Sunday, March 02, 2025
There's Not Much Apostolic Disunity In The Gospels
Critics of Christianity often allege that there was widespread disunity among the early Christians: Paul disagreeing with the Twelve, a Petrine community opposing a Johannine community, and so on. There's a large amount of evidence against such claims. I've written about the evidence for apostolic unity in 1 Corinthians 15:11, in the earliest patristic documents, and elsewhere. I've been struck lately, though, by how much material there is against these claims about disunity in the gospels. In John 13:10-11, for example, why would the author have Jesus commenting on how all of his rivals (or rival communities, etc.) are "clean"? Or think of the sitting on twelve thrones in passages like Matthew 19:28. That isn't just an expression of unity, but even unity in an eschatological context, which rules out a future falling away. (Judas is explicitly and repeatedly referred to as not being included in such comments in one way or another, whereas nothing comparable is said of any other apostle. The authors were capable of communicating that they had exceptions in mind if they wanted to, as their comments on Judas demonstrate.)
Labels:
Apostles,
Gospels,
Jason Engwer,
Skepticism,
Unity
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Notice how the gospels end. The apostles are together and given a commission from Jesus in Matthew. Mark's gospel has the apostles together and carrying out what Jesus told them to do, regardless of where you think the document originally ended (16:7, 16:20). Luke has them worshiping together in the temple after being instructed by Jesus. John has several of them together at the Sea of Galilee. None of the gospel authors seem to anticipate any significant later division that would need to be mentioned or explained. Some of the comments about the apostles are about the future and explicitly or implicitly refer to their later faithfulness (e.g., Matthew 19:28, Mark 16:7, 16:20, Luke 22:28-30, John 21:18-19).
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