We now come to Part 2 of my short blog series on the book Can we Trust the Bible on the Historical Jesus? that is essentially the transcript of a debate between Bart Ehrman and Craig Evans. As was obvious from Part 1, Ehrman’s answer to that question is a definitive “No,” based on the fact that, when one compares Matthew, Mark and Luke’s versions of the same accounts, there are notable differences.
By contrast, Evans’ answer was a qualified “Yes.” He argued that when the Synoptic Gospels are evaluated by the same standards use to evaluate other ancient texts purporting to be about historical events and figures, the Synoptic Gospels stack up just as well, if not better, than all other texts. Therefore, yes, they can be deemed historically reliable. At the same time, yes, there are differences between Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but the scholar attempts to understand what were the reasons the writers made those changes—and hardly any scholar thinks it was just a matter of “getting the facts wrong.” All that is to say is that Evans says: (A) The Synoptic Gospels are historically reliable, and (B) The differences in them can be explained and don’t threaten their overall historical reliability regarding the historical Jesus.
So, what are we to make of each scholar’s argument? That is what this post will address. First, though, it would be good to briefly summarize how each scholar responded to the other’s argument.
Ehrman’s Response to Evans
To get right to the point, Ehrman actually agrees with most of Evans points. He acknowledges that the New Testament is better attested than virtually all other ancient historical manuscripts—Ehrman, though, dismisses that as being irrelevant. He also acknowledges that the Gospels contain a vast amount of versimilitudes—Ehrman, though, dismisses that as well, saying it is irrelevant. He then claims that Evans actually agrees with him, in that Evans acknowledges that the Gospels contain discrepancies.
Of course, Ehrman’s mischaracterization of that point is glaringly obvious. Evans acknowledges there are differences among the Gospels, but clearly says those differences do not amount to calling the historical reliability of the Gospels into question. Ehrman, though, claims they do—and that was the entire subject of the debate. Given the fact that the Gospels contain certain differences, do those differences call the overall historical reliability of the Gospels into question? So, claiming that Evans agrees with him that the Gospels don’t give a historically accurate picture of Jesus is just an obvious false claim. Evans doesn’t agree with Ehrman on that point.
In any case, after that obvious mischaracterization, Ehrman then says, “The fact is that the Gospels contradict each other up and down the line.” And, once again, I find his claim to be misleading. The issue with the differences boils down to the question, “How do we explain them?” Ehrman just jumps to the assumption that the differences amount to factual contradictions and seems unable to grasp the idea that the writers could use a certain amount of literary creativity in their presentation of the historical Jesus. Or, if I could put it this way, they are presenting reliable history in the form of story, and therefore a certain amount of literary shaping doesn’t negate the overall historical reliability of the Gospels. Ehrman just assume it does, and simply presents his assumption as fact.
In the second part of his response, Ehrman shifts from the issue of differences among the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) regarding the same passages to the issue of the Gospel of John, and how it is vastly different all the way through. Ehrman argues that since the Gospel of John presents Jesus in a very different light, and since most of the material in John isn’t even in the Synoptics, therefore nothing in the Gospels is historically reliable.
Now, it is true that John is very different than the Synoptics, but this is nothing new. The early Church Fathers noted this and discussed it. I’ll touch upon this in a bit, but for now, it has to be said that Ehrman is moving the goal posts in a shockingly unscholarly way. For someone who is not familiar with these issues, one might think Ehrman’s point is a “slam dunk” that proves the Gospels aren’t historically reliable. It isn’t. This is a well-known and long-investigated issue among scholars and early Church Fathers alike—and to those familiar with it, Ehrman’s point is less of a “slam dunk,” and more of a full court desperation heave at the buzzer. Such shots rarely go into the basket.
Evans’ Response to Ehrman
In Evans’ response, he first re-emphasizes the main issue in the debate: Do the Gospels present an accurate portrait of the historical Jesus. And to that, Evans re-emphasizes his emphatic, “Yes.” If you want to access the historical reliability of the Gospels, you hold them to the same standards you do of other ancient histories. When scholars do, the Gospels exceed those standards. They come out looking better than those ancient histories. Those are not irrelevent details. Evans doesn’t press this point, but I will—the various manuscripts of those other ancient histories all contain differences as well, yet no scholar ever says, “Look! There are differences among the manuscripts of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Livy! We can’t trust anything in those stories! They’re not histories! They’re stories! They’re totally unreliable!” I repeat, no scholar ever says that about those ancient texts. Why don’t they? Because that reaction would be uncritical and silly.
I highly doubt Ehrman would say what he says about the Gospels about Herodotus, Thucydides, and Livy. He knows better than to do that. Yet for some reason, when it comes to the Gospels, he dismisses the scholarly standards of assessing historical reliability out the window and concludes that the differences among the Synoptic Gospels means they are completely historically unreliable, despite the fact that Herodotus, Thucydides, and Livy all contain differences among their manuscripts as well. It is a shockingly poor argument.
Evans then addresses Ehrman’s bringing up of the Gospel of John and agrees that, yes, John is very different, but that scholars and historians routinely talk about the “historical details and pieces of information” about the historical Jesus at major conferences like the Society of Biblical Literature. But the thing (especially with John), as Evans puts it, is that “you have to get the genre correct first to know what kind of literature it is. We tend to foist our modern, Western views on documents from antiquity that we don’t understand very well. And when they don’t measure up, we have a crisis of confidence and faith.” He then ends his response by saying (I’m initially paraphrasing) that he doesn’t want to say Ehrman is reading the Gospels like a fundamentalist, but that the way he reads them reflects “a rigid, unrealistic, and inaccurate understanding of the genre. And if we can’t get that set right, we will continue to spin in circles and say, ‘Oh dear! I don’t know what to do with these discrepancies. They can’t both be true.’”
Now for Some Analysis
It should be quite clear by now that I am not impressed with Ehrman’s arguments. Yes, I know, he is a well-known “big time” scholar, and I am a rather insignificant adjunct professor whose sphere of influence doesn’t extend much beyond this blog, but I just am honestly surprised at how simplistic many of his arguments tend to be. Before reading this book, I didn’t know his undergraduate degree was in English Literature, so that makes it even more surprising to me at how tone deaf he seems to be to the literary craft employed into the writing of the Gospels. It is like he can’t wrap his mind around the idea that history can be conveyed by means of story, where the writer uses a bit of creative license at the edges to drive home the overarching themes he is attempting to draw out in his telling of that history.
And let’s get this out of the way—Of course, the Gospel writers were not trying to write “objective” history. Of course, they are trying to EVANGELISIZE and convince people that Jesus is both Messiah and Lord. In that respect, their overriding concern is not to get every single solitary minor fact “accurate.” That doesn’t mean their presentation of Jesus is historically unreliable. In Mark, Jarius’ daughter is initially ill when Jarius asks Jesus to heal her, whereas in Matthew she is already dead—so what? Does that discrepancy mean that both Mark and Matthew’s claim that Jesus raised her up after she was dead is somehow automatically unreliable? No. Now, if you don’t think miracles ever happen, you’re going to reject the story on the basis of your belief that miracles never happen. But no one is honestly going to say, “Woah! That minor discrepancy at the beginning means nothing in the account can be trusted!”
The same goes for many of the other examples Ehrman gives. Was it one crow or two crows? Who cares? The veracity of the historical claim that Peter did, in fact, deny he knew Jesus that night is not dependent on the number of times the cock crowed. I’ve written in my book, The Heresy of Ham about the genealogies and here about the question of the census. How about Passover? Scholars have discussed that in detail, but let’s be honest, whether the Last Supper happened the day before Passover or the day of Passover, does that mean that no one should believe Jesus was crucified at that time? Of course not. As for Ehrman’s claim that Mark was presenting Jesus as “being in shock” during the crucifixion, I’ll be kind and say there is a lot of uncritical speculation there.
But here is the basic point where Ehrman goes wrong. When he hears, “Are the Gospels historically reliable?” he interprets that to mean, “Unless every single detail in each Gospel lines up perfectly with every single detail from the other Gospels, then I can’t believe that anything in the Gospels is reliable at all.” By contrast, when Evans hears the same question, he interprets that to mean, “Yes, the Gospels purport to be about the historical Jesus and his ministry; yes, according to the accepted scholarly standards that help determine historical reliability, the Gospels pass the test; that doesn’t mean we can verify every single, solitary point in the Gospels, and that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any discrepancies.” Of course, there are, but most can be easily understood in terms of (what I like to call) “literary brushstrokes” to each Gospel’s portrait of Jesus.
Conclusion Thus Far
Simply put, one can acknowledge that the Gospels present a historically reliable portrait of Jesus, while at the same time acknowledging that the writers are like literary portrait painters who are using a certain amount of creativity in their telling of the history. They aren’t photographers, they’re artists. But the historical portrait they are painting is still obvious and reliable.
