In a series of short articles, I discussed briefly how scripture was transmitted over the years. I addressed the necessity of scribes in the process of transmission and I looked at some common scribal errors. My aim in that series was to show that, despite the scribal errors and consequent variants in the text, the art-science of textual criticism allows us to determine to an almost 100% accuracy what the autograph (original) documents read. There are currently hardly any disputes about what the original manuscripts contained.

Despite this, there are many scholars who say that the real Jesus who lived and died in first century Judea was quite different from the portrait that emerges from the canonical Gospels. I wish to address this claim in this post.

With the Gospel texts being quite stable thanks to textual criticism, we are confident about what they claim Jesus said and did. The Gospels are univocal in asserting that Jesus did miraculous deeds such as healing people who were ill or physically deformed or demon possessed, feeding large numbers of people with a small meal, exerting authority over the forces of nature, and even raising people from the dead. All four canonical Gospels make this claim.

The four canonical Gospels also assert that Jesus said some strange and unexpected things. “Blessed are the meek”, “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s”, “If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also”, and “No one puts new wine into old wine skins” are just a few of the challenging sayings the Gospels attribute to Jesus.

The fact of the matter is that, since these statements are in the Gospels, they had to have originated from someone. Those who deny that Jesus said these things argue that either the authors of the Gospels or someone in the early church invented them.

But let us think about this. Is there any particular reason why Jesus could not have said these things? Jesus was a first century Jew. And the Gospels were written within about two generations of his death. So if we are quite certain that Jesus himself could not have said these things, how can we conclude that one of his contemporaries or someone from the early church did? If we are confident that these words could have been said by another first century Jew, then I can see only one reason for saying that Jesus did not say them – only Jesus makes a claim on our lives.

If Paul or some other early Christian made these words up, then it is a fiction that Jesus said them. In that case, we do not have to take the words seriously. After all, no sane person lives their life based on the words of a fictional character – even their favorite fictional character!

But if Jesus actually did say these words, then there actually was a first century Jew who was like the Jesus portrayed in the Gospels. In other words, if we accept that Jesus said these words then we are bound by those words – either bound to eternal life or to eternal condemnation. The prophet Jeremiah said that “the heart is deceitful above all things.” Those who reject the words in the Gospels as Jesus’ words but accept that it could come from another first century Jew only prove Jeremiah right. They prove that they are simply living based on the excuses of their hearts.