TWO PROBLEMS WITH THE GOSPEL OF LUKE AND THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW
There are at least two significant problems with using the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew as sources of historical information about the ministry, trials, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus, especially in attempting to make a case for the claim that God raised Jesus from the dead.
First, neither Gospel was written by an eyewitness to the life, ministry, trials, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus.[1] So, these Gospels are, at best, secondhand sources of historical information.
Second, it is unlikely that the author of either of those Gospels had direct access to eyewitnesses to the ministry, trials, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus.
In the case of the Gospel of Luke, for example, most of the specific events in the ministry, arrest, trials, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus are taken from the previous Gospel of Mark. But the author of the Gospel of Mark was not an eyewitness to the ministry, arrest, trials, crucifixion, or burial of Jesus. Since most of the specific events concerning the ministry, arrest, trials, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke are based on a book written by a non-eyewitness, this is a strong indication that the author of the Gospel of Luke did not have direct access to eyewitnesses to those events.
THE UNAVAILABILITY OF EYEWITNESS SOURCES
Furthermore, the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew were both written about 80-90 CE.[2] So, these Gospels were composed five or six decades after Jesus was crucified. By that point in time, most of the eyewitnesses to the ministry, arrest, trials, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus would either be dead or would be senile.
Here is a Life Expectancy Table for the Roman Empire[3]:
Because the disciples were all men, I will use the data from the right-hand column in the above chart. Note that most people died before they turned 10. Infant mortality and childhood diseases killed off many infants and children, so that out of 100,000 births of males, only about 48,000 survived to the age of 10. About 52% of people died before reaching that age. But if a man survived to the age of 25, his life expectancy at that point would be about 27 more years, so he could reasonably expect to live to be about 52 years old.
Jesus was probably in his thirties when he was crucified, and his disciples were probably younger than Jesus, so his disciples were probably in their twenties when Jesus was crucified. Let's suppose that the disciples were around 25 years old when Jesus was crucified, and let's suppose that Jesus was crucified in 30 CE. In that case, the eleven remaining disciples of Jesus (the Twelve disciples minus Judas Iscariot) would have been about 25 years old in 30 CE, and they could reasonably expect to survive another 27 more years, until about 57 CE.
The problem is that the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew were both written around 80-90 CE. We would expect the eleven disciples to have all died sometime between 40 CE and 70 CE, based on their life expectancy when Jesus was crucified.
Furthermore, Christian apologists claim that most of the eleven disciples were killed as martyrs for their faith. If that is the case, then the disciples of Jesus would have a significantly lower life expectancy than the average man in the Roman Empire. It would thus be reasonable to infer that the eleven disciples would all have died by about 60 CE, two or three decades before the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew were composed.
The expectation that a 25 year-old disciple would survive to about age 52 is, of course, an average. Some of the eleven disciples probably died in their twenties, some in their thirties, some in their forties, and so on. So, it is not just the average life expectancy at age 25 that matters. We also need to have some idea about the likely range and distribution of their deaths over the decades following Jesus' crucifixion. The above Life Expectancy Table includes information about the likely distribution of deaths over the decades following Jesus' crucifixion.
Out of the 100,000 male births, an estimated 40,201 would have survived to age 25. Let's make that cohort the baseline, so that 40,201 men constitute 100% of the cohort of which we are interested. In the following chart, I have calculated the % of this cohort that survives to various ages, based on the above Life Expectancy chart:
This chart indicates that we would expect one or two of the eleven disciples to survive to age 70, and that one of the eleven disciples would survive to age 75, and that it is unlikely that any of them would survive to age 80.
Furthermore, if most of the eleven disciples died as martyrs, then their life expectancy would be significantly lower than the average male. Thus, it would be unlikely for any of the eleven to survive until age 75, and it would be likely that all eleven would die before age 75, which would be about 80 CE.
Since the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew were written between 80 CE and 90 CE, it is unlikely that any of the eleven disciples were still alive at the time those two Gospels were composed. Thus, it is not surprising that the primary source of information about specific events in the ministry, arrest, trials, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus used by the author of the Gospel of Luke was a book written by a non-eyewitness (the Gospel of Mark).
CONCLUSION
Not only were the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew written by authors who were not eyewitnesses to the ministry, arrest, trials, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus, but it is unlikely that any of the eleven disciples of Jesus were still alive when those two Gospels were being composed.