I’ll touch upon Ehrman and Evans’ take on the Gospel of John in my next post. But I’ll end with this. What I’ve found is that, when it comes down to it, that most people who argue that the Gospels aren’t historically reliable are really arguing that certain things in the Gospels (i.e. healings, rising from the dead) don’t happen because we just know that those things don’t happen. Simply put, this attempt to reject the historical reliability of the Gospels by pointing to certain discrepancies between the Gospels really is sideshow and a distraction. If you don’t believe Jesus healed people or rose from the dead, just say so, and admit that the reason you don’t believe those claims is ultimately because you just don’t believe in God, the supernatural, or miracles to begin with.
But stop with the sideshow. Suetonius and Tacitus claimed that Vespasian performed a few miracles—you’re not going to throw out their histories as “historically unreliable” over those specific claims. You’re going to say you don’t believe those specific claims, but you generally accept their histories as reliable. So, be consistent. I can respect anyone who says, “I don’t believe Jesus actually did miracles or rose from the dead, but I do accept that the historical picture in the Gospels of him is largely reliable.” I can’t respect the nit-picky, uncritical grasping of straws that we see in Ehrman’s arguments. They just aren’t that good. Dare I say, they’re sophomoric.
Dr. Ehrman appears to be locked into the fundamentalist’s dilemma: Either you believe every “jot and tittle” is literally, precisely, historically true or you may as well be atheist. That false dilemma gives license and motivation to dismiss the Bible or reject God when confronted by nuanced readings of scripture or demonstrable facts of nature that contradict fundamentalist doctrine. Intellectually, Ehrman is well able to understand the nuances of reading the Bible, but he hasn’t gotten over his early training.
You have made a similar point about other unbelievers.
Yes, it is that same tendency. I’ve talked to a few people who have told me they doubt Ehrman REALLY believes what he’s saying, at least to this extent. But it is a novel and “edgy” take on the Gospels, and it helps sell books.
Indeed, it’s an “all or nothing” approach. Either all of fundamentalism’s claims are true or none of them are. What they never seem to recognize is that fundamentalism is a presupposition.
Pax.
Lee.
Catholic apologist Trent Horn has pointed out in his book, “Counterfeit Christs” that the differences between the four Gospel accounts is actually a point in their favor; because if the Gospels were exactly the same, then we would have only ONE account of Jesus’ life, not four, which would be automatically less trustworthy.
I agree. If they all agreed on every point 100%, there wouldn’t be a need for four of them anyway. A common sense understanding is to see they all agree on the general historical depiction of Jesus and they all agree on most of the events. HOW they present those events brings about the differences–and on that point, we need to allow them, as writers, to exercise a bit of editorial and creative freedom in the telling of their stories/accounts.
As Christian apologist and former atheist Lee Strobel says in his video “The Case for Christ,” if the gospels were identical in every detail, skeptics would accuse the authors of collusion, of getting together before they wrote and making sure their stories dovetailed precisely. A former journalist who covered court cases, he uses the analogy of eyewitness testimony in a trial: if two or more witnesses give identical testimony it’ll be thrown out as collusion.
Pax.
Lee.
“He [Evans] argued that when the Synoptic Gospels are evaluated by the same standards use to evaluate other ancient texts purporting to be about historical events and figures, the Synoptic Gospels stack up just as well, if not better, than all other texts.”
Please provide another ancient text which describes fantastical supernatural events which historians and scholars accept as historically reliable. Homer’s Iliad describes real cities, real countries, and real leaders involved in the Greece-Trojan wars. But just because those facts are correct, does that mean that Cyclops and demi-gods who can only be defeated by shooting an arrow into his heel exist?
Gary, I feel like you’re deliberately missing Evan’s point.
Dr. Evans’ point is that just because certain ancient accounts of Vespasian’s life happen to attribute miracles to him is no reason to conclude those works are historically unreliable in everything they say about him.
And yet BECAUSE the gospels, claim, say, that Jesus was bodily resurrected three days after his death, many skeptics thereby argue that they’re totally worthless as historical documents.
The point being that if the gospels prove trustworthy and reliable regarding people/places/events we *can* document from secular history, that should cause us to give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to events like the resurrection, which *can’t* be verified by secular sources.
The authors of the gospels weren’t stupid. They knew as well as you do that normally dead bodies don’t come back to life and walk out of their tomb three days later. They knew that making such a claim to both Jews and Romans would be problematic, because for Jews, resurrection, if it happened, was for everyone at the end of time, and not one man in the middle of history, and for Romans the very idea of bodily resurrection was at best ludicrous, at worst downright offensive. And yet despite knowing all of this the gospel (and other NT authors) authors insist that Jesus was indeed bodily resurrected in real space-time history.
Pax.
Lee.
“The point being that if the gospels prove trustworthy and reliable regarding people/places/events we *can* document from secular history, that should cause us to give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to events like the resurrection, which *can’t* be verified by secular sources.”
That is nonsense, Lee. We don’t believe supernatural claims about Vespasian for the same reason we don’t believe supernatural claims about Jesus. There is no bias against the Gospels! We treat all ancient authors the same: When they tell us stories about one-eyed Cyclops or resurrected, brain dead, into the clouds levitating corpses we yawn and are amused. When they tell us something that can be corroborated by other sources such as Vespasian’s existence, Pilate’s existence, and Jesus’ existence, we accept those accounts as facts.
Christians need to stop whining about the Gospels being treated differently than other ancient texts. There is zero evidence that this is the case. In fact, the opposite is probably the case.
GARY: That is nonsense, Lee. We don’t believe supernatural claims about Vespasian for the same reason we don’t believe supernatural claims about Jesus. There is no bias against the Gospels! We treat all ancient authors the same: When they tell us stories about one-eyed Cyclops or resurrected, brain dead, into the clouds levitating corpses we yawn and are amused. When they tell us something that can be corroborated by other sources such as Vespasian’s existence, Pilate’s existence, and Jesus’ existence, we accept those accounts as facts.
LEE: I have met dozens of internet skeptics who argue that Jesus never existed and that nothing in the NT is based in history, certainly not the resurrection. So for many skeptics there IS a bias against the gospels because, while they make historical claims they also make supernatural claims. Because science can’t prove that bodily resurrection is possible tales of Jesus’ resurrection in the gospels must therefore be false. Many skeptics who have read Richard Carrier or others in the “Jesus-mythers” gebre argue that the NT authors created Jesus out of thin air and no such person ever really existed.
GARY: Christians need to stop whining about the Gospels being treated differently than other ancient texts. There is zero evidence that this is the case. In fact, the opposite is probably the case.
LEE: I’m not sure where you’ve been hiding out for the past 200 or so years, because the gospels are routinely disregarded as reliable source-documents precisely *because* they were written to convince people to believe that Jesus was the resurrected messiah. If I had a dollar for every time a skeptic has argued to me that the gospels can’t be trusted because they have an agenda, I could retire, but I can definitely go on a shopping spree at Barnes and Noble.
The truth is, nobody would argue that biographies of Vespasian are totally unreliable because they include miracles attributed to him, yet skeptics make the exact same argument regarding Jesus and the gospels and have for 200 years.
If the gospels didn’t insist that Jesus was bodily resurrected, nobody would seriously question their overall accuracy. But they do, and because of the modern Western rejection of anything supernatural (which is irrational when you actually think about it critically), they therefore cannot be taken seriously.
Pax..
Lee.
“We don’t believe supernatural claims about Vespasian for the same reason we don’t believe supernatural claims about Jesus.”
Then just say THAT, Gary. Just say, “I don’t believe the Gospels are history because I don’t believe there even is such a thing as the supernatural.” Stop with the runaround about how these minor differences in the Gospels are the real reasons you don’t believe they’re history. It is so transparently lame and dishonest to suggest that.
Please provide ONE detailed story in one of the Gospels which you believe that all historians should accept as historical fact. How about the story of Jesus grand entry into Jerusalem on “Palm Sunday”? Was that event an historical fact? There is nothing supernatural in that story to disqualify it. Was it historical, Joel?
Yes, Jesus really went into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.
Nice dodge.
Is it a historical fact that thousands of Jews greeted Jesus as the new king of the Jews on the streets of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday?
Hahaha….you asked: “How about the story of Jesus grand entry into Jerusalem on “Palm Sunday”? Was that event an historical fact? There is nothing supernatural in that story to disqualify it. Was it historical, Joel?”
I answered, yes, it was.
So illuminate me how that straight, direct answer to your question is a “nice dodge”?
And for the record, NONE of the Gospel writers claim that “thousands of Jews” greeted Jesus. You are mischaracterizing the accounts and reading into them what isn’t there.
MARK: Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” (Mar 11:8-10 NRS)
MATTHEW: A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” (Mat 21:8-9 NRS)
Luke: Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” (Luk 19:35-38 NRS)
JOHN: The next day the great crowd that had come to the festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord– the King of Israel!” (Joh 12:12-13 NRS)
WHOOPS, Gary! lol…
I suppose a “great crowd” to you is 20 people.
Come on, Joel. You KNOW that the Romans would not have allowed even twenty Jews to announce and publicly celebrate the arrival of a new Jewish king, let alone a “great crowd”.
