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Apologetics in the Letters of St Ignatius of Antioch

Today is the Feast of St Ignatius of Antioch, a very important figure in the early Church. He was the third bishop of Antioch (Peter being the first, before Peter went to Rome), and also a disciple of the Apostle John. He was martyred in the Roman Coliseum circa 107 AD, having been thrown to wild beasts.

On the way to his martyrdom, Ignatius was chained to Roman soldiers who treated him quite brutally. Ignatius called them the “ten leopards”. He also wrote seven famous letters to key outposts of the nascent Church. These missives are rife with evidence that the Early Church was, in fact, the Catholic Church.

Let’s take a look at just two important apologetic facets of just one of these letters, the one written to Smyrna, a city mentioned as an early Church hub in the Book of Revelation.

Ignatius is the first person to use the term “Catholic Church” in an extant writing. The fact that he doesn’t explain the term in any way is likely a sign that he expected his readers to know what he meant by it, and that the term predates his use of it in 107 AD. The word “catholic” comes from the Greek term kata holos, which means “universal” and also “according to the whole”. This perfectly describes the Church founded by Christ, for it is “universal” (for people of all times and places), and also keeps the “whole” of Christ’s teaching intact. Splinter groups who have departed the Church over the centuries usually reject one or more doctrines of the universal Church.

See that you all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as you would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is administered either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude of the people also be; even as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.

—Letter to the Smyrnaeans, Chapter 8

We may note also in this quote the hierarchical offices of bishop, priest (“priest” is the English translation of “presbyter”), and deacon as being essential features of the Church. Ignatius also speaks here of a “proper Eucharist” as one either a) celebrated by a bishop himself, or b) by his designates (the priests, or “presbyters”), with whom the bishop shares some of his prerogatives, such as the ability to confect the Eucharist. But did the early Christians believe in Eucharistic realism? The Smyrnaean letter once again comes through:

Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God… They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the Flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, Flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes.

— Letter to the Smyrnaeans, Chapter 6

Ignatius explicits says that the Eucharist is the Flesh of the same Jesus who died on the cross and was resurrected on the third day. This coheres very nicely with the words of Jesus himself in John 6:51: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh”.

There is, in my view, a very good argument for John the apostle as the source of the material found in John 6. We also know that Ignatius of Antioch was a disciple of John himself. So, I think Ignatius had a pretty good idea of what John — and, by extension, Jesus, meant in John 6:51. Ignatius confirms that the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is an essential feature of the apostolic Church founded by Jesus himself.

St Ignatius of Antioch, pray for us.

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St Peter’s in Joppa (Video)

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Join us for our next Faith Explained pilgrimage! Message us here: TheFaithExplained.com/contact and we’ll keep you updated.

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Easter Evidence from Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Video)

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Happy Easter! Christ is Risen!

Hope you enjoy this video we recently filmed on our recent Faith Explained Pilgrimage to the Holy Land. At the most important Church in the world, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, we briefly consider some of the compelling evidence for Jesus’ Resurrection.

Interested in joining us for our next pilgrimage? Reach out at TheFaithExplained.com/contact, and we will keep you updated with all the latest info on our upcoming tours!

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Bible History Set in Stone

(My latest for Catholic Ansers Magazine. Enjoy!  — Cale)

A few weeks ago, while leading a pilgrimage tour to Israel, I couldn’t wait to bring the group to one of the greatest museums in the world: the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Packed with artifacts from the biblical period, it’s a treasure trove for anyone interested in the material remains of salvation history.

The museum also houses one of the more important archaeological finds of recent years: an artifact that has bolstered our confidence in the veracity of the Old Testament accounts of the kingdom of David, his son Solomon, and their successors.

Biblical “minimalists” had long contended that King David did not actually preside over a kingdom that originated circa the tenth century B.C., as the Bible states. Indeed, these scholars alleged that David, Solomon, and in fact the entire line of Davidic kings chronicled in the Old Testament, are nothing more than fictional characters invented by the writers of the Hebrew scriptures.

In favor of the “minimalist” argument was the lack of any evidence of David’s existence outside the Bible.

