The Supernatural in the New Testament, Possible, Credible, and Historical / Or, An Examination of the Validity of Some Recent Objections Against Christianity as a Divine Revelation

by C. A. Row

Chapter XXII. The Historical Character Of The Gospels As Deduced From Their Internal Structure.

This subject is an extremely extensive one. The utmost, therefore, that I can do is to notice a few of the most important points which bear on the argument. I have already shown that the general principles of historical evidence point to the conclusion that the Synoptic Gospels are three different versions of the primitive apostolical traditions respecting the actions and the teaching of Jesus Christ, and that even on the assumption that the dates assigned to them by the opponents are the correct ones (which however I would by no means be understood as conceding, for all the internal evidence points to a much earlier period), they were still composed within the period when such traditions possess the highest historical value. I must now inquire whether the general structure of these Gospels confirms this conclusion.

The question therefore at once arises, what is their general character? Do they present the marks of traditionary history; or of being three works composed by three different authors, who not only wrote independently of each other, but who used no common source of information? Do their narratives present us with the characteristics of historical truth or of fictitious invention? The facts before us are ample, [pg 494] and they ought to enable us to return a definite answer to these questions.

The most remarkable trait which first strikes the reader is the presence of a common narrative interwoven with a considerable amount of matter peculiar to each Gospel. Many of the events, and several of the discourses are narrated by all three Evangelists; others by only two. Besides these common narratives and discourses, which form the larger portion of the Gospels, each of them contains narratives and discourses peculiar to itself. While they possess much that is common, it is clear that each writer had a distinct object in view in the compilation of his Gospel; that of St. Matthew being chiefly designed for Jewish Christians; that of St. Luke for Gentile converts, and that of St. Mark occupying an intermediate place between the two. It was also obviously the object of the author of St. Matthew's Gospel to set forth the discourses; of that of St. Mark's to give a graphic description of the actions of our Lord. Each of these Gospels is also distinguished by a number of minor peculiarities.

When the common narrative comes to be closely scrutinized, it presents us with phenomena more remarkable than any that can be found elsewhere in literature. These narratives are couched to a considerable extent in the same words and phrases, closely interwoven with a number of most singular variations, which have an important bearing on their historical character. As far as the words are identical, they force on us the conclusion that they must have been derived from some common origin. These identities are more striking in the narrative than in the discourses. Three independent writers, if they intended to hand down the general sense of a body of discourses, on the supposition that they were in possession of accurate [pg 495] information, would repeat them to a great extent in the same words. But that three independent writers, who used no common source of information in narrating the same occurrences, should have employed the same words to the extent to which it has been done by the authors of these Gospels is simply impossible.

But if they had all copied from the same document, these identities of expression must inevitably have been more complete. It would have been impossible that they could have been of the capricious character which they present to us in the pages of the Evangelists. Even in the narratives, frequent as is the use of the same words, the variations are numerous; nor are they much less so in the discourses. They are of the most singular character, and without the smallest apparent purpose. Sometimes they are simple changes in grammatical construction, or a word of nearly the same meaning is substituted for another. Then we find one or more lines, sometimes a whole sentence, transposed. Sometimes words or lines which are inserted by one Evangelist are omitted by another, the omission obscuring, and the insertion throwing light on the sense. At other times, a whole incident is omitted which, if it had been inserted, would have made an obscure context plain. In the discourses it occasionally happens that a part of one which we read in the same context in another Evangelist, and which seems to be required by the connection, is omitted, when words of nearly the same import have been attributed to our Lord elsewhere. Again: sayings are reported in which, while many words are the same, others are varied without any conceivable reason for the variation. In one or two instances, when words are put into the mouths of persons different from those to whom they are attributed by another Evangelist, the grammatical [pg 496] structure is altered to suit the variation. Of this we have two remarkable examples in the account of the healing of the Centurion's servant, and in the narrative of the request which the two sons of Zebedee and Salome presented to our Lord. The words are precisely the same, while the grammatical forms differ, according as the one or the other is regarded as the speaker.

Such are the chief phenomena. But the full extent and character of these variations, in the closest union as they are with identities of expression, can only be appreciated by a careful comparison of the parallel narrative of the Gospels. Numerous, however, as are the variations, it must be observed that they exert scarcely any appreciable influence on the general sense. They utterly negate the idea that they can have originated in any set or deliberate purpose. Let us take for example the account of the feeding of the five thousand. The Synoptics employ the very remarkable expression, that after the performance of the miracle, our Lord constrained the disciples to embark, without giving us a hint of the reason of so unusual an occurrence. We turn to St. John's Gospel; he says not one word about our Lord's constraining the disciples to embark, but tells us that the multitude were designing to come and take Jesus by force and make Him a king. This notice, which is of the most incidental character, gives as the fullest explanation of an event which would otherwise have been extremely obscure.

But further: in the account of the miracle itself, one of the Evangelists tells us, that the numbers who were fed were about five thousand, besides women and children. How then were the numbers ascertained? and how came it to pass that the men only were numbered, and neither the women, nor children? Another Evangelist [pg 497] tells us that the multitude were directed to sit down in companies by hundreds and by fifties. This at once explains how the numbers were arrived at. But if this was the case, how came it to be known that the men were about five thousand; and how came it to pass, that the women and children were excluded from the total enumeration? Here again another Evangelist comes to our help; and informs us that although the order was given to the whole multitude to sit down in companies, those who actually did so were the ἄνδρες not the ἄνθρωποι, i.e. that the men only sat down, but the women and children did not. This is told us in the most incidental form, appearing only in the Greek.

This last case is perhaps the most remarkable example in the Gospels, of the manner in which an incidental variation in one Evangelist throws light on the obscurities of another. Can such a narrative be otherwise than historical? This note of veracity is so entirely incidental that it has in all probability escaped the notice of nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand of its readers. There are many others, though less striking, all of which are of the same incidental character, and it is impossible to attribute them to design. Surely this can only have resulted from our being in the presence of facts and not of fiction.