What is a “gospel”? According to a few different dictionary definitions I looked up, it is anything from the revelation of Christ to the first 4 books of the New Covenant, to just being a good story. I have also heard people use the word “gospel” as referring to something completely trustworthy.

But when we consider the Gospels, those first 4 books in the New Covenant, are they really totally trustworthy?

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Now, before anyone starts to accuse me of blasphemy, let’s remember that the truth is tough enough to take a little testing. In fact, if we aren’t willing to test what we consider to be the truth, we are setting ourselves up to believe in a lie.

The gospels are considered to be the factual account of the life and ministry of Yeshua (Jesus), and the books were (supposedly) eye-witness accounts of the teachings and events during Yeshua’s ministry on the earth, written by his disciples named Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

But are they really eye-witness accounts? The answer is… NO, they are not all eye-witnessed accounts of the life and ministry of Yeshua.

I did a “Google search” asking about the writers of the gospels, and was somewhat surprised (but not really, since I always thought this was the case) that modern scholars consider the books were written anonymously and attributed to the names of his disciples in order to lend authority to the books.

Matthew and John are stated in both Luke and Mark to be one of the 12 men Yeshua chose to be in his “inner circle”, but Mark and Luke weren’t given that privilege.

When you research the gospels, you will see that Matthew is considered to be the most “Jewish” of the gospels, which means that if his is the most Jewish, then one of them has to be the least Jewish. In my opinion, that is the gospel of John, which I won’t go into here but I believe was written by a Gentile Christian and is a false gospel, one designed to make Jesus appear more Christian than Jewish.

From what I could find, Mark was an assistant to Peter and Luke a travelling companion of Paul, but neither of those two are verifiably eye-witnesses to the many things we read about in their gospel.

In fact, we are told by Luke at the very beginning of his gospel that he did not witness any of the events he is writing about but has collected stories which have been handed down over the years.

In other words, everything in the gospel of Luke is not an eye-witnessed account, but rather something between third party hearsay and gossip.

In my book, “Back to Basics: God’s Word vs. Religion”, I start the Introduction with this question:

Have you ever told a funny story at a party, later have it circulate back to you, only then to hear it transformed into something almost unrecognizable from the story you told?

My point is that an account that has been repeated and repeated by many different people is not reliable. And the gospels were written by people who heard it from people who heard it from people who…well, no one will ever know how many times these stories have been circulated, will they? And although there are many commonalities within the gospels, such as the parables and miraculous events, the question remains:
“How can we trust what we read in the gospels as being legitimately what Yeshua said or did?”

I do believe that because of the similarities within the gospels, we can consider the telling of the parables and most events that are repeated in all four of these books to be reliable enough to be accepted as accurate.

And the minute differences that exist are only to be expected because these are not eye-witnessed accounts. Heck, ask any investigator and they will confirm that if 6 people see the exact same event at the exact same time, you will get 6 different stories, so imagine how much difference there might be when people relate what they heard but might not have ever seen.

So, what does this mean to readers of the gospels who want to know who Yeshua is and what he taught? If these gospels are actually just a collection of hearsay, having many similarities but, still and all, just stories handed down, what can we believe? Where does that leave us?

It leaves us with this: it is up to each and every one of us to become very familiar with all four gospels so that we can see what is similar and thereby probably trustworthy, and what is not similar to the other gospels. That which is unique is something we might want to doubt its validity.

Remember, there was a significant separation between the Jewish followers of Yeshua and the Gentile followers who didn’t really start to join this Jewish sect until after Yeshua was already at God’s right hand. By the end of that first century, most of the Jewish disciples and followers were dead, and what had been a Jewish sect was now mutating into a Gentile religion that rejected most of what the Torah said and replaced God’s Holy Days and instructions for righteous living with totally different holidays and canon.

The gospels were written sometime between 70 and 100 AD, some 30+ years after Yeshua had risen to heaven, so what he said and did had been handed down, orally, for decades. Not to mention that these are written by people, not dictated by God or even close to being considered God-breathed scripture.

The truth is that God doesn’t even speak anywhere in the entire New Covenant, except at the immersion of Yeshua and at the transfiguration when Yeshua is on the mountain and visited by Moses and Elijah, and all he says then is that Yeshua is his son.

You may ask, am I saying to ignore the gospels, that they are unreliable, or that they should be rejected?

No, not rejected, but not accepted as the gospel truth (pun intended).

When we read the gospels, we need to do so with the understanding that these are handed-down stories about a man and what he taught others regarding the Torah and God. You should always take what you read with a grain of salt, as they say, and even though I do believe that Yeshua is the Messiah God promised to send, and that the miraculous events described as being done by Yeshua did happen, I am somewhat suspect of the significant differences I find in different gospels, most of which I find between the gospel of John and the other three gospels.

And, for the record, many scholars agree that John’s gospel is significantly different from the other three, which I have already written about a few times so you can search my website if you are interested in learning more about that.

Read the gospels, accept what you will but don’t be afraid to question what sounds “off”. Even though faith is believing in what can’t be proven, that is no excuse to be lazy and just accept everything you hear.

I will end today’s message the same way I started: the truth is tough enough to be tested, and if you aren’t willing to test what you are told then you will never know if you are being led down the wrong path.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for today, so l’hitraot, Baruch HaShem, and since tomorrow night is Erev Yom Kippur, may you have an easy fast.