But here’s where archaeology came to the rescue. During the 1993-94 excavations at Tel Dan, in northern Israel, a stele (a stone slab bearing an inscription) was unearthed. Made from basalt, a volcanic rock plentiful in the region, it bears an account of a military victory. Scholars have postulated that the inscription commemorates an Aramean king’s defeat of Israelite forces. It may have been commissioned by Hazael or Ben-Hadad III, his son (cf. 2 Kings 10:32, 13:3, 22; 2 Chron. 22:5).

The key line on the monument, the stunning find, is the mention of the “House of David.” There it was, written in stone—independent confirmation of David’s existence and of a line of kings so powerful that defeating armies from this “House” warranted a public brag of sorts on this stele, for all passersby to read and marvel at.

Analysis of the stele dates it to the mid-ninth century BC, right around the time when, according to Scripture, David’s dynasty would have been flourishing. It appears that the stele was broken by the Israelites after they recaptured the area some time later, and was eventually repurposed into building blocks for the city wall.

After this discovery, as chronicled by Craig Evans, the minimalists changed their approach. “Okay, okay,” they admitted, “maybe David existed after all. But he was a nobody. A local tribal chief, at best, certainly not the originator of the vast, Iron-Age kingdom described in the Old Testament.”

At this point, faced with what seems like special pleading, one is tempted to respond like Jerry Seinfeld: “Really? Really?”

But don’t despair—again, archaeology is our friend here.

First of all, if David had been merely a small-time local yokel, what on earth were his descendants doing fighting battles all the way up north, near the modern-day border that separates Israel and Syria, far from his allegedly tiny operation in Jerusalem?

Also, a vast, centralized complex of buildings—in all likelihood, a government compound—has been unearthed in the Old City of Jerusalem, and can be seen on tours today. It’s located in what’s known as the “City of David” and dates to approximately the tenth century B.C.; once more, the time when Scripture says that David and Solomon were establishing their empire. Again, this seems fairly excessive if we’re talking about an insignificant tribal chieftain, but it does fit the biblical narrative of David’s expansive realm.

To this our minimalist might say, “I’ll grant you that David existed, and perhaps he did preside over a significantly large kingdom, but we still can’t trust what the Bible says about him. The people of David’s time would not have been significantly literate enough to record his exploits or those of his descendants”.

This last objection is at least partially answered by—you guessed it—yet another archaeological discovery. In 2008, an ostracon (an inscribed piece of pottery) dating to the tenth century B.C. was disinterred at the ancient fortress city of Khirbet Qeiyafa, which was the only fortified Judahite city during the reigns of David and his predecessor, King Saul (in fact, the Qeiyafa ostracon is the only extant relic that mentions Saul).

The famed French epigrapher Émile Puech regards the inscription as the earliest writing narrating the transition of Israel from a people ruled by judges into a kingdom. It shows that the people living around David’s time were literate, and in fact, more than capable of recording (and passing on) the annals of David’s dynasty, such as we see in the biblical books of Kings and Chronicles.

The Tel Dan stele and the Qeiyafa ostracon are just two examples from the multitude of archaeological discoveries in Israel that have bolstered our understanding of, and in many cases substantiated the reliability of, biblical records of history. Since only roughly five percent of all biblical sites have been excavated to date (which is unbelievable considering how much has already been found), It’s truly exciting to think of how many more such finds may be unearthed in the years to come.

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Jesus Versus the “Son of God”

Here’s my December article for Catholic Answers Magazine. Merry Christmas!

“The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1).

The Gospel of Mark doesn’t have an “infancy narrative” about the events surrounding Jesus’ conception and birth as do Matthew and Luke. Rather, Mark begins in a deceptively simple manner with these opening words, known as an incipit.

Almost 2,000 years after these words were originally inscribed on parchment, we tend to read this line and think nothing much of it—perhaps even yawn—because it’s something we’ve heard many times before. And yet with this simple sentence, Mark would have absolutely shocked the entire world, arresting the attention of pious Jews and pagan Romans alike.

With respect to a Jewish audience, it’s easy to see why: in calling Jesus the Christ, Mark signals that he the long-awaited Jewish Messiah. But it’s the term Son of God that would have raised many a Roman eyebrow (remember—Mark’s Gospel was written to the Church at Rome, where he served as the chronicler of Peter’s memoirs of the Lord). Why is that?

