if he's getting it from Mark or Matthew. But I think enough has been written recently to convince me that probably John knew all three. Well, let's explore some parts of John's gospel, because it is very interesting. And you did mention that prelude, that prologue that is in John. So what is this? You're saying, it takes us back into prehistory. This is great for the ancients podcast.

Yes, yes. Well, right the beginning. You know, the whole sort of the first phrase in the beginning is taking you back to Genesis, because that's the way that Genesis starts. And the way that books were known in, certainly amongst Jews, is by the first sort of word, you know, so in the beginning, we call it Genesis, which again is, you know, from the Greek meaning in the beginning. So straight away, a hearer is transported to the world of Genesis. And we're hearing a creation story. But this time, it includes Jesus. You know, in the beginning was the

word and the word was God. The word was with God. The word was God. And so Jesus is part of this creative process, right, from the start. And it brings in traditions of wisdom and proverbs and all kinds of other sort of Hebrew Bible elements. You know, people who are used to hearing these scriptures are their ears are pinging with all of these resonances. And so what John is doing is rewriting the history of the world, but putting Jesus in it. And so for him, Jesus is pre-existent. Jesus was there at the beginning. So he comes, he sort of clothes himself as a human, he comes and he has his ministry and then he goes back up to God at the end.

So it's a very different picture to the one that we get in the synoptics where he's just, you know, well, certainly in Mark's Gospel, he's just a bloke. But you can argue it's a more popular way of writing at the time. I guess at the time of John, if he's including this preamble compared to the others, I guess it wants, as we'll delve into other kind of differences in the story, maybe it's also a reflection of the world that this figure of John was living in when he was writing this, well, this gospel.

Yeah, and I think John's sort of, you know, immense creative abilities that in Matthew also wants to link Jesus with the Jewish scriptures, but he tends to do it in a more clunky way. He'll just say, this was to fulfill the scripture, and then he quotes the scripture. Whereas John does quote some scriptures, but more often he'll just kind of, tell the story so that you hear the scriptures through it. So it's a more creative way of dealing with it, I think. Well, let's explore some of the parts. I mean, I mentioned we should talk a bit more about John the Baptist as our chat goes on. And you say how it begins with John the Baptist, so it doesn't seem to be much difference there. But there is an interesting difference in how

he's portrayed in John compared to Matthew, Mark and Luke, if I'm not mistaken, right? Which is an interesting contrast. So what is this contrast? So in the synoptic gospels, is portrayed as a kind of Elijah figure. So there was an idea in Jewish thought that Elijah would come first before the Messiah. And he's the chariots of fireman. Yeah, he's the guy who goes up because, and that's the whole point. Elijah is this great prophet from ancient times, sort of, you know, 8th century BCE, something like that. And he doesn't die.

He goes up to heaven. And the idea is that he's still waiting in heaven. He's going to come back at the end times. And he's going to come back and he's going to come back. and he's going to restore everything before the Messiah comes, or at least before, you know, God comes to inaugurate the end times. And so in Mark's Gospel, which is then followed by Matthew and Luke, John the Baptist is presented as Elijah.

He's wearing the clothes of Elijah. He's got this sort of camel hair clothing and he's got a leather belt. With honey and all that, isn't it? Yeah, the wild locusts. He's having a great time out in the wilderness. So he's this sort of Bedouin figure who's sort of, you know, reminding people of Elijah and he has great success with the people. And it's only once he's finished when he's arrested that Jesus then embarks on his own ministry. So Elijah comes

first. He restores all things as he's supposed to do in the book of Malachi and then Jesus starts. In John's Gospel though, John the Baptist is not Elijah. John the Baptist's role is as a witness to Jesus. So in John's gospel, you have a sort of a ministry that continues. So Jesus goes to John the Baptist, he gets baptized, even though that's not really described very clearly in John. But then the two men are sort of continuing side by side. And John the Baptist takes several opportunities to say, you know, behold the Lamb of God, behold the Lamb of God, and keeps telling people who he is. And so his purpose in John's Gospel is really to be a witness.

witness to Jesus. So it's just a different use of John the Baptist. Do you think, I mean, I just want to use that example to kind of further what I was saying before, that is this a reflection of almost developing thoughts or theological, philosophical early Christian thoughts about, you know, these parts of Jesus' story, let's say, from the time of Mark now to the time of John, there's been a development of thinking, at least in some Christian, early Christian communities, that John the Baptist is not meant to be Elijah. stuff like that. Yeah, I think certainly there's been a sort of a downplaying of that apocalyptic sense that the end is nigh.