This event did not happen.
Period.
Oh, you are funny. I question your critical thinking skills.
If you are unable to distinguish between the genre of myth and the genre of history, I can’t help you.
And if you cannot distinguish between an historical fact (Pilate was the governor of Judea) and theological embellishments (corpses levitating into the clouds), then I can’t help you.
There is zero good evidence that the supernatural operates within our universe, today or 2,000 years ago. THAT is why we can disregard all supernatural claims in ALL ancient texts. It has nothing to do with a bias against your holy book.
GARY: There is zero good evidence that the supernatural operates within our universe, today or 2,000 years ago. THAT is why we can disregard all supernatural claims in ALL ancient texts. It has nothing to do with a bias against your holy book.
LEE: That depends upon what you consider “good evidence.”
Assuming for the sake of argument that the supernatural *does* exist, since it necessarily exists *outside* of the normal space-time universe, how would science even address that issue? What evidence in the way I think you mean it would you even expect to have? I mean, if God exists there’s no way science could prove (or disprove) it.
This is the problem with materialism and scientism; it backs you into a corner and locks you into the false belief that nothing which science cannot explain or account for does or even could exist.
But there are lots of things science can’t explain which nobody argues don’t really exist. The mind, for one. Science can’t explain how inanimate, unthinking matter evolved into conscious, thinking, self-aware, moral matter, yet you wouldn’t argue that your mind therefore doesn’t really exist.
Skeptics, by irrationally ruling out the existence of the supernatural before they even begin to approach the gospels, unnecessarily tie one hand behind their back.
Pax.
Lee.
“Assuming for the sake of argument that the supernatural *does* exist, since it necessarily exists *outside* of the normal space-time universe, how would science even address that issue?”
By that standard we should accept as reality all supernatural claims. Are you ready to do that? How do we determine which supernatural claims are true and which are false?
“Evans acknowledges there are differences among the Gospels, but clearly says those differences do not amount to calling the historical reliability of the Gospels into question. Ehrman, though, claims they do—and that was the entire subject of the debate. Given the fact that the Gospels contain certain differences, do those differences call the overall historical reliability of the Gospels into question?”
Most scholars believe that the Gospels are Greco-Roman biographies. In this form of literature, embellishments to the details were allowed and expected. People wanted a good story. All that matter was that the core facts were maintained and the depiction of the central character’s character was maintained. The Gospels accomplish all of this. The core facts are:
–Jesus was crucified
–Jesus was buried
–Jesus’ tomb was found empty
–Some of Jesus’ followers believed that Jesus appeared to them after his death.
All the discrepancies between the Gospels are therefore irrelevant. They are literary embellishments, perfectly acceptable to a first century audience. No one would have complained about an oral story teller or an author adding an angel or angels to the Empty Tomb Story. No one would have complained about adding an earthquake or the tearing of the Temple veil to the Resurrection Story. No one would have complained about adding Roman guards to the story. These literary embellishments made the Jesus Story more interesting. That is what oral story tellers and authors wanted: a good story!
This is why early Christians had no problem with having a completely different order of appearances in the Early Creed as compared to the Gospel accounts. It didn’t matter! The “truth” is still there in all the accounts.
Okay, so are you saying the basic historical events are true, but that the Gospel writers embellished minor details to fit into their particular stories better? Great. That’s what I’ve been saying all along. All four Gospels, for example, might mention a different number of women at the tomb, but ALL of them agree that Jesus was resurrected. The difference regarding the number of women doesn’t call into the question the clear historical claim all four Gospel writers make.
We are agreed. So, what exactly are you wanting Ehrman to admit as historical fact? Jesus procession into Jerusalem to the cheering adulation of thousands of Jews proclaiming him their king (instead of Caesar)? Please be specific.
His entire book, and the topic of virtually every one of his books, is a dishonest overplaying and distortion of what the Gospels are. There is a reason why kooks like Richard Carrier the mythicist just take Ehrman’s arguments one step further. When you constantly say for over 20 years, “You can’t trust the Bible! It isn’t historical! It’s just stories! Nothing is reliable!” People are going to start believing that. Of course, that simply isn’t true, and Ehrman KNOWS it’s not true. If it really were true, he’d say we can’t know anything about Jesus, or even if Jesus existed.
I am a member of Ehrman’s blog. I can’t count the number of times he has infuriated his atheist/skeptic readers by not accepting the claims of Carrier and other mythicists. His position, like mine, is that the Gospels contain facts AND fiction. The hard part, at times, is figuring out which parts of the Gospels fit into those two categories. Please give an example of a story in the Gospels which Ehreman rejects that you believe all historians should accept as historical fact.
Yes, he DOES refute Carrier–but his arguments over the past 20 years have paved the way for guys like Carrier. Let me make it as clear as I possibly can: If you writes books upon books that argue the Gospels are not historically reliable and what they say about the historical Jesus can’t be trusted, then turning around and saying you accept a number of facts about the historical Jesus THAT COME FROM THE GOSPELS–that is a HUGE PROBLEM. It means your 20+ years of arguments regarding how the Gospels are historically untrustworthy and can’t be trusted, is AT THE VERY LEAST, are proven to be a gross over-exaggeration of what you ACTUALLY BELIEVE about the Gospels.
Simply put, I don’t believe Ehrman ACTUALLY BELIEVES much of what he writes. Most of his books are basically the same book–he’s doing it because it is novel, and edgy, and it gets people like you to buy them.
Please provide ONE example of a detailed story in the Gospels which all historians, including Ehrman, should accept as historical fact?
“I highly doubt Ehrman would say what he says about the Gospels about Herodotus, Thucydides, and Livy. He knows better than to do that. Yet for some reason, when it comes to the Gospels, he dismisses the scholarly standards of assessing historical reliability out the window and concludes that the differences among the Synoptic Gospels means they are completely historically unreliable, despite the fact that Herodotus, Thucydides, and Livy all contain differences among their manuscripts as well. It is a shockingly poor argument.”
Please provide a reputable source where any reputable historian or scholar asserts that ANY supernatural claim in the writings of Herodotus, Thucydides, or Livy must be accepted as historically reliable (an historical fact). Ehrman never argues that Jesus did not exist. Ehrman never argues that Pilate and Herod did not exist. Ehrman never argues that Pilate did not execute Jesus. Ehrman never argues that Jesus did not develop a reputation as a healer and miracle worker. Ehrman DOES argue that the evidence strongly indicates that the Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses, or even by associates of eyewitnesses, but by people at least one generation removed from the eyewitnesses, and that the stories about Jesus which they received (by third hand, fourth hand, etc.) had been altered and shaped to some extent. And Ehrman is in good company. His position represents the position of the overwhelming majority of scholars and even a significant percentage of scholars who believe in the supernatural and the bodily resurrection of Jesus (Roman Catholic scholars).
Evans is arguing the position of the minority of scholars. If you want to go with the position of the minority of experts (which conservative Christians do, time and time again), then that is your right. But don’t paint Ehrman as a radical outlier. He is not. He is well within the mainstream of scholarship.
GARY: Evans is arguing the position of the minority of scholars. If you want to go with the position of the minority of experts (which conservative Christians do, time and time again), then that is your right. But don’t paint Ehrman as a radical outlier. He is not. He is well within the mainstream of scholarship.
LEE: With respect, no, he isn’t, at least not in his popular work. The majority of NT scholars agree that belief in Jesus’ being somehow God was an early development and not a late development.
Ehrman tends to ignore mainstream scholars who disagree with him. For example, in his book *How Jesus Became God* he very briefly and cursorily mentions Richard Bauckham’s *Jesus and the Eyewitnesses*, and dismisses it, but never engages with anything Martin Hengel or Larry Hurtado have written. As I’ve noted here a couple of times he never once talks about the Shema, less still how Paul reshapes the Shema around Jesus.
The issue Gary is NOT “who wrote the gospels” but whether they’re RELIABLE or not. You need to cease your mantra regarding authorship. Evans, Wright, Witherington, Bauckham, Bock, Strauss, Bockmuehl, Bird, McKnight, Boyd, Eddy, Yamauchi, Perrin, Habermas, Licona, and every other conservative mainstream academic scholar I can think of admit that we don’t know who actually wrote the gospels, but that that issue is orf only secondary importance.
So pleas, read me carefully:
We don’t know who wrote the gospels.
It really doesn’t *matter* who wrote the gospels.
What matters is how reliable the gospels are, which is what Evans and Ehrman are debating.
Pax.
Lee.
“The majority of NT scholars agree that belief in Jesus’ being somehow God was an early development and not a late development.”
Please provide a reputable source which states that the majority of scholars believe that Jesus’ Jewish disciples believed he was somehow Yahweh (God). I bet you can’t. They may have believed he was divine in some sense (angels are divine), but that he was Yahweh?? No way. If the Jewish disciples of Jesus believed he was Yahweh, why on earth were they offering sacrifices in the temple thirty some years after Jesus’ death (see Acts 21)?