Mark has a big problem as he tries to convince Romans that they should commit their lives to Jesus—and the crux of the matter is the cross itself. Who was the most powerful person in the Roman Empire? Why, the emperor himself, obviously. The Roman Caesars were crowned in an elaborate ceremony in which they were draped in a royal purple robe, with great pomp, amidst shouts of “Hail, Caesar!” When a new emperor ascended to the throne, or when Rome scored a great military victory, it was published throughout the empire as “Good News.”

In contrast, the most powerless person in the empire was the victim of crucifixion. This was an ordeal so brutal, so violent, so humiliating, that it was almost never administered to Rome’s own citizens (for whom the comparatively humane act of beheading was the preferred method of execution, as in St. Paul’s case). The contrast between the mighty Caesar and the seemingly defeated Jesus couldn’t have been more stark. This is why one major commentator on Mark calls that Gospel an “apology for the cross.”

We could add to this the many public inscriptions that have been unearthed from Rome’s ruins. These served as a civic catechism of sorts, proclaiming what one was supposed to know and believe as a citizen. And one thing all Romans were expected to assent to was this: not only was the emperor extremely powerful, he was to be considered the divine “son of god.” Here are just a few examples from a much longer list compiled by Craig Evans:

  • Julius Caesar (48-44 B.C.):

An inscription from Ephesus describes him as “the manifest god from Ares and Aphrodite, and universal savior of human life.” Also, from Carthaea: “The Carthaean people honor the god and emperor and savior of the inhabited world, Gaius Julius Caesar, son of Gaius Caesar” (there are many more such inscriptions from the period).

  • Augustus (30 B.C.-A.D. 14):

“Emperor Caesar Augustus, son of god”; “Emperor Caesar (Augustus), god from god”; “Emperor Caesar Augustus, savior and benefactor.” An inscription from Priene celebrates Augustus’s birthday as “the birthday of the god.”

  • Tiberius (A.D. 14-37, who reigned when Jesus was crucified):

“Emperor Tiberius Caesar Augustus, son of god”; and “Emperor Tiberius Caesar, new Augustus, son of god, Zeus the liberator”.

  • Nero (the crazed emperor who reigned from A.D. 54-68—there are some real doozies here):

“Nero Caesar, the lord”; “Nero Claudius Caesar… the savior and benefactor of the inhabited world”; “The good god of the inhabited world, the beginning and existence of all good things”; “the son of the greatest of the gods”; and “Nero, the lord of the whole world”.  

So, in light of this exalted view of their emperor, why should citizens of Rome choose to pledge their allegiance to Jesus and not Caesar? Readers or hearers of Mark would no doubt be asking this question as they experienced this Gospel. Well, its account of Jesus’ authoritative teaching about the Kingdom, backed up with powerful exorcisms and healings, would no doubt have made an impression.

But so too would the presence in Mark’s Passion narrative of someone whom we might easily overlook: the figure of the Roman centurion who sees Jesus die.

The centurion, whose ultimate superior is Caesar, the alleged “son of god,” may have been aware of how his fellows had humiliated Jesus in a mock “coronation” replete with purple robe and a crown of thorns, and shouts not of “Hail Caesar” but, “Hail, King of the Jews!” as they beat him mercilessly (Mark 15:16-20). Yet somehow, as he watches Jesus die on the throne of the cross, and witnesses the powerful release of Jesus’ spirit, which tears the temple curtain in two, the centurion is granted the grace to recognize that one far greater than Caesar is here: “Surely this man” — and not Caesar — “is the Son of God” (15:37-39).

This was the very statement—politically perilous and subversive—that Roman Christians had to make their own. A statement about who truly possessed a sovereign claim over the world. Many of them were to stare down the absolute claims and power of the state and pay for it with their lives, as Jesus did. Peter himself, the source behind Mark’s Gospel, would also meet the horrific cross.

As we prepare to celebrate the true “birthday of the God” this Christmas, let us reflect on the kingship Jesus claims over our lives. Having conquered the grave, a foe no earthly ruler, however exalted, has ever defeated, he is worthy of it.

