Destroyed Counter-Documents?
By: Erick Nelson
Last Updated: Saturday January 08, 2005
Question: "Is it possible that the church was and is so powerful that it could have destroyed any trace of writings, documents, etc. that disputed the accounts in the New Testament? I mean, assuming that there WERE such accounts saying that the resurrection and all was a bunch of baloney, is it possible that the church could have destroyed any trace of such documents?"
Church Power
For context, it is important to understand how the "church" came to power. In the 100's and 200's AD, Christianity was perceived as a Jewish sect, or a small secret society, or a people celebrating "The Way", or a persecuted minority. At various places and various times, followers of Jesus were actively persecuted, hunted, and killed in horrible ways. It was not until the famous conversion of the emperor Constantine in the early 300's that Christianity became the official state religion.
And so, let us suppose that there were legitimate first-century eyewitness documents which "correctly" explained who Jesus was and what he did - and who he wasn't and what he didn't do. Let us suppose that they explicitly say he was a mere man, not God in the flesh, and that he was killed and stayed dead. What are the chances that any powerful organization, created 250-300 years later, could gather up all the extant copies of the "true" gospel and destroy them - without any traces?
Destruction of Manuscripts
Ironically, the reverse is provably true. The enemies of Christianity in the first two centuries were, at least at times, book-burners. For example, the famous library of Alexandria, which housed priceless Christian manuscripts (it's possible that some of the autographs of the N.T. were there) was destroyed.
Two Competing Versions
For argument's sake, let us grant the assumption that the 300's church obliterated all traces of the another gospel. At the very best, we have two competing versions. Having a competitor doesn't in itself overturn the evidence for the traditional gospel.
At a Sunday school class one time, the pastor passed around an article which said that conclusive proof existed that Jesus did not rise from the dead. This proof consisted in writings from around 30 AD from someone who had been there. It turns out that there was no such writing - the pastor was trying to make a point (invalid in my opinion) that our faith does not depend on historical evidences.
But this got me thinking. What if a writing like this were really discovered? We would have to put it to the test just like the other documents, and weigh it against the wealth of N.T. evidences. We should be appropriately skeptical of it - just because someone wrote something like that, does that necessarily mean it's true? Of course not! Was this person a reliable witness: really on the scene, a truthful person of sound character? What would we say about all the evidence pointing the other way?
It would, in fact, require very strong evidence to outweigh that supporting the traditional gospel claims. The evidence is clear and convincing that Jesus' deity and resurrection were preached by his very disciples and that the N.T. bears all the marks of authenticity needed to be considered first-century collections of eyewitness reportage (see other articles on this site).
Who Wrote This?
We have three possible alternatives:
- The disciples of Jesus wrote the "real" gospel, and the one advanced in the New Testament is by imposters (or their representatives).
- The real disciples of Jesus preached the NT gospel, but they lied (falsified the truth). The "true" gospel is by others - non-disciples - who knew the facts.
- There were two sets of disciples - those who falsified the gospel and those who preached the "true" gospel.
Regarding the first point, we would have to presume evidence so direct and so compelling that the men traditionally considered disciples are seen to be imposters, and their immediate followers (e.g. the Apostolic Fathers: Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp) were either knowingly part of the corruption or themselves were fooled by false apostles.
Regarding the second point, we have a "Plot Theory", which bears many problems of its own (see article about this).
Regarding the third point, I'm not sure what to say - we seem to have a combination of both worlds. We would be dealing with a major schism within the apostles themselves. We have, on one side, all the drawbacks of the Plot Theory. We have, on the other, a re-definition of who counts as a disciple (unknowns). This fact does not prove the theory is false, it only draws out some of the implications.
Gnostic Gospels
But wait. We have conceded too much. There is proof that the church in the 300's (and the earlier church, for that matter) did not destroy competing gospels and interpretations about Jesus. The most obvious proof is the existence of the Gnostic Gospels. Among the most well-known are the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Truth, Acts of Peter, Acts of Thomas, Gospel of Philip. If the early church had destroyed all counter-evidence, surely these would not be extant today.
These works can be evaluated, using the principles of historiography, and compared to the N.T. documents. These works, in distinction to the N.T., were written over a hundred years after the fact, and cannot in themselves be eyewitness evidence. The presumption that they incorporate earlier oral tradition is questionable. It is clear to the researcher that these gnostic writings were the embodiment of a "metaphorical gospel" - gospels made up by their authors to express what they considered to be spiritual truths; or, alternatively, gospels made up by their authors in order to win converts and fool the unsuspecting.
Evidence
Note that this is all based on supposition. The contention is not "there is evidence that ...", or "I can prove that ...", but a much weaker, "It is possible that" ...
Second, and more interestingly - according to this thesis, no direct evidence supporting the thesis exists, nor can exist - by definition - because the contention is that all such evidence was destroyed. This is, of course, a tactic that anyone can use. Maybe the Martians came down and changed all the documents. Maybe some powerful, secret world-government has changed all the history books, including the N.T., to say what they want them to say.
But behind this sarcastic point is a deeper insight. Any meaningful theory must, at least in principle, be falsifiable. There must be some possible state of affairs which, if true, would disprove the theory. For instance, Jesus' resurrection (in the traditional sense) could have been disproved in circa 30 AD by producing the body. But what could ever possibly count against this theory? Nothing! No amount of evidence in favor of the deity and resurrection of Christ could matter in the least. No evidence supporting the honesty and integrity of the church in the 300's could be used, since this would only be viewed as the church's own propaganda.
Even though there can be no direct evidence, I suppose it is possible that indirect evidence could arise - statements by people in the 300's that the church was indeed engaged in such practices, with eventual production of some surviving manuscripts. This of course changes the theory (the church destroyed nearly all the manuscripts ...). Then the response is to compare one set of evidence with the other, as stated above.
But this is all supposition. No such evidence currently exists, and there is no indication that it will be uncovered in the future. As Montgomery used to be fond of saying, anything is possible in this contingent universe; but not everything is equally worthy of belief.
Recap
Consider these facts again:
(1) We have many anti-Christian works, and so it is demonstrably false that all the anti-Christian writings were destroyed.
(2) The church power structure simply didn't exist until after 300 AD, and therefore could not have destroyed the documents in the 100's and 200's. Thus, any "real-gospel" first-century manuscripts had over 250 years to circulate throughout the world, and it would have taken a near-supernatural organization to completely destroy them.
(3) There is excellent evidence that Jesus' own disciples preached his deity and resurrection - given all these things, and the counter-evidence (if it existed) would have to be strong enough to overturn it. The burden of proof is immense.
(4) On the other hand, since there can be no direct evidence at all, by definition, in favor of the strong hypothesis that the "early church" destroyed the true witness to Jesus, this hypothesis is both un-provable and unfalsifiable. The weaker hypothesis, that the church destroyed nearly all the manuscripts, would have to be supported by evidence - and strong evidence at that. Until such evidence is forthcoming, there is no reason to accept it. And any counter-evidence can be evaluated against the gospel documents in the normal manner.