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Sacred Scriptures/Liturgy- Commentary on Sunday's Readings |
Are the Gospels
Historical Records?
Third Sunday in
Ordinary Time
Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, OFMCap, Pontifical Household Preacher
www.zenit.org
Nehemiah 8:2-4a,5-6,8-10; 1
Corinthians 12:12-31a; Luke 1:1-4;4:14-21
Before beginning the account of the life of Jesus, the Evangelist
Luke explains the criteria that guided him. He says that he is
referring to facts attested to by eye witnesses, which he verified
by "accurate research," so that those who read what he writes may
realize the solidity of the teachings contained in the Gospel. This
provides us with an occasion to consider the problem of the
historicity of the Gospels.
Until some centuries ago, the critical sense did not exist in
people. What was referred to in the past was taken as having been an
historical event. In the last two or three centuries the historical
sense was born which brought people to submit things to a critical
test to ascertain their validity before they would believe them to
be facts of the past. This procedure has been applied to the
Gospels.
Let us sum up the various stages that the life and teaching of Jesus
have passed through before they have reached us.
First stage: Jesus' earthly life. Jesus did not write anything, but
in his preaching he used some common expediencies of ancient culture
which facilitated keeping a text in one's memory: brief phrases,
parallels and antitheses, rhythmic repetitions, images, parables.…
Think of lines from the Gospels like: "The last will be first and
the first will be last"; "Wide is the door and broad is the way that
leads to perdition…; "Narrow is the gate and hard is the way that
leads to life" (Matthew 7:13-14).
Phrases like these, once heard, would even be difficult for people
today to forget. The fact that Jesus himself did not write the
Gospels does not mean that the words that they contain are not his.
Unable to write words on paper, the men of ancient times wrote them
on the mind.
Second stage: the oral preaching of the apostles. After the
resurrection, the apostles immediately began to proclaim to all the
life and words of Christ, taking account of the needs and the
circumstances of the different listeners. There purpose was not to
do history but to bring people to faith. With the clearer
understanding that they now had, they were able to transmit to
others that which Jesus said and did, adapting it to the needs of
those to whom they turned.
Third stage: the written gospels. About 30 years after Jesus' death,
some authors began to write down this preaching that had come to
them orally. The four Gospels that we know were born in this way. Of
the many things that had come down to them, the evangelists selected
some, they summarized others, and others they explained to adapt
them to the needs that the communities for whom they were writing
had at the moment. The need to adapt Jesus' words to new and diverse
demands influenced the order in which the facts are recounted in the
four Gospels, as well as their coloration and importance, but they
did not otherwise alter their fundamental truth.
That the evangelists had, insofar as it was possible at the time, a
historical concern and not only a concern with edification, is
demonstrated by the precision with which they situate the event of
Christ in time and place. A little further on, Luke furnishes us
with all the political and geographical coordinates of the beginning
of Jesus' public ministry (cf. Luke 3:1-2).
In conclusion, the Gospels are not historical books in the modern
sense of detached and neutral accounts of facts. They are
historical, rather, in the sense that what they transmit reflects
the substance of what happened. But the argument most in favor of
the fundamental historical truth of the Gospels is that which we
experience inside ourselves every time we are profoundly touched by
the word of Christ. What other word, ancient or new, ever had the
same power?
This page is the work of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and
Mary