END NOTES
1. For Gospel of Luke, see my post "The Unreliability of the Gospel of Luke - Part 1: General Considerations"; specifically, read the section called: "2. THE GOSPEL OF LUKE WAS NOT WRITTEN BY AN EYEWITNESS".
For the Gospel of Matthew, here are comments by some leading NT scholars:
...the gospels as we have them were not written by eyewitnesses on the basis of first-hand knowledge of Jesus.
The Historical Figure of Jesus by E.P. Sanders (New York, NY: Penguin Books USA Inc., 1993 ) p.63.
For more than two hundred years most New Testament experts have concluded that the Evangelists [the authors of the Gospels] did not know the historical Jesus; moreover, they wrote decades after his death.
The Evangelists [the authors of the Gospels] were not eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life and thought.
The Historical Jesus: An Essential Guide by James Charlesworth (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2008), pp.xiii-xiv.
AUTHOR [of the Gospel of Matthew] DETECTABLE FROM CONTENTS: a Greek-speaker who knew Aramaic or Hebrew or both and was not an eyewitness of Jesus' ministry, drew on Mark, and a collection of the sayings of the Lord (Q), as well as on other available traditions, oral or written. Probably a Jewish Christian.
An Introduction to the New Testament by Raymond Brown (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1997), p.172.
The bottom line is that very few scholars believe this Gospel was written or compiled by Matthew the disciple of Jesus. ...Most scholars think this Gospel uses Mark as a principle source. If its author had the advantage of actually having been an eyewitness to the events Mark reports, we would expect him to offer greater detail, filling in the blanks left by Mark's sketchy accounts. But this is not the case. The Gospel of Matthew adds very little of a historical nature to Mark's report of Jesus' ministry. What it does do is develop theologically the reports found in Mark in ways that would render them more meaningful to Christians of a later era. Thus, most scholars believe this Gospel reflects the concerns of second-generation Christianity, coming from a time when all of the original disciples were probably dead.
Fortress Introduction to the Gospels by Mark Allan Powell (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998), pp.71-72.
Practically all critical scholars consider the evidence against apostolic authorship to be overwhelming: (1) The Gospel itself is anonymous. Apostolic authorship is a claim made for the book, not a claim made by the book itself. ...(2) The use of Mark and Q as sources undercuts its claim to eyewitness testimony. (3) The Greek language in which the Gospel was composed was the native language of the author and is of higher quality than the relatively unpolished Greek of Mark. Given the author's setting and background, he may have known enough Hebrew and Aramaic to work with texts, but there is no evidence that he was fluent in these languages.
"The Gospel of Matthew" by M. Eugene Boring in The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. VIII (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995), pp.106-107.
2. For the Gospel of Luke, see my post, "The Unreliability of the Gospel of Luke - Part 1: General Considerations"; specifically, read the section called: "3. THE GOSPEL OF LUKE WAS WRITTEN ABOUT FIVE OR SIX DECADES AFTER THE CRUCIFIXION".
For the Gospel of Matthew, here are comments by some leading NT scholars:
Both Matthew and Luke, working independently of each other, composed larger Gospels in the 70-100 period (most likely between 80 and 90) by combining and editing Mark, a collection of Jesus' sayings that scholars arbitrarily label Q, and special traditions peculiar to Matthew and Luke.
A Marginal Jew, Vol. I by John P. Meier (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1991), pp.43-44.
As already noted, both Gospels [Matthew and Luke] are usually dated in the period of 80-95...
Christianity in the Making, Volume I by James D.G. Dunn (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003), footnote #98 on page 160.
...the great majority of Matthean scholars place the work within the decade of 80-90 C.E.
Fortress Introduction to the Gospels by Mark Allan Powell (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998), p.74.
All this makes AD 80-90 the most plausible dating [for the composition of the Gospel of Matthew]; but the arguments are not precise, and so at least a decade in either direction must be allowed.
An Introduction to the New Testament by Raymond Brown (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1997), p.217.
Thus it seems that the Gospel of Matthew was composed in the period 80-100, for which 90 may serve as a good symbolic figure.
"The Gospel of Matthew" by M. Eugene Boring in The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. VIII (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995), p.106.
3. "Demography of the Roman Empire" in Wikipedia, viewed 12-03-25. Based on data in Frier, Bruce W. (2000). "Demography". In Bowman, Alan K.; Garnsey, Peter; Rathbone, Dominic (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History XI: The High Empire, A.D. 70–192. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 789, table 1.
