Biblical Scholar: The Gospels Are Absolutely Full of Historical Errors

As noted many times, science and accurate history are the biggest threats to "Bible believing Christians" who continue to insist that the Bible is inerrant and "the literal word of God."  Among the threats to those who congratulate themselves on the embrace of ignorance is increased biblical scholarship that demonstrates the the Gospels - and Bible in general - are riddled with errors.  Among the leading critics of biblical literalism is Professor Reza Aslan.  As Salon reports, Aslan recently destroyed biblical literalism.  Here are excerpts:

Professor Reza Aslan, . . . . has bad news for biblical literalists: The Gospels are “replete with historical errors and with contradictions,” and for over a thousand years, religious leaders did not take the Bible as literal fact.

 

Aslan explains that biblical literalism is actually a relatively modern phenomenon.

“Let me just say that one more time,” Aslan continued. “In the 2,000 year history in which the Gospels have existed, the idea that what you are reading in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John is literal and inerrant is a little more than 100 years old. It was the result of a very interesting movement, a backlash to Christian liberalism and the Scientific Revolution at the end of the 19th century … by a group of American Protestants who began a movement that was launched by a series of tracts that were written called ‘The Fundamentals’ and that is where we get the term ‘fundamentalism’ from. It’s a very new phenomenon.”

Along with biblical literalism being a new phenomenon, Aslan also points out that the Gospels are full of errors, and some of them don’t even match up in terms of date. More shockingly, he states that religious men in the church didn’t really have a problem with these historical inaccuracies.

The gospel of Matthew says that Jesus was born in 4 B.C. The gospel of Luke says Jesus was born in 6 A.D. That’s 10 years difference! Which one was right?”

“Now, let me ask you a much more important question than which one is right,” Aslan states. “Do you think that the church fathers who in the fourth century decided to put both Matthew and Luke in the canonized New Testament didn’t bother to read them first? They didn’t notice that they have different dates for Jesus’ birth? They didn’t notice that the gospel of John absolutely contradicts the entire timeline of Matthew, Mark and Luke? They didn’t notice that there are two completely different genealogies for Jesus in Matthew and Luke?

“Of course they did!” Aslan responds. “They didn’t care, because at no point did they ever think that what they were reading was literally true.”

Why didn’t the discrepancies bother these church fathers? In short, to them, fact did not equate to truth.  “We think that truth and fact mean the same thing,” Aslan explains. “Indeed, science tells us, ‘that which is true is that which can be factually verified.’ But that’s not what the ancient mind thought.”

“They were not as interested in the facts of Jesus’ life as they were in the truth revealed by Jesus’ life. When they constructed these stories about Jesus, and I mean that quite literally, they constructed these stories. If you asked them, ‘Did this really happen?’ they wouldn’t even understand the question. What do you mean did this really happen? You’re missing the point! The point isn’t ‘Are these facts true?’ the point is, ‘What does this story reveal about the nature of who Jesus is?’”

Thus, the irony is that the biblical literalists  are killing belief in the Bible and Christianity as a whole.

Jesus Needs Reza Aslan, Author of 'Zealot'

In prior posts I've looked at the exploding heads among the "godly Christian" crowd over Reza Aslan's new book, "Zealot" that takes on some of the myths, if you will, promoted from far too many pulpits.  What am I talking about?  The fact is that we know few true "facts" about Christ other than what is passed down through the often revised and rewritten Bible.  A Bible that in its current form contains passages not even included in the earliest texts.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at why Zealot - which doesn't really break new ground in biblical scholarship - is good for bringing out need knowledge.  Here are excerpts:

The author of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth is at the center of an inexplicable firestorm for writing a book about Jesus. He’s been treated to hair-splitting attacks on his academic credentials and claims of a secret Muslim agenda. Nearly every critic of the Iranian-American and Muslim author has fretted over whether he has the right to tackle his subject. In an interview, Aslan was exasperated, pointing out to me repeatedly that his credentials were never questioned when he wrote the bestselling, No God but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam.

Reviewers spanning the theological spectrum have reacted with a curious level of hostility toward a writer who even by their own estimation is embracing a theory of the historical Jesus that has been around for a long time.  What’s going on? Aslan told me, “My faith background makes me suspect. Not just to the fringe, but to the Washington Post and the New York Times.”

That’s too bad. A Muslim writing an academic book about Jesus is groundbreaking. It should be welcomed. You don’t have to agree with his conclusions about Jesus – I don’t – to hold this view.

Aslan concurs. “About 90 percent of the scholarly historical study of Islam is written by Christians or Jews,” he told me. “Very few scholars of religion who are Muslim write about Christianity.”

The academic field is famously hostile to believers and Aslan has bucked that worldview.  Perhaps the most high-profile anti-God academic is Oxford professor Richard Dawkins, who this week created controversy when he tweeted, "All the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though."

Says Aslan, “Dawkins gives science and atheism a bad name. This is a man who believes any person of faith is not just wrong, but stupid. That he is in solitary possession of truth. That’s called fundamentalism.”  Aslan eschews fundamentalism.  He is a Muslim, but in his book he rejects the virgin birth of Jesus and concludes that Jesus was in fact crucified, putting him at odds with mainstream Islamic doctrine.

In the FoxNews.com interview that helped launch “Zealot” to the number one spot on the New York Times bestseller list, Aslan said he had been obsessed with Jesus most of his life. I asked him why this was. He responded, “I don’t know why everyone isn’t obsessed with Jesus. He is the most interesting person who ever lived.”  So he wrote a book about him.

The real issue, of course, is that Aslan's book shakes up the house of cards faith system of the far right.  And the fact that he's a Muslim is used to conveniently ignore the fact that other biblical scholars have come to the same conclusions which underscore that the Bible is anything but inerrant.