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Was the Good News Old News?

(My latest for Catholic Answers Magazine.)

When were the Gospels written?

You might respond with a question of your own: “Who cares?” Or, “Why does it matter?”

Here’s one reason why: some skeptics are claiming that the Gospels are unreliable accounts of Jesus’ life because they were written too long after the fact. They then use the alleged unreliability of the Gospels as a weapon against Christianity.

For example, the quite popular (and quite skeptical) New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman states in his book How Jesus Became God that the Gospel authors had no intent of presenting “biographical information” concerning “what Jesus really said and did.” Skeptics like Ehrman maintain that accounts of Jesus’ career were passed down orally for many decades before they were ever written down in the Gospels, leaving them open to be embellished until they bore little to no resemblance to what actually took place during Jesus public ministry during A.D. 30-33. To their reckoning, the process of Gospel composition was like the children’s game of Telephone, in which a message, whispered from one ear to another, gets changed many times before it reaches its final destination. This despite the evangelists’ claims to be reporting the truth about Jesus’ career (cf. Luke 1:1-4; John 19:35, 21:24-25).

Ehrman contends, along with the majority of modern textbooks on the New Testament, that the Gospels were composed decades after the life of Christ, with Mark circa A.D. 69-70, Matthew and Luke in the 70s or possibly the 80s, and John in the 90s, possibly as late as 95. Ehrman is sure that the forty- to sixty-year gap between Jesus’ life and the appearance of his biographies lessens the probability that they preserve accurate information about him.

But there is another view, long dormant, that is reasserting itself on the scene: the idea that, just maybe, the Gospels were written much earlier. Years ago, the scholar John A.T. Robinson claimed that the entirety of the New Testament was composed prior to A.D. 70! Why? For the simple reason that not one of the twenty-seven New Testament books mentions the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple by the Romans in that year—a cataclysmic event of cosmic significance for Jews.

Now, I can hear what some of you are saying: “But Jesus prophesied the destruction of the temple!” True, but it wasn’t prophecy ex eventu (“after the fact”), with the Gospel writers reading some recent event back into Jesus’ words years before. (If that was the case, the evangelists did a terrible job.) No, this was real prophecy, for Jesus spoke of the temple stones being “thrown down,” whereas the temple was actually burned to the ground. If the Gospel writers were aware of how the temple actually was destroyed, they might have mentioned that, because fire is a well-known biblical image of judgment.

It defies belief that no New Testament book, if written after the year 70, would have mentioned the temple’s decimation in clear fashion, especially given the role of the temple authorities in Jesus’ death. (Hebrews 13:10 implies that the temple is still standing at the time of its writing: “We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat.”) If the temple really had been lying in ruins when the New Testament writers put ink to scroll, the temptation to say, “Hey, here’s God’s judgment on the temple authorities for what they did to Jesus!” would have been too great to ignore.

And there are other reasons the Gospels might have been written earlier. The Acts of the Apostles leaves off with Paul in Rome under house arrest, awaiting trial. It’s highly doubtful that Luke, the author of Acts and traveling companion of Paul, would not discuss the martyrdom of the book’s central figure—not to mention that of Peter, who was also martyred circa A.D. 64 under the Neronian persecution. So there’s a good case to be made that Acts was composed pre-70; in fact, pre-64!

We also know that Acts is part two of Luke’s “two-volume set,” as it were, with the Gospel of Luke being part one, so obviously Luke’s Gospel had to come even earlier. And, if Mark was indeed written prior to Luke, serving as a source for that Gospel and for Matthew (as most scholars believe), Mark must date earlier still.

And don’t forget that Paul’s letters, which corroborate many facts about Jesus’ life, were probably written prior to any of the Gospels.

Now, if the Gospels really were written later, as Ehrman and many scholars assert, it doesn’t necessarily follow that they are historically unreliable. But we’d probably all agree that the closer in time a document is written to the events it covers, the more likely it is that it’s accurate and, just as importantly, can be verified by others.

