A Reversal of Scholarship on the Historical Jesus!

Scholars used to think that everything we know about Jesus could fit on a small index card. This is no longer the case, and Dr. Craig explains why!

INTERVIEWER: Now, you speak as though the New Testament has great authority. Many would say, look, it can't be relied on. Much of it was written years after the events. It's not a historical record that can be trusted, particularly in relation to the teachings of this man, Jesus, even if they give up arguing that he didn't even exist (most people do concede that he did). Do you plainly believe that those records are real, that they're reliable? Historically, do they stand up?

DR. CRAIG: Well, here again John, interestingly enough, a similar revolution to the one I described in philosophy and in physics has taken place in New Testament studies. The skepticism of the 19th century and early 20th century about the reliability of the Gospels was rooted in the fact that scholars interpreted them against the backdrop of pagan mythology. So they thought of these narratives as overlain with layers of myth and legend. But what has happened in the second half of the 20th century and now on into the 21st is what has been aptly called the Jewish reclamation of Jesus. Scholars have come to appreciate that Greco-pagan mythology is just the wrong interpretive background for Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus was a Jew, and all the disciples were Jews. The proper interpretive context for understanding Jesus of Nazareth is first century Palestinian Judaism. And when the Gospels are read against that backdrop, they emerge as very credible sources for the life and teachings of this man. And so there has been . . . I think it would be no exaggeration to speak of a reversal of scholarship with respect to the credibility of the Gospels. Back in the 1940s Rudolph Bultmann, a prominent New Testament critic, said that the historical information about Jesus of Nazareth could probably be written entirely on a 4x6 index card. Today however, the Gospels are widely regarded as belonging to the genre of ancient biography, and as such are very credible sources for the life of Jesus of Nazareth. We have four biographies of Jesus, which is almost unprecedented for major figures of the ancient world. So there has been quite a reversal of scholarship with respect to the historical Jesus and the credibility of the sources for him.