The Gospels: What May have Actually Happened

I have been puzzling over for a while what may have actually happened in the New Testament. If I choose to believe that it really happened exactly as recorded, then I am confused. If I choose to believe that it was totally made up, then I am confused. I will explain further in the rest of this post. I realize it's impossible to know with certainty what happened in a historical event based only off testimony, but I believe I have an explanation that fits the evidence, that is at least, not entirely impossible.


On the Confusion in the Church

If the Church were really being led by God, why is there so much confusion in the church? I would think that if there were a single authority guiding it, then consensus would increase with time. But like all other religions, factions and confusions increase with time in Christianity, rather than decrease.

This compares poorly to science, for instance. There are arguments in science, but with time, knowledge and consensus increase. This is because science is based on sensory observation and on math, and these are the same for everyone. If the Holy Spirit were guiding the church, and it were the same for everyone, why would not the churches increase in knowledge and consensus, like in science?

Even if I did decide that I believed every word written in the New Testament, I would not know what to do next. What doctrine of salvation would I choose? What would be my relationship to the sacraments? What church organization would I attend? How would I deal with the fact that I'm commanded to pray, but I've never received a tangible answer to prayer from an external entity?


On the Unlikelihood of the Gospels Being Fabricated

On the other hand, the gospels being entirely fabricated makes no sense either. The disciples knew that they were going to be persecuted, and apparently, most of them were tortured to death.

It could be argued that other religions were fabricated to serve their creators. For instance, Joseph Smith and Muhammad both became rich polygamists. This argument does not work with Christianity. The disciples of Jesus had no self-serving motives.


There is also a lot of textual evidence that at least something vaguely resembling what is described in the New Testament actually happened. Roman and Jewish sources, for instance, never argued that Jesus never existed, nor that he had never been crucified.

I've recently found a YouTube channel called "Testify" which talks about unplanned coincidences in the Bible. There are hundreds of examples you can find by surfing the videos, but I'll give just a couple here.

In the story about Jesus multiplying the loaves and fishes, one of the four books mentioned that the event took place in Bethsaida, and that Jesus asked Phillip where they would get food to feed the people. A different book mentioned that Jesus recruited Phillip from Bethsaida. So, in one book, Jesus asked Phillip where they could get food in Bethsaida, but the reason why wasn't explained. A different book didn't mention that event, but did mention that Phillip was recruited from Bethsaida. These fit together nicely, but a casual reader would never notice the connection. Another coincidence from the same story is that one book mentioned that the people sat down on the green grass, and another mentioned that the event took place around passover. Apparently, it just so happens that the grass is brown in Jerusalem for most of the year, and is only green around passover. This is good evidence (especially considering that there are hundreds of coincidences like this) that the different people who wrote the books were recalling different details from actual memories of the event.


Two Choices:

Because I disbelieve that every single one of the disciples would have chosen persecution for a lie, I am convinced of their sincerity. Therefore I can think of only 2 choices:

1. God really did come to Earth to speak to us, but he was content to let us be confused about what he said for the next 2000 years.
2. There was some extraordinary confusion concerning a man coming back from the dead about 2000 years ago.

Some of the explanations I have come up with for how they could have believed in a miracle that didn't really take place are a bit of stretch. Under normal circumstances, you would not believe that the extraordinary coincidence is the most-likely explanation. However, we KNOW that the events that took place at the time were extraordinary. A world religion was founded, and that does not happen every day. Whether the extraordinary event came from God, or from human confusion, we know that the event was extraordinary.


Before I get into the discussion of events 2000 years ago, I'll talk about some research I did on eyewitness testimony and on Near Death Experiences (NDE).


On the Reliability of Eye-Witness Testimony:
I don't have any of my sources written down, so you'll need to do your own research to verify.

While puzzling over this, I decided to look at the reliability of eye-witness testimony in court cases as a proxy for the reliability of testimony generally.

I remember one study in particular where participants were asked to watch a video of a criminal activity taking place, and then asked to recall details from the video. When asked individually, the accuracy rate for the details was 80%. However, when the participants were asked to discuss the video amongst themselves and then report their findings, the accuracy dropped to 40%.

It seems to be a strange fact of life that matters of social consensus are less likely to be true than some random individual's opinion.

I remember another study of 10 000 police reports of events that were filmed. Some small percent of police reports (it might have been 5%, but I can't exactly recall this stat) contained testimony from the police that contradicted the video evidence. I'd assume that the police often knew that they were being filmed, so I'd not believe that most of these discrepancies came from deliberate lying.