An experience I had might help us to understand this. While visiting the Catholic Answers offices in San Diego not long ago, my family and I took a side trip to see Torrey Pines, the gorgeous golf course that hugs the Pacific coast. Not far from the course we stumbled upon a beautiful veterans’ monument, honoring those who had given their lives in service to their country. Many of those memorialized had served in the Vietnam War, which ended in 1975. Of course, many veterans of that conflict are still alive today, with still-vivid memories of their tours of duty.

This all reminded me of an insight from the Evangelical writer Greg Monette: the period of time that has elapsed since the Vietnam War until the present day is pretty much exactly the same time frame that elapsed—if the earlier dates are right—between the public ministry of Jesus and the time when the Gospels were likely completed and circulating: about forty years. Just as someone today offering an erroneous, fictional account of the Vietnam conflict could be discredited by the testimony of those who were actually there and lived through the experience, the controlling influence of eyewitnesses to Jesus’ ministry would have prevented the Gospel writers from fabricating events from Jesus’ career that never really happened.

Even if the Gospels had been written later, on Ehrman’s timeline, that would be about the same gap from World War II to the present day. Just as there aren’t as many World War II vets still living as Vietnam vets, there are still some who could be interviewed. Paul noted in 1 Corinthians 15:6 that many of the over 500 individuals who witnessed the resurrected Christ on one occasion were alive, and ostensibly willing to be consulted.  New Testament scholar Robert McIver contends that there would have been up to 63,000 potential adult witnesses to Jesus’ public career, with 18,000 to 20,000 still living after thirty years (which would correspond to the earlier dates of Gospels composition) and between 600 and 1,100 within sixty years (the later dates). An early apologist named Quadratus, who lived from 70-130 AD, also claims that eyewitnesses to Jesus were alive in his day.

As the Acts of the Apostles notes, “This was not done in a corner” (Acts 26:26), or in a galaxy far, far away. Whatever the exact dating of the Gospels, Jesus’s ministry was a public event whose chroniclers were intent on accuracy and whose witnesses were not going to stand by to let what they had seen and heard be swallowed up in legend.

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Did Jesus Reject the Old Law?

My latest for Catholic Answers Magazine.

Once, in Jerusalem, I was privileged to attend Mass with a group of Catholics who had converted from Judaism and celebrated the Mass in Hebrew. None of those present who had come to believe in Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus the Messiah) would have said they had “changed religions.” They didn’t view the Catholic Church as a new religion that had replaced Judaism—rather, it was Judaism, but with the Messiah having come.

For these converts, many facets of New Covenant worship evoked elements of the Old: features such as the tabernacle, the ambo, and the altar made sense to them in a way that they may not for those who convert to Catholicism from non-Christian or Protestant Christian backgrounds. And the similarities didn’t end with liturgy. They didn’t see Catholicism’s doctrines as something foreign, either. Rather, they saw the continuity, the inner logic, of Jesus’ teachings vis-a-vis the Old Testament.

Considering that Jesus of Nazareth was a faithful Jew, this really shouldn’t be a surprise. Yet throughout the centuries until now, many theologians and scholars have believed the opposite: that Jesus broke clean with the Old Covenant religion of his day, railing against its “legalism” and focusing instead entirely on God’s mercy and love.

Without a doubt, Jesus delighted in dispensing God’s mercy to those who repented of sin. But there is no opposition between mercy and law. In fact, in so many ways, God’s law is an expression of his mercy. A careful reading of the New Testament shows that Jesus was in no way opposed the law given to Moses.

Open your Bible and let’s take a look together.

For example: in the Gospel of Matthew Jesus gives five major discourses that represent the crucial emphases of his teaching that the evangelist wished to impart to his audience. The first is the Sermon on the Mount, in chapters 5-7. The second is the Missionary Discourse in chapter 10, followed by the Parabolic Discourse in chapter 13 and the Community Discourse in chapter 18. The fifth and final speech is the Eschatological Discourse in chapters 24-25.

We have several reasons to believe that Matthew intentionally arranged this material into five “teaching blocks.” First, there are literary clues. Each discourse concludes with the verb telein (“to finish”—cf. Matt. 7:28, 11:1, 13:53, 19:1, 26:1). This corresponds to verbiage from the Pentateuch: “When Moses finished (suntelein) speaking all these words” (Deut. 31:1; cf. Num. 16:31; Deut. 31:24, 32:45).