I mean, it's still very clear in Mark's Gospel, but it gets less and less. And by the time you get to John, John actually doesn't say much about sort of apocalyptic ideas. For John, you can have eternal life now if you believe in Jesus. So it's very much a kind of a playing down of all of that. So the idea of seeing John the Baptist as Elijah and sort of pointing to the end of time wouldn't really fit for him. So instead he has him as a witness. And another thing that John has is a sort of a law court motif all the way through. So he has several characters in the Gospels bearing witness to Jesus.

And John the Baptist is just sort of one of the first of this. the idea of sort of a trial, I suppose. The whole of the gospel in some ways is a trial. And sort of that fits in then with his use of John the Baptist. And so different types of miracles as well that are performed and the amount of people who are watching them as well. Lazarus is a big example. Yeah, well, that's right.

And that's very different too, because in the synoptic gospels, the thing that leads to Jesus' death is the incident in the temple. Jesus goes into the temple. He knocks over the tables of the money. changes and the people selling the doves and he says, my father's house should be a house of prayer. And then the chief priests get really worked up and decide, you know, oh, we better, we better arrest him. In John's Gospel, though, the incident in the temple is right in the very beginning.

And it's not the thing that leads to Jesus's death. But the thing that leads to his death, ironically, is his offer of life to Lazarus. So he raises Lazarus from the dead. And it's that. that the chief priest then decide, you know, we're going to kill him. Does Jesus raise any other people to life in the other gospels? He does, yes. So there's not a Lazarus figure in the other ones, but that. Well, interestingly, there is a Lazarus figure. There's a parable in Luke's gospel of a poor man called Lazarus and a rich man.

And the poor man, Lazarus is at the rich man's gate. And they both die. They go to, well, they die and then they go to the next world. Lazarus is in the bosom of Abraham and he's having a great time in the afterlife. The rich man, though, is in this terrible sort of hell-like place of flames and torture. And he says, and he realizes that, you know, it's because he's been rich and he's not cared about the poor. And so he says to Abraham, can you send Lazarus back to the earth to warn my brothers? and Abraham says, no, no, they get one chance, you know, and I'm not going to send Lazarus back.

So it's interesting, I think, that, and one of the reasons why I think probably John does know Luke is that he, I'm fairly certain, he takes that parable and dramatizes it into the raising of Lazarus so that, you know, Lazarus does come back in John's Gospel. And this is the greatest miracle that Jesus performs. Gosh, I could ask about so many other miracles as well in which Gospels they feature because I don't know like the Good Samaritan. Is that Luke? That's Luke and many others. But we'll go on to the next part of our chat,

which is going to refresh on the authorship question, the genre, and then whether there are any parts of these gospels that can be verified kind of stories from extra gospel sources. We'll continue this interview in a moment right after these adverts. So let's read.

refresh ourselves, first of all, with the authorship of these four Gospels. Do we think there's any chance that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John did write them? If you mean by those people? Yes. The people in the New Testament. The apostles, no, I don't think so. I mean, I think it's perfectly possible that the person who wrote Mark's gospel was called Marcus. You know, it was a common name. Why not? And I think certainly, as soon as you've got a couple of Gospels, you've got to you've got to find some way to distinguish between them. And these names are remarkably consistent in the tradition. But the idea that they relate to people who we know of in the New Testament, I think, is very unlikely. Can we say that, you know, the quality of the writing

of the style and the way that, you know, these biographies are formed, that although we might not be able to give a particular names of them, we can say these are evidently educated early Christian figures who are creating the gospel. Yes, I don't think they're Galilean fishermen. And also, I mean, by the time you've got Matthew and now John using Mark's gospel, would eyewitnesses be using another gospel that even tradition doesn't think that Mark himself was an eyewitness, even if he's using material from Peter. So, yeah, I think it's unlikely. And also, you know, the dates, too, make it very unlikely that they would have to be extremely

old. How could John have lived that long? Yes, exactly. Yeah, extremely old, I think. And how does now, if we get to this other figure I've got on my notes, Iraneus. Oh, yeah. How does he come into the story then with the authorship? Yeah, so he's the second century, sort of late second century.