Gary, are you familiar with the work of Martin Hengel and Larry Hurtado? Along with Bauckham they have demonstrated that the belief that Jesus was a man yet somehow also God was a very early development. Ehrman only references Bauckham, to essentially dismiss him and doesn’t mention Hengel or Hurtado at all. Most NT scholars now (some no doubt grudgingly) admit that Bauckham, Hengel and Hurtado are right and that the earliest church had a very high christology. Ehrman and one or two others are notable holdouts. He still seems to hold to a watered-down version of the old long-discredited Bauer theory.
Pax
Lee.
“Gary, are you familiar with the work of Martin Hengel and Larry Hurtado? Along with Bauckham they have demonstrated that the belief that Jesus was a man yet somehow also God was a very early development.”
Paul may have believed that Jesus was somehow God or at least equal in some aspects to God, but I challenge you to provide evidence that this was the position of any one of the Twelve.
“Ehrman tends to ignore mainstream scholars who disagree with him. For example, in his book *How Jesus Became God* he very briefly and cursorily mentions Richard Bauckham’s *Jesus and the Eyewitnesses*, and dismisses it.”
Have you read Bauckham’s book. I have and I have reviewed it chapter by chapter on my blog. Bauckham’s book is full of assumptions and conjecture. His principle claim that named persons in the Gospel stories were given the responsibility of maintaining the accuracy of that particular story until the evangelists wrote them down is not supported by ONE shred of evidence. He gives none. It is pure speculation. The reason MOST serious scholars (who are not evangelicals or fundamentalist Protestants) ignore Bauckham’s work is because it is so unprofessional and sloppy. He should be ashamed. He needs to read Roman Catholic scholar Raymond Brown’s two volume work, “The Death of the Messiah”. He’d learn a few things about how to do scholarship.
Oh Gary,
I can point to numerous things in Ehrman’s books that are complete speculation with zero evidence. Pot, meet kettle.
Could you provide an example?
Gary, all you seem to have gotten from Bauckham is the idea that the gospels weren’t written by eyewitnesses. I have a few of Fr. Brown’s books, too. Bauckham is every bit the scholar that he is.
Pax.
Raymond Brown’s “The Death of the Messiah” is respected across the spectrum of scholarship. Bauckham’s “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses” is not. You can blame that on a bias, but it is still a fact.
“What matters is how reliable the gospels are, which is what Evans and Ehrman are debating.”
Please provide an example of one claim in the Gospels which Ehrman disses that you feel should be accepted by all professional historians as an historical fact. I’m really curious at what you will pick.
Ehrman argues that the Gospels cannot be considered historically reliable. They are. He is applying an unusually high degree of skepticism and and an impossibly high standard toward the Gospels that he does not apply to those other texts, even though those other texts contain “supernatural” things and have differences among their manuscripts. That’s the point.
I’m not portraying Ehrman as a “radical outlier.” I’m arguing his argument is bad and he is wrong in the way he presents the Gospels.
And here’s the kicker, all those historical things you mention that Ehrman believes happened–WHERE DID HE GET THAT INFORMATION FROM? Answer? THE GOSPELS! Conclusion? THE GOSPELS ARE HISTORICALLY RELIABLE!
Please provide ONE story in the Gospels which Ehrman rejects that you believe all historians should accept as historical fact.
You sound like a fundamentalist, Joel. It is not a black or white, all or nothing issue. As with other works of Antiquity, the question of historical reliability is not an all or nothing proposition. Isn’t it possible that some details in an ancient story are historical and some fictitious?
Gary is waffling because he knows the gig is up! If I had the time, I could go back through all your comments (and those of a few of your friends) throughout the past years where you all have unequivocally said the Gospels are “myth” and “fairy tales” and pure “fiction.” You have been screaming “black or white” for the past couple years, because you are the one who reads like a Fundamentalist. Bravo, man.
I will bet you $100 dollars right now that you cannot find ONE statement made by me anywhere on the internet where I say that “everything” in the Gospels is fiction, myth, a fairy tale. (What I do and have said is that the Gospels contain both fact AND fiction.)
If you can find me saying such a stupid thing, I will donate $100 to your favorite charity. If you can’t, you donate to my favorite charity (St. Jude’s hospital for children). Deal?
Haha…I have no desire to go back through the hundreds upon hundreds of your comments. I’ll just grant you this, MAYBE those comments came from Arkentanen.
So you admit that you falsely accused me?
Please send a check for $100 to St. Jude’s Childrens Hospital, Denver, Colorado.
Stop being a petulant ×%+=.
“Unless every single detail in each Gospel lines up perfectly with every single detail from the other Gospels, then I can’t believe that anything in the Gospels is reliable at all.”
This is a gross exaggeration of Ehrman’s position (a strawman). As I said above, Ehrman accepts many historical claims in the Gospels (Jesus’ existence, his reputation as a miracle worker and healer, the apocalyptic nature of his ministry, his crucifixion by Pilate, etc.). What he doesn’t accept as historical fact is what most professional historians do not accept as historical fact:
–Jesus walking on water
–Jesus turning water into wine
–Jesus healing blind people; healing lepers; casting out demons
–Jesus standing on the pinnacle of the temple with a guy named “Satan”
–Jesus’ post-death appearances.
The truth is, conservative Christians want the world to accept ALL the stories about Jesus as historical facts just because some of the core details about Jesus are correct. This is nonsensical! We don’t do that for any other ancient writer (Homer, etc.) why should we do it for four anonymous first century Christian authors???
It is just silly.
“If you don’t believe Jesus healed people or rose from the dead, just say so, and admit that the reason you don’t believe those claims is ultimately because you just don’t believe in God, the supernatural, or miracles to begin with.”
If you don’t believe that Achilles had supernatural powers and could only be stopped by shooting an arrow into his heel, then just say so. Admit that the reason you don’t believe in one-eyed Cyclops and other supernatural beings and their activities within the “Iliad” story is because you don’t believe in Zeus, the supernatural, or miracles to begin with. [and by admitting your obvious bias, this will negate your rejection of the Iliad story as an entirely historically reliable account].
Your willful ignorance is not becoming. Your failure to distinguish between the genre of myth and the genre of history just makes you sound silly.
But yes, I can say I don’t believe in a one-eyed cyclops or that Achilles was killed because an arrow was shot into his heel because I recognize that the Iliad and the Odyssey are in the genre of MYTH, not HISTORY. I don’t need to come up with some fallacious argument that says, “Well, in THIS manuscript of the Odyssey it says Odysseus did such and such in the MORNING, but in THAT manuscript, it says he did it in the AFTERNOON! Therefore, because of THAT difference, I can’t believe anything in The Odyssey is historical!”
What a stupid argument that would be. But that is EXACTLY what you and Ehrman are doing with the Gospels.
The Gospels are not history texts. They are Greco-Roman biographies with the stated purpose of evangelization. You are thinking like a fundamentalist, Joel. Snap out of it. These four ancient books contain historical facts mixed with literary and theological embellishments, perfectly acceptable in the genre in which they were written. They weren’t intentionally trying to deceive anyone. Their first century readers would have known this.
My how your tone has changed since you first started commenting on my blog! lol
And yet I’ve never seen an academic debate between a conservative scholar and a liberal scholar on whether Suetonius was a reliable historian.
Pax.
Lee.
“My how your tone has changed since you first started commenting on my blog! lol”
Provide the evidence or are you falsely accusing me AGAIN?
“You can’t simply trust these accounts to give you historically accurate versions of what happened in the life of Jesus because they are not interested in providing historically accurate accounts of what happened in the life of Jesus.”
“The Bible cannot be trusted as a historical source. It may provide great literature, and you may choose it for your theological beliefs, but it is not historically accurate.”
“Can we trust the Bible on the historical Jesus? I think that the answer is no….”
Tell me, Gary, what do you think Ehrman is saying in these quotes? I take Ehrman’s words to mean he doesn’t think the Gospels can be trusted as a historical source, that they aren’t historically accurate, and that they can’t be trusted in what they say about the historical Jesus.
Once again, please provide one DETAILED story in one of the Gospels which you believe all historians should accept as an historical fact. That is the issue. The issue is not whether Jesus existed; whether he was an apocalyptic preacher; whether he was known as a healer and miracle worker; whether he was crucified by Pilate. The issue is whether or not any single, detailed story about Jesus is true or an embellishment. Did the high priest really tear his garments during the trial of Jesus or is this an embellishment? Who knows! Was the tomb was found empty on the “third” day or is this an embellishment? Who knows!
I have grown tired of you, peasant! hahaha
Be gone, or else I shall have to taunt you a second time.
You can’t do it, can you, Joel? Provide ONE example of a detailed story in the Gospels which you believe all historians should accept as historical fact. If you cannot, you have just proven your entire argument false.
Gary, I’m not saying we should uncritically accept every supernatural claim–that would be irrational. But dismissing the supernatural out of hand simply because science can’t prove or explain its existence is also irrational, because as I said, there are many facets of reality science cannot and will never be able to explain.
