The central message of Christianity is that a man called Jesus claimed to be God incarnate, physically died for the sins of mankind and bodily rose from the dead. One of the factors of whether or not we should accept these assertions depends on the historical reliability of the New Testament. The aim of this post is to explore the the reliability and accuracy of the Gospels using one of the historical methods-- the principle of embarrassment.
What is the "Principle of Embarrassment"?
According to law professor Annette Gordon-Reed, this principle states that "Declarations against interest are regarded as having a high degree of credibility
because of the presumption that people do not make up lies in order to hurt themselves;
they lie to help themselves."
In other words, this principle surfaces itself when an author makes negative remarks against the cause he is supporting; this adds weight to the author's testimony as the author would not write against his intentions, unless the "negative" alleged events really did occur.
1) Women as the first witnesses of the resurrection
In all four of the gospels, women were reported to be the first witnesses of Jesus's resurrection. To the modern reader, nothing seems to be wrong or embarrassing about this. But in the ancient world, an woman's testimony is worth less than a man. If one wanted to advance the story of a risen Christ, one would certainly not want to include women as the chief witnesses to the resurrection (Habermas, 2003). The only plausible reason to include women is that it really happened; that the first eyewitnesses to the Jesus's rising were female.
2) The disciples' portrayal in the Gospels
The disciples were portrayed as cowardly. For instance, Peter denied Jesus three times under pressure (Mark 16:66-72) and the Jesus's followers fled when he was arrested (Mark 16:50). Even Jesus's own brother, James was described as unbelieveing (Mark 3:20-25; John 7:5). Why would the authors placed the people close to Jesus in such a negative light, to the extent that some of them doubted his divinity (eg: John 20: 24-29; Mark 16:14)?
This seems to suggest the events really did happen, and the authors were concerned about reporting as factually as possible.
The counter-argument
I suppose opponents (people who believed that the Gospels are fiction) might argue that the Gospel writers might have included such negative things make the Gospels more convincing to unbelievers. However, this would not have worked in the Roman Empire, especially to pull the people away from their strong array of gods.
Conclusion
Based on the principle of embarrassment, the Gospels show a strong likelihood to be first-hand, factual accounts on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. (I'll explore other historical methods and arguments in another post.) So why not come and see what makes Jesus so compelling?
References
Gordon-Reed, A. (1997).
Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings:
An American Controversy
Habermas, G.R. (2003).
The Risen Jesus and Future Hope.
For further reading
Bethinking
