As the Christmas season slowly arrives, many Canadians may struggle with their faith. Despite Advent being underway, I keep bumping into numerous Canucks who feel distant from Jesus and God. A large part is because so many organizations, associations, and corporations in Canada work hard every year to commercialize and secularize Christmas. They change the language from “Christmas Break” to “Holiday Break” or “Winter Break.” People complain about Christmas trees and nativity scenes. They mock the idea of mass or church-related events. All of which contributes to doubt in the faith of so many Canadians. And so, I write this piece as a rudimentary reminder of the incredible profundity and reliability that lies within the Gospels, and their claim to Jesus being the Son of God. GospelsDespite an extraordinary body of scholarship and research surrounding the New Testament, particularly the four Gospels, uncertainty regarding their veracity persists among many in the general agnostic, secular, and even Christian population. Questions often arise concerning the legitimacy of these canonical texts, which claim to record the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Yet, even a cursory or abecedarian exploration into the four Evangelists and their honest commitment to documenting the life and mystery of Jesus can often challenge a skeptical perspective.Rather than viewing the Gospels as distant, mythologized attempts to portray Jesus in a messianic light, one may begin to see these writers and their works as serious, scrupulous, punctilious, historically grounded, and remarkably courageous efforts to preserve truth..As we dive in, let’s begin to get to know our authors: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These four biographers each had unique relationships to Jesus and his time and offer ostensibly distant yet relatively uniform accounts of his life.Matthew was one of Jesus’s disciples.Mark was not a disciple himself but is traditionally understood to have written his Gospel based largely on the testimony of Peter, one of Jesus’s closest followers.Luke, a physician and companion of the Apostle Paul, was not an eyewitness to Jesus’s ministry but compiled his account from the reports of key eyewitnesses.John, often quoted as “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” was among Jesus’s inner circle.The first three Gospels — Matthew, Mark, and Luke — are referred to as the Synoptic Gospels because of their shared perspective and overlapping content. John’s Gospel, distinct in style and theological emphasis, stands apart.Thus, we have four men from the time of Jesus who claim to have written accurate and honest historical accounts of his life, teachings, and miracles. But do their claims hold up under scrutiny? When examined critically, is the depiction of Jesus as the Son of God historically and theologically credible? Let’s explore!.How Can We Know the Gospels Were Written by Their Traditional Authors?A fair question. Nevertheless, early historical testimony strongly supports the traditional authorship of the four Gospels. Around AD 125, Papias of Hierapolis, a Greek Apostolic Father and early Christian bishop, affirmed that Mark wrote down Peter’s eyewitness accounts of his time with Christ “accurately, though not in order.” This is a major textual piece of corroboration.Next, the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (born AD 37), though not a Christian, also references Jesus in Antiquities of the Jews. Josephus is widely regarded as a careful and credible historian, and his mention of Jesus — albeit brief — confirms that Jesus was a real historical figure known for his “surprising deeds.” Another key piece of essential supportive evidence.Later, around AD 180, Irenaeus, bishop of Lugdunum, substantiated the traditional authorship of all four canonical Gospels, affirming that Matthew published his Gospel for the Hebrews, Mark recorded Peter’s preaching, Luke compiled Paul’s testimony, and John wrote his Gospel while living in Ephesus.These early attestations form part of a continuous chain of historical testimony that supports the traditional authorship and credibility of the four Gospels..Were the Gospels Written Too Long After Jesus’s Death to Be Reliable?At first glance, this concern may seem reasonable. However, New Testament scholarship and historical comparison reveal that the Gospels were written remarkably close to the events they describe — especially when compared with other ancient biographies.For instance, the earliest surviving biographies of Alexander the Great, written by Arrian and Plutarch, date to more than 400 years after his death in 323 BC. Yet historians generally consider these accounts reliable. Similarly, Homer’s Iliad, which was transmitted orally for centuries before being written down, is still taken seriously as an ancient source of cultural history.By contrast, the Book of Acts, written by Luke, is widely believed to have been completed before AD 62, as it ends abruptly without mentioning Paul’s death (which occurred around AD 64–67). Since Acts is the second part of Luke’s two-volume work, the Gospel of Luke must have been written even