The reason I would argue that the Gospels are reliable from a historical point of view is because I belive that points 1,2 and 3 are ture:
1 the authors intended to report what actually happened
2 The authors had access to reliable sources.
3 So if an author tries to be accurate and has reliable sources it follows (inductively) that his work is reliable.
if you disagree with ether 1,2 or 3 please let me know why you disagree.
1 the authors intended to report what actually happened
Given the literary genera of the text (Greco roman biography) and the fact that the gosspels are fool of embarrassing details* it seems probable that point 1 is true
2 The authors had access to reliable sources.
Given that most of the political, historical, demographic and geographical details** in the gospels are accurate … it seems probable that the authors had access to good sources, otherwise they would have not known those details.
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*Embarrassing details: Jesus had a humiliating death, Peter denied Jesus, The empty tomb was discovered by woman, he was buried in the tomb of a Jewish Sanhedrin, Jesus had limited knowledge, etc. all these details represented obstacles for the early Christians, (things would have been easier without those embarrassing details)
** There really was a Pilate, there really was a Caiphas, the ratio of common names vs uncommon names are consistent, there really was a Jewish Sanhedrin that had some power and influence over the romans, they villages, towns cities etc. really excisted…………onlyh someone who was there or who had acces to reliable source could have known all these.
1) The authors wrote in a highly mythic style and in a different language. If Jesus were a teacher it would have been at least 40 years earlier and in Aramaic. The authors did not intend to report what happened, this is a fact. The first gospel is Mark and he literally uses prior fiction and parables to tell a story that is exactly like similar fiction of the time.
This essay breaks down many of the mythic literary devices used. Here are a few, first we see Mark uses an OT narrative:
"Only a few verses later, we read about the rest of the crucifixion narrative and find a link (a literary source) with the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament (OT):
Mark 15.24: “They part his garments among them, casting lots upon them.”
Psalm 22:18: “They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon them.”
Mark 15.29-31: “And those who passed by blasphemed him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘…Save yourself…’ and mocked him, saying ‘He who saved others cannot save himself!’ ”
Psalm 22.7-8: “All those who see me mock me and give me lip, shaking their head, saying ‘He expected the lord to protect him, so let the lord save him if he likes.’ ”
Mark 15.34: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Psalm 22.1: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
On top of these links, Mark also appears to have used
Psalm 69,
Amos 8.9, and some elements of
Isaiah 53,
Zechariah 9-14, and
Wisdom 2 as sources for his narratives. So we can see yet a few more elements of myth in the latter part of this Gospel, with Mark using other scriptural sources as needed for his story, whether to “fulfill” what he believed to be prophecy or for some other reason."
Then writes about how Mark uses the Kings narrative from the OT
"Earlier in
Mark (chapter 5), we hear about another obviously fictional story about Jesus resurrecting a girl (the daughter of a man named Jairus) from the dead, this miracle serving as another obvious marker of myth, but adding to that implausibility is the fact that the tale is actually a rewrite of another mythical story, told of Elisha in
2 Kings 4.17-37 as found in the OT, and also the fact that there are a number of very improbable coincidences found within the story itself. In the story with Elisha, we hear of a woman from Shunem who seeks out the miracle-working Elisha, finds him, falls to his feet and begs him to help her son who had recently fallen gravely ill. Someone checks on her son and confirms that he is now dead, but Elisha doesn’t fret about this, and he goes into her house, works his miraculous magic, and raises him from the dead. In Mark’s version of the story (
Mark 5.22-43), the same things occur. We hear about Jairus coming to look for Jesus, finds him, falls to his feet and begs him to help him with his daughter. Someone then comes to confirm that she is now dead, but Jesus (as Elisha) doesn’t fret, and he goes into his house, works his miraculous magic, and raises her from the dead."
and later explains how he uses ring structure and triadic cycles. This is not historical, this is pure myth writing.
The Gospels as Allegorical Myth, Part I of 4: Mark
Jesus had a humiliating death,
He did not. Richard Carrier has an excellent sourced essay on all of the dying/rising demigods known to be prior to Jesus. Just like Neo in the Matrix being killed and rising again is the central part of the story. All of the savior demigods undergo a passion. This is central to the myth.