Pax.
Lee.
What would constitute “good” evidence for a supernatural claim, Lee?
LEE: “Gary, are you familiar with the work of Martin Hengel and Larry Hurtado? Along with Bauckham they have demonstrated that the belief that Jesus was a man yet somehow also God was a very early development.”
GARY: Paul may have believed that Jesus was somehow God or at least equal in some aspects to God, but I challenge you to provide evidence that this was the position of any one of the Twelve.
LEE: That doesn’t answer my question. Which tells me you haven’t read anything by Hengel or Hurtado. Nevertheless, I never said the original twelve thought Jesus was God incarnate. They all came to believe he was the Messiah, but that’s a far cry from also believing he God incarnate. What I actually said was that a high christology arose very early within the church. This was most likely *after* the crucifixion and they’d had a chance to sort everything out and put all the pieces together.
Had you read anyone besides Bart Ehrman, esp. Martin Hengel, Larry Hurtado or Richard Bauckham’s work on the subject you’d know that over the past twenty or so years the Early High Christology Club (EHCC) has written persuasively that devotion to Jesus as more than a man developed very early. Here’s how “founding member” Larry Hurtado describes the EHCC:
““The Early High Christology Club” (EHCC) is a jocular self-designation coined by a group of scholars of various backgrounds with research interests in earliest Christianity who emphasize that an exalted place of Jesus in belief and devotional practice (including corporate worship) is evident in the earliest Christian sources and likely goes back to the first circles of Jesus’ followers from shortly after his crucifixion. The nickname originated among several scholars who formed the steering committee of a progam-unit in the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in the 1990s, the “Divine Mediators in Antiquity Group,” which was focused on the Roman-era historical context in which the “high Christology” (beliefs that Jesus is in some way worthy of divine honor) reflected in the New Testament first emerged. This initial group included David Capes, Wendy Cotter, Jarl Fossum, Larry Hurtado, Donald Juel, John R. Levison, Carey Newman, Pheme Perkins, Alan Segal and Marianne Meye Thompson. In addition to those already mentioned, others who associate themselves with the EHCC include Clinton Arnold, Loren Stuckenbruck, James Davila, Charles Gieschen, Richard Bauckham, Martin Hengel, April DeConick, Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr and Jörg Frey. . . .
“On a more serious level, among early influences on the scholars involved, the work of Martin Hengel is significant, e.g., his book, *The Son of God: The Origin of Christology and the History of Jewish-Hellenistic Religion* (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976). One of their emphases in their own work is to set the emergence of early “high” views of Jesus in the dynamic context of ancient Jewish traditions, whereas older work (e.g., Wilhelm Bousset’s Kyrios Christos, 1913) tended to portray it as resulting from the influence of “pagan” religion on the young Christian movement.”
Did you notice all of those names, Gary? Nineteen mainstream academic NT scholars who agree that Jesus was worshiped as somehow divine very early on, as Hurtado says, after his crucifixion.These aren’t Bible-thumping, evangelical scholars. They’re all respected, award-winning scholars who are considered big names in Jesus, NT and early Christian studies.
Ehrman never engages with any of these scholars save Bauckham’s book *Jesus and the Eyewitnesses,* and then really only to dismiss it.
As for Paul, to know what he thought about Jesus all you have to do is notice how Paul reworks the Shema around Jesus in I Cor. 8:6:
” . . . for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.”
Pax.
Lee.
I never contested the idea that some early Christians believed that Jesus was divine in some sense.
Gary, take an example from WWI. You’ve heard of the story of the Angels of Mons, which involved-allegedly-angels appearing to and protecting British soldiers on August 23, 1914?
Using the same reasoning many skeptics apply to the gospels we’d have to conclude that any accounts of the Battle of Mons which referenced the story of the angels were historically suspect because as every rational, right-thinking person knows, angels don’t exist. Yet we have a story which insists that British soldiers in August of 1914 were protected by non-existent supernatural entities. No series historian of WWI would dismiss the Battle of Mons as fiction merely because a group of British soldiers reported a supernatural event.
What the rational skeptic should do in this case is to say, I don’t believe angels exist, but these men claimed to have encountered angelic beings. How do I explain this? Were they lying? Confused? Hallucinating? Or, perhaps they really did encounter supernatural beings my world-view has not hitherto allowed for.
One’s worldview has a lot to do with how one views the gospels. To read Ehrman’s popular books he seems oblivious to this fact.
Pax.
Lee.
You are making a gigantic leap.
Just because one facet of a story is historically accurate does not mean that all facets of a story are true. Mohammad existed and lived in Saudi Arabia, but I doubt you accept other claims about him. The same is true for Jesus. What detailed story told in the Gospels do you believe is true and that all historians should accept as historical fact, and why?
GARY: Just because one facet of a story is historically accurate does not mean that all facets of a story are true. Mohammad existed and lived in Saudi Arabia, but I doubt you accept other claims about him. The same is true for Jesus. What detailed story told in the Gospels do you believe is true and that all historians should accept as historical fact, and why?
LEE: I never said that. What I said–and keep saying–is that if the parts of a story you CAN check prove to be true and factual, then that should give you pause before you simply dismiss the parts of a story you CAN’T verify. Yet with many skeptics it’s all or nothing. BECAUSE the NT insists that Jesus was resurrected, you therefore can’t believe anything else that it claims about him.
As for one detailed gospel story that’s true and all historians should embrace as such, the crucifixion for one. John Dominic Crossan, co-chair of the Jesus Seminar (who doesn’t believe in Jesus’ divinity or the resurrection, thus is hardly a Bible-thumping evangelical) wrote about the crucifixion:
“That he [Jesus] was crucified is as sure as anything historical ever can be. (Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography.”
Why do I believe it? Because we have multiple, ancient, independent sources that attest it: four gospels; Josephus; Tacitus; Justin; Irenaeus, etc.
The details as set forth in the gospels accord perfectly with what we know of Roman crucifixions. and Jesus’ crucifixion is NOT a story his followers would have invented for multiple reasons: Torah states that anyone who is crucified is cursed by God; thus a crucified Messiah is by definition a false messiah; standard expectations of what Messiah would be/do made no room for a crucified messiah. A “suffering servant” messiah? Possibly. But a crucified and buried messiah? No way. Messiah was supposed to restore/rebuild/purify the Temple, make war on Rome and send the legions packing back to Italy, then inaugurate God’s kingdom on earth by reigning from Jerusalem. Jesus went decidedly off book on those last two in particular, again, not something his first-century, messianic-Jewish followers would invent.
Lee.
Except for mythicists, most atheist counter-apologists believe that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified by Pontius Pilate. The question is, are the depictions of his crucifixion in the four Gospels historically accurate? I don’t think there is any way to know for sure either way.
Like many ancient texts, it is not an all or nothing issue. Some statements in the Gospels are are probably factual, and some statements probably had other purposes, literary or theological. Most skeptics I know do not reject EVERY statement in the Gospels as fiction. You and Joel seem to believe we do, but that is not correct.
GARY: Except for mythicists, most atheist counter-apologists believe that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified by Pontius Pilate. The question is, are the depictions of his crucifixion in the four Gospels historically accurate? I don’t think there is any way to know for sure either way.
LEE: Sure there is. We have ancient secular accounts of what crucifixion entailed as well as the archaeological remains of at least one crucified victim excavated in Jerusalem in the 1960s. Several scholars have written whole books on the subject. I’d be happy to recommend some.
Thus, as Crossan rightly affirms, Jesus’ crucifixion is the most historically solid event in the gospels.
GARY: Like many ancient texts, it is not an all or nothing issue. Some statements in the Gospels are are probably factual, and some statements probably had other purposes, literary or theological. Most skeptics I know do not reject EVERY statement in the Gospels as fiction. You and Joel seem to believe we do, but that is not correct.
LEE: No, Gary. What we’ve said is that MANY of you do. Even Ehrman isn’t an all or nothing skeptic. But I’ve met dozens in the Amazon.com Religion and other forums who are.
Pax.
Lee.
Which of Ehrman’s books have you read, Lee?
GARY: Which of Ehrman’s books have you read, Lee?
LEE: *Did Jesus Exist?*
*Jesus Interrupted.*
*How Jesus Became God.*
I have *Lost Christianities* but I haven’t started it yet.
How man of Larry Hurtado’s books have YOU read?
Pax.
Lee.
None of his books, but I have read posts on his blog.
Here is a list of the books I have read regarding the claims of Christianity:
https://lutherwasnotbornagaincom.wordpress.com/
Dr. Anderson,
I think Dr. Lydia Mcgrew attacked the view that the NT authors engaged in fictionalized history. Analytic philosopher Dr. Lydia Mcgrew said that the idea of Jesus words being added seems to be a fictionalized Jesus of the author’s own making. Thus she critiques NT scholars like Drs. Craig Evans, Mike Licona, Craig Keener and Daniel Wallace in her book the mirror or the mask.