I concluded that if you're asking a random Joe about an event that took place, and he's recalling true memories, then about 80% of the details will be correct. If you're talking to a professional (assuming he's being truthful), then you can't expect better than 95% accuracy. If you're talking about a matter of social consensus that people have widely discussed, then there's more than a 50% chance that it's wrong.

Now, that doesn't mean that over 50% of history that is agreed upon is wrong. It means that history that is BASED upon social consensus is probably wrong (the kind that would get you ostracized if you even question it). If you have individual testimonies of a thousand soldiers who fought in a war, then you can have a very high degree of confidence that there was a war, especially if most of these soldiers didn't know each other. About 80% of the details in most of the testimonies will probably be true (like who did what at a particular time on a particular day). That means about 20% of the details will be false. But if a thousand people all agreed that there was a battle, and if there's only a 20% chance that each individual person got it wrong, then there's a 0.2^1000 chance that the battle didn't actually take place. But it could easily happen if 3 men witnessed some specific event and discussed it beforehand, that their memory was corrupted by the discussion and that the event didn't really happen that way at all.


Near Death Experiences (NDE)

I once looked on YouTube at 13 testimonies of near death experiences and recorded details, like whether there was a hell or not. I concluded that if you believe in an afterlife, but have no other preconceptions about it, then up to 60% of the testimonies could have been true. If you believe in specifically Christian doctrine, then only about 25% could have been true.

I came to this conclusion by finding contradictions between testimonies. For instance, if one testimony said that there was no hell, but that people just are reunited with God when they die, and another said that there definitely was a hell and he was going to go there if he didn't straighten out, then that is an irreconcilable contradiction.

Things that excluded a Christian interpretation of the NDE would be like if somebody saw Mohammed, or if they saw God the Father as an old man (nearly all theology states that God the Father doesn't have a body).

My interpretation (I'm not a doctor, BTW), is that when the brain shuts down, strange things happen. Maybe when information from the eyes quits coming to the visual cortex, the visual cortex starts to get information from places that it normally doesn't, like the unconscious. In this case, a NDE would be a visual interpretation of meaningful ideas already within one's self.

I personally like Jung's psychology. He interprets dreams as symbolical representation of emotionally significant events. So, I like to go to a dream dictionary, like "dreammoods.com", and figure out if the elements in my dream can reasonably represent things that I'm struggling with in my waking life. I'm usually able to make some kind of explanation of a dream that makes sense.

I would interpret NDE then as something like an extreme version of a dream. They are dreams taking place when the brain is trying to be awake, but systems start failing.

There were 2 NDE in which it was claimed that they saw something in the real world while unconscious, and this detail was later verified. I have no way of explaining these cases. I would guess that since they are such a small proportion of the cases, they must have got it right by coincidence, or seen it while they were awake. The only other interpretation I can think of is that there is an afterlife which people have actually seen, but that a large portion of reports are still made-up BS.


The Disciples were Preselected for Impressionability

As I recall, Jesus recruited his disciples by wandering around the countryside and talking to them briefly before they decided to follow him. Can you imagine that you're at work doing your business, and some stranger comes and talks to you, and the very same day, you decide to quit your job and leave your apartment and follow him? This does not seem like normal behavior to me. Even if somebody made the most convincing argument in the world to me, I'd personally be inclined to at least sleep on it before leaving everything else behind.


Possible Explanation of Some Miracles

I imagine that the testimonies given in the New Testament were based on true events, but that the miraculous parts were exaggerations created by confusion, excitability, and social consensus. This would explain why the unplanned coincidences only pertained to the trivial details (like whether the people sat on green grass or not), but not to the miracles themselves. I believe that when the "miracle" occurred, the disciples discussed it and convinced themselves that it was a miracle. But their consensus was highly exaggerated. When it came to the trivial details, they recalled true uncorrupted memories, because they did not discuss these details amongst themselves.

Also, all these guesses rely on almost deliberate gullibility, or extreme coincidence. This would not normally be expected, but considering that the disciples were preselected for impressionability, and that we know that something unusual happened, these are my best guesses.

Multiplying the Loaves and Fishes:
Maybe more loaves and fishes were brought to the people from some outside help (maybe just friendly villagers who didn't even discuss it with the disciples). Maybe the disciples saw their initial bread and loaves being distributed, and then saw that more and more baskets were being passed around, but they never saw the original source of these new baskets, and concluded that there was a miracle. In a crowd of several thousand, where the initial offering was made in the middle, and new baskets were being brought to the outside of the group, this does not seem totally impossible.

