IS IT POSSIBLE THAT THE APOSTLES HAD FABRICATED THEIR GOSPEL ACCOUNTS?

Well, why would they have fabricated their accounts? To make them more marketable? If anything, they had made their Gospel accounts highly unmarketable. How?

• Turning Jesus into a God. The idea that a man could also be God was highly unacceptable.

• Making an utterly disgraced crucified man into God was doubly unacceptable.

• Making Gentiles co-heirs with Jews was absolutely anathema and was guaranteed to alienate the Jews.

• The consistent denigrating of Israel and her leadership was highly offensive and led to persecution.

• The teachings never appealed to Jewish pride as the teachings of the rabbis would do.

• The Gospels inevitably attacked the influential and elevated those who were scorned.

• Their teachings of Jesus were both difficult to understand and impossible to perform. They were inevitably humbling and wouldn’t produce a gratifying success experience.

These teachings and accounts of the life of Jesus were utterly unmarketable. Why then did the Apostles record them? Evidently, they were convinced that they were accurate and notarized them in their blood of martyrdom.

Besides, if the Apostles had been trying to market a new religion with themselves as its Patriarchs, they would have portrayed themselves positively. Instead, we are left with the impression that they were clueless. For one thing, the Jesus of the Gospels never complemented them. He only praised the faith of two people, both Gentiles. He never told His Apostles, “You are growing spiritually” or “Good job” or “I chose the very best when I chose you.” Instead, it was one correction followed by the next. He even prophesied that they all would abandon Him during His crucifixion, and they did.

In the Gospels, they even described themselves as ignorant racists who consistently failed to believe Jesus and to understand His teachings. These are certainly not the descriptions of salesmen who want to promote their product. Instead, they seem to be the writings of people who had become convinced that they were writing about a truth far greater than their dignity and welfare.

They give every indication that they were people who had met the risen Christ. Subsequently, we see that they were changed men who now understood the Gospel and had been changed by it. They had become so changed that it no longer mattered to them if they bared their failings before the world. They had become convinced of the Gospel of their Savior that they never recanted of what they had written, even at the point of martyrdom.

The evidence for this is so strong that even skeptical scholars acknowledged:

·       “Even the atheist Ludemann conceded: ‘It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’ death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ.’” (Lee Strobel)

·       Paula Fredriksen, Jewish NT scholar, confessed: “The Disciples’ conviction that they had seen the risen Christ…is historical bedrock, facts known past doubting.”

The Gospels and the lives of the Apostles give us no indication whatsoever that the Apostles had been motivated to distort or fabricate what they had seen and heard.