DAY 138
CHALLENGE
“There is no reason we should trust Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They were selected because they supported a particular agenda, and there were dozens of other gospels in existence at the time.”
DEFENSE
The canonical Gospels were selected because they are the earliest and most reliable accounts of Jesus’ life.
Even skeptical scholars acknowledge the four canonical Gospels were written in the first century, while others are from the second and third centuries or later.
The four Gospels were authored either by eyewitnesses of Jesus (Matthew and John) or close associates of apostles (Mark was a companion of Peter, and Luke was a companion of Paul). They were thus in a good position to know what Jesus said and did, and their Gospels were read at Christian worship services from the beginning.
Other alleged gospels were written much later, and their authors were not in as good of a position to record the story of Jesus accurately. Because they were written later, there was no history of them being read in worship services. This helped early Christians spot them as fakes. If a proposed gospel was authentically from the first followers of Jesus, why hadn’t it been used in the Church’s worship all this time?
The later gospels are frequently based on the four canonical ones. They often don’t attempt to tell the story of Jesus’ ministry, but assume the reader already knows it. For example, some “gospels” tell stories about Jesus’ parents or about his childhood; they consist of isolated sayings attributed to him; or they claim to record speeches he gave after his Resurrection. They thus try to “fill in” things that the canonical Gospels don’t include—and they therefore testify to the unique value of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John for learning the basic story of Jesus.
The actual teachings of Jesus were transmitted by the canonical Gospels—and through the preaching of the Church—which also made it possible to spot later ones as fakes. Many later “gospels” contain teachings contrary to those in the originals. In particular, many were influenced by the Gnostic heresy of the second and third centuries.
The canonical Gospels thus weren’t included because they support- ed a particular viewpoint; the later ones were excluded because they contradicted what had been passed down from the beginning.