I’ve discussed elsewhere how Jesus is presented in Matthew as a new Moses. Matthew’s arrangement of Christ’s teaching into five narrative segments is meant to allude to the five books of Moses, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. Why? In large measure to deal with the allegations of some Jews that Jesus and his followers intended to abolish the Law of Moses. This is an important theme in Matthew’s Gospel, intended as it is for a primarily Hebrew audience.

The number five (are you sensing a theme here?) comes into play most clearly in the material following Matthew 5:17-20, which is the key passage, in many ways, to understanding the Sermon on the Mount. In these verses, Jesus explains that he has “not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill” (v. 17), and that “until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished” (v. 18). Jesus also states that lawbreakers (such as he is accused of being) “will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them (the commandments of the law) will be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (v. 19).

Then Jesus states that, in order to enter the kingdom of heaven, one’s “righteousness” must be greater than that of the scribes and Pharisees (v. 20). This is truly a remarkable statement, because in Jesus’ day those very scribes and Pharisees were considered theauthority on the interpretation of the Law of Moses.

This highlights the main issue: who has the true interpretation of the law? Jesus and his followers? The Pharisees and scribes? Some other group?

Jesus goes on to show, by means of a series of five “antitheses” (“You have heard it said . . . but I say to you”), that his interpretation of the law, as practiced by himself and his followers, is the true interpretation—and indeed, the fulfillment—of the law given to Moses. These five antitheses correspond to the five fulfilments of Old Testament prophecy given in the infancy narrative of Matthew (1:22-23, fulfilling Isaiah 7:14; 2:5-6, fulfilling Micah 5:2; 2:15, fulfilling Hosea 11:1; 2:17-18, fulfilling Jeremiah 31:15; and 2:23, which summarizes Judges 13:5 and Isaiah 11:1). Together, they make a powerful case that Jesus has come to fulfill the law and the prophets.

Specifically, the five antitheses of the Sermon on the Mount fulfill five aspects of the books of Moses: Deuteronomy 5:17 is fulfilled in Matthew 5:21; Exodus 20:14 is fulfilled in Matthew 5:27; Leviticus 19:12 is fulfilled in Matthew 5:33; Exodus 21:23-25 is fulfilled in Matthew 5:38; and Leviticus 19:17-18 is fulfilled in Matthew 5:43.

Many “historical Jesus” scholars, when assessing whether Jesus could have plausibly taught what the Gospels claim he did, are fond of employing something called the criterion of double dissimilarity. “If something sounds too much like the teaching of Judaism,” the thinking goes, “or too much like later Church teaching, Jesus probably didn’t say it.” That has always sounded ridiculous to me, considering that Jesus was Jewish and that he founded the Church! We should expect to find an abundance of continuity between the Old Testament, the teaching of Jesus, and that of the Church. And this is exactly what we do find.

And here’s one final, commonsense fact: if Jesus, as many caricatures of him suggest, really represented a radical break with Jewish teaching, there is simply no plausible way he would have garnered such a massive following among his fellow Israelites. No one would have believed that he was the promised Messiah if he had rejected the Law of Moses!

It seems reasonable, then, to believe the opposite, which is exactly what Jesus set out to do: not to abolish the law but to fulfill it (Matt. 5:17).

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Talking Crosses, Camping Scribes, and Other Apocry-Follies

Here’s my latest piece for Catholic Answers. Hope you enjoy it. — Cale

Every Easter season we encounter articles, documentaries, books, and news reports suggesting that the canonical Gospels got the Resurrection wrong. Scholars with impressive credentials appear in the media to tell us that, if we want the full story about Easter, we must turn to what are known as the apocryphal Gospels.

It often comes as a surprise to Christians to learn that there were many other “Gospels” that circulated in the decades and centuries after the composition of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but never made it into the New Testament. Some of these have survived to our day, to the fascination of scholar and layman alike. But do these works indeed provide credible information about Jesus that isn’t in the Bible?

