The Resurrection of Jesus and Historicity

                                                     The question of what really happened in the public ministry of Jesus as well as in his resurrection from the dead, although reported in the Gospels, arises out of our concern for genuineness and truth of what has been communicated to us. We agree with and support the spirit behind the query insisting at the same time , as mentioned in previous posts, that there are no 'pure facts' and 'pure history' because there are always interpretations of some kind or other involved in them. This is all the more the case with regard to the resurrection of Jesus from the dead as it is both historical, happening in this world and trans-historical, having its reverberations in the next world. Not only reverberations, a new humanity is inaugurated through the resurrection of Jesus that could not be contained in the limits of this material world, pouring out the divine spirit transforming the believers. Because the Apostles and the disciples were transformed after the resurrection of Jesus and the infusion of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, their version of the events that took place earlier in the public ministry of Jesus would also have been transformed. This kind of change is not something negative as very often the disciples understood the meaning of what Jesus said only after his resurrection. An instance is when Jesus warned the Apostles not to say anything about his transfiguration before Peter, James and John till he rose from the dead. They did not understand what was meant by rising from the dead at the time, but only after the resurrection of Jesus. In the same way, they could not understand the significance of suffering and death of Jesus until after Pentecost. Is it not befitting that things should be so understood when we are dealing with matters not immediately evident to us and yet have relevance for eternal salvation? It does not, however, mean that the authors of the Gospel wrote down unhistorical items from their own imagination. We have seen in the previous posts how the Gospel message was transmitted till it was written down and there could not have been a better method of faithfully preserving history than seen in the Gospels. As for the resurrection of Jesus from the dead innumerable authors have brought forward arguments from the evidence of 'empty tomb' as well as of  'appearances' of Jesus to the Apostles and disciples. We consider those evidences convincing to our reasoning faculty although an element of faith cannot be avoided to fully appreciate the reality of resurrection that crosses the limits of this world.
                                                  The real crux of the problem is in the confusion between history and theology with the notion that any mention of theology along with history is bound to contaminate the latter. We know that the meaning or significance of the Gospel events and sayings is their theology, which cannot dilute the gravity of history itself. What happened or what was said in the Gospel narratives were not altered by anyone, but only explicated better to understand their implications. People with an open mind to accept the challenges resulting from them do not have to fear as the message is Good News enhancing their lives. As Plato said it is understandable when children are afraid of darkness, but not when men are afraid of light!
                                                  In this context, we may turn our attention to an interesting case filed before a judge of Viterbo in Italy by a certain Luigi Cascioli against Father Righi challenging him to prove in the Court of Law that Jesus Christ really existed. The background to the case is in Father Righi's denouncement in his parish Newsletter of Cascioli for questioning Jesus Christ's historical existence in his book "The Fable of Christ". The first thing Fr. Righi must do, in our opinion, is to demand from Cascioli to specify what would count as proof for him to be satisfied about the historical existence of Jesus Christ. His answer, if he is willing to give any, would bring the cat out of the bag in that we would be able to come to know the kind of bee singing in his bonnet! In other words, one would be able to counter-check whether the same criteria of evidence hold when dealing with other historical figures like Julius Caesar for instance as to historicity. Besides, has a reasonable person the scope for fore-closing all possibilities beyond the confines of this world especially when it is a question of the total well-being of human persons? Cascioli seems to distrust the Gospel accounts by clearly demanding evidence from sources other than the Gospels and at the same time insisting that they should be contemporaneous with Jesus, if he really existed. One may see from these demands of his that there cannot be any history satisfying his arbitrary criteria. As for the Gospels, we have seen in the previous posts how they are to be seen as historical in spite of the fact that they are also theological. Cascioli needs thorough education in the meaning of 'facts' as there are no 'pure facts' according to the hermeneutic principles of a philosophical tradition of which he himself is a part. 

