“bible was actually written long after events….”
Cassels makes the point that scraps found among the Dead Sea Scrolls are fragments of Mark, dated to AD50. “Until this discovery was made, biblical scholars had assumed that Mark’s gospel — evidently the oldest of the four contained in the New Testament — had been written in Rome between AD 65 and 68. … But if Mark’s gospel were written within a dozen or so years of Jesus’ death… then it had to survive the acid test of all historical writing or journalism: namely, being published at a time when it could be read, criticized and, if inauthentic, denounced by people who were alive and present at the time the alleged events occurred.” That fact of people still alive who lived through and witnessed events selecting the texts is something folks 2000 years later sometimes neglect to take into account. “Jesus’ original followers found Mark’s report to be accurate and trustworthy — not myth, but true history.” [Emphasis mine.]
Even John, while likely written by one of his followers, was written while John was still around to be Chief Editor (or, as Cassels puts it, “within the probable lifetime of the Apostle whose name it bears”), and even if “the apostle whom Jesus loved” was getting dodgey in his old age, I think we can largely trust in that.
Ahem, having said that, Cassels warns, “John is inclined to attribute to Jesus words and thoughts that almost certainly represent John’s own views of what Jesus meant to say, or would have said in a particular circumstance. Since direct quotes are not used in the Greek manuscripts of the Gospels, it is hard to tell where Jesus’ actual words leave off and John’s interpretations of them begin. This need not cause any serious hangups for the modern reader.”