Christian figure and and he he sort of doubles down on the traditional namings really because of the fight against heretics because other people other other gospels are appearing as I said before a lot of them are perfectly fine but some of them are you know not quite as the bishop would like I mean you can't really talk about heresy at this period because it's too early you know there's no orthodoxy there's no heresy as we mentioned earlier you know following different gospels different parts yeah exactly There's different, different ideas. It's only sort of when the creeds start to come into existence that we can talk about orthodoxy, really. But there's certain things that make irony are sort of happier than others. And he really sort of double downs on the four gospels. And he talks about why there should be four gospels. There's four corners of the earth, four winds. And he's really responsible for sort of giving these four, these particular four gospels. a higher standing in the early church. And I do think that it's probably because they're already,

you know, he's not inventing this out of nothing. They're already the ones that are most popular. But he, and he, I think it's really interesting that, you know, the early church didn't decide they had to just have one or two. You know, they were very happy to have four different perspectives on Jesus. But he's very much the one who sort of said that these are the four. So of all the events in Jesus' life, miracles included, are there any parts of the story that we see in the Gospels that are also reported in extra gospel literature that can give more historicity to them actually happening? Well, if you include Paul, so Paul's letters.

So obviously he's still, he's a Christian, but he's not one of the Gospels. And he's obsessed by Jesus' death and really. resurrection. I mean, those are the things that he talks about most. Strangely, Paul doesn't say much about the historical Jesus, but he does include a tradition about the Last Supper and the institution of the Eucharist, the bread and the wine, the night before he's arrested. And he has one or two other sayings of Jesus in there. He mentions Jesus as brothers as well and Peter and James and some of the other disciples. So we get some sort of corroboration there from from Paul. Otherwise you've got to wait, I mean other New Testament texts

of course mention other things, but otherwise you've got to wait till Josephus, the Jewish historian in the 90s when he has a little paragraph about Jesus where he says that he was handed over to pilot by the leading men of the Jews and Jesus was crucified and his following. as believed that he'd been resurrected from the dead afterwards. Now, the paragraph as we have it, has clearly been edited by Christian scribes, because he's got bits in there that Josephus would never have said. Really? If it was right to call him a man, he has, he was the Messiah, and then something about

the resurrection being in accordance with the scriptures. So these are things that the Pharisee Josephus would never have said. But most people think that if you take those away, and maybe there was something that the Christian scribes deleted, because this is in a section that talks about trouble in the time of pilot. And as we have it, there's no particular trouble. So most people nowadays think that something was there, possibly not too far removed from what we have at the moment, that it was more tweaked and perhaps something's omitted. But in any case, that does mean that in the 90s or so you have a non-Christian Jew mentioning Jesus. And that's really quite early as well. So the trial of Jesus, because it's sentencing by Pilots, the crucifixion, that seems pretty beyond doubt that that historically did happen to a figure called Jesus of Nazareth.

And what about the baptism by John the Baptist? Is that also quite universally accepted that a historical figure called Jesus was baptized by a man called John the Baptist? Well, again, we know about John the Baptist from Josephus, who actually says more about John the Baptist than he does about Jesus. And he seems to be quite favorably disposed to John the Baptist. The interesting thing about the baptism is that although Mark describes it in some detail, the other Gospels are a little bit twitchy about it. So Matthew includes a little bit where John the Baptist says, you know, oh, I shouldn't be baptizing you. you should be baptizing me. And Jesus says, no, just get on with it. And in John, it's, it's sort of

almost not there. Jesus goes for baptism and then he sort of moves on. You don't actually get told about the baptism as such. So the implication of all of this is that the early Christians were a bit embarrassed about the fact that Jesus was baptized by John, probably because John's baptism is for the forgiveness of sins. So whereas that didn't bother, Mark, Clearly, as time goes on, Christians are a little bit worried about the idea that, you know, surely Jesus doesn't have too many sins. And so they sort of go through the motions of this, but they're a little bit embarrassed by it. And so the idea goes, if they could have got away with not saying anything about it, they might have done. And that does suggest perhaps that it's

a historical piece that has just got into, you know, the tradition and it's fairly well-estined. Are there any other kind of key parts of the Jesus' story that I mentioned in the Gospels that, you know, if you look at external evidence, you know, people have debated long and hard, you know, there might be some historic, you know, these, this, something like this might have happened. So feeding of the 5000, for instance, going back to that, yes, okay, maybe it wasn't, is it two loaves and five fish? No, two fish and five loaves. But it may be. something similar that a lot of people were fed with seemingly a little amount of food or something like that? I think it's difficult in that particular one. I mean, that's just an example, but are there other cases? Yeah, I mean, there's a big debate. I mean, obviously the miracles are the really difficult thing when it comes to historicity, you know, what happened. And obviously how can we explain it in unlogical sense? Yeah, exactly. To us reading these things today, we think, but that doesn't happen. You know, that doesn't square with my idea of what normally goes.