earlier. Moreover, because Luke relied on Mark’s Gospel, Mark must predate both — placing his writing within roughly 30 years of Jesus’s crucifixion in the early AD 30s. Quite astonishing!In historical terms, this is extraordinarily close. Few ancient accounts were written so soon after the events they record. The proximity of the Gospels to Jesus’s lifetime makes them virtually unparalleled in ancient biographical literature..Do Copies Instead of Originals Discredit the New Testament?It is true that we no longer possess the original autographs of the New Testament writings. However, this does not undermine their reliability. The number, age, and distribution of New Testament manuscripts far exceed those of any other ancient work.For example, a fragment of the Gospel of John known as Papyrus 52 (P52) has been dated to AD 100–150 — possibly within a generation of the apostle John’s lifetime. This suggests that portions of the New Testament were circulating very early in Christian history.Furthermore, more than 300 Greek uncial manuscripts (written in capital letters) survive, including the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, both dating to around AD 350. These contain the majority, or entirety, of the New Testament.By AD 800, a new script known as minuscule emerged, and nearly 3,000 Greek minuscule manuscripts have been cataloged. In total, scholars have identified nearly 6,000 Greek manuscripts, plus tens of thousands of translations in Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, and other languages.Such abundance provides unparalleled textual evidence. Early fragments like P52, combined with the consistency across thousands of manuscripts, show that the New Testament has been transmitted with extraordinary accuracy and care..Has Archaeology Disproved the Gospels?Far from undermining the Gospels, archaeology has repeatedly confirmed their historical details.Take Luke, for instance — often criticized in the past as a pseudo-historian. Archaeological discoveries, however, have consistently vindicated his precision. Luke refers to Lysanias as the tetrarch of Abilene around AD 27–28 (Luke 3:1). Critics long claimed this was an error, since a Lysanias was known to have ruled Chalcis 50 years earlier. Yet an inscription from the reign of Tiberius (AD 14–37) was later discovered, mentioning Lysanias the tetrarch — exactly as Luke described.Another example concerns Luke’s use of the title politarchs in reference to officials in Thessalonica (Acts 17:6). Since this term was not found in Roman literature, critics dismissed it as fictional — until an inscription on a first-century arch in Thessalonica, now housed in the British Museum, confirmed its authenticity.Similarly, in John 5:2, the Gospel writer describes the Pool of Bethesda as having “five porticoes.” For centuries, no such site was known. Excavations in Jerusalem, however, uncovered a pool with five porticoes exactly as John described.These discoveries and many others continue to affirm the reliability of the New Testament writers..What About Other Alleged Miracle Workers?Skeptics sometimes point to other ancient figures said to have performed miracles — such as certain rabbis or the philosopher Apollonius of Tyana — as evidence that Jesus was not unique and therefore could not be the Son of God.However, key distinctions exist. Ancient Jewish miracle stories, for example, often describe rabbis calling upon God to act, whereas Jesus’s framework for performing miracles was profoundly different. It was by his own authority, consistent with the Gospels’ portrayal of him as divine.As for Apollonius, his biography was written more than 150 years after his death by Philostratus, who was commissioned by the Empress Julia Domna — a devoted follower of Apollonius. The work is clearly hagiographic and politically motivated, lacking the immediacy, eyewitness grounding, impartiality, and historical restraint of the Gospels.By contrast, the Evangelists faced social and political persecution, not reward, for their writings. Their commitment to recording these events despite personal cost strengthens, rather than weakens, their credibility..ConclusionThis brief introduction has only assuredly skimmed the surface of the vast field of New Testament studies concerning the historical reliability of the Gospels and their testimony that Jesus is the Son of God.The evidence — textual, historical, archaeological, and theological — strongly supports the authenticity and accuracy of the Gospel accounts. While skepticism is understandable, the cumulative weight of scholarly and historical data invites an open-minded reconsideration.The Gospels are not mythic embellishments, but courageous, carefully preserved testimonies that have withstood two millennia of scrutiny. They may yet challenge — even disarm or disabuse — the most hesitant of skeptics.And so, next time you are struggling with your faith or those around you publicly distance themselves from what a decommercialized Christmas truly is about, the birth of Christ, remind yourself that the veracity of the Gospels and Jesus as the Son of God is backed by some of the strongest ancient biographical work ever recorded.