The Rationality of Gospel Miracles

                                                        Here we deal with the truth and credibility of the miracles performed by Jesus during his public ministry. It is a question discussed threadbare by many scholars and we shall not repeat those attempts here. Our focus shall be on the reasonableness of believing in miracles, especially in the present world imbued with scientific temper and outlook. Our task is made all the more difficult as there are many self-proclaimed miracle workers vigorously going about trying to attract as many followers as possible. Some who like to appear as scientific and modern find solace in thinking that miracles are actually metaphors without realizing that use of metaphors presupposes what they are metaphors of. The problem is only pushed back and does not offer any solution.
                                                        There are about 36 miracles of Jesus reported in the Gospels performed during his public ministry. They consist of 3 raisings from the dead, 2 multiplications of loaves, turning of water into wine, a number of healings, control of nature like walking on water and forbidding a raging storm, forcing the evil spirit out of the possessed, the miraculous catch of fish, catching a fish by Simon Peter at the behest of Jesus to take out a coin from its mouth for paying temple tax, cursing a fig tree that dries up instantly, transfiguration of his own self etc. culminating in his own resurrection from the dead. It is clear from the above list that not all the miracles have the same value and each has a particular lesson to communicate. Jesus never performed a miracle for his own glory and honor and always cautioned its beneficiaries and others not to publish the same. This special characteristic seen in the attitude of Jesus completely sets apart the miracles he performed from the ones performed by many others. Besides, the driving force of Jesus' miracles was always compassion, a specifically divine attribute, and the purpose was the integral good of the beneficiary including his or her salvation for which Jesus always demanded faith. The narratives in the Gospels, miracles included, were written down from the background of the liturgical and prayer life of believing communities from whom the present day concern of a scientific attitude was absent. The empirical sciences can deal only with the rationality of the material world and anything beyond it can be dealt with only by Philosophy and Theology. Basic rationality demands that one is always open to possibilities instead of closing in on one's own field of interest declaring it to be the beginning and of everything.
                                                    The traditional method of seeing the miracles of Jesus as exceptions to the laws of nature through divine intervention need not be the only way of understanding them. It evokes in us the feeling that we are under the tyranny of Nature, which may be overcome by God alone through his control over it  God wants to share His power with us for obtaining which a transformation has to take place in us before we can effectively control Nature and its forces without reactionary side-effects. Jesus promised to empower his disciples to do not only what he did, but even greater things (John, 14:12). The transformation of our own selves, being the source of control over nature, is a greater miracle than any other. Thus the objection that the miracles of Jesus are not historical because they do not happen now in our scientific age is not valid on two counts. First, we are very reluctant to be empowered by the source of all miracles, that is, our self-transformation and second, the economy of salvation does not require that what happened at the time of Jesus should be happening even now. It is similar to the objection put forward by the anti-evolutionists who decline to accept the theory of evolution because it does not happen now the way it happened before. This economy sees to it that what is required in each generation for our well-being is given unreservedly at the right time and place. At an age when people were less developed , they needed more protection and divine intervention continuing which forever would hamper our true development. If all healings were managed through miracles, there would not be any need of medical research and control of diseases through the use of our intellect, a faculty specifically given to man by God to share His dominion over the entire universe. Similarly, if exorcism is always used as the only means of ejecting the evil spirits out of the possessed, the study of psychology would not have taken root. It does not mean to say that the evil spirit is only a figment of one's imagination, although many cases of so-called possessions may be seen as mere mental cases. Jesus through his miracles must have handled both the types of 'possessions' where the need to segregate them according to our modern view did not arise.       

