Making the Gospels

Mystery or Conspiracy?

Paul W. Barnett

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781532651069
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

The Gospels are the most important texts of the Bible because they tell the story about Jesus--who he was and what he achieved. If we did not have the Gospels, the prophecies about the Messiah in the Old Testament would be left hanging and the passing references in the apostles' letters would leave us baffled about the identity of this mysterious figure, Jesus.During the past several hundred years some scholars have implied that key figures from the first century had conspired to present a Jesus who was different from Jesus as he really was--Paul, Mark, and the editor of the so-called "Q" document. The real Jesus, it is claimed, was not a redeemer but a charismatic rabbi or prophet. Paul Barnett engages with key advocates of a deconstructed Jesus by attempting to work out historically just how the Gospels came to be written. As a result of this inquiry, a cogent picture emerges that explains many of the who, the when, and the why questions about the writing of the Gospels. Inevitably, however, because of our distance from that era, there are many details missing and many details that remain a mystery. But mystery does not imply conspiracy.

one

The Amazing Discovery of Papyrus 45

The Discovery

In 1931 there was a sensational archaeological discovery: a book. It was found in a graveyard at a place called Oxyrhynchus (“city of the sharp-nosed fish”) in Middle Egypt. The book had been preserved for eighteen hundred years in the humidity-free sands, and in a part of the ancient town that the annually flooding Nile did not reach.

The book, which is partly mutilated, would have been substantial in its original form being 25 cm high (10 inches), 20 cm wide (8 inches), and 5–6 cm thick (2–2.5 inches). In all it was a book of 224 pages.

At that time most writing had been on scrolls, made up of sheets of papyrus reeds that had been flattened out and glued together in a line. The original “books” of the New Testament, including the Gospels, would have been written on scrolls that the church reader had to unwind—an awkward and difficult task.

So the next generation of Christians hit upon the idea of stitching pages together at the middle and creating what scholars call a “codex,” a primitive book.1 The reason these Christians of the second century did this was as a simple matter of practical convenience. Public reading of the gospels and letters was so much easier from a codex than from a scroll (bulky and heavy). The core activity of Christians when they gathered in church was to publicly read their sacred texts. This was the task of the lector, the public reader; very few people back then were literate.

All surviving Christian texts were written on codices. How do we know this? It is because our earliest manuscripts, including small fragments, are written on both sides of the “paper.” Scrolls were written on only one side.

But what was this codex, discovered in 1931? Amazingly, it contained the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. These had been put together as a “book” for reading and teaching in church meetings. Individuals did not own books back then (unless they were wealthy).

Because it would be fifteen hundred years before the invention of the printing press, all texts were copied by hand, a slow and laborious task that made books prohibitively expensive. In any case, only a minority of people could read. Thus a codex with four Gospels was the special possession of a church. Only the lector (official church reader) would take the codex and read from it at the church meetings.

The codex was acquired by Chester Beatty, a philanthropist, and called Papyrus 45 (or P45). It is on display in Dublin. Other codices were discovered: P46 (containing the Letters of Paul and the Letter to the Hebrews) and P47 (containing the Revelation). These three codices—P45, P46, and P47—contain almost the entire New Testament.

It is estimated that these three codices had been written and were in use by the AD 200.

There are at least three reasons to regard P45 as “sensational” and “amazing.” First, this text is almost 150 years earlier than the previous earliest complete text, the famous Codex Sinaiticus (discovered in St Catherine’s Monastery, Mt. Sinai, in 1844, and now on display in the British Library). The discovery of P45 provided scholars with the critical means of cross checking other manuscripts to recover the likely original text of the Gospels.

The second remarkable feature of P45 is that it confirms that there were four authentic Gospels. Why is this important? It is because some groups of Christians on the margins of the mainstream churches were disputing that there were “four” Gospels. Early in the second century a sectarian leader named Marcion claimed there was only one Gospel, Luke’s. Soon afterward another leader, Valentinus, wrote his Gospel of Truth claiming in effect that there were more than four Gospels. The chance discovery of P45 confirmed the earlier indications that so far as mainstream Christians were concerned there were four Gospels.

Thirdly, the discovery of P45 containing the four gospels confirms the emphasis on the fourfold gospel mentioned in Irenaeus, Tatian, and the Muratorian Canon (see below). The P45 codex is indisputable, “hard copy” evidence of the fourfold gospel. It answers the modern conspiracy theories that said orthodox mainstream Christianity was actually marginal but that heretical and sectarian Christianity was central. P45 is a silent but eloquent witness that confirms the views of Irenaeus and other leading churc...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Introduction: Making the Gospel—Mystery or Conspiracy?
• Chapter 1: The Amazing Discovery of Papyrus 45
• Chapter 2: The Disciples’ Unexpected Role
• Chapter 3: Jerusalem: The Peter Years (33–42)
• Chapter 4: The Words of Jesus in the Letters of Paul
• Chapter 5: Did Paul Reinvent Jesus?
• Chapter 6: Jerusalem: The James Years (c. 42–62)
• Chapter 7: The Anti-Pauline Counter Mission
• Chapter 8: The Church in Antioch
• Chapter 9: Rome: The Peter Years (c. 55–c. 64)
• Chapter 10: The Sources: An Interim Report
• Chapter 11: The Surprise: The Languages of Jesus
• Chapter 12: The Transmission of the Tradition
• Chapter 13: Common Source “Q” and the Jesus Seminar
• Chapter 14: Was Mark the Arch-Conspirator?
• Chapter 15: Making the Written Gospel
• Chapter 16: The Making of Mark
• Chapter 17: Matthew’s “M” Source
• Chapter 18: Luke’s “L” Source
• Chapter 19: Luke’s and Matthew’s Use of Mark
• Chapter 20: The Making of Matthew
• Chapter 21: The Making of Luke
• Chapter 22: The Making of John
• Chapter 23: Why Are There Four Gospels?
• Chapter 24: Making the Gospels
• Bibliography