She suggests a new model called the “reportage model” which she claims can give us a far better picture than the fictionalized history method. She suggests that simple harmonizations can be used to explain away the many differences in the Gospels which Dr. Ehrman has preyed upon. She uses undesigned coincidences, unexplained allusions and unnecessary details to support her reportage model.
Your thoughts on this Dr. Anderson.
Yours Sincerely,
The thinking theist
Well, Programming Nerd, I am not familiar with her work, so I can’t really comment on it. But I wouldn’t characterize the Gospels’ depiction of Jesus as a “fictionalized Jesus.” The Gospels are telling of a historical Jesus and real historical events, but they are still, nevertheless, telling it in a story-format. And I have no problem with them using a certain amount of artistic license in the telling of that historical story. Richard Burridge has a great little book called, “Four Gospels, One Jesus” that I think does a great job explaining how we should understand the Gospels.
Unlike the Greek myths, which nobody seriously thought were situated in real, space-time history, the gospels, while definitely making miraculous claims, at the same time insist that these events happened, and happened in real space-time history. They realized that these events were difficult to accept for educated Jews and Greeks (Greeks, especially) but made the claims anyway.
It seems that nowadays most mainstream academic NT scholars will admit that these claims surfaced very early, and that the early church at the very *least* really *believed* something miraculous happened (whether it did or not).
The gospels claim that the events surrounding Jesus all happened in real, space-time history. In I Corinthians 15, after Paul cites an early Christian creed regarding Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection, he notes that Jesus appeared to over 500 people, many of whom were still alive when he was writing I Cor. in ca. 55 AD. He was basically telling Corinthian skeptics who argued that the resurrection was a purely spiritual, non-physical event, that it was a real, physical, space-time event, and that the previously dead Jesus appeared alive to over 500 people.
Regarding Jesus’ teaching, as Darrell Bock notes, what the gospels record is Jesus’ *ipssissma vox* rather than his *ipsissima verba*or his “very voice” rather than his “very words.” In other words they condense his teachings, such as the Sermon on the Mount. The original Sermon may have lasted for several hours and yet in the gospels you can read it in 5 minutes. So Matthew and Luke give us the gist of what Jesus said rather than his exact words. Some NT scholars like Eddy and Boyd say that since at least one of Jesus; disciples–Matthew, a tax collector–was literate, that he might’ve actually recorded some of Jesus’ teachings as he gave it. This was used by Matthew or whoever later wrote the gospel of Matthew, along with the already-circulating oral traditions about Jesus.
However just because Matthew, Luke or somebody may have exaggerated or padded an incident for effect, doesn’t mean that event never happened.
And as NT Wright points out, while most alleged NT contradictions really aren’t, just because you have a contradiction doesn’t mean nothing happened.
The gospel and other NT authors were conscious that they were writing scripture, as the author of II Peter indicates in chapter 3 verse 16 when he refers to Paul’s letters as “Scriptures.” These guys knew they weren’t just writing fairy-tales for gullible Jewish children, but sacred scripture about amazing and miraculous events they and people they knew had witnessed.
Pax.
Lee.
You’ve got some impressive titles listed, esp. Bauckham, Brown, Evans, Luedemann,and Wright.
But there are lots more authors out there.
Here are a few authors to check out:
Michael Bird
Craig Blomberg
Darrell Bock
Paul Rhodes Eddy and Gregory A.. Boyd
Simon Gathercole
Mark Goodacre
Scott McKnight
John Meier
Nicolas Perrin
Brant J. Pitre
EP Sanders
Chris Tilling
Ben Witherington III
And you really need to read all of Wright’s “Christian Origins and the Question of God” series.
Pax.
Lee.
How many books have you read about Islam? Hinduism? Nativist religions?
How many books must one read to know that supernatural claims are nothing more than superstitions?
GARY: How many books have you read about Islam? Hinduism? Nativist religions?
LEE: Read the Baghvad Gita in high school. Got my first Quran twenty-five years ago. Also got my first copy of the Book of Mormon twenty-five years ago. Have a small library of books on Wicca and Aleister Crowley’s Magick, several books by Elizabeth Claire Prophet on the Ascended Masters from her New Age Summit University.
GARY: How many books must one read to know that supernatural claims are nothing more than superstitions?
LEE: Science cannot prove or disprove the existence of the supernatural, since God, if he exists, necessarily exists *outside* the space-time continuum. Certain facets of reality are best–dare I say only–explained by the supernatural. Not to mention the fact that every society in recorded history has believed in the supernatural. That this hasn’t changed along with our rise in scientific knowledge argues that the two are unrelated. Science can tell us the “how” but never the “why”. Science can tell us how to do many things, such as split the atom, but never whether making an atomic bomb after we split the atom is morally right or not. And it is *because* medieval Europeans observed law and order in nature that they even did science in the first place. If there were natural laws, they posted a Law-Giver behind those laws.
Thus it is the atheist’s blanket a priori rejection of the supernatural that is irrational. Scientism is no more rational than blind faith.
Pax.
Lee.
Lee,
When did Mary Magdalene first learn that Jesus was risen, and who told her?
GARY: Lee,
When did Mary Magdalene first learn that Jesus was risen, and who told her?
LEE: Skeptics always obsess over this. Yet the precise details/chain of events aren’t as important as the fact that none of Jesus’ followers would’ve invented women as the first witnesses to his resurrection. In the late 2nd century the pagan critic Celsus was still making fun of Christianity in part because the chief witness to its central miracle (itself ludicrous enough!) was a “hysterical woman”.
The fact that the testimony of women in such matters was not highly regarded argues strongly against the women being a literary fiction because such a literary fiction would damage their credibility, and yet the gospels insist that one or more women were present despite that fact.
Pax.
Lee.
“none of Jesus’ followers would’ve invented women as the first witnesses to his resurrection.”
Assumption and conjecture.
Even if it is an historical fact that women were the first people to find the tomb empty, that does not in any way confirm the historicity of the four very different accounts of what these women saw, said, and did. Just because a story has some factual elements does not mean that all elements of an ancient story are factual. These authors were not writing history books. They were writing works of evangelism in a genre of literature which allowed considerable embellishments to the story.
When did Mary first learn of Jesus resurrection and who told her?
Gary, please open your eyes to the reality that practically everything you say is “assumption and conjecture.”
All four Gospels agree that certain women followers of Jesus went to the tomb that morning and that they were the first witnesses to the resurrection. If you don’t believe it because you just “know” that resurrection doesn’t happen, just say that. But don’t throw up this smoke screen about how since the accounts have different numbers of women, therefore they’re not historical. And stop with the false dichotomy between history and literature. The Gospels are history written as literature–both. Just because there are differences in minor details does not negate the fundamental historical claims.
You can verify on my blog that I accept the empty tomb as an historical fact. So whether it was women who first found it empty or someone else did is therefore immaterial, since I already believe in the historicity of the empty tomb. The question is: Are the *detailed* stories involving Mary Magdalene and other women historical or are they embellishments to the bare bones fact that some unnamed women followers of Jesus found his tomb empty. This matters. It matters to help us determine if the detailed appearance claims come from eyewitnesses or are legends or are literary/theological embellishments.
Just saying that most of what you say is assumption and conjecture as well.
GARY: Assumption and conjecture.
LEE: Gary, much of what people take as historical certainty is based upon what you call “assumption and conjecture.” Absolute certainty about any historical event is impossible. Historians never deal in certainties.
However what I’m proposing to explain the women in the gospel accounts is an *informed* conjecture. Knowing what I know about how women were regarded in ancient Palestine it strains credulity to believe the gospel authors would purposely invent women as the first witnesses, since the “embarrassment criteria” of history holds that people don’t normally invent lies that could hurt their credibility, which having women be the first witnesses to the resurrection did with some readers such as Celsus.
GARY: Even if it is an historical fact that women were the first people to find the tomb empty, that does not in any way confirm the historicity of the four very different accounts of what these women saw, said, and did. Just because a story has some factual elements does not mean that all elements of an ancient story are factual. These authors were not writing history books. They were writing works of evangelism in a genre of literature which allowed considerable embellishments to the story.
LEE: Just because they’re writing with an evangelistic agenda doesn’t necessarily mean they made everything up. You seem not to understand that *nobody,* including the gospel authors or even *you* is totally free of bias. All authors write with a bias and an agenda. Competent authors are aware of that fact and attempt to compensate. Ancient historians in particular were not interested in an objective “just the facts ma’am” Joe Friday approach to history.
As NT wright says in Strobel’s *The Case for Christ* DVD, of *course* the gospel stories are shaped and edited for a specific purpose. But that doesn’t mean they’re fabrications. Wright uses the example of setting up a video camera on a crowded street and letting it run for three or four hours. To make any sense or be intelligible to later viewers you’d have to edit it first. So a “just the facts” approach isn’t always sufficient.
GARY: When did Mary first learn of Jesus resurrection and who told her?
