History and Mythology in Gospels

In his History of Christianity, MacCulloch tells us how hard it is for a historian to dig out the real historical Jesus removing several layers of mythology. He admits that although the past two centuries saw a tremendous effort by the scholarly world to dig out the real Jesus, the result is still not that satisfactory.

MacCulloch shows how a careful study of the four gospels in the New Testament can yield very valuable information about how the historical Jesus slowly got converted to the mythological Jesus. Mark’s Gospel, which was written before the other three, is closer to history than the others, and John’s Gospel, which was written last, is farthest from the history. Mark presents Jesus more as a historical person, Matthew and Luke present Jesus as a historical and mythological person, and John presents Jesus more as a mythological person.

One issue MacCulloch deals with is the place of Jesus’ birth. Mark identifies Nazareth in Galilee as Jesus' hometown (6:1). Although Matthew and Luke present Jesus as a Galilean, they bring Jesus’ parents to Bethlehem, a city which is about 90 miles south of Nazareth for Jesus’ birth. Luke claims that they did such a long journey to take part in a census conducted by the Roman Empire. Historians assert that there never was such a census that covers the entire Roman Empire. But there was one in Judea in 6 C.E., which couldn’t have been at Jesus’ birth. According to Matthew, Joseph and Mary originally lived in Bethlehem, and they moved to Nazareth after Jesus' birth . This makes one wonder why these two writers take such pains to prove that Jesus’ birth was in Bethlehem. Matthew quotes (2:1-6) a prediction of Micah (5:2) that out of Bethlehem would "come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel." John (7:41-43) states that people in a crowd refuse to accept Jesus as the Messiah because the Messiah was expected to come from Bethlehem in Judea, whereas Jesus was known to have come from Galilee.

Another issue is that of the virgin birth. Mathew and Luke included a genealogy in their gospels to prove that Jesus was truly the Son of David, the messiah. They do this by tracing the genealogy to Jesus’ father, Joseph. Both of them then defeat their purpose by stating that Joseph was really not Jesus’ father. It seems that the original genealogy had Joseph as Jesus' father, but it was altered later to accommodate the belief that Jesus was born of a virgin. One might wonder why Matthew and Luke took pains to alter the genealogy. Matthew quotes Isaiah (7:14) Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. The translators had made a mistake here in the Septuagint Bible. When they were translating the Hebrew writings into the Greek Septuagint and similar translations, they converted the Hebrew word almah into the Greek equivalent of our English word for virgin. Almah appears nine other times in the Hebrew Scriptures; in each case it means "young woman". When the Hebrew Scriptures referred to a virgin (and they do over 50 times) they always used the Hebrew word betulah. So, it appears certain that Isaiah referred to a young woman becoming pregnant -- a relatively ordinary event.

Another issue is that of the role of the Pharisees in Jesus’ lifetime. In the gospels they are presented as having very prominent leadership roles and they are antagonistic to Jesus. Historians tell us that Jesus, being a rabbi, was also a Pharisee, and the Pharisees as a group were not antagonistic to Jesus. The ones who were against Jesus were the Sadducees, and they were the ones responsible of Jesus’ crucifixion. If this is the historical truth, why do the gospel writers present Pharisees as antagonistic to Jesus? By the time the gospels were written, the temple had been destroyed, and the Sadducees were no more in power. But the Pharisees rose to a leadership role, leading the Jewish nation. They were antagonistic to the new Christian movement.

Although the birth narratives of Jesus are hardly historical they reveal a great deal about the historical circumstances in which the narratives were created. This is also true about the role of the Pharisees. Thus much of the history of the Gospels is really the history of the time after the life of Jesus.

The Parents of Christianity

Deviating from the conventional way, MacCulloch begins the history of Christianity not from its founder, but from the history of two different cultures—Hebrew and Hellenic-- as far back from 1000 years before the founder. These two rivers flowing separately for one thousand years, met during the period of the birth of Jesus, and this union gave birth to a third river—Christianity. The two separate civilizations from Europe and Asia met to give birth to an offspring that incorporated the genes of its parent civilizations. Of these two parent civilizations, the Hebrew one may be honored as the mother and the Hellenic one may be honored as the father. When you write the biography of a person, it is usual to begin the biography from highlighting the biography of his/her parents. That is why MacCulloch begins with the life of the Hellenic and Hebrew civilizations before telling us the story of Christianity.

This marriage of two civilizations can be clearly visible from the name of Christianity’s founder—Jesus Christ. Jesus (Joshua) is a Hebrew name, meaning, Yahweh is savior, whereas, Christ (Christos) is a Hellenic name, meaning, a specially appointed representative. The view of life of Christianity spun the strings of the views of both the Greek philosophers and the Hebrew prophets. Christianity incorporated the rituals and celebrations from both cultures. The wisdom of both cultures found their most colorful flowers in the church fathers of the fourth century. The early Christianity imported Platonism, and the medieval western Christianity imported Aristotelianism. A modern Jesus scholar is convinced that Jesus himself was a cynic philosopher in the tradition of Diogenes.

The influence of the Greek culture can be exemplified from the way Jesus was compared to the first and he last letters of the Greek alphabet—Alpha and Omega. When early Christians described their identity they used the Greek word ekklesia, which meant the assembly of the citizens of polis who met to make decisions. While this word was used to denote local church, they used another Greek word, Kuriake, to denote the universal church. Kuriake meant “belonging to the Lord” and it later became kirk and church.

The Hebrew culture was functioning with the traditional three-tiered worldview when the Hellenic world was evolving its earth-centered worldview. Though early Christianity shared the three-tiered worldview, it soon shifted to the earth-centered one. The Synoptic Gospels and the Book of Revelation, and the early epistles of Paul are within the framework of a three-tiered worldview. But the gospel and the epistles of John and the later work in the name of Paul operate within the framework of an earth-centered worldview. The willingness of Christianity to adopt the modern worldview while remaining grounded in faith probably was probably a factor that contributed to its success.

Before meeting with the Greek culture, the Hebrew culture met with several cultures in its thousand years of history. A part of the original Hebrew community was slaves in Egypt, and their life in Egypt and their escape from slavery were very influential in the formation of their culture. The culture of the Canaanites that surrounded them also influenced the formation of the Hebrew culture. Although at the beginning Yahweh, the Hebrew god, was in rivalry with Baal, the Canaanite god, later Yahweh developed further incorporating the characteristics of Baal. Later assaults from foreign powers scattered the Hebrews all over the world. A very large group of the Hebrews was taken to slavery in Persia and about a couple of centuries later, their children returned to Israel. They brought with them the culture of Persia.

The thousand years of history of Hebrews and Greeks is a sample of the history of the various cultures of Humankind. They run down through centuries as a multitude of streams occasionally getting together, then forming new streams, getting thinner or wider, but always influencing one another.