In her excellent book The Eye of the Beholder, Lydia McGrew makes an interesting argument for the reliability of the dialogue recorded in the Gospels. She notes how “Jesus” was the sixth most common name in 1st century Judea, and how this makes sense of an interesting pattern in the Gospels. Rather than simply referring to our Lord as “Jesus,” people would call Him Jesus “of Nazareth” (Mk. 1:24), “the Galilean” (Matt. 29:69), or “who is called Christ” (Matt. 27:17). When people were speaking about our Lord, they would use a disambiguator to signify which Jesus they were talking about, because so many people bore His name.
The Reliability of Dialogue in the Gospels
The Reliability of Dialogue in the Gospels
The Reliability of Dialogue in the Gospels
In her excellent book The Eye of the Beholder, Lydia McGrew makes an interesting argument for the reliability of the dialogue recorded in the Gospels. She notes how “Jesus” was the sixth most common name in 1st century Judea, and how this makes sense of an interesting pattern in the Gospels. Rather than simply referring to our Lord as “Jesus,” people would call Him Jesus “of Nazareth” (Mk. 1:24), “the Galilean” (Matt. 29:69), or “who is called Christ” (Matt. 27:17). When people were speaking about our Lord, they would use a disambiguator to signify which Jesus they were talking about, because so many people bore His name.