A professor of mine always gave this advice to students who were curious about these writings: “Just read them,” he said, “and ask yourself this question: do you really think they smack of authenticity?” Some of the scholars who champion the apocryphal Gospels imply that the Church hid these documents from the people because they contain the “real” story about Jesus. But reading them, as Dr. Evans knew, shows that the Church had very good reasons for not canonizing these works. Far from radiating authenticity, they come across as quite strange and not reliable historically.

Let’s take one example of these texts, the Gospel of Peter, and compare its Easter narrative to that in the Gospel of Matthew.

Matthew’s account of the Resurrection, written in the first century, is sober and rather restrained—especially compared with the account in the Gospel of Peter, a highly embellished collection of legends likely written in the second century. (No, it wasn’t actually written by Peter, don’t worry—later writers would attribute their works to apostles in an attempt to gain credibility).

Far from being an early, original source of material on the life of Jesus, the Gospel of Peter is actually dependent on the canonical Gospel of Matthew for much of its content. Its unbelievable reworking of the Resurrection account in Matthew includes—get this—a talking cross that emerges from Jesus’ tomb along with the risen Jesus and two angels, all of whom are so tall that their heads are, quite literally, in the clouds (39-43). It also mentions many other elements that a Jewish audience would find implausible and ahistorical, such as members of the Jerusalem religious elite pitching tents and sleeping among the tombs with Roman soldiers, making sure Jesus stays dead (33, 38). Ever heard of uncleanness and ritual impurity? Hello!

The Gospel of Peter therefore lacks what is called verisimilitude. Its miraculous details seem purposely fantastic. It doesn’t cohere with the way things actually were in Jesus’ time and place. Readers of Matthew’s Easter account, especially those of a Jewish background, would have found its Easter account much more credible and persuasive. Let’s look at some of its details.

Facets of Matthew’s account of Jesus’ burial later become important proofs for Jesus’ resurrection. The mention of Joseph of Arimathea’s donation of a new tomb for Jesus burial (Matt. 27:57-61) is significant. Joseph, who is mentioned in all four Gospels and undoubtedly a historical personage, was a member of the Sanhedrin, and thus a known public figure. This means that the location of Jesus’ tomb was also known to friend and foe alike. If Jesus’ remains were still entombed following Easter, it would have been easy to prove this by searching Joseph’s tomb. However, even the enemies of the nascent Christian movement do not dispute the empty tomb (Matt. 28:11-15). Matthew also notes that many of Jesus’ women followers saw the place where Jesus was buried (27:56; 27:61; 28:1-8), discrediting any theory that the women went to the wrong tomb on Sunday morning.

Among the canonical Gospels, only Matthew’s mentions the presence of Roman guards at the tomb, a point that many critics of the Gospel dispute. The Gospel of Peter also mentions the guards, though again with legendary accretions. Even so, this demonstrates that the guard account was an enduring aspect of the apologetic for the Resurrection. Therefore it is more certain, from a historical perspective, that guards were in fact present.

The chief priests, after hearing “everything that had happened” from the guards, bribed the soldiers to propagate the story that the disciples of Jesus stole his body from the tomb while they slept (a first-century edition of “fake news,” one might say). Matthew reports that, at the time of the writing of his Gospel, this version of events was still being told among the Jews (Matt. 28:11-15). In fact, this story became a well-entrenched facet of an anti-Christian Jewish apologetic, for Justin Martyr, writing in the second century A.D.,states that it was still being circulated in his time.

The guards’ probable historicity is even further bolstered by the edict of Caesar, possibly enacted in Galilee in the first century, decreeing capital punishment for grave robbers. The fact that tampering with Jesus’ tomb would have been punishable by both Jewish and Roman authorities, and that the tomb, according to Matthew, was sealed (Matt. 27:66), make any potential moving of Jesus’ body from the tomb highly unlikely in this case.

Add to that the fact that liars usually make terrible martyrs (why would the disciples later die for their belief in the Resurrection, if they had in fact stolen the body?), and one has a very solid case for the empty tomb. Again, even the enemies of the Christian movement admit the tomb is empty, and enemy attestation is excellent evidence.

But, of course, an empty tomb alone does not a resurrection make. This is why Matthew’s accounts of the appearances of the risen Jesus are so important. That Mary Magdalene and the other women “took hold of his feet” (Matt. 28:9) affirms the corporeal (bodily) nature of Jesus’ resurrection, making the same point as Luke 24:36-43 and John 20:24-29.