Jesus Walking on Water:
The testimony was that it was stormy, so maybe there were rolling waves on the lake. Maybe Jesus was standing upright in another small boat looking for them, and the waves hid the boat from view. Maybe the wind blew Jesus' boat towards them, or somehow he had an oar or something to push his boat. All of this together meant that from a distance, it looked like he was walking on water. Maybe by coincidence, the storm really did calm down shortly after Jesus told it to (maybe Jesus wasn't even trying to perform a miracle, but just personifying the storm and talking to it out of frustration).

I realize this is a bit of a stretch. It depends on the waves being big enough to hide the boat from view, but not so violent as to topple Jesus over when he stood up in it. It also depends on Jesus somehow gaining ground on them while standing up, while they were both in boats being blown by the wind and waves (maybe the orientation and shape of the boats made one boat get pushed more than the other?). It also depends on the disciples being so excitable that they were convinced that a miracle had taken place, and so did not notice the boat Jesus was on when he got closer. The whole idea of this post really depends on the disciples being very excitable and blowing things out of proportion, and then sticking to their misperceptions.

Raising Lazarus:
Maybe Lazarus hadn't actually died, but was just very sick and mistaken for dead. Even in the modern day, doctors (very rarely) falsely declare people to be dead. Maybe it was just by coincidence that Lazarus happened to wake up at about the same time Jesus came. Even if Jesus had spoken to Lazarus, and then Lazarus hadn't actually gotten up until the next day, it would probably have made a big enough impression on the people that they were convinced that a miracle had taken place.

Jesus Rising from the Dead:
I've heard that medical professionals who look into the matter say that given the description of the crucifixion, Jesus certainly died on the cross. I also heard that even if he wasn't crucified, he might have died of blood loss from being flogged. I also heard that even if he had survived, his hands and feet would have been swollen, and he would have looked beaten up, and would not have been able to convince his friends that he had come back from the dead. Well, swoon theory still seems like the most likely naturalistic explanation for the faith of the disciples to me. So, what if maybe the testimony of his crucifixion wasn't entirely accurate?

Apparently there was a Jewish historian Josephus who saw 3 of his friends being crucified. He was friends of the Roman official in charge, so he asked for his friends to be taken down. 2 of his friends died anyway, but one of them lived. So there is a precedent that it's possible to survive crucifixion if it's ended early.

Suppose Jesus was given only a light flogging (it appears from the New Testament that Pilate wasn't really thrilled about crucifying him anyway, so this doesn't seem like a big stretch to me). Then suppose he was only on the cross for about 3 hours when he was given that liquid to drink from the sponge. Suppose maybe his supporters put whatever painkiller/narcotics were available at the time in order to try to ease his passing, and as a result, Jesus passed out. Then the Roman guard stabbed him, but missed the heart. I've heard that maybe he stabbed the pericardium (a sac around the heart), which would explain the mixture of blood and water. In the New Testament, it explains that Pilate was surprised that Jesus had died so quickly. Apparently it usually takes days to die of crucifixion, but Jesus was only on the cross for a few hours, so it's not impossible that he survived, if the Roman guard missed the heart. Then Joseph of Arimathea takes Jesus, and realizes that he isn't actually dead, and then begins a conspiracy to convince the Romans that he is dead. I don't know what happens in the tomb after that, but if Jesus is alive and with a disciple after being crucified, that disciple has reason to try to deceive. Apparently Josephus actually owned the tomb, so it would have been easier for him than anybody else to control events. A few days later, Jesus is partially recovered and goes to his disciples to say, "It's alright, I'm not dead. But I really gotta go," and then he leaves the country and is never seen again (he doesn't want to get crucified twice). The disciples, as usual, are overly excitable and misinterpret, and the religion is started.

I'm not going to try to explain every miracle. I think you get the point.


Note that part of this argument depends on the disciple's memories being corrupted by discussing the event after the fact. There was one study that found that accuracy for detail recall in individuals was 80%, but for groups, it was only 40%. There is actually at least one passage where it says explicitly that the disciples discussed the miracle after the fact: "And they said to one another, “Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked with us on the way and while He opened to us the Scriptures?” " Luke 24:32. Maybe Jesus had swollen hands and feet at the time and was really exhausted (that could explain why they didn't recognize him), but their discussion after the fact convinced themselves that he had resurrected.


What Jesus' Teachings May Have Actually Been

It is reported repeatedly in the New Testament that the disciples were confused about Jesus' teachings (like when they told the children to go away, or when they rebuked the woman for buying expensive perfume). They were also confused AFTER the crucifixion, since they believed that Jesus would return in their lifetimes, and evidently, he didn't. This doesn't give great confidence that Jesus' teachings were accurately relayed to us by the disciples.

