Gospel Fictions [Paperback]

This book, valuable to the informal reader as well as the researcher, highlights the (seemingly intentionally) embellished nature of the New Testament, and notes the unconvincing arguments of Gospel defenders. With clear and convincing reasoning he exposes various discrepancies in the gospels, indicating how history was exaggerated to satisfy prophecies. Writing as literary critic the author does not pick an argument with the Christian faith and acknowledges the value of the Gospels as works of art, but strips the religious baggage from the New Testament books. Chapters address the fictional nature of theology, nativity legends, miracles, passion narratives and resurrection accounts. The book's non-emotional style shouldn't offend the believer who is brave enough to question dogma, yet the well-researched and uncompromising text should arm the skeptic with large-bore ammunition in arguing with Bible-defenders,

Probably not, even if you knew he was "said to have worked miracles of goodness, casting out demons, healing the sick, raising the dead" and that he was thought to be a son of God. "Accused of sedition against Rome, he was arrested. After his death, his disciples claimed he had risen from the dead, appeared to them alive, and then ascended to heaven." Randel Helms begins this tremendous book with a startling demonstration of how these familiar biographical details belong not just to you-know-who. Even non-Christians tend to concede that there is a remarkable and unique historical figure at the centre of Christianity, Jesus of Nazareth, and few wonder why the teacher and wonder-worker Apollonius of Tyana did not inspire a world religion. This little-known parallel between Apollonius and Jesus is the aperitif before the tasting menu of typologies that follow.

The simplest view of the New Testament is that it is the oral tradition written down. Scholars argue over the details of the selection process and the scribal copying leading to our earliest surviving manuscripts. Believers may take an interest in such matters, but in the end can always beg the question by asserting that, because God was in charge, the end result is the Gospel truth. Helms reminds us of a more sophisticated view and the significance of that familiar phrase - "according to the Scripture" - which means that "typology, not history, is at work here." The early Christians did not "conduct the kind of historical research that might be done by a modern to find information about Jesus; they had a divinely certified source already in their possession - the Jewish Bible". In an important sense, they created the Old Testament as "a book about Jesus" and Helms shows that time and time again, when they wanted to know what Jesus must have said or done, they went back to Kings or to the Psalms or to Micah.

Consider, for example, the story of Jesus' agony in the garden of Gethsemane, "one of the most moving fictional creations in the New Testament." By now (if not before), many Christians will have tossed the book aside in disgust at the use of the "f" word. But even they must grant that this "account is obviously fictional, since there could have been no witnesses to Jesus' agony in the garden after he left his followers; they were all... asleep." Helms argues that "Jesus' emotional agony was part of the typological fiction" and traces the story back to "Elijah's fleeing from Ahab and Jezebel". Luke's version reveals "in its vocabulary a dependence on Septuagint III Kings and thus the origins of the story".

As for one of the most important events described in the canonical Gospels, not only do we not know when Jesus died - was it "the afternoon before Passover or the afternoon after"? - we cannot know what his dying words were. It is "not that we have too little information, but that we have too much." Helms cites three candidates from the four evangelists: "each narrative implicitly argues that the others are fictional." Luke, for example, "knew perfectly well what Mark had written as the dying words of Jesus" but "he created new ones more suitable to his understanding of what the death of Jesus meant".

At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus is said to have been baptized by John, but again the accounts vary in interesting ways. Mark simply presents Jesus as no different to any other repentant sinner seeking baptism. Matthew and Luke find this unsatisfactory and "set about rewriting and correcting" the first Gospel. By the time their Gospels were being composed, Mark's theology was already old-fashioned and even smacked of the adoptionist heresy. Developing theology drove the creative process. Matthew invents a dramatic scene not present in Mark: when Jesus "came to John to be baptized by him, John tried to dissuade him." Matthew also reads Mark "with a close critical eye" and drops the verse from Malachi that Mark wrongly attributes to Isaiah. Such editing was permitted since Mark "was not yet accepted as canonical Scripture and thus could be changed at need."

This excellent work deserves to be read by believers and non-believers alike. Common responses to its title - "Well, obviously!" and "Typical militant atheism!" - will unfortunately keep its appeal for either group limited. This is not about how we can all enjoy a well-turned phrase or an instructive parable even if we reject the supernatural claims of the Bible, and it's not dismissing the Bible as a pack of lies. By fiction Helms means "a narrative whose purpose is less to describe the past than to affect the present" and so, since literature can create meaning all the way from the frivolous to the profound, there is meaning in the Bible open to all. Where believers suffer for their faith is in mistakenly thinking that if their beliefs are not historically true then they can have no meaning.

Christians today - given the multiplicity of their sects - are well aware of the perils of interpretation and probably wish they could return to a pristine age before heterodoxy took hold. But there never was such an age, and the remarkable fact is that interpretation is at the core of their religion, not just one evangelist interpreting another but also interpreting scripture itself to write fiction. Call it revelation if you like, this is still the literary instinct at work. The difference between the postmortem careers of Jesus and Apollonius lies in the literary artists who wrote down the stories. Left as words in the air the stories about Jesus would have long since vanished from this earth. The crime of faith has always been to interpret such fiction as fact.

This 1988 publication - from the pioneering stable of Prometheus Books - provides a very good 'primer' for readers who are serious about understanding the Bible and its true origins.

Helms is never savage or disdainful toward the faithful and this book isn't an attack on religion per sè. His task is to seek out and explain the deepest origins of the four Gospels.

In doing so, of course, he ably demonstrates that there is nothing 'divinely inspired' about them or the 'truths' that they supposedly contain.

His analysis is entirely convincing. Indeed, the great Bart Ehrman's books over a decade after this one cover much the same ground and reach the same, inevitable conclusions.

The Bible is just 'another' book. It contains fables, history, politics, law and, above all, myriad contradictions and mistakes. Add to this the human emotions, hopes and fears and it becomes patently clear that it was written by men for men.

Read Helms and you'll begin to see and understand.

Great book!

Barry