LEE: It doesn’t matter. What’s way more important is what I said above–the fact that the Gospels all report Mary’s presence at the empty tomb is more important than precisely which women came and when. Claiming that a marginalized member of society whose testimony nobody would even believe saw the resurrected Jesus is much more important than exactly how many women were with her or what the precise sequence of events.
If you and several of your friends all claimed to have seen Sasquatch (Bigfoot) but differed as to exactly how many of you saw it, who they were, and exactly when, I could get all hung up on the fact that the precise details of your stories didn’t jive, but would it be rational for me disregard your stories based on that reason alone?
I think it was NT Wright or Richard Bauckham who says the gospel accounts of the resurrection read like the raw, unedited, unvarnished accounts of an amazing event nobody expected and hadn’t had time to sort out yet. That’s further evidence to me that these stories aren’t made up, because they’re all slightly different, whereas if they were fiction they would’ve made sure all the accounts harmonized.
Pax.
Lee.
Sorry to interject myself into this conversation but a couple of comments you made have me shaking my head.
LEE: I think it was NT Wright or Richard Bauckham who says the gospel accounts of the resurrection read like the raw, unedited, unvarnished accounts of an amazing event nobody expected and hadn’t had time to sort out yet. That’s further evidence to me that these stories aren’t made up, because they’re all slightly different, whereas if they were fiction they would’ve made sure all the accounts harmonized.
No one had time to sort out the Gospel Accounts? Really? The Authors themselves tell us that these stories were out there for a long time.
Luke 1 Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled[a] among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.
Matt 28 15 So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.
John 21 23 Because of this, the rumor spread among the believers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die; he only said, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?” 24 This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true. 25 Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.
There is nothing that is unedited or unsorted. These stories were circulating for decades and evolved in different communities until they were written down. They have been shaped and molded to fit certain theological ideas. The more apt comparison would be to Darwin’s finches and adaptive radiation. The stories evolved in isolation and then were brought together hundreds of years later.
The other statement that you seem to think is a nail in the coffin of authenticity is the women as witnesses to the resurrection. I have never understood this argument, the accounts don’t back up your claim. In Mark and Luke the women were sent to the tomb with a purpose, they were going to anoint the body with spices.
Mark 16 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. 2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3 and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”
Luke 23: 55The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. 56Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.
Luke 24:
1On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.
These authors made up a reason for the women to have to go to the tomb. They knew that they couldn’t have the women just show up. In both cases the Sabbath blocked them from going right away. In Mark they had to wait to buy the spices, in Luke they already had the spices but had to wait until after the Sabbath to go to the tomb.
How do I know the authors made up the excuse? Because John completely contradicts when Jesus’ body was prepared.
John 19
38Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jews. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. 39He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds.[d] 40Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. 41At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. 42Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.
Why would the women need to anoint the body a second time? How could they not know that it had already been done? So, which is the ‘historical’ story and which is the ‘creative license’ story and what criteria did you use to make the determination? The only reason the women were the first witnesses was because they were there for a very important purpose. Of course they would run and tell someone, oh wait, except in Mark.
Mark 16 8 Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.
So again, which is the ‘historical’ story and which is the ‘creative’?
A couple of things:
1. You said: “The stories evolved in isolation and then were brought together hundreds of years later.” –That isn’t accurate. (A) The Synoptics were written and compiled roughly 40 years after the fact; and (B) The small Christian communities in that first generation or so kept in contact with each other and were not “in isolation.” There was a strong emphasis on preserving that which was handed down to them. That is why many scholars confidently say that the Synoptics reflect the early teaching about Jesus of Nazareth. Although the authors in AD 65-80 obviously compiled and shaped the accounts into the different Gospels, they didn’t make it up out of whole cloth, and there is no reason to down that the stories went back to the original disciples.
2. Concerning the women. Just because John mentions the preparation of the body a few verses earlier is irrelevent. He still says they came to the tomb after the Sabbath to find the tomb empty, just as the other Synoptics say. The point made concerning the women is that if Jesus’ followers wanted to convince (i.e. deceive) the wider world that Jesus had been resurrected, they would have claimed his disciples or some men discovered the empty tomb, because in that culture, the testimony of women was not considered valid. There would be no logical reason, therefore, to claim the women found the empty tomb if one was trying to “pull one over” on the wider public.
Please clarify: Are you claiming that all statements in the Gospels should be accepted by historians as historical facts? If not, please be specific which statements are factual and which are not.
The Gospels should be accepted as telling of real people, real events, real history. But at the same time the Gospels don’t set out a strict, chronological timeline, and the Gospel writers use a certain amount of creative license in the way they shape and present that history.
No, one cannot “conclusively prove” every single solitary event in the Gospels.
So *every* story in the Gospels was a real event? Was the stirring of dead saints out of their graves as told (only) by the author of Matthew a real event?
There you go, twisting my words again. I’m tired of this.
I’m not trying to twist your words, Joel. I’m trying to have a rational conversation with you.
If some detailed stories in the Gospels are not historical (dead saints walking the streets of Jerusalem) then why can’t other stories be non-historical (“Luke’s” Ascension Story, John’s Doubting Thomas Story, etc.)? If that is the case, isn’t it plausible that although the empty tomb, women finding the empty tomb, and claims of appearances to some of Jesus’ followers are historical facts, the detailed stories about these facts are fictional embellishments?
Maybe the “facts” are what we see in the Early Creed and everything else is fictional? How would we know otherwise?
It is therefore possible, that people really did believe that Jesus appeared to them, but their claims of what they saw are not what we see in the Gospels. Maybe the original claims were the same as Paul’s claim: they all saw bright lights.
GARY: You can verify on my blog that I accept the empty tomb as an historical fact. So whether it was women who first found it empty or someone else did is therefore immaterial, since I already believe in the historicity of the empty tomb.
LEE: So what do you think happened to the body?
Pax.
Lee.
What happened to the body? No idea, but my first guess would be that someone moved the body. Isn’t that the most probable explanation for most empty tombs/graves?
GARY: I’m not trying to twist your words, Joel. I’m trying to have a rational conversation with you.
If some detailed stories in the Gospels are not historical (dead saints walking the streets of Jerusalem) then why can’t other stories be non-historical (“Luke’s” Ascension Story, John’s Doubting Thomas Story, etc.)? If that is the case, isn’t it plausible that although the empty tomb, women finding the empty tomb, and claims of appearances to some of Jesus’ followers are historical facts, the detailed stories about these facts are fictional embellishments?
Maybe the “facts” are what we see in the Early Creed and everything else is fictional? How would we know otherwise?
LEE: Academic historians have criteria they use to make such determinations. But ultimately, at the end of the day, 100% certainty is impossible. They can only say what’s most *probable* or *likely.*
GARY: It is therefore possible, that people really did believe that Jesus appeared to them, but their claims of what they saw are not what we see in the Gospels. Maybe the original claims were the same as Paul’s claim: they all saw bright lights.
LEE: Gary, none of the apostles expected to see Jesus either crucified or resurrected from the dead. That wasn’t on their radar at all, and in fact, when the women tell the male disciples they’ve seen the resurrected Jesus the men don’t believe them at first. When Jesus encounters the two disciples headed back to Emmaus in Luke 24, not recognizing him as Jesus (a detail not likely to have been invented, either) they tell him that they thought they had found the Messiah in the person of Jesus of Nazareth however when Jesus was executed by the Romans they realized they’d backed the wrong horse. This too is not a story the early church would’ve invented. Also, ancient people weren’t stupid; they knew the difference between a bright light and a person. The gospels insist that they saw a flesh-and-blood person, who they touched and could hear and who actually ate a meal with them. I’ve never heard of a light with an appetite for broiled fish, have you?
At the end of the day–as you yourself have agreed–believers and skeptics alike are left with an empty tomb. If there was no resurrection *what happened to the body*?
The fact the gospels make several embarrassing claims regarding Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection (his disciples and family save John and his mother all fled; the Romans had to borrow a tomb to bury him; women were the first witnesses to the resurrection and the male disciples won’t believe them until they encounter him themselves; etc) argues that the story of the resurrection isn’t a literary invention, because–again–people don’t normally tell lies that could damage their credibility.
Pax.
Lee.
“This too is not a story the early church would’ve invented.”
The “Church” has invented all kinds of tall tales. Did you know that the Church invented a document whereby Emperor Constantine allegedly donated the city of Rome to the pope? Even the Church now admits that it was a forgery. And please don’t tell me the “early” Church was any different than the Church a few hundred years later. Human beings are capable of telling whoppers when it serves their purposes and goals. Anyone who believes that the original disciples of Jesus and other early followers of Jesus were all “saints” is living in fantasyland.
“Also, ancient people weren’t stupid; they knew the difference between a bright light and a person.”
So was Paul stupid?
“The gospels insist that they saw a flesh-and-blood person, who they touched and could hear and who actually ate a meal with them. I’ve never heard of a light with an appetite for broiled fish, have you?”
This is a circular argument and conjecture: “The disciples really did watch Jesus eat a broiled fish sandwich because that is what the Gospels say, and the Gospels must be historically accurate because Christians would NEVER tell a lie or make up stories that make themselves look silly.”
