Today is the feast day of St Bartholomew, whom scholars commonly view as being none other than the apostle Nathaniel. Tradition states that following the Ascension, Bartholomew/Nathaniel preached the Gospel in India, and was eventually martyred, being skinned alive. That’s why the saint is portrayed in art as holding his own skin.

Here’s John’s account of Nathaniel’s meeting with Jesus:

Philip found Nathanael and told him,
“We have found the one about whom Moses wrote in the law,
and also the prophets, Jesus son of Joseph, from Nazareth.”
But Nathanael said to him,
“Can anything good come from Nazareth?”
Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him,
“Here is a true child of Israel.
There is no duplicity in him.”
Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?”
Jesus answered and said to him,
“Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.”
Nathanael answered him,
“Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.”
Jesus answered and said to him,
“Do you believe
because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?
You will see greater things than this.”
And he said to him, “Amen, amen, I say to you,
you will see heaven opened and the angels of God
ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (John 1:45-51).

“There is no duplicity in him.” Would that Jesus could say that of all of us.

It is fashionable among New Testament scholars to date the composition of the Gospels in this way: Mark circa 70 AD, Matthew sometime later in the 70s, Luke in the 80s, and John approx. 90 AD (with Jesus’ Resurrection circa 33 AD). Even if they were written this late, they are still the equivalent of CNN news flashes in the ancient world. And, of course, a later date of composition does not necessarily equate to a historically inaccurate account. Even at these later dates, eyewitnesses of the life of Christ would still be alive and available to correct erroneous accounts. Having said this, the earlier the Gospels were written, the better the argument for their historicity in the eyes of many. And there is a very good argument that the Gospels were actually written much earlier.

A key to the dating of the Gospels is actually the date of composition of the Acts of the Apostles, because Acts is the second of a two-part work by Luke the evangelist. The Evangelical scholar J.P. Moreland, in his classic apologetic work, Scaling the Secular City, enumerates many arguments for dating Acts between AD 62 and 64, only two of which I’ll mention here. Acts, like every other New Testament book, does not mention the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple in 70 AD (This is, of course, good evidence that all the NT books were completed by this date). It’s hard to believe that Luke’s works in particular, whose Gospel and Acts is so heavily focused on the Holy City, would fail to mention this fact. Second, no mention is made of the fierce persecution of the Church under the crazed emperor Nero, and the resulting martyrdoms of the two central figures in Acts, Peter and Paul, circa AD 64. The martyrdom of James, bishop of Jerusalem in 61 is also omitted. All of this is strange, considering the detail given by Luke to the account of the martyrdom of Stephen the deacon, and that of James, brother of John, another prominent figure in the early Church. Strange, that is, unless Luke wrote Acts prior to 64.

Back to the Gospels: If Luke wrote Acts before 64, that means Luke’s Gospel was written before that. And, since Luke used Matthew and Mark (the first Gospel to be written) as sources, they must be dated even earlier, perhaps as early as the mid-40s to the mid-50s, according to Moreland. Thus, we have biographies of Jesus that are perhaps 12 to 29 years removed from the events of his life – and they are based on sources (e.g. eyewitness accounts and early creeds) even earlier than that.

Q. What’s the other problem with my original question? Do you have an issue with my quoting of St Paul? He did say, after all, “you are not under law, but under grace” (Romans 6). That is sacred scripture, after all! To me, it clearly says that the 10 Commandments aren’t necessarily obligatory for Catholics.

A. You’re taking Saint Paul’s statement out of context. I can make the Bible say anything I want it to, by plucking an individual verse out of its’ surrounding context – and context in many ways determines meaning. There’s an old saying among preachers – “A verse taken out of context becomes a pretext for a proof-text”. That’s just not good hermeneutics (biblical interpretation). If you actually go back and read the whole of Romans 6, you’ll find that Paul is emphatically NOT saying that because we live in New Covenant times that we don’t need to care if we sin or not. He writes, “Are we to continue in sin so that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him in baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:1-4). We died to sin through our baptism, which was like our “wedding’ to the divine bridegroom, Christ. To continue intentionally in a lifestyle of sin after baptism would be tantamount to committing adultery on one’s honeymoon.

This Saturday I attended Mass at a different parish, where a priest I didn’t know made an arresting illustration in his homily.

He spoke about Archbishop Oscar Romero, who did much to champion the cause of the poor in El Salvador before being assassinated in 1980. Romero was shot while he was elevating the chalice, full of the blood of Christ. Romero’s own blood mingled with the blood of the Savior as he lay dying.

Our lives, too, must be given up in a self-sacrificial union with Christ. His life, his blood, truly mingles with ours as we receive him in the Eucharist. We maintain union with Christ through the other Sacraments, our life of prayer, and our good works. This union must become stronger each day so that eventually, we will fail to see where Christ’s life begins and ours ends. We, and more importantly, others, will find Jesus is living his life through us.

This is exactly what it means to be Christians, “other Christs”.