Matthew’s very mention of women as the first to discover the empty tomb on Sunday morning, encounter the resurrected Jesus, and inform the male disciples of the event is, in all likelihood, historical. Given the (unfortunately) very biased and low view of the testimony of women in both Jewish and Greco-Roman settings of the time, Matthew (and the other Gospel writers) would never have mentioned this unless it was factual. Consider these quotes from Jewish sources of the general period:

Sooner let the words of the Law be burnt than delivered to women (Talmud, Sotah 19a).

But let not the testimony of women be admitted, on account of the levity and boldness of their sex…since it is probable that they may not speak truth, either out of hope of gain, or fear of punishment (Josephus, Antiquities 4.8.15).

Any evidence which a woman (gives) is not valid (to offer)…This is equivalent to saying that one who is rabbinically accounted a robber is qualified to give the same evidence as a woman (Talmud, Rosh Hashannah 1.8).

The bizarre Gospel of Peter instead describes many prominent maleenemies of Jesus as witnesses to his resurrection. What a stark contrast to Matthew, who not only presents women as the first eyewitnesses of the risen Christ, but does not claim that anyonewitnessed the resurrection event itself. This striking omission, perhaps above all the other differences, testifies to the sober realism of Matthew and the other Gospels over the fantasies of apocryphal texts.

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Why Are the Bible’s Easter Accounts Different?

Empty Tomb

Note: This is my first article for Catholic Answers Magazine Online (or CAMO for short), and I hope you enjoy it. Catholic Answers is an organization I’ve long admired, and it has been a privilege getting to know the staff there over the past year, especially during the time I guest hosted Catholic Answers Live. Many thanks to the team there for publishing this piece.

Anyone who has read the Gospels in a more than cursory manner has come across what appear to be contradictions between them as they report the words and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth. This is no less true when we consider how they describe the most important event of all: the resurrection of Christ. If this event is not historical, says St. Paul, “our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain” (1 Cor. 15:14).

Speaking of St. Paul: before we consider apparent contradictions in the Gospels’ Easter accounts, we must remember that the Gospels are not our earliest written accounts of Jesus’ resurrection: those would be the letters of Paul. Even if the Gospels had never been composed, there would still be plausible literary testimony of the event, evidence with which a skeptic must deal. 1 Corinthians 15, which discusses the Resurrection, was written as early as A.D. 53, most likely prior to the publishing of at least some of the Gospels. What’s more, this chapter contains an even earlier ancient “creed” of sorts, crystallizing Easter faith in just a few lines (1 Cor. 15:3–7).

Even though the Gospels are not our earliest or only written sources on Easter, discrepancies in how they report resurrection phenomena have caused many to call into question their historical authenticity.

The empty tomb accounts

In Mark (which the majority of biblical scholars contend was the first Gospel composed), when the women disciples of Jesus arrive at the tomb early on Easter Sunday, the stone has already been rolled away. A “young man” in dazzling raiment (in all likelihood an angel) is inside the tomb. In Luke’s account, two men are inside. Matthew’s account has Mary Magdalene and another Mary arriving at a still-sealed tomb, but an earthquake suddenly occurs, whereupon an angel descends and rolls back the heavy stone. Three Gospels, and seemingly three different accounts.

Mark, Matthew, and Luke also give us slightly different lists of exactly which women were present. Mark has these women respond in fear, and states that they said nothing about this to anyone. In Matthew’s account, the two women meet Jesus on their way to inform the disciples of the Easter news. Luke does not say they ran into Jesus but rather that they immediately told the disciples, who didn’t buy their story. Same Gospels, and again, the accounts seem to differ.

So, why the differences?

Ancient biographies

As much as we might want the Gospels to conform to our modern conventions of history writing, they don’t read like contemporary police reports. But that doesn’t mean they don’t contain reliable accounts. In fact, they are perfectly consonant with how the ancients recorded history. The key is to understand the literary conventions of the time, which was  the mid-first century A.D. ,  and how the Gospels fit that mold.

Read the rest here.

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