The Logic of John's Gospel

                                              Why is the Gospel of John so different from the 3 Synoptic Gospels? While the Synoptic Gospels delineate the earthly life of Jesus without neglecting the spiritual quotient of the events narrated, John's Gospel directly teaches us about spiritual life with the help of the narratives. A fallout of this outlook results in the consideration of miracles as signs of something beyond the earthly realm. Besides, this Gospel takes us to the pre-existence of the Word of God who became man as Jesus of Nazareth. How far can we consider this to be historical in the sense of something that really happened as against mere mythology? In mythology what is being said and the mode of saying it gradually coalesce into one and at a later stage no one would be able to distinguish between the two. Not so in history, where although occasional identification between the substance and its form may take place, one is able to distinguish between them and uphold what is historical apart from its trappings that may be mythological. Usually mythological presentations make use of imageries, symbols, irrational stories, and false beliefs bordering on superstitions, unverified narrations of certain events etc., in order to bring out what they want to communicate. In the case of Incarnation we are dealing with presently in the Gospel according to John, none of the above is brought forward for presentation of what the Evangelist wants to say. Mythologies take to their heels when Philosophy enters the scene as darkness flees in the presence of light.
                                              What the author of this Gospel does is to take over the philosophy of the time with Neo-Platonic ideas and transpose it to what he wants to say about the Incarnation.. He took over the ideas from the Jewish philosopher Philo who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, from around 30 B.C. to around A.D. 40. Philo tried to interpret the Scriptures(Old Testament) with the aid of Plato's philosophy. Plato's 'ideas', of which all realities in the world are mere shadows, were thought to be in the mind of God by Philo. In the next step, he identified the word of God in the Scriptures with the Logos or Divine Reason, which itself was but a combination of Plato's 'ideas'. Besides, the idea of Stoic philosophers that reason constitutes the intrinsic rationality of the world was taken over by Philo and transposed to the Logos or the Divine Reason. Since the Logos was already laden with meanings by Philo that John wanted to express about the Word who was with God and was God Himself, he could easily use it to present the fact of Incarnation without depending on any mythology. The idea of Logos could not be mixed up with any myths as it is referring to the Divine Reason itself as well as the intrinsic rationality of the world we lie in. Does any doubt about the historicity of Incarnation still persist? It can be set aside if we remember that the best proof for history comes from someone who experienced the event at close quarters. Now, other than Mary and Joseph, there was no one who was closer to Jesus than John the Evangelist, the disciple whom Jesus loved and who was well placed to unravel the mysteries concerning him.      
                                             The skeptic may still be dissatisfied with our arguments as he might be able to say that we are just assuming the fact of Incarnation without any proof. This kind of dissatisfaction arises out of the assumption that there are 'pure facts' to be scooped up by us. Any historical fact is already an interpreted one with the views and style of the historian concerned, in addition to the meaning it already had before reporting the same. Even our everyday lives bear testimony to the different versions of one and the same thing like the reporting of events by different news papers. As the media professionals would call their versions of one and the same fact journalism, the significance of historical facts propounded by the biblical authors is called theology. The theology of John about the fact of Incarnation does not in any way dilute its historical value especially because it is coming from a person who was one of the most closely associated with Jesus during his ministry. John the Evangelist was in a unique position to reveal the depth of Jesus' personality and that is what he has done through his use of 'Logos' for Jesus.   

Differences in the Synoptic Gospels

                                                Among the 3 Synoptic Gospels, the Gospel of Mark starts with the public ministry of Jesus and is silent about the birth and infancy of Jesus, which are dealt with by both Matthew and Luke. Since the events narrated from the time of the public ministry of Jesus by all the 4 Gospels, including that of John, are to be considered as historical any differences in detail are to be considered incidental and of minor importance. More weighty differences are found in the birth and infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke that deserve some explanation. Many of the details there need not be historical like the visit of the Magi to the Infant Jesus in Matthew and the circumstances of the birth of Jesus in both Matthew and Luke. The important points in these instances are the revelation of Jesus as the King of the Jews and the divine intervention in the birth of Jesus. We shall see below that the differences in the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke are both historical and suited for communicating the particular theology of both Matthew and Luke. In Matthew, we have Jacob as the father of Joseph, the foster-father of Jesus. The ancestors of Jesus and therefore of Jacob are traced from king Solomon, son of David. The birth of Jesus is reported to have taken place in Bethlehem as if Joseph and Mary were regular residents there It is Joseph who was informed by the angel in dreams that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and his name should be called Jesus. In his genealogy, Luke mentions Heli as the father of Joseph and his ancestors are descendants of Nathan, another son of king David. The announcement of the birth of Jesus was made to Mary by angel Gabriel who had announced six months before the birth of John the Baptist to Zechariah, the father of John. Being a historian, Luke places the birth of Jesus in a historical context of the decree issued by Emperor Augustus Caesar for the registration of everyone in the Roman world. Since everyone had to register the name in his own town, Joseph being a descendant of David had to go to Bethlehem, the town of David, and Mary who was betrothed to him went with him.
                                            We consider the above discrepancies between Matthew and Luke as complementary to each other and not contradictory. Luke was written after Matthew and in his search for an ordered account of all the events recorded so far Luke could not have failed to notice the particular form of the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew. Yet he preferred to give an alternate form of the genealogy with two significant changes from Matthew's. What could be the reason for those changes? Although Luke did not want to contradict the genealogy in Matthew, written from a Jewish perspective, he wanted to complete the picture from a universal perspective as, in his view, Jesus was born for saving not only the Jews but the whole world.Luke himself was a living example of this theology as he was a convert to faith in Jesus, being born of Gentile parents. Besides, Luke was a companion of Paul in his missionary journeys who was the  champion of the salvation of the Gentiles through Jesus Christ. Thus it was fitting that Luke chose the two devices in the genealogy itself in order to proclaim his belief in the universal salvation of all. The first device was to start the genealogy from Jesus and end it with Adam who is characterized as the son of God under whom the whole human race is encompassed. The second device was to trace the family tree of Joseph, the foster-father of Jesus, from Nathan, son of David, although Matthew traced it from Solomon, the actual ruler of the Jews after David.Thus in Matthew the father of Joseph is given as Jacob, while it is Heli in Luke. We know from the Jerusalem Talmud (Haggigah, Book 77, 4) that Heli was the father-in-law of Joseph to whom Mary was betrothed.Therefore, Heli was the father of Mary whose genealogy is traced by Luke and by betrothal to her Joseph became the legal father of Jesus and a descendant of David. In those days a son-in-law was considered as son and thus Luke could take the bold step to say that Joseph was the son of Heli. By this change in genealogy Luke brought out his theme of universal salvation by deviating from the official family line of Solomon as well as by projecting Mary, representing all women, the descendant of David.    