The empty tomb was discovered by woman,
The message of this gospel is "the least shall be first" and is full of counter-expectations with the least expected being first. Like the women finding the tomb.
There really was a Pilate,
Actually that isn't totally true. There are signs that there may have been. But when the gospels were written they were set in history the same as Marvel comics writes about superheroes in NY city. There are many real life characters written into the fiction. Why would religious fiction be any different? Did you bother to check if the same thing happens in Islam or Hindu stories? The Greek epics are set among real wars.
How do you know that the Mithras gospels didn't mention actual Roman leaders?
2 The authors had access to reliable sources.
As we have seen Mark clearly used the OT as a source. We know he borrowed from other mystery religions because not only is Jesus a late comer to the resurrection scene but there are many other things borrowed from the mystery religions. Carrier has a lecture on all the things borrowed from earlier mystery religions in the gospels.
Going beyond Mark we have Matthew which contains 97% of the original Greek. Christian scholarship no longer believes the gospels are independent but rather sourced from Mark.
This is from bible.com:
"
The Synoptic Problem
Related Media
Any serious discussion of the Synoptic Gospels must, sooner or later, involve a discussion of the literary interrelationships among Matthew, Mark, and Luke. This is essential in order to see how an author used his sources (both for reliability’s sake as well as for redactional criticism), as well as when he wrote.
Robert H. Stein’s The Synoptic Problem: An Introduction1 summarizes well the issues involved in the synoptic problem—as well as its probable solution. For the most part, our discussion will follow his outline.2
A. The Literary Interdependence of the Synoptic Gospels
It is quite impossible to hold that the three synoptic gospels were completely independent from each other. In the least, they had to have shared a common oral tradition. But the vast bulk of NT scholars today would argue for much more than that.3 There are four crucial arguments which virtually prove literary interdependence."
The Synoptic Problem | Bible.org
So yes they had good sources, each other, the OT and other religions.
3 So if an author tries to be accurate and has reliable sources it follows (inductively) that his work is reliable.
In this case there is no doubt that the author was sourcing older fiction and writing myth. It could not be clearer that this work is exactly the same as all religions since the beginning of religion.
This supposition above actually makes no sense because we already have thousands of other religious scripture that you would admit has the appearance of being accurate and reliable but we know it's myth. So for some reason you find this one case to be some sort of exception? That is incredibly unlikely. At any rate it shows that the appearance of accuracy and reliability doesn't mean it's true.
Also there isn't anything "accurate" about highly improbable events, unsourced stories, biographic histories were often fiction in those days so this idea that these are accurate is odd. The author does not claim to be eyewitness either
"First of all, before even identifying or examining these literary constructs, allegories, and prospective elements of myth, we can already see by reading the Gospels that they fail to show any substantive content of being actual researched histories. Nowhere in the Gospels do they ever name their sources of information, nor do they read as eye witness testimonies (nor do they identify themselves as such), nor is it mentioned why any sources used would be accurate to rely upon. The authors never discuss any historical method used, nor do they acknowledge how some contents may be less accurate than others, nor do they mention alternate possibilities of the events given the limited information they had from their sources. They never express amazement or any degree of rational skepticism no matter how implausible an event within the story may be — something we would expect from any rational historian (even one living in antiquity). The authors never explain why they changed what their sources said, nor do they even acknowledge that they did such a thing in the first place — despite the fact that Matthew and Luke clearly relied on Mark as a source (as did John, though less obviously so), for example, and then they all redacted Mark’s version as needed to serve their own literary and theological purposes (which explains some of the contradictions found between one Gospel and another). Instead, the Gospels appear to be fictional historical biographies, likely written by specially interested Christians whose intent was to edify Jesus, just like many other fictional historical biographies that were made for various heroes and sages in antiquity. In fact, all students of literary Greek (the authors of the Gospels wrote their manuscripts in literary Greek), commonly used this fictional biographical technique as a popular rhetorical device — where they were taught to invent narratives about famous and legendary people, as well as to build a symbolic or moral message within it, and where they were taught to make changes to traditional stories in order to make whatever point they desired within their own stories."