on in the universe. But obviously we're living in the first century in a time where where people do go to the shrines of Asclepius. They give their offerings. They receive a vision from Asclepius. And people are leaving sort of inscriptions in these shrines to thank the God for healing them. There are other Jewish holy men who are also said to be able to heal. So, I mean, this is a world where healing does happen and whatever we might think about it in the present day, it's not impossible that there are, that there were things that, that may, you know, these, these sort of paradoxical events. I mean, Josephus also says that he, Jesus was a worker of amazing deeds. So clearly Jesus has this reputation, whatever we make of it. I mean, there's even

stories of Vespasian being able to, you know, heal somebody's arm and, and give sight. to somebody. Well, this is the thing, and I think of Plutarch as well, with some of his famous lives, that these actual historical figures are given extra, extraordinary abilities. It was like, some say they did this.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it becomes reported word of mouth, which leads me to a question about the genre. What type of genre should we perceive the Gospels as? Are they historical reportage, eyewitness accounts, or is it better to perceive them as the same as kind of Greco-Roman biographies?

Like, for instance, Plutarch, Zenophon, Sueton, Suetonius and so on. Yep, I would say as Greek a Roman biographies, very much so. Or, I mean, they're a Jewish version of it, you know. So you have similar stories in the Hebrew Bible. I mean, there's all kinds of sort of miraculous things happening in the Hebrew Bible. But I think largely they are literary sources, and they have a theological emphasis. They're wanting to convince people that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God.

they're strengthening people who probably already believe in Jesus. They're strengthening them in their faith. They're offering Jesus as an example because, you know, ancient biography has a moralistic purpose. They're offering Jesus as an example to people, to model their lives on, to be like Jesus. This refrain, you know, follow me, follow me. It's all about being like Jesus, devoting your life to Jesus. And I think that they're shaping the material so that it coheres with their sort of literary aims. And so I think they may well have some good historical material in there. But the most important thing is that portrait of Jesus that they're wanting to paint. Well, this is the thing.

I mean, the big question I had originally was, you know, are the gospel's historical? I guess I could just as much ask, are they meant to be historic? Exactly. Exactly. I don't think. I mean, and again, it's very much a modern thing. You know, our idea in the sort of post-enlightenment world that unless something happened, it's not true. Now, ancient people didn't have that. I mean, clearly they had a sense of did it happen or did it not. And I mean, as you said, a lot of biographers will say, well, some say and others say. And you get people who say, well, you know, it's reported, but I don't think so. But still, you know, they're putting those stories in, which is. is interesting, you know, if they didn't think so, why are they, you know, what's the purpose of retelling some of these sort of miraculous stories? So I think the Gospels are, they are historical, but they're not designed to be eyewitness. They're not, the question they're addressing isn't what exactly can we know about the historical Jesus. The question they're addressing is, how can this man be the Christ, the son of God, and how should I live my life if I want to follow

him. And I think that's a subtly different question. They may well be drawing on historical reminiscences. And I'm sure there is historical material there, but it's very difficult to know which bits are historical and which are, particularly when you have different slants in different gospels. And this is not to say that they don't have value as historical sources, because they still do. They give you insights into life in Judea in the first century and then developing early Christian as a treat as well. Exactly. That's another layer of history that they tell us about, you know, how, how at least some Christian communities were changing and adapting their view of Jesus in the late 1st century. Mark versus John, for instance, is a good example of that. And of course, there are many other books in the New Testament as well that add even more colour to that picture. Helen, this has been absolutely fantastic. Is there anything else you'd like to mention about the Gospels before we completely wrap up?

Oh, well, I think people should have a really. read of them and just sit down. I think so often people don't, you know, if you go to church, you hear bits and pieces. Good Samaritan, as mentioned earlier. Yeah. Or people think that, you know, oh, I, you know, I did some of those years ago in Sunday schools. But if you sit down and read them as ancient documents, I think they are fascinating. Absolutely. And you have, of course, your brilliant podcast, yourself and another friend of the show, Lloyd Luellen Jones. Yes, Biblical Time Machine. Yes, yes, where we discuss everything to do with, well, Hebrew Bible as well. So from creation right up to late antiquity.

We're covering all sorts of stuff. You absolutely do. And it just goes to me to say, thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the show. Thank you. Well, there you go. There was Professor Helen Bond talking all about the historicity of the four Gospels and who these figures were,

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I really hope you enjoyed the episode. Now, if you want to learn more about the history of early Christianity, then do go and check out our episodes from earlier this year about the Pharisees and the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire. We'll put links to both of those episodes in the show notes. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Ancients. Please make sure to follow the show on Spotify or wherever you get to your podcasts. That really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favour.

If you'd also be kind enough to leave us a rating as well, well we'd really appreciate that. And don't forget, you can also sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week. Sign up at historyhit.com slash subscribe. That's all from me. I'll see you in the next episode.