Differences in the Gospels

                                                 Since the Gospels claim to report what happened in the public ministry of Jesus, his suffering and death on the cross, resurrection from the dead and ascension to his Father in Heaven, how come there are certain differences in the narratives of the 4 Gospels? The first difference is in the nature of the first 3 Gospels and that of John where the former seem to have similar views, whereas the latter has a new way of looking at the same things.The first 3 Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke are known as the synoptic Gospels because of the similarity of their views about Jesus Christ. However, there are certain differences even among them like the addition of Genealogy of Jesus in Matthew and Luke where again they do no not agree in every detail. These differences must be explained by the diverse perspectives adopted by the respective authors of the Gospels in order to effectively communicate the same message to the particular audiences they were faced with. While the synoptic Gospels were to account for the Jewish background of the communities to whom they were addressed, John's Gospel had to deal with the Greek world where at the time the philosophy known as Gnosticism was rampant. John starts with the concept of the 'Logos' as the Word of God and the whole Gospel follows a pattern of spiritual outlook.
                                                In other words, each Gospel had its own theology packaged into the historical events and sayings reported by each. Besides, each Evangelist had his own distinctive style of writing and use of language that could lead to perception of differences even when they were dealing with one and the same thing. Many of the differences in the  passion narratives of the synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John can be understood from this angle. Some differences are a result of  adaptation of the message to suit the background of the hearers who otherwise would have been totally at a loss to make sense of the good news. An example would be the genealogy in Matthew and Luke where the former starts with Abraham the Patriarch of the Jews, while the latter ends with Adam the first parent of humanity. While Mark starts his Gospel with the public ministry of Jesus, Matthew and Luke go back to his infancy and birth. John goes beyond to the pre-existence of the Word from eternity becoming flesh in the person of Jesus.How should we understand these variations about the same event and claim it to be historical in the sense that it really happened? The New Testament scholar Rudolf Bultmann found an easy way out of the impasse by arguing that the myths of the early Church created most of the Gospel accounts of Jesus' life. The answer to the problem of mythology should be clear when we treat the question of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead where it is more vehemently argued.  
                                               Both Matthew and Luke report about the birth and infancy of Jesus though in different surroundings and in language peculiar to each Evangelist's background. It should be kept in mind that although the Gospels are known under the names of the four Evangelists, they are products of the communities they were members of rather than their own personal views. Thus it is not necessary to see them as direct authors of the Gospels since they could be written by others who used their names for credibility as was the custom in olden days. However, as products of the believing communities, there is no problem with authenticity as far as the Gospels are concerned. Matthew being a Jewish disciple wrote from within the Jewish Christian community for the Jewish Christians of Palestine. The very beginning of Matthew's Gospel with the genealogy of Jesus Christ points towards his interest in the Jews and their concerns by starting with Abraham instead of Adam. Luke, although born from gentile parents in Antioch, was converted to the christian belief and wrote mainly for the Gentiles without neglecting the Jewish roots of this belief. Thus we have references to the Jerusalem Temple both at the beginning and end of the Gospel. However, the special character of Luke's Gospel consists in the fact that the message of salvation is open to all with added emphasis on the acceptability of the poor and the marginalized including sinners. Jesus' foray into the Galilee of the Gentiles at the beginning of his public ministry and his injunction to the disciples at the end to call all peoples of all nations to repentance for the forgiveness of sins indicate the character of the Gospel. Let us also note that the genealogy in Luke ends with Adam, the son of God. With this background of the two Gospels, we shall try to understand the differences between them a little more in the next posts.

