Any Christian Who Claims There Is No Fiction in the Gospels Is a Fundamentalist, a Liar, or a Fool

Dale Allison, Christian New Testament scholar:

“Early Christians had the imaginative ability to fabricate fictions on the basis of theological convictions, and on more than one occasion they did so. One of them made up the story in Matthew 27:51b-53:

And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. 52 The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, 53 and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

We can also be fairly confident that the narrative about the guard [at the tomb] in Matthew 27:62-66, which has no parallel in Mark, Luke, or John, is sheer fiction.”

–Dale C. Allison, Jr. is the Richard J. Dearborn Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary. He earned his MA and PhD from Duke University. His academic research and publications include the historical Jesus, the Gospel of Matthew, Second Temple Judaism, and the history of the interpretation and application of biblical texts. His book, Constructing Jesus, was selected as “Best Book Relating to the New Testament” for 2009–2010 by the Biblical Archaeology Society. His most recent books are The Resurrection of Jesus: Apologetics, Polemic, History and Encountering Mystery: Religious Experience in a Secular Age. He served for several years as the main New Testament editor for de Gruyter’s international Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception and has been on the editorial boards of multiple academic journals.

Gary: This is a scholarly consensus. The Gospels, the keystone authority for Protestant Christianity, contain fictional stories. And not just the parables. The question is: Which stories are historical and which stories are fiction???

Any Christian apologist who claims the Gospels contain no fiction is a fundamentalist, a liar, or a fool.

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End of post.