I heard something Alan Watts said about Jesus. He said that he thought Jesus wasn't uniquely claiming to be the Son of God, but that anyone who has had spiritual experiences has a feeling of oneness with the universe. He believed that Jesus meant that anybody could be like him if they tried.

I have found personally that if I interpret Jesus' teachings in a purely psychological sense, they usually make sense. I've written whole other posts on this, so I'll give just a couple examples here.

Once I puzzled over Jesus talking about taking the plank out of one's own eye before rebuking one's brother for the speck in his eye. I was confused, because it seemed to me that Jesus was saying that harsh judgement is ALWAYS hypocritical, and I didn't see how that could be the case. After a great deal of puzzling, however, I found that whenever I harshly judged another person, it was usually to cover for my own insecurity. Like if I just see an obese person walking by, or a smoker, and I'm not insecure about my own weight, my own self-control, or my own habits, then it really doesn't matter to me (except maybe worrying about their health). But if I harshly judge those people, it probably means that I am trying to direct my attention away from similar faults in myself. I don't think this command not to judge probably applies when one actually has to make a decision (like should I marry her, should I work for him), because then we actually have a reason to judge. But it does seem true to me that pointless judgment comes almost exclusively from insecurity.

Take his teaching about how you clear one demon out of your house, and then a dozen more come to live there. I do not believe it's possible to shut off one's brain, or to not desire comfort. If one has a bad habit as a comfort, and you get rid of it without replacing it with something else, the brain seeks desperately to replace it with something, which could very well be another bad habit. So the teaching seems to be that if you want to get rid of a bad habit, you have to replace it with a good habit, or else it just won't work. It is maybe similar to how you can't not think of a pink elephant, but you CAN think on purpose of something else.

Jesus said that if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will be able to move mountains. If I interpret the mountain as some obstacle within myself that stops me from being the way I'd like to be, then it seems to be true. I've concluded that whereas sensory experience comes from the outside, values are asserted arbitrarily from within. So it is often the case that simply deciding that I can and will be different is enough to make it so. In a similar vein, being able to drink poison and handle snakes without being harmed could mean that if you have the right attitude, you can deal deal with malicious lies and malicious people without being inwardly harmed.

He also commanded us to pray constantly. This seemed very mysterious to me, until I realized that it often seems to be the case the Christians do not distinguish between their own conscience and the voice of God. If prayer just means conversing with one's own conscience, then I have been doing that for a long time. Jesus also teaches that if you ask for something, it will be given to you. If this is interpreted psychologically (Jordan Peterson has said the same thing), then it means if you ask how you can be a better version of yourself, an answer IMMEDIATELY comes to mind.

So, in the sense that I believe in Jesus' teachings, since I have experienced them myself (given these interpretations of his teachings), I am a follower of Jesus, even though I doubt that he was uniquely the son of God.

Going back to Jesus being the Son of God: I have come to the conclusion myself that a person's values are the core of his being. The thing about values though, is that you can choose to change them. So, if Jesus was likewise a very value-oriented person (as I believe he is, based on my interpretations of his teachings, as explained above), then when he claimed to be "one with the father", it could have just meant that he worked very, very hard, and succeeded, in making his values aligned with the God that the people of Israel believed in. In a certain sense, the virtues are immortal, since they can be practiced by anyone. If I have worked hard to embody certain virtues, then in a certain sense, I can say that I am immortal. This is not because my own body is immortal, but because I am participating in the immortality that existed before I was born. If I am confident enough in being an avatar of the virtues/values that I am practicing, then I could speak on behalf of them as if I were them.


Conclusion

I believe Jesus taught good sense psychology with symbolic language within a Jewish context. I can verify many of his teachings (when interpreted in a psychological context) from my own experience. It's hard to know the details of all his teachings, since they probably weren't accurately related to us, but he may not have meant that he was uniquely the son of God.

His disciples were impressionable and excitable. They misinterpreted much of what Jesus said, and were a part of some extraordinary coincidences, and so they were willing to die for their belief in Jesus. The unquestionable faith they had in their teacher is what convinced others to also believe in Jesus, and so the religion was born.

The extraordinary coincidences in the life of Jesus would not have been sufficient to start a religion if he were not also teaching things that made at least some sense. There is a great deal of wisdom in his teachings, even if it's difficult for people outside of that cultural context to explicitly understand what they meant.

CS Lewis said that the options one had for one's conception of Jesus were "Liar, Lunatic, or Lord". I believe there is a 4th option, which I have described here. It is "Misunderstood."