Historical Credibility of the Gospels

                                                     There was a gap of more than 40 years between the life of Jesus narrated in the Gospels and its recording in the form of written texts and they were not accounts written by eye-witnesses on the spot. If this fact affects the historical credibility of the Gospels, no historical recordings could escape the same charge and often with much longer gap in time. Besides, recording something on the spot does not guarantee accuracy as we see from the divergent views expressed by journalists present on the spot and reporting the same events.  In the case of the Gospels, there were eye-witnesses among those who were responsible for shaping the texts known as the Gospels. The beginning of the Gospel according to Luke mentions the methodology used to research on events that happened in those days. Luke informs us how the previous writers had followed the traditions handed down to them by the original eye-witnesses and servants of the Gospel. Though Theophilus to whom the Gospel is addressed knows the details, Luke wants to make his knowledge about those events authentic for which he took extra care to examine everything in detail. (Luke, 1: 1-4). The Apostles and the disciples of Jesus were those eye-witnesses who preached what they heard directly from Jesus and formed communities with the new insights they received after the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and reception of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The first Christian communities thus formed turned out to be the bulwarks of truth, which they received assiduously and kept like a treasure for the future generations.
                                                   The believers who accepted the teaching and preaching of the Apostles and the other disciples formed into communities around the all-important breaking of the bread in memory of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It was a representation of what Jesus himself did at the Last Supper enabling the believers to take part in the fruits of the sacrifice of Calvary. Paul's Letters were the first New Testament writings, even before the Gospels, where he mentions how he received directly from the Lord himself information about the institution of the Eucharist in the Last Supper. The first Letter to the Thessalonians is the first New Testament writing having been written around the year 52 A.D. The Letters to the Corinthians were written around the year 57 A.D. where we have references to the Eucharist. The same tradition we have from the other Apostles written down in the Gospels between the years 70 and 100 A.D.Thus the two independent sources of the tradition about the Eucharist of Paul and the other Apostles confirm the veracity of the tradition involved. What is more, Paul was originally outside the circle of the 12 Apostles and was even hostile to the primitive Church persecuting it out of his zeal as a pharisee of the Jewish religion.
                                                  How can a community of believers guarantee the credibility of the events narrated in the Gospels? In that case, any story, myth, fable etc. narrated in communities could be adduced as reason for historical credibility. Here we have to remember that what the believing communities heard from the Apostles and disciples of Jesus were directly experienced by them going about in the company of Jesus from the time of his public life. The believers were so thoroughly convinced of the reality and truth of what they received that no incentive could tempt them to abandon or change them. An interesting experience of the believing community of Rome in the second century may easily prove our point. Marcion from Asia Minor, the present day Turkey, a wealthy man being a merchant and ship owner, was a great benefactor of the Christian community of Rome helping them in their financial needs.The community was very pleased with him till he demanded that the references to the Jews in the Gospel of Luke be amended. Without any hesitation, the believers in Rome returned his money to him and severed all connections with him This shows that the believing community instinctively knew what is to be accepted or rejected even when they were in dire straits in their worldly possessions. This kind of 'the sense of the Church' is the criterion to distinguish between the canonical Gospels and the apocryphal ones. From what we have seen above, it is clear that a gap of 40 or more years , especially in the case of the Gospels, was not a problem for their historical credibility, but an advantage given their particular history. 

