Jesus's Stenographers: The Story of the Red Letters (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781973627678)

My name is Ben van Noort. I am a graduate (MA) from Utrecht University, The Netherlands. Since 1975 I worked as a high school teacher in Christian Religion. I had an active part in preparing a series of textbooks for Christian education as editor and co-author. And I wrote many articles concerning biblical issues.

How I Came to the Subject of Documentation

When I started as a high school teacher for Christian religion to adolescents, I was forced to reconsider the old and central problem in theology; "What about the words of Jesus?" My senior pupils leaned back, saying, "Sir, it was all written long after the events, wasn't it? So how do we know it is true?" Another remarked: "Yes Sir, it's fiction, just as we have learned with Dutch Language and Literature." There I stood, empty-handed after five years of academic theological studies. Of course I knew the dilemma, but it was so clear presented by my pupils that I could only feel respect for them. This experience brought me again to the books to seek for the answers.

I started with the first verses of the Gospel of Luke (1:1-4), which contain the basic ideas about the oldest Christian transmission. I don't know how often I have turned the words of this Bible passage over in my mind. Slowly, an entirely new reality started to unfold. This text spoke of writers, who promptly followed Jesus.

For the work with my high school students, my discoveries gradually made an impact. They did not lean back anymore, this was real; an evidence based approach of the gospels. The crown texts are Luke 1:1-4, 1 John 1:1-4 and Hebrews 2:3-4. The corrected translations form the foundation of the documentation theory about the origins of the gospels. Now, I am retired and I decided to give more publicity to this subject with the book Jesus's Stenographers.

Many have written about the Gospels. All have taken their starting point in the theory of the oral tradition to explain alleged differences as inaccuracies. The documentation theory shows a different picture: no inaccuracies, but an overflow of details in the gospels regarding the sayings of Jesus and the presented observations of Jesus's rapid writers. The result is that his words can be accepted as original without any intellectual reservation.