Nonsense. Oral story tellers and book authors want to give their audience a good story. Inventing a story of the resurrected Jesus eating a broiled fish lunch is much more interesting than rattling off the bare bones story of the Early Creed. This is STORY TELLING. The authors were not lying but neither were they giving a history lesson.
“people don’t normally tell lies that could damage their credibility.”
You are thinking in black and white terms: either the Gospel authors were telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth or they were lying. How about something in between. They were telling STORIES, for evangelization purposes only.
You’re missing the point Gary. When the medieval Catholic Church “invented” the donation of Constantine in 755 it was a plausible enough story that it wasn’t disproved until 1440. Nor did making such claims damage the credibility of the Church’s basic message.
When the gospels say that Jesus was crucified, that isn’t a story they would’ve made up, because any pious Jew knew that a crucified Messiah was a FALSE Messiah. Nor would they have made up the claim that WOMEN were the first witnesses to the resurrection, since popular opinion regarded the testimony of women as suspect. This is much different than saying two women showed up when there was only one; they wouldn’t have made up such blatant, fundamental lies, lies calculated to damage their credibility with Jews and Greeks.
My point about the post-resurrection appearances is that the gospels AND Paul both insist that Jesus, when they met him, was a real, flesh-and blood person. Resurrection in ancient Judaism involved real dead bodies being raised to life. Yes, Paul says he both saw a light and heard a voice. But I think you’re interpreting Paul to narrowly here. He calls the light “Lord” which is odd unless he really thought he was addressing a person.
The gospels take pains to say that the resurrected Jesus was an embodied human being, who therefore could be touched and which ate a meal. From the skepic’s position the story still may be made up, but it isn’t a made-up story about a hallucination or a light in the sky. That’s why they say he ate a meal, not to entertain bored readers (they could’ve done better than that if they wrre aiming for literary creativity anyway; that wouldn’t too interesting evsn to an ancient) but to stress that Jesus was resurrected IN THE FLESH. They may be stresing this point for pagan readers/hearers who as students of Plato acquainted life after death with ghosts or disembodied souls and not material bodies.
And just because the gospels’ primary point is evangelization doesn’t mean they can’t or aren’t telling the truth. Part of the message of Christianity is that salvation encompasses ALL of the created, space-time universe; Jesus came to liberate all of creation–including human beings–from bondage to decay and death not simply send disembodied souls to a Platonic heaven; in the Lord’s Prayer Jesus prays for God’s kingdom to come to EARTH, and for God’s will to be done “on earth, as it is in heaven.” Jesus claimed to be the real king and not Caesar or Herod. That’s why Christianity was obnoxious to the establishment–because it insisted that Jesus was king of the earth, and not Rome or its puppet Herod. And that is why it matters very much that the gospels be grounded in actual space-time events. It wasn’t pagans, or Christian gnosrics, who were persecuted by Rome, after all. Unlike Jesus’ followers they we’ren’t claiming allegiance to a rival king. In Gnosticism the goal was for a select few, mostly male, initiates to free their “divine spark” from the constraints of matter and the space-time universe. Chrisrians were praying for God’s kingdom to come to earth and for an ultimate New Creation. Gnostics, on the other hand, wanted to escape from the space-time world of mater, not see it transformed in a new creation. Thus they wanted a spirit-Jesus not a humanJesus in a physical body,
Pax.
Lee.
JOEL: You said: “The stories evolved in isolation and then were brought together hundreds of years later.” –That isn’t accurate. (A) The Synoptics were written and compiled roughly 40 years after the fact; and (B) The small Christian communities in that first generation or so kept in contact with each other and were not “in isolation.” There was a strong emphasis on preserving that which was handed down to them. That is why many scholars confidently say that the Synoptics reflect the early teaching about Jesus of Nazareth. Although the authors in AD 65-80 obviously compiled and shaped the accounts into the different Gospels, they didn’t make it up out of whole cloth, and there is no reason to down that the stories went back to the original disciples.
ME: Of course they weren’t created out of whole cloth and I never said they were. I assume you know how evolution works; descent with modification from a common ancestor. Call that ancestor Proto-Mark, a Sayings document or Q, no one knows for sure. But obviously these communities had something to start with and it evolved from there. Here is a question for you; if these communities were all in contact with each other and sharing the documents, why did the author of Luke feel it necessary to write an orderly account after many had already undertaken to ‘draw up an account of things fulfilled’? What was missing in all these previous accounts?
JOEL: 2. Concerning the women. Just because John mentions the preparation of the body a few verses earlier is irrelevent. He still says they came to the tomb after the Sabbath to find the tomb empty, just as the other Synoptics say.
ME: But Mark says the women told no one, how can one be a witness if you don’t tell someone what you saw?
1. It has to do with the audience. Luke’s audience is clearly Gentile, and therefore wouldnt be as familiar with the subtle connections to OT prophecy and symbolism that Matthew and Mark’s audiences. Therefore, Luke shapes and writes his gospel geared more to that different audience.
2. The level and magnitude of “literary evolution” you seem to be suggesting–I just dont think is plausible, given (a) the smallness of the Christian community in the first century, (b) the level of interaction individual churches had with each other, and (c) given the commitment to preserving the original teaching and tradition.
3. The shorter ending of Mark ends with the women fleeing the tomb. There can be various reasons for that: the original ending could have been lost; the oldest manuscript we have (which had the shorter ending) wasnt completed. When we have all four gospels tell of post resurrection appearances and interactions, I’m not sure that discounting all that, and instead focusing solely on the fact that the oldest manuscripts we have for Mark dont contain anything beyond the women leaving the tomb is too wise.
Even taking the shorter ending, it is obvious they did eventually tell people. If they didn’t, Mark wouldnt have known about it.
You seem to making my point for me. My contention is that each of the Gospels were written and developed for individual communities using some type of early materials which Luke and you seem to confirm. Why do you assume that there weren’t ‘audiences’ for the other gospels?
So the only way the disciples could possibly have found out about the empty tomb was from the women?
We might be talking past each other. My point is that crafting the stories to speak to various communities isn’t the same as some sort of uncontrolled evolution of the stories.
The point is why even say WOMEN were the first one’s to witness the empty tomb if it wasn’t true? If you want to convince a first century audience, claiming women found it first would be the last thing you’d want to do.
But uncontrolled evolution of stories is exactly what we see. We go from Mark, which seems to me, to be closest to some type of ancestor document or oral tradition to all the other Gospels. Now all of a sudden we have earthquakes and multiple angels at the Tomb and Jesus is now appearing all over the place; in locked rooms twice because 1 disciple wasn’t there and didn’t believe, on a mountain top to the same disciples who still had doubts, to a couple of disciples 7 miles away. I don’t think any of those appearances are historical fact, they are a creative evolution of a base story of an empty tomb. Or doesn’t it matter that the stories might be made up? They all say Jesus rose and that’s good enough for you to believe?
Mark was either written shortly before or after the Jewish War of AD 66-70. Matthew, either later in the 70s or early 80s. I think it is much more accurate to say Matthew took Mark and expanded and shaped it further, than to say there was some “long evolution” of the text. And there are literary reasons why Matthew changed some of the things he did. Hence, the changes, IMO, come from the authors themselves, and didn’t slowly evolve over time.
The challenge to read the Gospels BOTH as history (i.e. relating real historical events) AND literature (i.e. shaped and crafted and showing signs of artistic license).
So, I think they are all making the historical claim Jesus rose from the dead. But then, they all choose to focus on/summarize those post-resurrection appearances in different ways. There are, IMO, clear literary explanations for most of the differences, and they don’t detract from the fundamental history presented.
James, the historical criterion of embarrassment says that people don’t normally tell lies that could embarrass them and damage their credibility, yet if the gospels were simply making all of this stuff up, or even just embellishing parts of it, that’s what they were doing.
The specific stories the gospels tell about Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection are contrary to what educated Jews and Greeks were taught to believe, so if the evangelists in the gospels were simply faking a religion, why not take the easy way out and fake a religion that was palatable to more people? And why place their fake faith in real space-time history, at a time and place in which eyewitnesses were alive to call their bluff and expose the lie(s)? And why insist the lies are true in the face of impending execution?
If the gospel authors were inventing a new religion they made it much harder on themselves than it needed to be; indeed, history tells us that all of Jesus’s original disciples save John and including Paul, were executed because they refused to stop telling this story. Yet who would choose to die for a lie? Not just a lie they really thought was true, but a lie THEY invented in the first place.
Pax.
Lee.
Plus, the pasing down of oral tradition in antiquity was a community endeavor with safeguards in place to insure an accurate transmision of said oral tradition. Tradents had some license when passing it on but that license didn’t include simply making up stuff or leaving out important stuff.
The idea that the earliest Christians didn’t care enough to pass on accurate tradition strains creculity and goes against everything we know about sncient oral societies. As JP Moreland points out, this wasn’t simply what Joe was having for dinner Wednesday night,
Pax.
Lee.