Jesus of History and Christ of Faith

                                                 There is a more complicated reason for distrusting the biblical history, especially concerning Jesus Christ, than the one mentioned in our last post about personal reasons when confronted with him. It concerns about the question known as the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. This question arose only after the 15th century as a byproduct of rational investigations summarily known as the period of Enlightenment. Before this period nobody had any doubts about the authenticity and historicity of the events narrated in the New Testament. However, different types of scientific investigations into the historical data narrated concerning the life of Jesus purportedly tended to undermine their authenticity. The specific reason for the same was due to a complete separation of the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith.
It was true that the scholars undertook this separation for the sake of analysis, that was legitimate in itself, and then neglected to reunite them as if they were dealing with two persons. They wanted to separate history from theology even though the subject concerned,i.e., Jesus Christ, could not be so divided as there was only one person and not two. It took no less a person than Albert Schweitzer to put the Rationalists in their place by his observation that the little we could gather from the Rationalists was irrelevant to Theology. This was Schweitzer's considered view after a thorough study of the Rationalists in his book "The Quest for the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede" published in 1906. This forced the later historians of Jesus' life to bracket questions of theology as they saw that what was genuinely relevant to theology could not be fully based on merely a historical quest. In other words, when Jesus of history is amenable to historical investigations more readily than the Christ of faith, the latter is not completely out of bounds of history. Faith in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead that constituted him as the Christ of faith had to be initiated by God in the believers that was not completely devoid of any historical antecedents. Hence, for the purpose of analysis if Jesus of history and the Christ of faith are taken apart, one should not forget to join them together as is demanded by the integral picture of Jesus Christ.
                                                 However, there are certain weighty questions which need to be answered to aid the search for truth by honest seekers. A few are mentioned below:
1. The Gospels were written down between 70 and 100 A.D. and could a gap of more than 40 years from the events narrated affect the credibility of the historicity of those written down texts?
2. What about certain discrepancies in the 4 Gospels although they seem to report the same events?
3. What is more, even in the synoptic Gospels that are supposed to be governed by the same perspectives, there are differences, which need explanation.
4. John's Gospel starts with the Word of God-Logos-incarnating in human flesh. How is it different from the mythological interpretations of such events in other religions?
5. Did the miracles recorded in the Gospels really take place? If so, why are they not happening now?
6. After the resurrection of Jesus and the reception of the Holy Spirit by the disciples at Pentecost, they were totally changed persons. How could what they reported about the life of Jesus be authentically historical as they were bound to reinterpret the events in light of their new experiences?
7. Why did the Church pick and choose only the 4 Gospels while there were many more that were rejected?
 8. How can anyone claim universal relevance for the message of the Bible that was restricted to a small corner of the world known as Palestine?
 9.How can we know the mind of Christ expressed 2000 years ago since what we have got now is the mind of the Church representing Jesus Christ even in interpreting the Bible?
 10. Is it claimed that the transformation of Jesus into Christ is historical and is there any method of verification for such claims?
                                           We shall consider these questions in the next posts whereby the historicity of the events narrated in the Gospels and their meaning would become clear.
    

What is Christology?

                                                           
                                Christology is the science, knowledge, study about Christ, specifically Jesus Christ both as to who it is as a person as well as to what he did for us and especially for our liberation as genuine human beings. We know about Jesus Christ from the Bible and more specifically from the New Testament and especially from the four Gospels. How should we understand a message (the Bible purports to give messages from God as it contains His Word) originally communicated more than 2000 years ago and that too in cultural milieus far removed from ours? We are living in a scientific age when the scientists are building plans and methods how to reach the planet Mars and possibly colonize it for human habitation. Already in 1969, the scientific man succeeded in landing the first man on the moon followed by others. The mental make-up of such a generation would find it difficult to appropriate any message from centuries ago that were steeped in mythologies and superstitions in their thinking and ways of living. Attempts have been made by many Philosophers and Theologians to get over this problem so that the message intended by the authors of the Bible may authentically be communicated to us living in a world of scientific temper.
                             Before getting into the specifics of the problems of generation and cultural gaps, we would like to point out a general tendency even among reputed historians in accepting the historicity of the Bible and especially about the life of Jesus Christ. They seem to be too cautious about the genuineness of the Bible narratives and the pronouncements of Jesus Christ in the Gospels. They have no qualms in accepting the claims made by Julius Caesar in his book 'The Gallic War' written before 50 years of the birth of Jesus Christ! The earliest of the 10 copies or so was made after 900 years of the writing of the original text that is lost. The Gospels were written after a gap of only 40 years from the events narrated and that too directly coming from people who were constant companions of Jesus when the events took place. What must be the reason why some historians look at them with skeptical eyes in spite of the much better credentials enjoyed by the Gospels on a historical level? The main reason is that the message contained in the Bible and especially by the claims of Jesus Christ  poses a personal challenge to those who accept them. This is not the case with the majority of the historical writings as they do not affect our personal life one way or the other. They can be safely accepted or rejected without any consequences. Not so in the case, especially of Jesus Christ, confronting whom is calling for a choice that may completely upset our world-views and life itself! The seemingly easier option is to deny the historicity and veracity of those events and narratives that may upset our entire life and relation to the world. It means that the writings that affect our personal life cannot be considered just as dead history, but are always alive and challenging and cannot be equiparated with history that has no demonstrable consequences for our lives. Keeping them sequestered from other historical  records is a necessity because of their special nature and to avoid contamination from so-called 'pure history', which itself is a figment of our imagination. All histories, just like all 'facts' are laden with personal interpretations and so there is no 'pure' history as there is no 'pure' facts. This is why we need the science of 'Hermeneutics' (interpretation) for historical facts. This is applicable to all historical records including the Bible and the outcome of this exercise alone should be considered as meaningful and true.