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We don’t know exactly when the Gospels were written, but probably no earlier than the mid-first century. Most scholars would date them between ad 70 and 90. While Bible scholars consider those dates to be “late,” historians consider the Gospels to be early and extremely credible documents because they were written within the lifetime of people who witnessed the events. Historians call such writings “first-generation” sources.
Historians accept the Gospels as generally credible for four reasons: First, they are first-generation books, written while eyewitnesses were still alive. Secondly, multiple witnesses exist: four Gospels, not just one. Third, what the Gospels say is supported by other parts of the New Testament, all by authors who wrote independently of one another. Finally, the Gospels are corroborated by other evidence, including ancient writings—Jewish, Greek, and Roman—and archeological discoveries.
In our era of rampant skepticism, people unrealistically expect everything important to be documented. But people of the past did not rely on writing as we do today. Books were rare and expensive. The first Christians received only oral teachings, not written documents. Even some Bible scholars claim that the Gospels expanded on the events to make it appear that prophecies had been fulfilled.
What was the mind of the early Church? Christianity was Eastern and apostolic, not Western and rationalistic. It was planted and established among people whose thought processes and assumptions were completely different from those of the average Christian in the world today.
The Church was a Jewish movement rooted in Jerusalem and called the Way (Acts 9:2). In other parts of the Roman Empire, thousands more Jews also accepted the preaching of the apostles because the gospel message was spread initially in the synagogues.
To this day we firmly embrace our rich Jewish heritage and cannot imagine our services without the writings of the prophets, the psalms, and Hebrew words such as amen and alleluia. We use countless psalms in our worship services, and we treasure the Old Testament books as Scripture. We preserve the Jewish roots of our faith in countless practices that Orthodox Christianity still observes in unbroken continuation from the early Church.
Sometimes the thousands of rules are called ceremonial laws, because they do not involve spiritual purity or physical cleanliness but ritual purity and cleanliness. People might be physically clean, highly moral, or deeply spiritual, but certain actions—even if committed accidentally—rendered them ritually unclean.
But Jesus never defended his statements by citing earlier rabbinic authorities. Instead, he claimed authority in his own right. Some people regarded him as a prophet, a spokesman for God. Prophets were not expected to have a rabbinic education, since their role was not to teach but to be a mouthpiece for God.
The voluntary death of Christ reversed what Adam caused. Christ did not have to die; he chose to die, not to pay a price but to destroy death by death.
Since no circumstance was worse than crucifixion, the Jewish leaders were determined that Jesus should meet with that particular death, since it alone provided irrefutable proof that he was a blasphemer, the worst of sinners, and utterly rejected by God.
Hyssop was associated with Passover and with sacrifice. During the Exodus, the Hebrews used hyssop to sprinkle the blood of a lamb on their doorposts to protect them from the angel of death (Ex.12:22). Hyssop was used in many temple ceremonies and was identified with forgiveness—for example, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean” (Ps. 50/51:7). Because of its association with Passover and temple rituals that removed impurity and imparted forgiveness of sin, John specifically noted the use of hyssop here.
Some scholars have argued that the connection between the Akedah and the Passover was created by Jews in response to Christian claims about the sacrifice of Jesus. Jews believed that the sacrifice of Isaac (c. 1800 bc) prefigured the Passover sacrifice of lambs that would occur hundreds of years later with Moses and the Exodus (c. 1250 bc).
Saint Paul remarked, “Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7). The impaling of the Passover lamb on two crossed wooden spits would prompt anyone to think of the cross. The followers of Jesus easily identified him as the Passover Lamb, the perfect sacrifice, the Only and Beloved Son offered by his Father, in completion and fulfillment of what had merely been hinted at by Abraham’s binding of his beloved and only begotten son, Isaac, who also willingly consented.
“Do this in remembrance of me.” From then on, at Passover, the disciples would no longer remember Moses and the Exodus but Jesus, his sacrifice on the cross, and his Resurrection. Every time they observed the sacred rite instituted that night, they would mystically participate in the liberation from sin and death accomplished through the cross.9
Even though he sent two disciples to prepare the Passover meal, the Last Supper was not actually a Passover meal. No lamb meat was roasted and consumed at the Last Supper, since the lambs would not be sacrificed until the following day. But the True and Spotless Lamb, “who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), presided over that supper and gave himself to his disciples at that first Holy Communion.
Other religions reject the cross as an intolerable humiliation of God, but Christians revel in it as our hope, our pride, our boast, our comfort, our inspiration.
limitless extent of God’s love for humanity. Without faith, the story of Jesus Christ is the story of just another victim of Roman occupation. However, with faith, all the discordant and obscure elements of the
Old Testament are transformed into a magnificent masterpiece of indescribable beauty, revealing the Holy Wisdom of God beyond human comprehension.
