History - according to the Bible

 

April 5, 2026, EASTER

Today’s blog is a continuation of the ideas that I shared in last Sunday’s blog, in which I talked about the differences in the Passion narratives. In a world where fundamentalistic interpretations of religion, including among Christians, are so prevalent, and which lead to so much horror in the name of religion, this approach to the Bible is something that cannot be reiterated often enough, and therefore needs to be explained at greater length.  Of course, the ideas I share here are those that underlie all the 156 blogs that I have shared with all of you over these past few years, and so I felt it was important to explain this further in this last blog.

 

When one reads the different resurrection narratives as we have them in the four Gospels we are reassured by the fact that there are some elements that are found in all four. The most obvious ones that come to mind are these: a) in none of them does anybody actually witness the Resurrection itself; b) the first ones to whom the resurrection is communicated are women (a surprising commonality in a patriarchal Jewish world where a woman’s testimony was not considered reliable); c) the tomb is indeed empty and the authorities could not locate the body anywhere, despite all their resources and which they needed to do, in order to quell the growing belief in Jesus;  d) Jesus’s resurrected body is not a resuscitated corpse but a completely different kind of a body, so that though he is reported as being able to eat and can be touched, he can go through doors, and for Paul he appears as a light, etc which is quite different from the Lazarus who was earlier raised from the dead; and e) the disciples did not react to it with joy and triumph, for in all four Gospels we get reactions showing that they certainly did not expect it, even felt terror (Mark 16:8), and in general found it hard to believe or accept. 

 

On the other hand we are probably troubled by the fact that if we try to harmonize the narratives, we will find that, aside from the above elements, the sequence of events and much else, just cannot be harmonized. And therefore one naturally tends to ask the question: ‘If these discrepancies were so obvious, why did the early Church not try to sanitize them before declaring all the four Gospels as inspired?’  Surely they were intelligent enough to notice these differences!

 

The truth is that by the fourth century when the Canon of the New Testament was finalised, though the Christians had become politically and intellectually influential, with even the Emperor becoming Christian, they were still children of their times. And so it is very likely that the reason the Church did not worry much about the lack of consistency and factual accuracy in the Gospels, was because they were influenced by the  Greco-Roman and Jewish understanding of ‘history’ that was prevalent at that time.

 

In the Greco-Roman thinking of that time, history was considered a branch of literature rather than a science.  Rhetorical flair, vivid narration and moral education were prioritized, even if that led to the embellishment of facts to make the story more engaging in order to convey a deeper truth. Historical narratives were meant to convey a teaching, and included the integration of myths and legends into the story. Unlike modern historians who rely on exhaustive source criticism, cross-verification and archival research, ancient historians relied on oral traditions, hearsay or previous  histories, sometimes without systematic verification. Standard practice allowed historians to compose speeches and place them in the mouths of historical figures, aiming for what the person might have said, rather than a verbatim record of their words.  What tied their historical narratives together was that the writers built their narratives around historical figures and events. This style is seen in the much later work of Shakespeare as well, as is seen in Mark Antony’s famous funeral speech in ‘Julius Caesar, or even the famous ‘et tu Brutus’ line that Caesar utters as he dies, which many mistakenly assume to be historical.   

 

In the dominant Jewish understanding of that time too, history was not meant to focus on chronological accuracy, but was interpreted as a series of recurring paradigms, where the past, present and future were fused in to a single timeless experience of God’s interaction with Israel.  It was meant to guide behaviour in the present, rather than being an accurate record of unique past events. This kind of historical legend is also seen in the religious literature/history of other cultures. In fact the famous Hindu religious epic Ramayana, that many Hindus consider to be ‘history’, has also evolved through oral traditions and shows similar trends. And several stories, like the story of Shabri, a devotee of Lord Ram, who was of a lower caste entered the Ramayana story much later, and only when people started questioning the differential and unjust treatment of lower castes in Hindu society. Thus students of the Ramayana have shown us that there are many versions of the Ramayana (by some accounts over 300 Ramayanas), just like we know there were over 50 Gospels, of which only four were accepted as canonical.

 

Influenced by these ways of thinking, the early Church, consequently, had no difficulty in accepting that the Gospel writers changed things around, keeping in mind their respective target audiences, in order to convey the theological truth about who Jesus is, and what is his importance in our lives.

 

It would seem that this approach of having multiple narratives has this great value that it prevents an idolatry of the text of the Bible or any Scripture - a temptation that many fundamentalist followers in all religions tend to get sucked into. However, we too are children of our times, and so we struggle with these earlier understandings of history and truth, because our modern notion of history is one which demands that our recounting of past events must allow no internal discrepancy and no factual errors in the text.  It was in trying to withstand this pressure from such modernist notions that  the Catholic Church continued to insist right up till the early 20^th century that everything in the Bible is factually, historically, and scientifically true  (Encyclical of Pope Benedict XV, Spiritus Paraclitus, 1920).   Of course the Church itself realized its own mistake, and so just a couple of decades later, it effectively distanced itself from Benedict XV: ‘’The sacred writers, like the other ancients, use certain arts of exposition and narration, certain idioms known as ‘approximations’… certain hyperbolic ways of speaking and certain paradoxes intended for emphasis….   In many cases in which the authors are accused of some historical inaccuracy or some inexact recording of certain events, there is in fact nothing else to be found than those customary and characteristic forms of expression or style of narration which were current among people of that time , and were in fact quite legitimately and commonly used…. ‘’   (Encyclical of Pope Pius XII, Divino Afflante Spiritu, 1943).

 

So the lack of harmony in the Resurrection stories, and other stories in the Bible, is not something that we need to be so deeply concerned about, as long as we can understand and accept that the understanding of history in the Bible is significantly different from our understanding today.  And just because it is not historical in the way we understand history, doesn’t make it any less insightful. But because this basic insight is forgotten we have, for example, religious people still searching for the ark of Noah, forgetting that there are over 200 stories of a great flood found in other traditions - all pointing to one reality that modern scholars would accept, namely that there was probably a cataclysmic event when vast floods covered many parts of our world - a powerful event that was then interpreted to suit particular theological teachings.

 

And that brings me back to one of my earliest blogs in which I suggested that we need to reflect deeply on what we understand by our belief  that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. (If there are mistakes in the Bible, how can it be the Word of God )

 

P.S. This is my last blog, as with this Easter Sunday’s blog, I complete the three-year liturgical cycle of Sundays which I had set out to cover.  Thank you for walking with me on this journey.

 

If you are interested, you could get the blogs for subsequent Sundays, by going back to the first of those blogs for which I give you the link below, and then carrying on from there. ( Having an Adult Faith)

First Reading: Acts 10: 34a, 37-43

Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every people anyone who fears him and practices righteousness is acceptable to him. 36 You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all.  You know that the message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced:  how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.  We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree,  but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear,  not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.  He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead.  All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

Second Reading: Colossians 3: 1-4 or 1 Corinthians 5: 6b-8

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth,  for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

OR

Your boasting is not a good thing. Do you not know that a little yeast leavens all of the dough?  Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch of dough, as you really are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed.  Therefore, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

 

Gospel: John 20: 1-9 or Matthew 28: 1-10

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.  So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”  Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb.  The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.  He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in.  Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there,  and the cloth that had been on Jesus’s head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself.  Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed,  for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.

OR

After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.  And suddenly there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.  His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow.  For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men.  But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified.  He is not here, for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.  Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.”  So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples.  Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him.  Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers and sisters to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”