You are here
Were the early Christians right to pick four Gospels?
By Richard N. Ostling
The Associated Press
May 20, 2006
Despite an international media furor "of almost nuclear proportions," the newly published "Gospel of Judas" is irrelevant and contributes "nothing to the understanding of the early first century Jewish reality in which Jesus and Judas lived."
That verdict came May 6 from Geza Vermes, emeritus professor of Jewish studies at England's University of Oxford, writing in the London Times. He declared the New Testament to be the best available source.
Mr. Vermes said the "Judas" fuss and outlandish claims in books such as "The Da Vinci Code" and "The Jesus Papers" prove that many Westerners are divorced from traditional religious influences and learning.
"Judas," a text from the mid-second century, claimed its heroic namesake was no infamous betrayer but did Jesus' bidding by turning him over to the police. Also, Judas was presented as the only apostle who understood Jesus' purported secret teachings.
This text riled Bill O'Reilly, the supposedly conservative star of Fox News, in surprising fashion. Mr. O'Reilly's newspaper column recalled that he was taught by a nun back in third grade that the four New Testament Gospels "were teaching tools, not history."
Pursuing that on his telecast, Mr. O'Reilly informed Jesuit priest James Martin of America magazine that "no gospel is history," whether it's "Judas" or those of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The New Testament Gospels "all have different interpretations of what happened" so "they're lessons" to guide and inspire us. The New Yorker's liberal critic also saw little history in "Judas" and the New Testament four.
On this, Rev. Martin was cautious, telling Mr. O'Reilly that some New Testament events "seem to have some sort of historical basis in fact."
The attitude of nun, pundit and priest contrasts with teaching from Roman Catholicism's Second Vatican Council, repeated in the "Catechism of the Catholic Church":
"The four Gospels, whose historicity (the church) unhesitatingly affirms, faithfully hand on what Jesus, the Son of God, while he lived among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation," even when material was synthesized or explained in relation to particular church audiences.
Media discussions of "Judas" were not simply "disinterested scholarship," observed New York Times columnist Peter Steinfels. National Geographic, which published "Judas," promoted scholars such as Marvin Meyer and Elaine Pagels, who portray early Christianity as a jumble of competing sects. American media typically ignored experts who say orthodoxy was early and central while such sects were later interlopers.
The "Judas" and "Da Vinci" fusses bluntly raise this issue: Did the early church know what it was doing in picking four Gospels, not one or a dozen? The process gets detailed attention in "The Canon of the New Testament" (Oxford University Press) by Bruce Metzger of Princeton Theological Seminary.
Like Mr. Vermes, Mr. Metzger says the obvious: Earlier is better. The New Testament Gospels from the first century were closest to materials from Jesus' original apostles and their successors.
Besides chronology, Mr. Metzger says, the four Gospels were favored due to "continuous acceptance and usage," unlike texts that appeared long after apostolic times in a limited number of congregations.
The favored four were also judged to be in continuity with recognized church tradition. For instance, the second-century "Judas" is enthralled with heavenly complexities and despises the material world and the Old Testament God who created it.
The authority of the four was fixed by the A.D. 180 listing of the important Bishop Irenaeus of Lyons -- in a writing that dismissed "Judas" as "a fabricated work." The Muratorian Fragment from the late second century confirms this judgment.
END
